Gunman kills three in Chapel Hill

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@Ghfdw17‌

First of all, not all religions went through a Dark period like Islam and Christianity. I mean I challenge you to find an equivalent in Buddhism, Shintosim, Or even Jainism. I mean Jains are so peaceful that they can’t even step on a fly. And though it’s been noted that Buddhist ideology inspired many kamikaze pilots in World War 2, that is once again not the same.

And like the poster abov noted, Christianity came out of the Dark Ages. The religion evolved naturally as science and democratic principles evolved. But when it comes to Islam, this religion reverted back into the Dark Ages. It’s on a downhill curve and it is not progressing

Thus, I think by equating islam and Christinaity, you are undermining the point. The fact that you need go back five hundred years ago to find some kind of equivalency is unfortunately, very telling. And as an atheist, I don’t really want to argue which religion is better than the other. I find the overall concept of religion preposterous and incompatible with piece and progression, but that’s another story. And by no means am I an expert on Muslim theology, but let’s just compare the life of Jesus vs the life of Mohammed. Jesus was a noted pacifist who prohibited his disciples to use force. Mohammed was a ruthless tyrant, who conquered and called for death to non Muslims. This is not to say that because Jesus was peaceful, all Christians are, and because Mohammed was violent, all Muslims are. And no other religion, in the entirety of human history, glorifies dying the way that Islam does.

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@couplemoreweeks‌

Look at Burma, the buddhists are not so peaceful there. There were muslims prosecuted there and many atrocities were performed. It is not the equivalent to the dark ages but again, there is no group of people that can be entirely peaceful. And there is no way we can guess what may happen in the future, just like no one would’ve guessed muslims would reach to this amount of backwardness.

I know you will comment that these buddhists are a minority. But compared to the 1. 5 billion muslims in the world, ISIS makes less than 1% of the whole population. I went back 500 years to demonstrate that every religion has its ‘time’. Not because there was not enough evidence.

I don’t want to start bringing evidence that violence is present in every religion, because that would look as if I am running away from the idea that muslims are indeed going through a bad time, even though it’s true.

The topic of Muhammed glorifying killing, is simply not true. I would discuss with you why I believe that’s not true but I doubt many people here would appreciate me going into a heavy religious debate about the difference between the Q’uran and hadiths.

About the hijab, I fully agree with you. But I dont see which point exactly do we disagree about. When I mean ‘choice’, I mean wearing it without social or pressures from society. I mean wearing it while completely believing in the reason she chose to do so.

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I just wanted to add something, in my opinion poverty and the oppression by autocratic regimes is responsible for religious extremism. This has caused extreme frustration and anger to build up for people to the point where they take it out on anything, including using religion in an extreme way. In a way, this diverts attention away from the regimes preventing people from even thinking about democracy or their rights. In a way, many arab regimes take this to their advantage and even encourage such beliefs. Muslims are also victims of such terrorism, it would be unfair to many moderate muslims to be called ‘infidels’ by terrorists and called ‘terrorists’ by the west.

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I totally agree with you about all religions having extremists and all contributing to violence in the world, albeit on a different scale. That’s why, I am adamantly opposed to the concept of religion and fully believes it is incompatible to a fully functioning and just world. And ISIS isn’t the only type of Muslim extremism. You are correct in that only a small percentage of Muslims are terrorists. Only a minority are in groups such as Al Quaeda, Hezbollah, ISIS, Boko haram, and Hamas just to name a few. But then I’d say there is another percentage who may not be terrorists, but agree with what they are doing. But even that is a small minority let’s say 10 or 15 percent. However, there is a huge, and when I say huge I mean a majority of Muslims who hold extremely radical beliefs that are incompatible with a progressive society. In a Pew poll taken recently, something like 90 percent of Egyptians believe that death is an approporiate punishment for leaving the religion. About seventy percent believe stoning was the correct punishment for adultery, and even more believed that criticizing the prophet should result in death. So yes, many Muslims would never shoot the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, but if the majority of Muslims believe that “they got what’s coming”, then there is still a major problem. It is important that in our society, we criticize bad ideas, and Religion is a bad idea. Charlie Hebdo portrayed offensive pictures of Jews and Christians, yet only the Muslim world had a problem. In the Muslim world, there is no free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, or freedom of opinion. And this is not because of corrupt leadership, when Egyptians were given the right to vote, they chose Hosni Mubark and Sharia law. Yes, not all Muslims are terrorists, and it would be disgusting to assume that they were.

