Subject:  Stanley This is a Very Interesting Long Post Re: Who Feeds Fundamentalism ? |
Author:
Blue Eyes
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 04:32:56 05/09/03 Fri
In reply to:
Stanley Levin
's message, "Who Feeds Fundamentalism ?" on 13:58:52 05/07/03 Wed
I must re read this later, so as to
digest it better.
Good to see your door is still open
and presenting the truth ..........
>>
>Stories of the atrocities and the bigotry of Muslim
>fundamentalists embarrass the moderate and educated
>Muslims who desire to live in harmony with their
>non-Muslim neighbors and feel nothing but compassion
>for the rest of the world. As we all condemn these
>religious extremists who blow the buildings, make
>bombs and engage in acts of terrorism as misguided
>fanatics we have to question ourselves whether we have
>any part in these terrorist acts of our most radical
>fellow coreligionists. Are we, the moderate,
>intellectual, law abiding, good citizen Muslims
>strengthening Islamic fundamentalism by merely
>upholding Islam? Is really Islam a religion of peace
>that is being misinterpreted and abused by few
>unstable individuals who use it as an excuse to
>justify their criminal tendencies, or is perhaps their
>crimes against humanity inspired by the teachings of
>Quran, the very book we call holy and the sacred words
>of God?
>
>
>One of the biggest misconceptions is that religions
>were pure in their original state and became
>contaminated by misinterpretations. Nothing is farther
>from the truth. Islam for example, started with
>violence. The pure Islam, as is understood from Quran
>and exemplified by its author, is an uncompromising,
>intolerant and fundamentalist religion. Any attempt to
>mask Islam with a humane face goes against the tenets
>of Islam and is doomed to fail. Any expansion of Islam
>fuels the fundamentalist zeal of its adherents and
>promotes terrorism.
>
>The assumption that religions were pure in their
>original state has given rise to thousands of sects
>each trying to revive the original purity of their
>religions according to their biased thinking.
>
>The other danger in upholding this false belief is
>giving credit to the doctrines that essentially preach
>hate. You cannot say Muhammad was a messenger of God
>and Quran is the word of God, then ask those who want
>to live by it, killing the disbelievers, usurping
>their properties and rights, abusing and beating their
>own wives, not to. Why not? If Quran is the word of
>God, then isn’t this, what Quran teaches?
>
>To try to keep Islam and work within it, in order to
>make it a tolerant and humane religion is not only
>impossible it is also dishonest. It is impossible
>because it goes against the spirit of Quran and the
>Sunnah (life examples) of the Prophet. It is dishonest
>because a tolerant Islam is no more Islam. It would be
>“bid’a” an innovation, which is considered to be
>heresy and according to Islam is punishable by death.
>It would be the same as Nazis tried to make their
>party more humane. The question is, if it is good why
>change it? And if it isn’t why keep it?.
>
>I do not blame the brainwashed fundamentalists for
>doing what they are doing. At least they are honest.
>Their faith and their deeds are consistent. I blame
>the moderate intellectual Muslims for being dishonest,
>for upholding a doctrine that promotes hate while
>giving lip service to “love” and “tolerance”. To claim
>that Islam is a religion of peace that teaches
>tolerance is as accurate as saying the same thing of
>Nazism. Muslims are not bad people (Except those true
>ones who would joyfully and readily kill the person
>whom they think is an apostate). The average Muslim
>knows nothing of Islam. Very few Muslims have really
>read the Quran and understood it. If the good people
>who mistakenly call themselves Muslims read that book,
>very few of them will remain faithful.
>
>This very fact that good intentioned moderate
>religious people try to give a “mystical
>interpretation” to the inhumane and intolerant
>teachings of the religions is the very cause of the
>problem. The originators of these religions were all
>liars, with no spiritual insights or compassion. They
>were religious bigots, fanatical nut-heads who lied
>compulsively and convincingly. They were charismatic
>psychopaths like the modern cult leaders that emerge
>everyday in our own time. Their early followers were a
>bunch of illiterate foolhardy ignorant people. They
>believed these impostors and followed them with heart
>and soul. They gave their lives and took the lives of
>others to establish those lies. They interpreted the
>harshness and the intolerance of their leaders as the
>evidence of the truth. When their prophets died many
>came up with stories of miracles that they claimed to
>have witnessed, thus gaining attention and respect
>among their peers. The subsequent generations
>elaborated on the absurd teachings of those so-called
>“revealed books” and tried to interpret them into
>something that would make sense. Philosophers and
>mystics gave esoteric meanings to the blatantly
>foolish talks of these prophets and finally the
>religion became the way of life, each person taking
>the faith of the others as the proof of the truth of
>that religion. “How can all these people be wrong?”
