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An extraordinarily important and revealing article by Paul Stenhouse in Quadrant (thanks to GG):
ON AUGUST 5, 2007, an advertisement appeared in an Istanbul newspaper, Zaman, calling for applications for a newly established Fethullah Gülen Chair of Islamic Studies and Interfaith Dialogue, within a Centre of Inter-Religious Dialogue at the Fitzroy campus of the Australian Catholic University, Melbourne. The position had been advertised in Australia on the website of the Chronicle of Higher Education on June 8. The deadline for applicants was September 7.The objectives of the Centre are stated to be as follows: “To promote the further development of inter-religious harmony and dialogue in Australia and in the Pacific-Asia region”. Its aim is also to “educate future leaders in the humanities, business, health sciences, social sciences and theological sciences in the writings of Islam, as expounded in Fethullah Gülen’s writing and in the teachings of Said Nursi”.
As this was the first I had heard of such a Centre or Chair (set up, evidently, on August 31, 2006) I could not help but be impressed by its thoroughgoing commitment to promoting a certain kind of Islam through a Catholic university, and filtering it through all the faculties to “future leaders”. In addition, and perhaps most importantly, it also offered a base from which the relatively little-known Turkish organisation that negotiated the setting up of the Centre and Chair—the Australian Inter-cultural Society (AIS)—could have outreach with some credibility throughout Australia, the Pacific and Asia.
I recalled a by-now virtually unobtainable book, Moslems in Europe and America by Ali al-Montasser al-Kattani, published in Iraq in 1976 by Dar Idris. It called for the establishment of chairs of Islamic Studies in universities in Europe, America, the West Indies and other countries, and the setting up of committees of Muslims to select other Muslims to occupy these chairs. At the same time it called for an end to any aid, moral or financial, that might already be being given to established chairs of Islamic Studies held by Christians or Jews.
Could this be the smoking gun of MESA Nostra? I expect this applies also to reliably dhimmi academics who will do the Muslims' bidding. I'd like to know what Omid Safi and Carl Ernst in Chapel Hill would say about this. Or John Esposito, John Voll, and Yvonne Haddad at Georgetown. Etc. etc. etc. That is, I'd like to know what they would say about this if they were all injected with truth serum.
On November 3, 2006, Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne met with the AIS and expressed the wish “that Catholics cooperate with Muslims and therefore with the members of the Intercultural Society in every way possible”.It now appears that the AIS, which is connected to the Fethullah Gülen and Said Nursi group, is also linked to the equally innocuously named but more up-front Turkish Muslim Affinity Intercultural Federation. The Executive Officer of Affinity, Mehmet Ozalp, and its Vice-President, Zuleyha Keskin, are regularly featured as speakers or representatives at ecumenical, inter-faith and intercultural/multicultural functions. In 2005 Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, received an award from Affinity for his support of inter-faith activities.
Affinity regularly describes itself as “an organisation founded in 2001 by a group of young Australian Muslims specifically to promote cultural and religious awareness and understanding across the entire Australian community”. On occasion it adds that it is a “Muslim Organisation for Religious Education and Interfaith Dialogue”.
On September 11, 2005, Affinity and the Feza Foundation sponsored a National Security and Harmony Summit entitled “Muslims in Australia”, at the Seymour Centre in Sydney. The AIS and Affinity were represented among the speakers by board members.
Irfan Yusuf, a Sydney-based lawyer, revealed in 2005 that Affinity is in fact the “Interfaith wing” of:
“a Turkey-based religious congregation (or ‘cemat’) linked to [the] Turkish Islamic scholar Muhammad Fethullah Gülen. That cemat’s interests are represented in Australia by the Feza Foundation Limited which runs two schools, including Sule College, in Sydney. These schools claim to be non-denominational, though [they] are modelled on other Islamic schools run under the auspices of the Gülen-led cemat.”
Yusuf mentions that he “acted for the Feza Foundation Limited and for Sule College for some five years”, and that he has “close friends from university who are heavily involved” in the Affinity Foundation.
Bediüz-zaman Said Nursi
AS SAID NURSI (originally known as Said Kurdi, “Said the Kurd”) and Fethullah Gülen figure prominently in the official designation of the Chair and in references to it, it may be useful to examine their background and teachings. It is proposed that “future leaders in the humanities, business, health sciences, social sciences and theological sciences” at the ACU are going to be educated in Islam as expounded in their writings. As Said Nursi is the master, and Gülen the disciple, I see some advantage in dealing more fully with Nursi’s background and teachings.
What follows needs to be read in tandem with an article I had published in Quadrant (June 2007): “Ignoring Signposts on the Road: Da‘wa—Jihad with a Velvet Glove”. Concerning da‘wa I wrote:
“The shadow of da‘wa—the public face of the understated, more subtle promotion of Islamist ideology … hangs like a pall over much of the information about Islam disseminated in the West by fundamentalists and their gullible supporters.
“Lenin and subsequent Soviet governments talked up peace with capitalist nations, while at the same time encouraging workers of these countries, through organisations like the Communist International, to overthrow these same capitalist governments. Radical Islam has opened up a second Jihadist front. Through da‘wa it hopes to achieve by sleight of hand what will ultimately prove to be unattainable by brute force ...
“Some Western politicians, academics, clergy and media, oblivious of the currents surging through modern-day Islamist circles ... appear to be unfazed by the often reciprocal relationship between various Islamic da‘wist NGOs and terrorist organisations. Many others simply pretend nothing is happening or when confronted by irrefutable proof of links between Islamic da‘wist charities and suicide-bombers, terrorist cells, revolutionary agendas and the enlisting and training of mujahidun, rarely go beyond impotent gestures and wrist-slapping. In the case of some particularly ill-informed people—religious people among them—they go into denial mode and accuse critics of prejudice and worse.”
The largest da‘wa organisation in the world is the Tabligh-i-Jamaat, based in Pakistan. Tabligh, like da‘wa, means “propagation” and “propaganda”. Tabligh-i-Jamaat was founded in 1927 by a prominent Deobandi cleric and scholar, Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Kandhalawi (1885–1944).According to Alex Alexiev, the extremist attitudes that characterise Deobandism permeate Tabligh philosophy. Ilyas’s followers are intolerant of other Muslims and especially of Shi’ites, as well as of adherents of other faiths:
“The West’s misreading of Tablighi Jamaat actions and motives has serious implications for the war on terrorism. Tablighi Jamaat has always adopted an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam, but in the past two decades, it has radicalized to the point where it is now a driving force of Islamic extremism and a major recruiting agency for terrorist causes worldwide. For a majority of young Muslim extremists, joining Tablighi Jamaat is the first step on the road to extremism. Perhaps 80 percent of the Islamist extremists in France come from Tablighi ranks, prompting French intelligence officers to call Tablighi Jamaat the ‘antechamber of fundamentalism’.”
The largest da‘wa organization in Turkey and throughout Central Asia is the Nur (light) Movement (Nurcu Hareketi) founded just before Tabligh-i-Jamaat, in 1926, by Bediüz-zaman Said Nursi (1876–1960).
Nursi is an enigmatic figure, part spiritualist and part political eminence grise. In his early years, mainly through attending a Nakshibendi seminary in the Kurdish region of Turkey, he became devoted to the teaching of Mêvlana Halid, the Nakshibendi Sufi leader from Saleymaniye in Kurdish Iraq.
It should be noted that as a Nakshibendi, Nursi was in distinguished company: former Prime Minister and President Turgut Ozal (died 1993); former Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan (1996-97); present Islamist Prime Minister (since 2003) Recep Tayyip Erdogan; Parliamentary Speaker Bulent Arinc (2002–07); former Foreign Minister (2003–07) and now President (sworn in August 29, 2007) Abdullah Gul—all either come from, or are much influenced by, the Nakshibendi Sufi sect.
A point seldom noted, however, but germane to our enquiry, is that the Nakshibendi Sufi order, according to Serif Mardin, is “a Turkish variant of modern Islamic fundamentalism”. It originated in the twelfth century.
Sufism is usually regarded by non-Muslim journalists and politicians as a “mystical” form of Islam that corresponds more or less to monasticism in Christianity —but this is to ignore Muhammad’s own warning that “the monasticism of this community is jihad”. Historian Christopher Dawson comments:
“Nothing could be less mystical than [Muhammad’s] religious teaching. It was a religion of fear rather than of love, and the goal of its striving was not the vision of God but the sensible delights of the shady gardens of paradise … the duty of man was not the transformation of his interior life but the objective establishment of the reign of God on earth by the sword and submission to the law of Islam … it is a militant Puritanism of the same type as the modern Wahhabite movement. But it was never a purely external system. Its Puritanism was not only that of the warrior, it was also that of the unworldly ascetic who spends his time in prayer and fasting.”
Sufism was a return to the early puritanism of the Kharijites, who reacted against the growing worldliness of Islam. Its founder, Abu Sa‘id Hasan, lived in Basra (643–728 AD). Muhammad Ahmad bin ‘Abd Allah (1844–85) the self-styled Mahdi whose dervish army killed Gordon and took Khartoum in 1885, was a Sufi.
Current Prime Minister Erdogan is on record as stating “We are Sharia-ists”; “We will turn Istanbul into Medina”; “I am the Imam of Istanbul”; “Our only goal is an Islamic State”.
Read it all.
Posted by Robert at January 1, 2008 9:16 AM
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Still amazes me how Turks are promoting this arabian religion.
Posted by: Crusader![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 1, 2008 9:28 AM
Nevertheless, they want to restore a Turkish-based Caliphate.
Posted by: John C at January 1, 2008 9:38 AM
Someone else noticed the Islamic obsession with da'wa in place of actual two-way equally-footed conversation. That makes several of us. Now if only someone else notices the subset (0) of Islamic imams who refuse conversions resulting from terrorism, threats, and intimidation. I've got more, starting with how we've lost the "War on Terror" every time we refer to a nation as a "MUSLIM nation" or a city as a "HOLY city."
I'd explain it again, but I think I'll just go beat my head against a wall and sob quietly.
Posted by: Beagle at January 1, 2008 9:58 AM
I had several copies of Fethullah Gulen's magazine, The Fountain, which were sent to me by a friend in Turkey but I threw them out. On first glance they appear to be rational and objective, deliving into philosphical and scientific subjects, but the articles are without any real substance, each one committed to da'wa. They irritated me no end -- perhaps it was not the articles per se which I found obnoxious but the stated aims of inter-faith dialogue (Who can object to that?) which only served to mask the oft repeated theme that Allah is great and Islam is the answer. Also the use of certain glossy images and Western-style graphics are obviously an attempt to show that Islam is mainstream.
Beware of this man and his "Jihad with a Velvet Glove."
Posted by: Jen at January 1, 2008 10:13 AM
Googled up from McGelligott's Pool:
"Fethullah Gulen is one of the cleverest and most dangerous. He lives in exile in the United States, which gave him refuge when he had some troubles back in Turkey."
[Posted by: Hugh at July 20, 2007 10:21 PM]
Yes, Gulen --who has now returned to a Turkey made safe for him by Erdogan -- was once given refuge in the United States. This kind of thing has happened before, where Western countries give refuge to those who, because they are opposed to Muslim regimes for being insufficiently Muslim, find that they can conduct their activities in the safety of the naive and limitlessly ignorant West.
There are the well-known Saudi "dissidents" -- not of the democratic variety, but of the Good-Government-Through-Still-More-Islam kind, who have been given refuge in London. And the most famous example of this is Ayatollah Khomeini. He had fled the Shah's regime and had been living in Iraq, until Saddam Hussein kicked him out. And who offred him sanctuary? It was the government of France, who gave him asylum and offered to protect him. And it was from his French exile, in Neauphle-le-Chateau, that Ayatollah Khomeini registered those tapes with fiery sermons, which tapes were then sent to Iran, copied by the hundreds of thousands, and helped to whip up anti-Shah sentiment among the masses unhinged by oil wealth and eager to return to the certainties of Islam. If Ayatollah Khomeini had not had that convenient French exile, he might have ended up within the reach of the Shah's secret police, or at least in another Muslim country where he would have been denied all the freedoms he so exploited in France.
As for Gulen, he's a very rich man who lived just outside Washington, D.C. for years, plotting, and scheming, to bring down Kemalism and undo any restraints on Islam in Turkey. And the uncomprehending Americans let him.
Posted by: Hugh at January 1, 2008 10:15 AM
Beagle, I agree. Why is is acceptable for the media and governments to refer to "Muslim" nations, but a similar reference to a "Christian" nation would be met with outrage?
The Toronto Star recently sent a female Muslim reporter to Mecca for the Hajj and the headline referred to the "Holy Event." Wouldn't objective journalism require that this be changed to "Muslim holy event" or "event considered by Muslims to be holy"?
Posted by: Jen at January 1, 2008 10:26 AM
What's in a name?
I recalled a by-now virtually unobtainable book, Moslems in Europe and America by Ali al-Montasser al-Kattani,. ..Posted by: justamomof4
al-Montasser? Hmmmm. . .that sounds vaguely familiar. This happens to be an article describing the wholesale infiltration of western educational institutions, and the name Almontaser , as in Debbie, hits a sour note. . .as does all efforts at subverting our educational structure:How to get religious accommodation in the public school system: a 6-step guide
at January 1, 2008 10:31 AM
A previous comment on Gulen that apppeared on July 19, 2007:
The Patience of a Slow Jihadist, Fathullah Gulen
The essence of Fathullah Gulen's message is patience and cunning. But it is not a different message, with different goals, from that of Ayman al-Zawahiri or of Osama Bin Laden or of any true-believing Muslim leader of this or that group. It is worth selecting, from the previous post, the two most telling paragraphs:
"You must move in the arteries of the system, without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centers… until the conditions are ripe, they [the followers] must continue like this. If they do something prematurely, the world will crush our heads, and Muslims will suffer everywhere, like in the tragedies in Algeria, like in 1982 [in] Syria… like in the yearly disasters and tragedies in Egypt. The time is not yet right. You must wait for the time when you are complete, and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire world and carry it… You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey… Until that time, any step taken would be too early - like breaking an egg without waiting the full 40 days for it to hatch. It would be like killing the chick inside. The work to be done is [in] confronting the world. Now, I have expressed my feelings and thoughts to you all - in confidence… trusting your loyalty and sensitivity to secrecy. I know that when you leave here - [just] as you discard your empty juice boxes, you must discard the thoughts and feelings expressed here."
…………
"The philosophy of our service is that we open a house somewhere and, with the patience of a spider, we lay our web, to wait for people to get caught in the web; and we teach those who do. We don't lay the web to eat or consume them, but to show them the way to their resurrection, to blow life into their dead bodies and souls, to give them a life."
[Hugh Fitzgerald, July 19, 2007]
It's all set out. Why do Infidel governments and those they are supposed to protect ignore what is all set out, in such sinister clarity? What could it be? Are we to assume that Fethullah Gulen, and so many others like him, when for Muslim audiences they set out their strategy wich such clarity, that they don't mean it?
Henry Stimson famously said, just before World War II, that "gentlemen do not not read other people's mail" as a way of explaining the failure of the government to adequately conduct espionage. "Conduct becoming a gentleman" hardly exists as a standard to be oberved anymore, and has had its day, though the remains of that day can be seen in the non-sibi philippics on ceremonial occasions at certain prep schools. But of course, nowadays, we should, we must, read the "mail" and tap the phones and do whatever else we can to find out what those who wish us ill, and more than ill, are up to. But in the case of Fethulah Gulen, there was no such need. He wrote it all out -- just look at the two paragraphs quoted above.
