Would a different justification have made the Iraq war more credible?

Great Debates
101

Thank you, Aldebaran, well done.

Jojo, stop being disingenuous about what we did or didn’t discuss in the discussion on honour killings , that isn’t the point. The thread, as the title faintly suggests, was about honour killings, and included various subjects such as apostasy and a broad range of other concepts that you dabbled in. I repeat, my point in that thread (which, as here, you routinely try to obscure with your snide silliness) was that “there is nothing I am aware of in Islam that supports honour killings”. You failed to demonstrate otherwise.

Now, Jojo, let me remind you again of the bias and agenda you have with no little conspicuousness put into evidence here and in the past, and why your output on these subjects is more often than not demonstrably self-congratulatory and deliberately inflammatory. As usual you swing all over the map, so I have divided my response in sections.

**DANCING ON WHITE NILE **

Your cite White Nile is a good example with which to highlight the gross dishonesty of your approach to discussion. I have said of this book that “you brought [it] up as a historical reference to make an ignorance-based claim on the spread of Islam in North Africa”. In the present discussion (not the old one) you are now denying that you did this. Just as you have denied the demonstrable fact that I addressed every single one of your arguments in the old thread. Just as you have denied that you engage in a discussion on Islam only to push whatever sloppy malicious interpretation of information you can grab.

Behold. You said in the discussion on honour killings:

I replied that this was nonsense, saying: “Some interpretations of Islam among particularly paternalistic and misogynistic cultures may take such an approach, but more as an item of culture than religion. And I’d like to hear a bit more concerning the assertion about the spread of Islam in North Africa, which thus far sounds like bigoted hogwash.” When you responded with your lengthy extract from White Nile I criticized the historical accuracy and obvious bias of your cite, pointing out it relied on traveller’s tales and that these travellers were all white Christian men who (remember, it was the 19th century) tended to regard other races and religions as automatically inferior. I also said that “White Nile, sadly your only real cite of substance in this discussion, treats Africans as a homogenous culture of primitive tribesmen incapable of intellectual sophistication and so forth”.

That, if you hadn’t noticed, was pretty much a demolition of White Nile as a credible source of historical analysis with which to support your tenous and otherwise unsupported argument. In the modern world, we actually have a wide choice of scholars and historians to choose from, we really don’t have to go dig up popular entertainment books based on old biased traveller accounts and press-gang them into questionable service.

To summarize one more time in case I’m not getting my point across: in the thread on honour killing your subthesis on the spread of Islam was dealt some grievous blows (your broader thesis, both messy and simplistic, was against Islam in general). I asked you to back up your simplistic and ignorant assertions with material proving your skewed sense of history, and you provided a lengthy and solitary citation from White Nile to support your claim, which I then shredded like most of your uninformed arguments and [very few] cites.

In this thread, you now claim that you were just mentioning White Nile in passing because it was interesting; that’s dishonest rubbish, just like many of the other claims I have pointed out. The record is quite clear, and will no doubt withstand your revisionism: you cited White Nile in order to attempt to justify a claim based on your preconceptions, not on historical analysis. Apply this exact same process of verification to the rest of your assertions, and it’s pretty obvious why your antics lack support and credibility.

Furthermore, you obviously didn’t have the slightest clue as to why the book --the only (pseudo) historical cite you used to support your allegations-- was written in an archaic manner, thinking that it was “1960s style”. It’s worth a good chuckle when someone doesn’t exhibit basic understanding of their own supporting material, and confuses 19th century style with the '60s. I explained that this entertainment book was put together based on accounts from the 19th century, and that its author deliberately employs an archaic style. Yet another instance of me educating you for free, and this is how you repay me.

ON THE IRAQ WAR AND SANCTIONS

I provided a range of cites and discussions to establish that contention as reasonable, on top of giving you my direct opinion based on significant involvement and experience in MENA, not to mention the summary by Aldebaran of MENA/Muslim perceptions, on which he has proved far more informed than you. I also referred and linked to cites on the unprecedented spate of terror attacks in recent times, the explosive growth in inflammatory anti-American rhetoric and sentiment in a broad swathe of societies, strong and formal national (including democratic) opposition to the war, the differences in perception between the Iraq war (illegitimate, unilateral, unfounded, etc.) versus the sanctions (International, UN, legitimate, clear voted consensus, obvious purpose, etc.). And more, much more. It’s still all here in this thread, waiting for you.

The recent “sanctions were bad” argument, as I pointed out, is a desperate movement spread by Bush’s handlers and spinners (and used by Dubya himself) to try take focus off the rather serious problems he faces now for a variety of other reasons having to do with the Iraq affair. It is, as the Bush method requires, merely a distraction from the real issues in an attempt to gain some degree of justification and legitimacy for recent reckless behaviour. Pervert, who unlike you is not presenting arguments that rely on ignorance (but on spin-interpretations of actual facts), didn’t really press his case more than to make a point that just didn’t stand up as well as it could have.

In response to my references to materials already existing in this thread you have given me your worthless opinion and hand-waving. At no time have you cited any evidence whatsoever except to link to a timeline that establishes precious little – besides, I have been very clear that I am not claiming sanctions had no impact, I am claiming their impact relative to the Iraq war has been lower for the reasons and analyses already provided. I provided cites to this very effect in the form of various reports and commentaries discussing the severity and costs of the Iraq situation and showing an unusual decrease in a variety of necessary currencies that may well be unprecedented.

Also see response by Alde.

**ON DHIMMI **

Well well, real incomprehension or more dishonesty? You did not demonstrate the cite was factually wrong, you simply made some assertions and aired your opinion, which, I may have already mentioned, is execrably informed and worthless to any even-handed discussion. Let’s recap here too, shall we Jojo, and highlight again the dishonesty you routinely employ:

Jojo says, without elaboration, clarification, evidence, or any multicultural awareness whatsoever, that dhimmi is “a tax to muslims so that the muslims don’t kill them”, stated in the context of his usual broader attack on Islam. This is his flat claim, still there in black and white.

I responded with a reputable cite and analysis, and armed with that I made the claim that my response shows “very clearly why Jojo’s definition of dhimmi was severely flawed and embarrasingly simplistic”.

Jojo then tries to modify the situation, because even he realizes his definition of dhimmi is simply wrong. He starts hand-waving about a set of unrelated claims, and (notice this part) doesn’t provide a single item of evidence to back up his assertions. I call him on this (as I tend to do) and his reply (as it tends to do) consists primarily of alleging personal attacks and waffling, and he flatly denies my (rather well-supported I thought) argument. He obviously went and did a bit of research among his usual sources --which have already been demonstrated to be not only few and far between, but also of highly suspect quality-- and then started trying to impugn the concept we are discussing as one that is fundamentally flawed, rather than admitting to the stupidity of his original definition.

Go ahead and try that in your own thread – preferably in the Pit given the quality of your arguments – and as I said I will join you if I have the time and energy. My point here is limited to demonstrating to any posters not already driven off by your train-wrecking strategies that your interpretation and definition of the dhimmi concept were simplistic, unsupported, and wrong. I did that. Short of editing your original introductory definition of dhimmi (“a tax to muslims so that the muslims don’t kill them”), your recourse should properly be an honest admission that you spoke hastily and inaccurately, or that you expressed yourself with deliberate malice as you sought validation for and propagation of your prejudices. And you have already refused to correct yourself…

ON DISCUSSION, APPROACH, SUNDRY

Hm, the occasion of me outlining how you make use of the technique I describe above is hardly unprecedented; my criticism of your methods is well supported by, conveniently, your recent claim on dhimmi and my responses to it. Again, you focus on extremist interpretations and factors, and start clarifying that you are talking about extremists only when you are absolutely forced to – although even in the most extremist environments dhimmi is applied as rather more than “a tax to muslims so that the muslims don’t kill them”.

Good disclaimer you put in there, I am glad to see my efforts are having some effect.

I addressed this objection in our linked discussion most thoroughly, in particular your reference to 4:34 (and others), which was discussed on page 2 and page 3. I provided a discussion and multiple translations of the original Arabic, and demonstrated how the treatment of women in some Islamic populations (by no means all or even the majority) is actually a cultural item (of cultures that traditionally have stronger patriarchal and often misogynistic tendencies) rather than one suggested by religious ideology per se. That is precisely why I earlier said that we had already seen how religion is conveniently used to justify anything. Tens of thousands of words of discussion and dozens of cites to that effect are still in that thread, most of them unanswered or not properly addressed by you as you quested about looking for something to fasten your teeth on.

No, my fellow poster so obviously fond of cheap and dishonest techniques, not at all. Once again I am saying – more than saying, I am pointing out for anyone with eyes to see with – that your criticism of Islam is malicious and insidious. I myself have expressed (formally elsewhere and informally on these boards) criticisms of specific Muslim interpretations/behaviour and of religion itself that are far more substantive than anything you appear able to provide, so step off the disingenuity rail unless you are suggesting I would call my efforts insidious and malicious too.

Your interpretations and your refusal to accept evidenced arguments are. That’s because they indicate an existing prejudice that you will validate and defend at any cost. If you claim once that Koran 4:34 tells men to oppress or abuse women and a discussion results wherein you are shown why your claim isn’t quite accurate, I can understand that as a perfectly ordinary process. Indeed, I undertook that exact discussion in the honour killings thread, as I already mentioned. On the other hand, when you broadcast your assertion repeatly without any regard whatsoever for previous discussion or contrary analysis already provided, well, it suggests what it does.

If you want to raise yet again what has already been discussed in great detail, do it somewhere else and stop trying to distract from the real issues in the hope of proving your inane little points. Denying that your assertions (and several questions too), were all addressed in the honour killings thread is a bit foolish given that the thread clearly shows otherwise.

Now here’s a nice bit of revisionism:

So read what I actually wrote (and quoted above, and emphasized). It answers your disingenuous question perfectly. I wasn’t boasting about my travel, business, and living experience, I was clarifying why I may speak with degrees of confidence and familiarity on particular subjects such as popular sentiment, and also religion, culture, etc., and it is offensive when ignorance is heaped over something that one actually knows something about. You snidely implied that my knowledge and familiarity with MENA was due to a one-time holiday in Tunisia. I explained, because you asked, or seemed to ask, about my history in the region. In response you posed yet another disingenuous question, particularly disingenuous since its answer is provided in the very segment of my prose that you quoted and presumably read at least once.

Tamerlane is a far more patient poster than I, and employs a discussion technique that is primarily conciliatory, but ultimately just as destructive to your anit-Islam arguments. This one can plainly see if one follows a line of discussion at reasonable depth, rather than sidewinding on the surface as you do, looking for specific and often unrelated items you can strongly criticize (initial approach) or equivocate and dodge (follow-up approach). Tamerlane is able to follow a logical line and knows when he has proved his point; you, on the other hand, get lost in minutiae as you launch repetitive and poorly-founded attacks on Islam or on veru highly specific portions of someone else’s arguments (but never the whole), and don’t appear to show awareness of when your claims fall over stone-dead. I don’t use a conciliatory style with you, nor do I have to. Tamerlane, I daresay, is aware of the ignorance and potential for harm contained in the broadcast of your ill-informed and maliciously applied opinions, but he doesn’t really feel like addressing them. I do feel like it, occasionally at least, so I highlight the plentiful problems in your arguments and presentation.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Yes, I can be abrasive. Usually the degree of abrasion is directly proportional to the stupidity of the arguments (and non) thrown at me, so in the case of Bushite propaganda or Jojo’s anti-Islam nonsense I tend to become rather excoriating. I apologize. Said that, however, if you think I have engaged in flaming or similar personal attacks that are flagrantly against the rules, take it up with the Moderators and quit your whining here.

