Islam

[Uzi Lover]

I'm starting to think that Islam might indeed be a "wicked faith". If not wicked, certainly dangerous...

It's dangerous because it genuinely believes that the Qu'ran is from the mouth of God, meaning that human-based concepts like democracy, rationality and basic morality all pale in significance. Therefore advocating the killing of a woman who marries a non-Muslim isn't so much fundamentalist, as being a good Muslim. After all, what is a person's opinion compared to the will of Allah?

Judeo-Christianity also has a lot of violent concepts like the stoning of "sodomites" but the difference is no one takes these views seriously. One of the reasons being that the Bible isn't meant to be written by God but by people (Matthew, Mark etc.) chronicling history. Even the more extreme groups don't encourage death and violence anywhere near the scale that their Muslim counterparts do.

Moreover the fanatics of other religions are largely localised. With Islam, due to the umma or global brotherhood, something which doesn't benefit Muslims in one country (regardless of the laws of that country) will invariably cause riots in another. A recent example of this is the worldwide call for blood because of the Danish cartoons.

People who follow the Qu'ran also stress the "purity" of the texts. Added to the unquestioning belief in God's authorship, this means that the more conservative, misogynistic laws will never change with social norms. Quite the opposite, the more liberal the Western laws, the more intense the internal consolidation and notion of  identity.

It is also of my view that the much-fabled moderate Muslims are not as liberal as the apologists would suggest. To be a "moderate Muslim" means to disagree with God on a lot of issues, like jihad. A lot of these moderates may allow others to do things they would dare not themselves for fear of legal punishment, or loss of political power.

One only needs to compare the hate-fuelled protests for Muslim causes with the Muslim protests against terrorism. Or the celebration of many Muslim states on September 11 with the accepted view that it is just a handful of radicals. Although I accept that the majority of practising Muslims are not fundamentally "wicked", I believe that their ignorance can only cause more deaths, misery, and segregation, and create legitimacy for extreme right-wing groups like the BNP.

Edit: The film Theo van Gogh got murdered for in case anyone's interested.

[vacant]

But don't Christians believe that the Bible is also the ' true word of God'?
 People seem to always regard Islam as a religion from 'over there', and therefore, not relevant  to us 'westerners'.
If i vaguely remember right, aren't there more followers of Islam than Christianity, worldwide?
 Just replace Muslim extremists, with Christian extremists. Didn't GWB say that God told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, and in by doing so, he was just doing God's work?
  Fundamentalist Christians are just as bad. I believe that some think that , eventually, Muslims could, and should, be converted to follow the Bible.

[sproggy]

If i vaguely remember right, aren't there more followers of Islam than Christianity, worldwide?

I haven't checked but I thought Catholicism was still #1 at the moment, with Islam being the fastest growing.  But one thing they both have in common are their respective levels of mutual ignorance.

[NoSleep]

The fundamentalist movement that has swept through Islam was aided & abetted by the CIA, when such ideas were seen as creating potential allies in the Cold War.

As vacant has pointed out, more danger lies within the fundamentalist christian camp right now.

[Milo]

Moreover the fanatics of other religions are largely localised. With Islam, due to the umma or global brotherhood, something which doesn't benefit Muslims in one country (regardless of the laws of that country) will invariably cause riots in another. A recent example of this is the worldwide call for blood because of the Danish cartoons.

Like the Danish embassy in Beirut being torched: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4682560.stm

[sproggy]

The fundamentalist movement that has swept through Islam was aided & abetted by the CIA

I was under the impression the fundementalist Islamist movement was the new communism in the eys of the US.

Hence US backing of Saddam in the Iran / Iraq war, the last thing the CIA wanted was a bunch of Mullahs running amok throughout the Middle East.

[klaatu!]

Didn't GWB say that God told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, and in by doing so, he was just doing God's work?

In a matter of words. He said he believed democracy was 'God's gift to Iraq and Afghanistan'.

[Artemis]

I agree with you in part, Uzi. Islam is certainly a dangerous faith. But no more dangerous then Christianity or Catholicism in my opinion. In fact, any religion system that would have you believe that it is the truth at the expense of anything that might disagree with it, and uses as its basis for that a book written hundreds of years ago that never changes to accomodate new information that we are learning (except when the church gets together for a little 're-draft') is dangerous. It's extremely concerning when children are being taught to deny their imaginations and free-thought, and it's frighteningly dangeorus when Presidents declare wars in the name of Jesus.

