Conservatives Dispute Bush Portrayal of Islam as Peaceful

washington post ^ | 11/30/02

[knak]

President Bush finds himself in a rare disagreement with conservatives in his party over his efforts to portray Islam as a peaceful religion that is not responsible for anti-American terrorism.

In a score of speeches since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the president has called for tolerance of Muslims, describing Islam as "a faith based upon peace and love and compassion" and a religion committed to "morality and learning and tolerance."

[jla]

One thing I do agree with you about: your comments about nuking Mecca and writing in the sky do indeed sound childish.

Ma'am, you're a very intelligent woman, as I've read many of your posts here.
If you were told, in 1999, that the Twin Towers would cease to exist a/c Islamic terrorists flying hijacked airliners into them would you have brushed this off as "childish"?

And don't discount Israel ever targeting Mecca with nuclear weapons. Funny thing about the Jews...they've a long history of not only surviving, but leaving their mark.

[jla]

I hope and pray it doesn't come to that.

[foreverfree]

bump for later

[Chancellor Palpatine]

You are loathsome. You admire Hitler, who tried to exterminate an entire race, and call for a Cristallnacht here.

I'm going to do you the favor of reporting your post to the FBI, who WILL get around to visiting you, just to have a talk.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Let me tell you what I expect of Muslims.

Here, I expect them to be Americans first, I didn't see Americans demonstrating in the streets after 9/11 demanding a total war on Islam, as a matter of fact, I have only seen Americans in the streets protesting the World Bank, but you expect Muslims worldwide to express the outrage that we didn't bother to express?

I expect American Muslims to stand ready to defend this nation when the time comes, to fight for America, to live under and obey the laws of this nation, and in all things, in times of war, to wait for the lead from our Commander in Chief before taking any sort of action.

I expect this of all Americans.

I expect Muslims overseas to help America find the people responsible for the attacks of 9/11 and other attacks, I expect them to prosecute anyone who kidnapps, murders or otherwise harms innocent people in the name of Allah and Islam, and I expect them to take sides.

Let me also tell you what disgusts me about this whole thing, the "Christians" in here calling for genocide in the name of our Lord and Savior.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"In case you have not noticed, Islam has declared war on you."

They have?

You are right, I must have missed that.

You must have miseed this:

By Mohammad Gamal Arafa, IOL Cairo Correspondent

CAIRO, June 20 (IslamOnline) - Leaders of the Egyptian Islamic Jama’a, jailed in the heavily guarded Tora prison, denounced the September 11 attacks as a sin, and said they had been mistaken in their 90s’ clash with the government, confirming they owed the Egyptian people an apology.

“We will not only present an apology, but have also seriously considered granting recompense to the families of the victims of previous wars, from the sale revenues of our book ‘Reviews of The Thoughts of Previous Jama’as,” Karam Zuhdi, the current leader of the Jama’a, told Makram Mohammad Ahmed, editor-in-chief of state-run weekly Al-Musawar, in an interview to be published Friday, June 21.

The apology was endorsed by Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, spiritual leader of Egyptian Islamic Jama’a, who is now in the U.S.

Zuhdi revealed that he made a number of tours to different Egyptian prisons to explain “Reviews” and what a mistake - from the viewpoint of Islamic Shari’a - it was to clash with the government.

The government in Egypt has released thousands of Jama’a prisoners, who are all committed to the 1997 non-violence initiative.

The Islamic Jama’a leaders denied they had any links with Osama bin Laden, emphasizing he was only linked to the Egyptian Jihad movement with which they differ in the ideology of renouncing violence.

Zuhdi said the September 11 attacks are illegal and a sin from the Islamic viewpoint, if it were indeed Muslims who carried out the attacks.

Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman endorsed the Jama’a’s apology

“Killing tradesmen is haram [illegal], and the World Trade Center was full of tradesmen,” he said. “It is also haram to kill innocent women, children, and elderly people. There were more than 600 Muslims in the WTC, and they were killed with the others.”

“Those were all innocent lives who died there, and Bin Laden will answer for their murder before God - if indeed he is to blame for the attacks,” Zuhdi added.

[Luis Gonzalez]

If Islam has declared war on anyone, they have declared it on Israel.

So, why hasn't Israel called down the thunder on all of Islam?

Could it be because they are sufficiently intelligent to understand that Holy War is the goal of the extremists?

Could it be because they do not wish to be manipulated and goaded into war by people like bin Laden and others?

[Admin Moderator]

No.

[Wonder Warthog]

"So much for ramming Islam down everyone's throat."

BWAHAHAHAHA! Oh sure. Of course, Islam has been ramming itself down people's throats by conquest since Mohammed founded it, but THAT, in your feeble mind, doesn't mean anything. History is against your point of view.

[TLBSHOW]

Islam is the enemy, not Miss Marple. Islam is not Peace, but a hate cult of death!

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Thank you.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"Over the past year, numerous criticisms have been made that Muslim leaders and organizations have not been outspoken enough in denouncing the violence and horror of September 11, 2001. Muslims are constantly perplexed by this accusation, as we have heard nothing but unequivocal and unified condemnations by the leaders of our community, both in the United States and worldwide. But for some reason, people are not listening."

"For the record, the inhuman attacks of September 11 have been condemned in the strongest terms by virtually all Islamic leaders, organizations, and countries. The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia summarized, "...hijacking planes, terrorizing innocent people and shedding blood, constitute a form of injustice that cannot be tolerated by Islam, which views them as gross crimes and sinful acts."

Source.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

I'm wondering if TLBSHOW ever took the time to read those.

[mikenola]

Now, the Suez should full of US warships lobbing shells on the cities of the region.

Man I like the sound of that!

