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sedonaman
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Got any references? And I don’t mean your opinions or just your statements. Give us some references we can check out.
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Cecilianus
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I can!
- Restoration of the study of Islamic philosophy (Avicenna, Averroes, al-Ghazali, etc.) One such attempt - the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy - was unfortunately interrupted by the Islamic Revolution. (My college philosophy professor actually studied there - until he heard gunshots in the street and thought it might be prudent to get out of the country.)
- Sufism, that is to say, sanctity. A man who has become the son of Allah and not merely a blind slave can more easily discern His will. Sufism also provides a meeting-ground between Christianity and Islam insofar as all saints are spiritually in communion with each other. (During medieval times and the late Dark Ages Christian monks and Sufi faqirs would even give each other spiritual direction, if no-one of their own confession was available.) The Sufi cannot become a terrorist; who ever heard of a man consumed with caritas hijacking airplanes?
- Insemination of the good aspects of Western culture - namely, science (studied for its own sake, for the value of knowledge) and classical music. Modern science is strictly acultural despite its Western origins (actually, ultimately, its Arabic origins through its mathematical foundations and through Arabic scientists like Alhazen, which leads us back to point #1), and many modern Iranian and Turkish composers have done an incredible job of elevating the classical music of their own culturals into a concert art as Western classical music did. (I am still breathtaken by an aria I heard years ago from an aria by Orhan Salliel, an incredible - but almost unknown - Turkish composer whose music was performed by a group of students from the University of Istanbul whom we were blessed to hear in Duluth where they were visiting.)
- Encouraging of Christian monasticism in the Middle East, so that those Christians seen and dealt with by Muslims are saints and not the degraded sort of Western materialists who quite rightly deserve the name “the Great Satan” which Muslims have given us. I am always in favor of sanctity; it solves a lot of problems.
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Hadi
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Cecilianus,
I totally agree with everything you said.
But , I don’t think we will get closer to accomplishing these four points until the ME becomes a politically stable region.
I totally agree with everything you said.
But , I don’t think we will get closer to accomplishing these four points until the ME becomes a politically stable region.
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sedonaman
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This is an astounding statement! If they could be mistreated, then what are they “protected” from???!!! It is like saying the KKK protected blacks in the American South.
The “real” Islam is what Mohammed did. If he did it, then he, as their perfect example, is to be imitated by his followers, even today. Killing, robbing, enslaving, assassination, torture, deceiving, jihad – as long as those behaviors occur with the kafirs on the receiving end, they are all acts that were performed by Mohammed. If Mohammed did them, then they are not radical. Mohammed defines the middle of the road – normative behavior.
Those who argue from facts such as these from the Islamic doctrine and history are bad people who contradict “nice” people. Facts must submit to feelings in political correctness, which was invented to conceal/deny truth. Ignorance has become not just the high moral ground, but the only moral ground.
There is a term for your state of mind: the Stockholm Syndrome, that is unless you are really a Muslim engaging in taqqiya.
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Contarini
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Being killed or having their property arbitrarily taken away, or being kicked out of the country. Being treated in the way that Charlemagne treated the heathen Saxons, for instance, or the way Ferdinand and Isabella treated both Jews and Muslims in Spain.
No, it isn’t. It’s like saying that medieval Christian governments protected Jews. Which they did, on much the same terms but with increasing breakdowns in the later Middle Ages.
Your logic is false here. You argue:
- Muslims believe that real Islam consists in imitating Muhammad.
- As I read the historical record, Muhammad did various evil things.
- Therefore, Muslims believe that real Islam consists in doing these things.
Read Reza Aslan’s *No God but God, *as I did this summer. Whether Mr. Aslan’s picture of Muhammad is accurate is irrelevant. The point is that *that’s *the Muhammad Mr. Aslan going to imitate.
Edwin
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Contarini
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Sure.
John Esposito’s *The Straight Path, *Marshall Hodgson’s *The Venture of Islam, *Reza Aslan’s *No God but God. *The first two of these are by non-Muslims–the last is essentically a work of moderate/liberal Muslim apologetics. I take a harsher view of Islam than any of these writers do. I just looked for Esposito and couldn’t find him–I think I loaned him to a student. I do not own the other two. So I can’t give you page numbers.
Edwin
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Steven_John
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Peace and blessings seraphime,Sorry…just noticing that u’re new here
I haven’t been able to guess what religon u profess
Can u describe what u mean by aspiring submitter to one true God?
Thanks
i will accept your compliment but compared to u i am old here LOL.
Tis a big question you ask, one that does not sum into a short answer.
The one true God is YHWH His is always one and undivided.
