And throughout Islamic history, that's exactly how Muslim societies have behaved toward non-Muslims, who are by the very fact of their unbelief not considered innocents in the eternal, divinely mandated conflict.

The same could have been said about much of Christian history. The fact of the matter is we can rise above the limitations of our religion and our culture. Many Muslims who live peacefully in this country and other have done just that.

Obviously, many noteable example of those who have chosen the other course exist and are documented daily on this well written and well researched site.

Don't write them off yet. Every culture and every person has the capacity to change. We're not all puritans living in the United States, just as there is no grand inquisitor in Europe.

I just wanted to put that out there before the usual comments (often toward the bottom) appear saying "the only good muslim..." or "we need to napalm these monkeys."

I have no delusions though -- our country and our way of life has a tough fight ahead of it and that fight is primarily with radical Islam. To ignore that is foolish.

Can someone please tell me the difference between Islam, as written in the Quran, and facism (ala Hitler, Stalin)? Besides a few details, both want to convert you to their way of thinking, enslave you, or just kill you. There are several people here at LGF that constantly defend Islam, but they fail to see that they themselves would be met with one of the three options I listed above, no matter how much they yell Islam is a religion of peace. Either Islam changes to join the 21st century, or this is going to be one very long struggle, bigger than any of the wars anybody has engaged in the past 500 years combined.

Spencer has been peeking at LGF...?

we have been saying this for a long time...

Where is the love?

[Link: www.secularislam.org...]

Islam, Middle East and Fascism

In a speech that he gave at Columbia University, Umberto Eco spelled out fourteen features that he considered were typical of Eternal Fascism (which he also calls Ur-Fascism ); adding however this explanatory detail: "

These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it."

This book reveals the truth about Islam and what I have been saying to anyone who would listen; for years and years. The facts have been present for a very long time about this "cult" of Islam and I for the life of me cannot see how people keep ignoring it. Even the President whom I admire and respect greatly has labeled Islam as "peaceful". There is no peace in Islam and there has never been since it's beginning. Americans must wake up to these cold hard facts or I feel we are dooming our civilization to war with these folks forever. Get the word out and read this book if you are not convinced. There are many books about Islam written by those who have lived it there entire lives. They deny nothing said in this enlightening book. I have been fighting Islam in whatever way I can for years and I will continue to do so.

Wilde, #1, you are missing one very large point. The Bible and the Quran are the two things that seperate the two religions. The Quran according to a Muslim is the word of God, so to try to change them is to go against God him(her)self. The Quran is also littered with pages about subjucating people to Islam. The Bible is an outline for life, you get to fill in the blanks. Follow this outline reasonably and you get to heaven. The Quran is a set of detailed instructions, you do not get to change anything because it is the word of God. If you do not follow these instructions, you do not enter paradise. The Quran is the problem, and until Muslims look at it as an outline, the problems will continue.

Is any LGF reader reasonably conversant in the Koran? I confess to complete ignorance about its actual content, but the descriptions I read suggest that, unlike the Bible, it is permeated with repeated religious injunctions to kill nonadherents to the faith. Is that true? If so, why the pretense (apart from being PC) about a religion of peace? I.e., apart from the fact that in pratice that monicker is a misnomer, it would seem that on its face the religion is one of war. In that case, don't we do ourselves a disservice by pretending that Islam is a co-equal, "great" religion, when in fact it represents a horribly retrograde value system?

Or is the content of the Koran really far less bellicose than what I've been led to believe?

Re: #1, Wilde wrote:

The same could have been said about much of Christian history. The fact of the matter is we can rise above the limitations of our religion and our culture. Many Muslims who live peacefully in this country and other have done just that.

"Much of Christian history," perhaps, but not recent Christian history. Since the Reformation and the Enlightenment, the coercive power of the Church in Western society has been broken. Islam has not undergone a similar process, nor does it seem inclined to do so on its own, and in any event we may not have the luxury of allowing Muslims the time they need to reform their religion.

And it does seem a rather fair comparison to compare 15th Century Catholicism, with its casual brutality towards unbelievers and heretics, to modern Islam. The same attitudes evinced by the Spanish Conquistadors are still manifest today in their Moorish cousins across the Middle East.

It seems to me that there needs to be massive public education about Islam and the Quran. . .

How about some billboards with weekly wisdom from the Quran? One week it could be a quote about how Jews descended from monkeys and pigs, the next week a quote from how infidels should be killed, the next week a quote on why it is permissible to lie to infidels, so on and so forth.

After all, if a billion people believe it to be the word of God, shouldn't we all be familiar with some of these important quotes?

And about comparing it to the Bible;

Does the Quran contain instruction about loving your enemies and praying for those that mistreat you?

If it does, maybe that needs to be publicized too.

descriptions I read suggest that, unlike the Bible, it is permeated with repeated religious injunctions to kill nonadherents to the faith. Is that true?

In the Jewish and Christian Bibles there are frequently passages which are contradicted by other passages. They are not (so far as I know) with regards to killing infidels.

However, this is the case for the Koran. There are passages which call for killing the infidels, while there are others calling for respect for the People of the Book. There are passages saying Islam should not be forced on people, but there are passages saying not converting to Islam after having been exposed to it is blasphemy.

It is possible, in other words, to construct a peaceful Islam.

If so, why the pretense (apart from being PC) about a religion of peace?

Don't know. It's not in practice - though it could be in theory.

A person who thinks there are no injunctions to kill nonadherents of the faith in the Bible has not read the Bible. Note the fate of the Midianites (who had sheltered Moses) as described in Numbers.

Those who claim that the Islamic dhimma or contract for the protection of the People of the Book led to a "slave-like subjugation" should try to explain why it was that the Talmud could be printed under the authority of the Turkish Sultan at a time when the printed Talmud was burned under the authority of the Pope in Rome.

"Dhimmitude" is an ahistorical Islamophobic fantasy. Reality is that the Jews who were expelled from Spain and Portugal by Christian rulers were granted shelter in the Ottoman empire. They built hundreds of synagogues, established yeshivot, and printed (as noted) hundreds of books. Jews served as Ottoman officials, even as governors. This is hardly "slave-like." There is no history of physical attacks on Jews by Muslims in Turkey or the Ottoman Balkans. And the Sephardim based in the Ottoman empire were considered the leaders of world Jewry until the rise of German Jewry in the 19th century -- mainly because of the religious freedom they enjoyed under the Ottomans. The pioneers of Haskalah, the enlightenment movement among the Ashkenazim, looked to the Sephardim living in the Ottoman domains and the Italian Jews whose theology was Sephardized as their models.

In another example of how historical fact runs against Islamophobic hysteria, Vasko Pasha Shkodrani, an Albanian Catholic, served as the Ottoman governor of Lebanon. A slave-like position, I'm sure.

And yes, I am a Sufi. That does not affect my writing and reporting the facts of the Jewish-Muslim relationship under the Ottomans, except that the latter increased my sense of affinity with the former (Sufis).

Jonathan...USC Quran translations..(3)..

[Link: www.usc.edu...]

database...

[Link: www.usc.edu...]

hadith database

[Link: www.usc.edu...]

enjoy...

and then to see some "teachings" from islamic scholars...

islaam.com (having trouble opening the site to post URL)

I suspect the peaceful followers of Islam in the West fall into three categories

a) Those that follow a corrupted, less violent version of Islam which would get them killed in the middle east as apostates.

b) Those that are just born into Islam, but know very little about the real nature of it.

c) Those that follow traditional Islamic teaching and know and support its basic principles(which, as has been pointed out endlessly, are at odds with current western thought).

As to the numbers in each group, obviously the fewer in group c) the better.

#8 Jonathan

LGF poster Wayne is probably the best person to answer this question as he has read the Qu'ran in Arabic and almost converted to Islam.

From what I have read, there are some tolerant passages in the Qur'an. There is this big thing about abrogation. The tolerant verses are early in the Qur'an timeline. Some feel that these nice verses are abrogated by the later revelations where Mo' got mean. There are definite calls to kill unbelievers and other nasty things. (I have heard from several sources that the English translations significantly tone down the violence from the original Arabic.)

Also, for a majority of the world's Muslims - both the Qur'an and Sunnah are paramount to the practice of Islam. The Sunnah are sayings of the Prophet as collected in the ahadith. (The ahadith are a collection of stories about the Prophet.) This is where Islam gets really nasty, IMO.

A major difference between Christianity and Islam is the importance of internalized faith vs. outward submission. Most Christians today condemn the crusdades (a defensive war against Islam) as well as the Inquisition. Christains do not think that forced conversions are valid or even desirable by God and that the Bible (especially in the New Testament) in general condemns violence against non-believers. This is not true in the Koran. Especially post-Luther, Christians tend to believe Faith is more important than works and although a Christian dominated society might be seen as an objective, this must be achieved voluntarily. Muslims tend to believe that the society as a whole needs to behave a certain way to be in submission to God. Actions are more important than the motivations.

Find me even a sizable minority of Muslims that condemn the historical conquest of Spain or any other Muslim takeover of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, etc. lands and the treatment of the people in them. The Koran is very clear that non-muslims should be forced to convert, be enslaved, or die. Compare how Peter, Paul and the rest of the early church converted people through preaching and gave up and moved on when this did not work. Mohammed himself ordered the sword used when this did not work.

stephen schwartz...nice fantasy you present...

[Link: mypage.bluewin.ch...]

From Consul Blunt - writing from Pristina on July 14, 1860, to his Ambassador, Sir Henry Bulwer, about the condition of the province of Macedonia - we learn that: "For a long time the province (of Uscup:Skopje) has been a prey to brigandage: Christian churches and monasteries, towns and inhabitants, are not now pillaged, massacred, and burnt by Albanian hordes as used to be done ten years ago." (...) "They (the Christians) are not allowed to carry arms. This, considering the want of a good police, exposes them the more to attacks from brigands."

"Christian evidence in law-suits between a Mussulman and a non-Mussulman is not admitted in the Local Courts."
With a few examples, he then illustrated the consequences of such a system in everyday life:

"About seventeen months ago a Turkish soldier murdered a Mahometan, an old man, who was working in his field. The only persons, two in number, who witnessed the deed are Christians. The Medjlis of Uscup would not take their evidence."

"About the same time, a Zaptieh (soldier) tried by force to convert a Bulgarian girl to Islamism. As she declared before the Medjlis of Camanova (Kumanovo, near Skopje) that she would not abjure her religion, he killed her in the very precincts of the Mudir's house.
...etc...

and...

[Link: www.cmep.com...]

you have presented the islamic fantasy of life UNDER shariia...look around you at the arab league and see the true face of islam

It's clearly the lack of alcohol in Islamic society that's driving them to homicide. I suggest we bombard them with Busch Light and good blended Scotch.

#8 Jonathan:

I've read about two thirds of the Koran in English. At times it is a remarkably tolerant document. For example, you forget to say your prayers, you make it up the next day, no big deal. In the very next sura, Allah is vowing destruction upon one or the other of Muhammed's enemies. It goes on like this pretty much for the whole work as far as I can tell.

The modern interpretation is that the intolerant chapters were recited (Muhammed was illiterate) when Muhammed was involved in one of his many conflicts with other Arabs, Jews, etc.

There are also many poems or praise to Allah that are supposed to be quite beautiful in the original Arabic.

The really nasty stuff is in the hadiths of "traditions." These are not the word of Allah, unlike the Koran, but rather sayings and incidents from Muhammed's life as recorded by his immediate followers and companions. This is where the stuff about the 70 virgins and Jews being descended from pigs and monkeys comes from. There's much worse. You can find the hadiths on line in English. Look it up on one of the search engines. Look up the battle of the ditch, for example. It's downright genocidal.

The interesting thing about the Bible is that not once does it exhort followers of God to act with violence toward the non-believer. Rather, it tells the opposite... that the believers should NOT attack the non-believer, for God is quite capable of exacting personal revenge himself.

All the violence done to non-believers in the Torah and the Bible are done directly by God, not by His worshippers. This is the main difference between them and the Koran; there are many passages in the Koran where the worshippers are directly ordered to slaughter the non-Muslim, or to otherwise force them to submit to the will of Allah.

The argument developed in Robert Spencer's book seems to be one long non sequitur. It is predicated on the assumption that Islamic culture cannot undergo the kind of transformation that Western culture has undergone since the Middle Ages. But the justification for this verdict seem to be based solely on exploring the prospects for fundamentalist Islam from within its own perspective.

To see the inadequacies of this approach just consider what predictions would have been made regarding the future of Western civilisation, if the only factor taken into account was the nature of pre-reformation Christianity. By this reasoning, the European Enlightenment could not have happened. The fact that it did happen is only explicable by reference to cultural developments that were initiated and largely played out in the secular sphere. That is where the impetus for the Enlightenment came from, and it is where the post-Enlightenment status of Christian scripture was largely determined.

In short, Robert Spencer's method of analysis is self-defeating because it suggests that the European Enlightenment could not have happened. If he can't explain our past, why should we trust his explanation of Islam's future?

hi, one of the comments asked if any of the LGF readers had read the Quran. I have read the Quran cover-to-cover twice and wrote an article on verses I found inflammatory. It is here:

[Link: www.sulekha.com...]

#7 BJW, I was raised in a very strict protestant family and the Bible was THE word of God and divinely inspired by Him. We were told that Satan could quote scripture to his purpose and this is what people were doing when they "interpeted" passages of the Bible. This is not a purely islamic phenomenon, it is peculiar to religions in particular.

#9 BarCodeKing, I'm glad you liked my comparison to 15th century Catholicism. I thought it was particularly apt as well. Anyhow, no one could compare the current Catholic church with its older incarnation. The point was that religions can reform and I used Christianity as a demonstration of that.

Of course when you see photos like this one, you do question the ability of the adherents of a religion to reform when even their children are inculcated with hate from so young an age.

I was only admitting the possibility existed, not that it was a certainty and not without pressure from the Western world.

stephen schwartz..you say

" Dhimmitude" is an ahistorical Islamophobic fantasy"

what a baldfaced LIE

#21, I'm sorry but you are wrong. You have to look into the deeper issues on why Islam can not change. Re-forming Islam to a Muslim is basically saying the word of God as witten in the Quran is wrong and needs to be changed. None of them will ever accept that the word of God is wrong, and they have been living a lie for 1000 years or so. The main difference between Islam and Christianity is the texts, and in Islam there is no wriggle room, in Christianity there is. That is why you will die of old age before ever seeing a reformation in Islam, it is NOT going to happen.

Self-correction: The Albanian Catholic governor of Lebanon was Pashko Vasa Shkodrani.

How does describing the flourishing of Jewish printing in the Ottoman empire, the construction of synagogues in Turkey and the Balkans (and there were also hundreds of synagogues constructed in Arab countries after the flight of the Sephardim), and the establishment of yeshivot, or a discussion of the appointment of a Catholic as an Ottoman governor, constitute a fantasy? These are all verifiable historical facts. The synagogues are there. The yeshivot produced brilliant rabbis who wrote thousands of teshuvot. The history of the Ottoman empire is history, not a fantasy.

How does the history of the Sassoon family in Baghdad fit with the model of "slavery" under dhimmitude?

The Ottoman empire was the greatest Islamic, jihad, and sharia state in history. It protected and assisted the Jews. There is simply no serious counter-evidence on this. Yes, Christians had a rough time under the Ottomans. This was because, first, they were supported by foreign Christian powers in continuous anti-Ottoman actions, and second, they resented being a minority and therefore continually opposed Ottoman authority from within.

Here is a question the Islamophobes cannot answer: why is there so little Jewish rabbinical commentary on oppression by Muslim rulers, in comparison with the vast amount of Jewish rabbinical commentary on oppression by Christian rulers?

Here is another question Islamophobes cannot answer: why are many classic of Jewish theology written in Arabic (such as the works of Saadiyah Gaon and Maimonides) while no works of Jewish theology were written in Latin or Greek -- EVER? Jews began using "Christian" languages for theological purposes only after the Renaissance, but had been using Arabic for centuries.

It is the Islamophobes who have constructed a fantasy. Bernard Lewis, the greatest living historical scholar of Islam in the West -- a man deeply hated by the Saids and Wahhabis -- has rejected the propaganda about the dhimma. He has pointed out that Jews fled from Europe to the Ottoman empire. Then they fled from Arab countries to Israel. Algerian Jews fled Algeria for France, but that was in the 1960s, not the 1690s.

When did Jews in large numbers, aside from the period of Berber terror in Spain (which also affected Muslims) and Algeria in the 1960s ever flee the Muslim domains for security in kind, loving, Christian Europe? Until the Islamophobes can produce examples comparable to the mass migration of Spanish and Portuguese Jews to the Ottoman empire
the dhimmitude propaganda is just that.

I have grown weary of the speed with which commentators on these sites respond to serious discussion by descending into raw bias, hatred, and insult.

Islamophobes will not determine what is or is not real Islam. That is self-evident. The war is between traditional Muslims and radicals, not between the Qur'an and the spirit of Voltaire. The historiography of Islam has to be based on historical events, not on tendentious readings of the original texts. Nobody would based a history of Judaism or Christianity on a polemical reading of Torah or the Gospels, except an enemy of Judaism and Christianity. Don't fall into that trap.

Mr. Schwartz has left the building.

Stephen Schwartz

Oh Mr. Schwartz, I don't think so.

To add to ploome’s list.

Please see articles here:

Bat Ye'or on Dhimmis and Dhimmitude
[Link: mypage.bluewin.ch...]

dhimmi.com
[Link: www.dhimmi.com...]

The Jizya Tax
[Link: debate.org.uk...]

The Massacres of the Khilafah
[Link: debate.org.uk...]

The Exclusion of the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsular
[Link: debate.org.uk...]

And these articles here:

[Link: www.ccel.org...]
[Link: www.greece.org...]
[Link: www.infinityfoundation.com...]
[Link: forum.faithfreedom.org...]
[Link: www.geocities.com...]

Even if we don't assume slave status, the concept for dhimmihood still exists in Islam - and AT BEST, it relegates People of the Book as second class citizens in an Islamic state. It affords NO protection to Hindus, Buddhists, etc. who can be forced to convert under threat of death.

AND, slaves are allowed under Islam - Islam is the ONLY religion practicing slavery today in the Sudan.

[Link: www.xenophongi.org...]
[Link: www.lnsart.com...]
[Link: www.fordham.edu...]

#23, Your family and a thousand others like it might have said it's the word of God, but those are choices you and people like you made. No one in the Bible says that he or she is writing directly from God's mouths to that persons ears. Because of this, those writings are but a blueprint on how to lead one's life. The Quran is different, it is supposedly from God's mouth to Mohammeds ears. That is why it can not be reformed, how do you reform what God said??? You can't, without saying God is imperfect, and NO Muslim is going to say that.

Remember how the great HL Mencken once said "When they say it's not about money, it's about money!" Well, when they say it's not about Islam, it's about Islam.

As for Stephen Schwartz, the Sufi, I guess he hates women to support a religion which is a massive psychotic assault on the female sex (not to mention democracy and the separation of church and state). All organized religion is ridiculous and primitive in the modern era. Islam is beyond that. It is also violent and cancerous.

Unfotunately, Mr. Schwartz has gone. I would have asked him whether the Sufis (he claimed to practice sufism) were periodically subjected to rather savage repression because they strayed from orthodox Islam.

I think this is the case, but I could be wrong. Anybody know?

BJW (#25):

The main difference between Islam and Christianity is the texts, and in Islam there is no wriggle room, in Christianity there is.

The point is that the "wriggle room" in Christianity was non-existent 500 years ago, and it did not arise due to forces originating within Christianity. It was an extrinsic phenomenon. Repeating that the Muslims regard the Quran at the literal word of God, does not constitute a rebuttal of this argument. The corresponding thing was true for the vast majority of Christians, for most of their history.

Mr. Schartz or anyone else reading – Yes the ‘tolerant’ interpretation of Islam allows other forms of worship within an Islamic state. Tolerance in this case DOESN NOT MEAN EQUALITY.

Here is the jizya verse from the Qur’an:

[Link: www.usc.edu...]

YUSUFALI: Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

PICKTHAL: Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low.

SHAKIR: Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.

