The Search for Moderate Islam

So your method of investigating a different culture is to hang around in your own? Yeah.I have invited Muslims to this place, and one of them almost did as he was particularly interested in evolution. Well - seems you were wrong. Par for the course. You could try learning Turkish, Farsi or Indonesian - then you'd have a more direct access to the culture. No shit Sherlock. We aren't defining Islam here, we're talking about moderate Islam, remember. It was a verse that could be seen as moderate, which is why it was brought up. Awesome. What has that to do with moderate religion? That's because it is the first Pillar of Islam. They aren't explanations, they are pillars of Islam. You're welcome. Oh you actually ignored my primary suggestion and just looked at the supplementary stuff. I guess short lists are just easier to read or something. Believe that Allah is the one God. That Muhammed is His Prophet.
Pray 5 times in a certain way.
Give 2.5% to the poor
Fast during Ramadan
Take part in the pilgrimage at some pointThat's the minimum. You may have come across this list of five 'colonnades' before. Again, why is this part of this discussion? Ah - so you have in fact been looking for a singular document that describes Islam succinctly, poetically but descriptively and not, you know, searching for Moderate Islam as I had foolishly thought? Maybe you should edit the Title. And the OP. And all of your posts up to Message 60. I seem to remember you were asking for 'the community meetings. Show me the demonstrations in the street; the parades for peace.' You also asked about interpretations of individual verses, but never gave any specific examples to discuss, so...

ghIs goalpost moving just how you play it where you come from? You said, " What is the minimum one must do to be a Muslim? " Now you want more than the minimum? If things such as the Hadith of Gabriel is insufficient then it appears whatever you are looking for does not exist. Sorry. Hey, maybe you've learned that different religions do things differently and different cultures have different needs and satisfy those needs in different ways though. So that's a plus right?What next, how about we discuss moderate Islam? Well it's difficult to find many statements about shared beliefs and practices of a religious group that is not a creed. Because that's what creeds are. I've given you an example of a moderate verse, and many examples of moderate Islam 'in situ'. I've offered to consider particular 'problem' verses (for moderates) and how moderates deal with them. What's the next category of evidence you want me to present? I have no idea what you are talking about.

So Coyote, what went through your mind when you decided to post that? Did you think, hey Carol Brown who writes for 'The American Thinker', she's a good source. An impartial academic whose opinion should carry significant weight in this discussion!It's a complete shambles, by the way. For instance:

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Even more shocking: One in eight respondents said they think those Americans who criticize or parody Islam should face the death penalty

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Meaning 7 in 8 didn't.

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There was a Pew poll in Egypt done a few years ago -- 82% said, I think, stoning is the appropriate punishment for adultery. Over 80% thought death was the appropriate punishment for leaving the Muslim religion.

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So 20% of Egyptians reject death for apostates, despite it being the word of Allah. And this is presented as evidence that moderate Islam does not and cannot exist? Obviously that conclusion does not follow from the evidence. Indeed, all it does is highlight that there are considerable Muslims who are more moderate than the extremist views discussed, which seems to me to be an own goal.

Can you explain how this is relevant to the topic?The best I can make out of it is that you are saying there are moderate Muslims. Is that what you are saying?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Are you here just to take potshots at Islam or to discuss moderate Islam?

To be fair it's only the government and the media that do that, and they do it with alacrity. Everybody else is just slavishly repeating what they say. That's what happens when you trust donkeys, foxes and elephants. Being as you live there, you might try and do something about it, but you all seem content being lied to so who am I to argue?

I honestly don't. Sure, what would you like to say about them? Great. So the classes of evidence I seem to recall so far are1) the existence of moderate Muslims
2) the existence of moderate verses
3) surveysAnything else?

Yes. Yes. I said in my post. Because some of the things they say are contradicted by evidence.Are you really telling me you think members of your government, corporations and media are honest at all times?

I was hoping you'd make explicit what kind of issues you had with it so we can discuss those.

Well what do you know, ask a bunch of Muslims if they think Allah is right and they'll say "yes". We learned a lot here.Maybe next time we could make sure that the Muslims are all in front their peers or superiors, are in a well lit room and are being filmed. That's a surefire why getting to what they really believe. Jon, have you worked at Fox before? Except that stoning for adultery is not in the Qur'an and is therefore not actually covered by the question asked meaning you can't make this conclusion.I can tell you've researched the topic.Is this the 'Muslim community meeting' you've watched?You aren't remotely interested in learning about moderate Islam, are you?

So you admit that it is a hopelessly loaded question which includes hypotheticals which are known to be false? Good. Now we have no idea to which part of the question people are agreeing with. Are they agreeing that stoning should be the penalty for adultery (and presumably other zina)? Are they doing so because an authority told them it was in the Qur'an? Are they confusing some Hadith with the Qur'an? Are they answering the broad question of 'if Allah says it is it is good'? Who the hell knows? Useless.Do you admit that the setting is inappropriate to garner realistic answers?If so, I think we're done with that video as 'evidence' of anything.

