Islam (open discussion)

[southakj]

786

Ok, I'm a newish lurker and member to this forum, though I'm a bit of a "fan" of Mr. Bruce, and have been for a couple of years now, roughly.

I'll start by presenting my perspectives on sundry topics based on my understanding of Islam.

I'll touch on Jesus, Dreams and Out of Body Experiences, the Jinn, Magick, and if time permits more controversial topics like patriarchy, marriage practices, sexuality, and the like.

Direct comments to southakj@mpowernet.com

Jesus and the Messiah:

An earlier poster stated that Muslims do not believe that Jesus is the Messiah. This is an innacurate statement.

Muslims *emphatically* believe that Jesus Christ WAS the Messiah. Full stop. In fact the Quran blames the Israelites of the time for not accepting him as the Messiah. In Arabic Jesus is called 'Isa al-Masih, of "Jesus the Messiah". Masih means, amongst other things, "anointed" from the arabic root m-s-h meaning to wipe. It also has the meaning of a "walker" or "traveller" since Jesus, being an anchorite and ascetic, pretty much traveled the earth on foot.

Now JEWS AND MUSLIMS mean something very different by the word "Messiah" than Christians. This may be the cause of confusion.

The Messiah is prophesised to return to this earthly plane near the end of time, he will descend in Damascus by one of the minarets, and lead the world's faithful against the "antichrist", or the "Masih al-Dajjal", the false Messiah. A Global leader who will conquer most of the world, set up a religion dedicated to him, and sow falsehood. This topic and the specific prophesies associated with it, would form volumes in and of themselves.

[Gandalf]

Jenadots_

It appears that you have some difficulty understanding the difference between Islamic religion and islamic *fundamentalist* religion. They are both quite different, yet you appear to talk about 'muslims' and islamic societies as if they are all 'evil'.

Look at Turkey and Indonesia, Malasia, Phillipines which are Muslim democracies. They have no problems being muslim countries and democratic.

In the Middle-east it is true that some fundamentalist interpretations of Islam have been allowed to rule countries there, but this is not the fault of the religion, only those religious leaders there who have chosen to interprete it to fit their agenda.

ALL religions have suffered from this in the past or continue to do so.
Christians were just as bad in their own right in the past and in some areas continue to be so. Not only content with *hating* other factions of their own religion (catholic, protestent orthodox) some activly seek fundamentalist agendas to promote their own narrow views of morality, sexuality and so on.

Many horrific practices continue to this day in the name of christianity and right on your door step, whether it be gay bashing, racist murder or whatever.. Take a look at the catholic 'laundries' run by nuns in Ireland right up until the late 1970's, featuing trully horrific practices.

I agree with the other poster that thanks to your (and my) media, you see only the negative aspects of these other cultures/religions.
As the other poster mentioned your media does not seem to have informed you of the actions of the *majority* of Muslims around the world, who held candle-lit vigils and who condmened the attacks on USA; Almost ALL Islamic leaders around the world condemned the attacks.
Instead trhe cameras focused on the back-streets in Cairo or other inner-city areas of countries where small groups of ill-informed people were dancing on the streets, however these types are not representitive of all Muslims!

Yes, there are huge demonstrations against Americans in Iraq, but try for once to see it from their point of view, instead of naively wondering why they are not 'thankful' for being 'liberated'.
Would you be thankful after having no amenities like water, electricity or fuel for months on end, no hospital treatment or supplies, food or other essential; even if Saddam was a brutal dictator, at least you had most of these things before. No power means no air conditioning, cities like modern Baghdad cannot survive in such conditions; no wonder they are ticked of, it's called desperation. It's all right for you to sit around in your comfortable suroundings and tell them that everythings fine and to stop moaning; its a different story being there. Of course, most of this whole scenario has been caused because the americans did not stop to think what they were going to do *after* they took the country.

I also disagree with your assertion that 'dont worry, we get oil in plenty of other places'.