Commentary from Jizya link above:

The consequence of this is that in an Islamic State – specifically the Khilafah – non-Muslims should be denied Government posts, since the state exists for the Muslims, who alone are true citizens, whilst the non-Muslims are merely conquered residents, and the Jizyah signifies this:

That is why the Islamic state offers them protection, if they agree to live as Zimmis by paying Jizya, but it can not allow that they should remain supreme rulers in any place and establish wrong ways and establish them on others. As this state of things inevitably produce chaos and disorder, it is the duty of the true Muslims to exert their utmost to bring an end to their wicked rule and bring them under a righteous order. [20]

Differences of taxation demonstrate distinctions in citizenship. As a symbol of subjection, it signifies that the state is not really the common property of all its permanent residents, but only the Muslims. The non-Muslims are conquered outsiders. It demonstrates their inferior condition. It also punishes them for their disbelief in Islam. Islamic law makes it very clear that the Jizyah is punitive in character. [21] Further, it is to levied with humiliation. [22] Hence, it is in no way comparable to Western tax systems. Even progressive taxation is not a 'punishment' for economic success, nor is any tax specifically humiliating in character.

I'm no fan of Islam, but I agree with Kolya. Islam can be moderated. Once a critical mass of Muslims give up the concept of Qur'anic infallibility, the sky is the limit.

Kolya (#21),
I've of course not read the book, and I'm not sure you have either, but your thesis as I understand it --- that it's silly to say something won't happen just because it hasn't happened yet --- has perhaps a thread of truth; unexpected things do happen. But Spencer's thesis (as I understand it) seems the far more relevant one. For one thing, if the Islamic reformation had any realistic (as opposed to theoretical) chance of occurring, one would think it might have happened by now, and clearly it has not. The Christian world evolved as the world evolved; Islam, as it is practiced on large stretches of the planet, clearly has not. If the Christian churches of today acted like the Christian churches of the Inquisition, I would reluctantly conclude that the Christian religion(s) were incompatible with our Western values. The possibility that a reformation might be on the horizon in a few hundred years would be cold comfort, even if true. I have little doubt that something with some of the essence of Islam exists in a manner not inimical to peace and dignity in the hearts of many Muslims today, and little doubt that such a religion could one day be the one followed by the vast majority of Muslims. The point, however, is that at a minimum, there is some very heavy lifting to be done to get there, and precious little evidence that there is anything resembling the critical mass required to make it happen.

Stephen and Ploome are both right. At times Islam has been very hospitable to Jews. At times it has been awful.

Stephen's description of the Sephardic community under the Ottomans is accurate, and today Turkey (the seat of the former Ottoman empire) is very friendly to Israel and trying to build a secular culture based on a modern Islam. Turkey is our ally in creating a modern Islam.

The Ottomans were a cosmopolitan culture -Istanbul at its height was the New York City of the East, and Jews' position there was like Jews in NYC today: respected and powerful and proud of their traditions.

"Is Islam a threat "

Yes

Robert Spiers # 18

Can't comment about Busch light, though Bush heavy is needed, but blended Scotch ???

Haven't you ever had a good Speyside malt ?

[Link: islaam.com...]

...the callers to Islam should not have any superficial doubts in their hearts concerning the nature of Jahiliyyah and the nature of Islam, and the characteristics of Dar-ul-Harb and of Dar-ul-Islam, for through these doubts many are led to confusion.

Indeed, there is no Islam in a land where Islam is not dominant and where its Shari`ah is not established;

and that place is not Dar-ul-Islam where Islam's way of life and its laws are not practiced.

There is nothing beyond faith except unbelief, nothing beyond Islam except Jahiliyyah, nothing beyond the truth except falsehood.

As usual, I think things are more complicated than either Mr. Schwartz, whose writings I've respected for some time, or his detractors are able to deal with in a short post. He is correct, by and large, in his recitation of history, and the shameful history of the pre-Enlightenment West regarding religious tolerance (and let's not forget that for most of the 20th Century, half of what we consider to be the West was engaged in one of the most illiberal experiments in human history, Soviet Communism, and good old Germany perpetrated the Holocaust. The Islamic world has nothing of comparable magnitude on its conscience, although it certainly appears that they'd be happy to join the club if it meant the destruction of Israel). However, no Islamic society has come close to the notion of religious freedom that prevails in the United States, to cite the most notable example.

Looking at the current crop of prominent Islamic spokesmen, the leaders of states that are predominantly Muslim, the cultural figures, etc., it is not entirely irrational to despair of any prospect of such an attitude taking hold in the Islamic world. In many ways, it's too bad that the Ottoman Empire, of which Mr. Schwartz writes so approvingly, collapsed. It was much better than the current crop of successor regimes -- notably Wahhabi Arabia and fascist Iraq. But we are talking about two very different states, in which Islam plays very different roles.

I tend to think there is a wide divergence between what Islam is and what the Islamists say it is. The sad thing is that it appears, at least from the outside, that a large percentage of the followers of Islam prefer the Islamist brand. I do not think you can underrate the role of national governments in this -- the lack of a free press, of free inquiry, is central to the unchallenged position of the most reactionary religious elements. I still believe that what plagues the Middle East is tyranny, and not Islam. And I think that, after Sept. 11, the tyrants' days are numbered.

Turkey, India, and Indonesia all have large Muslim populations which are hospitable to Western civilization and which are comparable to most of today's Christians rather than the Church of 500 years ago.

They are also beseiged by radical Islamists who are trying to impose strict sharia on these countries and/or subjugate the citizens of other religions. It would be as if Ralph Reed's Christian Right of 10 years ago had a lot more power and was actively trying to take over the US government.

It doesn't help the many moderate Muslims (including Balkan Muslims, who have a proud history of living side by side with Christian and Jewish neighbors) to be lumped together with the fanatics who are trying to subjugate them.

I have heard that the Sufis are or were regarded as heretics by "mainstream" Islam.

My own opinion is that Sufism - which is a (soft) mysticism may be the the path along which reform and change can be implemented. The mystical path is in essence the same in all religions. It's the antithesis of the path of dogma and - as some readers have discussed - allows for a great deal of "wiggling" as the experience is purely personal - internal.

For what I've seen Sufi mystics are venerated in places such as India, where their approach is similar to Hinduism.

Yehudit...arabs and islam rose out of the illiterate brutality of Arabia...

without CONTROLLING the intellect of Christians and Jews...the highest cultures of the time...

the arabs would have simply robbed, raped and looted.

the dhimmis were essential to managing the territories that the arabs/muslims conquered...

arabs/muslims without dhimmis, can be found in Arabia and Yemen...tell me about this unadulturated culture...

Is Islam itself a threat? No more or less than any other tribal barbarism which demands submission or promises destruction. Easy enough.

Re#18: Do you remember the Firesign Theatre album where the rebels were bombed with 5,000 copies of The Naked Lunch?

DUH!

Wake UP!

FYI here is an auto-biopic of Schwartz' journey from Judaism to Sufi Islam.

I thought the name sounded familiar so I did a google.

In a scathing anti-west, anti-semitic hatchet job, Pravda, Russia's beacon of truth, calls Schwartz out on the carpet.

Read Pravda's bizarre biopic of Schwartz

Schwartz, who embodies the crude anti-Semitic stereotype of the loud-mouth Jew, has been bought up by the "Judaeo-Christian" CIA-Zionists of the Bradley Foundation, and their lackeys in the media like Rupert Murdoch, and their allies in the Israeli Lobby, like David Horowitz and William Kristol, to lead the charge in denouncing Islam as a religion of hate and demanding the US break ties and change its foreign policy to conform to the foreign policy interests of Israel. Like Kevin Coogan, the Autonomedia anarchist who now writes missives attacking anti-war leftists in publications like David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com, Schwartz is an ex-"libertarian socialist" turn-coat who, being rejected by the left, has become part of a totalitarian imperial-globalist movement designed to betray the United States Constitution, and his old leftist colleagues, in return for the social acceptance that his history has shown his personality alone unable to sustain.

If anyone's interested, here are some of the basic terms of the dhimma pact under Islamic sharia. These terms are in ADDITION to those demanded by the Quran itself, such as the payment of the extortionary jizyah tax:

The Pact of Umar to the Christians of Syria, the 7th Century

The Pact of Umar is supposed to have been the peace accord offered by the Caliph Umar Ibn Al-Khattab to the Christians of Syria, a "pact" which formed the patter of later interaction. It shows the "tolerant" way Islam dealt with non-Mulsims in newly invaded territory.

We heard from 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Ghanam [died 78/697] as follows: When Umar ibn al-Khattab, may God be pleased with him, accorded a peace to the Christians of Syria, we wrote to him as follows:

In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate. This is a letter to the servant of God Umar [ibn al-Khattab], Commander of the Faithful, from the Christians of such-and-such a city. When you came against us, we asked you for safe-conduct (aman) for ourselves, our descendants, our property, and the people of our community, and we undertook the following obligations toward you:

We shall not build, in our cities or in their neighborhood, new monasteries, Churches, convents, or monks' cells, nor shall we repair, by day or by night, such of them as fall in ruins or are situated in the quarters of the Muslims.

We shall keep our gates wide open for passersby and travelers. We shall give board and lodging to all Muslims who pass our way for three days.

We shall not give shelter in our churches or in our dwellings to any spy, nor bide him from the Muslims.

We shall not teach the Qur'an to our children.

We shall not manifest our religion publicly nor convert anyone to it. We shall not prevent any of our kin from entering Islam if they wish it.

We shall show respect toward the Muslims, and we shall rise from our seats when they wish to sit.

We shall not seek to resemble the Muslims by imitating any of their garments, the qalansuwa, the turban, footwear, or the parting of the hair. We shall not speak as they do, nor shall we adopt their kunyas.

We shall not mount on saddles, nor shall we gird swords nor bear any kind of arms nor carry them on our- persons.

We shall not engrave Arabic inscriptions on our seals.

We shall not sell fermented drinks.

We shall clip the fronts of our heads.

We shall always dress in the same way wherever we may be, and we shall bind the zunar round our waists

We shall not display our crosses or our books in the roads or markets of the Muslims. We shall use only clappers in our churches very softly. We shall not raise our voices when following our dead. We shall not show lights on any of the roads of the Muslims or in their markets. We shall not bury our dead near the Muslims.

We shall not take slaves who have been allotted to Muslims.

We shall not build houses overtopping the houses of the Muslims.

(When I brought the letter to Umar, may God be pleased with him, he added, "We shall not strike a Muslim.")

We accept these conditions for ourselves and for the people of our community, and in return we receive safe-conduct.

If we in any way violate these undertakings for which we ourselves stand surety, we forfeit our covenant [dhimma], and we become liable to the penalties for contumacy and sedition. (MY NOTE: The penalty was death or expulsion for the above "crimes".)

Umar ibn al-Khittab replied: Sign what they ask, but add two clauses and impose them in addition to those which they have undertaken. They are: "They shall not buy anyone made prisoner by the Muslims," and "Whoever strikes a Muslim with deliberate intent shall forfeit the protection of this pact."

from Al-Turtushi, Siraj al-Muluk, pp. 229-230.

[This was a from hand out at an Islamic History Class at the University of Edinburgh in 1979. Source of translation not given.]

NOTE: Most historians actually believe that this pact was initiated by a later Caliph, Omar II, NOT Omar ibn Al-Khattab as stated in this handout.

NOTE II: As the population of non-Muslims decreased, the terms of the dhimma pact became increasingly intolerant.

The point is that the "wriggle room" in Christianity was non-existent 500 years ago, and it did not arise due to forces originating within Christianity. It was an extrinsic phenomenon.

Kolya is exactly right. It has been said before, but Islam at the fringes - Turkey, India, etc is where the revolution needs to start. It's not happening in the sands of Arabia for sure.

Mattman (#34),

I agree that, left to its own devices, the Islam's reformation might still be centuries away. But nobody, now, seriously expects Islam to be left to its own devices.

I believe that Condoleezza Rice has decided to bring the date of the Islamic reformation forward by several centuries, that Donald Rumsfeld is going to wield the stick that will make Islam sit up and listen to her proposal, that Colin Powell is going to dangle the carrot which will make them wonder why they didn't think of this before, and that George W. Bush is going to back up his Three Enlighteneers with all the menace and authority of the greatest superpower in human history.

That's an angle you can't read out of the Quran.

Looks like I'm a bit late to the party

I did read a good portion of the Qur'an in Arabic. In fact, the first version I bought was the English version. It actually had the Arabic script and the English translation side-by-side and I noticed that the translations didn't really match up. So I went out and bought the full Arabic version. I'd read it, translate it myself and then compare it to the English translation in my copy. A lot of times, the translations just didn't seem to line up - I figured either I was misunderstanding what was written, but I was told later by a former Muslim (who converted to Christianity) that the 'mistranslation' was intentional.

I had a discussion in a previous thread regarding the meaning of the word "Islam." I don't really know where so many people got the notion that Islam meant 'peace.' The Arabic word for 'peace' is Salaam; both Salaam and Islam share the same three-letter root (which is basically how the Arabic language works - each word is a derived from a three-letter root). The form that the word, "Islam" is in is a form IV - which basically makes an intransitive verb transitive. So take a word like "to know" (alama), in the form IV it would be "to teach," or to "make one to know." So while 'salaam' means 'peace,' Islam means 'to make peace' (some translate it to mean 'submission.' What I found is that a lot of places (in my English translation) the word Islam was translated to mean 'peace' instead of submission. So where the Arabic version would say to bring about Islam, the translation would say to bring about 'peace.' Interesting, no?

Anyways, the Hadiths are indeed the scariest parts. Admittedly, I didn't read those in Arabic (there are tons of them) but they're supposed to chronicle the life of Muhammed the Prophet, so that should tell you something.

W.

Muslims have a descending hierarchy of authority: The Koran, in which every word is the voice of God and the time is always the present; the Hadiths, which are collections of the sayings and deeds of the Prophet; the ulema, which is the Islamic judicial clergy, tradition, and consensus. Google around with keywords hadith and jihad and see what you find.

Yes, the Sufis get persecuted. There was a wonderful story on some Sufis in Afghanistan finally being able to be Sufis again after the Taliban was defeated.

You see, to Wahabis (and many other fundamentalist types), Sufism isn't really Islam.

And yes, generally like other mystical religions, it puts an emphasis on the individual knowing god. Thus the danger to regular Islam, presumably.

The Catholic Church also cracked down on various forms of christian mysticism.

"Muslims have a descending hierarchy of authority: The Koran, in which every word is the voice of God and the time is always the present"

Yet they -- and Western apologists like Karen Armstrong -- often argue that the intolerant verses were meant for only a specific time or incident in Muhammad's day, such as the Battle of Badr.

Another one of Islam's deeply contractatorial aspects.

"Yes, the Sufis get persecuted. There was a wonderful story on some Sufis in Afghanistan finally being able to be Sufis again after the Taliban was defeated."

The greatest Sufi master of all time, Mansour Al-Hallaj, was crucified for apostacy/heresy by the Caliphate. Do a google on this name and you'll find some info about it.

For those who are unfamiliar with the hadiths, a great online book about them is here:

[Link: www.bharatvani.org...]

It's by a Hindu intellectual, Ram Swarup.

India is a special case, because while it successfully retained its own heritage it suffered grievously from the jihad. Read the section on India in Will Durant's _Our Oriental Heritage_, for a saber slash by saber slash account of that dark chapter of history.

Yehudit writes:

It doesn't help the many moderate Muslims (including Balkan Muslims, who have a proud history of living side by side with Christian and Jewish neighbors)

Yes those Grand Mufti recruited WWII-era moderate Bosnian Muslim Death Squads were proudly killing the Jews they were living side-by-side with.

Sorry to be flippant, but it hasn't always been roses for Jews in the Balkans with their peace loving muslim neighbors.

BJW--The Bible is not an outline that proscribes a "fill in the blank" path to everlasting life. It is much more than that, but I suppose this is a topic for another blog.

BJW--After reading some of your subsequent posts to #7 I have to add this: the Bible (as understood by Christians) is the Word of God, penned by men. It is infallible, and the very Word of Truth. Who says this? The Council of Carthage, and in union with the Holy Spirit in the 4th c. determined among many, many different texts considered for Canon what would become our Bible (Martin Luther and the Reformation book removals aside). I say all this only to impress upon you that the Bible is not simply a self-help manual that you refer to, smorgasbord style, to gain eternal life. It is much more than that.

#48 Ariel, your missing the point. There was wriggle room in Christianity because it was not the word of God, it was the word of man. There is no wriggle room in Islam because it is the word of God. The reason there was a reformation of Chritianity was because they saw that is was the word of man, and they knew they had that card to play. Man's word can be reformed, God's can not. There will be no Islamic Reformation, ever.

...is Karen Armstrong a muslim yet..? I know shes a former nun, and I tried to read her apotheosis of muhammed...but failed

#18 Busch Light and good blended Scotch. Good God man! this would be inhuman! I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy! Sam Adams and Glenlivet at the least! They would curse us even more!

BJW #59,

Yet, Judaism has undergone a Reformation. According to the Jews, the Torah is the word of God, handed down to Moses. The later Biblical books were divinely inspired. The rabbis created a tradition of Biblical interpretation which is allegorical to the Christian Reformation.

All of which is to say that it is possible for the Muslims to reform.

#58, I know that, but that is apples to oranges in this debate. There is one hell of a difference between the Council of Carthage proclaiming something and Gods prophet (muhommed) scribing something directly from God. I know the Bible is not some buffet to a greater good, but please try to see my point. I think we are both on the same page.

Oh well, I decided to come back, against my better judgement.

Millions of Hindus lived under the dhimma. Their religion was "grandfathered in," in the sense that although it is clearly polytheistic and pagan, it was included in the dhimma and Hindus became a protected population in Muslim India. Originally, the dhimma was intended to apply only to Jews, Christians, and Sabaeans, considered People of the Book. Later, it was extended not only to the Hindus and Sikhs but, before that, to the Zoroastrians. Hindus today insist that they are monotheistic, largely on the basis of the Islamic argument advanced to justify their inclusion in the dhimma.

If you are going to cite the contract of Umar as a basis for judging the dhimma, and are going to foster the historical lie that Jews and Christians led a "slave-like" existence under Islam, then you have to explain who it was who built the synagogues in Morocco, Egypt, the Holy Land, the Balkans, and Turkey.

When I am in Sarajevo I conduct tours of the Jewish buildings in the town (five surviving synagogues, and other structures of interest). Once a man walked up to me on the street there -- an American -- and said he heard I could explain something to him: he had read that the first synagogue was built in Sarajevo with money from the waqf or pious foundation of the Ottoman governor, Gazi Husrev Beg, and that the waqf funds paid for the maintenance of it and other synagogues down to 1945, when the awqaf (plural of waqf) were expropriated by the Communists. "Why would the Ottoman governor spend money to build a synagogue?" he asked. Rather than explain it I said, "Just think about it." The Ottoman governor wanted the Jews to stay in Sarajevo who he built them a nice synagogue. How does this square with the propaganda about dhimmitude? Is the synagogue imaginary? Did I make this up?

The truth is that the provisions of the dhimma were inconsistently enforced.

Of course Sufis have been persecuted by Wahhabis and others. That's the point: Sufis are and always have been in the vanguard of defending traditional Islam. Traditional Islam enables Sufism, which is why the Sufi orders are powerful in every Islamic country except the Gulf states, where they are banned, and Bosnia, where the tradition has been attenuated by Communism.

Indeed, real Sufis are not Marin County style shoppers for God, and neither am I. Real Sufis maintain educational and social services networks in Islamic countries. Moroccan Islam, West African Islam, Turkish Islam, Malaysian Islam, Central Asian Islam, Albanian Islam, Syrian Islam, Kurdish Islam, and Indian Islam, among others, are deeply influenced and, in some places, dominated by Sufism.

And since people are interested in speculating about my motivations and personality, and having fun reading the libels of nepravda (untruth), let me say this: I did not "abandon" Judaism for Islam. Other than that I will not say at this time. My relations with Judaism and Islam are my own business and nobody else's. But there have always been Jewish Sufis, and there have always been Jews who participated in Islam without abandoning their origins.

As to this: "NOTE II: As the population of non-Muslims decreased, the terms of the dhimma pact became increasingly intolerant." It is well established that the worldwide Jewish population increased dramatically under Islam.

#62, But the Torah does not have Mosses proclaiming to the masses to enslave, kill, subjucate women, spread the word via the sword, etc. That is a major obstacle. And according to Islam, God through Mohammed, orders those things to get to paradise.

To those who are christians, the Bible is the word of God. Christ is the word, "in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God." There is a paradoxical nature to the Bible, it is the word of God written by men through the holy spirit - it is holy but it is of man. This same paradox is seen in Christ b/c he was a man while at the same time God (the word made flesh). The Bible "The Word" and Christ are the same thing. This does not suggest that Christ was fallible and imperfect, merely that the ultimate expression of God is that he became part of creation.

SCHWARTZ...you ask...

