It seems you are easily offended.
Not particularly. I just don't want my words entangled with those of another person who is making his own point.
First the al Fatiha and now because I included another member's comment along side yours in giving a response on the same subject. You really shouldn't be so sensitive.
His point of "Why don't Muslims condemn terrorism" is not the same as my point of "If Muslims actually cared about others beyond what it takes to lie to them and themselves about the nature of their religion and its history, they'd issue formal apologies for suppressing the identities of the native peoples of the Middle East and North Africa and destroying their traditional non-Muslim societies in the course of the conquests and subsequent Islamicization and Arabization of those societies, and the present slander against these non-Muslim communities in the Arab world." I already know Muslims condemn terrorism...just
generally* not the terrorism of their forefathers which set them up in the privileged position which they have enjoyed for centuries across all of the forced-to-be-Muslim/forced-to-be-Arab world. (*There are, of course, not a few "Coptic Muslims" and others who are not aboard the dominant Arab-Muslim vision of their own societies, which is good. When I was at the monastery of St. Shenouda the Archimandrite some years ago one of the things the monk who was my guide was most proud to talk to me about was how they had serious religious Muslims with full beard and 'prostration spot' -- I've forgotten the word for this in Arabic, but it's the mark they get from a lifetime of bowing in prayer -- or full veil for the women who would come to the monastery to learn Coptic...so somewhere there are a group of Muslims out there praying in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the of the Holy Spirit, since the language and culture have been restricted to the churches and monasteries only, so it's impossible to learn the language without learning at least a little bit of Christian prayer.)
Who would know more on this subject? A person who lives in a county with less than 3,000 Muslims and who has spent their entire life in a part of the US that where less than one half of one percent of the population is Muslim
I'm sorry, but who is this referring to?
or someone who began studying Islam more than thirty years ago who has been taught by both Christian and Islamic scholars on the subject, has lived in a predominantly Muslim country in the past, visited many more, and has interacted with Muslims from various backgrounds on four continents? Do you really think that experience and education doesn't matter when discussing a subject?
I'm not saying you don't have experience and education, or that neither of those things matter. Of course they matter, and you should feel confident based on them to present your view here. I'm saying that simply referring to the fact that you've lived in those places or studied under such-and-such people for X number of years does not make your argument for you. Besides, living in places or studying things as an outsider is not the same as being a native Coptic, Syriac, Tewahedo, etc. person, so you are at best getting a sanitized version of these subjects necessarily at least
somewhat disconnected from their effect on the everyday lives of the native Christians of the Middle East and Northern and Eastern Africa.
I've been to Sudan, and probably some of the other countries included in the "etc" that you disn't include. I know several Muslims from the NA/ME region. Since you say the people you know from that region were born second class citizens, I assume you are talking about non-Muslims.
Most of them, yes, though I have also known Muslims from Palestine, Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Somalia, etc. Like most people living in a multicultural environment, there's a bit of everything here.
It's interesting that you (rightly) assume I was referring to the non-Muslims by saying "second-class citizens". I'm glad you admit that life under Islam means being a second class citizen for non-Muslims.
Wouldn't Muslims from that region know more than non-Muslims about Islam and on how the al Fahita should be taken?
I suppose, in the same way that the architects of Jim Crow laws would know more about how they 'should be taken' (since they set them up for their own benefit, after all) than the people who are more directly discriminated against by them. That doesn't say much for al-Fatiha or Islam in general, though.
My only agenda is the Truth, it always has been. I have no motivation to mislead anyone on this subject or any other I may discuss on this forum or in the real world.
Sorry, I should have clarified: I meant "outside agenda" in the sense of the missionary imperative, not something sinister. Obviously if you live by the maxim that you'll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar (as I assume you do, with the way you're defending Islam here due to your own background with it and work among its people), I doubt that you come to the subject or the people with your own 'demands', as in the case of Fr. Zakariya, to recall the example I brought up of another very different approach to witnessing to Muslims. That's something he can pull off to the extent he does precisely because he is not an outsider, unlike you and me, so he can speak to Egyptian Muslims in 'their own language', both literally and socially. (He speaks the language natively and understands Islam and the Qur'an in terms that are appropriate to the Egyptian context and has advantages therefore that we simply would not have.)
