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Why would I do that and what does that have to do with the OP? All American troops dont believe in Christianity dummy. The military is not one unified religion.
This country is based on Christianity. If you have a better example lets hear it.
Besides,you wont be able to show me a Christian country anywhere that would gun down civilians like your muslim buddies do.
You must not have paid attention in school. Does the phrase "separation of church and state" ring a bell? There is no such rule in most Middle eastern countries. Terrible analogy on your part. The Islamic religion is combined with the customs of the locals and incorporated in their politics, openly and without any shame. In most Christian countries that has been removed. Prior to that removal Christian countries killed way more people than Islamic countries have.
Stopped reading after your first fallacy. Not surprising..it was one of your first sentences.
Go ahead and show me exactly where "separation of church and state" is listed in the Constitution.
Again...show me a Christian country that would ride into town and slaughter innocents. Like your muslim buddies did.
You cant do it. Because it doesnt happen.
I will after you show me exactly where I said it was listed in the constitution.
Then why did you bring it up?
Dude you're an idiot. You flail around making up stupid shit and use the lamest dodges known to man when they turn out to be bullshit.
About done with your stupidity.
This country is based on Christianity. If you have a better example lets hear it.
Besides,you wont be able to show me a Christian country anywhere that would gun down civilians like your muslim buddies do.
You must not have paid attention in school. Does the phrase "separation of church and state" ring a bell? There is no such rule in most Middle eastern countries. Terrible analogy on your part. The Islamic religion is combined with the customs of the locals and incorporated in their politics, openly and without any shame. In most Christian countries that has been removed. Prior to that removal Christian countries killed way more people than Islamic countries have.
Stopped reading after your first fallacy. Not surprising..it was one of your first sentences.
Go ahead and show me exactly where "separation of church and state" is listed in the Constitution.
Again...show me a Christian country that would ride into town and slaughter innocents. Like your muslim buddies did.
You cant do it. Because it doesnt happen.
I will after you show me exactly where I said it was listed in the constitution.
Then why did you bring it up?
Dude you're an idiot. You flail around making up stupid shit and use the lamest dodges known to man when they turn out to be bullshit.
About done with your stupidity.
He is gathering information and trying to reach an intelligent conclusion in spite of some stiff criticisms and random racist potshots.
If you can't rationally argue your point of view you will be doing your own cause a disservice.
You must not have paid attention in school. Does the phrase "separation of church and state" ring a bell? There is no such rule in most Middle eastern countries. Terrible analogy on your part. The Islamic religion is combined with the customs of the locals and incorporated in their politics, openly and without any shame. In most Christian countries that has been removed. Prior to that removal Christian countries killed way more people than Islamic countries have.
Stopped reading after your first fallacy. Not surprising..it was one of your first sentences.
Go ahead and show me exactly where "separation of church and state" is listed in the Constitution.
Again...show me a Christian country that would ride into town and slaughter innocents. Like your muslim buddies did.
You cant do it. Because it doesnt happen.
I will after you show me exactly where I said it was listed in the constitution.
Then why did you bring it up?
Dude you're an idiot. You flail around making up stupid shit and use the lamest dodges known to man when they turn out to be bullshit.
About done with your stupidity.
He is gathering information and trying to reach an intelligent conclusion in spite of some stiff criticisms and random racist potshots.
If you can't rationally argue your point of view you will be doing your own cause a disservice.
The dudes an idiot. When someone ignores obvious flaws in their argument,and or just refuses to answer questions,it's no longer a discussion now is it?
I didn't hear anything I could disagree with in the video. Question, will Muslims begin to kill other Muslims who don't join the fight? Isn't it happening already?
Brother Rachid and Geert Wilders have both presented the truth about Islam. There is no such thing as Moderate Islam. There are Moderate people and some call themselves Muslims but there is no Moderate brand of Islam. The Islam ISIL practices is the exact replica of the Islam Mohammad followed and taught his believers. To the finest detail as Brother Rachid pointed out.
As his father is an Imam and he was raised a Muslim he knows very well what he speaks of. That ISIL comes from at least 10 different nations around the world - all Muslims attending various Mosques throughout those ten different nations - there is no question whatsoever that is Islam.
The pseudo Islam taught in American and Britains universities is not at all Islam but meant to indoctrinate the listener - lull the listener into a sense of security that Islam has somehow been "misunderstood", or "upset" due to some "injustice" perpretrated on their fellow brethren / islamic nations by Israel. It always comes back to Israel, America, Britain, the west. This is baloney.
The truth is they are war against the West and plan to destroy it - they are at war against Israel and their plan is to destroy it - they are at war with Europeans - all who are non Muslim nations and plan to destroy it and then dominate it with Sharia and put the rest of us under their feet.
See the last Muslim video posted on Geert Wilders Warning to America thread on religion forum for a sample of that. There are apologists / sympathisers - who assist the Muslims by spreading the news that they have traveled around the world, seen it firsthand and everything is peaceful out there - you'll find them teaching in Universities, writing on message boards - etc. Of course the headlines in news papers around the world tell quite a different story. Mass kidnappings of school girls - mass rape, christians crucified to trees, little girls raped and beheaded, many babies with hacked off limbs who have survived the "peacefulness of Islam"..... why do people make excuses and cover up for these people?
I suppose some believe they will be rewarded - granted a reprieve on the day of jihad but nothing could be further from the truth. Islamists generally murder those who placated them first when taking over a nation - it happened that way in Lebanon according to the testimony of Brigitte Gabrielle.
It has always been the way of the enemy to accuse you of what they are guilty of. They accuse you of intolerance therein no one examines their intolerance. They accuse you of being a liar therein no one examines their lies. They accuse you of being a racist, a bigot, a hater, therein no one examines their brand of hatred which is all far greater, far more deadly but then again if they can keep you fighting among yourselves they really never get a thorough examination. Do they?
In answer to your question. It is clear there are moderate people but there is no moderate Islam. The Islam that ISIL practices is the Islam Mohammad taught his followers to the finest detail as Brother Rachid clearly stated. So it would depend upon whether that moderate person wanted to abandon the teachings of Mohammad once confronted with the choice of do or die - or whether they will join the jihad and participate in the mass murder of their fellow citizens who have welcomed them freely into their countries - even assisting them with food and housing expenses. ( the bible calls this returning evil for good and those who do it - evil shall not depart from their house)
We won't know what those "moderates" will do until that time comes. The news that Muslims are leaving the West to join the jihad of ISIL and ISIS are an indication that we do have those murderers living among us even now. Moderate Islam? I think not.
It isn't good news.
I didn't hear anything I could disagree with in the video. Question, will Muslims begin to kill other Muslims who don't join the fight? Isn't it happening already?
Brother Rachid and Geert Wilders have both presented the truth about Islam. There is no such thing as Moderate Islam. There are Moderate people and some call themselves Muslims but there is no Moderate brand of Islam. The Islam ISIL practices is the exact replica of the Islam Mohammad followed and taught his believers. To the finest detail as Brother Rachid pointed out.
As his father is an Imam and he was raised a Muslim he knows very well what he speaks of. That ISIL comes from at least 10 different nations around the world - all Muslims attending various Mosques throughout those ten different nations - there is no question whatsoever that is Islam.
The pseudo Islam taught in American and Britains universities is not at all Islam but meant to indoctrinate the listener - lull the listener into a sense of security that Islam has somehow been "misunderstood", or "upset" due to some "injustice" perpretrated on their fellow brethren / islamic nations by Israel. It always comes back to Israel, America, Britain, the west. This is baloney.
The truth is they are war against the West and plan to destroy it - they are at war against Israel and their plan is to destroy it - they are at war with Europeans - all who are non Muslim nations and plan to destroy it and then dominate it with Sharia and put the rest of us under their feet.
See the last Muslim video posted on Geert Wilders Warning to America thread on religion forum for a sample of that. There are apologists / sympathisers - who assist the Muslims by spreading the news that they have traveled around the world, seen it firsthand and everything is peaceful out there - you'll find them teaching in Universities, writing on message boards - etc. Of course the headlines in news papers around the world tell quite a different story. Mass kidnappings of school girls - mass rape, christians crucified to trees, little girls raped and beheaded, many babies with hacked off limbs who have survived the "peacefulness of Islam"..... why do people make excuses and cover up for these people?
I suppose some believe they will be rewarded - granted a reprieve on the day of jihad but nothing could be further from the truth. Islamists generally murder those who placated them first when taking over a nation - it happened that way in Lebanon according to the testimony of Brigitte Gabrielle.
It has always been the way of the enemy to accuse you of what they are guilty of. They accuse you of intolerance therein no one examines their intolerance. They accuse you of being a liar therein no one examines their lies. They accuse you of being a racist, a bigot, a hater, therein no one examines their brand of hatred which is all far greater, far more deadly but then again if they can keep you fighting among yourselves they really never get a thorough examination. Do they?
In answer to your question. It is clear there are moderate people but there is no moderate Islam. The Islam that ISIL practices is the Islam Mohammad taught his followers to the finest detail as Brother Rachid clearly stated. So it would depend upon whether that moderate person wanted to abandon the teachings of Mohammad once confronted with the choice of do or die - or whether they will join the jihad and participate in the mass murder of their fellow citizens who have welcomed them freely into their countries - even assisting them with food and housing expenses. ( the bible calls this returning evil for good and those who do it - evil shall not depart from their house)
We won't know what those "moderates" will do until that time comes. The news that Muslims are leaving the West to join the jihad of ISIL and ISIS are an indication that we do have those murderers living among us even now. Moderate Islam? I think not.
It isn't good news.
Maybe read about country of Jordon, if the 1.5 bil Muslims wanted us dead we'd be dead, instead you want them dead, are you not just as bad?
I didn't hear anything I could disagree with in the video. Question, will Muslims begin to kill other Muslims who don't join the fight? Isn't it happening already?
Brother Rachid and Geert Wilders have both presented the truth about Islam. There is no such thing as Moderate Islam. There are Moderate people and some call themselves Muslims but there is no Moderate brand of Islam. The Islam ISIL practices is the exact replica of the Islam Mohammad followed and taught his believers. To the finest detail as Brother Rachid pointed out.
As his father is an Imam and he was raised a Muslim he knows very well what he speaks of. That ISIL comes from at least 10 different nations around the world - all Muslims attending various Mosques throughout those ten different nations - there is no question whatsoever that is Islam.
The pseudo Islam taught in American and Britains universities is not at all Islam but meant to indoctrinate the listener - lull the listener into a sense of security that Islam has somehow been "misunderstood", or "upset" due to some "injustice" perpretrated on their fellow brethren / islamic nations by Israel. It always comes back to Israel, America, Britain, the west. This is baloney.
The truth is they are war against the West and plan to destroy it - they are at war against Israel and their plan is to destroy it - they are at war with Europeans - all who are non Muslim nations and plan to destroy it and then dominate it with Sharia and put the rest of us under their feet.
See the last Muslim video posted on Geert Wilders Warning to America thread on religion forum for a sample of that. There are apologists / sympathisers - who assist the Muslims by spreading the news that they have traveled around the world, seen it firsthand and everything is peaceful out there - you'll find them teaching in Universities, writing on message boards - etc. Of course the headlines in news papers around the world tell quite a different story. Mass kidnappings of school girls - mass rape, christians crucified to trees, little girls raped and beheaded, many babies with hacked off limbs who have survived the "peacefulness of Islam"..... why do people make excuses and cover up for these people?
I suppose some believe they will be rewarded - granted a reprieve on the day of jihad but nothing could be further from the truth. Islamists generally murder those who placated them first when taking over a nation - it happened that way in Lebanon according to the testimony of Brigitte Gabrielle.
It has always been the way of the enemy to accuse you of what they are guilty of. They accuse you of intolerance therein no one examines their intolerance. They accuse you of being a liar therein no one examines their lies. They accuse you of being a racist, a bigot, a hater, therein no one examines their brand of hatred which is all far greater, far more deadly but then again if they can keep you fighting among yourselves they really never get a thorough examination. Do they?
In answer to your question. It is clear there are moderate people but there is no moderate Islam. The Islam that ISIL practices is the Islam Mohammad taught his followers to the finest detail as Brother Rachid clearly stated. So it would depend upon whether that moderate person wanted to abandon the teachings of Mohammad once confronted with the choice of do or die - or whether they will join the jihad and participate in the mass murder of their fellow citizens who have welcomed them freely into their countries - even assisting them with food and housing expenses. ( the bible calls this returning evil for good and those who do it - evil shall not depart from their house)
We won't know what those "moderates" will do until that time comes. The news that Muslims are leaving the West to join the jihad of ISIL and ISIS are an indication that we do have those murderers living among us even now. Moderate Islam? I think not.
It isn't good news.
Maybe read about country of Jordon, if the 1.5 bil Muslims wanted us dead we'd be dead, instead you want them dead, are you not just as bad?
It is estimated that 25 - 30% of the World's Muslim population are of the extremist variety (those who are fundamentalists) and want to rid the world of non-Muslims EXCEPT for those who would be allowed to live as Dhimmis and provide a source of Jizyah tax revenues for the caliphate.
Those extremists haven't had the money nor the smarts nor the logistical support to kill us all until now.
They can instigate violence which will force 1st World nations into committing their military forces and when they can successfully do that it is just a few steps until a global catastrophe SHOULD be game planned and defensed against lest they overwhelm our preparations.
I didn't hear anything I could disagree with in the video. Question, will Muslims begin to kill other Muslims who don't join the fight? Isn't it happening already?
Brother Rachid and Geert Wilders have both presented the truth about Islam. There is no such thing as Moderate Islam. There are Moderate people and some call themselves Muslims but there is no Moderate brand of Islam. The Islam ISIL practices is the exact replica of the Islam Mohammad followed and taught his believers. To the finest detail as Brother Rachid pointed out.
As his father is an Imam and he was raised a Muslim he knows very well what he speaks of. That ISIL comes from at least 10 different nations around the world - all Muslims attending various Mosques throughout those ten different nations - there is no question whatsoever that is Islam.
The pseudo Islam taught in American and Britains universities is not at all Islam but meant to indoctrinate the listener - lull the listener into a sense of security that Islam has somehow been "misunderstood", or "upset" due to some "injustice" perpretrated on their fellow brethren / islamic nations by Israel. It always comes back to Israel, America, Britain, the west. This is baloney.
The truth is they are war against the West and plan to destroy it - they are at war against Israel and their plan is to destroy it - they are at war with Europeans - all who are non Muslim nations and plan to destroy it and then dominate it with Sharia and put the rest of us under their feet.
See the last Muslim video posted on Geert Wilders Warning to America thread on religion forum for a sample of that. There are apologists / sympathisers - who assist the Muslims by spreading the news that they have traveled around the world, seen it firsthand and everything is peaceful out there - you'll find them teaching in Universities, writing on message boards - etc. Of course the headlines in news papers around the world tell quite a different story. Mass kidnappings of school girls - mass rape, christians crucified to trees, little girls raped and beheaded, many babies with hacked off limbs who have survived the "peacefulness of Islam"..... why do people make excuses and cover up for these people?
