Understanding Islamic Society

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JE Menon
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

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http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/5356.htm ... WxM.mailto

Egyptian German scholar Dr. Hamed Abdel Samad analyzes Islam's beginnings and the consequences on Muslims.
RajeshA
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

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Published on Apr 2, 2015
By Waseem Altaf
The Myth of Islamic Science: India Facts
Contribution of unorthodox thinkers

As we go through the life histories of these great men we find that they were influenced by Greek, Babylonian or Indian contributions to philosophy and science, had a critical and reasoning mind and were ‘not good’ Muslims or even atheists. A significant number of them were reluctant to even reveal the status of their beliefs for fear of reprisal from the fanatics. They never ascribed their achievements to Islam or divinity. And they were scholars and scientists because of a critical mind which would think and derive inspiration from observation and not scriptures which set restrictions on free thinking and unhindered pursuit of knowledge.

Hence bringing in Islam to highlight achievements of Muslim scientists is nothing but sheer rhetoric as these men did not derive their achievements out of Islam or flourished due to Islam. And we find that whatever little contribution to science was made can be owed to ‘imperfect Muslims’.
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

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Lilo
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by Lilo »

List of Killings Ordered or Supported by Muhammad

Islam is the religion of peace and its prophet is the messenger of peace.
habal
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by habal »

peoples need to watch this sweet clip
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

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http://www.indiatvnews.com/news/world-i ... fti-347059
Saudi Arabia's top cleric has said Iranians are "not Muslims", in response to rancorous remarks from Iran's supreme leader over last year's Hajj pilgrimage stampede.
Khamenei, in remarks published on his website Monday, said the "heartless and murderous Saudis locked up the injured with the dead in containers — instead of providing medical treatment and helping them or at least quenching their thirst. They murdered them."
In comments to the Makkah newspaper, the top Saudi cleric was quoted as saying that Khamenei's remarks are "not surprising" because Iranians are descendants of "Majuws"— a term that refers to Zoroastrians and those who worship fire. Zoroastrianism is a monotheistic religion predating Christianity and Islam and was the dominant religion in Persia before the Arab conquest.

"We must understand they are not Muslims, for they are the descendants of Majuws, and their enmity toward Muslims, especially the Sunnis, is very old," the Saudi cleric said.
Khamenei also blamed Saudi Arabia for an earlier crane collapse in Mecca that killed 111 people, and urged Muslims around the world to reconsider Saudi Arabia's custodianship and management of Islam's holiest sites in Mecca and Medina where the hajj is performed. He also said Saudi rulers promote sectarian strife and arm "wicked takfiri groups" — a reference to extremist Sunni militants who denounce other Muslims as heretics and non-believers.
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

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X-Post...
Prem wrote:http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-his ... mome_share
Archaeologists Discover that Earliest Known Arabic Writing Was Penned by a Christian
( The inscription look like Lande language)
The oldest known Arabic writing found in Saudi Arabia, from ca. 470 AD belong to a Christian context and predates the advent of Islam with 150 years.In December 2015, researchers from a French-Saudi expedition studying rock inscriptions in southern Saudi Arabia published a 100-page-long report in France’s Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres that reported that the oldest Arabic text, carved on a large rectangular stone that was found in Saudi Arabia, is simply of a name, “Thawban (son of) Malik,” decorated with a Christian cross. The same cross systematically appears on the other similar stelae dating more or less to the same period. The discovery is sensational since it shows that the origins of the Arabic alphabet used to write the Koran belongs to a Christian context. This pre-Islamic alphabet is also called Nabatean Arabic, because it evolved from the script used by the Nabateans, the once-powerful nation that built Petra and dominated the trade routes in the southern Levant and northern Arabia before being annexed by the Romans in the early 2nd century. The Muslim tradition preserved in the book of Koran portrays the pre-Islamic region as chaotic and filled with unrest that Mohammed manages to unify with the help of the powerful message of Islam. However, the Islamic text makes no mention of the numerous Christian and Jewish communities across the Saudi peninsula that flourished during the days of Mohammed. Recent studies of works by ancient Christians and Muslim records have re-shaped our image of the societies that existed in the region and shed new light on the complex history of the region before the advent of Islam. One of the important kingdoms in Arabia at the time was the Jewish kingdom of Dhamar-Ali Yahbur ( Dharmali Japur Himar)Himyar. The kingdom was founded in the 2nd century AD, and around 380 AD the elites of the kingdom of Himyar converted to some form of Judaism. By the 4th century,Himyar had become an important player in the struggle for regional power. The Kingdom of Himyar’s headquarters was situated in what is today Yemen, from where its expansionist rulers led a series of campaigns conquering into its neighboring states, including the legendary biblical kingdom of Sheba
.

