Will it be Eurabia?

[George_Waters]

I am still waiting for an answer as to what the issue is with the cartoons of Mohammed. I have yet to get a response from a Muslim on this forum. I even started a thread on this topic.

I keep hearing and reading that depictions of the prophet are forbid by Islam, but there is 1400 years of Islamic art that has depicted Mohammed without issue and numerous cartoons done in the west the past few years with no issue. Why these and why now?

It is also ironic that Jews have been portrayed far worse in Arab papers for decades and no one has been calling for death to all Muslims.

Any Muslim on this thread want to answer my questions or should we just write this off as immature and opportunistic behavior?

 

[Gefra]

One interesting observation that I came across deals with the difference between Moslems’ behavior in non-Islamic countries compared with their behavior in the Islamic nations. When Moslems refer to the US and the West as the Great Satan, they are not speaking figurativley. They are speaking in geographic terms. A country not under Islamic rule is in the geographic, physical domain of Satan. That is why Muslims own businesses in the West that they would never consider owning in the Islam world, such as liquor stores, newstands that sell questionable magazines, grocery stores that sell pork, etc. Because in their worldview, the Great Satan is a place, a double standard is not in conflict with their religion. Once Europe and America is rid of “infidel” government, then they would adopt the same behaviors found in Islamic countries.

What do you think?

 

[JimG]

Gefra:

Once Europe and America is rid of “infidel” government, then they would adopt the same behaviors found in Islamic countries.

Yikes. Does anybody feel Sharia law coming on?

 

[pro_universal]

A country not under Islamic rule is in the geographic, physical domain of Satan. That is why Muslims own businesses in the West that they would never consider owning in the Islam world, such as liquor stores, newstands that sell questionable magazines, grocery stores that sell pork, etc. Because in their worldview, the Great Satan is a place, a double standard is not in conflict with their religion. Once Europe and America is rid of “infidel” government, then they would adopt the same behaviors found in Islamic countries.

I think you haven’t bothered to read the muslims’ book or ask any muslims about their religion. How did you presume to know what they think when you haven’t done that?

Yikes. Does anybody feel Sharia law coming on?

With all due respect, I hope this is half-joking hyperbole. How exactly is “shariah” (whatever that is) going to be forced on westerners? I think it’s much more likely that muslims will be forced to adopt a way of life they don’t want in their countries.

 

[Eden]

pro_universal:

With all due respect, I hope this is half-joking hyperbole. How exactly is “shariah” (whatever that is) going to be forced on westerners? I think it’s much more likely that muslims will be forced to adopt a way of life they don’t want in their countries.

Shariah is a code of law based on the Quran in which there is no separation of church and state.

 

[pro_universal]

Shariah is a code of law based on the Quran in which there is no separation of church and state.

That is not the case. There is no one set “shariah”. It’s an arabic word that only appears one time in the Koran, and there are countless different versions and interpretations of what Shariah means.

One idea of the Shariah is not necessarily anything like any of the others, so to imagine that it’s some code that’s sitting in a book on every muslim’s shelf, waiting to be implemented, is erroneous.

Here’s a good article on the history of Islamic law and thought regarding this:meforum.org/article/14

The claims there are pretty well documented so you can look up all the information for yourself to see if you agree with the author.

 

[Eden]

**Noun****1.**sharia law - the code of law derived from the Koran and from the teachings and example of Mohammed; “sharia is only applicable to Muslims”; “under Islamic law there is no separation of church and state” Islamic law, sharia, shariah, shariah law

fatwa - a ruling on a point of Islamic law that is given by a recognized authority
hudood, hudud - Islamic laws stating the limits ordained by Allah and including the deterent punishments for serious crimes

thefreedictionary.com/sharia+law

 

[pro_universal]

Eden,

The dictionary is quite wrong. I posted a detailed article written by a Sheikh on the subject of shariah. It specifically refutes the notion that shariah requires no separation of church and state. It also cites, instead of thefreedictionary.com, a litany of ancient and authoritative muslim writings on the subject.

Wouldn’t be the first time the free dictionary got something wrong…I certainly wouldn’t search for Catholic terms on there. If you want to learn what muslims think, it’s best to read what muslims have to say.

 

[Eden]

pro_universal:

whatever that is

If you have an objection to the free dictionary here is wordnet from Princeton University:

S: shariah, shariah law, sharia, sharia law, Islamic law (the code of law derived from the Koran and from the teachings and example of Mohammed) “sharia is only applicable to Muslims”; “under Islamic law there is no separation of church and state”

wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Interesting article which appeared this week too:

telegraph.co.uk/…/news/2006/02/19/nsharia19.xml&sSheet=/portal/2006/02/19/ixportaltop.html

Excerpt: Islamic law is used in large parts of the Middle East, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, and is enforced by religious police. Special courts can hand down harsh punishments which can include stoning and amputation.

 

[pro_universal]

Excerpt: Islamic law is used in large parts of the Middle East, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, and is enforced by religious police. Special courts can hand down harsh punishments which can include stoning and amputation.

The link to the telegraph doesn’t work. Last I checked though, the London Telegraph wasn’t an authority on islamic religious propositions.

Princeton is using the same incorrect definition. This should not be news. Dictionaries are not theological manuals, and they do not have the space nor the investigative muscle to actually provide answers to theological questions. This should not be controversial to you as a Catholic. If someone posts a claim about Catholic teaching to you yet does not cite a single Catholic authority, are you going to accept it?

