Understanding Islamic Society

[Agnimitra]

Islam vs. Islamism



About 4:45 one of the panelists says that there is no "solution" for the current pendulm swing of violent Islamism. It can only "play itself out", and it will take another 40-50 years. They freely admit that whatever we are seeing, including the Woolich butchery, is a direct result of what is being preached in mosques, study circles and Islamic orgs. But their attempts to dissect the "spiritual" and the "political" aspects of Islam interests me.

RawalTV is becoming more and more bold about airing such interviews. Last time they did that, they had a long disclaimer at the beginning of the interview. It has come under attack as "Qadiani TV" from most Pakis. In any case, they need to publish such interviews with English subtitles.

OARN, Owais and Owaisi: Two halves of Jarasandha

[Prem]

Pakistani Views on Music & Dance.
BIgggggg Islamic Problem

[Agnimitra]

X-posting from TSP thread:

Gen. Pervez Musharraf is believed to have returned to Pakistan after obtaining the blessings of a Turkish cleric, Shaik Nazim Al Qabrisi, leader of the Sufi Naqshbandi sect of Islam who lives in Cyprus.

Encouraging Musharraf to return to Pakistan, the Shaikh told the former military dictator, he will become ruler of all Muslims up to Delhi, but cautioned him to be careful of his enemies. The Shaikh told Musharraf "bring all Indian people under the flag of Islam," to which the general replied:

"I will always remember these words. They will be my guide for the future." Astonishing.

Sheikh Nazim al-Qibrisi is surprisingly popular as a guru in the subcontinent's Muslim community, even with many Indian Muslims. thousands hang on every word of his. Among other things, he believes the Earth is 7000 years old, and the Prophet said that the lifespan of the Muslim community would not last more than 1500 years max., and therefore the end of the world must surely be near.

In a video at the end of 2011 he seems upset and angry, filled with disappointment in the Muslim world, and "predicting" that several Muslim regimes will collapse - including Pakistan. He said democracies - which are a bad thing - would be finished, and a sultanate would come in its place.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93iL06ykhgo

[Prem]

Why does he look so retard? The physical features point out to be a child of inbreeding practice.

[Lalmohan]

al-qibrisi seems to specialise in telling people what they want to hear... just another 'naked fakir'?

[ramana]

I socialized my 'reptilian' brain theory of Islam and found takers (on both occassions) by the time I just finished describing the three parts of the brain and was just coming around to describing how it caters to the primal brain!!!

[Agnimitra]

YASMIN ALIBHAI BROWN
Sunday 26 May 2013
Why do Muslims keep having to explain themselves?
"We hate Islamicist brutes more than any outsiders ever could"

[RajeshA]

Sexual Revolutions

Continuing from "Iran's Identity Faultlines - Islamic / Aryan" Thread

Erotic Republic

Iran is in the throes of an unprecedented sexual revolution. Could it eventually topple the regime?

The article claims that the divorce rate in the Islamic Republic of Iran is now 1 in 7 nationwide, and more than 1 in 4 in Tehran.

Published on Feb 15 2012
By Khalid Alshayea
Saudi analysts warn of dire consequences of high divorce rate: Al Arabiya

The divorce rate in Saudi Arabia increased by 35 percent in 2011 according to a recent social affairs ministry’s study, making the kingdom’s figure higher than the world average of between 18 to 22 percent.

Around 60 percent of the divorces took place in the first year of marriage, analysts across the kingdom said.

“It is a dangerous warning for Saudi society,” said Sheikh Saudi al-Yousif, head of the Tabuk northern region. “The percentage of divorces in the kingdom in the latest period has surpassed 40 percent.”

In 2010, there was one divorce per hour when 18,765 divorces occured out of 90,983 marriages.

Mohammed al-Ateeq, a social affairs commentator, said “the increase of the divorce rate coupled with a decreased percentage in marriages is a dangerous indication [that could] lead to many social problems in the future. This is especially true for those Saudi families who cannot afford to spend on their adult daughters, and then expect them to be married.”

Sheikh Khalid al-Hamish, head of a matrimonial online site, while warning of the high percentage that will threaten Saudi society, said that this problem will lead to having more “spinsters” and incur more expenses on the families.

“The economic situation that young men are enduring is not allowing them to marry … There are no jobs and houses are not all that affordable,” Hamish added. He said that there are many men who reach their mid-thirties and have not been able to save money to own a home.

In addition to financial problems, Hamish cited “not choosing the right person” as the root cause of the problem.

"Newlyweds admire each other at first with both formulating their lives according to a theoretical framework without entering the real phase of marriage … Later they are suddenly hit by reality, a far cry from their envisaged imagination,” he said.

“The problem is not choosing the right person and the lack of intellectual compatibility.”

Mothers, Misyar as other causes
Sheikh Mohammed Othman al-Falaj said the soaring high divorce rate is due to mothers interfering in the marital issues of their daughters and the widespread of the al-Misyar marriage.

Al-Misyar is a form of marriage where a man is not required to live with his wife, but visits her at a mutually agreed time, and it is not necessarily a publically-known union. There are married women who do not know that their husbands are married to other women in such fashion. {In some countries like Iran and Pakistan, for a man to marry further wives, he needs to have permission of his current wife/wives, so this would not be possible there theoretically}

“Many have Misyar marriage contracts, and when the first wife knows discovers this or when a man knows that his wife is about to know, a divorce occurs,” said Falaj.

Mohammed Tarhouni, writer of two books “My gift for my son, the groom” and “My gift for my daughter the bride” ─ two books discussing married life – agreed with others that the increase of divorce rate goes back to the little knowledge about marriage and the intervention of mothers.

“Many young men want to get married but in the same time do not want to lose their freedom and do not want to change a thing in their lives, and this is not correct,” he said, adding “the real role of guardianship and leadership for men starts at home.”

Tarhouni said that the guardian role has become a role for women as men are not keen to take charge of family affairs.

“Many of the girls discuss the tiniest of details about their marriage with their mothers, and this is a big mistake,” he warned.

“Any problem in her daughters’ lives sees the mother telling her to file for a divorce, without advising her to be patient.”

Head of the family development center for the Al-Bur charity organization in al-Ahsa eastern region, Khalid bin Saud al-Halibi, said the divorce rate last year was 60 percent in Jeddah, 39 percent in Riyadh, 18 percent in the eastern region.{So Shias are divorcing less in Saudi Arabia than the Sunnis}

Meanwhile, family consultant, Abdulah al-Sadhan, said that based on figures, a divorce occurred every 30 minutes in Saudi.

“About 34 percent of those who sought phone counseling backtracked from their decision to file for a divorce.”

So there are

• temporary marriages according to Twelver-Shias: Nikah mut'ah
• part-time marriages according to Sunnis: Nikah al-Misyar

Together with Poligyny, speedy Talaqs, right-hand possessions, no minimum age, etc. Islam really offers a host of sanctioned sexual adventurism.

However it is interesting that Prophet Muhammad prohibited Ali, who was married to the Prophet's daughter, Fatima, from marrying a second time, even though Qu'ran permits it!

[ramana]

Islam's 'Rule of Numbers' Explains London Beheading

by Raymond Ibrahim
Fox News
May 28, 2013

http://www.meforum.org/3519/islam-london-beheading
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Last week in London, two Muslim men shouting jihad's ancient war-cry, "Allahu Akbar" beheaded a British soldier with a cleaver—in a busy intersection and in broad daylight. They boasted in front of passersby and asked to be videotaped.

As surreal as this event may seem, Islamic beheadings are not uncommon in the West, including the U.S. In 2011, a Pakistani-American who helped develop "Bridges TV"—a station "designed to counter negative stereotypes of Muslims"—beheaded his wife. In Germany in 2012, another Muslim man beheaded his wife in front of their six children—again while hollering "Allahu Akbar."

Beheading non-Muslim "infidels" in the Islamic world is especially commonplace: in Yemen a "sorceress" was beheaded by the "Supporters of Sharia"; in Indonesia, three Christian girls on their way to school were beheaded; in Syria last Christmas, U.S.-supported rebels beheaded a Christian man and fed his body to the dogs; in Africa—Somalia, Tanzania, Mali—Christians are regularly decapitated. (For a comprehensive picture of Christian suffering under Islam, see my new book, Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians.)

Most recently, a disturbing video surfaced from "liberated" Libya of a machete-wielding masked man hacking at the head of a captive—again, to cries of "Allahu Akbar!"

But the greater lesson of the London beheading concerns its audacity—done in broad daylight with the attackers boasting in front of cameras, as often happens in the Islamic world.

It reflects what I call "Islam's Rule of Numbers," a rule that expresses itself with remarkable consistency: The more Muslims grow in numbers, the more Islamic phenomena intrinsic to the Muslim world—in this case, brazen violence against "infidels"—appear.

In the U.S., where Muslims are less than 1% of the population, London-style attacks are uncommon. Islamic assertiveness is limited to political activism dedicated to portraying Islam as a "religion of peace," and sporadic, but clandestine, acts of terror.

In Europe, where Muslims make for much larger minorities, open violence is common. But because they are still a vulnerable minority, Islamic violence is always placed in the context of "grievances," a word that pacifies Westerners.

With an approximate 10% Muslim population, London's butcherers acted brazenly, yes, but they still invoked grievances. Standing with bloodied hands, the murderer declared: "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone…. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying by British soldiers every day."

Days later in Stockholm, which also has a large Muslim minority, masked rioters destroyed 100 cars and property. The grievance for this particular outbreak was that police earlier shot a(nother) machete-wielding "immigrant" in self-defense.

Grievances disappear when Muslims become at least 35-40% of a nation and feel capable of waging an all-out jihad, as in Nigeria, where the Muslim-majority north has been terrorizing Christians—bombing hundreds of churches and beheading hundreds of infidels.

Sudan was an earlier paradigm, when the Khartoum government slaughtered millions to cleanse Sudan of Christians and polytheists. Historically Christian-majority Lebanon plunged into a deadly civil war as the Muslim population grew.

