Posted on 09/13/2001 9:41:00 AM PDT by cantfindagoodscreenname
These ungodly acts are anathema to Islam
By M.K. Jasser
Sept. 13, 2001
As I watched the horror unfolding on the TV screen, the feeling of pain and sorrow was alternating with extreme anger.
Mass murder of innocent men, women and children, destruction and pillage, all in the name of what? To a Muslim American, the horror of it all is accentuated by the recurring use of the Islamic adjective in describing terrorist individuals or countries.
For a loyal and patriotic U.S. citizen, the whole thing is too hard to bear.
No individual, group of individuals, country or institution represents Islam. Islam is a religion represented only by a book, The Holy Koran. What is in the Koran is Islam and what is not in it, is not.
It is nearly impossible to get Western media to understand that. Western writers and reporters keep on going from one Muslim cleric to another for opinions on this issue or that, as they are used to doing in Christian circles.
The Koran states in no uncertain terms: "No clergy in Islam." The Koran speaks for itself.
"Jihad" is not defined in the Koran as holy war. There is no such a thing. Jihad means struggle. Struggle to make a living, struggle to survive, struggle to defend one's self, one's family or property. It is always defensive.
The Koran defines the ethics of war like no other religion. The non-combatants are absolutely protected in their selves, their homes and their property. During the Crusades, when the Crusaders targeted the religion of Islam itself in their attacks, a truce was declared when Richard the Lion Heart, the king of England, was wounded. Arab physicians treated his wounds; then the fighting resumed.
On suicide bombings and suicide operations, the Koran has the clear admonishment: "Do not ever throw yourselves into certain demise."
A Muslim who defines the time, place and instrument of his death, or the death of someone else, will never see heaven. In the entire history of the Islamic Arab and Ottoman empires there was never a single documented episode of a suicide mission.
In the Holy Koran it is stated: "He who kills a human being will be considered as if he killed all of mankind."
Actions by Muslims have little to do with Islam, while actions by Arabs have even less to do with Islam. Islam is frequently used and abused by both. It is not enough for Muslims to describe murderous operations, such as those that occurred on the morning of Sept. 11, in terms such as deplorable and unfortunate. This is the way I would describe a riot or other acts of lawlessness.
But actions of this depravity and wantonness, with the indiscriminate killing of innocent and totally uninvolved men, women and children, cannot fit those mild descriptions. These are anti-Islamic actions that defy and violate the rules of God and the very basic requirements of belonging to the human race.
Those who are responsible for such monstrous actions will burn in Hell forever in the next life. In this life they need to be hunted, captured and executed like the animals they are.
It is also necessary for us to remind those who rejoice and celebrate the murder of others, that by such rejoicing they will forever relinquish their entitlement to sympathy when they become victims themselves.
M.K. Jasser is a Phoenix cardiologist. He was born in Syria, which he left as a political refugee in 1967.
It wasn't the Jews that started this...anymore than it was us that that attacked first..
I dont care who or where someone worships..this is America..but I no longer want to see Muslims admitted to this country..I am sorry if that spounds raciest..but I no longer want to see Arab faces in my community..you are not safe to live around .May the men that planned this, carried it out or danced in the streets burn in hell!
[44.51] Surely those who guard (against evil) are in a secure place,Perversion of religion for power and evil is not a new thing. Misidentifaction of whom you should fight is not a new thing either.
[44.52] In gardens and springs;
[44.53] They shall wear of fine and thick silk, (sitting) face to face;
[44.54] Thus (shall it be), and We will wed them with Houris pure, beautiful ones.
[44.55] They shall call therein for every fruit in security;
[44.56] They shall not taste therein death except the first death, and He will save them from the punishment of the hell,
[44.57] A grace from your Lord; this is the great achievement.
[44.58] So have We made it easy in your tongue that they may be mindful.
[44.59] Therefore wait; surely they are waiting.
Like the Bible, people can get out of the Koran what they chose to, it doesn't necessarily mean that they understand the spirit of the book or the religion.
Lunatics like the monsters responsible for the World Trade Center slaughter may attempt to use religion to veil their purposes, but the real reasons for their actions are cultural, societal and political.
Muslims believe in the same God as Christians and Jews. They respect the same prophets. They differ from Christians in that regard Christ as a Holy Prophet, not the Son of God. They don't worship Mohammad, they only worship God (Allah), whom they view from an uncompromisingly monotheistic perspective, unlike Christians who struggle with the concept of one God and the Trinity.
They believe Mohammad is the Seal of the Prophets, the last of God's Prophets and his message as the final message to convert. In very many ways, Islam in its strict morality is to be much admired as a religious faith.
Just as the case in most other religious faiths, Islam has its share of fanatics and unfortunately most Americans have been exposed to this type of individual in the media, in the news headlines and most unfortunately and recently in personal experience.
Islam regards Christians and Jews as "People of the Book" and apart from idolaters who worship false gods. As an American and Christian, I hope we are able to identify, hunt down and destroy ALL those individuals responsible for this dispicable act, INCLUDING the ROGUE governments who have aided and abetted them.
As an American and Christian, I hope we have the ability, knowledge, and decency to distinguish between the individuals who perpetrated this dispicable act and the many decent American Muslims who live among us. We owe this to them, as well as to the principles upon which this great Republic was founded.
