david t from harry’s place forwarded me this cartoon by eli valley, whose satirical strips appear monthly in the leading us jewish magazine “the forward”.
scary kiruv cartoon
on reading it, i didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. on one hand, it’s a caricature of the position of the kiruv (“outreach”) organisations, but on the other hand, once you start digging into their theology, their internal politics, their fundraising activities and their influence on the jewish community and israeli politics, it’s hard not to find them scary.
i’ve been thinking about this for a good long time, because as an observant jew, albeit one who was became observant as an adult, i am constantly aware of the phenomenon of the ba’al teshuvah, the “penitent”, the returner-to-traditional-judaism. when you’re trying to do this, the kiruv organisations are the first to stand up and say they’ll help. however, i never took them up on their offers, because i could see where it led and i had seen its effect on friends and family when conflict arose. i won’t say that i’ve never met fantastic rabbis from chabad, project seed, aish or the jewish learning exchange – but i was always aware of the kiruv undercurrent and kept my involvement at arm’s length. it would appear, however, that not everyone is in possession of the requisite confidence and critical faculties to counter the half-truths, mendacious reasoning, tendentious interpretation and evangelistic love-bombing; people want their outer message of family values, Torah and a truly integrated lifestyle to be true – and so it is. and, yes, of course these people are often more amusing than scary:
Lubavitch Sends T-800 Back in Time to Protect Holy Temple (thanks, the Knish)
but that’s not all it is.
what i truly find sinister about these organisations is their monolithic nature. like all fundamentalisms, they take a mythologised golden age (which may or may not have happened) and posit a fall from that state, which can only be regained by a return to the actions, behaviours and values espoused by the organisations which claim to represent the legacy of that golden age. whether this is an idealised picture of the yeshivas of lithuania, the shtetls of poland, or indeed the era of the prophets, patriarchs and classical rabbinic sages. if only we all attained that standard, they claim, it would all be different – the world would be transformed and us with it.
well, the world would be transformed all right, but something vital would be lost – and that is the vitality of religious biodiversity. there has always, *always*, *always* been variation in both belief and practice, there has *never* been a time in which we all did exactly the same thing and observed a uniform code of dress, behaviour, ritual and belief. maimonides’ “13 principles of faith” divided the community for a century. the hasidim and mitnagdim fought like cats and dogs (and continue to do so) – the accommodators of modernism and the NAY-SORRENDUR vanguard, the rationalists and mystics, the scholars and the businessmen – we’re all necessary just as much as we always have been. what i really, deeply object to is this idea – shared either overtly or covertly by all kiruv organisations, is the concept that we must all dress like this:
"what do you mean it's very very very very dark blue?"
and spend all our time doing this:
hevruta study in a yeshiva
and everyone else should just be happy to pay for us to do this, because after all – we’re doing the world a favour by sitting and studying Torah all day. now, actually, i don’t entirely disagree that studying Torah a lot is a good thing for the world, but i also note that the sages expected us to Get A Job and Pay Our Taxes as well. rashi had a job. rabbi akiva had a job. maimonides had three jobs. now, suddenly, we’re expected to all wear the black-hat uniform and aspire to a life of Torah study?
i’m sorry, it’s never been like that and, hopefully, it’ll never be like that. but of course, we must remember what the consequences of not being like that are, in the view of the people in the ultra-orthodox world who fund the kiruv organisations. i was not entirely surprised, of course, to find that these cartoons are supposed to have caused the haitian earthquake – that’s right, because G!D Is bound to kill thousands of people in the caribbean just to get the jewish community’s attention.
this sort of thing is a wake-up call. these people are not the future of judaism – they are our wahhabis, generous, well-funded, well-organised and intelligently marketed – and puritanical, intolerant and disingenuous. just as we outsourced islamic education to the saudi international dawah programme a generation ago and are now reaping the dubious benefits, we are in the process of handing these people the future of jewish education. we should take ownership of our own Torah back before it’s too late.
57 Comments
From the article
“Rabbi Yisrael Eichler, a spokesperson in the Haredi world, wrote that “Reform Rabbis are further from Judaism than Christians and Muslims and that they should be considered as filthy, lying, shekotzim who are criminals, who brought about the holocaust on the Jewish people.””
Shocking stuff- Just imagine Pube and Shitoon’s reaction if a MUSLIM had said such a thing
And what can you say about these Nazi comments?
“Akiva Eldar recently reported in Haaretz about the settlement of Yitzhar and Od Yosef Chai Shechem yeshiva, the settlement’s “crowning glory.” He notes:
This is the same yeshiva whose rabbi said it is permissible to kill gentile babies because of “the future danger that will arise if they are allowed to grow into evil people like their parents.””
http://forward.com/articles/123374/
Ah Judaism..the religion of Peace!
Why hasnt David Pube published this on Harrys Place- Oh wait he’s too busy demonising Muslims.
Ah yes but “one rule for the Zionazis another for the Muslims”
Fascinating to see praise on Spitoon for a racist scumbag like Maimondes
- the man who said this (typical of the racism of Orthodox Judaism)
”
In his Guide to the Perplexed “justly considered to be the greatest work of Jewish religious philosophy,” Maimonides explains that “some of the Turks…and the Blacks (kushim = Africans) and the nomads in the South” are incapable of attaining the true worship of God because “their nature is like the nature of mute animals, and, according to my opinion, they are not on the level of human beings…”
http://unorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/2005/11/rambams-views-on-gentiles-blacks-and.html
He also (may Allah curse him) insulted Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) in the worst way.
abdullah
What is it with muslims, plain stupidity, generation after generation of first cousin marriages, or the corrosive effects of an obviously fraudulent religious ideology? You don’t need people to demonize muslims .. forced marriages, women serving prison terms after being raped or being givin’ the lash(call that one – muslim diversity), the institutionalization of slavery in islamic law, beheading snuff films on the net, fatwas issued by muslim religious authorities encouraging all sorts of evil, islamic history as told be muslims and read by kuffar, ….did I mention islamiclly delusional supremacism? all of these and a host more “demonize” islam in the eyes of thinking individuals,
muslims are the only people on the planet who moan abuse or demonization when you repeat their own histories and law back at them. you tell them mohammed was by contemporary standards a pedophile, as per his rape of a 9 year-old little girl at what? …53, that is from their beloved sunnah. What’em froth at the mouth? then deny that mohammed was a rapist, like anything else can happen sexually between a 9 year old and a 50-something year-old man. Muslims, common fanatic and the elusive moderate, get quite upset if the koran’s (remember this is supposed to be the direct word of God)
claim of mohammed moral perfection is juxtaposed to his life and recorded actions, such as raping a little girl, additionally the numerous women captured in raids and conquest. There are even hadith were old moe sanctions deception for the sake of islam, hmmm….guilty conscious.
See mate, It is all this, that demonizes muslims, I forgot to mention the subversive colonial efforts of the muslimbrotherhood, that jizzwad organization that spawned all our major islamicly inspired terrorist outfits, they do a great job of demonizing muslims in the eyes of non-muslims.
How many jews on the planet? around 14-15 million. How many of that are crazy fundamentalists? a couple of thousand? How muslims on the planet? 1.2 to 1.5 billion and of that percentages radicalized 10-15 conservatively estimated, that’s hundreds of millions of people embracing a violent supremacist ideology, that demonizes muslims in the eyes of non-muslims far better than any propaganda. Your (may allah curse him) squeals don’t affect anyone because your allah, like your prophet mohammad, both frauds.
