Remember this discussion we’ve had way back in April 2004 in which I contended that:
This is however what I have seen, an unsuspecting motorsports tourist approaches, he gets handed the “package†he walks away opening it as he does so thinking he’ll get something about motorsports, a restaurant guide, a tourist map, etc and discovers that someone wants to convert him. The same person (several actually) walk then to the closest rubbish bin and toss the whole package in there.
Do you think the bin is the right place for the Holy Qur’an?
Well, some mug just got fired for doing just that. And get this: Islamist parliamentarians are blowing it again out of all proportion, demanding an extra-ordinary parliamentary session probably to roundly denounce this infidel, and ask his embassy for a full apology!
Well done Discover Islam, and of course the usual suspects in parliament… isn’t it wonderful that there are now UNDER 200 days left for the inauguration of (hopefully) a better parliament?
Comments
The behaviour of that guy was absolutely outrageuos and unacceptable, and insulting to the 2 billion Muslims all around the world. It’s not enough that he was sacked by his boss. I demand an apology from no less than the Prime Minister of Bahrain for allowing this to happen in his country. Until we get this apology I call for Muslims worldwide to protest against Bahrain, and for a boycott on all Bahraini products.
NO to Bahraini butter!
I’ll have to agree with Chanad here, although not being Muslim I am understandably less upset.
I visited the tent during the F1. I got a copy of the Holy Qur’an and some tea and a little chat about what Islam is about. When I was handed the book, the man said, “Anyone may have one, as long as he promises to keep it safe.” I took this as my solemn word, an obligation freely accepted, not just a passing whim. I have been reading it, although slowly because many parts seem very deep.
I am not a religious person. I don’t think about converting or anything. But when you get a book which has affected the lives of millions, and when you get it for free, with only the obligation to “keep it safe”, you MUST do just that, or give it up to someone who will.
Of course sacking the guy is a pretty strong message. But I’m sure the PM has more important things to think about than this inconsiderate incident.
This is a Muslim country
Islamist MPs want it to be run on islamic ideals
Why do they do nothing about
1) the rampant prostitution in this country
2) The exploitation of underclass workers
3) Corruption and bribery
These are all against the teachings of the Holy Qur’an
Answers on na postcard please to……blah blah blah
Johnster help me please, how are people judged as being a muslim at the booze shop in adliya muslims are not allowed to by booze so what is the criteria they use some one with inteligence tell me. booze and prostitution
are the two biggest money making buisnesses in bahrain hands down.
Tito wrote:
“I’ll have to agree with Chanad here, although not being Muslim I am understandably less upset.
“Of course sacking the guy is a pretty strong message. But I’m sure the PM has more important things to think about than this inconsiderate incident.”
Umm, Tito….I believe Chanad was being sarcastic in his statement above 😉
But while I’m on the subject…how is this any different to burning the Danish flag (which contains a Christian symbol, the cross), or even the Israeli flag (I don’t like Israel either, but it does contain the Star of David, which is a symbol for all Jews.
Well taken Tariq…I guess the line between Shocklog and sarcasm grew thin!
I passed by their two booths at Bab-al-Bahrain at the time, and I couldn’t think of a superior disservice to this country and to cancel out any PR positives the event might have spun for it, than to allow their ghastly presence at the very heart of Manama. Not to mention that they were giving out Bin Abdul-Wahab and Al-Fawzan material as well.
But what are people supposed to do with leaflets with quotations from the Holy Qur’an if they are handed out to them?
If there’s such a stiff penalty on throwing even parts of the book away, I think the missionaries have a responsibility to explain this to people, because Westerners might simply not know that they’re not supposed to throw them away – or not realize, that it was actually translations from the Qur’an.
As Mahmood hints, people do not always appreciate other people
trying to convert them, and then you risk seeing these sort of things
All in all.. Islamists in Bahrain are simply not welcome.. anyone with a look of an Islamist or comes from the Discover Islam people they should be shunned for RUINING the name of Islam..
when the next elections start.. people should demand an end to the control of these idiots on our daily lives.. abusing our freedoms which even God protects.. and not only that.. there should be ongoing trials ON THEM for years and years to come.. for our children to understand WHY this is happening rather than growing up being embarrassed globally about their faith and where they come from.. THAT is the fact of the matter.
Did the same imams who condemned this guy to hell for dropping pieces of the Koran in the wastebasket also condemn Muslims cutting off people’s heads for Islam? Of course not. What a silly and brittle religion that raises an innocent mistake to a felony reviewed by Parliament and demands every clergyman condemn it the nation over.
Non-Muslims are not obligated to respect Islam nor the Koran, though it’s generally wise to make an effort to respect local customs when travelling to foreign lands, especially those who live by medieval values. Quite frankly, Islam does not deserve much respect, considering its bloody history and current war on mankind. This incident demonstrates the intolerance that makes Islam such a contemptible religion, a faith that forces itself on others. Of course, the Muslim world does not show the same respect it demands for itself for other religions, which it freely villifies.
Muslims will never be respected while they impose their religion with such a heavy hand. Instead of acting like thugs who think you gain respect by force, they might try acting in such an examplary way that they can not fail to be respected by good people.
Steve,
Of course non-muslims are not obligated in respecting muslims and islam as its their opinion about the religion, however there is sense of good values that one might have as a respect for other people beliefs and such but its all up to the person.
As for you, I really dont care if you respect me or not because you are a simple minded person really. You look at things blindly. You dont know that bahrain doesnt represent islam nor muslims right? But i will still respect you as you are only saying an opinion and not fact.
Its very ironic you know, that the whole religion of islam and muslims is blamed because of few people’s mistakes while the U.S is torturing people in prison and yet they are unintentional incidents.. or ohhh the british soldiers beating up kids.. they were beating them unintentionally… dont understand me wrong.. im a muslim but not religious and i do everything that islam prohibit such as drinking alcohol.. i do drink alot and love partying here in arizona! But people like you really make me sick, believing that they are talking logic while they are talking from their butt.. I love the way you mix up things though… and the way you classify things.. people who cut off other people heads are muslims and not terrorists! and the imams who condemn this action by the forgiener.. arent they just iggnorants or ohh they are muslims!!! RIGHT!!!! GIVE ME A DAMN BREAK STEVE!
Yeah steve.. your ignorance irritates the people that might’ve been on your side.
Frank
You ask the question, which I paraphrase, as “how can a Muslim drink alcohol and still consider himself a Muslim”. I can’t answer for Muslims but as I committed Christian, I know I continually fall short in God’s eyes, whether through losing my focus on God, irrational anger, prejudice against people who are different from me, lack of consideration, pride in myself and so on.
We can’t look at one human being and say “He does not follow every letter of the law of his religion, therefore his religion must be false”. if we did that, every mosque and church and temple would have to close its doors. No, we are imperfect beings living in a broken world. Someone once said “It is not the healthy who need a physician but the sick”. So it is with us humans and God.
Steve,
I am sitting here thinking why anyone in their right mind would constantly join in blogs owned by a nation of beleivers he doesn’t respect, regardless of their level of practise.
Perhaps its not disrespect you feel towards muslims and Islam, but inferiority…
And why would you go by “the american” instead of something that would actually add value to your credibility.. Might I suggest “the simple”.
As Carsten Agger said, what is one supposed to do with the (unsolicited) material they receive?
My friend is the only expat and Hindu in the school she teaches and she has about 50 copies (no kidding) of the Koran. People anonymously leave packets full of Islamic literature on her table. Her principal recently called her and asked how such a nice person as she could belong to any other religion other than the true religion of the world – Islam!
I remember a few years ago when this became an issue in Pakistan with readers asking this question to the “Q & A Fatwa” section of the newspapers. (Unfortunately, these are the types of pointless questions that many Muslims today waste their time with… and most “scholars” are happy to provide detailed replies as if these problems are the core of Islam). People were actually concerned about something with the name of Allah being chucked in the bin… asides from newspapers and leaflets, this also specifically applied to wedding invitations which traditionally had “bismillah” (“In the name of Allah”) printed at the top. Some very religious families were so concerned that they woud not have the bismillah printed on their wedding invitations !! (Though some resorted to printing “786” thinking it would be a better alternative).
