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“Allahu Akbar,” several audience members yelled as Ayaan Hirsi Ali took the stage Tuesday night. “That means God is great,” she responded. “I’m not going to say God is great.”
The highly anticipated and controversial speaker of the University of Wisconsin’s Distinguished Lecture series, Hirsi Ali, is a Muslim woman who fled her home country of Somalia and devoted her life to speaking against Islamic doctrine and what she calls the “sanctioned abuse of women.”
University of Wisconsin Muslim Student Association President Rashid Dar had previously said MSA was not in support of bringing Hirsi Ali to campus because of her openly anti-Islamic agenda.
“If she would have her way, everyone will leave the theater thinking Islam is evil,” Dar said.
About 1,300 UW students, faculty and community members were ushered through metal detectors and past armed police as they entered the Memorial Union Theatre Tuesday night, a process which delayed the event more than an hour.
She began her story by telling how she ran from an Islamic traditional arranged marriage, finding refuge in an academic community in Holland where she published papers openly critical of Islam and the Islamic community, specifically regarding the oppressive and abusive treatment of women.
“Because of my work there, my life was threatened and continues to be threatened,” Hirsi Ali said.
In November 2004, the controversial nature of her messages came to a front when the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was working on a film with Hirsi Ali criticizing the treatment of women in Islam, was murdered in the streets of Holland.
Shot and beheaded, van Gogh was left in the street with an explicit death threat for Hirsi Ali stabbed into his chest.
Integral to her academic and subsequent pursuits is the idea that the basic principals of western democracy are inherently incompatible with Islamic ideology.
She added rather than offset Islam against Christianity, as is most common, it is perhaps more appropriate to offset it with the Western political theories of liberal democracy.
She went on to say violence against women in the Islamic world is systemic and written into the religious texts that are also used as state law in some countries.
It is this ideology Hirsi Ali said that has led to widespread Islamic acceptance and practice of violence against women.
“I’m not talking about Muslims, but Islamic doctrine, that the rules, the laws, the values that are espoused in there are hostile to women, and when they are practiced we see terrible things happen to women,” Hirsi Ali said in an interview with The Badger Herald.
Such things are not unique to the Muslim world Hirsi Ali said. She referenced an incident in Texas where a Muslim father killed two of his daughters because they were in relationships with American boys.
When Hirsi Ali asked the audience who had heard of the tragedy, she counted six raised hands, which she said evidences the pervasive western idea that Islam is beyond the same scrutiny and criticism given to western religious political theories.
“I would like to start in Wisconsin, the idea that it is okay to scrutinize this Islamic theology, … Scrutinize it, question it and treat it like any other religion or political theory. It’s okay to question this and that’s where change begins,” Hirsi Ali said in the interview.
Not all in attendance were complicit to Hirsi Ali’s message, however.
UW constitutional law professor Asifa Quraishi cautioned audience members during a question and answer period not to take Hirsi Ali’s message as the whole story.
Just as American constitutional law cannot be reduced to specific controversial laws, Quraishi said neither can Hirsi Ali’s message.
“I advise all of us to take a pause and think that maybe there is a little bit more to this story than we have heard tonight,” Quraishi said.
Lt. Jason Whitney of UW Police Department said while there were security concerns, there were no serious problems.
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Thanks for posting the speech and Q and A later. I had a backpack and heard they wouldn’t let me in so I left. It’s too bad that she has to have such huge security and precautions just to state her opinion that the treatment of women in that culture is vile. But as long as she stays safe. Good for her for speaking her mind.
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It’s time to stop the foolishness of political correctness when it comes to the Muslim “faith”. It’s a doctrine of evil. It embraces horrific acts against women and “infidels” (all those not Muslim). Muslims who don’t embrace this evil simply aren’t in tune with the published doctrines of their own faith.
Not all Muslims are terrorists. However, all terrorists are Muslim.
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Not true that all terrorists are Muslim. This is a breathtakingly uneducated statement. Abortion doctors are periodically slaughtered in the United States by Christian terrorists, and Palestinians are mowed down in Gaza by an Israeli regime deemed terrorist by nearly every world nation except the United States and Israel. Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, was sure as hell not a Muslim, despite very eccentric right-wing attempts to link him to Islam.
And for that matter, terrorism is nothing new to the United States. The largest bioterrorist attack in our history was conducted by followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, an areligious, New Age Indian cleric; in 1984, members of a Rajneeshee commune infected salad bars throughout Oregon with salmonella bacteria, infecting more than 700 people. Their goals were explicitly political in nature. This was not a Muslim sect, notably — it was a New Age sect representing many of the under-articulated “secular-spiritual” values offered by foolish idealists as an alternative to monotheistic religion.
