"Intelligence officials were poring over a video showing the beheading of an American journalist in Syria on Wednesday, urgently seeking confirmation of James Foley's fate as well as clues about the identity of his executioner."
"The graphic video shows Foley reciting threats against America before he is killed by an Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) militant. The voice narrating the video speaks fluent English and the U.K.'s foreign secretary suggested he might be British — a troubling but not altogether surprising development. Western officials have been sounding alarm bells for months over the flood of foreign fighters taking up arms in Syria and Iraq."
88 comments:
There is only one religion that embraces that practice of cutting someone's head off.
Anglicans?
Making excuses for the ROP? Sick.
Remember, to the left, that one- time abortion doctor killer, back in the 1980's, makes all Christians the equivalent to this brutal savagery.
Hey, it's a great gig: express pro forma moral outrage occasionally for a few minutes in exchange for a permanent high end vacation at taxpayer expense.
My rage o meter needle just broke off.
F you, Obama. Just F you.
The radical Islamists did this and they did it in the name of a religion you identify with and make excuses for.
You do not deserve to be our commander in chief. Loser.
Get back to that golf game on Martha's vineyard with that fat F*er Michael Moore and have a great time. Tonight there's a fund raiser! Your pathetic greedy donors have all sorts of dirty money for you to launder. New Green energy boondoggles for billionaires at tax payer expense.
"Obama Outraged Over Beheading. Vows to Stay on Course."
-Actual NYT headline
Press pool report on today's words spoken before golfing:
"The president walked quietly into the cafeteria of the school, tieless but wearing a blue jacket. Eric Schultz accompanied him. Obama stepped to a podium and delivered his remarks, then turned quietly and walked out of the room. The room was silent as he did.
“Afterward, the motorcade drove to the Vineyard Golf Club.”
But did he also golf quietly, you mouth-breathing, slobbering twits with typewriters? Inquiring minds want to know. Because that's the real tell.
If in Obama's mind "boots on the ground" is the ultimate sacrifice, whatever it is that ISIS is doing appears not to have meet his test yet.
So, the massage to ISIS is... you are not impressing me?
Obama did call them little league.
FTR: I don't care if he plays golf or plays with himself. I don't care that he's on vacation. People need vacation. (I need vacation.)
I'm just applying the same standard that progressive Asshole-Americans, including but hardly limited to the current POTUS, apply to every Republican politician to the point where Republicans just pre-apply it to themselves and don't play golf.
...not to have met his test yet. typo
April, that was not Michael Moore, that was Michelle.
I didn't know Obama was an Islam expert.
LIES!!!11!!!1
He said varsity league.
"Did ah dew thaaaaaat?"
ISIS speaks for no religion
Yeah, they do. Every religion has its nutjob wings, but for most of them the center seems to hold.
At this historical moment in time, I don't know that a rational person can make the claim that the center is holding in Islam. "Moderate" Islam just strikes me as genteel agnosticism, and the moderates just can't seem to come up with a line of attack (e.g. a genuine revival of Mutalizite theology. The non-radicals just seem to want to make up a story to blame the West for Salafism, and hope that the US Army can kill the Salafists without killing the "good Muslims".
I really wish that I could see another end to this other than tens of millions of dead Muslims, and no doubt lots & lots of non-Muslims lost in the struggle. This is the beginning of the death throes of the second largest faith in the world, and it's not going to end pretty.
What are there, a billion of 'em? Well, a billion and one, counting Obama.
Why would he fight ISIS - they his boyz!
"ISIS speaks for no religion"
Also about this statement: Who is Obama to say ISIS speaks for no religion? That's pretty sweeping. TFG thinks and talks like he's the Lord Himself.
Did the bamster just skip the name of that group "Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham"? I get the sham part, but really, does he think they are a bunch of freakin' Quakers or some shit?
You can't be my enemy
Unless I acknowledge that you are my enemy
And I ain't a-gonna do that
Cause I'm enlightened
Don't believe in no enemies
Even
When they be chopping off some head!
Did Obama really say anything that Bush wouldn't have said about such barbarism and how it relates to the Muslim faith? You can find some of Bush's comments here.
I also think it's only fair to quote Obama a bit more:
Now, Jim Foley’s life stands in stark contrast to his killers. Let’s be clear about ISIL. They have rampaged across cities and villages killing innocent, unarmed civilians in cowardly acts of violence. They abduct women and children and subject them to torture and rape and slavery. They have murdered Muslims, both Sunni and Shia, by the thousands. They target Christians and religious minorities, driving them from their homes, murdering them when they can, for no other reason than they practice a different religion.
They declared their ambition to commit genocide against an ancient people. So ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents. No just god would stand for what they did yesterday and what they do every single day. ISIL has no ideology of any value to human beings. Their ideology is bankrupt. They may claim out of expediency that they are at war with the United States or the West, but the fact is they terrorize their neighbors and offer them nothing but an endless slavery to their empty vision and the collapse of any definition of civilized behavior.
I'm not an expert on the Koran, but I don't believe it calls for either genocide or the murder of innocents.
@Lydia,
I'm not an expert on the Koran, but I don't believe it calls for either genocide or the murder of innocents.
Then, where are the fatwahs from the great faculties of Muslim theology (e.g. Cairo) declaring ISIS beyond the pale, and that its leaders have brought so much ignominy on Islam that they are takfir?
