from "Semper Sensitive" in the current issue of Harper's magazine:

"Arabs do not believe in cause and effect but rather in isolated incidents or the will of Allah. Speeding on a winding road did not cause the wreck. Allah willed it to happen, etc."

Now, if indeed this is true as a generality, then here we have an example of entire societies living in delusion. How can a rational society come into being if the immutable laws of cause and effect, our concept of dependent origination, are not seen in the physical, mental and emotional worlds in which we move?

"Truly, monks, a noble disciple who is learned and has understood for himself, independent of faith in others, that 'When there is this, then there is that; with the arising of this, that arises ...'