You're right, there is only one version of the al Fatiha and you're one of the few people I have ever encountered that says they are offended by it, in fact, I cant remember remember the last time that I have.
Well, okay then. Maybe when you are done living in whatever Muslim country or area you are in you can meet some Coptic people or Syriac people or others who have felt the sharp edge of that verse and the many others that condemn us for our belief in Christ as God, and in the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Where I am, it is not uncommon to have these criticisms of Islam on these grounds. Again, as Fr. Zakariya put it: "Okay, so you cannot change your Qur'an...so why do you ask us to change our belief? Why do you say we must believe as you do or face the sword?" That's Islam as my people have experienced it, and they should also be allowed to voice their concerns just as you can say all you want about your own experience of Islam as an outside researcher and learner. But these are not the same realities.
I really hope you will take the time to do this. It will take you several weeks to do the research, but in doing so you will find that the majority of Islamic scholars and most Muslims view the al Fatiha as I have presented it in this thread.
Again, I know this is not the point. I was not born yesterday. I may not have wasted 30 years of life studying the lies that the devil whispered to Muhammad in his cave, but I do know a stacked challenge when I see one. You will have me take the weight of all those who have a different interpretation and say "See, look how much more popular this is than what you have said", ignoring that Muhammad himself is claimed to have said that the best generation of Muslims is his own, and then those that came after him, and then those that came after them. So Islam values the earliest traditions, and the earliest interpretive traditions such as we have them (such as al-Tabari) clearly support this verse as being against the Christians the Jews. I don't know why you would run from that but that you have some point you think you're proving by saying "It's not meant to be offensive", which for all the reasons I've already pointed out in a different reply doesn't really mean anything. I don't even believe it anyway. You start your book by saying that I've gone astray by believing in my own religion and I'm going to take offense at that, sure. Don't Muslims take great offense at even the slightest disrespect shown to their religion, its figures, symbols, and so on? I believe they do. So this is a nothing point.
This is also why I have given arguably the two most popular and influential commentators as my evidence for the traditional understanding of the verse. I see you did not respond to my similar example of "only" consulting HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic and St. Cyril concerning the incarnation, which I think is quite apt if we consider that the Sunnis make up the vast majority of the Muslim world in a manner comparable to how Trinitarian, Nicene(-Constantinopolitan) Christians make up the vast majority of the world's Christians, and hence our greatest voices on a given topic would not be so easily ignored by those who do not adhere to the modern take on Sola Scriptura. Perhaps this offends your version of Christianity (I have no idea and don't really care, as that's not the ultimate point), but when we are talking about interpretation and application, it bears repeating that nothing in either religion is understood in a vacuum.
Why should those living today who have no direct ties to wars past have to apologize for them?
For the same nonsensical reason that we are
constantly told by Muslims and Islamic sycophants that all the problems of the Muslim world are due to Western colonialism and wars in which no Coptic, Syriac, Ethiopian or Eritrean Orthodox, Melkite, Chaldean, Nestorian, or other local person
who actually bears the brunt of anti-Christian violence in the MENA region participated in but to die alongside their Muslim neighbors. The truth is the Christians love(d) their countries, even after they were completely deformed by Islam, but Islam cares nothing for them in return. Did you not watch the video I linked earlier of HG Abp. Nicodemus Daoud al Sharaf of Mosul? He returned to Iraq from Australia because he missed his homeland, but the land for which he and his flock were willing to die spit him out and robbed him and his people of all dignity and safety. And that was for all intents and purposes yesterday, not a historical event. We can still look at it as symptomatic of the same problem because the treatment of non-Muslims under Islam doesn't change in any significant way until enough pressure is put on the Muslim world by outsiders that they are forced to change (e.g., the abolishing of the jizya in the 1850s or so in Egypt). Yes, sometimes it's better and sometimes it is worse (I'd rather have been an Armenian in the time of the Shah Abbas who helped to build New Julfa than an Egyptian under al-Hakim, who banned the Coptic language from being spoken in public ordered the tongue of any who spoke Coptic to be cut out), but it is never truly
equal as we would understand the idea of citizenship. Membership in an Islamic society is inherently sectarian, and all non-Muslims are below any Muslims.
