Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

[anandsgh]

Has Anybody seen this Fly Squatting video.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2a7_1343180716

Apparantly, Tellibunnis being squatted by Apaches.

[shiv]

Has Anybody seen this Fly Squatting video.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2a7_1343180716

Apparantly, Tellibunnis being squatted by Apaches.

Unfortunately this is a Paki like brainless bragging rights video with no explanation as to why the Taliban are still up and running despite all the fancy war winning tech shown in the video. It falls in the same category as all the fancy popular US sourced buzzwords that ended up as stories of success in campaigns that ended up being epic failures. That includes "Rolling thunder" (Vietnam) and "Highway of Death" (Iraq)

[Shanmukh]

@Surasena-ji,
Thanks. You have very interesting information in the blog.

[uddu]

The footsoldiers will keep coming as long as the source exits. In the case of Jihadi's the source is Saudi Arabia itself.

[Prem]

http://exhijabifashion.tumblr.com/
Celebrating body and fashion for those who have broken away from Islamic modesty norms.

Please to see the Allbomb/s

[arun]

In Kenya, Mohammadden terrorists target adherents of fellow Abrahamic religion, namely followers of Christism:

“They came to our house at around 8 p.m. and asked us in Swahili whether we were Muslims. My husband told them we were Christians and they shot him in the head and chest,”

Weblink:

Gunmen pulled all non-Muslim men from Kenyan hotel, ordered women to watch as they killed them

[arun]

Inability of Mohammadden’s to co-exist peacefully with Non- Mohammaddens invites retribution both from the justice system and from mob justice around the world.

In Sri Lanka, Mohammadden provocation is met with Buddhists mob justice. Communal disharmony which “began to bubble over Thursday after a fight between a Muslim youth and a Buddhist monk” kills 3 Mohammaddens:

Buddhist-Muslim Unrest Boils Over in Sri Lanka

In P.R. China, Mohammadden provocation is met with Chinese justice as death penalty is handed down to 13 individuals who I surmise are Mohammaddens given comment “Those executed are believed to be close to or part of China's Uyghur minority, a mainly Turkic-speaking Muslim population.”:

China executes 13 convicted of terrorism

[Sachin]

Surprisingly in Sri Lanka, the Budhists who are known to be pacific is giving the faithfool some good lessons. And to top it all, the Budhist Monks seems to be the rallying points. I remember reading about a riot which happened in SL last year. It seems at a particular point of time Budhist monks started playing prayers over loud speakers, which was like a command for the rioters to fall-in. And then the rioters just ransacked a whole town which had lots of establishment run by Sri Lankan Muslims. This tactic of "call to prayers" and subsequent rioting is generally done by Muslims in India.

[Yogi_G]

{Deleted} Looks like Israeli players dint turn up for the rapid and blitz tournament in Dubai out of fear for safety. Why would FIDE be stupid about this and not think about all factors? One of my fav players Gelfand isnt in the running :-((

[Rony]

The mad dream of a dead empire that unites Islamic rebels

Theoretically, all practicing Muslims must work to unite mankind under the banner of Islam, as the Koran regards the two previous Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Christianity, as “corrupted and canceled.” Others, such as Hindus and Buddhists, not to mention atheists, who do not subscribe to any of the Abrahamic faiths, are regarded as “deviants” to be goaded into the Right Path.

In Islamic history, the caliphate has come in different versions, starting with the four immediate successors to the prophet, covering almost three decades. These four Rashidun, or “rightly guided,” caliphs, expanded the gospel of Islam in all directions, ruling vast lands under Sharia law.

That was followed by the Umayyad caliphate that, in terms of territory, remains the largest Islam has created (661-750) — stretching from Spain to Pakistan. The Umayyad were replaced by the Abbasid, who set up the longest-lasting caliphate (750-1258). The last major caliphate was that of the Ottomans and lasted from 1301 to 1922.

In between, a number of mini-caliphates have mushroomed in various parts of the world, including the Sokoto caliphate in West Africa (1812).

To many Muslims, the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate by Ataturk in 1924 is a deep historic wound that shall heal only when a new caliphate is set up to resume the ghazavat (wars of conquest) against the infidels.

The aim of the ghazis (Muslim conquerors) has never been to convert anyone to Islam by force. In fact, through the Umayyad period, less than 1 percent of the population under the caliphate were Muslims.

Jews and Christians could keep their faith by paying a poll tax (jiziyah). The Ottomans even allowed non-Muslim minorities, classified as “mellats,” freedom in matters of personal life.

