Islam

thorbiorn

The Living Force
FOTCM Member
Hello,

Where to post, religion, politics, or? I choose religion. Controvercial because what has inspired is the row over the cartoons. The religion highlighted in this post is Islam; and the cartoons, their background and the responses to them.

What is Islam? What is the Quran?

Download Quran Trans 2.0 English with three commentaries: http://www.download.com/3001-2135-10443574.html

Sharia, muslim religious law site: http://i-cias.com/e.o/sharia.htm

Muslim articles on the Quran written for non-muslims can be found on: http://www.islamicity.com/Donate/default.asp?ref=5

Some titles: The Amazing Quran http://www.islamicity.com/articles/Articles.asp?ref=IC0106-255

Quran: A Divine Guidance or a Historical Document: http://www.islamicity.com/articles/Articles.asp?ref=IC0308-2058

Response to "Challenging the Quran" http://www.islamicity.com/articles/Articles.asp?ref=IV0308-2054

Is there Anti Semitism in the Quran? http://www.islamicity.com/articles/Articles.asp?ref=IC0210-1765

Books on the Koran: If you like scholarly books about Islam and islamic culture try http://www.mlbd.com they have 40+ titles.

One that caught my eye was: "Challenge to Islam for Reformation" The Rediscovery and reliable Reconstruction of a comprehensive pre-Islamic Christian Hymnal hidden in the Koran under earliest Islamic Reinterpretations (Hardcover) Author: Gunter Luling. Year of Publication: 2003. Bibliography: lxviii,580p.,abbrev.,biblo.,index.,notes.

Book Description: (I took this from Amazon.com, the price is there USD 110)
"This is a translation and considerable reworking of the 2nd German edition, titled "Uber den Ur-Koran", first published in 1974. The proof is established that the pre-Islamic Christian hymnody contained in the Korann under early Islamic reinterpretations can reliably be reconstructed. These reconstructions yield a totally new insight into the rise and early development of Islam: the intentions of Prophet Muhammad have obviously been altered by his early successors in power, often rendered into the contrary.

About the Author: Gunter Luling, a Protestant theologian, was Director of the Goethe-Institut of Aleppo/Syria and returned to university as assistant professor. He has a number of important books to his credit."

If you like Islamic theology then a good read is "The Sufi Pafth of Knowledge" by William Chittick. Albany 1989, New York State University.

How did the cartoons depicting the prophet of Islam surface? One possible explanation and serious food for thought in regard to Judaism and Christianity and Islam are the implications of Laura Knight Jadczyk's book "The Secret History of the World and How to Get out Alive". An interesting chapter in regard to religion and Islam is Chapter 10: Who wrote the Bible and why?

Below is a quote from a differnt chapter, which I include because the question of who, why, and with what intentions may not be so simple.

""The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around; what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand; most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependant on the system that that they will fight to protect it. Were you listening to me Neo, or were you looking at the woman in the red dress? They will fight to protect it."

We could just as well re-write this to say: When you are inside the Matrix, you look around and see Christians, Jews, Mohammedans, Zoroastrians, Wiccans, Magicians... most of these people are not ready to be unplugged... they are so hopelessly inured, so hopelessly dependant on the system that they will fight to protect it. Were you listening to me, or were you listening to that ZionistBaptist, or purveyor of Magick and mumbo jumbo?

It was also pointed out by Morpheus that any human being who was plugged into the system could be used as an "agent" by something similar to a downloaded program that was designed to activate them in a certain way. A similar state of affairs seems to be the actual case in our reality, with the Controllers acting from some hyperdimensional space of which we have but limited awareness, and even less access." page 71 in THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WORLD,

(t: the first paragraph must be from one of the Matrix movies. You might find the transcripts on http://matrixirtam.com/ a link I found on http://www.remoteviewinglight.com/html/remote-viewing-links.html)

Another more down to earth explanation of how the cartoon story began: "Who's afraid of Muhammad?"
http://www.signandsight.com/features/588.html "Joerg Lau explains how some cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in the Danish paper Jyllands- Posten turned into no laughing matter." "The man who catapulted Denmark into an international crisis sits in his cosy kitchen and is confused. Kare Bluitgen has generated a conflict that is robbing ambassadors and heads of state of their sleep. In the last weeks, the Saudi Arabian ambassador was pulled out of Copenhagen. On Monday, the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten received bomb threats. In Gaza, armed Palestinians stormed the EU's office, and Danish flags went up in flames. And it all began with Kare Bluitgen wanting to explain Islam to Danish children."

t: for more click link above; or below if you speak German. The article originally appeared in German in Die Zeit on February 2, 2006. http://www.zeit.de/2006/06/D_8anemark_neu?page=all - Joerg Lau was literary editor of die tageszeitung before joining the Berlin bureau of Die Zeit. He is author of the book "Hans Magnus Enzensberger - Ein Oeffentliches Leben" (Alexander Fest Verlag, 1999).

A woman, Sonia Mikich, commenting on the cartoons in "What next, bearded one?" http://www.signandsight.com/features/597.html
"Our traditional values have been trampled on and we are offended. A wake-up call.
I feel offended. Zealots are nailing veils onto the faces of my sisters in Afghanistan and Pakistan and are busy hanging women, homosexuals, adulterers and non-believers. But human rights, women's rights and the right to liberty are the most exalted in the history of humanity; this is the tradition in which I was raised. Values that make the world better and more peaceful."

t: The article originally appeared in German in die tageszeitung on February 6, 2006. http://www.taz.de/pt/2006/02/06/a0132.1/text Sonia Mikich, born 1951 in Oxford, is a television and print journalist. She hosts WDR's political magazine "Monitor."

Other links and information sites:

Muslim cartoon row timeline: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4688602.stm

The Christian paper in Norway that increased the stir on January 10th is "Magazinet" http://www.magazinet.no

Expert Warnings About Cartoons Unheeded: http://www.iviews.com/Articles/articles.asp?ref=ZD0602-2894

What the Muhammad cartoons portray: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4693292.stm
http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/

Freedom of Speech site has discussion, and links to images: http://www.freedomofspeech.dk/

Danish Muslims split over cartoons: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4692318.stm

Q&A: The Muhammad cartoons row: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4677976.stm

Cartoon row: Readers speak out: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4674628.stm

Have Your Say: http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=1011&&edition=2&ttl=20060211084615

Sweden shuts website over cartoon: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4700414.stm

French papers in cartoon lawsuit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4702702.stm

World figures deplore cartoon row: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4691878.stm

Cartoon row editor sent on leave: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4700124.stm

Cartoon editors face mixed fates: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4700842.stm

Country profile: Denmark: (t: from an English point of view!) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1032760.stm
On the flag http://danishflag.denmark.dk/

The American Jewish Committee has a response to the cartoons:
http://www.ajc.org/site/c.ijITI2PHKoG/b.851561/apps/nl/content2.asp?content_id={D5F7785C-872A-4983-B5D5-6DC9D1D28BF6}&notoc=1

From the World Socialist Web Site: "Denmark and Jyllands-Posten: The background to a provocation" http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/denm-f10.shtml

It concludes:
"The current episode reveals the enormous dangers facing the working class from the visible decomposition of democracy in all of the capitalist countries. The promotion of anti-Muslim chauvinism, and all forms of communalist and nationalist poison, is the expression of a social system that is mired in insoluble crisis and incapable of meeting the most basic needs of the broad masses of the people.

The only antidote to such backward and reactionary politics is the development of a united movement of workers of all countries, religions and nationalities in opposition to war and in defense of democratic rights against the capitalist ruling elites and the system they uphold. The program upon which such a struggle must be based is socialist internationalism."

t: Does WSWS have a plan other than repeating slogans?

European media publish anti-Muslim cartoons: An ugly and calculated provocation http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/cart-f04.shtml

Death toll mounts in worldwide protests against anti-Muslim cartoons http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/cart-f08.shtml

t: What do Muslims think of the cartoons?

Cartoon comenting on cartoons: http://www.aljazeerah.info/Cartoons/2006%20Cartoons/February/10f6c.htm

On http://www.muslimwakeup.com/ there is a list of topics including a thread on the cartoons. Somebody wanted it deleted, but it may still be there. One sub-thread includes initiatives to reconcile. One post was: PostPosted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 6:46 am. Post subject: www.anotherdenmark.org
"Have a look at this: http://www.anotherdenmark.org/?lang=en The list is growing by the minute and the true Denmark is reaching out. Many initiatives like this is starting these days. Almost 15.000 has signed this letter in just two days: http://www.forsoningnu.dk/underskrift/english.html ..and remeber, Denmark is a small nation, so that is actually a lot :-) It is a danish site, but you can have a look if you want: http://www.forsoningnu.dk" (t: means reconcialiation now) - end of post

thorbiorn
 
Hi,

Here are two webcast of Ahmed Abu Laban, a leader of the muslim movement in Denmark, they were recorded on February 10th 2006 after the Friday prayer, he is positive about the progress in the situation:

http://www.infocast.dk/jp/jp.php?id=1473&offset=&category=ALL&q=

http://www.infocast.dk/jp/jp.php?id=1474&offset=&category=ALL&q=

Links were posted by the paper that published the drawings. Aslo the paper now has a small English section:
http://www.jp.dk/english_news/artikel:aid=3548990/

On http://www.signandsight.com/features/590.htm you find a survey of the European press. Very large selection of comments on the twelve cartoon story.

Muslim comments on the cartoons:
"Clash of the Uncivilized" 2/21/2006 - By: Imam Zaid Shakir IslamiCity* - http://www.iviews.com/Articles/articles.asp?ref=IC0602-2920

"Cartoon Awakening" 2/23/2006 - Political - By: Ramzy Baroud Iviews* - http://iviews.com/articles/Articles.asp?ref=IV0602-2925

"Why the Western urge to ridicule the Prophet?" 2/25/2006 - Religious Education Political - By: Karen Armstrong IslamiCity* - http://www.iviews.com/Articles/articles.asp?ref=IC0602-2928

"Not a clash of civilizations but an intellectual debate" By PHILIP SEIB Posted: Mar. 3, 2006 http://www.islamicity.com/m/news_frame.asp?Frame=1&referenceID=25001

"The Rage Game, Putting On The brakes" 3/4/2006 - Political Religious - By: Imam Abu Laith Luqman Ahmad, Iviews* - http://www.iviews.com/Articles/articles.asp?ref=IV0603-2934
"Anyone who hasn't capitalized on the recent malicious caricature portrayal of the Prophet to express their outrage, promote their organization, get their name in the paper, pontificate the loftiness of Islamic ideals, start a membership drive, do a little political posturing, or to open dialogue, or defend the Prophet has missed their opportunity."

thorbiorn
 
Hello all, No doubt the PTB are overjoyed at the 'positive' (really negative) muslim response to global cointelpro that happened recently with all that anger, outrage and demonstrations directed at some cartoons. These cartoons may just be merely propaganda designed to provoke a response. And they certainly appeared to have worked.

I used to think that certain factions within the PTB might again try terrorist violence to promote anger and hatred toward muslims (Arabs) umonst western countries, but maybe they don't need to.

They just need to infuriate muslims to the point of erruption and then say to Westerners "See, look how unreasonable they are? And we've 'set them up' so completely and utterly as supposed 'terrorists', that we just have to go in there and make war for conquest and profit. It would help if you 'agreed' with us on this..."

The one thing the PTB CANNOT afford is universal questioning of the truth behind the identity of the so-called Arab 'terrorists' behind 9/11. The real identity of these people is another significant weakness in the PTB's suit of armour. Questioning the truth behind this will uncover a can of worms the likes of which has not been seen for a long time.

I think one of the more positive things to come about from this deliberately manipulated situation is the opportunity it represents for the muslim community to show people what their religion is really all about. Not politics, or war, that's for sure.
 
these are just my thoughts right now...
i think Islam is not meant to be a separate monotheistic religion like Christianity and Judaism, the word Muslim is not really only attributed to the followers of Islam per se but the followers of truth, that's why Ibraham, Jesus, Moses, etc.. are all considered Muslims, but Islam aknowledges that Christianity and specially Judaism are corrupted and not what Jesus or Moses taught.
"they write the book by their own hand"
there is no concept of trying to convert other people
there is no authority, just read the Koran, the Hadith and think

"there is no god but God" means unity not separation

of course it all can be twisted by the PTB to suit their purposes

and just for the fun of it, i think the people here at Cassiopaea.org and QFG can be considered Mujahidin since Jihad means giving your money and yourself in the way of God (AKA Truth)

as for the cartoons, the problem was the insulting, and the double standard, the hatred against Muslims can be felt in the air.
 
Hello,

How many kinds of Muslims?

A try would be; Sunni, Shia and the Aga Khan, ( to read a little about the last group:
http://www.ishipress.com/agakhan.htm ) In each of these there might be different styles of practicing from semi-atheist, to ultral light, light, soft, moderate, fundamentalist, and all the way to ultra extreme fundamentalism.

Next we could divide again according ethnic background, nationality, place of living, age educational level, sex, marital status, number of children, profession, income level, power of influence, political orientation, philosphical affiliation or school, hobbies if any, etc.

Next question is who is in control?
We could name this or that group, this or that man. But then who controls my or your choice of the most influencial person in Islam or any other religion? In post one I quoted: "A similar state of affairs seems to be the actual case in our reality, with the Controllers acting from some hyperdimensional space of which we have but limited awareness, and even less access." p 71 of The secret History of the World.

The argument continues on p 583:
"When you are considering hyperdimensional realities and beings with mastery over space and time, the thousands of years needed to develop any given aspect of the overall plan is negligible; human beings, no matter how important they believe themselves to be, are merely useful idiots who have been manipulated. In consideration of such beings, we come again to the idea of hyperdimensional space - known as "4ht density" - and its denizens."

What are the ways we are influenced by denizens of hyperdimensional space?
"It was also pointed out by Morpheus that any human being who was plugged into the system could be used as an "agent" by something similar to a downloaded program that was designed to activate them in a certain way." - ibid. p 71

Here we have an allusion to the idea of mind programming and genetic progamming, which are explained in other materials on this site, although it does not seem to be limited to that as we read in the following.

"...they [the Cassiopaean comments] were able to deepen our understanding by situating the pre-adamic race within hyperdimensional reality and the Matrix control system. Let's look at four points they raised:

The preadamic-race serve as portals between levels of density.

They are "very efficient machines" and "The best ones cannot be discerned except by long and careful observation"

They steal energy from souled beings so as to emulate them.

They make-up one-half of humanity." ibid p 177

How could the above excerpt change our perspective of any religion? Every religon claims to be the one that will save the souls of its adherents and here somebody comes along and gives us reason to consider that 50 % of all individuals do not have Soul potencial. In the book there is a drawing on page 692 (my copy anyway) which shows two individuals with 7 centres or chakras, but the OP feeds on energy from the potencially souled individual to mimick its higher centers.

The application of this knowledge is described next.
"In order to progress in esoteric work, it is fundamental to understand this underlying dynamic of feeding; it is pointless and dangerous to attempt to identify and to classify individuals as organic portals because we are all OPs until we choose to be otherwise. To turn a tool for undestanding the true terror of our situation in this world of the fallen into a weapon aginst individuals is to empty it of its spiritual importance and render it a tool of our enslavement in the material world, the same process that has occured to all of the world's religions during the course of our unhappy history.

A true understanding of the organic portal and the world in which we live gives us the knowledge necessary for getting out "alive", whether that is literally or whether it is just being alive to our true nature as souls locked in material bodies in order to learn important lessons that only this world can teach. We can no more hate those who have no access to the higher truths because of who they are than we can hate the cat who plays with the mouse prior to killing and eating it" - ibid p 693:

Many religions say that it is the best and only version. Now try to consider this, if you believe in a God. Do you think they/he/she/it/our super self or what ever we call it, is infinite? Now if it is infinite why can one not imagine another Universe or another alternative reality where things are different. If we can imagine it, why should it not exist if that "God" concept also is omnipotent?

