Nowadays the truth of what someone says is not based on its correspondence with reality, but upon the identity of the speaker. A small group of non-Muslims in the West have been saying what Yahya Cholil Staquf says here, but instead of being invited to speak at the United Nations and write in the Wall Street Journal, they have been excoriated and marginalized as “Islamophobes,” “racists,” “far-right extremists,” and the like. But Yahya Cholil Staquf is a Muslim from Indonesia, so the same message from him is welcome.
Yahya Cholil Staquf “is a distinguished Muslim scholar and the co-founder of a global movement (‘Humanitarian Islam’) that seeks to reform obsolete tenets of Islamic orthodoxy that enjoin religious hatred, supremacy and violence, by restoring rahmah (universal love and compassion) to its rightful place as the primary message of Islam. As General Secretary of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (NU)—the world’s largest Muslim organization, with over 90 million members and 14,000 madrasahs—Mr. Staquf is bringing the civilizational wisdom and spiritual authority of Islam Nusantara (East Indies Islam) to the world stage, where a harsh, repressive and all-too-often violent understanding of Islam has predominated for decades.”
Yahya Cholil Staquf “seeks to reform obsolete tenets of Islamic orthodoxy that enjoin religious hatred, supremacy and violence.” He seems to be distinguishing “Islam as historically practiced” and “obsolete tenets of Islamic orthodoxy” from Islam itself, as it is the common stance of Islamic reformers to contend that when it is properly understood, Islam doesn’t really teach warfare against and subjugation of unbelievers, Jew-hatred, misogyny, and the like. If that is indeed what Yahya Cholil Staquf is claiming, his efforts to reform Islam will founder upon the fact that large numbers of Muslims actually know what the Qur’an and Sunnah teach, and will have no patience for claims that one shouldn’t believe one’s lying eyes regarding what the Qur’an says, but should believe what Yahya Cholil Staquf claims it says.
“How to Make the Islamic World Less Radical,” by Yahya Cholil Staquf, Wall Street Journal, January 14, 2021:
Nearly a generation after 9/11, the world has made little progress in freeing itself from the threat of radical Islam. For every Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi the U.S. eliminates, 100 radicals pop up.
Horrendous violence has engulfed much of the Islamic world, from the Central Asia through the Middle East to Africa. It also erupts periodically on the streets of London, Paris and New York. As of 2019, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency alone maintained watch lists comprising over 35,000 Islamist terror suspects believed to pose a threat to the U.K.
Why is the modern world plagued by Islamic extremism? Why do al Qaeda, Boko Haram and Islamic State display such savagery?
As I told the United Nations General Assembly recently, the doctrine, goals and strategy of these extremists can be traced to specific tenets of Islam as historically practiced. Portions of classical Islamic law mandate Islamic supremacy, encourage enmity toward non-Muslims, and require the establishment of a universal Islamic state, or caliphate. ISIS is not an aberration from history.
Until the formal abolition of the Ottoman caliphate in 1924, much of the Middle East was governed according to classical Islamic law, or fiqh, which is often conflated with Shariah. The operational assumptions of that caliphate and the classical corpus of Islamic jurisprudence by which it was governed have remained deeply embedded in Muslim societies. Even when not enshrined in statutory law, classical tenets retain considerable religious authority and social legitimacy, shaping the prevailing Muslim mind-set….
Buraq says
Yahya Cholil Staquf “seeks to reform obsolete tenets of Islamic orthodoxy that enjoin religious hatred, supremacy and violence.”
Great! Just one problem. In Al Qur’an, Allah doesn’t say that Muslims must obey Him if they feel like it. Muslims must follow His commands to the letter. Deciding to ignore some commands, but not others, is not on the table. Islam means ‘submission’, not that Muslims can choose ‘a la carte’ what to do and what not to do.
More wishful thinking – or, tayiyya!
gravenimage says
+1
FirstClement says
The tenets of Islam may become unpopular but they do not become obsolete. It would require a new revelation from God for that to happen, but that cannot happen as Muhammed is the cap on the prophets.
mortimer says
Many thanks to scholar Yahya Cholil Staquf for his honesty! Jihadism is traditional Islam.
Islam expert Fr Henri Boulad (SJ) said that jihadic Islam is the MOST TRADITIONAL form of Islam.
