Lost In Translation (Weekend Thread)

 

Whilst my good friend Jeff Goldstein @ Protein Wisdom is on a semi-Sabbatical, his guest poster 'Ahem' asks: "Will the Saudis Succeed in Exporting Shari’a to the US?". The post is a must-read, but I was particularely grateful for the link to Robert Locke's brilliant essay:

The laws of Saudi Arabia, based upon the sharia law mandated by the Koran, do not recognize the rights and freedoms guaranteed Americans by the Constitution. The Saudi government makes no secret of its ambition to export Islamic tyranny worldwide, as the Koran commands. What most Americans don’t realize, is that American courts are helping it in a number of ways. For example, they are collaborating with Saudi attempts to squash the free-speech rights of Americans with abusive libel lawsuits....

Charles Johnson @ LGF wryly sums it up as "may the best culture win".

So, is it about culture? You bet. Commenter 'Passerby' from Singapore speaks for the vast majority of Muslims who live outside the Islamic trouble spots. He/she is as much an onlooker as we are, very likely enjoying the same civil liberties and economic advantages as we do -- Singapore has banned wearing the Islamic headscarf in public schools and is well known for its careful policies to manage the second most densly populated country in the world, especially given the fact, that it is a multi-religious society made up of 40% Buddhists, 15% Christians, 14% Muslims, 5% practicing Taoism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Baha'i Faith, and some 15% professing no religion (source).

But, most importantly, 'Passerby' has the same familiar and heartwarming memories surrounding religious ceremonies and regular rituals experienced together with friends and family from the earliest days of his/her life, spanning all the way to the present day. And when confronted with our quest here on ATB to shed light on the threats facing us and our children in the future, it must be difficult to consolidate the personal experiences and the harsh tone with which we take issue with Islam as it presents itself to us every day in the usual trouble spots.

First, I want to say to all the 'Passerbys' of this world, you are most certainly welcome to join our journey and our quest to navigate through the dense forest of disinformation on all fronts, both domestically and internationlly. All here on ATB will most heartily agree with "Hatred against other religion and people in it is certainly a barrier to foster closer ties and to erase any tensions among us all."; all will cheer statements suggesting that knowledge is the only answer to combat bigotry, "so we know what is wrong and what is right."

Most of us thought of Islam as just another religion and would have endorsed Al-Kafirun's call for unbiased religious tolerance. But acquiring knowledge about Islam, not slander, as 'Passerby' seemed to suggest, has caused us to take a different turn -- I can't of course allow questioning our ability to differentiate between the Qur'an and the Hadith to remain unchallenged and suggest to simply paste 'hadith' into the Google Search field on my side bar and search ATB; that should serve to nicely to demonstrate how thoroughly we go about our learning.

Understanding the full extent with which both religious and political leaders in practically all Muslim countries have systematically indoctrinated countless generations with hatred and prejudice against 'Infidels', especially Jews and Christians, gives us the much needed perspective to comprehend and debate such incidents as the cartoon war and the violent reactions to the Pope's lecture in Germany.

Actions speak louder than words. Christian actions were marred by dark periods in history; but unlike contemporary Muslims, we don't deny them nor do we ignore, that we have evolved during the centuries hence into a demonstrably peaceful religion - the era of the Spanish Inquisition has passed since many centuries, but, as 'Passerby' knows only too well, her evil offspring, namely the violent suppression of heresy against Islam is very much alive in Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, to name just a few. Try build a church in Riyadh or organize a Christian prayer group in Islamabad and see how the words from Al-Kafirum hold water.

It is my dearest wish, that all 'Passerbys' would redirect their concerns to the Jews and Christians living amongst Muslim bretheren in Islamic countries; any sadness, in what was mistook for hatred against Islam on ATB, should much rather be caused by the fate of those, whose life is made unbearable by violent attacks because they are either Infidels or have the courage to confront the dark ages ingrained in today's Islam.

Peace is what we thought we had, and all we want. Al-Kafirun's words describe Judea/Christian actions over many many years, but bear no resemblance to the condition prevalent in almost all Islamic countries.

Comments

[The Word-Drum]

I'm taking notes on your beautiful comments.
We must find the openings to dialogue with our
friends and others on the left. I grow weary of
talking to ourselves about jihad. Human Rights
has all but been hijacked by Marxist and Islamist.
Beauty is truth. But the truth isn't always beautiful.

[Jess1Dering]

RED VIOLIN,
I DEPEND on the site you referenced above( great picture by the way) To keep me abreast of the real deal "over there". My son John just returned from a tour of duty in Ramadi, Iraq. Our men and women have accomplished so much ,against terrible odds. I guess if there's one good thing about the Libs having had their way on election day( at ANY cost, and to the country's great detriment), it's that the stupid-but-elitist media will now put a "winners spin" on our efforts in Iraq. After all , it's Nancy Pelosi's baby now, right?

[Ghost Dansing]

""economic activity and profit" is among other things Einstein, Leibnitz, Laplace, Yo Yo Mah, and so on...

Crusader, the talendted people you mention are happy and unique artifacts of western civilization... Einstein for one was the product of a place and era that also produced a cultural malignancy that will serve as a negative example of just what political and/or religious zealotry can do an otherwise productive and advanced culture.

I think you have to grasp the structure of "hate", and its ability to be manipulated in the masses to understand the parallel between a broad-brush condemnation of adherents to Islam, and the various "final solutions" that have happened throughout history... ethnic cleansing (the holocaust being but one example in Europe), but it is happening in the world today, especially in Africa, but there was a recent attempt in the heart of Europe, in the Balkans, in only the last decade.

So, you are rightfully concerned about cars burning and violence in Paris... the question is what is the Liberal response in the West?

I don't think you would recommend all Muslims wear yellow eight-point stars on their chest... or that they be stripped of their rights... concentrated in ghettos... piled off into trains to concentration camps and disposed of?

Well, you might say, the Jews in holocaust Europe were not violent... not terrorists. True... but not all Muslims are violent terrorists, and like some Jews, by simply attempting to retain their identity become identifiable, and potentially become the target of scapegoating and hatred that can even find its way into public policy. Many Muslims live in the secular West because they enjoy the economy and freedom of the West... there are probably more allies there than radical revolutionaries desiring the the implementation of sharia for all...

However, the more draconian your measures... the more the government implements laws encouraging Muslims to become objects of derision and persecution, the more you drift toward rightest solutions like ethnic cleansing.

I think there is a problem with Islamic extremists... but wholesale to the degree it is a war, it is a war of ideas... and as I've said before the West has in fact taken advantage of this extremism when it was directed at the Communist block... now a lot of that is backfiring, and we are going to have to deal with it without losing our souls in the process.