So why can't we take him, why couldn't the French take, Ayatollah Khomeini seriously? Fear of offending Muslims? Not knowing how to discuss the subject of Islam, when you have been part of an elite that, in Europe, over several decades, allowed Muslims to settle by the millions within your own lands, or because, in the United States, you have been part of an elite that has failed to do a thing about the energy problem because it has been so deeply in bed with the Saudis, and the largesse they distribute all over this land, to Democrats and Republicans, to journalists and academics, to businessmen of every stripe before whom fat contracts are dangled -- and have been calling the shots in Washington, doing great damage to our foreign policy and to our energy policy -- for the past forty years.
Posted by: Hugh at January 1, 2008 10:41 AM
Churchill:
Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith.
' It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.'
But Christianity no longer stands in the way to stop this cancer called Islam achieving its final goal. Our politicians, our industry & commerce leaders see nothing but markets and the institutions of higher learning teach BS and PC. We are losing every day.
Then there is the awful, primitive Yusuf Irfan, a tirelessly working Islamic agit-prop downunder:
Here's more:
http://sheikyermami.com/2007/12/31/cry-me-a-river-yusuf/
at January 1, 2008 11:01 AM
Great story on the little known sect of Sufi Islam. Here in Orlando there will be the 2008 Suhba. This event should be of interest to some.
Alan - Orlando Chapter
2008 Orlando Suhba
Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.
Welcome to the 2008 Orlando Suhba. To ensure an organized and comfortable suhba, please fill out the registration form in its entirety. If you have any questions or concerns , please contact us or call us at 1.866.681.4976 on Saturdays, 1pm - 3pm EST.
Dates
Venue
Registration
Accommodations
Payment
Financial Assistance
Children
Transportation
Vendor Information
Meals
Medical Condition
Personal Meetings
Contact Information
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Dates
January 3rd - 6th, 2008
This year's winter Suhba will be at Regal Sun Resort in Orlando, Florida. A pre-Suhba will start on Thursday January 3rd, 2008, no earlier than 2:00pm. There will be two pre-Suhba lessons on Thursday and one lesson on Friday morning before the prayer. The Suhba will start on Friday evening, January 4th, and finish on Sunday, January 6th, no later than 1:00pm.
Everyone is invited and encouraged to come early and attend the pre-Suhba, which is intended for those who can easily take time off or who are already on vacation. The pre-Suhba presents a unique opportunity to sit with the Sheikh in a more intimate setting with less people. There will not be an additional registration fee for attending the pre-Suhba. However, you will obviously incur an extra night expense at the hotel.
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Venue
Regal Sun Resort
The Regal is located at:
1850 Hotel Plaza Boulevard
Lake Buena Vista, Florida 32830
407-828-4444
Map/Direction to Regal Sun Resort
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Registration
Register Now
Early Registration
Early Registration per participant 15 years or older is $80-$100, depending on one's ability to pay. To qualify for early registration you must register before December 7th, 2007.
If you will be bringing children under 15 years old, please include them when filling out the registration page. Also indicate whether you will be using the provided daycare service. The daycare fee is $40 for the first child and $25 for the second child and $15 for the third child and a maximum of $80 per family for any additional children.
Late Registration
After December 7th, 2007, the registration fee will be $120 per participant.
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Accommodations
We have negotiated a discounted group rate that is guaranteed until December 7th, 2007. The rate is $79.00 per night for up to four people, which includes children. There is a resort fee of $10 per room per night, which gives access to internet, free shuttles within the local area, and free parking. By booking the hotel through our registration system you will not have to pay any taxes or additional fees.
After December 7th, we will no longer be taking reservation through the website and you will only be able to reserve your room through the hotel directly. Thus, in addition to the room rate and the resort rate, you will have to pay 12.5% taxes. Also, after December 7th, the rooms are based on availability and are not guaranteed.
Note that the Regal Sun Resort is located in the Walt Disney Resort. This is not near to Disney World or any of the related theme parks. The Walt Disney Resort is merely a conglomerate of elite hotels that carry the Disney brand name.
In the past, many of you have asked how you can help out. Jazaka Allah khayr. The best way to help out is to ensure that you reserve rooms at the Suhba hotel, the Regal Sun Resort, and not reserve rooms at an outside hotel. Staying at an outside hotel not only reduces your personal convenience, it makes managing the Suhba much harder for the organizers. In addition, the Suhba organization is responsible for fulfilling a certain block of rooms, and if we are unable to do so we will have an additional expense. In short, help us out and stay at the Sun Regal Resort.
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Payment
To make payment easier, you will be able to pay for registration and reserve your hotel through this website.
After you complete registration you will be a final cost for your registration and hotel room. Then, you will have three possible ways to pay:
1.) Local payment in participating cities
If your city is listed below, you can pay the person named (or his wife) at your local Lattifiya via cash or check (made out to SunniPath). Please include your payment in an envelope with your name on it. If paying with cash, please ensure that you have exact change. Note for Canadian Participants, please pay the same amount in Candaian Dollars and you will have to pay via cash since we cannot accept Canadian checks.
Your payment needs to be received within ten days of your registration date or December 10th, 2007, whichever is earlier. If your payment is not received in time, your registration will be cancelled.
Toronto: Uncle Saleem or Shaykh Zahir Bacchus
New York: Uncle Zaman
New Jersey: Abdur Rasheed
Washington, DC (Northern Virginia): Dr. Faisal Kamdar
San Francisco (Bay Area): Yaseen Samara
Boston: Haroon Spevack
If you do not see your city listed and your regularly meet for a Lattifiya, and would like to become a participating city please contact us or call us at 1.866.681.4976 on Saturdays, 1pm - 3pm EST.
2.) Mail
Please mail your check (made out to SunniPath) to the following address:
SunniPath
P.O. Box 10346
New Brunswick, NJ 08906-0346
Your check needs to be received within ten days or your registration date or December 10th, 2007, whichever is earlier. If your payment is not received in time, your registration will be cancelled.
Mailing is not an option for Canadian Participants since we cannot accept Canadian checks
3.) Credit Card
If you desire to pay via credit card you can do so directly via the registration page. However, please note that we will only accept Visa or MasterCard and you will be charged a 3% transaction fee.
4.) Late Payment
After Dec 7th, we will only accept registration through our Late Payment System. You will not be able to pay locally or via mail. You will only be able to pay via credit card through the registration system, or via cash or check (made out to SunniPath) at the Suhba. Also, you will have to reserve your room directly through the hotel, if available.
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Financial Assistance
The goal of the Suhba is to be as accommodating as possible. Every effort will be made to help those who request assistance. Funds for financial assistance are limited and will be given on a case-by-case basis. Priority will be given to first requests. For financial assistance, please Contact Us as soon as possible.
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Children
Childcare will be available on for the Suhba only, and not for the Pre-Suhba. Childcare will start with the lesson on Friday evening, January 4th, and continue for the duration of the for all lessons taught by Sheikh Nuh Keller. In addition to the childcare there will also be two rooms with live audio feed, one for moms and their quiet children and one for dads and their quiet children. The Pre-Suhba will have a room each for mothers and fathers. It is our hope, inshAllah, to provide the kids with a safe, nurturing, fun environment and a meaningful message to take home with them.
GENERAL GUIDELINES
The childcare is designed for children who are at least 3 years of age and are able engage in projects, free play, and activities.
The children will be divided into groups according to age: 3-5 years, 6-8years, and then 8 years and older. The latter group will also be separated according to gender.
Criteria for child to be placed in childcare:
Child should be at least 3 years old.
Child should be potty-trained and able to express the urge to use the restroom to a stranger.
Child should leave parents willingly.
Child should not be ill or have suffered from a fever or diarrhea within the last 48 hours.
If any child is having difficulty coping or is screaming, hitting, or bullying other children their parent will be asked to pick them up from the childcare room.
Parents must register all children who will be a part of the Suhba Childcare by December 7th, 2007.
Those parents who will not be using the Childcare, but will only be using the Moms’ and Dads’ rooms will not be required to pay a fee or register their child, but they will be expected to ensure that their children adhere to the same rules of behavior of not screaming, hitting, or bullying other children in the room. Additionally, the children’s behavior must be conducive to the quiet atmosphere in the room.
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Vendor Information
Each table will cost $75, and each vendor must also be registered for the Suhba.
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Meals
The registration fee covers all meals fro the duration of the Suhba and the pre-Suhba. If you have specific dietary restrictions or needs, please Contact Us.
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Medical Condition
If you or your family have any medical conditions that will require special attention, please contact us.
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Transportation
The transportation will be handled by a third party shuttle and is included in your registration. It is absolutely crucial you give us your flight info on the registration page to ensure a smooth process upon your arrival and departure. However, do not allow this to delay your registration. If you do not know your flight info, please go ahead and register. Then email us your flight info upon when you book your flight and we will then update our records.
As the Suhba approaches you will be given more information on the shuttle and relevant contact numbers.
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Personal Meetings
Sheikh Nuh may be available to meet with groups of murids during the suhba. To request a group meeting, please fill out the meeting form from the registration page and include your proposed group (e.g., L.A. murids, Knoxville murids) and approximate number of group members.
Private appointments are available with Sidi Ashraf, Umm Sahl, or Umm Khayr. You can reserve an appointment with them through the reservation page.
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Contact Information
If you have any questions please contact us or call us at 1.866.681.4976 on Saturdays to 1pm - 3pm EST.
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Sincerely,
The Orlando Suhba Team
at January 1, 2008 11:08 AM
Jen,
It's seemingly little things like that, piled one on top of the other, which makes me very negative. In the context of a war with nobody naming a real enemy, much less talking about winning it - "The Long War" - we need a strategy opposing enemy ideology. Instead we have an al-Ikhwan mole working for the UnderSecDef!
!!!!!
If we wait long enough every MUSLIM nation will have nuclear weapons. Last article I read suggested nearly every one is starting a "civilian" nuclear program. As if enriched uranium cares how many times it moves around the centrifuge.
Posted by: Beagle at January 1, 2008 11:10 AM
The UnderSecDef in charge of force modernization!
!!!!!
Posted by: Beagle at January 1, 2008 11:14 AM
I wonder what Stephen Schwartz, author of "The Two Faces of Islam" and a convert to Sufism might have to say regarding this article?
Does anyone know if this is the same Stephen Schwartz who was once a close friend to the infatigable Michael Savage who has presented a challenging lawsuit against CAIR?
I believe he may be since he used to work in San Francisco.
Posted by: Mackie at January 1, 2008 11:14 AM
Let's say I stand out on the street with a gun and tell people to give their money to my guy down the street...
Now is it clear why no imam refusing converts under duress is important?
Posted by: Beagle at January 1, 2008 11:27 AM
As long as Mackie brought it up, here's my poem to Stephen Schwartz and his beloved, one more time.
To Stephen Schwartz
Does your pir keep you whirling, turning,
bowing, chanting, repeating the name allah
til fana obliterates your rational mind,
until reason flees and frees you
from all those rules and regulations
imposed on all those baser men
imprisoned in the box of islam?
Show me the sufi love of your allah.
Show me his kindness and compassion,
his love for All Creatures Great and Small,
through the ages, One and All.
Tell me, meccan, about your perfect prophet.
In your sacred books I read that
he was a pedophile, murderer and thief,
a lusty power-monger tribal chief.
You say this was only the custom of the time,
while other of your medinan brothers say,
"No,this is the way
it must always be, allah said so."
Is this the pattern you seek to imitate?
Is this this the pattern to which you aspire,
nihilism, the kiss of death,
the death not only the ego,
but also of your sacred foe?
Ecstatic states can never take the place
of a universal, unitary ethic, oh no.
So keep turning and whirling
in your dance of duality
led by the sufi shadow sheiks
who draw a line in the sand
and stand in its name, islam.
at January 1, 2008 11:44 AM
Poetess:
And now answering my own question
Stephen Schwartz, who went from being a self-described Trotskyite to neoconservative and is now senior policy analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and was once Jewish, but is now a practicing Sufi. Schwartz likes to proclaim that it is the Wahabists who are the main source of terrorism of which of which Spencer understandably disagrees.
Oh how things turn turn around, as Schwartz describes Savage as a one time through and through liberal.
Posted by: Mackie at January 1, 2008 11:58 AM
The page on the MESA site concerning "academic freedom" is worth a look.
http://mesa.wns.ccit.arizona.edu/aff/academic_freedom.htm
Excerpt:
"Threats to academic inquiry and academic independence come in various forms. One form involves threats to, or attacks on, the financial structures supporting Middle East studies. This includes threats to withhold or condition Federal funding for university programs in area studies and student language learning (Title VI of the Higher Education Act) on political grounds [read more]; efforts to intimidate private foundation funding sources [read more] and threats by individuals to withhold future donations to universities [read more]. Another form involves campaigns to harass individual academics and to discredit their scholarship [read more] because of their actual or alleged political views. This has included accusations of bias in the classroom or intimidation of students [read more], attacks on scholars for statements they made as private individuals outside the classroom [read more], and just plain smear tactics. Young and untenured scholars are especially vulnerable targets [read more read more]. These attacks are generally accompanied by accusations or insinuations that scholars and academic programs are anti-American, unpatriotic, disloyal, anti-Semitic, or are excessively sympathetic toward Arabs or Muslims."
Posted by: Papa Whiskey at January 1, 2008 12:02 PM
Mackie ...
Stephen Sulejman Schwartz is actually classified as an Uwaysi Sufi, in that he doesn't necessarily belong to the Naqshbandis in America. HOWEVER, he is a close friend of Shaykh Haqqani, who was sent to the United States by Shaykh Nazim, the head of Naqshbandi Sufis worldwide, when Nazim realized the degree to which the Wahhabis had overtaken the US mosque system.
As background: The Naqshbandi Sufi Order began with Rumi and has an unbroken line of discourse from Rumi through the last two: Dagestani and Nazim. In the the middle of those two was a third, an Uwaysi given brotherhood in the Naqshbandi order named Peter Ileyvich Gurdjieff, who became famous in the West and wrote a "hidden history' called "All and Everything" that is a very interesting, if difficult read, at about 1,200 pages.
In the two decades that preceded 9/11, ONLY the Naqshbandis Sufis in America were railing against the Wahhabis and trying to warn the US government about their infiltration and radicalization of U.S. mosques. Famously, Haqqani and Stephen Schwartz crashed a meeting at which Wahhabis were giving the US government its marching orders in the mid-1990s.
So, Stephen Schwartz has a close relationship with the Naqshbandis, who are Sunni Muslims spread principally from Cyprus (their headquarters), into the SUNNI areas of the Balkans (the Bektashis, the Shia Sufis, were the ones who ran the Ottoman Empire as slave administrators), some parts of Turkey, and elsewhere by immigration, though in very small numbers.
In the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish Sultanate was faced with a HUGE Naqshbandi revolt against the conservative Turkish government that basically illegalized their syncretic form of Islam, which includes imported tenets from pre-Ottoman Central Asian shamanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and last, but perhaps most significantly, from Christianity. It is perhaps from Christianity that the absolute tenet of tolerance of other religions comes, and perhaps is why Gulen has met with the Pope, with endless numbers of Catholic priests and Jewish rabbis, and has embraced the liberation of women within the Gulen Islamic movement.
The answer for the Ottomans to the Naqshbandi revolt was to allow them to function inside the empire much undisturbed, because had they not done so, the Naqshbandis, whose numbers were VERY great and whom the Ottomans feared, would have overtaken the Empire, and it may have been a good thing had they done so. It would have certainly been better for Christians and Jews if they had.
Now, that said, the Naqshbandis in Turkey are VERY conservative now. This is NOT like the Naqshbandis elsewhere. The great Islamic feminist Konca Kuris really attacked the Naqshbandis in Turkey for their suppression of women and finally left the order.