Oh dear what have we here. A showdown between ‘Islamist abdullah’ and ‘BNP Cameron’ in yet another game of ‘My Jew-hatred is bigger and uglier than your Muslim-hatred’. You two scumbags were made for each other, I must say. But please, why don’t the two of you do us all a favour, go away and get a room. Then you can pleasure each other silly without poisoning the air around here.
By the way, bananabrain, great article!
effendi, since we’re tossing personal insults around… i.e. your accusation of bnp membership …you clueless ideological moron. The nazis built the autobahn, the nazis were evil and fucked, therefore We shouldn’t use the highways in Germany. Ridiculous even the bnp might be right about some things. If you think everyone who opposes any islam, other than drastically reformed islam in the West is a racist or fascist, you’re an idiot. Or maybe not …maybe you want to promote the idea that there are many forms of islam palatable to western sensibilities( which is demonstrably false ) and play on a western guilt complex, labeling opposition to the religio-political ideology of islam as having it’s basis only in white racism or a fascist perspective, as opposed blunt revulsion to the tenets and common historical practice of islam itself, in all it’s diversity and complexity. In all that treasured diversity and complexity islam is still a dessicated pile of shit. Even better as that great foe of real fascism, Churchill put it, “”How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet
rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.”
Or, even better to paraphrase the great man, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, islam is the stench from the corpse of a dead arab pervert. Still laugh every time I read that one, funny motherfucker… old Mustafa was.
Other than that Effendi, I do humbly apologize if I hurt your refined sophisticated delicate feelings…. It’s the internet, thickin’ up your skin, pussy
Fuck off, please, Cameron.
Cameron, funny you should quote Churchill’s anti-Arab bigotry in such glowing terms. Wasn’t he the first leader, before Saddam Hussain, to use chemical gas on the Kurds? Exposes you as a BNP supporter, even if you’re too coy to admit to it here, kitten.
Didn’t the Kurds participated in the Armenian genocide, and some have accused them of attacks on Chaldean Christians in recent years, history is a bitch, and I fail to see the relevance. He was still right about the nazis, your observation doesn’t make Churchill’s critique/condemnation of islam any less accurate, looking at the state of the islamic world he seems even more succinct.
Let me get this straight …admiring the British Prime Minister, who lead the Country through the war against the racist totalitarian nazis, makes a Briton a supporter of a racist assuredly, possibly totalitarian political party. Interesting contradiction, you single-handedly have caused their membership rolls to soar. Many Brits rightly admire Old Winston, I would put his character up against say mohammed’s any day of the week. You know mohammed that the historic record drawn from muslim source that describes a man who tortured and executed prisoners, attempted to depopulate the arabian peninsula of non-muslims. Would have succeeded, if his troops hadn’t missed a couple of Jews. The quote I used described mohammedians, modern parlance muslims, last time I checked most muslims are not arabs, so you referring to the quote as an example of anti-arab bigotry is inaccurate. Further as an accurate description of what is called islamic civilization, the quote doesn’t qualify as bigotry. Anymore than saying that the imperial period in European history was predatory is an expression of bigotry toward Europeans. How’s that.. cuddles?
abu faris the philosopher, ….lol…, pretentious twat, more like some mediocre academic, a substandard chalkboard jockey with extravagant delusions of grandeur. You should be able, if you are as much as obviously believe your self to be, to put an uneducated knukledragger as you’ve insinuated I am in my place easily with a flourish of your superior intellect and wit. That didn’t happen did it. So, why don’t you go off and find some little boy’s shorts to give a good sniff to…wanker.
I haven’t quite figured what you lot are up to….convincing gullible Westerners that there is a plethora of opinion and interpretation about terrorism and extremism in the islamic world like tariq rammadan, or trying to blunt the islamist’s message to other muslims. I’ve debated islamists, real bring on the the caliphate types and their arguments are quite easy to destroy, mohammed’s perfection is an easy one, since perfection belongs only to God, by claiming perfection for him they elevate mohammed to a divine status, effectively associating a partner with Allah, which is a big islamic NO-NO. When they wrap their heads around that little concept, it’s like watching a B-movie robot in a feedback loop, “…does not compute”
Swear you can smell the braincells sizzle …and pop. So It isn’t that hard to defeat the jihadis in any way that claims to respect reason. More I lean toward you’re an outfit to play on the sympathies of guilible and well meaning Westerners. Your accusations of racism and bigotry, denial of the truths of islamic religio-ideology seem to point toward that objective. oh the webs we weave, when first we try to deceive.
The paedo obsession can mean it is but one rather idiotic specimen of BNP… step forward Lee “Odinsboy” John Barnes, BNP Legal Director.
Now, fuck off, Lee. You’ve been rumbled.
flattering yourself in fantasy again….. abu faris…. yawn …you haven’t rumbled anything nor have you discovered this Barnes fella, liked the boy’s shorts thing, strike a like close to home on that one or perhaps in deference to arab culture (stretching the definition of that word as far as possible) you would prefer “don’t you have a little girl to “thigh” following old mohammed’s perfect example.
Go on Barnsie, let it all hang out. The more you do, the more you confirm to the rest of the world what a feckless prat you are. There’s something of Otto from ‘A Fish Called Wanda’ about you. You’ve convinced yourself you’re quite the erudite philospopher, but in actual fact, like our friend abdullah here, you’re a bit of a ficko. In your particular case, a simpleton scholar who has actually worked through the entire BNP reading list and demands that the world congratulate him for it.
Your reputation is sealed, peaches.
Ladies and gentlemen, we give you:
Cameron, aka Lee John Barnes, Legal Director of the British National Party!
Speaking of the abuse of little girls, it’s probably worth mentioning at this stage that the legal age of consent in Britain was just 12 until the 1870s, prior to which social attitudes allegedly based on “fundamental Christian values” (as per the Victorians’ notion of them, anyway) were in full force.
All lost on Barnes, I am afraid, Jai. Lee revels in making such accusations against any and all that dare to disagree with his neo-Nazi agenda.
Check the isp… abu faris and his pet/? effendi …..wrong continent… never even been to bnp website, and they have a reading list? I don’t remember making any claim of scholarship, or being any sort of philosopher. Although, I recently read a translation of “our economy” by muhammad baqir al-hakim, don’t know if it’s on the bnp reading list or not. A remarkable example of delusional islamic reasoning, islam seems to have a seriously corrosive effect on what would normally be sound minds. It wouldn’t surprise me that in the years to come professing belief in islam is considered a symptomatic of a mental illness. Most adult western converts are severe defectives, and for those unfortunate enough to be born into the religio-ideology we have an example of a culturally acquired psychosis .
Jai
Are you familiar with the islamic claims to muhammed’s perfection? Muslim authorities and I think, can’t remember off the top of my head, but the quran describes muhammad as the example for muslims to follow, verily a moral example for all Humanity for all time. So when you bring up an example of victorian behavior, ….like yeah, so what?… who looks to the repressive victorians for guidance on sexuality and sexual mores today? very few if any,
how many muslims think muhammad was the Perfect Man, most if not all.
