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     | Thursday, October 12, 2000 - 11:31 pm Do you think that the Islamic world will always view the non-islamic world with sceptisism and hostility? Do you think the forces of history and the Qur'ans negative diatribes about non-believers will ensure that Islam always always maintains a somewhat hostile footing with the rest of the world? The more I read here on the net, the more I am becoming convinced that because the Qur'an preaches that there is a final outcome and it's pre-ordained - that Islam will "triumph", Muslims are always going to harbor a certain hostility and suspicious nature to non-muslims even if the non-muslims wish them no ill. Am I right here, or am I overstating things? What do you think?
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| | Friday, October 13, 2000 - 06:28 am mad mac, i think you are confused. it is the other way around. skepticism and hostility is coming from the non-muslims. you come to someone's else's home and occupy, but then when the people tell you to get out, you claim the muslims are the ones doing hostile footing with the rest of the world. the truth the skepticism and hostility towards muslims is coming for terrorists who occupy and kill muslims and the world knows about this. what you think diatribes is the truth. islam means peace and the Qur'an tells the truth. the jews and christians--their own books (the bible and torah) also tell the truth about the jews and their wicked ways. i can quote for you what their books say if you like. ;-). what the non-muslims (the enemies of islam) hide and the hatred they have for islam is greater what they show and do to the muslims.
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| | Friday, October 13, 2000 - 09:31 am But that's not what I'm saying. I'm talking bigger than Israel and Palestine. I mean, there aren't very many Israelis or Palestinians. I'm talking between Islam and the rest of the world. I get the feeling that Muslims feel like they have some fundamental rub with everyone. Like they want to rule the world. I'll see people post things like "One day Muslims will rule the whole world" and stuff like that. I guess what I'm saying is I note open hostility against anything and anyone that's not Muslim. Am I wrong on this?
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| | Friday, October 13, 2000 - 12:08 pm "I get the feeling that Muslims feel like they have some fundamental rub with everyone. Like they want to rule the world." well, like i said, it is the other way around. if muslims ruled the world in islam, there would not be lots of killing and injustices that we see now against many muslims. when muslims ruled in islam, jews were run to the muslims and were save.! "I'll see people post things like "One day Muslims will rule the whole world" and stuff like that." and the aim of non-muslims is to stop the muslims by killing them, right? "I guess what I'm saying is I note open hostility against anything and anyone that's not Muslim. Am I wrong on this?" as i told you, it is the other way around as we witness in what is going on in the world. I'll see people post things like "One day Muslims will rule the whole world" and stuff like that. I guess what I'm saying is I note open hostility against anything and anyone that's not Muslim. Am I wrong on this?
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| | Friday, October 13, 2000 - 12:22 pm "I'll see people post things like "One day Muslims will rule the whole world" and stuff like that." maybe those muslims want to stop the killings of muslims. "I guess what I'm saying is I note open hostility against anything and anyone that's not Muslim. Am I wrong on this?" i guess what you are noting is muslims wanting to go against anyting and anyone that is against muslim. muslims wish to stop the injustices and the killings.
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| | Friday, October 13, 2000 - 02:49 pm I wonder what is wrong this MAD COW? Does he/she have not a life? No work or whatsoever? Or does he work for Somalinet.com? you, A f*****g jew! The history'll rebeat
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| | Friday, October 13, 2000 - 07:29 pm MAD. " I get the feeling that Muslims feel like they have some fundamental rub with everyone." Actually, it is not fundamental rub but fundamental difference in belief. What makes fruitless the efforts of some good hearted christians, is their misunderstanding of islam. They think muslims have to compromise to reconcile their differences with them. When they realize it won't happen, they start getting frustrated and call muslims names. You can't convince a muslim to beleif in trinity for example. And if the muslim rejects that, then christians pack their bags and leave. The proplem is what other people want from us THAT WE CAN'T DO. Had those people accepted our existence as people, there would be no proplem. IT WON'T HAPPEN. After 14 thousand years, the deep rooted hatred from christians exists. Ask a church going christian what he/she thinks about muslims and you get your answer. "I'll see people post things like "One day Muslims will rule the whole world" and stuff like that." Muslims are supposed to stand up for justice and uphold the rule of law in the land of ALLAH. They were made a neutral nation that serves justice to people. It happened before. And it will happen again. Our mission is cut crystal clear for us. We fail sometimes, but we will recover, with the proper character of islam and the god fearing leadership in place, there will be no stopping to our campaing of serving justice. "2.143 Thus, have We made of you an Ummah(A NATION) justly balanced, that you might be witnesses over the nations".
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| | Saturday, October 14, 2000 - 01:59 am Formerguest / Asad OK, I think I got this now. When people say something like what side watcher said, accusing me of being a "fucking Jew" they really don't mean Jew, they mean an enemy of Islam, or someone who is trying to change Islamic belief or convert Muslims or who wishes them ill and they just throw the word Jew out as an Epithet, synonomous with something bad. Therefore, since some Muslims might perceive me as somehow an enemy of Islam, hence the hostility. Am I stright on this?
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| | Saturday, October 14, 2000 - 04:32 am Mad. I hope you don't get hurt by what people say to you here. You bring it upon to yourself by not staying away from what somalis cherish most, even if they are sometimes misbehaving themselves. Anyway, To answer to your question I can say yes. In general, hatred is forbidden in islam. Human beings are all equal and from one man. There is no difference between them in the sight of ALLAH except those who abstain what he forbode and follow what is righful: "49.13 O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other (not that you may despise each other). Verily the most honored of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things" And our prophet said peace be upon him in his last sermon in a long lecture to muslims or HADITH: O People, listen to me in earnest.......... All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black, nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action. Learn that every Muslim is the brother of another Muslim, and that Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not, therefore, do injustice to your selves". This is how islam views races and people around the world. You can't hate someone based on his tribe or racial affliation. So, A jew is not an insult. It just happened Jews hate US more than christians hate US. Allah said so in his QURAN: "5.82 Strongest among men in enmity to the believers will you find the Jews and Pagans". I visit their websites and see what they right. I can tell, If they could suck the life out of us, they would do in no time. Look at christians, they are misguided people, yet they like to invite people to their relIgion. They can BE as monsterous as the jews but not always so. Anyway, muslims are hated for nothing else, JUST FOR THEIR FAITH AND NOTHING ELSE.
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| | Saturday, October 14, 2000 - 08:00 am "Therefore, since some Muslims might perceive me as somehow an enemy of Islam, hence the hostility. Am I stright on this?" mad mac, you are no different than those who perceive you as an enemy of islam, because you also perceive them and their religion (islam) as having hostile footing with the rest of the world? when you really talk about a muslim, you mean he is an enemy of non-muslims. this is what you believe. this is how you started this page. and i told you that you are confused and it is the other way around. when we talk about the jewish, we know them by what they do now and have done in the world (their wicked ways). it is in their books and in the Qur'an.
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| | Saturday, October 14, 2000 - 08:19 am formerguest :-)
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| | Saturday, October 14, 2000 - 11:15 am Formerguest Mahadsannid Abowe. You were crystal clear. Asad You know, I have an aquantaince named Yasin Ali, he was a personal aide (coordinated travel, lodging, stuff like that) to Mohamed Farah Aideed. He was shot on 3 October by soldiers from my unit. Needless to say, we had some heated conversations. But at the end of the day (it was a great time for me. Talking face to face with the old adversary and comparing notes) he said to me "You know, I think part of the problem was we just didn't understand each other. It was misunderstanding that led to mistrust." I think there's a lot of that between Muslims and non-Muslims.
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| | Saturday, October 14, 2000 - 12:02 pm "I think there's a lot of that between Muslims and non-Muslims." there will be always conflicts between muslims and non-muslims. that is a fact, but history proved that when the muslims were in power, even jews were save. the jews did seek help and found save heaven in where the muslims lived. however, jews proved that they can not be trusted as their books and the Qur'an told us. i wonder why hitler and the christians were hard on the jews.
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| | Saturday, October 14, 2000 - 02:25 pm MAD. It is scary that you thank me. I am thinking, may be I did something wrong. You never agree with anything that is not in your court of disbelieve.
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| | Saturday, October 14, 2000 - 02:36 pm Formerguest I was thanking you for taking the time to give a sound explanation. It was easy to follow and understand. Asad Well, I would agree with you too a point. There are occasions when professed Muslims do not follow their own rules. Let's take the Israeli soldiers who were killed while in the custody of the Palestinian police. I think that was a technical rules violation. The Americans who were taken hostage in Iran, I think that also was a rules violation. But I'll be the first to admit that from a hisorical perspective, if you take the long view, Muslims were better behaved than non-Muslims in this area.
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| | Saturday, October 14, 2000 - 04:24 pm "There are occasions when professed Muslims do not follow their own rules" when the muslims follow their own made up rules (and not islamic rules), they even kill and violate their own kind (their own muslim fellows). take somali on somali crime. "But I'll be the first to admit that from a hisorical perspective, if you take the long view, Muslims were better behaved than non-Muslims in this area." in spain, for example, where the muslims ruled in islamic rules for more than 800 years, the christians and the jews lived with the muslims peacefully. however, when the muslims left the islamic rules (one by one), the christians killed the muslims and the jews. the rest of the muslims and the jews which the christians could not kill, they kicked them (all muslims and jews) out of spain.!
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| | Sunday, October 15, 2000 - 05:04 am Asad On the other hand, if you were say, a Berber, you might view things differently. After all, the Berbers had their land stolen from them by the Arabs during the Muslim expansion period, hence the Sahel wars that we see today between Berbers and Arabs in Morocco and Algiera. Not well publicized but ongoing nevertheless.
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| | Sunday, October 15, 2000 - 07:49 am well, mad mac, if you were to buy the lies (his story about islamic expansion by the sword) then you would accuse of the muslims stealing lands. you would say, for example, indonisia and somalia were stolen lands from the non-muslims who lived these areas. however, that is not correct. the people of marocco and algeria accepted islam and most of them became muslims through preaching and through intermarriage. those who did not accept islam (included the jews, sahel, berbers) in those countries still lived there peacefully as long as they did not undermined islam and practiced their own. some of these non-muslims still live there. the early muslims did not act like the christian crusaders who were killing any non-christian person or what they used to call the heathens (the barbarous), the non-christian.
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| | Sunday, October 15, 2000 - 08:38 am long, but an interesting reading: Why so many Muslims deeply resent the West, and why their bitterness will not easily be mollified by Bernard Lewis IN one of his letters Thomas Jefferson remarked that in matters of religion "the maxim of civil government" should be reversed and we should rather say, "Divided we stand, united, we fall." In this remark Jefferson was setting forth with classic terseness an idea that has come to be regarded as essentially American: the separation of Church and State. This idea was not entirely new; it had some precedents in the writings of Spinoza, Locke, and the philosophers of the European Enlightenment. It was in the United States, however, that the principle was first given the force of law and gradually, in the course of two centuries, became a reality. If the idea that religion and politics should be separated is relatively new, dating back a mere three hundred years, the idea that they are distinct dates back almost to the beginnings of Christianity. Christians are enjoined in their Scriptures to "render ... unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are God's." While opinions have differed as to the real meaning of this phrase, it has generally been interpreted as legitimizing a situation in which two institutions exist side by side, each with its own laws and chain of authority -- one concerned with religion, called the Church, the other concerned with politics, called the State. And since they are two, they may be joined or separated, subordinate or independent, and conflicts may arise between them over questions of demarcation and jurisdiction. Discuss this article in the Global Views forum of Post & Riposte. Return to Flashback: "Coming to Grips with Jihad." This formulation of the problems posed by the relations between religion and politics, and the possible solutions to those problems, arise from Christian, not universal, principles and experience. There are other religious traditions in which religion and politics are differently perceived, and in which, therefore, the problems and the possible solutions are radically different from those we know in the West. Most of these traditions, despite their often very high level of sophistication and achievement, remained or became local -- limited to one region or one culture or one people. There is one, however, that in its worldwide distribution, its continuing vitality, its universalist aspirations, can be compared to Christianity, and that is Islam. Islam is one of the world's great religions. Let me be explicit about what I, as a historian of Islam who is not a Muslim, mean by that. Islam has brought comfort and peace of mind to countless millions of men and women. It has given dignity and meaning to drab and impoverished lives. It has taught people of different races to live in brotherhood and people of different creeds to live side by side in reasonable tolerance. It inspired a great civilization in which others besides Muslims lived creative and useful lives and which, by its achievement, enriched the whole world. But Islam, like other religions, has also known periods when it inspired in some of its followers a mood of hatred and violence. It is our misfortune that part, though by no means all or even most, of the Muslim world is now going through such a period, and that much, though again not all, of that hatred is directed against us. We should not exaggerate the dimensions of the problem. The Muslim world is far from unanimous in its rejection of the West, nor have the Muslim regions of the Third World been the most passionate and the most extreme in their hostility. There are still significant numbers, in some quarters perhaps a majority, of Muslims with whom we share certain basic cultural and moral, social and political, beliefs and aspirations; there is still an imposing Western presence -- cultural, economic, diplomatic -- in Muslim lands, some of which are Western allies. Certainly nowhere in the Muslim world, in the Middle East or elsewhere, has American policy suffered disasters or encountered problems comparable to those in Southeast Asia or Central America. There is no Cuba, no Vietnam, in the Muslim world, and no place where American forces are involved as combatants or even as "advisers." But there is a Libya, an Iran, and a Lebanon, and a surge of hatred that distresses, alarms, and above all baffles Americans. At times this hatred goes beyond hostility to specific interests or actions or policies or even countries and becomes a rejection of Western civilization as such, not only what it does but what it is, and the principles and values that it practices and professes. These are indeed seen as innately evil, and those who promote or accept them as the "enemies of God." This phrase, which recurs so frequently in the language of the Iranian leadership, in both their judicial proceedings and their political pronouncements, must seem very strange to the modern outsider, whether religious or secular. The idea that God has enemies, and needs human help in order to identify and dispose of them, is a little difficult to assimilate. It is not, however, all that alien. The concept of the enemies of God is familiar in preclassical and classical antiquity, and in both the Old and New Testaments, as well as in the Koran. A particularly relevant version of the idea occurs in the dualist religions of ancient Iran, whose cosmogony assumed not one but two supreme powers. The Zoroastrian devil, unlike the Christian or Muslim or Jewish devil, is not one of God's creatures performing some of God's more mysterious tasks but an independent power, a supreme force of evil engaged in a cosmic struggle against God. This belief influenced a number of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish sects, through Manichaeism and other routes. The almost forgotten religion of the Manichees has given its name to the perception of problems as a stark and simple conflict between matching forces of pure good and pure evil. The Koran is of course strictly monotheistic, and recognizes one God, one universal power only. There is a struggle in human hearts between good and evil, between God's commandments and the tempter, but this is seen as a struggle ordained by God, with its outcome preordained by God, serving as a test of mankind, and not, as in some of the old dualist religions, a struggle in which