The Muslims are coming!

[justashooter 430]

"The sheer scale of the world's Muslim population and its spread should encourage people to ask more questions about why so many people are Muslims and what they really believe. It shows there are Muslims in societies and areas that people don't immediately think of. But there are still many people who assume the majority of Muslims are Arabs."

the majority of people in the US don't know what muslims are practicing, in their majority. chinese muslims have about as much in common with arab muslims as an apple has with a pear. other asian muslims are just bananas.

the disturbing truth is that the high proportion of muslims is seen in countries that are lacking in education resources, so are lacking in individuals that are self actualised. islam appeals to people who don't feel like they can manage their own lives, just like catholicism did in the middle ages. it also appeals to governments that see islam as a method of control to enact upon an uneducated population, just like catholicism was used during the middle ages in europe, and confucianism/buddhism was used through the last 2 millenia in china. it's been like that throughout recorded human history.

the truth is disturbiung because it indicates two things. how poorly educated our fellow men are, and how little potential they have for self actualisation.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

"The sheer scale of the world's Muslim population and its spread should encourage people to ask more questions about why so many people are Muslims and what they really believe. It shows there are Muslims in societies and areas that people don't immediately think of. But there are still many people who assume the majority of Muslims are Arabs."

the majority of people in the US don't know what muslims are practicing, in their majority. chinese muslims have about as much in common with arab muslims as an apple has with a pear. other asian muslims are just bananas.

the disturbing truth is that the high proportion of muslims is seen in countries that are lacking in education resources, so are lacking in individuals that are self actualised. islam appeals to people who don't feel like they can manage their own lives, just like catholicism did in the middle ages. it also appeals to governments that see islam as a method of control to enact upon an uneducated population, just like catholicism was used during the middle ages in europe, and confucianism/buddhism was used through the last 2 millenia in china. it's been like that throughout recorded human history.

the truth is disturbiung because it indicates two things. how poorly educated our fellow men are, and how little potential they have for self actualisation.

If what you posted was the truth, it would be scary. But, it's not.

[S and S 12]

It certainly used to be the case that Islam as practiced in Asia was "more moderate and integrated". I'm not sure how true that is recently.

In the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the southern provinces of Thailand there are virulent Islamic insurgencies which have committed violent atrocities in the name of their faith. In south Thailand alone, there have been murders of Buddhist monks and desecration and destruction of Buddhist temples by these insurgents. These movements, particularly Jemaah Islamiah and Lashkar Jihad have al Quaida links and the Imams associated with these groups speak the same virulent hatred of the West, America and Israel that their Arab (and Afghan and Pakistani and Iranian) extremist counterparts do.

Indonesia and Malaysia, the largest Muslim nations in eastern Asia (as distinguished from the MidEast and central Asia) both still refuse to recognize the state of Israel, despite the fact that Jordan, Egypt and Morocco all have established diplomatic relations with Israel.

Certainly the vast majority of east Asian Muslims are peaceful and not radicalized. But there is a strain of extremism in that part of the world every bit as vicious as found in the "heartland" of the Islamic world.

Lets look at the Spanish Inquisition as an example of atrocities committed not just against Muslims, but also Jews. I hardly think Islam is the only religion that has had atrocities. It doesn't mean everyone within the religion agreed with the actions of a few.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsourc.../expulsion.html

"In the same month in which their Majesties [Ferdinand and Isabella] issued the edict that all Jews should be driven out of the kingdom and its territories, in the same month they gave me the order to undertake with sufficient men my expedition of discovery to the Indies." So begins Christopher Columbus's diary. The expulsion that Columbus refers to was so cataclysmic an event that ever since, the date 1492 has been almost as important in Jewish history as in American history. On July 30 of that year, the entire Jewish community, some 200,000 people, were expelled from Spain.

