Trenchant observations about Sharia law and the deafening silence of the Vast Majority of Moderates from Ayaan Hirsi Ali, in this New York Times editorial:
The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with 100 stripes: Let no compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day. (Koran 24:2)
In the last few weeks, in three widely publicized episodes, we have seen Islamic justice enacted in ways that should make Muslim moderates rise up in horror.
A 20-year-old woman from Qatif, Saudi Arabia, reported that she had been abducted by several men and repeatedly raped. But judges found the victim herself to be guilty. Her crime is called “mingling”: when she was abducted, she was in a car with a man not related to her by blood or marriage, and in Saudi Arabia, that is illegal. Last month, she was sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes with a bamboo cane.
Two hundred lashes are enough to kill a strong man. Women usually receive no more than 30 lashes at a time, which means that for seven weeks the “girl from Qatif,” as she’s usually described in news articles, will dread her next session with Islamic justice. When she is released, her life will certainly never return to normal: already there have been reports that her brother has tried to kill her because her “crime” has tarnished her family’s honor.
We also saw Islamic justice in action in Sudan, when a 54-year-old British teacher named Gillian Gibbons was sentenced to 15 days in jail before the government pardoned her this week; she could have faced 40 lashes. When she began a reading project with her class involving a teddy bear, Ms. Gibbons suggested the children choose a name for it. They chose Muhammad; she let them do it. This was deemed to be blasphemy.
Then there’s Taslima Nasreen, the 45-year-old Bangladeshi writer who bravely defends women’s rights in the Muslim world. Forced to flee Bangladesh, she has been living in India. But Muslim groups there want her expelled, and one has offered 500,000 rupees for her head. In August she was assaulted by Muslim militants in Hyderabad, and in recent weeks she has had to leave Calcutta and then Rajasthan. Taslima Nasreen’s visa expires next year, and she fears she will not be allowed to live in India again.
It is often said that Islam has been “hijacked” by a small extremist group of radical fundamentalists. The vast majority of Muslims are said to be moderates.
But where are the moderates? Where are the Muslim voices raised over the terrible injustice of incidents like these? How many Muslims are willing to stand up and say, in the case of the girl from Qatif, that this manner of justice is appalling, brutal and bigoted — and that no matter who said it was the right thing to do, and how long ago it was said, this should no longer be done?
[...]
But while the incidents in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and India have done more to damage the image of Islamic justice than a dozen cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, the organizations that lined up to protest the hideous Danish offense to Islam are quiet now.
I wish there were more Islamic moderates. For example, I would welcome some guidance from that famous Muslim theologian of moderation, Tariq Ramadan. But when there is true suffering, real cruelty in the name of Islam, we hear, first, denial from all these organizations that are so concerned about Islam’s image. We hear that violence is not in the Koran, that Islam means peace, that this is a hijacking by extremists and a smear campaign and so on. But the evidence mounts up.
Islamic justice is a proud institution, one to which more than a billion people subscribe, at least in theory, and in the heart of the Islamic world it is the law of the land. But take a look at the verse above: more compelling even than the order to flog adulterers is the command that the believer show no compassion. It is this order to choose Allah above his sense of conscience and compassion that imprisons the Muslim in a mindset that is archaic and extreme.
If moderate Muslims believe there should be no compassion shown to the girl from Qatif, then what exactly makes them so moderate?
When a “moderate” Muslim’s sense of compassion and conscience collides with matters prescribed by Allah, he should choose compassion. Unless that happens much more widely, a moderate Islam will remain wishful thinking.
The only reason Ayaan Hirsi Ali misunderstands Islam so badly is that she is a white male from the West who has no experience living under Islamic rules.
(sarcasm off)
Seriously now, she makes a powerful argument. Where are the outraged moderates? Let alone, the outraged western apologists for Islam?
Way to go, girl!
Seriously: as regards Taslima Nasreen, perhaps a University somewhere in Australia, Canada, the USA, New Zealand, SOMEWHERE in the non-Muslim world (Japan?), can ask her to be Writer-in-Residence for a year or two, and the relevant government can give her a visa for that period.
