# If radical Islam is violent due to culture and not religion **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 11, 2015, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741 "2015-09-11T23:24:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 70
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1382 "2015-10-28T18:01:48Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Of course, the accusations of genocide and misogyny are completely false; the accusations of slavery and rape are based on out of context extrapolations. So your attempt to demonstrate your superior moral character is mostly a creation of your own, based on misreading texts with no understanding of history and shaped by reading explicitly Islamophobic sources. We can also read where you both posted that Islam is evil and claimed that you did not say that Islam is evil, all in the context of your earlier admission that you are simply attempting to rationalize your hatred and fear following the WTC/Pentagon attacks. > > Any further attempts to portray yourself as virtuous while implying that other posters are not will not go well for you. > > [/Moderating] This is bullshit. Half your posts are just as bad Tom. Yep. Like discussing the Holocaust on Stormfront. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1383 "2015-10-28T18:41:58Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > [Again:](http://www.thinkatheist.com/profiles/blogs/don-t-blame-the-taliban) > Apologists are quick to claim that the unsavory parts of Islamic doctrine are “taken out of context” without ever acknowledging the elephant in the room, which is the overall context: Islam is believed by a great many of it’s adherents to be a perfect, timeless, unalterable set of instructions from God. As long as this is the case all of it’s violent portions will continue to contribute to real world violence. The passage in question is actually plain as day and doesn’t require study of 1500 years of history or whatever, but in any case, the above is a fine argument against religion (or at least revealed religion), and any epistemology based on revelations and visions instead science and reason. It’s not specific to Islam, but it’s a point that I’d gladly co-sign: revelation is a terrible way to know what’s real and what isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1384 "2015-10-28T18:46:51Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > Here is one random sampling from a list of 532 passages: > Some folks will be thrown into a scorching fire. 84:11-12 > > Disbelievers will be given a painful doom. 84:22-24 > > “(Self-)destroyed were the owners of the ditch Of the fuel-fed fire.” 85:4-5 > > Those who persecute Muslims, without repenting, will burn in hell. 85:10 > > Those who are flung into the great Fire will neither live nor die. 87:12-13 > > On that day many will be sad and weary. Scorched by the fire, drinking boiling water, with only bitter thorn-fruit to eat. 88:2-7 > > Please stop talking about “context”. 532 passages set up only one context: a violent one. Your quasi-pacifism may compel you to apply such a crude acid test (ie, things that refer to violence = bad, things that don’t = good), but to non-pacifists it’s nonsense, and actively immoral. “Violent” isn’t a synonym for evil (an absurd concept that has no place in an argument allegedly based in reality), no matter how strenuously you insist that it is. ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1385 "2015-10-28T18:59:29Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > Yes, you already linked to it and I’ve already read it. That’s how I knew he talked about Malala. > > Of course he does, and quite explicitly too: > > “You sit there, criticize and mock the Taliban **that follow your religion in its true form** while you live in oblivion with your extremely palatable, but simultaneously blatantly fallacious, brand of religion and then claim that the Taliban are misinterpreting and misapprehending your ideology?” It is apparent from this response that not only are you failing to confront his argument, you are not even processing it, nor are you understanding the context that it is written in. (I am sorry if this sounds condescending, I am just being blunt and avoiding the soft bigotry of low expectations that dominates this discussion.) Again for reference: [QUOTE=Kunwar Khuldune] The ‘Islamic Curriculum on Peace and Counter Terrorism’ can basically be summarised as the now ubiquitous apologia that ISIS ‘has nothing to do with Islam’, which is the laziest counter-terrorism argument that one can come up with. To call it a reformist effort would be to reduce the long impending Islamic reformation to a couple of hours’ worth of Google search, during which one can find countless articles using ‘context’ and ‘misinterpretation’ to excommunicate Islamist terrorists. Ironically this replicates radical Islamists’ favourite vocation: apostatising anyone with a different take on Islamic scriptures. The reforms that we Muslims need is to accept that ISIS’ Islam is just as authentic a version of Islam as any other. For literalism is another of the ‘multiple interpretations’ of Islam that we like to expound. Islamic reformation, thence, would mean revisiting our approach to the infallibility of Islamic scriptures, without conjuring apologia for ‘true Islam’, and accepting the idea that a Muslim can unapologetically condemn Islamic doctrines. Anyone who peddles the concept of ‘true Islam’ – just like any other religion – no matter how peaceful and tolerant their version of Islam might be, inadvertently gives credence to the likes of ISIS. For if there is a ‘true’ version, what’s stopping the radicals from believing that theirs is the one? The monopoly of truth of any version of Islam needs to be replaced with the spread of plurality in Islam and the Muslim world, and accepting humanist, sceptic and revisionist Muslim identities, with varying stance on scriptural adherence. Instead of excommunicating the radicals, and scrutinising the legitimacy of their actions through religious scriptures, true reform would mean giving humanistic ideals preference over any and every interpretation of Islam. This in turn would ensure that the only acceptable version of Islam would be the one that is pluralistic and tolerant anyway. If one believes that ‘true Islam’ actually is peaceful, tolerant and endorses pluralism, then there’s no better way to propagate it than challenging the very idea itself. Just like with other religious communities, reform among Muslims will be brought about only by scrutinising religious scriptures, not by shielding them from criticism. [/QUOTE] First of all, his audience is English speaking Pakistani Muslims. What he is criticizing is the refusal to let go of doctrinal infallibility. So when he says “your religion” to them, he is not speaking of the religion of all Muslims, but to those Muslims who refuse to scrutinize religious text. This is obvious because he is Muslim himself, just not one who refuses to be critical of scripture. If he was talking about all Muslims he would say “our religion”. His argument is that, if one’s claim is that Islam is the one true religion who’s source texts are not to be challenged or criticized, then some of the many possible interpretations look like the Taliban or Isis (or Saudi Arabia). The more literal interpretation is one of many legitimate ones, and these interpretations are more true to the texts than some Lahorian intelligentsia drinking alcohol in a mixed gender setting while ranting about the Taliban being ignorant of religion. > [@](#): > > He asserts that refusal to acknowledge his claims disguised as “criticisms” as utter fact will wreck the religion. In other words, his interpretation of Islam is the correct one, This is the actual direct opposite of his position. > [@](#): > > according to him, and any other interpretation (like, say, believing that the Taliban are unschooled idiots who are full of shit) will bring the entire religion crashing down like a house of cards. Again, you are completely failing to digest his assertions. > [@](#): > > It doesn’t excuse his support of Pakistan’s blasphemy law, no. But it does kind of put lie to the claim in the linked article that Qadri is merely pretending to be a moderate in his other positions (and therefore doesn’t really mean the things he says about terrorism). Not all Islamists wish to further their agendas extra-judiciously, no, but that doesn’t help your argument one bit. > [@](#): > > _sigh_ Indeed. > [@](#): > > How does that