He's not out of danger yet -- far from it. This measure is one of damage control in the face of international scrutiny and ridicule, and an effort to buy time while the Saudis weigh their options. It does not change the basic legal situation in the country.
An update on this story. "Saudis 'give Lebanese sorcerer stay of execution'," from BBC News, April 2:
A Lebanese man sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for sorcery has been given a temporary reprieve, his lawyer says.
Ali Sabat's execution was scheduled for Friday but his lawyer, May el-Khansa, told the BBC she had been assured by a Lebanese minister it would not happen.
Mr Sabat, who is in his 40s, was the host of a satellite TV programme in which he predicted the future.
He was arrested by religious police while on pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in 2008 and convicted of sorcery.
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri had been urged to intervene on his behalf.
"The minister of justice for Lebanon called me and told me that nothing would happen [on Friday]," Ms Khansa told the BBC.
"But after that I don't have an answer as to if he will be alive or not.
"Time is passing and if they don't kill him this Friday maybe next Friday," Ms Khansa told the World Today programme.
There has been no official confirmation from Saudi Arabia, where executions are often carried out with little warning.
'Witch hunt'
Amnesty International said Mr Sabat seemed to have been convicted for "exercising of his right to freedom of expression"....
I do not understand how Saudi Arabia can pass a sentence on a Lebanese man for a crime not committed in Saudi. Does that not violate international laws?
"Mr Sabat ... was the host of a satellite TV programme in which he predicted the future."
Does this mean that all the big-mouth imams in Europe who are always predicting that Italy or Britain or other Euorpean country will soon be Islamic are also practicing sorcery? It would be nice to see the Saudis behead a few of them!
He's not out of danger yet -- far from it. This measure is one of damage control in the face of international scrutiny and ridicule, and an effort to buy time while the Saudis weigh their options. It does not change the basic legal situation in the country.
.................
No—nor would I expect it to. I knew the best that could be hoped for is for the odious "Kingdom of the Two Holy Places" to suffer enough international embarrassment that it won't carry out this grotesque execution.
Now if international pressure can just lead them to deport Ali Sabat to a slightly less horrifying corner of Dar-al-Islam.
More:
"Time is passing and if they don't kill him this Friday maybe next Friday," Ms Khansa told the World Today programme.
.................
"This Friday maybe next Friday"—yes, because if the Saudis *do* execute this harmless man, they will do so on the Muslim "sabbath". What could be a more devout way for a good Muslim to observe Yom-al-Juma than to see a foreigner beheaded for "witchcraft"?
More:
Amnesty International said Mr Sabat seemed to have been convicted for "exercising of his right to freedom of expression"....
.................
Of course, elsewhere Amnesty International is championing "defensive Jihad", but that is a topic for another thread. Certainly, they are right in this case. Nothing quite restricts freedom of expression like being beheaded.
In India many Muslims go to get their predictions .
I have even met one Muslim teacher who taught astrology. Well in India it seems things change a lot. Then Prophet Muhammad knew little and tried to just make others accept whatever he thought was right.
Many people don’t know that Augustus came to Rome after Julius Caesar died when a astrologer predicted great future for him.
The Muhammad was illiterate and you can see the work of a illiterate in his book Quran and his teachings.
If Saudi Arabia followed muhamamd commands then thousands of Muslims in india and world need to be send to their death bed.
Remember good 'ol days when a righteous mujahideen could lop off the head of an apostate trusting the MSM to look the other way and bury the story? I guess this new media stuff is a bit of a double edged sword...no pun intended.
What this guy does not know about 'sorcery' could probably fill a book...He's an entertainer...Real predictors of the future are meteorologists predicting tomorrows weather...and they can only give us their best guess...
Everyone predicts the future...
Wife...'how about mowing the lawn?...
Husband...'I'll do it in the morning'...
Wife...'sure you will'...
Both guilty...
It's a good thing for the Saudi's that there are few lawns in Arabia...
I would hope the Saudi officials would realize this guy was just kidding around and release him...
I think it's important to give this victim of barbaric Islamic "jurisprudence" a face. Here is Ali Sabat:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7161Q64fc_4/Sw93zK95ElI/AAAAAAAAAfI/3oXYVeY-bE4/S150/source+Al+Riyadiyah+TV.jpg
The Saudis are deeply paranoid of any outsiders, and have accused and sentenced several foreigners of witchcraft over the years, including Eritrean national Mohammad Burhan in 2006, for being a “charlatan”.
