What's the right way for UK Muslims to persuade extremists to stop being extremists?

format_quote Originally Posted by Search

(In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)

(Peace be upon you)



I am not a scholar. That said, I believe scholars use the ayat (verse) 4:59, "O, you who have believed, obey Allah, and obey the Messenger, and obey those in authority..."

Even within a shariah (Islamic law)-ruled state, no one is allowed to practice vigilantism, otherwise what is the function of the state?

Also, the shariah (Islamic law) does not give anyone permission whether in a shariah (Islamic law)-ruled state or not to practice vigilantism.



Let them do what they want. Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “There should be neither harming nor reciprocating harm.”

How does what they do affect Islam? The more hatred comes out of their mouths and their limbs, the more people become curious about Islam, and the more people convert to Islam. You do know that conversion rates to Islam have been growing despite the Islamophobic rhetoric in the public? In fact, in article about Muslims having doubled in the U.S. since 9/11, Dales Jones, data analyst and mapping specialist for the Religion Census, said, "Persecution is sometimes good for a religious group — in the sense of being able to attract more followers, for some reason. Rarely is opposition a very effective tool in stopping the growth of a movement."

Also, in the same article, "Dr. Ihsan Bagby, associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky, agreed that any negative sentiments against Islam has only built up resiliance in the Muslim community. 'You get stronger with resistance,' he said. 'If everything is just peachy keen, it's hard to grow. I think the anti-Muslim atmosphere in certain segments of the public square have actually made Muslims more religious.'"



Yes, ethically, they should not try to offend. However, legally, they have a right to do whatever they want.



Yes, just say, "peace," as recommended in the Quran (25:63). I may not be understanding your question correctly.

However, I will try to answer what I think you are asking.

In a Khilafat (Caliphate), shariah (Islamic law) would be practiced. In Khilafat, some things would be illegal already and therefore breaking the law would a prosecutable offense and a person may or may not be punished accordingly depending on whether one is caught or not and what the outcome of the trial is and whether or not a guilty verdict is given.

However, in the absence of shariah (Islamic law)in a non-Muslim land, there is no state-implemented understanding of shariah (Islamic law). Therefore, on an individual level you can adhere to the limits of shariah (Islamic law); however, you will not be Islamically allowed the right to impose any penalty as such a right belongs unique to the Khilafat (Caliphate) as a nation-state, which penalty in a Khilafat (Caliphate) would be subject to the judgment of a qadi (judge).



Control yourself would be the way to approach the situation. Muslims are currently analogously from my POV in the Meccan period of the life of Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) as there is no Khilafat with which Muslims can seek to redress their grievances. So, Muslims must be patient until we can with Allah's heavenly support have in Mahdi alayhis salaam (peace be upon him) and Second Coming of Jesus alayhis salaam (peace be upon him) and see the evils in the world addressed.



A person can be gay and not act on his same-sex attraction in which his/her being gay is irrelevant.

Unless there are four witnesses and a trial in which a judge renders a guilty verdict or a voluntary confession, there would be no way to tell who is gay and who is not. Suspicion is never enough in shariah (Islamic law).

Even, for example, you strongly believe that a person is gay and this person confesses to you that he's gay and commits sodomy, unless this person confesses to a legal authority in a Khilafat like a qadi (judge) that he committed the sin of sodomy, he'd STILL not be punished because his confession to you doesn't count. If you still decide to accuse him, you would need to bring three other witnesses to testify that he committed sodomy and all of you would have to testify that all of you saw penetration happening in the anal orifice, otherwise you knowing this fact STILL doesn't amount to any punishment. And if that is the case that you were unable to produce three other witnesses and you testified that you did see penetration, the criteria isn't met to enable any punishment. And since you were the person who accused this person (even if this accusation is 100% true), you would be the one punished with 80 lashes for accusing an "innocent" person.

In the Quran, we have been warned against being suspicious lest we wrong someone inadvertently.


No. Because non-Muslims get to practice their own religion or no religion within the shariah-based land in a Khilafat (Caliphate) and they will have the opportunity to do with the person as befits their religion or no religion.



As Muslims, we must always speak out against anything that harms the individual on a spiritual level. I doubt there would be an openly gay community in a Khilafat (Caliphate) as promoting any such activity would probably constitute a fitna (i.e. strife, sedition), and probably the Khilafat (Caliphate) would deal with it accordingly.



