What should be Dem position on fundamentalist/literalist religious Muslims

[papau]

While fundamentalist/literalist religious folk in any religion are a challenge to those trying to keep the peace through political compromise, the fundamentalist/literalist religious Muslim seems to the only one that feels sanctioned by his religion to kill all those not in his religion. The Pope asked the Islamic Representatives to agree on tolerance and equal treatment - and they refused, saying tolerance was OK, but Islam can not be considered equal - it must be considered by the state and all in the state as Superior and above all other religions. And these, some would say, are the Muslims that today we would not call "fundamentalist/literalist religious Muslims".

So I was wondering what the political position of the left should be.

Does the Democratic Party need a position on this, or can we best wait out the reformation of Islam by pretending that the fundamentalist/literalist religious Muslims are not a threat to the state and all non-Muslims in the State? Given the fact that only the fundamentalist/literalist religious Muslim is a threat - and they are currently a very small part of the Muslim population - perhaps the latter course is best. But don't we need to make clear that we understand that there is a threat to the state from fundamentalist/literalist religious Muslims.

A fellow, Robert Spencer, author of Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam, and The Truth About Mohammed, is a right wing author that seems to appear only in the far right wing media, and does not appear in our everyday right wing media like CBS/NBC/ABC/MSNBC/FOX CABLE NEWS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Spencer. Academic scholars such as Daniel Pipes, Bat Ye'or, and Ibn Warraq are among those who have a positive view of Spencer's works, while academic scholars such as Carl Ernst, Khaleel Mohammed, organizations such as CAIR, ADC and Al-Qaeda hold negative views (per Wiki link above).

I am aware of the fact that many on the left find Spencer's right wing association reason to ignore him, but I have not been able to find anyone that can show that his facts are wrong - the only real criticism being an opinion that he has interpreted those facts without regard to a Muslim reformation that the critic sees going on.

Spencer has stated that it is a given that many Muslims are on our side against extremism, and that we must ally ourselves with them (e.g.. Free Muslims Coalition http://www.freemuslims.org/ , Sheikh Palazzi etc.), and that Muslims have the power to collectively reform and change their religion into one of tolerance and peace (and that we must promote this effort).

However he feels that a discussion of the elements of the Islamic religion that legitimize and promote violence is suppressed, in our media, as in the fact that the media does not report that some Muslim leaders say one thing for the English press and another to Islamic groups. Spencer has cited: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth." being said by Omar Ahmad, the chairman of the board of CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) to an Islamic group. Omar is one of the CAIR's spokesmen that appear regularly in the English media complaining about the treatment of Muslims and giving us the message that 'Muslims are part of the fabric of this great country and are working to build a better America.'

Quoting the Quran, "Slay the Unbelievers wherever ye find them. Seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them? (Quran 9:5), Spencer notes that the Islamic "crusades," were a march of brutal Islamic imperialism and colonization in the name of Allah, that only ended at the gates of Vienna on September 11, 1683, after the Muslim sword had made Muslim the ancient birth place of Christianity, the stomping grounds of the Apostle Paul, St. Augustine, and the incubator that produced the creed most Christians repeat on Sunday mornings. Western leaders who think non-Muslims can "win hearts and minds" among Islamic jihadists are naive, forgetting the supreme Muslim rule for how to live is "if it's good for Islam, it's right."

Spencer feels the West must understand what is really meant when it is said that Islam is indeed a religion of peace. Islam is indeed a religion of the peace - the peace that will prevail over the world when Sharia is the supreme law of every land. To bring this "peace" about, the fundamentalist/literalist religious Muslim believes he is commanded by God to wage war – not undifferentiated mayhem, but war for specified purposes, under specific circumstances and for particular ends. Mohammad was a military man as can be seen in the famous Battle of Badr, but he was fighting for this "Islamic peace". Indeed there is no Muslim lying going on is this war of religions, because Muhammad’s dictum that lying is permissible in war (Sahih Muslim, book 32, no. 6303) means it is not really lying.

Spencer feels that the left has adopted Edward Said’s view that any critical look at Islam or the Muslim world by Westerners was ipso facto racist and imperialist, and that this view has coalesced with the multiculturalist dogma that the Judeo-Christian West is responsible for all the evils in the world.

Spencer considers the following books as "politically correct guides to Islam" : Islam: A Short History by Karen Armstrong, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? by John Esposito, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam by Yahiya Emerick, and No god but God : The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam by Reza Aslan. He gives as an example John Esposito blaming the Crusades (“so-called holy wars”) in general for disrupting a pluralistic civilization: “Five centuries of peaceful coexistence elapsed before political events and an imperial-papal power play led to centuries-long series of so-called holy wars that pitted Christendom against Islam and left an enduring legacy of misunderstanding and distrust,” with the “five centuries of peaceful coexistence” exemplified by the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in 638 where: “churches and the Christian population were left unmolested,.” while Esposito ignores that era's sermon by the priest Sophronius who complained of the Muslims’ “savage, barbarous, and bloody sword” and of how difficult that sword had made life for the Christians.

