India: Muslim attack on Hindu temple "defames Islam"

Permit a semi-seasoned veteran in south asian affairs to analyse this Taqiyya-tornado.

*** Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, People's Democratic Party president and MP Mehbooba Mufti
Mehbooba Mufti, then daughter of Union home minister MM Sayeed was kidnapped for exchange by Kashmiri jihadists in 1989 ('90?). New Delhi's subsequent capitulation hugely bolstered jihadi ranks in kashmir, increased Paki meddling, drove a cowed kashmiri hindu (pandit) populace out of their ancestral homes and force-fed a conflict that's by now claimed a 100k+ lives over 15 yrs.

***The Chief Minister termed the attack as "highly provocative and defaming Islam and its followers".
As if. Those seeking infamy aren't easily deterred by mere defamation.

***She said those who indulge in such acts cannot be true followers of their religion.
But of course. True followers would've tried harder to bring down those darned infidel structures, you see. Failure ain't no option for true believers.....

***She said the attackers were enemies of the peace process between India and Pakistan, adding that the two countries had come close to each other after over 50 years of acrimony.
Peace with Pukistan? Hello??!! Pakistan is engaging in classic hudna tactics here. Their tactics are so transparent to any JWer as to reek of ticks, I daresay. Pakistan is committedto the destruction of infidel twin India. Ceasefires and peace-processes are mere divwersions along the way.

"Defaming Islam" is given as one of the main reasons, possibly the main reason, by Muslims for not engaging in a terrorist attack on Ayodhya. Similar sentiments are expressed by Muslims in another article put up today denouncing Zarqawi for attacking other Muslims (and even a few Infidels, the kind who are civilian aid workers, not the military aid workers of the American army), because his attacks have "defaced Islam."

The appeal is not to doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong (and Muslims are taught always to do what by their lights is right, and not merely not doing, but forbidding others, to do what is wrong), but to the "harm" that may come to the "image" of Islam. That does not exsactly warm the cockles of Infidel hearts. One would like a clear statement: terrorism is wrong. The insistence that Islam must cover the globe, and Muslims rule, and something like Sharia be imposed upon it is also bad. Bad not because it is "defaming"; bad not because it "defaces" the "image of Islam" but becfuase --because it is bad, wicked, evil, not to be done. Civilized people don't think that way, in those terms.

This is not an "image" problem, a little matter of maquillage, or tittivating for the cameras, or getting Islam ready for its close-up, Mr. DeMille. We have seen Islam close-up, and closer and closer up. And you know something? It lacks not only star appeal, but any appeal whatsoever to those who are not already born into it, and confuse their fond memories of grandparents, and the smell of certain kinds of food, and filial piety and other sentiments with which Infidels can empathize, with something else: the refusal to admit to others, and even to oneself, what Islam is, in the end, all about.

"Defaming," "defacing" -- let's call the whole thing off, shall we?

Well, that's not what these people say-

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1161887,curpg-1.cms

NEW DELHI/SRINAGAR: Tuesday’s Ayodhya attack is a deadly reminder of Lashkar-e-Toiba’s core ideology — it goes well beyond opposing India’s sovereignty in Jammu and Kashmir.

According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, the Lashkar’s agenda, as outlined in a pamphlet titled, ‘Why Are We Waging Jihad’, includes the restoration of Islamic rule over all parts of India.

The terrorist group started out as a wholly owned subsidiary of ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence outfit. But over the years it has grown beyond its creator and is now regarded by many terrorism analysts as the successor to the Al Qaida—not as a monolithic organisation, but as a loosely constructed federation.

It propagates a narrow Islamist fundamentalism that is uncomfortably close to Saudi Wahhabism. It wants to unite all Muslim majority regions in countries that surround Pakistan.

Hence, its presence in Afghanistan, J&K, Chechnya and other parts of Central Asia. The outfit has a history of executing precision attacks outside J&K, the most prominent being its suspected role in the December 13, 2001, attack on Parliament and the 2002 strike on the Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar.

Security sources say, LeT had planned a similar
in Ayodhya in 2002, but it fell apart after the militants entrusted with the task were killed in an encounter with the Delhi Police in Tughlaqabad.

BSF’s senior intelligence officer, K Srinivasan, believes LeT operatives are also active in UP and Gujurat besides being spread across Jammu and Kashmir. Srinivasan, who has been involved in anti-militancy operations in Jammu and Kashmir since 2000, told TOI that Lashskar’s involvement in the Ayodhya attack could not be ruled out given its track record.

Shahzad Ahmad alias Abu Shamas of Pakistan is the supreme operational commander of the outfit in Jammu and Kashmir. Shahzad resides in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir but has a representative, Dr Zaan, stationed in Bandipora, North Kashmir, acting as operational commander these days, Srinivasan said.

The UN took the ultimate step in May of banning the LeT and all its sister concerns for its links with Al Qaida, through UN Resolution 1267 under which all states are obliged to freeze its assets, prevent its entry into or transit through their territories.