Unless you define terrorism as any violent targeting of civilian populations arising from the Middle East — a stupid and circular gesture — you need to admit that terrorism has taken many faces in the VERY RECENT past, and that Islam is only seen as the central antagonist because that makes for a more compelling jingoist tale. The photograph of the Twin Towers on fire is more compelling somehow than the footage of a homicide at an abortion clinic in Kansas, or the news that a lunatic New-Ager has poisoned 10 salad bars in Oregon to gain political control of a nearly city.
I was one of many volunteers who helped put together Ms. Hirsi Ali’s lecture. (I was the guy manning the microphone during Q&A on the right side of the theatre.) I supported the decision to bring her to campus and wrote about it in this newspaper. I’m a Kantian ethicist and believe that reason, applied to any situation by any person, can lead to identical moral, spiritual and ethical conclusions. You, 9:34 am, are no Kantian exemplar. Even Ms. Hirsi Ali would explicitly disagree with your statement that “all terrorists are Muslims.” I would feel deeply embarrassed if the majority of people left the Union Theater last night agreeing with your sentiments on this issue.
And they didn’t. Most of the same people who applauded Ms. Hirsi Ali also applauded Prof. Asifa Quraishi’s eloquent rebuttal during the Q&A session. The lecture was a victory for women’s rights and the beginning of a difficult dialogue about Islam and the West (for which Ms. Hirsi Ali provides only the first crude attempt at a breakthrough).
How does it feel to be so alone and so confused?
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“Abortion doctors are periodically slaughtered in the United States by Christian terrorists,”
How “periodically” would that be, Eric? Monthly? Annually? Every few years? How does that compare with the daily death toll from Islamic terrorists? Yeah, flukes happen, there are a few nuts in every basket. So? When was the last time we had a doctor murdered… with praise and celebration and dancing in the street carried on television?
“and Palestinians are mowed down in Gaza by an Israeli regime deemed terrorist by nearly every world nation”
Really? Here’s a list of terrorist organizations recognized by the US, European Union, Canada, Australia, UK, India and Russia. Knock yourself out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listofdesignatedterroristorganizations
Oh, and, by “Gaza” you do mean “the artillery base to the southwest of Israel”, yes? Just to be clear.
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Just for the moment, Eric, while I agree with most of what you say, your use of the language of personal attack/insult to whom you are speaking will practically insure, they won’t hear you too well.
The point of “all terrorists are Muslim”, is certainly an unhelpful statement. Someone pointed out the KKK, a good example that well counters that statement. The Spanish Inquisition… the list can go on. If one wants to point out that in our current times, the majority of terrorism is committed by Muslims, its worth considering. However, I would be quick to add, obviously everyone needs to be on the same page of what exactly defines terrorism… And also, that our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan can readily be considered to have terrorist aspects, unquestionably, for the people living there who are innocent ~
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To say all terrorists are Muslim is a vast and false generalization. Some known examples of terrorist groups are the KKK, ETA in Spain and the IRA in Ireland, all of which are not Muslim.
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Eric is playing the following game…do NOT fall for it.
�Other religions kill, too.�
The Muslim Game:
Bringing other religions down to the level of Islam is one of the most popular strategies of Muslim apologists when confronted with the spectacle of Islamic violence. Remember Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber? Why pick on Islam if other religions have the same problems?
The Truth:
Because they don�t.
Regardless of what his birth certificate may or may not have said, Timothy McVeigh was not a religious man (in fact, he was an atheist). At no time did he credit his deeds to religion, quote Bible verses, or claim that he killed for God.
The so-called �members of other faiths� alluded to by Muslims are nearly always just nominal members who have no active involvement. They are neither inspired by, nor do they credit religion as Muslim terrorists do - and this is what makes it a very different matter.
Islam is associated with Islamic terrorism because that is the association that the terrorists themselves choose to make.
Muslims who compare crime committed by people who happen to be nominal members of other religions to religious terror committed explicitly in the name of Islam are comparing apples to oranges.
Yes, some of the abortion clinic bombers were religious (as Muslims enjoy pointing out), but consider the scope of the problem. There have been six deadly attacks over a 36 year period in the U.S. Eight people died. This is an average of one death every 4.5 years.
By contrast, Islamic terrorists staged nearly ten thousand deadly attacks in just the six years following September 11th, 2001. If one goes back to 1971, when Muslim armies in Bangladesh began the mass slaughter of Hindus, through the years of Jihad in the Sudan, Kashmir and Algeria, and the present-day Sunni-Shia violence in Iraq, the number of innocents killed in the name of Islam probably exceeds five million over this same period.
