Moderate Islam has also been raped, now “moderate” means people who reject the Quran like those loons from Muslims Against Sharia. Of course they get tons of exposure because they’re exactly what the right-wingers want. Sometimes we just have to force ourselves to fight back, no matter how many enemies we gain in the process.

If Muslims would massively protest the violence and demand that the heads of all eight schools of fiqh disavow violent jihad, there would be **NO** so-called right-wing blogs at all. We would be able to leave this problem in your hands and get to solving other problems that are urgent.

After all, what is hate?

Is it being angry that people who have the power to stop debased violence in the name of Allah (I do not even remotely think Allah approves)?

Or is it declaring war on people of other religions, beheading other Muslims who don’t agree, stoning women, amputating limbs of petty thieves, honoring killings, bombing markets full of women and children?

The sad thing is that Islam DESERVES to be saved as a religion. It is a beautiful religion in its core transcendental verses. It is one nasty religion when it’s run from its often-spurious hadith — largely invented by warlords to justify their own whims — and the Medinan verses, which should be taken in historical context, not used as an excuse for bloodlust and domination.

There is no generation of Muslims in history that has so failed Islam as this one. But if you decide to grow a spine and take care of the problem inside the religion instead of focusing on critics who have had to take up the problem because you will not, you will find that the criticism ceases immediately and that you win the respect of the world. At this point, however, you do not deserve the respect of the world. You don’t deserve Allah’s respect, either.

And I think if you look more closely you will find that the opposition to shari’a is coming from the fact it has been shaped to give maximum control to men and discriminates against minorities. That is not rape. That is an attempt to take Islam back to its roots (Allah and his Prophet), not leave it in the hands of power-mongers.

What is really happening is that anybody who tells the truth sees it branded “hate speech” or blasphemy. If the person is a Muslim, often an accusation of apostasy follows, and in some places that’s a death sentence.

The people destroying Islam (and it is being destroyed) are the people who are handing it over to cults that bear nearly no resemblance to original Islam and are basically foci of desert tribalist customs and “reformations” (Wahhabism and Talibanism) that developed VERY late in the history of islam.

Take it back. Rid yourselves of these people and let Islam shine its light again.

Yeshar koach Esra’a, I agree with every word you said. It’s sad that the right wing is constantly looking for Islamic “defectors” to justify their Islamophobic agenda. But I should say that this goes both ways. I and many other Jews feel that Jewish antisemites (Norman Finkelstein, Tony Judt, Ilan Pepe, etc.) are given way too much of a voice the Arab press, as if only to delegitimize the Zionist cause and support an anti-Israel political agenda. To me, both types of self-haters are discredited. What do you think?

At times love seems very weak compared to the devastating ruin caused by hate. Yet all religions teach us that love is ultimately more powerful. And anyway, weak or powerful it’s the only way to go if we do not want to be infected with hate ourselves. Persevere.

Is a person a “defector” if they simply have a different opinion than you do? This is just short of saying they’re an apostate.

Earlier this week at Tufts University Daniel Pipes spoke and took questions after. It was actually very mild as he is the major proponent of the theory that “Radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam (as it exists right now) is the solution.” The problem is … who has the tiller of this ship right now? Right now it’s the radicals who are steering Islam. We’d just like you to take your power back.

The Muslims in this crowd were VERY respectful and carried on a good dialogue. The Leftists were disruptive and rude (as per usual).

One fellow got up at the end, and he talked about the social repression even of men in Saudi Arabia, and then he talked about fighting slavery in Mauritania and how Islamic leaders there had supported it. You may not know, but Mauritania was the last nation on earth to outlaw slavery — in early September of THIS YEAR — and some of this man’s family had been taken as slaves. So, he said, he quite understood the why Americans were concerned about Islam — but at the same time he was very offput by some of the screed he hears. I was right with him on this. Some of it (Coulter, for example, again) is done, as was said above, to be shocking or get attention or is … in fact … hateful, and bearing the same religious supremacist thinking that we complain about with radical Islam. Either there is “no compulsion in religion” or there’s not, and that applies to everybody, not just Muslims.

He really transformed the whole hall. (I think somebody from Gracen Intelligence is going to write an article about this.) His honesty was striking, and coming from a man who had risked his life to end slavery of Muslim people in Mauritania, it was profoundly moving.

The seminar ended, and he was immediately mobbed by a group of Muslims excoriating him — absolutely SCATHING him — for saying anything “un-nice” about islam in front of non-Muslims. The principle culprit in this was a very haughty, snobbish, control-freak of an adolescent who acted as if he had the power of Khomeini and the authority, too. He was disgusting.

And this man calmly listened to him and simply refused to back down. And I grew even more respectful of him because he had refused to be ordered back into herd mentality by people interested more in what happens to their “look good” than what happens to Muslims all over the world who are being forced out of the freedom of conscience given to them by Islam, as in NO OTHER RELIGION IN THE WORLD, and squandered and thrown away by Muslims today in an act of face-time prissiness for the cameras.

When Muslims think that defending their religion is refusing to carrying a blind person in a cab because he has a seeing eye dog or calling people hateful when they express concern for what the WORST among Muslims are doing, then there may be a phenomenon going on here that is well known in forensic psychology.

It is the transference of the IDENTIFICATION of the enemy from the real bad guys to people that it is safer to fight. The simple truth is that the safest to be when there is a real vicious tyrant about is RIGHT NEXT TO THEM. Preferably a little behind them where they don’t look straight at you, but definitely, definitely not in any position you can be said to oppose them. Because if you do, you’re dead, and your family is dead.

The evening of 9/11 I went to what I’ll call “The Alexandria Market” in a city in the South. I hung out there all the time because the food was good and the tea was the best ever made in North America. I went there because I knew my friends were going to have a hard time dealing with it. In fact, by the time I got there they were variously angry or crying that some people said that Muslims had done it. They were in shock that anybody could think this was true.

Everybody had this opinion except for my old Egyptian friend Ahmed, who was crying in the back of the story, inconsolable. “This is what we came to America to get away from, and now it is here.” He was very clear about who this was and what they were about. He also knew that the other people in the shop had NO CLUE about what was going on and what was coming.

Within two weeks, the mosque next door had had a visit from a Wahhabi imam. Within two months the market had fired all its female employees, and all the women of the mosque had been forced into cover.

My Moroccan friend Rusia, a young mother of 22 with a husband in his 40s whom she loved incredibly deeply, took the veil, she said, because the Wahhabi imam had threatened her husband if she did not. The tension in the Muslim community was absolutely incredible. On one side they had an American population, largely unaware of them previously so quiet had they been, now seeing them as a potential enemies. It was so bad that the electicity company wouldn’t put in a new feed line and the county inspectors wouldn’t finish the inspection for the dining room. So I put on my 4-inch Prada pumps, a Michel Kors black suit, grabbed a brief case and went down to the County Commissioner and filed a complaint myself. Then I went to the inspectors’ office and demanded that the inspection be finished, which it was, by 5 p.m. the same afternoon. So I know all about how this happens and how shaming and angering it is. I was furious, and it wasn’t even my shop.

BUT … the other side of this is what’s reared its ugly head on this thread today. It’s the forcing of a herd mentality in which dissent is not allowed. And because the Wahhabis are monied and threatening the Islamic community is being driven more and more into silence about things they know they should change, and they are giving their power away more and more, while TRANSFERING the identification of the enemy to Americans they know will defend their freedoms even while they’re being blamed for what is going on.

Now, no question, Bush is an idiot and Cheney is practically the anti-Christ. But the truth is also that the Shi’a community in the United States lobbied the US government for 25 years to go into Iraq and take out Saddam, and they made all kinds of promises about how the Shi’a would be fair, about how there would be no retribution, about how there would be peace and gratitude. We weren’t there TWO WEEKS before Al Sadr branded us “occupiers”, a term that in Iraq means much more than it would elsewhere.

Add to that the Sunni invitation to Al Qaeda, which they are now sorry they did. Al Qaeda came in and immediately began marrying high into the tribal leadership in all the Sunni groups in Iraq. By the time anybody figured out what was going on, they owned most of the women of the powerful families of Sunni Iraq. The backlash came when an Al Qaeda strongman demanded the daughter of one of the tribal leaders. She pleaded her father NOT to marry her to this man (despite the fact she is supposed to rights of marriage in Islam, in fact she did not), and her father heard her. He refused to give her to this man, and this terrorist then killed him, the daughter, and every other member of her family. And he didn’t just kill them. There was rape of all the women, amputation of some of the children’s hands and feet before they died, castration of some of the men before they died. The victims were burned and stabbed and tortured to death as a message to other Iraqi Sunnis that Al Qaeda would take any woman they wanted. The obvious attempt here is for Al Qaeda operatives to marry into the top power levels of all the Sunni tribes. In fact, they were subjugating them, taking wealth and power from everyone.

The tribes revolted. Since then they have killed more than a dozen tribal leaders, including Sheikh Maawia Naji Jebara, the man who would have made a GREAT president of Iraq.

Now, are the Sunnis wrong anti-Islamic in criticizing Al Qaeda? No, they’re not. They are also not treasonous toward Islam for publicly doing so.

Brave Muslims who stand up are NOT anti-Islamic or doing something wrong. They are brave, and they are the ones who will save Islam.

Just a reminder: The Prophet clearly stated that the destruction of Islam would come out of the Nejd.

As one said above, SMTH to think about.

Esra …

Stop whining. My complaint is with American Muslims who sit on their fat behinds while the people overseas stand up at the risk of their lives to save the Sunni community in Iraq from Al Qaeda, the Baha’i in Iran from the mullahs, etc. The former Grand Mufti of Marseilles has been incredibly brave. The Islamic feminists like Konca Kuris, who was tortured (they filmed it) for 38 days before she was killed by Turkish Hibzollah, stand up.

But American Muslims argue about whether they can get special footbaths in some university and strike airport taxi stands if somebody gets in a cab with a sealed bottle of alcohol and threaten to sue if somebody comes through a Kmart checkstand with a sealed package of pork chops.

Meanwhile, when six imams trigger 87% of all the terrorist-alert functions on an aircraft and are ejected at the request of a MUSLIM PASSENGER WHO HEARS THEM TALKING ABOUT 9/11 IN GLOWING TERMS (ALLAHU AKBAR!), US Air, TSA, and the passengers on the plane get sued!

Self-pity won’t get it. But self-pity disappears when you begin to deal with real problems.

I have only the greatest admiration for Muslims in other parts of the world who stand their ground against this assault on their freedom and on their faith.

I have little sympathy with Muslims who prefer to claim they are being ever-so done wrong and discriminated against when they will NOT stand up against their real enemy, and instead brand as hate speech the concerns of those who are at once the STATED TARGETS OF RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISTS and yet provide a safe haven for Muslims fleeing terrorist states at a rate of a million a month.

At first I thought that the saving of Islam would come from American Muslims. Now I am not sure, as many Muslims scholars are not sure, that Islam will survive the 21st century. The great danger, of course, is that some terrorist will be successful in detonated a chemical, biological or nuclear device in a Western country. If, or rather when, that happens, Muslim immigration to the West will cease entirely, everybody who doesn’t have residency will be deported, and trade will stop with all countries that support or tolerate hate-preaching and incitement to violence in their mosques and medrassas.

And, of course, there is the growing impetus in the West toward the creation of new energy sources. The radioflame technology is the most promising. Sonoluminescence isn’t bad. Cold fusion is unlikely. But if, tomorrow, American cars became plug-ins rather than internal combustion engines, it would be all over for Saudi Arabia.

So, while people complain about Bush (me, too), know this: If he did to the Muslim world what he could do by destroying the oil industry, there would be a worldwide depression from which America would recover, but the Muslim world would not. And that is coming if Islam doesn’t get itself straightened out.

And we can’t do that for you. We’d do it if we could. But we can’t, because Islam can only be saved from inside itself. There IS no solution that can be imposed from without, despite the stupidity of some foreign policy wonks to believe there is.

And while you are there feeling sorry for yourself, know this: I have been fighting for Islam since the day of 9/11, and I had one friend say to me the other day: Why don’t you get sick of doing more for Islam than the Muslims do? And I said, “Because it is beautiful and it is worth saving.”

