If I could summarize all my thinking about Islam

[Hamza123]

There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, and Islam is the world's fastest-growing religion. If the evil carnage we witnessed on Sept. 11 were typical of the faith, and Islam truly inspired and justified such violence, its growth and the increasing presence of Muslims in both Europe and the U.S. would be a terrifying prospect. Fortunately, this is not the case.

 

The very word Islam, which means "surrender," is related to the Arabic salam, or peace. When the Prophet Muhammad brought the inspired scripture known as the Koran to the Arabs in the early 7th century A.D., a major part of his mission was devoted precisely to bringing an end to the kind of mass slaughter we witnessed in New York City and Washington. Pre-Islamic Arabia was caught up in a vicious cycle of warfare, in which tribe fought tribe in a pattern of vendetta and countervendetta. Muhammad himself survived several assassination attempts, and the early Muslim community narrowly escaped extermination by the powerful city of Mecca. The Prophet had to fight a deadly war in order to survive, but as soon as he felt his people were probably safe, he devoted his attention to building up a peaceful coalition of tribes and achieved victory by an ingenious and inspiring campaign of nonviolence. When he died in 632, he had almost single-handedly brought peace to war-torn Arabia.

 

Because the Koran was revealed in the context of an all-out war, several passages deal with the conduct of armed struggle. Warfare was a desperate business on the Arabian Peninsula. A chieftain was not expected to spare survivors after a battle, and some of the Koranic injunctions seem to share this spirit. Muslims are ordered by God to "slay [enemies] wherever you find them!" (4: 89). Extremists such as Osama bin Laden like to quote such verses but do so selectively. They do not include the exhortations to peace, which in almost every case follow these more ferocious passages: "Thus, if they let you be, and do not make war on you, and offer you peace, God does not allow you to harm them" (4: 90).

 

In the Koran, therefore, the only permissible war is one of self-defense. Muslims may not begin hostilities (2: 190). Warfare is always evil, but sometimes you have to fight in order to avoid the kind of persecution that Mecca inflicted on the Muslims (2: 191; 2: 217) or to preserve decent values (4: 75; 22: 40). The Koran quotes the Torah, the Jewish scriptures, which permits people to retaliate eye for eye, tooth for tooth, but like the Gospels, the Koran suggests that it is meritorious to forgo revenge in a spirit of charity (5: 45). Hostilities must be brought to an end as quickly as possible and must cease the minute the enemy sues for peace (2: 192-3).

 

Islam is not addicted to war, and jihad is not one of its "pillars," or essential practices. The primary meaning of the word jihad is not "holy war" but "struggle." It refers to the difficult effort that is needed to put God's will into practice at every level--personal and social as well as political. A very important and much quoted tradition has Muhammad telling his companions as they go home after a battle, "We are returning from the lesser jihad [the battle] to the greater jihad," the far more urgent and momentous task of extirpating wrongdoing from one's own society and one's own heart.

 

Islam did not impose itself by the sword. In a statement in which the Arabic is extremely emphatic, the Koran insists, "There must be no coercion in matters of faith!" (2: 256). Constantly Muslims are enjoined to respect Jews and Christians, the "People of the Book," who worship the same God (29: 46). In words quoted by Muhammad in one of his last public sermons, God tells all human beings, "O people! We have formed you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another" (49: 13)--not to conquer, convert, subjugate, revile or slaughter but to reach out toward others with intelligence and understanding.

 

So why the suicide bombing, the hijacking and the massacre of innocent civilians? Far from being endorsed by the Koran, this killing violates some of its most sacred precepts. But during the 20th century, the militant form of piety often known as fundamentalism erupted in every major religion as a rebellion against modernity. Every fundamentalist movement I have studied in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is convinced that liberal, secular society is determined to wipe out religion. Fighting, as they imagine, a battle for survival, fundamentalists often feel justified in ignoring the more compassionate principles of their faith. But in amplifying the more aggressive passages that exist in all our scriptures, they distort the tradition.

 

It would be as grave a mistake to see Osama bin Laden as an authentic representative of Islam as to consider James Kopp, the alleged killer of an abortion provider in Buffalo, N.Y., a typical Christian or Baruch Goldstein, who shot 29 worshipers in the Hebron mosque in 1994 and died in the attack, a true martyr of Israel. The vast majority of Muslims, who are horrified by the atrocity of Sept. 11, must reclaim their faith from those who have so violently hijacked it.

