No new Mosques?

[smaneck]

Muslims seldom excel in anything, except in hate-mongering. I think there's only four Muslim Nobel Prizes (and maybe I am being too generous). I am not considering the Peace Nobel prize recipients because the Peace Nobel prize is a joke, even Obama got it.

I see. So you want to ignore Muslim Nobel Peace prize winners even though there are seven of them because Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize.

And you accuse Muslims of hate-mongering.

 

[smaneck]

I am not rejecting the Sufi Muslims as an example because mainstream Islam rejected them. I am rejecting them as an example because mainstream Islam is right when it says that Sufism does not reflect the teachings of Muhammad.

And you are such an expert on Muhammad's teachings and what constitutes 'mainstream' Islam.

 

[smaneck]

Certainly in the past 100 years or so Sufism has dwindled due both to the coming of modernism ( modernist Muslims often looked on them as backwards obstacles to modernization) and the growth of Salafism

That's correct. Sufism got caught in the middle between modernists like Muhammad Iqbal who believed they made Islam weak and effeminate (Iqbal loved Nitzche) and the right-wing extremists.

One of the most respected and influential persons in all of Sunni history was a Sufi- Al Ghazali.

My hero. However, al-Ghazali never belonged to a Sufi brotherhood.

Another modern Islamic community that does a lot for the poor and to promote education, peace, and Democracy would be the Nizari Ismailis and their Imam the Agha Khan.

The advantage of having a 'living' Imam is that the community can be modernized with much less friction.

 

[WoodrowX2]

What are Sufi beliefs?

They follow the 5 Pillars. and seem to have the same fundamental beliefs of all Muslims.

The differences are in some practices that may or may not be Bidah.

I do not see any Justification for anyone to say they are not Muslim, if they say they are Muslim.

The practices are where you will find the biggest Differences between Sufi and many other Muslims.

SUFI PRACTICES

But even that is just one view of one school of Sufi'ism.


I am begining to doubt there is any one thing that can be called Sufi. I thought I knew what it is, but the deeper I look the more diversity I find.

 

[smaneck]

All of the things that you can find in "Answering Islam" and "Wikislam" can also be found in the Qur'an, the ahadith, and the various hate sites that belong to Islam. Muslims are the sole culprits of their negative image. Did "Answering Islam" flight those planes against the twin towers? Did "Wikislam" blow up the London subway? Were the Tsarnaev brothers a couple of islamophobes?

What a ludicrous argument! Did Muslims cause the Holocaust? Did they cause the genocide of the native Americans? Did they invent the Atomic Bomb and use it against civilians? Did they attack China because China wouldn't buy its opium?

 

[Crypto]

What a ludicrous argument! Did Muslims cause the Holocaust? Did they cause the genocide of the native Americans? Did they invent the Atomic Bomb and use it against civilians? Did they attack China because China wouldn't buy its opium?

Yes, actually the Muslims were extremely happy when Hitler said that he was going to kill all the Jews. Hitler was not a Christian, by the way. Also, I am a third Native American and I am happy that the Europeans brought Christianity to this continent. Christianity outweighs all of the problems of the conquest. England attacked China because of economical reasons. By the way, the selling of Opium in China was stopped due to the firm opposition of Christian missioners.

Coming back to the holocaust, Hitler was inspired by the Muslims. He said:

"I have issued the command — and I'll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad — that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formations in readiness — for the present only in the East — with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

Adolf Hitler -- Statement on the Armenian Genocide

The Armenians were the last Christians in Turkey. The last after centuries of fierce persecution at the hands of the Muslims. As you know, the Muslims slaughtered almost two million Armenians, exclusively because the Armenians were Christians. Furthermore, the Muslims fought alongside Hitler in the Second World War, simply because they sympathize with the idea of organizing a holocaust:

"A famous anecdote about Adolf Hitler's perspective toward Islam and the Arabs is recounted by Albert Speer in his best-selling memoir, Inside the Third Reich. Speer reports that "Hitler had been much impressed by a scrap of history he had learned from a delegation of distinguished Arabs." [1] The delegation had speculated on how the world would have been "Mohammedan" if the Arabs had won the Battle of Tours in the 8th Century AD, and how the Germans would have become heirs to "a religion that believed in spreading the faith by the sword and subjugating all nations to that faith. Such a creed was perfectly suited to the German temperament." [2] Speer then presents Hitler's own speculations on this subject: "Hitler said that the conquering Arabs, because of their racial inferiority, would in the long run have been unable to contend with the harsher climate of the country. They could not have kept down the more vigorous natives, so that ultimately not Arabs but Islamized Germans could have stood at the head of this Mohammedan Empire"