mankind has a crucial part to play in bringing about the victory of good over evil. Despite this monotheism, Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, was at various stages influenced, especially in Iran, by the dualist idea of a cosmic clash of good and evil, light and darkness, order and chaos, truth and falsehood, God and the Adversary, variously known as devil, Iblis, Satan, and by other names. The Rise of the House of Unbelief IN Islam the struggle of good and evil very soon acquired political and even military dimensions. Muhammad, it will be recalled, was not only a prophet and a teacher, like the founders of other religions; he was also the head of a polity and of a community, a ruler and a soldier. Hence his struggle involved a state and its armed forces. If the fighters in the war for Islam, the holy war "in the path of God," are fighting for God, it follows that their opponents are fighting against God. And since God is in principle the sovereign, the supreme head of the Islamic state -- and the Prophet and, after the Prophet, the caliphs are his vicegerents -- then God as sovereign commands the army. The army is God's army and the enemy is God's enemy. The duty of God's soldiers is to dispatch God's enemies as quickly as possible to the place where God will chastise them -- that is to say, the afterlife. Clearly related to this is the basic division of mankind as perceived in Islam. Most, probably all, human societies have a way of distinguishing between themselves and others: insider and outsider, in-group and out-group, kinsman or neighbor and foreigner. These definitions not only define the outsider but also, and perhaps more particularly, help to define and illustrate our perception of ourselves. In the classical Islamic view, to which many Muslims are beginning to return, the world and all mankind are divided into two: the House of Islam, where the Muslim law and faith prevail, and the rest, known as the House of Unbelief or the House of War, which it is the duty of Muslims ultimately to bring to Islam. But the greater part of the world is still outside Islam, and even inside the Islamic lands, according to the view of the Muslim radicals, the faith of Islam has been undermined and the law of Islam has been abrogated. The obligation of holy war therefore begins at home and continues abroad, against the same infidel enemy. Like every other civilization known to human history, the Muslim world in its heyday saw itself as the center of truth and enlightenment, surrounded by infidel barbarians whom it would in due course enlighten and civilize. But between the different groups of barbarians there was a crucial difference. The barbarians to the east and the south were polytheists and idolaters, offering no serious threat and no competition at all to Islam. In the north and west, in contrast, Muslims from an early date recognized a genuine rival -- a competing world religion, a distinctive civilization inspired by that religion, and an empire that, though much smaller than theirs, was no less ambitious in its claims and aspirations. This was the entity known to itself and others as Christendom, a term that was long almost identical with Europe. The struggle between these rival systems has now lasted for some fourteen centuries. It began with the advent of Islam, in the seventh century, and has continued virtually to the present day. It has consisted of a long series of attacks and counterattacks, jihads and crusades, conquests and reconquests. For the first thousand years Islam was advancing, Christendom in retreat and under threat. The new faith conquered the old Christian lands of the Levant and North Africa, and invaded Europe, ruling for a while in Sicily, Spain, Portugal, and even parts of France. The attempt by the Crusaders to recover the lost lands of Christendom in the east was held and thrown back, and even the Muslims' loss of southwestern Europe to the Reconquista was amply compensated by the Islamic advance into southeastern Europe, which twice reached as far as Vienna. For the past three hundred years, since the failure of the second Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683 and the rise of the European colonial empires in Asia and Africa, Islam has been on the defensive, and the Christian and post-Christian civilization of Europe and her daughters has brought the whole world, including Islam, within its orbit. FOR a long time now there has been a rising tide of rebellion against this Western paramountcy, and a desire to reassert Muslim values and restore Muslim greatness. The Muslim has suffered successive stages of defeat. The first was his loss of domination in the world, to the advancing power of Russia and the West. The second was the undermining of his authority in his own country, through an invasion of foreign ideas and laws and ways of life and sometimes even foreign rulers or settlers, and the enfranchisement of native non-Muslim elements. The third -- the last straw -- was the challenge to his mastery in his own house, from emancipated women and rebellious children. It was too much to endure, and the outbreak of rage against these alien, infidel, and incomprehensible forces that had subverted his dominance, disrupted his society, and finally violated the sanctuary of his home was inevitable. It was also natural that this rage should be directed primarily against the millennial enemy and should draw its strength from ancient beliefs and loyalties. Europe and her daughters? The phrase may seem odd to Americans, whose national myths, since the beginning of their nationhood and even earlier, have usually defined their very identity in opposition to Europe, as something new and radically different from the old European ways. This is not, however, the way that others have seen it; not often in Europe, and hardly ever elsewhere. Though people of other races and cultures participated, for the most part involuntarily, in the discovery and creation of the Americas, this was, and in the eyes of the rest of the world long remained, a European enterprise, in which Europeans predominated and dominated and to which Europeans gave their languages, their religions, and much of their way of life. For a very long time voluntary immigration to America was almost exclusively European. There were indeed some who came from the Muslim lands in the Middle East and North Africa, but few were Muslims; most were members of the Christian and to a lesser extent the Jewish minorities in those countries. Their departure for America, and their subsequent presence in America, must have strengthened rather than lessened the European image of America in Muslim eyes. In the lands of Islam remarkably little was known about America. At first the voyages of discovery aroused some interest; the only surviving copy of Columbus's own map of America is a Turkish translation and adaptation, still preserved in the Topkapi Palace Museum, in Istanbul. A sixteenth-century Turkish geographer's account of the discovery of the New World, titled The History of Western India, was one of the first books printed in Turkey. But thereafter interest seems to have waned, and not much is said about America in Turkish, Arabic, or other Muslim languages until a relatively late date. A Moroccan ambassador who was in Spain at the time wrote what must surely be the first Arabic account of the American Revolution. The Sultan of Morocco signed a treaty of peace and friendship with the United States in 1787, and thereafter the new republic had a number of dealings, some friendly, some hostile, most commercial, with other Muslim states. These seem to have had little impact on either side. The American Revolution and the American republic to which it gave birth long remained unnoticed and unknown. Even the small but growing American presence in Muslim lands in the nineteenth century -- merchants, consuls, missionaries, and teachers -- aroused little or no curiosity, and is almost unmentioned in the Muslim litetature and newspapers of the time. The Second World War, the oil industry, and postwar developments brought many Americans to the Islamic lands; increasing numbers of Muslims also came to America, first as students, then as teachers or businessmen or other visitors, and eventually as immigrants. Cinema and later television brought the American way of life, or at any rate a certain version of it, before countless millions to whom the very name of America had previously been meaningless or unknown. A wide range of American products, particularly in the immediate postwar years, when European competition was virtually eliminated and Japanese competition had not yet arisen, reached into the remotest markets of the Muslim world, winning new customers and, perhaps more important, creating new tastes and ambitions. For some, America represented freedom and justice and opportunity. For many more, it represented wealth and power and success, at a time when these qualities were not regarded as sins or crimes. And then came the great change, when the leaders of a widespread and widening religious revival sought out and identified their enemies as the enemies of God, and gave them "a local habitation and a name" in the Western Hemisphere. Suddenly, or so it seemed, America had become the archenemy, the incarnation of evil, the diabolic opponent of all that is good, and specifically, for Muslims, of Islam. Why? Some Familiar Accusations Among the components in the mood of anti-Westernism, and more especially of anti-Americanism, were certain intellectual influences coming from Europe. One of these was from Germany, where a negative view of America formed part of a school of thought by no means limited to the Nazis but including writers as diverse as Rainer Maria Rilke, Ernst Junger, and Martin Heidegger. In this perception, America was the ultimate example of civilization without culture: rich and comfortable, materially advanced but soulless and artificial; assembled or at best constructed, not grown; mechanical, not organic; technologically complex but lacking the spirituality and vitality of the rooted, human, national cultures of the Germans and other "authentic" peoples. German philosophy, and particularly the philosophy of education, enjoyed a considerable vogue among Arab and some other Muslim intellectuals in the thirties and early forties, and this philosophic anti-Americanism was part of the message. After the collapse of the Third Reich and the temporary ending of German influence, another philosophy, even more anti-American, took its place -- the Soviet version of Marxism, with a denunciation of Western capitalism and of America as its most advanced and dangerous embodiment. And when Soviet influence began to fade, there was yet another to take its place, or at least to supplement its working -- the new mystique of Third Worldism, emanating from Western Europe, particularly France, and later also from the United States, and drawing at times on both these earlier philosophies. This mystique was helped by the universal human tendency to invent a golden age in the past, and the specifically European propensity to locate it elsewhere. A new variant of the old golden-age myth placed it in the Third World, where the innocence of the non-Western Adam and Eve was ruined by the Western serpent. This view took as axiomatic the goodness and purity of the East and the wickedness of the West, expanding in an exponential curve of evil from Western Europe to the United States. These ideas, too, fell on fertile ground, and won widespread support. But though these imported philosophies helped to provide intellectual expression for anti-Westernism and anti-Americanism, they did not cause it, and certainly they do not explain the widespread anti-Westernism that made so many in the Middle East and elsewhere in the Islamic world receptive to such ideas. It must surely be clear that what won support for such totally diverse doctrines was not Nazi race theory, which can have had little appeal for Arabs, or Soviet atheistic communism, which can have had little appeal for Muslims, but rather their common anti-Westernism. Nazism and communism were the main forces opposed to the West, both as a way of life and as a power in the world, and as such they could count on at least the sympathy if not the support of those who saw in the West their principal enemy. But why the hostility in the first place? If we turn from the general to the specific, there is no lack of individual policies and actions, pursued and taken by individual Western governments, that have aroused the passionate anger of Middle Eastern and other Islamic peoples. Yet all too often, when these policies are abandoned and the problems resolved, there is only a local and temporary alleviation. The French have left Algeria, the British have left Egypt, the Western oil companies have left their oil wells, the westernizing Shah has left Iran -- yet the generalized resentment of the fundamentalists and other extremists against the West and its friends remains and grows and is not appeased. The cause most frequently adduced for anti-American feeling among Muslims today is American support for Israel. This support is certainly a factor of importance, increasing with nearness and involvement. But here again there are some oddities, difficult to explain in terms of a single, simple cause. In the early days of the foundation of Israel, while the United States maintained a certain distance, the Soviet Union granted immediate de jure recognition and support, and arms sent from a Soviet satellite, Czechoslovakia, saved the infant state of Israel from defeat and death in its first weeks of life. Yet there seems to have been no great ill will toward the Soviets for these policies, and no corresponding good will toward the United States. In 1956 it was the United States that intervened, forcefully and decisively, to secure the withdrawal of Israeli, British, and French forces from Egypt -- yet in the late fifties and sixties it was to the Soviets, not America, that the rulers of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and other states turned for arms; it was with the Soviet bloc that they formed bonds of solidarity at the United Nations and in the world generally. More recently, the rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran have offered the most principled and uncompromising denunciation of Israel and Zionism. Yet even these leaders, before as well as after the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, when they decided for reasons of their own to enter into a dialogue of sorts, found it easier to talk to Jerusalem than to Washington. At the same time, Western hostages in Lebanon, many of them devoted to Arab causes and some of them converts to Islam, are seen and treated by their captors as limbs of the Great Satan. Another explanation, more often heard from Muslim dissidents, attributes anti-American feeling to American support for hated regimes, seen as reactionary by radicals, as impious by conservatives, as corrupt and tyrannical by both. This accusation has some plausibility, and could help to explain why an essentially inner-directed, often anti-nationalist movement should turn against a foreign power. But it does not suffice, especially since support for such regimes has been limited both in extent and -- as the Shah discovered -- in effectiveness. Clearly, something deeper is involved than these specific grievances, numerous and important as they may be -- something deeper that turns every disagreement into a problem and makes every problem insoluble. THIS revulsion against America, more generally against the West, is by no means limited to the Muslim world; nor have Muslims, with the exception of the Iranian mullahs and their disciples elsewhere, experienced and exhibited the more virulent forms of this feeling. The mood of disillusionment and hostility has affected many other parts of the world, and has even reached some elements in the United States. It is from these last, speaking for themselves and claiming to speak for the oppressed peoples of the Third World, that the most widely publicized explanations -- and justifications -- of this rejection of Western civilization and its values have of late been heard. The accusations are familiar. We of the West are accused of sexism, racism, and imperialism, institutionalized in patriarchy and slavery, tyranny and exploitation. To these charges, and to others as heinous, we have no option but to plead guilty -- not as Americans, nor yet as Westerners, but simply as human beings, as members of the human race. In none of these sins are we the only sinners, and in some of them we are very far from being the worst. The treatment of women in the Western world, and more generally in Christendom, has always been unequal and often oppressive, but even at its worst it was rather better than the rule of polygamy and concubinage that has otherwise been the almost universal lot of womankind on this planet. Is racism, then, the main grievance? Certainly the word figures prominently in publicity addressed to Western, Eastern European, and some Third World audiences. It figures less prominently in what is written and published for home consumption, and has become a generalized and meaningless term of abuse -- rather like "fascism," which is nowadays imputed to opponents even by spokesmen for one-party, nationalist dictatorships of various complexions and shirt colors. Slavery is today universally denounced as an offense against humanity, but within living memory it has been practiced and even defended as a necessary institution, established and regulated by divine law. The peculiarity of the peculiar institution, as Americans once called it, lay not in its existence but in its abolition. Westerners were the first to break the consensus of acceptance and to outlaw slavery, first at home, then in the other territories they controlled, and finally wherever in the world they were able to exercise power or influence -- in a word, by means of imperialism. Is imperialism, then, the grievance? Some Western powers, and in a sense Western civilization as a whole, have certainly been guilty of imperialism, but are we really to believe that in the expansion of Western Europe there was a quality of moral delinquency lacking in such earlier, relatively innocent expansions as those of the Arabs or the Mongols or the Ottomans, or in more recent expansions such as that which brought the rulers of Muscovy to the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Caspian, the Hindu Kush, and the Pacific Ocean? In having practiced sexism, racism, and imperialism, the West was merely following the common practice of mankind through the millennia of recorded history. Where it is distinct from all other civilizations is in having recognized, named, and tried, not entirely without success, to remedy these historic diseases. And that is surely a matter for congratulation, not condemnation. We do not hold Western medical science in general, or Dr. Parkinson and Dr. Alzheimer in particular, responsible for the diseases they diagnosed and to which they gave their names. Of all these offenses the one that is most widely, frequently, and vehemently denounced is undoubtedly imperialism -- sometimes just Western, sometimes Eastern (that is, Soviet) and Western alike. But the way this term is used in the literature of Islamic fundamentalists often suggests that it may not carry quite the same meaning for them as for its Western critics. In many of these writings the term "imperialist" is given a distinctly religious significance, being used in association, and sometimes interchangeably, with "missionary," and denoting a form of attack that includes the Crusades as well as the modern colonial empires. One also sometimes gets the impression that the offense of imperialism is not -- as for Western critics -- the domination by one people