What matters is that non-Muslims should live under Islamic rule, while for Muslims to live under non-Islamic rule is, in the word of the Indo-Pakistani Islamist Abu al-Ala Maududi,“an unbearable pain.”

In fact, the dream of reviving the caliphate is one of the key unifying themes between radical Islamists and ordinary Muslims.

The reason is that, over the past century or so, Islam has been gradually reinterpreted as a political ideology rather than a religion. Just as Communism was a religion expressed through a secular vocabulary, Islam has become a political ideology using a religious vocabulary.

It might come as a surprise to many, but the truth is that Islam today no longer has a living and evolving theology. In fact, with few exceptions, Islam’s last genuine theologians belong to the early part of the 19th century. Go to any mosque anywhere, whether it is in New York or Mecca, and you are more likely to hear a political sermon rather than a theological reflection.

In the highly politicized version of Islam promoted by Da’esh, al Qaeda, the Khomeinists in Iran, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Boko Haram in Nigeria, God plays a cameo role at best.

Deprived of its theological moorings, today’s Islam is a wayward vessel under the captaincy of ambitious adventurers leading it into sectarian feuds, wars and terrorism. Many, especially Muslims in Europe and North America, use it as a shibboleth defining identity and even ethnicity.

A glance at Islam’s history in the past 200 years highlights the rapid fading of theologians. Today, Western scholars speak of Wahhabism as if that meant a theological school. In truth, Muhammad Abdul-Wahhabi was a political figure. His supposedly theological writings consist of nine pages denouncing worship at shrines of saints. Nineteenth-century “reformers” such as Jamaleddin Assadabadi and Rashid Rada were also more interested in politics than theology.

The late Ayatollah Khomeini, sometimes regarded as a theologian, was in fact a politician wearing clerical costume. His grandson has collected more than 100,000 pages of his writings and speeches and poetry. Of these, only 11 pages, commenting on the first and shortest verse of the Koran, could be regarded as dabbling in theology, albeit not with great success.

In the 1970s, I held a number of conversations with Maududi, finding him closer to Lenin than to Muhammad. The Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-Moslemeen), now a global organization, has not produced a single theologian because it was more interested in political power than scholarship. Today, its chief theologian is the TV preacher Yussef Qaradawi, who heads a Fatwa Council financed by the European Union. Chief Mufti of Syria Ahmad Hassoun is a state employee. In Egypt, government controls Al-Azhar, the principal “theological academy” of Sunni Islam.

In the Indo-Pakistan Indian subcontinent as well as in Indonesia, the most prominent figures of Islam have been politicians rather than theologians. Even the best of them, like Mujibur Rahman in Bangladesh, and Abdul-Rahman Wahid and Nurcholis Madjid in Indonesia, pursued a political rather than theological career.

In Shiite Iran, genuine theological work ended with people like Kazem Assar and Allameh Tabataba’i. Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader who declared himself Commander of the Faithful (Emir al-Momeneen), has not produced a single page of theology.

The revivalists divide the world into three sections. The first consists of the 57 Muslim-majority countries that form the Islamic Conference Organizations. They would form the core of the dream caliphate.

The next section covers countries and regions that were once, even if briefly, ruled by Muslims. These include Russia from Siberia to the Black Sea, including Crimea, Bulgaria, Romania, parts of Poland and Hungary, the Balkans, Greece and all the Mediterranean islands, parts of Italy, almost the whole of the Iberian Peninsula, and parts of southwestern France. To those must be added northern India and China east of Lanzhou. This second segment would have to be recaptured for the caliphate as soon as possible.

The third section consists of regions and countries that were never under Muslim rule. These include Japan, much of Indochina and, more importantly, the whole of the American continent. The latter group of nations would be invited to pay a tribute to the revived Islamic caliphate in exchange for maintaining their independence pending the next round of ghazavat.

In fact, some Islamists claim that the United States became a tributary of Islam by paying an annual sum to Muslim pirates on the Barbary Coast, a scheme later canceled by President Thomas Jefferson.

One question remains: Who is to be the caliph?

In the 1930s, the kings of Saudi Arabia and Egypt briefly tried to capture the caliphate for themselves.

Da’esh leader Abubakr al-Baghdadi has already claimed the title, as has Mullah Omar in Afghanistan. In Iran, Khamenei has similar pretensions. Nigerian Abu-Bakr Shekau is regarded as caliph by Boko Haram and its sister group, Ansar ul-Islam (Victors of Islam), in the name of pan-African Islam.

