She was elected Vice President (by virtue of having come in second in the last presidential election). That’s more than you could say for Gerald Ford.
I had mixed feelings about the recent ouster. At first my instinctual reaction was to support Megawati because she’s a woman, and I always want to promote Muslim women’s advancement and leadership. However, this particular woman happens to have close ties to the Indonesian military and she was against freedom for East Timor. Not very cool if you ask me. I was sorry to see Abdurrahman Wahid go because he was a good example of a moderate, gentle Muslim liberal. He had been the leader for many years of a popular movement promoting liberal Islam. That didn’t translate into success in politics, though. Politics is a mean business.
One thing I like about Islam in the Indonesia-Malaysia-Singapore-Brunei region is that women have always been freer in that culture, which is truer to the original feminist Islam brought by the Prophet. A recent ominous development in that region is a few fundie groups trying to impose restrictions on women brought in by Wahhabi influence. They need to be rejected by the good people of Southeast Asia who got along fine for centuries with no Wahhabism, thank you.
Islam accepts the Gospel (Injil, ‘Evangelion’) in principle as a divine revelation equal in status to the Torah and the Qur’an. But the Qur’an, coming last of all, is the gold standard against which the other texts are measured. Prior to the revelation of the Qur’an, the Islamic view is that Jesus Christ, being the latest prophet before Muhammad, was of course the one to follow. For example, surah 85 of the Qur’an upholds the Christians of southern Arabia who had been persecuted for their faith in the 6th century. Surah 18 praises the Seven Sleepers of the Cave, who were Christians persecuted by the Romans in the second century.
First comes belief in God alone, ascribing no partners to Him. In the final analysis that is all that is needed for salvation. Belief in Muhammad as a prophet is necessary for membership in Muhammad’s ummah (community) which from the Muslim point of view is obviously considered preferable.
The question is irrelevant in the Islamic context because the Qur’an denies that Christ was crucified! It says that his enemies planned to kill him and thought they had done so, but they were mistaken, they didn’t get away with it. Jesus never died. He’s still alive somewhere with Allah. A zealous Christian tried to evangelize me once. She was all prepared to argue Christ’s resurrection with me. When I told her the Qur’an says Christ wasn’t even crucified, she was flabbbergasted and didn’t know what to say.
Man, you make it sound like he was just a bandit. Here’s the straight dope: The Muslims in Mecca had been persecuted for 13-14 years, some of them murdered, all of them had their livelihood cut off, and finally driven from their homes into exile and lost everything they had. In all this time they never fought back. Finally in year 2 after the emigration they were given permission to defend themselves against the Meccan power structure who had driven them into exile with nothing but the shirts on their backs. In exile in Medina they were starving. They had been taken in by the natives of Medina and were living off their generosity, but famine threatened. By raiding the Meccan caravan at the wells of Badr, the emigrants were legitimately supplying themselves at the expense of the power structure that had deprived them of their entire livelihood. They were in a struggle for survival. What would you have done?
The Meccan power structure lived off the profits from the pilgrimage trade, since they controlled access to the sacred shrines. The wealthy elite had become corrupt and exploited the sacred sites to increase their wealth and power. They did not care for the needy, for the widows and orphans. The early Meccan revelations called for social justice, as you will see when you read the whole Qur’an. The religion of Islam put the poor and slaves on the same level as the wealthy and powerful aristocrats. Feeling their elite position threatened is why they persecuted the Muslims.
OOPS. My bad. You’re right about the Talmud being the first to say that. As a matter of fact, that very Qur’anic verse gives credit to the Jews for having been the first to state it. I had edited it for conciseness because I feel self-conscious about my posts going on for too long. But to be fair, the Qur’an gives credit where credit is due: “We prescribed with the Children of Israel that anyone who kills any person…”
I personally prefer the spelling Qur’an, because it’s an accurate transliteration of the original Arabic spelling. (The right-handed apostrophe represents the sound of the glottal stop which has no equivalent in the Roman alphabet; the left-handed apostrophe represents a different consonant.) But the Library of Congress still has “Koran” established as their subject heading authority. Either one will be widely understood. Apparently if you do a Yahoo! search, they’ve got their categories set up so that Qur’an, Quran, and Koran will all work the same. Hint: when variant spellings are widely used, be sure to try all of the possible variants when searching.
How come he authorized the attack on the Meccan caravan in (I think) the 3rd year of the hiraj? I’m not trying to pressure here, but this seems to me to be an issue. Doesn’t it seem to be a problem to claim that Islam prohibits killing anyone except literal attacking soliders, and then to see that the prophet himself found a reason for just such an attack? And I am well aware, as well, that there are opinions that he only wanted to draw out the Meccan army onto the battlefield-- an army which he claimed still threatened the infant religion. Yet, it doesn’t appear that in this case there was any immediate threat so I’m interested as to how this can be reconciled…
Actually, the Arab Muslims are far better acquainted with Christianity in general than Americans are with Islam. After all, in the Middle East they’ve been living side by side with their Christian neighbors for 1400 years. They have all gotten along together quite well for all these centuries. The ugly incidents have been few and far between. There has been way more peace and understanding between Middle Eastern Muslims and Christians, and for much longer, than between European Catholics and Protestants, to put this in perspective. The Arabs I know have told me that Middle Eastern Christians are considered “just folks.” They do not blame the native Christians for the imperialism of Europe and America which is a different story altogether.