I also wholly disagree with your belief that terrorism is a product of autocratic regimes, poverty, and as many apologists say “Western colonialism”. Under Sadam Hussein, terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism was not even as close to as pertinent as it is now. That’s why the U.S. should never have gone into Iraq, but that’s another story. Terrorism existed in other parts of the world, but under Hussein, Iraq was not a cause for concern for the United States. And as I mentioned earlier, when Egyptians were given the power to vote in a U.S. backed “fair election” they voted for Hosni Mubark and Sharia law. Essentially they chose Islam over progress. It’s also incorrect to say that poverty or some kind of political motivation begot terrorism and radical Islam. The majority Of terrorists are neither poor nor uneducated. Osama bin laden came from an extremely wealthy family and had a college education. It may seem paradoxiCal, but the people who are joining militant groups are for the most part not poor at all. Poverty plagues much of the world, but only in a specific area have we seen this surge of terrorism. Instead, terrorism is simply the manifestation of the Qaran and the Hadiths. It is why many families are proud to send their sons off with suicide bombs. They are not fighting for a greater cause, they blow themselves up because they are motivated by the sincere belief that they will spend an eternity in Paradise. Can you possibly imagine a reasonable explanation for why largely middle class, educated, and psychologically apt men would blow themselves up in a bus station, at a Red Cross building or in a crowd of innocent people. It’s time to acknowledge that the doctrine of Islam and and Islamic terrorism is inexorably connected. Before you say that this is born out of an actual terrestrial concern like imperialism, I challenge you to look for a political message in the charterS of any terrorist organization. Even those terrorists who claim to be fueled by the “israeli occupation of Palestine” are simply finding a justification for killing all the jews. They have no concern for the well being of Palestinians, if they did, then they’d be targeting Hamas (the greatest perpetrator of Palestinian misfortune).

Moreover, Buddhists have been the victim of arguably the most brutal occupation in recent history in Tibet. But where are the Tibetians ready to blow themselves up in crowds of Chinese children. This is not an occupation problem, it’s a religious one. To quote Sam Harris:

"While the other major world religions have been fertile sources of intolerance, it is clear that the doctrine of Islam poses unique problems for the emergence of a global civilization. The world, from the point of view of Islam, is divided into the “House of Islam” and the “House of War,” and this latter designation should indicate how Muslims believe their differences with those who do not share their faith will be ultimately resolved. While there are undoubtedly some moderate Muslims who have decided to overlook the irrescindable militancy of their religion, Islam is undeniably a religion of conquest. The only future devout Muslims can envisage—as Muslims—is one in which all infidels have been converted to Islam, politically subjugated, or killed. The tenets of Islam simply do not admit of anything but a temporary sharing of power with the “enemies of God.” Devout Muslims can have no doubt about the reality of Paradise or about the efficacy of martyrdom as a means of getting there. Nor can they question the wisdom and reasonableness of killing people for what amount to theological grievances. In Islam, it is the moderate who is left to split hairs, because the basic thrust of the doctrine is undeniable: convert, subjugate, or kill unbelievers; kill apostates; and conquer the world.

We are now mired in a religious war in Iraq and elsewhere. Our enemies–as witnessed by their astonishing willingness to slaughter themselves–are not principally motivated by political or economic grievances. How many more architects and electrical engineers must fly planes into buildings before we realize that the problem of Muslim extremism is not merely a matter of education? How many more middle-class British citizens must blow themselves up along with scores of noncombatants before we acknowledge that Muslim terrorism is not matter of poverty or political oppression?"

