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Vouthon
Guest
I agree.
But I don’t know what can be done about it on any side. It’s a total mess, if I’m being honest.
But I don’t know what can be done about it on any side. It’s a total mess, if I’m being honest.
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josie_L
Guest
In other words, moderate Muslims need to reclaim Islam and fight against jihadi theology, but that will be hard to do since such a theology (jihadi) has been around since almost the inception of Islam.
That being said, moderates of any persuasion cannot continue to bury their heads regarding this problem, i.e., this is no time for political correctness.
p.s. Hi Vouthon!
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ucfengr
Guest
Sounds like they’re still trying to identify a motive.
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randomuser
Guest
Who, as a reminder, is NOT on the “travel ban” (from Obama’s list) that the POTUS inappropriately tweeted for before he had even extended condolences to London.
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Mulligan2
Guest
Trump is tone-deaf at best in these types of situations.
The tweet from JK Rowling was spot on: “It’s called ‘leadership’, Donald. The terrorists were dead 8 minutes after police got the call. If we need an alarmist blowhard, we’ll call.”
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Michael68
Guest
Really? Last time I checked there are more than these terrorists in the world. I might be wrong, but I don’t think so.
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josie_L
Guest
Geez, you would think that Trump was the enemy (with all the criticisms leveled at him) and not the actual terrorists who are running rampant in England.
p.s. Killing terrorists after the fact, i.e., after their attacks, is hardly a deterrent to terrorists who believe they’ll be in Heaven with 72 virgins, when committing these acts and putting their lives on the line.
Alarmist, indeed!!!
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DeniseNY
Guest
Real leadership would be filtering out these savages before they are able to strike.
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DeniseNY
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mikekle
Guest
I agree, and when they keep calling these kinds of incidents ‘terrorist attacks’, well, the ‘war on terror’ will literally go on forever.
I read an interesting piece awhile back that explained why majority of people cannot recognize ‘false flag’ attacks, something about their mindset and them not being mentally able to even consider the possibility that the govt/state was involved and/or planned the attack .
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Vouthon
Guest
Hi Josie! (Good to hear from you by the way
)To an extent it has been, yes.
Jihad (which has at least four definitions in classical Islam, one of those being military struggle) has always been part of Islam. However it wasn’t understood by most orthodox schools as removing immunity from civilians nor was it synonymous with unrelenting barbarism. Classical Islam abided by strictly circumscribed rules of warfare.
Consider this scholarly assessment of the laws of war from Shaikh Burhanuddin Ali of Marghinan (d. 1196), a famous medieval Hanafi jurist:
The most militant jihadists in the early Islamic community (who, much like ISIS today, regarded other Muslim sects even as ‘kufar’ and believed that their civilians, along with the civilians of nonbelievers, were legitimate targets during a military offensive) were rebels against the Ummayyad Caliphate, a heretical faction castigated by the orthodox ulema (clerics) as “Kharijites”.
The Kharijites spread terror among the nascent Islamic communities, courtesy of their radical approach of Takfir, whereby they declared other Muslims to be unbelievers and therefore deemed them worthy of death. The historians al-Tabari and Ibn Kathir chronicle precise accounts of their intimidation, violence and terror. Under the events of 37H/657CE they detail how the sect began terrorizing the countryside around Nahrawan, Iraq, subjecting those whom they caught to an imtihan or “inquisition”. If the victims failed to satisfy their zeal for purity, or agree with their understanding of theology, then the punishment was death.
Members of the Islamic State (IS) have often been described as modern-age Kharijites. In fact, in addition to Daesh, that’s the name they are often known by in Islamic countries. My point being: the theology promoted by ISIS is not really an innovation. It is not by any margin “traditional” Islam as you would have found in the 18th century Ottoman Empire but its essentials (if not the finer edges of its barbarism) has precedent in the Islamic world.
And since the nineteenth century, Islamist theologies of whatever variety - Wahabi, Deobandi, Salafi - have been proliferating at times in response to colonialism (but it has massively outgrown this to become a self-replicating and even apocalyptic belief system). Radical Islamism as we know it today is rooted in the Salafi movement, which rejects Islamic tradition and tries to go back to an idealized early Islam. That’s not to say that traditional Islam couldn’t be violent as well but it had clearly defined moral limits lacking in modern day ISIS or the early Kharijites.
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josie_L
Guest
One can hardly call it good leadership when one becomes so good at stopping terrorists after the fact, in fact, it would seem that the prevalence of terrorist attacks in England is evidence of bad leadership!!!
