Islam grows through conquest: why is this truth ignored?

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by Orson, Dec 12, 2004.

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  1. Orson

    Orson New Member

    Islamic terror based on Qu’ran: ex-CIA official

    By SHELDON KIRSHNER
    Staff Reporter

    A former top official of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency paints a menacing picture of the relationship between Islam and terrorism.

    “Islamic terrorism is based on Islam as revealed through the Qu’ran,” keynote speaker Bruce Tefft claimed in a panel discussion at the University of Toronto on jihad and global terrorism. The session, held late last month, was sponsored by the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Speakers Action Group.

    Tefft, a founder of the CIA’s counter-terrorism center and now an advisor to the New York Police Department’s intelligence and counter-terrorism divisions, said that without Islam, the long-term strategy of Al Qaeda and its followers make little sense.

    Linking Osama bin Laden to the attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001, Tefft said: “To pretend that Islam has nothing to do with Sept. 11 is to willfully ignore the obvious and to forever misinterpret events.”

    In a harsh indictment of Islam – the world’s fastest growing religion and the second-largest faith after Christianity – Tefft said that while there may be moderate Muslims, Islam itself is immoderate.

    And, he added, “There is no difference between Islam and Islamic fundamentalism, which is a totalitarian construct.”

    According to Tefft, the Qu’ran enjoins Muslims to believe that the whole world should be governed by the principles of Islam, an expansionist religion that has historically grown through conquest.

    All infidels are to be converted, enslaved or killed, he said, drawing on the knowledge of Bernard Lewis, a Jewish historian who has written books about Islam and Islamic history.

    Tefft, whose career at the CIA spanned 21 years, argued that Islam was a religion of peace and tolerance in its formative phase, but has since grown intolerant of non-Muslims.

    Islam cannot be reformed because its teachings, as revealed through the Qu’ran, are regarded as the word of God, and to be a Muslim, a believer must accept the Qu’ran on a literal basis, Tefft said.

    He said Islam views Judaism and Christianity as failed religions and itself as the only true religion.

    Islamic terrorists are animated by passionate anti-Western convictions, Tefft argued. They blindly sacrifice their lives for the chance of going to paradise and enjoying the charms of 72 virgins.

    To them, the United States is the epitome of evil, because its constitution separates church and state.

    Tefft said Al Qaeda’s 700-page training manual covers all aspects of terrorism, from surveillance to assassinations, and is drawn from U.S., Russian and Iranian manuals .

    “They’ve compiled the best of the best.”

    Of the 6,000 or more mosques in North America, 80 per cent are radical in orientation and devoted to spreading an intolerant Wahabi strain of Islam. They are funded by Saudi Arabia, he said.

    David Harris, the former head of strategic planning at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said that Islamic fundamentalists are hostile to Canada and consider it a “Little Satan.”

    He warned that Hezbollah has begun surveying sites in Canada for possible terrorist attacks.

    Canada, though, innocently thinks it is immune to such aggression, Harris said.

    John Thompson, the president of the MacKenzie Institute, a Canadian research organization, said Al Qaeda has a reservoir of recruits for at least a generation to come.

    Tom Kay, the chief of police in Owen Sound and the immediate past president of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, said Canadian law enforcement agencies that combat terrorism are under-funded.

    “We face complacency from people in power,” he said, referring to Canadian politicians at all levels.

    It is scandalous that more money is not being allocated to counter-terrorism efforts, Kay said.

    Leo Adler, the director of national affairs for Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, urged Canada to be more resolute in fighting terrorism.

    Rather than operating in a vacuum, Jihadists work with highly honed organizations that supply them with funds, logistical support and intelligence, Adler commented.
    http://www.cjnews.com/viewarticle.asp?id=5056
     
  2. This is SO right on....

    Orson,
    Thanks for sharing this information with us. The facts are irrefutable - Islam is at war with the west, and plans on winning. Time for us all to wake up and face the situation.

    From the little I am able to determine about Canadian attitudes, at least the ones displayed in discussion boards and chatrooms (which is unlikely to be highly representative), I'm surprised at the level of ignorance and denial that is present in that society in response to the attacks of 9/11. Hopefully it will not take a similar cataclysmic event on Canadian soil for our close neighbors to the north to realize where their interests lie.

    - Carl
     
  3. Khan

    Khan New Member

    Umm...this was fascinating 30 years ago when we figured it out. Where's this guy been.
     
  4. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    Re: This is SO right on....

    I'd question whether there is any such thing as 'Islam'.

    Certainly there is a broad historical religious tradition that claims its inspiration from Mohammad's original revelation.