"Q: .... How many dimensions does the true universe have? A: (Cassiopaea) Not correct concept. Should be: How many universes does the "true dimension have?" Q: (L) All right, then. I think that from a previous sesseion we were told that the number of universes was not countable. Is that correct? A: Infinite, maybe, but more to the point: variable and selective. Q: (L) Explain variable and selective, please? A: For those who know how, universes can be created at will in order to transmodify reality merge. Q: (L) What is a reality merge? A: What does it sound like? Q: (T) Merging of realities from one universe into another? A creating of a new reality which is then merged with the old to create a new universe. (L) Maybe it means the realities of different people merge to create a sort of "mutual unverse"? Like the idea "you create your own reality"? A: T closer; Laura playing "left field." ibid. 621

"Q: (L) ... is there within this one true dimension, multiple universes as real as our is, to which we could go, and could be there alongside ours, so to speak? A: Yes ..." ibid 622.

t: for difficult terms and more angles try the SOTT's esoteric dictionary or the books. This it just a condensed version.

Next let us apply the perspective we have collected to the cartoon story by asking some questions.
Is the cartoon story only in this universe?
Is it somebody from the future that came back to wake us up?
Is it a setup to slowly lead humanity to self destruction like forecasted in
http://www.threeworldwars.com/albert-pike2.htm or http://ww-iii.tripod.com ? If it hurts to read consider: "Nothing in war comes to destruction, but the illusion of separateness." - from the poem Compassion at http://www.wingmakers.com/poetry/poetrychamber1.html
Is the cartoon story a tempest in a tea cup or a crusade or a catastrophe or a catharsis?
Is it as some claim a group of Danish artists who were testing their degree of self sensorship and then due to "non-linear" effects it went out of hand?
Is it a 4th density STS setup with players on both sides Muslim and not creating a stir?:

On the 12th of February there appeared an article in the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten,
It read:
"Wrong information from Imams, by Orla Borg and Lars Noergaard Pedersen.
Those Imamas, who travelled as a delegation to the Middle East to tell about the Mohammed drawings gave downright incorrect information about the rights of Muslims in Denmark.In their prepared document of 43 pages they wrote the following about the situtions of Muslims in Denmark: "The faithful of their religion suffer due to a number of circumstances, first and foremost the lacking official recognition of the Islamic faith, which leads to several problems, most obvious is the lacking permission to build Mosques, and they are therefore forced to rebuild company buildings and warehouses for places of prayer."
Both claims are wrong. There are in Denmark 19 Islamic societies of faith, which are recognized by the Danish Government and there is nothing that prevents Muslims in building Mosques. In Copenhagen there is even reserved a place for a Mosque. In the document the Danes are in addition considered as "infidels"." end of article.

No matter who or what created the stir of the cartoons, it can be perceived
as an opportunity to reach out and reconcile,
as an opportunity to isolate oneself behind thicker layers of assumptions,
as an opportunity to strengthen fundamentalist Muslims and conservative Christians
as an opportunity to pave the way for more antiterror laws, internet censorship, id cards, chips, and close circuit cameras in every corner to "protect" property and people.

The one I like most is to consider the cartoons as an opportunity to wake up and question ones beliefs. Who am I? What is truth? What is a lie? What do I believe in? Do we believe all they told us in childhood, in school, in the mosque, in the church, synagogue, or tempel. Do I have a soul? Where am I going? Will we walk together?

thorbiorn
 
Hi,
Today I read about the Iranian Hamshari cartoon competition, the rules are here: http://www.nationalvanguard.org/printer.php?id=7921
- Note from 20060410: http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nl/content.asp?c=fwLYKnN8LzH&b=312458&content_id={9FDABE3E-3694-458C-AEB6-2754CCC2DC05}&notoc=1 has a comment. -end of note.
When I first heard of the rumour of a holocaust competition I failed to understand why, that is until: http://www.ihr.org/news/112705HoloDenial.html 'Holocaust Denial' Laws are Disgraceful
By Mark Weber - November 27, 2005
David Irving, the controversial British historian, was arrested in Austria on November 11 for a 16-year-old violation of that country's "Holocaust denial" statute. He has now been formally charged, and if found guilty could face years in prison.
His case is by no means unique. In Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland and several other European countries, as well as in Israel, it is a crime publicly to dispute the official version of Holocaust history.
The list of those who have been fined, imprisoned, or forced into exile for "denying the Holocaust" includes Robert Faurisson and Roger Garaudy in France, Siegfried Verbeke in Belgium, Juergen Graf and Gaston-Armand Amaudruz in Switzerland, and Guenter Deckert, Hans Schmidt and Fredrick Toben in Germany.
On November 8 the trial in Germany of "Holocaust denier" Ernst Zundel began with a dramatic clash between his attorneys and the presiding judge. And a few days later Germar Rudolf, a German citizen, was deported from Chicago to his homeland, where he likewise faces years of imprisonment for "denying the Holocaust."
Tony Blair's government considered introducing a "Holocaust denial" statute in Britain, but eventually rejected the idea. Italy, Ireland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden are among the other European countries that have declined to enact such laws.
Some people may be offended by those who play down Jewish death and suffering during World War II. But free and open societies protect even offensive speech. That's why western countries defend the right of their citizens, for example, to praise Communism or promote atheism.
"Holocaust denial" laws violate ancient and universal standards of justice. They criminalize even factual or truthful statements that "play down" or "whitewash" the Holocaust. They are selective and one-sided. In countries where they are on the books, the Holocaust is the only chapter of history that cannot be freely discussed. They inhibit historical inquiry and restrict free speech. They are a disgrace, and should be repealed. "

Other links
Holocaust History Archive: http://litek.ws/k0nsl/detox/ has Holocaust History News, Educational Essays for Students and Professors

http://www.jewwatch.com/ Jew Watch is a Not-For-Profit Library for private study, scholarship, or research.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1692086,00.html

http://vho.org/dl/ENG/Giant.pdf : ebook on Holocaust research by Jurgen Graf with the title: With Feet of Clay, Raul Hilber and his Standard Work on the "holocaust" .


Dialectics:
Thesis: The Danish Cartoons, Antithesis: The Iranian Holocaust Cartoons: Synthesis/NewThesis: Israeli?

thorbiorn
 
Hello,
This post includes some comments on various articles about the cartoons. My comments are preceded by "T:" .

On http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/signs/signs20060213.php there is a link under "Clash of Civilizations" with a sub-link to Denmark and Jyllands-Posten: The background to a provocation http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/denm-f10.shtml By Peter Schwarz, 10 February 2006: "The basic lie in the controversy over the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published by Danish and European newspapers is the claim that the conflict is between free speech and religious censorship, or between Western enlightenment and Islamic bigotry.

The taz newspaper, which has close links to the German Greens, declared the conflict was about reducing the influence of all religions, including Christianity, "to a tolerable measure."

T: In Robert E Svoboda's "Aghora III, The Law of Karma" his teacher, the Aghori Vimalananda mentions that Islam was expected to only last about 1400 years. He said this around 1980. He saw the battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims in the Iran-Iraq war as the beginning to the end. Is this possible?

What does the Danish paper say about to the accusation from WSWS? I found the following: "Who's afraid of Muhammad?" Joerg Lau explains how some cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten turned into no laughing matter": http://www.signandsight.com/features/588.html
Excerpts: "Last summer it was made known that Bluitgen was having trouble finding an illustrator for his most recent book project: the life of the prophet Mohammed, told for children. Islam forbids representations of the prophet, but Denmark is a secular country and Bluitgen had the best of intentions. Nonetheless, the illustrators he approached were wary and turned him down. The murder of the Islam-critical film maker Theo van Gogh by an Islamic fundamentalist had shaken up the Danish arts scene." (news story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3974179.stm )

T: I went there and found: "Tuesday, 2 November, 2004, 11:41 GMT. Gunman kills Dutch film director. Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh, who made a controversial film about Islamic culture, has been stabbed and shot dead in Amsterdam, Dutch police say."

Excerpts:
"The film was made with liberal Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali refugee who fled an arranged marriage." ... "Van Gogh - who was related to the famous Dutch painter - had also been making a film about Pim Fortuyn, the populist right-wing, anti-immigration politician assassinated in May 2002.

Film controversy

The film Submission told the story of a Muslim woman forced into an arranged marriage who is abused by her husband and raped by her uncle. It triggered an outcry from Dutch Muslims. In one scene the film showed an actress in see-through garments with Koranic script written on her body, which also bore whip marks. The Netherlands is home to nearly one million Muslims or 5.5% of the population. One of the film maker's colleagues at the film production company said Van Gogh had received death threats "but he never took them quite seriously". "He was a controversial figure and a champion of free speech," he told Reuters."

T: Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a black woman. Reading the short story about her made me recall: "Man is focused on his principles, his order, as he sees it. It is she, the woman, who picks up the pieces to give life a new meaning." - Kundalini Yoga by Swami Sivananda Radha, page 31. In the sentence I understand "new" not to mean good or bad, just new.

Continuing with the Joerg Lau's article:
"This cowardice prompted Flemming Rose, the culture editor of Denmark's biggest daily, Jyllands-Posten, to get involved. Rose asked the country's most renowned caricaturists to draw the Prophet Mohammed. Rose says he wanted to see "how deep this self-censorship lies in the Danish public." Forty cartoonists were approached, twelve sent in their pictures and these were published http://www.perlentaucher.de/artikel/2888.html at the end of September in the paper's weekend edition."

T: The possibility, that the explanation of Flemming Rose is what happened, exists. Others may have used the opportunity for thier own purposes.

On http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/signs/signs20060214.php under the title
"Cartoon Chaos": This is the real outrage - Amid the cartoon furore, Danish imams ignore the tragedies suffered by Muslims across the world. http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1708259,00.html By Tariq Ali, The Guardian, 13 Feb 06: The latest round of culture wars does neither side any good. The western civilisational fundamentalists insist on seeing Muslims as the other - different, alien and morally evil. Jyllands-Posten published the cartoons in bad faith. Their aim was not to engage in debate but to provoke, and they succeeded. The same newspaper declined to print caricatures of Jesus. I am an atheist and do not know the meaning of the "religious pain" that is felt by believers of every cast when what they believe in is insulted. I am not insulted by billions of Christians, Muslims and Jews believing there is a God and praying to this nonexistent deity on a regular basis. But the cartoon depicting Muhammad as a terrorist is a crude racist stereotype. The implication is that every Muslim is a potential terrorist. This is the sort of nonsense that leads to Islamophobia."

T: There has been much debate in Denmark. Since the writer does not read Danish and the Danes have not cared to translate, few are those that know. What one picks up on CNN, does not reflect on what happens, but on what we should perceive.

Tariq Ali continues: "Muslims have every right to protest, but the overreaction was unnecessary. In reality, the number of original demonstrators was tiny: 300 in Pakistan, 400 in Indonesia, 200 in Tripoli, a few hundred in Britain (before Saturday's bigger reconciliation march), and government-organised hoodlums in Damascus burning an embassy. Beirut was a bit larger. Why blow this up and pretend that the protests had entered the subsoil of spontaneous mass anger? They certainly haven't anywhere in the Muslim world, though the European media has been busy fertilising the widespread ignorance that exists in this continent."

T: Some weeks ago there was a series posted on this website about Mind Control in the 21st Century. The main point: Perception Control = Emotional Control = Mind Control.

Tariq Ali: "What I find interesting is that these demonstrations and embassy-burnings are a response to a tasteless cartoon. Did the Danish imam who travelled round the Muslim world pleading for this show the same anger at Danish troops being sent to Iraq? The occupation of Iraq has costs tens of thousands of Iraqi lives. Where is the response to that or the tortures in Abu Ghraib? Or the rapes of Iraqi women by occupying soldiers? Where is the response to the daily deaths of Palestinians? These are the issues that anger me. Last year Afghans protested after a US marine in Guantánamo had urinated on the Qur'an. It was a vile act and there was an official inquiry. The marine in question explained that he had been urinating on a prisoner and a few drops had fallen accidentally on the Qur'an - as if pissing on a prisoner (an old imperial habit) was somehow more acceptable."

"It's strange that the Danish imams and their friends abroad ignore the real tragedy and instead ensure that the cartoons are now being reprinted everywhere. How will it end? Like all these things do, with no gains on either side and a last tango in Copenhagen around a mountain of unused butter. Meanwhile, in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine the occupations continue."

T: Add to this part of an earlier post in this thread:

"On the 12th of February there appeared an article in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten: "Wrong information from Imams, by Orla Borg and Lars Noergaard Pedersen. "Those Imamas, who traveled as a delegation to the Middle East to tell about the Mohammed drawings gave downright incorrect information about the rights of Muslims in Denmark. In their prepared document of 43 pages they wrote the following about the situations of Muslims in Denmark: ..."

T: One begins to wonder who is in charge of Islam - and most other religions. In the above we have seen examples of manipulation and AS MUCH lack of sensitivity and compassion from at least some of the leaders as they blame others for having.

What is forgotten in most religions is that it is assumed that when a person professes the same as oneself, he/she/ is on ones side, is ones brother or sister of faith. However according to Ponerology, about 6% of the population might not have the natural ability to act like a "brother or sister" as commonly understood by the other 94 %.

http://ponerology.blogspot.com/ explains "Ponerology" : n. division of theology dealing with evil; theological doctrine of wickedness or evil; from the Greek: poneros -> evil'.
On http://cassiopaea.com/cassiopaea/psychopath.htm there is information and research in the field of psychopathy collected by Laura Knight Jadczyk, the Quantum Future School and other researchers.
....................................................................................................................................................
I am grateful this SOTT site exist and that one can find and share knowledge here. So I do not mind advertising: "The Real Enemy and What YOU Can Do"
http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/editorials/signs_TheRealEnemyandWhatYOUCanDo.php

Whether book or donations, check out http://www.qfgpublishing.com/ , a couple of free downloads!

thorbiorn
 
Hi,
Since the cartoons appeared in September 2005, there have been many articles in Danish newspapers debating Islam. Below is one which presents some views of Islam and Denmark from a Muslim point of view.

Translation of excerpts from an article that appeared in Jyllands-Posten, 1st section page four, Monday the 23rd of January 2006. The interview was with Hassan Salaa, Imam at the Taiba mosque in Heimdalsgade in Noerrebro, Copenhagen, Denmark, It was made Tuesday the 8th of November 2005.


Title: Coffee with the Imam
By Lars Noergaard Pedersen and Kristoffer Pinholt

T: Excerpts from the article:
"We do all that our religion stands for, and carry out all the duties that Islam prescribes," begins Hassan Salaa.

He explained that Taiba does not have a fixed Imam. They are six Imams, who in turn lead the Friday prayer for typically between 50 and 80 listeners.

"Every Imam must have the proper education otherwise we will not accept him.
I have studied Islam in Syria and have received a Sharia-education. People know, that I am Imam when I speak", says Hassan Salaa and adds, that he does not represent any particular Islamic line of thought, and that he has studied Sharia at a special school, the Hetin-school, for 13 years.

"I am originally from Palestine, have lived in Lebanon, but was forced to flee when Zionist soldiers attacked in 1982. I was two months in a prison in Lebanon set up by Zionist soldiers. They had build prisons the size of refugee camps. I fled with many others to Syria. In 1987 the Syrian government initiated a fight against all the Sharia schools and captivated all who supported the schools. I did not myself choose Denmark, because I had no other possibility. Some of the people, who helped me to flee, said that, Denmark was the only possibility."