One man who might have had a credible claim to the title was Ertugul Osman, the last descendant of the last Ottoman caliph. But he died in Manhattan in 2009, leaving no male heirs.

To many outsiders, the caliphate project might sound like a pipe dream. In the long run, it certainly is. However, in the short and medium run, it is a recipe for conflict, war and terrorism that is designed to spare no one, starting with Muslims who are dying by the thousands.

[ashish raval]

^^ so they want to capture nations with nuclear assets so big that can destroy every living organism (that can move) three times over with Kalashnikov and rocket launchers and few nutters giving sermons. They want world to take them seriously !! Coming from idiots who don't know how to knit a shoelace or manufacture a toilet tissue without knowhow from rest of the world !!

[KJo]

In Kenya, Mohammadden terrorists target adherents of fellow Abrahamic religion, namely followers of Christism:

but but but I thought we all prayed to the same God...

[Anindya]

In a relatively peaceful week, we have...

Just one week in the world of Islam. What is wrong with this faith?

In the past week..

In Kenya:

At least 34 people have been killed after unidentified armed men stormed the coastal city of Mpeketoni, setting hotels, restaurants, banks and government offices on fire and spraying bullets in streets.

Kenyan army spokesman Major Emmanuel Chirchir ... blamed al-Shabaab, Somalia’s al-Qaeda-linked militant group… “They were shouting in Somali and shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’,” he added, meaning “God is great”, in Arabic.

In Nigeria:

Suspected Boko Haram gunmen have reportedly kidnapped 20 women from a nomadic settlement in north-east Nigeria near the town of Chibok, where the Islamic militants abducted nearly 300 girls in April, most of whom are still missing.

In Iraq:

Sunni Islamist militants claimed on Sunday that they had massacred hundreds of captive Shiite members of Iraq’s security forces, posting grisly pictures of a mass execution in Tikrit as evidence and warning of more killing to come.

In Syria:

The Al-Qaeda-breakaway Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria has prevented food and medical supplies from reaching some neighborhoods in an eastern Syrian city, an activist group said Friday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ... an offensive by ISIS in eastern Syria against rival Islamic rebel factions has killed more than 640 people and uprooted at least 130,000 since the end of April.

In Spain:

Spanish police arrested eight people in a pre-dawn raid in Madrid on Monday, breaking up a jihadist recruitment network led by a former Guantanamo Bay inmate, the government said…

Spain’s government has said it fears battle-hardened Islamist fighters may return to Spain from Syria… Spain this year marked the 10th anniversary of the March 11, 2004 Al Qaeda-inspired bombing of four packed commuter trains in Madrid, which killed 191 people.

In Belgium:

The fourth person to die after a gunman opened fire on the Jewish Museum in Brussels was to be buried in a Muslim cemetery in Morocco.

Alexandre Strens, whose mother is Jewish and father a Muslim Berber, was to be buried near his grandparents’ graves in the cemetery in Taza, north-east Morocco… A suspect, Mehdi Nemmouche, was arrested in Marseille, southern France, 11 days ago ...

In Indonesia:

Radical Islamists in Indonesia have been celebrating and swearing allegiance to ISIS on line, raising concerns that more potential terrorists will be attracted to the conflicts in Iraq and Syria… Jakarta-based terrorism expert Sidney Jones says Indonesians are known to be fighting in Syria, and that Indonesians attracted to ISIS are more radical than the Bali bombers.

...
In China:

China today sentenced three people to death over a deadly attack at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square last October, state television reported, an incident blamed by the government on Islamist militants....

Five people were killed and 40 hurt when a car ploughed into a crowd at the northern edge of Tiananmen Square and burst into flames…

All of those sentenced appeared to have ethnic Uighur names. Xinjiang is the traditional home of the mostly Muslim Uighurs, and China has blamed previous attacks on separatists… China has been on edge since a suicide bombing last month killed 39 people at a market in Urumqi. In March, 29 people were stabbed to death at a train station in the southwestern city of Kunming.

In Australia:

ON a hot summer’s day earlier this year, a beautiful young Pakistani girl named Amina stood in the living room of her western Sydney home, listening in horror as her father explained how he planned to ­murder her.