over another but rather the allocation of roles in this relationship. What is truly evil and unacceptable is the domination of infidels over true believers. For true believers to rule misbelievers is proper and natural, since this provides for the maintenance of the holy law, and gives the misbelievers both the opportunity and the incentive to embrace the true faith. But for misbelievers to rule over true believers is blasphemous and unnatural, since it leads to the corruption of religion and morality in society, and to the flouting or even the abrogation of God's law. This may help us to understand the current troubles in such diverse places as Ethiopian Eritrea, Indian Kashmir, Chinese Sinkiang, and Yugoslav Kossovo, in all of which Muslim populations are ruled by non-Muslim governments. It may also explain why spokesmen for the new Muslim minorities in Western Europe demand for Islam a degree of legal protection which those countries no longer give to Christianity and have never given to Judaism. Nor, of course, did the governments of the countries of origin of these Muslim spokesmen ever accord such protection to religions other than their own. In their perception, there is no contradiction in these attitudes. The true faith, based on God's final revelation, must be protected from insult and abuse; other faiths, being either false or incomplete, have no right to any such protection. THERE are other difficulties in the way of accepting imperialism as an explanation of Muslim hostility, even if we define imperialism narrowly and specifically, as the invasion and domination of Muslim countries by non-Muslims. If the hostility is directed against imperialism in that sense, why has it been so much stronger against Western Europe, which has relinquished all its Muslim possessions and dependencies, than against Russia, which still rules, with no light hand, over many millions of reluctant Muslim subjects and over ancient Muslim cities and countries? And why should it include the United States, which, apart from a brief interlude in the Muslim-minority area of the Philippines, has never ruled any Muslim population? The last surviving European empire with Muslim subjects, that of the Soviet Union, far from being the target of criticism and attack, has been almost exempt. Even the most recent repressions of Muslim revolts in the southern and central Asian republics of the USSR incurred no more than relatively mild words of expostulation, coupled with a disclaimer of any desire to interfere in what are quaintly called the "internal affairs" of the USSR and a request for the preservation of order and tranquillity on the frontier. One reason for this somewhat surprising restraint is to be found in the nature of events in Soviet Azerbaijan. Islam is obviously an important and potentially a growing element in the Azerbaijani sense of identity, but it is not at present a dominant element, and the Azerbaijani movement has more in common with the liberal patriotism of Europe than with Islamic fundamentalism. Such a movement would not arouse the sympathy of the rulers of the Islamic Republic. It might even alarm them, since a genuinely democratic national state run by the people of Soviet Azerbaijan would exercise a powerful attraction on their kinsmen immediately to the south, in Iranian Azerbaijan. Another reason for this relative lack of concern for the 50 million or more Muslims under Soviet rule may be a calculation of risk and advantage. The Soviet Union is near, along the northern frontiers of Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan; America and even Western Europe are far away. More to the point, it has not hitherto been the practice of the Soviets to quell disturbances with water cannon and rubber bullets, with TV cameras in attendance, or to release arrested persons on bail and allow them access to domestic and foreign media. The Soviets do not interview their harshest critics on prime time, or tempt them with teaching, lecturing, and writing engagements. On the contrary, their ways of indicating displeasure with criticism can often be quite disagreeable. But fear of reprisals, though no doubt important, is not the only or perhaps even the principal reason for the relatively minor place assigned to the Soviet Union, as compared with the West, in the demonology of fundamentalism. After all, the great social and intellectual and economic changes that have transformed most of the Islamic world, and given rise to such commonly denounced Western evils as consumerism and secularism, emerged from the West, not from the Soviet Union. No one could accuse the Soviets of consumerism; their materialism is philosophic -- to be precise, dialectical -- and has little or nothing to do in practice with providing the good things of life. Such provision represents another kind of materialism, often designated by its opponents as crass. It is associated with the capitalist West and not with the communist East, which has practiced, or at least imposed on its subjects, a degree of austerity that would impress a Sufi saint. Nor were the Soviets, until very recently, vulnerable to charges of secularism, the other great fundamentalist accusation against the West. Though atheist, they were not godless, and had in fact created an elaborate state apparatus to impose the worship of their gods -- an apparatus with its own orthodoxy, a hierarchy to define and enforce it, and an armed inquisition to detect and extirpate heresy. The separation of religion from the state does not mean the establishment of irreligion by the state, still less the forcible imposition of an anti-religious philosophy. Soviet secularism, like Soviet consumerism, holds no temptation for the Muslim masses, and is losing what appeal it had for Muslim intellectuals. More than ever before it is Western capitalism and democracy that provide an authentic and attractive alternative to traditional ways of thought and life. Fundamentalist leaders are not mistaken in seeing in Western civilization the greatest challenge to the way of life that they wish to retain or restore for their people. A Clash of Civilizations THE origins of secularism in the west may be found in two circumstances -- in early Christian teachings and, still more, experience, which created two institutions, Church and State; and in later Christian conflicts, which drove the two apart. Muslims, too, had their religious disagreements, but there was nothing remotely approaching the ferocity of the Christian struggles between Protestants and Catholics, which devastated Christian Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and finally drove Christians in desperation to evolve a doctrine of the separation of religion from the state. Only by depriving religious institutions of coercive power, it seemed, could Christendom restrain the murderous intolerance and persecution that Christians had visited on followers of other religions and, most of all, on those who professed other forms of their own. Muslims experienced no such need and evolved no such doctrine. There was no need for secularism in Islam, and even its pluralism was very different from that of the pagan Roman Empire, so vividly described by Edward Gibbon when he remarked that "the various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful." Islam was never prepared, either in theory or in practice, to accord full equality to those who held other beliefs and practiced other forms of worship. It did, however, accord to the holders of partial truth a degree of practical as well as theoretical tolerance rarely paralleled in the Christian world until the West adopted a measure of secularism in the late-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. At first the Muslim response to Western civilization was one of admiration and emulation -- an immense respect for the achievements of the West, and a desire to imitate and adopt them. This desire arose from a keen and growing awareness of the weakness, poverty, and backwardness of the Islamic world as compared with the advancing West. The disparity first became apparent on the battlefield but soon spread to other areas of human activity. Muslim writers observed and described the wealth and power of the West, its science and technology, its manufactures, and its forms of government. For a time the secret of Western success was seen to lie in two achievements: economic advancement and especially industry; political institutions and especially freedom. Several generations of reformers and modernizers tried to adapt these and introduce them to their own countries, in the hope that they would thereby be able to achieve equality with the West and perhaps restore their lost superiority. In our own time this mood of admiration and emulation has, among many Muslims, given way to one of hostility and rejection. In part this mood is surely due to a feeling of humiliation -- a growing awareness, among the heirs of an old, proud, and long dominant civilization, of having been overtaken, overborne, and overwhelmed by those whom they regarded as their inferiors. In part this mood is due to events in the Western world itself. One factor of major importance was certainly the impact of two great suicidal wars, in which Western civilization tore itself apart, bringing untold destruction to its own and other peoples, and in which the belligerents conducted an immense propaganda effort, in the Islamic world and elsewhere, to discredit and undermine each other. The message they brought found many listeners, who were all the more ready to respond in that their own experience of Western yas was not happy. The introduction of Western commercial, financial, and industrial methods did indeed bring great wealth, but it accrued to transplanted Westerners and members of Westernized minorities, and to only a few among the mainstream Muslim population. In time these few became more numerous, but they remained isolated from the masses, differing from them even in their dress and style of life. Inevitably they were seen as agents of and collaborators with what was once again regarded as a hostile world. Even the political institutions that had come from the West were discredited, being judged not by their Western originals but by their local imitations, installed by enthusiastic Muslim reformers. These, operating in a situation beyond their control, using imported and inappropriate methods that they did not fully understand, were unable to cope with the rapidly developing crises and were one by one overthrown. For vast numbers of Middle Easterners, Western-style economic methods brought poverty, Western-style political institutions brought tyranny, even Western-style warfare brought defeat. It is hardly surprising that so many were willing to listen to voices telling them that the old Islamic ways were best and that their only salvation was to throw aside the pagan innovations of the reformers and return to the True Path that God had prescribed for his people. ULTIMATELY, the struggle of the fundamentalists is against two enemies, secularism and modernism. The war against secularism is conscious and explicit, and there is by now a whole literature denouncing secularism as an evil neo-pagan force in the modern world and attributing it variously to the Jews, the West, and the United States. The war against modernity is for the most part neither conscious nor explicit, and is directed against the whole process of change that has taken place in the Islamic world in the past century or more and has transformed the political, economic, social, and even cultural structures of Muslim countries. Islamic fundamentalism has given an aim and a form to the otherwise aimless and formless resentment and anger of the Muslim masses at the forces that have devalued their traditional values and loyalties and, in the final analysis, robbed them of their beliefs, their aspirations, their dignity, and to an increasing extent even their livelihood. There is something in the religious culture of Islam which inspired, in even the humblest peasant or peddler, a dignity and a courtesy toward others never exceeded and rarely equalled in other civilizations. And yet, in moments of upheaval and disruption, when the deeper passions are stirred, this dignity and courtesy toward others can give way to an explosive mixture of rage and hatred which impels even the government of an ancient and civilized country -- even the spokesman of a great spiritual and ethical religion -- to espouse kidnapping and assassination, and try to find, in the life of their Prophet, approval and indeed precedent for such actions. The instinct of the masses is not false in locating the ultimate source of these cataclysmic changes in the West and in attributing the disruption of their old way of life to the impact of Western domination, Western influence, or Western precept and example. And since the United States is the legitimate heir of European civilization and the recognized and unchallenged leader of the West, the United States has inherited the resulting grievances and become the focus for the pent-up hate and anger. Two examples may suffice. In November of 1979 an angry mob attacked and burned the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan. The stated cause of the crowd's anger was the seizure of the Great Mosque in Mecca by a group of Muslim dissidents -- an event in which there was no American involvement whatsoever. Almost ten years later, in February of 1989, again in Islamabad, the USIS center was attacked by angry crowds, this time to protest the publication of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. Rushdie is a British citizen of Indian birth, and his book had been published five months previously in England. But what provoked the mob's anger, and also the Ayatollah Khomeini's subsequent pronouncement of a death sentence on the author, was the publication of the book in the United States. It should by now be clear that we are facing a mood and a movement far transcending the level of issues and policies and the governments that pursue them. This is no less than a clash of civilizations -- the perhaps irrational but surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide expansion of both. It is crucially important that we on our side should not be provoked into an equally historic but also equally irrational reaction against that rival. Not all the ideas imported from the West by Western intruders or native Westernizers have been rejected. Some have been accepted by even the most radical Islamic fundamentalists, usually without acknowledgment of source, and suffering a sea change into something rarely rich but often strange. One such was political freedom, with the associated notions and practices of representation, election, and constitutional government. Even the Islamic Republic of Iran has a written constitution and an elected assembly, as well as a kind of episcopate, for none of which is there any prescription in Islamic teaching or any precedent in the Islamic past. All these institutions are clearly adapted from Western models. Muslim states have also retained many of the cultural and social customs of the West and the symbols that express them, such as the form and style of male (and to a much lesser extent female) clothing, notably in the military. The use of Western-invented guns and tanks and planes is a military necessity, but the continued use of fitted tunics and peaked caps is a cultural choice. From constitutions to Coca-Cola, from tanks and television to T-shirts, the symbols and artifacts, and through them the ideas, of the West have retained -- even strengthened -- their appeal. THE movement nowadays called fundamentalism is not the only Islamic tradition. There are others, more tolerant, more open, that helped to inspire the great achievements of Islamic civilization in the past, and we may hope that these other traditions will in time prevail. But before this issue is decided there will be a hard struggle, in which we of the West can do little or nothing. Even the attempt might do harm, for these are issues that Muslims must decide among themselves. And in the meantime we must take great care on all sides to avoid the danger of a new era of religious wars, arising from the exacerbation of differences and the revival of ancient prejudices. To this end we must strive to achieve a better appreciation of other religious and political cultures, through the study of their history, their literature, and their achievements. At the same time, we may hope that they will try to achieve a better understanding of ours, and especially that they will understand and respect, even if they do not choose to adopt for themselves, our Western perception of the proper relationship between religion and politics. To describe this perception I shall end as I began, with a quotation from an American President, this time not the justly celebrated Thomas Jefferson but the somewhat unjustly neglected John Tyler, who, in a letter dated July 10, 1843, gave eloquent and indeed prophetic expression to the principle of religious freedom: The United States have adventured upon a great and noble experiment, which is believed to have been hazarded in the absence of all previous precedent -- that of total separation of Church and State. No religious establishment by law exists among us. The conscience is left free from all restraint and each is permitted to worship his Maker after his own judgement. The offices of the Government are open alike to all. No tithes are levied to support an established Hierarchy, nor is the fallible judgement of man set up as the sure and infallible creed of faith. The Mahommedan, if he will to come among us would have the privilege guaranteed to him by the constitution to worship according to the Koran; and the East Indian might erect a shrine to Brahma if it so pleased him. Such is the spirit of toleration inculcated by our political Institutions.... The Hebrew persecuted and down trodden in other regions takes up his abode among us with none to make him afraid.... and the Aegis of the Government is over him to defend and protect him. Such is the great experiment which we have tried, and such are the happy fruits which have resulted from it; our system of free government would be imperfect without it. The body may be oppressed and manacled and yet survive; but if the mind of man be fettered, its energies and faculties perish, and what remains is of the earth, earthly. Mind should be free as the light or as the air.http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/90sep/rage.htm
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| | Sunday, October 15, 2000 - 11:17 am Asad Now that's interesting. Where ARABS occupied North Africa (prior to the 7th century the peoples of North Africa did not speak Arabic nor were they Arabs) it becomes something other than colonialism. But when other people do it, it's colonialism, unless those people are black (like the Zulus for example). So Black empires made up in conquest of other blacks are OK, even soemthing to be admired, and Arab conquests are OK becaus they were done by Arabs, so it really wasn't conquest, everyone just woke up won day and decided they all wanted to speak Arabic. now we aren't talking about Somalia or Iran here. Those countries weren't conquered, although the Arabs were around aplenty ont he Somali coast as traders. But North Africa was conquered by the Arabs dude. Before the 7th Centruy the language the people spoke was not Arabic. You still haven't figured out that the people of the world all operate with the same modus operendi have you? The reason the Europeans behaved the way they did is the same reason a dog licks his balls, because they could. You think Arabs are different? You think somehow they are genetically pre-disposed to behave themselves? I don't think so. Islam may have reigned them in some, but people are people.
