Criticizing Islam

[Jane_the_Bane]

The Egyptian-born political scientist Hamed Abdel-Samad (who was a member of the Muslim brotherhood at one point of his life, and is the son of a village imam) has released several books that criticize Islam. His most recent publication argues that the totalitarian - or "fascist", as he calls it - elements we detect in contemporary Islamism are not recent distortions of Muhammad's religion, but have been part of the parcel since the very beginning.

The purpose of this thread, however, is NOT to defend or attack his arguments. I suspect that most points he brings up have been talked to death on these very forums several times over, and all I have to say on the matter is that I find his argumentation to be a little too one-sided, and that the same criticisms could easily be applied to the other Abrahamic religions.

HOWEVER, what *really* interests me here is the way the Islamic world reacted to him - and it's that reaction that I cannot accept.
Protesters from Cairo drove to the village where his family lives, forming a mob around their house and chanting "with your blood, we will avenge the prophet". The religious police declared a fatwa, his photo was circulated via the internet with the inscription "wanted dead", and his father the imam was urged to disown his son on public television.

It's that kind of behaviour that lends credence to his arguments. This utter inability to deal with criticism, this eagerness to requite skepticism with violence.

 

[wn123455]

History of the Muslim Brotherhood Penetration of the U.S. Government

Inflaming violence and keeping Muslims living in the West "in a jihad frame of mind";

ISLAM'S 20 YEAR PLAN FOR AMERICA – so how's it going so far? | BARE NAKED ISLAM

ISLAM'S 20 YEAR PLAN FOR AMERICA – so how's it going so far?

19. Send intimidating messages and messengers to the outspoken individuals who are critical of Islam and seek to eliminate them by hook or crook.

The Protocols of the Elders of Islam | David Altman | Ops & Blogs | The Times of Israel

Thrid, in areas where new immigrants wanted to assimilate into the new society and begin a modern way of life, Muslim clerics made a supreme effort to educate youth according to the dictates of a fundamentalist version of Islam, as assimilation into modern life was exchanged for a fundamentalist approach.

 

[LoAmmi]

It is a big problem. As much as one might argue it's a minority, it's a minority that shows up every single time and it isn't the same people. Islam has to police itself and stop this kind of madness.

 

[Profane]

It is a big problem. As much as one might argue it's a minority, it's a minority that shows up every single time and it isn't the same people. Islam has to police itself and stop this kind of madness.

Religions are rarely good at policing themselves; there needs to be some secular authority to do it for them.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Religions are rarely good at policing themselves; there needs to be some secular authority to do it for them.

At which point all the extremists start to scream "religious persecution" and flare up in a bloody revolution.

 

[wn123455]

Three Things About Islam - YouTube

 

[dazed]

At which point all the extremists start to scream "religious persecution" and flare up in a bloody revolution.

No pun intended, but it's head Islam win, tail Islam win.

 

[wn123455]

Islam and Freedom of Speech - WikiIslam

Muhammad had said to his followers “Whoever curses a prophet kill him,” (Tabarani, Daraqutni)[3] and there are many examples of people during his time who were guilty of blaspheming Islam and its Prophet. Most of these people were assassinated with Muhammad's blessing, and no punishment or compensation was imposed on the murderer.

'Abdullah bin Ubai (bin Salul) - Muhammad asked his followers to kill this man for making "evil" statements about Muhammad's family.

Abu `Afak - Muhammad asked his followers to kill this man for making negative remarks about Muhammad and Islam.

Ka’b bin Ashraf - Muhammad asked his followers to kill this man for writing inflammatory poetry about Muhammad and Muslim women.

Asma Bint Marwan - Muhammad asked his followers to kill this woman for composing inflammatory poetry about Islam and Muslims.

Blind Man's Slave-Mother - When Muhammad learned that one of his followers had stabbed and killed his slave (other sources refer to her as a freed concubine: Umm walad) for making derogatory remarks about Muhammad, he declared that "no retaliation is payable for her blood."