“I am going to kill you now, right here!” he shouted at the 16-year-old. “And no one will say anything about what I do to you. I am too powerful in the community.” Amina’s parents had promised her to a man 13 years her senior and she had made the mistake of refusing to marry him…

For years, child marriage in this country has been hidden under layers of culture and tradition in tight-knit communities… Then came news of a 12-year-old girl who was “married” in January to a 26-year-old Lebanese university student in an Islamic ­ceremony at the girl’s home in NSW’s Hunter ­Valley, and the layers of secrecy began to peel away.
.....

[JE Menon]

In Kenya, the death toll is near 60 ... There were attacks on two consecutive nights.

[SwamyG]

http://www.firstpost.com/world/the-rise ... IN_RELATED

A brilliant write-up by Jaggi; seems to be straight from BRF and IF.

Islam is not just a religion; it is also a system of accumulating and consolidating political power. Its ideology is perfectly suited for these goals.

This is what explains how a rag-tag bunch of thugs and extortionists morphed into an all-conquering army and now holds several towns and large territories in Iraq and Syria. Soon ISIS could be creating a caliphate - a dream aborted in Afghanistan after the American invasion pushed Mullah Omar out. If ISIS succeeds, it will become a new power centre for political Islam. But it won’t be the only one, for we still have the Shia power centre in Teheran, and several others elsewhere.

Islam is unique not for its great messages of brotherhood and justice, which are certainly inspiring, but in how it formally allows spiritual and temporal power to reside together. They reinforce one another.

The Prophet was not just the spiritual leader of the early Muslims, but also their political leader and head of the army. The ideology of Islam - an extraordinary faith in one god, and none other - is exactly the right one for claiming and consolidating power and building empire.

Even though there are other religions that talk of only one god - Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, among them - all of them, at least in their modern forms, are more accommodating and pluralistic than Islam. The latter has been rigid in its belief not only about one god, but in not separating power from religion.

Sigmund Freud, in his book Monotheism, writes about how monotheism evolved as an important adjunct to the growth of empire. Most ancient societies were polytheistic and plural. The worship of many gods was the norm even though small tribal societies had their favourite gods. But once tribes became kingdoms and kingdoms became small empires, the rulers - both to consolidate power and to retain it - saw the need to adopt some form of monotheism as state ideology. At its basic level, monotheism is about concentrating power in one person or institution.

The first monarch who sought to go monotheist was the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, who in the 14the century BC declared Aten as the supreme god. His priests did not like it much, and his brand of monotheism - which some also called henotheism - did not outlive him in polytheistic ancient Egypt.

The Arab tribes living in and around Mecca before the advent of the Prophet were also polytheistic. This was what Mohammed decisively changed when he destroyed all the idols at the Kaaba and said only Allah was the true god.

The link between one god and power has been recognised all through history. Emperor Constantine wanted all rival versions of the Bible destroyed so that there could be a unified Christianity. Thus we had the Nicene Creed. In India, Mughal Emperor Akbar was declared secular both because of the diversity he allowed and also because he tried evolving a unified religion called Din-e-Ilahi. But his own ulema were not amused and the effort died an unsung death. Akbar’s motives in evolving Din-e-Ilahi may have had less to do with secularism and more with the consolidation of power in a diverse empire.

But it was the Prophet of Islam who took this idea to its logical conclusion by making belief in one god central to his religion, and giving his followers the mandate to expand this to all of humanity. He created the ultimate masculine religion driven by the pursuit of both power and spirituality.

Was this unique, was this different from the two earlier Abrahamic religions – Judaism and Christianity? Both of Islam’s predecessor faiths emphasised one god and opposed idolatry. The progress of the three religions was, however, different. Judaism resisted change and stuck to its belief that Jews were a chosen people. Much like Hinduism, it sought no conversions of other people to Judaism and ultimately posed no threat to temporal powers. But Christianity, once it grew out of its initial moorings in a Jewish reform movement that also resisted the Roman occupation of Palestine, became a proselytising faith that could have threatened kingly power. This is why Christianity had a difficult existence in its initial phases, till Constantine embraced it politically and made it a part of his power base. After that, church and state were often joint stakeholders in power, or shared an uneasy relationship, till the European enlightenment forced the two apart.

Islam never saw any of these pressures and tussles. From the start, the Prophet ensured the merger of state and god – and there has been no reformation, renaissance or enlightenment to force a change.

A key feature of religions that emphasise monotheism is that rival monotheists are a threat to it. It has to be my god, not your god. This is why even though Islam accepts the validity of Jewish and Christian prophets, its claim to having the final word of god ensured centuries of conflict with both Judaism and Christianity – with the crusades being the most logical outcome of extreme monotheism and the combining of temporal and spiritual power.

