You attribute to me: "CS's argument was that only those that are militant fundamentalists are the "real" muslims."
That's not what I said. Rather, i said that the terrorist islamists are no less true to their faith, and that is why they have too much quiet support in Islamic culture. Islam is presently at civil war with itself, a war fought between those who believe in militant Jihad, and those who do not. This is not a new war. It has been fought on and off for centuries. That is because the faith does, in fact, call for war against infidels until all the world is conquered and ruled by islam. And yet, that is so immoral that a great many Muslims have refused to acquiesce and insist on interpreting the faith otherwise. That's good, and when democracy comes to the Islmaic world - and it will - these people will win out. In the meantime, we westerners haev been dragged into their civil war.
Here's are excerptes from three articles that in part explains this.
Mark Steyn:
Terrorism ends when the broader culture refuses to tolerate it. There would be few if any suicide bombers in the Middle East if "martyrdom" were not glorified by imams and politicians, if pictures of local "martyrs" were not proudly displayed in West Bank grocery stores, if Muslim banks did not offer special "martyrdom" accounts to the relicts thereof, if schools did not run essay competitions on "Why I want to grow up to be a martyr"
shortened the link
""Breeding grounds for suicide bombers," from Tavleen Singh in Indian Express:
With Ayodhya on my mind I sat down to write a piece on how Islamic terrorism will not be defeated until we deal with the mullahs and madrasas who breed the suicide bombers and Islamic fundamentalists. I was still writing it when London exploded. This was not some distant horror but deeply personal since I have a son who lives in that city. He could have been on the bus, on the underground or just walking down a street. When I tried desperately to call him I found it impossible to get through and thought of all the others who might be trying as desperately to call a loved one and those who may have lost sons, brothers, sisters, parents, friends just because Islamic fundamentalists believe terrorism is their sacred duty.
Tony Blair called the acts of terrorism in London ''barbaric'' and said that the terrorists would not succeed because the civilised world was more determined to defend ''our values and our way of life'' than the terrorists are to cause death and destruction. But, they will succeed because no Western leaders and certainly not our own ''secular'' lot have shown any determination when it comes to dealing with the mullahs and the venomous ideology they preach through Islamic seminaries...
The Prophet's mission, as interpreted by the mullahs, also involves converting us infidels to the faith because otherwise we are a constant threat to Islam. This is where the problem begins.
If the mullahs used the religious seminaries to teach love and peace and respect for other people and religions, Muslims would find it easier to live with the rest of the world. But, they teach jehad and bigotry and it is from these teachings that Islamic terrorism is born. In India, if we want to tackle the problem we could begin by demanding a White Paper from the government on how many madrasas exist on our secular soil, when they were
built and where they get their funds from. I am willing to bet that most have come up in the past 15 years and that the money comes from the same Middle Eastern countries that funded last week's bombings in London and 9/11. As long as we pretend that this is not true we remain in danger of losing the war against terrorism.
Yep."
Sucuri WebSite Firewall - Access Denied
In his just-released, absorbing, and excellent book, Understanding Jihad (University of California Press), David Cook of Rice University dismisses the low-grade debate that has raged since 9/11 over the nature of jihad - whether it is a form of offensive warfare or (more pleasantly) a type of moral self-improvement.
Mr. Cook dismisses as "bathetic and laughable" John Esposito's contention that jihad refers to "the effort to lead a good life." Throughout history and at present, Mr. Cook definitively establishes, the term primarily means "warfare with spiritual significance."
His achievement lies in tracing the evolution of jihad from Muhammad to Osama, following how the concept has changed through fourteen centuries. This summary does not do justice to Cook's extensive research, prolific examples, and thoughtful analysis, but even a thumbnail sketch suggests jihad's evolution.
The Koran invites Muslims to give their lives in exchange for assurances of paradise.
The Hadith (accounts of Muhammad's actions and personal statements) elaborate on the Koran, providing specific injunctions about treaties, pay, booty, prisoners, tactics, and much else. Muslim jurisprudents then wove these precepts into a body of law.
During his years in power, the prophet engaged in an average of nine military campaigns a year, or one every five to six weeks; thus did jihad help define Islam from its very dawn. Conquering and humiliating non-Muslims was a main feature of the prophet's jihad.
During the first several centuries of Islam, "the interpretation of jihad was unabashedly aggressive and expansive." After the conquests subsided, non-Muslims hardly threatened and Sufi notions of jihad as self-improvement developed in complement to the martial meaning.
The Crusades, the centuries-long European effort to control the Holy Land, gave jihad a new urgency and prompted what Cook calls the "classical" theory of jihad. Finding themselves on the defensive led to a hardening of Muslim attitudes.
The Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century subjugated much of the Muslim world, a catastrophe only partially mitigated by the Mongols' nominal conversion to Islam. Some thinkers, Ibn Taymiya (d. 1328) in particular, came to distinguish between true and false Muslims; and to give jihad new prominence by judging the validity of a person's faith according to his willingness to wage jihad.
Nineteenth century "purification jihads" took place in several regions against fellow Muslims. The most radical and consequential of these was the Wahhabis' jihad in Arabia. Drawing on Ibn Taymiya, they condemned most non-Wahhabi Muslims as infidels (kafirs) and waged jihad against them.
European imperialism inspired jihadi resistance efforts, notably in India, the Caucasus, Somalia, Sudan, Algeria, and Morocco, but all in the end failed. This disaster meant new thinking was needed.
Islamist new thinking began in Egypt and India in the 1920s but jihad acquired its contemporary quality of radical offensive warfare only with the Egyptian thinker Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966). Qutb developed Ibn Taymiya's distinction between true and false Muslims to deem non-Islamists to be non-Muslims and then declare jihad on them. The group that assassinated Anwar El-Sadat in 1981 then added the idea of jihad as the path to world domination.
The anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan led to the final step (so far) in this evolution. In Afghanistan, for the first time, jihadis assembled from around the world to fight on behalf of Islam. A Palestinian, Abdullah Azzam, became the theorist of global jihad in the 1980s, giving it an unheard-of central role, judging each Muslim exclusively by his contribution to jihad, and making jihad the salvation of Muslims and Islam. Out of this quickly came suicide terrorism and bin Laden.
Mr. Cook's erudite and timely study has many implications, including these:
* The current understanding of jihad is more extreme than at any prior time in Islamic history.
* This extremism suggests that the Muslim world is going through a phase, one that must be endured and overcome, comparable to analogously horrid periods in Germany, Russia, and China.
* Jihad having evolved steadily until now, doubtless will continue to do so in the future.
* The excessive form of jihad currently practiced by Al-Qaeda and others could, Mr. Cook semi-predicts, lead to its "decisive rejection" by a majority of Muslims. Jihad then could turn into a non-violent concept.
The great challenge for moderate Muslims (and their non-Muslim allies) is to make that rejection come about, and with due haste.
This message has been edited by AdminJar, 07-12-2005 03:04 PM
I would like a PM who is clearly upset but resolute. Despite the fact that I disagree with much of Blair's style, I have to accept that I am glad to have him rather than Howard at this time. Still, I reckon Gordon Brown would have dealt with this better, but what are you gonna do?
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