Al-Nadr Bin Al-Harith - Al Nadir, a storyteller and poet who had mocked him. He was a prisoner of war who was not allowed to be ransomed by their clans and was executed on Muhammad's orders.

Some Muslims claim Muhammad had a Jewish neighbor who threw rubbish at him, and that one day the person became ill and Muhammad visited her. This story is not present in any Islamic texts, nor is it mentioned by any scholars of the past. Thus, this incident in Muhammad's life is most likely a fabrication. In addition, it contradicts Muhammad's nature as found in the copious amount of sahih (authentic) Islamic texts, mentioned above.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

It's a common enough tactic for exclusivist world views - this is also why Christian missionaries and colonialist politics went so well together.

Once you send in the ideologists, one of two things will happen:
1. You'll gain sufficient converts to topple the dominant culture and add it to your sphere of influence, or
2. They try to resist your influence, at which point you scream persecution and send in the troops.

The Spaniards did this with great success in Middle and South America, the Brits did it in Africa and so forth.
The only one who successfully and gruesomely escaped this kind of takeover was Japan, which executed the Christian converts by the thousands and closed its borders to all foreigners, escaping colonization at the hands of the Spaniard-Jesuit alliance for the price of isolating themselves for several centuries.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Some muslims try to defend violent reactions by attacking the initial criticism and/or representation, but to me that's like saying:

"Of COURSE they burned down every cinema that aired the film and put a bounty on the director's head! The Last Temptation is a blasphemous, unbiblical representation of Christ that slaps every believer in the face!"

 

[LoAmmi]

Religions are rarely good at policing themselves; there needs to be some secular authority to do it for them.

I'm not sure I quite agree with that. If enough members of a faith take a point of view, it can pull the moderates to their side and leave the extremists with no allies.

 

[Profane]

I'm not sure I quite agree with that. If enough members of a faith take a point of view, it can pull the moderates to their side and leave the extremists with no allies.

A good theory, I've never really seen it happen in history however. What tends to happen is even if the majority of followers of a religion decide to to be moderates, the extremists will simply walk all over them by clothing themselves in rightousness.

Its happened again and again throughout history..... take the witch hunts for example, in the begining the Catholic Church was extremely against it, but because the extremists called themselves good Christians; what where the moderatres to do about it? Fight their fellow Christians? They stood by and watched it happen.

 

[WoodrowX2]

I'm not sure I quite agree with that. If enough members of a faith take a point of view, it can pull the moderates to their side and leave the extremists with no allies.

To a large extent that is what is happening

A good theory, I've never really seen it happen in history however. What tends to happen is even if the majority of followers of a religion decide to to be moderates, the extremists will simply walk all over them by clothing themselves in rightousness.

Its happened again and again throughout history..... take the witch hunts for example, in the begining the Catholic Church was extremely against it, but because the extremists called themselves good Christians; what where the moderatres to do about it? Fight their fellow Christians? They stood by and watched it happen.

What I see happening is as the Majority of Muslims separate themselves from the ill doers. the ill doers leave and go to either regions that are in turmoil such as war zones or third word poverty regions or to Non Islamic Nations.

This is pretty much what is taking place. The moderate majority are establishing stricter laws which make the nation unfriendly not only to the Misdirected Muslims but inadvertently to all non-Muslims. Many of which end up leaving if possible.

What I have seen in the past few years is the Extremists (for lack of a better word) have exiled themselves from the Peaceful Muslims and have gone to lawless regions such as war torn areas, ie Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Egypt or isolated regions such as the SWAT region in Pakistan.

From which they can destroy to their hearts content and even make attacks into nearby peaceful regions.

The other options that they seem to be taking is the most radical are simply leaving the Islamic Nations and Migrtating to Europe and the UK.

To a large extent I see our condemnations of the ill doers is resulting in a pushing of our problem people into the non-Islamic world. the result being our Radicals are now often found in non-Muslim lands.

Just my opinion.

 

[Dialogues]

HOWEVER, what *really* interests me here is the way the Islamic world reacted to him - and it's that reaction that I cannot accept.

