Many in the blogosphere have said the al Qaeda hate us simply for what we are… free, wealthy and tolerant. Now we have confirmation from a top al Qaeda leader:
The author of “The Future of Iraq and The Arabian Peninsula After The Fall of Baghdad” is Yussuf al-Ayyeri, one of Osama bin Laden’s closest associates since the early ’90s. A Saudi citizen also known by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad, he was killed in a gun battle with security forces in Riyadh last June.
Yussuf al-Ayyeri considers American democracy the last and greatest threat against Islam:
This form of “unbelief” persuades the people that they are in charge of their destiny and that, using their collective reasoning, they can shape policies and pass laws as they see fit. That leads them into ignoring the “unalterable laws” promulgated by God for the whole of mankind, and codified in the Islamic shariah (jurisprudence) until the end of time.
He is afraid the increasing wealth of a free society will breed a world in which young people won’t be willing to blow themselves to their heavenly virgins. The following paragraphs may well contain the explanation of the economic warfare going on in Iraq. It appears the al Qaeda goal isn’t just beating Americans. They must send Iraq back to the stone age. Iraqi’s must be left ignorant and starving:
The goal of democracy, according to Al-Ayyeri, is to “make Muslims love this world, forget the next world and abandon jihad.” If established in any Muslim country for a reasonably long time, democracy could lead to economic prosperity, which, in turn, would make Muslims “reluctant to die in martyrdom” in defense of their faith.
He says that it is vital to prevent any normalization and stabilization in Iraq. Muslim militants should make sure that the United States does not succeed in holding elections in Iraq and creating a democratic government. “If democracy comes to Iraq, the next target [for democratization] would be the whole of the Muslim world,” Al-Ayyeri writes.
The Turkish government should beware. They are also on the menu:
The al Qaeda ideologist claims that the only Muslim country already affected by “the beginning of democratization” and thus in “mortal danger” is Turkey.
“Do we want what happened in Turkey to happen to all Muslim countries?” he asks. “Do we want Muslims to refuse taking part in jihad and submit to secularism, which is a Zionist-Crusader concoction?”
Like most fanatics, he does not understand history:
Al-Ayyeri says Iraq would become the graveyard of secular democracy, just as Afghanistan became the graveyard of communism. The idea is that the Americans, faced with mounting casualties in Iraq, will “just run away,” as did the Soviets in Afghanistan. This is because the Americans love this world and are concerned about nothing but their own comfort, while Muslims dream of the pleasures that martyrdom offers in paradise.
Al-Ayyeri is perhaps not aware Americans have fought fanatical suicide bombers before. Oh yes, we know all about this form of warfare. The absolute abhorance for it is part of American cultural history. We have an ingrained visceral hatred for those who would do it.
Three thousand five hundred Japanese Kamikazi pilots attacked American ships at the end of WWII with devastating effect. Japan’s remaining industry was churning out two man human torpedoes for the final battle. They were testing catapult ground launch of the manned Baka rocket bomb. The mainland population was preparing to fight to the end as they had on islands leading up to Japan: islands on which masses of civilians threw themselves off cliffs into the sea rather than surrender.
Soldiers died with hand grenades primed and ready underneath them. Surrendering prisoners approached American lines with explosives ready to go. The priests of the Bushido code called upon the people of Japan to die for the Emporer. They were preparing to do so. The invasion would have nearly wiped out the Japanese population. It would have taken years and cost the lives of a half million or more American soldiers. So we did the Indiana Jones thing… we nuked them.
We know how to solve this problem if it ever comes down to “end game” again. If there is still anyone out there who doesn’t understand the seriousness of the threat, please read this very final solution manifesto very carefully:
“As far as belief is concerned, the absolutely final version is represented by Islam, which “annuls all other religions and creeds.” Thus, Muslims can have only one goal: converting all humanity to Islam and “effacing the final traces of all other religions, creeds and ideologies.”
Did you just catch that whiff of smoke from the incinerators?
Many thanks to James Taranto’s daily Opinion Journal email newsletter for the heads up on this story.
But in fact the real attraction of democracy is quite different to the attraction of liberty… Democracy gives lots of people the ability to vote themselves other people’s money. That is what makes it so beloved by so many, something Yussuf al-Ayyer seems to have missed.
Perry: al-Ayer so misunderstands what he is taking on that such distinctions are far, far beyond the rhetorical world he lives within.
He is no different from other terrorists , communist or other. The IRA did their utmost to ensure the Northern Ireland remained an economic problem case. That way ideal young people were much easier recruits. A career and a mortgage is a real disincentive to engage in murder, blackmail, smuggling and other criminal activity.
In Turkey, the PKK murdered teachers to try and insure that a generation of Kurds would not be educated enough to take part in normal economic life. That way they could create more recruits and ensure that their cause would continue. A more educated economically comfortable society would protest in a non-violent way, thus eliminating their power.
He’s right about the “corrupting effect of democracy. In Turkey even most of the devout do not wish the country to be a theocracy.
Dale, it is of course correct that some versions of Islam are vicious and theocratic.
However, (and I’m not a moral relativist by any means), I just don’t buy into the notion that this sort of thing is inherent in Islam, any more than the foul excesses of the Albigensian crusade were inherent in Christianity.
You may well have read Rose Wilder Lane’s “The Discovery of Freedom” in which she makes the point that for many centures, the Islamic world was considerably free-er and less authoritarian than the Christian World. To some extent she was writing with Rose tinted (sorry!) glasses. But nevertheless there is much truth in what she wrote.
Of course another possibility is that all religion tends towards theocracy and is thus to be opposed as a dangerous meme. Maybe so. I don’t know. But what strikes me as illogical and not grounded in history, is the notion that there is something in the nature of Islam which makes it peculiarly prone to authoritarian excesses and violence.
Cydonia
First, the surreal amount of hate, ignorance & maliciousness displayed by this Youssouf El-Ayyeri is dreadful. Still both the Anglo-Saxon exegete & the Arabo-Muslim terrrorist are invaded by ethnocentric bias.
“(…) al Qaeda hate us simply for what we are… free, wealthy and tolerant”
If the “we” means the USA, then “tolerant” is utterly superfluous. The USA won’t endure a decision made by the overwhelming majority of the countries of the World. The USA won’t put up with different social models in foreign countries. The USA won’t tolerate fair competition. The USA won’t stand absolute & definitive separation between State & creed. The USA won’t allow the immediate banning of death penalty & “racial” grouping.
“Do we want Muslims to refuse taking part in jihad and submit to secularism, which is a Zionist-Crusader concoction?”
No, Mr Criminal, allow me to disagree even if you’re six feet under. Secularism is certainly not a concoction to be found in Israel (religious State) nor in the USA (rampant deism). The concoction can be found in France, where churches, synagogues, mosques, temples etc are treated the very same way: they’re granted tolerance as long as they are held in private circles & don’t interfere with Public Matters. Your true enemy isn’t the USA or Israel: it’s France where French citizens of Muslim descent laugh at you coward criminals, just like French citizens of Jewish culture or religion laugh at Sharon-The-Butcher and just like French citizens of Christian or atheist background laugh a George-The-Crusader.
So is, to a certain extent, the situation in Turkey, a Secular Republic –just like the French Republic, with a Muslim historical background. No wonder why France & Turkey opposed both Islamofascists & Christianocretins so hard.
I’d have thought the relative youth of Islam as a faith makes it “peculiarly prone to authoritarian excesses & violence,”coupled with the extreme poverty & ignorance of great masses of Islamic people, something that itself is compounded by the incompetence & authoritarianism of Arab regimes in particular. Go back 600 years in the history of Christianity and it too was frighteningly extreme, oppressive & intolerant.
