Is Islam Anti-Semitic?

500,000 died in rwanda. But they are kala`s no one cares, lets all b1tch and complain about bin laden and the 3000 american dead.

Tamil Tigers, have used 200 suicide bombings, in a 20 year old civil war that has killed more than 60,000 people. Oh but they are like kalas with straight hair.

3000 americans died and oh my god lets turn the whole world upside down and kill and torture anyone who wears a beard. Lets imprison afghani youth and drop bombs on iraqi weddings and lets b1tch and whine when weve given birth to another terrorist.

Bruce: I am looking at this subject from an objective viewpoint and from a macro level. IM not looking at war from a personal lens. Your comparing apples and oranges. An entity known as the african american is certainly justified in attacking a group labelled as white europeans for what they did because when one group enslaves another for 4 hundred years, it cannot expect to have no reprecussions. Would i like to be the white guy who is being killed, no. But will one group who is being killed for centuries eventually hit back, certainly.

fartex

You didnt read my post properly did you? In particular look out for my riffs off DRUMZ (and your) 9/11 Karmic Justification Theory. Read it again in full and it may make some sense to you, you slap happy Jihadi spunk bag.

BruceLee,

``If you say to me, ``Yes, as a North American/Canadian/Muslim I do not mind if me or my family are slaughtered by psychopaths in retribution for the naughtiness of my religious/national ancestors, that is fine by me, bring it on`` then I concede your point.``

Spinning the same old arguments, I see...you still don`t have a clue do you bud? NO ONE is supporting terrorists...it is YOU who are supporting states in their worse-than terrorist activities. And what do such activities beget? Well whadayknow...more terrorism...

``If not then I would like to ask you why not? The Twin Tower people deserved it, according to you, because they were culpable indirectly by being in the USA, the source of all evil in the world (according to you and lots of others) ``

Justification is NOT the same as rationale. Jeebus...go back to school if such simple concepts boggle your mind. No civilian deserves death from above...from a bomb or a hijacked plane.

Now, praytell, why can`t this same twisted logic be used on behalf of the people who are being bombed in Iraq or elsewhere? After all, apparently they deserved it....

By all mens go after Al-Q. Kill em, capture them, rape them...whatever turns your ilk on dude...but if doing so entails the deaths of tens of thousands, if not more, on the ``other`` side then screw it. Your`re then just being a bigger arsehole than Osama was.

#69 by DRUMZ on October 18, 2004 10:30pm PT

Coming to human pain- only liberal individual rights can ensure that every one`s pain is respected- most of the people in the world who claim to practice the `true` faith are infact devil`s companion.

DRUMZ

Why are poor Catholics/Hindus/Buddhists not flying planes into America yet rich Saudi Muslims are doing so?

Answer the question. I am genuinely seeking your wisdom on this.

DRUMZ

``I dont Support the jihadis, I stated that america was getting what it deserved.``

So you are proposing that along the lines of Karma we can deduce a righteousness to the act of 9/11.

Can we further explore this concept of Karmic retribution?

If Pakistan suffered a loss of life in a terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11, would it be a righteous act due to the ``bad karma`` accumulated by the state of Pakistan say, over the Bangladesh genocide?

Replace ``India`` for ``Pakistan`` regarding its own moral transgressions.

Or has enough bad karma been built up yet?

Who judges the karmic levels of retribution?

Why leave it at that. Are Muslims in Gujarat responsible and culpable for the crimes of Muslim invaders/emperors in India in the past?

Surely there is some Karmic dissonance that requires straightening out there on the basis of your 9/11 Justification theory?

Why stop at Muslims in Gujarat? Why are YOU not guilty because of the Armenian genocide of Christians by Turkish Muslim militias in the last century?

What about the annihilation of indigenous people in North America? As a Canadian citizen will you agree with the righteousness of an act that kills you and your family because you are the member of a society that has historically exterminated large numbers of Native Americans?

Should African-Americans be allowed to kill white people in recompense for the horrors of slavery? The hundreds of thousands of Africans who died on the slave ships and were dumped in the sea? The number of dead is unknowable.

JUST TELL ME THIS

Are you prepared to have you and your family made targets on the basis of the 9/11 Karmic Justification theory that can be applied to other countries/races/religions?

If you say to me, ``Yes, as a North American/Canadian/Muslim I do not mind if me or my family are slaughtered by psychopaths in retribution for the naughtiness of my religious/national ancestors, that is fine by me, bring it on`` then I concede your point.