Arab Muslims are Arab Christians.....
RajeshA
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by RajeshA »

Source: Tweet

Political Christianity is instrumentalized religion. Islam is political ideology masking as religion.

...........

That is why it was possible to secularize Christian countries, but is not possible to reform Islam.
Last edited by RajeshA on 28 Nov 2016 15:07, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by Philip »

There is a sinister op running at full speed in the US to try and overturn the Trump election victory with the Wis recounting scam.Every method to deny Trump the presidency is being examined. Decades of global-dominance policy of the US will be imperiled if Trump attains office,"breaks bread" with Russia,Cuba,and other so-called "enemies of the state",Iran being the exception perhaps. NATO will lose its relevance,less mil budgets sending the Mil-industry cartel into a tailspin.

Already ISIS is on the run in Syria,with the latest news from Aleppo,where the Syrian and Russian forces,backed by the Iranioan led Shiite militias,have broken the back of ISIS in Aleppo. Compare this with the US led battle for Mosul.You can clearly see whose tactics are working better! With Trump less willing to send US forces into "harm's way", there are going to be quite a few unhappy westerners on the planet,not to mention washington's closest cronies in the ME,the Soothi Barbarioans,etc. Trump may have won the election fair and square,but for vested US interests,including the Clintons who are now at grave risk of being exposed for their shady.covert dealings with dubious regimes,there are still many days before Inauguration.The Donald needs to watch his back.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11 ... n-support/
Donald Trump unleashes Twitter storm against Hillary Clinton's support for 'sad' election recount effort
The president-elect has accused Mrs Clinton of hypocrisy and called the recount push a "scam" CREDIT: SUSAN WALSH/AP
David Lawler
27 NOVEMBER 2016
Donald Trump, the US president-elect, unleashed a storm of angry tweets on Sunday after Hillary Clinton's campaign said it would join with Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, in trying to secure recounts in key states.

Mr Trump accused Mrs Clinton, his Democratic rival for the presidency, of hypocrisy and called the recount push a "scam".

Meanwhile, a senior Trump aide warned that Mr Trump had not ruled out launching a criminal probe into the former secretary of state over her email scandal.
l
Trump Might Not be a Gracious Loser After All

Wisconsin has already begun a recount and Pennsylvania and Michigan may soon follow after Dr Stein raised more than $6 million (£4.8 million) to fund the new tallies.

Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, is trying to secure recounts in key states CREDIT: GETTY
A small group of computer scientists and election lawyers sparked the efforts by claiming to have evidence that voting machines in the states could have been manipulated to help Mr Trump.

Mr Trump began the barrage on Saturday night, writing: "the Green Party scam to fill up their coffers by asking for impossible recounts is now being joined by the badly defeated and demoralised Dems".

Watch | Donald Trump's most outrageous quotes
02:25
Hours later, he added: "The Democrats, when they incorrectly thought they were going to win, asked that the election night tabulation be accepted. Not so anymore!"

He then issued a string of seven tweets over the course of an hour using Mrs Clinton's own words against her.

"Hillary Clinton conceded the election when she called me just prior to the victory speech and after the results were in. Nothing will change," he wrote.

Hillary Clinton conceded the election when she called me just prior to the victory speech and after the results were in. Nothing will change
5:49 PM - 27 Nov 2016

Trump is going to be our President. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead." So much time and money will be spent - same result! Sad
6:59 PM - 27 Nov 2016

Mr Trump then noted that his former rival had said, prior to election day, that it was "horrifying" that he would not promise to accept the election outcome.

Marc Elias, general counsel for the Clinton campaign, released a statement saying the campaign had "concerns" about the claims that the election may have been hacked and felt "an obligation" to supporters to pursue the recounts.

That decision was taken despite the White House saying the elections had been fair and the result was the "will of the American people".

Mrs Clinton won the popular vote by more than two million votes but the unexpected results in the three Midwestern states propelled Mr Trump to the White House.

Mrs Clinton won the popular vote by more than two million votes CREDIT: JOSHUA ROBERTS/REUTERS
Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to the president-elect, called Mrs Clinton's decision to join the recount push "incredible", noting that Mr Trump could still choose to push for another email investigation.

Mrs Conway told CNN: "He's been incredibly gracious and magnanimous to Secretary Clinton at a time when, for whatever reason, her folks are saying they will join in a recount to try to somehow undo the 70-plus electoral votes that he beat her by."

