I’m sure you do consider it so–given your need to judge everything Muslim in that light. Again, I recognize the conflicts that occurred during the birth of Islam, but your characterization of that event as “rape” is very much a ananachronistic imposition of later values on an earlier period. (I suppose, of course, that you apply the same standard to Judaism and the “replacement” of wives and children for the Tribe of Benjamin from the people of Jabeshgilead.)
So, in your world “almost” means something exists? Sorry, but you are inferring far more than the article states (which appears to be too much).
First, Gibbs only claims “descendants of the Kharidjis” hold that view. The Kharijites are a very small minority of Muslims, being neither Sunni nor Shi’a, so asserting that a belief they alone hold is representative of Islam is like asserting that a belief held only by Copts or Sanctified Brethren is representative of Christianity.
Then there is the problem that the definition of Jihad in Gibbs’s work is pretty clearly the flawed position of the casual observer that fails to recognize the distinctions between the Greater and Lesser Jihads. This calls into question his whole article. (And the fact that the book was written 54 years ago and does not appear to have included a single Muslim on its editorial board suggests that its detailed accuracy is, at best, suspect.)
Gibbs (or his author) also pretty clearly conflates two separate issues (without providing any support for his interpretation). His refernce to Mohammed’s letters is an allusion to the idea that Mohammed may have wished that Islam become a universal religion. However, those letters (if they existed) are never attested to have been backed by threats of force. The ideas on universal Islam and compelling Islam by threat are two separate concepts and Gibbs’s (or his article’s author’s) conflation of the two ideas indicates a pretty shallow and unconvincing grasp of Islam.
Note the difference in approach to universal Islam as reported in this post and this post.
I see the Dutch are now facing the censorship/self-censorship question, this time regarding a film that reveals an ugly side of Islam. The money quote was this one:
This misguided idea is the problem in a nutshell. Freedom of expression is worthless without the attendant right to offend. If we are only free to express ideas that do not offend a single person, we’ve lost our freedom of speech entirely.
And it is by this steady, slow erosion of our right to speak out against things we don’t like (and thus, inevitably, to offend those who are doing the things we don’t like) that the forces of repression and censorship are taking over.
Self-censorship in the face of Islam is bad – but state censorship in the face of Islam is even worse. Let’s hope the Dutch can at least avoid that.
So Muhammad couldn’t even possibly “rape” or “pillage” anyone, because this is anacronistic imposition of later values? Gosh, too bad you didn’t live in Banu Qurayza, you could have explained to the women that although they were now slaves and their owners could and would fuck them anytime, it wasn’t rape because rape wasn’t invented yet … and you could tell them that the fact that the Muslims were taking all of their possessions wasn’t “pillage”, that would be anachronistic, so we’ll just call giving everything they owned to their new slave masters “making sure that after they were enslaved, their possessions wouldn’t be too far away”. Does that sound better?
tomndebb, you are defending the indefensible. Muhammed enslaved the people of Banu Qurayza. He gave away booty to his soldiers before they even won the battles. He killed all the males with pubic hair, took the women, and enslaved them. You can try to peanut butter that over by calling it anything you want, but out here in the real world we call it rape and pillage. And somehow, Jesus and Buddha managed to get through their lives without doing that … but heck, maybe they were just unlucky …
And the idea that rape and pillage were somehow acceptable in the 7th century is madness.
Now, this might be tough, so I’ll go slow.
“George almost won the race” means George exists.
“Bob almost met his sales quota” means Bob exists.
“The call for Jihad almost became a sixth rukh” means that Jihad exists.
If that’s not clear I can go slower …
I did not say that the fact that the Kharijites accept universal Jihad as a sixth rukh means that the belief is representative of Islam. It does mean, however, that if some Muslims have accepted it as a sixth rukh, it must a) exist and b) have more than a little weight in Islamic circles. And while there are few Kharijites left now, in the past they were an important faction.
This question of the Greater and Lesser Jihads is played up by most of the Muslim apologists. For those not aware of the distinction, the Lesser Jihad is the fight to make Islam the world religion, while the Greater Jihad is the fight against man’s lower nature … funny how little time gets spent on the Greater Jihad, while there’s a host of Muslim Fundamentalists out there punctuating the Lesser Jihad with gunfire and bombs all the time.
