I don't think our battle is with Muslims I think it is with Islam, surely not every Mulsim out there has it in for me and I do think the author takes it too far.

But at the end of the day if a moderate Muslim even a lapsed Muslim was told cross over to us and live or stay with them and die...

I predict we possibly may see a schisim in the US Mulsim population due to the protection afforded them but we ain't gonna see it in the ME of Nth Aftrica or the coming European Islamic Republic.

The hardliners will rule the politics becuase this is how Islam works, it ain't gonna change quick enough and these hardliners have the backing of their cultural authority - the Koran.


AFchic,

I think your point is right though re: picking and choosing scripture, but your example is way off.

Now I don't see the point in getting into religious debate as this thread is about how we should see and interact with Islam but...

A) 1 Tim 1:9-10 = Homosexuality = sin
B) 1 Tim 2:9-10 = Woman should focus on building their character not how sexually desirably they are.

1) 'A & B' are not the same verse or even paragraph
2) 'B' encourages a woman to focus on building character not on building how sexually desirable she is and discusses how that principle is to be outworked in Timothy’s culture and time.

Today it would be different rules but the same principle. Most parents honestly wouldn't want to see their 16 year old daughter wearing her low riders with her G-string showing just below her lower back tattoo while wearing a crop top and a tongue ring. You get my point? "Multi layer mixed clothing with braided hair was the same as this in that culture."

Scimitar

Thanks Dozer. That's good to know. I can be terse at times.

My inciteful words were actually meant to be insightful.

My point was that I don't care who other people worship.
It becomes an issue when they try to force their religion on me.

It wasn't meant as a personal attack.

FOOTNOTE/DIGRESSION: Interestingly Saul Alinsky's book has three quotes in the opening pages. The 3rd is from Alinsky - praising SATAN...

Know anybody who's been advocating Alinsky's methods lately? :confused:

Incredible - it appears to me that the average person today is about as credulous as was the average person in the Middle Ages. :eek:

And so it goes...;)

Richard's $.02 :munchin

Obamas been advocating Alinsky since he first started in local chicago politics...?

Scimitar's Question
 

I’m not sure the above can be labeled facts, but for arguments sake lets say they represent accurate trends. For the record I think our nation’s enemies and terrorists need to be terminated with extreme violence and prejudice, the terror threat is real, and won’t be solved by negotiating or sitting around holding hands singing Kumbaya, so I’m grateful for our troops.

Respectfully however if the question is how do we deal with Islam as a whole, the danger is giving into the fearful perception that Islam instead of being subject to human nature is a mindless killing automation like the Borg or the Terminator. (Forgive the Sci-Fi references.)

For example let’s say this trend of rapid Islamic population growth in Europe is your concern, this is quite valid, but also quite an opportunity for the West, if you believe as I do that Islam is extremely vulnerable on the issue of gender. If you are in range, so are they. Islamic immigrant children should be forced to attend public school like any other kid, no veils, no special treatment, just education to the world at large, this is the key.

Culture is defined as learned and shared behavior. People are the sum of their experiences and their environment. Eddie Murphy the comedian had a routine years ago where he was tired of materialistic American women. In the skit he goes to Africa to find some rural bride with a bone in her nose, and brings her back to the States until assimilated a few years later she says “BLEEP You Eddie, I want half !”

I detest Hillary Clinton, but could you imagine her reaction to an Afghan man telling her, ok woman, from now on you are my property and servant, no education, no rights, no career, you have to wear this burka and be covered at all times, I will beat, take and kill you as I please. Now go make me a kebab before I sell you for 3 goats?

Now some 10 year old girl from an isolated village in Afghanistan would probably accept this fate as the way of the world. There are no other sources of input or education, no one to inform her it is possible to have rights/freedoms in a western liberal state, or protect her, so nothing to disturb the status quo here for ages.

