These "will be a strong weapon against terrorists and their lies. The faithful will understand because each of our words, as opposed to those who preach hatred, is based on authoritative and authentic Islamic sources." Great. I hope these will be published widely -- especially since the jihadists themselves routinely base their writings on "based on authoritative and authentic Islamic sources," and peaceful Muslims have never yet mounted any significant or effective counterattack on Islamic grounds. It will be very interesting to see how these muftis make their case, and how effective it will be.
By Santosh Digal in Asia News, with thanks to News4U:
Cotabato (AsiaNews) – The voice of those who do not know Islam “is becoming louder” and hate texts published by those who “barely understand the Koran” are appealing to Muslim youth more and more.The conviction that this phenomenon should be “countered by all possible means” has prompted the Guardians of the House of Opinion – a group of muftis in the south of the Philippines – to write 55 sermons that will be read in mosques across the country throughout the coming year.
The leader of the guardians, Ustadz Abdulwahid Inju, said the khutba [group of sermons] will be delivered to ulemas who will have the task of adapting them to different social contexts in the Philippines.
The mufti said the decision to write the sermons was taken because “there is nothing in common between Islam, which stands for peace, harmony, order, justice and compassion, and acts of hatred, vengeance and evil committed by a fringe of Muslims.”
Indeed, he continued: “Islam and terrorism stand at opposite ends. In Islam, life is so sacred. It is a gift from God that He alone has the right to take back. Murder and the killing of innocent civilians are strictly forbidden, just as it is a grave sin to kill people as they worship, even if they are not praying in a mosque and not praying to Allah.”
The muftis of Cotabato, Basilan, Lanao Sur, Maguindanao, Marawi City, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi were involved in the drawing up of the sermons. They were acting upon an invitation issued by the government in its Security Law unanimously approved on 8 February.
In the law, the government urges “all those who have the possibility” to “act to prevent acts of terrorism and violence, baseless and harmful for security and national unity.”
For Ustadz Esmael Ebrahim, member of the House of Opinion and the muftis of Mindanao, the writings of the group “will be a strong weapon against terrorists and their lies. The faithful will understand because each of our words, as opposed to those who preach hatred, is based on authoritative and authentic Islamic sources.”
LOL
This is the funniest thing I have ever read. Either these "muftis" dont know anything about thier religion, or they are just trying to lie to us. I agree, it will be very interesting to see what happens with this story.
All these so called muslim groups that keep poppiing up all over the world bothers me. It's like they just sit around and decide to create some bogus group, with a bogus name so they can collect money and send it to god knows where-like hezbolla or something.
This whole sounds like the kind of scam someone does, like when a hacker creates a virus, sends it to tons of computers, then creates the anti-virus software to counter the virus they sent.
LOL jeesh.
How come we know more about their religion than they do?
The muftis of the Philippines?
Shouldn't the muftis of Saudi Arabia and Iran be leading the way on all this "what-is-true-Islam" stuff?
The Year of the Snake
To yadayada: one of the problems(OK maybe not a problem) with Islam is that they have no central leadership to hold responsible for the varied teaching of their dogma.
I'm going to make myself a mufti and declare a fatwa on Justin Timberlake, that no talent *ss clown. Hah!
All kidding aside. I spent some time in the Philippines with an American christian man that was trying to do some good for the indigenous people, I'm sorry but I can't go into any more detail on what, how or why. One of his bodyguards was a muslim. The dedication and respect he showed the christian man was undeniable and authentic. It was unquestioned whether or not he would lay down his life to protect the christian, no matter who his attackers may have been, muslim, martian whoever.
I'm no apologist. I know the threat we all face from the Islamist agenda, and as my screen name shows I'm committed to the defense against it, but as with all issues this sensitive and potentially deadly, wisdom, clarity and a level head must be the call of duty.
well I'll hold judgment til i see some of the sermons. But isn't this exactly what needs to be done? Muslims taking responsibility for terrorism within their own ranks? If this were the first step of many such sermons in mosques all over the world then i would say Bravo. Of course i could be terribly naive and they could end up being just as 'moderate' and 'peaceful' as the mosques revealed in Dispatches:Undercover Mosque.
And there is always the disturbing fact that they wont acknowledge that Islam is the source of the violence and set about to make reforms to Islam itself.
If not for the conviction that the Koran is infallible, the word of God set in stone never to be changed then i would have hope.
I'm sure these mufti's are as sincere as the woman interviewed here that runs an Islamic school in England.
Check this link out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY-vXw7XKzg
Niv
Off topic:
Only nuclear bomb can stop Israeli digging, Egypt MP says
Ummah News Links
Interesting , never seen anything reformers could hang their hat on as of yet, If you are going ot own Islam you have to have the scripture to make a case, and it has to take nashik into consideration as well as al fitnah and Al-Fasad, Other wise they are just blowing smoke .
