Is this Muslim cleric justifying lying for his religion?

Great Debates
#1

I have been formally warned by the moderator that I must not refer to any Muslim poster as using “taqiyya”, since that is the equivalent, appprently, of calling another poster a liar. So I will not do so. I am NOT calling anyone here on SDMB a liar or a practitioner of “taqiyya”. Pace Tomndebb!

“Taqiyya”, which translates literally as “the dodge” originally meant the right to deny that you are a Muslim to save your life in a crisis situation where Muslims are being killed. The idea, I suppose, is that temporarily denying your religious identity is, strategically speaking, the lesser evil if it allows the Muslim to stay alive and be able to fight the infidels at a future date.

However, for some Muslims, further developments in the interpretation of this term broadened its meaning to include other forms of lying to advance the cause of the eventual universal victory of Islam.

I would simply like to ask you to watch the comments of this Muslim cleric on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKs7oi_-NUo&NR=1&feature=fvwp and tell me whether you believe HE is propounding a concept that pretty much corresponds to the broader interpretation of “taqiyya”.

Now, you may allege that he is the only Muslim among the billion or more Muslims on this planet who would approve of using lying in this way, I suppose. . . . .

But I repeat my question: In your opinion, is this man, on a television program watched by Allah knows how many devout Muslims, without using the actual word, propounding the use of “taqiyya” in the broader sense of the term?

#2

**Is this Muslim cleric justifying lying for his religion? **

Let me guess, you’re Just Asking Questions.

#3

Yes, of course he is, but aren’t you more disturbed by the casual reference to killing apostates?

#4

Is that a question?:smiley:

#5

I repeat. Get a life.

You have a sad existence. You scour the internet looking for statements, videos, clips, articles which support your contention. Man that must make you mad. I can imagine. I don’t much like the Indian Government but I don’t spend my days reading Times of India and watching New Delhi Television for evidence to support my reasons. It will only give me a headache and or cause blood pressure spike.

Take it easy. And all of a sudden taqiyya or whatever the hell it is called won’t seem so bad.

In which language? In mine it means “pillow”, which is one of the many reasons I find it hard to take you seriously.

Actually that an idea, you need pillow talk!

#6

According to wikipedia:

So not quite as funny as “pillow”, but still adequate reason not to take Valteron seriously.

#7

Er, the answer is that yes he’s justifying lying about his religion to trick people into converting which is dramatically different from “Taqiyya” which is about hiding your religious beliefs to protect yourself from persecution.

I’m pretty sure that Jews and Christians are also allowed to practice “Taqiyya” though they do it differently.

For example, I remember a Rabbi arguing that it was perfectly permissible for Orthodox Jews to pretend to be Christians to avoid getting caught and they could do thing like spit on the Torah, eat non-Kosher food, and have their heads uncovered. However, they could not actually pray to Jesus or the Virgin Mary. If a Nazi demanded they recite a prayer to Jesus to prove they weren’t Jewish then they had to be prepared to be a martyr.

Furthermore, I’m not sure why you’re quoting this guy since we’re not given any evidence that he’s influential at all in Egypt.

In fact, most Egyptians would probably not be a big fan of him because of his comments regarding the Shia.

In fact, Al Masri would probably be incredibly offended by your suggesting he’s practicing Taqiyya since it’s a Shia practice, not a Sunni one.

#8

In case you don’t want to watch the video, I’ll provide a summary, or at least a summary of what the subtitles said, since I don’t know if this is in any way an accurate translation, or who this guy is, or where the clip came from.

The speaker tells the story of a Muslim who lived next to a Jew. The Muslim asked the Jew why he did not become a Muslim. The Jew said it was because Islam prohibits alcohol, and he was an alcoholic. The Muslim then told the Jew that it wasn’t true that Islam prohibits alcohol, and he could become a Muslim and still drink. The Jew converted. Then the Muslim told the converted Jew that he had lied, and if he drank he would be subject to the Muslim penalty for drinking alcohol, and if he renounced Islam he would be killed. And the speaker thinks this was a clever and admirable thing for the Muslim to do.

#9

The belief that apostates from Islam should be killed is certainly disturbing, but it is also very widespread and accepted by hundreds of millions of Muslims.