102

You’re welcome.
It would be “done” much better if I had a better grasp of this language (and if in addition I would not have my precious birthgift which I commonly call brother Dyslex. He makes me often quite dizzy, especially when I try to read long posts).
Therefore I usually stay out of endless discussions with posters like Jojo and especially so when you or Tamerlane of Tomndebb (and a few others who show to have a knowledge/understanding or good grasp of Islam and related issues) show up and start arguing against the ignorance and bad will that is displayed.

So in fact it is my obligation to thank you for taking up the task to fight this ignorance where I would be placed and normally expect of myself to do so.

Oh God… You call yourself “abrasive” (had to look that one up) while I constantly fall backwards of admiration for the endlessly repeated patience you and the others I mentioned show towards such posters?
Mmmmmm…Oh well… If you studied Arabic you must know how desperately sad I am that I can’t express myself here in that language. English is such a poor tool for me to use, in comparison… :slight_smile:

Salaam. A

103

sigh…

Aldebaran, first of all:

I said that Osama cited the sanctions as one of the three things that were harming muslims in his fatwa against the US. Aldebaran replied:

Agreed. But since he heads the organisation that is attacking us then his “fatwas” are relevant. I agree that his fatwas hold no weight in terms of “official” islamic theory but since the sanctions were one of three things he singled out then obviously the sanctions are important to his motivations OR he uses them because he knows that they are something which would appeal to a wide section of his target audience (muslims).

Agreed. As I just said, since he used them as a rallying call then that shows that he must know that they strike a chord with many ordinary muslims.

You want a cite for my claim that muslim political demonstrations through the 90s usually focused on Israel and the sanctions?

Have you been asleep for the last ten years? I don’t know what kind of cite you would want. What do you think muslim demonstrations focused on during the 90s if not Israel and the sanctions?

I’m in London, I saw plenty through that period. Are you seriously claiming that the sanctions were not a major bugbear of the muslim world during the 90s? For one thing they helped spawn a terrorist group (al Qaida).

OK. That is a good point. However, would you agree that through the 90s these Afghan camps seemed to grow in popularity to the point where thousands were passing through them? My contention is that the sanctions were one factor (amongst others) that fuelled the resentment of some young muslims - they had a feeling that fellow muslims were being bullied by the west and they had a desire to fight back.

You say that the study you wrote was 13 years ago - that is the kind of time frame I am talking about. Gulf War 1 was in 1991 (13 years ago). OBL, with his millions, first came on the scene in the mid/late 70s fighting the Russians in Afghanistan.

So this all fits my timeframe. There was a feeling of resentment towards the west in some sections of the muslim community throughout the 70s (as evidenced by several terrorist attacks mostly sponsored by Libya). This resentment may have been caused by various things.

But all this really took off after Gulf War 1 and the sanctions were imposed. Gulf War 1 itself may not have been a major cause but the ongoing sanctions (combined with other factors) may be one reason for the increasing levels of resentment and the increasing numbers of people attending these camps.

I’ll give you my understanding and you can correct me if you think I’m wrong.
The verb in question is “darb” which means to hit or strike. The argument against this word actually meaning “hit” (as in physically attack) seems to rest on the idea that the word hit can have different meanings depending on the context.

For example, a person could:

Hit the road
Hit the bottle
Hit the jackpot

Thus the word “hit” may not always mean physically strike. The problem with this argument is that the meaning of the word “hit” is dependant on the object of the sentence.

If you “hit the road” then it means you will travel somewhere
If you “hit the bottle” it means you drink heavily
If you “hit the jackpot” it means that you will win the jackpot

If you “hit a woman” then it means hit (as in physically strike). There is no other meaning of “hit” when it is used in the sense of “hit a person” even in arabic.

In arabic there are phrases where you “hit” a particular part of the body eg one might say “I hit my feet” which means “I started walking”. But if a whole body is mentioned, as in “hit a woman” then it literally means to physically strike a woman.

In the quran, every time the verb “darb” gets used and does not mean “to beat” it involves something other than a whole human being. Every time the verb “darb” is used against a human being, it means “to beat”.

For example, the verse 2:73 says:

This verse concerns the idea of striking the dead man with a piece of the cow. It uses the verb “darb”. There are other verses as well wherein striking a whole human uses the same verb as in 4:34.

It also fits in with the context of the verse whereby the punishments against the woman get incrementally worse. First shun her, then send her to another bed, finally beat her.

In any case, whether it means to beat or not doesn’t really matter. The whole theme of the verse is “how to treat a disobedient wife”. A wife is an independant, adult human being with her own thoughts and opinions. She is not a dog or a child to be punished for “disobedience”.

How does one define disobedience in a wife? Not doing what the husband says?

The White Nile is an interesting read, I recommend you read it. Abe’s description of it is pretty accurate. It’s a somewhat dated, christian-centric tale of the nineteenth century quest to find the source of the Nile. It’s an entertaining read and involves all the big names of 19th century explorers - Stanley, Livingstone etc.

The section I quoted was just one tiny part of the book which mentioned islam. The rest of the book isn’t concerned with islam. Dated though it is, that doesn’t mean it is entirely wrong. It’s historically accurate. The only thing that may be “wrong” about it is that some of the opinions expressed by the author seem a bit old fashioned.

But I would class it as a fun book that an educated person ought to have read in their life, and I venture to suggest that even Abe would agree with me on that point.

104

Abe:

I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have never said, either in that thread or this, that islam does support honour killings. Yes that thread was about honour killings but that wasn’t what I was talking about. I was talking about Quran 4:34 and the status of women in islam.

Please do.

OK enough waffle. Here is the quote from The White Nile. The author, Alan Moorehead, is describing the work of the christian missionaries in Africa in the 19th century:

Now if we can all get over the dated syntax, could you tell me what is actually FACTUALLY wrong in that account?

Yes, I know it is dubious on a number of levels - the patronising way it talks about Africans (and muslims), the way it presumes to know the motivations behind those people who converted to islam but I wouldn’t say that it is entirely without truth.

And above all, it’s interesting which is why I posted it in the first place. I didn’t really post it as a “cite” so can you please stop accusing me of using it as a cite. Cite is too strong a word.

This is all very interesting but can you tell me what’s actually wrong in the quote?

This is another example of you trying to superimpose your own thoughts on to me. I was aware that the book was written in an archaic style - that’s the main reason why I enjoyed it. I love 19th century writing (even 19th century style writing).

Anyway let’s not get bogged down with The White Nile, it’s hardly the point of this thread.

I bolded the bit where I think your understanding is impaired.

Yes the sanctions were indeed international, legitimate, UN, consensus, obvious purpose etc but disaffected muslims didn’t see it that way. To them they were not international - they saw the hand of the United States behind them.

They were not legitimate because the US forced them through and maintained them (no-fly zones etc)

They were not UN because as far as many are concerned, the UN gets used as a tool for legitimising US imperialism.

And they were not consensus because the US uses it’s economic power to get the support of the governments of muslim nations.

All the things you refer to - international, UN, consensus, legitimate etc - are what various governments of the world thought (including the governments of muslim countries) but there is one very important thing you are forgetting. Al Qaida (et al) think that all the muslim governments are shit. They think that none of them represent true muslim feeling. They are all in America’s pocket.

No muslim country is truly islamic (to them). So just because muslim governments have agreed to the sanctions means nothing to them and it means nothing to your average aggrieved young muslim on the ground.

What I am saying is that the Iraq war was launched (in part) to get rid of the sanctions. This was done in order to get rid of one of the causes of muslim resentment which was leading to more and more young muslims being attracted to these radical groups.

These young aggrieved muslims don’t give a shit about the official policies of various muslim governments. So the fact that the sanctions were internationally approved means nothing in terms of al Qaida recruitment.

Can you get it into your head that I agree that the Iraq war will have had a large impact on muslim hostility toward America.

I fully accept this. My point is that the war is a one-off, one-time thing. The sanctions were ongoing. They had to go. The war is over now, in a few years it will become a detail of history. The sanctions were always there. They were something which radical muslims could always point to and say “see how America is hurting muslims?”

Imagine, in ten years time, if Iraq is stable and rich. That will be one less thing that the radicals can point to to attract support.

It’s pretty hard to find individual hadiths (unless you know what you are looking for) because there are thousands of them. Your cite said this:

I definitely recall reading a hadith that said something about making the unbelievers wear a distinguishing mark. All I can find on a google search though is the Pact of Umar.

Please note I am NOT suggesting that islam says that unbelievers must wear a mark. The hadith the Taliban used was (I believe) a weak hadith and not something that mainstream islam accepts. I was just trying to show that the cite was not entirely correct. Unfortunately I can’t find the exact hadith.

Uh no, Jojo doesn’t. Jojo accepts that his definition of dhimmi possibly didn’t fully convey the entirety of the meaning but still thinks that his definition carried the general gist of it. Jojo points out to Abe that, even using his cite, the definition of dhimmi entails acquiescence and obedience to the islamic state. Jojo further points out to Abe that said acquiesence could easily be defined as having been broken by someone who refuses to pay the appropriate tax.

Jojo then says…sorry can we stop referring to me in the third person now? It’s getting confusing.

The payment of the jezyah tax and the dhimmi status is as much a part of the religion of islam as anything else is. If a non-muslim lives in an islamic state and is not complying with all the various rules of dhimmitude then that islamic state is not truly islamic. Part of the requirement of being an islamic state is that non-muslims are treated in accordance with the rules of islam. If non-muslims are not treated exactly as stipulated in the quran and hadith then that is an obstacle to that state being truly islamic.

Non-muslims must live according to the rules of islam or else the state is not truly islamic.

In any case, I think my original point was that the whole dhimmi concept introduces a form of religious discrimination whereby different religions are treated differently. In a moderate muslim this may not amount to much but in an extremist this idea can very easily lead to the notion that non-muslims are inferior to muslims. Thus the whole idea is a dangerous ideology.

No you didn’t address it. You said that there were two levels of things a man can do (shun the wife and send them to another bed) before the man beats her. You seemed to be suggesting that this is all ok. As long as the man gives the wife these two warnings before he hits her then whats the problem? This is what you seemed to be saying.

I don’t think a man should hit a woman ever. I don’t think a woman should have to be “obedient” to her husband either.

Sorry, I must have missed your criticisms of islam. What are they? It seems to me that my criticisms of islam are fairly non-controversial really, just the usual things - treatment of women, apostacy concept, brotherhood concept, historical inaccuracy (eg with regard to Jesus’s crucifixion), legal system etc.

What are your criticisms that are so wonderful that no one has ever thought of them before?

Nah, Tamerlane has an objectivity that I also have but you lack.

105

I’ll let the thread speak for itself, since I did more than enough work on it.