    But like Christianity (and like all the world religions), this tradition has broadened and evolved over the centuries so that today's religion is a collection of tendencies that sometimes have very little in common with one another.

    There are Sunnis and Shiites. There are legalists and Sufis. There are those who preach violent jihad, and contemplatives who teach the inner love of God. There are those who seek to cleanse and purify their 'corrupted' societies, and those who call themselves Muslims while continuing to make offerings to the ancient rice goddess. There are followers of Osama bin Ladin, and emanationist philosophers who seek to read all of reality as divine symbols. There's the Taliban in their holes and the Aga Khan on his yacht. There are scholars of Hadith and particle physicists.

    There are those who seek to destroy the West, those who seek to withdraw from it, and those who seek to emulate it. And there's the multitude who just live their lives and perform their prayers, at least if they are devout.

    My point is that Muslims don't speak with one voice. They don't have one agenda. They don't conform to one philosophy. They are no more monolithic than Christians are.

    It's probably a very serious mistake to ascribe a single malevolent purpose to Islam. Not only does that immediately devolve into hatred, it also sets us on a dead-end and highly destructive political-intellectual course.

    If Islam is represents pure evil, if it is seen as irredemable, then what are we expected to do? Kill every Muslim on earth in the name of tolerance?

    Not only is that impossible, not only is that evil, it's simply insane.

    I realize that the thing that Orson posted somes from a Zionist publication and is probably meant to strengthen readers' support for Israel. But the writer, and those who try to spread that kind of shit here on Degreeinfo, are playing with the fires of madness.

    This is the path followed by both Adolph Hitler and Osama bin Ladin. When we turn complex historical traditions into caricatures, when we perceive them as fatal dangers to ourselves, when we dismiss them as irredeemable, then our logic almost demands a final solution.

    I'm not going there.
     
  5. qvatlanta

    qvatlanta New Member

    This article is pretty hysterical and contains a bunch of serious logical flaws.

    I've heard Islamic scholars AND scholars of Islam offering pretty cogent arguments against this. The most interesting argument came from a man who fell in with a fundamentalist group when he was a teenager. He noticed that the lines of authority in his fundamentalist group were so strong that you were not supposed to read the Koran by yourself. You had to trust everything your superiors said. He noticed that their existence was totally schizophrenic... living their lives by a book that no one really read. Once he started reading it on his own, he realized that the strictures that were coming from his superiors had little or nothing to do with the Koran. When they realized his dissent his friends beat him up and kicked him out of the group, he went back to school and eventually became a world-renowned expert on the Koran. His experience is a fascinating persepctive on fundamentalism in any religion, not just Islam.


    Straw man. Who is pretending that Islam has NOTHING to do with the September 11th attacks? There is the quite obvious connection that the attackers subscribed to a fundamentalist version of Islam. Tefft is setting up the opposition to his argument as a being hopelessly stupid, naive and simplistic, when in fact his argument is the one that is incredibly simplistic and divorced from reality.

    What the #$%*??? He is directly contradicting himself here. "Islam" doesn't DO anything. It's not like it's a big dragon or the jolly green giant. PEOPLE who believe in Islam do things. And they are EITHER both moderate and immoderate, OR entirely evil and totalitarian... but Tefft can't seem to figure out which.

    Bernard Lewis is not entirely uncontroversial, but he is a serious scholar and authority. He would not stoop to the ridiculous simplifications contained in this article.

    Another direct contradiction. Either Islam can change, or it can't ever change. WHICH IS IT??


    As opposed to what other religion? Don't the other two believe exactly the same thing???


    Pretty basic statements that most people already know. What does this evidence support?

    Where on earth does this statistic come from. There are several different kinds of Muslims in the city where I live -- Pakistanis, Somalis, African-American Muslims, Malaysian Muslims -- with a wide variety of practices. I have seen maybe ONE of these women at the grocery store wearing a full-on veil. The vast majority wear head scarves with either a traditional dress or Western-style clothes. Just from inference I can't believe that 80% of these fairly normal-looking and acting people are Wahabis, who live by a completely insane set of rules.
     
  6. Christopher Green

    Christopher Green New Member

    Thanks to Orson and Bill Dayson for bringing up a great discussion topic. IMHO, this is THE discussion topic of our day.

    Bill Dayson:
    While I agree with what you said about the diversity of "Islam," whatever that is--essentially, I think Islam is more monistic as a whole than Christianity.

    Historically, this may not be true, but in theologically, especially in terms of the Quran, it is. All we need to do is look at the features.

    No translation of the Quran. Strict Sharia implementation. Subordination of women. Etc.