Watch | Donald Trump calls for unity after 'bruising' electoral campaign
00:53
She added: "The idea that we are going to drag this out now where the president-elect has been incredibly magnanimous to the Clintons and to the Obamas is pretty incredible."

Mrs Conway, who served as Mr Trump's campaign manager, also continued to snipe at Mitt Romney, who is being considered for secretary of state despite being one of the property billionaire's harshest critics during the campaign.

"It's just breathtaking in scope and intensity the type of messages I've received from all over the country," she said, 'the number of people who feel betrayed to think that Governor Romney would get the most prominent Cabinet post after he went so far out of his way to hurt Donald Trump."

Other members of Mr Trump's inner circle are backing Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, for secretary of state.

Mr Trump asked diners at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Thanksgiving whether they thought he should pick Mr Romney or Mr Giuliani, according to the New York Post.
ramana
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by ramana »

Philip, Why this OT post in this thread?
Rishi Verma
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by Rishi Verma »

Sharia Compliant to Hit Wife on Face

There are enough signs that Mohammedans are a race of Asuras or as Tulsidas calls them Jatudhan.

I hope the rumors are right that US / Israel is supporting ISIS to prop them up to fight the Iranian Shias.

The middle-Eastern World War of Shias vs Sunnis is a masterstroke whoever planned it.
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