If not then I would like to ask you why not? The Twin Tower people deserved it, according to you, because they were culpable indirectly by being in the USA, the source of all evil in the world (according to you and lots of others)

What do you say, DRUMZ?

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Arjun: ``What makes ``I feel your pain`` transcend national boundaries? Islam``

Um Wrong. Dont miss the forest for the trees. The problem here is not religion, its that people are too weak to stand up for themselves so they ALIGN themselves with larger groups of equally stupid people. The problem here is human weakness and need for social affiliation. Take Islam out of the picture and wars would be fought for ethnic, cultural, lingusitic, racial or nationalistic reasons. ((((((((by the way, NO ONE has ever countered that point to me))))))))).....How many expatriots of a country send money oversees to fund liberation movements? Im sure the IRA and the Sri lankan Tigers are down.

Also, refrain from personal judgements on my character. Ive probably debated against more muslims and mullahs then all of you guys combined. I was speakin against the taliban back in 95. And no i dont support the pakistani governemnt, bla bla bla. I can basically argue your position or that of the Muslims. Ill debate against you guys because basically anyone can argue against bin laden these days.

I dont Support the jihadis, I stated that america was getting what it deserved. Whoever the ``terrorist`` is is irrelevent to me. Further, im not sure how this position conflicts with my assertion that bin laden and his ilk have a fools understanding of Islam.

Afghanistan is a mess. America did not fullfil any of its promises there. There is no order in the country outside of kabul. Warlords own most of the nation.

Bruce: there isnt a religious compnent to them. And what is your point and how does that refute my statement that terrorism is directly related to poverty? Or is religious terrorism cuter then secular terrorism to you?

Jang: the ganja is the only thing which is making everyone posts here appear deeper.... Why do you assume that terrorism starts when hopeless people are given false hopes? Maybe it begins when they lose paticnet with non violence. There are indeed other ways but I can name you 7 countries america has recently fukked up and I can also inform you that their answer to america was to do nothing. It is about time someone hit up the US.

I stated: WAR is the terrorism of the upper classes. I suppose though its not as bad as the terrorism of the poor....

this is a very interesting pertinent article -- the Europeanization of Islam thru training of New Eujropean Imams by EU governments.....an auspicious beginning for a new reformed entity -- Western Islam...sorry that the article is a little long but highly significant and worth reading in full.

Europe Struggling to Train New Breed of Muslim Clerics
By ELAINE SCIOLINO

Published: October 18, 2004


T.-LÉGER-DE-FOUGERET, France, Oct. 13 - On a wooded hillside in deepest rural Burgundy sits a modest 19th-century chateau with a daunting mission: the training of imams to minister to the Muslims of Europe.

Here, for $3,200 a year, about 150 French and foreign students study and live in a damp, dilapidated former corporate summer resort with a tiny library, few computers, no television and no cellphone reception.

The goal of the European Institute for Human Sciences, as the coeducational school is known, is an urgent one shared by political leaders and intelligence and law enforcement authorities across the Continent.

They believe that the growing Muslim population of Europe must stanch the migration of Muslim clerics who often are self-appointed, unfamiliar with the West, beholden to foreign interests and in the most extreme cases, full of hate and capable of terrorist acts. To that end, they say, a homegrown breed of imams must be created.

``We are here to create modern imams who will respond to the needs of our Muslims in France and in Europe,`` said Zuhair Mahmood, the Iraqi-born director of the school who trained as a nuclear scientist and helped found it 12 years ago. ``We need more mosques for the faithful and that means more imams.``

The perceived threat is so great that a number of European governments closely monitor the activities and sermons of their Muslim clerics.

France has expelled more than dozen Muslim clerics for violations of human rights or public order since 2001, most recently Abdelkader Bouziane, an Algerian-born imam and father of 16 who asserts that the Koran permits men to beat unfaithful wives.

In Italy last November, the Interior Ministry expelled a Senegalese-born imam after he called for suicide bombings and declared a ``blood pact`` with Osama bin Laden.
On Friday, Britain decided to charge a militant Muslim cleric, Abu Hamza al-Masri, a former nightclub bouncer who has supported Osama bin Laden, with terrorism offenses, stalling an American effort to extradite him to the United States.

But creating an army of learned, law-abiding, Europeanized imams is not easy. State involvement in religion in the Arab world is commonplace, but in Europe a government role can be seen as a violation of privacy and human rights.