Anyways, I recall hearing about two answers to the question. One was to burn such a leaflet (which somehow doesn’t right… imagine if a non-Muslim was caught burning a page of the Quran!!!). The other answer was to bury the leaflet in the ground.
If only we devoted so much time and effort debating the best way to care for orphans, homeless people, or old folks — surely, the signs of God are manifested in them to a much greater degree than in a few letters on paper.
oops, sorry, the blockquote messed up in my last comment… it should only apply to the first para
well said Chan’ad.
As to the correct way to dispose of the Quran: I think the word and concept is much more important than the medium.
My old paternal grandmother, rest her soul, was illiterate, but she memorised the whole Qur’an from an early age and she could recite it at will. She could also READ the Qur’anic text, but give her a newspaper paragraph and she couldn’t read it! Funny that, and as kids we did play a few pranks on her. However, I digress; she too was consumed on what to do and how to dispose of ‘the words of God’ in old tattered copies of the Qur’an or the printing of Ayahs in newspapers. In the end, she died with a FULL cupboard of old Qur’ans and newspaper clippings. Which we dutifully took to the nearest mosque. After that, I have no idea what happened to them.
I too have heard of “correct” ways to dispose of unwanted Qur’ans:
1. bury it – this seems to be the most “proper” method, some would have you wrap it in “something pure” like a clean cloth for instance.
2. burn it.
3. throw it in the sea – some say after carefully wiping off the names of Allah wherever they are printed!
A quick google of “Quran disposal” would give you quite a few places where they have taken this issue at length.
Strange how parliament is so consumed with this issue, yet not one of them have enquired after the newly orphaned children, or even offer to adopt one or two of these unfortunate children. But that does not surprise me: they were all a bunch of (1) foreigners, and (2) infidels.
Better get Interpol involved and bring that culprit to face justice as that major broom-faced Mohammed Khalid wants to do now…
The Jews have a custom where they do not write the complete name of God, so it cannot be destroyed. It’s written as “G-d”.
That might be easier that wiping out every instance of ‘Allah’ in the Koran!
Grace: “I am sitting here thinking why anyone in their right mind would constantly join in blogs owned by a nation of beleivers he doesn’t respect, regardless of their level of practise.”
A fair question, Grace. I’m too old to jump back in the cockpit and join the fight in Iraq but I’m just the right age to fight the intellectual fight against extremist Islam. You’re quite wrong that I don’t respect the people on this blog. I wouldn’t waste my time if I did not think they were worth persuading. I see them more as unlucky; reasonable people who would be fine dinner companions yet are tied to a religion that is commanded by some of the most evil people on Earth.
Ultimately, the best way to moderate the virulence of Islam is to prod the good Muslims to stop yapping about how bad it is and reconquer their religion from the Wahhabis and Islamists. They need to remake Islam so that it lifts Muslims up into the future instead of grinding them down. This won’t happen without constant prodding from the outside. I play the Socratic gadfly here.
Grace: “Perhaps its not disrespect you feel towards muslims and Islam, but inferiority…”
Hardly. The entire world is superior to a religion that seeks to propagate itself through mass-murder, skyjackings, beheadings, and snuff videos. There is very little about Islam that commands my respect. And the more I learn about it, the worse it gets.
However, if Muslims stopped waging war on the world and began building schools and hospitals everywhere they went instead of terror cells, if they did not make mosques their armories, if they encouraged dialogue instead of killed their critics, if they made free thought their paramount virtue, I would indeed take my hat off to them and concede their superior virtues.
Grace: “And why would you go by “the american†instead of something that would actually add value to your credibility.. Might I suggest “the simpleâ€Â. ”
In my experience, leftists always demand you change your speech, just as you are doing here, because they are uncomfortable with free speech. They also tend to deal in name-calling rather than substantial arguments. You will note that I don’t demand that you change your name nor call you names. Those are additional reasons why my position carries more weight than yours.
The other day I saw somebody – from the “Flag Association”, basically a club for lovers of the Danish flag – explain that the correct way to dispose of an old and worn Danish flag was to burn; rather curious, of course, given the shock experienced by many Danes (though not me) at seeing our flag burned.
But it does make sense, doesn’t it: If you throw it in the bin, it might end up lying around in a scrapyard which is no way to treat the flag – and if you bury it, it might be unearthed in a bad condition. All you got to do is burn it without making a statement out of it.
But I still think it’s irresponsible for missionaries to hand out papers which may not be thrown away without making this fact very clear. If I went to Bahrain and was given some leaflet, I might easily throw it away without even looking at it – that’s what I often do with a lot of commercials and stuff people sometimes put into my hands when walking in the street.
Gizmo: “As for you, I really dont care if you respect me or not because you are a simple minded person really. You look at things blindly. You dont know that bahrain doesnt represent islam nor muslims right? But i will still respect you as you are only saying an opinion and not fact.”
Perhaps you could explain to a simple-minded person like me why a person should lose his job because he innocently discarded some Koranic verses in the waste-basket, why there would be a law to enforce such religious customs, why such a matter would be the proper subject for Parliament, and why the imams all across Bahrain would be called upon to denounce this guy. My simple mind can’t comprehend any good reason for any of that. To my simple mind it looks like an extreme reaction, a bunch of wild-eyed Muslims making a mountain out of a molehill, as they are prone to do everywhere in the world.
Out here in the civilized world, I would expect a tolerant Muslim to just take the guy aside and quietly explain that tossing quotes from the Koran in the trash is considered bad manners. Give the guy a chance to quietly fish them out so as to show he’s not trying to insult anybody. Then press on like nothing happenned.
If this were some one-off incident that just happened to occur in Bahrain, it wouldn’t be worth writing about. But it’s not. It is illustrative of the intolerant and adversarial face Islam presents around the world. In that sense, Bahrain does perfectly represent Islam via this intolerant incident.
Gizmo: “Its very ironic you know, that the whole religion of islam and muslims is blamed because of few people’s mistakes while the U.S is torturing people in prison and yet they are unintentional incidents.. or ohhh the british soldiers beating up kids.. they were beating them unintentionally… “
Ah yes, the tu quoque” argument, the standard rhetorical device of radical Muslims: “Yes, we hammered a guy for Koran abuse unfairly but what about Abu Ghraib!?” Abu Ghraib has nothing to do with Islamic intolerance, but for fun I will go along with your non sequitur.
The difference is that your entire society stands behind punishing non-Muslims for showing insufficient respect for your religion, even in this case innocently doing so. American society does not support torture in Abu Ghraib. Those who did so are being prosecuted, many have been convicted, and are serving terms in prison.
Now, to turn your tu quoque around, how many Muslims are being prosecuted for beheading people? How many calls have been made by Muslim countries to bring such beheaders to justice? Have these beheadings and eviscerations been made a subject at Parliament like this trash can incident? Have the imams of Bahrain been called upon to denounce such decapitations in the same strong terms as the trash can infidel?
Gizmo: “dont understand me wrong.. im a muslim but not religious and i do everything that islam prohibit such as drinking alcohol.. i do drink alot and love partying here in arizona!”
Party on, Gizmo. Personally, I don’t much care for alcohol aside from my annual marguerita. Diet Coke is as strong a drink as I can stand. It is entertaining and ironic that I may be a more observant Muslim in this regard than you.
To put your mind at ease, I can guarantee you that should you be partying in one of our finer Motel 6’s in Arizona and innocently drop a Gideon Bible in the trash can, you will not lose your job in America, nor will you be arrested, nor will your case be brought before Congress, nor will the Christian clergy be calling for your head at their pulpits next Sunday from sea to shining sea. That’s how it works in a free country. You might want to take that idea back home with you.
Gizmo: “But people like you really make me sick, believing that they are talking logic while they are talking from their butt.. I love the way you mix up things though… and the way you classify things.. people who cut off other people heads are muslims and not terrorists! and the imams who condemn this action by the forgiener.. arent they just iggnorants or ohh they are muslims!!! RIGHT!!!! GIVE ME A DAMN BREAK STEVE!”