Don’t take my word for it, get off your ass and, lose your preconceptions and have a look for yourself. It doesn’t occur to most muslims to look at muhammad with a critical eye, partially through life long indoctrination, and fear, big time FEAR. As they don’t review muhammed looking for chinks in his perfect armor, it hasn’t occurred to many that others might so islamic history hasn’t been thoroughly edit to remove examples of muhammad’s gross immoral behavior showing him to be barely a perfect example of the morality of his time, let alone the rest of time for the rest of Humanity, unless the idea of slave-taking appeals to you. I wonder if the Gurus were familiar with the concept of abrogation in understanding the quran in relation to sharia. If not it is easy to see how they could be mislead, as are many these days.
Lee,
You are fooling no-one with your “check the isp” rubbish.
I’m curious as to why the islamic crew here are so hysterically eager to portray those who have not the slightest smidgen of a scintilla of respect for the quran, islam or muhammad as white supremacist or nazis? Feel less isolated, you know, “they attack our religion because we are brown or black like you…look whitey’s at it again” or “he’s a totalitarian and doesn’t want us to practice our faith, and after us you will be next” or “he’s a prick, all neo-nazis are pricks, therefore he’s a neo-nazi” , or for those of you full of shit, he is obviously ignorant of islam knows nothing of muslims, the noble quran or sharia, He’s a servant of the Jews trying besmirch the good name of muslims because arabs will not accept the existence if Israel…
So many bullshit and fantasy options … I’m sure you will be able to fabricate a few more.
Here is one that might not occur to an islamically ravaged mind, he’s an honest prick and just has no respect for a socio-religious ideology, that’s beliefs belittle and shame Humanity, that seeks to negate some of humanities greatest accomplishments. A religion that expressed by what is an obviously a man-made construct, it’s religious law turns God, the supreme Being, into a petty, jealous, bloodthirsty asshole. A collective delusion that place a murderous, child and woman raping, fraud prophet at the pinnacle of human behavior. He has no respect for islam because muslims have failed to examine their religion, a relic of humanities’ brutal, ignorant past, and they are trying to import and impose this archaic idiotic fabrication on the rest of Humanity. A fraudulent pseudo-spirituality that demonstrably advocates the use of subversion and deception, as example the concepts of kitman and takkiya, as well the “war is deceit” quote attributed to muhummed in a hadith. Fuck they can’t even pick a single spelling for the false prophet’s name in latin script. Elusively evasive, when confronted with the ridiculous nature of their beliefs, honest prevents me from demonstrating any respect for islam. Islamophopia is another hilarious islamic fabrication, It doesn’t fit me because I have no fear of muslims or islam. No more fear than involved in avoiding stepping in a pile of shit on the road.
Go away, Lee.
Ladies and gentlemen, we give you:
Abu Faris, aka Weyman Bennett, Chief Fascist of the UAF!
Eh?
I see Lee is off his meds.
Yeah, right.
Now, fuck off, Weyman. You’ve been rumbled.
Lee,
You are not simply boring; you are utterly mad. It’s very sad, really,
No, do scuttle off, there’s a good insect.
I have to say, Lee, your last two interventions (under your bright, new, shiny sock puppet) were extremely bizarre, even by your standards.
Just to remind people: Lee is the legal director of the British National Party.
I know, it’s hard to believe. Speaks volumes, really.
Weyman,
You are not simply boring; you are utterly mad. It’s very sad, really,
No, do scuttle off, there’s a good insect.
I have to say, Weyman, your latest interventions, under your bright, new, shiny sock puppet “Abu Faris” are extremely bizarre, even by your standards.
Just to remind people: Weyman is the HEAD of the UAF.
I know, it’s hard to believe. Speaks volumes, really.
I’m not anyone but my self, an average Briton, a visual artist and published poet doing work that involves a sickening amount of research into islamic literature ,who happens to be living in the beautiful country of Canada at the moment. So abu faris or what ever your name is , you really are a clueless twat. Maybe this bnp guy is your going on about, maybe he’s your arch nemesis and you imagine you and he are locked in some cosmic battle for the soul of the British isles, sorry I’m not him
I have to make a correction of a previous statement, I said muhammad’s life bio hadn’t been whitewash to remove glaring obscenity, apparently muhammed’s bio has been edited for effect. His first biography has disappeared, the first of which there is a copy today was based on the disappeared version., the biographer discovered so many disturbing stories about this fraud prophet that he had a lot of scrubbing to do, so muhammad was even more of a scumbag than the gross scumbag he appears if you’re non-muslim and read the stories available of his slave-taking, raping, thieving, camel-piss drinking exploits from muslim sources today. You have to understand for many muslims, looking at mohammed or tenets of islam critically means you ‘re insane, and for the ones who break through their conditioning and see the glaring inequalities, gross perversions, blah blah blah the long and the short of it is islam is what happens when a chrismatic cult leader (charles manson, jim jones, david koresh, or shoko asahara…or muhammad) gets lucky and his little tribe of right nutters grows into a major religion, although it defies what most Westerners would describe as a religion. It is experiencing a revival, which has it’s origins in the 1920′s with the founding of the muslim brotherhood., predating 9/11, the iraq war, Israel and Palestinians and all the other shit muslims like to moan about. So Ya…. mohammed was even more of a douchebag than previously thought, sorry
Copy and paste alert!
A published poet? Yes, we know all about your “poetry”, Lee.
Now, feck off.
The habit of parroting, with suitable edits, another’s words is pure Lee John Barnes technique – known to all who have had to put up with his obscene screeds and extended wrecking of threads over on Harry’s Place.
A published poet? You mean the laughable crap you put up on your dreadful website, Lee? Muhahahahahahahahaha!
We only tolerate your presence because of the damage you do your vile, racist cause whenever you put pinky to keyboard, Lee. Thanks for that.
Does Nick know that you are at it again?
My point was that Victorians regarded themselves as extremely devout Christians and based their attitudes & actions on what they believed to be the “true” version of Christianity, in terms of the contents of the Bible and their interpretation of Christianity as an organised religion (obviously the Church of England in this case).
There are far more parallels between orthodox, conservative Christianity and orthodox, conservative Islam than one might think — certainly compared with (for example) Sikhism, most mainstream South Asian versions of Sufi Islam, Buddhism or many interpretations of Hinduism.
Islam in the Indian subcontinent generally hasn’t been based purely on Mohammad or even the Hadiths. Sufism has been extremely influential during the past thousand years, and as a result historical Muslims like Ali (regarded as embodying chivalric, “knightly” honour) and major South Asian Sufis have frequently been the primary role models. I suggest you do some research on Bulleh Shah, Baba Farid (real name: Fariduddin Ganjshakar), Nizamuddin Auliya, Lal Shahbaz Qalandar and Mian Mir if you’re unfamiliar with these individuals or this aspect of Islamic history in terms of India. The religion went through a considerable period of development in that part of the world (as it did in other regions) and, as a result, Islam isn’t a monolithic, homogenous religion any more than Christianity is — regardless of what fundamentalist fanatics like Al-Muhajiroun, Saudi Wahhabis, the Taliban in Afghanistan, or some of the more orthodox members of the Islamic clergy may claim.
In theory, Islam is supposed to be uniform (the same applies to many other organised religions). In reality, in practice, and in terms of its history during the past thousand years, it definitely is not (again, this makes it no different to most other organised religions).