" One of the principal founder of Ba'athist thought and the Ba'ath Party, Zaki al-Arsuzi, stated that Fascism and Nazism had greatly influenced Ba'athist ideology. An associate of al-Arsuzi wrote: "We were racists. We admired the Nazis. We were immersed in reading Nazi literature and books that were the source of the Nazi spirit...We were the first who thought of a translation of Mein Kampf. Anyone who lived in Damascus at that time was witness to the Arab inclination toward Nazism. Michel Aflaq a founder of the Ba'athist philosophy admired Hitler and the Nazis for standing up to Britain and America. This admiration would combine aspects of Nazism into Ba'athism." [23]

"The Nazis granted the Muslim Divisions, most specifically the Bosnian Divisions, more autonomy and less restrictions from the Croatian Regime.[65] For instance, in the Handschar SS Division headquarters the picture of the Croatian head of state was replaced by a photo of Haj Amin al-Husseini, and the Handschar were perceived as undermining Croatian authority.[66] Edwin Black writes: Although Handschar was mostly an anti-partisan force, when they did encounter Jews, the brutality exhibited shocked even the local villagers who were accustomed to Nazi atrocitires. In one case, Hungarian Jewish slave laborers being guarded by Handschar were so viciously and mercilessly abused, local townspeople became outraged and wondered if they could help. But they could not. The maltreated Jews quickly became incapable of continuing in their work project. At that point, they were all marched away for mass shooting.[67] The Muslim Waffen SS divisions participated in a number of operations (both conventional and unconventional) against the partisans. In 1944 these included Operation Signpost, Operation Sava, and Operation Easter Egg.[67] Although 21st Waffen SS Division Skanderberg consisted of less than 6,500 active-duty troops, Black writes: "its men were brutal in decimating Serb villages, having called for the utter extermination of the Serbian Christian population. Jews were luckier than the Serbs because many Albanian Muslims risked their lives and those of their families to shelter the small Jewish population of several hundred. Nevertheless, Skanderberg units rounded up some 300 Jews in Pristina and ... other Jews ... who were later deported to certain death."

Relations between Nazi Germany and the Arab world - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Ishraqiyun]

What are you getting at ? A small minority of foreign soliders fighting for the overwealmingly christian majority nation of Germany came from Bosnia and happened to be Muslim. Even the majority of there foreign Waffen SS were Christian rather than Muslim. Are you jumping from that to blaiming Muslims for the holocaust? I would be embarrassed and feel hypocritical if I as a Christian made such a charge. Talk about chutzpah.

Some Arabs may have wanted the English to loose becsuse of anger over British collonialism but the had no hand in organizing or carrying out the holocaust. That was the creation of the Germans ie a European Christian majority country.

 

[Crypto]

What are you getting at ? A small minority of foreign soliders fighting for the overwealmingly christian majority nation of Germany came from Bosnia and happened to be Muslim. Even the majority of there foreign Waffen SS were Christian rather than Muslim. Are you jumping from that to blaiming Muslims for the holocaust? I would be embarrassed and feel hypocritical if I as a Christian made such a charge. Talk about chutzpah.

Some Arabs may have wanted the English to loose becsuse of anger over British collonialism but the had nmno hand in organizing or carrying out the holocaust. That was the creation of the Germans.

Islam inspired Hitler to organize the Holocaust. He said it.

 

[Ishraqiyun]

Next people will blame Muslims and Arabs for the genocide of the American Indians. We can pass off all European / christiandom sins on them. Muslims did it not us.

 

[Crypto]

Next people will blame Muslims and Arabs for the genocide of the American Indians. We can pass off all European / christiandom sins on them. Muslims did it not us.

Hypocrite. Christianity had nothing to do with the genocide of the American Indians. On the other hand, Islam is directly responsible for countless genocides.

