Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald suggests that we accept Sheikh Al-Qaradawi's offer:
"We can get by without the petrol, and return to our days of yore. We will make do with milk and dates. We will drink the milk of our camels, and eat the dates from our palm trees. King Faysal said this when there was a threat to Arab honor." -- from Al-Qaradawi hereAs J. B. Kelly showed in "Arabia, the Gulf, and the West," the blague of Faysal was simply part of the smoke-and-mirrors about a nonexistent "oil weapon." Had the Arabs and Muslims managed to create modern economies, after having received the largest transfer of wealth -- every bit of it entirely unmerited -- in human history, then perhaps they would be in a position to tell the West to go to hell as suggested above. But they didn't. They failed everywhere to develop more than Disneyworld economies, with giant towers in Dubai, and private palaces, each one more disgustingly decadent than the next. See, for example, the American television cameras allowed inside Prince Talal's modest garconnniere, the one with the nine separate restaurants.
Saudis despise work. Arabs have traditionally despised certain occupations, including farming. Looting was considered so honorable to Muslims that in the Persian poet Hafiz there is a description of the Feast of Plunder, a banquet which the guests had earned, but which they swooped down on horseback to enjoy, because only if they had it as a result of plundering could they truly enjoy it. There is no work ethic in Islam. There is the right to exploit the non-Muslims, whose contributions -- from Christians, Jews, Hindus, Zoroastrians -- helped support the Muslim state, as did whatever loot or slaves could be seized on constant raids within dar al-Harb. And today Muslims within Europe regard the support supplied by the Infidel taxpayers to be theirs as of right, and so too are they permitted to help themselves to Infidel-owned property and women, as long as they don't get caught or harm the image of Islam -- which, after all, must always be protected and promoted.
There never was an oil weapon, because every Arab and Muslim regime is desperate to sell as much as they can. And they now realize that the Western world, a little late -- some thirty years late -- has come to its senses or at least appears to have done so. So far, in the United States, it is all rhetoric. One will have to see if Congress can stiffen the spine of the Administration and its True Believers in letting the Free Market do its stuff. Thank god FDR did not wait for the Free Market to develop atomic weapons during World War II.
During the Yom Kippur War, the Arabs huffed and puffed, but as Kelly shows, that was all cover for the price rise. The United States and the Netherlands, both relatively pro-Israel, actually received more oil from the Arabs than did Britain and France, both of whom were falling all over themselves in pro-Arab statements and policies.Today, what would or could the Arabs do? They have assets all over the Western world. If there is another large jihad attack, the assets of those who were involved or who supported the attack can be seized and sold, just as the assets of enemy aliens were promptly seized during World War II. It is not only real estate that is illiquid, though plenty of private apartments owned by the princes and princelings and princelettes could be taken. There are also bank accounts.
And what would it mean to the Arab and Muslim world if they could not buy Western technology? Western armaments? Western consumer goods? If they could not, or at least the ruling classes could not, travel to Europe and American combination shoppingmall-cum-funfair-cum-brothel that the Lands of the Infidels have become for them? Who, in his right mind, would condemn himself to the solitary confinement of Dar al-Islam for the rest of his life? Al-Qaradawi maybe --though his children are studying in the West. (Perhaps it's time to send them home, and thereby make a point?) Ahmadinejad, certainly.
But all those worldly, wealthy, corrupt Saudis, or others from the Gulf statelets? Do you think, with their apartments in Belgravia, or the Avenue Foch, or in McLean, Virginia, that they are quite so willing to never again see the world of the Infidels, so wonderful, so seductive, and so -- well, just so Infidel?
Of course not.
But I like Al-Qaradawi's idea. I like that camel-and-dates notion. Return to the thrilling days of yore, with raids on that oasis over there, and camel races over here. Go ahead. Leave us alone. And we promise to do everything we can to reduce our need for your oil, so that your dream can come true. A dream we can all share.
Al-Qaradawi further threatened: “We will buy from China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, from the Asian countries..."
Why is it, do you suppose, that except for Malaysia, where until recently half the population -- the productive, entrepreneurial half -- was non-Muslim, all the countries listed by Al-Qaradawi are non-Muslim, and all of them were at one time as poor, and some much poorer, than any of the Arab or Muslim states? Doesn't he realize that South Korea in 1950 was as poor as Egypt? That China was much poorer? Does he show any recognition that the roar of those Asian tigers clearly drowns out the supposed roar of those Muslim "lions" whose wealth depends on waiting for the checks to be opened for the sale of oil and gas which those Muslim states and peoples did nothing to discover, or find uses for, or produce; that was all a Western effort.
Why don't we ask al-Qaradawi to explain how it is that, despite all the non-oil Muslim countries being the recipients of vast amounts of outside, Infidel aid (i.e. Jizyah), with $60 billion going to Egypt from the United States alone, and despite the Arab and Muslim oil states having received some $10 trillion dollars since 1973, not one of these countries produces much in the way of goods or services for themselves? That is why, in issuing his hollow but rather appealing threat, he says thatEither
we will buy from China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc.
Or
We will do without, we will return to the age of dates and camels. Proudly.
