Conservatives Fight Over Islam

NewsMax.com ^ | Feb. 20, 2003 | Wes Vernon

[justshe]

Smarty!

[TLBSHOW]

Grover Norquist is the subject of this thread and a major problem, thanks ImpBill you win the award.

[Chapita]

*******************"But that seems to happen all to often on FR these days when anything pops up that could cast a shadow on the GW Presidency."*********************************************************************************

Sneakypete is contemporary proof of that!

[ImpBill]

Now that put a smile on my face. LOL. Thanks for lightening things up a bit. Have a great evening.

[Thorondir]

I do trust one of them, my dear friend Tarek Atwan, for whom I would do almost anything. The others--well, I don't know. They seem like such nice people. One of them is an old friend (perhaps more of an honored acquaintance). Tarek is an old student of mine and the third is a student right now.

Well, ma'am (sorry about the 'sir' thing), it is my firm belief that the terrorists are the real muslims and the peaceful ones are not strictly following their faith. This belief comes from reading the defining documents of their religion and an open-eyed contemplation of their machinations throughout history.

What more can I say?

One of us is right and the other is wrong to some degree. I sincerely hope and wish that you are right and I am wrong, but experience and study points my mind to the contrary of that hope and wish.

Peace, my lady.

[Thorondir]

P.S. Justshe is not a he....but a she

As the years progress, it becomes more and more difficult to see those tiny little letters on the CRT.

[cyncooper]

As the years progress, it becomes more and more difficult to see those tiny little letters on the CRT.

I understand. I find nearsighted self peering over my glasses to read fine print. Doctor says I'm not ready for bi-focals---yet.

[Thorondir]

I can't peer over my contacts.

[justshe]

Same to you, sir. And thank you for the reasonable discussion.

[Skatergal]

OK, back on the subject. I'd like to try to bring this thread back to facts. Not that there really have been any so far.

"Grover is with terrorist groups." OK, name one. Then when you're done, name where you got the information.

The Secret Service investigated him and he is in jail. No? hmmmm. Seems they would seeing he's at the White House all the time bringing terrorists past Karl Rove and the President, who seem, by implication, to be quite out to lunch.

The Treasury raided his operation and he is in jail. No? hmmm. Seems everyone thinks he is getting money from terrorists. Paul O'Neill used to have dinner at his house, you'd think he would have noticed something odd. Like Burkas hanging in the closet maybe.

I find this thread extremly distrurbing. Like him or not, here is a man who has done much to elect Bush 1 and Bush 2, more Congressmen and Senators than you can count - not to mention state legislators and governors, pushed tax cuts, pushed free trade, taken the unions on full force for stealing money out of members' paychecks, worked with Jews, Christian righters, Blacks, Hispanics, gays, pro-lifers, pro-choices, given support and money to state policy groups, flown all over the country to give speeches to anyone who asks - for FREE (yes, my group has benefited from that) and because he pulled Moslem voters into the fold BEFORE 9-11 and started a freemarket DOMESTIC Moselm operation, he must be terrorist.

Why? Because Gaffney who now has nothing to do now that we are in the midst of a pro-defense, pro-missile defense administration is attacking him. Why doesn't someone ask Gaffney why he has turned the Center for Security Policy into the Center for Moslem bashing and WHO FUNDS HIM?

I also wonder how many of you are public figures and would enjoy have your patriotism and idealogy smashed to ribbons after dedicating your life to this country and the conservative movement?

[Skatergal]

OK, back on the subject. I'd like to try to bring this thread back to facts. Not that there really have been any so far.

"Grover is with terrorist groups." OK, name one. Then when you're done, name where you got the information.

The Secret Service investigated him and he is in jail. No? hmmmm. Seems they would seeing he's at the White House all the time bringing terrorists past Karl Rove and the President, who seem, by implication, to be quite out to lunch.

The Treasury raided his operation and he is in jail. No? hmmm. Seems everyone thinks he is getting money from terrorists. Paul O'Neill used to have dinner at his house, you'd think he would have noticed something odd. Like Burkas hanging in the closet maybe.

