Regarding the hadith, it’s not just an issue of authenticity, it’s also a matter of interpretation. For some unknown reason, the prophet told some guys who were leaving to visit some tribe that they should grow a beard. So, some Muslims decide that everybody should grow a beard, just in case he meant that as a general advice in all circumstances for everybody. Or some companion of the prophet stated how bad singing and playing music was, for all sort of reasons. Even put his fingers into his ears not to hear it. Well, but wasn’t the prophet listening to some girl singing here? And weren’t some people playing some instrument in some circumstance there? Well, to stay on the safe side, let’s just ban all music and singing except for specific instruments in specific circumstances. But tons of Muslims have a hard time reading into that that you’re supposed to grow a beard and to never listen to music or sing. Or just simply don’t give it a thought.
And that said, the overwhelming majority of devout Muslims who will grow a beard and not listen to music just in case still won’t go to fight in Irak. Even if they’re also homophobic and antisemite.
Oh! I most certainly think that Islam radicalism did fill the void left by the collapse of leftist ideologies. If you’re angry at all those injustices (real or perceived), you’re going to welcome those promoting some ideal world where they won’t exist anymore. Be it the communist party in 1950 or the Muslim Brotherhood in 2000.
No. First because homophobia and antisemitism aren’t the main points of ISIS, by a long shot, even though they practise both. People don’t go to Irak to kill some gays. They go there to avenge the faithful persecuted by the crusaders, to install an universal caliphate that will convert the whole world, and so on… If your only issue is with gays or Jews, you can just go with some like-minded friend to beat the shit out of either in the next street.
And second because homophobia and antisemitism are widespread, and people who are either or both still overwhelmingly have no interest in getting killed in Irak.
(by opposition, racism was essentially the only point of the KKK)
I’m not saying that Islam is blameless. I’m an atheist, and not particularly fond of religions. I’m saying that your approach has no explicative value wrt the question asked by the OP.
If some American Christians were moving to Uganda to join the Lord’s Resistance Army, and you were asked “how did they come to make such a choice?”, answering essentially “because they’re Christians and Christians often have shitty values” wouldn’t answer the question at all since the overwhelming majority of American Christians, regardless how shitty their values were, wouldn’t go there, for tons of reasons. Including self-preservation.
It takes something to bring someone to give away his life for an almost universally despised cause. And this something is neither “I read the Koran” (apparently at the contrary) nor “I don’t like gays”.
Not generally no, but they do go to be part of a society that has been sold to them as an antidote to the West’s decadence. And an open acceptance of homosexuality is a part of this perceived decadence. Having grown up in a community that taught this narrative, and does not accept open homosexuals, will tend to cause one to be more susceptible to it’s use as a recruiting tool than if one grew up in a more open and inclusive environment where gays don’t feel the need to hide their sexuality.
I agree that these are the main factors, among those exclusive to Muslims in this scenario (with the main overall factors likely being youthful testosterone overload and general human shitiness). These draws, too, work off of some of the preconceptions that are commonly imparted in Muslim communities, of Muslims as perpetual victims of the West; and of a romanticism of the original Caliphate and it’s rightly-guided rulers.
But in Raqqa they watch gay people being executed as their matinee.
Not generally, no, but it certainly does not present an obstacle, like it would if someone knew and genuinely loved the gay friends they grew up with.
They are very homophobic as well, and certainly a preexisting hatred of gay people would predispose someone towards being recruited by them, even though most homophobes would never join the Klan.
I jumped into this thread in post #9. In that post I first responded to tomndebb stating that ISIS recruits had nothing in common with the average Muslim. This is clearly untrue, and the rest of my back and forth in this thread has been my response to objections of that refutation. The remainder of that post represents what I find to be the most compelling and interesting answer to the OP. I can’t really help that a mere mention of some of the similarities between ISIS recruits and European Muslims generally, after a claim that those similarities did not exists at all, brought on an avalanche of posters crowning themselves kings-of-tolerance by misplaced defense of bad ideas that are, by an accident of history, more prevalent among their current pet minority.
There’s none more fervent proselytes than the new convert. First because they just “saw the light” and simply have to tell everybody about it ; plus they feel the need to prove themselves to the new team. All the truer among teenagers/young adults, who rarely do things halfway or in nuanced fashion. Or think things through.