But to look through our mans eye we could see Him as
- YHWH we know shown throught our prophets and messengers (pbwt) and our experience. and
- YHWH we dont know.
He knows better for me what i am to be, so i seek to submit to His will.
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Cecilianus
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Wow I’ve been accused of a lot of things on CAF: I’m a closet atheist, I sound like a Chick Tract, I’m really a Muslim, I must obviously be in schism because I’m a Tridentine Latin; I’m actually surprised no-one’s thrown the “New Age” tag at me when the topic of conversation turns to the Vedanta. How 'bout we stop with the labels & stereotypes, and try to engage with the arguments I presented, okay?
Mohammed - whose life and actions I in no way condone - never endorsed the slaying of civilians or of Christians. I would like to ask you to give specific instances of the charges you so cavalierly laid: killing (outside the context of conquest), robbing, enslaving, assassination, torture, deception. If Christians had any manliness left, we would also practice jihad - as we tried to during the Crusades, had we been able to overcome our pettiness and lust for power. The Muslims simply misplace the object of their zeal.
Islam is (if anything; you can’t simplify it so reductionistically unless you believe that there WAS a revelation to Mohammed and therefore a true and false “Islam”) what it was historically, not just during the period of the hegira and during the life of Mohammed. “Normative behavior” is determined by the jurists, who have a long tradition behind them, not by your opinion of what Mohammed’s life consisted of. Christians did not suffer bloody persecution, just dhimmitude, until the creation of radical Islam in the 20th century. Bloody persecution is what I was referring to them as being protected from, since infidels were usually stopped from sacrificing to idols by the sword.
Christians were also protected from “Christian” heretics - such as St. John of Damascus, who was protected by the caliph from Leo the Isaurian, the iconoclast Byzantine emperor, who tried to kill the saint after he wrote his treatises on the veneration of icons.
If you want to understand my argument instead of just labeling it “ignorant”, first of all examine the version of Islam (Sufism) I am presenting as being healthiest, and then research the origins of modern fundamentalism. Tawwasuf is generally not a mainstream path in most countries (except for Somalia), but mainstream Islam still permitted the subdued practice of Christianity, and individual Christians (like St. John Damascene) still gained the favor and protection from the non-Sufi Islamic leaders.
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Cecilianus
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Actually, the Stockholm Syndrome refers to the state of mind of people who identify with their captors. It is totally unrelated.
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Cecilianus
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Actually, property could be seized from Christians if their children converted, and also I believe for other reasons as well. Dhimmitude is an incredibly dim and humiliating way of life. The state of Jews and Muslims in Christian Spain before 1492 - when they were expelled in order to safeguard Spain’s new unity - was considerably better.
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Cecilianus
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Yes. The political instability has the same root as Islamic fundamentalism - Western colonialism and totalitarianism. The intefadeh in Palestine is a result of the creation of Israel which is a result of the Holocaust. Most of the rest of the conflict originates from the colonial division of the Middle East where it should have divided along ethnic lines, and the totalitarian political regimes filled the power gap left by the weak monarchs that the Brits left behind them. Now that someone had the brilliant idea to impose U.S.-style democracy on a culture that simply doesn’t use that kind of political system, things are just going downhill even more.
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Cecilianus
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I’d also like to point out a basic logical flaw in Sedonaman’s argument.
- Islam committed these sins.
- Therefore, Islam is nothing but these sins.
Pointing out the ugly side even stronger says absolutely nothing about the side of Islam that I am talking about.
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birdsong
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After maybe years of not posting in these forums, I came back today, and to my astonishment, I just read the following words by self-proclaimed world-class scholar Contarini:
So even if so-called scholars (more like propagandists) like the guy you just mentioned, John Esposito, Karen Arsmtrong et al, publish books and articles that reflect their own “peaceful” opinion and interpretation about Muhamad and Islam, we still have the problem of those who, according to their own views and studies, come to their own opposite view of an intolerant and non-peaceful Muhamad and Islam.
Care to enlighten us on this dilemma?
But tell me, dear Contarini, even if what you say is all true and fine, that still leave us with several issues, does it not? For example, ALL sunni schools of jurisprudence, along with influential commentators and exegetes unequivocally teach that those mulims who leave their faith MUST be put to death. And they get to those conclusions by a detailed study of the Koran, the Sunna and Hadiths.
So even if so-called scholars (more like propagandists) like the guy you just mentioned, John Esposito, Karen Arsmtrong et al, publish books and articles that reflect their own “peaceful” opinion and interpretation about Muhamad and Islam, we still have the problem of those who, according to their own views and studies, come to their own opposite view of an intolerant and non-peaceful Muhamad and Islam.
