Posted on 05/22/2004 5:51:40 AM PDT by KeyLargo
Now, back to your point of about the authior being clueless, his point is that Wahabbi-style Islam is spreading even on to the Shiite world.
It's also known as Islamism.
You say that he is clueless...can you refute his statement?
I don't know about that, but it does prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that one should never take NyQuil when DayQuil is called for.
Reading comprehension 101.
The author is in no way insinuating that Shiites are embracing Sunnis, but rather that Islamism (extremist fundamentalist Islam) is infiltrating all branches of Islam.
Nothing wrong with that sentence at all. And his concept is plainly visible in Iraq.
Luis said: "...even on to the Shiite world..."
When I first read the article, the relationship between Wahabbism and the Shi'ites escaped me. Then, Killing Time made his/her point-which got me to thinking.
My immediate reaction was that the word "even" should have been substituted in the article for the word, "especially".
Luis, in your post you use the word, "even".
Best thing to do would be to ask the author.
I'll try, later tonight, to reach Mr. Abraham for clarification and will get back with you.
I think it is a good essay, but also believe that Killing Time raises a good question.
Moqtada al-Sadr is a Shiite, but his brand of Islam is closer to the Wahabi version than anything else.
The Wahabi version of Islam is spreading to Shiites.
And aquila48 responds:
I'm afraid things will have to get much worse here before there is a critical mass that will heed these words.
John speaking:
I'm reaching the point where I _almost_ believe that America - and The West - is going to LOSE this conflict. NOT because we can't win it, certainly not. But because, as a nation, we no longer have cognizance of what we face, nor, having realized that, do we have the collective will, the "stomach" to win.
I wonder if the "average American" has any _concept_ of what kind of a struggle we are involved in, and how long it might last?
Of course, most Freepers are tuned into this reality, but the overwhelming majority of Americans are _not_. The country remains divided, possibly irreconciliably so. And so divided, the so-called "War on Terrorism" (which we of this forum _know_ to be a misnomer) cannot be won, and further, the REAL war we're engaged in cannot be won, either.
If the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon were not enough to "solidify" Americans to the cause, what kind of attack _would_?
Some speculate that it will take a nuclear or biological attack on our soil to re-create the national unity that will be necessary in order to prevail, to create the unity displayed by Americans in World War II.
But I sense that - even in the wake of a monstrous attack (aside: was not the 9/11 attack "monstrous"? Then why do so many Americans seem to have forgotten it already, as something they saw on tv a few years ago?) - as Americans, we may have become too divided, too weak, too "multicultural", to win a struggle that will require the sacrifices, hardship, near-universal military service, and perseverance on a scale that will _surpass_ those sacrifices made by the generations before us that triumphed in 1945.
Simply stated, America as a nation and a culture, may have lost its sense of self-preservation, our will to fight for what we know and believe in. Could that be because - as a "diverse nation" - we no longer believe in the same things?.
I don't write this lightly. Indeed, we have the greatest military power ever amassed in history, staffed by skilled, capable, and dedicated soldiers. But although armies may win battles, they cannot overcome cultural struggles and changes of national heart. Do we still have the collective "heart" to win? Do we have the [national] collective identity to comprehend and define the struggle ahead of us?
At this point, I would say no. At least, not yet.
In another thread a few weeks back, [I think] Freeper Jim Noble posted that, in his view, it would take "100 Divisions" of miltary might to win the coming struggle. Others frothed at the notion, but I believe Jim is right - if nothing more, by sensing the magnitude of the threat we (and the rest of the West) face.
It will take an America that is willing to give - by conscription and draft if need be - 100 Divisions, along with commensurate treasure and personal sacrifices to win the War with Islam. Before it's over, it will touch every American family in the ways that WW2 did: the lost family members, the maimed, the rationing. We will have to endure the uncertainty of a victory that seems unattainable, but maintain the will to press on regardless because we know in our hearts our cause is right, self-certain that the enemy and evil (yes, "evil") we face must be vanquished from the earth if we are to have peace once more.
