Noah and Susan

Submitted by Safraz (United States), Dec 31, 2006 at 02:16

Noah,

Let me explain.

On the cover of Newsweek one day during the war in Afghanistan, I saw a picture of Taliban forces performing their sunset Muslim prayers. The next week I was in Europe, opened a newspaper, and saw a very similar picture - Afghan forces performing their Muslim prayers at sunset - but these weren't the Islamist Taliban, they were the secular Northern Alliance, the force that fought alongside American troops in defeating the Taliban.

In Somalia last week, secular Somlian Muslim government troops - with the great help of Ethiopian Christian forces - defeated the Islamists in control of Maghadishu.

In Palestine, Islamist Hamas forces are constantly attacking Mahmoud Abbaas' secular Muslim Fatah forces.

In Lebanon, Islamist Hezzbolah is in a political war with the majority secular Muslim Lebanese government.

In Iraq up to to the recent sectarian violence, secular Muslim government soldiers and policemen were everyday the target of bombings by Al Qaeda and other Islamists insurgents.

By far, more Muslims have died at the hands of the Islamists, than have Westerners. By far, the greatest enemy of the Islamists isn't the non-Muslim West - rather it is the majority of the Muslims of the world - we are a threat because we do not believe in their violent totalitarian interpretation of the Koran. In their eyes, we are the first line of resistance to their belief, and you are the last . In your eyes, we should be seen as soldiers on the front lines of the war against totalitarianism - instead you see us as the enemey.

You, Noah, are a bigot, because this is clear for all to see - but you don't see it. Rather, you paint all Muslims with the same brush that you would paint Al Qaeda and other violent Islamists. You are like the anti-Semites in the 50's that spread intolerance of Jews, based on the acts of the Rosenbergs - you blame an entire community for the acts of a few and you do it probably because of your own insecurities and prejudices.

Not only that, but you minimize the great scientific and artistic achievements of Islam by arguing that they were stolen. That is as shameful and as bigotted as an argument as I have ever heard. What civilization in history started from scratch? The essence of civilization is its ability to learn from what came before and build on it. And that is what the Islamic civilizations did. They redisovered the lost knowledge of the Greeks and the ancient Indians, and built on this.

Susan, I don't have much to say to you because your hatred of Muslims is clearly beyond anything I've seen. And for your information, I have studied the Bible since I was a child and have studied it throughout high school in a formal sense, and informally ever since. I know there are many violent verses in the BIble that are susceptible to misinterpretation - for example, the massacare of the Hitties in Numbers, and God and Moses' massacre of pagans in Exodus. These pagans were Jewish people - if the Koran had said such a thing, you would call it anti-Semitic. In fact you do exactly that by arguing that the Koran's verse that says that SOME Jews and Christians who worshipped idols (Biblican pagans, if you will) were turned into apes and pigs.

Noah and Suan, you both lack a perspective on history. You judge the Islamic civilizations as if they existed today in the modern world. You fail to judge them with their peers, if if you did that, their greatness would be clear to see.

But I admit, that in the last 200 years, Islamic civilization has stalled, and in fact, as regressed. And that is why you see such backwards conditions in so many Muslim countries. And so it is time that we Muslims modernize and begin moving forward once again. There is a rich history of modernism in Islam to draw from. But on the way there will be much bloodshed by the Muslims who want to modernize in their battle against those who want to regress to the 7th century.

Safraz.

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