One thing that is true of Middle Easterners (especially Levantines and Iranians) and Europeans, in contrast to Americans, is how much more politically, internationally aware and politically sophisticated they are. Most Americans I know have scant knowledge of their own political system, let alone anyone else’s. Most Middle Eastern Muslims are moderate and think highly of American democracy, but wish its principles of civil liberties and egalitarianism could be applied across the board to them as well, since they feel Americans look down on them as not worthy of the same level of respect accorded to whites. They are not happy with the regimes ruling their countries (which in their view were set up and imposed by Europe and America), and would welcome democratization. They see Americans as well-meaning, with good ideals, but very naive & clueless about the world situation outside their borders.
When I went to Iran, so many friendly Iranians came up to me and told me how they had enjoyed their stay in the United States when they went to college there, what pleasant memories they have of America. They have a lot of genuine affection for Americans, but just wish we would get a clue already.
No mention of it in the Qur’an. No commandment, it’s optional. It’s a strong cultural tradition because it’s seen as the Prophet’s sunnah. I would draw a distinction between the strong or robust cultural traditions that were exemplified by the Prophet, and the incidental ones that just derive from a local society, having no religious significance at all.
No food, drink, or sex between the first light of dawn (about 80 minutes before sunrise) and sunset. Furthermore, no sins of the tongue (quarreling or backbiting). After sunset, you can eat, drink, and have sex all you like, but you’re still not supposed to talk bad about other people at any time.
Wrong. Wrong as heck. There’s no president in Malaysia. It’s a parliamentary democracy. The prime minister Mahathir has survived in office a long time because he’s a skilled political manipulator and he’s the head of a very broad-based coalition that includes Malay Muslim, Chinese, and Hindu parties. His ruling coalition enjoys a certain unfair advantage in elections because it’s so big and fat, but it still has to win elections and could potentially be voted out.
No. Yemen is very much a multiparty republic that has made significant moves toward democratization. In fact, Saudi Arabia is pissed off at Yemen for introducing democracy into the Arabian Peninsula. The president ‘Ali ‘Abd Allah Salih is the former military strongman, but he did have to win an election to stay in office. The parties in northern Yemen are mainly tribal-based, while southern Yemen, a former Soviet satellite, has leftist parties in Aden. I think Yemen deserves more recognition and encouragement from the United States for its experiment in Arab Muslim democracy.
Muslim Guy, the question I’d originally wanted to ask has been answered already, so I just wanted to thank you for starting this thread. I’ve learned many new things and I’ve passed them on to my students, many of whom seemed to be in an “Islam = terrorism” mindset. I’ve seen many looks of suprised thoughtfulness this week, so I think you’ve helped to make a very big difference for a lot of people. Thank you.
I’m new to the threads, having been lured in by the link to “Ask the Muslim Guy” on the main Straight Dope page. I gotta say that I respect both “Muslim Guy” for his willingness to educate and the rest of us for our eagerness to learn.
That said, let’s be real about Islam, and each of our own faiths. They all have traditions of beauty; they all have their ugly sides with traditions of violence and intolerance.
“Justified” use of violence depends on your reference, doesn’t it? As a Jew, I must realize that Judah Macabee would have gladly destroyed Syrian and Greek cities (smite them all!) if he could have, if he felt that it was his only option to drive out the then great Satan of Greek world dominance from Israel and restablish a Hebrew controlled state. He killed other Jews whose version of the faith wasn’t up to his zealous radical interpretation. Yet, I celebrate Chanukah as a joyful holiday every year. And Christians have, well, their own crosses to bear.
That Muhammad was a great military leader who used force a lot more than defensively is a matter of historical record. And to present Islam as inherently tolerant of other faiths is somewhat specious, I think. (And to be be fair, few faiths can honestly make that claim … certainly not Christianity or Judaism)
Afterall, what did Muhammad do when he captured Mecca? He went to the Ka’bah, which had been a place of worship for other faiths for something like 2500 years, and destroyed the symbols of the then native religions, then building a mosque on the site of the native religion’s most holy location. A practice that Islam repeated time after time in years to come.
So my question is this … if Islam is so tolerant of other faiths, then what’s up with that destroying of others sacred sites and bulding mosques on them?
Sorry I snipped a lot of what you wrote, not to slight your thoughts, but just to help readability of this post.