Cydonia: Please point out one single place in which I indicated this way of thinking has anything to do with Islam other than the fanatical form espoused by a bunch of nutcases. I am in fact for defending the hopes of muslims in Iraq for a free society.
Tony H. Yes, Christianity was pretty bad back then. It also was in near perpetual war with the Moslem world. After the sacking of Constantinople weaked the old empire fatally, an act so lacking in intelligence Christians almost deserved to lose, the front lines were at thegates of Vienna.
This is the world the al Qaeda types want to return to. It’s a long term goal. Centuries from now, if they managed to both absorb the rest of the Islamic world into their fanatical cult and still kept enough of an economy to not totally collapse into insignificance, they would become a clear and present danger. If that did indeed happen, I would bet you (although we’ll all be long dead by then) that Europe returns to theocracy and radical Christianity. The longer one fights someone, the more like them they become.
I totally agree that there is nothing in the content of Islam to make it more fanatical or closed-minded than other faiths. Many Sufi Muslims, for example, are extremely admirable and sophisticated people.
However, it is possible that Islam has an Achilles Heel. Its revelation from God is a finished, complete document of known historical dating. I think we have underestimated the freeing, loosening effect on Christian thought of the vague, overlapping and contradictory Gospels. Christianity cannot help but be more mysterious and open to question than Islam. Paul wrote most of the New Testament and he did not even meet Jesus.
There are plentiful bigots on both sides, but the closed, complete, perfected nature of the Koran makes (I think) narrow-mindeded certainty a little easier for Muslim bigots to slide into.
Just a guess.
–
Kodiak,
I think you should learn more of our Anglo-Saxon culture, starting with the language.
Repeat the word ‘Bollocks’ several times and try to remember it whenever your fingers get close to a keyboard.
Surely the existence of biogts like this guy weakens the isolationists’ argument that if the U.S. and its allies pulled out of the Middle East, stopped backing Israel etc, then the citizens there would no longer be “provoked” by our presence and leave us alone.
What these comments clearly demonstrate, however, is that even a nation with a total isolationist foreign policy may have to reckon with attacks from those who despise our existence because of the kind of society we live in.
I am not expecting the tin-foil hat brigade to note this, however.
Dale:
Having re-read your post, you are right. Sorry.
Nevertheless, many others do tend to associate Islam with its (admittedly very large) nutcase element, so I think my point is still worth making.
My reading of Rose Wilder Lane was that in certain respects, Islam is (or was at any rate) actually quite a libertarian creed in its rejection of notions of man’s authority over man. All the sadder, then, that modern Islam seems to be so obsessed with the notion of an Islamic State – in which authority and collectivism seem to be celebrated to an even greater extent than in the West.
Johnathan
I disagree. No doubt Al Quaida and their like would still despise the West and its mores, even if we adopted a non-interventionist foreign policy.
However, their primary focus would then be the Moslem world, not the West. After all, that is where Moslems live and that is where the goal of an Islamic State makes the most sense. Egypt and Syria might have more to fear, but we would have very much less.
Cydonia – None of us can, hand on heart, really predict what would happen if we were to adopt an isolationist foreign policy although it is true that it might, in the short-run, confine troubles to the Middle East. But in the longer run, I just don’t feel confident that the islamists would be willing to leave things at that. The extremists’ creed is a totalising one. They want to take over the whole planet.
Ultimately, while we can hide from these folk for a while, we ultimately have to confront them. I used to be an isolationist in my views – I still feel broadly drawn to that position – but against totalitarian ideologues like this, I think we have to make an exception.
Unfortunately that is why a lot of debate about foreign affairs among libertarians has been so stale of late. One side tends to feel that if we shun a part of the world, we can get on with our lives and the nutters will leave us alone. The other side takes the view that we cannot be so confident in the rationality of our foes. Sadly, I am drawn to the latter view. I wish it were otherwise.
I can’t believe all youse guys have fallen for this. This Yussuf guy is obviously an imposter. Everyone knows the real reason Al Qaeda hate us is that Bush scrapped the Kyoto Treaty and pulled out of the International Criminal Court.
Squander you forgot the bit about the Republican National Committee paying off the county election committees (majority Democrat) in Florida to throw the election to Bush so that Gore would be free to invent Internet2k.
–and tolerant” If the “we” means the USA, then “tolerant” is utterly superfluous. The USA won’t endure a decision made by the overwhelming majority of the countries of the World. The USA won’t put up with different social models in foreign countries. The USA won’t tolerate fair competition. The USA won’t stand absolute & definitive separation between State & creed. The USA won’t allow the immediate banning of death penalty & “racial” grouping.–
We’re as tolerant of you as you are of us, Kodiak.
BTW, “fair competition” via Instapundit 9/5:WHY DOES THE EUROPEAN UNION hate the world’s poor so much?
The European commission yesterday launched a ferocious attack on poor countries and development campaigners when it dismissed calls for big cuts in Europe’s farm protection regime as extreme demands couched in “cheap propaganda”.
In a move that threatens to shatter the fragile peace ahead of next week’s trade talks in Cancun, Mexico, Franz Fischler, the EU agriculture commissioner, said Brussels would strongly defend its farmers.
Shameful. And unsophisticated. The Guardian’s trade-subsidy blog is depressed, and says that Cancun is becoming “Cantcun:”
With the start of the talks less than a week away, and France – one of the biggest barriers to reform – digging its heels in, it is difficult to see where a breakthrough will come from – even though it is in the self-interest of rich countries to rid themselves of subsidies.
I finished reading the rest of your post, you really are living in a dream world, aren’t you?
Sylvain wiped the floor w/you, you know.
What an arrogant and unilateralist attitude. The phrench way is the best way.
BTW, exactly how much is phrawnce getting of Scotland’s fish catch? Maybe when phrawnce actually started carrying its own weight instead of leeching off of everyone else, then we might actually listen to what you have to say. Oh, and become a more transparent society regarding financials. ELF trial was interesting, non? Wouldn’t you like to see the Iraq oil-for-food books? The originals, I mean, not the new ones just in case they actually had to be made public.
Interesting article and interesting debate too. Here’s my few pence worth on this.
Democracy is IMHO a vast improvement over what went before, allowing changes of govt without bloodshed and helping to restrain govt power, but of course it still allows people to vote themselves other people’s money/property or worse. It also is not a guarantee against tyranny, despite its general restraining effect on govt power. Hitler was a democratically elected politician remember.
Regarding the claim made that if the West were to withdraw totally from the middle east (ME), al-Qaeda and their ilk would concentrate their activities on the Muslim countries in the ME and leave the West alone, I think this overlooks some important factors. There are large numbers of Muslims in the US, Europe, Russia, India, Pakistan and even China. Surely this means al-Qaeda and their ilk would have some interest in them?
I see only a short-term concentration on the ME until their goals there are achieved before such people turn their eyes to the wider world again.
I don’t think isolationism is an option in this context, since it implies the only protection is to arm onself better and more heavily than anyone likely to attack you rather than try and influence events to stop them getting strong enough. But with al-Qaeda and other such people, willing to engage in terrorism and suicide bombing, you might be attacked anyway. I also think it was one of the US’s biggest mistakes during the 20th century to turn isolationist after WWI…
James,
It merely means we can have no tolerance of intolerance. We must contain those who will not leave others alone. This is the dichotomy of liberty.
–However, their primary focus would then be the Moslem world, not the West. After all, that is where Moslems live and that is where the goal of an Islamic State makes the most sense. Egypt and Syria might have more to fear, but we would have very much less.—
Wrong.
We’re not dealing w/people who think like us. It makes sense to you…..