Gibbs was obviously talking about the Lesser Jihad in this passage. Whether he talked about the Greater Jihad is immaterial to whether he is correct about the Lesser Jihad.
However, when Bin Laden or Hamas or Islamic Jihad is talking about Jihad, if you think they are talking about strugging with their lower natures, you are greatly mistaken …
I think we have enough evidence to agree that, regardless of whether Muhammed wanted Islam to spread religion by the sword, that:
There is plenty of evidence in the Koran and the Hadiths that either says or can be easily interpreted to say that Islam should be spread by the sword, and
Many of his followers, both then and now, certainly have that view, and
Muhammed certainly spread his religion by the sword in Banu Qurayza … unless that is somehow anacronistic as well, which I’m sure tomndebb will give us the authoritarian view on.
Was that Muhammed’s intention? Hard to say … but it certainly was the practical outcome. As the Koran says:
Big jihad or little jihad makes no difference. The Koran is clear on the question. Fight everyone, even the Jews and Christians (People of the Book), until they submit to Islamic rule.
The wikipedia cite for Jihad contains the following:
So, tomndebb, you can bust Gibbs for not noting the Greater Jihad … but the authors of the Hadiths and the historical Muslims didn’t pay it any mind either, they focused exclusively on Jihad as war … are you going to bust the authors of the Hadiths for ignoring the Greater Jihad and taking up the “flawed position of the casual observer” as well? Because they paid the Greater Jihad no more or less attention than Gibbs …
tomndebb, the very idea of you being qualified to decide who does or doesn’t have a shallow view of Islam is … well … I’ll call it a very interesting but unsubstantiated claim and let it go at that. But getting into whether the letters exist or not is too far afield for me.
Me, I just look around me. The idea of Jihad the war is a very popular one in current Islamic culture, there’s lots of Muslim folks out there who believe that their religion obligates them to go to war against us heathens. They may be wrong, or maybe when they read “Greater Jihad” they thought it meant “Lesser Jihad”, I don’t know. I just see what they do and I read what they write and say, and stupid me, I believe their description of their motives. I haven’t yet read where anyone has said that they blew someone up because they were practicing the Greater Jihad …
And whether or not you agree that killing some poor Jewish dweeb and taking his wife and kids as slaves and stealing his possessions counted in the 7th century as “spreading Islam by the sword” or as “rape and pillage” is up to you … but it’s what Muhammed did. Of course he had an excuse … “the Devil made me do it” …
w.
PS – Well, not exactly, I just said that for fun. His actual excuse was “the Angel made me do it”.
That was not what I said, but since you are more interested in promoting hatred through distorting both history and my posts, I’ll leave you to your hatred, here.
Of course jihad exists, no one has claimed otherwise. You are changing the discussion. What does not exist is a “stricture of Islam” to “spread their religion by the sword.” In fact, not only does the Greater Jihad, (the struggle to perfect one’s life and spirit in sight of God), exist, so does the Lesser Jihad, the struggle to prevent Islam from being crushed by outside forces. (Through history, the Lesser Jihad has not been the physical war to spread Islam. That is a mischaracterization that opponents of Islam have taken from selected writings and applied to all of Islam.)
According to this logic, alcoholic abstinence must have a significant role in Christianity. Faction is the significant word in desribing the Khajiriates. They were always a splinter group that never had a serious role to play in Muslim thought.
The fact that he placed a discussion solely about the Lesser Jihad under a heading of “Djihad” indicates the flawed nature of his work.
No, bin Laden generally spoke of the Lesser Jihad. There is no question of that. The point is that he does not represent “Islam,” only a faction of it–a faction that you would like to portray as universal to a billion people.
You must have missed the part about the Hadiths. They only discuss the Lesser Jihad under the heading of Jihad as well … does that indicate the flawed nature of their work?
Well, the Pew poll showed that over half of the Muslims polled said that suicide murders are sometimes justified … but you seem to think that is only a “faction” of Islam as well.
I understand that not all Muslims think alike. I understand that there are factions. I understand that you think Muhammed was incapable of rape and pillage, although I don’t understand why or how.