This was based *solely* on Burhan's having a leather-bound personal phone booklet containing writing in Eritrea’s Tigrinya alphabet. [a small aside: Oakland, California has the United States' largest Eritrean population. The Temescal branch library—no more than a mile from my home—is the country's only library with a section of books in Tigriyan and Amharic]
He was sentenced to 20 months in prison and 300 lashes, and then was deported after serving more than double the time in prison.
In 2007, Mustafa Ibrahim, an Egyptian pharmacist, was convicted of sorcery in Riyadh after he was found guilty of having tried “through sorcery” to separate a married couple, said Human Rights Watch. He was executed.
He went to Saudi Arabia on a religious pilgrimage and was captured.
This seems like the Beverley Anne Giesbrecht(aka Khadija Abdul Qahaar)story.
They both wanted to get closer to their religion and are, by these accounts, doing just that.
Different point of view..Just read it with Pinch of salt as i know the pro and cons on astrology to scoccery to paranormal..So for Jihad viewers what is Saudi Arabia
http://www.journalofastrology.com/article.php?article_id=69
A look at the horoscope of Saudi Arabia becomes relevant for an astrological discussion.
Among the different dates for the horoscope of Saudi Arabia, the most accepted is the one of 21 September 12 LMT, Riyadh.
The prosperity and religious attitudes of Saudi Arabia are well reflected in this horoscope.
1. The second and fifth lord, Jupiter, joins the eighth and eleventh lord, Mercury, in the tenth house. Here the second lord is vargottama showing the economic prosperity of the nation.
2. The tenth lord is in the eleventh house.
3. There are two good exchanges: between the seventh and ninth lords and the tenth and the eleventh lords.
4.There is an excellent Gajakesari Yoga involving an exalted Moon with Jupiter in Simha which is joined by Mercury and also Ketu which has a special significance in view of the fact that Muslims all over the world look upon Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia as their most sacred place.
5.Saudi Arabia is known as a blatantly theocratic state as explicitly stated in its constitution. (see the provisions quoted here).
6. The nation took birth in abhijit muhurta.
7.Some features giving to Saudi Arabia its exalted religious status strike the eye.
a) The ninth lord is exalted.
b) The ninth house has the seventh lord together with the lagna and the sixth lord, Mars aspected by Saturn which will explain why Saudi Arabia is accused slyly of exporting Islamic fundamentalism of the Wahabbi variety. (CNS News.com - Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Israel’s secret service revealed this week that militants in Saudi Arabia were helping to fund the development of a Hamas’ missile project, which was locally produced in the Gaza Strip, but planned for expansion into the West Bank.
c) Jupiter and Ketu in the tenth house, being part of a good Gajakesari yoga, adds to its attractiveness as a religious Muslim country for followers of Islam all over the world.
The importance of it can be understood if the historical fact that the rise of Al Saud is closely linked to Muhammad Ibn al Wahhab (died in 1792) the founder of the Wahhabism, is remembered.
From the Saudi Constitution
Article 1
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a sovereign Arab Islamic state with Islam as its religion; God’s Book and the Sunnah of His Prophet, God’s prayers and peace be upon him, are its constitution, Arabic is its language and Riyadh is its capital.
Article 3
The state’s flag shall be as follows:
(a) It shall be green.
(b) Its width shall be equal to two-thirds of its length.
(c) The words "There is but one God and Mohammed is His Prophet" shall be inscribed in the center with a drawn sword under it.
Article 6
Citizens are to pay allegiance to the King in accordance with the holy Koran and the tradition of the Prophet, in submission and obedience, in times of ease and difficulty, fortune and adversity.
From Moon
1. There is an exchange of the first and the third lord and the fourth and the fifth lords.
2. The ninth house has Saturn, ninth lord placed there aspected by Mars and Venus which again gives to it its fundamentalist Islamic character repeated in the Constitution of Saudi Arabia in many places.
Wahhabism is well reflected in the aspect of Mars on the ninth lord Saturn with all such rigid and aggressive which the differences between Shias, who worshipped shrines and Imamas and visit their graves were not acceptable as orthodox and true Muslims, highlights. The emphasis was on "the Muslim principle that there is only one God, and that God does not share his power with anyone—not Imams, and certainly not trees or rocks."