Given the fact that the Sikh Gurus lived at a time when Mughal rule of most of the Indian subcontinent along with large chunks of Afghanistan was at its height, in a part of the subcontinent which had the largest concentration of Muslims in the entire region, in a part of the world where Muslims had lived in large numbers since the 11th century and which still has more Muslims than anywhere else on the planet, I expect they were a little more familiar with the Quran, Sharia, the various interpretations of Islam, and Muslims in general than the BNP, EDL, SIOE and other self-appointed English anti-Muslim “authorities” on Islam who are seeing fit to grace us with their alleged knowledge on the matter.
i think that’s kind of the point, isn’t it, abdullah? we’re criticising it. what would *you* say if a muslim organisation said such things… oh wait, we’re not short of that, now are we? instead, you criticise the spittoon for doing it! what a very tiny brain you must have.
i said this, here, some time ago:
http://www.spittoon.org/archives/3566
i believe it went up this morning:
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2010/02/01/%e2%80%9cwell-theyre-a-bit-extreme-but-they-do-such-good-work-bringing-people-back-to-judaism/
hear that noise? that’s your bum scraping the ground because you don’t have a leg to stand on.
have you actually studied the “guide”? if you had, i think you might hesitate before making such a fatuous, laughable comment. and there was me believing you that the hizb was not anti-jewish, only anti-zionist! thanks for taking time out of your busy alleged-medical-student schedule to set me straight there, imbecile. of course, i now realise that i must therefore be a racist myself and humbly abase myself before your superior knowledge of my beliefs which i myself, unfortunately, only practice personally on a daily basis.
i think you’ll find he was also quite rude about muhammad, referring to him as “the madman”. however, maimonides’ views, though influential in the field of philosophical theology and halakhic categorisation, are not authoritative in matters of interfaith relations, for that you would have to look into the views of the me’iri (C12th, france) – but then again, i expect you knew that already, didn’t you?
feckwit.
as for you, cameron, you’re really wasting your time. go and get a room with abdullah and stop clogging up our comment boards with your pointless opinions. i don’t care if you’re bnp, or a lee john barnes sockpuppet, or whatever – i don’t think i’m particularly interested in a man who can’t even spell the word “knuckledragger” properly.
oh, hang on, maybe he’s not the bnp dude, perhaps it’s the eminent philosopher a.c. grayling, or pope dawkinus the first after one too many pints?
at least abdullah’s commments, however cloth-headed, bigoted and pig-ignorant, had something to do with the actual article.
b’shalom
bananabrain
The habit of parroting, with suitable edits, another’s words is pure Weyman Bennet technique – known to all who have had to put up with his obscene screeds and extended wrecking of threads all over the internet.
A coherent commeter? You mean the laughable crap you put up on your dreadful website, Weymen? Muhahahahahahahahaha!
We only tolerate your presence because of the damage you do your vile, fascist cause whenever you put pinky to keyboard, Weyman. Thanks for that.
Does David Cameron know that you are at it again?
Exposer, do you actually have an original thought of your own? Reproducing other people’s comments verbatim with only the names transposed is a pathetically juvenile debating “technique”which even the idiots on MPACuk have grown out of.
It’s Lee, Effendi, engaging in thread wrecking.
Effendi, do you actually have an original thought of your own? Reproducing other people’s comments verbatim with only the names transposed is a pathetically juvenile debating “technique”which even the idiots on MPACuk have grown out of.
It’s Weman Bennet, Effendi, engaging in thread wrecking.
oh, good, it’s the “stop repeating everything i say” game, popular with annoying five-year-olds all over the country. i must say i’m impressed with your insights, “exposer”. first name, “indecent”?
b’shalom
bananabrain
Thanks for the heads up on these gentlemen: Bulleh Shah, Baba Farid (real name: Fariduddin Ganjshakar), Nizamuddin Auliya, Lal Shahbaz Qalandar and Mian Mir. I will definitely check them out. Ali, we are talking muhammed’s son-in-law, venerated by shia. I’m afraid that I have to agree with the sunni. The shia romanticized and idealized him to such a degree that they have projected every quality most human would ascribe to a noble spirit. If you don’t naively take everything muslims tell you and look at the other evidence, this noble man becomes another of islam’s early slave-taking, raping, participant in the cleansing of the arabian penisula of Christians and Jews. Anything can look pretty give the right amount of distance. Under his rule the oppression, you can’t call dhimmi status anything but, of non-muslims was practiced and firmly in place. So given that and other evidences (easily accessible) Turkery, cleansed of the vast majority of other ethnicities, notably Armenian Christians and Greek orthadox. Pakistan and Bangladesh Hindu’s got it.
Anybody want to be a Copt?, Punjab, I forget Sikhs lost quite a bit. History has currents. islam has a multitude of facets, some of them are peaceful and some are violent I’ ll take what muslims say about ali’s noble character worth a grain of salt. The Sufi brotherhoods were prominent in Turkey, that didn’t prevent the destruction the Pontic Greeks, or the Armenian Genocide. Mystical Sufism didn’t prevent the Hindu Holocaust with estimates of 40 to 80 million dead. A Sikh would know better than I, but didn’t the first Gurus advocate pacifism, with ongoing persecution culminating in a militarization of the Sikh community. Whether you can admit this taking up the sword was a response to muslim aggression and atrocities, the evolution happened. I understand that at one point the mughals even placed a price on every Sikh head. The horrific history of communal violence, subjugation of the native Hindu population by an islamic colonial enterprise, continuing atrocities committed by muslims against non-muslims offers many interesting parallels and lessons for Europeans , though none I suspect you would appreciate, Jai. You note that islam on the Indian subcontinent diverges in many from orthodox traditional islam, based on the sunnah, quran and sharia, is more peaceful, and able to co-exist with non-muslims, That’s very much like saying the best islam for non-muslims is the least islamic.
There is a significant difference between islam and Christianity, Jai. That Christianity experience the Enlightenment, and has effectively had it’s teeth pulled. The Idea of Christians being able to burn heretics to death for mutterings against orthodoxy in city squares is inconceivable to Christians and Europeans today. Try that in Egypt, reformers are routinely assassinated or imprisoned by the state in the name of islam. Traditional orthodox islam has way more in common with archaic Judaism, particularity in terms of divinely mandated punishments for infractions of religious law, as well, view of the unclean nature of those outside the faith whether goim or kaffar. What’s the new word the kids are using “kufs”, ya fuck that, I’m not going to call anybody, “paki or nigger”. At the same time, I will not tolerate
a derogatory name from a people that my country was kind enough to accept into their company, or help their parent’s search for a better life. If that is confusing to the descendants of recent immigrants,…. goes to show that you can grow up surround by native Britons and not really understand them at all. That might explain why so many first and second generation don’t see or appreciated British or Western culture. Back to similarities between islam and Judaism, actually I’ll move on to difference big difference the Jews helped spark and embraced the Enlightenment, well except for the black coated, curly burned Hasidim. I think most Jews kinda find those nutters embarrassing, like most native Brits are embarrassed by siegheil scum.If unfamiliar with reciprocity, Muslims, the whole collective expressed through their adherence to a belief system, divine untampered quility of the quran, hate the Other for the sake of others a facet of islam that has a lot of pull, the ideologies of al-ahsar, the muslim brotherhood, the saudi ministry of Education, A significant part of the group of piss drinking clergy, priests in all but name, hold views that just…not going to happen..
