Is it Islamic "extremism" -- or is it Islam itself?
In the wake of the London bombings, we are forced again to confront this most uncomfortable question: Do the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists truly represent a marginal minority among Muslims worldwide? Or is the term "Islamic fundamentalist" really just a redundancy? If there really is some sort of ongoing war between "extremists" and "moderates" for the soul of Islam, it appears to be one of the quietest contests in the history of ideological warfare. Where do we see remotely comparable numbers of religious terrorists quoting Confucius? Where are all the Buddhist terrorists? Or Christian, Jewish and Hindu car-bombers? Why, in nation after nation, bloody incident after bloody incident, do we find that those responsible for civilian massacres have been almost invariably nurtured on this so-called "religion of peace"? How many years, and how many more bloodbaths, will it take? And how long do we in the West patiently tap our feet, waiting for such reforms in the absence of any visible signs that they are taking place? Don't we have a right at some point to pronounce judgment on the Islamic culture itself?
posted by Unknown @ 3:52 PM
8 Comments:
I usually ask the question: who is right about Islam – the jihadists or the moderates? After all, Islam has been around for 1400 years. Do we need to wait for more evidence?
Some people find these questions impolite or threatening. But we have to keep asking them. Keep up your fine work.
fjordman:
I take your question to be:
a. Is Islamic terrorism/extremism a splinter group within Islam, or
b. Is terrorism/extremism an integral part of Islam?
I don't know and I don't think it matters. What matters is that we know that reasoned discourse isn't going to mitigate the problem of strangers hating us so much they are willing to send their children to their deaths just so they can take some of us with them to our deaths.
Western civilization has deteriorated to such an extent that even this severe provocation is not seen as sufficient to roil the blood and to demand an end to these atrocities using whatever means necessary. That means the equivalent of "sending in the marines."
Yet you demur. Just one more round of talks. We've tried Oslo, Camp David and various other venues around the world. All the promises have been observed in the breach, but, but, but, just one more time. A conference in Irkursk? Yes, that might just be the charm.
These murderers must be captured and put to death. Today one of them received life imprisonment in Virginia. Life imprisonment so he can recruit how many more acolytes who will leave prison before his life is over and kill us or our children.
This is the road to madness and the death of our civilization.
simmertime, may I take it that your comment begins with s/on and ends with s/off?
I hope your don't mean to say that anyone's feeling are worth the life of a single human being?
Re: "....swapping al-Qaida snuff videos showing Western hostages having their throats slit on their mobile phones;"
Best to ban those dangerous phones - can't have people slitting their throats on them.
fjordman,
You are asking the big question of our age.
"It would be nice if people read up on the history of Jewish terrorists"
What's with this big hang-up of yours about Jews? Suicide bombers have been pioneered on Sri Lanka, if anything. Not many Jews there.
A famous islamic reformer -
- IRSHAD MANJI, (a Muslim/lesbian/feminist and
author of a few book, inclduing "The Trouble With Islam") --
argues that the problem with the fanatics is that they are LITERALISTS.
FROM AN INTERVIEW:
[http://www.secularislam.org/articles/manji.htm ]
QUESTIONER: What is the trouble with Islam?
Irshad Manji:
"The problem with Islam today, in a word, is literalism. Literalism is a commitment to strict exactness of words or meanings in reading or interpretation."
Unconscuoisly, Manji proves what is INTRINSICALLY bad about Islam: the terrorists can only be LITERALISTS if the KORAN LITERALLY ADVOCATES TERROR AGAINST INFIDELS.
Which it does. And as a result, Islam has used terror from day one - for more than 1000 years.
Not all Muislims are terrorists, but they could be WOTHOURT violating their creed.
The Judeo-Christian sects may have committed genocide and terror, BUT IT IS NOT ADVOCATED OR CONDONED BY THE BIBLE. Instances of genocide occur in the Bible - as they7 did in history, but they are DESCRIPTIVE, NOT PRESCRIPTIVE.
[More on manji here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irshad_Manji ]
I think the best hope for Islam is if they can come to see that militant proselytism was originally meant ONLY TO OCCUR AT THE TIME OF MUHAMMED, and that all subsequent uses of violence areacreligious. There is limited basis for this interpretation in the Sura - (I used to have the reference handy; I will search for it.)
It´s Islam itself. When you have a warlord - called prophet who spends his whole life finding bad excuses to attack whole tribes and subdues all of Arabia, followed by numbers of kalifs who conquer large portions of the world. And this prophet is the last from God ( only success out of 128000 )and his revelation is for all times, his actions and words are to be seen as an example. Then you have islam forever unless it´s reformed to a less literal and muhammad centric faith.
There is also a sinister version of the day of judgement, Muhammad said islam would conquer all the world, put all christian nations under it´s yoke, kill all jews. And the rock will say "Oh Muslim, Oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill
him" al-Bukhaari, no. 3593
http://boldings.blogspot.com
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