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a piece on the honour shame culture of arabic nations
The term honor-shame designates cultures where the acquisition, maintenance, and restoration of public honor trump all other concerns. While everyone cares what others think and wants to save face even if it means lying, in honor-shame cultures, such concerns dominate public discourse: There is no price too high to pay—including one's life—to preserve honor. In such political cultures, public opinion accepts, expects, even requires that blood be shed for the sake of honor.[4] In such societies, when people voice public criticism of those in power—those with honor—they attack their very being; were the latter not to respond—preferably through violence—they would lose face. Authoritarian societies accordingly enable their alpha males to suppress violently those whose language offends them.
In self-help justice cultures, this insistence on honor can mean killing someone who killed a relative, and in Japanese culture, honor can mean killing oneself. However, in some honor cultures, this concern means killing a family member for the sake of the family's honor. And driving the performances, motivating the need to save face, and defining the ways to do so is "public judgment," whose verdict decides one's fate in the community. The Arabic term for gossip is kalam an-nas (talk of the people), which is often harsh in its judgment of others. Psychologist Talib Kafaji writes,Arab culture is a judgmental culture, and anything a person does is subject to judgment ... inducing many fears ... with serious consequences on individual lives. Avoiding such judgment can be the constant preoccupation of people, almost as if the entire culture is paralyzed by Kalam [an]-nas. In other words, all of the people in Arab society are hostages of each other.
Those just below continuously challenge those just above, and ascent comes through aggression.[9] You're not a man until you've killed another man. Taking from another—theft, plunder—is superior to producing. Rule or be ruled. One washes a blackened face in blood.
This honor-shame dynamic explains much of the Arab and Muslim hostility to Israel, as well as to the West. Israel, a state of free Jews (i.e., non-dhimmi infidels), living inside the historic Dar al-Islam (realm of submission), constitutes a living blasphemy; and Israel's ability to survive repeated Arab efforts to destroy it constitutes a permanent state of Arab shame before the entire global community.
As a "Palestinian," Said had lost face in this catastrophe, and his honor response was not a self-critical look at the Arab attitudes and actors that had contributed to both the unnecessary war and catastrophic defeat, but rather, anger at those who thought badly of Arabs and who claimed to hold the moral high ground. Accordingly, he showed no concern for whether or not the Palestinian cause, whose "wholehearted" support he endorsed and wished others to share, reflected (or disdained) the liberal values to which he appealed. For the honor driven, championing a side in a conflict is not about integrity or liberal values, but about honor, about how one looks, about "face."
Few debacles better illustrate the folly of ignoring honor-shame dynamics than the Oslo "peace process," which based its logic on the principle of an exchange of "land for peace": Israel cedes land to the Palestinians (most of the West Bank and Gaza) to create an independent state; the Palestinians bury the hatchet of war since they're getting what they allegedly want, without the need for war.After the ceremonious signing of the deal on the White House lawn, PLO chairman Arafat found himself the target of immense hostility from his Arab and Muslim honor-group for having brought shame upon himself, his people, upon all Arabs and all Muslims. When he arrived in Gaza in July 1994, Hamas denounced him roundly: "His visit is shameful and humiliating, as it occurs in the shadow of occupation and in the shadow of Arafat's humiliating submission before the enemy government and its will. It is impossible to present a defeat as victory."[34] Edward Said, proud member of the Palestinian National Council, the PLO's semi-parliament, echoed the language of Hamas: the compromises involved a humiliating and "degrading ... act of obeisance ... a capitulation" that produced a state of "supine abjectness ... submitting shamefully to Israel.
And yet Arafat used the same honor-shame language in Arabic, from the moment the accords were signed and the Nobel Prize granted.[36] Six months after returning from Tunisia in July 1994, to what had, as a result of the accords, become Palestinian-controlled territory, Arafat defended his policy to fellow Muslims in South Africa, not by speaking of the "peace of the brave,"[37] but rather by invoking Muhammad's Treaty of Hudaybiya, signed in weakness, broken in strength. To the extent that Arabs were sold on the Oslo process, it was as a Trojan horse, not as a (necessarily) humiliating concession; a plan for honorable war not for ignominious peace.[38] In cultures where, for honor's sake, "what was taken by force must be retaken by force," any negotiations are shameful and cowardly.[39]
[Barak's] words in the initial interview were unequivocal. "They are products of a culture in which to tell a lie ... creates no dissonance," he pronounced. "They don't suffer from the problem of telling lies that exists in Judeo-Christian culture. Truth is seen as irrelevant." And so on. But, plainly, factual accuracy and logical consistency are not what Morris and Barak are after. What matters is self-justification by someone who has chosen to make a career—and perhaps a comeback—through the vilification of an entire people.
. Misinformed by media reports in April 2002 of the Israel Defense Forces' supposed massacre in Jenin, Western protesters marched in the streets wearing mock suicide belts to show solidarity with Hamas "martyrs."[56] In the wake of the Lebanon war in 2006, scholars such as the pacifist Judith Butler welcomed Hamas and Hezbollah into the "global progressive left" as "comrades in the anti-imperialist struggle."[57] Thus did progressives, woefully uninformed, enthusiastically welcome a jihad that then struck at Israel, but now haunts the entire world, especially the Muslim world.
Almost everyone will agree that those jihadists who resort to the sword, such as al-Qaeda or ISIS (Islamic State), are not moderates. But what about those who stick to da'wa (summons to conversion), who work in nonviolent ways for the same ultimate goal of reestablishing the caliphate? When the Muslim Brotherhood's Yusuf Qaradawi says that the "United States and Europe will be conquered not by jihad, but by da'wa," does that make him a moderate?[59] What if the da'wa preacher is just playing the good cop to the jihadist bad cop? From the perspective of the millennial goal of a global caliphate, the difference between radical and "moderate" Islamists is less a matter of vision than timing, less a matter of differing goals than of differing tactics. Such connections, however, do not register on the radar screens of information professionals who observe Said's anti-Orientalist strictures. Rather they urge us to see the two as clearly distinct.[60]
Such an approach, however, falls into a classic jihadist trap. When da'wa proponents of caliphate denounce al-Qaeda or ISIS for their violence, insisting that these jihadists have nothing to do with Islam, they do so as a deceptive cognitive war tactic. They know full well that the Islam they embrace is a religion of conquest.[61] They just do not want the Western "infidels," their sworn enemies and targets, to acknowledge that implacable, imperialist hostility, at least as long as global jihad is militarily weak. Rather they want Western policymakers to renounce "Islamophobic" talk of world domination and, instead, appease Muslim grievances.[62]
ramana
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by ramana »

Ricky_v, where is that from? Would like to read the whole thing!

X-post..
Y. Kanan wrote:
Singha wrote:number of foreign fighters in ISIS Iraq was 16,000 per recovered documents.
many came with wives and kids.

https://twitter.com/EjmAlrai/status/821635594795282432

a true movement, to be able to attract so many people.
ISIS has captured the hearts and minds of the Islamic world like no other movement before them. They tapped into something that lurks within the soul of every Muslim, everywhere. ISIS won't be the last Islamic movement to do this; they are a preview of what's to come.

Anywhere there are muslims, the ISIS-style phenomenon will resurface, again and again
.
ramana
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by ramana »

X-Post...
ricky_v wrote:
Bart S wrote:
Saar it was the other way round. Just when the Arabs had a shot of modernizing the hindustani muslims from Deoband and similar areas started out what would eventually lead to Wahabi-ism and general Salafism. It is these extremist retards, with some opportunists and others just caught up in the mess, who founded Pakistan.

