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”.
*
“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.
* * *
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.
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/
In a normal public school district, you’d be able to tell who the vendors are, but in charter world, it’s purposely opaque. It must amount to millions of dollars of business that aren’t going out to bid, or that in all likelihood, aren’t even going out to Americans.
Basic research, basic due diligence, basic critical thinking skills— these are the only things required to figure out that there are multiple connections between this transnational social/political/religious movement and the three charter schools in Chicago, that these connections are purposely blurred to keep people uninformed, and that this phenomenon is consistent with the established patterns of behavior of the Gulen Movement worldwide.
“By even developing a certain code of rebellion of their own, they might begin to refuse even very plausible thoughts developed as a result of serious pondering and forget the fact that doing things for the sake of God is exalted above all.
Actually, what lies at the root of such wrongs is a lack of learning manners. In the past, people who were responsible for education were very good teachers of manners as well.”
Behave!
🙂
And obey Gülen — as regards aspects of the autocratic, authoritarian, unreasoning, and cult-of-personality dimensions evident in the Fathullah Gülen story, Rachel Sharon-Krespin’s Middle East Forum piece (Winter 2009) contains plenty for related reflection.
Today, despite the rhetoric of European Union accession, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has turned Turkey away from Europe and toward Russia and Iran and reoriented Turkish policy in the Middle East away from sympathy toward Israel and much more toward friendship with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria. Anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-Semitic sentiments have increased. Behind Turkey’s transformation has been not only the impressive AKP political machine but also a shadowy Islamist sect led by the mysterious hocaefendi (master lord) Fethullah Gülen; the sect often bills itself as a proponent of tolerance and dialogue but works toward purposes quite the opposite. Today, Gülen and his backers (Fethullahcılar, Fethullahists) not only seek to influence government but also to become the government.
Gulen, once respected by Erdogan, is now vilified and branded an “assassin” — a reference to Hassan Sabbah’s violent medieval cult. Thousands of public servants allegedly close to the Gulen community have been removed from their jobs. Some have been arrested.
“A Gülen organization controls the real estate companies that own their schools. They charge rent to their own schools and taxpayers foot the bill. They refuse to answer public records requests, falsify attendance records, and cheat on standardized tests. Yet, Ohio continues to grant them charters to operate.”
No more tender a national achilles heel offers itself to America’s enemies quite like public education.
That Fethullah Gülen’s organization has run itself into trouble against Turkish autocrat Erdogan fits with the same emerging neo-feudalism that has surfaced in Russia, i.e., cabal of shady nouveau riche rise to operate organization out of the public’s view, exploit the same, any which way (and they produce sufficient tell-tale propaganda to prove it), and live lavishly promoting their favored or more convenient ideological or religious program – but then they must contend with one another.
I find it interesting that Muslims in the West who kill Christians, Jews, and soldiers in the name of their religion are referred to as “lone wolves” suffering from a mental illness. Are all those millions of people who belong to Hamas, Hezbollah, Boko Haram, al-Nusra al Qaeda and ISIS-are they mentally ill, too? Or poor? Or uneducated and disadvantaged?
When we go down a road of justification, root causes, we deny the fact that these people choose an ideology that promotes hate.
Our conflict solution is to address a political psychology that does indeed derive from ideas in psychology proper. The malignant narcissism surrounding the political existence of Putin, Assad, and Khamenei as well as other dictators in the middle east and around the world cannot be avoided, nor with that recognition their arch-criminal, manipulative, and piratical skills that foster animus with the west, stage conflicts that then leverage them additional political power, and then underwrite their oligarch / billionaire handlers.
My most recent book read, _The Zhivago Affair_ on the trials of Pasternak and the CIA’s effort to get his book into Russia, and the one I’m reading now, _Putin’s Kleptocracy_, are frightening books about criminal political power radiating through state authority. It’s frightening reading, but it opens the eyes to the manner in which — perhaps as demonstrated by Muhammad — ideological and religious thought may be leveraged into boundless absolute power and wealth.
To back that comment on Islam, one may direct attention to the now contested presentations of the Banu Qurayza legend, a story so ethically and morally lost that Tarek Fatah has denied its authenticity and others, so I have read recently in the Facebook aquarium, have separated Muhammad from the beheading of 800 Jewish males who had surrendered unconditionally rather than lose additional life through fighting. Also read: “the Jews were just as bad”. I don’t believe that: I believe wealth obtained through earnest trade was simply obtained by a barbaric pushiness abetted by provocations that ended in capricious judgment, mass murder, rape, and plunder.
There may be more pleasant descriptions of the crushing of the Jewish Banu Qurayza, but none have any legitimacy in a caring, gracious, and merciful world. It has appeared to me that those who want that world, as may Tarek Fatah, decry the legend while those who want the merciless and sadistic powers of that world for themselves extol and pursue it for themselves.
