Self-critism of everything but Islam or intellectual janissaries

Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Jul 25, 2007 at 10:43

Hi, Chris!

> Oh yeah there are a fair number of self-examining books and films by Muslim authors and producers. A really good one is "Closed Doors" written and directed by Atef Hetata. It's a great critique about poverty and the dangers of fundamentalism in Egypt. Its also quite funny in parts. I highly recommend it.

You misunderstood me. I was not talking about criticism of this or that modern Moslem regime or the ruling emirs and their hedious misgovernment. I was asking you for a study , a book by a Moslem (not an ex-Moslem) criticizing the very core and fountainhead of the problems ALL Islamic countries are confronted with - namely Islam. Show me, if you can, an Islamic scholar condemning ISLAM as such! Show me anyone defending the Jews decapitated by Muhammad, the poets assassinated by him, the Meccan merchants robbed of their last savings by this warlord and ruthless gangster !

(I know of course it is impossible. Criticizing Islam is the worst (hadd) crime imaginable in Islam. The critic would be forced to make public self-criticism and then would be brutally murdered, his book would be burnt and banned on pain of death. Islamic "self-criticism" at its best, you know ! )

> Historically one of the most famous Muslim critics of Islam itself was the great philosopher Ibn Rushd, otherwise knows as Averroes who lived between 1126-1198 CE. I recommend reading some of his writings. They are quite good. A good site about him can be found here: http://www.iep.utm.edu/i/ibnrushd.htm

Again he wasn't criticisng Islam as such, not the crimes committed by the "prophet", not the sickening nonsense called "the Noble Quran", not the "Rightly-Guided" caliphs and their discriminatory regulation to down the kaffirs. Far from it ! He wanted to make us believe there is allegedly no conflict between Islam and common sense, between the Quran authored by a criminal illiterate gangster and Aristotle... Aristotle must have been turning in his grave seeing what Averroes what doing with his philosophy to please his barbarian bloodthirsty masters. Privately, I find his attempts a philosophical high treason! What a nasty intellectual janissary he was! But I am aware he had no choice (in fact even his attempts to "reconcile' the irreconcilable brought him into trouble with his paymasters). We on the other hand do have a choice and we must not be hoodwinked by the old masters of learned obscurantism and philosophical doubletalk.

> For a modern critique here's a great one: http://www.irfi.org/articles/articles_501_550/self_criticism.htm

What sort of critique is it , dear Chris? Starting with a quranic quote and showing the the present ruling elite doesn't comply with that "lofty" ideal? Come on! It is Islam that is the problem, not this or that Moslem. It's a structural, not a personal problem! It is the house of Islam that has plenty of structural failures. You can't blame this or that tenant for it.

> If you look you'll find them. Also within debates between historic scholars I have seen self-criticisms often mentioned about the way their communities were going. But I'm not going to spend more time digging those up as I have a ton of other posts to answer on this forum and others including Islamic forums. Still I do agree in part is that they definitely lack the amount of self-criticism that we see in Western cultures. There is no doubt that there is a much greater freedom of thought and speech available here in the West.

Instead of losing your time on watching "moderate" forums in the hope to teach me I am wrong , take a look at the recent historical experiences on the Balkans and in Chechnya. Before 1990-ies one could believe these are really "moderate" Islamic community - after Dr. Pipes' and other Western experts' dreams. Largely secularized and Westernized, integrated, tolerant, drinking alcohol, leaving their women unveiled. Within a few years the two regions became the most hateful breeding-ground of jihad, anti-Semtism and bellicose Iranian-Saudi propaganda.

The Western Moslems will go the same way and your moderates of today will tomorrow behead kaffirs and throw bombs into Israeli and American embassies and demonstrate against this or that newspaper that dared to tell the truth and show their sadistic Moslem past and present . Some Western Moslems already do that. The rest will follow just as they did in Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya.

> Some Muslims realize this and love living in the West because of it, while others don't. That is in fact a big part of my arguement towards fundamentalists who seem to argue for moving back 1,000 years but who at the same time, really enjoy their cell phones, big screen LCD TV's, and Mercedes Benz cars.

I am sure were it not for the death penalty for apostasy they would have long since left that evil death cult called Islam. But they can't. Death awaits them if they do what reason and conscience tell them to do.

> Believe it or not, its quite easy to reason with these people and get them thinking in more realistic terms. These are the types that yell "SHARIAT SHARIAT SHARIAT OR DEATH!" and then when you ask them what a modern Shariat based government would look like and how its economic system would function, they can't tell you. With them its all about getting them to become more self-reflective in ways they are not used to thinking. Once you get them thinking in that manner, there is no turning back for them. You have put a lethal wound into their extremist thinking. The trick is gettng that knife in. It takes patience and actually showing these extremists respect while agreeing with them on some issues where their beliefs are more moderate. Its a delicate psychological game in earning their trust. But it is possible.

Believe me, there were many people like you saying similar things twenty years ago about the Balkan Moslems. Now the same "moderates" of yesterday would tear you into into pieces if you were wearing a cross in public in Kosovo or Bosnia. The opposite mass process to what you are dreaming of has taken place there. My innocent thought experiment turned out to be a grim reality on a mass scale.

You may be theoretically right, Chris. But history is against you.

Best,

Jan

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