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

GD

I don't buy your argument, plain and simple. History has shown in fact that Western Liberalism is very much an anomaly. Most likely to be a very brief historical period indeed. Our "culture" you dismiss so dismally as based entirely on "economic activity and profit" is among other things Einstein, Leibnitz, Laplace, Yo Yo Mah, and so on. It is building things for the sake of beauty, writing for the sake of knowledge, doing for the sake of righteousness.

History has shown repeatedly that the basest urges of humanity are always coming to the fore in new and exciting ways. There is indeed nothing new under the Sun.

Islam will not live to be a world-wide caliphate (the Chinese will see to that in short order), but you dismiss out of hand the prospect of "creeping Sharia" in the West - meaning by that the steady erosion of all that we have taken as understood, not by debate, nor consensus, but by the threats and viciousness of a violent and ugly minority. It is not necessary for Muslims to BE a majority in order to act like one.

They are outbreeding us, at a rate that will collapse most Western European Welfare systems pretty soon. At what point will you say the Muslims have c****ed it all up for everybody? When there are nightly busburnings, lynchings, and drive by beheadings in Paris? We're not very far from that.

I submit the Islamic disease will reach out and destroy a great deal of our way of life in the next twenty years. No we will not live under a caliphate. But living in Bosnia may be just as bad, and maybe worse.

Imagine living out your days in the Sunni triangle. Right at home in the USA.

[Ghost Dansing]

A very entertaining post Crusader... I don't share your pessismistic attitude to the state of "our civilization". First off, "our civilization" in the west is extremely heterogenous to begin with... largely the result of colonial policies and migrations in pursuit of freedom and opportunity. And the only identifiable "value" that underpins the whole thing is essentially economic activity and profit... at once the least common denominator and the most ubiquitous and fundamental activity within most civilizations.

In fact you essentially sound like an old-time colonialist as the "empire" is unraveled.

"...someone we can surrender to..." Sharia Law is unlikely to take root in the West, and there isn't anybody strong enough out there to impose it militarily. Terrorists are not conquerers... though terrorism and insurgency have been effective militant modalities for those wishing to evict foreign presence.

I would say that given the grand scope of bin laden's dreams of a far-reaching caliphate, the harrassment the terrorist tactic can provide will most likely fall short in its designs.

It is indeed the rigid, sectarian, dictatorial theocrats of Islam that should be in ultimate fear of Western Liberalism... and indeed they are. But they are not 10 feet tall, and Freedom is at once insidious, and a tsunami with the power to bring low the mightiest of potentates.

Fear not Crusader... History is on your side.

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

Why he can't appease Islam is very simple, mate. The Chinese are PLU's - basically. You must remember that they are a 5000-year old civilisation, that has made spectacular advances in the last 1000 years. The average Muslim in the Islamic World I'll wager lives much like his predecessors did 1000 years ago.

Look, GD, we're bascially f***ed as a civilisation. We have to find someone we can surrender to, someone to whom we can play Rome's Egypt. The Islamic world is filled to the brim with people who are stupid, lazy and utterly devoid of inspiration, scientific thought, or the basic necessities for civilised life. They are at best irrelevant in the grander scheme of life on this planet. At worst, they are a dangerous and odious band of murderous, lying, duplicitous cutthroats (I should know, I've tried in vain to teach any of the fundamentals of scientific thought to about 2000 of them in my career).

The Chinese are by and large a developed people, who are just now throwing off the legacy of Western Imperialism and gunboat adventurism. Quite frankly I don't see why they still talk to us, but unlike the savage commercial vandalism of the Islamic world, the Chinese sphere is infinitely more rational. Chinese are great students, workers and friends. Not overly generous necessarily, but grudgingly accepting of a good deal.

If you got to lose, (and with people like yourself running interference, GD we are gonna lose) we gotta pick the lesser of two evils. Sharia law, or life under the influence of the Chinese state. I know where I'd rather live. Beijing is a great place to live, work and do business. All you gotta do is not criticise the government. So I'm afraid GD you're really screwed, as no one in the world wants you - you'll get done in right quickly anywhere but here and now.

Me and my ilk, on the other hand....

[Ghost Dansing]

Dubya's appeasing the Communist Chinese... I don't see why he can't appease Islam Crusader :)

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

As I have posted more and more frequently, it is now time for the West to cut its losses with Islam, and make very quick, desparate overtures to the Red Chinese. It is time to remind them of the spectacular primitiveness and incompetence of the Islamic world, especially when it comes to modern economics. The Islamic world is NOT a great place to sell all that Chinese merchandise. Walmart just isn't gonna fly in Tehran.

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

As I have posted more and more frequently, it is now time for the West to cut its losses with Islam, and make very quick, desparate overtures to the Red Chinese. It is time to remind them of the spectacular primitiveness and incompetence of the Islamic world, especially when it comes to modern economics. The Islamic world is NOT a great place to sell all that Chinese merchandise. Walmart just isn't gonna fly in Tehran.

[Red Violin]

High quality photo of Ahmadinejad in terrorist garb in 1979 showing up in a Russian newspaper, right at the same time that the US is considering making a diplomatic opening to Iran?

http://soldiersdad2.blogspot.com/2006/11/why-this-photo-now.html

[Sally Morgan]

I love your speed and accuracy, i love your mind, your blog reduces me to laughter, tears, tears and laughter, very special in such a world as this, you are the 'Word in front of the World'
Sally x

[Ghost Dansing]

"feces festooned"... that 's a good one GO1.

[Gang of One]

5th. You are, plain and simply put, wrong. Not just just because you are an idiot, but because you have no evidence to back up your false claims, other than perhaps copy-and-paste the talking points of your fellow DU posters.
I once here went off on another potato-head who had nothing but invective, bile and filthy anti-Semitism to spew, and I regretted my lack of civility and decorum -- this is Alexandra's salon after all.
Therefore, I can only ask you graciously to keep your feces-festooned, school-yard provocations to yourself. If not, you will suffer a humiliation that will not allow you to reach adulthood.
Do I make myself clear?
Good.

[mac Brachman]

Huh? Who is 5th of November? What "book-banning" is he talking about? What "all religions?" The Iraq war has little to do with Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs, from what I can tell. But I can tell I'm dealling with some half-wit from the far-left blogosphere because there is the obligatory slam against Israel and "Zionism." These people are proud of their Jew-hatred; it has become very respectable in many quarters of the Left. 5th of November, kindly crawl back under whatever roach-infested rock you slithered out of. Perhaps you got lost in the blogosphere (not surprising considering your apparent intelligence, or lack thereof) and thought ATB was a blog for Jew haters. You are mistaken, my friend. Shalom, Mac Brachman

[5th of November]

All religions are represented in the Iraq conflict. However, Iraq is merely a bloody, violent, neo-con/zionist diversion. As the army attacks Iraq, the US gov't erodes rights at home by suspending habeas corpus, stealing private lands, banning books like "America Deceived" from Amazon, rigging elections, conducting warrantless wiretaps and starting 2 illegal wars based on lies. Soon, another US false-flag operation will occur (sinking of an Aircraft Carrier) and the US will invade Iran, (on behalf of Israel).
Final link (before Google Books bends to gov't demands and censors the title):
America Deceived (book)

[Red Violin]

SPIEGEL spoke to Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations:

(...)