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| | Sunday, October 15, 2000 - 12:08 pm Asad I thought the article was interesting. The great danger of Islam, the real clash of ideas, may come from the notion that Islam is right and therefore all others are wrong. Thus any war fought in the name of Islam is graced by God. God is frequently invoked for evil causes, and I am sure Islam would be no exception to that - because it's men behind the invocation, not God himself. If Islamic countries don't embrace secularism, I guarentee you history will leave them in the dust just as assuredely as it left the Inquisition on the outside looking in. Cultures which control thought are doomed to be overun by those that do not.
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| | Sunday, October 15, 2000 - 12:10 pm "But North Africa was conquered by the Arabs dude. Before the 7th Centruy the language the people spoke was not Arabic. You still haven't figured out that the people of the world all operate with the same modus operendi have you? " what you do not understand is that it is not ONLY the ARABS who spread and preached ISLAM and it was not the sword that did it (there were no forcing people to speak in arabic either). north africa is closer to arabia and that is why most of them speak in arabic, but islam is not about colonialism, dude. ;-) if we would take your example of colonialism, we would say that the muslims who came to madiina colonized the arab pagans in macca and those who lived in madina and other cities in arabia. what you do not understand is that if those people in north africa (like the arab pagans in macca) refused the muslims to come and preach islam, they would undermine islam; thus, there would be fights, but there is no compulsion of religion in islam (conquest or forcing people into islam). as i told you before, through preaching is what did it and since the Qur'an is in arabic, people learned the language of the Qur'an, especially if there was inter-marriage between the preacher (arab) and preached (non arab). "now we aren't talking about Somalia or Iran here." the language of somalis and Iranians is not arabic. "Those countries weren't conquered, although the Arabs were around aplenty ont he Somali coast as traders. The reason the Europeans behaved the way they did is the same reason a dog licks his balls, because they could. You think Arabs are different?" what the europeans (the christians) did in africa and what the arabs (the muslims) did in africa is different when it comes to religion and when we are talking about forcing people into religion, mad mac. "Islam may have reigned them in some, but people are people." people are people, yes. muslim preachers did not colonize africa. however, the christians forced africans into christinity and colonized africans. in islam, there is no compulsion in religion, mad mac.
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| | Sunday, October 15, 2000 - 12:29 pm "The great danger of Islam, the real clash of ideas, may come from the notion that Islam is right and therefore all others are wrong. Thus any war fought in the name of Islam is graced by God. If Islamic countries don't embrace secularism, I guarentee you history will leave them in the dust just as assuredely as it left the Inquisition on the outside looking in. Cultures which control thought are doomed to be overun by those that do not." islam is never in danger. in fact, islam thrives when there is dangerous in the world. no matter how bad the enemies of islam want to kill islam, they would never succeed. when muslims were weak and there were few of them in arabia and the few muslims were facing the greatest danger, islam did not die. muslims preached what is in the Qur'an against all against danger. the enemy of islam that time, could not destroy islam (the truth that is in the Qur'an--a believer of Allah is better than an unbeliever). the early muslims did not compromise the truth even if they had to die. if a muslim does not believe that islam is right and therefore all other beliefs is wrong, then he is no muslim. the Qur'an says: Allah will not accept any other religion other than ISLAM. mad mac, if you think secularism will rule forever, then i got a news for you. many empires and super-powers thought that they could last forever and never crumple, but history proved them wrong. ;-)
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| | Sunday, October 15, 2000 - 09:48 pm Asad I didn't say I thought secularism will rule forever. I said that secular states which do not attempt to control thought and expression will overun those who do not. Not through conquest, but through information. This is what brought about the downfall of Spain and its vast empire. Spain went fairly quickly from the dominant power in Europe to a backwater. Why? Because the inquisitions tortured people whenever they generated an idea that ran counter to what they believed. Evetually, everyone was afraid of voicing new thought, and invention and new economic ideas came to a halt. "Islamic countries" are run by men, not God. God doesn't come down and consult with legislatures to discuss the latest bill, he doesn't give insight into regulation of the internet or space travel. If you accept that the Qur'an is the unadulterated word of God, then you could view it like a constitution, it sets a framework in which to operate. But men still have to operate. And like any constitution, they can (and do right now) manipulate it for their own purposes. Hence you have Iranian leadership declaring a "jihad" against Iraq and people responding to it. You have people in Saudi Arabi being executed over trivial things and an oppressive government which oppresses its people through by invoking the Qur'an. I"m not saying ISLAM is at fault here, I'm saying that men rule the earth, and men will manipulate things when given the chance - and that's as true in Muslim counties as anywhere else. As for Islam spreding by the sword. The Arabs launched an expansionistic invasion into North Africa and colonized it for purposes exceeding the spread of Islam. The Berbers fought the Arabs and lost. Why do you think the Sahel wars, which have been going on for over a thousand years (classic low intensity conflict) continue???? Because the Arabs came and set up house and the Berbers resent it.
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| | Monday, October 16, 2000 - 05:24 am "I didn't say I thought secularism will rule forever. I said that secular states which do not attempt to control thought and expression will overun those who do not. Not through conquest, but through information." well, the information is in the Qu'ran can not be controled. that is what i'm telling you. islamic information that is in the Qu'ran is still growing and winning people's hearts. ""Islamic countries" are run by men, not God. God doesn't come down and consult with legislatures to discuss the latest bill, he doesn't give insight into regulation of the internet or space travel" there is no such thing as 'islamic countries'. Allah controls the world. the Qur'an is full of legislations and rules. when these are put to practice in places of this world by the muslims, then that is when things will change. if Allah wants to end the world, it will end. if there were 'islamic countries' where they ruled in islamic laws, Allah will help the men who run the lands. if people do not accept what Allah wants, then He is not going to help, but the world will not be the same. changes will take place and it will not be your favor, like it or not. Allah will use people again (as He used men of God before) who will continue to advogate the message of islam. the message can not be dead. when this help comes, every so-called super-power will come down under the people Allah used. it happened before, did it, mad mac? ;-) "If you accept that the Qur'an is the unadulterated word of God, then you could view it like a constitution, it sets a framework in which to operate. But men still have to operate. " well, if you do not accept Allah's law that is found in the Qur'an as the muslims view it, then it does not matter. more powerful nations than we have tdday had rejected the laws of Allah, but they crumpled anyway. the law in the Qur'an is not there for show. it is not like it did not happen. it is not like men of Allah have never operated and impelemented the law that is in the Qu'ran in their lands and in their lives. it may take time and efforts, but it will come. ;-) since the enemy tried to distory and put the light of islamic message down and could not succeed, they will not be able to stop it when it is impelemented in people's lives 100% and when this happens, the help of Allah will come as it did before. it is a promise that is found in the Qur'an. "I"m not saying ISLAM is at fault here, I'm saying that men rule the earth, and men will manipulate things when given the chance - and that's as true in Muslim counties as anywhere else." that is right, when muslims fail that does not mean islam fails. unlike the early muslims, as long as the muslims of today is failing to follow the islamic law that is in the Qu'ran, they will not succeed. but when they become like the early muslims, whoever tries to manipulate--be it the enemy of islam( the internal enemy, the hypocrites or the external enemies, the non-muslims--will fail as they failed before. "As for Islam spreding by the sword. The Arabs launched an expansionistic invasion into North Africa and colonized it for purposes exceeding the spread of Islam. The Berbers fought the Arabs and lost. Why do you think the Sahel wars, which have been going on for over a thousand years (classic low intensity conflict) continue???? Because the Arabs came and set up house and the Berbers resent it." as i told you before, what you do not understand is that if those people in north africa (like the arab pagans in macca) refused the muslims to come and preach islam, they would undermine islam; thus, there would be fights, but there is no compulsion of religion in islam (conquest, colonization or forcing people into islam or forcing them to speak in the arabic language). ;-). if islam colonized north africa, then it colonized mecca, madiina, iraq, syria, iran, somalia. ;-) islam spreding by the sword is false. maybe you are confused islam with christianity. ;-)
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| | Wednesday, October 18, 2000 - 12:28 am This is very interesting debate.
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| | Friday, October 20, 2000 - 07:22 am Yeah i agree interesting debate. Can i throw my little muslim point of view in. Asad, and Mad mac, both are explaining valid points of views. I agree with Asad, becasue he is muslim and basically his version of events are more accurate. The reasons his are more accurate are that Colonialism..and the Spread of Islam were too completely seprate phenomenons's.. the intentions of the people when they were setting out were different, radically different.One group felt that they had been sent a blessing to mankind and went out under the auspices of sharing this wonderful knowlegedge, the other group, were lets face it after booty. with regards to the berbers and the Arabs.. King Hassan oppresss many people,including the islamists, not only the berbers, the hostility between the berbers and the arabs is not facilitated, based on or does not even remotly surround Islam.Your arguementy, that man is infaliable and that Religion in man's hands is dangourous..what is the alternative Mad mac, try and understand, how can you expect us to agree with a civilisation which has 1 in 6 people in the world hungry(food and agricultural organisation).Ya Allah..we cannot You focus on the absolutism of Islam and think it is wrong perhaps to say that one group of people is the emnemy and the other is right.Take a look around Mad mac.. what is happing in the world today, look at the regions where the world is underdeveloped and were it is developed and you will see a general pattern (exculding the recent wealth of gulf states).You are ojecting from what i understand the fact that muslims actually belive in the Quran and use this as a model for living their life, i guess you would say that it is our fault that the west holds the huntington thesis of the clash of the civilisation been the basis for relations with muslims.For providing you with no alternative but to oppress us The public relations coup de tat that somehow muslims will chop of every ones hands once they get in power cannot be a basis for friendly international relations, likewise expecting us to "modernize" is futile, unlikey and ilogoical.with regards to the flow of information, honestly and really.. and i am not in any remote way being sloganistic, Islam has never been afarid of new information and knolwedge, science, etc.. we are encouraged to go futher and seacrh for signs of our creation.Christainity was undermined by both langauge and science, it was the Bible that elites did not want to translate , becasue they could read the bible fo them selves,... every muslim is encouraged to learn arabic and the Quran exists in many languages . My point is Islam is not a religion and cannot be understood form the perspective of the Christain religion (which is what i think you are doing)and secondly where as we live in a era of mass information, we have never been more ignorant (as a human race). Its true..Your key to understanding muslims, is that we are not driven by love of this world or money, whereas the west is driven by and large on the acculimalation and consumption of capital .Lets take the recent meeting in Eypt as a case..was that meeting really not between jews , muslims/hypocrites and christians. Was the meeting not twisted by eypts food aid and military relationship with the united states. One of my lecturers complained that "the price of oil was going to shoot up"..how can this be all that concerns the west?. Dear Mad mac, you have never seen or witnessed a Islamic governement, yet you have such strong views against one. Where does your absolutism come from. May Allah guide you
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| | Friday, October 20, 2000 - 10:32 am Comrades I'm going dancing tonight (salsa). I haven't seen my woman this week and we want to go have some fun. I will answer this tomorrow when I can give it the time it deserves. Common, nice to see you back sahib.
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| | Tuesday, October 24, 2000 - 03:46 am Sorry comrades, I missed this one. BTW Salsa night was a great time. My girlfriend and I love to dance!!! If you've never tried it I recommend it. Good exercise and a lot of fun. Also a good way to spend an evening with your significant other. but I digress. OK, let me start with Commons statement that Muslims are not driven by the love of this world or money. If that is the case then why the resentment of the financial inequity between the West and the "muslim world"? You ask why the price of oil going up is the primary American concern in the current Middle East crises? That's a stupid question. Our economy is dependent upon oil. Hike in oil prices will have a ripple effect in all economic sectors. What else would we be concerned about? You don't think we really care about the Palestinians and the Israelis do you? Why should we? What have they ever done for us besides consume our resources (at our expense) and make themselves a general pain in the ass. We don't have a dog in that fight and the Israelis are rapidly wearing out their welcome. They've cashed in the sympathy chip and the Palestinians are too stupid to get theirs to even cash it in. Of course we're concerned about the price of oil and anything that threatens the supply. Asad keeps telling me that there is no Islamic government anywhere right now. OK, then I'm not hostile to one, since there isn't one to make an assessment. But if Saudi Arabia is an example - well, you'd have to be a moron to want to live there. What a hole. I do not believe that States should use religious documents (either the Bible, the Qur'an, the Torah or whatever) to formulate their system of laws. To do so neccessarily oppresses the individuals who don't subscribe to that religous doctrine. Of course this is inevitable to some degree. Generally speaking I think state laws should be founded on this principal and deviate from it as infrequently as possible "My right to throw a punch begins where your nose begins." Hence we could take the "crime" of an unmarried couple kissing. This is their business - not yours and not mine. Maybe Allah regards it with disdain, maybe not. But it's not my place to try and enforce my belief in this regard. Same could be said for a woman wearing a bikini on the beach - in Saudi Arabia a heinous offense. Of course, our views of right and wrong are shaped by our religious practices, no doubt about this. and this will reflect in the legislative process. But countries should try and structure their laws in a way that accomodates all of their citizenry to avoid what Jefferson called the "tyranny of the majority." I'm not saying America is perfect in this respect, far from it. But it beats Saudi Arabia. Asad You state that if "those people" - meaning the indigenous inhabitants, refused to allow Muslims to preach then there would be fights. So, if I want to preach in Saudi Arabia and they don't want to let me (a capital offense there) then it's perfectly OK for me to kick their ass so I can preach, right??? I mean, that's what your saying here. Lastly, I need to touch on this. You will notice that Barak is now moving to try and form a coalition with Likud (headed by Sharon) because he now controls less than 30% of the Knesset. He took a shot at generating a peace deal, things fell through, the Palestinians (who every day convince me more and more they have the collective intellect of my dog) reacted to Sharons provocation which - whoa - is now catupulting Sharon back into a position of power at Baraks expense. There's a surprise!!! Who would have guessed?????? Now, Asad what did I tell you a couple of weeks ago huh???? What do you think Sharon plans to do now, embrace Arafat, take hands and sing "we are the world"? Nope, wrong answer. He's got this better idea called "let's see how many Palestinians we can kill without getting anyone except the stupid Arabs too pissed off. Then when the Arabs attack us, we can crush their militaries and kick the rest of the Palestinians onto the East Bank of the Jordan - or kill them all - whichever comes first." Frankly I'm completely surprised at developments - not!!! We have the Hawk Arafat squaring off with the Hawk, but decidely weak, Hamas. Arafat and Barak, the only guys who could have moved the whole process forward, are calling each other names and about to become irrelevant to events anyway. The Egyptians (much to Sharons disappointment) have apparently figured out what's going on and decided they don't want to play. The jury is out on the Syrians. If the Palestinians are left holding the bag maybe they'll calm down and wait for their chance to cut a deal - although if Likud takes control of the government outright don't hold your breath waiting for that development. In short, the Palestinians have allowed themselves to be manipulated by the very party (Likud) that they don't want to be in charge in Israel. We now have the nuts running the nuthouse - great, just great. Good advice there Asad. I'm glad they listened to you.