She could stay in Australia at the ANU (Australian National University, which has a huge and well-respected 'Asian Studies' department), go to writers' festivals, do some consciousness raising, address human rights groups; then after a year, say, get an invitation from New Zealand to do the same there; then on to Japan; Singapore; maybe even China?; South Korea; Canada; the USA...Russia? Share her around - and, always, not advertise the next move ahead of time. After all, Wafa Sultan was smuggled into Australia to talk to our politicians, and the Muslims never knew she was coming.
A similar deal would be a great idea for Hirsi Ali. Keep the mad Mohammedans on the hop wondering where their intended victim is going to be, next.
When the story of this Saudi victim-made-into-criminal broke on CNN, I guess it cleared the way for the NYT to allow "apostate" Hirsi Ali to write an editorial. While certainly liberal, I don't believe that the NYT is as nutty as it often appears to be. I think it is just craven. Fear is what makes us weak. As a Democrat - one with some grounding - once said: We have nothing to fear but fear itself.
What Hirsi Ali says is so painfully obvious that it is in a way shocking that her argument needs to be made at all. It seems like self-evident truth to any thinking person. The question in late 2007, over 6 years since 9/11 and a millennium-and-a-half since the Islamic jihad began, should not be whether there is a problem with Islam, but what do we do about it? What can we do to stop both the hard jihad and soft jihad, i.e. encroachment of sharia law upon Dar-al-Harb, fueled by immigration and Saudi funds.
Kudos to Hirsi Ali. May she live long and prosper. Demi-kudos to the NYT for (temporarily) getting over its fear of being politically incorrect. When our "paper of record" can have at least short lapses of sanity at least in its editorial pages, perhaps there is hope yet. Perhaps not.
In the Times???
Lordy.
This article confirms Hirsi Ali is still in the U.S. and urges readers to contribute to Hirsi Ali's security costs, because neither the U.S. nor the Netherlands is helping her with that now, despite numerous serious death threats against her.
"....already there have been reports that her brother has tried to kill her because her “crime” has tarnished her family’s honor"....from headline.
And killing his own sister won't tarnish the family's honor? Sounds like someone has a loose screw and doesn't know right from wrong. Oh yeah, we're talking about Islam! Where up is down and right is wrong - and where you check your heart, mind and soul at the door before entering.
Islam = DO NOT ENTER = Will cause brain & heart damage!
....and other mindless soulless acts of violence posing as JUSTICE....
In the English language edition of the Arab News, I would estimate that probably less than half of the articles, editorials, and letters to the editor are more concerned with the victim than the worldwide image of Islam and Sharia.
While all of this is going on, two members of the Committee for the Prevention of Vice and the Promulgation of Virtue literaly got away with murder after being acquitted of beating a man to dead while he was in their custody.
This is the same group responsible for the deaths of Jeddah schoolgirls a few years ago.
Hirsi Ali in the Duranty Times! My goodness who's next? Spencer?
whoda thunk it?
A direct slap at shoeless George too with the reference to "hijackers of a great and peaceful religion".
We do not understand muslims. There are no moderates. It is not extremists against moderates. There is no real debate within islam whether jihad is a good deed (i.e. you can do it for extra points in heaven) or if jihad is an affirmative obligation. The issue is not whether jihad is war against the infidel. Islam will always be a war against the infidel. The issue for a muslim (a person already at war against the infidel) is whether your obligation to war against the infidel is an affirmative obligation or whether your obligation to war against the infidel is merely allowed as a good deed.
The islamically correct answer to this conundrum was given definitively by Mohammed in his revelation from allah about the taking of booty from infidels in the so called "Spoils" chapter:
Qur'an 8:5 "Your Lord ordered and caused you [the good Muslims] out of your homes to fight for the true cause, even though some Muslims disliked it, and were averse (to fighting). They argued with you concerning this matter [of piracy] even after it was made clear to them. It was as if they were being driven to their death."
