Help me fight Ignorance - Xenophobia regarding Islam

It is the very lack of organization that allows the chaos that presently exists within Islam. As I pointed out above and you have acknowledged, any old Immam can gain a following, go after Western targets, and justify his actions religiously. When Fred Phelps says we ought to shoot all the gays, people rightly mock him or at least ignore him. When an Immam in Saudi Arabia says the same thing, he gets listened to.

Agreed that there is a wide range of how strictly Moslems observe their laws. Just as there is a wide range of how strict the observance is within Christianity and Judaism. In the case of Sharia, I do not think there is the amount of latitude you believe and those laws are every bit as intrusive as those in the Old Testament. IIRC, the Christians get around this by claiming the Old Testament doesn’t really apply to them as they have a newer set of laws on the New Testament. I have no idea how the Jews get around the ugly bits but they seem to manage it. In both cases, Christianity and Judaism, we have (mostly!) gotten rid of the archaic and barbaric bits of our religion. Islam has not done this yet and may never.

Yes, I did and do acknowledge that there is no central authority for Islam. That is a substantial part of the problem. The moderate authorities can try to soft-pedal and explain away and side-step some of the more vicious strictures contained in their laws but at the end of the day, they can be shot down by anyone able to read Arabic. Also, it doesn’t matter whether we accept some Immam’s authority on some matter. The problem is whether they (the Moslem population) do. This varies from a substantial minority to an absolute majority, depending on the country and area.

Lacking any means of picking out the reasonable ones, I have little choice but to reject it entirely. As far as my own opinions are concerned, my experiences with the Islamic World will continue to trump any amount of debate.

Regards

Testy

This is historically not true and there is no evidence that I have seen that it is true outside the Wahabbist and Islamist Fundamentalist strains in modern Muslim nations.
Sharia is not the law of the land in Indonesia, Malaysia, various Indian states, Pakistan, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt or a number of other countries and it is only the exrtreme elements in those countries who are currently looking to change that. Therefore a claim that it is the duty of any observing Muslim would seem to strongly suggest that the number of observing Muslims in the world is a very tiny minority.

Again, the evidence contradicts your claim. In Wahabbist Saudi Arabia, such discussions are prohibited, but in most of the Muslim word, they continue to be discussed. Even in theocratic Iran, such discussions continue. There is a point beyond which the discussions are currently prohibited from becoming actions, but there is philosophical and theological movement within Iran.

This speaks for itself, other than to note that we all have the means to identify reasonable discussions provided we do not stop our ears and scream “BAD, BAD, BAD” simply because the speakers are Muslim.

Interesting thread guys.
FWIW I think that the western world has far too short a memory - however just and fair our society is at the moment, it has only gotten to that point relatively recently.

We in the west still have a long way to go ourselves towards ending intolerance (persecution of drug users, etc).

My view is that as long as Muslims are willing to integrate and become members of the community, I welcome them with open arms. We have no Muslim ghettos in Ireland (afaik), and until we do, I see no danger here. The danger is if they become a seperate subsection of the population, a bitter underclass. To that end, the goal has to be to be as welcoming as possible to immigrants.

Under no conditions however should we sacrifice our own values and allow them sharia courts (as in the UK). Obviously mosques are ok, as are any other religious buildings.

Anyway I was reading through the thread, and it made me think of an email I got sent a while ago, from a conspiracy nut I know. Thought I’d share it here:

Adapted from Dr. Peter Hammond’s book: Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat

Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In its fullest form, it is a complete, total, 100% system of life.

Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, social, and military components. The religious component is a beard for all of the other components.

Islamization begins when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their religious privileges.

