What is the future of Islam?

[samabudhi]

Originally Posted by Muhammad-Khalifa

In short- Many Muslims lack education (i can go into more detail, but i have no time right now). Why? extremists think they know everything- and therefore, stops influenced Muslims from becoming educated- they don't see what they are really doing to the religion's name.
On the other hand, you must Not forget, that the western media emphasises mainly on those Muslim extremists. Take my advise, dont be blinded by either- the extremists nor the media. Gain your own knowledge about Islam the old fashioned way, "BOOKS"!

Islam is still the fastest growing religion of the world. most of those converts are women.

Often, the leaders of such terror groups are radical Muslim clerics. Are these men not educated? How did they come to such a position then?
Books encourage theory, not practicality. This is how Islam comes across. Everyone says follow the Qu'ran, and yet there's noone who seems to do so. Where is the model Islamic society? Show us that Islam can be implemented successfully.

[kkawohl]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

Heck, where have you been the past few months? Is the Iraqi population not a nation that has learned to hate America most vehemently? Are you really saying that the Iraqi people will suddenly vote in a US-friendly administration and allow their hate to be bought off with oil?? We are far more likely stood on the the Iraqi-version of the same precipice as when the Shah of Iran fled that country in the 70's.

As for Chechnya - it was/is a Russian-controlled (and brutal) automony. The Chechnyans loved it so much that they blew up the Russian-appointed Chechnyan president last week. Did they show that on the news where you are?

My view of Iraq is where it will be 20 or more years from now. They now produce about 2 million barrels of oil per day. When that reaches 10, with the Iraqi people being the sole beneficiaries thereof, their views of the US will have changed. The main goal of the US is to eliminate an OPEC stranglehold on oil (which was Sadaam's intention) that could sink the world economy.

Chechnya is now supposedly completely under Russian rule. They will eventually receive autonomy for self-rule but will still be under Russian control.

Kurt

[kkawohl]

Originally Posted by samabudhi

Often, the leaders of such terror groups are radical Muslim clerics. Are these men not educated? How did they come to such a position then?
Books encourage theory, not practicality. This is how Islam comes across. Everyone says follow the Qu'ran, and yet there's noone who seems to do so. Where is the model Islamic society? Show us that Islam can be implemented successfully.

Radical Muslim clerics seek power & control by wanting Islam controlled governments. Their goal is to brain-wash the gullible by claiming that they are Allah's chosen ones to lead the people. Islam, Christianity and Judaism is still clinging to the antiquated beliefs of the Dark Ages. It is time to be realistic and rational. A model Islamic society is one that stays out of their government affairs completely.

Kurt

[kkawohl]

Originally Posted by Quahom1

This rage among the Arab people is not religiously based. It is something else, and religion seems to be the outlet for it.

Don't know, if democracy will take hold in that part of the world, as we now know it. But I hope.

That rage has been stoked mostly by radicals & religious extremists. Religious extremists are the most dangerous, they feed on gullibility. Understandably, the US is seen as the enemy now but if democracy takes hold in that region, that view will change.

Kurt

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by kkawohl

The main goal of the US is to eliminate an OPEC stranglehold on oil (which was Sadaam's intention) that could sink the world economy.

The problem was - as the Christian Right had been arguing for years - is that the supply of Saudi oil for 30% of US domestic needs was entirely unpredictable in the long-term, due to rampant fundamentalism there and a government that refused to acknowledge that it had a serious terrorist problem (blaming everything instead on supposed European worker alcohol running). Another major supplier was therefore a strategic necessity for hawkish US policy. So...all those thousands of Iraqi civilian dead (and US war dead) were killed just so that you could have cheap gas. I'm sure the Iraqi people will be eternally grateful for that.

[kkawohl]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

So...all those thousands of Iraqi civilian dead (and US war dead) were killed just so that you could have cheap gas. I'm sure the Iraqi people will be eternally grateful for that.

You obviously have been brainwashed with too much oil on your brain.