Do Democrats need to make clear they understand this threat?

[mrcheerful]

1. How soon americans forget that we have our own brand of

dangerous willing to kill anyone religious extremists right here. We laugh at the crazy fundie woman who runs a camp for future christen soldiers while forgetting that the fundies didn't start being more then a pain on your door step in the 60's and 70's to what they are today. We blew them off as nut cases that would never get a foot in the door on our separation of church and state. Yet since 1980 they have become a major problem to our basic freedoms and our ability to teach our kids the facts of life or protect our kids from dieases or unwanted pregnancies.

We laugh and make fun of the death threats that goes on over in freeper ville and do the same when Rush or Ann the man call for the death of liberals failing to realize that some of these right wing fundies are very capable of carrying out those threats. We forget that nurses and doctors were murdered for working at womens health clinics or planned parent hood buildings. We forget that some religious nuts blew up said buildings. Today it might just be one or 2 over the top religious nuts pulling off these sort of things. But think back wasn't that exactlly how the muslim terrorist started?

If you think fundies aren't headed down that same path, look around, I've seen towns and communities that had a small fundie group living with in them and the next thing I knew, my ability to watch R-rated movies on cable were blocked out from that town and community. Look at how many adult book stores have been closed or adult entertainment joints have been closed. Look at the number of dry communities that have spread accross the nation. We are very well on the way to having religion run government in our country. Its past time to stop them as they are only getting worse. Remember last years war on christmas or how about easter? Don't forget how many communities have out lawed trick or treating on holloween because the fundies didn't want that satanic holiday.

[papau]

5. I agree as to fundi Christian danger - but I'm unaware of sanction by God

killing since the early 90's killing of the abortion doctor.

It seems we need to develop an approach to nations run by folks that smile as they buy into and act on the belief that they are sanctioned by God to kill in order to spread their faith. Indeed, that there is this need is a no-brainer of a conclusion.

The tough question is do political parties need to express what is their policy in these situations - or is it best kept unspoken as we are doing now. I suspect the later because the Pope's comment getting such a violent reaction proves that the Muslim reformation has not gotten very far at all - making verbal or written discussion out of the question.

[mrcheerful]

7. Do you really believe Christ or god

sanctions violence, ever? Sure it was wrote in the Christen rip off of the Hebrew religious text, an eye for an eye, but in the new testament Christ said those were the old ways and they were wrong. Christen faith is supposed to be based on pacifism, love they neighbor as you love yourself, if struck on your right cheek turn the left cheek. Beat your swords into plow shares ETC ETC ETC. Its been man thats bastardized the religion by cherry picking what chapter and verse they want to follow and has nothing to do with the real Christen religion. Todays Christens do not follow Christs teachings anymore then the Romans did. Remember early christens meekly allowed themselves to be fed to lions not one lifted a finger against those that murdered them. Also remember the meek shall inherit the kingdom of God.

[papau]

9. My heart is with your reading - but "just war" to defend seems reasonable

I have not achieved the turn the other cheek view - yet. And I agree that I should.

[Lexingtonian]

2. you're buying into and spreading bullshit

the fundamentalist/literalist religious Muslim seems to the only one that feels sanctioned by his religion to kill all those not in his religion

Not true as a fact, not true as theory.

Of course Democrats understand what is going on, and most of us don't subscribe to these anti-Islamist, racist, Christian Dominionist, and culture-historically European provincialist qua Eurocentrist points of view.

I'd like to see you explain the massacre/conquest of Jerusalem in 1099. The body count during the Crusades was extremely lopsided in favor of the Europeans, who really revelled in massacres, looting, and rape throughout them.

People like you are ridiculously ignorant of the kinds of things that cultural anthropology considers basic knowledge. Desert and herding peoples have different conventions about warfare and hospitality and toleration and mobility and property than do woodlands and agricultural peoples. Islam is a rather typical religion of desert peoples, upgraded from tribal scope to semi-universalism and corrupted with local paganism to the same degree Christianity was likewise universalized and corrupted with local Indoeuropean religion (i.e. the tripartite rain deity) in Anatolia and the Roman Empire.

If you look at the Catholic Church, it is no less dominionist than Islam. It simply has given up overt warfare at this point, having been defeated on the battlefields, and is now engaged in a scheme to outpopulate, infiltrate, and subvert/assimilate its competitors over the course of centuries or millenia as necessary. There is absolutely no other adequate way to explain its dogmatic, unBiblical, teachings about human sexuality and reproduction. The Mormons are more blatant about following the same scheme, and they too were defeated militarily before resorting to this.

