Bombing in Egypt, Beheading in Iraq

Great Debates
1

Here we go again: 27 innocent civilians (no Kassam rocket launchers or ammo dumps), mostly Israelis, and some Egyptians, killed in a hotel bombing in Egypt. One hostage beheaded in Iraq.

From AP:

Akbar Ali, a Muslim leader in Liverpool who had appealed for the release of Bigley, told the UK’s Press Association: "I think I can speak on behalf of all Muslims. We are very sad, we were all hoping he would be reprieved and representations had been made.

“This group are very, very ruthless people without aims or objectives, just trying to show the world how cruel and mindless they can be. They are giving a very, very negative picture of Islam.”

Qur’an 5:33 “The punishment for those who wage war against Allah and His Prophet and make mischief in the land, is to murder them, crucify them, or cut off a hand and foot on opposite sides…their doom is dreadful. They will not escape the fire, suffering constantly.”

Qur’an 8:12 “Your Lord inspired the angels with the message: ‘I will terrorize the unbelievers. Therefore smite them on their necks and every joint and incapacitate them. Strike off their heads and cut off each of their fingers and toes.”

Tabari VIII:96 “A raiding party led by Zayd set out against Umm in Ramadan. During it, Umm suffered a cruel death. Zyad tied her legs with rope and then tied her between two camels until they split her in two.

Qur’an 9:5 “When the sacred forbidden months for fighting are past, fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, torture them, and lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.”

Tabari VIII:179/Ishaq:550 “Among those who Muhammad ordered killed was Abdallah bin Khatal. The Messenger ordered him to be slain because while he was a Muslim, Muhammad had sent him to collect the zakat tax with an Ansar and a slave of his… His girls used to sing a satire about Muhammad so the Prophet ordered that they should be killed along with Abdullah. He was killed by Sa’id and Abu Barzah. The two shared in his blood. One of the singing girls was killed quickly but the other fled. So Umar caused his horse to trample the one who fled, killing her.”

Qur’an 8:59 “The infidels should not think that they can get away from us. Prepare against them whatever arms and weaponry you can muster so that you may terrorize them.”

Bukhari:V4B52N260 “Ali burnt some [former Muslims alive] and this news reached Ibn Abbas, who said, ‘Had I been in his place I would not have burnt them, as the Prophet said, “Don’t punish with Allah’s Punishment.” No doubt, I would have killed them, for the Prophet said, “If a Muslim discards his Islamic religion, kill him.”’”

And my favorite:

Tabari VII:133/Ishaq:387 “When Muhammad saw Hamzah he said, ‘If Allah gives me victory over the Quraysh at any time, I shall mutilate thirty of their men!’ When the Muslims saw the rage of the Prophet they said, ‘By Allah, if we are victorious over them, we shall mutilate them in a way which no Arab has ever mutilated anybody.”

Gosh, I wonder what way they’re thinking of.

I’m not saying anything at all other than what’s in Islam’s holy books. It is up to you to make your own decisions about what Islam means. I am just the messenger; don’t shoot me.

2

  1. What is your subject for debate? If this is not a debate, but a rant, you should ask a Mod to move this thread to the Pit.

  2. To your knowledge, about what percentage of the total text of the Koran is made up of statements of the type cited?

  3. Given your frequently-expressed and pre-existing hatred for muslims, why should we accept your word that any of your context-free quotes are factual? In other words, could you please cite the edition, translator and publication date of the copy of the Koran from which you obtained these statements? If you, as I suspect, obtained these ‘quotes’ from an anti-Islamic site on the 'Net, would you please identify the source?

  4. Is it your position that no comparable statements expressing similar attitudes can be found in western religious texts, such as the Old Testament of the Bible?

You apparently feel a very deep need to convince others to join in your wholly irrational hatefest. Sorry; I decline to do so.

3

Weren’t you told recently that you were on thin ice? Weren’t you warned? Didn’t they tell you not to post when you were drunk or stoned? Does your OP have a debate in it? Or is it just a rant intended to slur all practitioners of a major religion?

Daniel

4

from Psalms:

137:8 O daughter Babylon, soon to be devastated!

How happy will be the one who repays you

for what you dished out to us!

137:9 How happy will be the one who grabs your babies

and smashes them on a rock!

Thus the bible advocates infanticide on the enemies of the Jews.

Every ancient religious text advocates violence of the most unpleasent sort on the unbeliver. I haven’t seen anything that makes me think Islam is any better or worse in that regard. Like any religion they have people who take the violent passages to justify violent actions, and people who take the “love your neighbor” passages to advocate peace.

5

As a matter of fact, reading your quotes more closely, if thats the worst thats in the Qu’ran, its pretty tame compared to the Old Testament or some early Christian texts.

The only quote I know from an Eastern reliqious text is “I am become Death, destroyer of worlds”. I don’t know what thats about, but it doesn’t sound friendly either :slight_smile:

6

sigh Paul - you’ve done it again. A worthwile start, which you siderail with your own vitriol just a few lines down… :frowning:

So - to attempt and make a debate of this - let’s concentrate on the first few line that I quoted above. which (if either, if such a thing even exists) of the voices above is the “real” voice of Islam? The murderous terrorists’, or Mr. Akbar Ali’s?

My own view is that both represent differing factions that exist in Islam, as in any other group of human beings - the quarrelsome and violent minority, and the “Why can’t everyone just leave everyone else alone?” majority.

My only worry vis-a-vis Islam is the relative paucity of public figures identified with it who are willing to stand up for the sane, peaceful POV of what (hopefully at least) MUST be the majority of Muslims (as of all other ethnic/religious/national/whatever groups)

Dani

7

Why do you feel that the case you’ve presented is in any way compelling?

8

Simon, are you adressing Paul or me?