...If you are going to cite the contract of Umar as a basis for judging the dhimma, and are going to foster the historical lie that Jews and Christians led a "slave-like" existence under Islam, then you have to explain who it was who built the synagogues in Morocco, Egypt, the Holy Land, the Balkans, and Turkey.

in case you missed this bit of info...Jews built Synagogues for about 1500 years BEFORE islam...

Christians built Churches for 600 yrs BEFORE Islam...

hellooo

R.e. the Bible's 'wiggle room.' It is actually a product of the religious wars that convulsed Europe in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. It was actually a pragmatic result of the realization that Religious States could impose their views on their neighbors only a Pyhrric costs. The result was for the best as Faith became what it truly was in most saints, an internal conviction rather than an external rite. It is not for nothing that the Bible states that the flesh kills but the spirit gives live.

BJW #65,

If you accept that the Jewish Reformation occurred, and that we (Jews) no longer ritually slaughter our offerings (oxen, etc), it should be fairly easy to accept that in Islam there is the (largely unrealized) potential to stop slaughtering their offerings (children, bankers, etc).

Last points.

Of course, I think the Muslims, all 1.2 billion of them, should apologize for conquering Spain and turning Andalucia, previously a wasteland, into a garden. They should especially apologize for introducing the custom of bathing to Spain.

When the Christians reconquered Mallorca the first thing they did was close the Muslim and Jewish baths, since they considered bathing sinful.

Of course, the Muslims should also apologize for the fact that when Saleh-ud-Din retook Jerusalem, he ordered the reopening of the synagogues. What an intolerant thing to do! And they should also apologize for Saleh-ud-Din having employed Maimonides as his physician, and offer triple apologies for a really heinous crime by Saleh-ud-Din: providing St. Francis with a safe conduct to travel throughout the Holy Land.

Here are some other things the Muslims should apologize for:

inventing algebra and the algorithm;

naming the stars used in celestial navigation;

preserving and translating the science and philosophy of the ancient Greeks;

creating medical schools at a time when "medicine" in Christendom was usually fatal.

Last personal note: I became a Sufi because of things I learned in the Balkans, not through Marin County Sufism. Actually, I learned a lot about Islam from Albanian Catholics, who have a uniquely clear and tolerant understanding of Islam, under which they lived a long, long time.

I may have mentioned in this forum before that although under the Ottoman millet system (based on the dhimma) the Serb Orthodox church was the designated representative of Slav Christians, and the Greek Orthodox Church was the designated representative for Orthodox in Albanian lands... yet that terribly intolerant dhimma was extended to grant special privileges for the Catholics in Bosnia and Albania. How atrocious!

Oh yes, if you want an Islamic Reformation, you don't have far to look. That's how the Wahhabis like Bin Laden see what they represent. Islam does not need a Reformation; it needs a counter-reformation -- a reaffirmation of tradition within the conditions of the modern world. Bin Laden is their Luther. Muslims need a Leo XIII.

Stephen Schwartz,

inventing algebra and the algorithm;

naming the stars used in celestial navigation;

preserving and translating the science and philosophy of the ancient Greeks;

creating medical schools at a time when "medicine" in Christendom was usually fatal.

Yes. The Muslims had great accomplishments. In the distant past. What's something they've done in the last five hundred years?

Terrorism isn't "something" enough for you?

Just can't get away. Is the book of Numbers, known as Bemidbar or "In the Wilderness" in the Torah? It is in mine. That's where you find the description of the genocide of the Midianites, who had sheltered Moses.

As I noted elsewhere on this site, the Bosnian Muslim SS were used against the Partisans. They played no role in the liquidation of the Bosnian Jews, which was carried out by the Germans and Croats. The Bosnian Muslim SS divisions performed very poorly; they were sent to France for retraining and then mutinied and tried to join the French Resistance, and by 1944 most of them had deserted to the Partisans. In addition, the Bosnian Muslim clerics issued a series of declarations in 1941-43 denouncing Nazi/Ustasha attacks on Jews and Serbs.

Facts are troublesome things.

You don't have to look back 500 years, only a few. Islamists have introduced the suicide bomber. (tongue only slightly in cheek.

SSchwartz,

That's where you find the description of the genocide of the Midianites, who had sheltered Moses.

Ah, but there's the doozy. There may be points in the Jewish Bible calling for the elimination of this group or that group. But, as I recall, there is never a blanket kill all the infidels passage.

Don't play games. Most of the synagogues in Morocco and Egypt, and the numerous ones in Turkey and the Balkans, were not built before Islam. That should be obvious. They were built under Islamic rulers. You think Jews were building synagogues in Sarajevo before the Muslims got there? Come on.

Zymurgist and Bill,

Yes, I meant something positive.

Stephen

The tolerance experience by humans holding beliefs other than Islam under the dhimma contract is not the root issue for me. The fact that the dhimma contract exists within Islam at all is the issue. If Islam is to reform the dhimma, the combination of religion & state, individual rights, etc., all must be subject to critizism and reform.

gb

I think one thing we're getting away from an important thing. None of us are dealing with the jews, christians or muslims of last century. We are dealing with the wahabists that are dictating what is or is not Islam today. I've read some Sufi literature and find it very compatible with my particular mystical Christianity. But we are dealing with the followers of Qutb, not any particular enlightened Iman of the 19th century. I can quote you passages from Luther that would make Hitler say "right on!" but I would have to go to the deepest wilds of Lutheranism to find someone who would be for the genocide of any race. The same cannot be said of Islam.

SS chwartz...

Jewish presence in Greece dates at least to the mention by Strabo in approximately 85 B.C.E. that Jews could be found in all the cities of the eastern Mediterranean (VII 7 4).

There may well have been Jews, if not Jewish communities, living in Greek cities as far back as the Babylonian Exile (586-530 B.C.E.). After the wars of the Maccabees, between 170 and 161 B.C.E., many Hellenized Jews left Judaea and settled in the new commercial centers, such as Alexandria and Antioch, of the Hellenistic world.

From these communities smaller groups moved to some of the coastal Aegean cities such as Ephesus, Smyrna, Thessaloniki, and, according to tradition, Chalkis. Jewish communities also may have been founded on Crete at this time. In any case, by the time of the Apostle Paul there were flourishing Jewish communities in most of the major Greek cities.

...im shocked how ignorant you are

ploome! Take it a little easy! But you are right their were synagogues as far away as Spain during the first century CE, that's who Paul went to between his first and second imprisonment.

Stephen Schwartz (#71),

I call for an Islamic Reformation, you for a Counter-Reformation. Can we split the difference and both call for an Islamic Enlightenment?

BTW, thanks for your fascinating contributions.

Islam needs (If I may be so bold) perhaps not a Martin Luther, but a Martin Buber. And I'm a huge fan of Luther! Someone who will bring Islam into the Spirit and out of the letter. I and Thou is much more blessed than Us and Them.

You think Jews were building synagogues in Sarajevo before the Muslims got there? Come on.

I don't know about Sarajevo, but most Jewish communities in Arab countries predate Islam by at least 500 years. The Jewish community in Medina was Mohammed's inspiration, and who can forget the great yeshivas of Babylon (aka Iraq), active well before the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70CE? So yes, Jews certainly were building synagogues before the Muslims were a twinkle in Mohammed's eye.

Observations in no particular order as they happen to arise as I read:

All religions are populated by human beings. As such they will in some ways be flawed. Humanity is and always will be incapable of perfection. Call me a skeptic but I don't see too many people left to their own devices doing a whole lot of good (I know there are exceptions). Something in the constitution of religious adherents clues them in to that. Aetheists, therefore, are either the most optimistic, faith filled people on the face of the earth or the most to be pitied.

#11 - Ariel
For those who seek contradictions, they will be found. For those who believe, the contradictions are only apparent and can be explained. Once rooted, neither side can be convinced of any other way.

#12 Stephen Schwartz
A person who thinks there are no injunctions to kill nonadherents of the faith in the Bible has not read the Bible. Note the fate of the Midianites (who had sheltered Moses) as described in Numbers.
The Old Testament is more comparable to the Koran in that it's written word of God. YHWH's mouth to Moses' ear. God's way of showing humanity how incapable it is on its own.
A reformed Islam might be akin to Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses. Missionaries going door to door witnessing for their religion.

#16 superfly
You hit the nail on the head. It's a matter of choice. The God of the Bible has allowed choice from the very beginning.

#35 Yehudit
I don't think it's a matter of Islam being more or less hospitable to Jews. I think it's more a matter of who is the more immediate enemy. Previously it was Christianity due to it's sponsorshp by those in political power. Today, much of Christianity has been marginalized and in some ways is tacitly complicit. Thus, today the Jews are the bad guys. I don't think for a minute that if Israel ceased to exist we, the western "Christian" nations would become the next targets.

#48 Ariel
Quoting Kolya "The point is that the "wriggle room" in Christianity was non-existent 500 years ago, and it did not arise due to forces originating within Christianity. It was an extrinsic phenomenon."
There has always been "wriggle room" in Christianity. What lacked was wriggle room in state sponsored religion. Just look at the Arab states today or Ireland. I get the feeling you believe they are one and the same. I am a Christian and do not want it to be the official, state-sponsored religion. I'd like to see some aspects of it become important to us again but not at the point of a gun or some legislators pen.
Perhaps the question should be "What would happen if Islamic governments suddenly became secular?"
Would Islam and Islamists still act the same way and do the same things?

In re #68:

billhedrick wrote:

"It is not for nothing that the Bible states that the flesh kills but the spirit gives live." (sic)

To the best of my recollection the passage in question suggests

"The *letter* killeth, but the spirit giveth life..."

(But I got the drift, or the spirit, of your intended meaning anyway. ;-) )

Jamie Irons

billhendric...

sorry, i overreact to people making absurd statements of fantasy in a mocking way

Jamie Irons, thanks for the correction, I was doing that from memory and I knew there was something wrong with that!

Going way back to #15 (Snopes)...

In my experience, no TRUE spiritual giant in any religion ever advocated violence and death to anyone. (I'm not talking about religious leaders, I'm talking about spiritual people - the truly religious ones).

As you (Snopes) say, it could be that the words attributed to Mohammed were not actually his words. If this is the case, Moslem scholars should be sifting through the Koran, trying to separate out the real stuff (from Mohammed) from the other, unpleasant, stuff.

Then they would have a clearer picture of what Mohammed intended... if this is the case.

Mr. Schwartz -

Sorry to burst your dhimmitude bubble, but when I was visiting morocco recently, I was told by the Muslim tour guide how the Jews were made to live in Ghettoes and by some rulers were forced to walk around barefoot.

Let's also not forget the story of Suleika - the Jewish girl who was killed for not converting to Islam because some Muslim boy wanted to marry her.

Not dhimmitude - it sure ain't equal rights.

Furthermore, whatever became of the Synagogues in Mecca and Medina? (built long before Islam). As I'm sure you know from the Koran, there were pretty good sized Jewish communities there. What about their 'right of return'? Oh yeah, Jews are banned from Saudi Arabia.

You should spend more time trying to reform your own barbaric religion rather than trying to prove to us that it's so great by giving us a list of accomplishments which ends five hundred years ago. Islam was once a great religion. The problem is that it's now stuck in the dark ages.

Regarding all of the past accomplishments of Muslims, I love quoting something James Lileks wrote in one of his screeds

(here: [Link: lileks.com...]

"I’ve had this conversation a few times since 9/11. There are some people whose hackles prick up and twitch if you say the West is culturally superior to the Arab world. This usually brings one of two responses:

1. “Well, that’s what you say, you live here.” As if freedom of religion, freedom of property, freedom of artistic expression, astonishing technological innovation, gender equality and democracy are somehow subjectively defined in this context. In this country, women can not only drive, but be National Security Advisor. I mean, the United States put a robot on a Martian moon, and Saudi Arabia chopped off the heads of three guys last week for being gay. I think we have the slight edge in the cultural development department, but that’s just me.

2. “You know, in the Middle Ages, the Arab world was much more advanced.” So? In the age of Augustus, the Italians had more stable government than the Brits. Obviously, things change. That’s my point: cultures rise and fall, and often do so because of attributes that elevate one over the other. It could be that a wave of Reformation will sweep the Arab world, and they’ll kick the West’s ass in 150 years; history happens, to paraphrase the bumpersticker."

Pretty much sums it up

W.

[Link: www.mindspring.com...]

Jews in Islamic societies became dhimmis, second-class citizens, who were allowed to practice their religion but did not have equal rights under law.

In the 11th century Muslim leader Al Mawardi solidified twelve laws (the Charter of Omar) that ruled Jewish life in Islamic nations – they couldn’t touch the Koran, speak of the Prophet demeaningly, touch Muslim women or do anything that would turn a Muslim against his faith.

The Muslims also forced Jewish dhimmi to wear a yellow sash, prohibited them from building synagogues taller than a Mosque and owning horses and did not allow them to drink wine in public or perform religious rituals in public. The dhimmi also had to play a head tax (djezya) and a property tax (kharaj).

Muslims forced urban Jews to live in ghettos called mellahs, a name derived from the Arabic word for salt because

Muslims often forced Jews in Morocco to salt the heads of executed prisoners before their public display.

These mellahs were crowded, filthy, poverty-stricken areas traversed by narrow corridors and dark, uninviting passageways. As a result of this segregation the Jews educated their own, leading to a high literacy rate, much higher than that of the Muslim community.

Some Jews were able to use their intellectual abilities to excel in business, further separating themselves from the rest of Muslim society.

Actually in the first century AD, the Jews made up 10% of the Roman Empire. The Jewish idea of monotheism and the values in the Torah were very attractive to Romans who became in significant numbers "god fearing" people. i.e. they started to accept the Jewish God as their god but did not convert. That is why so many ultimately became Christian which was a Jewish sect who abandonned the Law.

As for the potential for change, I vote in the affirmative. But I don't think the impetus will come from the top down but from the bottom up. The circumstances must be right.

The Soviet Union fell from wit6hin when the people no longer believed and were given the opportunity to express that belief.

In the sixties Islam was not the slightest bit vibrant and no one cared about whether it could change or would. Pan Arabism under Nasser was their religion. They were also socialists and the socialists Baath Party in Syria, Egypt and Iraq ruled. After the '67 war and their utter defeat, utter dispair gripped the Arabs who abandonned both socialism in part but mainly Pan Arabism. In its wake arose a new interest in religion. Socialism and pan Arabism were abandonned as false gods.

We now see the fruits of that revolution. As with many revolutions (French and Russian) it was carried to the extreme. The pendulam will swing back aided by the defeat of the Islamicists by the USA.

The Jewish way of approaching "the Word of God" dates back to late Temple times and is demonstrated in the congenial disputations of the Talmud. The scriptures are literally the word of God, but humans have free will and intelligence and are partners with God in repairing the world. It is therefore mandated from heaven for humans to use their intelligence to interpret Torah. We also have many stories from both Tanakh and Talmud of humans challenging God and God backing down.

Later rabbis were fond of quoting this line from I believe Deuteronomy (this is a rough translation - I don't have a Tanakh handy): "Your guide to living is not far away, it is not in heaven, it is right here on earth, for you to make use of."

Not only that, all adult males (and recently, females) were mandated to take part in this interpretation. Rabbis are not like priests who interpret for the people, they just facilitate discussion and provide resources because of their greater learning. Jewish engagement with scripture has been for over 2000 years more like a graduate literature seminar (that anyone can join) than a lecture.

So even though Orthodox Jews believe that Torah is literally the Word of God, we have a very strong ancient tradition of discussing and challenging the text. Which is why we are over-represented in law, teaching, psychology, literature and other areas that demand creative thinking about narrative and human relations.

I say all this because Christians (and maybe Muslims too) tend to have an either-or attitude to scripture. "If it's 'true' it must be carved in stone. If one can reinterpret it, it must not be 'true.'" For observant Jews, it is true AND mutable.

#79 gb The tolerance experience by humans holding beliefs other than Islam under the dhimma contract is not the root issue for me. The fact that the dhimma contract exists within Islam at all is the issue. If Islam is to reform the dhimma, the combination of religion & state, individual rights, etc., all must be subject to critizism and reform.

BINGO!

Being a second class citizen within my own country isn't exactly a selling point on Islam.

#90 Keelie - I don't know what Mohammad said or didn't say. If the stuff attributed to him is true, I agree, he could be no true spiritual leader. I don't really know why people would attribute such heinous things to him if they weren't true - political gain I guess.

If parsing out the bad stuff - whether it really came from Mohammad or not - is what it takes to reform Islam, I am all for it.

islam is a threat, that is its purpose.

Unlike other religions islam's entire purpose is to convert or kill all non-believers.

Christians at one point beleived this as well.

But all other's never have, religion wasn't a bad thing to be forced upon others when created by monotheism and abraham, it was and is a personal belief not a theocracy used to control, persecute, and subjugate believers and nonbelievers alike.

islam is not a religion it steals ideas from monthesitic religions to appear similar but its intention is to conquor all, it is a theocracy.

What is a general critique of Islam expected to accomplish for the West? You can argue the fine points of religion until the last hair is split, but at the end of the day there are eight hundred million Muslims who aren't going anywhere.

As for picking and choosing among the different strands of Islam: We rightly pick out Wahhabi as a dangerous tendency, but all Wahhabis are not our enemies, and all Sunnis are not our friends. Are we really going to draw up theological grounds for distinguishing friend from foe?

Rather than "negating" Islam, we (the "West") need to vigorously re-affirm ourselves. We need to stop apologizing for ten thousand years of human history, as if it were uniquely our fault, and we need to engage in a little Judeo-Christian-Liberal-Democratic-Capitalist Triumphalism (whatever you want to call it).

Back to #79 gb's point. Please note that Mr. Schwartz isn't saying that the concept of dhimma doesn't exist within Islam - only that the concept of dhimma as slave doesn't exist within Islam.

Under the best of circumstances - even Mr. Schwartz's - being a dhimmi is no special treat. A dhimmi is NOT considered a full citizen under Islamic law and is subject to restrictions placed upon him by the State.

gb is right. The fact that Islam has the concept of a dhimma contract at all is troublesome. It sets up a system of inequality for believer and non-believer.

Don't take our word for it. Read the Islamic scriptures for yourself.

By the Numbers; countries and religions.

islam:
There are 500 million arabs in the middle east housed within 22 arab countries in that region.
There are 1.5 billion muslims worldwide.

Christians:
There are 1.7 billion christians worldwide.
The Vatican is the only official Christian state but by the numbers so is North America, South America, and Europe.

Jews:
There are 6 million Jews in Israel, the only Jewish country. There are 6 million Jews in America, and another 1 million Jews throughout the world. Totalling 13 million Jews worldwide.

Here is an interesting article regarding Israeli/Turkish relationship with some background history of Jews under Ottoman Rule.

I think the Jewish experience under Turkish rule which is one of our more benign tenancies underscores what has been the history of the Jews in others lands:

We have at times been welcomed, but that welcome usually wears with time and to disasterous consequences.

It is the reason why Israel is so important to the Jewish people. It is our homeland where we are always welcome. So long as it is the Jewish State we will never be kicked out at the whim of our majority masters. To all of you who do not support Zionism, please read the history of how Jews have fared in exile.

Stephen Scwartz whatever beliefs you have found on your personal journey I think your previous writings indicate that you believe that adherents of Islam are peaceful, but you recognize the threat of militant Islam or the practice of Islam that involves violent subjugation of non-muslims.

If that is your view, you are not coming accross as a "moderate", but rather you are coming accross as a John R. Bradley, with your overly broad defense of all that is Islam.

As an aside I posted the Pravda article because I found it appalling and I was hardly making it fun nor vouching for its truth

I don't know why you are being so defensive.

Regarding the SS Bosnian Muslims, although you are partially correct that the SS Waffen Units were primarily recruited to control Yugoslav partisans, according to the Holocaust Encyclopedia

Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Edition 1990, Volume 2, Pages 706 and 707, entry Husseini, Hajj Amin Al ; The main Hitler's supporter among Palestinian Arabs...
Quote:

These MUSLIM VOLUNTEER units, called Hanjar (Sword), were put in WAFFEN-SS fought Yugoslav partisans in Bosnia, and carried out police and security duties in Hungary. THEY PARTICIPATED IN THE MASSACRE OF CIVILIANS IN BOSNIA and VOLUNTEERED TO JOIN IN THE HUNT FOR JEWS IN CROATIA...

Facts are troublesome aren't they Schwartzie.

#96 snopes

Perhaps living next to a democracy for 50 years is begining to have some effect.

http...

gb

There are 6666 verses in the arab copy of the bible called the koran.

gb...regarding the memri translation...

