President Obama recently challenged Muslims to speak out against extremism and build closer ties to know their non-Muslim neighbors.... [N]o matter how exasperated they may privately feel, some Muslims are beginning to publicly confront the uncomfortable questions that non-Muslims have about Islam and violence, and trying to provide answers, both through words and through the example of how they live their lives.
Here in the classroom, [Bassam Issa, the president of a Chattanooga mosque] told students to look beyond Islam to the deeper and more universal causes of violence. “What’s happening right now is not religious, even though ISIS and Al Qaeda are covered as a religious thing,” he said. “In reality, it’s political.”...
December 22, 2015
"[M]any American Muslims here and across the country are now saying it is no longer enough to denounce terrorism and assert that Islam is a religion of peace."
The NYT reports.
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appealing to separation of church and state in a different mode.
"some Muslims are beginning to publicly confront the uncomfortable questions ...[the president of a Chattanooga mosque] told students ... What’s happening right now is not religious"
You keep using that word "confront"...
How do I know if you, my Muslim fellow citizen, are not exercising al-Taqiyya-- Muhammad's command to lie to me in order to conquer me.
How do I know if you, my Muslim friend, are not exercising al-Taqiyya-- Muhammed's command to lie to us in order to conquer us.
How about a Trump war on terror tag? All these Obama's call, essays, editorials and opinion pieces are a direct reaction to Trumps bluster about keeping Muslims out.
I'll believe the "moderates" when they horse whip the extreme imans down the street and out of town.
p.s. not a Trump fan.
p.p.s. why do I have the need to say that?
p.p.p.s. I wouldn't say I don't support Trump on a telepnone poll and then say I support him on an online poll.
Of course it's political. Islam is political by natural. Islam is therefore part of the problem.
Just observing that the men do not have beards and shaved mustaches and the girls are not covering their hair is reassuring that they are not devout fundamentalist Muslims. What is troubling is their refusal to acknowledge that jihad is both political and religious because it means they are not being honest.
“What’s happening right now is not religious, even though ISIS and Al Qaeda are covered as a religious thing,” he said. “In reality, it’s political.”...
I'm always really suspicious when someone tries to pull the "false consciousness" stuff out of their hat to explain some political phenomenon. I'm suspicious because it always comes down to saying "You know, the guys who are saying they're doing X for Y reason? Well, they're too stupid to know that they're really doing it for Z reason. But me, I know this because I'm smart. Trust me on this..."
I'm real gol-durn suspicious of conspiracy theories for much the same reason. The Muslim world, on the other hand, especially the Arabs, they're, sadly, mighty fond of conspiracy theories.
"...some Muslims are beginning to publicly confront the uncomfortable questions that non-Muslims have about Islam and violence, and trying to provide answers, both through words and through the example of how they live their lives."
Although Trump has never even hinted it, the thought of returning to the shitholes they came from may be a sobering enough thought.
The first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one.
Islam is not who we are. It doesn't represent Western values. It will never be reformed.
Most leftists are atheists. They want to believe that Islam is a culture, not a religion, and a peaceful culture, not a religion, that promotes respect for other cultures-- not a religion. Because if it's a religion, it's just as bad as Christianity and Judaism, though perhaps not as bad as Buddhism.
These beliefs, for atheists, require ignorance (easy) or excision (difficult) of much of the Koran and Hadith.
Brian A Davis said...
How do I know if you, my Muslim fellow citizen, are not exercising al-Taqiyya-- Muhammad's command to lie to me in order to conquer me.
Surely it's not news to you people lie when publicity would harm their cause. The lack of Taqiyya isn't slowing down Hillary Clinton for example. Why so focused on this as if it's something? It makes you seem obsessive.
Ditto, SGT Ted.
From its very beginning Islam has been theocratic. Bassam Issa (Issa, BTW, is the Arabic name for Jesus) is still singing the same denial tune. If American Muslims (or is that Muslims in America?) agree, then we must conclude Obama's war on terror is still on the defeatist road to ruin.
@Bill, ROT -
I wouldn't say I don't support Trump on a telepnone poll and then say I support him on an online poll.
Would you support him if you felt he was wronged?
Would you support him if he said "schlonged"?
Would you support him with your vote?
Even if he promised to build a moat?
Would you support him without a hitch?
When Hillary is such a...female dog?
"What’s happening right now is not religious, even though ISIS and Al Qaeda are covered as a religious thing,” he said. “In reality, it’s political."
If Issa is saying (or implying) that Islam is not just a religion but also a legal system and an ideology then I'd have to agree. But I'd be even more interested in Issa's opinion as to whether the religious component can or should be separated from the legal and ideological components.
An Islamic extremist is a Muslim who wants to kill you, and plans to do so. A moderate Muslim is one who wants the extremist to kill you, and is financing him. The goal of Islam is to subjugate the entire world. It says so, right there in the book. If you oppose that subjugation, you are an enemy, and they have the right and the duty to kill you.
I thought that in Islam, or at least strains of it, religion and politics were inseparable. Or beyond that, there is no distinction between the two. They are the same thing.
"But Muslims and non-Muslims say the effort to build relationships continues to bear fruit: Five months after the shooting, Chief Fletcher and Mr. Issa said, there have been no acts of retribution, no vandalism, no religiously motivated threats reported."
Well, then! You see? Muslim extremists killed some infidels, and the infidels are taking it very well! Allahu Akbar, baby!
"There have been setbacks. Later that summer, while Iman was a volunteer intern at a local hospital, a fellow intern who learned that she is Muslim told Iman to her face that she was scared of her."
Ah, that is a problem. The infidel is not to look you in the eye when expressing her fear. She is supposed to get down on her knees with her face in the dirt when she says "I fear you", and pay the jizya. Sounds like another round of shootings may be needed.
