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| Islam’s Silent Moderates; NY Times Op-Ed piece | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 7 2007, 09:41 AM (167 Views) | |
| Phlebas | Dec 7 2007, 09:41 AM Post #1 |
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Bull-Carp
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[size=7]Op-Ed Contributor Islam’s Silent Moderates[/size] By AYAAN HIRSI ALI Published: December 7, 2007 The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with 100 stripes: Let no compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day. (Koran 24:2) IN the last few weeks, in three widely publicized episodes, we have seen Islamic justice enacted in ways that should make Muslim moderates rise up in horror. A 20-year-old woman from Qatif, Saudi Arabia, reported that she had been abducted by several men and repeatedly raped. But judges found the victim herself to be guilty. Her crime is called “mingling”: when she was abducted, she was in a car with a man not related to her by blood or marriage, and in Saudi Arabia, that is illegal. Last month, she was sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes with a bamboo cane. Two hundred lashes are enough to kill a strong man. Women usually receive no more than 30 lashes at a time, which means that for seven weeks the “girl from Qatif,” as she’s usually described in news articles, will dread her next session with Islamic justice. When she is released, her life will certainly never return to normal: already there have been reports that her brother has tried to kill her because her “crime” has tarnished her family’s honor. We also saw Islamic justice in action in Sudan, when a 54-year-old British teacher named Gillian Gibbons was sentenced to 15 days in jail before the government pardoned her this week; she could have faced 40 lashes. When she began a reading project with her class involving a teddy bear, Ms. Gibbons suggested the children choose a name for it. They chose Muhammad; she let them do it. This was deemed to be blasphemy. Then there’s Taslima Nasreen, the 45-year-old Bangladeshi writer who bravely defends women’s rights in the Muslim world. Forced to flee Bangladesh, she has been living in India. But Muslim groups there want her expelled, and one has offered 500,000 rupees for her head. In August she was assaulted by Muslim militants in Hyderabad, and in recent weeks she has had to leave Calcutta and then Rajasthan. Taslima Nasreen’s visa expires next year, and she fears she will not be allowed to live in India again. It is often said that Islam has been “hijacked” by a small extremist group of radical fundamentalists. The vast majority of Muslims are said to be moderates. But where are the moderates? Where are the Muslim voices raised over the terrible injustice of incidents like these? How many Muslims are willing to stand up and say, in the case of the girl from Qatif, that this manner of justice is appalling, brutal and bigoted — and that no matter who said it was the right thing to do, and how long ago it was said, this should no longer be done? Usually, Muslim groups like the Organization of the Islamic Conference are quick to defend any affront to the image of Islam. The organization, which represents 57 Muslim states, sent four ambassadors to the leader of my political party in the Netherlands asking him to expel me from Parliament after I gave a newspaper interview in 2003 noting that by Western standards some of the Prophet Muhammad’s behavior would be unconscionable. A few years later, Muslim ambassadors to Denmark protested the cartoons of Muhammad and demanded that their perpetrators be prosecuted. But while the incidents in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and India have done more to damage the image of Islamic justice than a dozen cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, the organizations that lined up to protest the hideous Danish offense to Islam are quiet now. I wish there were more Islamic moderates. For example, I would welcome some guidance from that famous Muslim theologian of moderation, Tariq Ramadan. But when there is true suffering, real cruelty in the name of Islam, we hear, first, denial from all these organizations that are so concerned about Islam’s image. We hear that violence is not in the Koran, that Islam means peace, that this is a hijacking by extremists and a smear campaign and so on. But the evidence mounts up. Islamic justice is a proud institution, one to which more than a billion people subscribe, at least in theory, and in the heart of the Islamic world it is the law of the land. But take a look at the verse above: more compelling even than the order to flog adulterers is the command that the believer show no compassion. It is this order to choose Allah above his sense of conscience and compassion that imprisons the Muslim in a mindset that is archaic and extreme. If moderate Muslims believe there should be no compassion shown to the girl from Qatif, then what exactly makes them so moderate? When a “moderate” Muslim’s sense of compassion and conscience collides with matters prescribed by Allah, he should choose compassion. Unless that happens much more widely, a moderate Islam will remain wishful thinking. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former member of the Dutch Parliament and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of “Infidel.”[/SIZE] |
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Random FML: Today, I was fired by my boss in front of my coworkers. It would have been nice if I could have left the building before they started celebrating. FML The founding of the bulk of the world's nation states post 1914 is based on self-defined nationalisms. The bulk of those national movements involve territory that was ethnically mixed. The foundation of many of those nation states involved population movements in the aftermath. When the only one that is repeatedly held up as unjust and unjustifiable is the Zionist project, the term anti-semitism may very well be appropriate. - P*D | |
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| Mark | Dec 7 2007, 11:04 AM Post #2 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Well, a large majority of people historically are always ruled through fear of a powerful, brutal minority. Remember the movie A Bug's Life? "You let one ant stand up to us, and they all might stand up! Those "puny little ants" outnumber us a hundred to one. And if we ever let them figure that out... THERE GOES OUR WAY OF LIFE! It's not about food. It's about keeping those ants in line." |
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___.___ (_]===* o 0 When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells | |
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| jon-nyc | Dec 7 2007, 11:06 AM Post #3 |
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Cheers
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Islam is foul. |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| Mark | Dec 7 2007, 11:09 AM Post #4 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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People are foul jon. Not all people, in fact not even the majority of people. But some people are foul. |
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___.___ (_]===* o 0 When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells | |
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| pianojerome | Dec 7 2007, 11:12 AM Post #5 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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That's because some people don't take showers. |
| Sam | |
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| jon-nyc | Dec 7 2007, 11:39 AM Post #6 |
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Cheers
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Yeah, like people who take Islam seriously, for example. |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| TomK | Dec 7 2007, 12:08 PM Post #7 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Now that would be 90% of the Moslems--not the 10% "extremists". Islam is truly, like Totalitarian Communism and Fascism a deeply flawed philosophy of life, unlike let's say, Conservative Christianity or Progressive Secularists--individual people may not LIKE those last two philosophies, but their followers don't maim and slaughter for little to no reason. |
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| Copper | Dec 7 2007, 02:51 PM Post #8 |
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Shortstop
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And more to the point, if they do maim and slaughter they are loudly condemned. |
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The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy | |
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| QuirtEvans | Dec 7 2007, 02:52 PM Post #9 |
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
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No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! So perhaps you are just saying that Islam is a few hundred years behind, and has to play catch-up. |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
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| Mikhailoh | Dec 7 2007, 02:53 PM Post #10 |
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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I've said for a long time that the real solution to radical islam lies in Islam putting its own house in order. If they do not I fear major war is inevitable, with an unprecedented loss of life on their side. |
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball | |
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| Mark | Dec 7 2007, 05:46 PM Post #11 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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You may be correct. It's sad but a reality. Especially if they let their radical factions attack us again. |
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___.___ (_]===* o 0 When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells | |
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