The Prophet had the husband of the Jewess Raihana Bint Amr hacked to pieces before her very eyes, hours after he had murdered her father. No doubt this was the Prophet’s perverted version of a wedding present, because after these atrocities he raped the mortified girl and tried to force her to convert to Islam. Muslim historians still describe the savage rape of Raihana Bint Amr as her “willing submission to Islam and wifehood to the Prophet”
One thing leads to another on the web. This in The Huffington Post surfaced along a moderate-look at the challenge (here’s an excerpt):
We are a wounded nation, not a terrorized one.
Canada may have a benevolent exterior, but we all understand the steel at our core. We know that freedom exacts a steep price, because we’ve paid it before. And we know, as we enter military hostilities to confront ISIS in Iraq, that it won’t hesitate to exploit the stupid, the gullible and the deranged as a means of attacking its enemies in their own lands.
If we weren’t prepared for that on Monday, we should be now. And even without spurs from ISIS there’s no telling what these same people will do (or have done) on their own to bootstrap themselves into Canada’s history books.
As with other mirage, as one in fact draws closer to the object sought, the shimmering stops and more solid details maintain their appearance with solidity.
Update – October 15, 2014
The most striking as well as encouraging finding is that ISIS has almost no popular support in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Lebanon – even among Sunnis. Among Egyptians, a mere 3 percent express a favorable opinion of ISIS. In Saudi Arabia, the figure is slightly higher: 5 percent rate ISIS positively. In Lebanon, not a single Christian, Shiite, or Druze respondent viewed ISIS favorably; and even among Lebanon’s Sunnis, that figure is almost equally low at 1 percent.
http://fikraforum.org/?p=5608 – Distributed 10/14/2014 by The Washington Institute. The web page summary has attached to it the full PDF report.
The BackChannel’s page “Shimmer” launched to suggest that factual data should exist somewhere between the apologist’s “ISIS does not represent Islam” and the strident anti-Jihadist’s “Islam is represented by ISIS”.
It should be noted that Islam-defending apologist and the strident Jihad watcher share the same abhorrence as regards what ISIS represents. In contest, however, one argues that Muhammad the Messenger and the Qur’an are okey dokey and some Muslims are nutty (and need to be dealt with) and the other’s analysis suggests Muhammad’s battlefield history — with the Banu Qurayza signal to what was to come — plus the contradictions within the Qur’an plus patently vicious Hadith, including the counsel to deceive the infidel, are just plain ugly all the way through.
Now we’re starting to see numbers.
From a dimensional perspective, fog floats with them: the reduction “ISIS bad : Brotherhood good : Hamas very good” (suggested by facets of the Fikra Forum report) is a head scratcher: what central beliefs and tenets and related attitudes constitute irreducible surveyed objects of interest?
While the “Islamic Small Wars” burn everywhere beneath the surface or on it, the want to address those “beliefs, tenets, and related attitudes” as candidly, completely and specifically as possible remains compelling.
Related and Recommended Reading
One woman gestured to her hijab, her face flushed, shouting: “Who are you to talk about these victims, when you aren’t even visibly Muslim?” For good measure, she added that I was personally responsible for the post 9/11 escalation in the harassment of veiled Muslim women.
The alternative axis of power — “Putin-Assad-Khamenei”, which may be more accurately expressed as “Khamenei-Putin-Assad” — is predicated entirely on the destruction of Jewish ethics, morality, and thought that has contributed mightily to the intellectual construction of the Judeo-Christian / Greco-Roman west. The west did not start out where it has arrived, but where it has arrived — equal rights, human rights, rule of law (rather than of men), democracy rather than despotism, etc. — stands as an affront to piratical dictatorships worldwide. Catch on and hang on or let go and get lost (so ISIS — bank robbers, plunderers extraordinaire — can pick you up) that sense of dignity in self and dignity in others might well be, ultimately, the “gift of the Jews”, from Moses to Muhammad in those parts speaking to the “better angels of our nature”. Putin, Assad, Khamenei are each believers in political absolutism. So is Baghdaddi. They may not know that they are really fighting together on the same side.
The tropes are going to take over, e.g., “Putin-Assad-Khamenei: together they are defending political absolutism.”
There’s some truth in them.
Perhaps they – so many repeated kernels, ideas, and puns – just need a page of their own.
Be that as it may, conflict involving “the west” may ultimately devolve to democracy vs despotism.
The details may be complicated, God knows, but the theme may be also just that simple.
Either have a voice in the governance of one’s geopolitical space — or not; either be free among those free to say yes and no to life’s challenges and opportunities — or be enslaved and have a host of decisions already made for you. Such choosing between good and evil should be stark, but for some torn between a lonely idealism and the seductions set out by tyrants — or promoted by their agents, manipulations, and money — such choosing becomes deeply confused.
BackChannels 