My poor little head is spinning, but the detail helps a lot.
There’s a not-too-long, quite readable article in the WSJ discussing the historical difference between Crusade and Jihad. I humbly offer the link as reference with the hopeful presumption that this Professor Lewis fella knows what he’s talking about:
Perhaps our thread sages MG and Big T can comment on whether it’s accurate. Seeing as it’s in the WSJ, it probably represents what newspaper-reading folks are encountering on the subject.
Karellen: Bernard Lewis is one of the old respected names in Islamic history. I have sitting next to me his book The Political Language of Islam ( 1988, University of Chicago Press ), which not only has complimentary blurbs from the New York Review of Books, but also the Muslim World Book Review and Middle East Review 
. It essentially covers the sort of points he discusses in that essay.
Though he has his academic biases, by and large I think his comments are reasonably fair and balanced.
I will point out ( as Professor Lewis himself acknowledges in the aforementioned book ), that there were classical jurists that interpreted Jihad as an inner, spiritual struggle as Muslim Guy has said he experiences it. Interestingly enough those jurists were mostly Shi’a .
- Tamerlane
So you technically don’t have to be circumcised to be a Muslim? It seems that all the religions I have an affinity for seem to require it.
Karellen,
Great link! Thanks.
Tamerlane or MG,
Excuse me if I missed this elsewhere in the thread, but I understand that much of the current fundamentalist anti-Americanism was inspired by Sayyid Qutb in the 40’s, who had visited the US and didn’t like what he saw. Is this correct? If so, were his perspectives more widely accepted by one group more than another, or do fundamentalists of multiple groups subscribe to his mindset?
Thanks.
My impression is that most countries dominated by Muslims are anti-Semitic. I’ve read that the Taliban believe in killing Jews. Other Arab countries don’t have that degree of hatred, but my impression is that a Jew wouldn’t be comfortable living there. I can’t think of any prominent Jews living in Arab countries, although maybe there are some living in other Muslim counries.
My questions are:
-
Am I right about the antipathy to Jews in these countries today?
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How do we reconcile the history that you recount above with today’s political reality?
MG, thanks for your help.
I’ll jump in on that one.
Mohammed felt that Jews would flock to him as the new prophet. He reacted angrily to them when they did not. (History repeats itself. Martin Luther went through a similar transformation of beliefs when Jews didn’t flock to his new version of Christianity. Luther’s subsequent antisemetic diatribes are vile.)
He thus left multiple conflicting views: His thoughts that Islam is a continuation of ancient montheism and that Jews are fellow ones of the Book; and his anger at being rejected as a prophet by the Jews.
Different ages and rulers have had affinity for one or the other line of Mohammad’s thinking. Various Jews have had some good gigs in some Islamic courts. Maimonadies jumps into mind, for example. Other times find Islamic thinking dominated by the Jew-hating bits. When text is conflicting you can choose what is convienent to your mindset to justify what you want to do or are already doing.
What is the position of Islam toward tattoos? I had understood that they were forbidden, but then I heard about this guy, with a tattoo of Osama bin Laden on his chest. If they are forbidden, it would tend to confirm my suspicions that the followers of bin Laden are very poor Muslims (Mohammed Atta was seen drinking in sports bars in Hollywood, Florida), and are just using Islam to inflame passions around the world.
Of course, it may turn out that the tattoed man is not Muslim or connected to Al Qaeda; in which case, nevermind.
What is Islam’s view towards homosexuality?
More specific questions:
What do the quotes in the Qu’ran mean (I looked them up on one of the sites that was linked to in here):26:165-166, 27:55, 29:28-29?
How does the mainstream fundamentalist Islam defend its homophobia?
How do you (as someone who I assume doesn’t dissaprove of homosexuality) reconcile your beliefs to the writings of the Qu’ran?
Thanks!
This article suggests that the reason the Muslim world fell behind the West economically is tied to its treatment of women. Any thoughts?
http://www.tnr.com/100801/landes100801.html
WashU77 writes,
I won’t speak for the origins of the Qu’ran, but as far as Barbara Walker goes, every historian I know thinks she’s terrible. One says, specifically, that she has a very bad habit of writing compound sentences, and attributing the whole sentence to a source, but really only half of the sentence was from that, and the other half is her own conjecture.
