in afghanistan, generations of islamic nuts had already demolished whatever was left of the past and bamiyan by virtue of its sheer size had something left. Taliban RDX took care of that.
in contrast Iran and Iraq had more organized govts and a good number of ancient cities and museums must have kept priceless artifacts of the past dating back to one of earliest cradles of agricultural civilization in the tigris-euphrates valley. some were stolen or destroyed during the wars there but whatever remains would still be a priceless trove they are now demolishing.
all is peace and clean slate in Islam - after everything older is burnt and demolished and anyone who opposes is killed.
perpetual war in search for the myth of perpetual peace.
Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-2014)
Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-2014)
Looking within
There is a heated debate about the role of Islam in jihadism. Will it make a difference?
WESTERN leaders have long urged Muslims to do more to counter jihadist ideology. This month Barack Obama said moderate Muslims, including scholars and clerics, had a responsibility to reject “twisted interpretations of Islam” and the lie “that America and the West are somehow at war with Islam”. On February 23rd Tony Abbott, Australia’s prime minister, urged Muslim leaders to say that Islam is a religion of peace — “and mean it”.
Muslims have not taken kindly to such hectoring. Yet they are starting to debate the role that Islamist ideology plays in extremism. On February 22nd Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Egypt’s al-Azhar mosque, part of a university that is the Sunni world’s oldest seat of learning, declared that extremism was caused by “bad interpretations of the Koran and the Sunna [the doings of the Prophet Muhammad]”, and that what was taught in Islamic schools and universities needed to change.
The doctrines of jihad and takfir are central to the debate. Extremists interpret jihad as mandating offensive holy war, though they may disagree about when and against whom it should be waged. The evidence from the hadith (the Prophet’s sayings) and renowned scholars that Islam is a religion of the sword is “so profuse that only a heretic would argue otherwise”, claims the most recent issue of Dabiq, the magazine of Islamic State (IS). Extremists differ, too, about takfir, the process whereby Muslims declare other Muslims to be apostates or unbelievers, for which the penalty is death. Al-Qaeda applies the doctrine with some limits to avoid alienating Muslims from its cause; IS invokes takfir wholesale, especially against Shias, perhaps in the belief that cinematic gore is the stronger lure.
Mainstream clerics are trying to rebut such views. “Jihad does not mean holy war but striving to achieve peace and anything good in obedience to Allah,” says Dauda Bello, an imam from Nigeria’s north-eastern region, where Boko Haram, an Islamist insurgent group, rampages. Last year 120 Muslim scholars wrote to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, IS’s leader, saying that he had misconstrued Islam by ignoring the context of the Koran, classical teaching and the current era. Takfir, they said, can only be pronounced on those who have openly professed unbelief. It is properly carried out only by ulema (a group of recognised experts in sacred law and theology), which will first offer the opportunity to repent. To prove the point, al-Azhar will not call IS non-Muslims.
The authority of al-Azhar, Tunisia’s Zitouna mosque and Saudi Arabia’s University of Medina rests on their long histories and tradition of scholarship. The approach of al-Azhar, which was founded in 970 and led the integration of Islamic and secular subjects, is “based on teachings which the Muslim umma [community] has approved over thousands of years”, says Muhammad Mehanna, an adviser to Mr Tayeb.
But Sunni Islam, unlike the Shia form, has no pre-eminent doctrinal authority, nor, since Ataturk ended the already weakened caliphate in 1922, anything resembling a single leader. This makes it harder to hold the line against extremists. Four schools of sharia law and thousands of hadith allow much room for interpretation. Both IS and Boko Haram argue from primary sources and ancient scholars. Supporters of IS point out that their leader has a PhD in Islamic studies from Baghdad University and claims to be of noble and learned stock.
Governments in the Middle East are trying to counter such new claims of authority by imposing their own versions of Islam. Last year Egypt sacked 12,000 preachers and replaced them with al-Azhar graduates, who must preach on government-approved themes. Saudi Arabia, which itself espouses a puritanical form of Islam, has long co-opted clerics with cash and is adding CCTV in mosques (ostensibly to prevent theft). Overhauling religious education in schools is being discussed, too. In 2012 the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank in Washington, DC, found that Egyptian textbooks embraced jihad against both infidels and enemy countries. Callers to a recent radio show about radicalisation on FM Masr, an Egyptian station, said such books needed to be rewritten. In Nigeria imams are setting up schools that combine secular and Islamic education, since teachers in traditional religious schools are often low-level imams barely out of their teens.
Complicating attempts to shore up traditional sources of authority is the fact that the establishment is precisely what many extremists reject. Salafists (devout Muslims who seek to emulate the times of the Prophet), both of the quietist and the violently jihadist sort, see much of the centuries-old tradition of Islamic jurisprudence as distorting the true religion. When denounced by the emir of Kano, a former central banker who is now Nigeria’s second-most-important Muslim leader, Boko Haram retorted: “We do not practise the religion of Lamido Sanusi…but the religion of Allah.”
And Muslim-majority populations that have risen up against dictators are less willing to trust religious authorities—especially those they regard as captured by political or government interests. Egypt’s government appoints the head of al-Azhar. Members of Dar al-Ifta, Lebanon’s official body for teachings and fatwas (rulings on Islamic law), come from its two main political groupings. Middle Eastern rulers have a history of alternately backing religious groups and denouncing them as terrorists for short-term political gain.
The internet, social media and improving literacy in the region make other sources easier to find. “I think about religion myself by searching and seeing the different opinions,” says Muhammad Gamal, a chemistry teacher at Cairo University. Alternatives are often better packaged and more appealing to young people, too. A region-wide joke says that Mr Baghdadi, in his 30s, is the youngest person to head an Arab organisation.
“You see ISIS videos, all slick Hollywood style, and what a stark contrast with the turbans and robes of the sheikhs of Al-Azhar,” says Raphaël Lefèvre, a French scholar who studies Lebanon’s Sunnis. “Radical groups seem closer to the people. Institutions are seen as bourgeois, stuffy and speaking a language people don’t understand.” Some Muslim scholars compare the appeal of jihadism to that of fundamentalist Christianity: the message is clear and certain.
Firm government action against those who preach violence is probably worthwhile. And traditional centres of Islamic authority could surely do more to explain their interpretations of Islam, and in more appealing ways. But the result of the debate within Islam about the roots of extremism may not be entirely to the taste of liberal Muslims—or Western politicians.
Imposing state-sanctioned creeds has in the past pushed jihadists underground. And these versions of Islam are by no means sure to be more liberal: the Saudi regime uses harsh sharia punishments such as beheading and last year al-Azhar launched a campaign to rid Egypt of unbelief after a survey claimed the country held precisely 866 atheists. But the alternative, attempting to promote liberal doctrines in a free market of religious ideas, has dangers, too. Georges Fahmi, an Egyptian scholar, detects a conservative mood among Muslims: “What is shocking is how many people support IS’s actions even if they would not do them themselves.”
Cheers
There is a heated debate about the role of Islam in jihadism. Will it make a difference?