'Equality is Incumbent on the Islamic State'

...yes, they consider all muslims equal, regardless of race

"The teachings of Islam support equality and it is incumbent on the Islamic state, whether in its old or modern constellation, to respect the rights of individuals and groups in their faith and citizenship notwithstanding the existence of examples to the contrary.

...rights of minorities are respected under the contract of dhimmia

Historical evidence suggests that the Islamic societies, by and large, had practiced these principles.

...yes.as long as the contract isnt broken. If a non muslim insults Islam or a muslim, the contract is broken, and the non muslim is punished.

The best evidence is the Constitution of Medina, negotiated by Prophet Mohammed with non-Muslims that guaranteed them their rights and duties, and their right for worship in places of their choice.

...after payment of the ransom called jizya

It is a set of civil rules and an action program for Islamic pluralism.

...all non muslims subjugated uner islamic law

Subsequent rulers established the rights of the millet, [made up primarily of Jewish and Christian minorities as a means to protect the rights of minorities to practice their religion and the application of religious law to their members]."

...after petitioning the muslim rulers...

"The International Declaration of Human Rights has established the principle that 'all human beings are born equal and have equal rights and dignity.' This principle is as much as an Islamic principle as it is a universal human rights principle."

...the OIC, reject the International Declaration of Human Rights...here is their version...
[Link: www1.umn.edu...]

and the Saudi position...

[Link: www.saudiembassy.net...]

...amazing piece of propaganda...

gb...here is an interesting example of "islamspeak" and their distortion of language...

[Link: www.netiran.com...]

On the Islamic Human Rights Declaration: After the revolution the Iranian government felt that the human rights have been used politically in the world, especially as it has received a few warnings from the United Nations. Accordingly, it initiated the Islamic Human Rights Declaration.

The Islamic Human Rights Declaration was approved at the conference of the OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference) foreign ministers in Cairo upon Iran's initiative. After the approval of the declaration the majority of the Islamic countries acceded to it, including the Iranian government.

Since then whenever it is receiving a warning from the UN in connection with disregard of the Human Rights Declaration, the Iranians government has been stating it follows the Islamic Human Rights Declaration.

Facts remain troublesome. The Bosnian SS units were not employed against Jews. They were employed against Partisans. The correct place to do research on them is in the archives of the German and Italian General Staffs and the German and Italian foreign ministries. The original documents show very clearly that they were found inferior by the Nazis and ineffective against the Partisans. Secondary sources claiming they "volunteered" to hunt for Jews in Croatia are not very weighty compared to original documents. Maybe they volunteered, but that was not a significant chapter in their history. In general, however, THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE HOLOCAUST is quite fair and accurate on these issues.

Neither Croatia nor Bosnia had a tradition of serious local anti-Semitism and while Nazi and Ustasha policies were atrocious and criminal, they should not be taken to confer collective guilt on all Croats and Bosnians. 230,000 Croats fought in the Partisans. The Partisan struggle vs. the Ustasha was a real civil war. No such conflict took place in Serbia where the population remained passive, or was anti-Partisan, until very late in the war.

As to the building of synagogues and the playing of childish wordgames on sites mainly notable for the absence of civility: Romaniot Jews -- Greek speaking and generally oriented toward the Byzantine world -- built synagogues in Macedonia, Greece, the Dalmatian coast (ancient Illyria), and Bulgaria. They did not seem to have gone north of the Danube and they had no recorded presence in Bosnia. The Romaniot Jews of the Balkans and the rest of the Greek-speaking Jewry in southeast Europe were a remnant of a once widespread community. Most of the Hellenized Jews, whose culture was centered in Alexandria, abandoned Greek for Arabic; this is one of several reasons that Hellenistic Jewry and the Romaniots constitute one of the least-studied chapters in Jewish history.

The synagogues built in Macedonia, Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo, Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey by the Sephardim who arrived there after 1492 were almost entirely new synagogues. In only a few cases, mainly in Greece, did they take over existing Romaniot synagogues. This speaks to the supposed bar on new synagogue construction in the dhimma.

I object to being labelled ignorant on these issues. I have spent years trekking through the Balkans locating lost synagogues and graveyards, photographing them, and seeking to assure their preservation. I know the difference between a Romaniot synagogue and a Sephardic/Ottoman era synagogue much better than almost anybody else who writes to sites like this.

One thing I didn't mention about Dreher's review: the idea that Dan Pipes is soft or naive and that this nobody who no one ever heard of, Spencer, is the real expert -- that's contemptible.

As for cleaning up "my" religion... you have no idea what my religion consists of, so please refrain.

As Ibn Arabi, shaykh ul-aqbar, one of the greatest Islamic figures, whose works are banned in Saudi, said:

"My heart is a pasture for gazelles and a convent of Christian monks,
A temple for idols and the Ka'bah of pilgrims,
The Tablets of the Law in Torah and the Book of Qur'an.
I follow the religion of Love, wherever Love takes me.
There is my religion and my faith."

I am acutely aware that the traditional Islam I defend is under attack from the extremists; I believe that the extremists may only be beaten by mobilizing traditional Muslims to fight them. I also believe with all my heart that there is a way to bring traditional Muslims to the table with believing Jews and Christians in the defense of civilization and peace. I put myself on the line in Kosovo to organize an interfaith council of Christians and Muslims at a time when nobody among the Serbian and Albanian religious leaders would entertain such an idea. I even met with one of the most extreme Serbian clerics in this effort.

I make no apologies for who I am or what I am doing. Recruiting Muslims to the side of the West makes more sense to me than confronting a billion people, especially when those who want to do the confronting are safe on their couches and limit their crusade to internet hate spouting.

I did not learn all this by remaining in a position of safety. I went to Bosnia and Kosovo and saw for myself how Muslims who had suffered rejected extremism. I am not the world's bravest person but nor am I offering advice from a position of security.

The NEPRAVDA article is disgusting and for any Jewish person to cite it for any reason is appalling.

Rechecking... there were some Romaniots on the southern bank of the Danube in Serbia in the 14th century and there may have been some in the Srem area north of Belgrade. A colleague of mine thinks he has located a Romaniot synagogue in that area.

S Schwartz and Bill Allison: Peaceful, my ass!

JIHADOCIDE is Islam

Mr Allison, when you write that Muslims have done nothing comparable to what Christians and Commies have on their conscience in the 20th Century, this is a partial list of Islamic butchery:

1.5 million Christian Armenians, 750,000 Chaldean Christians, 150,000 Copts, 500,000 Sudanese Christians and Animists, 650,000 Indonesian atheists, Bhuddists, and Christians. 200, 000 East Timor Catholics, 5.5 to 6.5 million Hindus, 100,000 Papuan Christians and Animists. About 4,000 Americans. I don't know how many Jews.

I spent a lot of time looking up info on the Armenian repression starting in the 19th century, then the general extermination of the Christian Armenians and Chaldeans. From the Red Pasha on, the history is detailed. It is important to note that the Ottoman rulers were not that religious, but they envied Christian property and for political reasons, wanted the Empire 100% Muslim after all the troubles they were having with the Orthodox Greeks on their periphery. But the genocide was conducted under the rubric of Jihad, which the rulers whipped up amongst the general Turk and Kurdish population. I was surprised that the religious aspect of the "Forgotten genocide" is ignored in the Western Press so much. The Jihad was a spendid success, as Hitler later noted. Turkey is now 99.8% pure Islamic

Here's a link to the Armeinian genocide and more on the Armenian people. Sorry Schwartz, the Ottomans may have been all sweetness and light to their subject Jews, but Christians suffered under them from 1453 on.

[Link: www.hyeetch.nareg.com.au...]

On the question of Hindus killed in Jihad in the 20th century, the number comes from the following site:

[Link: www.mantra.com...]

The Indians here claim that the Muslims butchered more non-believers in Jihad than were killed in the Holocaust. Indeed, when you look outside the 20th Century, that is credible. The British when they established rule, did try and do the Rodney King bit..(Can't We All Just Get Along?).and suppressed the gruesome facts of Jihad in the 15th and 16th century killing millions and destroying tens of thousands of Hindu Temples. 'Course the Brits had their own trouble with Muslim massacres there - the Sepoy Mutiny being one such example.

The biggest Hindu massacres of the 20th century were (1) - Muslim cleansing of Hindu lives and culture from East Pakistan (Bangladesh), West Pakistan, and localized areas in India proper during the wars of Partition - 3 million; (2) Jammu and Kashmir - 140,000 since 1947; and in 1971 when the Pak Army killed an estimated 2.4 million Hindus in what is now Bangladesh. Again not covered much in the American press.

Indonesia - Probably the biggest hole in reportage. This info is on several sites, and reveals that the media has always discounted the religious aspects of pogroms in the Archipelago. The press seems to love presenting an image of Indonesia as the Archtype of Really Peaceful Islam to the world. In 1965, an estimated 500,000 non-Muslims were butchered - most were members of the PKI, the Communist Party or sympathizers ostensibly atheists or "Bad Muslims", but large numbers of Christians and Chinese Bhuddists were also put into the dirt as a side benefit during the Islamic blodletting. The unmentioned fact is that Suharto used active Islamic elements to do the killing under Jihad - every bullet fired, every machete blow was delivered in Allah's name. East Timor was a Portugese colony, originally. Like Papua, the Europeans had done extensive missionary work and built up a substantial Catholic folowing. Example: The slaughter of 200,000 Christians out of 700,000 East Timoreans was done by Muslims on Jihad against non-believers. The slaughter now being conducted against Christians in the Molluccas has no death toll I was able to find.

Regarding the West's response, I am disgusted. The faggot priests of the Roman Catholic Church are too busy singing Kumbaya with the Mullahs and double-deploring Israeli or Serb on Muslim violence to bother to remind us of the fact that the first great Genocide of the 20th Century was a Jihad. Same with the "Turn the Other Cheek" milksops of the World Council of Churches...who gave 100 times the hand-wringing and publicity to the evil Jew killing a Palestinian child (in most cases collateral damage) or the evil American killing "helpless Afghani babies" ---with nary a peep about the mass murder of Christians in Indonesia. Nor are they much interested in the Subcontinent and its bloody history of Jihad.

I am also sadly amused by renegade Jews who make it their calling to defend the depredations of Islam - Saying that Israel and Judaism is morally eqivalent.

I doubt one in 100 Americans are aware of the magnitude and stark depravity (men, women, children all killed with great cruelty) of the Muslim slaughters of the last 100 years. I would confidently venture to say that Muslims killed more Christians and Jews in just the last 100 years than us infidels killed of them over the entire course of human history. Something to remember when a Muslim activist at CAIR calls on guilty-feeling faggot priests to beg forgiveness for the Crusades, or encourages renegade Jewish Lefties to admit that they are the Oppressor Race and the Peaceful Members of the Umma are the Victim Race.

Schwartz, I believe the term is takiyyah, the Qu'ranic legitimized lying intended to deceive non-believers. Everyone should understand the depth of 2nd class citizenship and physical jeopardy that exists for non-Muslims in any land where the adherents of Peaceful Islam has power.


Now a gratuitous Jewish slam from me. You guys have a real PR problem with the Settlements. And, don't expect America to foot the bill in money or blood to be your eternal bulwark against those righteously aggrevieved by your theft of land and water resources on the West Bank. You have a growing domestic problem in the US with blacks w/in the Dem Party. Jews, like in the Days of RJR Nabisco, Ivan Boesky - are prominant in the corporate scandals and Wall Street corruption recently - Global Crossing, Immunoclone, Enron, Grubmann the Tele-CON guru, etc. Was the Tyco CEO also Jewish? I don't know. Finally, the Jewish community might want to consider the bad PR of lauching class action lawsuits gainst every major American company existant in 1939 for Holocaust reparations kickbacks - it smacks of money-grubbing, not a quest for justice.

Stephen:

The NEPRAVDA article is disgusting and for any Jewish person to cite it for any reason is appalling.

Why is it appalling to cite it and call it appalling as I have done? Charles frequently cites to trash in the Arab news, I don't believe but I am glad to read their lies to see what they are saying.

I linked to the Pravda article because (1) We have criticized Europe and the Arab world for their anti-semitic garbage and it was interesting to see it coming from "our ally" Russia; (2) To point out to the other readers at LGF that you are obviously a person who has been in the forefront of the criticism of militant Islam and have enraged some pro-Arab people to warrant such a character assasination.

I don't blame you for having a problem with the Pravda article, but don't blame the messenger. I did not write it and in fact I have criticized it without even knowing you or your background. It appeared to contain falsehoods and exaggerations by someone who obviously unconcerned with the facts you presented and launched a anti-American, anti-Semitic attack on you and your background.

Regarding the Bosnian Muslim SS units not directly killing Jews. Whether they did or not is a detail without distinction. Volunteering to kill a Jew and being too incompetent to do it, does not prove your point of their low level of anti-semitism. So forgive me if I don't rush out to hug a Hanjar today because they were too incomepetent to kill my people in Europe.

Your personal journey is your own, however as a "public figure" many here are interested in how someone becomes a Muslim after being a Jew, and is an outspoken critic of militant Islam (a rarity in the muslim world).

You seem very defensive and I am trying to figure out why. With the exception of Ploome, no one has attacked you.

I am glad to see that you defend Pipes. You are entitled to cultivate your soft-spot for Balkan Muslims, and certainly in the world today, Balkan Muslims are not the root of trouble. That does not mean that Jews there roamed as free as the Buffaloe once did in the American Plains, nor does it prove that Islam is the religion of peace.

Stephen

Welcome to this group. As a Jew who has converted to Islam (and hence a self-described Sufi) [Link: www.naqshbandi.org...] I am sure that you will be able to give some interesting perspectives on Islam.

I'm sorry that some LGFers have been somewhat hostile to you, but I am glad that you have chosen to contribute to this discussion.

My understanding is that the Hanjar (Bosnian Muslim SS) were involved in the killing of Greek Jews and that thousands of Jews were killed in the massacre at Koritska Jama gorge.

Also, as to the question of dhimmis, the following link gives a useful overview. [Link: www.us-israel.org...]

Frankly, I don't want to be anyone's dhimmi, thank you.

Excellent bloody article...Finally some journalists and writers are getting to the crux of the issue...and that is ISLAM is in itself completely corrupt...Not just some interpretation of it but inherent Islam is the problem...

I have been following this faith for 21 years and my best freinds growing up were Sunnis that converted to Christianity many years ago and I also dated a Sunni Turk for a few years... In addition, I have read the Quran and the attendant Sahih Hadiths and short of knowing Arabic, am fairly conversed in this brutal faith...

Islam, in its orthodox fashion, is completely anti thetical to Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of thought and completely opposed to Democracy...

The one democratic 'islamic' country on earth, Turkey, has had democracy forced on it...Practicing Muslims want nothing to do with freedom's for others but only Islam...

Devon Hill

Ranbutan - you had me until you started spouting off the Zionist Conspiracy(TM) crap.

Judea and Samaria have been part of the land of Israel for 3000 years. To tell Jews that they can't live there is like telling Catholics that they can't live in Rome. Israel took over this territory as part of a defensive war against multiple Arab nations many times its size.

As for the "problems" with democratic black candidates, I think you should take a closer look at the politics of those candidates. Just like Israel's strike on the Iraqi nuclear reactor, I think the world will be a better place without McKinney and Hilliard. (Are you familiar with McKinney's rants about Bush knowing about 9-11 in advance and not doing anything so that he could help his family's stocks?)

A lot of Jews work on Wall Street. That's because you have to be smart and ambitious to work there, something a lot of Jews are. There's no Zionist conspiracy. As for the scandals, the CEOs and CFOs of both Enron and Worldcom were good old Christian Southern boys who stole a hell of a lot of my and other people's money. Mary Meeker and Henry Blodget ripped us all off as Wall Street research analysts - both Christian. Guess what, Jews are human, and some screw up. FYI - the result of RJR nabisco was that the shareholders of the company (mom and pop Americans) got paid way more by KKR than they would have from the management buyout. Overall the shareholders made BILLIONS. For doing the deal, some Jews made millions. I repeat, it's not a Zionist conspiracy.

Finally, I don't think you can ever repay the extermination of six million people. If filing class action suits in the USA is the only way to get the Swiss to give back the money they stole from those who died in the holocaust, what the hell is wrong with that? I think if you dig a little more deeply, you'll find that the companies getting sued are American arms of foreign companies mostly banks and Insurance companies that didn't pay off policies or stole money in accounts of the dead. Oh, and guess what, there are a lot of Jewish lawyers because you have to be pretty smart to get through law school.

IT'S NOT A JEWISH CONSPIRACY

Definition of Redundacy - Radical Islam

nuff said

Devon Hill

I make no apologies for who I am or what I am doing. Recruiting Muslims to the side of the West makes more sense to me than confronting a billion people, especially when those who want to do the confronting are safe on their couches and limit their crusade to internet hate spouting.

S Schwartz,

This makes sense. There are very few people here who talk about wiping out those one billion. Most of us believe that the Militant Muslims (aka Islamofascists) need to be defeated soundly, and then the regular Muslims (to the extent that they exist) will gradually reform their countries.

There's a good article on things at [Link: www.theatlantic.com...] - it notes how much of the Koran is incomprehensible, and grew over time. Once Islam acknowledges this, it might be able to change.

Sorry if this was linked to earlier this thread.

- NM

There's a good article on things at [Link: www.theatlantic.com...] - it notes how much of the Koran is incomprehensible, and grew over time. Once Islam acknowledges this, it might be able to change.

Sorry if this was linked to earlier this thread.

- NM

One of the worst abuses of the Ottoman Empire vis-a-vis the dhimmies was the fact that non-Muslim testimony was not accepted against Muslims in Ottoman courts. This gave Muslims carte blanche to steal, cheat, rape and murder non-Muslims with very little risk of punishment.

The tragic impact of this injustice is detailed extensively by Bat Ye'Or in her three books on dhimmitude. Bat Ye'or's books are recommended by Daniel Pipes BTW. Bat Ye'Or is the world's leading scholar on the history of dhimmitude in the Middle East and in Europe (her work does not cover India).

It is simply not true that non-Muslims have equal rights with Muslims under Islam. Mr. Schwartz earlier defended the great scholar of Islam, Bernard Lewis. Perhaps he has not read Mr. Lewis's book, the Political Language of Islam, which makes it clear that non-Muslims did not have equal rights with Muslims in any Islamic society.

From the Jewish Medieval History book, a ruling from a Shafi madhab judge on how Christians and Jews should be treated under the Muslim state. [Link: www.fordham.edu...]

(Shafi is one of the four accepted schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence, called "madhabs".)

"I make no apologies for who I am or what I am doing. Recruiting Muslims to the side of the West makes more sense to me than confronting a billion people, especially when those who want to do the confronting are safe on their couches and limit their crusade to internet hate spouting."

Unfortunately, part of the process for getting Islam to reform includes getting Muslims to confront the dark side of their history and their religion and making changes based on this knowledge, something that they are quite loathe to do (I know this from a long history of personal experience).

Those who seek to obscure or negate the awful historical impact that Islam has had on, say, dhimmies, Hindus, etc. are unfortunately a barrier to this process, not a help. As long as we all can pretend that there's nothing wrong with either Islam or its history, what's the point of changing?

I know this is off-topic, but it looks like our friends the French have intervened in the Ivory Coast without security council approval. Seems rather unilateral of them, no?

Reform Islam? Read the Koran! Muslims are dictated to believe that that perverse concoction, designed to sanction murder and plunder, is the "word of god." Muslim savages enforce blasphemy dictate against anyone who would imply that Koranic ordenance can be disobeyed.

Don't listen to me! This is what an American Muslim pig posted at CLEARGUIDANCE, only to have it picked up at [Link: www.as-sahwah.com...] ("as-sahwah", "awakening"), the website of the one-time Wahhabi opposition (they are now mainstream, and they dictate khutbah to almost all of the non-African American Muslim cults).

WHY WE SISTERS MUST ENCOURAGE OUR HUSBANDS TO GO FOR JIHAD

In these turbulent times we are witnessing so many distressing events, (members of) our UMMAH (Islamic community) in Iraq are dying from cancer as a result of the depleted uranium dropped by our enemies in the Gulf War. Cancer rates have increased ten fold and there is no medication to ease the suffering of the dying due to the sanctions imposed by Britain and America. These sanctions have killed one million innocents, half of which are children, who are dying from malnutrition and other related diseases. This is a slow death with no relief. One child is dying every six minutes and we shall be asked by Allah what we did to help our brothers and sisters, and feeling their pain in our hearts is not enough...

