Here is an interesting spin on the favorite Qur'an verse of George W. Bush and so many other Western non-Muslims, 5:32, which says that killing an innocent person is like killing all of humanity. Qazi Hussain Ahmed here matter-of-factly equates "innocent people" with "Muslims," rendering the verse as "the murder of a Muslim is in fact the killing of all humanity." And so here he says suicide attacks are "un-Islamic," and it is quite clear that he is only upset about them because Muslims were killed.
This is an extraordinarily important point, since Muslim groups in the U.S. have frequently issued condemnations of terrorism that boil down to condemnations of attacks on "innocent people." But if non-Muslims are not innocent, as many jihadis contend openly, then these condemnations are essentially worthless.
"Qazi terms suicide attacks 'un-Islamic,'" from APP, December 14 (thanks to James):
NOWSHERA: Former Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed on Sunday called suicide bombings "un-Islamic", saying that US drone strikes were an assault on the country's sovereignty and "cannot be tolerated anymore". Addressing a conference, he said Islam did not allow killing of "Muslim brothers" by launching suicide attacks and bomb blasts on ordinary citizens. "Suicide attacks are not allowed in Islam and our religion does not allow the killing of innocent people. "The murder of a Muslim is in fact the killing of all humanity," he said, adding that US and NATO forces would be defeated in Afghanistan due to their "anti-people" policies. He said drone attacks in Pakistan were a violation of international law and the country's sovereignty. Qazi called for strict action against elements involved in corruption adding that clerics from different schools of thought should unite to guide the nation in "these testing times" and protect it from imperialist forces. app
That verse wasn't only George "I-love-kissing-the-King-of-Opensewerabia" Bush's favorite, but it was quoted by Buraq Hussein too in his surrender speech at that "university" where geocentric astronomy is still taught... Too bad they never quote Mein Qurampf 5:33 after quoting that one, "The punishment of those who wage war against mahound's imaginary alter-ego and the louse-ridden, foul-smelling, murderous pedophile itself (not himself), and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter"
Off-Topic but a very good article in American Thinker
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/afghanistan_the_senseless_war.html
Afghanistan: The Senseless War
By Abraham H. Miller
With the impending escalation in Afghanistan, we have finally arrived, after decades, at a bipartisan foreign policy. Regrettably, it is the wrong consensus for the wrong policy.
Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. There is no way to win in Afghanistan without a massive commitment of troops, a willingness to stay there nearly indefinitely, and the ability to pursue insurgents across Afghanistan's porous borders.
We have neither the military capacity nor the political will to do any of that. Indeed, we probably do not have the financial capability to do it.
What we can do is prolong the war and increase the misery of the Afghan people. As in Vietnam, this is now a war where domestic politics strongly influence military decisions. The president waits for months to make a decision on troop reinforcements. He sends fewer troops than the number requested. The escalation offends his base, so the president attempts to placate them with an arbitrary withdrawal date.
Caught in the escalating crossfire, Afghan civilians are going to have one motivation: survival. In Vietnam, villages often divided in two, one side going to the Viet Cong, one to the government, both sides looking out for the interests of the village and each other.
A withdrawal date tells the civilian population that the Taliban will be there long after we are gone. All the Taliban has to do is to follow the grand strategy of all insurgencies, buy time. The Taliban disappears into the sea of the civilian population. The Taliban hides and waits. It yields land for time. It fights selectively. It evaporates when outnumbered. It reduces its operations. It lingers to fight another day, when the Americans will be gone, when the poorly trained, corrupt, and easily infiltrated Afghan army will be the primary enemy.
Afghanistan's army needs nearly a quarter of a million troops to fight the insurgency, and by most estimates, it will be lucky to produce 140,000. The fighting age population in third world countries is not sufficiently healthy to produce as high a proportion of troops as first world countries take for granted. And because insurgents generally choose the time and place of engagements, they need fewer troops and require a lower support to combat ratio. By traditional gauges, a traditional army must outnumber an insurgency by twelve to fifteen to one.