These Filipinos know what their history is between the US and the Philippines. They also know the position ISLAM will be in if we truly go to war with it. We know that the enemy of ISLAM is truth and the Information Age. They Muftis don't want to be caught on the wrong side of the sword. If they get some static from other Muslims they can always say that they are practicing Taquya and keeping the infidel happy
The problem is that you're reduced to parsing the statements to ascertain the truth of what they say and with the previous efforts at deception, that parsing doesn't leave one feeling comfortable with the result of their efforts.
If copies of these khutbas can be obtained, then one will be able to see just how they do it: what they avoid, and what they wilfully misconstrue, and what they use to divert attention from the essence of Islam.
And if those copies can be obtained, they should be published on-line, so Infidels can point out just how removed they are from the reality of mainstream Islam. They did the same in Turkey, for 80 years. They managed, by systematically constraining Islam as a political and social force, to make Turkey what it is today -- which is to say, a country that has indeed created a "secular" class that, however, constitutes at most a fourth of the population, and is under constant threat by the Turks who, despite every effort, and all those pre-fabricated khutbas written in a ministry of religion especially devoted to constraining Islam and monitoring the mosques, have remained loyal to the true, that is the menacing, Islam with which we are all, alas, now so familiar.
Or we can skip our own punching of holes in these efforts, and wait for Muslims to do it themselves. It will not be hard to do. You only need a Qur'an, copies of Bukhari and Muslim, and the Sira in any of the authoritative, for-Muslims-only versions. That's all. And the futility and hopelessness of the project will be clear.
No matter how many times the mantra is repeated that "moderate Muslims are the solution," it remains untrue and unprovable. That the West needs to find ways to divide and demoralize, and thereby weaken, the camp of Islam is true. But it is not the "moderates" facing down the "immoderate" Muslims, with those "moderate" Muslims being given every assistance, and we Infidels doing nothing, saying nothing, about Islam that might "offend the moderates."
No, the real divisions within Islam that need to be exploited are those between:
1) Sunnis and Shi'ites (Ibadi Muslims hardly count). It is to the advantage of Infidels that this sectarian conflict in Iraq continue, widen, and have spill-over effects in neighboring countries, which will undoubedly feel they must send "volunteers" and money and weapons to aid their co-religionists in Iraq. It is no different from the Iran-Iraq War which, from the Infidel point of view, should have gone on forever.
2) Arab and non-Arab Muslims. An independent Kurdistan might serve as a heartening example to other non-Arab peoples -- especially the Berbers in Algeria and elsewhere in North Africa -- who might observe the Kurdish example, and, deeply resentful of Arab cultural and linguistic imperialism, the most successful in human history, insist on re-berberizing themselves (how many of those who bear Arab names in Algeria, or who think of themselves as Arab, are in fact Berbers forcibly converted long ago, who need to rediscover their own individual and collective history, and to come to regard Islam, which intelligent people born into Islam will seek reasons for fleeing, as mainly a vehicle for Arab supremacism.
3) Oil-rich Arabs and Muslims, and the other Arabs and Muslims, who right now obtain vast sums, and every other kind of assistance, not from fellow Muslims, but from Infidels. All Infidel aid must stop, and Arabs and Musilms without oil wealth encouraged to go to the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the Qataris, the people of the Emirates, and ask them to help fellow members of the Umma. Either they will be turned down, or they won't. If they are turned down, they will be furious. If they are not turned down, they will still be angry, because whatever they are given will, they feel, not be enough, and they will resent the rich members of the Umma for squandering what should, some of those Arabs and Muslims will start to insist, be part of the collective wealth of the whole Umma. And the givers, the Saudis and others, will also resent those they are giving money to, and there will be constant mutual recrimination and resentment, which can only be good for Infidels. And of course, every dollar sent to Egypt or Jordan or "the Palestinians" for staples, will not be money available to spend building mosques, and maintaining them, and paying for propaganda and well-financed systematic campaigns of Da'wa, or for those traitorous Western hirelings to be found all over the West, doing the Saudi bidding.
These are the three potential divisioins within the Camp of Islam that the Pentagon and the State Department, and Congress, and the press, and the television, and people who pay for all all of that, to focus on.
Here's an idea. Let there be a contest. Let it be announced. Let the prize be big. Not as big as Richard Branson's $25 million offered to the person who can come up with the best idea for saving the world from further environmental damage. Let it be offered for the best set of proposals on how to contain the world-wide Jihad. Let's set the prize at, say, $5 million.