Protesters from Cairo drove to the village where his family lives, forming a mob around their house and chanting "with your blood, we will avenge the prophet". The religious police declared a fatwa, his photo was circulated via the internet with the inscription "wanted dead", and his father the imam was urged to disown his son on public television.

It's that kind of behaviour that lends credence to his arguments. This utter inability to deal with criticism, this eagerness to requite skepticism with violence.

This is the response of ignoramuses. The Qur'an is full of examples of blasphemies for which no punishment is prescribed. The Qur'an teaches to leave the company of those who mock, and to return to their company when they change the subject [4:140]. Clearly, you cannot do that if you are supposed to kill them for it. The Qur'an teaches patience when hurtful things are said [3:186], and says that the duty of believers is just to admonish them [6:69]; so going on the rampage and behaving like morons is not Islamic at all.

Those who seek support from non-Qur'anic sources for a punishment for blasphemy should first realise that they violate the Qur'an when they do so. Secondly, they rely on dubious and contradictory narrations which can be refuted, or they allege that the punishment of someone was due to their blasphemy, ignoring that the person concerned, IF indeed killed, was guilty of capital crime/s.

One poster has listed such persons in his message, and at the top of the list is an Abdullah bin Ubayy bin Salul who died a natural death many years after his blasphemy, with his funeral prayer actually led by the Prophet s.a. (despite protests against this), saying that he would pray for his forgiveness countless times, and he even gave his own cloak to be used as a shroud for his burial. Infact, the Prophet s.a. prevented people from killing him for his blasphemy. So it is quite erroneous to claim that the punishment for blasphemy in Islam is death, or anything such as the ignoramuses do.

Peace.

 

[GabrielWithoutWings]

This is the response of ignoramuses. The Qur'an is full of examples of blasphemies for which no punishment is prescribed. The Qur'an teaches to leave the company of those who mock, and to return to their company when they change the subject [4:140]. Clearly, you cannot do that if you are supposed to kill them for it. The Qur'an teaches patience when hurtful things are said [3:186], and says that the duty of believers is just to admonish them [6:69]; so going on the rampage and behaving like morons is not Islamic at all.

Those who seek support from non-Qur'anic sources for a punishment for blasphemy should first realise that they violate the Qur'an when they do so. Secondly, they rely on dubious and contradictory narrations which can be refuted, or they allege that the punishment of someone was due to their blasphemy, ignoring that the person concerned, IF indeed killed, was guilty of capital crime/s.

One poster has listed such persons in his message, and at the top of the list is an Abdullah bin Ubayy bin Salul who died a natural death many years after his blasphemy, with his funeral prayer actually led by the Prophet s.a. (despite protests against this), saying that he would pray for his forgiveness countless times, and he even gave his own cloak to be used as a shroud for his burial. Infact, the Prophet s.a. prevented people from killing him for his blasphemy. So it is quite erroneous to claim that the punishment for blasphemy in Islam is death, or anything such as the ignoramuses do.

Peace.

What you're supposed to do and what you actually do are two completely different things. You can argue about rules and theory all day long but if the practical application is something entirely different that repeats itself, then one needs to realize that the text means nothing.

Same with police departments. If agency policy is X but everyone is actually doing Y, then Y is assumed to be the policy for the department. Not X.

Catholics and Protestants did this to great degree. It was only after the Renaissance and Enlightenment did it begin to slack off, due to a lack of power by increasing secularization and not a re-evaluation of actions. Does anyone really care what the Pope or Magisterium says today? No, not even Catholics themselves. Why? Because the Pope has been de-fanged.

 

[Dialogues]

What you're supposed to do and what you actually do are two completely different things. You can argue about rules and theory all day long but if the practical application is something entirely different that repeats itself, then one needs to realize that the text means nothing.

What practical application are you referring to? Do ALL Muslims do and say such things which violate the Qur'an? The answer is no. You are projecting the misbehaviour of a few onto the majority of Muslims, ignoring the voice of those Muslims who speak out against such ignoramuses.

Peace.