It may take 50 years of protracted struggle to bring Islam to heel; it could take more.
Is America ready for this? Certainly _not_ the America in which morale and purpose caves with the publication of some staged photos from an Iraqi prison.
It was a completely different nation that won World War II. Sadly, that "America" no longer exists.
What will it take to unify the America that is _today_, to instill within us the will to win?
Cheers!
- John
Luis,
I just sent a letter to Mr. Abraham.
If he responds, I will post his response (I asked for his permission) to this thread.
This is all for understanding rather than argument.
Please send Mr. Abraham my compliments.
Yes, it has been my view since October, 2001 that victory requires the heavy occupation and reconstruction of Pakistan, Arabia (SA, Yemen, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon) and the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
I am no military expert, I'm just a patzer-but this vision requires a very, very large Army.
When Bush spoke to Congress on 9/16/01, they would have given him whatever he asked for.
He didn't ask for enough.
If they really mean well and their god is loving and kind and merciful then they won't have much in the way of theological difficulty in modifying those passages. It's really quite simple. The world is to freakin' small to allow large swaths of it's muslim population to go around and "possibly" interpret the parts that say "kill all of the non-believers you can lay your hands on, tax the hell out of the survivors and take their women" to actually mean what it says...
Deuteronomy 17:12 The man who shows contempt for the judge or for the priest who stands ministering there to the LORD your God must be put to death. You must purge the evil from Israel.
Well, there's all sorts of violence in The Bible as well.
buy, rent, or lease a clue. that is just about the most perfectly wrong statement I have ever seen here. Al Qaeda has specifically noted the shia as the more devilish foe.
Shia are a minority in Saudi Arabia, probably constituting about 5 percent of the total population, their number being estimated from a low of 200,000 to as many as 400,000.
Shia are concentrated primarily in the Eastern Province, where they constituted perhaps 33 percent of the population, being concentrated in the oases of Qatif and Al Ahsa.
Saudi Shia belong to the sect of the Twelvers, the same sect to which the Shia of Iran and Bahrain belong. The Twelvers believe that the leadership of the Muslim community rightfully belongs to the descendants of Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet, through Ali's son Husayn.
There were twelve such rightful rulers, known as Imams, the last of whom, according to the Twelvers, did not die but went into hiding in the ninth century, to return in the fullness of time as the messiah (mahdi) to create the just and perfect Muslim society.
From a theological perspective, relations between the Shia and the Wahhabi Sunnis are inherently strained because the Wahhabis consider the rituals of the Shia to be the epitome of shirk (polytheism; literally "association"), especially the Ashura mourning celebrations, the passion play reenacting Husayn's death at Karbala, and popular votive rituals carried out at shrines and graves.
In the late 1920s, the Ikhwan (Abd al Aziz ibn Abd ar Rahman Al Saud's fighting force of converted Wahhabi beduin Muslims) were particularly hostile to the Shia and demanded that Abd al Aziz forcibly convert them.
In response, Abd al Aziz sent Wahhabi missionaries to the Eastern Province, but he did not carry through with attempts at forced conversion. Government policy has been to allow Shia their own mosques and to exempt Shia from Hanbali inheritance practices. Nevertheless, Shia have been forbidden all but the most modest displays on their principal festivals, which are often occasions of sectarian strife in the gulf region, with its mixed Sunni-Shia populations.
Shia came to occupy the lowest rung of the socioeconomic ladder in the newly formed Saudi state. They were excluded from the upper levels of the civil bureaucracy and rarely recruited by the military or the police; none was recruited by the national guard. The discovery of oil brought them employment, if not much of a share in the contracting and subcontracting wealth that the petroleum industry generated.
Shia have formed the bulk of the skilled and semiskilled workers employed by Saudi Aramco. Members of the older generation of Shia were sufficiently content with their lot as Aramco employees not to participate in the labor disturbances of the 1950s and 1960s.
