I wouldn’t call what they had “peace,” I’d call it dhimmitude:
[quote]Aleksandr wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
Aleksandr wrote:
Show me where in the Qur’an it says this. I’m not interested in hearsay.
We’re going to go over this again, huh?
The Qur’an, for all those unaware, is a conversation between Allah and Mohammed that contains no context. It’s unintelligible without the Hadith. As you well know, Muslims everywhere refer to it for information about Mohammed’s life and times and it’s considered authoritative.
By whom is it considered authoritative? Certainly not by me, and apparently not the Turks, either.
“…a significant number of the sayings were never uttered by Muhammad…”
Interestingly, many Muslims I’ve spoken to, from Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Azerbaijan, and other places, feel the same way as I do. It’s great for context, and useful for interpreting the Qur’an. But it is ridiculous to use it as a book of commandments.
I don’t see how you can leave it out when the rest of the Muslim world includes it.
We’re actually allowed to think for ourselves.[/quote]
You must have missed that follow-on article to the Turkish “revision” of the Hadith:
[quote]Gormez also refuted claims they would and edit out some hadiths, especially about women.
“No Muslim in the right mind would dare delete any hadith or tamper with the Prophet’s heritage.”[/quote]
Apparently, quite a few Muslims do use the Hadith for commandments, like the author of the “Book of Revenue,” and others.
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
Aleksandr wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
Aleksandr wrote:
Show me where in the Qur’an it says this. I’m not interested in hearsay.
We’re going to go over this again, huh?
The Qur’an, for all those unaware, is a conversation between Allah and Mohammed that contains no context. It’s unintelligible without the Hadith. As you well know, Muslims everywhere refer to it for information about Mohammed’s life and times and it’s considered authoritative.
By whom is it considered authoritative? Certainly not by me, and apparently not the Turks, either.
“…a significant number of the sayings were never uttered by Muhammad…”
Interestingly, many Muslims I’ve spoken to, from Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Azerbaijan, and other places, feel the same way as I do. It’s great for context, and useful for interpreting the Qur’an. But it is ridiculous to use it as a book of commandments.
I don’t see how you can leave it out when the rest of the Muslim world includes it.
We’re actually allowed to think for ourselves.
You must have missed that follow-on article to the Turkish “revision” of the Hadith:
Gormez also refuted claims they would and edit out some hadiths, especially about women.[/quote]
I’m not sure who I trust more. BBC or islamonline. Tough call, but we’ll see.
Funny, everyone I’ve talked to thought it was a great idea, and long over due. A Turk I know has mentioned that there’s been a lot of talk about this for a long, long time. It seems many people feel it’s necessary.
It pretty funny that you can’t accept that not all muslims have the same opinion on everything. That lack of central structure thing. I’m sure it interferes with your agenda, though (which, from what I can gather, is being a prick on the internet).
[quote]Aleksandr wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
Aleksandr wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
Aleksandr wrote:
Show me where in the Qur’an it says this. I’m not interested in hearsay.
We’re going to go over this again, huh?
The Qur’an, for all those unaware, is a conversation between Allah and Mohammed that contains no context. It’s unintelligible without the Hadith. As you well know, Muslims everywhere refer to it for information about Mohammed’s life and times and it’s considered authoritative.
By whom is it considered authoritative? Certainly not by me, and apparently not the Turks, either.
“…a significant number of the sayings were never uttered by Muhammad…”
Interestingly, many Muslims I’ve spoken to, from Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Azerbaijan, and other places, feel the same way as I do. It’s great for context, and useful for interpreting the Qur’an. But it is ridiculous to use it as a book of commandments.
I don’t see how you can leave it out when the rest of the Muslim world includes it.
We’re actually allowed to think for ourselves.
You must have missed that follow-on article to the Turkish “revision” of the Hadith:
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1203757550116&pagename=Zone-English-News/NWELayout
Gormez also refuted claims they would and edit out some hadiths, especially about women.
I’m not sure who I trust more. BBC or islamonline. Tough call, but we’ll see.
“No Muslim in the right mind would dare delete any hadith or tamper with the Prophet’s heritage.”
Funny, everyone I’ve talked to thought it was a great idea, and long over due. A Turk I know has mentioned that there’s been a lot of talk about this for a long, long time. It seems many people feel it’s necessary.
