Moderate Islam - does it exist? If yes, how do YOU define it?

Al Qaeda Populating U.S. With Peaceful 'Decoy Muslims'

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fear of something may be understandable, but it doesn't always make it likely to happen, especially given the MB's stance that they won't seek power and prefer a secular govt. in Egypt.

 

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It's funny how you argue that Islam is not tolerant. When Christianity isn't either. Do the crusades ring a bell? We are just as much of a terrorist to the Muslims that live on the other side of the world, than they are to us. It's called perspective. However many ATWs there are that are passionately attacking and condemning Islam, there are a similar amount on the other side attacking Christianity.

Neither side is truly tolerant.

 

The potential outcome is still better than what the status quo has been for the past two decades. These people have had no basic rights for a large portion of their life.

 

Delete

 

lol i think i know what happened here!

 

In fact the bible has many more violent verses than the Qur'an, but it is much much larger, something like 8 percent of the Qur'anic ayahs are supposedly "cruel or violent" and 4 percent of the Biblical verses. Just grabbed those from a random site that was comparing the two, but I have certainly seen evidence of the Bible having many more cruel verses (http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/short.html).

Many scholars believe the ayahs pertaining to violence correspond with what the Prophet Muhammad was dealing with at the time. They begin as a religion of peace, trying to spread the word, then as the Meccan's became more violent they had to protect themselves. I believe there is an ayah allowing Muslims to deny their faith for their safety, which was an early verse, then later as they grew in numbers they no longer had to fear the majority and could believe openly. They, like early Christians, were being persecuted, yes some of the ayahs are violent, but again, we must remember the Bible is the same, we just don't claim the Bible as the exact word of God.

Many of the ayahs are taken out of context as well, especially when pertaining to misogyny, they are usually a result of:
1) reading selectively or piecemeal
2) without attention to language: grammar and or syntax
3) generalizing specific Qur'an injunctions
4) de-contextualizing the ayahs

Does moderate Islam exist? MOST certainly. How many muslims do you know that want to kill you? How many do you know that don't? The vast, majority. Our cultures may be different, but you have to remember that many Muslims hatred of us comes not from Islam, but from the interferience in Mid East politics for centuries by the western superpowers of France and Britain mostly. Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, etc, the west comes in and does what it wishes, handing concessions and contracts to those who benefit their country, not the Arab nation or people. Our (as in the West) constant meddling in their business has driven them off the edge, just like it did in Iran.

I don't believe it is Islam that is violent, just as I don't believe Christianity is hypothetical, the people who lead them are violent/hypocritical, now people must decide who to put their faith in, the religion, or the men who speak on behalf of the religion.

I dunno, that's just my 2 cents

 

lol what do you think happened?

 

Funny you mention the crusades. They were HUNDREDS of years ago, yet people in the middle east still bring them up frequently. I was just in Egypt about 4 weeks ago and it was remarkable how much I heard about them from the Muslims I dealt with.

You could argue that Mohammed himself justifies violence, given not only his military background (>1000 dead in the battles of Mohammed) but also his declaration that violence is OK in some situations:

"Permission to fight is given to those who are fought against because they have been wronged -truly Allah has the power to come to their support- those who were expelled from their homes without any right, merely for saying, 'Our Lord is Allah'..." (Qur'an, 22:39-40)"

 

so you are a peacenik now?

 

Hakeem Olajuwon terrorized every center he played against.

 

I thought maybe you were going to participate in the discussion and thought to yourself "fuggit, what's the point?"

 

No one has ever said that Muhammad PBUH didn't engage in war or kill people. I think this is difficult for people to come to terms with because it is different than the role of Jesus PBUH in Christianity.

But as you've pointed out yourself here, and you will find to be a pattern in the Quran: war is only justified in self-defense. It's highly visible with phrases like: take them out from where THEY took you out, fight is given to those fought against, merely for saying "Our Lord is Allah" (they were being murdered due to religious discrimination), etc. In fact, being the aggressor is not allowed, and neither is religious compulsion - both expressly banned.

It's only after he passed away that the Islamic empire began being the instigator and spreading religion by the sword. While this made human rights and knowledge development boom exponentially, it unfortunately also set the example that using force to expand Islam yields good results. What they didn't know is that the example they set would ultimately sink them to the bottom of the earth in terms of economic sustainability, R&D, human rights, and information development via leaders/scholars who continued in the tradition of using that erroneous example.

 

Lol, no I misread ATW's post. I thought he said "but it did not seem like people had basic rights", rather than "no basic rights."

 

I've never been to Egypt.

Currently no one has any guaranteed constitutional rights. A change in government means the Emergency Law will most likely be repealed. Mubarak said he would do it in 2006, but ended up extending it. As long as the Emergency Law is no longer in effect, the citizens will actually have rights under a new government.

 

So you agree with Palin and we should do everything to stop the Muslim Brotherhood from coming to power even if that means keeping Mubarak?

Why is it that people are so happy to sing the tune of democracy when it fits their agenda (Iraq and Afghanistan) but happy to throw it under the bus when it doesn't.

If the Muslim Brotherhood is democratically elected, then so be it. We either stand for democracy or we don't. The whole reason we have problems in that part of the world is that we stood on the wrong side of democracy.

Had we never supported the Shah or Saddam we'd have never had to deal with Iraq or Iran. Had we always appealed for democratic reform we wouldn't have had issue with many of the Muslims hating the west because we wouldn't have been seen as propping up the gov't that has kept them poor.

Frankly, this isn't about whether Egyptians will be better off or not. Let's be honest, you could care less about them. You know that's the real truth.

It's in our interest to allow democracy to flourish in Egypt. The whole idea of Cheney was that democracy would spread throughout the region if he just created one in there.

Well, it's happening anyway in spite of Bush's foul ups in the region. Organic democratic movement. The U.S. has to play the role of helping the egyptian people realize their democratic aspirations.

If we don't, and allow for a dictactorship to replace the previous one, we will set ourselves us for a lot more grief later on.