Islam Revert
Dec 20th, 2008, in News, by PatungA teenage Australian girl from sunny Queensland finds Islam in Lampung and becomes a revert.
Kim, or Kimi, otherwise known as “KimDonesia” (Kim + Indonesia), a 17 year old Australian from Queensland, the Sunshine state, once lived in Lampung, southern Sumatra, for six months, accompanying her step-father who worked for a sugar company, Gula Putih Mataram (GPM).
While in Lampung she says she studied Islam, and was moved by the passionate devotion of the people there to the religion, and finally fell in love with it, particularly the sound of the call to prayer.
After moving back to Australia she converted to the faith, or reverted as she would have it. Here she explains, in rather good Indonesian, how she came to live in Indonesia in 2007:
In this video she explains her religious journey – from Wiccan moon worshipping, to nothing in particular, to Islam – she even has the pronunciation right, Islaaam, – and how living in Lampung and talking to the people there was one of the keys to her decision to throw her lot in with Allah.
Youtube Mission
Kimdonesia has in the short time since her conversion this year produced dozens of Islamic dakwah (missionary) videos on Youtube, and has a bit of a following among some Indonesians, at http://www.youtube.com/user/KimDonesia.
549 Comments on “Islam Revert”
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Oigal says:
aaw.. that’s no fun at all.where’s our ranting righteous loon Patrick? How can one possibly make fun of the above đ
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ET says:
@ Nay
Atheism or agnosticism is basically an acknowledgement that the âsky godâ definition is most likely false (which it is), without making any attempt to reconcile or develop the human âspiritâ (or will to live) in my opinion.
I think you are wrong by postulating that atheists and agnosts make no attempts to try and understand the mystery of being. Atheists and certainly agnosts only akcknowledge that at this moment not enough evidence is present to answer the big question, evidence meaning the stuff needed to make the leap from prophetical nonsense to enlightenment and experienced understanding.
Besides there are other philosophical disciplines, like Hinduistic Samkhya and Vedanta that take a different approach to the question without falling into the dualistic dichotomy of god and creation. Too long and complicated to elaborate in a forum like this but there is abundant literature and Google might also be of help.
For those with an interest in advanced physics and oriental philosophies the book ‘The Tao of Physics’ by scientist Fritjof Capra is a good start to get a fresh look and a different approach to these universal issues.
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Nay says:
aaw.. thatâs no fun at all.whereâs our ranting righteous loon Patrick? How can one possibly make fun of the above
Yes… it’s all flowers, rainbows and chirping birds until someone brings up abortion, homosexuality, gay marriage, and stem cell research.
I think you are wrong by postulating that atheists and agnosts make no attempts to try and understand the mystery of being.
They do make attempts just like everybody else, but Dawkins is a biologist, not a philosopher. Like minded atheists are too logical and robotic, and they are correct about the cold, hard facts of evolutionary biology and human ethology… but little else. Definitely not enough to talk about developing a society or civilization that other religions take a solid stab at… and I’m not sure I’d want to be a part of Dawkin’s utopia.
He argues that God is excessively complex and is therefore unlikely to exist. Scholars of religions point out that while God is omnipotent on a purely biological level, on a spiritual level he’s incredibly simple to understand.I think it’s on these grounds we see the contrast between Christianity and Islam. In Islam, Allah is all knowing, and limitless in ability and power… whereas the God as described in Chistianity is limited in power — he cannot lie, cheat, or do anything un”God”-like. Furthermore, Christianity recognises God in three different ways, all symbolically coded: The Father (all creation), the Son (our human selves, where Jesus is the prototypical “perfect” human being to which we aim for), and the Holy Spirit (the “happiness” and feelings we get, as well as our abilities to do the “word of God”).
Who is right? Well, I take a page out of Socrates musings :- All I know is that I know nothing đ
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Fawzia says:
Hi Md.Elijah
I would like you to enumerate a few.
Of course Muhammad forgave a few people, infact more than a few people, why wouldn’t he? He wanted to establish his faith, he can hardly establish his faith on a non existent population, which is what would’ve happened had he killed all.
In any case, he did both mass murder & forcibly convert.
Mass murder when he slaughtered all the Jews of Banu Quraiza & forcibly convert when he smashed the idols of idolators & threatened to kill idolators if they came out to protect their idols.
After destroying the idols of their gods, he converted them all to Islam, which was an example of clear forced conversion.
This is the behavior Muslims still indulge in, when they destroy the Bamiyan Buddhas, this is the behavior Muslims have indulged in for centuries.
Regarding his forgiving people, course he was prepared to forgive some so long as they accepted his vile faith, otherwise they’d lose their heads.
He butchered all the Banu Quraiza Jews, he destroyed all the Meccan idolators gods, threatening to slaughter them if they came out to protect their gods. Before Muhammad, the Arabian Peninsula had multiple religions, it was what is today termed a “multicultural” society, conversions to other faiths were freely allowed, so Khadija’s cousin Waraqa converted to Christianity. Jews also flourished, so we have Jews living in harmony with the pagans, & Jewish Kaab ibn al Ashraf, whose Arab pagan father married his Jewish mother, Kaab could be raised Jewish according to halacha.
Muhammad came with the clear aim & determination to cleanse the region of other faiths, which is what he ruthlessly put into practice.
As Muhammad openly said:
________________________________________
Sahih Muslim Book 019, Number 4366:
It has been narrated by ‘Umar b. al-Khattib that he heard the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) say: I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslim.His mass slaughter of the Banu Quraiza Jews & forcibly breaking the idolators idols, threatening them with death if they opposed his idol smashing & then converting them was all part of his devious designs.
We can see his legacy in today’s Saudi, where not a church, synagogue or temple is allowed to be built & apostates are given the death penalty.
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Hi Nay,
I do agree that Islam has a bit of an image problem in that regard⌠but letâs not judge religions based on the actions of their followers. Take any belief system you like, there ARE going to be people who get the precepts completely wrong and run amok. Itâs unfortunate that the more intelligent and enlightened Muslim minority donât speak out enough against those who tarnish Islamâs reputation⌠but then a newspaper headline of âMan finds enlightenmentâ doesnât make for good media copy. Plus the owners of the worldâs media would much rather have us kill each other off to make them even more wealthy.
Sure, we shouldn’t judge religions on the actions of their “followers” but we can judge religions on the actions of its founder right?
So I can well judge Islam on the actions of Muhammad. Sure, there’re going to be people who get the religions’ precepts completely wrong & run amok, but there’re also followers who get the religions’ precepts exactly as the founder intended them & run amok! đ
Muhammad’s followers do get much of his precepts right when they run amok,doing exactly as Muhammad did.
This is why the enlightened Muslim minority doesn’t really manage to defeat the bad followers, because those running amok are often on stronger grounds theologically.
Take something like the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, some Muslims supported the act, many opposed it, but on what grounds did they oppose it?
That its not alright to destroy any idol which doesn’t cause idolatry today, so since the Bamiyan Buddhas weren’t causing any Muslims in Afghanistan to become Buddhists today, they can remain.