A Man Must Do Everything (T: bold text is from the article)

Q: How is your view of the relationship between men and women?
A: We have a duty to teach the young about sex between men and women in a marriage. One counsels differently depending on how old the person is, but it is very important, that the young learn about sex. We teach the young, that a man must do all - all - to a woman except two things: He must not have anal sex with her. This is said in the Koran. And he must not have sex with her, when she has menstruation.


No matter which rule we talk of in the Koran, it is correct. No matter which. - Hassan Salaa, Imam (T: In the article the text is in bold, with a bold grey line to the left.)

Q: How do you view the controversial subject of stoning and hand-amputation?
A: "Islam covers all the questions of life. It is complete and that is why many are afraid, that Islam will rise to dominate the whole world. The rule about stone throwing against a person, who has had sex outside of marriage, we can not introduce in Denmark, because Islam says, that it can only happen in an Islamic state. In addition stone throwing requires not just one judge, but four witnesses. They shall have seen that it has happened. It deals not so much about stone throwing in itself, but about, that we by this rule get a more pure society, because the people become afraid of the punishment. - Just like you punish people with for example three to four years of prison after having raped a girl. The goal is not to get people in prison, but that people understand that it is illegal and get afraid of the punishment. Human beings must adjust according to the system. This is the way to a pure society. And then one must remember, that stoning only is for people, who are married. Is one not married, one is instead awarded whipping. Again not to beat people, but in order to make society function according to the rules."

Everything in the Koran is Correct (T: bold text appears in the article)

Q: Would you accept hand amputation of thieves in Denmark if the premises of Islam where fulfilled?
A: No matter which rule we talk of in Islam, it is correct. No matter which. I want to follow the rules of the Creator. Not human's. In Denmark I may live under the rules of the parliament, because as refugee I am the weak. If the politicians do not compel us to break our rules, we may live here. It is also said in the Koran, that one should protect all nationalities, just like Jews and Christians can live in Islamic states.
Q: Do you wish the Sharia legislation introduced in Denmark?
A: If Sharia is to be introduced, Muslims must own the land. Muslims own for instance not Palestine or Iraq, and we will do all to get those countries back. Do we get them back we may introduce Sharia, because they are our own countries.
Q: Do you wish that Denmark becomes Muslim soil?
A: Of course I wish that. Because Islam is the truth. And this we can prove. Our Sharia, our Islam, is perfectly compassionate. Therefore all should have part in it.
Q: Is it not difficult to reconcile Islam with the Danish society?
A: No, because we are allowed to adjust in a country, that does not follow Islam. But it becomes a problem if the state begins to fight individuals and religions as we have seen lately, for example if one can not wear scarf.
Q: What is your view of Israel?
A: Israel? Do you mean the Zionist state? Israel is a prophet. Do you speak of the land, which has been taken from us it is called the Zionist state.
Q: So what is your view of the Zionist state?
A: It is as you watch it on the television, and which is the reality. They took Palestine by a massacre and have butchered and murdered thousands after that. But the whole world is silent.
Q: Why do you not speak Danish?
A: "I speak a little," he says in Danish, and then gets help from the interpreter: "It is my fault that I have not more time to learn Danish. It is because, I work all the time with Sharia and especially work with Mosques where people speak Arabic ."


T: I tried to find something to substantiate his claim about the fate of Palestine. One article follows, it has date but no year.

http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-worldconspiracies-zionism-part2.html#anchor55529

APRIL 22, 10:40 EDT
After Half-Century, Historians Debate Israel's Birth
By DAN PERRY Associated Press Writer
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) -- For the Jewish refugees and pioneers who built Israel on the ashes of the Holocaust, theirs was a straightforward tale of justice, heroism and redemption.
But a half-century later, a maturing nation is reassessing its violent birth, with historians angrily debating a long-suppressed question with broad implications: Was Israel born in sin?
For Ilan Pappe, among the most outspoken of Israel's "new historians,'' the answer is a resounding yes.
"Jews came and took, by means of uprooting and expulsion, a land that was Arab,'' the Haifa University scholar said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We wanted to be a colonialist occupier, and yet to come across as moral at the same time!''
The "new historians'' claim that in many cases their predecessors dishonestly perpetuated national myths, especially surrounding the 1948-49 war that established Israel and created the Palestinian refugee problem.
Among the claims made by the revisionists:
--The Jews' victory over several invading Arab armies in the 1948-49 war was not the miracle they like to believe. The stronger side won.
--The Arabs who fled Israel (estimates range up to 700,000) were not just responding to Arab leaders' calls to clear out of the way so Arab armies could massacre the Jews. Many, if not most, were driven out.
--After the war, the Arabs were not the rejectionist side. Israel's leaders hid from their people a series of peace overtures because they were unwilling to compromise ." end.

thorbiorn
 
Hi,

In a previous post which included a translation of the interview with the Danish-Palestinian Imam, Hassan Salaa, he said: "We teach the young, that a man must do all - all - to a woman except two things:"

From this I understand that whatever Theo van Gogh, who was mentioned in a previous post, might have showen in his film, it was probably at the least theoretically permissible, although maybe offensive to show graphically.

I have tried to find out more about women and Islam, how some women understand the religious laws and regulations of Islam. Below are some links.

THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT AND THE MUSLIM WOMAN by Maryam Jameelah: http://www.islam101.com/women/jameelah.htm

ISLAMIC TRADITIONS AND THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT CONFRONTATION OR COOPERATION? by Dr. Lois Lamya' al Faruqi: http://www.islam101.com/women/feminism.html

Liberation by The Veil by Sehmina Jaffer Chopra: http://www.islam101.com/women/hijbene.html

Gender Equity in Islam: http://www.islam101.com/women/equity.html

Hijab: Question and Answer: http://www.islam101.com/women/hijabfaq.html

Women's liberation through Islam: http://www.islam101.com/women/womlib.html

T: They write in their conclusion: http://www.islam101.com/women/womlib.html#9 "VIII. CONCLUSION
The Qur'an states: "And it becomes not a believing man or a believing women, when Allah and His Messenger (Muhammad) have decided on an affair (for them), that they should (after that) claim any say in their affair; and whoso is rebellious to Allah and His Messenger, he verily goes astray in error manifest." (33:36)

The Muslim woman was given a role, duties and rights 1400 years ago that most women do not enjoy today, even in the West. These are from God and are designed to keep balance in society; what may seem unjust or missing in one place is compensated for or explained in another place. Islam is a complete way of life.

- Mary Ali and Anjum Ali "

T: In a few words the following author hints at the rights of women in Iran before and after Islam.

Status of Women in Ancient Iran: <http://dooroodiran.blogspot.com/2003/10/status-of-women-in-ancient-iran.html> "Every where we see, that Zarathushtra mentions mother and father men and women son and daughter and he does not differentiate between sexes.
In the wedding ceremony prayer recited by the priest, husband and wife are equally made responsible for all decision and actions to be taken.
It is worth noting that with the passage of time changes were introduced to the disadvantage of women. Most of which happened due to the influence of the Semitic race on the Aryan race."

T: Last is a view from a non-Muslim. It is not explicit about Islam and women, but is about fundamentalism and tolitarianism.

"The philosophical Madonna" http://www.signandsight.com/features/510.html This article appeared in German in Die Welt on Saturday December 3, 2005. http://www.welt.de/data/2005/12/03/811737.html Title: "Daniel Cohn-Bendit recalls his relationship with Hannah Arendt and reflects on her and his generation. An interview with Die Welt"

"Q: Since we're talking about America... how do you think Hannah Arendt would respond today to Islamicism?

A: She would say that Islamic fundamentalism is a form of totalitarianism. And that we need to have the power to fight this totalitarianism while at the same time considering Islam as a religion as equal to others. But she would also say that all religions have totalitarian moments in them. That our democracies developed in the emancipation from religion. And that's what Islam has to address: the emancipation of Muslims from their religion, through which a changed Islam and a Muslim atheism would emerge."

T: How does Hannah Arendt understand Totalitarianism?

"The Origins of Totalitarianism", by Hannah Arendt http://pages.prodigy.net/mschnall/arendt.html Excerpt:
"Those who aspire to total domination must liquidate all spontaneity, such as the mere existence of individuality will always engender, and track it down in its most private forms, regardless of how unpolitical and harmless these may seem. . . . Any neutrality, indeed any spontaneously given friendship, is from the standpoint of totalitarian domination just as dangerous as open hostility, precisely because spontaneity as such, with its incalculability, is the greatest of all obstacles to total domination over man. . . . Totalitarianism strives not toward despotic rule over men, but toward a system in which men are superfluous. Total power can be achieved and safeguarded only in a world of conditioned reflexes, of marionettes without the slightest trace of spontaneity. . . ."

T: In the past the right wing of politics benefited from the communist scare. Today it is the terrorist scare. The theology of Islam is boosted to fit the role. Who benefits are the fundamentalists on both sides.

T: How would Hannah Arendt argue with Islam, I do not know. But there is another thinker who suggested a way. The following is from the chapter "The Enemies of the Open Society" pages 90, and 91-92 in "Popper" by Brian Magee, Fontana/ Collins 1975.
Bryan Magee writes: "But although the practical consequences of reactionary and Utopian theories are societies like those of Hitler and Stalin, the desire for a perfect society is clearly not in itself rooted in human wickedness, but the reverse. The most horrible excesses have been perpetrated with sincere moral conviction by idealists whose intentions were wholly good; like those, for example of the Spanish Inquisition. The ideological and religious autocracies and wars that constitute so much of Western history are the most biting exemplification of the proverb - the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

"He (T: that is Popper) takes Plato as the supreme example of a philosopher of genius whose political theory embodies a wish to return to the past, and incorporates and extensive and detailed critique of it in the first of the two volumes of "The Open society and Its Enemies". The second volume contains a corresponding critique of Marx as the supreme philosopher whose theory projects a perfect future." ... "His way of tackling these heavyweight opponents, especially Marx, constitutes in itself one of the most important lessons in method to be gained from his writings. Throughout the history of advocacy and controversy the approach even of polemicists of genius, like Voltaire, has been to seek out and attack the weak points in an opponent's case. This has a severe disadvantage. Every case has weaker as well as stronger parts, and its appeal lies, obviously, in the latter; so to attack the former may embarrass its adherents but not undermine the considerations on which their adherence largely rests. This is one of the reasons why people so rarely change their views after losing an argument. More often such a reverse leads eventually to a strengthening of their position, in that it leads them to abandon or improve the weakest parts of their case. It often happens that the longer two intelligent people go on arguing the better each side's case becomes, for each is being all the time improved by the other's criticism. The Popperian analysis of this is self-evident. What Popper aims to do, and at his best does do, is to seek out and attack an opponent's case at its strongest. Indeed, before attacking it he tries to strengthen it still further. He sees if any of its weaknesses can be removed and any of its formulations improved on, gives it is the benefit of every doubt, passes over any obvious loopholes; and then having got it into the best argued form he can, attacks it at its most powerful and appealing. This method, the most intellectually serious possible, is thrilling; and its results, when successful, are devastating. For no perceptible version of the defeated case is reconstructable in the light of the criticism, every known resource and reserve of substance being already present in the demolished version. This is what Popper is thought to have done with Marxism."

T: Little of the present debate about Islam has tried to do what Popper suggests.

thorbiorn
 
Hello,

To give an impression of the debate about Islam in Denmark and its reasons, below follows another translation. It is from Jyllands-Posten Monday the 23rd of January 2006. I should like to express my gratitude to a few friends who respectively brought the paper, helped with words and editing.

Headline: The New Old Racism
Subtitle: If one takes the Koran and the traditions of the expressions and deeds of Mohammed literally, then it leads to voluntarily dissociating oneself from the community of solidarity and closing the door behind oneself in the parallel society, writes today's column writer.

By author Kaare Bluitgen, Copenhagen.
(T: there are four parts indicated by a bold letter before the first word of each part.)

Should the Koran be forbidden? The question may seem absurd, but is relevant in relation to the discussion of the limits to freedom of speech.

"Kill the infidels!" I teach now and then at the college for continued education of teachers, and here I was one day confronted with one of the problems of daily life: The internal language among the students was at times very ugly, and therefore one teacher had taken action against the expressions of a vociferous boy. But when it turned out that it was a citation from the Koran, the teachers became insecure. Should they forbid the expression knowing full well they would be blamed for being intolerant towards Islam and stigmatizing Muslim pupils?

One can also ask, if it should be allowed to tear to pieces and threaten others under the cover of quotes from so-called holy books.

The Supreme Court has established that the concept of racism should be understood in its extended and in the present form of everyday language. That means as discrimination against or keeping groups at a distance, which can well be of the same race as one self.

On such a foundation of evaluation, the Koran becomes a book that preaches racism. Again and again there is encouragement to persecute and murder of those that believe in other gods. The Christian and Jews must be assigned a particular taxation. Every human being who is not a Muslim shall be submitted to Muslims.

The Koran makes it clear, that Allah will throw fear into the hearts of the infidels, so that the faithful can decapitate them and cut off the end of their fingers.

It is not only in the Koran one can find this form of racism. The most famous Muslim biographer of the life of the prophet Mohammed is Ibn Ishaq. In his voluminous work "Sirat Rasul Allah", ( www.onlineislamicstore.com/b3828.html ) which is based on contemporary reports, he quotes the messenger of Allah for sayings like: "Kill every Jew, it stands in your power." Hateful outbursts against Christians, poets and Bedouins there are many, along with numerous incitements to discrimination against women and dissociation from people who worship other gods.

Mohammed let a man and a woman from Medina, who had committed adultery, be stoned outside his mosque. He decided that marriages between Muslims and pagans should be dissolved. It was also forbidden to participate in the funeral of an infidel.

The night after Mohammed had commanded a massacre on many hundreds of Jewish men who had surrendered he took one of their women for himself. At another time he ordered the torture of a Jewish treasurer who did not want to reveal his hiding places. Finally he was decapitated. His wife, only seventeen years of age, was led past the corpse of her husband. Mohammed threw his mantle over her, so all could see who had chosen her. The same night she was married to Mohammed and should overnight in his guarded tent.

Mohammed issued prohibition against eating domesticated donkeys, meat-eating animals, and against wearing hair in a ponytail style during pilgrimage, and numerous other forbidden and allowed actions, such as the right of a man to beat his indecent wife, came from his mouth over the years. Within the Muslim society Mohammed introduced a strict social control, amongst others by isolating those members who behaved themselves in a deviating manner.

Mohammed was a unique prophet in the way that he sustained his people by raids of looting. As the first of all prophets, Allah allowed him to take loot, both precious metals, one-humped riding-camels, women, and children. And Allah opened to him both the West and the East.

On several occasions Mohammed gave his adherents permission to lie to non-Muslims, and he mercilessly persecuted poets and female singers that had offended him. He could give amnesty to warriors, who had fought against him with weapons, but the power of the word was too dangerous.

The prophet of Allah was consistent in his destruction of the symbols of other religious cultures. Sculptured idols were smashed or burned, holy trees cut down, pictorial art eradicated. On his deathbed he decreed that all other religions other than Islam should be abolished from Arabia.

It is clear that such thoughts and actions leave deep and lasting traces in the mind of a child. A child, that only has learned to recite the Koran and does not receive help to work through the scary impressions, can be damaged for life. And the many rules about haram and halal in the eyes of the fundamentalist, makes integration in Denmark impossible. Rules about eating, company, and relationship between the sexes necessitates that children and teenagers from fundamentalist parents isolate themselves from their Danish classmates. Muslim children, that have been allowed to play with my children in the yard, have not been permitted to visit us and vice-versa (translator note: the children of the author were not allowed by the fundamentalist parents to visit their homes). Others have not been allowed to attend children's birthday parties, and still others speak in an unbelievably hateful and derogatory language, because my daughter does not wear scarf, and my son eats pork. In addition there are the well known problems from the school day in relation to swimming, gymnastics, pictorial art, holiday calendar, school-class parties and outdoor schools; and demands of prayer room, separate kitchenware, days off on Fridays for prayer, and school shop according to the imaginations about pure and not pure originating from the books of Moses and continued in the Koran.