Wahhabism was a neat political instrument available to the rulers of Saudi Arabia to forge unity among warring tribes and give to the nation an identity through the enforcement of outward discipline which lingers even today though after 1992, the clear identification with is said to have been less.
It remains "tangible in the physical conformity in dress, in public deportment, and in public prayer. Most significantly, the Wahhabi legacy was manifest in the social ethos that presumed government responsibility for the collective moral ordering of society, from the behavior of individuals, to institutions, to businesses, to the government itself."
Political advantage of this doctrine was taken and Shias became enemies of Saudi Arabia and non-Muslims were greater enemies. The militancy generated by Mars here has always been at the root of Saudi Arabian policies be it donations to seventy countries where the money sent by it is not spent on welfare activities like modern educational institutions and hospitals but on mosques and madrasas where Wahhabism is encouraged.
It was this aggression which led to attack on Karbala the Shia shrine in 1801. Such aggression and consequent wars on Muslim neighbouring countries led to the identification of political loyalty to religious obligation which has been an unbroken tradition of Saudi Arabia for more than two centuries now.
This horoscope and historical necessity demands that Saudi Arabia must remain a custodian of Islamic faith which having an Arabic origin has been described by Anwar Sheikh in his website as Arab nationalism.
Some events
1. On 25 March 1975 when King Faisalas was martyred in Jupiter-Moon-Sun (see the dashamansha) Saturn was in Mithuna, the eighth house of this horoscope aspecting the tenth house and Mars was in Makar also aspecting the tenth house.
Note: Saturn is to enter that area again very soon.
2) The beginning of Saturn mahadasha saw Saudi Arabia getting involved in the conflicts of neighbouring countries. Here the aspect of Mars, as the sixth lord on Saturn made Saudi Arabia an aggressive supporter of the Mujahadeen action in Afghanistan against Soviet occupation and led to the rise of Osama bin Laden as a national hero some years later. It was also in this period that the Iran-Iraq war took place.
3) On 20 November 1979 in Saturn-Saturn- Venus the holiest Muslim place, Mecca was attacked. All these dasha lords are connected with the ninth house and are associated with Mars.
4) In Saturn-Moon (Moon is in the seventh house) Saudi Arabia was affected by the Iraq-Kuwait war with USA rushing to its aid with huge armaments by selling which the US armament industries benefited immensely, a war with Iraq seemed imminent but was staved off.
5) On 13 June 1982 when King Fahd became the leader of the kingdom it was period of Saturn-Mercury. The change in leadership is denoted by the eighth lord here.
Saudi Arabia has entered the twenty first century with the Wahhabi legacy which Osama bin Laden and his Al Quaeda used for an Islamic dream of world conquest and destruction of USA. The huge moneys given to Osama and Taliban is part of this legacy.
In the present dasha of Mercury, also the eighth lord in the tenth house and with Ketu , how can Saudi Arabia not witness chinks in this legacy now and escape world attention as exporter of fundamentalism is the question not being debated openly, though it does engage the attention of political scientists.
Saudi Arabia is on the verge of a big change in the next six years which will begin in Mercury Mars and in Mercury-Rahu such changes will acquire revolutionary tones.
Saturn in Mithuna will initiate the change, with the pro-west regime being thrown out first and later, internecine war will lead to many bloody changes in what today is one of the stablest and prosperous nations of the world.
In 2002, Saudi Arabia is passing through the second phase of saadhe saati. When Saturn enters Mithuna, and last phase of saadhe saati, it will also be aspecting the tenth house from where most unexpected changes will take place which can be violent overthrow of the present pro-western regime which uneasily appeals to Wahhabism that is two centuries old, backward-looking and antiquated from the western angle.
Liberal Islam must become a dominant theme in most of those Muslim countries where the mullah-guided populace nurses its grievance against their pro-west rulers. That such an uneasy and uncomfortable turn of historical events is staring the world now in the post-Taliban 2002 AD is difficult to accept and more difficult to reject.
That uneasy choice lies before Saudi Arabia now when Saturn enters Mithuna in June 2002. The transformation that is to occur in Saudi Arabia will have been completed by Saturn from Mithuna to Simha in seven to eight years.