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^I strongly disagree with your claims about what Islam says in regards to how a Muslim should treat those who are not Muslim.

Many women have worn head coverings in history for the sake of modesty. Some Hindu women in India still do. Only in more modern times has the headscarf become a symbol for Muslim women to the West. I’m also not sure why you equate a woman choosing to cover her hair with “because some man told them to.”

It’s true that most non-Muslim women nowadays don’t cover their hair, but people tend to dress and act according to their culture and who they identify with. Most Americans don’t wear Indian clothing (even though it’s very comfortable :p), that doesn’t mean Indian clothing is bad. It’s just not a thing here. I know that it isn’t exactly the same, in that a Western girl might still wear a sari to, say, a themed party, but probably wouldn’t wear a headscarf in the same way. But that only seems to be because the headscarf is treated as such a big deal. In societies wear a headscarf isn’t a big deal, some women might wear it occasionally or only on their bad hair days (yes, this is a real thing).

Honestly, the headscarf is such a small, minute detail, I think people pay so much attention to it just because it’s so visible. Westerners aren’t used to seeing it, and some Muslims treat it like an ultimate, or minimal, marking of faith just because it’s something you can see, which I very strongly disagree with.
IMO just let a woman wear or not wear a headscarf as they please, and don’t make judgement (either that they’re oppressed or better Muslims or whatever). You can’t paint such a diverse population of women with such a broad brush. It’s a single, external act that may be one part in the grand scheme of what it means to be modest (something that applies to men and women, something that includes how you act, as well as how you dress, let alone being defined by just a single aspect of dress).

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@xiggi if you look at what @hayden said: “you write of the “imposition of wearing a hijab”. For many women it is an imposition, but it’s a huge stretch for you to assume it is always an imposition.” (bold added by me)
She never ignored that some women are pressured into wearing a headscarf.

She also said: “Nuns don’t have ‘followers’, as I understand it. They assume the veil as a chosen sacrifice they view as a gift and sign of commitment. a couple of people I know who are Muslim and wear head coverings have described their decision in much the same way.”
Which is certainly true for many who choose to wear a headscarf, or any sort of modest dress (be it more or less noticeable).

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Couple of quick notes:

  1. Burma/Myanmar or whatever it's called now has a long history of civil wars, usually between tribal/ethnic groups but sometimes religious. The old, pre-British monarchy sort of bound the groups together, but Britain in its imperialist zeal destroyed that and brought all of the tensions out. That continued until the Japanese invaded and the various groups took sides, some with Japan, some against. The factional warfare continued - helped by money from the drug trade and weapons from places like China. This is one reason the military took over and why I could never be so completely anti their government; most Western reactions seemed to be motivated by the struggles of Aung San Suu Kyi, who became the face in the West of what Westerners think of as universal ideals (that aren't). Not criticizing her, just pointing out the naivety of Westerners. So now there is oppression of Muslims but it really isn't about religion but ethnicity because they're basically Bengali Rohingyas - with differing claims about how Burmese they are. The oppression is essentially ethnic warfare of the same type Burma has suffered for a very long time now. It is only secondarily religious, though that is how it is presented in simplified form for Westerners.
  2. Many Muslims believe the religion is entering a greater phase, that ISIS for all its apparent barbarity is at least a stop toward fulfillment of Islam's role as the universal religion. (Meaning explicitly conversion with dhimmi status for the unconverted and the imposition of holy law as God intends.) This is true for very large numbers of Muslims, from peaceful to disgustingly violent. It's inherent in the religion. While it often gets simplified to "House of Islam" and "House of War", the motivation remains that of bringing the world into the hands of the Believers.

