You might think Islam in the Silicon Valley would be extra progressive and tolerant. In this prominent case of "one of the largest Muslim communities in the US," you'd think wrong.
Remember how often our comment-box apologists tell us they've never heard of the books discussed below, or that we're cherry-picking one or two titles to tar Islam with one broad brush. Is the MCA cherry-picking titles to give Islam a bad name? "Silicon Valley Sharia," by Kamala at WetPaint, December 27:
Apple. Google. Facebook. Sharia?
Silicon Valley has become synonymous with modernity and innovation.
And naively, one might expect Islam in Silicon Valley to share the same traits: an advanced, forward-thinking interpretation.
Presumably, the Muslim Community Association (MCA) of the San Francisco Bay Area would serve as the stewards of such a perspective. Billing itself as "one of the largest Muslim communities in the US," the MCA proudly proclaims that its members are "well-educated, well-traveled, and earn higher than average incomes in the San Francisco Bay Area." Even the mayor of Cupertino (Apple's hometown) recently visited an MCA Open House.
Yet the MCA's own web site makes it clear that Silicon Valley Islam is anything but innovative. Their online bookstore, which features a small but revealing set of "authentic" books about Islam, yields an interpretation of Islam that is draconian and unbending: an Islam dedicated to bringing Sharia to the world.
One book, Man-Made Laws vs. Shari'ah, by Abdur-Rahmaan ibn Salih al-Mahmood, makes the case that Sharia is the only acceptable set of laws for mankind, arguing that anyone that believes otherwise is a disbeliever.
Muslim apologists repeatedly tell non-Muslim audiences that Sharia is full of vague benefits, such as drivel about "the protection of human dignity," or the aim to "develop and sustain a moral and just society." Sharia supposedly "aims toward ideals of justice, fairness, and the good life." It's a "myth" that "The Shariah is repressive and against American values." It's "simply a set of rulings by which Muslims choose to draw closer to God."
There's not enough boldface font in the world for the next two paragraphs:
These apologists never seem able to reference any actual documentation of the specific rules and details of Sharia. They cite Sharia's "tremendous diversity." According to liar Reza Aslan, Sharia is "understood in thousands of different ways." He's even so bold as to claim that "there's really no such thing as just Sharia." A US State Department spokeswoman, when asked about the steady march toward Sharia in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, responded that Sharia "has a broad application and is understood differently in different places and by different commentators.”
Sharia, you see, is so amorphous, so varied, so nuanced that it's just too difficult a task to even write it down.
Indeed. The moment a concerned non-Muslim notices an unpleasant tenet of Sharia, Sharia becomes a shapeless jellyfish, impossible to be grasped, where no one can say. Really, how that is supposed to be reassuring does not make sense either: if we don't know what we're getting, why blindly accept an (allegedly) unknown quantity?
Yet somehow, the MCA has no problem helping its members learn all about the specifics of Sharia
Their online bookstore promotes precisely two books on Sharia. Each is filled with over 1000 pages of detailed rules and laws. Both books are written in clear, simple English, both translated from Arabic by Muslims. Both books take pride in their attention to accuracy, consistently citing the Qur'an and other authentic Islamic sources. And despite apologists' talk of diversity and justice for all, both books lay out a remarkably consistent, matter-of-fact – and ruthless – definition of Sharia.
The books are:
- Minhaj Al-Muslim, by Abu Bakr Jabir Al-Jaza'iry, and
- Reliance of the Traveller, by Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri
Reliance of the Traveller, though it sounds like a country album or bluegrass standard, is actually certified by none other than Al-Azhar University as a reliable guide to the Shafi'i school of Islamic jurisprudence. There sure is a lot of "misunderstanding" of Islam going on in high places.
As will be covered in detail here, both books agree on the following, non-negotiable rules:
- jihad as obligatory, perpetual warfare against non-Muslims until they convert, die, or submit to second-class status under Islam
- death for homosexuals
- death for those who leave Islam – where even mocking Islam constitutes apostasy
Read it all. The scans of the texts themselves are particularly valuable.
There can be no 'modern progressive' Muslims. Every devout Muslim tries his best to be a clone of Mohammed, so progress from the 7th century mindset is impossible.
Instead, every orthodox Muslim must work to overthrow established constitutional legal systems and impose Sharia, by whatever means may be necessary, on the infidel West.
