His remarks on ISIL in the presidential address on September 10th.
I forgot to add “thanks for the links.”
Just wanted to point out that in the transcript he had “Islamic” in quotes - which I took to mean he was speaking figuratively, not literally.
And while it might be accurate to call them “not of the Islamic faith” it does seem very reasonable to try and create distance from “going to war against muslims” - so in that sense perhaps it would be good to cut some slack
Here’s the representation of minorities in the British armed forces(excluding around 4000 Gurkhas) (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/310468/quarterly_personnel_report_apr14.pdf)
Britain, according to wiki, is around 87% white. So minorities are 13% in population, and 7% in the army. Underrepresented, but not so egregious that it causes me to be suspicious of the British armed forces. British Muslims are ~4.5% of the population(wiki), and 0.3% of the armed forces(if the numbers quoted in this thread are correct). This set of facts does not immediately lead me to conclude that Britain is at fault in integrating its minorities, particularly the Muslim one, especially as related to serving members of its armed forces.
Who decides? My very poor understanding is that Mohammed was effectively in charge of an army in the latter part of his life, which army engaged in raids and a degree of conquest. I’m sure that is at least sufficient for ISIS to be able to claim to be his followers while doing similar (if somewhat worse) things.
Where does one find the authoritative definition of what it means to be a Muslim? How do you come to the conclusion that what you listed - Allah, Muhammad, 5 prayer, halal - to be the sine qua non of being Muslim, but other attributes - maybe growing a beard, or not slaying random people - are not important attributes?
Yes, I actually want to know how you arrived at that definition; it is an honest question.
For one thing, pretty much every Muslim group agrees that saying the Shahada makes you Muslim and that the five pillars are required of every Muslim. It’s pretty much as close to consensus as you get in Islam.
I guess my question is, why is it so hard to believe that some Muslims believe that they have a duty to forcibly convert others to Islam and set up an Islamic state? Why is it necessary to portray ISIL as “unique in their brutality”, with “no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.” How does that benefit anybody?
I agree that in the long run it isn’t beneficial. But in the short-term:
Governments benefit by granting legitimacy only to interpretations of Islam that accept them or at least don’t cause too much trouble.
Muslims in America benefit to the extent that people don’t associate them with ISIS just because they are Muslims. People who are commonly mistaken as Muslims by idiots, including Sikhs, non-Muslim Arabs, apostates, and Orthodox priests also share in this benefit to some degree.
Traditional Muslim community leaders benefit by delegitimizing non-practicing, reformist or heterodox movements and individuals and casting them as being the real source of violence and perversion.
and so on.
In general, public recitation of the Shahada and accepting the 5 Pillars are held to be all that is needed to “be Muslim” to those adhering to the discursive scholarly tradition. Still, this is complicated on the ground (especially when you consider Shiism) and there are groups of people today who claim to be Muslim but who are generally not held by the mainstream to be Muslims because of their foundational beliefs, e.g. the Ahmadiyya.
I’m too young to remember the 1980s but I am curious to know whether the Mujahideen were lambasted by anyone in the US at that time, either politicians or scholars or activists.
And look where trying to decide who you can call a Muslim and who you cannot has got them.
And why is it difficult to understand that you would want to be distancing the terrorist organisation you are about to go to war with from Islam?
Why would it be surprising that Obama wants to specifically say he is not going to war with Islam?
While, at worst he may be factually wrong and at best he has no authority to make any such judgement or declaration, aren’t his motivations perfectly clear, and isn’t what he is trying to achieve something we can all get behind?
Of course, if you would rather that the US is about to go to war against Islam, and start a clash of cultures - then I would have to wonder at what you are trying to get out of the discussion and why.
He does:
You can say “We are not at war with Islam, we are at war with ISIL.” without pretending that ISIL is not a subset of Islam. To think otherwise is absurd; it’s like saying we have to pretend ISIL is not human, to avoid the accusation that we are at war with humanity.
So in other words - rather than give benefit of doubt, you want this to be seen as a war against Islam?
You want your president to be seen as taking on a whole religion?
Grumman quite clearly said ‘subset’ in his/her post.
At the same time, I can easily see a leader making the rhetorical statement. “These acts have not been committed by human beings. Humanity requires compassion blah blah blah”, and nobody would be up in arms about how stupid a statement that was.
To me, this is just another example of our churchgoing leaders trying to tell us what Islam really is. The Bush administration was even worse about it.
Trying to make out that your opponents are not human does not have a good track record. The results are bad enough when the President pretends the enemy are “unlawful combatants”, without declaring that human rights do not apply to them.
I’m not saying that at all. Obviously we’re not “going to war with Islam”. I’m just saying that ISIS/ISIL is a nasty enough group without going out of your way to demonize them.
It does serve to demonize them but that’s not the intent when our leaders say dumb things like that. It’s propaganda, only this time it’s meant to avoid demonizing Muslims in the eyes of the American people. But it does have the effect of demonizing the extremists even more, at least if we’re looking at politicians’ statements as actually meaning anything logical. if we free ourselves from that burden and recognize that 99% of what comes out of politicians’ mouths is basically equivalent to corporate advertising, then we don’t need to think too hard about it.
ISIL is doing a fine job of demonizing themselves, without anybody else’s help, wouldn’tcha say?
What a hack. The central premise of Sam Harris’s argument is this: “A hatred of infidels is arguably the central message of the Koran. The reality of martyrdom and the sanctity of armed jihad are about as controversial under Islam as the resurrection of Jesus is under Christianity.”
Is arguably? Ok, what’s the argument? Are we to find it in the next sentence, which tells us that the “reality of martyrdom” and “sanctity of armed jihad” are widely accepted? What do either of those concepts mean?
He phrases things just vaguely enough to reinforce the conclusions of people who already agree with him without actually making any testable claims at all.
Do most Muslims accept “the reality of martyrdom?” I have no idea, since that’s about as mealy-mouthed a phrase as you can imagine.