I suppose some believe they will be rewarded - granted a reprieve on the day of jihad but nothing could be further from the truth. Islamists generally murder those who placated them first when taking over a nation - it happened that way in Lebanon according to the testimony of Brigitte Gabrielle.
It has always been the way of the enemy to accuse you of what they are guilty of. They accuse you of intolerance therein no one examines their intolerance. They accuse you of being a liar therein no one examines their lies. They accuse you of being a racist, a bigot, a hater, therein no one examines their brand of hatred which is all far greater, far more deadly but then again if they can keep you fighting among yourselves they really never get a thorough examination. Do they?
In answer to your question. It is clear there are moderate people but there is no moderate Islam. The Islam that ISIL practices is the Islam Mohammad taught his followers to the finest detail as Brother Rachid clearly stated. So it would depend upon whether that moderate person wanted to abandon the teachings of Mohammad once confronted with the choice of do or die - or whether they will join the jihad and participate in the mass murder of their fellow citizens who have welcomed them freely into their countries - even assisting them with food and housing expenses. ( the bible calls this returning evil for good and those who do it - evil shall not depart from their house)
We won't know what those "moderates" will do until that time comes. The news that Muslims are leaving the West to join the jihad of ISIL and ISIS are an indication that we do have those murderers living among us even now. Moderate Islam? I think not.
It isn't good news.
Maybe read about country of Jordon, if the 1.5 bil Muslims wanted us dead we'd be dead, instead you want them dead, are you not just as bad?
It is estimated that 25 - 30% of the World's Muslim population are of the extremist variety (those who are fundamentalists) and want to rid the world of non-Muslims EXCEPT for those who would be allowed to live as Dhimmis and provide a source of Jizyah tax revenues for the caliphate.
Those extremists haven't had the money nor the smarts nor the logistical support to kill us all until now.
They can instigate violence which will force 1st World nations into committing their military forces and when they can successfully do that it is just a few steps until a global catastrophe SHOULD be game planned and defensed against lest they overwhelm our preparations.
Who estimated this? I find it so funny no one has a problem with SA , Qatar and Israel and the US who fund and enlist these Muslim terrorist? To get rid of the people they don't want running a country.
This is a message to President Obama from a former Muslim. It is getting alot of attention with many viewers and so far the response from Americans has been very positive!
Published on Sep 2, 2014 He has so far received 406,802 views and it looks as if it has gone viral.
Brother Rachid addresses President Obama about ISIL and Islam; he explains to him how ISIL is imitating the prophet Muhammad in every detail they do. ISIL represents Islam
Listen to his message and share your thoughts. Will President Obama see this message? Will he respond? What do you think?
As Brot
Sounds exactly like Christianity. I better turn my Muslim neighbor in before he beheads me. Something he said really struck home with me when talking about Christians in the Middle East. How are they still there if Islams mission is to wipe them out as infidels?
Well to be fair that completely depends where you go, in countries like Syria and Iraq now Christians are being hunted down like dogs, but of course thats not the case in every country in the region.
Did the Muslims just become alerted to the edict to wipe out Christians? Christians have been in the Middle East since before Islam started. Seems like there would be none left by now if what this guy is claiming is true. Religious fanatics have used religion to commit atrocities sense time immortal. That doesnt make the religion evil it makes the people using it evil. Christians slaughtered millions of people to provide an example.
In fact, even though there ARE moderate Muslims, there is no argument among those who know Islam.
Islam is NOT moderate.
This is a message to President Obama from a former Muslim. It is getting alot of attention with many viewers and so far the response from Americans has been very positive!
Published on Sep 2, 2014 He has so far received 406,802 views and it looks as if it has gone viral.
Brother Rachid addresses President Obama about ISIL and Islam; he explains to him how ISIL is imitating the prophet Muhammad in every detail they do. ISIL represents Islam
Listen to his message and share your thoughts. Will President Obama see this message? Will he respond? What do you think?
Sounds exactly like Christianity. I better turn my Muslim neighbor in before he beheads me. Something he said really struck home with me when talking about Christians in the Middle East. How are they still there if Islams mission is to wipe them out as infidels?
The Offer made to non-muslims is usually, the offer to convert to Islam and become a Muslim.
Surrender and submit to Islamic dominance and pay a Jizya tax for the pleasure of living in an Islamic land and being under Islamic protection.
If either of those choices are not taken the person is killed.
They aren't ALL just automatically killed.
Thats what the guy in the video just implied. Why did he leave out that fact? Wouldn't that be something important to know? Was he playing politics?
Brother, I have to tell you, it is exciting to me to share with you the information which, after you digest it, may well determine your future course with regard to your perception of Jihad.
I delight in the task.
This one document may do the trick.
It might help you finally decide your future perception of Islam and the struggle ahead.
But no matter how you decide, this info will increase your knowledge of Islam.
A good thing.
Amir Taheri: "Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy"Benador Associates ^ | May 19, 2004 | Amir Taheri
Posted on 5/19/2004 9:36:50 PM by F14 Pilot
Amir Taheri's remarks during the debate on " Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy"
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am glad that this debate takes place in English.
Because, were it to be conducted in any of the languages of our part of the world, we would not have possessed the vocabulary needed.
To understand a civilisation it is important to understand its vocabulary.
If it was not on their tongues it is likely that it was not on their minds either.
There was no word in any of the Muslim languages for democracy until the 1890s. Even then the Greek word democracy entered Muslim languages with little change: democrasi in Persian, dimokraytiyah in Arabic, demokratio in Turkish.
Democracy as the proverbial schoolboy would know is based on one fundamental principle: equality.
The Greek word for equal isos is used in more than 200 compound nouns; including isoteos (equality) and Isologia (equal or free speech) and isonomia (equal treatment).
But again we find no equivalent in any of the Muslim languages. The words we have such as barabari in Persian and sawiyah in Arabic mean juxtaposition or levelling.
Nor do we have a word for politics.
The word siassah, now used as a synonym for politics, initially meant whipping stray camels into line.( Sa'es al-kheil is a person who brings back lost camels to the caravan. )The closest translation may be: regimentation.
Nor is there mention of such words as government and the state in the Koran.
It is no accident that early Muslims translated numerous ancient Greek texts but never those related to political matters. The great Avicenna himself translated Aristotle's Poetics. But there was no translation of Aristotle's Politics in Persian until 1963.
Lest us return to the issue of equality.
The idea is unacceptable to Islam.
For the non-believer cannot be the equal of the believer.
Even among the believers only those who subscribe to the three so-called Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam ( Ahl el-Kitab) are regarded as fully human.
Here is the hierarchy of human worth in Islam:
At the summit are free male Muslims
Next come Muslim male slaves
Then come free Muslim women
Next come Muslim slave women.
Then come free Jewish and /or Christian men
Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian men
Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian women.
Each category has rights that must be respected.
The People of the Book have always been protected and relatively well-treated by Muslim rulers, but often in the context of a form of apartheid known as dhimmitude.
The status of the rest of humanity, those whose faiths are not recognised by Islam or who have no faith at all, has never been spelled out although wherever Muslim rulers faced such communities they often treated them with a certain measure of tolerance and respect ( As in the case of Hindus under the Muslim dynasties of India.)
Non-Muslims can, and have often been, treated with decency, but never as equals.
(There is a hierarchy even for animals and plants. Seven animals and seven plants will assuredly go to heaven while seven others of each will end up in Hell.)
Democracy means the rule of the demos, the common people, or what is now known as popular or national sovereignty.
In Islam, however, power belongs only to God: al-hukm l'illah. The man who exercises that power on earth is known as Khalifat al-Allah, the regent of God.
But even then the Khalifah or Caliph cannot act as legislator. The law has already been spelled out and fixed for ever by God.
The only task that remains is its discovery, interpretation and application.
That, of course, allows for a substantial space in which different styles of rule could develop.
But the bottom line is that no Islamic government can be democratic in the sense of allowing the common people equal shares in legislation.
Islam divides human activities into five categories from the permitted to the sinful, leaving little room for human interpretation, let alone ethical innovations.
What we must understand is that Islam has its own vision of the world and man's place in it.
To say that Islam is incompatible with democracy should not be seen as a disparagement of Islam.
On the contrary, many Muslims would see it as a compliment because they sincerely believe that their idea of rule by God is superior to that of rule by men which is democracy.
In Muslim literature and philosophy being forsaken by God is the worst that can happen to man.
The great Persian poet Rumi pleads thus:
Oh, God, do not leave our affairs to us
For, if You do, woe be to us.
Rumi mocks those who claim that men can rule themselves.
He says:
You are not reign even over your beard,
That grows without your permission.
How can you pretend, therefore,
To rule about right and wrong?
The expression "abandoned by God" sends shivers down Muslim spines. For it spells the doom not only of individuals but of entire civilisations.
The Koran tells the stories of tribes, nations and civilisations that perished when God left them to their devices.
The great Persian poet Attar says :
I have learned of Divine Rule in Yathirb ( i.e. Medinah, the city of the Prophet)
What need do I have of the wisdom of the Greeks?
Hafez, another great Persian poet, blamed man's "hobut" or fall on the use of his own judgment against that of God:
I was an angel and my abode was the eternal paradise
Adam ( i.e.) man brought me to this place of desolation
Islamic tradition holds that God has always intervened in the affairs of men, notably by dispatching 124000 prophets or emissaries to inform the mortals of His wishes and warnings.
Many Islamist thinkers regard democracy with horror.
The late Ayatollah Khomeini called democracy " a form of prostitution" because he who gets the most votes wins the power that belongs only to God.
Sayyed Qutub, the Egyptian who has emerged as the ideological mentor of Safalists, spent a year in the United States in the 1950s.
He found "a nation that has forgotten God and been forsaken by Him; an arrogant nation that wants to rule itself."
Last year Yussuf al-Ayyeri, one of the leading theoreticians of today's Islamist movement, published a book ( available on the Internet) in which he warned that the real danger to Islam did not come from American tanks and helicopter gunships in Iraq but from the idea of democracy and rule by the people.
Maudoodi, another of the Islamist theoreticians now fashionable, dreamed of a political system in which human beings would act as automatons in accordance with rules set by God.
He said that God has arranged man's biological functions in such a way that their operation is beyond human control. For our non-biological functions, notably our politics, God has set rules that we have to discover and apply once and for all so that our societies can be on auto-pilot so to speak.
The late Saudi theologian, Sheikh Muhammad bin Ibrahim al-Jubair, a man I respected though seldom agreed with, sincerely believed that the root cause of all of our contemporary ills was the spread of democracy.
" Only one ambition is worthy of Islam," he liked to say, " the ambition to save the world from the curse of democracy: to teach men that they cannot rule themselves on the basis of manmade laws. Mankind has strayed from the path of God, we must return to that path or face certain annihilation."
Thus those who claim that Islam is compatible with democracy should know that they are not flattering Muslims.
In fact, most Muslims would feel insulted by such assertions.
How could a manmade form of government, invented by the heathen Greeks, be compared with Islam which is God's final word to man, the only true faith, they would ask.
In the past 14 centuries Muslims have, on occasions, succeeded in creating successful societies without democracy.
And there is no guarantee that democracy never produces disastrous results. (After all Hitler was democratically elected.)
The fact that almost all Muslim states today can be rated as failures or, at least, underachievers, is not because they are Islamic but because they are ruled by corrupt and despotic elites that, even when they proclaim an Islamist ideology, are, in fact, secular dictators.
Let us recall the founding myth of democracy as related by Protagoras in Plato.
Protagoras's claim that the rule of the people, democracy, is the best, is ridiculed by Socrates who points out that men always call on experts to deal with specific tasks but when it comes to the more important matters concerning the city, i.e. the community, they allow every Tom , Dick and Harry an equal say.
Protagoras says that when man was created he lived a solitary existence and was unable to protect himself and his kin against more powerful beasts.
Consequently men came together to secure their lives by founding cities. But the cities were torn by strife because inhabitants did wrong to one another.
Zeus, watching the proceedings, realised that the reason that things were going badly was that men did not have the art of managing the city ( politike techne).
Without that art man was heading for destruction.
So, Zeus called in his messenger, Hermes and asked him to deliver two gifts to mankind: aidos and dike.
Aidos is a sense of shame and a concern for the good opinion of others.
Dike here means respect for the right of others and implies a sense of justice that seeks civil peace through adjudication.
Before setting off Hermes asks a decisive question: Should I deliver this new art to a select few, as was the case in all other arts, or to all?
Zeus replies with no hesitation : To all. Let all have their share.
Protagoras concludes his reply to Socrates' criticism of democracy thus:" Hence it comes about, Socrates, that people in the cities, and especially in Athens, listen only to experts in matters of expertise but when they meet for consultation on the political art, i.e. of the general question of government, everybody participates."
Traditional Islamic political thought is closer to Socrates than to Protagoras.
The common folk, al-awwam, are regarded as "animals "( al-awwam kal anaam!)
The interpretation of the Divine Law is reserved only for the experts.
In Iran there is even a body called The Assembly of Experts.
Political power, like many other domains, including philosophy, is reserved for the " khawas" who, in some Sufi traditions, are even exempt from the ritual rules of the faith.
The " common folk", however, must do as they are told either by the text and tradition or by fatwas issued by the experts. Khomeini coined the word "mustazafeen" (the feeble ones) to describe the common folk.
In the Greek tradition once Zeus has taught men the art of politics he does not try to rule them.
To be sure he and other Gods do intervene in earthly matters but always episodically and mostly in pursuit of their illicit pleasures.
Polytheism is by its pluralistic nature is tolerant, open to new gods, and new views of old gods. Its mythology personifies natural forces that could be adapted, by allegory, to metaphysical concepts.
One could in the same city and at the same time mock Zeus as a promiscuous old rake, henpecked and cuckolded by Juno, or worship him as justice defied.
This is not possible in monotheism especially Islam, the only truly monotheistic of the three Abrahamic faiths.
In monotheism for the One to be stable in its One-ness it is imperative that the many be stabilised in their many-ness.
The God of monotheism does not discuss or negotiate matters with mortals.
He dictates, be it the 10 Commandments or the Koran which was already composed and completed before Allah sent his Hermes, Archangel Gabriel, to dictate it to Muhammad:
Read, the Koran starts with the command; In the name of Thy God The Most High!
Islam's incompatibility with democracy is not unique. It is shared by other religions. For faith is about certainty while democracy is about doubt. There is no changing of one's mind in faith, while democracy is about changing minds and sides.
If we were to use a more technical terminology faith creates a nexus and democracy a series.
Democracy is like people waiting for a bus.
They are of different backgrounds and have different interests. We don't care what their religion is or how they vote. All they have in common is their desire to get on that bus. And they get off at whatever stop they wish.
Faith, however is internalised. Turned into a nexus it controls man's every thought and move even in his deepest privacy.
Democracy, of course, is compatible with Islam because democracy is serial and polytheistic. People are free to believe whatever they like to believe and perform whatever religious rituals they wish, provided they do not infringe on other's freedoms in the public domain.
The other way round, however, it does not work.
Islam cannot allow people to do as they please , even in the privacy of their bedrooms, because God is always present, everywhere, all-hearing and all-seeing.
There is consultation in Islam: Wa shawerhum fil amr. ( And consult them in matters)
But the consultation thus recommended is about specifics only, never about the overall design of society.
