From http://www.soundvision.com/Info/parenting/teens/12tips.asp

12 Tips for Muslim Youth

Why should you, a young Muslim, be helping to bring your friends closer to Allah?

After all, you've got your own struggles to deal with: trying to explain why you pray to hostile teachers, Hijab discrimination, standing up in class when the professor attacks Islam, dealing with parents who think you've gone nuts because you're growing a beard, or all the other difficulties faced by a number of practicing Muslim youth?

Islam was never meant to be an individualistic faith, reserved for the "chosen few". Muslims have a duty to spread the Deen, and practicing Muslim youth, whether beginners, activists or leaders have a crucial role to play.

"Allah has put them in a position that perhaps no one else is in," notes Sheema Khan, former Muslim Youth of North America (MYNA) advisor for eastern Canada. "They have the means to communicate with their peers, they have an understanding of what they're going through plus they have the guidance of Islam."

Who is your childhood friend, who would rather spend Fridays at MacDonald's than the Masjid, or your classmate who is Muslim in name and only knows that "Muslims don't eat pork" going to listen to: the nice Imam of the Masjid who would freak out if he saw the way they were dressed and talked or you who may have grown up with them, joked with them, or see them everyday in school?

The answer is obvious: you.

Don't panic. Here are some tips and advice which can help from other Muslims, many of whom have been there and done that:

Tip #1: Make your intention sincere

All work we do should ideally be for the sake of Allah. That includes the task of bringing someone closer to Allah. That of course means this should not be connected to arrogance, thinking you're the teacher and everyone else should be lucky you've embarked on a crusade to save them. Guidance is from Allah. Make Dua and make sincere efforts and remember Allah can also misguide you if He wills (we seek refuge in Allah from that).

Tip #2: Practice what you preach

Not practicing what you preach is wrong and you will lose the confidence of anyone, young or old, once they figure you out. Don't do it.

Tip #3: Use the Quran and Seerah (biography of the Prophet) as Dawa guides

Read and understand those chapters of the Quran which talk about how the Prophets presented the message of Islam to their people. Read the Seerah (for some good Seerah books)to see especially how the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) brought Islam to so many different people, including young people.

As well, talk to Dawa workers, and check out manuals they may have written, like Yahiya Emerick's How to Tell Others About Islam.

Tip #4: Talk to people as if you really don't know them

Don't assume you know someone just by looking at them. You don't know that the Muslim girl in your homeroom who walks through the school's hallways as if they were fashion show catwalks (see Ambe Rehman's perspective on this) is not someone you can talk to about Allah because she looks like a snob. Or that the Muslim guy who you've never seen at Juma at your university is a "bad Muslim". Maybe he was never really taught Islam and has no idea what importance Friday prayers have in Islam, especially for Muslim men.

Tip #5: Smile

Did you know the Prophet was big on smiling? But many "practicing" Muslims seem to have "their faces on upside down" as one speaker once said-frowning and serious.

Smiling, being polite and kind are all part of the manners of the Prophet, which we must exercise in our daily lives. If we want to approach others with Islam, we have to make ourselves approachable. Smiling is key to this.

But note that being approachable does not mean being flirtations with the other gender. There are Islamic rules for how men and women should deal with each other which have to be respected. Dawa is no excuse to have long and private conversations and meetings with the other sex, for example. Set up a system where someone expressing an interest in Islam is referred to someone of the same sex.

Tip #6: Take the initiative and hang out with them

Take the first step and invite someone you may have spoken to a couple of times to sit at lunch together, to check out a hockey game or invite them over for Iftar in Ramadan. Also, share difficulties, sorrows and frustrations. Help with homework, be a shoulder to cry on when depression hits, or just plain listen when your friend is upset, discuss common problems and KEEP THEIR SECRETS. There are few things as annoying as a snitch and backstabber. But an important note: if the problem is of a serious nature,(i.e. your friend is thinking of committing suicide or is taking drugs), notify and consult an adult immediately.

Tip #7: Show them Islam is relevant today, right here, right now

Young people may think Islam is too "old fashioned" and not in tune with the modern age. Prove this wrong. Show how Islam is really about relating to Allah, which any human being can do, anywhere, anytime. Allah is always closer to you than your jugular vein and He hears and knows everything. Encourage friends to ask Allah's help during tests, exams, and in dealing with problems at home with parents and siblings. Also point out how Islam relates to teenagers: Islam gives you focus and an understanding of who you are and where you are going, which most of "teen culture" does not.

Tip #8: Get them involved in volunteer work with you

If you are already involved in the community, get your friend to help out. Ask them to make a flyer for one of your youth group's events or brainstorm for ideas about activities to hold this school year. This involvement makes them feel part of the Muslim community and deepens your friendship, since you are now working together on something beneficial for both of you. Make sure you thank them for their contribution.

Tip #9: Ask them 4 fundamental questions

As your friendship develops, you will notice the topics you discuss may become more serious. You may be discussing, for instance, future goals and plans. Khan recommends four questions to ask that can steer the topic to Allah and Islam:

a. Where am I going in life and what would make me really happy deep down inside?
b. What do I believe?
c. Who should I be grateful to?
d. Did I get to where I am today without the help of anyone?

Tip #10: Emphasize praying five times a day before any other aspect of Islam
A person's main connection with Allah, on a daily basis, is through the prayer five times a day. Don't emphasize any other aspect of Islam until your friend starts making a real effort to pray five times a day. Emphasize the direct connection one has with Allah in prayer. If they are facing a problem, tell them to pray, and to ask Allah for help in Salah and outside this time. When possible, make it a point to pray together during your "hang out time". If your friend begins to pray, that is the first step to other aspects of Islam like giving up swearing, treating parents with respect or dressing Islamically.

Tip# 11: Help instill confidence in adults

Adults, like Bart Simpson's dad Homer, are considered bumbling idiots in the eyes of "teen culture". Your job as a young Muslim is to help turn the tables on this false and unIslamic belief. All you have to do is this: when a Muslim adult does something good (i.e. saving someone's life, donating money to a worthy cause, the Imam gives a good speech, taking good care of his/her family) bring it up in the course of your conversations with your friend and praise the adult in question. Doing this regularly may not only change your friend's perspective, but could lead to them seeing their own parents in a more respectful way.

Tip #12: Support them even when they become more practicing

Remember, just because a person starts practicing Islam more regularly, this does not mean everything will be okay from this point onwards. There will still be hard times, difficulties. There may be times when your friend may have doubts about his or her newfound practice of Islam. Be there to reassure them.

Posted by: disillusionised_german at July 30, 2005 8:32 PM

Spencer writes: "Most people, inside and outside of Official Washington, believe that Islam is peaceful at its core not because of any evidence, but because they really, really wish it were."

I would suggest that is not the main reason why most people refuse to condemn Islam. The main reason is the sea change in thought that has overtaken the West in the last 50 years. This new PC Zeitgeist is the atmosphere, the oxygen most people breathe. It is beyond, behind, beneath what people think or "wish". It's just the overwhelming paradigm of givens that people assume BEFORE they think and wish.

Posted by: metaxy at July 30, 2005 8:51 PM

Cliff May is President for the Foundation of the Defense of Democracies. It may be yet another Washington one-man 501(C)(3) band, designed mainly to support -- well, support Cliff May and possibly one or two others. Nice work if you can get it -- and you can get it, if you try. And no doubt that Foundation for the Defense of Democracies ("vaste programme, monsieur" as De Gaulle said on another occasion) is on the right side, being for America, and the West, and Isrel, and against bad guys, and all that.

But things have gotten just a bit more comlicated recently. It will no longer do just to be for America, and Israel, on the side of "democracy" and the West. No, those Lane-Kirkland days are over, because it is not just the West that is threatened (the West is already riven with conflict, by clever Muslim appeals within Europe to such pre-existing mental conditions as ant-Americanism and antisemitism). No, now you have to really study Islam, and a great deal else, the kind of thing that going to law school and then chucking it all to be a Bright Young Conservative Thing in journalism, or in foundations, or with your own foundation. At a minimum, one now has to learn, as the price of admission, to learn quite a bit about islam, to make sense of it, to ponder the psychology of Muslims of all kinds -- the fanatics, the ordinary mainstream, the loyal-out-of-filial-piety-and-embarrassment Muslims, the "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslims, and even, and perhaps especially, the apostates, and what other than superior intelligence and moral sense might make someone more, rather than less, inclined to become an apostate. And then one has to understand the varieties of moral equivalence, denial, appeasement, even identification,in all of their variation, and how they are to be explained, understood, and countered. Then one has to understand the appeal of Islam to some non-Muslims as the current vehicle for expression of self-discontent, or mental desarroi, or hatred of the circumambient society.

