@ CK MacLeod:
Does or does not the Qur’an justify lying to infidels?
If, where discussing the conduct of war, the Qur'an didn't justifying lying to enemy infidels, then Qur'an would be a stupid book. The failure to employ deception in war would be extremely self-destructive. "All warfare is based on deception," said Sun-Tzu. "Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate." He made good sense.
Christians at war, at least the Christians who hope to win battles, don't hesitate to employ deception either.
Did or did not Muhammad spread his faith by the sword?
As a matter of fact, he didn't. He strove to spread the area under the political control of Muslims by use of arms. As have Christians and others in similar circumstances. The actual spreading of any faith cannot occur "by the sword," as Muhammad himself explicitly and famously noted ("no compulsion in religion"). This isn't a trivial or sophistical point: It's been something that people have fought and died for, and is one of the most basic founding principles of the United States: Conversion to or belief in any set of religious or moral principles must be freely adopted or is inauthentic and of no moral or spiritual value.
Do or do not Muslims believe that the Qur’an is the word of God and that they should emulate the actions of their prophet?
I believe that qualifies as definitional. As such it is the deepest, most essential question for Muslims, and not something that some clumsy attempt to translate one or another verse or act in an inappropriate context could possibly satisfy. That would be the most primitive and naive form of "emulation," and a form of vanity and error that exists in all religious traditions: As though sitting beneath a tree makes you a good Buddhist or committing suicide would be emulating Christ. (There was a sect of Christians who believed that - unsurprisingly, they died out.)
If those are true nothing from the mouth of a Muslim to an infidel can be trusted, ever.
You're safe.
Not that the word of anyone to anyone can ever be trusted very far.
You may be getting somewhere with that. The definition of a word is another word, and all is not to be said at one go. Helping Christians, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, and others to understand that all statements are always already interpretations, and that taken as eternal objects independent of context they cease to be statements, cease to have any meaning as statements, is a project that none of us can long avoid joining.
despite all the supposed peaceful writings, which are nothing but lies designed to lull the infidels.
I'm going to assume you're joking, in poor taste. The exhibition of hypocrisy would almost be amusing: Someone who takes a conventional reading of a Bible verse or the use of a descriptive historical term as "impugning" the religion that he prefers to defend, but doesn't see anything questionable about relentlessly attacking in the vilest way the entirety of someone else's religious and cultural tradition.
@ narciso:
I don't understand most of that. I think you're referring to the status of JC. He didn't "found" Christianity. At least that's not how he's treated within the Christian tradition. He wasn't a Christian, he WAS Jesus Christ. Christ and many early Christians seemed to consider themselves to be Jews. The religion as we know it was the work of human beings, and how it came together, including its relationship to Judaism, is a complex and very human tale. Muhammad corresponds more closely to the authors of the gospels or to the Old Testament prophets, with the added dimension that he's treated as a figure worthy of emulation.
Your reference to “render” was in making of it an equivalent to the Verse of the Sword.
First of all, you still haven't responded to the explication of the VotS above.
Second, I brought up "Render unto Caesar" as an illustration as follows:
Not that it matters much, really: Christian and other warlords have had zero difficulty on that score. It hasn’t been remotely a challenge. “Render up to Caesar” gets thousands of balls rolling, if you really, really need a textual justification – which mostly you don’t, since over the course of most of Christian history, most Christians were illiterate, like most other people.
I didn't equate the VotS with "Render...," and I wouldn't. Since I don't see the VotS as a big deal anyway, except when it's used by Islamophobes and Islamists propagandistically, it makes no sense to suggest that my making such a comparison would impugn anyone or anything. That notion derives strictly from your assumptions and feelings about the VotS, and I've explained at length why I consider them ill-founded.
Third, I brought up the Pornocracy to make the same point that the Catholic Church itself made when it gave its own "dark" designation to the period.
Fourth, my grandfather was a minister, my grandmother the daughter of a minister, my father and stepmother still attend the church my grandfather founded, and, though I'm not a member of the congregation, I don't like anyone "impugning" anyone's religion, and I don't like people accusing me of doing it, especially without a much better reason than you've given. I have frequently defended Christians of all types against what I consider to be thoughtless and unfair criticism, but I'm not sorry if you have trouble dealing with my own beliefs and with honest efforts to treat Muslims with the same respect that I would expect for my parents, myself, or you.
That in itself is an example of impugning christianity.
