posted by Ty @ 11/12/2004

At 2:31 PM, November 16, 2004,  Anonymous said...

Ty,

Good article. I am going to post my opinion, and here is my forewarning that this may be offensive to some...

The death of Van Gogh is very disturbing. Van Gogh was a controversial man who said and produced works that angered many. He can be equated as the Michael Moore of Holland. Unfortunately, Van Gogh suffered an untimely death due to his expressions and ideas that did not match to others.

This reminds me of the mass protests that occurred after Salman Rushdie wrote his controversial novel. For those who don't know, the Ayotollah offered a $1,000,000 dollar reward to anyone who killed Rushdie claiming that it was every Muslem's duty to kill him for his controversial piece. There were also large marches in the streets of Britain (Rushdie's home country) with the chants of kill Rushdie. To this day, there is still a bounty on Rushdie's head, only it has grown to $ 2.5M diminishing the original 1M that the Ayotollah originally offered. Fortunately for Rushdie, he has done a much better job of hiding himself and seeking protection than Van Gogh did.

I am going to try to keep my personal opinion out of this post, and just let you read about the history of Islam and what the Qu'uran teaches. Why am I doing this? Because I believe that the US is composed of many ethnocentric individuals (including myself) who do not have a broad view of other cultures and religions. Some may ask, "Why aren't there Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist terrorist and suicide bombers? Why are 90% of the known terrorist organizations in the world Muslem?"

To answer these questions, we must look at the advent of the religion and what it teaches.

Islam is a religion whose roots sprung from hostility and violence. I am not going to get into the details of the advent of Islam with the deadly force used by Muhammad, Islam is not a religion that grew from peace and tolerance. Muhammad's and Islam's rise to prominence was greatly influenced by the violent nature and his followers. Muhammad's accomplishments included numerous raids on Caravan's containing goods of worth, violent overtaking of cities, and mass genocide.

Here is one example of mass genocide at the hand of Muhammad...



Mohammed marched with 3,000 followers against 2,000 Quraiza Jews, shortly after the siege of Medina ended.  The Jews were attacked and they soon surrendered.  A wounded chief named Sa'd was asked by Mohammed to decide the fate of the captives.  His response was that the men should be put to death, the women and children sold into slavery, and the booty be divided among the Islamic army.  A shrill of horror ran through the assembled captives.  Mohammed then said; "Truly, the judgment of Sa'd is the judgment of the Lord, pronounced on high from above the seventh heaven".
The Muslims dug trenches across from the marketplace, and in the morning Mohammed commanded that the male captives be brought out 5-6 at a time.  The Jews were made to sit down at the top of the trenches.  Next, the Muslims beheaded them and tossed their bodies into the trench.

Here are also some verses from the Qu'uran that explain the duties of a Muslem.


Find and slay the pagans [non-Muslims] wherever you find them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them, in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent [convert to Islam], and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity, them open up a way for them: for Allah is oft forgiving, most merciful ...

– Surah 9:5



"The Jews...are the brothers of monkeys and pigs...Allah has warned us against their evil and their arrogance, and has said: 'You will find that the most brazen among mankind, with hatred towards the believers, are the Jews and the Idolaters.' [Koran, 81,5]...The Jews are Jews, and we are forbidden to forget their character traits even for a moment, even for a blink of an eye. O Servants of Allah! The Jews are those who tried to murder your Prophet in order to expunge the call (to Islam)....Prayer and blessing to the Imam of the Jihad fighters, Mohammed, who waged a Jihad against the Jews...The Jews...are Idolaters, heretics, whose faith is false."

'O Prophet exhort the believers to fight. If there be of you 20 steadfast, they will overcome 200 and if there be of you a 100, they shall overcome a 1000, because the disbelievers are a folk without intelligence'.

Koran (Qu'ran) 8:65


Here are also a couple of sermons given by both a hardline and moderate cleric.


"Blessings for whoever assaulted a soldier... Blessings for whoever has raised his sons on the education of Jihad and Martyrdom; blessings for whoever has saved a bullet in order to stick it in a Jew's head."
The following sermon was also delivered at the Sheik 'Ijlin Mosque in Gaza, Palestinian Authority, The speaker was Sheik Ibrahim Madhi. June 8, 2001. In the name of Islam the speaker calls for suicide bombers to destroy not only all Jews, but also the United States and Britain.




In Britain the so-called moderate Islamic cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi talked about liberating Israel through the use of "children bombs". That’s not the bizarre part- he did so at a conference entitled "our Children Our Future", sponsored by the Metropolitan Police and the Department for Work and pensions.