While the sentiments expressed were noble, I had to first laugh at the way the “enlightened Muslim minority” were trying to defend its stance, then I actually felt sympathy for their predicament.
Since Muhammad himself had destroyed the idols of idol worshippers, & he’s considered the Sunnah for all Muslims, not even the enlightened Muslim minority could state that idol smashing is wrong, period. They could only come up with the platitude, “As long as they’re no longer causing idolatry.” đ
But what if an Afghan Muslim decided to become Buddhist? Then that would have been legitimate ground to smash Bamiyan Buddhas, in Muhammad’s style. đ
There are a heck of a lot of Christians who honestly believe that God is a figure who hangs in the sky distant from humanity who is going to blow the planet up at some unspecified date, and a undead-zombie called Jesus is going to float back down to earth to rule it. Itâs utterly ridiculous, and comes from a complete misunderstanding of the precepts and symbolism of Christianity ⌠and this is where you get your American mid-west Christian loonies from.
You’re a very nice person Nay, but lets not get into such simplistic & wishy washy comparisons here. Yes, there’re fundamentalist Christians, & fundamentalist Muslims, but fundamentalist Muslims so highly outnumber Christians, even in USA, in dangeros acts, that stating both are equally misled is a scurrilous moral equivalence. US loonies have murdered 9 abortion doctors in all these years, Maj. Hassan killed 13 in a single ay a month back. Just look at the huge number of terror attacks done by Muslims globally every single day, no other religion can come anywhere close.
Similarly, you find armchair Muslims getting the concept of jihad completely wrong and going too far with it, which is where we end up with âMuslimâ terrorists. It may just so happens that misunderstanding the Quran is more likely to be highly dangerous
Do jihadists really get the concept of jihad completely wrong, or is it that many of them indeed get the concept of jihad right, which is why the enlightened minority is left incapable of defending their position theologically?
The Quran does have pretty explicit instructions to fight people-fight Jews, fight Christians, fight idolators, while Jews & Christians are at least given the option of jizya taxes, Hindus & Buddhists are given not even that option.
The Quran describes Muslims as the “best of peoples,” Quran 3:110 & unbelievers as the “vilest of creatures.” Quran 98:6. Many, may similar passages eulogize believers & disparage unbelievers. Fighting is allowed till oppression ends & “faith in Allah reigns supreme” but what is oppression?
Any Muslim can call the Swiss ban on minarets an oppression & fight for Allah’s faith. Likewise, the Quran does insist that Jews & Christians feel “suppressed” & pay jizya, well the Egyptian Muslim brotherhood does want the Christians to pay jizya taxes.
Likewise, Hindus & Buddhists maybe fought until they convert to Islam, as Quran 9:5 says, “Slay the idolators wherever you find them, but if they repent, take to prayer & render the alms levy, allow them to go their way.”
This means-but if they repent, take to prayer & render the alms levy, the idolators become Muslims, pay zakat & pray to Allah. đ
Violence on others is quite a logical outworking of the Quran, & of course entirely according to Muhammad’s Sunnah.
I believe the Quran is correct here. Unfortunately it also seems to me that if this is true, Islam cannot claim to be âthe onlyâ religion, because Islam would therefore be a limited construct of worshipping Allah, and will always fall short! (In a sense, making us all âsinnersâ) Islam, along with other religions, would be like blind people trying to describe an elephant purely based on the part that they are touching!
Well in passage after passage, Islam claims to be the most superior faith, it ridicules idolatrous faiths, ridicules Christians who worship a Trinity etc.
Islam isn’t a Buddhism type religion, it does claim again & again that its the best & the only, the ones who don’t choose it will burn in Hell. đ
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Hi Fawzia,
Great posts as usual. But can you make a thesis to link the monkey-like appearance of saudi’s imaaaam and the darkness they’re preaching (wahabism)? I guess we can draw a line between those two.
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I was talking about this (just a sample): http://www.presstv.ir/photo/20090521/jalili20090521141925265.jpg
He he.
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I saw that movie..original was better than the remake
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muhammadelijah says:
I am willing to help people out with a general outline for a good thesis to link the ‘monkey-like appearance’ of saudiâs ‘imaaaam’ and the ‘darkness’ theyâre preaching (‘wahabism’)? .
Let me give you a gist of what they are preaching.
O men! Behold, We have created you all out of a male and a female, and have made you into nations and tribes, so that you might come to know one another. Verily, the noblest of you in the sight of God is the one who is most deeply conscious of Him. Behold, God is all-knowing, all-aware.
Soorah Al Hujurat
Aayah 13
http://honorablequran.com/49.htmMan is but a God-conscious believer or an unfortunate sinner. All people are children of Adam, and Adam was created out of dust.” (Fragment of a hadith quoted by Tirmidhi and Abu Da’ud, on the authority of Abu Hurayrah.)
No Arab has any superiority over a non-Arab, nor does a non-Arab have any superiority over an Arab. Nor does a white man have any superiority over a black man, or the black man any superiority over the white man. You are all the children of Adam, and Adam was created from clay ( Quoted by al-Bayhaqi and al-Bazzaz).
Verily God does not look to your bodies nor to your faces but He looks to your hearts. and he pointed towards the heart with his fingers.(Quoted by Muslim)
Verily God does not look to your faces and your wealth but He looks to your heart and to your deeds. (Quoted by Muslim)
It would be relevant here to narrate a story from our past about not-much-beautiful Muslim.
In 634 CE when the Muslims conquered Egypt at the time when Omar ibn al Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) was Khalifa, a Muslim leader who happened to be a black man named Ubaydah ibn Thamit, took a party of the Muslims to meet Muqawqis, the Christian leader of Egypt. When the Muslims came to Muqawqis, with Ubaydah in the lead, Muqawqis was frightened by the color of his skin. ‘Get this black man away from me and bring someone else,â he demanded. The Muslims refused. They insisted that Ubaydah was the best among them and was their leader who they obeyed and whose judgment they deferred to. Finally Muqawqis had no choice but talk to the leader of that Muslim delegation.
In our all-encompassing cosmic perspective, piety and piety alone, as opposed to looks, constitute the fundamental basis of social, religious or political stature in this life as well as in the next.
I hope I have succeeded in getting across a gist of what they are exactly preaching. Maybe you end up some day voting and giving carte blanche, as French, I guess, call it, to someone like Bush and Blair, who would kill and maim Muslims with drones on the pretext of supporting ‘Wahabism’ and giving ‘safe havens’ to ‘Al Qaeda’.
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Of course Muhammad forgave a few people, infact more than a few people, why wouldnât he? He wanted to establish his faith he can hardly establish his faith on a non existent population, which is what wouldâve happened had he killed all.
By the way,why did he want to establish his faith?
He (sall Allaahu ‘alaihi wasallam)was leading a very, what we call today,happy life. He (sall Allaahu ‘alaihi wasallam) enjoyed respect of his community which transformed into mortal enmity after He(sall Allaahu ‘alaihi wasallam) proclaimed a religious mission. He (sall Allaahu ‘alaihi wasallam) was married to a very rich wife.