In democracy there is a constitution that can be changed or at least amended.
The Koran, however, is the immutable word of God, beyond change or amendment.
This debate is not easy.
For Islam has become an issue of political controversy in the West.
On the one hand we have Islamophobia, a particular affliction of those who blame Islam for all the ills of our world.
The more thin skinned Muslims have ended up on regarding every criticism of Islam as Islamophobia.
On the other hand we have Islamoflattery that claims that everything good under the sun came from Islam. ( According to a recent PBS serial on Islam, even cinema was invented by a lens-maker in Baghdad, named Abu-Hufus!)
This is often practised by a new generation of the Turques de profession, Westerners who are prepared to apply the rules of critical analysis to everything under the sun except Islam.
They think they are doing Islam a favour.
The opposite is true.
Depriving Islam of critical scrutiny is bad for Islam and Muslims, and ultimately dangerous for the whole world.
The debate is about how to organise the global public space that is shared by the whole humanity. That space must be religion-neutral and free of ideology, which means organised on the basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
There are 57 nations in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
Not one is yet a democracy .
The more Islamic the regime in place the less democratic it is.
Democracy is the rule of mortal common men.
Islam is the rule of immortal God.
Politics is the art of the possible and democracy a method of dealing with the problems of real life.
Islam, on the other hand, is about the unattainable ideal.
We should not allow the everything-is-equal-to-everything-else fashion of postmodernist multiculturalism and political correctness to prevent us from acknowledging differences and, yes, incompatibilities, in the name of a soggy consensus.
If we are all the same how can we have a dialogue of civilisations, unless we elevate cultural schizophrenia into an existential imperative.
Muslims should not be duped into believing that they can have their cake and eat
it. Muslims can build democratic society provided they treat Islam as a matter of personal, private belief and not as a political ideology that seeks to monopolise the pubic space and regulate every aspect of individual and community life.
Ladies and gentlemen: Islam is incompatible with democracy.
I commend the motion.
Thank you
* The motion was carried by 403 votes for, 267 against and 28 undecided.
Amir Taheri Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy
I agree Islam as practiced by some is not moderate. Its all encompassing. My point is that it is not different from Christianity. We have just been brainwashed to accept the atrocities of Christians while at the same time condemning Islams. There are great people that practice both of the religions peacefully. I think both religions represent themselves as social control ideologies wrapped up in the best fall back of all time. Do not question the invisible sky faries God/Allahs will or you will go to hell.
In fact, even though there ARE moderate Muslims, there is no argument among those who know Islam.
Islam is NOT moderate.
Brother, I have to tell you, it is exciting to me to share with you the information which, after you digest it, may well determine your future course with regard to your perception of Jihad.
I delight in the task.
This one document may do the trick.
It might help you finally decide your future perception of Islam and the struggle ahead.
But no matter how you decide, this info will increase your knowledge of Islam.
A good thing.
Amir Taheri Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy
I agree Islam as practiced by some is not moderate. Its all encompassing. My point is that it is not different from Christianity. We have just been brainwashed to accept the atrocities of Christians while at the same time condemning Islams. There are great people that practice both of the religions peacefully. I think both religions represent themselves as social control ideologies wrapped up in the best fall back of all time. Do not question the invisible sky faries God/Allahs will or you will go to hell.
And everything you say has some degree of validity.
What if I agreed with everything you've said?
Would you then agree with me that the most important thing we can do is prevent the Islamic conquest of America?
I dont see it as an Islamic conquest. I see it as some nut cases that happen to practice Islam wanting to make the US pay for its sins in the middle east. I bet Putin would like to do the same thing to the US but he is not Muslim.
C'mon Brother. Are you saying you are supporting a religion without knowing it's ultimate goal?
The goal of Islam is to dominate the entire world for Allah. using any means necessary.
Violent, non-violent.
Whatever it takes.
Surely you know this.
I thought the goal of Christianity was to dominate the entire world for God by any means necessary. Matter of fact I am pretty sure of it.
Popes For Slavery - Romanus Pontifex by Pope Nicholas V
Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas on 18 June, 1452. It authorised Alfonso V of Portugal to reduce any “Saracens (Muslims) and pagans and any other unbelievers” to perpetual slavery. This facilitated the Portuguese slave trade from West Africa.
The same pope wrote the bull Romanus Pontifex on January 5, 1455 to the same Alfonso. As a follow-up to the Dum diversas, it extended to the Catholic nations of Europe dominion over discovered lands during the Age of Discovery. Along with sanctifying the seizure of non-Christian lands, it encouraged the enslavement of native, non-Christian peoples in Africa and the New World.
As Brot
Sounds exactly like Christianity. I better turn my Muslim neighbor in before he beheads me. Something he said really struck home with me when talking about Christians in the Middle East. How are they still there if Islams mission is to wipe them out as infidels?
Well to be fair that completely depends where you go, in countries like Syria and Iraq now Christians are being hunted down like dogs, but of course thats not the case in every country in the region.
Did the Muslims just become alerted to the edict to wipe out Christians? Christians have been in the Middle East since before Islam started. Seems like there would be none left by now if what this guy is claiming is true. Religious fanatics have used religion to commit atrocities sense time immortal. That doesnt make the religion evil it makes the people using it evil. Christians slaughtered millions of people to provide an example.
In fact, even though there ARE moderate Muslims, there is no argument among those who know Islam.
Islam is NOT moderate.
Thats what the guy in the video just implied. Why did he leave out that fact? Wouldn't that be something important to know? Was he playing politics?Sounds exactly like Christianity. I better turn my Muslim neighbor in before he beheads me. Something he said really struck home with me when talking about Christians in the Middle East. How are they still there if Islams mission is to wipe them out as infidels?
The Offer made to non-muslims is usually, the offer to convert to Islam and become a Muslim.
Surrender and submit to Islamic dominance and pay a Jizya tax for the pleasure of living in an Islamic land and being under Islamic protection.
If either of those choices are not taken the person is killed.
They aren't ALL just automatically killed.
Brother, I have to tell you, it is exciting to me to share with you the information which, after you digest it, may well determine your future course with regard to your perception of Jihad.
I delight in the task.
This one document may do the trick.
It might help you finally decide your future perception of Islam and the struggle ahead.
But no matter how you decide, this info will increase your knowledge of Islam.
A good thing.
Amir Taheri: "Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy"Benador Associates ^ | May 19, 2004 | Amir Taheri
Posted on 5/19/2004 9:36:50 PM by F14 Pilot
Amir Taheri's remarks during the debate on " Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy"
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am glad that this debate takes place in English.
Because, were it to be conducted in any of the languages of our part of the world, we would not have possessed the vocabulary needed.
To understand a civilisation it is important to understand its vocabulary.
If it was not on their tongues it is likely that it was not on their minds either.
There was no word in any of the Muslim languages for democracy until the 1890s. Even then the Greek word democracy entered Muslim languages with little change: democrasi in Persian, dimokraytiyah in Arabic, demokratio in Turkish.
Democracy as the proverbial schoolboy would know is based on one fundamental principle: equality.
The Greek word for equal isos is used in more than 200 compound nouns; including isoteos (equality) and Isologia (equal or free speech) and isonomia (equal treatment).
But again we find no equivalent in any of the Muslim languages. The words we have such as barabari in Persian and sawiyah in Arabic mean juxtaposition or levelling.
Nor do we have a word for politics.
The word siassah, now used as a synonym for politics, initially meant whipping stray camels into line.( Sa'es al-kheil is a person who brings back lost camels to the caravan. )The closest translation may be: regimentation.
Nor is there mention of such words as government and the state in the Koran.
It is no accident that early Muslims translated numerous ancient Greek texts but never those related to political matters. The great Avicenna himself translated Aristotle's Poetics. But there was no translation of Aristotle's Politics in Persian until 1963.
Lest us return to the issue of equality.
The idea is unacceptable to Islam.
For the non-believer cannot be the equal of the believer.
Even among the believers only those who subscribe to the three so-called Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam ( Ahl el-Kitab) are regarded as fully human.
Here is the hierarchy of human worth in Islam:
At the summit are free male Muslims
Next come Muslim male slaves
Then come free Muslim women
Next come Muslim slave women.
Then come free Jewish and /or Christian men
Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian men
Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian women.
Each category has rights that must be respected.
The People of the Book have always been protected and relatively well-treated by Muslim rulers, but often in the context of a form of apartheid known as dhimmitude.
The status of the rest of humanity, those whose faiths are not recognised by Islam or who have no faith at all, has never been spelled out although wherever Muslim rulers faced such communities they often treated them with a certain measure of tolerance and respect ( As in the case of Hindus under the Muslim dynasties of India.)
Non-Muslims can, and have often been, treated with decency, but never as equals.
(There is a hierarchy even for animals and plants. Seven animals and seven plants will assuredly go to heaven while seven others of each will end up in Hell.)
Democracy means the rule of the demos, the common people, or what is now known as popular or national sovereignty.
In Islam, however, power belongs only to God: al-hukm l'illah. The man who exercises that power on earth is known as Khalifat al-Allah, the regent of God.
But even then the Khalifah or Caliph cannot act as legislator. The law has already been spelled out and fixed for ever by God.
The only task that remains is its discovery, interpretation and application.
That, of course, allows for a substantial space in which different styles of rule could develop.
But the bottom line is that no Islamic government can be democratic in the sense of allowing the common people equal shares in legislation.
Islam divides human activities into five categories from the permitted to the sinful, leaving little room for human interpretation, let alone ethical innovations.
What we must understand is that Islam has its own vision of the world and man's place in it.
To say that Islam is incompatible with democracy should not be seen as a disparagement of Islam.
On the contrary, many Muslims would see it as a compliment because they sincerely believe that their idea of rule by God is superior to that of rule by men which is democracy.
In Muslim literature and philosophy being forsaken by God is the worst that can happen to man.
The great Persian poet Rumi pleads thus:
Oh, God, do not leave our affairs to us
For, if You do, woe be to us.
Rumi mocks those who claim that men can rule themselves.
He says:
You are not reign even over your beard,
That grows without your permission.
How can you pretend, therefore,
To rule about right and wrong?
The expression "abandoned by God" sends shivers down Muslim spines. For it spells the doom not only of individuals but of entire civilisations.
The Koran tells the stories of tribes, nations and civilisations that perished when God left them to their devices.
The great Persian poet Attar says :
I have learned of Divine Rule in Yathirb ( i.e. Medinah, the city of the Prophet)
What need do I have of the wisdom of the Greeks?
Hafez, another great Persian poet, blamed man's "hobut" or fall on the use of his own judgment against that of God:
I was an angel and my abode was the eternal paradise
Adam ( i.e.) man brought me to this place of desolation
Islamic tradition holds that God has always intervened in the affairs of men, notably by dispatching 124000 prophets or emissaries to inform the mortals of His wishes and warnings.
Many Islamist thinkers regard democracy with horror.
The late Ayatollah Khomeini called democracy " a form of prostitution" because he who gets the most votes wins the power that belongs only to God.
Sayyed Qutub, the Egyptian who has emerged as the ideological mentor of Safalists, spent a year in the United States in the 1950s.
He found "a nation that has forgotten God and been forsaken by Him; an arrogant nation that wants to rule itself."
Last year Yussuf al-Ayyeri, one of the leading theoreticians of today's Islamist movement, published a book ( available on the Internet) in which he warned that the real danger to Islam did not come from American tanks and helicopter gunships in Iraq but from the idea of democracy and rule by the people.
Maudoodi, another of the Islamist theoreticians now fashionable, dreamed of a political system in which human beings would act as automatons in accordance with rules set by God.
He said that God has arranged man's biological functions in such a way that their operation is beyond human control. For our non-biological functions, notably our politics, God has set rules that we have to discover and apply once and for all so that our societies can be on auto-pilot so to speak.
The late Saudi theologian, Sheikh Muhammad bin Ibrahim al-Jubair, a man I respected though seldom agreed with, sincerely believed that the root cause of all of our contemporary ills was the spread of democracy.
" Only one ambition is worthy of Islam," he liked to say, " the ambition to save the world from the curse of democracy: to teach men that they cannot rule themselves on the basis of manmade laws. Mankind has strayed from the path of God, we must return to that path or face certain annihilation."
Thus those who claim that Islam is compatible with democracy should know that they are not flattering Muslims.
In fact, most Muslims would feel insulted by such assertions.
How could a manmade form of government, invented by the heathen Greeks, be compared with Islam which is God's final word to man, the only true faith, they would ask.
In the past 14 centuries Muslims have, on occasions, succeeded in creating successful societies without democracy.
And there is no guarantee that democracy never produces disastrous results. (After all Hitler was democratically elected.)
The fact that almost all Muslim states today can be rated as failures or, at least, underachievers, is not because they are Islamic but because they are ruled by corrupt and despotic elites that, even when they proclaim an Islamist ideology, are, in fact, secular dictators.
Let us recall the founding myth of democracy as related by Protagoras in Plato.
Protagoras's claim that the rule of the people, democracy, is the best, is ridiculed by Socrates who points out that men always call on experts to deal with specific tasks but when it comes to the more important matters concerning the city, i.e. the community, they allow every Tom , Dick and Harry an equal say.
Protagoras says that when man was created he lived a solitary existence and was unable to protect himself and his kin against more powerful beasts.
Consequently men came together to secure their lives by founding cities. But the cities were torn by strife because inhabitants did wrong to one another.
Zeus, watching the proceedings, realised that the reason that things were going badly was that men did not have the art of managing the city ( politike techne).
Without that art man was heading for destruction.
So, Zeus called in his messenger, Hermes and asked him to deliver two gifts to mankind: aidos and dike.
Aidos is a sense of shame and a concern for the good opinion of others.
Dike here means respect for the right of others and implies a sense of justice that seeks civil peace through adjudication.
Before setting off Hermes asks a decisive question: Should I deliver this new art to a select few, as was the case in all other arts, or to all?
Zeus replies with no hesitation : To all. Let all have their share.
Protagoras concludes his reply to Socrates' criticism of democracy thus:" Hence it comes about, Socrates, that people in the cities, and especially in Athens, listen only to experts in matters of expertise but when they meet for consultation on the political art, i.e. of the general question of government, everybody participates."
Traditional Islamic political thought is closer to Socrates than to Protagoras.
The common folk, al-awwam, are regarded as "animals "( al-awwam kal anaam!)
The interpretation of the Divine Law is reserved only for the experts.
In Iran there is even a body called The Assembly of Experts.
Political power, like many other domains, including philosophy, is reserved for the " khawas" who, in some Sufi traditions, are even exempt from the ritual rules of the faith.
The " common folk", however, must do as they are told either by the text and tradition or by fatwas issued by the experts. Khomeini coined the word "mustazafeen" (the feeble ones) to describe the common folk.
In the Greek tradition once Zeus has taught men the art of politics he does not try to rule them.
To be sure he and other Gods do intervene in earthly matters but always episodically and mostly in pursuit of their illicit pleasures.
Polytheism is by its pluralistic nature is tolerant, open to new gods, and new views of old gods. Its mythology personifies natural forces that could be adapted, by allegory, to metaphysical concepts.
