very honest and interesting interview with a Muslim Cleric on "What is Islam"

There are Americans with anti-Israel sentiments. There's a big difference between - and let me stress this, a HUGE difference between being angry at U.S. and Israeli policy versus wanting to kill Americans.

If you justify anti-Islamic feelings here in the U.S. because of the actions of terrorist groups than you can't fault Muslims for being anti-Israel and anti-U.S. after many years of misguided policy.

Now I know *a lot* of Americans who have anti-Muslim feelings and think it's a violent religion but don't advocate the killing of Muslims. And by the same token, there are many Muslims that have resentment towards the U.S. for it's policies and perceived slaughter of 100's of thousands of Muslims.

They see the anti-Islamic rhetoric every day coming from the U.S. and they resent it. They see people protest against mosques and they resent it. And then you have people like Bigtexx expect them to speak out against extremists? Why should they? They don't want to kill us, but they don't like us because just as our media focuses on the stupid dribble of this radical guy you put up in here in that video, their media does the same thing from people like Pat Robertson and the racists in the Tea Party. So guess what, they assume ALL AMERICANS HATE THEM SECRETLY TOO.

All you two do are doing is playing into the cycle. That cycle that spirals deeper and deeper as the divide grows and grows. It's getting worse, not better. And the question is what you seek to accomplish. It's fine if your goal is to see a growing conflict between the west and Islam. That's great for a country like China. I can see the history books of the next century discussing how China propelled to power while the U.S. was stuck in partisan politics and rife with xenophobia.

You think this guy is the biggest threat to us? You realize China gets all the oil it wants from the middle east. How come Muslims aren't going after China? China jails tons of Muslims and has oppressed them far worse than the u.S.?

Where does the hate for Americans come from? These idiots don't create it, they are tapping into it. Guess what, it's from our radical fools. Guys like Savage are playing into their hands.

And guess what, you are playing into the hands of those who'd use your fear to get votes and push their agenda. You're no different from these misinformed Muslims who secretly think all Americans want to oppress them. You're just the other side of the coin in thinking that they sympathize with terrorists.

Ask yourself this question. If you think they really do secretly support or sympathize with extremists, why? Why do they sympathize with radical Islamists? I am not trying to justify their feelings, only trying to get you to think about what's really going on here.

 

There agenda is not through the religion, and not supported within our books even, its political and social. Where were these guys 50 years ago, they didn't give a damn about america or tried any of these wars with america, like ron paul said, most of it is an issue that we are involved with israel, with iran, iraq, afghanistan, many of them think they are being intruded on and taht starts the issue, and these leaders use the same thing other governments have used in the past to unify people for this fight which is religion, they manipulate it as some divine battle, when clearly in the quran it says there is not one way towards salvation and that the other abrahamic religions(christians jews) all follow the same god and should be respected as such, it goes on to say never to be an aggressor and to kill one life is as to kill millions and one of the greatest sins. So yes, they are hardly muslim by anything but name, and guess what if they were some other religion they would still be doing crazy stuff and on the attack bc of the political and social turmoil the issues they have with others in their country trying to make rules for him.

As far as other oganizations with religion affiliations, the kkk considers themselves good christians and believe whites are superior than anyother race, you have the IRA, you have priests molesting, even hitler has been quoted considering himself a good christian and the importance and power of christianity....teh fact is none of these people just like the lunatic terrorists represent the whole and often have other agendas and use whatever religion or ideas to justify what they want, its just the unfortunate reality, but its not a clash of religions ,its a clash of ignorances, and the more you learn about eachother, the more you humanize eachother and understand we all are trying to do the saem thing and respect eachother and learn from one another to for ma pluralistic society. Think spanish moorish, a civilzation under muslim rule, when all the religions had a place and lived with respect and tolerance and was a golden age for the sciences,medicine, astronomy, for prosperity for the jews under that rule too...they weren't crazy and trying to kill anyone then? it was the same religion was it not? maybe bc the religion is the wrong issue to focus on and see the other situations, its like when people look at the jail rate or hs failure rate and look at race when socioeconmic background is more relevant since the whites or whoever else born under those circumstances all have similar results there was just more blacks there so people just say it must bc they are black.

