# I don't believe ISIS is Islamic **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 19, 2015, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-believe-isis-is-islamic/737967 "2015-11-19T08:29:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![nani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/58956e/32.png) [@nani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nani)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2016, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-believe-isis-is-islamic/737967/122 "2016-04-29T04:48:13Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > Is that how they see things? Do you have a cite for that? :dubious: > > I never said they weren’t human beings. If they were dogs they could never be reasoned with, only trained. But, obstinate as ISIS members appear to be, well either > > 1. they are Muslims as you claim. Then obviously they exhibit capacity for reason, even if only religious reasoning. They quote the Koran and think about it, act on it- admit it, there is reasoning there. So maybe 1 in 100 is susceptible to persuasion via religious instruction. > > or 2) they are not Muslims as I claim. Therefore your objection re: Muhammad is at least not guaranteed to apply. Some ISIS recruits were never Muslim to begin with. Some sure seem like the criminal dregs of failed-state society to me, so the prospect of some complex or disciplined religious/philosophical motivation seems unlikely, though possible. Bringing them the Word of Habukkuk might be convincing in 1 in 99 cases. (Here I invite you to imagine we have been having this conversation during a stroll along a sandy beach, and we came upon a stretch of helpless sea stars that had washed ashore. I pause and squint into the sunset, then fling a starfish back far out into the ocean.) For those, it would make a difference. > > But let’s say you’re right, it is futile. For all my efforts, I persuade none of them. Say tens of billions of years from now, parsec-scale disaster has rendered most of our solar system a nebula of cosmic dust. Advanced beings take a risk to probe the dust for clues of historical curiosity. Examining the dust under close-to-Planck-length resonant magnification, they note a message in the dust granule: “ISIS is not Islamic”, the ideation mostly holographically reconstructed in all its depth, and sublimated directly into their minds in a bluetoothy sort of way. The aliens are all like, “Yah, I know.” Finally, at the end of their ancient lives, they cremate themselves by hyperwarping their bodies billions of light-years beyond the heat death horizon of the universe in some weird acknowledgement of the futility of it all, as is their custom. > > Isn’t that universe, or even the possibility of it, better than one in which the dust granule is blank? I typed out a longer response to your various points but the hamsters ate it. Anyway, even for your “knows absolutely nothing about Islam but wants to go fight and pillage” recruits, bringing up Habakkuk is just… bizarre. And in fact, there is [some really great work being done](http://icrd.org/pakistan/) by many different groups that actually grounds itself in Islamic knowledge: [QUOTE=International Center for Religion and Diplomacy] For the past eight years, ICRD has been engaging Pakistan’s madrasas (private Islamic religious schools) in teacher training and capacity-building programs that promote curricular and pedagogical enhancement, with a strong emphasis on religious tolerance, human rights, conflict resolution, and critical thinking skills. … ICRD’s educational enhancement effort is succeeding because (1) the madrasa leaders view it as their own, (2) all the suggested changes are grounded in Islamic principles, and (3) historical Islamic achievements in areas of education and religious tolerance provide an inspirational incentive to do better. Although initially subject to a high degree of suspicion, this effort to date engaged 2,700 madrasa leaders from more than 1,600 madrasas. [/QUOTE] Disclaimer: I used to work for this group. I appreciate that you are coming at this from a good place, but when you consider how “They’re not really Muslims” is something that is used far more often to oppress, I hope you can understand why I and other non-Muslims are pushing back on it. I also hope you can see why Muslims would be, not just weirded out by this, but perhaps even irritated to the point of it backfiring. I am struggling think of a parallel example to illustrate this. Maybe like a Buddhist trying to convince hardcore evangelical Protestants that true Christians pray for intercession from Saints by quoting the Pope. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2016, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-believe-isis-is-islamic/737967/123 "2016-04-29T07:21:39Z")
> [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#): > > Does anyone have the same conclusion that **Try2B Comprehensive** came to (ISIS not Islamic) but has a different reasoning that got them there? I have noted that in a different way it is common for us to say that the DAESH is unIslamic, which we mean it is behaving badly and on bad interpretation. The way I see it written that some Christian group is acting “unchristian” for some bad acts, but you don’t mean they are literally not Christians any more… But to declare actual Takfir, this is Haram and a terrible sin that is already one of the worst and most terrible practices that the Takfiri wing of the Salafistes has normalized in their fringes. This and the use of suicide attacks, which in my own memory was considered something unthinkable and terrible with no excuse. > [@nani](#): > > I …Anyway, even for your “knows absolutely nothing about Islam but wants to go fight and pillage” recruits, bringing up Habakkuk is just… bizarre. yes. > [@](#): > > And in fact, there is [some really great work being done](http://icrd.org/pakistan/) by many different groups that actually grounds itself in Islamic knowledge: It is actual grounding in the proper islamic discourse and the history that can be successful. > [@](#): > > “They’re not really Muslims” is something that is used far more often to oppress, I hope you can understand why I and other non-Muslims are pushing back on it. It is also very offensive to the kind of the muslim he would desire to have on his side. Takfir is a terrible sin, adopting the same error is the worst method to fight the takfiri salafistes. > [@](#): > > I also hope you can see why Muslims would be, not just weirded out by this, but perhaps even irritated to the point of it backfiring. Yes, even for a non practicing like me this has gone from being only strange and somewhat stupid to nearly offensive. A > [@](#): > > I am struggling think of a parallel example to illustrate this. Maybe like a Buddhist trying to convince hardcore evangelical Protestants that true Christians pray for intercession from Saints by quoting the Pope. Perhaps yes. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2016, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-believe-isis-is-islamic/737967/124 "2016-04-29T13:23:21Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > \*\*You are not a Muslim and you have no say in this. \*\* [You don’t know what I am.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB1UD2GpBcc) ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2016, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-believe-isis-is-islamic/737967/125 "2016-04-29T14:29:13Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > [You don’t know what I am.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB1UD2GpBcc) Aaron you a Muslim, then? ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2016, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-believe-isis-is-islamic/737967/126 "2016-04-30T18:44:33Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Aaron you a Muslim, then? No, I’m not. But I think it is crazy that I have to be to note the obvious. They made it my business when they tortured and killed my countrymen and effectively declared war on the US. I have better things to think about that a bunch of barbaric assholes on the other side of the world, but their evil actions have brought them into everyone’s consciousness. Systematic rape. Stealing cities and land like a bunch of friggin’ pirates. Pillaging whole nations. Murder, murder, and more murder. Torture. Crucifixion. Suicide bombings. Genocide. Destruction of artifacts. And then they claim that this is the truest form of Islam, that they are the ultimate authority on it, and therefore their crimes are justified because they are done in the name of God. Why on earth would anyone expect me to believe them? _Of course_ they are full of shit. If this is a caliphate, I’m Napoleon. Sadly, thousands of idiots have proven to be credulous enough to join this criminal enterprise, suckered by false religious claims. I don’t owe them any respect for their declared religious identity. The whole enterprise is a scam, not a religious movement. They aren’t Muslims, sorry, they are a godless, barbarous terrorist army. Later, if someone unfamiliar with the matter takes a look around the region and asks why it is so wrecked, the answer will be that a group of charlatans hijacked Islam and crashed it into the region. Thousands of suckers were fooled into abandoning their religion to take part in this evil project. Pretending they did it as an expression of religious faith doesn’t help anybody, but only conditions people to continue to humor bullshit in the future. Excessive credulity is the main reason ISIS can attract recruits in the first place. Better to expose the whole thing as a gigantic fraud. You can say it is bizarre that I’d bring up Habukkuk, but there is a good reason to press that point. I am just some guy on the internet- who really cares what I have to say? I am not in a position to set policy. But, it just so happens that a prophet of the same god ISIS pretends to follow defined a line past which a group becomes godless. I see the arguments that Muslims view those old texts as corrupted, but the kinds of inaccuracies that kind of criticism points out has to do with the movements of Abraham or objections to scenes of religious figures selling their wives into prostitution. I don’t see how the texts are corrupted in a way that we can’t see the meaning of the passages I’m referring to, and nobody has made any convincing argument concerning what exactly is wrong with the text in question. So the point is that when I say, “ISIS is not Islamic,” that isn’t true just because I say so, obvious as it seems. I can’t really object to criticism along the lines of, “Just who are you to say so, Try2B?”- it _is_ easy to disregard my personal opinion. It is a true statement because an authority within that tradition says so. In effect, God Himself says ISIS is not Islamic. Find it irritating that I keep asserting that ISIS is not Islamic? I’m not your problem, go argue with God. tl/dnr- Don’t look at me. God Himself says ISIS is not Islamic. ---
**Author:** ![nani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/58956e/32.png) [@nani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nani)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2016, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-believe-isis-is-islamic/737967/127 "2016-05-01T05:54:47Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > No, I’m not. But I think it is crazy that I have to be to note the obvious. They made it my business when they tortured and killed my countrymen and effectively declared war on the US. I have better things to think about that a bunch of barbaric assholes on the other side of the world, but their evil actions have brought them into everyone’s consciousness. > > Systematic rape. Stealing cities and land like a bunch of friggin’ pirates. Pillaging whole nations. Murder, murder, and more murder. Torture. Crucifixion. Suicide bombings. Genocide. Destruction of artifacts. And