One could in the same city and at the same time mock Zeus as a promiscuous old rake, henpecked and cuckolded by Juno, or worship him as justice defied.
This is not possible in monotheism especially Islam, the only truly monotheistic of the three Abrahamic faiths.
In monotheism for the One to be stable in its One-ness it is imperative that the many be stabilised in their many-ness.
The God of monotheism does not discuss or negotiate matters with mortals.
He dictates, be it the 10 Commandments or the Koran which was already composed and completed before Allah sent his Hermes, Archangel Gabriel, to dictate it to Muhammad:
Read, the Koran starts with the command; In the name of Thy God The Most High!
Islam's incompatibility with democracy is not unique. It is shared by other religions. For faith is about certainty while democracy is about doubt. There is no changing of one's mind in faith, while democracy is about changing minds and sides.
If we were to use a more technical terminology faith creates a nexus and democracy a series.
Democracy is like people waiting for a bus.
They are of different backgrounds and have different interests. We don't care what their religion is or how they vote. All they have in common is their desire to get on that bus. And they get off at whatever stop they wish.
Faith, however is internalised. Turned into a nexus it controls man's every thought and move even in his deepest privacy.
Democracy, of course, is compatible with Islam because democracy is serial and polytheistic. People are free to believe whatever they like to believe and perform whatever religious rituals they wish, provided they do not infringe on other's freedoms in the public domain.
The other way round, however, it does not work.
Islam cannot allow people to do as they please , even in the privacy of their bedrooms, because God is always present, everywhere, all-hearing and all-seeing.
There is consultation in Islam: Wa shawerhum fil amr. ( And consult them in matters)
But the consultation thus recommended is about specifics only, never about the overall design of society.
In democracy there is a constitution that can be changed or at least amended.
The Koran, however, is the immutable word of God, beyond change or amendment.
This debate is not easy.
For Islam has become an issue of political controversy in the West.
On the one hand we have Islamophobia, a particular affliction of those who blame Islam for all the ills of our world.
The more thin skinned Muslims have ended up on regarding every criticism of Islam as Islamophobia.
On the other hand we have Islamoflattery that claims that everything good under the sun came from Islam. ( According to a recent PBS serial on Islam, even cinema was invented by a lens-maker in Baghdad, named Abu-Hufus!)
This is often practised by a new generation of the Turques de profession, Westerners who are prepared to apply the rules of critical analysis to everything under the sun except Islam.
They think they are doing Islam a favour.
The opposite is true.
Depriving Islam of critical scrutiny is bad for Islam and Muslims, and ultimately dangerous for the whole world.
The debate is about how to organise the global public space that is shared by the whole humanity. That space must be religion-neutral and free of ideology, which means organised on the basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
There are 57 nations in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
Not one is yet a democracy .
The more Islamic the regime in place the less democratic it is.
Democracy is the rule of mortal common men.
Islam is the rule of immortal God.
Politics is the art of the possible and democracy a method of dealing with the problems of real life.
Islam, on the other hand, is about the unattainable ideal.
We should not allow the everything-is-equal-to-everything-else fashion of postmodernist multiculturalism and political correctness to prevent us from acknowledging differences and, yes, incompatibilities, in the name of a soggy consensus.
If we are all the same how can we have a dialogue of civilisations, unless we elevate cultural schizophrenia into an existential imperative.
Muslims should not be duped into believing that they can have their cake and eat
it. Muslims can build democratic society provided they treat Islam as a matter of personal, private belief and not as a political ideology that seeks to monopolise the pubic space and regulate every aspect of individual and community life.
Ladies and gentlemen: Islam is incompatible with democracy.
I commend the motion.
Thank you
* The motion was carried by 403 votes for, 267 against and 28 undecided.
Amir Taheri Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy
I agree Islam as practiced by some is not moderate. Its all encompassing. My point is that it is not different from Christianity. We have just been brainwashed to accept the atrocities of Christians while at the same time condemning Islams. There are great people that practice both of the religions peacefully. I think both religions represent themselves as social control ideologies wrapped up in the best fall back of all time. Do not question the invisible sky faries God/Allahs will or you will go to hell.I agree Islam as practiced by some is not moderate. Its all encompassing. My point is that it is not different from Christianity. We have just been brainwashed to accept the atrocities of Christians while at the same time condemning Islams. There are great people that practice both of the religions peacefully. I think both religions represent themselves as social control ideologies wrapped up in the best fall back of all time. Do not question the invisible sky faries God/Allahs will or you will go to hell.
And everything you say has some degree of validity.
What if I agreed with everything you've said?
Would you then agree with me that the most important thing we can do is prevent the Islamic conquest of America?
I dont see it as an Islamic conquest. I see it as some nut cases that happen to practice Islam wanting to make the US pay for its sins in the middle east. I bet Putin would like to do the same thing to the US but he is not Muslim.
C'mon Brother. Are you saying you are supporting a religion without knowing it's ultimate goal?
The goal of Islam is to dominate the entire world for Allah. using any means necessary.
Violent, non-violent.
Whatever it takes.
Surely you know this.
I thought the goal of Christianity was to dominate the entire world for God by any means necessary. Matter of fact I am pretty sure of it.
Popes For Slavery - Romanus Pontifex by Pope Nicholas V
Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas on 18 June, 1452. It authorised Alfonso V of Portugal to reduce any “Saracens (Muslims) and pagans and any other unbelievers” to perpetual slavery. This facilitated the Portuguese slave trade from West Africa.
The same pope wrote the bull Romanus Pontifex on January 5, 1455 to the same Alfonso. As a follow-up to the Dum diversas, it extended to the Catholic nations of Europe dominion over discovered lands during the Age of Discovery. Along with sanctifying the seizure of non-Christian lands, it encouraged the enslavement of native, non-Christian peoples in Africa and the New World.
The Roman Catholic Church is not a Christian Church. They do not teach the doctrine of Jesus Christ but a doctrine of demons which Christians are warned to stay away from. Nowhere in the bible does it ever teach that a Christian should force the conversion of another person by threats of death, torture, taking their children from them as the RCC did to Jews during the inquistion. No where in the New Testament did Jesus ever tell anyone to build an army much less create a kingdom here on earth - even owning their own city - for heaven's sake!
Nowhere in the bible is it taught that a bishop cannot marry. It teaches he must be the husband of one wife as the Romans were known for having multiple wives - which is forbidden in the New testament. No place in scripture does it tell the believer to go into a confessional box and confess your sins in the dark to a man behind a screen who is calling himself father! This is nonsense! Confess your sins one to another - the bible teaches - it can be done over coffee at Starbucks. God is not religious or legalistic. You can repent to God directly as Jesus is your mediator and the guy in the black robe calling himself father is neither needed nor appreciated by God. God is our father. Not anyone human flesh. Is there anything more vile than a mixture of spirituality and flesh? I think not.
Furthermore, the New Testament teaches that anyone teaching the forbidding of eating meat, forbidding to marry are teaching a doctrine of demons - stay away from such people. There is no teaching in the bible about pergotory or seven sacraments that you must complete to be saved - not in the bible anywhere - not one mention of Limbo either - no mention of indulgences where Christians could pay money to pay God off and get their dead loved ones out of hell or pergotory - that was a money scam by the pope to finance the building of St. Peter's Basilica - furthermore, good friday eating fish rule was brought in when they supposedly went into the fish business and this upped their income - the forbidding of nuns and priests to not marry and live in commune type settings is not in bible scripture either.
As for the sacrificing of Christ at every mass it is a demonic teaching not taught anywhere in Scripture - Jesus was sacrificed once on the cross for our sins - not over and over and over and over again - the host does not turn into the flesh of Christ nor the wine turn into his blood - what an utterly satanic teaching - the final words of Jesus on the cross was IT IS FINISHED. What part of that did you people not understand???!
Furthermore - Mary is not immaculate which means sinless - she was born into this world a sinner just as every one else was and no place in the bible does it ever say we are to worhsip her - pray to her or ask her to intercede for us.
We have one intercessor and His name is Jesus Christ. Not Mary. We have one way to enter the Kingdom of heaven and that is through believing on the LORD Jesus Christ according to Romans 10: 9,10.
Not believing Mary being our mother. Mary is not our mother. She was the vessel chosen to carry Jesus and deliver him into the world - she was his mother and the mother of his brothers which brings me to the next fact and that is that Jesus had siblings and Mary was not a virgin when she died. She had other children. Understood? If not? Read the bible!!!!!
This is all in scripture yet the Catholic church has chosen to ignore all of it and make up their own religion. A religion that is blatantly false and will not afford you anything but a one way ticket to hell. If you are in there - get out of there and if you are not saved - call upon the LORD to save you. Read Romans 10: 9, 10.
You must not have paid attention in school. Does the phrase "separation of church and state" ring a bell? There is no such rule in most Middle eastern countries. Terrible analogy on your part. The Islamic religion is combined with the customs of the locals and incorporated in their politics, openly and without any shame. In most Christian countries that has been removed. Prior to that removal Christian countries killed way more people than Islamic countries have.
Stopped reading after your first fallacy. Not surprising..it was one of your first sentences.
Go ahead and show me exactly where "separation of church and state" is listed in the Constitution.
Again...show me a Christian country that would ride into town and slaughter innocents. Like your muslim buddies did.
You cant do it. Because it doesnt happen.
I will after you show me exactly where I said it was listed in the constitution.
Then why did you bring it up?
Dude you're an idiot. You flail around making up stupid shit and use the lamest dodges known to man when they turn out to be bullshit.
About done with your stupidity.
He is gathering information and trying to reach an intelligent conclusion in spite of some stiff criticisms and random racist potshots.
If you can't rationally argue your point of view you will be doing your own cause a disservice.
The dudes an idiot. When someone ignores obvious flaws in their argument,and or just refuses to answer questions,it's no longer a discussion now is it?
Well to be fair that completely depends where you go, in countries like Syria and Iraq now Christians are being hunted down like dogs, but of course thats not the case in every country in the region.
Did the Muslims just become alerted to the edict to wipe out Christians? Christians have been in the Middle East since before Islam started. Seems like there would be none left by now if what this guy is claiming is true. Religious fanatics have used religion to commit atrocities sense time immortal. That doesnt make the religion evil it makes the people using it evil. Christians slaughtered millions of people to provide an example.
In fact, even though there ARE moderate Muslims, there is no argument among those who know Islam.
Islam is NOT moderate.
Thats what the guy in the video just implied. Why did he leave out that fact? Wouldn't that be something important to know? Was he playing politics?The Offer made to non-muslims is usually, the offer to convert to Islam and become a Muslim.
Surrender and submit to Islamic dominance and pay a Jizya tax for the pleasure of living in an Islamic land and being under Islamic protection.
If either of those choices are not taken the person is killed.
They aren't ALL just automatically killed.
Brother, I have to tell you, it is exciting to me to share with you the information which, after you digest it, may well determine your future course with regard to your perception of Jihad.
I delight in the task.
This one document may do the trick.
It might help you finally decide your future perception of Islam and the struggle ahead.
But no matter how you decide, this info will increase your knowledge of Islam.
A good thing.
Amir Taheri: "Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy"Benador Associates ^ | May 19, 2004 | Amir Taheri
Posted on 5/19/2004 9:36:50 PM by F14 Pilot
Amir Taheri's remarks during the debate on " Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy"
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am glad that this debate takes place in English.
Because, were it to be conducted in any of the languages of our part of the world, we would not have possessed the vocabulary needed.
To understand a civilisation it is important to understand its vocabulary.
If it was not on their tongues it is likely that it was not on their minds either.
There was no word in any of the Muslim languages for democracy until the 1890s. Even then the Greek word democracy entered Muslim languages with little change: democrasi in Persian, dimokraytiyah in Arabic, demokratio in Turkish.
Democracy as the proverbial schoolboy would know is based on one fundamental principle: equality.
The Greek word for equal isos is used in more than 200 compound nouns; including isoteos (equality) and Isologia (equal or free speech) and isonomia (equal treatment).
But again we find no equivalent in any of the Muslim languages. The words we have such as barabari in Persian and sawiyah in Arabic mean juxtaposition or levelling.
Nor do we have a word for politics.
The word siassah, now used as a synonym for politics, initially meant whipping stray camels into line.( Sa'es al-kheil is a person who brings back lost camels to the caravan. )The closest translation may be: regimentation.
Nor is there mention of such words as government and the state in the Koran.
It is no accident that early Muslims translated numerous ancient Greek texts but never those related to political matters. The great Avicenna himself translated Aristotle's Poetics. But there was no translation of Aristotle's Politics in Persian until 1963.
Lest us return to the issue of equality.
The idea is unacceptable to Islam.
For the non-believer cannot be the equal of the believer.
Even among the believers only those who subscribe to the three so-called Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam ( Ahl el-Kitab) are regarded as fully human.
Here is the hierarchy of human worth in Islam:
At the summit are free male Muslims
Next come Muslim male slaves
Then come free Muslim women
Next come Muslim slave women.
Then come free Jewish and /or Christian men
Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian men
Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian women.
Each category has rights that must be respected.
The People of the Book have always been protected and relatively well-treated by Muslim rulers, but often in the context of a form of apartheid known as dhimmitude.
The status of the rest of humanity, those whose faiths are not recognised by Islam or who have no faith at all, has never been spelled out although wherever Muslim rulers faced such communities they often treated them with a certain measure of tolerance and respect ( As in the case of Hindus under the Muslim dynasties of India.)
Non-Muslims can, and have often been, treated with decency, but never as equals.
(There is a hierarchy even for animals and plants. Seven animals and seven plants will assuredly go to heaven while seven others of each will end up in Hell.)
Democracy means the rule of the demos, the common people, or what is now known as popular or national sovereignty.
In Islam, however, power belongs only to God: al-hukm l'illah. The man who exercises that power on earth is known as Khalifat al-Allah, the regent of God.
But even then the Khalifah or Caliph cannot act as legislator. The law has already been spelled out and fixed for ever by God.
The only task that remains is its discovery, interpretation and application.
That, of course, allows for a substantial space in which different styles of rule could develop.
But the bottom line is that no Islamic government can be democratic in the sense of allowing the common people equal shares in legislation.
Islam divides human activities into five categories from the permitted to the sinful, leaving little room for human interpretation, let alone ethical innovations.
What we must understand is that Islam has its own vision of the world and man's place in it.
To say that Islam is incompatible with democracy should not be seen as a disparagement of Islam.
On the contrary, many Muslims would see it as a compliment because they sincerely believe that their idea of rule by God is superior to that of rule by men which is democracy.
In Muslim literature and philosophy being forsaken by God is the worst that can happen to man.
The great Persian poet Rumi pleads thus:
Oh, God, do not leave our affairs to us
For, if You do, woe be to us.
Rumi mocks those who claim that men can rule themselves.
He says:
You are not reign even over your beard,
That grows without your permission.
How can you pretend, therefore,
To rule about right and wrong?
The expression "abandoned by God" sends shivers down Muslim spines. For it spells the doom not only of individuals but of entire civilisations.
The Koran tells the stories of tribes, nations and civilisations that perished when God left them to their devices.