make any difference? _Naskh_ neither served to promote the spread of Islam geographically nor served to increase its durability over time. How can you say this when it became so integral to Islam as a way to sort through the contradictions in the Koran? How can we know how Islam would have spread differently across time or terrain had a different method been developed? > [@](#): > > He says “why would they introduce the ‘Al-Nasikh-Wal-Mansukh’ doctrine of abrogation and then ensure that the commands preaching violence chronologically followed the commands of peace”. > > He doesn’t say “some of the commands”. He says “_the_ commands”. He’s making a blanket, overall assertion, devoid of any nuance. Right, generalizations are only allowed in defense of Islam, I get it. His assertion is generally true, the fact that their are some exceptions does nothing to detract from his point. > [@](#): > > I’m quoting _his exact words._ That’s kind of the _opposite_ of a strawman. And the words that you quoted do not say what you claimed. > [@](#): > > It does, because “ **the** commands preaching violence” not only do _not_ chronologically follow “ **the** commands of peace”, they former don’t all abrogate the latter (or even _most_ of the latter - and in some _tafsir_, they don’t abrogate _any_). Such a blatantly false assertion is straight out of the Geller/Spencer/Pipes playbook, and is practically cut-and-pasted from the Islam-hating [wikiislam.net](http://wikiislam.net) entry on the topic! The assertion might be similar to something written by those people, but that is not the important similarity. The important fact is that hundreds of millions of Muslims worldwide and throughout history understand Islam in this manner. What Reza Aslan or Pamela Geller have to say about the matter doesn’t really mean anything. They don’t have any more sway in Cairo or Riyadh or Islamabad than you or I do. > [@](#): > > And I see that despite your accusation that I’m not addressing his arguments, you’ve so far completely ignored my pointing out his errors regarding the fingertips thing and the friendship thing. He made no error, he said that the language is provocative and that it’s violent and hateful nature are certain to have bad effects on the world in the context of widespread belief in the infallibility of Islamic scripture. > [@](#): > > Okay, then. Where in his article does he mention those _tafsir_? Which ones? Why would he mention them? You don’t need tafsir to know that language about cutting off people’s fingertips is provocative, violent language. ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1386 "2015-10-28T19:07:46Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > But what accounts for the amazing power of the Koran to impel people to violence after centuries, when other sacred texts hardly seem to compel any sort of behavior at all? Is there some magic to it? Some hidden power in Arabic writing? Could it be…_Satan_? “The fact that groups like Tehreek-e-Taliban-Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi exist is because Islam is still traversing its Dark Ages while other religions have gone through Reformation, resulting in a collective Renaissance”-[Khuldune](http://www.thinkatheist.com/profiles/blogs/don-t-blame-the-taliban) ---
**Author:** ![tooldtocare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e19adc/32.png) [@tooldtocare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tooldtocare)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1387 "2015-10-28T19:26:02Z")
If you are finding the small text hard to see and/or read Just hold down your [CTRL] key while rolling your mouse roller up or down ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1388 "2015-10-28T19:29:54Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > This is bullshit. Half your posts are just as bad Tom. I have made no claim of moral superiority. At most, I have noted the intellectual poverty of those attacking Islam with invented facts and distorted claims. ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1389 "2015-10-28T19:34:16Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > It is apparent from this response that not only are you failing to confront his argument, you are not even processing it, nor are you understanding the context that it is written in. I’m finding your complaints that I’m taking “out of context” the writings of someone who openly derides the “taken out of context” argument when made by other people to be quite deliciously ironic. It also leaves you in the position of trying to claim that when Khaldane writes, quite clearly, “the Taliban…follow your religion in its true form”, it’s totally wrong of me to state that Khaldane believes that the Taliban are following the True Islam, because when he writes “the Taliban…follow your religion in its true form” he doesn’t actually _mean_ that the Taliban follow Islam in its true form. > [@](#): > > Again for reference: > [@](#): > > First of all, his audience is English speaking Pakistani Muslims. Which is a small enough audience that I doubt that they’re the ones he’s actually writing for. I think he’s instead writing for Western Islamophobes, especially given the way he repeatedly echoes their own claims and assertions. > [@](#): > > The more literal interpretation is one of many legitimate ones, and these interpretations are more true to the texts than some Lahorian intelligentsia drinking alcohol in a mixed gender setting while ranting about the Taliban being ignorant of religion. In other words, he believes that the Taliban follow Islam in its true form, and the modernist reformer types are getting their religion all wrong. Which, incidentally, shows how his ostensible desire for a “reformed” Islam is nothing but a hollow lie. > [@](#): > > How can you say this when it became so integral to Islam as a way to sort through the contradictions in the Koran? How can we know how Islam would have spread differently across time or terrain had a different method been developed? Well, for one thing, there’s so much disagreement and argument about which verses, if any, have been abrogated that (far from being “integral” to Islam as a way to interpret the Qur’an) naskh has actually had very little impact on _fiqh_. > [@](#): > > Right, generalizations are only allowed in defense of Islam, I get it. Thank you for conceding that he’s making a blanket generalization. > [@](#): > > His assertion is generally true, the fact that their are some exceptions does nothing to detract from his point. Actually, it does, because the point he’s trying to support with his generalization (that _naskh_ is about the violent verses superseding the peaceful ones and was deliberately set up so Muslims could ignore the peaceful verses while keeping the violent ones) is torpedoed if that generalization isn’t, in fact, true. And it just so happens that it’s _not_ true, thus making his argument a false one, built on a falsehood. > [@](#): > > And the words that you quoted do not say what you claimed. If Khaldane writes “the Taliban…follow your religion in its true form” but doesn’t actually _mean_ that “the Taliban…follow your religion in its true form”, then he’s a pretty shitty writer. > [@](#): > > The assertion might be similar to something written by those people, but that is not the important similarity. The important fact is that hundreds of millions of Muslims worldwide and throughout history understand Islam in this manner. [citation needed] > [@](#): > > He made no error, he said that the language is provocative and that it’s violent and hateful nature are certain to have bad effects on the world in the context of widespread belief in the infallibility of Islamic scripture. If he has to _make things up_ about the language he says is so provocative (like how “believers” are commanded to cut the fingertips off unbelievers or that Muslims can’t have Christians and Jews as friends, _neither_ of which are true), then his credibility regarding his claims about its supposed provocativeness is rendered somewhat suspect. > [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > “The fact that groups like Tehreek-e-Taliban-Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi exist is because Islam is still traversing its Dark Ages while other religions have gone through Reformation, resulting in a collective Renaissance”-[Khuldune](http://www.thinkatheist.com/profiles/blogs/don-t-blame-the-taliban) “And the fact that groups like the Lord’s Resistance Army and The National Liberation Front of Tripura exist is because Christianity is still traversing its Dark Ages while other religions have gone through Reformation…wait a minute.” ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1390 "2015-10-28T20:03:41Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > “The fact that groups like Tehreek-e-Taliban-Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi exist is because Islam is still traversing its Dark Ages while other religions have gone through Reformation, resulting in a collective Renaissance”-[Khuldune](http://www.thinkatheist.com/profiles/blogs/don-t-blame-the-taliban) I am willing to agree that Islam is ready for an Enlightenment-like phenomenon. However, this claim about the Dark Ages is just dumb. It was not the Dark Ages when Virginia Protestants attacked Maryland Catholics. It was not the Dark Ages when Protestants attacked and burned Catholic churches and neighborhoods and murdered Catholics shortly before the U.S. Civil War just because the Catholics wanted to use a different version of the same bible. It was not the Dark Ages when Ian Paisley created a version of Presbyterianism to foment hatred to re-ignite and then perpetuate the Troubles of Northern Ireland. It was not the Dark Ages when Filipino Catholics enacted discriminatory laws against Muslims. It was not the Dark Ages when 19th century Italian Catholics passed laws that allowed Catholics to adopt Jewish children to convert them or when 20th century American Protestants passed similar laws to remove Indian children for the same purposes. It was hardly the Dark Ages when the Ku Klux Klan grew to several million members promoting a Protestant belief system that targeted Catholics and Jews as enemies. It was not the Dark Ages when Sri Lankan Buddhists attacked Muslims for being the “cause” of the New Years Day Tsunami. It is not the Dark Ages, today, when Buddhists are actively persecuting Muslims in Myanmar. Your insistence on blaming everything that you believe against Islam, (factual or invented), on religion, alone, while deliberately ignoring similar actions by people of other religions and ignoring the political realities behind many of the conflicts in which Muslims are involved makes no sense. ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1391 "2015-10-28T20:28:37Z")
[Why Islam doesn’t need a reformation](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/17/islam-reformation-extremism-muslim-martin-luther-europe) > [@](#): > > In recent months, cliched calls for reform of Islam, a 1,400-year-old faith, have intensified. “We need a Muslim reformation,” announced Newsweek. “Islam needs reformation from within,” said the Huffington Post. Following January’s massacre in Paris, the Financial Times nodded to those in the west who believe the secular Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, “could emerge as the Martin Luther of the Muslim world”. (That might be difficult, given Sisi, in the words of Human Rights Watch, approved “premeditated lethal attacks” on largely unarmed protesters which could amount to “crimes against humanity”.) > > […] > > Yet the reality is that talk of a Christian-style reformation for Islam is so much cant. Let’s consider this idea of a “Muslim Luther”. Luther did not merely nail 95 theses to the door of the Castle church in Wittenberg in 1517, denouncing clerical abuses within the Catholic church. He also demanded that German peasants revolting against their feudal overlords be “struck dead”, comparing them to “mad dogs”, and authored On the Jews and Their Lies in 1543, in which he referred to Jews as “the devil’s people” and called for the destruction of Jewish homes and synagogues. As the US sociologist and Holocaust scholar Ronald Berger has observed, Luther helped establish antisemitism as “a key element of German culture and national identity”. Hardly a poster boy for reform and modernity for Muslims in 2015. > > The Protestant Reformation also opened the door to blood-letting on an unprecedented, continent-wide scale. Have we forgotten the French wars of religion? Or the English civil war? Tens of millions of innocents died in Europe; up to 40% of Germany’s population is believed to have been killed in the thirty years’ war. Is this what we want a Muslim-majority world already plagued by sectarian conflicts, foreign occupations and the bitter legacy of colonialism to now endure, all in the name of reform, progress and even liberalism? > > Islam isn’t Christianity. The two faiths aren’t analogous, and it is deeply ignorant, not to mention patronising, to pretend otherwise – or to try and impose a neatly linear, Eurocentric view of history on diverse Muslim-majority countries in Asia or Africa. Each religion has its own traditions and texts; each religion’s followers have been affected by geopolitics and socio-economic processes in a myriad of ways. The theologies of Islam and Christianity, in particular, are worlds apart: the former, for instance, has never had a Catholic-style clerical class answering to a divinely appointed pope. So against whom will the “Islamic reformation” be targeted? To whose door will the 95 fatwas be nailed? > > The truth is that Islam has already had its own reformation of sorts, in the sense of a stripping of cultural accretions and a process of supposed “purification”. And it didn’t produce a tolerant, pluralistic, multifaith utopia, a Scandinavia-on-the-Euphrates. Instead, it produced … the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. > > Wasn’t reform exactly what was offered to the masses of the Hijaz by Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab, the mid-18th century itinerant preacher who allied with the House of Saud? He offered an austere Islam cleansed of what he believed to be innovations, which eschewed centuries of mainstream scholarship and commentary, and rejected the authority of the traditional ulema, or religious authorities. > > Some might argue that if anyone deserves the title of a Muslim Luther, it is Ibn Abdul Wahhab who, in the eyes of his critics, combined Luther’s puritanism with the German monk’s antipathy towards the Jews. Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s controversial stance on Muslim theology, writes his biographer Michael Crawford, “made him condemn much of the Islam of his own time” and led to him being dismissed as a heretic by his own family. > > Don’t get me wrong. Reforms are of course needed across the crisis-ridden Muslim-majority world: political, socio-economic and, yes, religious too. Muslims need to rediscover their own heritage of pluralism, tolerance and mutual respect – embodied in, say, the Prophet’s letter to the monks of St Catherine’s monastery, or the “convivencia” (or co-existence) of medieval Muslim Spain. > > What they don’t need are lazy calls for an Islamic reformation from non-Muslims and ex-Muslims, the repetition of which merely illustrates how shallow and simplistic, how ahistorical and even anti-historical, some of the west’s leading commentators are on this issue. It is much easier for them, it seems, to reduce the complex debate over violent extremism to a series of cliches, slogans and soundbites, rather than examining root causes or historical trends; easier still to champion the most extreme and bigoted critics of Islam while ignoring the voices of mainstream Muslim scholars, academics and activists. ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1392 "2015-10-28T20:42:59Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > I’m finding your complaints that I’m taking “out of context” the writings of someone who openly derides the “taken out of context” argument when made by other people to be quite deliciously ironic. And of course the irony of your refusal to use context to any ends other than the defense of Islamic doctrine is lost on you… > [@](#): > > It also leaves you in the position of trying to claim that when Khaldane writes, quite clearly, “the Taliban…follow your religion in its true form”, it’s totally wrong of me to state that Khaldane believes that the Taliban are following the True Islam, because when he writes “the Taliban…follow your religion in its true form” he doesn’t actually _mean_ that the Taliban follow Islam in its true form. Khuldune does not believe that Islam has a true form, do you get that? Here he is referring to the subset of Muslims unwilling to criticize Islamic scripture and _their_ religion. Your claim was: > [@](#): > > he puts himself firmly on the side of the Taliban and against the very people he claims to be supporting, by asserting that the Taliban are the only “proper” Muslims He never asserted that the Taliban are the only proper Muslims. This claim is absurd considering he is Muslim himself and actively campaigns against the Taliban in a country where this drastically reduces his life expectancy. > [@](#): > > Which is a small enough audience that I doubt that they’re the ones he’s actually writing for. I think he’s instead writing for Western Islamophobes, especially given the way he repeatedly echoes their own claims and assertions. If you read more of his work you will discover that this is not true, since it is loaded with references that are completely lost on anyone not familiar with Pakistani culture and politics. > [@](#): > > In other words, he believes that the Taliban follow Islam in its true form, and the modernist reformer types are getting their religion all wrong. He _is_ a modernist reformer type. What he claims the Taliban are following in it’s true form is the Islam of those who refuse to put humanistic values over Islamic doctrine, and refuse to accept any criticism of Islamic scripture. He calls out those who are only able to be critical of groups like the Taliban via claims that they are un-Islamic, instead of elevating humanistic values ABOVE religious texts, and realizing that it is horrid to shoot children in the face for going to school **regardless of what Islamic scripture has to say about the matter.** > [@](#): > > Which, incidentally, shows how his ostensible desire for a “reformed” Islam is nothing but a hollow lie. He wants to reform Islam by reducing it’s influence on public life and elevating human life above scripture. Or, as he says, he hopes for a time when Muslims will be more offended by dead bodies than by naked ones. > [@](#): > > Well, for one thing, there’s so much disagreement and argument about which verses, if any, have been abrogated that (far from being “integral” to Islam as a way to interpret the Qur’an) naskh has actually had very little impact on _fiqh_. Then how is it that alcohol is prohibited when Koran 4:43 states: “O you who have believed, do not approach prayer while you are intoxicated until you know what you are saying or in a state of janabah, except those passing through [a place of prayer], until you have washed [your whole body].” Clearly implying an allowance for drunkenness, as long as one sobers up by prayer time? > [@](#): > > Thank you for conceding that he’s making a blanket generalization. All discussions using language will contain some level of generalization. Your assertions are certainly no exception. > [@](#): > > Actually, it does, because the point he’s trying to support with his generalization (that _naskh_ is about the violent verses superseding the peaceful ones and was deliberately set up so Muslims could ignore the peaceful verses while keeping the violent ones) is torpedoed if that generalization isn’t, in fact, true. Not as long as it is largely true, and not if that is how it has been understood throughout the centuries. > [@](#): > > And it just so happens that it’s _not_ true, thus making his argument a false one, built on a falsehood. Good to see that you are more of an authority on Islam than A[bu Bakr Siddiq, Umar Bin Khattab, Ali Bin Abi Talib, Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari, Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, Ibn Jawzi, Ibn Kathir, Ibn Qayyim…](http://gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com/2012/11/kunwar-khuldune-shahid-dont-blame.html) > [@](#): > > If Khaldane writes “the Taliban…follow your religion in its true form” but doesn’t actually _mean_ that “the Taliban…follow your religion in its true form”, then he’s a pretty shitty writer. He means that the Taliban follow the religion of the people he is speaking to in it’s true form. You are not understanding that he differentiates between the Muslims and uncritically observed Islam. The failure is yours. > [@](#): > > If he has to _make things up_ about the language he says is so provocative (like how “believers” are commanded to cut the fingertips off unbelievers or that Muslims can’t have Christians and Jews as friends, _neither_ of which are true) So what you are saying here, essentially, is that your interpretation is the correct one and any understanding that differs is incorrect. I am not sure of you are aware of how widespread the belief about not having Jews as Muslims as friends is, but you are apostating quite a large percentage of the world’s Muslims here… > [@](#): > > , then his credibility regarding his claims about its supposed provocativeness is rendered somewhat suspect. His CLAIM about it’s provocativeness? It is obviously provocative language, especially in the context of doctrinal infallibility. > [@](#): > > “And the fact that groups like the Lord’s Resistance Army and The National Liberation Front of Tripura exist is because Christianity is still traversing its Dark Ages while other religions have gone through Reformation…wait a minute.” Are you denying that Christianity ever had a Dark Ages, or are you denying that the Dark ages came to an end long ago? ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1393 "2015-10-28T21:54:54Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > And of course the irony of your refusal to use context to any ends other than the defense of Islamic doctrine is lost on you… There’s no “irony” in your strawman. The “context” of Khaldune’s statements is that he’s accusing liberal Muslims of following a “blatantly fallacious” brand of Islam, while the Taliban follow Islam in its “true form”. Which he then attempts to support by (falsely) asserting that Islam is so full of violence that even the peaceful verses of the Qur’an have been deliberately excised, and so the Taliban are merely following what their religion dictates. > [@](#): > > Khuldune does not believe that Islam has a true form, do you get that? “[T]he Taliban…follow your religion in its true form”. > [@](#): > > Here he is referring to the subset of Muslims unwilling to criticize Islamic scripture and _their_ religion. If he is, he’s apparently completely missing his target. > [@](#): > > He never asserted that the Taliban are the only proper Muslims. “[T]he Taliban…follow your religion in its true form”. > [@](#): > > This claim is absurd considering he is Muslim himself and actively campaigns against the Taliban in a country where this drastically reduces his life expectancy. How odd, if he’s a Muslim who is ostensibly against the Taliban, to then say “the Taliban…follow your religion in its true form”. > [@](#): > > If you read more of his work you will discover that this is not true, since it is loaded with references that are completely lost on anyone not familiar with Pakistani culture and politics. Such as? > [@](#): > > He _is_ a modernist reformer type. Who seems to really hate modern liberal Muslims, and prefers the Taliban to them. He’s really bad at this “modernist reformer” thing. > [@](#): > > Then how is it that alcohol is prohibited when Koran 4:43 states: “O you who have believed, do not approach prayer while you are intoxicated until you know what you are saying or in a state of janabah, except those passing through [a place of prayer], until you have washed [your whole body].” Clearly implying an allowance for drunkenness, as long as one sobers up by prayer time? Because of 5:90-91. 