Are we at war with Islam?

[Sigi]

AL said it all.

[ktek01]

Originally posted by Airbornelawyer

There is still religiously justified violence in Christian societies - see Northern Ireland, Croatia - but not nearly on the same level. But Islam by its nature cannot so easily separate religion and state. Islam is a law-based religion, and mosque and state are inextricably inclined.

I'm agreeing with most of what your saying, but I think Northern Ireland is a very poor comparison.

[QRQ 30]

I would suppose we could just as well turn around the question to be: "Is Islam at war with us?"

The truth is that Islam and Christianity have been at war since the Crusades. I find it interesting that we called the Crusades "Holy Wars" which is what "Jihad" is to Islamics.

Actually I don't think that we are warring against Islam per se. We went to the Balkans to stop the ethnic clensing of the Islamics.

[Solid]

It's a bit like being at war with a non-democratic nation. In reality, the war we are fighting is against the army and the government. However, because that government and army supposedly represents the civilian population of that country, it is considered that we are at war with that country.

Is that applicable?

Solid

[rudyzbt]

I don't see any other wanabees posting in this thread, so if I am out of line for speaking my mind, my apologies, I will erase this and not do it again.

No we are not in a war against Islam. You can search for countries that do not have citizens who are terrorists and be hard pressed to find one. But the issue is not if the country has those people, it is if the country itself supports them. If I can provide a short description of who these people are. Islamists (often referred to as Islamic Fundamentalists a word which is taken out of contest and originally applied to Christianity during reformation to use it in a different context of another religion is difficult, therefore a word such as Islamist is more appropriate and to it may be applied whatever connotations it acquires) are of various types and beliefs. As a whole, all Islamist groups use religious symbols to further a political ideology. There are multiple roots of the development of Political Islam. To start as was spoken of before in another post, there are two major sects of Islam: Sunni Islam and Shi'a. There are others, but they are less of a political force. There is no need to go into their history it would take too long, but the majority of Muslims in the world are Sunni, while the Shi'a are found mostly in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Central Asia.

Now as to their politically ideological development, it follows a few different strains. Whabbism was mentioned, but that is less of a political movement and more of a religious movement that seeks stricter interpretation of Islam bypassing much of the later legal development of Islamic law previous to the adoption of western laws in the Middle East. It is a sect that follows the teaching of a man named Abd Al Wahab; anyway history is unimportant in this context. It was mainly able to spread because the majority of Muslims in Saudi Arabia are adherents to this practice of Islam. The clerics therefore are able to keep a hold on the Saudi monarchy that is dependent on the Wahabbi clerics to keep the peoples support. This enables a secure source of cash, which the Whabbis use to support the conversion to their vision of a "true Islam". Interestingly enough, most Muslim student organizations throughout North American Universities, receive funding from this source to teach the Wahabbi version of things. Anyway, in the case of Bin Laden, it is interesting to note that while Wahabbi, he seeks to overthrow the Saudi regime, mind you he is also part of their royal family.

Ok I am getting off the topic. The ideological foundations of Sunni Islamists can find their modern origins in a large part in the development of the organization known as the Muslim brotherhood founded by a man named Al Banna in Egypt. He was a reactionist to the secularization of Egypt. He himself did not write the definitive works that would later carry this movement. That fell to one of his successors, Saiyd Qutb. Qutb wrote mainly while he was imprisoned in Egypt and his writings later became the backbone of much of the Islamist movements. He died before he completed his works and later followers had different interpretations of what he meant. Some believed that the problem lay with the non-Muslim world. Redefining the world in Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. Literally the house of Islam and the house of war. Anything not Muslim was therefore the enemy. The other body of thought professed that all Muslims who did not follow a particular set about "correct" Islam (Mawdudi was the main proponent) were in a state of ridda and jahyllia, harking back to how the new Muslims immediately after the death of the Mohammad fell apart and did not follow his laws until Abu Bakr (who followed him) was able to reconsolidate the fledgling empire. So each of these thoughts, hold different groups to blame, but both shared the same goal. The establishment of not just the Islamic state in each Muslim state (there is a difference between a state that has a majority of Muslims and one that is an Islamic state), but of a whole Muslim Nation.