You are to adhere to shariah (Islamic law) on an individual level, which I have said before and will repeat again, here means keeping your salat (prayer), fasting, zakat (charity), behaving modestly, dealing honestly with finances, etc. However, as I have stated before, any rights that belongs exclusively to the Khilafat (Caliphate) such as punishing transgressors would not belong to you whether you are in a Muslim or a non-Muslim land.

God-willing, you now understand better the matter. Also, I ask you to seek clarification on such matters from Islamic scholars, as they will God-willing explain to you such things in detail in perhaps a much better manner than I can as a layperson myself.

Best wishes,

(And peace be upon you)

Shouldn't it be the job of a Khalifat to ban all channels that leads to fitna? Lock down all companies that promote fitna? I'd say that'd be a good thing, to get rid of all the companies that contribute to fitnah.

There must be a limit to what disbelievers can do and there must be a limit to whether we can implement shariah on disbelievers. For the goodness of the public, shouldn't we ban everything that may lead to fitnah?

Who cares if some disbeliever believes something is ok, doesn't make it ok. If he decided to have a religion where spreading illicit sexual material, shouldn't we ban him for that? Surely we should.

we can't just tolerate people having their own way of life. Heck, they could say "my religion says murder is ok". Making up their own rules, shouldn't we ban such and the religion itself?

If a gay admits to an Islamic Qadi, 4 times that he has committed sodomy, he will be guilty of sodomy, and killed.
I do consider Sodomy a disease, a corruption.

format_quote Originally Posted by Search

(In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)

God-willing, we can address your questions some time in some other thread. Also, some of your questions require in-depth analysis of shariah (Islamic law), which I'm not equipped to undertake as I'm not an Islamic juristic expert and therefore I'd recommend you to take such questions to a person who is an Islamic juristic expert.

As to sodomy being a disease, if you are categorizing the sexual feelings that lead to the act falling under the umbrella of spiritual disease, I'd agree with you. However, if you're suggesting otherwise, I'd disagree with you. If you're saying it's a corruption of fitrah (natural state), then I'd agree with you. However, if you mean something else, you'd have to clarify.

In terms of gays, etc. I don't think it is Islamic to protect their rights to be gay. That is like encouraging haram. Btw, is simply confessing to the Caliphate that one has corrupt homsexual desires, enough for execution?

What if one wanted to seek counselling?

8.*Allah forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) Faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them: for Allah loveth those who are just.
9.*Allah only forbids you, with regard to those who fight you for (your) Faith, and drive you out of your homes, and support (others) in driving you out, from turning to them (for friendship and protection). It is such as turn to them (in these circumstances), that do wrong.

From Quran, Ch 60, Al Mumtahina

I wonder if "thinking good thoughts" entails embedding microchips in people's brains and broadcasting pornography into their thoughts and dreams.....and providing them and their children with false medical ct scan reports and children crying from headaches every time you take your motorbike over a speed hump, and the british embassy refusing to conduct an honest scan or provide a passport for the person to migrate to a country where Islam is implemented, and telling the person they must have left britain permanently to the british ruled puppet state, and lacking a valid answer when the person says: "with the understanding that i wouldn't be harrassed any more"........ then refusing to provide a human being to go through the incompletable forms, and providing a business card with an international number which nobody answers or leaves on hold whilst billing you whilst your brain continues to hemorrhage blood and your children scream from headaches and wake up screaming from nightmares.......

Or maybe they're a bit superstitious and augur evil omens from God's messages and try to take precautions from them whilst telling people that there's no God???

It appears to me that some people are very eager to practice selective orwellian doublethink....




....maybe it helps them to avoid directly facing a topic in which they find themselves guilty so they can pretend to be looking for a solution to a problem whilst using skewed non-parallels and thereby confusing the topic further and making themselves out to be "the good guys" and when the actual topic which they are pretending to be talking about is mentioned in a way that proves them guilty, they can pretend they're oblivious.........



Let me tell you a little secret:

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.*[14]b

15“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.

16“Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’17You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred?*
18You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gift on the altar is bound by that oath.’*19You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred?*
20Therefore, anyone who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it.*21And anyone who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it.*22And anyone who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits on it.
23“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.*
24You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
25“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.*
26Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
27“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.*
28In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

29“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous.*

30And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’*
31So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets.*32Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!

33“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?*
34Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town.*
35And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.*
36Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation.

37“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.*
38Look, your house is left to you desolate.*

39For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

format_quote Originally Posted by Serinity

Nice to know that. Way to make Marriages, deaths/burials/janazahs and births easier.