I regret to inform you that you will be getting no damned breaks from Steve the American. However, I’m willing to send you some Pepto Bismol to help you get over your sickness when you read my posts.
Zarqawi the beheader is indeed a Muslim and perpetrates his atrocities to establish a Sharia state in Iraq. He is in league with the mass murderer Osama Bin Laden who seeks to build a worldwide Caliphate where Muslims will reign supreme. These terrrorists are the darlings of the Muslim world, heroes whose faces adorn the T-shirts of adoring Muslim teenagers and whose praises are sung from the Great Mosque at Mecca. They represent the violent and supremacist nature of Islam today and the long line of Islamic jihadis who have made war on the Western world for 1300 years.
You can expect me to remind you of this degenerate character of Islam until you reform it.
Steve the American is an example of what I usually call neo-anti-semitism; it’s exactly like anti-Semitism, but against Muslims instead of Jews.
It’s plaguing the extreme right of both Europe and America – but I think
most people must have found this out by now. I will NOT, of course,
compare this neo-antisemitism to the anti-semitism practised by the Nazis –
but it IS eerily, scarily similar to the European anti-Semitism of the late
19th century.
Steve I’d have to say that if I lived in the middle east I’d hate Americans but I’d also hate the Russians. Neither have treated the people of the middle east with anything other than contempt.
If we were nearly as humane a country as we have convinced ourselves we are the people of Palestine would have had their own country a long time ago and Hammas wouldnt be what they are today.
I disagree, Carsten, and let me tell you why.
The idea of neo-anti-semitism is silly. Even comparing to the anti-semitism of the 19th century, Steve’s words do not ring as racist remarks about a misunderstood religious community whom are routinely blamed for all sorts of ills because they are disproportionaltely represented in the financial sector.
If you look at Anti-Semitism yesterday and today, you see just that. Jews control the world. They run everything. They are evil. They keep the good Arab folk down. They blew up the twin towers and kill babies for bread and murder prophets and all sorts of crap that Jews in no way shape or form actually DO.
Anti-semitism is built on lies. All of it. And it is completely different than Steve’s rather rantish posts. I do not agree with how he phrases things, neither do I always agree with his solutions. But I do share his fear.
Steve’s fear (and yes, it is a fear) is not of Muslims so much as it is of Islam itself; and it is not fear from ignorance, but fear from knowing too much. To the naive observer, Islam may mean ‘peace’, and all Muslims may appear to be hospitable nice people with quaint little cultural doo-dads like beards and veils. All nice multicultural delittante crap.
On the other hand, the Islam that has been portrayed today (not in the media, as at least the American Media does it’s damnedest to keep anything BAD about Islam out of view) is skewed toward the terrorist interpretation of Islam. Now, a cursory look at the Koran will display the terrorist interpretation in gory detail. ‘Kill the unbelievers until all religion is for Allah’ stands beside ‘there is no compusion in religion’ and covered with a shiny coat of Christian Gnosticism mixed with Judaism as seen by a 7th century Arab, and built up by a subsequent reclension of the text.
In short, the Koran is damn near-infinitely malleable, it can say just about ANYTHING you want it to say. However, ever since the freezing of itjihad in the 10th century or so, when the major schools of Koranic thought solidified (some would say ossified) Mohammed himself has really taken center stage in the religion.
Now, Mohammed was a human being. Mohammed failed at things. Mohammed lied, cheated, stole. Mohammed spoke ill of God, and claimed that Allah had daughters. Mohammed worried if he would be able to go to heaven. The Oral histories (Hadith) speak volumes about what influenced Mohammed’s teachings, from Omar’s pushing to veil Mohammed’s wives, to the ‘missing’ ayat granting the punishment of stoning for adultery. However, the cult of Mohammed has sprung up in various places over the past thousand years. Those that treat Mohammed not as a man, but as a Jesus Figure. Someone who was a perfect man. In in a lot of cases, Mohammed has been treated to be greater than Allah himself. This is most recently seen in the massive uproar over the Mohammed cartoons. The cult of Mohammed places him as perfection. A place that no human can stand.
It is this hero worship of a person who, by even his own account, condoned murder and was a caravan raider is dangerous. By calling evil acts the acts of a perfect person, even the most heinous of acts can be justified. Unlike the New Testament, in which Jesus’ only violent acts were to cast evil spirits into Pigs and kick moneylenders out of the temples, the Koran can be used to justify and CONDONE via fiat of GOD the murder of those that do not believe.
Does that not scare the shit out of you? The fact that a Muslim terrorist can not only kill without remorse, but also do so with a clean conscience? They are never spoken of as ‘disturbed kids’, as typical American nutcases are. They were ‘deeply religious’, or ‘kind and gentle’.
And they certainly can be. There is no difference (in the mind of an Islamic terrorist) between the slaughter of an animal and the slaughter of an infidel. The Infidel is NOT HUMAN. Only a muslim (to their mind) is human. And even then, only ‘correct’ Muslims are human. You don’t have sympathy for the chicken that died to give you that sandwich, right? Americans? Jews? They are just animals. Pigs, unclean, GOD HATES THEM AND IT IS MY DUTY TO KILL THEM, they think. And the Koran speaks volumes of support to that end.
Are all Muslims terrorists? No! By God no. Mahmood is not. SM is not. BP is not. Abu Sinan is two steps from one. But that does not mean that no Muslims are terrorists. And due to the insular nature of the religion and the Arab culture of tribal support, it’s impossible to tell who is deeply religious and about to snap and kill, or who just prays 5 times a day.
That is why Steve is afraid. That is why I am afraid. Am I Islamophobic? Yes. I am also Scientology-phobic, and Mormon-phobic. Any religion who seeks dominance I fear. Any religion who calls for the destruction of those who threaten it (Like Islam or Scientology) I fear. My life is one of study and contemplation, not one of submission. My world is one of beauty, not one of veils. My world is one of peace and free thought, not fear and thought constrained by worthless dogma written by self-righteous morons.
The fear is real. It’s out there. And every time someone ignores that Osama’s first words in his declaration of war were ‘First I call you to Islam’, they do so at their peril, and my peril andthe peril of every unborn child who will wake up one day and wonder why his ancestors didn’t do anything to stop him from being a slave to a totalitarian and evil ideology. My descendants will not live as Copts and Zoroastrians do today.
Ethan,
I like the way you have displayed your thoughts and given reason to them without giving offence to anybody. I just have a few points to mention:
You quote “Now, Mohammed was a human being. Mohammed failed at things.”
Yes Humans fail at things and was it not Abu Baker, The first Rashidin Khalifite and best friend of the our Prophet (PBUH) that came to people and said “For those that follow Mohamed, Mohamed is a human and has died, for those that are followers of Allah, Allah is Alive and does not die”. Yes, we muslims beleive in Allah the Almighty as the main source of all that is living, we give respect to our prophet (PBUH) for the sacrifices he made to spread the words of Allah.
You quote ” Mohammed lied, cheated, stole. Mohammed spoke ill of God, and claimed that Allah had daughters.”
Please mention your source for this information cause it is very clear in the Quran that Allah has no offspring and this is common knowledge to ALL muslims.
“Those that treat Mohammed not as a man, but as a Jesus Figure. Someone who was a perfect man. In in a lot of cases, Mohammed has been treated to be greater than Allah himself. This is most recently seen in the massive uproar over the Mohammed cartoons. The cult of Mohammed places him as perfection. A place that no human can stand. ”
The reason for the uproar, is that moslems and mainly the people of the East, take everything personally, and disrespecting a family member, an acquaintance, a political or religous figure, is the ultimate sin. Our faith teaches us that no prophet, not only Mohamed (PBUH), but Jesus, Moses, Abraham, David….. all of them, are not to be pictured, and that is reason for taking offence.
Grace
Thank you for your comemnts. Do you think that Muslims are insulted when an innocent person is murdered whilst the murderers claim to be doing in the name of God shouting “Allah akbar”? Is this not a great insult to Allah?