Apparently, quite a few Muslims do use the Hadith for commandments, like the author of the “Book of Revenue,” and others.
It pretty funny that you can’t accept that not all muslims have the same opinion on everything. That lack of central structure thing. I’m sure it interferes with your agenda, though (which, from what I can gather, is being a prick on the internet).
[/quote]
“not all muslims.” To be sure, there are outliers, exceptions, etc. As a statistician, you know this. But I’m looking at where the mean sits and what the variance is. I’m so far not finding pleasant answers.
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
“not all muslims.” To be sure, there are outliers, exceptions, etc. As a statistician, you know this. But I’m looking at where the mean sits and what the variance is. I’m so far not finding pleasant answers. [/quote]
You have a biased sample. You have no way of talking to the average American muslim. I don’t know if you realize this, but most people would rather not talk to. It’s that whole “being a prick” thing I mentioned.
[quote]Aleksandr wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
“not all muslims.” To be sure, there are outliers, exceptions, etc. As a statistician, you know this. But I’m looking at where the mean sits and what the variance is. I’m so far not finding pleasant answers.
You have a biased sample. You have no way of talking to the average American muslim. I don’t know if you realize this, but most people would rather not talk to. It’s that whole “being a prick” thing I mentioned.[/quote]
Yeah, there have been polls conducted of American Muslims and Muslims abroad. Shall we try to dig some up?
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2244293620070522
It seems you missed this in that link you posted:
“We have also taken into account the unauthentic ones or those attributed falsely to the Prophet because to understand the true Hadith, you really need to (understand) the unauthentic sayings.”
[quote]Aleksandr wrote:
It seems you missed this in that link you posted:
“We have also taken into account the unauthentic ones or those attributed falsely to the Prophet because to understand the true Hadith, you really need to (understand) the unauthentic sayings.”[/quote]
Great. Muslims have already classified weak ahadith and strong ones. He’s not saying anything new. But either way, I see no great cause for rejoicing, especially after Christian missionaries were just murdered in Turkey last year and they’ve voted in the Islamist party.
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
Aleksandr wrote:
It seems you missed this in that link you posted:
“We have also taken into account the unauthentic ones or those attributed falsely to the Prophet because to understand the true Hadith, you really need to (understand) the unauthentic sayings.”
Great. Muslims have already classified weak ahadith and strong ones. He’s not saying anything new. But either way, I see no great cause for rejoicing, especially after Christian missionaries were just murdered in Turkey last year and they’ve voted in the Islamist party. [/quote]
And I hear the price of tea is really high in China these days.
G87,
Personally, I don’t think the US-Israeli relationship is symbiotic. It’s true that the US likes to have military bases all over the world, and Israel is a good foothold on the M.E. but I seriously doubt that presenting the issue to a popular vote will extend those handouts. We’re talking billions that, arguably, are endangering Americans by exposing them to raving lunatics using commercial aircrafts as weapons. The US has always been isolated from the world community because of its unconditional support of Israel. Just check out the U.N. voting records. A lot of the resentment towards Washington’s foreign policy came down to that (prior to the war on Iraq). If you take the “wishful thinking” goggles off, you may realize that Americans have very little (if any!) influence on Tel-Aviv. Israelis would never allow a foreign lobby to shape its country’s decisions. On the other hand, it is no secret that one of the most influential lobbies in Washington is that of Zionists. This is a text-book parasitic relationship and the US couldn’t get out of it if it tried. And no, it’s not a conspiracy. As you rightly point out, much of it is due the significant presence and high-profile of Jewry in the Washington.
Was Palestine rich and prosperous pre-1948? No. But I don’t see how this is relevant either. The locals were going about their daily lives farming olive fields, raising livestocks and all those things that they saw their ancestors do. They didn’t ask for the Brits to colonize them, and they didn’t ask Jews to flood the place, raise a flag and declare it a Zionist state. Now, I do agree that much of today’s animosity could have been averted had Palestinians just welcomed the new neighbors, but they didn’t. And yes, Jews were popping up in the region steadily since the turn of the century, and that didn’t bother most people much. It is the mass exodus that was bound to create resentment one way or another. And it did. Now, if the new-arrivals just decided to formalize a country like any other, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. It is the declaration of a Zionist state that was troublesome. Plenty of artificial countries came to being formalized last century. Lebanon is one of them. But imagine if one of the minority groups there (say Persians or Greek Orthodox) decided to bring people by the boatload and create a “Persian state” or “Greek Orthodox state” with a discriminative nature. I empathize with the plight of the Jews throughout history, and particularly during the dark times when the Nazis were around, but there is no acceptable rationale for what they made the Palestinians go through. I mean, what was their crime? Be poor? Largely illiterate? I agree with you in that their initial reaction was badly advised and destructive, but it was just that: A reaction!