The fact that this is yet to find any ground in LeT’s home base, Pakistan, has not escaped notice. Formed in 1990 in the Kunar province of Afghanistan, the Lashkar-e-Toiba is the military wing of the Markaz-ud-Dawawal-Irshad (MDI), an Islamic fundamentalist organisation of the Ahle-Hadith sect in Pakistan.

Its first presence in J&K was recorded in 1993 when 12 Pakistani and Afghan mercenaries infiltrated across the Line of Control (LoC).
However, after being banned by the US and at different times, Pakistan, the LeT has been reorganised into two supposedly exclusive bodies — one devoted to preaching of Islam under Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and the other to carry on its violent campaign under the leadership of Kashmiri scholar Maulana Abdul Wahid Kashmiri.

Compared to other terrorist outfits in J&K, LeT has commanded significant attention primarily due to two reasons. First, for its well planned and executed attacks on security forces and second, for the dramatic killings of non-Muslim civilians.

In fact, it is generally noted that LeT cadres prefer death to arrest, pointing to a high degree of motivation. In recent months, LeT has joined hands with other organisations to oppose the Srinagar-Muzaffarbad bus service.

But of greater concern to Indian security agencies has been the tie-up between LeT and India’s most wanted man, Dawood Ibrahim, which was used by the US to brand Dawood a global terrorist. The LeT is believed to collect donations from the Pakistani community in the Persian Gulf and UK, Islamic NGOs and Pakistani and Kashmiri businessmen. The amount of LeT funding is unknown.

It maintains ties to various religious/military groups around the world, ranging from the Philippines to West Asia and Chechnya primarily through the fraternal network of Jamaat ud Dawa, its re-named parent body. Next to Pakistan, where the headquarters of the LeT is located, the second most important base of the outfit is in Saudi Arabia.

I wonder who's telling fibs?

Muslim 'condemnations' like this, usually of despicable Muslim violence, almost always have to do with 'defamation' of the religion, the religon of peace, of course, and 'law-abiding' Muslims themselves. That is what seems to bother the 'condemning Muslims', giving Islam a bad name, 'defamation'.

But why worry about this? Why not worry instead about the millions (and in the India-Pakistan conflict hundreds of millions) of people, most of them non-Muslims, whose very lives are threaten by Islamic violence motivated by Jihad ideology grounded in the Qur'an and Sunna? Why stay focused on defending Islam? Why not care about people generally instead? Why not evoke a more general principle like, say, 'humanity', rather than 'defamation'?

Of course, those who follow this site know one important answer to that question. Non-Muslims are not worth much concern. Islam demands that non-Muslims are put into a distinct, inferior, moral category; Islam cleaves the world into two, irreconcilable parts, Muslim and non-Muslim. And the Muslim part is superior, and must be defended and expanded. So, Muslim murder, beheadings, acts that 'defame' the religion, deserve 'condemnation'. And what about 'humanity'? There is no humanity per se, only Muslim humanity. The welfare of humanity hangs in the balance, according to the will of Allah. Muslims are not responsible for humanity, its promotion or protection, because humanity, as a moral ideal, does not exist.

Defend Islam and Muslims. That is the imperative. And in that sense these 'condemnations' from 'moderate' Muslims have precisely the same objective as Muslims who murder non-Muslims on relgious grounds: it is simply a matter of how one interprets the facts and methodology. The goals are identical.

If Islam is such "a great religion that teaches harmony and amity among people."

Then why do so many of the mullahs, imams, and other muslims get it so wrong?

Which group follows the teachings of Islam the closest?

From my reading of the Quoran, the Wahabis are following what the Quoran says the closest.

Mehbooba Mufti has no right to comment on any terrorist attack let alone being an MP. How many lives were lost, how many were disabled by by the terrorists who were freed for her rescue...

It really doesn't matter what Indian Muslims say or don't say. As long as the sheiks of al-Azhar refuse to issue fatwas condemning such attacks -- let alone fatwas condemning bin Laden, Zarqawi, et al -- those sheiks will be the ones "defaming" Islam.

Or, perhaps, revealing its true face.

Now that Arab envoys are being harassed and abducted, and now that an entire army of at least nominal Iraqi Muslims has been declared "enemies of Islam," perhaps the sheiks at al-Azhar will act.

Don't bet on it. Al-Azhar is to terrorism what the Vatican is to sexual abuse. And I'm a Catholic saying this.

The thing that disturbs me is that they only condemn bad actions because it "defames" Islam, not because it hurts people.

This begs the obvious question: What would they do if they didn't have to worry about the "bad image" that their actions presented to non-Muslims? If most people in the world were Muslims and they didn't have to worry so much about their "image" among non-Muslims, would it then be no-holds-barred killing, raping and stealing in the name of their "religion"?

Misunderstood? got it! Wayward minority? yeah yeah. Not the real Islam. Got it!

Seriously, this spin has been spun. Time to bring in the shovels.