One would have to have read, and re-read, Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira -- and one can be sure that Clifford May has not done that. One would have to read, and re-read, and digest fully, the studies of non-Muslims under Muslim rule, including the scholarly works of Bat Ye'or, but also the studies of Muslim law by Antoine Fattal and Joseph Schacht, and a good deal else. And Clifford May has not done that.

And that's okay, as long as he does not presume to write about, to preach about, some pseudo-distinction that leads the American public to be mislead aobut the nature of Islam, and to be unable, therefore, to judge the wisdom, or lack of it, of policies -- including the continued allocation -- I would call it misallocation -- of resources to suppress, on behalf of "Democracy" (which really means Shi'a rule), the twin wings of the Sunni insurgency (the Al-Zarqawi wing, which regards Shi'a as Infidels, and the Ba'athist wing, which simply wants to continue Sunni rule over those Shi'a, and to avoid the reverse). When he does do that, he invites criticism.

Here's one way that Cliff May could answer, or begin to attempt to answer, what Robert Spencer has noted above.

He could list precisely those passages in the Qur'an, those stories in the Hadith, and those details in the Sira (Life of Muhammad) that he believes are part of the mental makeup of those who belief simply in Islam, which he describes as "a religion, a faith, the basis of a great civilization and culture" (tell us more, tell us where you have gone to learn about that great civilization and culture, and list the great artistic and scientific and spiritual accomplishments of that great civilization and culture, and if you have time, compare them with the accomlishments of similar great civilizations and cultures).

And then tell us what are the passages in Qur'an, the stories in the Hadith (those deemed "authentic" by the most respected muhaddithin) which are the spiritual food not of those who believe in Islam, but those who believe in that dark mutant belief-system, that has nothing to do with, is a perversion of, a blot upon the record of, a terrible and obsence hijacking of, that fair maid Islam -- what Clifford May calls "Islamism."

List ten things that clearly distinguish Islam from Islamism, in their respective attitudes toward Infidels, and give the sources, in the canonical texts, for these differences.

No, list five things.

No, list one thing.

Posted by: Hugh at July 30, 2005 9:03 PM

Spencer wrote: "We need a clear declaration [from Muslim leaders] that Islam considers the aggregate of civilians in America, Britain, Israel and elsewhere to be civilians".

That will not happen until that important tenet of Islam -- the qualitative distinction between Muslims and non-Muslims -- is ejected.

But ejecting tenets and doctrines is not enough, either. After that (which likely won't happen for another 50-100 years), the orthodox Muslims will have to physically punish the heterodox Muslims who persist in continuing to follow the traditional Islam from which those tenets have not been ejected.

In the meantime, we should not be making our self-defense dependent upon the theological quibbles of clerics.

Posted by: metaxy at July 30, 2005 9:10 PM

I suspect Spencer is "appalled" by Cliff May's refusal to condemn Islam itself because Spencer still doesn't see how overwhelmingly dominant the PC Zeitgeist is in the West.

I am equally appalled at how Spencer and Hugh here, given who they are and what they write, persist in their myopia.

Posted by: metaxy at July 30, 2005 9:12 PM

I never really suffered from PC Zeitgeist too badly. Always suspicious. Never swallowed all that multiculturalism 'we are one' bull. If I did,it was certainly not fatal, as I am on this site today. After 9/11, it was like the odor of fish that has set out too long. Islam just smelled bad, always had, but the odor was 'over there.'

Still to get the whole picture does take time, that's for sure. It requires breaking through a lot of mental barriers (humans cannot be that cruel, religion can not be that sick, especially one that has over a billion believers.) Who could believe a billion people would be involved in such an evil plot - Convert or Be Killed?

Posted by: reset at July 30, 2005 9:52 PM

Metaxy,

You say: "In the meantime, we should not be making our self-defense dependent upon the theological quibbles of clerics."

Never have I stated, here or elsewhere, that we should.

You say: "I suspect Spencer is 'appalled' by Cliff May's refusal to condemn Islam itself because Spencer still doesn't see how overwhelmingly dominant the PC Zeitgeist is in the West. I am equally appalled at how Spencer and Hugh here, given who they are and what they write, persist in their myopia."

Sure. I have never noticed the dominance of the PC zeitgeist at all. It's just coincidence that I just published a book called "The Politically Incorrect Guide..." It's just accidental that I have written reams about the oppressive intellectual straitjackets imposed upon us by political correctness and multiculturalist dogma.

In your lust and haste to be critical, which is certainly your prerogative, you seem to have missed and/or misread some of the points that I make here at Jihad Watch so often that sometimes I hesitate to repeat myself for the umpteenth time. And in doing so, you just make yourself look like a dope.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at July 30, 2005 9:57 PM

Robert can speak for himself, but I'm volunteering to speak for me. I'm not myopic about the decline and fall of the Western world, and especially of its universities. It is a subject near, too near, and dear, very dear, to me. I have en passant made frequent reference to the very matters you bring up; perhaps you have not noticed.

But here, in solemn conclave assembled (actually each of us darts in and out of the room at JW, don't we?), we can't really raise at length everything that offends and ails us, and get mad at others for not raising the same issues, even if we are convinced that we have gotten hold of the Deep Explanation of Why Certain Things Happen, or Don't.

Yes, we make allusion to this or that larger issue, or take time out to relieve the anguish of the horrible subject under discussion, with puns and anagrams and clerihews and contests (remember the MESA Nostra Contest? The Saracen's Head Contest? And there are more to come).

In the 1930s, before that Decline and Fall you keep saying is a product of the last 50 years, long before there was all that Foucaldian post-colonial privileging, all that phallic hegemoning, long before the discovery of The Other, long before, brothers and sisters, we have understood how it is that the discombobulation of the re-combobulaton of the jobulation which is to say the reincorporation of the jublilation (oh, sorry, I started to do my Father Divine routine -- I suppose mentioning the 1930s just set me off), before all that other stuff that you (and I, and Robert, and tens of millions of others) deplore, there was a similar refusal to see, a similar denial, similar Life-of-Brian looking-on-the-bright-side, with an enemy that was then staring everyone obviously in the face: Adolf Hitler, and Nazi Germany. And twenty years before that, many people failed to grasp what Lenin, and the Bolsheviks, were all about, until it was too late, although the Russian emigres understood him perfectly -- see the 1919 "Lenine" by Mark Aldanov (Mark Landau). So just possibly the problems you identify as recent are not so recent. It might even be argued that a great many people are very quickly making up for lost time, in surprising and heartening ways. Western Man may have Lost His Way, or perhaps He Had Never Found It in the first place.

I'm a shoemaker, or pretending to be one here at JW. I'm shy and retiring and no ultracrepidarian. I stick to my last.

Posted by: Hugh at July 30, 2005 10:02 PM

Hugh,

Well riposted.

If you peruse the writings of John Henry Cardinal Newman on "liberalism," which is similar but not identical to the modern PC variety, and is most assuredly its ancestor, you will find that the rot was already setting in in the 19th century.

Metaxy thinks the suicidal fog has only been setting in for the last 50 years? What a piker.

But ultimately you're right: it would have been silly, and equally suicidal, to pause in the heat of the Battle of Midway to explain to the American and Japanese troops assembled the complex of political and economic reasons that led them to that hour. (In fact, I doubt the Japanese would have had the patience for that.) Sometimes it is necessary instead simply to fight the battle at hand. But that quotidian battle is on a continuum with its larger causes. To suggest that because we fight the daily battles we suffer from "myopia" I think is as inaccurate as it is uncharitable. Let Metaxy read Oswald Spengler and come back and tell us this cultural decline has been going on for only 50 years. Or Ortega y Gasset. Or Matthew Arnold. A variety of perspectives there, all disclosing new aspects of the problem in various lights. As we attempt to do here today, in our own small way.

