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BJS
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| Posted 12/20/2002 8:21 AM (GMT -6) |   | Tom, need your help! What is the first book you would recommend to someone who is trying to understand Islam and its apparent predilection for violence?
Brett
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Tom
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| Posted 12/20/2002 10:57 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Tom, need your help! What is the first book you would recommend to someone who is trying to understand Islam and its apparent predilection for violence?
Brett
Wow. Eh, let's see. One good short thing I've read isn't published. It's a paper written by a Sunni Muslim here in Beirut who is now a believer.
Try this, Islam and Terrorism: What the Quran really teaches ab out Christinity, violence,and the goals of the Islamic jihad by Mark A. Gabriel (Charisma House, 2002). See also www.charismahouse.com
Mark is his "new" name. He's an Egyptian, a former Sunni Sheikh, Ph.D. in Islamics from Al-Azhar University in Cairo (THE recognized intellectual/academic center of Islam). His testimony is incredible.
Now, I haven't read it yet myself (though I know a bit of his story). I just got it a week ago. But give it a try. I understand it's quite good.
Then there Samuel P. Huntington's THe Clash of Civilizations. He got in big trouble when in the first edition he said, "Islam's borders are bloody." In the second edition (I understand) he says something like, "You know, I studied a bit more and want to revise my previous statement to: Islam's inners are bloody too." The book isn't all about Islam, but the sections on the history of Islam and the role of violence within Islam are excellent.
I'll think of some more and get back to ya.
Tom
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BBBCanada
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| Posted 12/20/2002 11:43 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
Could you mention just a little more on this subject? Last month Franklin Graham said this in Christianity Today:
"You have called Islam "wicked" and "violent" and not "this wonderful, peaceful religion." To what degree have your views on Islam been shaped by your experience in Sudan?
It's not just Sudan. I have also been to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan. I've been around the Muslim world for a long time. Out of all of these Islamic countries, there's not one democracy. There are no personal liberties. There are no freedoms, religious freedom or any other freedom. I see how they treat people of other faiths. It frightens me.
After 9/11, there were groups that said we all worship the same God. It's not the same God. The God of Islam is not a father. The God of the Christian faith is a father. He has a son: his name is Jesus.
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I highlighted "After 9/11" because, obviously, 9/11 was the result of Islamic whackos. Basically, the point that Graham is making here is God is not a loving father in Islam, therefore, Islam is a violent religion. Any thoughts?
Brandon
"Truth is so obscured nowadays and lies so well established that unless we love the truth we shall never recognize it."--Todd Flanders/ Pascal: Talkin' 'bout My Generation | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 12/20/2002 2:50 PM (GMT -6) | | You may not like The National Review, but check out this article:
http://nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg120402.asp
I'm not endorsing every jot and tittle, but it's food for thoughts.
Religion of Peace?
Prove it.
If every German I meet or see is a Nazi, it's reasonable for me to say all Germans are Nazis. It may not be true, of course, but having no evidence indicating otherwise it's certainly understandable that I would draw that conclusion. If, however, I constantly hear Germans condemn Nazism and anything which remotely resembles Nazism, if I see them repudiating German Nazis, and working to repair the damage done by German Nazis, it would be outrageously unfair and malicious for me to say all Germans are Nazis.
Now, under both hypothetical circumstances, the actual number of Germans who are Nazis can remain the same. The only difference is what the non-Nazi Germans do. As the saying goes, all that evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
This goes for public relations too.
But first, let's bring things up to date. Right now there's an interesting debate going on, mostly on the right — which makes sense as that is where most interesting debates take place these days (think about it). It's basically about the nature of Islam and how the Bush administration deals with the Muslim world. On the one extreme are folks like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who say Islam is soaked-to-the-bone violent and, according to some, just plain "evil." On the other side, I suppose, are folks like David Forte, a law professor and reported adviser to the White House who, according to critics, believes religiosity is more important than the content of a religion. (He's written for NRO defending this view) I'm sure there are people in the White House who truly believe "Islam means peace," but — with the exception of George W. Bush — their names elude me.