I always read that passage as a matter-of-fact observation that everyone thinks their own way is the best. (So what else is new?) It definitely does not say not to negotiate for peace. Especially since the Qur’an says that when the opponent offers a peace treaty, Muslims have to accept. Also that Muslims must conclude pacts with people who are not fighting them. Negotiating for peace and coexistence are explicitly commanded. The (really important) message of the Qur’an that I get from this is that regardless of religious disagreements, different peoples can pledge to respect one another and live in peace.
First of all, please do not be alarmed by the expression “be their hands tied up.” That is not a directive to Muslims to go around tying up Jews. It’s metaphorical for saying their activities will be unsuccessful. All Jews everywhere? No! This is one of those situational passages in the Qur’an reflecting the local situation in Medina at that time. There don’t seem to have been any rabbis or really well-educated people in the north Arabian Jewish community in those days. There was a similar lack of learning among Arabian Christians, who apparently thought Mary was one of the three Persons of the Trinity. This was a very remote place in an era of slow communications. The circumstances suggest that the Jews and Christians there were not good exemplars of their religions. If they said that “God’s hands are tied up,” meaning He is not able to act, that would be a denial of God’s omnipotence. That would be blasphemous for any of the three religions. This passage is a refutation of the Medina Jews who said that. It is not a declaration of hostilities on all Jews. Its scope is limited to that specific time and place. (Although one thing that disturbs me is an echo of this in the teachings of Rabbi Harold Kushner, when he said “God can’t do everything.” I still can’t believe he actually said that.)
Consider that the Romans had expelled Jews from the Holy Land, and when the Christians took over the Roman Empire, they kept on excluding Jews. When did the Jews return to Jerusalem? When the Muslims under Caliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab took it over. The Crusaders again expelled the Jews from there, and when the Muslims under Salah al-Din (Saladin) retook Jerusalem, the Jews came back again. Do you see a pattern there? Other parts of the Qur’an legislate protection of the People of the Book under Muslim rule. The Muslims are obligated to defend the People of the Book and protect their lives and property, not harm or depredate them. Example: Jewish civilization flourished in Islamic Spain. Moses Maimonides wrote Dalil al-ha’irin (Guide for the Perplexed) in Arabic, and the famous Spanish Kabbalists Isaac Luria and Abraham Abulafia made their contributions under Islam. (In Arabic abul-‘afiyah means ‘the father of well-being’.) When Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the Jews from Spain, who invited them to come and contribute to his civilization? The Ottoman Sultan. Spanish Jews moved to Turkey en masse. The Jews of Turkey held their 500th anniversary celebration in 1992. In recent times the late King Hasan of Morocco asked Jews to stay in Morocco because he liked them (though the cynical might say his aim was to not have them populating Israel).
Thanks to Tamerlane for already supplying an answer to your questions above, with his usual masterful grasp of history. I could have just typed “What Tamerlane said.”
Again, the scope of that passage was limited to the Jewish community at Medina. Prophet Muhammad had hoped the Jews would recognize him as a messenger of God in the same way that the Hebrew prophets were. Instead they rejected him. I don’t know why this happened. It’s very sad that things did not work out better there. Still, it was a local conflict and fortunately did not poison Jewish-Muslim relations in other times and places as the above historical examples show.
You know one thing that really bugs me? When I hear people saying that the Israel-Palestinian problem is “one of those tribal things that go back centuries.” It most certainly is not. There was no Jewish-Palestinian conflict until the 1920s or 1930s, and that was the result of British manipulations. Prior to World War I, the Ottoman Sublime Porte (the world’s major Islamic state) had no problem with Zionists moving to Palestine.
Another anecdote: When Britain was maneuvering to take over the Suez Canal, some politicians opposed Disraeli’s becoming Prime Minister: as a Jew he would naturally sympathize with the Arabs. This was only a little over a century ago!
Personally, I do not see any imperative to hating Jews in the Qur’an, and I positively like Judaism and see a great affinity there. There is scarcely any difference between Judaism in Islam in essence. I feel sad that the two sides have had problems, and still hope relations can be repaired someday. Sorry this post went on for so long, but I know there’s a lot of hurt there and I felt this topic deserved special care.
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YUSUFALI
The Jews say: “Allah’s hand is tied up.” Be their hands tied up and be they accursed for the (blasphemy) they utter.
Muslim Guy’s Answer:That is not a directive to Muslims to go around tying up Jews.
is one of those situational passages in the Qur’an reflecting the local situation in Medina at that time. Its scope is limited to that specific time and place.
I have been following this discussion with great interest. It has been very enlightening and instructive. I would like to know if there is anything in the Qur’an that states the above passage is relevant to only a specific location and time. I am not trying to be a wise-guy, I have simply not read the Qur’an and know how passages taken out of context can have their meanings twisted. On the other hand, the instructions in the above passage seem quite clear, and without modifiers.
My question is, why did you choose Islam over the other religions you tried? Any specific flaws with certian religions that drove you away, or was it simply that Islam was better?
I hope I have that right. What is this? How does it differ from other forms of Islam? and should I be conccerned that an estimated 80% of U.s. mosques are headed by Wahhabi imams?
