For the orientalists to rely on such narrations, actually to cherrypick the narrations which seem to cast Islam and its teachings in the worst light, while knowing full well that Muslims do not accept such narrations as authoritative is indicative of their desire to distort the image of Islam. I highly encourage you to read Dr. Muhammad Mohar Ali’s 2-volume work “Biography of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) and the Orientalists” found in PDF form here:

http://islamhouse.com/books.php?page=eb4558ad6c717572901492e304d07531

http://islamhouse.com/books.php?page=59872249b8c6abc16ab0c0cc944ffdf6

Agreed, Br. Yusuf. If Mr Kactuz posts anything that resembles what he posted before, then we will be sure of his intentions. At that point garbage will go where all garbage should go… to the trash-bin. -MM

I converted to Islam three years (and a couple of months) before 9/11 and I noticed that the community sh. Bin Bayyah is associated with were doing a lot of work before then. They were trying to steer people away from sectarianism and were attracting British Asians who were sick of Bareilawi/Deobandi politics and needed religious guidance in English and not Urdu. They were very active and commonly appeared in the English-language Muslim media, particularly Q-News. This has, of course, grown vastly since then with the rise of the Internet and blogs.

Shaikh Hamza Yusuf said in one of his lectures that the western colonisers and their Muslim clients did away with traditional Islamic education in the Muslim world by infiltrating or suppressing the madrassas. The last one, he said, closed in Marrakesh in the early 1960s. This is a major reason why the moderate, traditional path is unpopular and has less of a profile than the Shi’ism promoted by Khomeini, the type of “Salafism” promoted by the Saudis and the type kept afloat by anger at the Saudis and distrust of any scholar who is not anti-government. I am uneasy about the government-funded “Radical Middle Way” programme in the UK, because it makes the movement look like part of a government attempt to control the community by funding one group of (mostly middle-class) Muslims without addressing any of the community’s problems or grievances. There is a long history of movements losing credibility once they are shown to have government or intelligence community backing.

I have a follow up point. I had articulated that there are obviously many, many Muslim scholars (and lay people alike) that have severely, totally and unequivocally denounced Muslim extremists, calling their actions evil, unIslamic, immoral, going against the religion of Islam, etc.

I have something to ask you, and other non-Muslim critics of Islam and/or Muslims.

Have you or your reverends or priests or rabbis EVER condemned or critiqued the 1995 massacre of around 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, committed by Serbian Christians?

Have you or your reverends or priests or rabbis EVER condemned or critiqued the many, many, many despicable, evil, and heinous massacres, killings, rapes, and general ethnic cleansing that have been committed by the Russian Christians against the Muslims of Chechnya, for over 300 years?

Have you or your reverends or priests or rabbis EVER condemned or critiqued the Jewish Israeli killing, massacres, and destruction of Lebanon in the summer of 2006 that resulted in over 1,000 innocent Lebanese Muslim civilians being slaughtered? Have you or your reverends or priests or rabbis ever condemned or critiqued for that matter, the invasion of Lebanon by the Jewish Israelis in 1982 that resulted in the killing of around 20,000 Lebanese Muslim civilians? Or the despicable massacre, and rape of around 2,000 or so innocent Muslim Palestinian civilians in Sabra and Shatilla, committed by the Christian Lebanese Phalange, with the very direct support, encouragement, and help of the Jewish Israeli military, including by the certified zionist Israeli war criminal, Ariel Sharon?

Have you or your reverends or priests or rabbis EVER condemned or critiqued the many, many heinous, barbaric massacres, killings, and ethnic cleansing committed by the Jewish zionist/Israelis in Palestine, against the native Muslims for over 50 years? Have you or your reverends or priests or rabbis EVER condemned or critiqued all of this murder, evil, and mayhem as many, many Christians (especially, but not exclusively, the dispensationalist Protestant ones) and Jews say is done in the name of Judeo-Christian “zionism?”

