The failure of Islam
Let's be frank, Muslim-majority countries have failed.
We are currently speeding towards what could become the ‘century of terror.’ Islamic religious fanaticism has wormed its way into the mainstream through a targeted long-game of academic infiltration and propaganda.
Current trajectories indicate that many European countries will be majority Muslim by 2050.1 And the worldwide perception of who the aggressor is from the fallout of the Israel / Gaza war made one thing clear — our democratic, humanistic and secular future is at grave risk if we don’t change direction soon.
The irony of this of course, is that the countries in the Middle East and North Africa that operate under strict Islamic rule are complete failures.
Countries like Iran, Iraq, the Palestinian Territories, Yemen, Jordan and Lebanon’s ranking on the World Happiness Scale are buried at the bottom of the global ranking, with Syria entirely excluded (no evaluation is provided).2 The quality of life index rankings are similar.3
Jihadist organisations in Iraq and Syria control a geographical area larger than some European countries, wreaking havoc throughout the Middle East in the name of the religion. They are trying to revive a seventh-century state in the second decade of the twenty-first century, yet without the moral, historical, and cultural features that had made the original one a seed for a rich civilisation.4
There are a multitude of reasons why this is so. Whether due to ongoing conflict, corruption, lack of human rights, patriarchy or theocracy is irrelevant. Billions of Muslims must at some point stop and wonder why those who live under strict adherence to the ‘perfect religion’ has created such a terrible existence for those living beneath its doctrine.
In simple terms, if the Quran is the final revelation of God to man, an indisputable instruction manual on life, then why are muslim societies failing so dismally through-out the world? Where along the line should faithful followers rethink the teachings that claim they are superior to non-muslims, whilst living a sub-standard existence?
When will women and girls who suffer terribly under extreme Islamic rule start to doubt the word of the prophet that tells her she is worth only half of that of a man? Or that she is the property of her husband, who can take her sexually whenever he wants, even when on the back of a camel? Or writings that condones her being beaten into submission if she cannot be controlled by words alone?
Abdullah bin Abi Awfa narrated: The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: "By the One in Whose Hand is the soul of Muhammad! No woman can fulfill her duty towards Allah until she fulfills her duty towards her husband. If he asks her (for intimacy) even if she is on her camel saddle, she should not refuse."5
Of the fifty countries with a full or near Muslim majority, none has yet evolved into a stable, democratic political system.
A former chairman of my physics department in Islamabad has calculated the speed of heaven. He maintains it is receding from Earth at one centimetre per second less than the speed of light. His ingenious method relies upon a verse in the Islamic holy book, which says that worship on the night on which the book was revealed is worth a thousand nights of ordinary worship.6
Under Islam, self-reflection is mistaken for weakness or betrayal. An indication of just how far Islam has veered off path, is the contrast that tells us historically, Islamic scholarship thrived on ijtihad (independent reasoning), debate, and intellectual humility. Where as once Islamic academics were revered, now jihadis are. It’s no surprise that societies centred around death cults aren’t working.
While free societies progress, learn, adapt and discover, Islamic societies are regressing. Plagued by poverty, human rights abuses, violence and corruption that has resulted in an ever growing disparity between the destitute and the wealthy.
It’s time Muslims accept that Islam in its current manifestation is not working.
Muslims must move beyond a narrative of victimhood. It’s is time to stop wallowing in self-pity and conspiracy theories involving Israel and the malicious west. The fact is that the decline of Islamic greatness has very little to do with outside influences, and much to do with their own attachment to internal bad ideas and customs that aren’t working in the modern world. When will Muslims look inward and ask what went wrong?
Significant reform is the only way that Islam can coexist with rest of the religious and secular world in the future. Without such reform the rise and spread of Islam will continue to import its problems into the societies of Europe and the West. We only have to keep abreast of the news to know this is already happening.
Leaving a country that is steeped in poverty, war-stricken, violent and unstable to seek a better life in a free, secular country only to bring the same problematic ideas with you is a recipe for failure. Muslim immigrants are entering our free secular countries only to recreate the same patriarchy, intolerance and tribalism of the homeland that they have flee’d from — and we are allowing it, at a cost that is yet to be determined.