When politically correct, tolerant, and culturally diverse societies agree to Muslim demands for their religious privileges, some of the other components tend to creep in as well…

Here’s how it works:

As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any given country, they will be for the most part be regarded as a peace-loving minority, and not as a threat to other citizens. This is the case in:

United States – Muslim 0…6%
Australia – Muslim 1.5%
Canada – Muslim 1.9%
China – Muslim 1.8%
Italy – Muslim 1.5%
Norway – Muslim 1.8%

At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs.
This is happening in:

Denmark – Muslim 2%
Germany – Muslim 3.7%
United Kingdom – Muslim 2.7%
Spain – Muslim 4%
Thailand – Muslim 4.6%

From 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. For example, they will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for
Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature halal on their shelves – along with threats for failure to comply. This is occurring in:

France – Muslim 8%
Philippines – 5%
Sweden – Muslim 5%
Switzerland – Muslim 4.3%
The Netherlands – Muslim 5.5%
Trinidad & Tobago – Muslim 5.8%

At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves (within their ghettos) under Sharia, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islamists is to establish Sharia law over the entire world.

When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions. In Paris , we are already seeing car-burnings. Any non-Muslim action offends Islam, and results in uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam , with opposition to Mohammed cartoons and films about Islam. Such tensions are seen daily, particularly in Muslim sections, in:
Guyana – Muslim 10%
India – Muslim 13.4%
Israel – Muslim 16%
Kenya – Muslim 10%
Russia – Muslim 15%

After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, such as in:

Ethiopia – Muslim 32.8%

At 40%, nations experience widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare, such as in:

Bosnia – Muslim 40%
Chad – Muslim 53.1%
Lebanon – Muslim 59.7%

From 60%, nations experience unfettered persecution of non-believers of all other religions (including non-conforming Muslims), sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon, and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels, such as in:

Albania – Muslim 70%
Malaysia – Muslim 60.4%
Qatar – Muslim 77.5%
Sudan – Muslim 70%

After 80%, expect daily intimidation and violent jihad, some State-run ethnic cleansing, and even some genocide, as these nations drive out the infidels, and move toward 100% Muslim, such as has been experienced and in some ways is on-going in:

Bangladesh – Muslim 83%
Egypt – Muslim 90%
Gaza – Muslim 98.7%
Indonesia – Muslim 86.1%
Iran – Muslim 98%
Iraq – Muslim 97%
Jordan – Muslim 92%
Morocco – Muslim 98.7%
Pakistan – Muslim 97%
Palestine – Muslim 99%
Syria – Muslim 90%
Tajikistan – Muslim 90%
Turkey – Muslim 99.8%
United Arab Emirates – Muslim 96%

100% will usher in the peace of ‘Dar-es-Salaam’ – the Islamic House of Peace. Here there’s supposed to be peace, because everybody is a Muslim, the Madrasses are the only schools, and the Koran is the only word, such as in:

Afghanistan – Muslim 100%
Saudi Arabia – Muslim 100%
Somalia – Muslim 100%
Yemen – Muslim 100%

Unfortunately, peace is never achieved, as in these 100% states the most radical Muslims intimidate and spew hatred, and satisfy their blood lust by killing less radical Muslims, for a variety of reasons.

'Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; the tribe against the world, and all of us against the infidel. – Leon Uris, ‘The Haj’

It is important to understand that in some countries, with well under 100% Muslim populations, such as France, the minority Muslim populations live in ghettos, within which they are 100% Muslim, and within which they live by Sharia Law. The national police do not even enter these ghettos. There are no national courts, nor schools, nor non-Muslim religious facilities. In such situations, Muslims do not integrate into the community at large. The children attend madrasses. They learn only the Koran. To even associate with an infidel is a crime punishable with death. Therefore, in some areas of certain nations, Muslim Imams and extremists exercise more power than the national average would indicate.

Today’s 1.5 billion Muslims make up 22% of the world’s population. But their birth rates dwarf the birth rates of Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and all other believers. Muslims will exceed 50% of the world’s population by the end of this century.

Adapted from Dr. Peter Hammond’s book: Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat

Comments?

How insidious, proselytizing amongst the poor and disenfranchised! What sort of sick, twisted religion would do that?