So Pakis were always Pakis, except that unlike the Arab Salafis they don't even have a real heritage or culture (that they can own up to anyway). Everything from their claimed ancestry to their heroes after whom they name their missiles are neither culturally nor geographically theirs, so they are stuck in the state of being perpetual hangers-on.
no saar for me saar. so it was actually the forerunners of munna who gave the final outlook of abba. i was wondering why the urdu culture not revert / morph back to the persian culture with sunni views.
Bart S is right wrt Saudi Barbarians. Indian Sunnis pushed for Wahabandi as a reaction to Turkic Sufi Islam after Mughal aka Chagatai Turks decline. So you see Indian Muslims reverted to Salafi Islam after Sufi decline due to Mughal loss of power.

The British encouraged establishment of Deobandi madrassa as a hedge against a revival of Persian Empire foray. Recall Nadir Shah had invaded successfully only a hundred twenty years before and Ahmed Shah Abdali about 90 years. Simultaneously they stopped Persian as court language and adopted Urdu for Muslims.

Bilkees Latif (Ali Yavar Jung' daughter and wife of ACM I.H. Latif) writes in "Fragrance of Forgotten Years ..." that Urdu is a camp language in Deccan of the Bahmani Sultanate soldiers who were from Turks. Its an admixture of Turkish, Telugus, Kannada words. When the Nizam Asaf Jah, moved to Deccan Persian words were added to this and when he moved back to Delhi as the Wazir e- Alam to the Mughal Sultan he brought back his entourage many of whom settled in Delhi. All this is relatively recent. About 300 years from today. 1716 or so...

This new Indianised Turkish became Urdu and the lingua franca of the Indian Muslim. This is the glue of the Gunga-Jamuna Tehzeeb. It came from Deccan!!!! By the way, the largest collection of Qawallis was composed by Quli Qutub Shah of Golconda and not by any Delhi poet or ruler.
On our trip to Istanbul, I could understand many of their words as they wrote in Roman/Latin script.

So why will Urdu revert to Persian?
Also, Urdu was popularized by Sunnis while Persian by Shias. Humayun and his descendants continued to make it court language

My suggestion is to require Urdu in India to be written in the Devnagari script.
Cut it off from Arab script.
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by ricky_v »

thank you for the answer ramanna sir.
Here is the link to you asked abouthttp://www.meforum.org/6400/celebrating-orientalism
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by wig »

In iran religious minorities are not granted admission to institutes of higher education. Minorities are routinely mistreated. There should be no illusions about they being civilized

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38656871

Studying at the Bahai secret university
The largest non-Muslim minority in Iran, the Bahais, are persecuted in many ways - one being that they are forbidden from attending university. Some study in secret, but for those who want to do a postgraduate degree the only solution is to leave their country and study abroad.
"I remember my father showing me the scars he had on his head from when he used to be beaten up by the children of his town on his way to school," says Shirin. "So, of course, I didn't tell my father that I was experiencing the same when I was growing up in Iran in the 1980s. I knew he prayed and hoped that the world would get better."
In fact, persecution of the Bahais only increased following the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
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And when Shirin's son, Khosru, started going to school, she had to hide more bad news from her father.
The kids wouldn't touch me, and if I were to touch them they'd go and take a shower
Khosru, Bahai man on his school days
"I did not tell him that the children of the children of the children who left him scarred, are now calling my son untouchable," she says.

When, in the eighth grade, Khosru told the other children he was Bahai they dropped him like a stone.
"The kids wouldn't touch me," he says, "and if I were to touch them, they'd go and take a shower."
Since the creation of the Bahai faith in the mid-19th Century, the Iranian Shia establishment has called them "a deviant sect", principally because they reject the Muslim belief that Mohammed was the last prophet.
On official websites they are described as apostates, and as "unclean".
But it is when a student has finished school that the problems really begin.
As a Bahai, Shirin was told she could not enter university.Her only option was to secretly attend the Bahais' own clandestine university - the Bahai Institute for Higher Education (BIHE), set up in the mid-1980s by Bahai teachers and students who had been thrown out of Iranian universities after the revolution.
Universities are open to young women in Iran, but not if they are Bahai
Shirin enrolled in 1994. At that time, only two BA courses were available -in Science or Religious Studies - so she decided to study comparative religion.
Lectures took place in improvised classrooms in private homes all around Tehran. It took six years to complete her course, and it was then that she hit an impenetrable wall. There was no scope to do an MA or a PhD, and there was no scope for employment where her skills could be used.
I wrote that, I was not Muslim... They said, 'Good luck, you can't enter university'