Certainly, we will have military victories. In Vietnam, we never lost a major military engagement. During the Tet Offensive, we wiped out the fighting capacity of the Viet Cong, inflicting one of the worst military defeats on an enemy in the history of combat. The Viet Cong was replaced by the regular army of North Vietnam, and the war shifted to a conventional war. But we were incapable of creating a legitimate, widely- supported government. So, even Tet was a pyrrhic victory, and then, of course, our media turned it into a defeat, a turning point in the war created by definition.
Our very presence as foreigners, in Vietnam, propping up a regime, raised questions of the regime's legitimacy, as it now does in Afghanistan. We make much of elections in Afghanistan, but the proportion voting in many provinces was negligible, as was the integrity of the election process itself.
The reality of Afghanistan is that it is not a necessary war. The Taliban did not orchestrate the events of 09/11. Osama bin Laden did, and he is most likely in Pakistan, moving back and forth across the border, safely hidden in the tribal areas. If we seriously want to defeat the Taliban, we must escalate the war, commit to staying there, and change the rules of engagement regarding civilian casualties. And then what? We will have so alienated the population that they will produce another insurgency, one sustained by Islamists across the world who cannot countenance the presence of infidels on Muslim soil.
If we are concerned about our own security, then we might want to look at the Islamist training bases on American soil, the probes by terrorists of our air safety, and the vulnerabilities this administration has created by redefining terrorism as a criminal justice issue.
American security doctrine has always used World War II as the paradigm to justify the projection of power. What we have forgotten is that in World War II we bombed our enemies into oblivion and then rebuilt their societies on our terms. We do not have the legitimacy or the moral justification to follow that model in Afghanistan. We certainly do not have the political will.
There is nothing patriotic about sending our young men and women to die in a war that will be fought in the absence of compelling military considerations, a war without resolution, a war where success eludes definition, and a war where the enemy and civilian population already know when we will be gone.
Bring the troops home. There is much to do here to promote our own security, beginning with not further debasing our economic strength by spending money on needless wars.
Abraham H. Miller is an emeritus professor of political science and a former head of the Intelligence Studies Section of the International Studies Association.
Actually, I could have read the same thing in "The Nation" or "Mother Jones" It is not a conservative argument. Also, when all is said and done, what will become of Pakistan's nuclear weapons after the Taliban take over? You will see their proliferation or their actual use against India.
Also, North Vietnam was not holding on heroically by itself, but received massive aid from the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. It was not buidling those MIGS and SAM's in the jungle. Also, there was the little matter of the U.S. cutting off all assistance to Vietnam under President Ford which doomed South Vietnam. You might want to talk to some of the "Boat People" who fled after the glorious new order was imposed.
Only Muslims are human.
Unbelievers are the vilest of creatures, sons of apes and swine who will receive the worst punishment for rejecting Muhammad's concocted BS.
The Mohammedan mind is a cesspool.
Ahmed is actually trying to confuse several different things to equate them with drone attacks. Suicide killings and bombing are not considered murder if the goal is to defend Islam. The victims of such killings are not the killers problem because only Allah knows and decides who is a true Muslim and will be judged as such by Him. So any Muslim killer, whether he intends to kill himself or not, is off the hook when it comes to worrying about victims.
Killing oneself, however, in the cause of defending Islam, is a sure way to be judged worthy and go to Paradise, so the incentive is always there. But that's not considered suicide. It's considered efficient.
The Root Cause crowd never wants to see that aspect of Islam. They refuse to even think about how and why the 19 adult Muslim men could walk on airplanes, see babies and children, and carry out their plans anyway. The RC crowd doesn't want to understand how deliberately targeting a school, in a town like Beslan that had scores of other targets to choose from, says anything about Islam at all. They won't even question what would make a grown man aim a gun at the back of a child running for his life and pulling the trigger.
What this guy is really saying is that when the killer is a Muslim his victims don't matter. When the killer is a non-Muslim, only his Muslim victims matter.