I also understand that if some splinter Christian group flew an airplane into the Kaaba, you’d have pastors and priests denouncing the action from pulpits all around the world, and every Christian leader would be rushing to explain that this was only the action of a small bunch of nutjobs.
But when the Muslims flew planes into the World Trade Center, the silence was deafening from the Mullahs and the Muslim leaders … except for the people dancing in the streets across the Middle East.
But I’m sure you have a perfectly reasonable explanation for that as well.
Finally, you seem obsessed with hatred, you keep accusing me of hating Muslims. I don’t hate Muslims, I’m far too old for that kind of nonsense. However, I don’t mistake them (in the main) for peaceful, pleasant people, either. It is not a coincidence that the overwhelming majority of current wars have Muslims on one side, the other, or both.
Also, you accuse me of “distorting history” … let’s take the account of the subjugation of Banu Qurayza as an example. What in there did I distort? First you denied it altogether, now you seem to want to distort it into a fairy tale where there is no rape and no pillage … where was my distortion? As far as I know, everything I wrote about it is true, and well attested. Muhammed murdered defenseless prisoners. You can paint that up in any colours you want, but it’s still murdering defenseless prisoners.
Sure. More distortion that you are willing to accept because it confirms your views.
The people dancing in the street were scattered groups of people in a limited number of Middle Eastern countries where there are large groups of people who have been displaced who feel (correctly or not) that U.S. policies (some deliberate, some just stupid) have led to their misfortunes. At the time of the “dancing,” their reaction was political, not religious (and in Palestine and, to a lesser extent, Lebanon it was as likely to include Christians as Muslims). Note that the “dancing” occurred while the buildings were still in flames and before any message had been released by bin Laden, so the notion that they were celebrating as Muslims in support of the Lesser Jihad revises history.
I denied your use of “rape” and “pillage” (leaving your charge of “plunder” to stand as accurate. The taking of single or recently widowed women captured in war for the purpose of making them wives is a barbaric practice. However, it is a different action than simply forcing a man’s sexual attentions on a woman in the manner of rape. I’m sure that this will bring forth more sarcasm from you, but the reality is that your characterization is wrong.
As to distortions:
This retelling conveniently ignores the fact that all the tribes in Medina, Arab and Jewish and pagan, had already agreed to a pact of mutual defense. By purportedly staying neutral, the people of Banu Qurayza, were, effectively, supporting the Meccans who vastly outnumbered the Medinans. They were also discovered to have had a well-stocked armory that they chose not to share with the Medinans even if they did choose to not participate. (There are also versions of the history–unconfirmed by scholars–that the people of Banu Qurayza had made a later separate agreement with Mohammed for explicit aid that they withheld. It may or may not be true, but it indicates that something more was at work than the disingenuous claim in your tale that they simply refrained from aiding the Meccans. On the other hand, some sources claim that the Qurayza supplied digging tools (but no manpower) for the digging of the defensive ditch, so different versions do makes different claims.)
Since on several earlier occasions Mohammed had been attacked and forgiven his defeated attackers and on each occasion had then been attacked again by those pardoned opponents, there is a good chance that he felt he needed to demonstrate that such treachery would no longer be tolerated.
Again, I would view all this as fairly barbaric (if typical of the Arab peninsula in the seventh century) but it is a quite different story than your tale’s claim that a bunch of innocent people were slaughtered and enslaved for merely staying neutral in a battle.
Uh, I don’t think so. There were three Jewish tribes in Medina up till 624 and prior to the Battle of the Trench, the Qaynuqa ,and the Nadir were expelled, being stripped of their craft and trade tools.
There’s even a better chance that he just hated Jews. Banu Qurayza was the final solution in a genocidal program.
Your right. It wasn’t for merely staying neutral. It was for being Jewish not Muslim.
At the time of the Battle of the Trench, the Qurayza were the last major Jewish tribe that remained in Medina, but that did not abrogate the compact among Muslims, pagans, and Jews. The conflicts between the Muslims and the Qaynuqa and Nadir might have been a plan of ethnic cleansing. Lots of things are possible. On the other hand, they might have been the typical tribal squabbling that went on all the time among most of those groups. Certainly, neither the Nadir nor the Qurayza appear to have viewed the conflict with the Qaynuqa to be an assault on their Judaism and the Qurayza do not appear to have looked on the conflict with the Nadir as anything different than the typical internecine squabbling. At the time of the Trench, the compact among the Muslims, pagan, and Jews (reduced to the Quraza and some smaller groups) was still in effect.
