It's nice of you to ignore pretty much all my bullet points to make a false analogy with the British empire instead.
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ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape (NYT)
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It's nice of you to ignore pretty much all my bullet points to make a false analogy with the British empire instead.
Maninthemirror
Banned
What are you on about. There is a difference between remembering Quran word by word and understanding the Quran which is much more expansive. the Quran is very easy to understand for anyone whose heart is not perverted into seeing malicious meaning see verse 3:7-8
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
How is it a false analogy? We can make a similar bullet point list of the great things accomplished by the British Empire, which was Kabouter's point.
Look, it's true that historically, Islam culture was very progressive for the time (this doesn't make the religion itself, or the scriptures themselves, valid, of course). But that was then, this is now. It's interesting from a historical perspective, but so long as it's being used to justify a gazillion backward things right now, well...
We can only hope that groups like this one start getting more traction sooner rather than later.
I did not ignore your bullet points, the analogy also isn't false. Both the British Empire (and countless other empires throughout history) and the Islamic Caliphates improved the situation in the lands they conquered in some respects (which you cited when it comes to Islam), but in the end they were still conquering empires. The 'civilizing' defence is something you still hear every now and then when it comes to European empires, and it was essentially the go-to excuse for European empires in the late 19th/early 20th century.
RustyNails
Member
I dont see a point with this analogy. The pre modern world operated on the basic principles of territorial gain (meet army in a battlefield, defeat the other side, capture the city). No empire is different in that regards, so if your point is to prove that Caliphate was an empire...bravo. The "civilizing influence" is inevitable when you have vast centers of learning and cultural refinement over a massive area. The application of justice and law, which he argues, was a massive step up from the conquered lands' old rules.
Sure, the British empire had some benefits. It led to greater industrial development in some countries it ruled (e.g. development of railroads and other infrastructure).
But there's a difference between industrial development and social and political rights (which is what I'm talking about). I was specifically referring to women's rights which Islam brought with its inception.
Meanwhile, the British empire had a strategy of "divide and rule" and pitted Muslims and Hindus against each other (in India for instance) so it could maintain its rule and avoid a united revolution against their empire. The British empire held a lot of power and worked in its own favor. It's not comparable to 7th Century Islam, which rose out of being a minority religion whose followers were hated on and ridiculed in Makkah and ended up being the majority religion that united the various different tribes of Arabia that previously hated each other into one. By the time prophet Muhammad (pbuh) passed away, Arabia was wholly united. The concept of "empire" and expansion of Islam came after his passing.
For being a mod, you should probably moderate discussion, which is your job. And not provide misleading information using analogies that don't make sense. Learn some history.
How about not being a rude fuck when responding in a discussion?
Well my point isn't so much that the Caliphate was an empire, that much is obvious, no one would deny it. My point is more that the aspects of an empire that were civilizing should never be used to justify or worse, glorify, the conquests. All too often, that is still done when it comes to certain empires, and it's something I have strong objections to.
As far as Sayah goes, it is unfortunate you feel the need to adopt such a tone in a discussion, it is quite unnecessary.
I'm not being rude. Just honest.
Our "job" is not to moderate discussion or be whatever it is you think we are. We moderate because we love the forum and we are members here who partake in discussions just like everyone else. You are absolutely being rude. Go learn some common courtesy.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
Egypt is in the continent of Africa.
Yes, but despite that it is considered part of the Middle East by all the popular definitions.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
In the context of a discussion where Morrigan was being accused of cherry picking Muslim countries to prove a point, I don't see how pointing out Egypt (or even the Sudan) has its own distinct circumstances and still has the same issues with progressive culture as Iraq/Iran/Saudi Arabia is that bad of a point.
Given further context that Morrigan also provided examples of Indonesia and Pakistan in the same sentence, the "Of course Egypt is in the Middle East!" comment seemed more like a deflection than a salient point imo.
