Why Islam is disrespected

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ed...rticles/2005/05/19/why_islam_is_disrespected/

Why Islam is disrespected

By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | May 19, 2005

IT WAS front-page news this week when Newsweek retracted a report claiming that a US interrogator in Guantanamo had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet. Everywhere it was noted that Newsweek's story had sparked widespread Muslim rioting, in which at least 17 people were killed. But there was no mention of deadly protests triggered in recent years by comparable acts of desecration against other religions.

No one recalled, for example, that American Catholics lashed out in violent rampages in 1989, after photographer Andres Serrano's ''Piss Christ" -- a photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine -- was included in an exhibition subsidized by the National Endowment for the Arts. Or that they rioted in 1992 when singer Sinead O'Connor, appearing on ''Saturday Night Live," ripped up a photograph of Pope John Paul II.

There was no reminder that Jewish communities erupted in lethal violence in 2000, after Arabs demolished Joseph's Tomb, torching the ancient shrine and murdering a young rabbi who tried to save a Torah. And nobody noted that Buddhists went on a killing spree in 2001 in response to the destruction of two priceless, 1,500-year-old statues of Buddha by the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

Of course, there was a good reason all these bloody protests went unremembered in the coverage of the Newsweek affair: They never occurred.

Christians, Jews, and Buddhists don't lash out in homicidal rage when their religion is insulted. They don't call for holy war and riot in the streets. It would be unthinkable for a mainstream priest, rabbi, or lama to demand that a blasphemer be slain. But when Reuters reported what Mohammad Hanif, the imam of a Muslim seminary in Pakistan, said about the alleged Koran-flushers -- ''They should be hung. They should be killed in public so that no one can dare to insult Islam and its sacred symbols" -- was any reader surprised?

The Muslim riots should have been met by outrage and condemnation. From every part of the civilized world should have come denunciations of those who would react to the supposed destruction of a book with brutal threats and the slaughter of 17 innocent people. But the chorus of condemnation was directed not at the killers and the fanatics who incited them, but at Newsweek.

From the White House down, the magazine was slammed -- for running an item it should have known might prove incendiary, for relying on a shaky source, for its animus toward the military and the war. Over and over, Newsweek was blamed for the riots' death toll. Conservative pundits in particular piled on. ''Newsweek lied, people died" was the headline on Michelle Malkin's popular website. At NationalReview.com, Paul Marshall of Freedom House fumed: ''What planet do these [Newsweek] people live on? . . . Anybody with a little knowledge could have told them it was likely that people would die as a result of the article." All of Marshall's choler was reserved for Newsweek; he had no criticism at all for the marauders in the Muslim street.

Then there was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who announced at a Senate hearing that she had a message for ''Muslims in America and throughout the world." And what was that message? That decent people do not resort to murder just because someone has offended their religious sensibilities? That the primitive bloodlust raging in Afghanistan and Pakistan was evidence of the Muslim world's dysfunctional political culture?

No: Her message was that ''disrespect for the Holy Koran is not now, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be, tolerated by the United States."

Granted, Rice spoke while the rioting was still taking place and her goal was to reduce the anti-American fever. But what ''Muslims in America and throughout the world" most need to hear is not pandering sweet-talk. What they need is a blunt reminder that the real desecration of Islam is not what some interrogator in Guantanamo might have done to the Koran. It is what totalitarian Muslim zealots have been doing to innocent human beings in the name of Islam. It is 9/11 and Beslan and Bali and Daniel Pearl and the USS Cole. It is trains in Madrid and schoolbuses in Israel and an ''insurgency" in Iraq that slaughters Muslims as they pray and vote and line up for work. It is Hamas and Al Qaeda and sermons filled with infidel-hatred and exhortations to ''martyrdom."

But what disgraces Islam above all is the vast majority of the planet's Muslims saying nothing and doing nothing about the jihadist cancer eating away at their religion. It is Free Muslims Against Terrorism, a pro-democracy organization, calling on Muslims and Middle Easterners to ''converge on our nation's capital for a rally against terrorism" -- and having only 50 people show up.

Yes, Islam is disrespected. That will only change when throngs of passionate Muslims show up for rallies against terrorism, and when rabble-rousers trying to gin up a riot over a defiled Koran can't get the time of day.

 

I actually agree with pretty much all of this.

