I'd like to help sort out a misunderstanding regarding Islam. I will do my best to try to minimize side debate and focus on transferring knowledge. My goal is to understand the main gripes with Jihad. I want to know where the main concerns are and how deep those concerns are. In exchange, I'll do my best to alleviate the concerns, may not always help. I'm sure some interesting faces and questions will show up. The main things I think people are confused about is the following and I'd like to know if it applies to you: Jihad. There are two types of Jihad. Inner Jihad and outter Jihad. Inner Jihad is the war you fight with yourself internally to become a better person. Outter Jihad, which is the popular Jihad these days, is self-defense against persecution based on religion. The right to practice religion is a common staple of a strong democracy. It is meant to be balanced (Quraanic order) - if you are religiously discriminated against financially, you retaliate in the exact same amount. If it is through media, you retaliate the same through media. For example, if Muhammad PBUH is depicted in a cartoon, you CAN NOT depict the head of comedy central takin it up the pooper, much less try to kill him. Reasons being - it does not stop you from practicing your religion AND it is not a balanced retaliation. So, to revise, for outter Jihad, the action has to stop allowing you to practice you religion and the retaliation must be just... and rationally speaking, since we can't discuss with God, an independent party has to decide if the retaliation is balanced based on Quraanic principles (this would be a judge, not necessarily Muslim, who can make the judgment). Any act of being the first aggressor can not, by definition, be Jihad. Is that unfair? Is it difficult to see that 99.99% of Jihad that you hear about is not really Jihad? I'm happy to provide the verses for verification and debunk any verses which you'd like me to. This seems to be quite popular here and I would love to debunk any one of the claims on that website because it's so easy. I hate how Jihad has become such a scary and aggressive word. Outter jihad, if it ever comes to that, is a sad thing. But it's a victory for mankind over people who try to suppress our freedoms. I would defend that freedom for a non-Muslim, and I would defend an atheist's right to be atheist. Is it really unusual?
Thanks Mathloom. In YOUR view, do extremists find direction through a wrong interpretation of the Qur'an? Taking verses out of context? Or does it have very little do to with the Qur'an, and mostly because of socioeconomic factors? Also, just because I'm curious, is the 72 virgins thing based on the Qur'an? Where did it come from? Thanks for providing clarification. It is a topic I admittedly do not know enough about.
How many Islamic countries can be considered "democracies" and don't persecute certain individuals based on faith or lack of faith? And this notion of "retaliation," to me, is extremely problematic. Its too easy to use that to justify terrorism. Israel bombs a refugee camp, killing Palestinian non-combatants. So then, based on the principle of Jihad, they are justified in trying to kill Israelis as retribution? You may not agree to that, but poll the average Muslim living in the Middle East and I suspect they would. There is nothing moral about "eye for an eye". You can't preach peace and non-violence and also believe in that. They simply don't go together.
I think the concept of outer jihad is outdated. It made sense when there were only about 10 muslims in the world and there was a serious threat of the pagans killing sll of them and losing the Qu'ran forever. Now, with Islam being so spread out and being so many followers,more then Muhammad(PBUH) could have ever imagined, I doubt we are at risk for genocide.
This is an interesting point. If a religion will go so far as to justify violence for its self preservation, how can you ever turn that off? It seems like a Pandora's box of sorts.
It is banking on the goodness of humanity. This has worked as most Muslims are non-violent. Unfortunately, some seem to think that the actions of 2% of a population represent the other 98%.
EDIT: The virgins thing is in Hadith, a very very weak hadith at that. Not in the Quran. In fact, the word used in the Quran, it probably means grapes and did mean grapes for hundreds of years after the Prophet PBUH passed away. Not that it matters, since there are no human bodies or real material objects in heaven liek we're made to believe. Would suck quite a bit if I'm going to heaven and my reward is to be Hue Heffner. Yes they do, and the reason why it has become common is this: There are two texts. The primary one is Quran. The secondary one is Hadith. Everything to follow is commentary on the previous two. The way that Islamic scholars make judgements and opinions (aka fatwas) is by studying everything starting with the person before them dating back to the Prophet. Muslims are made to believe that this is a difficult process. One of the first results of the process was a fatwa saying "do not questions the process". That's bullcrap. It's very easy to find that information yourself online (not so much in 3rd world countries though). The Hadith was written by what we call "Sahaba". 95% of Muslims think Sahaba refers to the close and knolwdgeable friends of the Prophet. In fact the definition of the term is "anyone who saw the Prophet PBUH" with some minor conditions regarding whether you were an apostate or something. You see how this is problematic. There was once a Hadith which said that the Prophet said eating eggplant will take you closer to heaven. Later on, it was discovered that an eggplant salesman made it up. That's possible because they were only compiled 100-200years after the Prophet's death from random sources. A supernormal degree of trust was put on anyone who SAW the Prophet, and also anyone whom the Sahaba deemed "trustworthy". How that translates into today's problems? Here's how: I'm mid-20's Afghani, with no access to the internet (economic). The schools here don't teach anything about freedom or anything good about non-Islamic subjects (socio-political). I'm wondering why the heck we are constantly attacked and indignified everytime I watch that tiny 12" TV the village shares at the coffee shop. I ask the Islamic scholar what I should do. He moans about how if the Islamic world had balls, they would undertake Jihad like the good old days, and how no one is willing to sacrifice what they have despite the "awesome" rewards