For instance, I would bet a shiny new dime that in the text cited, the sentence “The original writing was done long before Mohammed’s time by holy imams, a word related to the Semitic ima, “mother”.” has a footnote or citation leading to a linguistic source which shows that ‘imam’ and the word for mother have the same root; and that the source says nothing about people before Mohammed’s time writing any part of the Qu’ran.
Corr
Muslim Guy, thanks again. I have only been skimming, since I usually stay out of IMHO (my opinions are rarely humble 
) and it somehow got to five pages, but I will be going back to read through it.
It’s funny, though, how learning more about other faiths can explain parts of your own. Yesterday, my congregation was given a tour of the local mosque. The guide told the story behind the niche for Mary–so THAT’S why Catholics put statues of Mary in “grottos!”
(Wife: “Yeah, that story is in one of the books of the Bible that didn’t make the final cut.”)
After the description of the theology of Islam I turned to my pastor and whispered, “They’re closer to us than some ostensibly Christian sects!”
They sold me a beautiful Koran (English only–I doubt that many of our members read Arabic) for only twelve bucks along with a primer for Islam. They will be worthwhile additions to our church library once I’m done reading them.
Hoy! Muslim Guy. Less of the modesty here - thats not a bloody candle, sir, it’s a sixty foot high bonfire !
As a UK resident, only 10 miles (ish) from Bradford, and having couple of friends who are (nominally) Muslim, I find myself ashamed at my ignorance of the faith.
I have learned more in an hour of reading posts here than in 10 years living in and around a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic populace.
I do find it upsetting here seeing young (assumedly Muslim) children cheering the WTC atrocity, but I hold in contempt those who have taught them to behave this way, rather than they themselves. Equally contemptible is the UK media which reports upon these incidents and (rightly) decries them, yet does not report the views of those UK resident Muslims who are appalled at such things. I can only see this reporting leading to yet more racial intolerance and violence here, as we have seen this previous summer (which the media will then get in a lather about).
<OBGrammar> Am I correct in assuming that ‘Muslim’ and ‘Islam’ should be capitalised ?
Good question. A lot of people been asking that. As already noted here, the ‘Abbasid Caliphate was effectively out of commission after the Mongol conquest of Baghdad in 1258. The descendants of the ‘Abbasid caliphs lived on in Egypt under the Mamluks. They had pretensions to continuing the caliphate, but held no power, and no one paid them any mind. The Ottomans under Sultan Selim took Egypt in 1517. The Ottoman sultan did not immediately assume the caliphate. Rather, the whole thing seems to have been ignored until 1774 when the Ottomans ceded part of the Crimea to Russia in the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca. Empress Catherine asserted status as protectress of all Orthodox Christians under Ottoman dominion. Tit for tat, Sultan Abdülhamid I asserted the caliphate as the protector of all Muslims under Russian dominion. From then until 1922, the Ottoman sultans held the title of Caliph. The last caliph (after the sultanate was abolished in 1922) was no sultan but just a religious figure. When the Turkish Republic legislature abolished the caliphate in 1924 the Muslim world pretty well let it go. There was a “Khilafat” movement in India that ostensibly upheld the Turkish caliph as the leader of all Muslims, but their real focus was on opposing British rule of India and the rhetoric about the caliphate was just a rallying cry for Indian Muslims. The Khilafat movement is historically important because it led to the Muslim League and the formation of Pakistan, but it had no ramifications outside India.
The Sharif of Mecca, al-Husayn (great-great-grandfather of the present King of Jordan), put forth a claim to be the new caliph but no one went for it (and anyway his little kingdom was quickly obliterated by the Saudis). The Khedive of Egypt, Fu’ad, also claimed to be caliph but no one accepted that either. An Islamic Congress was convoked in 1926 to consider the question. This was the Muslims’ opportunity to reinstate the caliphate somehow. But they left the congress without settling the question. And people just sort of stopped thinking about it! It was very inconclusive; the subject just sort of trailed off… There had just been a book published by the Egyptian Islamic scholar ‘Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq, arguing that the caliphate was not integral to or necessary in Islam, so the delegates to the congress felt they could just let it drop. Realistically, in the 1920s most of the Muslim world was under colonial rule and there were very few independent Muslim rulers, and those only in out-of-the-way places. Who could have assumed the duties of caliph? There really wasn’t anyone who could have qualified at that time.