Why did He (sall Allaahu ‘alaihi wasallam) undertake world’s greatest military expeditions ever despite His (sall Allaahu ‘alaihi wasallam) old age?
Was it bid to power or was it a bid to create an incorruptible Godly civilisation that would continue to proclaim the superiority of Godliness and God-consciousness over every other merit?
And while the Muslim empire today is not such a strong entity as it was in the past, yet the religious mission of Final Apostle of God to Humanity is very much alive to the extent that Christian Evangelists have publicly asserted the failure of their bid to apostatise Muslims to the vague Christianity, that is no more a systematic religion than ‘being good’ pronouncements of those who inherited it, a vague Christianity that is everything to everyone, as it is today.
Hilaire Belloc a Christian writes
âIslam is apparently unconvertible. The missionary efforts made by great Catholic orders which have been occupied in trying to turn Mohammedans into Christians for nearly 400 years have everywhere wholly failed. We have in some places driven the Mohammedan master out and freed his Christian subjects from Mohammedan control, but we have had hardly any effect in converting individual Mohammedans….â
http://www.morec.com/schall/2003/bellocislamirm03.htmWe no longer regarded Islam as a rival to our own culture. We thought of
its religion as a sort of fossilised thing about which we need not
trouble. That was almost certainly a mistake. We shall almost certainly
have to reckon with Islam in the near future. Perhaps if we lose our
Faith it will rise.
http://www.ewtn.com/library/HOMELIBR/HBISLAM.TXT -
OK muhammadelijah, back to the tent.. we have a wealth of people here who can cut n paste from the gazillion loony religious web sites out there. People without opinions of their own tend to be boring.
As a matter of interest, his (even accepting the toss as historical fact) worldâs greatest military expeditions were not even close to that, minor skirmishes at with a bunch of desert tribes. Now the Ottoman empire was not bad, but still a long way from the top 100.
Tell you what just for fun, pick the best battle and tactics for the “world’s greatest military expeditions” (no flying horses now tho, has to be verifiable) and I will within ten minutes of reading it provide four better without raising a sweat.As for loony christians, I will see your loony christian and raise you a bizarre hindu. All in all cut n paste nonsense.
We thought of its religion as a sort of fossilised thing about which we need not trouble.
Yea that was a bugger now we need to wait for the oil to run out, although dubai is doing its bit and its back to the dunes.
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Great posts as usual. But can you make a thesis to link the monkey-like appearance of saudiâs imaaaam and the darkness theyâre preaching (wahabism)? I guess we can draw a line between those two.
Hahaha! đ đ đ đ đ đ
I will surely try to make athesis, or at least an article someday, it ought to be interesting. đ
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Oigal
OK muhammadelijah, back to the tent.. we have a wealth of people here who can cut n paste from the gazillion loony religious web sites out there. People without opinions of their own tend to be boring.
Most practising and educated Muslims brought up in colonial educational systems from Morocco to Indonesia wrenched from their culture, their language, their past tend to find comfort in the English passages that purport to convey more effectively and eloquently similar ideas they like to express. English is neither my native language, nor is the case with many other practicing and educated man and women born in the Muslim world. Fawzia, for example speaks, I hope she wouldnât have forgotten- Faarisi, which my father learnt when he went to school. My native language is Urdu. I can express my opinions with greater ease, with greater innovation, with greater eloquence than my Urdu-speaking fellows and I can confidently say that in the society I live in, I am among those individuals of my society who tend to form and express well-informed opinions regarding every facet of their individual life, particularly as Muslims, as well as their collective lives, as Muslim nations, and particularly as a supranational Ummah that transcends geography. Hence you find a Pakistani, a Persian on an Indonesian forum. This is the centripetal force of Islam. Our points of agreement, our debates , our points of disagreement are entwined and woven with the cosmic perspective , that is , Islam.
Most of the of the original thinking that has emerged in the Muslim world in the post-occupation or post-colonial era has been on the issue of religion and modernity-a discourse that is radically different from the corresponding equivalent in the West. Hence, âIslam and modernityâ as understood by thinking Muslims would be a very different debate in terms of conceptual framework- the terms used and the basic assumptions than âChristianity and modernityâ for example. But this rigorous and extensive thinking has yet to emerge as a modern intellectual enterprise owing to our linguistic handicap. Islam has historically been an intellectual civilization, but first and foremost, a spiritual civilization. And it is the intellectual and spiritual civilization of the future-a dead-cert, I believe, for the centuries or even the decades to come-a civilization in which the dichotomy of spiritualism and intellectualism does not simply exist.
As soon as we as a society overcome this linguistic handicap and become linguistically self-sufficient, we would abandon to seek comfort in these crutches. I regret being boring, but owing to my age,21, I am not yet very much experienced at making my narrative interesting. To use a phrase ET used, I have yet to expand my horizons.
As a matter of interest, his (even accepting the toss as historical fact) worldâs greatest military expeditions were not even close to that, minor skirmishes at with a bunch of desert tribes. Now the Ottoman empire was not bad, but still a long way from the top 100.
I actually don’t bother much about the greatest military expeditions argument which Michael Hart has tried to argue. The Islamic criterion of holistic success ,that is, the success before death in this life of Dunyaa, and the life after death of Aakhirah ,is predicated on The Book of God and The Praxis of The Apostle of God(God’s Blessings and Peace be upon Him)
For, they who pay heed unto God and His Apostle, and stand in awe of God and are conscious of Him, it is they, they who shall triumph [in the end]! (Leopol Weiss’s now Muhammad Asad’s translation)
He who obeyeth Allah and His messenger, and feareth Allah, and keepeth duty (unto Him): such indeed are the victorious. (Marmaduke Pickthal’s translation)
Aayah 52
Soorah An-Noor [The Light]
http://honorablequran.com/24.htm -
Hahaha!
What a blatant display of sadism!
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Hi Md. Elijah,
Fawzia, for example speaks, I hope she wouldnât have forgotten- Faarisi, which my father learnt when he went to school. My native language is Urdu.
I know my native tongue well enough, thank you, you don’t need to remind me of it.
Well, why is my native tongue called Farsi & not “P”arsi? Because Arab barbarians from what is KSA invaded my beautiful birthplace armed with their newly invented ugly religion, & language & destroyed my language, religion & culture. We still have some fools like yourself left in Persia, albeit in increasingly diminishing numbers,who’re slaves of the Arabs, praising the very people who invaded& destroyed their cultures, imposing their vile faiths which is still causing so much trouble to our societies.
Arabic didn’t even have the word ‘P’ so Parsi became Farsi! đ
Had those barbarians not invaded, we’d be a civilized nation, women wouldn’t be condemned to wear the hijab, people wouldn’t be stoned to death.
Hence you find a Pakistani, a Persian on an Indonesian forum. This is the centripetal force of Islam. Our points of agreement, our debates , our points of disagreement are entwined and woven with the cosmic perspective , that is , Islam.
I am on this forum coz my aunt is Javanese, its got little to do with Islam, there are multiple people of other religions & no religion out here too.