Witchcraft will work if the 'recipient' believes in witchcraft and knows curses are being aimed at him. Since these creeps have a superstitious dread of witchcraft as well as pork products, it provides a another possible way of freaking them out. Maybe a few dolls with pins in them left in strategic locations...
P.S. How does Allah fit into all this? If Allah is omnipotent and everything occurs according to his will, how can witches override his intentions?
Will he live or will he die? Only the Sorcerer knows witch it will be.
l dont care to read more about the land of the sowdis, all l know they are exporting their cult and it will end with the black rock in mecca is destroyed along with their followers. you win a war when you kill more of your enemy. period
“Mr Sabat, who is in his 40s, was the host of a satellite TV programme in which he predicted the future.”
He is therefore guilty of sorcery.
What a dud lawyer that guy has.
He would obviously not have gone to Saudi Arabia if he was a sorcerer and was able to predict the future....
Mr Sabat, who is in his 40s, was the host of a satellite TV programme in which he predicted the future.
Like the Holy Prophet Mohammed?
*** 92:8 ***
Except Mo didn't have the luxury of telivision. The Islamic Scientists hadn't invented TV at that point.
"...this guy was just kidding around ...."
Sorry, no kidding around allowed in the Moslem world. It's somewhere in the Koran, I think: "Take not the kidders-around for friends, and associate with them not."
And: "Surely, Allah has prepared irons thrice-heated for the kidders-around."
I'm not sure which sutures these are, but they're surely there somewhere.
Hello,
See all these so-called "Islamic" states are nothing but a creation of the western imperialism.
Islam needs a caliph and a strong one for uniting the people and spreading the faith further.
Caliphate was provided by the Arabs from the 6-th to the 10-th century , then it was provided by the persians and after that it was the turn of the Turks.
Now a days there is a need for a new nation to come to Islam and spread the faith to far conrners of the world.
I guess Allah has choosen America to be the nation providing the Caliphate , this time.
We (the USA) actually have diplomatic relations with that tribe of idiots?!!!
Bad combo...wealth and ignoance.
Why do you have a Brahmin Last name.
Brahmins and Islam does not match. Come on keep a islamic name. Banerjee are the most conservative Brahmins of Bengal in India and they would never convert to islam or Love islam.
Remember Brahmins of India never accepted islam and resisted it.
Find some other name of yourself.Like Aisha or Zhenab or Muhammad etc.
What year is it in Saudi Arabia? 1431 - still in the Middle Ages.
How was the Western view on sorcery around that time?
In 1484 Pope Innocent VIII issued the bull "Summis desiderantes" condemming women as evil animals and authorizing two inquisitors, Kramer and Sprenger, to systematize the persecution of witches. Two years later their manual, Malleus Maleficarum, was published with 14 editions following between 1487-1520 and at least 16 editions between 1574-1669.
A papal bull in 1488 called upon the nations of Europe to rescue the Church of Christ which was "imperiled by the arts of Satan." The papacy and the Inquisition had successfully transformed the witch from a phenomenon whose existence the Church had previously rigorously denied into a phenomenon that was deemed very real, very frightening, the antithesis of Christianity, and absolutely deserving of persecution.
It was now heresy not to believe in the existence of witches.
As the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum noted, "A belief that there are such things as witches is so essential a part of Catholic faith that obstinately to maintain the opposite opinion savors of heresy."
Passages in the Bible such as "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" were cited to justify the persecution of witches. Both Calvin and Knox believed that to deny witchcraft was to deny the authority of the Bible. The eighteenth century founder of Methodism, John Wesley, declared to those skeptical of witchcraft, "The giving up of witchcraft is in effect the giving up of the Bible." And an eminent English lawyer wrote, "To deny the possibility, nay, actual existence of Witchcraft and Sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict the revealed Word of God in various passages both of the Old and New Testament."
- 400 years later sorcery had become a bad joke for Western intellectuals. So give the Saudis a couple of hundred years to reconsider their conviction of the sorcerer. Maybe the Pope could persuade the Saudi king that executing sorcerers is a bad idea.
hey, what about "international rights" and "his right to freedom of expression"....
Those are tired old arguements. Religion and politics have changed, moved on from the battling of faithful drooling rednecks and right-wingers versus secular pencil necks.