Notice that this verse is speaking to the debate between the "good," always warlike Muslims and the "bad," peaceful ones. Good Muslims are always ready, willing, and able to plunder and kill. The bad, peaceful Muslims just wanted jihad to be a good deed.
Non muslims try to force activist jihadis murderers to the rubric "extremists" and other non murdering muslims as moderates. However, if the real debate is between jihadi as ever war like muslims and moderates as jihadi just when the moderate muslim wants to do a good deed and joins the jihad, then from this perspective, there are no moderate muslims.
Mohammed and his allah are clear the obligation to wage war against infidels is compelling not just a good deed to be done by moderate muslims from time to time. Mohammed (may the hell he cogitated be visited upon him precisely as he envisioned it) is clear on this. There are no moderate muslims.
Compassion and Islam are polar opposites.
The moderate Muslim is a myth.
So she gets 7 lots of 30 lashes (or maybe 20 on the last visit)?
That seems more barbaric than 200 in one go.
If she were Catholic it would have been 2 Hail Marys and 1 Our Father for her "sin".
Compassion and Islam are polar opposites.
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at December 8, 2007 7:25 AM
***
Now you are just being Islamophobic. Look at the verse from the Koran again: "flog each of them ..." Notice that some of the er, participants (i.e., the rapists) have received sentences more merciful than Allah's proscribed punishment for adultery.
See, Islam IS capable of both compassion and re-interpreting the Koran!
Perhaps Mohammed was right and the Christian Bible has been 'distorted'.
Distorted Version: "Ye who are without sin cast the first stone."
Authentic Undistorted Words of Islamic Jesus: "Kill the bitch and don't give it a thought!"
"Seriously: as regards Taslima Nasreen, perhaps a University somewhere in Australia, Canada, the USA, New Zealand, SOMEWHERE in the non-Muslim world (Japan?), can ask her to be Writer-in-Residence for a year or two, and the relevant government can give her a visa for that period."
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy
New Zealand? Ha! They're too busy congratulating themselves on attracting 300 Saudi "students" to their universities -- it shows how good their universities are, how "world-class"! I can just see Ms. Nasreen teaching a literature class to this bunch. They'd have her head off before the end of her first lecture, and then whine about how she had "insulted" their religion. And then the NZ government would probably apologize to them and instruct all professors to be more "sensitive" to the "traditions" of their "guests". The situation would probably be similar in Canada or the U.S.
The mohamanazis are rightly offended by the term "moderate muslim" as it implies that to be more mohammedan is to be more irrational and to be less mohammedan is to be less irrational.
Which is of course true.
===========
My question here is what's up with the excellent Mr. Pipes. He is intelligent, rational and superbly well informed. And yet he holds fast to the "moderate" mohammedan business.
I don't quite get it.
I saw a YouTube tape of him asserting that 30 years ago, a symposium on radical islam would not have drawn any audience because the problem didn't exist, that there was no widespread jihad movement in the big oil countries.
And yet, the jihad movement was vitally active in India at that time, and, one can argue, in Israel.
What's up.
Pipes seems always to be on the side of the angels on every issue.
And yet he holds on to this moderate-muslim and recent-political-phenomenon business.
I don't get it.
Is he trying to offer them a way to save face?
Would there be any sense to that anyway?
Moderate Muslim? Thats sort of like a Moderate Nazi.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Moderate Unicorns
In medieval times, people created fairy tales and magical creatures to make sense of their world. One of the most endearing is the unicorn, a horse with a single horn that symbolized purity and wholesomeness. In our modern times, people in Europe and the United States consider themselves more sophisticated and rational than people from the Middle Ages, but we still create myths, albeit more subtle ones.