WESTERN leaders have long urged Muslims to do more to counter jihadist ideology. This month Barack Obama said moderate Muslims, including scholars and clerics, had a responsibility to reject “twisted interpretations of Islam” and the lie “that America and the West are somehow at war with Islam”. On February 23rd Tony Abbott, Australia’s prime minister, urged Muslim leaders to say that Islam is a religion of peace — “and mean it”.
Muslims have not taken kindly to such hectoring. Yet they are starting to debate the role that Islamist ideology plays in extremism. On February 22nd Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Egypt’s al-Azhar mosque, part of a university that is the Sunni world’s oldest seat of learning, declared that extremism was caused by “bad interpretations of the Koran and the Sunna [the doings of the Prophet Muhammad]”, and that what was taught in Islamic schools and universities needed to change.
The doctrines of jihad and takfir are central to the debate. Extremists interpret jihad as mandating offensive holy war, though they may disagree about when and against whom it should be waged. The evidence from the hadith (the Prophet’s sayings) and renowned scholars that Islam is a religion of the sword is “so profuse that only a heretic would argue otherwise”, claims the most recent issue of Dabiq, the magazine of Islamic State (IS). Extremists differ, too, about takfir, the process whereby Muslims declare other Muslims to be apostates or unbelievers, for which the penalty is death. Al-Qaeda applies the doctrine with some limits to avoid alienating Muslims from its cause; IS invokes takfir wholesale, especially against Shias, perhaps in the belief that cinematic gore is the stronger lure.
Mainstream clerics are trying to rebut such views. “Jihad does not mean holy war but striving to achieve peace and anything good in obedience to Allah,” says Dauda Bello, an imam from Nigeria’s north-eastern region, where Boko Haram, an Islamist insurgent group, rampages. Last year 120 Muslim scholars wrote to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, IS’s leader, saying that he had misconstrued Islam by ignoring the context of the Koran, classical teaching and the current era. Takfir, they said, can only be pronounced on those who have openly professed unbelief. It is properly carried out only by ulema (a group of recognised experts in sacred law and theology), which will first offer the opportunity to repent. To prove the point, al-Azhar will not call IS non-Muslims.
The authority of al-Azhar, Tunisia’s Zitouna mosque and Saudi Arabia’s University of Medina rests on their long histories and tradition of scholarship. The approach of al-Azhar, which was founded in 970 and led the integration of Islamic and secular subjects, is “based on teachings which the Muslim umma [community] has approved over thousands of years”, says Muhammad Mehanna, an adviser to Mr Tayeb.
But Sunni Islam, unlike the Shia form, has no pre-eminent doctrinal authority, nor, since Ataturk ended the already weakened caliphate in 1922, anything resembling a single leader. This makes it harder to hold the line against extremists. Four schools of sharia law and thousands of hadith allow much room for interpretation. Both IS and Boko Haram argue from primary sources and ancient scholars. Supporters of IS point out that their leader has a PhD in Islamic studies from Baghdad University and claims to be of noble and learned stock.
Governments in the Middle East are trying to counter such new claims of authority by imposing their own versions of Islam. Last year Egypt sacked 12,000 preachers and replaced them with al-Azhar graduates, who must preach on government-approved themes. Saudi Arabia, which itself espouses a puritanical form of Islam, has long co-opted clerics with cash and is adding CCTV in mosques (ostensibly to prevent theft). Overhauling religious education in schools is being discussed, too. In 2012 the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank in Washington, DC, found that Egyptian textbooks embraced jihad against both infidels and enemy countries. Callers to a recent radio show about radicalisation on FM Masr, an Egyptian station, said such books needed to be rewritten. In Nigeria imams are setting up schools that combine secular and Islamic education, since teachers in traditional religious schools are often low-level imams barely out of their teens.
Complicating attempts to shore up traditional sources of authority is the fact that the establishment is precisely what many extremists reject. Salafists (devout Muslims who seek to emulate the times of the Prophet), both of the quietist and the violently jihadist sort, see much of the centuries-old tradition of Islamic jurisprudence as distorting the true religion. When denounced by the emir of Kano, a former central banker who is now Nigeria’s second-most-important Muslim leader, Boko Haram retorted: “We do not practise the religion of Lamido Sanusi…but the religion of Allah.”
And Muslim-majority populations that have risen up against dictators are less willing to trust religious authorities—especially those they regard as captured by political or government interests. Egypt’s government appoints the head of al-Azhar. Members of Dar al-Ifta, Lebanon’s official body for teachings and fatwas (rulings on Islamic law), come from its two main political groupings. Middle Eastern rulers have a history of alternately backing religious groups and denouncing them as terrorists for short-term political gain.
The internet, social media and improving literacy in the region make other sources easier to find. “I think about religion myself by searching and seeing the different opinions,” says Muhammad Gamal, a chemistry teacher at Cairo University. Alternatives are often better packaged and more appealing to young people, too. A region-wide joke says that Mr Baghdadi, in his 30s, is the youngest person to head an Arab organisation.
“You see ISIS videos, all slick Hollywood style, and what a stark contrast with the turbans and robes of the sheikhs of Al-Azhar,” says Raphaël Lefèvre, a French scholar who studies Lebanon’s Sunnis. “Radical groups seem closer to the people. Institutions are seen as bourgeois, stuffy and speaking a language people don’t understand.” Some Muslim scholars compare the appeal of jihadism to that of fundamentalist Christianity: the message is clear and certain.
Firm government action against those who preach violence is probably worthwhile. And traditional centres of Islamic authority could surely do more to explain their interpretations of Islam, and in more appealing ways. But the result of the debate within Islam about the roots of extremism may not be entirely to the taste of liberal Muslims—or Western politicians.
Imposing state-sanctioned creeds has in the past pushed jihadists underground. And these versions of Islam are by no means sure to be more liberal: the Saudi regime uses harsh sharia punishments such as beheading and last year al-Azhar launched a campaign to rid Egypt of unbelief after a survey claimed the country held precisely 866 atheists. But the alternative, attempting to promote liberal doctrines in a free market of religious ideas, has dangers, too. Georges Fahmi, an Egyptian scholar, detects a conservative mood among Muslims: “What is shocking is how many people support IS’s actions even if they would not do them themselves.”
Cheers
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
That little child can and probably will grow up to be a carbon copy of those holding the guns if they raise the kid in their mold. Religious brainwashing is a wonderful gift that keeps on giving.
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
Breitbart, citing a Feb. 2015 BBC poll, reports that a shockingly high percentage of Mohammaddens in the UK, 27%, sympathize with the Charlie Hebdo magazine slaughter.
