my yelling of Islamaphobia and prejudice? Like your yelling of caravan warlord and bandit?

Submitted by phonetics (Indonesia), Dec 21, 2006 at 02:27

"You don't sound matter-of-fact and convincing , phonetics , and you know that. You have no rational arguments at all you can apply against those who have the courage to unveil the cadaverous scull of Islam. Your last resort is that of crying "Islamophobia!" , "prejudice!". Why not face the evidence and follow the way of reason, not that of grim Bedouin superstitions! Stop being a Moslem, phonetics!"

Mahatma Gandhi, in his inimitable style, says "Some one has said that Europeans in South Africa dread the advent Islam -- Islam that civilized Spain, Islam that took the torch light to Morocco and preached to the world the Gospel of brotherhood. The Europeans of South Africa dread the Advent of Islam. They may claim equality with the white races. They may well dread it, if brotherhood is a sin. If it is equality of colored races then their dread is well founded."

As for the civilization/ democracy/ consult the hadith and all that threatening etc. etc.:

The Creator also states in the Qur'an (translated):

[42:36-38] So whatever thing you are given, that is only a provision of this world's life, and what is with Allah is better and more lasting for those who believe and rely on their Lord, and those who shun the great sins and indecencies, and whenever they are angry they forgive, and those who respond to their Lord and keep up prayer, and their rule is to take counsel among themselves, and who spend out of what We have given them.

God orders us in this verse to conduct our matters by taking counsel among ourselves, or by consulting each other. This is the methodology of the Islamic state, to consult one another, but to always keep the Qur'an and Sunnah paramount (Just so you understand, it's like conversing in a court of law and using the basics of the amendment to establish an argument). This broad principle of consultation is certainly wide enough to encompass a form of government where all are heard - in fact, encouraged to be heard. The early Islamic states were of this form. The petty governments of many `Muslim countries' today do not apply this principle and in fact commit many crimes against the people, hence have outrightly sinned against their own religion.

Then there is the Iana and Ianae... Forgive me, I thought you were a Girl... From now on I shall use Iana, so as not to misconstrue anything else. Afterall you are not feminine at all.

And then you said something about the emancipation of women and how Islam was not for it... It is this same anti-democratic spirit of Islam as you call it that emancipated women from the bondage of man. Sir Charles Edward Archibald Hamilton says "Islam teaches the inherent sinlessness of man. It teaches that man and woman have come from the same essence, posses the same soul and have been equipped with equal capabilities for intellectual, spiritual and moral attainments." Hence non existance of the Original Sin. And also the Holy Book that has inscribed inside it basic laws that make it easier for women to claim divorce, and a lawful ground on inheritance and others that lay foundations for a physical and mental wellbeing. Something from Prof. K. S. Ramakrishna Rao, Head of the Department of Philosophy,
Government College for Women University of Mysore, Mandya-571401 (Karnatika).

"The Arabs had a very strong tradition that one who can smite with the spear and can wield the sword would inherit. But Islam came as the defender of the weaker sex and entitled women to share the inheritance of their parents. It gave women, centuries ago right of owning property, yet it was only 12 centuries later , in 1881, that England, supposed to be the cradle of democracy adopted this institution of Islam and the act was called "the married woman act", but centuries earlier, the Prophet of Islam had proclaimed that "Woman are twin halves of men. The rights of women are sacred. See that women maintained rights granted to them."

Other accusations:

Caravan Warlord? the cadaverous scull of Islam?

Gibbon, a historian of world repute says, "A pernicious tenet has been imputed to Mohammadans, the duty of extirpating all the religions by sword." This charge based on ignorance and bigotry, says the eminent historian, is refuted by Quran, by history of Musalman conquerors and by their public and legal toleration of Christian worship. The great success of Mohammad's life had been effected by sheer moral force, without a stroke of sword.

But in pure self-defense, after repeated efforts of conciliation had utterly failed, circumstances dragged him into the battlefield. But the prophet of Islam changed the whole strategy of the battlefield. The total number of casualties in all the wars that took place during his lifetime when the whole Arabian Peninsula came under his banner, does not exceed a few hundreds in all.His own treatment with his bitterest enemies is the noblest example for his followers. At the conquest of Mecca, he stood at the zenith of his power. The city which had refused to listen to his mission, which had tortured him and his followers, which had driven him and his people into exile and which had unrelentingly persecuted and boycotted him even when he had taken refuge in a place more than 200 miles away, that city now lay at his feet. By the laws of war he could have justly avenged all the cruelties inflicted on him and his people. But what treatment did he accord to them? Mohammad's heart flowed with affection and he declared, "This day, there is no REPROOF against you and you are all free." "This day" he proclaimed, "I trample under my feet all distinctions between man and man, all hatred between man and man."

This was one of the chief objects why he permitted war (Jihad) in self defense, that is to unite human beings. And when once this object was achieved, even his worst enemies were pardoned. Even those who killed his beloved uncle, Hamzah, mangled his body, ripped it open, even chewed a piece of his liver. SoI guess only a caravan warlord knows how to forgive?

And more wonderful still is what the reverend Bosworth Smith remarks, "Head of the state as well as the Church, he was Caesar and Pope in one; but, he was pope without the pope's claims, and Caesar without the legions of Caesar, without a standing army, without a bodyguard, without a palace, without a fixed revenue. If ever any man had the right to say that he ruled by a right divine It was Mohammad, for he had all the power without instruments and without its support. He cared not for dressing of power. The simplicity of his private life was in keeping with his public life."

Then there is your claim:

Contrary to you, I am realistic. No Moslem can be a realist. It's incompatible with the irrational spirit of Islam.

Robert Priffault concludes in his well known book The making of humanity, "The debt of our science to the Arabs does not consist in starting discovers or revolutionary theories. Science owes a great more to Arabs culture; it owes its existence." The same writer says "The Greeks systematized, generalized and theorized but patient ways of investigation, the accumulation of positive knowledge, the minute methods of science, detailed and prolonged observation, experimental inquiry, were altogether alien to Greek temperament. What we call science arose in Europe as result of new methods of investigation, of the method of experiment, observation, measurement, of the development of Mathematics in form unknown to the Greeks. That spirit and these methods, concludes the same author, were introduced into the European world by Arabs."

Imagine that? And he's not even Islamic... hmm... Perhaps the Arabs he was talking about weren't Islamic... Because according to you rationalism is alien to Islamists? I'm just glad that those who are the more knowledgable are in fact literally MORE KNOWLEDGABLE. And basically I hate to have to quote and present "evidence" when I am in a discussion, it makes it so formal and boringly loutish, but if you insist, afterall an open discussion, according to what your view of it is, can never actually trust what the other is saying unless they are saying the same thing. not literally of course but it does give it a good nudge if not shove to that direction. I'm sorry, I'm only a muslim devoid of logic and reason and sarcasm, but always in view of solipsism... Gosh Ianus, so many -ism's... you are quite the knowledgable one, since grim Bedouin superstitions are what most of the asian muslims believe in...Hmmm... and here I thought I was the one being illogical.

As a closing:

Thomas Carlyle, struck by this philosophy of life (Islam) writes "and then also Islam-that we must submit to God; that our whole strength lies in resigned submission to Him, whatsoever he does to us, the thing he sends to us, even if death and worse than death, shall be good, shall be best; we resign ourselves to God." The same author continues "If this be Islam, says Goethe, do we not all live in Islam?" Carlyle himself answers this question of Goethe and says "Yes, all of us that have any moral life, we all live so. This is yet the highest wisdom that heaven has revealed to our earth."

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".