RustyNails
Member
Read Kabouter's post again. Egypt is part of middle east by whatever definition you use or whatever point you're trying to make. To say otherwise is, stupidity.
Due to all the religious stuff always being a hot potato here on GAF, i have just today been to my local library and claimed a copy of the quran.
I will use the coming days to read this thoroughly and after that it will be easier for me to take part in all the discussions here from a more 'enlightened' point of view.
I will use the coming days to read this thoroughly and after that it will be easier for me to take part in all the discussions here from a more 'enlightened' point of view.
RustyNails
Member
I would've recommended M.A.S Abdel Haleem translation (free .txt version in link) as the english is much more accessible than the traditional "Ye Olde" translations.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
Morrigan writes a well thought out post showing why the countries posted are in fact a representative sample of the Muslim world. And points out that the qualifiers in the original post allowed for countries in the middle east as well as other areas of the world.
You post a "witty" pedantic retort and snort, act as if you won the exchange without addressing the argument at all.
I can read just fine. Still looking for the counterpoint list of modern progressive Muslim nations. Or you can continue moving the goalposts or posting geography gotchas.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
I tried getting through the Koran, but I was surprised and put off by just how incredibly whiny the opening is.
User 73706
Banned
If drugs, cigarettes and alcohol are controlled substances, one starts to wonder if and when religion should become a 'controlled substance' too...
I know this will never happen, I know that would be a limitation on freedom, but I think we - and religious orgs - should start acknowledging that religion can be a very dangerous thing. I think religious motivation mixes very badly with certain individuals and certain states of mind. I say this from both a global and personal perspective, seeing my brother mental health deteriorate with a severe religious bent in the last year, and finding many of the people who were in hospital with him carrying similar religiously-tinted issues and complexes.
I know this is a fairly fruitless aside, really, from the IS discussion... a theocracy will never undermine its own foundations, obviously. This is just an exasperated thought.
I know this will never happen, I know that would be a limitation on freedom, but I think we - and religious orgs - should start acknowledging that religion can be a very dangerous thing. I think religious motivation mixes very badly with certain individuals and certain states of mind. I say this from both a global and personal perspective, seeing my brother mental health deteriorate with a severe religious bent in the last year, and finding many of the people who were in hospital with him carrying similar religiously-tinted issues and complexes.
I know this is a fairly fruitless aside, really, from the IS discussion... a theocracy will never undermine its own foundations, obviously. This is just an exasperated thought.
Be careful with that line of thinking though. The thing about human nature is that people can be easily swayed by just about anything, depending on the individual. Games can be just as dangerous as a form of addiction as drugs for some people. Online games especially. Entertainment brands, luxury brands, and stuff like that also prey on those who are weak to peer pressure. The form of religion you speak of is just another form of the larger problem with how people cope with the lack of fulfillment in their lives. Lots of people are looking for something to latch on to. If it's not religion, it can be a form of philosophy, or self-help gurus, or PUAs, and so on. Religious cults or cults of personality? Pick your poison.
The answer to this isn't really about restricting it so much as educating and enlightening people to recognize their options and the value of their lives.
The answer to this isn't really about restricting it so much as educating and enlightening people to recognize their options and the value of their lives.
Yeah, though it sounds like it, I'm not really advocating any restriction, just pondering how we do put health warnings on some things, but not on others. It seems to me that religion can be as powerful as any opiate, both constructively and destructively, depending on the person involved. More responsible religions might bear that in mind and perhaps try to identify and approach differently people who may be 'vulnerable'. Heck, I wonder how many 'radicalised' religious fundamentalists carried latent mental health issues before engaging in religious teachings and concocting a mix of their own to go to war with...
I had a healthy debate on the street with a youngster who was quite 'extremist' in his views this week. He was quoting stuff about the quran from anti-islamic websites. When I asked which scholar supported his position...
Google is warping what information about islam gets through.
Night_Knight
Unconfirmed Member
Awesome! Thank you!