then they claim that this is the truest form of Islam, that they are the ultimate authority on it, and therefore their crimes are justified because they are done in the name of God. Why on earth would anyone expect me to believe them? _Of course_ they are full of shit. If this is a caliphate, I’m Napoleon. Without going into what you think earlier Caliphates were like, the clear majority of Muslims agree with you that ISIS is full of shit. Being full of shit, however, does not make one ‘not a Muslim’ in mainstream Islamic thinking. Nor does doing sinful things. I’m not sure why you are willing to accept the mainstream Islamic narrative that Habbakuk was a prophet, but you refuse to accept standard Islamic doctrine that what he is recorded as saying in the Hebrew scriptures has no authority that any Muslim is bound to obey. Look, there are Muslims who for reason x or y would call ISIS or al-Qaeda or Baathists or Ahmadis or Druze or Shias or Wahhabis non-Muslims. But your reason isn’t even in the alphabet. > [@](#): > > Sadly, thousands of idiots have proven to be credulous enough to join this criminal enterprise, suckered by false religious claims. I don’t owe them any respect for their declared religious identity. The whole enterprise is a scam, not a religious movement. They aren’t Muslims, sorry, they are a godless, barbarous terrorist army. > > Later, if someone unfamiliar with the matter takes a look around the region and asks why it is so wrecked, the answer will be that a group of charlatans hijacked Islam and crashed it into the region. Thousands of suckers were fooled into abandoning their religion to take part in this evil project. Pretending they did it as an expression of religious faith doesn’t help anybody, but only conditions people to continue to humor bullshit in the future. Excessive credulity is the main reason ISIS can attract recruits in the first place. Better to expose the whole thing as a gigantic fraud. ISIS didn’t emerge from a vacuum like some kind of hyper-violent Scientology. It’s very much descended from a tradition of radical Islamic modernist extremism that dates back generations. I think one of the reasons we are talking past each other here is that you seem to think sincere religious faith couldn’t encourage something you thought to be evil. > [@](#): > > You can say it is bizarre that I’d bring up Habukkuk, but there is a good reason to press that point. I am just some guy on the internet- who really cares what I have to say? I am not in a position to set policy. But, it just so happens that a prophet of the same god ISIS pretends to follow defined a line past which a group becomes godless. I see the arguments that Muslims view those old texts as corrupted, but the kinds of inaccuracies that kind of criticism points out has to do with the movements of Abraham or objections to scenes of religious figures selling their wives into prostitution. I don’t see how the texts are corrupted in a way that we can’t see the meaning of the passages I’m referring to, and nobody has made any convincing argument concerning what exactly is wrong with the text in question. > > So the point is that when I say, “ISIS is not Islamic,” that isn’t true just because I say so, obvious as it seems. I can’t really object to criticism along the lines of, “Just who are you to say so, Try2B?”- it _is_ easy to disregard my personal opinion. It is a true statement because an authority within that tradition says so. In effect, God Himself says ISIS is not Islamic. Find it irritating that I keep asserting that ISIS is not Islamic? I’m not your problem, go argue with God. > tl/dnr- Don’t look at me. God Himself says ISIS is not Islamic. Again, the only reason you think Muslims might care what Habakkuk said is because you know of an Islamic claim about the existence of previous prophets. So why ignore Islamic claims about how Muslims are supposed to approach those prophets, and the Jewish and Christian scriptures? Here’s how this conversation would go: You: Habbakuk said taking and raping slaves is wrong. ISIS Nutjob: It is not rape, God in the Qur’an gives his soldiers permission to take slaves and to have sex with slaves. You: God would never say that, according to Habbakuk. ISIS Nutjob: The Jews lie about what the Prophets say. You are the one slandering Habbakuk! (Goes Into Long Rant About Israel, Crusaders, Mongols, America…) Throw in some pbuhs where necessary. The irritating thing for Muslims, even those who hate ISIS, would be that, for the thousandth time, an outsider is attempting to tell them what their religion says when he is showing no sign of knowing anything about their religion. I am pretty sure that **Ramira** and other SDMB Muslims don’t always agree with me on claims I make or how I phrase things when I write about Islam, but I’d like to think that they cut me some slack because I demonstrate that I have some knowledge and I am open to being corrected. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2016, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-believe-isis-is-islamic/737967/128 "2016-05-01T06:37:06Z")
> [@nani](#): > > The irritating thing for Muslims, even those who hate ISIS, would be that, for the thousandth time, an outsider is attempting to tell them what their religion says when he is showing no sign of knowing anything about their religion. To be fair, T2BC has a very long record of not knowing a blame thing about what he’s going on about. > [@](#): > > I am pretty sure that **Ramira** and other SDMB Muslims don’t always agree with me on claims I make or how I phrase things when I write about Islam, but I’d like to think that they cut me some slack because I demonstrate that I have some knowledge and I am open to being corrected. That’s the difference between you and T2BC: You are aware that your knowledge of a particular subject has gaps and you are amenable to having those gaps filled in. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-believe-isis-is-islamic/737967.md?page=6)