format_quote Originally Posted by
Aprender
If you don't mind my asking, what were some of the things you were taught about Islam?
I'm not sure I can really relate exactly what I was taught.
Some of the stuff was pretty general, though I can't say I'm necessarily certain of its accuracy. We learned the pillars, some of the customs of some local mosques.
I think the stuff that struck me as odd then is a little easier to relate.
We focused on the "political nature" of Islam. The belief being, that Islam and a secular state are always in contention. In many ways, Islam was a threat to "America."
No matter how 'moderate' a Muslim was, they were still part of a system that couldn't be reconciled. Furthermore, Muslims couldn't be trusted in our military or our government. If we did trust them, we could expect them to betray information to different terrorist or 'Anti-American' groups.
We also talked about the 'sixth pillar' of Islam being Jihad.
While Muslims might say that jihad was a primarily personal the real focus was on the external(war).
Oh, and Allah allows Muslims to lie to infidels in order to deceive them into having a more accepting view of Islam.
We learned the pillars as well as some of the customs of different Mosques. And then we discussed
Beyond that, a lot of i