Spain`s interior minister, José Antonio Alonso, set off a firestorm of criticism in May when he proposed the creation of a mandatory registry of clerics and places of worship and the monitoring of sermons.

The Netherlands is experimenting tentatively with required government-financed programs to teach imams ``courses of integration`` about newer Dutch values, including a greater acceptance of euthanasia and drug use.

Under new regulations in Britain, Muslim imams and other ``ministers of religion`` wishing to enter Britain to work must show a basic command of English.
Islam does not require its prayer leaders to have a formal degree of learning in religion. An imam does not have to be an Islamic scholar but can be anyone that a community of believers appoints.

``In Italy,`` said Omar Danilo Speranza, president of the Association of Italian Muslims, an umbrella group, ``even a butcher can call himself an imam.``
Mr. Speranza said his organization will begin certifying imams it believes are competent, that is, those ``who have a reading of the Koran that is more peaceful, more oriented towards love.``

But for many Muslim communities in Europe, personal and ethnic ties with their imam are often more important than an outside seal of approval.

``The idea of producing imams is still controversial,`` said James P. Piscatori, an American who is a professor of Islamic politics at Oxford University. ``On the one hand, you want your own imams because the imported ones are seen as conveyor belts for bad ideas. On the other hand, the communities say, `Who are you to tell us who our imam should be or how he should be trained?` ``

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to creating the profession here in Europe is money: it is hard to make a living as an imam.

``An imam is not an official position; it`s poorly paid and there`s no security,`` said Olivier Roy, the French scholar on Islam. ``Why should a bright young French or British boy spend five years studying Islam only to find that there`s no real job, that the community just wants someone to lead the prayers and conduct weddings and funerals?``

Indeed, among the graduates of the institute in Burgundy are would-be teachers and counselors, but very few imams. Many students come only for the two-year Arabic-language program. Last year, only one graduate became a bona fide imam with a job in a mosque.

``I did business-marketing at home and that`s all about how you sell your product and my product is Islam,`` said Fahimul Anam, a 31-year-old Briton born in Bangladesh who dreams of work in education management. ``I don`t necessarily feel I have to become an imam to do that.``

Complicating matters is that the French government regards the Union of Islamic Organizations, the movement that runs the Burgundy school, as well as branches in Wales and in a suburb of Paris, as potentially dangerous.

The organization derives its inspiration from the banned Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, emphasizes personal purification and grass-roots proselytizing and aims to influence all aspects of a Muslim`s life. Mr. Mahmood, the director, made headlines eight years ago when he won a lawsuit requiring the local high school in the nearby town of Château-Chinon to allow his two daughters to cover their hair in class.

Last March, 100 followers of the far right-wing National Front party staged a demonstration in the town demanding that the Burgundy school be closed, calling it a hotbed of extremism that was producing Europe`s ``future political-religious agitators.``
In west London, the Muslim College, financed by a Libyan foundation connected to the government, similarly turns out students who have studied Arabic and Islamic studies but few imams.

``If the authorities would pay them, they`d all become imams,`` said Zaki Badawi, its Egyptian director. ``They find temptation elsewhere.``

Rivalries within Muslim communities have made it more difficult to forge a common approach to imams.

Since its founding in 1998, the Islamic University of Rotterdam claims to have trained about 20 practicing imams, according to Gokcekus Ertogrul, the university`s secretary general.
But in recent years, according to some scholars, the university has increasingly been financed and come under the influence of an Islamic movement in Turkey, and has been criticized for losing its Dutch character.

``Much of what they say about their students is not true,`` said Johan Hendrik Meuleman, a fellow at Oxford University`s Center for Islamic Studies who was once a volunteer lecturer at the university. ``Volunteers like me didn`t accept the takeover from Turkey.``
Mr. Ertogrul fiercely denies the charges.

In 2001, Mr. Meuleman helped create the Islamic University of Europe outside of Rotterdam, intended to train Muslim chaplains for hospitals, prisons and the military and perhaps a small number of imams.

Using municipal financing, Mr. Meuleman already has given Dutch language training and a course in Dutch culture to a group of imams living and working in The Hague.
Another problem in training imams inside Europe is deciding who is qualified to do it. Dalil Boubakeur, the director of the main mosque of Paris, and president of a French nationwide Islamic council sanctioned by the state, is proud of his fledgling imam-training school.