IMHO it’s not possible for Islam to grow out of this. It has always been there, just muted by the relative poverty of the Arab world (which is not the same as Muslim Asia). The essential problem, from the Western perspective, is that the Qur’an unlike any other major religious book states repeatedly that it is without doubt, that it is the source, and this creates a degree of mainstream fundamentalism that only exists at the fringes of other religions. In fact, Christian fundamentalism only revived in the 19thC - after being taken as given centuries ago - but that kind of literalness is not extreme in Islam and even more so in Arab countries. So IMHO as long as people read the Qur’an they will not be able to look at it the same way Christians and Jews look at their versions of the Bible. Both those groups, at around the same time, began to examine critically the roots of the stories to determine different hands, etc. There is well over 150 years of work on that, but that kind of analysis is at the fringes of Islam and, bluntly, could get you killed in many Muslim countries (as an apostate). In addition, Judaism has a 2000+ year tradition of Oral Law which encourages creative invention of stories to explain and illuminate God’s possible intent, the idea being that the Written Law could not be complete because, well, we have brains and we like to make up stories so since we do that then God must have intended that. By contrast, much of Islamic belief would not accept that at all and versions of this are treated as fundamental apostasy - like the Shia belief in forms of continuing revelation. I just don’t see that kind of change happening in Islam; too many people believe the literal words are what counts, that they must be memorized and recited and that other learning is suspect if it encourages doubt.

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I don’t think this is the case. There was a lot of coverage of this in Bangladesh (right by Burma- there was a controversy on whether or not to allow refugees into the country). Killings based on religious discrimination. It’s not a Western bias. You can say that there might be some underlying motivations here that are the true reasons for all this, that historical events are what really fueled the fire, but that’s basically the same thing that people say about terrorism committed by “Muslims.”

Source? No Muslim that I know believes this. The consensus among everyone, Muslim or not, seems to be that ISIS is messed up.

I wouldn’t call orthodox and conservative Christians and Jews a “fringe.” Not to mention the non-Abrahamic religions, like Hinduism.

Studying the Quran is something that is encouraged. It is believed in Islam that the Quran is the word of God, and that it will provides guidance and contains indisputable knowledge. But understanding it is not something taken lightly. That’s why scholars spend years going over the ancient Arabic, the history of revelation, accompanying Hadith, etc. before they can call themselves scholars. And you still have disagreements between scholars.

Indeed, one of the fundamentals of Islam is that the Quran is an indisputable source of knowledge. Much like how one of the fundamentals of Christianity is that the Trinity is an indisputable truth. All religions come with beliefs. But Islam certainly doesn’t come with the belief that the Quran is easy to understand and to be treated casually. It’s actually the opposite.

Unfortunately, I have to admit that the Muslim community as a whole tends to be nonintellectual right now and that makes me very sad. There are some trying to change this. Nouman Ali Khan comes to mind. Although I might not agree with everything he says, he certainly gives some great talks and thinks that the Muslim community has largely become unscholarly. And he’s trying to do something about it.

How is that every thread that mentions a Muslim ends up becoming a debate about Islam. :frowning: It wasn’t even a terrorist attack this time.

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Would someone post a notice if this thread ever goes back on topic?

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The idea that islam does not encourage people to think about the verses and to understand the verses literally is false.
In Islam the Q’uran encourages thinking by telling ‘Do you then not ponder?’ Repeatedly to make people think about the verses and not apply them blindly.

I do not know the literal translation, but in islam we say: Consult your heart even if those have given their legal opinion.

The first to suggest that islam follows literal translation was known Abd al-Wahhab. He started a movement in Saudi Arabia called Wahhabism. He rejected all forms of modernity because he believed that the best Islam is that during Prophet Muhammad’s time. As a result he claimed everyone that all those who do not follow him as kuffar (apostates), in which he followed the footsteps of Ibn Taymayyah who lived in the time around 1200 AD.

Ibn Taymayyah follows in the footsteps of a group of people called Kharijites. They lived in the 8th century. Those declared themselves the ultimate right and went as far as claiming the prophet’s cousin as a kaffir and ended up killing him for not listening to him.

