War

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Argamemnon said:
We should make a distinction between the peaceful religion Islam and Muslims. The Umayyad, Abbasid and Ottoman empires were pretty aggressive.. they did wage unnecessary/illegal wars. The Umayyad rulers didn't want people to convert to Islam in some of the newly conquered territories, because that would reduce tax income (people accepting Islam wouldn't have to pay jizya).
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That's what I think, because I've read in a few threads that Islam was spread peacfully, but yet battles were fought to conquer land which meant there must have been bloodshed. The very word conquer suggested they overcame resistance. I've also read about the Ottoman Empire and they don't exactly sound like the nicest of rulers. I understand Islam is essentially meant to be a peaceful religion (as are most I suppose) but historically there would have been those who were more interested in expanision and power just like the Christian crusaders. Like I said before, at the end of the day people are people no matter what their religion.
 
lol! I feel the sort of skirts around the point a bit. :p History makes war or power hungry people.
 
LauraS said:
That's what I think, because I've read in a few threads that Islam was spread peacfully, but yet battles were fought to conquer land which meant there must have been bloodshed. The very word conquer suggested they overcame resistance. I've also read about the Ottoman Empire and they don't exactly sound like the nicest of rulers. I understand Islam is essentially meant to be a peaceful religion (as are most I suppose) but historically there would have been those who were more interested in expanision and power just like the Christian crusaders. Like I said before, at the end of the day people are people no matter what their religion.
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There rulers may not have been nice guys but it was a quite a tolerant empire for its time.
 
That doesn't stop there from being rulers on earth. In the past those in charge of the Ottoman Empire ruled over other countries, there's no other way of putting it. Wasn't the a law that one child out of every non-Muslim family was taken to be brought up Muslim and join their army?
 
"Idolatry is more grievous than bloodshed. But do not fight them within the precincts of the holy Masque unless they attack you there ; if they attack you put them to the sword. Thus shall the unbelievers be rewarded. but if they mend their ways, know that Allah is forgiving and merciful.
Fight against them until idolatry is no more and Allah's religion reigns supreme. But if they desist, fight none except the evil doers" (Holy Quran, Cow Sura 2:190-193)
 
It doesn't really argue against any of the points though does it. :S
 
Gabriel Ibn Yus said:
"Idolatry is more grievous than bloodshed. But do not fight them within the precincts of the holy Masque unless they attack you there ; if they attack you put them to the sword. Thus shall the unbelievers be rewarded. but if they mend their ways, know that Allah is forgiving and merciful.
Fight against them until idolatry is no more and Allah's religion reigns supreme. But if they desist, fight none except the evil doers" (Holy Quran, Cow Sura 2:190-193)
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This doesn't answer what I asked you or justify what you said. You have quoted a surah which describes fighting only against those who are fighting you. You would not be the aggressor in this case.
 
War is not necessarily an aggressive thing.

Physical war is always aggressive but not all wars are physical.

I said that our war is with the concept of "non-believing". In my eyes "non-believing"
is Idolatry.

This is because everybody believes in something. When I go out of the street and
go into a train I believe that it would go to its destination and not to some other random
place.

When people say they do not believe - we know that they mean they do not want
to believe that the world has an originator, that the world is governed. How can any
normal person think something like that? This is clearly foolishness.

When people adopt a line of thought like that it naturally leads them to believe in
artificial things, fairy tales. These things are idolatry. Thus secularism and idolatry
is the same. For instance, secular people believe that money rules the world while
for Muslim money is just an artificial way by which Allah governess stupid people.
Thus, making the idolatry of money.

Muslims cannot accept this idea and therefore fight against it. In my eyes, and I am
sure in the eyes of money, this fight by itself is very justified as it is for the best interest
of most people of the world to have a world based on Zakat and not on the very painful
economical system we have today.

I also think it helps to explain why the Muslim idea is not so popular in certain countries in
the west who seem to very like the current economical system for some unexplained reason.
 
Gabriel Ibn Yus said:
I also think it helps to explain why the Muslim idea is not so popular in certain countries in
the west who seem to very like the current economical system for some unexplained reason.
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I think it's more to do with general lifestyle, it's why Muslims don't like Western socities either.
 
So it is up to Muslims to change their life style to a way which would accommodate them more
to speak with westerners so that they would be better in doing the important task of spreading
the word of the Prophet.

I think that the problem is that we have here a case of an evil eye. The westerners have a certain
image of Muslims that is wrong and then instead of changing this image the Muslim world sometimes
adopts this image or at least does not stand up to change it.

Think about what we know from history - there were many periods where it seems that the only
problem other people had with Muslim lifestyle was jealousy (and I do not see any reason why it
shouldn't be like that again)

Also, I do not understand what lifestyle has to do with that - any person should live the way he
likes. In my eyes - Islam is a religion and it dictates the best lifestyle a person can live in for his
own best interest. I come out of a point of view that people want to do what is good for some and
when they do not do so it is mainly out of confusion.
 
Gabriel Ibn Yus said:
War is not necessarily an aggressive thing.

Physical war is always aggressive but not all wars are physical.
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Aggressor was used in the context of initiator. It was not the most important part of the sentence.

Gabriel Ibn Yus said:
I said that our war is with the concept of "non-believing". In my eyes "non-believing"
is Idolatry.
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No, what you said was "In our religion, the main war is between the believers and the non believers." and I've seen you use similar terms in other threads. This is not the case and I see it as you attempting to cause hostility.

Gabriel Ibn Yus said:
For instance, secular people believe that money rules the world while
for Muslim money is just an artificial way by which Allah governess stupid people.
Thus, making the idolatry of money.

Muslims cannot accept this idea and therefore fight against it. In my eyes, and I am
sure in the eyes of money, this fight by itself is very justified as it is for the best interest
of most people of the world to have a world based on Zakat and not on the very painful
economical system we have today.
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The west are free to have the system they want. We avoid those things which are haram to us (interest), but we conform to the system, there is no fight to bring it down.
 
Gabriel Ibn Yus said:
So it is up to Muslims to change their life style to a way which would accommodate them more
to speak with westerners so that they would be better in doing the important task of spreading
the word of the Prophet.

I think that the problem is that we have here a case of an evil eye. The westerners have a certain
image of Muslims that is wrong and then instead of changing this image the Muslim world sometimes
adopts this image or at least does not stand up to change it.

Think about what we know from history - there were many periods where it seems that the only
problem other people had with Muslim lifestyle was jealousy (and I do not see any reason why it
shouldn't be like that again)

Also, I do not understand what lifestyle has to do with that - any person should live the way he
likes. In my eyes - Islam is a religion and it dictates the best lifestyle a person can live in for his
own best interest. I come out of a point of view that people want to do what is good for some and
when they do not do so it is mainly out of confusion.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying any should change their lifestyle to suit the other culture. What I'm saying is each is used to their own way of living, likes it on the whole and has no wish to change to the other way. I don't think it is much to do with the Muslim economic system. I'm not jealous about how Muslims live, I'm quite happy with my own lifestyle.
 

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