If we take the recent Pew Research on Muslim attitudes using the data for four of the largest Muslim countries, we see that 84% of Egyptians, 30% of Indonesians, 76% of Pakistanis and a “mere” 5% of Turks believe this.

Based on the populations of these countries, this means that 129 million Pakistanis, 66 million Egyptians, 71 million Indonesians and in liberal, secular Turkey, “only” 3.6 million people would not mind the killing of a person who decides he no longer wishes to be a Muslim. (Personally, even the idea of 3.6 million people in a country of 73 million willing to see me killed for exercising my freedom of conscience is unsettling.)

But this makes a total of 269.6 people in these four major Muslim countries, (including “liberal” Turkey) who wouldn’t mind seeing apostates killed. While I have no firm statistics on this, one can easily suppose that the total number of Muslims who subscribe to the murder of apostates could be 400-800 million if the entire Muslim world were polled.

Of course, the relativist apologists will kick in with the fact that there are conservative Christians who are fanatical and murderous, such as those who shoot abortion clinic doctors. And I have no doubt that somewhere, somehow, in a western, liberal democracy, you can find some utlra-conservative Christians who believe ex-Christians should be killed. But can anyone seriously tell me this would be anything greater than a tiny, tiny fraction of 1% of the population in Europe, Australia and the Americas?

#10

First of all, I was not discussing Egypt in my OP, was I? Can you find the word “Egypt” in my original posting?

Secondly, if we are going to get bogged down by the meaning of “taqiyya” , let me rephrase the question as follows:

In your opinion, is this man, on a television program watched by Allah knows how many devout Muslims, propounding the use of lies to trick people into joining Islam (and subsequently the use of death threats to keep them Muslim?)

#11

I’ve asked you variants on the following question many times before and gotten no answer, but perhaps this time will be different.

You claim that it’s “unsettling” that certain numbers of people in distant places believe certain things. Would it be equally unsettling if vast numbers of actual murders took place? For instance, if the USA, UK, and other nations invaded Iraq and started a war that killed upwards of million innocent people, would that be unsettling? If they started a war in Afghanistan with a similar death toll, would that be unsettling? If they lobbed thousands of missiles into Pakistan and didn’t care much about whether they hit militants or civilians, would that be unsettling? If they waged a secret war in Yemen and lied about it, would that be unsettling? If they tortured many innocent people to death, would that be unsettling?

In summary, is the fact that governments from the West have committed enormous crimes against humanity in the Middle East at all unsettling to you? Or is it only polls presented without cites presenting answers to questions we don’t know the wording of concerning what Muslims in distant countries allegedly say that’s unsettling? And if the later, can you explain this wide discrepancy between what unsettles you and what doesn’t?

#12

Your questions are typical of the “tu quoque” fallacy of argument used whenever Islam is discussed. Muslims go on murderous rampages over cartoons of Mohammed, burning embassies and killing innocent people? Well, there are Conservative Christians in the west so that somehow makes the Muslim fundamentalist actions ok.

I find any killing or torture unsettling. I am completely opposed to the death penalty, and to mutilations and torture such as the lashing of gay people, stoning of adulterers, or amputation of the hands of thieves (which, by the way, Sharia law permits. I find the deaths of thousands of people in Dresden, Germany in 1945, through allied bombing raids just weeks before the collapse of Nazi Germany, unsettling. I find the death of little Israeli children and the endless Muslim war to exterminate Israel because Muslims cannot tolerate a non-Muslim state in the Middle East, unsettling.

If the US, the UK, Canada and others are killing people as indiscriminately as you allege in Iraq and Afghanistan (Canada is in Afghanistan but not Iraq, I know) then yes, I find that unsettling.

I find murderous rampages by Hindus against Muslims in 1947 unsettling. I found the massacre of the Huguenots unsettling (I am not that old, I read about it).

That being said, may I remind you that the subject of this thread is the following question (slightly amended so we do not end up distracted by the word “taqiyya”.

The questions is: In your opinion, is this man, on a television program watched by Allah knows how many devout Muslims, propounding the use of lies to trick people into joining Islam (and subsequently the use of death threats to keep them Muslim?)

#13

So; if they show no regard for their own life they are murderous fanatics, and if they try to preserve their life they are also murderous fanatics?

