Continuation of my Contentions Series

4. In senescence, religions have two possibilities: Alzheimers (the amnesiac option of the secular elites) and manic-depressive (the false Salafism).

Keywords:
I’ve linked to the definition of ’senescence’, since that might be a word which would confuse the lay-reader: it means ‘aging’.

“The false Salafism” is a term I see in some of the other contentions as well. I’ll spell out my interpretation: The Wahabi/Salafi’s described in my “Hidden Deviants” post. The qualifier of “false” indicates that the title that they use, “Salafiyya” (which literally means “Those who follow the venerable ancestors/predecessors”), is a false claim since our ancestors were not extremists such as the Salafiyya.

Paraphrase:
As religions get older, their followers begin to split into two groups, those who forget the fundamentals and lean towards secularism and those that assume an extreme cyclical relationship with the religion.

The Shaykh really helps us understand this one with his comments within parenthesis. We can take any of the great world religions and apply this contention to all of them. I believe that this description does not only apply to the followers, but really to the religion itself, and that is an important distinction. It was difficult to paraphrase that concept.

The first option for an aged religion is listed as “Alzheimers”. It seems to me that the Shaykh is commenting on the religious comprimises that certain intellectuals make when entering into the secularist-dominated areas of religious study within educational institutions and the like. The ’secular elite’, who still proclaim to be Christians or Muslims or Jews, will comfortably forget key elements in their theology when discussing their religion or their political views in their papers and speeches. Is it forgetfullness or are they intentional ommissions?

The other option is the ‘false Salafism’, which, although is defined in terms that Muslims understand, does not mean that it is exclusive to Islam. “Manic-depressive” is essentially a bi-polar condition, where one goes through phases of extreme excitement and then extreme depression. Salafis exhibit this behavior perfectly, which the Shaykh has described as “Salafi Burnout” in another one of his works. I imagine that radical/extreme elements of other religions go through similar phases as well: cycles of harsh and forced practice with cycles of faithlessness and carelessness.

One important point is that Shaykh has left out traditional interpretation of religion from the equation, and defined two negatives. Since he precedes the whole statement with “In senescence..”, is he hinting that traditionalists are in fact not aging the religion, but keeping it youthful and intact?