Therefore they are all potentially seditious. http://crombouke.blogspot.com/2011/03/utter-ruthlessness-of-islam.html
To borrow a quote...'Allah you magnificent bastard, I read your books'...all three of them...You need to lighten up a little Allah, you're way to heavy...
Comparison table: Sharia Law and English Law (pdf)
http://crossmuslims.blogspot.com/2011/01/sharia-law-vs-english-law-pdf.html
I think that the MSNBC program To Catch a Predator collared some muslims in the tech industry during the 2 part show in Petaluma, CA. I guess they're all over the area because our captains of tech industry have secured work visas for them since our homegrown techies must inherently lack some critical skills or intelligence or something. (sarcasm)
Well, just as Islam has nothing to do with Islam, neither does Sharia have anything to do with Sharia. Quite easy really. What's not to understand?
According to liar Reza Aslan, "there's really no such thing as just Sharia."
He's right, there's only unjust Sharia.
When I get the "islam/shariah is not a monolith" I point out that the OIC, 56 islamic countries, seem to know what shariah is as their countries have either shariah as their system of jurisprudence or its a "secular" system subject to shariah. And they all managed to agree on the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights subject to shariah.
Seriously, islam is a house of cards that would crash without the protection of our own progressive traitors.
Are these texts (Reliance of the Traveller and Minhaj Al-Muslim) available online anywhere in ebook form for free? I don't particularly want to contribute to the coffers of these organizations, but do want to be familiar with the material...
@salah: the PDF you're referring to has been taken private. Do you have another source?
Ah yes.... Sharia.... the Path
A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma...then shrouded in a fog of deceit.
http://europenews.dk/files/Final_Sharia_Law_and_English_Law_Table.pdf
The core text of Reliance is here: http://www.shafiifiqh.com/maktabah/relianceoftraveller.pdf
The actual hardcover book is more compelling due to its certifications from contemporary Muslim authorities and other notes.
I think this needs to be sent as letter to the editor of the San Francisco Examiner or what ever.
Or published in the news that lots of educated people read. Might wake them up.
Try forwarding it to 'SlashDot' (what I call 'News For Nerds'; my husband reads it religiously, every day).
"According to liar Reza Aslan, Sharia is "understood in thousands of different ways.""
Except of course how it is understood by the likes of lifelong Muslims such as bin Laden, al Qaradawi, al Awlaki, Ayman al Zawahari, the Taliban, and other Muslim literalists.
For they, of course, are not real Muslims, have twisted and perverted "the religion of peace", and simply misunderstand Islam's true teachings.
Oh what a tangled web Aslan and his fellow apologists have weaved.
This is interesting. Going to the url here via Robert's link is the home page of the source site, Revuse
http://revuse.wetpaint.com/.
The first thing I noticed out of a fairly thin crop was this article which to us islamologists screams 'read me'. It is in fact a critique of a counter to Robert's book The Truth About Mohammed
The Lies About Muhammad (September 9, 2010)
And lo and behold we find yet more of the obfuscation, spin and outright lying, we by now can quite truthfully associate with this man for all seasons religion which when practiced in the West is so defensively slippery, vague and amorphous it almost doesn't exist.
Here's the opener. I think that last paragraph should have us really rolling in the aisles....
Moustafa Zayed has taken it upon himself to respond to almost every page of Robert Spencer's book, The Truth About Muhammad. Why? Because he "wanted to show how far the intentional fabrications against everything Muslim have gone, and in details of its process and how it is done." (p. 14)
One of Zayed's key arguments is that Spencer makes extensive use of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah (Biography of the Prophet of Allah) as a source. Ibn Ishaq is known as Muhammad's first biographer. According to Zayed, "Ibn Ishaq was like a man who gathered every dollar he found: the real money and the counterfeit. Then later, others came with mechanisms that filtered his real dollars from the fake. Mr. Spencer ignores all the real dollars and looks almost exclusively inside Ibn Ishaq's bag and picks on the counterfeit ones." (p. 26) Zayed repeatedly invokes his distrust of Ibn Ishaq as a response to Spencer.