    While the crusades practiced subjection and structural homogenization, and both religions have a historical precedent for holy war as a means of conversion, Islam historically has that as its main tool for conversion. Christianity has more variety among its methodical tools for expansion.

    Another way to put it: both religions have a belief in one God, and therefore an exclusivist and expansionist vision. Since we act out the view of God that we have, there is a liability to homogenization...

    But, and my maint point is, Christianity has assimilated better in the west because there is more than one "person" within the "nature" of one God, allowing for more particularity within the nature of God and thus, in its social methods for assmilating converts.

    What do you think about this?

    Chris
     
  7. qvatlanta

    qvatlanta New Member

    ]

    I would disagree with that. First of all, in the big scheme of world religions, Islam is younger than Christianity and has less of a history. It was formerly in an aggressively expansionist phase, where people spread Islam both through conquest AND proselytization. By the 20th century with the fall of the Ottoman empire this phase is effectively over. There was just not the political power in place to support aggressive expansion.

    Today, Islam is really at a crossroads today as to where it will go. It's hard to form any general trends for the future. One thing is sure though, it does not have the proselytization infrastructure (people, money, organization) that various Christian churches have. However, it does still have a lot more emphasis on proselytization than Judaism does, or an Eastern religion. Looking back in history, Buddhism used to be extremely aggressive. Otherwise it would not have spread from India all the way to Mongolia and Southeast Asia! Today it's known as one of the least aggressive religions. I don't think it's safe to base the future of a world religion solely on its past development because a lot will depend on future politics and historical circumstances.

    No, this doesn't make sense to me. Do you mean that because there are more different forms of Christianity than there are of Islam -- e.g. Catholics vs. Mormons more different than Sunnis vs. Shiites -- Christians are better at assimilating converts? You would have to define what "assimilate converts" really means. One could also argue that Christianity has shaped the "West" as much as the "West" shaped Christianity. On the other hand, what is the "West"? Does it include Orthodox Christian Russians, the Coptic Church, etc.?
     
  8. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    I am grateful to these posters. I am horribly ignorant of Muslim history except insofar as it touches Jewish history.
     
  9. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    There are translations of the Quran all over the place. The majority of Muslims can't even read Arabic. Virtually all educated Muslims do think that the Quran can best be understood in Arabic, and would-be religious scholars normally learn Arabic, but I gather that Bill Grover and company are pretty big on Biblical languages as well, for much the same reason.

    Most Muslims don't follow Shariah law. And while most Muslim cultures are less feminist than our own, that's generally true of traditional cultures worldwide.

    I guess my point is that you seem to suggest that the conservative "reform" movements within Islam, movements that I've argued in previous posts are largly a reaction to the overwhelming impact of the West, simply ARE Islam. I'm disagreeing with that, and suggesting that Islam is a lot broader than that. It includes expressions ranging from modern secularists like Saddam's crowd to mystical initiatory brotherhoods, to say nothing of the tremendous variety of village level folk-Islam.

    When was the last time that the Muslims conquered a non-Muslim nation by force? When was the last time that non-Muslims conquered a Muslim nation? (Last year.)

    Islam's last major geographic expansion was into Indonesia in early modern times, right before the Portugese and then the Dutch arrived. My understanding is that this was a largely peaceful spread mediated by traders, though some violence may have accompanied the fall of various dynasties.

    The Ottoman Turks were making an attempt to seize Vienna and with it central Europe about the same time, but Islam proved more transitory in the Balkans than the more peaceful spread proved to be in Indonesia.

    And at about the same time, the Spanish were stomping the Aztecs and Incas into the dirt and sending in armies of missionaries to save their souls for Christ. Today most Catholics live in Latin America.

    My point is that both Islam and Christianity have a great deal to answer for. Both of them have had a disturbing tendency to glorify fighting and dying in the name of God. The medieval romances and the Crusading movement ilustrate that as well as any Muslim holy warrior.

    I should point out that the secular modernist forms of 18'th and 19'th European colonialism (very much spread by the sword) were accompanied by hordes of missionaries who sought to reach and preach to every village on earth and to translate the Bible into every language. All this despite their total lack of appreciation for what they so eagerly sought to destroy. This project, often Protestant, continues to some extent in the non-Western world today, though no longer backed up by Western arms.

    I don't think that's a hard and fast rule in a religious-studies sense.

    Most forms of Hinduism today, as well as late Greco-Roman paganism, are monotheistic in a sense. They believe that there is one ultimate divine principle. But they believe that principle manifests itself on the earthly plane in a myriad of different ways, corresponding to the various gods. That allows for a coherent but at the same time very inclusive and syncretistic system. Religions like that tend to be very easy-going, but hard to displace becasue they tend to absorb newly arrived foreign gods into their own pantheon. Both the Buddha and Jesus Christ are accepted by Hindus as Avatars.