However, it wasn't the Naqshbandis who killed Konca Kuris. It was the nationalistic Turkish Hizbollah (for whom Gulen is an arch enemy) who kidnapped Kuris from the front porch of her house while she played with her five-year-old son, drove her around the country folded up in a sofabed in a furniture truck to hid her, tortured her for 38 days, and then smothered her to death. They filmed the whole thing, Nazi style. Her brother watched the films and after that wouldn't ever let her husband see them, because it would have been too much for him.
When the Naqshbandis buried Kuris, however, they wouldn't let her daughter stand in the front row, something Kuris, who knew she would likely be killed, had asked for in her will.
Meanwhile, the conflation of the Naqshbandi order in Turkey with Naqshbandis elsehwere is a mistake. And the conflation of current Turkish Naqshbandi philosophy with that of Gulen is an indication that this author is 100% ILLITERATE ON THIS SUBJECT.
Gulen breaks all the Naqshbandi tenets for women, does not require veiling AT ALL, opened the highest level of Islamic administration to women, openly espouses the proection of Christians and Jews and considers them co-faithful.
Gulen opposed the Refah (the radical Islamist group that preceded the PPK and was MUCH more radical), has a close association to the Turkish military and the Kemalists, advocates entry to the EU and the study of the sciences in the West. He is absolutely NOT anti-American and has a close relationship with the Vatican in back channels. He wholly opposes any from of dhimmitude WHATSOEVER.
So, you make of this article what you want, but history, particularly that in the last 20 years when Gulen has gone more and more and more liberal and farther and farther away from the philosophy that he inherited from the Turkish Naqshbandis, who now openly oppose him as too pro-Western and liberal on women's issues.
Now, to the issue that Muslims call for worldwide evangelism to convert the world, so do Chrsitians, who foresee a time when the world will be saved for Christ. And there are plenty of examples of missionaries withholding food and medicine from African natives until they got a "conversion".
Well, I think we'd all agree that's not a Christian thing to do. But people did it.
Evangelism in any religion is a danger: it makes a person's Soul, their own property and a gift from God, a commodity to be used for the beneficience of the one who does the ocnverting. That makes a human being a thing. And it's dangerous.
But every Christian who believes deeply that Christ is the only means of escaping hellfire will want that for himself, and if he rises to the level of real humanitarian intent, he will want it for everyone else, too.
And every Muslim is raised to believe that the End of Time comes when all convert to Islam and "heaven on earth" is achieved.
The question is: Does the believer give the other the option of disagreeing, or does he not?
So the WISH is perhaps not evil, for Christian or Muslim. Good Muslims would all agree that the use of any kind of coersion, physical or mental, is completely antithetical and sin against humanity, to whom God gave free will.
The question is: Does Gulen advocate the use of force in conversion. The answer to that question is no.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 12:02 PM
Good article in jpost.com on naive Jewish leaders, like Reform's Rabbi Eric Yoffie, who work against anti-jihadist security measures and commit acts of terminal naivete in interfaith dialogues with Muslims. The same could be said of other faiths' leaders.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1198517257576&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
at January 1, 2008 12:05 PM
Morgaan Sinclair:
Thanks for the insight.
I'm not sure what drove Schwartz to become a Sufi. Schwartz was once the bureau chief for the Jewish Forward, and a editorial writer for Voice of America, and just prior to that he was an interfaith activist in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo.
Posted by: Mackie at January 1, 2008 12:18 PM
Interfaith dialogue for Muslims means the dhimmi listens while the true believer speaks. And while it would include welcomed conversion to Islam, it would disallow coversion from Islam to some other faith upon pain of death. Interfaith dialogue with Muslims is a one-way street.
Posted by: Wellington at January 1, 2008 12:25 PM
Mackie, you have some errors ...
(1) Schwartz's father was Jewish, his mother the daughter of a famous Christian minister, who became a communist and converted her husband to the ideology. Schwartz is half-Jewish and was never raised in any faith. He was raised in the communist party, so his being a "Trotskyist" came with the terrotory. However, if you have to be raised a communist, best to be raised a Trotskyist as they opposed Stalinism and Marxism, and so profound an enemy of the Stalist genocide was Trotsky than when the order was given to assassinate him, Stalin made sure they did it an axe-blow to the head so that Trosky's brain couldn't survive.
(2) Stephen Schwartz was FIRED from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies YEARS AGO (at last five, Mackie), based on a TOTAL LIE told about him by a jealous writer from San Francisco. He should have sued.
(3) Stephen Schwartz converted to Islam in the Balkans during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. He was also awarded a medal from the Roman Catholic Church for PHYSICALLY defending a church there that was being shelled.
I used to be a close friend of Stephen's, a friendship that collapsed for reasons that I will not discuss AT THIS TIME. However, I exchanged more than 7,000 e-mails with this man over a period of three years, and I can assure that although I find some of his beliefs inconsistent with my own, this man has put his ass on the line to prevent the wholesale loss of both America and Islam to radicalism.
Does he gets things wrong? Yes, I certainly think so, particularly the sole focus of Wahhabism, which I would say is now no longer his opinion.
I think more accurately his opinion was that he saw it as the PRINCIPAL THREAT, not least for the reason that they have spread $3 trillion in funds to radical groups of all kinds since the Iranian Revolution.
That DOES make them the biggest problem, because, as they used to say in the space program:
No bucks. No Buck Rogers.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 12:28 PM
Mackie ...
I am VERY aware of Schwartz's background.
BTW, he still writes for the Jerusalem Post, The Weekly Standard, The New York Post, and a host of other conservative magazines and newpapers and runs two anti-jihadist groups, one in America and one in Great Britain.
See other post above.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 12:31 PM
Mackie ...
BTW, Stephen Schwartz was fired from Voice of America, and it was the Wahhabis that got that little piece of work done.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 12:32 PM
Mackie ...
BTW, Stephen Schwartz was fired from Voice of America, and it was the Wahhabis that got that little piece of work done.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 12:34 PM
BTW, Mackie ...
If you're trying to get information on Stephen Schwartz, you'll want to stay away from Wikipedia. Half of his bio there is written by Amir Butler, the radical Australian who runs AMPAC, to which the Ismael Royer, now doing 22 years on a terrorist plea bargain (he could have got life) with Leoni Brinkema, belonged.
Even after a direct request was made to Wikipedia and a "pedigree" given of Amir Butler's terrorist background, Charles refused to completely wash Schwartz's biography of material errors inserted by Islamic radicals.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 1:00 PM
Morgaan and Mackie:
I trust Stenhouse's scholarship, although I will watch this closely and see how it shakes out. I second Morgaan's dismissal of Wikipedia: it is completely untrustworthy. Every anti-jihadist's bio, including mine, is overrun with jihadists and jihad sympathizers avid to post every scrap of negative information and/or misinformation they can find. Wikipedia is completely, utterly worthless.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
at January 1, 2008 1:21 PM
Greetings:
Last week, the local PBS television station (KQED) showed a program called "Cities of Light". (I suppose it was their attempt to limit the Christmas Spirit.) The program was about the Muslim occupation of Spain and was basically a spoonful of history in a bowl of Islamic propaganda stew.
Based on the end-credits, the program was funded foundations and individuals with mostly Arabic looking names. But what surprised me more was the number of "talking heads" from nominally Catholic universities, most notably, Georgetown and Notre Dame.
I guess as we used to say back in the Bronx, money talks.
Posted by: 11B40 at January 1, 2008 1:29 PM
Morgaan and Robert:
Once again thanks for your updates, and insight on Stephen Schwartz. It is good to see the positives that you are reflecting regarding this seemingly complicated man.
I know Stephen took a lot of heat for making his primary focus the Wahhabists when it came to terrorism, but they certainly remain a primary focus when it comes to our Madrasses, and mosques in the US, and the Saudi support.
Posted by: Mackie at January 1, 2008 1:42 PM
Mackie,
I hold no brief for Stephen Schwartz, who has attacked me savagely and without provocation, and whose previous assertions about the Sufis have been wholly without substance. See:
http://jihadwatch.org/archives/004940.php
But for all that, Wikipedia is still not to be trusted.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
at January 1, 2008 1:55 PM
There is also a Said Nursi Chair at John Carroll University, a Jesuit university in Cleveland.
Trojan Horse indeed.
Posted by: ontheleftcoast at January 1, 2008 1:58 PM
Ahem, who was who claimed that christianity would be a bulwark against Islam?
Posted by: Voltaire at January 1, 2008 1:59 PM
I wonder how long it will be before Turkey becomes an Iranian-style theocracy. Judging by her new leaders' desire for an Islamic state, the trend seems to point that way, save the military brake.
I just don't think democracy and Islam are compatible, which leads me to posit that the main flaw with the current Iraq and Afghan campaigns is that it leaves both countries as officially Islamic. Just as de-Nazification was necessary to develop Germany democratically after WWII, de-Islamization is needed to develop Iraq or any other nominally Islamic country into a real democracy. Since we're obviously not willing to take that step, I'm afraid our effort, in the long run, may be worse than useless. After all, there are plenty of examples of Muslims using a democratic infrastructure to undermine democracy.
at January 1, 2008 2:18 PM
Hugh quoted Gulen:
You must move in the arteries of the system, without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centers… until the conditions are ripe, they [the followers] must continue like this. If they do something prematurely, the world will crush our heads, and Muslims will suffer everywhere... etc. ad nauseum
Morgaan Sinclair gushed:
Gulen breaks all the Naqshbandi tenets for women, does not require veiling AT ALL, opened the highest level of Islamic administration to women, openly espouses the proection of Christians and Jews and considers them co-faithful. [...] He is absolutely NOT anti-American and has a close relationship with the Vatican in back channels. He wholly opposes any from of dhimmitude WHATSOEVER. [...] Gulen has gone more and more and more liberal and farther and farther away from the philosophy that he inherited from the Turkish Naqshbandis, who now openly oppose him as too pro-Western and liberal on women's issues.
Hmmm, who to trust, who to trust? Fethullah Gulen himself, or Morgaan Sinclair?
You (Morgaan) certainly are a font of information (for example, the story of Konca Kuris), but what your agenda is, I have never been able to figure out.
Morgaan said:
Now, to the issue that Muslims call for worldwide evangelism to convert the world, so do Chrsitians, who foresee a time when the world will be saved for Christ. [...] And there are plenty of examples of missionaries withholding food and medicine from African natives until they got a "conversion". Well, I think we'd all agree that's not a Christian thing to do. But people did it.
Which Bibical passage told them to withhold food and medicine until the "natives" "converted"? Which quotes from Christ lead you to believe that that's what He wanted? People can misinterpret and misuse religious documents for whatever purpose, but in the case of Islam, it's all there in black and white. Do you think that the Bible and the Qur'an are equally malleable in the hands of "religious extremists"? Do you think that the missionaries who supposedly abused their position are the equivalent of Muslim jihadists?
[rubs chin] I still haven't figured you out.
Posted by: special_guest at January 1, 2008 2:34 PM
This is so damnably depressing.
Oh well - thanks for the heads-up, Robert.
Copies of this article and some of the subsequent discussion will be going to four friends of mine ASAP:
two are academics who teach within the Australian Catholic University
one teaches Comparative Religion - I suspect she's in a PC 'all religions are the same and Christianity is just as violent as Islam because Charlemagne forced pagans to convert' haze, but still, I have to try
one is an investigative journalist who specialises in following obscure money trails.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at January 1, 2008 2:42 PM
My dear chin-rubbing Special_Guest ...
I have gone to a friend in Turkey seeking clarification on both the article and my response to it (above). If I find out I am wrong, I will let you know. But my basic thought here is that Gulen's position is being wrongly put forward in the article. In his earlier years, I think that Gulen was closer to the Naqshbandi mold, and then broke with it. Some people make great movement in their lives.
For example, making some nasty accusation toward Stephen Schwartz for having been raised a Trotskyist — when he is not, nor has been for about 30 years now — is just completely intellectually dishonest.
And delving back into the thoughts of Gulen 30 years ago and claiming he believes now the thinking he inherited is at least inaccurate, if not an overt act of deceptive propaganda.
So, we'll find out. I will let you know the result of my enquiries when I get them.
Promise.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 2:42 PM
P.S. Special_Guest
If there is a woman on this planet who gushes, I can assure you, my condescending friend, it is not I.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 2:43 PM
Jewdog ...
I am worried about the PKK, too. They started off *so* conservative that they frighten me. One of the first things they did was try to criminalize adultery, shari'a style. They have been brought back from the edge by loud protests from the secularists in Turkey. I think they are becoming more moderate in stance, having had the fear of ... well, not God but perhaps the Turkish army ... put in them. But also you have to remember that the PKK is trying to make entry into the Army something that has to be approved by government authorities (meaning the Islamists themselves), and that's a direct attempt to break the Army.
The problem in Turkey is that the Kemalists went too far, and that eventually meant all the Christians and Jews joined the PPK Islamic voting block, because at least the PKK offered them more freedom of worship and more protection than the Kemalists.
The Kemalist variety of religious repression is a kind of totalitarian secularlism that we FEAR in this country, but which we have NEVER seen. I think it would shock you.
The only way the Islamists could ever have got the power they did was to have been repressed so far as they were, and even then it was only a terrible economy and corruption in the government that actually gave them the victory.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 2:52 PM
By the way, there is a new party called The Secular Party of Australia, which advocates freedom from religion.
Posted by: Voltaire at January 1, 2008 2:52 PM
Well, Morgaan, my insincere ardent friend, it's good to know you've got someone in Turkey who can clear this whole misconception up. Just as you have a friend who knows about Gulen's secret "backchannel" dialogue with the Vatican.
To my little brain, it just looks like Gulen is following the exact plan he laid out. Once someone lays out a Queeg-like soliloquy like that in writing, anything they say after that is hard to take at face value. Seriously.
Posted by: special_guest at January 1, 2008 2:56 PM
Robert ...
Ah, yes, I remember those days well, and I, of course, very grateful to have had a chance to get to know you without any "filtering" agencies in between. Very grateful indeed.
Some Muslims really think that the problem can be handled by "interpretation" and, in fact, many of them interpret the Qur'an in a way that completely reverses the kind of "abrogation" order of things, and they wind up with a fairly benign religion. They want us to say THAT interpretation is the real Islam, but not one of the eight mahdhabs that rule the religion would agree.
So, that winds up, as you say, not being good enough, and the dangers remain, no matter how many ostriches we have on the farm who bark their dissent with their heads buried in a foot of soil.
So that disagreement is there.
But then there is the other, with which we are both familiar, which is the direct spread of falsehood, often using deliberately disinformed surragates to do it, that just plain criminal and evil.
So ... again, without going into details that would get me into six weeks of emails and a civil lawsuit, I will just say I am glad that we had a chance to have some discussions without the manipulative intervention of a certain bunch of people who were ... ah ... not of respectable intent.
How's that for parsing the last faint breath out of it????? [weg]
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 3:00 PM
P.S. Morgaan said
And delving back into the thoughts of Gulen 30 years ago and claiming he believes now the thinking he inherited is at least inaccurate, if not an overt act of deceptive propaganda.
And who is deceptively propagandizing in this case? Who is taking this poor man's words out of context and twisting them? Care to name names? Was it perhaps the work of a Wahhabi?
Posted by: special_guest at January 1, 2008 3:03 PM
Special_Guest
Basically, I'm for any group of people across the culture who can pull energy out of radicalism and into something that is benign.
Pipes seems to think that an interpretation of Islam that is benign is the answer ("Radical Islam is the problem; moderate Islam is the solution.")