All consolidation of power needs an ideology that's larger than self-interest, and the Prophet created that combination in Islam where its followers think nothing of sacrificing themselves for achieving this ideal. This is why less than 100 years after his death, the warriors of Islam had reached all over Asia, Africa and Europe.

The power and weakness of Islam lies precisely in this mixing up of spiritual and temporal power. It means anybody can use the appeal of religion to seek power, and anyone with power can claim Islam as his own. This means ambitious warmongers can and will threaten not only other rival states, but even states that are formally Islamic. Genghis Khan ravaged many Muslim states during his campaigns, but his progeny embraced Islam. Taimur called himself the Sword of Islam. Anyone seeking power can merely say that he is the guardian of Islam, or his is the right version of Islam, and go for it. Thus Islamists after often a big threat to other Islamists. An Osama bin Laden was as much a threat to the Saudi monarchs as to America.

This is what explains the huge, bloodly schisms of Islam - Shia-Sunni, Sunni-Ahmaddiyas, etc. Every time you have managed to finish off an al-Qaeda, an ISIS will rise. When ISIS fails - as it surely will, for no terror can hold unnatural countries together - another "truer" version of Islam will rise. Pakistan is failing precisely because it made Islam its ruling ideology. The corollary to this ideology is: which Islam? This can only lead to more bloodshed.

The vision of Islam - of converting the whole world in order to have a peaceful world - is impossible precisely because the ideology is wedded to power. Anyone who seeks power can claim to be the better Islam and make a grab for it.

The world cannot do anything about this, and especially by demonising Islam - as the west and we in India sometimes tend to do. This is an issue internal to Islam and will be addressed only when enough Muslims begin to see the dangers to themselves and their faith from this. Let's remember, Christianity went through the same process and needed the reformation and enlightenment to separate church from state.

Islam will become a normal religion when two things happen: when enough Muslims see the damage they are doing to themselves and call for change, and when the secular process of women getting educated, empowered and emancipated expands. The antidote to a hyper masculine religion is feminine power.

[ramana]

The last will never happen for then it wont be Islam.

RJ does not have full undesrtanding.

Needs some educamation from Bji on why it wont happen.
Islam is misogynist for a fundamental reason.
Its basis is suppression of the feminine.

Islam at the core glorifies and codifies the primordial male fear of the feminine.

I leave you all as usual to mull over it.

[shravanp]

The last will never happen for then it wont be Islam.

RJ does not have full undesrtanding.

Needs some educamation from Bji on why it wont happen.
Islam is misogynist for a fundamental reason.
Its basis is suppression of the feminine.

Islam at the core glorifies and codifies the primordial male fear of the feminine.

I leave you all as usual to mull over it.

But they can mitigate the excessive acrimony by re-introducing the concept of 'Ijtihad' (reasoning). Doors for Ijtihad were closed long time back, and also was a big reason for stagnation among Muslims.

[ramana]

Doors being open is propaganda. They never were open.

[shiv]

[ramana]

So true. Not a peep out of the secular chatteratti on the ISIS atrocities on fellow Muslims. Not one peep from Shabana Azmi or hubby Javed Akhtar jaadu!!!Or the great Amitabh Bacchan!!!!

[harbans]

Itjihad is one of the schools of Sunni jurisprudence: 'reasoning' through Jihad and independent of any school of thought and requires taking the 'rational' analogies from the Hadith and Koran. It also thus gives a free hand for the Mullah Omars, Timur, Al Baghdadi's, Aurangzebs' to function. Lets not just get carried away because on see's 'reasoning' listed somewhere.

[JE Menon]

I'm ready to stand corrected on this, because Arabic is such a language, but as far as I know Ijtehad can only happen within the confines of the Koran/Hadith. In short, it has to buy into all the basic premises in the Koran (at least), which puts paid to any rational discussion, given that we are so far removed from the 7th century.

If ijtehad does happen outside the confines of the Koran/Hadith, then it has no sanction in Islam and certainly no validity in Islamic society beyond the simple fact that common sense will prevail in most day to day decisions where faith does not necessarily enter the game. However, to a Muslim who properly fulfills his Islamic duties, such opportunities probably don't come that often.

To provide a rather poor analogy, it is a bit like GoI telling the terrorists that we can dialogue on any subject under the sun, so long as it is within the Indian constitution. It is a poor analogy only because it makes much more sense when GoI says it since the Indian constitution presents a far more pragmatic worldview than the Koran/Hadith does.