Sahih Muslim (Hadith Book 32, #6258) "Nu'man bin Bashir reported Allah's Messenger as saying, 'The similitude of believers in regard to mutual love, affection, fellow-feeling is that of one body; when any limb of it aches, the whole body aches, because of sleeplessness and fever.'"

When the armies of the crusaders entered Afghanistan indiscriminately dropping their cluster bombs, the whole UMMAh watched...

The slaughter in Afghanistan was indiscriminate and continues, how many of our Mujahadeen brothers did we watch being taken away? One image of an Arab brother, his face bleeding sat in the back of a car being taken away with some Pakistani brothers is an image I will never forget. They knew their fate, and it showed clearly on their faces, and we the UMMAH watched silently. We should feel their pain as if it were our own husbands in that car. And we should encourage our husbands to fight for Allah so we may be safe from the day when we could be taken away. The events in America have proven how quickly things can change. Don't we know that our time of death has already been determined by Allah, it was determined whilst we were still in the womb. So why are we so afraid of losing our husbands? If they were meant to die, they would surely die anyway irrespective of whether they went for jihaad. And does Allah not provide our sustenance?

Sahih Muslim (Hadith Book 33, #6390) "Abdullah bin Mas'ud reported that Allah's Messenger who is the most truthful of human beings, and his being truthful said, 'The constitutents of one of you are collected for forty days in his mother's womb in the form of blood, after which it becomes a clot of blood in another period of forty days. Then it becomes a lump of flesh and forty days later Allah sends his Angel to it with instructions concerning four things, so the Angel writes down his livelihood, his death, his deeds, his fortune, and misfortune...'"

So we should trust in Allah and accept his decree with patience and humility. If we are going to lose our husbands, then wouldn't we rather lose them as Shaheeds (martyrs by bayat, or blood oath) so they can intercede for us on the day (qiyamah, or end-of-days) when terror will prevail? Wouldn't we rather be rescued from the fire? One Shaheed can intercede for seventy members of his family on the day of judgement and Allah has promised Paradise (Janaat) for those seventy. And don't we know if we encourage our husbands, we get the same reward as if we were fighing...

We should trust Allah and know that Allah does not foresake a believer who strives with his life and wealth...We should not view marriage in the same way that the kuffar view it. We should know that life is not just roses and romance as the media tries to portray...No, we should know that we have to love one another for the sake of Allah and yes we should love honor our husbands but we should love no one or nothing more than we love Allah. And we should be prepared to forsake the one we love for the One we love more...

Now as we speak our brothers are being rounded up in Palestine. They are being taken away in shackles to be tortured and murdered. This slaughter has gone on for more than 50 years. We hear Muslims say 'Allah will send his Angels to fight' but this is nonsense. Allah ordered us to fight. The Almighty will only send his Angels when we fight, Allah is not going to fight for us. Rather, we have to obey him and know that Allah will never forsake the one who fights in his cause...

None can influence a husband more than his wife, even if sometimes he may not show it. We can either be a blessing to our husbands and ourselves or we can be a cause of disaster to our husbands and ourselves.

Sahih Bukhari (Hadith Volume 4, Book 52 #110) "Narrated Abdullah bin Umar, 'I heard the Prophet saying, 'Evil omen is in three things: the horse, the woman and the house.'"

"Not equal are those believers who sit at home, and the others who strive hard and fight in the cause of Allah, with their wealth and their lives."
(Koran 4:95)

xxx
Lesson: as one wouldn't deliberately infest one's house with termites, one should not infest civilization with Jihad vermin.

The above should prove even to "Islam is peace" fanatics (G.W. Bush and 70% of lgf posters) that Muslims believe in FATE. Civilized peoples must be willing to tempt this FATE.

The choice is simple: KILL OR BE KILLED.

arab terrorsits in the name of islam are currently killing non-islamic people in most of the world:

1. Sudan (includes slavery by muslims of the animists)

2. Indonesia against the small Christian enclave there as well of 6,000.

3. Kashmir and India as a whole a mainly hindu peoples.

4. Israel, jews and arabs anyone and everyone is a target there to be killed including themselves.

5. The Balkans, this war is far from over. Mainly between the christian serbians and the muslim croatians.

6. America, all arab muslims are against America and will kill any associated target including allies and friends.

islam is a cancer that only the suicidal West, run by the neo-facists, would hungrily accept.

Darwin would be impressed with the new 'intellectual' survival of the fittest.

Only a deluded neo-facists white living in the West would think anything good of islam in direct contradiction to what they openly and clearly (honestly) claim and declare of their intentions, beleifs and goals are.

No enemy of free peoples has ever been so clear and yet so dismissed by their victims as harmless.

It is as previously states:

sadly pathetic

like a herd of wildbeasts jumping into the mouths of alligators that they can cleary see kill the one in front of them because they were wildbeasts as they themsleves are.

"I know the difference between a Romaniot synagogue and a Sephardic/Ottoman era synagogue much better than almost anybody else who writes to sites like this. "

Thank you from someone who has davened at Kehilla Kedosha Janina
[Link: www.kehila-kedosha-janina.org...]
and has a good friend whose father was the rabbi of the now-defunct Monastirli congregation around the corner.
[Link: www.jump.net...]

Folks- Sufis are good guys - okay? They are the Muslim equivalent of Chassidic mystical Jews. Read some Nachman and Rumi, play some Nusrat Fatah Ali Kahn and Schlomo Carlebach CDs, get a good night's sleep, and call me in the morning.

Wow, that's a lot to deal with, and I just got in.

First, Stephen Schwartz, I am extremely pleased to have you here; LGF regulars know that I have been remarking very positively about Sufiism for some time now.

The next post is going to be extremely important!

The next post by me, that is! :-)

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you "the stone that turneth all to gold." It's very simple, but very profound:

Those who say Islam cannot be reformed, and those people here who engage in vicious attacks on Mr. Schwartz, are SUBORDINATING HISTORY to SCRIPTURE .

This last sentence is so important that I will continue this in my next posting!

At the center of this debate is very bad philosophy on the part of the Schwartz attackers.

Schwartz has come up with facts, using reputable sources and personal experience, which show Islam in a more kindly light.

Those who attack him dismiss his facts on the basis of their understanding of the Qur'an.

Folks, don't use words like "never," "cannot" etc. on the basis of the FACTS YOU KNOW, because you simply DON'T KNOW ALL THE FACTS. If Schwartz says X, and if X is true, you can't attack him with "never X on the basis of A." If Schwartz's X is true, therefore your understanding of A needs improvement.

Of course the Qur'an has hateful passages, and of course the the Hadiths are even worse. Of course the Qur'an holds a central place in much of the Islamic faith today. THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT IT MUST, NECESSARILY, BE THE CASE. IT ALSO DOES NOT MEAN THAT IT HAS ALWAYS, OR WILL ALWAYS, BE THE CASE.

IN FACT, THE CALIPHS OFTEN CONSCIOUSLY ACTED AT ODDS WITH THE QUR'AN. History shows that Islam can be quite tolerant, and your examples of its intolerant side do not invalidate this point.

My own take on this issue (thanks in part to a discussion with Kolya), is that the Qur'an is assuming a larger role in Islamic thought and action than it has for some time. Schwartz is right, bin Laden is a Luther in the sense that he is a "back to the Qur'an" kind of guy.

I believe the reason for the current fundamentalism of Islam, not to mention the fundamentalism of Christianity and other world religions, is due to the dominance of Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thought.

Yes, I too believe that a Scripture-oriented Islam is the most dangerous global threat today, but I do insist on good philosophy.

Otherwise, the incorrect assumptions of a person like Ploome will lead one to a vicious attack on a person whose arguments are more carefully framed. That would be to the detriment of us all.

Well, that was a rather fertile seed. Thanks to everyone who responded to my query. Both the content and the number of contributors are far too great for me to respond to individually.

S. Schwartz, I don't have time to right now to address most of what you said, but you do seriously misrepresent the Bible when you say that it contains some sort of injunction to kill the Midianites. Yes, there was a historical episode in which the Jews were told to go to battle against another nation, the Midianites, and kill them. That is entirely unrelated to the idea of a religious injunction to murder unbelievers. There is no such thing in Judaism. It is, apparently, the sole province of Islam, and that is the source of consternation here.

Nathan in Canada #129:

Is someone paying you to act as self-deluded as possible? If so, then you have earned every cent. Your writing is polluted with misplaced moral equivalence. While Stalin was butchering millions, relativists like you were shouting: "what about the negro lynchings in the American south?" I hardly think that the KKKooks ever had the same global domination aims of Muslims, Communists and Nazis. Read Paul Hollander's POLITICAL PILGRIMS. It will cure you of your pathological equivocation. Good intentions like yours, are the proverbial road-to-hell. You have absolutely no intellectual or moral authority to lecture anyone. Listen and learn. It will liberate you from your profound ignorance.

Is Sufism a benign form of Islam? Sufis once dominated India's Punjab. Inevitably, a murderous ahl-Sunnat takeover has crushed Sufism in the Punjab. Ex-post-Sufis are butchering innocent Hindus on a daily basis. Sheik Kabbani, California's Sufi guru and anti-Wahhabi prince, recently prostrated his wretched body before Egypt's Murder-Incorporated (AKA: al-Azhar University). Sufis are human toys. Rather than being a means of approaching "god"; Sufi rites lead them to pure-stupidity. Watch Dervish Schwartz twirl his maleable self into irrelevance. Muslims are the bottom of the
human barrel, and his less-than-one-percenters are the bottom of that stagnant barrel.

People please: THINK AXIOMATICALLY.

I don't have a problem with Mr. Schwartz's Sufi faith. I have a problem with his negationism of Islamic history.

Even the 12-steppers agree, the first step to solving your problem is to admit that you have one in the first place.

Most Muslims I have met/discussed/debated with are still stuck on getting to step 1. Negating Islam's dark side doesn't help them get there.

Frankly, The stuff that Mr. Schwartz put forward about the dhimma pact doesn't give me any confidence in his representing a "reformed side" of Islam. If he were so inclined, he would have said, "Yes, it's true, the concept of something like the dhimma pact has no place in a modern, pluralistic, democratic society." Instead he defended its use historically, and denied that it was a form of discrimination.

As someone noted above, the very fact that Islam HAS a concept of a dhimma pact is disturbing, regardless of whether it was "tolerantly" or intolerantly applied.

Nathan - great post! Couldn't agree more!

Nastification and Susan,

Whatever the case is with Stephen, Nathan clearly has it right. Just because Islam has not undergone a Reformation (or Counter-Reformation, or whatever) does not mean that it necessarily can not.

I did not disagree, Ariel. But negationism will not help it get there.

Dont be stupid you moron.

Thank you Ariel. After this short posting, I will choose not to respond to Mr. Nastification; if he had attacked someone else, the matter would be different. Suffice to say Mr. Nastification is nastifying himself, and misinterpreting me. I doubt he read my posts, and I doubts still more he understood them.

The moral of the story: bad philosophy breeds nasty personal attacks!

Jonathan, thank you for your comments. The fact is that, while the Bible does not record an injunction to kill all the unbelievers, it does record "divine" injunctions to kill certain types of unbelievers: aka all the various Canaanites, the Amalekites, the Midianites; this represents nothing less than an injunction to genocide. Furthermore, the God of the Bible has misrepresented the Canaanites in various ways. There is also prevalent throughout Scripture the propaganda of the Jerusalem court (take a look at Ps. 2, for a good example), that took as its God-given right the right to smash the peoples who would not submit to the Jerusalem monarchy etc.

Here is a Muslim reformer who is capable of recognizing where Islam buts heads with modernity, plurality and democracy. Dr. Ausuf Ali is a Pakistani now living in the US, who has written much about the need to recodify Islamic beliefs and sharia from stem to stern, to make them consistent with modernity, plurality, etc. (Unfortunately I believe he has received many death threats for his views). Here is his contribution to Beliefnet.com's question of whether Islam is compatible with democracy or not?

[Link: www.beliefnet.com...]

I have to throw a trump card.

At PARTITION,
Hindus formed 28% of the population of what is now territorial Pakistan. Currently, they form less than 1%.

At PARTITION,
Muslims formed 8% of the population of what is now territorial India. Currently, they form 13%.

AXIOM,
Muslim majorities depopulate non-Muslim minorities.

SUSAN, ARIEL, NATHAN,
We deny all of the above, because that is what deniers do.

Yehudit (#95),

Although I am not religious myself, your sketch of the Jewish tradition of moral and intellectual discourse sent shivers of appreciation down my spine. The thing that has me agape, is the sheer philosophical sophistication of this way of searching for understanding.

As for your final sentence, "For observant Jews, [scripture] is true AND mutable", to me it denotes the idea that reality has an objective existence, but our knowledge of reality can only ever be tentative. Secular philosophy had to wait for over 2,000 years, before Karl Popper re-discovered that truth.

Thanks for the fascinating glimpse into a truly profound tradition.

Nastification,

Not sure if it's worth it, but:

AXIOM,
Muslim majorities depopulate non-Muslim minorities.

This is not axiomatic. You can find examples, e.g. India/Pakistan, Palestinian depopulation of Christianity, etc.

But with one counter-example, your "axiom" fails. For example, in pre-Christian Spain, non-Muslim minorities were not depopulated. In modern Turkey, that's also the case. In modern Ivory Coast, that's also the case.

That is not to say that you are not correct in most cases. It is simply not axiomatic.

Nastification Agenda, are you saying something?

Right on, Ariel! I'm glad someone pointed out the flaw in that argument. But that being said, "Nastification Agenda" 's name kind of gives him away. He will not learn from reasoned debate, but I trust others here will. I am, and have always been, extremely grateful for your presence here at LGF.

Ariel -

Turkey is a pretty bad example of muslims being nice to a minority. Remember the slaughter of the Armenians in the 1920s? (Guess what religion they were?). This was almost Holocaust scale genocide.

You're starting to sound like the rest of the apologists. Muslim rule of Spain was 500 years ago! That was the end of the Golden age and it's all been downhill from there.

Ok, so the Ivory Coast may be the only example remaining. Just wait.

BigBad,

I know you've seen my posts on LGF before. There's just no way I could be an Arab apologist.

Turkey is a pretty bad example of muslims being nice to a minority. Remember the slaughter of the Armenians in the 1920s? (Guess what religion they were?). This was almost Holocaust scale genocide.

That was exactly why I said modern Turkey. I would venture that there are probably the same proportion of Jews in Turkey now as there were in 1945. Probably also true for Christians.

In any case, the argument about the axiom is ridiculous. You can also find local concentrations were the Muslim population is the majority, in, say, Dearborn, Mich. ad infinitum

BigBad, I've appreciated your posts for some time, but I am dismayed to see you saying Ariel is sounding like a Muslim apologist. There is a difference between standing up for the historical record and just being in Mohammed's pocket.

"For example, in pre-Christian Spain, non-Muslim minorities were not depopulated. In modern Turkey, that's also the case. In modern Ivory Coast, that's also the case."

What was the official language of "Muslim Spain"? Was it Spanish? (A rhetorical question -- I know the answer).

After the Islamic conquest of much of Spain, the Christians high-tailed it over into the Christian areas and conducted guerilla warfare against the Muslim portion for 800 years until they finally pushed them out. Not much of a ringing endorsement for the Muslim government from the Christians who formerly occupied the land, was it?

Turkey is 99 percent Muslim. It was once completely Christian. The seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church was turned into a mosque by force (kind of like the equivalent of the Vatican being turned into a mosque by force.) Most Eastern Orthodox Christians despise Islam and Muslims, and have done so for centuries. Not much of a ringing endorsement there, either.

Ivory Coast -- what's happening there today?

Nasty -- I certainly do not deny the record of Islam on the Sub-continent. Islam has built up a hugely bad kharma on the Sub-Continent and things there will not get better until the Sub-Continent Muslims face up to it and seek reconcilliation for their past historical transgressions with the Hindus and Sikhs. This will happen approximately when pigs start to fly, however, mainly because of wekk-meaning "enablers" (i.e. negationists) who allow the Muslims to continue their fantasies about the real purpose of Bin Qasim's excursion to the Sindh and everything else that followed.

Sorry, I didn't proofread. I meant "well-meaning enablers" in the above last paragraph.

I am an American Muslim, though terribly disappointed in my religion, and after my experience studying fiqh (Islamic law) and attending my local mosque, it seems to me that all this talk of "reformation" seems to me to be pure and utter fantasy on Westerners' behalf, a kind of pleasant projection of what they would like to see. I don't have any idea what will eventually happen, but the idea of a "Reform Islam" seems nearly impossible to my jaundiced eye. My own experience of Islam suggests more that modern-minded Muslims will either end up ignoring or even abandoning the religion altogether.

Muslims are supposed to believe that the Qur'an is straight from Allah, that "We believe in the Book; the whole of it is from our Lord (3:7)." The Qur'an goes on, and on, and on, *and on* about how the believers in Allah and Muhammad will be given "gardens beneath which rivers flow" and that the unbelievers will "be driven to hell." You can hardly read a sura of the Qur'an and not come across this. In addition, the classical Islamic position has always been that the earlier, more tolerant verses ("There is no compulsion in religion (2:256)" are abrogated, or made void, by the later, more warlike verses ("Slay the infidels wherever you find them (9:5)". For example, Suras 8 and 9 are two of the last suras revealed, and they are full of the latter injunctions. According to many scholars, one ayat (9:29) nullifies all the tolerant verses.

It would be a good thing to look at actual books of fiqh (Islamic law), and see the actual rulings. Here is a book of Shafi'i law: [Link: www.dartmouth.edu...] which links to a huge text file: [Link: www.dartmouth.edu...]

Muslims, according to the Qur'an and Shari'ah, are supposed to consider themselves superior to the infidels, who are headed straight for hell, but naturally enough there are many Muslims having second thoughts after living and working shoulder to shoulder with the said hell-bound unbelievers.

Needless to say, not-so-good Muslims, (of which there are many!), do not come to the mosque and ignore most Islamic teachings, and even with pious Muslims, there is frequently a huge disconnect between what is preached and what is actually done. Classical Islam says that even living in the land of the infidel is forbidden, for example. And this is where the problem arises. It is not possible to fully participate in secular, American society and also *completely and fully* believe in the Islam and Shari'ah propounded by the Muslim scholars for the past 1400 years. Many, perhaps most, Muslims do not know much about their religion, or else ignore the unpleasant parts, rather than confront the scholars. They are more likely to drift away than reform. And reform can be dangerous: Rashad Khalifa was murdered right here in America for his heretical teachings on Islam, Qur'an, and his rejection of the Hadith. Hadith-rejecters are usually only found in the West, where they will not be persecuted for heresy and blasphemy. It may be that new ideas will end up spreading here, or that Muslims living in the West will continue becoming "bad Muslims" in the eyes of the scholars, marrying non-Muslims (absolutely forbidden for Muslim women, though not men, by the way), drinking, women going out uncovered, eating pork, etc.

Unfortunately, there's still much to worry about concerning Muslims in America. I remember listening to a group of young girls in the mosque talking about 9/11 a few weeks ago--they were totally convinced that the US had done it to themselves (note the disconnect between themselves and Americans, even though many, maybe most, were born here) so that they could beat up on Afghanistan. Then a few weeks ago a scholar from the Middle East gave a khutba (the sermon at the Friday service) in which he harped on the theme that Qur'an 2:65 has been misunderstood ("Those who believe (in the Qur'an), and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians -- any who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.") It only applies to Christians, Jews, and Sabians who lived before Islam. Now that Islam, the final revelation, has come, all who refuse to accept it are condemned to hell, as Qur'an 3:85 says ("If anyone desires a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the hereafter he will be one of the losers"). And this is the usual interpretation that I've heard. In a later speech, this same scholar railed against the Western use of reason and logic, and mentioned that the infidels are beasts, and that after a story of kindness toward Muslims by infidel Americans! The Islamic newspaper given out for free distribution at the mosque is obsessed with "Israel" (sic!), Kashmir, and oppression of Muslims in America. And that was the one in English. I get the feeling that many, though certainly not all, Muslims in this country are not especially attached to it. They certainly hold its culture in disdain.

Just a few of my scattershot thoughts as an American and very confused and disheartened Muslim. Sorry for taking up so much space.

#106 Stephen Schwartz
"I believe that the extremists may only be beaten by mobilizing traditional Muslims to fight them."
Sounds like a worthy goal (if it is possible to accomplish). Stephen is making sense here.
A war between civilizations would be horrible. Isn't it better to define the enemy as the militant Islamists -- including the jihadis, and their supporters, and the ones who want to use any means, violent or non-violent, to impose shari'a on everyone?
There are good, peaceful people who consider themselves Moslems. There are dangerous bastards, militant Islamists, who must be fought if we are to defend our lives and also retain our Constitution. Shouldn't we distinguish between these peaceful people versus the evil, dangerous ones, and even try to get the peaceful folks on our side, as Stephen suggests? Think future, not past. Think partnership. Too much is at stake.