Once Muslims become the majority, the violence ironically wanes, but that's because there are fewer infidels to persecute. And what infidels remain lead paranoid, low-key existences—as dhimmis—always careful to "know their place."

With an 85% Muslim majority, Egypt is increasingly representative of this paradigm. Christian Copts are under attack, but not in an all-out jihad. Rather, under the Muslim Brotherhood their oppression is becoming institutionalized, including through new "blasphemy" laws which have seen many Christians attacked and imprisoned.

Attacks on infidels finally end when Muslims become 100% of the population, as in Saudi Arabia—where all its citizens are Muslim, and churches and other non-Islamic expressions are totally banned.

Such is Islam's Rule of Numbers.

Thus as Muslim populations continue growing in Western nations, count on growing, and brazen, numbers of attacks on infidels—beheadings and such.

Most recently in France, which holds Europe's largest Muslim population, another European soldier was stabbed in the neck by a pious Muslim.

The question is, how long will leftist media and politicians refuse to face reality, including by propagating the false "grievance" claim, which, once Muslims reach enough numbers—as is projected for Europe—will be discarded for the full-blown jihad?

Raymond Ibrahim is author of the new book "Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians". He is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an associate fellow at the Middle East Forum.

[Agnimitra]

Women in the West & The Islamic Perspective ┇Know Muhammad (ﷺ)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFeY_6fQcEU

[Agnimitra]

Recently, footage of a Syrian Sunni rebel eating the organs of a dead Shi'a enemy soldier shocked many. In Sunni Muslim forums all over the world, where the anti-Assad warriors were being cheered and prayed for, this was embarrassing. It was Assad's people who were not true Muslims, the rebels were mujahideen, it was thought. In this regard, it is a consolation that the strict and all-encompassing Islamic fiqh does cover the subject of cannibalism, and although it is normally highly discouraged, there are definite circumstances under which it is halal. That mujahid who filmed himself eating a dead enemy knew the letter and spirit of the law.

Cannibalism in Islamic shariah

“In the name of Allah the merciful and compassionate, this book is published under the supervision of the scholars of Al-Azhar (the largest Islamic University in the world). All publishing rights are reserved to Dar El-Ghad El-Araby, Cairo”.

...

“This edition is corrected, edited and certified by the “Council of Islamic Research of Al-Azhar”, who published it in 9 November, 1988, 29 Rabie I of the Islamic year 1409.

...

“If one is in dire need and found a dead body of an animal, a swine, or of human, he might eat the dead animal because it as “Halal” (lawful or permissible), but not the body of a swine or a human”. There is a light prevention and a strong prevention, and these are the rules, such as one hates to have sexual relation with his sister, but can have a sexual relation with a foreigner because it is lawful for him. This is the condition for theses rules. Eating the flesh of a human is not allowed.

Yet the scholars Ahmad and Dawoud protested by saying that prophet Mohammad said, “Breaking the bones of a dead body is like breaking the bones of a live body. Al-Shafie said, “One may eat the flesh of a human body. It is not allowed to kill a Muslim nor a free non-Muslim under Muslim rule (because he is useful for the society), nor a prisoner because he belongs to other Muslims. But you may kill an enemy fighter or an adulterer and eat his body”.

Dawoud slandered Al-Mozny by addressing Al-Mozny saying, “You allowed eating the flesh of the prophets”. Ibn Sharie responded also to Al-Mozny by saying, “You allowed killing the prophets and did not allow eating the flesh of the infidels”.

Ibn Al-Araby said, “The proper thing for me is not to eat human flesh unless the person makes sure that this act saves him from starving to death and Allah knows best”.

The fear of being eaten is a primal human fear - Phagophobia. (Possibly connected to the psyche's "past incarnations" in other forms of life?) Therefore, it is fitting that an infidel be eaten, for to strike fear in the hearts of the infidel can have the salubrious effect of predisposing them to faith in Allah. Taqwa, a kind of fear, is the basis of Iman.

The great Imam Ghazali said that Fear (of hell and humiliation) and Hope (for heaven and preservation of honour) should be balanced in the heart to make belief possible.

[ramana]

Muslim Civil Wars Stem from a Crisis of Civilization

by David P. Goldman
PJ Media
June 5, 2013

http://www.meforum.org/3526/muslim-civil-wars


Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum (where I am associate fellow) replies this morning to Bret Stephens' June 3rd Wall Street Journal column, "The Muslim Civil War: Standing by while the Sunnis and Shiites fight it out invites disaster." The Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, when the Reagan administration quietly encouraged the two sides to fight themselves to bloody exhaustion, did America no good, Stephens argues:

In short, a long intra-Islamic war left nobody safer, wealthier or wiser. Nor did it leave the West morally untainted. The U.S. embraced Saddam Hussein as a counterweight to Iran, and later tried to ply Iran with secret arms in exchange for the release of hostages. Patrolling the Strait of Hormuz, the USS Vincennes mistakenly shot down an Iranian jetliner over the Gulf, killing 290 civilians. Inaction only provides moral safe harbor when there's no possibility of action.

Today, he adds, there comes "the whispered suggestion: If one branch of Islam wants to be at war with another branch for a few years — or decades — so much the better for the non-Islamic world. Mass civilian casualties in Aleppo or Homs is their tragedy, not ours. It does not implicate us morally. And it probably benefits us strategically, not least by redirecting jihadist energies away from the West." This is not a good thing for the West, but a bad thing, he concludes. Pipes and Stephens are both friends of mine, and both have a point (although I come down on Pipes' side of the argument). It might be helpful to expand the context of the discussion.

I agree with Stephens that it is a bad thing. It not only a bad thing: it is a horrifying thing. The moral impact on the West of unrestrained slaughter and numberless atrocities flooding YouTube for years to come is incalculable, as I wrote in a May 20 essay, "Syria's Madness and Ours." If Syria looks bad, wait until Pakistan breaks down. The relevant questions, though, are 1) why are Sunnis and Shi'ites slaughtering each other in Syria at this particular moment in history, and 2) what (if anything) can we do about it?

Part of the answer to the first question is that Syria (like Egypt) as presently constituted simply is not viable as a country. Iraq might be viable, because it has enough oil to subsidize a largely uneducated, pre-modern population. As an economist and risk analyst (I ran Credit Strategy for Credit Suisse and all fixed income research for Bank of America), I do not believe that there is any way to stabilize either country. In the medium term, Turkey will lose national viability as well. I outlined some of the reasons for this view in my 2011 book How Civilizations Die (and why Islam is Dying, Too).

Globalization ruins countries. It has done so for centuries. Tinpot dictatorships that keep their people in poverty the better to maintain political control will break down at some point. Mexico broke down during the 1970s and 1980s; the Mexican currency collapsed, the savings of the middle class were wiped out, and the economy shut down. In 1982 I wrote an evaluation of the Mexican economy for Norman Bailey, then director of plans at the National Security Council and special assistant to President Reagan. I saw a crash coming, and no way to to prevent it.

Three things prevented Mexico from dissolving into civil war (as it did during the teens of the past century at the cost of a million lives, or one out of seven Mexicans). One was the ability of Mexicans to migrate to the United States, which absorbed perhaps a fifth of the Mexican population. The second was the emergence of the drug cartels as an alternative source of employment for up to half a million people, and generating between $18 and $39 billion of annual profits. And the third is the fact that Mexico produces its own food most years. When the currencies of the Latin American banana republics collapsed, there was always enough food to maintain minimum caloric consumption. Not so in Egypt, which imports half its food and is flat broke. Egypt and Syria are banana republics but without the bananas (Daniel Pipes assures me that Egypt does grow bananas, and he personally has eaten them, but they are not grown in sufficient quantity to meet the country's caloric deficit). Turkey was the supposed Muslim model for democracy and prosperity under moderate Islam. That idea, which I disputed for years, has gotten tarnished during the past week.

Israeli analysts have understood this from the outset. Two years ago (in an essay entitled "Israel the winner in the Arab revolts") I quoted an Israeli study of the collapse of Syrian agriculture preceding the civil war:

Syria will prove impossible to stabilize, for reasons sketched in my March 29 essay, and explained in more detail by economist Paul Rivlin [3] in a note released the same day by Tel Aviv University's Moshe Dayan Center, entitled "Behind the Tensions in Syria: The Socio-Economic Dimension."

Quoted at length in the Arab press, Rivlin's report went unmentioned in the Western media – a gauge of how poorly the Western elite understands the core issues. Clinton has been ridiculed for calling Assad a "reformer" (in fact, she said that some members of congress think he's a reformer). Rivlin explains Syria's president is a reformer, at least in economic policy. The trouble is that Syrian society is too fragile to absorb reforms without intolerable pain for the 30% of Syrians below the official poverty line of US$1.60 a day. As Rivlin explains: "Syrian agriculture is suffering from the country's move to a so-called 'social market economy' and the introduction of a new subsidy regime in compliance with international trade agreements, including the Association Agreement with the European Union (which Syria has still not ratified). The previous agricultural policy was highly interventionist, ensuring (at great cost) the country's food security and providing the population with cheap access to food items. It is now being replaced with a more liberal one that has harsh consequences for farmers and peasants, who account for about 20% of the country's GDP [gross domestic product] and its workforce."

Syria's farm sector, Rivlin adds, was further weakened by four years of drought: "Small-scale farmers have been the worst affected; many have not been able to grow enough food or earn enough money to feed their families. As a result, tens of thousands have left the northeast and now inhabit informal settlements or camps close to Damascus."

Assad abolished fuel subsidies and freed market prices, Rivlin adds. "In early 2008, fuel subsidies were abolished and, as a result, the price of diesel fuel tripled overnight. Consequently, during the year the price of basic foodstuffs rose sharply and was further exasperated by the drought." Against that background, Syrian food prices jumped by 30% in late February, Syrian bloggers reported after the regime's attempt to hold prices down provoked hoarding.