That in itself is an example of "heads, I win, tails you lose." You've already defined making a counterargument as impermissible.
And Jesus Christ was not the "founder" of Christianity. Christianity, like Islam, is defined historically by what people have done with it - a long and mixed record. Observing it dispassionately is not impugning it. You're free to argue that the beliefs were misinterpreted or misapplied. As are Muslims and others in regard to Islam.
@ Sully:
The Pornocracy is a name given by historians - originated by 19th C German protestant theologians - to a period in the 10th Century known as the saeculum obscurum to church historians - also called the "nadir of the Papacy."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornocracy
I have no idea why my mentioning "render unto Caesar" constitutes "impugning" Christianity to you. Gary Cooper playing Sgt. York found it very inspirational when he finally got over his Christian pacifism and decided to go off to World War I, kill lots of Germans, and become what I believe was America's greatest war hero to that point or at least of WWI. It's commonly invoked in discussions of the limits of emulation of Christ, both in martial contexts and in the context of adjusting the prevailing laws and customs of society - for instance, why Catholic politicians can enforce laws that contravene church teachings, or why Christians can pay taxes to a government doing things that they believe immoral.
There's no debate whatsoever if you refuse even to make an argument. If you insist that it's so obvious, it should be easy for you to give an example of a statement, comment, or post of mine that in your opinion impugns Christianity.
Actually, come to think of it, for those seeking to justify the prurient reading, Spellberg provides some basis at least for thinking the bare facts may be true. Pointing out that the child bride tradition was emphasized by a certain faction doesn't place its factual basis in doubt. The material that does so in the wiki entry is attributed to other scholars.
@ narciso:
The material in the wiki quote sourced to her was background material not particularly favorable to either "side" in some theoretical controversy. You could remove it and it wouldn't affect the main point. It confirmed that the youth of the child bride was confirmed in early Islamic historical accounts. Since she apparently is a legitimate expert on the material, I don't see how her opinions on other matters - whether a novel was defamatory and provocative - has any bearing on her ability to summarize an aspect of the background of the story. This seems to be how you work on almost everything: It's argumentum ad hominem of the worst kind. Apparently, the to you questionable behavior of one individual among several contributing to an explanation is somehow supposed to make us conclude that those imputing a prurient, pedophilic content to the marriage should be taken seriously.
And you still haven't explained where someone "impugned" Christianity.
@ narciso:
"Impugn"? - please provide an example of Christianity being impugned on this blog, assuming that's what you're referring to, so I can have some idea what you're talking about.
Anyway, Z asked what was up with Aisha. I provided an explanatory link from Wikipedia. Why is that a problem?
The issue of Aisha's age at the time she was married to Muhammad has been of interest since the earliest days of Islam.[3] Early Muslims regarded Aisha's youth as demonstrating her virginity and, therefore, her suitability as a bride of Muhammad.[3] During modern times, however, critics of Islam have taken up the issue, regarding it as reflecting poorly on Muhammad's character.
References to Aisha's age by early historians are frequent.[3] According to Spellberg, historians who supported the Abbasid Caliphate against Shi'a claims considered Aisha's youth, and therefore her purity, to be of paramount importance. They thus specifically emphasized it, implying that as Muhammad's only virgin wife, Aisha was divinely intended for him, and therefore the most credible regarding the debate over the succession to Muhammad.[3]
Child marriages such as this were relatively common in Bedouin societies at the time, and remain common in some modern societies worldwide.[20] American scholar Colin Turner suggests that such marriages were not seen as improper in historical context, and that individuals in such societies matured at an earlier age than in the modern times.[20] In modern times, however, the issue of Muhammad marrying and having sexual relations with a child so young has been used to criticize him, especially in societies where child sexual abuse and related issues are considered serious crimes.[20]
However many Islamic scholars such as Maulana Muhammad Ali have challenged the belief that Aisha was aged 6 or 9 years old. He stated that:
A great misconception prevails as to the age at which Aisha was taken in marriage by the Prophet. Ibn Sa‘d has stated in the Tabaqat that when Abu Bakr [father of Aisha] was approached on behalf of the Holy Prophet, he replied that the girl had already been betrothed to Jubair, and that he would have to settle the matter first with him. This shows that Aisha must have been approaching majority at the time. Again, the Isaba, speaking of the Prophet’s daughter Fatima, says that she was born five years before the Call and was about five years older than Aisha. This shows that Aisha must have been about ten years at the time of her betrothal to the Prophet, and not six years as she is generally supposed to be. This is further borne out by the fact that Aisha herself is reported to have stated that when the chapter [of the Holy Quran] entitled The Moon, the fifty-fourth chapter, was revealed, she was a girl playing about and remembered certain verses then revealed. Now the fifty-fourth chapter was undoubtedly revealed before the sixth year of the Call. All these considerations point to but one conclusion, viz., that Aisha could not have been less than ten years of age at the time of her nikah, which was virtually only a betrothal. And there is one report in the Tabaqat that Aisha was nine years of age at the time of nikah. Again it is a fact admitted on all hands that the nikah of Aisha took place in the tenth year of the Call in the month of Shawwal, while there is also preponderance of evidence as to the consummation of her marriage taking place in the second year of Hijra in the same month, which shows that full five years had elapsed between the nikah and the consummation. Hence there is not the least doubt that Aisha was at least nine or ten years of age at the time of betrothal, and fourteen or fifteen years at the time of marriage.[21][22]
@ Rex Caruthers:
If I'm one of those evil neo-cons, LPC is part of my extended political clan. Therefore, his alleged crimes don't stink to me like the crimes of members of the Hatfield Islamist clan.