But seriously , conservatives did not contstruct this civilization clash, the Islamic primitives did. Their leaders have declared war on our civilization, just as clearly and openly as Hitler, The Japanese , etc, did. How much more evidence does the world need? Sheesh.

[tomkat]

In fact it is lying, and it makes me sick!

agreed.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"Yes, you are given the choice between Islam or death."

Try actually reading the Koran instead of just listening to the propagandists and sloganists in here.

[2:256] There is no compulsion in religion; truly the right way has become clearly distinct from error; therefore, whoever rejects Satan (and what he calls to) and believes in Allah, he indeed has laid hold on the firmest handhold, which shall not break off, and Allah is Hearing, Knowing.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Here's a post by FReeper Southern Federalist that you might find informative:

To: Luis Gonzalez

Long time no see, Luis. Still wading into the thick of it, I'm glad to see.

There are sure enough some people with nasty mouths on this thread, but heck, I just defended increasing military aid to Israel on another thread, so what have I got to lose? I'm going to lay out some thoughts, basically on your side of this, but let me serve notice: I don't have your patience and I am not going to answer anybody who responds with the kind of ugly talk you've been getting.

A small points: 1 billion, 2 billion - on your original point, the folly of going to war with [fill in the blank] billion people, it hardly makes much difference. Either way it's a whole bunch of people to be fighting.

I am a Protestant Christian, and I don't believe that Islam is a path to salvation. That doesn't mean that I claim to know who will be saved in the end; but whoever turns up in the Kingdom of Heaven will be there, I believe, because of Jesus, not because of anything or anyone else.

However, I don't think that it follows from that belief that Islam is pure evil. There is such a thing as God's providence, and it can do all sorts of complicated stuff. Providence can do amazing things with the most flawed material; it can use the most unlikely instruments to provide earthly blessings.

Greek paganism wasn't the way of salvation either, but God blessed the world with beauty and insight through the Greeks. Do those who think that because Islam is not Christianity, it is necessarily demonic also want to burn all the works of the pagan demon-worshipers Plato and Homer and Aeschylus?

Is Islam the way of salvation? No. Is it better for the world, in this life, that people not be pagans but believe, even wrongly, in one God who will judge our deeds in the end? Possibly - depends on circumstances.

No system of belief and practice that was all Taliban, all the time, could have lasted this long and won the loyalty of so many people. Radical Islamists are fighting human nature, not trying to redeem it, and that simply doesn't work in the long run. If that were all there was to Islam, it would have been powerful for about the length of time Soviet Communism was powerful, another ideology that made war on human nature.

There is no question that Islamic theology justified war and conquest for Muslim leaders through the centuries. But what did military jihad mean to the average Muslim villager in the Middle East or India or Central Asia during that period? Very little. The vast majority of Muslims in history, especially after the first couple of centuries, were never near a jihad. Islam for them was a moral and social code, a way of living, that "worked" in the sense that it held together communities in which human beings could live and work and deal with one another. In other words, communities unlike Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

Furthermore, whatever some of our friends insist the Koran really says, it is indisputable that mainstream Muslims have had different views on all the present-day questions through the centuries. There are old Islamic communities in Central and East Asia that have been far from obsessed with the letter of sharia. Sufism has been extremely influential through centuries in shaping the piety of ordinary Muslims, and it clearly stresses the spirit over the letter.

So who exactly are we at war with? Are we at war, for example, with the US-based Sufi Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani of the Islamic Supreme Council of America, who urges US Muslims to be patriotic Americans as a religious duty, and supports the separation of Church and state? Kabbani has been warning against Islamist extremism for years, and has been the object of a concerted smear campaign by CAIR and all the other lovely groups on which he blew the whistle. His organization has a whole section on their webpage denouncing and exposing Islamism.

Or are we at war with Khaled Abou El Fadl, the great Muslim legal scholar whose life has been threatened repeatedly by the Islamofascists and their sympathizers?

These men do not represent modernist or marginal streams of Islam. Sheikh Kabbani is the American leader of an old and venerable Sufi order. Abou El Fadl is not a "liberal" Muslim, as the New Republic headline read, but a representative of one of the major traditional schools of Islamic theology and legal interpretation.

Islam has enormous problems dealing with the modern world, but there is reason to think that the sheer quantity of Saudi oil money spent propagating the Wahhabi cult has played a big role in pushing those problems to crisis levels. Wahhabis hate Sufis and traditional Islamic scholarship; their idea of an interpreter of Islam is a power-hungry hater like Bin Laden, an engineer who knows squat about Islamic tradition, but writes manifestos and makes tapes and promotes the blind rage against reality which Wahhabism makes the essence of Islam.

It's good to cross your path again. I have had to reduce my FR time recently, and only write a couple of posts a week these days. Have a great Thanksgiving!

314 posted on 11/26/2002 0:25 AM EST by Southern Federalist

[GeekDejure]

"Slay them wherever ye catch them and turn them out from where they have turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; ... Such is the reward of those who suppress faith !!!

And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression and there prevail justice and faith in Allah." "Justice," in the eyes of many ancient and modern Moslems, means the imposition of Koranic law !!!

"Faith" is understood to be FAITH IN ISLAM !!! Hence the passage instructs the pious to use slaughter to impose Koranic law and Islam, since slaughter is preferable to the continuance of non-Islamic codes and beliefs !!!

And you AGREE with this crap, Miss Marple ???

[TLBSHOW]

I wonder if you saw all those peaceful Islamers at the beauty show kill this week? I mean for no good reason, they just ran out of their cult meeting and killed people. Killed the Christians.

That is the problem, the Islam cult centers and the teachers of the cult.

[HangFire]

Purfect...thanks FC!