In the last six years, there have been perhaps a dozen or so religiously-inspired killings by people of all other faiths combined. No other religion produces the killing sprees that Islam does nearly every day of the year. Neither do they have verses in their holy texts that arguably support it. Nor do they have large groups across the globe dedicated to the mass murder of people who worship a different god, as the broader community of believers struggles with ambivalence and tolerance for a radical clergy that supports the terror.
Muslims may like to pretend that other religions are just as subject to “misinterpretation” as is their �perfect� one, but the reality speaks of something far worse.
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Eric,
In case you hadn’t read a paper in the last twenty years here’s some information you have been missing:
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/index.html#Attacks
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Believe me, I’ve read newspaper. What scares me is folks like you who read websites like this instead of newspapers.
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People like Qurashi keep claiming that there is a “rest of the story”.
Like what? I’m patiently waiting.
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I agree. Quarashi was a complete joke. I could barely tell what she was trying to say, she was talking so fast and so screechily. It’s 10% “Islam good! Me likey! Hirsi Ali bad!” and 90% gibberish.
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Muslims may not all be terrorists, but the majority of them have just the right mentality. And their treatment of women is totally deplorable. When will Muslims finally fess up and admit it?
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Eric,
Instead of ignoring the content if my comments why don’t you clearly state what parts you believe to be untrue.
Let’s start with the following. Read the following short article and tell me/us what is untrue in it.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/022-man-in-charge-of-woman.htm
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20 of 20 9/11 hijackers: Muslim. USS Cole bombers: Muslim. 1983 Lebanon Marine bombings: Muslim. Richard Reid: Muslim. Christmas Day attempt: Muslim. Daniel Pearl beheading: Muslim. the list goes on.
these are people who would just as soon saw your head off with a dull knife on al-Jazeera as they would shake your hand because you’re Western and think people are created equal and should have rights. They hate people who think women can think freely. Islam is the greatest threat to Western democracy today. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a naive fool.
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Aren’t you doing the same thing you accuse “Muslim societies” of doing, demonizing Muslims and generalizing. Just as most Western countries are not an overwhelming threat to Islamic societies, most interpretations of Islam are not the antithesis of “Western democracy.” Also, you only chose Islamic terrorists, rather than looking at the huge number of non-Islamic terrorist attacks that have occurred within the past decades.
Also, it is individual leaders rather than the religion that suppress women and gays. Because it’s not like leaders used Christianity to repress and kill populations for centuries. Oh, wait…
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Yes, leaders are the ones oppressing women. Leaders pointing to Islamic texts as their rationale. So, it is in fact the religion oppressing women, right?
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No. Religion is the tool, not the cause. Blame the people who manipulate religious texts - which is easily done with most religions with texts - rather than the religion and the vast majority of Muslims, those who follow Islam with peace and love.
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there’s tens of millions of Muslims that think radically in this country, Europe, and the Middle East. I wouldn’t just say its a bunch of leaders. There’s a lot of average people that think this way and the kids are being brain washed in the Islamic schools to continue these Stone Age thoughts
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“Islam is the greatest threat to Western democracy today.”
I could not agree more.
Islam IS a supremacist religion that DOES teach that non-Muslims are not only inferior, but are required to either become Muslims or live as second class citizens. It goes without saying that in Saudi Arabia there is not one single non-Muslim citizen. Of course Saudi Arabia is home to Mecca and Medina Islam’s two holiest sites.
The following is what Muslims say about gay and lesbians right to marriage. Pay particular attention to what the Muslim cleric says. He is typical of Muslim religious leaders who constantly condone intolerance and hatred by using verses from the Koran to justify their postions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qxjocm5fCc
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After reading what can best be described as tirades of misinformation, xenophobia and downright hostility; another opinion must be presented. There is an intellectually lazy past-time of looking at Muslim extremism and to believe it is de rigueur in Muslim societies when the truth couldn’t be further from such a portrayal. The vast majority of ‘moderate’ interpretations to Muslim teaching vehemently oppose those who would attack innocent civilians and impose transgressions against human dignity. It is perhaps a legitimate argument that this community doesn’t go far enough is ostracizing extremism, but it can hardly be said as a blanket-statement that Islam condones barbarity and is antithetical to basic human rights. To those who state that Islam is mutually exclusive to Western Democracy from taking the opinion of those like Ms. Hirsi Ali are presenting an opinion based on an unusual set of circumstances. Chiefly, Ms. Hirsi Ali was raised in one of the most hard-line communities in the Muslim world and eschewed this existence for the polar-opposite lifestyle as a secular European lawmaker of the opinion of strict laicity. Secularism isn’t codified in the United States the way it is in many European societies as interpretations of the first amendment would likely make such enforcement unconstitutional. So perhaps a more balanced argument would be that conservative Islam and the European Secular state are mutually exclusive, but that is too nuanced for anybody to care much. To make blanket statements the way Ms. Hirsi Ali does incites the type of xenophobia and hatred that I felt the need to correct. If this individual feels that she needs to do that to get her point across, then shame on her for doing so as it is nothing more than intellectually disingenuous banter.