Yrs
Robert

Posted by: jihadwatch at July 30, 2005 10:15 PM

Metaxy feels the frustration as do I and everyone here at the inertia and foolishness of our society when such a great threat looms so large. Call it zeitgeist, political correctness suicide, multiculturalism run amok, it is certainly harming our society and makes the future harsh legislation that much more difficult to discuss within our government, much less get approved.

I enjoy reading Metaxy's comments, like all others, and can certainly feel the frustration he feels. Hell, there have been times, as Islam has been 'unveiled' to me that I became nauseous and could not eat. Fortunately that passed and now I feel stronger, not weaker.

Posted by: reset at July 30, 2005 10:45 PM

reset,

"I never really suffered from PC Zeitgeist too badly."

I don't know what factors coalesce to make certain Westerners (I assume you're from the West) like us here at jihadwatch able free ourselves of the spell of the PC Zeigeist. But we remain a beleaguered fringe minority, at best laughed at by the majority, at worst considered "racists" (it doesn't matter that Islam is not a race, the PC Zeigeist tends not to be rational) and "right-wingers" with "fascist" motives.

"Who could believe a billion people would be involved in such an evil plot - Convert or Be Killed?"

This difficult-to-believe conclusion is made that much more difficult when the majority of that billion are tanned, sandal-wearing Third Worlders who wear cool ethnic clothes and belong to an interesting "world culture" and non-Western religion (unlike the evil, shameful Western culture & religion) to be, naturally, "respected" -- all non-negotiable shibboleths of the morbidly self-critical, dominant PC Zeigeist.

Posted by: metaxy at July 30, 2005 11:23 PM

Dear Mr. Spencer,

You wrote: "Never have I stated, here or elsewhere, that we should [make our self-defense dependent upon the theological quibbles of clerics]."

I didn't say you had stated that; I have assumed that your repeated calls for Muslim leaders to specifically and unambiguously repudiate Koran-based terrorism have been rhetorical -- revealing negatively how they continue to fail to do so, not actively expecting them to nor believing that their engagement in the process of doing so would be either appropriately timely or necessary for our public safety.

On another note, you continue, arguing that it is not "just accidental that I have written reams about the oppressive intellectual straitjackets imposed upon us by political correctness and multiculturalist dogma" and that, in my "lust and haste to be critical, which is certainly your prerogative, you seem to have missed and/or misread some of the points that I make here at Jihad Watch so often that sometimes I hesitate to repeat myself for the umpteenth time."

That's where my appallment comes in, similar to your appallment at May: I wouldn't be appalled if you have otherwise displayed the usual ambivalence or equivocation so many others do about this issue. You are in my estimation utterly free of the PC Zeitgeist, and that's great. This makes your repeated parenthetical comments (about, for example, "elitists" and "leaders" and "the media") that indicate you don't see the full magnitude of the cultural problem of the West, including surprise that certain people like May don't seem to get it, that much stranger.

In the situation we are in culturally, appallment is not, in my view, the appropriate response to a May: an all-too-knowing disgust is the appropriate response: "Sigh, even May can't escape the brainwashing gas..." For God's sakes: the Triumvirate of Conservative Leaders of the Free World -- Bush, Blair and Howard -- all repeatedly insist that Islam is a good, beneficent and peaceful religion!!! This is not just a problem of "elitists" or of their cleverly propagandizing interns and researchers in cahoots with consciously manipulating Academic Saidists and petroleum lobbies -- this is not on the level of thought or awareness: this is on the level of unconscious givens, like the air we breathe.

And while you are not Hugh Fitzgerald, you countenance his articles here, and I never saw you weigh in your reservations about his article about how the problem of Western dhimmitude tendencies is not a problem of "Left" or "Right" (when it is most screamingly a preponderantly Leftist problem), nor his dozens of other articles in which he, more explicitly than you, hammers his parenthetical nails into the construction of a conscious propaganda cabal of "elitists" and financiers that obstructs the West's blinders -- rather than a far deeper cultural shift that precisely makes their designs immeasurably easier to insinuate and perpetuate.

Posted by: metaxy at July 30, 2005 11:49 PM

reset,

Thanks for your comments. Frankly, I would go one step further than you, and reveal a dark secret about me that perhaps some here share (but are perhaps too shy or afraid to reveal to others -- or even to themselves). I get so motherfucking frustrated with our PC West sometimes that I actually wish for a gigantic attack by Muslims on the West -- just so those pathological idiots (the PC Westerners) would finally wake up. In my darker, more frustrated moments, I feel that the pleasure of the sight of them waking up and the pleasure of that supreme "I told you so" moment would outweight the horrible tragedy that was the only way to knock some sense into their skulls.

And it is their fault that I feel this way, not mine.

Posted by: metaxy at July 30, 2005 11:56 PM

"his parenthetical nails into the construction of a conscious propaganda cabal of "elitists" and financiers"
--- from a posting above

Whaaa? I am an "elitist." I want to be a financier.

Posted by: Hugh at July 30, 2005 11:57 PM

Dear Mr. Spencer,

"Metaxy thinks the suicidal fog has only been setting in for the last 50 years? What a piker."

I had many times written in posts here in the past that this problem is a very complex historical phenomenon that goes back perhaps 200-300 years, with roots even further back.

However, any historical process has significant blocks of time, and I have found it rhetorically expedient to abbreviate my point of late and concentrate on the very important watershed moment of the post-WWII era in this much larger process. It seemed to me cumbersome, and a little silly, to always include "this problem is a very complex historical phenomenon that goes back perhaps 200-300 years, with roots even further back" every time I wanted to make my brief and pithy point.

Posted by: metaxy at July 31, 2005 12:00 AM

The difference between Islam and Islamism is straightforward: Islam is a religion, a faith, the basis of a great civilization and culture, one that once dominated the world.

Just a small correction. if you limit the notion of "world" to the Middle East and North India, then it might be true, for a few centuries. But China (and the rest of SE Asia), as well as the New World (with its often overlooked, extremely advanced Indian civilizations) was never dominated by Islam and in fact, barely knew about it. The Chinese had such a vague notion of Moslems that they confused Moslems and Jews.

When I read an author and come across such nonsense, I stop right there. No need to go any further.

Posted by: Seymour Paine at July 31, 2005 12:15 AM

Hugh,

"I have en passant made frequent reference to the very matters you bring up; perhaps you have not noticed."

I have noticed. That's precisely why I expressed my appallment at your paradoxical hyper-concentration on "elitists" and "leaders" and oil lobbyists and Saidists. Of course, they are a significantly problematic piece of the puzzle; but they are not the puzzle itself and in fact require the overall puzzle to have the influence they exert.

"we can't really raise at length everything that offends and ails us, and get mad at others for not raising the same issues..."

No, not everything; just what we consider the more important things.

"even if we are convinced that we have gotten hold of the Deep Explanation of Why Certain Things Happen, or Don't."

I don't have an explanation for the kinesis of the PC Zeitgeist; it's a puzzling and aggravating mystery. I have my theories of course, and there are aspects of causation that can be palpated, but most of the time I am merely DIAGNOSING, not delivering an AETIOLOGY.

"In the 1930s, before that Decline and Fall you keep saying is a product of the last 50 years..."

I had many times written in posts here in the past that this problem is a very complex historical phenomenon that goes back perhaps 200-300 years, with roots even further back.

However, any historical process has significant blocks of time, and I have found it rhetorically expedient to abbreviate my point of late and concentrate on the very important watershed moment of the post-WWII era in this much larger process. It seemed to me cumbersome, and a little silly, to always include "this problem is a very complex historical phenomenon that goes back perhaps 200-300 years, with roots even further back" every time I wanted to make my brief and pithy point.

"long before there was all that Foucaldian post-colonial privileging... there was a similar refusal to see, a similar denial, similar Life-of-Brian looking-on-the-bright-side, with an enemy that was then staring everyone obviously in the face: Adolf Hitler, and Nazi Germany."