That same little girl Muslim raised in France or England will see the world quite differently if given an education, and while she may remain Muslim she will reject the fundamental trappings of the past as a raw deal, freedom is the most addictive drug. If Islam were impervious to this there would be no female doctor’s, lawyers, or engineers in secular Turkey. I’ve been there, the place is not perfect, but they still consider themselves Muslims who still pray 5 times a day, they however separate religion from state which is the goal. Even if this little girl’s parents stifle this thought, teens rebel and with her own eyes she would see other little girls and the freedoms they enjoy. 40 years is a long time, even if this little girl doesn’t embrace freedom and thus force an evolution in Islam, will her kids be more or less likely to? My point is human beings are social creatures and inevitable culture exchange ensues with interaction. If we play our cards right Muslim immigrants in Europe will be equally subject to modern Western influence. So the strategy is educate and expose them to freedom. It’s actually much easier in Europe. If we also have to go into Afghanistan and kill all of the Taliban fighters in a region, that’s probably a good idea, but then improve the civilians' quality of life, and most importantly educate the children so you aren’t fighting the same war 30 years later. The danger is Liberal laws where these immigrant communities aren’t forced to assimilate.

http://www.prb.org/Articles/2008/mus...urope.aspx?p=1

There are other sources for this information also.

All is not lost yet...

Another crack in the theologically prohibitive wall of Islamic interpretation...???:confused:

And so it goes...;)

Richard's $.02 :munchin

FWIW...that is how I read and understood it.

Haven't you heard about taqqiya? Or hud'na? The commands in the Qur'an to soften you enemies heart. No disrespect whatsoever mam, I'm not sure what surah contains this but an internet search will prove this to you. Researching Islam is a very un-PC topic.

A discussion of Islam is a difficult and complex subject. Adding other faiths in the discussion will only complicate and probably make a reasonable discussion impossible.

I have explored and listened to this topic for almost 8 years with other who are very knowledgeable about Islam. I think there are other "religions" out there are that are more way out on a limb in the world of being a negative influence on the world. The benefit is that, the numbers of people who follow those religions are few in comparison.


We have Islam with approximately 850 million to one billion members. They are in many sects and various degrees of observance of the faith. I think the concept of demoting Islam's religious status is a legal issue. From my limited view, this maybe something that can not be legally done. Generally our laws deal with specific people for specific actions. As long as they do not violate the laws of the land, as zany as we think them to be, they are legally GTG.

I think part of the legal issues would be the complexity of defining Islam as a non-religion. One consideration what ever definitions that are developed all other religions would be subject to them too.

I know we have laws that can deal with "outlawish" type groups, such as gang laws. Certain elements must be fulfilled and when they are a gang can be dealt with as a group, rather than dealing with the individual members.

It would a good read to have one of our Legal experts chime in on this topic. As far as my limited understanding of the law, I don't think demoting Islam's religion status is legally possible.

Exactly...it amazes me that most people...even educated ones either have no idea about these specific topics or choose to play them down. Not saying their stupid I just think it’s the effects of MSM.

We have some very good friends who have infiltrated the local Muslim community here...most are 1st or 2nd (but really 1st) generation immigrants from ME or more so from Somalia.

We in the west are ethnocentric; we really do believe that everyone thinks like us...they don't.

Again not saying that every Muslim is out to get me, but I will say it again...their sacred text tells them to commit these (what we consider) crimes, to be a 'good person’ a Muslim has to ignore his or hers sacred text.

S

Sharia = Sedition
 

Allow someone much smarter than me on this topic to respond...

David Yerushalmi nails the issue of Sharia -vs- Jewish Law Christian Dogma and Catholic Canon:

http://ibloga.blogspot.com/2008/10/s...ewish-law.html
_____________________

October 10, 2008

Mr. Suhail Khan
U.S. Department of Transportation
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy
1200 New Jersey Ave, SE
Washington, D.C. 20590

Re: Your debate with Frank Gaffney, Baltimore, MD

Dear Mr. Khan:

In your debate with Mr. Gaffney in Baltimore on Tuesday evening, October 8, 2008, beyond your ad hominem attacks against Robert Spencer and me, you spent a great deal of time attempting to create the appearance of a moral and logical equivalence between Shariah and Jewish law. This of course follows a long tradition of Muslim Brotherhood agents in the West and other apologists for the brutality of Shariah. For example, just recently, many of the press reports announcing that England has recently granted Shariah courts on its home soil formal authoritative status as a recognized arbitration panel concluded identically as follows: “Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: ‘The MCB supports these tribunals. If the Jewish courts are allowed to flourish, so must the sharia ones.’”