Breitbart article then goes on to point out how sections of the UK media such as the BBC and The Guardian are providing a burqua / burka for the widespread support of Mohammadden religion inspired slaughter among adherents of Mohammaddenism by claiming only a minority of Mohammaddens are sympathetic to this slaughter:
Poll: 27% of UK Muslims Sympathize with Charlie Hebdo, Paris Deli Jihad Murders
Key Findings of the BBC Poll (URL Here : BBC Radio 4 Today Muslim Poll):
Muslim Poll Final Tables
Breitbart article then goes on to point out how sections of the UK media such as the BBC and The Guardian are providing a burqua / burka for the widespread support of Mohammadden religion inspired slaughter among adherents of Mohammaddenism by claiming only a minority of Mohammaddens are sympathetic to this slaughter:
Poll: 27% of UK Muslims Sympathize with Charlie Hebdo, Paris Deli Jihad Murders
Key Findings of the BBC Poll (URL Here : BBC Radio 4 Today Muslim Poll):
Detailed BBC Poll Tables at the below URL:BBC Radio 4 Today Muslim Poll
Poll of 1,000 Muslims in Britain for BBC Radio 4 Today
• More than two in five (46%) feel that being a Muslim in Britain is difficult due to prejudice against Islam.
• Almost all Muslims living in Britain feel a loyalty to the country (95%). Just 6% say they feel a disloyalty.
• Nine in ten (93%) British Muslims believe that Muslims in Britain should always obey British laws.
• One in four (27%) British Muslims say they have some sympathy for the motives behind the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
• However, two thirds (68%) say acts of violence against those who publish images of the Prophet can never be justified while a quarter (24%) disagree.
• Muslim women are more likely than men to feel unsafe in Britain.
• One in nine (11%) British Muslims feel sympathetic towards people who want to fight against western interests while 85% do not.
• Half (49%) believe Muslim clerics preaching that violence against the west can be justified are out of touch with mainstream Muslim opinion, while 45% disagree.
Muslim Poll Final Tables
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
Pakistani origin Asim Qureshi's support for Mohammadden Terrorism goes beyond clamouring for the release of Mohammadden terrorists.ArmenT wrote:I looked up this Asim Qureshi bloke and his organization, CAGE. At first, after watching the video, I thought it might be a perfectly normal org. to help muslim youth, but then I found that its director is Moazzam Begg, who was in Guantanamo Bay for a while. Then I looked into their agenda more and guess what? They try and call a rogue's gallery of villains as "innocent people" (notice how he describes Emwazi as a "beautiful young man") Among the people they are clamoring for release are Abu Hamza, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Babar Ahmed, Syed Talha Ahsan and Aafia Siddiqui! Wonder if the Pakistani government is providing the funding for this group or what?Jhujar wrote:Jihadi John unmasked and UQ 's favourite Son
These chaps are hardcore jihadis masquerading as a human rights organization. There is footage of Qureshi himself speaking at a Hizb ut-Tahrir rally and CAGE has invited Anwar al-Alwaki as guest speaker a few times.
“Jihadi John: Activist who praised Mohammed Emwazi as "beautiful" caught on video backing jihad : Asim Qureshi, who blames MI5 for radicalising Mohammed Emwazi, had previously supported Muslims waging jihad against British soldiers”:
UK Telegraph
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
[youtube]vL_ZDCmIfxI#t=45[/youtube]
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
Muslim cleric: Those who don’t respect Muslims have “no right to live”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/03/musli ... ht-to-live
He clear states at8.02 that islam is a political movement and unlike Bible etc.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/03/musli ... ht-to-live
He clear states at8.02 that islam is a political movement and unlike Bible etc.
Watch the video. He keeps saying that it is not he who is saying these things, but that they’re Islamic teachings. Will some Muslim spokesmen in the West who claims to abhor what Mullah Krekar is saying kindly explain how he is wrong on Islamic grounds? Of course not. And no one in the mainstream media will ask any of them to do so.
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/ ... in-owaisi/
The Owaisi brothers have been taking on the RSS and other right-wing elements for launching programmes like “ghar wapsi”. Countering “ghar wapsi” and religious conversions issue, Asaduddin Owaisi had opined that everyone was born a Muslim and then converted to other religions. “Ghar wapsi is for these people to return to Islam,’’ Owaisi claimed.
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
http://www.straitstimes.com/news/opinio ... s-20150304
The sway of extremism in British universities and schools
The sway of extremism in British universities and schools
The University of Westminster is well known for being a hotbed of extremist activity. Its Islamic Society is heavily influenced, sometimes controlled, by the radical Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir and regularly gives a platform to preachers of hate. On the very day of the Emwazi revelation, the university was to host a lecture by Haitham al-Haddad - a man accused of espousing homophobia, advocating female genital mutilation and professing that Jewish people are descended from apes and pigs. The event was suspended not by the university authorities, but by the Islamic Society, which pulled it only because of security concerns.
Islamist "entryism" - the term originally described tactics adopted by Leon Trotsky to take over a rival communist organisation in France in the early 1930s - continues to be a problem within British universities and schools. Twenty years ago, I played my part as an Islamist entryist at college.
- See more at: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/opinio ... muovy.dpuf
The desire to impose any religion on society is an inherently repugnant idea, but it is not so among many British Muslims. For decades, we've allowed Islamist ideologues to work unfettered across our communities, to the extent that Islamism has become the default form of political expression for many young Muslims in Britain and across Europe.
The leap from being an ordinary British teenager to joining ISIS is huge. But it is a much smaller step for someone raised in a climate in which dreams of resurrecting a caliphate and enforcing a distorted form of Islam are normalised. Until we confront this seeming legitimacy of Islamist discourse at the grassroots, we will not stop the scourge of radicalisation.
- See more at: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/opinio ... muovy.dpuf
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
More happenings in Inglistan:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... lture.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... lture.html
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/worl ... 472951.cms
Is this not exactly they did to India since 11th century?
Is this not exactly they did to India since 11th century?
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
What happens to India and to Hindus is irrelevant to historians. Everything that fundamentalist Islam does today was earlier done in India and people now talk as if Al Qaeda, Taliban, Boko Haram and ISIS are some new phenomenon that the world has never seen.SaiK wrote:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/worl ... 472951.cms
Is this not exactly they did to India since 11th century?
The reason is simple. Hinduism itself was seen as bad/pagan. Destroying anything associated with Hindus was, and remains absolutely fine for billions of people following Abrahamic religions. What Islam did to Hindus was mo skin off anyone's balls. What Islam does to Bamiyan Buddhas and artefacts dating back 2000 years is no skin off anyone's balls. It is only when the two Abrahamic religions come up against each other it becomes a "international problem". When we Indians see ourselves as "secular international citizens" we have to think in this way. Islamic fundamentalism is a problem only when Europe or the US is attacked. Otherwise they are all gentle bunnies who remove the darkness of pagan faiths
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
> The desire to impose any religion on society is an inherently repugnant idea,
the christian evangelists running around the world for centuries did not get this memo.
the christian evangelists running around the world for centuries did not get this memo.
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
And what was done by that other Abrahamic scourge, Christianity - in Greece: Destruction of Pagan Greek TemplesSaiK wrote:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/worl ... 472951.cms
Is this not exactly they did to India since 11th century?
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
I tweeted that induced religious conversion equals rape of body and mind done after intoxicating the victim. One Desi Larki got mad at me.Singha wrote:> The desire to impose any religion on society is an inherently repugnant idea,
the christian evangelists running around the world for centuries did not get this memo.