Hmm, it’s always fun for history buffs to play “What If.” Here are mis dos centavos: A caliphate today, under the best circumstances, would exert a moderating influence on the Islamic world. It would offer less opportunity for political radicals to gain a following and cause trouble. A large part of the problem with violent fundamentalist political extremists is the psychological feeling of powerlessness among the Muslim masses. The extremists seize on that and exploit it to gain for themselves the Dark Side of the Force. They exploit the perceived emptiness at the heart of the Islamic political world. A caliph would give the Muslims at least a reassuring symbolic presence and a focus, someone to represent Islam before the rest of the world. Someone with an august and wise presence like the late King Hussein of Jordan would find wide acceptance as a caliph and the Muslim masses would not feel as anxious as they do nowadays, feeling that no one really cares for them. That said, I don’t trust the radical political groups nowadays who say they want to revive the caliphate. Lord help us if those boys ever take power. It would be just another fundamentalist nightmare dictatorship. Ugh.
All you need is to get a Hajj or ‘Umrah visa from the local Saudi embassy or consulate. That’s what I did. In my case, being an American convert, I went to the Washington, DC Islamic Center (which is Saudi-controlled) and announced I was converting to Islam (even though I had already been Muslim for years). They wrote me up an official-looking certificate. When I went to the Saudi Embassy in Kuala Lumpur for my Hajj visa, it was a good thing I brought that document along. If you’re from a non-Muslim majority country, you’ll need some proof of being Muslim to get that visa. Malcolm X went off to Mecca on an impulse without the necessary preparation, and the Saudis had him cooling his heels in the Jiddah airport for a few days until he could satisfy a religious judge that he really was Muslim. But then he remembered to make the right phone call, and soon a friend came in a chauffered limo to pick him up, take him to meet King Faisal, and give him luxurious accommodations, all the while apologizing profusely for his inconveniences. The Middle East is like that. Everything depends on who you know.
As Tamerlane astutely pointed out, this gathering was convoked under the auspices of Saddam Hussein. My advice: consider the source. Saddam has no Islamic credentials. He is a secular dictator who has been shamelessly exploiting Islamic rhetoric for his own political ends. I think most Muslims have seen so much of this political exploitation of scholars that they cast a skeptical eye on this kind of manipulation. No scholar can earn much credibility unless he or she is perceived as independent from political manipulation. Most Middle Easterners are deeply cynical about political processes in their countries and the exploitation of religion for same.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by DSeid *
**So far no comment on why Islam manifests its religious tolerance by building mosques on others’ holiest sites.**Which mosques? Where? Got any cites? You seem to imply, sir, that it’s an Islamic imperative to go around doing that everywhere. That would be false. In the case of the Ka‘bah in Mecca, it was originally raised by Abraham as a shrine to the One God. All that Muhammad did was restore it to its original purpose. When the Caliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab came to Jerusalem, the Christian patriarch there invited him to pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. ‘Umar declined the invitation on the grounds that if he prayed there, later Muslims would take over the site and turn it into a mosque. So he prayed just outside the church. In fact, that spot later became a mosque while the church continued unaltered. The Temple Mount had been in ruins ever since the Roman occupation. Orthodox Judaism holds that the Temple cannot be rebuilt before the arrival of ha-Moshiach ben David. The site is mentioned in the Qur’an as a place visited by Prophet Muhammad on his Night Journey, and the Muslims restored the ruined site as hallowed ground for the worship of the One God. It’s not as though the Jews were using it. I hope the two sides now will come to some peaceful, equitable agreement about maintaining the site from now on. The Church of St. John the Baptist in Damascus was half-converted into a mosque while the other half remained a church. St. John the Baptist is revered as a prophet of Islam, so it was equitable to share the site between Christians and Muslims (it had earlier been a pagan temple before the Christians took it over). The question of whether the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya was really built on the site of a Hindu temple is disputed by historians. The only real example of Muslims totally taking over someone else’s holy site is Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. This one example hardly constitutes a general pattern as you suggest, sir. There are far more examples of Muslims allowing sacred sites of other religions to remain under the custody of their original owners, for example the tomb of Esther in Iran which has been under Jewish maintenance since forever.