Because you attempted to make this equivalency argument during the debate with Mr. Gaffney as if you understood the subject upon which you were opining, please consider this a tutorial on why the active and purposeful pursuit of Shariah in the U.S. has implications for the federal criminal law of sedition (notably Title 18, Section 2385 of the U.S. Code) and why Jewish law and Christian dogma or Catholic canon do not.

Specifically, I present here a brief discussion of whether such application of federal criminal law to Shariah would have an impact on the practice of Jews who observe Jewish law and the private adjudication of religious and commercial matters before a bais din or Jewish court of law (or, for that matter, Christians or Catholics submitting arbitral matters before private ecclesiastical boards or panels).

To begin, by Shariah we mean the authoritative and authoritarian corpus juris of Islamic law as it has been articulated by the recognized Shariah authorities over more than a millennium. The term Shariah as used herein, therefore, does not refer to a personal, subjective, pietistic understanding of the word or concept of Shariah. This latter understanding of the word Shariah is closer to its literal meaning in Arabic without any of the legalistic connotations it has developed as an authoritative institution in Islamic history; as it is currently practiced in such countries as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan; and as it is meant when referred to in the various laws and constitutions of most Muslim countries.

As you know, I have written extensively on the question of the practice or advocacy of Shariah by Shariah authorities as a violation of the primary federal sedition statute (i.e., 18 U.S.C. § 2385) on the grounds that throughout the long 1200-year history of the development of Shariah, and across all five major schools of Shariah jurisprudence, five salient facts are embedded in a deep consensus among all authoritative Shariah authorities:

[1] The telos or purpose of Shariah is submission. Shariah seeks to establish that Allah is the divine lawgiver and that no other law may properly exist but Allah’s law.

[2] Shariah seeks to achieve this goal through persuasion and other non-violent means. But when necessary and under certain prescribed circumstances the use of force and even full-scale war to achieve the dominance of Shariah worldwide is not only permissible, but obligatory. The use of force or war is termed Jihad.

[3] The goal of Shariah is to achieve submission to Allah’s law by converting or conquering the entire world and the methodology to achieve this end (by persuasion, by force and subjugation, or by murder) is extant doctrine and valid law by virtue of a universal consensus among the authoritative Shariah scholars throughout Islamic history.

[4] The doctrine of Jihad is foundational because it is based upon explicit verses in the Qur’an and the most authentic of canonical Sunna and it is considered a cornerstone of justice: until the infidels and polytheists are converted, subjugated, or murdered, their mischief and domination will continue to harm the Muslim nation. And,

[5] Jihad is conducted primarily through kinetic warfare but it includes other modalities such as propaganda and psychological warfare.

Much of my work in this area has drawn upon original Shariah-based works and the academic scholarship relating to that body of work, but also includes the scholarship of others. I especially owe much to Stephen Coughlin (Major U.S. Army Reserves, military intelligence) and his work for the Joint Chiefs while assigned to USCENTCOM.

Because Jihad necessarily advocates violence and the destruction of our representative, constitution-based government, the advocacy of Jihad by a Shariah authority presents a real and present danger. This is sedition when advocated from within our borders; an act of war when directed at us from foreign soil.

This is especially true because a Shariah authority commands the absolute allegiance of the Shariah faithful Jihadist. As Professors Frank Vogel and Samuel Hayes explain, both distinguished professors at Harvard University and proponents of Shariah-compliant finance, Shariah is not some personalized, subjective, pietistic approach to Islam but an institutionalized legal-political-normative doctrine and system:

Islamic legal rules encompass both ethics and law, this world and the next, church and state. The law does not separate rules enforced by individual conscience from rules enforced by a judge or by the state. Since scholars alone are capable of knowing the law directly from revelation, laypeople are expected to seek an opinion (fatwa) from a qualified scholar on any point in doubt; if they follow that opinion sincerely, they are blameless even if the opinion is in error.[1] (Emphasis added.)

