Posted on 03/20/2008 8:08:03 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Saudi Arabia is to retrain its 40,000 prayer leaders - also known as imams - in an effort to counter militant Islam. Details of the plan were revealed in the influential Saudi newspaper Al- Sharq al-Awsat.
The plan is part of a wider programme launched by the Saudi monarch a few years ago to encourage moderation and tolerance in Saudi society.
The ministry of religious affairs and new centre for national dialogue will carry out the training, the paper said.
The centre was created five years ago to disseminate a moderate interpretation of Islamic tradition.
There is growing awareness in Saudi society that security measures alone are not enough to counter the threat of Islamic militancy.
Scepticism
Saudi clerics have long been accused of encouraging Saudi youth to join global jihad and of inciting hatred of non-Muslims.
Nearly 1,000 imams have already been sacked over the past few years.
The Saudi royal family has come under increasing pressure - mainly from Washington - to change religious textbooks and to rein in militant clerics.
But critics are sceptical about whether such initiatives would work as long as the powerful, and ultraconservative, religious establishment in Saudi Arabia continues to exert enormous influence over society.
Only last week, a prominent cleric called for the beheading of two liberal writers who had questioned the orthodox view that Muslims can not change their religion.
fwiw
Ping.
This is like teaching Reverend Wright to trust and love whitey. Ain’t going to happen for real IMO.
They have to remove all of them, the books and start with different people from the ground up.
Ya never know.. I would like to see the clerics at all mosques here re-trained post haste for starters, whether they have indicated any propensities for going radical or not.
also, remember, the hatreds and antagonistic are not genetic but taught and will not be changed overnight.
Time will tell whether this is doable soon enough to spare us all the alternative which is to continue the fight that can and will only claim many more lives on both sides over time and only make any hopes for true change that bioth are comfortable with.
It may not work, but there aren’t many other choices available we can afford for now.
Be cheaper and faster to just kill em all. End of problem. Ammo is cheap. Immans are cheaper.
Just kidding folks.
The Saudis are desperate for this to work, and not because of us.
Saudis started this, and it has come back to bite them lately as they are often now focusing on the Saudi leaders.
Desperate may be an understatement of their predicament.
Radical Islam has no mercy on anyone, even for those who are of the same homeland or desert as it were..
Remember that Osama Bin Laden always wanted to be Kind of that country after dethroning the royal family.
One can accept this for what it really is, an admission that Islam is riddles with radical imams who are dangerous to civilization.
Madrassas:
What about all those Saudi-funded Wahabbist Terrorist Supporting Madrassas?
I believe the Saudis fund these terror breeding grounds still today.
See Pakistan.
They may be training peace-loving clerics for the home front, but the ones they are training or exporting abroad are the militant strain of the virus.
“Saudi Arabia is to retrain its 40,000 prayer leaders - also known as imams - in an effort to counter militant Islam. “
Spare me. Probably training them to be more subtle.
That will get you killed! (yet it works IIRC)
That may be all fine & good but there’s a little matter of the Koran:
Sura (2:191-193) - “And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution of Muslims is worse than slaughter of non-believers...and fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah.”
Sura (5:33) - “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement”
Sura (8:12) - “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them”
Bukhari (52:177) - Allah’s Apostle said, “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. “O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.”
Tabari 7:97 The morning after the murder of Ashraf, the Prophet declared,”Kill any Jew who falls under your power.”
Ibn Ishaq: 327 - “Allah said, ‘A prophet must slaughter before collecting captives. A slaughtered enemy is driven from the land. Muhammad, you craved the desires of this world, its goods and the ransom captives would bring. But Allah desires killing them to manifest the religion.’”
I hear ya,, it’s the “little things” that can mess up the best laid plan..
Just send 'em to Iraq, we'll take care of them for you.
Imams get in, but they don't get out.
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