The great Persian poet Attar says :
I have learned of Divine Rule in Yathirb ( i.e. Medinah, the city of the Prophet)
What need do I have of the wisdom of the Greeks?
Hafez, another great Persian poet, blamed man's "hobut" or fall on the use of his own judgment against that of God:
I was an angel and my abode was the eternal paradise
Adam ( i.e.) man brought me to this place of desolation
Islamic tradition holds that God has always intervened in the affairs of men, notably by dispatching 124000 prophets or emissaries to inform the mortals of His wishes and warnings.
Many Islamist thinkers regard democracy with horror.
The late Ayatollah Khomeini called democracy " a form of prostitution" because he who gets the most votes wins the power that belongs only to God.
Sayyed Qutub, the Egyptian who has emerged as the ideological mentor of Safalists, spent a year in the United States in the 1950s.
He found "a nation that has forgotten God and been forsaken by Him; an arrogant nation that wants to rule itself."
Last year Yussuf al-Ayyeri, one of the leading theoreticians of today's Islamist movement, published a book ( available on the Internet) in which he warned that the real danger to Islam did not come from American tanks and helicopter gunships in Iraq but from the idea of democracy and rule by the people.
Maudoodi, another of the Islamist theoreticians now fashionable, dreamed of a political system in which human beings would act as automatons in accordance with rules set by God.
He said that God has arranged man's biological functions in such a way that their operation is beyond human control. For our non-biological functions, notably our politics, God has set rules that we have to discover and apply once and for all so that our societies can be on auto-pilot so to speak.
The late Saudi theologian, Sheikh Muhammad bin Ibrahim al-Jubair, a man I respected though seldom agreed with, sincerely believed that the root cause of all of our contemporary ills was the spread of democracy.
" Only one ambition is worthy of Islam," he liked to say, " the ambition to save the world from the curse of democracy: to teach men that they cannot rule themselves on the basis of manmade laws. Mankind has strayed from the path of God, we must return to that path or face certain annihilation."
Thus those who claim that Islam is compatible with democracy should know that they are not flattering Muslims.
In fact, most Muslims would feel insulted by such assertions.
How could a manmade form of government, invented by the heathen Greeks, be compared with Islam which is God's final word to man, the only true faith, they would ask.
In the past 14 centuries Muslims have, on occasions, succeeded in creating successful societies without democracy.
And there is no guarantee that democracy never produces disastrous results. (After all Hitler was democratically elected.)
The fact that almost all Muslim states today can be rated as failures or, at least, underachievers, is not because they are Islamic but because they are ruled by corrupt and despotic elites that, even when they proclaim an Islamist ideology, are, in fact, secular dictators.
Let us recall the founding myth of democracy as related by Protagoras in Plato.
Protagoras's claim that the rule of the people, democracy, is the best, is ridiculed by Socrates who points out that men always call on experts to deal with specific tasks but when it comes to the more important matters concerning the city, i.e. the community, they allow every Tom , Dick and Harry an equal say.
Protagoras says that when man was created he lived a solitary existence and was unable to protect himself and his kin against more powerful beasts.
Consequently men came together to secure their lives by founding cities. But the cities were torn by strife because inhabitants did wrong to one another.
Zeus, watching the proceedings, realised that the reason that things were going badly was that men did not have the art of managing the city ( politike techne).
Without that art man was heading for destruction.
So, Zeus called in his messenger, Hermes and asked him to deliver two gifts to mankind: aidos and dike.
Aidos is a sense of shame and a concern for the good opinion of others.
Dike here means respect for the right of others and implies a sense of justice that seeks civil peace through adjudication.
Before setting off Hermes asks a decisive question: Should I deliver this new art to a select few, as was the case in all other arts, or to all?
Zeus replies with no hesitation : To all. Let all have their share.
Protagoras concludes his reply to Socrates' criticism of democracy thus:" Hence it comes about, Socrates, that people in the cities, and especially in Athens, listen only to experts in matters of expertise but when they meet for consultation on the political art, i.e. of the general question of government, everybody participates."
Traditional Islamic political thought is closer to Socrates than to Protagoras.
The common folk, al-awwam, are regarded as "animals "( al-awwam kal anaam!)
The interpretation of the Divine Law is reserved only for the experts.
In Iran there is even a body called The Assembly of Experts.
Political power, like many other domains, including philosophy, is reserved for the " khawas" who, in some Sufi traditions, are even exempt from the ritual rules of the faith.
The " common folk", however, must do as they are told either by the text and tradition or by fatwas issued by the experts. Khomeini coined the word "mustazafeen" (the feeble ones) to describe the common folk.
In the Greek tradition once Zeus has taught men the art of politics he does not try to rule them.
To be sure he and other Gods do intervene in earthly matters but always episodically and mostly in pursuit of their illicit pleasures.
Polytheism is by its pluralistic nature is tolerant, open to new gods, and new views of old gods. Its mythology personifies natural forces that could be adapted, by allegory, to metaphysical concepts.
One could in the same city and at the same time mock Zeus as a promiscuous old rake, henpecked and cuckolded by Juno, or worship him as justice defied.
This is not possible in monotheism especially Islam, the only truly monotheistic of the three Abrahamic faiths.
In monotheism for the One to be stable in its One-ness it is imperative that the many be stabilised in their many-ness.
The God of monotheism does not discuss or negotiate matters with mortals.
He dictates, be it the 10 Commandments or the Koran which was already composed and completed before Allah sent his Hermes, Archangel Gabriel, to dictate it to Muhammad:
Read, the Koran starts with the command; In the name of Thy God The Most High!
Islam's incompatibility with democracy is not unique. It is shared by other religions. For faith is about certainty while democracy is about doubt. There is no changing of one's mind in faith, while democracy is about changing minds and sides.
If we were to use a more technical terminology faith creates a nexus and democracy a series.
Democracy is like people waiting for a bus.
They are of different backgrounds and have different interests. We don't care what their religion is or how they vote. All they have in common is their desire to get on that bus. And they get off at whatever stop they wish.
Faith, however is internalised. Turned into a nexus it controls man's every thought and move even in his deepest privacy.
Democracy, of course, is compatible with Islam because democracy is serial and polytheistic. People are free to believe whatever they like to believe and perform whatever religious rituals they wish, provided they do not infringe on other's freedoms in the public domain.
The other way round, however, it does not work.
Islam cannot allow people to do as they please , even in the privacy of their bedrooms, because God is always present, everywhere, all-hearing and all-seeing.
There is consultation in Islam: Wa shawerhum fil amr. ( And consult them in matters)
But the consultation thus recommended is about specifics only, never about the overall design of society.
In democracy there is a constitution that can be changed or at least amended.
The Koran, however, is the immutable word of God, beyond change or amendment.
This debate is not easy.
For Islam has become an issue of political controversy in the West.
On the one hand we have Islamophobia, a particular affliction of those who blame Islam for all the ills of our world.
The more thin skinned Muslims have ended up on regarding every criticism of Islam as Islamophobia.
On the other hand we have Islamoflattery that claims that everything good under the sun came from Islam. ( According to a recent PBS serial on Islam, even cinema was invented by a lens-maker in Baghdad, named Abu-Hufus!)
This is often practised by a new generation of the Turques de profession, Westerners who are prepared to apply the rules of critical analysis to everything under the sun except Islam.
They think they are doing Islam a favour.
The opposite is true.
Depriving Islam of critical scrutiny is bad for Islam and Muslims, and ultimately dangerous for the whole world.
The debate is about how to organise the global public space that is shared by the whole humanity. That space must be religion-neutral and free of ideology, which means organised on the basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
There are 57 nations in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
Not one is yet a democracy .
The more Islamic the regime in place the less democratic it is.
Democracy is the rule of mortal common men.
Islam is the rule of immortal God.
Politics is the art of the possible and democracy a method of dealing with the problems of real life.
Islam, on the other hand, is about the unattainable ideal.
We should not allow the everything-is-equal-to-everything-else fashion of postmodernist multiculturalism and political correctness to prevent us from acknowledging differences and, yes, incompatibilities, in the name of a soggy consensus.
If we are all the same how can we have a dialogue of civilisations, unless we elevate cultural schizophrenia into an existential imperative.
Muslims should not be duped into believing that they can have their cake and eat
it. Muslims can build democratic society provided they treat Islam as a matter of personal, private belief and not as a political ideology that seeks to monopolise the pubic space and regulate every aspect of individual and community life.
Ladies and gentlemen: Islam is incompatible with democracy.
I commend the motion.
Thank you
* The motion was carried by 403 votes for, 267 against and 28 undecided.
Amir Taheri Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy
I agree Islam as practiced by some is not moderate. Its all encompassing. My point is that it is not different from Christianity. We have just been brainwashed to accept the atrocities of Christians while at the same time condemning Islams. There are great people that practice both of the religions peacefully. I think both religions represent themselves as social control ideologies wrapped up in the best fall back of all time. Do not question the invisible sky faries God/Allahs will or you will go to hell.And everything you say has some degree of validity.
What if I agreed with everything you've said?
Would you then agree with me that the most important thing we can do is prevent the Islamic conquest of America?
I dont see it as an Islamic conquest. I see it as some nut cases that happen to practice Islam wanting to make the US pay for its sins in the middle east. I bet Putin would like to do the same thing to the US but he is not Muslim.
C'mon Brother. Are you saying you are supporting a religion without knowing it's ultimate goal?
The goal of Islam is to dominate the entire world for Allah. using any means necessary.
Violent, non-violent.
Whatever it takes.
Surely you know this.
I thought the goal of Christianity was to dominate the entire world for God by any means necessary. Matter of fact I am pretty sure of it.
Popes For Slavery - Romanus Pontifex by Pope Nicholas V
Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas on 18 June, 1452. It authorised Alfonso V of Portugal to reduce any “Saracens (Muslims) and pagans and any other unbelievers” to perpetual slavery. This facilitated the Portuguese slave trade from West Africa.
The same pope wrote the bull Romanus Pontifex on January 5, 1455 to the same Alfonso. As a follow-up to the Dum diversas, it extended to the Catholic nations of Europe dominion over discovered lands during the Age of Discovery. Along with sanctifying the seizure of non-Christian lands, it encouraged the enslavement of native, non-Christian peoples in Africa and the New World.
The Roman Catholic Church is not a Christian Church. They do not teach the doctrine of Jesus Christ but a doctrine of demons which Christians are warned to stay away from. Nowhere in the bible does it ever teach that a Christian should force the conversion of another person by threats of death, torture, taking their children from them as the RCC did to Jews during the inquistion. No where in the New Testament did Jesus ever tell anyone to build an army much less create a kingdom here on earth - even owning their own city - for heaven's sake!
Nowhere in the bible is it taught that a bishop cannot marry. It teaches he must be the husband of one wife as the Romans were known for having multiple wives - which is forbidden in the New testament. No place in scripture does it tell the believer to go into a confessional box and confess your sins in the dark to a man behind a screen who is calling himself father! This is nonsense! Confess your sins one to another - the bible teaches - it can be done over coffee at Starbucks. God is not religious or legalistic. You can repent to God directly as Jesus is your mediator and the guy in the black robe calling himself father is neither needed nor appreciated by God. God is our father. Not anyone human flesh. Is there anything more vile than a mixture of spirituality and flesh? I think not.
Furthermore, the New Testament teaches that anyone teaching the forbidding of eating meat, forbidding to marry are teaching a doctrine of demons - stay away from such people. There is no teaching in the bible about pergotory or seven sacraments that you must complete to be saved - not in the bible anywhere - not one mention of Limbo either - no mention of indulgences where Christians could pay money to pay God off and get their dead loved ones out of hell or pergotory - that was a money scam by the pope to finance the building of St. Peter's Basilica - furthermore, good friday eating fish rule was brought in when they supposedly went into the fish business and this upped their income - the forbidding of nuns and priests to not marry and live in commune type settings is not in bible scripture either.
As for the sacrificing of Christ at every mass it is a demonic teaching not taught anywhere in Scripture - Jesus was sacrificed once on the cross for our sins - not over and over and over and over again - the host does not turn into the flesh of Christ nor the wine turn into his blood - what an utterly satanic teaching - the final words of Jesus on the cross was IT IS FINISHED. What part of that did you people not understand???!
Furthermore - Mary is not immaculate which means sinless - she was born into this world a sinner just as every one else was and no place in the bible does it ever say we are to worhsip her - pray to her or ask her to intercede for us.
We have one intercessor and His name is Jesus Christ. Not Mary. We have one way to enter the Kingdom of heaven and that is through believing on the LORD Jesus Christ according to Romans 10: 9,10.
Not believing Mary being our mother. Mary is not our mother. She was the vessel chosen to carry Jesus and deliver him into the world - she was his mother and the mother of his brothers which brings me to the next fact and that is that Jesus had siblings and Mary was not a virgin when she died. She had other children. Understood? If not? Read the bible!!!!!
This is all in scripture yet the Catholic church has chosen to ignore all of it and make up their own religion. A religion that is blatantly false and will not afford you anything but a one way ticket to hell. If you are in there - get out of there and if you are not saved - call upon the LORD to save you. Read Romans 10: 9, 10.
You wouldn't even have that bible if not for the RCC, you'd be a jew.
Did the Muslims just become alerted to the edict to wipe out Christians? Christians have been in the Middle East since before Islam started. Seems like there would be none left by now if what this guy is claiming is true. Religious fanatics have used religion to commit atrocities sense time immortal. That doesnt make the religion evil it makes the people using it evil. Christians slaughtered millions of people to provide an example.
In fact, even though there ARE moderate Muslims, there is no argument among those who know Islam.
Islam is NOT moderate.
Thats what the guy in the video just implied. Why did he leave out that fact? Wouldn't that be something important to know? Was he playing politics?
Brother, I have to tell you, it is exciting to me to share with you the information which, after you digest it, may well determine your future course with regard to your perception of Jihad.
I delight in the task.
This one document may do the trick.
It might help you finally decide your future perception of Islam and the struggle ahead.
But no matter how you decide, this info will increase your knowledge of Islam.
A good thing.
Amir Taheri: "Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy"Benador Associates ^ | May 19, 2004 | Amir Taheri
Posted on 5/19/2004 9:36:50 PM by F14 Pilot
Amir Taheri's remarks during the debate on " Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy"
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am glad that this debate takes place in English.
Because, were it to be conducted in any of the languages of our part of the world, we would not have possessed the vocabulary needed.
To understand a civilisation it is important to understand its vocabulary.
If it was not on their tongues it is likely that it was not on their minds either.
There was no word in any of the Muslim languages for democracy until the 1890s. Even then the Greek word democracy entered Muslim languages with little change: democrasi in Persian, dimokraytiyah in Arabic, demokratio in Turkish.
Democracy as the proverbial schoolboy would know is based on one fundamental principle: equality.
The Greek word for equal isos is used in more than 200 compound nouns; including isoteos (equality) and Isologia (equal or free speech) and isonomia (equal treatment).
But again we find no equivalent in any of the Muslim languages. The words we have such as barabari in Persian and sawiyah in Arabic mean juxtaposition or levelling.
Nor do we have a word for politics.
The word siassah, now used as a synonym for politics, initially meant whipping stray camels into line.( Sa'es al-kheil is a person who brings back lost camels to the caravan. )The closest translation may be: regimentation.