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
Muslims, Christians Deplore India Beef Ban :
Click Here
Mention of “Discriminatory Bill” in the article is an overreaction. Neither of the two Abrahamic religions of Christism and Mohammaddenism prevalent in India make it religiously obligatory to kill and eat Cows. Accommodating the religious stricture of the religion followed by the vast majority of Indian’s, namely Hinduism, regards prohibition of slaughtering Cows thus does not infringe on the mandatory religious obligations of any group of Indians. Further prevention of the slaughter of other Bovines such as the Indian Bison aka Guar and other animals such as Tigers, Whales etc. is well embedded in Indian and International Law.
Let me end by saying entirely facetiously that if an Abrahamic religious obligation to eat a specific animal/s could be proven to exist, I have no doubt that Salman Khan would claim to the Jodhpur High Court that animal happens to be a Blackbuck and/or a Chinkara.
Click Here
Mention of “Discriminatory Bill” in the article is an overreaction. Neither of the two Abrahamic religions of Christism and Mohammaddenism prevalent in India make it religiously obligatory to kill and eat Cows. Accommodating the religious stricture of the religion followed by the vast majority of Indian’s, namely Hinduism, regards prohibition of slaughtering Cows thus does not infringe on the mandatory religious obligations of any group of Indians. Further prevention of the slaughter of other Bovines such as the Indian Bison aka Guar and other animals such as Tigers, Whales etc. is well embedded in Indian and International Law.
Let me end by saying entirely facetiously that if an Abrahamic religious obligation to eat a specific animal/s could be proven to exist, I have no doubt that Salman Khan would claim to the Jodhpur High Court that animal happens to be a Blackbuck and/or a Chinkara.
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
Lot of sickular rudali going on over cow slaughter ban (termed as beef ban).
Putting the fanatics of all kind to shame, our chest thumping liberals are openly proclaiming that they'll break the law and eat beef.
Good article at Agniveer - http://agniveer.com/why-beef-lovers-are ... ely-wrong/
Putting the fanatics of all kind to shame, our chest thumping liberals are openly proclaiming that they'll break the law and eat beef.
Good article at Agniveer - http://agniveer.com/why-beef-lovers-are ... ely-wrong/
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
I had to take a spell off work today morning to thrash some relatives on fbook and make them see some sense.
they were going on and on about violationg of civil rights and such...
they were going on and on about violationg of civil rights and such...
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
I don't think the beef ban is a religious stricture, strictly speaking, for Hindus. It is coming more from the progressive, animal-rights oriented camp within Hindus that has been the dominant thought-process in Hinduism for the last couple of millennia or more. The reason is the same as the dog-meat ban in the US - ie protection of "companion" animal.arun wrote:Accommodating the religious stricture of the religion followed by the vast majority of Indian’s, namely Hinduism, regards prohibition of slaughtering Cows thus does not infringe on the mandatory religious obligations of any group of Indians.
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
thats a good point that in religion is there a prescription to eat cows. instead in abrahamic lore the cow is a kind of devil seen in moses' followers worshipping a statue of a golden calf while he was up in mt sinai getting his 10 commandments , he came back down later and in anger smashed the statue.
so a nationwide ban on cow slaughter steps upon the religious rights of none.
the sickular bollywood gasbags can eat imported tinned cow meat or local buffalo meat to prove they are liberal hindus.
so a nationwide ban on cow slaughter steps upon the religious rights of none.
the sickular bollywood gasbags can eat imported tinned cow meat or local buffalo meat to prove they are liberal hindus.
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
Social media alarmists: ISIS Twitter accounts & foreign jihadist recruitment are NOT strongly correlated.
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
More on the baleful role played by Saudi Arabia in fostering Mohammadden Terrorist violence and the theological frame work underpinning the violence.
"Zakir Naik, who said Muslims can have sex with female slaves, gets Saudi Arabia's highest honour":
India Today
More on Zakir Naik's odious antics from Shahshi Tharoor's son Ishaan Tharoor writing in the Washington Post:
The Saudi king gave a prize to an Islamic scholar who says 9/11 was an ‘inside job’
Very dissapointing to note that Zakir Naik is a fellow countryman.
"Zakir Naik, who said Muslims can have sex with female slaves, gets Saudi Arabia's highest honour":
India Today
More on Zakir Naik's odious antics from Shahshi Tharoor's son Ishaan Tharoor writing in the Washington Post:
The Saudi king gave a prize to an Islamic scholar who says 9/11 was an ‘inside job’
Very dissapointing to note that Zakir Naik is a fellow countryman.
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
Alleged Mohammadden rapist of Naga woman, one Syed Farid Khan who is suspected to be an illegal Bangladeshi migrant, held in Dimapur jail lynched by a 90,000 strong mob. Ensuing Police firing on mob kills one.
Article indicates that Love Jihad seems also to be a problem even in Nagaland. Love Jihad Nagaland style sees Mohammaddens marrying Sema / Sumi Naga tribe women to create a new Naga ‘tribe’ called Sumiya:
Nagaland: 1 dies in police firing on mob that lynched rape accused, security increased in Muslim areas
Article indicates that Love Jihad seems also to be a problem even in Nagaland. Love Jihad Nagaland style sees Mohammaddens marrying Sema / Sumi Naga tribe women to create a new Naga ‘tribe’ called Sumiya:
Nagaland: 1 dies in police firing on mob that lynched rape accused, security increased in Muslim areas
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
X Posted from the “Pakistani Role In Global Terrorism” thread.
Originating in Islamic Republic of Pakistan, UK born Chemistry Teacher Jamshed Javeed jailed for attempt to indulge in Mohammadden Terrorism. Being born outside the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and being educated was clearly not enough to drum out the Islamic Republic of Pakistan’s national predilection for indulging in Mohammadden Terrorism:
Chemistry teacher Jamshed Javeed jailed for Syria jihad plan
Originating in Islamic Republic of Pakistan, UK born Chemistry Teacher Jamshed Javeed jailed for attempt to indulge in Mohammadden Terrorism. Being born outside the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and being educated was clearly not enough to drum out the Islamic Republic of Pakistan’s national predilection for indulging in Mohammadden Terrorism:
Chemistry teacher Jamshed Javeed jailed for Syria jihad plan
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
arun wrote:On its part the Islamic Terrorist group, Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) is very explicit in stating that their act of criminal vandalism has been motivated by Mohammaddenism. Indeed ISIS goes to the very pinnacle of Mohhammaddenism and claims support for their actions from the founder of Mohammadden religion himself.Surasena wrote:Video of IS destroying the Assyrian murti's:
.............{Video Snipped}..............
Leftist "historians" in future will write that IS wasn't motivated by Islam but angry that statues received care @ expense of poor. Thus Baghdadi & company will become warriors for social justice in the "history" books of future Romila Thapar's.