In the middle of these two extremes — Islam is bad versus Islam is wonderful — are lots of pragmatists and agnostics of various flavors. Indeed, most of the folks who reject the "Islam means peace" bumper sticker, including Robertson himself, concede that as a matter of geopolitics President Bush has no choice but to make nice on the Islamic world. Asked by George Stephanopoulos whether Bush is being politically correct, Robertson replied "No, he's not being politically correct. He is waging a war, and he's waging a war against terrorism and he doesn't want to take on the whole Arab world. He doesn't want this to be a Muslim-Christian fight or a Muslim-America fight." And this is why Bush has gone out of his way to either condemn or distance himself from comments by Robertson, Falwell, and others.
Now — just to be clear — on the substance, I guess I'm closer to the Islam-is-a-violent-religion party. I think Falwell was silly to call Mohammed a "terrorist" because the word as we know it simply cannot be applied with any validity to conquering Arab generals of the 7th century. I see no reason not to think of Mohammed as an enlightened ruler as far as things went back in those days and in that place. But let's also face facts: Mohammed was a general, and his generations of successors and disciples were conquerors. There is just too much in Islam about the importance of grabbing and holding territory to ignore. Jesus was a nonviolent martyr who argued for rendering unto Caesar what was his. Mohammed was Caesar. The seed of the notion of a civil society outside the scope of religious authority was planted by Jesus in Jewish soil; it was subsequently nurtured, with much bloodshed, over two millennia until today where the separation of Church and State is a bedrock of Western Civilization. This separation of the City of God and the City of Man, to use Saint Augustine's formulation, is still quite alien to Islamic society.
Furthermore, the first few generations of Christianity were marked by suffering and oppression. The first few generations of Islam were marked by conquering. In its harshness, I suppose you could say Islam resembles pre-Christian Judaism in some ways. Jews, too, believe in the importance of geography and the use of the sword to protect it. Of course, they believe in holding onto only one narrow strip of it. (Prediction: Jewish militants will never claim, say, Cleveland as rightfully theirs.) And, it should be said, many Jews do not see modern Israel as the fulfillment of any Biblical or religious imperative — lots and lots of Zionists are very secular. And, it should be noted, Jews haven't spent most of the last two millennia ruling empires and conquering land so much as being brutalized, oppressed, or — at best — tenuously tolerated.
Anyway, Muslims tend to believe that once a strip of dirt becomes Muslim it's gotta stay Muslim for ever and ever. And if a burg's population becomes majority Muslim, it must be ruled by Muslims (see Kashmir for details). This is one of the primary understandings, historically and religiously speaking, of "jihad." "Until fairly recent times," writes Bernard Lewis, "[jihad] was usually, though not universally, understood in a military sense. It was a Muslim duty — collective in attack, individual in defense — to fight in the war against the unbelievers. In principle, this war was to continue until all mankind either embraced Islam or submitted to the authority of the Muslim state."
According to Islamic tradition, the world is divided into the House of War and the House of Islam — and once real estate is brought into the House of Islam, there's no getting out. And, eventually, the House of War will be brought into the House of Islam too. That's why Osama bin Laden says that he won't rest until he gets most of Spain back. And this is partly, though not entirely, why — as Samuel Huntington noted — "the borders of Islam are bloody."
IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER
But now that I've given you some indication of where I come down on the question "Is Islam a religion of peace?" let me say none of this matters.
Look: I take law-abiding, tolerant, and peaceful Muslims at their word when they say to me that they believe Islam means peace. Further, I take them at their word that they live by that interpretation. But the fact remains that other Muslims surely believe that Islam means death. Death to Christians, Jews, and Hindus; death to unbelievers, heretics, blasphemers, adulterers, and plenty of other categories of human being. And guess what, it's those Muslims who are killing us. And guess what else? Those other, peace-loving, Muslims aren't doing enough about it.