But it won’t get saved by me. I’m an American. I can’t save it.

But you can.

Esra …

Yes, I’ve read it. There are plenty of examples of brave Muslims saving Islam. But they’re not the American Muslims who bitch about cabs and footbaths.

American Muslims are safe, free, strong, powerful and rich. And American Islam is the only Islam in the world other than Saudi Arabia which is 80% dominated by Wahhabi imams, a calcalation of the House of Saud.

You need to think about this: The age of oil will end. When it does it will not be safe for the House of Saud, which has bled the country of the most unimaginable wealth to fall into the hands of a small group of people in the history of the world.

They have been working to subsume the American Muslim community for at least 35 years so that they can COME HERE WHEN ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE and be safe and run the Islamic community in the United States when that happens.

Start with the mosques. Rid yourselves of the Pakistani and Saudi imams who tell you to stay quiet and “defend” Islam by opportunistically pressing for special treatment (a Jew who refused to check pork chops at KMart would be fired for it) and push Americans with screed about “hate speech” and fake “discrimination”. I’m right with you on the real stuff and will defend you until I drop dead. But don’t play games with it. ALWAYS in this country the people really discriminated against are blacks, and hate crimes against blacks are 280 times those against Jews, the next most discriminated-against group, and 320 times those against Muslims. The total number of REAL acts of discrimination against Muslims.

For 2005, the last year that records are available, the FBI figures are these. MOST of the hate crimes in this country are against blacks and have a racial basis. I’m just going to give the figures for religious basis here, however, since Islam is not a race (therefore claims are racism are just stupid and spurious).

SOURCE: FBI

Religious Bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,314 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

* 68.5 percent were anti-Jewish.
* 11.1 percent were anti-Islamic.
* 7.8 percent were anti-other (unspecified) religion.
* 4.6 percent were anti-Catholic.
* 4.4 percent were anti-Protestant.
* 3.2 percent were anti-multiple religions, (i.e., groups of individuals of varying religions).
* 0.4 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism.

Now, look closely. The total number of hate crimes for ALL categories is 1,314. Of those, 900 were against Jews. There were 146 against Muslims. This is in a country of 300 million people.

In Thailand last year, Muslims killed almost 1,000 Buddhists. In Baghdad last year, the death toll of all Iraqi citizens was 16,791. Of those, 16,566 were killed in Muslim-on-Muslim violence.

That Islamic terrorists could threaten Americans with death, the destruction of their culture, law suits, name-calling, and the loss of their civil rights — while American Muslims stay silent or use the situation to demand rights no Christian or Jew could POSSIBLY get — and there are just 146 crimes against Muslims that could classify as a hate crime (900 for Jews), I would have to say that Americans have bent over backwards trying to be fair.

However, being fair does not include giving up OUR free speech rights to talk about REAL problems, and it is disingenous and manipulation of Muslims to brand hate speech everything said in defense not only of our culture but of true Islamic culture worldwide. It’s ridiculous and insulting.

I know many, many non-Muslims who stood up for the good in Islam from the beginning. Many, many of them have left now. The ranks of non-Muslims willing to tolerate this crap is shrinking fast. They watch daily terrorist attacks worldwide — attacks that can’t even remotely be pinned on American foreign policy — attacks in Indonesia, Thailand, Nigeria, Sudan, and against the citizens of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, and other Muslim countries — and they watch American Muslims play games instead of doing something about the problem.

All over the world Muslims are fleeing the fires of radicals that are burning down their religion and torturing and killing their poeple, and American Muslims file malicious lawsuits over their “civil rights” when their civil rights haven’t been violated by ANYBODY — and while the 146 hate crimes against Muslims in this country are DECRIED BY MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WHO STAND UP FOR MUSLIMS AND REFUSE TO HAVE THEM THREATENED OR HARMED OR EVEN TO HAVE THEIR FEELINGS HURT.

All the while knowing there are sleeper cells run right out of American mosques.

You need to a have thought for the goodness of the people who have taken you among them and have loved and defended you as their own, and will continue to do so.

What you really need to be focused on now is the that fact that your religion is dying from the cancer within it, and you guys won’t even go get homeopathy for it, much less the chemotherapy it’ll probably require.

I think Izetbegovic said it best: It will take 1,000 years for Islam to live down that it has done in the last 35. And that if you get busy now.

In fact, most of the Muslims in this world have long since stopped living according the violent dictates of the eight mahdhabs (the eight was created just 4 years ago), and have lived a peaceful Islam that is gently responsive to modernization in a way that is completely healthy and incredibly and beautifully spiritually done.

In fact, those people are living what Sinclair calls “The Ninth Mahdhab”. It is now the responsibility of Muslims to create that mahdhab to GIVE MUSLIMS SOME PLACE TO GO THAT REALLY REFLECTS THEIR BELIEFS.

I would suggest you all start with the former Mufti of Marseilles. Or Gulen. Or the many others who have given you the ideological framework from which to build the Islam that can become the most beautiful religion the people of Earth have ever known.

I love you. I will continue to support you. But I will never stop the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Allah bless and keep you.

Esra, I’m real low on herd mentality. You’re in no position to tell anybody to “get with the program.” See, this is the problem. If somebody talks about something you don’t want to talk about, they’re told to “get with the program.” This kind of restriction of what Muslims and those who love them talk about it is not good for the resolution of the problem.

But, I’ve clearly had a lot to say, and will leave it to you now. Thank you for listening. And what I DEEPLY appreciate is what I find on this forum 99.9% of the time. I think you guys are great, and you do NOT simply censor everything you don’t particularly like. I think you’re brave and beautiful.

Read Fouad Ajami’s The Arab Predicament.

Esra … you wrote:

That’s why we don’t seek them out and ask for help. They are safe, rich and powerful, they simply don’t care. Many of them probably aren’t religious at all (at least here in the Arab world, the rich are rarely amongst the religious.)

That makes me so sad. I apologize. I’ve gone off on my own tangent, and perhaps I shouldn’t have done that. You can’t possibly imagine how brave I think Muslims overseas standing up against this problem really are. I think knowing how brave they are and have been makes me all the more shocked that American Muslims have taken the self-centered tack they’ve taken. It just shocks me. So I will leave this discussion now and thank you for your responses and your time.

Thank you, too, Esra’a.

I read you guys all the time, and I think you are AMAZING and FANTASTIC.

Isra’a,

As an American Muslim, I am insulted at the fact that you would say “They simply do not care”. You have your rights as a majority in a Muslim country while we struggle with breaking stereotyping. I personally have been explaining Islam at schools, Churches, Synagogues, Hindu temples etc, for 20 years, way before 9/11 and since I was a young girl in school. What I find is that Americans, who you say love those who hate Islam, are open and are willing to listen and even change their minds. I am yet to get ONE, only ONE Imam who would allow a non Muslim to explain his/her faith at a Masjid.

One of the issues that non Muslims have a problem with is why is it that we welcome Muslims, allow them to live freely and worship freely and give in to their demands for sensitivity and give them the right to preach about their faith, but the Muslim world will arrest and even kill those who they even suspect of doing the same? For Americans, it is hypocrisy, no matter what the Muslims say.

Ya Isra’a even the crazy right wind administration that we have, had opened its doors to Muslims and Islam and made it illegal to attack a Muslim (verbally or physically) just because they are Muslims but I read the news and watch TV and also visit of course, the Arab world. You want to talk about hate and eradicating hate? The amount of hate that is state sanctioned in the Arab and Muslim world against others, especially Jews, is not only appalling, it is the direct reason for the death of so many Palestinians, including members of my family. Yet, stupid, cheap, disgusting BUT harmless speech done by a small minority of nuts, offends everyone. Have you looked in a mirror and asked yourself; “Can I say that I do not hate any nation/faith/country/people etc, before I can tell others that it is wrong to hate us? Have you really looked at Islam (the way it is presented and taught) and asked yourself, would I follow this if I was not born into it? Did you see the petition that was launched against the Islamo-fascism week and are you aware that it is a Jewish website? Even though the Jews were the ones who launched an actual defense against Islam hate, did you read some of the comments by Muslims, including a dua, asking Allah to destroy all Jews (which was not even the topic for that petition)?

As a bit of background, I come from a Palestinian family. My mother was Catholic Palestinian from the original people who’ve been there since Jesus and my father was a so called Muslim. Because he was a so called, he didn’t practice and we grew up knowing very little about Islam and treating it as a culture. All my siblings remain “so called” and rightfully, hate it because they judge it by the people who practice it (again, so called) and by the well below intelligent and educated imams who are replacing the words of Allah in their teaching. I couldn’t make sense of their teaching, felt that I’m insulting my own intelligence to read about others from Islamic books, had enough of the same exact things repeated by different authors and refused to let a human, imam or not, to tell me what he believes Allah wants me to feel. I studied Islam as a way to give me a reason to leave it and not look back, planning to write about how vicious, anti women and anti humanity it is. However, I found that these ARE true traits of people, Muslims who really and truly insulted Islam and destroyed it by their damaging action, vs. words of non Muslims which causes no real damage to Islam.

I found Islam to be almost the opposite of the accepted practices and the mathematical manner of approaching doing the right thing (you do this and earn this many 7asanat) and I found that if I just allowed my conscious to lead, Allah will guide me to feel the right thing. I embraced the Quranic Islam, proudly wore my hijab and my faith is fully based on understanding and respect not blind faith but my experience led me to shun any means of tribalism and herd mentality. It earned me lots of critics (and some fans) from the Muslim community but I absolutely refuse to repeat what everyone says or believe something that I do not read about search and have 100% of its authenticity, even if it means that I’ll speak against my own. Islam taught me that unless the truth is as clear as the sun in my eyes, I can’t say it as a fact because that is bearing false witness; Haram!

Hate, my dear sister Isra’a, is a very “modern day Islamist” concept. Read your books. Ironically, Islam and Islamic in its true form is innocent of that. Therefore, before speaking, weight the damage done by the so called Islamic teaching and less than human Imams (some of them anyway) vs. the damage done by others who criticize Islam. For that matter, try to stand outside of being a Muslim and tell me, how, with all the hate and killing and justifications of it, can we really convince anyone that Islam is a religion of peace? You see, people like me speak against the accepted Islamic teaching and do not stand on the “Islam is peace” while hiding our heads in the sand to the actions of Muslims. We admit that bad Muslims exist like terrorist, hate mongers which includes imams who give hate filled khutba and dua such as May Allah destroy the enemies of Islam and break their mother’s hearts, those who treat women as 127th class at best, bashers of other faiths and nations, worshipers and creators of conspiracy theories etc… But when we say that they are bad but do not represent and may not even understand Islam and that they are wrong, we are seen as Anti Islam or those “who hates the faith and is outspoken about” as you say. Sorry my dear, Muslims, are just ordinary humans, nothing special and just like any ordinary humans they can be evil, bad, stupid, malicious and they can be good, upstanding, intelligent, caring etc… but I and so do many others who are trying to work with the Muslim and non Muslims to revive the real Islam and bury the sorry excuse for it, we refuse to become herds and tribal and to kill our perfect faith that was given in a perfect form from our creator to seek approval of the created so they won’t accuse us of hating our faith. For that, we take risks from both sides but regardless of what you believe and think, we do care much more than you can ever imagine.

Regardless, I agree with Meredith, you are great people here and the first time I actually see a website that has such an open and respectful discussion.

Thanks you
Salma

And Meredith, here’s some American Muslim bloggers who do exactly the same fucking thing that you are excessively PMS’ing about:

Here’s a blog post on extremist Muslims attacking this Muslim blogger

Another African-American Muslim convert who often speaks out against radical Muslims

Ah, after a fairly civilized conversation, we get Danial, with a foul mouth and obvious misogyny. So it’s PMS to suggest that American Muslims get off their butts and do something other than try to weasel one more TV interview and special consideration?

For your information, you will find me all over the internet taking out the likes of Tom Tancredo, absolutely scathing him for his comments. And at the time that the Phalanges attacked the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and killed hundreds — which happened when I was about 35 years old — I vigorously protested, sending letters of protest both to the Maronite hierarchy and the Vatican and speaking out against it in the churches which I attended. This lost me a great deal of business and many friends (I am Melkite Catholic), who said then what you are saying now: Don’t criticize us. Don’t ask us to do anything. Don’t say we have to stand against our own.