Haass: Visions of a new Middle East that is peaceful, prosperous and democratic will not be realized. Much more likely is the emergence of a new Middle East that will cause great harm to itself and the world. Iran will be a powerful state in the region, a classical imperial power. No viable peace process between Israel and the Palestinians is likely for the foreseeable future. Militias will emerge throughout the region, terrorism will grow in sophistication, tensions between Sunni and Shia will increase, causing problems in countries with divided societies, such as Bahrain, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. Islam will fill the political and intellectual vacuum. Iraq at best will remain messy for years to come, with a weak central government, a divided society and sectarian violence. At worst, it will become a failed state racked by all-out civil war that will draw in its neighbors.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,447763,00.html

[Red Violin]

From: http://freethoughts.wordpress.com/

Al Qaeda celebrates Democrats’ mid-term wins

Israel finds advanced military equipment in Gaza

Communists, Neo-Nazis and Islamists form an evil alliance we have to defeat. Neo-Nazis, exactly like their red cousins, wearing Palestinian headscarves in Sweden and Germany

The American people understands that it is a war that needs to be won. By any mean. According to a recent ABC News poll, 65 percent of Americans think it is more important for the federal government to investigate possible terrorist threats — even if that intrudes on personal privacy.

While Chirac and the French establishment is too busy praising the Democrats’ partial victory, thugs attacked a French Jewish school

From the Islamic Republic of Britain: Christian charity bans Christmas themed children’s gifts . Next, we’ll read that British Christians will ban Jesus himself, because he ‘offends’ the Islamists!

[Ghost Dansing]

http://www.religioustolerance.org/zoroastr.htm

Here's a pretty kewl site on Zorastrianism too... very very old... very very influential.

The religion's priests, successors to the pre-Zoroastrian Magi, acquired great power by their command of the techniques of purification. The priests also had great influence on the government in the first period of Zoroastrianism, that under the Achaemenids, when it was for a time the state religion. Alexander's conquest of Persia and the collapse of the Achaemenids destroyed the privileged position of Zoroastrianism. Little is known of the religion for the next 500 years, except that an offshoot, Mithraism (stemming from the worship of Mithra), was taking hold farther west. Zoroastrianism reemerged (c.A.D. 226) under Ardashir I, who established the Sassanian dynasty and fostered a general revival of Achaemenian culture. For four centuries Zoroastrianism was the state religion of the Sassanids, and it successfully met the challenge of nascent Christianity and, later, of heretical Manichaeism. In the mid-7th cent. Persia fell to Islam, and Zoroastrianism virtually disappeared. Aside from the Parsis of India, fewer than 10,000 persons (concentrated in Yazd and Kerman, Iran) practice the religion today. Zoroastrianism affected Judaism (particularly during the time of the Captivity) and, through Gnosticism, Christianity.

http://www.answers.com/topic/zoroastrianism

[gringoman]

Red Violin,

The Pre-Islamic Shah of Persia's speech to the Arabs is very eloquent, as he advises them to keep their "Allah-u-Akbar" in their stultifying deserts. This Arab prophet, the Shah contends, may be okay for barbarians, but is not for export to the civilized. (Interesting, this Shah.) While putting it in royal style. he sounds very contemptuous, as though addressing sand monkeys. The pathos, however, is that he's speaking as the conquered. In classic warfare. winner takes all. And so Islam took Persia.

My point is that it's not always quite so clear cut, even in war. Islam has a more sophisticated face too. Nowadays that's obvious in examples like the talented bastard son of Saudi royalty, Prince Bandar, who can charm the infidel elite in Washington. As a dear friend of the Bush family, he can even embrace an "adopted son" of the Bushes, like Slick Willy Clinton, and help install "Islamic Centers" in U.S. universities (and not be bothered by calls for reciprocity back in the desert kingdom) and even assist with bringing Korans to spiritually hungry U.S. Marines, delighting both CAIR and progressive kaffirs like the ACLU. Throughout its history, Islam has employed various tactics and strategies. They don't always enslave, or strike off heads or parcel out the captive women. They haven't always ordered mass circumscisions . Christian Egypt was Islamized in the course of a century, with minimal executions, and its very widespread genital mutilation of women today is said to originate in Africa rather than Koranic inspiration. In Spain for 800 years they inter-acted fairly well with Jews who were having a Christian problem.

True, when Mohammed (Mehmed) II captured Constantinople in 1453 it got ugly for a while. They turned the great Roman Christian cathedral of Santa Sofia into a mosque, the troops were allowed a period of rapine, slaughter and pillage before the Sultan said enough, having selected the most attractive for himself. True, they dumped the great library of 120,000 volumes into the sea, and the last Greek Emperor, Constantine XI, a Paleologue, instead of fleeing like a dhimmi or decadent, remained and charged into battle with some faithful nobles, like an ancient Roman, knowing himself doomed. But despite all the carnage and mayhem, this Sultan Mohammed II proved that he was no simple Koran-waving camel jockey, He used Hungarian technical know-how to smash through the city's great walls. His elite troops, the Janissaries, were semi-slaves captured from European Christendom as children and indoctrinated to be Islamic warriors. And eventually he even allowed Christians and Jews to settle in his new Turkish capitol and use their mercantile and other skills to renovate the great city, later re-named Istanbul, for the greater glory of Islam and the Ottomans.

In other words, as todays socialized Europe converts, fights or dies, and multy-culty Americans see more and more mosques sprouting up around them, there may still be hope for liberals who want to get along and know that war is wrong. Won't homosexuals get a chance to re-discover the secret joys of the closet? Wouldn't the New Muslim Order give feminists a chance to re-assess their gender, their dress, their sexual appliances, their willingness to procreate? In fact, might devoted dhimmis not be allowed to continue mocking Christianity and Zionism, or re-write wikipedia, with emphasis on the danger of Christian extremists?

ps. A note on your Persian religion tract. It's understandable that the civilized Persians would have been as disturbed by a new monotheism coming at them from the far desert, as the Romans once were by another monotheism from roughly the same desert. But I'm surprised to see the ancient Persian religion, Zoroastrianism, called a 'monotheism,' since, like other Aryan religions, including Hinduism, and in fact most other religions anywhere, it may have a Chief God but there are plenty of other divinities too. Whether the Hebrews picked up the One God idea from Akhnaton in Egypt, as Freud suspects in 'Moses and Monotheism', Judaism is generally considered the first true monotheism, the credo that made Christianity, and ultimately Islam, possible.