Other than oil, what does the ME have to offer to the world? No one I have asked can answer this question. We have a breakthrough on alternative fuels. The President tells the American public we can be energy independent w/in 5 years if we sacrifice. Americans will do that.
So, now that their only source of income is drastically reduced, if not gone because the rest of the world will also want our tech (for a very reduced price if not free and we’re so rich we should just give it away) how do they feed their people? They can’t compete w/China in mfg, India in tech or innovative as we do. They have sand. They continue to enslave 1/2 if not more of their population. Do you think they’ll be angry w/us then? Relying on massive transfers of wealth from us to them because well, we did cut off the gravy train. Do you expect them to go back to what they were and give up AC and other modern inventions?–
This is not a case of live and let live. They have been telling us for years, decades, 1400 years what they are going to do. And now they are acquiring the means to do it.
When someone tells you he intends to kill you, believe him. A Joooo said that between 1945-48 after being released from Aushwitz, IIRC.
Go to Tim Blair’s site. You will find a very recent link from the Australian Age, IIRC, as to how they intend to spread Islam throughout the Pacific region. Another manifesto was found.
This isn’t a small band of nutjobs. China’s got a problem w/splodydope busbombers on their muslim border, too. But we really don’t hear about that, do we?
Yes, “isolationism” wouldn’t mean a thing to the fanatics unless it meant e.g. no imports of Coca Cola, no satellite-TV images of decadent Western lifestyles, no imported publications with pictures of bikini-clad Western girls… All these things and more are grist to their mill of endless persecution & domination by Western/Christian countries. Anyone who thinks isolationism (aka appeasement) is practicable, let alone efficacious, is in a fool’s paradise.
“My reading of Rose Wilder Lane was that in certain respects, Islam is (or was at any rate) actually quite a libertarian creed in its rejection of notions of man’s authority over man.”
Well, even if this was ever true (and I note that Islam has always had a large component of men exercising authority over other men), it sure doesn’t apply to the variants we are facing now, so I don’t think it matter much.
Monotheistic religions have always been very comfortable bedfellows with authoritarian governments.
Oh come on everybody.
The West has been interfering in the M/E for centuries. Even now we prop up corrupt and dictatorial governments, we fund Israel to the tune of billions of pounds a year (and I make that point without reference to whether you think Israel is a good or a bad thing), we take sides in their wars, we station troops there and if we don’t like their governments, we topple them.
Never mind our motives. The fact is that we are constantly interfering right left and centre. It’s hardly surprising that in the process we have succeeded in making some pretty nasty enemies.
Hell, Al Quaida wouldn’t even exist if we hadn’t got involved in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.
The idea that Islamicists would have been agitating to destroy the west, if all we had done is sell them coca cola and girly mags is bonkers.
Ossama Bin Laden hates the west mainly because the Saudi s ignored him (and his taliban “army”)and chose the Americans to get rid of Saddam from Kuwait.
It just a very sad persons tantrum. Almost as pathetic as their “beleifs”
Cydonia, then it might be a good idea for you to read the Koran. The word peace appears in it once.
As far as the Western governments meddling in the Middle East…um that is because Islam invaded Europe and held a rather lot of it. You don’t honestly believe that the West/Christianity was the aggressor do you? Why do you think the Islamo-fascists go on about Crusaders? They are still bitter than Europe got its act together and kicked them out of much of the continent. This is just a new chapter in a war that has been going practically since the birth of Islam.
Mark, you are correct about Sufis: however two points. One they have been mercilessly persecuted for their beliefs. Two they are seen by many Muslims as either heretical or not-really Muslims (equivalent to say Mormons in the Christian sphere).
Kodiak,
Love your stuff.
When can we nuke Mecca?
You know I think it is quite unwise to piss off the Americans for any reason. Just give them what they want. They have already used nukes twice. Twice more than any one else in the world.
A bit of advice: “Do not meddle in the affairs of Americans for they are crude and quick to anger”
Better American than dead, hey?
You can sign me,
Just another crude American Cowboy, Yeeeeehaaaa.
Islam is about submission to God dictated by w/4th grade educations who hate women and while wanting everyone else to live in the 7th century, like their 21st century comforts. The one-eyed motorcycle mullah did.
Lapis fireplace? Western dishwasher and kitchen??
Terms of surrender are non-negotiable.
You need to stop projecting western thinking on them, Cydonia.
Listen to what they say, read what they write.
Islam will rule the world. Unless we stop them. They are fascists in turbans. And I refuse to let them rule me.
Sandy P,
I know Samiz would be a tolerant room -yet utterly foolish, weren’t it for this mad Admin who loves to wallow in so gross contradictions I wouldn’t bother to mention.
Still tolerance as applied to the USA is -AT LEAST- somewhat debatable, isn’t it?
******
M. Simon,
If you’re with me regarding those “human” wastes called the Islamofascists, then fine. If you’re trying to sing me your umpteenth song about the great USA, then: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. See ya t’morrow.
******
David,
Please spare me your worn-out remarks about Anglo-Saxon culture. You’ll be entitled to lecture me about anything the very day you can write 2 sentences in French, German or Spanish.
Anyway, I don’t need to read Shakespeare every night to take sides…
Tu vois ce que je veux dire?
******
TO ANY ANGLO-SAXON HERE
Please refrain from using “the West” when referring to the USA or the Anglosphere.
That’s sheer reductionism.
Sorry, I’m off topic: although not a theologist & an invetarate atheist, I believe Islam is as gorgeous an intellectual system as Judaism & Christianity are, although the 3 of them are just superstition to the core.
PS: I’m not a communist – I’m not a terrorist.
Kodiak,
Just trying to live up to the stereotype and perhaps extend the brand.
Americans are tolerant of decisions made in other places. It is just (funny thing about being self governed) we don’t feel bound by them. We like to make our own decisions. It was a central issue in the disagreement with our British brothers in 1776. It’s in the history books. You can look it up.
As to Spanish I know a little coloquial. Tu carries mota? Simone? Bueno!!!! (my Spanish is oral so the spelling may be off. And of course the punctuation is in the wrong place.) The only German I know for sure is “Arbeit Macht Frei”. Fortunately I have forgotten all the French I learned in High School. What I do know is that if the French ask me if I want to go to a German camp for the summer the answer is Non!
I’m with you though. If continental Europe no longer wishes to be under American protection we don’t want to be there. It is our new unilateralist policy. Don’t want us? We will leave. Pronto. Just ask the Saudis. Hey. Just ask the French. Last word I had was that the locals in Germany have been begging us to stay despite the attitude of the Federal Government .
Americans are working hard to eliminate all racial qualifications for anything. Quite popular in California with 20% of US of A population.
As to secularism we have strict separation between chuch and state. You might like to read our Bill of Rights some time. I’m told it is a popular model in many places. It is also peculaiar that you mention Israel where despite being a refuge for Jews many religions are freely practiced and a majority of the Jews are athiests or non-practicing. But I understand your confusion. You see Jews are a nation. And some of them practice the Jewish religion. A hard concept for most Continentals to get their brains around.
As to the inability of other nations to compete economically with America it must be a Continental thing. Poor babies.
Over here in America we worry about China, India, Taiwan, South Korea, etc. You know you may have something though, Continental Europe is not on the list. You know you continentals may have a problem. I suggest longer vacations.
And that little death penalty thing. We execute 20 to 50 a year here. After a sentence in a court of law. After years of review. Now I’m with you and think it ought to be abolished but I haven’t convinced enough of my fellow citizens yet. It is my understanding that the French have just executed 10,000 plus this summer with no judgement involved at all. Perhaps if we could just be more like the French you would approve? Well perhaps not.