If one takes the Koran and the traditions about the statements of Mohammed literally then one needs to ghettoize oneself. This is voluntarily dissociating oneself from the community of solidarity and closing the door behind oneself in the parallel society.

It is naturally far from all Muslims who are fundamentalists. But the faith in one truth is the mother of all hate. Hereby, people who think differently are portrayed as liars, heretics, infidels etc. These beliefs abound with in the Koran. One certainly can also find horrific statements in The Old Testament, but the most essential is naturally, if one considers the script to be Gods spoken word, which therefore has to be complied with, or if one takes an historical approach to the text.

The religious hate can be reinforced by social marginalization, but the problem is, that we in Denmark, irrespective of whether we are closer to Adam Smith or Karl Marx, believe that the social is crucial. This is how we have looked at ourselves and the rest of world for a couple of hundred years. The religious pollution of the public space has for decades been so invisible, that we simply do not understand the role it can play, and which it likely will play henceforward. And tolerance is the sure looser.

Before the time of Mohammed, Mecca was a multi-religious town, but when he came to power, he reserved it exclusively for Muslims. Agreements made with infidels, those in the Koran so-called "impure", were cancelled. Mecca is still a "pure" town. There would most likely be a major uproar if Copenhagen was limited to Christians or believers in Nordic Gods, but I know of no Muslim, who has boycotted the pilgrimage to Islam's most holy town in protest against this grotesque racism, which only has its parallels in the "whites only" areas of the past South African apartheid era.

Religious conflicts have been absent for decades from the Danish society, and when they came, we treated them from old habit as social problems. Therefore the integration is at the same level as twenty years ago; or maybe a couple of steps below. From fear of offending the feelings of the believers we refrain from highlighting and maintaining those values, which not least the worker's and the women's movement during decades battled to attain.

Through a thousand years Islam has, within its area of extension, met its dropout critiques with murder, persecution and censorship. Today a great number of Muslims live in that part of the world, where no ideology or religion can lift itself above criticism. It means, that Islam not as Christianity has developed in dialog with other streams of thought. The result was very clear in the Salman Rushdie case. That one man could shake a world religion said more about the fragility of the latter, than the strength of the former. The house of cards tilted, the fundamentalists are in reality without foundation. This could never have happened within Judaism or Buddhism.

The public school has a role to play. The religious freedom of the students should be respected, but when a boy shows up and says, that according to the Koran all women only have half the value of men (with the correct references to chapter and verse), and that the Koran is the revealed word of God, then the teachers should explain, that at home they can believe what they want, the pupil should just know that it is wrong, what is written in the holy book: Women are indeed just as much worth as men.

I encounter almost no teachers, who dare say it so clearly. But by this they violate the mission statement of the public schools, which speaks of education and daily life based on equality. And they destroy the future of the pupils, who are not enlightened, but continue life shrouded in a darkness of letter-faith religious interpretation.

The hours assigned for the history of Christianity in the lesson-schedule of the school must be reformed to the subject religion and life-perspectives. Then the Koran can be included and it becomes possible to enlighten the Muslim pupils about the historical creation of the book. Through this the pupils can be insured an understanding of, that the Koran, like any other "holy" book, is bound in time and space. Therefore it deals with the right to sexual relationship with ones female slaves, and not about the equality of the sexes, therefore are mentioned one-humped riding-camel, but not reindeer.

When the messenger of God, in the old records, makes an attempt in the art of healing and prescribes milk and urine from a one-humped riding-camel against spleen enlargement and states that pneumonia comes from Satan, then it is not difficult to see, how wrong it can go, if one in the modern world takes the widower after a female merchant in the Arabic desert, from about almost one and a half thousand years ago, Mohammed ibn Abdullah, as prophet and not as a human being in a historical context. Going to extremes and considering his words and deeds as worthy of being followed, we are not only speaking about increased health risk for spleen patients, but of something which can appear similar to open war.

The Dutch film instructor Theo van Gogh was murdered in a way, which in certain details corresponds to the way the prophet Mohammed had his assassins murder critical poets.

The immediate reaction from a number of prominent Danish Muslims was that the freedom of speech should be curtailed in order not to offend their religious feelings.

Should one rather forbid the origin of distorted emotions? No, the Koran should of course not be forbidden, and the Old Testament should also not. Neither should the books and speeches of Hitler and Stalin. On the contrary the knowledge of these thoughts should be spread, so we can insert them in a historical context and once again try ourselves in the difficult art to learn from history." -

T: The more I study the topic the more complicated it becomes, certainly more than I had expected.

Thorbiorn
 
A fictional discussion

In previous posts I submitted two translations one was an interview with Danish Imam Hassan Salaa and the other was a short essay by the author Kaare Bluitgen. The articles were published in the same newspaper. However many questions remained unexplored, since the two people never met and the journalist from the newspaper did not include or ask for elaboration of some of the answers the Imam gave.

In this post I shall try to confront the two sides with each other and investigate what will happen. I am going to present a fictional discussion. It became quite long. However since people are suffering every day because of the differences of opinion, why spare efforts to try and understand them. As you read you may find the views of SS a bit repetitive. I wanted to portray a person who sticks to the fundamentals, while using the opportunity to see his view from many angles. For someone who is not or has never been together with people of whatever religion, that are concerned about the basic orthodox values it is difficult to understand them. The discussion does not really end. I insert my name somewhere down and terminate it. In reality I think this holds true. If the discussion had an easy solution it had ended years ago and I would never have had an inspiration to write.

The idea for the discussion I have from my own life. When I was fourteen we learned about other religions including Islam. I began to understand that the Lutheran Catholic/Protestant/Christian Evangelical way of looking at life was not the only one. I went to the library, I wondered why people fight over God or Gods when they hold so much in common. Anyway one day our teacher of religion and history asked if I would debate with my friend and conservative Christian school mate on the terms that he should defend Christianity and I Islam. We accepted and it turned out to be fun for everyone, and for me also enlightening to imagine myself in somebody else's shoes.

The materials for the discussion are many of the links and sources I dug up while going behind the story of the cartoons, but presented so that the reader can go on, doing his or her own research when time or interest allows. I have grouped the discussion in four topics, although they are interrelated and overlap to some extent.
Topic one: The life of Mohammed
Topic two: Islam and the Koran
Topic three: Converts
Topic four: Islamic Science and Western Science

One of the main points of the interview with Hassan Salaa was that: "No matter which rule we talk of in Islam, it is correct. No matter which. I want to follow the rules of the Creator. Not human's." .... "Islam is the truth. And this we can prove. Our Sharia, our Islam, is perfectly compassionate."

Kaare Bluitgen on his side asked if one should "rather forbid the origin of screwed emotions? No, the Koran should of course not be forbidden, ..." "On the contrary the knowledge of these thoughts should be spread, so we can insert them in a historical context and once again try ourselves in the difficult art to learn from history."

Between these two positions there is a gap. To generate a discussion between the viewpoints, we shall imagine two people one is a Salaa sympathizer (SS) and the other is a Bluitgen sympathizer (BS). Their imaginary background is that they have read the two articles, but are more attracted to one than the other.


Topic one: The life of Mohammed

BS begins with asking SS, what he thinks of the description of Mohammed as portrayed by Bluitgen.

SS: His description in the article is not to my liking. I suggest you read "Muhammad: His life based on the earliest sources "SKU: 03054-1020 (Books - 359 - Martin Lings - English, H32) "Lings provides a wealth of detail on the life of Muhammad, the time and place of many Koranic revelations, and the foundation of Islam, all based exclusively on 8th- and 9th-century Arabic biographical sources and collections of the sayings attributed to Muhammad. General readers will find a well-written, straightforward chronological narrative; Muslim readers will appreciate the favourable treatment of Muhammad; while specialists will find a faithful and convenient rendering of source material." - Joseph Gardner, California State Univ. Lib., Northridge Library Journal. Above book is advertised on http://www.Islamicity.com , they say themselves: "This is one of the best book on Prophet Muhammad's life in English."

Another good read is "What do they say about Prophet Muhammad?" 2/21/2006 - Religious Education - Article Ref: IC0602-2919 Number of comments: 1
By: Sadullah Khan IslamiCity* - http://www.islamicity.com/articles/Articles.asp?ref=IC0602-2919 The article has many quotes from scientists and authors, Muslim and Non-Muslim about Mohammed.

In addition I advice to read a rebuttal by Mike G Wotruba to the atheist Steven Carr at the end of Mr. Carr's page "A Short Biography of Muhammad" http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/mhmd.htm . Mike G Wotruba has among his views a favourable opinion on the child marriage of Aisha to Muhammad. Another defence of this marriage one reads here: http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Polemics/aishah.html

BS: On my side not only do I agree with Steven Carr on the website you just mentioned. There are others who think the same way. One example is the review by Dr. Ali Sina of "Why I am not a Muslim" found on http://www.geocities.com/muslimfreethinkers/Content.htm under
http://www.geocities.com/muslimfreethinkers/why_i_am_not_a_muslim.htm . There you can read a detailed summary of the book including its description of Mohammed's life. One phrase by Dr. Ali Sina is: "I foresee that ere long, the same devout Muslims will turn their back, against their religion and will endeavor to liberate the rest of humanity from the claws of religion in general and Islam in particular."

In addition I find the following interesting to strengthen my case: "ADDITIONAL STUDIES OF CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM" http://www.hindubooks.org/david_frawley/how_i_became_a_hindu/additional_studies_of_christianity_and_islam/page5.htm
David Frawley has this to say: "Other Sufis were simply the Islamic equivalent of the Jesuits and could be militant, if not fanatic. Such Sufis encouraged and guided Muslim attacks against Hindu India. This was particularly true of organized Sufi orders like the Naqshbandis, which have long aimed at the conversion of India to Islam. These Sufi orders are spiritual soldiers for Islam and, like Christian missionaries, have little respect for other traditions, particularly those of India, which they still denigrate as pagan, heathen and kafir. Most Sufi activity in the world today is under their control. The other question was whether Mohammed, the founder of Islam, who had many mystical experiences, was a tolerant figure whose teachings were distorted by militant Islam, or an intolerant figure that militant Islam followed faithfully. In the beginning assumed that Mohammed was probably a great yogi whose teaching was misinterpreted, following a common Hindu idea that all major religions must reflect the highest truth at their origin. However, over time after studying the Koran and the life of Mohammed, I was forced to conclude that Islamic intolerance began with Mohammed himself. I came to agree with Swami Vivekananda that Mohammed was an eccentric mystic who mixed various superstitions with an experience of super consciousness that was incomplete. The result was a dangerous combination of religious insight and religious fanaticism."

SS: BS, what you are recommending is not for a good Muslim to read. You mention Vivekananda but he is supposed to have been a Free Mason according to one Islamic site: http://www.invitation2truth.com/islam/freemason.html

BS: Vivekananda was a highly gifted person and his membership of this or that does not detract from the quality of his evaluation. And by the way who has killed more people Freemasons or Muslims?


Topic two: Islam and the Koran

The second subject for discussion between BS and SS is, if it is true as Salaa insisted in the interview:
"A: No matter which rule we talk of in Islam, it is correct. No matter which. I want to follow the rules of the Creator. Not human's." .... "Islam is the truth. And this we can prove. Our Sharia, our Islam, is perfectly compassionate."

BS: The journalists did not ask any questions about this point. SS can you elaborate how you understand it?
SS: What Hassan Salaa said is most certainsly true. Below are some links for your enlightenment and understanding of the one true religion.

Muslim Answer http://www.muslim-answers.org/ begins: All praise be to Almighty God, Lord of the Universe, and may peace and blessings be upon His final messenger Muhammad, and upon his companions, his family and all those who follow Clear Guidance until the Last Day.

"THE SOLUTION TO ANY PROBLEM? THERE IS NO DEITY WORTHY OF WORSHIP EXCEPT ALLAH, AND MUHAMMAD IS HIS MESSENGER" one reads on http://www.islamworld.net/ which has hundreds of articles on Islam.

HOW TO BECOME A MUSLIM http://www.islamworld.net/become.html

Islam City http://www.islamicity.com is dedicated to advancing information, fostering community, and educating people about Islam.

http://bismikaallahuma.cjb.net/ : "The purpose of this website is to facilitate Muslim responses to the various mendacious polemics and distortions of Islam by the Christian missionaries and their anti-Islamic allies that are being spread over the Internet."

"Introduction" is the title of: http://www.invitation2truth.com/islam/index.htm and has: "This message is for every inquiring and broad-minded human being. It is for every seeker of truth who might have once wondered: What is Islam? Who is Allah?"

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/index.html has a good site-overview. On this page one finds presentation of manuscripts for both the Koran http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/ and the Bible http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bible/Text/Mss/ Also on this site is Modern Science the Quran http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Science/

SS: If one reads all the above links it provides ample proof that what Hassan Salaa said is indeed the truth. Islam is the one true religion.

BS: The above is all very good, but I have learned that the devil is in the details so forgive me for making a response a little longer than yours.

Koran-The Ultimate Truth http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate/koran.html The purpose of this article is to show and logically analyse the various contradictions in the "Holy" Koran.

On http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/index.html somebody has gone through the whole Quran and checked it for contradictions, injustice, intolerance, violence etc. Site also has list of what the analyser terms as Good Stuff: http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/good/long.html The same for the Bible and the Bible of the Mormons, are on other pages.

On http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sinaprologue.htm there is a short summary of what the Quran including a link to http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/quran_teaches.htm / "Quran Teaches" which references to subjects such as: apostasy, terror, unbelievers, afterlife, thief, freedom of religion, women, and adultury.

If a comic is more easy to read try http://www.faithfreedom.org/comics/introduction.htm and http://www.faithfreedom.org/comics/01.htm for starters.

Some contradictions in the Quran can be found on this page: http://www.secularislam.org/guide/mirza.htm

The Qur'an and Science: Do They Agree? http://www.bibleandscience.com/science/quran.htm discusses science in the Quran.

More links and articles critical of Islam as the last truth: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/islam/ and http://www.faithfreedom.org/links.htm

A series of articles on Islam and Quran is available on. http://atheism.about.com/cs/islamandthekora/ A critical, scholarly examination of the Qur'anic text. One link is to http://atheism.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fanswering-islam.org%2FBehindVeil%2Fbtv12.html
Which describes how the Quran was gathered and that some parts were lost.

There are still more articles on text criticism of the Quran. http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Text/index.html begins "Textual Variants of the Qur'an. Most Muslims claim that the text of the Qur'an is identical to that received by Muhammad. This is a convenient thing to believe, but is it the truth? There is overwhelming evidence that it is not:"

SS: On the page you just mentioned there is also a link to a Muslim page that answers those false claims. The link is http://www.mostmerciful.com/reply-ans-islam.htm , where a Muslim; A. Meherally evaluates the arguments made on the answering-islam site from a Muslim view. His first words are: "It is no secret that www.answering-islam.org is a major Christian Website that questions Islam and anything connected with it.
There are several indepth extensive rebuttals from the Muslim side to their articles. For those who are interested in long-drawn-out, extended responses based upon the reported narrations and counter narrations, I would recommend the visit of website http://islamic-awareness.org/ "

BS: The claim that the Quran is of divine origin is hard to defend I think. Now in Bluitgen's article he warns against applying the Quran literally, and gives the example of attempting to cure spleen enlargement by ordinating Urine from one-humped riding camel mixed with milk to the patients, as did Mohammed in his time. No doubt Blutigen is correct in his view.