I tend not to agree with this. I think that the creation of a Ninth Mahdhab that completely disallows violent jihad, war in the name of Islam, dhimmitude, disenfranchisement of women, etc., is the only lasting solution. That is a schism in Islam, and they need then. Then it is possible for Muslims to remain Muslims and for an Islam to be created that can render radicalism impotent BY ATTRITION. This would likely mean bloodshed and civil war in some Muslim countries, but that can't be helped. Whether this could even become the FOCUS of Islamic energy is a question, because the inter-tribal warfare is the primary focus in these places.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 3:07 PM
Kaddafi Hostage extortion quid pro quo update:
Former pariah Libya becomes UN council presidentNaturally, Kaddafi's rehab falls a mere week after the 19th anniversary of the Lockerbie mass murder.
Libya took over the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday in a major step back to global respectability after decades as a pariah of the West.
Does anyone really believe the Libyan jackal has changed his cackle?
Posted by: Terp Mole at January 1, 2008 3:11 PM
Special_Guest
Stay tuned. I am gathering information. If I'm wrong, I'll say so. I always do.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 3:12 PM
Morgaan, thank you for the explanation.
I would share your goal of a new form of Islam that is non-violent, values all people equally regardless of gender or religious affiliation, and all the other values that come out of the Bible. But I have to say that the idea of a (I assume) non-Muslim creating it for Muslims to follow is a little (how do I say this uncondescendingly?) ... unrealistic. Best of luck.
But it is more than that. You originally came to JW as part of some melodramatic fight with Robert, and now you seem to be oh-so-subtly impugning other JW staff. Is it just a personaltiy trait, or is there more to it?
Posted by: special_guest at January 1, 2008 3:28 PM
Special_Guest
I impugn NO JW staff—unless you consider that a failure to agree with absolutely EVERYTHING they say or do (i.e., being a SHEEP) constitutes "impugning".
Meanwhile, you are now embarking on a little personal invective jihad, and every post you write contains a smear:
"I assume non-Muslim." You don't have to assume. I'm not a Muslim.
"impugning" ... I make no such attack.
"Is it a personality trait?" Yes, but it's yours not mine.
"Is there more to it?" No, what you see is what is.
"ever-so-subtly". I play music subtly. I communicate straight.
BTW, there are a few very savvy imams who are about the business of creating the Ninth Mahdhab, so no, it's not up to me. However, their chances of living long enough to do it are slim.
Now, would you consider just allowing other people to have their own opinion without being hostile and snide about it all the time? And yes, condescending.
I don't care if you don't agree with me, and this is the last post I'll write defending myself against your attacks.
Anything further will go to JW staff.
If you have any questions about what you term "some melodramatic fight with Robert", then I'd suggest you ask him about it directly. That "melodramatic fight" was an altercation brought ab out entirely by the lies of another and its resolution was a nearly transcendent spiritual experience. I won't have it maligned in the way you try to present it.
And for the record, I have great respect for Robert, Hugh, and the JW staff. I do not believe that proving that involves a requirement that I never disagree with them, as I also do not assume that if they disagree with me they are disloyal to me.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 3:41 PM
Morgaan-
The number of terrorist-sympathizing Muslims (those who admire Osama bin Laden) worldwide far exceeds the percentage of Germans who were Nazi party members in the heyday of Nazi Germany!
There is no turning back anymore. The only 'moderate' Islam is a chastised, beaten and mercilessly exposed and ridiculed Islam.
Posted by: poetcomic1
at January 1, 2008 3:50 PM
Thx, Morgaan. I don't doubt that Kemalism has its repressive side, but Islam tends to not only be repressive, but externally dangerous. That's why I think it's much better for us outside Turkey to have a secular Turkey.
Posted by: jewdog at January 1, 2008 3:59 PM
PoetComic1
So, what would you think of working with the Mujahedin-e Khalq?
That's the group of Iranian MUSLIMS that wants to overthrow the mullahs and reinstitute democracy and full women's rights in Iran.
But ... they're Muslims.
So, is what you're saying that you won't be dealing with anybody who's a Muslim and that we should drag the Mujahedin-e Khalq behind a camel until they are adequately "chastised, beaten, and mercircully exposed and riduculed?"
Now, the MEK is classified as a terrorist organziation at the INSISTENCE OF IRAN, but most in Congress don't think they deserve it. They are "under detention" in Iraq, but the US Army lets them move freely and has obtained lots of its info on the Iranians inside Iraq from them.
But ... perhaps we shouldn't consider allies the MEK, Zudhi Jasser, Haqqani or any of those guys until they feel themselves "subdued".
Is that what dhimmitude is, BTW? Making Christians and Jews and Hindus (if they're not just killed out right) and Buddhists (ditto) FEEL SUBDUED.
That's sounds awfully like what you are suggesting, and maybe you want to think about that.
For me, the solution has to be a REAL one, and the only thing I can think of that will do it is a reform, progressive Islam that DISAVOWS, ON PAPER, the verses of the Qur'an and just about all of the hadith that paint a gender-suppressing, "other"-damning, warlike, jihadist framework of religion. That is the only means of a lasting peace, and if we get it, I think that we will be through the gauntlet we have been running for at least 2,000 years. Religious wars all the damned time.
Christianity is well past its nightmare, but Islam is not. And we need to do our best to find a way that it transforms, rather than that we keep fighting wars, because eventually that doesn't fly because the weapons are too big and too destructive now, and there are no continental and mountainous and oceanic boundaries that can contain it anymore. It will swamp the planet.
That said, our response should be that which ALWAYS has to be the response when you're fight a bully, since a bully, by definition, has no real moral center, just a little of rage and enough bulk to make it worth something.
Getting off the gameboard is the only way to fight a bully. What that means is that you must withdraw energy.
(1) Close the borders and stop issuing any sort of student or business visa to those countries exporting terror. Make all aid to Mexico contingent upon their completely policing the border from there side and MAKING IT ILLEGAL FOR ANYBODY TO PRINT INSTRUCTIONS ON GAINING ILLEGAL ENTRY INTO THE UNITED STATES.
(2) Get off oil. More than 95% of the money going into terrorism is coming from Saudi Arabia. Still. the other 5% is coming from the drug and tanzanite trade, so don't buy any illicit drugs and don't buy tanzanite jewelry—Al Qaeda owns the worldwide trade in the gemstone.
(3) Stop giving foreign aid to Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, the Palestinians (any group), and Malaysia, like tomorrow, and watch everybody else. Make payments to Pakistan only based on turning these guys in.
Etc. There are two groups of people who could end this:
(1) Muslims. If they hit the streets by the millions, you think these creepo imams wouldn't change their tune?
(2) American softies, if they get off oil.
You want it to be over? How about a $1bn prize to the first engineer who creates the salt-water-burning ceramic engine? (We already know that salt water can burn at 1500 degree F and run an ordinary car engine, the only problem being the corrosiveness of salt, which is solved by the use of a Aremcolox ceramic lining, of the same sort that is used in rocket nozzles).
You want to see that sword of Saudi Arabia drop into the sand and stay there? Get off oil.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 4:12 PM
My god this is foggy!
I see and understand things when they are clearly and neatly laid out. I have found that if something is ”just to complicated” to be put in this clarified form, someone is usually trying to hide something. So here is what I understand so far:
At some time in the past, Gulen formulated a plan for Muslims to conceal their true intentions of dominating the world until they had fully infiltrated the West. Once in positions of power in sufficient numbers the time would then be right for them to take complete control in the name of Islam.
Morgaan Sinclair thinks that Gulen no longer subscribes to this plan and that he (Gulen) NOW believes in and promotes a completely innocuous form of Islam that even includes gender equality. (How this is reconciled with 4:38 among many other things is not stated – but I’m getting off track)
Morgaan Sinclair states “I think that the creation of a Ninth Mahdhab that completely disallows violent jihad, war in the name of Islam, dhimmitude, disenfranchisement of women, etc., is the only lasting solution.” This seems to be in alignment with what she says Gulen believes NOW. (So has this new Islam already been created by Gulen? Or is it yet to be formulated, as Morgaan seems to suggest above?)
Finally, like special_guest, I wonder how it is possible to believe that this "new" Islam is in fact a new solution, rather than the original plan of deception.
Even if one were to believe in the honesty of stated intentions, what is to preclude Morgaan’s (Gulen’s?) “new” Islam from morphing back to the old one at some future time.
Any light that can be cast on these matters is welcome.
at January 1, 2008 4:14 PM
Jewdog ..
I agree with you. In fact, I think that a rights-based constitution that can't be fooled with plus a secular government that both GUARANTEES religion freedom and PROTECTS against any religious unti gaining control over it (separation of church and state) is the ONLY kind of safe government.
And that basically makes me a Jeffersonian Deist type, sans the Masonic ruling class crap.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 4:14 PM
DaveGreyBeard ...
I have sent to Turkey this afternoon for clarification on this from friends I trust.
I will let you all know, or I'll give the information to Robert, and we will see if we can get some clarity here. I think I am correct in what I say, but if it turns out I'm wrong, I shall apologize, as always.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 4:17 PM
DaveGreyBeard ...
One more thing. The reason that I oppose *****ALL***** religious states is that it can be absolutely established that in 100% of all cases, ethnic and religious states become more conservative as time goes on. They do NOT become more "moderate".
And, because the tendency of culture is to become liberal, arts-based, and rights-based when basic needs are met and there is no external threat, a theocracy **MUST** manufacture an enemy. [See Dr. Jerrold Post on the psychiatric necessities of this.]
In Iran, you see it in the manufacture of several things: the Madhi insanity, the anathemization of the Jews and America.
BUT, no matter where you try to do this, as soon as times get pretty good, people want to walk in the gardens, make nice sculptures, leave women to their own decisions, and contemplate the higher purpose of humanity and its rights and potentials.
All such things are antithetical to purely theocratic cultures. And it threatens every ethnic state.
So I completely agree with you. No matter how good the Islamic philosophy (and I am hoping some are there now and that more are created), in NO WAY am I suggesting any of them should rule. Ever. Not anywhere. As I would not suggest a Christian theocratic state in the USA or a Buddhist theocratic state, even in Bhutan, the purest theocratic state in the world right now.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 4:40 PM
There's been a vigorous debate going on and we'd all like to know the truth, which must be discoverable somehow.
Morgaan, on what is your information about Gulen based? My gut feeling of caution was aroused when I read some articles in The Fountain. A straight shooter doesn't need excessive praise, nor does he publish articles citing dubious sources. I found both in this magazine. Also gratuitous insults against Christianity are there as well as astounding factual lapses. My warning antennae can't help but be activated by these.
Also regarding Gulen's position on the liberation of women, I found certain writings to be condescending in the extreme. I prefer not to be put on a pedestal (too confining) -- plain old equality is sufficient.
Posted by: Jen at January 1, 2008 4:53 PM
Morgaan sez:
The problem in Turkey is that the Kemalists went too far, and that eventually meant all the Christians and Jews joined the PPK Islamic voting block, because at least the PKK offered them more freedom of worship and more protection than the Kemalists.
*
'all the Christians and Jews'- does that mean 1 % of Turkey's population? Hardly a force to turn the continuing Islamization of Turkey around...
As for non-Koran based 'interpretations' I have no hope, since the combined fury of the ummah will come down on those who deviate from 'the right path'- ask any non-Sufi and he will confirm that.
Muhammadanism is stuck, either way.
Posted by: sheik yer'mami at January 1, 2008 4:57 PM
The idea of coercing a Muslim-friendly academia through funding was also propounded in 1979 by A.L. Tibawi in his "Second Critique of the English-Speaking Orientalists." A detailed post on this may be seen at
http://greenspiece.blogspot.com/2008/01/money-doesnt-talk-it-lectures.html
Posted by: Papa Whiskey at January 1, 2008 5:06 PM
In general the aim of Sufi orders here in the west has been that of converting westerners since they present the best face of Islam. In terms of "moderates" the only sufis fitting that description have been western converts.
As far as the orders go, all of them require its followers to live by the Shariah. This reduces the difference between a Salafist and Mevlevi or Yesevi dervish is how they follow the rules of Islam, not whether they follow them.
And it gets worse, some of the Sufi orders have regressed and become nothing more than Muslim puritans with funny hats. The Naqsbhandi are one example of this devolution.
Posted by: waltc at January 1, 2008 5:12 PM
Yer'mami ...
Unfortunately, I think you're probably right. Even if there are some (actually there are many) who are trying to effect change from within, radicalism is spreading too fast. But on the chance that miracles do sometimes happen, I keep looking for ways in which they might start to show.
Jen ...
Yeah, pedastals are dangerous places for women. Actually, a pedastal is a set-up as a no woman can be perfect.
I'd just be so happy if they just left us alone.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 5:14 PM
I am finding this a fascinating debate and would like to thank Morgaan for all the information and insights she has provided. But I side with Jen in wondering about the source of this information. Is it personal? When I had contact with the Naqshibandi many years ago in Turkey they were certainly the most conservative of all the orders: the Bektashis the most liberal. I met a university woman professor in Istanbul who was a Bektashi. I rejected Islam and Sufism because I found the Quran an appalling document.
Ed Husain (author of The Islamist) seemed to suggest something akin to a ninth madhab when he came to the conclusion that salvation depends on the individual and the world is not full of Muslims and non-Muslims, just people. His is a minority view and I am sceptical of the lengths he would go to to be more precise about this theologically. Would he, as Morgan suggests, disavow all the verses of the Quran that would subjugate non-Muslims and women? I suspect not, but possibly he somehow does deep in the privacy of his own thoughts. But that's not much help to the rest of us.
For my money, I cannot see how a religion can survive a fundamental assault on the moral character of its founder or these key canonical doctrines that define Islam so categorically against non-Islam. If they were just a side story, then I could see it. But xenophobia seems so central that I have my doubts. But what else can we hope for amongst 1.5 billion Muslims than some moderated form of Islam that does not self-define itself in terms of global supremacy or hostility to non-believers?
Posted by: devorgilla at January 1, 2008 5:36 PM
“…I cannot see how a religion can survive a fundamental assault on the moral character of its founder…”
That “fundamental assault” in the form of completely and clearly exposing Muhammad for what he was, is our highest priority and must remain so until Islam is “humbled”.
This remains so REGARDLESS of what Gulen thinks, or whether Muslims create a “softer” version of Islam.
Posted by: Davegreybeard at January 1, 2008 6:08 PM
If the trusted friends in Turkey come back and say "Gulen is good, trust him", does that somehow solve the conundrum of what is actually going on inside his head? Or if they pronounce that Gulen is not to be trusted and the "inaccurate, if not an overt act of deceptive propaganda" turns out, in their esteemed estimation, to be correct, does that end the debate?
This is bizarre.
Morgaan said
And, because the tendency of culture is to become liberal, arts-based, and rights-based when basic needs are met and there is no external threat, a theocracy **MUST** manufacture an enemy.[See Dr. Jerrold Post on the psychiatric necessities of this.]
Again, the argumentum ad verecundiam is unconvincing. If Dr. Post says that all cultures become liberal and rights-based, then it must be so? Where does one begin? The freedoms and rights we enjoy today in the West are not an inevitable outcome that happened because a predefined Destiny led us here. Many people fought and died to formulate, create, and protect those freedoms and rights. And make no mistake, they will disappear the moment we stop fighting to protect them. They are teetering even as we speak.
Here is an analysis by the aforementioned Dr. Post, professor of psychiatry, political psychology, and international affairs and director of the Political Psychology Program at The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., B.A. magna cum laude and M.D. from Yale, recipient of the Intelligence Medal of Merit, and organizer of the International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism, and Security held in Madrid in March 2005, regarding the roots of terrorism. A few quotes:
Nor was joining the group an unusual experience. In fact, when we asked why they joined, we were told that everyone was joining, that anyone who didn't enlist during that period (intifada) would have been ostracized.
Why did "everyone" join the jihad? Because everyone was joining the jihad.