In 200 years time, there will be only one spirituality, based on real love and care for one another, about living positiviely and producing goodness. Unfortunately, there will be a lot of bloodshed before we get there.

[Blumf]

In 200 years time, there will be only one spirituality, based on real love and care for one another, about living positiviely and producing goodness. Unfortunately, there will be a lot of bloodshed before we get there.

That's a bit optimistic, especially considering the current mess has been plodding along for several thousand years.

[Mr. Analytical]

In 200 years time, there will be only one spirituality, based on real love and care for one another, about living positiviely and producing goodness. Unfortunately, there will be a lot of bloodshed before we get there.

 How absolutely ghastly.

[Artemis]

Oh come on, I think it's inevitable, don't you?! Yes, it's been plodding along but never before have we had the capacity to do so much damage. And however sickly you might think my vision is now, wait until half the world's population (and I don't mean just conveniently tucked away in the middle east) are dead. The world will go into PTSD and out of it all will come a new spirituality - no incense waving and popes, just a concious effort to treat everyone else like family, because thats what they are (they are now, but our hedonism needs to be curbed)

[Littlejohn]

I don't see how this population decrease will happen without plague, environmental collapse/disaster or multiple nuclear strikes.

But 200 years is quite a good estimate for something like you propose to happen, through development of thinking etc.

[Blumf]

...wait until half the world's population (and I don't mean just conveniently tucked away in the middle east) are dead. The world will go into PTSD and out of it all will come a new spirituality - no incense waving and popes, just a concious effort to treat everyone else like family, because thats what they are (they are now, but our hedonism needs to be curbed)

Humm.. the last 'biblical' level disaster to strike the world was the Black Death (knocking out about a third of Europe's population) and that led to a more fundamentalist out look and greater persecution of minorities (Jews and lepers in this case). In general hard times do not make for nicer people.

[The Plaque Goblin]

Yeah, only secure material comfort will shut most people up.

[Mr. Analytical]

Oh come on, I think it's inevitable, don't you?!

 Not if I have anything to say about it.  

 "Those who believe absurdities, commit attrocities"

[Brainwrong]

Hopefully we'll get invaded by Aliens sometime, that way everyone can fight together instead of against each other.
And -  we could even involve Will Smith in some way.

[Hot Towell]

Hopefully we'll get invaded by Aliens sometime, that way everyone can fight together instead of against each other.
And -  we could even involve Will Smith in some way.

fuck that.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

The fundamentalist movement that has swept through Islam was aided & abetted by the CIA

I was under the impression the fundementalist Islamist movement was the new communism in the eys of the US.

Hence US backing of Saddam in the Iran / Iraq war, the last thing the CIA wanted was a bunch of Mullahs running amok throughout the Middle East.

But in Afghanistan the CIA and other Western security agencies helped to train and also funded the mujahadin in fighting against the Soviets. Also it wasn't just the US helping Iraq in the 1970/80s, pretty much every major country did, like Russia and France.

[Pinball]

IMO Islam isn't the problem; it's its fundamentalisation in recent decades. The current protests against the Danish cartoons are a case in point about what being an unthinking, brainwashed easily led nutter is all about. I don't mind Muslim countries protesting, but Muslims in a liberal democracy should frankly abide by the local laws and culture, instead of creating Alien Nation. That's not to say their ghettoisation is all their fault, but it is partly.

But Islam per se isn't bad (beyond my usual despisal of religions and what they stand for), for instance:

The Abbasid Caliphs were the dynastic rulers of the Islamic world between the middle of the eighth and the tenth centuries. They headed a Muslim empire that extended from Tunisia through Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and Persia to Uzbekistan and the frontiers of India. But unlike previous conquerors, the Abbasid Caliphs presided over a multicultural empire where conversion was a relatively peaceful business.

As Vikings raided the shores of Britain, the Abbasids were developing sophisticated systems of government, administration and court etiquette. Their era saw the flowering of Arabic philosophy, mathematics and Persian literature. The Abbasids were responsible for patronising the translation of Classical Greek texts and transmitting them back to a Europe emerging from the Dark Ages.

So who were the Abbasid Caliphs and how did they come to power? What was their cultural significance? What factors can account for their decline and fall? And why do they represent a Golden Age of Islamic civilisation?

MP3

I wonder if the current protests in Beirut etc. are merely an opportunity for people to vent their spleen and do what normally is forbidden - protest. After all, they can't criticise their own governments, as none of them are democratic, so what better (and safer) than to blame foreigners?