Nor is there mention of such words as government and the state in the Koran.
It is no accident that early Muslims translated numerous ancient Greek texts but never those related to political matters. The great Avicenna himself translated Aristotle's Poetics. But there was no translation of Aristotle's Politics in Persian until 1963.
Lest us return to the issue of equality.
The idea is unacceptable to Islam.
For the non-believer cannot be the equal of the believer.
Even among the believers only those who subscribe to the three so-called Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam ( Ahl el-Kitab) are regarded as fully human.
Here is the hierarchy of human worth in Islam:
At the summit are free male Muslims
Next come Muslim male slaves
Then come free Muslim women
Next come Muslim slave women.
Then come free Jewish and /or Christian men
Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian men
Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian women.
Each category has rights that must be respected.
The People of the Book have always been protected and relatively well-treated by Muslim rulers, but often in the context of a form of apartheid known as dhimmitude.
The status of the rest of humanity, those whose faiths are not recognised by Islam or who have no faith at all, has never been spelled out although wherever Muslim rulers faced such communities they often treated them with a certain measure of tolerance and respect ( As in the case of Hindus under the Muslim dynasties of India.)
Non-Muslims can, and have often been, treated with decency, but never as equals.
(There is a hierarchy even for animals and plants. Seven animals and seven plants will assuredly go to heaven while seven others of each will end up in Hell.)
Democracy means the rule of the demos, the common people, or what is now known as popular or national sovereignty.
In Islam, however, power belongs only to God: al-hukm l'illah. The man who exercises that power on earth is known as Khalifat al-Allah, the regent of God.
But even then the Khalifah or Caliph cannot act as legislator. The law has already been spelled out and fixed for ever by God.
The only task that remains is its discovery, interpretation and application.
That, of course, allows for a substantial space in which different styles of rule could develop.
But the bottom line is that no Islamic government can be democratic in the sense of allowing the common people equal shares in legislation.
Islam divides human activities into five categories from the permitted to the sinful, leaving little room for human interpretation, let alone ethical innovations.
What we must understand is that Islam has its own vision of the world and man's place in it.
To say that Islam is incompatible with democracy should not be seen as a disparagement of Islam.
On the contrary, many Muslims would see it as a compliment because they sincerely believe that their idea of rule by God is superior to that of rule by men which is democracy.
In Muslim literature and philosophy being forsaken by God is the worst that can happen to man.
The great Persian poet Rumi pleads thus:
Oh, God, do not leave our affairs to us
For, if You do, woe be to us.
Rumi mocks those who claim that men can rule themselves.
He says:
You are not reign even over your beard,
That grows without your permission.
How can you pretend, therefore,
To rule about right and wrong?
The expression "abandoned by God" sends shivers down Muslim spines. For it spells the doom not only of individuals but of entire civilisations.
The Koran tells the stories of tribes, nations and civilisations that perished when God left them to their devices.
The great Persian poet Attar says :
I have learned of Divine Rule in Yathirb ( i.e. Medinah, the city of the Prophet)
What need do I have of the wisdom of the Greeks?
Hafez, another great Persian poet, blamed man's "hobut" or fall on the use of his own judgment against that of God:
I was an angel and my abode was the eternal paradise
Adam ( i.e.) man brought me to this place of desolation
Islamic tradition holds that God has always intervened in the affairs of men, notably by dispatching 124000 prophets or emissaries to inform the mortals of His wishes and warnings.
Many Islamist thinkers regard democracy with horror.
The late Ayatollah Khomeini called democracy " a form of prostitution" because he who gets the most votes wins the power that belongs only to God.
Sayyed Qutub, the Egyptian who has emerged as the ideological mentor of Safalists, spent a year in the United States in the 1950s.
He found "a nation that has forgotten God and been forsaken by Him; an arrogant nation that wants to rule itself."
Last year Yussuf al-Ayyeri, one of the leading theoreticians of today's Islamist movement, published a book ( available on the Internet) in which he warned that the real danger to Islam did not come from American tanks and helicopter gunships in Iraq but from the idea of democracy and rule by the people.
Maudoodi, another of the Islamist theoreticians now fashionable, dreamed of a political system in which human beings would act as automatons in accordance with rules set by God.
He said that God has arranged man's biological functions in such a way that their operation is beyond human control. For our non-biological functions, notably our politics, God has set rules that we have to discover and apply once and for all so that our societies can be on auto-pilot so to speak.
The late Saudi theologian, Sheikh Muhammad bin Ibrahim al-Jubair, a man I respected though seldom agreed with, sincerely believed that the root cause of all of our contemporary ills was the spread of democracy.
" Only one ambition is worthy of Islam," he liked to say, " the ambition to save the world from the curse of democracy: to teach men that they cannot rule themselves on the basis of manmade laws. Mankind has strayed from the path of God, we must return to that path or face certain annihilation."
Thus those who claim that Islam is compatible with democracy should know that they are not flattering Muslims.
In fact, most Muslims would feel insulted by such assertions.
How could a manmade form of government, invented by the heathen Greeks, be compared with Islam which is God's final word to man, the only true faith, they would ask.
In the past 14 centuries Muslims have, on occasions, succeeded in creating successful societies without democracy.
And there is no guarantee that democracy never produces disastrous results. (After all Hitler was democratically elected.)
The fact that almost all Muslim states today can be rated as failures or, at least, underachievers, is not because they are Islamic but because they are ruled by corrupt and despotic elites that, even when they proclaim an Islamist ideology, are, in fact, secular dictators.
Let us recall the founding myth of democracy as related by Protagoras in Plato.
Protagoras's claim that the rule of the people, democracy, is the best, is ridiculed by Socrates who points out that men always call on experts to deal with specific tasks but when it comes to the more important matters concerning the city, i.e. the community, they allow every Tom , Dick and Harry an equal say.
Protagoras says that when man was created he lived a solitary existence and was unable to protect himself and his kin against more powerful beasts.
Consequently men came together to secure their lives by founding cities. But the cities were torn by strife because inhabitants did wrong to one another.
Zeus, watching the proceedings, realised that the reason that things were going badly was that men did not have the art of managing the city ( politike techne).
Without that art man was heading for destruction.
So, Zeus called in his messenger, Hermes and asked him to deliver two gifts to mankind: aidos and dike.
Aidos is a sense of shame and a concern for the good opinion of others.
Dike here means respect for the right of others and implies a sense of justice that seeks civil peace through adjudication.
Before setting off Hermes asks a decisive question: Should I deliver this new art to a select few, as was the case in all other arts, or to all?
Zeus replies with no hesitation : To all. Let all have their share.
Protagoras concludes his reply to Socrates' criticism of democracy thus:" Hence it comes about, Socrates, that people in the cities, and especially in Athens, listen only to experts in matters of expertise but when they meet for consultation on the political art, i.e. of the general question of government, everybody participates."
Traditional Islamic political thought is closer to Socrates than to Protagoras.
The common folk, al-awwam, are regarded as "animals "( al-awwam kal anaam!)
The interpretation of the Divine Law is reserved only for the experts.
In Iran there is even a body called The Assembly of Experts.
Political power, like many other domains, including philosophy, is reserved for the " khawas" who, in some Sufi traditions, are even exempt from the ritual rules of the faith.
The " common folk", however, must do as they are told either by the text and tradition or by fatwas issued by the experts. Khomeini coined the word "mustazafeen" (the feeble ones) to describe the common folk.
In the Greek tradition once Zeus has taught men the art of politics he does not try to rule them.
To be sure he and other Gods do intervene in earthly matters but always episodically and mostly in pursuit of their illicit pleasures.
Polytheism is by its pluralistic nature is tolerant, open to new gods, and new views of old gods. Its mythology personifies natural forces that could be adapted, by allegory, to metaphysical concepts.
One could in the same city and at the same time mock Zeus as a promiscuous old rake, henpecked and cuckolded by Juno, or worship him as justice defied.
This is not possible in monotheism especially Islam, the only truly monotheistic of the three Abrahamic faiths.
In monotheism for the One to be stable in its One-ness it is imperative that the many be stabilised in their many-ness.
The God of monotheism does not discuss or negotiate matters with mortals.
He dictates, be it the 10 Commandments or the Koran which was already composed and completed before Allah sent his Hermes, Archangel Gabriel, to dictate it to Muhammad:
Read, the Koran starts with the command; In the name of Thy God The Most High!
Islam's incompatibility with democracy is not unique. It is shared by other religions. For faith is about certainty while democracy is about doubt. There is no changing of one's mind in faith, while democracy is about changing minds and sides.
If we were to use a more technical terminology faith creates a nexus and democracy a series.
Democracy is like people waiting for a bus.
They are of different backgrounds and have different interests. We don't care what their religion is or how they vote. All they have in common is their desire to get on that bus. And they get off at whatever stop they wish.
Faith, however is internalised. Turned into a nexus it controls man's every thought and move even in his deepest privacy.
Democracy, of course, is compatible with Islam because democracy is serial and polytheistic. People are free to believe whatever they like to believe and perform whatever religious rituals they wish, provided they do not infringe on other's freedoms in the public domain.
The other way round, however, it does not work.
Islam cannot allow people to do as they please , even in the privacy of their bedrooms, because God is always present, everywhere, all-hearing and all-seeing.
There is consultation in Islam: Wa shawerhum fil amr. ( And consult them in matters)
But the consultation thus recommended is about specifics only, never about the overall design of society.
In democracy there is a constitution that can be changed or at least amended.
The Koran, however, is the immutable word of God, beyond change or amendment.
This debate is not easy.
For Islam has become an issue of political controversy in the West.
On the one hand we have Islamophobia, a particular affliction of those who blame Islam for all the ills of our world.
The more thin skinned Muslims have ended up on regarding every criticism of Islam as Islamophobia.
On the other hand we have Islamoflattery that claims that everything good under the sun came from Islam. ( According to a recent PBS serial on Islam, even cinema was invented by a lens-maker in Baghdad, named Abu-Hufus!)
This is often practised by a new generation of the Turques de profession, Westerners who are prepared to apply the rules of critical analysis to everything under the sun except Islam.
They think they are doing Islam a favour.
The opposite is true.
Depriving Islam of critical scrutiny is bad for Islam and Muslims, and ultimately dangerous for the whole world.
The debate is about how to organise the global public space that is shared by the whole humanity. That space must be religion-neutral and free of ideology, which means organised on the basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
There are 57 nations in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
Not one is yet a democracy .
The more Islamic the regime in place the less democratic it is.
Democracy is the rule of mortal common men.
Islam is the rule of immortal God.
Politics is the art of the possible and democracy a method of dealing with the problems of real life.
Islam, on the other hand, is about the unattainable ideal.
We should not allow the everything-is-equal-to-everything-else fashion of postmodernist multiculturalism and political correctness to prevent us from acknowledging differences and, yes, incompatibilities, in the name of a soggy consensus.
If we are all the same how can we have a dialogue of civilisations, unless we elevate cultural schizophrenia into an existential imperative.
Muslims should not be duped into believing that they can have their cake and eat
it. Muslims can build democratic society provided they treat Islam as a matter of personal, private belief and not as a political ideology that seeks to monopolise the pubic space and regulate every aspect of individual and community life.
Ladies and gentlemen: Islam is incompatible with democracy.
I commend the motion.
Thank you
* The motion was carried by 403 votes for, 267 against and 28 undecided.
Amir Taheri Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy
I agree Islam as practiced by some is not moderate. Its all encompassing. My point is that it is not different from Christianity. We have just been brainwashed to accept the atrocities of Christians while at the same time condemning Islams. There are great people that practice both of the religions peacefully. I think both religions represent themselves as social control ideologies wrapped up in the best fall back of all time. Do not question the invisible sky faries God/Allahs will or you will go to hell.I dont see it as an Islamic conquest. I see it as some nut cases that happen to practice Islam wanting to make the US pay for its sins in the middle east. I bet Putin would like to do the same thing to the US but he is not Muslim.
C'mon Brother. Are you saying you are supporting a religion without knowing it's ultimate goal?
The goal of Islam is to dominate the entire world for Allah. using any means necessary.
Violent, non-violent.
Whatever it takes.
Surely you know this.
I thought the goal of Christianity was to dominate the entire world for God by any means necessary. Matter of fact I am pretty sure of it.
Popes For Slavery - Romanus Pontifex by Pope Nicholas V
Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas on 18 June, 1452. It authorised Alfonso V of Portugal to reduce any “Saracens (Muslims) and pagans and any other unbelievers” to perpetual slavery. This facilitated the Portuguese slave trade from West Africa.
The same pope wrote the bull Romanus Pontifex on January 5, 1455 to the same Alfonso. As a follow-up to the Dum diversas, it extended to the Catholic nations of Europe dominion over discovered lands during the Age of Discovery. Along with sanctifying the seizure of non-Christian lands, it encouraged the enslavement of native, non-Christian peoples in Africa and the New World.
The Roman Catholic Church is not a Christian Church. They do not teach the doctrine of Jesus Christ but a doctrine of demons which Christians are warned to stay away from. Nowhere in the bible does it ever teach that a Christian should force the conversion of another person by threats of death, torture, taking their children from them as the RCC did to Jews during the inquistion. No where in the New Testament did Jesus ever tell anyone to build an army much less create a kingdom here on earth - even owning their own city - for heaven's sake!
Nowhere in the bible is it taught that a bishop cannot marry. It teaches he must be the husband of one wife as the Romans were known for having multiple wives - which is forbidden in the New testament. No place in scripture does it tell the believer to go into a confessional box and confess your sins in the dark to a man behind a screen who is calling himself father! This is nonsense! Confess your sins one to another - the bible teaches - it can be done over coffee at Starbucks. God is not religious or legalistic. You can repent to God directly as Jesus is your mediator and the guy in the black robe calling himself father is neither needed nor appreciated by God. God is our father. Not anyone human flesh. Is there anything more vile than a mixture of spirituality and flesh? I think not.
Furthermore, the New Testament teaches that anyone teaching the forbidding of eating meat, forbidding to marry are teaching a doctrine of demons - stay away from such people. There is no teaching in the bible about pergotory or seven sacraments that you must complete to be saved - not in the bible anywhere - not one mention of Limbo either - no mention of indulgences where Christians could pay money to pay God off and get their dead loved ones out of hell or pergotory - that was a money scam by the pope to finance the building of St. Peter's Basilica - furthermore, good friday eating fish rule was brought in when they supposedly went into the fish business and this upped their income - the forbidding of nuns and priests to not marry and live in commune type settings is not in bible scripture either.
As for the sacrificing of Christ at every mass it is a demonic teaching not taught anywhere in Scripture - Jesus was sacrificed once on the cross for our sins - not over and over and over and over again - the host does not turn into the flesh of Christ nor the wine turn into his blood - what an utterly satanic teaching - the final words of Jesus on the cross was IT IS FINISHED. What part of that did you people not understand???!
Furthermore - Mary is not immaculate which means sinless - she was born into this world a sinner just as every one else was and no place in the bible does it ever say we are to worhsip her - pray to her or ask her to intercede for us.
We have one intercessor and His name is Jesus Christ. Not Mary. We have one way to enter the Kingdom of heaven and that is through believing on the LORD Jesus Christ according to Romans 10: 9,10.