From the Muslim brotherhood a large amount of other groups were formed, holding as their "bible" the writings of Saiyd Qutb. Among the Jammayat al-Islamiya which sought to mobilize students. Now oddly enough the traditional Muslim Ulema (scholars in a religious sense) led by the Muslim religious university Al-Azhar, was dead against the Islamist movement. A bunch of people with very little education in religion, ironically many were actually more western educated, were calling into question the way things had been studied and done for over 1000 years. They rejected the legal teaching of those that came before, with a few exceptions. They read two or three books by Ibn Taymmia and memorized the Qur'an and thought that they understood it better that everyone else had gotten it wrong. Part of the trouble they saw was in the rise of western institutions they saw as not fitting with Muslim society. Earlier in another post it was mentioned that Islam, Islamic Law, and Governance were not separable. That is exactly what the Islamists believe. Unfortunately they have obviously convinced many non-Muslims that this is true as well. Islam and Islamic Law are inseparable that is basically true. It is not true that the Muslim world must have Islamic Governance that is what Islamists would have everyone believe.

There are many who would state in an apologetic fashion that yes Islam as a religion says many bad things, but it is a religion of peace. This is not true. Islam is not a religion of peace, it is a religion that seeks converts and those who are not Muslim are wrong in their belief people of the book, Christians and Jews, are not forced to convert and are supposed to be accepted, but are still deemed wrong. But the same is true about most other religions. Islam is a religion, in such it is not fair to label it as a religion of either peace or war. If you have read your old testament you would find it to be one of the bloodiest most war inclined books written (or received as you like).

Again I find myself digressing. So from the perspective of these Islamists, coming mostly from the disillusioned middle class or poorer country people. They see the loss of the Khalifate with the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the Turkish secular state as the end of true Muslim rule and see a need to go back not to the Khalifate but all the way back to an imagined Islamic paradise dreamed about in the time of the "four righteously guided Khailifs" who followed Mohammad in rule. Mind you this is only for Sunni Islam. So they would reestablish this pipe dream of an Islamic world. The truth is that it never really existed in the way they view it. There was never, except perhaps under the rule of Mohammad himself, a solely religious ruling of the people.

In the structure of Shar'ia (Islamic law), the laws were debated and regulated by a class called the Ulema mentioned earlier. Their law system was extremely intricate and its proper application no longer exists. Furthermore, while the head of state and nominal religious head could appoint judges, once those judges were appointed he was even subject to their will in decisions. Similarly not all laws were religious laws. The Khalif had control over a variety of laws that were deemed to derive from the state and its rule including the collection of taxes, administration of roads, the police forces, and many other things. Maybe a good example would be the division of laws in Israel today. Religious courts control certain function including marriage (you can not have a civil

[rudyzbt]

marriage in Israel). Given in the Islamic context many more laws followed from religious laws including laws of business particular including the charge of interest. But there was a separation in different types of laws. It is a complex topic and if anyone really wants to hear more about it just ask.

To continue, it was also never a dead law, but one which changed and grew in different direction with time. For example, there is the punishment of death by stoning for adultery, a punishment which the Islamic courts in Nigeria were eager to dispense a few years ago. Now if you look at actually cases of this, you will find very few people who underwent this punishment. In fact there are haddith (sayings of the prophet later incorporated into law) that tell of a woman coming to Mohammad and stating that she had committed adultery. His answer is to tell her he did not hear her and sent her away. It was only when she returned three times and she insisted the punishment be enforced for fear she would go to hell, that he carried out the sentence. Now why is it that the law is interpreted the way it is today. And why do the Islamists blindly fall into their pattern of fanatically beliefs.

There is a historical reason that is actually pretty simple. As the Ottoman Empire began to fall apart in the early 19th century, smart young individuals were sent off to Oxford and Sorbonne to study law and equip the Ottoman to modernize to deal in trade with the western world. What began here was a period of history called the Tanzimat. Laws were steadily replaced and religious courts slowly marginalized. Schools of study of the law were closed and what was once a living and breathing legal system was quickly replaced by its western counter part and restricted in it nature. There was nowhere anymore for those Muslims to learn the law, it infrastructure was dismantled and still does not exist. There are pockets of scholars, but few really have a good grasp of law as it was practiced. Instead they seek to apply it in the horribly misinterpreted manner as was witnessed in Nigeria.