There is powerful sympathy in the Muslim world for groups such as ISIS, because they are seen as dedicated & pure fighters for Islam against both the corrupt local governments & the West. Barbarism in the cause of furthering a purer Islam has been a sin oft-forgiven in Muslim history. Why change things now with a divisive fatwah?
Submission and subjugation of unbelievers. So easy for the enthusiastic believer to get carried away with the subjugation aspect of it.
Bush's main theme in talking about Islam was that it has been hijacked by its extremists. That's a valid point about that particular faith which differentiates it from all other faiths currently. (I except political-based faiths, of course.)
I don't really know what Obama's main theme about Islam is other than these ISIS people are gross and inconvenient and are, like, totally interrupting my golf game. He just pompously intones some obvious criticisms of the ISIS coalition followed by some empty religiousy-sounding word stew and calls it a day. No need to make sense or have a plan or anything. "No just god would stand for what they did yesterday and what they do every single day." Really? Well, apparently we don't have a just god.
What a douche.
"I'm not an expert on the Koran, but I don't believe it calls for either genocide or the murder of innocents."
You may not believe it, Lydia, and a majority of Muslims may not believe it, but many of them do. And that's the problem.
Varsity... What is that, basketball?
The left excel at empty word stew.
No need to make sense or have a plan....
To have a plan is to be in charge, to be governing and Barry in his sixth year as president is still observing from the outside. So he'd have us believe. Not governing, not responsible. For anything. Still voting present. I know there's nothing brilliant about that observation, many have made it, but it's the heart of his act. Expect the shuck and jive routine to continue till his last day in office.
Well, the thing is Obama's in a tight spot about this stuff, as would be any national pol. For one, we can't alienate every stable (if internally evil) Muslim regime. (Think Saudis, whom Israel and Egypt need in an axis against the MB and Iran).
Second, unless he says the shahadah, he's not a member, and his lecturing is moot. Islam has to reform itself and for that the only people who can do it are their own "scholars" (ulemma). Of course, there might be a way to pressure them further from outside, but that's become the tricky part.
The best way is to just keep publicizing individual doctrines at the core of its incompatibility with civilization. Those would be 1) (Quite obviously), jihad - there's been no firm proscriptions on offensive religious conquest; 2) Taqiyya (lying for the purpose of keeping Islam's inadequacies (and the inadequacies of any particular Western Muslim) "under the rug"; and 3) The Dar al Harb vs. Dar al Islam doctrine. Islam must come to terms with its expectation of a state of conflict between non-sharia countries until "judgement day" resolves them for the sake of a victorious Islamicized world.
These are three very simple little things that can be addressed directly, and that any Muslim knowledgeable about his "faith" will understand.
Of course, there's other issues… like the lack of any moral code in the Qur'an, the aggressively militant, conquest bent of the Bedouin raider Muhammad as the epitome of Muslim ideals of character (and especially without any countervailing passages promoting peace, tolerance and love), and a few more I'm sure. But those three are the core doctrines of Islam that need to be and should be challenged, contained, confronted and reformed and you have a much better chance of accomplishing something like that than of getting them to all become either atheists or Christians. At least, that's what I'd bet.
And also keep promoting people like Irshad Manji and Wafa Sultan and defend your 1st and 2nd amendment rights to the hilt. Don't go the British route. Challenge and confront and don't give up until a reformation is forced upon the enterprise.
Nice post, R&B. Not something I would have said of you in the past, but credit where credit is due.
Good to see someone reading up on their Islamic history!
Other Muslims hate these guys, including "stable" Muslim states
No problem, YH and glad to contribute!
I actually took a Near Eastern religions course probably almost 20 years ago in college, so I remembered this stuff from back then. I remember being taken in by the hypnotic "oriental" lull of the stuff (or maybe it was the simultaneous term or half-term of Arabic? I can't even remember) but also figuring in the back of my mind that there were some problems built into it. It actually borrowed a bit from other faiths, but with huge mechanisms built into it to ensure its very aggressive spread and with the end result being, as Benedict rightly reminded us, a whole lot of nothing new (and probably a lot less) in terms of any moral or spiritual lessons.
So I put it out of my mind until 2001, but at that point became overwhelmed with other things, and with looking at this stuff in other ways. But the recent wars in Israel, combined with the insane global response, reminded me to look at some more Wafa Sultan videos and emphasize the fact that these leftist loonies know absolutely NOTHING about the culture they're trying to respectfully (and very erroneously) engage/disengage.
Seriously, they're dumber than bricks. I keep seeing evidence that they realize culture matters, and they bitch about the culture of conservative Christians to no end. Do they not realize that the cultural values of conservative Muslims compared to that are like night to day?
No, they don't. And they don't care.
Which is why books like Wafa Sultan's are so important. She's able to explicate some of this nonsense, the sheer extent to which the idea of every relationship as dominant-submissive instead of between mutually respectful equals pervades every understanding of society. Women aren't only owned by their husbands; if they're single, a younger, less educated brother or son will beat them against doing something without their permission. Sometimes with acid. And no one cares.
Muhammad's lust for his adopted son's wife was used to instantly "inspire" a new prophetic edict: That adoption be banned in Islam. New wife, problem solved. And with the result being, as you can imagine, a horror of epidemic proportions when it comes to how children are viewed, raised and cared for.