The rise in global food prices hit Syrian society like a tsunami, exposing the regime's incapacity to modernize a backward, corrupt and fractured country. Like Egypt, Syria cannot get there from here. Rivlin doubts that the regime will fracture. He concludes, "Urban elites have been appeased by economic liberalization, and they now fear a revolution that would bring to power a new political class based on the rural poor, or simply push Syria into chaos. The alliance of the Sunni business community and the Alawite-dominated security forces forms the basis of the regime and, as sections of the population rebel, it has everything to fight for."

We tend to forget that the first stirrings of globalization during the Age of Navigation ruined Latin America, Asia, India, and China. That was the premise of my first "Spengler" essay at Asia Times Online on January 27, 2000:

Item: After the conquest of the New World, Spain's entire capture of precious metals went to India and China to pay for luxury cloth and spices. That did for approximately 90 percent of the indigenous pre-Colombian population.

Item: The African slave trade instituted by the Portuguese and later the British first produced sugar in Brazil and the Caribbean, to be turned into cheap intoxicants for the European market. Tobacco was a second absorber of slave labor. Cotton became important much later. Production of these vices did for a third of the West African population.

Item: In order to sell cheap cotton cloth to India, the East India Company arranged for Indians to grow opium and for Chinese to buy it. All the silver mined in Latin America, which two centuries earlier had passed to China to pay for silks, found its way back to Europe to pay for opium. That did for untold millions of Indians and Chinese.

The loss of life was frightful. The Taiping Rebellion of 1850 to 1864 in the wake of the Qing Dynasty's humiliation by the British claimed 20 million lives, most of them civilians. Millions starved in Bengal when manufactured cotton replaced the local handwoven cloth.

If we had some bagels, we could have bagels and lox, if we had some lox. Syria doesn't have enough oil to survive in the region. It doesn't even have enough water, as the New York Times' Thomas Friedman noticed last month, two years after Israeli analysts published the story in depth:

"The drought did not cause Syria's civil war," said the Syrian economist Samir Aita, but, he added, the failure of the government to respond to the drought played a huge role in fueling the uprising. What happened, Aita explained, was that after Assad took over in 2000 he opened up the regulated agricultural sector in Syria for big farmers, many of them government cronies, to buy up land and drill as much water as they wanted, eventually severely diminishing the water table. This began driving small farmers off the land into towns, where they had to scrounge for work.

Because of the population explosion that started here in the 1980s and 1990s thanks to better health care, those leaving the countryside came with huge families and settled in towns around cities like Aleppo. Some of those small towns swelled from 2,000 people to 400,000 in a decade or so. The government failed to provide proper schools, jobs or services for this youth bulge, which hit its teens and 20s right when the revolution erupted.

Then, between 2006 and 2011, some 60 percent of Syria's land mass was ravaged by the drought and, with the water table already too low and river irrigation shrunken, it wiped out the livelihoods of 800,000 Syrian farmers and herders, the United Nations reported. "Half the population in Syria between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers left the land" for urban areas during the last decade, said Aita. And with Assad doing nothing to help the drought refugees, a lot of very simple farmers and their kids got politicized. "State and government was invented in this part of the world, in ancient Mesopotamia, precisely to manage irrigation and crop growing," said Aita, "and Assad failed in that basic task."

If we had a Syrian elite dedicated to modernization, free markets, and opportunity, we could have an economic recovery in Syria. But the country is locked into suppurating backwardness precisely because the dominant culture holds back individual initiative and enterprise. The longstanding hatreds among Sunnis and Shi'ites, and Kurds and Druze and Arabs, turn into a fight to the death as the ground shrinks beneath them. The pre-modern culture demands proofs of group loyalty in the form of atrocities which bind the combatants to an all-or-nothing outcome. The Sunni rebels appear quite as enthusiastic in their perpetration of atrocities as does the disgusting Assad government.

What are we supposed to do in the face of such horrors? I am against putting American boots on the ground. As I wrote in the cited May 20 essay, "Westerners cannot deal with this kind of warfare. The United States does not have and cannot train soldiers capable of intervening in the Syrian civil war. Short of raising a foreign legion on the French colonial model, America should keep its military personnel at a distance from a war fought with the instruments of horror."

The most urgent thing to do, in my judgment, is to eliminate the malignant influence of Iran, which is treating Syria like a satrapy and sending tens of thousands of fighters as well as material aid to the Assad regime. Attacking Iran would widen the conflict, but ultimately make it controllable. No sane American should want Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. As Admiral James Stavridis told the New York Times today, "If you can move 10 tons of cocaine into the U.S. in a small, semi-submersible vessel, how hard do you think it would be to move a weapon of mass destruction?"

Ultimately, partition of Syria (and other Middle Eastern countries) on the model of the former Yugoslavia probably will be the outcome of the crisis. There are lots of things to keep diplomats busy for the next generation. But the terrible fact remains that it is not in our power to prevent the decline of a civilization embracing over a billion people, and to prevent some aspects of that decline from turning ugly beyond description. Among the many things we might do, there is one thing we must do: limit the damage to ourselves and our allies.

David P. Goldman is an associate fellow at the Middle East Forum, and the author of How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam Is Dying, Too) and the essay collection It's Not the End of the World, It's Just the End of You.

Amit, RajeshA, Agnimitra can we apply similar concepts to TSP and Afghanistan? The Pak Economic Watch thread assumes importance if we can suppress our desires to show down others and concentrate on the matter at hand.

[Prem]

When the Paki and their beerathers loose sustainability, it will create huge security issue for India. Lets hope our Sarkar come up with plan to tackle the millions of BNP=Bhookha Nanga Pyasa Pashus across the fence. The scenario is positively possible by 2022-2025 time frame. Drying of Indus will accelerate the process.

[Prem]

Miss World Cuts Bikini Contest After Muslim Protests
Pindlyon Kaa Guddha Jammen Par Prohibited

This year’s contest takes place in Indonesia, where there have been protests against the bikini competition.All of the more than 130 contestants will be required to wear Bali’s traditional long sarongs instead of the sexy bikinis that are historically part of the competition, said Adjie S. Soeratmadjie of the RCTI, the official broadcaster and local organizer.Parts of the pageant will take place on the resort island of Bali and the final round will be held Sept. 28 near the capital, Jakarta. Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country.“There will no bikini in this year’s Miss World pageant to respect our traditional customs and values,” Soeratmadjie said, adding that the London-based Miss World Organization is on board with the decision.“This is a sensitive issue in Indonesia. We have discussed it since last year and they have agreed,” he said.

[krisna]

Muslim marriage is a civil contract, rules high court

I believe this is the right thread for this news.

Uncoupling the institution of marriage from sacred or religious connotations conveniently used to deny women their due, the Kerala high court has ruled that Muslim marriage is primarily a civil contract to legalize sexual intercourse. In the same vein, the court held that denying a woman her conjugal rights for an extended period amounts to "cruelty''.

The judgment authored by Justice Rajan says, "The concept of 'marriage' among Muslims from the very beginning itself (is) regarded as a contract. Muslim marriage has been defined as a civil contract for the purpose of legalizing sexual intercourse and procreation of children. It is not a sacrament but a contract, though solemnized generally with the recitation of certain verses from the Quran. Muslim law does not prescribe any religious service essential for solemnization. Justice Krishna Iyer in 'Islamic Law in Modern India' considered the concept of Muslim marriage and stated that "in its legal connotation, Muslim marriage is essentially a contract, though marriage as a social institution is regarded solemn all over the civilized world, including the Muslims."

will to wait and see the reaction of the mullahs to this invasion of their domain.

[ramana]

Err, Its more about gender equity. Its not any invasion of any perceived territorial rights.

I will let Atri dissect the Muslim marriage as enumerated by the honorable Court.

[ramana]

The Shia stream could be getting its inspiration for dynastic leadership from the ancient Judaic priest kings from Exodus instructions to form a "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation".

The Sunni stream got its inspiration initially from merit, but evolved to dynastic succession nominated by the shura eventually of one, the Caliph.

[Agnimitra]

The Shia stream could be getting its inspiration for dynastic leadership from the ancient Judaic priest kings from Exodus instructions to form a "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation".

Shi'as are definitely very keen on Islam's connection to Judaism. They see Islam as the final denoument that truly fulfills ancient Abrahamic (Hebrew) prophecies and thereby abrogates Judaism. It appears that a section of the disciples of Muhammad were very taken up with it, and Ali was one among them. He even chose 40 Hebrew sections and translated them, and there are known to Shi'as as the "40 hadiths" of Ali.

[Agnimitra]

Sam Harris:
Islam and the Misuses of Ecstasy

Watch the entire video with your full attention. If you cannot feel the haunting beauty of this recitation, if it is inexplicable to you that people can be moved to tears by the mere sound of these verses, then you are not in contact with the data. Indeed, if you don’t understand how someone could be willing to die to defend the legitimacy of such an experience, you are very poorly placed to understand the problem of Islam.

This video has everything: the power of ritual and the power of the crowd; tears of devotion and a lust for vengeance. How many of the people in that mosque are jihadists? I have no idea—perhaps none. But their spiritual aspirations and deepest positive emotions—love, devotion, compassion, bliss, awe—are being focused through the lens of sectarian hatred and humiliation. Read every word of the translation so that you understand what these devout people are weeping over. Their ecstasy is inseparable from the desire to see nonbelievers punished in hellfire. Is this some weird distortion of the true teachings of Islam? No. This is a recitation from the Koran articulating its central message. The video has over 2 million views on YouTube. It was posted by someone who promised his fellow Muslims that they, too, would weep tears of devotion upon seeing it. The reciter is Sheikh Mishary bin Rashid Alafasy of Kuwait. He has as many Twitter followers as Jerry Seinfeld and J.K. Rowling (2 million). In doctrinal terms, this is not the fringe of Islam. It is the center.