Mass religideology induced psychosis, might be how later generations describe this islamic period, Individuals and bands holding a supremacist, easily equatable to an aryan or any other ideological group advocating violent, blow up your plane, coffee shop, bistro, pizza joint, mosque, tourist locale, etc. beliefs, should be fought. Do that and you open a big can of whupass islamic, Mad muslims, Hating the enemies of Allah, that is You, if non-muslim. In some, more actually, cases wrong muslim, denounced for trivial reason.
Can you mange to wrap your head around blowing yourself to achieve a spiritual goal? A shaheed does… Suicidebombers in the middle east are often celebrated by their communities as martyrs. The rash of takfiri suicide bombings in most muslim countries is an unintended consequence of popularizing this methodology, They practice it against Israeli, that’s fine, and the asshole down the street’s buddies decide you are not muslim enough, you not a muslim, so fair game. Or say he’s a right prick and says your an apostate, you are more than fair game. It is ON. you could go on and on. Islam isn’t monolithic, there are facets of this faith, that are fecal. A big ass movement of islamic feces that seems to occupy the minds of many people, muslim and non-muslim, hundreds of millions. They want to bankrupt and destroy Western civilization, which is more than just it’s economic system. That is some bad shit, like third reich bad. Very different, yet similar enough in it’s hatred of the West, except if jihadis and crew get their dream, say hello to Allah, it isn’t pleasant.
Actually, it is quite offensive, this form of islam, that seeks to emulate the first three generations of islam, taught in schools saudi and saudi financed here in the West. A belief system acted upon by the muslim brotherhood, to the detriment of Western peoples, well all non-muslims really. Western is very big, some might include South America, I include Jamacia, amazing people and place. I also include as much the concept of freedom as possible for citizens, and democracy, as faultily as we practice it. Lots of very good things, no slavery, more often than not you really can only have slave free societies in powerful societies which idolize freedom. Islamic societies seem to value freedom, beneath submission. It’s called submission society, islam society. Liberal democracies is another description of my meaning of Western, that’s really another cultural sphere western countries live in, that also includes other nations as well, Korea, Japan, India a few more, with others trying. Speaking a European language is a good sign of Western, although not always.
I got shit to do, procrastination kills
Jai wrote
“Speaking of the abuse of little girls, it’s probably worth mentioning at this stage that the legal age of consent in Britain was just 12 until the 1870s, prior to which social attitudes allegedly based on “fundamental Christian values” (as per the Victorians’ notion of them, anyway) were in full force.”
Being a paedophile has nothing to do with social attitudes.
Also, according to Allah, Christianity is corrupted & changed and is no longer true. Where as Islam & its prophet supersedes all previous messages & prophets so you cannot compare British man made laws with devine Islamic laws. Moreover,
Allah sent a message to Muhammad, so he claims, to fornicate with a child.
Muhammad, the role model for Muslims to emulate
Is there any human life still left on this thread?
Bueller…Bueller…Bueller?
Best not to make any statements about the history of Muslims in India until you’re familiar with the above, in that case. And the same applies to the Persian Sufis Rumi, Hafez and Sa’adi.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that, historically, the dominant external Muslim cultural influence on India has been Persian, not Arab, Egyptian etc. And even that went through a process of liberalisation in India because of the wider nature of the society and the cultural developments which were occurring (involving Muslims as well as the rest of the population).
He’s not just venerated by Shias, but again you’d need to familiarise yourself with the details of Sufism in India to understand that.
No, Sikhism has never been a pacifist faith, right from the beginning. All the Gurus from Guru Nanak onwards advocated the concept of soldiers fighting (and if necessary, dying) for a righteous cause. The difference was that Sikhs didn’t need to arm themselves until the time of Guru Hargobind in the 17th century — so these actions were a response to erratic political dynamics, rather than any “change” in the teachings of the Gurus themselves.
Incidentally, Guru Hargobind, who began the full-scale militarisation and politicisation of the Sikh population (which ultimately culminated in the formation of the Khalsa in 1699 by his final successor, Guru Gobind Singh) also had a mosque built for Muslims who had settled in the town he founded. The building was very recently renovated via a joint project involving both Sikh and Muslim volunteers. So this has never been a polarised “Muslim vs Sikh” issue, right from Day 1. Even some of the lengthiest wars of consquest that the Mughals were involved in (in this case, Shah Jahan followed by Aurangzeb) were conducted against the Deccan Sultanates in the southern half of India, themselves Muslims; and before any statements are made about this being “yet another example of the aggression of Muslims”, let’s not forget that until relatively recently, Europe has consistently been a region of near-continuous warfare for over a thousand years involving people who were ostensibly Christians themselves, within living memory.
It’s worth bearing in mind that ‘the Mughals’ involves a period of 200 years and generations of Emperors and their allies (much longer if you include the time up to Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor). And quite a few of them had Hindu mothers and/or grew up in a highly multifaith environment in both the imperial courts and the rest of the aristocracy. With the exception of people like Aurangzeb (who eventually renounced his previous bigotry towards the end of his life and agreed to amicable diplomatic relations with the Sikhs under Guru Gobind Singh shortly before his own death), most of them had a positive or neutral stance towards Sikhs.
For example, once Babur, the first Mughal emperor, had become aware of the scale of the bloodshed involving civilians as a result of the warfare he had conducted (primarily against the Delhi Sultanate and their allies, previously the paramount power in northern India – Muslims themselves, incidentally) and had rejected his previous attitudes to the matter, Guru Nanak gave him a blessing that the Mughal Empire as a whole would flourish as long as Babur and his dynasty ruled justly. Emperor Akbar granted Sikhs the land upon which the Golden Temple complex and the city of Amritsar were built. The foundation stone of the Golden Temple was laid by Mian Mir, the Muslim Sufi who was the spiritual instructor of the liberal Mughal prince Dara Shukoh (son of Emperor Shah Jahan of “Taj Mahal” fame), himself involved in numerous efforts to promote theological tolerance and understanding between both Muslims and Hindus. Guru Gobind Singh had Muslim soldiers in his Khalsa army (including Mughal generals who had switched sides in the middle of battles with the Sikhs), was assisted by Muslims during some of the worse periods of his life when he was being hunted by the Mughal army uner Aurangzeb, and even provided military assistance to the ultimately victorious Mughal prince Bahadur Shah I during the war of succession after Aurangzeb’s death.
And the Sikh scriptures include large numbers of hymns by Indian Muslim Sufis along with Islamic names for God such as Allah; none of these were edited or removed by Guru Gobind Singh when compiling the final version of the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy book; neither did he (or any of his predecessors) add anything attacking Islam as a whole or Muslims en masse; and Muslims are allowed free access to Sikh temples along with the free communal food which is provided to visitors (the same applies to visitors from any religious background). And so on and so forth.
The fundamental point was that the Sikh Gurus taught that people should be judged as individuals and solely by the content of their character, not their religious affiliations (or race/ethnicity/etc, for that matter).
Regarding comparisons between Islam and Christianity etc, it’s worth bearing in mind the actions of 19th century Victorians in India. They were heavily motivated by the rise of fundamentalist Christian Evangelism and believed they literally had a God-given divine right to invade, annex, subjugate and exploit the subcontinent. There were even senior officials advocating the use of the British Empire’s full machinery to convert India’s entire population to Christianity en masse, even after the horrific events of 1857 and despite the fact that this had been one of the reasons for the conflict. It would also be a good idea for you to do some research on exactly what influential British Christian fundamentalists were saying about India and its inhabitants from the end of the 18th century onwards, for more than a century afterwards, forming and promoting the racist attitudes which became integral to the British Empire’s political & cultural superstructure in India right until Independence in 1947 (the racist legacy of this is still ongoing in the UK); it’s on a par with the very worst diatribes about “infidels” by fanatics like Anjem Choudary, Omar Bakri and their fellow extremists.