@ Rex Caruthers:
I care more about my dog than your dog. I care more about my kid than your kid. I care more about my city than your city. I care more about people with whom I identify than about people with whom I don't identify. Innocents killed incidental to my military operations are regrettable, but the other guy's fault. Innocents killed incidental to the other guy's military operations are criminal outrages. In Christianity, Jesus Christ symbolizes universal moral imagination - which is why he had to die.
Israelis and friends of Israel are in an eternal and amply justified state of outrage over Munich, among other atrocities. Palestinians and their friends are in an eternal and amply justified state of outrage over this, that, or the other. Even putting those two thoughts together under contextually implied equivalence will make you an enemy to both camps.
Closely related:
The philosopher ceases to be a philosopher at the moment at which the "subjective certainty" of a solution becomes stronger than his awareness of the problematic character of that solution. At that moment the sectarian is born.
don’t you get tired of excusing butchers for one reason of another
You first. Regardless of the LPC's actual direct involvement with the airliner attack - he was convicted, after all - he is held responsible for a number of crimes, and, according to Wikipedia anyway, about to stand trial again.
@ Rex Caruthers:
Consistency is the hobgoblin of uncommitted minds. The extension of moral imagination beyond oneself, one's family, one's tribe, community, one's nation, one's people, one's alliance leads to immobilization, pacifism, self-sacrifice, an excuse for every criminal and a criminal for every excuse. It's no way to run a railroad.
This awaiting Moderation feature is a pain in my ASS.
Well, I could let the threads get littered with links to Anne Hathaway Nude! and Discount Adderall! Or require registration and log in in order to comment, or one of those "re-produce the weirded letters" routines. Could probably be instituted as a first-time only thing.
Or next time you put up a comment with multiple links, you could break it up into pieces. Or learn how to do a text-link.
There is no one in this discussion who’s angel count has changed by more than one or two percent in the months we’ve been having it.
I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean other than that you see no purpose to this conversation. In other words, just as I said: You're not interested in a serious discussion of the topic.
Meanwhile this thread started as a rather harsh discussion of the position of a woman who knows more about Islam in practice than anyone here will ever know.
According to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, that's what opens minds - "honest, frank dialogue" even if it leaves the other person desperately weeping, on the verge of some kind of psychological break.
Sure she’s bitter; and it’s no surprise she’s immoderate. Having someone cut off parts of one’s anatomy and beat one probably tends to have that effect.
But that doesn’t mean she isn’t right.
Good job sticking up for Ayaan Hirsi Ali's right to be whatever she is. Since, however, no one has declared it impossible for her to be right, or even declared her an inherently untrustworthy witness, it still doesn't rise to the level of an argument or a contention - or justify "bitter" and "immoderate" behavior by you.
@ George Jochnowitz:
That's horrific about the woman in Iran. I hope she's spared, and wish everyone luck in stopping it. If it helps reign in and weaken the fundamentalists, great.
Is the woman about to be stoned in Iran the only person in the world today under threat of horrible death? Or is she of interest to you strictly because she's under threat by a regime that hates Israel?
@ Sully:
How can you look at the last five hundred years and declare Islam the "world conquering ideology"? It's incredibly myopic.