Islam marries religious ecstasy and sectarian hatred in a way that other religions do not. Secular liberals who worry more about “Islamophobia” than about the actual doctrine of Islam are guilty of a failure of empathy. They fail not just with respect to the experience of innocent Muslims who are treated like slaves and criminals by this religion, but with respect to the inner lives of its true believers. Most secular people cannot begin to imagine what a (truly) devout Muslim feels. They are blind to the range of experiences that would cause an otherwise intelligent and psychologically healthy person to say, “I will happily die for this.” Unless you have tasted religious ecstasy, you cannot understand the danger of its being pointed in the wrong direction.

Spiritual seduction is married to Cruelty. Humanity reduces to a hectic sham.
Often "Sufis" are cultural wizards of this fusion. E.g. Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi (Imam Rabbani). Sham profundity.
Owais and Owaisi: Two halves of Jarasandha

[ramana]

Err Christianity had something called rapture. They used that to fuel the Crusades. So above article is wrong on its fundamental premise.

[Agnimitra]

Err Christianity had something called rapture. They used that to fuel the Crusades. So above article is wrong on its fundamental premise.

Nothing compared with Islamism ramana ji. The core of Christianity in the Gospels can often subvert the violence of the other parts. Crusades also produced S.t Francis of Assisi. Can't find too many such examples from Islamism.

Hinduism also has a rapture like culture around the Mahabharata war. But its not the same as Islamism. Kshatra demands an ecstasy in battle. IMHO its how that is balanced out against other intrinsic varnas and the relative power equation shared between them all that determines the outcome.

[ramana]

What about those soulful musical sufis that Bollywood extolls!

[Agnimitra]

What about those soulful musical sufis that Bollywood extolls!

ramana ji, in a post long back I had analyzed the so-called "Sufi" tradition starting from Persia into two parts - the kharabatiyaan and the sufiyaan. The first were total drop-outs from Islamist society. The second acted as a "spiritual" agony uncle, or a mystical segment in some sort of relationship with the ulema and the amir.

A lot of "sufi" culture comes from the kharabatiyaan, and a lot comes from the second one. Often the legacy ofthe former is hijacked and used by the latter. They have mastered that method of social engineering.

The uneasy cleavage of the spiritual and the temporal was always problematic throughout Islamic history. For a long time, "Sufism" was a continuation of pre-existing spiritual cultures from the surviving remnants of Mithraic, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, neo-Platonic and Christian traditions of the Middle East, Egypt and India. Most Sufism at one time was considered outright heresy, and throughout its history its cutting-edge spiritual teachers were honored with the cutting-edge of the Caliph' temporal sword slicing their necks. Then the revered Imam Ghazali came and brokered a theoretical truce, claiming to show that Sufism could be fused with Islam, and that in fact the two could execute a very useful twinship. Thereafter, just as Guns and Bibles would later pioneer European colonialism, so did Swords and Sufis first set that template for expansion and consolidation.

But what makes this twinship a Jarasandha? The Bhagavad Gita, too, was spoken on a battlefield, so how is that different? Well, Ghazali wanted to fuse spirituality with Islam only insofar as it subordinated itself to the absolute dominance of the regimen of shari'ah and its supervising priesthood, its caste-collective, and its dogmas. He still attacked most spiritual schools of the time with vitriol. He wanted the spiritually packaged "Sufism" to be a cooling fount of ablution, with which the devout could soothe their agitations and refresh mind and spirit before re-entering the mosque.

[Agnimitra]

A Paki-Canadian lady talks quite openly against misogyny, shariah and jihadi culture among the Muslim community settled in the West.
RawalTV (called Qadiani TV by its haters) has put up a disclaimer that it doesn't necessarily endorse these views.
Again, one wishes they at least had subtitles so more people could get this information. But I think they wish to only limit this discussion to within their community.

Farzana Hassan - Bilatakalluf with Tahir Gora Ep96



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVOvXUQHg4U

[RajeshA]

A little funny putting this news here, but ...

It seems Nargis didn't teach her son any value of a proper education!

Published on May 31, 2013
Sanjay Dutt unable to write anything, completely dependent on fellow inmates: Daily Bhaskar

Pune: Out-of-favour Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt is confronted with a bizarre and embarrassing problem in Pune’s Yarwada Jail where he is serving his remaining 42 months of 5 year sentence in illegal arms case. He has forgotten how to write and is completely dependent on fellow inmates even to write simple names of items that are to be procured from the jail canteen.

According to the sources, Sanjay Dutt has not written anything for the last 30 years. His servants used to write for him. He seems to have lost the practice to write as he has only signed for a long time.

In the jail, normal items like hair oil, soaps are to be bought from the jail canteen. To get them, inmates prepare a list of items that is submitted to jail authority. When Sanjay was given a pen and a paper to write he told officers that he cannot write. He took the help of other inmates as he narrated the content of the list.

[ramana]

Its about entitlement and nothing to do with Islam. Hopefully Sanjay Dutt learns to read and write and get an education.

The zamindars of yore were proud that their munshi would write for them!

[Agnimitra]

X-post phrom TSP thread (I don't know bhy I am ispeaking in BENIS die-lact... the shaytaan made me do it) -

Koschan:
Why Is Gay P0rn So Popular in Pakistan?

Earlier this month, the Pew Research Center published results of a public survey of gay tolerance in 39 countries worldwide. The numbers are fairly unsurprising: While a high proportion of respondents in Western Europe and North America answered "yes" to the question "Should society accept homosexuality?" few respondents in the Middle East and Africa agreed with them.

Among the least tolerant nations surveyed was Pakistan, where only 2 percent of those surveyed said society should accept homosexuality. That statistic might be unsurprising, considering that gay sex is illegal under the Pakistani penal code. But what is surprising is how those views compare to Pakistani search traffic around gay-***** related terms.

As of this writing, Pakistan is by volume the world leader for Google searches of the terms "shemale sex," "teen anal sex," and "man ****** man," according to Google Trends. Pakistan also ranks second in the world (after similarly gay-intolerant Kenya) for volume of searches for the search term "gay sex pics."

In its report, Pew noted that countries exhibiting the highest levels of gay tolerance are largely secular, whereas nations where religion is central to public life—such as Egypt, Nigeria, and Pakistan—tend to reject homosexuality. But in Pakistan, what's even more peculiar is that the highest number of hits for some of these terms, including "shemale sex," come not from Pakistan's cosmopolitan centers, but from Peshawar, a bastion of conservative Islam, lately known in the West as a counterterrorism frontline.

Farahnaz Ispahani, an expert in Pakistani minorities at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former member of Pakistan's parliament, says that homosexuality is a taboo subject throughout the country. In major cities such as Lahore and Karachi, gays can develop a network of allies outside their tribe or family, but in conservative Peshawar, gay identity is more complicated. Part of the popularity of gay ***** could stem from the fact that even highly observant Muslim males often have physical relationships with men without considering themselves gay, she says.

"The real love they can have that most of us find with a partner, they find with men," Ispahani says. "They mostly see their wives as the mother of their children."

At the same time, she says, persecution of minorities, including gays, has reached an all-time high in Pakistan, and discussing homosexuality openly in public is virtually forbidden. "Religious extremism is at a height today," she says. "Hindus are being forced to convert, Christians are being burned alive—there's very little personal safety for those seen as 'the other.' So what do [gay Pakistanis] do? They turn to ***** because they can't live their lives openly."

Shereen El Feki, author of the recent book Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World, says the discrepancy between perceptions around homosexuality and its apparent reality in Pakistan is consistent with her own findings in the Middle East, where, in recent years, the dialogue around sexual identity has been co-opted by fundamentalist clerics.

"Islamic conservatives, whether they're actually in power or the governments in power are trying to placate them, they will tend to go to very narrow definitions of Islam," she says. "One of the easiest ways to do this is to come down hard on the role of women, and particularly around sex and homosexuality."

Long before the rise of Islamic conservatism, El Feki says, the Middle East and India had a literary tradition which celebrated gay love, but in recent years, that openness has been forgotten.

"You find in most civilizations in the Global South a much more open approach to homosexuality—irrespective of its status in religious and theological doctrine—than you find today," she says. "So very often, any attempt to open a dialogue in the Arab region is branded as some 'Western conspiracy' to undermine traditional Arab and Muslim values. The reality is that long before the West was talking openly about homosexuality, Arabs in particular were writing about this very frankly. Our history has come to be rewritten by Islamic conservatives."

[ramana]

Read the old Richard Burton, the adventurer not the actor essay on gayness in the Levant. Its called the terminal essay.

[abhischekcc]

Lakshmikanth ji,

There are several layers of persuasion:
1. Influence by direct experience - by showing the other person or helping him perceive something - as RKP showing the universe to Swami Vivekananda
2. Influence by teaching - by explanation and logic
3. Influence by credibility or status - when one convince the other to accept a POV simply because he is saying so
4. Influence by self interest - by exchange of material benefits
5. Influence by propaganda - self explanatory (mental subjugation)
6. Influence by force - through physical intimidation.

I could of course map out different religions on to this list - but I think it is quite obvious.

Hinduism and Buddhism - 1,2
Xnism and Islam - 3,4,5,6
Judaism would be 2, as they are not an experience based religion, but do not have an aggressive expansion or conversion agenda either.
Secularism is 3,4,5.

[ramana]

Violence and Context in Islamic Texts

by Mark Durie
Gatestone Institute
June 20, 2013

http://www.meforum.org/3537/violence-islamic-texts
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Recently, the journalist Paul Sheehan, reflecting on the Woolwich beheading of Drummer Lee Rigby, invited consideration of the view of Muslim violence in authoritative Islamic texts. In the Sydney Morning Herald of May 27, 2013, Sheehan observed that the Koran and the teachings of Muhammad seem to be a factor behind Muslim violence, and offered these critical observations:

* Many violent attacks on civilians are done in the name of Islam.
* The existence of violent Islamic sectarian conflict and the repression of religious dissent in Muslim nations give the lie to the "absurd claim" that Islam is "the religion of peace."
* Many verses in the Koran call for violence against unbelievers, and these are invoked by Muslims who murder others: "So many Muslims have been encouraged to murder civilians by such exhortations that the rate of violent incidents perpetrated in the name of Islam is staggering, a toll that shows no sign of subsiding."

