Islam: Religion Of Peace?

[4588686]

Anecdotally, in the past my experience in the Muslim community confirms what Didacus said about turning a blind eye and accepting "jihadi" violence. At one point in my life I began studying Islam (along with the Bahai faith), hung out with muslims from university, studied Quran and hadith, and was interested in studying Maliki fiqh and how it intersected with Christian eschatology. I was very inspired by liberal muslim intellectuals like Hamza Yusuf teaching down at Zaytuna college. It was a sort of downward spiral until Hamza Yusuf quoted St. Paul once and I realized that my intellectual curiosity had morphed into something different, and I ran to confession and had a good long talk with the priest. :)

That being said.. much like the courtiers and emperors were the bastion of arianism and didn't represent Christendom as a whole, we can point to tons of great muslim intellectuals, leaders, and liberal converts (yusuf estes etc.) who who preach about love and inclusion, but it didn't match what I saw daily. These liberal leaders lived in Western democracies or Saudi Arabia. We would go to their lectures when they visited and talk about how great their ideas were, and how noble the ummah is, how persecuted muslims are, and how merciful they are.

And still, every day someone would bring up examples of violence.. akhis (brothers) from London going to Syria, getting in a fight with someone, and killing them. Bombings in Eurasia, whatever.. And no one ever said anything.. Usually two or three of the weird ones would talk about the caliphate and fighting the kufar, and the rest would say nothing or Allah knows best or, "oh they're persecuted". Eventually I couldn't help but think what is wrong with these people.. Clearly there were cases where they were right, but 8 out of 10 times I was really disgusted by their tacit support of violence.

Sure. I guess I'm puzzled why that's seen as a Muslim phenomena. If you go to the Major Hasan thread on phatmass you will see numerous fervent Christians supporting the torture apparatus constructed under the Bush administration. There was also widespread support for the invasion of Iraq which was a massively and horrendously violent occupation of a Muslim country. I guess what I'm getting at is that it's never clear to me why tacit support for violence in the Muslim world is different from the ongoing tacit support for violence that occurs in most Western Countries. Edited April 26, 2014 by Hasan

[AugustineA]

Sure. I guess I'm puzzled why that's seen as a Muslim phenomena. If you go to the Major Hasan thread on phatmass you will see numerous fervent Christians supporting the torture apparatus constructed under the Bush administration. There was also widespread support for the invasion of Iraq which was a massively and horrendously violent occupation of a Muslim country. I guess what I'm getting at is that it's never clear to me why tacit support for violence in the Muslim world is different from the ongoing tacit support for violence that occurs in most Western Countries.

 

I think that's a valid and valuable point. 

 

Edited April 26, 2014 by AugustineA

[4588686]

I've had arguments with Bosnian Muslims about the Ottoman Empire and the extent to which this occupation was oppressive for the Serbs. These arguments are basically structurally identical to arguments I've had here on phatmass with Christians about the occupation of Iraq.

Edited April 26, 2014 by Hasan

[4588686]

I think that's a valid and valuable point.

W00t!

[Didacus]

http://www.history.com/topics/armenian-genocide

 

In April, 99 years ago, was the onset on the Armenian genocide were muslim rulers killed 1.5 million Christian 'infidels' under the cloud of the Ottoman empire.

 

To this day the Turkish nation refuses to acknowledge these murders.

 

 

 

[Didacus]

http://weaselzippers.us/183858-for-sixth-year-in-a-row-obama-breaks-promise-to-acknowledge-armenian-genocide/

 

And your muslim president won't acknowledge it either.

:bounce:

 

 

[Kia ora]

Anecdotally, in the past my experience in the Muslim community confirms what Didacus said about turning a blind eye and accepting "jihadi" violence. At one point in my life I began studying Islam (along with the Bahai faith), hung out with muslims from university, studied Quran and hadith, and was interested in studying Maliki fiqh and how it intersected with Christian eschatology. I was very inspired by liberal muslim intellectuals like Hamza Yusuf teaching down at Zaytuna college. It was a sort of downward spiral until Hamza Yusuf quoted St. Paul once and I realized that my intellectual curiosity had morphed into something different, and I ran to confession and had a good long talk with the priest. :)

 

That being said.. much like the courtiers and emperors were the bastion of arianism and didn't represent Christendom as a whole, we can point to tons of great muslim intellectuals, leaders, and liberal converts (yusuf estes etc.) who who preach about love and inclusion, but it didn't match what I saw daily. These liberal leaders lived in Western democracies or Saudi Arabia. We would go to their lectures when they visited and talk about how great their ideas were, and how noble the ummah is, how persecuted muslims are, and how merciful they are.