What is wrong is this account was your sole support for your assertion on the spread of Islam, as already painfully detailed. I have already reported and cited your own exact words as well as mine on this matter, so revisionism simply won’t wor. Look again:

You don’t have to have more than an extremely rudimentary understanding of history to understand why such criticism of the quality of a source is rather damning to a cite based on said source that purports to provide historical analysis – such as why Islam spread so fast. You’re not citing a history book in support of your bigoted thesis – you’re citing an entertainment book. And it’s fine as an entertainment book. But I’m not about to start citing the adventure books of, say, H Rider Haggard as reliable sources of historical information and especially analysis.

As for what is factually wrong with the extract, aside from the fundamental racism implied in its unsupported hypothesis, Islam spread by conquest: one hundred years after Muhammed reportedly had his first revelation, Islam had spread throughout Middle East, Persia, the Arabian Peninsula, north Africa, and was just entering Europe.

Of course, we could hand-wave and say as you did that Islam spread that fast in all those places by appealing to [native population] “precisely because it enshrined the place of women as inferior” (to use your exact words). Once again, your assertion has shit for support, so how about bringing forward real materials if you keep insisting in typical Jojo fashion on defending careless and ignorant assertions?

Whatever. It was the sole support you offered to back up your (implicitly bigoted) assertion, you tell me what that is supposed to be if not a cite?

Another attempt to revise what actually happened, what you stated and is still there. I quote from your introductory words in post #147, the one where you put forward White Nile in support of your thesis: “It was written in 1960 so some of the language sounds a bit dated”. Once again, instead of simply admitting you made a mistake you resort to falsehoods and equivocations.

That’s exactly why you always need all the legitimacy you can get – to balance out the extremists. And that’s why they were UN, international sanctions, supported by the vast majority by vote. Try to imagine the response if they had indeed been US sanctions imposed against the consensus of the UN.

What’s great is that you --who have to date failed to demonstrate any substantial realistic knowledge of this part of the world and its people-- are telling me (without anything as rudimentary as cites of course) how its people felt and how my understanding is seriously flawed, even though I have provided analysis based on considerable experience, a number of studies, and various other cites to tie my thesis together. Fascinating.

The No-Fly Zones were enabled by the somewhat sloppy ceasefire agreement that marked the end of the Gulf War in 1991, an agreement that also included the criterion of allowing UN weapons inspectors into Iraq. They were accepted and signed by all parties involved. The original and widely publicized intent of these zones was protection of the Kurdish and Shiite rebel minorities. Eventually the NFZs mutated into a means to leverage Iraq into compliance, chiefly regarding UN weapons inspections. The debate on the NFZs intensified after 1999, when the US and the UK assumed an increasingly aggressive posture to force compliance from Saddam. The NFZs are not sanctions.

The US didn’t force the sanctions through. I already showed you that the votes on Iraqi sanctions enjoyed the support of the distinct majority of the UN Security Council, with no opposition.

Again, you do not demonstrate any intimate knowledge of these affairs, so provide a reasonable cite to this effect and we may discuss further.

Dismissed pending support and more mature argument.

And? I have already addressed in greater length the above items, as always the perception among radicals and a few other populations will be heavily skewed. The extremists took whatever they could and adapted it to their needs, nothing at all new there. My argument – still well supported to this date in spite of your snipping – is that the US Iraq war has done rather more damage in terms of radicalization at large than have the UN Iraq sanctions, which were viewed ambiguously compared with an illegal unilateral war of aggression and subsequent (rather incompetent) occupation; the war brought a severe terrorist problem and hordes of jihadis where previously there were none. Talk about having a serious effect.

The Iraq war was launched (ostensibly) on the basis of extremely flawed intelligence to tackle what was presented as a “grave and imminent threat”. I’m not interested in the revisionism that has been coming out of the White House since they realized their attempt at pulling wool over eyes would fail in the long run. The intellectually bankrupt emphasis on sanctions is simply one of the items the White House latched on to, quite probably aware that their panic-inducing and evidence-manipulating strategies were not going to come through for the entire course.

Any sanctions can be revised and reformed, they are not this immutable permanent force you argue they are, particularly as the Iraqi sanctions were reviewed and extended on a 6-month basis. There was indeed much talk about sanctions reform. One of the persons who helped keep them in place was Saddam Hussein himself: in early 2001, for example, there were proposals to lift most of the restrictions on trade with Iraq on the condition of a tighter arms embargo, but Saddam didn’t like the idea – one major reason was Iran, richer and more dangerous by the day.

They were always going to be there? Immortal sanctions, eh? They were already on their way out, at least as they’d existed until then – but this is typical of White House and supporters’ output, what else can we expect from the people who state with a straight face that “weapon inspections were not working”? As for Iraq soon becoming just “a detail of history”, you neglect to take into consideration the extensive materials already provided regarding increases in terrorist recruitment, US hostility, the radicalization rate, etc. The problem is here now and looks set to remain for at least the medium term. Let’s not reach for the rose-tinted glasses yet.

Ah, the optimist view. I have already addressed this. Good and well if it comes to pass, in the meanwhile there are rather more pressing things to worry about than daydreaming.

So you still have no support for your claim. And of course, the Taleban is one of the more extremists Islamist factions, hardly a good example to hold up.

That may be because Jojo is desperately trying to correct the damage he routinely does to his own image? I analyzed your ineffective, malicious, and ignorant definition of dhimmi and laid it to rest. One wonders why you come back to beat a dead horse so frequently.

No, the definition of dhimmi specifies certain rights, and a few restrictions. Dhimmi is a civic system, and all such laws require “acquiescence” of subjects, with few or no exceptions. So what?

Again, so what? The above goes for any law. You think if I don’t pay my taxes I have grounds to accuse the government of oppressing me when they fine me and jail me? Of course not. The crucial difference is that Islam, as you systematically fail to take into consideration, is a civic-religious system, and has (as interpreted in certain countries) a broader mandate than most religions do. It incorporates both traditional aspects of religion as well as a high degree of social engineering – hence you get discussions on the rights with which to protect non-Muslims in a Muslim society. And that’s why – unfortunately – in a few countries you have religious law instead of simply civil law. Hardly anything new to religion, just look at the trouble the US is going through because of the insistence by a group of conservatives on the alleged Biblical injunction against homosexuality.

Meaningless assertions from someone who presumes to dictate which states are Islamic or not. I have already explained and cited that dhimmi is a largely theoretical concept anyway, but by and large it affords non-Muslims protection of their rights, and exempts them from paying taxes that Muslims do have to pay, and duties that Muslims do have to perform – rather the opposite of your typically simplistic claim.

To an extent, yes, but not in the way you seem to think: the members of minorities are protected and given rights in order to prevent the majority abusing them. For you this is somehow an indictment of Islam. This is the he same type of insistence you employed when you tried to show that Islam encourages the beating of women.

Rubbish. Religion is a dangerous ideology. Democracy is a dangerous ideology. Literature is a dangerous ideology. Rationalize as you will, I could easily make all the above arguments if I resorted to the kind of focused nonsense you repeatedly offer on these topics.

As always the extremists – of any religion, just look at the rampant viciousness of Hindu extremists across India – will latch on to anything at all, and interpret it their way, in order to justify their hatred and seek recourse aginst others who do not share their beliefs, or against those they perceive are encroaching on their territory.rights. This is not an argument against dhimmi.

Then I strongly suggest a re-reading, since you posted that objection and I addressed it. Frankly I can’t believe this lack of comprehension you display in the face of arguments and analysis is genuine.

Ignorant criticisms for the most part, as I have shown in the other thread.

It’s not that they are “so wonderful”, they are simply more detailed than anything you have proved able to deliver. And they are here, as well as in the thread on honour killings, not to mention elsewhere on the boards, and leaving aside those in print. Of course, you see my angry defence of the facts as a resolute defence of anything Islamic, but actually I have already agreed (and provided rather more materials) on the less ignorant of some of your assertions – in the thread on honour killings, for example, I criticized extremists and the cultures of misoginy, whereas here I have spoken out against, among other things, the Islamic approach to government of Saudi Arabia.

It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if the only person to detect this objectivity of yours was you. But you are right about Tamerlane.

106

Abe:

I don’t really understand what you are saying here but, if you’re saying what I think you’re saying, then you are wrong on a couple of levels.

First of all, the extract is not saying that islam spread across North Africa by conquest. In fact it never mentions conquest. It just says that islam appealed to the North Africans more than christianity because many of the teachings were more closely aligned to what the North Africans did anyway and also that by becoming a muslim they gained certain practical benefits.

Secondly, are you saying that islam was never spread by conquest? If you are saying this then you are wrong. There were all kinds of wars fought in the early years of islam. A quick google search turned up this page straight away. It seems to be fairly unbiased (if anything, sympathetic to islam) although I only gave it a quick read through. One quote from that page:

Aside from that, I think that a large percentage of the zoroastrians in Persia were forcibly converted to islam which is why zoroastrians today make up only 1% of the population of Iran.

You still haven’t actually said it’s actually wrong.

Yes it is a book of entertainment rather than a history book, but that doesn’t mean that it is historically inaccurate (it’s not as far as I can tell).

Yes it is somewhat patronising to various groups of people but that doesn’t mean it’s historically inaccurate.

It does not say (as you claim) that islam was spread by conquest. So your one charge of historical inaccuracy turns out to be wrong.

I agree but the extremists will always hate America and the non-muslim world simply because they are not muslim. In a way, it’s not worth worrying about them because they will always exist. The aim is to stop the moderates being swayed to their way of thinking. The sanctions, being an ongoing thing with no end in sight, were like a gift to the extremists.

There are criticisms of sanctions which I have some sympathy with - they tend to punish the population at large rather than the ruling elite. The ruling elite can simply wait it out until the sanctions are lifted and then carry on as before. The sanctions play into their hands because the longer they go on, the more impoverished the people become. The more impoverished the people become, the more sympathy they gain from the international community. The more sympathy they gain from the international community, the harder it becomes to maintain the sanctions.

So the ruling elite can use their own people as a bargaining tool. It doesn’t affect them. Saddam still stayed in power and still lived in his palaces. So you could argue that sanctions don’t work. The only problem with this argument is that if you don’t impose sanctions then the only other option is to invade the country straight away and remove the ruling elite. This is usually unlikely to get much international support.

Although you could argue sanctions worked in the case of South Africa, I suppose.

Your cites haven’t demonstrated that effect of war > effect of sanctions. All you have demonstrated is effect of war = large. I understand why you haven’t provided such a cite - it’s because it would be impossible. It’s probably not possible to quantify the effects of both and then compare them (at least not to scientific accuracy).

But one factor I think such a cite would have to take into account would be period of time. Imagine a graph with an x axis and a y axis. X would represent “time” and Y would represent “level of offence caused”. The sanctions graph would probably start very low at the time the sanctions were imposed (because they were internationally approved etc) and then the line would gradually curve upwards over the ten years they were in place as people’s resentment grew.

