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I suggest this read on understanding Radical Islam from Free Muslims Against Terrorism
I might also suggest this article on How to Beat the Global Islamist Insurgency
The True Aims of China’s Nuclear Buildup
7 hours ago
Sunday, May 01, 2005
Since We're Talking About Religion Vs. Faith...
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The Akyol article highlights the sources of Radical Islam, but I question some of the "Islam scholars" he quotes.
Mavenette...I'm not familiar with how "scholars" are selected. Is there anyway to tell or rank these folks? I'm always confused about who is a "scholar" and who is just some educated guy who knows Islam.
I think anyone can be called a scholar. Call em the strip club scholar lol.
The core of the debate within Islam is, what exactly is "Jihad" supposted to mean? Historically it has been used:
1) By the Turks as an excuse for conquest.
2) By the Sultanates, esp. Sal ad Din, as a battle cry to reconquer lands lost to the Crusaders.
3) By Muslims at various points in history when fighting other Muslims, each side claiming the other to be apostates and rebels against Allah.
4) By Saudiesque Arabs in a fight for freedom against the Turks.
5) By Palestinians against the Israeli uprising which took their land.
6) By Mujaheddin in Afghanistan against the U.S.S.R., with U.S. help.
7) By terrorists against the U.S. for failing to help the Palestinians against Israel the way we did the Mujaheddin against the Soviets.
8) By certain politically correct revisionists in the western world as an allegory for "internal personal struggle against one's own darker nature", rather than anything violent or external.
9) By most Ulama throughout Muslim history as an agenda to convert the entire world to Islam, either through violent conquest, or through converstion, or just patiently saturating target populations with pro-Muslim propaganda. Not quite "convert or die" but rather, "convert or be a Dhimmi". (Dhimmi is a second-class citizen in a Muslim country who lives under certain restrictions due to being non-Muslim.)
Now, which user of the "Jihad" keyword, should be believed? I think it's simple: Jihad means whatever it does by whatever people who use it at the time. If you're talking to a Qu'ranic scholar, when he talks about Jihad, simply know that what he really means is a long-term process to convert the entire world to his religion, preferably in a non-violent way, but never shrinking from violence if that's what it takes.
I've got a post up on a very similar subject. How the ACLU favors Islam, and hates Christianity.
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