Posted on 02/13/2008 4:42:27 AM PST by fweingart
There's an uproar in the U.K. over recent comments by the Archbishop of Canterbury that, given the country's growing and restive Muslim population, it is "unavoidable" that certain aspects of Islamic law would, at some point, have to be accepted in Britain.
What many Americans do not realize is that there's a concerted effort by some in the American Muslim community to move slowly in a similar direction right here in the United States.
While this effort is not necessarily about Sharia law, it is an attempt by some Muslim Americans to force the rest of us to enable their cultural and religious practices in the public sphere. Instead, they should be assimilating and abiding by general U.S. norms.
One of the front lines of this fight: footbaths.
Growing numbers of Muslims living in the United States are seeking to wash their feet in the sinks of public rest rooms. The foot-washing is part of wudu, the ritual ablutions a Muslim performs before the five prayer sessions he or she observes every day at intervals from morning till night. The ablutions can take several minutes and involve repeated washing or rinsing of the hands, mouth, nostrils, face, arms, forehead, hair, ears and, finally, the feet.
There is nothing wrong with a devout Muslim seeing it as his religious duty to wash his feet. I take no issue with the practice whatsoever.
But I do not accept the notion that large, primarily secular institutions - or society as a whole - should invest time and money building facilities expressly to make it easy for people to perform the ritual.
Yet that is precisely what is happening. Not surprisingly, it is universities - bastions of open-ended tolerance - that are on the leading edge of the trend. Last year, it was reported that the University of Michigan-Dearborn, where more than 10% of students are Muslim, announced it would install $25,000 foot-washing stations in a number of rest rooms.
In contemplating this, the school was following in the footsteps of other institutions including Stanford University, the University of Houston, Boston University, St. Cloud State University and the University of Minnesota at Duluth. Indeed, right here in New York, NYU is considering installing footbaths in the Islamic section of its planned interfaith center.
Somehow, the American Civil Liberties Union - normally given to howls of execration at the mere thought of a creche in any semipublic place at Christmastime - is not challenging any of this. Why? Because, it says, it's not a matter of religion but of "cleanliness and safety." Foot-washing in regular sinks can be a messy business. It can also be off-putting for non-Muslims who must use the sinks and rest rooms for ordinary purposes.
But the question of whether footbaths improve cleanliness and safety is beside the point. What is at issue is the extent of public accommodation of religion. And furthermore, while the Council on American-Islamic Relations is specifically recommending that Muslims perform their ablutions in rest room sinks, it turns out that elaborate foot-washing at every prayer time isn't even required under Muslim law.
Indeed, a perusal of Islamic Web sites reveals some flexibility regarding the washing - for example, simply wiping over the sock is sufficient, rather than soaking the bare foot.
But this seems not to matter to those who want to thrust Islamic practices into the public sphere or to the politically correct officials who refuse to draw the line.
Foot-washing done in public places, whether in sinks or footbaths, sets Muslims apart from larger society. Rather than facilitating that, we should ask members of the American Muslim community to adapt their behavior to the country in which they live.
No, for the most part, I don’t. There are exceptions and I’ll address one or two of them in a minute but the Quran is a blood-thirsty call for suppression of all other religions and the practitioners of Islam either comply OR or else they sit quietly and do not say a thing to condemn what the violent among them have done or espoused.
In many Muslim countries Muslims become enraged for any reason or for no reason at all and “lash out” at Christians, or Hindus, or whoever else is different from them. In Iraq, Sunnis lash out at Shites and Shites lash out at Sunnis. I’m not talking about a verbal disagreement; I’m talking about an Orgy of Violence using automatic weapons (AK-47s seem to be a favorite), and Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs), and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and Suicide Bombers (and sometimes the Suicide Bombers who don’t even know they are Suicide Bombers).
When this happens in the United States, Christian Ministers will condemn any who are wrong (even other Christian Churches) from the pulpits when they are wrong. Many have condemned the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church for their Protests at the Funerals of American Soldiers. I have heard one or two speak out condemning violence at Abortion Clinics because Americans believe in changing society through the legal process and the ballot box.
Now for the exceptions; the Iraqis went to the polls to vote for their new government and voted (remember their purple-stained fingers?) to establish a new government in spite of threats to murder them that came from Al Quaida using suicide bombers. There are Muslims in Iraq and in Afghanistan who are beginning to see that there are possibly some advantages to allowing their daughters to have some education. This does not apply to their wives but change is often incremental and any positive change is to be preferred to no positive change.