A rejoinder was published the next day by Associate Professor Mohamad Abdalla, founding director of the Islamic Research Unit at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. Abdalla rejected the proposition that Islam supports killing innocent people: "A contextual reading of the Koran or Hadith leads to one conclusion only: there is no justification for killing of innocent people…"

Sheehan, while affirming that "Most Muslims are peaceful," did not say that Islam is the only factor behind Muslim violence, and he did not claim that the killers' interpretations of religious texts were the only valid interpretation. He also nowhere used the label "innocent" to characterize victims of Muslim violence; and he did not claim that Islam supports killing "innocent" people. His point was simply that, according to some Muslims, violent verses in the Koran contribute to Muslims behaving violently.

Why did Abdalla introduce the word "innocent," and do his arguments have credibility?

Abdalla's key point is that seemingly violent texts from Islam's canon have to be read "in context." He explains that to put the Koran "in context," one must at least consider the following five factors:

* the context in which verses were "revealed" to Muhammad;
* the principle of "abrogation";
* other passages which address the same subject;
* the life of Muhammad, and
* the way the verse has been applied [by Muslim scholars].

Abdalla claims that Sheehan is not competent to pass judgement on the Koran because he lacks such knowledge. He also states, but offers no evidence to support the allegation, that taking "context" into account will result in a more moderate interpretation of these sacred scriptures.

Taking context into account, however, can actually make a "peaceful" verse quite nasty, and a violent verse even worse. There is nothing about "context" that makes it a magic wand to render peaceful and harmless every text over which it is waved. Context is neither a silver bullet against violent texts, nor is it a disinfectant for theological unpleasantness.

It also needs to be understood that radical jihadis themselves use a contextual model to interpret the Koran: they do not simply rely on context-free interpretations or on proof-texts -- quotes taken out of context to support an argument. The Bin Ladins of the world -- and theologians such as Sayyid Qutb who paved the way for them -- have been more than familiar with interpretive tools such as the "context" of revelation, "abrogation," or the life of Muhammad. Such subjects are on the curriculum in the jihad factories.

What is disappointing about Abdalla's article is that the very texts he refers to only get worse when their context is taken into account. For example, he criticizes Sheehan for citing a passage from the second chapter of the Koran: "And slay them wherever ye find them …" Abdalla writes:

Take, for example, this partial quote he cited, "And slay them wherever ye find them … " Sheehan fails to state that this is part of five-long verses (2:190-195), which must be read together. When read in context the legal implication derived stipulates that fighting is permitted only under certain strict circumstances. Additionally, the same verses prohibit transgression of limits, and it (sic) does not promote killing of innocent people but allows self-defence. It further goes on to state "if they cease, let there be no hostility except to those who practise oppression." Clearly, when the whole context is examined the verses do not promote killing of innocent people.

Let us take a closer look at these six verses, with the help of a great Muslim scholar, Ibn Kathir, whose commentary on the Koran has been translated into English, and is widely respected and read today by Muslims around the world. (The reader can examine the relevant part of the commentary here.)

First, here are the verses from the second chapter of the Koran:

190. And fight in the way of Allah those who fight you, but transgress not the limits. Truly, Allah likes not the transgressors.

191. And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah is worse than killing. And fight not with them at Al-Masjid Al-Haram (the sanctuary at Makkah), unless they (first) fight you there. But if they attack you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers.

192. But if they cease, then Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

193. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah) and the religion (all and every kind of worship) is for Allah (Alone). But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against Az-Zalimin (the polytheists and wrongdoers).

194. The sacred month is for the sacred month, and for the prohibited things, there is the Law of equality (Qisas). Then whoever transgresses against you, you transgress likewise against him. And fear Allah, and know that Allah is with Al-Muttaqin.

195. And spend in the cause of Allah and do not throw yourselves into destruction, and do good. Truly, Allah loves Al-Muhsinin (those who do good).[Parentheses in the text.]

What is the context of this passage? It dates from the early Medinan period, when Allah had given permission to Muslims to fight against those who fought them: "fight in the way of Allah those who fight you, but transgress not the limits." (2:190) Abdalla is correct when he says that the phrase "slay them wherever you find them" (2:191) refers to fighting against those who fight Muslims: it is not a universal command to kill noncombatants or innocent people. Yet there is more to be said.

Ironically, verse 190 was one of the passages invoked by Michael Adebolajo, the killer of Drummer Lee Rigby, when he said: "we are forced by the Quran ... through many, many ayah [verses] throughout the Koran that we must fight them as they fight us." [Emphasis added.]

Adebolajo's testimony was that he killed a British soldier because British soldiers have been fighting Muslims. He would most likely agree wholeheartedly with Abdalla's interpretation of this passage, and assert with him that Islam prohibits killing "innocent people." To Adbolajo, however, Rigby was not "innocent."

The key question, then, is what constitutes "innocence" in Islam? As it happens, the expression "fitnah is worse than killing" in verse 191 provides the key to finding an answer. Ibn Kathir has this to say:

Since Jihad involves killing and shedding the blood of men, Allah indicated that these men are committing disbelief in Allah, associating with Him (in the worship) and hindering from His path, and this is a much greater evil and more disastrous than killing. Abu Malik commented about what Allah said: "And Al-Fitnah is worse than killing." Meaning what you (disbelievers) are committing is much worse than killing. Abu Al-Aliyah, Mujahid, Said bin Jubayr, Ikrimah, Al-Hasan, Qatadah, Ad-Dahhak and Ar-Rabi bin Anas [Muslim authorities] said that what Allah said: "And Al-Fitnah is worse than killing." [means] "Shirk (polytheism) is worse than killing." [Emphasis added. Parentheses in text. Bracketed parts, the author's.]

First let us pin down some key terms. The Arabic word fitnah originally meant a "persecution" or "trial" that undermines or shakes Muslims from their faith. This concept was widened over time to include just about anything that opposes Islam or "hinders" Muslims from following the Islamic path.

Shirk, often also translated as "idolatry" or "polytheism" literally means "association, "partnering" or "sharing." Shirk is described in the Koran as the one unforgivable sin (4:48). It is a religious term used to characterize all forms of non-Muslim belief. Non-Muslims are considered to be "associaters" who "attribute partners" to Allah. As such, because they worship others as well as Allah, they are considered to be in violation of true monotheism. Christians, for example, worship Jesus as the "son of God," and Hindus, pagans and others worship various idols. Chapter 9 verse 30 of the Koran even accuses Jews of "association":

"And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah, and the Christians say: The Messiah [Jesus] is the son of Allah. That is their saying with their mouths. They imitate the saying of those who disbelieved of old. Allah (Himself) fights against them. How perverse are they!"

What then does it mean when the Koran says that "fitnah is worse than killing"? According to Ibn Kathir, to disbelieve in Allah is to be guilty of the crime of shirk or, as he puts it, "committing disbelief." Shirk, he says, is fitnah, the crime worse than killing. Just being a non-Muslim -- a Christian, a Jew or a pagan -- is worse than murder.

This is not a peaceful verse. It has been cited, for example, by leading Muslim legal authorities such as the Grand Mufti of Jordan, His Excellency Shaykh Said Hijjawi, in order to justify killing "apostates," people who choose to convert out of Islam. Such a decision threatens Muslims' faith, and must, according to the Grand Mufti, be met with the death penalty, because the shirk, or disbelief, of apostasy is worse than killing.

It gets worse. The next half of verse 193 – "fight them until .… the religion is for Allah" is interpreted by Ibn Kathir as a command to fight (and kill) people until they convert to Islam. To support this, he cites a tradition of Muhammad, who said:

[Muhammad said:] "I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight the people until they proclaim, 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah.' Whoever said it, then he will save his life and property from me …"

Here Muhammad is claiming that Allah has commanded him to fight others until they confess Islam. If they do not, Muhammad asserts that he has the right to kill them and take their property. If they convert to Islam, they will be safe. (It is useful to bear in might that the Arabic word for "fight" actually means "fight to kill." It is derived from a root which means 'kill': the connection is instantly apparent to Arabic readers, but lost in English translation.)

Concerning the rest of verse 193 -- the part about "and if they cease," which Abdalla specifically refers to -- Ibn Kathir goes on to explain:

[The phrase] "But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against the wrongdoers" indicates that, "if they stop their Shirk [disbelief in Allah] and fighting the believers, then cease warfare against them. Whoever fights them afterwards will be committing an injustice. Verily aggression can only be started against the unjust." This is the meaning of Mujahid's [a commentator's] statement that only combatants should be fought. Or, the meaning of the Ayah [verse] indicates that, "If they abandon their injustice, which is Shirk in this case, then do not start aggression against them afterwards." … 'Ikrimah and Qatadah stated, "The unjust person is he who refuses to proclaim, 'There is no God worthy of worship except Allah'." [Emphasis added.]

Abdalla is quite correct when he says that Islam forbids killing "innocent" people. But then the question is: Who, according to Islamic scholars, is "innocent"? Ibn Kathir, a highly respected commentator in the orthodox mainstream of Muslim scholarship, teaches that non-Muslims are guilty by virtue of their disbelief in Islam, and that this disbelief is an "injustice," a crime worse than murder. To Ibn Kathir, a disbeliever is guilty by definition. If someone refuses to convert, and continues to commit shirk, he is not "innocent" and may be fought and killed. But as soon as the enemy converts to Islam, he is no longer "unjust" or guilty of disbelief, but "innocent," and must not be harmed.

When we follow Abdalla's formula for putting the Koran in context, the words of 2:190-95 do not take on a rosier hue: quite the opposite. What we find instead is that in this view, someone inside Islam is "innocent," and someone outside Islam is "guilty" and deserving of death.