To the return of wrathful Allah, here to punish us into submission.
We (the USA) actually have diplomatic relations with that tribe of idiots?!!!
Bad combo...wealth and ignorance.
Debanjan Banerjee wrote:
Now a days there is a need for a new nation to come to Islam and spread the faith to far conrners (sic) of the world.
........................
Marvelous. Then we could all know the sort of "Islamic justice" that poor, harmless Mr. Sabat is being subjected to. And then, with 'the faith' spread to the far conrners (sic) of the world, there would be no one left to stand up against this insanity at all.
"Real predictors of the future are meteorologists predicting tomorrows weather...and they can only give us their best guess...
Everyone predicts the future..."
Even in Saudi Arabia they have a "Presidency of Meteorology and Environment" and weather forecasts on TV. Probably their predictions are followed by the word "insallah" leaving freedom for Allah to decide how the weather should be.
Had the sourcerer remembered to add the word "insallah" he could not have been convicted.
Maybe Obama will intervene?
Why is it that the leftist media will not comment on this "sorcerers" execution but would be only too happy to once again for the millionth time comment on the witch trials in New England that happened centuries ago. Let me suggest to you the reason; Islamic Sharia offers the left the fastest opportunity to destroy Western Civilization and this is the ultimate goal of the left.
One might ask themselves why would they seek to destroy themselves in the process? The answer is that they see Islam as their friend because Islam is the enemy of Western Civilization. They are not thinking beyond that.
Ipso Facto wrote:
What year is it in Saudi Arabia? 1431 - still in the Middle Ages...
400 years later sorcery had become a bad joke for Western intellectuals. So give the Saudis a couple of hundred years to reconsider their conviction of the sorcerer. Maybe the Pope could persuade the Saudi king that executing sorcerers is a bad idea.
...................
I have seen this argument quite frequently, and it has never made much sense to me. A religion—or any creed—does not develop in a vacuum. It is not as though the year were reset to 1 AD for a faith and all its followers upon its founding.
In addition, this hazy concept only works—even by its own dim lights—while comparing Islam to Christianity. The paradigm does not work comparing Islam to other, older faiths such as Hinduism or Judaism.
Nor does it work with more recent creeds—by the above argument, shouldn't Unitarians, Scientologists, and the Baha'i be savagely lopping off heads and spreading their faith by the sword? And yet it is not so.
One more important point: yes, Christendom was still quite superstitious and brutal in many ways in 1431. But it was also deep in the Renaissance by that time, rediscovering the glories of classical art and philosophy.
Here's Fra Angelico's beautiful Annunciation from around 1430, incorporating the then new ideas of perspective and close observation of forms in nature:
http://hopeitis.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/fra-angelico-the-annunciation.jpg
There is *no such* Renaissance in the Muslim world today. In fact, re your final argument, that in a few hundred years Dar-al-Islam will likely be as civilized as the West is today, remember that much of the Muslim world today is *less* open to enlightenment ideas than it was in the 1970s, the 1950s, or even the 1920s.
And far from creating new forms of literature, art, and music, devout Muslims are fervently trying to crush all creative expression.
Much of the Muslim world is now in the process of re-embracing the "purest" form of Islam–which leads to just such as the persecution of this man for *witchcraft*. Ali Sabat's home country of Lebanon is perhaps the perfect example, in fact, of a country that seemed on its way to embracing civilized modernity forty years ago, and is now increasingly enmired in Hizb'allah's dark influence.
I could also contrast Christianity's basic tenets with those of Islam, of course—but that has been done many times here before, and the difference is amply clear to most JW readers.
"A Lebanese man sentenced to death ..."
OK, why wasn't muhammad (perdition be upon him) sentenced to death? I mean muhammad practiced sorcery.
sorcery defined:
"the belief in magical spells that harness occult forces or evil spirits to produce unnatural effects in the world"
Boy, if that doesn't describe muhammad, then ....
"bad combo - wealth and ignorance"
Come listen to the story about a man named Abdul
A poor desert shlep, barely kept his family fed
Then one day he was shootin at some dude,
And up through the ground came a bubblin' crude
Oil that is, black gold, Saudi T
Well the next thing you know Abdul's a billionare,
Kinfolk said Abdul move away from here
Said Washington is the place you oughta be
So they loaded up the camel and moved to DC
District of Columbia that is
Bureaucrats, Senators, The President!
