Look, Islam is not the enemy

Great Debates
361

How many non-Muslims have been targeted and killed by Muslims in America? How many Muslims have been targeted and killed by non-Muslims? You are doing everything you can to avoid discussing this ratio.

The much bigger death count of Jihadist terror makes it a much bigger deal for anyone who values human life above the public image of Islam. Of course anyone paying attention can see that not everyone places more values on the lives of non-Muslims than on the enforcement of reverence to Islam.

Yeah, keep doing it, using unfounded accusations to shield Islam and Islamism from criticism. It seems like that’s about all you have.

Well, I already did, so there is that, but I suppose you have to keep posturing, diverting, and playing the victim, since, again, it’s about all you have.

CAIR is not a “boogeyman”, it is a tentacle of a theocratic fascist organization. Your list of hate crimes, you will notice, does not include an instance where anyone was killed. That is why they are of less importance than Jihadist violence which has killed many. One would have to consider the lives of kaffir less important than the public image of Islam to disagree, but considering how common this attitude is among Muslims, it is no surprise to find that you share it.

Now you are just straight up making things up. Like, I didn’t post what you are “quoting” at all. You should think long and hard about a position so indefensible that you have to resort to blatant fabrication to save face or to avoid changing your mind. What do you even hope to accomplish with your falsehoods? Do you think that since the post you are replying to is so buried by now that no one will notice or call you out? You should be aware that the little icon that appears next to my user name when you quote me is a link back to my post, and of course I canlink to it herefor convenience too. Or I could simply quote myself from the original post that you are trying to twist. Here is exactly what I said: “How many Muslims have been targeted and killed by non-Muslims for their faith in America? In America, how many non-Muslims have been killed by Muslims? Once you have calculated that ratio, you may begin to understand the imbalance of outrage.” If you are going to bother responding to the question, just go ahead and answer it, rather than repeating your gross misrepresentations.

I am not deriding Muslims for cherry picking. My concern is for the fact that the Muslims mixed in with the non-Muslim victims of Jihadi terrorists were killed, not what their beliefs were. It is the takfiri terrorists who use their incomplete adherence as justifications for including them as targets. What I have objected to is apologists limiting their criticism of the Jihadists to the apologists’ own version of takfir directed at the terrorists, instead of recognizing the existence and danger of a supremacist ideology.

Here you are again, shifting the conversation away from criticism of Islam and Islamism, and towards the beliefs that you suppose are held by those who bring up these issues that make you uncomfortable. This is your jam, isn’t it? There is no one single way to follow a bunch of inconsistent made up Iron Age bullshit.

Yes, indeed, I did.

Interesting how, when a female Muslim critic of Islamism objects to receiving death threats, she is “whining”. When other Muslims are threatened by (presumably) non-Muslims you take a different tone. In fact you present lists which include such threats, compiled by groups which are offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood, as if the events were equal in importance to the murder of over a dozen people.

Right, it is obvious by now that you reserve the bulk of your antipathy for those who are critical of Islam and Islamism, even when they are Muslim women. You attack a lone Muslim critic of these radical ideologies, and at the same time defend CAIR, a designated terrorist group, which is part of a global Islamist movement. This is a perfect example of the behavior that Nomani describes the Honor Brigade using.

What I *know *is that Jihadist terrorists keep killing dozens and hundreds of people the the US and Europe, and that many Muslims’ primary response is to accuse anyone critical of the ideology which motivates these mass murderers of bigotry.

You still have not had any response at all to the actual contents of Raheel Raza’s video, you are simply objecting to it’s very existence.

362

I think if that is okey-dokey, then we should shut down Christian churches who advocate god’s law above the Constitution. If they won’t swear that the Constitution is greater than god, then they should be treated like terrorists, before they kill us all.

363

When they start attacking people you’ve got my vote.

364

They already have:

365

Is criticizing the ideology that drives this violence Christianaphobia, since the vast majority of Christians condemn the violence, including those who promote anti-abortion activism?

366

Yes, Christianophobia is absolutely necessary to preserve our western democracy. Otherwise, the terrorists win.

367

As silly statement that has nothing to do with my statement that you quoted.