But that is exactly what I said: The only morality is standing against your own when they are doing wrong things.

And no, condemnation is not enough. It’s tissue in the wind. You have to take political and probably military action, and you will need to do that BEFORE you are completely overrun and destroyed. The West will not be taken. It will fight and it has the capacity to win. And it will slam the door on Muslims eventually. It’s only a matter of time. There will likely be civil war in Europe to settle the matter there, as there has been before.

My concern is not about the West. My concern is about whether Muslims continue to be free to make choices rather than have the most vicious, radical element rule them like they are slaves.

The point is that it is ALWAYS the case that the worst among us, whatever our religion, are the ones willing to do horrible things that the rest of us could never do. With regard to the radical Islamists, ask yourself this question:

If you expect me to condemn the Phalanges and stand up against them (two different actions), then I expect you to do the same.

And I did my part. I fought the Vatican about it, and I caught considerable hell about it.

Are you willing to fight the schools of figh that will NOT organize the mass of Muslims to reject it in home, mosque, medressa, and government?

And as far as PMS goes, I would remind you that whatever pain there is involved with that, the rate of crime worldwide is 97.8% men and 2.2% women. The state of anxiety or irrationality that women experience occasionally seems to be the status quo for men, who can’t wait to go to war. The nature of women is two-fold: they are basically very gentle, but they will not be quiet when they see wrong.

Please forward the name of the film you reference. I should very much like to promote it here as I am a television producer, among other things. Thank you.

BTW, Danial, I think the truth is we are going to have to work on both things at once — radical Islam and the unfairness of some.

My point here is that AMERICAN Muslims are way off track and really basically full of it. They do nothing but talk, don’t strongly back women’s rights, the end of slavery in African states, the disenfranchisement of women in African and Middle Eastern states, and the advancement of EXTREME shari’a all over the place. Instead, they play like they are ever-so, ever-so discriminated against, which is a despicable manipulation. See the facts above for that.

Interesting that you expect us to be perfect before we can say anything about you. You certainly aren’t perfect, but that doesn’t stop you from bringing up our faults.

You SHOULD bring up our faults. And we should bring up yours. After all, fair is fair. Right?

My problem with the way you guys act is that while you are playing silly little games, your religion is being destroyed from within. And we don’t have the means to stop that. Only you have those means, and you squander your resources and energies pretending you are the victims of us, when, in fact, we’re protecting you all over the place as well as holding in trust the freedoms you have in the West and are losing everywhere else.

Now, I think you should consider whether you would like my son to talk to YOUR mother as you have just talked to me.

In fact, my son spends most of his time defending Muslims and he would not think of telling some woman angry at the United States to go take some Midol. Days like this, I think my husband is lucky to have died before all this happened. Otherwise, he’d be so angry he’d have been just beside himself to see a woman spoken of in such a way.

there are numerous muslim fluff stories here, but I do admit news is mostly bad, whether it be about mexicans or teachers or muslims; good news/human interest stories are decreasing in popularity. and I never said they don’t exist, absolutes like that are unnecessary. there are neo-nazi’s in america but I wouldn’t call america friendly to neo-nazi’s. just like I’m sure there are rights activists in the ME. but who stops those rights activists? islam. islam destroys the women’s shelters in afghanistan, islamic rulings declare the bahai heretics and slaughter them. islamic sharia courts in malaysia steal the children of apostates. you are fighting against this, but you are fighting against the ISLAMIC rulings.

I am very happy to know there are people against this. but from my perspective those ppl are fighting islam. and the more islamic a country gets, the more likely it is to slaughter human rights.

all my opinions are personal opinions. I was unaware there were other options. and you can disagree/discard it all you like. but a quick look at the justification used against human rights/womens rights/gay rights groups in any country that considers itself islamic is….wait for it….islam.

maybe this is uncomfortable for you that ppl scream allah ackbar while calling for the oppression of women, the stoning of gays and denial of religious freedom to minorities. but it is a pervasive reality of the world we live in.

I hold no stereotypes against ppl. I do hold opinions against ideologies, conflating the two is disingenuous, and is one of the main reasons ppl are growing to hate muslims, because they can not hold an opinion about islam w/o muslims screaming at them.

I think what I’m running up again is the minority rule. are you denying the pervasive reality of islamic bigotry towards women and gays in the vast majority of muslim countries? or the denial of freedom of religion? most notably to apostates?

you want to argue from emotion, I want to argue from reality. reality is that islam is the #1 destroyer of human rights on the planet. its ideologies, its laws, its justifications are numero uno. and no pointing the blame at others, or talking about your exceptions changes that.

Also, in Texas sodomy is illegal, and men have been tried for it and jailed for it. But not stoned, at least not legally. But I do remember the teenage boy who was lashed to a fence and tortured to death. You’ll remember that, no, bob?

True, in many non-Muslim countries there are not LAWS against homosexuality. But NOT ALL.

In India, it’s a LIFE SENTENCE. Trididad and Tobago, Aruba, Belize, etc., give people up to 25 years for being gay.

Don’t have time to do more on this, but the situation for women, gays, etc. is not good in many places.

For a list of the laws re: homosexuality in the whole world and the sentences, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_laws_of_the_world

Bob, you know, rather than asking somebody else to provide information to them (making them your secretary cum research assistant) you could look it up yourself.

Esra’a re your last: Well said.

Meredith is absolutely correct. A great many Americans feel exactly that way but wouldn’t dare say it publicly for fear of the verbal bashing (and possible violence) that would follow.

Do you know what would make the West believe in and support the “moderate” Muslims? Action. Has there ever been a protest where people burned every copy of the “Elders of Zion” they could find, denouncing it as hate-promoting racism? Did the largest mosque in Sydney have its attendance drop to zero following the remarks of the “cat meat” Imam? Have there been protest rallies by the moderates of Lebanon demanding the return of the two Israeli soldiers? Have there been Fatwahs by American Imams that’s it’s okay to run a plastic wrapped package of bacon across the laser scanner in a supermarket, or to let a blind man’s dog into your cab?

Yes, there are many courageous individuals, including some authors on this site, but if the extremists are really only 0.1% of the Muslim population then the 99.9% ought go be able to drive them out. What the West wonders is: why is the huge moderate population so tolerant of those extremists they say are betraying Islam?

There are for too many posts for me to quote, so I’ll just make a big one.

Firstly, attacking Christianity or any other religion in defense of Islam is irresponsible. Their wrong does not make yours right. But for those insisting on bringing Christianity into this. 1. Crusades, Inquisitions, etc- none of these events can be justified through scripture. These atrocities were perpetrated by men with their own agenda, not God’s. And committed by the RCC who i believe are in many respects similar to Islam(but we will not get into that).2. All the verses quoted from the Bible trying to reveal it’s violent nature are all taken out of context. All of those verses from the Old testament pertained to a certain time, place, and territory(Canaan).

Now, for Islam. Yes, there are passages in the Qur’an that indicate a peaceful nature or a violent one. Passages in the Second surah for example seem to suggest war only if attacked first. While the ninth and fifth surahs speak of Muslims taking the offensive and killing infidels where they find them. So here is where a very important conecpt comes in- abrogation. Basically the newer verses override the conflicting prior verses. Chronologically the Fifth and ninth Surah were the very last revealed, therefore replacing the seemingly defensive verses with offensive ones.

Another key point is Islam’s history. Is wasn’t the Meccan’s who drew blood first, it was the Muslims. Right after they migrated to Medina they began raiding local Meccan caravans. Muhammad participated in 75 raids and battles, which of only two were defensive.

I’ve read the koran, its often vile, sometimes nice. the hadith are worse. and its culminated into absolute illiberal horror in the schools of sharia. non-muslims get this a lot though. this “you are being insensitive and lied to by the evil media.” I find it all crap. islam and sharia are out in the open ACROSS THE GLOBE as some of the worst abusers of human rights.

I noticed another thing, muslim “inter-faith” days that always get pushed down our throats in the west, aren’t really inter-faith at all. they are muslim propaganda days. which again sours people even more.

And Dawoud …

I know it is painful to hear criticism of one’s religion. My point is that if the criticism isn’t heard and taken seriously while there is still time, the good Muslims of this world will be overtaken and cruelly treated by the bad guys. It’s happening everywhere already. In the last 6 years alone, more than 30,000 Muslims have been killed by other Muslims (and this is outside Iraq where the Muslim-on-Muslim violence is worst). Please see the work of Dr. Jerrold Post on the establishment of theocratic societies (Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the kind Al Qaeda is planning). His work explains why NO MATTER WHAT THE RELIGION, theocratic states MUST become ever more conservative, why they must find or invent an enemy, why in the end they torture the entire citizenry.

Before the advent of the 20th century, there was, according to Dr. Houchang Chehabi, a professor in some of my graduate studies at Harvard, no state other than Saudi Arabia that EVER had sharia as its only form of law, not even for Muslims.

If shari’a is instituting anywhere as the only form of law, you get … Saudi Arabia: repressive, with a conversion to Christianity carrying the DEATH PENALTY. How’s that for “there shall be no compulsion in religion”? It’s a COMPLETE distortion of the spiritual intent of Islam.

So, fear the purely theocratic state. Fear also the purely ethnic state for roughly the same reason, but with a slightly different face.

In Nazi Germany we got both: They created a religion based on ethnicity, invented an enemy, and then made war on the world.

Osama is not far behind on this, though he can’t manage the ethnicity part as Islam is not a racial or ethnic religion, but the first religion in the world to mark the equality of the races and the genders. It’s an almost unimaginable miracle in the time in history in which it comes. It is the only religion to make part of its recipe of giving the freeing of slaves, those poor souls singled out as one of the five recipients of zakat.

Got to go.

Thank you all for the conversation. You’re all magnificent, you know.

Dawoud …

I’m not going to entertain your bashing any longer. If the efforts I have made to understand Islam aren’t good enough for you (and, in fact, there is great specificity in what I have said), then guess what? I don’t CARE if it’s not good enough for you.

The bottom line is this: ANYBODY WHO HAS BEEN MADE A TARGET OF AL QAEDA, WHICH HAVE VERSES OF THE QUR’AN SHOVED DOWN THEIR THROATS TO JUSTIFY THE SLAUGHTER, HAS **** EVERY RIGHT **** TO QUESTION ISLAM AND **** EVERY RIGHT **** TO DEMAND SOME ATTENTION FROM MUSLIMS TO THE PROBLEM, THE REAL PROBLEM, NOT THE MADE-UP LITTLE “I’M SO INSULTED” RANTS WE GET HERE IN THE UNITED STATES.

I have made it enormously clear that I greatly admire Islam and greatly support Muslims. If you knew how much time I spent defending Islam and Muslims you’d be shocked.

Meanwhile, NOBODY ON THIS PLANET has to go become an expert on Islam to suit you. And nobody has to become an expert to know that when verses of the Qur’an are used to call for war against them SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG SOMEWHERE.

As evidence I give you the following. Look at the Qur’anic quotes here, and then tell me I have to become an Islamic scholar or ask your permission to comment.

COME TO JIHAD: A SPEECH TO THE PEOPLE OF PAKISTAN

All praise is due to Allah, we praise him and seek his aid and forgiveness, and we seek refuge in Allah from the evil in ourselves and from our bad deeds. He whom Allah guides cannot lead astray, and he who is led astray cannot be guided. I bear witness that there is no God other than Allah alone, without partners and I bear witness that Muhammad is his slave and messenger.

To proceed:

To My Muslim Brothers In Pakistan:

Allah the Most High says:

“O prophet! Strive hard against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be harsh against them. Their abode is hell, and an evil destination it is.” Quran 9:73

And the messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, says, “There is no one who abandons a Muslim in a place where his honor is violated and his sanctity is infringed upon except that Allah, the most high abandons him in a place in which he would like his aid. And there is no one who aids a Muslim in a place where his honor is violated and his sanctity is infringed upon except that Allah aids him in a place in which he would like his aid.”(Narrated by Ahmed)

Pervez’s invasion of Lal Masjid in city of Islam, Islamabad, is a bad event similar to the crime of the Hindus in their invasion and destruction of the Babri Masjid. And this event has crucial and significant connotations, most important of which are:

First, this event demonstrated Musharraf’s insistence on continuing his loyalty, submissiveness and aid to America against the Muslims, and this is one of ten nullifiers of Islam as the people of knowledge have determined and makes armed rebellion against him and removing him obligatory.