So when a Muslim dies in UK, what do we do of him?

bury him according to our Customs in Islam.

Scimi

format_quote Originally Posted by Scimitar

bury him according to our Customs in Islam.

Scimi

obviously.

I just remembered what Sato san's nephew replied near the end when Sato tried to greet him after mr Miyagi broke the tree.

(In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)

format_quote Originally Posted by cooterhein

The only violence that's happening here is when Muslims ignore every applicable law against violence and they go and murder people. That's where the violence comes in, and don't you dare make any excuses for that.

Explaining is not the same thing as excusing. For example, in the court of law, a defense attorney is allowed to bring in mental health issues and/or any other relevant factor like playing violent video games or having a biological disease to explain why the client committed murder, and the defense attorney bringing that up does not constitute justifying the murder.

You shouldn't ever kill people. You in general, nobody should ever kill anybody. Even if it's in self defense, you should plan ahead and use non-lethal force to defend yourself, and let's be honest, in the UK it's not that easy to get a gun so it's not very realistic in any event. Basically, there are laws against violence, there are laws against murder, and they should not be broken. Period. End of story.

Agreed.

Has it ever occurred to you that Muslims are doing some things that earn them just a bit of hate? If I did hate Islam- which I don't, you said it not me- do you honestly think I would hate it because of how good and perfect it is, and for its impeccable record of peace, and for all the good things that Muslims have done? Do you honestly think that non Muslims assess Islam in this manner and then decide this is a thing that's worthy of hate?

Non-Muslims, let's be fair, assess Islam rather uncritically from biased Islamophobic sources 99.99% of the time. Everyday, as a "small slice of life" from Yahoo! Comments Section, I cannot tell you how many times I read idiotic comments from non-Muslims such as that women are forced by men to wear hijab (veil), that Muslim men beat their wives everyday, that the "nice" Muslims are the ones who don't know Islam and the "bad" Muslims are the "real" Muslims, that Muslims want to kill all infidels, quoting of verses of Quran and hadith (prophetic traditions) out of context and so on and so forth. So, sorry, stop making unbelievable excuses for the cultivated ignorance of non-Muslims! They should go to Islamic sources for their information, not non-Muslim Orientalist or Islamophobic sources and then claim they know Islam.

I think these non-Muslims, at least from the U.S., are the same who will tell me how "Christian" they are on the Internet and in the next breath talk about how they don't feel sad if Muslims die or how they'd like to nuke Muslim lands. Yes, cringe-worthy. All that talk about being neighborly and loving goes out of the window when it is inconvenient and about being anonymous!

No, no, no. Check this out. Muslims kill non Muslims for breaking the laws of a religion that they don't belong to. That is unacceptable. And it's something that Islam, as a religion, is responsible for.

WRONG. Islam cannot be held responsible for what some Muslims do.

In the United States, statistically, 1/5 women will be raped. Do you want me to hold entire male gender or male biology for what some males do? Because with that association, you become a potential rapist too.

I hold Islam responsible for these attacks and so many others, and I'm saying that doesn't mean I hate Islam, it just means I hold the perpetrators responsible and not the victims.

Islamist extremism comes from Islam, and from the imposition of Islamic law on people who are clearly saying No Thank You.

Islamist extremism doesn't come from Islam, because that would mean that mainstream Islam condones or endorses extremism when that is patently FALSE.

Seriously though, it comes from Islam. We're not talking about a secular movement, we're not talking about economic theory. This isn't Marx and Engels. We're talking about religious text. The people who lead these movements and give form to their core ideologies tend to be people with plenty of advanced education in Quranic study, some are basically scholars in their own right, and that is the skill set that goes into these sorts of things.

Yes, let's talk about texts, shall we? Mark David Chapman, the man who killed John Lennon, was found calmly reading once again Catcher in the Rye before he was apprehended by law enforcement as he'd been famously quite obsessed by the book and had even wanted to change his name to that of the main protagonist in the book. John Hinckley, the man who attempted to kill Ronald Reagan, also was in possession of the book. Lee Harvey Oswald, the person who assassinated John F. Kennedy, is alleged to have been quite, quite fond of the book. Catcher in the Rye had sold 65 million copies and yet why did these specific people kill and others did not kill who'd read the same book? (I have read that book too, and yet here I am, not killing anyone. Hmm.)