I’ll quote from the muslim-authored article I posted, since you did not read it:

Two Views of Politics in Islam

The traditional view understands the role of politics in terms of what the Qur’an teaches. It indicates that prophets were sent to humans to teach them truths about God, ethics, ways to achieve prosperity in this world, and beatitude in the hereafter, and to warn about the consequences of injustice and sinfulness.9 A prophet who is called to preach in a stateless milieu has to assume a role of political leadership; this mantle fell on Moses, as it did to Muhammad (peace be upon both of them). Islamic tradition teaches that when this happens, the two roles are combined by accident; political leadership is not a necessary element of the prophetic mission. By way of confirmation, note that the Qur’an uses different titles to describe the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) but none of them refers to his political function. Verses 33:45-46 say that he was sent as a witness (shahid), a bearer of glad tidings (mubashshir), a warner (nadhir), as someone who calls to God (da‘i ila Allah), and as a shining light (siraj munir). Nowhere does it say he was sent as a political leader or a head of state. That the Prophet Muhammad actually had a political role resulted from the social conditions that prevailed in his time, but this was not a necessary part of his prophetic mission.

Islamists, however, have a very different interpretation. For them, building an Islamic state is the central achievement of the prophetic mission.10 Conflating the role of the Muslim scholar with that of a political leader, they hold that the spread of Islam cannot be separated from the creation of what they call the Islamic state.

They argue that “Islam is both religion and government” (al-Islam din wa dawla);11 and this serves the basic description of their creed. They neglect to mention, however, that this expression is found in neither the Qur’an, the Hadith (sayings and doings of the Prophet Muhammad), or in any other of the authoritative Islamic sources. The slogan was in fact coined by Ibn Taymiya (1263–1328), an extremist scholar who became a staunch supporter of anthropomorphic theology and of extreme literalism in the understanding of the Qur’an, and was heartily criticized by most of the Sunni theologians and jurists of his time.12

Each claim is specifically footnoted in the article in order to provide the primary sources for the claim. As for the author, here’s his resume:

Secretary General, Italian Muslim Assembly, www.amislam.com

Muslim Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Islam-Israel Fellowship, rb.org.il/Fellowship%20Islam-Israel/index.htm,

Root & Branch Association, Ltd., www.rb.org.il
Imam*, Italian Islamic Community, (*“Shafi” School of Islamic Jurisprudence)

Rome Khalifa (Representative), Tariqah al-Qadiriyyah (Qadiriyyah Sufi Order)

Ph.D. in Islamic Sciences (1987), conferred on Sheikh Palazzi by the Institute for Islamic Studies and Research (Naples) by authorization of the former Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, SHAYKH ABDUL AZIZ IBN BAZ

Ijazzah (authorization to teach) for Qu’ranic exegesis (1987), conferred on Sheikh Palazzi by SHAYKH ISMA’IL AL-AZHARI, University of al-Azhar as-Sharif, Cairo, Egypt

Ijazzah (authorization to teach) for Islamic Law (1986), conferred on Sheikh Palazzi by SHAYKH HUSAYN AL-HUSAYNI AL KHALWATI, University of al-Azhar as-Sharif, Cairo, Egypt

Degree in Islamic Sciences (1986), conferred on Sheikh Palazzi by the University of al-Azhar as-Sharif, Cairo, Egypt

M.A. (1984), conferred on Sheikh Palazzi by the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Rome, Rome, Italy

 

[Eden]

Maybe this link will work:

news.com.au/story/0,10117,18202663-23109,00.html

Several posts ago you said “whatever that is” about shariah law and then you googled it and you are now an authority?

 

[pro_universal]

Several posts ago you said “whatever that is” about shariah law and then you googled it and you are now an authority?

“whatever that is” was to indicate that there is no one concept of “shariah”. The article is a good documentation of that claim.

I posted a source I’ve had for a long time that I collected in the course of learning about what muslims actually believe. Instead of reading the same papers that claimed Catholics were making Mary part of the trinity, I went and read what muslims had to say for themselves about their religion. If you think the source is faulty, I encourage you to visit the link and see the footnotes. They are all in order.

I demand the same of people who want to say things about our faith, and so I do the same in return when making claims about the faiths of others.

 

[Eden]

I would appreciate if Justice2006 or another Muslim could define shariah law for me. There must be a standard understanding of “whatever it is”, if 40 percent of Muslims polled in the U.K. want it to be in effect in their neighborhoods.

 

[MugenOne]

Looks at Malaysia. It could happen if they become a majority.

**Malaysia’s minorities unite against Sharia
**By Baradan Kuppusamy

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia’s minorities are banding together to put up a united front against what they fear is a steady encroachment of Sharia (Islamic law) into their lives.

Unsettled by the decision of a court last month that it had no jurisdiction in Islamic matters and that a non-Muslim had no remedy under common law, the minorities, led by moderate leaders, are putting up stiff resistance.

Observers say the resistance has placed the government of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi in a delicate position because it needs to balance the competing demands from the majority Muslims. While non-Muslims want common law and the secular constitution of Malaysia preserved and protected, Muslims demand a society based on Sharia.

Read on : atimes.com/atimes/Southe…a/HA14Ae04.html

Eden:

I would appreciate if Justice2006 or another Muslim could define shariah law for me. There must be a standard understanding of “whatever it is”, if 40 percent of Muslims polled in the U.K. want it to be in effect in their neighborhoods.

 

[MugenOne]

Sharia will never happen here. There are too many bubbas with guns in the US. They are more than happy to put some leads into the Muslims. Don’t mess with the great white Satan!

JimG:

The problem is that Islam itself does not seem amenable to freedom of religion. Now, I may be wrong on this. I don’t see Muslims in the USA agitating for Sharia law to be imposed here.

But in most Islamic countries of the middle east, it seems that non-Islamic religions are given a second class status.

In a recent tape, didn’t bid Laden invite Bush to become Muslim? Was there an implied “or else?”