Why do you think that Americans get involved in world affairs and have their sons and daughters die for the causes and strife of other countries? I myself am German born and now live in the USA. Should I and the Germans hate Americans for occupying and killing Germans? The same is also applicable to the Japanese, South Koreans, Vietnamese, Yugoslavia and other countries.

The way that I see it now is that Americans will fight for and die for causes to stop the oppression of other peoples rights. The end results are democracy. Democracy for the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Palestine and ALL Arabs. I am not qualified to answer on the justification of the Palestinian rebellion against the Israeli occupation except to say that there is a need for rationality on both sides in order to solve that problem.

Sometimes force is required to counterbalance skewed forces that oppress and enslave their own people. President Bush and his cabinet have decided that the USA will use whatever it takes to eradicate al Queda and other terrorists. The only way that this can be accomplished is to have a dominant, permanent military presence in the Middle East; this will eventually bring peace and stability to that region.

Supremacy means greatest power or superiority which at the present time is applicable to the USA. In any society police power is sometimes required to quell violence that can be a detriment to, and spill over into other societies. Sometimes force is required to counterbalance skewed forces that oppress and enslave their own people. (not to implement our culture) The USA has been pushed into the job of acting as the police power for the world. What would the end result have been in Germany, Japan, Yugoslavia if the USA had not intervened?

Iraq shares borders with Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and the Persian Gulf which is convenient for USA naval forces. A new democratic government in Iraq will be the beginning of our efforts to reshape and bring peace to the Middle East.

American culture is composed from descendents of various countries who have fled oppression to seek freedom from oppression and have sought to share these values of freedom with others. The American Government is not regarded as being perfect by its people but it is one that the majority of Americans has chosen to live by. They regard it as being of their making and better than any other presently in existence. Americans, the majority, choose their elected officials, including the president to represent them and will replace them and him within four years if the peoples wishes are not abided by. This is our democracy.

[samabudhi]

Why do you think that Americans get involved in world affairs and have their sons and daughters die for the causes and strife of other countries?

Ultimately to look after their interests. Have you ever seen them intervine in a non-profitable crusade? Of course not. By profit I don't just mean money.
I don't think there's anything wrong with this for others, just for them and their conscience and their perception of how the world perceives them.

The USA has been pushed into the job of acting as the police power for the world. What would the end result have been in Germany, Japan, Yugoslavia if the USA had not intervened?

The USA came in the last moments of the great war and only after provocation. The Russians would have taken the cake. The Americans didn't want that so in they jumped. I'm sure Britain and Russia could have taken them buy themselves.
Japan was busy discussing a peace deal with Russia, but America couldn't wait. The A-bombs were completely unnecessary.
As far as I know about Yugoslavia, it was a UN effort. Now if America wasn't the biggest 'supporter' (I use this word hesitantly in light of recent events) to the UN, then someone else would take the position.
USA was not forced into attacking Iraq. They should have gone through the UN, but they were too impatient and power hungry for that. Going through the UN would not grant them the control they want.
Attacking Korea because of communism, the same with Vietnam. You know they still have sanctions against Cuba! What the hell for! Because they don't want to admit that they're wrong. Cuba has an excellent health system and high literacy despite sanctions from the most powerful country in the world.

Iraq shares borders with Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and the Persian Gulf which is convenient for USA naval forces. A new democratic government in Iraq will be the beginning of our efforts to reshape and bring peace to the Middle East.

You are very naive.

American culture is composed from descendents of various countries who have fled oppression to seek freedom from oppression and have sought to share these values of freedom with others. The American Government is not regarded as being perfect by its people but it is one that the majority of Americans has chosen to live by. They regard it as being of their making and better than any other presently in existence. Americans, the majority, choose their elected officials, including the president to represent them and will replace them and him within four years if the peoples wishes are not abided by. This is our democracy.

They call it the melting pot of the world. Why? Because people don't go to live in America and still consider themselves citizens of where-ever. They take on their new identity. Most people who fled to America did so ages ago anyway.