Charles Ng and Leonard Lake had read The Collector and killed 11 people in the 1980s. Christoper Wilder, a serial killer, had The Collector in his possession when he commited suicide in 1984. Robert Berdella, another serial killer, had been an avid reader and fan of the book The Collector. This was a best-selling book and again presumably read by many thousands of persons - yet why did these people kill - and not others?

Similarly, people can read the Quran and from approximately 2 billion Muslims who might have presumably some exposure to the Quran - why do some kill and not others? The same can be said about the Bible. The same can be said about the Tanakh.

Again, I disagree with you. Some persons throughout history might have advanced knowledge of Quran and Sunnah (prophetic footsteps) and might have contributed to or participated in heinous actions; however, this is not the norm, especially in modern-day context. In fact, this is what M15 found as reported in The Guardian: “Far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could . . . be regarded as religious novices.” The MI5 analysts noted the disproportionate number of converts and the high propensity for “drug-taking, drinking alcohol and visiting prostitutes.” The newspaper claimed they concluded, “A well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation.” So, no, you're WRONG, again.

Moreover, Robert Pape, a professor in the University of Chicago, one of America's leading terrorism experts, who unlike you, studied every single case of suicide terrorism between 1980 and 2003, 315 cases in total, said the following in the book Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism: "The data show that there is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world's religions. ... Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland."

Oh, well done, two groups that came into existence relatively recently. There's a couple of things completely wrong with your line of reasoning, though. If al-Quaeda and Daesh really just boil down to the logical reaction toward an aggressive Western Satan, why in the world is Daesh going after the Yazidis so hard? What sort of connection does a Yazidi person have to the West, and when was it exactly that they invaded a country? While I'm waiting for your explanation, I'll go ahead and offer up the idea that Quranic texts and Islamic ideology are the very obvious and only reason for why they're doing what they're doing, and you could go on and on with several dozen other examples. I will go on to point out that it's not at all uncommon in the UK for some very odd statements to come out of the Muslim community. For example, if you look around just a little bit, you'll probably be able to find a London-born Muslim of North African origin who talks about drone strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and talks in a critical fashion about UK and US foreign policy in terms of their military "abusing our land" and "killing our civilians, our women and children." If religion had no role to play in this, it would be extremely odd to hear a Londoner of North African origin talking about the ME and South Asia in possessive terms like this. But there clearly is a very strong religious aspect, and it really doesn't just boil down to an aggrieved people upset at being attacked. Of course there is a strong religious component, even when foreign policy also has something to do with it.

Daesh went hard after Yazidis because Yazidis are considered "devil worshipers" because they worship the Peacock Angel. The Peacock Angel is presumed as Satan. Daesh have persecuted Yazidis because they are generally intolerant of any religious group other than their own, but this is more so applicable to Yazidis who are not afforded even the benefit of the doubt due to their beliefs.

Her reasoning is actually sound. However, you're conflating the two. Just because Daesh are going hard after West does not mean that Daesh cannot also choose to go after other persons for other reasons.

No, you're right in the fact that religion does have a role to play in the pain that a Muslim from North Africa origin born and bred in London will feel for Muslims; this concept is known as the ummah (brotherhood), wherein the pain of another is felt by another. However, this feeling is not unique to Muslims, because I have seen the same in news media articles about how Christians feel they are being persecuted even in the U.S. and feel the pain of persecution of Christians in other parts of the globe.

Again, sorry, WRONG: Foreign policy, as much as you might want to bury your head in the sand, is the MAIN CULPRIT behind the modern-day context of terrorism and extremism.

I will also point out that these groups are not doing very much that's terribly new. No matter how much the Saudis insist otherwise, Daesh is basically the second coming of Muhammad ibn abd al-Wahhab. He imposed jizya, he killed other Muslims that he didn't consider sufficiently observant, he targeted whole sects of Muslims, he executed people in exactly the same ways that Daesh is. And he did all this without being opposed by forces outside the region, and the Saudi state is what eventually came of it. As of right now, over half of the suicide bombers in Syria and Iraq are people who have Saudi citizenship. So how about that.

I agree.

Now, the roots of al-Qaeda begin in Afghanistan and the fight against the Soviets, but 1983 was a bit of a turning point in that jihad had never previously included the possibility of being a suicide bomber, or of killing innocent civilians not at all involved in the field of battle among several other things. These are innovations, and it requires ignoring many parts of the Quran that otherwise clearly forbid such things.

100% CORRECT.