No hint of recognition that perhaps the vast domains of the Arabs and Muslims, and the vast amounts of undeserved money, the trillions upon trillions, they have received, together with their complete inability to use those trillions for much beyond glittering Las-Vegas palaces, personal debauchery and the taste for luxe of the rich Arabs (and indifference to the poor Arabs and Muslims, sometimes amounting to murderous hatred, as with the black Africans of Darfur), they have been unable to create anything.
So if we, the Arabs and Muslims, don't buy it from the West, we'll have to buy it from East Asia. We can't possibly produce anything, create anything, offer anything ourselves. That just is beyond us.
That is what is being admitted. That is al-Qaradawi's view of the Arabs and Muslims.
And despite that admission, he still tells us that they are the "lions" who deserve to roar, and to be obeyed.
A fascinating look into that famous psychology of the Muslim.
Excellent stuff but I'm curious - is there anything else the arabs can do apart from sell oil & terrorism?
Well, you could discover "1000 Years of Missing History" http://muslimheritage.com/, but hey, don't believe the hype...
It get's better,
This is a resource for Schools in the UK..
http://www.1001inventions.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewBlogEntry&intMTEntryID=2743
"Did you know that between the 7th and 12th centuries, when backward looking religion dominated European culture that Muslim educational institutions led the way? As the results of their progressive education reached the West through Muslim works covering everything from medicine to history they helped encourage the revival of learning in Europe."
Hmm, how does this fit with their earlier comment:
http://www.1001inventions.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=308
"1001 Inventions is a non-religious and non-political project seeking to allow the positive aspects of progress in science and technology to act as a bridge in understanding the interdependence of communities throughout human history."
Read Crombie on the history of science. Read Singer (Charles) on the history of technology. Read Toby Huff -- oh, and when you read Toby Huff, please do not fail to read the hysterical attack on Toby Huff for merely raising the little matter of why Islamic science (i.e. that science which took place in lands under Islamic rule, but not necessarily by Muslims) so quickly died out -- an attack by one George Saliba.
Simply google "Toby Huff" and "George Saliba." A feast for the inquiring mind.
Bon appetit.
Mr. Fitzgerald,
What do you have to say in response to those who make the claim that the Arabs, or Muslim civilization, is responsible for all of the advances in science and that Europe was in a state of decay while the Muslims were flourishing?
This is often cited as proof of Islam's healthy influence on the human mind, and I just don't buy into it..
The Toby Huff piece is fantastic.
He's basically making the complexity argument about the emergence of societal innovation/improvisation in the context of science. (You need autonomous, adaptive agents for new kinds of thought to emerge. In this case, Huff attributes the emergence to the formation of corporate bodies--including educational institutes--a few centuries prior to the renaissnance.)
Saliba makes his stand on a rather silly notion that economic conditions yielded all of the western advances. (Of course, the same conditions that led to the economic changes are what also led to the scientific advance: people formed (semi) autonomous bodies that could discuss ideas systematically and openly.)
Saliba appears to not WANT to come to the right conclusion. He doesn't WANT openness in society to be a prerequisite to anything. OF course, if you can't tolerate certain conclusions, then the arguments are superfluous.
But then that proves the precise point Huff is making.
Hey Chin Check,
Just ask this one simple question.
Name a Muslim inventor? Or this question,
Name an innovation that originated from the Middle East? Or this question,
Name a Fortune 500 company that is run by a Muslim in the Middle East?
Ask about the leading institution in the Middle East of higher learning that teaches other than Islam and Islamic law.
Ask about the latest medical discovery made by a Muslim. Iraq's Doctor Germ was educated in the United States. So don't let anyone get you with that one.
Now, the Middle East is rich with oil. Ask about the latest discovery of any new oil deposites.
The answer should tell you about Islam's healthy
influence on the human mind.
And your insite serves you well, young Skywalker. You knew enough not to buy into this tripe.
The intell is strong with you, my padawan learner.
Saliba is not so much an historian of "Arabic" science (as he misnames the contributions of people who were, in the main, Persians) as a Defender of the Faith (Islam) and of the Arabs. How he got his tenured position, a position that some unemployed or under-employed historian of science did not get, but deserved to get, is a question that the entire academic establishment whould consider, beginning with the duty to investigate how Muslim apologists try to help one another, to infiltrate into the system.
Case in point: the third-rate Omid Safi, considered for a position at Harvard Divinity School, with constant pressure being exerted by that baleful apologist Leila "I-thought-about- becoming-a-Christian-but-didn't" Ahmad, working no doubt with Eck and Dean William Graham, who is putty in her hands.
What Saliba cannot allow anyone to consider is the mystery -- if mystery it is -- of the seeming "greatness" of "Islamic science" that suddenly disappeared. He, Saliba, would have you believe it is the result of the Mongol destruction of Baghdad in 1258. So crude Marxism it is. But why should that be? Since the Mongol conquerors were themselves soon islamized, why didn't "Islamic science" recover? And since Islam was to be found all over North Africa, and in Spain, and so on, what explains the absence of any development in that "science"?