in heaven. What this kid doesn't know is that Hadith and subsequent commentary were all biased towards anti-feminism, arabism, ethnocentricity, and the people who wrote them were (to put it nicely) just not very well educated. They were not independent, they were biased, and they did not have the proper controls in place to undertake the task they set out to do. I'm not saying they're bad people. I'm saying they were who they were. They spent the first part of eternity wallowing in nothingness due to their pride, and then the Prophet came and they were top of the world, and then he left and shortly thereafter they reverted to pride-hungry desert dwellers with money. Now here's the key factor: Almost ALL Muslims take their information from scholars blindly. The scholars tell them that taking information blindly is better than doing the interpretation yourself. They tell them that the Prophet hates people who questions them. They tell them that the world "the knowledgeable people" in the Quran refers to Islamic scholars, when it in fact refers to Jewish scientists, scholars and philosophers of the time. They tell them that they can abbrogate responsibility of an error in judgement by following blindly. Suddenly, you've centralized the source of information, and the root source of information is... well, to put it bluntly, good-hearted barbarians IMO. Those people are kept in place through oil money because, today, scholars don't have any other job but being scholars (Prophet was against this). They are paid by the state and approved by the state. Think about what a nightmare this is given the resources in the Persian Gulf states and Iran. Throw in the dictatorship structures and you have the hugest conflict of interest situation mankind has ever known, affecting 1 billion muslims in a mosque near you! To Muslims reading, I have the utmost respect for Abu Bakr, Umar, and a lot of the early "scholars". I have respect for their intentions. I completely disagree with their actions, and I believe so would the Prophet if he were alive to see. I think God will judge them by their intentions. They are human, like me and you. They had jobs, like me and you. They made mistakes, like me and you and the Prophet. We're human, it happens. But the sooner we recognize the mistakes rather than glorify them, I think the sooner we can actually progress and eliminate terrorism from our midsts.
Hmm, I would guess only Turkey? Well, that's the only one I somewhat believe anyway. Retaliation is a strong word. If you take my book, I take it back. If, God forbid, you kill 200 people who did nothing to you while they were praying just because they were praying to Allah... I think a war is the only way. But key to this thing is having an independent decision-maker and not just going out and taking revenge. I think they absolutely go together. If there is a line at which you must wage war, this is the line. I can see how someone would disagree, but I have to disagree with you there. If your family were murdered, a court of law would take action on the person who did it. That is retaliation. That is an independent decision maker. If this was not done, we are ignoring something. What the average Muslim thinks, as I've discussed, is not the barometer. It's not why I started the thread. I will tell you what the Quran says, and how that compares to what Muslims think and what non-Muslims think. The Quran says that, in your example of Palestinian non-combatants, an independent decision maker has to decide if such an act infinged on our freedom to practice religion, it was unjust, and it was not a retaliation in itself. If these conditions are met, the decision maker will give permission to Muslim leaders to make a decision. IF they agree, they will give permission to everyone else. What will be done in "Retaliation" is agreed upon beforehand, and the response has to be proportionate. Again, all these determinations are made independently and, very importantly, assuming justice can't be brought without fighting (the other party refuses to compensate the victims for what they did).
I think so too. Very rarely is anything done to stop a Muslim from worship, considering the only thing you really need to worship is the ability to kneel and pray and eat at a certain time in Ramadan.
That's a cute kid. I hope it doesn't get indoctrinated to become a religious fanatic like it will most probably unfortunately happen to this kid:
Yes, I too hope no one polarizes these kids to the point of insanity. At least we are in agreement there. Thanks for the pictures, glad to see you throw them around with no emotion.
Thanks for taking the time to respond. First of all, what the average Muslim thinks is very relevant. Clearly, the Quran isn't an effective book if those that read it and are devoted to it don't understand its contents. To me, that means the message isn't clear, or its ambiguous. Second, I still have an issue with the notion of retaliation. Retaliation, to me, is not what justice should be based on. If I steal your book, yes you have the right to take it back. But that is not retaliation. The book belongs to you, so its not like you are stealing it back from me. You are simply retrieving what is rightfully yours. If I walk up to you and slap you in the face, is it justice for you to retaliate and slap my face? I don't think so. I should be punished, but it has nothing to do with retaliation. There is nothing intrinsically moral about you slapping me back just because I slapped you. We could, in theory, keep slapping eachother ad infinitum in retaliation -- is there anything moral about that?
I am guessing that you are misrepresenting what he meant. My read on it was that war or retaliation may, at times, be the only mean of bringing about justice, which might be a lost book or an occupied land or any other number of things. I am guessing retaliation itself has no intrinsic value, but is only meant to retrieve what is rightfully yours or to protect from religious repression. At least that is how I read it.
You know, I have not been around here long enough, but based on what little I have seen of your postings, you seem to have zero intention of debating or doing anything else other than rile up some of the posters around here. You strike me as an anti-religion zealot with no intention of debating anything, and you seem to take particular interest in pissing off Muslims. Just thought I would let you know that your efforts to inflame instead of inform have not gone unnoticed to this particular poster.
