The Caliphate (Kalifat)

[The Grand Nudger]

It was practical for some definitions of that term. Chiefly those that refer to the creation of professional armies at the lowest possible price point. Was it practical for anyone else? Probably not. There’s a reason we left it behind.

[Anomalocaris]

it practical is for everyone, else they would have died.

it may not have seemed ideal for everyone else, particularly if the ideal is formulated by a third party in a different time and place, but not ideal is not the same as not practical.

[Silver]

A system of power is only ever ideal for those in positions of wielding it.

[The Grand Nudger]

it practical is for everyone, else they would have died.

it may not have seemed ideal for everyone else, particularly if the ideal is formulated by a third party in a different time and place,  but not ideal is not the same as not practical.

They did die...at a phenomenal rate. The amount of effort and time (and blood) spent just to maintain the system strongly suggests that people had other ideas about what was practical even then. The question of whether or not a thing worked is inevitably followed by another. For whom. Anyone suggesting that any part of the feudal system worked for anyone other than the feudal lords has already stepped off a cliff, imo. They're not even talking about feudalism at that point, and quite literally can't be, because that's how feudalism was organized, specifically.

[Leonardo17]

Currently, the Collective West is looking for contingency plans in cases the US plunges into another 4 years of isolationism and “America First” policy.
I’ve just read that my own “democratically elected” government is introducing new compulsory “Islam” classes in all schools including non-religious schools. (The number of religious schools has jumped from 500 or so to 2000 or so).
In times like this, I am becoming a little nostalgic of the old days. In Europe and Quebec there are even people who are known as “royalists” and/or “loyalists”. I think the idea is not that crazy after all. Not that it is applicable today in anyway. The only role a “monarch” can have today is a purely symbolic role as it is the case in England, Norway, Belgium, Spain etc…
Yet, if you do back 500 years, most people were exactly the way they were today, with the only difference that they were illiterate, had no access to mass media and/or social media etc. So priests / Imams were taking care of the spiritual and monarchs were taking care of worldly issues (while remaining attached to the Vatican and/or to some other religious authorities).
So it worked
No more internet trolls, no more fox news, no more Qatari MBS making decisions that are going completely against scientific realities. It’s just the word of one man (appointed by God). So if we are headed for disaster, it’s the will of God for us to head to disaster.
I, personally, would go back to that era if I could. What we have now, it’s clearly not working.

[The Grand Nudger]

Are you dreaming of being illiterate, a serf, or both?

[Leonardo17]

   Of course I am not serious about any of this.
 
Still: When I see the wave of populism striking the whole world as it does today. I cannot keep myself from having some theoretical thoughts like “What if Vlad III and Victor Orban were contemporaries?” or “What would a typical Ottoman noble do to an organization like ISIL or Hamas within their realm?” or “What about “Crazy Hair” (as we call him here) under the flag of King George?”
 
I simply like funny ideas when they come to me

[The Grand Nudger]

Oh, oops, my bad, you're not serious about any of it..because....obviously, the umma was trash.

[Leonardo17]

The idea is simpler than that. Yaggadish Vasudev says that all religions started as methods of spiritual growth in their origin.
 

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What is spiritual growth?
 
I usually use the term “ego” in the way ancient Greeks used it. Not in the way Sigmund Freud uses it.
 
The “ego” is our more superficial-self. Basically its everything we define as “ourselves”.
 
Now what basic religion teaches us is that this “I” is but a mere shadow of our “True Self” and/or “Higher Self” which is one and the same with what world religions refer to as “The Ultimate Reality” or “Higher Reality”.
 
And this is not just another dumb idea. If you think of early Christians, no one agrees to live in underground cities and to be thrown to the lions in the arena for some dumb idea.
 
We are like technicians of the ego-mind. The ego-mind is more or less what we know as “The Deceiver” or “The Enemy”.
 
Why?
 
Because when you are not in charge of it, It is in charge of you. This starts with a life that is dominated by things we like to refer to as “Idols”. Like things in the three dimensional realm that are simply not meant to last or to provide any permanent benefit to us. It progresses in the worshiping of these idols like Humanity destroying its only natural habitat in order to make more money, more profit and more business by maintaining the usage of fossil fuels and an irrational focus on the superficial aspects of life. It turns into a real cancer in some authoritarian people who (unknowingly) end up burying their little humanity spark inside of them under layers and layers of ego-based (false) convictions.
 
Now, The scientific revolution and critical / rational thinking were huge steps in the right direction. The ego likes to distort reality. So one of the best methods to fight false ideas is to ask the question: “Yes, but where is the evidence?”. So this approach made us move from one age into another.
 
But people like me, we believe that this is not enough. Look at the sophistication of Hamas or the IDF for instance. Wouldn’t it be better if they were fighting with bows and arrows as they did 1000 years ago?
 
- To me it’s so visible how the collective egos of these two different religious groups in Palestine are completely entwined in one another pretending to try to destroy one another while endlessly strengthening the other in its position.
 
So ours is more like a science of self-study. As I am aware of how the ego inside me operates, I can also recognize ego-based behavior outside me when I see it.
 
So that’s the approach. Not only it is a possible approach but it’s a necessary approach for all grown-ups and even children if you ask me.
 
But this is not a doctrine. You have to do the work. And no one has a monopoly on this. There are even completely non-theistic ways that may lead you to this. Like the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous or some of the psychological / philosophical schools of the last century.
 

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So there is no Umma anymore. We don’t really need that stuff. What we need now is methods (any method) that will help us make that U turn before it’s too late.
 
Ex: Sultan Al-Jabber was probably told as a child that God will not approve it if we act in a way that threatens to destroy the planet and all forms of life within it. But this doesn’t keep him for using the COP28 summit as a business summit in which he is making even more deals to sell fossil fuels to his potential customers.
 
 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...ing-in-oil

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm guessing that guy is more shaman than anthropologist. The big three are foundational legends for their respective regimes. That's what they started out as. Their purpose is to stop the clock and codify some then-current or then-desired state of affairs as the fabric of the cosmos by insisting that it is the right and proper state of affairs as mandated by a god, their god, which is The God. In mere reality, gods will approve of whatever their masters say they will. This is why no argument for or against anything via "god says" is ever a solid foundation for or against anything.

Abrahamism had thousands of years to get it's shit together and each new incarnation seems deadset on outdoing the last in pure fuckery. None of them qualify as a way forward - they are, by design, a way backwards. They're a growth alright, but not a spiritual one.

A few questions and observations.

-What the hell is "basic religion"? Is it possible, do you think, that you're dipping into your specific and very superstitious religion to make these claims, and just calling whatever you happen to believe "basic religion"?

-Are you entirely certain that idol worship and a species environmental impact are the same sort of thing...like, even remotely? That...further, authoritarianism is the next stop along this train of very like things?

-Wouldn't it be better if hamas and idf weren't fighting at all? Man, I've gotta tell ya, I'm not sure that I'd pick dying of sepsis from a fucked up arrowhead over the boloney mist option of a 500lb laser guided bomb.

-Were you aware that things like aa were not at all "non theistic"...but....honestly, how the fuck do we go from any of these things to the other? I'm gonna come to any of that stuff you said..by going to aa? Not likely.

-In the spirit of not needing things anymore and moving forward, why does this not apply to spirits and deceivers and other worlds (and whatever else magic books ever told anyone) to compensate for how this one is not enough, particularly in ways to move forward with respect for earth and life? There's a popular phrase in environmentalism. There is no planet B. At least, not for me; but what existential motivation does a person have not to trash this rock if they do, in fact...and very strongly...believe that there is such a Planet B. In some other world. The higher reality. With gods and shit in it.