[Red Violin]

Maryam Namazie
Speech given at a forum on women’s rights
November 28, 1998
Toronto, Canada

* In Germany, in August 1997, an 18-year-old woman was burnt to death by her father for refusing to marry the man he had chosen. A German court gave him a reduced sentence, saying he was practicing his culture and religion.

* In Iran, women and girls are forcibly veiled under threat of imprisonment and lashes, and cultural relativists say that it is their religion and must be respected.

* In Holland, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that Iran’s prisons are “satisfactory for third world standards," allowing the forcible return of asylum seekers.

Cultural relativism serves these crimes. It legitimizes and maintains savagery. It says that people’s rights are dependent on their nationality, religion, and culture. It says that the human rights of someone born in Iran, Iraq, or Afghanistan are different from those of someone born in the United States, Canada or Sweden.

Cultural relativists say Iranian society is Muslim, implying that people choose to live the way they are forced to. It's as if there are no differences in beliefs in Iran, no struggles, no communists, no socialists, and no freedom-lovers. If so, why have 150,000 people been executed for opposing the Islamic Republic of Iran? If it’s the entire society's culture and religion, why does the Islamic regime need such extensive tools for repression? If it’s people’s beliefs, why does the regime control their private lives - from their sexual activities, to what video they watch, to what music they listen to? If the entire society is Muslim, why did Zoleykhah Kadkhoda enter a voluntary sexual relationship for which she was buried in a ditch and stoned? If it is people's culture, why did the residents of Bukan revolt against the stoning and save her life? Why are thousands of women rounded up in the streets for “improper” veiling if its their culture and religion? How come, after two decades of terror and brutality, the universities are still not Islamic, according to an official of the regime? Though it's untrue, even if every person living in Iran had reactionary beliefs, it still wouldn’t be acceptable. If everyone believes in the superiority of their race, does that make it okay?

Cultural relativists say that we must respect people's culture and religion, however despicable. This is absurd and calls for the respect of savagery. Yes, human beings are worthy of respect but not all beliefs must be respected. If culture allows a woman to be mutilated and killed to save the family “honor,” it cannot be excused. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, religion rules and has become the mass murderer of people. If religion says that women who disobey should be beaten, that flogging is acceptable, and that women are deficient, it must be condemned and opposed.

The struggle against misogynist and reactionary governments is inseparable from the struggle against reactionary and misogynist beliefs. Of course individuals have the right to their own beliefs, however offensive, but freedom-lovers are duty bound to expose and condemn reactionary beliefs and relegate them to the garbage cans of history.

Cultural relativists go further to say that universal human rights are a western concept. How come when it comes to using the telephone or a car, the mullah does not say it is western and incompatible with an Islamist society? How come when it comes to better exploiting the working class and making profits, technological gains are universal? But when it comes to universal human rights, they become western. Even if rights are western, it is absurd to say that others' are not worthy of them. In fact, though, rights are gains forcibly taken by the working class and progressive social movements. Therefore, any gain or right obtained anywhere is a gain and a right for all humanity.

Some, even among the "left" say that exposing reactionary beliefs serves racism. Opposing the rape of a nine year old girl who is forcibly married does not serve racism. Opposing the sexual abuse of a child even though the Islamic Republic of Iran's court says the father was forced to abuse the child because his wife did not satisfy him, does not serve racism - just like opposing anti-Semitism doesn't make one a Zionist. Culture for the sake of culture is not sacred. Racism and fascism also have their own cultures. A culture that cannot defend human beings to live a better life is worthless.

Struggling for universal human rights means condemning and disrespecting reactionary beliefs. The struggle against dominant reactionary ideas is a struggle against the ideas of the ruling class. After all, the ruling class must justify the barbarism of capitalism. It must make the intolerable seem tolerable and natural. It must create differences to facilitate profit. Cultural relativism serves that purpose. The idea of difference has always been the fundamental principle of a racist agenda. The defeat of Nazism and its biological theory of difference largely discredited racial superiority. The racism behind it, however, found another more acceptable form of expression for this era. Instead of expression in racial terms, difference is now portrayed in cultural terms. Cultural relativism is this era’s fascism. Cultural relativists are defenders of this era's holocausts.

In an era of unprecedented barbarity we must defend the universal rights of human beings who daily hope for freedom and equality. Though a better life is only possible when this world is turned right side up, anyone who respects humanity must immediately struggle for the abolition of all backward and reactionary beliefs which are incompatible with human freedom and progress and a secular and modern society for all.

GD: I highly recommend you immigrate to a moslem country. They might even make you an Ayatollah or someone influential since you're such a fan... I think the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution (Minstry of propaganda) in Iran is hiring American consultants...A luxurious condo in Dubai and lots of cash as part of the compensation package...

[Ghost Dansing]

Oh phooey David, you just want to persecute the poor Muslims. Turkey is different and you know it.

Here's some interesting stuff I found :)

Under Umar and his immediate successors, the Arab conquerors attempted to maintain their political and cultural cohesion despite the attractions of the civilizations they had conquered. The Arabs were to settle in the garrison towns rather than on scattered estates. They were not to marry non-Arabs, or learn their language, or read their literature. The new non-Muslim subjects, or dhimmi, were to pay a special tax, the jizya or poll tax, which was calculated per individual at varying rates for men, women and children as determined by Muslim rules but paid collectively by the whole community. In addition, the so-called protected People-of-the-Book were subject to various restrictions of occupation, worship, and dress (Bashear 1997, p. 117).

Mass conversions were neither desired nor allowed, at least in the first few centuries of Arab rule[3][4]. Later such restrictions disappeared.

Muhammad, the Islamic prophet, had made it clear that the "People of the Book", Jews and Christians, were to be tolerated so long as they submitted to Muslim rule. It was at first unclear as to whether or not the Sassanid state religion, Zoroastrianism, was entitled to the same tolerance. Many Arab commanders destroyed Zoroastrian shrines and prohibited Zoroastrian worship; yet, others may have tolerated this native Persian religion. Many of the Zoroastrians were massacred and many fled to India to avoid persecution.

Before the conquest, the Persians had been mainly Zoroastrian, however, there were also large and thriving Christian and Jewish communities. However, there was a slow but steady movement of the population toward Islam. The nobility and city-dwellers were the first to convert, most likely to preserve the economic and social status and advantages; Islam spread more slowly among the peasantry and the dihqans, or landed gentry. By the late 10th century, the majority of Persians had become Muslim, at least nominally. Most Persian Muslims were Sunni Muslims. Though Iran is known today as a stronghold of the Shi'a Muslim faith, it did not become so until much later around the 15th century. The Shi'as projected many of their own Persian moral and ethical values that predates Islam into the religion, while recognizing the prophet's son in law, Ali as an enduring symbol of justice. In a sense, Iranian Islam is a second advent of Islam itself, a new Islam sometimes referred to as Islam-i Ajam. It was this Persian Islam, rather than the original Arab Islam, that was brought to new areas and new peoples: to the Turks, first in Central Asia and then in the Middle East in the country which came to be called Turkey, and India.