So don't talk to me about "Why should people who weren't involved in it have to do anything" as though it's not what 'their' entire damn societies are built upon. Do you think I was born yesterday, and will believe that just because you've had these wonderful experiences with Muslims in 30+ years, this repairs el Butroseya, or makes safe the road to the monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, or shuts up idiots like Wagdi Ghoneim, or does anything in particular beyond letting you feel superior to me for your book learning and world travel? I'm not interested in such a conversation.
As for recent times, The Lord's Resistance Army which wanted to establish a Christian state based on the Ten Commandments killed, maimed, raped, and mutilated approximately the same number of people as ISIS did in the Middle East. Where was the Christian apology?
Yeah, and they're how many? A few thousand? Wiki says
they're 100 as of 2017, down from a height of possibly as many as 3,000 ten years earlier. I'm not saying that means they aren't a problem (they certainly are, and need to be dealt with accordingly, by being fought and defeated and purged out of existence, no different than ISIS or similar groups), but to throw them out there as though they are comparable to the worldwide phenomenon of Islam-inspired terror is disingenuous at best. Even the higher number is several thousand less than
the estimated number of Europeans who have joined ISIS (5,000+).
And anyway, quit arguing like an Islamic apologist by pointing to 'Christian' atrocities as though the point has ever been that Christians are entirely blameless around the world or never participate in violence. That's not the conversation we're having. Or at least that's not a conversation I will be having. Go deflect onto other issues with someone else.
Christian Militias in the CAR have also slaughtered Muslims by the thousands. Christian terrorist groups in India have also ruthlessly killed hundreds and forced many more to convert to Christianity in recent years trying to establish a Christian state in the name of Jesus Christ. Christians have largely been silent on these issues.
See above. You are completely missing the point of my post with trash like this.
Why should we hold Muslims to a different standard in demanding they apologize for groups like ISIS if we're not apologizing for Christian terrorists and the atrocities they commit?
When did I ever say that they had to? I think you're confusing me with the other guy you lumped my post together with. I already know Muslims condemn ISIS. Heck, numerically-speaking Muslims are the primary victims of ISIS.
The truth of the matter is that none of the examples I just gave represent true Christianity, just as ISIS and acts of terrorism don't represent true Islam. Why should either side have to apologize for atrocities carried out by groups that don't represent the religions they claim to follow? Anyone can claim to be a Christian or a Muslim, but that doesn't make them one.
Sorry, I don't play the "No true Scottsman" game, and by going off on some tangent about Christian violence in CAR or theocratic ambitions in India, you have shown that you clearly have not understood the point of my post. I think we're done here. I have no further interest in interacting with a dhimmi lick-spittle who has to
"BUT WHAT ABOUT CHRIIIIISTIANS?" all over my post about the problems that people of indigenous MENA churches and cultures have always had with Islam,
because Islam has clearly always had a problem with MENA Christians (and others, but that would come later).
You can deny that with all your fancy learning all you want. It amounts to nothing in the face of what actually happens to MENA Christians because of Islamist extremism, inspired by the fundamentalist strains of the Islamic religion. I'm glad you don't have to experience that. At the same time, I don't want any more enlightened pro-Islam nonsense in my thread, so I am going to place you on my ignore list now. Go preach Islam to someone who gives a damn and doesn't know any better. I know too many Middle Eastern and African Christians to swallow the rosy vomit you have swallowed, no matter how delicious you may claim that it is.