Ba Ba Ba-ba-ba-ba Ba ... Taqiyya!

Submitted by Archimedes2 (Canada), Dec 13, 2006 at 17:09

Zaky: "Why dont you show us the verse that says : 'lie in order to futher islamic agenda' I will be waiting. Thanks." ... "I have been a muslim for all my life and I swear this is the first time im hearing this word. what does it mean?"

C'mon Zaky, you know this is not about the 1958 smash hit by The Champs (though now you've got me humming it). Taqiyya is not an American invention, and I explained the two main interpretations of Taqiyya in a discussion we had a couple of days ago in a different stream; now you've never heard of it? Why does a muslim need the kafir to explain a well-known Islamic doctrine?

In your latest message to me in the other thread you insisted that you were "mainstream". Who are you kidding? This is a mainstream Islamic doctrine! Instead of wasting everyone's time here, look it up. Here's the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiyya It gives some of the Quran verses and ahadith often used in association with the doctrine, but don't ask us to develop it from them -- that was done many centuries ago by your coreligionists. Note: although two Qur'an verses appear most often, the doctrine is associated with instances from the Hadith literature in which Mohammed sanctions the use of lying in order to gain an advantage for Islam (such as getting an opportunity to kill one known for mocking the prophet) or for personal safety.

Wikipedia is never the most reliable source, but this article has a good many references, *mostly* to Islamic sources, so you can verify the statements there at your leisure. As I said in our other conversation, Taqiyya is interpreted (slightly) differently in Shia and Sunni Islam, and it is controversial in both streams. But it is not an invention of the kafir to discredit your religion; it's an Arabic word meaning to guard against what one fears. Obvious: this is why we English speakers have a hard time "spelling" it (we often spell it "taqqiya").

If your point is that you've never heard of this so it must be obscure, then I'll reply that either (i) you are practising taqqiya (to guard against the accusation that you advocate taqqiya, a charge you fear) or (ii) you are the Islamic equivalent of what we sometimes call "environmental christians" -- people who identify themselves as christians because that is how they "grew up", but when questioned actually know very little about their own faith; they just repeat platitudes learned in Sunday School when they were small children and refuse to let anyone question whether they are "in". Probably half, or more, of the "christians" who identify as such in America are "environmental" in this sense.

My experience with muslims would suggest that in Islam the corresponding figure is similar. I know a missionary in an almost 100% Islamic region of Africa, who tells me it is almost impossible to find a muslim there who is conversant about their faith -- like you, they know very little of the "grown up" Islamic doctrines, only a few basic platitudes. They generally have only arabic copies of the Qur'an -- which they cannot read, of course. They can recite some verses by rote, but cannot tell you what they mean.

So maybe you should answer the question for us Zaky: Why have you never heard this word before?

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