In any case keep worrying about us. I’m sure if you all hold your breath until you turn blue or something we might notice. Or not. You know us cowboys. A notoriously insensitive lot. Nothing at all like you continentals.
I tend to agree with Karl Popper about there being no spirit of history and no particular pattern of historical evolution. Harry Seldon is fiction.
But…
I think that the metamorphosis the West went through in the 17th and 18th centuries was the effect of a fundamental change in our culture’s way of thinking that would affect any other culture the same way. In other words, if enough Islamics read John Locke, Francis Bacon, Adam Smith, Newton etc., the current mullah dominated system would be toast. There have been several comments made in this discussion to the effect that medieval Christianity was a fairly fierce religion. That is true, at least from our present day perspective. From theirs, such practices as burning witches were just a logical consequence of a worldview based on authority rather than experience and experiment. They could be tolerant and humane too, just like Cydonia’s Islamics. There is very little of intolerance in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, whose postions, after a century of dispute within the Church, finally triumphed to become the core of scholasticism. That world didn’t really become harsh, (unless your were a witch or an apostate) until the appearance of Protestantism, which in some ways was a precurson of the age of Reason. (Their core idea was looking in the Bible yourself instead of trusting the authority of the Church. It’s not that big a step to Bacon’s idea of experiment as a check on theory.)
I’m trying to suggest that the nature of Islamic culture is a result of an authority based worldview. I don’t think they are that much different than we were a few centuries back. When our ideas, which happen to be correct, are adopted they will change and become like us.
The problem is for them, and for us to survive the change. A good case can be made that the Soviet Union was the last gasp of european feudalism. If this is true, the butchers bill from the wars of the Reformation up to the last victim of the Gulag is the cost for the West to move from unreason to reason. I hate to think the world must go through all that again.
I really don’t believe this was a turn from Christianity either. Christianity was authority based when the West was. Despite the flat earthers and the creationists, the documented motivations of Newton, of Maxwell and many others are evidence that it is reason based when the culture is too. I think the pivotal idea is the rejection of authority as a basis for thought. So Islam could probably survive the transition, even if the Ayatollahs could not.
It is difficult for me to see how the Islamic world can make this change voluntarily. For everyone with a vested interest in things as they are, contact with western ideas is a total disaster. Unfortunately, use of our technology and its weapons is not dependent on acceptance of our ideas.
Perhaps the best approach would be for us to seed the ideas in the social strata of the Middle East who have little to lose. The worst that would happen would be an Islamic French Revolution. At least that would make Kodiak happy.
Doug,
It is faith versus doubt.
Doubt is a dagger to the heart of an all encompassing faith. You see remnants of this in the West.
One of the things that the west has adapted is to make faith so strong but limited that it overcomes doubt.
In fact that is the core American value.
Faith with doubt. A religious scientific people.
There may be a lesson for islam here.
Kodiak,
Just in case you missed it:
“6,600 people die every day in the world because of the trading rules of the EU. That is 275 people every hour. ”
Now I do admit the US of A has some awful agricultural subsidies too. Thing is we have put on the table to scrap ours if you scrap yours. The EU has said: NON! Pardon my French.
Cydonia’s right when pointing out the USA’s responsibility in creating, developing, feeding & sponsoring Islamic terrorism, then considered a convenient instrument to fight the USSR. Now Frankenstein’s creature is coming back. The USA wanted to change lead into gold. All they got was dynamite. Yet the very first ones to suffer from this dangerous alchemy were the peoples of the Arabomuslimosphere: Afghanistan, Algeria, Sudan, Yemen etc. Just like some Germans had the sad privilege to be the first to experience the Nazi programme. Although autistic terrorism derives from a devastating confrontation with the “alien”, it always starts beefing up at home. The religious practice of those Arabomuslims, now living in fear, was totally pacific, traditional, highly-spirited & very far away from any mendacious political hi-jack. Arabomuslims are losing twice: tyrannised at home, stigmatised when they move abroad.
Andrew Ian Dodge: “Islam invaded Europe and held a rather lot of it”.
And Europe was invaded by Christianity too. Your argument may be applied to Pagan Romans vs Christian Levantines, or Arianist Wisigoths, Orthodox Levantines & Protestant North Europeans vs Catholic Europeans. The question about territorial gains isn’t that crucial: “they” lost Al-Andalus, “we” lost Byzantium.
M. Simon:
1/ “As to secularism we have strict separation between church and state”
Does that include banknotes, court oaths & Bush’s meetings at the whydouse?
2/ “(…) you mention Israel (…)”
There are even Arab Israelis, in great numbers. So yes Israel isn’t a Jewish State and, contrary to what you assumed, I don’t see Jews as a Nation: I see Israelis as a Nation. Being Jewish pertains to personal creed. Being Israeli is political citizenship. Israel is a religious State though. Fourteen different religions are officially acknowledged in Israel (so it’s multiconfessional, not secular). State secularity is nowhere asserted, in no constitution. You may object that 70% of Israeli of Jewish background aren’t real synagogue-goers. Still there’s this fierce controversy in Israel whether the country is religious or secular. Israel was founded for Jewish people –that is people somehow related to a religion.
Doug Collins: “The worst that would happen would be an Islamic French Revolution. At least that would make Kodiak happy”
I’d be delighted if you could clarify what you meant. My acquired Anglo-Saxon mindset isn’t completely satisfactory yet.
M. Simon,
You’re getting tedious with your stats-toy.
Do you want me to multiplicate?
Nagasaki times Bhopal = Iraq, for instance.
Kodiak-
I was trying to be humorous. I was suggesting that Islamic culture is poised for the same change the West went through beginning in the 1600’s. I believe the Islamic power structure is, correctly, deathly afraid of that happening. We of course are very much in favor of it as it would put an end to the backward viciousness of their culture and permit them to practice more modern forms of viciousness (such as starving people via state agricultural subsidies).
I suggested that acquainting the nothing-to-lose segments of their society, such as -interestingly- the suicide bombers, with the ideas that revolutionized our culture would be an effective way to go around the power structure. Ideally that would result in an orderly, civil and free society based on the sovereignity of the people which is the direction that the Anglosphere took, however imperfectly, beginning in the 1700’s. The European version, of which you have consistently appeared to be a staunch defender, has been more devoted to the people as a collective concept and less devoted to them as individuals. The differences between the British ‘Glorious Revolution’ and the American Revolution on the one hand, and the French and Russian Revolutions on the other, in their respective natures and outcomes show this difference clearly. I would hope the Islamic world would take our path, but yours would also be an improvement over what they have now.
I testify that there is none who has the right to be worshipped but Allah (swt) Alone and He has no partners (with Him). I (also) testify that Muhammad (pbuh) is His slave and His Messenger, the one sent by Allah Law as a mercy for the ‘Alameen (mankind and jinns); the one commanded by Allah (swt) to fight against Al Mushrikun[l] (and all those who ascribe partners with Allah). He fought for Allah’s Cause with all his power and ability-may Allah’s Peace and Blessings be upon him, upon his followers and upon his companions who believed in him, and honoured him, helped him and followed the light (the Qur’an) and his .As Sunna (the legal ways, orders, acts of worship, statements, etc.) which was revealed to him…those who emigrated and fought in the Cause of Allah with their wealth and their lives, they were the supreme conquerors and the masters.
[1l Al-Mushrikun (polytheists, pagans, idolaters, and disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah and in His Messenger Muhammad (pbuh)
4 It is well known how the Messenger (pbuh) was fighting against Al Mushrikun (and all those who ascribe partners with Allah (swt) since Allah, the Most Respectful, the All Majestic sent him and honoured him with the Messengership till Allah caused him to die and selected for him what was with Him (Paradise and all that is good).