I would also value a Muslim response on this issue
Response coming up:
I have no defence against Steve’s points raised, although the way he writes about them is sensationalist and culturally objectionable, the essence is true:
1. Islam has no tolerance against those who choose to leave it.
2. Muslims are more concerned with perpetuating their issues almost exclusively through violence and the over-riding justification for doing so in their mind is doing Allah’s work.
3. The Prophet is a human being and as such cannot be completely pure; the Shi’as of course not only hold the Prophet as pure, but Imam Ali and his 11 descendant Imams as such as well.
4. Muslims for centuries have insulated themselves and married tribal culture within belief, rather than doing the very opposite as Islam commands us to do away with tribalism and be as one under Allah.
5. Muslims (all of us) have been ruled for centuries by despots who used Islam to perpetuate their power; as such, we have been conditioned over those centuries to be like sheep, blindly following a saviour shepherd, sans logical thought, and have had dissent beaten out of our ancestors and ourselves.
6. We even created Hadiths and believed (or made to) in them as gospel truth, from the command to be obedient to the ruler (‘ulu al-amr) and on the other side of the spectrum follow the scholar (wilayat al-faqih), rather than create democratic institutions. We’ve had 14 centuries of this, and it might take another 28 before “it clicks” that all religions should be used as moral guides, rather than a strict and exclusive way of life. Maybe we should also give democracy a go, and do away with having religion as basis for any constitution. Separate the two and both might flourish.
7. Oil wealth is a modern phenomenon and is not the exclusive reason for our backwardness, it sure contributed it to in the last 60 or so years though. We were subjugated much before its discovery and when the various desert seeps of the black muck was used just to cure lice in camels, and maybe light fires.
8. There are things in Islam which cannot be applied today; and if they are, then we are rightly shunned by the international community and treated as pariahs; as in chopping of body parts for crimes, the judicial system, the condoning of the killings of infidels and apostates, propagation of Islam by the use of force, and the belief that we are the only ones “saved”, yet within our own religion the fight has been continuously on since the time of the Prophet on who (person, group, tribe, sect) is worthy of even the promise of going to heaven.
9. We have been brought up (again over the centuries) with the belief beaten into us that we are the best there is. And that we are the only true believers in God, and that heaven is our exclusive domain. Obviously with this continuous psychological pressure, we actually believe it, and then try to find “proofs” that everything the West has done is nothing more than them interpreting the Qur’an better than us, but we’re STILL much better than those damned non-believing Westerners. I’ve read the Qur’an and can’t remember reading an exposition nor even a simple mention about combustion engines, jet engines, computers, cars, or the internet amongst other things. I’m sure the newly established “Qur’anic Miracles Studies” BSc program in Sharjah University and others like it would find references to the above. So it’s a bit of a rude shock to us on awakening and realising that we’re not the best there is to be. So we just carry on fighting amongst ourselves for supremacy and still believe that we have the exclusive fast-track into heaven, with or without virgins, that’s no longer important, the important thing is that my brother, cousin, tribe-member, neighbour, countrymen, fellow-Muslims don’t get there before I do, because I’m much better than all of them. Once I’m in; however, I promise to work on bringing my immediate family, then extended, then the tribe in with me, and then if others have enough wasta (influence), I might consider bringing them in as well, by indoctrinating someone else to blow him/herself in a crowded market or engage in the highly popular Iraqi drive-by-shooting game.
So Grace, with all due respect, the uproar didn’t have anything to do with the protection of our prophet, peace be upon him; however it had everything to do to maintain the illusion of the superiority of Muslims, when some of us actually woke up and discovered that we are not, by any stretch of the imagination, deserve that mantle of “the best of the best.”
Solutions?
Don’t have any. Other than getting back to work!
And yet, Bill T –
what are now modern day Iraqi’s, I don’t remember the tribal name/area, had a saying back in the pre-1960s: “The Communists came when they learned we had oil; the Americans came when they learned we had nothing.”
Johnster,
The Holy quran is the written system, Islam is the beleif of this sytem, our practices are what result of our understanding and our level of beleif.
“Hadiths” are what control the interpretation of several areas of the system that in some cases is somewhat general. Basically, the literal words of our Prophet (PBUH). Shias go even further, and have a more decisive control, by giving more importance to the “Imams” personal interpretations.
I cannot speak for all those that call themselves Muslims, but I do beleive that Moderates and liberals feel somewhat the same, and that is that a case of murder is a murder, regardless of who is doing it and their intent.
Fundementalism, in Islam, is a new term, that emerged recently through political influence and hence these Fundemental acts of murdering innocent people is but a political issue and not a religous one.
Its always easier to control people through their beleif system and using brainwashing techniques that follow the rule of “Fariq tasid” meaning to move the focus of the people away from theimportant issue, change their scope and divide them.
Unfortuantely, Its not a matter of all of us being Muslims anymore, its taken on other names, Suni Islam, Shia Islam, Soofi Islam, Wahabi Islam, Zaidi Islam, Malki Islam, Jihadi Islam?????!!!!!!
At the end of the day, we are all part of the human race, we are all subjects of The Almighty. Religons of the world were created are to induce peace and harmony, not to divide and give superiorty to each of the different followers.
Grace;
You said:
The reason for the uproar, is that moslems and mainly the people of the East, take everything personally, and disrespecting a family member, an acquaintance, a political or religous figure, is the ultimate sin
I’m not middle-eastern and I admit to finding this attitude quite perplexing. I find it especially incredible that there could be such an uproar over some harmless cartoons, while the mass slaughter in Darfur doesn’t even draw a reaction. Under the direction of the Arab government, Muslims are killing Muslims by the tens of thousands. If there’s anything that deserves condemnation at the level of what was applied to the cartoons, this is it. Mass murder should be the ultimate sin, not some insult in a magazine that wasn’t even meant for middle-eastern audiences.
[quote]Please mention your source for this information cause it is very clear in the Quran that Allah has no offspring and this is common knowledge to ALL muslims.[/quote]
I point to the verses, though not in the Koran, recounted in this source [1]
According to biographies of Mohammed, he said this:
Have ye thought upon al-Lat and al-Uzza
And Manat, the third, the other? (53:19,20)
But then followed with:
These are the high flying cranes; verily their intercession is accepted with approval.
He said this in order to appease an Arab tribe, and they prostrated with him because he had spoken well of their gods. (Bukhari vol 6 #385) It was only later that he struck those verses out, claiming that Satan had told him to speak them. But he DID speak them, and it has been chronicled by enough sources to show it happened.
Of course, such a thing was a heresy! The cover up is not masterfully done, however, and Mohammed, like John Smith of the Mormons fails, to my reading, the prophet test.
And merely saying this got Salman Rushdie the death fatwa. Please don’t kill me! 😛
[1] Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah, translated as, The Life of Muhammad, (tr. A. Guillaume), Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Oh yes, the Satanic Verse. I actually read a bit of that book by Salman Rushdie, and thought it was neat. But Ethan, the sources you speak of that show it happened are very few and not reliable. I am not ruling out it didn’t happen though, I’m just saying we don’t know for sure. In any case, Mohammed was a prophet, and as indicated in earlier posts, human beings make mistakes.
Take it easy bro 🙂
Mahmood: “I have no defence against Steve’s points raised, although the way he writes about them is sensationalist and culturally objectionable, the essence is true.”
Sensationalist though I may be, your rant is far more radical than mine. And I agree with all of it.
The only part that ticks me off is the part where you say that there is no mention of combution engines nor airplanes in the Koran. I was waiting to use this argument in some future debate here and you beat me to it. I believe that you have telepathically plagiarized this right out of my skull in some mysterious way.
Grace: “Fundementalism, in Islam, is a new term, that emerged recently through political influence and hence these Fundemental acts of murdering innocent people is but a political issue and not a religous one.”
Murdering innocent people is part and parcel of Islam. The first thousand years of Islam is one long murder spree in which Muslims conquered two thirds of the Christian world. Muslims killed, conquered, and subjugated the southern half of the Mediterranean basin, all of which was Christian, annihilating villages, raping women, looting, and occupying their land.
They invaded Christian Spain, conquered most of it, and pressed on into France, invading it again, and again, and again. Muslims slaughtered their way into Sicily and invaded Italy, sacking the Vatican, destroying monasteries like Monte Cassino, then pressing on to establish Muslim regimes in various parts of Italy for decades.