[sproggy]

But in Afghanistan the CIA and other Western security agencies helped to train and also funded the mujahadin in fighting against the Soviets. Also it wasn't just the US helping Iraq in the 1970/80s, pretty much every major country did, like Russia and France.

The afghan war was a remnent of the cold war and was a stalemate, if it's any consolation the US also sold weapons to Iran during the Iraq conflict, but that was probably pure capitalism rather than anything political.

As for Iraq, Saddam would buy anything he could get his hands on and wasn't fussy where it came from.

[Artemis]

I don't see how this population decrease will happen without plague, environmental collapse/disaster or multiple nuclear strikes.

Well that was exactly what I was thinking, IL. The first will happen sometime in the next hundred years (I mean something on a global scale), the second will develop during the second.

[chimpoo]

With our Western tinted spectacles it is so difficult to form an opinion about Islam that isn't based, in part, on a fundamental sense of us/them.  As much as we try to be neutral we are constantly putting little boxes around 'us' and 'them' in the way we envisage the world, as 'religions' and 'peoples' who are defined by their differences.

When you think about how many of the British population first come into contact with the religion, you'd probably find that it was through some 'extremity' of there's that offends our own cultural values, eg. the French school uniform thing, terrorism, these silly cartoons etc.  So there's an immediate split in the relationship as we try to understand each other through the things we disagree with, rather than all that we have in common.  

Plus, its worth remembering that such things are always relative to what else is going on in the world at the time.  A century a go we were too busy trying to sort out the differences between our European cousins, and that hasn't always been based on religion.  We've now turned our attention further afield thanks to integration, and before we can achieve any sort of world unity, these new differences need to be thrashed out.  

As far as the violence and terrorist threat goes, that's just a reaction to how badly we've been treating them.  And, being as how are governments are so impressively in denial about this, we tend to accept it as the business of the 'state' rather than our personal responsibility.  Terrorism is their only way of making their point for a change in how we seemingly empower our governments and militaries without any kind of true debate.  Despite massive disapproval of the Iraq war, Blair et al are ostensibly untouched by it for now, and as frustrating as this is I feel helpless to effect any change bar turning my life into some personal political crusade.  And I guess that idea is actually more repellent to me that just letting things ride out, or otherwise I'd do it.

As much protest about these cartoons there is, I'll bet there's just as many Muslims who find the challenge to their faith they represent as intriguing rather than offensive.  And they'll probably be the ones who go on to inform and educate the religion to compromise in some way as time goes on.  Christianity is/was just as extreme and ruthless in its take on existence, we've just begun to isolate and correct the 'human' factor that usually leads to coercion.

At the end of the day, integration and tolerance is beneficial to everyone, there are just too many differences to work out in the present for us to ever experience it in our lifetimes.  It'll happen one day, but not without exchanging a few blows first.  Islam, for certain, will not be the last.

God I'm in a good mood today.

[Sid8800]

As much protest about these cartoons there is, I'll bet there's just as many Muslims who find the challenge to their faith they represent as intriguing rather than offensive.

By definition they can be no challenge to the Muslim faith. A true Muslim will accept no challenges. A Muslim who doesn't believe the Koran is the absolute authority would be equal to a Christian who doesn't believe Jesus was the son of God.

Surely if there really as many Muslims who want the challenge, where the hell are they? You'd thing that a view so contraditory to every other view expressed by Muslims in the media would have got heard.

Since noone else was sure, there are appoximately twice as many Christians as Muslims in the world.

Islam is a wicked faith, just look round the world, Iraq, Palestine and Sudan are just three recent examples.

I used to wonder why something as such stupid as Islam managed to survive but then I realised that it's because of it's stupidity, it's inflexabilty that it survives.

An ultimate distillation of religion, that only has one rule "You must covert or kill the non-believers" would be the most successful religion and would eventually take over the world.

[Evil Knevil]

Islam is a wicked faith, just look round the world, Iraq, Palestine and Sudan are just three recent examples.

Ah, you mean Palestine, where about 12% of the Palestinians are Christian, and an Islamist faction have just been voted in over a bunch of corrupt dictatorial secularist assholes.
Or Iraq, which was probably the most secular state in the Middle East until we fucked it up.
Or Sudan, where the main problem is Sudanese Arab Muslims fighting Sudanese Black Muslims in Darfur.