However, the rationale for normalizing these innovations is religious in nature and not at all secular. Arguments for the normalizing of suicide bombing and the murder of innocents do not hinge on US foreign policy or on the way in which wars are being fought, they hinge on a rather bad method of analyzing religious text and it is and always has been an argument from Islamic history and from Islamic teaching. The US did not bomb al-Qaeda into those conclusions, Muslims reasoned their way there through religious study.

WRONG. Normalization of suicide bombing and murder of innocents rests clearly on U.S. foreign policy because of the misapplication of the concept of Qisas - "eye for eye" philosophy which holds that Al-Qaeda is allowed to retaliate in kind and so is Daesh for dead Muslims elsewhere in the globe. Does this concept exist? On an individual level within a legitimate Khilafat (Caliphate), yes. On a national or global level, never. That's why I said it is a misapplication of the concept. Now, why do I say it hinges on U.S. foreign policy? Because if we as a country had kept our noses out of the business of M.E., then we wouldn't be handing justifications to Daesh or Al-Qaeda to exist or expand but we have. We as a country have cared more about Israel than U.S., which is why we're in this sad status of quo and impasse. Moreover, sorry to say, but did you have amnesia? Last I checked, we armed both Al-Qaeda and Daesh when it suited our purposes to do so. We are a bit like the anti-hero Victor in Mary Shelly's book who created "Frankenstein" and then cried wolf - we're both villain and hero, and I'm sorry, being an American doesn't give you the right or the excuse to ignore this inconvenient truth.

And finally, please see above as I have already pointed out how and why I eschew your line "Muslims reasoned their way there through religious study" with a facepalm. In addition to seeing why the above is untrue from what I've posted above, I'd add: In Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, a book that presents the findings of a six-year, 50,000-interview Gallup survey of Muslim populations in 35 countries, found that "those who condone acts of terrorism are a minority and are no more likely to be religious than the rest of the population."

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To conclude, I have this to say: I don't follow Islam because I believe Allah (God) to be a wrathful being demanding vengeance and the blood and death of non-believers. In fact, what you'd find is that I start every post of mine with "" which in Arabic literally reads in transliteration "Bismillah Ir-Rehman Ir-Raheem" and means "In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful." I don't exclude non-believers from this mercy because the fact that we're both drinking water and breathing air free of cost to us from God means that we're both falling under the umbrella of this mercy even though you see yourself as a Christian and I see myself as Muslim.

You have asked what U.K. Muslims are doing to combat extremism or terrorism: First, I resent the fact that Muslims are being put, oh, look under a microscope and under trial for being Muslims (albeit in the U.K.). However, the fact that you're asking this question shows you're not acquainted with how Muslims have been trying to handle the situation. Well-credentialed and well-respected Islamic scholar Shaykh Afifi Al Akiti, a lecturer in University of Oxford on Islamic Studies, who days after 7/7 published a fatwa (ruling) denouncing terrorism in the name of Islam calling for the protection of all noncombatants at all times and describing suicide bombings as an innovation with no basis in shariah (Islamic law). Secondly, these types of things not getting press from the larger media is not the same as Muslims doing nothing; Muslims are doing what they can in their capacity, and that's much more than what I can say for non-believers in most recent cases of harassment that Muslims - specifically Muslim women due to wearing hijab or niqab - face in the U.K. In fact, in a survey for the Daily Telegraph, published two weeks after the July 2005 bombings in the London Underground, showed that 88% of British Muslims were opposed to the bombings, and 91% of British Muslims feel loyalty to U.K.

You should ask yourself why Fox News, for example, doesn't cover the fact that Daesh has been unanimously condemned by both Islamic scholars and the overwhelming majority lay Muslims over the globe. In fact, Pew Research Study places the number of Muslims to be extremist to, after doing basic math, to .00625%. We can further pare those numbers when we consider that most "extremists" will never join a terrorist organization or kill people in spite of their extremist views. A case in point is Abz2000 on IB. So, what gives? Could it be that sensationalist news sells and having a popular villain in Muslims brings in television ratings?