Daily we hear reports of violent acts committed by Islamic terrorists on every inhabited continent. We try to wish it away with the myth of the ‘Moderate Muslim’, telling ourselves the Islamic agenda has been’ hijacked’ by a ‘tiny minority of extremists’ and that soon the huge, silent, moderate majority of Muslims will take charge and change things. However, post 9/11 very few Muslims have condemned terrorist actions. We are still waiting for moderates to stand and deliver, identifying and removing extremist thugs from their mosques and their communities. Waiting for this self-correction is our modern version of unicorn hunting.
Moderate Muslims will not be able to wrest control of the agenda for several reasons. First of all, Mohammed, the Messenger of Allah’s eternal word, was not moderate. No moderate can legitimately tell another Muslim to stop doing the extremist things Mohammed himself did. Also, the Qur’an condones violence and coercion to further the Islamic agenda. People whom we call moderates are labeled hypocrites by Allah Himself in the Qur’an. Moderates will always lose the argument because, as ex-Muslim author Ibn Warraq says, “There may be moderates in Islam but Islam itself is not moderate.”
Islamic expert Daniel Pipes and others estimate ten percent of the Islamic world to be militant. In 1933 when the Nazi party took control of Germany it had 2 million members, comprising only three percent of Germany’s sixty-six million citizens. A tiny minority of extremists can control a vast number of moderates, making them irrelevant.
Placing hope in ‘The Moderate Muslim’ is like searching for unicorns in the forest.
Every time you type or say "Moderate Muslim" a cricket chirps.
(With apologies to "It's A Wonderful Life")
When the phone doesn’t ring, you’ll know its me.
"But the evidence mounts up.."
....yes it does, and believe it or not there are still morons among us who refuse to believe the daily dose of evidence, refuse to believe the horror stories, refuse to believe the very vocal promises of their death at the hands of the Muslims, refuse to believe that Sharia laws are anything harsh or improper, refuse to believe Muslims want to do bad things to them and their family ...believe it or not!....simply amazing...
Ban Muslim Immigration...
"Islamic expert Daniel Pipes and others estimate ten percent of the Islamic world to be militant."
It's got to be more than that.
... she was sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes with a bamboo cane...."
...wanna bet these are not the "light strokes" that Muslims like to make referrence to when mentioning the beating of a Woman....
Ban Muslim Immigration...
Ah yes, the mythical elusive moderates.
Would they be found in countries that lash women for "mingling"? No.
Would they be found in countries who mutilate female genetalia? No.
Would they be found in countries who protest Danish cartoons? No.
Where oh where can they be? … more crickets chirping…
"The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with 100 stripes"
I brought this up a couple of days ago; the Ten Commandments mention ONLY adultery, NOT "fornication". As I said then, 'adultery' is not a sexual crime, it's destructive of family and is really a form of theft and THAT's the point of it's prohibition. At a time in history that multiple wives, concubines, and slaves were the norm, it's likely that sexuality wasn't nearly as inhibited as we're led to believe. Remember, we're still in the shadow of the Victorians and so much of our culture has flowed from that period.
Perhaps someone out there with a clinical psychology background could shed some light on what may have inspired this abhorrence of all things sexual, in the 'Religion of Piece'...
Any thoughts?
Greetings:
Muslim law enforcement technique: bad cop, worse cop.
‘There Are No Moderates”
Of course not. The assassins, the suicide bombers are the Muhammedan stormtroopers. They are the ‘tiny, tiny minority of extremists’ and ‘we cannot tar them all with the same brush’ - right? Because Islam is a ‘Religion of Peace’- but when you draw a silly cartoon about the pedophile ‘profit’ Muhammad every Muslim will tell you that you have just insulted 5 gazillion Muslims and that they all have a duty to kill you, you filthy kuffar, how dare you!
Here, from the camels mouth: from a Muslim sheikh residing in Australia, a prolific letter writer, sheik Haron writes letters of demand to Australian politicians and puts them up on his website, and he sends letters to the families of fallen Aussie diggers, telling them that 'your son died for nothing'- a veritable agit prop.
Don’t call me radical. Don’t call me moderate. Call me Muslim.