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| | Tuesday, October 24, 2000 - 03:52 am In the middle of the last para I meant the Hawk Hamas Squaring off with the Hawk Sharon. Sorry for the confusion.
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| | Tuesday, October 24, 2000 - 05:01 am "Asad You state that if "those people" - meaning the indigenous inhabitants, refused to allow Muslims to preach then there would be fights." that is right. "So, if I want to preach in Saudi Arabia and they don't want to let me (a capital offense there) then it's perfectly OK for me to kick their ass so I can preach, right??? if you can, go ahead kick saudi arabian ass. incidently, i know that saudi royal family is not allowing even some muslims to come and preach islam there (amri bil macruuf wa nahyi canil munkar). "I mean, that's what your saying here." yes, that is wat i'm saying. "Lastly, I need to touch on this. You will notice that Barak is now moving to try and form a coalition with Likud (headed by Sharon) because he now controls less than 30% of the Knesset. He took a shot at generating a peace deal, things fell through, the Palestinians (who every day convince me more and more they have the collective intellect of my dog) reacted to Sharons provocation which - whoa - is now catupulting Sharon back into a position of power at Baraks expense." again, mad mac, you are promoting the israeli terrorist propoganda here---blaming the victims. excuses as if the one you are promoting is what the jewish people are infamous. like hitler, barak (and those who were before him) never wanted peace. the difference is that hitler had guts to be a terrorist and was not making excuses when he wanted to terrorize the jewish people, but the jewish people with the help of the US in their cowardly acts are here promoting their cheap excuse to kick people out of their homes. everytime every israelis terrorist leaders wanted to further their hand in the palestinain homeland they use scapegoats like sharon to fuel the fire. it is their trump card. what if hitler would have used the kind of excuses that barak is using now---would the jewish people be happy. hitler knew that the jewish people are wicked people who needed to be punished. if he would have killed so many of them, the palestinian children would not have suffered so much in the hand of israeli terrorists, right, mad mac? i am sure there would not be cheap excuses to kill people and kick them out of their homeland. that is how wicked the jewish people in israel and those who help them are.
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| | Tuesday, October 24, 2000 - 06:55 am ASAD How truthful!!!!!!!!! hitler knew that the jewish people are wicked people who needed to be punished. if he would have killed so many of them, the palestinian children would not have suffered so much in the hand of israeli terrorists, right, mad mac? MAD_MAC Go to Hell! whit your JEWs friends!!!!!!!!!!
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| | Tuesday, October 24, 2000 - 07:23 am Subhanallah! Mad mac i am really started to agree with Asad, about you not being aware of your own situation!. Firstly America functions under a "civil religion"..with the consitition functioning as a basis for this religion. people have a need for reverence in society and American "civil religion".. imposes on the freedom of many of its citizens, including some of your ancestors, or perhpas you belive the founding fathers did not desecrate the American indians, genocide murder and pump them full of Alcohol (hell why not you follow all other orthodox ideology). You should read Ariel Dormans work on The lone ranger, boy would that be an eyeopener for you...on seconds thought.. it probably wouldn't. Your freedom to..freedom from aguement is flawed, because you don't see a need to address the inblance between political actors. How can you be political included , when you are economically and socially exculded? When you have a democracy interested in only form and not content, what you get is the "Tyranny of the elite". 3% of legislature in the United Kingdom is inspired, 97% is provided by interest groups. Interested in what and in whom?. Let us not pretend for a second that secular socities are agenda free . "countries should try and structure their laws to avoid the tyranny of the masses". The elites pulled a coup de etat by taking a concept which they hated ie Democracy ripping the heart out of it, and then championing it.you speak of the crime of an unmarried couple. Tell me about the police brutality in your country..i swear you have guts taking about the encroaching on minority rights, when you have a whole police force that protects whites and serves blacks. With your point about Saudia Arabia, it depends what mind state your in?,Suadi has sum serious isues as Asad was pointing out, butI could say with regrads to New York, you would have to be a Moron to live there,(as a minority) where you can be shot for reaching into your wallet.But hey if you can get down with a fine sister then its okay huh?... ignorance is bliss mentality? yeah i admit America has nice qualities, a lot of nice qualities, but it is deeply flawed in the fact that it is not a metrocrity yet purports to be one. Beside any country which locks up more people than Hitler has to have sum issues. And i don't get this" our resources " bit .. where and what are your resources?.. you being comical now. Mad mac please re read all of my statements, please, i mean it reread them and show me where you have noticed any resentment about finacial inequity. I have no interest in dow jones and how many stinky figures it is up or down. What i am taking about is impeding in other peoples abilities to live their life, ruining ecologal landscapes, creating! and be sure famine is a man made phenomenon!, hoarding rights to medicine, my explaination of the world trading systme was to show you how it is designed to favour the west, not to show you how bad it is that we don't have money.I am taking about basic needs brother, do you honestly think Somalia can't feed it self?, you must be out of your puny mind. I reiterate, we are not driven by love of money, but you sure as hell are , your arguements get weaker daily
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| | Tuesday, October 24, 2000 - 07:54 am Common Well said Again! I ask you before are you a writer? if NO do you want became a writer? please answer my question, you ignore me b4 thanks.
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| | Tuesday, October 24, 2000 - 07:59 am Common. I forget one more thing, when ever you write something, I print so I can Educate others, so I may in the Futture produce a Book Call (common)I will let you know ...But please Stop Swearing too much....like keep saying I swear to GOD......I think is not good to swear a lot in Islam. peace
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| | Tuesday, October 24, 2000 - 08:41 am Common fan a salaam aleikum i am sorry for swearing, i should know better, i am not sure, inshallah i would like to write in the future but there is a lot more i have to learn, there are also a lot of other activities i would like to do for the benefit of the ummah and myself. Mad mac i am sorry for calling your mind puny, i didn't mean it, i know your mind is not puny, please forgive me.
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| | Tuesday, October 24, 2000 - 10:45 am Common fan Dear Sahib i am sorry, i have to stop to stop posting on the site until my work shedule goes done, i am sorry that i cannot help with your book for now!, please forgive me walaal and pray for me, i will pray for you Asad, walaal thank you for educating me tirelesly and good luck against the equally tireless mad mac he has tired me out! i hope to see your post around again soon, when i have more time, pray for me please and i will pray for you formerguest dear brother i am sorry i couldn't stick around and post more in your absence like you anticipated or would have liked i hope you can forgive me too, pray for me please and i will pray for you mad mac abowe!, whooa.. you can talk my brother,even though i utterly disgree with your gutter comments. i dig your style. Good luck in finding the truth, if that is what you are doing. You can search the world and deliberate in Allah's signs and eventually you will come to the same conclusion,or you could read the Quran, i prey taht your information turns into knowldge, and that you turn from the ugly ducking into a Swan waslaam
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| | Tuesday, October 24, 2000 - 10:59 am Common On this net, that's mild sahib. No offense taken. OK, look, forget about America for a minute allright. Let's focus on the Palestinians and the Israelis. This is my point - and Asad you could not be more wrong if you tried. You have made the error of looking at the Jews as a homogenous group. Example: You say the "Jews" have occupied Palestinian land and tortured Palestinian people. This is true. Many Israelis are ashamed of this fact. There are people, perhaps even a majority, who want to come to terms with the Palestinians in a reasonable way. As I have said, you can't turn back the clock. I think in many cases Palestinians will have to be compensated for property loss vice regaining the property. But Asad, you talk as if Sharon and Barack were cut of the same cloth. That's like saying Sayid Abdulle Hassan and General Galal are all the same - I mean they're Somalis aren't they? All Israelites are not the same any more than all Somalis or all Americans. But to get the Israelites who are sympathetic with the Palestinian cause to help the Palestinians the Palestinians must give them something to work with. The more the Palestinians make the Israelis feel insecure, the more talk about "dirty Jews" etc. the more the Israelis creep back into their shells. Sharon planned that visit to get rid of Barak. The Israelis aren't any more monolithic then the Palestinians. In Palestine we have the PA and Hamas. Sharon wants to see Hamas running the show and Hamas wants to see Sharon running the show because both of these groups need an enemy to make themselves relevant. Can't you see that? The Palestinian people are being played for chumps by Hamas and Likud. They're the big losers here. Surely Common you can understand why I'm saying. Defusing the violence, stopping the rhetoric, make the Israelis feel safe.Then start looking for a way out.
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| | Tuesday, October 24, 2000 - 12:20 pm "and Asad you could not be more wrong if you tried. You have made the error of looking at the Jews as a homogenous group. You have made the error of looking at the Jews as a homogenous group. Example: You say the "Jews" have occupied Palestinian land and tortured Palestinian people. This is true." since the jews have occupied palestinian land and tortured palestinian people are true, i am not wrong. "Many Israelis are ashamed of this fact." they should be, but there are many others who are not ashamed, the proud of their wicked way, including barak. i did say they were homogenous group. in fact, i said in another place about the jews this: "with their centuries old record of crime and corruption, depravity and rebellion are debarred from Allah's All-embracing grace and mercy all together---yes there were some of them who did always the right things (those who followed the prophets of Allah). salvation however is not confined to any particular race or nationality as the curse is not confined to any particular race or nationality. in the Qur'an, however, there are many verses indicative of Allah's extreme solicitude for mankind in general, but for the children of israel in particular. Allah favoured the children of israel and preferred them above all the nations (2:47). the children of israel is the national designation of the jews." ....when they did not uphold this, hell broke loose on them, then they drew wrath (curse) from Allah. how many years did they wonder in the wilderness? their own books will tell you the years. ;-). also, their own books tell you about what kind of people they are: 'they were disobedient and rebelled against thee, and cast the law behind their backs, and slew they prophets(Ne 9:26)'...ye are the childern of them which killed the prophets....ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? ;-). their own books say that moses said this: "i have seen this people (the children of israel), and behold, it is a stiffnecked people"Ex 32:9). 'they mocked the messangers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy(2 Ch. 36:16) "....i know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which i have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days; because ye will do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to angry through the work of your hands'(31:27-29)." "There are people, perhaps even a majority, who want to come to terms with the Palestinians in a reasonable way." perhaps, not. "As I have said, you can't turn back the clock. I think in many cases Palestinians will have to be compensated for property loss vice regaining the property." that is the only way. there is no other way, but the terrorists to return what they have stolen. the jewish are still after the ex-nazi and they ware still hunting them even if they are dying and sick old people. i wonder why do they want to turn back the clock? ;-) "But Asad, you talk as if Sharon and Barack were cut of the same cloth" i told you that barak is a terrorist. he is a wicked coward terrorist, who has no guts. he and those who support him can make excuses all they want, but the truth is the truth. ;-) "That's like saying Sayid Abdulle Hassan and General Galal are all the same - I mean they're Somalis aren't they?" they are somali, but if the sayidka and galaalka terrorized people, they are terrorists. "The Palestinian people are being played for chumps by Hamas and Likud. They're the big losers here. Surely Common you can understand why I'm saying. The Palestinian people are being played for chumps by Hamas and Likud." I was talking about this excuse by mad mac. who created the hamas and made them refugees, killed their family members, mad mac? isreali terrorists, right? if that is not the case, then hitler did not create jewish refugees, killed many people. the german nazi and hitler were not the same. they are not homogenous group. the nazi people were playing the jewish people. hitler was not a terrorist, right, mad mac? ;-)
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| | Tuesday, October 24, 2000 - 10:26 pm Asad The problem with your argument is it is al focussed on right and wrong. It also is putting all people in the same basket. You deny you believe it, then you do it again. Look, the Germans were guilty of heinous crimes in the holocaust - not just against the Jews. 7 million Poles killed, 20 million russians, including 13 million civilians, a million gypsies, the list goes on and on. Yet no honest historian says "the Germans" - OK one idiot did, but no truly intelligent person. What was it the judge at Nuremberg said "I know of no way to indict a country." The RSHA was guilty of those heinous crimes. Not the Germans. The argument that the Germans armed and paid the RSHA is wholly fallacious. It did not arm and pay the RSHA to commit crimes. Now we move to present day Israel. You say Barak is a terrorist. And I could easily make the argument that Arafat is a terrorist. My argument would be easier to make, actually. But whether we want to label these men terrorists is wholly irrelevant. The question is, what is in the interest of the Palestinian people? What course of action gives them the best result? Have you been reading what the Israelis are planning now?? They are talking about severing economic ties. The average working Palestinian is working in Israel (for lousy wages, true enough). Where is he going to work now? Palestine is already impoverished. If Palestine declares a State, this is what will happen. Neither the US nor the State of Israel will recognize it, at first. Most everyone else will - sooner or later. There will be a Mexican stand off, with a giant Berlin wall seperating the Palestinians and Israelis. Occassionally there will be some attack against Israel by some Palestinian group or another. The Israelis will retaliate and blow up a building of something. After a while, in everyones psyche, this new State will be an established state. The people who lost property will die, never having been compensated. At first Palestine might get some aid from the cheap skate Arabs, but that won't last long. The Palestine will become impoverished and drift off as a backwater. Slwoly but surely forgotten. The Jews will maintain normal relations with the non-Arab world. Arab states far away from Israel will start trading with Israel again. And somewhere down the line the status quo will be recognized and the Palestinians will have exactly what they have right now. All their suffering will be for exactly no discernible gain, because they don't know how to turn their current status into something they can use. Do you think Hamas is really concerned about the grievances of the average Palestinian? Do you believe that? Hamas is like all other political organizations. It's just looking for a way to get political support - which translates into power and money. The worst thing in the world for Hamas would be if Israel suddenly conceded to all of their demands because they wouldn't be needed anymore. On the other hand, the best thing for Hamas is to have the meanest son of a bitch in Israel running the country. Maybe you think Barak is the same as Sharon, but Hamas doesn't think so, that's why they want Sharon back and are heloing him get there. Hamas needs confrontation.