As for Pakistanis & Persians on an Indonesian forum, at least the Persian-me, has come out of her Islamic delusions & is proudly an apostate, the Pakistani is still living in his Islamic delusions. đ
Every time I see Iranian women stoned to death for adultery, I see Ayatollah Khomeini’s words that men marry 9 year old girls,or even when I see blasts on TV in your nation Pakistan, done by Muslim jihadis, or blasts in London tubes done by second generation Pakistanis, I do think of Islam, but I think of Islam with the same fear & loathing with which a woman regards her rapist, or an abused child his pedophile molestor! đ
That is how I think of Islam, & fortunately after all these years of the Islamic Revolution & its ugly effects in Iran, that is also how many young Iranians I know see Islam.Pakistan too is having daily trouble & blasts, but unfortunately deluded people like you are yet to recognize the trouble that is Islam.
Never mind, these things take a long time to be cured, we Iranians too were in a similar state to what you Pakistanis are now due to Islam some decades back during our Islamic Revolution, so I can wholeheartedly sympathize with your predicament & your delusions. đ
Muhammad’s Arab imperialism is a cancer far worse than any European colonization, while European colonizations open the mind, leading it to think better, Arab Muslim invasions have warped Muslim minds, leading them to become mindless zombies, incapable to solve the problems in their societies or successfully adapting to modernity.
The Islamic criterion of holistic success ,that is, the success before death in this life of Dunyaa, and the life after death of Aakhirah ,is predicated on The Book of God and The Praxis of The Apostle of God(Godâs Blessings and Peace be upon Him)
‘
Well, then the utter failure & daily Islamic jihadi blasts in your nation should’ve convinced you of what an utter lie Muhammad uttered, when he predicted worldly success! đ
Inspite of all the oil, the pathetic state of the Arab nations & even Iran should’ve convinced you further. Ottoman Turkey, a Muslim nation, & a huge colonizer of European nations like Greece, now has people migrating to richer European nations like Switzerland, which never colonized anyone! đ
However, I know how deep is the cancer called Islam, how it can rob peoples’ power of thinking, so I’m not surprised that you’re still in a state of delusion.
Oh, & Saudi & Iran were never colonized, so you don’t have the “colonization” excuse either.
Muhammad predicted that sort of success because he was a war lord cum Prophet, a Chengiz Khan type guy, so he could inspire his followers with stories of booty on Earth & virgins in Paradise! đ
These stories helped Muslim overrun & destroy beautiful & successful civilizations like Persia, Mesopotemia, India etc, butchering non Muslims, all their human pity lost due to Muhammad’s delusional faith.
Today however, success requires intellect, hard work, one can’t get money & success by looting, killing & cannibalizing other successful civilizations, so Muhammad’s followers’ are so backward & unsuccessful, yet the warrior instinct that Muhammad planted in their minds remain, which is why they plot & carry out so many terror attacks in so many places globally! đ
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
Yet, deluded Muslims like yourself still sing the praises of the very Arab conquerors who brought you to this pathetic state! đ
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Big M,
I regret being boring, but owing to my age,21,
It has nothing to do with you being boring or your age. This is an opinion site and debate can be enjoyable no matter what the position of the other side. However, the endless cut and paste of other material from (usually) extremist, political, religious or other sites. – That is boring and pointless!
For every loony, myopic opinion stating the supremacy of Islam, anyone can find ten other articulate, although equally nutty and vicious quotes describing Islam as a failing, floundering desert cult with no place in the modern world. So the whole exercise becomes a pointless war of cut n paste.I actually donât bother much about the greatest military expeditions argument which Michael Hart has tried to argue.
Then the question has to be asked why did you throw it up as one for the few points that was not cut n paste? It was factually incorrect and easily verifiable as such. The habit of declaring nonsense as fact, then walking away when challenged is a time honoured ploy of the religious impaired seriously annoying. A although, to be fair thatâs a common thread throughout all religions, outrageous claims thrive as those of the faith are rarely taught to critically question, faith by its very nature requires the suspension of reason.
But this rigorous and extensive thinking has yet to emerge as a modern intellectual enterprise owing to our linguistic handicap
You cannot be serious? Shall we name other nations who we could say are somewhat “isolated” from the world due language yet have managed to achieved so much. Japan, Korea, France, Germany limited populations no common language and yet? Perhaps it has more to do with elevation of Ignorance by vast swathes of the faithful, where girls are refused schooling or the fact that more books are translated in Italian in one year than have been translated into Arabic in the past 500 years. To further ensure intellectual ignorance, so many insist their children study Arabic at the expense of all else, yet you have the nerve to allude its someone elseâs fault? A matter of faith you say or a journey into intellectual poverty? Personally, I believe it is condemning children to a life time of ignorance is abuse, but I am realistic enough to realise that is the way of the world, but donât expect any reasonable person to accept the rubbish that the blame lies anywhere but within the regilion.
particularly as Muslims, as well as their collective lives, as Muslim nations, and particularly as a supranational Ummah that transcends geography
It is always surprising to me when someone brings up the Ummah. There is of course no such thing, it only exists as some sort utopian fantasy with no grounding in the real world. It is so similar to the “we are one” destructive myth of communism with the practical record in death, destruction and racism. The rest of the thinking world has seen the reality of the Ummah and rightly dismisses it as yet another fantasy of the deluded. Tragically, your own Pakistan today is the very proof that “Ummah” is if I may borrow your phrase, is a cosmic sick joke. How on earth, you can still proclaim âUmmahâ after what is occurring is testimony of how removed from reality religion can actually take a person and what destructive powers it has.
And it (Islam) is the intellectual and spiritual civilization of the future-a dead-cert,
Actually no, like all the other major religions it relies on ignorance and superstition to survive. The combination of limited real education to the vast majority of “believers” and temporary oil wealth has meant Islam is experiencing a minor resurgence. A blip, a dangerous and violent blip but a blip never the less.
The reality is religion (all) has always existed to explain the things we don’t understand; yet everyday science shines light into those dark places of ignorance. God in all his/her/their forms and attributes is every day forced into the deeper recesses (The God of dark places if you will). Yes, it will not be easy and many will be hurt as those that cannot accept other may think differently will thrash about, creating mayhem as they are challenged as never before but it is inevitable they will go the way of the AZTEC Sun worshipers.
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You cannot be serious? Shall we name other nations who we could say are somewhat “isolated” from the world due language yet have managed to achieved so much. Japan, Korea, France, Germany limited populations no common language and yet?
All the non-Muslim nations with the language issue, don’t share the ambivalence of Islam, or more precisely thinking Muslims, who lead Muslims owing to their moral credentials exclusively- whether South Asian or South Esat Asia or Middle Eastern, towards modern languages and modern culture specifically owing to the Al -Fahshaa or ‘perverse sexuality’ inherent to the civilsation which was historically Judaeo-Christendom. These thinking Muslims enjoy far more esteem in our societies than do philosophers, scientists or theologians in the West. Whether secular ( atheists, agnosts) or religious (Jews and Christians) non-Muslims, agree to the historical Islamic norms of morality or not, that are perhaps more liberal than the Christian notions of celibacy or monogamy, but incompatible with the perverse hedonism prevalent today, we can’t negotiate them. And it is our collective determination or will as Muslims owing to a spiritual quality inherent to Islam that though more than open to the learning contemporary fields of knowledge, that resists cultural assimilation as opposed to intellectual assimilation, which is encouraged to such an extent based on such strong theological foundations, that the dichotomy of reason and revelation that afflicts Western thought owing to the failure of Christian tradition to produce intellectually fulfilled Christians. Our intellectual tradition, on the other hand is essentially ‘religious’ in a sense unintelligible to a person not trained in the intellectual tradition of Islam.