I know about the Jewish academies of Mesopotamia. The Babylonian Talmud is famous. Jews had been in Mesopotamia and Iran since the time of Nebuchadnezzar and Esther. But Mesopotamia is not Arabia. I was talking about the Arabian Peninsula, which was far outside the main areas of civilization in those days (except for Yemen, which had an ancient civilization as well as an ancient Jewish population).
I know it isn’t easy to get over the historical problems and bad blood between Muslims and Jews. I don’t mean to whitewash the problems. But I do aim to show the positive side, the basis for good relations. It’s our choice in the present day to look ahead to repairing the breach and establish positive relations. We don’t have to be bound by the problems of the past unless we choose to be. We can choose to overcome prejudice. We have a choice. I have chosen to promote peace between Muslims and other peoples. I’m just showing that it doesn’t have to be all hatred and conflict, that a basis for peace exists in the sources of Islam if anyone chooses to build upon it. So each person should ask himself or herself: do you want to be part of the problem or part of the solution? Let peace begin within our own hearts.
On the basis of the Qur’an’s giving permission to fight to those who were expelled from their homes. The error these groups have fallen into is that under Islamic law only a properly constituted authority can declare a legitimate jihad. These groups lack that authority.
I have been supporting this idea for years. As a matter of fact, many mainstream muftis (legal scholars) have given fatwas over the years that this kind of violent extremism is unlawful and rejected in Islamic law. The question you should be asking is not why Muslims don’t reject the extremists—they do—but ask rather why the American media never reported on this mainstream position. The only time they pay attention to Islam is when something bad happens. Regular Islam has been ignored by America. You folks have been getting an awfully distorted impression of how the Muslim community actually functions. I hope now with all the increased attention we can set the record straight.
Thanks for your open-minded willingness to listen & learn without prejudice. Enough intelligent people like you and the other Dopers here, and there will be hope for humanity. **
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I answered this above: you get a Hajj or ‘Umrah visa from the Saudi consulate. You just have to satisfy them that you’re a Muslim. If you come from a non-Muslim community you’ll need some documentation that you converted to Islam.
There have been several non-Muslims over the years who crashed the party (as you so amusingly put it, but that was before T-shirts were invented). The first was an Italian guy named Ludovico Varthema circa 1500. Michael Wolfe’s book One Thousand Roads to Mecca, a compilation of Hajj stories, relates some of these imposters. The Swiss adventurer John Lewis Burckhardt (c. 1800) was a genuine convert to Islam before his Hajj. Richard Francis Burton’s 1856 Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to el-Madinah and Meccah was partly for real and partly a put-on. Burton was Muslim all along but concealed that fact from the British public. His claim that had he been discovered to be a non-Muslim he “would have been torn limb from limb” was made up for dramatic effect.
No, there is no such death penalty, of course, at least not in the present day. What would happen if the Saudis caught you is they would deport you from the country, nothing more.
For a legitimate fatwa, you need a qualified mufti (legal scholar) who has done the course of studies at a recognized institution and received the ijazah (diploma), and he or she has to explain the reasoning behind it in a way that makes sense to the intelligent Muslim (i.e. it can’t be just arbitrary but has to be based on the sources of the law). There have been plenty of such fatwas already that bin Laden’s sort of actions are unlawful (whether there are any specifically aimed at him, I’m not sure, hoping someone can provide a cite). But for the US to invade and take care of him is a politically sensitive issue. For it to be acceptable it would require action by Muslim forces. But who is there who can undertake that? There’s a dilemma.
Any translation, no matter how literal it seeks to be, must inevitably use some interpretation. Especially with the gnomic passages that seem to hold several simultaneous facets of meaning in the original Arabic; by choosing a single English wording you collapse down all the possible meanings and lock the text into one interpretation. So every translation involves choices and a point of view. The best translators have tried to follow reliable exegeses instead of using their own opinions.