I take no issue with anything you say. It is all very reasonable. I would say that DaDakota makes arbitrary, rash judgments about everything, not just Islam, and holds onto them for dear life. I don't know if that is a point for or against his favor.
Too wrongs dont make a right ,, and eye for an eye makes the whole world blind .. I really dont care about the ban you know but u expect more from a well educated community or country like swizerland ..
Firstly, Zakir Naik does not speak for Islam. No one speaks for God but Prophets and Messengers. This is why the Sunna of the Prophet PBUH is an important part of Islam. I understand that it is highly frustrating to our human minds to not be able to hold anyone responsible for something, but this is actually the case. You want to blame Islam, you blame either God or one of his Prophets PBUH. Zakir Naik may be a mass murderer and it wouldn't matter. It has nothing to do with Islam. He is a human and a human is born with flaws. Similarly, we are human and should be able to weed out the flaws of others. Your characterization of Zakir Naik is akin to the biggest sin in Islam btw. That's how far from the truth it is. In the real world, Jews are Middle Eastern. They were mistreated for a long time. That time did not coincide with the Prophet PBUH's reign as head of the Islamic empire. As for later on, there are huge mistakes that Islamic leaders made. No one will disagree with you regarding the Andalusian period because that it the period of the downfall of Islam. Since your interest is in the day-to-day side of things... How would you fancy me living in your house and you overhear me speaking to the "mafia" and telling them that I want your house? Not any house, not a big house, not a nice house. Just your house. I have to have it. You get a letter from the mafia saying that I can move my family into the living room. The animosity between Jews and Muslims is long and drawn out. It is unrelated to Islam. I don't know if it is related to Judaism. But nothing hapened between Jews and Muslims that was specifically related to being Jewish and being Muslim until it became clear that the Jewish people wanted Palestine. A dhimmi, FYI, according to Sharia is just a person who is robbed of certain rights for millitary reasons. These rights are: unable to bear arms, not allowed to dress like Muslims, not allowed to build taller buildings, and not allwed to live on high ground. As you can see, these restrictions are purely related to blocking an internal revolution or attack. However, you are right in that these rules were later distorted and abused beginning with the 2nd or 3rd Khalifa.
In this context, I am only concerned with how Islam interfaces with the rest of the world - I am interested in what is coming from the mouths of Muslims. In practical terms, that is Islam from the outside. Dogmatically, I appreciate what you say. In general, I accept your word that it is heresy. My guess is that your version of things is more pure. But from the outside looking in, Islam is what the people who define themselves as Muslims say it is. You say one thing, and I imagine that he would say another. Certainly, I have no expertise to make a judgment in the terms that a great scholar would make, so I am compelled to reject all abstractions. In this measure, concepts of dogma don't matter. It is fundamentally an ontological attribution, devoid of abstractions. From the outside, by claiming to be a Muslim, and by having so many other people who claim to be a Muslim supporting him, this guy is ipso facto a Muslim and a speaker for what in exclusively practical and decidedly not philosophical or religious terms (which for the discussion of political matters is all that counts) is Islam.
Well before that, there were restrictions on things like building new Temples that were not placed on building Mosques. These are not the same as being flayed alive by the Inquisition, but it isn't equality. Fundamentally, one group was in position of superiority over the other both in terms of numbers and power. The inferior party had no recourse and no hope of achieving equality through extralegal actions. There was no overt conflict. When you are on the top, that may seem like peace and justice. I don't think it looks that way from the inferior position. And fundamentally, that is what this thread is about. Certainly, the Muslims of Switzerland are in a more favorable position than the Ottoman Jews of the 16th and 17th Century. This is not an indictment of all Islam. 17th Century Ottoman Jews had more standing in their society than 17th Century Portuguese Jews. These are just statements of fact.