Allah the Most High says:

“O you who believe! Take not the Jews and Christians for your friends and protectors: they are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily Allah guides not a people unjust.” Quran 5:51

And his statement “And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them” means that he is one of them in kufr (unbelief), as the people of tafseer (explanation) have said. This ruling was the one given and confirmed by Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, may Allah have mercy on him, in his famous fatwa following the raids on New York, and among the things he said: “If any ruler of an Islamic state provides aid to an infidel state in its aggression against the Islamic states, it is the legal obligation of the Muslims to remove him from power and consider him to be legally a traitor to Islam and Muslims.”

People Of Islam In Pakistan:

Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, may Allah have mercy on him, discharged a great duty which was upon him and declared the word of truth and didn’t care about the anger of the creation. He endangered himself and his wealth and made clear the ruling of Allah regarding Pervez that he is a traitor to Islam and Muslims and must be removed. This fatwa enraged Pervez and enraged his masters in America, and it is my opinion that the murder of the Mufti, may Allah have mercy on him, was at their hands. And Mufti Nizzamuddin Shamzai died without having replaced the word of truth with falsehood, in contrast to what many of the ‘Ulema of vice’ do. And the obligation on us remains and we have been extremely late in carrying it out, six years having passed, so we should make up for lost time. May Allah forgive me as well as you.

Second, the government showing Maulana Ab al-aziz Ghazi in women’s clothing in the media is clear evidence of the extent of the great hostility, hatred and contempt held by Pervez and his government towards Islam and its sincere ‘Ulema, and that is greater kufr which takes one out of Islam.

Allah, the most high says:

“And if you question them, they will most surely say, “we were only talking idly and jesting”. Say was it Allah and his signs and his messenger which you were mocking. Make no excuses, you have certainly disbelieved after believing. If we forgive a party from among you, a party shall we punish for they are criminals.” Quran 9:65-66

And read if you wish, read the tafseer of Ibn Katheer may Allah have mercy on him regarding this ayat.

Third, in such events, the people are tested and the friends of the most merciful are separated from the friends of Shaytan. The Ulema who are from the friends of the most merciful declare the truth, and if they are unable or are weak, they observe silence and don’t help falsehood with their words of actions. As for the friends of Shaytan, they are led by Pakistani military intelligence to speak falsehood and help its people. Some of them deem it obligatory to unite with Pervez and his army, while others deemed martyrdom seeking fedayee operations against the soldiers of the Taghut (idol-king) as haraam, while still others assail the Mujahideen, slandering and defaming them. And this is the way of Munafiqeen (hypocrites).

Allah the Most High says:

“They are stingy (in helping) you and when the danger comes, you see them looking towards you, their eyes rolling like one fainting as death approaches. But when the fear has passed away, they assail you with sharp tongues being stingy with good deeds. Those have never believe, so Allah has rendered their words null and void and that is easy for Allah.” Quran 33:19

So everyone who refrained from helping the Imam Maulana Adb al-Rahid Ghazi is from the sitters, whereas those who attacked him to help Pervez, claiming that Islam isn’t established through fighting and calling fighting in the path of Allah “terrorism”- in the context of criticism and saying the way is through peaceful demonstrations and democratic methods are from those who have gone astray and followed the path of Munafiqeen.

Nearly two decades ago, the soil of Pakistan saw and was watered by the blood of a great Imam of Islam, the Mujahid champion Imam Abdullah Azzam, may Allah have mercy on him, and today, we have seen another great Imam not at the level of Pakistan alone, but at the level of entire Islamic Ummah, the Imam Maulana Abd Rasheed Ghazi, may Allah have mercy on him. He, his brothers, his students and the female students of Jamia Hafsa demanded the application of Shariah of Islam as understood the reason for our creation is that we worship Allah the Most High through his religion al-Islam, and they were killed because of this great objective.

Allah the Most High says:

“And I have not created jinn and men but they may worship Me.” Quran 51:56

They sacrificed the great thing they owned; they sacrificed themselves for their religion. I ask Allah to accept among the martyrs. They were killed treacherously and treasonously at the hands of the apostate infidel Pervez and his aides. They purpose of the army, so they say, is to protect the Muslims against the kuffaar. But now we see the armies becoming tools and weapons in the hands of the kuffaar against the Muslims.

Pervez threw away the cause of Kashmir and restrained those fighting to liberate it, in accordance with the wishes of the Hindus and the Nazarenes. Then he opened his bases and airports to America for invading the Muslims in Afghanistan and so you’ve seen before, the army attacked the people of Swat who also demand the rule of Shariah, and attacked the people of Waziristan, in addition to betraying and extraditing hundreds of Arab Mujahideen from the grandsons of the Sahaba (Companions), with whom Allah was pleased, to the head of kufr America. So Pervez, his ministers, his soldiers and those who help him are all accomplices in the spilling the blood of those of the Muslims who have been killed. He who helps him knowingly and willingly is an infidel like him. And as for those who aid him knowingly under compulsion, his compulsion isn’t legally valid as the soul of the one forced to kill isn’t better than the soul of the one killed.

And the messenger of Allah peace and blessings of Allah be upon him said, “Were all the inhabitants of the heavens and earth to participate in the spilling of a believer’s blood, Allah the great and glorious would throw them to the fire.”

So I tell the soldiers who perform the Salaat (prayer) in the military organs; you must resign from your jobs and enter into Islam and disassociate yourself from Pervz and his shirk (polytheism). Some of the munafiqeen among the Ulema of vice and others may say that Islam orders to stay together and people to unite with the army and government to stand in the face of enemies and avoid fitnah (strife). I say; the one who says this is creating lies about Allah. The government and army have become enemies of the Ummah, after becoming a weapon in the hands of the kuffaar against the Muslims. And they refuse to rule by the religion of Islam in all of life’s affairs, like politics, economy, social life and other matters. Allah has ordered these and their like to be fought, not to be united with and hung onto, as those hypocrites claim.

Allah the Most High says:

“And fight them until there’s no fitnah (polytheism) and religion is wholly for Allah.” Quran 8:39

So if someone of the religion is for Allah and some of it is for other than Allah, fighting is obligatory to make the religion entirely for Allah, the most high.

By the grace of Allah the Most High, we performed Jihad with the Afghan Mujahideen against the Russians, and the afghan army was a weapon in their hands against us. They would pray and fast but despite that the senior Ulema of the Islamic world, including the Ulema of Pakistan, ruled that they are to be fought. After the exit of the Russians, the Ulema of Pakistan also supported Taliban against the Northern Alliance, although they also pray and fast. So is there any difference between Pervez and his soldiers and Ahmed Shah Masood, Rabbani and Sayyaf and their soldiers? There is no difference at all; all of them have pledged to the cross worshippers to fight true Islam and its people. And those who say it is forbidden to fight Pervez and his soldiers and exclude him from the general ruling have an illness in their hearts; they prefer this life to the next.

Allah the Most High says:

“Are you unbelievers better than those or have you an immunity (from punishment) in the sacred books?” Quran 54:43

I tell Pervez and his army; your betrayal of your nation and people has been exposed, and the people are no longer fooled by your showing off the military by launching some missiles after the disaster and massacre you commit against the populace as has occurred repeatedly in the border regions, or after the enormous massacre in Lal Masjid recently. How is the nation benefited by the weapons and tests of yours? The same goes for the nuclear bomb itself. When the American foreign minister Powell came to you, you cowered, bowed and submitted to him like a lowly slave, and you permitted the American cross worshipper forces to use the air, soil and water of Pakistan, the country of Islam, to kill the people of Islam in Afghanistan, then in Waziristan.

So woe to you and away with you. Against the people you attack like lions and against the enemy like rabbits and ostriches? Your going to Makkah and performing the Tawaf (circling) of the Kaaba won’t benefit you when combined with kufr and combating of Islam and its people. Were it to benefit anyone in combination with kufr, it would have benefited Abu Lahab, the uncle of the messenger of Allah peace be upon him. Then some might say that armed rebellion against Pervez will lead to the spilling of blood. But I say; were the order to fight the apostate ruler from the people like Amr and Zayd then it would be permissible for minds and opinions to intervene and discuss what they should or should not do. However, as you know, the order of fight the apostate ruler is an order in the Shariah of Allah and it is not permissible for the Muslim to make his opinion rival to the word of Allah and order of his Messenger, peace be upon him.

Allah the Most High says:

“And it is not for a believing man or a believing woman, when Allah and his messenger have decided a matter, to exercise their own choice in the matter concerning them. And whoso disobeys Allah and his messenger manifestly astray.” Quran 33:36

So when capability is there, it is obligatory to rebel against the apostate ruler as is the case now. And the one who disbelieves that the strength required to rebel has not yet been completed must complete it and take up arms against Pervez and his army without procrastination. Pervez and most of the Muslim’s rulers jumped to power and usurped it and ruled us by other than what Allah sent down by force of arms, and the situation will not return to normal through elections, demonstrations and shouting. So beware of the polytheistic elections and futile actions, for iron is only dented by iron, and it is through fighting in Allah’s path and exhorting of the believers that the might of the kuffer is restrained.

Allah the Most High said:

“So fight in Allah’s cause- you are held responsible only for yourself- and rouse the believers. It may be that Allah will restrain the might of the unbelievers. And Allah is strongest in might and strongest in punishment.” Quran 4:84

Fighting in Allah’s path is an act of worship, and it is based on sacrifice of selves. Muslim blood is spilled and poured to protect the religion which only reached us after his (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) cusped tooth was broken, his head cut open and his noble face bloodied and after the blood of best of people like Mus’ab, Zaid and Ja’far (with who Allah was pleased) was poured out. This is the path so follow it. The people have forgotten the path of victory, they think it comes easily or without blood running. Where is the Jihad of the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him?

So to summarize, it is obligatory on the Muslims in Pakistan to carry out jihad and fighting to remove Pervez, his government and his army and those who help him. And it is obligatory on them to pledge allegiance to an Amir of believers who observes the rule of Shari’ah rather than Pervez’s polytheistic positive-law constitution. And the Muslims will not be successful in liberating themselves from slavery to Pervez and his polytheistic laws from many of the leaders and Ulema falsely affiliated with Islam who are in fact the first line of defence for Pervez and his government and army. You have seen with your own eyes the stances they took previously, when rather than moving to break the siege placed on the Muslims of Afghanistan, they moved to break the siege placed on their bases and airports which Pervez gave to America and from which the planes were taking off to pound us in Tora Bora, Kabul, Kandahar, Paktia, Nangarhar and other places.

And for your information, Pervez only dared to invade Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa after he was satisfied that most of the Ulema and leaders of the Jama’ats (groups) had renounced the Jihad which Allah the Most High legislated to enforce the truth and whose banner was tied by the messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). They replaced it with polytheistic democratic solutions and with peaceful demonstrations and bogus threats to absorb the anger of masses. Pervez had tested them before, when he broke the back of the Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan, after which they came to him voluntarily and of their own accord to participate in the polytheistic parliament as if nothing had happened.

So O people of Islam in Pakistan: the truth is greater than everyone, and if truth is not greater than everyone and if we don’t apply the Hudud (punishments) to both the nobleman and weak, that is road to ruin as the messenger of Allah (peace and blessing of Allah be upon him) informed us when he said, “Those before you were ruined because when the nobleman among them stole, they would let him go but when the weak one among them stole, they would execute on him the Hadd (punishment). And by He in whose hand is my soul, were Fatima, daughter of Muhammad to steal, I would cut off her hand.” (Agreed Upon)

O youth of Islam in Pakistan: the pen is writing what is for you and what is against you, and it wont benefit you to make excuses by saying that many of your Ulema and leaders have allied themselves to infidel rulers and the rest have failed to speak the truth and declare it out of fear of the ruling Taghut, except those on whom Allah has had mercy and these are either in prison or on the run. This huge disaster like the marching of the ulema of vice in line with the apostate ruler and their currying favor with him and attacking of the sincere Mujahid Ulema isn’t peculiar to Pakistan but rather is a disaster covering the entire Islamic Ummah. And there is no power nor might except with Allah.

