So what portions do you disagree with?
They are legion. Let it suffice for me to say the site generally lacks sophistication. It treats vastly differing religions, many of which are diametrically opposed to one another and that have only the most superficial of relationships, as groups having significant correlation. It actually treats the KKK (!) as a legitimate Christian group and ignorantly categorizes it with, say, the Catholic Church. That is patently absurd. And it truly causes me to doubt the sincerity of the site's authors. I have read the site primarily because I knew there would be willfully ignorant people referring to it as an "authoritative" site when it is nothing of the sort.
As I read it, in generalizing the point, is that Islam has been co-opted by fanatics who have twisted the interpretation of the Koran to their own beliefs. Similar to how some radical Christians have twisted the Bible to suit their own earthly needs.
You employ a fallacy here that needs to be rejected straightaway. Even the most radical of Christians are not murdering innocents as part of a worldwide religious effort. So you ought not compare the two groups. Your comparison here is but an attempt to ameliorate islam’s ills by associating them with the errors of people who maintained some sort of Christian faith. You compare apples with oranges.
Muslims are unique in that the quranic interpretation that allows murder is ubiquitous and receives no credible threat within islam. It receives no credible threat because the quran and hadith can reasonably be taken to allow murder.
Contrariwise, the Christian Bible can by no means be reasonably taken to countenance the barbarism so easily found by a reasoned reading of the Islamic holy works. Indeed, retaliation for individual Christians is flatly wrong – period. Because of this, all radical pseudo-Christian aberrations throughout history have received confrontation within Christianity itself. The Crusades, for example, were regional. They were executed by no Scriptural mandate and they were actually condemned and ended by Christians themselves.
Now when you claim islam has been co-opted by fanatics, you seem to suggest that widespread oppression in the name of allah in view of the quran is something foreign to islam and that it is a recent and inexplicable phenomenon in that religion. It is not. Such religiously inspired barbarism has been part and parcel of islam from its very beginning. Indeed, islam’s relatively tolerant periods have been exceptions and not the rule.
Witness the portion dealing with suicide. Although suicide is expressly prohibited, the radicals have 'invented' their own loophole that allows suicide in the defense of Islam.
You claim the radicals have “invented” their own loophole as if you are authoritative here. They may well claim you are radical and they have a more reasoned basis for the claim, given the quran and hadith. Surely, suicide due to personal misfortune and financial difficulty is roundly condemned by muslims. But there is simply no quranic prohibition against a muslim’s attempt to get explosives near his enemy by employing his own body. These muslim martyrs claim, and they are quite correct here, that unlike the circumstance of suicide, the object here is not to kill oneself. It is to kill one’s enemy. That such bombings result in the destruction of the bomber is secondary and sacrificial. That is why these bombers are widely considered martyrs amongst muslims. Some muslim authorities may disagree with the view, but very many others accept it. The view, whatever your beliefs, is simply not proscribed by the quran or hadith. This is undoubtedly why both Sheik Youssef al-Qaradawi, and Sheik Ikrema Sabri, Jerusalem's top Muslim cleric, accept the bombings as valid weapons supported by Sharia law.
(tbc...) |