According to Tarikh-i Bukhara "The residents of Bukhara became Muslims. But they renounced [Islam] each time the Arabs turned back. Qutayba b. Muslim made them Muslim three times, [but] they renounced [Islam] again and became nonbelievers. The fourth time, Qutayba waged war, seized the city, and established Islam after considerable strife....They espoused Islam overtly but practiced idolatry in secret."

During the reign of the Ummayad dynasty, the Arab conquerors imposed Arabic as the primary language of the subject peoples throughout their empire, displacing their indigenous languages. However, Middle Persian proved to be much more enduring. Most of the structure and vocabulary survived, evolving into the modern Persian language. However, Persian did incorporate a certain amount of Arabic vocabulary, specially as pertains to religion, as well as switching from the Pahlavi Aramaic alphabet to one based on a modified version of Arabic characters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_conquest_of_Persia

[Red Violin]

Holding Islam to Account

http://www.amilimani.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=46&Itemid=2

[David]

I see Ghost Dansing chose to NOT do a simple google on the search words I suggested but instead to trot out Foggy Bottom bushwah.

Typical. If you don't want to know the truth GD, just say so plainly.

Oh, I see you have.

And once again, the fact that some who claim to be Muslims say that terrorist acts are not Islamic does not make it so. The terrorists are the ones who are emulating Mohammed. They at least are honest and doing as their prophet both told them and showed them by his own example. People who characteristically and habitually and openly deny and act in refutation of the plain teachings and example of their own religion's founder and still claim to follow that founder's teachings are liars, whether they are "peaceful Muslims" or murderous "Christians".

And that statement, Ghost Dansing, you refuse to answer honestly.

[Red Violin]

SUBMIT TO ISLAM OR DIE - True in Ancient Times, Still in Effect

PLEASE note how the centuries old ultimatum below is almost EXACTLY what the Islamic Jihadists are saying to the Western world TODAY. Pre-Islamic Iranian History has a lot to teach us about how Islam Operates.

[Text of the ultimatum from Omar Ibn-Khat'tab the Calif of Islam to the Iranian Sovereign Yazdgerd III (Pre-Islmaic King of Persian Empire]

Bism-ellah Ar'rahman Ar'rhim

To: the Shah of the Parsi (Persian)

Do not foresee a good future for you and your nation without your acceptance of my terms and your submission to me.

There was a time when your country ruled half the world, but see how now your sun has set.

On all fronts your armies have been defeated and your nation is condemned to extinction.

I point out to you the path whereby you might escape this fate. Namely, that you begin worshipping the one god, the unique deity, the only god who created all that is. I bring you his message.

Order your nation to cease the false worship of fire and to join us, that they may join the truth. Worship Allah the creator of the world.

Worship Allah and accept Islam as the path of salvation. End now your polytheistic ways and become Muslims that you may accept Allah-u-Akbar as your saviour. This is the only way of securing your own survival and the peace of your Persians.

You will do this if you know what is good for you and for your Persians.
Submission is your only option.
Allah u Akbar
The Calif of Muslims Omar Ibn-Khat'tab

[What follows is response of the Persian King.]

In the name of Ahuramazda the Creator of Life and Wisdom.

From: the Shahan-Shah of Iran, Yazdgerd. (King of Persian Empire)

To: Omar Ibn Khat'tab the Arab Calif.

In your letter you summon us Iranians to your god whom you call "Allah-u-Akbar"; and because of your barbarity and ignorance, and without knowing who we are and Whom we worship, you demand that we seek out your god and become worshippers of "Allah-u-Akbar".

How strange that you occupy the seat of the Arab Calif but are as ignorant as any desert roaming Arab!

You admonish me to become monotheistic in faith.

Ignorant man, for thousands of years we Aryans have, in this land of culture and art, been monotheists and five times a day have we offered prayers to God's Throne of Oneness.

While we laid the foundations of philanthropy and righteousness and kindness in this world and held high the ensign of "Good Thoughts, Good Words and Good Deeds", you and your ancestors were desert wanderers, who . . . buried your innocent daughters alive. How dare you Arabs who have no regard for God's creatures, who mercilessly put people to the sword, who mistreat your women and bury your daughters alive, who attack caravans and are highway robbers, who commit murder, who kidnap women and spouses, presume to preach the worship of God to us, who are above these evils?

You tell me to cease the worship of fire and to worship "Allah-u-Akbar" instead! We Iranians are by the light of fire reminded of the Light of God.

The radiance and the sun-like warmth of fire exuberates our hearts, and the pleasant warmth of it brings our hearts and spirits closer together, that we may be philanthropic, kind and considerate; that gentleness and forgiveness may become our way of life,and that thereby the Light of God may shine on in our hearts.

Our God is the Great Ahuramazda. . . .We are nothing like you.

We, in the name of Ahuramazda, practice compassion and love and goodness and righteousness and forgiveness, and care for the dispossessed and the unfortunate.

But you, in the name of your "Allah-u-Akbar" commit murder, create misery and subject people to suffering! Tell me truly who is to blame for your misdeeds?

Your "Allah-u-Akbar" who orders genocide, plunder and destruction, or you who do these things in his name? Or both?

You, who have spent all your days in brutality and barbarity, have now come out of your desolate deserts resolved to impose, by the blade and by conquest, the worship of "Allah-u-Akbar" on a people who have for thousands of years been civilizedand have relied on culture and knowledge and art as mighty supports.

What have you, in the name of your "Allah-u-Akbar", taught these armies of Islam besides destruction and pillage and murder that you now presume to summon others to your "Allah-u-Akbar"?

Today, my people's fortunes have changed. Their armies, who were subjects of Ahuramazada, have now been defeated by the Arab armies of "Allah-u-Akbar".

And they are being forced, at the point of the sword, to convert to the god by the name of"Allah-u-Akbar" and offer him prayers in Arabic since your Arabic god only understands Arabic.

I advise you to return to your lizard infested deserts. Do not let loose upon our cities your cruel barbarous Arabs who are like rabid animals.

Refrain from the murder of my people.Refrain from pillaging my people.

Refrain from kidnapping our daughters in the name of your "Allah-u-Akbar".

Refrain from these crimes and evils.

We Aryans are a forgiving people, a kind and well-meaning people. Wherever we go, we sow the seeds of goodness, amity and righteousness. And this is why we have the capacity to overlook the crimes and the misdeeds of your Arabs.

Stay in your desert with your "Allah-u-Akbar", and do not approach our cities; for horrid is your belief and brutish is your conduct.