SS: Not so sure, there is much said and written about this medicine. From http://muhammadanism.org/Hadith/Topics/Medicine.htm "Urine as Medicine; Sahih Bukhari;
"Narrated Anas:The climate of Medina did not suit some people, so the Prophet ordered them to follow his shepherd, i.e. his camels, and drink their milk and urine (as a medicine). So they followed the shepherd that is the camels and drank their milk and urine till their bodies became healthy. Then they killed the shepherd and drove away the camels. When the news reached the Prophet he sent some people in their pursuit. When they were brought, he cut their hands and feet and their eyes were branded with heated pieces of iron. Sahih Al-Bukhari, Vol. 7, Bk. 71, No. 590. (Also, see No. 589.)"

Another source is an article in National Geographic where one gets the impression that the old science still works http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0402/q_n_a.html
"What's a good example? (In red bold)

The thing that hit me the hardest was when I was riding with a guide in a Land Rover and I noticed that he had a long thin scar on his neck. I remembered reading in Riley that the nomads treated illnesses by heating up a long blade, the size of a Bowie knife, and using the back end to brand different parts of the body - typically, the ankles, wrist, shoulders, neck. One of the sailors was treated that way for dysentery in Riley's narrative. I found it horrific and unbelievable. Riley's critics didn't believe it either. I asked the driver how he got the scar and he told me that he had been very sick several years ago and had been treated in the exact way Riley described. My jaw dropped. I was shocked that that kind of medical treatment is still being used today. He told me that the treatment saved his life and that he also treats his children with it.

In the book, Riley describes being so thirsty that he is driven to drink camel urine. Did you get a chance to try camel urine yourself? (In red bold)

I did not taste camel urine, but I did inquire about it. One of my guides was quite loquacious on the topic and said that yes, indeed, they do drink camel urine on occasion, particularly the urine of a pregnant camel because it has certain nutrients and is believed to help cure stomach ailments and mouth sores. And, of course, if you're dying of thirst you will drink any kind of camel urine. The fact that Riley reported that the nomads preferred camel urine to their own was somewhat shocking, but once you get over there, you find out that it's not that uncommon."

Here are more defences and links: Camel urine http://www.answering-christianity.com/urine.htm
Science in the Quran http://www.answering-christianity.com/sci_quran.htm
Scientists' Comments On The Qur'an http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Science/scientists.html
Effect of camel urine on the cytological and biochemical changes induced by cyclophosphamide in mice.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8771453&dopt=AbstractConclusion

SS: When one ridicules the Quran over the issue of Camel Urine, maybe one should think again.
BS: And the thinking should include obviously, that although milk is enough, the only camel urine available in Denmark is from the zoo.
SS: Why do you not import from Arabia?
BS: SS, your idea that it is easy to prove the position of Hassan Salaa with regard to the Quran is mistaken. The claims of adherents of the Quran, that it is The Truth is hotly debated as found in many places on the internet: http://rationalreality.forumsplace.com/message39.html on this page owner of rational reality Muhammed Asadi, argue with faithfreedom group including its owner Dr. Ali Sina. If you wisgh to read about Dr. Ali Sina click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Sina

Here is another debate on Science and the Quran: http://www.examinethetruth.com/Richard_Carrier_challenge.htm Also one finds a debate on the debate. The owner of Examine the Truth is Nadir Ahmed. When I read his site, I was surprised at his style found in links above and also on http://www.examinethetruth.com/Challenge_Sina.htm and http://www.examinethetruth.com/page_against_01.htm

I looked for more understanding and found: http://www.geocities.com/freethoughtmecca/ which links to http://www.geocities.com/freethoughtmecca/nadir.html some excerpts from Denis Giron essay:

"Nadir Ahmed, webmaster of the Examine the Truth website, has begun to make a name for himself amongst Muslims. He has done so primarily through audio debates with non-Muslims who dare to question the veracity of the true deen. However, while his popularlity continues to grow, many question his ability to construct a cogent argument. This article will take a general look at Nadir's debating methodology. Over the course of this article, readers should ask themselves what, if anything, this tells us about the intellectual calibre of those Muslims who are part of Nadir's fan base.

The Challenge of Dr. Ali Sina

The motivation to write this article was first sparked while visiting the faithfreedom.COM website, which has been set up for the precise mission of rebutting the claims leveled against Islam by Dr. Ali Sina's site of a similar domain name: faithfreedom.ORG.[1] While visiting the site's section devoted specifically to Dr. Sina, I noticed that the first link is to Nadir's article Ali Sina of faithfreedom.org on the run!!, with follow-up comments reading simply "Well done Brother Nadir!" The web master of this site, like many Muslims on the net, apparently believes that Nadir has met Sina's challenge to disprove the litany of accusations he has raised against Muhammad.

It should be noted that the goal of this article is not to deride or degrade Nadir. I myself have debated Nadir in the past, have had many phone conversations with him over the last year, and have great respect for him. Nonetheless, because I (along with many others) have serious misgivings about the validity (much less the soundness!) of Nadir's arguments, I am perplexed by the growing number of Muslims who believe his efforts to demonstrate the veracity of Islam have been successful.

So this article will, with all due respect to Nadir, take a look at various instances of what has become a common occurrence: Nadir putting forth a bad argument and then proclaiming it a victory." ...

"It should be noted that the debate challenge that Nadir has extended to the Answering Islam team (or other willing Christians) offers to discuss seven different topics. The sixth topic is titled "Is there really any evidence for Christianity?" while the seventh topic is titled "Scientific and Archaeological evidences for Islam". The irony here is thick in light of the fact that Nadir believes that if a text has seven statements that can be correlated with science and one statement that mentions a place noted in the Ebla tablets, then that is evidence in favor of the text being from a divine origin. We could easily correlate seven statements from the Bible with science and note that a two cities mentioned in Genesis (Sodom & Gomorrah) are mentioned in the Ebla tablets. The same can be done with the Babylonian Talmud. In other words, the game that Nadir played with the Qur'an can be played with a myriad of other works. I have noted to Nadir how one individual, as a way of mocking the scientific-hermeneutic approach to the Qur'an he employed, jokingly found a bunch of scientific miracles in the first few lines of Virgil's Georgicon. I have also informed Nadir that a somewhat more serious attempt at critiquing the scientific-hermeneutic approach to the Qur'an by finding numerous "coincidences" in the writings of Epicurus can be found in Richard Carrier's article, Predicting Modern Science: Epicurus vs. Mohammed (where 22 statements are correlated with modern science). Nadir has continually ignored these points, and continues to claim that his ability to correlate eight statements from the Qur'an with science or archeology "proves" that it is of a divine origin.

When it was explained (by numerous individuals) that the figures he furnished were unfounded, Nadir claimed that he was merely employing "the subjective theory of probability" (i.e. he was making an appeal to the subjectivist approach to probability theory). So I put forth a long article[5] explaining why the subjectivist approach does not support his conclusion. Nadir has ignored the article and simply repeats his claim, that the Qur'an being written by a human author is statistically impossible, over and over again. He has even written, in response to those who dispute his claims, statements like: "you can't escape the Math, if you havent figured it out yet, it is the Math, not the Muslims, which is your biggest enemy."[6] The glaring irony here is that Nadir himself has offered no mathematical justification, while he has been presented with an argument (which he has yet to respond to) showing that a purely mathematic approach disproves his conclusion."



Topic three: Converts

SS: Mr. BS, you are not very friendly disposed towards my line of reasoning. However you must admit that Islam is the fastest growing religion. Many people join Islam also in Europe. That should certainly prove it is the best and most compasionate faith, just like Hassan Salaa says: "Our Sharia, our Islam, is perfectly compassionate."

To convince you further here are a few links on this issue: http://www.invitation2truth.com/islam/ has "Islam is the world's fastest growing, yet most misunderstood religion. Why ? Islam is professed by about one-fifth of humanity. People from all walks of life, seeking truth and wholeness, are converting to Islam in significant numbers. In a few years, Islam will be the religion with the largest number of followers on Earth, superseding Christianity. Despite these facts, there exist a number of false yet widespread ideas about Islam. Often, these ideas are the result of ignorance, prejudice, orientalist bias, missionary polemics or just plain, good old-fashioned propaganda."

THE SPREAD OF A WORLD CREED http://www.invitation2truth.com/islam/wm6.html "Lucy Berrington finds the Muslim Faith is winning Western admirers despite hostile media coverage. The Times (London) - Tuesday, 9th November 1993"

Former Christian Priests and Missionaries who have Embraced Islam http://thetruereligion.org/modules/xfsection/index.php?category=1 More links to articles about converts http://thetruereligion.org/modules/xfsection/

BS: Listen, not only do people join, many people also leave Islam. Some of those who leave are among the most educated people, this you may understand from: http://www.faithfreedom.org/testimonials.htm which begins: "Testimonies of Those Who Left Islam� I have dedicated this section to stories of people who have become disillusioned with Islam and have left it. Naturally their ID has been kept in secret and in some cases I have changed the names. This is necessary to protect them from becoming the target of Islamic persecution. The penalty of apostasy in Islam is death. Here is my own testimony. " One person writes in "I Used to Hate faithfreedom.org " : http://www.faithfreedom.org/Testimonials/AfricanDan.htm "My greatest blindness was to convince myself that the Quran is scientific. I said if I find one scientific error in the Quran, then that's it for me. I will know this book is not from God."

Another person writes from Saudi Arabia http://www.faithfreedom.org/Testimonials/Khaled.htm : "Our teacher and other Islamic scholars told us that as Muslims, we are the best people in the world. We were also told that Saudi Arabian Muslims are the only true Muslims in the world, and as such, the world must follow us (the Saudi Muslims). " .... "My story of leaving Islam started when I was in grad five, I read in sura al-kahf, ayat 86 (18:86), that when Zu-Alqarnain had reached the point of setting of the sun, he found many people there suffering from the intense heat This was because they were so close to the sun. Same thing happened to him during the rising of the sun. I started thinking: the earth is not flat; it is almost like a ball, so how could he reach the edge of the earth? I asked my teacher this question. He was confused with my question. He didn't give any answer. He told me just to believe what the Qur'an says. This was the beginning of my suspicion about the truth in the Qur'an."

In Khaled's other post "A True Story on the Lives of Saudi Women" http://www.faithfreedom.org/Testimonials/Khaled60130.htm he describes the lives of his sisters!

The last example: Anwar Shaikh: The Autobiography of an Apostate on http://www.secularislam.org/skeptics/anwar.htm It begins: "On Saturday 21st October, 1995, there appeared the following headlines in a daily newspaper, the Daily Sadaqat, in Lahore, Pakistan: "All Pakistani clergy demand extradition of the accursed renegade Anwar Shaikh from Britain to hang him publicly."

BS: The amazing statement explains itself in the section on "Doubt and Scepticism": "The moment I started reading the Koran critically, it looked entirely another book to me. Now in the Koran there is a sura called "Women" (sura 4), verse 82 says that if the Koran was not a book from God, it would contain many contradictions or inconsistencies. So I subjected the Koran to its own definition. And I found that all the important points had been contradicted by the Koran itself. I have written a book called "Faith & Deception" which demonstrates all these contradictions of the Koran. So you see when you read something rationally instead of blindly as most of the faithful do, then the same verses, the same words, will have different meanings. That is how I went away from Islam gradually, simply by reading the Koran itself."

SS: What you are talking is just propaganda. Did not one of your so-called converts say that he had to hide the names of those people who had left Islam. Now all these "true stories" could be created just to create an effect as the Anna Frank diary, http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a2153.htm#002 where we but for one difference at least know she existed, that she suffered something and died. In your reference there is no other word than that of Dr. Ali Sina.

BS: Read the stories, think for yourself, ask are these people real, are their hearts beating somewhere on this planet, are their destinies being played out in the drama we call human life?


Topic four: Islamic Science and Western Science

SS: Mr Blutigen wrote in his article "No, the Koran should of course not be forbidden, and the Old Testament should also not. Neither should the books and speeches of Hitler and Stalin. On the contrary the knowledge of these thoughts should be spread, so we can insert them in a historical context and once again try ourselves in the difficult art to learn from history." I think this formulation is completely unacceptable. However he has a good point in advocating that "the knowledge of these thoughts should be spread" but not the way he suggests. Everything that one has to learn from history is in the Koran, all it takes is that everyone chooses to embrace Islam and all problems will go away.

BS: How is that possible, we have discussed it above or at least I have indicated to you that the Quran is not a divine work. Even some muslims will agree as you will see on a site which has much information on the Islamic world: http://lexicorient.com/cgi-bin/eo-direct.pl?index.htm where it on http://lexicorient.com/cgi-bin/eo-direct.pl?koran.htm reads: "WORD OF GOD OR MAN? There is a common idea today that all of the content of the Koran is eternal and there is a theological idea that the original of the Koran is written on golden tablets in heaven, as said in sura 85:22. The "Koran" referred to here cannot be the entire volume of today's Koran, but the core content. Virtually all Muslims believe it to refer to the entire existing Koran, but this notion must be deemed a misunderstanding.

The Egyptian Mufti from 1899 to 1905, Muhammad Abduh, ascribed many parts of it to the personal thinking of Muhammad himself, hence not being the word of God. Therefore, the Koran must be understood as an amalgamation of 2 forms of content: The actual message from God that Muhammad wanted to pass on. The other element are stories or passages relating to Muhammad's prophetic activity, as well as God's advice directly on Muhammad's prophetic activity. Below follows examples of ayas relating directly to incidents from Muhammad's own life:

Sura 33: Confederates

37 And when thou didst say to him [Muhammad's adopted son] God had shown favour to and thou hadst shown favour to, 'Keep thy wife to thyself and fear God;' and thou didst conceal in thy soul what God was about to display; and didst fear men, though God is more deserving that thou shouldst fear Him; and when Zaid had fulfilled his desire of her we did wed thee to her that there should be no hindrance to the believers in the matter of the wives of their adopted sons when they have fulfilled their desire of them: and so God's bidding to be done.

Sura 16: The Bee

103 And whenever we change one verse for another,- God knows best what He sends down. They say, 'Thou art but a forger!'- Nay, most of them do not know. There are no traces of any ideas in early Islam that the second of these elements had existed prior to Muhammad. But as soon as the Koran was compiled into a book, its importance grew and its force as the foundation of the Islamic faith became something a Muslim couldn't question. After time the misunderstanding of the Koran as a perfect creation of God had established itself, and any Muslim claiming that not every single word of the Koran was sacred risked his position in society, health or even life."

SS: That Muslim Muhammad Abduh you mention most be the same as Mohmmed Abduh who is described in a lecture by Seyyid Hossein Nasr http://web.mit.edu/mitmsa/www/NewSite/libstuff/nasr/nasrspeech1.html titled Islam and Modern Science. If you read that article you will convince yourself of how controversial Mohmmed Abduh and his teacher Jamaluddin Al-Afghani were and still are. Far from all Muslim agree with Mohammed Abduh. In the opinion of many the Quran is indeed divine revelation.

BS: The other day I found something that fits quite well for your position, if your exchange "People" for "Religion" in "A People Who Are Not Convinced Of Their Uniqueness And Value Will Perish" (David Lane) - http://www.library.flawlesslogic.com/ Your view of holding on to dogma reflects the fear of disappearance if concessions are made. And here is another idea for contemplation: "The wrong view of science betrays itself in the craving to be right" The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper page 281, quoted in 'Popper' by Brian Magee, Fontana/Collins 1981, page 38.