Please keep in mind that I don't view all Muslem's as suicide bombers or terrorists, but until we can discern between those who hold some of these fundamentalist beliefs and those who do not, then we as a country are subjected to a very high risk.

This is just an overview, but if anyone is interested in further learning about the actions of Muhammad and the teachings of the Qu'uran that promote violence, please let me know and I would be glad to discuss.

-Jeff

 

At 1:36 AM, November 09, 2008,  Olwenh said...

So I’ve read both of your posts, and I’m sorry to Jeff but in no means was that post a non bias attempt at looking at Islam, if you took a serious attempt at leaving your personal feelings out of the matter you wouldn't have used words such as "violent overtaking" because these words evoke emotion and as such your post is not a completely factual approach...

yes Islam has its many terrorist issues, but if you were aware of how terrorism formed then you would both be able to understand why Islam has such a vast number of terrorists within its followers. Terrorists usually form out of poor social conditions, rejection from society, being isolated and immense feelings of anger and hate.

Most of the Islamic extremists come from countries like Afghan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan; these countries have major social issues, as all of their governments are pretty corrupt.

Also for countries like Afghanistan, it is no wonder they are angry as between 1981 and 1991 afghan was used as 'proxy war' for Russia and America in the cold war, which lead to an almost complete destruction of the country. During this war America funded the ‘Taliban’, which to the Americans at that time, were 'freedom fighters' against the Russians. However, once the Russian's withdrew for Afghan the Taliban were left to take over afghan. And at the ending of the Cold War America withdrew most of their support for the Taliban, consequently allowing the Taliban to have full control of Afghan. Hence their power grew and they were able to shape Afghan the way they wanted (and although they are said to be an Islamic group, there form of Islam is not what the Qu'uran preaches as most of their laws were based on the Sharia). So before afghan was able to recover from the destruction it suffered during the Afghan war they were thrown into a massive social change of which took away most human rights. And after 9'11' America decides to return to Afghan, but not to fix up their social issues, their economy and fix their country, but to completely destroy. As such it is not surprising that at least the Afghanis are not too impressed by the Americans.

Also a lot of Islamic states fear the eventual take over of Western countries, which is understandable seeing as they're now involved in all over the middle east, taking their resources making it even harder for these countries to grow economically, politically and socially.

And with the issues of Domestic Islamic Extremists, its due to the ways in which society has taken such a negative stance to Islam, like i said, terrorism thrives on rejection and isolation. If an individual is content with their society and their placing in society, they are highly unlikely to perform acts of violence towards it.

Lastly I would just like to comment on Jeff’s statement on Islamic Terrorists and how most other religions don't have terrorists. I would just like to point out, that it has been a quite common thing for people to reject the past centuries and focus on the now. Lets take a look in history, The Crusades, Christian Missionaries in the 18th -19th century, the Irish war of the 17th century. These are just a few displays of Christians performing acts of Genocide and acts of terrorism. Also the Jews first performed the first acts of civilian terrorism, when they attacked a hotel in Palestine in the 1970s, killing up to 100 people.

Also there are a lot of religious fundamentalists in America of which are not Muslim... Does the KKK, White Supremacist or Neo Nazis ring a bell? Yes they are more recognised as anti - racial groups, however their main basis for their acts and their beliefs is the bible, basing all that they know about race, sexuality and religious tolerance on the bible.

I am not a Muslim, I am not American. I am just a student in Australia who has spent the last year studying Islam and belief systems. However i feel very strongly about opening people’s minds to the facts.
Fact 1 - every religion is moulded by culture and as such Islam looks very different in a lot of Islamic and non-Islamic states and countries (for example compare Saudi Arabia to Turkey - a complete Islamic run state to a now secular country which bands the wearing of the Hijab in public buildings)
Fact 2 - Each religion has a vast number of followers who form their own ideals about what the religion preaches and its values.
Fact 3- Islam itself does not promote for the complete removal of women’s rights, it was in fact one of the first religions to promote women's rights - giving them the right to education, property and the right to divorce.
Fact 4 - you will find in any religious texts scripts that promote religious intolerance, racial intolerance or any other type of intolerance, if you look hard enough.
Oh and its very easy to know which Muslim is an extremist and which one isn’t, the ones that aren’t extremists are the ones that never make it onto the news, never come into conflict over others values or beliefs, never murder anyone. It’s the Muslim you probably know without being aware of it.

 

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