Yazdgerd Saasaani
(King of Persian Empire)

For the Persian text click on this link:

http://kavehsara.com/Yazdgerd.html

[Ernesto Ribeiro]

The Rape of Europe

From the desk of Paul Belien on Wed, 2006-10-25 20:57
The German author Henryk M. Broder recently told the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant (12 October) that young Europeans who love freedom, better emigrate. Europe as we know it will no longer exist 20 years from now. Whilst sitting on a terrace in Berlin, Broder pointed to the other customers and the passers-by and said melancholically: “We are watching the world of yesterday.”

Europe is turning Muslim. As Broder is sixty years old he is not going to emigrate himself. “I am too old,” he said. However, he urged young people to get out and “move to Australia or New Zealand. That is the only option they have if they want to avoid the plagues that will turn the old continent uninhabitable.”

Many Germans and Dutch, apparently, did not wait for Broder’s advice. The number of emigrants leaving the Netherlands and Germany has already surpassed the number of immigrants moving in. One does not have to be prophetic to predict, like Henryk Broder, that Europe is becoming Islamic. Just consider the demographics. The number of Muslims in contemporary Europe is estimated to be 50 million. It is expected to double in twenty years. By 2025, one third of all European children will be born to Muslim families. Today Mohammed is already the most popular name for new-born boys in Brussels, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and other major European cities.

Broder is convinced that the Europeans are not willing to oppose islamization. “The dominant ethos,” he told De Volkskrant, “is perfectly voiced by the stupid blonde woman author with whom I recently debated. She said that it is sometimes better to let yourself be raped than to risk serious injuries while resisting. She said it is sometimes better to avoid fighting than run the risk of death.”

In a recent op-ed piece in the Brussels newspaper De Standaard (23 October) the Dutch (gay and self-declared “humanist”) author Oscar Van den Boogaard refers to Broder’s interview. Van den Boogaard says that to him coping with the islamization of Europe is like “a process of mourning.” He is overwhelmed by a “feeling of sadness.” “I am not a warrior,” he says, “but who is? I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it.”

As Tom Bethell wrote in this month’s American Spectator: “Just at the most basic level of demography the secular-humanist option is not working.” But there is more to it than the fact that non-religious people tend not to have as many children as religious people, because many of them prefer to “enjoy” freedom rather than renounce it for the sake of children. Secularists, it seems to me, are also less keen on fighting. Since they do not believe in an afterlife, this life is the only thing they have to lose. Hence they will rather accept submission than fight. Like the German feminist Broder referred to, they prefer to be raped than to resist.

“If faith collapses, civilization goes with it,” says Bethell. That is the real cause of the closing of civilization in Europe. Islamization is simply the consequence. The very word Islam means “submission” and the secularists have submitted already. Many Europeans have already become Muslims, though they do not realize it or do not want to admit it.
Some of the people I meet in the U.S. are particularly worried about the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe. They are correct when they fear that anti-Semitism is also on the rise among non-immigrant Europeans. The latter hate people with a fighting spirit. Contemporary anti-Semitism in Europe (at least when coming from native Europeans) is related to anti-Americanism. People who are not prepared to resist and are eager to submit, hate others who do not want to submit and are prepared to fight. They hate them because they are afraid that the latter will endanger their lives as well. In their view everyone must submit.

This is why they have come to hate Israel and America so much, and the small band of European “islamophobes” who dare to talk about what they see happening around them. West Europeans have to choose between submission (islam) or death. I fear, like Broder, that they have chosen submission – just like in former days when they preferred to be red rather than dead.

[Ghost Dansing]

Just Asking... this is a good Blog to discuss a lot of points of view... we occasionally get very strange posts like this long thing on the "Lost Verses of the Koran", but this really isn't the status quo.

I think most here do focus on the theosophy and law of Islam as "the problem"... however I've maintained a more "structure of religion and zealotry as something politically exploitable in general" theme for quite a while.

I think bashing a religion in general, especially one with a big diaspora, has historically gotten people into trouble, and wouldn't recommend going down that road.

However, some insist.

[Just asking is all]

It seems every time I’ve posted to right wing blogs the concept that there are many reasons why Islamofascists behave the way they do and that these reasons should all be figured into any anti-terrorist/anti-islamofascism strategies, I get misinterpreted to be an overly politically correct liberal traitor and then am immediately attacked or linked to sites that specialize in itemizing all the evils of Islam. Round and round I go.

Any bloggers out there who’ve gotten past this - who’ve attempted real problem solving without any emotional or ideological limits? Or is this comment thread it?

[Ghost Dansing]

"Lost Verses of the Koran"

Wow... I can see why these were omitted... not very flattering of the Prophet, fer sher.

[patty]

*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*
Remembering All Our Vets
God Bless our Vets
One and All
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*

[Ghost Dansing]

Some of my references are a little older... here is an update from the U.S. State Department on "Religious Freedom" in Turkey:

International Religious Freedom Report 2006
Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor

The constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respected this right in practice; however, the Government imposes some restrictions on Muslim and other religious groups and on Muslim religious expression in government offices and state-run institutions, including universities.

There was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom during the period covered by this report, and government policy continued to contribute to the generally free practice of religion.

The generally tolerant relationship among religions in society contributed to religious freedom; however, a sharp debate continued over the country's definition of "secularism," the proper role of religion in society, and the potential influence of the country's small minority of Islamists. Some Muslims, Christians, and Baha'is faced a few restrictions and occasional harassment for alleged proselytizing or unauthorized meetings. The Government continued to oppose "Islamic fundamentalism." Authorities continued their broad ban on wearing Muslim religious dress in government offices, universities, and schools.

According to the general perception, Turkish identity is based on the Turkish language and the Islamic faith. Religious minorities said they were effectively blocked from careers in state institutions. Christians, Baha'is, and some Muslims faced societal suspicion and mistrust, and more radical Islamist elements continued to express anti-Semitic sentiments. Additionally, persons wishing to convert from Islam to another religion sometimes experienced social harassment and violence from relatives and neighbors.

The U.S. government frequently discusses religious freedom with the Government as part of its overall policy to promote human rights. Embassy representatives met frequently with government officials and representatives of religious groups during the reporting year to discuss issues related to religious freedom, including legal reform aimed at lifting restrictions on religious minorities.

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2006/71413.htm

Interestingly:

Turkey was the first Muslim-majority nation to formally recognize the State of Israel.Israel has been a major supplier of arms to Turkey. Military, strategic, and diplomatic cooperation between Turkey and Israel is accorded high priority by the governments of both countries, which share concerns with respect to the regional instabilities in the Middle East.

The history of the Jewish-Turkish relations dates back to the Ottoman Empire when the British-Jewish Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Benjamin Disraeli advocated for the Ottoman empire. Turkey served as a haven for European Jews refuge fleeing Nazi persecution during the 1930s and 1940s. Major Jewish figures were born in Turkey.