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Thanks for stating your opinion… but for your arguments to hold any weight, you need to provide evidence.
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I don’t have time for citations, do your own research and if you disagree, fine. I’m not a journalist and don’t expect that sort of diligence from a comment board.
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Great coverage of the event, BH.
Also, thanks to DLS for bring Ali to campus. It was by far the most enjoyable talk I’ve seen at the University.
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Groundhog writes, “After reading what can best be described as tirades of misinformation, xenophobia and downright hostility; another opinion must be presented. There is an intellectually lazy past-time of looking at Muslim extremism and to believe it is de rigueur in Muslim societies when the truth couldn�t be further from such a portrayal.”
And this, “…but it can hardly be said as a blanket-statement that Islam condones barbarity and is antithetical to basic human rights.”
It is obvious Groundhog is either an apologist for Islam, or Groundhog has his head buried in the dirt.
Here is the truth about Islam and human rights. If Groundhog had done the bare minimum of research he would have known this instead of accusing me of not doing my homework:
“A civilization is defined by its values. Can we all agree with that? So, if we can show that two civilizations differ in their values to the extent that those values are incompatible with one another, then that is pretty good evidence that there is a clash of civilizations. Let’s look at Islam and the West.
Our western civilization is defined by the values which are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These values are, in short: � will of the people is basis of authority of government � right to life, liberty, security of person � abolish slavery in all forms � right to enjoy the arts � equal rights of men and women � freedom from torture or cruel treatment and punishment � freedom of thought, conscience, religion, including freedom to change religion, freedom to manifest religion in public � right to marry regardless of race, nationality or religion � equal rights in marriage � freedom or expression, impart information through any media � right to take part in government through freely chosen representatives Now, let us look at the values of Islam. Not a single Moslem country supports the Universal Declaration of Human Rights! ALL 57 Moslem countries have subscribed to the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam which declares:
� Reaffirms role of Islamic UMMAH which God made the best nation � The Ummah should guide humanity � Freedom and right to dignified life in accordance with the Islamic Shariah � All human beings are united by submission to God (meaning of “Islam”) � Right to life guaranteed “except for a Shariah prescribed reason” � Prohibited to violate right of safety from bodily harm ‘without Shariah prescribed reason” � “Woman is equal to man in human dignity, and has rights to enjoy as well as duties to perform.” � “Husband is responsible for the support and welfare of the family.” � Parents have right to choose education for their children “provided they take into consideration the interest and future of the children in accordance with the ethical values and the principles of the Shariah” � Education “so as to enable man to be acquainted with the religion of Islam” � “Prohibited… to exploit poverty or ignorance in order to convert ..to another religion or to atheism” � Right to freedom of movement “within the framework of Shariah” � “… right to enjoy fruits of one’s scientific, literary, artistic or technical production… provided that such production is not contrary to the principles of Shariah.” � “There shall be no crime or punishment except as provided for in the Shariah” � “Taking of hostages for any purpose is expressly forbidden.” (Enforced???) � “Right to express opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shariah” � “Right to propagtate what is good and warn against what is wrong and evil according to the norms of the Islamic Shariah.” � Freedom of information, but “may not violate the dignity of Prophets or.. corrupt or harm society or weaken its faith.” � “All rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subjecty to the Islamic Shariah.” � “The Islamic Shariah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarifaction to any of the articles of this Declaration.”
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Let�s clear something up right away.. You are entitled to your own opinion, not your own facts. I never singled any individual out for intellectual laziness, I did single out espoused ideas that I deemed to be intellectually lazy. I never made any personal attacks. Simply because you�re not above doing that, as apparently according to you I, personally, must be either an apologist or ignorant, doesn�t mean others have such intentions. If you really have a desire for discourse, a little politeness wouldn�t hurt. If that�s not what you�re going for, then that�s your choice, if seemingly a pointless one. In the spirit of discourse, or at least a defense of the personal attacks, I would like to clarify my points and address the points you made in your response.
First, I would like to explain that I made no intention to comment of the adaptability of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to majority-muslim states. That is a completely separate matter to what I was arguing, which is the adaptability of Islam to western states, which I would like to address (by �Muslim Socities� I had meant to also refer to Muslim populations in the west, although this in hindsight could have been framed with more clarity).