That's why I say the last 50 years is a significant subset of the larger process of this change. While there was a "similar" refusal to see, it did not take long to galvanize the vast majority onto the right page and to do tragically terrible (and now unthinkable) things in order to win. Almost 5 years after 911, we have no excuse to continue to be floundering -- and there is no other rational cause than that the sociopolitico-cultural process that was already afoot when we were dancing with Hitler and before with the Bolsheviks, etc., has ACCELERATED and STRENGTHENED and SPREAD TO ALL LEVELS at an astonishing rate (with the added twist being that our enemy now are predominately non-white non-Westerners, who are eternally innocent angelic victims of our evil West).

Degrees matter. The PC Zeitgeist (or whatever you want to call it -- I don't care, as long as you see the goddamn thing for what it is) 50 years ago was worse than it was 100 years ago, and it is astoundingly worse now than it was 50 years ago.

Posted by: metaxy at July 31, 2005 12:19 AM

I wouldn't care if there was a million muslim march.

The goal of Islam is to establish itself over every corner of the earth.

Islam has got to go.

Posted by: Voltaire at July 31, 2005 1:06 AM

I wouldn't care if there was a million muslim march.

The goal of Islam is to establish itself over every corner of the earth.

Islam has got to go.

Posted by: Voltaire at July 31, 2005 1:06 AM

America is fighting a war against those who refuse to pull their heads out of their butts, read the Koran critically, and speak the truth about its declared dogmas. Which all boil down to:

Imperialistic Islam, on the march, either tip-toeing or goose-stepping.

This type of strained hair-splitting ("Islam" versus "Islamism") sounds suspiciously like the pre-WW II disussions about the 'differences' between the Trotsky-ites and Stalin-ists.

(One would kill you with a purer form of Marxism than the other, but the end result would be: a quicklime sandwich with you as the dead meat.)

Where do all of these self-appointed 'spokesmen for reason' get the glib nerve to speak for the mute majority of Muslims?

It used to be an adage that "Silence is assent".

I see no need to abandon it with the Mohammedans.

Their lack of noticable protest about the purported 'hijacking' of their religion (the pathetic "50 Man March on Washington D.C." earlier this year) means one of two things:

A) there ain't no real hijacking going on,

or:

B) they are the biggest bunch of moral shirkers in recent human memory.

I say 85% of the former and 14% of the latter.

And maybe 1% of naturally decent people, raised in Islam, who nevertheless remain unafraid to call a Muslim maniac a Muslim maniac (especially when such jihadist militants use a suicide vest or carbomb or exploding backpack to make their 'religious' exclamation point for Allah). Even at the risk of reprisals from said madmen.

Don't we get enough of this brand of soft-pedalled disinformation from the Islamopologists themselves without their infidel targets mouthing it as well?

Posted by: BigSleep at July 31, 2005 1:27 AM

BigSleep,

"Don't we get enough of this brand of soft-pedalled disinformation from the Islamopologists themselves without their infidel targets mouthing it as well?"

We get far more of it -- a THOUSAND times more -- from the "infidels" than we do from the Muslims themselves.

The only person -- besides myself (and I have virtually zero influence) -- to call sufficient attention to this problem seems to be Mike Savage, from what I can tell. I'm beyond appalled.

Posted by: metaxy at July 31, 2005 1:58 AM

Metaxy,

In asserting that because I speak of leaders succumbing to PC that I am unaware that it is part of the air we breathe is assuming too much, and needlessly. I stand by my original comments: you must read here only selectively. I have many times eviscerated not just the PC of Bush and Blair but that of plain old ordinary folks who feel it necessary to repeat in the Wisconsin State Journal (this is one I used on the radio yesterday; it's a real article, but I did not write about it here) that Islam is peace etc. Why? The politically correct lockstep. Where did they get the idea that they must dance this dance? Why, they never thought about it at all. It's part of the air we breathe. For reasons why I have not pointed that out as much as you would like, please see my post above again.

You contradict yourself, as well as assume too much, when you take my surprise at May's breathing the gas as evidence that I do not believe the gas exists. You say, why, Bush and Blair have breathed it! I thought invoking "leaders" was a sign that one didn't get just how much this gas had penetrated. Oops! Anyway, I have met May. I don't know him well, but my dismay nevertheless comes from what I know of him personally, not from some "myopia" that any population, large or small, has been able to escape breathing the gas.

Your statements about Hugh and "leftists" are simply bizarre, and indicate that you don't really have any idea what Hugh is getting at. Which brings me to my final point: you are free to think of Hugh and me as dopes as much as we are free to think of you as such. No one has conferred any authority or infallibility on us; we are here merely as analysts, and you are free to take our analyses or leave them. You seem to have chosen to excoriate them and us, repeatedly, on grounds which I think indicate that you don't quite understand what we are saying or why we are saying it.

That's your affair, but let me remind you that you are of course free to go elsewhere, to find thinkers more to your liking, or even to set up your own weblog in which you may set the world straight. Whether you stay or whether you go, this is the last response I am going to make to your posts, which appear to me to be so anxious to be critical as to be unconcerned about accuracy, such that with your "50 years/200 years" explanation you are now claiming for yourself the same prerogative of abbreviation ("It seemed to me cumbersome, and a little silly, to always include...") that you seem unwilling to grant that Hugh and I could possibly be using in not constantly reminding the world of the ubiquity or age of the West's suicidal PC impulse.

You say that "The only person -- besides myself (and I have virtually zero influence) -- to call sufficient attention to this problem seems to be Mike Savage, from what I can tell. I'm beyond appalled."

I'm glad to hear that. I have appeared on Savage's show many times, and will probably appear there again, and I hope one day he will clue me in about what only you and he know.

In the meantime, I am sure there is a Savage weblog or discussion board out there in cyberspace somewhere. There you can be free of us dimwits who are so stupid as to be appalled. Aufwiedersehn, old man.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at July 31, 2005 2:10 AM

"You say, why, Bush and Blair have breathed it! I thought invoking "leaders" was a sign that one didn't get just how much this gas had penetrated. "

One can invoke leaders to distinguish them from the common man at large, implying that the problem is one of elitists and intelligentsia rather than of a sociological Zeitgeist of which the elitists and intelligentsia are merely one symptom, a less disquieting symptom than the apparent fact that the vast majority of the common man embodies the Zeigeist -- less disquieting because the elitists and intelligentsia (at least the "leader" and "media" component among them) will in Western democracies swim with the tide of popular opinion, the more so when that opinion is impassioned and outraged which, as Oriana Fallaci our canary in the coalmine can see, it is not. The main reason that FDR interned Japanese (and Germans and Italians) is because the American public DEMANDED it. We seem light years away from that climate now.

Or one can invoke leaders -- conservative and/or Republican leaders who should know better -- as a telling symptom of the larger disease.

"you are free to take our analyses or leave them. You seem to have chosen to excoriate them and us, repeatedly, on grounds which I think indicate that you don't quite understand what we are saying or why we are saying it."

I am simply calling attention to what I consider to be a crucial lacuna in your otherwise excellent and rare analyses. Surely, no one is immune from having lacunae. There is a small chance my assessment is correct. You may care about that possibility, or not.

"your posts, which appear to me to be so anxious to be critical as to be unconcerned about accuracy, such that with your "50 years/200 years" explanation you are now claiming for yourself the same prerogative of abbreviation ("It seemed to me cumbersome, and a little silly, to always include...") that you seem unwilling to grant that Hugh and I could possibly be using in not constantly reminding the world of the ubiquity or age of the West's suicidal PC impulse."

My abbreviation does not respect the substance of my point: whether it's roots are 50 years, 100 years, or 1000 years, I'm still calling attention to a specific problem. Your lacuna, on the other hand, along with frequently repeated parenthetical phrases which I've already mentioned before, have tended to convey the absence of that specific problem in its full dimension. I realize that it would be cumbersome for you too, even if you agreed with me, to take the trouble to make explicit everywhere and everytime you post an article the specific problem to my liking. But I've been reading jihadwatch regularly and nearly completely for at least the last six months and I have found far too many crucial instances where you not only could have and should have made the specific problem explicit, but you also included comments that had the effect of undermining or at least counteracting it. That's my assessment.

