Reply to Hajira

Submitted by Hank (United States), Mar 4, 2005 at 18:16

Hajira , I have read your posting with incredulity and complete astonishment . You say….

"""I am appealing to the human side in all of you………Please read the other side of this vast forum of opinions so that we may share our similarities and grow to minimize our differences"""

Speaking for myself, I do read, listen and take note of your religion, does it allay my fears…I regret to inform you …no! not one bit, instead I constantly find that my fears are compounded.
To my knowledge, Islam is the only religion I know in this modern age whose avowed ambition is world domination. The fanatics within Islam who's depraved views is that their faith must remain supreme and can only be affirmed and held passionately, ONLY IF ALL OTHERS ARE EITHER ILLIMINATED, NEGATED OR SUBJUGATED AS INFERIOR. Is it not written into your beliefs that this must come about? Are not the fanatics in your religion claiming that they are only following the commands of the prophet Mohammed?
Personally, I don't want to be subjugated or considered inferior by what I consider to be the most oppressive religion on the face of this earth.

If I had a dollar for every time I was told by Muslims that Islamofacists are only a small minority of crazy fanatics, I would be rich….another palliative we are constantly given is, "Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance". Such hollow palliatives do nothing to reassure non-Muslims. We only have to look around the world and see it is to the contrary. But what really worries me….if these Islamofacists are just a small minority…..where do they get all the money to fund their terror campaigns?
Now, either they must be the worlds greatest entrepreneurs or someone is funding them. Well, we know it's not the Jews, Christians or even Hindus……makes one think, doesn't it??

You criticize westerners for their views of Islam. With the greatest respect. I've got to ask you which planet your from? Because you seem to hold a completely sanitized view of your religion. Our views in the West are formed by the evidence before our very eyes! We watch (albeit on our TV and other media, the atrocities committed in the name of Allah, we have watched western hostages beheaded and the horrendous aftermath resulting from suicide/homicide bombers blowing innocent civilians, women and children to pieces, we have watched on our TV screens , Muslim women being beaten by the religious police, we have watched Muslim women executed in a football stadium in Afghanistan by zealous religious Muslims, we know about the atrocities committed in the name of religion, such as the cutting off of limps, tongues, and gouging out of eyes.
While moderate Muslims cry out "Allahu Akbar" in deference to their god other Muslims us the same cry as a war-cry. This can be clearly heard in a video where an innocent western hostage is about to be decapitated.

You also said…."""Furthermore I would like to add that Islam is the most misunderstood religion in the world"""

Now that statement begs the question,…..Misunderstood by whom, Muslims or Westerners??
You see Hajira, most of us in the West understand what we see with our own eyes. You however, have not made one reference to atrocities committed in the name of your religion.

You also said…""""I find it baffling, that Muslims are criticised and unjustly labelled for trying to increase Islamic awareness, when we have had missionaries, both Christian and Jewish, spreading their respective doctrines without hindrance for years. """" Incidentally, I have never heard of Jews actually proselytising.

Well Hajira, could it be the MANNER in which your religion is trying to increase Islamic awareness?
And at least you acknowledge that proselytising Christianity is definitely no longer allowed in most Islamic countries by your words ""when we have had"" because as you well know Christians and Jews are now widely persecuted by your "brothers in Islam"

Just to make my position clear, I will be willing to take law-abiding Muslims at their word when they say that they believe Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. I will also be willing to take them at their word when THEY START LIVING BY THAT INTERPRETATION.

However, the fact remains that other Muslims who are not so peaceful and declare that they are impeccably and faithfully following the commands of the prophet surely believe that Islam means death. Death to Christians, Jews and Hindus; death to unbelievers, heretics, blasphemers, adulterers, homosexuals and plenty of other categories of human being. And while these Muslims are killing other human beings, guess what? Those peace-loving Muslims aren't doing much about it!!

Of course I fully accept that there are moderate and tolerant Muslims who often break the deafening silence and paucity of self-criticism in the Islamic world. These are brave and honest men and women who are willing to put their lives at risk from the Islamists. One such voice sticks in my mind and that is the voice of Imam of Soheib Bincheikh, the Mufti of Marseilles. Speaking at the Commission on Human Rights on March 1998 in relation to the savagery being perpetrated in Algeria, he called on Muslim theologians and thinkers to strive for a "desacralization of Islamic law" and a reform of Islamic theology.

Another brave Muslim….

"The Painful Truth" All the World Terrorists are Muslim" So writes Abdulrahman al-Rashed, general manager of Al-Arabiya television, in his daily column published in the A-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper.
"Our terrorist sons are an end-product of our corrupted culture," writes Al-Rashed, as reported by Susan Sevareid of the Associated Press. He reviewed a list of recent attacks by Islamic extremists groups - in Russia, Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, "Most perpetrators of suicide operations in buses, schools and residential buildings around the world for the past ten years have been Muslims". wrote Al-Rashed. He said that Muslims should not try to ignore the facts, and that they will be unable to cleanse their image unless, "we admit the scandalous facts….The picture is humiliating, painful and harsh for all of us"
Sevareid also quoted Ahmed Bahgat, an Islamist columnist for Egypt's leading pro-government newspaper, Al-Ahram, who wrote that the images "showed Muslims as monsters who are fed by the blood of children and the pain of their families." "If all the enemies of Islam united together and decided to harm it, they wouldn't have ruined and harmed its image as much as the sons of Islam have done by their stupidity, miscalculations, and misunderstanding of the nature of this age".

Unfortunately, these minute minority are just voices in the wilderness, as Islam is not renowned for it's introspective qualities.

Finally Hajira , you said….

"I hope I have not offended anyone, as I have been offended by some. I simply wanted to remind that the greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge"

Excellent words Hajira, but I think they should also be directed to Islam, which treats all other religions and ideologies with disdain, in the belief that theirs is the only truth.
Someone once said (sorry cannot remember who)

"We need to be able NOT to argue with the Islamic Mind, but to show that it is dancing on air. Philosophically, Logically, Psychologically. And leads to the same monstrous tyranny as every previous Absolutist madness, from the pharaohs to Chairman Mao. We are creatures who can only know MAYBE. When someone declares that they can know CERTAINTY, they are stating their arrogant schism with the sensible, secular, scientifically-based and humbly reasonable world. And the only reply to them is; come back when you can behave decently".

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