So O people of Islam in Pakistan: every one of you will come alone to Allah the Most High and be held accountable for his own actions, so discharge your duty. The messenger of Allah peace be upon him has said, “ The smart one is who subdues himself and works for what comes after death, and the feeble one is he who lets his self chase after its desires and then hopes from Allah.” And be aware that as the jihad becomes an individual obligation, as is the case today, there are only two ways with no third: either jihad which is the way of the messenger peace be upon him and those who believed with him, or sitting which is the way of the disobedient ones and munafiqeen. So make your choice.

Allah the Most High has says:

“They prefer to be with the womenfolk who remain behind at home, so their hearts are sealed so that they understand not. But the messenger and those who believe with him strive(in the cause of Allah) with their wealth and their persons, and it is they who shall have good things and it is they who shall prosper.” Quran 9:87-88

And we in the al-Qaeda organization call on Allah to witness that we will retaliate for the blood of Maulana abd al-Rasheed Ghanzi and those with him against Musharraf and those who help him and for all the pure and innocent blood, foremost of which is the blood of the champions of Islam in Waziristan, both north and south, among them the two noble leaders, Nek Muhammad and Abdullah Mahsud. May Allah have mercy on them all. The tribes of Waziristan have made a great stand in the face on international Kufr America and its allies and its agents and the major states have been unable to make the stands they have made. They have been made resolute in this stance by their Iman (faith) in Allah the Most High and their tawakkul (reliance) on him. And they have withstood huge sacrifices of souls and wealth. We ask Allah to compensate them well. And Muslims shall not forget these magnificent stances, and the blood of the ulema of Islam and leaders of the Muslims and their offspring will not be spilled in vain or neglected as long as there remains in us a pulsing vein or a blinking eye. We ask Allah to fulfill that.

O Allah our Lord accept those of our brothers and sisters who have been killed and among the martyrs and heal the wounded; O Allah make their graves spacious for them, and take care of their families and raise their grades in ‘Illiyen’ (heaven);

O Allah Pervez, his ministers, his Ulema and his soldiers have been hostile to your friends in Afghanistan and Pakistan especially in Waziristan, Swat, Bajaur and Lal Masjid; O Allah break their backs, split them up and destroy their unity; O Allah afflict them with loss of their dear ones as they have afflicted us with the loss of our dear ones;

O Allah we seek refuge in You from their evilness and we place You at their throats; O Allah make their plotting their destruction; O Allah suffice for us against them with whatever You wish; O Allah destroy them for they cannot escape you; O Allah count them, kill them, and leave not even one of them;

O Allah our Lord, give us in this world goodness and in the last goodness, and protect us from the fire; O Allah send prayers and peace on our Prophet Muhammad and all his family and companions.

Sheikh Osama bin Laden

Ramadan 1428
September 2007

Danial …

Nobody here has died and made you God such that if you post a link we must all rush and read everything you suggest. Considering the source, and given your foul mouth and misogyny, I would be disinclined to do so on principle.

Ah, after a fairly civilized conversation, we get Danial, with a foul mouth and obvious misogyny. So it’s PMS to suggest that American Muslims get off their butts and do something other than try to weasel one more TV interview and special consideration?

No sweetheart, it’s PMS to suggest that we should protest over a crime that we had nothing to do with. Why should I, or any other American Muslim, apologize for what goes on in other Muslim countries? You think we’re all guilty by association, as if we all are collectively to blame for the acts of a few lunatics. It’s the same logic faggot Assyrian douchebags and Moronite dipshits engage in by blaming all 1.5 billion Muslims for the acts of a few.

Should I start blaming ALL Anglo-Saxons for ruining my country after colonizing it for so many years?

And for your information, American Muslims have been doing just that, and have been doing it since 9/11. Perhaps if you took the time to do a simple Google search that says “Muslims condemn terrorism”, then you might get yourself something.

But you prefer to stay as a one-trick pony.

For your information, you will find me all over the internet taking out the likes of Tom Tancredo, absolutely scathing him for his comments.

And I will find numerous comments on sites such as LittleGreenFootballs and FreeRepublic endorsing his views and his call to nuke Mecca. You assume that extremism is only limited amongst Muslims, which I assure you it is not.

And at the time that the Phalanges attacked the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and killed hundreds — which happened when I was about 35 years old — I vigorously protested, sending letters of protest both to the Maronite hierarchy and the Vatican and speaking out against it in the churches which I attended. This lost me a great deal of business and many friends (I am Melkite Catholic), who said then what you are saying now: Don’t criticize us. Don’t ask us to do anything. Don’t say we have to stand against our own.

I appreciate that, and that is a change since many Christians believe that extremism is not rife within their own communities.

By the way, if you assume that I am just another hypocritical Muslim who shouts bloody murder when non-Muslims murder Muslims yet say nothing when Muslims murder other Muslims, you are gravely mistaken. Here is a post I made on the MEYouth forum regarding just that, criticizing the victimization mentality of many Muslims.

But that is exactly what I said: The only morality is standing against your own when they are doing wrong things.

Cannot disagree there.

And no, condemnation is not enough. It’s tissue in the wind. You have to take political and probably military action, and you will need to do that BEFORE you are completely overrun and destroyed. The West will not be taken. It will fight and it has the capacity to win. And it will slam the door on Muslims eventually. It’s only a matter of time. There will likely be civil war in Europe to settle the matter there, as there has been before.

So you think burning effigies will suddenly make al-Qaeda and the rest of the Islamists think twice? Give me a break! al-Qaeda have been killing Sunni tribal sheikhs that recently turned against those bloodthirsty animals!

My concern is not about the West. My concern is about whether Muslims continue to be free to make choices rather than have the most vicious, radical element rule them like they are slaves.
The point is that it is ALWAYS the case that the worst among us, whatever our religion, are the ones willing to do horrible things that the rest of us could never do. With regard to the radical Islamists, ask yourself this question:

I assure you, many Muslims have been making the choice to stand up to the radicals.

11/9/05 – After Zarqawi bombed the hotels in Amman, hundreds of thousands of Jordanians poured out in the streets of Amman and cursed Zarqawi, calling him to go to Hell.

Last month – After a terrorist bombing in Algiers, thousands of Algerians rallied against the extremists in that city (BBC NewS)

April 07 – Tens of thousands of Pakistanis came out in the streets in Karachi, denouncing the Lal Masjid fanatics and expressing their opposition to a “Kalashnikov Islam”.

If you expect me to condemn the Phalanges and stand up against them (two different actions), then I expect you to do the same.

Which is what I’ve been fucking doing way before 9/11.

And I did my part. I fought the Vatican about it, and I caught considerable hell about it.
Are you willing to fight the schools of figh that will NOT organize the mass of Muslims to reject it in home, mosque, medressa, and government?

Indeed I am.

And as far as PMS goes, I would remind you that whatever pain there is involved with that, the rate of crime worldwide is 97.8% men and 2.2% women. The state of anxiety or irrationality that women experience occasionally seems to be the status quo for men, who can’t wait to go to war. The nature of women is two-fold: they are basically very gentle, but they will not be quiet when they see wrong.

Feminists, always blaming us men for your own misgivings. Spare us the tripe.

Please forward the name of the film you reference. I should very much like to promote it here as I am a television producer, among other things. Thank you.

Mentioned it above.

Meredith is absolutely correct. A great many Americans feel exactly that way but wouldn’t dare say it publicly for fear of the verbal bashing (and possible violence) that would follow.

Give me a break, I’ve heard vile shit in many of my classes and nothing happened to them.

Now I wonder what do you say about the white trash rednecks who beat up Middle Eastern and Eastern European folks in Cronulla Beach 2 years ago? Do you support that? I’ve met my fair share of Aussies who supported the actions of the white trash bogans beating Lebanese people. Must be the convict in them, after all Australians are nothing but a bunch of cultureless descendents of exiled British convicts who should have been executed in the first place, but that’s for another discussion.

Do you know what would make the West believe in and support the “moderate” Muslims? Action.

Has there ever been a protest where people burned every copy of the “Elders of Zion” they could find, denouncing it as hate-promoting racism?

Has there been a protest by “freedom-loving Americans” denouncing the U.S. support of right-wing dictatorships? Where are the freedom-loving Americans holding effigies against Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Attila the Hun?

Did the largest mosque in Sydney have its attendance drop to zero following the remarks of the “cat meat” Imam?

Did support for the Cronulla Beach riots wane after the coverage of the incident in Australia and the rest of the right-wing blogosphere?

Have there been protest rallies by the moderates of Lebanon demanding the return of the two Israeli soldiers?

Have there been protests by Americans to admit the truth about USS Liberty?

Have there been Fatwahs by American Imams that’s it’s okay to run a plastic wrapped package of bacon across the laser scanner in a supermarket, or to let a blind man’s dog into your cab?

Have there been edicts by Christians that it’s okay and permissible to handle contraceptives at pharmacies nationwide?

Yes, there are many courageous individuals, including some authors on this site, but if the extremists are really only 0.1% of the Muslim population then the 99.9% ought go be able to drive them out. What the West wonders is: why is the huge moderate population so tolerant of those extremists they say are betraying Islam?

Danial …
Nobody here has died and made you God such that if you post a link we must all rush and read everything you suggest.

Given your inexcessant whining and your tendency to make hyperbolic statements, perhaps you would have been eager to go to the links I gave you.

Considering the source, and given your foul mouth and misogyny, I would be disinclined to do so on principle.

That’s too bad, since you’re only interested in hearing what you want to hear.

You’re missing out on Ali Eteraz’s writings, which have been featured on the Huffington Post and The Guardian’s CommentIsFree. It would help you if you got to familiarize yourself with his writings.

danial all you’ve posted is fairly unintellectual example arguing. obviously you’ve been fed all sorts of hate towards all that is unislamic, so at convenient times like this you can “defend” the vile bigoted nature of sharia law by attacking whoever it is you think is questioning it.

in this case I’m american, so you attack america and/or christianity. if I had been hindu some slander against hindu’s would come, and if I had been buddhist you’d reach into your bag to attack buddhism. I see it all the time, islam is about attack.

I would say, as I pointed out above, islam does not have the patent on bigoted behavior. its just winning the race right now. as any sane look at the world situation would tell you.

and why not talk about the dictators we backed IN world war 2, we gave technology, supplies, arms, intelligence, and training expertise to STALIN. one of the worst mass murderers of all time! america is evil! we helped stalin!

of course even after america helped stalin that doesn’t change the bigoted nature of sharia law, now does it? no the fundamental bigotry of sharia is harder to run away from then just slandering your opponent.

why am I cornered or a hypocrit? does america need to be a saint for sharia to be bigoted? or islam to be the #1 destroyer of human rights? I doubt it.

this just proves my point, you are all attack. I’m not going to fall for it. I’m not going to let you attacking america throw me off. I know where my morality lies and it is against the horrible, oppressive, mysoginist and bigoted sharia laws. thats not LGF, LGF is a conservative site, Im a liberal. you know liberals right? pro gay marriage, pro free speech, all that stuff?

Esra’a

I’ve just unsubscribed from this forum and all notifications, but I wanted to thank you for the conversation. But, as usual, the rest of you don’t call the thugs down, so the thugs always win. A microcosmic example of the larger problem.

The bottom line here, folks, is if Muslims don’t get about the process of forcing radicals out, it won’t be done by anybody, because nobody else CAN do it. Apparently some of you can’t deal with even hearing that, so after some good conversation the entire thread devolves into BULLYING AD HOMINEM ATTACKS. And that is why Islam is going to be destroyed — not from without as the contemporary fantasy goes, but from within.
I’ve spent the last six years trying to build bridges between religions and cultures. Congratulations, you’ve convinced me it’s futile. Find somebody else.

Bottom line is that YOU cannot stand hearing the fact that Muslims have been doing the same thing you are complaining about.

Congratulations, Danial, you successfully subverted the purpose of this website “dedicated to eliminate extremist ideologies and ignorance from the Middle East.”

Whenever there is a discussion of “extremist ideologies and ignorance from the Middle East” it is quickly cut off by those screaming about everyone else’s problems. How many threads have there been that started as a discussion of Islam or the ME and ended as just another list of Western/Christian crimes?