There are many more tidbits, esp. because Sultan is really good at teasing apart the enduring traits of the paranoid Arabian Bedouins whose raiding obsessions are more hard-wired into an overall culture, and into which non-Arab speaking Muslims are submerged just a bit more sparingly. But she seems to understand exactly how the text weaves its toxins into and through the culture and where they come together to make respect for human life or the rights of the individual a total non-entity.
She advises just junking the whole thing altogether, but I think that's naive. Hopefully many will, though. But the fact that there are three or four core doctrines at the theological heart of the problem means that, at least when it comes to the many "faithful", confronting them would be one more, much clearer and very potentially powerful method for helping to defang the whole mess.
Nice posts R&B, but talking and teaching is not going to do the trick with this group, regardless of the source.
Arab Islam is "reforming" itself. It is reforming into the same militarized, expansionist force it has become every time someone hasn't held it under control with a superior force either local or foreign. And it is using the same barbaric tactics it has always used.
If we want to stop them, we need to go back in, painful as that would be, and eliminate all men who have taken up arms under the ISIS banner. All of them.
Or we could wait and watch and lob in a few missiles until they come to us or our allies.
That makes critics all the more important.
300,000,000+ Arabs. We're not going to occupy them all.
ISIS is much less, but probably has more support by the people there than other contenders. Our job is to repulse them from the Yazidis and Christians, but fending off a lot more territory is not in the cards. We'll arm the Kurds for that and allow them safe haven into their region or other areas. Getting a better (Shia) Iraqi gov't in working order to hold them in check is also important.
There is no reason to think America blowing up all ISIS is necessary or desirable. Neither do we eliminate 50,000 - 80,000 running a tyrannical government/militia simply to avenge the beheading of a single journalist.
Containing these shits and the others who will always want to crop up will be a meddlesome challenge. But declaring a new war-to-the-finish each time ensures that we will always be a step behind.
I simply don't see how you can keep the country as strong that way.
They have to know that we have better things to do.
Maybe, but I think you're discounting the potential of the Islamist movement currently fronted by ISIS.
We haven't seen anything quite like this outside of Africa in a long time. Murder and massacres, yes, but this bloodthirst for close-up brutality and killing needs to be put down.
I think it's got a lot of potential. I think all of these together do. I think we could all be fucked.
I also think it's important to give space for things to burn themselves out while we do what we can to remain strong and not bat at every fly, lest it turn into a dragon.
Each one of these will be the evil of our day. But America lacks willing allies and it lacks a basis for preventing and denying the expression of 1,400 year-old belief systems with over a billion loud, psychologically numb adherents.
Let them shout themselves out. Let them kill a few of their own (not others) every now and then. There's a reason there's not much diversity in the Middle East; that's better for them to do their own bloodletting.
Focus on fighting the ideological/theological war in America and Eurabia. Moderate and confront the ideology. Gun rights and speech rights.
When we're strong enough again, if we need to, and if a threat credibly raises itself at us, wipe it out.
But do it one-at-a-time. Accept there will be no once-and-for-all "smothering" of all this. Not yet, anyway. Not at this very early stage. Much more work to do first.
Keep defending and defining freedom here, first. And, where we can, abroad.
Northern Iraq is not currently one of those places.
Plus, more of our own assholes can go and run over there in the meantime to blow himself up.
Not a bad bargain.
Perhaps we could encourage more of our most, er, committed believers to do the same.
We'll see. You could be right, but I've joined the "kill 'em all and let God sort "em out" camp as far as our further interactions with ISIS.
I'd love to see a few get killed off, too. And hopefully our current missions (and arms shipments) will see some good deaths here and here.
But we are still ultimately fighting an ideology. And nothing kills off a bad ideology better than its implementation. ;-)
Of course, I could be wrong, too.
But I guess that's why I'm hedging my bets and going with an "all of the above" strategy.
Just not all at the same time.
The more weapons at our disposal on the table, the better.
And I see the lack of ideological confrontation as the one that's gotten the least use.
So that's the one I'd like to see more of. We need a Wafa Sultan 2.0. With religious credentials. Something like that.
In a general sense the Will of God is determined by strength and who wins. Trying to shame people from cultures where strength proves the will of God is pointless. They've got objective Truth. They cut his head off and no one stopped them.
" "No just god would stand for what they did yesterday and what they do every single day." Really? Well, apparently we don't have a just god.
What a douche. "
This... if they get away with it, a just God, by DEFINITION, approves and supports them. The notion that God would sadly watch his children do evil things and implore them to repent is a *Christian* belief system.
The belief in repentance is part of all three Abrahamic religions, not just Christianity.
Of course, there's other issues… like the lack of any moral code in the Qur'an...
It confirms the Bible's 10 Commandments in various verses. Here's a comparison:
The Ten Commandments (Exodus 12: 1-17 & Deuteronomy 5: 6-21)
--Thou shall not take any God except one God.
--Thou shall make no image of God.
--Thou shall not use God's name in vain.
--Thou shall honor thy mother and father.
--Thou shall not steal.
--Thou shall not lie or give false testimony.
--Thou shall not kill.
--Thou shall not commit adultery.
--Thou shall not covet thy neighbors wife or
possessions.
--Thou shall keep the Sabbath holy.