You may not be "soothed" by the analysis at the link, but the fact that you would compare a 1400-year-old book and elaborate historical tradition with MEIN KAMPF already establishes that you lack any sense of proportion.
Sura 5:33 is offered in the context of a re-telling of Biblical history and a glorification of that same God (aka Yahweh) who at several happy points in the Old Testament is said to have ordered the destruction of enemies down to last child, although occasionally the women and children are spared for mere slavery. As the Muslim analyst points out, lest there be any confusion that the subject is historical and exemplary, not instructional or juridical, Islamic societies don't practice crucifixion or radical dismemberment as described in the passage.
However, like George and Zoltan, you apparently have been schooled to see what it pleases you to see. George writes, "As for the historical context, such sentences have been carried out in our own time." I believe that statement is false. Can anyone point to where "crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides" is or has been carried out in Islamic societies, or even by the most extreme nutjob fundamentalists?
Stoning for adultery or dismembering thieves is incredibly repugnant - but it's not the same thing, and also doesn't have anything to do with "world conquering." There are many other things done in the name of Allah that are repugnant. As there are and have been things done in the name of God, freedom, and profit that are also incredibly repugnant.
Did you ever look up a decent interpretation of the "Verse of the Sword," or are you still going by the Bin Laden/Geller reading?
Almost eight centuries of occupation of the Ilberian peninsula, for the first three it was ok, Theodoric had run a bad outfit, for Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, went all Quellist and said ‘That far enough’ Wiping away Khaybar and Yathrib, building the Dome of the Rock on a fable, the conquering of Byzantium, the Mogul empire, the Wahhabi attack on the Raj including Viceroy Mayo, just some details on the other end
of the ledger
Just to be clear, this means what? Muslims aren't allowed to have empires, but the Brits had an eternal claim on India and environs? Muslims aren't allowed to build mosques inspired by "fables," but the "holy sites" of the Jews and Christians are, what, built on truth?
I don't think it's the West's "fault" for having a technologically superior and more dynamic civilization for the last two or three hundred years. I don't think the West intentionally destroyed the bases of Eastern and Southern economy and society. Mostly, the West was just making deals with whatever "legal" sovereigns and owners, and then protecting the rights of the buyers. It just so happened that pre-existing economic, social, and political structures were wiped out. Partly because there were a lot more Turks, Arabs, South Asians, Africans, Chinese, et al, than there were, say, Native Americans, the inevitable and inexorable process tended to involve colonization and expropriation rather than near-total eradication of indigenous populations, but that doesn't mean it wasn't frequently immensely destructive and brutal - both coming and going.
If the roles had been reversed, if the critical elements had come together (or could have come together) somewhere else, then it might have been just as bad or worse for the Europeans and for any and all other losers of the historical lottery. The West invented a lot, but it didn't invent conquest, genocide, enslavement, or exploitation. Or hypocrisy. All the same, if problems today seem intractable and the psychology of our enemies seems incomprehensible, it may have something to do with a faulty analytical approach. That the simplistic narrative we impose instead happens to be self-flattering in the extreme should make us suspicious of our own willingness to stand by it despite its lack of explanatory power.
@ narciso:
A 2,000 year old religion that could be "torn down" by a bestsellerist and a "Seminar" mustn't have been built very well. Or are you comparing apples and celestial mechanics?
If Hirsi Ali were merely "honest about her experience," hardly anyone would care except her therapist and social workers. She is a political figure proposing a political project, offering her personal story as politically emblematic, and is subject to criticism on that basis. What she proposes and how she proposes it are as valid subjects of discussion as the information/impressions she has to offer. Why is this not obvious to you?
Again, a very naive/fundamentalist-literalist statement. It all depends on what the word "means" means, to paraphrase our former Commander-in-Chief. You'll have to excuse me if I don't trust your interpretation of the function of the Sura in context(s), and don't have the time right now to play amateur Imam myself.
You point to incidents of stoning and honor killing. Fine. They are dramatic indictments of failures in some Islamic societies. A bigot turns them into an indictment of all of Islam, of all Muslims. An anti-American looks at our prison system and sees institutionalized rape utilized as social control, among other ills and barbarisms. Why would that anti-American be any less justified in characterizing us all as accomplices in barbarism, and our supposed love of freedom and respect for the individual a sham? This is well before we get to foreign policy, global economics, and the American way of war - including our direct and long-standing political and economic implication in financing the globaly Wahhabicization of Islam, ever since FDR's deal with the House of Saud - bipartisan policy for two generations, quite long enough to deform (or re-deform) the ideological development of the Islamic world.