4:43 and 5:90-91 don’t contradict each other - one covers a specific situation (_khās_), while one concerns a general prohibition (_āam_): don’t get intoxicated, and especially don’t go to prayer intoxicated. That 4:43 implies (to you) that getting drunk outside of prayer time despite not actually saying so would be an example of _dalālah nass_, or inferred meaning. But since one of the rules of _naskh_ is that the _nāsikh_ and the _mansūkh_ have to conflict such that it is impossible to follow both rulings at the same time, _naskh_ does not apply here - it’s quite trivial to follow both the injunction not to show up drunk for prayer and not to drink at all at the same time, and 5:90-91 does not abrogate 4:43 (ie, you still can’t show up to prayer drunk), it merely clarifies that you _also_ shouldn’t be drunk at other times either, plugging the “implied loophole” you see there. And, since that “loophole” was not an explicit ruling in 4:43, and the actual command in 4:43 certainly still applies (you can’t show up to prayer drunk), there’s no _need_ for abrogation. > [@](#): > > Not as long as it is largely true, and not if that is how it has been understood throughout the centuries. It’s not true, and that’s not how it’s been understood throughout the centuries. I recommend that you read Asma Afsaruddin’s _Striving in the Path of God: Jihad and Martyrdom in Islamic Thought_ to see just how the violent verses and the peaceful verses have actually been viewed by exegetes and scholars over the centuries. > [@](#): > > Good to see that you are more of an authority on Islam than A[bu Bakr Siddiq, Umar Bin Khattab, Ali Bin Abi Talib, Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari, Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, Ibn Jawzi, Ibn Kathir, Ibn Qayyim…](http://gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com/2012/11/kunwar-khuldune-shahid-dont-blame.html) Your link doesn’t reference any of those individuals. Though I see it _does_ say “he has now published “Don’t Blame the Taliban - Part III” (November 10, 2012) over at Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch”. I’m shocked, _shocked_ to see that Khaldane has allied with one of the most notorious and bigoted Islam haters in the West, and that his essays are so appealing to the likes of Spencer and regurgitate everything Spencer and his cohorts assert about Islam. And I’m equally shocked to see that Khaldane, in his “part III” there, repeats verbatim the claim from the WikiIslam hate site that the Sword Verse abrogates no less than 120 peaceful verses as if that were accepted and plain truth (depending on the scholar, the number of verses in the Qur’an that have been abrogated range from 0 to 5 to 20 to 200). And I’m shocked to see that he goes into even more explicit detail about how the Taliban are following the only True Islam, and moderate, liberal Muslims are totally wrong: “The Taliban are the product of studying Islam and nothing but Islam…The Taliban are merely striving to propagate the message of the Quran and of the prophet how it’s said to have expanded in the 7th century AD. Islam orders the true Muslims to wage war against those who spread Fitna, which is described in (2:217) as disbelieving Allah and not following his path. This basically means that the Muslims are ordered to ensure that every part of the world follows the Islamic way of life, and use violence — if need be — to ascertain Islamic supremacy. The Taliban understand the meaning and act accordingly, the Islamic scholars throughout the past 1400 years comprehend it and elaborate it accordingly in their tafsirs and literature, but the apologists are hell bent on claiming, and perhaps believing, what they want the teachings to articulate –not what they actually proclaim –at the cost of multitudinous lives.” No wonder Spencer ate that shit up. :rolleyes: Again, I refer you to Afsaruddin’s book (a survey of exegetical works, legal books, _hadith_ collections, and other writings from the first century after Muhammad to the modern day), where you can see just how blatantly wrong Khaldane is. > [@](#): > > He means that the Taliban follow the religion of the people he is speaking to in it’s true form. You are not understanding that he differentiates between the Muslims and uncritically observed Islam. The failure is yours. He doesn’t differentiate between anything, as _his own fucking words_ show. > [@](#): > > So what you are saying here, essentially, is that your interpretation is the correct one and any understanding that differs is incorrect. No, I’m saying _your_ understanding is certainly incorrect (and from what you’ve shown me so far, so is Khaldane’s). > [@](#): > > I am not sure of you are aware of how widespread the belief about not having Jews as Muslims as friends is, but you are apostating quite a large percentage of the world’s Muslims here… I’m not even sure what you’re trying to say here. > [@](#): > > His CLAIM about it’s provocativeness? It is obviously provocative language, especially in the context of doctrinal infallibility. If it’s so obviously provocative, why the need to “enhance” it with lies? > [@](#): > > Are you denying that Christianity ever had a Dark Ages, or are you denying that the Dark ages came to an end long ago? I’m saying that, under Khaldane’s criteria, if currently-existing Muslim terrorist groups means that Islam is still in its “Dark Age”, then currently-existing Christian terrorist groups must mean that Christianity is _also_ still in its “Dark Age”, highlighting the absurdity and uselessness of his criteria as a means of making that sort of judgment. ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1394 "2015-10-29T00:42:50Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > There’s no “irony” in your strawman. The “context” of Khaldune’s statements is that he’s accusing liberal Muslims of following a “blatantly fallacious” brand of Islam, while the Taliban follow Islam in its “true form”. Which he then attempts to support by (falsely) asserting that Islam is so full of violence that even the peaceful verses of the Qur’an have been deliberately excised, and so the Taliban are merely following what their religion dictates. Liberal Pakistani Muslims who refuse to challenge the notion of doctrinal infallibility and who persecute those who do, all while having cocktails in mixed gender settings, _are_ following a blatantly fallacious brand of Islam. > [@](#): > > “[T]he Taliban…follow your religion in its true form”. Yes, the Taliban follow the religion of those Muslims who refuse to criticize Islamic scripture, and refuse to place humanistic values above religious ones, in it’s true form. > [@](#): > > If he is, he’s apparently completely missing his target. No, he is not. You would not be able to see whether he hit the target anyway, with your head buried in the sand. > [@](#): > > “[T]he Taliban…follow your religion in its true form”. Yes YOUR (meaning his audience, not you specifically) religion, the religion of inflexible reverence to Islamic scripture, which is one of the varieties of Islam. > [@](#): > > How odd, if he’s a Muslim who is ostensibly against the Taliban, to then say “the Taliban…follow your religion in its true form”. Is it odd for a Catholic to tell a Mormon that the polygamous sects among them are following the Mormon’s religion in it’s true form, since the LDS church “[has not abandoned the underlying doctrines of polygamy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism_and_polygamy#Modern_plural_marriage_theory_within_the_LDS_Church)”? > [@](#): > > Such as? A few examples: [Tsunami live in concert](http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013/08/02/comment/columns/tsunami-live-in-concert/) [Imran Khan for negotiations with dengue mosquitoes](http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013/12/08/comment/khabaristan-today/) [Iftikhar Chaudhary takes suo motu action against his cook](http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013/12/14/comment/iftikhar-chaudhary-takes-suo-motu-action-against-his-cook/) [Dear Waar critics, why so serious?](http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013/10/29/comment/dear-waar-critics-why-so-serious/) [We’re all rape accomplices](http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013/09/17/comment/columns/were-all-rape-accomplices/) And here he is pandering to right-wing bigots in the West: [I’m gay… Arrest me](http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013/12/30/comment/im-gay-arrest-me-2/) > [@](#): > > Who seems to really hate modern liberal Muslims, and prefers the Taliban to them. He’s really bad at this “modernist reformer” thing. [No, he is actually brilliant at it.](http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013/03/17/comment/columns/a-modest-proposal-2/) [QUOTE=A’isha] Because of 5:90-91. 