If we can’t change the thinking of the people that we are allowing into our communities, then we need to rethink who we are allowing in. Importing people to live among us who hate us and our way of life is not racist, is pure insanity.
“What happened in the last 30 years is not Saudi Arabia. What happened in the region in the last 30 years is not the Middle East. After the Iranian revolution in 1979, people wanted to copy this model in different countries, one of them is Saudi Arabia. We didn’t know how to deal with it. And the problem spread all over the world. Now is the time to get rid of it.” — Prince Muhammed of Saudi Arabia
Countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE have adopted a more moderate religious direction and normalised relationships with Israel and the US in the hope of economic stability. Reforms have directly addressed long-standing societal taboos, including the recent lifting of the ban on women driving and the easing of guardianship laws that limited women’s freedoms.7
However change happens slowly. In 2024 Abdulaziz Alwasil, Saudi ambassador to the UN, was appointed as chair of the UN's Commission on the Status of Women.
I can’t decide what is more disconcerting — that a man was appointed as the head of a women’s right commission, or that the UN saw no problem with it.
Despite the easing of restrictions over the last few years, in practice, most Muslim women in Saudi Arabia and the UAE continue to need approval from their guardians to travel, marry, and get a job. As in most cultures, it is the disadvantaged that suffer the most. Despite the laws starting to moderate, embedded patriarchy can be much harder to change.
Saudi Arabia is heralded as the new more moderate interpretation of Islam, yet women are still more or less imprisoned by the dictates of their guardians.
Until Islam addresses the key issues of misogyny, corruption, dogged adherence to ancient texts, apostasy and extremism, their societies will continue to fail. It is time for Islam to discard the idea of the Islamic run state and sharia law. The evidence is overwhelming that these bad ideas only lead to oppression and societal failure.
Muslims need to start advocating for a secular and democratic state that respects religious freedom and human dignity. Until then, we must continue to fight against the Islamising of the West.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/#:~:text=In%20Europe%2C%20for%20instance%2C%20the,as%20fertility%20rates%20and%20age.
https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2022/
The quality of life index ranks similarly.
https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/failings-of-political-islam/
https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:1853
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/opinions/55605/islamic-failure
https://www.vision2030.gov.sa/en
And Indonesia is planning to evacuate and temporarily house a thousand Palestinians in Indonesia itself. At first these will be the sick, women and children. Later tranches may be temporary workers. The aim is to return them home once a Two-State solution is achieved. I’m afraid this will not end well. Indonesia does not need destabilising forces additional to their own religious extremists. Their example of brotherly mercy and compassion is likely to receive a very negative reward once the numbers of Palestinian refugees reach a certain point, unless very careful and stringent policies are put in place from the beginning. The Palestinians have learned to play the victim card too well. Even the poor little children, innocent now, grow up with the values of their home countries. Look at the two Sydney nurses, aggressive and potentially murderous anti-Semites, who grew up here in Australia.
Excellent article Kellie. I would also recommend Qanta Ahmed’s “The Land of Invisible Women.” She is a British Muslim, who got her medical degree in the USA. At that time, in its questionable wisdom, the US did not renew her visa. She decided to take a job in Saudi Arabia as an emergency room doctor. When the documentation alerted her that she would have to tolerate things like having your hand, chopped off if you stole, having come from a western Society, she thought it was just talk. She soon learned differently. She was not allowed to drive. She was not allowed to go anywhere without an escort which she had to pay for. She was forced to be covered up from head to toe in black polyester whenever she traveled out of the hospital, and where she said women are not allowed to wear seatbelts because the seatbelt causes attention to the fact that women have breasts. The book is very revealing. She is a committed, Muslim, did the whole Mecca thing, and yet she points out the failures of the society regarding women. She also points to the fact that, though the doctors there were mostly trained in the United States by Jewish doctors, that they were profoundly antisemitic. It didn’t matter who taught them. Once they were back home they reverted.