The Qu�ran can be, among other interpretations, viewed as a text that broadly encourages critical thinking, one clear example of this is the command to follow Ijtihad, which compels one to make individual interpretation of Islamic law based on individual moral and ethical circumstances. It is principles such as this which permits discretion and reconciliation with de jure Western legal constructs. Since it would be (presumably) unconstitutional in the United States to explicitly deny the following of Sharia law, and since Islamic text expressly commands individual moral discretion on matters of human legal constructs in conjuction with religious law, I can make the argument on a solid rational foundation that Islam and Western law are not mutually exclusive ideals. Now, there are some muslims who perhaps cannot reconcile the two, that is perfectly legitimate and such individual is not compelled to live in the West. That is a personal choice (which I will not pursue further as it risks leading to a tangental argument). There are also some that argue that outside of the United States, most visibly in France, that codified cultural and political laicity are openly hostile to Islam. There are very reasonable arguments that support this, but this too can also outline the extent of reconciliation between Islam and Western law (specifically, French law). Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy, the chief of one of the most prominent Universities in the Sunni Arab World, Al-Azhar University in Cairo and Grand Imam of the Al-Azhar mosque, issued a fatwa (or edict), permitting the French Government to mandate that Muslim girls remove their Hijabs (or head coverings) in public educational institutions . One could argue that this could be going above and beyond the call of duty to reconcile Islamic law with what some view as a hostile secular law.
You had posted another piece with a few quotes with some rather abrasive language towards Islam. I found a quote which, although maybe not perfectly to my point, summarizes perhaps a more level-headed approach to Islam. Graham E. Fuller, the former Vice-Chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA, stated this rather succinctly when he stated in a 2002 issue of Foreign Affairs that �most western observers tend to look at the phenomenon of political Islam as if it were butterfly in a collection box, captured and skewered for eternity, or as a set of texts unbendingly prescribing a single path. This is why some scholars who examine its core writings proclaim Islam to be incompatible with democracy, as if any religion in its origins was about democracy at all�.
I had posted, rather curtly, earlier that I didn�t want to get into the trouble of citations in such an informal opinion, because doing so is rather painstaking to provide a counterpoint to some who perhaps took ten seconds to draw from their memory bank that a handful of extremists pierced boeing jets into skyscrapers and use it to descend down a slippery slope into a tirade that perhaps they don�t consider with any sense of intellectual honesty. If attacking me personally was your backward way at making me defend my positions, then it worked. Seriously though, I can�t give you that much credit.
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“Shot and beheaded, van Gogh was left in the street with an explicit death threat for Hirsi Ali stabbed into his chest.”
That says it all.
We don’t need Rashid Dar, Asifa Quraishi, or a council of mush mouth mullahs to explain why murdering critics of islam should be interpreted in a “positive light”. If their god allahu really condones such vicious acts, he and his adherents are not “great”. They are murderous maniac monotheists that must not be tolerated, accepted, condoned, or treated with any consideration other than “You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney….”.
Three cheers for Hirsi Ali “Akbar”, Freedom of Speech, and all who refute such evil oppressions as fanatic islam!!!
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Fanatic Islam and Islam are very different things. And lets not attack those who are defending a mostly peaceful belief system - one that is actually very similar to Christianity - and voicing their opinions in order to intelligently contribute to a debate rather than stir up hate and perpetuate inappropriate stereotypes.
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I suppose the blades were for “mostly peaceful” purposes?
A Muslim chaplain for the city Department of Correction was arrested this morning for allegedly trying to smuggle in three box-cutter blades and a pair of scissors to a lower Manhattan jail, The Post has learned.
The chaplain, Zul-Qarnain Shahid, has worked as a DOC jail chaplain for the past three years, department sources said.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/muslimchaplainsmuggledboxcutters_BVF0VWUOLCw0vjjnRzjZRP#ixzz0eWkztwgi
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�Shot and beheaded, van Gogh was left in the street with an explicit death threat for Hirsi Ali stabbed into his chest.� This was an overt act of mutilating, murderous terrorism, designed to strike terror in the hearts of all who decry the monotheist phobic brutalities of islam.
We will not be intimidated by murderous terrorists. We will not be cowed. We will not submit. We will not acquiesce to the least intolerant tenet of shariah or koran. That brand of intolerance is lethal to all free people.
You castigate truthful examination of fact as an act designed to “stir up hate and perpetuate inappropriate stereotypes.” Since you can’t defend the reprehensible, you falsely defame those examining the facts unflinchingly.
FACT: Fanatic islam is intolerant of any perspective other than fanatic islam. “Peaceful islam” denies, demurs, defers, and passively defends fanatic islam. When you fail to cleary speak out against it, your silence supports and emboldens it.