This won't do.
Thirty five years ago terrorism was political.
This what's going on now is indeed religious, even though the real reasons may not be at all religious.
They must become takfiris themselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takfiri
Or they don't have to go that far, but they have got to say things that are not Islam are being taught. And it is not really that the teachers are so ignreant.
Until George W. Bush, the dumbest man to ever draw breath, said that Islam was a religion of peace no other human had uttered the phrase. Odd that the words of the dumbest man ever born have been embraced by the left. They, the left, honor George. And he pulled the phrase out of his ass.
Islam and the separation of church and state are by definition incompatible.
The American Muslims who want to be part of our free society (and I think that's a lot of them) need to speak out. They need to organize. I don't know that it isn't the fault of our lazy media, but whenever you hear from "American Muslims" it's from CAIR, which claims to be a civil rights group and blames all problems on anti-Muslim prejudice. I want to hear Muslims shouting "They don't speak for me!" the way I hear Christians saying that Westboro doesn't speak for us.
Jamelle Bouie recently wrote an article asking whether Trump's white supporters really truly are motivated by racism. Let's see if he writes the counterpart: what if ISIS really is motivated by Islam?
http://www.meforum.org/5727/does-isis-kill-more-muslims
Along with distancing Islam from violence—real Muslims are not supposed to kill other Muslims in the name of jihad—this argument further clouds the issue of who is the true victim of Islamic terrorism: Why talk about the Muslim slaughter of non-Muslims—whether Western people in Paris or California, or Christian minorities under Islam—when it is Muslims who are the primary victims most deserving of sympathy?
Yet this argument is flawed on several levels. First, the Islamic State does not view its victims as Muslims. Indeed, mainstream Sunni Islam—the world's dominant strand of Islam which ISIS adheres to—views all non-Sunnis as false Muslims; at best, they are heretics who need to submit to the "true Islam."
Heck, even if it is a tiny minority of Muslims who want to kill everybody, would you eat a bowl of 10,000 M & M's if 10 were poisoned and you had no way to determine it?
And as the Quran is said and believed by Muslims to be directly from their allah, identical to the Big Quran that sits next to allah, all of its words and commands are to be followed.
Including those, and there are quite a few of them, calling for the death of those not "rightly guided" (that's Muslim-speak for us infidels).
And Muslims wonder why we're suspicious.
NYT=BS
I don't give a fuck whether you call it politics or religion. Same thing. Just get rid of the violent ideology. When I see the moderate muslims beheading the extremists for preaching such a flawed "political" ideology, I'll buy it.
We have been hearing about Muslim related violence for years. Since the days of Arafat perhaps or maybe since 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Yet I haven't heard much from Muslims condemning violence or trying to change the views of non-Muslims. All those speeches by GWBush, Obama, and others about how we should not blame Muslims did not budge that needle. Yet, within days after Trump putting all Muslims in the same boat NOW we hear about liberal Muslims traditions and about how Muslims are tolerant and how the hijab and subordination of women is not real 20th century Islam.
Hypothesis: Trump has done more to improve the situation and cause Muslims and non-Muslims to better understand what is happening now than all that other "tolerance and understanding" up to now.
Moderate Muslims need to march in the streets, not once, but repeatedly. They have a major PR problem on their hands. Also, Saudi trained and financed Imams out of the country, Saudi financed mosques closed.
I doubt there's anything to worry about. I mean, what can any of you actually point to in the last 1500 years or so that would indicate there's anything to worry about?
Hey! Who drank all the beer?
Words are cheap. Deeds are not.
Till the Muslims act on these Jihadist, and I do mean ACT, as in fight them, I'll just consider them uttering mere words.
I am getting very tired of Muslims saying "Love us or we will kill you."
They are as bad as the LGTB idiots.
What ever happened to tolerance ?
I suggest a 5 year mandatory prison sentence for all who chant in public that Allaha is God and Mohammed is his prophet.
We want to be fair and treat the deluded fools equal to how they treat harmless Christians.
"President Obama recently challenged Muslims to speak out against extremism and build closer ties to know their non-Muslim neighbors...."
After bowing and scraping to the Saudi's, the Qatari's and the Iranians now he "challenges" Muslims?
Althouse,
This post and the previous one make an interesting Drudgetaposition.
Until they denounce Sharia Law they are not serious.
Just had this talk with the family tonight. I tell them if they saw the things I saw and knew what I knew they would agree with me that Islam is a terrible cultural force. When it is the dominant cultural institution evil and perversion permeate society.
My parents had just talked to a college friend they had who had a son in Delta. He said the same things I did. His parents agreed with their son and even my hippy peacenick parents are starting to catch on.
They beat their women and treat them as property. The priests keep little boys around and abuse them for years. They glorify death and suffering. They want to exterminate an entire country. They want to force all infidels to submit and think it is ok to kill anyone who isn't a muslim. There is no benefit to equating Islamic cultural with anything resembling civility or liberal values.
Bassam Issa, the president of a Chattanooga mosque
There are mosques in Chattanooga? Truly, we are doomed.
Islam is NOT a religion; But, is a criminal-terrorist movement-or-ideology not far
different from the KKK or Nazi-Party (Sharing the same principles of hate-of-Jews and all real religions, use of violence and the other horrors taught in Mein Kampf and the Koran;
These beliefs, for atheists, require ignorance (easy) or excision (difficult) of much of the Koran and Hadith.
Leftists/atheists will increasingly have to live under the threat of terror as Islamism continues to grow in our midst. It will grow because it is largely a religious phenomenon. When the fashionable thinking changes - and it will, because Islamism is a religious thing and leftists hate religion - then we can finally become safer.
Until then we can expect more bloodshed.
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