The ignorance of Islam, the inability or unwillingness of so many to decipher the not very difficult "code" of Islam -- such as failing to address the obvious 5.32-without-5.33 problem that is plaguing the press, radio, television, and our political class, with its uncertainties (dare we tell the truth? can we tell the truth? hos shoudl we express the truth about Islam?) and its certainties (we must not tell the truth, for it cannot possibly be the truth, because were it to be the truth...), and its silly syllogisms shakily based on false assumptions, ignorance (Islam is nothing more than a "religion," all religions are basically good, ergo, Islam must be good) is what requires the posting, and re-posting, of articles such as the one above, in the fond hope that eventually, little by little, people will get it.
When Qadi Hussein Ahmad says what he says, he's being clear because he's a Pakistani Muslim addressing other Pakistani Muslims. He's explaining his opposition to suicide attacks; his opposition to them, as Robert says above, is not because they are, as a tactic, unacceptable, but because they are, as a tactic, when used in Pakistan, likely to kill Muslims rather than Infidels, and that would be wrong. Only ask yourself this: if suicide attacks could be guaranteed to kill always and everywhere only Infidels, would any Muslim cleric anywhere be in a position to denounce them? The only conceivable opposition to them could be practical: that they help the enemy if they strengthen that enemy's resolve, or that they help the enemy by harming the image of Islam that is useful to the world-wide Jihad.
5.33 -- don't leave 5.32 mentioned without it.
Excerpt from an article I posted here a few months ago:
Fitzgerald: When Obama Channels Bush, Or, Qur'an 5.32 Without 5.33
“The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind.” -- from the speech by Barack Obama
Is that really what the “Holy Koran” teaches? It’s true, there is a verse in the Qur’an, taken verbatim from an earlier Jewish text, that says “whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind,” etc.
But that verse, verse 5.32, in the Qur’an is followed by another verse, one that Barack Obama carefully or carelessly -- it hardly matters which -- chose to overlook, and by overlooking, mislead not his Muslim audience (who were no doubt pleased he left out, just as any Muslim apologist for Islam would have left out, the following verse 5.33) but rather, all of the world’s Infidels, which includes 99% of the American people, whose welfare he is supposed to keep foremost in mind, for the right instruction and the protection of the American people is his solemn duty.
We’ve been here before, of course. When Barack Obama quotes 5.32 and leaves out 5.33, he is merely channeling George Bush. For Bush, in his deep respect for the “religion” of Islam, liked to quote the same Qur’anic passage, that is, 5.32. The passage, of course, one of the more appealing ones in the Qur’an, was lifted wholesale from the Jewish text of the Mishnah. Barack Obama might have recognized that, but he didn’t dare -- for if he had said it, it would have infuriated Muslims. They don’t want to have the Qur’an’s sources in other, prior monotheisms, revealed, and they don’t even want the elements, such as the djinn, borrowed wholesale from pre-Islamic Arab pagan lore, connected to their original sources. For the Qur’an is for Muslims never to be subjected to the kind of historical analysis that was done for both Judaism and Christianity by the practitioners of what is called the Higher Criticism, beginning with Julius Wellhausen and other German and English Protestant scholars of the mid-to-late 19th century.
What Bush always left out, and what Obama left out today, was the following passage, 5.33, that was added by the composers of the Qur’an and that they did not lift from any Jewish text. This is 5.33:
"The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land" (Qur'an 5:33).
And who do those who take their Islam most feelingly to heart and most thoughtfully to mind think are the people who “make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land”? Why, it’s non-Muslims, it’s the Infidels, the ones who do not submit to Islam but for some strange reason hew to their own non-Muslim beliefs, and their own legal and political institutions and founding documents (such as the Declaration of the Rights of Man in France, and the Constitution of the United States in this country). Those institutions and which founding documents are flatly contradicted by the letter and spirit of the Shari’a, the Holy Law of Islam, and thus those who continue to support them are people who, in the Muslim view, are not acting defensively but offensively. Anyone who resists Islam is making offensive war on Islam, and thus they are those who “make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land” -- so that, according to 5.33, that follows the appropriated Jewish text of 5.32, they should be “killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land.”