Disillusioned American Muslim,

You nearly knocked me off my chair here. I've been reading the posts, and the last thing I was expecting was something like what you just wrote.

Please...take up as much space as you need.

#122 - Bigbad

Can you articulate "arrogance"? There is no actionable sentiment in the USA derived from you urging yahoos to be buying buying into the "Zionist Conspiracy".

But you typify the opposite side of the coin -

Why do people throughout the globe get pissed off at Jews. Not like they get up every morning upset at the Torah...but they might get peeved if their retirement accounts are siphoned off to Jewish lawyer suits and Jewish business Mogols.

BigBad - "A lot of Jews work on Wall Street. That's because you have to be smart and ambitious to work there, something a lot of Jews are." (Thus Jews are entitled to plunder freely by their merit and stake in the game - my words).

Right now, the prominant financial culprits who gutted every stockholder seem to be running
50% Gentile, 50% Jew. Not bad until you realize that the Jewish Wall Street thieves
are only 3% of the US population, and besides burning Joe Americans, they also smoked numerous investors in Asia and Europe.

BigBad - There's no Zionist conspiracy."

Au contraire, my schmeel!

There is one massive display of arrogance in the Jewish trial lawyers and Wall Street financial kosherboy nabobs - siphoning off 300+ billions of American citizen investments -to a cluster of some 800 Jewish elite people out of and asking 280 million Gentiles and your everyday lesser Jews to cough it up, and cheer!.

For the record, I support Israel. I have learned that Islam is a physical menace.

But overweening, arrogant Jewish "We are smarter than anyone, thus we deserve to manipulate Wall Street and the Gov't to milk your retirement accounts and sue any Goy entity with deep pockets"--- Has ceased to be anything other than a perceived exercise in shyster money-grubbing.

Gentiles are still with the Jews, in the USA. Your last redoubt outside Israel.

My request, and that of most of the non-Jewish majority, esp Blacks?

"Stop plundering us through your financial co-opting of our political processes, Jewish CEOs, CFOs, wealthy businessmen, Jewish trial lawyers, and your ACLU control!
You are corrupting the USA political process!"

BTW - Resolve the Settlements. Or ...You will be totally on your own soon, as 24 years of US billions to subsidize your conquests evolve into a thing of the past.

Your choice, Bigbad - and, by proxy Eretz Israel fanatics.

My inclination is to let Israel be self-funding by wealthy Jewish professionals, Wall Streeters, and top Jewish class action lawsuit lawyers, rather than through us (Whoops! what happened to my retirement?), taxpaying and relatively honest Gentiles.

#122 - Bigbad

Can you articulate "arrogance"? There is no actionable sentiment in the USA derived from you urging yahoos to be buying buying into the "Zionist Conspiracy".

But you typify the opposite side of the coin -

Why do people throughout the globe get pissed off at Jews. Not like they get up every morning upset at the Torah...but they might get peeved if their retirement accounts are siphoned off to Jewish lawyer suits and Jewish business Mogols.

BigBad - "A lot of Jews work on Wall Street. That's because you have to be smart and ambitious to work there, something a lot of Jews are." (Thus Jews are entitled to plunder freely by their merit and stake in the game - my words).

Right now, the prominant financial culprits who gutted every stockholder seem to be running
50% Gentile, 50% Jew. Not bad until you realize that the Jewish Wall Street thieves
are only 3% of the US population, and besides burning Joe Americans, they also smoked numerous investors in Asia and Europe.

BigBad - There's no Zionist conspiracy."

Au contraire, my schmeel!

There is one massive display of arrogance in the Jewish trial lawyers and Wall Street financial kosherboy nabobs - siphoning off 300+ billions of American citizen investments -to a cluster of some 800 Jewish elite people out of and asking 280 million Gentiles and your everyday lesser Jews to cough it up, and cheer!.

For the record, I support Israel. I have learned that Islam is a physical menace.

But overweening, arrogant Jewish "We are smarter than anyone, thus we deserve to manipulate Wall Street and the Gov't to milk your retirement accounts and sue any Goy entity with deep pockets"--- Has ceased to be anything other than a perceived exercise in shyster money-grubbing.

Gentiles are still with the Jews, in the USA. Your last redoubt outside Israel.

My request, and that of most of the non-Jewish majority, esp Blacks?

"Stop plundering us through your financial co-opting of our political processes, Jewish CEOs, CFOs, wealthy businessmen, Jewish trial lawyers, and your ACLU control!
You are corrupting the USA political process!"

BTW - Resolve the Settlements. Or ...You will be totally on your own soon, as 24 years of US billions to subsidize your conquests evolve into a thing of the past.

Your choice, Bigbad - and, by proxy Eretz Israel fanatics.

My inclination is to let Israel be self-funding by wealthy Jewish professionals, Wall Streeters, and top Jewish class action lawsuit lawyers, rather than through us (Whoops! what happened to my retirement?), taxpaying and relatively honest Gentiles.

Disillusioned American Muslim:

I have to remind you: "If anyone abandons the Islamic religion (din), then kill him." (Bukhari, Volume 9, Book 84, #57)

Be aware that there are 200,000 Iranian immigrants to America that have abandoned the cult. Many American Arabs are Muslims in name only (munifiqun), and remain attached only under the extermination (kafir kooshi) threat. You are not alone.

You should comment on the numerous apologists for Islam that post at lgf. You have abandoned a mentality, that these despicable equivocators mirror. This quote links this scum to the Muslim tyrant: "We seek refuge in Allah, from useless knowledge." (Ibn Majah)

Don't be swayed by the atrocious example of the deniers of innate Islamic perversity. This element is a servant class of "useful idiots", who are incurable ideological catatonics. Tell these traitors to civilization that Muslims are all jihad conscripts, with a usurious attitude to appeasers and reconciliators. You should read Erich Fromm's ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM, to learn why nominally free persons chose mental slavery.

#122 - Bigbad

Can you articulate "arrogance"? There is no actionable sentiment in the USA derived from you urging yahoos to be buying into your sarcastic veiw that Goys are charging "Zionist Conspiracy!"

But you typify the opposite side of the coin -

Why do people throughout the globe get pissed off at Jews? Not like they get up every morning upset at the Torah...but they might get peeved if their retirement accounts are siphoned off to Jewish lawyer suits and Jewish business Mogols.

BigBad - "A lot of Jews work on Wall Street. That's because you have to be smart and ambitious to work there, something a lot of Jews are." (Thus Jews are entitled to plunder freely by their merit and stake in the game?)

Right now, the prominant financial culprits who gutted every stockholder seem to be running
50% Gentile, 50% Jew. Not bad until you realize that the Wall Street thieves
who are Jews are only 3% of the US population, and besides burning Joe American's life savings, they also smoked numerous investors in Asia and Europe.

BigBad - There's no Zionist conspiracy."

Au contraire, my schmeel!

There is one massive display of arrogance in the Jewish trial lawyers and Wall Street financial kosherboy nabobs - siphoning off 300+ billions of American citizen investments -to a cluster of some 800 Jewish elite people out of and asking 280 million Gentiles and your everyday lesser Jews to cough it up, and cheer!.

For the record, I support Israel. I have learned that Islam is a physical menace.

But overweening, arrogant Jewish "We are smarter than anyone, thus we deserve to manipulate Wall Street -and the Gov't - to milk your retirement accounts and sue any Goy pre 1939 entity with deep pockets"--- Has ceased to be anything other than a perceived exercise in shyster money-grubbing.

Gentiles are still with the Jews, in the USA. Your last redoubt outside Israel.

My request, and that of most of the non-Jewish majority, esp Blacks and small investors...

"Stop plundering us through your financial co-opting of our political processes, Jewish CEOs, CFOs, wealthy businessmen, Jewish trial lawyers, and your ACLU control!
You are corrupting the USA political process!"

BTW - Resolve the Settlements. Or ...You will be totally on your own soon, as 24 years of US billions to subsidize your conquests evolve into a thing of the past.

Your choice, Bigbad - and, by proxy - Eretz Israel fanatics. Fight your own wars.

My inclination is to let Israel be self-funding by wealthy Jewish professionals, Wall Streeters, and top Jewish class action lawsuit lawyers, rather than through us (Whoops! what happened to my retirement?), taxpaying and relatively honest Gentiles.

Ranbutan,

Is there a reasonable explanation for your posting that nastiness three times (#154, #155 & #157), or were you just in a mouse-clicking frenzy?

And post # 122 is not Bigbad.

Why do people throughout the globe get pissed off at Jews?

Jealousy, perhaps?

I just read Bigbad's post #112. It's a little over-the-top, but did it really warrant your response? Take deep breaths.

As for your little tirade over there, Ranbutan, I hope that in the morning, or whenever it is that your head clears, that you read what you posted (X 3) and understand how hurtful it is.

Fuck you.

Fascinating discussions above.

Seeing as Mr.Schwartz is clearly well informed, intelligent and articulate, it behoves him to spread the word and the light amongst his fellow Muslims. It would surely be in the interests of humankind, and might prevent unnecessary bloodshed.

I do not profess any knowledge of Sufism, but presumably, true believers such as Mr.Schwartz will in the fullness of time access their heaven.
I am prepared to contribute to the cost of his airfare to Saudi Arabia, so that he can convince other Muslims of the true light he has found.

I can't believe this thrice-posted crap by Ranbutan.

Greetings to you, Zulubaby.

Re: Ranbutan.

Jew haters just cannot help themselves. As ever, in his earlier posts he makes seemingly intelligent reasonable comments, but the innate venom expresses itself. Perhaps he should be seeing a shrink ( if you can find a good one who is not jewish ).

Thank you Disappointed American Muslim for joining us on this thread. I commend your frank and very thorough discussion. I have written in another thread that a "post-Muslim" reality might be a possibility in many parts of the globe.

Different people react to modernity in different ways. At LGF, we've seen Ibrahim, a self-described former Muslim, we've seen Jarrah al-Sayeg, a Muslim with an open mind and kindly spirit. We've seen the Sufi convert Mr. Schartz. We've also seen Rasheed. Thankfully, we haven't seen Al-Zawahiri! I think its fair to say that the West is happy to see Muslims whose attatchment to the Qur'an is secondary to their experience of God (as they would put it), or to their genuine human feelings (as an atheist might put it). I for one don't expect all Islam to fall overnight.

The "Counter (ahem!)-Reformation" for which many of us hope is happening already, and is witnessed to by the examples cited above. On a global scale, it is small, at present, certainly, and that is pause for some concern. What this thread has been largely about, as I see it, concerns whether Islam necessarily must remain in the state in which we find it now at the beginning of the twenty-first century. I for one argue, on the basis of historical fact, that it does not.

Finally, Disappointed, realize that Nastification's logic (by which he admitted that many Muslims are Muslims in name only, while at the same time maintaining "that Muslims are all jihad conscripts"--and see his previous postings) is not coherent or persuasive to most of us at LGF, though there are other "Nasties" around.

(#151) Disillusioned American Muslim,

Wow. What you've said wasn't something I was expecting in the LGF threads. Nonetheless, it's great that you said it!

For what it's worth, my advice is "get yourself out that Mosque" as fast as you can. It's not religion - it's politics (take it from me - a Ukranian whose lot has conflated religion and politics for hundreds of years, to everyones' detriment).

If you can't buy into it all, get out altogether. If you have faith after it all, look around for more sensible expressions of it. You'll find them if you look.

And if you find a different brand of it all, don't stop talking about where you came from! It's important that people understand why one choice is better than another, even beyond the fact that a person has chosen.

-M

Erm, excuse me! "Disappointed" should be "Disillusioned," and "pause" should be "cause"! (I must have conflated that phrase with 'pause for thought'!)

Good advice, Mark.

(#103) Michael Glazer:

There are 6666 verses in the arab copy of the bible called the koran.

It sucks to be a power of ten, plus six, off of the fabled "mark of the beast." Doesn't it? Let's leave the bulls**t prophecy out of it, lets?

---
(#102) gb

I'm not so optimistic. All of the "prince's" recalling of Islamic this and Islamic that... it sounds like some sort of pathetic appeal to the masses with a special focus on "don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain."

---
(#106) Stephen Schwartz

Bosnian SS, whatever... what I'm really waiting for is some sort of "plus" that Islamic society has provided us within the past, oh, say... 400 years.

Talking about ancient history isn't going to turn many hearts and minds around here. Being someone who represents change, or better still someone who makes it real is someone I care to listen to...

The mantra: Change is good - stagnation is bad - whether on a personal or a geo-political level...

---
(#129) Nathanincanada

Lots of moxy, but my challenge to Shwartz stands. It would genuinely be nice if what he said made a tinker's dam worth of difference...

...but until he can get himself out of the 14'th century, I'm not interested in listening...

It's nice to think about an "hypothetical" world where we might all be able to live together. But hearkening back to the Middle Ages for "root causes" isn't going to solve the problems of today.

---
(#???) Susan

the very fact that Islam HAS a concept of a dhimma pact is disturbing, regardless of whether it was "tolerantly" or intolerantly applied.

Sums it up completely for me. If you're arguing about dhimmitude at all, to my mind you're a loser. The whole concept is bankrupt and has been superceded by western culture, particularly in the past 100 years.

-M

To disillusioned American Muslim...Bravo good man, bravo...you are on the right track and now you simply need to adminster the coup de grace to this brutal cult... Do what my 2 best Sunni buddies did years ago...leave Islam...

And to Mr. Schwartz and his politically correct 'islam'...yes it all sounds sweet and nice but the problem is that Sufism is condemned outright as rank heresy withen orthodox Islamic circles and rightly so since it allegorizes most of the Quran and has many roots in Hinduism ...

Schwartz is trying to foist the old lie to us 'ignorant' westerners that real Islam is peaceful etc etc and other such nonsense...Well what he is practicing has very little to do with the Islam that Muhammed brought us 1400 years ago...Sufism is about as Islamic as Bahism is...

And to those niave yet hopeful Westerners talking about reforming Islam...forget about it...it can't be done...unless the Quran and the SAVAGE Sahih Hadiths are ignored...this Arab ideology is brutal and backwards to the core...and it our enemy..

Thankfully, most Muslims do not adhere literally to everything the vile Quran and Hadiths say and these people are indeed reachable...It is the Orthodox Muslim that takes its teachings to the logical end that are dangerous...

Just talk to any Ex Muslim for their opinions...

www.faithfreedom.org

Devon Hill

Proud Citizen of Darul Harb

D'oh:

No hard feelings Nathanincanada - I just don't get where you're coming from WRT Shwartz?

-M

Mark, I'm at a loss with "moxy." Might you have meant "moxie," which my New Shorter Oxford defines as " n. N. Amer. slang. M20 [Moxie, proprietary name for a soft drink.] Courage, force of character; energy; ingenuity, wit," or did you perhaps mean "moxa," defined in one dictionary as "A cone or cylinder of cotton wool or other combustible material, placed on the skin and ignited in order to produce counterirritation"?! I hope I am not producing more than counterirritation, but then one never knows! ;-)

I personally thought many of Schwartz's points about historical Islam were very valid, and served well to enhance the discussion. Although you don't approve of "hearkening back to the Middle Ages for 'root causes' as something that is supposed to 'solve the problems of today'," I think that the survey of these historical facts was relevant to the discussion of whether Islam is necessarily doomed to its present state. I agree, change is good, but it seems that Mr. Schwartz is actively trying to bring change about (see the latter part of his post #106). Furthermore, I think that one cannot afford an ahistorical approach to this long-in-the-making crisis. Islam may have a long (if selective) memory, but the solution to dealing with it isn't to let go of our own.

Finally, I agree with what you say about dhimmitude being discredited; I think we are all in agreement about that.

Thanks Mark, I wrote my previous posting not having seen your most recent one.

Hi Nathan. I didn't see your greeting earlier. Sorry :-)

No problem, Zulubabe! Keep smilin'...

Is the concept of pre-destination in Sufism?? U know - that god knows if u are going to hell before he creates u as there is in mainstream Islam?? makes u wonder - allah knows a man is giong to hell before he creates him and then creates him?? Who are muslims worshipping - a deity that creates people jsut to send them to the fire??

Crusade now, take it easy, you've just described Calvinism , I know I'm almost one! I fear the level of civility has dropped since I went home from work yesterday. I am sorry :-)

Ranbutan,

Why do people throughout the globe get pissed off at Jews.

Why did people enslave blacks? Because they could. Why do Arabs still enslave blacks? Because they can. Why do people get pissed at the Jews? Because they can.

(Thus Jews are entitled to plunder freely by their merit and stake in the game - my words).

I think Jews are just like everyone else. There are some bad apples.

If you had studied social psychology, you might know that when you see a minority doing something bad, you associate the two, because they are rare events. For example, you see a black driver who drives poorly, and you say "Damn black drivers can't drive" (Purely a hypothetical, btw). It's a heuristic shortcut of the mind.

Right now, the prominant financial culprits who gutted every stockholder seem to be running
50% Gentile, 50% Jew.

Umm, no. I can't count them all, but my guess is Ken Lay, Andrew Fastow, Bernie Ebbers, Andy(?) Benardino, etc are not all Jews.

Not bad until you realize that the Jewish Wall Street thieves
are only 3% of the US population, and besides burning Joe Americans, they also smoked numerous investors in Asia and Europe.

Actually, the total Jewish population is &lt3% of the US population, so the number of Jews on Wall Street is considerably less. The number of Jewish Wall Street thieves is even less.
BigBad - There's no Zionist conspiracy."

There is one massive display of arrogance in the Jewish trial lawyers and Wall Street financial kosherboy nabobs - siphoning off 300+ billions of American citizen investments -to a cluster of some 800 Jewish elite people out of and asking 280 million Gentiles and your everyday lesser Jews to cough it up, and cheer!.

I can't even respond to that. Please try to be vaguely accurate or coherent.

For the record, I support Israel.

Please don't bother. There is some support we don't need.

I have learned that Islam is a physical menace.

Given what you've learned about Jews, I would take this with a grain of salt, even though I tend to agree (generally).

"Stop plundering us through your financial co-opting of our political processes, Jewish CEOs, CFOs, wealthy businessmen, Jewish trial lawyers, and your ACLU control!
You are corrupting the USA political process!"

Every group organizes and gives financial backing to candidates it likes. In the recent elections, the Arabs gave more money to McKinney and Hilliard than the Jews gave to their challengers.

As to whether Jews should be allowed to CEOs, CFOs, businessmen, or trial lawyers, I would suggest that you get your head out of the 1920s, and join the 1990s.

The Jews don't control the ACLU.

BTW - Resolve the Settlements. Or ...You will be totally on your own soon, as 24 years of US billions to subsidize your conquests evolve into a thing of the past.

Resolving the settlements has nothing to do with anything. Those US subsidies didn't come until after the conquests.

In general, until you have some coherence and less blatant Judenhass, would you mind not posting here?

"1990s" should have been 2000s...

Ariel -

I know you're not an apologist - didn't mean to offend, but I didn't see anything in your argument that I felt proved your point since I considered modern turkey to be anything in the 20th century. I suppose the post-Ataturk comparison is valid and if you look at it that way, then your point makes more sense.

As for Spain, I still don't think it's a valid comparison since it was so long ago.

As for Rambutan, all I can say is "oy". You've been reading the protocols of the elders of zion way too much.

Ranbutan (#154):

Why do people throughout the globe get pissed off at Jews.

Because, for over 2,000 years, the Jewish tradition has been in the moral vanguard of Western civilisation, and people whose ingrained immorality condemns them to failing lifestyles would rather kill the messenger than face that truth. This also explains why those who start out hating Jews, necessarily end up hating Americans. It's not because America supports Israel; it's because America supports objective morality.

Not much to add, but I wonder to what extent modern Islam's ills are due to the centrality of Arabic culture in Islam?

Very nearly all the examples of "Islam that works" is non Arabic.

The Ottomans were not Arab.

Well, I guess we didn't have to wait long for things to start getting worse between Christians and Muslims in Ivory Coast...

[Link: news.bbc.co.uk...]

Thanks for all your comments. I'm still not sure that I am convinced that reformation will happen, though. Most of the modernist Muslims I know simply ignore most of what Islam has to say, if they even know it, and replace it with Western ideals of freedom, equality, etc. It seems to me that that is what is more likely to happen, rather than a top-down reformation.