 

I am only waiting for MRIH to prance on this and shoot it down. People who do so need to get a life! And hey, doesn't the Bible utter so much peace that people young and small and old and big, must always be able to state their point? MRIH, their are MILLIONS of peaceful and loving Muslims, yet you like to squash them by gernalizing them with a few words... Jesus would be proud! COUGH COUGH Doing so would go against the Christian way of living and the fundamentals of Christianity... Even Lionheart thought so.

[Her_Royal_HineASS]

It is wonderful to see that you have taken the time to break it down. I agree with this post wholeheartedly and look forward to seeing your future posts regaurding the beautiful faith and mysteries of Islam.

[Hamza123]

It is wonderful to see that you have taken the time to break it down.

 

Well thank you for reading and for your understanding. I do appreciate it!

 

 

I agree with this post wholeheartedly and look forward to seeing your future posts regaurding the beautiful faith and mysteries of Islam.

 

I too lookforward to chating with you and perhaps we can both learn many new things!

[Jhony5]

You two aren't gonna start kissing are you? This whole 'getting along' thing is really making this forum look bad.

[Her_Royal_HineASS]

Sorry, I don't know whom to dislike yet. kisses

[Jhony5]

Sorry, I don't know whom to dislike yet. kisses

 

Well I would be a good one to dislike. Try it just once. Call me a fucking asshole or whatever just to get it off your chest. It'll make you feel better, I promise.

[Hamza123]

You two aren't gonna start kissing are you? This whole 'getting along' thing is really making this forum look bad.

 

Hey thats for the debate forum!

[Her_Royal_HineASS]

Well I would be a good one to dislike. Try it just once. Call me a fucking asshole or whatever just to get it off your chest. It'll make you feel better, I promise.

 

Not without provocation. lol! I just got here!

[Hamza123]

Welcome to GF then!

[Jhony5]

Welcome to GF then!

 

 

Now go strap a bomb to your wife and kids and kill some infidels.

I understand your frustation, Hazma. The fact that you joined a club only to find out that they enjoy murder. Well you didn't so much join it as you were born into it.

[Lethalfind]

Please someone tell me, what other event or belief system has caused Americans Abroad to fear for their safety??

I mean ex-patriots living abroad, employees at embassys, people on vacation??

Can you give me examples of something other then Islamic terrorists???

Has another group hijacked a plane and killed American Servicemen aboard and tossed their bodies out the window of the plane?? Has another group grabbed a stewardess and asked her to identify Jewish names among the passengers so they would know who to kill for the maximum effect??

 

My memory isn't what it used to be so please help me out here.

 

I used to work in retail and I was helping a woman shop for a trip to Europe. She was looking at this sweatshirt we had with the American Flag on it, she told me that she had been advised by her travel agent to NOT dress in a way that would make it obvious she was an American. How fuckin sad is that!!!

 

After the unrest in France I am reconsidering my plans to work abroad once I get my nursing license. I will not feel safe unless and until they get this mess under control, then I tell myself, this SHIT has been going on my whole life (thats 38 years by the way) and has been getting worse not better. How many of us EVER thought it would get as bad as 9-11?? How many of us thought they would strike a target like that in the US...I don't think enough of us did or we would have been prepared.

 

Islamic terrorist may not make up 100% of Islam in the world, however the ones who are violent are like weeds, you strike one down and another 10 pop up in their place.

 

I am sick and fucken tired of dancing around the real issue here, they have a higher propensity for violence then any other group in the world. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. This means its not going to stop. As long as their numbers keep multiplying we are not safe.

 

Yes by all means lets try and be fair and not convict EVERYONE based on the sins of the few but if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then its a duck. Common sense should tell you that their religious codes teach them a more permissive attitude toward the thought process they have all the answers and those that do not agree are the infidels. To take it to the degree that unbelievers are unclean just gives them the permission they need to be violent towards us. A religions need to isolate their followers from non-believers is all about controlling them and nothing more.

[Jhony5]

Columbia is the only country I can think of that even comes close. But they aren't using their religion, Catholisism, to terrorize. In Columbia its all about power and money.

Islam is digging itself into a hole and shouting "us against the world", and its all for the sake of religion.

[Hamza123]

I could name a bunch of Islamic terms and you wouldn't even know what I would be talking about... Most of the people who think like you don't even know what Islam is. And you know, they don't need to, but you know what, if they want to start making such statements, they need to know the truth, not what you hear, or what you see on TV!