But your entire post continues to treat Islam as 1) a monoculture, which it very much isn’t, and 2) some sort of protection racket. For example:

Would the pressure and threats be along the lines of “If you don’t stock what we want to buy, we’ll shop elsewhere”? Wow. And since when is pushing for cleaner food a bad thing?

And to suggest that the car-burnings in Paris are due to some Muslim critical mass? Are you insane? Violent protest is a way of life in France - the students riot on a semi-regular basis, and that’s not even touching the frequent strikes (usually by the farmers). And in India, the Muslims are also often the victims of violence by the Hindu majority. It’s an old problem.

Because Ethiopia doesn’t have any other issues. Riiiiiight.

Were that the case, surely either this or the next category would be superfluous.

And BTW, Iran still has a Christian minority (Armenian Orthodox, mostly). Iraq used to be secular before we stuck our noses in (Tariq Aziz, one of the most powerful men in the country, was Catholic). Turkey remains secular and a majority continue to oppose Islamist rule.

You could say the same thing about the Orthodox Jews or the Amish. And hell, those aren’t even a patch on Vatican City. Why are we not up in arms about them?

No, that whole list is silly at best and deeply offensive at worst. The data is cherry-picked, sweeping generalizations are made, dubious conclusions leapt to…it’s rubbish. There are many valid serious concerns to be had about Islamic radicalization and the threat it poses across the world, but from what you’ve posted this book doesn’t address them. It sounds far more like “ZOMG EVUL MUSLEMS COMING To GET YOU!!!111!1!” Hurry, folks - breed faster, or they’ll take over!

It would make for a great email to CheapBastid’s father-in-law.

Just to point out - its not my post, I got forwarded this by someone else, and paid it no attention at the time. (adapted from Peter Hammond’s book - whoever he is)
I don’t take the “Muslim threat” seriously - however I do think its important to make sure ANY immigrants (Muslims, Catholics, Atheists) actually integrate with the community they move into. I think a danger exists if they remain segregated, as it would with any group.

Fair enough.

Self perceptions of course.

Mate, those are intra-community “non-court” mediation bodies. They are not “sharia courts” in any proper sense of the term (any more than the equivalent Jewish and Christian mediation bodies are “courts”)

As for conspiracy nuts:

Shrug. So the idealised state claims. When I go for business in Muslim countries, queerly enough my business partners, Muslim all, all like to go out to Pub and knock some back after a deal.

Quite the “100% system” that.

Reads like a just so story.

In any case, the Thai population is quite old and are basically Ethnic Malays who ended up on the Thai side of the border during the colonial period border drawing exercises, back when the Brits ran Malaysia.

Got fuck all to do with anything in the above paragraph, other than a convenient percent. Rather suggests the writer knows fuck-all about what he’s claiming.

“Inordinate”?

What does that even bloody mean?

Mind you it is hard to see anything “inordinante” in the “influence” of Muslims in Switzerland of all bloody places.

And the whole scaremongering about Halal food rather stinks of the same kind of bigotted rubbish I used to see as a lad with the same kind of nasty bigot ranting on about the Conspiracy of the Evil Jews to Push Kosher Food on Us Christians… Oh no!!!

Utter bollocks and nasty bigotry to boot.

Of course the weirdo conspiracy mongering about Food Prep jobs for Muslims is double ignorance, insofar as Halal and Kosher are about Prep methods, nothing says that the preparation staff need to be one the religion.

Jaysus that’s fucking dumb fear-mongering.

“They tend” = “I the bigot assert”

The Paris riots were your typical slums riots. Lots of those kinds were Africans locked out of the job market by racial discrimination in France, hardly a Muslim thing, and there is no particular evidence the kids rioting were all Muslims, they were mostly Darkies though. Damn scaries those darky wogs.

The remainder is pretty much of the same quality.

He’s the founder of the Frontline Fellowship, which is a Christian missionary group in Africa. Here’s a biographyof him.