I've written before that in the realm of public policy, theology doesn't matter nearly as much as morality and behavior. You can believe that murder is wrong because it depletes the ozone layer for all we care — so long as you believe murder is wrong. The differences between, say, Greek Orthodox Christians and Quakers are fascinating, rich, storied, and significant. But in the public square they do not matter one bit so long as Greek Orthodox Christians and Quakers alike abide by the law and our common sense of morality. If one group wants to burn incense and the other wants to make oatmeal, nobody cares. So long as each group leaves the other alone.
So, to a certain extent, I couldn't care less if Islam is, on paper, factually, textually, objectively, and in all other academic senses a religion of war and bigotry — so long as actual Muslims are decent and upstanding people. And, similarly, the fact that Christianity is a religion of love and compassion would be equally meaningless if Christians spent their days poking me with red-hot metal thingies — out of love and compassion no doubt — in order to get me to convert. Sure, I might take note of Christian hypocrisy while I waited for Torquemada to bust out his scrotal tongs, but, truth be told, scoring debating points wouldn't be at the forefront of my agenda.
Which brings me back to the Nazis and Germans. Human beings draw conclusions from what they see. All around the world, Muslims are declaring, in the name of Islam, that they are at war with the West. More important, all around the world self-declared Muslims are actually waging war on the West. They may be a tiny minority of the global Muslim community. I have no doubt that's true. But if the decent and peace-loving Muslims of the world sit on their hands and do nothing, you can hardly fault many in the West who draw the conclusion that Islam is anything but peaceful. Why is it so hard to find, for example, a Muslim "leader" to condemn the death sentence against the journalist who wrote about Mohammed and the Miss World pageant — without some moral-equivalence weasel words about how she should have known better?
Closer to home, consider our friends at CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (which has orchestrated endless spam campaigns against this publication). CAIR had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the business of denouncing terrorists. They do it now from time to time, but it sure doesn't sound like their heart is in it. Scroll through these "News Releases" from CAIR over the last year or so. You'll find a couple of denunciations of terrorists (followed by demands that Jews do the same to Israel, in a cute game of moral equivalence). But you will find these are the needles in the giant haystacks of whines and complaints about how unfair America is to Muslims. The folks at CAIR, and other Muslim activists, are much, much more concerned, it seems, about the U.S. government or American pundits saying vaguely un-nice things about Muslims than they are about the fact that Muslims around the world are insulting their faith through mass murder in Mohammed's name.
When the FBI recently came out with its numbers on hate crimes against Muslims in America, American Islamic activists like Ibrahim Hooper were all over the airwaves and newspapers outrageously comparing American Muslims to Jews in Weimar Germany. But you can hear crickets chirp or, at best, you can read torpid boilerplate, when it comes time to denounce Muslim atrocities.
By the way, I'm outraged by the Germany comparison not as a Jew but as an American. There isn't a scintilla of validity to the insinuation that America has been anything but the antithesis of what Hooper and self-pitying whiners claim. According to the very FBI statistics they cite, twice as many Jews as Muslims were the victims of hate crimes in the United States since 19 Muslim fanatics murdered 3,000 Americans on 9/11. And, by the way, if a Jew used those numbers in order to justify saying America feels like Weimar Germany I would call him an idiot who should be ashamed of himself for slandering America (and demeaning the Holocaust as well). The fact is that, while even one crime is too many, the post-9/11 "backlash" against Muslims in America has been astoundingly mild by historical standards. Compared to what happened to German-Americans during WWI or Japanese-Americans in WWII it barely even warrants an asterisk in the history books.
Oh, and speaking of denouncing fellow Jews, I've done it plenty of times. For example, when Irv Rubin of the JDL was arrested for plotting a terrorist attack I denounced him in the strongest possible terms, as did pretty much every prominent Jewish figure in America within 48 hours. (See Jeff Jacoby's excellent column from December 20, 2001. You need to scroll down.)