 

[WoodrowX2]

What you're supposed to do and what you actually do are two completely different things. You can argue about rules and theory all day long but if the practical application is something entirely different that repeats itself, then one needs to realize that the text means nothing.

Same with police departments. If agency policy is X but everyone is actually doing Y, then Y is assumed to be the policy for the department. Not X.

Catholics and Protestants did this to great degree. It was only after the Renaissance and Enlightenment did it begin to slack off, due to a lack of power by increasing secularization and not a re-evaluation of actions. Does anyone really care what the Pope or Magisterium says today? No, not even Catholics themselves. Why? Because the Pope has been de-fanged.

Islam differs somewhat along these lines. We (Sunni) do not have any ordained Clergy nor any central leader. We do not consider the words of any Imam, Mufti, Mullah, Sheik etc to be a command that must be followed. We see a Fatwah as being an opinion supported by Qur'anic readings. Not as a command or what we have to agree with.

We have no Islamic "agency" it is all about personal responsibility. We do not join Mosques or any organization. We are not obligated to even go into a Mosque. the obligation is we are to meet and pray as a community once a week for Jummah. This can be in a house, in the street, in a Park, in a vacant lot or in a Mosque etc,

We are not much for listening to sermons. Although we should attend the Jummah sermon, where either the Imam or any person present will give it. the weekly Sermon is supposed to concern local issues.

It is quite difficult for Muslims to formulate any local policies/rules as we are quite individualistic.

Strong state laws are pretty much a necessity in order to keep us from falling into anarchy. We don't respond very well to human leaders.

 

[AskTheFamily]

The Egyptian-born political scientist Hamed Abdel-Samad (who was a member of the Muslim brotherhood at one point of his life, and is the son of a village imam) has released several books that criticize Islam. His most recent publication argues that the totalitarian - or "fascist", as he calls it - elements we detect in contemporary Islamism are not recent distortions of Muhammad's religion, but have been part of the parcel since the very beginning.

The purpose of this thread, however, is NOT to defend or attack his arguments. I suspect that most points he brings up have been talked to death on these very forums several times over, and all I have to say on the matter is that I find his argumentation to be a little too one-sided, and that the same criticisms could easily be applied to the other Abrahamic religions.

HOWEVER, what *really* interests me here is the way the Islamic world reacted to him - and it's that reaction that I cannot accept.
Protesters from Cairo drove to the village where his family lives, forming a mob around their house and chanting "with your blood, we will avenge the prophet". The religious police declared a fatwa, his photo was circulated via the internet with the inscription "wanted dead", and his father the imam was urged to disown his son on public television.

It's that kind of behaviour that lends credence to his arguments. This utter inability to deal with criticism, this eagerness to requite skepticism with violence.

According to Quran, the true religion essentially is the nature humanity has been originated on. You can be on that if you are a Jew, Christian, Muslim, etc...

As well, according to Quran, people of revelations often twisted, tampered with, or ignored teachings of the Fitra (nature of humanity) as well as the Prophets.

Muslims have also deviated much from revelation and Islam.

There is the Islam as practiced by Muslims and that to me in my opinion has some fascist and totalitarian elements.

Then there is the original universal Islam which I believe encompasses more then just Muslims and is reminded by all Prophets. I don't think that religion teaches us to treat humans this way. In fact, I find the opposite message in Quran.

 

[andy b]

its mob rule and has very little to do with anything except mob rule.Some people just look for any excuse to form a mob and bully.I daresay most in the mob didnt know why they where there.Its more of a case of id better join in or they may turn on me .Thats the problem with Islam you get the impression that most of its followers are only in it because they are scared to leave.Very Sad

 

[prov1810]

HOWEVER, what *really* interests me here is the way the Islamic world reacted to him - and it's that reaction that I cannot accept.

The Islamic world didn't react to him. Some Muslims reacted and some did not. This is a diverse group of people with differing beliefs about us. We can avoid a terrible crime here - the scapegoating of Muslims in the West - if we stay away from paranoid stereotypes which are as Manichean as anything in fundamentalist religion.