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Lesson One for the modern Muslim: remember, this is not the 8th century
The Times Online ^ | September 12, 2005 | Salman Rushdie

Posted on 09/12/2005 10:40:59 AM PDT by radar101

A FEW weeks ago, in an article written in response to the London bombings, I wrote about the urgent need for a “reform movement to bring the core concepts of Islam into the modern age Naturally there were those who rushed to dismiss my arguments because they came out of my mouth. “The man who lost his personality and beliefs should not speak about the great religion of Islam,” wrote Anna Tanha, of Glasgow.

However, there was an encouraging flood of more positive commentary, much of it coming from Muslims. “Absolutely right; it is time Muslims accepted that it is Islam’s 8th-century attitudes that are causing so much suffering in the 21st-century world,” wrote Mohammed Iqbal, who comes from Leeds, home of three of the 7/7 bombers. “Please keep dogma aside and let reason be part of the debate. We believers have done enough to harm ourselves. What European monarchs and clergy did in the Dark and Middle Ages is exactly what Muslim rulers and clergy are doing to the Muslim world,” argued Nadeem Akhtar, from Washington, DC.

Reformed Islam would encourage diaspora Muslims to emerge from their self-imposed ghettoes. It would emerge from the intellectual ghetto of literalism and subservience to mullahs and ulema, allowing open, historically based scholarship to emerge from the shadows to which the madrassas and seminaries have condemned it.

There must be an end to the defensive paranoia that led some Muslims to claim that Jews were behind the 9/11 attacks and, more recently, that Muslims may not have been behind the 7/7 bombings either (a crackpot theory exploded by the recent al-Jazeera video).

Not so much a reformation, as several people said in response to my first piece, as an Enlightenment. Very well then: let there be light.

(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; United Kingdom; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: islam; jihad; modernizing; radicals
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1342083/posts.................................................... 02/12/2005 ......................................... RAN'S hardline Revolutionary Guards today said Salman Rushdie still faced eventual execution, 16 years after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini imposed a death sentence on the British novelist.
1 posted on 09/12/2005 10:41:01 AM PDT by radar101
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To: radar101

LMAO 9th century, how about?


2 posted on 09/12/2005 10:42:10 AM PDT by yldstrk (My heros have always been cowboys-Reagan and Bush)
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To: radar101

If we could drag these guys kicking nd screaming into the 12th century, it would be major progress.


3 posted on 09/12/2005 10:44:37 AM PDT by TBP
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To: radar101

It will take many years to reverse the trend of hatred their brain-washing has cultivated. I seriously doubt anyone in my generation (early 40's) will witness a reversal before our deaths.


4 posted on 09/12/2005 10:49:18 AM PDT by QwertyKPH (Non-profane tagline)
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To: radar101
"Absolutely right; it is time Muslims accepted that it is Islam’s 8th-century attitudes that are causing so much suffering in the 21st-century world," wrote Mohammed Iqbal

Iqbal = Arabic for "dead man walking"

5 posted on 09/12/2005 10:51:36 AM PDT by steve-b (A desire not to butt into other people's business is eighty percent of all human wisdom)
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To: radar101

Why bother? Vermin need to be exterminated not coddled.


6 posted on 09/12/2005 10:52:46 AM PDT by ncountylee (Dead terrorists smell like victory)
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To: ncountylee

They hate the West. Why are they here ?


7 posted on 09/12/2005 10:55:35 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks
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To: Eric in the Ozarks
"They hate the West. Why are they here ?"

To kill all of us!

8 posted on 09/12/2005 10:57:49 AM PDT by ncountylee (Dead terrorists smell like victory)
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To: TBP

If we could drag these guys kicking nd screaming into the 12th century, it would be major progress.
-----
Unfortunately for everyone, they have to be BLOWN UP into the 21st century.


9 posted on 09/12/2005 11:00:57 AM PDT by EagleUSA
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Comment #10 Removed by Moderator

To: radar101
Muslims may not have been behind the 7/7 bombings either (a crackpot theory exploded by the recent al-Jazeera video).

"The Joos" run al-Jazeera. They fill it with outrageous staged propaganda designed to confuse and incite the Muslim ummah. When the ummah respond, they look like fools and savages in the eyes of the civilized world.

al-Jazeera is a tool of "the Joos", and it's successfully keeping the ummah in a state of of ignorance, poverty, and humiliation.

11 posted on 09/12/2005 11:03:00 AM PDT by angkor
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To: EagleUSA

Yeah we now expect you to offer mankind SOMETHING..goods, services, peace...anything positive. Right now you are the takers, the whiners,the killers, the true anchor holding back mankind.


12 posted on 09/12/2005 11:03:37 AM PDT by samadams2000 (Pitchforks and Lanterns..with a smiley face!)
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To: radar101

Always remeber that Ishmeal (The first Arab) was raised as a Semite according to the Torah.


13 posted on 09/12/2005 11:04:22 AM PDT by zzen01
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To: TBP

I'd rather send them to allah and let him sort them out.


14 posted on 09/12/2005 11:09:42 AM PDT by zek157
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To: radar101
Churchill quote, coming up!

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property; either as a child, a wife, or a concubine; must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."

Sir Winston Churchill, from The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248 50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).

15 posted on 09/12/2005 11:26:01 AM PDT by Disambiguator (Making accusations of racism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.)
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To: radar101

They aren't even that far Sal.


16 posted on 09/12/2005 11:33:14 AM PDT by conservativecorner
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To: ncountylee

Islam must be destroyed, root and branch. It is a cult of death-worshippers. That's why the American Left makes common cause with midevalist religious fanatics.


17 posted on 09/12/2005 11:46:01 AM PDT by Noumenon (Activist judges - out of touch, out of tune, but not out of reach.)
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To: steve-b
Maybe that's why "moderate" Muslims don't speak out- they are scared of getting beheaded and skinned alive. A Muslim joining the "infidel" cause is worse than an infidel to them.
18 posted on 09/12/2005 11:52:17 AM PDT by varyouga (Reformed Kerry voter (I know, I'm a frickin' idiot))
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To: radar101

Point 1. Salman Rushdie is a major-league jerk. We'd be better off ignoring him even when he agrees with us, not celebrating him because he's persecuted.


19 posted on 09/12/2005 12:12:10 PM PDT by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

If we would not have allowed them into the country we would have been accused of religious bigotry. Oh, the shame!


20 posted on 09/12/2005 12:12:57 PM PDT by auburntiger (Socialism is Tyranny disguised as Benevolence.)
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