“The radical Islamism that has been loosed in Syria and Iraq (ISIS) is NOT a deviation or a perversion of an alleged ‘true’ Islam, whose orientation is purely spiritual and religious. In fact, it is the MOST TRADITIONAL FORM of Islam.” – Fr. Henri Boulad SJ.
“L’islamisme radical qui se déchaîne en Syrie et en Irak (ISIS) n’est pas une déviation ou une perversion du véritable islam, dont l’orientation serait uniquement spirituelle et religieuse, c’est de fait l’islam le plus traditionnel”, lâche le Père Henri Boulad.
gravenimage says
Yahya Cholil Staquf also said this back in 2017:
“In Interview, Top Indonesian Muslim Scholar Says Stop Pretending That Orthodox Islam and Violence Aren’t Linked”
https://time.com/4930742/islam-terrorism-islamophobia-violence/
mgoldberg says
In Indonesia, the serial murdering that is part and parcel to Islam has continued for decades now. Remember the Ahmadiya’s slaughtered back in what 2011 or so? The following years, the guys who did it were let out after what, 2 yrs, and the one’s who were deemed to be making disturbances by bringing it up and complaining, they got longer sentences. Mockingbird, wish me luck.
gravenimage says
Yes–and there is video of the police standing by and doing nothing as Muslims beat the Ahmadi to death.
tim gallagher says
Hopefully, the unvarnished truth about islam’s evil nature will get out to almost everyone, even the slowest learners, one day. People like Robert Spencer, and various other truth tellers, are doing their best, day after day, to wake people up. As for being invited to speak at the hopeless cesspit, and place of lies, the UN, that place is hardly worth bothering with, although I suppose speaking there might get a person’s message out to a wider audience. The truth about islam will get out there one day.
James Lincoln says
tim gallagher says,
“…the hopeless cesspit, and place of lies, the UN…”
I would say that that is an accurate description.
My favorite video in regards to the UN – watch the reactions…
“Shocked U.N. Delegates as PLO Abuses Exposed by Palestinian Hero”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2NaiX-hvVQ&t=72s
tim gallagher says
Thanks for that, James. That was a pretty stunning video alright. I’d say that you can see that the scumbags would like to kill the brave speaker to shut him up. I wonder if he has survived. I don’t waste much of my time looking at the UN. I feel it is an anti-western world, white man hating, western civilisation hating mob, but I’m no expert on it. Hasn’t there been increasing Muslim power at the UN? I know, from occasional comments that I’ve heard by a couple of political commentators out here in Australia that I admire that the UN has appointed officials from countries with zero human rights to be in charge of the UN body that protects human rights. I’ve heard about total absurdities such as that a couple of times, so I see the UN as a hopeless place, dominated by enemies of the things that I believe in, such as western values and our western way of life. I suppose I believe very strongly in our western values, so I don’t have the time of day for the enemies (lots of them at the UN) of those values and the bullshit they try to sell us.
James Lincoln says
tim,
As I perceive it, your analysis of the current UN is correct…
tim gallagher says
Thanks, James. Was the Trump administration going to cut funding to the UN because it spent most of its time putting crap on the USA.? In Australia, I think the UN will, from time to time, criticise Australia for not being kind and welcoming enough towards “refugees”, and, I think, for not doing enough for the Aborigines out here, and commentators that I bother to listen to say that we should just tell the UN to bugger off as most of the countries running the show there have far, far worse human rights records than Australia. I agree with such comments. On the UN human rights leadership being given to a country which has zero human rights, I have a vague memory that there may have been some leadership on women’s rights at the UN given to some Muslim country, where women are treated like crap. My memory may be faulty on that, but that would seem to me to be typical of the UN.
john smith says
I also like this video James. and I have nothing but admiration for Yousef.
Keys says
Yes, sure, as the Islamic scholar says: the “doctrine of extremists can be traced to specific tenets of Islam as historically practiced” BY MOHAMMAD, Islam’s prophet and model man !
And, if these extreme practices can not be historically traced to Mohammad, because he did not exist as portrayed, then the entire religion, including the Koran and Hadiths, is based on lies.
The greatest deceiver, indeed.
Infidel says
I remember years ago some Indonesian imam on FNC who kept complaining that the West was giving undue importance to the Arabs and others and ignoring his country, which has the world’s largest muslim population. What he seemed to ignore was the fact that islam doesn’t give any nationality any importance other than the Arab nation.
