Attempting an intelligent note on this sad, terrible tragedy will require summing up all that I find wrong in the world right now. A task doomed to failure before it begins but I have never been accused of wisdom so here it is, brief as can be.
Islam is being destroyed from within.
It is more in danger from Muslims – or so called Muslims rather- than it is from any one else.
Full stop!
That is what is most painful.
If we Muslims can admit that once and for all, then may be we are in with a chance to repair what is wrong. It is a small miracle that many of us are still willing to identify ourselves as Muslims after a week like this. And no I am not suggesting we hide ourselves in shame. But shame we must admit at least for a while. Before we rush around collecting evidence of how good and sweet and peaceful we are, we need to humble ourselves a bit, a lot and say it out loud: ” we are sorry!”
We are sorry for the minds poisoned with nonsense that prompt them to even think that we, and we alone, are the keepers of salvation.
We are sorry for following blindly in the footsteps of self proclaimed scholars who studied nothing and learnt less.
We are sorry for failing to understand that what is obvious to us makes absolutely no sense to others.
Say it!
We are sorry.
If a movie offends us, let us not watch it.
If a paper pokes fun at us, let us not buy it.
If a joke is not funny, dont laugh.
The almighty dos not need us to defend him or his prophet from satire. Time to grow up now. La ellaha ella Allah lasted and will last with or without the zealot.
Time to take a long hard look at how we look to everyone else.
Do it now before it is too late. Being a Muslim is not about stamping our words on the world. Our actions speak for us and when these actions are shameful and stupid, ley us call them what they are. Shameful and stupid. Full stop. No if or but!
Syrian children are freezing to death, Muslim and non Muslim.
The world is on a mud and blood slide to the abyss and if killing a man for poking fun at you is the best you can do, then God help this planet, it is all over!
I am sorry for every wrong action taken by those claiming Islam.
Peace in Islam means submission to Allah. The ultimate meaning of Islamic peace is all of us living in Dar-al-Islam—the house of submission. This is not a “radical” interpretation. Modern-day Islamic scholar, Ibrahim Sulaiman, says submission and peace can be very different concepts, even if a form of peace is often brought about through forcing others into submission. “Jihad is not inhumane, despite its necessary violence and bloodshed, its ultimate desire is peace which is protected and enhanced by the rule of law.” Armed responses are only permitted when all peaceful possibilities have failed. And once armed resistance begins it doesn’t stop “until the war lays down its burden” as Allah has mentioned in the Qur’an 47.
These ideas are foreign to us in the West. But that does not make them any less true or binding on those who believe. To shrug them off as radical is to disrespect Islam.
Subscriber loyalty x nominal affiliation creates enormous headaches.
Qanta Ahmed and numerous other vocal Muslims stand squared against “political Islam,” “Islamists”, “Islamofascism”, and so on even though the very same continue building their “Muslim Botherhood” enterprise worldwide and sending into the world a violence that compares well to lightning strikes and volcanos as a completely mindless, spiritless, vacuous force and accident of nature.
Evergreen on BackChannels in regard to this argument that is about Islam, the Qur’an, volumes of Hadith, and 1,400 years of associated literary output inseparable from the character of the enterprise has been “Shimmer“. While that post addressed the ambiguities that confront the conflict observer, it has become plain around the world, whether with Pakistan’s experience involving ISI and Taliban — who, so sources tell me, continue to roam freely in Quetta — and slow moving organizational politics, or, most recently, Turkish President Erdogan’s veiled or passive cooperation with ISIS (or he would have had his army participate in their slugging during the siege of Kobani and the fighting going on there now) that would seem linked both to his self-concept as a Sunni Muslim and his predilection for Putinesque autocracy and self-aggrandizement, White Palace and all.
Although I feel the central psychology in “malignant narcissism” well noted here, the basis for Islamist drive found in Islamic text cannot fail to address and question the attractions of the same: no one rewrote the Qur’an to disseminate “prison Islam” or seduce souls to “Islamic Jihad”.
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“Whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.”