The graph for the war would probably start high and then tail off as the years pass. The only problem is that such a graph would be impossible to make right now because not enough time has passed. We need to wait at least ten years so that the graph is equal in validity to the sanctions graph. We’ve got a full ten years for the sanctions graph so, purely in the interests of scienitific accuracy, we have to wait ten years so that we can get a proper war graph. At least a war graph that is equal in accuracy to the sanctions graph.

Thus all of your conclusions can only be unreliable because you have not waited the requisite period of time. In forming a conclusion, one must take into account various factors. One of those factors is time. If you leave time out of your conclusion then your conclusion is unsafe because it did not take into account all the factors.

Yes but it’s them we’re talking about. Remember my thesis is that the Iraq war will seriously damage al Qaida (in the long term) by removing one of their main crutches - the sanctions. At first, the new Iraqi administrations will be viewed with suspicion (as American puppets) but after a couple of elections it won’t be possible to level this accusation any more. That’s the good thing about democracy, the people get to kick out their leaders if they don’t trust them.

The White House has never said what I’m saying. They are trying to retrospectively justify the war by saying they were right to get rid of an evil dictator, even if there weren’t any weapons of mass destruction.

But I think they can’t say the real reasons because these are all too vague - removal of sanctions in order to destroy al Qaida, establishment of democracy in the middle east (also to destroy al Qaida), removal of a hardline supporter of Palestinian terror groups. Politics is a tough forum. They would be crucified if they came out with this. Hence they had to make up the WMD story and the “Saddam linked to terrorists” story. And then after the war they had to come up with a different story - the “justified in order to get rid of an evil dictator” story.

But all this is just guff. The real reasons are those I outlined.

When you consider the simple facts of what just happened over the last ten years, does it seem likely that the sanctions were going to be reformed any time soon? America launched a war against Saddam, then sanctioned him for ten years bombing him (in terms of Iraqi military targets) every day during that time, and then finally launched another war against him to get rid of him.

I don’t think there was ever any serious talk about getting rid of the sanctions in the UN. Reform was always on the agenda of course, but it never got any further than that. America (and Britain) were always going to be reluctant to change anything. Look, rather than reform the sanctions they went to war against him, what more evidence do you want?

I am an optimist, I admit, but I think in this case I’m also being a realist. We all agree that wars are bad and they devastate the country but, as post-war countries go, Iraq is one of the best. It’s got a hard-working, well-educated people with a history of secularism. It’s got natural resources in abundance - not just the second largest reserves of oil in the world but also water, which is a rare commodity in the middle east.

Once this terrorism problem goes away, it will have western money flowing in by the billions. It’s got tons of history - Sumer, Babylon, Garden of Eden - so tourism will be another source of money.

They would have to really work at it to make it fail.

107

Continued…

Of course they were extremist. I wasn’t using them as an example of anything. Just saying that I’m sure there is a hadith on which they based their practice of making hindus wear yellow armbands. I gave you the pact of Umar in my last post (which is from the seventh century), this page also mentions the hadith. It says:

That article itself was written by an extremist group and is therefore not particularly trustworthy but it does also refer to the hadith. I say there is a hadith, you say “let’s see the evidence”. I can’t produce the actual hadith because I would need to know which Book it’s in and it’s number. But I have shown you evidence that the idea goes back right to the beginning of islam, and it must have come from somewhere, and I have also shown you someone else mention the hadith.

So we’ll have to call that one a draw. I think I’ve raised reasonable evidence that such a hadith exists but I can understand that what we really want is the hadith itself.

Yes, because it all depends on who is getting taxed and what it’s for. In the UK, Margaret Thatcher tried to introduce a poll tax, it caused mass riots and was eventually dropped. The jezyah tax, being a religiously based tax, may cause similar problems. But anyway my arguments against the dhimmi idea concern more than just the tax system.

Yes, islam comes with a legal system attached to it. The source of that legal system is the quran, hadith and sunna. The source of a secular legal system (like English Common law) is common sense and thousands of years experience. The islamic legal system cannot do anything that would obviously contradict it’s sources. Secular legal systems don’t have any such constraints.

The problem with basing all your law on the quran, hadith and sunna is that it pre-supposes that the quran, hadith and sunna are correct. This can lead to inflexibilty in law and many other problems. Not least of which is that, if it happens that the quran, hadith and sunna did not come from God after all, then you’ve been basing all your legal system on the say-so of some crazy who thought he spoke to God.

Secular legal systems get around this problem by not having sacred cows - everything is negotiable.

I think secular legal systems are better than religious ones, but maybe you disagree?

Yes but the dhimmi concept also invariably involves onerous undertakings such as not being allowed to criticise Mohammed or islam, restrictions in legal argument - one is only allowed to refer one’s law back to quran, hadith or sunna but non-muslims don’t believe in quran, hadith or sunna so why should they have to refer all their laws back to it?

At least secular law allows for arguments from common sense and from evidence. Religious law doesn’t allow for this. If I lived in a country that held Alice in Wonderland to be a holy text but I happened to be the only person in that country who didn’t believe in that text then I don’t want to have argue my points from the Alice in Wonderland perspective, I’d rather argue my points from a common sense/evidence perspective.

From the Alice in Wonderland perspective, all kinds of shit can be justified. Cabbages, Kings, everything.

Then we move on to this:

I said:

and you said:

Ignorant criticisms? Ignorant fucking criticisms?

Er, sorry to pop the little bubble you obviously live in but these are all perfectly valid criticisms. For example, the legal system - are you saying that a religious theocratic legal system is better than a secular one?

treatment of women - are you saying that islam has no case to answer whatsoever regarding the treatment of women in muslim societies?

apostacy concept - telling people what they can and can’t think is thought control. Bringing in laws which further this aim (control of apostacy) is a government attempt to pursue thought control. Examples of such laws abound in the muslim world particularly with regard to laws that ban the building of churches, forbid prosletysation, ban criticism of islam and Mohammed etc

Another criticism I could add is polygamy (but only for men). My criticisms are not ignorant, they are entirely justified.

Attacking the culture of misogyny is not attacking islam, it’s attacking a culture. I prefer to go straight to the ideology itself. Ideologies are things we can reasonably be expected to disagree with, cultures aren’t. I don’t know whether islam promotes misogyny - you can argue it either way. There’s Quran 4:34, of course, and the fact that there seems to be no place in heaven for women. And then there’s various quotes “Women are your fields, go then into your fields” that seem to place women as chattel.

Polygamy could also be said to encourage this attitude - gathering to yourself a collection of women and then tending to them as you would a herd of sheep.

But then there’s stuff in islam which argues against this, which argues that women should be treated with respect. So it’s a complex argument. I wouldn’t argue that islam encourages misogyny as such, my argument is (as always) more practical than that - the actual treatment of women. The punishments they have to undergo, the higher levels of proof required etc.

It’s a fine distinction and one you would have to be pretty smart to understand. Misogyny is too vague an accusation and too hard to prove. Treatment of women is more provable and also purer coz it cuts right to the chase - the ideology.

Agree with you there. The main square in Riyadh is apparently known as Chop-Chop square locally because they do so many beheadings there.

We’d better stop talking about Tamerlane since he’s not here. Although I’m sure I saw him use the word “fuck” in a pit thread not so long ago so he’s not completely immune to normal human emotions.

108

Jesus, what a waste of time and effort replying to this barrage of rapid-fire nonsense.

At least your latest posts help explain the obtusity of your arguments: aside from the bigotry you routinely leverage, you seem to have a hard time reading and understanding simple points. I said that Islam spread by conquest in an extremely short time during its first century, which included its spread into North Africa (powerful empires halted the spread farther south – regardless of what they thought of women). It wasn’t a question of any of your racist arguments about your imaginary female oppression that “appealed” to whoever, Islam was spread by an extremely effective series of early expansion campaigns by the Umayyad dinasty.

To offer more details, North Africa west of Egypt belonged to the Byzantine empire; the real factor (as opposed to your ignorant idiocy about female oppression appealing to blacks) that was crucial in the spread of Islam in that region was the ability to win over the Berbers, thanks to whom the Umayyads came to control N. Africa all the way to the Atlantic. It was in fact a converted Berber, by name Tariq, who conquered Tangiers and then pushed up into Spain – this by 711 CE, making it 101 years of one of the most impressive territorial expansions in all of history since Muhammed’s alleged revelation.

This is why your cite of White Nile is total nonsense, and why your original assertion is equally incorrect and utterly oblivious of the facts. If you had actually read my response – not to mention all my other posts – this should have been apparent; instead yet again you are (completely cluelessly) clamouring for more and more evidence, when it is clear any evidence thrown at you disappears in a black hole.

But I’m glad to see my posts have, if not penetrated your armour of anti-Islamic bigotry, at least prompted you to go read up on history from somewhat improved sources. Reading up is definitely an improvement – in your particular case I consider it a major achievement on my part. And the fact that you have come forward with an incredible number (two) of cites in this thread is cause for fanfare, to say the least.

For the rest, I’ll wager once again that you are the only one buying your arguments, so go wallow in them all you want – should you want real answers they have already been provided a number of times. I really don’t want to get bogged down in the usual Herculean task of meeting your ignorance, bigotry, and dishonesty with arguments only to have you shift the discussion to something else in order to allow you to make your infantile point against a religion.

109

The White Nile was talking about why islam appealed to people in Sudan and areas around there. It was NOT talking about how islam expanded into Africa.

Y’know, I’m sure you’re a really nice person in real life but your internet persona needs some work. For one thing you should be careful about hurling accusations of bigotry around willy-nilly. Bigotry to you seems to mean “anyone who doesn’t agree with me”. You’ll notice that I have managed to conduct this entire discussion without insulting you once.

If you think someone has made a mistake then all you need to do is point out that mistake, explain why you think it’s a mistake and then explain what (you think) the correct view is. That is what most people do. All these insults add nothing to your argument. I could spend the next paragraph insulting you if I wished but I wouldn’t do that because I realise that it would not advance my actual argument in any way.

Also I don’t think that that is a very good way to talk to people. But then maybe I’ve had a different kind of upbringing than you. I was always taught to be polite and respectful even when you disagree with someone.

Oh well, at least you seem happy that I used a cite or two. As long as I’ve made you a little bit happier then this whole thread has been worthwhile.

110

Please spare me any further equivocation of White Nile. I can post yet again exactly what you said and what White Nile itself says, since it refers to “Africans”, “savages”, “primitives”, “simplest minds”, and so forth; furthermore, its approach to arguing why Islam should appeal to “Africans” is downright ignorant and condescending, and represents the kind of material that real historians take into consideration only with a strong dose of bias-awareness, which Moorehead explicitly did not do. As a source of historical fact and analysis, White Nile is fundamentally flawed.

Oh, the plaintive cries of martyrdom! My Internet persona is doing quite well, thank you, though we have seen that specific posters bring out the worst in me (hint: a departed winter month).

My accusations of bigotry are supported and documented in this thread as well as the others where you have executed your usual routine of “Islam is bad!” based on assessments the flaws of which are pointed out to you time and time again, but which you systematically refuse to revise or retract, pretending instead that invalidating criticisms do not exist or are negated by your hand-waving.

