"You live in a bubble of fear, blown by the Bush administration from a soapy solution of hate and deceit through a wand of greed, and bottled by the jewish media to believe that all muslims are here to kill you, and they are all islamofascist supports, and anyone that doesn't beleive that is also an islamofascist supporter. Fortunately, that just is not the truth."
Thanks for pointing all that out to me. You have a future in counselling.
"You do realize that after the 9/11 attacks millions of islamics were by our side in grief?"
Proof? Where are the images of them publicly protesting the psychopathic actions of their fellow Muslims?
"There was no outcry of hate when we took down the taliban in Afghanistan, only when the military industrial complex set it eyes on Iraq did it bite us in the ass."
I recall vividly images of Palestinians celebrating wildly in the streets upon learning of 911. Many of them were shouting, "God is great ("ALLAH AKBAR!!!!!!" ((sp))!" I took them to be Muslims. I must judge based on what I see, hear, experience and learn. I have seen NO MUSLIMS PUBLICLY ATTACK OBL. :dunno:
Statement from President Bush (September 13th, 2001)
I urge - I know I don't need to tell you all this -but our nation must be mindful
that there are thousands of Arab-Americans who live in New York City
who love their flag just as much as the three of us do.
And we must be mindful that as we seek to win the war
that we treat Arab-Americans and Muslims with the respect they deserve.
I know that is your attitudes as well. Certainly the attitude of this government,
that we should not hold one who is a Muslim responsible for an act of terror.
We will hold those who are responsible for the terrorist acts accountable and those who harbor them."
Bin Laden's violence is a heresy against Islam
By Tim Winter (aka Dr. Abdul Hakim Murad)
IN what sense were the World Trade Centre bombers members of Islam? This
question has been sidelined by many Western analysts impatient with the
niceties of theology; but it may be the key to understanding the recent
attacks, and assessing the long-term prospects for peace in the Muslim
world.
Certainly, neither bin Laden nor his principal associate, Ayman
al-Zawahiri, are graduates of Islamic universities or seminaries. And so
their proclamations ignore 14 centuries of Muslim scholarship, and
instead take the form of lists of anti-American grievances and of
Koranic quotations referring to early Muslim wars against Arab
idolators. These are followed by the conclusion that all Americans,
civilian and military, are to be wiped off the face of the Earth.
All this amounts to an odd and extreme violation of the normal methods
of Islamic scholarship. Had the authors of such fatwas followed the
norms of their religion, they would have had to acknowledge that no
school of traditional Islam allows the targeting of civilians. An
insurrectionist who kills non-combatants is guilty of baghy, "armed
transgression", a capital offence in Islamic law. A jihad can be
proclaimed only by a properly constituted state; anything else is pure
vigilantism.
Defining orthodoxy in the mainstream Sunni version of Islam is difficult
because the tradition has an egalitarian streak which makes it reluctant
to produce hierarchies. Theologians and muftis emerge through the
careful approval of their teachers, not because a formal teaching
licence has been given them by a church-like institution.
Despite this apparent informality, there is such a thing as normal Sunni
Muslim doctrine. It has been expressed fairly consistently down the
centuries as a belief system derived from the Muslim scriptures by
generations of learned comment. Until a few decades ago, a Koranic
commentary containing the author's personal views would have been
dismissed as outrageous. In the 19th century, the Iranian reformer known
as "the Bab" was declared to be outside the pale of Islam because he
ignored the accumulated discussions of centuries, and wrote a Koranic
commentary based on his own direct understanding of scripture.
The strangeness as well as the extremity of the New York attacks has
been reflected in the strenuous denunciations we have heard from Muslim
leaders around the world. For them, this has been a rare moment of
unity. Mohammed Tantawi, rector of Cairo's Al-Azhar University, the
highest institution of learning in the Sunni world, has bitterly
condemned the outrages. In Shi'ite Iran, Ayatollah Kashani called the
attacks "catastrophic", and demanded a global mobilisation against the
culprits. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, normally well
known for its indecision, unanimously condemned "these savage and
criminal acts".
Why should apparently devout Muslims have defied the unanimous verdict
of Islamic law? The reasons - and the blame - are to be found on both
sides of the divide which, according to bin Laden, utterly separates the
West from Islam.
