Another call for reform of Islam that seems to rest on false principles. I do not believe that genuine reform is possible without a forthright acknowledgement of what needs to be reformed. From Singapore's TodayOnline:
The word "jihad" used to have a noble connotation of an effort made towards self-improvement through enlightenment and education. But, of late, it has become synonymous with armed struggle and terrorism.Speaking at a seminar on the uses and abuses of jihad at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies yesterday, prominent Islamic thinker Prof Mohammad Hashim Kamali said the word and deed has become one of the most distorted and politicised aspects in Islam.
The Afghan-born Prof Kamali said Islamic juristic writings on jihad were a key influence in "virtually equating jihad with war".
He said: "In the course, juristic writings on jihad became so preoccupied with its military aspect … it was eventually restricted only to this meaning to the near total exclusion of its wider connotations. This has lent support to the common misconception about jihad that has persisted ever since."
So Islamic jurists are responsible for the misconception? In other words, if you read books of Islamic law, which I do at some length in Onward Muslim Soldiers, they'll tell you that jihad means warfare, but they're wrong? The body of men who spent their lives studying the Qur'an and Hadith in order to conform every aspect of Muslims' lives to the will of Allah and his prophet, and they misunderstood this key concept?
Referring to Koranic evidence, Prof Kamali emphasised that jihad was the "inner struggle for self- discipline and a sincere striving for the acquisition of knowledge".
I wish the article had been more explicit. I'd like to know how "slay the unbelievers wherever you find them (Sura 9:5) and the scores of other Qur'anic verses commanding warfare against non-Muslims refers to an "inner struggle for self-discipline."
However, he admitted that jihad in the military sense could be interpreted as a defence against aggression."In countless places, the Koran ordains fighting tyranny and suppression of liberties until persecution stops and people are free to believe and act in accordance with their own conscience," said the professor of Islamic law and jurisprudence at the International Islamic University in Malaysia.
Also, I wonder what Kamali would say to Mufti Ebrahim Desai and others who say that jihad warfare is not always defensive, but must also be waged offensively to spread Islamic hegemony. The fact that he takes no notice of this is just one indication of the severe limitations of his supposedly reformist vision.
So let me get this straight....We (none muslims) are to convert to escape death? What sort of motive is that? What sort of a god says kill them that do not believe in me? Is that a loving merciful God?
Figure the odds of being born into a Muslim family? Before 600 AD that was impossible! So every one born before Mohammed is just out of luck? And every one after 600 AD that was born into a culture or religion other than Islam is also just out of luck...
And The Jihadist at your door with a sword with your name on it is the proper motive to convert??
None of this makes any sense at all! I wonder if ANY Muslims are THINKING at all?
Would you serve a bloodthirsty god that demands worship or death from people that have never heard of him??
The best CURE for Islam is getting people to think and talk about this nonsense!!
"In countless places, the Koran ordains fighting tyranny (anything in the way of non-islamic government, or, for that matter, True freedom) and suppression of liberties (wife beating, child molesting) until persecution (having to see Christians being able to freely practice their Faith) stops and people are free to believe and act in accordance with their own conscience (Kill non-muslims, demean, degrade and demonize non-mulsims, destroy any and all non-muslim culture, wherever they can lay their hands upon it. Assuming they still have both hands)"
The word "jihad" used to have a noble connotation of an effort made towards self-improvement through enlightenment and education.
That wouldn’t be “Jihad”, but a definition of "Ijtihad" – or so I gather from an explanation in "The Trouble with Islam" by Irshad Manji. Two very, very separate concepts.
How does one separate the information from the misinformation? Trying to comprehend this so-called religion is like nailing Jello to a tree.