[shravanp]

I think there's more to it. From what I had about it, Ijtihad would get rid of current trend where Islam is taught as literal interpretation instead of contextualized/situation based. One example where Ijtihad would be required is the finality of prophethood. According to Quran, Muhammed was merely a prophet, and nowhere's as 'last'. I know it's a long shot...but still...

[JE Menon]

>>I think there's more to it.

I'd be happy to learn. I'm not being frivolous here. Do put forward the name of any widely regarded Islamic scholar who actually says that Ijtehad can happen outside the confines of the Koran/Hadith.

Even your example above is an example of that. If reason, i.e. diligent inquiry as Ijtehad can be translated (among other things), is to be the foundation for interpretation, then even the notion of "Prophethood" would be in question, let alone the finality (seal) of it...

As a matter of fact, any rational inquiry into Islam in the present milieu will render it frankly laughable.

[Rony]

The spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STD) among the Islamist fighters in Syria

Dr. Baran Yilmaz, a specialist in the ‘’Medical Park’’ hospital in the Turkish city of Gaziantep confirmed the information regarding the existence of many cases of congenital diseases among terrorist organization members whom are being admitted in Turkish hospitals near the border with Syria.

According to Dr. Yilmaz report which he presented to the hospital administration; in the past four days, it became clear through the meticulous medical examination that around 70% of Islamists who fight in Syria and northern Iraq are diagnosed with sexually transmitted disease due unsafe sexual intercourses and in accordance with the results of the medical tests, approximately 30% of them are infected with HIV.

Dr. Yilmaz asked the hospital administration to impose more stringent quarantine measures up on those radical terrorist whom have been diagnosed with HIV, and also requested the hospital officials to not receive further numbers of the injured terrorists in the hospital for fear of an epidemic disaster.

[anupmisra]

Luton Muslims preachers, including ringleader Abu Aziz, face jail after being found guilty of affray at the Old Bailey

A gang of devout Luton Muslims who chanted 'f**k the Queen' after battering an innocent football fan to the ground and leaving him covered in blood are facing jail.

set upon by ten Asian men

The gang had cleared the area of Asian women and children before the attack, and handed out pro-Muslim leaflets as the violence was happening

Qadeer Ahmed, 29, of Althorp Road, Luton; Naseer Khan, 31, of Milfield Road, Luton; Munim Abdul, 33, of Hampton Road, Luton; Jalal Ahmed, 26, of Cavendish Road, Luton; Yousef Bashir, 34 of Dane Road, Luton; Rajib Khan, 36, of Vestry Close, Luton; Moshiur Rahman, 32, of Dane Road, Luton; Mohan Uddin, 36, of Trinity Road, Luton, and Kamran Khan, 29, of Wodecroft Road, Luton

Aziz, an associate of firebrand cleric Anjem Choudary, fled the UK before his trial and is thought to have joined jihadists in Syria

Ali fled to Croatia and was tried in his absence

Kamran Khan and Mohan Uddin were both convicted last month of sectarian violence by Sunni Muslims against a rival Shia sect of Islam in Edgware Road at a protest march led by Anjem Choudary

Sick people. Sick cult.

[ravar]

Muslim Student Who Ignited Media Firestorm at Benghazi Panel a 'Family Friend' of Convicted Terrorist

Brigitte Gabriel's fitting reply in the video can be widely used as a template to the question- "but everyone is tarnishing Islam which actually has a majority of peaceful followers"

Left-Lib sympathizers in the US media, as usual doing the honours in favour of .... you know who.

[ravar]

OT ^^While at it, can someone share/suggest good resources (links/e-books) on the cross-pollination of Left-Libs with Islamism starting from the historical origin and further evolution to the present day.

A hasty Googling hardly revealed any material of substance. TIA

[Lilo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYjiSaV5VoE

Brigitte Gabriel @ Heritage Foundation hearing on Bengazi.

[krisna]

^^^^
180-300 million peacful muslims could be radicals out of 1.2 billion muslims.
as much as population of usa.
did not know this.

[RCase]

^^^
The 180 million represents the citizens of the fortress of islam from the land of the pure, who are making up the lions share of the 180 - 300 million radicals of the religion of peace. One quarter of the adherents of the religion of peace clearly do not have any peaceful tendencies. Au contraire, it is violent tendencies!