There is also enough evidence of general tribal intransigence among all the parties that there is no particular reason to believe that Mohammed planned or initiated the conflicts (although he certainly leaped at the opportunities that they represented).
My question was about the lack of any significant response from the mythical huge group of moderate Muslims that you keep referring to.
You keep reading things into what I say. I never claimed that “they were celebrating as Muslims in support of the Lesser Jihad”, that’s some kind of fantasy of yours.
You never answered my question. Where were all the moderate Arab voices on and after 9/11? I wrote about this lack at the time, so I’m very clear that I’m not revising history. The silence was quite real.
You have attempted to hide your lack of response by only quoting part of my question. In its entirety, I said:
Now, my question was clear – where was the moderate Muslim response? Where were the Muslims that denounced such a barbaric act? You have avoided that question in its entirety, preferring instead to excuse and justify the crowds celebrating the horrific death of several thousand people (including a number of Muslims).
So, to summarize, let me see if I grasp your overall positions here:
a) It’s perfectly understandable that Muhammed would murder helpless captives, no blame attaches.
b) Its perfectly understandable that Muslim crowds would celebrate the death of thousands, including Muslims, no blame attaches.
c) Although the Hadiths only refer to the Lesser Jihad, for anyone else to only refer to the Lesser Jihad reveals that their work is “flawed”.
d) Killing a helpless prisoner and enslaving and having sex with his wife is only rape if it is done outside of the context of the 7th century. In that context, it is an un-named “barbaric practice”, but it is not rape. Stupid me, I always thought that the dictionaries were correct when they said:
Funny, I don’t see anything in there about the 7th century, or during wartime. You’ll have to write them all and tell them that tomndebb says that their definitions are terribly out of date.
e) Out of all of the people of the planet who have been wronged by the “Great Powers”, the Muslims are unique. They are the only ones who have been so affected by those wrongs that they go out and chop people’s heads off on TV, the only ones who want to kill cartoonists … but of course no blame attaches. It has nothing to do with the fact that they are Muslims, it’s because they were wronged by the Great Powers.
f) Despite the fact that it is believed by millions of Muslims that Jihad is an obligation to spread the religion by force, and despite the fact that the Koran gives specific instructions on how to spread Islam by force (give the conquered a choice of death, or conversion, or submission and taxation … unless they are polytheists, them you can just kill if they refuse to convert), there is absolutely nothing in Islam that says to spread Islam by force.
OK, I think we’re clear on your positions here … unless I misunderstand your writings, which is very possible, since (as in the example above) you often refuse to meet the issues head-on.
If Muhammed really attacked Banu Qurayza because they had broken a treaty as you claim, he would have said so.
Instead, he said that he had been directed by the Angel Gabriel to attack them.
This, of course, was the same reason he gave for having so many wives … it was OK for him to do that, but not for his followers. Why? Because the Angel Gabriel told him it was OK.
And it was the same reason he gave for breaking a treaty himself, the Angel made him do it.
My advice would be, when the Angel is speaking to Muhammed, no man or woman is safe …
Look, I don’t hate Muslims, and I don’t lump them all together. I lived for years in a country where Muslims were a significant minority, and have worked in a number of countries where they are the overwhelming majority. I have awakened every morning to the sound of the muzzein calling the faithful to prayers, I have worked with people who pray five times a day, I have had the religion explained and justified to me by its adherents.
What bothers me is the violence and intolerance that is at the very core of the religion, the violence that is exemplified in Muhammed’s actions. If I were to say to you “Don’t be friends with the Muslims, they are not good people”, you would strongly condemn that point of view. And rightly so.
But when the Koran says “Don’t be friends with the Christians and the Jews, they are not good people”, somehow that is different … somehow, all of the atrocities of the Muslims are understandable, and explainable, and excusable in your point of view.
That’s what I don’t understand. I understand why it would be wrong for me to say “Don’t be friends with Muslims”, but I don’t understand why it’s perfectly fine for the Muslims to say “Don’t be friends with Jews and Christians”?