Could it be that in the first few centuries following Muslm conquest, the Christians and Jews (and Zoroastrians) were still so numerous, and so fructifying an influence. Those translators at Baghdad or Cordoba were entirely non-Muslims, Christians and Jews, responsible for putting those Greek texts into Arabic. Is that an achievement of "Islamic civilization"? Is the adoption of the Hindu zero by Arabs, or the borrowing of papermaking from China (see Dard Hunter), or all the other borrowings, often by Persians or Central Asians (the state university in Almaty has been renamed "Al-Farabi")attributable to "Arabs"? Attributable even to "Muslims"? Does Islam encourage, has it encouraged for the past millennium, free and skeptical inquiry?
Look at the hysterical mobs. Doesn't that tell us something. Look at the way the O.I.C. thinks of "science" as merely the ability to produce weapons of war. That's what Mahathir Mohamed really wanted. That's what they want. For them, that's science. Forget Watson, Crick, Rosalind Franklin, Max Planck and Max Perutz and Einstein and all the rest. We, the Muslims, want those bombs. That, for us, constitutes "science."
Glad you liked Huff. Saliba's book on Optics, which I have read, deserves separate treatment on its own. I think it is going to get it.
Mr. Fitzgerald,
I believe that you have set the bar very hight for anyone who would like to follow your footsteps in venomously mixing lies with truths.
I do agree with you that the Arab/Muslim World failed miserably in contributing positively to civilization for quite a long time, but do your readers know that most of that Arab/Muslim world lived under western colonization during the period when this failure occurred ? You can't really innovate while being crushed by colonial boots, can you? I'm not promoting the ideology of Victimhood here, I strongly believe that one is a victim only if he allows himself to be victimized, but at the same time conveniently overlooking the adverse effects of colonization on the Arab/Muslim world isn't what I'd call benign. In fact non of these Arab/Muslim countries are practically independent since they are, in a sense, occupied by their own regimes and armies that incidentally happen to get support from the west ?
I do agree with you that Dr. Qaradawi's statement was based on an unfounded sense of fictitious superiority, but to come to the conclusion that "There is no work ethic in Islam" because the kings, Princes, and Presidents loath work and live lavish lives is quite bizarre ! I know you are well educated about Islam, or at least it seems, so you're either deliberately misconstruing what you know about Islam or just plain propagandizing for your agenda of (obviously ) hate. The same Kings, Princes, and rulers you allude to are sucking their people's blood dry as they live these lives you described so obviously I can't imagine the poor and underprivileged of the Saudi population happy with this (as a case in point).
The Muslim/Arab world has been anaesthetised using their own religion by the Kings, Princes, and rules you seem to think representative of all Muslims and Arabs. Religion is a powerful weapon, ask Timothy McVeigh, or Yigal Amir (or were these Muslims and I just didn't know?)
Mr. Fitzgerald,
Every nation, people, or society has its good, bad, and ugly. Painting everyone with the same brush is no less venomous than what the Nazi's did painting all jews with their hate brush hence leading to the atrocities and horrific violence faced by jews at the hands of their Nazi killers.
Exclusivist Muslim fundamentalism is not less poisonous than Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, or any other flavor of such fundamentalism.
I can't help but to shake my head in disbelief at how much hatred can consume a person to the extent of completely blinding him as I see here.
From your own blog, AT:
If Moderate Muslims don't speak up. If Moderate Muslims don't have a clear understanding and a clear position of where they stand regarding the pivotal issues of their time; Bin Laden and his Gang, Cocaine Dealers, and God knows who else is in the pipeline are going to speak on our behalf.
We've been saying that here for years. Shouldn't you be saying it to the government who Deliberately poison the minds of the faithful(also detailed here almost every day), rather than to us?
On the other hand let's be fair and admit that much of the imagery in Dante's "Divine Comedy"--the rose--came from the Arabs. I know, I know, Mo is in the eighth circle of hell.
Where he should be.
"do your readers know that most of that Arab/Muslim world lived under western colonization during the period when this failure occurred ?"
-- from a posting above
What are you talking about? The Europeans re-entered the Middle East only in 1798, when Napoleon came to Egypt -- of his generals, Kleber, stayed behind and converted to Islam. (Incidentally, a certain well-heeled hotel, that former Lebanese presidents and Arafat himself like to stay in, in a very particular suite, when being put up by the Ministere des affaires etrangeres, is to be found in Paris on the Avenue Kleber).
For many hundreds of years the Arabs of the MIddle East and North Africa were subject to rule, varying in the degree of its immediacy and power, by the Ottoman Turks (even before 1517, when the Ottoman Turks conquered, the Mamelukes, who were of Turkic stock, ruled Egypt). It was the Europeans who largely freed the Arabs from Turkish rule.
The vast peninsula of Arabia (renamed after the Al-Saud family) was never subject to European colonial rule. In fact, the British made it a rule to use only naval power to do two things in the Persian Gulf: to end the Arab slave trade in black Africans, and to establish some mmodicum of peace between the constantly warring tribes, including stamping out piracy, for this threatened their route to India and the East. And that was it. There were a few British garrisons later established, chiefly at the entrepot of Aden, and on side of the Gulf, as well. There was no settlement by Europeans, nothing to exploit, no "colonization" in the MIddle East itself (I'll get to North Africa in a minute). As for Syria-Lebanon and Iraq, the only pressure for the first was that of the Eruopean powers, chiefly France, to protectthe local Christians from Muslim mistreatment. The French Mandate over Syria lasted for all of a quarter-century, and was not "colonial" in nature; there was no exploitation of the locals, but rather it became a net expense for the French. So too was the British Mandate in Mesopotamia, which lasted for a mere dozen years, from 1920 to 1932 (and when the British left, the Arabs promptly started massacring the Assyrians, though they had given assurances that they would not).