Islam is no more and no less dominionist than Christianity is and has been. As body count goes, I'd say Christianity is an easy winner.

You're being theologically silly in your physical/materialist interpretation of "religion of peace". No serious religion believes that redemption of the world can occur without continuous conflict, and religiously psychological violence and psychological resistance and psychologic/spiritual peace and psychological/spiritual survival is of a different- incredibly much higher- tier of importance than the physical manifestations of these things. It is a pagan European dogma that the material world is the one that counts absolutely, if I may point out the fundamental (and fatal) defect that your argument/assertion rests upon.

[Lexingtonian]

4. if you need a politics

the thing to do is to simply leave the Islamic world to develop on its own. Al Qaeda exists and acts explicitly because Westerners interfere so blatantly and violently and vilely in the affairs of this part of the world. Al Qaeda is many things that are bizarre and medieval, and if you really track them back as a historical phenomenon, they are a continuation of the Hashashim, from whom we have inherited the words "assassin" and "hashish".

If you look at Al Qaeda's serious demands, they are (a) withdrawal of Western military forces from the Islamic world, in which they prop up oppressive obsolete feudal regimes (e.g. the Kuwaiti emirate, the Al Saud monarchy, the Mubarak neo-pharaohism, the Iranian Shah at one time, the Alawite oligarchy in Syria, the colonialist Zionist governments in the state of Israel, the Maronite or puppet regimes in Lebanon, the militarist regime in Pakistan, etc.)

(b), Al Qaeda wants all the Western trashy "culture" and pathological forms of consumer materialism out of the Middle East. Exactly the same things political Christians and Right wing Christians and reasonable want removed from American culture at present- the porn, the smut, the condoned exaggerated sexuality and various drugs and addictive behaviorisms, the prioritization of status objects and degradation of the value of lives lived well and heroically, the lack of respect for asceticism and humility and modesty. Of course, they go too far, but you give them no respect for the very sensible things they want and the pathological aspects of Western life that they can see and reject assimilating to.

(c), Al Qaeda is out to achieve respect by the West for Islam. Since no positive and worthwhile respect can be earned from racist and religionist bigots in Europe and white North America who exclude all others from acceptance as a civilization, the only respect that can be earned is that which fear creates. And Al Qaeda has succeeded at that beyond its wildest hopes.

What is the Western solution for this? Well, we can actually afford to let the Middle East develop to Modernity on its own, as Americans insisted to develop to their hope of a collective life autonomously as well, not ruled by foreigners or foreign interference. We can in fact accept Islam as a religion in which people of seriousness and dignity- people who are spiritually real- live their lives. If we do this, there is no fuel for Al Qaeda and the like to continue.

Why don't we?

Historically, no terrorist group has ever been defeated by violence or state attempts to destroy them. Terrorist groups come to an end when their political raison d'etre is lost. And if anything, our "War on Terror" has proven AQ's political raison d'etre in the eyes of the Islamic world.

So there is only one solution to the problem. And it's the near-opposite of what the fools running the show have pretended was the right one.

[papau]

6. I agree that perceived occupation is the usual start of terrorism and is

the original reason for Al Qaeda (bases in Saudi Arabia and now troops in Iraq). I also agree that a common end point of the terrorism is the end of the occupation.

This terrorism appears different as it is has become for many a reaction to the "occupation" by Western TV and materialism of the previously unchanging over centuries culture, albeit a culture of women as slave like houseworker that does not question anything the male does but hides her own sexuality under the guise of humility and modesty. Everyone is of course free to reject anything - including Western human values - but that freedom ends when it screws up the freedom of others. "The pathological aspects of Western life that they can see and reject assimilating to" is no problem to anyone until their rejection says I must believe as they do or die.

As to leaving them alone, there is no problem except the ones us Westerners cause, point of view, we can say that fundi Christians and fundi Jews are also "people of seriousness and dignity- people who are spiritually real" who want only to live their lives - but when their rights screw up my rights, there will either be a "reformation" of that religion - or one or both sides - the fundi or "my" side - will become terrorists.


As an aside - I believe the Hashashim was very different culture from either the nationalistic or religion based terrorist culture - as in the very materialistic motives of the Hashashim not being part of today's terrorist motivation. As to "no terrorist group has ever been defeated by violence or state attempts to destroy them", the Roman, albeit ruthless, approach worked for the better part of several hundred years, as did the Tsar's and the Chinese Emperors approaches. But I agree that we do not want the ruthless approach as that is not who we are and if used would change us into something less than we are now, in my opinion.

[papau]

8. Seems we disagree as to the facts of the current situation - with

your saying those that disagree with you have anti-Islamist, racist, Christian Dominionist, and culture-historically European provincialist qua Eurocentrist points of view.

Interesting.