You can tell yourself that Islam is evil, ideological, and myopic, and we're terrific and free of self-serving presumptions. Or you can acknowledge that we also operate by "faith" and selective perception. It's the human condition. That doesn't free "them" of responsibility, but neither does it free us of co-responsibility.
This review repeats what I hear was a hatchet job from Kristoff, a shining example of a NYTimes mealy mouthed liberal.
Why don't read the review for yourself instead of depending on what you hear from others? It's linked in the very first sentence.
You are a perfect example, Z, of what's wrong with how AHA goes about her business - in this book and while publicizing it, the subject of my review. That she had something nice to say about a Muslim in Infidel is irrelevant - or more evidence that her approach is incoherent and opportunistic. You choose not to understand the difference between criticizing "aspects" of a culture and indulging in bigotry. This thing you and AHA call "Islam" exists in your mind, and I suppose in the web sites that massage your assumptions. It shouldn't be so difficult for you to perform the intellectual operation of distinguishing between particulars and category, but apparently it feels too good to hate from a position of imaginary total and unquestionable superiority.
She understands that blind faith is a force that makes smart people stupid and good people bad.
And has turned herself into an object lesson in that problem.
The game of "find-a-scary-Sura" is beneath you, George. It's a game for inflexibly naive fundamentalists: Islamophobia is Islamism. Texts exist in context - immediate and intermediate verbal context, as well as cultural and historical context.
@ Rex Caruthers:
Hirsi Ali is uniquely qualified by her background, experience, and intelligence to mediate, to expand understanding, and also to speak up for real victims and against real dangers. Instead, she instigates, provokes, spreads misunderstanding and suspicion, encourages the worst impulses in her audiences, and gives people like strangelet every good reason to dismiss her as a toxic evil Islamophobe. For further discussion, go back to everything I've written on this subject over the last month or two.
Sully wrote:
If, where discussing the conduct of war, the Qur'an didn't justifying lying to enemy infidels, then Qur'an would be a stupid book. The failure to employ deception in war would be extremely self-destructive. "All warfare is based on deception," said Sun-Tzu. "Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate." He made good sense.
Christians at war, at least the Christians who hope to win battles, don't hesitate to employ deception either.
As a matter of fact, he didn't. He strove to spread the area under the political control of Muslims by use of arms. As have Christians and others in similar circumstances. The actual spreading of any faith cannot occur "by the sword," as Muhammad himself explicitly and famously noted ("no compulsion in religion"). This isn't a trivial or sophistical point: It's been something that people have fought and died for, and is one of the most basic founding principles of the United States: Conversion to or belief in any set of religious or moral principles must be freely adopted or is inauthentic and of no moral or spiritual value.
I believe that qualifies as definitional. As such it is the deepest, most essential question for Muslims, and not something that some clumsy attempt to translate one or another verse or act in an inappropriate context could possibly satisfy. That would be the most primitive and naive form of "emulation," and a form of vanity and error that exists in all religious traditions: As though sitting beneath a tree makes you a good Buddhist or committing suicide would be emulating Christ. (There was a sect of Christians who believed that - unsurprisingly, they died out.)
You're safe.
You may be getting somewhere with that. The definition of a word is another word, and all is not to be said at one go. Helping Christians, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, and others to understand that all statements are always already interpretations, and that taken as eternal objects independent of context they cease to be statements, cease to have any meaning as statements, is a project that none of us can long avoid joining.
Sully wrote:
I'm going to assume you're joking, in poor taste. The exhibition of hypocrisy would almost be amusing: Someone who takes a conventional reading of a Bible verse or the use of a descriptive historical term as "impugning" the religion that he prefers to defend, but doesn't see anything questionable about relentlessly attacking in the vilest way the entirety of someone else's religious and cultural tradition.
@ narciso:
I don't understand most of that. I think you're referring to the status of JC. He didn't "found" Christianity. At least that's not how he's treated within the Christian tradition. He wasn't a Christian, he WAS Jesus Christ. Christ and many early Christians seemed to consider themselves to be Jews. The religion as we know it was the work of human beings, and how it came together, including its relationship to Judaism, is a complex and very human tale. Muhammad corresponds more closely to the authors of the gospels or to the Old Testament prophets, with the added dimension that he's treated as a figure worthy of emulation.