It’s hard to know what to say… I could care less about a man’s religious beliefs so long as they are practiced amongst consenting adults.
It’s only when beliefs authorize forcing others into the fold that it becomes a problem. However evolution seems to cure fanaticism, if given a sufficient time. It’s just rather hard on everyone involved while the evolving happens.
Sandy P.–
“Other than oil, what does the ME have to offer to the world? No one I have asked can answer this question.”
I can. It is the Holy Land for three great monotheistic religions. In the U.S., at least, (I’m a non-believer, but I know my nation), this fact makes the Middle East of great value and interest.
it seems quite strange for you to discuss the topic of Islam without to check it against anything or anyone, let me tell you first of all that Islam does not stand for peace it stands for submission and obedience, that is why the Muslims do not want o alter or change the word of God (i.e The Qura`n) in anyway or form (and it has not been altered in anyway since it was revealed from day one). the part that you refer to peace is the greeting of the Muslims to one another which is Assalamu Alaikum (peace be upon you). For Doug and his colleagues I can assure you that the Muslim world will not go through what the British or Americans went through because we do not detach religion from lifes affairs it is not a case of God mind your buisness in the church and we will mind our buisness in society. The Muslims have a system of life derived from the Qura`n and the sayings, actions & consent of the Prophet. This system was implemented for over fourteen hundered years untill it was destroyed in 1924 by the dog Mustapha kemal (the so called father of Turkey). Wherever Islam went it changed the thought and ideas of that country and whichever Muslim country you go to today you will find people calling for the return of The Islamic State where there are no borders between them no matter what colour or background they have. If it was by the sword as you always claim then these countries would have reverted back to their former beliefs once the Muslims left but this was never the case as history has proven (unless you know different). for your information when you was living in the dark ages, we were living in the Golden era. when your people were washing once a year we were washing five times a day. First of all i urge you to read the history of Islam before making unfounded claims, secondly for your information the dictators in the Muslim World are supported and propped up by the West and if you study the biography of each of these people you will find out where they studied, who they were funded by and how they came to power. In all the cases you will find that these Dirty Dogs are the making of the west, the likes of Saddam Hussain, Hosni Mubarak, Abdullah Of Jordan etc…. .
When you claim that the Muslims want to take you to the back to the dark ages, this is not the case. When we refer to the Islamic State we refer to it in the context of transactions between the people, law and order, relationship between the people so in essence the ruling system, social system economic system, judicial system etc.. Not technology which you seem to confuse it with. As human beings we will always need to eat, sleep, drink, breathe go to the toilet etc.. and this is what human beings have done througout time and will continue to do so. The difference falls in the areas of technology, they rode camels and horses for transport we drive cars, vans, planes etc. They used Pigeons and other forms of communication we use moblies, internet etc. But if you notice this has nothing to do with Law and order. Is it not ironic that the country with the most freedom today at present is Iraq where there are no police stations no courts no accountability and what do you see total anarchy. What did bush say, he wanted to liberate the people of Iraq give them freedom and Democracy. Well as far as i understood it Democracy MEANS LETTING THE PEOPLE CHOOSE THEIR LEADER AND SYSTEM but when the people of Iraq came out demonstrating in there thousands saying they wanted the return of Islamic law what did the West say OH NO! HANG ON A MINIUTE WE WILL DECIDE WHO YOUR LEADERS ARE AND WHAT THEY RULE BY. So much for Democracy hey!. The real question we should be asking ourselves is, is there a superior being who brought everything into existence? who put the commodities in two liquids which when mixed together form a human being who comes out with flesh, bones, nose, ears, eyes, i`m sure you get the picture. If a superior being exists then what is our relationship with him/her, has he left us to our own whims and desires to choose what is right and what is wrong or has he communicated with us over time to tell us what is right and what is wrong. this is the area i would like to entertain a discussion with yourselves
Doug Collins : thanx for your time.
I don’t know if such a thing as an Islamic power structure exists at all. Something’s striking right away: Islamic spiritual affairs are conducted in a more Protestant way than in a Catholic one. There’s no pope & no bull, no unquestionable clergy given that the appointment process –if any- isn’t really visible or predictable & the laity are often involved in whatever religious jurisprudence eventually surfacing. Despite all that, there can be authorities: symbolic ones (king of Morocco = Believers’ Commander – Seoud family = custody of Holy Places) or provisional temporal ones (Khomeiny). You seemed to imply that the great spiritual, political change that Europe went through as Modern Times emerged -then clearly identified by the Church as a danger (Galileo, Reformation etc), is precisely what Islam is on the verge of. The only problem is that Islam already went through such a process as economics, politics, warfare, mathematics, physics, alchemy, geography, casuistry, poetry, philosophy were flourishing thanx “to the backward viciousness of their culture” while we, postbarbarian Europeans, were more than happy to be given access to that kind of subtle urbanity. That proIslamic rationale was a bit too Manichean. Just like the antiIslamic one is.
Now you draw a line between Anglo-Saxon revolutions – that’s 4 Mio inhab in the USA, 20% of whom were slaves and 5? Mio English- and French or Russian Revolutions. I don’t see much in common between the French and the Russian ones. Although both were bloody, both concerned heavily populated States by contemporaneous standards (28 Mio French = 25% of European population – tens of Mios in Russia) & even if both ended up in tyranny, the French one(s) turned out to bring real democracy, which the Russian failed to. Further to 1679 Habeas Corpus (a Human right), bipartism was an essential feature which the 1688 Revolution is credited for. Bipartism was also an essential feature of the French revolution (left & right). Bipartism proved all too short-lived as the Mencheviks were wiped out. The 1789 Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen (Human rights + Citizen’s rights) may be compared to the English & US Bills of Rights (1689 & 1791 respectively). France & the USA did have constitutions very early; the UK is still waiting for one.
It’s important to mention that ballot wasn’t secret in England until the middle of the XVIIIth century, leaving to door more than ajar to royal corruption & intimidation. Brits had to wait until 1832 (Reform Act) to get something like a representative system; that’s decades after 1776 & 1789. English democracy is a bit of a myth. Just like Magna Carta being the very first sign of democracy (well after Athens anyway). In 1215 England had a French king, called Jean sans Terre of the Plantagenêt dynasty, whose kingdom is planned to be invaded by the French king of France, Philippe Auguste, Jean sans Terre’s overlord. This pressure led the French king of England to negotiate with the French aristocracy in England. French feudality (as opposed to the king) was always powerful in the kingdom of France; French feudals of England became more assertive in 1215. I don’t know if there’s any mention of the English people in Magna Carta. Last but not least, the first feudal code defining legal limits in opposition to royal despotism was called Usatges de Barcelona. It was drawn up one century before Jean Sans Terre was forced to do so.
Doug Collins: sorry
Read: “It’s important to mention that ballot wasn’t secret in England until the middle of the XIXth century” (instead of XVIIIth).
an article for you to enlighten yourselves before we continue
By Robert Spencer
A “wide range of militants,” says the New York Times, is streaming into Iraq, eager for a showdown with American troops. Mullah Mustapha Kreikar, leader of the Muslim terrorist group Ansar al-Islam, declaimed from his safe haven in Norway on the religious character of the struggle: “The resistance is not only a reaction to the American invasion, it is part of the continuous Islamic struggle since the collapse of the caliphate. All Islamic struggles since then are part of one organized effort to bring back the caliphate.”