PS: don't put "other church" in your profile, put the truth: Muslim.

 

[Ishraqiyun]

Islam inspired Hitler to organize the Holocaust. He said it.

Can you provide evidence to back that up? Of course even if he did say that, which he didn't because he never even admitted to doing it let alone gave a reason, that still would say little about Muslims or Islam becsuse he wasnt a muslim. He did quote Luther to excuse and support his antisemitism however.

 

[Ishraqiyun]

Hypocrite. Christianity had nothing to do with the genocide of the American Indians. On the other hand, Islam is directly responsible for countless genocides.

I didn't say Christianity did. Religions don't take actions like that people do. The people who took those actions were majority Christian however. I wouldn't be schocked if you found a way to pawn it off on "the Muslims" like you do the holocaust though. It would be equally as absurd and out there. Blame European misbehavior on Arabs and Muslims."the muslims made me do it!"

 

[WoodrowX2]

Hypocrite. Christianity had nothing to do with the genocide of the American Indians. On the other hand, Islam is directly responsible for countless genocides.

PS: don't put "other church" in your profile, put the truth: Muslim.

The Nazi Muslims

Before and during the war, Nazi Germany made a concerted effort to win the hearts and minds of Muslims, relying on modern propaganda techniques that included short-wave radio broadcasts of Radio Berlin in Arabic and Persian. But sympathy for the Nazis across much of the Muslim world was more attributable to strong anti-British feelings among Arabs and Muslims than support for the Nazis' anti-Semitic policies.



Although for the vast majority of Muslims the war in Europe remained a distant conflict, the Nazis managed to recruit some Muslims directly. Two Muslim SS divisions were raised: the Skanderbeg Division from Albania and the Handschar Division from Bosnia. Smaller units from Chechnya to Uzbekistan were incorporated into the German armed forces. But the Nazis soon discovered that these units were militarily ineffective and unmotivated to fight for the Third Reich. The much-vaunted "Hanschar" SS division was disbanded after a few months due to mass desertions and earned the distinction of being the only SS division ever to mutiny.

SOURCE

 

[TG123]

Ah, OK. That was a typo. I meant to say that Muhammad fondled Aisha since she was six. I was thinking about what the fatwa of the Shia says about fondling babies and I introduced the words wrongly. I admit my mistake.

Now, regarding the accepted age for marriage, Aristotle, who, as you know, lived approx. one thousand years before Muhammad, said that women should marry at age 18. Roman law, which is also much older than Islam, sets the age at a minimum of 12. Although 12 years of age is indeed a very young age, there is still a huge difference between 12 and 9 years of age. At 9 years of age women are nothing but children. Both ages are low, but the latter is an extraordinarily low age, even for Neanderthal standards. By the way, you are missing an important point: the historical context doesn't matter when it comes to the behavior of Muhammad, since he claimed to be the perfect example of a Muslim, for all eternity. It is written in the Qur'an. So, according to the Islamic community, having sex with a nine-year-old girl is perfectly acceptable, since their eternal moral standard, Muhammad, has done it. Aisha suffered a lot because of Muhammad. He robbed her of her childhood and she herself had admitted that she was afraid of him. Lots of children today are suffering the same destiny because of Islam.

When I said that people like you facilitate the crimes of Islam, I didn't know that I had committed that typo regarding the age of Aisha. I thought you were talking about my points in general. I apologize.

Apology accepted, Crypto. Don't get me wrong, though. I do disagree with a lot of what you say.

I see no evidence that the Quran calls for offensive warfare, or that Islam teaches Muslims to go out and kill and enslave non-Muslims who are not fighting them. The Quran allows violence, but in self-defence. Most of the violence Muhammad engaged in was defensive, although he did threaten to invade a nation that was not attacking him and so disobeyed the Quran.

Defensive violence is different from offensive violence, and rules of war which clearly prohibit the killing of civilians are different from terrorism that some Muslims engage in.

Having said this, violence- whether defensive or offensive- is against the teachings of Jesus Christ, who taught love for enemies and turning the other cheek. I am sure that you are a pacifist, and would not support war under any circumstance. I am sure you were opposed to the war in Iraq, and protesting the US invasion along with me and millions around the world, including many Christians. I am sure that as a Christian who condemns Muhammad for using violence, you also condemn Bush and Obama for the invasions and drone strikes; and I am sure that if someone in your family joined the military, you would urge him or her to leave.