[A_Gupta]

Indoctrination in UKstan:
http://homoeconomicusnet.wordpress.com/ ... -as-truth/

[Anindya]

Although we have headlines like the below, come out almost everyday....
ISIS butchers leave 'roads lined with decapitated police and soldiers'...

ISIS Holds Festive Public Execution in Syria Complete With Music and Small Children in Attendance (GRAPHIC)

The new dark ages: The chilling medieval society Isis extremists seek to impose in Iraq - LIMBS cut off for minor offences, opponents made to dig their own graves, singing and music strictly forbidden - a chilling vision of the medieval society Isis extremists today seek to impose on Iraq.


we still seem to have enough enthusiasm for the ISIS from the average Sunni...
'We love you ISIS': From USA to Rome to Australia - disturbing notes from EVERY continent show support for Islamist Jihadis terrorising Iraq after group's Twitter charm offensive

The list of atrocities by the ISIS are not limited to just the above...and neither is the support from Muslims.

[JE Menon]

20 more people killed in Wajir County, northern Kenya, on the border with Somalia... Probably represents the Boko Haramisation of the Islamist action against Kenya (which incidentally is over 85% Christian/Animist/Hindu).

[Anindya]

Boko Haram’s reign of terror forces 800 people to flee per day- Abduction of schoolgirls and unrelenting attacks on civilians may be the tip of the iceberg, highlights a new briefing paperfrom NRCs Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), raising concerns of the geopolitical threat Nigeria’s Boko Haram poses to the region

[Singha]

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/t ... et%20Promo

The lost moral of Islam’s divide

With the exception of the Quran, there are no religious or historical references that the Sunnis and Shias agree on

The Sunni-Shia divide is increasingly engulfing Muslim societies in many parts of the world in spasms of internecine violence. The latest developments in Iraq with the Islamic State of Iraq and [Greater] Syria (ISIS) making rapid advances towards Baghdad are an ominous reflection of the deepening of sectarian animosities within contemporary Islam. The potential impact of the current turbulence will be felt far beyond West Asia and North Africa. The developments also indicate — especially in light of the marginalisation of the Muslim Brotherhood and other mainstream Islamist outfits in Egypt, Syria and to a limited extent in Tunisia — that political Islam or Islamism will now be championed with much more lethal effect by groups that profess allegiance to radical Salafism, such as the ISIS.

Islamism, defined broadly, is an ideological construct based on a political reading of Islam in both its history and textuality. It argues that the primary duty of a Muslim is to strive for the establishment of an Islamic state, without which Islam will remain a ‘house half-built.’ Salafism (or Wahhabism) is a theologically puritanical approach that argues for a literal reading of the scriptures, shunning all accretions in matters of faith and life. What is common between the two, however, is that they both operate on a binary notion of the world.

The coming together of Salafism and Islamism is nothing new as al-Qaeda perfectly represented the merger of the otherwise irreconcilable worldviews of the two radical streams. In fact, Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri personified this coming together of radical Salafism and uncompromising Islamism. The former’s worldview can be traced to the atavistic theology of the 18th century Saudi theologian-activist Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdul Wahhab, while the latter inherited the nihilistic fanaticism of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood icon Syed Qutub. But it is with the outbreak of civil war in Syria that we saw the ‘coming out’ of this dangerous concoction from its hideouts in Afghanistan, Yemen and North Africa. The giant strides they are now making in Iraq are indicative of the changing contours of Islamism on the one hand and the new-found role that this brand of Islamism invented for itself against the portentous backdrop of the Sunni-Shia divide.

Origin of the divide
The origin of this divide — the principal fault line within Islam — goes back 14 centuries to the very beginning of Islam. Interestingly, there was nothing religious about it at the beginning as it was a purely political dispute over which an entire theological and jurisprudential edifice was superimposed later on in order to canonise and perpetuate it into a distinctive clerical order. At the core of the dispute was an impassioned argument over whether the principle of succession in the nascent Muslim state should be dynastic or meritorious. The majority of Muslims in the early years of the faith chose merit over dynasty and argued that the prophet’s temporal and spiritual successors should be selected on the basis of their competence, seniority, knowledge and experience. A minority disagreed and said the basis of succession should be familial rather than meritorious. They believed the temporal and spiritual leadership of Muslim society should remain confined to the descendants of the prophet forever.