There was a generational transmission of hatred between "us" and "them." The children had heard from their parents, whether in the pubs of Northern Ireland or the coffeehouses of Beirut and the occupied territories, what "they" had done to "us," how "they" had stolen our lands, had humiliated "us." Loyal to their parents, who had been damaged by the regime, they were carrying out acts of revenge against "them."
Just like in Northern Ireland, the people of Beirut just wanted "their" land back.
From the time they [the "Palestinian" homicide bombers] entered the safe house, they were not alone, with someone sleeping in the same room with them the night before the action to ensure that they did not backslide, and being physically escorted to the site of the "martyrdom operation."
This is describing the mechanics of how the bombers were trained. But why did their trainers go to such lengths, why did the trainees go along with such measures, what common ideology motivated the trainers and the trainees?
They [the 9/11 terrorists] were fully formed adults who had subordinated their individuality to the destructive charismatic leadership of Osama bin Laden. His cause became the primary mission for his followers.
So, it was Osama bin Laden's charismatic personality that motivated the 9/11 attack.
In the entire article, and in the four suggestions to combat terrorism, there is not a mention of Islam or its role in motivating the jihadists. Would Dr. Post agree that there is something unique about Islam among modern religions? Or would he agree with Morgaan that "[e]vangelism in any religion is a danger"? (Remember that the next time the nicely dressed wife and husband from Jehovah's Witnesses ring your doorbell).
These views, that it is isolated nationalistic urges that motivate the jihad, and that we should put our effort into supporting Islamic reformists, such as they are, are exactly what has led us to where we are today. And Dr. Post, with his 21 years service in the CIA and his aversion to mentioning Islam, helped guide us here.
Oh, and Morgaan, if you want to talk to the JW staff about getting me banned, be my guest. You won't be the first to request it. Believe me, I've got better ways to start the New Year than to be bullied by you.
Posted by: special_guest at January 1, 2008 6:25 PM
Special_Guest
Stop blathering. You are misrepresenting my position every time you open your mouth. And stop putting words into Dr. Post's mouth, too. Do you own damned research, and stop being so intellectually dishonest and irresponsible.
For others:
Dr. Jerrold Post is the CIA forensic psychiatrist who formed the prosoprofile of Islamic terrorists in the first place, a prosoprofile that every person on this
board would wholeheartedly agree with. He now teaches at American University in DC.
He wrote the brilliant treatise: COLLECTIVE IDENTITY: HATRED BRED IN THE BONE about how the madrasa system creates ISLAMIC terrorists.
Dr. Post has NEVER, EVER failed to mention Islam, and obviously "twithead" would know that if he'd read ANYTHING other than quick googles to try to cover his ignorance.
Thank god you're not running any part of this fight. Your ignorance about EVERYTHING that matters is just shocking, right up there with you incessant invective, as if any of us has a reason EVER to trust a thing you say.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 6:32 PM
The Affinity Intercultural Foundation is ubiquitous across the Universities in Sydney (and perhaps elsewhere in Australia). Its focus is not simply around the various chairs of Islamic studies or on interfaith meetings, they have a strong presence in the social sciences as well. I went to such a meeting in August 2007 at Macquarie University which was chaired by Mehmet Olzap. I wrote this meeting up on the Islam monitor website in Australia. The URL is
http://www.islammonitor.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=990&Itemid=64
With respect to the interesting but somewhat arcane debate about the sources in Stenhouse’s article, it is not necessary to delve deeper. It is enough to attend any Affinity meeting. These people are admirably upfront with their aims and objectives. Only the wilfully ignorant will not see.
Posted by: metalstorm at January 1, 2008 6:46 PM
Gee Morgaan, does this mean you're not my friend anymore?
The "brilliant treatise" "COLLECTIVE IDENTITY: HATRED BRED IN THE BONE" IS the article to which I linked. The one from which I quoted Dr. Post. Was I also guilty of an "overt act of deceptive propaganda" by quoting an article by him from his past?
You say he mentioned Islam as the motivation for terrorist attacks. The link is provided (twice). Could you be more specific?
You say I ("twithead") am misrepresenting your position every time I open my mouth (actually, I don't read or write/type with my mouth open; I am not a mouth breather; my knuckles don't drag when I walk). I have quoted you, and disagreed with you (so ban me), but don't see where I have misrepresented you. Again, could you be more specific?
You also state that I am ignorant about EVERYTHING. I had to walk downstairs to see if my wife (who knows me better than anyone else) was blogging on the other computer, but, no.
Posted by: special_guest at January 1, 2008 6:51 PM
P.S. I don't use Google.
Posted by: special_guest at January 1, 2008 6:57 PM
Morgaan: Every religion has a theological blueprint. I submit to you that Islam's blueprint is deeply flawed in a way no other religion's blueprint is. And while you can build a bad house from a good blueprint, you can't build a good house from a bad one.
Also, and as I've posted before, there is a difference between a watered-down version of Islam and a good Islam. Daniel Pipes and Bernard Lewis are still looking for that good Islam. They're good guys but I think they're wrong. All we can hope for is a watered-down Islam which ignores a whole lot of rot that's in Islam from Mohammed onwards. Trouble with this, though, is you never know when a Muslim who adheres to a watered-down Islam, an Islam which is a shadow of itself, will have a son or grandson, daughter or granddaughter, who "gets" the true faith. When that happens, watch out. I'll put it another way: Islam is the one major religion which is guaranteed to produce believers that will turn their belief system into a rendez-vous with death when they are denied what they want. And what do you propose to do about that?
Finally, you aver we should get off oil. I respectfully submit to you that what we should get off is Middle Eastern oil. America needs to drill for oil off our shores, in eastern Colorado, northern Alaska and many other places within America's domain. We have enough petroleum reserves right here at home. Oil itself is not the problem. Where we get it from is.
Posted by: Wellington at January 1, 2008 7:05 PM
:)
Posted by: greatcometof1577 at January 1, 2008 8:48 PM
Morgaan & special_guest,
Thank you both for providing a fascinating discussion and analysis on complex and clouded issues. I think some of the “heat” that has been generated originates from honest people viewing circumstances from different perspectives. It’s not that one is trying to deceive the other; it is merely that one does not see the scorpion well hid beneath the rock.
An example of this is the allegation by special_guest that Dr. Post fails to mention Islam as THE causal factor in creating Islamic terrorists. I have studied the article (thank you for the link) and must come to the same conclusion. I am also forced to agree with special_guest’s conclusion:
“These views, that it is isolated nationalistic urges that motivate the jihad, and that we should put our effort into supporting Islamic reformists, such as they are, are exactly what has led us to where we are today. And Dr. Post, with his 21 years service in the CIA and his aversion to mentioning Islam, helped guide us here.”
Dr. Post provides great analysis of the psychology of terrorists but it only goes as far as terrorists in general, never specifically Islamic terrorists AS A DISTINCT GROUP. The glaring error in his analysis is to slice and dice Islamic terrorists into sub groups as if they have noting in common with each other. So he discusses “Bin Laden” terrorists as a separate entity from “Palestinian” terrorists and these must be distinct from Malaysian Islamic terrorists or Nigerian Islamic terrorists. It is an absolutely superlative example of being unable to see the forest for the trees!
From this perspective, the good Doctor is able to make the truly astonishing statement on the proclivity of a group to use suicide bombing:
“In fact, for two of the groups that were most prolific in employing this technique, the Tamil Tigers and the PKK (the Kurdish separatist group), there was no relation to Islamist fundamentalism.”
Tamil Tigers and the PKK deploy more suicide bombers than Jihadis?! Who knew!
at January 1, 2008 9:29 PM
'Tablighi Jamaat has always adopted an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam, but in the past two decades, it has radicalized to the point where it is now a driving force of Islamic extremism and a major recruiting agency for terrorist causes worldwide.'
From the article above.
All these weird adjectives, 'extreme, militant, fundamentalist, violent, fanatical, moderate' are falling by the wayside when we listen carefully to what Muhammedans tell us. King Abdullah, Mahatir Mohammed, Tayyip Erdogan and many others including Gaddafi are on record stating clearly that 'there is only Islam'- as per Koran and sunnah, and to ignor that is deadly for us kuffars.
But if in doubt, you can always visit the Islamic websites, like Omar Bakri's here, they have no problem with the truth.
http://sheikyermami.com/2008/01/02/the-islamic-verdict-on-interfaith/
at January 1, 2008 9:38 PM
Gülen is one of the smartest and most successful schemers on the block. He is very influential in the AKP of course, but also in the Turkish media (Zaman newspaper and many, many others) and industry. His movement has very deep pockets and is unsurpassed among Islamic movements in gaining influence abroad, wherever there is a Turkish diaspora.
The method is pure genius: Educate masses of pupils/students, create loyalties and obligations through grants, foster a home-brewn academical elite to infiltrate institutions of many countries through myriads of organizations that you make them set up (nominally independent, but all under Gülen's aegis, of course). These pioneers can then discreetly write up each other's books, invite each other to conferences, and promote and hire the next generation.
It works just fine. They took Turkey, despite formidable opposition. But they failed in the ex-Soviet -stans, because Moscow's arm was still stronger than theirs. They were thown out. Their main obstacle for dominance among Europe's Turkish diaspora are, ironically, Alevis, Kurdish nationalists and Salafists. They appear to be in a more favourable place in the US, however.
Apart from the "dialogue-industry" and the Mideast-faculties, other main anchors of the Gülen-boys are biology (to promote Islamic Creationism), media and banking.
This group is ten times more dangerous than all these "Hizb al-this" and "Jeish al-that" freaks.
Posted by: Leonid P. B. at January 1, 2008 9:55 PM
Actually, it wasn't only the quality of the medical facilities, and the prospect of evading prosecution that attracted Gülen to the US in 90s. There's two more things:
- He was attracted by, and subsequently emulated many ticks and trends of organized American evangelical Christians.
- He found influential protectors within the (both Clinton and Bush) administration that were willing to cooperate with Gülen in making Turkey a test-case for his flavour of "soft" Islamism. This experiment is on-going, and is the main reason why the Turkish Kemalists and military are, by and large, anti-American these days: Nobody likes being a lab-rat.
at January 1, 2008 10:21 PM
I have to say you guys are particularly shocking on the point that you seem to do such superficial research. You run around the internet and see if you can find something to support the conclusion you want to draw, and then trot it in here and plant it as if some adult wasn't going to come along and point out that you have just manipulated.
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY was written ABOUT Islamic extremism and the notes you quote are a synopsis of a longer monograph and a lecture that was given at the Elliot School of International Affairs in Washington, DC in 2004, after its presentation in Madrid.
There is another. It is called
KILLING IN THE NAME OF GOD: OSAMA BIN LADEN AND AL QAEDA
It is 35 pages long and is a lecture given to the US Air Force Counterproliferation Unit in November of 2002. You can find that at:
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cpc-pubs/post.pdf
I particularly think this the assertion that Dr. Post is the problem here is priceless. Oh, boy. Somebody forgot to take their autism medicine or something.
Meanwhile, terrorism is an issue certainly most prominently with radical Islamists. However, it's a problem for some peoples without any reference whatsoever to Islamofascism, and Dr. Post is correct in referencing the Tamil Tigers.
They have assassinated:
two heads of state (including Rajiv Gandhi)
four cabinet ministers
eight members of parliament
ten journalists
18 novelists, writers, poets and musicians
42 mayors and state governors
110 civil servants, and
8,000 civilians
They have also killed:
"POWs"
They have also:
used child soldiers impressed into service
bombed trains, villages, farms, temples and mosques
embezzled the tsunami relief we sent
extorted millions on threat of violence
practiced ethnic cleansing
All that said, why do you have a problem with a forensic psychiatrist mentioning these people as a problem. He is studying Islamic terrorism, but he is also studying terrorism, PERIOD.
Or is it just that if they aren't shaping their studies to your needs entirely they're worthy of hostility?
Perhaps YOU do not have a problem with the Tamil Tigers, but I can assure you that the people of India AND Sri Lanka who do not wish to have a state separated from India by violence **DO** have a problem with these folks. And it would be a good thing to figure out what to do about a group that keeps a terrorist operation going on for 37 years and now has their own army and navy.
at January 1, 2008 10:57 PM
Morgaan Sinclair said:
“I think that the creation of a Ninth Mahdhab that completely disallows violent jihad, war in the name of Islam, dhimmitude, disenfranchisement of women, etc., is the only lasting solution.”
Creation of the Ninth Mahdhab? Sounds like part of the Star Wars extended universe or something out of L. Ron Hubbard, which pretty much sums up Islam. There will be no Ninth Mahdhab to reform Islam. Any intellectual exercise along these lines is distraction. Islam is not reformable. Solutions for the survival of the West must rest on realistic objectives and not vain hopes and Waiting for Godot.
Posted by: Wimbledon Womble at January 1, 2008 10:57 PM
Davegreybeard quoted the learned and highly decorated Dr. Post:
In fact, for two of the groups that were most prolific in employing this technique, the Tamil Tigers and the PKK (the Kurdish separatist group), there was no relation to Islamist fundamentalism.
According to Robert A. Pape, in his book "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism", Random House 2005, Table 1, page 15:
224 of 300 suicide terror attacks from 1980 to 2003 compiled by the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism involved Islamist groups or terrorist acts in Muslim-majority lands.
That comes out to 75% Islamic attacks. Even disregarding extremist Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu suicide bombers, and assuming that all remaining 25% are split only among Tamil Tigers and PKK, it's still hard to see how this constitutes the "most prolific" group. Please note that Dr. Pape is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, and is the director of the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism, and a distinguished scholar of national security affairs who has taught international relations at Dartmouth College and air strategy for the U.S. Air Force’s School of Advanced Airpower Studies. Maybe he has the ability to understand the complex statistical analysis of Dr. Post, which are obviously beyond my comprehension.
But of course no-one should EVER trust a thing I say, so please disregard this posting.
Posted by: special_guest at January 1, 2008 11:01 PM
Wimbledon Wombie ...
It won't be up to you to say if a Ninth Mahdhab will exist or not. Actually it exists now, but Muslims have to be willing to CODIFY it to make it work, and they don't (at present) have the guts. But, the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviety Union fell apart, Rama V abolished slavery, Zahir Shah gave women the vote, Fleming discovered penicilling, somebody just figured out why antibody 2G12 works, and a man dying of cancer just cured himself of it using simple radio waves and nano-gold, so people find solutions despite the determined demands of people who don't want them.
One question is, how disappointed would everybody be if somebody came up with a solution that does NOT involve the complete destruction of Islam and the complete subjugation of Muslims that some above have demanded.
It really does seem that when anybody on this board can see anything positive going on or look at things creatively enough to see some possibilities, it gives you guys fits.
And don't look now, but NOT having specific War Verses in a religion has NEVER stopped a religion from warring on non-adherents when people in power were of a mind to play hegemonic games with humanity's well-being. It just really does make it harder when they do.
And this brings us back 'round to whether Jerrold Post is really such an asshole that he does not restrict terrorism to a study of Islamic terrorism, but also sees a danger in a group that has its own air force and has been at war with a civilian population and a duly-elected government for 37 years.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 11:08 PM
Special_guest:
If Pape's figures took into account losses of life, the proportion of terrorism attributable to Islamists would probably be even higher than 75%.
Posted by: Wimbledon Womble at January 1, 2008 11:11 PM
"But of course no-one should EVER trust a thing I say, so please disregard this posting."
Yes, that's right, so OK, I'll disregard your posting.
Besides, if you thought I must be your wife blogging, and she knows you best, who am I to argue with her assessment of you?
You're so busted!!!! ROFLOL ...
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 1, 2008 11:14 PM
Morgaan Sinclair said
You run around the internet and see if you can find something to support the conclusion you want to draw, and then trot it in here and plant it as if some adult wasn't going to come along and point out that you have just manipulated.