>they would say and is the only force that keeps
>religious people going.
>
>As a matter of honesty it is important that we sever
>our emotional umbilical cord from the religions and
>question their truth impassionedly the way we would
>question any scientific, literal or historic thesis.
>It is a mistake to read what Rumi or other Sufis say
>in order to understand the inner meaning of Quran.
>Quran has no inner meanings. The book of Quran is
>clear. Any inner meaning attributed to it would be the
>interpretation of the good hearted people who could
>not accept the absurdities and the errors of that book
>and tried to interpret it in a way that could measure
>up to their more refined humane and intellectual
>understanding.
>
>One can take any book and give it an “inner meaning”
>and interpret it to suit his expectations. If someone
>told you that the inner meanings of Hitler’s orders to
>cremate the Jews is to burn all your attachment to the
>world and become spiritually enlightened, you would
>probably take that person to a psychiatrist,
>especially when all those atrocities took place during
>Hitler's own life time and were ordered and supervised
>by him. You would not be fooled if someone told you
>that Hitler’s desire to conquer and subdue other
>nations was to bring peace and prosperity and love of
>God everywhere. You would not be that stupid to
>believe if someone told you that all the crimes
>perpetrated by the Nazis were due to the
>misinterpretations of Hitler’s orders. Then why are
>you so willing to fool yourself when similar absurd
>excuses are made for Muhammad? He massacred 600 to 900
>of the Jews after cutting the water to their quarters
>burning their plantations and capturing them as the
>prisoners of war, for no reason at all except his
>desire to enrich himself with their wealth and the
>sale of their wives and children as slaves. He sent
>assassins to the houses of his opponents during the
>night to kill them. One of them was a mother of 5
>small children whose only crime was to compose a
>poetry that Muhammad found insulting. He raped
>beautiful girls whom he captured during his raids and
>sold the rest of the women as slaves. Are there any
>“mystical interpretations” to these atrocities?
>
>For how long we want to fool ourselves? For how long
>we are going to keep our heads under the sand? For how
>long should we try to look for gems of wisdom in the
>dung?
>
>Muslim’s find their strength in their number and the
>stories of conversions that they so joyfully share
>with each other. If there are no such stories, they
>fabricate them. It does not matter to them if Islam is
>true or false? They don’t think it is up to them to
>make an independent search of the truth and find the
>facts on their own. If they hear stories of the
>conversion of others it is enough proof to them of the
>truth of Islam. The say to themselves: “not all these
>people can be wrong!” and then go about applying the
>atrocities that are prescribed in Quran and Ahadith
>and the result is what you see.
>
>It is up to us to stop this vicious cycle. As Muslim
>intellectuals we have to reverse this trend. We have
>to separate ourselves permanently from Islam, denounce
>it, and write about it. When our numbers increase the
>masses who believed in Islam relying on us will
>eventually feel lonely and follow us. That is the only
>way to stop this lie from spreading. Sitting by the
>side, trying to educate Muslims to be nice won’t work.
>Telling Muslims that Islam is a tolerant religion that
>respects women’s rights and the rights of
>non-believers, won’t work. Because they know that it
>is not true. It has not worked for 1400 years and it
>won’t work now. Mo’tazalies tried and failed, Sufis
>tried and failed, Ata Turk tried and failed. Every
>attempt to make Islam more humane will fail because
>Quran is on the side of the fundamentalists. As
>Taslima Nasrin wrote, “Fundamentalism is a poisonous
>branch that stems from the trunk of religion”. Until
>you do not uproot the tree, that poisonous branch will
>keep shooting out.