"The murder of a Muslim is in fact the killing of all humanity,"
Well, we're all Mahoundians, having been born in that condition, but due to the kufr forces around us, we fell off Allah's wagon...The refusal to get back on is kufr...Allah expresses his opinion of those who refuse to ride in his bus Here:
Quran 98:6 Yusuf Ali...Those who reject (Truth), among the People of the Book and among the Polytheists, will be in Hell-Fire, to dwell therein (for aye). They are the worst of creatures.
These kufric people are not 'innocent'...They are 5:33...They are 9:5...They are 9:29...They are 8:39...Is Allah not clear enough? Does he need to write another book? Does he need to send another Prophet?
The word 'innocent' does not apply to kufr...
The drone kills terrorists who killed innocent Muslims.
The terrorists killed innocent civilians during 9/11.
Dead terrorists get rewarded with 72 Hors and 18 boys and that is what they claimed and so what is there to complain? The innocent Muslims also got rewarded. Only living Islamists are angry and frustrated, planning to kill more innocent people who are at the wrong place and at the wrong time.
The drone kills terrorists who killed innocent Muslims.
The terrorists killed innocent civilians during 9/11.
Dead terrorists get rewarded with 72 Hors and 18 boys and that is what they claimed and so what is there to complain? The innocent Muslims also got rewarded. Only living Islamists are angry and frustrated, planning to kill more innocent people who are at the wrong place and at the wrong time.
Mohammad actually lifte Qur'an 5:32 from the Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 (a group of Jewish Lawyers)
The Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 says: "We find it said in the case of Cain who murdered his brother, the voice of thy brother's blood cries out in the singular not the plural. It was singular in order to show that to him who kills a single individual, it should be reckoned that he has slain all humanity. But to him who has preserved the life of a single individual, it is counted that he has preserved all mankind."
Come to your own conclusions and listen to
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"...which says that killing an innocent person is like killing all of humanity"
The original quotation is taken from the Talmud. And indeed in Judaism all mankind is respected. As this isn't the case in Islam, it's no surprise that a Mohammedan equates an innocent person only with a Mohammedan. As duh_swami pointed out so well, "...we're all Mahoundians, having been born in that condition, but due to the kufr forces around us, we fell off Allah's wagon..." So we're all guilty of apostasy, we can never be innocent. Only a Mahoundian can be innocent, even if he's a terrorist like bin Laden. Well, that's not my kind of logic.
But Islam and logic are two incompatible worlds. As are Islam and compassion, Islam and human kindness and a lot more...
"Suicide attacks are not allowed in Islam and our religion does not allow the killing of innocent people. The murder of a Muslim is in fact the killing of all humanity"
The same news agency has this story: Religious leaders declare suicide attacks ‘haram’.
It seems the Pakistanis do not much like being on the receiving end of suicide bombings. Go figure?
Gee, here's the problem - are these Muslims (the ones getting killed by the Taliban and Al Qaeda) actually Muslims? Because if it can be shown that they are not actively engaging in jihad and supporting a "secular" (that is, any government that "modifies" Sharia law in any fashion, no matter how trivial) government, they can't really be Muslims.
So it is perfectly halal to kill other Muslims because they aren't Muslim enough!
In Islam, as in Communist China, "political power flows from the barrel of a gun". People with guns and bombs determine who is Islamic and who is not. I really don't see why there is an unarmed Islamic clergy.
Tanstaafl wrote:
Gee, here's the problem - are these Muslims (the ones getting killed by the Taliban and Al Qaeda) actually Muslims? Because if it can be shown that they are not actively engaging in jihad and supporting a "secular" (that is, any government that "modifies" Sharia law in any fashion, no matter how trivial) government, they can't really be Muslims.
So it is perfectly halal to kill other Muslims because they aren't Muslim enough!