Well, now it's time to say goodbye to Abdul and his kin
They would like to thank you all fer kindly droppin in
You're all invited back again to this locality
To have a heapin helpin of Muslim morality
The Koran, that is, set a spell, let your beard grow,
Go on a jihad, chop off hands, heads,
Subdue infidels, kill apostates, sorcerers,
Y'all come back now, hear!
jewdog
I've copied and pasted your rhymes with appropos kudos to you to others...summed up, well, I 'don't know but will try to give you a musical-lyrical-poetical link, very current, to u-tube..as follows. ps..if it doesn't "work" my apologies to Mr. Spencer..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W57aBMYKvU
i've enjoyed (perhaps resonated) with your posts over the yrs tho mostly a lurker...I'm from the US "south" so your Jed clampett thang tickled me..none of us should get discouraged and same note thanks for your courage..from Nodak
Much obliged, Nodak. Enjoyed the link, great! - I believe you just need to have it separated by blanks to make it clickable.
I split my time between the North and South (I'm a techie with a job I can do anywhere) - my wife lives in Chucktown, S.C. See y'all!
Thank´s for your reasoned reply. I don´t disagree with your compelling arguments pointing out the uniquiness of Islam and its history compared to the evolution of Christianity. The obstacles for Muslims to achieve what the West did in the Renaissance and with Luthers Reformation, necessary changes leading up to and enabling the Enlightentment, are indeed enormous.
But there is an alternative way to interpret what has been happening inside Islam since the resurgence of radical or salafi Islam in the last 40 years or so. Although history never repeats inself exactly in the same way there could be a broad parallel between the violent reaction of the Catholic Church at the end of the Middle Ages and Islamic violence in our time.
The common denominator could be FEAR, fear of loosing unity, power and a coherent worldview (paradigme) to a new cultural paradigme based upon rationality and secular humanism. Christianity could after an intense internal bloody struggle adapt to the new paradigme because the core texts of the New Testament demands seperation of state and church. That was the essence of Luthers Reformation explained in his teaching of the Two Regiments.
The road towards seperation of state and church is very much harder in Islam because state and church are one and the same in classical Islam. But in reality only one true theocracy exist in the modern world - Iran. And even in Iran there is a strong tendency towards a military dictatorship. In all the other Islamic states there are some kind of power sharing going on between the government and the religious leaders. Because of the Islamic resurgence Kemalist Turkey, looking prospective for a long time, is now heading fast towards islamization. So the historical evidence point out the fact that so far no country with a Muslim majority population has been able to become a secular democratic state based on the wish of the population.
It could also be claimed that the Cairo Declaration of the member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) adopted in Cairo in 1990 is a desperate attempt to upheld the unity of Islam against the evil forces of Western civilization and globalisation analogue to the papal bull in 1488, that called upon the nations of Europe to rescue the Church of Christ which was "imperiled by the arts of Satan."
It is indeed dark night now in Islam but is it not darkest in the hour before dawn, when people have nightmares? In Scandinavian languages we call this hour "ulvetimen" - meaning the hour of the wolf.
But is there not in all the darkness, the Jihad in all its forms, also a speck of light?
I don´t remember a time when quite so many highly regarded islamic scholars are trying to interpret the Holy texts of Islam in a more tolerant and peaceful way compatible with the values of liberal democracy. Is it all just taqyia or a true and determined attempt to bring Islam into the modern world?
In "What Went Wrong" (2002) Bernard Lewis see some hope for a change:
"... But for growing numbers of Middle Easteners it is giving way to a more selv-critical approach. The question "Who did this to us?" has led only to neorotic fantasies and conspiracy theories. The other question - "What did we do wrong?" - has led naturally to a second question: "How do we put it right?" In that question, and in the various answers that are being found, lie the best hope for the future. ..."
What we are seeing could be the last spasm, agony and despair of a dying culture under transformation to something new. A process that started five centuries ago when Islam gradually was sidelined by the Western civilization in all human areas: power, good governance, science, techonolgy, military capacity and ability to create wealth, health, prosperity and peaceful societies for its citizens.