Yeah Susanc,
They're thinking alright, a typical muslim train of thought goes something like this:
MUST KILL...KILL....KILL... ALL INFIDELS MUST DIE...MUST KILL... PRAY...KILL ....PRAY...MIGHTY ALLAH...KILL INFIDELS (and any muslim "brothers" unlucky enough to get in the way, but if they die it's because "most merciful allah" has ordained it).... DIE ZIONISTS .....PRAY.......DIE CHRISTIANS...PRAY ...DIE...PRAY... UNBELIEVERS MUST ALL DIE BY THE WILL OF MOST MERCIFUL ALLAH.....INFIDELS DIEEEE!!!!!
What a peaceful religion eh folks?Want to join,...What? ..No?...Why on earth not?
This business of the original meaning of Jihad being perverted is sheer nonsense. There is one hadith about the presumed "Lesser Jihad" and the "Greater Jihad." The trivial significance of this particular hadith has been carefully explained by Islamic theologians, including Al-Ghazali, who makes clear that the real Jihad is of course violent Jihad, to be directed against Infidels, not that "wrestling with one's conscience." Not a single Qur'anic commentator, not a single figure of significance in the whole 1350-year-history of Islam, has ever regarded Jihad as anything but the effort, using violence and other means, to spread Islam until it covers the globe.
Karen Armstrong, who made much of the "Jihad as an internal psychic battle," is of course a fool and a liar; ditto the others who know a bit more about Islam because they edit books full of pretty pictures of mosques and calligraphy (Esposito comes to mind).
What exactly prevents Muslims from simply recognizing the truth? Why must even the sanest among them not discuss Islam as the fons et origo of the Muslim world's distemper and hate? Why is there only silence on this? It is because to fully recognize this, would mean to lose -- as we in the Bloods and Crips like to say -- one's street cred, to become an ex-Muslim and therefore, not to be attended to. Just imagine if Fouad Ajami, or Kanan Makiya, or the smooth, wine-column-writing Mr. Zakaria, actually were to fess up to home truths about Islam, not a "perversion" or an "extreme" version, but the version that has Muslim history, and Muslim authority, behind it.
But it won't happen. And all this nonsense either about a "war between civilisations" (there is none: there is the war, based on Islamic tenets, against the entire non-Islamic world) or that this is really a response to "humiliation" (what "humiliation" was caused the Muslims by the black Christians in the southern Sudan? Or in Northern Nigeria? In the Moluccas? Or by the Hindu peasants murdered in Bangladesh? Was it "humiliating" that Israel did not lose the war, and allow itself to be destroyed -- sorry!), and finally, the latest attempt to avoid looking steadily and whole at Islam, the nonsense that is so self-assuredly bruited about that "this is really a war within Islam" or "for the soul of Islam." Nonsense, all three. If there are Muslims who, looking at the tents of Islam, find them intolerable, they should say so. To lie about those tenets, to pretend that only a few unorthodox souls believe in them, is to practice taqiyya and kitman -- on the Infidels, and on oneself. It does no good.
Recently I was informed by an Islamic scholar, that a certain section of the Qur’an requires Muslims to shave their rear-hind quarters. As such, I was inspired to compose the following:
Muzzie Wuzzie is so fuzzie,
Muzzie Wuzzie has much hair (especially around the anal orifice).
Then one day Allah said,
“Muzzie, shave that hairy butt.”
Muzzie said, “Oh yes, oh most merciful and compassionate Allah, I will.”
Muzzie Wuzzie was so fuzzie,
Now he’s just a bald asshole!
Reza: FYI, I understand that several mosques have positions available for rectal inspectors for spot-checking of the above Islamic requirement (Allah doesn’t like 5 o’clock shadow).
Possibly in your spare time, when you are not posting your islamo-fascist garbage, you could help service the Muslim community by availing yourself of the above employment opportunity.
Your grandchildren will be salespersons for Gillette razors and shaving cream.
Fondly,
Son of Infidel
"In countless places, the Koran ordains fighting tyranny and suppression of liberties until persecution stops and people are free to believe and act in accordance with their own conscience,"
That´s funny in Soera 2.193
"And fight them until persecution is no more, AND religion is for Allah. "
In the dutch translation that I use (translated by muslims) it says : "AND relgion becomes for Allah ALONE.
