Radicalisation

What are we missing. 

Listening to a group of European mothers who have lost their sons to Islam and their sons and daughters conversion to Jihad, all have the same story. The children grew up within the European family and at some point were convinced to become Muslim and as if through osmosis to transfer to the extremist wing, the Jihad and the war which the Sunni are fighting. Not only against the Western way of life and its historical trail of Colonial interference in the lives of Muslim citizens living in predominantly Muslim countries but also against the Shia with whom they have an historical rift.
We often think that deprivation is a link to becoming disenchanted with their lives but it seems to go much deeper. Many of these converts come from middle class families and it's rather the rejection of what could be termed a 'non Sunni way of life' which seems to coalesce into a deep dissatisfaction with their own life and lifestyle. 
All religious teaching has the effect of separating mankind into the believers and non believers. Judaism and Christianity seem to get by, acknowledging the differences and largely leaving it at that. 

The Jewish community is a closed shop and segregates its followers through birth. 

Christianity is pretty open and largely forgiving, as it try's to be all things to all people. 

The Muslim congregation is very tied to strict observance and brings its followers into the 21st century with a ritual that was in place 500 years ago. 

Civilisation 500 years ago was much more tribal and the collective, very important for survival. Knowledge amongst the ordinary citizen was primitive and the events which occurred to a person were attributed to influences outside of their control. Religion gave simplicity, it gave a solution to the upside - downside - inside out events which were the lot of everyone. Religion gave clarity, religion gave answers, religion gave direction and perspective. 

The "force" which is found in religion had a direct influence on the individual and the combination of individuals, which held some power over their lives.

The Ottoman period, a great period of Muslim prosperity was a creative institution.

They captured knowledge in their libraries and their benign approach to governance, autocracy melded with the democratic instinct, allowed conquered nations to largely rule themselves. 

There was an  acknowledgement that the religious structural underpinning which the format of praying, five times a day, meant the focus and the daily interplay between fellow Muslims left little time or inclination to look elsewhere.
It's the rigour of the ritual which provides the constituent with his or her structure and the religion  has carried this structure through to the present day. It's this time-line and the strict observance of the teachings of Mohamed which in our Western "value lite" world seems so attractive to the many. People who see little worth or significance in this consumerist world, motivated and created by excessive credit to make the wheels of capitalism go round.
Discouraged by consumerism (a Western superstition) and being enchanted by its opposite, a belief in the the afterlife and ones preparation for that event is the Yin and the Yan of a troubled human intellect.
There is no finer breeding ground for radicalisation than schizophrenic disillusionment  !!!!

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