Tens of thousands of refugees died while trying to reach safety. In some instances, Spanish ship captains charged Jewish passengers exorbitant sums, then dumped them overboard in the middle of the ocean. In the last days before the expulsion, rumors spread throughout Spain that the fleeing refugees had swallowed gold and diamonds, and many Jews were knifed to death by brigands hoping to find treasures in their stomachs."

http://www.lilithgallery.com/library/chris...nquisition.html"

Any Jew or Muslim who had not converted and did not leave Spain was thereafter legally executed by the Crown with the Pope�s knowledge and approval. Many practicing Jews and Muslims had left Spain by early August of 1492 and any who did not leave were executed soon afterwards. Many of the converts were killed anyway when they were accused of heresy thereafter, usually people who a) had money and/or B) could be accused of having a Jewish or Muslim ancestor, whether it was true or not"

[Sofiyya 1,687]

The irony is, many of the Jews fleeing Christian Spain during the Inquisition were welcomed by Muslim countries. The followers of the Catholic Pope who declared the Crusades weren't very equitable to them either. When they couldn't find Muslims to murder, they settled for Jews to slaughter.

Edited October 9, 2009 by Sofiyya

[sandinista! 1,816]

i can't figure out why events that happened 500-1000 years ago are being referenced. the political issues involving scores of muslims around the planet have nothing to do with the crusades or the inquisition. they might, however, have something to do with this.

This week President Obama had a man murdered. He put a hit on a man merely suspected of being involved with "Al Qaeda" and of participating in several terrorist acts. This is now a routine power of the American Presidency- having people murdered without any sort of due process.

The US routinely murders "suspects" in Pakistan- often times along with their families and friends or any poor slob who happens to be within the vicinity of an exploding drone.

President Bush used this power quite extensively as well. In fact he boasted of murdering "Al Qaeda suspects" all over the world in his 2003 State of the Union address:

All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries.

And many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: They are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies.

Yes. An American President stood before Congress and actually all but admitted to murdering untold numbers of suspects. He actually used the word "suspected" as well. And he received a standing ovation when he said it.

President Obama has embraced the Bush era torture memos- the ones written to justify blatantly illegal acts and that make Roe vs Wade look like tight legal reasoning. The justice department investigation of the CIA for overstepping these guidelines for torture in these sickening memos is actually worse than doing nothing- for by doing so they are enshrining the premise in these memos as law- that torture is legal! They are just going after those who overstepped "techniques" that were deliberately copied from those developed in the secret police reign of terror under Stalin in the Soviet Union.

His closing of GITMO is a meaningless empty gesture as he intends to simply use Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan to keep detainees beyond the reach of law.

He will continue the policy of rendition (or what would be called kidnapping if done by a mere mortal like you or me) of "suspects". Obama assures us that torture of suspects the US delivers to third party countries won't be allowed. Of course- the question then arises why bother with rendition at all since that is the whole purpose of rendition to begin with? Of course they will be tortured and Obama knows it.

http://www.examiner.com/x-3665-Boston-Libe...sition-to-Obama

there's more...

[Amby 490]

cleo love the thread title

[sara..... 371]

one of my elder sisters not only left islam but also became catholic she is still alive and still comes to the home with her husband and children nobody killed her or threatened her ........... really some ridicules ideas about islam......

we have non muslim friends as well as muslim friends..........our loyalty is equal its the person that we look at not the religion

sara

[justashooter 430]

i can't figure out why events that happened 500-1000 years ago are being referenced. the political issues involving scores of muslims around the planet have nothing to do with the crusades or the inquisition.

from a purely sociological perspective, they are relevant.

[justashooter 430]

one of my elder sisters not only left islam but also became catholic she is still alive and still comes to the home with her husband and children nobody killed her or threatened her ........... really some ridicules ideas about islam......

we have non muslim friends as well as muslim friends..........our loyalty is equal its the person that we look at not the religion

sara

thanks for demonstrating the difference between indian muslims and arab muslims.

as for muslims, i don't reject them as a whole, just the wahibist militants.

i do feel sorry for them, though, and think they might just be overcompensating for their small penises.

[sandinista! 1,816]

i can't figure out why events that happened 500-1000 years ago are being referenced. the political issues involving scores of muslims around the planet have nothing to do with the crusades or the inquisition.

from a purely sociological perspective, they are relevant.

to whom are they relevant, and for what possible reason?