Anyway if you want to continue on the issue of the divine origin of the Quran then consider: http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Miracle/satanicverses.html "The Satanic Verses and their implications for the Miracle of the Qur'an"

SS: One of the miracles of the Quran is that it can be read in many ways. "There are today 7 ways of reading the Koran, each of these have two variances, leaving the Muslims with 14 ways of reading the Koran. But in modern Koranic science this applies only to Muslim scholars, the ordinary Muslim reads the Koran without entering this level of complexity." - http://lexicorient.com/cgi-bin/eo-direct.pl?koran.htm

The miracle of the Quran is not just the text it is also the sound as one may learn further down on the same webpage as above where it explains the "USE OF THE KORAN". "The two main importances of the Koran for the believer are:

1. Being the focal point of all Muslims. The Koran is regarded by most as the uncreated word of God, written on golden tablets in Paradise. This view, strongly contended inside the Muslim world in the first centuries, became orthodox towards the end of the most fruitful period of Muslim science (it is however clear that this is misunderstanding, see below). Until the middle of the 9th century (2nd hijra century) the dominating view among theologians was that the Koran was created by God, hence it is his spoken words. For the Muslims today, the Koran is a physical proof of Islam.

2. Being the sound of Islam. When recited, a holy atmosphere is created, an atmosphere involving God, the world, the truth and peace. During the moment of reciting, the compound becomes sacred, and the moment powerful. The reciting of the Koran is an art known by most Muslims. The most frequently used technique normally involves sitting on the ground with the book in the lap or placed on a specially made low table. This sitting position is resembling the lotus position used in eastern religions, but is not at all strict on the upright position of the spine - most Muslims bend over the Koran they read. The reading technique uses a rhythm with around 60 beats a second. The performance of this rhythm, is done with both torso, swaying a little in a oval shape, and voice and reading speed. Surprisingly overlooked by most Western scholars, the reading of the Koran is a meditative moment for all Muslims, and a ritual that can be performed anywhere anytime."

SS: BS, may I ask if you can say something uplifting about Islam.

BS: I am in favour of proper information. One should not only tell about all the deeds of Muhammed and his holy book, but also about Islamic science and its impact on other civilizations. Their relationship is described in the science column of Post-Gazette:

"Islam, once at forefront of science, fell by wayside. For centuries, Arabic was the language of science and medicine, as English is today. Sunday, April 11, 2004
By Michael Woods, Post-Gazette National Bureau http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04102/299292.stm

"TOLEDO, Spain -- Islamic medicine and science led the world for centuries while Europe stagnated in the Dark Ages."

""Much of our modern science and philosophy owes a large debt to Islamic civilization during the Middle Ages for preserving the classical heritage in all intellectual fields, and for improving upon it in many of these fields."

The above article has a reference to an article in Nature which is found here: http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Polemics/nature_fs.pdf"

SS: I am pleased at your contribution. We shouild add a Muslim site which has articles on the history and contributions of Islamic Science to very many disciplines: http://www.muslimheritage.com/

However the subject of Modern Science and Islam is more complicated than the one presented in the article in Post-Gazette. Below are a number of quotes from the lecture quoted above by Seyyid Hossein Nasr, who received a PhD in the philosophy of science, with emphasis on Islamic science, from Harvard University. Lecture took place in 1992 or 1993 but there are many points still relevant.

First Professor Nasr says about his lecture that it is "tailored to the internal problems of the Islamic world, as far as science is concerned."

"Many people feel that that in fact there is no such thing as the Islamic problem of science. They say science is science, whatever it happens to be, and Islam has always encouraged knowledge, al-ilm in Arabic, and therefore we should encourage science and what's the problem? - there's no problem. But the problem is there because ever since children began to learn Lavoiser's Law that water is composed of oxygen and hydrogen, in many Islamic countries they came home that evening and stopped saying their prayers." ...

"This is the gist of a rather extensive argument given by Jamaluddin Afghani which equates, in fact, Islamic science with Western science. Secondly, it equates the power of the West with the power of science. To some extent this is true, but not completely so. And thirdly, it believes that acquisition of this science of the West [by the muslims] is, no more no less, than the muslims claiming their own property which has somehow been taken over by another continent and [the muslims] just want back what is really their own. Now this point of view had a great deal of impact upon the Islamic world, upon the modernist circles, and in order to understand what is going on in the Islamic world today it is important to see what consequences flow from this."

"The modernists took on this thesis of Jamaluddin, and during the last century and a half, they have carried the banner of a kind of rationalism within the Islamic world which will accord well with the simple equation of science with Islamic science and with the Islamic idea of knowledge, al-ilm."

"Today, every Thursday evening when you turn on Cairo radio there are one or two very famous lecturers who are, in fact, very devout muslims, loved by the people of Eygpt, [and] the heart of their message is every single verse of the Quran which deals with either Ta'akul or Taffakur, that is intellection or knowledge or observation or mushahida. These [verses] are interpreted "scientifically'', that is, as an attempt to preserve Islam through scientific support for the Islamic revelation, for the Quran itself. And this is a very strong position in the Islamic world today. Therefore [the muslim] thinks in fact there is no problem as far as Islam and modern science are concerned."

"The ulema, religious scholars of the Islamic world opposed the modernist thesis, [which] was also based on the dilution of the Sharia, as you have seen in Turkey, the gradual introduction of Western political and economic institutions in the Islamic world, the rise of modern nationalism, all of these things which I will no go into right now. The religious scholars of Islam whose names paradoxically enough, meant scientists, in fact, disdained science completely."

"The second position which is held within the Islamic world today, which is now held by a number of very interesting and eminent thinkers, is that, in fact, the problem of the confrontation of modern science with Islam is not at all an intellectual problem but rather an ethical problem."

"Now we come to the third point of view." ... "And that point of view is that science has its own world-view. No science is created in a vacuum. Science arose under particular circumstances in the West with certain philosophical presumptions about the nature of reality. As soon as you say, m, f, v, and a, that is, the simple parameters of classical physics, you have chosen to look at reality from a certain point of view. There is no mass, there is no force out there like that chair or table. These are particularly abstract concepts which grew in the seventeenth century on the basis of a particular concept of space, matter and motion which Newton developed. The historians and philosophers of science in the last twenty [or] thirty years have shown beyond the scepter of doubt that modern science has its own world view. It is not at all value free; nor is it a purely objective science of reality irrespective of the subject you study. It is based upon the imposition of certain categories upon the study of nature, with a remarkable success in the study of certain things, and also a remarkable lack of success [in others], depending on what you are looking at."

"This third point of view, with its humble beginning in books which I wrote in my twenties, has won a lot of support in the Islamic World. And this perspective is based on the idea that Western science is as much related to Western civilization as any Islamic science is related to Islamic civilization. And as science is not a value free activity, it is fruitful and possible for one civilization to learn the science of another civilisation but to do that it must be able to abstract and make its own.

And the best example of that is exactly what Islam did with Greek science and what Europe did with Islamic science, which is usually called Arabic science but is really Islamic science, done by both Arabs and Persians, and also to some extent by Turks and Indians. In both of these cases what did the muslims do? The muslims did not just take over Greek science and translate it into Arabic and preserve its Greek character. It was totally transformed into the part and parcel of the Islamic intellectual citadel. Any of you who have actually ever studied in depth the text of the great muslim scientists like Alberuni or Ibn Sina or any Andulusian scientists know that you are living within the Islamic Universe. You're not living within the Greek Universe. It is true that the particular descriptions might have been taken from the [works] of Aristotle or a particular formula from Euclid's Elements, but the whole science is totally integrated into the Islamic point of view. The greatest work of Algebra in the pre-modern period is by the Persian poet Omar Khayyam. When we read his book, of course, if when you get [to a] particular formula or equation you could be writing in Chinese or English and could be in any civilisation, but the impact that the whole work makes upon you makes you feel that you belong to a total intellectual universe- the Islamic Universe. And this is precisely what the West did to Islamic science."

"Arab Nationalism began with a thesis, propagated by small non-muslim minorities within the Arab world, that the Islamic civilization began to go down when the Arab hegemony over Islamic civilization came to an end." ... "but what were the arabs doing for 700 years in between? That is totally overlooked." ... "So Arab nationalism had a lot to do with this of trying to diminish the contribution that Islamic civilization. after the Mongol invasion and the destruction of Baghdad in 1258, which coincided with the downfall of the political hegemony of the Arabs who did not regain the political hegemony, even over themselves, until the 20th century."

"There are over three thousand manuscripts of medicine in India which have never been studied by anybody. This is [only] the tip of the iceberg. There are thousands of manuscripts in Yemen which we don't even know about."

"I remember in 1983 when the Saudi government decided to found a science museum center in Riyadh, they contacted me and I went several times to Saudi Arabia and spoke to all of the leading people involved. I told them at that time, that a science museum could be a time bomb. Do not think that a science museum is simply neutral in its cultural impact. It has a tremendous impact upon those who go into it. If you go into a building in which one room is full of dinosaurs, the next room is full of wires, and the third full of old trains, you are going to have a segmented view of knowledge which is going to have a deep effect upon the young person who goes there, who has been taught about Tauhid, about Unity, about the Unity of knowledge, about the Unity of God, the Unity of the universe. There is going to be a dichotomy created in him. You must be able to integrate knowledge.

The problem [is] that with the increase of success of both the teaching of science and the technology, will bring with it a cultural dislocation [and] philosophical questioning which have to be answered especially at a time when the Islamic world does not want to play the role of a dead duck. There is not a moment in the history of Islam, when the muslims like the other great civilizations of Asia are trying to play the game of the West. The Islamic world wants to pull its own weight, wants to finds its own identity, and therefore this problem is going to be acute.

Secondly, I believe that [a] very major crisis [is being] set afoot by the very application of modern technology, that is the environmental crisis. [This crisis is] of course global. You cannot say, `I am drawing a boundary around my country, I do not want the hole in the ozone zone, [to make] the sun shine upon my head'. You have no choice in that. Because of that, and because of the fact that Islamic countries, like Buddhist countries, like Hindu countries, will always eat from the bread crumbs of Western technology in the situation of the world today, more of an attempt is made towards the direction of alternative technologies. [This] began in Iran in the seventies, and thank God, is still going on a little, and [in] other places [like] Eygpt where a little [attempt] to spend some of the energy of society towards alternative technology [is being made]. [All of] which also means to try to look upon science as the mother of technology in somewhat of a different way.

And finally, I think, the intellectual effort is now being made. What is called by some people, the Islamisation of knowledge and which is now very popular, [and] which goes back to some of my own humble writings in the fifties, and later on, the treatise written by the late Ismail Al-Faruqui who was assassinated in Philadelphia two years back. This little treatise he wrote called, ``The Islamisation of Knowledge'', is now being discussed in educational conferences throughout the Islamic World, [which] is finally going to bear some fruit. Although it will require much more concerted effort of the most intelligent and gifted members of the Islamic community, who must know Western science in depth, who must know Islamic thought in depth, the cosmological message of the Quran, not only its ethical message, and at the same time have the energy to pursue this through. The task is a very daunting and difficult one. The problem of the partition of science from Islam is a problem that exists unless Islam is willing to give up its claim to being a total way of life. [If that were so], we must suppress not only what we do on Friday noons, but what we do and think every moment of our daily lives. It is going to preserve an integrated principle that of course must also be taken into consideration. "

BS: I think, that you might learn a great deal more on this subject by investigating, how not only Islam but also Christianity had and to some extent still has problems with what you call "Western Science". Try ask the Pope or the Christian Fundamentalists. Anyway, let us take a break.
SS: Good idea. It is also soon time for prayer, but first may I offer you some tea, or do you prefer coffee?
BS: Tea is fine, thank you.

Thorbiorn: As we have seen in this staged discussion people are joining Islam and parting with Islam. And like other religions to a varying degree, Islam has a serious issue with itself. It is apparent that the internal problems explained by Dr. Seyyid Hossein Nasr have not been completely solved since his talk.

To find a meeting point between the views of SS and BS is not easy, though they both agree on spreading the knowledge of Islam, their approach and objectives are very different.

Thorbiorn
 
Hello,

"The Caricatures in Middle East Politics" written by James Petras and Robin Eastman-Abaya which appeared on
http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/editorials/signs20060227_TheCaricaturesinMiddleEastPolitics.php first published on http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12081.htm is an article with many intersting perspectives that I shall like to add to. There will be some themes I have mentioned before, but this time in the context of new information, which include more on why the cartoons were published, why in Denmark and some notes on Kaare Bluitgen.

Their essay begins:

02/24/06 "ICH" -- -- The center piece of the current explosive confrontation between Islamic and Arab protestors, political leaders and governments and the US and Western European regimes and publishers is rooted in Israeli efforts to polarize the world in its favor and to promote isolation, economic sanctions and/or a military attack on Iran. There are several key questions, which almost all commentators and analysts have failed to address. These include: Why did the "cartoons" get published in Denmark?

T: Let us ask the question again, because maybe we get a different answer than what I have been able to find out in previous posts or than what we are being told by the authors of this article, who focus on Flemming Rose the cultural editor from Jyllands-Posten. So, why did the "cartoons" get published?

Here is a view of a person who about himself says: "Name:RP Location:Copenhagen, Denmark. I'm in my 40s and I'm an historian and lecturer. I'm also the father of three boys." RP writes in: The "Cartoon Row" dissected -- part 1 http://randomplatitudes.blogspot.com/2006/02/cartoon-row-dissected-part-1.html

"In the summer of 2005, author Kaare Bluitgen, writer of several books critical of Islam (Nye danskere and Til gavn for de sorte and a frequent participant in media debates on Islamic presence in Danish society, was working on a book dealing with the life of Muhammad. During a meeting with an old acquaintance, journalist Troels Pedersen, Bluitgen mentioned that he was having trouble with his book, because three different illustrators (according to Bluitgen) had refused to participate, citing fears of reprisals for making pictures of Muhammad. Not necessarily an incredible story, since a Danish (non-Muslim) lecturer at the University of Copenhagen had recently been attacked for reading aloud from the Qu'ran. Troels Pedersen didn't do anything with the story at the time -- but three months later, he was working at the Danish news agency Ritzau and Pedersen now made the situation with the three reluctant illustrators the basis for an interview with Bluitgen. Bluitgen declined to identify the three, but Pedersen went ahead with the story anyway.

On September 16 2005, Ritzau sent out the story of Bluitgen and the reluctant illustrators, under the headline Danske kunstnere bange for kritik af islam ("Danish artists fear to criticize Islam"). It was a very catchy news story, and it was quoted by a number of other media. Repeated requests by journalists for Bluitgen to identify the supposed illustrators were denied, and a certain skepticism crept in. Had Bluitgen concocted the story to bring attention to his upcoming book? "

T: I have read what I could find about Bluitgen, and my opinion is that he in all probability speaks the truth on this issue. Let us take the example that I asked you the reader, if you could help me and then you declined. Later I speak to some friend, and I know, that if I tell him that you were afraid to help me, it is possible that he is going to publicize. In that situation, what would YOU like me to do? As for the other suspicion Bluitgen is a genuine leftwing socialist. Although he has published 31 books, it is not my impression that he is publishing solely for the sake of money.

Let us continue with RP's explanation of the developing cartoon story. So far we know that, in contrast to the article on Information Clearing House, Jyllands-Posten and Flemming Rose actually got the story from Ritzau. And then what happened?

RP: "Nevertheless, the story dealt with a subject fundamental to a free press, namely the fear of creeping self-censorship. At Jyllands-Posten, an editorial staff meeting on September 19 2005 brought up the suggestion of testing Bluitgen's claims by asking a number of named illustrators to portray Muhammad. The idea was popular, and the newspaper's cultural affairs editor, Flemming Rose set the plan in motion. He sent out requests to a number of illustrators, and all of them responded positively, with no apparent fear of reprisals."