On the Western side, a reluctance to challenge the Israeli occupation of
Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem has unquestionably contributed to the
sidelining of mainstream Muslim voices in the Middle East. Those voices,
speaking cautiously from ancient religious universities and venerable
mosques, have been reluctant to exploit, rather than calm, the hatred of
the masses for Israeli policy, and thus for the United States. This
perceived failure to make a difference has allowed wilder, more
intransigent voices to gain credibility in a way that would have been
unimaginable before the capture of Arab Jerusalem in 1967.
It is unfair and simplistic, however, to claim that it is Western policy
that lit the fuse for last month's events. Without a theological
position justifying the rejection of the mainstream position, the
frustration with orthodoxy would have led to a frustration with religion
- and then to a search for secular responses.
That alternative theology does, however, exist. While Saudi Arabia
itself has been consistent in its opposition to terrorism, it has also
on occasion unwittingly nurtured revolutionary religious views. Before
the explosion of oil wealth in the 1960s, its Wahhabi creed was largely
unnoticed by the wider Islamic world. Those erudite Muslims who did know
about Wahhabism typically dismissed it as simple-minded Bedouin
puritanism with nothing to add to their central activity - exploring
Muslim strategies of accommodation with the modern world.
When I myself studied theology at Al-Azhar, we were told that Wahhabism
was heretical - not only because of issues such as its insistence that
the Koranic talk of God's likeness to humanity was to be taken
literally, but also because it implied a radical rejection of all Muslim
scholarship. Grey-bearded sheikhs departed from their usual
imperturbability to denounce the tragic consequences for Islam of the
claim that every believer should interpret the scriptures according to
his own lights.
This sort of radical move leads to liberal re-readings of the Koran, as
in the case of the South African theologian Farid Esack, who has
horrified traditionalists by advocating homosexual rights among Muslims.
Much more commonly, however, it allows young men whose anger has been
aroused by American policy in the Middle East to ignore the scholarly
consensus about the meaning of the Koran, and read their own
frustrations into the text
.
Another result of this rejection of traditional Islam has been the
notion that political power should be in the hands of men of religion.
When he came to power in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini remarked that he had
achieved something utterly without precedent in Islamic history. The
Taliban, by ruling directly rather than advising hereditary rulers, have
similarly combined the "sword" and the "pen". Far from being a
traditionalist move, this is a new departure for Islam, and mainstream
scholarship regards it with deep suspicion.
Islamic civilisation has in the past proved capable of, for the times,
extraordinary feats of toleration. Under the Muslims, medieval Spain
became a haven for diverse religions and sects. Following the Christian
reconquest, the Inquisition eliminated all dissent. The notion that
Islamic civilisation is inherently less capable of tolerance and
compassion than any other is hard to square with the facts.
Muslims none the less have to face the challenge posed by the new
heresies. The Muslim world can ill afford to lapse into bigotry at a
point in history when dialogue and conviviality have never been more
important.
It is a relief that the mainstream theologians have come out so
unanimously against the terrorists. What we must now ask them is to
campaign more strongly against the aberrant doctrines that underpin
them.
Both "sides", therefore, have a responsibility to act. The West must
drain the swamp of rage by securing a fair resolution of the Palestinian
tragedy. But it is the responsibility of the Islamic world to de- feat
the terrorist aberration theologically.
* Tim Winter (Abdul Hakim Murad) a Muslim, is lecturer in Islamic Studies at the
University of Cambridge
Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi Condemns Attacks Against Civilians: Forbidden in Islam
DOHA, Qatar, Sept 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Renowned Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi denounced the attacks against civilians in the U.S. Tuesday and encouraged Muslims to donate blood to the victims of the attack.
In response to the bloody attack against civilians in the U.S., Sheikh Yusuf issued a statement Wednesday saying that:
"Our hearts bleed for the attacks that has targeted the World Trade Center [WTC], as well as other institutions in the United States despite our strong oppositions to the American biased policy towards Israel on the military, political and economic fronts.
"Islam, the religion of tolerance, holds the human soul in high esteem, and considers the attack against innocent human beings a grave sin, this is backed by the Qur'anic verse which reads:
Who so ever kills a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he has killed all mankind, and who so ever saves the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind," (Al-Ma'dah:32).
"The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, is reported to have said, 'A believer remains within the scope of his religion as long as he doesn't kill another person illegally'," the prominent scholar said.