What about Egypt? Egypt was given, for the only time in its modern history, or perhaps ever, an example of a relatively honest and efficient civil service under Lord Cromer. This did not amount to colonialism, and indeed created the conditions which allowed for the development of the Egyptain economy, the rule of law, a minimum of corruption, that constituted the best-ruled period in modern Egypt's history. And when that ended in 1922, the effects did not disappear but lingered, even unto the final fall of Farouk in 1952, when the colonels not only removed the ancien regime, but promptly "nationalize" all the property owned by the Greeks, the Jews, the Italians, and others who had lived in Egypt for generations.
As for Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria -- well, in Libya everything that was built that is worth noting either was left by the Romans, or was built by much later craftsmen from the Italian peninsula, who arrived early in this century. If that constitutes "colonialism" -- and compare the rule under Italy with that under either King Idris or Khaddafy -- few people would not have welcomed such a fate.
In Morocco and Tunisia, the French stayed as colonial powers for all of 40 years (roughly 1912 to 1952, give or take a year or two). Forty years, out of 1350 years of Islamic rule. Yet some would have us believe that when the French came, and built hospitals, and universities, and offered the gift of the French language, and therefore of French literature, French rationality, French everything, that this was a terrible thing, a thing to be deplored. Nonsense.
What about Algeria, the only place in all of what is wrongly called "the Arab world" that really did have a colonial presence for more than a few brief decades? The French, like the Americans and others, had tried to stamp out the attacks on their shipping (for centuries Christian-owned vessels and seamen were the object of attack from North Africa). The Americans managed to prevent attacks on their ships, by a firm display of force. But when they left, the French continued to suffer. Finally, in 1830, they seized Algiers. And they remained in Algeria until 1962, for 132 years. There, as elsewhere, they built hospitals and schools. They created, from land that had not been correctly tilled or mostly not tilled at all, thriving agriculture -- including vineyards. There is not an educated Berber or Arab today who does not compare favorably the state of Algeria under the French, with the monstrous things that happened after the victory of the FLN, and its continuous misrule by the army and corrupt generals who, however, are models of decency and deportment compared to the F.I.S. and other Islamist groups (see Micahel Willis, "The Islamist Challenge to Algeria.")
Arab Muslims suffered far less from European colonialism than did any other people in the soi-disant Third World -- far less than those in sub-Saharan Africa, in Central and South America, in Asia. Indeed, it might be argued, and has been by many non-Arab ex-Muslims, such as Anwar Shaikh (in his "Islam: The Arab Imperialism") that the most successful imperialism, or colonialism, of all time, has been that of the Arabs, who used Islam as a vehicle for arabization (taking of Arab names and false Arab lineages, using 7th century Arab customs as a model for all time, being required to read one's holy books in Arabic, and so on), especially of the cultural and linguistic kind. That is what the Berbers are keenly aware of, and the Kurds, and the black African Muslims in Darfur.
It was the Arabs from Arabia who settled themselves in, and laid down the law to, every non-Arab and non-Muslim people they conquered. Even so, it took quite a while to become a majority in these lands. In Egypt, for example, the Christian Copts, the origianl Egyptians, were still a majority in the first part of the 13th century, but then a campaign of persecution, murder, and forcible conversion began, and within a short period they were reduced from more than 50% of the population, to about 10% -- their proportion today.
Let us discuss the thousand years, and more, of Arab "colonialism" in the Sudan, in the Kabyle, in the East Indies (look at what happened to the Hindus and the Buddhists who once made up the population of that vast archipelago), in Persia. Let us compare that to the almost complete absence of "colonialism" in the classic sense, anywhere that Arab Muslims ruled, save for the one exception of Algeria.
And that was, in comparison to what preceded it, or what came after, a lucid interval of Western civilization.
Gary,
So you do agree with me that painting everyone with the same brush isn't really going to gain us any progress here ? Yes, We need to speak out I agree. This religion is so Highjacked there can be no more silence.
We need dialogue, we need compassion, and we need to respect each other. What is usually written here does not fall in that category. And before you start pointing out the intolerance that is so evident in the Arab/Muslim world I'd like to stress the fact that Two Wrongs Cannot Make a Right"
what we are required to do as "intellectuals"; you, the editors here, me, and everyone else who does not have an apocalyptic view of the world is to foster dialogue and commitment to respect even if we differ.
I'm Muslim, and I have my own opinions about the Israeli/Arab Conflict (for example), yet I don't let me opinion blind me. I have Jewish/Israeli friends that I like, respect, and would stand by at anytime they need my help. I don't condone homosexuality, yet I have gay friends, because I look at a human being as a whole package. We are all human, and dehumanizing each other in the way people like Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. Spencer do is a one way ticket to violence as history taught us all.
"The Muslim/Arab world has been anaesthetised using their own religion.."