Only one percent of the Norwegian population is Muslim — around 50,000 to 60,000 people in all. It’s safe to say that only a minority of those are working actively with Kreikar for the restoration of the caliphate. Accordingly the Norwegian authorities who granted Kreikar political asylum may be excused for their unawareness of or indifference to his ultimate goals. However, if they thought of them (as Western analysts are wont to do) as dreamy, outlandish, preposterous, or even quaint, they were dead wrong. Iraq is just one battlefield of many: Muslim militants all over the world are moved today to murder and mayhem for the sake of the caliphate.
The caliph was for Sunni Islam the successor of Muhammad as the leader of the Muslim community; the caliphate was abolished by Kemal Ataturk’s secular Turkish government in 1924. Islamic theology makes no distinction between the sacred and the secular, and for Sunni Muslims the caliph was something like a combined Generalissimo and Pope, although he never wielded anything comparable to the Pope’s spiritual authority. Michelangelo’s patron, Pope Julius II, earned the dubious honor of going down in history as the “warrior pope”; by contrast, the overwhelming majority of the successors of the Prophet were warrior caliphs.
No accident there. It is not an invention of the Wahhabi demons du jour, but a provision of classic Islamic law (the Sharia) that the Caliph has not just a right, but a responsibility to wage war. One manual of this law, Umdat al-Salik (published in English as Reliance of the Traveller) stipulates that “the caliph makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians . . . until they become Muslim or pay the non-Muslim poll tax.” The “non-Muslim poll tax” is the most conspicuous feature of a system, carefully delineated in this manual, of organized oppression and second-class (dhimmi) status for religious minorities in lands ruled by the Sharia. Umdat al-Salik carries an endorsement from Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the most respected and influential voice in all of Sunni Islam.
A manual from a different school of Sunni jurisprudence states that the caliph must “make jihad against those who resist Islam after having been called to it until they submit or accept to live as a protected dhimmi-community — so that Allah’s rights, may He be exalted ‘be made uppermost above all [other] religion’ (Qur’an 9:33).” Without a caliph, those who resist Islam have less to fear; Islamic radicals around the world have therefore long viewed the abolition of the caliphate as an immense tragedy, and its reestablishment as a prerequisite of a worldwide resurgence of Islam.
The intellectual father of all modern-day Muslim radicals, the Egyptian Hasan al-Banna (1906-1949), decried the end of the caliphate because it separated “the state from religion in a country which was until recently the site of the Commander of the Faithful.” Al-Banna characterized the end of the caliphate as part of a larger “Western invasion which was armed and equipped with all [the] destructive influences of money, wealth, prestige, ostentation, power and means of propaganda.” Al-Banna founded the first modern radical Muslim organization, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Another influential radical theorist, Sayyid Abul A‘la Maududi (1903-1979), founder of the Pakistani hardline party Jamaat-e-Islami (Muslim Party), envisioned a unified Islamic state that would steadily expand throughout the subcontinent and beyond: “The Muslim Party will inevitably extend invitation to the citizens of other countries to embrace the faith which holds promise of true salvation and genuine welfare for them. Even otherwise also if the Muslim Party commands adequate resources it will eliminate un-Islamic Governments and establish the power of Islamic Government in their stead.” This was, according to Maududi, exactly what Muhammad and the first caliphs did. “It is the same policy which was executed by the Holy Prophet (peace of Allah be upon him) and his successor illustrious Caliphs (may Allah be pleased with them). Arabia, where the Muslim Party was founded, was the first country which was subjugated and brought under the rule of Islam.”
Such views have long since come to the West. In 1999, Abu Hamza al-Masri, the one- eyed, hook-handed radical who was then imam of London’s Finsbury Park mosque, spoke at a London conference dedicated to lamenting the 75th anniversary of the destruction of the caliphate. “Islam needs the sword,” he said to shouts of “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is great) from the crowd of 400 Muslims. “Whoever has the sword, he will have the earth.”
Abu Hamza is a close associate of Omar Bakri and the radical British Muslim group Al-Muhajiroun. Bakri has declared his desire to see “the black flag of Islam” — that is, the battle flag of jihad — “flying over Downing Street.” Like Bakri and Al-Muhajiroun in Britain, in Germany Shaker Assem and the Islamic Liberation Party (Hizb ut-Tahrir) work to reestablish the caliphate and institute the Sharia. Declares Assem: “People who say there is a conflict between Sharia and Western democracy are right.”
Restoration of the caliphate and the global expansion of Islamic rule and Islamic law was also a goal of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. In 1996 Mullah Omar wrapped himself in the cloak of Muhammad, which lies in a shrine in Afghanistan, as the Taliban proclaimed him the “new caliph” and Emir ul-Momineen, or Commander of the Faithful. In May 2002 a U.S. official noted that their plan was to “take over the whole country” of Afghanistan, and then “expand the caliphate.”
This is the vision that moved Oregon resident Maher “Mike” Hawash to leave his wife and three children after 9/11 in order to make his way to Afghanistan and try to join with the Taliban in its fight against the United States. Hawash, who has pleaded guilty to trying “to willfully supply, directly or indirectly, services to the territory of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban or to the Taliban,” was a naturalized American citizen and, according to the Wall Street Journal, just an ordinary guy. He “had fully integrated himself into the mainstream community where he lived. In many respects he had attained the American dream. He owned his own home and was respected at microchip-maker Intel, one of the U.S.’s preeminent high-tech giants. He was exceptionally popular and known in the community for his volunteer activities.”
What happened to Mike Hawash? According to the Islamic terrorism expert Daniel Pipes, in 2000 “he became noticeably more devout. He grew a beard, wore Arab clothing, prayed five times a day, and regularly attended mosque. He also became noticeably less friendly. Further inquiry found that Hawash paid up his house mortgage (interest payments go against Islamic law) and donated over $10,000 to the Global Relief Foundation, an Islamic charity subsequently closed for financing terrorist groups.”
Likewise the late Ziad Jarrah, one of the September 11 terrorists. On Friday, a girlfriend of Jarrah named Aysel Sengun testified in a trial of another radical Muslim that Jarrah “was a lovely man, very nice, rather introverted. He only became really religious at the end.” She added that he was at first “very western oriented,” but as he became more religious, another side of him emerged. He began to speak often of jihad: “It was the holy war for him. It meant fighting, not using words.” Another friend of Jarrah testified: “He told me it was the greatest joy for a Muslim to wage a holy war.”
It’s intriguing that Hawash and Jarrah become serious about Islam and then started engaging in terrorism. Who taught these guys about Islam, anyway? The Christian Right? Where was Ibrahim Hooper to tell them that they were getting the Religion of Peace all wrong? Americans must face the unpleasant fact that radical Islam is taught in mosques all over the world by devout Muslims who are well-versed in the Qur’an and Islamic tradition. If it’s really a discredited fringe group, as Hooper and Co. would have us believe, or a localized phenomenon of Saudi Wahhabi oil money, well, somebody forgot to tell the radicals themselves.
How many more former ordinary guys like Hawash and Jarrah are entering Iraq now to fight the latest stage of jihad? American officials are actually hoping that any who are so inclined will make the trip. The commander of American ground forces in Iraq, General Ricardo Sanchez, said on CNN’s Late Edition: “This is what I would call a terrorist magnet, where America, being present here in Iraq, creates a target of opportunity. . . . But this is exactly where we want to fight them. . . . This will prevent the American people from having to go through their attacks back in the United States.”
Nonetheless, Americans shouldn’t rest easy just yet. There is no way to tell how many Muslims in the United States and Western Europe are dedicated to jihad for the reestablishment of the caliphate and the resumption of Muslim glory, but it is certain that this particular jihad isn’t even close to being over. Muhammad Youssef of Britain’s Al-Muhajiroun reassured Westerners that “we don’t believe in armed struggle to end man-made law” — that is, all law besides the Sharia. Instead, “we believe in creating a powerful fifth column.” Mike Hawash and Ziad Jarrah (if he were still with us) could give lessons on just how to do so.