Well, here’s one more. ‘Bye.

yup danial, the islamist thug has just nosedived the entire discussion. which is exactly how muslims react to any criticism. they can’t hear that their sharia is anti-thetical to human rights. but because they can’t intellectually deal w/ that information they go on the attack, they have been taught always to attack. this works fine in your echo chambers where you can outnumber all sane and rational opinion. but in real life its not so easy to jump around the fact that stares people in the face.

sharia is awful horrible, and bigoted.

and btw about the talk of being famous. Islam makes the anti-islamists famous. who was ayaan hirsi ali to anyone outside the netherlands before islam murdered theo van gogh and stabbed into his chest a death threat against ali? who was the danish mohammed cartoon producer before muslims shot a nun dead and burned dozens of churches in reprisal?

if you call islam violent and nothing happens, you are just one person. if you call islam violent and get shot by a muslim. that is another thing entirely.

I think it’s sad how the FASCIST mods on this blog suppress/delete unpublished posts. I had one deleted yesterday responding to a comment that was not in any way hostile to Islam. “Muslims who aren’t afraid of criticism”*

*not really.

Well, I would also think that another aspect for the high growth rate would be the reproduction rate of some Muslim groups and countries that tend to come more often then not from poorer regions in the world. Having more than four kids is certainly not strange in some parts of the world, as well as a places practicing multiple wives like in a few places in Africa or with some Bedouins, well, that would certainly create a rather large family tree and population increase.

Perhaps so, but even then, the fertility rates of many Muslim countries are in the decreasing trend. Iran, for example, has a population growth rate comparable to Western Europe!

danial, again you attack. thats why I called you a thug. that is your response to criticism. but like I said, and I will repeat for your pleasure. sharia law is HORRIBLE, BIGOTED, VIOLENT, OPPRESSIVE AND MYSOGINIST and nothing you say about me will ever change that. that sharia law is the #1 obstacle to human rights wont’ change no matter how “exposed” you think your meandering unintelligent attacks make me.

if you believe in human rights, sharia law is the enemy of all that is good in the world.

BTW, I’m definitely far from an Islamist. I’m a staunch supporter of secular democracy in Muslim countries, as well as seperation of mosque and state.

Remember also that it was a Muslim Sultan of the Ottoman empire who saved 2 million Jews expelled from Christian Spain. The Sultan so jammed Cadiz harbor with ships come to take the Jews to seven UNWALLED enclaves built for them, completely with synagogues, trading centers, schools and housing, that Christopher Columbus had to set sail from Ponte de Frontera south of Cadiz on the Spanish Atlantic coast.

Yes the Turkish Sultan welcomed some (2 million!?) Spanish Jews to Salonika (where these Sephardic Jews replaced a previous group of Jews who had some time earlier been massacred or forced to leave by an earlier Sultan). But within twenty years this very same new “tolerant” Sultan was putting the screws to those very same Spanish Jews.

BTW: and guess where Jews went when they were persecuted by Muslims. That’s right! They were protected by the evil old Christians. For instance there was a notable net immigration of Jews out of the Muslim world into the Crusader states.

Here is a thought how’s about the Muslims actually do something to improve the imgae of islam instead of blaming others, wanting others to do something, and just talking about doing something but nothing else? Yeah like that’s going to happen anytime soon

Gotta love historical revisionism like the one above.

Good response.

Meredith wrote, “Look, this is a very sad thing. The first thing most Westerners ever knew about Islam was a terrorist attack. Started in the mid-70s and got worse for the next 30 year.”

The United States and Western countries have had a long relationship with Muslim extremists, but you have chosen to remain ignorant about it. Read about it here http://www.antiwar.com/orig/oneill.php?articleid=9615

Meredith,

You have a lot of suggestions for Muslims, but I’d like to hear you plans of how you will be stopping Western governments, who while preaching human rights and democracy, go around engaing in regime change and supporting brutal dictators and kings who do their bidding. This is not only happens in the Middle East, but also in Africa, Asia and South America as well. If you are not aware of this, here is an introductory lesson by journalist John Pilger in this two part vidoe.
http://gettingtruth.blogspot.com/2007/07/here-is-two-part-lecture-form-john.html

RandallJones, Meredith just likes to whine for the sake of whining. She expects us to condemn every single bad thing Muslims do yet others aren’t adhered to the same standard.

Meredith wrote, “I have made it enormously clear that I greatly admire Islam and greatly support Muslims. If you knew how much time I spent defending Islam and Muslims you’d be shocked.”

You don’t need to defend Muslims and Islam, you need to educate yourself and fellow Westerners about the wrongs your fellow citizens have done in many developing countries. You can start by look at the links I have provided.

Quote: Ayaan Hirsi Ali wouldn’t be where she is today if it wasn’t for the fact that her target is the Islamic faith …..

No, no, no. Ayaan Hirsi Hirsi Ali wouldn’t be where she is today if it weren’t for the hate and threats of violence against her by Muslims. As usual, Muslims blame everybody but Islam and themselves for their problems.

It is always so touching when Muslims condemn “corrupt leadership, military rule, extreme censorship, gender inequality and other politically motivated… ” It is even more pathetic when Muslims condemn America and the west for supporting corrupt leader and invading other countries.

Read the ahadith. Read Tabari, Hisham and Kathir.. Read your own traditions and the early biographies of your dear prophet. If you want corruption, military rule, censhorship, agression, gender inequality, your will find it in Islam’s own scriptures.
It is one, long brutal story of raids, battles, wars, attacks without warning, plunder, enslavement, killing, greed and ambition. It is a story of hate and violence against non-Muslims. It is a story of fights and killings among different factions of Islam.

Nothing has changed. Islam cannot, will not live in peace with others. It must subdue or fight to subdue.

There are no Muslims that can accept criticism of Islam, or at least none that I have met. That is why there is no freedom in Islamic societies. If people were given the freedom to discuss, to think and to choose, there would be no Islam.

Please tell me how anyone can say or write PBUH after the name of a man that did so many vile things Mohammad did? When will Muslims stop making excuses for the hate and violence in the Quran and hadith? When will Muslim apply the same standards to themselves that they expect of others? When will Islamic societies stop oppressing other religions and women? When will Muslims start using simple logic to examine the tenents of Islam?

Let me give you one example. The Qur’an says “there shall be compulsion in religion” (surah 2.259) but the hadiths say that Islam’s prophet ordered the killing of apostates (3 places, at least). So, wouldn’t that mean Mohammad is a murderer? You can’t have it both ways. Please do not start the “that was then” explanation or “it was really treason against the state”
excuses. It was murder. Or why don’t Muslims wonder about all those exceptions granted to Mohammad by Allah — as declared by Mohammad. Isn’t that suspicious? Did not Aisha herself sarcastically comment to her husband that “Thy lord (Allah) makes haste to do thy bidding”. Can’t Muslims figure it out?

And all those passages in the Quran about obeying “Allah and his prophet”, about praising “allah and his prophet” and giving tribute to “Allah and his prophet” and so on. Don’t Muslims have a clue? I doubt that Allah ever showed up to claim his share of the money and power.

Think, people, think.

Kactuz

say y with lamperhaps all

- and the is abrogated according to classical Muslim interpretation. Surah 9.5, according to classical interpretion, abrogates no fewer than 124 peaceful, beautiful, purely spiritual verses of the Qur’an.

It is not a pretty story.
and the Medinan verses, which should be taken in historical context, not used as an excuse for bloodlust and domination.
pathetic when M

Perhaps you folks have read the ahadith…
bullshit.
The point is that it is ALWAYS the case that the worst among us, whatever our religion, are the ones willing to do horrible things that the rest of us could never do.

omg randaljones, another truther. who would have thought. you know that truthers are universally ridiculed right? I doubt there is a coincidence that a truther advocate also wants to talk about “the crimes of the west.” its all the same sick mindset.

J. Kactuz Wrote, “No, no, no. Ayaan Hirsi Hirsi Ali wouldn’t be where she is today if it weren’t for the hate and threats of violence against her by Muslims. As usual, Muslims blame everybody but Islam and themselves for their problems.”

But this doesn’t explain why much of the mainstream media refuses to interview Muslim moderates? The mainstream media ask why aren’t the moderate Muslims condemning terrorism and human rights violations in Muslim countries; there are many who do this, but the media doesn’t want to deal with them and wants to paint Muslims as a one dimensional monolithic block that interpret Islam only one way.

You say Hirsi Alsi is famous because she gets death threats from Muslims. So why aren’t people who get death threats for criticizing Israel, the Iraq war, or the official government explanation of 9/11 getting as much media attention as Ali?

Regarding your commentary on Islam, how come you and other Westerners are not as knowledgeable about the violent and vile parts of the Bible (Old and New Testaments). See here for some examples http://www.answering-christianity.com/ac12.htm#links

Regarding your commentary on Islam, how come you and other Westerners are not as knowledgeable about the violent and vile parts of the Bible (Old and New Testaments).

Can’t you find a Christian site to discuss that on?

Whenever I or anyone else writes an entry like this we are often flooded by people who aren’t from here and aren’t familiar at all with us as people, our culture and history, our faith and how we practice it.

That is why I and many others don’t even bother responding to such uninformed (and sometimes abusive) comments. I guess I’m just waiting for those who are actually relevant to react.

This is the strongest point made yet. It really does nothing to blanket categorize Muslims. This group of people was here doing this way before I got here and there can be no doubt that they are taking huge risks by doing so.

It really is shallow for people to come here and bag on Islam while, right here in this very forum there are people doing very noble things for others who they may not necessarily agree with religiously or politically, but they do it because of their humanity, virtue, and what they consider to be in accordance with true Islam.

It is this very humane and caring sense of urgency that lacks in all the detractors that come here and start to whine about one reason or another about Islam, Sharia, the Quran or whatever…

For those of you who don’t have anything nice to say, especially about Mideastyouth.com, bugger off. We know we are doing good things. Your opinions are yours to make but frankly, get a life.

really dawoud? because I”ve talked about sharia bigotry across the globe. funny how muslims have all these layers of defense mechanisms that prevent them from owning up to the bigotry of sharia.

in the end muslims dont want to face sharia, they want to tell us its not sharia, or its not islams fault, or its not “really” that way. which is just more defensive lies.

sharia is also bigoted in iran, malaysia and nigeria just to name a few. that you want to defend the violent, bigoted historical and modern practices of sharia gives me yet again another insight onto how muslims really view the rest of the planet. and thats w/ hate and contempt.

Name some books you read you LGF fuckhead. I’m waiting for you to cite some sources to back up your claims.

Malaysia isn’t even governed under Sharia you idiot.

You’re not even a liberal, you’re just some LGF/JihadWatch fucktard masquerading as a liberal. You’re unable to criticize US foreign policy for brewing dictatorships, tool.

You still didn’t prove shit, FOB. The only state that is under Sharia is Kelamantan in Malaysia.

As I said before, name books where you claim your view of Sharia that isn’t written by Bat Ye’or, Bernard Lewis, Robert Spencer, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, David Horowitz, and Nonie Darwish, among others.

Come on little bitch, what do you have to lose? Where do you live you war geek? At least I’m not afraid to confront losers like you in person. I know how tough you little wannabe hawks are in real life, unable to fight in the battlefield thousands of miles away from home.

Loud mouthed coward you are, go back to wacking off to Ann Coulter and Michael Savage, miserable faggot.

Regarding your commentary on Islam, how come you and other Westerners are not as knowledgeable about the violent and vile parts of the Bible (Old and New Testaments.

Care to cite any vile and violent passages for me? No?

well, um people get defensive- i do suspect that regulars here dont support sharia- yet, by saying ‘what do u know of it” does sound offputting. As if to say ‘u have no right to speak’, yet to ask it as a real question, its hard to answer clearly. We’ve all heard plenty about sharia. I know i would not want it.Is it immutable? Or less malleable than manmade law it is thought to come from Allah? also, do children and women have the same guarantees of their rights being upheld? Are there systems to protect them if they are in disagreement with a decision?

Esra’a: We have defended religious minorities, condemned religious extremism, defended the freedom of speech, stood up against religiously motivated crimes (edited)

Look at that list again: every single one is an action that Americans understand and respect. There have been several statements of admiration for Muslim activists in this thread, one of them by me.