I bring this up not to brag about my consistency but to make the point that it's important not to let others speak in your name if you disagree with what they're saying. Especially when they're saying it with bombs and guns. I will have a lot more sympathy for the complaints of Muslim activists once they put even a fraction of the energy they dedicate to portraying themselves as victims of bigoted America — or Europe — toward policing and condemning their own co-religionists. If they're afraid for their personal safety or even their lives — not an unreasonable fear — that's no excuse. Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and the rest may constitute hijackers in the cockpit of a peaceful religion, but they will define Islam if the folks in the main cabin don't fight the hijackers. That's what happened with Nazis in Germany, and that's what will happen with militant Islam if non-militant Islam continues to insist that its biggest enemies are the open and tolerant nations of the West that gave them the opportunity to live decent lives in freedom. If they persist in that complaint, nobody will be able to justly blame average Americans for scoffing at the suggestion that Islam means peace.
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Tom
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Tom
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| Posted 12/20/2002 3:05 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Last month Franklin Graham said this in Christianity Today:
It's not just Sudan. I have also been to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan. I've been around the Muslim world for a long time. Out of all of these Islamic countries, there's not one democracy. There are no personal liberties. There are no freedoms, religious freedom or any other freedom. I see how they treat people of other faiths. It frightens me.
It's not easy. Generalizations are dangerous. I understand how easy they are to make. I live out here too. There are no Muslim democracies. Islam and democracy don't mix well. But then again, neither did ancient Judaism and democracy mix well. OT Israel wasn't a democracy.
But I just don't see that Graham is helpful. And he's just off on a couple of points. In his list of "these Islamic countries," he lists Lebanon and Turkey. Funny. Until recently Lebanon had a majority Christian population. Still today, the President of the Republic has (according to the Constitution) be a Christian. The other two heads of state must be Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims. There is (on the books of course) religious freedom in Lebanon. Any Muslim may officially change his religion to anything other than Muslim and the law will say nothing about it. Of course, that's to say nothing of what his family will do to him/her. Point is however, Graham is wrong about Lebanon.
Take Turkey too. Turkey is a secular state. There is freedom of religion (on the books). The emerging church in Turkey (all from Muslim background of course) has won some important court cases regarding religious liberties and now owns property as a "church." It's incredible. It's not perfect, but it's not meaningless if you're one of the few Turkish believers in Turkey today.
But why wouldn't Graham want to use his position and influence to say something constructive, challenging, and representative of the heart and soul of Christ's life and message? Why throw rocks at Islam? From THEIR perspective Christianity is NO BETTER (Crusades, Ireland, Lebanon, etc. etc.). And they're right.
Tom
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Springs
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Total Posts : 636
| Posted 12/20/2002 7:05 PM (GMT -6) | | Very interesting. I'll have to check out the books. Thanks guys.
Tom,
I've just re-sent my second email for the third time. It keeps coming back saying it's delayed. Let me know if you ever get it. I should be able to send the third piece shortly.
Springs
"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be; and if were so, it would be; but as it isn't , it ain't. That's logic." | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 12/20/2002 10:14 PM (GMT -6) | | Springs-
I got that second one.
Tom 
"When you mix things up they get messy" Fred | | Back to Top | | |
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SeanG
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Total Posts : 278
| Posted 12/22/2002 11:55 PM (GMT -6) | | You asked for the best book about “understand[ing] Islam and its apparent predilection for violence?" Not about Islam’s correlation to Christianity, correct? The best book I have read… and I have read just about all of them, is a book by Robert Spencer called, Islam Unveiled.
SeanG!"Evolution is the substance of fossils hoped for, the evidence of links not seen." ~ An adaptation of Hebrews 11:1
Edited by - SeanG on 12/23/2002 04:56:11 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 1/3/2003 3:07 AM (GMT -6) | | From www.danielpipes.org | Original article available at: www.danielpipes.org/article/990
What is Jihad
by Daniel Pipes
New York Post
December 31, 2002
What does the Arabic word "jihad" mean?
One answer came last week, when Saddam Hussein had his Islamic leaders appeal to Muslims worldwide to join his jihad to defeat the "wicked Americans" should they attack Iraq; then he himself threatened the United States with jihad.