Regarding marrying children and having sex with them, I agree that historical context is irrelevant if we are trying to prove that Muhammad was a prophet of God and someone who humanity should emulate and follow. A great man of God should not sleep with kids.

Neither should he get drunk to the point where he passes out and his daughters engage in incest with him, or order children to be butchered, or sleep with his soldiers' wife and then kill him. Yet this is what Lot and Moses and David did. There is very good reason why no one claims they are role models for humanity to follow. I don't reject Muhammad as a prophet on the basis of him marrying and sleeping with Aisha or engaging in (usually) defensive warfare- compared to what some of the Biblical prophets did, that is peanuts. I reject him because he denied the divinity of Jesus and His death and resurrection, and lived his life in a way different from how Jesus wants His followers to live. The historical and scientific errors found in both the Quran and hadiths are only proof that Islam is not from God. However, if we are to reject him because of some of the things he did, we would have to also reject Moses and David and Lot and Noah and Joshua, and many more prophets who messed up a lot more than he did in their walk with God.

Having said this, although historical context is irrelevant in determining whether or not Muhammad is a prophet, it is relevant if we are going to accuse him of pedophilia. You mentioned that according to Roman law, a girl could get married at the age of 12. You agreed that is a low age. Of what relevance is it whether the kid was 9 or 12? They are both pedophilic by our standards, and you know it. I work with kids that age (11-13) often as a substitute teacher. The girls there are still kids! You can bet that if I knew of a man who tried to "marry" or sleep with one of my students, I would call the cops on him. I am sure the excuse "she was only 12, it's not like she was 9, dude" won't go over that well in prison either. And it shouldn't go over well with anyone.

Muhammad was definitely not a prophet of God. However, he wasn't any worse than most others of his time. I think it's a better idea to point out the errors that exist in the Quran and hadiths as a way to show Islam is not from God, then condemn him for doing things that were done by many during his time, and, which quite frankly, were less extreme than many things the Old Testament prophets did.

Just some of my thoughts. Looking forward to hearing your feedback if you have some and would like to share it.

Take care and God bless.

 

[TG123]

That's not the Islamic idea of fondling.

How is fondling defined in the Quran or hadiths? I would love to see you provide a reference.

You can use the website below:
Search Engine: Search in the Quran القران الكريم and Hadith -- Learn about Islam and Muslims. Islamic Softwares, Azan, Athan, Qiblah, Prayer Times, Quran Hadith, Islamic Supplictaions, Azan Athan software for Mobile Cell Phone.

and do a Quran search or hadith search. I am sure fondling is defined in one of these sources. You seem very knowledgeable about Islam so I am sure you will have no problem finding the relevant verses. Thanks.

There is no such a thing as natural family planning in Islam.

I really had no idea that the Quran or hadiths prohibit NFP. Please show me where they do so. Thanks.

 

[Ishraqiyun]

Hypocrite. Christianity had nothing to do with the genocide of the American Indians. On the other hand, Islam is directly responsible for countless genocides.

PS: don't put "other church" in your profile, put the truth: Muslim.

I'm not a rules nazi so I wont report you but it is against forum rules to tell someone with a Christian icon they aren't Christian. For what it matters I'm a good old fashioned gnostic Christian "heretic". I've been especially influenced by the Sethians and Valentinians as well as more recent Christian mystics like Boehme and Swedenborg. I'm a bit of an eclectic/ syncretist and practioner of interspirituality though. I read a lot about Islam but that's just one among many religions I've looked into. Right now I'm studying Sikhism and Sant Mat. Two religions I put off for a while. I want a basic grasp of every religion.

 

[WoodrowX2]

Next people will blame Muslims and Arabs for the genocide of the American Indians. We can pass off all European / christiandom sins on them. Muslims did it not us.

Shhh, Don't reveal that the Majority of Arabs living in the USA are Christians. It has only been in very recent years Arab Muslims began large scale migration to the US.

Of course we conquered the Native Americans. I know about 10 Native American Muslim Families on Pine Ridge Reservation.