T: I read that they contacted 40 cartoonists. Of those 25 responded, 13 were busy on other projects, 12 made some work. And what is less widely known; two of the twelve drawings are caricatures of Bluitgen. Next RP has some information on Flemming Rose:

RP: "Rose (formerly correspondent in Moscow and Washington for another major daily newspaper, Berlingske Tidende) is a well-travelled man, with an extensive knowledge of the world. He is also a person who tends to treat the world as a series of black-and-white situations... perhaps the result of too many years in Russia and America (two cultures well known for the lack of intermediate shades in their world-views). In this situation, the matter was very clear to him. It was a question of a fundamental freedom of Danish society: the right of freedom of expression. And Rose was willing, even eager, to step forward and defend this right."

T: Compare the description of Flemming Rose with what Petras and Eastman-Abaya write in their article. The last emphasizes on the Flemming Rose - Mossad connection. But there is still another opinion from indymedia. Flemming Rose is connected to someone else also:

http://indymedia.dk/newswire.php?story_id=367&search_text=cartoons :
"The Mohammed Cartoons: Recruiting Europe for Bush's Attack on Iran, Tuesday, Feb 14 2006, 7:02pm: The scurrilous Mohammed cartoons printed in Denmark were a carefully staged provocation involving neo-con disciple of Daniel Pipes from the US, Bilderberger and monarchist elements in Europe, and hired mobs in the Middle East. The aim: to create a war mood in Europe and pre-empt a Eurasian coalition against the Anglo-American world order. " Read for yourself about Daniel Pipes on http://www.danielpipes.org/

Indymedia writes:
"Another prominent participant in the Bavarian Bilderberger group was Anders Eldrep of Denmark, a Bilderberger regular over the last five years. This Anders Eldrep (or Eldrup),the chairman of DONG (Danish Oil and Natural Gas), is the husband of Merete Eldrep, the managing director of JP/Politikens Hus (JP for Jyllands-Posten), the Danish publishing firm which owns the newspaper which first published the Mohammed cartoons."

"Denmark has been largely a British puppet state over the last two centuries since Lord Nelson burned the Danish fleet in a sneak attack on Copenhagen which put an end to Denmark as an independent power."

"The editor of Jyllands Posten who ordered the publication of the cartoons is Flemming Rose, who has extensive connections to Daniel Pipes, another neocon fascist madman who runs Campus Watch, a neo-McCarthyite witch-hunting organization which vilifies American professors who criticize Israel or show sympathy for the Palestinians."

T: Now back to RP's explanation:

"On September 30 2005, Jyllands-Posten printed the twelve illustrations, along with Flemming Rose's article warning about the need to protect the freedom of expression. The article garnered very little attention in the ordinary Danish public. The Muslim minority in Denmark, however, took the matter seriously -- as did a group of diplomats from the Islamic countries who were attending a reception the same day.

The scene was set for the next stage of the conflict."

T: The next part of the story is the role of the Muslim diplomats and the local Imams in Denmark. Before that, let us dwell on a paragraph in the article of James Petras and Robin Eastman-Abaya : "Clearly the burgeoning confrontation is more than a religious or free speech issue, more than the crude provocations of an errant cultural editor coddled by the "little farts" of a penetrated Danish intelligence agency. What is at stake is the deliberate racist stereotyping of Arab, Islamic and Third World people in order to sustain and deepen their oppression, exploitation and subordination."

What they write is one side and possibly true. The other side is that there are a certain percentage of the Arab, Islamic and Third World people who HAVE the material means and mental capacity to seek understanding and knowledge to free themselves and others around them. However some are concerned about their mission to protect the letters of a book, but a majority of these are so engrossed in consumerism, their job, salary size, latest gadget, social status, sports and entertainments, that they do not seek knowledge with such intensity, that they manage to penetrate the controls that are set up. As a result of this apathy, they become co-responsible because they do not reach a critical level of understanding of what is happening on the planet, before it is too late. These groups I refer to in the Arab, Islamic and Third World are not alone. Many people in many other countries are in exactly the same position including certainly many of the Muslim immigrants.

The authors write: "Now their most profound, historic, spiritual reference point, the prophet Mohammed - the most cherished religious figure - has been repeatedly trampled with impunity by arrogant imperialists, their media servants, aided and abetted by the Israeli state and its overseas "sayanin" operatives."

T: As an occasion for creating conflict, religions serve well, since several have been created in such a way, that they in their traditional formulation for the most part claim to be of divine or prophetic origin beyond the reach of serious rational criticism. Religion is as much a program of control and division, as it is a way or possibility of gaining knowledge. Most people whether Muslims, Christians, or Jews do not approach their religion with a rational mind. Is it not after all called ‘faith’? What they know of their religion, they have mostly been told by someone and much of it frequently in childhood, at a time when it gets loaded on the system with authority and emotions. Ones religion provides a social and cultural identity that is celebrated and reinforced at the times of birth, death, marriage and kept alive by various smaller festivals, fasts, and rituals, throughout ones life. In case some doubts creep in, they too often just get swept under the carpet. What is taking place is, as one can read on the SOTT pages, very likely by design and over a long time

Of relevance in this consideration of religion is the SOTT pod cast on 'cults'. It has some interesting points:
http://signs-of-the-times.org/podcast/index.php Also the small SOTT books on http://www.qfgpublishing.com/ "The Media" and "Religion" are great. Indexes 'The Media' and 'Religion' can be found on http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/forum/viewtopic.php?id=547 And what is even better, is that they cost next to nothing compared to all the fancy houses, cars, dresses, toys, life styles, etc that one REALLY can find in "disadvantaged" countries. A few oil dollars could translate and publish the whole lot.

With this background let us go back to RP and the cartoons, because he explains quite well what helped the flag to catch fire:

"The "Cartoon Row" dissected -- part 3
http://randomplatitudes.blogspot.com/2006/02/cartoon-row-dissected-part-3.html

As Egypt worked the international political angle, an entirely different angle was about to be worked by a group of Danish imams. In early December 2005, they made a tour of several Islamic countries (including Egypt, Lebanon and Syria), showing off a 43-page dossier including copies of the caricatures and agitating for action on the matter.

The leaders of this group of imams were Ahmed Akkari and Ahmed Abu Laban. Both of these imams represent groups of Muslims in Denmark. Akkari was acting as spokesmen for 27 different small groups of Muslims, and Abu Laban is the head of the Danish Islamic Society (Islamisk Trossamfund). It is safe to say that they do not directly represent all of the approximately 200,000 Muslims in Denmark -- a reasonable estimate would be about 20,000 at most. It is fairly common knowledge that both are heavily funded from abroad (like many other Muslim minorities around the world, they receive generous grants from Saudi Arabia), and it has been alleged (by moderate imam Fatih Alev) that the funding depends on their media profile. In this connection, it is worth noting that Abu Laban (representing about 1000-2000 Muslims) was mentioned in the press 646 times in 2005, more than twice as often as Danish EU-parliamentarian Gitte Seeberg (representing over 125,000 voters).

In the dossier, the group had compiled a number of alleged "insults to the Prophet", including the caricatures -- but also including three photocopied pictures of unclear origin. The three photocopies showed a man wearing a pig snout (labeled "Here is the true image of Mohammed"); a dog copulating with a praying muslim (labeled "That's why Muslims pray"); and a man with horns and exposed genitalia (labeled "the pedophile Prophet Mohammed"). It was later stated (by Akkari) that these were examples of contents taken from threatening letters received by Muslims in Denmark. However, it seems clear that the pictures were presented during the tour as being part of the set of caricatures published by Jyllands-Posten. The picture of the man with the pig snout was originally thought to be a photo-manipulation, but was later revealed to be a picture taken at a pig-calling contest in France, in August 2005.

Whether Akkari was telling the truth about the origin of the pictures or not, it cannot be disputed that he made several openly untrue statements to the Danish media concerning the Middle East tour. As a result, his general credibility in the Danish media fell, and remains low. Certainly, many of the moderate-sounding statements he has made in the Danish media do not ring true, when compared to his inflammatory rhetoric during interviews in Arabic-language news media.

Akkari and Abu Laban both claim that they merely presented the pictures, and did not agitate for violent response. This may or may not be true -- it is not unreasonable to assume that the tour was a bid to heighten awareness of themselves in the Islamic world, and possibly secure additional funding. Certainly, it seems as reasonable to propose that the primary motivation for the tour was monetary as to propose that it was solely malicious. However, it should also be noted that the dossier contained a number of remarks attacking Denmark's secularized society as being "atheistic", not Christian. It also contained deliberate misinformation, including claims that Islam was not a recognized religion in Denmark (it is) and that mosques were not allowed to be built (they are)."

T: More information is found in an interview with Kaare Bluitgen in the Norwegian newspaper "Dagbladet":
http://www.dagbladet.no/magasinet/2006/02/23/458781.html

"Dagbladet explains: A group of Danish Muslims sent a delegation to the Middle East with the evidence of proof consisting of the 12 drawings, the book of Bluitgen and some drawings of Mohammed, that have never been printed in any Danish newspaper.

The book of Bluitgen was shown to Al-Jazeera. There the viewers were told that in it is written that Aisha was seven years when she is married to Mohammed. According to the Koran one is a pedophile if one marries girls below nine years of age."

"But it is written here that she is NINE years, says Bluitgen and eagerly points his finger on page 109.
But the Imams stand there and say to hundreds of millions of Arabic viewers that this author claims the prophet is a pedophile. That is to put me in grave danger. That is a very rude accusation. And this is just one example of the erroneous information, that they have forwarded in order to drive the whole thing up." - my translation.

T: The article "Why protests" raises questions too:
http://indiauncut.blogspot.com/2006/02/where-is-denmark.html Tuesday, February 14, 2006. Where is Denmark?

I am chatting with Zafar Abbas, the head of BBC in Pakistan, and I ask him about the cartoon controversy, and the demonstrations against it.

"Most of the people demonstrating against the cartoons haven't even seen them," he says. "In fact, if you ask them where Denmark is, most of them won't know."

"So why bother to protest then?" I ask. "Who benefits from these protests?"

"The religious groups which organise these protests do so just to register their position," he says. "In future, if they're ever asked about this issue, they can point to the protests and say, "See, we took a stand.""

"And is that the only way they know to register their protest?"

"Yes."

T: So whichever organization or individual in America, Europe or Israel is accused of fueling the conflict, it certainly appears they got a LOT of help from religious self-interested parties, the rent-a-mobs that are mentioned in some articles must have been reasonably cheap. Having dealt in some detail with the first part of the question of why the cartoons got published, next is to find out more about "why in Denmark"?

http://raapil-unblogged.blogs.com/raapil_unblogged/2006/02/danmark_ikke_ov.html has this to say:

"It is also not surprising, that it is right in Denmark that the collision between a homogeneous national culture and Muslim immigration has developed to become the confrontation that we now witness. For where in the world does one find a more homogeneous national culture than in Denmark?

As earlier mentioned, I find it unfortunate, but really not surprising, that the term "New-Dane" is becoming widespread, and see it as a symptom of, that the Danes essentially have a difficulty with something that is foreign and different.

It is fine to be "New Dane", for then one in time becomes a "real" Old-Dane, but preferably not Danish-Turk, or Danish-American etc., because then one reserves some of ones loyalty to another side. At the same time there are few ethnic groups in the world which are more atheistic than the Danes, but this spiritual poverty is often by the Danes turned upside down and turned into general ridicule of religion and religious emotions, while at the same time one completely ignores ones own national fundamentalism.

The Danish-ness is indeed so massive and penetrating, that it for many Danes substitutes the religion, and as Islam represents something unknown and different, a bit ridiculous and simultaneously (as a type of second nationality) poses a risk of divided loyalty, then Danes have many reasons to view Islam with distrust. All in all it is not so surprising, that "the clash of civilisations" found a temporary center right in Denmark." - my translation

T: In Copenhagen, in bigger cities as well as in the East of Denmark, the atheistic inclination is more pronounced. But is it really atheism or is it more correct to call it Christian atheism, as much of the moral background after all is Christian, in the passport there is/was a Viking cross with Christ on it. Also is it correct that Danes are religiously nationalistic? I think mainly when the national soccer team wins. And they had been really religiously nationalistic, would they not have reacted more to the flag burnings?

Note from 20060305: Well I actually did find something: http://www.danishmuhammedcartoons.com/Apology.html :
"We�re sorry we gave you shelter when war drove you from your home country....
We�re sorry we took you in when others rejected you.....
We�re sorry we gave you the opportunity to get a good education.....
We�re sorry we gave you food and a home when you had non.....
We�re sorry we let you re-unite with your family when your homeland was no longer safe...
We�re sorry we never forced you to work while WE paid all your bills.....
We�re sorry we gave you almost FREE rent,phone,internet,car and school for your 10 kids...
We�re sorry we build you Moskes so you could worship your religion in our Christian land...
We�re sorry we never forced you to learn our language after staying 30 years!...."
T: For some Russian comments on the site above: http://www.dirty.ru/comments/68392 (t: no dirty, serious discussion) Apart from that thanks to the Danish social welfare system all major services claimed to have been given in the above "apology" are/were real to a varying degree depending on the case. Still Muslim immigrant have also contributed to the economic life of the nation, which was the reason they began to come in the late nineteen sixties. Howeve the authors have been kind not to add items like the much higer crime-rate among immigrant and second generation immigrants, the higher percentage of fraud against the social security system committed by immigrants. For example 8 years ago the fraud was about 1,3 Billion USD, and according to research a lot was committed by immigrants. Regarding the kids, they have more per family. The average Danish family of old ancestry has fewer kids, because they want to give their children a good life and also themselves want not only to bear children and work. Many immigrants do not think of children that way, so the many children do often not have their own room, theirfore they roam more on the streets etc. Three years ago according to one newspaper 9% of all children between 0 and 4 were from immigrant families. [Possibly besides the cultural differences there might be others in some cases as indicated on http://www.rlynn.co.uk/pages/article_intelligence/t4.asp and http://www.balder.org/avisartikler/third-world-immigrants-intelligence.php About violence next link inspite of the address has a lot of pictures and many cases: http://www.balder.org/articles/hatespeech/James-Waite-Racist-Murder-Sweden.php. - added 20060407]

And then as interesting information, on http://www.danishmuhammedcartoons.com/OurSponsors.html one finds; "Statement from anonymous donator: "While you talk about us, condemn us and, may be, hate us, we continue to fight for our lives and your freedom. It's almost 60 years now. Holocaust won't happen again. - Israel Defense Force" T: - let us hope so, but are Muslims in Europe going to be like the Jews in Germany before WW2? Find SOTT Podcast: http://signs-of-the-times.org/podcast/index.php Look for "Supernovas, Comets, and the Middle East". An indicator is http://www.danishmuhammedcartoons.com/Boycott.html : "BOYCOTT MUSLIMS!! The Site urges ALL Europeans to actively BOYCOTT ALL MUSLIMS however you can!! DON´T BUY FROM ANY MUSLIM OWNED SHOP OF ANYKIND! The terrorist acts of violence from most Muslim countries against Denmark and other European countries incl. embassy's and people are SIMPLY UNACCEPTABLE!!" T: The site takes 911, 7/7 as Muslim terroracts, knowledge of the more probable situation as documented on the SOTT site may be good medicine. - end of note.


One aspect that has not been dealt much with in this thread is Kaare Bluitgen. Who is he, what are his motives and ideas? Here follows a few lines of translated biography about the author of the family book that needed illustrations.

"Kaare Bluitgen: I am born on the 10th of May 1959 in Bistrup near Birkeroed, a Sunday when the sun shone (it took the mouth too full [t: some kind of wordplay]). Later I entered the Bistrup-school, but what I remember are my years as a bicycle racing (sport). I still ride a lot, especially when the Sun shines. Then I went to the Stateschool of Birkeroed, where I got highschool diploma in 1977, because my teacher of mathematics could not afford to see me one more year.

