Irshad Manji: Religion is the root cause of terrorist threat

The Australian ^ | July 04 2007 | Irshad Manji

[knighthawk]

THIS week's arrest of Mohamed Haneef in Brisbane may be more curious for the fact he's a professional lifesaver than for the possibility that he's a terrorist. So far, most of those being investigated in the latest British car bomb plots are, as is Haneef, doctors. The seeming paradox of the privileged seeking to avenge humiliation has many scratching their heads. Aren't Muslim martyrs supposed to be poor, dispossessed and resentful? September 11 should have stripped us of that breezy simplification. The 19 hijackers came from means. Mohammed Atta, their ringleader, earned an engineering degree. He then moved to the West, opting for postgraduate studies in Germany. No aggrieved goatherder, that one.

In 2003, I interviewed Mohammad al-Hindi, the political leader of Islamic Jihad in Gaza.

A physician himself, al-Hindi explained the difference between suicide and martyrdom. "Suicide is done out of despair," the good doctor diagnosed. "But most of our martyrs today were very successful in their earthly lives."

[knighthawk]

Ping

[goldstategop]

She's very courageous. One of the rare moderate Muslims who can say what the British Prime Minister can't say loud - and what we all need hear to hear. Irshad Manji has all done us public service is bringing Islam out into the open along with the Islamofascist ideology extremists use to justify jihad. If we can't bring ourselves to help Muslims uproot the most repellent aspects of their faith, we're keeping them in the Dark Ages.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[dsc]

“If we can’t bring ourselves to help Muslims uproot the most repellent aspects of their faith, we’re keeping them in the Dark Ages.”

You can put lipstick on a pig, but it remains a pig.

Islam itself is evil.

[Capt. Tom]

Manji has all done us public service is bringing Islam out into the open along with the Islamofascist ideology extremists use to justify jihad.

Do you think the "extremists" are not following the religion as written in the Koran and the example set by Muhammed? - tom

[VOA]

Irshad Manji: Religion is the root cause of terrorist threat

Let's be clearer:
Those who read The Koran and The Hadiths, then decide it's a
great game plan for conquest and domination...they are the root
of the terrorist threat.

When people read the Holy Bible and decide it's a great game plan
for personal contact with The Almighty...
at the worst they might become holier-than-thou pain-in-the-derrieres
and less fun at family gatherings at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

There's a HUGH gulf between the two situations.

[gemma0000]

"The seeming paradox of the privileged seeking to avenge humiliation has many scratching their heads."

It's difficult to imagine who the people are that are "scratching their heads". The head of al Quaida, bin Laden, is from great wealth. His right hand man, al Zawarhiri, is a doctor. Knowing this fact, if government doesn't have the brains to figure out that it is ISLAM ITSELF that is the problem, and that wealth and position do not exempt muslims from being hateful terrorists, then we are lost.

[LiteKeeper]

FALSE] Religion is the root cause of terrorist threat

[gemma0000]

"If we can't bring ourselves to help Muslims uproot the most repellent aspects of their faith, we're keeping them in the Dark Ages."

I enjoy reading your posts and almost always agree with you, but this statement just doesn't make sense to me. Muslims are not trying to uproot the evil aspects of their faith, (which are abundant), nor are Westerners keeping them in the Dark Ages. In fact, we (foolishly) allow them to study in our universities in the tens of thousands. They keep themselves in the Dark Ages, completely, and willingly. There may be an outspoken muslim here and there who condemn their rotten, terrorist brethren, but they are rare, because the terrorists are not really saying or doing anything that the koran doesn't either allow or demand. Islam is a curse, a scourge on mankind, and there is no such thing as a "moderate" curse.

[goldstategop]

I should clarify I had in mind the political correctness that chokes our society like a suffocating miasma. If we denounce our own values and doubt the worth of our own free society and constantly apologize for it, then it follows we won't convince any one else its worth emulating. This takes on especial importance in an age in which Judeo Christian values have lost much of their meaning. Moral relativism and self hatred has filled the spiritual vacuum. If we stand for nothing, then something else will come in its place far more dangerous. We have a lot of strengths but in reality we are a weak reed. That's why Islamofascist perceive themselves to be on the winning side of history. They have faith, confidence and a willingness to die for their beliefs. All the West appears to want to do in contrast, is to be left alone to pursue its comfortable existence. We won't however, be left alone. The way to speak to Muslims who are here is not to blame our society for its shortcomings but to defend and exalt it the best we can. The Muslim World has no shortage of extremists seeking to die for Allah but its also true we have a lot of fools who believe being nice to our enemies is a virtue. I fear the Muslims less than I do the politically correct enemy that has become prominent in our culture and we all know who they are.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[vpintheak]

Attention England and the world: Muslim, Muslim, Muslim, Islam, Islam, Islam, terrorist, terrorist, terrorist.

[cynwoody]

 

 

 

Author Irshad Manji in Cairo, Egypt.

Credit: Tara Todras Whitehill