Your claims about apostasy, for example, in fact the entire list you provide re: objectionable items, have all been thoroughly addressed. To wit, in the old thread I provided an analysis of the relevance as well as the problems of Hadith study and application, and showed how a Hadith must meet certain requirements (including the basic processes of Islamic law) in order to be considered acceptable; Hadiths are emphatically not gospel, and some of them are outright crap, so the study of these materials is considered extremely important in Islam. The single Hadith employed by extremists to argue for the killing of apostates fails to meet the necessary criteria according to leading Islamic scholars and isn’t even compatible with Koranic teachings – as already detailed in the old thread (page 3). You have brought nothing new to this discussion that hasn’t already been addressed in considerable detail in previous threads-- as I have repeatedly said.

That goes for the status of women too (you latch on to a specific interpretation of 4:34 and ignore a number of other Koranic passages clearly in direct contrast to your interpretation) as well as the brotherhood concept, etc., etc.

[The one item I don’t remember addressing with you around is the “historical inaccuracy of Jesus’s crucifixion” in Islam, which is a silly contention considering that no reliably historical evidence of Jesus actually exists beyond some minor and questionable hearsay, as explained among other places in this discussion (I linked directly to a post at the start of the controversy, but also pay attention to clairobscur’s points starting in post 150). The view of Islam regarding Jesus is therefore equally valid, historically speaking, as those presented by Christianity – it is if anything more historically plausible than the supernatural myth required by the Christian faith.]

So, am I supposed to think that your lack of awareness on multiple matters and previous information is genuine? Your goal – repeatedly – has been to criticize Islam. That’s fine by me as long as it is done in an informed manner respectful of the facts and preferably mindful of the tensions involved. You, I have argued and shown, have not demonstrated to be very well informed on this subject, nor have you shown much regard for the facts presented to you; for example, you have routinely responded to detailed and supported analyses by switching argument track to attack some other minor aspect of ideology in the hope of proving your pre-established thesis, or latching on to a single tidbit of information as if it demonstrated your case when in fact it doesn’t.

That indicates in no uncertain terms an unreasonable prejudice, as already (and more extensively) argued earlier. So yes, I will stick to my evidenced claim that your arguments, though presented with a thin veneer of politesse, are bigoted and/or ignorant, and more harmful in general than any of my prickly approaches you enjoy so much. If you have a problem with that take it up with the mods and spare me the bellyaching.

Incidentally, when Aldebaran requested cites he was, strictly speaking, quite correct in doing so; your avoidance of cites and resort to yet more hand-waving once again suggested that you hold a preconception and will do anything to prove it. This is extremely counter-productive and is simply bound to irritate others.

And by the way, this isn’t some kind of contest between religion and secular systems. As a scientific atheist, I obviously think that secularism is the superior, more informed choice. I have no trouble picking the one I’d consider desirable between religious and secular anything; the point here is that your criticisms specifically have frequently been uninformed, and not that a legal system based on doctrine “is better” than a practical and empirical approach (though I must note that you do not offer a fair or accurate picture of Islamic jurisprudence, which can be quite an advanced and scholarly affair, somewhat in the tradition of Judaic law – which is of course the essential foundation of all modern “secular” legal systems).

Anyway, I suggest to you once more to open your own thread on Islam – in fact, short of being worried about attracting a greater number of better-informed posters, I really don’t understand why you don’t do this definitively and quit this repeated nagging. If I see you engaged in an honest discussion and not in your preferred style to date on this subject – the style of attempting any way possible to prove an existing prejudice – we might even have a productive exchange.

111

Exactly. When, where, who organized them and how many people did they manage to gather etc…

When exactly did you see in London “plenty of Muslims from all over the world” in demonstrations against the sanctions on Iraq?
And from this you conclude that they helped set up a terrorist organisation that became known under the name Al Qaeda?
Take hereby also in mind that about what is popularly named Al Qaeda the last thing isn’t said, let be alone that it is written. The same counts for every other obscure organisation (or even only one person or a few persons) that now all of a sudden likes to link itself with the best known of all. History has still to be written on all these issues and whenever that finally can be done, I am sure we are bound to encounter quite a few surprises.

I think you urgently need to realize that 99,99999999999999 % of Muslims all over the world are just ordinary people busy with living their life, just like you are. An amount among them probably do bother a bit about what goes on in the rest of the world. Probably an amount among these people are bothered or irritated enough about certain issues to talk about this with friends or relatives. Yet still not enough to leave home to go demonstrating about something that does not affect them directly, or to undertake an in depth study on OBL rubbish and next run off to some obscure training camp in some obscure location in order to become a full trained terror-martyr.

You on the other hand seem to think that 99,9999999999% of all Muslims in the world have nothing else to do then to take up the case of people they have no connection with and make it their own, march through streets day and night, undertake an in depth study on what a lunatic like OBL “declares” and next join a terrorist organisation and run off to an obscure training camp in a far-away location.
Since you insist that this is a fact of daily life in Islamic nations (and even of Muslims in the non Islamic nations), can you tell me why

  • I never marched in any of such demonstrations from which you claim they are overwhelmingly present and populated.
  • I am not a fan of OBL or even a fully trained martyr-to-be-for-the-good-cause.
  • Nobody ever suggested that I should go to one of these overwhelmingly-present- demonstrations you know all about
  • Nobody ever suggested that I should read, hear, believe OBL rubbish
  • Nobody ever suggested that I should run off to an obscure training camp
  • Nobody I know is into all of this.

Now that you are writing, can you also tell me what was the cause again of mass demonstrations against the USA all over the world at the same time?

By the way: Are you serious in thinking that you can lecture me on the Arabic language or on what is written in Al Qur’an and the exegeses and/or history thereof?

First of all “darb” is a noun meaning “beating”.
The verb used in the verse you talk about is drb I from the masdar d(a)rb.
Verbs in Modern Standard Arabic can have 10 forms. In Classical Arabic up to 14 forms. Not every verb exists in all forms.
The verb used is the first form “daraba”. This first form has several meanings, among which “ to beat”. An other meaning you eventually can attribute to daraba I is “to separate/part” (and “to separate, to turn away (from)” is drb IV).
This is not the place to explain further details on this subject or on the Arabic language. Nor is it the place to theorize on my objections against the use of this particular verb in this particular form and with this particular connotation attributed to it, on this particular place in Al Qur’an.

Your argumentation on a verb in Arabic by comparing it with the use of a verb in the English language to express certain actions, is completely meaningless.
It is not because in English you can use a verb to express a certain action that such expressions also exist in an other language or that you can simply take a verb in Arabic to translate the intention of such a sentence in English.

No thank you. I have read already enough of similar constructed rubbish in order to be able to come into the mindset of the earlier “Orientalists” who - starting from a Christian background and prejudice - undertook the adventure of “studying” Islam and its history in order to satisfy their own bigotry and their bigotted target audience.
Lucky for the study field and those involved - such as I am - we moved forward and left such contributions far behind us. I still find it sad though that several of these early “Orientalists”, = those who were obviously really bright and dedicated, did not live in this age and mindset.

What your comments show first of all is that you have no idea about the immense difference between historical sources and entertainment publications.
There is nothing wrong in reading the latter as entertainment = if you are not interested in accuracy and historical correctness, but just want to read a story. Yet it is something entirely different to take such stories as if they are (or could ever be regarded as) historical sources. Which is clearly what you do.
Salaam. A

112

Abe:

You’re kinda right and kinda wrong. If you take the book as a whole (rather than just concentrating on the miniscule islam bit) then the book is generally historically accurate. The book is more concerned with the early explorers and the Africa they lived in and tells other stories along the way, such as the siege of General Gordon at Khartoum. With a lot of this stuff it uses (and quotes from) primary sources (letters from the explorers, letters from Gordon etc.) It’s also concerned with the way these people were thought of back in Britain and again uses a lot of primary sources (newspaper articles, House of Commons speeches, letters from members of Parliament, quotes from Queen Victoria etc).

But you’re right in that it is more a layman’s history book than a proper history book. As regards the islam bit, some of it is just common sense. Since the Africans in that part of Africa already practised polygamy then obviously that part of islam is going to appeal to them more so than christianity would, which would ban polygamy. Ditto with slave ownership - islam did not have prohibitions against it whereas the christians would have banned it. The islamic heaven is less ethereal than the christian heaven. Islamic heaven is all about reclining on couches drinking wine while being attended by virgins. It talks about cool oases where there is plenty of water. The idea of a heaven of cool oases is one that would appeal to a desert people for obvious reasons.

So whilst he may state things in a patronising, insulting way, he’s not necessarily wrong.

I agree that some criticisms of islam can arise out of bigotry, prejudice and ignorance but that doesn’t mean that all criticisms of islam are like this. My criticisms are perfectly valid. More so than your “criticisms”, in fact. When I asked you what your criticisms were, you replied with two things neither of which are criticisms of islam.

You said cultures of misogyny - this is not a criticism of islam but a criticism of culture. You also cited the saudis but again this is not a criticism of islam, just of the saudis.

I know all this and I agree with you. When I said that you hadn’t dealt with my criticisms of the “apostacy” concept, I meant you hadn’t dealt with MY criticisms. What you said above and in the other thread was addressed to someone else who had brought up the subject (of death penalty for apostacy) as a criticism of islam. I know that the injunction to kill apostates is based on only one hadith. MY criticisms of the apostacy concept are different to this criticism.

That is why I said that we had never discussed most of my criticisms of islam because I know I’ve never brought them up with you.

Well, I don’t think there are any quranic passages that directly say “Do not hit your wife” so therefore there aren’t any in direct contrast with 4:34. But anyway, treatment of women is another area where islam has a case to answer. And this is a perfectly justifiable criticism of islam.

I have never discussed my criticisms of the “brotherhood concept” with you. You probably don’t even know what my criticisms are in this regard.

OK well I don’t agree with anything you posted in the above paragraph. The view of islam cannot be equally valid (in a purely historical sense) since Mohammed came along 600 years after the relevant events and lived in a different country. From a purely historical perspective, islam has nothing to add to the Jesus debate.

Also, such evidence as there is about Jesus suggests that he was crucified. There are the gospels, of course, but also non-christian writings (Josephus, the Roman Chronicles and others). Whilst there may not be much evidence, such evidence as there is, contradicts islam’s account.

And furthermore, there is no evidence to support islam’s account. Thus criticising islam’s account of the crucifixion is entirely justifiable. Whether or not you or I personally think Jesus was crucified is irrelevant. My point is that my criticism is an entirely valid one to make.

You haven’t shown this at all, or anything like it. You’ve yet to prove me wrong on a single thing I’ve said. You spend page after page churning out insults but hardly ever actually deal with the points I make.

My original point was this:

That there are several factors which can account for the rise of al Qaida and muslim fundamentalism. ONE of these factors is islam itself, since it lends itself pretty easily to extremist interpretations. There are several things in islam which do this - the jihad concept would be one such thing. Now I myself know that the vast majority of muslims do not understand there to be a jihad going on in Iraq or elsewhere, however the whole concept of jihad (which is unique to islam) can obviously be misinterpreted by extremists. This is a simple fact since that is what al Q and the others are in fact doing. Other factors which can be misinterpreted by extremists would include things like the dhimmi concept and the brotherhood concept. Both of which can lead to an us v them situation and can lead to extremists viewing non-muslims as less than equal.