I’m sure van Gogh was triply impressed by your “mostly peaceful belief system”. Shot, stabbed, and beheaded… but “peacefully”, no doubt!
Neither you nor I nor anyone else can justify tolerance of the murderously intolerant. Embrace that fact. That isn’t a paean for hate or stereotype. It is recognition of fact that will enhance the survival of all humans, none excepted.
Deny, demur, defer, defend, defame, destroy…. that’s the fanatic islam game plan. We see you clearly. We will never submit. You can openly embrace tolerance of other religions, including conversion of islamists to other religions if they so desire, and choose to live in peace with all of your neighbors in this world. Or you can choose your lethal monotheist phobiais and be the cause of unending ugliness, because we free people will NEVER yield.
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I AGREE fanatics - of any religion! - are not good. Especially when they kill people! But many people are equating the actions of fanatics with that of a wider population. I don’t defend murders, I just disagree with those who generalize the actions of a few to a much larger and diverse community.
By the way, your use of “FACT” reminded me of Dwight Schrute. I won’t say
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�Shot and beheaded, van Gogh was left in the street with an explicit death threat for Hirsi Ali stabbed into his chest.� This was an overt act of mutilating, murderous terrorism, designed to strike terror in the hearts of all who decry the monotheist phobic brutalities of islam.
We will not be intimidated by murderous terrorists. We will not be cowed. We will not submit. We will not acquiesce to the least intolerant tenet of shariah or koran. That brand of intolerance is lethal to all free people.
You castigate truthful examination of fact as an act designed to “stir up hate and perpetuate inappropriate stereotypes.” Since you can’t defend the reprehensible, you falsely defame those examining the facts unflinchingly.
FACT: Fanatic islam is intolerant of any perspective other than fanatic islam. “Peaceful islam” denies, demurs, defers, and passively defends fanatic islam. When you fail to cleary speak out against it, your silence supports and emboldens it.
I’m sure van Gogh was triply impressed by your “mostly peaceful belief system”. Shot, stabbed, and beheaded… but “peacefully”, no doubt!
Neither you nor I nor anyone else can justify tolerance of the murderously intolerant. Embrace that fact. That isn’t a paean for hate or stereotype. It is recognition of fact that will enhance the survival of all humans, none excepted.
Deny, demur, defer, defend, defame, destroy…. that’s the fanatic islam game plan. We see you clearly. We will never submit. You can openly embrace tolerance of other religions, including conversion of islamists to other religions if they so desire, and choose to live in peace with all of your neighbors in this world. Or you can choose your lethal monotheist phobiais and be the cause of unending ugliness, because we free people will NEVER yield.
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This what Winston Churchill said about Islam:
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia [rabies] in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. …The fact that in Mohammedan law [sharia] every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities�but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.� �Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British Prime Minister
And this is what Edward Freeman said: �[Islam] is essentially an obstructive, intolerant system� It has consecrated despotism; it has consecrated polygamy; it has consecrated slavery. It has declared war against every other creed; it has claimed to be at least dominant in every land� When it ceases to have an enemy to contend against, it sinks into sluggish stupidity and into a barbarism far viler� It must have an enemy; if cut off�from conflict with the infidel, it finds its substitute in sectarian hatred of brother Moslems���Edward Augustus Freeman (1823-1892) British historian
And this is what Teddy Rosevelt said about Islam and values: The civilization of Europe, America, and Australia, exists today at all, only because of the victories of civilized man over the enemies of civilization�because of victories through the centuries from Charles Martel, in the eighth century, and those of John Sobieski, in the seventeenth century. …There are such �social values� today in Europe, America and Australia only because during those thousand years, the Christians of Europe possessed the warlike power to do what the Christians of Asia and Africa had failed to do�that is, to beat back the Moslem invader.��Teddy Roosevelt (1858 -1919) Twenty-sixth President of the United States
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Submit or die.
That is the gist of Muslim communication to the non-Muslim.
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I am ashamed to go to a university where so many people - at least many of those represented in this discussion - are perpetuating hate and religious discrimination. What happened to the love, Badgers?!?
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Religion causes death. Period.
Just as much blood has been spilled in the name of Christianity as Islam. Look to the past and see the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, those settlers who justified the relentless murder of Native Americans by calling them “pagan savages”, etc.
Not to mention the deaths caused by Christian ideals: those of gay, lesbian and transgender individuals.
Hirsi Ali was right when she said “the idea that it is okay to scrutinize this Islamic theology, � Scrutinize it, question it and treat it like any other religion or political theory. It�s okay to question this and that�s where change begins.”
Somehow religion is the one thing we aren’t allowed to debate and discuss objectively in this country. We can discuss and question someone’s sexual orientation, which almost all scientists believe is part of nature, but religion — a man-made concept — is off the list.