Wahhabism was implemented by force in Saudi. Wahhab prosecuted communities that did not swear allegiance to him.(sounds familiar right?) And gained many followers during the 18th century. He claimed that all muslims who are not Wahhabis are disbeliever. He claimed that true islam is his interpretation.

Fast forward a few hundred years and the Saudi government has decided to implement the beliefs of Wahhabism as the source of their laws. Look at the Saudi flag, it even has a sword beneath muslim text.

Osama bin Laden, was a Wahhabi himself. He rejected modernity, left his wealthy and rich family to live in the mountains of Afghanistan to fight the soviet occupation. He claimed that it is jihad to fight, even though jihad in islam means to work hard. Those who seek knowledge are also known as making jihad. Those who care for their families or their parents are making jihad.

Most critics of Islam fail to realise that Islam itself is varied and diverse. The only group that practices adopting the literal sense of verses are known as Salafis/Wahhabis, not muslims. And unfortunately, close to 100 million muslims believe in Salafism.

Terrorists use and adopt hadiths written by the likes of Bukhari who glorified killing and fighting to death. Bukhari tried to make a book with a compilation of the prophet’s saying. Which doesnt make sense because he was not alive with the prophet to witness him. It seems obvious that he collected stories from the bedouin arabs who lived in the deserts and were extremely barbaric, who used nothing but the sword.

Many many arabs reject such beliefs. I live in Saudi, the heart of religious extremism and yet I reject taking the literal sense of Q’uran. Everyone around me hates and despises ISIS and all other terrorist groups that follow Wahhabism. Yet we cannot declare that we hate Wahabbism openly because it may sentence many to death.

There is a movement by an Egyptian Scholar, who studied Sharia Law and has his own TV show. His name is Islam Behery. He openly denounces Salafism, rejecs Al Bukhari and even believes many things cannot apply to the 21st century because we live in different times. But he did get death threats from many extremists.

Can this belief be fought? Will it change?

Yes. But terrorism cannot be fought by just killing these terrorists. While the governments fight them, it is worth remembering that ideas must also be fought with ideas. Muslim leaders must denounce Salafism, they must change the teachings of Bukhari in schools. The entire system must be changed, and only the moderate muslims can change it.

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[url=http://lostislamichistory.com/imam-al-bukhari-and-the-science-of-hadith/]There is a reason why Sahih al-Bukhari is considered a good source for Hadith./url It doesn’t strike me as glorifying violence. Most of the Hadiths I’ve heard from him aren’t even related to violence.
The problem with extremists quoting Hadiths is the same problem with extremists quoting Quran. Things are taken out of context, not studied or reflected upon. Various scholars’ opinions aren’t noted. Like you said, dissent could lead to death, so you’re not going to get honest scholarship. Not to mention that certain incentives are provided to some scholars to give the convenient interpretation.

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It is not surprising that hate groups usually try to hijack other grievances to claim justification for their hate. The sad part is that people in general often fall for it (and this goes for both Palestinians and Israelis and many others). Note that politicians and governments often try to distract attention from their own domestic problems by stirring up hate against a foreign enemy, or a perceived-to-be-foreign ethnic minority group.

You do realize that many (Han) Chinese are Buddhist as well, right? So would you blame some Buddhists for oppressing other Buddhists?

Of course, Buddhists in other places (e.g. Sri Lanka, Myanmar) have gotten into nasty fights where the battle lines are drawn by ethnicity and religion.

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I truly enjoy Muslims trying to explain that all Muslims aren’t the same. That’s sort of the point, if you think about it. Here’s an example: a participant in a UN panel called “Staying Together—Dialogue in the Face of Violent Extremism" - which you can find - involved a series of objections by Muslim participants to pretty much any characterization of, well, apparently there isn’t a word because none is allowed to fit. So “Islamist” is out because that uses the word Islam and Prince Zeid prefers takfirism, which of course limits the discussion to specific Sunni rejection of Shia (as apostates) and doesn’t address what anyone in the West cares about. So “jihadi” is out because the objection is there are many forms of “jihad” and some may not be violent and some may be justified violence (though who defines is never specified). In fact, any word becomes wrong because any word invokes Islam and that would be Islamophobic when the real problem is, well, maybe we can reduce to these specific people and that way we can pretend there is no religion involved.