 

Exactly! I lived in Muslim countries for 5 years & I observed their ways. I lived in Buddhist countries & Catholic Countries for the same amount of time. Completely the opposite. I was imprisoned in Malaysia & deported. Most religions are peaceful, but Islam has been a curse on civilization ever since it's illiterate founder only heard parts of the Old Testament from a Cypriot Cleric as a kid. Mohammed just never got the whole story & it sounds like he & his followers just made up the rest. It's a religion of violence which after 9/11 should not be pandered to. All the so-called moderates are potential sleeper-cells if pressured by their religious peers. I inquired why the US Government did not reclassify Islam as a hostile Political Movement instead of letting it thrive here under the guise of religious protection! OK, I'd say tit for tat. For every mosque you build in the US, we get to build a Christian Church, Jewish Synagogue or Buddhist Temple in Saudi Arabia. Hey, that's a concept! Or like my absurd friend said: We should have nuked Mecca, right when they were all parading around the Kabala, as repayment for 9/11. American politics is so nauseatingly milktoast. I've lived in Pakistan & Iran & I could tell them you can't trust some people as far as you can throw them. There were some decent people I had as friends, but the majority were maniacs who got into a feeding frenzy every time they smelled blood. I've read the Koran, dry as it is--it's part of the path to instant salvation to kill yourself by killing the Infidel.

 

"We should have nuked Mecca, right when they were all parading around the Kabala, as repayment for 9/11."

You're a sick, bigoted fuck skycanvas. A few muslim extremists kill some a bunch of our innocent civilians, so we should kill a bunch of innnocent middle eastern civilians? I bet that will go a LONG way towards ending the problem. . .

 

well stated.

 

Islam is the fastest growing religion. There must be something about it people like. Even Pat Robertson is getting worried. He's calling on Christian women to have more babies, fearing that Christianity will soon be very out-numbered.

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So, lets not get into a feeding frenzy every time we smell blood either. Even if it's only in our imagination or through misunderstanding something somebody says. After all that is the issue, The fact that they got enraged over practically nothing at all. Did you read the article about what caused this riot? It was based on here-say & nobody even knew if someone actually flushed anything down the toilet in Guantanamo except a buncha crap. It was a rumor that was printed by irresponsible journalism that caused even more innocent deaths.



I think we ought to send them to Mars, because it looks better than Saudi Arabia.

Quote me correctly this time! I don't want any more Aliens dying due to inaccurate reporting!

 

On the other hand, the Koran does state: "An eye for an eye & a tooth for a tooth." Thieves get their hands chopped off for stealing in those countries & adulterers get their...whatever chopped off for...trying to use fake ID's--yeah, Adultery!



Ossama Bin Ladin dies & goes to the afterlife & he doesn't see any 70 virgins waiting.

So he complains!

He says: Where's my 70 Virgins? That's what I was waiting for on Earth!

So Allah says, well--there was a mistake in the Koran since Mohammed couldn't read or write.

Instead of '70 Virgins' I said, "a Seventy Year Old Virgin!"

 

I could have sworn that "absurd" wasn't there before.

Anyway, Islam IS kind of screwy, but so is just about every other religion. I think it's a problem of constant, escalating turmoil in the middle east. So much conflict has left Muslims angry and bitter, and it propogates itself in the area. My point is military action, especially killing innocent civilians, will not only fail to deter the violence, but will inspire it.

And you're right, just getting distraught over the destruction of words on a page, bound together in a book, of which millions of copies exist, is overreacting. Responding to it with violent protest is fanatical and ridiculous.

The only hope, I think, is some kind of education campaign. These people are too full of pride, too fanatical over their religion with questionable origins. Lack of education can be attributed to all kinds of atrocities in the past, and muslim violence is just another case of the same.

 

OK, a little History Lesson: This is an old story, Arabs vs Jews. This rivalry has been going on for thousands of years. They've been killing each other for that long & there's still plenty of them. Yeah, they're having a revival & in fact you are right because they're just fulfilling Bible prophecy

The scene is this: Jacob & his mother Rebekah just deceived Isaac, the old blind & dying husband/father into giving him/Jacob, her favorite son the birthright (inheritance) instead of his older brother Esau to whom it was supposed to go to according to custom.