Perhaps it has more to do with elevation of Ignorance by vast swathes of the faithful, where girls are refused schooling or the fact that more books are translated in Italian in one year than have been translated into Arabic in the past 500 years.
The past 500 years witnessed the respectworthy advancement of human knowledge which every Muslim of in every age has and would continue to esteem. However, the same span of 500 years witnessed destruction of Muslim educational, cultural and political institutions by European forces. This is the crux of the dilemma of ambivalence. If we adopt the new educational system for purely intellectual goals that would destroy the moral fabric of the society that took centuries to build.
This ambivalence and ferment of ideas produced three types of individuals in all Muslim societies. Those who rejected modernity outright for the sake of preserving the religious mission of Islam.Those who rejected Islam in totality or at least in the practical aspects of life assimilating wholesale modern lifestyle. And, finally the thinking Muslims who were inwardly convinced of intellectual superiority of Islam over all existent philosophical and religious systems and hoped for a modern manifestation of religion as proclaimed in The Scripture.The intellectuals Muslim civilisation produced at a time the moral values of The Holy Qur’aan constituted the basis of Muslim law as well as ethics, were prolific translators into Arabic of any work that had any intellectual value. But when colonial law and education became functional in Muslim nations the native languages began to lose prestige. Now, all of those who were capable of any intellectual endeavour were divided. The thoroughly assimilated camp didn’t bother to translate in whether into Arabi, Urdu or Farsi, because they now had begun to treat those languages as inferior. While those with cultural self-esteem still left: didn’t either know foreign tongue as was the case with most religious seminaries while the minority left behind although possessing the will to instigate an intellectual revolution had to multi-task which left very little time for engaging in rigorous and dedicated intellectual activity.
For example, once It occured to me that I would translate Stephen Hawking’s The Brief History of Time, but the social responsibilities and activities I am engaged in owing to the current political situation render this objective nearly impossible.
It is always surprising to me when someone brings up the Ummah. There is of course no such thing, it only exists as some sort utopian fantasy with no grounding in the real world. It is so similar to the âwe are oneâ destructive myth of communism with the practical record in death, destruction and racism. The rest of the thinking world has seen the reality of the Ummah and rightly dismisses it as yet another fantasy of the deluded. Tragically, your own Pakistan today is the very proof that âUmmahâ is if I may borrow your phrase, is a cosmic sick joke. How on earth, you can still proclaim âUmmahâ after what is occurring is testimony of how removed from reality religion can actually take a person and what destructive powers it has.
Ummah is a reality that every Muslim tacitly acknowledges. 70 million Muslims face Makkah five times a day from America to Indonesia- a daily visual demonstration of the the Ummah that exists. More than a billion fast from Sahar to Iftaar at the same time for thirty days every year. Every year, Muslim pilgrims from all the corners of the world participate in the ceremony of Hajj. These visual demonstrations are predicated on a concrete reality that is Ummah. And that Ummah is supranational.
Actually no, like all the other major religions it relies on ignorance and superstition to survive. The combination of limited real education to the vast majority of âbelieversâ and temporary oil wealth has meant Islam is experiencing a minor resurgence.
The tendency of viewing oil wealth as bearing on Islam is a somewhat misleading tendency. There is no oil wealth in South Asian and South East Asian Muslim nations, nor I think that the preaching of Islam has anything to do with financial matters. In fact, churches of today are very well off today so you might subconsciously ascribe to the role of economics in religious propaganda as some people in the West like to call it but as an inside observer of the sources of Islamic resurgence, I would ascribe it to those anonymous mystics scattered through all Muslim nations that continue to inspire Muslims in fact traumatised or shocked by the blatant sexual perversity that modernity characterizes. It is the inherent spiritual vitality of Islam, I believe, that gives the a spiritual impetus to Muslims exposed to the hedonism of the West.
There is a nice Urdu couplet which describes this aspect of Islam.
Islam ki fitrat main qudrat nain lachak rakhi hay
Utna hi yeh Ubhray ga jitna kay dubaa do gayIslam is bestowed with an adaptibility by Nature
The more it is suppressed, the more it resurges.And it (Islam) is the intellectual and spiritual civilization of the future-a dead-cert,
Actually no, like all the other major religions it relies on ignorance and superstition to survive. …
The reality is religion (all) has always existed to explain the things we donât understand; yet everyday science shines light into those dark places of ignorance. God in all his/her/their forms and attributes is every day forced into the deeper recesses (The God of dark places if you will)
.
Science would ultimately integrate into every aspect of Muslim civilsation in such a way that it would become bereft of its contemporary antitheistic epistemology , because Ilm(knowledge) by its nature doesn’t ascribe itself to an antitheistic bias as much as a biased theism. The historical problem with Christianity is that it played a very different role in the Western intellectual tradition as compared to that of Islam in our intellectual tradition.
Tragically, your own Pakistan today is the very proof that âUmmahâ is if I may borrow your phrase, is a cosmic sick joke. How on earth, you can still proclaim âUmmahâ after what is occurring is testimony of how removed from reality religion can actually take a person and what destructive powers it has.
Such simplistic statements or convictions, whether by policy makers or ordinary citizens outside the Muslim world ,intended to fit the events in Muslim world into their own, and I must emphasize, predominantly Christian perceptions of religion, play a significant role in exacerbating the root causes of conflict in the Muslim world. Enforced secularisation is a scourge that would lead to a global revolt against secularism, the poison introduced through colonialism, in the Muslim world.
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The Islamic criterion of holistic success ,that is, the success before death in this life of Dunyaa, and the life after death of Aakhirah ,is predicated on The Book of God and The Praxis of The Apostle of God(Godâs Blessings and Peace be upon Him)
Well, then the utter failure & daily Islamic jihadi blasts in your nation shouldâve convinced you of what an utter lie Muhammad uttered, when he predicted worldly success!
The comparison of the treatment of British journalist arrested by Mujaahideen of Afghanistan Yvonne Ridley as compared to Pakistani Mujaahidah, mother of three young children, Dr. Afia Siddiqui, an MIT student kidnapped, sexually molested, shot in the leg, held in a cage by FBI, is an ample proof of the sublime character of the true Mujaahideen and the brutality to which deep hatred of Islam can take your new Western compatriots epitomized by Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
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A non-Muslim before Muslim captivity
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And she returns from their captivity not only as a Muslim but wearing Hijab as well.