Thus if I were to draw up a list of all the things that are responsible for the existence of al Qaida, I would have to put islam itself in there since that is the ideology they use and since some of it’s concepts can (in my view) easily lend themselves to violent interpretations.

For evidence of the idea that islam easily lends itself to extremist interpretations consider the taliban, the Nigerian bunch, Iran, Saudi, Pakistan, al Qaida etc etc. I know that these are extremist groups and do not necessarily represent islam but they are still evidence for the idea that extremist interpretations can be drawn from the basic ideology of islam and that extremist interpretations often are.

It can also lend itself to non-extremist interpretations but that is not what we are concerned with since my point was that it is a factor in the existence of al Qaida.

I don’t need to speak to the mods. It doesn’t bother me. It’s your problem not mine. I was just trying to give you some friendly advice - teach you how to speak to people.

Um, yes it is. There are criticisms that can be made of religious legal systems and I made them. It’s no big deal. I don’t really understand why you are making a big deal out of it.

So if you agree with me, what are we arguing about? If you think secular legal systems are better than religious ones then obviously you must have some criticisms to make of religious ones.

And to be honest, I’ve only criticised the general idea of religious legal systems in this thread. Within sharia itself there are lots of things I could criticise (eg the requirement for four witnesses - why? What can four witnesses prove that three can’t? Cutting off the hands of thieves - a stern punishment, to be sure, but what happens when the “thief” is later found to be innocent?)

Many of these things aren’t extremist interpretations either. Ask Aldebaran what he thinks should be done to proven adulterers, or proven thieves.

Actually it’s not. Elements of religious law may have crept into secular law but that is a long way from saying that religious law is “the essential foundation of all modern “secular” legal systems”. English Common Law was gathered together in the 11th century but it’s roots go back much further than that. It comes from various local laws and customs (amongst other things). It’s got fuck all to do with christianity.

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Aldebaran:

My point was that the sanctions were causing increasing affront in the muslim world generally. This Guardian article from August 2002 says:

This article says this:

I’m not particularly using these as “cites” just a couple of things I found on google that suggest that the sanctions were a problem.

But in any case, the sanctions were obviously important to al Qaida and associated radicals since Osama cited them in his fatwa against the US.

There were zillions of demos in London through the 90s regarding Israel and the sanctions. But anyway, ignore my anecdotal evidence if you like. It doesn’t make any difference to my argument.

No, I’m not saying that the people who went on demos went on to form al Qaida. I was just using the demos to illustrate that the sanctions were a factor in raising muslim ire.

I agree but we can only use the evidence we have available at the moment.

I know. I was speaking to some muslims a few days ago and they asked me who I thought was the world’s number 1 terrorist. I said I didn’t know and asked them who they thought it was. They said George Bush. So then I asked them for the number 2 terrorist, they replied Ariel Sharon. Then I asked them for the number 3 terrorist, they replied Tony Blair. Finally I said “Who is the number 4 terrorist?” and they replied Osama Bin Laden.

So we got to Osama in the end after all the bluff and bluster.

Incidentally, I’ve been eating stacks of Ramadan food this evening - that stuff is delicious. You should make that all year round and eat normal food during Ramadan (just my suggestion).

I don’t think this. I am only talking about those people who did go to camps and these seemed to be increasing. I’m just using this as an illustration of the rising discontent.

Look, none of us want rising discontent in the muslim world do we? Or in the western world. Or in any world. You and me want the same thing - a happier world with less discontent. If there is rising discontent in the muslim world then that has to be addressed. I’m saying that the sanctions were one of the factors that was causing this (along with Israel, troops in Saudi, western cultural imperialism in the arab world etc etc).

I’m not saying all muslims went on demos, just that those demos that were predominantly left wing/muslim tended to focus on Israel and the sanctions.

I’m not saying that all muslims follow OBL’s thinking (they don’t) but at the same time OBL’s following comes exclusively from the muslim world. There aren’t any non-muslims in al Qaida. Thus it is the muslim world where the discontent is.

It wasn’t just muslim groups that protested against the sanctions and USA. Lots of groups were doing it. Just saying that, specifically regarding the muslim groups, the sanctions tended to be one of their “issues”. Since al Qaida’s membership is drawn from the pool of discontented muslims then we should look at what discontented muslims are discontented about in order to discover what’s pissing al Qaida off.

Do you have a better way of finding out what al Qaida are pissed off about than looking at discontented muslim groups?

Al Qaida’s main aim is the overthrow of various regimes within darulislam and that is an internal issue to the muslim world (a kind of civil war, if you like) but they also hate the west and that part of the deal concerns us. So if there’s something we can do to make the muslim world less pissed off at us then I’m all for doing it.

I just reckon that getting rid off the sanctions gets rid of one of the main things that was causing problems. There’s other things of course but, hey, one major world problem at a time.

No, I specifically didn’t lecture you. I told you my understanding and asked you for your opinion. Which you gave. Thank you. Although you only half gave it because you started to waffle a bit at the end.

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Since, in your own equivocatory way, you have admitted the serious problems with White Nile as a source of historical analysis, I will thankfully put that aside.

I already addressed the “defence” you pose here, your original claim that according to me all criticisms of Islam are bigoted and ignorant. Typical Jojo evasion, when I have explained and refined this point ad nauseam.

Your criticisms of Islam are worth little for the most part (on one or two you actually have a point, and I have expressed as much in the past). In fact, you don’t appear to know much about Islam beyond what you find on your web site du jour in order to validate your natural antipathy to this subject. I am not so silly as to make wholesale condemnations of Islam or any other religion, since I do happen to have information on such topics. Do a search on my criticisms of, for example, the Iranian ayatolllahs, especially Khomeini. You see, one requires the basic acumen to identify between radically different ideologies; the basic historical equipment to assess an ideology through the ages; and the basic intellectual skills to carry on a debate on the subject, although my abilities probably do not extend to discussions with the terminally oblivious.

So you simply hand-wave about it, very nice. As I said, I am not particularly interested in the criticisms of those who demonstrate themselves ignorant of a specific topic, but go ahead and open your own thread on this, have some fun. I promise I’ll do my best to join you there and point out which assertions are cretinisms, and which are valid, and why.

This is just another attempt to spin the discussion your way. Arguments contrary to your simplistic and (yet again) disingenuous assertion ought to have penetrated your skull by now, since I spent several posts addressing these various points in the old thread, and in this thread I even linked to the goddamned relevant sections so you would stop your self-inflating posturing. Go read up and stop your equivocating and insistent repeat of arguments already shot down.

Then consider, as I already asked you to do in the past: do not the majority (or even all) of religions offer a good targets for different criticisms? There’s a reason for this, and I elaborated it in the old thread, providing copious citations to demonstrate that misoginy would seem to be a widely distributed human trait – and not the domain of Islam, which was the first and pretty much only major religion to grant unprecedented rights to women (at least in the West). Certainly some cultures are more misoginystic than others, and some are not at all, but in general the abuse and subjugation of women is a rampant global problem (as supported by a number of cites and studies provided in the honour killings thread). As I said before, people like you focus on the subjugation of women in Islamic environments and blithely ignore the equally serious problems in other environments, Christian ones such as Brazil and Russia, or others, such as India.

It is the height of arrogance and ignorance to claim, as one from a modern society that only recently overcame some of these problems (and not all of them by any means), to repeatedly single out a particular ideology and demonstrate how it is somehow backwards and misoginystic when so many religions can have such criticisms levelled at them.

You really think, “Christianity” (to employ your silly blanket approach), for example, “treats” women any better? It doesn’t, intrinsically, it only does today in some environments because of societal evolution. And don’t whine about this point as is your usual habit, go open your own thread and take into consideration the extensive arguments I already provided in the old thread before you start pipsqueaking your usual declarations of cultural bias.

And consider too the abundance of misoginy to be found everywhere, such as the sati and “bride burning” of India, or the execrable record as regards women in the majority of history of Christian states (a record that ranges from the insanity of witch-hunts to segregating women, denying them basic rights such as the ability to own or transfer property, etc.). Put it all into perspective for once and stop posting such goddamned silliness.

Focusing maliciously on certain problems common in some Islamic cultures and then desperately attempting to blame Islam for them simply indicates ignorance and bias.

In the same way extremists justify their nonsense using anything they find in Islam, so do you justify your largely nonsensical accusations using anything you find in Islam. Same technique. Same motivation. Same ultimate value.

Even Buddhism, which is considered the religion of peace (when it is considered a religion), has no shortage of extremists and violent fundamentalists; and, going by the numbers, the ideologies today that kill the most victims are under the umbrella of Hinduism; all the international and local militant Islamist/terrorist movements combined don’t rack up the tally one finds in India (though Hindu terrorism doesn’t make it into the world news). Every single ideology has such problems. It is human nature to latch on to beliefs and validate them in any way possible – in your case, with finger-pointing rhetoric; in the case of ideological extremists, with violence.

This particular line of criticism you bring forward yet again is thus inadmissible in the bigger context. It’s what you make of religion that counts, and what you make of a religion depends largely on the particular interpretations and ideologies, as well as the particular mutable state of a specific system of belief, not to mention cultural influences, political factors, etc. All of this has also been addressed in considerable detail in the old thread.

Meaningless prattle already addressed at least a dozen times. I’m getting really tired of these unsupported broad claims. Every ideology lends itself “easily” to extremist interpretation.

Every. Single. One.

So does (for example) football in the majority of countries on the planet; is this an indictment of football as somehow barbaric? Of course not. Broaden your perspective and ditch those annoying blinders: the world will cease to be so Jojo black and white, and a host of varied influences on each particular situation will become visible (socio-economic status, political repression, etc.).

The point is there is exactly as much reliable evidence for the view espoused in the Koran regarding Jesus as there is for the common Jesus Christian myth that so many people take for granted as history; that is to say, zero, or next to zero. Your criticism of historical inaccuracy is therefore bunk, since there isn’t a reliable baseline to begin with.

Well, obviously you didn’t even glance at the thread I linked, where the commonly accepted sources of information on the historicity of Jesus were analyzed in considerable detail and shown to be highly questionable and not at all conclusive. The Gospels are latter redacted Christian propaganda and not contemporary writings that could be considered historically accurate. Josephus and a number of other historians were also addressed, and they all shared a couple of things in common: they were writing considerably after the fact, and they were basing their accounts on existing myths and hearsay, making their own accounts nothing more than records of myths and hearsay – nothing more. There is absolutely no substantial evidence regarding the person of Jesus, and by extension his crucifixion, although this seems to rankle quite a few believers.

No, yours is a criticism that keeps spinning like a dog chasing its tail. I stated that, since no evidence exists either way, the rather more mundane (i.e., excluding the supernatural elements present in the Christian myths) account of the Koran is logically more probable than the more fantastic account of the Bible, at least if one believes in the parsimony of Occam, to which I was alluding. Of course, the Koran is based on Christian and Jewish mythology, so it is likely Muhammed and co. simply recycled those myths, adapting them as needed to a strictly monotheistic approach as he interpreted at the time.