Genesis 27: 38-41 - "And Esau said unto his father, Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice, and wept. And Isaac his father answered and said unto him, Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above; And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, (which they finally got through OIL during the last days) that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck. And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob."

So Jacob becomes the forefather of the Jews & Esau hooks back up with the tribes of Ishmael. (The begats: Abraham begat Isaac & Isaac begat Jacob, etc...) But Abraham also begat Ishmael through his servant woman, Hagar many years before Isaac is born & the Ishmaelites were the forefathers of the Arabs of today.

MOHAMMED (Arabic "the Praised"), the name taken at a later period by the founder of Islam. He was originally called Halabi. He was born about the year 570, A.D., at Mecca. At about 40 years old Mohammed comes around & converts all these idol worshippers in & around Mecca. The Muslim faith is begun & catches on. The fundamental doctrine of the Koran is contained in the two articles of belief: "There is no God but Allah; and Mohammed is his prophet." The Islamic doctrine of God's nature and attributes coincides with the Christian, insofar as he is by both taught to be the Creator of all things in heaven and earth, who rules and preserves all things, without beginning, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and full of mercy. But it differs in that Jesus is only a prophet and apostle, although His birth is said to be due to a miraculous, divine operation. A battle, the first, between 314 Muslims and about 600 Meccans, was fought at Badr, in the second year of the Hegira; the former gained the victory and made many prisoners. No drinking allowed. The religion is utterly legalistic.

Islam is in present times acting as a scourge on the Christian nations who turn against God. They're the sword of the Lord & the razor that is hired. Assassins, to punish those who know better. 'Assassin' is actually an Arabic word that comes from HASHISH, because they got these guys completely stoned before they went out to slit somebody's throat.

It's the Islamic Wall moving this way & there's nothing that can be done about it Scripturally unless the people change their ways. That's probably not what the US & the West of Modern Day Babylon/Ninevah are going to do. But, God is merciful & can stave it off--postpone judgement.

But if we keep on going, the Islamic Jihad is going to keep on coming. But out of this eventually will come the Antichrist. Thus saith the Lord. Don't kill the messenger, I'm only Jonah. If it stops heading the way it's going, then we've changed somehow. But if it continues, no matter how many children Pat Robertson tells the Christians to have, that's the Razor that is hired, the wicked are the sword of the Lord. He uses them. He doesn't waste their time on earth either. Just like He used Hitler as a punishment. I can't figure that one out but he used these horrible dictators to get people where he wants them or to do what he wants.

 

It's really amazing that all of these groups in the Mideast and U.S. are worshipping the same God and don't even realize it.

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God is evil then. I might have known.

Anyways, I do agree with the article, and oddly enough, Laura Bush. That the Muslims are freaking out and killing people because they think someone tore or flushed a book is ridiculous. That Muslims are not decrying the action or the hijacking of their religion by radical clerics is terrible. That we in the West still pander to this murderous fringe of Islamic fundamentalists is stupid. We decry the terrorists but apologize when a story is printed (whether falsly or not) that a book was damaged and it results in a massacre. All this over A BOOK! Are these people so crazy that they can't realize that Allah doesn't live in a book? Get the fuck over it! I respect their religion, but I don't respect the lunatic direction it seems to be going in. I also don't think most muslims are really all about that lunacy. But a good man being silent in the face of evil is an accomplice to that evil. They need to raise their voices about this. And Western leaders need to be clear that it is not acceptable (and that we won't apologize) for people to kill and riot at such an incident. Yes, it would be disrespectful to desecrate a Qur'an, but it's not so disrespectful that they need to riot in the streets.

 

It's weird that you made a comment over that word, because I called the guy who said it just before finishing the post, about the histoire & I read him what I said that he said; he kind of nodded silently, because I said absurd. The he & his wife had to go to the store & I had to go to the park, so there wasn't time. While I was jogging I thought I should have said, 'outlandish,' & how he might have been offended, but he is my best friend so I ran it by him even though it hurt. But we are buds & shall survive. He's probabaly going to be on this soon, so you can check it out. Another weird thing is that after I got done there were a bunch of African Muslims in the park. They were really nice & their kids. Very wholesome people. But at 9 pm they hit the deck, but not all of them. But yeah, absurd was there before & I should have said something else. I just separated them. See the times. I'll continue...