    If that were true, we'd all be Hindus.

    No, I don't think that the Trinity helps Christian evangelism. Most people, myself included. don't have a clue what the Trinity means, or how one God can simultaneously be three Gods without logical contradiction or polytheism. Islam has historically grown at Christianity's expense because the Trinity and the divinity of Christ opened Christinity up to very credible charges of polytheism. Islam proclaimed that the Christians had corrupted God's pure and simple revelation and that's why it had to be revealed once again to Mohammed.

    (There's a strong Jewish influence in Islam, perhaps because many Jews fled into the Arabian desert after the Jewish revolts of 70 and 130 AD. It's interesting that there was a Jewish dynasty ruling in Yemen not long before the time of Mohammed. So that's one area where Jewish influence probably remained stronger than Christian, who were badly split between Orthodox, Copts and Nestorians, all associated with various foreign political agendas.)

    Nobody except specialists could understand that crazy Christian theological stuff, yet people in early 7'th century Byzantium were dying in disturbing numbers (ironically, sometimes by crucifixion) for believing in the wrong abstruse doctrines. The big struggle at that time was Orthodox vs. Monophysites which had taken on kind of a Greek vs Coptic and Syriac nationalistic coloring. That's one (of several) expanations for the ease of the initial Muslim conquests.
     
  10. qvatlanta

    qvatlanta New Member

    As an interesting sidenote, there's also millions of Chinese Muslims who have been around for about a thousand years (they were not converted by conquest). Most interpet the Koran dress code to mean that women need to wear head scarves and men need to wear little white caps.
     
  11. dl_mba

    dl_mba Member

    I beleive in "Human" religion.
    I always fillout applications asking relegion/beleif as "Human".
     
  12. Diversity

    This has all been most interesting. A veritable treatise on the diversity of Islam, and the vast numbers of Muslims around the world who are much a part of their local culture as the image we sometimes hold of a monolithic group of fanatics set out to conquer or kill off all rivals.

    That being said, there is also an identifiable core of Muslim people, gathered around certain nations whose foreign policy of necessity will lead them into conflict with the West. These nations (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan) have given rise to a radical manifestation of Islamic fundamentalism and a revived spirit of jihad in the defensive sense of the word. In other words, these Muslims see their nations under attack by the West (colonialism, oil exploitation, occupation of large parts of the Middle East, complacent puppet/proxy regimes in place with horrible civil rights records, etc.). It is Western, and most recently specifically US, policies that have fueled this fire - yet we so easily assume that religious fanatacism somehow has a mind of its own that can only be addressed through our own violent, military response.

    Maybe we should examine our policies, huh?

    For example unbridaled support for Israel. Is it really in our best interests to support Israel, a nation of 8 million people, when it harms the interest of more than 200 million Americans? Or is there something else behind our support? Religion perhaps? Hmmmmm...... Now that's a good reason to blow our children's future in everlasting warfare with Islam!

    How about occupation of Arab territory? Well, we wouldn't need to occupy it if we could somehow cut our dependence on foreign oil! Why don't we invest in alternate energy sources - heavily. As a strategic direction for the US for this and all future generations. My guess is that OPEC and Islamic fundamentalism would equally die on the vine rather rapidly once the economic underpinnings of the "enemy states" identified above were removed.

    I could go on, but I won't.
     
  13. adamsmith

    adamsmith member

    Anything in the realms of religion that is 'fundamentalist' - Muslim, Christian or whatever- is dangerous. They all smack of fanaticism and intolerance. I would not like to see a Christian fundamentalist group in power in any country. Fortunately in the West, democracy and an enlightened pagan community keeps them in check.

    And the Muslim faith is very much based upon the teachings of the Old Testament, which without the softening influence of the New Testament is a fairly intolerant and bloodthirty document.
     
  14. Ike

    Ike New Member

    Re: Re: This is SO right on....

    I doff my hat for you. You are truly a wise man. I wonder why people like you don't run for political offices. If we have someone who reasons like you in the Whitehouse, I am sure that this world would be a better place to live equally for now and generations to come.
     
  15. Christopher Green

    Christopher Green New Member

    Thank you Bill. I have been humbled by your critique.

    First of all, I have to admit that I don't know as much about Islam as you do; and, I have made some unhandly generalizations.

    I agree that Islam is much more diverse than is portrayed in the American media, and I have been guilty of some misperceptions in my previous post.

    My problem with Islam, currently, is that it is "monistic" in theory. I don't see how its dogmas can work themselves out and not result in oppressive regimes. That is, it is a strict monotheism. While Christianity is monotheistic, that one God is a relationship between persons.