Sully wrote:
First of all, you still haven't responded to the explication of the VotS above.
Second, I brought up "Render unto Caesar" as an illustration as follows:
I didn't equate the VotS with "Render...," and I wouldn't. Since I don't see the VotS as a big deal anyway, except when it's used by Islamophobes and Islamists propagandistically, it makes no sense to suggest that my making such a comparison would impugn anyone or anything. That notion derives strictly from your assumptions and feelings about the VotS, and I've explained at length why I consider them ill-founded.
Third, I brought up the Pornocracy to make the same point that the Catholic Church itself made when it gave its own "dark" designation to the period.
Fourth, my grandfather was a minister, my grandmother the daughter of a minister, my father and stepmother still attend the church my grandfather founded, and, though I'm not a member of the congregation, I don't like anyone "impugning" anyone's religion, and I don't like people accusing me of doing it, especially without a much better reason than you've given. I have frequently defended Christians of all types against what I consider to be thoughtless and unfair criticism, but I'm not sorry if you have trouble dealing with my own beliefs and with honest efforts to treat Muslims with the same respect that I would expect for my parents, myself, or you.
Sully wrote:
That in itself is an example of "heads, I win, tails you lose." You've already defined making a counterargument as impermissible.
And Jesus Christ was not the "founder" of Christianity. Christianity, like Islam, is defined historically by what people have done with it - a long and mixed record. Observing it dispassionately is not impugning it. You're free to argue that the beliefs were misinterpreted or misapplied. As are Muslims and others in regard to Islam.
@ Sully:
The Pornocracy is a name given by historians - originated by 19th C German protestant theologians - to a period in the 10th Century known as the saeculum obscurum to church historians - also called the "nadir of the Papacy."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornocracy
I have no idea why my mentioning "render unto Caesar" constitutes "impugning" Christianity to you. Gary Cooper playing Sgt. York found it very inspirational when he finally got over his Christian pacifism and decided to go off to World War I, kill lots of Germans, and become what I believe was America's greatest war hero to that point or at least of WWI. It's commonly invoked in discussions of the limits of emulation of Christ, both in martial contexts and in the context of adjusting the prevailing laws and customs of society - for instance, why Catholic politicians can enforce laws that contravene church teachings, or why Christians can pay taxes to a government doing things that they believe immoral.
@ Sully:
@ narciso:
There's no debate whatsoever if you refuse even to make an argument. If you insist that it's so obvious, it should be easy for you to give an example of a statement, comment, or post of mine that in your opinion impugns Christianity.
The "left" is "Judeo-Christian civilization" just as much as the "right" is. Exactly as much.
@ narciso:
Still have no idea why you think any of that is or could be relevant to this discussion.
Actually, come to think of it, for those seeking to justify the prurient reading, Spellberg provides some basis at least for thinking the bare facts may be true. Pointing out that the child bride tradition was emphasized by a certain faction doesn't place its factual basis in doubt. The material that does so in the wiki entry is attributed to other scholars.
@ narciso:
The material in the wiki quote sourced to her was background material not particularly favorable to either "side" in some theoretical controversy. You could remove it and it wouldn't affect the main point. It confirmed that the youth of the child bride was confirmed in early Islamic historical accounts. Since she apparently is a legitimate expert on the material, I don't see how her opinions on other matters - whether a novel was defamatory and provocative - has any bearing on her ability to summarize an aspect of the background of the story. This seems to be how you work on almost everything: It's argumentum ad hominem of the worst kind. Apparently, the to you questionable behavior of one individual among several contributing to an explanation is somehow supposed to make us conclude that those imputing a prurient, pedophilic content to the marriage should be taken seriously.
And you still haven't explained where someone "impugned" Christianity.
@ narciso:
Is this stuff on Spellberg supposed to have something to do with the subject of this thread, or with answering Zoltan's question?
So what?
@ narciso:
"Impugn"? - please provide an example of Christianity being impugned on this blog, assuming that's what you're referring to, so I can have some idea what you're talking about.
Anyway, Z asked what was up with Aisha. I provided an explanatory link from Wikipedia. Why is that a problem?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisha#Age_at_marriage
@ strangelet:
@ Zoltan Newberry:
Hey now, kids - I have to go away for a few hours. Please do uncle tsar a favor and play nice while I'm away.