Omid T: It really is shallow for people to come here and bag on Islam

Yes, it is. Not every negative observation should be considered offensive “bagging,” however. This thread has seen both hate-filled screaming against Islam and reasonable, legitimate criticisms. How do I know they’re reasonable and legitimate? Because many of them are points previously made by the authors themselves. Strict Islamic law being misogynistic, for example.

I know your remark wasn’t addressed towards Americans: I just want you to know that American culture sees these actions as admirable.

I think this has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that muslims react grotesquely to questioning of their bigoted laws. danial being the prime example of the hatred bred by the bigotry of islam and sharia.

danial is right, sharia is even different from iran to saudi arabia. of course saying “sharia isn’t monolithic” and pretending thats a salient point is a pathetic unintellectual argument that fundamentally ignores the sustained, historical and modern bigotry of sharia.

Esra’a Wrote, “Oh man, this thread got boring pretty fast.”

That is easy for you to say, it isn’t your country that is being bombed and occupied.

You claim that you are for justice and human rights and have taken up various causes, but founding out the truth about 9/11 is none of your concern. This despite 9/11 being used by the most power country in the world to affect foreign and national policies of many countries.

Those who you criticize as “Muslim bashers” in the beginning topic you have posted also use 9/11 to demonize all Muslims.

Esra’a Wrote, “Dude, seriously, get a life.”

How about you? You took on the cause of Burma. how much do you really know of what’s going on in Burma? It’s as if you don’t have your hands full already trying to change things in the Middle East.

Esra’a, you chose to post a topic about Muslims bashers, not one of them fails to use 9/11 to demonize Muslims. So I am on topic.

randall, I failed to use 9/11. and trust me, even ppl w/in the psychotic truther movement are losing their esteem. anyone not motivated by racism or hatred of america is becoming pooped. read this from inside the ideological counter-culture that envelopes the truther movement:

http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/?p=2275

and the brutal dictators that survive in the arab world have ZERO, let me repeat, ZERO to do w/ the west. we “support” mubarak in egypt, but don’t support assad in syria. both are still alive. we don’t support kim jong ill he’s still there. what happens to dictators in shitty third world countries is about 5% influenced by the west. some we hate, some we hate but do deals w/, some we have AND do deals w/. its not a particularly moral stance, but its not the crazy “we’re propping them up” which is observational bullshit.

you’re just another crazy truther randall.

But Meredith and many others have this attitude that violent and vile scripture is is unique to Islam…

Either copy/paste Meredith saying that “violent and vile scripture is is unique to Islam” or be caught in a lie, slandering posters you disagree with.

By the way, why did you say find a Christian, but not a Jewish site, to discuss this on?

LOL. Because that was sufficient to make the point that you were trying to divert the conversation, as you are doing now.

Tor,

Freedom of speech is not a Western value. Westerners have no problem supporting brutal dictators and kings who do their bidding.

When Alex Odeh a Palestinina Christian living in the United States was killed for his views, it didn’t give sympathy to the Palestinians. It didn’t get much media attention at all.

I would still like the answer to the question, if the mainstream media keeps on asking where are the Muslim moderates to condemn terrorism and human rights violations in Muslim countries, why don’t the media interview theses moderate Muslims? There are plenty of them.

yes murad, he is a crazy truther. now he’s talking about kings “doing our bidding” which isn’t even REMOTELY how it works. often any deals we enter into w/ dictators we get screwed on. the saudi’s have leveraged oil against us to spread islamic hatred for 50+ years. tons of dictators have taken technology they needed to drill and extract oil(especially arabs) and then “nationalized it” which is a fancy word for using the army – all those ppl with tanks and guns – to steal it.

in the end dictators more often than not do exactly what the west doesn’t want. just look at all the examples, mugabe, saddam, saudi’s, mubarak, kim jong ill. even musharaf now, DIRECTLY AGAINST what the US wants is declaring mashall law. now why do you ask even though time and time again dictators screw the west that truthers and their conspiratorial brethren can pretend that they are “doing our bidding?” that is a good question.

Randall,

I specifically emphasized ‘OUR’ freedom of speech. While in foreign policy one often has to settle for the lesser of evils, domestic policy doesn’t suffer the same constraints. For democracy to function people need to be able to inform themselves and each other, constraints on speech at home thus undermines our democracies, constraints on speech in allied countries, while regrettable, don’t.

And we do care with regards to dictators and the like, but there’s only so much we can do, unless you advocate liberating more countries.

I looked up Alex Odeh, and his murder seems not to have been solved. We don’t know who killed him or why.

As for the MSM, I haven’t heard them requesting moderates at all, though I don’t watch/read them much anymore. I get that more from blogs and on forums.

Tor wrote,

While in foreign policy one often has to settle for the lesser of evils,…

Regarding the MSM, I know it doesn’t request Muslim moderates, thats my point. Why wouldn’t they, they seem to want to perpetuate fear and mistrust amongst the different religions.

bob Wrote, “randall, I failed to use 9/11.”

Have you written a book and are you invited to television and radio programs? Are you invited to do paid lectures at universities, churches and synagogue If not, then I was not talking about you. Besides how do you I know you haven’t mentioned it under different topics or at different websites?

bob wrote, “often any deals we enter into w/ dictators we get screwed on. the saudi’s have leveraged oil against us to spread islamic hatred for 50+ years. tons of dictators have taken technology they needed to drill and extract oil(especially arabs) and then “nationalized it” which is a fancy word for using the army – all those ppl with tanks and guns – to steal it.”

The Saudis invest trillions of dollars of money in the United States. The U.S. has made billions of dollars selling sophisticated weaponry to Saudi Arabia, even though it doesn’t have the qualified personnel to use it. This is why the Saudis have to depend on the U.S. to defend them. BY the why the United States buys more oil from Canada and Mexico each, yet these countries don’t invest as much money in the U.S. or buy as much weapons either.

DOes Meredith have anything to say about the 3 to 5 million Buddhists killed when the United States bombed Vietnam and Cambodia? DOes Meredith have anything to say about all the regimes the U.S. and its allies have toppled, even democratically elected ones? DOes Meredith have anything to say about how the United States sell weapons to both sides of conflicts (like in the Congo and the Iran-Iraq war)?

Not addressed to me, but I’ll answer anyway:

The Vietnam war was almost won, and the Vietnamese would have been way better off if it had been. Half a century later they are still living in huts, while other countries have joined the first world starting from similar beginnings. Nobody seems to care about the massacres of the communists after winning the war, only deaths which can somehow be laid at the feet of the US matter.

Toppling regimes helped win the cold war, and the world is better off than it would have been without our winning it, including for the citizens of the countries affected. And Allende was about as democratic as Chavez is today.

To my knowledge we didn’t sell Iraq/Iran anything that couldn’t be aquiered from the Soviet Union. Better then to keep the Soviets from gaining influence. I am not familiar with the Congo.

The millions of Iraqis and Afganis are not evil. You are just making excuses. You don’t think any of them value their freedom, their lives, their homes their families?

I know they do, we are working with them to help them secure these things. Already fewer people are being killed in Iraq than during Saddams dictatorship, just different people (less Kurds, more arabs) dying in more spectacular ways.

Also, we are not to blame for the vast majority of civilian casualties, the enemy is.

Thge United States did not liberate Iraq. The United States had helped Saddam into power and supported him strategically and financially, when he was commiting his worst atrocities. The Iraqi people are the scapegoats of U.S. foreign policy.

Did too liberate Iraq, it is now a democracy. It just needs some help fighting off the iranian proxies.

Saddam was “our son of a bitch” during the cold war. We didn’t like him, but we were better off backing him than having him side with the soviets, or being annexed by Iran. We fought communism and won, it was ugly, but nowhere near as ugly as a communist victory, or even a continuing cold war, would have been.

As for supporting the afghan insurgency, that support happened entirely on the premises of Pakistan, and was mostly carried out by their intelligence service, which is still heavily involved with the taliban. There was no effort on our part to establish a puppet regime after the Soviets abandoned Afghanistan.

Esra’a is going to give us hell about going off on this tangent though, I’m not sure what would be the proper place for it.

Regarding the MSM, I know it doesn’t request Muslim moderates, thats my point. Why wouldn’t they, they seem to want to perpetuate fear and mistrust amongst the different religions.

Don’t attribute to malice what can be attributed to laziness or incompetence. Listing car bombs and death tolls is a lot easier than doing actual journalism. Other than that I don’t know.

There has to be a story for the news media to pick up on though, I doubt they’ll go for just an interview.

I think its official, randall “truther” jones has hijacked this thread completely w/ endless conspiracy theories. don’t worry this happens to a lot of threads that you let a truther into.

Tor,

How many Muslims actually listen to these eight schols of fiqh? Most Muslims are just trying to earn a living to provide food for their family.

WHo has killed more people the Muslim terrorists or the bombs of the United States?

You say no one cares about the killings of the Communists, sure we do but does that mean the United States has to kill as many people in the name of stopping Communuists? Many times the United States used the excuse of the fear of spread of Communism for its illegal actions. People in other countries have a right to self-determination.

Again you make excuses for the United States. BUt then that is the easier thing to do isn’t do.

Tor wrote, “I looked up Alex Odeh, and his murder seems not to have been solved. We don’t know who killed him or why.”

Are you aware that Usama ben Laden has not been indicted for 9/11? See http://gettingtruth.blogspot.com/2007/09/where-was-osama-ben-laden-on-sept-11.html

Okay, I’m just gonna ignore the off topic stuff and try to carry one.

Tor Wrote: Listing car bombs and death tolls is a lot easier than doing actual journalism.

That’s probably true: easier and safer. Just how good are the sources of Western journalists?

This just in, and it’s good news, or at least it’s spun that way:

By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer 23 minutes ago

BAGHDAD – In a dramatic turnaround, more than 3,000 Iraqi families driven out of their Baghdad neighborhoods have returned to their homes in the past three months as sectarian violence has dropped, the government said Saturday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071104/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

The sources of western journalists range from the absolutely certain to the made up. Casualty figures shouldn’t be hard to establish, you have people reported missing, people showing up at morgues etc. The authorities compile statistics, so merely parroting the numbers, and adding a template background and simple commentary is easy.

I recommend Michael Totten by the way, his stories are always worth reading.

Thanks for the link: Totten looks interesting.

levylevthuglife,

Thank you for your suggestion, but if I have no plans of leaving the United States. Criticizing the United States does not mean I hate it, I just want it to do better. This is no different than criticizing a family member who I see doing wrong.

SO then why did the United States recruit and train Muslim extremists (many of them foreign) instead of pro-democracy Afghans to fight the Russians?

Pakistani territory, Pakistani terms. they did the funneling of arms and supplies, and they determined the recipients.

You did not specify the old or new testament. But if you want a violent passage from the New Testament, what about Matthew 10:34-35 where Jesus says

I thought it was obvious that I was speaking of the New Testament when I boldened it.

As to Matthew 10, this isn’t as much encouraging violence as it is a prophecy regarding what is going to happen because Jesus has come, and it has turned out to be quite true in many instances.

Bash Muslims, by the way, does not mean bash Islam… Here is something for your reading pleasure, Dawoud

The following excerpts for discussion are from:
Erdem, Y Hakan, Slavery in the Ottoman Empire and its Demise,
Inalcik, H. The Ottoman Empire, “The Palace”

(Erdem, p.1,2)
Employment of slaves: it is commonly concluded in modern historiography that what differentiated the Ottoman military-governmental slave system from its Muslim predecessors was the introduction of the child-levy, the Devshirme. Many Muslim states imported slaves from outside their domains and employee them as soldiers, officials and administrators, whereas the Devshirmehad its sources of supply within the Ottoman Empire.

Discussion about the legality of the Devshirme has given rise to the rarely challenged axiom that it was illegal and incompatible with the Sharia.
{Why might that be?}

There is no question about the legality of the capture of non-Muslims from the dar-al-harb (‘Abode of War’). After a battle or a conquest it was up to the sovereign to decide the fate of the captives or the defeated.