"Some adult pointing out..."? What was that about condescending? And where exactly did you point out where I have manipulated anything from either Dr. Post or yourself? True, I didn't graduate magna cum laude, but I'm pretty sure calling someone "twithead" doesn't constitute a valid rhetorical response. Lastly, I "[found] something to support the conclusion [I] want to draw..."? It was the same article that you referenced! I at least provided a link to it so that anyone could read it in context; I also provided direct quotes, with specific comments. You merely summed it up as "brilliant". But I am "trotting it out", while you are providing evidence? Again, feel free to point out where I have misrepresented anything, and I will be able to respond.
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY was written ABOUT Islamic extremism
Of course Dr. Post knows that "Islamic extremism" exists. But is it due to Islamic teaching, or is it just coincidental that suicide bombings etc. happen in Islamic countries? Is there a causal correlation in his mind, or could it just as easily happened with Baptists in North Carolina? I'll leave it to the reader to read and decide for themselves, since I am a master manipulator.
Dr. Post is correct in referencing the Tamil Tigers
He didn't just "reference" them, he called them
Posted by: special_guest at January 1, 2008 11:25 PM
Morgaan Sinclair said:
"One question is, how disappointed would everybody be if somebody came up with a solution that does NOT involve the complete destruction of Islam and the complete subjugation of Muslims that some above have demanded."
This is a very childish statement, and you know it.
With regard to substance, your reference to Fleming discovering penicillin as an argument that improbable things - like the reform of Islam - can happen is a starry-eyed analogy.
However, your bringing up the fall of the Soviet Union is not.
The strategy of containment that the West adopted v-a-v the Soviet Union is a relevant short-term strategy. In the case of Islam, containment policies would not lead to a collapse of Islam, obviously, but would allow a breather while some longer-term approach could be found. It would also allow for some time and maybe even give a push to the development to the type of reform within Islam for which you hope.
During the Cold War, the US did not allow openly subversive communist organizations to operate freely. Presently, the US not only allows CAIR and the myriad other Wahhabi groups in the US to operate freely, they allow them a say in setting policy. We are still in an appeasement mode.
During the Cold War, the US did not allow people to immigrate from communist countries without careful vetting. This means that we would allow in only those who were clearly not associated with and were clearly fleeing communism. With respect to immigration from Muslim countries, this would mean we would only allow in apostates or those who reject sharia law in toto. I think that is quite a reasonable approach considering the devastating effect that Islamists and even less engaged but still pro-sharia Muslims have on Western societies. It is a question of survival.
Would this cause rancor with our Saudi "allies?" Of course. But after trying a few embargoes or what-not, they would fall in line, because money is more important to the regime than Wahhabism. It is only our looking-the-other-way that allows the House of Saud to not change its pact with the Salafists and continue its policy of being our "friend" while simultaneously spreading the ideology of total subjugation of the West.
So a containment approach, which would really just be a rational self-defense measure, would also serve to tell death-crazed Wahhabis and other fanatical Muslim sects to grow up. The time for letting such dangerous children play with the world is over. This would actually do more to spur spontaneous reform, if that is at all possible, than continuing on the present course.
If such a strategy did not spur reform, at least it would push the threat back until viable energy alternatives to oil are developed. At that point, with oil revenues out of the picture, the threat of Islamism would immediately wane and just become a nuisance.
Posted by: Wimbledon Womble at January 1, 2008 11:37 PM
[Oops, I hit the "post" button]
He didn't just "reference" the Tamil Tigers, he called them "two groups which were the most prolific". By my calculation, that is a demonstrably false statement. They have committed acts of terrorism, but they are statistically much less significant than Islamic terrorism. So why focus on Tamil Tigers, if not to employ moral relativism, and to show that "everyone is doing it"?
I particularly think this the assertion that Dr. Post is the problem here is priceless.
I have said here before that the members of the CIA are patriotic and have the best interest of the country at heart. I also agree that they are woefully uninformed about Islam and it's relevance to today's state of world affairs. Dr. Post, with a 21 year decorated career in the CIA surely had some influence on that state.
Somebody forgot to take their autism medicine or something.
Wow, that is....wow. I don't have autism, but my cousin does. Do you want to kick my dog too?
I can only sum this exchange up as a very inauspicious beginning to the New Year.
Oh, yeah, you got me on the wife blogging thing. Oops.
at January 1, 2008 11:38 PM
Morgann Sinclair says:
"One question is, how disappointed would everybody be if somebody came up with a solution that does NOT involve the complete destruction of Islam and the complete subjugation of Muslims that some above have demanded."
No one "on this board" has ever suggested such a solution that involves "complete destruction of Islam and complete subjugation of Muslims" (except perhaps for the occasional over-zealous , over-emotional poster and even then those juvenile posts are usually removed by the moderators quickly, and rightly so).
For certain Robert and Hugh have both suggested solutions to global jihad and neither of them include "complete destruction of Islam and complete subjugation of Muslims".
I agree with Special_Guest. Analysis like Dr. Post's, that fails to identify the root cause of jihadist ideology found in Islamic teachings and tenets, have us in the dilemma we are in today. Beliefs such as yours also contribute to that dilemma because YOU see no other solution than "complete destruction of Islam and complete subjugation of Muslims" as the alternative to some grand reformation theory, and, because YOU, like every other politician and pundit who discerns something inconsistent with the "Religion of Peace" messege and the reality, place your faith in moderate Islam. In the meantime, while we wait for Islam to catch up with modernity, the global jihad marches on. With it's current rate of success why would Islam want to change anyway. All is going according to plan as we write and read today.
I will not place my future with the hopes of development of an enlightened Islam. There are over 1,350 years of Islamic history that argue against some reformation that will save us all.
Posted by: USorThem at January 2, 2008 12:13 AM
How the hell can a credible, long discussion of Sufism proceed without reference to the "Deoband" school? Contrary to popular opinion, most extremist UK mosques are run by Deoband Sufis, and not Wahabis or Ikhwanis. Every major sharia movement in Western Civilization is Deobandi.
http://muslim-canada.org/pfl.htm
New York cell:
http://www.madania.org/bookshop.php
Of course, Deobandism is now run out of the "Dar-uloom" (house of clerics) archipelago in Pakistan. I have proof that DuL subversives are taking US government funds to spread sharia subversion, under Whore-Bush's cover of "freedom." This curriculum is identical to that which is impacted on the brains of the Pakistan youth who benefit from Bush's terror-subsidy. "Freedom" is debased everytime it issues from the Texas dhimmi's corrupt mouth.
FIRST YEAR
ARABIC GRAMMAR/SYNTAX I
ANALYSIS OF ARABIC VERBS I
ARABIC WRITING
INTRODUCTION TO ISLAMIC BELIEFS
BIOGRAPHY OF PROPHET MUHAMMAD (SALALLAHU ‘ALAYHI WASALAM)
BIOGRAPHY OF THE PROPHETS (ALAYHIS SALAAM)
TAJWEED 1
ADVANCED URDU
SECOND YEAR
ARABIC GRAMMAR/SYNTAX II
ANALYSIS OF ARABIC VERBS II
APPROACHES TO ARABIC LITERATURE
BIOGRAPHY OF PROPHET MUHAMMAD (SALALLAHU ‘ALAYHI WASALAM)
INTRODUCTION TO PRINCIPLES OF JURISPRUDENCE (FIQH)
GENERAL FIQH: MUKHTASIR AL-QUDOORI
INTRODUCTION TO HADITH
BIOGRAPHY OF THE CALIPHS
ISLAMIC HISTORY
EXPOSITORY WRITING
PRINCIPLES OF ISLAMIC WORSHIP
TAJWEED II
THIRD YEAR
ARABIC GRAMMAR/SYNTAX III
ANALYSIS OF ARABIC VERBS III
ARABIC LITERATURE
PERSUASIVE SPEECH/ RHETORIC I (BALAGHA)
LOGIC I
METHODS IN TRANSLATION OF THE QUR’AN
THEOLOGY I
GENESIS OF ISLAMIC LAW I
HADITH ANALYSIS: APPROACH TO RIYADH US-SALIHEEN
PRINCIPLES OF ISLAMIC JURISPUDENCE (USOOL AL-SHASHI)
TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF THE QUR’AN I
FOURTH YEAR
LOGIC II
PERSUASIVE SPEECH/ RHETORIC II
TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF THE QUR’AN II
ADVANCED LAW
PUBLIC SPEAKING
COMPARATIVE FIQH
GENESIS OF ISLAMIC LAW II
PERSUASIVE DIALOGUE/ RHETORIC II
ADVANCED LITERATURE
ADVANCED COMPOSITION
THEOLOGY II
PRINCIPLES OF ISLAMIC FINANCE
SOCIAL AND FAMILY LAW
QUR’ANIC SCIENCES AND IT’S EXEGESIS (TAFSEER AL-QUR’AN)
FIFTH YEAR
COMPARATIVE FIQH
GENESIS OF ISLAMIC LAW III
ADVANCED QUR’ANIC SCIENCES AND IT’S EXEGESIS (TAFSEER AL-QUR’AN)
TAFSEER JALALAYN
ADVANCED TEXTUAL INTERPRETATION OF HADITH (MISKHAT)
SIXTH YEAR
This year is dedicated to advanced studies in hadith, which includes over 1,000 hours of direct teacher instruction in the prominent hadith collections:
SAHIH AL-BUKHARI: HADITH METHODOLOGY, READINGS, AND ANALYSIS
SAHIH AL-MUSLIM: HADITH METHODOLOGY, READINGS, AND ANALYSIS
SUNAN AT-TIRMIZHI: HADITH METHODOLOGY, READINGS, AND ANALYSIS
SUNAN ABU DAWOOD: HADITH METHODOLOGY, READINGS, AND ANALYSIS
SUNAN IBN MAJAH: HADITH METHODOLOGY, READINGS, AND ANALYSIS
SUNAN NISAEE: HADITH METHODOLOGY, READINGS, AND ANALYSIS
MUWATTA IMAM MALIK: HADITH METHODOLOGY, READINGS, AND ANALYSIS
at January 2, 2008 12:49 AM
Morgaan Sinclair said:
"I have to say you guys are particularly shocking on the point that you seem to do such superficial research. You run around the internet..."
and
"One question is, how disappointed would everybody be if somebody came up with a solution that does NOT involve the complete destruction of Islam and the complete subjugation of Muslims that some above have demanded."
Now, please! The problem ain't simply terrorism or violence. Gülen is very credibly opposed to both. It hurts the cause. But a cause he has, it isn't "dialogue" and I think I can claim that I know something about it, having spent several years of paid employment looking at it and doing something about it - and that wasn't trawling the internet. Schools were closed, organizations were busted (technically, mostly for fraud, embezzlement and extortion), individuals were arrested, put on trial or deported, conferences were exposed. Work. Routine. And I'm proud of it. This was in a large Western European country. Gülen ain't any part of some unicorn 9th mahdhab. They're participating in civil society with the purpose of infiltrating it in favour of Islamist interests, full stop. This is a matter of public record in countries as diverse as Uzbekistan and Austria.
Gülen isn't part of the solution - he's part of the problem.
Posted by: Leonid P. B. at January 2, 2008 12:52 AM
“…the complete subjugation of Muslims that some above have demanded.”
Sometimes I miss things.
Did someone actually demand "the complete subjugation of Muslims" - or was this last just a bit of added hyperbole? The sort of charge someone would disengenuosly throw in “extra” because the opponent is SO vile that they MUST be for that also.
I dunno, maybe I missed it, show me where I’m wrong.
at January 2, 2008 12:53 AM
Nobody in his right mind gives a hoot about Tamil tigers, the IRA or the FARC guerillas in Colombia. These are regional conflicts and affect the people who happen to live in these areas.
None of these movements are supported by a billion lunatics worldwide who tell us every day 24/7 that they have a holy book that commands them to kill and die for 'Allah'-, Muhammad's alter ego, with a mandate to wage permanent war to make all the worlds inhabitants slaves of Allah.
Neither is terror the only thing we should be concerned about: the real weapon of Muhammedanism is demographic conquest by unhindered migration. By allowing these subversive elements to fester in our midst, by allowing them equal rights and benefits (something no unbeliever enjoys in Muhammedan occupied countries) and to appease them whenever they come up with the most outrageous demands, is exactly what is making us lose this awful 'WoT'- which is actually the Muhammad's war against the world: Muhammad said, "I have been ordered to fight against people until they say that "there is no god but Allah",
Once again:
No mosques, no madrassah's, no more infiltration, no more clerics, no more Islamic hate literature and a clear (recorded) oath to the constitution and an unambivalent statement that the law, civil law, not sharia, is the highest authority in the land from every musulman who wants to remain, would be the minimum requirement.
Other than that, internment and deportation for all of those who want to subjugate us and practice Islam as prescribed in the Koran & the sunnah. This course of action should relieve us and our children of the war that we refuse to fight now.
at January 2, 2008 2:50 AM
What I don't understand is the continued insistence that we learn to drink poison -- diluted, mitigated, flavored, "reformed" poison delivered by slick-talking taqqiya apologists, but poison all the same.
No alchemy on this earth can refine the polluted water of Islam. No distillation, no matter how passionately desired, will ever remove the stench of the bodies at the bottom of Islam's well.
at January 2, 2008 2:50 AM
Forgot one more thing:
According to Muslim scholar Bassam Tibi,
"Muslims are religiously obliged to disseminate the Islamic faith throughout the world.... If non-Muslims submit to conversion or subjugation, this call can be pursued peacefully. If they do not, Muslims are obliged to wage war against them. … Those who resist Islam cause wars and are responsible for them"
So after all the infidels are the one who don’t want world peace according to Islamic scholars.
World peace in accordance to Islamic teachings can be achieved only when all the people in the world submit themselves to Islam.
at January 2, 2008 2:51 AM
Davegreybeard said
Did someone actually demand "the complete subjugation of Muslims"
Strangely enough, yesterday Shlomo_Michael said:
What's the alternative? Subjugate all Muslims, thereby increasing the chances that the moderates "revert" to Islam?Posted by: special_guestMust be a full moon or something. If we don't agree to hold hands and hope that that we all "win the lottery" and Islam reforms itself, we are a bunch of lowlifes hoping to subjugate all Muslims and/or commit genocide. Actually, no-one here is suggesting anything of the kind.
Of course we all hope that Islam will reform itself, either by creating a Ninth Mahdhab, or by re-opening the gates of ijtihad, or by abrogating the violent verses, or by re-defining the isnad-chains, or by some other means. Just like we all hope to win the lottery. But that is no retirement plan. We just keep buying more lottery tickets, and decade after decade we keep being surprised when we lose. And if some of us don't go along with the starry-eyed dream, and instead suggest starting to make some prudent and conservative investments for ourselves, we're scum who are too unrefined to appreciate the wonderful opportunity available for just another $5 or $10.
Morgaan, I submit that your viewpoint is the majority viewpoint. It is the viewpoint of the President, of the majority of the CIA and FBI, of the field commanders in Iraq, of the mass media, of the University faculties, of the Presidential candidates, and of the population in general. It is the viewpoint that has been the operative viewpoint since at least the 1970's. We are always hoping for an Islamic reformation, we are constantly telling ourselves it is just around the corner, if we just finance this group or support this individual or just wait a little longer. I submit that you are the one being condescending, and that you are the one who is unable to accept an alternative point of view (without labeling it "subjugating all Muslims"). That's fine. Continue to hope. We'll all hope with you. But in the meantime, it's time for a new viewpoint, a new strategy.