You can't really reduce everything to 'Islam' as if it were an essense underlying all behavour in the Middle East. That just makes it circular. Why does the Arab world have so many problems? Because they're Muslim. Therefore, because they're all Muslim, they have all these problems.

[Mr. Analytical]

Um... that's not circular, that's just blaming Islam for their problems.

[Borboski]

Apologies for quoting in full; here's an article from Christopher Hitchens, rather good I reckon:



As well as being a small masterpiece of inarticulacy and self-abnegation, the statement from the State Department about this week's international Muslim pogrom against the free press was also accidentally accurate.

"Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-Semitic images, as anti-Christian images, or any other religious belief."

Thus the hapless Sean McCormack, reading painfully slowly from what was reported as a prepared government statement. How appalling for the country of the First Amendment to be represented by such an administration. What does he mean "unacceptable"? That it should be forbidden? And how abysmal that a "spokesman" cannot distinguish between criticism of a belief system and slander against a people. However, the illiterate McCormack is right in unintentionally comparing racist libels to religious faith. Many people have pointed out that the Arab and Muslim press is replete with anti-Jewish caricature, often of the most lurid and hateful kind. In one way the comparison is hopelessly inexact. These foul items mostly appear in countries where the state decides what is published or broadcast. However, when Muslims republish the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or perpetuate the story of Jewish blood-sacrifice at Passover, they are recycling the fantasies of the Russian Orthodox Christian secret police (in the first instance) and of centuries of Roman Catholic and Lutheran propaganda (in the second). And, when an Israeli politician refers to Palestinians as snakes or pigs or monkeys, it is near to a certainty that he will be a rabbi (most usually Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the leader of the disgraceful Shas party) and will cite Talmudic authority for his racism. For most of human history, religion and bigotry have been two sides of the same coin, and it still shows.

Therefore there is a strong case for saying that the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, and those who have reprinted its efforts out of solidarity, are affirming the right to criticize not merely Islam but religion in general. And the Bush administration has no business at all expressing an opinion on that. If it is to say anything, it is constitutionally obliged to uphold the right and no more. You can be sure that the relevant European newspapers have also printed their share of cartoons making fun of nuns and popes and messianic Israeli settlers, and taunting child-raping priests. There was a time when this would not have been possible. But those taboos have been broken.

Which is what taboos are for. Islam makes very large claims for itself. In its art, there is a prejudice against representing the human form at all. The prohibition on picturing the prophet—who was only another male mammal—is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing. Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent. This current uneasy coexistence is only an interlude, he seems to say. For the moment, all I can do is claim to possess absolute truth and demand absolute immunity from criticism. But in the future, you will do what I say and you will do it on pain of death.

I refuse to be spoken to in that tone of voice, which as it happens I chance to find "offensive." ( By the way, hasn't the word "offensive" become really offensive lately?) The innate human revulsion against desecration is much older than any monotheism: Its most powerful expression is in the Antigone of Sophocles. It belongs to civilization. I am not asking for the right to slaughter a pig in a synagogue or mosque or to relieve myself on a "holy" book. But I will not be told I can't eat pork, and I will not respect those who burn books on a regular basis. I, too, have strong convictions and beliefs and value the Enlightenment above any priesthood or any sacred fetish-object. It is revolting to me to breathe the same air as wafts from the exhalations of the madrasahs, or the reeking fumes of the suicide-murderers, or the sermons of Billy Graham and Joseph Ratzinger. But these same principles of mine also prevent me from wreaking random violence on the nearest church, or kidnapping a Muslim at random and holding him hostage, or violating diplomatic immunity by attacking the embassy or the envoys of even the most despotic Islamic state, or making a moronic spectacle of myself threatening blood and fire to faraway individuals who may have hurt my feelings. The babyish rumor-fueled tantrums that erupt all the time, especially in the Islamic world, show yet again that faith belongs to the spoiled and selfish childhood of our species.

As it happens, the cartoons themselves are not very brilliant, or very mordant, either. But if Muslims do not want their alleged prophet identified with barbaric acts or adolescent fantasies, they should say publicly that random murder for virgins is not in their religion. And here one runs up against a curious reluctance. ... In fact, Sunni Muslim leaders can't even seem to condemn the blowing-up of Shiite mosques and funeral processions, which even I would describe as sacrilege. Of course there are many millions of Muslims who do worry about this, and another reason for condemning the idiots at Foggy Bottom is their assumption, dangerous in many ways, that the first lynch mob on the scene is actually the genuine voice of the people. There's an insult to Islam, if you like.