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by kkawohl

The way that I see it now is that Americans will fight for and die for causes to stop the oppression of other peoples rights.

It's all about resource grabbing - war always has been, always ever will be. The Iraq war was always about oil. Why do you have a hard time accepting that?

As for oppression - try reading something about the foeign policy of the USA. The USA has been happy install brutal dictators in other nations.

[kkawohl]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

It's all about resource grabbing - war always has been, always ever will be. The Iraq war was always about oil. Why do you have a hard time accepting that?

As for oppression - try reading something about the foeign policy of the USA. The USA has been happy install brutal dictators in other nations.

Facts are a matter of interpretation and can be misconstrued.

[samabudhi]

Originally Posted by kkawohl

Facts are a matter of interpretation and can be misconstrued.

So the question is, who has more of a neutral perspective: someone who fled to America who sees it as their salvation, or those living in other countries with less influence by America's government who have a bird's eye view of the situation.
Most people after the 19th century didn't go to America because of what it had, but because of what they were trying to escape of their own country.

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by kkawohl

Facts are a matter of interpretation and can be misconstrued.

Indeed - for example, the USA removed a democratic goverment in Chile and replaced it with the rather murderous General Pinochet. That is a fact. The misconstrued perception is trying to claim that this done for "freedom" - whatever that means (aside from a secular replacement for the word "God").

[bananabrain]

frankly, i think we're all being rather too absolute about imputing moral or immoral reasons. it is, in short, possible for war to take place for reasons that are MIXED - ie it is possible for a war to be at the same time a resource grab for oil, territory, ideology and to serve, but not exclusively, a set of moral purposes. the problem arises when people (as we are doing here) take a complex set of events and force it to fit their view of the world.

by this logic, anyone who dislikes duhbya and his cronies and maintains that the UN can solve tough problems through peacekeeping, resolutions and sanctions, or believes that controlling the moral high ground through inaction for fear of making things worse can find ample grounds for condemning the actions of the US, UK or just about anyone else, including france, russia and china, who are not without the motives imputed to the US and UK despite their diplomatic protestations.

similarly, anyone who dislikes dictators, fundamentalists, repression, torture, terrorism and the threat of WMD, or thinks that the benefits of democracy and secular capitalism are self-evidently preferable to any alternative can find ample grounds for excusing the actions of the coalition.

it all comes down to whether you think getting rid of saddam caused and will continue to cause more problems or not. we ourselves are not immune to accusations of hypocrisy and self-serving motives. in europe, people are basically scared of terrorism and their own muslim communities that have been oppressed and marginalised and somehow think that by following the example of the spanish, french and germans, they will somehow be less of a target than the US or UK. thus, it all comes down to a choice between making our own lives or the lives of the iraqis that everyone is so anxious to speak up for more dangerous and uncertain. call me naive, but i always thought we had put up with the status quo in the middle east for long enough because of the cold war - oooh, another european export. the only reason saddam wasn't removed in 1990 was because the syrians and turks would have quit the coalition. instead of which the kurds, shias and marsh arabs got murdered by saddam.

there is no simple answer, whether you claim that the war was for oil or freedom. doing so demeans and cheapens the lives of our soldiers and the iraqi people.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[mrgnash]

Being a traditionalist, I do not see the 'solution' to the problems which beset Islam at present being solved by reforming it 'from below' (i.e introducing 'Western' or 'liberal' ideas and values, or substiting empirical science for revealed truth). Someone asked what the model Islamic society is, try Medieval Medina, or Mecca. They are the model Islamic societies in the same way that Mohammed is the model for the Islamic follower; these societies granted freedom to women, and education for tha masses (particularly in the field of mathematics) centuries before these ideas ever surfaced in the West (and when they did surface it was by way of revolution).