You need to look at the larger picture. The three largest supplies of oil in the world are in South America (Mexico), Saudi Arabia and the third biggest under Iraq.
The first two are not as secure as they were in the past (never mind Iraq or Afganistan, the home of Al Quada is Saudi Arabia), therefor it is imperitive for US interests to secure the Iraqi oil fields for the future. It is pure naiveity to say that oil has nothing to do with the US decision to invade Iraq, it has everything to do with it.

Back to Islam, I take issue with you assertion that Muslim religion promotes 'wife beating' or other oppresion. It doesnt, in fact, if you ask any Muslim, you will find that the Quoran *explicitly states* that physically abusing women is wrong and not to be practiced, this isnt in the christian bible.
What you describe is a fundamentalist distortion; just like the complete covering of the female body. The Quoran only actually states that a women's hair should be covered, this dates back to the culture of the time when the Quoran was written, when a woman's hair was sexually desirable.
Most moderate Muslim countries still follow this practice and are happy to do so as it is a part of their culture and tradition. If you go to the far eastern muslim countries or Turkey, you will see women with head scarfs.
This is part of their heratige and they would be quite insulted for if you try to tell them to take it off, like they are doing in France right now.

However, this is a far cry from the all over body covering, (with the slit in the front so the woman can see) this IS a fundamentalist interpretation and is wrong, but again, this is the fault of the religious leaders in these areas, NOT the religion.

Concerning fundamentalism, Christianity was just as fundamentalist in the past, and in some areas still is. Some areas of the US are particually prone to Christian fundamentalism and are only restrained from fundamentalist acts through government monitering. Remember the fundamentalist preachers (qualified ministers) who all flew in to try to support those guys who were responsible for crucifying a gay guy, they all turned up at the court house to defend the accused!
There are influential Fundamentalist groups in the US who actually thinkit would be good idea to have a nuclear war in the Middle-east as it would hasten the second coming!

What all this illustrates is that if you only focus on the negative aspects of a religion, it is not suprising that you see it as 'evil'.
The press is prone to this distorted depiction as it makes headlines.

You need to educate yourself a bit more on the complex multi-faceted nature of world religions, (including chistianity) to see that nothing is black and white.

Concerning islamic fundamentalists, I do not condone such actions, they are wrong IMO, but rather than simply branding the as 'evil' and then moving on, it would be more profitable to try to understand just what it is that is driving these people to such desperate acts in the first place. What is the cause of their distress. The answers as always are complex, and nobody is wholly absolved of blame in the wider context.



Regards,
Douglas

[Jenadots]

I do not believe I said "all" Islamics or "all" of anything.

[ICWiz]

Dear Friends.

Being a Muslim and born in the USA, I thought I might try to clear things up a bit.

There are a lot of things that appear wrong with Islam today. This is due to the fact that Muslims are not adhering to the original teachings. Nowadays, tyrants in these countries have hijacked the religion and turned it into a extreme, fanatical, perverse version of the original.

There is a lot that went into this, So much so, that I will not be able to begin to explain it. I will provide links for those interested.

In a nutshell however, a new movement that started to gather wind in the 1800's and recently in the 1970's is the wahabi movement.
The major flaw, that has caused many problems, in this school of thought, it that they believe that everything in the Quran and hadith is understandable by all people, regardless of educational and intellectual levels.  This was not the way of the past.

Just like Doctors understand the medical sciences better then someone who isn't a doctor, In the past, scholars would study the quran and use wisdom to understand it. They would then explain it to those who did not have the religious knowledge.

For example. There are some rules in the quran that people find bad and evil. These verses are supposed to be taken in context with other passages. People that are unaware of this end up taking it word for word and they end up misreading.

This ideology has lead to the extremist movements and the Terrorist issue of today.

If you would like to learn more, I HIGHLY recommend that you go to this link:

http://www.islamicsupremecouncil.org/bin/site/wrappers/isca_inside.asp?pane_2=content-extremism

This site is very well done. It has all the information you will need to understand what has and is happening in Islam.