After that I worked as a paedagogic assistant in a kindergarden in Vaerloese and as teachers substitute in Sorgenfri and Farum, but the main part of my time went with political work. It has always been like that. I spent half a year in Middle America and four month at Krogerup Folk High school in 1980. In 1986 I completed with the teachers seminary and said goodbye to the public school [that is he did not seek permanent employment in his field], in 1991 I graduated as a journalist and with the subject [he did not work as educated]. Since then I have written books - and traveled, among others to North Korea, Eritrea and Mexico. Many of both my fiction and non-fiction books are about the 3rd world, but also about bio-technology, moral philosophy and not least historical subjects.

I have worked around the clock as folk high school teacher during the summer period at Vallekilde folk high school, written theater and film manuscripts, lectured, assisted national soccer games, translated books, organized demonstrations and so on." At the moment (t: that was in 2000 mind you) I am chairman of the school counsel where my children go to school.
(t: found and translated from http://www.litteratursiden.dk/sw2966.asp)

T: We have heard of a book of Bluigen, for which he needed illustrations. What is it about?

The book, in Danish titled 'Koranen og profeten Muhammeds liv' is published by
http://www.hoest.dk/Datterforlag/hoestOgSoen/hoestOgSoen.nsf/alleTitler/611C93B8AAA29A11C1257103001E1A6F?OpenDocument&menu=Voks
The text that is on the website translates into:

"The Koran and the Life of the Prophet Mohammed
Biography for the whole family based on the Koran and the first Muslim records about the life of the prophet Mohammed - first and foremost on a work by the historian Ibn Ishaq, who died about 140 after Mohammed. Here is related the time before the birth of the prophet, about his upbringing and prophetic call. The exodus from Mecca to Medina was a turning point in Mohammed ibn Abdullah's life and in the world history. Here Mohammed founded his new religion and the biography follows his life as head of a family, statesman and army commander. The book is illustrated in colours and supplied with a list of names and timeline. - 272 pages, 249 Dkr (t: about 30 Euro ) ISBN: 8763800497 "

T: Why did he want to publish his book? Some answers might be found, if one goes back in this thread and reads the translation of the article by Kaare Bluitgen that appeared in Jyllands-Posten Monday the 23rd of January. Besides this source there is more in the the interview with Bluitgen in the Norwegian newspaper, Dagbladet, which I quoted above:

Dagbladet: "We are in Noerrebro, the area with most immigrants in Denmark. The public schools have between 70-90 percent immigrants. The son of Bluitgen attends the highschool in Denmark that has the most immigrants, and the ex-wife is teacher on a Pakistanis school."

Kaare Bluitgen: We have chosen it as a political project. We shall live here, our kids shall attend public schools, and she works there so that the pupils can see a Dane, they shall see that a woman can be a teacher. Then there are many who ask why our kids shall be part of our political project. My kids would like to move away from Noerrebro. We have agreed that if they become scared, then we must move. But otherwise I mean that one needs to stay and fight. I am so fed up with all those people who are humanists, which one does not find in here at all."

Dagbladet: "And that is the old political leftwing?"

Kaare Bluitgen: "Yes, all who talk about so-called humanism and tolerance, they have taken care that their children attend Danish private schools."

Dagbladet: "It was on this background, that he wrote the debate book "Til gavn for de sorte" ( The title translates as: For the benefit of the black). The title plays on the reactionary, the political black.

Kaare Bluitgen: "Because I mean that the Danish People Party are not clever enough to get 400.000 votes. They have such a backing because the leftwing has scared people over to their side."

Dagbaldet comments: "He waves with his hand."

Kaare Bluitgen: "And it is because for so many years the leftwing has not wanted to talk with the problems. We have hidden them, and if anyone has mentioned them, they have been accused of being racist. This has done that completely ordinary people have withdrawn and moved over to Danish People Party. And this is a catastrophe, because THEY do not have the solutions to the problems."

T: What I have found by trying to understand the complexity of the cartoon row, is that there are many elements which relate with each other in direct and round-about ways, much like a web of interactions. It is easy to name this or that person, political group or religious organization, but I find it difficult to single anyone out, or is it just because I hesitate to accept 100 % the conclusions some authors think they have reached? While contemplating this I thought of Fritjof Capra's 'The Web of Life', Flamingo, an Imprint of Harper/Collins, London 1997,

Page 7: Shallow ecology is anthropocentric, or human-centred. It views humans as above or outside of nature, as the source of all value, and ascribes only instrumental, or 'use', value to nature. Deep ecology does not separate humans - or anything else - from the natural environment. It does see the world not as a collection of isolated objects but as a network of phenomena that are fundamentally interconnected and interdependent. Deep ecology recognizes the intrinsic value of all living beings and views humans as just one particular strand in the web of life.

Page 202: Autopoiesis, as we have seen, is defined as a network pattern in which the function of each component is to participate in the production or transformation of other components.

Page 207: 'Social systems use communication as their particular mode of autopoietic reproduction. Their elements are communications that are ... produced and reproduced by a network of communication and that cannot exist outside of such a network' - quoted from Niklas Luhmann, 'The Autopoiesis of Social Sytems', in Niklas Luhmann, 'Essays on Self-Reference', Columbia University Press, New York, !990

T: The role of information and knowledge for development of a situation is thus made very clear. In the cartoon row one could go back and see how the transmission of information, it's reworking, and application by the receiving entities has helped to create what happened - intentionally or unintentionally because:

"It was also pointed out by Morpheus that any human being who was plugged into the system could be used as an "agent" by something similar to a downloaded program that was designed to activate them in a certain way. A similar state of affairs seems to be the actual case in our reality, with the Controllers acting from some hyperdimensional space of which we have but limited awareness, and even less access." page 71 in THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WORLD by Laura Knight-Jadczyk. - There are many pages later in the book that deals with how to get out of this situation. There are also a lot on other pages on this forum and this website.

T: The reason I did decide to begin this thread, was because I know Danish and felt that I could possibly correct some misunderstandings, since much does not get translated and if so only late. It was also a lesson for me to realize how little we maybe know of what happens in a country, which does not speak in an international language. I also found out how difficult it is to reach some kind of objective understanding. The multinational media use their advantage very well to form an opinion before much knowledge gets out, and what is presented, is so biased and superficial that it is often misleading - but no matter what, they always make sure their presentations have an element of entertainment. Fair enough, after all they have to keep their viewers; never mind people sometimes suffer and die as a result.

Another reason for beginning the thread was that I know many people from different religions and one way of saving myself from making unfair prejudices on the one hand or becoming an unnecessary victim of the same on the other was to seek knowledge and share it.

I would like to express my gratitude to all the writers of all the books and websites I quoted, and to the person that borrowed me his computers and net link.

Last thought: 'We've learnt in the natural sciences that the key to understanding can often be found if we lift certain dividing lines in our minds.'- Anton Zeilinger in the article Spooky action and beyond http://www.signandsight.com/features/614.html

thorbiorn
 
Minorities fear of Majority oppression, Majority fear of minority overtaking them with their population explosion. This pattern creates tension in any country in the world. It is a surely is the case in India. West seems to be in the situation of early adoption of Muslim.

I came across this article on the symptoms of "spread of Islam". I don't know whether this article is considered racist or not, it does have interesting observations.


Islam demographic expert warns that once Muslims hit 16% of the population of your country, there is no way to stop it from becoming an Islamic nation

By The Israel Wireaccess_time1 month agochat_bubble_outline8

According to a Harvard University study, the Islamisation of a country cannot be stopped once the Muslim population reaches 16 percent of the total population. This is what Islam expert, Nikoletta Incze, said on 22 June, on Hungarian public television.

Incze is a researcher at the Centre for the Study of Political Islam, a foundation of American Islam critic Bill Warner, which is active in several countries.

The interview with the Islam expert was broadcasted as part of a morning magazine report that focuses on the spread of Islam in Europe and bears the title “Islamic Advance – Already 44 Million Believers in Europe.”

At the beginning of the conversation, Nikoletta Incze points out that many countries that are Islamic today were originally Christian, for example Turkey, Egypt and Syria.

In other countries as well, Islam supplanted the previous religion: Pakistan was Hindu, Afghanistan was Buddhist, Iran was dominated by Zoroastrianism.


Mohamed and his successors subjugated these countries militarily and Islamised them. Islamisation was a process that took centuries. The question arises at what point it was decided that Islam would prevail in these countries.

Nikoletta Incze cites a study by Harvard University. According to her, the Islamisation of a country is already inevitable, when the proportion of Muslims of the population is about 16 percent. It will take another 100 to 150 years before the Islamisation is complete.
Currently, Nikoletta Incze sees an Islamisation of Europe. However, there is a big difference with the Islamic expansion in the Middle Ages: at that time one would have resisted.

In Dr. Peter Hammond’s book, “Slavery, Terrorism and Islam,” he documents the way Muslims slowly develop a presence in various countries and as their population numbers build, become more aggressive and assertive about exercising Sharia law.

“Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In its fullest form, it is a complete, total, 100% system of life,” Dr. Hammond notes in his book. “Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, social, and military components. The religious component is a beard for all of the other components.”

Their takeover of a country, what Dr. Hammond refers to as “Islamization,” begins when the population of Muslims reaches a critical mass, and they being to agitate for various privileges.

Open, free, democratic societies are particularly vulnerable. “When politically correct, tolerant, and culturally diverse societies agree to Muslim demands for their religious privileges, some of the other components tend to creep in as well,” he notes.

This is how it works, according to Dr. Hammond:
When the Muslim population remains under 2% in a country, they will be seen primarily as a peace-loving minority and not as a threat to other citizens. This is the current situation in:
United States — Muslim 0.6%
Australia — Muslim 1.5%
Canada — Muslim 1.9%
China — Muslim 1.8%
Italy — Muslim 1.5%
Norway — Muslim 1.8%

As the Muslim population reaches 2% to 5%, they begin to recruit from ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, within prisons and street gangs. This is happening in:
Denmark — Muslim 2%
Germany — Muslim 3.7%
United Kingdom — Muslim 2.7%
Spain — Muslim 4%
Thailand — Muslim 4.6%

“From 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population,” Dr. Hammond notes. “For example, they will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food” and increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature such food on their shelves — along with threats for failure to comply. This is happening in:
France — Muslim 8%
Philippines — 5%
Sweden — Muslim 5%
Switzerland — Muslim 4.3%
The Netherlands — Muslim 5.5%
Trinidad & Tobago — Muslim 5.8%
Soon they begin to apply pressure to allow Sharia law within their own communities (sometimes ghettos).

“When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions,” Dr. Hammond notes. “In Paris, we are already seeing car-burnings. Any non-Muslim action offends Islam, and results in uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam, with opposition to Mohammed cartoons and films about Islam.” These tensions are seen on a regular basis in:
Guyana — Muslim 10%
Riots in Pakistan, 2013
India — Muslim 13.4%
Israel — Muslim 16%
Kenya — Muslim 10%
Russia — Muslim 15%

The violence increases when the Muslim population reaches 20%. “After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues,” such as in:
Ethiopia — Muslim 32.8%

“At 40%, nations experience widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare,” such as in:
Bosnia — Muslim 40%
Chad — Muslim 53.1%
Lebanon — Muslim 59.7%

From 60%, persecution of non-believing “infidels” rises significantly, including sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia law as a weapon, and Jizya, a tax placed on infidels, such as in:
Albania — Muslim 70%
Malaysia — Muslim 60.4%
Qatar — Muslim 77.5%
Sudan — Muslim 70%

After 80%, expect daily intimidation and violent jihad, some State-run ethnic cleansing, and even some genocide, as these nations drive out “infidels,” and move toward a 100% Muslim society, which has been experienced to some degree in:

Bangladesh — Muslim 83%
Egypt — Muslim 90%
Gaza — Muslim 98.7%
Indonesia — Muslim 86.1%
Iran — Muslim 98%
Iraq — Muslim 97%
Jordan — Muslim 92%
Morocco — Muslim 98.7%
Pakistan — Muslim 97%
Palestine — Muslim 99%
Syria — Muslim 90%
Tajikistan — Muslim 90%
Turkey — Muslim 99.8%
United Arab Emirates — Muslim 96%

A 100% Muslim society will theoretically usher in their version of peace — the peace of ‘Dar-es-Salaam’ — the Islamic House of Peace. “Here there’s supposed to be peace, because everybody is a Muslim, the Madrassas are the only schools, and the Koran is the only word,” such as in:
Afghanistan — Muslim 100%
Saudi Arabia — Muslim 100%
Somalia — Muslim 100%
Yemen — Muslim 100%

Dr. Hammond observes this Islamic ideal is seldom realized. Unfortunately, peace is never achieved, as in these 100% states the most radical Muslims intimidate and spew hatred, and satisfy their blood lust by killing less radical Muslims, for a variety of reasons.
“It is important to understand that in some countries, with well under 100% Muslim populations, such as France, the minority Muslim populations live in ghettos, within which they are 100% Muslim, and within which they live by Sharia law,” he states.

Dr. Hammond is also concerned by demographic trends. “Today’s 1.5 billion Muslims make up 22% of the world’s population,” he observes. “But their birth rates dwarf the birth rates of Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and all other believers. Muslims will exceed 50% of the world’s population by the end of this century.”
 
Minorities fear of Majority oppression, Majority fear of minority overtaking them with their population explosion. This pattern creates tension in any country in the world. It is a surely is the case in India. West seems to be in the situation of early adoption of Muslim.

I came across this article on the symptoms of "spread of Islam". I don't know whether this article is considered racist or not, it does have interesting observations.


Thanks seek10, I'm not sure either what to make of it. But I think it's obviously clear and necessary that muslims remain a small minority in the west. It's evident that many refuse to intergrate and adopt to our valuas. They put their religion above our democratic processes and will force it down our throats if we are not carefull enough. Jordan Peterson said that there is NO evidence that Islam would be compatiable with democracy. I think he is right.

In the following interview, Fox News interviews muslims whether they think the US constitution is above Sharia Law. The answers are worrying.


Who says that these innocent looking people will not butcher you for Allah as soon as stacked their numbers high enough? Those who believe in and follow sharia law are part of an insane cult and should be kicked out of the country. Tolerance must end when intolerance begins.

I'm afraid that when a lot more common people begin to fully grok the dangers of mass immigration a lot of innocent people, including muslims who don’t believe in Sharia law and just want to leave in peace will also be perceived as “those at fault" and become the main targets, not the string pullers behind them.


Another worrying sign, A Muslim party in Belgium campaign for setting up an Islamic state there. RT reports:

 
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I want to add, many muslims across Europe of course reject radical Islam. I think it’s important they take a key role in this.

Putin talked about this in 2015 during a speech addressed to the UN:

What we actually propose is to be guided by common values and common interests rather than by ambitions. Relying on international law, we must join efforts to address the problems that all of us are facing, and create a genuinely broad international coalition against terrorism. Similar to the anti-Hitler coalition, it could unite a broad range of parties willing to stand firm against those who, just like the Nazis, sow evil and hatred of humankind. And of course, Muslim nations should play a key role in such a coalition, since Islamic State not only poses a direct threat to them, but also tarnishes one of the greatest world religions with its atrocities. The ideologues of these extremists make a mockery of Islam and subvert its true humanist values.

I would also like to address Muslim spiritual leaders: Your authority and your guidance are of great importance right now. It is essential to prevent people targeted for recruitment by extremists from making hasty decisions, and those who have already been deceived and, due to various circumstances, found themselves among terrorists, must be assisted in finding a way back to normal life, laying down arms and putting an end to fratricide.

Muslims such as in this video can make good allies against radical Islam.

 
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