@ Rex Caruthers:
If I'm one of those evil neo-cons, LPC is part of my extended political clan. Therefore, his alleged crimes don't stink to me like the crimes of members of the
HatfieldIslamist clan.@ Rex Caruthers:
I care more about my dog than your dog. I care more about my kid than your kid. I care more about my city than your city. I care more about people with whom I identify than about people with whom I don't identify. Innocents killed incidental to my military operations are regrettable, but the other guy's fault. Innocents killed incidental to the other guy's military operations are criminal outrages. In Christianity, Jesus Christ symbolizes universal moral imagination - which is why he had to die.
Israelis and friends of Israel are in an eternal and amply justified state of outrage over Munich, among other atrocities. Palestinians and their friends are in an eternal and amply justified state of outrage over this, that, or the other. Even putting those two thoughts together under contextually implied equivalence will make you an enemy to both camps.
Closely related:
--Leo Strauss
narciso wrote:
You first. Regardless of the LPC's actual direct involvement with the airliner attack - he was convicted, after all - he is held responsible for a number of crimes, and, according to Wikipedia anyway, about to stand trial again.
Not sure what you mean by "paraphrase."
@ Rex Caruthers:
Consistency is the hobgoblin of uncommitted minds. The extension of moral imagination beyond oneself, one's family, one's tribe, community, one's nation, one's people, one's alliance leads to immobilization, pacifism, self-sacrifice, an excuse for every criminal and a criminal for every excuse. It's no way to run a railroad.
Rex Caruthers wrote:
Well, I could let the threads get littered with links to Anne Hathaway Nude! and Discount Adderall! Or require registration and log in in order to comment, or one of those "re-produce the weirded letters" routines. Could probably be instituted as a first-time only thing.
Or next time you put up a comment with multiple links, you could break it up into pieces. Or learn how to do a text-link.
Sully wrote:
I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean other than that you see no purpose to this conversation. In other words, just as I said: You're not interested in a serious discussion of the topic.
According to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, that's what opens minds - "honest, frank dialogue" even if it leaves the other person desperately weeping, on the verge of some kind of psychological break.
Good job sticking up for Ayaan Hirsi Ali's right to be whatever she is. Since, however, no one has declared it impossible for her to be right, or even declared her an inherently untrustworthy witness, it still doesn't rise to the level of an argument or a contention - or justify "bitter" and "immoderate" behavior by you.
@ Sully:
It seems to me that you're either not interested in a serious discussion on this topic, or you're not able to conduct one.
@ George Jochnowitz:
That's horrific about the woman in Iran. I hope she's spared, and wish everyone luck in stopping it. If it helps reign in and weaken the fundamentalists, great.
Is the woman about to be stoned in Iran the only person in the world today under threat of horrible death? Or is she of interest to you strictly because she's under threat by a regime that hates Israel?
@ Sully:
How can you look at the last five hundred years and declare Islam the "world conquering ideology"? It's incredibly myopic.
You may not be "soothed" by the analysis at the link, but the fact that you would compare a 1400-year-old book and elaborate historical tradition with MEIN KAMPF already establishes that you lack any sense of proportion.
Sura 5:33 is offered in the context of a re-telling of Biblical history and a glorification of that same God (aka Yahweh) who at several happy points in the Old Testament is said to have ordered the destruction of enemies down to last child, although occasionally the women and children are spared for mere slavery. As the Muslim analyst points out, lest there be any confusion that the subject is historical and exemplary, not instructional or juridical, Islamic societies don't practice crucifixion or radical dismemberment as described in the passage.
However, like George and Zoltan, you apparently have been schooled to see what it pleases you to see. George writes, "As for the historical context, such sentences have been carried out in our own time." I believe that statement is false. Can anyone point to where "crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides" is or has been carried out in Islamic societies, or even by the most extreme nutjob fundamentalists?
Stoning for adultery or dismembering thieves is incredibly repugnant - but it's not the same thing, and also doesn't have anything to do with "world conquering." There are many other things done in the name of Allah that are repugnant. As there are and have been things done in the name of God, freedom, and profit that are also incredibly repugnant.
Did you ever look up a decent interpretation of the "Verse of the Sword," or are you still going by the Bin Laden/Geller reading?
narciso wrote:
Just to be clear, this means what? Muslims aren't allowed to have empires, but the Brits had an eternal claim on India and environs? Muslims aren't allowed to build mosques inspired by "fables," but the "holy sites" of the Jews and Christians are, what, built on truth?