I disagree with your last paragraph. Because if that is what matters, it hints that the problem IS the Quraan. The problem is NOT the Quraan though. If you want to speak about actions which show a pattern among Muslims, then that's obviously fair game and I would probably agree with you in those instances. However, the moment you ignore or eliminate the notion that there is a problem somewhere between what the Quraan says and what a Muslim hears, you are insinuating that the actions are not distorted and are then directed by the Quraan. This guy is a Muslim because he says he's a Muslim. Those who "follow" him are Muslims because they claim to be Musllim. There is absolutely no basis for being able to say he IS Islam. This is very important. I understand that you want to reach a common ground in your discussion with PointFoward and that, to do so, you have to reach a common understanding of "what IS Islam". But if one of your assumptions is that Zakir Naik's ideology embodies Islam, then your side of the argument has failed already. Again, I understand your interest is in patterns that can be observed in Muslim people. I see a lot of scary patterns as well, and historically speaking, we've messed up a lot. I seemed to be drifting away from your interest here. I know that you are someone who likes to stay on the real and factual side of things. Therefore, you require a certain amount of tangibility when weighing things. My overall point is just that, if staying true to Islam, there is nothing which says Jews do not get full rights in a Sharia-governed area. They are guaranteed certain rights but out of respect for their beliefs are given certain counter-blanacing options. An example of that is the Jizya tax - some of them believed it wrong to fight for the Muslim army, therefore were able to monetarily erase that duty yet still be guaranteed the right to feel safe in their home from enemies of Islam. Some of the things which happened back then were purely political and social corruption on the Muslim side. Specifically things like making Dhimmis wear humiliating clothing - this should be punished under Sharia. To be fair, I don't think the point I'm trying to get across is anything more than a technicality in your discussion. But it is miportant to me, personally, that people don't start thinking "Muslims humiliated Jews >> Muslims hate Jews >> Islam hates Judaism >> No wonder the Jews did not feel safe and secure." Had "Palestine" not been politically corrupt back then, civilians would not have layed a finger on the Jewish population. It is always important to bear in mind that these are not democracies we're talking about. The people of non-democracies do not have their will accurately reflected in the country's actions and, furthermore, become victims of mind control. If you don't keep this in mind, then you will not be able to see that Muslims and Jews had no problems except those propogated by corrupt politicians and leaders. Sorry for the overreaction! lol
I'm not saying it was peace and justice. I'm just saying the problem was the leader, not the people. The problem was not the people of Islam and the people of Judaism. It was the leaders of Islam at the time. As for Switzerland, mehh. If the majority voted for it, I don't think it's unfair at all. Maybe the next time it comes up, it doesn't receive a majority. Maybe next time, there will be too many Muslims for them to do such a thing. Till then, this is the system. It is not hindering someone's ability to be Muslim. The only issue I have with it is that I can't see clearly what there is to gain from it. Also, if this action has only been taken for minarets, it shows a great deal of intolerance. It is the equivalent of Dubai banning all french food. No one will go hungry, but the French sure will get pissed. What if there's a Swiss atheist who loves building minarets just because he thinks they look great? Should he not be able to do that? Anyways. As I said, it's not an attack on Islam. I don't know if it was intended to be. I think it merits discussion, but it certainly does not merit any political or social turbulence. In a secular democracy, the majority decides. Someone will always lose. As long as the loss does not make the place uninhabitable for you, you move on. Muslims have received a lot of things in Switzerland which they would have never dreamed of receiving in today's Sharia-governed countries.
Rash (chuckle), it is funny how people label others views as something derogatory in their own world to make it seem like it has less value. Each individual has a way of forming their own opinion. My personal opinion about religions (all of them) gets me in trouble in here, so I just have to poke around the edges. My decisions are sound, they are just well ahead of their time.....they are too powerful for mortal men like yourselves to comprehend..... DD
Anyway, at the end of the day... The Swiss discriminate against religious beliefs. Clearly the majority of the people have expressed their preference to limit the rights of Muslims in some form or fashion. That's a fact. Now, it's not a big deal, but the Swiss can't claim to be a truly free society with laws like that.
seriously...what can you do? Saudi Arabia is not a democracy. Can you put 2 and 2 together to see why one can't really do anything about it? When did I say non-muslim countries are suppose to be tolerant? It's just that the swiss have been 'neutral' on a lot of fronts. Very surprising to see a country that is viewed by most as liberal and neutral, banning something due to religious affiliation. Now say if China did something like this, I wouldn't be surprised at all. If United Arab Emirates decided to ban all medival styled churches, I would be surprised. In my opinion, it's sort of a lash agaist Islam. But again, DaDakota, irregardless of how simple-minded his arguments are, could be right that they simply don't like the architectural style. No way to know really unless you do a poll asking people straight up. It's easy to click that rolleyes icon on the screen. Maybe think about it more before replying.
