Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades

[kellyc]

Im still reading the book, and am up to the part about the Crusdaes. I found everything byable in the book until this point. I found myself shocked and amazed at the lack of respect for the non-muslim, and more importantly women. I guess I knew it all along, but was shocked to see just how bad it is.


<edited to fix my respect of disrespect>

[Dharma]

Kelly,
I haven't started reading this book yet but plan to very soon (right after finals this week). In the meantime, your comments about how women and others have been subjugated through the ages is also noted very well in "The DaVinci Code". By the way, the movie arrives in 19 more days!!!!
Dharma

[Brent]

Im still reading the book, and am up to the part about the Crusdaes. I found everything byable in the book until this point. I found myself shocked and amazed at the lack of disrespect for the non-muslim, and more importantly women. I guess I knew it all along, but was shocked to see just how bad it is.

I'm guessing you meant "lack of respect" or "disrespect", not "lack of disrespect"?

[kellyc]

Im still reading the book, and am up to the part about the Crusdaes. I found everything byable in the book until this point. I found myself shocked and amazed at the lack of disrespect for the non-muslim, and more importantly women. I guess I knew it all along, but was shocked to see just how bad it is.

I'm guessing you meant "lack of respect" or "disrespect", not "lack of disrespect"?

Thanks for the catch

[EricBlair]

I think that it is a great intro to Islam and antidote to the PC "religion of peace" nonsense that is spread about by the invertebrate crowd.

Another more in depth book about Islam is "The Sword of the Prophet" by Serge Trifovic.

To stay on top of the issue I would encourage every American to visit and visit often the website at jihadwatch.org

[dhyatt]

This really hasn't generated as much discussion as I'd hoped. Maybe next month's book will do better although "American Theocracy" is proving to be kind of onerous for me. The one topic in this month's book I'd like to see some discussion on is the topic of abrogation.

Wiki (here (http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z6BD5262D)) defines abrogation as: "a technical term for a major genre of Islamic legal exegesis directed at the problem of seemingly contradictory material within or between the twin bases of Islamic holy law: the Qur'ān and the Prophetic Sunna."

This is important because it is central to much of the conflicting public image of Islam. The easiest analogy for Christians would be the issue of Old vs. New Testaments. It's generally accepted (though not always followed :-/ ) that the message of forgiveness of the New Testament "abrogates" the message of law that's prevalent in the Old Testament. Even though you often have Christians that cite areas of the Old Testament to support some specific moral tenet or another,the "average" philosophy is pretty easy to follow; "thou shalt not steal" (Old Testament) is abrogated by "Christ died for your sins" (New Testament). i.e. - ask for forgiveness and all is well.

So the Bible's basic message and timeline is law superceded by love. Not hard to understand (at least for Christians).

The Koran is almost the opposite. Earlier passages in the Koran talk of peace and tolerance but in later passages (after Muhhamed had secured some military victories), the tone changes dramatically. Indeed, it is stated the the teaching of Jihad "abrogates" any teachings of tolerance. The Koran is not organized in a timeline (it's organized by length of suras or "verses") so one has to dig a little deeper to ferret out how the message changed over time. Also, many Hadiths (think of them as Bible commentaries) have been written over the centuries and they carry almost equal weight with clerics as the Koran itself.

In summary (and in contrast to the Bible), the Koran's basic message and timeline is love superceded by strict Islamic law or Sharia.

Just as in Christianity (and Judaism), some religious leaders focus on the law and some focus on the love. The real problem with Islamicists is that their "focus on the law" not only results in death for everyone else, it is also the most "recent" message. In humanistic terms, one could say Christianty and Judaism have "evolved" while Islam has "devolved".

This is also why democracy in Middle East is so important; freedom will force the clerics to moderate their message or be ignored by the masses. This is why Billy Graham crusades have a huge following while Robertson, Falwell etc... seem to always be struggling for attention.

Given a choice, most people will choose freedom and moderation. Only the weakest of minds take comfort in always being told how to act, what to wear, who to date, and what they should eat for dinner.

[EricBlair]

Good post.

Your emphasis on the value of the hadith within this context is crucial. One poigniant example is how in the Koran there are very strong critiques for apostates, but in the hadith, it is spelled out that apostates should be killed and we have seen this matter of punishment metted out on Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg and others.

I have heard it argued and I think it a prescient one, that Islam is currently in the midst of a civil war, one of hardline jihadists and the other comprised of Muslims who want to embrace aspects of secularism etc...but who are adamently oppossed to Isreal.

Needless to say we are in quite a quandry which is why I think there are sometimes more discussion about the issue.

I will say this though, that their is no seperation between government and Mosque and this creates a huge problem insofar as the religion to progress as a faith. It is too useful a tool for those in authority to give up their power and this fosters a deep suspicion of the government. The very same governments that the U.S. is accused of propping up.

We are in quite a mess with this one