A Pakistani Muslim woman before non-Muslim captivity:
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And she hasn’t yet returned, but I found a glimpse of her captivity:
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My sister Afia Siddiqui, indeed you are successful.
For, they who pay heed unto God and His Apostle, and stand in awe of God and are conscious of Him, it is they, they who shall triumph [in the end]!
(Leopol Weissâs now Muhammad Asadâs translation)He who obeyeth Allah and His Messenger, and feareth Allah, and keepeth duty (unto Him) , such indeed are the victorious. (Marmaduke Pickthalâs translation)
Aayah 52
Soorah An-Noor [The Light]
http://honorablequran.com/24.htm -
There are none so blind as those who will not see..
Are you seriously going to try and compare treatment of people in detention between the liberal democracies and the muslim world? Shall we discuss the treatment of the people in Iran at the moment?
There is no oil wealth in South Asian and South East Asian Muslim nations,
Malaysia and Indonesia will be surprised to hear that (granted little of the wealth reaches the people) to which countries where you refering?
is an ample proof of the sublime character of the true Mujaahideen and the brutality to which deep hatred of Islam can take your new Western compatriots epitomized by Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
What nonsense, I take it you have missed the beheadings of innocents, acid in the faces of children, blowing up of innocents at prayer and in the market. Last I heard the people who violated procedures at Abu G, have been charged and are serving long jail sentences but hey don’t let the facts get in way of good rant (AG would still be regarded as a holiday home in comparision to any middle east place detention).
âperverse sexualityâ inherent to the civilsation which was historically Judaeo-Christendom.
The nonsense that you have had drummed into you as fact is frankly scary and a embarrassment.
The past 500 years witnessed the respectworthy advancement of human knowledge which every Muslim of in every age has and would continue to esteem.
Name two?
The intellectuals Muslim civilisation produced at a time the moral values of The Holy Qurâaan constituted the basis of Muslim law as well as ethics, were prolific translators into Arabic of any work that had any intellectual value.
Name two?
70 million Muslims face Makkah five times a day from America to Indonesia- a daily visual demonstration of the the Ummah that exists.
No it doesn’t it just proves that brainwashing from a early age has the effect of removing the reasoning. The treatment of muslims by muslims including slaughter, rape, destruction proves it is nothing more than a collective fanasty..Sudan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia provide vivid and bloody proof of the fanasty. Need I go on? How many Muslims were slaughtered this week by other Muslims compared to any of the traditional scape goats.
or shocked by the blatant sexual perversity that modernity characterizes.
More nonsense, shall we talk of of sex slaves in the Middle East Africa, human trafficing and the nations that support it.
predominantly Christian perceptions of religion, play a significant role in exacerbating the root causes of conflict in the Muslim world.
AH yes, the the old we are the victim ploy, its all them others when we commit evil upon ourselves, so easy to blame others isn’t it but it proves the immaturity of the people who plead it. We don’t accept it from five year olds and we should not accept it from anyone else
Enforced secularisation is a scourge that would lead to a global revolt against secularism, the poison introduced through colonialism, in the Muslim world.
Typically confused rant, you spend a whole post trying to blame all the woes of Islam on the christians and now it was the secular colonialists that did it. Fact is all of the colonial powers at the time were very heavily religiously driven. So which is it Secular or Christian?
Lastly, think and post your own opinions, not some drivel from “ASK THE IMAM WEBSITE” Its obvious and merely confirms that some people are so indoctrinated they are unable to think for themselves.
Oh AND PUTTING SOMETHING IN BOLD DOESN’T MAKE IT SO
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Last I heard the people who violated procedures at Abu G, have been charged and are serving long jail sentences
Even all the pictures of abuse arenât yet published yet.
The Geneva Convention didn’t apply to Captain Carolyn Wood methods of interrogationâŚ.
Wood and she has never been held accountable.But neither of the two men that caused death of Manadel al-Jamadi have been charged. The private contractor was granted immunity
The U.S. government appears more interested in blaming abuses on low-level personnel than in investigating the role of commanding officers and civilian officials.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse
the beheadings of innocents
Are the mass-slaughterer invaders mass-slaughtering Muslim women and children by bombs innocent?
Are you arguing that killing the enemy by indiscriminate carpet bombing by B-52 bombers in Iraq and Afghanistan, bombing to annihilation two entire cities with nuclear weapons the horrors of which persist for generations to come is morally superior to beheading of invaders, because it is modern, state sponsored, institutionalized, organized, systematized compared to pre-modern, carried out by non-state actors act of beheading invaders? If beheading the invaders demoralizes and eventually deters the invaders from slaughtering another million Muslims, then deterrent beheading of mass-slaughterer invaders to end their mass-slaughter of Muslim women and children by bombs must continue. And, if it is capitalized on by mass slaughterer invaders to slaughter a million more Muslims, they should be executed by shooting without Muthlaa meaning mutilation(a term used in Fiqh of Qitaal or Jurisprudence of War). The deterrent beheading of mass slaughterer invaders to end their mass-slaughter of Muslim women and children by bombs is nevertheless morally superior to mass-slaughter of Muslim women and children by bombs of mass-slaughterer invaders because mass-slaughter of Muslim women and children by bombs of mass-slaughterer invaders causes indiscriminate death of Muslim women and children while deterrent beheading of mass-slaughterer invaders to end their mass-slaughter of Muslim women and children doesnât cause indiscriminate death of mass-slaughterer invaders, bombs of mass-slaughterer invaders donât cause instant death of Muslim women and children, and they often slowly and painfully suffocate and bleed to death under rubble while deterrent beheading of mass-slaughterer invaders to end their mass-slaughter of Muslim women and children by bombs causes instant death.The intellectuals Muslim civilisation produced at a time the moral values of The Holy Qurâaan constituted the basis of Muslim law as well as ethics, were prolific translators into Arabic of any work that had any intellectual value.
Name two?
Yahya ibn al-Bitriq, translated into Arabic Plato’s Timaeus, Aristotle’s On the Soul, On the Heavens and Prior Analytics as well as the Secret of Secrets-a political treatise.
Al-Hajj?j ibn Y?suf ibn Matar was an Arab mathematician who first translated Euclid’s Elements from Greek into Arabic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-%E1%B8%A4ajj%C4%81j_ibn_Y%C5%ABsuf_ibn_Ma%E1%B9%ADar
These translations were then developed by Muslim philosophers and scientists of the subsequent generations. Theologia Aristotelis which consists of a paraphrase of Plotinus’ Enneads IV-VI, made by an anonymous Greek author (who could very well be Porphyry of Tyre), together with Proclus’ Elements of Theology (known as the Pure Good or Liber de causis), thoroughly conditioned the whole development of Arab-Islamic Neoplatonism.
Al-Kindi commented on the Theologia Aristotelis as did Ibn Sina and others, and al-Farabi refers to it as an undoubted work of Aristotle. A series of other pseudo-Aristotelian works also found their way into Arabic, including Secret of Secrets, De Plantis, Economica and the Book of Minerals. In his commentary on Aristotle’s Meteorology, Ibn Bajjah presented his own theory on the Milky Way galaxy. -
sighjay says:
Are the mass-slaughterer invaders mass-slaughtering Muslim women and children by bombs innocent?