It is somewhat more mystifying that proving themselves would involve suicide in the process and they’d willingly go with that, but eh. “Dying for the cause” has always had a certain cachet I suppose. Mourir pour des idées,* l’idée est excellente*, or so I’m told
Because your post is irrelevant to the actual discussion.
Wrenching my post, referring to Muslims in Europe–as I noted with a direct link laying out the similarities of European Muslims to other Europeans–in order to drag in comments about Muslims in Africa and Asia does nothing to address the actual question of the OP.
How loudly does my typed post echo on out computer?
The references to Christian actions in Africa and governor Huckabee were introduced as responses to your claims that Daesh is, in some odd way, using homophobia as a recruiting tool. I have no need to address that odd claim, the poverty of which has already been demonstrated.
Of course, had you not deliberately distorted my references to European Muslims to try to drag in everyone in the world who might be Muslim, that side track discussion would not have occurred.
Your claims are bullshit. Your entire appeal was based on the presence of anti-semitism and homophobia among both groups, pretending that anti-semitism is not rife throughout European Christian and secular culture, as well.
You provided no evidence that the Daesh recruits were practicing Muslims, (as countered by the actual evidence presented by others), or that they were inflamed by calls from mosques, (which they are not). Based on the logic of your evidence, we can conclude that the recruits are lured by their common love for soccer.
Britain, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, and UK again. Western Europe.
You are the one doing the side tracking. You are the one who keeps bringing up Africa, and Asia, and anything but addressing my *actual *response to your false claim that ISIS recruits have nothing in common with the average Muslim other than a label.
What is god’s green Earth do you mean “pretending anti-semitism is not rife…”? I quoted the actual numbers for comparison in the post. You are twisting yourself into knots trying to do anything to avoid having this discussion. You should save this weak little technique of your’s, where you accuse your opponents of “ignoring” or “pretending that such and such doesn’t exist” to divert away from responding. It’s a very poor method of arguing, but it’s downright stupid when the info you are claiming is being neglected is right there in the post.
Why would I? I never claimed this one way or another.
That was not evidence so much as a claim. Here are some different claims…
The profile of the Jihadists in Spain is the same as for other countries, and the same that used to be the profile for ETA’s dogs; ETA had a constant internal tug-of-war between the “more political” members (stalinists who may or may not actually want independence) and the “less political” ones (who were more interested in solidifying their base as drug traffickers, extorsion for money, etc.). I expect similar profiles would be found for IRA or the Brigate Rosse.
Recent article about a study in Spain (link in Spanish). There’s an inordinate % of converts (that is, the total % is low, but the total % of Spaniards who are Muslim converts is even lower… the amount of converts who are “more Papist than the Pope” is high compared with that of the general Muslim population), but the immense majority of jihadists are poor kids from Ceuta and Melilla.
I’ve read articles (sorry, no cite) where immigrants to Spain expressed their worry on the subject of the radicalization of their children; those parents are actively working to try and keep their kids on the right track, but it isn’t always easy. There is such a thing as criminal dynasties, but most of the people who end up becoming murderers, drug traffickers or pimps are children of parents who did try.
Some of the muslim population descended from the immigration, although segregated is a word that implies separation more than reality.
The low levels of the job creation, the extreme rigidities of the formal job markets, the active discrimination that is well-known to exist (as Kobal and clairobscure can confirm) do have a heavy impact on particularly the descendants of the maghrebine and the african populations that came to the Europe - the France, the Belgium in particular - to work in industry, but came with low education and very poor backgrounds. The collapse of these types of opportunities have had a large negative impact.
I personally think that for the european case, the case is to liberalize the job markets and also for the government of the France to stop hiding behind a faux “blindness” to the race and the creed, and institute truly active anti-discrimination measures in employment.
No, this has no relationship to the subject. the challenges of the
Yes, the ones who take these things most literally and without real context are the new converts or the deracinés searching for meaning… it is for this reason as linked elsewhere the guides and the strategies of the DAESH recruiters is to focus on these groups.
Yes exactly, as when one looks at the discourse - removing the ad hoc quotations from the religion to justify - the discourse looks to me eerily similar to the extreme left radical discourses of the frustrated 68s or copy cats.