Similarly, many of the people fighting for the Confederacy during the American Civil War literally believed they had a God-given divine right to own slaves, and they were willing to kill hundreds of thousands of their fellow Americans in order to defend this alleged “right”. It was the bloodiest war in American history and killed more Americans than any other conflict that country has ever been involved in, either before or since.
In both of these cases, it involved huge numbers of “devout” Christians who fully believed their attitudes and actions were supported by the contents of the Bible and Christianity as an organised religion, and they were frequently also supported by members of the clergy. I’m sure you wouldn’t agree with the notion of people reaching certain conclusions about “the Christians” or Christianity in general based on this. And that’s before we even address the Inquisition, or the actions of the Conquistadors, or any number of groups who were either “the wrong type of Christian” or not Christian at all.
As for India, this doesn’t mean that attitudes towards Christians had already been negative up to that point, or that there was some kind of “clash of civilisations” between Christianity and Islam under Mughal rule. Far from it, in fact. A summary can be read here:
- Part 1: http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/6912
- Part 2: http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/6961
The reverse situation in terms of British attitudes towards Muslim society in India was also very different until the rise of Christian Evangelism and the associated actions of the East India Company from the start of the 19th century onwards. Both “White Mughals” and “The Last Mughal” by the award-winning British historian William Dalrymple (one of the West’s leading experts on Islam and India in relation to the subcontinent) along with “Empire” by Niall Ferguson go into considerable detail about the sequence of events which occurred; they’re based on hundreds of authenticated British and mainland European records as well as Indian sources. Furthermore, Dalrymple himself has travelled widely in both the Middle East and India, and has actually lived in Delhi for most of the year for over two decades.
However, you don’t have to take my word for it. You can read an initial primer by Dalrymple on the subject here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,856484,00.html
And a large number of his published articles on the subject can be accessed via his website here:
http://www.williamdalrymple.uk.com/Pages/Links.html
One final point. Sweeping negative statements and generalisations about Islam and Muslims may be “taken as gospel” (no pun intended) by gullible and ignorant people whose level of direct contact with Muslims has been minimal or non-existent; for various reasons, there are plenty of people like that here in Britain and other parts of the West. However, it’s pretty ineffective with people who have a thousand years of experience with Muslims, in a country which currently has a Muslim population of more than 140 million (approximately 325 million if you include the subcontinent as a whole), including quite a few of India’s biggest movie stars. It may be worthwhile considering who has more credibility when discussing this matter or indeed who is speaking from a more informed position, at least as far as the history and mainstream interpretation of Islam (and the corresponding nature of local Muslims) in the Indian subcontinent is concerned.
The Fourth Caliph and First Shi’a Imam, ‘Ali Ibn Abi Talib once said:
Some here might like to reflect on that.
Incidentally, Cameron – nearly all traditional Sufi turuq, whether Sunni or Shi’a, hold descent from the Prophet, via Fatima and ‘Ali, as a vital qualification for leadership in their orders. They also hold in particular respect, the sixth Shi’a Imam, Ja’afar as-Siddiq. His school (madhab) of religious jurisprudence (fiqh) being core to Twelver Shi’a identity to this day, of course.
Abu Faris,
I posted a couple of further comments earlier today but they included some URL links and appear to have been caught in the filter. I’d be grateful if you (or someone else in the Spittoon’s editorial team) could please extract them when you have a spare moment.
Many thanks.
Incidentally, there are also British historical records of British soldiers deliriously singing Psalms while they were butchering their victims in revenge during the uprising of 1857, without differentiating between Indian revolutionaries or ordinary innocent civilians. In fact, the massacres weren’t even restricted to major cities like Delhi — entire villages were wiped out purely because its inhabitants were suspected (without any proof) of supporting the Indian soldiers involved in the uprising.
And all of the above, including the events detailed in my previous statements quoted at the start of this comment, occurred post-Enlightenment, post-Reformation, and during the modern age.
I get the impression that there is definitely an inaccurate understanding of Sikh history in relation to Muslims. The lack of hostility towards ordinary Muslims wasn’t restricted to the time of the Sikh Gurus — it extended far beyond that. For example, in the Sikh Empire governed by Maharajah Ranjit Singh, Muslims were employed at the highest levels (including the most senior ranks of the military) and were granted the freedom to live according to their religious beliefs and customs. There are still mosques in Amritsar; and the large Mughal-era mosque in Lahore, the capital of the Maharajah’s empire (now in modern-day Pakistan), of course also still exists.
A great deal of Punjab is indeed now in Pakistan — but if the British East India Company hadn’t waged two extremely bloody wars of aggression against the Sikhs soon after Maharajah Ranjit Singh’s death approximately in the middle of the 19th century, subsequently annexed the huge swathe of territory involved, then systematically disarmed the entire Sikh population, followed by the British colonial authorities deliberately implementing “divide & rule” policies to the maximum degree for a century afterwards right up to Independence in 1947, it’s likely that Partition wouldn’t have occurred and neither would the people concerned have desired it.
It was decades after the “Great Mughal” era and occurred during the reign of one of the later emperors in the 18th century, while the Mughal Empire was in the process of completely disintegrating. The emperor concerned was an incompetent ruler, and eventually suffered a catastrophic military defeat at the hands of the Persian emperor Nadir Shah who had decided to invade India and didn’t differentiate between Muslims and non-Muslims when slaughtering the civilian population of the Mughal capital of Delhi. Again, it’s not a polarized “Muslim vs Sikh” issue or even a “Muslims united and vs. everyone else” issue.
The majority of violent conflicts during the “Great Mughal” era were due to political reasons, not religion – and in the smaller proportion of cases involving deliberate attacks on non-Muslims by Muslims, the perpetrators were some members of the military and political classes, not Muslims from the ordinary mass population.
There are certainly some lessons for Europeans from the Mughal era, but not the ones you think. From the reign of Emperor Akbar onwards, Hindus were integrated at the highest levels of the imperial Mughal administration (including both the government and the military), the “jizya” tax was banned for most of the Mughal era, most of the Mughal emperors (with obvious exceptions such as Aurangzeb) were allied with the most liberal and tolerant Sufi groups such as the Chishti Order, were powerful patrons of arts and learning without differentiating between Hindus and Muslims, and Hindu festivals as well as Islamic festivals were celebrated by the imperial court and the associated aristocracy, right up until the time of the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar in the mid-19th century. Akbar and his heir Jahangir were also particularly open-minded towards Christians; Jesuit missionaries were allowed to build churches, for example, and Christians within the Mughal Empire were freely allowed to publicly celebrate Christmas, Easter etc. In fact, there are even authenticated historical records of correspondence between England’s Queen Elizabeth I and the Mughal court under Akbar, where the Queen openly states her admiration for Akbar because of his renowned tolerance, pluralism, and enlightened attitudes. And despite the fact that aggressive missionary activities by Christian evangelists were well under way by the time of 1857, resulting in one of Bahadur Shah Zafar’s own physicians converting to Christianity, the Emperor simply responded that a person’s religious beliefs are his own business and that anyone is free to practice any religion they want to.