Another example. If Christians danced in the streets when they heard about 3,000 Muslim civilians being killed, it would be condemned by Christians worldwide, and rightly so. (And the Muslim world would probably go nuts and start shooting cartoonists.)
But when Muslims do the same thing, in your view, it’s OK because they see themselves as having been mistreated.
What am I missing here? Look, I care that Muslims have been mistreated, although some of the mistreatment is imaginary. But that does not excuse anyone cutting someone’s head off on TV … and whether you like it or not, the people who are cutting off the heads say they are doing it on religious grounds. They don’t say they are doing it because of the Great Powers, they say the Koran tells them to do it, and their mullahs and imams back them up. And me, call me crazy, but I believe them.
Isn’t there something in the Bible about “By their fruits shall ye know them”?
I have made no reference to any “mythical huge group of moderate Muslims.” That is your invention and strawman. I have only noted that you attack Islam as though it was, basically, monolithically fanatical when the reality is that there is far too much diversity within the Muslim world to make your mischaracterizations legitimate.
You want response from the Muslim world? Both Iran and Libya formally condemned the attacks of September 11, 2001. Even the Afghani government condemned the attacks, although one suspects that in their case there was a bit of ass covering going on.
You are upsert that you did not hear from Muslim clerics? So what? How much attention did you pay to al Jazeera or al Arabiya? They were both featured on the Google home page for months after the attacks. The fact that Fox News did not report many condemnations from Muslim sources indicates nothing more than the fact that Fox News has very few reporters capable of actually reading or understanding the pronouncements from the Muslim world.
I suspect that you spent far more effort being mad that you did not encounter such condemnation on your local news (which probably carried nothing from the Muslim community) than you did actually looking for condemnation of the WTC/Pentagon attacks from Muslims.
In order to put your rant to rest, however, here is a page that quotes some of the Muslims Condemning Terrorist Attacks.
As I first responded regarding your claim and question: confirmation bias. You see and hear exactly what you choose to see and hear and you ignore anything that does not confirm your initial beliefs.
This is directly contradicted by my statement that it was a barbaric act. I simpy noted that your particular reading is shaped by your desires despite other possibly conflicting evidence.
This is invented from whole cloth. I never even addressed the issue of the propriety of some small number of people rejoicing in harm inflicted on the U.S. I think that too was tragic. However, I noted that the groups were not particularly large, that they were motivated by politics, not religion, and that they included Christians as well as Muslims, which both makes their actions more understandable (even if lamentable) and makes your direct association between the celebrants and their religion disingenuous. As I noted, some portion of the celebrants were Christians who have suffered under the same political actions as their Muslim neighbors. (I am only suprised, at this point, that you have not claimed that those Chinese who also celebrated the attacks on the WTC and Pentagon were Muslim, too.)
Where in the world did you come up with this nonsense? One Documentation of “Greater Jihad” hadith. The idea that “the Hadiths only refer to the Lesser Jihad” is blatantly false.
Are you deliberately distorting my point for a reason? Never mind. The answer to that is pretty clear.
This is simply more of your deliberate distortion, but for the audience at home I will restate my actual point.
Violence is more prevalent whenever societies are disrupted. There is nothing unique among the violence we see at this time among various different Muslim societies. You have resolutely ignored the violence that I have already pointed out among the Christians of Northern Ireland, Spain, Nigeria, and the former Yugoslavia and among the Buddhists of Sri Lanka. (I could also point out the violence among Buddhists or atheists in Cambodia and China in the last forty years and among Hindus throughout that period continuing to the present.) The point regarding Islam is that more of the current world that happens to have seen social disruption is, coincidentally, Muslim, therefore one will find more examples of violence among Muslims at the beginning of the 21st century than among other groups. If we were to look at the 19th century, we would find fewer violent Muslim societies when compared to the violence in Christian or Buddhist or Confucian societies. It ebbs and flows with history.
This entire statement is simply made up nonsense from the haters of Islam. I know you desperately need to bnelieve it, but it is not true. (I have already provided a link to a discussion of the parts of the Qur’an to which you allude debunking your misrepresentations.)
Tap your foot faster.