Confirmation in the Quran (Chapter: Verse)
--There is no God except one God (47:19)
--There is nothing whatsoever like unto Him (42:11)
--Make not God's name an excuse to your oaths (2:224)
--Be kind to your parents if one or both of them attain old age in thy life, say not a word of contempt nor repel them but address them in terms of honor. (17:23)
--As for the thief, male or female, cut off his or her hands, but those who repent after a crime and reform shall be forgiven by God for God is forgiving and kind. (5:38 - 39)
--They invoke a curse of God if they lie. (24:7) Hide not the testimony (2:283)
--If anyone has killed one person it is as if he had killed the whole mankind (5:32)
--Do not come near adultery. It is an indecent deed and a way for other evils. (17:32)
--Do good to your parents, relatives and neighbors. (4:36) Saying of the Prophet Muhammad (P) "One of the greatest sins is to have illicit sex with your neighbors wife".
--When the call for the Friday Prayer is made, hasten to the remembrance of God and leave off your business. (62:9)
Those aren't codes, saying what to do or what not to do. They're Arabian poetry… "is like…" Blah blah blah haiku. Plus they got that one from Jewish sayings anyway, the one in Schindler's List. Very unoriginal religion.
I trust what Wafa Sultan says anyway. Synova's right, there's way too much "if it happens, it is the will of Allah" for there to be any precise moral instruction. It's all a confirmation of whatever power does. Critical thinkers who've lived in both regions and appreciate not being subjected to tribal retribution would agree. Retribution and vengeance systems are not the same thing as moral codes; they are simply the way that tribal nomads offer protection in a way that settled societies don't need to abide by any more. And the sharia is basically the #1 evidence of this - offering victims as much opportunity for retribution as nearly any legal code.
There's been enough mental masturbation on the supposed parallels of comparative amateur religious analysis on Islam. And all that crap is for people who don't grasp the fundamentals. Or never bothered to ask what they are.
They are: Retribution and Allah's will proves that whoever "wins" should have won. That's been the history from the prophet on to his first successor and every caliph all the way through to the fall of the Ottomans. And then beyond. Peaceful transfers of power don't exist. Power is its own justification.
Period finish end of story. If you want to disagree show me a fact and not just an endlessly interpretable quote. Of which there are plenty more in contradiction of the ones you selectively dug up. What counts is what governs Muslim behavior, and as you can see from their model of a theocratic state, it's not the same as in the West. And neither is the behavior of the prophet, whose actions they look to as a model.
Less poetry and more history. Avoiding that is like saying the parables of what Jesus actually did isn't important to Christians.
Oh wait, yes no adultery (another man's property), monotheism, no blasphemy, blindly follow (submit to) parenteral authority, pray, etc. Yes we know. Nothing new here and their attestations are more poetic than exhortative or legalistic. We already know much of this. The issue is a lack of emphasis on how humans are to deal justly and tolerantly with one another. We already get the they pray to God part. Yes, yes. Five times a day and everything. Totally not the issue.
Those aren't codes, saying what to do or what not to do.
The 10 Commandments don't constitute a moral code? News to me.
Would you consider the Salem witch trials akin to tribal retribution?
In the first of these verses from the Koran, God reprimanded Muhammad for having concealed his feelings: "You sought to hide in your heart what Allah was to reveal: you were afraid of man, although it would have been more right to fear Allah" (33:37). On the first journey Gabriel legislated for Muhammad to fall in love with a married woman, even though that woman was his daughter-in-law. "And when Zeid satisfied his desire, we gave her to you in marriage" (33:37). Marriage to the wife of an adopted son was not acceptable in pre-Islamic Arab society, and a third verse conveniently descended in order to invalidate Zeid's adoption and deter those who were beginning to criticize Muhammad's marriage to his daughter-in-law. "Muhammad is the father of no man among you. He is the apostle of Allah the Seal of the Prophets" (33:40).
The Muslim male, as portrayed here, is a poor soul who cannot control his instincts and, therefore, has the right to give them free rein in any manner he chooses. When God's Prophet coveted his adopted son's wife and God ordered him to satisfy that desire, this behavior, for Muslims, became enshrined in both religious and secular law. Muhammad banned adoption in order to justify his socially unacceptable marriage - by the standards of the time -- to the wife of his adopted son. This ban put an end to a social system that at the time helped save many children who, for one reason or another, had been left fatherless, and the ban, to this day, continues to rot the soul of Muslim societies.
Many children who have lost their mothers or fathers in these societies end up as victims for whom no just solution can be found… Orphanages in these societies are nothing more than corrals where even life's most basic moral principles are not observed. Society regards these children with contempt… Revenge is taken on their fathers through them, and people refuse to adopt them because their belief in Islamic law, which forbids adoption but proposes no alternative. We all remember the disaster that faced the world in the wake of the war in Bosnia. Some 30,000 children were born illegitimately in the course of this war and, as their Muslim mothers refused to take care of them, they were distributed to Western countries, with the United States taking the lion's share. No Muslim country offered to take in a single one of these children.
Wafa Sultan, A God Who Hates, pp. 125 - 127.