We have not even begun to consider the impact of one of the other principles mentioned by Abdalla: abrogation. This is an interpretive principle which holds that verses in the Koran from later periods in Muhammad's life supersede or "abrogate" conflicting verses from earlier periods. As it happens, later in Muhammad's life the verses of the Koran became more warlike, and Muhammad's acts became more violent. So in several key instances, the more warlike verses abrogate the more peaceful verses.

Consider for example the limitation of verse 190, that Muslims should only fight those who fight against them: "And fight in the way of Allah those who fight you, but transgress not the limits. Truly, Allah likes not the transgressors." [Emphasis added.] This limitation applied in the early Medinan period of Muhammad's prophetic career, but later it was cancelled by the "verse of the sword":

"Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush." (9:5)

Concerning this verse, Ibn Kathir has this to say:

This honorable Ayah (9:5) was called the Ayah [verse] of the Sword, about which Ad-Dahhak bin Muzahim said, "It abrogated every agreement of peace between the Prophet and any idolator, every treaty, and every term." Al-Awfi said that Ibn Abbas commented: "No idolator had any more treaty or promise of safety ever since Surah Bara'ah was revealed."

According to Ibn Kathir, therefore, all peace agreements between Muslims and non-Muslims (referred to in earlier passages of the Koran) were abrogated after verse 9:5 was revealed. After 9:5, earlier "limits" on fighting non-believers no longer applied. By the "verse of the sword" the earlier doctrine of defensive jihad was set aside and replaced with a policy of aggression against non-believers.

Abdalla also rebukes Sheehan for not mentioning three passages. These are:

"… [T]ake not life, which God has made sacred, except by way of justice and law: thus does He command you, that you may learn wisdom" (Koran 6:151).

"… [T]hat if anyone killed a person -- unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land -- it would be as if he killed the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people. Then although there came to them Our messengers with clear signs, yet, even after that, many of them continued to commit excesses in the land" (Koran 5:32).

Or the hadith that states "'Whoever kills a mu'ahid [non-combatant, innocent non-Muslims will not smell the scent of paradise …" (Bukhari)

A careful consideration of the context of each verse, however, undermines Abdalla's claims that these passages are peaceful.

The first passage, chapter 6:151 of the Koran, is in fact a citation from the Torah. However, even if we read this as a command to Muslims, the phrase "except by way of justice and law" is a significant exception to the prohibition against killing. To unpack this exception, Ibn Kathir cites a tradition of Muhammad:

[Muhammad said:] "The blood of a Muslim person who testifies that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah and that I am the Messenger of Allah is prohibited [i.e. Muslims should not be killed], except for three offenses: a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse, life for life, and whoever reverts from the religion and abandons the Jama'ah (the community of faithful believers)."

There is a prohibition, a warning and a threat against killing the Mu'ahid [non-Muslims who have a treaty of protection with Muslims]. Al-Bukhari recorded that Abdullah bin Amr said that the Prophet said, "Whoever killed a person having a treaty of protection with Muslims, shall not smell the scent of Paradise, though its scent is perceived from a distance of forty years." Abu Hurayrah narrated that the Prophet said, "Whoever killed a person having a treaty of protection with the Muslims, and who enjoys the guarantee of Allah and His Messenger, he will have spoiled the guarantee of Allah [for him]. He shall not smell the scent of Paradise though its smell is perceived from a distance of seventy years."

Ibn Kathir is saying that although in general a Muslim person should not be killed, there are three exceptions allowed by the phrase "except by way of justice and law," (6:151). These are: if he has committed adultery, killed another, or left Islam. This verse, cited by Associate Professor Abdalla as evidence that Islam is peaceful, can, through its exceptions, be used to justify killing people who leave Islam.

Ibn Kathir then observes that the blood of a non-Muslim should not be shed if he is under a treaty of protection granted by Muslims. The underlying supposition is that if a non-Muslim is not protected by a treaty, he can be killed. His blood is not protected, but halal [permitted]: free to be shed by Muslims. The general rule is that Muslim life is sacrosanct, but the life of the non-Muslim can be taken.

Abdalla's second passage, Koran 5:32, quotes another Jewish text, this time the Talmud. But consider the context: the rest of the verse is a rebuke of the Jews -- "Most of them are still transgressing" -- and the very next verse (5:33) calls for people who fight against Muhammad to be crucified, have their hands and feet cut off on alternate sides, be banished, or be humiliated in this life, after which they will suffer worse in the hereafter. Again, this is not exactly peaceful.

Abdalla's third passage is a hadith [reports on the life and sayings of Mohammed], which states that if a Muslim kills a mu'ahid they will not smell the scent of paradise (that is, they will go to hell).

As it happens this is the very same hadith which Ibn Kathir quotes to explain Koran 6:151, when he defines when a non-Muslim's life should not to be taken.

Contrary to Abdalla's claim, the Arabic word mu'ahid does not mean a "non-combatant" or an "innocent non-Muslim." Taken literally, it refers to someone who has entered into a covenant, but here it refers to a dhimmi: a tolerated non-Muslim who has surrendered to Muslim armies and is permitted to live as a second-class citizen under the paid "protection" of Muslims. In Islam it is forbidden to kill dhimmis without just cause. However non-Muslims who refuse to surrender or convert to Islam enjoy no such protection.

To translate mu'ahid as "innocent non-Muslim" could, in fact, be considered offensive. The opposite of a mu'ahid is someone who refuses be a dhimmi: non-Muslims who refuse to surrender to Islam. The implication is therefore that non-Muslims who reject dhimmi status are guilty, and their lives are not protected in Islam. Thus Abdalla's very words, employed in an attempt to demonstrate the peaceful character of Islam, in fact reflect an underlying world view in which non-Muslims are "guilty" of the capital offense of "committing disbelief" in Islam, and only safe -- not "innocent" but merely "tolerated" -- if they adopt dhimmi status and give in to Islamic dominance.

In hermeneutics -- the understanding and interpretation of texts, especially religious ones -- context is everything. But context itself is blind to morality, and is not inherently a force for good. Unfortunately, for each and every verse Abdalla cites, a reasoned contextual interpretation makes the meaning not better but worse.

Abdalla would appear to be guilty of the very thing he accused Paul Sheehan of: "When these texts are not read in their proper textual and historical contexts they are manipulated and distorted -- by Muslims and non-Muslims alike." To cite such verses as evidence of the peaceful character of Islam is to manipulate and distort their meaning.

Abdalla might have been more careful in his exegesis and acknowledged the tradition of interpretation. He might have proposed some new, liberating perspective on these texts, and offered arguments to support his views. He might even have exposed and challenged the theological worldview of jihad and dhimmitude which has influenced commentary on these texts for more than a thousand years. But instead he just splashes whitewash over everything.

In these troubled times, when there are thousands of radicalized Muslims who show scant respect for non-Muslim life and are proud to quote the Koran to justify their violent deeds, a genuinely transparent, re-interpreted Islam might be found liberating by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Such an approach, however, must at the very least honestly acknowledge Islam's traditions of commentary on the Koran, and explain how a large number of violent texts might be viewed in a more liberating light.

Associate Professor Abdalla should know better. Although he might hope otherwise, dodgy hermeneutics contribute nothing to the Western public's understanding of Islam. Knee-jerk proof-texting of the "Islam is peace" claim will help no one; it is urgent that we engage with the pressing questions of Islam's place in the world today.

Mark Durie is an Anglican pastor and an Associate Fellow at the Middle Eastern Forum.

Related Topics: Islam | Mark Durie

This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.

A lot of work is being done to study the original texts and not leave it to Muleahs to interpret.

[Agnimitra]

TED Talks:
Lesley Hazleton: The doubt essential to faith

When Lesley Hazleton was writing a biography of Muhammad, she was struck by something: The night he received the revelation of the Koran, according to early accounts, his first reaction was doubt, awe, even fear. And yet this experience became the bedrock of his belief. Hazleton calls for a new appreciation of doubt and questioning as the foundation of faith -- and an end to fundamentalism of all kinds.

Writer Lesley Hazleton is the author of 'The First Muslim,' a new look at the life of Muhammad.

Hazleton is a British-born Islamophile who travels, writes and speaks in order to give Western audiences a different view of Islam.

[ramana]

The 'Sex Jihad'

by Raymond Ibrahim
Investigative Project on Terrorism
June 18, 2013

http://www.meforum.org/3542/sex-jihad
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News emerged a few weeks ago in Arabic media that yet another fatwa had called on practicing Muslim women to travel to Syria and offer their sexual services to the jihadis fighting to overthrow the secularist Assad government and install Islamic law. Reports attribute the fatwa to Saudi sheikh Muhammad al-'Arifi, who, along with other Muslim clerics earlier permitted jihadis to rape Syrian women.

Muslim women prostituting themselves in this case is being considered a legitimate jihad because such women are making sacrifices—their chastity, their dignity—in order to help apparently sexually-frustrated jihadis better focus on the war to empower Islam in Syria.

And it is prostitution—for they are promised payment, albeit in the afterlife. The Koran declares that "Allah has purchased of the believers their persons [their bodies] and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain (Yusuf Ali trans. 9:111).

On the basis of this fatwa, several young Tunisian Muslim girls traveled to Syria to be "sex-jihadis." Video interviews of distraught parents bemoaning their daughters' fates are on the Internet, including one of a father and mother holding a picture of their daughter: "She's only 16—she's only 16! They brainwashed her!" pleads the father.

Most recently, the Egyptian-based news service Masrawy published a video interview with "Aisha," one of the Tunisian Muslim girls who went sex-jihading in Syria, only to regret her actions. While in Tunisia, Aisha said she met a Muslim woman who began talking to her about the importance of piety, including wearing the hijab; she then went on to talk about traveling to Syria to help the jihadis "fight and kill infidels" and make Allah's word supreme, adding that "women who die would do so in the way of Allah and become martyrs and enter paradise." (According to mainstream Islamic teaching, dying in jihad is the only guaranteed way to avoid hell.)

Aisha eventually came to the conclusion that she was being exploited in the name of religion and left.