At any rate, I'm heartened to read in your last response to me that you do believe the PC atmosphere is like a prevailing "gas" that the vast majority of people in the West breathe, as it were, affecting their actions and reactions prior to thought and choice, and therefore informing and deforming their thoughts and choices. I'm heartened even if it comes explicitly only buried at the bottom of one of the many fleeting threads here, and even if it comes at the price of you calling me a "dope" and a "piker". I hope to see it reflected more in your future articles, and I don't care if you or Hugh lash out at me and bite my damn head off or passive-aggressively mock me with sly erudite humor for daring to have hope that you two will modify your tactics to satisfy my concerns: I have the right to my concerns, and I have the right to hope by them, and by gum, I'll continue.

Posted by: metaxy at July 31, 2005 3:10 AM

PS:

I not only heard your last appearance on Mike Savage's radio show, I posted the following comment: "I don't think Spencer came off as "weak" on the Savage radio show. [the poster "ecil_man" had made that charge]. He made all the relevant points, and he made them with a calm and civil tone -- that's important for listeners who might be affected (infected) with the Leftist virus to one degree or the other to hear."

I nevertheless hope that someday you will be moved to take the extra step to SHOUT FROM THE ROOFTOPS like Mike does so many times he's hoarse that "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder!". Or at least once every blue moon.

Posted by: metaxy at July 31, 2005 3:22 AM

Islamism cannot exist without its host source= Islam.

Posted by: DCWatson at July 31, 2005 4:00 AM

Quote: Scholar and former Pakistani diplomat Husain Hoqqani quotes a booklet by Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure), an Islamist group reportedly linked to the recent London bombings, which declares “the U.S., Israel and India as existential enemies of Islam,” and lists among its goals “the restoration of Islamic sovereignty to all lands where Muslims were once ascendant, including Spain, Bulgaria, Hungary, Cyprus, Sicily, Ethiopia, Russian Turkistan and Chinese Turkistan. . . Even parts of France reaching 90 kilometers outside Paris."

Heres wat our Bismillah Broadcasting Corp, has to say about LeT:
Lashkar emerged as one of the most prominent groups involved in militant activities in Kashmir.

It is alleged to have gained more support because of its role in the 1999 Kargil conflict with India and later on by sending its members on suicide missions to blow up military cantonments in different parts of Indian-administered Kashmir.

Lashkar's professed ideology went beyond merely challenging Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir.

In a pamphlet entitled "Why Are We Waging Jihad?" the group defined its agenda as the restoration of Islamic rule over all parts of India.

In 2000 its activists carried out controversial armed attacks inside the Red Fort in Delhi - one of the most audacious attacks carried out by militants.

Lashkar-e-Toiba may not exist anymore, but there has been no shortage of groups to replace it.

Trust it on beeb to relegate butchers of 20000 Hindus as mere militants.

Posted by: Vikrant_Camberleykar at July 31, 2005 5:52 AM

More about "moderate Muslims" from LGF:

Moderate UK Islamic Leader: No Such Thing As Al Qaeda
British police invited the most respected Islamic cleric in Birmingham to join them in a press conference promoting cooperation between Muslims and law enforcement.

They were shocked ... shocked! ... when Sheikh Mohammad Naseem proceeded to call Tony Blair a liar, and said DNA evidence is meaningless, the bombing suspects could have been “innocent passengers,” and there’s no such thing as Al Qaeda. (Hat tip: m.)

The most senior Islamic cleric in Birmingham claimed yesterday that Muslims were being unjustly blamed in the war on terrorism and that the eight suspects in the two bombing attacks on London “could have been innocent passengers”.

Mohammad Naseem, the chairman of the city’s central mosque, called Tony Blair a “liar” and “unreliable witness” and questioned whether CCTV footage issued of the suspected bombers was of the perpetrators. He said that Muslims “all over the world have never heard of an organisation called al-Qa’eda”.

Mr Naseem, who was speaking after police seized Yasin Hassan Omar in Birmingham, delivered his unprompted outburst when he was invited to a press conference with West Midlands police and Birmingham city council to help calm fears of racial or religious tension after the arrest. His comments shocked senior police officers. ...

To the obvious embarrassment of council officials and police standing next to him, Mr Naseem said the Government and security services “were not to be relied upon”.

He said: “Tony Blair has told lies on going to Iraq and in a court of law if a witness has proved to be a liar he ceases to be a reliable witness. So we cannot give our blind trust to the Government. To have that trust it is important that the process of law should be independent, open and transparent. I am also sad that unfortunately the impression has been given that Muslims are to be targeted in this war against terror. There seems to be a directive to target Muslims. Why do we not have an open mind about this?

“Muslim bashing seems to be more earnest than the need for national unity and harmony. Terrorists can be anybody - we will have to see [whether the bombers are Muslims]. The process is not open; the process is not transparent; the process is not independent. I do not have faith in the system as it stands.”

Mr Naseem is one of the most respected Muslims in the city and is considered a moderate. He has regular meetings with the chief constable to discuss religious harmony.

Mr Naseem said that while it was vital that terrorism was stamped out and that there was never any justification for it, the Government had not helped by going to war in Iraq.

Dismissing the Prime Minister’s insistence that the war had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks, he said: “Tony Blair … is not going to be perceived as a reliable witness. His comments could motivate someone to take the law into his own hands. Some people have been caught but I have not seen any evidence. The process of law is not open.”

Asked about the suspects’ DNA being found at the scene of the first attacks, he said: “DNA can match you, but that does not mean you are going to commit a crime. Thousands of youths are passing by and caught on CCTV, so how do you know it is them?”

Posted by: Terminator at July 31, 2005 6:43 AM

Vittorio Feltri was right when he wrote at “Libero” that the decadence of Westerners is to be identified with their illusion of being able to deal amiably with the Enemy, and even less with their fear. A fear that induces them to meekly host the enemy, to attempt to conquer him with sympathy, hoping that he will allow himself to be absorbed; while [the enemy] is the one who wants to absorb.

And this does not even take into account our familiarity with being invaded, humiliated, and betrayed. Like I said in “The Apocalypse,“ [it’s] the general attitude of resignation. Resignation generates apathy. Apathy generates inertia. Inertia generates indifference and, besides impeding moral judgment, indifference suffocates the of self-defense; that is, the instinct to fight back.
http://mysteryachievement.blogspot.com/2005/07/enemy-we-treat-like-friend-part-ii.html

Posted by: hutchrun at July 31, 2005 7:02 AM

I summon ia786 and KingTolerance to explain how Robert is wrong. To save time, I have already read the following arguments:

1. Bin Laden is a Wahabist, and some parts of Wahabism are against the Qur'an.

2. There are lots of Muslims who don't believe in violent jihad.

Argument (1) is no good because the "refutations" of Wahabism that ia786 supplied did not mention the question of violent jihad. They just argued against other Wahabi beliefs that aren't relevant here.

Argument (2) is no good because we're not trying to ascertain what the Muslim population of the world think. We know there are peaceful Muslims, the question is: is Islam itself peaceful?

What I would like to see is an argument based on Islamic principles that shows convincingly that the terrorists are wrong. The various attempts that we've seen since 9/11 have all left large loopholes. The most recent fatwas have all condemned the killing of "innocent civilians", but have left "innocent civilians" undefined. Can anyone do better?

Posted by: Viking5 at July 31, 2005 7:29 AM

“The poison lay in the very core of Islamic theocracy. Under it there can be only one faith, one people and one all overriding authority. The State is a religious trust administered solely by His people (the faithful) acting in obedience to the Commander of the Faithful, who was in theory, and very often in practice too, the supreme General of the Army of militant Islam (Janud). There could be no place for non-believers. Even Jews and Christians could not be full citizens of it, though they somewhat approached the Muslims by reason of their being ‘People of the Book’ or believers in the Bible, which the Prophet of Islam accepted as revealed.