They thought Ali — the younger cousin and son-in-law of the prophet — deserved the honour, as he was not only a staunch companion of the prophet but also his closest family member by virtue of birth and marriage. Shia is an abbreviation for Shia’t Ali, the party of Ali, and is built around the victimhood of the prophet’s family following his death. The Sunnis do not dispute the importance of Ali and do not disparage him in any way; they consider him one of the greatest companions of the prophet along with the others, including the three other caliphs who preceded Ali in the seat of power. In a way, the difference between Sunni and Shia approaches to Ali is comparable to the difference between Islamic and Christian approaches to Jesus Christ. While both the religions converge on the greatness of Jesus as a man of God, they diverge on questions of his divinity and deification. Just as no Muslim will ever disparage Jesus, no Sunni will ever speak ill of Ali. Like in the case of the two Semitic religions, it was the differences and not the commonalities that were given accent throughout history, resulting in an entrenched culture of de-sacralisation and demonisation of the other on both sides. The fact that the two sects chose to follow totally different references in their respective approaches to jurisprudence and theology widened the gulf further over the centuries. With the exception of the Quran, which in any case has been susceptible to multiple and often contradictory interpretations, there are no religious or historical references that the Sunnis and Shias agree on.

Point of agreement
What is most interesting in this context is that both the sects agree on the need for an Islamic political system on earth. While the Islamists on both sides argue for the primacy of an Islamic state, the others express minor disagreements on questions of prioritising an Islamic state over those of building an Islamic society. No known mainstream religious organisation among both the sects rejects the idea of an Islamic majoritarian state as a desired eventuality. There is total consensus among all that justice will flourish only in such a state where the Sharia would replace all other sources and methods of legislation. What about justice for those who belong to other faiths or no faiths is a minor detail glossed over by self-righteous rhetoric.

This brings us to one of the most exasperating paradoxes in Islamic history. While the only consensus that ever existed across the sects in Islam has been on the desirability of (an immediate or eventual) Islamic state governed according to the Sharia, the principal divide of all times in Muslim society happened because there was no clear concept of a state or political system in Islam. It goes without saying that the method of electing the ruler is the most basic part of any political system, the absence of clarity on which triggered the first and foremost split among the Muslims. The festering wounds of that split continue to bleed the community to this day.

The Quran and the Prophet’s rich traditions left the choice of political systems or the nature of the state to the wisdom of the people and their circumstances. The followers, however, persisted with their delusional search for a theocratic utopia, denuding a faith of its humane core in the process. The Quran stressed on persuasion in matters of faith while the Islamists saw coercion (with the state being its ultimate and most legitimate instrument) as the only method for preservation of the faith. Iran will do all it can to stop the ISIS warriors in their tracks. ISIS will be happy to eradicate the Islamic Republic of Iran. But both will marshal the same set of arguments for the establishment and perpetuation of an Islamic state as well as for the disempowerment of each other in their respective spheres of influence.

In Iraq, for instance, Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki and his cohorts will be perfectly happy to replicate the Iranian Vilayat-e-Faqih model of state in Iraq and disenfranchise the Sunni minority. The ISIS will be delighted to establish their model of Islamic state and disenfranchise the Shia majority. Both parties will advance the same arguments to justify and Islamise their brutalities. Creation of a hell here in the name of the hereafter is the fundamental objective of all varieties of Islamism, despite their invocation of justice and divine will in every other sentence they write or speak.

(Shajahan Madampat is a cultural critic and commentator.)

[Virendra]

ISIS freeing their momin brethens and oh the sisters as well !!
How? .. Read on
-------------------------------------------------

In the Name of Allah the Merciful

After liberation of the State of Nineveh, and the welcome shown by the people of the state to their brotherly mujahideen, and after the great conquest, and the defeat of the Safavid [Persian] troops in the State of Nineveh, and its liberation, and Allah willing, it will become the headquarters for the mujahideen. Therefore we request that the people of this state offer their unmarried women so that they can fulfill their duty of jihad by sex to their brotherly mujahideen. Failure to comply with this mandate will result in enforcing the laws of Sharia upon them.Allah we have notified, Allah bear witness.
Sha’ban 13, 1435
June, 12, 2014

The original letter:

---------------------------------------

Sick !!

[KJo]

^---- Just following the foot-e-steps of their Brophet, Mighty Mo.

[ramana]

Malaysian judge prohibits non Muslims to use the word Allah!!!

[ramana]

GD, That Madampat is pulling false equivalence between ISIS and Maliki.
Shows his real agenda and the Hindu's for publishing such intoxicated (madanam!) writing!!