in early 90s under regan, he had the wahabi muslims come to the white house, keep in mind these are the most extreme racial interpreters of the quran the onces who oppress women so on, and he referred to them as having the character of the founders of america and called them heros, they werent trying to blow up america vice versca tehn? that was the same religion wasn't it? maybe you can just realize its more political issues than anything and please excuse my grammar/spelling, you can make out the words and keyboard i have sucks so oh well

 

I've said it here before, but I believe there is a far larger problem with religious extremists in Western Europe, as compared to the United States.

As far as being critical of Israel, go to any rally against the occupation of Israel here in the United States, and a majority of the protesters will be non-Muslim, atheist, or agnostic.

 

Any comment on the poll figures I posted in my previous post? Anyone?

 

its just a matter of illiteracy and education, once again which leads to ignorance, these same idiots who think burning a quran was a great idea to prove freedom are ironically similar in mindset to the idiots who think blowing themselves up is justified, not only is it a great sin in the quran, most of these people haven't,don't, and most importantly can't(illiterate) read the quran itself and interpret it for themselves just like the guys from KKK who read the bibble consider themselves strong christians yet come about with the idea that a white race is supreme to any other or hitler who was documented to be a strong christian which clearly his actions were not what christ preaches...there are people like that out there in wide ways, but their agendas root from elsewhere and other evils and they use it in name of the religion which ask the questions of what is a muslim, should they know the teachings of the book and practice to be considered muslim or were they just born into in the middle east have issues with foreign policy or things being different frmo how they thought want to get violent and just use the religious lingo in their own agenda....

its far too complex in nature to simplify the way you want to from the polls to gain the roots of this among with other generalizations and stereotypes. What you do with these, which I have time and time repeated, is the dangerous act of dehumanizing people, muslims in this case, and the same thing the nazis did, the same thing the terrorist did, those guys weren't out for christians, there were over 6-7 dozens muslims who were killed in 9/11 too, its not about religion to them, its politics, its country based, its america...and do they have some religious obligation to kill americans? then go back t 89 with regan and see how they would walk hand in hand and considered great allies and regan called them heros who have character of the founding fathers....that was the same religion, the same muslims, but the situation and agenda has changed, did someone go back and change the teachings or did the politics change?

 

I see you repeating your rant about completely unrelated issues (KKK, whatever), but in no way addressing the startling figures showing that in some countries, a majority of muslims are in favor of suicide bombings that kill civilians.

 

Among predominantly Muslim countries, Pakistanis had the highest rate (87%) of "rejection of suicide bombings and violence against civilians." Since I'm Pakistani-American and not as familiar with Muslims from the other listed countries, I'll comment on that number.

87% is a fairly high number. Now I know you're going to say something along the lines of "anything less than 99.999% is very, very concerning."

But first, you have to realize that literacy rate in the country is barely over 50% (ranked 163rd in the world). As a comparison, the literacy rate in the United States and Germany, for example, is roughly 99%.

 

Thanks sLaNd B a L L a. Yes, you guessed right, I think anything less than 99 % is very concerning. But relatively speaking, I guess the respondents in Pakistan give the least cause for concern.

Now, I have not seen this, but what do you think would be the outcome in countries with the same literacy rate when you poll non-muslims compared to muslims regarding suicide bombings that kill civilians?

 

Interesting you ask. One of my good friends is a Maronite Christian from Lebanon. He grew up in Beirut and Cyprus, and I know for a fact that he is 100% against Israel's foreign policy in regards to Israel and Lebanon. He's obviously against suicide bombings that kill civilians, just like every other rational person in the world.

We were roommates in the the Summer of 2006, right when the Israeli invasion of Beirut was going on, so I got to hear his take on the issue quite a bit then.