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| | Wednesday, October 25, 2000 - 03:17 am "The problem with your argument is it is al focussed on right and wrong. It also is putting all people in the same basket. You deny you believe it, then you do it again. Look, the Germans were guilty of heinous crimes in the holocaust" if the germans were guitly of heinous crimes, then the jewish terrorists are guitly of no less than neinous crimes against innocent people, right? ;-) "Yet no honest historian says "the Germans" - OK one idiot did, but no truly intelligent person." you just did. and i'm following your line of arguments. ;-) "What was it the judge at Nuremberg said "I know of no way to indict a country." The RSHA was guilty of those heinous crimes. Not the Germans." all the israeli terrorist leaders and those who occupy (the so-called jewish settlers in the palestinian homes) are guilty of the heniour crimes against palestinian people. not everyone else, right? ;-) "we move to present day Israel. You say Barak is a terrorist." if barak is not a terrorist, then hitler was not a terrorist, right? ;-) "And I could easily make the argument that Arafat is a terrorist." then i could easly make the argument that the victims of hilter (the jewish people in germany) were terrorists too, right? ;-) "My argument would be easier to make, actually. But whether we want to label these men terrorists is wholly irrelevant. well, hitler has his reasons in labeling the jewish in germany as social terrorists (wicked people). ;-) "The question is, what is in the interest of the Palestinian people?" to get freedom from israeli terrorists. "What course of action gives them the best result?" to not accept oppression and terror the israeli terrorists inflict them everyday and resist by any means neccessary. "Have you been reading what the Israelis are planning now??" yes, the same terrorism and excuses they have been doing for the last 50 years. "They are talking about severing economic ties." like hilter did to them, right? ;-). have you read what hilter did to them and the boycot he imposed on them? "The average working Palestinian is working in Israel (for lousy wages, true enough). Where is he going to work now?" you say in israel. do you mean in some of the homeland of the palestinians, where the so called settlers built and are building homes? if the palestinian people are given their land back, they can work. "Palestine is already impoverished." and who made them that way-----the israeli terrorists, right? ;-) "If Palestine declares a State, this is what will happen." it already happen. "Neither the US nor the State of Israel will recognize it, at first. Most everyone else will - sooner or later." everyone else knows recognize and recognized that palestine is a state that was robbed from the palestinian people and was made the state of israel and US sponsors state terrorism. "There will be a Mexican stand off, with a giant Berlin wall seperating the Palestinians and Israelis." that is the aim that the terrorists were working on all along, but there were too wicked to make excuses by blaming the victims. if hitler had his way, this would not have happened. if hitler would have killed many more jewish people, the palestinian people would not have suffered this way. "Occassionally there will be some attack against Israel by some Palestinian group or another" do you mean against the terrorist israel? "The Israelis will retaliate and blow up a building of something" the israeli terrorists and their families children in the homes of palestinian people will live their seperating area peace forever, right? ;-) "After a while, in everyones psyche, this new State will be an established state." and then the terrorists will want real peace agreements, right? it would not happen, not for long anyway. ;-) "The people who lost property will die, never having been compensated." and everything will be forgotten, right? the palestinian children will forget their history and there will be peace in that area, right? i do not think so. ;-) "At first Palestine might get some aid from the cheap skate Arabs, but that won't last long. The Palestine will become impoverished and drift off as a backwater." that is the wish of the wicked jewish and their supporters, but since they love life more than any people, the jewish people will be in fear and in guilty feeling forever. what a way to live in this world then. oh! i forgot, they do not have any feeling, but they want to remind us about what hitler did to them! ;-) "The Jews will maintain normal relations with the non-Arab world." the world will not forget and everytime the jewish people will remind us about hitler, people will say what! what about palestinian people? "Arab states far away from Israel will start trading with Israel again. And somewhere down the line the status quo will be recognized and the Palestinians will have exactly what they have right now." " but for sure nothing will be forgotten. everytime an israeli business man, who is after money comes to arab land, he will not know if he might come back. the name terrorism will take another name. the jewish people will think they will live peace, but fear will kill them before any act of terror. ;-) "All their suffering will be for exactly no discernible gain, because they don't know how to turn their current status into something they can use." they will use whatever left for them, but their status will not be happy and since their status will not be happy, then there will not be peace in that area forever. things will change in the world politics and one day one or more arab leader will be in power who will put together something that will shock the fearful families and children. hell will break loose. the whole regine will be in fire. no jewish and no arab will sleep peacefully if they have not already dead from the terror. ;-) "Do you think Hamas is really concerned about the grievances of the average Palestinian? Do you believe that?" do you think hamas or any other palestinian group is going to be concern about jewish people in the world? do you think israel will be safe from terror after they finish their plan and succeed? hamas was created by the israeli terrorists. "Maybe you think Barak is the same as Sharon, but Hamas doesn't think so, that's why they want Sharon back and are heloing him get there. Hamas needs confrontation." as i told you, barak and sharon are in the same bed. every israeli leader, including sharon had someone who created confrontation for them in order to distrupt the so-called peace and in order to steal more lands and kill more palestinian kids. this is the wicked cowarly acts i was talking about by the jewish people and hilter knew it. their books and the Qur'an tell us about what kind of people are these people. according to their books, moses said: "....i know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which i have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days; because ye will do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to angry through the work of your hands'(31:27-29)." ;-)
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| | Friday, October 27, 2000 - 10:54 am Asad You would make a terrible analyst. Stay out of the business. You analyze problems based on right and wrong. I analyze them based on the facts. You sit there and make assertions always coming back to whose fault something is. I can't believe you haven't figured out that that doesn't matter. Your solution is no solution. There is a course offered by the war college called conflict resolution. In it, the first thing you have to do when trying to achieve your objective is analyze what your opponent wants. Then determine what is for him non-negotiable, then work from there. If you dismiss your opponents argument (because he's wicked, because he's stupid, because he's wrong, etc.) you can't make progress. The Israelis have no where to go. They can't just hand over the land. But they can kill all of the Palestinians. IF they are sufficiently provoked they will start killing in a serious way. I'm not talking the nickle and dime stuff your seeing now. Have you ever seen what fuel air explosives do to people? If the Palestinians jack up the heat, the Israelis will counter. For every Israeli casualty there will be 100 dead Palestinians. They hold the cards. The Palestinians can not win through confrontation. They can only die and lose more land. Israeli has already demonstrated that they're ready to fight forever, they will not leave their fate in someone elses hands ever again. They are going to maintain their own state and the Western and Asian worlds are going to ensure the state remains intact. So, around those facts the Palestinians have to operate. Their only solution is to take a chapter out of Mahatma Ghandis book. Otherwise, the war goes on and on, with the Palestinians taking it on the chin over and over.
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| | Friday, October 27, 2000 - 12:11 pm "You would make a terrible analyst. Stay out of the business." lol "You analyze problems based on right and wrong. I analyze them based on the facts." when i analyze what you call facts, i see contradicts. "You sit there and make assertions always coming back to whose fault something is. I can't believe you haven't figured out that that doesn't matter." well, i do not care if your assertions are wrong. i'm going to point out to you the faults of your thinking. ;-) "Your solution is no solution" making cheap excuses for terrorists are no solution and i am not going to buy the propaganda of the israeli terrorists, which you think, is the fact. "There is a course offered by the war college called conflict resolution. In it, the first thing you have to do when trying to achieve your objective is analyze what your opponent wants. Then determine what is for him non-negotiable, then work from there." do the teachers of this course agree with the solution of the israeli terrorists and their propaganda of blaming the victims when they do not accept the stupid solutions you propagate on there, mad mac? ;-) "If you dismiss your opponents argument (because he's wicked, because he's stupid, because he's wrong, etc.) you can't make progress" well, as long as my opponent is standing on my neck, i do not care his argument. my enemy has to stop the oppression first, and then we talk. ;-) "The Israelis have no where to go." they have no where to go, but to oppress people and demolish palestinian homes and bring jewish families and build for them nice homes, right? "They can't just hand over the land." but they want to talk peace and negotiate with the people they robbed! "But they can kill all of the Palestinians" well, that is their aim after all, is it not? for palestinian people, oppression is worst than killing. "IF they are sufficiently provoked they will start killing in a serious way. I'm not talking the nickle and dime stuff your seeing now. Have you ever seen what fuel air explosives do to people? " hitler did not use this kind of excuse to kill people. he was man enough to just kill and get rid of the people he hated, but his victims are so wicked and so coward that they employ this cheap excuse to get rid of people. the jewish are worst than hitler, right, mad mac? ;-) "If the Palestinians jack up the heat, the Israelis will counter. For every Israeli casualty there will be 100 dead Palestinians. They hold the cards The Palestinians can not win through confrontation. They can only die and lose more land. Israeli has already demonstrated that they're ready to fight forever, they will not leave their fate in someone elses hands ever again." i told you, oppression is worst than murder. as far as they are concern, they already lost, but israelis love their lives. when one of them dies, they think they lost the world. i can guarantee that what is left of the palestinian people, they will make hell for any jewish person in the world. the jewish people will not get many peaceful night of sleep. there will be brand new terrorism they have never seen before. "They are going to maintain their own state and the Western and Asian worlds are going to ensure the state remains intact" yes, but there will not be peace there forever. the state terrorism of the israelis will be horrible place to live for them. ;-) "So, around those facts the Palestinians have to operate." i told you, for them, oppression is worst than killing. this is what they believe. "Their only solution is to take a chapter out of Mahatma Ghandis book." they will never sign 'we shall over come', i can guarantee that. "Otherwise, the war goes on and on, with the Palestinians taking it on the chin over and over." i can guarantee that the war will not stop. in fact, if the war stops, it will be nice for the israeli people. if the war continues, muslims will wake up and realize their state of affairs. the west and the israel will show their true colors and do more injustices in terrorzing more musims. then, hell will break loose. this process will wake up so many sleeping giants (muslim militants), so called terrorists. even security metals will not detect them. every jew and every westerner will be in danger in outside of his orher home. when the muslims wake up, every dictator (a puppet) in the so called muslims countires will be kicked out and be replaced by the so-called militant muslim leaders, even in pakistian. imagine this, a militant leader will come out of pakistian. do you think he will hasitate to use it? ;-)
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| | Saturday, October 28, 2000 - 03:36 am Well, first of all, history betrays your argument. If the "Muslims" were going to wake up, they would have already. Abdul Nasser had the best chance of uniting Arabs (forget Muslims, that hasn't reall happened in a long time - the Ottomans simply oppressed Muslims in the name of Islam). Beyond that, it would be as unreasonable for Muslims to launch a terrorist campaign in the West as it would be the West to start launching a terrorist campaign against all Muslims. You can't hold individual citizens culpable for the actions of their governments. This is a war between the Palestinians and the Israelis (Not the "Jews". There are plenty of Jews who have nothing to do with Israel). If the rest of us our smart we will confine the fight to them. Under your strange theory, if we turned this into some sort of global conflict between the west and Islam, Islam would get smoked like a cheap cigar. You grossly under-estimate our ability to project power and over-estimate your own. You reference a militant leader in Pakistan I assume using nuclear weapons. Well, he can't use them against America or Europe beccause he can't deliver them. Beyond that, to use nuclear weapons against a western country invites retaliation that would completely destroy the offending country - I do mean completely destroy, nothing living. That is our announced doctrine. So, since Pakistan has a handful of undeliverable weapons and we have the arsenal from hell, that would be an unwise choice. So, if the war between Palestinians and Israelis goes on, so be it. That's their problem. I have explained what the Palestinians have to do to gain the best possible results. If they would rather end up dead, fine. I don't care. I don't like people from that part of the world much anyway. They get on my nerves. I do wish the US would cut financial aid to both the Palestinians and the Israelis. It's just throwing good money after bad. Barely any of those people have the sense God gave them.
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| | Saturday, October 28, 2000 - 08:04 am "Well, first of all, history betrays your argument. If the "Muslims" were going to wake up, they would have already." well, the history you are ignoring is the success the early muslims had when they were not sleeping and practicing their religion. are you denying the history of the early muslims and how they ruled many parts of the world (even in europe) for centuries, mad mac? ;-) "Abdul Nasser had the best chance of uniting Arabs(forget Muslims, that hasn't reall happened in a long time" was nasser uniting the muslims by practicing islam or he wanted to unit the arabs using his non-islamic rule? :-) i said it many times on here, if the muslims are fighting for lands (countries), they will never succeed. the early the muslims did not fight for uniting the arabs or fighting for land; they fought for islam. if he was fighting for land and uniting the arab race, he was not awake. ;-) "the Ottomans simply oppressed Muslims in the name of Islam). when ottomanian left the practice of islam, the went to sleep and never woke up until it was too late for them. they lost because they did not follow the islamic laws their earlier brothers of islam followed. unlike the early the muslims, the ottmanians broke many islamic rules and as a result of that, they violated the muslims, which weakened their power. "Beyond that, it would be as unreasonable for Muslims to launch a terrorist campaign in the West as it would be the West to start launching a terrorist campaign against all Muslims" well, i told you many many times, when the the muslims are oppressed, they are not going to sit and sing the song 'we shall over come'. when the enemies of the muslims (the real terrorists) launch a terrorist campaign, the muslims will protest. they feel that oppression is worst than murder. as long as the west is launching their terrorist campaign against the muslims and supporting the enemies of the muslims, it is not unreasonable that the muslims take actions to launch terror in the heart of terrorists. "You can't hold individual citizens culpable for the actions of their governments. This is a war between the Palestinians and the Israelis (Not the "Jews". There are plenty of Jews who have nothing to do with Israel)" well, the israeli terrorists are helping their citizens to move the to stolen homes of the innocent palestinian people. if the individual citizens were not culpable for the actions of their terrorist government, they would not move to these homes, right? ;-) "Under your strange theory, if we turned this into some sort of global conflict between the west and Islam, Islam would get smoked like a cheap cigar. You grossly under-estimate our ability to project power and over-estimate your own." well, again, you have not been getting what i was pointing out to you. i told you that oppression is worst than murder. ;-). when you are standing on my neck, i rather you kill me----while i'm kicking and throwing sands/stones on your face----than while i'm being scared of dying. ;-) "You reference a militant leader in Pakistan I assume using nuclear weapons. Well, he can't use them against America or Europe because he can't deliver them. Beyond that, to use nuclear weapons against a western country invites retaliation that would completely destroy the offending country - I do mean completely destroy, nothing living." i was talking about the militant leader using the nuclear weapon on israel. ;-). "So, since Pakistan has a handful of undeliverable weapons and we have the arsenal from hell, that would be an unwise choice." well, as i said, a militant leader does not care about dying when he sees his brothers and sisters in faith being oppressed by the enemy of islam. he will use the weapons wherever he can deliver. are you saying the nuclear in pakistian would not reach tel eviv? ;-) "So, if the war between Palestinians and Israelis goes on, so be it. That's their problem" well, the west thinks the war is their problems too since they are supporting israeli terrorists. "I have explained what the Palestinians have to do to gain the best possible results. If they would rather end up dead, fine." i told you that your solution is stupid, mad mac. there is nothing to gain when accepting oppression. "I don't care." the US government cares. the US supports the isreali terrorists, right? "I don't like people from that part of the world much anyway. They get on my nerves. I do wish the US would cut financial aid to both the Palestinians and the Israelis. It's just throwing good money after bad." it does not matter if you do not like them or not. as an ameican soldier, if you were told today to go to that part of the world and deliver weapons to the israeli terrorists, you would do it, right? "Barely any of those people have the sense God gave them." i didn't know you had sense of God in you either. remember, you said you did not care about that when it comes to fulfilling your duty as an american soldier. ;-)
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| | Saturday, October 28, 2000 - 10:18 am Asad Boy, your theories are coming apart at the seams here. a. I don't fight for causes. That should be obvious. I am a professsional soldier. As such, I go where my government (employer) deploys me and execute the missions given. If I were tasked to deliver weapons (something the Army doesn't do, but never mind that) I would do it. I don't care if it's to the Taliban, which I despise. My job is not to analyze the wisdom of my superiors. Sometimes I do that on the side, it does not affest my ablity to follow orders. This is called discipline and no Army can effectively function without it. b. OK, the West is supporting Israeli terrorists and Muslims are supporting Muslim terrorists. And your point? c. Israel has a nuclear capability and the means to deliver it. Pakistan, in coorperation with other Islamic countries, could probably deploy a single nuclear warhead with difficulty. But that would invite massive retaliation from the Israeli side and earn the worlds approbation in an ugly way. From a benefit analysis point of view it would not be worth it. d. Over and over you stupidly repeat "accepting Israeli Oppression" like a mantra. Not once have I ever said this. I said the Palestinians have to choice the correct vehicle to resist oppression. You are not listening. e. You completely side-stepped the issue of killing innocents to protest policy. Example, PLO terrorists killed a 12 year old Jewish girl at the Vienna airport. Shot her in the stomach, and when she fell to her knees, shot her in the head. What was she doing to earn this? She was walking to catch her plane. What did she have to do with Israeli foreign policy or internal policy? Nothing. What was the name of the guy they threw off the ship? The one in the wheel chair? Klinghoffer or something like that. Just some old retired guy on vacation. An American. Never had anything to do with American foreign policy. Now, even if IDF forces kill 10,000 innocent Palestinian Children (you know, those innocent kids throwing rocks and rioting) this is no way justifies these acts. Your argument is not only fallacious but can not be supported anywhere in the Qur'an and if it could, the Qur'an wouldn't be worth the paper it is printed on. f. Now, I am quite sure the Palestinians won't adopt the course of action I recommend because they think it insults their macho image. g. I am not ignoring early Islamic success or history. But that history is not going to come back at this point in time. You know that and so do I. Just as the days of the inquisition are over. h. You misinterpreted the expression "sense that God gave them." This means that God has given everyone common sense but everyone doesn't choose to use it. The same argument you would make when people choose not to accept Islam. IT doesn't mean that someone has God's sense.