Ascribed to Hillel the Elder (circa 35-BCE to 10-CE) and Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 4:1 (22a).
“On that account We ordained for the Children of Isra`il that if any one slew a person – unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land – it would be as if he slew the whole humanity: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the whole humanity.”
In the concept that is “malignant narcissism”, the variable “locus of control” (although Rotter’s approach would seem to miss the dictators, the “verticals of power”) may number foremost among many features: who is being made central to the experience of the listener? Who is the controlling agent in “We decreed upon the Children of Israel . . . .”?
Humanist and modern Islam may look aghast at Boco Haram, ISIS, al-Qaeda, Taliban, Muslim Brotherhood, and so on but the same may have to approach either the deep misguidance and misreading of scripture or fly from both or go with the program as put on display by ISIS: the poetry would seem to leave little room for masking either its presumptions or its targets, dividing, conveniently, admirers from its intellectual competitors or, worse, its sources.
(On political locus of control, I suspect the more tender the deep or repressed personality — the narcissistically injured or mortified person — either the more manipulative and sadistic the personality encountered or, amazingly, reparative The dynamic psychology and social psychology at this nexus would be a good area for study — online, at least, the field, as of this afternoon’s quick look, looks wide open).
Paris police said the turnout was “without precedent” but too large to count. One organiser said he had indications it could be between 1.3 and 1.5 million people. Some commentators said the last street presence in the capital on this scale was at the Liberation of Paris from Nazi Germany in 1944.
Boko Haram is getting more extreme itself. This week, the group used a 10-year-old girl as a suicide bomber. “I doubt much if she actually knew what was strapped to her body,” one observer told AFP. The group has been using young women and children more and more.
Hundreds of bodies – too many to count – remain strewn in the bush in Nigeria from an Islamic extremist attack that Amnesty International described as the “deadliest massacre” in the history of Boko Haram.
Fighting continued on Friday around Baga, a town on the border with Chad where insurgents seized a key military base on 3 January and attacked again on Wednesday.
Local officials this week said the attack forced at least 20,000 people from Baga and other settlements in and around Lake Chad to flee, many of them across the border.
Nearly 600 others had been stranded on an island on the lake without food, water or shelter.
Addressing a large gathering outside the kosher supermarket that was targeted, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said: “Today, we are all Charlie, we are all police officers, we are all Jews of France.”
One may with immediate difficulty argue that the Islamist’s perception of Islam is aberrant and untenable given what at least seems like an increase in the tempo and virulence of Islamist attacks on soft targets and Islamist efforts to establish absolute rule by divine fiat in the form of caliphate or Islamic republic globally. Not only lone wolves have launched attacks on state, business, media (and specifically Jewish) targets, but terrorist teams and assembled militia have as well.
New York – Cataclysmic destruction of the Twin Towers Washington – Attempt to demolish the Pentagon London – Coordinated attack on the public transport system; the beheading of an off duty soldier in broad daylight in full public view Madrid – Bombing of crowded commuter trains at rush hour Nairobi – Seizure of Westgate shopping mall and murder of scores of innocents Burgas, Bulgaria – Bombing of a tourist bus Mumbai – Murderous attack on the Taj Mahal Hotel, Chabad House and other sites Boston – Bombing of the city’s annual marathon Bali – Bombing of crowded tourist locations Buenos Aires – Deadly attacks on Jewish institutions and the Israeli Embassy Ottawa – Assault on the Canadian Parliament Sydney – Recent seizure of a downtown café and murder of two customers In-Amenas, Algeria – Seizure of a gas facility and murder of dozens of civilians Chibock, Nigeria – Abduction of almost 300 schoolgirls, reportedly to serve as sex slaves This bloodcurdling list is in no way complete, and numerous other incidents could be added. It certainly does not include all the attempted attacks that were foiled by security services in various countries, preventing the commission of even more gruesome atrocities by adherents of Islam.
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The reality is that there is a problem with Islam. To say that is not to deny Islam’s immense diversity, impugn the millions of Muslims who abhor the horrors being wreaked in their name, or dispute the enduring value of religious faith in a secular age.