Gray-Okami
Member
I think Yousef Ali translation is the best English Translation. even Muslim scholars are sometimes giving it as gift to Muslims and non Muslims to spread their religion.
http://www.islamicity.com/quransearch/action.lasso.asp?-database=Quran&-Table=tblMasterTranslit&-Response=mp3replyMP3Compiler.asp&-Error=mp3replyMP3Compiler.asp&-MaxRecords=5&-op=cn&English=jesus&-find.x=0&-find.y=0
http://www.islamicity.com/quransearch/action.lasso.asp?-database=Quran&-Table=tblMasterTranslit&-Response=mp3replyMP3Compiler.asp&-Error=mp3replyMP3Compiler.asp&-MaxRecords=5&-op=cn&English=jesus&-find.x=0&-find.y=0
PeteZaTheHutt
Member
It's frustrating reading all of the mental gymnastics and convoluted scriptural interpretations that apologists go through to defend the ambiguous moral content that is supposedly within the Bible/Quran.
"Thou shalt not rape."
There. Was that really so hard? If rape was clearly and explicitly forbidden by the Bible/Quran, then those four simple words should be in those books. The fact that it is not so clearly and simply laid out speaks volumes.
"Thou shalt not rape."
There. Was that really so hard? If rape was clearly and explicitly forbidden by the Bible/Quran, then those four simple words should be in those books. The fact that it is not so clearly and simply laid out speaks volumes.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Yeah, that's pretty cool.
.... For the middle ages, that is. Funny how today, Islamic countries have pretty much the shittiest track records when it comes to women's rights.
So, again, what's the point in bringing this up? Other than "wow Islam countries used to be so much better, let's analyse history to see where it went downhill", but that's generally not the sentiment behind mentioning how progressive Islam nations were historically (said sentiment is generally just Muslims being defensive).
Thank you.
And okay, you know what? So I made a mistake about Egypt, it appears to be widely considered as part of the Middle East (though it is the only North African country to be counted as such, which is where my error came from). So Egypt is part of the Middle East. RustyNails, feel free to scratch that line from my post, I fully retract it. Are you going to address the rest of my post now, or are you just going to proclaim victory and pat yourself on the back for having "caught" my innocent geographical error?
RustyNails
Member
No, I just wanted to correct your mistake. I'm glad you owned up though. Cairo (specifically Al Azhar) has been the nerve center of sunni orthodoxy for the past 1200 years and has been treated as the highest authority of Sunni Islam and defined the majority since. I won't say it is analogous to Vatican as Islam does not have that heirarchy, but Al Azhar played a prominent role in the caliphates and now middle-east as well.
Maninthemirror
Banned
You do know that the religious Khalifa or rightly guided caliphs were the first four and after that it became more and more political and non religious in terms of its nature didn't you?
The first four caliphs were religious leaders given political reign by proxy due to tribal nature of the how Middle East was set up where the supreme leader was the religious leader and thus given political decisions as a proxy not as a primary and after them more and more caliphs were primarily political given the proxy religious roles due to nature of rule.
You should be quoted more.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
And yet, I was criticized by BluePigGanon and m_shortpants for "generalizing" about Islamic countries, and using Egypt as an example...
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=175561938&postcount=326
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=175563909&postcount=328
Go figure.
Go to your nearest mosque. Ask them if rape is okay.
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
Thanks, I appreciate your posts as well. And I agree with your basic point here, that ISIS is made up of both opportunists and "true believers".
The fact that there was a Iraqi Sunni backlash against Iraqi Shias is understandable (and before that, it was understandable that Shias tried to marginalize and didn't trust the Sunnis that so recently dominated them). This sort of thing is common everywhere.
The problem is what form the backlash takes. If it's violent and savage, that's bad enough. But to get from a "normal" resistance movement with limited goals (like Kurds in Turkey, or Basques in Spain, or whatever) to a movement like ISIS...well, some sort of Islam has to be involved.