Let me make something clear for you:
We do not have “radical” and “moderate” in Islam. Muslims are Muslims. Muslims are not divided to two kinds of “radical” and “Moderate”. These names and divisions are made by man, not by God or religion. Radical Muslim and moderate Muslim do not exist. Muslims are Muslims even if they have different interpretation of the religious texts. In Islam there is another division. 1. The Muslims who follow the Quran and practice the religion. 2. The Muslims that believe in God and the messenger of God, Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him), but they do not follow the Quran and do not practise the religion. They just carry the name of Islam. So this division is not only in Islam, we can see it in all other religions. There are practising Christians and non practising Christians. They are not called radical Christians or moderate Christians.
Radical Muslims do not exist. Moderate Muslims do not exist. Extremist Muslims do not exist. According the order of Allah in the Quran we are not allowed to call any name on our religion but Islam, and any name on ourselves but Muslim (I refer you to Chapter 30, Verse 32 of the holy Quran). If a Muslim doesn’t follow the Quran, do not call him/her moderate, but call him a Muslim who is not following the rules of his/her religion. Islam is not divided to two types of hard and soft, radical and moderate. Also the Quran is one unique holy book. There are not few versions of the Quran. I understand that there is variety of different interpretations of verses which are not clear enough and need to be explained by an expert, but that is completely different subject and will not result in division of radical and moderate, and secondly those verses are the minority. The majority of the verses are very clear and without any interpretation and explanation they give one particular guideline to the Muslims and no need that any cleric explain about them. The guidelines of the Quran are very clear. Unfortunately those who follow the Quran and practise their religion are called radical Muslims or extremist or Islamist or fundamentalist. And those who only carry the name of Muslim and Islam without following the orders of Allah in the Holy Quran are called moderate Muslims or understanding Muslims or open minded Muslims! “A part of the letter of Sheikh Haron to the Prime Minister John Howard 14 November 2007”
'Radical Muslims do not exist. Moderate Muslims do not exist. Extremist Muslims do not exist."
That certainly is an eye opening statement by Sheikh Haron - one that sends chills up and down my spine.
When the phone doesn’t ring, you’ll know its me.
Posted by: pez
If our lives were that simple, we'd live in the past...
(Sorry, all. I'm a terminal Parrot Head.)
Profitsbeard wrote:
Every time you type or say "Moderate Muslim" a cricket chirps.
(With apologies to "It's A Wonderful Life")
I would rephrase this:
Every time you type or say "Moderate Muslim" another infidel has been murdered.
David E.-
Touche!
*~@):~{>
The silence of the "moderates" has been deafening, hasn't it?
We always hear from those who want to defend Islam that Islamic justice is a good thing. Even non-Muslims are saying this. What they want us to do is only look at the "good" but ignore the bad and the ugly. Sorry, but the good doesn't out weigh the bad! You can't say Islam is a religion of peace without also saying that Islam is a waring religion. You can't say Islam is a just religion without also saying it is unjust, compassionate and un-compassionate, merciful and unmerciful, etc.
When we look at the good, the bad, and the ugly as a whole, we see that Islam has a form of godliness, but it also is a very UN-GODLY religion!
Jesus cleansed the Jewish temple when it had been changed from a house of prayer into a den of thieves and robbers by chasing out the money changers, I wonder who he would have to chase out of the Muslim Mosques in order to cleans them?
Muslims say that the only things that have not been corrupted in the Bible are those parts of it that are in agreement with the Koran. The truth is, the only only things in the Koran that are part of the religion of Abraham are those things that are in agreement with the Bible. All the rest needs to be thrown out!
The God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob is the same yesterday, today and forever. God's holy word is the same yesterday, today and forever. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. Islam has never been in agreement with the faith of Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Moses, Jesus, or the Apostles. Islam is out of sync with all the true Prophets of God, and therefore Islam is a false religion, led by a false prophet and a false god.
We don't need to give Islam a chance to see if it will work, like we hear Muslims say. Islam never worked and it never will!