[clandestino]

Jenadots said:

quote: I do not believe I said "all" Islamics or "all" of anything.

I agree with you ! in fact, you said....

quote:I do not believe that God - whatever he or she is called - rejoices in any acts of murder and terrorism. True Islam, just as true Hinduism, true Christianity, true Buddhism, or true Judaism does not teach this.

Hello again ICWiz...

Thanks for the interesting link to the ISCA ! looks like a very informative site.
Kind regards,
Mark

[kenshinhan604]

Hey ya all iwas passing bye and noticed this thread, a few of my friends have opened a new website dedicated to islam, and its teachings if you have anything to ask please visit plez visit and go ahead


Kasim

www.albaraa.net

[galacticsurfer]

I, just like everybody else has been all caught up in the hype and anxiety regarding the post 11th Sept. problems in the last few years. So last year I read a good history book on islam from its roots up until the 1970s as well as a book on Ghenghis Khan invasions and one on the history of the Ottoman empire and also a history of the Jews in Europe. I found that knowing history gives me a great deal of distance from the nightly news broadcasts and the editorials in the magazines or actually from the personal opinions of friends and family. When you see the whole current problem in perspective of the historical changes you will not be too interested in hating or blaming anyone but will be able to make sensible decisions and to take the whole thing philosophically. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust" idea.

Since the end of the bipolar cold war the world has changed and a new world picture is being sought by many. The socialist ideal of justice was sort of very religious and supported the poor 3rd worlders against the capitalist exploitation at least nominally(hundreds of years of western colonial exploitation- also of the Arabs). In the new post cold war age capitalism is the only game in town. An alternative world view has been put forth by Al Quaeda. I have even read he is being looked upon as the "Mahdi"- something like a late days messiah for Islam(if anyone remembers the Dune novels or movies) Someone had to take center stage. The Americans have been dominant now for some time and are now even more dominant. Mostly the rich saudis are the terrorists with their copy cats in allother islamic countries. The Saudis see their own government as corrupt and the westerners as allowing this due to all that oil money. Twin devils.

The cold war ended with the democratization of Eastern Europe and the turn to capitalism of all communist countries as well as the democratization of most former dictatorships in the world. It seems that the American government sees the endgame in the middle Eastern countries similarly. The last enemy of the west is seen in the totalitarianism that masquerades under the ideological guise of Shia and Wahabi religion(Iran and Saudi Arabia) but actually are simply power hungry clerics and Princes. It is obvious that the neo colonial corporate exploitation of the West in the 3rd world is being slowly resisted by rejection of new WTO talks by 3rd world countries. The Bush government and the EU are not interested in a level playing field but in the best terms they can get against the 3rd world. The Islam against the west current supposed battle is just a distraction for a few decades at most. It is really a matter of a level playing field for the whole world in material and demoocratic terms. Until similar standards of living and freedoms exist generally everywhere on earth there will be always good reasons to start up some sort of conflict.  

"Wir sind das Volk"-"we are the people" yelled the east germans in the streets before tearing down the Berlin wall. i think the saudis and Iranians might like to do the same thing if they could, but similarly the disillusuionment with democracy that followed due to extreme poverty and chaos in Eastern Europe gives rise to concern. People have to get used to new ways. Freedom is hard to live with. Just look at the current chaos unfolding in Irak. How will that turn out?

[Robert Bruce]

G'day Folks!

This topic is for the open discussion of things that relate to Islam, but do not fit the theme of 'friendly exploration'.  This thread is open to discussion and debate of all matters relating to Islam. For example, if you want to debate issues like female circumcision and womens rights, this is the place for that.

The other sticky topic 'Islam' is 'strictly' for the friendly 'exploration' of the Islamic faith, and off topic posts 'will' be deleted.

Take care, Robert.