Just because the pamphlet about Muslim percentages in various countries is somewhat contrived to make a point, I guess we can conclude that ANY warning about Islam is unjustified.

Back to sleep. We will wake you when Sharia law is fully applicable in your country and it is time for you to pay the dhimmi tax or convert.

One of the things that most woke me up regarding Islam is the fact that non-Muslims who have lived in Muslim countries, (or Muslim apostates like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author of Infidel) are often the ones who ring the alarm bells regarding this ideology.

In the 1980s, I used to take an attitude similar to many posters in this thread. Don’t be bigoted, they are just people with another religion, we are all brothers, yadda, yadda.

A workmate of mine who had lived many years as a non-Muslim in Muslim societies used to constantly shake his head and say that we in the west were completely innocent and naive about what Islam represents.

It is fine for the big-hearted apologists who have no real experience with Islam in reality to tell the rest of us not to be prejudiced.

But I would like to read some first-hand accounts from Testy about his experience with the “Religion of Peace”.

How about it Testy?

Aw crud! you don’t want to hear my universally happy and pleasant stories about the “Muslim World”? Now why are you only interested in the bad? What’s the word for that? Oh wait, it isn’t a word, it’s two words: Confirmation Bias. This thread is a textbook for psych of prejudice.

Voltaron
Got tons of stories about the “religion of Peace” and how great it is to live under it. I lived in the Middle East from late 1982 till last August. I was in Saudi from 1987 onwards and before that I was in Bahrain. Visited most of the Gulf countries for business and also lived in Southern Thailand for a short while. I managed a small (200 man) IT company for much of that time.
I was a dhimmi, a non-believer, and thus subject to problems with both business and personal life. I lived in a regular house for many years of that. No Western compounds or diplomatic quarters. My neighbors were regular Saudis, educated in the Kingdom, spoke almost no English, firm believers in their religion, all of that.

The Saudis will tell you that they have the purest form of Islam and the closest adherence to Sharia. They are utterly convinced of that as are a lot of Moslems from other countries. I believe it as well.

In some ways, **Saudi is the most messed-up place I’ve ever been. ** Religion controls who you can speak to, who you must ignore, the dress of women, what you are allowed to eat and drink, what kind of pets you can have, where you are allowed to travel, who it is legal to have sex with, when you should pray and who you should pray to, what hours a store may be open, and a host of other personal issues. Kimstu pointed out how intrusive the Halachic rules are. The Sharia rules are just as controlling.

The interesting thing is that these are not suggestions. People can be locked-up, flogged, or even killed, depending on the severity of the offense and there is a horde of complete losers, funded and supported by the government, to enforce all of these restrictions. The mutawwa (religious police) drive around in official Chevy Suburbans shouting at people, roughing them up, and occasionally dragging them off to their own jails. They are a little leery of harassing Westerners but not at all bothered by clubbing the average Saudi and God help you if you’re Asian or Indian.
Think of a mob of Jack Chicks and Fred Phelpses suddenly being given the power of arrest. Bearded and bigoted, utterly convinced of their own righteousness, and amazingly ignorant of anything except religion. Able to arrest, beat, and imprison you. No oversight, no penalties, very little control at all. And when you are finally released, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. You have no recourse of any sort. That would describe the mutawwa.

The truly terrible thing is that the religious authorities control the education system. After all, who could argue with giving children a religious and moral grounding while they’re still young.
The schools teach hatred of the West, hatred of Jews, hatred of Hindus and Buddhists, hatred of almost anything that isn’t 100% Islamic. That Westerners are morally bankrupt and that Jews are grasping and deceitful is taught as being just as factual as the Pythagorean Theorem. Children are praised to the skies for excelling at Islamic Jurisprudence and Koranic Recitation while history, health, engineering and science are seen as trivia. Of course, the girl’s schools, such as they are, are even worse.