“As for the Hindus and Zoroastrians, they had no place in such a political system. If their existence was tolerated, it was only to use them as hewers of wood and drawers of water, as tax-payers, ‘Khiraj-guzar’, for the benefit of the dominant sect of the Faithful. They were called Zimmis or people under a contract of protection by the Muslim State on condition of certain services to be rendered by them and certain political and civil disabilities to be borne by them to prevent them from growing strong. The very term Zimmi is an insulting title. It connotes political inferiority and helplessness like the status of a minor proprietor perpetually under a guardian; such protected people could not claim equality with the citizens of the Muslim theocracy.

http://voi.org/books/tcqp/chi7.htm

Posted by: hutchrun at July 31, 2005 7:52 AM

"Islam has got to go."

You can say that all you want, It doesn't mean anything. You are not being reasonable or even realistic, no wonder no one takes guys like you seriously.

Islam will not just disappear, Muslims will not just abandon Islam like that, no, no, no, it doesn’t work that way.

Islam is a way of life, a spiritual way followed by more than a Billion people across the World. People that are Black, White, Brown, Yellow, Islam is a universal message that knows no bounds, Islam is open for everyone.

That is what more than 1 billion Muslims do, we practise Islam peacefully, we follow the Muslim leaders, we follow the advice of the Prophet, we stick to the largest groups and we avoid extremism, as Hazrat Ali (r.a.) said: Extremism is ignorance.

That is all, your comments are actually quite ridiculous, you should refrain from making selfish remarks. You should be reaching out to moderate Muslims and doing more against extremist Muslims, at the moment you are doing the opposite.

Posted by: ia786 at July 31, 2005 8:54 AM

ia786

Why have Muslims become a menace to Britain, carrying out mass suicide-slaughters, violence and fascistic aggression whilst Hindus and Sikhs integrate into British society whilst maintaining their religious and cultural traditions?

In short, why are so many Muslims full of hatred, fascism and bigotry?

Posted by: Zico at July 31, 2005 8:59 AM

"Argument (1) is no good because the "refutations" of Wahabism that ia786 supplied did not mention the question of violent jihad. They just argued against other Wahabi beliefs that aren't relevant here."

If you had taken the time to read what I had posted you would have found them to be very significant and important. Please take the time to read them again.

Wahabism has no leg to stand on in Islam.

Now what do you mean by violent Jihad????????

Terrorist outrages?!?!? 7-7, Madrid, Beslan.

Those have no grounds in Islam. Kashmir, Chechnya, Palestine, well those are completely different issues and I think you are confusing the two. Having the right to resist brutal occupying forces is something completely different.

All humans have a right to self defence right????

"Argument (2) is no good because we're not trying to ascertain what the Muslim population of the world think. We know there are peaceful Muslims, the question is: is Islam itself peaceful?"

Yes.

Posted by: ia786 at July 31, 2005 9:00 AM

"ia786

Why have Muslims become a menace to Britain, carrying out mass suicide-slaughters, violence and fascistic aggression whilst Hindus and Sikhs integrate into British society whilst maintaining their religious and cultural traditions?

In short, why are so many Muslims full of hatred, fascism and bigotry?"

weak.

Posted by: ia786 at July 31, 2005 9:01 AM

Shirki:

"All humans have a right to self defence right????"

We are defending ourselves against hateful bigots and lying "moderates" like yourself. You don't like it?

How come you are not on the re-immigration trail back to the Mohammedan planet yet?

Posted by: Terminator at July 31, 2005 10:10 AM

"We are defending ourselves against hateful bigots and lying "moderates" like yourself. You don't like it?"

Weak. I am a peaceful Moderate (true) British Muslim aiming to protect everyone from scum (terrorists and death worshippers like u)

"How come you are not on the re-immigration trail back to the Mohammedan planet yet?"

My parents and family have gone to a Muslim country for a holiday, they will be back home in a few weeks. This is my home country, death worshipper.

Posted by: ia786 at July 31, 2005 10:26 AM

Shirki, Ia:

You are a Mohammedan living in England. Temporarily.
Enjoy it while it lasts!

Posted by: Terminator at July 31, 2005 10:38 AM

ia786: "Terrorist outrages?!?!? 7-7, Madrid, Beslan. Those have no grounds in Islam. Kashmir, Chechnya, Palestine, well those are completely different issues and I think you are confusing the two. Having the right to resist brutal occupying forces is something completely different. All humans have a right to self defence right????"

So are you saying that your prophet Muhammad and his subsequent followers only used violence in pure self-defense? In order to "resist brutal occupying forces"? Because if not, then aggressive violence most certainly does have its grounds in Islam.

Offensive War to spread Islam

Posted by: Caroline at July 31, 2005 11:18 AM

ia786

It is not 'weak' - it is a very pertinent question and it cuts to the heart of the matter. Why is there so much hatred, bigotry, intolerance and fascistic aggression inside Britain's Muslim communuity, including suicide-massacres, whilst Hindus and Sikhs have integrated into British society whilst maintaining their culture and religion? Why? Why are Muslims the only ones out of all of Britain's many ethnic and religious groups to have rejected tolerance, plurality and equality and instead be actively riddled with bigotry, intolerance, violence and fascism?

Why?

Posted by: Zico at July 31, 2005 11:30 AM

Islam is a religion, a faith, the basis of a great civilization and culture, one that once dominated the world.

Attn Cliff May, Attn: Bush, Attn: All.

Islam is not a religion, it is an ideology, a cradle to grave ideology that encompasses all aspects of life in the sphere of human endeavor, social, political, economioc, cultural.

The only religious part of Islam are the Five Pillars, the rest of Islam is Shari'a and Jihad.
And Shari'a has strict rulings and laws for every aspect of a persons life, from banking, to owning land,to the most private aspect of a persons life, their personal relationships and sexuality.

Posted by: Giaour at July 31, 2005 2:50 PM

The difference between islam and islamism is that the second uses islamic doctine and marxist methodes. It uses nihilism.
The problem is before using terrorism, islam uses wars, slaving and others, for this, at the end islam and islamism are the same, only like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde but the same.

Posted by: Franze at July 31, 2005 2:51 PM

ia786

"All humans have a right to self defence right????"

Yes, but not through the vehicle of their religion. The modern West had to learn this through many painful centuries of debate, protest, religious wars, repression, revolution, and legal reformation.

Now, in the modern West, Christians (or any other religious body or religious culture) are not allowed to take up arms and fight in defence of their particular interpretation of Christianity (there are hundreds of splinters of Christianity now). Our liberal President Clinton forcibly and with weapons stopped one such Christian, David Koresh, who had stockpiled weapons with an eye to "self-defence".

Muslims need to learn this bit of hard-won wisdom the West has learned: religion should be a private affair, one that of course can be shared among family and fellow worshippers in their house of worship and during special events and rituals -- but religion is not a political or legal vehicle.

If members of a religion feel threatened as members of that religion, they must hand over their self-defense to the secular authorities, whose job it is to protect all individuals and groups under their aegis, whether religious (of any and all religions) or non-religious.

Similarly, if members of a religion feel their values are not being sufficiently represented by the laws and politics of the land, they are free to enter the marketplace of ideas and try to persuade people (through books, radio, TV, speeches, lobbying, peaceful boycotts, peaceful protests, etc.) to elect representatives who promise to respect their wishes. Otherwise, members of a religion are not allowed to commandeer the institutions of law and politics. That is the wisdom the modern West has learned -- as I say, we learned it painfully, after many mistakes and many lives were lost.

Islamic culture has serious psychological hindrances to accepting this piece of Western wisdom, because of their obsession with seeing everything in life as having to be Islamic, and their psychological inability to compartmentalize different spheres of existence -- political, social, legal, and private.

A further hindrance to the Muslim changing his mentality and getting out of the Islamic Box is that he sees any wisdom coming from the West as a threat, and as automatically inferior and blasphemous.

In the meantime, while we wait around for Muslims to enter Modernity, we must defend ourselves against those particular Muslims (who can materialize out of any country, at any moment) who on the basis of that inability to compartmentalize, seek to mass-murder us.

Posted by: metaxy at July 31, 2005 3:07 PM

Metaxy taxes my patience. He/she has this penchant for blaming overthing on PC (PC Zeitgeist), which also happens to be the dogma of the extreme right.

Take notice Metaxy the origins of this PC Zeitgeist are Christian... Judge not less ye be not judged, turn the other cheek, take the beam out of thy own eye before telling your brother about the mote in his.