4:43 and 5:90-91 don’t contradict each other - one covers a specific situation (_khās_), while one concerns a general prohibition (_āam_): don’t get intoxicated, and especially don’t go to prayer intoxicated. That 4:43 implies (to you) that getting drunk outside of prayer time despite not actually saying so would be an example of _dalālah nass_, or inferred meaning. But since one of the rules of _naskh_ is that the _nāsikh_ and the _mansūkh_ have to conflict such that it is impossible to follow both rulings at the same time, _naskh_ does not apply here - it’s quite trivial to follow both the injunction not to show up drunk for prayer and not to drink at all at the same time, and 5:90-91 does not abrogate 4:43 (ie, you still can’t show up to prayer drunk), it merely clarifies that you _also_ shouldn’t be drunk at other times either, plugging the “implied loophole” you see there. And, since that “loophole” was not an explicit ruling in 4:43, and the actual command in 4:43 certainly still applies (you can’t show up to prayer drunk), there’s no _need_ for abrogation. [/QUOTE] This is quite a leap of logic you have going on. [Ibn ‘Abbâs](http://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=2&tTafsirNo=73&tSoraNo=4&tAyahNo=43&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=2) on 4:43: > [@](#): > > Allah revealed the following about the Companions of Muhammad prior to the prohibition of intoxicants: (O ye who believe!) in Muhammad and the Qur’an (Draw not near unto prayer) in the Mosque of the Prophet (pbuh) with the Prophet (pbuh) (when ye are drunken, till ye know that which ye utter) so that you know what the prayer leader recites during the prayer The companions of Mo got drunk. If this verse had not been abrogated, their example could not only lead people to the ruling that drinking was Makruh (disliked but not forbidden) it could quite reasonably lead the the ruling that it was halal (legal and allowed) or even sunnah (Traditions and practices of the Prophet used as a complement to the Koran in understanding the laws of Allah). [QUOTE=A’isha] It’s not true, and that’s not how it’s been understood throughout the centuries. I recommend that you read Asma Afsaruddin’s _Striving in the Path of God: Jihad and Martyrdom in Islamic Thought_ to see just how the violent verses and the peaceful verses have actually been viewed by exegetes and scholars over the centuries. [/QUOTE] I am aware of the range of meaning of the term jihad throughout history. Perhaps you should spend more time studying the sources directly, rather than through the lens of 21st Century treatments emanating from the West, which are so often designed to soften the image of Islam therein. > [@](#): > > Your link doesn’t reference any of those individuals. Though I see it _does_ say “he has now published “Don’t Blame the Taliban - Part III” (November 10, 2012) over at Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch”. Some of Khuldune’s work occasionally gets taken down from it’s Pakistani hosts, presumable to lessen the chance of the staff being murdered. > [@](#): > > I’m shocked, _shocked_ to see that Khaldane has allied with one of the most notorious and bigoted Islam haters in the West, and that his essays are so appealing to the likes of Spencer and regurgitate everything Spencer and his cohorts assert about Islam. The Muslim Brotherhood has articles by Obama’s aid Huma Abedin featured on it’s website. I suppose that means that all of the right-winger’s claims about her being a trojan horse are true then, by your logic… > [@](#): > > And I’m equally shocked to see that Khaldane, in his “part III” there, repeats verbatim the claim from the WikiIslam hate site that the Sword Verse abrogates no less than 120 peaceful verses as if that were accepted and plain truth (depending on the scholar, the number of verses in the Qur’an that have been abrogated range from 0 to 5 to 20 to 200). And I’m shocked to see that he goes into even more explicit detail about how the Taliban are following the only True Islam, and moderate, liberal Muslims are totally wrong: > > “The Taliban are the product of studying Islam and nothing but Islam…The Taliban are merely striving to propagate the message of the Quran and of the prophet how it’s said to have expanded in the 7th century AD. Islam orders the true Muslims to wage war against those who spread Fitna, which is described in (2:217) as disbelieving Allah and not following his path. This basically means that the Muslims are ordered to ensure that every part of the world follows the Islamic way of life, and use violence — if need be — to ascertain Islamic supremacy. The Taliban understand the meaning and act accordingly, the Islamic scholars throughout the past 1400 years comprehend it and elaborate it accordingly in their tafsirs and literature, but the apologists are hell bent on claiming, and perhaps believing, what they want the teachings to articulate –not what they actually proclaim –at the cost of multitudinous lives.” > > No wonder Spencer ate that shit up. :rolleyes: Yes, Robert Spencer published something critical of Islam, imagine that. In other news, PETA allies with Hitler on vegetarianism. > [@](#): > > Again, I refer you to Afsaruddin’s book (a survey of exegetical works, legal books, _hadith_ collections, and other writings from the first century after Muhammad to the modern day), where you can see just how blatantly wrong Khaldane is. In what way does it show that he is wrong? > [@](#): > > He doesn’t differentiate between anything, as _his own fucking words_ show. His words do not show that, you are twisting his words to mean what you want them to, trying desperately to mold them into a shape that resembles bigotry, when it is simply bad ideas that are being criticized. > [@](#): > > No, I’m saying _your_ understanding is certainly incorrect (and from what you’ve shown me so far, so is Khaldane’s). I am just turning your own argument back on you. You are the one who was claiming that Khuldune didn’t accept any version of Islam other than his own, simply because _you_ do not accept his tolerant, pluralistic version. > [@](#): > > I’m not even sure what you’re trying to say here. Muslims all over the world understand the commandment not to be friends with Jews or Christians quite differently than you. The arguments I have seen concerning this was whether the prohibition was against being friends at all or just against being close friends. [Tafsir al-Jalalayn](http://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=1&tTafsirNo=74&tSoraNo=5&tAyahNo=51&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=2) > [@](#): > > O you who believe, do not take Jews and Christians as patrons, affiliating with them or showing them affection; they are patrons of each other, being united in disbelief. Whoever amongst you affiliates with them, he is one of them, counted with them. God does not guide the folk who do wrong, by affiliating with disbelievers. > [@](#): > > If it’s so obviously provocative, why the need to “enhance” it with lies? Now you are just playing some silly gotcha-game. Talk of cutting off people’s fingers is violent, provocative language. There is no enhancement needed, and you have uncovered no lies. > [@](#): > > I’m saying that, under Khaldane’s criteria, if currently-existing Muslim terrorist groups means that Islam is still in its “Dark Age”, then currently-existing Christian terrorist groups must mean that Christianity is _also_ still in its “Dark Age”, highlighting the absurdity and uselessness of his criteria as a means of making that sort of judgment. It is not the mere existence of Muslim terrorist groups that shows this, it is the [widespread agreement among Muslims generally on brutal, backwards prohibitions, codes of conduct, and punishments](http://www.thefridaytimes.com/tft/excommunicating-terrorism/): > [@](#): > > In a PEW survey in April last year it was found that over 80% of Muslims from the Muslim world want Sharia law in their homeland – 84% in Pakistan. Now since the interpretation of Sharia varies, one has to dig deep to find out what exactly the Muslim world seeks. > > 76% of Pakistanis who support Sharia believe apostates should be killed, 89% believe adulterers should be stoned to death and 87% believe hands should be chopped off for theft. While numbers vary throughout the Muslim world, the extreme viewpoints form the comfortable majorities in most cases. Not to mention the fact that PEW did not include Saudi Arabia, Iran and Sudan in last year’s survey. > > Even so, in another PEW survey conducted in July this year strong majorities all over the Muslim world expressed their apprehension regarding Islamist terrorism – including 66% Pakistanis. Now either the Muslim world has undergone a miraculous reformation in 15 months or it’s completely oblivious of the concept of cause and effect. > > Whilst the majority of the Muslim world is against blowing up one’s own country, the lion’s share still support the ISIS interpretation of Islam of stoning and chopping off hands. What possible logic can then be used to claim that the likes of ISIS have “nothing to do with Islam” or the even more mindboggling claim that they aren’t even Muslims? > > Instead of owning up to the Muslim community’s collective shortcomings and instigating a veritable reformation of Islam wherein the precarious commandments are shelved instead of being twisted into a self-defeating coil of apologia, the moderates continue to declare pointless takfiri fatwas on the Islamists. Apostatising the Islamist ideology would mean declaring over 80% of the Muslim world as non-Muslims. > > It’s the excommunication of terrorists by the tiny moderate fraction of the Muslim world that is directly responsible for the escalation of Islamist terrorism in the past decade. Because you don’t solve a problem that you claim isn’t yours to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1395 "2015-10-29T00:59:31Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Of course, the accusations of genocide and misogyny are completely false; the accusations of slavery and rape are based on out of context extrapolations. Out of context? What context do you want? Do you deny that: Mohammed order the death of non believers? Mohammed order sex slaves to obey their masters without question? Mohammed order that slaves could be captured in war? Mohammed order that men were a degree above women? That’s all in the Koran, right? I mean, I didn’t pull that off some Islamic hating web site, it is from the Koran. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1396 "2015-10-29T01:09:12Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I am willing to agree that Islam is ready for an Enlightenment-like phenomenon. > However, this claim about the Dark Ages is just dumb. It was not the Dark Ages when Virginia Protestants attacked Maryland Catholics. It was not the Dark Ages when Protestants attacked and burned Catholic churches and neighborhoods and murdered Catholics shortly before the U.S. Civil War just because the Catholics wanted to use a different version of the same bible. It was not the Dark Ages when Ian Paisley created a version of Presbyterianism to foment hatred to re-ignite and then perpetuate the Troubles of Northern Ireland. It was not the Dark Ages when Filipino Catholics enacted discriminatory laws against Muslims. It was not the Dark Ages when 19th century Italian Catholics passed laws that allowed Catholics to adopt Jewish children to convert them or when 20th century American Protestants passed similar laws to remove Indian children for the same purposes. It was hardly the Dark Ages when the Ku Klux Klan grew to several million members promoting a Protestant belief system that targeted Catholics and Jews as enemies. It was not the Dark Ages when Sri Lankan Buddhists attacked Muslims for being the “cause” of the New Years Day Tsunami. It is not the Dark Ages, today, when Buddhists are actively persecuting Muslims in Myanmar. > > Your insistence on blaming everything that you believe against Islam, (factual or invented), on religion, alone, while deliberately ignoring similar actions by people of other religions and ignoring the political realities behind many of the conflicts in which Muslims are involved makes no sense. Except that Jesus never said “Sex slaves obey your masters” Jesus never said “It’s ok to take slaves in war” Jesus never said “A woman’s testimony is worth half a man’s” Jesus never said “kill the unbeliever if they do not repent”. Jesus never invaded anyone. Jesus did not make his living as a bandit. Jesus did not own slaves. Quit pretending like the two figures are the same. Christians may have committed acts of violence but **they did not do them because Jesus commanded them too.** ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1397 "2015-10-29T02:06:23Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > Liberal Pakistani Muslims who refuse to challenge the notion of doctrinal infallibility and who persecute those who do, all while having cocktails in mixed gender settings, _are_ following a blatantly fallacious brand of Islam. You know, if you’re a Muslim whose having cocktails in mixed-gender settings, you pretty much _are_ challenging the notion of doctrinal infallibility. It’s no surprise to me that actual moderate liberals in Pakistan ignore the ravings of this Western-bigot-pandering asshole and pay no heed whatsoever to his hypocritical excoriations. (And if these Lahoris are doing things like drinking alcohol and having mixed-gender parties, aren’t they supposedly _also_ risking their lives in _shari’ah_-loving Pakistan?) > [@](#): > > Yes, the Taliban follow the religion of those Muslims who refuse to criticize Islamic scripture, and refuse to place humanistic values above religious ones, in it’s true form. I find it rather odd that he accuses the moderate, liberal Muslims he’s so mad at of refusing to place humanistic values above religious ones on one hand, and then accuses them of being “the product of studying concepts derived from other human beings and then trying to forcibly merge them into Islamic teachings” (as opposed to the Taliban, who according to him, are “are the product of studying Islam and nothing but Islam”. > [@](#): > > Is it odd for a Catholic to tell a Mormon that the polygamous sects among them are following the Mormon’s religion in it’s true form, since the LDS church “[has not abandoned the underlying doctrines of polygamy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism_and_polygamy#Modern_plural_marriage_theory_within_the_LDS_Church)”? No, but it would certainly be odd for a Mormon who claims to be against polygamy as practiced by those sects to declare that they’re following the true Mormonism, and that Mormons who don’t believe what those sects do (which includes all the Church Elders who condemn polygamy and those sects) are getting their own religion wrong. > [@](#): > > A few examples: I thought you meant his “criticisms” of Islam were obviously aimed at a Pakistani audience because they contained references to things only Pakistanis would understand. None of those articles have anything to do with his views of Islam or the Taliban, and so far all of the pieces which do contain his views of Islam don’t have anything in them that a Western Islamophobe like Robert Spencer wouldn’t understand. > [@](#): > > [No, he is actually brilliant at it.](http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013/03/17/comment/columns/a-modest-proposal-2/) A lame ripoff of Jonathan Swift? > [@](#): > > [Ibn ‘Abbâs](http://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=2&tTafsirNo=73&tSoraNo=4&tAyahNo=43&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=2) on 4:43: > > The companions of Mo got drunk. If this verse had not been abrogated, their example could not only lead people to the ruling that drinking was Makruh (disliked but not forbidden) it could quite reasonably lead the the ruling that it was halal (legal and allowed) or even sunnah (Traditions and practices of the Prophet used as a complement to the Koran in understanding the laws of Allah). It wasn’t abrogated (and you’ll note that Ibn 'Abbas does not say it was, nor in his exegesis of 5:90-91 does he say they abrogated 4:43). It was already a sin (per 2:219). The three verses are progressive clarifications, and since all three are still in force (alcohol is still a great sin, and you can’t go to prayers drunk), none of the other verses were abrogated, since _naskh_ is (by _definition_) the cancellation/negation of a ruling. > [@](#): > > I am aware of the range of meaning of the term jihad throughout history. I doubt it. > [@](#): > > Perhaps you should spend more time studying the sources directly, rather than through the lens of 21st Century treatments emanating from the West, which are so often designed to soften the image of Islam therein. As opposed to trusting a liar who publishes on Robert Spencer’s Islam-hating website? Yeah, no. I’ll stick with the academic work of specialist scholars, thanks. But suit yourself. > [@](#): > > Some of Khuldune’s work occasionally gets taken down from it’s Pakistani hosts, presumable to lessen the chance of the staff being murdered. He managed to get the second part of his nonsense in the Torygraph (surely out of reach of angry Pakistanis). Why was his third part a JihadWatch exclusive? > [@](#): > > The Muslim Brotherhood has articles by Obama’s aid Huma Abedin featured on it’s website. I suppose that means that all of the right-winger’s claims about her being a trojan horse are true then, by your logic… Only if those articles were exclusively published on the Brotherhood’s website, the way Khaldune’s “part III” was exclusively published on JihadWatch. > [@](#): > > Yes, Robert Spencer published something critical of Islam, imagine that. In other news, PETA allies with Hitler on vegetarianism. Did Hitler write something that was exclusively published on PETAs website? > [@](#): > > In what way does