 

It's easy to think so, just because God allows the free will & He allows evil to remain--in a sense, unbothered. That's not that He is encouraging it or starting it, it's allowing free-will to exist.

I don't understand everything that's going on in the world & in the spirit-world or from the beginning. I don't know how the angels fell or why I am here. All I know is there is some sort of plan to let things play themselves out. Therefore I imagine God as a liberal, all political notions aside.

As I told my sister last week, that if God interfered with her choices & decisions, then He would have to interfere with everyone's free will & that would mess it all up. I don't think that's the deal...

"Caught in the Devil's Bargain...and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden...ummmm —Joni Mitchell; Woodstock)

I think it's a lesson to the whole of existence as to what is good & what is evil.

If He is good but did not let evil exist, then how would we even realize the difference? We'd be saying He is evil again because he suppressed freedom of choice.

I think sometimes that the whole plan is for us to see how good, 'good is,' & 'how evil, evil is...'

But if we doubt God along the way, then that is normal as long as we don't get stuck in that way of thinking & get bitter. But the outcome should be a realization of the goodness of good & how He sees the whole picture from the beginning. The Devil is a finite creature in every sense. He does not see the future since he was a mere creation.




When you make peace with the reasons why--then it is all good!

 

I don't think so. It really annoys me when people say that in a mind of "we're all the sons of God". The only common thing between monotheistic religion is a vague concept of ultimate superbeing.
What people often forget is that believing in God doesn't mean one has the same morals, the same "humanity", the same understandings of the world, etc...
Unless their God is schizo, it boils down to millions of crazy people worshipping a false God and their "prophet" being a disgusting liar. If you believe in God you have to choose who is wrong.

 

The trouble is, each group thinks it's right and that the others are wrong.

Many people in the U.S. believe Bush was hand-picked by God to run the country.

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In the U.S., people have riots over who won or lost the NBA or baseball playoffs. A young woman was killed at the riots after the Boston Red Sox victory last year. Some riot over religious beliefs and others over sports. It's not something that plagues a particular group. Few would write off the entire sports system because there was a riot after a baseball game.

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No one is saying we should write off the religion of Islam because some of the believers go a little crazy sometimes. I know at my school Michigan State, they like to have basketball riots, sometimes when they win, sometimes when they lose. Basketball is important there, so the fans get a little crazy, burning couches, flipping cop cars, generally rioting in the street (alcohol, of course, playing a major role). But no one there is saying the school shouldn't have basketball (well, no one important, anyways...there's always some crackpots). Basketball and baseball are good things (at least to many people) and no one seriously suggests getting rid of them.

But that doesn't mean the riots should be tolerated one bit.

Islam is good for a lot of people, but rioting over a damaged book is not to be respected; it's taking things too far.

 

You don't think there's a difference between the occasional tragic but accidental death resulting from people partying too hard after the big game, and people cutting off the heads of infidels and chanting "Death to America" at the slightest provocation?

I don't think anyone is suggesting that we "write off" Islam, but I do think that moral equivalency (when there is none) is a dangerous attitude. At the risk of sounding ethnocentric, the culture of Islam today is dangerously reactionary and primitive. Sorry, Western (and East Asian) culture is BETTER than Islamic culture, not different. That doesn't mean we need to wipe the religion off of the face of the earth, but it does mean that those of us who consider ourselves progressives/humanists should encourage more exposure to Western ideas in Islamic societies.

 

Untrue. Muslims, Jews and Christians all believe in the same God and even the same bible. The differences come from the prophets (Jesus vs. Muhamad vs. Moses), cultural backgrounds (Israel vs. Ishmael, Essau) and interpertations.

If one was to say it in the simplest and shortest form, it would be this:

Jews say: we are the chosen people.
Christians say: Jews were the chosen people, but some of them didn't believe in Jesus when he came, and so their religion is outdated.
Muslims say: the Jews were the chosen people, but betrayed God and now we are the chosen ones.

As for the fighting, it's mostly political. But in this day and age (hell, any day and age) no politician can just say "We want their oil and land, so we will attack them". Instead, they must use ancient religions which the people believe in but do not fully understand (I think I know the bible better than most Christians, and I'm agnostic).

It's not Islam that's at fault, but its usage. And it's not that Islam is unique in that sense, but it's the one we have a problem with right now.