Most likely true–for numerous reasons having little to do with Islam.

Wrong. It is neither the religion, per se, nor the people, but the various political situations that have brought them to their current state. It occasionally, (not nearly always), includes various factions within Islam, but it is not Islam, itself.

As I noted, in order to draw such conclusions, one must ignore history–something proponents of Islamophobia do very well and which you seem eager to accept.

Afghanistan was an entirely Muslim society that included both the hard-line reactionaries and liberals. The Soviet Union decided to play their version of colonialism, spurring a revolt against its takeover. The Reagan and Bush I administrations, for whatever misguided reasons, deliberately fed arms to the most reactionary zealots, depriving moderate and liberal elements of the same weapons, so that when the Soviets pulled out, the hard-line reactionaries had all the weapons to take over the country, shutting down Islamic schools and much of the liberal Islamic culture to impose their own brand of Islam on the nation. Now the historically ignorant want to point to Afghanistan and say that is the result of Islam, totally ignoring the moderate to liberal society that existed before the Cold Warriors decided to screw it up.

Iran was a society with both conservative and liberal elements. The U.S. decided to play its brand of anti-“communist” nonsense and set up Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as dictator. Pahlavi decided to impose his own brand of anti-Islamic oppression on his people so that when they revolted against him, the most hard-line conservatives were able to lead the fight and then impose their own brand of Islam on the country. Now those ignorant of history want to say that is Islam and ignore the trends among the people who are every bit as true to Islam as the Ayatollah ad his Council of Guardians, but who are oppressed by his particular brand that is not the totality of Islam.

Similar stories can be demonstrated throughout the world. Wahhabism and related factions are certainly part of Islam. Your effort to pretend that they are the “reality” of Islam is not factual.

368

This is an example of “American Narcissism”, where “only our sins matter”, except that you have added the East to the group of those who it is acceptable to blame. The fact that outsiders have interfered and used religiously motivated militants for the outsiders benefits doesn’t refute the fact the militants are motivated by religion. We just aren’t that all-important.

Also, you continually attempt to confine criticism to Wahhabism. The thing is, there are various ways to define this term. Do you include Deobandis? How about Salafis? And if you include Salafis, do you consider the Muslim Brotherhood to be included in this definition? Any of these different definitions are justifiable. The thing is, if you are restrictive in your definition, then you are wrong because you are excluding such a large segment of fundamentalist, brutal, and oppressive Islamic belief from your criticism. And if you are being inclusive in your definition, then you are wrong to portray the movement as a small minority, since the influence of Salafism is so strong, and is arguably the dominant strain of Islam.

369

Not even close. You pretend that they are acting in a vacuum and that there has been Islamic terrorism for 1400 years. Where are the Islamic acts of terror that have been going on for all this time?

That didn’t start last week? Where are the riots from the 1960’s, 1950’s, 1940’s, etc. Mohammed and Islam has been the butt of Western humor for centuries.

More assertions ignoring history.

The reality is that the end of the end of colonialism and the end of the Cold War meant that a number of Muslim nations were no longer oppressed by European and North American interests. As they began sorting out their futures, Islamists were one group that sought to gain power. They were helped along by the specifically anti-Islamic actions of the rulers of Iran, Indonesia, the Philippines, and elsewhere. Today, perceived attacks on Islam or Mohammed remind them of the earlier suppression of their beliefs and are perceived as continuations of attacks on the people. (The West is not immune to such behavior. The entire disastrous attack on Fallujah was prompted by the disrespect to the bodies of the four mercenaries who were killed because they drove into the wrong place. Dozens of people were being killed, daily, but we considered that disrespect as needing a major battle to avenge.)
Even The Satanic Verses received several favorable reviews from Muslim critics before a Fundamentalist cleric in India condemned it, giving the Ayatollah Khomeini the opportunity to deliver his fatwa. There is at least as much of politics as theology in the cries against blasphemy.

370

Inventing reasons to dismiss history do not make history go away.
And I have not denied, at any time, that various people have used the religion. However, you strangely wish to blame everything on the religion, ignoring every other event and phenomenon involved.