Go and find the catechism you learned as an equivalent for Muhammad's consummation (at age 50) of a marriage to a 9-year old child, Lydia:
The Prophet married me when I was six years old and the marriage was consummated when I was nine. The Prophet of God came to our home in company with men and women who were among his followers. My mother came [to me] while I was in a swing between the branches of a tree and made me come down. She smoothed my hair, wiped my face with a little water then came forward and led me to the door. She stopped me while I calmed myself a little. Then she took me in. The Prophet of God was sitting on a bed in our home, and she sat me in his lap. Everyone jumped up and went out, and the Prophet consummated his marriage with me at home.
Wafa Sultan, ibid, pp. 119 - 120, as quoted from Bint al-Shati's Wives of Muhammad. Prefaced by "There is a good example in Allah's apostle" (33:21).
We can go on all day. Culture matters. Culture changes. Culture is also codified much more permanently in sanctified texts.
Would you consider the Salem witch trials akin to tribal retribution?
Nope. Amphiboly that flexible is meaningless. They're punishment for witchcraft. You obviously are unfamiliar with the concept of retribution. It doesn't mean taking things out on people presumed to be magically behind events but who weren't.
Muhammad said in another hadith: "A woman must not feed anyone without her husband's permission, unless the food is about to spoil. If she feeds anyone with his consent, her recompense is the same as his, but if she feeds anyone without his permission, he receives the recompense, while she will bear the responsibility for the sin."
(…)
…in another hadith "If a man summons his wife to bed and she refuses, the angels will curse her until the morning."
(…)
"A woman shall neither fast nor pray without her husband's authorization."
(…)
"A man has the right to expect his wife, if his nose runs with blood, mucus or pus, to lick it up with her tongue."
pp. 138 - 139.
Still feeling those parallels, Lydia?
Another saying attributed to Muhammad in this connection is: "the killer has the right to his spoils," meaning that when a Muslim kills a non-Muslim, he has the right to despoil him. This hadith (Muhammad saying) has caused differences of opinion among Muslims. Some wondered how the killer could be entitled to the spoils when the Koranic verse orders the booty to be divided five ways…
p. 64.
There are Muslim reformers, you know. Most of whom encourage Muslims to be more discerning in acceptance of hadith.
And then there was Syed Ahmed Khan (1817–1898) "often considered the founder of the modernist movement within Islam, noted for his application of 'rational science' to the Quran and Hadith and his conclusion that the Hadith were not legally binding on Muslims. His student, Chiragh ‘Ali, went further, suggesting nearly all the Hadith were fabrications."
Here's a good chunk of a 2008 Guardian article that makes some important points worthy of our consideration:
Islam's refuseniks
A recent article in the New York Times refers to the "Muslim rebel sisters", Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji and aims to compare and contrast their respective campaigns against their "Muslim upbringing".
The tendency to lump together Muslim females in exile who have rather unsavoury views about Islam makes the voices of moderate females difficult to hear. From a position of relative ignorance when it comes to Islam in general, the west post-9/11 has had to familiarise itself with a religion, culture and ideology which so alarmingly appear to despise all that is western.
The post-9/11 crisis also created an audience which was eager to hear about the depravity and barbarity of the Muslim world but also not keen on subtlety. A quick, convenient, stereotypical picture was needed, and the "sisters" certainly paint that. There seems to be more of a platform for the angry disenchanted Muslim female. Male exiles from the faith do not seem to attract the same sympathetic open-armed treatment as the damsel in distress who has liberated herself from the shackles.
The most prominent of the "refuseniks", Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Irshad Manji and Wafa Sultan have caused a stir for allegedly being "brave enough" to criticise Islam and nail their colours to the west's mast of values. Each, in her own way, has either deliberately or inadvertently (but inevitably), placed herself in an antithetic position to the religion and the religion's followers; realistically, focusing on a lesbian, an atheist and a secularist "who does not believe in the supernatural" - all of them earnestly seeking to bring about reform in Islam - is a self-defeating exercise.
For me, as a Muslim female, the three women all represent false dawns. Wafa Sultan's debut on al-Jazeera , where she bleated hysterically about the irredeemable retardation of the Islamic faith, made her conservative Muslim opponent seem positively temperate. What is to be gained from this comprehensive assault other than an alienation of those whom you are allegedly trying to reform?
Hirsi Ali has made a spiritual decision to reject all religion but preoccupies herself solely with the "defeat of Islam" to the exclusion of other monotheistic religions.
Irshad Manji mocks and calls the chador a "condom", while claiming to have taken the harder path of changing Islam from within.
Even the titles of their seminal works sound confrontational and antagonistic: Infidel (Ali), The Trouble with Islam Today (Manji), and Sultan's upcoming The Escaped Prisoner; When God is a Monster. If one has a genuine desire to expose Islam's ills and reform the religion, that is not only legitimate but commendable, but in marketing oneself as a Crusader speaking on behalf of the mute Muslim millions (but to a predominantly Western audience and rarely engaging positively with the Muslim community) there is more than a hint of self-promoting opportunism.
The rest is here.
In captivity for a couple of years and then publicly having his head chopped off.
R.I.P. James Wright Foley.
I thank you for the risks you took, and I'm sorry that it cost you everything, plus the ultimate thing.
Well done R&B.
Lydia, culture and religion are closely entwined. People will argue, rightly I think, that female circumcision is not *Islam*... but it is the culture for a larger part of Islam in Africa that Islam in that region accommodates.
Every year there will be a big thing about how Christmas is pagan... and to a large degree it is, but Christianity has encompassed that.