Here's the problem: laypersons and joe six-packs interpret Islam all the time. The vast majority of the time, actually. By virtually every standard, a Muslim theologian/jurist may be "correct", and might have significant influence, but ultimately the shape of Muslim societies is going to be determined by what Muslims actually believe. If a jurist prescribes special protections for religious minorities, great. But if, like in Bangladesh, police and ordinary people often look away when another secular blogger is brutally murdered, then that society will slowly become more oppressive and vicious.
I've heard many times that the relative lack of central authority in Sunni Islam (compared to Shi'ism) might be a reason why it's more prone to inducing crazy behaviour. This might make sense. There seems to be a similar trend with centralized Catholicism (which seems pretty moderate nowadays) and more decentralized forms of Christianity (like Evangelical and American Protestant Christianity).
Sure, but if a supposed misunderstanding of the faith is commonly accepted, and the "real" version of the faith is marginal, then unfortunately the faith is defined by the misunderstanding. Humanity has to deal with Islam as it's practiced, not Islam as it's imagined in the minds of prominent theologians and jurists.
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
I think we discussed this before. It's not practical to separately address every variant of Islam in every post, but feel free to amend the gist of my posts to "mainstream Sunni Islam as dominant in the Middle East and Asia" instead of "Islam". It's pretty clear to me that Ahmadi, Shia, Turkish Sunni, and some other forms of Islam aren't having the same effects on people's behaviour.
Islam is "unique" in the same sense that every ideology is unique. Every ideology has a different impact on beliefs and behaviour. Every ideology can change over time, too; if Mutazilite Islam was dominant nowadays then I probably wouldn't be criticizing it much; if some sort of crazy violent WW2 version of Shintoism was causing evil behaviour instead, then I would be criticizing it.
I'm sorry you have to deal with anti-Muslim sentiment, and that's definitely not my goal when discussing the impact of Islam. Most people can't seem to separate criticism of an ideology from criticism of supposed followers of that ideology. It's even worse when people who follow related, but separate ideologies (like Ahmadiyya Islam) are lumped in and suffer the consequences.
ISIS might have a new interpretation of Islam, but plenty of comparable movements have risen throughout history; even from the time of Islam's initial expansion. Whether they're part of the traditional consensus or not is sort of irrelevant; they're still, to some degree, representing Islam.
Hell the fact that you think ISIS is 'mainstream Sunni as dominant in the Middle East and Asia" is crazy. Hanbali, Hanafi, Maliki, and Shafi scholars have nothing to do with ISIS. Major clerics in fucking Saudi Arabia oppose ISIS. And you threw in the entirety of Asia in there as well? What Thee eff?
The problem here is that you go WITHIN A FEW SENTENCES of saying that you recognize you're not being far too damn general with your language to going back to criticizing 'Islam' in toto.
Criticize the ISIS version of Islam and you'll find me on your side and we can focus on the actual problem. Falling back to the absurd moronic idiotic generality of criticizing 'Islam' and you'll find me pointing out how absolutely and completely dumb, harmful, and counterproductive it is.
That's because when you discuss the impact of 'Islam' in the generic you by definition are discussing the impact of all versions of it including that of me and my family. It's, at the very best, incredibly careless and thoughtless. People who are deliberately malicious (and Lord knows there's plenty of them out there) use the same conflating language in order to make the horrific point either explicitly or implictly that 'all muslims are the same'. And we all know that's the first necessary step to dehumanize a group of people.
No problem with that point. But considering the 1.5 millenia that Islam has been around, the billions and billions of people throughout it that have called themselves Muslim across pretty much every regions of the world, that's not saying much at all. It would be shocking if you didn't find parallels across that vast depth of its history.
About as much as US soldiers in Vietnam represented the US. Or secular soldiers atrocities represent the secular democracies they come from.