His brother actually has a popular blog on Lebanese politics - you'll probably find it quite interesting. Here is the link.

 

and the majority of Americans were in favor of going to war with Iraq and killing thousands of civilians.

 

Did you read my previous post?

As for the purpose of going to Iraq - it was a known consequence that many thousands of Iraq civilians would die. Estimates far exceeded 100's of thousands, in some cases up to a half-million. The American public, specifically on the right, did not see to care much for this and this was panned over in the media. A half-million people killed. Is that worth getting rid of Saddam who was already castrated by the first Bush?

Now you are equating these radical Muslims with the poll numbers, and that's a twisting of facts far beyond anything I have done here. Because they aren't supporting the killing of civilians. They are supporting suicide bombers as a means to get Israel out of Palestinian territory. The goal isn't to kill civilians, it's to make Israel end an occupation, which is like Americans supporting suicide bombing to say end the British Occupation in the 1700's.

I don't think literacy is an issue, but I am not sure why you are asking me. Frankly, I don't think it's about literacy. There are plenty of Americans who are literate and don't have a clue about the facts and have opinions based on wild conjecture or false ideas.

But if you don't understand why a large percentage of Muslims see suicide bombings a legit means to wage war to oust occupiers, than you really need to ask yourself why that is.

Do you think they are all brain-washed radicals? You think they all want infidel's to die? Because if you do, than that's ok. At least that explains it. But I would hope that is not what you actually believe. So then, what do you think it is?

I am not trying to mock you or belittle you. I think you are actually willing to engage in debate here unlike others (tallnover, ATW/Jackie is a Child, bigtexx, and basso to name a few).

 

I bring up literacy because in order to actually be a muslim and practice islam, shouldn't you be able to read the book to recitev erses and elarn about it? many of these people might be muslim by birth, but these guys have never read the own book yet run around screaming gods name bc thats what the manipulative terrorist said this is god wants them to do, so then you consider them muslim although they don't actaully learn anything about the religion?

Literacy and education is also a factor in violence, understanding politics, solutions, and battling ignorance which is a root in many of these issues from suicide bombing, etc more so than some religion. This goes in the west as well where you see the literacy rate and lower education just lead to more crime and murder, violence and misunderstanding, its simply another form of that. More important than installing a democracy, if you really want to help a country, set up its education properly. Some places, for example Pakistan, were not ready for a democracy. Under Musharaff who was a dictator he made things happen with an iron fist which the people needed, they established a democracy, which is dependent on people of the country being informed/education/ to make a responsible decision in voting, pakistan wasn't ready for that and now the country is worse off than before with a crook voted in as president. Education is the answer more than anything to help the people help themselves and combat these extremist mentalities

you say there sole purpose is to kill innocents, then like I said go back to regan administration it was the same people/mindset/ideology that was hand in hand with our president and he was calling them heros and they were battling the russians while they had our full support, the wouldn't touch america nad considered us allies then, if the reliigion considers us infidels and just wants to kill us than why as little as 20 years ago were they friends, thats what I am saying, its just inappropriate to say the muslims this and the muslims that, the basis in these actions are more political so the generalizations are simply flawed.

 

Why do you think this guy is honest?

Have you taken into consideration that the reason he would be saying these things might be because his pockets are full of A-rab money?

The use of the word 'honest' implies a general dishonesty from other Muslims, and it also implies that you are aware of the truth about Muslims. Is that what you're saying?

 

But why do they feel that way? If they aren't radical muslim terrorists, how come they feel sympathetic towards them and cold towards the U.S.?

 

Haven't really looked at what is being discussed here, but just wanted to point out that you can't just toss aside the Iraq war in a discussion about terrorism/extremism. I think the CIA or another intelligence agency said that the threat of terrorism increased 10 fold due to that war (that is huge if you ask me, many of these people see it as an attack on them even if they don't live in the country). Just look at the videos the lunatic terrorists made when they bombed London, they kept mentioning Iraq........anyway carry on.