#14

This broadcast apeeared on Al Nas TV in Egypt. According to this site: http://www.geogtv.com/c_index.php?option=tvchannel&task=list&chid=3441 “Al Nas TV is an Egyptian Religious Channel which broadcasts in Arabic language.”

Although I do not read Arabic, you can get their site http://www.alnas.tv/ Google translated (although I admit the Google translator leaves a lot to be desired).

The broadcast is from August 10, 2009.

Sheik Mahmoud Al Masri is an Egyptian Cleric who has apparently appeared more than once on TV, since there are several Youtubes of him.

Now of course, since this man is obviously condoning lies, trickery and death threats as a means of advancing Islam, I assume the usual defence of the PC brigade will be that he does not represent all Muslims. I agree with that point.

But unless this man takes over Al Nas TV at gunpoint on regular occasions to broadcast his messages, I think we must agree that he is a cleric who has some influence, who appears to a large number of people on TV.

So I think you would have to agree with me that this man and those who agree with him represent a current of thought in Islam. And I suppose we can agree that if his opinions were all that offbeat and outrageous for most Muslims, he would probably not be invited to broadcast regularly.

#15

I would love to answer that, but right now, I have to get help in extracting a whole bunch of words that some guy named Der Trihs put in my mouth. Where exactly did I say what you say I said?

#16

If the cleric is so influential, why is alcohol not prohibited in Egypt?

According to this article, alcohol is totally prohibited in Saudi Arabia & Kuwait. It’s severely limited in some other Muslim majority countries–but not all of them.

#17

First of all,I take it you agree with me that he is propounding lying and deceit to get someone to convert and then death threats to keep him converted? That WAS my question in the OP, you know.

Secondly, how do you know this cleric is for prohibition of alcohol?

Thirdly, supposing that he is for prohibition (since he is probably a devout Muslim), what you are saying is that unless he is influential enough to get alcohol banned in Egypt (which was a dictatorship under Mubarak btw) then he obviously cannot be regarded as influential or representing a major current of thought among Muslims? I fail to see the logical connection there. It is like saying the Pope is not influential because abortion is not illegal in most Catholic countries.

Are you saying he told this story knowing that 99.99% of his Muslim audience would be aghast at such dishonest tactics to advance Islam? And the TV network invites him back regularly?

That does not make a lot of sense.

#18

Here’s my response: based on what I’ve read in the thread, I find it to be too trivial to bother watching and answering. (I have a slow internet connection and downloading videos take me a while.) If what Lemur866 posted is accurate, then the first two questions to be asked would be: (a) Is the translation itself accurate? (b) Is it intended to be serious or a joke?

If you haven’t been living in a cave for the past ten years, you know what I’ve said is accurate. If you have been living in a cave for the past ten years, do a Google search for “Wikileaks Iraq” and you’ll learn that recently there were highly publicized videos released showing the U. S. military killing civilians and journalists in Iraq, as well as reports showing the U. S. had lied about the number of civilian deaths in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the obvious point is this. You say “I find any killing or torture unsettling”. Anyone who knows history knows that in the last 200 years westerners have invaded the Middle East and committed horrors many times. (Further back in history the Muslims invaded Europe, but not in the past two centuries.) Hence if you were really unsettled by torture and killing, you would be much more unsettled by what westerners have done to Muslims in those centuries than by some bonehead on TV in Egypt. The fact that you instead obsess over some bonehead on TV in Egypt (and other trivialities of the same sort) while generally not mentioning the enormous crimes committed by westerners against Muslims suggests that you actually have a double standard. If all killing and torture unsettle you, why haven’t you started any threads explaining how unsettled you are by what America and its allies have done in the Middle East?

#19

Why are people so sure that this “cleric” is all that influential.

Had anybody ever heard of him or Al-Nas TV, the channel this clip comes from?

I guess it’s religious channel in Egypt, but we have no idea how many people actually watch it.

My cable provider offers well over a hundred channels and many of them have extremely small viewerships.

The most watched Cable news programs in the US get about a million-and-a-half viewers and the US has almost four times as many citizens as Egypt.

What makes people so sure that Al Nas TV has some vast audience?

Because we have clips of it on youtube?

Please.

#20

Is anyone (aside from Valteron) asserting that this guy is influential?