Humanity sucks is what I see here. Let's not give ISIS any theological credence here - particularly when they time and again show no cause to concern themselves with the actual theological credence part.
To me, this is a testament to how effectively the human brain can convince itself that it's the good guy. Even in cases as extreme as this, grown men can convince themselves that what they're doing is not only not bad but actually noble and good. Now imagine how easy it is to for your garden variety jerk who thinks he's better than everyone else to accomplish the same feat.
But the point remains salient. Egypt isn't Saudi Arabia isn't Afghanistan isn't Iran isn't Morocco isn't Malaysia isn't etc etc etc.
Compare those countries to other countries in the region and/or to other countries with the same level of economic development and see how unique 'Islam' remains on these issues.
Chaplain
Member
What you are ultimately alluding to is self-deception: turning a blind eye to seeing things from other points of view.
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
I'm definitely not saying that. My previous posts are talking about how Islam has something to do with the bad beliefs and actions of Muslims; ISIS is one instantiation of that, and "mainstream Sunni Islam as dominant in the ME and Asia" is the soil in which it can grow, but it's definitely not the majority view, and I haven't said it is.
What's the alternative? Specify an exhaustive list of every good and bad type of Islam in each post talking about some Islam-inspired behaviour, and speculate about which ones are responsible, and to what degree? Or simply deny that there's any connective tissue between the actions of those referring to themselves as Muslim, and treat ISIS, Boko Haram, and the multitude of similar movements as completely random, inexplicable things?
If I were talking about how Communism was a negative force in the 20th century, could I simply refer to it as Communism, even though that would refer to a bundle of many ideologies, some of which were benign, and some of which weren't? Where do you draw the line?
I'm open to any reasonable alternatives you can suggest. I honestly don't know how to discuss Islam (or any other ideology) without grouping lots of smaller sub-ideologies together.
I suppose it depends on what your values are. If you're convinced Religion A sucks, and bombing, as a last resort, isn't so bad to you, bombing Religion A doesn't look as bad.
Stereogatari
Banned
Certainly not.Wow! Just wow, I don't even have the words for all this
Is it really true that according to Islam "he is allowed to rape an unbeliever"?
boiled goose
good with gravy
Nope. If we want to do something we have to do it now, in this life that we know exists
Certainly not? This is the problem with all religion even non fundamentalist people. Once you have bad reasons for believing in things then you can justify pretty much anything.
It's very simple. The problem here is ISIS. Say "The ISIS version of Islam" or "ISIS Islam" and you're done. Focus on the people who are actually the problem and their beliefs. It's far far far more fruitful to do this and include other problem groups ("Boko Haram Islam" "Taliban Islam" etc) and trace through the common thread THAT WAY than to do what you're doing and inadvertently pulling in peaceful Muslims and lumping them in with these bastards.
If you do this then you can also discuss the links between the faith of these people and traditional Islamic practice without labelling them as the same thing.
These are not mutually exclusive concepts.boiled goose said:
well the experts at ISIS on Islamic theology would certainly disagree with you.
You have to take their views on the matter very seriously.
/s.
Talking about ISIS from a religious point of view is a mess. Any commentary that criticises Islam with ISIS would do better to argue from a political perspective.
Stereogatari
Banned
I don't believe in Islam. But every Hoja in Turkey will say it's not right what ISIS are doing. I believe their Islam, being the descendant of the last real Caliphate, is the actual Islam as it should be practiced.
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
Everyone here agrees that ISIS is bad, and ISIS Islam is bad. To stop the discussion there is insufficient and dishonest. ISIS didn't arise in a vacuum; it took hold among Sunni Muslims. It's linked up with worldwide movements made up of Sunni Muslims. It has many sympathizers among Sunni Muslims. Even if it deviates from the script, it has similarities with Sunni Islam.
Except you're saying I shouldn't be saying "Sunni Muslims" or "Sunni Islam". What should I be saying instead? How should I refer to the wider ideologies that ISIS sprung from?
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