How Muslims Can Win The Coming Wars!

Dear Naqsh -- here is your Christian friend who feels -- the same as you do -- except for his Christian Allah.


A Tale of Two Fridays
By MAUREEN DOWD


ASHINGTON — The Pentagon, a k a the International Trust for Historic Preservation, has once more shown the world its deep cultural sensitivity.

Franklin Graham, the Christian evangelist who has branded Islam a ``very wicked and evil`` religion, was the honored speaker at the Pentagon`s Good Friday service.

After Kenna West, a Christian singer, crooned,

``There is one God and one faith,``

Mr. Graham told an auditorium of soldiers in camouflage, civilian staffers and his son, a West Point cadet: ``There`s no other way to God except through Christ. . . .

Jesus Christ is alive because he is risen, and friends, he`s coming back, and I believe he`s coming back soon.``

When Muslim groups complained that the Pentagon was ``endorsing`` his attacks on Islam, Mr. Graham asked for a photo op with Muslim Pentagon employees. They declined

Muslims suspicious that America is on a crusade against Islam were inflamed to learn that Mr. Graham is taking his missionary act to Iraq.

They are still scorched by his remarks to NBC News after 9/11:

``It wasn`t Methodists flying into those buildings, and it wasn`t Lutherans. It was an attack on this country by people of the Islamic faith.``

He wrote in his last book that Christianity and Islam were ``as different as lightness and darkness,`` and recently told the Sunday Times of London,

``The true God is the God of the Bible, not the Koran.``

Workers from Mr. Graham`s Christian relief organization, Samaritan`s Purse, were in Jordan, waiting to inveigle Iraqi infidels with a blend of kitchen pantry and Elmer Gantry.

Treating Operation Iraqi Freedom as a lucky break for Jesus, Mr. Graham told the religious Web site Beliefnet: ``We are there to reach out to love them and to save them, and as a Christian I do this in the name of Jesus Christ.``

The 50-year-old son of Billy Graham has close connections to the president, who was in charge of evangelical outreach during his father`s `88 campaign and who pressed war in Iraq by calling liberty ``God`s gift to humanity.``

The president said Billy Graham ``planted a seed in my heart`` to stop drinking (and snuffin coke) and embrace Jesus………(NYT)

A Tale of Two Fridays
By MAUREEN DOWD

In Baghdad, it was Bad Friday.

On the Islamic holy day, thousands of Iraqis marched through
downtown, shouting for America to ``leave our country.``

Looters, continuing their rampage, stole vials of polio virus from a public health laboratory and set the Information Ministry on fire.

Mullahs were happy to talk — and balk — after suffocating under Saddam. ``You are masters today,`` Sheik Ahmed al-Kubeisy lectured America in one Baghdad mosque. ``But I warn you against thinking of staying. Get out before we force you out.`` (Isn`t this how Osama got started?)

Back here, the neo-cons and war planners were too busy gloating to worry about the ambient sound of civilizations clashing.

Rummy, once a Bechtel Iraqi pipeline booster and now busy planning to load American military bases into Iraq, seemed almost perversely determined to act as though the vandalizing of relics of the birth of civilization was insignificant, something only sissies could cry over.

``It`s the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase,`` he said, ``and you see it 20 times and you think, my goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?``

The Pentagon could easily have saved the national museum and library

if they had redeployed the American troops assigned to guard Ahmad Chalabi, the Richard Perle pal, Pentagon candidate and convicted embezzler who is back in Iraq trying to ingratiate himself with the country he left 40 years ago.

Instead of hectoring those who expressed any doubt about the difficulty of occupying Iraq, the conservatives should worry about their own self-parody:

pandering to the base by blessing evangelical Christians who want to proselytize Muslims;

protecting their (neoCON) interests by backing a shady expat puppet;

pleasing their contributors by pre-emptively awarding rebuilding contracts to Halliburton and Bechtel;

and swaggering like Goths as Iraq`s cultural heritage goes up in flames.

Talk about a baptism by fire. (NYT)

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hamidm2 #96 You and I are PERHAPS beating the same dead camel, using different names for the animal. To test this hypothesis: If by ``western civilization`` you mean (a) a political structure that to a significant extent reflects certain values, (b) a social structure that promotes equal opportunity, (c) promotion of individual enterprise (d) striving for self-improvement, (e) the work ethic....things like these...then we are talking about the same thing.

I would add that these things are indeed the ingredients that made the west the success it has been. However, the west has historically NOT had a monopoly on these things. And western culture itself is not static, and has been changing rapidly over the last 50 years: the US of the 1950`s and even 1950`s is as different in many superficial aspects from the US of today (demographically, legislatively, and so forth). What has remained constant are the underlying things I mention above.