We are in a co-dependent relationship with the Muslims. We are enabling their self-destructive behavior. Our support of them allows their current path to continue unabated. It's not healthy for them, and it's not healthy for us. It's time to step back, and force them to take responsibility for their own actions. Women, 50% of the Muslim population, hate sharia? And homosexuals, and liberals, and musicians and barbers, and moderates, all hate sharia? All cultures want our values of freedom and democracy and arts appreciation? Wonderful! Then the vast majority will have little problem getting rid of the few radicals who have enslaved them. But it is their fight, not ours. We cannot fight it for them. Nobody fought it for us, which is why we're where we are, and they are where they are.
The comment about "everyone wants to subjugate the Muslims" is an example of what I was talking about when I said I don't know what to make of you. You are obviously a very intelligent and educated person (is that condescending, or a simple acknowledgement?). You come here with pertinent information about jihad activities. And yet ... you seem to have not the slightest clue about what Robert's books actually say, or what the core beliefs of Islam (that would make any of the reformations listed above almost impossible) actually are, and you are ready at the drop of a hat to label "everyone" as wanting to subjugate all Muslims.
You've socialized with Robert Spencer, something I'm pretty sure I'll never have the opportunity to do. You probably mingle with intellectual superstars that would impress any of us. Maybe you live in a nicer house than mine. Maybe not. Either way, I'm happy for you. If you look back at today's posts, you won't find me insulting or denigrating you. It's not what I come to JW/DW for; I don't get my sense of self-worth from insulting others on an anonymous blog. I care about one thing here, and it is the one thing that, in my opinion, no other writer does as well or as clearly as Robert Spencer: that is to put Islamic history and Islamic doctrine into its accurate perspective. Talk of a Ninth Mahdhab is at odds with that perspective. You think it is a new innovation, but it is a continuation of the existing mainstream perspective. Some of your statements above, and statements of Dr. Post, I could not let go unchallenged, and now find myself at the end of a dismal day.
I regret that this topic has veered off the original subject of how the MESA Nostra may have been the intentional brainchild of Islamic jihadists, and how these intellectual elites now use their elevated social stature and aura of respectability to stifle discussions about the relationship between Islam and Islamic violence.
And I regret that it is not yet the second day of the year, and I have already failed in my resolution to match Robert's patience and grace.
at January 2, 2008 3:08 AM
Ha ha. Shlomo_Michael didn't say all that. Only the first sentence is his. The rest is mine.
Ugh.
Posted by: special_guest at January 2, 2008 3:09 AM
Thank G*d for Interludes.
Posted by: special_guest at January 2, 2008 3:33 AM
Morgaan Sinclair wrote: The Naqshbandi Sufi Order began with Rumi and has an unbroken line of discourse from Rumi through the last two: Dagestani and Nazim.
Correction: Rumi (or his son) started the Mevlevi Order, not the Naqshbandi.
Posted by: Arizona at January 2, 2008 3:37 AM
"“Some Western politicians, academics, clergy and media, oblivious of the currents surging through modern-day Islamist circles ... appear to be unfazed by the often reciprocal relationship between various Islamic da‘wist NGOs and terrorist organisations. Many others simply pretend nothing is happening or when confronted by irrefutable proof of links between Islamic da‘wist charities and suicide-bombers, terrorist cells, revolutionary agendas and the enlisting and training of mujahidun,"
....it is amazing that people steadfastly deny the connection to the Muslim terrorist groups to the Muslim charity organizations. Several investigations and interviews with Muslim prisoners and others have clearly made the connection....and the body count attributable to the Muslim terrorist groups continues to climb daily.....
....the common denominator to the Muslim charities, Muslim terror groups, and people killed by Muslims....is Islam....the most intolerant religion on the planet....
Ban Muslim Immigration...
Posted by: exsgtbrown at January 2, 2008 7:03 AM
On of the five pillars of Islam that constitute the most basic tenets of the religion states:
"Faith (iman) in the oneness of Allah and the finality of the prophethood of Muhammad (indicated by the declaration [the Shahadah] that, "There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah")".
How do do water that one down?
Will the Ninth Mahdhab, once formalised, get rid of this fundamental belief in islam? The principle that is the font of all the tenants on intolerant and violence ingrained within islam.
Most post-islamist parties, e.g. Egypt's Hizb ul-Wasat, or (questionably) Turkey's AKP and many more are a mere smoke screen. Once in power, there is no guarantee that these so called post-islamists will not revert back to pure islamism (witness the goings on with AKP).
How far will the muslims themselves allow this reform. What are they prepared to give up. I believe that what they have to give up of this cult would render it totally un-islamic.
Gamble your lot with pro-islamists - islam's Trojan horses, but I won't hold my breath.
Oh BTW, when was the last time anyone from Tamil Tigers said they wanted to convert the whole lot of us, or when have they have ever advocated that their brand of Sharia should be applied to everyone of us? To equate them with islamic terrorirm is an exercise in naïveté, Doctor or not.
at January 2, 2008 8:12 AM
I agree with the comments by Hugh on Fethullah Gulen.
Posted by: greatcometof1577 at January 2, 2008 8:41 AM
Wimbledon Womble writes:
'So a containment approach, which would really just be a rational self-defense measure, would also serve to tell death-crazed Wahhabis and other fanatical Muslim sects to grow up. The time for letting such dangerous children play with the world is over. This would actually do more to spur spontaneous reform, if that is at all possible, than continuing on the present course.
If such a strategy did not spur reform, at least it would push the threat back until viable energy alternatives to oil are developed.'
AGREE
I share Morgaan's hope for the reform of Islam but I also agree with Special Guest that look back 30 years and there is not much sign of it.
Time is running out - that's the problem with views like Morgaan's. Muslim countries are becoming modernised at a rapid rate, that is to say, they have the science and technology part of modernisation but not the sceptical unfrightened mind part. They are that most dangerous thing: half-modernised; acquiring the technology and 'muscle' part of modernity but not its advanced, critical thinking processes. The analogy with a bad-tempered child with nuclear weapons is well drawn. OK, I agree that Islamic governments, for instance Egypt, even Musharaff, are trying vainly to hold back the tide of Islamism, but increasingly I fear that they cannot and that the liberal intelligentsia of these places is weak and feeble against the maddenned masses.
Globalisation and modernisation are having odd and weirdly disruptive effects, because so uneven. There are both centrifugal and centripetal forces, and nobody has quite got it figured out. At one level, modernisation is producing a liberal critical thinking minority in some Islamic countries, such as Iran (of all places, where opposition to the mullahs is extensive amongst the middle classes). But this segment of Muslim societies is weak and tiny. At the other extreme, the technology of modernity allows for the media dissemination of rhetorical material with emotive power to the masses, thus allowing the mad mullas and those who fund them, power way beyond their numbers. Finally, the technology of modernity allows for Muslim countries to acquire guns and WMD which could easily play into the hands of the mad mullahs.
So, it's all a matter of security, and of - time. Remember the Sufi story about the man that needed pomegranates - and TIME? Well, time is what we don't have here. This has to affect strategy, which can no longer be based on the trajectory of careful patient evolution - violent revolution could disrupt this plan at any time. Pakistan is a powder keg. Saudi is a powder keg. The late Benazir had no answers. Her only thought was similar to mine - TIME. 'Extremism needed time to burn itself out' she said.
In such circumstances the most liberal and sensible thing for the west to do is a kind of policy of containment and isolationism; at least as sheik yermani says:
'No mosques, no madrassah's, no more infiltration, no more clerics, no more Islamic hate literature and a clear (recorded) oath to the constitution and an unambivalent statement that the law, civil law, not sharia, is the highest authority in the land from every musulman who wants to remain, would be the minimum requirement.'
There's a lot of fear on 'both' sides. Muslims deep down somewhere in their psyches - even the most ardent - suspect that Islam is a crock of s***. That's why they make such strenuous efforts to stop debate: their creed can only stand up by blind loyalty and mere assertions, as it has little ethical position to speak of capable of intellectuality. Secular westerners also fear that they have lost touch with their base: liberalism has become so rotten it has forgotten that its basis is morality. Religious freedom is granted on condition: the condition that you tolerate others. It is no sweat to 'tolerate' views you are in 100% agreement with. Toleration requires effort, and that effort involves putting up with views you find challenging, even offensive. But why, why, should you do that? Because they agree to do the same. Freedom of conscience in the transatlantic tradition goes back to the civil wars of 17th century England, to Cromwell lamenting to his radical parliament (who all wanted to kill one another and promote their own sectarian, cultish, exclusivist, supremacist, versions of the truth):
'Where is the man of universal spirit? All will have liberty, but none will give it.'
And so, Cromwell, like a father of a squabbling family, decided to rule alone, until the religious crazies decided to pipe down and allow to others what they wanted for themselves - freedom of conscience. Liberty in this transtatlantic tradition is a product of a certain moral and intellectual maturity.
Thus Cromwell identified something really crucial about liberty: it is a verb, not a noun. To get liberty you have to give liberty. It is under such conditions that liberty exists - because it is given; you have to make it; everybody has to contribute to this; there are sacrifices and pain involved - but that cuts right across the board. Those who 'will not give liberty' cannot be tolerated because they are disturbers of the state, because they undermine the common good.
In this sense, as long as Islam remains a defamtory creed that attacks and defames other religions, it cannot be allowed the liberty it wishes until it allows that liberty and respect for others.
That liberty is not unconditional and has its price (toleration, even if that's uncomfortable), and requires moral muscle, not flab, is a message that western secular liberals have entirely lost sight of. This sense of insecurity then fuels fear of the pre-modern bully Islam. We need to return to a basic understanding of what liberty is - and isn't.
The pre-modern understanding of 'liberty' was actually the opposite; pre-moderns understood 'liberty' to mean 'monopoly'. Thus if a king gave so-and-so 'liberty' to do such-and-such, he meant he gave him a monopoly which was exclusive. Only from the time of the Renaissance onwards did people begin to understand liberty as being primarily a moral quality and a product of intellectual maturity.
Posted by: devorgilla at January 2, 2008 9:25 AM
To return to the original article, why does Gulen want an institute in Australia anyway? To convert extremist Aussie Muslims to his moderate ways? Isn't Turkey a secular state? Isn't he free to set up such an institute in Turkey?
It's clear this a missionary prosletising effort - but who is the prospective target audience?
Posted by: devorgilla at January 2, 2008 9:50 AM
A few months ago MEMRI posted a study, by its Turksih analyst, full of information about Fethulleh Gulen.
Here it is:
The Upcoming Elections in Turkey (2): The AKP's Political Power Base
By R. Krespin.*
Introduction
Turkey has a large network of Islamist sects, orders, associations, and sheikhs that has a strong impact on politics. In the 1980s, the network's sect sheikhs and religious community leaders directed their followers to vote for the political party of their choice - which traditionally meant center-right parties. However, since that time, the situation has changed, and leaders and followers of religious sects have become active participants in Turkey's political life. Turkish politics today cannot be understood without considering the political role of these religious forces.
Politicians, Islamist Sects, Orders, and Associations In Support of the AKP
In a recent five-part series titled "Sects, Religious Communities, and the July 22 [Elections]" in the secular, mainstream Turkish daily Milliyet, journalist Omer Erbil listed some of the Islamist sects and associations that are playing a role in the upcoming elections. Following are the main points of this review. [1]
1. The Fethullah Gulen community: This is the largest and strongest Islamist community in Turkey, as well as the most prominent representative of the Nur ("Light") movement of Said-i Nursi. [2] It is led by Fethullah Gulen, or, as he is referred to by his community, Fethullah Gulen Hocaefendi, and according to media assessments, about 30 of the AKP candidates who have a good chance of being elected are Fethullah Gulen followers (Fethullahcilar).
2. The Nakshibendi sect: A large Islamist order, which began in the 14th century in Turkistan, Central Asia, and spread to Anatolia and the Balkans, gaining much power in the 19th century. The Halidiye branch lives today in the influential Iskenderpasa, Ismailaga, Erenkoy, and Kashgari communities. Many political figures in Turkey either come from or are influenced by the Nakshibendi tradition. Among these are Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Parliamentary Speaker Bulent Arinc, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, and Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin. Iskenderpasa Nakshibendi sect leader Mehmed Zahit Kotku is known to have trained former prime minister and president Turgut Ozal, former Islamist prime minister Necmettin Erbakan, and his successor, Islamist Felicity Party (SP) leader Recai Kutan.
The Iskenderpasa sect, which is currently led by Sheikh Nurettin Cosan, openly supported the AKP during the 2002 elections. Sheikh Cosan also issued an order to AKP MPs to vote "no" in the March 1, 2003 parliamentary vote on allowing the U.S. military passage through Turkish soil to open a northern front in the war in Iraq, and it is known that some 100 AKP MPs obeyed the order.
Erbakan's Islamist Milli Gorus movement, and its offspring, the AKP, have very close ties with the Nakshibendi Islamist sect. It is believed that about 80 of the sect's faithful were among the founders of the AKP.
3. The Kadiri: One of the oldest Islamist sects, and also part of the Nur movement. The larger branch, Yeni Asyacilar ("Neo-Asians") - which also owns the Islamist Turkish daily Yeni Asya, will, as always, vote for the center-right DP party. However, the Ankara-based Kuscuoglu branch will vote for the AKP.
A sub-division of the Kadiri includes followers of Sheikh Haydar Bas, who is also the chairman of the small Independent Turkish Party (BTP). Sheikh Bas preaches on his own Islamist Mesaj TV channel.
4. Suleymanists (Suleymancilar ): Followers of the late Suleyman Tunahan, a preacher in two important Istanbul mosques, who expanded his community through his then-illegal Koran-study courses. The Suleymanists are now divided under the leadership of two brothers, both Suleyman's grandsons: Ahmet Arif Denizolgun, a former minister from the Homeland Party (ANAP) government, who is currently running in the Democrat Party (DP) list; and Mehmet Beyazit Denizolgun, who is a founder and MP of the AKP and is now running again as an AKP candidate.
5. The Menzil sect: An Adiyaman-based Nakshibendi sub-sect. First led by Muhammed Rasid Erol, the sect emerged in the village of Menzil, and is now found in almost every Turkish city, and is known to be strong in Ankara and Istanbul. The current leader, Feyzettin Erol, took over from his father after the latter's death. The organization now has close ties with the AKP. According to the media, Health Minister Recep Akdag is affiliated with the Menzil sect, and he has staffed his ministry with members of this sect. An AKP MP from Adiyaman, Husrev Kutlu, is also known to be close to the Menzil sect, and has drawn complaints from the Turkish military for his hostile remarks against Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and the military. Kutlu is again running as an AKP candidate.
The Fethullah Gulen: Powerful Islamist Network with International Reach; Fethullah: From Islamist Anti-Soviet Activity to Residence and Activity in U.S.
The Fethullah movement is regarded as the most powerful and influential Islamist organization in Turkey, and has international outreach. Regarded as a semi-state within a state, this community has established hundreds of schools, in Turkey and in over 100 countries on five continents.
Fethullah Gulen heads this vast organization, holding absolute authority, although the organization operates seemingly as independent cells. It is based on a hierarchy of activists on different levels - municipalities, business, families, and individuals. Another group of activists, the abi, or "elder brothers," deals with recruitment, mostly from among poor youth, by providing them with housing and education in the isikevi, or "houses of light." There, the youths receive intensive Islamist training in line with the teachings of Said-i Nursi and the Nur movement.
Education, and professional and vocational training are important components of the Fethullah movement, and its main recruiting efforts are directed at youths in eighth through twelfth grades. Followers mentor young people in the isikevi, educate them in the Fethullah schools, and prepare them for future careers in legal, political, and educational professions, in order to create the future Islamist Turkish state. Fethullah schools abroad are geared towards educating a foreign leadership that will be sympathetic to an Islamist Turkey.
