[Dialup Llama]

>Anything with that position in particular that you disagree with?

To start with, The author writes:"Purpose: Qur’anic verses permitting military jihad (22:39-40) indicate that it is not a vehicle to expand Islam but to defend the rights of those who are persecuted because of their religion."

Total fantasy and an utter revision of history.

What is author is really proposing is creating a generic monotheism, influenced by western liberal traditions and Christianity while still preserving some outward, cultural practices- its not islam, never was. I'm not disagreeing with his goal. I hope its successful. Its just that what he is saying is not in the book and not in the history. Some muslims do say that jihad is spiritual struggle. Some of those muslim groups have institutionalized that view. They are the muslims who don't follow the Koran.

[Angelus Errare]

How do I say this ...

The reason I posted this article was primarily because a number of people said that they were searching for Muslims who were ready to condemn all of the radicals, extremists, terrorists, true believers, or whatever else you want to call them. Here is an example of one who has the guts to talk about the true extent of the threat.

You want to regard his stuff as inconsistent with "real" Islam as defined by whatever standard you want to apply, that's fine. You want to believe Mohammed was evil, the Qu'ran teaches hate, that's fine. But here is one Muslim cleric who has the guts to stand up to the extremists and try to take back what he believes is the true essence of his religion.

You may disagree with him on the particulars, but I certainly don't begrudge him his goal.

[JasonC]

Why do you think that following a book is what makes someone a muslim? Catholics see the bible as important only because the church says it is, and the church as possessing a teaching authority that is higher than any book. Likewise, a sunni sees the koran as important because his tradition says it is ("sunni" means "tradition" or "precedent"), and sees his tradition as higher than any book. Catholics see the "magisterium" or teaching authority as able to overrule outdated or barbaric portions of the bible (e.g. the law codes of Leviticus), and sunnis see tradition, consensus, and precedent as able to overrule outdated practices from the koran or early islam. They have an explicit principle that later rulings outweigh earlier ones, not the other way around.

Nowhere is it written that only Bob Jones literalists are "really" christians, and nowhere is it written that only literalist muslims are muslims. And even if it were written somewhere, it still wouldn't be true, because truth is not something that exists in moldy books, but out in the real world of living, breathing human beings.

When someone ransacks an ancient book for all the instances of injustice and oppression he can find in it, to justify his own present day injustices and oppressions, you can be sure you are in the presence, not even a sincere but misguided literalist, but of an evil hypocrite speciously cloaking himself in outdated practices, the better to deceive some number of people who would otherwise oppose him.

When someone looks around the world for followers of the devil so he can kill them with a supposedly good conscience, instead of looking within himself for temptations to evil-doing in order to resist those temptations, you can be sure you are in the presence of someone who believes, not in the devil, but in murder.

When someone asks not whether his own deeds could be defended before a just God, but whether somebody else's opinions are supposedly approved by his own ideas about God, you can be sure you are not in the presence of someone who believes in a just God, but of a hypocrite who wishes he were omnipotent, and wants to persecute anyone who disagrees with him.

When you see someone who practices "do unto other as you would have them do unto you" i.e. good, however he understands where that saying came from and its importance, you know he can see morality itself. Whenever you see someone who instead practices "do (evil) unto others before they do (evil) unto you", you know he sees only violence, political scheming, power games.

Islam is a matter of millions of men over whole continents for centuries. In practice, there is no way it is going to fit into a soundbite. There is no way it can be reduced to one book. It is a human thing, with the faults of men in abundance. Also with the occasional understanding of some men, the occasional justice of others, etc.

Twenty five years ago, where were the determined anti-US, anti-western aspects of Islam? The PLO was terrorist certainly - and backed by the Soviets. Syria and Iraq were already armed clients of - Russia. If the supposed essence of islam makes it impossible for any of them ever to get along with us, then how come so many of them once did? As long as they hadn't picked communism, that is.

I found the article one of the most encouraging things I've read it the past year. It shows to me that some get it, see the civilizational danger we are all in, and the importance of heading off the catastrophe in the right way. If you like, call it divide and conquer. It you like, call it appealing to the better angels of their nature. But in the end, we will wind up sharing the earth with a large number of believers in this religion. Call it a heresy, as Belloc did, if you like. Call it a false religion - almost all of them are, everyone agrees (a few say all, that is the only dispute on the point). Which will be a lot easier if they learn to live with it, within their existing traditions instead of without them.

Which, incidentally, does not mean one can't preach to them to convert them further, if you think it'd help. Giving up completely on a sixth of the human race is not allowed by any doctrine, except a faithless cynicism.

[livius]

"They [non-Islamists] are the muslims who don't follow the Koran.

This is too true, and it is the crucial difference between Islam and other religions where people may have pursued violence. It is also the thing thatt, in the last analysis, makes the non-Islamist Muslims so vulnerable to recruitment into radicalism and/or simple reduction to silence by Islamist muslims.

Futhremore,claims that "Islamism" was just a fluke might be more convincing if modern Islamism did not reflect Islam's historical behavior since the time of its very birth. The only atypical thing about Islam in recent times is how quiet it has been until now (well, after a few military defeats by the West at the end of the 19th century/beginning of the 20th).