It is these ideals, not the ideals of the West - which are after all, largely secular in nature - that modern Muslims need to live up to. What they, and everyone else, needs to understand is that the atrocities perpetrated by extremists (it would be an error to call them fundamentalists, since they ignore the fundamental tenets of Islam), such as suicide bombings, are an betrayal of the essential content of the Islamic tradition, and of the literal word of the Quran itself, which both forbids that any weapon which destroys or mutilates the human face (for it is an image of God), and moreover dictates that Allah considers the man who murders one person, to have murdered all of mankind. According to the Quran and Hadith literature, one may only make war against enemy COMBATANTS (never innocents), and must cease at the slightest indication of enemy capitulation. It is only when the enemy makes war, and refuses to acknowledge defeat that the attack can be pressed. Islam IS (in its Orthodox form) a religion of peace, but it does not rely the realities of human life - which is why Mohammed often said that 'marriage is half the religion' - and conflict is one of those realities. What the revelations in the Quran do is provide prescriptions, in the first instance, to prevent war; but if war is unavoidable, it provides prescriptions to minimise bloodshed. Both of these are utterly ignored by the 'Islamic' terrorists.

The thing about morals/values/ethics as they come down through tradition, is that those who ostensibly follow that tradition can be seen as 'betraying' these rules. To replace this with rationalism, secularism or humanism (which is rarely just a residual leftover of religious values mixed with 'current' popular opinion on what is 'right' anyway) is folly when one considers that one can perpetrate the most vile of crimes without in any way contradicting (except in the case of humanism, but its hold is tenuous due to its ephemeral nature) the content of these ideologies. It was a cold, hard and rationalistic regime that in the last century perpetrated the most horrifyingly ruthless genocide the world has ever witnessed; I refer of course to the Nazis. Their 'final solution' was calculated, logical and automated in such a way that took no account of the value of human life, for in Darwinian or 'scientific' terms human life is merely accidental, and injuctions against taking it are merely ephiphenomenal human constructs that can be done away with.

I would not propose that any religion acquiesce to the pathological ideologies that hold sway in the modern world, rather it is their job to resist them or become either wholly innefectual or willing accomplices to the degeneration of this Yuga (the Kali Yuga no less). I cannot understand the mind of these terrorists, but perhaps they think that what they are doing amounts to a resistance, but really they are just part of the disease - and a particularly virulent strain at that - for 'Jihad' is not about waging a war in physical terms, it is abous safeguarding Orthodoxy and overcoming pesonal weakness and vice; 'hate' being one of the chief weaknesses that every follower of every faith must overcome. One Buddhist monk achieving enlightenment, one Christian who 'sees the light', one Muslim that performs a charitable act in the name of Allah, performs a service for humanity far greater than any polemecist or liberal theologian - for they provide a beacon, or a pillar by which the rest of humanity are raised with them. It is a tragic lack of understanding which leads some to think that the encroachment of materialism can be halted through violent means. The future of Islam is largely uncertain, but as a revealed religion governed by providence it cannot fail before its allotted time, so there will always remain the devoted, the faithful and the wise and like all religions that retain efficacy, it will continue to produce saints - which is the most important criterion for any tradition.

[samabudhi]

A most insightful post mrgnash. Welcome to the forum.

it will continue to produce saints - which is the most important criterion for any tradition.

Yes, Saints. So where are they? The only clerics I ever hear about are the ones with barbarians toting guns around them as their egos' visibly spiral in on themselves.

Who is the Dalai Lama of the Muslim world?

[mrgnash]

Originally Posted by samabudhi

A most insightful post mrgnash. Welcome to the forum.


Yes, Saints. So where are they? The only clerics I ever hear about are the ones with barbarians toting guns around them as their egos' visibly spiral in on themselves.

Who is the Dalai Lama of the Muslim world?

Thanks samabudhi

In answer to your question I'd probably suggest Shaikh Ahmad al-Alawi. But the number of bona fide saints in all religions has declined in recent times, although I would certainly say that the Dalai Lama and a few others remain resplendent examples of sainthood. If anyone wishes to know more about Ahmad al-Alawi, I recommend Martin Lings' book 'A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century : Shaikh Ahmad al-Alawi : His Spiritual Heritage and Legacy'.