To a large extent Christianity builds on Roman civilization. To a large extent Protestanism builds on a Northern European pre-existing culture. There's a reason other than chance, politics, and empire that Scandinavia is Lutheran... and not Calvinist... and not Catholic, even though Catholics evangelized that region. There is a reason Spain is not significantly Protestant to this day.
A person can argue if the religion influences the culture more than the culture influences the religion and one can argue that a religion, even Islam, does not require the cultural manifestations that exist. But bottom line, at present, they are inseparable.
When our military goes in to, for example, Iraq our guys have great rapport with the locals, but trying to get them to adopt our systems is very hard. We don't count status the same way they do. So we train someone, for another example, on a certain bit of machinery and expect them to share this knowledge. They don't. Why? Because the special knowledge gives them status.
Another example... in the US we have the thing called a "humble-brag". Why? Because public humility gives a person status here.
In the middle east there can be no such thing as a humble-brag because public humility means you're accepting lower status.
Now I don't give a flying you-know-what if there's a passage in the Koran somewhere explaining that the lowest or most lowly has highest status in heaven, because it's not in the culture.
I'm constantly amazed that the people most likely to portray themselves as the most cosmopolitan insist that everyone on the planet thinks the exact same way they do.
Lydia said...
[links to wikipedia]
[links to islam-usa.com]
[links to The Guardian]
You are making very poor choices for your sources of information, especially about this topic.
I live among Muslims, almost all Arab. I no longer care. I will not leave because I do NOT run. Ever. What is next?
Given what is happening in my close family yesterday and today, I really do not care. I will fuck up anyone who challenges me in any way. Period. I look forward to it.
AC245 - is your point that Lydia is citing to hard left and lefty- compromised sources as the basis for her thoughts on Islam?
VERY good point about culture and religion being inextricably intertwined, Synova, and kudos to Ritmo also for his thoughtful commentary here.
Amartel, my point is that those sources Lydia has cited are notoriously inaccurate and biased (often to the point of publishing outright propaganda), especially on controversial political subjects.
Now I don't give a flying you-know-what if there's a passage in the Koran somewhere explaining that the lowest or most lowly has highest status in heaven, because it's not in the culture.
I'm constantly amazed that the people most likely to portray themselves as the most cosmopolitan insist that everyone on the planet thinks the exact same way they do.
Very well said. Thanks for what preceded all of this, as well.
As for the Guardian, the fact that secularists and atheists have had a stronger history in Islam than attempted reformers, should tell you something. A number of states following the fall of the last caliphate (the Ottomans), were explicitly secular: Egypt, Syria, Iraq, etc. Whereas in the west, reformation preceded secularization.
I think this is due to Muslims intuitively recognizing the excessive power of their religion's intrinsic fundamentals over nearly all rational enterprises, including politics, etc.
But I do agree that reform of some sort would be better than neglecting it. And that's why I offered the most hard-core anti-civilization doctrines above as the most important steps to address.
Anonymous Muslim "others" are free to see it their own way, or differently, but until a doctrine is named, then they're just spinning their wheels.
As usual.
AC245,
The link to Wikipedia for the Muslim reformer Syed Ahmed Khan had nothing political about it; it was simply basic info on the guy. Would you prefer this biography.com link?
The link to the comparison of the 10 Commandments and the Koran on moral points went to a site kept by an American Muslim, a medical doctor. Here it says he was born in India and is a Sufi Muslim and is interested in interfaith dialog. Doesn't seem like a screaming lefty to me.
The Guardian piece is an opinion piece, not an informational piece.
Christianity and European culture once encompassed the idea of Judicial Combat.
The determination of guilt and *God's* judgement, was made by which person, or his Champion, won in a clash of arms. Want to know for *certain* who's side God is on? Have a battle and kill someone.
Interestingly, in one of the last trials by combat in France, IIRC, seemed to have worked. The young man defending his mother's honor against a slander by a rich (probably titled) man, managed to kill the professional champion who should have killed him easily because the hardened fighter spent too much time the night before celebrating his upcoming victory with drink and women.
Or perhaps the drink and women was because his employer had essentially asked him to kill an innocent boy... who knows.
The boy, of course, spent the entire night in prayer.
According to wikipedia this practice was based on pre-christian germanic culture.
So, I suppose, there you go.
So, religion and culture are closely intertwined. Who knew?
One of the things Irshad Manji used to harp on (not sure she does lately) was that the big problem with Islam was the freakin' Arab culture. (Manji herself is from a Pakistani family.)
Anyway, the point is that we really need to use some discernment and not lump all Muslims into the same cultural basket.
Lydia,
That was not the only wikipedia reference you made.
Again, you are making poor choices for your sources of information on this topic - at least the sources you are choosing to share to support your comments in this thread.
But they are of course your choices to make.
AC245...yep, I'm a nutcase. And you are one of those experts who blows a lot of smoke and little else. You critique without posing alternatives. No need to answer my questions, I already know the answers....e.g., zip. I found nothing wrong with Lydia's sources, but then again I live in an Muslim Arab community and I am pretty sure you don't. No matter...let's drop it. There's nothing to engage between us.
You know, AC245, you really shouldn't assume that someone you disagree with is a yahoo, know-nothing type in need of lecturing in the finer points of referencing.