Ahhh..two wrongs clearly make a right. What exactly was Daniel Pearls’ crime against these people?
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Even all the pictures of abuse arenât yet published yet.
Once more, where was the Islamic uproar when Saddam did so very much worse at Abu Ghraib?
Are the mass-slaughterer invaders mass-slaughtering Muslim women and children by bombs innocent?
Are you arguing that killing the enemy by indiscriminate carpet bombing by B-52 bombers in Iraq and Afghanistan, bombing to annihilation two entire cities with nuclear weapons the horrors of which persist for generations to come is morally superior to beheading of invadersIt’s a non-point. Equivalence in all these is utterly irrelevant. The nuclear bombs came at the end of an horrendous war when they seemed to be the one thing that would’ve stopped the war and saved lives. Sure it had the added effect of scaring the be-jesus out of the Russians but the there is vast evidence that the US thought it would stop the Pacific war, which they did not begin, and that is the primary reason the bombs were dropped. And it has nothing to do with the War on Terror or the terror war against the non-Islamic world. Why on earth would you raise it here? It’s hard to think of anything more irrelevant.
With regard to Iraq and Afghanistan, firstly I need to say that I was completely against the invasion of Iraq and like millions in the non-Islamic world, protested against it.
But for all that it was not an attack on people because of their religious beliefs. It was an attack, in Afghanistan, because the Islamic government allowed their land to be used for a massive terror attack on the USA, and refused to hand over the culprits. I think the US has made a complete FUBAR of it since and Obama is about to make it worse, but it’s not about religion.
Iraq was not about religion. It was an attack because of geopolitics and oil, and the need to remove an evil murderous bastard who was killing people in huge numbers. Simple as that. Once again the US messed it up badly and the situation that virtually any Mid East expert or diplomat in-country, predicted sadly came to be with horrific results. But it was never about religion from the American POV and it’s unreasonable to suggest it was, despite the lunatic rantings of many on the American far right in the years since.
However, and this is the hypocrisy, those who were killing because of religion..those murdering Muslims in great numbers because of their religious beliefs, were and are other Muslims. The Sunni and the Shia in Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and Al Qaeda across the region are the ones who have, by quite a large margin, taken the most innocent lives. Who supported the Taliban..why, the good Muslim people and government of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia..while they were slaughtering their own. Who locked people in containers, burnt them alive, tortured and shot hundreds of thousands…the Taliban and the Islamic Northern Alliance. Who armed the Shia militias in Iraq? Muslim Iran.
On the other hand, who sent troops into Bosnia to save the lives of the Muslim population while the huge military machines of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Iran and so on, sat idle…NATO, led by the US, UK and Holland.
Who enforced no fly zones over mostly Islamic Kurdistan, to stop Saddam’s military assaults?
And did a similar thing in the south?
Who freed Kuwait?
See a pattern here?
The US has done some shocking things in it’s overblown War on Terror, and in no way am I defending it, but to cast it as some heinous attack on the Muslim world is just nonsense.
In his commentary on Aristotleâs Meteorology, Ibn Bajjah presented his own theory on the Milky Way galaxy.
Interesting posts, from two Muslim academics in The Guardian on the decline in science in the Muslim world and the the contractions between Islam and the search for knowledge. Make of them what you will.
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December 13, has turned out to be a day of a remarkable coincidence for this post.
Interesting posts, from two Muslim academics
Interesting to Westerners , perhaps, because those posts fit conveniently into the predominant perception or more precisely the prevalent mega-narrative about religion in the West in general and the predominant perception or the prevalent mega-narrative about Islam in The West in particular. And they feel insecure by the intellectual challenge that Islamic epistemology represents for the Western epistemology.
On December 13, by a remarkable coincidence, we commemorate Muslim astronomer Abu Rayhan Al-Biruni on his death anniversary, I feel obliged to mention the contribution of his astronomical and geographical scholarship in the discovery of the same America, that is responsible today for mass-slaughter and mass-murder of millions of Muslim women and children, by Columbus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Biruni
According to one of his biographers, the American Samuel Eliot
Morison, author of “Admiral of the Ocean Sea”, Columbus did some
“heavy combing through ancient and medieval authorities on
geography” before setting out on his voyage.
If this is so, he could hardly have missed such translated works as
al-Biruni’s “History of India” and Yaqut’s “Mu’jam al-Buldan”. It
would seem also that he would have delved eagerly into Ibn
Battuta’s 13th-century “Rihlah” (Journey), in which that greatest
of early travelers writes about his 120,000-kilometer (75,000-mile)
trip from North Africa to China and back.Al-Biruni had accurately determined
latitude and longitude and–six hundred years before Galileo.He took his course from his mariner’s compass,
developed from the magnetic needle used four centuries before by
Arab navigators. His quadrant was an early invention of the great
Arab astronomer Ibn Yunus of Cairo.Years earlier, Vasco da Gama had sailed along Africa’s east coast,
he was guided by an Arab pilot, Ahmad ibn Majid, who used an Arab
map then unknown to European sailors.In the ninth century, Muslim astronomer Abu
al’Abbas Ahmad al-Farghani, whose works were translated into Latin
during the Middle Ages and who–under the name Alfraganus–was
studied widely in Europe, had calculated that a degree measured 122
kilometers (about 66 nautical miles)–not as accurate a result as
that of Eratosthenes, but better than Ptolemy’s.http://www.millersville.edu/~columbus/data/geo/VINBAR01.GEO
Who freed Kuwait?
Is Kuwait free? Kuwait is mini-America today. Kuwait is as much free as is Iraq and Afghanistan. It appears as if you are suggesting that Muslims should start considering every Muslim country subjugated militarily, economically, and poltically by US to be a free country. This is exactly what this scourge called ‘freedom’ means to us.
Once more, where was the Islamic uproar when Saddam did so very much worse at Abu Ghraib?
The same US was once a very staunch ally of Saddam Hussain which provided the very same WMDs to use against his political adversaries. The very same Saddam Hussain was exploited to suppress the Islamic revolution in Iran. He was never a representative of the intellectual, social and political ideals of Islam. The very same Ulama who hated and vociferously opposed Saddam for his oppression of Muslims hate much more passionately the mass-slaughterer invaders of Muslim women and children.This only shows your delusions of grandeur that have so much blinded your governments to mass-slaughter Muslim women and children without remorse. But the very same Saddam when he no longer served Western interests, most importantly the Christian Zionist persuasions of neocons, keep in mind, the Zion of Zionists includes a large territory of Iraq, that was once Babylonia, was hanged , do you remember, on Eidul Ad-haa, when Muslims commemorate when Allaah (God) had commanded Ibraaheem (alaihis salaam) (Abraham) to sacrifice Ismaaeel (alaihis salaam) (Ishmael). Why not a day earlier or later? After all God wanted Christian Zionist Bush to invade Iraq who is fighting the Tenth Crusade against Islam.