While some nutcases may blame all Muslims, I’ve never met one and have only read a few of their remarks. (Many fewer, btw, than the daily list of Muslims spewing venom about Jews and to a lesser extent Christians, all in generalities.) But Muslims can’t even find words to talk about this. So there’s this giant amount of prevarication and denial: a person who lives in Saudi Arabia who has to put in writing in an essentially anonymous forum that “Yet we cannot declare that we hate Wahabbism openly because it may sentence many to death.” Well, there’s your problem in a sentence.

As to the Orthodox Jews, I object to the ignorant characterization. If you mean extremely Orthodox sects, then even then you don’t understand the nature of Jewish inquiry and fundamentalism. But when you refer to “Orthodox” in a generality, you don’t get that most Orthodox live completely usual lives in which they accommodate modernity with a series of devotional and dutiful obligations that don’t actually mean squat about fundamentalism. An example: a very Orthodox scholar - the son of the old Italian chief rabbi - wrote a paper looking at confessions of child murder obtained from Jews under torture in the late medieval period. He concluded that maybe there was a hint of truth, that maybe just maybe someone had murdered a child for some perverted, perhaps ritual purposes. Can anyone imagine a Muslim scholar writing this? (Or rather, imagine one writing this and living?) This paper - a book really - was deeply offensive and he was subjected to heavy criticism but nothing bad happened to him … unlike the Palestinian professor who took a group of Palestinian kids to a death camp in Europe and whose car was then firebombed because he’d dare show Jews as victims. Even the most Orthodox allow creative interpretation. It’s a different form of fundamentalism based in the most rigid adherence to a specific set of obligations, which makes it similar to Wahhabism in the physical respect and totally different in the mental sphere.

As to Bangladesh, they have plenty of their own problems, especially with the siege of Dacca. But the main problem in Burma has been the influx of rohangyi, not their religion; the government has attempted to kick out any rohangyi who can’t prove they were there before a certain date. That’s more an immigration question and those are complicated by all sorts of things, including a rational desire to preserve culture, along with racism and other hatreds. If I’m not mistaken, we have similar issues in the US, ranging from Latinos to resistance to gentrification.

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And whenever they have, it is a sign of subjugation of female sexuality and freedom by men. Even if internalized by women, the same way that women are the actual perpetrators of female genital mutilation.

@couplemoreweeks, I believe you mean to refer to Morsi, not Mubarak when discussing the recent elections.

And with regard to those elections in Egypt–and Iraq, and elsewhere in the Arab world–consider the fact that the region has been ruled by despots for a long time. (Often, alas, supported by the West.) Gradually the educated, moderate, intellectual class that could perhaps develop a political alternative that could be communicated to the populace at large was eradicated. Often such people were driven into exile, if not killed outright. Most of the region was left with Islamism as the only known political alternative to rule by a despot. So when the despot is toppled, who else but the Muslim Brotherhood et al is available to step in?

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Well, that happens when one relies on the proverbial strawmen and another tries to reword it. The problem started when someone assumes another person was … assuming. For the record, I do not recall using the term “always.”

See how that works!

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Why is this still a ‘featured thread’ when the last thread was almost 4 weeks ago,. Can the moderators change this?

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the Islamic Center hosted a food drive to benefit the community.
http://www.wral.com/food-drive-held-in-honor-of-chapel-hill-shooting-victims-/14498586/
And NCSU has begun a scholarship.
http://www.wral.com/nc-state-creates-scholarship-fund-in-honor-of-chapel-hill-shooting-victims/14459878/

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  • And NCSU has begun a scholarship. *

It is nice to see that something good came out of this horrible tragedy.