1. He could order them to be executed. This was clearly a case in which slavery failed to be an alternative to death.

2. He could set them free on the condition either of ransom or of release of Muslim captives, or both.

3. He could set them free without ransom [the granting of zhimmis status had this effect].

4. He could order their enslavement.

It was practically impossible physically to enslave a whole defeated non-Muslim people, although vast numbers of non-Muslims are known to have been enslaved after important battles. The effects of enslavement on a grand scale would be detrimental to traditional Ottoman policies in regard to captured cities and lands, for it would lead to the destruction of local economies through the dispersal of inhabitants as captives, which in turn, would decrease Ottoman extraction of taxed from these regions. But the enslavement of the defeated was a theoretical possibility from a Sharia point of view… A theoretical enslavement of this kind could have paved the way for the Ottomans actually to enslave non-Muslim children for military-governmental service when they required their services.

(p.4,5)
It seems that the non-Muslims’ way of entry into Ottoman jurisdiction helped to determine their future status to a great extent. Those peoples of the scriptures who, like the Iberian Jews, willingly submitted to Ottoman rule were granted full zhimmis status. One of the very obvious signs that they were zhimmis was exemption from the Devshirme. On the other hand, once they were theoretically enslaved, the Sultan, as the leader and representative of the Islamic community, would have the right of ownership over these forcibly conquered ‘captive’ populations According to the sharia principles, the offspring of parents who were both slaves would inherit the parents’ status. Even conversion to Islam was not sufficient to make either the parents or the offspring free.

The advantages of the Devshirme system of slave recruitment over casual enslavement are obvious. Through this system the Ottomans were enabled to choose appropriate slaves from among their pool of available ‘slaves’.

(Inalcik, pp.78,9)
[already in operation at the end of the fourteenth century, it continued to evolve through the fifteenth] In the sixteenth century, when a levy was to be made the sultan’s ferman first appointed a commissioner and a janissarie officer for each district. Under the supervision of the local qadi and sipahi, at each village the commission summoned all male children between the ages of eight and twenty, and their fathers, choosing those children who appeared to be fit. The levee included only the children of Christian villages engaged in agriculture, excluding urban children and any only child. The commission recorded each child’s name and description in a register and sent the boys in groups of a hundred to a hundred and fifty to the aga of the Janissaries in Istanbul.

An Ottoman source of the early 17th century explains the exemption of Muslim Turks from the Devshirme: “If they were to become slaves of the sultan, they would abuse this privilege. Their relatives in the provinces would oppress the reaya and not pay taxes. They would oppose the sanjak beyis and become rebels. But if the Christian children accept Islam, they become zealous in the faith and enemies of their relatives.”

The government considered the Devshirme as an extraordinary levy on the reaya [tax paying subjects] not as the enslavement of its own subjects. There were levies every three to seven years, according to need. [Estimates very from 1000 to 3000 taken annually]

[note the difference in interpretation from that of Erdem: what, as historians, do we make of this 'debate'?]

When the youths arrived in Istanbul the best of them were selected as pages for the Palace. …They then went to Palaces in Istanbul and Edirne to receive a special training, while the remainder were hired out… to Turkish villagers in Anatolia before entering the Janissary corps. According to Ottoman sources, Mehmed the Conqueror established this practice which was intended to teach the boys the Turkish language and Turkish customs. … European observes record that the temperament and capabilities of each boy were carefully considered. Those who showed an ability in the religious sciences prepared for the religious professions; those proficient in the scribal arts prepared for a career in the bureaucracy.

According to [one writer] who had himself been a page, the Palace education aimed to produce “the warrior statesman and loyal Muslim who at the same time should be a man of letters and polished speech, profound courtesy and honest morals”. But its fundamental aim was to instill complete obedience and loyalty to the sultan.

(Erdem, p.9-11)
Like other mamluks in other Islamic countries, the sultan’s slaves were theoretically cut off from their natal culture, and were expected not to develop any ties in society except for those to their master, in this case, the Sultan. This would ensure their loyalty. However, in addition to their development of ties among themselves as well as their continued relations with their homelands, it seems that there was ample opportunity during their basic training for them to develop ties to their ‘temporary masters’ whether they were Turkish peasants, artisans, high-ranking askeris or ulema. But it still can be maintained that the Devshirme boys in Anatolia and the novices in Istanbul and in other cities were the nearest kapakulus to the position of ordinary slaves in the Ottoman Empire. Till the day of their admission into the janissari regiments, they performed many tasks similar in nature to those which were performed by slaves who belonged to private individuals, and these tasks bore little, if any resemblance to their future function as military slaves. Considering the tendency to manumit slaves after a certain period of service, usually seven years, in Ottoman society we can regard this period of basic training as the Devshirme boy’s term of actual slavery.

I am hijacking this thread, and I thought it deserved a post of its own:

I’m addressing this question to those on this forum actually living in the Middle East, and thus having a basis for speculation:

How do you think your societies would react to islamist terrorists breaking new ground with a nuclear or large chemical attack in a western country, given the current political climate?

But as usual, we are going to have arrogant people claiming to know us and our societies better than we know our selves, so before they start with the bitch fest, I suggest they do not answer this question for us via stereotypical bullshit and allow Middle Easterners to answer this themselves.

Indeed.

Said arrogant people won’t get far unless they’re given something to work with though, the footage of Palestinians celebrating in the streets after 9/11 served that purpose for that event. Mass rallies protesting the attack would, I think, have a significant impact.

At present the first negative stereotype of Muslims that comes to most peoples minds here is that of cartoon-rioters, an icon of unreasonability, rather than that of suicide bombers. This stereotype is compounded by intermittent stories of muslims making silly demands, like refusing to transport guide dogs in cabs, or refusing to check out “haram” foodstuffs at the mall, and the far left pandering to them. Basically local issues.

However, as with the stereotypes painting the English as stuck up nobility and uncivilized hooligans depending on the season, people are fully aware that these stereotypes are caricatures, and not representative of the general population. Currently a widespread perception here is that militant views are held by a sizable minority, but rarely acted upon, with the right considering the problem somewhat more widespread than the left.

Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and to a lesser extent Egypt are seen as the more radicalized societies, with Palestine set aside for another debate. Saudis are seen as bankrolling militancy worldwide. Those following the news know that Iran operates militia proxies in Lebanon and Iraq, and many stories have aired on Iranian discontent with their regime. Iranians are chiefly perceived to be victims of a regime instated by the previous generation.

And that is how the world looks from Norway.

But here is an interview with (National Security Advisor to President Carter) Zbigniew Brzezinski at http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html
where he says

“According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.”

and

“That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.”

I believe there is much confusion out there. I truly believe that Ayaan Hirsi Ali has the right picture, and I truly believe I, too, have the right picture. At one time I did not have the right picture. I truly believed that Islam was the Religion of Peace. Now, I know that it isn’t. Hirsi Ali and I know that the good so-called Muslims are not Islamic. The good Muslims are just good people, who are following the light of their conscience that was given to them by the God of Love. That’s all they’re doing. The good Muslims are not imitating Muhammad at all! Not at all! If the good Muslims studied the Qur’an, Hadiths, Sunnah, and other Muslim historical documents, they will see that they are not followers of these Muslim historical documents. Why is Ayaan Hirsi Ali fearing for her life? She fears for her life because the true Islamists are very evil, and are following their historical documents. These true Islamists want to murder Hirsi Ali, and that is why she fears for her life. Do the good so-called Islamists want to murder Hirsi Ali? No, absolutely not! Study the philosophy of Jesus Christ and the philosophy of Muhammad, and the good so-called Muslims will see that they are far more like Jesus Christ than they are like Muhammad. Be fair, and study Muhammad and you’ll see that Muhammad was a scoundrel. Muhammad married little Aisha when the child was only six years old. Why would Muhammad want to marry a little girl six years old? Only an unbalanced person would do that! Muhammad had sex with Aisha when she was about eight years and nine months old. In a civilized world, Muhammad’s act is called rape. Mahammad had at least nine wives and two steady concubines. Muhammad was cruel, a murderer, brutal, disrespectful and chauvinistic. He taught that women are inferior. Do the good so-called Muslims think that women are inferior? The so-called Muslims that I knew din’t think so. Look it up and you’ll see that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is correct. So don’t blame her or me either. Maybe you should blame yourselves for not reading the historical documents of Islam. I mentioned that you nice so-called Muslims are only nice people. That’s all you are. You are not true Islamists. You just think you are. You are not at all like Muhammad, and I’m glad that you’re not. God bless you for that! Study Jesus Christ and you’ll see that you are far more like Jesus Christ than you are like Muhammad. Jesus Christ was kind and humble, and so are many of you who call yourselves Islamists, but actually are not Islamists simply because you are not at all like the founder of Islam. So don’t be angry with me and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. That poor soul gets it from all sides, from the true Islamists who want to murder her, and from the good so-called Muslims, who don’t know her and don’t like her. May the God of Love bless you. I’m not asking Allah to bless you. That’s another story.

Dear Esra’a, why are you so angry? I present historical facts that I got from the Muslim historical documents. They are not opinions. Don’t you believe the historical facts presented in the Muslim historical documents? When I said that nice and humble so-called Muslims are more like Jesus Christ, than like Muhammad, I’m presenting a fact. Why did it ruffle your feathers? Will you have the courage to answer the following questions: Would you like to emulate Muhammad? Are you trying to emulate Muhammad at present? Do you think that Ayaan Hirsi Ali should be punished? Do you believe I should be punished for writing sincere facts? Will you have the courage to answer the above questions? May the God of Love bless you and also my enemies. I really mean that. I pray for enemies of mankind every day. Do you? I’ve gotten along very well with certain Muslims, but that’s because they were very nice. Are you very nice? Perhaps I received the wrong vibe, but I don’t think you are Christlike at all.

Dear Tamara, why are you saying indirectly that what you have written are opinions, and, therefore, cannot be reliable? Perhaps you can help me. Why is it that authentic Muslims never say that they would like to emulate Muhammad? That question interests me most of all. You see, I want to know who my enemies are. Why are you saying that you cannot rely on Muslim historical documents? Do you believe history only when it enhances your agenda, and reject those parts when it goes against your philosophy? Is that the thing to do? All you need to do is see many evils in your philosophy. For example, women are treated as inferiors in some parts of the Muslim world. Do you believe it is proper to see women as inferior to men? I hope it isn’t dangerous in your country to say that women should have equal rights as men. I’ll be waiting for your answers. I’ll be praying for you today to the God of Love. Do you mind?

I’m glad you mentioned that Muhammad wasn’t a saint. No, he wasn’t. But I have seen some Muslims that were far, far saintlier than Muhammad. In fact, they were more like Jesus Christ than like Muhammad. No, I’m not a missionary. I’m just an inquisitive person, who writes facts even if they hurt. Now,here are some more problems. There are 73 contradictory sects in Islam. Which one is the true sect? I’m sure you understand that these sects contradict each other here and there. That of course means that at least 72 are teaching errors and maybe all. There are always errors in contradictions. Which one of the sects if any is teaching only the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I’m sure you also understand that the solitary sect, if any, which is teaching only the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth needs the charism of infallibility to keep it from diviating. Which one of the sects never diviates? In other words, which sect has remained constant with the infallible truths? I’m sure you understand that the God of Love never contradicts Himself. I’m sure you also understand that the God of Love is immutable. Okay which Muslim sect, if any, remains constant with the ingredients that are necessary for salvation? I’m sure you understand that infallible truths would help immensely in leading a person to the God of Love. I cannot believe that contradictions lead a person to the God of Love. If anything, since there are errors in contradictions, contradictions would lead a person in the opposite direction since errors are not compatible with the God of truth, and nothing but the truth. Here is another big problem: The argument is that if the whole world were Muslim, there would be peace. Do you believe that? If that’s true, why are the Muslim Sunni’s murdering the Muslim Shiites and the Muslim Shiites are murdering the Muslim Sunni’s on a daily basis? This is also true with the Kurds, the Wahabbis and many other Muslim sects. Why isn’t there peace among these contradictory Muslim sects? Aren’t they all Muslims? Don’t they all belong to the Religion of Peace? Where is that peace among them? Don’t get me wrong. I don’t like to see people murdering each other, no matter their religion. Which Muslim sect would be the safest to join? Which Muslim sect do you belong to? Is your sect infallible with its truths?