While news that Muslim girls in hijabs are prostituting themselves in the name of Islam may surprise some, Islamic clerics regularly issue fatwas permitting forbidden things—so long as they help the jihad. For instance, not only did the original "underwear bomber" Abdullah Hassan al-Asiri hide explosives in his rectum to assassinate Saudi Prince Muhammad bin Nayef—they met in 2009 after the 22-year-old Asiri "feigned repentance for his jihadi views"—but, according to Shi'ite talk-show host Abdullah Al-Khallaf, he had fellow jihadis sodomize him to "widen" his anus to fit more explosives.

Al-Khallaf read the fatwa that purportedly justified such actions during a 2012 Fadak TV episode.

After praising Allah and declaring that sodomy is forbidden in Islam, the fatwa asserted:

However, jihad comes first, for it is the pinnacle of Islam, and if the pinnacle of Islam can only be achieved through sodomy, then there is no wrong in it. For the overarching rule of [Islamic] jurisprudence asserts that "necessity makes permissible the prohibited." And if obligatory matters can only be achieved by performing the prohibited, then it becomes obligatory to perform the prohibited, and there is no greater duty than jihad. After he sodomizes you, you must ask Allah for forgiveness and praise him all the more. And know that Allah will reward the jihadis on the Day of Resurrection, according to their intentions—and your intention, Allah willing, is for the victory of Islam, and we ask that Allah accept it of you.

While all these sex-fatwas may seem bizarre, they highlight two important (though little known in the West) points. First, that jihad is the "pinnacle" of Islam—for it makes Islam supreme; and second, the idea that "necessity makes permissible the prohibited." Because making Islam supreme through jihad is the greatest priority, anything and everything that is otherwise banned becomes permissible. All that comes to matter is one's intention, or niyya (see Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi's discussion along these lines).

As for the intersection between sex and violence (jihad), it was once explored by the Arabic satellite program Daring Question, which aired various clips of young jihadis giddily singing about their forthcoming deaths and subsequent sexual escapades in heaven. After documenting various anecdotes indicative of jihadi obsession with sex, Egyptian human rights activist Magdi Khalil concluded that "absolutely everything [jihad, suicide operations, etc.] revolves around sex in paradise," adding, "if you look at the whole of Islamic history, you come up with two words: sex and violence."

Indeed, Islam's prophet Muhammad maintained that death during jihad not only blots out all sins—including sexual ones—but it actually gratifies them:

The martyr is special to Allah. He is forgiven [of all sins] from the first drop of blood [that he sheds]. He sees his throne in paradise, where he will be adorned in ornaments of faith. He will wed the 'Aynhour [a.k.a. "voluptuous women"] and will not know the torments of the grave, and safeguards against the greater terror [hell]. … And he will copulate with 72 'Aynhour (see The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 143).

This goes to one of the many seeming contradictions in Islam: Muslim women must chastely be covered head-to-toe—yet, in the service of jihad, they are allowed to prostitute themselves. Lying is forbidden—but permissible to empower Islam. Intentionally killing women and children is forbidden—but permissible during the jihad. Suicide is forbidden—but permissible during the jihad—when it is called "martyrdom."

One may therefore expect anything from would-be jihadis, regardless of how un-Islamic the means may otherwise seem.

Even so, this uncompromising mentality, which is prevalent throughout the Islamic world, especially along the frontlines of the jihad, is the same mentality that many Western leaders and politicians think can be appeased with just a bit more respect, well-wishing, and concessions from the West.

Such are the great, and disastrous, disconnects of our time.

Raymond Ibrahim is author of the new book, Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians (published by Regnery in cooperation with Gatestone Institute, 2013). A Middle East and Islam expert, he is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and associate fellow at the Middle East Forum.

[ramana]

X_post from Secualrism thread....

Theo,
what is galling in that judgment is that the judges accept and endorse many claims that amount to direct falsification even of narrative claims by the Islamic chroniclers - for example the specific case of Hudaybiah.

The judges in their extreme obvious sensitivity towards supposed communal abuse against Muslims - have nothing to say about the vicious tarring and feathering of the "pagans" as having done all the offensive things, "broken treaties", "prevented pilgrimage" etc. Did they at all verify the texts and what is supposed to be sources based on which someone like Yusuf Ali pontificates? No. They simply accepted one hagiograph based on suppression of equally authentic material from Islamics themselves, and which continue to be used as the "contextual" basis for interpretation in Islamic scholarship - to trash the claims that did not agree to the hagiograph.

Sure, they used the inexperience of the author to pin him down - but they could have very well brought forward the wider tranche of Islamic sources to see that the author was essentially right, and was saying nothing more than sources much older than Yusuf Ali, from the Islamic side, and which are still not challenged or delegetimized formally by Islamic scholars - had already said. They have done this sort of voluntary searching of literature and quoting from them when they have dabbled cases concerning the "Hindu" and not been constrained what a selected religious/theological authority was claiming on the issue.

The Hudaybiah as described here - if taken into real real context then - as represented in the judgment, is a near total falsification of events as described in Ibn Ishaq, or Bukhari's Shahi (true/reliable) ahadith. The context so much so harangued about in the judgment should have taken into account the version even from Islamic side that

(1) continuous unprovoked ambushes were being unleashed on the "pagan" trade caravans
(2) traveling "pagans" were being ambushed/raided/killed, taken hostage of [with no Yusuf Ali style apologetics about being in retaliation - but simply because the "Muslims" deserve the wealth/camel/etc of the "pagans" -openly stated in Ishaq and Bukhari]
(3) vicious night raids/dawn raids/ while people were going out to the fields and unsuspecting - were unleashed on other centres the Meccans traded with and were deemed "allies" of Meccan therefore
(4) already at least on three occasions - religious pilgrimage had been used as a cover for ambush by the "muslim side"
(5) the muslims wanted to go into Meccan pilgrimage with full armour and arms and refused to disarm their military formation while going into the city.

Which city in the "pagan" position will allow such a pilgrimage after that contextual experience? At least they tried to safeguard their family by moving away from the city as part of that agreement.

None of this is "contextualized" by the learned judges. This material is public, and given the supreme academic background assumed for our judges - it will be rather strange to claim that they did not have the intellectual wherewithal to be aware of supporting base material when they are defending a certain theology.

So if we cannot raise doubts about the academic honesty or scholarly integrity of our judiciary - what is left to assume, that they simply were not aware of existence of material from the accusing side's venerated sources that contradicted every bit of Yusuf Ali's whitewash. Now that is perhaps not ignorance - but some unnamed quality - because after all they are the judiciary. But it is surprising that they found nothing offensive in the way the pagans are being described by the muslim -side - nothing found as vituperative and potentially abusive/hurting sentiments/maligning - even if they are "facts"!

[Agnimitra]

Nothing special, but gives an overview of points of view likely to keep circulating in academia:

Rawal TV's "Dastak Ep86 - Political Islam Inthe Age of Democratization" with Kamran Bokhari who works with Stratfor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N9Pbm9A9SE

[ramana]

X-Pot...

OT. Why did the Rajputs in the Punjab and Sindh convert to Islam in large numbers but in the rest of the subcontinent remained largely Hindu? My hypothesis is that many of the clans in this region were of mixed origin and neo-converts to Hinduism and were opportunistic converts to preserve power and position.

Wrong hypothesis IMO. Punjab and Sindh are cases of first parts of India to fall to foreign rule.
Not just in terms of rule, but also the provinces of Punjab and Sindh were crushed first and most by majority of the invasions sorties toward medieval India.
Just because someone lies on the terirtorial border doesn't mean he/she is a diluted Hindu or whatever is the core religion. It is the border guy who faces the onslaught first, most frequent and most devastatingly, so lets cut them some slack.

I don't know of any well deveoped clan hierarchies of Rajputs to have existed in Punjab and Sindh on a regular basis; that the question of their en-masse conversion could be raised. If you know of any such clans and their en-masse conversions, please enlighten us with specifics.

One of the very reasons why Punjab saw mass conversions (not of Rajputs), was because there didn't exist any Rajputs clans living in and ruling these areas continously. Lack of long standing chronological rule meant an absence of Imperial tradition as well. Punjab was ruled by Shahi ministers. Once they were wiped off, there was no centralized leadership to keep the flame on and like I said before there were no major resident Rajput clans to keep a decentralized yet driven resistance on either, as there was in Rajputana throughout.
The people who converted were the inhabitants of the Punjab Salt Range, the Potohar plateau's tribes like Gakkahrs, and Peshawar etc.
This started in Mahmud's reign. About his endeavors on conversion Al-Utbi writes boldly - “Islam or death was the alternative that Mahmud placed before the people.”
Many people kept toggling betwee their ancestral faith and Islam depending upon who reigns dominant in the region.
Even uptil Mahmud's reign, many Hindus of Punjab were still Hindus even when enrolled in the Ghaznavid army.
When Ghaznavids and Ghoris were written off, the Khwarzim turks (under Jelaluddin) running from Mongols came to Punjab and fought the local tribes again.
The Hindus of Punjab were draiend of all the resources by this time. They had been fighting under Shahis for decades and had no unity of command or resources after decimation of Shahis. They first submitted to Mahmud, then fought Ghoris.

So when Jelaluddin ran amock in Punjab, Gakkahrs this time made an alliance with the invaders and converted to Islam.
Mongols raids led to a great influx of Turk tribes into north India, shifting the power balance where the Turks could exert themselves better now. Getting respite from Mongols, the Turkish Delhi Sultans were able to convert many other tribes in Punjab so they would never again join hands with Khwarazims, Mongols or other such incoming raiders against delhi Turks.