Shariah, as it is described on its own terms, is fundamentally and critically unlike Jewish law and any form of Christian canon or ecclesiastical law. Specifically, because neither Jewish law (halacha) nor Christian canon or ecclesiastical law obligates the Jew or Christian, respectively, to violently impose theo-political tenets in lieu of the Constitution, there is simply no basis to apply the laws of sedition to the application of Jewish law or Christian dogma within private religious or commercial contexts. While Jews and Christians may advocate and petition their government for laws that reflect their moral and theological worldview (as may Muslims or atheists), neither Jewish law nor Christian dogma permits the forceful imposition of a theocracy in lieu of representative government or the replacement of our constitution with theocratic legislation.

(continued)

Sharia = Sedition (continued)
 

The contrast between Jewish law and Shariah makes this point vividly. After the fall of the Jewish Commonwealth and the dispersion of the Jews into lands ruled by non-Jews following the Roman destruction of the Second Holy Temple (the current Exile, which includes the modern State of Israel), Talmudic and Jewish legal authorities developed several fundamental principles of Jewish law. The first is dina d’malchuta dina – or, the law of the land in commercial matters is the law (see, e.g., Babylonian Talmud, Baba Kama 113a, Baba Basra 54b, Gittin 10b, and Nedarim 28a). In other words, the sovereign’s secular commercial laws control Jewish law.

The second post-Exilic legal ruling which separates Jewish law from traditional and still quite contemporary Shariah is that Jewish law on its own terms no longer grants jurisdiction over criminal matters or any form of civil or administrative penalty to a Jewish bais din or court. At best, a Jewish court established by the community may render decisions about money judgments for actual damages as a kind of private arbitration (see, Rabbi Joseph Caro, Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat, Chapter 1:1-2.) Thus, Jewish law does not allow a bais din, even in modern Israel, to issue a ruling that could have any penal or even compensatory function for non-money damages – such as embarrassment or shame.

It is also worth noting that there is no Jewish legal or normative doctrine for taking lives – others’ or one’s own – as a martyr in fulfilling Jewish law. Specifically, Jewish law requires a Jew to violate Jewish law and to follow the law of the land rather than suffer death except in three cases[2]: (i) if the local law requires a Jew to murder someone (fighting and killing in a legal war of the nation is of course not murder so Jews have no basis for resisting a military draft); (ii) if the local law requires the Jew to engage in some sexual perversion (incest, rape, or homosexuality); and (iii) if the local law requires the Jew to worship idols. But even in these three cases, a Jew must simply allow himself to be punished or martyred by the authorities for his refusal to violate one of these fundamental sins. That is, Jewish martyrdom is a passive act of resistance. There is no concept of a Jewish martyr who dies murdering his enemy.

Shariah turns the Jewish legal doctrine of martyrdom on its head. As noted above, Shariah demands that its law dominate and it is a fundamental crime under Shariah for a Muslim to adhere to a secular law that does not make clear that Shariah is the “highest law of the land”. If a Muslim adheres to a secular constitution deemed the “highest law of the land”, even if the secular constitution and the laws of the land allow for Shariah adherence, the Muslim is considered a Mushrik or polytheist – subject to capital punishment because he has implicitly acknowledged a law giver higher than Allah.[3] Moreover, according to Shariah, a Muslim is a martyr when he dies killing/murdering the infidel. There is nothing passive about the act which awards the Jihadist this appellation.

And, returning to the Jewish legal concept of “the law of the land is the law”, this Jewish legal doctrine is true according to most authorities precisely because a legitimate sovereign acting as a representative of its people passing laws for just and peaceful relations is participating itself in the divine plan for human existence. Jewish law recognizes this divinity and does not seek to deligitimatize secular or foreign law by rendering it, as Shariah does, an affront and illegal challenge to supreme divine law and punishable by death.

Further, the only method available to the contemporary bais din to enforce its rulings is by the imposition of a kind of communal excommunication (i.e., herem, niddui, or nezifah).[4] As a practical matter, because the post-Exilic Jewish legal structure is not hierarchical, no bais din can force its ruling on any other and this leaves even this enforcement action as little more than local, voluntary censure.