I think it’s time for a change. Religion has been holding us back and causing bloodshed for too many years.
IP hash: ee6521fe
“Is it the leaders or is it the religion itself?” Interesting question, but — and I mean this especially for people defending Islam in the abstract against others who are attacking it in the abstract — the most fundamental point made by Hirsi Ali is that in very many Muslim societies around the world, people in general are denied basic rights and women in particular have it even worse. It seems cold in the extreme to tear down Hirsi Ali for attacking Islam without including a major acknowledgment that she is quite right that the situation for women in many Muslim countries is deplorable. Forced marriages of teenagers to filthy old men with money? Wonderful. Girls condemned to stoning by the town council because they were raped by their uncle? Marvelous. A-holes with seven wives? How romantic!
I also think it’s ironic that in rattling off non-Muslim terrorist groups nobody mentioned the Tamil Tigers, who revolutionized suicide bombing techniques and have used them as aggressively as anyone on the planet — even in the years after 9/11 outpaced Muslim terrorists worldwide in their number of terrorist attacks.
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It’s the leaders. Check out the activities of the founder, a widely know pedophile, exploiter of women and murderer.
IP hash: d90cd3a0
It’s leaders:
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 Vanderbilt chaplain agrees that homosexuals should be killed
As a graduate of Vanderbilt Divinity School, I know that the university generally and its religion departments specifically fully embrace conceptually and practically gay rights. The teachings of the Jewish and Christian scriptures that say that homosexual practice is sinful are either simply ignored or reinterpreted by the professoriate. This is a very strong institutional value of the university.
So what are we alums to make of Awadh Binhazim, a Vanderbilt Muslim chaplain, who
publicly acknowledged what those of us who study shariah Islamic law know…, when pressed on whether or not shariah Islamic law requires the death penalty for homosexuals, asserted that yes, it does. Furthermore, he stated: “I don�t have a choice as a Muslim to accept or reject teachings.”
http://senseofevents.blogspot.com/2010/02/vanderbilt-chaplain-agrees-that.html
I would guess that this Bozo is also against same-sex marriage. I imagine a member of any other religion would ridden out of the university on a rail for this kind of “hate speech”.
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Someone mentioned the Crusades. I wonder if he knew the following about the Crusades before comparing them to Islam’s never ending violence against non-Msulims:
The Crusades
The Muslim Game:
Muslims love talking about the Crusades� and Christians love apologizing for them. To hear both parties tell the story, one would believe that Muslims were just peacefully minding their own business in lands that were legitimately Muslim when Christian armies decided to wage holy war and “kill millions.�
The Truth:
Every part of this myth is a lie. By the rules that Muslims claim for themselves, the Crusades were perfectly justified, and the excesses (though beneath Christian standards) pale in comparison with the historical treatment of conquered populations at the hands of Muslims.
Here are some quick facts�
The first Crusade began in 1095� 460 years after the first Christian city was overrun by Muslim armies, 457 years after Jerusalem was conquered by Muslim armies, 453 years after Egypt was taken by Muslim armies, 443 after Muslims first plundered Italy, 427 years after Muslim armies first laid siege to the Christian capital of Constantinople, 380 years after Spain was conquered by Muslim armies, 363 years after France was first attacked by Muslim armies, 249 years after Rome itself was sacked by a Muslim army, and only after centuries of church burnings, killings, enslavement and forced conversions of Christians.
By the time the Crusades finally began, Muslim armies had conquered two-thirds of the Christian world.
Europe had been harassed by Muslims since the first few years following Muhammad�s death. As early as 652, Muhammad�s followers launched raids on the island of Sicily, waging a full-scale occupation 200 years later that lasted almost a century and was punctuated by massacres, such as that at the town of Castrogiovanni, in which 8,000 Christians were put to death. In 1084, ten years before the first crusade, Muslims staged another devastating Sicilian raid, burning churches in Reggio, enslaving monks and raping an abbey of nuns before carrying them into captivity.
In 1095, Byzantine Emperor, Alexius I Comneus began begging the pope in Rome for help in turning back the Muslim armies which were overrunning what is now Turkey, grabbing property as they went and turning churches into mosques.
Not only were Christians losing their lives in their own lands to the Muslim advance but pilgrims to the Holy Land from other parts of Europe were being harassed, kidnapped, molested, forcibly converted to Islam and occasionally murdered. (Compare this to Islam�s justification for slaughter on the basis of Muslims being denied access to the Meccan pilgrimage in Muhammad�s time).