 

And still, every day someone would bring up examples of violence.. akhis (brothers) from London going to Syria, getting in a fight with someone, and killing them. Bombings in Eurasia, whatever.. And no one ever said anything.. Usually two or three of the weird ones would talk about the caliphate and fighting the kufar, and the rest would say nothing or Allah knows best or, "oh they're persecuted". Eventually I couldn't help but think what is wrong with these people.. Clearly there were cases where they were right, but 8 out of 10 times I was really disgusted by their tacit support of violence.

 

a couple of things that your post makes me think of.

 

it's often easier to engage in violence than to refrain from it. it's also easy to think that there's something meritorious in violence if your religion valorises or finds value in violence. islam and christianity are good examples of this because both are strong on social justice and historically most muslims and christians have found value in violence, even if it is in self-defence. to motivate interest in the first crusade, pope urban ii peppered his speech with accounts of claimed atrocities of the muslims against their eastern christian brothers. and that's in fact what motivated a lot of the killing. christians have killed out of 'love'. charity in swinging around a sword! it's harder to condemn violence straight out because then you'd be more radical than your compatriots in religion! peer pressure and group think account for a lot of it i think.

 

in my experience, it's often the orthodox or the fundies that i feel would be the most stringent to condemn any acts of unjust violence. my fav muslim thinker is al-ghazali, stalwart of orthodox muslims everywhere and he's probably nowhere near the liberal side of things, but he certainly wouldn't have gone for the killing of innocents. and more recently there are the salafis, who by the way i don't consider orthodox, but rather modernist aberrants, many of whom are politically quietist and would not have condoned violence against the state or until there was a legit commander to wage holy war. and this stems from religious devotion which prompts them to not care about politics or the government, however unjust the government is. for example in the revolution the vast majority of egyptian salafis didn't advocate any dissent against pres mubarak and only later jumped into the whole democracy thing when he went out. one of the most influential salafi thinkers of recent history is muhammad nasiruddin al-albani and he for example thinks that holy war is done by political entities, the islamic state, not just bands of anybody. he would have hated the islamic groups in syria at the moment for spreading disorder and violence in the name of islam. he was nowhere near a liberal. he was a 'fundamentalist'. but his fundamentalism and piety prevented him from endorsing people like al qaeda. he condemned in his works and statements groups like hizb ut-tahrir!

Edited April 27, 2014 by Kia ora

[4588686]

http://www.history.com/topics/armenian-genocide

In April, 99 years ago, was the onset on the Armenian genocide were muslim rulers killed 1.5 million Christian 'infidels' under the cloud of the Ottoman empire.

To this day the Turkish nation refuses to acknowledge these murders.

Ok? Has your thesis morphed into 'Some Muslins Have Done Bad Things'? Because unlike your more racist rantings and links that one is actually defensible. Edited April 27, 2014 by Hasan

[Not The Philosopher]

Hey it's this topic

[HisChildForever]

http://weaselzippers.us/183858-for-sixth-year-in-a-row-obama-breaks-promise-to-acknowledge-armenian-genocide/

 

And your muslim president won't acknowledge it either.

:bounce:

 

Obama is not a Muslim...he's supposedly Christian but my opinion is that he's agnostic/pseudo-Christian.

[HisChildForever]

Will, what's your opinion of former Muslims from the Middle East who were really deep "in the trenches" so to speak and now "expose" Islam as inherently violent? Like Mosab Yousef? Do you think it's because that's the only "picture" of Islam they saw/experienced or is it something more?

[Didacus]

I realize that is what he claims to some extent, or the image he tries to maintain.  But he has had a muslim upbringing and education, and himself wrote in his book that if ever things turn for the worse he would stand with muslims.

Obama is not a Muslim...he's supposedly Christian but my opinion is that he's agnostic/pseudo-Christian.

 

[Didacus]

Will, what's your opinion of former Muslims from the Middle East who were really deep "in the trenches" so to speak and now "expose" Islam as inherently violent? Like Mosab Yousef? Do you think it's because that's the only "picture" of Islam they saw/experienced or is it something more?

 

Whom are you asking?

[HisChildForever]

I realize that is what he claims to some extent, or the image he tries to maintain.  But he has had a muslim upbringing and education, and himself wrote in his book that if ever things turn for the worse he would stand with muslims.

 

I thought he was raised in Hawaii with his Caucasian family.

[HisChildForever]

Whom are you asking?

 

Will.