If these subhuman terrorists allow us to let our need for revenge against innocent blood drag us down to their level, they will have succeeded in their purpose, and our fellow-citizens will have died in vain.
See my posts #33 and 49 above. I haven't "misidentified" anything or anybody. Maybe you should read through a post before you shoot from the hip.
"The Crusaders went on a rampage through Jerusalem, killing all whom they encounteredf, Moslems and Jews. (Before the siege, when news of the approach of the Crusaders had reached Iftikhar, he had ordered all Christians to leave.) The remaining Jews sought refuge on this Sabbath eve in their central synagogue. The Crusaders set fire to the building and all perished." p. 176, Jerusalem, Sacred City of Mankind, A History of Forty Centuries, By Teddy Kollek & Moshe Pearlman.
It sounds like massacre to me. Yes the Crusades were a reaction against the abuses of the Seljuks, Turkish invaders, but the Fatimids re-established authority of Jerusalem and they were more tolerant, but it was too late, the 1st Crusaders were on their way.
Don't forget that one of the Crusades was against the people of Southern France. The Cathars or Albigensis. The locals loved these people and refused to attack them, as ordered by the Pope, thus when the Pope offered the land of the killed, as booty, many came and attacked from the region which is now Germany. It was an appalling massacre, which went on for years and established the beginning of the Inquisition.
"Saladin behaved with the utmost chivalry and generosity, granting clemency to the actions of the Christian inhabitants and sparing the churches - in stark contrast to the actions of the Crusaders upon their capture of the city eight years earlier." P. 185, Same Book As Above.
And don't forget Cyrus, the founder of the new Persian empire, who "...from the very beginning offered cultural autonomy to his heterogeneous subjects; respected - and gave protection to - their creeds and customs; and, where possible, entrusted their administration to one of their own leaders ..." He helped any Jews who wished to return to Jerusalem and helped pay for the rebuilding of the city and the Temple in Jerusalem.
Yes we are under attack by some evil people, but don't lose a sense of what our country stands for. Don't condemn or attack anyone solely based on their religion. There are evil men in all religions and there are enlightened men in all.
Sir, we only need to look to Ireland to see terrorism from a Christian group. These acts are politically motivated for all the time-honored reasons: autonomy, freedoms, land, livelihood, and money.
Read something from Getrude Bell's diaries of 1919 to find some of the early conflicts between the European zionists and the local Arab peoples, who had ruled the region for 1,400 years. Miss Bell was a key player working for the British Intelligence and quite influential with Lawrence of Arabia.
After WWI, the British were giving loans to the Arabs, impoverished from the war, from helping the British fight the Ottoman Turks. These were loans to help them to buy land. Some Zionist bankers from London complained and these loans were stopped.
Look at a map of Palestine, circa, 1922 and look at a map of Israel today and see who controls what land. This is all political wrangling over land, power and livelihood.
If you lost your homeland to outsiders you should and would fight for it. Fighting in the Middle East has been around for seven millenia. The recent mess can be traced to the League of Nations' Mandate, to the British, to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine. We have been sucked into this conflict and supported Israel. But given our media's bias I don't think the American people have received the whole story, or how else could you explain a whole generation unaware of the massacre of 9 million people in the Ukraine only 70 years ago?? Consider this, we all know the horrors of the Holocaust of WWII, but how many Americans know of the Artificial Famine of 1932 in the Ukraine? It has been estimated that upwards of 9 million people died directly and indirectly from this progrom, 25% of Ukraine's total population. It was covered up by the New York Times' reporter, Walter Duranty, he denied the whole thing, outright lied! And the New York Times has never offered an apology nor a retraction. Perhaps this was covered up because the coordinator of this was a man called Lazar Kaganovitch, who happened to be Jewish. He was sent by Stalin to oversee the collectivisation of the farmland. The farmers were resisting and Starvation was the best solution. Thus we can see some reason for the New York Times' reaction to these events. Now, isn't it a bit incredible that such a heinous event, involving millions of deaths, is unheard of in the U.S.? This is just by way of introducing the extreme bias in effect in the U.S. media, not to disparage any religion. Like any group, the Jews have their saints and opposite. Don't judge a group by some few individuals or a group or nation responding to political forces at a particular period in history.
Now that all being said, we were attacked and we must respond and make all parties pay fully for their acts. But we must remember we are Americans, not Israelis. Their mess and fight is theirs. We would be more enlightened if our press was not so myopic when it comes to these issues. There are moderates in the Islamic world, but after the heinous acts of 9/11, I only saw three top officials from Israel interviewed on CNN and BBC. These were 5 to 10 minute talks, but I didn't see any talk given by an Islamic Moderate, only Arafat's 1 minute statement. And then the repeated playing of the Palestinian kids and that idiotic woman, jumping up and down. So access to Islamic moderates is denied to the American sheeple and they are forever imprinted with a vision of a few idiots and some children jumping up and down; almost as bad as a few of the immediate posts I saw on FR about "Nuking Mecca" or "attacking all Muslims." Wouldn't we be embarrassed here at FR if CNN and BBC picked up on these few emotional responses from a handful of shallow people and played them over and over again!
Meant to say, "Don't judge a Religion by some few ..."
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