this is some kind of deadlock. I say the quran and the hadith call for aggressive action against non-believers, to which you reply that not all muslims kill. Obviously both are true. to repeat myself for the n-th time: i am not talking about all muslims, i am talking about the teachings of islam
There's no deadlock -- you're not contradicting me, you're contradiciting yourself. I'm not denying that there are violent verses in the Quran. There are all sorts of verses. But you seem unable to grasp the very simple implications of this, viz. that what is in the Quran is not necessarily dictating the actions of Muslims in either direction! Islam might be a hateful religion or it might not. I personally think that's a statement that is so vague as to be approaching meaninglessness. There is little "hateful" in Sufism, for example, or in the Islam of the Indian subcontinent (at least traditionally, excepting the relatively recent slide of the Deobandi school into neofundamentalism). Only if you accept a Bin Ladenist construction of Islam (i.e. a Salafi-Wahhabist
fundamentalist construction of Islam) is Islam a hateful religion. What about those who disagree? I've already linked to a moderate Islamic think-tank upthread -- are you saying that if they are true Muslims, they should try to be more like Bin Laden and less like Quilliam?
In any case you seem unable to even make a distinction between Islam
the religion and the Quran, let alone Islam
the culture. Do you think most jihadists are radicalised by the Quran? Do you think that they are radicalised when they hit the later writings, idly sitting in their rooms in Cairo, coming across these verses and thinking, "oh shit -- woman: get me my AK and put on a burka"?
no the quran doesnt call for suicide murder. neither does it call to hijack a plane.
Let's just seperate those two for now. The Quran proscribes suicide. It's
haram, forbidden, just as jihad is only permitted as a collective activity, not as a personal quest. Murdering fellow Muslims is also forbidden. In fact, if Islamic radicals really read and took the Quran literally, they'd be forced to act in a very different way. Basically all the schools of neofundamentalism and political Islam involve large amounts of
bida, or "innovation". Despite the Quranic ban on suicide and on murdering Muslims, Islamic radicals frequently manage to do both (it's their signature move, one might say). What should we conclude from this? Radicals are going to do whatever the hell they want and justify it in the terms that they think will get them the most support with the eventual goal of taking power or just increasing their own share of it in the short term. It's how the world works. All those fine words about the brotherhood of man and the revolution of the proletariat meant very little when the Communists got into power in Russia. In fact, the situation for the poor and powerless was made worse, not better.
Bin Laden might have justified 9/11 in Islamic terms, but that merely proves my point that Islam is a vast plurality, which can easily be mined for statements for or against any given act, just like any other religion. Historically, it seems clear that Islamic civilisation was more moderate, in terms of inter-religious violence, than Christian civislisation, and preserved large communities of diverse religious believers (e.g. the Levant). Since the NT is more tolerant than the Quran this shouldn't be possible, as both civilisations said that they were based upon the precepts of their repsective religions -- Islamic civilisation should have been less tolerant than Christian civilisation.
It doesn't matter what it says in the Quran, what matters is what Muslims are doing. It's easy:
Some Muslims are violent (say 110,000)
Many more Muslims are not violent (say 1.4bn +)
Therefore Islam is not the variable that predicts violence. It's orthogonal. It's bordering on the irrelevant. This is a non-argument.
What it does say is this:
2.191
And kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter, and do not fight with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it, but if they do fight you, then slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers.
4.89
They desire that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you might be (all) alike; therefore take not from among them friends until they fly (their homes) in Allah's way; but if they turn back, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and take not from among them a friend or a helper.
4.91
You will find others who desire that they should be safe from you and secure from their own people; as often as they are sent back to the mischief they get thrown into it headlong; therefore if they do not withdraw from you, and (do not) offer you peace and restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them; and against these We have given you a clear authority.
now you can say: the quran forbids suicide, but you can also say, suicide is an act of despair, but suicide bombers are martyrs who are slain in the battle against non-believers (ie jihad).
I.e., it depends on how you interpret the Quran. You can even act in direct contradiction to the Quran's precepts, and still claim that you are acting in the name of Islam.
no it didnt. The wahabis formed in 1750 and was were violent against people who they saw as non-believers from the start. And it was this way from the start of islam. The Prophet Mohammed, whose life is seen as something that should by emulated, killed (beheaded) hundreds of non-believers (i know next to nothing about arab nationalism, neither do i really see the relevance, so i wont comment on that).
Political Islam (i.e. the programme of trying to set up an explicitly Islamic State) only became popular post Nasser, who was the main source of Arab radicalism previously. The Wahhabis made their alliances with the tribes of al Jazeera and became the state religion with the establishment of the Saudi kingdom. Wahhabism was (and still is) a radical revision of Islam that ignored scholarly commentary and tried to focus on a puritanical literalism. Al-Wahhab was a
reformist. The first criticism of Wahhabism was by Wahhab's own brother, who coined the pejorative "Wahhabism".
The relevance of Arab nationalism is that if we were having this conversation forty years ago, we would be talking about Pan-Arabism, not Radical Islam. No one thought of Islam as a threat, not even Radical Islam, despite the verses in the Quran being there at the time. Why? Because regardless of what the verses say, what's important is what Muslims are doing. No one was killing in the name of Islam (except in Iran, and even then it was couched in anti-imperialist slogans and leftist tropes).
Yet the verses were there --
And yet the explicitly Islamic terrorism and war (to a significant degree) --
Was not.
Islam is not the variable that explains terrorism. Perhaps Islamism or neofundamentalism is the variable that explains terrorism
today, but I don't see you trying to make that arguement.
when muslims are non-violent, this does not mean that it is because of islam. (Neither is it necerassarily the case that when muslims ARE violent this is because of islam). What is sure, though, is that the quran calls for violence against non-believers
This is what it boils down to -- yes, there are violent verses, but so what? You're not saying anything.
again, im not talking about the swans, i'm saying their religion is black.
You said:
One non-violent Muslim does not mean that Islam is not violent;
To which I said:
But I'm not saying that there is
one non-violent Muslim; I'm saying that there are over a billion.