The only country that still practices full Islamic law is in Saudi Arabia (the Taliban did not practice Islamic law). Even in Saudi Arabia their own understanding of the development of Islamic law is limited and their courts based on a particular school of thought that adheres to the strictest interpretations of the laws. On a personal level I don't like it and often find the Saudis I know to be the ultimate in hypocrites (a personal bias... found through experience). So Islamic law as it once was practiced does not exist. This is the legacy of which the Islamists don't speak, nor do they really know of, and when confronted with it, they scoff and say that one does not know or is obviously a western orientalist (i.e. someone like me who is not Muslim but knows the religion better than they do) or is a bad Muslim (those scholars actually interested in the development of their religion who do not accept everything someone with a long beard dishes out at them).

In many countries throughout the world there exist those Islamists who seek to convert others to their misinterpretations. They seek to establish a new Islamic order (of course they would conveniently be the leaders of this new order). They undergo indoctrination of their cause in madrasas throughout the world. Often pulling their new servants from the poor classes with an offer of education and brotherhood. Or they look to the disaffected urbanites unable to find work or unhappy with their lot in life as it stands. They use Islam to support their political objective. A state ruled by them. Where they dictate the laws as they see and interpret them regardless of what history says. In their domestic struggle they have exported through violence there beliefs. Much as the Arab countries have used hatred of Israel as a rallying point towards unification and cooperative action, the Islamists have attacked the west in order to gain the support of those in their home countries. They make us the devil. They paint us as evil. As Dar al Harb. They contort and use religion as means to political success. They use terrorism as a tool to spread their message and gather support by turning the eyes of their local populations outward and then painting the world in colors they want those in their homes to view. Then they seek to pick up on that support and use it to their cause. This is the war which we fight. Not against Islam. But against the radical Islamists, who threatens our homes, our families and friends, and our country and the countries of our allies. They chose the wrong political scapegoat. They are hollow and lack any true sense of religion. They are indoctrinated political animals at the bottom who fight as their masters lead them, and there masters are those who indoctrinate using religion as a force to control and to maintain control and see through their vision of the world as they believe it should. They are in essence the antithesis of freedom. A scourge on the name of all religions in their use and abuse of their own people. And in their tactics which threaten the lives of those who have nothing to do with them other than having been their scapegoats.

Now there are many such organizations, I began to mention the Muslim brotherhood and its offshoots for a reason.

The name Mohammad Atta may ring a bell. He flew in the pilot seat of one of the planes that hit the world trade center. He was a member of one of these groups trained by Al Qaeda. He was Egyptian.

Al Qaeda's second in command Ayman Al Zawahiri is the son of a prominent Cairo doctor. From an old family, who grandfather was the Sheik of Al Azhar.

During the Russian Afghan war an estimated 526 Egyptians died fighting, 1/5 of the total deaths.

In well known "Londinstan" on the bank of the Thames, two Egyptians come to mind. Mustafa Kamal (Abu Hamza Al Misri) is the former publisher of the GIA weekly Al Ansar (ask me about the GIA sometime). He has a son in jail in Yemen for kidnapping British tourists. He also happens to run the Finsbury Park Mosque a central hub in the Islamist network in progressing the Jihad.
The second is Yaser Al Sirri, who heads an Islamic news agency in London that supplied the letter of accreditation to the two fake journalists who assassinated Massoud in Northern Afghanistan three days before 9/11.

Why am I mentioning all of these individuals? Well they are all part of the Muslim Brotherhood or its affiliates I should say. Followers of Islamists principals. The sum of the earth. They all come from Egypt, but many had to flee their own country which would not tolerate them. Two of them simply settled in comfort in the religiously free environment of England. There home country is for the most part Muslim. We are not at war with Egypt. We are definitely not at war with England which is home to two of these terrorists now. We are not at war with Islam. We are at war with these men. These people who seek to war with us. These people, who have brought violence, hurt, and hate with a message of religious intolerance in promoting themselves.

Sorry to have gone on and on. This topic gets me going. I am ready to be blasted for my views now. So shoot away. If I have offended anyone I am sorry. If I was wrong for posting this bit, I am sorry. I will remove it immediately. I felt these thoughts were important enough to write. It is my opinion (quite abridged actually). But is opinion based on roughly 5 years of research dating previous to 9/11.

[Roguish Lawyer]

Rudy:

I'm going to try to read your posts, but I would like to make a suggestion that may help old blind people such as myself:

Shorter paragraphs.

[rudyzbt]

Sorry about the long winded nature of the post. I will reedit it and break it down to smaller paragraphs.