Thanks to the religious authorities controlling the education system as well as getting 5 opportunities each day to get their massage across, the average Saudi really believes. That is the biggest difference I saw between the Western and Islamic/Sharia cultures.

When we in the US read Fred Phelps calling for the bashing of gays, we shrug, make some comment about religious loons, and get on with our lives. When a Saudi gets it from his Immam, he thinks he’s sinning if he doesn’t get out their and bash him a gay. He really believes it and why wouldn’t he? He’s been told/taught this all his life by his teachers and religious leaders. (That’s actually a poor analogy as an openly gay guy would be arrested and quite possibly executed if he did not recant or whatever.)

Having said all of that, I like the Saudis. They are wonderful people to share hardships with, very hospitable, helpful. I have lived with them, argued, fought, done business and gone on vacation with them for over two decades. They are fine people but just have this huge blind spot where they actually believe what the Koran tells them. No “interpretation,” no evading the harsh bits, what you read is what you get. Their religion exacts a huge price from them, but you can never ever say that.

Testy

tomndeb
Well, we disagree about whether sharia is “the law of the land” in those countries or maybe just define that differently. Some of the countries you mention seem to have implemented sharia in part of the country or partially implemented sharia in all the country.
Pakistan: BBC NEWS | South Asia | Pakistan agrees Sharia law deal
Malaysia: BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Malaysian accepts Sharia caning
Indonesia: BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | First Sharia court for Aceh
Jordon: Google Answers: Islamic law in Jordan
As far as the “Indian States” you mention, we both know that their neighbors in India wouldn’t allow such a thing under any circumstances.
In addition to the above, many other countries face credible threats to implement sharia to some degree.

As I’m sure you will point out, many of the sharia laws that are implemented in various countries only apply to civil matters such as marriage, inheritance and the like. While I agree that this is better than allowing mobs to stone people to death for adultery or homosexuality, it still does not match Western ideas of equity. Things like men always having custody of children after the age of seven, the testimony of women counting for half that of a man, etc.

Indeed there are points “beyond which discussions are prohibited from becoming actions.” And when you exceed those points you get labeled an apostate and have some serious issues, like death. Nor does it have to actually be an “action.” I would suggest that freedom of speech and personal liberty are inversely proportional to the degree to which sharia has been implemented.

Now, if you were pointing that at me particularly, I think that last bit was uncalled for. I don’t hate Moslems at all. And if they wish to live under Sharia in Saudi or Iran, they are perfectly welcome to do so. The West does not force tham to view Baywatch and I don’t want to be forced to live under their 7th Century rules and regs.

Regards

Testy

So, you spent 23 years in the country where Wahabbism is strongest and from that you want to declare that you know how “Islam” really is across the entire world?

Sorry. Having read posts from Collounsbury, Paul in Qatar, and Aldebaran, (two other other American businessmen and an anti-American Muslim who have all lived in the Middle East), I am not quite prepared to take your personal observations as gospel when it conflicts with theirs.
I will also note that a lot of U.S. civil law regarding marriage is based very much on Christian teachings, although that has changed in the last 40 years, and getting upset about Sharia guiding the corresponding civil law in Muslim majority countries seems odd as it would appear to be the way one would expect all societies to develop. I suspect that laws in places with strong Hindu, Confucian, Buddhist, and animist traditions also tend to have civil laws based on their earlier religious traditions, (barring any Western interference with their development of law). I certainly see no cause for alarm, there.

All the intolerance you describe here is an excellent reason for opposing the spread of harsh fundamentalist-theocratic versions of Islam.

It is, however, a piss-poor reason for opposing or condemning Islam per se.

There is nothing surprising about the fact that many repressive fundamentalist-theocratic bigots believe that their interpretation of their religion is the “purest form” of it and the closest to the “true spirit” of the religion’s essential nature.

Consequently, I’m not at all surprised that the Islamist bigots you met believed this about their own interpretation of Islam; I’m only sorry that you were apparently gullible enough to take their word for it.