Islamic fundamentalism

[Eponine]

Tom, thanks for bringing this topic up.

Being first generation Egyptian-American, born to parents raised in Egypt, in the midst of discrimination by the imposed Muslim society against their Christianity, I will admit I personally have strong, biased opinions towards the religion.

But having said parents, I do have some knowledge that most Americans or other westerners may not. The Quran is used as literary text there, from which to study the formal, written Arabic, and so, both my parents know the book very well in its original language.

My mother has shown me the specific Sura in the Quran, read the Arabic to me (of that high speech, I cannot understand much) and given me the conversational Arabic words. There is a specific part that says to crush the nonbelievers under their feet or to make them pay with tribute. There are also stronger sentiments than this which advise specifically, explicitly to kill the nonbelievers. There is controversy over the word translated as "kill" there- just as there is controversy over the meaning in English of "Islam". I think it stems from the vast differences between the high, formal Arabic and the conversational one.

Last note, I did read a book- but this was at least five years ago, and goodness I cannot remember the title or the author's name, but I'm not lying really! lol- that exposed Islam as a cultist ideology rather than a true spiritual religion. For example, the "burka" is taken from the harem times of Saudi Arabia.

Tom- I don't know what translation you read, however, we have to admit that translations can be quite skewed. I do believe that any Muslim translator would certainly rewrite the book in English to present Islam as a peaceful, loving religion. Because of the language differences I referred to above, it would be easy to do so.

Now, yes, I have not read the Quran myself in Arabic, but either my mother is lying or does not understand. Well, certainly anything's possible. However, she is not the only one to believe as she does.

So, yes, this is only my two cents' worth of input that may even be worth less... but I would just like Americans or English-speaking westerners or anyone who really cannot read and understand the Quran in the original language to think about the possibilities I presented.

I mean, if it's true- that the Quran does advocate violence against nonbelievers of its faith, it would make smart sense that its followers would not share this truth openly with the world. Certainly, they would want to fit in with the other big two monotheistic religions as another "peaceful" religion so they could have their isolated fanatics doing all the dirty work with the religion not getting blamed.

***ok last note for real-- total side note, it irritates the shit out of me when Americans say "Allah" when talking about Islam, like it's another name of another god, but it simply _means_ "God" in Arabic. You can go into a Coptic Orthodox (that's a Christian sect) church, and hear "Allah" many times- because they are praising or thanking or worshipping or whatever they do to/ for God.

[TomOfSweden]

Tom- I don't know what translation you read, however, we have to admit that translations can be quite skewed. I do believe that any Muslim translator would certainly rewrite the book in English to present Islam as a peaceful, loving religion. Because of the language differences I referred to above, it would be easy to do so.

I read a highly criticised Swedish translation so I think it's a bad source to quote anything from.

And then we have the benefit of knowing pretty much everything about Mohammed's life. It's even possible to check out his complete wardrobe in Topkapi palace in Istanbul. They even have letters that he's written, and foot, handprints and even shavings off his beard. I've been there myself and checked them out. It's amazing.

We know how he lived and what opinions he had. We know that plenty of the decisions where purely political. The move with turning around and facing Mecka instead of Jerusalem when they prayed was purely political. The three Jewish tribes in the area chose to align with Mecka instead of the Muslims. It was about showing them how seriously he took it. And once Mecka was conquered, there was no compelling reason to tell everybody to face Jerusalem again.

We also know that Mohammed saw Judaism, Islam and Christianity as the same religion with the same values, only catering to different cultures. So if Christianity doesn't have passages about killing infidels then chances are that "kill" means something different in ancient Arabic.

Another amusing thing Karen Armstrong points out is the distorted view of the crusades.

The Arabs at the turn of the last millennia paid very little attention to what was happening in western and northern Europe. When the crusaders took Jerusalem in 1099 the Arab/Muslim reaction was nothing. It's hardly mentioned anywhere in their texts from the time. Much less was seen as a problem. Jerusalem sat at the time just north of the large Fatamid muslim empire. They ignored it completely even though they where probably richer than all of western Europe put together and could easily have crushed the crusader states like a bug.

When Saladin retook Jerusalem in 1170 it was only because it was on the way to Syria. Politically he had used the crusader states as a buffer between him and the rest of the muslim world but now when he wanted to expand his empire they had outlived their usefulness. Saladin was just one lone Emir. He wasn't commanding any united Muslim army.

The focus and importance of the crusades as a deeply wounding attack on Islam is purely a 20'th century construct. It has no historical support or basis.

The western world as a economic and political superpower is a relatively new thing. The Arabs in 1099 saw the Christian crusaders as the little guy trying to at best annoy the giant. But they wheren't even very good at that.