Of course. The vast, vast majority of Muslims and Islamic clerics dispute that the religion implores all Muslims to covert by force. Yet American Islamophobes, most with a knowledge of Islam a few verses picked up on the Internet deep, claim that they know better.
As I've said often, I believe that delusion and hysteria about Islam hinders our ability to come up with an effective assessment of it.
Agreed.Originally Posted by SteveMetz
I generally agree, but not with the part about delusion and hysteria. I think the failure in effective assessment has three components:
- Hard radical Moslem behavior makes headlines - because if it bleeds it leads. Every time a nut case, who happens to be Moslem, attacks his daughters in the name of "honor," it will make national news. That leaves an impression that all have this attitude (which is, to the best of my knowledge, tribal custom having nothing to do with Islam).
- Soft radical Moslem spokesmen, usually self designated and further promoted by PC groups, who speak of Moslem grievances against Western Civilization. (At one point, they were explaining that Moslem's were still angered by the Crusades.) Most people hear these grievances/explanations and (correctly) conclude that if they really believe this, they aren't very rational.
- A PC crowd pushing special accommodation, status, protection, etc. for Moslem's and Islam. (For reasons I will not go into on this board.) It hasn't gone as far in the U.S. as it has in Canada or Europe, but it is still there. That will inevitably alienate people who will ask why Christian prayer in school violates the legal principle of Separation of Church and State, but building a Moslem prayer room in the schools doesn't.
I think that for most people, not just in the U.S. but also, increasingly, in Europe, Canada, Australia, etc., these add up to concerns that are both rational and mistaken, but not delusional or hysterical. Obtaining a more accurate evaluation will require recognizing that the concerns are legitimately held, then working to demonstrate that they aren't correct. Which is why I would like to see the responsible Imams and other spokespeople given more prominence in the national discussion on the issue.
John Wolfsberger, Jr.
An unruffled person with some useful skills.
Impossible to do when professional Islamophobes, who are given a megaphone by a partisan media, feel no shame in slandering any Muslim leader or spokesperson as a terrorist sympathizer. Seriously, if Feisal Abdul Rauf can be portrayed as a radical, any Muslim can be.Which is why I would like to see the responsible Imams and other spokespeople given more prominence in the national discussion on the issue.
We'll agree to disagree. When an organization screaming about the Islamic take over of Oklahoma is endorsed by a former CIA director, we're well beyond "rational and mistaken." We are, in my opinion, at the point of delusion and hysteria. (Unless there is an AQ document I've missed where OBL listed his priorities as liberating Mecca, then Jerusalem, then Tulsa.)
And your statement about "why Christian prayer in school violates the legal principle of Separation of Church and State, but building a Moslem prayer room in the schools doesn't" is, at best, a red herring. No one prohibits Christian students from praying; law prohibits school officials from sanctioning prayer or making in mandatory. If schools were forcing non-Muslim students to use the prayer room, then the comparison would be valid. As it is, public schools can and do provide a space for Christian prayer groups to meet outside of class time.
And the comment "I would like to see the responsible Imams and other spokespeople given more prominence in the national discussion on the issue" overlooks the fact that it happens on a regular basis. Yet we see purportedly responsible media like the Washington Times printing op-eds by people like Ted Nugent which assert that no Muslim clerics condemn terrorism or extremism. That is a demonstrably false statement.
What concerns me is that delusion, hysteria and falsehood about Islam has moved from the lunatic fringe like Pamela Gellar and Robert Spencer to the mainstream like the Washington Times and Fox News, stoked by people like Boykin, Woolsey and some other major political figures.
My major concern, as expressed in my essay that I can't find a venue for, is that it is ridiculous to assume that this will have no effect on our strategy of building partnerships in the Islamic world. One of the most important points made in the 1980s by Jeanne Kirkpatrick and institutionalized in the Reagan strategy was that other nations couldn't spew virulently anti-American rhetoric and expect to be our partners and recipients of aid. That made perfect sense. But it cuts both ways. If Americans see Islam as a religion as a threat rather than simply Muslim extremists, then we cannot rationally expect to implement a strategy based on partnership with Islamic nations.
Last edited by SteveMetz; 10-21-2010 at 07:50 PM.
I dare you to find a better example of both logical inconsistency and irony.
Instead of posting a fuller response to the comments above I hope to incorporate them, with the permission of the posters, into an article I have been in the process of writing for a long time now. I simply can't respond in the depth and detail I'd like to in this space/medium without my reply looking like an article (so why not write it as such anyway). However, I nwould like to know from Steve Metz what the specific delusions abour islam he is refering to....
...I might then be able to make some informed posts in response.What concerns me is that delusion, hysteria and falsehood about Islam
Last edited by Tukhachevskii; 10-22-2010 at 09:02 AM.
Things mentioned in this thread alone: that Islam demands that Muslims convert non-Muslims by force, that Muslims want to impose sharia on Oklahoma, that no Muslims or no Muslim clerics condemn terrorism or extremism.I dare you to find a better example of both logical inconsistency and irony.
Instead of posting a fuller response to the comments above I hope to incorporate them, with the permission of the posters, into an article I have been in the process of writing for a long time now. I simply can't respond in the depth and detail I'd like to in this space/medium without my reply looking like an article (so why not write it as such anyway). However, I nwould like to know from Steve Metz what the specific delusions abour islam he is refering to....
...I might then be able to make some informed posts in response.