Not believing Mary being our mother. Mary is not our mother. She was the vessel chosen to carry Jesus and deliver him into the world - she was his mother and the mother of his brothers which brings me to the next fact and that is that Jesus had siblings and Mary was not a virgin when she died. She had other children. Understood? If not? Read the bible!!!!!
This is all in scripture yet the Catholic church has chosen to ignore all of it and make up their own religion. A religion that is blatantly false and will not afford you anything but a one way ticket to hell. If you are in there - get out of there and if you are not saved - call upon the LORD to save you. Read Romans 10: 9, 10.
You wouldn't even have that bible if not for the RCC, you'd be a jew.
You're seriously mistaken. If it were up to the Catholics no one would have the bible STILL as they are the ones who withheld it from the people! The early church was not the Catholic Church! The Romans murdered the Jews in 70 A.D. the Christians fled for their lives! You have believed a lie, Penelope. The early church were Jews, Greeks, etc. The doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church is a doctrine of devils. It is not a Christian church - they were putting Christians to death along with the Jews during the Inquisition! Wake up! Find a bible and read it!
Well to be fair that completely depends where you go, in countries like Syria and Iraq now Christians are being hunted down like dogs, but of course thats not the case in every country in the region.
Did the Muslims just become alerted to the edict to wipe out Christians? Christians have been in the Middle East since before Islam started. Seems like there would be none left by now if what this guy is claiming is true. Religious fanatics have used religion to commit atrocities sense time immortal. That doesnt make the religion evil it makes the people using it evil. Christians slaughtered millions of people to provide an example.
In fact, even though there ARE moderate Muslims, there is no argument among those who know Islam.
Islam is NOT moderate.
Thats what the guy in the video just implied. Why did he leave out that fact? Wouldn't that be something important to know? Was he playing politics?The Offer made to non-muslims is usually, the offer to convert to Islam and become a Muslim.
Surrender and submit to Islamic dominance and pay a Jizya tax for the pleasure of living in an Islamic land and being under Islamic protection.
If either of those choices are not taken the person is killed.
They aren't ALL just automatically killed.
Brother, I have to tell you, it is exciting to me to share with you the information which, after you digest it, may well determine your future course with regard to your perception of Jihad.
I delight in the task.
This one document may do the trick.
It might help you finally decide your future perception of Islam and the struggle ahead.
But no matter how you decide, this info will increase your knowledge of Islam.
A good thing.
Amir Taheri: "Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy"Benador Associates ^ | May 19, 2004 | Amir Taheri
Posted on 5/19/2004 9:36:50 PM by F14 Pilot
Amir Taheri's remarks during the debate on " Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy"
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am glad that this debate takes place in English.
Because, were it to be conducted in any of the languages of our part of the world, we would not have possessed the vocabulary needed.
To understand a civilisation it is important to understand its vocabulary.
If it was not on their tongues it is likely that it was not on their minds either.
There was no word in any of the Muslim languages for democracy until the 1890s. Even then the Greek word democracy entered Muslim languages with little change: democrasi in Persian, dimokraytiyah in Arabic, demokratio in Turkish.
Democracy as the proverbial schoolboy would know is based on one fundamental principle: equality.
The Greek word for equal isos is used in more than 200 compound nouns; including isoteos (equality) and Isologia (equal or free speech) and isonomia (equal treatment).
But again we find no equivalent in any of the Muslim languages. The words we have such as barabari in Persian and sawiyah in Arabic mean juxtaposition or levelling.
Nor do we have a word for politics.
The word siassah, now used as a synonym for politics, initially meant whipping stray camels into line.( Sa'es al-kheil is a person who brings back lost camels to the caravan. )The closest translation may be: regimentation.
Nor is there mention of such words as government and the state in the Koran.
It is no accident that early Muslims translated numerous ancient Greek texts but never those related to political matters. The great Avicenna himself translated Aristotle's Poetics. But there was no translation of Aristotle's Politics in Persian until 1963.
Lest us return to the issue of equality.
The idea is unacceptable to Islam.
For the non-believer cannot be the equal of the believer.
Even among the believers only those who subscribe to the three so-called Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam ( Ahl el-Kitab) are regarded as fully human.
Here is the hierarchy of human worth in Islam:
At the summit are free male Muslims
Next come Muslim male slaves
Then come free Muslim women
Next come Muslim slave women.
Then come free Jewish and /or Christian men
Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian men
Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian women.
Each category has rights that must be respected.
The People of the Book have always been protected and relatively well-treated by Muslim rulers, but often in the context of a form of apartheid known as dhimmitude.
The status of the rest of humanity, those whose faiths are not recognised by Islam or who have no faith at all, has never been spelled out although wherever Muslim rulers faced such communities they often treated them with a certain measure of tolerance and respect ( As in the case of Hindus under the Muslim dynasties of India.)
Non-Muslims can, and have often been, treated with decency, but never as equals.
(There is a hierarchy even for animals and plants. Seven animals and seven plants will assuredly go to heaven while seven others of each will end up in Hell.)
Democracy means the rule of the demos, the common people, or what is now known as popular or national sovereignty.
In Islam, however, power belongs only to God: al-hukm l'illah. The man who exercises that power on earth is known as Khalifat al-Allah, the regent of God.
But even then the Khalifah or Caliph cannot act as legislator. The law has already been spelled out and fixed for ever by God.
The only task that remains is its discovery, interpretation and application.
That, of course, allows for a substantial space in which different styles of rule could develop.
But the bottom line is that no Islamic government can be democratic in the sense of allowing the common people equal shares in legislation.
Islam divides human activities into five categories from the permitted to the sinful, leaving little room for human interpretation, let alone ethical innovations.
What we must understand is that Islam has its own vision of the world and man's place in it.
To say that Islam is incompatible with democracy should not be seen as a disparagement of Islam.
On the contrary, many Muslims would see it as a compliment because they sincerely believe that their idea of rule by God is superior to that of rule by men which is democracy.
In Muslim literature and philosophy being forsaken by God is the worst that can happen to man.
The great Persian poet Rumi pleads thus:
Oh, God, do not leave our affairs to us
For, if You do, woe be to us.
Rumi mocks those who claim that men can rule themselves.
He says:
You are not reign even over your beard,
That grows without your permission.
How can you pretend, therefore,
To rule about right and wrong?
The expression "abandoned by God" sends shivers down Muslim spines. For it spells the doom not only of individuals but of entire civilisations.
The Koran tells the stories of tribes, nations and civilisations that perished when God left them to their devices.
The great Persian poet Attar says :
I have learned of Divine Rule in Yathirb ( i.e. Medinah, the city of the Prophet)
What need do I have of the wisdom of the Greeks?
Hafez, another great Persian poet, blamed man's "hobut" or fall on the use of his own judgment against that of God:
I was an angel and my abode was the eternal paradise
Adam ( i.e.) man brought me to this place of desolation
Islamic tradition holds that God has always intervened in the affairs of men, notably by dispatching 124000 prophets or emissaries to inform the mortals of His wishes and warnings.
Many Islamist thinkers regard democracy with horror.
The late Ayatollah Khomeini called democracy " a form of prostitution" because he who gets the most votes wins the power that belongs only to God.
Sayyed Qutub, the Egyptian who has emerged as the ideological mentor of Safalists, spent a year in the United States in the 1950s.
He found "a nation that has forgotten God and been forsaken by Him; an arrogant nation that wants to rule itself."
Last year Yussuf al-Ayyeri, one of the leading theoreticians of today's Islamist movement, published a book ( available on the Internet) in which he warned that the real danger to Islam did not come from American tanks and helicopter gunships in Iraq but from the idea of democracy and rule by the people.
Maudoodi, another of the Islamist theoreticians now fashionable, dreamed of a political system in which human beings would act as automatons in accordance with rules set by God.
He said that God has arranged man's biological functions in such a way that their operation is beyond human control. For our non-biological functions, notably our politics, God has set rules that we have to discover and apply once and for all so that our societies can be on auto-pilot so to speak.
The late Saudi theologian, Sheikh Muhammad bin Ibrahim al-Jubair, a man I respected though seldom agreed with, sincerely believed that the root cause of all of our contemporary ills was the spread of democracy.
" Only one ambition is worthy of Islam," he liked to say, " the ambition to save the world from the curse of democracy: to teach men that they cannot rule themselves on the basis of manmade laws. Mankind has strayed from the path of God, we must return to that path or face certain annihilation."
Thus those who claim that Islam is compatible with democracy should know that they are not flattering Muslims.
In fact, most Muslims would feel insulted by such assertions.
How could a manmade form of government, invented by the heathen Greeks, be compared with Islam which is God's final word to man, the only true faith, they would ask.
In the past 14 centuries Muslims have, on occasions, succeeded in creating successful societies without democracy.
And there is no guarantee that democracy never produces disastrous results. (After all Hitler was democratically elected.)
The fact that almost all Muslim states today can be rated as failures or, at least, underachievers, is not because they are Islamic but because they are ruled by corrupt and despotic elites that, even when they proclaim an Islamist ideology, are, in fact, secular dictators.
Let us recall the founding myth of democracy as related by Protagoras in Plato.
Protagoras's claim that the rule of the people, democracy, is the best, is ridiculed by Socrates who points out that men always call on experts to deal with specific tasks but when it comes to the more important matters concerning the city, i.e. the community, they allow every Tom , Dick and Harry an equal say.
Protagoras says that when man was created he lived a solitary existence and was unable to protect himself and his kin against more powerful beasts.
Consequently men came together to secure their lives by founding cities. But the cities were torn by strife because inhabitants did wrong to one another.
Zeus, watching the proceedings, realised that the reason that things were going badly was that men did not have the art of managing the city ( politike techne).
Without that art man was heading for destruction.
So, Zeus called in his messenger, Hermes and asked him to deliver two gifts to mankind: aidos and dike.
Aidos is a sense of shame and a concern for the good opinion of others.
Dike here means respect for the right of others and implies a sense of justice that seeks civil peace through adjudication.
Before setting off Hermes asks a decisive question: Should I deliver this new art to a select few, as was the case in all other arts, or to all?
Zeus replies with no hesitation : To all. Let all have their share.
Protagoras concludes his reply to Socrates' criticism of democracy thus:" Hence it comes about, Socrates, that people in the cities, and especially in Athens, listen only to experts in matters of expertise but when they meet for consultation on the political art, i.e. of the general question of government, everybody participates."
Traditional Islamic political thought is closer to Socrates than to Protagoras.
The common folk, al-awwam, are regarded as "animals "( al-awwam kal anaam!)
The interpretation of the Divine Law is reserved only for the experts.
In Iran there is even a body called The Assembly of Experts.
Political power, like many other domains, including philosophy, is reserved for the " khawas" who, in some Sufi traditions, are even exempt from the ritual rules of the faith.
The " common folk", however, must do as they are told either by the text and tradition or by fatwas issued by the experts. Khomeini coined the word "mustazafeen" (the feeble ones) to describe the common folk.
In the Greek tradition once Zeus has taught men the art of politics he does not try to rule them.
To be sure he and other Gods do intervene in earthly matters but always episodically and mostly in pursuit of their illicit pleasures.
Polytheism is by its pluralistic nature is tolerant, open to new gods, and new views of old gods. Its mythology personifies natural forces that could be adapted, by allegory, to metaphysical concepts.
One could in the same city and at the same time mock Zeus as a promiscuous old rake, henpecked and cuckolded by Juno, or worship him as justice defied.
This is not possible in monotheism especially Islam, the only truly monotheistic of the three Abrahamic faiths.
In monotheism for the One to be stable in its One-ness it is imperative that the many be stabilised in their many-ness.
The God of monotheism does not discuss or negotiate matters with mortals.
He dictates, be it the 10 Commandments or the Koran which was already composed and completed before Allah sent his Hermes, Archangel Gabriel, to dictate it to Muhammad:
Read, the Koran starts with the command; In the name of Thy God The Most High!
Islam's incompatibility with democracy is not unique. It is shared by other religions. For faith is about certainty while democracy is about doubt. There is no changing of one's mind in faith, while democracy is about changing minds and sides.
If we were to use a more technical terminology faith creates a nexus and democracy a series.
Democracy is like people waiting for a bus.
They are of different backgrounds and have different interests. We don't care what their religion is or how they vote. All they have in common is their desire to get on that bus. And they get off at whatever stop they wish.
Faith, however is internalised. Turned into a nexus it controls man's every thought and move even in his deepest privacy.
Democracy, of course, is compatible with Islam because democracy is serial and polytheistic. People are free to believe whatever they like to believe and perform whatever religious rituals they wish, provided they do not infringe on other's freedoms in the public domain.
The other way round, however, it does not work.
Islam cannot allow people to do as they please , even in the privacy of their bedrooms, because God is always present, everywhere, all-hearing and all-seeing.
There is consultation in Islam: Wa shawerhum fil amr. ( And consult them in matters)
But the consultation thus recommended is about specifics only, never about the overall design of society.
In democracy there is a constitution that can be changed or at least amended.
The Koran, however, is the immutable word of God, beyond change or amendment.
This debate is not easy.
For Islam has become an issue of political controversy in the West.
On the one hand we have Islamophobia, a particular affliction of those who blame Islam for all the ills of our world.
The more thin skinned Muslims have ended up on regarding every criticism of Islam as Islamophobia.
On the other hand we have Islamoflattery that claims that everything good under the sun came from Islam. ( According to a recent PBS serial on Islam, even cinema was invented by a lens-maker in Baghdad, named Abu-Hufus!)
This is often practised by a new generation of the Turques de profession, Westerners who are prepared to apply the rules of critical analysis to everything under the sun except Islam.
They think they are doing Islam a favour.
The opposite is true.
Depriving Islam of critical scrutiny is bad for Islam and Muslims, and ultimately dangerous for the whole world.
The debate is about how to organise the global public space that is shared by the whole humanity. That space must be religion-neutral and free of ideology, which means organised on the basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
There are 57 nations in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
Not one is yet a democracy .
The more Islamic the regime in place the less democratic it is.
Democracy is the rule of mortal common men.
Islam is the rule of immortal God.
Politics is the art of the possible and democracy a method of dealing with the problems of real life.
Islam, on the other hand, is about the unattainable ideal.
We should not allow the everything-is-equal-to-everything-else fashion of postmodernist multiculturalism and political correctness to prevent us from acknowledging differences and, yes, incompatibilities, in the name of a soggy consensus.
If we are all the same how can we have a dialogue of civilisations, unless we elevate cultural schizophrenia into an existential imperative.
Muslims should not be duped into believing that they can have their cake and eat
it. Muslims can build democratic society provided they treat Islam as a matter of personal, private belief and not as a political ideology that seeks to monopolise the pubic space and regulate every aspect of individual and community life.
Ladies and gentlemen: Islam is incompatible with democracy.
I commend the motion.
Thank you
* The motion was carried by 403 votes for, 267 against and 28 undecided.