The first Crusade was in reaction to the Islamic Crusade that wiped out, in total, many a Christian town as it took Christian populations captive and achieved the spread of Islam by the sword. Indeed for the first few hundred years after the conquest Islam was able to convert less than half the population. Having taxes abated if you were Islamic was the force that after half a millennium got more than half the population to convert to Islam (Islam as practiced today continues the special tax on non-Muslim citizens).

As to the First Crusade's blood, the Crusaders did not harm the cities controlled by Muslims on the Med coast as they marched to Jerusalem. Indeed local Sunnis preferred Crusader control to Shi'ite Fatimid rule and the parties worked out treaties. While the Fatimid governor Iftikar ad-Daula had expelled most of the Christians from Jerusalem, many remained and became part of the body count when the 12,000 foot-soldiers stopped taking orders from the 1000 knights and instead killed every human they could find in the city. I have never heard what caused the men to do this. Perhaps it was seeing the Christian villages where Fatimid rulers had caused similar deaths, or hearing of how Mohamed himself had ordered similar actions.

Later Crusades were rich folk's wars for pilgrimage income.

I am curious about your statement that the Muslim call to kill all non-Muslims is an expected and common characteristic of Desert Peoples per cultural anthropology basic knowledge. This makes the call to kill something we should get used to living with?

I liked your tossing out the idea that. like Islam, "Christianity was likewise universalized and corrupted with local Indoeuropean religion (i.e. the tripartite rain deity)" - referring I guess to the categorization attempt by the anthropologist Georges Dumézil and now applying it to Christianity I guess. I am curious how God the father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit relate to the "gifts" (wisdom, victory, and life)‚ although the Holy Spirit was indeed thought of as "wisdom". Later anthropologists of course find 3 gifts too limiting for God and have a few more divisions - such as Lang expanding "life" so as to have 3 divine roles: protector of wild animals and giver of productivity (Lord of Animals), giver of life and well-being to persons (Lord of the Individual), and provider of rain and abundance (Lord of the Harvest). In any case an interesting system of categorization with lots of interesting factoids from ritual and practice, compositions and their tradition history,Indian beliefs, and myths in general, all with little to do with the Christian God of Scripture, recorded divine speech, speech about God or how Christians view God, what God is like, what God said, what God did, and how Christians say God was or did these things. But this explains what about how we should react to Muslims saying they have both a right and a duty to kill non-Muslims?

Your point that the Catholic Church being defeated on the battlefields (thought it won at Venice and since then - but no matter), must now conquer the world by use of sex to outpopulate other religions, makes me recall the battle cry of the left in the 60's - "Make love - not war". :-)

Islam is no more and no less dominionist than Christianity is/has been ignores mode of domination - it is the war thing that is the problem..

Lastly when you say I am "being theologically silly in your physical/materialist interpretation of "religion of peace". No serious religion believes that redemption of the world can occur without continuous conflict" - you appear to be ignoring "turn the other cheek" being different from cut off their heads. But then you close on "It is a pagan European dogma that the material world is the one that counts absolutely", ignoring Christ's admonition to lay up no treasure on the Earth, but instead to work on getting that treasure in Heaven - none of which is on point anyway since the Muslim, feels the same way, with the fundi Muslim believing he gets that treasure in heaven by screwing up the lives of non-Muslims on Earth.

[katsy]

3. Are you saying Islam is the threat that Democrats need understand?

I don't think of Islam as an enemy threat.

Extremist elements whether Christian or Islamic are the threat.

If one wants to paint an entire religion (like Islam) as terrorists, expect a genocide. Hitler demonized the Jews and committed genocide.

If the extremist elements are recognized as the criminal elements they are, they should be tried for their crimes according to and with all the rights of the accused under our laws.

IMO, Democrats should follow our laws, treat terrorism as the crime it is and not demonize Islam.

Here's a good read, especially Misconceptions #s 7 & 8:

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/notislam/misconceptions.html

[papau]

10. Sadly- Misconceptions #s 7 & 8 are not currently misconceptions

After "reform" they may become Misconceptions -

As the verses quoted prove - there is much that can be used to hang ones hat on to use in a "reform" movement.

But the Saudi version (albeit it Wahhabism but the view is being accepted among portions of all the sects) has a hard time with "just cause" as in "Nor take life - which Allah has made sacred - except for just cause." Currently a "reform" authoritative religious scholar can issue a fatwa -- a ruling - perhaps saying to not kill US tourists - and the likely result result would be other authoritative religious scholars declaring the fatwa to be in error, with more than one declaring the issuing mufti (a jurist who interprets Muslim law) an apostate, in effect rendering a death sentence.

I wish those misconceptions were really misconceptions.

"treat terrorism as crime" is of course the only way to go - but being blind to what is being taught as "Islam" is not the way to go.