To a Shariah-adherent Muslim, however, contemporary Shariah has lost none of its political clout and continues to have the power of state action. Thus,

Since Islamic law reflects the will of [Allah] rather than the will of a human lawmaker, it covers all areas of life and not simply those which are of interest to a secular state or society. It is not limited to questions of belief and religious practice, but also deals with criminal and constitution (sic) matters, as well as many other fields which in other societies would be regarded as the concern of the secular authorities. In an Islamic context there is no such thing as a separate secular authority and secular law, since religion and state are one. Essentially, the Islamic state as conceived by orthodox Muslims is a religious entity established under divine law.[5]

To conclude, it should be clear with but a cursory analysis, because Shariah calls for the destruction of our constitutional republic and for our conversion, subjugation, or murder it is criminal. There simply is no basis to suggest that either Judaism or Christianity, or in fact any other well-known religious dogma or doctrine, falls within the statutory coverage of our extant laws criminalizing sedition.

I hope this letter clarifies the matters you muddled and presented quite falsely in your debate with Frank Gaffney. Should you need any further elaboration, please feel free to contact me.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
David Yerushalmi
_____________________
Also available as PDF here:
http://www.saneworks.us/uploads/news...cations/36.pdf

Tolerance
 

Said simplistically, a quote worth remembering:

"Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil."

- Thomas Mann

Testimony Before the House Armed Services Committee, Between Terrorism and Religious Extremism
Shilbey Telhami, 3 Nov 2005

Shibley Telhami, a nonresident senior fellow in the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, is the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland. He is a noted expert on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and a former advisor to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations and the Iraq Study Group, an independent organization that assessed U.S. policy in Iraq.

Let me say at the outset that the gravest threat to the United States today is neither Islamic groups nor Islamic fundamentalism as such. The central threat facing the United States of America is the threat of catastrophic terror by al-Qaeda and its allies. The nature of this threat justifies the allocation of significant resources to counter the threat and defeat al-Qaeda and its allies. But we must be very careful in identifying who the core enemy is and not waste resources and energies on strategies that do not confront the primary threat, and worse yet, could backfire.

First, while we must oppose all terrorism, and we have many local enemies in various parts of the world, most such enemies do not pose the kind of catastrophic threat that al-Qaeda and , and thus do not warrant the kind of resources that could take away from our effort to directly confront the primary threat.

Second, although religious extremism is something most of us would oppose, we have to be very careful not to jump to the conclusion that the threat to the United States stems from religious extremism as such. We have extremists all over the world, as we do in our own country, but most of them do not seek to cause catastrophic harm to us and most do not have the capacity or the support to do so even if they wanted to.

Third, al-Qaeda presents such a high threat to the United States primarily for three reasons: Unlike most local extremist groups around the world, it has a demonstrated capacity to organize on a global scale and a demonstrated global reach. As a non-state actor, it is not sensitive to deterrence and thus is capable of being maximally reckless in its operations and thus poses the potential for catastrophic attacks that are limited only by its capabilities. And while it may care about local issues in the Muslim world, in the end its agenda is broader and more dangerous and could thus not be realistically satisfied by political means. In the end, it is reasonable to conclude that al Qaeda does aim to overthrow the existing political order in the Muslim world and replace it with a Taliban-like fanatical order, and it sees the United States as the anchor of the existing order.

But it is wrong and even dangerous to assume that this aim of al-Qaeda is their primary strength, or that it is the primary reason some in the Muslim countries have expressed sympathy with it. It is also wrong to assume that most Muslim groups, including local extremist groups, share its objectives. We must differentiate above all what we see as pervasive unfavorable views in the Muslim world from the views of al-Qaeda and like-minded groups. We must also differentiate between the causes of anti-Americanism and the causes of al-Qaeda terrorism. If we don’t, we risk helping push vastly diverse groups together in a way that undermines our effort to defeat al-Qaeda.