[Roguish Lawyer]

Originally posted by rudyzbt
Sorry about the long winded nature of the post. I will reedit it and break it down to smaller paragraphs.

Excellent! I started reading and was going to just pick up the gist from AL's reply to it. LOL

Now I'll read the whole thing.

[NousDefionsDoc]

Bahrain rioters hit streets, torch cars of Arab playboy boozers



SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Monday, March 22, 2004
ABU DHABI – Shi'ite attacks against foreigners are now targeting playboys from neighboring Arab states who come to Bahrain for the more readily available alcohol.

Western diplomatic sources said last week's street violence appears to have shifted its focus from Westerners to Gulf Arab nationals who use Bahrain as the watering hole of the region. The kingdom is the only Gulf state that approves the public sale and consumption of alcohol, banned by Islam.

Most of the patrons in the La Terrasse restaurant, one of the targets of last week's rampage, were Gulf Arabs, particularly Saudi nationals. Two cars owned by Saudi nationals were torched.

The diplomatic sources said the Shi'ite vigilante campaign appears to be supported by members of Bahrain's parliament, dominated by fundamentalists. Many parliamentarians have called for a ban on alcohol and the expulsion of the U.S. military presence in the kingdom.

[Guy]

These guys are something else! They are like a religious "MOB" gone crazy.

ALLAH...I can't get my freak on!

"Didn't I see every last one of you guys in that titty bar last night, drinking liquor and passing out money to the strippers"?

[Airbornelawyer]

One point I think I made earlier was that our war was not with Islam, but with the adherents of a political movement - call it fundamentalism, Islamism, political Islam, jihadism or Islamofascism (no term is entriely satisfactory) - which embraces terror as a means and subjugation or destruction of all non-Muslims as a end. I noted that from our perspective our war wasn't against Islam, but it was up to Muslims to decide whether from their perspective it was. Muslims had to choose sides, and it appeared that most were not.

While I think the points I made about the relative quiet of the "Arab street" and the points GH made about Southeast Asian Muslims remain valid, I am not as sanguine about where this stands as on rereading my posts it looks like I might have sounded.

In too many areas, too many influential Muslims have taken sides, and for all intents and purposes they have chosen the Islamofascists' side. At best, they have, by not taking sides, ceded the voice and face of Islam to the Islamofascists. At worst, they have actively given credence to the Islamofascist doctrine.

We have had a number of tactical victories in the GWOT - the liberations of Afghanistan and Iraq, the denegration of the al-Qa'ida infrastructure and Qadhafi's newfound love of the West, to name a few - but we may have suffered our biggest strategic setback all the way back in October 2001. This was Saudi Arabia's refusal to allow bases in the Kingdom to be used for OEF because, the Saudis said, they couldn't allow their bases to be used to bomb Muslims.

Now these very bases had been used for a decade to enforce the no-fly zones over Iraq, and had been used in Desert Storm. And Saudi troops had themselves fought in Desert Storm. So the fact that the people who were killed happened to be Muslim couldn't have been the key obstacle for the Saudis. That leads to the conclusion that by bombing al-Qa'ida and Taliban bases in Afghanistan, the Saudis were concluding (and framing the debate for many other Muslims) that we wouldn't be bombing people who happened to be Muslim, but that we were bombing them for being Muslim. The Saudi government chose sides, and it chose the other side.

The Saudi government wouldn't be the Saudi government if it didn't try to play both sides, so they still quietly supported the coalition war effort, but the public face was one of "the Americans are targeting Muslims" rather than "civilized peoples (Muslim and non-Muslim) are targeting terrorists." But this playing both sides opens Saudis up to charges of being munafiqeen (hypocrites who act Muslim but are really kuffar, unbelievers). The ideal scenario would have been for the Muslim world to denounce bin Laden and the Islamofascists as munafiqeen themselves (some Muslim leaders did this, actually, but not enough). From a tactical standpoint this would have been advatageous, because it would have permitted observant Muslims to join with non-Muslims to fight these apostates. But it would have been more valuable from the strategic standpoint, because it would have been Muslims making the point that Western leaders were trying to make from the beginning, that the war was not against Muslims, but against murderers who had no right to call themselves men of God (even within the context of a religion that does countenance killing in the name of God).