After Jelaluddin, Timur's and Babar's campaigns also played their part in conversions in Punjab. Babur in his memoirs speaks of the Jats and Gujjars taking shelter in the hills of Rajput Kingdoms toward east and coming down to plunder whenever they saw a chance, before they were eventually converted. This raiding feat was repeated in same region later by Sikhs.
In India the foreign tribes practiced racism by refusing to inter-marry with the Punjabi converts, by not showing them equality in employment opportunities, and by not praying alongside them. The foreign classes were the Ashraf (nobility) while the local converts were called Ajlaf.
The only way for local converts to gain the respect of the foreign classes of muslims was by claiming foreign origin for their own clans. It thus became a fashion for every Indian convert to claim foreign origin such as from Sufi saint, Persian monarchs of the Prophet himself. Once British formally extinguished the last remnants of Mughals in 18th century and took Punjab from Sikhs, the Punjabi muslim converts began claiming descent from Rajputs because a) the latter were allies of British now and b) the latter had laready mark a mark in Indian history by their heroic record, nobility, long standing valor and resistance.

Later when came up the Muslim League, demand for Pakistan and colonial-martial theories on origins of northwest India's population; the Punjabis once again renewed their foreign origin claims.
In the end when Pakistanis were to employ in Oil rich middle eastern economies, this claim was further refined to "Arab descendents".

It is in Punjab and Sindh that the local Hindus had lost political and military power to resist foriegn rule at the earliest and to the fullest, in wider Indian history. Hence it is in Punjab and Sindh that we see the first and major cases of conversions.

As you rightly said in the beginning .. OT all this.

Regards,
Virendra

[Agnimitra]

Graphic Novel Urges Western Muslim Youth to Join Jabhat al-Nusra

In the annals of jihadi groups, the story is an old one: A disaffected Muslim youth returns to Islam, reconnects with his faith, finds himself outraged at the injustices done to his brothers abroad, and travels to a conflict zone to wage jihad. Think Afghanistan in the 1980s and early 2000s, Iraq under American occupation, and Syria today.

But when it comes to the propaganda campaigns that have drawn Muslim youths to these conflicts, here's something we haven't seen before: a graphic novel encouraging young Muslims in the West to take up jihad.

A video released by the online jihadi "Mustafa Hamdi" depicting one young man's journey to Syria does just that, serving up a mix of aspirational thinking and sense of belonging to entice Muslims to join with Jabhat al-Nusra, the al Qaeda affiliate fighting in Syria against the Syrian regime.

The story -- which was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute and is the first of seven parts -- centers on a young man named Mustafa who lives in an unnamed Western country and graduated high school four years ago, only to spend his days in his room playing video games. His father enters to tell Mustafa that he needs to make something of himself, reminding him that his brothers have entered respectable professions -- one a doctor, the other an engineer. "I'm very proud of you, and I want a good future for you," the father tells his son. "Don't disappoint me." Mustafa looks at the ground shamefully and despondently turns on the television.

Later, he meets his cousin, Marwan, a man dressed in traditional Muslim clothing. Marwan tells Mustafa that he is saddened that he hasn't seen him around the mosque recently and encourages him to come by more often. "I know that living in a foreign country has its difficulties, but we must not forget where we have come from," he says. "We lead comfortable lives here, but Muslims are dying every day all over the world, defending Islam and the Muslims."

"You know that my family is still in Syria, trapped between the fighters," Marwan tells Mustafa over sounds of gunfire. "They have witnessed many barbaric crimes and killings, which no man can bear to see. I pray to Allah the Almighty every day that they will keep in good health, and I hope you will join me in prayer in the mosque. Our faith and our honor are more important than any worldly matter."

Three months later, we return to Marwan and Mustafa, who has found Islam once more. "It was your stories of the killing and torture in Syria that had an impact on me," Mustafa tells his cousin. "I can hardly believe what is happening to my brothers in Syria. These people are fighting and dying for the sake of Allah, and there is no greater honor than that. Allah will hold the aggressors accountable on Judgment Day."

A man overhears Mustafa's conversation and interjects. "These words of yours are awesome, young man. You bring honor to your family and to Islam. But if you are ready to wage Jihad for the sake of Allah along with your brothers in Syria..."

Thus ends part one of "The Journey of a Mujahid with Jabhat Al-Nusra."

Here is the graphic novel in full:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTY9lr3u8GM

[KLNMurthy]

Its about entitlement and nothing to do with Islam. Hopefully Sanjay Dutt learns to read and write and get an education.

The zamindars of yore were proud that their munshi would write for them!

At least Sanjay Dutt deserves credit for accepting his punishment like a man(after duly exercising his right of appeal). It is more than can be said for Markandeya Katju, Shanti Bhushan and a host of others who were clamoring for Dutt's release on frivolous grounds.

[brihaspati]

The lack of imperium, of centralized control, lack of unity, - could be factors but does not explain everything. Even the supposed absence of Rajputs in the area appears to be not so easily confirmed.

Very similar situations, and so called frontier-uncertainty of "identity", or vulnerability to external aggression towards committed identities - did exist in previous phases too. For example, a very similar situation prevailed during the middle stages of the Cyrusian expansion that included Sindh as a satrapy (22nd?). Even if Cyrus is credited with having been "tolerant", not all his descendants had the same reputation. Moreover between him and Islamism - the roughly 1200 years did see many attempts to spread religions that were not "indigenous". The Magean version or other forms of Zoroastrianism - often shows violent intolerance and an imperial mindset in trying to impose their religion on "occupied" territories. From the various flavours of Greek, Kushan, Zoroastrian, Mani - attempts - this zone had been subject to constant such vulnerabilities. But it is interesting to see - that most didn't seem to stick.

However, the following factors must be considered:

(1) Kushan imposition of Buddhism - there are indications that "great personages" like nagarjuna were indeed allied with imperial forces to try and impose the religion in the zone. This led to conflict and resistance as a result of which Nagarjuna probably suffered. The story is spinned usually as sign of "Hindu" "fanaticism" against Buddhism. However archeological evidence do suggest the apparent success of this imperial effort in the modern AFPAK area - in turn indicating that on ground - "Hinduism" retreated before imperial patronage and possibly repression.

(2) similarly, the so-called Graeco-Bactrian kings had their own adaptations of prevalent Hindu and Buddhist beliefs, but they too were keen to put the Greek stamp on such beliefs and made sure that the resulting form remained as distinct as feasible from the indigenous previously existing ones.

(3) At the time of Muslim invasions in Sindh and Punjab, Sindh was split into two possibly hostile camps : the urban, rich, mercantile, foreign-trade related Buddhist elite and the rural, "shaiva" worshiping non-elite. It is claimed in Islamic narratives, which are cited as proof of "Buddhist" "mass-sympathy" for islam by the Thaparites [and possibly the reason they also rail against the translations of the same text as not being properly interpreted in context - and suggesting that it should be read onlee under guidance by the sole interpreters of correct history - since the actual texts clearly shows who and what these "Buddhist masses" were] - that they were engaged in subversion and in direct contact with the Caliphate power bases at Kufa and Gulf.

However in Punjab, there is the curious mention of the major power centre at Multan being "sun-worship". There are several sources which discuss this, and perhaps a great illustrator of islamic tactics of war - hence we have multiple sources giving the same version. The Multan "sun-worshipers" seem to have been the first and consistent-afterwards convertees - and remained so - like that of Makranis - as a pocket of Islamism even when the Ghaznavids rapidly dwindled before the Ghurids in the north and Hindus recovering from the south.

It is possible, that this "sun-cult" was a resultant compromise between the Graeco-Bactrian version of Mithraism and a genuine surya-upasak remnant of old -Vedic. That at least part of the Rajputs crossed "religious borders" or used prevalent religion for mobilization [even if their ancestral belief was more orthodox - this is a fdifferent direction I am hinting at from Thaparites who claim some of the rajputs were "externals" who converted into Hinduism, whereas I am suggesting a political use of adaptation and tolerance in line of Cyrus and Alexander of Kushans to gain local entry in Rajputs trying to expand from the east to the west] - is seen in the famous Rajput foundation story of the bro+sis born of sungod and the attendant "adityashila" story.

To an extent - these populations might have been subject to dependence on foreign trade, and thousands of years of learning tactical flexibility and looseness of values in ideological spheres - geared towards survival. Such systems would show extreme rigidity but equally dramatic paradigm shifts under coercion.

As far as linguistic records go - Punjab does not show any great Islamization until early 14th century. Then it was very rapid, within a couple of generations.

[Supratik]

X-post

While it is true that the region that is now Pak was under Muslim rule for a couple of centuries more than the rest of North India I don't think that explains the demography. Oppression of non-Muslims was no less severe in the rest of India than Punjab, Sindh or Kashmir. On the other hand there are historical records of Rajput clans voluntarily converting to Islam e.g. the Soomro and Samma Rajputs of Sindh who together ruled Sindh for several centuries. The Rajputs of present POK, salt ranges, Seraiki belt, and Sindh have largely converted to Islam along with other groups. Repression while true do not alone explain their conversion. I bring the Rajputs in becoz it has been observed in the medieval period that when the ruling classes convert the masses follow e.g. Iran, Indonesia, etc. There have to be other reasons.

[ramana]

Islamic Jihad: A Legacy of Forced Conversion, Imperialism, and Slavery by M. A. Khan
English | January 26, 2009 | ISBN: 1440118469 | 380 pages |

The attacks of September 11, 2001, changed the way the world looks at Islam. And rightfully so, according to M.A. Khan, a former Muslim who left the religion after realizing that it is based on forced conversion, imperialism, and slavery: the primary demands of Jihad, commanded by the Islamic God Allah.

In this groundbreaking book, Khan demonstrates that Prophet Muhammad meticulously followed these misguided principles and established the ideal template of Islamic Jihad for his future followers to pursue, and that Muslims have been perpetuating the cardinal principles of Jihad ever since.

Find out the true nature of Islam, particularly its doctrine of Jihad, and what it means to the modern world, and also learn about
- The core tenets of Islam and its history
- The propagation of Islam by force and other means
- Islamic propaganda
- Arab-Islamic imperialism
- Islamic slavery and slave-trade
- And much more!

The commands of Allah are perpetual in nature, so are the actions of Prophet Muhammad. Jihad has been the way to win converts to Islam since its birth fourteen centuries ago, and it won't change anytime soon. Find out why in Islamic Jihad.