-- from the same poster above
Question to that poster:
Do you see any link, can you make any conceivable connection, between a belief-system that offers rules for every last detail of one's life, and purportedly offers a Total Explanation of the Universe along with that Complete Regulation of LIfe, and the modes of thought of those taught to believe so completely in such a belief-system, that covers every area of life, that can be seen in that web of allusion, in the phrasing within everyday conversation, so that Islam, the consciousness of Islam, the very deeds and words of Muhammad and his Companions, are never far from the lips or thoughts, if not of oneself, always, then from those around one, who constitute the society, who write the editorials, who appear on the television.
Could it be that the inabilty of people born into Islam to declare their own views, if those views are no longer quite those of a Believer, or to dare to take issue, say, with the figure of Muhammad as a Model for Mankind, that this inhibits free and skeptical inquiry, and deadens minds, and that general deadening, a result of the inculcated habit of mental submission, can have an effect on political life, on economic activity, on the way one approaches the world, the way one is kept prisoner by this belief-system that will not permit full truthfulness about it, so that the only people born into Islam who become "free at last" are the happy band of apostates, the ex-Muslims who simply throw it off altogether, rather than remaining bound by ties of filial piety?
Think about this: what is the relation, if any, between Islam and the political failures (one corrupt despot after another) and the economic failures (inshallah-fatalism does not encourage entrepreneurial activity).
I'm not trying to persuade you. I am merely trying to get you to put away your easy resentment and think. Think about real people, the people you know, born into Islam, and ask yourself if any of what afflicts them might be attributable, just might, to the ways of thought and behavior that Islam itself encourages.
No need to reply. Just ponder it.
And possibly, visit www.faithfreedom.org and read around in that site run by Ali Sina and other apostates. Visit www.secularislam.org, the website of secular Muslims -- i.e. ex-Muslims who may still regard themselves as having ties of sympathy to other Muslims.
See if any of it, any at all, makes sense.
AT:
Your attempt to equate Christian and Jewish fundamentalism with Islamic fundamentalism is pretty weak. On one side of the scale you have a world wide head chopping jihad with its supporters dancing in the streets and the other side you try to balance it with Timothy McVeigh and Yigal Amir (who although they were certified nutballs)attacked their own people; McVeigh did not do it in the name of religion and they were condemmed by their countrymen and co-religionists
The Arab oil weapon is a myth because without the oil revenue, they can kiss sovereignty of the temple mount in Jerusalem good-bye, and also the goal of conquering Israel, Rome, and the world. See:
Today Kosovo, Tomorrow Jerusalem?
Excerpt:
However, there is no religious Muslim, whether “moderate” or “extreme,” who does not consider that Jerusalem must be part of a Palestinian state. And the existence of Israel denies the possibility of this. Therefore, from their point of view, the infidels can give the Muslims Kosovo; we can give them Bosnia, Kashmir, Chechnya, New York itself, as well as Paris, they will not be reconciled as long as they do not have sovereignty over Jerusalem. Should they relinquish this idea, be it in their dreams only, they would burn in hell.
AT~ Islam needs a Reformation. I am willing to grant that many, if not most, of the faithful, like anyone else on the planet, are more interested in taking care of their own families and future- but if more of them don't start standing up for the Peaceful side, it will be the likes of Bin Laden and crew, who determine what happens in the next few years- and that is going to be Very bad for the common person.
I think you need to take Hugh's writing with a grain of salt. If his words sound harsh, it is because he is trying to draw out Thinking people, like yourself. You're the ones who are going to solve the crisis- even if it takes another 20 years.
AT-
How can you remain a "Muslim" if you've honestly read the Koran and Hadiths?
Are they not demonstrative of a violent, arrogant, anti-intellectual pedophile's theocratic terror state vision for a world where no one is free to do anything but agree with his constricted myopia about the Divine Mystery?
I bailed out of the cult that raise me.
Bail out, regain your mind, and join the free people of the world. Those who love liberty and endless open inquiry and have the humble honesty to admit that the human mind is a fragile, imperfect vessel, and that it cannot hope to ever contain the infinite or be so absolutely certain about the fragment of understanding that we can gain in this life to demand that anyone (or everyone) else on Earth bow to their personal understanding of the eternal, the ineffable and the indescribable. Or any dogma spoken through the primate mouth of an only-recently self-conscious and barely-articulate bit of DNA floating in this staggeringly awe-inspiring Universe.
To crush the dawning intellect into a 7th century paralysis seems a tad premature, if not catastrophically stupid.
I'll take the gentle irony of Taoism, if anything, over any militant theocratic headlock.
What are your thoughts>
Gary,
I'm glad that at least some of us can see eye to eye. I've been pondering the idea of responding to Hugh, but it appears to me that he made up his mind that all Arabs/Muslims are rabid dogs that should be exterminated, hence I don't think we can have a civilized dialogue here even if I counter each one of his points, he will counter them back and we will slowly but surely get drawn into the maelstrom of hatred.
Hugh,
I'm not speaking to you by proxy or anything. I'm just explaining to Gary where I'm standing, at least he's willing to acknowledge that I belong to the human race and that maybe we can work together in creating a better world for our children because let me tell you; the prospects aren't looking good !
Finally, I don't believe that "Islam" needs reform. I think "Muslims" need Reform. Islamic free thinking was stifled during the First Abbasi Era by a school of thought that gave birth and created the seeds of Modern day Wahabbiesm, specifically by the extermination of the "Mo'tazela" school of philosophical theology.