[Jhony5]

I could name a bunch of Islamic terms and you wouldn't even know what I would be talking about... Most of the people who think like you don't even know what Islam is. And you know, they don't need to, but you know what, if they want to start making such statements, they need to know the truth, not what you hear, or what you see on TV!

 

 

Oh go ahead and try. Dumb it down for me as i'm a stupid American. Explain to me why Islam is seen as a threat to world peace by so many.

[Hamza123]

I never said Americans were dumb, Absolutley NOT, don't play that shit tactic.

 

Allow me to explain using this brisk narrative:

 

On America's response to 9/11:

That's complicated, of course, because America's a huge place, and it will vary in different parts of the country, different neighborhoods and different cities. But there has been a commendable desire on the part of American people to understand Islam.

 

An extraordinary thing happened after 9/11. The American people descended on the bookstores and swept everything on Islam off the shelves. That is very positive. It didn't happen in the United Kingdom. British people weren't remotely interested in finding out more about Islam, but Americans are curious in that way, and when I went round lecturing, people impressed me with their tough-minded desire to try to come to terms with all this.

 

That said, though, there's still a lot of hostility, and for a lot of people, you don't even have to scratch the surface. The hostility is still there, and a lot of it is deeply traumatic. America has been shocked; this is post-traumatic stress syndrome, and this will be with us for some time, and people are speaking out of pain, dislocation, and bewilderment. Americans have found for the first time in their history, really, that they, too, like the rest of the world, are on the front line.

 

On improving interfaith relations:

We've got to carry on trying to understand. It's no good falling back on old patterns of bigotry, because we have enough to be worried about, goodness knows, without creating extra bogies to concern ourselves. It's very important that people see what Islam is, and what it is not, and

[Hamza123]

CONTINUED FROM LAST POST

 

On what federal agencies need to understand about American Muslims:

They should not imagine that just because somebody has a Qur'an in their luggage they are necessarily suspect. The FBI should not imagine that any Muslim is likely to be a terrorist, that they belong to a religion that will inspire or incite them toward some form of terror, violence, or disaffection from the United States. They should educate themselves about Islam and realize that the people who committed these evil atrocities on September 11 were very peculiar Muslims indeed -- Muslims who were drinking vodka before they got on the doomed aircraft at 7:00 in the morning. They weren't trying to "blend in"; they were sticking out like sore thumbs; Muslims who went to nightclubs, who consorted with women in Las Vegas. These were odd Muslims, and if they can break a Muslim law like drinking, then they can break other laws, too, like the law against killing innocent people and committing acts of terror. Richard Reed, the British shoe bomber, was a convert to Islam, and his imam in South London said they had to exclude him from the mosque because he came in saying, "Find me a jihad." Here was somebody who joined up because he wanted a fight. Similarly, an Australian boy picked up in Afghanistan at the same time as John Walker Lindh -- they were drifters. They went from one group to another and finally ended up in Islam. These are not ordinary Muslims who go regularly to the mosque, who hear the basically peaceful message of the Qur'an. These are people who are spoiling for a fight, who are angry, who are not living good Muslim lives in other respects and are not characteristic of the Muslim people as a whole.

 

On the religious tolerance of Americans for Islam:

I think they're trying. [There is] the fact that President Bush made it his business, as did Prime Minister Blair, after the atrocities, to say that this was not going to be a war against Islam. President Bush made sure he had a Muslim beside him in the service of mourning. All this was important. This was new; this didn't happen at the time of the Gulf War or in Britain at the time of the Salman Rushdie crisis. There's a long way to go, but it was a start.

 

There are a lot of Americans out there [who are], again, hurting, wounded, winded, shocked, and spoiling for a fight, who don't want to hear the truth about Islam because they're fighting too many ghosts and horrors. It's always tempting to want to find a quick target, but it won't help in the long run. If we encourage the smallest degree of bigoted attitude towards Islam, we are creating further problems for ourselves, further acts of terror.

 

America is a very pluralistic country; it's had a tradition of overcoming great hostility to other religious groups in the past -- Catholics, for example. At the time of the War of Independence against Britain, only one percent of Americans were Catholics, and they were very much personae non gratae, and seen as a sort of fifth column. It would have been unthinkable that one day they would have a Catholic president, and of course they did with John F. Kennedy. Now Catholics are accepted as part of the scene, though they're having their own problems at the moment.