All those Indonesians, Malaysians, Pakis, Turks and others who think that they’re gonna determine the leadership and direction of islam are pretty deluded. Islam will remain whatever the Arabs say it is, and if these people don’t like it, they should spin off their own sects, like the Safavids in Iran did
b.a. freeman says
well put, Infidel! in fact, here is an article on a muslim site that promotes arab supremacism:
https://islamicvirtues.com/2013/12/12/superiority-of-the-race-of-arabs-over-non-arabs/
as for spinning off their own, new version of islam, however, yahya staquf and his followers would have to be in the majority, probably needing about 98% or more of the ummah to join them in order to avoid violence from the remainder of the unconverted ummah. and *that* is unlikely, so his call for reform will without a doubt fail.
Infidel says
freeman, I was thinking about just in Indonesia – their national brand of islam, just like Iran’s is that Twelver sect, whose 4th imam onwards were at least part Iranian by birth. I wasn’t talking about them persuading muslims of other countries to come along
Demographically, while Arabs are just ~20% of all muslims, they are a plurality w/ ~400 million: Indonesians, by contrast, are some 250 million (Indonesia officially counts as muslims many people who are agnostic or otherwise don’t follow islam, but whose religions ain’t recognized by the government), followed by Pakistan, Bangladesh and India (where muslims are a minority and where the government is not interested in proving any islamic bona fides). So the Arabs do have a plurality, and would do anything to prevent others from snatching their leadership. Hopefully, that will inspire non-Arab people of those other countries to turn away from islam
Michael Copeland says
What is the non-harsh, non-repressive, non-violent understanding of “Kill them wherever you find them”?
jca reid. says
These “Extremists” are not following some weird form of Islam. They are simply following what is laid down by Mohammed. in the Quran & hadiths. Basically, Muslims ARE entitled to rob, rape, murder & enslave non-Muslims. End off. Not open to debate. That’s Islam in a nutshell.
gravenimage says
Islamic scholar says ‘doctrine of extremists can be traced to specific tenets of Islam as historically practiced’
……………..
Well, *this* is true.
Walter Sieruk says
In all fairness that Muslim who is also an Islamic scholar is correct in that specfic statement of his.. At least he’s honest.
Fortheword “Extremist and “Muslims extremist” is actually a misuse of that word and that term..
This is because the term “moderate Muslim” are actually Western term and not that well known in the Islamic Middle East. This is because what In the Islamic mindset in the Muslim Middle East as well as in Indonesia and other Muslim controlled countries what the non-Muslims of the Western nations view as “radical and “extremist” the Muslims of those places in the world see as “Normal” and even Devout and committed to the Cause of Islam”.
Furthermore, those “Moderate Muslims” are those of the Islamic worldview and non-devout and non –committed Muslims. The violent jihadists even see them as “hypocrites.” Therefore, this explains the jihadist chant of those jihad-minded Muslims in different Islamic terror organizations. When they chant out loud “Death to infidels and hypocrites.” Meaning Death to people who and not Muslims and people who are non- jihadist Muslims.
Concerning the last part of this above essay, the violent spirit of that vicious jihadist chant “Death to infidels and hypocrites.” The later word of the chant “hypocrites” in the jihad –minded Muslim worldview is further explain in the book titled JIHADIST PSYCHOPATH by Jamie Glazov , for on page 42 the reader is informed that “Islam mandates that devout and real Muslims must punish , and in some circumstances kill, those Muslims whom they regard as neither legitimate nor properly devout.”
Jayell says
‘The doctrine of extremists can be traced to specific tenets of Islam as historically practiced’ (!!!)
And the Pope is supposed to be a Catholic, and wheels are circular (!!!!)
Valkyrie Ziege says
;There are “peaceful” references in religious texts, and yet, somehow, the mentally-ill zealots only see the violent references as inspiration.
Interesting, that.
Valkyrie Ziege says
;There are “peaceful” references in religious texts, and yet, somehow, the mentally-ill zealots only see the violent references as inspiration.
Interesting, that.
OLD GUY says
Yahya looks like an islamic scholar, you can tell by the head gear. Not necessarily by what he says or knows.
Islam is the religion of criminals, slave owners, rapist, and ,murders nothing more nothing less.