Bare in mind too, that this is not a unique quality of Islam (to stifle opposing views) since this happened in Judaism and Christianity too and for longer times (remember that Christianity is more than 600 years older than Islam). The only difference is that, for some reason, Muslims after falling victim to this trap never really freed themselves again ! Why, thats a really really long debate that involves a wicked combination of Politics, religion, propaganda, and sheer belief exploitation.
I'm out :-)
Cheers,
AT
"I don't believe that "Islam" needs reform..."
-- from a poster above
All those "moderate" Muslims now busy applying for and getting grants in order to research ways to "reform" Islam apparently disagree. In Turkey we have Mustafa Akyol trying to do away with the Hadith altogether (he remains silent on the subject of the Sira).
I don't see how anyone simply sitting down at the computer and reading a few hundred Hadith in the recension of Bukhari would not come away shaking one's head in disbelief, and then going to the Sira -- reading practically any edition -and finding out what Muhammad is reported to have said and did, and still conclude that there is nothing wrong with Islam.
I admit that Islam cannot be reformed. That is different from saying it needs no reformation. Judaism and Christianity were never so all-encompassing, all-regulating. The first does not make universalist claims; the second does, but the missionary impulse in Christianity is not the same thing as the conquering warrior impulse in Islam (which is "to dominate and not to be doinated"). In Christianity, with some few exceptions in the distant past, the desire to convert is to save individual souls, and not simply to expand the ranks of some Church Militant. In Islam, the emphasis is on signing up recruits for the Army of Islam, and often some of the most important parts of Islam are carefully left unstated, unremarked, so as to first get that recruit to sign up (you can become a Muslim merely by reciting the Shehada in a Believer's presence -- not exactly difficult) and only later, when it is too late, to find out a bit more. The individual does not count for much; the Community, the umma, is on the other hand central to the Islamic world-view.
I prefer the lonely monad, the individual made so much of during that Renaissance we hear so much about.
"but it appears to me that he made up his mind that all Arabs/Muslims are rabid dogs that should be exterminated..."
-- from a posting above that is clearly actionable
What nonsense. Where have I ever said anything like this nonsense -- "rabid dogs" etc. Where do you get this stuff? Why do you make it up? Stick to the facts or you will simply disappear from this particular ether. And so will any further on-line versions.
I thought I was done ! but here we go again.
"Where do you get this stuff?"
- from Hugh
Hugh,
I got this stuff by trying to digest your language (which apparently needs to be taken by a grain of salt as Gary mentioned earlier)
"Why do you make it up?"
- From Hugh
Hugh,
I''m not making it up. I'm trying to express the feeling I got from your posts. If my interpretation is wrong, it is obviously not your fault.
"Stick to the facts or you will simply disappear from this particular ether. And so will any further on-line versions"
- From Hugh
So now you're threatening me ? I believe you yourself have proven my earlier point that we will not be able to have a civilized conversation.
I'll leave the conclusion of what was said here to the judgment of every one here.
profitsbeard,
I do owe you a response for your questions because they are very important to answer, but I'll take this to my blog since I'm not interested in talking here any more.
Thanks,
AT
AT taps out in submission..
http://www.ufc.com/index.cfm?fa=MultiMedia.GalleryImgDetail&gid=117&aid=3340&return=fa%3DMultiMedia%2EGalleryImgList%26gid%3D117
..whatamess..anybody got a towel?
Well, I thought that was quite a good debate, I think I'll have a chat to AT on his blog.
I think we should encourage debate here, sometimes it feels like we're just having a group bitch about things and it can be a bit one dimensional.
So, AT, if you feel like it, keep on posting, I like to hear the opposite view and understand where you're coming from.
Mazztr~ I agree with you, AT is interesting. I do hope he would make more appearances here; he Is, IMHP, the real deal. Hard enough to find as it is...
Having said that, he does seem to get along with Hugh about as well as I get along with nariz :P But such things are always going to be.
AT,
you complain about Muslims being libelled like the way that the Nazis libelled the Jews. But today it is precisely in the Muslim world that Jews are being libelled and slandered more than anywhere else. Further, Muslim terrorists and fanatics, like the Ikhwan [incl. hamas] openly say that Jews can be murdered, whether man, woman, or child, or elderly. They believe that they have a divine license to murder.
As for history, you really need to do a lot of study on the duration of Western colonialism in Arab lands. Hugh was right. Of course, I knew this on my own years ago. But how come you seem to really believe this crap? Where did you get this baloney from? From Arab/Muslim sources? Or from the so-called Left?
Hugh, great post as usual.
Muslims have messed up their countries so thoroughly that if we cut off their oil revenues and foreign aid, they would have to IMPORT their camels and dates by selling sand.
AT: The United States was a colony for a long time before independence. Don't try to hide your cultural failures behind that colonialism CRAP. Or "imperialism" or "racism" or some other lame excuse. If you want to get into a discussion of colonialism, then please tell us about muslim colonialism as applied to France, Spain, the Balkans, North Africa, India, and Malaysia.
Muslims are always trying to blame someone else for their stupidity, their failure, and their humiliation. But it's the ISLAM, stupid.