The Muslims invaded eastern Europe and conquered most of the Byzantine Empire. It wasn’t until after nearly half a millenium of Muslim aggression that the First Crusade was launched. Muslim violence continued into the 16th century, when, enfeebled and exhausted, it was checked by European military technology. The murderous primal impulse of Islam has since been revived by petrodollars.
It’s absurd to divide the murders into political and religious categories as Islam recognizes no such divide. All of these murderous campaigns were done in the name of Islam, which the Muslim conquerers were very proud to document for history.
Osama Bin Laden and Zarqawi are but the latest in a long line of Muslim jihadis who take their marching orders directly from the Koran. That inherent hostility in Islam which views the non-Muslim world as a field of war will bring it to grief. It is a religion badly in need in reform, one that must purge itself of murder to be respected.
After reading the GDN and Mahmood’s blog, my brother, mother and I are wondering what will happen to a person when they DELETE some Koranic verses from their computer and it goes into the trash bin, deleted and gone forever. Is this the same as dumping the physcial copies into the trash?
Sorry, infidel, but you must pay for this Koran abuse with your head. Then Microsoft must make an apology to Muslims everywhere for facilitating this crime. Then President Bush must make an apology for having Microsoft the Blasphemer located in America. Then the UN must pass a resolution condemning America for its vicious Zionist-inspired assault on the religious freedom of Muslims in this, the latest of its string of hate crimes against Islam. Then every Muslim everywhere must march on the nearest American embassy and burn it to the ground to demonstrate that such apologies are insufficient. If no embassy is nearby, then march on McDonald’s and burn the infidel cultural imperialist Ronald McDonald at the stake for exhibiting non-Islamic values!
LOL Steve! You are very simple minded and that really proves that you are nothing but a pointless shit. It really takes so much time to argue with a racist punk like you. Why islam and muslims?? arent there 2 billion muslims around the world? lol are there 2 billion terrorists out there? Please make a point!!!! I have seen most of your posts here at this blog and you never made a point haha… and you want to insult muslims by saying all of this bullshit.. I think you can be better at that. I respected you but now you recieve no respect from me because i noticed that you are here just to insult… Have a great life man!
Once again, kudos to Mahmood for shining a light in these dark corners.
Steve
Excellent link to the logical fallacies site. Oddly enough you seem to be employing a few of them yourself. Such as guilt by association, unrepresentative sample and hasty generalization.
Osama Bin Laden and Zarqawi are guilty of crimes and should be held accountable.
Surely your not holding the other 1.5 billion Muslims responsible for the actions of a few misguided zealots. You can not reasonbly treat a group of 1.5 billion people as a single entity.
Bloody historical references dont really lend much to the search for understanding and can be applied to just about everyone. The biggest obsticle to peace in the ME is people hung up on what happened years ago.
To the subject of this post, when I look up Idolatry it seems to describe the way that the Qu’ran is treated by alot of Muslims.
The worst thing about any religion is when they replace reason with faith.
I agree 100 with you will. The point of this post to show how iggnorant some of our officials are! I agree with freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to chose what ever you want to wear.. freedom for women to dress waht she wants.. bu thte way Steve put was as an insult.
I believe that religion should be part of the goverment no matter what! Not because of its strick laws, but as respect to the folks who arent muslims and yet citizens of this country. The quran is treated that by all muslims, but should it be enforced on others who arent!?
Will: Surely your not holding the other 1.5 billion Muslims responsible for the actions of a few misguided zealots. You can not reasonbly treat a group of 1.5 billion people as a single entity.
True, but the problem is that there seems to be a tacit agreement amongst many Muslims with those favouring war with the West. But for a few of the remaining others there is silence, whether from fear of their own persecution or some other reason has yet to be revealed. If the majority in the Islamic world don’t want war with the West then they must speak up now.
Also remember while there were only relatively few nazis or communist party members it didn’t stop the West from bombing Germany to rubble and starving the Warsaw Pact into collapse. I’m not saying that there is a direct correlation between those situations and the current one but there are parallels. Twain once said that history doesn’t repeat itself, it rhymes. Militant Islam is a problem, not just for the West, but for Muslims as well. Now is the time to stand up and cut out the festering zealot sore. Another quote, this time from Edmund Burke: All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
Steve,
I am very dissapointed, as petty and as ignorant as you are, you are living a life of hatred and have nothing better to do than seek satisfaction through bombarding others with irrational insults that don’t do your own simple self any good.
I do suggest that before you go digging into the Islamic Civillization and giving it a weird twist of your own. You go and read a bit about your own history young man!
Not much to read really. How long has it been since you stole somebody elses land? “annihilating villages, raping women, looting, and occupying their land” adding insult to injury by forcing everybody to celebrate it on “Thanks Giving” too!
And you’re still doing it,, might I add!!! How will you celebrate it this time? “Thanks Getting”??
Grace
Thank you for your thoughtful comments.
I am still waiting for an answer to my question. I presume you are a Muslim, so do you find that you, as a follower of Islam, are insulted and that your religion is insulted when another person (professing themselves to be a Muslim) murders an innocent person in the name of Allah? And that they commit this murder whilst quoting passages from the Holy Qur’an? Is this, do you think, an insult to Allah? Is it an insult to the Holy Qur’an?
If so, do you consider muder in the name of Allah more of an insult to the name of Allah than other insulting but non-murderous actions such as the guy who ‘accidentally’ disposed on the book that had exerpts of the Holy Qur’an in translation?
Johnster
“do you find that you, as a follower of Islam, are insulted and that your religion is insulted when another person (professing themselves to be a Muslim) murders an innocent person in the name of Allah?
Definetly, Allah, God, the Almighty Lord, call him what you may, sent the 3 religons of the holy book (Islam, Judism, Christianity) to bring peace an harmony to human kind. Killing in the name of God, is a non-existant term Islam. If people who call themselves Muslims, think themselves in a position high enough to change that, and go around doing what they please, in the name of God, well then they are no different than the Roman Catholic Church in the height of its Medieval glory.
“And that they commit this murder whilst quoting passages from the Holy Qur’an? Is this, do you think, an insult to Allah? Is it an insult to the Holy Qur’an?”
The Holy Quran mentions war, not murder or killing. Misquoting or misinterpreting is a misrepresentation of the true words of the Almighty.
“If so, do you consider muder in the name of Allah more of an insult to the name of Allah than other insulting but non-murderous actions such as the guy who ‘accidentally’ disposed on the book that had exerpts of the Holy Qur’an in translation?”
Personally I would not throw ANY holy book out of respect to its followers, especially if I was living amongst them, working with them… Quite insultive, a little more than disrespectful, wouldn’t you agree?
Grace: Definetly, Allah, God, the Almighty Lord, call him what you may, sent the 3 religons of the holy book (Islam, Judism, Christianity) to bring peace an harmony to human kind.
Mission Accomplished! =)
dont think so skribe … because, now it has become a p**ing contest.
which of the 3 books speaks more for god/allah/yahweh/jesus than the other?
because, whoever has a stronger tie to any of the above, has more power. forget about the real ethos of religion everywhere …
grace .. the biggest threat to what you call ‘islam’ and what i call the ethos of islam comes from noone but the moslems. we need to get our act together.
steve, my dearest .. the moslems are only going through now what the christians and the jews went through before us. we are about 600 odd years younger than you .. so give us time. we’ll get there in the end.
jasra: which of the 3 books speaks more for god/allah/yahweh/jesus than the other?
I choose the Brewster’s Millions option.
the moslems are only going through now what the christians and the jews went through before us. we are about 600 odd years younger than you .. so give us time. we’ll get there in the end.
This is a cop out. I never thought I’d be an apologist for the Christians but they at least had the excuse that they didn’t know any better, because the rest of the known world was like that or worse. The Islamic zealots know and they don’t give a shit. The world has moved on. The zealots are still fighting the crusades.
BTW I don’t think Islam will be given 600 years to catch up. I doubt it will be given 60. I expect sooner or later – if events continue as they have – there will be a reckoning. What form that will take I don’t know, but when the liberals and the moderates start mimicking Steve’s doggrel, watch out. Anything could happen. Stop the crap now, while you still can.