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| | Sunday, October 29, 2000 - 07:58 am "Asad Boy" lol "your theories are coming apart at the seams here. a. I don't fight for causes. That should be obvious. I am a professsional soldier. As such, I go where my government (employer) deploys me and execute the missions given. " then, you are no different from the people whom you said did not use the senses that God gave them. ;-) "If I were tasked to deliver weapons (something the Army doesn't do, but never mind that) I would do it." how does the weapons that israeli terrorists get from the US reach to them? "I don't care if it's to the Taliban, which I despise. My job is not to analyze the wisdom of my superiors. Sometimes I do that on the side, it does not affest my ablity to follow orders. This is called discipline and no Army can effectively function without it." i told you that it does not matter if you hate the people or not. do you think the somalis cared if that american guy hated the somalis or loved them, the amreican guy who was killed while doing his task (job)----which resulted his body be dragged on the streets of mogadishu. ;-) what about those who got killed in yemen? do you think those who killed them cared if the died liked them or not. ;-) "b. OK, the West is supporting Israeli terrorists and Muslims are supporting Muslim terrorists. And your point?" the palestinian muslims didn't terrorize and robbed the israelis. it is the other way around, mad mac. israelis are the ones doing terrorism and the west is helping them. that is my point. "c. Israel has a nuclear capability and the means to deliver it. Pakistan, in coorperation with other Islamic countries, could probably deploy a single nuclear warhead with difficulty." are you saying the pakistani nuclear warhead can not reach tel-eviv, mad mac? ;-) "But that would invite massive retaliation from the Israeli side and earn the worlds approbation in an ugly way. From a benefit analysis point of view it would not be worth it." and do you think a muslim militant learder will launch nuclear if he had it and the israelis are not afraid of that? ;-) "d. Over and over you stupidly repeat "accepting Israeli Oppression" like a mantra. Not once have I ever said this. I said the Palestinians have to choice the correct vehicle to resist oppression. You are not listening." but your solution and the israeli terrorist solution says to the palestinian to forget about their rights, their homes and never protest---if they do this, they will die. but i keep telling you that your choice (your solution) is stupid, mad mac. how many times do i have to tell you this? ;-). i told you that there is nothing to gain resisting oppression by accepting israeli solutions. ;-) "e. You completely side-stepped the issue of killing innocents to protest policy." you didn't answer my qeustion: when the israeli terrorists are helping their citizens to move the to the stolen lands of the innocent palestinian people and if the individual citizens were not culpable for the actions of their terrorist government, they would not move to these homes, right? ;-) "Example, PLO terrorists killed a 12 year old Jewish girl at the Vienna airport. Shot her in the stomach, and when she fell to her knees, shot her in the head. What was she doing to earn this?" how many palestinian kids are dying every day in their own homes in the hand of jewish people with the help of the US? you are talking about only one kid and i'm talking about many many kids. what did they do to deserve this? "What did she have to do with Israeli foreign policy or internal policy? Nothing" the palestinian kids who are dying everyday have everything to do with US foreign and israeli internal policy. "What was the name of the guy they threw off the ship? The one in the wheel chair? Klinghoffer or something like that. Just some old retired guy on vacation. An American. Never had anything to do with American foreign policy " you are talking about one dead guy; i'm talking about many many dead people as a result of US foreign and israeli internal policy. i told you this will continue even more, like it or not. i don't like this, but that is what is going to happen when there is injustices going on. :-). let me ask you, were the amreicans who died in the ship that was damaged in yeman innocent? ;-) "Now, even if IDF forces kill 10,000 innocent Palestinian Children (you know, those innocent kids throwing rocks and rioting) this is no way justifies these acts." well, these kids are innocent even if they riot and throw stones. they have the right to protest. the israeli terrorists who kill them and those who the jewish familes who move to these kids homes are not innocest. "Your argument is not only fallacious" and yours is not? ;-) "but can not be supported anywhere in the Qur'an" i was not using the Qur'an. i'm just telling what might happen, like it or not. ;-) "and if it could, the Qur'an wouldn't be worth the paper it is printed on." well, this is coming from a kufar. the Qur'an does not need your opproval. you rejected the Qur'an and morality already, remember? ;-) "f. Now, I am quite sure the Palestinians won't adopt the course of action I recommend because they think it insults their macho image." no, it is not that. it is just that your solution and the israeli terrorist's solution the same(stupid). just because the israelis are powerful does not mean that the palestinian people have to sing the song 'we shall over come' ;-). this will please the israeli terrorists, right? ;-) "You misinterpreted the expression "sense that God gave them." This means that God has given everyone common sense but everyone doesn't choose to use it." yes, you have chosen instead your stupity actions, not the sense that God give you. the sense that God give people always involves with morality, do you know this, mad mac? ;-) "The same argument you would make when people choose not to accept Islam. IT doesn't mean that someone has God's sense." no, the islamic belief is what God gives people. following this islamic teachings is God's course. you do not have this, do you? ;-)
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| | Sunday, October 29, 2000 - 12:03 pm You ought to give this one up because with each response your theories here unravel. a. Who delivers weapons. Contractors. Firm X gets the authority to sell the weapon in question to country Y. He then builds it, receives payment, and arranges shipping. It's private business worked through the private sector. b. The Muslim terrorist both did are are killing innocent people. Just because Israel kills innocent people, does that mean it'S OK for Palestinians to kill innocent people? If you rape my wife does that mean it's OK for me to rape yours? c. That is correct, Pakistan can not deliver a nuclear warhead to Israel - not from Pakistan. They do not have the ballistic missile capability. If they attempted to use an aircraft to deliver it they would likely be shot down before reaching the target. However, surreptitiously it would probably be possible to plan and execute a delivery. But there would be a huge price to pay for such an act. And while I know the Israelis are concerned about such a development (they'd be fools not to be) Muslims are equally concerned (or ought to be) that prime targets for Israeli revenge would be Damascus, Islamabad, Mecca and Medina. So on the nuclear issue you will eventually have a Mexican stand off like we had with the old Soviet Union and India and Pakistan have now. d. I have never asserted the Pakistanis have to accept Israeli terms. I have said that peaceful protest will yield them the best result. Again, you are not listening. e. You can make the argument that Israelis who have occupied the private property of individual Palestinians are committing some sort of crime and therefore are morally liable for retribution. However, most victims of terrorist attacks don't fit this bill. They are killed at random. f. Rioters are not "innocent". They are actively engaged in violence. Throwing rocks and molotov cocktails is not merely protesting. I will admit that shooting them is harsh. But often, what happens is kids start throwing rocks and then someone starts shooting a weapon and that's when things get out of hand. And they get out of hand because the Palestinians want them too. They are trying to get media sympathy with dead kids. The reason it's not very effective is because everyone is seeing the kids throw rocks and engage in unrest and that cuts WAY DOWN on the sympathy factor. My argument is sound. Explain to me how, using these tactics, the Palestinians will achieve a positive result. How do you see this scenerio unfolding so that the Palestinians establish the state they want, get their property back (or compensation therefore) and can get on with their lives? Can you explain this to me cause I ain't seeing it. You state "My actions" are stupid, although you fail to specify what actions those might be. Do you regard everyone who doesn't embrace the Qur'an as stupid? Are all professional sodliers stupid?
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| | Sunday, October 29, 2000 - 02:35 pm "You ought to give this one up because with each response your theories here unravel. a. Who delivers weapons. Contractors. Firm X gets the authority to sell the weapon in question to country Y. He then builds it, receives payment, and arranges shipping. It's private business worked through the private sector." well, who are these contractors and firms--the western and jewish, right? ;-) "Just because Israel kills innocent people, does that mean it'S OK for Palestinians to kill innocent people? If you rape my wife does that mean it's OK for me to rape yours?" well, that is what is going to happen and that is what i am saying, like it or not. ;-) ". That is correct, Pakistan can not deliver a nuclear warhead to Israel - not from Pakistan.They do not have the ballistic missile capability. " that is a lie. you do not know the facts and the capability of what they have and can do. you are just wishing they do not have, right? ;-) "And while I know the Israelis are concerned about such a development (they'd be fools not to be) Muslims are equally concerned (or ought to be) that prime targets for Israeli revenge would be Damascus, Islamabad, Mecca and Medina.' that is what is going to happen if a militant leader gets into the office. israelis concern and what they might do is not the concern of the militant mulsim leader----- that is what I am telling you. ;-) "d. I have never asserted the Pakistanis have to accept Israeli terms. I have said that peaceful protest will yield them the best result. Again, you are not listening. " again, you are the one who is not listening. let me tell you again about the concern of the israelis: if a militant leader comes to power and he has the chance to use the weapon against israel, he will use it, period, like it or not and it will happen. ;-) "You can make the argument that Israelis who have occupied the private property of individual Palestinians are committing some sort of crime and therefore are morally liable for retribution. However, most victims of terrorist attacks do not fit this bill. They are killed at random." well, all the jewish who moved the areas where the palestinian people used live---all of them are individuals who are terrorists. they know where they live in belongs to the innocent palestinian, but they do not care, in fact, they like the palestinian people to be not resisting, and they want them to "turn the other cheek" and sign the song "we shall over come" until the end of the world. ;-). however, this is not going to happen. ;-) "Rioters are not "innocent"." in my book, to accept oppression and not riot is not acceptable. "They are actively engaged in violence" self-defense is not violence. "Throwing rocks and molotov cocktails is not merely protesting." i told you that if you are standing on my neck and my hands are free, i will throw whatever my hands can catch at your face. i am not going to sit and cry 'we shall over come'. Oppression is worst than murder. "My argument is sound" well, you think it is, but it is not. ;-) "Explain to me how, using these tactics, the Palestinians will achieve a positive result." well, singing "we shall over come" which you want for the palestinian people to employ---is not going to achieve any any result. the jews are wicked. hitler knew their tactics. their religious books agree. if he would have finished them, this would not have happened, right? ;-) "How do you see this scenerio unfolding so that the Palestinians establish the state they want, get their property back (or compensation therefore) and can get on with their lives? Can you explain this to me cause I ain't seeing it." well, as i told you before, the only way they can rest is when the jewish terrorists stop oppressing and giving these innocent people their rights; their homes back. no justice, no peace. "You state "My actions" are stupid, although you fail to specify what actions those might be." you said you have no morality to follow? if you do not follow morality, then your actions are stupid, right? ;-) 'Do you regard everyone who doesn't embrace the Qur'an as stupid?" yes, they are foolish. the Qur'an says that too. ;-) "Are all professional sodliers stupid?" if they do not follow the morality of the law in islam. ;-)
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| | Sunday, October 29, 2000 - 09:47 pm Now here we have the ultimate in hubris. All people who do not believe what I believe (Islam) are stupid. Incredible.
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| | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 04:33 am there is nothing arrogance about telling the truth. mad mac, if you refused to see the truth and reject it, you are willing to go to hell. Therefore, because of your foolishness and your arrogance, do not blame islam. incidentally, as incredible as this is, ibliis (the devil) is the biggest stupid of them all. he had the ultimate in hubris in him; he thought he was smart. ibliis knows things better than anybody---he has intelligence, but his false pride and his rejection of the truth made him foolish (a stupid)---he refused to accept the truth and was willing to go to the hell. whomever he takes along with him is a fool (stupid) too. ;-)
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| | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 04:49 am mad mac. essentailly despit your circumventing the issue, you will not be impressed until we leave the fold of Islam, until we think like you. Become "free thinkers". Again in your gluttony you fail to recognise your own situation, hubris is as hubris does.
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| | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 05:10 am Common You are incorrect. I do not expect Muslims to suddenly become something else. But the difference between me and you is that I don't believe you're stupid because you hold beliefs that are different from mine. For a people that are impoverished, murder each other with careless abandon, die by the truckloads of starvation when they're not actually shooting each other, and rape each others women for sport, I find the arrogance commical. Muslims hold no moral high ground - contrary to your assertions. Your saying it doesn't make it so. I recommend you pick up a book called The Prophet, by Khalil Gibran. Of course, he wrote in the 20s and 30s, a time when people could write and not be issued death threats by the Ayatollah Khomenei (someone we should have killed, but that's another issue). Fortunately most Somalis at least have the sense to know they have no right to be endowed with this kind of arrogance. Just incredible. At least it's an irresistable argument: Everyone who doesn't believe what I believe is stupid. Can't argue with that. Reminds me of kids in a parking lot saying to each other "My god's better than your God." No wonder Muslims always babble about Jihad and other nonsense. They're so convinced that their opinion is the only one in the world that counts for anything. You know what you guys lack - in spite of Qur'anic teaching - is a lack of respect for non-Muslims. You might grudgingly admit the Qur'an says to treat them fairly, but you don't respect anyone who holds different values than yours. You're no better than the Red Necks from my country who insist if it ain't white, christian, it isn't.