As this suggests, jihad is "holy war." Or, more precisely: It means the legal, compulsory, communal effort to expand the territories ruled by Muslims at the expense of territories ruled by non-Muslims.
The purpose of jihad, in other words, is not directly to spread the Islamic faith but to extend sovereign Muslim power (faith, of course, often follows the flag). Jihad is thus unabashedly offensive in nature, with the eventual goal of achieving Muslim dominion over the entire globe.
Jihad did have two variant meanings through the centuries, one more radical, one less so. The first holds that Muslims who interpret their faith differently are infidels and therefore legitimate targets of jihad. (This is why Algerians, Egyptians and Afghans have found themselves, like Americans and Israelis, so often the victims of jihadist aggression.) The second meaning, associated with mystics, rejects the legal definition of jihad as armed conflict and tells Muslims to withdraw from the worldly concerns to achieve spiritual depth.
Jihad in the sense of territorial expansion has always been a central aspect of Muslim life. That's how Muslims came to rule much of the Arabian Peninsula by the time of the Prophet Muhammad's death in 632. It's how, a century later, Muslims had conquered a region from Afghanistan to Spain. Subsequently, jihad spurred and justified Muslim conquests of such territories as India, Sudan, Anatolia, and the Balkans.
Today, jihad is the world's foremost source of terrorism, inspiring a worldwide campaign of violence by self-proclaimed jihadist groups:
* The International Islamic Front for the Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders: Osama bin Laden's organization;
* Laskar Jihad: responsible for the murder of more than 10,000 Christians in Indonesia;
* Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami: a leading cause of violence in Kashmir;
* Palestinian Islamic Jihad: the most vicious anti-Israel terrorist group of them all;
* Egyptian Islamic Jihad: killed Anwar El-Sadat in 1981, many others since, and
* Yemeni Islamic Jihad: killed three American missionaries on Monday.
But jihad's most ghastly present reality is in Sudan, where until recently the ruling party bore the slogan "Jihad, Victory and Martyrdom." For two decades, under government auspices, jihadists there have physically attacked non-Muslims, looted their belongings and killed their males.
Jihadists then enslaved tens of thousands of females and children, forced them to convert to Islam, sent them on forced marches, beat them and set them to hard labor. The women and older girls also suffered ritual gang-rape, genital mutilation and a life of sexual servitude.
Sudan's state-sponsored jihad has caused about 2 million deaths and the displacement of another 4 million - making it the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of our era.
Despite jihad's record as a leading source of conflict for 14 centuries, causing untold human suffering, academic and Islamic apologists claim it permits only defensive fighting, or even that it is entirely non-violent. Three American professors of Islamic studies colorfully make the latter point, explaining jihad as:
* An "effort against evil in the self and every manifestation of evil in society" (Ibrahim Abu-Rabi, Hartford Seminary);
* "Resisting apartheid or working for women's rights" (Farid Eseck, Auburn Seminary), and
* "Being a better student, a better colleague, a better business partner. Above all, to control one's anger" (Bruce Lawrence, Duke University).
It would be wonderful were jihad to evolve into nothing more aggressive than controlling one's anger, but that will not happen simply by wishing away a gruesome reality. To the contrary, the pretense of a benign jihad obstructs serious efforts at self-criticism and reinterpretation.
The path away from terrorism, conquest and enslavement lies in Muslims forthrightly acknowledging jihad's historic role, followed by apologies to jihad's victims, developing an Islamic basis for nonviolent jihad and (the hardest part) actually ceasing to wage violent jihad.
Unfortunately, such a process of redemption is not now under way; violent jihad will probably continue until it is crushed by a superior military force (Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, please take note). Only when jihad is defeated will moderate Muslims finally find their voice and truly begin the hard work of modernizing Islam.
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Tom
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BJS
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Date Joined Dec 2001
Total Posts : 587
| Posted 1/7/2003 8:41 AM (GMT -6) | | Thanks so much for the help, Tom (and others)! Sorry it's taken so long for me to respond on this, but I wanted to let you know that your recommendations have been very helpful!
Blessings to you,
Brett
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