With regard to Wikipedia, I use it only for basic information. And even then, I assess the sources it provides for that information before providing links.
But, hey, thanks for the permission to make my own choices.
Ah yes. Medical doctors are important religious scholars. The Islamic scholar Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri comes to mind.
The problem with Arab culture being the basis for the Qur'an is that the Saudis are doing their best right now to export that radical and puritanical original version everywhere else. Not just Indonesia and Pakistan but the U.S. and Eurabia. Of course, good luck getting non-Arabs to reform the thing. After all, it's not like all the shrines and history aren't in the Arabian peninsula or anything.
So easy to be breezily dismissive of anyone not properly certified and acclaimed important by...whomever, isn't it?
You do the man a disservice, in any case. Here's his bio, which was at the link I provided:
Dr. Shahid Athar, MD, FACP, FACE, a U.S. citizen, was born in Patna, India and educated at Patna University and the University of Karachi, Pakistan. He did his medical residency at Cook County Hospital, Chicago and his Endocrinology fellowship at Indiana University School of Medicine, where he is a Clinical Associate Professor. He is an Endocrinologist in private practice in Indianapolis, on staff at St.Vincent Hospital. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American College of Endocrinology. He is an author of 7 books (including Islamic Perspectives in Medicine, Health Concerns for Believers and Healing the Wounds of 9/11) and many published articles on medical and Islamic topics. He is a speaker on various topics including Islam, interfaith, spirituality and medical ethics. His affiliations include Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Islamic Medical Association of North America (past president and former chair, medical ethics) and International Association of Sufism. He serves on the board of advisors for Protection of Consciousness Project, an international human rights organization. For his interfaith activities, the Indianapolis Medical Society in 2002 gave him the Gov. Otis Bowen Award for Community Service. He earned the St.Vincent Hospital Internal Medicine Residency Dept. “Teacher of the Year” award for 2001 and 2007, and the St. Vincent Distinguished Physician award in 2009. American College of Physicians (Indiana chapter) in 2007 gave him Laureate Physician award. In 2011, he earned the “Dr. Ahmed El-Kadi Award” for distinguished service to the Islamic Medical Association of North America.
You know, AC245, you really shouldn't assume that someone you disagree with is a yahoo, know-nothing type in need of lecturing in the finer points of referencing.
I think above all, you're a wishful thinker. As far as knowledge goes, you've looked up and into a few things, but still haven't looked into the issue of doctrine. Doctrine is key.
I also think it's probably easier for Christians of reformed branches to understand how reformations work than those of more preservative branches. I guess that in that case, it makes it more likely that the non-Arabian branches would be doing the reforming, but there seems to be so much fear and authoritarianism in Islam that I don't see them doing it. Maybe if the Saudis weren't as strong as they are, but they are.
I can't remember which video I saw lately that recalled the strength of the Saudi clerisy in the ulemma. But it had to do with their questioning whether it would be Muslim-kosher to launch a satellite. The scholars thought about it and said, no, due to the fact that Muhammad didn't have satellites.
They scholars went to the parking lot to find their Mercedeses etc. removed and replaced by camels. The Saudis told them that they wouldn't be needing them, seeing as how Muhammad got by without combustion engines.
I suppose that led to their changing the ruling.
If the Saudis weren't so influential in so many ways I doubt there would be as much cooperation between them and the Israelis now.
You do the issue of what is meant by the word "doctrine" a disservice? Does your faith have no doctrines? Why do you persist in pretending that doctrine is not the issue?
Unless the man's name has a credential alongside it that has to do with permitting him to issue fatwas, then all those cell biology papers are useless. Lol, I have cell biology publications! Hahaha. Seriously, the guy needs to be authorized to issue fatwas or some such credential and all else is meaningless. Perhaps his "ideas" can percolate up through to the fatwa issuers, but until then, this is all so moot as to make me wonder what the point is in even addressing it.
Actually, I've met Dr. Athar.
Seriously. He was in my yoga class.
I invited him over for some jasmine rice and we watched clips of Deepak Chopra talking about how quantum mechanics as they reverberate through our cellular-spiritual identities proves definitively that Islam has no persistently violent doctrines in need of changing.
You are a hoot. "Interfaith" clubs. Ok, now I've heard everything. Let's get him together with our new age group. Fantastic. Lol.
Yep. And he's into Sufism. ISIS had better watch out. They're really interested in Sufism.
Seriously, they do the whirling dervish dance with Kalashnikovs.
Lydia, if nothing else, you are giving me a huge and well-needed laugh tonight! ;-)
I say we parachute 20 Sufi Whirling Dervishes into Northern Iraq and that'll sort ISIS out.
You have a tendency to go off on tangents of your own devising.
I said nothing about him being a leader or reformer. I had linked to him for that comparison of the 10 Commandments and the Koran, nothing more.
I'm going on tangents because they're the most entertaining way for me to distract myself from your stubborn refusal to accept the role of doctrine in defining and/or allowing change in a faith.
Doctrine changers need religious credentials. His musings are fanciful, but not useful. Unless we care more for speculation. But to me, the reality of what prompts the most fervent Muslims to act on their principles of faith is what matters.
Until then, me and you and Dr. Athar can do all the whirling dervish dances we want to. But there are more serious issues at hand.
Lydia:
Watch the video here
These kids don't give a fuck about doctors and Sufis.