>
>The following is an article from The New York Times
>that confirms my thesis that the new conversions to
>Islam in one part of the world feeds Islamic terrorism
>in another part.
>
>
>
>August 26, 2000
>SRINAGAR JOURNAL
>Behind the Veil, a Muslim Feminist
>By BARRY BEARAK
>
>Barry Bearak/ The New York Times
>Asiyah Andrabi makes her demands for equal rights for
>women from behind the all-enveloping burqa worn by
>conservative Muslims.
>
>RINAGAR, Kashmir -- Asiyah Andrabi, conservative
>Muslim and radical feminist, believes that women
>should be heard and not seen, so she makes her demands
>for equal rights from behind the black cloth curtain
>of an all-enveloping burqa.
>
>"The veil is for security as Allah wishes it," she
>said, pausing to refresh her hidden mouth with sips of
>Coca-Cola. "If gold is left uncovered along a
>roadside, anyone will grab it, because it is a
>precious thing. It is the same with an uncovered
>woman."
>
>There are other reasons for Ms. Andrabi to conceal her
>face. She is a militant who opposes Indian rule here.
>For most of the last decade she has been living either
>in jail or on the lam, alternating her efforts between
>the liberation of women and that of Kashmir.
>
>Indian intelligence agents say they suspect that she
>is a conduit for money to guerrilla groups.
>
>But her notoriety is owed to flamboyant rather than
>clandestine activities. As head of Dukhtaran-e-Millat,
>or Daughters of the Community, she has led hundreds of
>women in street protests. At times they have carried
>brushes and paint cans beneath their burqas,
>blackening any advertisements that show scantily clad
>models.
>
>With the same sense of righteousness, Ms. Andrabi has
>also tossed colored dye into the faces of Muslim women
>who shun the veil. Western dress is popular here in
>Srinagar, the summer capital of the state of Jammu and
>Kashmir.
>
>Often Ms. Andrabi is not.
>
>"Such upstarts are like a plague for us," said one
>older Muslim woman.
>
>With so well-known a reputation and so little-known a
>face, Ms. Andrabi, 37, carries about her short frame a
>sense of mystery. But she is hardly press-shy,
>alerting favorite reporters whenever she calls a
>protest.
>
>Interviews with her are rare, though. She phones the
>reporters, not the other way around. Rendezvous are
>set, broken, reset. Finally, she kept a date, arriving
>late with her 8-month-old son asleep on her shoulder.
>
>"To people from the West I may seem a contradiction,"
>she said in excellent English, her diction a tip-off
>to an upbringing in a wealthy family and a college
>education. "But I have never felt that this veil --
>this purdah -- has been a hardship to my work."
>
>As if to serve up a suitably vexing contradiction to
>her self-declared feminism, she said that lately she
>had been nagging her husband to marry a few extra
>wives.
>
>She explained: "Allah says a man can marry one, two,
>three or four wives, but he must have the means to do
>justice to them all. The jihad against India has left
>so many widows and orphans. A man has a responsibility
>to look after them."
>
>She told her life story.
>
>Her father, a doctor, was a devout Muslim. But while
>he urged her to get a secular education, he encouraged
>only his sons to study the Koran.
>
>She studied biochemistry at college in Srinagar. But
>when she wanted to get an advanced degree, she said,
>her family refused to let her leave home. While in a
>prolonged sulk, she happened on a book about women who
>had converted to Islam.
>
>"It shocked me that I was so unfamiliar with my own
>religion," she said. "It is a tragedy that only men go
>to the mosque, and women are told their only duty is
>to look after the children. In truth, Islam grants
>individuality to men and women. In heaven, before
>Allah, a woman, too, will be asked about her worldly
>deeds."
>
>She studied the Koran -- and encouraged other women to
>do the same. "Our society cruelly restricts women,
>from the words of the Prophet, from school, from
>jobs," she said, her voice taking on an angry edge.
>"But in today's world women can even be astronauts. So
>they must be educated. You know, an ignorant woman
>cannot answer even the simplest question from her
>child, and a mother must be the first school for her
>children."
>
>In 1989 a revolt erupted in the predominantly Muslim
>Kashmir Valley, an insurgency that still goes on. Ms.