``We are forming a cadre of imams who speak French and can relate to the young Muslims of France,`` Mr. Boubakeur said.

But both the mosque and the school are financed by the Algerian government, and that makes them suspect in the minds of some experts.

``It is not a real school,`` said Mr. Roy, perhaps France`s most respected scholar of Islam. ``It is just a tool of Boubakeur`s power.``

Meanwhile, Mr. Boubakeur criticized the school in Burgundy because it teaches all its courses in Arabic, not French, and he has branded its parent organization ``fundamentalist.``
Among the imams who have done their studies in Europe, there are different assessments about how the programs have worked.

Vicente Motta al-Faro, 29, a Spanish convert to Islam and the sole graduate of the Burgundy school last year, could not find a job as an imam and is about to start a job teaching Islamic culture at a center in Valencia. Becoming an imam, he said, ``depends on which Muslim community has money, which few have.``

Chedli Meskini, by contrast, a 38-year-old Tunisian-born French citizen who completed a four-year course at the school in 1997, was luckier. He landed a full-time job at a mosque in Le Havre, where he preaches in both French and Arabic.

``These days, imams are in hot demand,`` he said. ``And to find an Arabic and French-speaking imam, well, I don`t want to say it like this, but they need people like me.``
Mr. Meskini`s salary: $8.90 an hour, less than France`s minimum wage.

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DRUMZ

here is how it works (keep the bong aside to read this). you get terrrorism when hopeless folks are given false hope by afeem of religion or communism. is that right? there are other ways, just because they are harder to find does not mean we should pander to simple-minded and childish religious packaging of terrorism.

Drumz

Why is there not a religious component in those terrorist movements?

Mohar: Should muslims work to end the absolute idiocy prevelent in the muslim world? I would certainly agree. Now i dont see at all the comparison between the west and Islam. The west has caused far more destruction and genocide in the world (its not even close). By the way im just shooting the breeze with you guys. Most of the ``anti Islamic`` opinions are true in spirit, they just arent being said in an objective manner.

Arjun: You could turn the argument around but it would do u no good because whatever Islam has done is not even close to what the west has done. America was certainly asking for it. Look at its foriegn policy. Micronesia is prolly the only country america hasnt gangraped in the past 50 years..... Saudi arabia is not a muslim hot spot for terrorism. they just finance the terrorism because they align themselves with oppressed muslims just like you being a hindu/indian align yourself with hindus and indians. Muslim hot spots for terrorism are chechnya, palestine, iraq and afghanistan (((POVERTY))).

Bin laden USEs Islam to suit his political agenda. Anyone who has studied war In an Islamic context would know this but this is chowk, the place where no one bothers studying other religions. By the way I dont say this as a muslim apologist, im saying it as an objective student of religion. Read up on how war is suppose to be fought in an Islamic way and you will see that none of these insurgents and ``holy warriors`` are fighting an Islamic war. They are using islam to suit their needs. Your point about gujrat was a good one. The point I made earlier was intentionally a very emotional one. Would joining a terrorist unit be a wise thing to do? likely not, yet i can certainly undertsand if the father of the girl would consider it.

Brucelee: If we really go deep into Catholic terrorism my argument would be too easily won. Now I am not up to par with my south asian politics but i am aware of the marxist rebellions in nepal which are largely economically based. There are also what 30 million separatist movements in the whole of india, many of which represent the economically downtrodden. Go to the slums of jamaica, haiti, somalia, nigeria, brazil. what are the common denominators? POVERTY and gangs, terrorism and lawlessness.

Mohar: PALESTINE and Israel are an even match? ARE YOU KIDDING ME????? Tanks vs stones is even? Just look at the number of people who are dead from both sides.

Afghanistan is a good war? They had mock elections in which 15 candidtates dropped out. The nation has no governemnt and no order outside of kabul and more opium production now then when the taliban was in power.

Iraq: No one would dream of justifying this war. Its all about the OIL.

Saudis and pakis have the money and a political agenda. I do not doubt that some of them are stupid enuff to actually believe that what they are doing is Islamic. You guys do make a good point on that. However, These guys wouldnt have any clout in the Islamic world if It were as financially stable as the west.

(((((((((((((((The rhetoric they spew is considered agreeable by some only because of the current political and economic backwardness of the muslim world.))))))))))))))))

Very important point here. This pint establishes that the root is not religious but an economic/political one.