Soon afterwards, a wave of crackdowns on the Bahai intelligentsia began, with raids on clandestine classrooms and the arrest of many BIHE teachers. Shirin saw her world was closing in on her. So when she heard about a domestic worker's visa scheme in the UK, she jumped at it.
"I applied straight away without wasting time, it didn't matter what the visa was called. I had to leave," she says.
Shirin arrived in the UK in 2003 and combined her domestic work with an evening job at an Italian restaurant in Scarborough. But she never forgot what she came to do, what she must achieve.
On a dark and smoggy English morning, she boldly walked through the doors of Birmingham University, and announced that she had a degree in religion from an underground university in Tehran.
To her great surprise, a week later, she was summoned back and was offered a place.

"It was more than a miracle - it was beyond expectation, beyond my wildest dream," she says. "Till today, I feel it was the best reward I received for never compromising my faith."
Shirin finished her degree in 2006 and left the UK to join her brother in the US, where many of her family, friends and co-religionists have, over the years, found sanctuary from persecution.
But soon another crackdown against the Bahais began, at home in Iran.
In 2008, seven members of the Bahai administrative body, Yaran, were arrested and charged with among other things, spying for Israel. After a trial in a Revolutionary Court in 2010, they were sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.
At this time another young Bahai woman, Mona, was applying to university in Tehran. The motivation for the students is like a person in the desert without water Prof Thane Terril, Trainer of Bahai teachers "I took an entrance exam at the University of Tehran - they were supposed to send a card saying how and where you should register if you were accepted, and you must write your religion on the card," she says.
"I wrote that I was not Muslim. There was an option that said 'other', and I ticked that box. There was no option for Bahai.
"When they sent back the card, they said, 'OK, you may register,' and in the place of religion, they wrote, Islam."
"In my belief, you're not supposed to lie about your faith even when facing death. So I wrote back, I was not Muslim. They said, 'Good luck, you can't enter university.'"

Like Shirin, Mona had only one option - the clandestine university, and it was an unforgettable experience.
"I remember the faces of all my friends who were coming from other cities in Iran, from far away," she says. "It took them maybe 16 - 20 hours to get to Tehran. Their faces looked so tired.
"It was really hard. We had one class from 08:00 to 12:00 in the east of Tehran, and the second class from 14:00 to 18:00 on the west side - it was exhausting! Sometimes we didn't have physical teachers, we had them over Skype, who were teaching us from the US, Canada."
After she graduated, she faced the same difficulties Shirin had experienced a decade earlier - and opted for a similar solution.
In 2009, she escaped to New York, via Austria, under an international religious refugee repatriation programme.
When I met her recently in Joe's Coffee, a lively meeting place for students and teachers at Columbia University, she had just completed her MA in Psychology. She was over the moon.
"It feels amazing, I can't believe it's all done and I'll even have a graduation! When I graduated from the BIHE, they arrested all my teachers, Bahai teachers. And we never had a graduation day."
The US is home to one of the largest Bahai populations in the world, their presence dating back at least to 1912, when Abdul Baha, the son of the faith's founder, Baha'u'llah, spent 11 months in the country, promoting the religion.
The BIHE degrees are accepted by most US universities - as Mona's was at Columbia University - and many BIHE volunteers are based in the US.
"Students and instructors in Iran can end up in jail just for being students and instructors. So they are not only doing something that is hard for them to do, but dangerous to do," says Prof Thane Terril, a convert to the Bahai faith who now runs online teacher training courses for post-graduate students.
"The motivation for the students is like a person in the desert without water."
Sipping coffee in the café of the former hotel, Ansonia, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where Abdul Baha once stayed, Shirin says that she could never understand what the regime has against the Bahais.
"Abdul Baha emphasised that the East and West must meet," she says. "I think the collective approach to life is what we think of as being the oriental or Eastern culture, and the individualist approach to life is considered to be Western. And when the two merge, you have a very beautiful culture."
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by Singha »

to amend what TSJ famously said once - Islamists of all stripes are very tough on minorities and 'the other'

one should have no illusions. the deccani sultanates and their razakar legions were persian shia origin for example.
Paul
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by Paul »

Turkomen....
ramana
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by ramana »

Interesting article.
Faced with a relentless foe, US is looking back to its "roots' to understand the foe in the only terms they know as modern analogies don't fit.
In the process the author upends the Mediterranean civilizational myth of the US which is based on two sets of dualities:

- Greco-Roman for society and political construct and

- Judeo-Christian for religious construct.