But it is undeniable that Islam’s distinctive features make it especially vulnerable to being used to incite religiously motivated violence.
Al-Baghdadi is emulating the Prophet Muhammad – the ultimate Islamic role model.[“Al-Baghdadi also claims to share the Prophet’s lineage when he calls himself Al-Qurayshi, a member of the Quraysh tribe, to which the Prophet belonged.”] The Prophet, while displaying cruelty in battle – cruelty mirrored by the IS – put off battles with his enemies and integrated compromises and tactical agreements in his policy, in order to gather strength prior to renewing action to obtain his ultimate goals.
The French have not yet grasped the reality that radical Islamic terror rooted in the Middle East, but nurtured by misguided politics on their own soil, may begin by targeting free speech, authority as personified by the fallen policemen and women, and Jews but, as with all totalitarian ideologies, it eventually targets everyone who do not bend to their will.
On BackChannels — if this post works — it has a context an adventure in political psychology and the interplay between personality — “malignant narcissism” — and controlled information space (language, linguistics, propaganda, gaslighting, political theater, manipulation, etc.) and political power that drives despotism, fascism, sadism.
Our global Internet with English as lingua franca has become the largest “mirror, mirror on the wall” in political history, and it reflects through and back to a political elite, from pundits worldwide to leaders worldwide. Its reach is limited, of course, by language barriers and Internet filtering. That leaves the despotic putting on a show for still captive constituents, but they know the barriers remain nonetheless permeable. Bilingual national speakers, extended diaspora — including Palestinian diaspora — encounter these pages and videos as much and as well as anyone else.
There is always a “next new world”, and we’re heading for it even while some turn back and revel in a long ago darkness; for others, the dawn spreads out before them and everyone.
According to totally and utterly depressing early reports, given the tragic deaths of 12 people, it is impossible to say with absolute certainty that this 500-word article will not make those involved in its writing—and potentially even those not involved—the targets of brutal and unconscionable violence.
Detesting ideas and hating people are not the same thing. Muslims are, and should be, protected equally under the liberal principles everyone else enjoys. Yet, for some reason, when it comes to our discourse, Islam is given a special dispensation from the standards that apply to everyone else who operates under these rules. A criticism of a faith – and the customs and philosophy that go with it – has been transformed into an act of racism.
Original posted in 2010 in response to Molly Norris, a Seattle cartoon, who had encountered much of the threat visited on Charlie Hebdo (#JeSuisCharlie). I had retrieve this piece for Facebook use before Fox got to the same thing today —
Molly Norris is Al-Nadr bin Al-Harith, Uqba bin Abu Muayt, Amsa bint Marwan, Abu Afak, Kab bin al-Ashraf, Ibn Sunayna, Abdullah bin Sad, Abdullah bin Katal (and one of two “singing-girls”) [2]; also Mansur Al-Hallaj; also, these associated with Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses, Ali Dashti, Hitoshi Igarashi, Ettore Caprioli, Aziz Nesin; also Naguib Mafouz; also Taslima Nasrin, Farag Foda, Anwar Sheikh, Nasr Abu-Zaid, Rashad Khalifa, Matoub Lounes, Younis Shaikh, Robert Hussein, Nawal El-Saddaawi, Tahmineh Mini, Khalid Duran, Mahmoud Muhammed Talal [3] .
Molly Norris is every artist or writer who has ever been assaulted, banned, blacklisted, beaten, censored, intimidated, jailed, tortured, or murdered for something he expressed through language or fine art.
Molly Norris is every child who once doodled something naughty, every petulant teen who ever uttered an uncomfortable truth, every adult who for once told it like was.
Militant Islam Monitor. “Theo van Gogh’s book ‘Allah Knows Best’ – Murders of Van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn perpetrated by and for Muslims.” November 14, 2004: http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/319
Rosenbaum, Ron. “Bonfire of the Intellectuals: Paul Berman’s outraged attack on Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s attackers.” Slate, March 25, 2010: http://www.slate.com/id/2248809/
BackChannels 