.......................
Exactly, Tanstaafl—this is called "Takfir"—Muslims declaring their Muslim enemies to be "un-Islamic" or "apostates", and thus fair game.
Qazi Hussain Ahmed here disagrees with some suicide bomber's designation of their victims, and then declares suicide bombers—in turn—to be, themselves, "un-Islamic". Takfir cuts both ways.
Of course, if you are just Kufr, then all Muslims consider you fair game—not only "not innocent", but not even a true human being.
(Note to Tanstaafl: I've been reading your posts here for years, and just learned what your acronym stands for. It was used by a poster on a completely different forum, and I recognized it and had to Google it. Duh...)
Ya!
Stolen from Hebrew ! ( In reverse!... ).
=== "The murder of a Muslim is in fact the killing of all humanity" ===
Ya,
Stolen from Hebrew ! ( in reverse !.. ).
The original source? Please help!
No prob - I first heard it when I read the Robert A. Heinlien Sci-fi novel "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".
Takfir may cut both ways, but I can't help but think the more heavily armed Muslim is likely to win the argument!
From OT post above...The fighting age population in third world countries is not sufficiently healthy to produce as high a proportion of troops as first world countries take for granted.
Semi informed opinion...Also OT sort of...
This is true, due to several factors...Not the least of which is rapid indiscriminate breeding...As the organism grows out of control, it weakens, and becomes subject to a variety of problems...There is already a high incidence of hemophilia and other blood conditions, vitamin D deficiencies, as well as mental retardation, and other ailments...The fastest growing religion is making itself sick...And Allah can't do anything to stop it...As Buddha said..."If God/Allah causes all this suffering, he can't be good...And if he is powerless to stop it, he can't be God"...
The drone kills terrorists who killed innocent Muslims.
The terrorists killed innocent civilians during 9/11.
Dead terrorists get rewarded with 72 Hors and 18 boys and that is what they claimed and so what is there to complain?
The more we kill this goat sucking scum the more they should celebrate their sick 'victory' for Allah and party with their virgins and raisins in Allah's pervert paradise. Why are they complaining? We're helping them party, even pay for it with jizya!
But some of their goatherd murderers whining 'victories' just don't pan out: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8412692.stm
"Four British former Guantanamo Bay prisoners have failed in their bid to bring legal action against leading members of the Bush administration.
The US Supreme Court refused to take up an appeal by the four."
Sorry terrorist-goatherds, no 'paradise' virgins and raisins for you. You lose.
Alexander, I think I've heard the Talmud (which I don't regard as holy) quoted as saying, "Whoever saves a single human life is as if he has saved the world".
It forces me to pause and reflect our Lord's admonition that our righteousness must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees...
Happy Advent Season.
Qazi Hussain Ahmed's understanding of the verse 5:32, as only forbidding the killing of Muslims, is a mainstream interpretation.
Here is Ibn Kathir's tafsir:
http://www.tafsir.com/default.asp?sid=5&tid=13723
Note in the tafsir the phrases "believing soul," and a "soul" who Allah has forbidden to be killed (i.e., a Muslim, 4:92-93). The Quran is Allah's word, and nowhere in it does he forbid the killing of a non-Muslim.
Islam propagandists hope that naive non-Muslims will be distracted by the more pleasant-seeming, universal interpretation of the verse, without questioning what is acceptable or unacceptable killing in Islam.
Killing people for apostasy, blasphemy, hypocrisy, heresy and innovation, "sedition," "corruption/mischief," and so on, is considered acceptable in mainstream Islam. If non-Muslims refuse to embrace Islam when Muslims invite them to it, Muslims are permitted to wage war on them and kill them. Dhimmis who can't or won't pay jizya can be put to death. Dhimmis and slaves who try to escape the Islamic state can be put to death. Islam has the death penalty for adultery, and "sorcery," and "charlatanism." Islam allows, or has a drastically reduced penalty for, honor killing. There is no penalty in Islam for killing any of the people in the above categories.