DNA reports that the commentary accompanying the video of the destruction of historical artifacts dating to the ancient Assyrian era located of the Ninevah Museum in Mosul put up by ISIS themselves says, "The Prophet ordered us to get rid of statues and relics, and his companions did the same when they conquered countries after him". Commentary to the video also says "Muslims, these relics you see behind me are idols that were worshiped other than God in the past centuries" besides saying "What is known as Assyrians, Akkadians and others used to worship gods of rain, farming and war other than God and pay all sorts of tributes to them."
Islamic State destroys priceless 2000-year-old relics in Iraq claiming orders from the Prophet
The Mohammadden religion justified destruction of humanity’s cultural heritage wrought by Mohammadden Terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) continues after destruction at the Ninevah Museum with destruction in rapid succession at Nimrud and Hatra.
Destruction at Pre-Mohammadden archaeological site of Hatra and Nimrud shows Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was correct when he said:
“It (Islam) has had a calamitous effect on converted peoples. To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history.”
However V.S. Naipaul’s exclusion of Arabs from the purview of his comment on Mohammaddenism’s destructive streak is clearly belied by the Mohammadden religion justified destruction wrought by ISIS in Nimrud, Hatra and at the Ninevah museum:
“The cruelty of Islamic fundamentalism is that it allows only to one people – the Arabs, the original people of the Prophet – a past, and sacred places, pilgrimages and earth reverences. These sacred Arab places have to be the sacred places of all the converted peoples. Converted peoples have to strip themselves of their past, of converted peoples nothing is required but the purest faith"
Article on destruction at Hatra:
ISIS reportedly destroying ancient Iraqi city of Hatra
Article of the earlier destruction wrought by ISIS at Nimrud which I notice is not posted, follows:
Isis 'bulldozes' Nimrud: UNESCO condemns destruction of ancient Assyrian site as a 'war crime'
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
Green on Green Intra-Mohammadden religion motivated sectarian killing in a Kabul mosque:
Six killed in gunmen attack on Sufi place of worship in Kabul
Reuters in the article says “Sufism is a non-violent form of Islam”.
The above comment from the posted Reuters article is a load of crock. :
Six killed in gunmen attack on Sufi place of worship in Kabul
Reuters in the article says “Sufism is a non-violent form of Islam”.
The above comment from the posted Reuters article is a load of crock. :
Are Sufis essentially non-violent?
By Naveed Hussain
Published: January 18, 2011
…………………………….. Sufis weren’t and aren’t non-violent. Read history. Sufi sheikhs and dervishes led revivalist movements, fighting foreign rule as well as the ‘tyranny and oppression’ of Muslim rulers.
In 1240, Baba Ilyas-i-Khorasani and Baba Ishaq, two popular Sufi sheikhs, mobilised nomadic Turkmen against the Seljuk rule in what is modern-day Turkey, demanding a revival of ‘pure’ Islam. And in the 15th and 16th centuries, several Sufi masters led armed uprisings in the Ottoman Empire against the ‘lax’ official Islam.
In modern times, most rebellions, led by Sufi masters, were targeted against the British, French and Italian colonialists. The Sanusiyya — a Sufi order widespread in Libya, Egypt, Sudan and the Sahara — fought against the Italian colonialists. And the Muridiyya order, founded by Amadu Baba, fought the French in Senegal. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Sufis from Naqshbandiyya and Qadiriyya orders fought jihad against ‘godless’ Russian tsars and the Soviets.
In the region now called Pakistan, Sufis, dervishes and mullahs pioneered several millenarian and revivalist movements directed against British colonialists. Mirza Ali Khan, better known as the ‘Faqir from Ipi,’ a hermit from the Waziristan region, led his disciples in a successful rebellion against the British. And the Hur movement of the late 19th century in Sindh was also mobilised by a saintly figure, Sibghtullah Shah Badshah. ……………………………
Express Tribune
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
Mohammadden Terrorist group al-Mourabitoun attacks restaurant in Bamako , Mali:
Islamist militants kill 5 in restaurant attack in Mali capital
Elsewhere in Africa, Mohammadden Terrorist group Boko Haram suspected of carrying out a series of attacks in Maiduguri, Nigeria:
Suspected Boko Haram suicide blasts in Nigerian city kill at least 54
Islamist militants kill 5 in restaurant attack in Mali capital
Elsewhere in Africa, Mohammadden Terrorist group Boko Haram suspected of carrying out a series of attacks in Maiduguri, Nigeria:
Suspected Boko Haram suicide blasts in Nigerian city kill at least 54
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
http://www.rediff.com/news/column/hasan ... 150311.htm
Another bogus article -- apparently, there is a liberal islam and it is now being supported by the clerics of Al-Azhar mosque, deception to fool third parties as usual. The guys in ISIS all have Ph.D.s in islamic studies and have way more credibility than these "liberal muslim" and like of Karen Armstrong, who have nothing more to offer than "good muslims and Islam would never allow such prejudice, violence and hatred against non muslims.
Nothing changes after every episode of violent bigotry and murder by devout muslims, except for the pretense that the "muslim world" is now on the job and about to fix themselves rather than point to "root causes" and non muslims as the culprits for the violent tendencies of muslims.
Another bogus article -- apparently, there is a liberal islam and it is now being supported by the clerics of Al-Azhar mosque, deception to fool third parties as usual. The guys in ISIS all have Ph.D.s in islamic studies and have way more credibility than these "liberal muslim" and like of Karen Armstrong, who have nothing more to offer than "good muslims and Islam would never allow such prejudice, violence and hatred against non muslims.
Nothing changes after every episode of violent bigotry and murder by devout muslims, except for the pretense that the "muslim world" is now on the job and about to fix themselves rather than point to "root causes" and non muslims as the culprits for the violent tendencies of muslims.
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
Article by Daniel Pipes titled “Why politicians pretend Islam has no role in violence” in the Washington Times:
Why politicians pretend Islam has no role in violence
By Daniel Pipes - - Monday, March 9, 2015
Prominent non-Muslim political figures have embarrassed themselves by denying the self-evident connection of Islam to the Islamic State (ISIS) and to Islamist violence in Paris and Copenhagen, even claiming these are contrary to Islam. What do they hope to achieve through these lies and what is their significance?
First, a sampling of the double talk: …………………………….
Summarizing these statements, which come straight out of the Islamist playbook: Islam is purely a religion of peace, so violence and barbarism categorically have nothing to do with it; indeed, these “masquerade” and “pervert” Islam. By implication, more Islam is needed to solve these “monstrous” and “barbaric” problems.
But, of course, this interpretation neglects the scriptures of Islam and the history of Muslims, seeped in the assumption of superiority toward non-Muslims and the righteous violence of jihad. Ironically, ignoring the Islamic impulse means foregoing the best tool to defeat jihadism: for, if the problem results not from an interpretation of Islam, but from random evil and irrational impulses, how can one possibly counter it? Only acknowledging the legacy of Islamic imperialism opens ways to re-interpret the faith’s scriptures in modern, moderate, and good-neighborly ways.
Why, then, do powerful politicians make ignorant and counterproductive arguments, ones they surely know to be false, especially as violent Islamism spreads (think of Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab, and the Taliban)?