At least until the Iraq war, most present-day Arabs didn't think in the stark clash-of-civilization terms Lewis prefers. Bin Laden likes to vilify Western Crusaders, but until relatively recently, he was still seen by much of the Arab establishment as a marginal figure. To most Arabs before 9/11, the Crusades were history as ancient as they are to us in the West. Modern Arab anger and frustration is, in fact, less than a hundred years old. As bin Laden knows very well, this anger is a function not of Islam's humiliation at the Treaty of Carlowitz of 1699--the sort of long-ago defeat that Lewis highlights in his bestselling What Went Wrong--but of much more recent developments. These include the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement by which the British and French agreed to divvy up the Arabic-speaking countries after World War I; the subsequent creation, by the Europeans, of corrupt, kleptocratic tyrannies in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and Jordan; the endemic poverty and underdevelopment that resulted for most of the 20th century; the U.N.-imposed creation of Israel in 1948; and finally, in recent decades, American support for the bleak status quo.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/...0411.hirsh.html

[justashooter 430]

i can't figure out why events that happened 500-1000 years ago are being referenced. the political issues involving scores of muslims around the planet have nothing to do with the crusades or the inquisition.

from a purely sociological perspective, they are relevant.

to whom are they relevant, and for what possible reason?

they are relevant to any observant individual. social science is based upon observation of group dynamics. dysfunctional dynamics can be studied and classified for better understanding of specific flaws within them. there is no new thing under the sun. now get back into your box.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Twaddle

[justashooter 430]

Twaddle

ah, we hear from the dysfunctional one!

[scandal 951]

Lets look at the Spanish Inquisition as an example of atrocities committed not just against Muslims, but also Jews. I hardly think Islam is the only religion that has had atrocities. It doesn't mean everyone within the religion agreed with the actions of a few.

The Spanish Inquisition was indeed a calamitous event for the Jewish people of that time and place. It involved not just the expulsion from Spain, but also forced conversions on point of death to Catholicism, as well as the most vicious practices of torture carried out in "auto da fe" show trials.

Jews have suffered at the hands of Christian Europe for much of the past 2,000 years of Diaspora - pogroms in medieval Europe, the Crusades, the Inquisition, and culminating in the Holocaust.

It is also very true that during much of that 2,000 year period, the Jews who found themselves living in Muslim ruled lands typically found themselves in much better circumstances. Maimonides, the renowned Jewish Rabbi scholar and physician, lived in Muslim Spain, Morocco and Egypt. Jews in the Ottoman Empire, in Iraq, in Yemen, and in Iran generally had better access to education, freer practice of their religion and individual betterment than their counterparts in Christian Europe.

Islam historically was reasonably tolerant of the Jews in its midst (with exceptions, of course).

As others have indicated in this thread however - what's the relevance of that to the discussion of modern 21st century radical Islam?

Yes, anyone who has studied history should be able to immediately recognize that Islam is NOT a religion of hatred and intolerance.

Even today, the vast majority of practicing Muslims are NOT extremists filled with hate.

But that doesn't change the fact that there is a virulent hard-core element of fanaticism in the Islamic world of today. It's antisemitic, anti-Israel, denies the historical facts of the Holocaust, preaches hatred of the west, of America, of Christianity and Judaism and Buddhism. It spans Shiite Iran and Hizbullah as well as Sunni radical states (e.g. Syria) and radical movements and groups (e.g. Hamas, the various branches of al Qaida).

Pointing to the Crusades or the Inquisition says nothing whatsoever about how to address this radicalism.

In my view, the only way we have a hope to combat radical Islam is to offer the 1 billion+ Muslims in the world, many of which live in destitute conditions under corrupt and tyrannical regimes, a better option. Many are turning to radicalism because they see no hope in the paths of secularism and coexistence - they see their corrupt governments collaborating with America (Afghanistan right now is textbook example of this), and feel alienated.

Perhaps we can turn the tide, perhaps the majority of Muslims who want peace and coexistence with their non-Muslim neighbors (as I believe most Muslims on VJ to be) can persuade their friends and relatives that hatred and murder and destruction is not what the Koran is about. Perhaps they can point out the long tradition of enlightenment and tolerance that existed in the Muslim world for centuries while Christian Europe wallowed in the Dark Ages. Perhaps again the Islamic world can be a leader in medicine, science and engineering, as it was during Maimonides time.

[spookyturtle 9,465]

Better Muslims than Australians.