I find this thread extremly distrurbing. Like him or not, here is a man who has done much to elect Bush 1 and Bush 2, more Congressmen and Senators than you can count - not to mention state legislators and governors, pushed tax cuts, pushed free trade, taken the unions on full force for stealing money out of members' paychecks, worked with Jews, Christian righters, Blacks, Hispanics, gays, pro-lifers, pro-choices, given support and money to state policy groups, flown all over the country to give speeches to anyone who asks - for FREE (yes, my group has benefited from that) and because he pulled Moslem voters into the fold BEFORE 9-11 and started a freemarket DOMESTIC Moselm operation, he must be terrorist.

Why? Because Gaffney who now has nothing to do now that we are in the midst of a pro-defense, pro-missile defense administration is attacking him. Why doesn't someone ask Gaffney why he has turned the Center for Security Policy into the Center for Moslem bashing and WHO FUNDS HIM?

I also wonder how many of you are public figures and would enjoy have your patriotism and idealogy smashed to ribbons after dedicating your life to this country and the conservative movement?

[Frankie Fiveangels]

bump!

[Askel5]

It's sad, isn't it?

I wish we could rewrite the "mission statement" of FR to more closely reflect its intent.

[Southern Federalist]

Thanks for the link to Shaykh Palazzi, whom I knew about, but did not know that he was at odds with Kabbani in this way. I don't know enough to know quite what to make of it, but a few observations:

I've noticed that the Muslims outside the Wahhabi block seem to fight among themselves a lot. I have seen on another Palazzi-connected site that I can't locate his responses to very similar sounding charges against himself from other Muslim groups. But I wonder if this sort of quarrel isn't fairly common among Muslim scholars and how much effect it has on the average Muslim.

Palazzi's dispute with Kabbani, as far as I've been able to tell, in examples like this, doesn't seem all that obviously profound. Palazzi's charges have to do with "anthropomorphism," which would seem to me to be an easy thing to get accused of in Islam. And I can certainly understand how someone who was trying to develop the "ecumenical" potential of Sufism could look to other Muslims, even to other Sufis, as though he had crossed the line into New Age. Indeed, it would be easy to do it.

Palazzi's hostility to Kabbani seems in the end to have less to do with Kabbani himself and more to do with an older controversy over the teaching of Nazim al-Qubrusi, Kabbani's mentor. According to this article, Nazim's version of Sufism is indebted to Central Asian traditions, which are apparently also linked to the Sufism of the Balkans. Kabbani seems from what I can tell to have significant credibility among Muslims in those parts of the world, except, of course, for the local Wahhabi infiltrators. I've read that Stephen Schwartz, whose chief experience of Islam has been in the Balkans, is a member of Kabbani's group of Sufis.

I don't know which branch of Sufism Palazzi represents (I think he's a Sufi of some sort), or what its background is, but it would be interesting to know. My impression is that there is just no consensus on what Islam is, even among those Muslims who are sanely resolved that it should not be Wahhabism, and that a kind of competition among them is being reflected here.

Just Googling on Kabbani, it seems to me that the hostility to him among Muslims has very little to do with theological niceties and a great deal to do with Wahhabis who just hate Sufis. Most of the attacks mention his "deviations" as typical of Sufism. Would the kind of charges Palazzi make damage Kabbani's credibility all that much if he were not the object of continual Wahhabist vituperation in the "mainstream Muslim" press? That would be a problem for any genuinely moderate Muslim as long as the mosques are Wahhabi-dominated and the likes of CAIR are accepted as public voices for American Muslims.

Just as a matter of interest, in this article, Shaykh Palazzi seems to take a different view of Kabbani's statement at the State Department, than in the article you cite. He repeats his charge that Kabbani's group is a non-Islamic sect, but compliments his truthfulness and courage.

Thanks for your reply, which made me think and push a little deeper.

[TLBSHOW]

ping

[truth_seeker]

"Norquist says Islamic Institute “was formed to promote within the Muslim world the fact that the Koran and Islam are perfectly consistent with a free and open society.” "

Could the good Mr. Norquist give me several examples, of real countries today, rules by the Koran and Islam, which are free and open?

I didn't think so. Case closed.

[TLBSHOW]

bump