I don´t know what the future brings, but the outlined scenario cannot be definitively ruled out. Even if I am right the transformation will be long, painful and bloody, just like the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) - one of the most destructive conflicts in European history.
This story seems to break two 'book' rules so maybe a fresh fatwa is needed, against the Saudi rulers.
The reporter was on hajj, no? And the rulers are now introducing a new rule that all on hajj are subject to review and punishment? This seems to be a violation of the trust given to safeguard the sanctity of the place that houses their relics and is a center of pilgrimage. The implication are huge - who is to be arrested next? Do this undermine the religious legitimacy of the rulers by interfering with a pilgrim on hajj? Does this matter to the muslin world?
Also, what happened to the vaunted hospitality to guests?
From a tourism and travel standpoint, who in their right mind would visit a country that wants to kill tourists for what the West generally considers exercising a human right of free speech - in their past, and not in saudi?
Have they actually committed a real (in their world) blunder here?
Bid‘ah is any type of innovation in Islam. Though innovations in worldly matters,such as science, medicine and technology is acceptable for some but not all,
Bid`ah within the religion is seen as a sin.
“Whosoever originates an innovation in this matter of ours that is not a part of it, will have it rejected."
"This day, I have perfected your religion for you,completed My favor upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion."
Allah knows best...
Bid'ah is punishable by death!
Just one question. In India Lord Buddha changed society in 50 years and it was the most peaceful transformation of society.
Can you think why so much violence in Judeo Christianity frame work. Islam copied so much of Christianity and Judaism.
Hope you can explain why so much bloodshed all over.
Again in India the society was transformed in 1990s by Affirmative action and the society changed mainly Hindu society.
China transformed in cultural Revolution and it entailed millions dying.
Russia changed also but it also entailed millions dying.
American Civil was also brought the change in Society.
Remember my friend i am with the western society and also that India also has a unique solution to Islamic problem.
Do think it over and do give some perspective to my point which i have raised. I just want to know why so much Violence all the time?.
Islam political thoughts are just evil and Christ thoughts divine
And.....
Those who commit bid'ha are often accused of shirk.
Shirk is to worshipping other than Allah or changing Islam.
Giving Allah characteristics he does not have.
Not giving Allah characteristics he does have.partners with him, giving his characteristics to others beside him, or not believing in his characteristics.
Within Islam Shirk is a Major sin and shirk cannot be forgiven,
"Allah forgives any sin except for committing shirk. It is the vice that is opposed"
Shirk is also punishable by death (surprise surprise)
Sunnis accuse Shias of shirk
Shias accuse Sunnis of shirk
They all accuse Druze of shirk
etc. etc. etc.
The arselifter should consider himself lucky that he didn't bring any alcohol into the country either.
If he was caught with that, he would have been flogged too. Of course, if that was done after his beheading, I don't suppose it would really matter that much to him.
Didn't he see it coming that he would be nabbed by the Saudi religious police?
99% of the above comments are mirthful. With everyone's permission, I'd like to publish a book with all the above in it. I shall call it "So What if the Stupid Know How to Write?". It would be found in the "Joke" aisle.
Need I say more? A great many of the comments show complete ignorance of the very real threat the West is facing. Some comments were pretty good, but most really demostrated complete lack of understanding, starting with the first one, "international law". Ha Ha Ha. That one, by the way, will be displayed on the back cover to entice those who enjoy reading really stupid/funny nonsense.
And to those who talk about the world view and "resurgence",
try and use the space betwen your ears. Waging war takes money, lots of money, and the West gave the looneys all the money they need by buying oil that just happened to be under the tent that they called home. That's all there is to it. Had they had the money five-hundred years ago, what is going on now would have gone on then.
It's all about the money, stupid.
You have my permission to publish a quoting of the full text.
And by the way, it is not all about the money. It is all about culture, stupid. ;-)
From above post...A great many of the comments show complete ignorance of the very real threat the West is facing.
Maybe you should stick around and read other threads...Your comment won't hold up...
"In India Lord Buddha changed society in 50 years and it was the most peaceful transformation of society."
Perhaps. I believe Buddhism to be a noble creed.
However, here in the West, people's idea of Buddhism is almost entirely formed by watching TV specials on the Dalai Lama. While this man is an exemplar of humanity at its finest, not all Buddhists necessarily are.