While young people provide the manpower for growth, followers with small businesses provide the finances, donating generously to Fethullah projects. No public accounts of the community's finances are made available, and most of their resources are not disclosed to the public. Fethullah members occupy positions in all Turkish state institutions, political parties, organizations, universities, and even sports clubs, and are also present in the security forces (except for the upper echelons of the military) and police.
Fethullah Gulen Indicted, Escapes To U.S.
In 1999, footage was aired on Turkish television of sermons delivered by Fethullah Gulen to a crowd of followers, in which he revealed his aspirations for an Islamist Turkey ruled by shari'a as well as the methods that should be used to attain that goal. In the sermons, he said:
"You must move in the arteries of the system, without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centers… until the conditions are ripe, they [the followers] must continue like this. If they do something prematurely, the world will crush our heads, and Muslims will suffer everywhere, like in the tragedies in Algeria, like in 1982 [in] Syria… like in the yearly disasters and tragedies in Egypt. The time is not yet right. You must wait for the time when you are complete, and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire world and carry it… You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey… Until that time, any step taken would be too early - like breaking an egg without waiting the full 40 days for it to hatch. It would be like killing the chick inside. The work to be done is [in] confronting the world. Now, I have expressed my feelings and thoughts to you all - in confidence… trusting your loyalty and sensitivity to secrecy. I know that when you leave here - [just] as you discard your empty juice boxes, you must discard the thoughts and feelings expressed here."
The sermon continues: "When everything was closed and all doors were locked, our houses of isik [light] assumed a mission greater than that of older times. In the past, some of the duties of these houses were carried out by madrassas, some by schools, some by tekkes [Islamist lodges]… These homes had to be schools, had to be madrassas, [had to be] tekkes all at the same time. The permission did not come from the state, or the state's laws, or the people who govern us. The permission was given by Allah… who wanted His name learned and talked about, studied, and discussed in those houses, as it used to be in the mosques." [3]
In another sermon, he said: "Now it is a painful spring that we live in. A nation is being born again. A nation of millions [is] being born - one that will live for long centuries, Allah willing… It is being born with its own culture, its own civilization. If giving birth to one person is so painful, the birth of millions cannot be pain-free. Naturally we will suffer pain. It won't be easy for a nation that has accepted atheism, has accepted materialism, a nation accustomed to running away from itself, to come back riding on its horse. It will not be easy, but it is worth all our suffering and the sacrifices." [4]
In yet another sermon, he said, "The philosophy of our service is that we open a house somewhere and, with the patience of a spider, we lay our web, to wait for people to get caught in the web; and we teach those who do. We don't lay the web to eat or consume them, but to show them the way to their resurrection, to blow life into their dead bodies and souls, to give them a life." [5]
By the time this was aired, Gulen had already left the country for the U.S., supposedly for health reasons. A year later, in 2000, he was indicted in absentia for attempting to change Turkey's system of government and for "forming an illegal organization with the purpose of establishing an Islamist state." It was from there that he built his international Islamist community. [6]
At a 2003 judicial hearing, it was decided to postpone Gulen's trial, subject to reprocessing if he was indicted again for a similar crime in the next five years. In May 2006, the AKP government modified the criminal code regarding acts of terror, and Gulen was acquitted. [7]
Financial, Cultural, and Media Institutions Affiliated with Fethullah
Fethullah Gulen is thought to be one of the richest Turks in the world. He lives on a large estate in Pennsylvania, and it is from there that he runs his million-member community. The prevailing perception in political circles in Turkey is that Fethullah Gulen is the power behind many Islamist politicians, especially in the AKP.
The following are some of the establishments in Turkey owned by or affiliated with the Fethullah community. The list is from the indictment of Fethullah Gulen. [8]
Zaman daily newspaper
Samanyolu TV
CHA - Cihan News Agency
Sizinti magazine
Aksiyon magazine
Business Life Cooperation Association (ISHAD)
Asia Finance (which became AsiaBank)
Isik ("Light") Insurance
Samanyolu Publishers
Feza Journalism
Cag Education Foundation
Fatih Education Foundation
Ufuk Education
Firat Education Center
Istanbul FEM Study centers
Akyazili Middle and Higher Education Foundation
Turkish Teachers Foundation (TOV)
Turkish Journalists and Writers Foundation
Maltepe Private Study Centers
Fatih University
*R. Krespin is the director of MEMRI's Turkish Media Project.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Milliyet (Turkey), July 10-14, 2007.
[2] Sheikh Said-i Kurdi, later called Said-i Nursi (1878-1960), was the founder of the Islamist Nur ("Light") movement. During WWI, he fought with the Ottomans against the Russians. After Turkey's war of independence, he demanded, in an address to the new parliament, that the new republic be based on Islamic principles. He turned against Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his reforms, and against the new modern, secular, Western republic. During Sheikh Said's Islamist revolt against the republic, he was arrested and then released. He died in Sanliurfa in March 1960, and his body was later moved to an unknown location in Isparta.
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNi3Z3qZ7Z4&mode=related&search.
[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tbnGnzdmgU&mode=related&search.
[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tbnGnzdmgU&mode=related&search.
[6] According to Turkish analysts, during the Cold War, the U.S. benefited from the Islamist activity of Fethullah Gulen's organization against the U.S.S.R. among the Crimean Muslims as well as among Muslims in adjacent regions of the U.S.S.R. Therefore, after the fall of the U.S.S.R., and following pressure from the Turkish authorities, who wanted to act against him, the U.S. enabled Fethullah Gulen to escape from Turkey to the U.S. prior to his trial, and also enabled him to develop his Islamist community from his estate in Pennsylvania. Fethullah Gulen himself also worked to moderate his extremist Islamist image, advocating for inter-religious dialogue and holding various meetings with Pope John Paul II, Turkey's Chief Rabbi, and the Armenian Patriarch. Some anti-Islamist circles in Turkey believe that Fethullah Gulen helped Recep Tayyip Erdogan obtain invitations to the White House, despite his Islamist background as a student of Erbakan and even though he was not yet a head of state or even an MP.
[7] According to an investigative series by columnist Hikmet Cetinkaya in Cumhuriyet (June 22-July 4, 1999), in the 1970s, Fethullah Gulen was convicted for his Islamist activities in Turkey. During this decade, he organized and ran secret summer camps in the mountains of western Turkey where children as young as elementary school age were taught Islam, and taught to hate nonbelievers and to become jihad fighters. These camps were guarded by armed "brothers." Some were run in cooperation with the Suleymancilar sect.
[8] The list is available upon request from MEMRI.
Posted by: Hugh at January 2, 2008 10:51 AM
Arizona ...
The Golden Circle begins with Rumi and ends with Nazim. That is the NAQSHBANDI GOLDEN CIRCLE.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 2, 2008 11:23 AM
How does one reform a rotten apple? The very problem with islam is the nature of its founder. How do you reform a dead person? I am not advocating walking in with guns a-blazin' and bombs a-burstin'. But the very act of peacefully reforming islam would lead to its abolition. Once the koran was edited you would be left with a hollow shell. Islam would cease to be. So again, how does one reform a bad apple?
Posted by: Kevin at January 2, 2008 11:45 AM
The Turks were to Islam what the Romans were to Christianity. If not for the conversion of the Turks to Islam after their emergence from the eastern steppe, Islam would have remained just another bizarre religious sect from the middle east. It was the Turks more so than any other group that spread Islam to all the places it infests today. It should come as no surprise that the Turks continue to try to spread the disease of Islam.
Posted by: HereticInfidel at January 2, 2008 12:05 PM
Hugh said
In 1999, footage was aired...
Those exceedingly creepy quotes of Gulen aren't thirty years old as a poster above claimed with no supporting evidence.
Posted by: special_guest at January 2, 2008 12:09 PM
Very interesting and informative posts above. Would especialy like to thank Hugh and special_guest for their comments and insights.
Posted by: Wellington at January 2, 2008 12:34 PM
What I don't understand is the continued insistence that we learn to drink poison -- diluted, mitigated, flavored, "reformed" poison delivered by slick-talking taqqiya apologists, but poison all the same. Posted by: Marwan'sDaughterI agree with Marwan's above. All these intricate delving into the micro-mechanics of what constitutes something that amounts to 2% of Islam - if that - as a solution to terminating the vile underpinnings of Islam - erudite as it may well be - will land us nowhere.
Anybody else heard of Alexander the Great and the Gordian knot? Sometimes, a plain ole sword is the best solution.
Posted by: Infidel Pride at January 2, 2008 1:00 PM
"Get off oil!" Such a simple statement. The person making it assuming that this will solve all problems we currently face. Just how exactly does one "get off oil"? What is the alternative to oil? "Getting off oil" is easier said than done, and quite frankly, a fantasy.
Posted by: HereticInfidel at January 2, 2008 1:23 PM
Correction to my original Gulen Post:
The Army in Turkey is antithetical to all religious groups. That is the only error in my post, according to friends who know.
I have requested an interview with Fethullah Gulen and will publish it in a place it can be easily accessed.
......
Meanwhile, about getting off oil: It's possible, but will take a little Yankee Ingenuity.
However, if we could reduce transportation consumption about 5%, we could get off FOREIGN oil, which is all we need to pull about 95% of the money out of the jihad.
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 2, 2008 3:18 PM
special_guest
Oh, dear ...
In 1999 the footage was AIRED. When was it SHOT?
Stay out of journalism and graduate school. You'll just get fried if you try either
Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at January 2, 2008 3:56 PM
Even if we DID get off foreign oil (very difficult but technically possible) it would have NO EFFECT on world wide Jihad. This is because China would still be on oil and pay for it, India would still be on oil and pay for it as would a hundred other growing economies around the globe – who would still pay for it.
Using our own oil, nuclear, alternative, conservation – all great ideas and should be pursued. But if anyone thinks that fiddling with our energy usage is going to help stop the Jihadis, they are living in a fantasy world.
The way to stop Jihad is to discredit Islam and the way to do that is to TOTALLY EXPOSE Muhammad for the monster that he was.
Posted by: Davegreybeard at January 2, 2008 4:03 PM
Davygreybeard:
'Even if we DID get off foreign oil (very difficult but technically possible) it would have NO EFFECT on world wide Jihad. This is because China would still be on oil and pay for it, India would still be on oil and pay for it as would a hundred other growing economies around the globe – who would still pay for it.'
You have a point. Yet I'm not so sure. If an alternative fuel source was developed that was cleaner, safer, perhaps cheaper even than oil, developed by American ingenuity, who's to say that China and India wouldn't want that?
Here's a thought experiment. You have a need for bread, but the baker's you regularly go to is a nest of vampires and highly unstable. Plus he insults you and threatens your kids. You'd dearly love to see him go belly up. Some other baker comes up with an alternative product to bread - say, barley bannocks, and offers it at the same price, or even cheaper. OK, it's a bit weird at first, and you have to think up some new recipes. This baker is civilised and straightforward and the premises are clean. Plus, he's always nice.
Q: Do you change your habits?
Posted by: devorgilla at January 2, 2008 4:43 PM
Problem is that any alternative to oil must also be cheaper than oil, for it to replace it. This MAY happen some day but it is nowhere to be seen at present – I mean not even a glimpse of something that MIGHT work. So it is not impossible, just highly improbable and next to impossible, for the short term.
We need to counter Jihad TODAY– to tell the COMPLETE story of al-insan al-kamil, uswa husana “The Perfect Man”, “The Model of Conduct”, the story of MUHAMMAD.
We need to know Islam and Muhammad better than most Muslims and then tell the World.
at January 2, 2008 5:15 PM
New technologies are always expensive in the beginning. But if you don't get that tech out and in use, working out the bugs, bringing in the cash to further more research, the tech goes nowhere. We've been sitting on our asses for too long under the guise of the tech needs to be cheaper than oil. Short of us emulating Patton's run through France in the ME, oil prices ain't going down. Why continue to wait? Weaning the US off foreign oil may not stop the jihadists but it will decrease the amount of money WE send to fund the murderous bastards. And I think you will see a flux if research across the world that will force the prices down as other manufacturers/nations move quickly so as not to be left behind.
Posted by: Kevin at January 2, 2008 5:30 PM
Morgaan said
The Army in Turkey is antithetical to all religious groups. That is the only error in my post, according to friends who know.
All right then. Case closed. When you meet with him, can you send my fond regards, and let us all know how he sincerely promises to you that:
Gulen breaks all the Naqshbandi tenets for women, does not require veiling AT ALL, opened the highest level of Islamic administration to women, openly espouses the proection of Christians and Jews and considers them co-faithful. [...] He is absolutely NOT anti-American and has a close relationship with the Vatican in back channels. He wholly opposes any from of dhimmitude WHATSOEVER. [...] Gulen has gone more and more and more liberal and farther and farther away from the philosophy that he inherited from the Turkish Naqshbandis, who now openly oppose him as too pro-Western and liberal on women's issues.
In 1999 the footage was AIRED. When was it SHOT?
Yes, when was it shot?
Posted by: special_guest at January 2, 2008 5:33 PM
And please ask him where the strawberries are. (That's a Caine Mutiny reference).
Posted by: special_guest at January 2, 2008 5:38 PM
special_guest,
You forgot to add Bogart's lisp to that statement. Unless of course you were distracted by the ball bearings.:)
at January 2, 2008 5:50 PM
Davygreybeard:
'Problem is that any alternative to oil must also be cheaper than oil, for it to replace it.'
Is this necessarily true??
I ask - humbly, as one not versed in economics, but rather as a 'consumer' applying my own market psychology to the 'cost-benefit' analysis: you can't put a price on sanity. Sanity is priceless. Insanity, however, is expensive. So even if it's cheaper on paper - is it cheaper REALLY once all the rest of the bother is factored in?
And think about the POLITICAL gains. The economy of Saud Arabia and Iran, Venezuala, in free fall. Worth something, surely?
Cheers
Posted by: devorgilla at January 2, 2008 5:57 PM
Kevin,
As I said: “Using our own oil, nuclear, alternative, conservation – all great ideas and should be pursued. But if anyone thinks that fiddling with our energy usage is going to help stop the Jihadis, they are living in a fantasy world.”
Should be and are being pursued.
Devorgilla wrote,
'Problem is that any alternative to oil must also be cheaper than oil, for it to replace it.'
“Is this necessarily true??”
Yes, because people around the world will not pay more for an alternative to oil just because the money is going to people who are perceived to be our enemy.
But this is WAY ahead of where we are now. THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE FOR OIL in the near future no matter how much people want to pay for it. Work on it, sure, but don’t depend on it to save you from Muhammad.
Morgaan, How’s that phone call goin’ ?
Pursuing these things will be done for economic reasons. We are and have been working on alternatives and are not “sitting on our asses”. But this is still not a solution to Jihad.
Suggesting that seeking an alternative for oil is part of a solution to Jihad clouds the issue and blurs the focus on what must be done – and that is discredit Islam.
at January 2, 2008 6:26 PM
Kevin, for some reason another movie reference keeps running through my mind: young Anakin Skywalker meeting in private with Senator Palpatine.
Posted by: special_guest at January 2, 2008 6:27 PM
I am the Ninth Mahdhab. I have come to tell you, Eb-Eneezer al-Scrooge, that the ghosts of Eid past and Eid present and Eid future will be visiting you this night.
Posted by: Wimbledon Womble at January 2, 2008 7:54 PM
This article was the basis of a lecture given by Paul Stenhouse a few months ago, I glad this article is available now, its very important, particularly for Australians.
Posted by: darrinh at January 3, 2008 3:23 AM
Morgaan & special_guest:
"In 1999 the footage was AIRED. When was it SHOT?"
Since Gülen talks about "the situation in Algeria" where their [the Islamists'] "heads were crushed", the footage is obviously post-1994, ok?
Posted by: Leonid P. B.
at January 3, 2008 4:47 PM
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