My wife is also a Native American Muslim. Although she is Cheyenne and accepted Islam about 10 years ago.

That should suffice as proof it was us Muslims that devastated the Native Americans.

 

[TG123]

The Nazi Muslims



SOURCE

This is a great source, WoodrowX. There were some Muslims who shamefully collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust and perpetrated terrible atrocities, as well as others who shamefully remained indifferent. There were also the heroes who stood up to them, some who paid for doing so with their lives.

The same is true of many Christians during that horrific time in history. Some worked with the Nazis and disobeyed Jesus, others turned the other way as their Jewish and Roma and Slavic (also Christian) neighbours were being murdered. Others though stood up to them.

Have you watched the movie Sophie Scholl: The Final Days? It is a true story of German students who were for the most part Christian (Sophie Scholl, the main character, was a Christian) who distributed leaflets in Nazi Germany calling for people to disobey Hitler. They were arrested, tried and executed. The film focuses on the last days of Sophie, who was one of their leaders, and shows her courage and faith in the face of approaching death. I would highly recommend watching this movie, it is on Youtube.
Sophie Scholl - The Final Days: True Story of Anti-Nazi Activist, Part 1 - YouTube

 

[smaneck]

Also, I am a third Native American and I am happy that the Europeans brought Christianity to this continent. Christianity outweighs all of the problems of the conquest.

Gee, that is the same rationalization I hear Muslims use!

England attacked China because of economical reasons. By the way, the selling of Opium in China was stopped due to the firm opposition of Christian missioners.

Uh, no. The unequal treaty made with the Chinese insisted they accept both the opium and the missionaries.

Indochina was taken over by the French in order to protect missionary activity.

Coming back to the holocaust, Hitler was inspired by the Muslims.

Sorry, that passage says nothing about being inspired by Muslims. What inspired him was Europeans ignoring the Armenian plight.

The Armenians were the last Christians in Turkey.

Uh, no. The last Christians in Turkey were Greek Orthodox. In 1923 Greece and Turkey agreed to a massive population exchange.

As you know, the Muslims slaughtered almost two million Armenians, exclusively because the Armenians were Christians.

Uh, no. The Armenians were targeted for supporting the Russians during WWI.

Furthermore, the Muslims fought alongside Hitler in the Second World War, simply because they sympathize with the idea of organizing a holocaust:

Wrong. Arabs, Muslim and Christian alike, tended to sympathize with the Germans because unlike the British and the French they had not occupied their land after WWI. In Iran, Reza Shah supported sympathized with Hitler's antisemitism because he could use it against the Arabs, and by implication against Islam.

 

[TG123]

Shhh, Don't reveal that the Majority of Arabs living in the USA are Christians. It has only been in very recent years Arab Muslims began large scale migration to the US.

Of course we conquered the Native Americans. I know about 10 Native American Muslim Families on Pine Ridge Reservation.

My wife is also a Native American Muslim. Although she is Cheyenne and accepted Islam about 10 years ago.

That should suffice as proof it was us Muslims that devastated the Native Americans.

Aha, I knew it! These devious Muslims even built mosques that resembled churches to pretend it was Christians who were putting kids in residential schools, when it fact it was the imams (not priests) who were beating and abusing Native kids! They even went so far as to put crucifixes on their walls and put crosses on their Qurans so they looked like Bibles! It goes without saying that the people who ran the schools and threw people onto reservations were Arabs who spoke English and French, just to make the white man look bad!

In all seriousness, white people claiming to be followers of Christ have done some horrific and unjust things to your people. We destroyed your families and burned your homes and devastated the youth by locking them away in institutions where they were put through hell.

I work with many kids who are Native in schools I teach at and at the church drop-in I volunteer at. A lot of them are hungry and come from broken homes and their lives are affected by alcoholism and abuse and poverty and gangs and drugs. While we all are responsible for choices we make, the fact of the matter is that if it weren't for the actions of some so-called "Christians" on this continent, they would likely be in a different (and better) situation.

Though my family is from Eastern Europe and we are first generation immigrants and have played no part in tyrannizing your people, as a Christian I feel sorrow and shame by some of the terrible crimes committed against your people by people claiming to be followers of Jesus. Please know that what they did was in disobedience to what the Bible teaches.