And while you’re ready to accept the current situation and move forward (the PLO’s post-80s attitude), I don’t think the Palestinian people are. They want a fair share of the land and the right for the refugees to come back. Of course, having worked so hard for it, the Israelis won’t budge an inch (they’re going ahead with the new settlements despite the international outrage which, surprisingly, includes Washington). Trust me, I put myself in both shoes, but I am not so blind as to not recognize the ROOT cause.
I don’t see why me being from Morocco and criticizing Zionism is supposed to be mutually exclusive. A lot of Jews in my country are heavily opposed to the Zionist experience and they apparently could feel hatred being bred in people as M.E. events unraveled. I find your suggestion that I could have a distaste for Western countries highly offensive. It implies that I am some sort of drone incapable of distinguishing between any two things and who falls for hasty generalizations. I am more critical of the internal affairs of my country than of any other. I am highly critical of Washington’s foreign policy because it goes out of its way to go bomb and invade countries the world around. I have heard first hands accounts of a time when the French were colonizing my country. I also have read documents written in that era and I can tell you that it’s almost word-for-word, the rhetoric that I now hear coming from Washington. The good news is that the French redeemed themselves by making formal apologies about the past. Meanwhile, all I hear coming from the U.S. are more threats of violence and state terrorism. You do realize that the OP is advocating military attacks on Iran, don’t you?
Israel is not going anywhere. It’s vulnerability is a myth. Arab countries couldn’t make a dent in it even if they requested the help of all of Africa (minus S.A.) On another note, the resistance against the Zionist state is not going anywhere either. It will continue as long as there is one Palestinian standing. I pray that both sides agree to a sensible compromise, but when I think about it rationally, I just don’t see it happening.
[quote]Aleksandr wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
“not all muslims.” To be sure, there are outliers, exceptions, etc. As a statistician, you know this. But I’m looking at where the mean sits and what the variance is. I’m so far not finding pleasant answers.
You have a biased sample. You have no way of talking to the average American muslim. I don’t know if you realize this, but most people would rather not talk to. It’s that whole “being a prick” thing I mentioned.[/quote]
Thank you for that one. You made my morning more cheerful.
[quote]Chushin wrote:
Aleksandr wrote:
You have no way of talking to the average American muslim.
How different (or similar) from the Muslims in the ME would you think “the average American muslim” is?
[/quote]
So we’re talking about culture, rather than religion?
EDIT: It’s 3am, I’m working on two papers I have to submit in less than 33 hours, and I got sloppy. In addition to culture, there are a whole host of other confounds.
[quote]
BTW, I’d have thought you’d have argued that there is no such thing as the average American muslim… [/quote]
PR invoked statistics, and I’m going with it. There’s always an average. The issues are kurtosis (which I would argue is very high), and skew.
[quote]Chushin wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
About one-quarter of young American Muslims believe to some extent that suicide bombings can be justified to defend Islam, while nearly 80 percent of all U.S. Muslims reject such attacks, a survey showed on Tuesday.
What, no response to this?[/quote]
No response is possible, since no comparison is made to non-muslims. The methodology of the survey does not allow for the inference I suspect you are trying to make.
[quote]G87 wrote:
Jlesk68: Unless you or JustTheFacts can string those articles into a coherent effort with quotes and references, I won’t read them. Make a point.[/quote]
You didn’t have to actually read the articles to get the point. Israel bitches about their need for security while selling OUR technology to China (illegally) who in turns sells those weapons to the very countries they are so goddamned concerned about. All the while, Israel is turning a profit while the US BORROWS billions of dollars on top of a 9 trillion dollar debt to give to Israel as well as other ME countries.