The author suggest that the US is really closer to the Trojans than the Greeks.

And gives good examples to support his argument.

The real reason is the US is a settled civilization battling an intractable nomadic foe in radical Islam not just Islamic State.
Once West was also nomadic and identified with Greco-Roman civilizations!!!!

Also the bigger problem is radical Islam claims to be the real inheritor of unreformed Judeo-Christian ethos.


If we agree that civilizational models change with the status of the civilizations, then lets examine why Troy fell.

- First flaw was to fight a defensive-defense. They should have prepared to sail to the Greek Islands and fight the Greeks there instead of letting them come ashore and camp outside Troy. This might not be so fatal were it not for the second flaw.

- Falling for Odysseus ploy of the wooden horse to allow the Greeks to breach the fortress walls of Troy.

Here I have problems with Obama Admin that allowed Islamic State ideology to take root inside US and allowed two mass casualty attacks in San Bernardino and Orlando. Further Obama was adamant in taking in more refugees from conflict zones who have potential to be radical. Wiki leaks show the agenda from day one in 2009 was to appoint Muslims in places of authority in US administration and soft pedal terrorist sponsoring states. Both the two attacks were from people with origins in Af-Pak.

This is the Wooden Horse analogy.
Austin
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by Austin »

shaun
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by shaun »

^^^ some one rightly said What is a 'peaceful muslim'?

Is it a muslim that only hopes the devout muslim beheads you instead of having to do it for themselves?

Or, are they muslim's that will behead you, but only if you are alone and they are many?"
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by TSJones »

israeli police arrest suspect in threats made against American jewish centers.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israe ... sh-n737581
Rishi Verma
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by Rishi Verma »

I say what's the need to understand Islamic society now -it only corrupts our minds. Allow the US and the Russians to arm dem Sunnis and Shias respectively, they happily kill each others in the name of Allah - that's the big game plan.

I will be glad to understand the Islamic Society after they are completely wiped out. I love the NGS series on the Pharaoh.
ramana
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by ramana »

Rishi Verma wrote:I say what's the need to understand Islamic society now -it only corrupts our minds. Allow the US and the Russians to arm dem Sunnis and Shias respectively, they happily kill each others in the name of Allah - that's the big game plan.

I will be glad to understand the Islamic Society after they are completely wiped out. I love the NGS series on the Pharaoh.

Tell us what you loved about the Pharaoh series?

Reason I asked is they are a precursor to the scourge of Islam.
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by Rishi Verma »

ramana wrote:
Rishi Verma wrote:I say what's the need to understand Islamic society now -it only corrupts our minds. Allow the US and the Russians to arm dem Sunnis and Shias respectively, they happily kill each others in the name of Allah - that's the big game plan.

I will be glad to understand the Islamic Society after they are completely wiped out. I love the NGS series on the Pharaoh.

Tell us what you loved about the Pharaoh series?

Reason I asked is they are a precursor to the scourge of Islam.


my interest initially was of engineering feats of the Pharoahs, their architecture, astronomy, and use of astronomy for astrology. But also in their rapid collapse, and how such rapid collapse can be brought to Islam.

In my humble opinion the reason the Egyptian Pharoahs empire collapsed is mainly due to Pharoahs arrogance keeping them militarily inferior compared with others who they fought with (and lost), such as Hittites (turkey), Greeks, Romans, Nubians, Persians. The arrogance perhaps came from their feeling of religious superiority.

Some similarities with muslim arabs who are militarily inferior but consider themselves religiously superior. Islam is under attack by the "Starbucks Empire" (age of information, ideas, advertisements) and Islam is losing but in their last gasps resorting to throat slitting, ieds, etc. but collapse they will and must.

Only wildcard is nuclear weapons, wild because it can make Islamic collapse instantaneous or it can result in a wider war.

One thing for sure, earth must be rid of Islam.

PS, I don't know why you feel Pharoahs were a pre-cursor to the scourge of Islam because in the time-line there is a wide gap between the collapse of Pharoahs and the birth of Islam.
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by ramana »

Moses/Judaism->Jesus/Christianity->Muhammad/Islam.
SujoyB
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by SujoyB »

RajeshA wrote:lakshmikanth ji,

there can be another reason why the new converts are, as you say, mentally unfit people. It is also because they are specifically targeted for conversion.