Now if you want to solve the problem, then you had better start working on Christian exegesis, and reworking Christian ideology, null it out so you can bring Christianity back to it's Judaic origins (Exodus, Deuterony, Leviticus) which had no problem at all of calling a spade and a spade, and inciting war and slaughter against the enemy such as the Amelkites and Philistines.

You might also blame the PC Zeietgeist in America on a thing called the Declaration of Independence (all men are create equal - men only, no mention of women) and the Constitution which acknowledged the supreme sovereignty of the individual (Roe v Wade upheld that notion of individual sovereignty over the right of the state to own and legislate the body).

No Metaxy, the problem is not PC Zeitgeist at all, but sloppy thinking, laziness on the part of the consuming public, greed, corruption on the part of leaders (like Bush Cheney Clinton), and the fundamental antipathy of the American towards "intellectualism" and curiousity as manifested in their selected CEO Uncurious George.

I note with constant dismay Metaxy that you and others seem to have no understanding of human nature, issues, psychology and even history, but you do have a suitcase full of rants and simplistic and unworkable solutions.. in other words with friends like you who needs enemies, you are your own worst enemy.

You turn me off completely, and make it difficult to continue work, as hard as I do, against the Jihad. Sometimes I just get so disgusted because of you and those like you, that I want to throw my hands up and walk off in disgust, leaving you to the fate that inevitably awaits.. and I probably would, did I not have ll grandchildren and a great grandchild who must live in the world that you are creating, with your stupidity and self defeating rants and accusations.

Posted by: Giaour at July 31, 2005 3:11 PM

Vexatious Metaxy.

After I wrote the above response. I happened upon your last response to IA786, and contratemps your spleen venting name calling and blaming of Liberals and PC Zeitgeist.

I found your response to IA786, quite reasoned,even handed and accurate and in fact quotable.

You must have calmed down quite a bit from the first response to the last.

You do much better when you are intellectual, you do much worse when you are emotional (We all do BTW).

Posted by: Giaour at July 31, 2005 3:44 PM

"This is my home country"

No it is NOT!

You are a muhammedan - foreign body - a tick...

Your claim is as preposterous and perverse as parasite's claim of ownership of the host organism.

A country is mine only if I am hers.
A country is mine only if she loves and respects me as much as I love and respect her.

I dare you to ask her if she recognizes you as her own. She would spit you in the face and tell you to get lost!
And to take with you Ken Livingstone and the rest of the traitorous multiculti apostles.

Posted by: thomas. h at July 31, 2005 5:02 PM

ia???

Christopher Hitchens, who is so sympathetic to the Palestinians that he co-wrote a book with Edward Said to counter Joan Peters and Daniel Goldhagen has no sympathy whatsoever for the scum jihaddi who claim they are only fighting "the occupation". They hate Jews wherever they are because they are Jews. They also hate Muslims who aren't the same kind of Muslim they are, or if they deem them insufficiently Muslim. They kill homosexuals and recently even murdered a young married couple because they thought they were flouting the Hamas notion of chastity and public morals by riding in a car together to go to the beach.

Honourable and acceptable political solutions have been held out to the PA. Instead, Arafat orchestrated phony outrages and ran propaganda campaigns to ensure there was no peace so he could go on syphoning off billions in aid money and remain accountable to no one.

Anwar Sadat said it so well when he said, "They weep crocodile tears over the blood of the sons of Egypt and raise the price of oil."

"Palestine" has been used like a football for all sorts of despots to consolidate their own power. The last thing the Arab leaders ever want to see is peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Posted by: waterdragon52 at July 31, 2005 5:59 PM

Giaour [having seen your subsequent post, I still have comments to make about your previous post],

"the origins of this PC Zeitgeist are Christian"

In part it is, but the historical process is far more complex than that. The complexity can be simplified (losing a lot, but still retaining the pith) by saying that the problem and defect of the PC Zeitgeist represents TOO MUCH HEALTH -- too much of a good thing -- the virtues of self-criticism and tolerance taken to a morbid extreme.

"Now if you want to solve the problem, then you had better start working on Christian exegesis, and reworking Christian ideology"

It's already been done -- over the last 300 years in the West, after extraordinary pain, discussion, debate, protest and physical conflict. Let's not insult our hundreds of thousands of ancestors who had to go through all that frustration and conflict by blithely forgetting about all that they did to help us evolve a secular civilization and thinking we have to start all over again, just because we are so ignorant we can't see our forest for our trees. On the flip side of the equation, let's not disrespect their painful and ingenious labors by mangling and botching the genius of balance they worked out, and taking good things to an extreme hermetically sealed off from the oxygen of imperfection, which only fanatics obsessed with perfection (Utopianist Leftists & Muslims) do.

And finally, let's not close our eyes to the monumental fuckup of the Western Balance which has been, slowly but surely, woven like a vast and glittering shroud masquerading as a brand new dress to wear to the Ball (the Emperor's Clothes) called the PC Zeitgeist.

"You might also blame the PC Zeietgeist in America on a thing called the Declaration of Independence"

Again, the PC Zeitgeist is not some alien evil spore coming out of nowhere -- it is a paradoxically complex phenomenon arising out of GOOD THINGS, taken to BAD EXTREMES.

"No Metaxy, the problem is not PC Zeitgeist at all, but sloppy thinking, laziness on the part of the consuming public, greed, corruption on the part of leaders (like Bush Cheney Clinton), and the fundamental antipathy of the American towards "intellectualism" and curiousity as manifested in their selected CEO Uncurious George."

All these bad things you list are perennial constants in all societies, and don't explain why now in 2005 we are floundering around like limpets or lemmings to suicidally rush over a hill, when just 60 years ago we mustered our greatness to do the terrible and tragic but necessary things we had to do to stop another megalomaniac madness seeking to spread its brand of evil across the globe. Now we've sunk so low -- not because of normal bad qualities that every society has, but because of a new weird morbidly self-critical pathology -- we for the most part (except for the lunatic fringe here and there) can't tell the difference between our superior goodness and Hitler's or Mohammed's screamingly inferior and barbaric evil.

Posted by: metaxy at July 31, 2005 6:12 PM

ia786,

Thanks for replying. I did look at your links, and while they make a detailed argument against Wahabism, they don't address the question of jihad.

You're right that "violent jihad" is too broad, because it covers even defensive wars, which are allowed in Islam (and in Judaism and Christianity as I understand it). What I was looking for in the rebuttal to Wahabism was a refutation of violent jihad as understood by Al Qaeda, ie a war on civilian populations, fought to restore the rule of Sharia to the Muslim world.

One of the documents you linked to said the following: "To a Wahhabi-Salafi, all those who differ with them, including Sunni Muslims, Shi’ite Muslims, Christians, and Jews, are infidels who are fair targets." It then goes on to discuss several ways in which Wahabi theology differs from traditional Sunni teachings. But it doesn't discuss the Wahabi opinion that "infidels" (however that may be defined) are legitimate targets of violence.

What you appear to be saying, ia, is that terrorists are Wahabi, and Wahabism is against Islam, and therefore terrorism is against Islam. This is a non-sequitur. I might as well say that Wahabis refuse to drink alcohol, and Wahabism is against Islam, therefore refusing alcohol is against Islam!

A proper refutation of terrorism must specifically attack the claims that Islam allows attacks on non-combatants (including the civilian population of the USA), and that violence of any kind is allowed to establish Sharia states.

Posted by: Viking5 at July 31, 2005 8:28 PM

We all had to start at the beginning with the belief that Islam wasn't all that bad at its core, but it was at the extremes that it had its evils and perversions. It isn't easy for people who believe implicitly in freedom of religion to suddenly classify a world-wide religion of 1.2 billion as an evil cult that hasn't managed to corrupt all the people who think they understand it, but actually don't, either because they listen to a cleric who preaches from the peaceful verses, or because they have rejected the doctrine of abrogation that replaced all the peaceful verses with the verse of the sword.

One step at a time.

At least he has begun the journey.