It's way too late for them to be reached by anyone but those with the credentials and clout to promulgate authoritative doctrine. But that's still the only legitimate way that any of this will be changed.
Re my "wishful thinking": August 19 -- Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti denounces Iraq's Islamic State group
Political. "Denounces group". Doctrine is what needs to be denounced/changed.
Of course they were going to denounce them. Again, as I said, it's what the Saudi royal family needed to be done. No surprise at all. Again, that's political not theological. Theology is what needs to change.
No to denouncement. But yes to reinterpretation and reform. Christians have never denounced the unsavory parts of the Old Testament. It's been reinterpretation all the way. How can we ask more of Muslims?
You know, AC245, you really shouldn't assume that someone you disagree with is a yahoo, know-nothing type in need of lecturing in the finer points of referencing.
I did not make any assumptions about you. I pointed out that you made poor choices of sources to cite in support of your comments.
So easy to be breezily dismissive of anyone not properly certified and acclaimed important by...whomever, isn't it?
You do the man a disservice, in any case. Here's his bio, which was at the link I provided:
(hagiography snipped)
Also at that link is a FAQ which includes these sorts of questions and answers:
17. What is the Shari'ah?
The Shari'ah is the comprehensive Muslim law derived form two sources: the Qur'an and the Sunnah-the Traditions of Prophet Muhammad. It covers every aspect of individual and collective living. The purpose of Islamic laws are protection of the individual's fundamental rights to include right to life, property, political and religious freedom and safeguarding the rights of women and minorities. The low crime rate in Muslim societies is due to the application of the Islamic laws.
Laughable propaganda.
You can of course proffer these sorts of sources in support of your arguments if you choose, but you make yourself look foolish by doing so.
It wasn't just reinterpretation, though? Are you Catholic? I don't want to offend you, but it was the Protestant reformation that severed the political authority of Rome from the worldly authority of every flesh-and-blood king, corrupt or kind. That's what needed to occur. Reinterpretation occurred later, but preventing a pope from being able to bless this war and corral troops and states to repulse that country was part of what made Europe so bloody. From then on, enlightenment, democracy, freedom and peace. But being able to take or leave the stipulations of a political theocrat first is what made that possible.
From then on, anyone can interpret/"reinterpret" whatever they want in whatever way they want.
The Old Testament isn't only warlike, but Jews developed doctrines while under Roman occupation that served much of the cultural purpose of the New Testament that came about in that same era and place.
Whether the Qur'an can ever be a force for more good than bad is unknown. I'm doubtful. But doctrine is still the issue. I gave you three of them: Taqiyya, jihad, and Dar al Islam/Dar al Harb. Therein lie the problems. You must learn what Islamic doctrine consists of to understand this. (Don't worry, it's not all that complicated. It can probably be done in a few days).
Until then, what you are saying is that Christians only needed to reinterpret the idea that killing infidels (deemed to be so by a pope) wasn't nice. No, they needed more authoritative to get them going along on that path. And it still took a very, very long time.
You're forgetting history. The popes had a long history of denouncing whomever was not on the side of the armies he was allied with at the time.
Such it is with the Saudi state and religious community.
You are confusing some things here.
Islam has not kept up with the times, but the Koran did one hell of a lot to improve the lives of women at the time it was written. Like forbidding burying little girls alive. And declaring that men and women are equal before God and giving women inheritance, property, social, and marriage rights.
So laugh away at the ill-informed, propaganda-spewing doctor who believes his religion has been a force for good.
I'm glad you're so impressed with the trumpeting of doctrines that supposedly did so much for the 7th century nearly a thousand and a half years after they were surpassed.
Go ahead and convert if you think it's so wonderful. Just make sure you ask why it's an improvement over burying girls alive to do this.
Someone is really much more enamored with a past fantasy than with a present day reality. I guess daydreams are powerful things in your life. So this makes sense.
You make up your own present-day reality. Yes, history must be better.
"Anyway, the point is that we really need to use some discernment and not lump all Muslims into the same cultural basket."
Anyway, the point is that anyone actually having a conversation about it doesn't do that. But then they have to deal with someone insisting that they go through a specific de-lumping ceremony so that their thoughts can be purified.
Conversations happen in a context. Similar but completely unrelated example... talk about the Historic span of the Wild West and say something like... "Do you realize that such-and-such a western city didn't exist before 1960? There was no one there." And then someone derails the conversation because they want you to have specifically explained that *of course* there were Native Americans in the area from time to time and you've sinned somehow by neglecting to point that out, as if you *actually think* that there were no people or that indigenous peoples aren't actually people.
What is the point? Does someone go... Oh Em Gee... I had no idea there were humans on the North American Continent before Europeans and Africans! I learned something new today! No, they don't. They become annoyed by having been insulted when all they were doing was having a conversation within a particular context.
Bottom line, *the point is*, that ISIS militants believe they are speaking for a religion and ISIS militants will not be swayed by statements that God is not on their side when they do bad things when that is not followed up by *our* dominance. They have the proof of God's will.
Lydia...Thank you for your cognizant outlook....even without shedding blood in the land, in a personal way, you seem to get it. Sadly, I doubt many of us get it as well as you do. My attitude is vigorously aggressive, and that is the fount of the grief to come. I wish it were not so, but wishes are simply dreams.
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