So, I think if we clarify what we are mean by the ``camel``, then we may find outserlves in the same wave length.

tahmed...

i hate to beat a dead camel, but there is no point in trying to find goodness where little exists ......... all this mumbo jumbo about finding beauty in savagery and a values in primitive barbaric cultures is nothing but liberal kaka ..........the bushmen running naked through the kalahari desert have contiributed nothing to mankind, so let`s not pretend otherwise ..........next thing you know the horrible half-naked hindoos will be claiming that since they invented the zero (or was it the decimal system), they too are civilized folks regardless of the fact that millions of them are living in slums and peeing on the pavement .............. of course the muslims, overly clad in flowing nightgowns, did at one point, make a significant contribution to civilization - but that was a long time ago and they did it inspite of islam, not because of it ............. islam, in its true form, as we see it today, is not going to usher in the next post-industrian revolution .......... as a matter of fact it is a receipe for regression - hadood laws and suicide bombers ................

............ ``good`` and ``progressive`` muslims like you are looking for answers where none exist ...... you keep on talking about the beauty of a seventh century text which is supposed to hold the secrets of the universe ...... trust me, it is a waste of time ........... it is time to accept the fact that western civilization is the ticket to salvation ..........

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Re: ajeet # 89

Islamic scholarship was marked not by producing any orginal work, but in collecting, organizing and preserving the works of Rome, Athens and the Hellenistic period. The Islamic scholarly contribution, generally, has been in safe quarding the knowledge of the ancient world during the dark ages of medieval Europe and preventing these works and knowledge from being lost.

Ciao

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yantric #86 You are actually exactly right. The shia-sunni split in Islam is merely a political one concerning who should, centuries ago, have gotten to be the caliph. There is no particular philosophical difference. Sufism on the other hand represents the significant philosophical difference - with the Quran condemning in the strongest of terms the idea that some men are ``closer`` to God than others. And of course it has major practical implications too - namely, you live this life reaching out to your fellow humans and doing good deeds rather than retreating into a hermitage trying to reach out to God. The fact that this truly fundamental split from the message of the Quran arouses no passions among muslims, while shia and sunni extremists are at each others throats all the time, is testament to the fact that people say goodbye to rationality and common sense when it comes to religious issues.

Tahmed,

As an achievement of Islam, you mention the transltion of Greek and Sanskrit Works. A better quote would be the original works produced by the followers of Islam, the ones that have contributed to the advancement of humanity.

silly #84 Appreciating other cultures, and having the humility and practical sense to learn from them, is not a sign of inferiority as you think. It is a sign of a vibrant and progressive culture. Your way of thinking is no different than that of the maulvi who rejects and denigrates everything outside muslim culture out of hand.

hamidm2 #82 To say that Baghdad led the world at one time in scholarship and scientific advancement (in fact a number of times, once in pre-bibilical times and later in the 8th and 9th centuries AD), does not in any way mean that one condones the suppression of Zoroastrianism in Iran. You represent that the same simple-minded hatred for muslim culture as the simple-minded hatred for western culture that many mullahs exhibit. Both represent a very superficial way of looking at things.

Naqsh furyadee hai... about the same old crap....

``I want to say that the importance of the spiritual revolution is that until our hearts are purified and until we internalise Islam and become Mu`mins we can never hope to achieve success as Allah has promised us victory in the Koran conditionally with the condition being that we are MUMIN. Those with Iman.``(Naqshbandi)

lemme ask u naqsh the following questions:

did U purify ur heart -- yet?

did U internalize ur Islam?

did u become a true Momin? -- btw it`s MOmin not Mumin

did Allah grant U the victory He promised in the Koran?

Since how long have U been living together with Iman?

now tell me

did Allah grant the obvious Victory to the Christians, Jews, and the Hindus -- OVER THE MOMINS -- all over the world --

because the Christians, the Jews and the Hindus have internalized Christianity, Judiasm, or Hinduism --

or have they ALL internalized secretly -- our Islam?

or do u dispute their victories over the Momins -- by any means?

or -- do u think -- the Christians, the Jews, the Hindus have different Allahs -- more modern -- more hi-tech -- than the Momin`s Allah?

Re Zafar #69

Good I got a straight answer.

Are you absolutely sure that Isalm believes in personal relationship with Allah ? Isn`t the only conduit to Allah is Koran as transmitted through Mohammed and him being the last prophet, after him no one can establish a relationship to Allah.