Just saying JK Rowling!!!
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M-Dent
Guest
The alliances of the US and the West have been quite unsettling and complex. Generally speaking, the recent history of the rise of Islamic militancy can be traced to the Russian supporting Nations and groups with influences to radical Shia origin and the US, UK and other Western allies supporting Nations and groups with influences to radical Sunni origin. The Cold War and proxy battles still have rippling effects in the World.
The world needs leaders who can face threats head-on and avoid the fight by proxy.
Yet on the topic, the emergence of ISIS and other militant groups in the Middle East are not as problematic as the isolated and disenfranchised homegrown militant in any nation of the world inspired by these horrible terror acts. Who knows where it may lead.
The world needs leaders who can face threats head-on and avoid the fight by proxy.
Yet on the topic, the emergence of ISIS and other militant groups in the Middle East are not as problematic as the isolated and disenfranchised homegrown militant in any nation of the world inspired by these horrible terror acts. Who knows where it may lead.
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Vouthon
Guest
Many good points raised in the above!
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josie_L
Guest
Vouthon, quoting one particular Islamic figure at the height of Islamic discourse, i.e., it was during this time that I believe different theologies/interpretations of Islam were being touted, as such, such a figure is not demonstrative or representative of all Islam, as there was never a cohesive theology during this time.Hi Josie! (Good to hear from you by the way
To an extent it has been, yes.
Jihad (which has at least four definitions in classical Islam, one of those being military struggle) has always been part of Islam. However it wasn’t understood by most orthodox schools as removing immunity from civilians nor was it synonymous with unrelenting barbarism. Classical Islam abided by rules of war. Consider this scholarly assessment of the laws of war from Shaikh Burhanuddin Ali of Marghinan (d. 1196), a famous medieval Hanafi jurist:
The most militant jihadists in the early Islamic community (who, much like ISIS today, regarded other Muslim sects even as ‘kufar’ and believed that their civilians, along with the civilians of nonbelievers, were legitimate targets during a military offensive) were rebels against the Ummayyad Caliphate, a heretical faction castigated by the orthodox ulema (clerics) as “Kharijites”.
The Kharijites spread terror among the nascent Islamic communities, courtesy of their radical approach of Takfir, whereby they declared other Muslims to be unbelievers and therefore deemed them worthy of death The historians al-Tabari and Ibn Kathir chronicle precise accounts of their intimidation, violence and terror. Under the events of 37H/657CE they detail how the sect began terrorizing the countryside around Nahrawan, Iraq, subjecting those whom they caught to an imtihan or “inquisition”. If the victims failed to satisfy their zeal for purity, or agree with their understanding of theology, then the punishment was death.
Members of the Islamic State (IS) have often been described as modern-age Kharijites - in fact, in addition to Daesh, that’s the name they are often known by in Islamic countries.
My point being, the theology promoted by ISIS is not really an innovation. It is not by any margin “traditional” Islam as you would have found in the 18th century Ottoman Empire but its essentials - if not the finer edges of its barbarism - has precedent in the Islamic world.
And since the nineteenth century, Islamist theologies of whatever variety - Wahabi, Deobandi, Salafi - have been proliferating at times in response to colonialism (but it has massively outgrown this to become a self-replicating and even apocalyptic belief system). Radical Islamism as we know it today is rooted in the Salafi movement, which rejects Islamic tradition and tries to go back to an idealized early Islam. That’s not to say that traditional Islam couldn’t be violent as well but it had clearly defined moral limits lacking in modern day ISIS or the early Kharijites.
Moreover, wasn’t this said during a time when the Crusades were being played out, i.e., the very abuses/violence that led to the Crusades are to say the least an indictment of what was truly believed/practiced in Islam???
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Vouthon
Guest
You’re right that Sunni Islam is a far more “decentralized” religion in terms of orthodoxy than, say, Catholicism. As such dissenting opinions invariably existed on a variety of matters. In the course of the Islamic conquests some permitted, some restricted and some disapproved of the use of mangonels, poisoned arrows, night raids and the poisoning of wells. The abuses you mention were indeed genuine and were often justified by tweaking the established precepts to allow more leeway room. However civilian deaths were generally justified as collateral damage or when they could not be distinguished from combatants - civilians were not supposed, in theory at least, to be objects of harm out with military targets. ISIS and other Islamists, like the early Kharijites, simply targeted civilians.
These facts notwithstanding, there was a generally held consensus on the nature of jihad from all four schools of medieval Sunni Islamic jurisprudence (i.e., Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, and Shafi’i) to the effect that non-combatants who did not participate in fighting should be unharmed. Shaikh Burhanuddin was not an outlier among Sunni jurists.