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| | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 05:24 am mad mac, maybe your foolishness made you blind to point where you do not see what you and galool are saying. both of you do not see that you are ones claiming to know things and are the smart ones here. you both believe and claim that the muslims are foolish to believe what they have (ISLAM). however, when the table is turned around on you, you cry foul. ;-) "According to Asad anyone who's not a Muslim is simply stupid." that is because people like you see no evil and hear no evil. if you made yourself deaf and blind to the truth, do not you think you are stupid. oh! i forget, you do not see your stupidity, right? how could you? ;-) there is a verse in the Qur'an that tell us: "And when it is said to them: believe as people have believed, they say: shall we believe as the fools have believed? Surely, it is they who are the fools, and yet they know not. And when they meet those who have believed they say: we believe. And when they are alone with their devils, they say: surely, we are with you; we were but mocking. Allah mocks back at them, and lets them wander bewildered in their insolence. These are they, who have purchased error for guidance, but their commerce profited them not, nor have they ever become guided. Their likeness is as the likeness of him who kindled a fir, then when it lit up what was around him, Allah took away their light and left them in darkness where they see not----deaf, dumb, blind, wherefore they will not return to light.........................Surely, Allah is not ashamed to use a similitude, be it a gnat or of a aught above it. Then as to those who believe, they know that it is the truth from their Lord. And as to those who disbelieve, they say: what did Allah intend by this similitude? Many He sends astray thereby and many He guides thereby, and He sends not astray thereby except the transgressors...............2:13------" ;-)
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| | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 05:36 am I didn't make myself deaf and blind to the truth. I read the book, made some observations, and concluded it is not the unadulterated word of God. Just because you drew a different conclusion doesn't make you right any more than it makes me wrong. The truth is maybe you are right and maybe you are not. The difference between us is I am smart enough to know that you could be right. You are truly deaf and blind to any possibilities other than Islam, where as I am open to all possibilities.
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| | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 06:18 am Respecting someones opionion and beliving what they say is correct is not the same thing.I respect your opionion, when it is not invloved in lying, miscontrueing or ommiting facts, i have no respect for treachory. Would you prefer that i lied?, you would rather i conceal something in my breast for you. There is nothing in my breast but love for you . I don't think you are stupid i think you are misguided, and verily who Allah (swt) leads astray no one can guide, clearly you are not stupid, but misguided.For someone who purports the freedom to freedom from thing,my freedom to worship Allah doesn't stop at your freedom to denounce Allah, sorry buddy! you should understand this. But!...where have i displayed agrogance?.. is it perhaps you have yourself internised my superiority and think i beleve it so?. I have never sought to mainatain a class higher than yours, if i outclass you this is due to deeds, actions and thoughts, nothing inherent to me, you can achive this too. so can the rapers, the impoverished and all those you mention...and indeed i want for my brother what i want for myself?. what if my brother wants something else?, then he is fee too do so, there is no complusion in Islam , but should i praise and admire his misfortune?... and does not being "open to all possiblities" invlove the same dogmatism as being open only to Islam?, Mad mac.. take this in,,sit back and relax.. and breathe deeply. Okay.. "being open to all possiblities" is a religious view, it is a very popular religious view and you deep down belief that anyone who isn't "open to all possibilities"..which, remember functions like a religion is stupid..and you can say you don't but a casual reading of your post would expose your thoughts.I know it takes time, but reread your posts..and reread mine, tell me for the LOve of Allah (swt) WHY WHEN YOU ACCUSE ME OF DOING SOMeTHING DO YOU DO THE EXACT THING YOU ACCUSE ME OF?.. and why do you hate consistancy?. It not muslims opionion that counts, but Allah's, if we were open to all possibilities, then wouldn't the Quran become like the Bible?. Tell me why do you think you have you have a monopoly on critical thinking. A muslim either belives in the Quran or not,can your mind can't handle that level of commitment?. You think i have grown up, in a society which indoctrinates me in to Islam?, i have been pumped full of secular thought all my life, my parents Allah (swt)bless them are not that religious, tell me why are you more intelligent than me,which you belive, deep down mac, lets be real..its me you and your twisted ideology here, don't be shy... why are you and galool "free thinkers" and not me?..I am just as open to possibilities, i can choose to reject the Quran with no, no real, consequences, i could lead the average causal muslim life. Yet you pigeonhole me in this airtight prison of Islam. I choose my beliefs just as you do, i do not leave a back door open, becasue i am secure in what i belive in, otherwise why would i beleif in it in the firstplace?, is it perhpas your durkiamien functioning religion, where you need God to help you punctuate events in life and not much else, that makes a consistant approach to much to handle. I am not sure if my i am better than the rednecks in your country, i would imagine so, but will leave the judgment to Allah (swt).. i would say that my actions are ,not at all like a rednecks you want to throw insults fine, but be careful, check which way the wind is blowing
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| | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 06:25 am "I didn't make myself deaf and blind to the truth." do you think ibliis (the devil) was unaware of the truth that he rejected it. do you think he didn't see things? he saw, but he was a fool by rejecting what he saw. ;-) "I read the book, made some observations, and concluded it is not the unadulterated word of God. Just because you drew a different conclusion doesn't make you right any more than it makes me wrong. The truth is maybe you are right and maybe you are not." the same way you concluded that a man like hitler may not face accountablity in the day of judgement which you said may not be truth of it's existance, right, mad mac? ;-) "The difference between us is I am smart enough to know that you could be right. You are truly deaf and blind to any possibilities other than Islam, where as I am open to all possibilities." no, the difference is that i'm not in doubt about what is in the Qur'an. i'm not in confusion like you. i understand that a man like hilter will not get away what he did. you think he might come back to the earth and do other things. how foolish is this! ;-)
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| | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 08:42 am Asad The Qur'an says you are not suppose to maintain associations with non-Muslims. Yet you do. The Qur'an says all sorts of harsh things which must be moderated if we are to live in harmony with each other. You can't go around calling people who disagree with you stupid. You could say I disagree, but that's not the same thing. Common I'm not asking you to agree. However, it is a mistake to call people who disagree with Islam stupid. And that is exactly what Asad did. Also, it is a mistake to invoke the devil as influencing everyone who doesn't embrace Islam. This esseiotnally says everyone who is not a Muslim is evil. Neither of these approaches is a model for living in harmony. I might think fat women are disgusting, lazy creatures. But it would be impolitic of me to walk around telling them that.
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| | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 08:53 am So public realtions should win over truth? In what laugage does misguided equal evil.? I find the problem you speak of honestly when i speak to born again Christains, they think i am the Devil!.lol so again perhaps you look at Islam from Christain angle The devil can mislead you as well as me, your inherently no more evil than me,or no more stupid your thoughts my thoughts your actions and my actions are what divide us. Remember you were born a muslim
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| | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 09:04 am "Asad The Qur'an says you are not suppose to maintain associations with non-Muslims. Yet you do." you misunderstood what the Qur'an says, mad mac. the Qur'an does not object that you and me talk. ;-) "The Qur'an says all sorts of harsh things which must be moderated if we are to live in harmony with each other." well, no one is going to change what the Qur'an says in order to fit your way or my way. you can forget about that. ;-). if the Qur'an says there is a hell and that the non-muslims will go to hell, some people will object this. they can as well forget about changing what is in the Qur'an. ;-) "You can't go around calling people who disagree with you stupid. You could say I disagree, but that's not the same thing" " you do it too all the times. you call people who disagree with--- morans, don't you, mad mac? ;-)
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| | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 01:31 pm Hi, Mad Mac! I dont know, somehow I feel sorry for you. May Allah guide you brother, because I can see you are very confused. With kindest regards; Pretty-girl.
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| | Monday, October 30, 2000 - 09:50 pm Ahhhhhhh. This addiction to talking to Somalis is its own special kind of torture. You guys are killing me!!! Common Firstly, whoa be it for me to defend born again Christians. They drive me nuts for the same reasons you guys are. Their way is the only way - and worse they're more determined than you guys are to winning me over to their way of thinking. Same with Jehovahs witnesses. Humorous aside, I was talking with this Jehovahs witness one day and I was telling him how he should read the book of Mormon as he might find it interesting. He then asks me "Are they pacifists?" and I said no, they serve in the armed forces. To which he said "Oh that's very bad. To be a good Christian you must be a pacifist." I looked at him and said "I'm a professional soldier." That pretty much ended the conversation. His mouth was hanging open and he didn't know what to say next. No, I'm not saying you should lie. I'm saying you should try and be a little more politic, that's all. Now, you aren't Asad, but you did rush to his defense. Be advised that while he drives me crazy sometimes I do like him. But we think fundamentally different. No doubt about that. And there are times (like when he's calling me stupid) that I want to shoot him. But eventually the urge goes away. Asad I am not saying changing the Qur'an, just recognizing that you can't apply it all the time and sometimes it's best to leave certain things you believe unsaid. Everyone does this. Your wife says "If you had met another women, and she was just like me in every particular, would you love her as much as me?" Of course she wants to hear "No darling, you're the only one." You don't say "Of course." Because then you might not get some that night. There are times when you have to water things down based on your audience. Not lying, just not being completely blunt, that's all. when you're debating someone it's generally considered rude to call them stupid. I've never called you stupid, and when I use the phrase moron it's a joke. I use to call me soldiers in Somalia morons (they called me McSlave Driver). Of course I didn't think they were morons and more than I think you guys are. It's a joke. then we have Pretty Girl who feels sorry for me. Honey, you don't need to feel sorry for me. I am not confused. Asserting you don't know everything doesn't mean you are confused. Indeed, someone who asserts they know everything when they don't (like a man driving who insists he's not lost), that is confusion. I'm not some lost, confused, wandering soul looking for direction. As I have stated before, I don't believe all the answers are here to be found. Life's not fair. That's just the way it is.
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| | Tuesday, October 31, 2000 - 04:30 am "Ahhhhhhh. This addiction to talking to Somalis is its own special kind of torture. You guys are killing me!!!" lol "Asad I am not saying changing the Qur'an, just recognizing that you can't apply it all the time and sometimes it's best to leave certain things you believe unsaid. Everyone does this. Your wife says "If you had met another women, and she was just like me in every particular, would you love her as much as me?" Of course she wants to hear "No darling, you're the only one." You don't say "Of course." Because then you might not get some that night. There are times when you have to water things down based on your audience. Not lying, just not being completely blunt, that's all." mad mac, you asked me something about islam (the Qur'an) and i told you what is in the Qu'ran. i do not care if you get offended or not. i'm not here to make please your feeling nor hurt your feeling. i'm just pointing out to you things. sometimes it is okay to say certian things even if it hurts. in the Qur'an, you will find in it always places where Allah is talking about the hell--unbeleivers with heaven--belivers. you can not just say one part and leave the other part unsaid. ;-) "when you're debating someone it's generally considered rude to call them stupid." but you do it all the times and call people moron, don't you, mad mac? "I've never called you stupid, and when I use the phrase moron it's a joke." i don't care when you say to me moron. i really laugh at you when you do this, but i have seen you doing it to other poeple when it was not a joke. ;-). by the way, there is no difference between the two terms----moron and stupid. you see, the meaning of moron in the dictionary is: a person who is notably stupid or lacking in good judment. ;-)
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| | Tuesday, October 31, 2000 - 06:01 am Okay i can live with being more polite, i will not "bite the bullet"..as my lecturer sometimes tells me i need to do.lol.. i tell the truth when i see it, perphaps i should be more tactic, but that would make me devious, if i can figure out a way to reconcile the two inshllah i will do so Our way is not the only way, their is truth in the Bible, and the Torah for sure, and perhaps in the other traditions, all they have to do is look. As i said before the Quran is the Critrea, not salvation for the arabs or any other little streotypes you may hold. Mad mac you are frustrating. stick to facts, instead of generating your own facts and peddling mythologies with regards to Jehovahs witness..i have had interesting converstaions with thm. My sister says i am the only perosn who jehovahs witness actually get tired of and not the other way round <smile> I also find revision of basic mathematics with jehovahs interesting. If only a 144,000 are going to get home; ie heaven..and you all ready have about 5 million jehovahs..why on earth would i join?, and you ain't got much chance either have you realistically my point about born again Christains, is that they think if you are a muslim, that you are in fact the devil.When they speak to you, they think they are talking to the devil. Again i repeat my point.. misgiuded does not equal evil.. why do you ignore points i find most relevant..is this because like Asad you have a merticlous attention for detail when it suits you? the book of mormon?.. forvive me i ain't too well versed is that the part that makes mormons belive that Black people are a mistake and God got it right the second time with white people?..
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| | Tuesday, October 31, 2000 - 06:20 am "Our way is not the only way," islam is the only way that is acceptable to Allah. it is in the Qur'an. ;-) "their is truth in the Bible, and the Torah for sure, and perhaps in the other traditions, all they have to do is look. " and there is false in both the bible and in the torah and other traditions, but there is all truth in the Qur'an. ;-) that is the difference, which makes the Qur’anic teachings, the only way which Allah will accept---Allah will not accept any other religion other than islam.---it is in the Qu'ran too. ;-) "As i said before the Quran is the Critrea, not salvation for the arabs or any other little streotypes you may hold." the Qur'an is both the criteria and the salvation for all people who want to accept it. "why do you ignore points i find most relevant..is this because like Asad you have a merticlous attention for detail when it suits you?" lol
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| | Tuesday, October 31, 2000 - 09:40 am To my knowledge I have not ignored any points or questions you have made. If so that is by oversight. Please feel free to reiterate those points you feel have been inadequately addressed Sahib.
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| | Tuesday, October 31, 2000 - 10:11 am Dear asad. valid points. what i was pointing out was that the Christains, should indeed accept Islam and so should the jews.They have truth in their scripts. Your right they also have faslhood, which is what a lot of them get stuck on . With salvation , again i should have perhaps made myself more clear, what i meant was it was not only salavtion for the Arabs Dear Mad How are Christains?.. Christain missonaries, the same as Islam. They do not belive in the concept of any other faiths. They belive i am the devil, i belive they are misguided, they belive in a bible, which by their own testiment is a adhoc collection of work not make reference to it self,in the new testiment people who aparantly have no surname, mathew mark luke and john are the authors the Quran makes much self reference to itself "this is the book where there is within no doubt". How when the Pope declared that conversion to christainity did not free a slave, but in fact increased his bondage to his master as he should realise his position? and conversion to Islam which makes you the slave of Allah the same. There is a difference in our words and actions. Our belief is strong and consistant, but it is confirmed, theirs is we belive in this part..uhmm..and that part..but not that part, but hey belive with me?. the only thing that we share with them, is that we have a belief and they have a beleif. Then tell me how are we any diffrent from people who belive in "possiblities"?
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