But it didn't happen. Instead, in too many cases, Muslim countries have stayed out of the war because they couldn't join a war on Muslims. The exceptions have been few - Jordanian SOF in Afghanistan now, Afghan and Pakistani troops fighting the Taliban and al-Qa'ida, Yemeni counterterrorist ops, even Saudi Arabia's own counterterrorist ops - and have been characterized as pragmatism. Pakistani President Musharraf is one of the few leaders of a Muslim nation who has publicly and vehemently denounced his enemies as un-Islamic, and he is dismissed even in the West as a stooge for the Americans. Meanwhile, a group of so-called "men of God" in Islamabad proclaimed over the weekend that the Pakistani army jawans killed fighting against the Taliban and al-Qa'ida forces in the recent operations didn't deserve an Islamic burial.

I honestly don't know what it will take to rectify this state of affairs, or if it can be. Musharraf is effectively a lone wolf, and has had two near misses in assassination attempts. A few Iraqis have denounced other Arabs for shedding crocodile tears during the American-led invasion, but never having shown too much concernwhen Saddam was killing Iraqis by the thousands. But it may be too late. The civilizational war may be upon us, though we want it not.

[Jimbo]

Originally posted by NousDefionsDoc
Bahrain rioters hit streets, torch cars of Arab playboy boozers



SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Monday, March 22, 2004
ABU DHABI – Shi'ite attacks against foreigners are now targeting playboys from neighboring Arab states who come to Bahrain for the more readily available alcohol.

Western diplomatic sources said last week's street violence appears to have shifted its focus from Westerners to Gulf Arab nationals who use Bahrain as the watering hole of the region. The kingdom is the only Gulf state that approves the public sale and consumption of alcohol, banned by Islam.

Most of the patrons in the La Terrasse restaurant, one of the targets of last week's rampage, were Gulf Arabs, particularly Saudi nationals. Two cars owned by Saudi nationals were torched.

The diplomatic sources said the Shi'ite vigilante campaign appears to be supported by members of Bahrain's parliament, dominated by fundamentalists. Many parliamentarians have called for a ban on alcohol and the expulsion of the U.S. military presence in the kingdom.

Another reason behind the incident at La Terrasse was that teh owner (a Muslim) did not hang a banner out before Ashura.

I'll tell you one thing, once that island host the Grand Prix next month and the local see how much money is made off the sale of booze, parliment will not stand a chance of banning it.

[Team Sergeant]

A few things AirborneL.

The successful over throwing of A-Stan and Iraq were strategic, not tactical in the GWOT.

The saudis cowards are in the war for two reasons and two reasons only. After the fall of Kuwait they knew it would not be long before the same fate befell them if they didn’t act and give permission to the US to enter and defend their country they would soon become part of Iraq.
The al-qaida recently targeted (the last year or so) the saudi government and ruling family (one in the same). I knew this would be the end of a friendly between the two and the beginning of the end for al-qaida.

The many nations you speak of joining the fight is a token effort at best. Why do you think the Pakistanis are now ripping al-qaida a new asshole? Again two reasons, the US has asked them to, and the bigger reason and real reason, the al-qaida has almost killed the president of Pakistan and he’s pissed. He now knows that if he’s going to continue to play with his grandchildren he’d better kill all the al-qaida he can before they kill him.

We are at war with an ideology, that to me anyway is crystal clear. We can preach all the religious tolerance we like, it will become the reason for our demise. Most muslims do in fact think the attacks on the US were justifiable and reasonable. I’ve yet to see a muslim protest against the attacks on the US. It’s not going to happen, not even in this country.

One unflappable American trait is the fact that we enforce religious tolerance and we will continue to do so right up until they bury the last American.

Team Sergeant

[NousDefionsDoc]

One point I think I made earlier was that our war was not with Islam, but with the adherents of a political movement - call it fundamentalism, Islamism, political Islam, jihadism or Islamofascism (no term is entriely satisfactory) - which embraces terror as a means and subjugation or destruction of all non-Muslims as a end. I noted that from our perspective our war wasn't against Islam, but it was up to Muslims to decide whether from their perspective it was. Muslims had to choose sides, and it appeared that most were not.

Couple of observations:
1) Since the "political movement" is using the religion as the base for the call and the religious leaders are the political leaders, it would seem to me that it is indeed religious and not political. And can you separate the two in a culture where everything is tied to religion?
2) The "allowing" of the jihad to become the voice of the religion is to me making a choice. They have allowed themselves to be defined by the radical element, which makes them just as guilty.

Not taking the side against them is taking the side for them.