 

The same can happen to Muslims. Someone was saying to me recently that nearly all our former enemies end up on the White House lawn. Nelson Mandela, who's now regarded as a saint, was a couple of decades ago touted by the American administration as a communist and a terrorist. Arafat has appeared on that lawn. Now, I'm not going so far to say, goodness me, that Bin Laden will be there -- of course not. But we can overcome these horrors, and we must work to do so, because if we don't, we will be betraying the traditions that we hold most dear about ourselves.

 

We like to think of our western society as being compassionate, tolerant, respectful of human rights, kinder than these other oriental despotisms, as we like to imagine them. But if we start stigmatizing Muslims either at home or abroad, then we will be betraying the culture, and we'll ultimately lose ourselves, and that's a prospect that's too awful to imagine.

 

On the need for Islam to have a reformation:

People who talk about the need for Islam to have a reformation, "as we did" in the 16th century, show a great ignorance of Islam and the Protestant Reformation. Islam has had a constant series of reformations; you can trace most of them right back to the 13th, 14th century, even before. They went back to the basics, got rid of all recent accretions, and tried to get back to the original spirit of Muhammad, just like Luther and Calvin.

 

There was nothing special about Luther and Calvin. People who think there was something special about the Reformation are ignorant about world history. Luther and Calvin were typical premodern reformers, going back to basics, getting rid of medieval accretions, and trying to meet the conditions of their time, in their case the changing conditions of early modernity.

 

The Reformation in Europe was in many ways a complete disaster. It resulted in a great deal of killing -- Catholics and Protestants killing one another. It was not a reformation that was handled well. It divided Europe permanently -- we're still trying to get it back together again. When I look back on all the reformations I've studied in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim history, that must be the worst and most ineptly handled.

 

People imagine that the Reformation somehow changed Christianity and therefore changed the ethos of Europe. The Reformation came about simply because there were changing conditions in Europe. Modernity was beginning, and people could no longer be Christian in the old medieval way. The Reformation was a product of modernization.

 

Muslims have to modernize their societies, and that took us three or four hundred years; they've only just begun. It's a long, painful, difficult process. They are having to do it far too quickly, and they are experiencing many of the same traumas we did in Europe when we were modernizing: wars of religion, revolutions, reigns of terror, exploitation of women and children, despotisms, basic alienation and anomie as conditions change and nothing new has come to take their place. So we're watching people in the developing countries, in some part of the Islamic world, going through a process that we went through ourselves, but we've forgotten. We think we've been home and dry for so long, so we think that anybody can just create a democracy in no time at all, forgetting that it took us hundreds of years to develop both our secular and our democratic institutions.

 

On the lessons of 9/11 for people of faith and American Muslims in particular:

I know what lessons I'd like them to have learned -- that we now live in one world; that what happens in Gaza or Afghanistan or Arabia today will have repercussions in the United States or London tomorrow; that America is no longer protected by its great oceans or wealth or military prowess. Look what happened to the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the symbols of what we thought would give us absolute security in the western world.

 

We have now entered the community of suffering. It is a religious opportunity, because the great religious teachers all say that unless our hearts are awakened to compassion, we cannot begin our religious quest.

 

Now the people of America know in their own hearts what it might have been for the people of Rwanda, Lebanon, Bosnia to have suffered as they did. This could make for a more compassionate form of religion, a religion that's not concerned just with dogma, identity, or keeping the various institutions going, but that is concerned above all with compassion, the one litmus test of every single one of the world's great traditions. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all insist that there's no point in being religious or saying your prayers unless you are acting justly and honoring the sacred rights of your fellow human beings.

[Lethalfind]

In my life I have heard all about Islam I want to know...

I have heard how in the name of Islam people, children, mothers fathers are murdered. Innocent people, not involved in the armed forces.

I don't care about anything else. These people are a threat to us.

I don't remember Columbians highjacking planes, or blowing up buildings etc. for their drug deals.

The violence perputrated by Islamic terrorists has made the ENTIRE world look upon all Muslims with a jaundiced eye. Now when one of you enter a country the immigration people will look at you fearfully, check your papers more carefully, looking for an excuse to deny you access. People on the plane will look at you in fear. People in stores will look at you wondering if your there buying the equipment to make a bomb.