Actually, what bothers me the most about Islam isn't even what I mentioned above, though it is extremely troubling to me. It's the treatment and concept of women, not just in the culture, but in Islam itself. (I should have mentioned in my lengthy missive that I am a woman.) It really comes home to me when I have to try to listen to a speech sitting in a small women's room with a barely-working sound system and screaming children everywhere--the men must not be disturbed, you see!

Also, the Qur'an and Shari'ah tell me that as a woman, I am unclean for a week every month because of my period, that I cannot pray, enter a mosque (or at least the prayer area), touch a Qur'an, or have sex. It's not very

Additionally, I am supposed to, as per Shari'ah:

1. Get my husband's permission to leave the house (fortunately I'm not married yet), as well as to obey him completely and always be ready to satisfy his sexual desires, otherwise angels will curse me until morning (The Prophet said, "If a man invites his wife to sleep with him and she refuses to come to him, then the angels send their curses on her till morning." A hadith from Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 121.

2. Be supported by my spouse. At first this may look pretty appealing, but look again: this means that the husband has control over the wife. Qur'an 4:34:"Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because God has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means."

3. Not tempt men by leaving my hair uncovered, or by wearing immodest clothes. This is an important point that the scholars harp on, possibly because so many women do not wear the hijab.

And there's plenty more! I can't lead prayers for men, or even pray with them--always apart from or behind. And of course the Islamic scholars have always been of the opinion that women are silly, stupid creatures only good for sex and bearing children. Witness the words of Muhammad himself: "The Prophet said, "After me I have not left any affliction more harmful to men than women." Sahih Bukhari Volume 7, Book 62, Number 33.

All this stuff from Muslims about how Islam is so big on equality for women strikes me as a huge crock. Men and women are equal in Allah's eyes, but from my readings in Judaism and Christianity, this is also true in those religions as well--and they don't seem to have all these rules limiting women!

I ask myself why I don't leave, and I can't really answer the question.

Once again, sorry to go so far off topic.

Oops, it should have been "not very encouraging to see my status as a woman devalued like that" in the last post.

Well, I guess we didn't have to wait long for things to start getting worse between Christians and Muslims in Ivory Coast...

BigBad,

Read the whole article, and couldn't find one speck of inter-religious violence. Honestly, I would have been very surprised if I had. I've been there, and I can tell you that the Muslims there, for the most part, couldn't give a rat's ass about anything related to Islam.

Disillusioned,

Also, the Qur'an and Shari'ah tell me that as a woman, I am unclean for a week every month because of my period, that I cannot pray, enter a mosque (or at least the prayer area), touch a Qur'an, or have sex.

To help make you feel better (hopefully), mosques in Turkey allow you to pray even during your period (as of very recently). Hopefully, it's only a matter of time before it occurs here.

And the prohibition against sex during a woman's period also exists in Judaism.

Best wishes to you on the other points!

I've been there, and I can tell you that the Muslims there, for the most part, couldn't give a rat's ass about anything related to Islam.

What makes them Muslims?

To disillusioned Muslim Lady...

Again, your honesty is to be applauded...My heart goes out to you...I can't imagine how tough it is being a Woman in Islam...

I wish these Islamic appeasers here would listen too what you are saying...It is ISLAM itself that is the problem...not just some warped interpretation of it...it is inherently flawed to the core...It is beyond reformation unless the Quran, Sahih Hadiths and Shariah are edited and revised and that is not going to EVER happen...

These Westerners that pontificate about how Islam is really peaceful and full of nice fuzzy warm feelings have never had to live under its tender mercies...Our Sufi chap here, Schartz, lives quite comfortably here in the West and of course is a male...easy for him to make up stories about how Islam is peaceful but notice he isn't living in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, Pakistan, or any other Islamic 'paradise'...

You are a Brave woman and an honest woman...

Devon Hill

"Mr Ouattara's [the rebel leader - my addition] supporters are mainly Muslim northerners and have often clashed with President Gbagbo's mostly Christian followers from the south."

That doesn't sound like "Ebony and Ivory" like harmony to me... but seriously folks..

I believe you'll find the similar religious problems in Sierra Leone, and while these conflicts tend to be about "government corruption", there seems so be a not too coincidental religious aspect to it. What, muslims not in power leading a bloody fight against a non-islamic government - I'm shocked.

James,

Right. I meant:

couldn't give a rat's ass about anything related to Islamofascit domination.

Ariel:

So the Northern Muslims are picking up guns and shooting people, even though they don't care much about Islam?

Doesn't sound much like an endorsement of Islam, if even casual moderates are out gunning down as many infidels as they can find.

"The thing that has me agape, is the sheer philosophical sophistication of this way of searching for understanding."

Oh yeah, and we make good physicists too. . .

If you want to read a short bookabout the Jewish way of approaching scripture, try Jonathan Rosen's "The Talmud and the Internet."

"Men and women are equal in Allah's eyes, but from my readings in Judaism and Christianity, this is also true in those religions as well--and they don't seem to have all these rules limiting women!"

Yes and no. Orthodox Jews have very similar rules about sex during menstruation and women participating in leading prayer services for men. However,

1) Judaism has liberal denominations which allow women equal roles. Maybe Islam should develop a Reform denomination, and then those who want to stay stringently Orthodox can do so (but they still have to give up trying to subdue everyone else). Maybe that is what the more easy-going Islam of Turkey and Indonesia will turn into if they can hold their own against the fanatics (whose ideas are imported from Saudi).

2) For the last 10 years a Jewish Orthodox feminist movement has grown to advocate for greater participation of women in leading prayers and studying Jewish law. I know Islam also has feminists who are trying to "work within the system." I commented more on this here:
[Link: www.littlegreenfootballs.com...]

3) Jewish law mandates that the husband satisfy his wife sexually, not the other way around. Both genders are supposed to dress modestly and avoid physical contact with members of the other gender outside the family, but within the marriage bond all mutually enjoyable sex is okay. Marital rape or coercion is forbidden. See "Carnal Israel" by Daniel Boyarin or "Kosher Sex" by Shmuley Boteach.

The prohibition of sex during menstruation is supposed to ensure optimum baby production - it's the opposite of the rhythm method - and enhance the marriage by structuring periodic separation into the relationship so intimacy isn't taken for granted.

I don't think there is any prohibition on women going to shul while menstruating. In an Orthodox congregation they would be sitting separate anyway so it wouldn't be an issue.

4) Jewish women have always been active outside the home - since it was meritorious for a man to spend his adult life studying Torah, it was therefore meritorious for his wife to support him in doing so. The downside is she is like the wife who puts hubby through grad or med school but never gets to study herself. The upside is her street-smarts and assertiveness in business are encouraged within the culture. There are a number of Talmud stories of smart-ass women sassing the rabbis. It is no coincidence that most of the leaders of the 60s feminist movement were Jewish women.

per my previous comments:

I would guess there ARE a high percentage of Jews on Wall Street, for the same reasons we make good lawyers and physicists and entrepreneurs: our culture rewards logic and debate and practical intelligence. I don't think we are "smarter" than other people (whatever that means) but there is a strong alignment between Jewish values and predispositions and American ones, so we do well here.

We didn't do so good in the Middle Ages in Europe because, aside from frequent persecution from the Church, we were literate small business-people and doctors who bathed regularly and travelled, surrounded by a feudal system in which most people were illiterate, filthy, poor, and tied to the land.

Also, Jews don't believe poverty is good or holy or that material wealth is bad, so money is not considered inherently evil. Jewish law does mandate that everyone tithe and contribute to social welfare to the best of their ability.
[Link: www.simplyjewish.com...]
It is also not a coincidence that we are over-represented among philanthropists who give to the arts and social welfare projects.

yehudit...good description of the Jewish woman..

and about nidah, i always thought, coming as it does from an ancient tradition where most women were considered property, with no option of refusing sex, these rules gave the Jewish woman ultimate control of her body.

And many Jewish couples who follow these laws, find that the abstinence builds sexual tension and satisfaction.

additionally, after giving birth, a woman is forbidden intercourse for 30 to 60 days. Considering the trauma of childbirth, this is often modern medical advise.

Judaism has always made sense to me. The laws are geared toward supporting and nurturing the individual.

The laws for mourners, for example, are extremely supportive of the mourners, and ensure that the bereaved are taken care of, and are given the time to mourn in peace. When I hear about people going back to work the day after a parent's funeral or something, I can just about faint.

Jewish men must make their wives feel good, complimenting them, their cooking, etc. There is honor and respect in the relationship between husband and wife, parent and child, etc.

It's a celebratory religion that encourages people to be kind, to do mitzvahs, to give to charity. Not that it is without it's faults or that all Jews are good people just because they're Jewish, but I have to say that I truly love being a Jew and am proud of my heritage.

I also enjoy the Princess part ;-)

Yehudit and zulubaby,

It warms the cockles of my heart to see the profound virtues of the Jewish tradition extolled in public. This is rare to see because it violates a PC taboo against Jews openly voicing objective claims about their culture and beliefs.

I believe that this taboo — which understandably, but regrettably, most Jews tacitly acquiesce in — must be systematically challenged, because it pre-empts real understanding of the underlying nature of anti-Semitism.

The tangled web of slanderous conspiracy theories that anti-Semites spout, are not the cause of this ubiquitous phenomenon. They are merely the attempted rationalisations of the cause. The real cause of anti-Semitism is the same as the real cause of anti-Americanism: The sense of individual and cultural delegitimization that evil people experience when they compare themselves with morally superior cultures.

Excessive Jewish diffidence unfortunately contributes to the pernicious myth that anti-Semitism is merely irrational. It is not. It is quasi-rationally anti-moral. The target of its enmity is the moral way of life, and those who follow it. This is not a coincidental feature of anti-Semitism; it is what anti-Semitism is for.

If this explanation works for you, I invite you to join my campaign to help demystify anti-Semitism by unashamedly explaining, at every opportunity, the quintessentially moral nature of the Jewish tradition. And don't ever let another casual remark about the inexplicability of anti-Semitism go by without challenge.

Even within the Jewish community, we must not acquiesce in the oft-repeated plaint that the advent of the Holocaust in Germany, "the most advanced culture in the world", remains a mystery. German culture contains an evil streak that runs down to the bedrock of its history. That is not to say that all Germans are evil, or that German culture will not improve. But in order for it to continue to improve, German people need to understand the actual historical and psychological causes of their condition.

It goes without saying that the same applies to Arab cultures, in spades.

Anti-Semitism is a pathological cultural and psychological manifestation of the ancient struggle between Good and Evil. To fight it successfully, we must first dare name it!

I am of the opinion that when treating Islam we should try as much as possible to look at what slam does and not what it says. Koranic scriptues, as some have noted, are very contradictory, and thus to rely on them to prove something one way or the other is futile. There have been brilliant periods in Islamic history, and that should be admitted. On the other hand, though, many, many violent and obscene acts been committed in its name, and It is actions and not words that really count in the end.

Steven Schwartz's views on the sbuject are not to be trusted. He has the honesty and courage to admit that he is a Sufi, but his honey dipped version of Balkan history belies a starry-eyed attitude that only undermines his opinions. Sorry Steven but the Turkish occcupation was not a cadeau of enlightenment and justice. People were divided along religious lines with corresponding rights being given.Some people were definately more equal than others, and this merely by virtue of their adherance to such and such a faith.Whole swaths of people lived as second calss citizens, with dimished rights and much greater vulnerability to capricious judical bodies.

Everyday ( or almost) I read about masacres and violence committed in the name of Islam. I cannot ignore these events, and as I said earlier Islam is as Islam does. Actions are the last test, the final proof of just what a religion stands for. Words may or may not be true, but murders and aggression are very, very real.

Thanks John for saying that. I've read all of Bat Ye'or's well-researched works on the dhimma pact and I can say that the one thing that dhimmitude resembles the most are the Jim Crow laws of the US south before the Civil Rights act of 1964.

If some unreformed "Dixiecrat" came on this board and started defending the "benefits" of the segregation and "whites only" toilets era, I'm sure he/she would receive a round smacking from most people here.

Why are people falling all over themselves to excuse the same behavior from Mr. Schwartz? Simply because his motivation is religious rather than racial?

Until I hear Mr. Schwartz say that the concept of dhimmitude is wrong, no ifs ands or buts, I will not trust his motivations either.

Well said, Susan. It would be one think to make the claim that dhimmitude can be viewed as having been progressive in attitude towards minorities for its time hundreds of years ago and more. It's quite another to claim that it is at all acceptable today -- period. Does Islam require dhimmitude even today? A question that must be answered honestly.

I agree with the comments about Jewish diffidence, although I think we can promote Judaism in a more respectful classy manner than the usual proselytizers :-)
emphasizing that becoming Jewish means joining the Jewish people. We believe all righteous people - whether Jewish or not - deserve respect and have a share in the world to come. It's like becoming an American citizen - you take on certain attitudes and practices and loyalties, but that doesn't mean you need everyone in the world to become American or that other "countries" are "bad."

There has been a growing interest in sharing Judaism with the world over the past 10 years - certainly Senator Lieberman wasn't shy about it. Here are 2 provocative articles on Jewish proselytizing:
[Link: www.beliefnet.com...]
[Link: www.beliefnet.com...]

Some of us Jewish bloggers share our Jewish lives in a matter-of-fact way on our blogs, demonstrating what "doing Jewish" is like.
[Link: www.hfienberg.com...]
[Link: www.pathcom.com...]
[Link: www.yourish.com...]
[Link: incontext.blogspot.com...]

Yehudit,

Just to clarify my position, I am against proselytising for Judaism. I am fervently in favour of proselytising for the fundamental intellectual and moral commitments underlying the Jewish way of life. As for "joining the Jewish people", I feel that a degree of self-identification with the Jewish tradition is a natural outcome for those who come to identify themselves with its values.

I agree. Speaking publically about the virtues of Judaism has sort of been conditioned out of most Jews for many reasons.

A non-Jewish friend once remarked to me, upon learning that Judaism is not interested in converting everyone and that it also teaches that everyone can be saved all the same, that "you should publicize this!" I asked him why and he said "because it's amazing. The greatest criticism leveled at religion is intolerance and Judaism is not intolerant. Most people don't know this".

All religion is primitivism. The West has advanced largely to the extent that it ignored or diluted Christianity. Islam is undiluted, and there is no cultural cause to dilute it.

In Islam we face religion in its purest, most evil form.

It's time to decide the battle that has been going on for centuries: the battle between the West (formerly Europe) and Islam. Let's not forget our nukes.

If "All religion is primitivism" and "The West has advanced largely to the extent that it ignored or diluted Christianity" how come "the West" exists only in countries whose history has been profoundly shaped by the Judeo-Christian tradition?

Contrary to what you say, if you want to see real primitivism, just look at most of the rest of the world.

Isn't "Judeo-Christian", while an admirable notion in itself, a fairly recent invention?

Historically, the most vicious Jew-hatred have flown from Christian sources, and the most vile atrocities against Jews were committed by Christians.

IMO, it makes more sense to speak of "Judeo-Christian present" than of tradition.

As an admirer of the writings of Kolya, I respectfully disagree, leaning somewhat toward the view of Geo Alexander. I think Q posted a very good email on the notion of "Judeo-Christian."

I think that Western Civilization has much to thank Judaism and Christianity for but I agree that many of its best advances have occurred since the relegation of Christianity from the realm of the political to the personal.

A professor I knew once said, "Religion can be blamed for most of the bad things in the world; you could argue that it is responsible for most of the good things."

Finally, if the (Hebrew) Bible is one of the pillars of Western thought, the other pillar is that of Classical Greece. There was the birthplace of philosophy in the form closest to the one we know. There was the realization that man makes gods in his image--and can dethrone them at will. There was the realization that to be fully human we must rebel against the false gods that keep us from our human potential (witness that most powerful of all writings, Prometheus Bound.

I'm way to far gone to be writing tonight, and that last post needs to be interpreted in light of this one! I just re-read Kolya's comments, and don't know what I disagreed with! On the contrary, I quite agree with his words! Also, I would argue Geo's point that "all religion is primitivism." I think most is!--but I remain committed to recognizing the value inherent in personal religion and spirituality, as well as good liturgy and community spirit. My words about the fundamental importance to Western Civilization of Greek philosophy still stand, however. I'd better drop off to bed, before I cease to make sense altogether.

Q:

Isn't "Judeo-Christian", while an admirable notion in itself, a fairly recent invention?

When I speak of the "Judeo-Christian" tradition, I am referring primarily to the shared, implicit foundational concept of ethical monotheism, rather than to any confluence of explicit ideas and attitudes. It is this concept, which Christianity learnt from Judaism (albeit, arguably, in an attenuated form), which it proceeded to spread half-way round the world, that has been the making of Western Civilisation.

This explanation is in no way invalidated by the fact that for most of its history Christianity fought a bloody vendetta against the Jews.

Nathan, I agree with your point about Classical Greek thought forming another pillar of Western Civilisation. But is it not the case that Greek thought has only entered into the lifeblood of those cultures that were first conditioned to be receptive to it, by the profoundly benign moral and intellectual consequences flowing from the implicit commitment to ethical monotheism?

A few posts back James asked if "dhimmitude" was still required in the Muslim state today. Those who seek to re-establish the Caliphate definitely have a plan for all of us potential "dhimmies." Here's a short essay on the wonderous "rights" we can all look forward to under the Glorious Caliphate (read between the lines of this high-sounding propaganda and see how much our rights would be eradicated. This propaganda also leaves out many of the most obnoxious provisions of dhimmitude.)

I copied this from another discussion board, so I am unsure of the source, but I pretty much can guess it probably comes from either khilafah.com (a website devoted to re-establishing the Caliphate) or Hizb-ut-Tahrir (a radical Islamic organization with branches all over Europe).

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO NON-MUSLIMS IN THE KHILAFAH?
From: Abdul-Kareem Newell (06 Apr 2001)

Comments
Introduction

"Speaking yesterday on the first day of his two-week pastoral visit to Nigeria's fifteen million Anglicans, Archbishop Carey said that while he respected Islam, the imposition of Shari'ah law in several northern states could divide the country." [BBC World Service 2nd Feb 2001]

According to news reports more than two thousand people have been killed in Kaduna in Nigeria, during riots last year between Christians and Muslims.

Statements similar to those made by Archbishop Carey have become commonplace when discussing the imposition of Shari'ah law in Nigeria, Pakistan and Indonesia. The common viewpoint is that imposing Shari'ah on non-Muslims will create riots, bloodshed and division. There is a real fear amongst many non-Muslims that living under Islamic law would mean the beginning of the end for them. In the Islamic world this fear is used to justify the harsh measures taken against Muslims calling for the Shari'ah return by the establishment of Khilafah.

The Western Colonialists, along with the media and the agent rulers in our lands, combined with the physical clampdown on the da'wa carriers, use issues such as the Shari'ah law in Nigeria to mock and attack the idea that Islam should be implemented today. They know full well the history of the Khilafah. They have not forgotten that when the Shari'ah was implemented correctly, it created a state so powerful that it still remains unparalleled throughout history. The unity of so many disparate peoples is unprecedented.

We must understand that the Western Colonialist nations have an agenda to distort the image of Islam, so it cannot be viewed as an alternative to the Capitalist way of life. Therefore, to get a true idea as to what will happen to non-Muslims in the Khilafah; instead of looking to the Capitalist opinion, we need to look to the Shari'ah. In it, we will find examples that give us the true picture of how non-Muslims will be treated under the Islamic system.

Non-Muslims are Ahl adh-dhimma (People of Covenant)

Allah (swt) revealed the Islamic system (Shari'ah) to the Messenger (saw) as a mercy to all of mankind regardless of their colour, religion, race etc. The Qur'an clearly states:

"We have sent you as a mercy to all mankind" [TMQ Al-Anbiya: 107].

If we study the Shari'ah we see that it has given detailed solutions on how to look after the affairs of the Muslims, as well as non-Muslims, who live under the Khilafah. Its implementation on the non-Muslims is the practical method Islam has laid down for carrying da'wa to non-Muslims. What better way for a non-Muslim to see the truth of Islam than to live under its system, and experience the tranquillity and justice that only Allah (swt) could bring?

The non-Muslims citizens living under the Khilafah are referred to, in Shari'ah, as dhimmi. The term "dhimmi" is derived from the word "dhimma," which means "obligation to fulfil a covenant." Islam considers all people living under the Khilafah as citizens of the Islamic State and treats them with equal status. Discrimination between Muslims and dhimmi is not allowed. The state must secure and protect their beliefs, honour, mind, property and life.

The status given to the dhimmi was clarified by the Messenger of Allah (saw) who said: "The one who kills a Mu'ahid without right he will not smell the fragrance of Jannah even if its smell was forty years travelling distance" [Ahmed].