The question of "offensiveness" is easy to decide. First: Suppose that we all agreed to comport ourselves in order to avoid offending the believers? How could we ever be sure that we had taken enough precautions? On Saturday, I appeared on CNN, which was so terrified of reprisal that it "pixilated" the very cartoons that its viewers needed to see. And this ignoble fear in Atlanta, Ga., arose because of an illustration in a small Scandinavian newspaper of which nobody had ever heard before! Is it not clear, then, that those who are determined to be "offended" will discover a provocation somewhere? We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt.

Second (and important enough to be insisted upon): Can the discussion be carried on without the threat of violence, or the automatic resort to it? When Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses in 1988, he did so in the hope of forwarding a discussion that was already opening in the Muslim world, between extreme Quranic literalists and those who hoped that the text could be interpreted. We know what his own reward was, and we sometimes forget that the fatwa was directed not just against him but against "all those involved in its publication," which led to the murder of the book's Japanese translator and the near-deaths of another translator and one publisher. I went on Crossfire at one point, to debate some spokesman for outraged faith, and said that we on our side would happily debate the propriety of using holy writ for literary and artistic purposes. But that we would not exchange a word until the person on the other side of the podium had put away his gun. (The menacing Muslim bigmouth on the other side refused to forswear state-sponsored suborning of assassination, and was of course backed up by the Catholic bigot Pat Buchanan.) The same point holds for international relations: There can be no negotiation under duress or under the threat of blackmail and assassination. And civil society means that free expression trumps the emotions of anyone to whom free expression might be inconvenient. It is depressing to have to restate these obvious precepts, and it is positively outrageous that the administration should have discarded them at the very first sign of a fight.

[Sid8800]

Ah, you mean Palestine, where about 12% of the Palestinians are Christian, and an Islamist faction have just been voted in over a bunch of corrupt dictatorial secularist assholes..

A very significant amount of thier votes came because, not in spite of the suicide bombings

Or Iraq, which was probably the most secular state in the Middle East until we fucked it up.

About three times as many Iraq cilvilians have been killed by insugents as have been killed by the US forces. What's the point in that? The fact that it was more secular before isn't relevent to my point.

Or Sudan, where the main problem is Sudanese Arab Muslims fighting Sudanese Black Muslims in Darfur.

So are you saying that it's alright if thier killing fellow Muslims, clearly you're not you I don't know how showing an example of Muslim murderings was suppost to show how I'm wrong. Anyway, aren't the black Muslims largely a different sect to the arab Muslims?

[MojoJojo]

Still not convinced that Freedom of Speech really has much to do with this entire issue. Freedom of speech doesn't mean that everyone has to accept what newspapers say. It doesn't make newspapers above criticism. Obviously the violence (real and threatened) is wrong, but if that is ignored, the protests can only be seen as an extreme criticism. If the press insults you, why shouldn't you get angry?  It's not an issue of freedom of speech.

No one seems to be asking WHY the cartoons were printed. They're not very good. The media's focus on freedom of speech issues just seems like an attempt to deflect criticism from the fact a newspaper abused that freedom.

[Blumf]

No one seems to be asking WHY the cartoons were printed.

Because people were afraid for their life for making comments on the Islamic faith and community, these cartoons formed part of an article discussing this and guess what, it ends up with death threats and violence. I'd say that's a pretty big freedom of speech issue wouldn't you? Or are you about to threaten me with death to shut me up?

They're not very good.

True. The stupidest thing of all is that, had the Muslim community kept quite on them, they'd be forgotten, now they're a part of our history.

[MojoJojo]

No one seems to be asking WHY the cartoons were printed.

Because people were afraid for their life for making comments on the Islamic faith and community, these cartoons formed part of an article discussing this and guess what, it ends up with death threats and violence. I'd say that's a pretty big freedom of speech issue wouldn't you? Or are you about to threaten me with death to shut me up?

Ahh,that makes a bit more sense. Although if there was some point to the cartoons beyond causing offence, I'd be more sympathetic to the issue  - were the cartoons central to the story? In what other context would it be appropriate for a major newspaper to print cartoons like these? The newspaper was obviously trying to create some controversy, and have managed better than they expected.

I guess the cartoons have a disproportionate impact, because they can easily be cut out of the context of the story, and cross language barriers easily.

Meh, obviously the protestors threatening and commiting violence are the main enemies, I'm just annoyed that very few questions are being asked. Does freedom of speech mean that no one has to justify what they say?