It has been reported that the Israeli Mossad played a major role in the capture of the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1996. In the beginning of 2006, the Israeli foreign ministry characterized its relations with Turkey as "perfect". However, in February 2006, a visit paid by Khaled Meshal, a leader of the newly elected Hamas, changed this status. Israeli diplomats went so far as to compare this visit to a possible official visit of Abdullah Öcalan (the imprisoned PKK leader) to Israel, but Turkish authorities immediately denounced this comparison as "irresponsible and erroneous". After Khaled Meshal paid an official visit to Russia, Turkish-Israeli relations entered a "cooling down" process. Some have suggested that this was only an public relations stunt to show the Islamic world that Turkey was on their side because Turkey had been silent in major issues important to Arabs and the Islamic community like the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the Lebanon crisis. Israel has even advocated that Turkey make up a majority of peace keepers in Lebanon because it has said that it does not trust troops from other Islamic countries like Bangladesh and Malaysia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey-Israel_relations#_note-9

[Ghost Dansing]

"IOW, those who claim that their vicious, barbarous behaviors are justified on "Christian" grounds are liars. Those who claim that their vicious, barbarous acts are justified as following the teachings, life and work of Mohammed are telling the truth."

Well... there are Muslims that would call those who advocate terrorism in the name of Jihad "liars" as well... so it is certainly not as absolute as you say.

And there are many Muslims living in the West and non-Islamic nations that don't seem compelled to change the Laws to Sharia as well... so, what would we make of that.

In socializing religions for peace, much "glossing-over" warlike language is done... and righfully so.

As far as Liberal government:

Government, Turkey: Republican Parliamentary Democracy
Legal system:
Civil Law system derived from various European continental legal systems; note - member of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), although Turkey claims limited derogations on the ratified European Convention on Human Rights.

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/tu.html

The religious situation in Turkey is complicated by the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, the division between Sunni and Shiite, particularly Alawi Muslims, Turkey’s rocky relationship with Greece (The Ecumenical Patriarchate of the Greek Orthodox Church is in Istanbul) and the existence of several historical Christian communities in Turkey.

Islamic fundamentalism does not recognize the difference between secular and religious spheres and would like to see Turkey become an Islamic state governed by Islamic law. Therefore the government looks with suspicion upon their activities. There is no particular law against proselytizing, but religious activists may be arrested by the police for disturbing the peace. The 1996 US State Department Report on Human Rights says that these cases are usually dismissed.

There are about 12 million Alawi Muslims in Turkey. Many of them feel that the Department of Religious Affairs is biased toward Sunni beliefs. There are government-salaried Sunni religious leaders. There are no government-salaried Alawi religious leaders. The Alawi religious community receives no funds from the Religious Affairs Directorate. Religious instruction classes in schools include no Alawi beliefs. The director tends to view the Alawi minority as a cultural rather than a religious group.

Authorities monitor the activities of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Church has been seeking to reopen a seminary on the island of Halki which was closed by the government in the 1970’s. According to the 1997 US State Department Report on Religious Freedom, there have numerous press attacks on the Orthodox patriarch in the past several years. Harassment in the form of graffiti and stones being thrown over the walls of the patriarchate has occurred. In September 1996, someone threw a hand-grenade over the wall of the patriarchate causing minor damage.

In addition to the Eastern Orthodox Church, Turkey also has Armenian, Syriac and Jewish minority communities. According to the Treaty of Lausanne, the Jewish, Armenian and Orthodox communities are exempt from Muslim religious instruction. They must present written verification of their non-Muslim background. The Syriac Church is not officially recognized as a Lausanne Treaty minority. However, the US State Department Report on Religious Freedom states that, according to a church official, because they are not mentioned in the treaty, they are not forced to follow any religious curriculum. The Armenian community has reported harassment of churches and increasing encroachment on land held by Armenians by Muslim extremists. The government has intensified security in these areas.

The Jewish, Armenian and Orthodox communities are in danger of losing a number of church properties because of a law which states that "extinct" properties--buildings which have had a prolonged absence of clergy or lay persons or a lack of adherents--revert to the government.

The state must approve the operation of churches, monasteries, synagogues, schools and charitable religious foundations. Churches not recognized as minorities by the Lausanne Treaty may not acquire additional property for churches. The Catholic Church in Ankara is limited to operating on diplomatic property. In December of 1996, a pipe bomb exploded in St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Istanbul.

Evangelical Christians who proselytize may be arrested for disturbing the peace. If they are foreigners, they may be deported. The state department reports that they generally may reenter the country easily. Iraqi and Irani converts to Christianity who have fled to Turkey seeking asylum are generally deported to their home countries, where they risk reprisals.

A new Turkish government was formed in 1996 and has tried to improve relationships with religious minorities. It granted the Armenian patriarchate permission to rebuild a church in Anatolia and indicated that it would approve other such requests. In March 1996, when Hillary Clinton visited Turkey, she, the US Ambassador and other US officials, convened an ecumenical meeting of religious leaders to promote religious tolerance.

Turkey has a greater degree of religious freedom than the majority of countries in the Middle East.

http://www.religiousfreedom.com/wrpt/Europe/turkey.htm

[Dr Victorino de la Vega]

Frankly, there isn’t such as thing as “The Bible” of “the Judeo-Christian civilization”: what you have are two radically different sets of books: on the one hand, there’s the Hellenistic/Eurocentric and relatively secular “New Testament” which makes up less than 5% of the “Bible”…

As for the bulk of Biblical writings = the remaining 95% a.k.a. the “Jewish Scriptures” or the Tanakh, well they’re very similar to the Koranic rigorism of Medina or to the words of leading “Mainline” Protestant theologians such as Frenchman John Calvin in their puritan approach to politics and society.

Salomon, David & Co. were both Kings AND Prophets, inspiring generations of Hebrew and Arab theocratic “holy warriors”, and the 17th century Protestant bigots of Scotland and New England were literally obsessed with the imperatives “God’s Law”- they even burned “witches” and other straying heretics!

So it’s not like OBL and his friends invented some kind of “new” religious paradigm…

As for the ancient law commanding the automatic execution of apostates, last time I checked this was a Hebrew invention: Israel’s Sicaris even executed observant Jews for being “westernized”!

Throughout the Crusades, all influential rabbis in Eastern Europe as well as Aleppo, Baghdad and Damascus sided squarely with Islam’s (Sunni) “Jihadists” against the conquering Christian knights who had come from Western Europe to liberate Jerusalem…

Ironically, nowadays, the harshest critics of Islam aren’t found amongst “associationist” heathens (‘al-mushreqeen’ in Ayyrabic) such as Europe’s Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians or Asia’s Buddhist and Hindu communities…but rather in ultra-conservative Protestant and/or Jewish milieus whose Leviticus-based legalistic cum warmongering theology resembles that of Mohammedan fundamentalists.