For example: in his book, Spencer recounts how Muhammad, while consolidating his power in Medina, had called for two poets to be killed because they "had mocked him and his prophetic pretensions." (p. 162) Spencer cites Ibn Ishaq as his source. One of the poets was a woman, 'Asma bint Marwan. Insulted by one of her poems (which had hoped for someone to "attack him by surprise"), Muhammad asked, "Who will rid me of Marwan's daughter?" A Muslim killed her and her unborn child but was worried he may have committed a sin. Muhammad reassured him, "You have helped God and His apostle... Two goats won't butt their heads about her."
For Muslims who believe Muhammad is the perfect role model, this episode is difficult to reconcile. A pro-Islam web site claims "Muhammad was as kind as he was polite. He always treated people with kindness and tenderness and never showed harshness even to his enemies. The people who abused him, threw thorny bushes and stones and dirt on him and were thirsty for his blood, received nothing but kindness from him. He showed kindness to all, irrespective of whether they were friends or foes. God mentions this quality of Muhammad's in the Qur'an."
DDA
Slashdot is okay on technical subjects, but when it comes to politics, it's both pro-Leftist and pro-Islamic to unbelievable levels, as well as rabidly anti-Semitic (and often militantly pro-Athiest). In fact, any story on Israel invites numerous anti-Semitic comments, no matter how apolitical it is, while any story on terrorism invites the usual 'The US created al Qaeda' or 'The US created Iranian terrorism by toppling Mossadegh' or 'We are involved in the Mid East b'cos of a guy who's been dead for 2000+ years'. Opinion there is very strongly in support of Iran getting the bomb and obliterating Israel w/ it.
I once posted something there in support of the Flat tax, and got modded down so badly that I had to post anonymously for weeks. Since then, the few things on Islam & Muslims I've posted have been done anonymously.
Essentially, that site is, on the political side, a fusion of Huffington Post, Daily Kos and Stormfront. If there was a better technical site, I'd switch to it very quickly.
Robert,Kamala,
Thanks for the extremely informative article and discussion.
Shocker: San Fran-area Muslim Community Association's "authentic" books on Islam preach brutality, intolerance, and jihad warfare
..........................
Ugh. And this is going on in my own backyard...
Gail Duituturaga wrote:
I think this needs to be sent as letter to the editor of the San Francisco Examiner or what ever.
Or published in the news that lots of educated people read. Might wake them up.
..........................
Gail, the Examiner *might* publish something on this topic—at least they periodically come out strongly against "Islamic extremism".
The much larger and more politically correct San Francisco Chronicle would just publish another article on the "diversity" of local Mosques, or one on how hard it is for Muslims fasting during Ramadan, being surrounded by all those inconsiderate Infidels...
'Kamala', who did this article, has done two others that are still up at 'revuse', and that are very very useful.
She - I think kamala is a she - used to post quite often in this forum at one time.
Here are the two other items.
One is a detailed deconstruction of six out of a series of very pretty, very slick and entirely mendacious, propaganda da'wah posters called 'Discovering Islam', that you will see at Mosque Open Days all over the western world. Once you've read it - and perhaps downloaded a copy, or even printed it all off - then you will be equipped to stroll along to the next Mosque Open Day in your vicinity, and if those 'Discovering Islam' posters (which should better be called 'Obfuscating Islam') are being displayed, or handed out as leaflets, you will be in a position to tell the unwary kuffar who are contemplating them, that it's ALL LIES.
http://revuse.wetpaint.com/page/Discover%20Islam?t=anon
The other - 'Ten Questions for the Muslim Next Door' - was written in response to a book 'The Muslim next door' which was written by a smiling, lying Muslimah in America, one Sumbul Ali-Karamali.
http://revuse.wetpaint.com/page/Ten+Questions+for+the+Muslim+Next+Door?t=anon
I'm still around, just not as much time to post. Thanks for including the links again to some of my older work.
The ten questions for Sumbul Ali-Karamali, in response to her book of lies, remains relevant -- her book is being featured all year long as part of a "Silicon Valley Reads" promotion. See http://siliconvalleyreads.org/2012-13/
Nice to know you're still going strong, Kamala - happy New Year!
I keep re-linking those two pieces of yours, as opportunity arises, because they're *good* and very relevant for new posters and lurkers to read.
I particularly appreciate the demolition job you did on those 'Discovering Islam' da'wa posters, because the one time I went to a Mosque 'Open Day' they had those very same pretty, glossy posters plastered up all over the place to deceive the uninformed.