Dani

9

Yes, and it also preaches against the evils of the shrimp and all sorts of other goofy stuff. The problem isn’t really what goofy stuff a given religious text may say, it’s how many of its followers actually go out and commit those goofy acts.

10

My apologies.
My comment was re the OP.

11

Red Lobster is the Devil!

Daniel

12

I’d agree but take it a step further and say that the problem is those who commit the “goofy acts” followers or not.

There’s an interesting axiom that I’m often reminded of: To do great evil you must believe you are doing a great good.

This is an inherent danger of many aspects of religious thought. Because religion tends to deal in absolutes/universals simple common sense can be drowned.

Compare and contrast events like the Inquisition. (Didn’t expect that did you? Of course not. No one does.)
Common sense (for want of a better term) tells us that torturing people is not a good idea. Unless we believe that torture’s part of some great good, it’s hard for most of us to countenance such atrocities as beheadings, infanticide, etc.

However, this doesn’t negate the positive aspects of religion.

13

I like that phrasing. Isaiah Berlin, in talking about how all the greatest evils of the twentieth century stemmed from a utopian drive, phrased it differently. “You have to break eggs to make an omelette,” he said (I paraphrase); “To make the perfect omelette, there’s no limit to the number of eggs you can break.”

Although I think he’s slightly off–certainly not all the greatest 20th century evils were utopian in nature, although many were–it’s a fascinating point.

Daniel

14

Like the crusades, for example? Like the Serb atrocities in Bosnia? Like the Salem witch trials? I agree.

15

Brutus: The problem isn’t really what goofy stuff a given religious text may say, it’s how many of its followers actually go out and commit those goofy acts.

jshore: Like the crusades, for example? Like the Serb atrocities in Bosnia? Like the Salem witch trials? I agree.

Both you guys seem to be assuming that we can somehow “grade” a religious text or faith based on this kind of quantitative test. “Hmm, a higher percentage of Religion A’s professed followers are committing violent acts at present than Religion B’s! Religion A is clearly the more violent religion!”

Hmmmmmmmmmph. Even if we were to score such “tests” over the whole lifetime of a religious doctrine, I don’t think we’d come up with meaningful answers. Religions are inextricably entangled with ethnic, cultural, geographical, technological, and historical contingencies. That makes it pretty meaningless to call any religion intrinsically peaceful or violent, or intrinsically more peaceful or violent than another religion.

We can certainly make such comparisons between sufficiently small, clearly delineated subsets of religious groups: e.g., Revolutionary Qutbists are distinctly more violent as a group than Wenger Mennonites. But extrapolating from that to say that “Islam” per se is more violent than “Christianity” per se? It stops making sense. There are just too many people, perspectives, faiths, and ethnic, cultural, socioeconomic and other backgrounds under each of those big tents to allow us to draw any useful conclusions about their intrinsic nature.

16

Gosh, if only someone had addressed the issue at hand: the Koran’s direct command of violent and barbaric acts toward other people (and how much of the Koran is a book filled with war and the fear of punishment [not suprising given the fact that Islam was spread by the sword.])

What I’m saying is that the spokesman is in the wrong to say that said activities were not representative of Islam. The Islamic scriptures are filled with acts like those being committed by terrorists now, they are NOT condemed on a widespread scale by the Muslim community today (much of which supports terror through Muslim “charities” even in this country,) and they have been manifest in Islamic culture throughout history.

I was neither drunk nor high when I posted what I did. All I did was copy-and-paste, copy-and-paste. I wasn’t advocating any action; I wasn’t condemning or explicitly describing any group of people. I wasn’t doing anything but offering quotes from the holiest of Islamic scriptures for you to come to your own decisions about what said faith represents.

Where’s the vitriol? Show me. I dare you.

17

I think the controversial and vitriolic part, Paul, is the part you didn’t spell out but only implied: “These terrorist acts and these Koranic scriptures show clearly that all Muslims are savage, infidel-hating bastards and no non-Muslim can trust them, deal with them or negotiate with them. Therefore, Israel is always right when it has any conflict with them and anything it does is justified and must be supported by the West. Even if involves ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Palestinians from the Territories.”

If I have misconstrued your intentions, please tell me how.

If I have not, please defend your position in the terms in which I have restated it.

18

Is this another…

“ISLAM: Religion of Peace” thread? :dubious:

19

It is not very relevant and timely of you to bring up stuff that happened centuries ago. As you may notice, the Crusades to take back the Holy Lands have come to an end, as have the witch hunts, the inquisition, et cetera. People getting their heads lopped off in the name of Allah, on the other hand, is still going on. You wouldn’t happen to have any relevant and timely examples, would you?

20

PF: What I’m saying is that the spokesman is in the wrong to say that said activities were not representative of Islam. The Islamic scriptures are filled with acts like those being committed by terrorists now

And what other people have pointed out is that by this reasoning, “said activities” are equally representative of Christianity or Judaism. Because the Christian and Jewish scriptures are also filled with such acts. To condemn only Islam for them is applying a double standard.

PF: * they are NOT condemed on a widespread scale by the Muslim community today *

Cite?? I’ve certainly seen a great deal of condemnation of such acts in the Muslim community; here, to take just one example.

Show us some solid, objective evidence that this condemnation isn’t “widespread”. I don’t want to hear your subjective complaints that you don’t happen to see enough of it to satisfy you personally; I want you to explain why the dozens of groups and millions of individuals on whose behalfs the condemnations in my link were made don’t meet a rational definition of “widespread”.

PF: *and they have been manifest in Islamic culture throughout history. *

And in Christian and Jewish and many other cultures throughout history too. Again, if you’re assuming religious exhortations to violence (and religious followers who act on those exhortations) are bad in Islam but acceptable in Christianity and Judaism, you are merely being a religious bigot.