Gizmo: “It really takes so much time to argue with a racist punk like you. Why islam and muslims??”
Neither Islam nor Muslims are a race. Please make your personal attacks more informed in the future.
Steve
Will: “Surely your not holding the other 1.5 billion Muslims responsible for the actions of a few misguided zealots. You can not reasonbly treat a group of 1.5 billion people as a single entity.”
Yes, I do hold all billion plus Muslims responsible to greater or lesser degree for the terrorist atrocities perpetrated to propagate Islam. First, Bin Laden is the product of the Wahhabi doctrine supported by a state, Saudi Arabia. Everything Bin Laden says or does corresponds to what he was taught in the Saudi Wahhabi university system, media, and mosques. This is not a few misguided zealots but a foreign policy of bloody religious imperialism.
This religious imperialism is wildly popular with the Muslim world. They support it with charitable contributions. Even mosques here in the US gave to Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda fund raisers travelled here.
Muslims the world over were delighted to see Americans slaughtered on Sep 11. Need I dredge up the jubilant articles from the Muslim world celebrating that mass murder for Islam? Those Muslims who weren’t jubilant called it just. There was no condemnation of it from the Muslim leaders. Likewise, Muslim terrorists have been treated like heroes in the Muslim world and supported on Muslim media, that is while they were slaughtering non-Muslims.
All of this illustrates the hostility with which the Muslim world bears to non-Muslims, an attitude written into the Koran and demanded as an article of their faith.
Grace: “I do suggest that before you go digging into the Islamic Civillization and giving it a weird twist of your own.”
What weird twist is that, Grace? What part of my summary of the history of Islam is not true? Perhaps you subscribe to the candy-covered mosque version of Islamic history where the jihadis never spilled any blood and everywhere they went, the Christians happily converted when they saw Islam made more sense.
Grace: “You go and read a bit about your own history young man! Not much to read really. How long has it been since you stole somebody elses land? “annihilating villages, raping women, looting, and occupying their land†adding insult to injury by forcing everybody to celebrate it on “Thanks Giving†too!”
First, thanks for calling me a young man. Nobody calls me that anymore. I miss it.
Second, I would be happy to match history with you, my dear Grace. My essential point here is that the Muslims were pure aggressors in their conquest of the Christian lands around the Med and into Europe. Many of Christian villagers did not know what a Muslim was until they rode in from the horizon and cut off their heads.
On the other hand, the American Indians gave as good as they got. The Indians had been raiding, killing, eating each other, and driving each other away from choice territories since they migrated to America. They continued that same approach to European immigrants to America. Many were the isolated farm and small settlements which were annihilated by Indians.
By contrast, Americans were hard put to make war on the Indians because they were so mobile. Usually it took a long string of Indian atrocities before a troop of cavalry was called out to put an end to it. For example, Custer’s attack on Black Kettle’s village at the Washita River was preceded by Indian raiding in Kansas in which 275 settlers were killed, women raped, others taken prisoner, and some 5000 cattle stolen.
And I might point out that the Indians were given their own reservations where they could live and practice their own religion freely and were supported by the US. Many of them have made those reservations into lucrative casinos. Muslim conquerors permitted no such thing, demanding that their non-Muslim subjects either convert to Islam, pay a tax to stay alive as second-class citizens, or die.
Grace: “And you’re still doing it,, might I add!!! How will you celebrate it this time? “Thanks Gettingâ€Â??”
Pure nonsense. You’ve been spending too much time listening to the firebreathers at the mosque.
I might point out that the Indians celebrate Thanksgiving with the rest of their fellow Americans.
Steve
Jasra: “steve, my dearest .. the moslems are only going through now what the christians and the jews went through before us. we are about 600 odd years younger than you .. so give us time. we’ll get there in the end.”
Jasra, my enchanting little buttercup, I’ve been thinking about the difference in evolution between Christianity and Islam and I am not so sure that I can chalk it all up to European superiority. It seems to me that the critical difference was the Black Plague which rang Europe’s bell and made change possible. The church and nobility had a hammerlock on the situation before then. The plague demonstrated to the common people that the church lacked the power to save their lives and that aristocrats died just like serfs. It ruptured all the relationships and made change possible.
The Islamic world, by contrast, had no Black Plague to knock all their institutions off their pedestals and so they became more deeply entrenched. The differences between West and East may not be due as much to ideology nor technology but rather to black rats and their fleas.
Steve
skribe
Tacit agreement from a billion plus people?!? Thats a pretty big leap isnt it? Especially in light of the fact that a good portion of them either have no idea or no concern about whats happening in the rest of the world. What about the Chinese? Would you say that there are a billion supporters of Chinese human rights abuses?
It is true that the populace will suffer the consequences of their leaders actions.
Gizmo
Perhaps I am missing your point but in my opinion religion has NO place in government.
Steve
If the KSA is responsible for supporting these miscreant types (and I would agree that they are) isnt the oil burning West implicitly guilty. Furthermore, as you mentioned, this is state sponsored foreign policy. What are the elections like in the KSA?
The crusades? Are you serious? The Muslims took Jerusalem in the 7th century and the Christians took it back in the 11th. People have been living there for 5000 yrs. who had it first? Like skribe said the zealots are still fighting the crusades. The American Indians were a brutally conquered people and you say at least they got a reservation.
The march of progress, survival of the fittest. I make no apologies for my fathers actions and I accept none of the blame. The only point that really matters is what are WE doing today. Do I have to hate you because your father hated my father? We need to lose this nationalist, racist, faithist school yard clique bullshit and treat people with respect based on their own personal behavior.
Besides that I am right there with ya.
Islam needs a mechanism for change and the only one I see is the free flow of information. It has too much yang and not enough yin.
Learn to read, Will. I said there was tacit agreement from many and that most of the rest were silent.
What about the Chinese? Would you say that there are a billion supporters of Chinese human rights abuses?
Yeah. The govt did a good job of removing those that complained in 89. Now the Chinese are more interested in making shit-loads of money, scoring drugs and getting laid than fighting for their rights. That’s the difference between the Islamic world and the post-Commie Sinai: while both have used the stick, only the Chinese have inserted the carrot. The gilded-cage and all.
They sure didnt make those reservations into lucrative casinos thanks to the American goverment . Steve if your going to use the Indian card at least get it right. The Indians mostly got the worst piece of property in any state. 100+ years later they got lucrative casinos inspite of the American goverment.
Sorry skribe how much is the many part of 1.5 billion?
Are you equating the government with the populace?
“The Muslims took Jerusalem in the 7th century and the Christians took it back in the 11th. People have been living there for 5000 yrs. who had it first?”
The Jews.
Rant = on:
Many forget that the idea of fiqh is basically a doglike mentality: “I am the most recent pisser on this fire hydrant therefore it’s mine”. Sorry, Bzzt, wrong. YHWH chose the Jews as the chosen people LONG before an Arab got uppity in Medina and decided Jerusalem should be his.
If Palestinians want ‘right of return’, I propose that the Jews have right of return as well. Everything that belonged to the historical Israel should be returned to the descendants of its original owners. This, of course, means that the Mosques at the temple mount need to be demolished so that the correct religious structures for Jerusalem can be built.
And.. if Jews really did control the world, that would have been done in 1947.
But Jews.. nice people. Same can’t be said for any of their neighbors since 600 AD.
I’m glad that’s just a rant Ethan. Full generalisations are Steve’s exclusive domain normally, not yours!