So what is this freedom of believe he is talking about!
The entire concept of an omnipotent creature ("God") that needs humans to carry out his will is ridiculous. The monotheistic religions that developed in the Middle East are the result of manipulative, and in some cases delusional men that sought power and justification for thier conquest. The Yaweh or YHWH of the old testament constantly urges the conquest of areas he has "promised" to "his people" and displays a blood lust that is more indicative of a warped human psychology that that of a supposedly enlightned, all knowing being. Even the eminently more palatable teachings of Christ demand total loss of self to the body of Christ and preach eternal damnation to all that do not accept his sacrifice. Why is blood and death demanded by this all knowing, all powerful creature?
The last of the monotheistic religions to emerge, ISLAM; is clerly the creation of leaders that needed a binding force to hold together an army of conquest and subjugate any resistance. How the vile tenants of this creed are considered by any modern human being to be a valid guide for the conduct of one's life is beyond me.
We as human beings have on average about seventy some odd years of life, less in many parts of the world due to our own mismanagement. Until humanity takes responsibility for itself and stops seeking utopia either here or in the "hereafter" we will continue to suffer. To take responsibility as humans we must face some truths:
We are "imperfect," we have jealousies, passions, fears, hopes, dreams etc... and no one system of government or beliefs is going to "fix" everything and make the worls a perfect place. The criminal, the crazy, the lazy, the corrupt will always exsist, the founding fathers of the U.S. understood this and tried to create a system that accounted for both the strentghs and weaknesses of the human mind or spirit if you prefer.
When we die no one knows what happens to our "soul." We can claim with certainty to believe in what will happen but until you die it is all dreams and hope. What we do know with certainty is that for a short time we have world filled with incredible variety and we have the power of choice. It is a choice to kill for the mandate of an unseen and bloodthirsty "God" that
baffles me. To spend the short time we have killing or simpling pineing for some mystical afterlife where we are rewarded either with the privelege of constantly groveling before the throne or engaging in some kind of ISLAMIC orgy is a deranged way to live.
I ask you all, as humans, to choose to use your liitle time in this world to live your life here to the fullest. To never pass up the cahnce to be with those you care for. To aprreciate what you have and to sieze the chance to make your little place in the world a better place to be. Stop, strip off your skin and your gods and we are all the same sinew and muscle like beast but with one huge exception a choice in how we live our lives. What choice will YOU make?
Torog~ I choose to follow God of course, and continue to do what it takes to make this world better so we Can all life a happier life- in Both worlds.
btw, Christians, Bhuddists and many other faiths will allow you your belief system. Islam won't.
Gary,
I have no problem with anyone's beliefs as long as they do not exlude the right of other to belive diferrently. the point of my little rant was that sometimes in our grab for the brass ring of eternity we treat each other like crap here on earth, this outlook is most prevalent is Islam because it is a core part of thier belief system. Christianity, while also claiming exclusivity to salvation, in general,calls for the kind treatment of others. Islam calls for thier destruction. So, I have no problem with your belief if it comforts you and enriches your life.
*nods* Good enough for me, Torog. :)
Islam could not exist without jihad. Thus, no believing Muslim could or would repudiate jihad. Anyone with half a brain understands that jihad means war, and that Islam is meant to be propagated through war against any group that resists its predation. That means us!
Well, there are holy war ideals in Judaism and Christianity, too--at least Christianity evolved a highly elaborate "just war" doctrine, even if it saw preaching and ethical example as the main means of propagation. The socialist vision, while it often claims to be "pacifistic", seems to have few qualms about rivers of human blood flowing through the street in episodes of "revolutionary action". I don't think there's a single political player around today who doesn't justify violence in the name of some higher ideal.
By the way, on the Iraqi blog "The Mesopotamian", the author is castigating the jihadis. The writer seems to be a fairly serious Muslim, but shows signs that he is experiencing some real tensions between the "ar-rahman" and "jihad" aspects of his religion.