I did notice it was a loaded and compound question. You keep making the argument for this more explicit. Are they answering for 'both Koran and Sunnah' or 'Koran or Sunnah' - 'Allah and Mohammed' or 'Allah or Mohammed'?Is it your view that 100% of Muslims accept the Sunnah that call for stoning for zina? The people that claim to be Muslims that disagree are lying or NOT TRUE Muslims? Are you able to actually construct an argument or are you just trying to paint billions of people in one stroke? That would have been a much smarter place for you to start, yes. What would you like to say about it? How did you reach this conclusion, is it based on anything, or are you just pulling this 'fact' out of your ass? Can you identify the race of the pollers in some of the significant ones?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I know, which is why I'm not talking about them. I'm perplexed as to why you keep shifting the focus back to it. Yes, you do. You are the one making an argument, so you need to actually make it, rather than relying on innuendo. Is it more extreme to get 100 lashes for adultery or lose most of your liberties for 3 years for selling weed while being black, for example? I don't know you perspective on this, because you won't commit to an argument. I can see your mind is already made up, you don't have to reassure me of your prejudices. I'm not asking you to, we both know, this isn't a thread about what moral problems white westerners have with Islamic law. Yes, and it seems to have turned into 'let's use confirmation bias to prove law abiding citizens are the same as terrorists'. Pretty disgusting, but the Americans are gearing up for another righteous Crusade, so I suppose this makes the impending clusterfuck of death more palatable. Has 'weapons of mass destruction' no more persuasive power? You are the one looking - stop complaining that YOU don't have a clue what you are looking for and that you can't find it. Translation: When looking for moderate Islam, we should ignore moderate Islam at all possible costs.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I don't understand why you posted a quote about the dangers of radical Islam when we're talking about moderate Islam. Obviously we should criticize Islam. This is not the thread for criticizing Islam. This is about the ontology of moderate Islam. You keep trying to find examples that confirm your belief that there is none, which was my criticism. I hold no such prejudice, as obviously I do this all the time myself - or has your boiling blood affected your memory of people in your own community as well? Neither am I, using an example for a place to construct an argument that uses difficult cases from your own culture would be challenging, but insightful. That is, if you were interested in making some kind of argument that is. Great, where was I? ah yes: Yes, you do. You are the one making an argument, so you need to actually make it, rather than relying on innuendo. Is it more extreme to get life for three strikes, or whipped for adultery, for example? To answer this kind of question, you need to identify what makes a punishment 'extreme' and what makes one 'moderate' and explain why this distinction is useful for us and...I mean really, do I really need to teach you how to construct an argument? Yes. To an extent. I mean obviously the whole world has been struggling with all of that for the past 150 years or so, but if you mean 'in general', then, yes.Turkey is 97% Islamic and they have all those things. A separation of powers? Then its not Islamic law, I hear you cry. But that's the best way for moderation to blossom, especially with the barbaric Abrahamic religions. Have you spent any time examining the work of the moderators I have referenced?Sayyid Al-Qemany? Nasr Abu Zayd? Khalil Abdel-Karim? Abdolkarim Soroush? Muhammad Shahrur? Ahmed Subhy Mansour? Edip Yksel? Gamal al-Banna? Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im? Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri? Ahmed Al-Gubbanchi? Mahmoud Mohammed Taha?Have you examined the work of any of the groups?Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity? Muslims for Progressive Values? Quranism?Because you haven't commented on the actual moderate Islam these people are trying to create and I wondered why.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Yes, it's a given. We all see it on our media, as you say. That's right. Non-crazy Islam is persecuted by crazy Islam, and it is often intellectual, philosophical, theological, academic, boring or difficult for western ears so it doesn't get as much play. Also, it often occurs in a different language and doesn't get translated because there is no money in doing so. My point is that what constitutes a moral/right/correct method of punishment is an intrinsically difficult that we still haven't solved. Therefore, going after Islam on how its communities have handled these issues seems a bit, I don't know, vindictive? mean-spirited? Hypocritical? Maybe it's not such an excellent place to start discovering moderate Islam? I gave you this link on the 15th Sep, which summarises things for you. In short it's almost the same stuff that moderate Christians do.'Written in a time in a context, aimed at the people of that time, is meant to be continuously re-examined in light of larger social changes'with some of their own twists like 'There are two versions in the Qur'an, and the crazies use the crazy version because of some crazy out of context interpretation. They should use the non-crazy version because it was written near Mecca' or something.They probably don't all agree with one another 100%. Some reject the Hadith by for example citing something that Muhammed said (not quoted by an obscure or contested chronicler, so it's pretty solid) that was ironically written down:

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"Do not write anything from me except the Qur'an. Whoever wrote, must destroy it."

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While others keep them, but downplay their significance or what have you.