Again, you may be right on your first point but I highly doubt it. I'm sure that there is more than just 2 architectural styles. Architectural styles aren't just divided into 1) minerats and 2) everything else. If they banned gothic style churches or traditional-styled Hindu temples also, then I would agree with you.
Switzerland might have been neutral to stay out of 20th C. european conflicts, but has never been particularly neutral or tolerant in terms of domestic affairs (to the extent you can even ascribe a common thread to a decentralized collection of regions). Hell it even has it's own homegrown branch of protestantism. This isn't the Netherlands we're talking about here.
Tourism? Which hole did you pull this crap from? There are only four mosques in Switzerland with minarets (from the article I posted), one of them has minarets the height of its own structure, leaving only three. It might eventually become an issue, but seems like currently that is not the case. As a poster stated before, what about the Muslims who are citizens of Switzerland, will they feel slighted by this? Minarets arn't a threat or nuisance to anyone or anything, it seems like its Islamaphobia at its best (not that I blame them, the media and Muslims themselves have done a good job of scaring people, hell I would be)
Not sure how a minaret would interfere with sleep. And I guess the Swiss don't like the Taj Mahal - probably the most famous minaret there is in the world. All I know is that if some Swiss guy every criticizes the U.S. for how minorities are treated here - all I got to say is... Extra value bias is what you get when the swiss say minaret! <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-XGbNLnu8Cw&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-XGbNLnu8Cw&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
Obviously, I'm not counting hypocritical bigotry as a value. Banning minarets is not a good example of western liberal government. It's more of a blunt example of the dangers of unchecked democracy. This is why the US, for example, has set up courts to rule these proposals illegal. No. Religious values, by definition, are separate in a secular government. Using America as an example - sure, the christian right can influence some laws or governmental machinations, but other laws prevent overstepping of pre-ordained boundaries that may impinge on individual liberty or seperation of church and state. Diminish? By banning minarets? Doubtful. I'd argue it more of a hypocritical humiliation. I'm not defending what the swiss have done. We were discussing the objective differences between assimilation from one culture to another. Since they are unjustly impinging on a particular religious group, I'd argue the government in question not secular, or at least, not "doing very well" at being secular. That I don't agree. (Again, let's be clear - we're talking about values as it pertains to government.) Everyone SHOULD. Not would. Probably accurate. Certainly, if all christians actually acted christian or all muslims actually followed islam (not so sure about this one) there would not necessarily have arisen the need for secularism. Since people are jerkfaces we have had to find a method to limit the control of jerkfaces, including those who claim god has commanded them to be jerkfaces, since those folks tend to make life miserable. It's moot which values are better in terms of assimilation, since a secular government is not impinging on your values directly - it only limits your ability to force others to adhere to them. Objectively, it is far easier to assimilate in a secular society instead of a theocracy.
As Mathloom described earlier, the actions of men who failed to carry out true Islam resulted in the criticisms which you say above. I did a huge research paper couple semesters back under some of the most renowned professors in this field regarding the coexistence of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Islamic Spain. This wasn't derived from some hack work written 'by Muslim overlords bragging about the past'. I found out that in this topic that there's very few scholars who interpreted this society with a true understanding of Islam and that commentary (bias?) of the likes of Bernard Lewis have unfortunately colored and dominated the modern-day discussion of this period. Yes, true equality was never reached (although acc. to Islam it should have) but life for Jews was not nowhere near as bad as many claim (this from Jewish primary sources) and definitely unlike life for Jews in the the centuries under the Ottomans. Especially in the early years till about 1000 CE but by the time of the Almoravids it became less tolerant. People like Avicebron/Ibn Gabirol and Maimonides were all from this era.