You should ask yourself why U.K. non-Muslims feel so threatened by Muslims. You have not addressed this nor have I seen this brought up anywhere in the posts so far that I've had a chance to read on this thread. However, U.K. is both a historically classist and xenophobic society. This might be harder for you to grasp as whites were immigrants to the land of the United States and never the natives, but the same is not true for white nationals in U.K. A strong South Asian presence has existed in the U.K. since the British Raj, and this is also currently the predominant "Muslim face" in U.K. This has factored greatly into how Muslims are "otherized" in U.K. and also modern-day fear-mongering of Islam and Muslims. In fact, the equivalent of U.S. N-word in the U.K. is the racial slur "Paki" which is used to describe anyone presumed to either be of South Asian descent or Muslim. (This slur existed in 1960s when there had been no overt "Muslim threat" against which to defend.)

I'd additionally point out you cited Sam Harris as an authority from which you are understanding Islam, and he is not an expert on Islam. Moreover, he appeared in 2014 on a Talk Show calling Islam as having a "mother load of bad ideas." However, having been an atheist myself, I can tell you that in an atheist's opinion all religions will equally fall under that umbrella. Sam Harris might be a neuroscientist; so, no one can say he's not intelligent. However, like you, he really likes Maajid Nawaz, and like Fox News, seems to consider Maajid Nawaz some kind of legitimate authority on Islam and "Islamic" extremism. However, that is not the case as I've already established. And most importantly, Sam Harris is very notoriously an Islamophobe as he called for profiling of anyone who even looks like Muslim in 2012. Imagine if he'd said the same thing about Jewish people. Or imagine if I'd said let's profile anyone who even looks Jewish, and I'd in real life be rightfully accused of anti-Semitism. However, (lucky him!) he doesn't even believe there is any "Islamophobia" to which we can attribute his affront. However, contrary to what Sam Harris may believe, there was nothing particularly "rational" about his expressions of antipathy towards Islam and Muslims; we have atheists on this board who do not behave like Sam Harris like our IB's Pygoscelis, essentially atheists who are able to have discussions about atheism and Islam without resorting to a discourse expressing intolerance towards Muslims for being Muslims.

Also, the fact that you are here and I am here, and we are having this dialogue on a Muslim platform is itself proof enough that neither Muslims nor Islam endorses or condones terrorism or extremism or even a selective and distorted reading of Quran or Sunnah (prophetic footsteps) to favor either. The fact is you yourself said that you know an apostate atheist Syrian with a Muslim wife, and the fact from what you've relayed is that his wife has not tried to kill her husband or you ("the enemy" if right-wingers are to be believed in regards to what Muslims truly "believe"). All that said, Muslims are human beings, people like you and your family, and their demonization and demonization of Islam is a disservice to our dignity and our honor as being individuals deserving to be judged for our unique strengths and not collectively for a presumed and herein debunked weakness.

Greetings and peace be with you cooterhein;

Okay, first, if we're talking specifically about the Charlie Hebdo cartoons those were not terribly offensive and they did not initially reach a very wide audience.

In your opinion you say the cartoons were not offensive.

What happened was this, and you can feel free to use the Internet to check this out. There were some Muslims who were able to discover the cartoons in their extremely limited circulation, and they were so offended that they decided it was necessary to disseminate them far more widely in the Middle East and North Africa.

Yet in your next sentence you acknowledge the cartoons did offend Muslims, so why are you defending the rights of people to offend others?

Oh, and by the way, they altered some of the cartoons so that they would be much more offensive than they initially were. It was Muslims who spread that to the angriest Muslims in the world,

Do Muslims control Google? Because Goole are full of these offensive cartoons today, they even have links to what they call offensive cartoons and animal cartoons, they have learned nothing from the Charlie Hebdo affair.

I cannot understand why you would not be supporting the need for kindness rather than cruel offensive cartoons. You recognise how cruel cartoons would be if they were made against your wife and mother, so why can't you have the same empathy for our Muslim brothers and sisters here.

In the spirit of praying for justice for all people

Eric

Bro Eric, Cooterhein, is one of those compromised political Christians you know? the very same that believe being gay is completely fine in his religion. When it is clearly not.

His charlie hebdo narrative is straight outta hasbara handbook too - The best way to curb his ignorance is to let him get consumed bu it completely to the point of integral collapse he can't hold it together.

Scimi

Then there's the other lame trick:
oh the people are seeing the unbiased eternal truth plainly and seeing injustice and falsehood plainly and might accept Islam, let's send in the "christian" asset and the "muslim" asset to push them back into their brand name camps to flounder in confusion again.........
....almost like the "heated debates" i used to see back in england (that dying and about to be buried place north-west of france with a woman who calls herself a queen on a scarlet throne with seven heads that's being tested by God and "doesn't exist" )

basic human psychology is one of my in-built programs.

format_quote Originally Posted by Search

The reason we'd protect the rights of gays and lesbians is because they're sinners but we're sinners too and we do not have a right to judge their sins. In Islam, we're all considered to be sinning differently (degrees might be different in less or more). Please see my former post "Hate the sin, not the sinner" with proof of how this is an Islamic attitude.