If you want some hard figures about Mughal India, here they are: During the reign of Emperor Akbar, India and China jointly accounted for approx. 50% of the world’s entire GDP. The Mughal Empire continued to flourish for centuries afterwards; in 1600, the year of the founding of the British East India Company, India was producing 22.5% of the world’s GDP, whereas Britain’s contribution was 1.8%; a century later, by 1700, India’s production had increased to nearly 25% whereas Britain’s contribution was less than 3% (India was actually the wealthiest region in the world in GDP terms).
Yet by the 1870s, the height of British colonial rule in India when Britain was generating 9.1% of the global GDP, India had been reduced to a poverty-stricken third-world country, with the destruction of numerous political institutions, industries, trade networks, arts, and the impoverishment of Indian provinces which had previously been affluent. The extent of railway facilities and electricity production wasn’t even close to that of the United States despite the fact that the latter had a similarly large landmass and a much smaller population. And during the 190 years of colonial rule, there were approximately 30 million famine-related deaths in British-governed Indian territories, including 10 million alone during 1769/the early 1770s in Bengal due to the results of Robert Clive’s actions and the policies of the East India Company, killing 1/3 of Bengal’s entire population – a region which had previously been one of the most prosperous in the world.
Finally, it’s also worth bearing in mind that there was a huge Evangelist and colonial-driven British programme of social re-engineering and historical whitewashing from the end of the 18th century onwards, particularly in relation to (although not confined to) attitudes towards the Muslim population of India. Since the British authorities at the time had to justify their rule in India, they had a very strong vested interest in deliberately discrediting, disempowering and misrepresenting Muslim society and history in that part of the world, because they were replacing the latter as the subcontinent’s paramount power. As detailed in several of the links I supplied earlier, prior to the 19th century it was extremely common for traders, soldiers, mercenaries and other men from Britain (along with mainland Europe and even America) to dive into Indian Mughal culture and society, including marrying local women and frequently even converting to Islam, especially the most successful officers of the East India Company. It changed considerably due to systematic British colonial policies implemented from the end of the 18th century onwards, but to a lesser degree it still occurred right up to 1857; when British forces entered Delhi, they didn’t know what to do with the surprising number of English men and women they found living in the city who had become Muslims. Again, remember that this was a very different version of the religion to the Saudi Wahhabi and Taliban Afghanistan stereotype.
Some here might like to reflect on that.>
no abu faris or, what ever your name is, somebody says he said that, nice sentiment though.
Ya don’t say…. so to assume leadership in these sufi orders you must be of a of certain ethnic background, hmm interesting, I wonder if they use the same justifications for leadership as the Iranians and their position of supreme leader of the islamic republic, he has to be of Arab ancestry as well. That’s for a non-hereditary post, so not really equatable to say a monarchy. Ethnic background use in part for determination of leadership, sounds like racism to me. A portion of the population given privileged status in society, based on ethnicity certainly isn’t equitable. People in western countries, bitch about that sort of thing all the time, and at times rightly. As we all know Arab supremacism is as bad as White power movements, everybody has clued into that I
Jai,
I’m familiar with Rumi, hilarious, biting, blasphemes, loving, Humane, drunk,
Great poet, newager’ favorite, he has it all. The others I will explore, It’s a huge world. The islamic world has undoubtedly produced remarkable men and women, human beings are amazing. Most of the individuals you bring up are described as a unorthodox, placing them in a tiny minority of the whole. It is the divergence from the accepted traditions, the established islamic Orthodoxy of premier significance, additionally, talent and innate humanity, that makes these men great. Islam in Indonesia came by way of merchants and traders, Egypt the sword, Persia conquest, North Africa sword, Anatolia sword, India, islam arrived inforce carried on the backs of jihadi soldiers lookin’ from women and loot. islamic conventional theocracy
hierarchically organizes non-muslims in relation to muslims, That is fundamental Sharia, that’s a uni degree in saudi. People of the book would be generally unmolested, except for demonstration of their humiliating and legally inferior position.
Jai, your depiction of islamic history in India is tainted, you view it through green tinted glasses, your reference to great individual muslims, is consistent
in it’s appeal to these heretics, who constantly diverge from the accept faith of the vast majority of islamic clergy as expressed by the big 5 schools of islamic law. You are disingenuous in reporting your views of the islamic colonial effort as accepted fact, many claim a holocaust of insane proportions took place with islam’s arrival. I’ll repeat myself, 40 to80 approx. slaughtered Hindus not including enslaved, as polytheists lowest ranking on the islamic hierarchy of non-muslims. These are the claims of Indian historians, Rizwan Salim, Sir Jadunath Sarkar , Sita Ram Goel, Ram Swarup, R.C. Mazumdar, and Arun Shourie, among others.
The essence of your argument seems to revolve around islam’s in India benevolence, instances of harmony noted for their deviation from islamic orthodoxy not adherence to it. An orthodoxy which is in ascension now globally, thanks to the ideology of the muslim brotherhood and saudi oil money spent on islamic education and funding of mosques. Whether you’re acting as an apologist for muslims is a demonstration of your gullibility, wishful thinking, or derived from interaction with all the fine upstanding muslims you know, doesn’t mater, you are still grossly mistaken. I suggest you expand your knowledge of islam by exploring the details of islamic theology in relation to non-muslims, with emphases on the early history of the ethnic cleansing of kafir from the Arabian peninsula from islamic sources, then perhaps you could have a look at Perian experience culminating in the obliteration of the Zoroastrian faith. Some Iranians are the harshest critics of islam and it’s most vicious opponents. From there you could move on to the arab/islamic colonization of Egypt. An imperialist exercise so successful that the majority of Egyptian are regarded as arab, notable the Copts haven’t quite bought that line. I find it interesting that you seem critical of British mercantile imperialism, and far more sympathetic to muslim, is that because the Britons were European and muslims not so much. Let’s not forget Turkey, can anybody say Armenian, then the ottoman’s justifications for their near endless forays into Europe. Additionally, You could examine the first experience of the Americans with the barbary pirates and the quranic justifications for slave raiding American shipping interests. Centuries of raiding Europe for slaves, that’s a big part islam, a practice that didn’t stop till European powers forced it’s end, establishing a colonial presence in the islamic world. Muslims have come to Britain as immigrants, islam has come as a colonize. As we all know it sucks to be colonized, without muslims the colonizer collapses. I’ve heard you try and blame Britons for the cleansing of Sikhs and Hindus from pakistani’s Punjab by disarming Sikhs. Thing is muslims have done the same thing in places were Britons have had no or a minimal presence, enough to see it as a pattern of islamification, as a methodology. Islam of the orthodox with the non-islamic world, a war they declared from the moment they acquired sufficient power. A war we see expressed in modern terrorism, and the fact that every country with a significant muslim minority is experiencing an islamicly inspired insurgency, and the horrid state of non-muslim minorities in muslim majority countries. So Jai, take of the green lenses and have a look around, they distort your vision. ‘
No, membership of the family of the Prophet descended via Fatima and ‘Ali does not mean membership of a particular ethnicity. There are Iranian, South Asian, Central Asian, Arab and even African claimants.
Incidentally, “Arab” is not especially an ethnic group.
However, your fascination with race and colour is at the bottom of your Muslim-loathing ramblings, as we are now all perfectly aware.