Care to enlighten us on this dilemma?
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Adonia
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Jesus Christ is God come to earth. Muhammad is not. The choice is yours.
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Cecilianus
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The point Mr. Contarini was arguing against - or that I would have argued against if I were him, since I can’t actually speak for him - is that Islam does not consist of Sedonaman’s Fox News readings on the history of Islam; it DOES consist of those Sunni schools of jurisprudence that you mentioned. The detailed study of the Koran, the sunna, and the ahadith is where we learn about Islam - not from whatever Sedonaman. Was Islam peaceful? No - they believed in something and were willing to fight for it. Was it tolerant? Except for people like Ibn 'Arabi, who were exceptions and not the rule, no - they had the basic consistency to believe that they had the truth and that others were in error. I’m not advocating Karen Armstrong’s PC version of Islam - she’s an idiot, like most ex-nuns - but I’m also not advocating a knee-jerk “Islam is terrorism” reaction either. We should know who we are contending with, honestly and accurately.
Stepping back from this whole discussion, let’s also remember how it began. A brother in Christ said that he is feeling like God is leading him towards Islam, and came to us - whom he already knows will not believe that - for help leading him back to the path (Catholicism) his conscience told him originally was the truth. Instead of acting in Christian charity, people just started bashing him personally and his attraction to Islam. All you have done is swept our own greatness which Islam lacks - namely, divine charity, which follows from the Incarnation - out from under our own feet. What has this discussion accomplished? Instead of charity in truth, we’ve been regurgitating caricatures in a hateful spirit.
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Steven_John
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In some posts this has been very true.
I think our brother gave up on us long ago in this thread, that says something.
It is real important to meet people where they are at not grab them and drag them into our world.
Lots of posts just his attraction as wrong.
I am with the posters that were keen to find out what he found attractive.
If it is wrong then gently help him if he is right in your eyes than the same would be in your religion.
Many “Christians” here in CAF turn me off.
Samaritans were un kool to Jewish people in the days of Yahooshua in flesh (a devout Jew) but he saw what we need to be attracted to.
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birdsong
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I am not sure why people like you write so many words without saying a single thing coherently. Are you trying to obfuscate the discussion just to protect Islam or the sensitivities of Muslims?
Below is what I think was the main point of your post (if there was any):
If that were the case, how would you propose to contend with such a situation “honestly and accurately” and without “regurgitating caricatures in hateful spirit”?
Below is what I think was the main point of your post (if there was any):
Let us suppose for a moment that (as many people who have studied in detail the Koran, Hadiths and the Sunna have concluded) Islam does teach that is a mandate for Muslims to (when conditions permit it) wage war against unbelievers until we submit to Muslim rule.
If that were the case, how would you propose to contend with such a situation “honestly and accurately” and without “regurgitating caricatures in hateful spirit”?
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larry0226
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In all fairness, that part of the world has seen ongoing and nearly constant strife and warfare since the fall of Sumer circa 2,000 B.C. That is four thousand years now.
But, recently, there was the fraudulent charge hurled against the Christians in Pakistan about desecrating the Koran. This led to violence and murder of the Christians. Think about it. Would a tiny minority (about 1 or 2 percent of the population) actually do this (desecrate the Koran) knowing that such action would be suicidal in Pakistan?
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sedonaman
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dangel
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Try it all!
Experiment and experience everything and do it when and how you feel fit too.
Life is too short to think hmm, if only and when it comes to faith there’s a world out there waiting to be tasted.
Try it, if you don’t like it then leave it but you will come away with plenty of experience, you’ll know far more than others around you because you’ve not been afraid to venture.
Faith is so important because it’s individual and unique to each person and no other person can tell you what the right or wrong thing is for you to feel or have faith in because they don’t know what’s in your heart, they don’t know what’s truly important to you.
As long as you don’t do it to put down someone else then you are hurting no one.
Give it a go and have fun doing it! Remember, Catholicism isn’t going anywhere so it’ll be right where you left it. Good luck!
Experiment and experience everything and do it when and how you feel fit too.
Life is too short to think hmm, if only and when it comes to faith there’s a world out there waiting to be tasted.
Try it, if you don’t like it then leave it but you will come away with plenty of experience, you’ll know far more than others around you because you’ve not been afraid to venture.
Faith is so important because it’s individual and unique to each person and no other person can tell you what the right or wrong thing is for you to feel or have faith in because they don’t know what’s in your heart, they don’t know what’s truly important to you.
As long as you don’t do it to put down someone else then you are hurting no one.
Give it a go and have fun doing it! Remember, Catholicism isn’t going anywhere so it’ll be right where you left it. Good luck!
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