Posted by: Pangloss at July 31, 2005 11:30 PM

Viking,

You are unkind to Christianity. Violence in defense is directly counter to Christ's teachings. When the Pharisees and Roman soldiers arrested Jesus at Gethsemane and someone, either Peter or a bystander (the four gospels vary slightly in the details), cut off the ear of the assistant of the High Priest, Jesus miraculously healed the soldier's ear and chided the swordsman for hurting someone in defense of him.

Matthew 26:52
Jesus then said, "Put your sword back, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword."

Therefore, defensive war is not a Christian religious concept.

Why do Christians engage in defensive war, and even in wars of offense? Because they are human, sinful and imperfect. Because they are scared to die and let all their family and friends die at the hands of an enemy. Because they do not trust in Heaven, and in God's mercy, as much as Jesus would. This is a sign of a human failing. It is not a sign of Christian moral teaching.

And speaking as a morally imperfect human I am very glad that we have soldiers who will, should it be required, kill on our behalf. I'm not perfect enough to blithely accept the death of myself and all I hold dear, even with the promise of a shared eternity in Heaven.

Summing up...

It is false moral equivalence to claim that Christianity and Islam have similar moral teachings on the issue of warfare. They most certainly do not. Such an equivalence is wishful thinking, contradicted by the facts.

Posted by: Pangloss at July 31, 2005 11:53 PM

ia786 as a true muslim and beleiver, says

`That is what more than 1 billion Muslims do, we practise Islam peacefully, we follow the Muslim leaders, we follow the advice of the Prophet, we stick to the largest groups and we avoid extremism, as Hazrat Ali (r.a.) said: Extremism is ignorance.`
In the past he has also denied that hate verses exist in the Koran.

So the Koran is ignorant, Sudayis at the main mosque in Mecca is ignorant, Qaradhawi is ignorant, those 60 million hindus, 3million bangladeshis, 1 million sudanese victims had to die as a result of these `moderates` ignorance?

Posted by: leavingtheleft at July 31, 2005 11:59 PM

Pangloss:

Heinrich Heine once wrote a clever poem titled "Marie Antoinette," in which the ghost of everyone’s favorite French queen entertains her guests with "strictest etiquette." The irony of the poem is that neither Antoinette nor her guests realize that their heads are missing. They were all beheaded during the French Revolution, but without their heads, they don’t have the brains to acknowledge their headlessness.

Islam is currently in a similar situation. Muhammad’s empire of faith has managed to thrive in the modern world for one simple reason: Muslims have kept Muhammad’s dark past a secret. Indeed, they have gone beyond keeping it a secret; they have somehow convinced themselves (and many others) that Muhammad was an outstanding moral example, perhaps even the greatest moral example of all time. Perpetuating this fraud has been, in my opinion, the most stupendous deception in world history.

http://answering-islam.org.uk/Authors/Wood/islam_beheaded.htm

Posted by: leavingtheleft at August 1, 2005 12:04 AM

Viking:

Anas (May God be Pleased with Him) related that the Prophet (saws) said:
Go in the name of Allah and fight the enemy. But do not kill the elderly,
Children, or women. Do not be transgressors, for Allah loves the muhsinin.
(Those who keep the highest standards of discipline)

During his Caliphate, Abu Bakr as-Siddiq (May God be Pleased with Him) advised Usama (May God be Pleased with Him) as he was preparing to lead his troops:

Do not be treacherous, do not backstab, do not transgress, do not mutilate,
And do not kill children, the elderly, or women. If people are in their shrines
Leave them alone.”

Posted by: ia786 at August 1, 2005 4:31 AM

Viking:

Anas (May God be Pleased with Him) related that the Prophet (saws) said:
Go in the name of Allah and fight the enemy. But do not kill the elderly,
Children, or women. Do not be transgressors, for Allah loves the muhsinin.
(Those who keep the highest standards of discipline)

During his Caliphate, Abu Bakr as-Siddiq (May God be Pleased with Him) advised Usama (May God be Pleased with Him) as he was preparing to lead his troops:

Do not be treacherous, do not backstab, do not transgress, do not mutilate,
And do not kill children, the elderly, or women. If people are in their shrines
Leave them alone.”

Posted by: ia786 at August 1, 2005 4:32 AM

Viking:

Anas (May God be Pleased with Him) related that the Prophet (saws) said:
Go in the name of Allah and fight the enemy. But do not kill the elderly,
Children, or women. Do not be transgressors, for Allah loves the muhsinin.
(Those who keep the highest standards of discipline)

During his Caliphate, Abu Bakr as-Siddiq (May God be Pleased with Him) advised Usama (May God be Pleased with Him) as he was preparing to lead his troops:

Do not be treacherous, do not backstab, do not transgress, do not mutilate,
And do not kill children, the elderly, or women. If people are in their shrines
Leave them alone.”

Posted by: ia786 at August 1, 2005 4:32 AM

ia786 with cattle ecrement.

I. Al-Ghazali

`[O]ne must go on jihad (i.e., warlike razzias or raids) at least once a year...one may use a catapult against them [non-Muslims] when they are in a fortress, even if among them are women and children. One may set fire to them and/or drown them`

`the dhimmi must hang his head while the official takes hold of his beard and hits [the dhimmi] on the protruberant bone beneath his ear [i.e., the mandible]… They are not permitted to ostentatiously display their wine or church bells…their houses may not be higher than the Muslim’s, no matter how low that is. The dhimmi may not ride an elegant horse or mule; he may ride a donkey only if the saddle[-work] is of wood. He may not walk on the good part of the road. They [the dhimmis] have to wear [an identifying] patch [on their clothing], even women, and even in the [public] baths…[dhimmis] must hold their tongue…. [2] (From the Wagjiz, written in 1101 A.D. Emphasis added.)`

II. Tabandeh

`Islam and its peoples must be above the infidels, and never permit non-Muslims to acquire lordship over them. Since the marriage of a Muslim woman to an infidel husband (in accordance with the verse quoted: ‘Men are guardians of women’) means her subordination to an infidel, that fact makes the marriage void, because it does not obey the conditions laid down to make a contract valid. As the Sura (‘The Woman to be Examined’, LX v. 10) says: ‘Turn them not back to infidels: for they are not lawful unto infidels nor are infidels lawful unto them (i.e., in wedlock). [10]

Posted by: hutchrun at August 1, 2005 6:54 AM

III. Sirhindi (d. 1624)

Shariat can be fostered through the sword.
Kufr and Islam are opposed to each other. The progress of one is possible only at the expense of the other and co-existence between these two contradictory faiths is unthinkable.

The honor of Islam lies in insulting kufr and kafirs. One who respects kafirs, dishonors the Muslims. To respect them does not merely mean honoring them and assigning them a seat of honor in any assembly, but it also implies keeping company with them or showing considerations to them. They should be kept at an arm’s length like dogs….If some worldly business cannot be performed without them, in that case only a minimum of contact should be established with them but without taking them into confidence. The highest Islamic sentiment asserts that it is better to forego that worldly business and that no relationship should be established with the kafirs.

The real purpose in levying jizya on them (the non-Muslims) is to humiliate them to such an extent that, on account of fear of jizya , they may not be able to dress well and to live in grandeur. They should constantly remain terrified and trembling. It in intended to hold them under contempt and to uphold the honor and might of Islam.

Cow-sacrifice in India is the noblest of Islamic practices. The kafirs may probably agree to pay jizya but they shall never concede to cow-sacrifice.

The execution of the accursed kafir of Gobindwal [a Sikh who lead an uprising against the oppressive Muslim rule of his community] is an important achievement and is the cause of great defeat of the accursed Hindus…Whatever might have been the motive behind the execution, the dishonor of the kafirs is an act of highest grace for the Muslims. Before the execution of the kafirs I had seen in a vision that the Emperor had destroyed the crown of the head of Shirk. Verily he was the chief of the Mushriks and the leader of the kafirs.

Whenever a Jew is killed, it is for the benefit of Islam. [11]
__________________________________________

`Gobindwal~ is probably a reference to the 10th Sikh Guru Gobind Singh.
Unfortunately for Sirhindi (a sufi) the Sikhs went on to destroy the muslim empire from Kashmir to Afghanistan.

Posted by: hutchrun at August 1, 2005 6:59 AM