Will: Sorry skribe
Apology accepted. Just don’t do it again. =)
Grace
You still are not answering the question
It requires a Yes or a No. Here it is again:-
“do you find that you, as a follower of Islam, are insulted and that your religion is insulted when another person (professing themselves to be a Muslim) murders an innocent person in the name of Allah? ”
You see, I suspect your inability to answer the question and condemn such activity is representative of the problems of denial and avoidance that plague this region.
steve my sweet ..
the black plague, huh. not the intrinsic corruption of the church? not the bonfire of the vanities and what it entialed? not the incestous relationship between the european elite and the church that ended up eventually pitting one against the other?
i think that eveything has its own natural timing. and, i think that most moslems today are being forced to take a vocal position. i myself have found a huge difference between my reaction to things today than pre 9-11. i find myself being more vocal against what is supposedly being done in my name ..my religion.
the rupture between the clergy and the governments will happen. it is going to take time. and trust me, what will be bloodier than the crusades and the ‘war of civilizations’ will be the civil war within Islam. just take a good long look at iraq and the sectatrian war that is being flamed and will at some point vast a very very dark shadow over the rest of the moslem gulf …
ethan .. i wont respond to your rant, because i dont like your tone. steve at least as sense of humor. i am not sure what your saving grace is.
buttercups rule
Jasra: “the black plague, huh. not the intrinsic corruption of the church? not the bonfire of the vanities and what it entialed? not the incestous relationship between the european elite and the church that ended up eventually pitting one against the other?”
I agree that the selling of indulgences and the party boy popes were corrupt. I’m not so sure as you that corruption would have been enough to precipitate a reformation by itself. Leafing through history, I see many corrupt regimes that last a very long time. To take a recent example, the corrupt Soviet Union would have likely lasted a very long time had Reagan not pressed them by overbuilding the US military. The corrupt Ottoman Empire would have lived on, sputtering and gasping, if not for WWI.
It seems to me that the Black Plague prepared the ground for the Reformation by undermining the respect of common people for their institutions. Savonarola’s bonfires seem more a reaction to that declining respect for the church.
By an interesting coincidence, I stood on the spot of the bonfire of the vanities and Savonarola’s burning at the stake in Florence last November.
Jasra: “the rupture between the clergy and the governments will happen. it is going to take time. and trust me, what will be bloodier than the crusades and the ‘war of civilizations’ will be the civil war within Islam. just take a good long look at iraq and the sectatrian war that is being flamed and will at some point vast a very very dark shadow over the rest of the moslem gulf … “
You are far more sanguine about a liberal reformation of Islam than me. I believe other events will overtake any slow transformation. This time next year it’s likely that an air campaign will be mounted against Iran’s nuclear program. Probably, the Iranians will respond with terror attacks within America. Should they succeed in striking an American city in a significant way, the war in Iraq will look like a tea party by comparison. Maybe a catastrophe in Iran is what’s necessary to convince Muslims that letting religious nuts rule them is madness.
Steve
billT: “They sure didnt make those reservations into lucrative casinos thanks to the American goverment . Steve if your going to use the Indian card at least get it right. The Indians mostly got the worst piece of property in any state. 100+ years later they got lucrative casinos inspite of the American goverment.”
Not so, Bill. Those reservations are not bad if you are looking at them through the eyes of a hunter-gatherer. I visited an Apache reservation in New Mexico that was set in the hills above the desert in their traditional hunting grounds. That’s a great place for Apache hunters, though it’s not much of a place for white city slickers to build a factory.
The Indians built their casinos because the US government honored its agreements with them. The Muslims, by contrast, are not going to allow infidels to profit wildly in their midst. For example, all the oil concessions in the Middle East, built up by Western companies at their own risk, were nationalized by Muslim governments after they had become successful. By contrast, the US government did not nationalize the Indian casinos nor do ordinary Americans resent the Indian’s success. Most Americans laugh about how the Indians outfoxed the government and wish them well.
Mahmood: “I’m glad that’s just a rant Ethan. Full generalisations are Steve’s exclusive domain normally, not yours!”
Many thanks for helping defend my turf, Mahmood.
Steve
Hmmm..
Sorry for the long hiatus all,
Steve,
Your points are wrong on so many levels, IMO. The couple points I take from you that I think are even worth debunking (because they are the most dangerous) are the following:
Worthy Point 1:
“Yes, I do hold all billion plus Muslims responsible to greater or lesser degree for the terrorist atrocities perpetrated to propagate Islam.”
Really? And what hand did my grandmother have in Sep11? You have essentially just leveled a [b]charge[/b] against my grandmother with responsibility for Sep 11. I want you to realise the magnitude of this – you have levelled the charge, that my grandma, was in some way, responsible for 3000+ dead. At the very LEAST, you have just called her an accomplise to murder. Now if you are to make such a charge, then I demand you show evidence that she is responsible in [i]any[/i] way, shape or form. And just so that we are clear on what “responsible” means, here is the definition for you:
re·spon·si·ble ( P ) Pronunciation Key (r-spns-bl)
adj.
Liable to be required to give account, as of one’s actions or of the discharge of a duty or trust.
Involving personal accountability or ability to act without guidance or superior authority: a responsible position within the firm.
Being a source or cause.
Able to make moral or rational decisions on one’s own and therefore answerable for one’s behavior.
Able to be trusted or depended upon; reliable.
Based on or characterized by good judgment or sound thinking: responsible journalism.
Having the means to pay debts or fulfill obligations.
Required to render account; answerable: The cabinet is responsible to the parliament.
(From dictionary.com)
If you cannot show she is responsible in any way shape or form, then the onus is on you to FULLY RETRACT your statement above.
Worthy Point 2:
“Islam was violent from the beginning”.
This, I do not contest. In fact, I may even agree with it indeed being violent from the very beginning.
The issue that I do take up with you Steve, is that you are dropping the context of the [i]time and era[/i] Islam existed in, and judging it by today’s standards. Let me explain some more:
First off, what ancient empire of the past, WASNT immorally brutal and violent? Let me re-phrase that: What expansionist empire of the ancient past ever expanded by creating pamphelts instead of subjugation via the sword? Let us start with the Roman empire, which if anything, glorified gore, blood and guts, and nicely incorporated those qualities into its Imperial warfare of sujugation. By today’s standards, they were barbaric. Killing off entire cultures unless they accepted “Jupiter”, enslaving those they conquered, etc. Now, would I be correct to judge the Roman empire as being this backwards, primitive and bloodthirsty giant beast that I can simply brush off without looking at its accomplishments and such?
The same goes for Islam. Yes, it was also an Imperial Empire from its inception, obviously expansionist, and every now and then would kill off peoples who didnt accept “Allah”. (Sound familiar?) So now I wonder. Do you place the Roman Empire in the same morally defunked pot as you do Islam, based simply on that fact that both were violent imperial systems? Furthermore, do you turn a blind-eye towards the progress Islam made to its people AT THAT TIME, as you turn a blind eye towards the Romans did for Romans AT THAT TIME?
In other words: If you are going to condemn anceint Empires on their appetite for violence and subjugation, then Steve, you are going to have to do ALOT of condemning. That being said, and given the context, it is a big leap to imply that Islam [i]today[/i] has expansionist Imperialist ambitions, since they did so way back when. Back then, everybody was “in” on it. If you had an empire, why of course! You have to conquer!
You are associating the desire for conquest of Empires due to their time, with and ideology of the Empire, with the ideological decendants 1400 years later, and then saying: “So they want conquest too!” And that my accusing friend, is a loooong meanigless chain.
-Ibn
Oh and Steve,
To assist you in your determination of whether or not my grandma was indeed responsible in any way whatsoever for Sep11, here is the definition of “responsible” as an adjective, also from http://www.dictionary.com, which I discovered once scrolling down some more:
“Main Entry: re·spon·si·ble
Function: adjective
1 a : liable to be called on to answer b : liable to be called to account as the primary cause, motive, or agent c : liable to legal review or in case of fault to penalties
2 : characterized by trustworthiness, integrity, and requisite abilities and resources
3 : able to choose for oneself between right and wrong
4 : marked by or involving accountability â€â€re·spon·si·bil·i·ty noun â€â€re·spon·si·ble·ness noun â€â€re·spon·si·bly adverb ”
I look forward to your responses! 🙂
-Ibn
——————
Mahmood,
A technical question or two: I cannot get the type fonts and properties to work this HTML – (boldface, italics, etc) – is there a different syntax I must use for your new site?
Thanks
Ibn … nice.
Ah, I’m not using BBCode for this one, you must use the usual html tags like < strong > < em > etc.