Was this an actual Reagan Administration policy? What accounts for our long and fruitful partnership with the Saudis and the Pakistanis at that time, then? Or indeed with recipients of American largesse like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani?One of the most important points made in the 1980s by Jeanne Kirkpatrick and institutionalized in the Reagan strategy was that other nations couldn't spew virulently anti-American rhetoric and expect to be our partners and recipients of aid. That made perfect sense.
I don't remember the Saudis and Pakistanis being virulently anti-American at the time. But, of course, exceptions are always made for "strategically significant" partners.
Ok thanks for the calrification (p.s, because of the nature of the medium my responses may seem more "strident" than they are intended, if we were face to face I am sure you'd find me more collegial/jovial in a debate). Let's use Ends, Means, Ways as a heuristic device for the discussion. Apologies in advance for the typing errors, I have yet to fix my keyboard 9I suppose I should stop eating soya nuts at the desk!).
1. Ends.Islam and conversion. Islam (by which I mean the core historical a priori/generative grammar centred on the Prophet, the hadeeth and sharia and the Quran) deman that the call (da'wa) to Islam be made universally. Jihad is the military manifestation (ways) of that goal. According to the Shaira (supported by hadeeth that are sahih (and that's an important issue) it is incumbent upon the Muslim polity to call (da'wa) non-Muslims to Islam...if they refuse then they must be conquered and brought under the system of Islamic governance as either Dhimmi (protected persons-"People of the Book" loosely defined or killed. That's the law. Whether we like it or not and whetehr our "moderate" muslim friends admit as much is irrelevant. When a "peaceful" Ahmaddiya or Sufi is confronted with the overwhelming evidecne of his duty to wage Jihad (under an appropriate authority, more on that later) what exactly is his reponse...either to fiollow the law or renounce his/her faith (under Islam any Muslim that fails in their duties toward Islam or the law is an apostate and thus must be...killed). Jihad, let us not forget, is a universal obligation upon Muslims/ The fact that many don't is a matter of a sliding scale of adherance. The more pious the Muslim, the closer he/she follows the dictates of Islam, the more inclined (obligated) they will feel towards Jihad. Rememebr, like the US constitution, Islams generative grammar exerts a tremendous ammount of centripetal/normative presuure upon Muslims. The laws stating that Islam does not belive in conversion by force (the Meccan verses) were abrogated (every Muslim knows this or if they don't they can find out from their Imam). They are relevant only to the uninformed. Islam does not advocate conversion by force (torture) but only by ultimatum. Their reasoning is that anyone who hears the call would in their right mind convert; if not then they must be possessed by Shaitan and thus destroyed (an analogy can be found in the Communist theory of war as being inevitable).
2. Muslims wish to impose/introduce Sahir'a to the whole world. Theuir religion dmenads that. Islam and Muslims have bnot fulfilled the Prophets mission until the entire world is Islamic (not necessarily Muslim). What people tend to forget is that according to Islamic law (but, curiously Shia versions differ because of their emphasis on the Hidden Imam) wherever Sharia law operates can be ipso facto declared Islamic territory and we all know the consequences of that. The Prophet stated that if a Muslim lives in a land without sharia then he should either conquer it (bring Sharia to it, sort of like American's bringing freedom and democracy) or they should elave for somewhere where Sharia is operative. The great number of Muslim fence-sitters ("moderates" to you) merely sit between their "foundationalist" co-religionists and their host societies and reap the rewards from both.
3. There are a great many Muslim clerics who denounce terrorism against women and children and suicide. They do not denounce Jihad (ways) or the goal (ends) of sumbission of all to Islam. Islam forbids the murder of non-combatants (civilians) only if they are not aiding and abetting the enemy (Us) but aiding and abetting can run the whole gamut to providing sanctuary to food (talk about a moveable feast). What clerics differ over is who constitues an appropriate polictal authority endowed with the wherewithall to declare jihad. The Shia resolve this with the Hidden Imam, hence they view their Jihad as purely defensive. But don't let that fool you. According to Islam Jihad is defensive because any non-Muslim entity that exists is a threat to the mission, veracity and truth of Islam (analogous to Nazism's view of the jews, hence Hitler could get away with stating that his war against the USSR was defensive because the Jews were a biological threat, Communism was a Jewsih plot and the Commisars were all Jews, even though his victims would have seen it differently).
Our problem is that we refuse to listen or examine Islam on its own terms (according to its own "rules of formation"/"generative grammar") and instead analyse it in accordance with what we think it should be. Robert Spencer's analysis of Islam is bang on the money but his subsequent programmatic goals (as a pro-Christian revivalist) is not. Indeed, if you compare his jingoistic Islam for dummies book with the more nuanced, reasoned and schollarly work of Bonner's Jihad in Islamic History you will fidn their conclusions are identical. I don't like Spencer or his approach either but that shouldn't detract from the essential soundess of his argument. Besides, like Bonner above, their are several score authories on Islam would state exactly the same (Espositio is not one of them).
Last edited by Tukhachevskii; 10-22-2010 at 05:04 PM.
Sorry, but I stopped reading when I hit the sentence, "Jihad is the military manifestation (way) of that goal." I'm certainly no expert on Islam but even I know that's not correct.
Ironically, when asked about Old Testament passages advocating things like genocide, Christians usually contend that they have to be understood in historical context. But then some of the same will cherry pick a verse out of the Koran and assign a meaning to it which most Muslims disagree with.
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