Although the materials is interesting, I’d like people to keep comments short. Only on rare occasions should a comment take up more than one screen.
Thanks,
D. Amon,
wearing his Samizdata Asst Editor hat
I don’t take street demonstrations very seriously as an indicator of majority will. They are often an expression of a minority opinion that wants its’ voice heard. I know that from the inside as I was once in some very large anti-Vietnam war demonstrations in Washington DC. While our numbers were huge and our voices were loud, we did not represent anyone but ourselves. Our political successes were to split the Democratic Party in Chicago and ensure Humphrey lost; and then to get McGovern nominated so that Herr NiXon could win by a landslide.
Democracy is decided at the ballot box, not on the street. As I watch the Baghdad bloggers and Iranian dissidents and communicate with them, I know for a fact that Sharia is far from a universal desire in either of those countries.
I cannot speak for Europe, but I can say that it will never happen in the USA. I certainly have no desire to see the human race bring itself to a conclusion over some silly religious doctrine. I sincerely hope those who actually hold such ideas think twice before taking on people who are every bit as crazy as they are.
Dale your understanding that democracy is modern and Islam backward is incorrect, in fact democracy, as the draft constitution admits is the product of the Greek and Roman Empires, which predate Islam. The empires of Rome and Greek crumbled in the face of the superior political system of Islam. It was the Islamic civilization that carried the banner of human progress and development to unprecedented levels and as far as I understand history it was Islam that took science to heights from which Europe benefited and developed. (please do not miss out some 800 years of Islamic Rule in Spain starting from about 711 A.D under the rule of Abd-ar-Rahman III, most people like yourselves seem to conveniently ignore this).
From my understanding Democracy is a mere mask disguising the real nature of the West’s political order and the evil it commits around the world. Many people put forward the argument that democracy is universal (i.e. applicable in all places and cultures), the reality has been that stable democratic political systems have been confined to Western Europe. Democracy has failed to take root in South or Latin America, in Eastern Europe, in Russia and the former Soviet Union, in Africa, in the Arab world or in Asia (hence the importance of India to the West). The rise of Western Europe as a civilization has little to do with democracy, and a great deal to do with military colonialism, imperialism, and in particular the decline of Muslim power and the looting of its wealth.
The reality is that in democracy, corruption is much more sophisticated and less visible. Voting, Parliaments and Congresses are mere theatres designed to fool the masses into believing they have some say in the great decisions of the day. Real power in democracies has always rested with powerful elites, organised groups and interests. Most decisions affecting the people are taken behind closed doors, where influential and unaccountable individuals, groups and interests decide policy (even whether to go to war or not).
Increasingly this reality has dawned on people in western democracies. The electorates have all but given up on voting in the West. They have come to realise that their vote merely legitimises decision makers who more often than not, act according to someone else’s interests
Interesting read if you have time on your hands
http://www.brook.edu/dybdocroot/fp/saban/khamidov20030701.pdf
Dale Amon: 100 % with you.
What’s interesting in a religion is not the irrational core credo (Trinity – Elected People – Revelation to Mahomet…). It’s the intellectual construction on it, provided it is peaceful, sensible, elegant, stimulating & fuelling curiosity.
It goes without saying that Islam is a vain superstition like Judaism & Christianity. I’m not afraid to quote Karl Marx: “La religion c’est l’opium du peuple”.
Abou Amir: you speak too much about chariah. Nobody wants it. Not just in the USA, but also in Europe & in the Arabomuslim world.
Mahomet was just another camel-stealing, paedophilic, bloody-handed thief. Forget all about the angels Gabriel, Michel, Raphaël or Sonia Rykiel: no one talked to Mahomet, except his spliff maybe. Jesus was a lazy, filthy, coward parasite. Moses wasn’t Jewish: he was an Egyptian Pharaon who was more than happy to launch his own business: monotheism.
Abou Amir: drop your dusty book & look up at the stars.
Kodiak it seems you are full of hot air with a dim understanding of Islam. Please let me explain a few things for you, Islam is NOT a Religion it never was and it will never be, rather in the Arabic language it is called Deen and the nearest translation for the word Deen is Ideology(or simpler a way of life). Ideology for the Muslims is something which you believe in, live by and are willing to die for, I hope that puts a few things in perspective for you about what Muslims like Usama Bin Laden, Shamil Basayev & Ayman Al-Zawahiri are putting into practice. Not what you people seem to view that they are envious of your way of life which is so ludicrous and laughable because these people have more money then you will see in a lifetime and they had the freedom and the comforts in their own lands. People like Bin Laden gave all this up to go to a land which was barren and had nothing to offer except that the people wanted to live by the above definition ( though i do not believe that Afghanistan was an Islamic State nor is there any country at present).
The Prophets name was Muhammed not Mahomet as for the rest of your ridiculous claims i will give you a link to refer to rather than waste time writing it out for you because im sure you will bring other claims of a similar nature. so rather than waste my time and your own you can check the correct understanding on the webpage before you make the claim. http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Polemics/aishah.html
As for the “Dusty Book” for your information it offers a challenge to the whole of Mankind to produce a Sura (chapter) like it. The shortest chapter consisting of a mere three lines, NOW if you are such an academic then please by all means take up the challenge, because according to you a “backward desert arab” wrote it so im sure you being so enlightened should have no problems and more than that you will offer rules and regulations pertaining to all aspects of life whether social, political, spiritual or economical. Once you have done this let the American government know because they seem to be wasting their beloved billions on fighting the war on terrorism (i.e Islam & Muslims), this challenge is what our belief stands on so rather than spend your wealth and your lives fighting the Muslims just meet the challenge and we will give up Islam and follow whatever you offer, simple as that.
Ask yourselves why is the American Government spending millions of Pounds to study, fight, change, re-interpret and suppress Islam if it does not see it as a threat, Why? -when we are just “Backward and Barbaric”.
“It is He who has sent His Messenger with the Deen of truth so that it may become dominant over all other ways of life even though the mushriks may detest it” (translation of the Qura`n chapter 9:verse 33)
Abou Amir,
I won’t talk for Anglospherians here because I’m French.
I never thought that some citizens of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Soudan, Sénégal, Mali, Mauritania, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria etc came to France because they were envious –although a vast majority of such newcomers have relied on very generous French welfare (a form of State aid to alleviate World poverty, after all). I think they came to Secular France because the French Republic was appealing to them.
Now I’m speaking about Frenchmen & Frenchwomen who incidentally happen to be Muslim or Muslim-backgrounded. Your absurd obsession with chariah and the Coran doesn’t pass the test of reality: French attendance in mosques is around 20%. Following the pattern of Catholicism (attendance = 5 %), Protestantism (5 or 10 %), Judaism (10 or 15 %) & Orthodoxy (10 or 15 %), Islam observance is rapidly dying among French citizens.
I use the name I want for your “prophet”: for the appellation you questioned is the traditional French way to call him, Mahomet will do.
Plus I don’t need to perform Coranic exegesis to know what I want & what I despise. So spare me your guru-like idolatry: you’ll save time. Your religion or ideology or cult is nothing more than vain superstition. On top of that, if you ever dream of imposing your hallucinations in a free, democratic, secular, rational, republican country, your waking up is going to be very difficult.
(Mahometan) French are more enlightened & secularised than you can possibly imagine. Their civilisation & aspirations can’t be challenged by a book or an ideology worshipped by obsessive, brainwashed cretins.
sorry for the delay been very busy
Kodiak I wont stoop to your pathetic level and be sarcastic but rather i will focus on the argument because it seems that you seem to miss the whole point, (i`m guessing but) it could be because of the frogs or the onion but who knows?