Then we’re supposed to come to their rescue on top of all that.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
That post is a now familiar example of JustTheJews M.O. He will post a whole string of links that seem to support his world view. He’s real deep into the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and is always going off about the Jews.[/quote]
Actually, I think you meant everybody else is always going off about evil muslims and I’m just pointing out the obvious propaganda. This just happens to be a 100% Jewish driven, war on terror – not my fault.
As far as the Protocols, well, they don’t support my world view – but they do certainly seem to fit reality…
Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand
April 20, 2008 - The New York Times
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/20/8400/
PROTOCOL No. 7 - UNIVERSAL WAR
[quote][i]3. We must be in a position to respond to every act of opposition by war with the neighbors of that country which dares to oppose us: but if these neighbors should also venture to stand collectively together against us, then we must offer resistance by a universal war.
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The principal factor of success in the political is the secrecy of its undertakings: the word should not agree with the deeds of the diplomat.
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We must compel the governments of the GOYIM to take action in the direction favored by our widely conceived plan, already approaching the desired consummation, by what we shall represent as public opinion, secretly promoted by us through the means of that so-called “Great Power” - THE PRESS, WHICH, WITH A FEW EXCEPTIONS THAT MAY BE DISREGARDED, IS ALREADY ENTIRELY IN OUR HANDS.
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In a word, to sum up our system of keeping the governments of the goyim in Europe in check, we shall show our strength to one of them by terrorist attempts and to all, if we allow the possibility of a general rising against us, we shall respond with the guns of America or China or Japan.[/i][/quote]
Norman Podhoretz: The Case for Bombing Iran
“As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he [Bush] will”
–George Bush, Aug 5, 2002
Can we take a break from this Israel/Palestine and Muslims-are-evil sterile debate for a while?
I want to ask the people siding with the OP what they make of Ahmadinejad’s speech? I mean, do any of you genuinely believe the man gets the last word in foreign affairs? Moreover, what would you do about Iran’s nuclear program? Clearly, the threat of violence is not working and only helps boost domestic support for the people in power. What position do you folks defend exactly? Bombing Iran? Giving them incentives Pyong-yang style?
Evidently, if Tel-Aviv had any worries or evidence that something’s fishy, they’d bomb the place. That they already didn’t suggests two things: 1) they want the US to do the dirty work and, 2) they don’t want to disturb the status-quo. Israel is walking on egg shells for the most part. Arab leaders would cheer up if the IDF attacks Tehran. They would be in a very precarious position if the balance of power was shift yet again. They already bet on the wrong horse during the cold war, and it seems to me that they are repeating the same mistake now. An attack on Iran will make Iraq look like a walk in the park. Chances are great of that conflict becoming global. Saddam had ZERO friends. He was hated by everyone and had virtually no military power. A bombing and/or invasion of Iran will unleash hell on Israel. Jaysh al-Mahdi and Hezballah and will strike as hard as they can. Granted, they make more noise than real damage, but the fact that they are guerilla movements will ensure they keep the upper hand while the IDF and US military bleeds itself. The Chinese will not keep quiet either. This will be their chance to claim their superpower status. Not because of ideology as was the case during the Cold War, but for pragmatically. I doubt they’ll get dragged into a military conflict but they’ll surely hit the US quite hard economically. Although, that would be as good a chance as any to claim Taiwan. Sepah has allegedly the ability to cause serious damage within the US and I don’t doubt that for a second. Again, nothing revolutionary (no pun intended) but I envision casualties by the hundreds. Finally, the Arab street will revolt. While Mahmoud and the rest of the Iranian leadership are not particularly beloved in Arab countries, Nasr-Allah enjoys a level of popularity never seen since Nasser.
Iran is defiant because it knows just how much the US stands to lose in an open confrontation at a time when its army is already stretched in Iraq (tour extensions, anyone?).
So please, state your respective positions so we can have an intelligent debate. Ahmadinejad’s kookiness and Iran’s open defiance is not exactly news worth a thread every other week.
Again, no one answered the question, why should we meet with a man who denies the Holocaust exists, threatens Israel, continues to support and fund Hamas and Hizbollah who kill American troops and Israelis? Is this a man who sounds like he listens to reason and will change his mind?