When Islam begins to change the way it treats it’s own people and when Islam begins to respect the rights of others to worship when and as they choose, I will resend my judgment of Islam as being a violent and blood-thirsty religion that is Satanically inspired. But not until there is such a change (and much more opposition voiced by the Muslims themselves)!
I don't believe muslims got anything from Jews!
I've never observed Jews washing out their noses or feet in a public place.
However, while away at school and while serving in the U. S. Army, I have observed Jews taking showers, shaving and brushing their teeth. Most muslims have no idea what a toothbrush is for.
Me - Hand in air, waving excitedly...
>I’ve never observed Jews washing out their noses or feet in a public place
I didn’t say that everything the Muslims engage in connected with their washings is Jewish. I believe the Jewish religion is the root that Islam borrowed from.
Do you disagree?
There are parts of the Koran that could be read that way (and many Muslims do). However, you could argue the same thing about the Old Testament.
I do not agree that the majority of Islam takes the viewpoint that you claim for it.
I just might have trouble distinguishing the foot-wash thingie from the urinal.
Oh, well ...
Mohammed plagerized the Old Testament (or Torah) taking entire sections and then managed to write in his unholy book, references to Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, et al.
There was no borrowing. The pervert just rewrote Holy Scripture.
The washing of nostrils and other body parts were, of course, added willy nilly to his abomination along with the other original parts about killing infidels until your blade wears out.
It is easy to mock any religion.
Christ never practiced anything Muslim.
Christ never practiced anything Muslim.
Why can’t they use the toilet? It’s more convenient, and it does the washing for you.
Sorry if I gored somebody's ox.
If witchcraft and satan worship can be considered a religion by the politically correct, then I guess the corrupt islam is a religion.
They could just put their feet or face in the toilet and flush away.
Some skinny ones might end up in the sewer, but then, oh well.
The 7th Chapter of Matthew says, “16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.” The majority of Islam either supports the actions of the ”evil fruit” or else they rarely ever open their mouths in protest of the actions of the evil ones in their midst!
There are some Muslims who do speak out against the evils that are done and taught by the main stream Muslim Imams in their midst (and most of them have been threatened with death so the majority of the Muslims remain silent). BLUF: the fact remains, “16 Ye shall know them by their fruits…” and I doubt that any good can come from a corrupt tree.
As for the good or the moderate or whatever else you want to call them Muslims, when they decide to stand up to the evil that has taken control of their Religion, I will listen. Until then, I’m sorry, but they still concern me!!!
I don't threaten them - they threaten me! I will not SUBMIT to them!!! If they want to live in peace, we can accommodate them but all of the suicide bombings around the world are perpetrated by Muslims! If they really want peace, they can have it but I refuse to live in subjugation to them!!!
So all Christianity should be damned because of the atrocities of the crusades?
And Jews should be damned for genocide?
I have read many of your responses, thus the content of my last post to you.
You are an apologist for the islamist agitators in our country. An enabler
When the islamist’s strike again, and history is very clear on that fact, since many will be killed in those strikes (nothing personal here) I hope it is the apologists who are killed first, and most.
That’s baloney!
You’re talking about Christian atrocities that occurred almost than 800 years ago and Hebrew atrocities that occurred nearly three millennia ago. I might also add that, according to Old Testament Scripture, they disobeyed God by not wiping out the indigenous peoples of Canaan when they moved into the area after the Exodus. If they’d done what He told them to, they might not be having troubles with the Palestinians today!
The Muslims kill dozens (and sometimes hundreds) of people a week in different places around the world. If you have difficulty accepting the validity of my assertion, might I suggest you look here; they do a remarkable job of documenting the murder and mayhem committed by Muslims around the globe.
The Christians have already undergone their “Reformation” and for the most part have “cleaned up their act”. The Jews – not all of them are Israeli – have undergone two thousand years of ruthless and brutal repression ending most recently with the Holocaust of World War II. Despite what the Holocaust Deniers would have you believe, the Holocaust really did happen. I’ve seen hundreds of photographs in the US Army Still Photo Library; it was too well documented in clear and gory detail to be propaganda. Further, there are still eye witnesses around – old but still credible – who saw the death camps and probably wish now that they hadn’t.
It’s time for all the Muslims who really do desire peace as you allege, to step forward and, as they say in the words of Star Trek “to go where no one has gone before”. Either the Muslims reject their heritage of murder and subjugation or we will eventually have to go to war in a very real sense to protect ourselves and our families and our nation from them.
Most of us in America, myself included, can live with anyone’s religion as long as that religion does not seek to intimidate and silence and ultimately to convert us to their perverted religion. They have every right to believe in their False God and their False Prophet and I have every right to reject their Nonsense…
By force of arms if necessary!!!
Yes.
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