He added that haphazard killing where the rough is taken with the smooth and where innocents are killed along with wrongdoers is totally forbidden in Islam. No one, as far as Islam is concerned, is held responsible for another's actions. Upon seeing a woman killed in the battlefield, the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, denied the act and said: "That woman shouldn't have been killed anyway!".
Even in times of war, Muslims are not allowed to kill anybody save the one who is indulged in face-to-face confrontation with them. They are not allowed to kill women, old persons, children, or even a monk in his religious seclusion.
Qaradawi then asserted that is why killing hundreds of helpless civilians who have nothing to do with the decision-making process and are striving hard to earn their daily bread, such as the victims of the latest explosions in America, is a heinous crime in Islam. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, is reported to have stated that a woman was qualified to enter Hell because of the cat she locked up to death.
"If such is the ruling applied in protecting animals, no doubt, aggression against human beings, a fortiori, deserves greater protection, for human beings are honored by Allah Almighty and are His vicegerents on earth," he added.
Al Qaradawi said, "we Arab Muslims are the most affected by the grave consequences of hostile attack on man and life. We share the suffering experienced by innocent Palestinians at the hands of the tyrannical Jewish entity who raze the Palestinian homes to the ground, set fire to their tilth, kill them cold-bloodedly, and leave innocent orphans wailing behind.
"With this in mind, the daily life in Palestine has become a permanent memorial gathering. When Palestinians face such unjust aggression, they tend to stem bloodletting and destruction and not to claim the lives of innocent civilians."
"I categorically go against a committed Muslim's embarking on such attacks. Islam never allows a Muslim to kill the innocent and the helpless.
"If such attacks were carried out by a Muslim - as some biased groups claim - then we, in the name of our religion, deny the act and incriminate the perpetrator. We do confirm that the aggressor deserves the deterrent punishment irrespective of his religion, race or gender," he added.
"What we warn against, even if becomes a reality, is to hold a whole nation accountable for a crime carried out by a limited number of people or to characterize a certain religion as a faith giving support to violence and terrorism," Qaradawi said.
Qaradawi clarified that when the well-known Oklahoma incident was carried out by a Christian American, who was driven by a personal interests, Christianity, America or even the Christian world, were not accused of the attack because a Christian masterminded it.
"I have been asked several questions on TV programs and on public lectures about the martyr operations outside the Palestinian territories, and I always answer that I do agree with those who do not allow such martyr operations to be carried out outside the Palestinian territories.
"Instead we should concentrate on facing the occupying enemy directly. It is not permissible, as far as Islam is concerned, to shift confrontation outside the Palestinian territories. This is backed by the Qur'anic verse that reads: "Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! Allah loves not, aggressors," the renowned Muslim scholar concluded.
- The terrorist act was strongly condemned by every single Palestinian organization including Fatah, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas, Workers Unions and Committees, Human Right organizations (AlHaq, Law, Palestine Center for Human Rights), student associations, municipalities, mosques and churches, etc.
- The US Consul General in Jerusalem reported that he has received a huge stack of faxes from Palestinians and Palestinian organizations expressing condolences, grief and solidarity. He himself was pained to see that the media chose to focus on the sensational images of a few Palestinians rejoicing.
- The Palestine Legislative Council condemned the terrorist attack on the United States and sent an urgent letter of condolences to Mr. J Dennis Hasterd, Speaker of the House of Representatives.
- Palestinians in East Jerusalem held a candle-light vigils on 12 and 14 September to express their grief and solidarity with the American families struck by this tragedy. Mr. Abdel Qader Al-Husseini, son of the late Palestinian leader Faisal Al-Husseini led one of the vigils.
- Jerusalem University students, along with the President of the University and the Deans of the various Faculties, began a blood donation drive in East Jerusalem. Students and professors went to hospitals in order to donate blood for the American victims who need it.
- The 1 million Palestinian students in the Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, stood five minutes in silence to express their solidarity with the hundreds of American children who have been struck by this strategy, which resembles in its shocking effects their daily sufferings. (see image to the right)
-In Iran, Tehran's main soccer stadium observed an unprecedented minute's silence in sympathy with the victims.
-Iran's Ayatollah Imami Kashani spoke of a catastrophic act of terrorism which could only be condemned by all Muslims, adding the whole world should mobilise against terrorism.