it show that he is wrong? Because it documents that scholars and exegetes haven’t all thought about the violent verses and peaceful verses the way Khaldune asserts they did, and it shows how wrong he is about abrogation and those verses. > [@](#): > > His words do not show that, you are twisting his words to mean what you want them to, trying desperately to mold them into a shape that resembles bigotry, when it is simply bad ideas that are being. I’m cutting and pasting _his exact words_. You’re the one twisting and spinning to try to claim that he was only referring to some random Lahori moderate liberals. Something which is a wee bit hard to swallow, given that he has a whole paragraph in his “part III” published on Spencer’s hate-site about how the Taliban are what you get when you study Islam and only Islam, and that they’re merely striving to obey what the Qur’an tells them and what Khaldune claims that 1400 years worth of scholars intended to say. Even in his concluding paragraph, in which he says he wants a reformation of Islam to better fit with the modern era, he claims that such a reformation as he desires would “still light years away from the original Islamic scriptures and their teachings”, and so “there is no point blaming the Taliban or other Muslim terrorist organizations for taking the Islamic teachings way too literally, because that is precisely how they were supposed to be taken”. He’s not likening the Taliban to the cherrypickers of Lahore cocktail parties, he’s _literally_ saying that the Taliban are doing Islam the “right way”. > [@](#): > > I am just turning your own argument back on you. You are the one who was claiming that Khuldune didn’t accept any version of Islam other than his own, simply because _you_ do not accept his tolerant, pluralistic version. He doesn’t, because “his version” of Islam, proper Islam the way the scriptures say it should be practiced, is the Taliban’s version, and anything else (such as modern, liberal interpretations,\* including\* what are the reforms he ostensibly says he wants) is _explicitly_ “light years away from the original Islamic scriptures and their teachings”. > [@](#): > > [Tafsir al-Jalalayn](http://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=1&tTafsirNo=74&tSoraNo=5&tAyahNo=51&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=2) Uh, that actually says exactly what _I_ said about it, that the verse isn’t about taking Jews and Christians as friends (as Khaldune asserted), but as _patrons_ in the clientage system. > [@](#): > > Now you are just playing some silly gotcha-game. Talk of cutting off people’s fingers is violent, provocative language. There is no enhancement needed, and you have uncovered no lies. The lies are when he says _believers_ are commanded to cut off fingers. If, as you yourself say, no enhancement is needed, why did he enhance that verse with the lie that it was a command to believers? > [@](#): > > It is not the mere existence of Muslim terrorist groups that shows this, it is the [widespread agreement among Muslims generally on brutal, backwards prohibitions, codes of conduct, and punishments](http://www.thefridaytimes.com/tft/excommunicating-terrorism/): You know, the way you keep referring to other, completely unrelated essays of his to supposedly explain what he _really_ meant in _these_ essays really doesn’t say a whole lot for Khaldane’s ability to get his meaning across clearly and directly. If you have to do _tafsir_ on this guy’s work, maybe you ought to try citing someone else. Preferably someone who doesn’t write exclusives for hate sites this time. At any rate, once again he’s trying to trap moderate Muslims in a catch-22. If they don’t speak out against and reject the terrorists, obviously they support them. If they do speak out against and reject the terrorists, they admit that the terrorists are true Muslims after all because otherwise they wouldn’t feel the need to speak out against and reject them! Heads I win, tails you lose again. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1398 "2015-10-29T02:27:41Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > Except that Jesus never said “Sex slaves obey your masters” Jesus never said “It’s ok to take slaves in war” Jesus never said “A woman’s testimony is worth half a man’s” Jesus never said “kill the unbeliever if they do not repent”. > > Jesus never invaded anyone. Jesus did not make his living as a bandit. Jesus did not own slaves. > > Quit pretending like the two figures are the same. > > Christians may have committed acts of violence but **they did not do them because Jesus commanded them too.** I am not pretending that the “the two figures are the same.” That is a straw man argument, since I have made no reference to their lives. You are simply harping on things you do not like to avoid the reality that Islam is not the terrible movement you need it to be. Your response, (that i quote, here), totally avoids the actual point I made when you quoted my post. You simply went back to ranting about things you do not like, (many of which you do not understand), while avoiding my actual statement, even though you quoted it. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1399 "2015-10-29T02:40:19Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I am not pretending that the “the two figures are the same.” That is a straw man argument, since I have made no reference to their lives. Oh, gee, I got kind of confused then I guess when you were going on and on about the Protestants and Catholics killing each other and the KKK. I guess I need to improve my reading comprehension skills! > [@](#): > > You are simply harping on things you do not like to avoid the reality that Islam is not the terrible movement you need it to be. Well, you got half of that sentence right > [@](#): > > Your response, (that i quote, here), totally avoids the actual point I made when you quoted my post. You simply went back to ranting about things you do not like, (many of which you do not understand), while avoiding my actual statement, even though you quoted it. Hmmm… what do I understand? I understand that murder, slavery, genocide, torture, theft, and misogyny are wrong… _You simply went back to ranting about things you do not like_… yes, you are correct, I do not like any of these. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1400 "2015-10-29T03:11:50Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > Oh, gee, I got kind of confused then I guess when you were going on and on about the Protestants and Catholics killing each other and the KKK. I guess I need to improve my reading comprehension skills! You certainly did. The claim to which I was responding was that Islam was still in the “Dark Ages” while other religions had moved beyond that. I pointed out how, long after the Dark Ages, major religions continued to have adherents who inflicted violence. I did not address your subsequent attempt to compare Jesus and Mohammed. So, yes, you were confused. > [@Robert163](#): > > Hmmm… what do I understand? Anything? > [@Robert163](#): > > I understand that murder, slavery, genocide, torture, theft, and misogyny are wrong… _You simply went back to ranting about things you do not like_… yes, you are correct, I do not like any of these. And your attempt to pretend that they are all inherent in Islam are nonsense. You keep trying to conflate Mohammed with 21st century Islam, avoid understanding the world in which Mohammed lived, and twisting actual events to make claims that are factually in error about them. Your attempt to lay “_murder, slavery, genocide, torture, theft, and misogyny_” on Mohammed or Islam are a confused jumble of misunderstanding and factual errors. Once you have twisted a factoid to your misinterpretation, you continue to repeat it, even if you are shown to be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741/1401 "2015-10-29T03:14:41Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Your attempt to lay “_murder, slavery, genocide, torture, theft, and misogyny_” on Mohammed or Islam are a confused jumble of misunderstanding and factual errors. Once you have twisted a factoid to your misinterpretation, you continue to repeat it, even if you are shown to be wrong. which one of these _murder, slavery, genocide, torture, theft, and misogyny_ did Mohammed: 1- Not participate in 2- not order [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741.md?page=69) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-radical-islam-is-violent-due-to-culture-and-not-religion/730741.md?page=71)