With the apparent exception of you, any reader with basic understanding and reading skills can see that your points have already been dealt with multiple times, and remain an issue only because you are unable, in typical Jojo fashion, to comprehend/accept contradicting evidence and arguments. A decapited chicken with uncommon reserves of energy is still just as dead as a motionless one, it just hasn’t realized it yet. Thus it is with you and your arguments that flap around aimlessly in a thoroughly ridiculous display.

So quit the inane whining. If you don’t have the guts to take the responses that idiotic assertions elicit, then don’t make the idiotic assertions in the first place. I really don’t need an anonymous poster who displays uninformed and parochial opinions to teach me anything about the subject of communication.

Um, no it is not (a contest). It is a big deal because it is a cheap and underhanded attempt to shift argument track yet again. You can’t demonstrate your points in a straight-forward fashion, so you side-wind all over the place, hand-waving until you think you’ve demonstrated something.

Do you really want to play the childish game of “my ideology is better than yours”?? I try to show you that every single ideology is abused owing to a variety of factors; you insist on playing the idiot game of seeing who can piss farther, even though I repeatedly explain to you that pissing far doesn’t matter one whit. But you know what? Open another thread on this subject, stop being such a coward about it, and I’ll show you just how far you can be proved wrong.

Plenty of them. I’m astounded you are only now beginning to realize this, since I have been saying as much since the honour killings thread. I suggest you do a search on my username and religion to find several hundred posts on these topics (and change that keyword to “Ayatollah Khomeini scatological” for a great thread). My problem is with your criticisms, which I have already argued dozens of times are bigoted and uninformed, and, more importantly, simply stoke the present clashes of cultures, ideologies, and civilizations with their arrogant approach and thinly disguised, easily demonstrable agenda.

The reason I take these things so seriously is because I have lived through the thick of the issue long enough to know that people like you are part of the problem, helping to increase the gulf between (in our example) the average Muslim and the West in general, breeding contempt, intolerance, and lack of understanding with putrid, festering bullshit. I’ve worked for years to repair these relationships and nurture understanding, only to see a poster hand-wave and mumble uninformed claims on a web site one might consider among the best forums on the Net. Sad.

I didn’t actually say anything about Christianity. I was referring to Judaic law, including that thundered by Moses, which is among the earliest complex legal systems. Since Mosaic law, there has been a steady current in western legislative development; while Judaism may not be directly responsible, its influence throughout the ages is certainly considerable.

Loosely speaking, Western law has its origins in, if anything, Greek and subsequently Roman law, which both predate by a considerable margin English common law. It is also extremely important to note that Rome had a culturally syncretic approach, absorbing customs and practices considered useful or necessary. Besides, up to a point English law was by no means disparate from continental law, and indeed was influenced by Roman law. We even get the word “justice” from the name of the emperor who provided the definitive code of Roman laws: Justinian, of Corpus Juris Civilis fame (529 CE).

Religion is indeed an extremely important foundation of Western law throughout the ages. The oldest survivng codex I am aware of is that of Hammurabi (1700 BCE), whose rule was sanctioned by the gods. Before that there is Urukagina (2350 BCE) and Ur-nammu (2050 BCE), but records are not availabe or only partial – both of these rulers however appeared to have divine sanction as well.

When Moses hit the scene, let’s say in 1300 BCE, he brought down the Ten Commandments directly from God (which were later included in the books that would become the Bible). Since that time, the concepts such as “thou shalt not kill”, “thou shalt not commit adultery”, and “thou shalt not steal” have been integral components of legal systems. We still hold these commandments, since all forms of Western law uphold these three to this day. Also, let us not forget the seven Noahide laws, which were: Do not murder; Do not steal; Do not worship false gods; Do not be sexually deviant (incest, sodomy, homosexuality, adultery); Do not eat of an unslaughtered animal; Do not blaspheme; Deploy courts and bring criminals to justice. Sound familiar? Many of these laws survived in Islam and Christianity, and beyond into secular systems, in addition to being a core part of Jewish law.

The first written laws of Greece come later, and date from Draco (whence we get the word “draconian”) in 621 BCE, considerably after the Mesopotamian, Babylonian, and even Judaic systems, and helping to establish a Western legal continuum. This was followed by the work of other Greek legislators, until the Romans usurped the title of legal supremacy, starting with The Twelve Tables in 450 BCE. This codex is especially important because it explicitly states the most fundamental Roman (and subsequently international) legal principle, that the law must be written down and must not be left entirely up to judges.

Fast forward almost a millennium to Justinian and beyond; obviously, Roman law dominated Europe and surroundings, including the British Isles (in Scotland, as in South Africa and other countries, a descendant of Roman law is still en vogue). It is from Justinian that we get varying concepts of non-possession of the air, the sea, sea-shores, and running water (as in rivers). Roman law influenced everything from English law to Napoleonic law, although in the case of English law a somewhat independent tradition existed. The rise of the writ and the jury system in England didn’t occur until the 12th century, and it is only after this period that English law diverged from continental law. By this time England was already Christian, and it is hardly sensible to deny the ever-present influence of this world religion on political and legislative affairs.

Besides, who provided the earliest character of English legislation? Alfred the Great (849-901 CE), whose code survived in the improved work of Edward the Confessor (1004 - 1066 CE), both Christian rulers and legislators. Their opus begins with the Ten Commandments if my memory serves.

Religion appears to be integral to the human condition. Even to this day, in one of the more recent and modern states on the planet and one of the few titularly without official religion, the leader is nonetheless sworn in on the Bible and under God, the constitution talks about God, the money does, and it would be foolhardy for a presidential candidate or president not to make frequent references to the almighty.

115

Jojo, you still have not demonstrated how sigificantly worse than the Iraq war the Iraq sanctions were in currencies such as American image and terrorist recruitment.

We all know the sanctions constituted a problem, that is hardly the issue. Now finally make the point, as you maintained when you entered the recent discussion, that the sanctions were a greater cause of radicalization and recruitment than the Iraq war, which as I have already argued extensively, is an unsupportable assertion given the data we have.

You have argued that the sanctions could only be removed with the Iraq war, which I demonstrated to be nonsense (6-month renewal and evaluation basis, various movements to modify the sanctions, calls for abolition, etc.).

“The sanctions had to go and the Iraq war was the only way to accomplish this” is the same kind of crap from the people who gave us “the weapons inspections weren’t working”, as I said earlier. It’s a revisionist lie and you seem intent on propagating it.

116

Sharia is not monolithic, it is simply religious law, with positively huge variations (and application) from place to place, culture to culture. In Nigeria, for example, the movement towards Sharia has been a depressing one, wherein the few bastards responsible have abandoned the rigorous Islamic requirements of evidence (e.g., four witnesses and a woman’s testimony equal to that of a man) but have embraced whole-heartedly the harshest punishments imaginable in Islamic law (e.g., hand amputation for theft, stoning for adultery).

That tells you very little about Sharia, and a lot about the assholes implementing it.

Christian Canon law and Jewish law – and let’s remember where Islam evolved from – can also be quite harsh, but the important thing to remember is that all these systems mean different things to different people in different places.

Why four witnesses? Why not? Four witnesses would seem to be better than one, two, or three – especially if the punishment involves something as drastic as death or amputation (which are considered unnecessary in environments able to support rehabilitation and correction programs; thus you find that only in extremely rare cases are these punishments ever applied, and then only in the most extremist or backward of locales – even though Sharia law actually exists in many countries).

117

I originally accepted this argument, and at the time I thought it was the right thing to do. I also believed, and still believe, that–considered as an isolated act–that it was correct to remove Saddam. I have a hard time agreeing with UN regulations and international law when it allows considerations of national sovereignty to trump those of individual rights. But my views have come around to the position that there was no compelling reason to deal with Saddam at that particular time, as is now fairly clear from the failure to find any WMDs. With our intelligence gathering so obviously flawed, what basis did we have for doing anything? In the first debate, Bush reminded Kerry that he had approved the invasion of Iraq based on the same flawed intelligence…but Kerry did not have administrative jurisdiction over and responsibility for the quality of that intelligence. The president did.

Another argument for liberating Iraq was that it would establish a democracy in an region that is almost devoid of democracy. Again, in itself, this would be a good thing. But if we were so set on establishing a democracy, why didn’t we just continue focusing our effort in Afghanistan, where our invasion had been widely supported, and we would have continuted to have collaboration and support of a true coalition of the willing?

I can’t believe how I allowed myself to be manipulated (but at least I hadn’t voted for Bush). :rolleyes: -->(myself).

118

Abe:

Well, thank fuck for that.

Now on to the rest of your nonsense.

Huh? Do you think Jesus is God? No? Well you just made a wholesale judgement about a religion. You are correct that islam is a religion with many different sects, groups etc. However there are certain concepts that are common to the whole system - these are the concepts that I criticise. You criticise particular groups within islam (eg the saudis, the Iranian mullahs). Your criticism of these groups is based on the fact that these groups represent only one facet of islam and not the whole of islam.

You are entirely correct in that belief (that these groups do not represent islam as a whole). However there is a whole level of thought which you are missing out on. Allow me to illustrate:

With regard to religion, on the bottom layer you have atheists, who believe nothing.

Then on the next level, you have religious people who will believe one sect or other of a religious theory (eg catholics and protestants).

Then on the final level you have the overarching ideology (eg christianity)

Catholics and protestants can disagree with each other all day but they both agree on certain fundamental concepts.

By criticising particular sects within islam you are confining yourself to only one level of criticism, one level of the ideology. Why you would choose to do this to yourself, I have no idea.

I don’t tend to criticise particular sects within islam, I’m not really interested in them. The taliban are just one strand, there’s no point in criticising them. If I were to try to hold up the taliban as an example of a flaw in islam then people would rightly say that I can’t judge islam by one group.

So I don’t judge islam by any particular group, I look at things that are common to the ideology as a whole and I judge islam by those things. In other words, I look at the final level whereas you only look at the middle level. So basically I’m a whole level ahead of you in the argument.

Different strains of islam are not “radically different”, just different. An example of “radically different ideologies” would be, for example, your ideology (that there is no God) and Khomeini’s ideology (that not only is there a God, but he’s a muslim God). You are not doing justice to the word “radical”. You should use that word carefully, it gets thrown around too easily these days.

On that subject, a minor hijack:

The common media phrase to refer to fundamentalist muslims seems to be “radical muslims”. I think this phrase is wrong. They are not radical, they are reactionary. It’s a misuse of the word “radical”. When a muslim is more conservative than his own grandfather then the correct term is that he is reactionary, not radical.

A “radical muslim” would be one who thought that islam needs wholesale reform (ie less rules not more). An example would probably be Irshad Manji. As someone who considers himself something of a radical in many ways, I object to these boys trying to steal my thunder. They give radicals a bad name. They don’t know the meaning of the word “radical”. I’ve got more radicality in my little toe than they will ever have.

Anyway, what were you saying…

Ha, then your abilities are stunted. The terminally oblivious are the best people to talk to. They have open minds. The worst people are people like you who think they know everything when in fact they don’t know jack.

As I have pointed out to you previously, it doesn’t really matter what islam did in the 7th century. We live in the 21st century now. Women’s rights is not quite as recent a thing as you try to make out - they have had the vote for nearly a hundred years now (the suffragettes).