Imam Qarafi also summed up the responsibility of the State to the dhimmi when he said: "It is the responsibility of the Muslims to the People of the Dhimma to care for their weak, fulfil the needs of the poor, feed the hungry, provide clothes, address them politely, and even tolerate their harm even if it was from a neighbour, even though the Muslim would have an upper hand. The Muslims must also advise them sincerely on their affairs and protect them against anyone who tries to hurt them or their family, steal their wealth, or violates their rights."

T. W. Arnold, in his book "The Preaching of Islam," wrote about the treatment of non-Muslims who lived under the Uthmani Khilafah. He states, "...though the Greeks were numerically superior to the Turks in all the European provinces of the empire, the religious toleration thus granted them, and the protection of life and property they enjoyed, soon reconciled them to prefer the domination of the Sultan to that of any Christian power."

Arnold goes on to explain: "...the treatment of their Christian subjects by the Ottoman emperors-at least for two centuries after their conquest of Greece-exhibits a toleration such as was at that time quite unknown in the rest of Europe. The Calvinists of Hungary and Transylvania, and the Unitarians of the latter country, long preferred to submit to the Turks rather than fall into the hands of the fanatical house of Hapsburg; and the Protestants of Silesia looked with longing eyes towards Turkey, and would gladly have purchased freedom at the price of submission to the Muslim rule...the Cossacks who belonged to the sect of the Old Believers and were persecuted by the Russian State Church, found in the dominions of the Sultan the toleration which their Christian brethren denied them."

Categories of non-Muslims

The Islamic Shari'ah applies to all dhimmi. This includes the Mu'aahid (people with whom the State has treaties) and the Mustaemen (any individual entering the State via permit), yet it excludes diplomats who will be treated based upon mutual agreements with their respective states.

There are 2 categories of dhimmi. First there are the People of the book (ahl e kitab), and the second category is made up of all other religions.

The People of the Book refers to the Jews and the Christians. The Shari'ah has stated that it is halal for the Muslims to eat their slaughtered meat and for the Muslim men to marry their women. As for all of the other religions, they are treated in the same way as the People of the Book except that the Muslims cannot eat their slaughtered meat or marry their women. The evidence for this is:

Yahya related to me from Malik from Jafar ibn Muhammad ibn Ali from his father that Umar ibn al-Khattab mentioned the Magians (fire worshippers) and said, "I do not know what to do about them." Abd ar-Rahman ibn Awf said, "I bear witness that I heard the Messenger of Allah (saw) say, 'Follow the same sunnah with them that you follow with the people of the Book'" [Muwatta].

In addition to this, Al-Hassan Ibn Muhammad lbn Ali Ibn Abi Talib reported that the Prophet (saw) wrote to the Magians of Hajan calling upon them to enter Islam or pay Jizyah. If they did not accept Islam, then the Muslims were forbidden to eat the flesh of their animals and forbidden to marry their women.

Non-Muslims are left to follow their own beliefs

Allah (swt) says: "Let there be no compulsion in religion" [TMQ Al-Baqarah: 256].

The above ayah makes it clear that the Islamic State is not allowed to force any non-Muslim to abandon their belief. Rather the non-Muslims should accept Islam after being intellectually convinced of the Islamic Aqeedah. This is proven by the fact that, to this day, there are still communities of Jews and Christians living throughout the Middle East even though the Islamic State ruled that area for over 1300 years.

We can see this rule in practice during the time of the Uthmani Khilafah. T. W. Arnold, in his book "The Preaching of Islam," points out that the Christian Patriarch and the Grand Synod could decide all matters of faith and dogma without any interference of the State. This was never the case under the Byzantine emperors.

Non-Muslims follow their religions regarding Food and Clothing

In matters of food and clothing, the Non-Muslims are allowed to follow their religions within the framework of public order.

Imam Abu Hanifah's madhab says: "It is agreed upon in Islam that the People of Dhimma, could drink liquor, eat pork and do what their religion allows for them within the scope of the Shari'ah."

So as long as these matters are kept private and do not enter the society, the Islamic State will not interfere in these personal matters. If, for example, a dhimmi opened a shop to sell alcohol then he would be punished according to the Shari'ah.

Marital affairs and divorce among Non-Muslims are settled according to their religions.

The non-Muslims are allowed to marry each other according to their own religions. They can get married to each other in a Church or a Synagogue by a Priest or Rabbi. They can also get divorced according to their own religions.

It is allowed from Shari'ah for a Muslim man to marry from the People of the Book. The Qur'an verifies:

"This day are all things good and pure made lawful unto you. The food of the People of the Book is lawful unto you and yours is lawful unto them. Lawful unto you in marriage are not only chaste women who are believers but chaste women among the People of the Book revealed before your time when you give them their due dowers and desire chastity not lewdness nor secret intrigues. If anyone rejects faith fruitless is his work and in the Hereafter he will be in the ranks of those who have lost all spiritual good" [TMQ Al-Ma'idah: 5].

Since this is the case, marriage, divorce and all family matters including the children, must be referred to the Islamic Shari'ah.

Non-Muslims must follow the Islamic Shari'ah regarding societal relationships

All of the remaining Shari'ah matters and rules, such as punishments, the judiciary system, the ruling system, economics and foreign policy are implemented by the State upon everyone, Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Punishment System

Muslims and non-Muslims are punished for crimes they have committed according to the Shari'ah. Again, there is no bias in the implementation of the punishments. The following examples clearly indicate this.

Muhammad (saw) said: "By Allah, if Fatimah the daughter of Muhammad stole, I would cut her hand."

Umar bin al-Khattab (ra), when he was Khaleefah, punished his own son.

Ibn Umar (ra) narrated: "Two Jews committed adultery and were brought to the Prophet (saw), and he ordered them stoned."

Anas narrated: "A Jew killed a girl with a rock, so the Messenger (saw) killed him."

Imam Abu Hanifah's madhab says: "If a Muslim kills anyone from the People of the Dhimma, then the killer deserves the same punishment, regardless of being male or female."

Judicial System

"O you who believe! Stand out firmly for Allah as witnesses to fair dealing and let not the hatred of others to you, make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to Piety: and fear Allah for Allah is well acquainted with all that you do" [TMQ Al-Maida: 8].

In the eyes of the judiciary there can be no bias against the non-Muslims in favour of Muslims. The judge (Qadi) is concerned with evidence permitted by Shari'ah and nothing else. There are many examples of cases where the non-Muslim was ruled in favour over a Muslim.

During the rule of Umar bin al-Khattab (ra), certain Muslims had stolen a piece of land belonging to a Jew and then constructed a mosque upon it. This clearly violated the rights of the Jew who was a dhimmi. Umar (ra) ordered the demolition of the mosque and the restoration of the land to the Jew.

In another case, during the rule of Imam Ali (ra), a Jew stole a shield from the Khaleefah. Ali (ra) took the matter to court and brought his son as a witness. The judge ruled against Khaleefah and stated that a son cannot be a witness for a father in court. When the Jew witnessed such fairness, he voluntarily confessed that he stole the shield and embraced Islam.

Economic System

"Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day and who forbid not what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, who do not practice the religion of truth, being of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya out of hand and are humbled." [TMQ At-Taubah: 29].

Non-Muslims are required to pay a yearly tax called Jizya to the Islamic State as ordered in the ayah above. In return the State promises to protect them.

Ali (ra) said, "Surely, by giving the Jizya, their wealth becomes as valuable as ours and their blood like ours."

The Jizya is taken from the men who are sane and mature. It is not taken from the youth, the insane or the women. The level of Jizya is not fixed but the amount is left to the opinion and Ijtihad of the Khaleefah. The Khaleefah takes in to consideration the aspect of prosperity and poverty, in a way that does not overburden the dhimmi.

It was related from the Messenger of Allah (saw) that he appointed Abdullah b. Arqam over the Jizya of the people of Zimmah and when he was leaving, he (saw) called him back and said: "Surely, whoever oppresses a person under covenant (Mu'ahid) or imposes upon him more than he can afford and humiliates him or takes anything from him without his consent I will challenge him (i.e. the oppressor) on the day of judgement." [Abu Dawud]

An example of the Jizya in the time of Umar bin al-Khattab was:

4 dinars for the rich £108.00 2 dinars for the middle class £54.00 1 dinar for the poor £27.00 (approximate value in pounds today)

This tax is not an oppressive tax, as compared to the taxes people pay in the West today. Financially, the dhimmi prospered under the Islamic State and set up many businesses and engaged in much trade.

Cecil Roth, in his book "The House of Nasi: Dona Gracia," mentions that the treatment of the Jews at the hands of the Ottoman state attracted Jews from all over western Europe. The land of Islam became the land of opportunity. Jewish physicians from the school of Salanca were employed in the service of the Sultan and the Viziers (ministers). In many places glass making and metalworking were Jewish monopolies, and with their knowledge of foreign languages, they were the greatest competitors of the Venetian traders.

The Hukm Shari' states: "Non-Muslims from the People of the Book deserve whatever the Muslims deserve from the Bait ul Mal." Consequently, the poor dhimmi would get help from the Bait ul Mal (State Treasury).

This is most unlike in the West where immigrants are seen as economic burdens and face racism and harsh measures to prevent them from entering. The Islamic State does not share this view. Anyone who agrees to be a citizen of the Islamic State has the same rights and privileges of all other citizens. The Sultan, Bajazet II, is reported to have said with reference to the expulsion of the Jews by Ferdinand, the Catholic King of Spain, "How can you call this Ferdinand 'wise' - he who has impoverished his dominions in order to enrich mine?" The Sultan welcomed the Jewish refugees with open arms. Likewise, the Jews had been welcomed in Turkey as soon as Muhammad The Opener opened Constantinople to Islam.

Non-Muslims are forbidden from holding positions of authority.

"And Allah will never give the unbelievers any way (of authority) against the believers" [TMQ An-Nisa: 141].

This ayah expresses the categorical prohibition of the non-Muslims (Kafir) from taking a post of authority over the Muslims. Furthermore, the non-Muslim does not have the right to participate in the election of the Khaleefah.

Council of the Ummah

Any person who holds citizenship in the State, if he is mature and sane, has the right to be a member of the Council of the Ummah. There, he possesses the right to elect the members of the Council, whether the person was a man or a woman, a Muslim or non-Muslim.

It is permitted for non-Muslim citizens to be members of the Council, in order to file complaints against any injustice perpetrated against them by the rulers or against any error in the implementation of Islam upon them. It is narrated that Abu Bakr (ra) was talking to a Jew named Finhaas who he was calling to Islam. Finhaas replied, "By Allah Abu Bakr we are in no need for Allah as He is for us, and we do not request His help as He does to us. We need Him not, and He needs us. If He were truly rich, He would not ask to borrow our wealth as your friend claims. He (swt) forbids you from usury, but gives it to us, and if He were truly rich, He would not have given it to us." Here, Finhaas was referring to Allah's (saw) saying:

"Who would lend Allah a loan, so that Allah would multiply it for him." [TMQ Al-Baqarah: 245].

Abu Bakr (ra) could not accept such an insult, so he beat Finhaas' face very severely and said, "By Allah, had it not been for the covenant that is between you and us, I would have killed you, you enemy of Allah."

Finhaas went and complained to the Prophet (saw) about Abu Bakr's (ra) action. The Prophet (saw) listened to his complaint and then asked Abu Bakr about the incident. Abu Bakr (ra) told the Prophet (saw) what happened, but Finhaas denied the incident. Soon after, Allah (swt) revealed His saying:

"Allah has heard the saying of the people when they said Allah is poor and we are rich. We will write what they said and their killing of the Prophets with no right, and We will say taste the punishment of the Hellfire." [TMQ Ale-Imran: 181].

Abu Bakr (ra) was the Prophet's (saw) assistant at the time of the incident, and Finhaas was a dhimmi. The Prophet (saw) listened to Finhaas' complaint against Abu Bakr (ra), even though he was wrong. Also, if the complaint is from a person with whom the State has a treaty, then it is all the more reason for the complaint to be heard from the dhimmi, for he holds the covenant of Dhimmah.

Despite this, non-Muslims would not be allowed to voice their opinion in matters related to legislation, because the Islamic legislation emanates from the Islamic Aqeedah. The non-Muslim embraces a doctrine that is alien and contradictory to the Islamic Aqeedah, and his viewpoint. For this reason, his opinion is not sought in matters of legislation.

The non-Muslim members of the Council do not have the right to look into what the Khaleefah wants to adopt of rules and canons because of their disbelief in Islam. Their right is in voicing their opinion of the injustice of the rulers towards them, not in expressing of their opinion over the divine rules and canons.

T. W. Arnold, in his book "The Preaching of Islam," states: "When Constantinople was finally opened to the justice of Islam in 1453 Sultan Muhammad II proclaimed himself the protector of the Greek church. Persecution of the Christians was forbidden and a decree issued securing for the newly elected patriarch, Gennadios, and his bishops and successors after him, all the privileges previously enjoyed under the former rule. Gennadios was given the pastoral staff by the Sultan himself. The patriarch was also empowered to bring to the attention of the government and Sultan acts of unjust governors."

The Army

The protection of the dhimmi is the responsibility of the Muslims. The dhimmi are not obliged to join the army and fight to defend the Islamic State.

Ibn Hazm said, "That one of the rights of the People of Covenant is that if Dar ul Islam is attacked and the People of the Covenant reside in that part of the land then Muslims have to die to defend them. Any leniency in this regard would be leniency in the rights of the People of Dhimma."

If they choose to, non-Muslims can be part of the Islamic army and be paid a wage for this. But they are not allowed to hold positions of authority within the army. It was narrated in the Seerah of Ibn Hisham "There was amongst us a strange man, nobody knew who he was, it is said that he was Kuzman. The Messenger of Allah (saw) said, when his name was mentioned to him, 'indeed he is of the people of fire.' He said 'at the day of Uhud, Kuzman fought so ferociously that he alone killed seven to eight of the Mushrikeen…'"

Civil Servants

Anyone who holds citizenship and is competent, man or woman, Muslim or non-Muslim is eligible to be appointed as a director or employee of any administrative department. This is taken from the rules of hiring (Ijara), where it is permitted to hire any person despite religion. This is because the evidences for hiring do not omit any specific groups:

"And if they suckled for you, do give them their wage" [TMQ At-Talaq: 6].

The Messenger of Allah (saw) himself once hired a man from Banu Ad-Deel who was a non-Muslim. This indicates that it is permitted to hire a non-Muslim just as it is to hire a Muslim.

Foreign Policy

The foreign policy of the Islamic State is to carry the Islamic da'wa to the world. The method for this is the State performing Jihad against other nations. The objective is the removal of the obstacles that stand in the way of Islam being implemented and the message of Islam being shown to the people.

The motivation for the conquering of other nations therefore is driven purely by seeking the pleasure of Allah (swt). It is not motivated by any material acquisitions. This is why when the Islamic State conquered other nations it did not oppress the people it had just conquered by stealing all their wealth. Rather the State implemented the Shari'ah upon the people and treated them with justice.

Abu Dawud mentioned that the Prophet (saw) said in the hadith of the peace treaty with the people of Najran, "No houses of worship should be destroyed, nor should a priest be forced out, nor should they be compelled to abandon their deen."

The following is the text of the treaty with the people of Aelia (Al-Quds, now referred to as Jerusalem). In it, the Khaleefah Umar ibn al-Khattab (ra) made a pledge to the Christians of Al-Quds after its opening:

In the name of Allah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem

This is what the servant of Allah, Umar, the Amir of the believers has granted to the people of Aelia (Al-Quds) for safety: He has granted them security for themselves, their belongings, their churches and crosses, their sick and healthy and all their co-religionists. Their churches shall not be taken for residence and shall not be demolished, nothing shall be damaged from them or from their surroundings, nor shall their crosses be removed or anything taken from their property. They shall not be harassed because of their religion, and none of them shall be harmed. No Jew will be allowed to live with them in Aelia.

The people of Aelia will have to pay Jizyah (tax) as the dwellers of cities pay. They have to eject from Aelia the Romans and thieves. Those of them who leave shall have safety for themselves and their belongings until they reach a safe destination, anyone from them who wants to stay in Aelia shall be safe provided they pay the Jizyah like the people of Aelia.

If any of the people of Aelia want to leave with the Romans and take their belongings with them they and their churches and crosses shall be safe until they reach a place of safety. Any of the people of the land who were in Aelia before the slaying of its last leader shall have the option of either staying provided they pay the tax like the people of Aelia or if they so wish, they shall be allowed to leave with the Romans or go back to their original homes. No tax shall be collected from them until they are able to pay it.

The promise of Allah, His Messenger, the Khalifah, and the believers is therefore given to abide by the contents of this treaty as long as the people pay their due tax.

Witnessed by: Khalid ibn al-Walid, Amr ibn al-'As, Abdur Rahman ibn 'Auf, Mu'awiah ibn Abi Sufyan.

Written in the year 15 AH. ( Tarikh al-Tabari, v3 609)

In his book, "Kitab Al-Kharaj," Abu Yusuf gives the following reports: "After getting on peaceful terms with the people of Syria and collecting the dues of the Jizya and the Kharaj, news reached Abu 'Ubeida that the Byzantines had amassed their troops to attack him. The effect of this was great on Abu 'Ubeida and the Muslims. He sent messages to the rulers of cities with whose citizens he had made peace, asking them to return to their subjects the paid dues of the Jizya and Kharaj, with an instruction to tell them: 'We hereby return to you the money you have paid us, because of the news of the enemy troops amassed to attack us, but, if God grants us victory against the enemy, we will keep up to the promise and covenant between us.' When this was delivered to the dhimmis and their money returned to them, they told the Muslims: 'May God bring you back to us and grant you victory over them!'"

Areas where Non-Muslims cannot live

Non-Muslims are not allowed to live in the Arabian Peninsula because Umar (ra) heard the Messenger of Allah (saw) say: "I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslims" [Muslim].

Yahya related to me from Malik from Ibn Shihab that the Messenger of Allah (saw) said: "Two deens shall not co-exist in the Arabian Peninsula" [Muwatta].

Also, the Jews are forbidden from living in al-Quds because of the Ijma as-Sahaba over Umar bin al-Khattab (ra) signing the treaty with the Christians of Aelia (al-Quds) where he said: "No Jew will be allowed to live with them in Aelia."

Integration of non-Muslims in to the Khilafah

After this discussion it is apparent that the non-Muslims integrated successfully in to the Islamic society. The religions of the Jews, Christians and other religions only have rulings covering the relationship between man and his Creator, and man with himself. The Shari'ah, in these two relationships, allows the non-Muslims to follow their own rulings on these matters; therefore, there is no conflict with the non-Muslims. Regarding the relationship of man with others i.e. the societal relationships, non-Muslims have no rulings on these matters. Because of this, they must adopt a system to live by in society. The Islamic system, when implemented, was by far the most successful system in integrating the non-Muslims in to the Islamic society. The rebellion and disunity caused by the non-Muslims living under the Islamic State in the past, like the Greeks and the Christians in Lebanon, only came about due to Britain and France encouraging and supporting rebellion in an effort to destroy the Khilafah.

Conclusion

By examining how the Shari'ah deals with the non-Muslims, we can see that the Khilafah, far from being something for non-Muslims to fear living under, is a State that will bring them out of the darkness and oppression of the Capitalist system and into the light and justice of Islam. It is this treatment of the non-Muslims by the Khilafah, which led numerous people to become Muslim. The extent of conversion was so great whole tribes came to embrace Islam in the Arabian Peninsula. Rulers of countries have actually been known to write to the Khaleefah requesting that Islam be implemented upon them. This is also the reason the Christians of Ash-sham fought alongside the Muslims against the Christian Crusaders who attacked the State. In India, in the 1920's, there were even Hindus who were part of the Khilafah movement trying to revive this State!

The glorious Qur'an states:

"When the Help of Allah and Victory comes. And you see the people enter Allah's deen in crowds. Celebrate the praises of your Lord and pray for His Forgiveness: for He is Oft-Returning in Grace and Mercy" [TMQ An-Nasr: 1-3].

"The so-called Christian nations are the most enlightened and progressive...but in spite of their religion, not because of it. The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetic in childbirth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve. And every step in astronomy and geology ever taken has been opposed by bigotry and superstition. The Greeks surpassed us in artistic culture and in architecture five hundred years before Christian religion was born."

- Mark Twain

Q, thank you for bringing us Mark Twain's opinion. But how do you and he actually account for the fact that "the so-called Christian nations are the most enlightened and progressive", and the fact that the fruits of Greek culture have only taken hold in the same group of nations?