In my former workplace many of my coworkers were Buddhists. They ran the gamut from kind, gentle folks to raging egomaniacs, hotheaded even to the point of physical violence.
In no way am I condemning Buddhists or defending Islam. Other things being equal I will take a Buddhist over a Muslim or an atheist, ten times out of ten. But they aren't all as saintly as the Dalai Lama.
Ipso Facto wrote:
The road towards seperation of state and church is very much harder in Islam because state and church are one and the same in classical Islam. But in reality only one true theocracy exist in the modern world - Iran. And even in Iran there is a strong tendency towards a military dictatorship.
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Perhaps so. But Islam is *the* defining matter in most of the Muslim world. I imagine it matters little to Mr. Sabat whether the Muttawa and the judge were not agents of a "true" theocracy or not.
More:
The common denominator could be FEAR, fear of loosing unity, power and a coherent worldview (paradigme) to a new cultural paradigme based upon rationality and secular humanism.
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You could be right about the fear aspect. Germans may well have acted—in part, at least—out of fear when they embraced Hitler and National Socialism. This in no way mitigated the horrifying danger they would become both to their neighbors and to their own vulnerable people, though. Islam is no less a threat because they fear losing power and control to the much more attractive West—in fact, they may well be a *greater* danger because of it.
More:
It is indeed dark night now in Islam but is it not darkest in the hour before dawn, when people have nightmares? In Scandinavian languages we call this hour "ulvetimen" - meaning the hour of the wolf.
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Again, you may well be right—I hope so. I, myself, am a naturally optimistic person. But this crisis could as easily result in a newly aggressive Islam, that—through Jihad violence, the money weapon, and the lack of will on the part of the West and the rest of Dar-al-Harb—overruns, or at least cows, much of the rest of the world. In fact, many current trends point to just this.
After all, many other places have faced just this hour of the wolf—north Africa, the levant, Persia, central Asia—and far from emerging from the crisis, they fell to the forces of Islam.
If you are referring to Islam itself, please keep in mind that—in the view of many Muslims—emerging from this crisis means not fending off the threat of the wolf, but becoming the ravening wolf themselves.
There are some instances of states passing laws that apply a "universality principle" or "universal jurisdiction" in international law.
For a crime so serious as to be considered a crime against all humanity and which any state is bound to punish, a state may claim criminal jurisdiction over a person whose alleged crime was committed outside the boundaries of that state, regardless of their nationality.
The universality principle is much criticised as it is so obviously open to abuse, in circumstances where a state is seeking a politically motivated show trial rather than a genuine judicial process.
The principle has been applied by various nations to crimes such as war crimes, torture, terrorism, piracy/hijacking and genocide.
Belgium introduced a law in 1993 that was used to try Rwanda citizens for crimes connected with the Rwanda genocide. A number of suits were taken against Arial Sharon, Yasser Arafat and George Bush, and Belgium repealed the law to replace it with a more restricted extra-territorial law.
The International Criminal Court in the Hague was established in 2002 and should have removed what some states considered a necessity to pass laws with universal jurisdiction.
Saudi Arabia is not a member state of the ICC notwithstanding which a case of sorcery would be laughed out of court. Islam considers itself a universal religion and presumably Sharia Law has pretentions to universal jurisdiction. I'm surprised Danish cartoonists haven't been tried in absentia before some Sharia Court but then inflamed muslims are always keener on assassination.
In all the other Islamic states there are some kind of power sharing going on between the government and the religious leaders.
Entirely due to the influence of Western colonialism on the Muslim world, plus post-colonial "neo-colonialist" Western geopolitical hegemony.
...the historical evidence point out the fact that so far no country with a Muslim majority population has been able to become a secular democratic state based on the wish of the population.
In any given region where Muslims are concentrated, the will of the people (the "wish of the population") would lead to more Islam, more Sharia -- not less. All the modern Muslim polities that manifest degrees of secularism and modernism (i.e., degrees of un-Islamic laws) are a result of dictators imposing secularism and modernism on the population -- they are not a result of the will of the people, in great part in order to maintain a society that can pursue some participation in a world economy dominated by the secular West. The one exception (that proves the rule) here is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia -- though even there, there is a degree of constraint on full-blooded Islam, which is why certain Muslim terrorists have been attacking the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.