I refer to the Wahhabists because that is group that has done the most to export their beliefs. There are a number of Islamist groups, as you note. However, you keep trying to claim that it is the entirety of Islam that is the source of every problem while going out of your way to refuse to acknowledge every other factor. Such deliberate effort to ignore reality fail to make your case.

371

are you fucking kidding me? Mohammad was a warlord. At what point in history did the misogyny he created go away or the violence stop over blasphemy or apostasy?

372

More ignorance of history. Misogyny? Islam provided more rights and more protection for women than did Christianity when it was founded. That the West has finally made an effort to improve that in the last hundred years–an improvement accepted by the overwhelming majority of adherents of Islam in the West–indicates that your attempt to blame the religion for cultural failures as so much ignorant polemic.
The same is true of your cries of blasphemy and apostasy. You can point to all the polls showing support that you wish, but the reality is that such laws, like similar laws, recently repealed in Europe, are rarely enforced and then only in remote locations adhering to tribal customs.

373

Most Muslims want id a home, a job, and a decent life for their family free of extremist terror and islamophobic demonization.

374

No tom, try to keep up here. I didn’t invent or dismiss anything. Noting the negative effects of Islam is not blaming “everything on the religion”. You are the one with the denialist obsession, who constantly tries to deflect criticism of Islamic texts and traditions.

So, you still are not going to answer the question. Yet again. Neat!

Nope. Which is why you never quote me when you make this simplistic claim that you so often make, yet can never back up.

Again, you repeatedly make these sorts of claims, but never provide any examples, quotes, or citations. You are just plain wrong. Asserting that Islamic source texts and traditions have negative effects is not the same as asserting that all negative effects are due to Islamic source texts and traditions. This is a basic level of logic so simple that a child will understand it by the time they learn simple arithmetic. Your continued repetition of this error is unhelpful to the discussion, to say the least.

And what case is it that you think I am trying to make? From what you post it would seem that you imagine I am claiming that ALL problems of every Muslim and every person proximate to any Muslim is due to “the entirety of Islam” as you (but no one else) put it. No, no one has made that case. Of course no one has tried to make that case, it is merely something that you have fabricated.

375

This is incredibly ignorant. First of all, the post you are responding to didn’t mention Christianity, so your attempt to compare two misogynistic religions is an obfuscation. The whole “Islam gave rights to women” meme is simply a repetition of a talking point so inane that a list of reasons why it is wrong would be longer than this entire thread. One of the more obvious ways to see the bullshit inherent in the claim is to note that Mo’s first wide Kadija was already a successful business women before he married her, in pre-Islamic Arabia.

Here are just a few of the rights Islam gave to women:

[ul]
[li]The right to be one of four women married to a man, and the right to be forbidden multiple husbands.[/li]
[li]The right to be married off at the age of six and raped by a man four times older at the age of nine.[/li]
[li]The right to be beaten for disobedience.[/li]
[li]The right to be segregated when assembled with men.[/li]
[li]The right to be stoned to death for adultery.[/li]
[li]The right to have their genitals mutilated.[/li]
[li]The right to be taught that their bodies are sources of shame and temptation, and the right to be ordered to be covered from head to toe.[/li]
[li]The right of divorces being difficult ordeals that require approval from males, while husbands can divorce by repeating a short phrase.[/li]
[li]The right to being entitled to only half of the inheritance of men.[/li]
[li]The right to having their testimony count only one half as much as a man’s. [/li]
[li]The right to be taught that the majority of the inhabitants of hell are women.[/li]
[li]The right to be forbidden from marrying a non-Muslim while men are allowed to marry Christians and Jews. [/li]
[li]The right to be told that no great nation will ever be led my a woman.[/li]
[li]The right to be taught that women are deficient in intelligence.[/li]
[li]The right to not leave the house without a male guardian. [/li]
[li]The right to be captured in battle and enslaved and raped.[/li]
[li]The right to be executed for homosexuality if they prefer other women to men.[/li]
[li]The right to be executed for apostasy if they decided to leave the religion that gave them so many rights.[/li][/ul]

Yes yes! War is peace, freedom is slavery, and Islam gave rights to women!

Let’s see your cite to show that the overwhelming majority of Muslims in the West reject Sura 4:34 and accept that Muslim women should be allowed to marry non-Muslim men.