And in any case, it could be argued that enshrining certain “rights” within a religion is actually a retrogressive step since it means that those rights gain sacrosanct status and can never be changed for fear of “disobeying God”. It would (following this argument) be better if islam had never enshrined any rights for women because then women would have gained superior rights by means of the natural progression of history.

This argument is proved by the fact that women who live in western societies have much greater rights than those in arab societies. These women (in western societies) have managed to gain this position without the help of islam. This shows that islam was not necessary and has in fact been a hindrance. Christianity does not make much of an issue about what women can or can’t do and hence it has not presented religious problems to the advancement of women. Arab women wishing to advance their rights are faced with two formidable obstacles - not just the traditional male chauvinism problem but also formal religious obstacles.

Male chauvinism can be overcome, and has been in western societies. In western societies, once women overcame the male chauvinism they had nothing else to hold them back. In arab societies, even after they overcome the male chauvinism they still have to deal with the religious strictures. And religious strictures are a whole different ball game to mere male chauvinism.

This is just one facet of a wider criticism of islam. By enshrining endless rules about this and that, islam hinders progression beyond those rules.

This whole argument is just plain silly. Once again you are failing to differentiate between an ideology and it’s adherents. Of course there have been violent buddhists, and violent hindus, and violent christians. But can you tell me what are the beliefs in buddhism or hinduism or christianity that justify this violence?

You may mention the crusades but these were never a part of christian theology in the same way jihad is a part of islam (and other us v them concepts in islam). In fact “love thy enemy” is pretty central to christian teaching.

You may mention the witch hunts. You could argue that there is a verse in the Old Testament that encourages hunting down witches. Maybe, but the Old Testament is of only secondary importance in christianity and always has been. And in any case this injunction wasn’t a general injunction on all christians to fight all non-christians under certain circumstances.

You may mention the buddhist nepalis who are currently revolting against the government but these are Maoist revolutionaries. They are pursuing their violence further to maoism not buddhism.

You may mention hindu nationalism. Hindu nationalists think that, because India is predominantly hindu, then India should be a hindu nation. But none of this has anything to do with hinduism.

Do you see the distinction? None of these people’s ideologies actively support the violence they commit. Islam is pretty vehemently against indiscriminate violence but it does allow for the concept of violence in certain circumstances, which can lead to problems with the numbskulls and the headstrong.

I think any religion given to us by God would have to take into account the numbskulls and the headstrong, He made them too so He can’t claim He didn’t know they were there…

You are looking at adherents rather than ideologies themselves. Ignore the adherents and consider what the ideologies actually say. Obviously there have been violent people throughout history but really what can we learn from this “revelation”? That there have always been violent people of all ideologies and there always will be. Well great, not exactly a mind-blowing revelation is it? There isn’t much we can do about it to improve the future, short of killing all people.

As long as there are people, there will always be violence. All we can do is try to limit or control those ideologies that seem to advocate violence more than other ideologies. If we can’t limit or control those ideologies then all we can do is to try to persuade the holders of these ideologies that their ideology contains sufficient flaws as to render it untrustworthy. This is what I prefer to do. I think your approach is dangerous. You hold off criticisng obvious flaws in religion in the hope of fostering religious understanding. I think this is a big mistake. If you are an atheist (and you have good reasons for being so) then you should constantly remind religious people that you think they are talking bullshit.

It’s when they get too full of themselves that religious people become a problem. I’m actually not an atheist, and I feel kinda sorry for you that you are. I freely admit that I don’t know what the fuck is going on. I would not make so bold an assertion that there is no higher mind at work since I have no evidence on which to base that assertion. Interestingly, when I talk to muslims about religion they tend to bristle when I first start telling them about how religion is shit but then they relax somewhat when I tell them that I’m not an atheist. You, on the other hand, they would really dislike you (an atheist). They have a special level of disgust reserved for atheists (in my experience).

Cultural influences are of course hugely important and vary from country to country, and even within countries, and even within regions within countries. Interpretations vary also, as you say. Politics varies as well.

So that’s why I don’t take so much notice of all this stuff and just concentrate on the overall ideology which does not vary and is applicable across the board.

Does it? Do they all lend themselves equally to a violent interpretation? So does taoism, for example, lend itself to a violent interpretation as much as national socialism does?

Socio-economic status, politics etc are, of course, all factors but so is ideology. You seem to want to ignore ideology. I don’t understand why you want to do that.

If all ideologies are the same to you then why do you prefer particular ones over others? (eg secular legal systems over religious ones)

No that’s not the point. The point is that the quran is worthless as a historical text concerning what happened to Jesus and yet 2 billion people treat it as if it has some historical validity.

Maybe the quran is right about what happened to Jesus but, if so, then it’s only by fluke. Not because of any historical insight it has.

There is a baseline (if not entirely reliable). The baseline is such evidence as we have.

I’m aware of the things that were discussed in that thread - the sources of information regarding Jesus. Once again, you don’t seem to understand what I’m saying. What I’m saying is different to what anyone in that thread was saying.

Tenuous though the evidences for Jesus’s life are, they are still better (as historical evidence) than anything in the quran. Which was written 600 years later and in a different country. I have a degree in history, I understand about sources etc.

Also, one thing that nobody in that thread mentioned was that (as far as I recall) Tacitus is generally regarded as pretty reliable. He always checked his sources, as far as is known and never just accepted other peoples words for things. He was also very well thought of in Rome and may well have had access to the official Imperial Archives.

The idea of Tacitus accepting the word of christians on face value is dubious. He states the crucifixion of Jesus as fact not as “the christians told me…”

Like it or not, this is evidence from one of the oldest unbiased sources we have. It might be wrong but even if one comes to the conclusion that it is unreliable, one would not come to that conclusion as a result of anything one might have read in the quran.

The quran is not a potential historical source as regards Jesus’s life, Tacitus is. And such potential historical sources as we have contradict the quran. Thus historical analysis is a VALID criticism of islam (since islam’s historical analysis has no value).

Yes, the quran’s version of events may, objectively, be as likely to be right as any other version of events but that doesn’t mean that the quran has any historical insight into the relevant events or that the quran has any value as a historical document (when it talks about Jesus’s life).

There IS a baseline. There is always a baseline. That baseline is “such evidence as we have available”.

I had other problems with things people said in that thread but they are beyond the scope of this discussion. But an example would be the blase way someone - might have been you - talked about christians amending texts to suit them. The oldest copy of the Old Testament we have comes from the dead sea scrolls and predates Jesus. It contains all the books of the Old Testament except one (I think it’s Esther). That old copy of the Old Testament is almost EXACTLY the same as the one we have now. The christians didn’t change it. And yet one could imagine they could easily have done so - to make it’s prophecies fit the coming of Jesus better.

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Continued…

So, because every single ideology is abused, does that therefore mean that all ideologies are equal (in your mind)?

An ideology is exactly what it says - a means to create an ideal state. You don’t judge ideologies by what it’s adherents do, you judge ideologies by what they say.

The fact they get abused means nothing.

Hmm…I don’t have “breeding contempt” or “intolerance” or “putrid, festering” anything toward islam. I just think it’s wrong is all. Sorry if I don’t fit your preconceptions.

I’ll try to be more “putrid” and “festering” in future posts if it will make you happier.

Arguable, but let’s leave that for now.

Yeah, I think I can see a disagreement between us rearing it’s ugly head on the horizon. See, I don’t think Moses was the first person to think up the idea that killing people is generally bad. I think the ten commandments (and in fact all religious injunctions) merely reflect what people think anyway.

Morality doesn’t come from religion. Religion comes from morality.

Well, as I said earlier, English Common Law comes from a number of sources. Primarily though, it comes from local ordinances and customs that had been followed for hundreds (maybe thousands?) of years. It almost certainly predates the arrival of christianity in England and thus it has nothing to do with either Judaic law or christian law. Unfortunately hard evidence is thin on the ground - this is all just generally accepted theory. Local customs formed (in the distant mists of time) - they evolved, adapted, became accepted, evolved some more etc. It’s an interesting subject.

In fact, as far as I’m concerned, English Common Law is almost like a religion because it is a repository of ancient wisdom but better than a religion because it’s a) proper genuine wisdom earnt over time and b) changeable in the future.

It’s just so detailed. The quran might give you instructions on what to do with an out and out thief but English Common Law will deal with 20 different types of theft. Law is all about grey areas. Sometimes it’s not clear whether someone is a thief or not. English Common Law is successful because it’s so detailed. It is a religion really, it just lacks a prophet.

This page seems to give a history of all the different legal systems including English, Roman, Greek, Islamic etc. Written documents in English law seems to go back to the Anglo-Saxon Dooms in the Book of Ethelbert written approximately in the 6th century. The law even by that stage was pretty detailed (I recommend you read it all, it’s like poetry once you get into it):

Read it all, it gets pretty mesmeric in it’s detail. Detail always suggests some kind of history behind a document. The greater the detail, the more the history. Sometimes hundreds of years of history can be covered in a single document.

Although, America did have a somewhat puritanical start (given the nature of the founders). And the number of times an average US president refers to God would raise eyebrows in Europe if it was one of their leaders.

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Thousands of words and not a single item that can stand up on its own without being propped up by your customarily idiotic assertions.

You have a degree in history? That seems strange, not just because of the nonsense you have provided in the past, but especially so for your twisting of the historicity of Jesus argument (though we have seen you try to twist every single argument you can as soon as your words are disputed). If you do really have a legitimate degree – strange given your demonstrably ignorant approaches to these subjects – I must question the educators who resulted in such ignorance, obliviousness, denial etc., of arguments. I have to wonder what they taught you since you support controversial assertions on historical analysis with rubbish like White Nile for weeks on end. But hey, anything is possible: we had a Ph.D in physics on these boards last year who seemed unable to grasp the basic scientific method.

At any rate, you once again fail to bring anything new to the discussion that has not already been addressed, and your forced attacks on Islam remain as ridiculous and as idiosyncratic as ever. I won’t bother with them until I see something of substance rather than the silliness you keep spewing, the massive doses of equivocation and forced applications, and, of course, your trademark dearth of factual support.

I have demonstrated --and, more importantly, supported-- rather respectable knowledge of: Islam in particular (especially obvious since you have asked me several questions on various subjects that I have answered in detail and good faith); religion in general (the difference between us, though we both appear opposed to religion, is that I respect such beliefs as important though not valid/infallible); political realities; and of course the debating process at large (though I admit when faced with cretinisms my arguments do suffer).

So you see, I have shown a fair level of knowledge on this subject, whether you have the basic equipment to recognize it or not, as already explained. You on the other hand make assertions you can’t support, ranging from your reactionary and gainsaying entry in this discussion on the basis of Iraq sanctions and war (to this date you have not made or supported your insistent point), all the way to your ignorant and malicious presentation of dhimmi (which was instantly and completely shredded, a fact you grudgingly accepted only after several days) or your hand-waving about Sharia (on which, like Islam in general, you display no understanding beyond layman preconceptions). It’s all there, in black and white, and your inchoate posturing just serves to confirm my assertions regarding your dishonest methods and the poor level of information you provide.

By the way, the oblivious are not open to new ideas, they are oblivious to them – talk about yet another attempt at a Jojo twist.