In case of Abu Ghraib, the sexual assaults aspect of abuse-urinating on detainees, a female soldier asking naked Muslim detainees to masturbate, removing the clothing of female Muslim detainees while 90% of them were admittedly not the Mujaahideen or Holy Warriors or Freedom Fighters or Combatants demonstrates quite obviously a)the profound hatred of Islam and Muslims b) the perverse sexuality Western lifestyle characterizes.
“A review of all the computer media submitted to this office revealed a total of 1,325 images of suspected detainee abuse, 93 video files of suspected detainee abuse, 660 images of adult pornography, 546 images of suspected dead Iraqi detainees, 29 images of soldiers in simulated sexual acts, 20 images of a soldier with a Swastika drawn between his eyes, 37 images of Military Working dogs being used in abuse of detainees and 125 images of questionable acts.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuseAnyways, to quote another instance of the specific role of America in the mass murder of half a million Muslim children, the same Iraqis , by the way, in Iraq as a result of sanctions, I would recall here the words of American Secretary of State, Madeline Albright.
Interviewer:I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: “It’s a hard choice, … but the price, we think, the price is worth it.â … -
@muhammadelijah
Cheers for that, muhammadelijah, but all that means to me are two things. Firstly that you are still equating two wrongs with a right, which is at best a moral vacuum.
Secondly that you are still not willing to accept the great evil done in the name of Islam by Muslims to other Muslims.
The Islamic regime in Iran has slaughtered Muslims in huge numbers as have many Islamic governments. It’s hypocrisy and demeaning to your religion to side step this. You seem happy to do this and whilst I agree that the US made a huge mistake in supporting Saddam in the 1980s, the bulk of his regional support came from Saudi Arabia, and the Arab world.
We accept that awful things were done by America and the other nations in the Middle East, but that simply doesn’t, as you think, absolve your responsibility. It doesn’t come close to removing the moral weight for the evil that people you support have done. Sorry, not close at all.
The mass-slaughter of Muslim women and children without remorse also happened in Afghanistan under the hand of the Taliban and the various other warring factions, and in Iraq courtesy of the various Islamic militias and death squads.
And yes I’m happy that people from the Middle East did wonderful things for science in years past, half a millennium or more ago, many people did, from many parts of the world, and they should be celebrated regardless of their religion, but the point your very own academics are bemoaning is the fact that your religion seems to have stifled the search for real knowledge, not the study of ancient texts, since. These are not Westerners (why use that phrase? It’s illogical..I’d argue that it’s of interest to Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and many other races) but Muslims speaking out, and there are many many more.
Oh, and just as an aside, none of it has anything to do with attacks on Islam per se, crusades, zion or any other silly tag you want to push onto it to satisfy the need to avoid responsibility. I guess it’s the ability of the religion to stultify the desire for logic and reason that so frustrates the above academics.
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It is incredibly sad that so many people repeat such errant and factually nonsense in support of a position without realising they are just reinforcing the notion that âage of reasonâ has completely been subverted in the name of blind acceptance and willing ignorance.
It is laughable and reveals the total inability of any reasonable argument (not that there could be) to justify the beheading of innocents in this day and age. To link such acts to bombing of Japan in World War Two is beyond any possible logical progression. Never the less as you have brought up World War Two, perhaps you can explain the role of the âUmmahâ during that period of Murderous Japanese Imperialism and domination of millions of Muslim peoples (amongst others) in South East Asia.
There are any number of references for you to refer to, perhaps you could regale us the efforts of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammad Amin al-Husayni , who worked for the Nazi Germany as a propagandist and a recruiter of Muslim volunteers for the Waffen SS and other units. The Waffen SS as most reasonable people would know was a particularly brutal example of humanity at its worst. Yet the Mufti had little trouble from the âUmmahâ whilst millions of their fellow lived in slavery.
Yahya ibn al-Bitriq, translated into Arabic Platoâs Timaeus, Aristotleâs On the Soul, On the Heavens and Prior Analytics as well as the Secret of Secrets-a political treatise.
Al-Hajj?j ibn Y?suf ibn Matar was an Arab mathematician who first translated Euclidâs Elements from Greek into Arabi
Despite your example (I assume you are aware of the dispute on even that?) your position defies noted facts and pits you against the most progressive leaders in the Middle East who publicly lament the ignorance and lack of human development so concisely pesented when
âSIX years ago the UN’s Arab human development report identified a lack of translated foreign works as an issue restricting Arab intellectual life. The UN report noted that Spain translates in one year the number of books that have been translated into Arabic in the past 1,000 yearsâ
To claim some sort of perverse pride or to try and defend the above is beyond thinking persons understanding.
There is no doubt there have been some excesses in the âWar on Terrorâ however to claim in any fashion these reflect the normal standards of behaviour or are systematic acts of abuse against Muslims in general is patently false and easily proven by any reasonable standard of proofs. The fact you continually ignore or pointedly forget to address the systematic abuse of Muslims throughout the Muslim World (need we mention Iran as an example yet again or are the blinkers on too tight?). We are not talking ones or twos even hundreds but thousands if not millions of the so called âUmmahâ are oppressed, abused and yet people such as yourself still refuse to acknowledge the problems within.
One wonders how the Kurdish âUmmahâ would react to your blatant support of Saddamâs regime. Was not the abject failure of the Muslim world to react to such a regime a direct cause of the invasion. Why did the leaders of the âUmmahâ fail to act when they could? Why donât they now? Yes we know its all someone elseâs fault each and every time.
Your last post will continued again riddled with factual inaccuracies, mass slaughter of innocents? Millions? Where was your concern for Kurds, Sudan Muslims, Bosnia? Tell us over the past five years (make it ten if you like or twenty or last week in Pakistan) who has been responsible for killing innocent Muslims going about their daily business, in the market, at prayer? Explain to us how the murder of women and children in a Market place in Pakistan prevents mass slaughter? If the US leaves Iraq and Afghanistan tomorrow, what kind of would you envisage for the âUmmahâ there? Are you suggesting the Tailban is the model you wish to inflict on humanity? You agree that women are not deserving of an education? Trick questions we know as we see examples of it every day and brings a tear to humanity as a whole.
The nonsensical use of âfactsâ to support your position makes it difficult to engage with you. Such things as South East Asia has no Oil or Energy Wealth, The Greatest Military Campaigns in History were Islamic, The Atomic Bomb in World War 2 somehow justifies beheading in 2009 is would be laughable if not so tragic and factually absurd.
Itâs one thing to have an entirely different position to another person and not be incorrect but if you are only going to repeat the repugnant, factually flawed propaganda of those who wish to continue oppress KNOWLEDGE then it wastes everyoneâs time.
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I mean to say, the binding truth that brings humanity together is LIFE, which we don’t understand fully (something that both Atheism and Islam can attest to)… but it is special and important, and which needs to be defended, loved, and taken care of, it all it’s forms.
As long as we acknowledge this, and base our lives around that understanding — it doesn’t matter whether you are Christan, Buddhist, Hindu, or even staunchly anti-religion, overly scientific, or “New Age” spiritual freak. As long as we make the effort to search and understand life and respect it, we’re all on the right path in my humble opinion.