Cowardice and multiculturalism play a role, to be sure, but two other reasons have more importance:
First, they want not to offend Muslims, who they fear are more prone to violence if they perceive non-Muslims pursuing a “war on Islam.”
Second, they worry that focusing on Muslims means fundamental changes to the secular order, while denying an Islamic element permits avoid troubling issues. ………………………………
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
Our Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Mohammaddenism and that religions link to terrorism.
Excerpted from the book “Implosion: India’s Tryst with Reality”, by John Elliott a former UK Financial Times journalist based in New Delhi:
When Narendra Modi Spoke His Mind on Islam
Excerpted from the book “Implosion: India’s Tryst with Reality”, by John Elliott a former UK Financial Times journalist based in New Delhi:
Read it all:I first met Modi in September 2001 when he was a BJP national secretary in the party’s Delhi headquarters. He had been banished from his home state of Gujarat because of party infighting and was not regarded as a future leader. The setting was a television studio, three days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in America, and the occasion was a session of The Big Fight 6, a series where an anchor (then accompanied by two other journalists) runs a discussion with four or five specialists and other protagonists.
The theme was ‘Is Islam now the driving force of terrorism’.
It was a time of great shock and fear because of the audacity, precision and devastation of the attacks. People had been wary of linking the words Islamic and terrorism, and Modi showed he was aware of this, though he was in no doubt about the association. What he said is significant now that he has become prime minister, given the BJP’s Hindu-nationalist creed, which many regard as instinctively anti-Muslim.
He acknowledged in his opening remarks that Islam had ‘many good aspects’ but said accusingly that, ‘when one community says that my community is different from yours, it is higher than yours, and that until you take refuge in mine you cannot get Moksha [liberation or salvation], you cannot get Allah, you cannot get Jesus – then conflict starts’. Hinduism taught ‘Ekam sat, viprah bodha badhanti’ (truth is one, says God in different ways), and there would be no conflict if it was accepted that ‘all religions are the same’.
But, he added, ‘when one says your religion is hopeless and mine is better, then hatred starts, and later when that hatred gets linked into society, terror starts’.
Since the fourteenth century, Islam had aimed to ‘put its flag in the whole world and the situation today is the result of that’.
Those remarks led to a noisy clash with Dr Rafiq Zakaria, an elderly Islamic scholar and Congress politician, who angrily tried to tone down the inference to Islamic terrorism and argued that the religion’s texts contained the language of peace. G. Parthasarathy, a retired Indian diplomat and former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, had suggested that terrorists came from Islamic countries in a ‘crescent of crisis’ stretching from Pakistan to Algeria. Eventually Modi called on his ‘Muslim friends’ – a noteworthy phrase – to ‘understand that terrorism has damaged Islam like anything,’ and that they needed to ‘come out against the terrorist’.
The powerful and passionate but reasoned way in which Modi presented his arguments partly influenced me ten months later to write a column (in July 2002) in the Business Standard, explaining about the TV programme and suggesting that he looked like India’s next big leader.
When Narendra Modi Spoke His Mind on Islam
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
X Post two separate posts from the “Oppression of minorities in Pakistan”.
Mohammadden Terrorist group TTP accepts responsibility for above Lahore demonstration of the IEDology of Pakistan confirming it to be a case of Intra-Abrahamic bloodletting with Mohammaddens dishing it out to adherents of Christism.
Meanwhile death toll in demonstration of IEDology of Pakistan has climbed to 10 and Police inform that attacks were carried out on two separate Christist Churches, on of Protestant sect and other of Catholic sect:
10 dead, 50 injured in twin blasts near church in Lahore
arun wrote:Just as Mohammaddens of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan are victims of Mosque bombings on the Mohammadden Sabbath of Friday, followers of Christism are victims of Church bombing on the Christist Sabbath of Sunday:
5 killed, 46 injured as blasts target Lahore Church
Mohammadden Terrorist group TTP accepts responsibility for above Lahore demonstration of the IEDology of Pakistan confirming it to be a case of Intra-Abrahamic bloodletting with Mohammaddens dishing it out to adherents of Christism.
Meanwhile death toll in demonstration of IEDology of Pakistan has climbed to 10 and Police inform that attacks were carried out on two separate Christist Churches, on of Protestant sect and other of Catholic sect:
10 dead, 50 injured in twin blasts near church in Lahore
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
X Posted from the STFUP thread.
Green on Green Intra-Mohammadden religion based sectarian violence in Karachi in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan sees demonstration of the IEDology of Pakistan outside a Mosque used by minority Mohammadden Dawoodi Bohra sect on Mohammaddenism’s sabbath of Friday:
Two killed, 8 hurt as blast hits Bohra mosque in Karachi
Green on Green Intra-Mohammadden religion based sectarian violence in Karachi in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan sees demonstration of the IEDology of Pakistan outside a Mosque used by minority Mohammadden Dawoodi Bohra sect on Mohammaddenism’s sabbath of Friday:
Two killed, 8 hurt as blast hits Bohra mosque in Karachi
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
Green on Green Intra-Mohammadden religion based sectarian violence in Sanaa in Yemen sees two separate suicide attacks on Mosques used by Shia sect Mohammaddens by Sunni sect Mohammaddens on Mohammaddenism’s sabbath of Friday killing 137:
ISIS claims credit for twin suicide attacks in Yemen that reportedly killed more than 100
ISIS claims credit for twin suicide attacks in Yemen that reportedly killed more than 100
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
Book recommended by Ayaan Hirsi Ali:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/books ... -book.html
http://www.thequranspeaks.net/book.php
Goal of the book:
http://www.thequranspeaks.net/excerpt.php
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/books ... -book.html
About the book:What’s the most interesting or important book to come out recently about the Islamic world?
“The Quran Speaks,” by Bahis Sedq: a hugely important book by a scholar of Islam who is, to my mind, the most sophisticated of all the dissidents in the Muslim world. The tragedy is that he has to publish under a pseudonym. He could be the Muslim Luther, if there were only a way to keep him safe.
http://www.thequranspeaks.net/book.php
Goal of the book:
http://www.thequranspeaks.net/excerpt.php
Despite its focus on the Quran, this book would like to be counted as part of the initiative that desires to promote understanding and inclusiveness amongst all religions (not just Islam) regarding differences in human belief systems and cultures. It is written in the belief that humanity has far greater potential than realized—once religious tolerance is universally accepted as the norm. It dreams of a world totally committed to fighting misery, hunger, and disease—a truly wonderful world, undistracted by religious divisions!
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
On the destruction of the world's heritage:
https://www.the-newshub.com/internation ... ish-museum
https://www.the-newshub.com/internation ... ish-museum
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
From the NYT Reviews of Books, review of "Heaven's Bankers" by Harris Irfan.