Islam is a complete failure in everything except killing people. How can you expect to be treated with any honor and dignity when you associate yourself with such a dishonorable and deplorable bunch of scumbags? Muslims. Ha! Don't you have any self-respect?
The problem with reforming Islam is that it is fundamentally an ideology that immanentizes the eschaton.
To put this in parallel terms to Hugh's comment: Judaism is inclined the same way, but it has no charter to bring about the eschaton itself, by its own industry. That's God's affair, and all the Jews can do is wait and pray and try to live righteously. That last impulse engenders a society that tends to be more politically active than most, even indulging an occasional utopian impulse, but the export culture just isn't there. It isn't a religion that seeks any kind of empire.
Christianity, while driven by an impetus to spread its message--which is indeed eschatological--strictly forbids the notion that the eschaton will be the result of events in the political sphere or even this particular cosmology. In the Christian view, only the anti-Christ tries to pull off such a thing. (Indeed, one might argue that this is the hallmark of the anti-Christ: the one who promises salvation HERE.)
But Islam has the charter to bring about the eschaton by its own efforts, and make it happen right here, on these continents, under this sun. Thus, its mission is political, and its ends must be reached by the tools of human intercourse--words, and if not words, votes, and if not votes, swords. This mission can't be reformed because it is THE mission. Christians can hate democracy at one time, love it at another, be indifferent at still a third. They can be passive in certain societies and activists in others. The Christian franchise is spiritual, its kingdom is of another world, its body not politic, but mystical. So Christian political engagement will be--from a historical perspective--ambivalent, changeable, even fickle. (Indeed, one often hears criticism of the early church for being passive about slavery--and criticism of the current church for being activist about abortion.)
Islam has a charter to make heaven on earth, and that is the world's best recipe for hell.
AT-
Never can get an answer from a believing Muslim about why they are so skeptical about everything but Islam.
The selectivity is suspicious.
Is it the first line of the Koran: "This book is not to be doubted."?
Hell, if I said "everything I say is not to be doubted" would they swallow that as easily as they gulp down the indigestible bizarrities of Mohammad's life, personal behavior and his schizophrenic Koranic pronouncements (the words "compassion" AND "kill!" mingling so loosely throughout the "holy" book of the Muslims).
I'll take "The emptiness of the cup is as important as the walls of the cup" over every sura Mohammad ever plagiarized from the gnostic Christians, Jews, Arabian myths and his own not-very-fertile recombinant imagination.
Or: "Wake up, be loving."
Getting murderously mad over dead men's books has had the world at war for dismal millenia.
Doubt more, and the stars brighten.
Believe more, the eyes glaze.
mountain echo-
Superbly put. Especially the final line.
Kudos!
My beloveds (Malik and Musa)
May the Creator of the heavens and the earth reward your valiant strivings in the den of inequity of the shaytin.
One ponders the question: Of all the professed religions of the world... WHY has Islam become the chief and sole obsession of so many Americans? Is it purely because of the events of September 11, or are there other reasons? What motivates so many people that are not Muslim to spend countless hours researching Islam if they want nothing to do with it?
Be sure, this is a dedicated, well-orchestrated, totally planned campaign being waged to disuade as many people as possible from their chosen religion (funny, they are not interested in converting the atheists, wiccans or satanists), and turn back as many Muslims as they can from their religion. If this were not so, you would be able to engage in intelligent dialogue with these people and discuss and compare religion respectfully without trading insults.
The tendency to apply today's standards to acts that occurred more than 1,400 years ago is also suspect, given the fact that Muslims are accused of living in the past and following a religion that is archaic and obsolete. The bible, revered by millions as irrefutable truth from God, is never put under similar scrutiny.
For example, Prophet Lot is reported to have slept with his two daughters after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorah at their urging, fearing that the world needed to be repopulated and they were the only survivors as seen in these direct quotes from the bible, NIV:
"Lot and His Daughters" NIV, Genesis 19:30-36
30 Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. 31 One day the older daughter said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom all over the earth. 32 Let's get our father to drink wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father."
33 That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and lay with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.
34 The next day the older daughter said to the younger, "Last night I lay with my father. Let's get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and lie with him so we can preserve our family line through our father." 35 So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went and lay with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.
36 So both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father. 37 The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab [g]; he is the father of the Moabites of today. 38 The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi [h] ; he is the father of the Ammonites of today.
Should we question the morals of Prophet Lot and his daughters for engaging in this obvious act of incest?
Still more distressing passages of immorality can be found in Genesis 38:13-18. I challenge anyone anywhere to find a single passage that says Muhammad slept with his daughters, committed adultery, or fornicated even once outside of marriage:
13 When Tamar was told, "Your father-in-law is on his way to Timnah to shear his sheep," 14 she took off her widow's clothes, covered herself with a veil to disguise herself, and then sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that, though Shelah had now grown up, she had not been given to him as his wife.
15 When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. 16 Not realizing that she was his daughter-in-law, he went over to her by the roadside and said, "Come now, let me sleep with you." "And what will you give me to sleep with you?" she asked.
17 "I'll send you a young goat from my flock," he said. "Will you give me something as a pledge until you send it?" she asked.