In 1979 Shia opposition to the royal family was encouraged by the example of Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini's revolutionary ideology from Iran and by the Sunni Islamist (sometimes seen as fundamentalist) groups' attack on the Grand Mosque in Mecca in November. During the months that followed, conservative ulama and Ikhwan groups in the Eastern Province, as well as Shia, began to make their criticisms of government heard. On November 28, 1979, as the Mecca incident continued, the Shia of Qatif and two other towns in the Eastern Province tried to observe Ashura publicly. When the national guard intervened, rioting ensued, resulting in a number of deaths.
Two months later, another riot in Al Qatif by Shia was quelled by the national guard, but more deaths occurred. Among the criticisms expressed by Shia were the close ties of the Al Saud with and their dependency on the West, corruption, and deviance from the sharia. The criticisms were similar to those levied by Juhaiman al Utaiba in his pamphlets circulated the year before his seizure of the Grand Mosque. Some Shia were specifically concerned with the economic disparities between Sunnis and Shia, particularly since their population is concentrated in the Eastern Province, which is the source of the oil wealth controlled by the Sunni Al Saud of Najd. During the riots that occurred in the Eastern Province in 1979, demands were raised to halt oil supplies and to redistribute the oil wealth so that the Shia would receive a more equitable share.
After order was restored, there was a massive influx of government assistance to the region. Included were many large projects to upgrade the region's infrastructure. In the late 1970s, the Al Jubayl project, slated to become one of the region's largest employers, was headed by a Shia. In 1992, however, there were reports of repression of Shia political activity in the kingdom. An Amnesty International report published in 1990 stated that more than 700 political prisoners had been detained without charge or trial since 1983, and that most of the prisoners were Shia.
True enough. But I expect accuracy in posted essays. (ifnot spelling) Gotta know your enemy to fight him/it effectively.
We're talking New Testament with respect to Christianity and, while not up on Judaism AFAIK they don't have ANYONE espousing OT\Torah requirements to enforce death penalty religeous mores or to lay waste and beget misery upon non Judaic peoples.
Face it, The Koran and the Hadiths and apologia of Islam ACTIVELY promote the violent conversion of non-believers and a LOT of other horrible stuff and there are AT LEAST 10-15% of it's ~1.2 billion followers willing to accept as "in stone" those passages. It's further complicated by instruction to LIE and INFILTRATE non-believers, making all followers suspect on some level. NO large number of clerics in Middle Eastern countries step up to the plate to denounce this.
There is NO example of this type of mindset in Judaeo Christian cultures today. Aside from a rare sociopathic nutjob (who is immediately denounced by Christian leaders en-masse) there are NO masses of followers in those religeons willing to strap explosives on their children (Palestinians), enslave thousands of non-believers (Sudanese), provoke religeous bloodbaths (Nigeria, Indonesia, India), mutilate their women's sexual organs (much of Islamic world) etc... I dare say you won't find a SINGLE non Islamic nation whose purpose for the developement of nuclear weapons is to pre-emptively utilize them to eradicate another nation without thought of the consequence to their own people (Iran with respect to Israel).
Islam as it stands is a blood and death cult. For ~1300 years this has not changed. Until they modify their religeous texts to remove the calls to bring misery and death upon non-believers they are the enemy and are not to be trusted. Until the west gets this through their thick skulls we are at serious risk...
Bless you, you understand. Some conservatives think that Algore would not have responded to 911---nay, he would have used nukes. It is lost on most people how Bush is giving the Islamic world a chance to transform themselves, at the expense of American blood and dollars.
So, the best thing about the Jews that you can say is that they are willingly not following God's commands?
"Face it, The Koran and the Hadiths and apologia of Islam ACTIVELY promote the violent conversion of non-believers"
Not at all. The version of Islam being actively promoted by so-called "fundamentalist" Muslims does, but not mainstream Islam, otherwise, we'd be fighting a whole lot more people than we are now.
"...there are AT LEAST 10-15% of it's ~1.2 billion followers willing to accept as "in stone" those passages."
Well, that leaves 85-90% who DO NOT!