With this book Harris Irfan, who headed Islamic finance teams at Barclays and Deutsche Bank and now runs his own Islamic finance advisory group, aims to enlighten. “Heaven’s Bankers” has two strands, which Irfan weaves together adeptly. The first is a condensed history of modern Islamic finance. Although the underlying principles involved date back to the seventh century, contemporary Islamic finance began with an initial experiment in Egypt in the early 1960s, then moved slowly into the Persian Gulf countries in the 1970s and Pakistan in the 1980s, before retreating and then emerging in today’s globalized form in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Islamic finance has become a trillion-dollar industry, with sukuk — a bondlike fixed-income product — issued not just by governments of Muslim countries, but also by Britain, Luxembourg, Hong Kong and South Africa, as well as by corporations.
Irfan’s second strand examines the religious principles underlying Islamic finance: what the Quran and Hadith say about money and trading, and what Shariah — the corpus of Islamic law as interpreted by scholars — forbids and permits in the economic sphere........Fundamentally, Islam does not allow money to be made from money — it must be made from a tangible asset that one owns and thus has the right to sell — and in financial transactions it demands that risk be shared. ....
Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
Nobel Prize-winning author V. S. Naipaul has warned that Islamic State are the most potent threat to the world since the Nazis
A grotesque love of propaganda. Unspeakable barbarity. The loathing of Jews - and a hunger for world domination. In this stunning intervention, literary colossus V.S. NAIPAUL says ISIS is now the Fourth Reich
A grotesque love of propaganda. Unspeakable barbarity. The loathing of Jews - and a hunger for world domination. In this stunning intervention, literary colossus V.S. NAIPAUL says ISIS is now the Fourth Reich
By V.s. Naipaul For The Mail On Sunday
22 March 2015
Nobel Prize-winning author V. S. Naipaul has warned that Islamic State are the most potent threat to the world since the Nazis
In a hard-hitting article in today’s Mail on Sunday, the revered novelist brands the extremist Muslim organisation as the Fourth Reich, saying it is comparable to Adolf Hitler’s regime in its fanaticism and barbarity.
Calling for its ‘military annihilation,’ the Trinidadian-born British writer says IS is ‘dedicated to a contemporary holocaust’, has a belief in its own ‘racial superiority,’ and produces propaganda that Goebbels would be proud of.
A long-term critic of Islam as a global threat, he also challenges those who say the extremists have nothing to do with the real religion of Islam, suggesting that the simplicity of some interpretations of the faith have a strong appeal to a minority.
The author of A House For Mr Biswas, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001, is known for his sharp views.
He has likened Tony Blair to a pirate whose socialist revolution had imposed a ‘plebeian culture’ on Britain and found himself embroiled in controversy in 2001 by comparing Islam to colonialism, saying the faith ‘has had a calamitous effect’ as converts must deny their heritage.
Imagine a world in which a young man is locked in a cage, has petrol showered over him and is set alight to be burnt alive.
Imagine the triumphant jeering of an audience that has gathered to witness this. Imagine, also, a 12-year-old child with elated determination on his features shooting at close range a kneeling man with his arms tied behind his back.
Then picture the spectacle of a hundred beheadings of victim after victim in humiliating uniforms, their hands and feet bound, kneeling with their backs to their black-robed executioners who wield knives to cut their throats as though they were sacrificial lambs.
Potent threat: Like the Nazis, Isis fanatics are anti-semitic, with a belief in their own racial superiority
Potent threat: Like the Nazis, Isis fanatics are anti-semitic, with a belief in their own racial superiority
Picture queues of helpless men and women being marched by zealous executioners who nail them to wooden crosses and crucify them, howling and bleeding to death as crowds watch.
Then picture thousands of girls and women, their arms tied, being marched by hooded and armed captors into sexual slavery. And then, if that is not enough, picture men being thrown off cliffs to their deaths because they are accused of being gay.
Yes, all these scenes could have taken place in several continents in the medieval world, but they were captured on camera and broadcast to anyone with access to the internet. These are scenes, of yesterday, today and tomorrow in our own world.
I have always distrusted abstractions and have turned into writing what I could discover and explore for myself.
So I must begin by admitting that I have not recently travelled in those regions threatened by barbarism – the Middle East, the north west of Africa, in pockets of Pakistan and in the Islamic countries of south eastern Asia.
Isis could very credibly abandon the label of Caliphate and call itself the Fourth Reich
However, in the 1980s and early 1990s I undertook to examine the ‘revival’ of Islam that was taking place through the revolution in Iran and the renewed dedication to the religion of other countries.
I travelled through Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia attempting to discover the ideas and convictions behind this new ‘fundamentalism’.
My first book was called Among The Believers and the second, perhaps prophetically, Beyond Belief. Since those books were written, the word ‘fundamentalism’ has taken on new meanings.
As the word suggests, it means going back to the groundings, to the foundations and perhaps to first principles. It is used to characterise the interpretation given to passages of the Koran, to the Hadith, which is a collection of the acts in the life of the Prophet Mohammed and to an interpretation of sharia law.
However, the particular fundamentalist ideology of ‘Islamist’ groups that have dedicated themselves to terror – such as Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and now in its most vicious, barbaric and threatening form the Islamic Caliphate, Isis or the Islamic State (IS) – interprets the foundation and the beginning as dating from the birth of the Prophet Mohammed in the 6th Century.
This fundamentalism denies the value and even the existence of civilisations that preceded the revelations of the Koran.
It was an article of 6th and 7th Century Arab faith that everything before it was wrong, heretical. There was no room for the pre-Islamic past.
So an idea of history was born that was fundamentally different from the ideas of history that the rest of the world has evolved.
In the centuries following, the world moved on. Ideas of civilisation, of other faiths, of art, of governance of law and of science and invention grew and flourished.
This Islamic ideological insistence on erasing the past may have survived but it did so in abeyance, barely regarded even in the Ottoman Empire which declared itself to be the Caliphate of all Islam.
Islamic State is dedicated to a contemporary holocaust
But now the evil genie is out of the bottle. The idea that faith abolishes history has been revived as the central creed of the Islamists and of Isis.
Their determination to deny, eliminate and erase the past manifests itself in the destruction of the art, artefacts and archaeological sites of the great empires, the Persian, the Assyrian and Roman that constitute the histories of Mesopotamia and Syria.
They have bulldozed landmarks in the ancient city of Dur Sharukkin and smashed Assyrian statues in the Mosul museum. Destroying the winged bull outside the fortifications of Nineveh satisfies the same reductive impulse behind the destruction by the Taliban of the Bhumiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has described this destruction of art, artefacts, inscriptions and of the museums that house them not only as a butchery of civilisational memory but as a war crime.
It is telling that the victims of Wednesday’s barbarous shootings were visitors to the great Bardo Museum in Tunis, a repository of art and material from Tunisia’s rich, pre-Islamic past.
Isis is dedicated to a contemporary holocaust. It has pledged itself to the murder of Shias, Jews, Christians, Copts, Yazidis and anyone it can, however fancifully, accuse of being a spy. It has wiped out the civilian populations of whole regions and towns. Isis could very credibly abandon the label of Caliphate and call itself the Fourth Reich.