That's big enough.
Oh, I claim the first annual one, based on about a thousand postings setting out precisely those things that must be done, at this very website.
Where shall I pick up my check? Now I can discharge other duties, sweetly, and put it all in book form.
Dear Hugh, please run for office. You would definitely have my vote!
Hugh:
Sometimes your words act as dam breakers in the rivers of my mind and bring sentiments and feelings that I have into intellectual realization.
These are exaclty the thoughts i tried to convey to my local newspaper's opinion page and was rejected. (I am batting about .400 in article acceptance which is Ted Williams status for the PC, leftist dripping paper that bears my city's name.)
I don't want to be a cynic, but I think the Jiahdists will win this theological debate.
@Hugh,
I agree, you made a very good analysis. Just that there are still far too many policy makers who don't even get the basics of the Sunni/Shia division in islam let alone know where to find berbers or curds on a map.
Well Andy Warhol this jasper of Asia has had his 15 minutes of fame being an idiot.....now back to Anna Nichole Smith's additional 15 minutes followed by more Muslim idiocy brought to you by al Jazeera, because "we care".
The way I see it, is there are two different types of Muslims, the one's on Heroin and the one's who aren't. The "junkies" kill themselves, and the other's are religious and respectful. The problem is a "junky" is ten times stronger then a normal muslim !
What I would like to see is a world council of all the most influencial Islamic leaders and theologians, something like the Vatican council held by the Catholic church in the 1960s.
It would be facinating to watch them dance around the meaning some of the more murderous scriptures in the Koran and Hadieth.
Then it might be an opportunity to face up to the truth for a change.
At any rate, it would be a circus worth watching.
Similar things are happening here in Jakarta. Ive been here for a just over a month, and am pleased to see a great deal of discussions going on, at high levels in the Islamic estalishment, on the need for reform (and for the right reasons to). What that entails and how they handle and market it (most importantly) it remains to be seen)
Im not ready to uncork that bottle of spirits (halal of course) just yet.
Hugh once again illustrates his unabated hatred for even moderate Muslims. The worst thing for Hugh, would be for these Imams and others to succeed. I agree that a "wait and see" approach is required, but Hugh actually wants them to fail.
Of course, we'll be waiting with bated breath for the ummah in Qum, Mashed, Lahore, Faisalabad, Karachi, Peshawar, Kabul, Dacca, et al (not to mention the true-green Arab ummah in Jeddah, Sana, Doha, Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo et al) to follow suit.
Any idea what goes on at OIC summits? Do these topics ever come up? Either how to execute 9:29, or amend it in case it cannot be executed?
According to some liberals in America, it is not religion that is the problem, it is the fundamentalists.
In Christianity, the aim of fundamentalism is to maintain the traditional interpretations of the Bible and the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith.
I would assume that in Islam, fundamentalism is the same, only they want to maintain the traditional interpretations of the Koran and the fundamental doctrines of the Muslim faith.
I wonder if the Philippino muftis would consider themselves fundamentalists and if their fundamental doctrines are in agreement with the Orthodox Muslims or not?
Doesn't Ossama Bin Laden consider himself a fudametalist Muslim? I wonder where the Philippino muftis would disagree with Ossama?
I am in a situation where for once I have to disagree with Hugh on the subject of Islam. There is a difference that we do not appreciate between the Islam of the Middle East and the Islam of Asia.
There are some fundamentalists who want to take control in Asia and we see this in Malaysia and Thailand. Also, in the Philippines there is a separatist Muslim movement but this movement is not in the majority.
Islam was imposed on these Asian nations, and many accepted the yoke of Islam but they do not want to follow the more violent aspects of the politico-ideology.
There are muftis who promote peace rather than violence, and we should applaud their efforts to bring about change.
It will be interesting to see if the khutabas have any effect upon the population of Muslims in the Philippines. Keep in mind that the Muslims are in the minority in what is largely a Christian nation.
Even in Indonesia there are Muslims and then there are the fundamentalist radicals who are influenced by Abu Bakr Bashir, who is a mufti from Yemen, and has imported his brand of terror into that country. The Indonesians are an interesting study because there are those who have given their lives to save Christians, and then there are the others. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from East Timor because for 25 years the plight of the Christians in East Timor was ignored by the rest of the world. No one was interested in what was happening to this tiny Catholic majority country, and the way in which they were being repressed by the Indonesian army. In contrast, there is the example of a young Indonesian Muslim, a member of the Muslim Youth, who gave his life so that Christians were unharmed when he found a bomb in a church on Christmas Eve.
We need to be able to acknowledge the peace loving Muslims who are not interested in the violence because the violence is not a real part of their culture.