Long before Bernard Lewis and George W. Bush, American Biblical fanatics such as Dr John Harvey Kellogg (inventor of the famous Corn Flakes) called for abstinence from pork, shellfish, and other foods proscribed as "unclean" in the Jewish Bible as well as from alcohol…

Equally ironically, the word “kuffar” (‘infidels’ or non-Muslims) didn’t exist in ancient Arabic…The conquering Muhammad hordes of the 7th century AD actually borrowed it from the Hebrew word “qafir” which literally means “gentile peasants”: this is how arrogant Hebrew Bedouins such as Moses and Joshua called the sedentarynatives of Canaan, whom they viewed as racially and morally inferior to the nomadic Jewish conquerors of “the promised land”…

In fact, one could argue that for the past 14 centuries Islamic fundamentalists of all stripes have only been aping their adored Hebrew role-models!

[David]

Ghost Dansing does a good job of presenting fake and twisted info in a perfectly reasonable tone.

"Also, I should like to point to an "Islamic" nation that has a more Liberal, secular and democratic structure that is seldom mentioned: Turkey."

"More liberal"? Than what? And in what ways does Turkey qualify for the term "liberal" at all?

Kemal Attaturk did indeed set into stone, as it were, the idea that Islam as a religion and the civil government were to be separate, and any time it looks like religious leaders are getting a little too much out of hand or gaining a little too much direct power, the army comes out of barracks and restores a tad of order.

BUT, and it's a remarkably big "but," calling Turkey "liberal" is like calling the faux liberals that populate the democratic party "liberal"--only not nearly as accurate.

Try living as a Christian in Turkey, Ghost Dansing, and see how "liberal" the society is. If Ghost Dansing were honest, he'd do a simple Google search on the terms "Turkey Christianity persecution and retract his false assertion that Turkey is a "liberal" Islamic country in any genuine sense of the term "liberal"..

Still waiting for an example of "liberal Islamic country" that meets even the bare criteria of freedom of religion, freedom of speech and press that any honest person would apply.

Ghost Dansing, in presenting Turkey as one such example is either doing so out of inexcusable ignorance or in an attempt to decieve.

Oh, and "Fascists in Europe leveraged bigotry rooted in Christianity to persecute the Jews and other minorities... "

Fair enough, GD, but (and again, it is a very, very big "but"), that bigotry was distinctly UNChristian in any theological sense. In no case could the bigots legitimately justify their acts (or beliefs) based upon the actual life and work of the founder of CHristianity, the Carpenter of Nazareth.

In contrast, each of the bigotted, savage, barbarous acts of contemporary Islam can be directly justified by the direct teachings, life and work of the Butcher of Medina.

IOW, those who claim that their vicious, barbarous behaviors are justified on "Christian" grounds are liars. Those who claim that their vicious, barbarous acts are justified as following the teachings, life and work of Mohammed are telling the truth.

THAT'S the difference, GD. Any attempt to claim otherwise ignores the facts.

[Joe]

But acquiring knowledge about Islam, not slander, as 'Passerby' seemed to suggest, has caused us to take a different turn -- I can't of course allow questioning our ability to differentiate between the Qur'an and the Hadith to remain unchallenged and suggest to simply paste 'hadith' into the Google Search field on my side bar and search ATB; that should serve to nicely to demonstrate how thoroughly we go about our learning.

You might like to address taqiyya and kitman as well, Alexandra. Neither turned up in a search of ATB, though you have addressed many other aspects of Islam.

[Ghost Dansing]

"Actions speak louder than words. Christian actions were marred by dark periods in history; but unlike contemporary Muslims, we don't deny them nor do we ignore, that we have evolved during the centuries hence into a demonstrably peaceful religion - the era of the Spanish Inquisition has passed since many centuries, but, as 'Passerby' knows only too well, her evil offspring, namely the violent suppression of heresy against Islam is very much alive in Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, to name just a few. Try build a church in Riyadh or organize a Christian prayer group in Islamabad and see how the words from Al-Kafirum hold water."

Well... as all regular readers know I personally do not think it completely wise to make "Islam" the issue per se. Religions indeed have a long history of being manipulated to the purposes of political power and incitation to violence.

Fascists in Europe leveraged bigotry rooted in Christianity to persecute the Jews and other minorities... where Liberal Democracies ameliorated the effects of Religious sectarian bigotry to create Liberal, secular governmental structures accomodating the practice of many religions within the bounds of Liberal Law and moderation.

In essence, Liberal governance went about regulating the more anti-social aspects emanating from the practice of Religion, as opposed to Religion regulating the structure of government. While sectarian violence has occurred in Europe in modern times (Ireland), it for the most part occured extra-legally... outside of political bounds and Liberal ideologies, and was treated as criminal activity. However, the ancient modalities of waging war as a State, ostensibly for religious reasons, was pretty much jettisoned.

Any political structure that asserts a particular Religion as its root of power will have a difficult time being tolerant to other Religions...

Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia are good examples where the National identity and governmental structure is heavily interwined with Islam... Iran, as we know, attempted secular modernization under the Shah, then reverted... Pakistan has a comparitively secular leadership, however has exploited religious zealotry in its warring with a neighboring, predominantly Hindu, but Democratic nation; India. Saudi Arabia has a monarchy that is a political captive of the Wahabbist sect of Islam... and the religious zealotry of all these nations was encouraged and exploited by the Free West, in its struggle against atheist Communism...

They were, therefore, not particularly encouraged by the Free West to establish Liberal governmental structures that would accomodate not only the religious majority, but also religious minorities in an egalitarian way.

Though it is impolitic to say, Israel also has within its political life the issue of the centrality of one religion... let it simply be said there has been great debate historically among Jews on this issue, and the Likud is not the only political party in Israel.

Also, I should like to point to an "Islamic" nation that has a more Liberal, secular and democratic structure that is seldom mentioned: Turkey.

Read about Bulent Ecevit who just died, and the history there... the BBC reported that at his funeral attendees chanted "Turkey...secular now...secular forever".

Turkey presents quite a different face for Islam as a relgion... and is quite a different example of an "Islamic" culture than the ones typically cited as the genisis for extremist political activity and terrorism.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/06/europe/web.1106ecevit.php

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/EE742F8E-2D9E-479C-BE8E-5F1310912F67.htm

"Some 12,000 people from more than 100 pro-secular associations waved Turkish flags as they marched to the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. Many carried posters of Ataturk.
`
"Turkey is secular and it will remain secular," they chanted during the march which was broadcast live on Turkish TV channels.

Secular Turks have felt increasingly threatened by a rise in Islamism under the AK Party.

There was outrage earlier this year when a high court judge, who had ruled against a teacher for wearing a headscarf to school, was shot by a lawyer. Tensions have been rising since."

The point is that while "stomping" on Islam, just remember there are quite a few Muslims that feel they can be true to their faith under Liberal, secular and democratic government.

As an American citizen, I'm true to these values regardless of what religious zealotry opposes it... "christian", "muslim" or otherwise. However, as an American citizen, I am not an enemy of Islam... but Sharia will not become the "Law of The Land".