Amir Taheri Islam Is Incompatible With Democracy
I agree Islam as practiced by some is not moderate. Its all encompassing. My point is that it is not different from Christianity. We have just been brainwashed to accept the atrocities of Christians while at the same time condemning Islams. There are great people that practice both of the religions peacefully. I think both religions represent themselves as social control ideologies wrapped up in the best fall back of all time. Do not question the invisible sky faries God/Allahs will or you will go to hell.And everything you say has some degree of validity.
What if I agreed with everything you've said?
Would you then agree with me that the most important thing we can do is prevent the Islamic conquest of America?
I dont see it as an Islamic conquest. I see it as some nut cases that happen to practice Islam wanting to make the US pay for its sins in the middle east. I bet Putin would like to do the same thing to the US but he is not Muslim.
C'mon Brother. Are you saying you are supporting a religion without knowing it's ultimate goal?
The goal of Islam is to dominate the entire world for Allah. using any means necessary.
Violent, non-violent.
Whatever it takes.
Surely you know this.
I thought the goal of Christianity was to dominate the entire world for God by any means necessary. Matter of fact I am pretty sure of it.
Popes For Slavery - Romanus Pontifex by Pope Nicholas V
Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas on 18 June, 1452. It authorised Alfonso V of Portugal to reduce any “Saracens (Muslims) and pagans and any other unbelievers” to perpetual slavery. This facilitated the Portuguese slave trade from West Africa.
The same pope wrote the bull Romanus Pontifex on January 5, 1455 to the same Alfonso. As a follow-up to the Dum diversas, it extended to the Catholic nations of Europe dominion over discovered lands during the Age of Discovery. Along with sanctifying the seizure of non-Christian lands, it encouraged the enslavement of native, non-Christian peoples in Africa and the New World.
The Roman Catholic Church is not a Christian Church. They do not teach the doctrine of Jesus Christ but a doctrine of demons which Christians are warned to stay away from. Nowhere in the bible does it ever teach that a Christian should force the conversion of another person by threats of death, torture, taking their children from them as the RCC did to Jews during the inquistion. No where in the New Testament did Jesus ever tell anyone to build an army much less create a kingdom here on earth - even owning their own city - for heaven's sake!
Nowhere in the bible is it taught that a bishop cannot marry. It teaches he must be the husband of one wife as the Romans were known for having multiple wives - which is forbidden in the New testament. No place in scripture does it tell the believer to go into a confessional box and confess your sins in the dark to a man behind a screen who is calling himself father! This is nonsense! Confess your sins one to another - the bible teaches - it can be done over coffee at Starbucks. God is not religious or legalistic. You can repent to God directly as Jesus is your mediator and the guy in the black robe calling himself father is neither needed nor appreciated by God. God is our father. Not anyone human flesh. Is there anything more vile than a mixture of spirituality and flesh? I think not.
Furthermore, the New Testament teaches that anyone teaching the forbidding of eating meat, forbidding to marry are teaching a doctrine of demons - stay away from such people. There is no teaching in the bible about pergotory or seven sacraments that you must complete to be saved - not in the bible anywhere - not one mention of Limbo either - no mention of indulgences where Christians could pay money to pay God off and get their dead loved ones out of hell or pergotory - that was a money scam by the pope to finance the building of St. Peter's Basilica - furthermore, good friday eating fish rule was brought in when they supposedly went into the fish business and this upped their income - the forbidding of nuns and priests to not marry and live in commune type settings is not in bible scripture either.
As for the sacrificing of Christ at every mass it is a demonic teaching not taught anywhere in Scripture - Jesus was sacrificed once on the cross for our sins - not over and over and over and over again - the host does not turn into the flesh of Christ nor the wine turn into his blood - what an utterly satanic teaching - the final words of Jesus on the cross was IT IS FINISHED. What part of that did you people not understand???!
Furthermore - Mary is not immaculate which means sinless - she was born into this world a sinner just as every one else was and no place in the bible does it ever say we are to worhsip her - pray to her or ask her to intercede for us.
We have one intercessor and His name is Jesus Christ. Not Mary. We have one way to enter the Kingdom of heaven and that is through believing on the LORD Jesus Christ according to Romans 10: 9,10.
Not believing Mary being our mother. Mary is not our mother. She was the vessel chosen to carry Jesus and deliver him into the world - she was his mother and the mother of his brothers which brings me to the next fact and that is that Jesus had siblings and Mary was not a virgin when she died. She had other children. Understood? If not? Read the bible!!!!!
This is all in scripture yet the Catholic church has chosen to ignore all of it and make up their own religion. A religion that is blatantly false and will not afford you anything but a one way ticket to hell. If you are in there - get out of there and if you are not saved - call upon the LORD to save you. Read Romans 10: 9, 10.
You wouldn't even have that bible if not for the RCC, you'd be a jew.
I didn't hear anything I could disagree with in the video. Question, will Muslims begin to kill other Muslims who don't join the fight? Isn't it happening already?
Brother Rachid and Geert Wilders have both presented the truth about Islam. There is no such thing as Moderate Islam. There are Moderate people and some call themselves Muslims but there is no Moderate brand of Islam. The Islam ISIL practices is the exact replica of the Islam Mohammad followed and taught his believers. To the finest detail as Brother Rachid pointed out.
As his father is an Imam and he was raised a Muslim he knows very well what he speaks of. That ISIL comes from at least 10 different nations around the world - all Muslims attending various Mosques throughout those ten different nations - there is no question whatsoever that is Islam.
The pseudo Islam taught in American and Britains universities is not at all Islam but meant to indoctrinate the listener - lull the listener into a sense of security that Islam has somehow been "misunderstood", or "upset" due to some "injustice" perpretrated on their fellow brethren / islamic nations by Israel. It always comes back to Israel, America, Britain, the west. This is baloney.
The truth is they are war against the West and plan to destroy it - they are at war against Israel and their plan is to destroy it - they are at war with Europeans - all who are non Muslim nations and plan to destroy it and then dominate it with Sharia and put the rest of us under their feet.
See the last Muslim video posted on Geert Wilders Warning to America thread on religion forum for a sample of that. There are apologists / sympathisers - who assist the Muslims by spreading the news that they have traveled around the world, seen it firsthand and everything is peaceful out there - you'll find them teaching in Universities, writing on message boards - etc. Of course the headlines in news papers around the world tell quite a different story. Mass kidnappings of school girls - mass rape, christians crucified to trees, little girls raped and beheaded, many babies with hacked off limbs who have survived the "peacefulness of Islam"..... why do people make excuses and cover up for these people?
I suppose some believe they will be rewarded - granted a reprieve on the day of jihad but nothing could be further from the truth. Islamists generally murder those who placated them first when taking over a nation - it happened that way in Lebanon according to the testimony of Brigitte Gabrielle.
It has always been the way of the enemy to accuse you of what they are guilty of. They accuse you of intolerance therein no one examines their intolerance. They accuse you of being a liar therein no one examines their lies. They accuse you of being a racist, a bigot, a hater, therein no one examines their brand of hatred which is all far greater, far more deadly but then again if they can keep you fighting among yourselves they really never get a thorough examination. Do they?
In answer to your question. It is clear there are moderate people but there is no moderate Islam. The Islam that ISIL practices is the Islam Mohammad taught his followers to the finest detail as Brother Rachid clearly stated. So it would depend upon whether that moderate person wanted to abandon the teachings of Mohammad once confronted with the choice of do or die - or whether they will join the jihad and participate in the mass murder of their fellow citizens who have welcomed them freely into their countries - even assisting them with food and housing expenses. ( the bible calls this returning evil for good and those who do it - evil shall not depart from their house)
We won't know what those "moderates" will do until that time comes. The news that Muslims are leaving the West to join the jihad of ISIL and ISIS are an indication that we do have those murderers living among us even now. Moderate Islam? I think not.
It isn't good news.
Maybe read about country of Jordon, if the 1.5 bil Muslims wanted us dead we'd be dead, instead you want them dead, are you not just as bad?
There's nothing idiotic about the video. He states it as it is. I have read the Quran and groups like al Qaeda, al Shabab and ISIS are following the Quran to the letter. In effect, obeying Muhammad's latter teachings.No doubt Pres. Obama will watch this idiotic video...........
I didn't hear anything I could disagree with in the video. Question, will Muslims begin to kill other Muslims who don't join the fight? Isn't it happening already?
Brother Rachid and Geert Wilders have both presented the truth about Islam. There is no such thing as Moderate Islam. There are Moderate people and some call themselves Muslims but there is no Moderate brand of Islam. The Islam ISIL practices is the exact replica of the Islam Mohammad followed and taught his believers. To the finest detail as Brother Rachid pointed out.
As his father is an Imam and he was raised a Muslim he knows very well what he speaks of. That ISIL comes from at least 10 different nations around the world - all Muslims attending various Mosques throughout those ten different nations - there is no question whatsoever that is Islam.
The pseudo Islam taught in American and Britains universities is not at all Islam but meant to indoctrinate the listener - lull the listener into a sense of security that Islam has somehow been "misunderstood", or "upset" due to some "injustice" perpretrated on their fellow brethren / islamic nations by Israel. It always comes back to Israel, America, Britain, the west. This is baloney.
The truth is they are war against the West and plan to destroy it - they are at war against Israel and their plan is to destroy it - they are at war with Europeans - all who are non Muslim nations and plan to destroy it and then dominate it with Sharia and put the rest of us under their feet.
See the last Muslim video posted on Geert Wilders Warning to America thread on religion forum for a sample of that. There are apologists / sympathisers - who assist the Muslims by spreading the news that they have traveled around the world, seen it firsthand and everything is peaceful out there - you'll find them teaching in Universities, writing on message boards - etc. Of course the headlines in news papers around the world tell quite a different story. Mass kidnappings of school girls - mass rape, christians crucified to trees, little girls raped and beheaded, many babies with hacked off limbs who have survived the "peacefulness of Islam"..... why do people make excuses and cover up for these people?
I suppose some believe they will be rewarded - granted a reprieve on the day of jihad but nothing could be further from the truth. Islamists generally murder those who placated them first when taking over a nation - it happened that way in Lebanon according to the testimony of Brigitte Gabrielle.
It has always been the way of the enemy to accuse you of what they are guilty of. They accuse you of intolerance therein no one examines their intolerance. They accuse you of being a liar therein no one examines their lies. They accuse you of being a racist, a bigot, a hater, therein no one examines their brand of hatred which is all far greater, far more deadly but then again if they can keep you fighting among yourselves they really never get a thorough examination. Do they?
In answer to your question. It is clear there are moderate people but there is no moderate Islam. The Islam that ISIL practices is the Islam Mohammad taught his followers to the finest detail as Brother Rachid clearly stated. So it would depend upon whether that moderate person wanted to abandon the teachings of Mohammad once confronted with the choice of do or die - or whether they will join the jihad and participate in the mass murder of their fellow citizens who have welcomed them freely into their countries - even assisting them with food and housing expenses. ( the bible calls this returning evil for good and those who do it - evil shall not depart from their house)
We won't know what those "moderates" will do until that time comes. The news that Muslims are leaving the West to join the jihad of ISIL and ISIS are an indication that we do have those murderers living among us even now. Moderate Islam? I think not.
It isn't good news.
Maybe read about country of Jordon, if the 1.5 bil Muslims wanted us dead we'd be dead, instead you want them dead, are you not just as bad?
Excuse me, Penelope, but when did I say I wanted to see 1.5 bil Muslims dead? I didn't. You said I said that. Please paste that quote here so we can see it or retract it. You can't as I've never said that.
Here is what I'd like to see. I'd like to see 1.2 billion Muslims ( if there are still that many left - many have already converted to Christianity ) converted to Jesus Christ and walk away from Islam for good. That is what I'd like to see.
, so what do you suggest we do..?We won't know what those "moderates" will do until that time comes
I agree Islam as practiced by some is not moderate. Its all encompassing. My point is that it is not different from Christianity. We have just been brainwashed to accept the atrocities of Christians while at the same time condemning Islams. There are great people that practice both of the religions peacefully. I think both religions represent themselves as social control ideologies wrapped up in the best fall back of all time. Do not question the invisible sky faries God/Allahs will or you will go to hell.
And everything you say has some degree of validity.
What if I agreed with everything you've said?
Would you then agree with me that the most important thing we can do is prevent the Islamic conquest of America?
I dont see it as an Islamic conquest. I see it as some nut cases that happen to practice Islam wanting to make the US pay for its sins in the middle east. I bet Putin would like to do the same thing to the US but he is not Muslim.
C'mon Brother. Are you saying you are supporting a religion without knowing it's ultimate goal?
The goal of Islam is to dominate the entire world for Allah. using any means necessary.
Violent, non-violent.
Whatever it takes.
Surely you know this.
I thought the goal of Christianity was to dominate the entire world for God by any means necessary. Matter of fact I am pretty sure of it.
Popes For Slavery - Romanus Pontifex by Pope Nicholas V
Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas on 18 June, 1452. It authorised Alfonso V of Portugal to reduce any “Saracens (Muslims) and pagans and any other unbelievers” to perpetual slavery. This facilitated the Portuguese slave trade from West Africa.
The same pope wrote the bull Romanus Pontifex on January 5, 1455 to the same Alfonso. As a follow-up to the Dum diversas, it extended to the Catholic nations of Europe dominion over discovered lands during the Age of Discovery. Along with sanctifying the seizure of non-Christian lands, it encouraged the enslavement of native, non-Christian peoples in Africa and the New World.
Well, you'll excuse my not having yet read your citations, but that's besides the point.
If I am investigating which religion I want to follow, that's one thing.
But when I am looking at which religion's followers, even though it may be ONLY 25% - 30% (who call themselves fundamentalists) poses a very real, very demonstrable, very deadly and direct threat to my life, my health, my nation's government, my way of life, our sense of normalcy and relative tranquility and my free will, free choice of how I want to live my life, I have a DIFFERENT set of standards.
Islam has the only followers who are actively killing and conquering to achieve their religious goal.
The time for debating is through.
It matters little which one is better on paper.
What matters is which one will allow you to live the way you want.
Free?
Or Submissive?
Choose wisely.
In Islam trying to leave it means apostasy.
And apostasy in Islam requires execution.
You must not have paid attention in school. Does the phrase "separation of church and state" ring a bell? There is no such rule in most Middle eastern countries. Terrible analogy on your part. The Islamic religion is combined with the customs of the locals and incorporated in their politics, openly and without any shame. In most Christian countries that has been removed. Prior to that removal Christian countries killed way more people than Islamic countries have.
Stopped reading after your first fallacy. Not surprising..it was one of your first sentences.
Go ahead and show me exactly where "separation of church and state" is listed in the Constitution.
Again...show me a Christian country that would ride into town and slaughter innocents. Like your muslim buddies did.
You cant do it. Because it doesnt happen.
I will after you show me exactly where I said it was listed in the constitution.
Then why did you bring it up?
Dude you're an idiot. You flail around making up stupid shit and use the lamest dodges known to man when they turn out to be bullshit.
About done with your stupidity.
He is gathering information and trying to reach an intelligent conclusion in spite of some stiff criticisms and random racist potshots.
If you can't rationally argue your point of view you will be doing your own cause a disservice.
The dudes an idiot. When someone ignores obvious flaws in their argument,and or just refuses to answer questions,it's no longer a discussion now is it?