Isis have bulldozed landmarks in the ancient city of Dur Sharukkin and smashed Assyrian statues in the Mosul museum (pictured)
Like the Nazis, Isis fanatics are anti-semitic, with a belief in their own racial superiority. They are anti-democratic: the Islamic State is a totalitarian state, absolute in its authority. There is even the same self-regarding love of symbolism, presentation and propaganda; terror is spread to millions through films and videos created to professional standards of which Goebbels would have been proud.
Just as the Third Reich did, Isis categorises its enemies as worthy of particular means of execution from decapitation to crucifixion and death by fire.
Whereas the Nazis pretended to be the guardians of civilisation in so far as they stole art works to preserve them and kept Jewish musicians alive to entertain them, Isis destroys everything that arises from the human impulse to beauty.
Such barbarism is not new to history and every nation has suffered mass murder and barbaric cruelty in the past. That a European country in the 20th Century launched a holocaust on the basis of race is a matter of the deepest shame.
That Isis has revived the religious dogmas and deadly rivalries between Sunnis and Shias, Sunnis and Jews and Christians is a giant step into darkness.
That a European country in the 20th Century launched a holocaust on the basis of race is a matter of the deepest shame
The Arab lands, relatively stable under the Ottoman Empire, were divided up by the British and French victors of the First World War into the kingdoms of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria and Jordan at the Cairo Conference of 1920. Borders were drawn in straight lines and the sons of the Mufti of Mecca imposed on the newly carved territories as kings.
Winston Churchill was advised at the Cairo conference by T. E. Lawrence and by Gertrude Bell, who should have known that the Shia would not readily welcome or acknowledge a Sunni king and vice versa.
After upheavals, rebellions and military coups, the region settled down under dictatorships in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Ba’athist Party was, in some senses, a modernising force and Saddam Hussein, though a Sunni, ruled the predominantly Shia and partly Kurd nation of Iraq with a ruthless hand. Wherever two or three were gathered in the name of the Almighty, he sent in his police.
He may not have been a savoury character but his overarching policies were holding on to power and modernising Iraq.
He was the cat that kept the rats of Islamism at bay. His invasion of Kuwait, another artificial sheikdom, poor in territory at the knee of Iraq but rich in oil, triggered the international reaction against him. The Bush-Blair alliance invaded Iraq and the puppet regime they set up executed Saddam. In the absence of the cat, the rats ran riot.
And so it has proved throughout the region. The Libyans, with the assistance of a European alliance, overthrew Gaddafi. The country is now at the mercy of Islamic militants. The same Arab Spring saw democratic protest against the Egyptian dictator and resulted for a while in an elected regime veering towards the repressions of Islamism.
It was overthrown by a military coup whose leader, General el-Sisi, speaking to the clerics and supposed scholars of the authoritative Islamic university Al-Azhar, called on them to denounce Isis as the greatest threat to international peace and exhorted them to declare the ideology of Isis a heresy. The mullahs of Al-Azhar have not as yet complied.
In Syria, the conflict of groups opposed to the government of Bashar Al-Assad resolved itself in the formation of a Sunni Islamicist militia, which in turn evolved – after a significant bloodletting – into Isis.
Are Isis and its followers heretics? The politicians of Europe and America, including David Cameron, Barack Obama and Francois Hollande, after every Islamicist outrage insist on describing them as a lunatic fringe. Their constant refrain is that these perpetrators of murder and terror have as much to do with Islam as the Ku Klux Klan has to do with Christianity or the testament of Jesus Christ. But does such political assurance bear scrutiny?
Whereas the Nazis pretended to be the guardians of civilisation in so far as they stole art works to preserve them and kept Jewish musicians alive to entertain them, Isis destroys everything that arises from the human impulse to beauty
Of course the politicians, church leaders and others who say ‘these atrocities have nothing to do with Islam’ are not making a researched or considered theological statement. They are attempting, quite rightly, to prevent civil discord in a world in which there are considerable Muslim immigrant populations in most countries of Europe and in the US.
So what impels the tiny minority of young men and women from immigrant communities to volunteer themselves to ‘jihad’ and to almost certain self-destruction, or young women to abscond from their families and from European reality to become jihadi brides.
When I visited Pakistan, I discovered what I have characterised as the effects of an ideological nurture. The Pakistani or Bangladeshi Muslim is taught that he or she has no historical antecedents before the conquest of parts of India and its conversion to the faith.
The pressures of poverty and promise bring this Muslim to Britain. He and his family don’t speak English.
They are confined to work and live in an exclusively immigrant area of an inner city – say Bradford, Tower Hamlets or parts of Greater Manchester or Birmingham.
Their children are raised as Muslims, some strict some not so strict, and are sent to the normal city schools which soon become almost exclusively immigrant.
The Bush-Blair alliance invaded Iraq and the puppet regime they set up executed Saddam Hussein (pictured). In the absence of the cat, the rats ran riot
Some find that the values that traditionally inform them are at variance with those of the lives they see around them. This is true for even those Muslim young men and women who are being educated, through Britain’s by-and-large egalitarian system, to be surgeons or computer programmers.
Islamism is simpler. There are rules to obey, a jihad to fight against the civilisation you can’t comprehend, a heaven to go to when you martyr yourself and now a real fighting force in the world which you can join to simplify and solve your existence: no history to complicate your self-awareness, no art to distract you, no ambivalence and choices that ‘Western’ civilisation offers you, no doubt about the fruits of martyrdom, no allegiance to the country in which you were brought up and which gave you a free education and perhaps welfare benefits. A gun, a half-understood prayer and the simplicity that a simple and singular upbringing craves.
That is why they go. And volunteer for death, and die.
In the past three or four centuries since Descartes, Leibniz and Newton, Islam remained encrypted in the revelations of the Koran and the Hadith of a 6th Century life.
Saddam was a cat keeping at bay the rats of Islamism
The expansion of the scientific enquiry coincided with or possibly caused the maritime expansion of European colonialism. Empirical science, the progress of liberal religion and the germination of modern democratic ideas coincided with European colonial dominion over Asia and Africa.
The process of decolonisation in the 20th Century gave rise to the idea that every advance in civilisation, scientific or democratic, was to be condemned as ‘colonial’. There may be no ideological answer to such bigotry.
The Islamic world does contain currents that are opposed to the interpretations that Isis gives to the Koran, the Hadith and to sharia. These are yet to declare themselves.
Though the appeal of Isis can be challenged by other strands of Islam, its murderous presence persists in the failed states of Iraq and war-torn Syria and threatens to spread through northern Africa.
The crippled Iraqi government has launched its reluctant armies against Isis. The Iranians, being Shias opposed to Sunni Caliphates, are supporting the Iraqi army and the Shia militias, who are a considerable force independent of the Iraqi government, are in a coalition to fight Isis on the ground. With air support from the West, they may manage to push Isis back.
Such an offensive, with the immediate objective of regaining Iraqi territory has to be urgently expanded. Isis has to be seen as the most potent threat to the world since the Third Reich.
Its military annihilation as an anti-civilisational force has to now be the objective of a world that wants its ideological and material freedoms.
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-20
Very valid question. Patriotic "Muslims" living in non-Islamic countries do not understand true Islam. And if they do not follow their mandate they are basically Murtads.