"Islam as it stands is a blood and death cult."
According to your own words, 85-90% of Islam does not practice the religion as a blood and death cult. Make up your mind, is it Islam, or is it the 10-15% radicals who are the enemy?
Hint: it's the 10-15%.
"For ~1300 years this has not changed."
Where were the Fundamentalist Islamic terrorists in the 1930's? The 1950's?
"Anyone concerned with what's happening in our world ought to spend some time reading the Koran." Andy Rooney, the famed CBS commentator, gave this advice shortly after 9/11, as did plenty of others.
His suggestion makes intuitive sense, given that the terrorists themselves say they are acting on the basis of the holy scripture of Islam. Accused 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta had a Koran (sometimes spelled Qur'an) in the suitcase he had checked for his flight. His five-page document of advice for fellow hijackers instructed them to pray, ask God for guidance, and "continue to recite the Koran." Osama bin Laden often quotes the Koran to motivate and convince followers.
Witnesses report that at least one of the suicide bombers who tried to assassinate Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, last month was reading the Koran before blowing himself up. Hamas suicide videotapes routinely feature the Koran.
And lots of non-Muslims in fact have been reading the Koran. In the weeks after September 11, the book's largest publisher in the United States reported that sales had quintupled; it had to airlift copies from Great Britain to meet the demand. American bookstores reported selling more Korans than Bibles.
All this, incidentally, was music to Islamist ears. Hossam Gabri of the Islamic Society of Boston, a group tied to a terrorism funder, considers non-Muslims trying to understand the Koran "a very good development." But reading the Koran is precisely the wrong way to go about understanding "what's happening in our world." That's because the Koran is:
Profound. One cannot pick it up and understand its meaning when nearly every sentence is the subject of annotations, commentaries, glosses, and superglosses. Such a document requires intensive study of its context, development, and rival interpretations. The U.S. Constitution offers a good analogy: its Second Amendment consists of a just 27 words ("A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed") but it is the subject of numerous book-length studies. No one coming fresh to this sentence has any idea of its implications.
Complex and contradictory. Contradictions in the text have been studied and reconciled over the centuries through extensive scholarly study. Some verses have been abrogated and replaced by others with contrary meanings. For example, verse 9:5 commands Muslims not to slay pagans until the sacred months have passed and verse 9:36 tells Muslims to fight pagans during those same months. The casual reader has no idea which of these is operational. (In fact, the latter is.)
Static: An unchanging holy scripture cannot account for change over time. If the Koran causes terrorism, then how does one explain the 1960s, when militant Islamic violence barely existed? The Koran was the same text then as now. More broadly, over a period of 14 centuries, Muslims have been inspired by the Koran to act in ways aggressive and passive, pious and not, tolerant and not. Logic demands that one look elsewhere than an immutable text to account for such shifts.
Partial: Holy books have vast importance but do not create the immediate context of action. Reading the Bible in isolation gives limited insight into the range of Jewish and Christian experiences over the millennia; likewise, Muslims have read the Koran differently over time. The admonishment for female modesty meant one thing to Egyptian feminists in the 1920s and another to their descendants today. Then, head coverings represented oppression and exclusion from public life. Today, in the words of a British newspaper headline, "Veiled is beautiful." Then, the head-covering signaled a woman not being a full human being; now, in the words of an editor at a fashion magazine, the head-covering "tells you, you're a woman. … You have to be treated as an independent mind." Reading the Koran in isolation misses this unpredictable evolution. In brief, the Koran is not a history book.
A history book, however, is a history book. Instead of the Koran, I urge anyone wanting to study militant Islam and the violence it inspires to understand such phenomena as the Wahhabi movement, the Khomeini revolution, and Al-Qaeda. Muslim history, not Islamic theology, explains how we got here and hints at what might come next.
Here in FR, we acknowledge the source of the information posted, and those who knowingly take credit for the work of others are shunned.
What you did, can be interpreted as plagiarism.
Anti-anti-Muslim at Freerepublic? You will be pretty lonely here.
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