I've read your webpage and your posts here. I find your comments very interesting, and well informed.
I also am in total agreement that people such as Ahmadinejad, Bin Laden and other extremists are very dangerous and need to be dealt with accordingly.
I have the following questions and would appreciate your thoughts:
1. What are your views regarding 'suicide' in Islam?
2. Does Islam advocate or condone the ‘deliberate’ killing of women, children and other Muslims or innocents, be it infidels, even during a jihad? (Is this similar to what we would call collateral damage?)
3. What do you think should be done to deal with this crisis? For example, should we annihilate approx 1.3 billion Muslims and eradicate Islam? Should we try to convert Muslims to some other religion or doctrine? Should we hold those current extremist Muslim leaders accountable for their interpretation, teaching and incitement of hatred and violence? Should we point out to all Muslims that their religion is one big bogus and a satanic cult?
I am not taking a position here, but I am simply asking because, IMO, we in the West do not need a great of convincing that atrocities have occurred and, quite rightly, have led to a great deal of fear. Especially post 9/11 and given the current situation with Iran and its delusional leader. I am genuinely interested in your thoughts regarding practical and effective solution(s).
It's late so I'm just going to answer off the top of my head from memory rather than look things up carefully. I also think that you are asking the wrong person these questions. I am not an expert on Islam in general or on terrorist ideology and their Qur'anic interpretation. I am an "armchair researcher" on the slice of Muslim doctrine regarding the Last Days, just from studying this topic after 9/11. But I'll answer as best I can.
The terrorist imams easily get around the ban on suicide in a number of ways: by declaring the whole anti-West jihad to be in self defense, by simply declaring that it is not suicide but killing the enemy in a way that ends one's own, etc. They are experts at word jugglery to prove whatever they want from the Qur'an and Hadith.
2. Does Islam advocate or condone the ‘deliberate’ killing of women, children and other Muslims or innocents, be it infidels, even during a jihad? (Is this similar to what we would call collateral damage?)
Normal Islam -- no. But there was a terrorist "fatwa" a couple of years ago that simply declared that any Muslim collaborating with the West was a munafiq, a hypocrite, and was no better than an infidel. Those women and children standing too close to a US soldier are presumed to be collaborators.
3. What do you think should be done to deal with this crisis? For example, should we annihilate approx 1.3 billion Muslims and eradicate Islam? Should we try to convert Muslims to some other religion or doctrine? Should we hold those current extremist Muslim leaders accountable for their interpretation, teaching and incitement of hatred and violence? Should we point out to all Muslims that their religion is one big bogus and a satanic cult?
Personally, I think Pres. Bush is following the most promising program. Pursue the active jihadists and try to thin their ranks, but also try to bring democratic capitalism to the Middle East, and give the common people a FUTURE to hope for and to work toward. Educate the girls, and free the women from the strict interpretations of shar'ia.
I could dream of some movement for mass conversions, but as a practical matter, that is not going to happen any time soon. But what can happen is for the moderate Muslims to get the financial and moral support to marginalize the extremists. And that seems to me to be far preferable to a bloodbath.
If it were up to me, I'd probably throw some money toward the Sufis, and help them try to just convert as many Sunnis and Shi'ites as possible to that much more peaceful branch.
But if we can start by helping the tyranized masses become self-governing and get them to trust the West, maybe after years of communication some of them might learn what Christianity really is and come around. But that would be way in the future. We're at the early years of a long war right now.
Muhammed 'Abd-al-Salam Faraj, one of the assassins of Anwar Sadat, wrote a booklet called "The Neglected Duty" which has had profound influence on Islamic terrorism since the early 1980s. The "neglected" duty is jihad, Faraj says -- jihad is demanded by the Qur'an but most Muslims just go about their day going to work and raising their kids.
Faraj goes on to "explain" how jihad is not merely the inner struggle against worldly temptation, but must be also understood as the killing of infidels and moderate Muslims. Muslims who neglect jihad, he says, are no better than infidels. He justifies all sorts of actions against anybody in his way. Faraj's reasoning is completely twisted, but the booklet has been published and republished throughout the Muslim world.
One scholar, Johannes Jansen, published an English translation and commentary in 1986, but Macmillan stupidly has let it go out of print and has not republished it to this day. If your library has a copy, definitely read it. If you have any pull with Macmillan, ask them to get it in the bookstores again.