The argument is not what you think to be right or wrong the argument is simple, a man 1400yrs ago gave us something which you and every human being on the earth has been challenged to produce something like, not the whole book, not ten chapters but a mere chapter if you cant speak or read arabic to appreciate the challenge, then take time out because you as an intellectual should have no problems. I can guarantee you that if anybody meets the challenge they will become a worldwide phenomena overnight. i`m sure a secularist like you would love that. now for your point that “I think they came to Secular France because the French Republic was appealing to them” is a load of garbage, they came as economic migrants, originally they came for what they thought was a limited period of time during which they could earn their “fortune” and return home with it, many stayed and raised families., maybe you should speak to them and ask them yourself. As for you other point that Islamic observance is rapidly dying among French citizens is not true. Maybe you should speak to french journalist`s like Guy Milliere who wrote that “The only things that are growing in France right now are crime and Islamism” the rest of what he normally writes is a load of nonsense but its just to prove a point that there are two sides to every story, your own politicians have been complaining that “certain communities, particularly the North African Arabs, refuse to integrate, so maybe its you who has not understood the reality of your own country. As for your statistics that only 20% of the Muslim population attends mosque is more of an indication for me that the no matter what the french authorities force upon the muslims they have not managed to secularise them as they have with people of other beliefs. Now if there is only 20% of the Muslims practicing their belief in a country like france which prides itself on secularsim what about the rest of the world. As for your claim that the french civilisation and its aspirations cant be challenged by a book let me say it for you again this same book altered and changed the situation of nearly two thirds of the world and stopped next to your neighbours, the same giant is now beginning to awaken from its slumber once again.
Ô les croyants, ne prenez pas de confidents en dehors de vous- mêmes: ils ne failliront pas à vous bouleverser. ils souhaiteraient que vous soyez en difficulté. La haine certes s’est manifestée dans leur bouches, mais ce que leurs poitrines cachent est encore plus énorme. Voilà que Nous vous exposons les signes. Si vous pouviez raisonner!
Such things are utterly subjective. Different people will have different opinions. You believe your words are great; I have my own greatest words and really don’t much care what others chose as theirs.
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
Those are MY candidate for the greatest words of all history.
If you don’t agree… it affects my belief every bit as much as my disagreement with yours affects you.
Dale I have no problems with disagreements with people as long we can be civilised about it without to abuse or disrespect one another.
I agree with you when you say it is subjective what people think are great words, but that is not what I am talking about, I am saying there are different Ideologies and religions in the world today. Religions like Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism etc.. There are Ideologies like Capitalism, Communism and Islam, you and me have lived and are living under Capitalism which has many branches. We saw the fall of Communism and I believe it will never rise again because those who used to advocate it have now accepted Capitalism and are living by it. Me and you did not see the political state of Islam which ruled for 1400yrs but what you understand of it and what I understand of it are miles apart. The aim of every Ideology is to look after its citizens secure its interests (economically and militarily) and propagate the ideology to others. What I am saying is that you have not studied the Ideology to see whether it is better than Capitalism, what you have done is taken the understanding from the opponent who is always going to be biased and distort the truth to his own advantage, whether that is via the media or its stooges etc..
Many people today are losing hope and confidence in capitalism because it does not bear any fruits anymore; we see the increase in drugs, rape, crime, suicide, homosexuality, paedophilia, Necrophilia and so on. There is not one country today which can say it is on top of the problems that I have highlighted, how comfortable do you feel with the statistics that in America, a woman is raped every 2 minutes, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. In 1995, 354,670 women were the victims of a rape or sexual assault. (National Crime Victimization Survey. Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, 1996.) this survey was done in 1996 can you imagine the figures at present. How comfortable do you feel about your family when the situation is not just women and girls it is boys and men as well “While 9 out of 10 rape victims are women, men and boys are also victimized by this crime. In 1995, 32,130 males age 12 and older were victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault. [National Crime Victimization Survey. Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, 1996.] Though the constitution you cited may be good in theory is it practiced in reality?. From my viewpoint NO, look at the way the American government has been treating Muslims and other foreign nationals and what it has been doing abroad, then lets its citizens to take the consequences for it
Just prior to the launching of an illegal and fraudulent war on Iraq, Bush gave his ultimatum to the UN, either it legitimises his war or else it would become irrelevant like the League of Nations. When it became apparent that France, and possibly Russia, China would veto a second UN resolution authorising the use of military force, the Bush-Blair spin called it an “unreasonable” veto, and threatened to ignore it. Now Bush has exercised his veto power in defending its client state Israel when the over whelming majority inside the security council unanimously voted in favour of the proposed UN resolution, which condemned Israel’s belligerency (please note it was only a condemnation not even a threat to use force or enforce economic sanctions). So the question is, which veto is reasonable and which one is unreasonable?
In order to find the answer no great minds are required. Firstly, for the sake of simplifying the issue we will overlook the number of times UK and US have exercised their veto powers over the last fifty years. Secondly, we can safely assume that one of the purposes behind the UN is to reflect the voice of the majority of the world’s nations (international consensus) and its population in line with the much talked about democratic principals. Ironically, democracy also happens to be one of the reasons why the UN was trampled upon by the coalition forces to oust Saddam. Consequently it is not unreasonable to take this principal as a yardstick to evaluate, which veto is reasonable and which one is unreasonable.
France, Russia, and China reflected the opinion of their own populations as it was indicated by their opinion polls and the large frequent public demonstrations. The combined alliance of France, Germany, Belgium, and Turkey along with the largest demonstrations held all over Europe (including the pro-war UK and Spain), it would be sound to assume that France was also representing the opinion of the entire European continent. Most certainly you can also safely add the 1.2 billion Muslims (perhaps with the exception of some of the wealthy Kuwaiti’s, Saudi’s, other Gulf states and the Iraqi National Congress), hence covering South-East Asia, Central Asian republics, Middle East and most of Africa. Vast majority of Latin and Central American countries, Canada, Japan, and India were also opposed to the war, indicated by the same massive frequent demonstrations, and the opinion polls. So it would be fair to conclude that the veto threatened by France and the other security council members were not unreasonable by the above democratic principal since they were clearly representing the majority of the worlds nations and its population.
As for the recent veto, it was only the US that exercised this power, whilst eleven members of the Security Council voted in favour and three countries abstained. Clearly this is democracy working in reverse, since it is the will of the minority prevailing over the majority. What happened to democratic principals now? Or is it that the US and the UK Intelligentsia only feels and understands “democracy” by bullying, and abusing the entire Arab/Islamic world for not being “democratic”, whilst upholding the racist and apartheid state of Israel as being a model of democracy in the region? There is well known Islamic principal which the Americans should now learn, “actions are the only proof (evidences) of ones belief and integrity in upholding a certain principal”. The US veto was representative of the minority view with respect to the nations of the world and its population but it was not even representative of its own population, because Bush himself was fraudulently elected, and his government is also illegal and unrepresentative by the extension of that same reason. In addition the current US government is far more representative of the large Multinationals and the powerful right wing Likudniks (Neo-Cons). Let us not forget the powerful corporate funded media manipulation that contributes towards shaping public opinion, is it any surprise that 60% of the Americans still believe the Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 operation.
This is not the first time that the US has exercised her voice in opposing the rest of the world, if we cast our mind back to the conference held in South Africa, when the over whelming majority condemned Israel as a racist apartheid state, the American delegation walked out, which was headed by Colin Powell. One would have assumed that he would have understood what those terms meant, and why they were being applied to Israel, since by his own admission he himself was subjected to racism in the past.