I don't think it's the West's "fault" for having a technologically superior and more dynamic civilization for the last two or three hundred years. I don't think the West intentionally destroyed the bases of Eastern and Southern economy and society. Mostly, the West was just making deals with whatever "legal" sovereigns and owners, and then protecting the rights of the buyers. It just so happened that pre-existing economic, social, and political structures were wiped out. Partly because there were a lot more Turks, Arabs, South Asians, Africans, Chinese, et al, than there were, say, Native Americans, the inevitable and inexorable process tended to involve colonization and expropriation rather than near-total eradication of indigenous populations, but that doesn't mean it wasn't frequently immensely destructive and brutal - both coming and going.
If the roles had been reversed, if the critical elements had come together (or could have come together) somewhere else, then it might have been just as bad or worse for the Europeans and for any and all other losers of the historical lottery. The West invented a lot, but it didn't invent conquest, genocide, enslavement, or exploitation. Or hypocrisy. All the same, if problems today seem intractable and the psychology of our enemies seems incomprehensible, it may have something to do with a faulty analytical approach. That the simplistic narrative we impose instead happens to be self-flattering in the extreme should make us suspicious of our own willingness to stand by it despite its lack of explanatory power.
@ Sully:
Don't have enough time to put my own gloss on this.
For now, try http://muslimvilla.smfforfree.com/index.php?topic=239.0
@ narciso:
A 2,000 year old religion that could be "torn down" by a bestsellerist and a "Seminar" mustn't have been built very well. Or are you comparing apples and celestial mechanics?
If Hirsi Ali were merely "honest about her experience," hardly anyone would care except her therapist and social workers. She is a political figure proposing a political project, offering her personal story as politically emblematic, and is subject to criticism on that basis. What she proposes and how she proposes it are as valid subjects of discussion as the information/impressions she has to offer. Why is this not obvious to you?
Again, a very naive/fundamentalist-literalist statement. It all depends on what the word "means" means, to paraphrase our former Commander-in-Chief. You'll have to excuse me if I don't trust your interpretation of the function of the Sura in context(s), and don't have the time right now to play amateur Imam myself.
You point to incidents of stoning and honor killing. Fine. They are dramatic indictments of failures in some Islamic societies. A bigot turns them into an indictment of all of Islam, of all Muslims. An anti-American looks at our prison system and sees institutionalized rape utilized as social control, among other ills and barbarisms. Why would that anti-American be any less justified in characterizing us all as accomplices in barbarism, and our supposed love of freedom and respect for the individual a sham? This is well before we get to foreign policy, global economics, and the American way of war - including our direct and long-standing political and economic implication in financing the globaly Wahhabicization of Islam, ever since FDR's deal with the House of Saud - bipartisan policy for two generations, quite long enough to deform (or re-deform) the ideological development of the Islamic world.
You can tell yourself that Islam is evil, ideological, and myopic, and we're terrific and free of self-serving presumptions. Or you can acknowledge that we also operate by "faith" and selective perception. It's the human condition. That doesn't free "them" of responsibility, but neither does it free us of co-responsibility.
Why don't read the review for yourself instead of depending on what you hear from others? It's linked in the very first sentence.
You are a perfect example, Z, of what's wrong with how AHA goes about her business - in this book and while publicizing it, the subject of my review. That she had something nice to say about a Muslim in Infidel is irrelevant - or more evidence that her approach is incoherent and opportunistic. You choose not to understand the difference between criticizing "aspects" of a culture and indulging in bigotry. This thing you and AHA call "Islam" exists in your mind, and I suppose in the web sites that massage your assumptions. It shouldn't be so difficult for you to perform the intellectual operation of distinguishing between particulars and category, but apparently it feels too good to hate from a position of imaginary total and unquestionable superiority.
strangelet wrote:
Not George's problem.
And has turned herself into an object lesson in that problem.
The game of "find-a-scary-Sura" is beneath you, George. It's a game for inflexibly naive fundamentalists: Islamophobia is Islamism. Texts exist in context - immediate and intermediate verbal context, as well as cultural and historical context.
@ Rex Caruthers:
Hirsi Ali is uniquely qualified by her background, experience, and intelligence to mediate, to expand understanding, and also to speak up for real victims and against real dangers. Instead, she instigates, provokes, spreads misunderstanding and suspicion, encourages the worst impulses in her audiences, and gives people like strangelet every good reason to dismiss her as a toxic evil Islamophobe. For further discussion, go back to everything I've written on this subject over the last month or two.