I have a question to this. Please do read this, cuz I am having a doubt atm. So what about when Umar said:


“People were judged by the revelation [which shows the ruling about what they did] during the lifetime of the Prophet sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam ( may Allaah exalt his mention ) but now there is no longer any revelation.Now we judge you by the deeds that you practice publicly, so we will trust and favor the one who does good deeds in front of us, and we will not call him to account about what he is really doing in secret, for Allaah will judge him for that; meanwhile, we will not trust or believe the one who appears to us with an evil deed, even if he claims that his intentions were good.”

[Sahih Al-Bukhaari]

Judging by the apparent. This seems to contradict what you say. :/

I quote from your post:

'Abd Allah was would be frequently so drunk that he had to be brought staggering through the streets to be sentenced by Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) for public drunkenness and this act was a common occurrence. Once when 'Abd Allah had departed from one of the frequent instances of having been sentenced as recorded in hadith (prophetic tradition), one of the Companions declared in reference to 'Abd Allah, "O Allah curse him. How often he is summoned for this!" Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) became upset and said, "Do not curse him, for I swear by Allah, if you only knew just how very much indeed he loves Allah and His Messenger" (Sahîh al-Bukhârî (6282)).

This right there is the attitude of hate the sin but not the sinner, for Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) himself testified as to this man's devotion to God and Messenger of God despite this man's indulge in sin and also had a loving and cordial relationship with the man who was a known and public sinner.

This confuses me, so on one hand:

1. do not judge a sinner cuz you are also a sinner, and he may be better than you and have a better heart (The Prophet's :saw: words when he said:

" Do not curse him, for I swear by Allah, if you only knew just how very much indeed he loves Allah and His Messenger " )

And the Qur'an:

In Quran (verse 11 of Sura Hujarat), God says, “O you who believe, let not (one) people laugh at (another) people perchance they may be better than they, nor let women (laugh) at (other) women, perchance they may be better than they; and do not find fault with your own people nor call one another by nicknames; evil is a bad name after faith, and whoever does not turn, these it is that are the unjust.”

^^ this seems to be for the believers only. but what about what Umar said?
2. you judge the sinner as Umar said we now judge you by what you do publicly. Judge whether a man is good or depending on his bad deeds. The one who sins publicly is judged as someone not to be trusted.

This seems to be (apparently) be polar opposites, how can both be sahih?

I am geniunely confused, that is why I ask.

On one hand, we can judge by the apparent, yet on the other we can't and must not judge people and say "they are not good people" as in the case with Abdullah.

The fact that we also have to think good of people. but this seems to contradict The hadith of what Umar said. Cuz as I understand it, with what Umar said, in the case of Abdullah in the hadith you quoted, we'd have to judge Abdullah for being drunk. And not think good of him? I.e. Judge him by the public sin he did (drinking)?

Is it really Islamic to be like:

I saw a guy drinking publicly, he must be a bad guy. I saw a guy say bad things about Muslims, he must be a bad guy (with complete disregard in the Era we live in, in terms of propaganda, and the fact that the guy may be brainwashed?)

So what is it?! This seems to contradict thinking good of people. Not hating the sinner, but the sin, and not judging.

With the hadith about Umar it sounds like we can't say that a drunk Muslim can possibly Love Allah more than us, who don't drink! But this contradicts one Sahih hadeeth AND a Quranic Ayat!

So what is it?

Edit: I think I will make a thread. SORRY. I forgot!

(Moved to new thread)

format_quote Originally Posted by ardianto

If you saw a man who often drunk you must be would see him as drunkard, don't You?. This is what "someone judged by the deeds that he practices publicly" means. But it's better if you don't judge him too far, like "he is really a bad guy", because probably he actually had good side in his heart that you didn't know, probably tomorrow he would stop drinking and turn into good guy.

We don't know what is in someone heart, we don't know what will happen to someone tomorrow.

I see. So it isn't like complete malignment etc. Right? we have to think good of people, otherwise it'll reflect on us as being judgmental and stuff.

may Allah forgive me for any wrong I might have said. Ameen.