In USA as far as I know, the biggest conversions are taking place among the prison population. Prison people are often people who can show "initiative", "bravery", and the willingness for violence. Something which may be in the interests of the converters.
Heard first hand from someone who has spent time in british jails.....lot of conversion is jails is due to food.........moslems get halal food in jails which is much better than normal food provided to others......
ramana
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by ramana »

London School of Economics has an article on the Muslim diaspora in the West.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epd ... nana.12691
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by Rudradev »

Ed Husain is the author of "Among the Mosques", a recent book about the nature of Muslim societies in the UK.

Here he is being interviewed about the UK's alleged 'no-go areas,' reported by the Daily Mail, using his book as evidence, as well as integration and secularism. The writer argued that if extremists don't align themselves with Britain's liberal values, Muslims he believes reject 'Britishness,' then they should live elsewhere.

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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by Cyrano »

This has it all...

ramana
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by ramana »

Nupur Sharma episode has shown the weakness of Islamic society is Muhammad's personal life as documented in Koran and Hadiths.
Muslims traditional or modern cant stand that being exposed.
Hence these riots.
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by Cyrano »

Not just one person's personal life, from philosophical, epistemological, metaphysical, scientific, historical accuracy, literary authenticity, originality, psychological, rational, imaginative... - practically ANY point of view it's a hollow absurdity.

That's why the book has been proclaimed unquestionable and beyond any debate, and anyone who dares to question it must be killed, anyone who leaves the dark dungeon dreary existance it manifests is declared an apostate and must be killed too.
It's thrives only because of the ignorance of its followers and non believers as to its true nature.
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by ramana »

However Nupur Sharma quoted the book only. And it triggered this outrage.
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by Cyrano »

Just like their god is formless and faceless, the book, especially for outsiders, is maintained strictly opaque.
This helps hide the monstrosities in it, add whatever justifications one wants to include into it and claim divine sanction for their exploitative practices, and release half phrases like "infidels must be treated with respect" as proof of tolerance while leaving out "as long as they submit to your authority and grovellingly pay a tax".

Ever wondered why the Bible is translated into every language but not the skyfallen book? Why it's not made more accessible even their own ilk? Why its entire chapters are learnt by heart in an alien tongue but not even a handful are taken for deeper analysis to promote understanding of the meaning?

Because the aim is to make the faithful obey the purveyors unquestioningly, convince their own womenfolk that they are but cattle in human form, and subjugate the infidel using brutality and terror, mostly in that order.

NS actually broke an invisible taboo by quoting specific texts that are "for men only" which could trigger reflection amongst their womenfolk, and spur other outsiders to look closer. Toba toba on anyone who looks under the hood.

But this is nothing new and they have a hundred different ways to deny, deflect, reflect or attack and destroy the inquirer to get rid of the inquiry, practiced since fourteen centuries or so...
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by KLNMurthy »

@cyrano

Skyfallen book is available in many English translations. I believe also in other languages. But supposedly only the Arabic one is truly holy & authentic.
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by Cyrano »

Yes it is, but the proselytisation approach is very different. The book is shrouded in divine beyond reach ism and translations are not relied upon to perpetuate faith. This is a deliberate ploy to blame horripilant stuff curious newcomers are bound to discover on some mistranslation and establish the primacy of the cleric who becomes the interpreter, guide and finally master controller.

It's not an individualistic spiritual pursuit in search of enlightenment but an indoctrination of absolute certitudes that need no basis in reality, that are force fed until mass lobotomisation and reprogramming is achieved and the such zombies are put in service of a socio-political enterprise that only seeks ruthless dominance and exclusive hedonistic exploitation of others. Does that sentence make sense? Yeah I think it does!
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by saip »

Understanding Islamic Society? I have given up trying to. It is always been my way or high way. The insult ALL religions but no one may say anything about theirs (even quote a hadith if they do not like it).
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by sanjaykumar »

It only emphasises their fragility. There will be an accelerating involution of religion in these lands.

They have the example of Western Europe. Also secularisation of the Jews.

India is playing a role. Much as American film is a major instrument of soft power, arabs may be found questioning whether some plot devices in Hindi films are shirk. How would they know unless the are avid consumers. Celluloid dreams from an open and creative society are insidious. Some have called Indian talent in music a gift of god.

Arabs and iranis are above subsistence living of the type found in Pakistan and Bangladesh or Afghanistan. They are somewhat better educated.


It’s a potent mix.
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Re: Understanding Islamic Society

Post by SSridhar »

KLNMurthy wrote:@cyrano

Skyfallen book is available in many English translations. I believe also in other languages. But supposedly only the Arabic one is truly holy & authentic.
Which Arabic is the question.
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