The Crusaders only invaded lands that were Christian. They did not attack Saudi Arabia (other than a half-hearted expedition by a minor figure) or sack Mecca as the Muslims had done (and continued doing) to Italy and Constantinople. Their primary goal was the recapture of Jerusalem and the security of safe passage for pilgrims. The toppling of the Muslim empire was not on the agenda.
The period of Crusader �occupation� (of its own former land) was stretched over less than two centuries. (The Arab occupation is in its 1,378th year).
Despite popular depiction, the Crusades were not a titanic battle between Christianity and Islam. Although originally dispatched by papal decree, the “occupiers” quickly became part of the political and economic fabric of the Middle East without much regard for religious differences. Their arrival was largely accepted by the local population as simply another change in authority. Muslim radicals even lamented the fact that many of their co-religionists preferred to live under Frankish (Christian) rule than migrate to Muslim lands.
The Islamic world was split into warring factions, many of which allied themselves with the Frankish princes against each other at one time or another. For its part, the Byzantine (Eastern Christian) Empire preferred to have little to do with the Crusaders and went so far as to sign treaties with their rivals. Even the Muslim armies that eventually pushed out the Christian rulers spent far more energy fighting each other, both before and after the various re-takings of Jerusalem.
Another misconception is that the Crusader era was a time of constant war. In fact, very little of this overall period included significant hostilities. In response to Muslim expansion or aggression, there were only about 20 years of actual military campaigning, much of which was spent on organization and travel. (They were from 1098-1099, 1146-1148, 1188-1192, 1201-1204, 1218-1221, 1228-1229, and 1248-1250). By comparison, the Muslim Jihad against the island of Sicily alone lasted 75 grinding years.
Unlike Jihad, the Crusades were never justified on the basis of New Testament teachings. This is why they are an anomaly, the brief interruption of centuries of relentless Jihad against Christianity that began long before the Crusades and continued well after they were over.
The greatest crime of the Crusaders was the sacking of Jerusalem, in which 30,000 people were said to have been massacred. This number is dwarfed by the number of Jihad victims, from India to Constantinople, Africa and Narbonne, but Muslims have never apologized for their crimes and never will.
What is called ‘sin and excess’ by other religions, is what Islam refers to as the will of Allah.
IP hash: 19784705
BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
IP hash: 4e3d7eba
Freedom and civilization may be doomed. The Franks have no Martel and the Gates of Vienna stand no more.
PS. Barry HO is a Muslim by Sharia Law since his father was a Muslim. It’s only their hope that he is a secret Muslim that forestalls a fatwa calling for his execution as an apostate.
IP hash: b0d12f86
It’s pathetic what the Apologists for Islam come up with. Now one of them is trying to tell us the Tamil Tigers are the worse terrorists in the world! What will they come up with next?
Here is a listing of the terrorist attacks carried out by Muslims JUST over the last two months. Tamil Tigers? Yeah, right.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/index.html#Attacks
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Bear in mind that there are as many sects and denominations of Islam as there are of Christianity, and they vary just as widely. The two major branches of Islam — the Shiites and the Sunnis — are indeed responsible for 99% of Islam’s nasty track record of slaughter and tyranny, from earliest times until today. The Dervish sect was responsible only for the campaign of the Mahdi, in the 19th century, which involved the slaughter at Khartoum. The Fatamids and the Sufis have no history of slaughtering anyone, and the Ba’hais are the Moslem equivalent of Quakers or Unitarians. Of course, the latter three also interpret the Koran and Hadith quite freely, and are the opposite of fundamentalists. Unfortunately, they are also a very small minority of the Moslem population.
If we are forced to, in fact, declare war on Islam — as the US government once did to the Mormons — we should take great care to tell the difference between the harmless and dangerous sects.
—Leslie <;)))><
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I am a practicing Muslim Woman who lives in the West.
And I do not hate Ayaan for the things she says, but I do feel it is so irrelevant and just a way for her to gain sympathy and fame. Who decided that she would be the spokesperson for Muslim women and shed light on our issues?
Also whoever said MOST TERRORISTS ARE MUSLIMS CORRECT. I will not be apologetic, because it is true and you know why? Because theres a lot of poor, illiterate people in these Muslim countries who are spoonfed exaggerated verses from the Quran that are taken out of context, and do they know any better ? No. So they go blow themsleves up thinking they are pleasing God when in fact, the Quran says Suicide is a FORBIDDEN SIN. The cure for terrorism is not war but to educate these unfortunate souls on what the Holy Quran is actually saying.
Hirsi Ali is a genius. talk bad shit about a religion to people who already don’t like that religion, and you know will never read the Quran and verify what you’re saying…and make millions of dollars from book sales. And you guys are all eating out of her lying hands. (You know the Dutch despise her because she lied to gain power in Holland?)