The statement was clear and you have contributed nothing in this thread that justifies you making demands of other posters. (In addition, there is no rule in this Forum that requires anyone to respond to anyone. This is your courtesy response.)
You haven’t been paying attention. Actually, the illustrious film career of Geert Wilders was the core of the OP. I even requested more information about the multi-talented statesman & filmmaker–a veritable Renaissance Man! But his story was neglected in favor of fervent ravings by our resident Neo-Crusaders.
The Dutch government hasn’t “forbidden” the film–which is apparently ten minutes long. But preparations are underway for the possible aftermath.
Commercial outlets haven’t snapped up the film. It will probably end up on YouTube. Still–not exactly censorship.
tomndebb, first, thanks for the citation Muslims Condemning Terrorist Attacks. Now, that’s the action. Consider my ignorance totally fought regarding Muslim intellectuals speaking out against al Qaeda, Jihad, and Terrorism. You were 100% correct about them.
I figured I’d let my eyes just roam down the list of documents on the page you cited, and when I got to what I needed to know, I’d open it. So I opened Twin Towers Viewed from a Western Minaret A very thoughtful and moving piece. I will explore the list further, much appreciated.
However, this does not negate my point, which is that Islam is not just another religion among religions. It is a religion that glorifies and sanctifies violence. I think this is the biggest difference between you and I, tomndebb. You think that the violence in Islam occurs in large part because their cultures have been disturbed. I, on the other hand, think that their cultures have been disturbed in large part because Islam itself is so violent.
Or to examine the difference between our positions in another way, you think that “there is no particular reason to believe that Mohammed planned or initiated the conflicts” between the early Muslims and their Jewish neighbours. I, on the other hand, think that either the Angel Gabriel came to Muhammad and told him to attack the Jews, or Muhammed just claimed the Angel told him to attack the Jews but he actually did it on his own.
But I’m in a puzzlement here about how to explain my position. As I said before, I would be happy if my kid wanted to grow up to be like Buddha or Jesus, or even Bahaullah. I’m neither Buddhist nor Christian nor Muslim nor Baha’i myself, but if my kid wanted to live like Buddha or Jesus or Bahaullah, to be like them, to take them as a role model, no problemo.
But I wouldn’t want my kid to grow up to be like Muhammed, to live like Muhammed. Call me squeamish, call me overly fastidious, but I don’t want any kid of mine to be like or live like or act like Muhammed in the slightest. No chopping off someone’s hand and a foot on opposite sides of the body, thank you very much. No. I don’t want my kid to be like anyone who was capable of the mass murder of unarmed prisoners, no matter what century they lived in. They might have been right in tune with their times, but they’re not a role model to me.
But Muhammed is a role model for Bin Laden. He is a role model for Muslim extremists. They want to be like Big Mo (PBUH). For them, he is their Warrior Prophet, leading his armies in death against Jews and Christians just as he led them in life.
And they are like him in 'most every way, including being unmoved by the death of hundreds … it’s easy, you see, because they don’t have to twist Islam in any way to justify their actions. They just ask themselves, WWMD? Then it all becomes clear, doubts are swept away, then they can strap on a bomb and go blow up some more women and children with a clear conscience …
OK. The greater Jihad is the struggle against the nafs and the hawa, ego and lower desires. The lesser Jihad is war. Now here’s another hadith from the site in the title:
Now, if I had only stopped reading right there, that sounds all pleasant and peaceful enough. But nooooo … my idle desires popped up and said “Boss, I know that ‘Remembrance of Allah’ is the very best, that’s for sure, better than gold or silver, you betcha, but that’s gonna be real tough to do, so, Boss … what do you reckon we go find out what is second best, that might not be as hard to do.”
Pesky desires … but in any case, I read on, if I can’t win the gold for Remembrance, maybe the siver medal is not out of the question. And sure enough, I saw that I could find out if I was in the running, because not far down the page it gives another hadith that describes second place:
Wow, I didn’t realize the bar was gonna be that high. I mean, if you’re better than somebody totally drenched in the blood of unbelievers, I reckon that’s about as high up as a man could be.
Guess I’ll have to settle for the bronze medal … wonder if theres a hadith showing who’s in the running for that …
w.