Posted on 12/08/2015 4:26:04 AM PST by Montana_Sam
Islam is similar to Judaism in the importance it gives to legal interpretation. As one Muslim scholar put it, “Shariáh instructs man on how he should eat, receive visitors, buy and sell, slaughter animals, clean himself, sleep, go to the toilet, lead a government, practice justice, pray, and perform other acts of [worship].” Unlike Christianity in the West, where divisive debates often have focused on theological doctrines, in Islam the most important schools of thought reflect differences in jurisprudence. There are four main schools of law for Sunnis (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafií, and Hanbali schools) and one for Shiítes (Ja'fari). The main distinctions between these schools lie in divergent opinions about authoritative sources or roots of law. All accept the Qurán and the sunnah (Muhammad's example) as foundational but differ on the importance of consensus in collective scholarly reasoning (ijma) and individual analogical reasoning (qiyas). The most conservative school, Hanbali, tends to emphasize the Qurán and sunna and is suspicious of ijma and qiyas, while the most liberal, Hanafi, tends to emphasize qiyas and individual opinion.
(Excerpt) Read more at firstthings.com ...
Islam is like Judaism.
Lost me at the 4th word.
That’s gotta be a record.
Your choice. Parts of the article have little relationship to reality, especially the paragraph discussing jihad. But the description of the various schools of Islamic tradition is lucid and clarifies a few things that had been a muddle, at least for me.
Remember that the first given half of the koran plagiarized heavily from both the Bible and from Judaism so there will be similarities. The irony here - the very legal system Islam depends on - was in the half of the koran which mohammad declared superseded by the second half; thus, in a twist, making Islam without any law at all except as proclaimed in the second half - kill all infidels.
Original title:
Challenging Radical Islam
An explanation of Islam’s relation to terrorism and violence
by John A. Azumah
January 2015
The author appears to be a very canny muslim apologist.
Has a similar structure to Judaism, but the antithesis of it.
Judaism invented ethical monotheism that strives to help man become better than yesterday.
Islam invented unethical, pagan, barbaric monotheism to help man become worse than yesterday.
The time for “explanations” of Muslim terrorism has long since passed. It comes off now, not as an explanation, but as an excuse.
Explaining it doesn’t quell the damage that’s already been done, nor does it ease the fears of threats made for the future.
IF, terrorism is someday defeated, and the world returns to peace, only then will we have a propensity to gather around a table and listen to the scholar-babble of “explanations”.
Until then, the immediate threat needs to be handled in the quickest and most efficient manner possible.
I suspect that most of the article will be dismissed because it is not in accord with dogma
I suspect that most of the article will be dismissed because it is not in accord with dogma
The article IS in accord with liberal dogma. And it uses scholarly leftist reasoning to make the case that you can’t blame Islam on Islam.
People who think like this will get many innocent people killed.
But it is from First Things. What did you expect?
Interesting article, but I’d like to zero in on one point.
The author writes, “Those who argue that jihadi groups represent the ‘essence’ of Islam actually reflect a very Western way of thinking. Wittingly or unwittingly, they presume a scripturalist interpretation of Islam, imagining that we can explain Islamic terrorism by drawing a straight line between authoritative texts and the actions of jihadists. To prove their point, these Islam-is-the-problem critics tend to link specific acts of jihadi groups to a string of references from Islamic scripture, traditions, legal texts, and Muslim scholarly opinions. Perversely, this sola scriptura approach is no different from the jihadists’ own ‘Qur’an and sunna alone’ approach. The truth about religious lives is not so simple. The vast majority of Christians and Muslims don’t live by sola scriptura, or by Qur’an and sunna alone...”
The quran is not in the same league as any sayings or traditions in Islam. Nor is it analogous to Christian scripture, neither Old nor New Testament. Muslims regard the quran as a message direct from Heaven, not written by any human being. The illiterate Muhammad was merely the vehicle and is analogous to the Virgin Mary, via whom God conveyed His message. A pure (illiterate, virginal) vessel of the Word. In Christianity the message is the person of Jesus, in Islam the message is the quran. Imperfect humans made later contributions and all these are due honor but are not of themselves holy. Christians may interpret the scriptures, muslims may interpret the sunnah. But the perfection, the divinity of the quran, like the divinity of Jesus, is the core of the religion and beyond any discussion.
(For this reason, comparisons of the legitimacy of violence in the Bible with those in the quran are invalid.)
“The author appears to be a very canny muslim apologist.” BUMP
The universalism of Islam, in its all-embracing creed, is imposed on the believers as a continuous process of warfare, psychological and political, if not strictly military - The Jihad, accordingly, may be stated as a doctrine of a permanent state of war, not continuous fighting. - Majid Khadduri
http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/Articles/06winter/win-ess.pdf
OK. But. Adherence to Islam is a choice, strictly enforced. Whether the adherents pick and choose (cafeteria Muslims) or are strict interpretationalists is their choice, too. And either way they choose, bad things happen to all around them, and subsequently to themselves.
More BS.
Mr. Azumah writes as if he has read extensively in late Islamic literature but has not read the Koran or the Haditha.
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