    Sound strange? Yep, I thought so. Probably to the rest of the posters.

    I know this isn't a thread on the Trinity, and I'm not prepared to defend the nuances of Trinitarian dogma extremely well. But one clue I can give on the charge of polytheism is this: the difficulties with understanding the doctrine have to do with the nuances of the terms "person" and "nature," which is why I quoted them in my previous post.

    What is meant by "person" in Nicea is what there are three of in the Godhead and what there is one of in Christ. What Nicea means by "nature" is what there is one of in the Godhead and what there are two of in Christ.

    My suggestion is, since the Trinity is so hard to understand, God has given the Holy Spirit to empower the church as the "body of Christ." That means, among other things, the church is God's material "clue" that guides our metaphorical, dogmatic language about the Triune God. That the Christian church is a more harmonious community of individual persons than elsewhere is, then, the basic, if not the only evidence for the Christian God. If the church lives violently, or is characterized by violence, it's claims are lost. This is why the charges leveled against Christendom here are so weighty. However, to redeem the church some from the popular charges, it is possible to separate, to some degree, between a culturally propogated Platonism that is called "Christianity" and a way of relating that is in simple agreement with the teaching of Christ, in theory and behavior. A platonism is just another subtle form of monism, not truly representative of the particularity affirmed by "the three."

    Chris
     
  16. peng88

    peng88 New Member

    It is interesting to note that most of the donor countries to the Tsunami hit countries are from Christian faiths and from China and Singapore. What ever happened to the other faiths that pursue goodness and charity in terms of crisis, primarily the oil rich nations in Asia, West Asia and north Africa??????
     
  17. salami89

    salami89 New Member

    There is some degree of truth to the statement made by Orson. If one lives in their society and one is not of their creed, conversion is the ultimate objective whether through volunteering or by marriage. Surveillance of the non-believers are often carried out and social engineering is done to lessen the impact of the non-conformist. Employment and jobs at creme de la creme level are also given to them. As a free thinker and looking at it from a neutral perspective it is like going through the Middle Ages where ritualism is of more importance.
     
  18. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    In Jewish history pre 1800, Muslim countries were places of refuge that allowed Jews to live and raise their children essentially without interference. One of the great disasters Jews remember on Tisha b'av is the tragedy of the Christian reconquest of Spain in the fifteenth century. With Their Most Catholic Majesties Ferdinand and Isabella came the Holy Inquisition and expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.

    Jews were compelled to pay a special tax, forbidden to carry arms, and forbidden to wear turbans (!) but enjoyed the special protection of the Muslim rulers. Interesting note: Jewish women were not only not required to cover their faces, they were forbidden to do so lest they be mistaken for women of the True Faith.

    While all of this was happening in the Muslim world, the Christians invented the ghetto, the passion play, and the pogrom.
     
  19. salami89

    salami89 New Member

    It is indeed a strange world and the events in West Asia reflect the opposite of what is happening in South East Asia. The fastest growing faith i.e. we all presumably know, is taking away jobs from those that don't convert. It is a love hate relationship that is strangely coupled with creed and colour. The persecution of the minorities in South East Asia not too many years ago are strangely forgotten and it took the a major incident in the West for everyone to sit up and look at what is happening in terms of what the fastest growing faith is preaching. But then again the faith itself has been confused with politics which often has a hidden agenda to suit those in power. The extreme form of it is the most disturbing and when ethnicity overwhelms the logic of meritocracy, faith is then used to hide the truth. It is this that is fueling migration patterns from those countries that practise an extreme form of the faith to more liberal societies that encourages individualism. Not doubting history where faiths were of utmost good order depending on who is in power. One can therefore conclude that it is a power game, an ethnic game and a money game. Faith is often used to overcome resentment, jealousy and hatred - it is this that is most potent and most problematic for any civilised society to comprehend and manage.

    The inferiority complex of a society manifest itself in a faith that is manipulated to engineer a superior class of peoples. Most faiths are in essence of good substance, but the misinterpretation and the use of it for propaganda purposes to sway the masses can bring problems. Minority groups in the wake of a dominant faith can be rendered helpless unless there is a certain degree of pluralism acceptance.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 29, 2004
  20. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Very interesting, Orson.

    Let's not forget, however, that Christianity has a violent history also (Crusades, Reformation, Counter Reformation, etc.).

    Let's hope Islam will come into the 21st Century and be a truly peaceful religion.

    Let's also remember, however, that most followers of Islam are not violent people.

    Every religion has within its circles adherents of fanaticism.
     

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