It is no secret that the United States has faced significant resentment in the past few years in Muslim countries. Is this a consequence of a rising clash of values that plays into the strengths of al-Qaeda? Most public opinion surveys in Arab and Muslim countries indicate otherwise. In my most recent survey completed October 24th, 2005, (with Zogby International) among 3900 Arabs in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Lebanon, and Morocco, 78% say that they base their views on American policies and only 12 percent say they base them on values. When given a number of Western, Muslim, and other non-Western countries to choose from as possible places to live or send family members to study, most of them name Western European countries or the US and those who name the other countries, including Muslim Pakistan, are in the single digit.

More importantly the cause of the sympathy that some have for al-Qaeda is vastly different from al-Qaeda’s own aims: When asked what aspects of al-Qaeda, if any, they sympathize with most, only six percent said they sympathize with the aim of establishing a Taliban-like state, and only seven percent sympathized with al-Qaeda’s methods. On the other hand, 35% said they sympathize with its standing up to the US and another 19 percent said they sympathize with its stand on behalf of Muslim causes such as the issue of Palestine. 26% said “none.”

These results are bolstered by other findings. Contrary to the Taliban world view, the vast majority of Arabs (88%), including in Saudi Arabia, want women to have the right to work outside the home either always or when economically necessary. That is precisely why al-Qaeda primarily highlights issues that resonate with the public in its recruitment tapes and strategies, such as Iraq, Palestine, and authoritarianism. Even those who oppose the US presence in Iraq and want to see the US defeated do not wish to have Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi as their ruler. That is not what they wish for their own children.

It is dangerous to have a high level of resentment of the United States, whatever its sources, not only because it may increase the ability of al-Qaeda and its allies to recruit, but also because people’s incentives to help the United States to effectively combat the threat of al-Qaeda diminishes. If they resent us more than they fear al-Qaeda, our challenge increases dramatically. If they start believing, as most have, that one of our real aims is to weaken the Muslim world, not just to defeat al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda gains by default.

What are the issues for most Muslims in their attitudes toward the U.S.? What makes a difference in bridging the gap? Before I make some ending remarks on this issue, allow me to note that the Muslim world is the not the only place where resentment of the United States runs high today, so some of the answers are not particular to the Muslim world and may have to do with the role of the United States in the current international system. But in the Arab and Muslim world there are some specific issues that we can identify.

From the public opinion surveys that I have conducted in the Middle East, the single most important demographic variable in the Arab world explaining unfavorable views of the United States was income. It speaks volumes about the rampant poverty and unemployment, linked to poor education, which must be confronted.

Second, regional issues are paramount. Iraq is certainly central, but the Palestinian-Israeli conflict remains the “prism of pain” through which Arabs see the United States. This speaks to the need for active American diplomacy to resolve regional conflict.

Third, Zogby International polls have shown clearly that those who have visited the United States or studied here, and those who have had other encounters with Americans in the region, were far more disposed to having a favorable opinion of the United States than those who didn’t. This speaks to the need for major public diplomacy programs to encourage interactions.

In the end, we must define the central enemy correctly. It is primarily al-Qaeda and its allies as organizations that must be defeated. It is not terrorism broadly and it is not Islamism broadly. Terrorism is not an ideology, and al-Qaeda’s ideology of seeking a Taliban-like world order is its source of weakness in the Muslim world, not its source of strength. Our strategy must isolate it by addressing the issues that most Muslims care about—not blur the distinction between the vast majorities with whom we have no principled quarrel and those few whose aims can never be reconciled with America’s.

Allow me to end on a cautionary note. In broadly defining the threat as “Islamic extremism” without specifying what we mean exactly, we risk much. In fighting serious threats like that posed by al-Qaeda there is certainly a need to rely in part on significant covert operations as well as overt ones. But, there have recently been reports of the possible broadening of such operations to include extremist groups, leaders, and clergy. My worry is that we do not have, and probably never will, the kind of expertise that allows us to determine who’s a friend and who’s an enemy simply on the basis of utterances. One could end up targeting as suspects millions of people in a world 1.2 billion Muslims. Given the deficient expertise in our bureaucracies in the languages, religions, and cultures of the Muslim world, we risk the chance of mistakes that could backfire, relying on locals who have their own agendas, and wasting precious resources. The strategy in the first place must remain focused on the operational and the logistical, not on what people say.

http://www.brookings.edu/testimony/2...t_telhami.aspx