 

The United States has not caused this, your own people have caused this, they have brought it on you, not the US.

 

As I have said before, IF all Islams don't feel this way, feel that innocent people have to meet their death in order to satiate Allah, then rise up, throw these people out of your midst. Don't just pay lip service to it. Turn them into the police, turn them into the military, anyone who will listen, scream from the rooftops, "this person is a terrorist and no one is safe as long as he is free"!!!

 

Funny how thats not happening. In fact the attempts of the government in the UK to kick out Islamic clerics who advocate violence is meeting with resistance, not cooperation. WHY IS THAT??? Unless they agree with him... what else can it be.

 

MY guess is that Texas has got to be an uncomfortable place for an Islamic terrorist. The gun laws are lax to say the least, fart into the wind around a good ole boy and you could end up dead and him with a parade...Maybe I live in the wrong state. However it does appear that Florida is trying to catch up with Texas on their gun laws. Thats something. I NEVER thought I would fee compelled to carry a gun to ensure my daughters and my own safety. The more I hear about the news today, the more I think I will have to.

[Hamza123]

Ken, it's better to hear someone. I never said you were dumb, I was insisting on the fact that if you didn't know something, you would make assumptions on it and refuse to see other views on it.

[Hamza123]

Yes, I understand Leslie!

 

The SILENCE of Muslims around the world is just ugly!

 

This is why I am trying to help people understand Islam. Infact many peolpe in my community do! Currently there are tons of lectures on Islam going on!

[Jhony5]

Ken, it's better to hear someone. I never said you were dumb, I was insisting on the fact that if you didn't know something, you would make assumptions on it and refuse to see other views on it.

 

 

I don't see how i'm making assumptions. I'm no expert on the history of Islam. However I have had the misfortune, as we all have, to bear witness to what is being done in the name of Islam.

 

What i'm saying is if the peaceful members of Islam want to regain their religions respect, like it ever had any , then it is their burden to bear. Don't turn to Americans and expect us to bear any blame for it.

 

Question: True or false. Islam is suffering from a massive internal conflict that has forced the world community to question the religion as a whole?

[angie]

It took you two full posts to basically say that you don't have an excuse for the reason that Muslims are killing innocents all over the world. Pathetic. Just ante up would ya?

[Jhony5]

Yes, I understand Leslie!

 

The SILENCE of Muslims around the world is just ugly!

 

This is why I am trying to help people understand Islam. Infact many peolpe in my community do! Currently there are tons of lectures on Islam going on!

 

 

 

 

 

THIS IS EXACTLY WHERE YOU MUSLIMS ARE FUCKING UP!!!

 

 

 

Stop trying to convince outsiders that Islam is fine and we're the ones that are mistaken. Spend that same passion and energy talking to your own people about how to FIGHT the bastards that are painting targets on any and every muslim. Dammit!! This is where your people are failing. You must look inside as opposed to outside. Islams issue is an internal one.

 

 

WE don't want to, or care to "understand" Islam. We want it to stop and we can't manage it. Muslims need to understand Islam for what has become of it.

[Lethalfind]

Understanding Islam is not going to fix the problem, Your people are going to have to throw the offenders out of your communities or be labeled as sympathizers. Thats just common sense. Either do it or you will be branded as one of them.

[Hamza123]

I don't blame anyone other than careless and misled Muslims who have misinterpreted the Qur'an. This isn't the point of this thread. I was only summing up some of my thoughts. In my eyes, the rest of the world are the victims along with the Moderate Muslims, yet they just don't see the bigger picture. I have said this a lot before: I completely understand if you have any hostile feelings toward Islam, as the history of Islam is rocky... Right now Islam is in the spotlight, and the people who represent it aren't doing such a good job. So this is where their better instinct needs to come in and show the rest of the world that these terrorists are not there brothers and sisters, but the ones who choose peace and prosperity are! And Ken, I understand that you don't want to understand what Islam is but others do. That's why after 9/11, so many Americans clean the books stores on anything they can find about Islam. That makes me very pleased at the fact that so many have an open mind. My first post that started this thread is what I would have liked to talk about...

 

Leslie, in all my previous posts, you must see that I haven't blamed Americans... I do so to terrorism and terrorists.

[Hamza123]

Either do it or you will be branded as one of them.

 

How? I try to.. Even on this forum, with my words. Yet it is physically impossible for my to do so at this time.