18 He said, "What pledge should I give you?"
"Your seal and its cord, and the staff in your hand," she answered. So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she became pregnant by him. 19 After she left, she took off her veil and put on her widow's clothes again.
And in the following passages, David lies with Bathshebah, a black hittite woman, the wife of Uriah, plots for him to be killed in battle, and earns the wrath of God. Notice that the prophets of the bible did not shy away from killing and warfare. Also notice that in 2 Samuel 11:4, Bathshebah lay with David after ritually "purifying" herself from "uncleanness". Why was she considered "unclean"?:
2 Samuel 11:1-26 (NIV)
David and Bathsheba
1 In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
2 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, "Isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?" 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (She had purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then [a] she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant."
6 So David sent this word to Joab: "Send me Uriah the Hittite." And Joab sent him to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, "Go down to your house and wash your feet." So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. 9 But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master's servants and did not go down to his house.
10 When David was told, "Uriah did not go home," he asked him, "Haven't you just come from a distance? Why didn't you go home?"
11 Uriah said to David, "The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my master Joab and my lord's men are camped in the open fields. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!"
12 Then David said to him, "Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back." So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13 At David's invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master's servants; he did not go home.
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 15 In it he wrote, "Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die."
16 So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. 17 When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David's army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.
18 Joab sent David a full account of the battle. 19 He instructed the messenger: "When you have finished giving the king this account of the battle, 20 the king's anger may flare up, and he may ask you, 'Why did you get so close to the city to fight? Didn't you know they would shoot arrows from the wall? 21 Who killed Abimelech son of Jerub-Besheth [b] ? Didn't a woman throw an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you get so close to the wall?' If he asks you this, then say to him, 'Also, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.' "
22 The messenger set out, and when he arrived he told David everything Joab had sent him to say. 23 The messenger said to David, "The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance to the city gate. 24 Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king's men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead."
25 David told the messenger, "Say this to Joab: 'Don't let this upset you; the sword devours one as well as another. Press the attack against the city and destroy it.' Say this to encourage Joab."
26 When Uriah's wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. 27 After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the LORD.
Should the bible as a result be viewed as a manual of incest and debauchery because of these passages? What do these passages tell us about the lowly status of women during these times?
And what sense shall we make of the following biblical passages about the sons of Prophet Noah? It has been a long-standing dispute that these passages infer that the black-skinned peoples of Africa are the descendents of Ham, the Canaanites, cursed by Noah to be the eternal "slaves" of their brothers (see Genesis 9:24-27). If this is not true, why haven't these passages been stricken from the bible, as they would have Muslims strike offensive passages from the qur'an? Note also that Noah is reported to have lived 950 YEARS, when the average life expectancy of a human today is about 75 years. I don't hear anyone challenging the validity of this claim.
The Sons of Noah (NIV) Genesis 9:18-28
18 The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) 19 These were the three sons of Noah, and from them came the people who were scattered over the earth.
20 Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded [a] to plant a vineyard. 21 When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. 22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and told his two brothers outside. 23 But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father's nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father's nakedness.
24 When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said,
"Cursed be Canaan!
The lowest of slaves
will he be to his brothers."
26 He also said,
"Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem!
May Canaan be the slave of Shem. [b]
27 May God extend the territory of Japheth [c] ;
may Japheth live in the tents of Shem,
and may Canaan be his [d] slave."
28 After the flood Noah lived 350 years. 29 Altogether, Noah lived 950 years, and then he died.
My beloveds, I give these few passages to you as an example of the deception, dishonesty, and twisted purpose of those who attack you here, who spend all of their energies and exhaust their knowledge and resources attacking Muslims and what we believe, without looking at what they claim to believe themselves.
May God the Creator grant you peace and mercy and forgiveness of your sins. Salutations of peace to Muhammad and all the prophets and companions of heaven.
Honestly to say that I find some of the posts here worrisome would be an understatement!
I can understand fighting extremists whether they are muslims, christians or whoever.
But to say upfront that we should declare war on Islam and therefore kill every arab and muslim in the face of this planet sounds like absolute insanity!
I have friends that are both Arab and muslim and I can guarantee you they would not hurt a fly!
A.T. - Has it escaped your notice that the United States was at one time a colony? For nearly 300 years, we had the same fate as the other colonies of the world. Moreover, we had prisons emptied and convicts 'transported' here to live out the remainder of their lives, as well as black tribesmen hunted down in Africa and forced into slavery, later freed into poverty. These are our ancestors, look how they overcame their victimhood. Don't expect any sympathy from Americans, you won't get it. We stood up to our oppressors and rebelled for it, men and women put their lives on the line to fight for freedom, and they fought fair. That is why freedom is so precious to us. It only comes with great cost.
Exclusivist Muslim fundamentalism is not less poisonous than Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, or any other flavor of such fundamentalism.
====================
It is impossible to compare 'fundamental' Muslim extremism with 'fundamental' Chrisitan extremism.
A Christian extremist would be someone who takes Jesus Christ's teachings to the extreme, hence an extremist would be a person who is a nun, a missionary, an Amish, monk, rescue mission workers, these people take Jesus' servant teaching to extremes.
The place were you become 'poisonous' is when violence enters in. The worst Christian extremist would be judged in terms of how much they separate themselves from the world and serve others. That is the teachings of Christianity.