>Andrabi believes now, as she believed then, that
>Kashmir ought to sever itself from India and become
>part of Pakistan, an Islamic state that in her view
>needs to do better by its own women and be truer to
>its faith.
>
>"I believe the whole universe should be governed by
>the laws of Islam, and Allah says all Muslims should
>be united as one," she said.
>
>The Kashmir dispute involves dozens of political
>parties and soldierly factions, some foreign, some
>domestic, some Islamic, some secular.
>
>There is usually little role for women in such a
>male-dominated occupation as holy war. "The social
>milieu does not allow it," said Abdul Ghani Bhat, the
>leader of an umbrella group of Kashmiri organizations.
>"It's hard for a woman to go into the market to make a
>speech or go into the forest to shoot a gun."
>
>Ms. Andrabi, then, is quite the exception. Her
>husband, Muhammad Qasim, who belongs to the militant
>group Jamiat-ul-Mujahadeen, is her life partner in
>jihad. In 1990, at age 27, she told her father that
>she would accept an arranged betrothal so long as the
>groom was active in the insurgency. She met Mr. Qasim
>on the day of their wedding, she said.
>
>Each has been arrested several times. Indian jails are
>brutal places, Ms. Andrabi complained. In 1993, when
>their first son was a baby, she was jailed for 13
>months. The infant was allowed to stay with her. "But
>all he had was my breast milk," she said. "They gave
>him not even a biscuit."
>
>She wants her sons to grow up with gun in hand. "I
>want them to be mujahids," she said. "I never pray or
>dream that they be doctors or prime ministers. I want
>them to be mujahids who fight for the cause of holy
>Islam."
>
>If she ever has a daughter, she said, maybe she will
>be a prime minister.”
>
>
>There you have it. In the above story we have an
>educated women of well to do middle class family
>turning a terrorist, tossing colored dyes in the faces
>of women without Hijab, advocating violence, who wants
>to raise her sons as terrorists with gun in their
>hands and has scooped so low that even she encourages
>her husband to take other wives.
>
>What made a nice middle class girl brought up in a
>good family become a terrorist? A book that she read
>about the conversion of women to Islam! That is all
>she needed to be blazed by fanatical fervor and turn a
>terrorist.
>
>New conversions, feed Islamic fundamentalism. Moderate
>Muslim intellectuals feed Islamic fundamentalism. Any
>success of Islam, feed Islamic fundamentalism. In a
>most bizarre way, even the scientific contributions of
>a Muslim in the United State, feeds Islamic
>fundamentalism.
>
>Muslims suffer from a complex of inferiority. The
>stories of the conversions of westerners, give them
>reassurance, renew their hopes and encourage them to
>hold fast unto their religion. But Islam is a
>fundamentalist religion. Militancy is encouraged in
>Quran. The more the roots of Islam are expanded the
>more the fundamentalist branches are invigorated. You
>cannot fight Islamic fundamentalism without fighting
>Islam itself.
>
>The responsibility is upon moderate Muslim
>intellectuals who care and who want to demolish the
>walls of mistrust that exist between the West and the
>Islamic world, who are concerned of the growth of
>Islamic fundamentalism and who long to see Muslims
>opening up to the West being more cooperative and
>acting as responsible citizens of a new united world.
>
>This will not happen until Islam is not weakened or
>completely eradicated. The self-righteousness, the
>hate of the unbeliever, the advocacy for the use of
>violence are all part of Islam, and prescribed in
>Quran. How can one be a “true” Muslim and not hate the
>unbelievers?
>
>This is what Quran teaches.
>
>"Oh ye who believe! Murder those of the disbelievers
>and let them find harshness in you." Q.9:123
>
>"Slay the idolaters wherever you find them" Q. 9: 5
>
>"Fight those who do not believe in God and the last
>day... and fight People of the Book, who do not accept
>the religion of truth (Islam) until they pay tribute
>by hand, being inferior" Q. 9: 29
>
>“Fight them on until there is no more tumult and
>religion becomes that of Allah” Q. 2: 193
>
>By Ali Sina
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
| |
Feedback: 