Incidentally, Lee: please do not use further sockpuppets on this site. Thanks.
no abu faris it means that they must be of arab descent (arab supremacism) otherwise the leadership position would be open to the Iranian, Indian, or whatever ethnicity without the arab lineage. That’s the position of Tarek Fatah (Chasing a Mirage) in describing the racial requirements for position of supreme leader in Iran, and I agree with him. I’m heartened you consider yourself aware, ….of what you are aware of is a mystery…..beyond your ideological ….hmmm , what’s the word ? idiocy, no that implies a certain innocence, ….I’ve got it, dissimulation. You’re a philosopher(lol), abu faris you should know what that means, and it fits perfectly describing every word that vomits from your mouth regarding my identity, and the source of my compete and utter revulsion regarding islam.
A review of this thread demonstrates the one with the “fascination” with race and colour is you, abu thickness ibn thicky, since you bring it up again and again. Chewing constantly on that stick, with the argument, opposition to islam can only arise from racists, therefore any who oppose islam, as defined by the the schools of islamic law, the ignoble quran and the shitty sunnah can only be racists.
I’m feeling generous (ibn or abu Idon’t giveashit)faris, here is a bit of tactical philosophy for you. If you ever meet some one with an obviously gargantuan ego, the kind so out of step with his real abilities, as you have and decide to play chess with them. Always lose the first game, they will never understand how easily they are manipulated, each succeeding defeat will only drive them deeper into a state of sputtering confusion, as their delusions rub up against the constance of their failure, as you demonstrate …so well. Check the ip with site admin …..C A N A D A or doesn’t that fit with your agenda.
Fuck off, Camero, you troll, before you are banned.
I put it in quite such a succinct manner because you are clearly incapable of understanding reasoned or reasonable discourse.
You have repeatedly abused your poster’s rights on this site and we have tolerated your strange and weird outbursts as they are manifestly self-defeating. However, there has to be a limited and – as far as I am concerned – you croseed that line with me when you repeatedly accused me of paedophilia.
You have repeatedly used sockpuppets to disrupt and wreck threads – targeting, in particular, threads that have no bearing on your clearly deranged hatred of anyone you perceive to be Muslim or associated with Muslims.
You are clearly not working in the best interests of this site, one of the aims of which is to foster better relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. Your loathing for non-Europeans is manifest in your repeated and entirely ignorant assaults against very erudite Sikh commentators (again laced with invective and insults).
I am now publicly calling for your banning and for your re-banning should you re-appear under another name playing the same revolting and pathetic games.
Now, fuck off.
Actually Islam first arrived in the northwest of India via Arab traders centuries before the invasions by Ghazni and Ghauri. Incidentally, the Delhi Sultanate, which was eventually defeated and supplanted by the Mughals, was comprised of rulers from an entirely different geographical, cultural and ethnic background to the latter. The first Mughal emperor did indeed arrive in India via military means but his attitudes changed dramatically over the years, as indicated by the example of his experiences with Guru Nanak and as later detailed in Babur’s own memoirs. His grandson Akbar accelerated matters dramatically due to his own pluralistic, tolerant and egalitarian policies, and the Mughals were subsequently regarded as the subcontinent’s legitimate rulers by most of the non-Muslim groups in the northern half of India (including the Sikhs and their Gurus) as long as they adhered to the precedents set by Akbar.
Merchants and traders from India, let’s not forget.
Perhaps you need to broaden the range of your sources. I’ve already provided a series of references, including two of Britain’s foremost historians. Both of them base their assertions on literally hundreds of fully-authenticated primary and secondary British & mainland European historical sources as well as Indian records. In fact, the three books I mentioned earlier are backed up with Bibliographies listing these authenticated sources in precise detail, so if you’re serious about gaining the most accurate viewpoint possible then it would be a good idea to read through not just the books concerned but the numerous references listed in their bibliographies too, if you’re able to get hold of them.
Most of them are also amongst the most influential Muslim figures in Indian history as far as that region’s Muslim population has been concerned. As I said earlier, the subcontinent as a whole has more Muslims than anywhere else in the world.
If you have an issue with Iranians, Arabs, Turkish people, Egyptians etc then you need to take that up with people from those backgrounds, as none of the events you have mentioned had anything to do with Muslims in the subcontinent from the past thousand years. Otherwise it would be the equivalent of blaming English people for the actions of the Conquistadors, or blaming Greeks for the actions of the slaveowning Confederacy during the American Civil War, purely because all of them were ostensibly Christian, and also ignoring the fact that both formal and informal interpretations of Christianity have historically varied (and still vary) considerably in different parts of the world.
India isn’t, with the exception of Kashmir, which is a relatively recent development and is being promoted by Islamists from outside India, not the vast majority of the 140 million-strong Muslim population within it. And it’s also worth bearing in mind that after the terrorist attacks on Mumbai in November 2008, not only were there large protests by Indian Muslims against them, but the Indian Muslim Council was so disgusted with the actions of the terrorists that they even refused to allow their bodies to be buried on Indian soil. There have been similar large-scale protests in Pakistani cities such as Lahore and Karachi against Islamist extremists perceived to be trying to “Talibanise” that country; incidentally, these cities are not only located within Pakistan’s cultural and commercial heartlands but the provinces concerned are the most heavily populated regions of the country. Not to mention the fact that the Pakistani military itself is currently involved in a full-scale war to wipe out the Islamist militants attempting to take over that country.
My stance is exactly in line with all 10 of the Sikh Gurus (especially Guru Gobind Singh), and also Maharajah Ranjit Singh. It is also backed up by the vast majority of nearly a billion non-Muslims in and from India; as stated earlier, remember that we are speaking from the perspective of people who have a thousand years of experience with Muslims in a part of the world which still has more Muslims than anywhere else. The BNP, EDL, SIOE, and other people of European ethnicity here in the West with a similarly anti-Muslim stance are not exactly in a position to be able to say the same.
One more point:
For a whole range of reasons, “colonial” is a wildly inaccurate description in relation to the Mughals, not least because of the fact that, from a fairly early stage, the Mughals ceased being “segregated foreigners” in cultural and ethnic terms – including the influence of generations of intermarriage with Hindu Rajput royalty in particular (the Mughals’ staunchest allies from the reign of Akbar onwards).
A similar situation developed for centuries in the cases of huge numbers of Europeans living in India, including British people, until the aforementioned major changes in religious attitudes and political dynamics within the East India Company occurred — which was, of course, when everything started going horribly wrong. The consequences are still with us 200 years later.
Islam in Indonesia came by way of merchants and traders
Jai
Actually I believe it was Yemen specifically the area of Hadramaut which is why Indonesians follow the Shafi school rather than the Hanafi one prevalent in the subcontinent and why they wear the yemeni style lunghi (also worn by Bengali Muslims since Islam was brought to them by a Yemeni Shah Jalal (ra))
bull- and no mention of the Sudra (lower-caste Hindus) holocaust by Brahmin Hindus which Muslim’s liberation of India saved millions from
http://nermai.blogspot.com/2009/06/sudra-holocaust-understand-our-india.html
I stand corrected — traders from South India were primarily responsible for spreading Islam to Malaysia, not Indonesia. Having said that, Islam did spread to some of Indonesia’s coastal regions between the 12th & 15th centuries partially via trade & cultural contact with India, although it had indeed already arrived in Indonesia from other parts of the world.