Not so. The Italians don’t go around killing people for religion, nor do the Spaniards, and whatever other civilisations you care to mention. The Muslim terrorists however, due to Jihad NOT being condemned in Islam – or at least limited in a clear and defined frame – can still go around beheading people while shouting Allah Akbar and jumping up and down with the severed head and brandish the killing knife and maybe firing their AK-47s to double the pleasure (and hopefully get hit by a ricocheting bullet while they’re at it.)
This has got to be reformed along with a slew of other defunct laws which have been put in place to deal with situations 1,400 years old.
I dont think we need to blame any book of God, Imperial Regime or any “school of thought” for the war and murder in the world, now or in the past. Read back through this blog, you guys don’t need any help when it comes to intolerance or forcing your beliefs on others. It is human nature……blah blah blah…It is our “Creator’s” fault we are like this. We always have been and always will be. Makes things much more interesting though dont you think?
Steve I don’t believe there was any kindness on the part of the American government. The only reason the Mescalero Apache got the reservation in the Sacramento’s rather than being put on the Pecos or being sent to Florida then Alabama then to the Ft. Sill reservation like the Chiricahua was that not one nugget of gold was found. One nugget and they wouldn’t have had their reservation.
Well, I did mark it as a rant.
However one part of that rant DOES hold. Fiqh is ‘I pissed on this land last, therefore it’s mine’ – there’s a reason why Andalucia is still prized by the Islamists. They pissed on it last, therefore its owned by the Muslims forever.
On the other hand, Steve, habibi, the Native Americans have been repressed by every single colonizing influence on the North American continent since the 1500’s.
I will agree that they were not a ‘civilizing’ force in the past. North American indians were basically a stone age/bronze age tribal civilization. But the way they have been treated in the past has been atrocious.
The concept of ‘reservations’ is -almost- no better than Dhimmitude.
At least the US doesn’t send in troops to humiliate the natives and extract special ‘Dhimmi taxes’ from them, or force them to convert. In fact, it’s the other way around – the Casinos are ‘taxes’ on those that go and lose money at them, and a lot of people are more interested in Native American spirituality than not these days. 🙂
Mahmood:
How do you do the cool ‘quote’ things?
Yoohoooo Gracie !!!
You’re not avoiding giving me a Yes or a No, are you?
Ethan, I’ll write a quick help file today and put it up, this theme is pretty restrictive in its simplicity, and I don’t have time at the moment to go into a full scale re-engineering to fix it to the way I want it to look.. it’ll happen one of these days however.
To answer your question, the quote thing is done by using the standard html tag “blockquote” between angled brackets, as in < blockquote > but without the spaces in between, then you close it by < /blockquote >
Oh, and another way to really get snazzy with your comments is to switch on the Use the visual rich editor when writing in your personal preference page if you have an account.
“do you find that you, as a follower of Islam, are insulted and that your religion is insulted when another person (professing themselves to be a Muslim) murders an innocent person in the name of Allah? â€Â
The answer is yes, I am insulted when someone professes to be a Muslim, but has hidden agenda that doesn’t go hand in hand with the true teachings of The Almighty.
I also get insulted when someone lures me into a conversation, puts words in my mouth, just to prove a point. Not that you have done that (wink)
Peace
PS. I am travelling tonight. Going back home….. Take care all….
Mahmood,
Not so. The Italians don’t go around killing people for religion, nor do the Spaniards, and whatever other civilisations you care to mention. The Muslim terrorists however, due to Jihad NOT being condemned in Islam – or at least limited in a clear and defined frame – can still go around beheading people while shouting Allah Akbar and jumping up and down with the severed head and brandish the killing knife and maybe firing their AK-47s to double the pleasure (and hopefully get hit by a ricocheting bullet while they’re at it.)
This has got to be reformed along with a slew of other defunct laws which have been put in place to deal with situations 1,400 years old.
Umm, ..*confused* …I agree that Islam has alot of reformation to go through… I dont understand why you have mentioned the top part of your paragraph though….even though I dont disagree with it – I guess Im seeing it as a non-sequitor…
So when you said:
“Not so. The Italians don’t go around killing people for religion, nor do the Spaniards, and whatever other civilisations you care to mention.”
Well yes, but I didnt imply or say the opposite of that statement. 🙂
The initial point, was to draw attention to the false association between
“Islam was an Imperial religion 1400 years ago” –>
“Therefore Muslims 1400 years later also want Imperial rule.”
Where “Muslims” refers to the mean.
-Ibn
Wow. The above post came out weird – HTML errors in fonts.
Please differenciate between Mahmood’s comments and mine.
-Ibn
Ibn, you mentioned that 1400 years later, Islam has no relation to the violence it perpetrated at the time of its spread. I maintained that that very reasoning (condoning violence to spread the religion hundreds of years ago) is still sanctioned today – without change – in the scripture and the hadiths, and it is these texts which are taken to heart by the terrorists to perpetrate their terror, whether against the “infidel” West, or other Muslims, be they Shi’a being killed in suicide missions most probably perpetrated by extremist Sunnis, or those who were unfortunate enough to be called Omar by extremist Shi’as.
have a good flight, and safe home Grace.
Mahmood said:
“still sanctioned today – without change – in the scripture and the hadiths, and it is these texts which are taken to heart by the terrorists to perpetrate their terror, ”
Yes, I agree with you on this. But what I am differentiating is that the texts condoning violence to spread Islam, are more of a product of their time period, than a derivative of Islam itself as a religion. That is the differentia I am pointing to. To clarify my position further:
To use an analogy: Islam forbade eating pork, because of the obvious un-hygenic nature of pigs at that time, with no way to properly process the meat. Therefore eating it would result in death, disease, etc. So Islam outright forbade it. So the forbiding decree is again, more of a product of the time period itself – (no processing plants, farming tech, etc).
Thus, if someone were to condemn Islam on not allowing for freedom of choice of foods for example, he would not be judging in context – because the outright ban on pork, stemmed not from a malevolent intent to subjugate ones choices of food…- it was rather the best alternative for THAT time period, in regards to what to eat. That is the essense of my point.
P.S. Just to be clear, I do not condone violence to spread a religion.
-Ibn
I understand that position, but the problem I am highlighting that even though these are topical situations for treating an ill at the time, they are still relevant today as they are still part of the scripture and interpreted as valid in this day and age. Rather than explaining their historical context and that inapplication today, clerics/people see them as valid then, valid now. Hence, Islam remains static.
Mahmood said:
“they are still relevant today as they are still part of the scripture and interpreted as valid in this day and age. Rather than explaining their historical context ”
So, it looks like we are saying the same thing – I am pointing out the importance of judging in context as when someone like Steve does it, while you are chastizing the Imams who also drop context. So yes, dropping contexts in both cases will result in, … droppings. 🙂
-Ibn
The problem, Mahmood and Ibn, is not really the context. Yes, the sword verses fit in the context of an expansionist religion. Yes the anti-pork verses speak of times when pork wasn’t cooked right. Yes the Koran’s injunction against Alcohol is to keep warriors ready for battle.
The problem is that the Koran (where all of these injunctions are found) is treated as the eternal word of God, and thus is unchangeable. The eternal words of God can have no real context. They are valid for -all times-. Rationalizing context with a literalist is pissing into the wind.
Only by treating the Koran as a historical book written by man does Islam have a prayer of reforming.
But if the Koran is a book written by men, why be Muslim? There are hundreds of other religions out there that are far more spiritual, and have lfewer restrictions for the same end result. That’s the fear. Loss of control of the masses. Religious and therefore political freedom.
The Imams fear it. Mohammed feared it. Therefore ‘All those who change their religion should be killed’.
Ethan said:
‘The problem is that the Koran (where all of these injunctions are found) is treated as the eternal word of God, and thus is unchangeable.’
(bold mine)
Key work here Ethan: ‘Treated’. Treated is a verb, requiring an actor, requiring a human. Furthermore, ‘treated’ is a verb as it pertains in this context meaning how said human actor treats…judges such words- dare I say ‘In what context said actor takes it in.’?
So again, yes, context.
Bringing us back to Mahmood’s point as well as mine. Already covered. 🙂
-Ibn