Some Hanafi and Shafi’i also held that merchants had non-combatant immunity. Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, the first Caliph, established the general code of conduct in the following address to his Islamic armies:
I could quote many others who reiterate the same broad doctrinal interpretation.
As I said earlier, that’s not to say that traditional Islam couldn’t be violent as well (it most certainly was) but it had defined moral limits lacking in modern day ISIS or the early Kharijites. These groups have bases upon which they justify their more extreme opinions, from the Qur’an and Hadiths but these dissenting opinions - while existing and thus significant - were not the majority jurisprudential position in classical Islam.
When discussing Islamic theology it is important to distinguish between
(1) ‘jihad’ or ‘struggle’ as conceived of in the military sense of a holy war against unbelieving societies not part of the House of Islam (which is only one of its definitions) and
(2) deliberate, indiscriminate acts of terror targeted towards civilians outside any military context.
The former is part of classical Islamic theology. It shouldn’t be denied and Islamic scholars need to do a better job of squaring it with modern pluralism. Some prominent ones have done so, others are found wanting. No…2, however, does not have substantive foundation in the orthodox Sunni or Shia schools.
As Professor Bernard Lewis noted:
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josie_L
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So when the Seljuk Turks overtook Jerusalem and killed pilgrims headings to the Holy city, they were in effect going against the generally held consensus that civilians were off limits, yet their actions would spearhead the Crusades, even though Muslim aggression, oh, excuse me, holy war against the infidel had been going on for hundreds of years prior to the commencement of the Crusades and was perfectly acceptable as per traditional Islam?
And the irony is that modern dayJihadists/terorrists believe the Crusades were a result of Western aggression against Islam, and used as an impetus to claim war on the West, the so-called evil guys, and not in fact, the constant call of Holy war on the infidel as part of parcel of Islamic theology/thought, which by the way would explain much of Islamic history (and the oft times barbaric violence which ensued)?
I don’t deny that these Islamic figures held some prominence within Islam during their era, but if one looks at the history thereafter, this supposed classical theology of Islam was done away with at some point in time, recollect that during the 12th and 13th century Islam was at its zenith, but in the ensuing centuries, and the struggles with which Islam was undergoing, the “moderates” were overtaken by the irrational/fanatical.
I understand what you’re getting at, and although the indiscriminate acts of terror against civilians are not per se part of Islamic theology, the end result is that holy war against the infidel does precipitate violence (as you have admitted), but it is not much consolation considering that the main purpose of ISIS is to create a caliphate that would in effect spearhead a greater war against the infidel, a holy war that by classical Islamic theology would be perfectly acceptable, i.e., as long as the violence is not indiscriminately directed at civilians outside any military context.
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Sarcelle
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Lou2U
Guest
I don’t know if anyone else has posted this yet, but Donald Trump posted a tweet attacking the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan:
This is awful. The attack in Manchester was horrific, the attack in London in March was shocking as well. Right now, the world needs solidarity, compassion and to work together. What isn’t needed is the President of the USA to spread more “fake news” about the attack, and to fuel divisions within the world. Completely unnecessary and thoughtless.
As I said on the thread about the Manchester attack, it is times like this that the worst sorts of people come crawling out the woodwork. But you also see the good - people offering shelter for the night, cab drivers taking people to safety for free, a man cycling 3 hours to get to London and give bottles of water to the police.
Also, I don’t know if anyone has yet posted this, but 50 rounds of shots were fired by the police, which is an unprecedented amount. As another poster said, the police in the UK are taught to shoot only as a last resort, and to use as little rounds as possible.
Lou
Taking his comment that there is no reason to be alarmed over increased police presence in London completely out of context.
This is awful. The attack in Manchester was horrific, the attack in London in March was shocking as well. Right now, the world needs solidarity, compassion and to work together. What isn’t needed is the President of the USA to spread more “fake news” about the attack, and to fuel divisions within the world. Completely unnecessary and thoughtless.
As I said on the thread about the Manchester attack, it is times like this that the worst sorts of people come crawling out the woodwork. But you also see the good - people offering shelter for the night, cab drivers taking people to safety for free, a man cycling 3 hours to get to London and give bottles of water to the police.
Also, I don’t know if anyone has yet posted this, but 50 rounds of shots were fired by the police, which is an unprecedented amount. As another poster said, the police in the UK are taught to shoot only as a last resort, and to use as little rounds as possible.
Lou
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