Tom you aren’t a wizard. You don’t just get to repeat a talking point and wave your hand to make reality go away in a puff of smoke.

The apostasy and blasphemy prohibitions are very dangerous. When the state legitimizes violence as a reaction to crimes of conscience there are far wider consequences than the ones carried out by the state itself:

Pakistan’s blasphemy law is a relentless guillotine for minorities

376

Now, you are the one who is inventing things to attribute to me.

I have said nothing about you claiming that every bad thing associated with any Muslim is the fault of Islam. I have only pointed out that much of what you generally claim regarding Islam, (as opposed to the various differing cultures in which it is found), as the source of many evils is false: typically slanted, and including cherry-picking some events while denying the reality of history.

And since I never claimed that Islam gave women the right to engage in commerce. you are now doing what you have accused me of doing. Christianity was mentioned as a point of comparison because it is the culture most familiar to the posters on this board.

Of course, your list also includes things that apply to men as well as to women, things that are cultural to specific locations that are not “Islamic,” things common to most pre-European Enlightenment societies, and the rest of the usual nonsense.

U.S. Department of State Office of Research, Opinion Analysis M-58-05, 2005: French Muslims Favor Integration into French Society: 80% of Muslims interviewed were :comfortable with people of different religions dating or marrying while 59% would not object to their daughter marrying a non-Muslim.
Integrating Islam: Political and Religious Challenges in Contemporary France, by Jonathan Laurence and, Justin Vaïsse, August, 2006:
A quarter of French Muslim women were married to non-Muslim men.

(As for Muslim women not being allowed outside the home without a “guardian,” Laurence and Vaisse note that 57% of French Muslim women are employed outside the home, a rate not much lower than the 63% of French women, generally).
(France chosen because it is the home of the largest number of Muslims in Western Europe.)

A point you should consider, when you post.

377

How many of those apply to Muslim women in the US?

378

You said precisely this: “you strangely wish to blame everything on the religion, ignoring every other event and phenomenon involved.”

When discussing issues regarding Islam, it is not cherry picking to refer to portions of the Koran or to hadith relevant to those specific issues. To you “denying the reality of history” seems to mean not entirely ignoring the harmful aspects of Islamic texts and traditions.

No, I did not attribute any claims about commerce to you. I meant that you were repeating a talking point that is very common among apologists and Muslim evangelists attempting to portray Islam’s birth in Arabia as some sort of progressive event in the history of women’s rights. One of the ways that we know that this is a false narrative is the story of Kadija.

No, it is mentioned, as usual, as a poor debate tactic best described as what-about-ism. Whether or not Islam is misogynistic is a different discussion as whether or not Christianity is, or which was worse at which points in history. Those are interesting discussions, but are not all as easy to answer. Despite your protests, it is clear that Islam is misogynistic. Can you admit this?

So you are actually going to try to claim that each of the items falls into one of these categories? Wow. Which one do you think the commandment to men to beat disobedient wives is? We can start there, to keep it simple.

France is not all of the West, 59% is not an “overwhelming majority”, and you ignored the second half of the question about Sura 4:34.

Now 57% is much lower than 63%? You don’t have to make shit up to show that a large portion of French Muslims are well integrated into French society, you know? It is a fact. The reality of the duties of a Mahram in traditional, orthodox, Islam is also a fact.

379

So, when you cherry pick some detail from some individual situation it is an example of “Islam,” but when I respond to a question about Western Europe by citing the nation with the largest Muslim population in Western Europe that is not enough support for the claim?

Not playing that game. Sorry.

Mis-quoting me does nothing to make your case, either.

380

If I claim something is an example of Islam and cite something that is a part of Islam then, well, I have backed up my claim. Your claim was not that France was “an example of Western Europe”, it concerned “an overwhelming majority of adherents of Islam in the West” having embraced modern progressive values. Again, you are making simple logical mistakes here. The fact that you always makes them in favor of your apologies make your bias obvious.

Yep, you got me, I misread what you wrote. Talk about cherry picking, you sure are picky about which parts of the discussion you respond to, and you sure found an easy one to respond to here, didn’t you? :smiley:

Happy solstice.