Have you or your reverends or priests or rabbis EVER condemned or critiqued the Judeo-Christian American (and other Judeo-Christian western coalition “partners of the willing”) 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, that has resulted in the repulsive, evil, and barbaric murder of at least 500,000 innocent Muslim Iraqi civilians? (note – these Iraqi civilian estimates were reported by very highly esteemed, well respected, well educated western non-Muslim physicians and scientists, and they have stressed that these estimates are on the low end) On a similar note, have you or your reverends or priests or rabbis ever condemned or critiqued the 1990s western “Judeo-Christian” zionist-centric American-UK embargo of Iraq that resulted in the killing and genocide of at least 500,000 innocent Iraqi civilians (some say up to one million), including MOSTLY children? (as reported by many western non-Muslim humanitarian organizations and officials, including former UN officials who had resigned directly as a result of what they had termed a “genocide”)

Mr. Kactuz, I believe that we Muslims should definitely, without a doubt, look into the mirror, to totally be honest and frank with ourselves, including the good and the bad, but at the same time, should not Christians, Jews, Judeo-Christians, zionists, or westerners ALSO do the same? It is my opinion that most Christians, Jews, Judeo-Christians, zionists, or westerners that are always saying how bad, evil, or violent Islam or Muslims are, are NOT at all looking in the mirror.

For (a), I am sorry I can’t help you. There are enough of your types all around that it is getting relatively boring.

For (b), I would ask you to start by reading this book: Holy Wars…Crusades…Jihad by Jalal Abualrub or ask intelligent questions. You cannot start to question history without first reading the history of Christian-oriented bloodbaths during the Crusades. Once you are a little more educated than your internet-read of Tabari, I am sure we will be able to engage you in a more intellectual fashion.

The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “Allah made me victorious by awe…”
there is a difference…

Yes, there are a very small minority of extremist, misguided Muslims that do very wicked, evil, and vile things. HOWEVER, there have been many, many condemnations, repudiations, and criticisms from Islamic scholars (including through fatwas), and lay people alike saying that what they are doing is totally, 100% haraam (impermissible), unIslamic, unethical, immoral, etc. These very misguided, extremist Muslims have been said to have deviant, evil, unIslamic beliefs that are totally incompatible with the true message of Islam by these various Islamic scholars that have denounced these extremists. With all due respect, you would have to be blind, ignorant, or a combination of both to not know that these extremist, misguided Muslims have been severely repudiated and refuted to the utmost by many Islamic scholars. Some of these Muslim scholars have said that these misguided Muslim extremists are the “khawarij,” and therefore have even insinuated or flat-out articulated that Muslims have a duty to kill and destroy them. And ironically, many of these same Islamic scholars that I have been talking about, are often themselves called “extremists,” “terrorists,” “terrorist supporters,” “evil,” and many times “Wahhabi” terrorists, or any combination of these by mainstream non-Muslim Americans, non-Muslim so-called “experts” and other westerners.

You may not kill anybody or never be violent but u do have one thing that is u have “hatred “.When a person keeps hatred inside of him , should we call him a great person ?Do u consider urself a great person ?You are preaching something that u don’t even practice by urself !! so pathetic !!

This old infidel is offended by the hate, violence and oppression that comes from Islam. I am even more offended by the denials and lies from Muslims about their own writings.

Take, for example, the old sheikh mentioned above. The problem is not Muslims “inadequately explaining their beliefs” as he said, but their actions. I don’t really care what the Quran or Muslims say, I want Muslims to stop spreading hate, oppressing others and killing. Is that too much to ask? And oh yes, the word “jihad” means “holy war”. Check out any Muslim site, moderate or otherwise, and you will see the context almost always means “war against unbelievers” (except when explaining the word to stupid infidels).

I would like to offer some advice: Don’t bother to try to counter Islam’s violent reputation with “factual scholarship” because you will lose the argument – the radicals have the Quran and ahadith on their side.

As far as I am concerned, the “radicals” are the ones that kill while the “moderates” make excuses and pretend that these things have nothing to do with Islam.

Well, thats it for today. I spend about 3 hours today reading Tabari, volume 28 – about the man you write ‘pbuh’ after his name. It was one expedition after another. Raids, killing, enslavement and so on. Sure, he did some nice things, but what about the rest? Why did Allah always come through with a new revelation just in time for for the prophet to get… well get what he wanted? Why did Allah grant so many exceptions for his prophet? Isn’t that kind of suspicious?

Asma, there is no hope. I will not give an inch and Muslims will be Muslims. You can, at least, take comfort in the fact that I am not violent. I do not kill, torture, rob and rape, unlike certain people. I do not threaten people and I do not try to silence anybody. Even so, Muslims think people like me should be made to shut up.

What do you think, lady? Does what I have written here offend you? Is it all lies? Do you think I made it up? Do you want me to lie? Do you want a world where people can be silenced for saying what they think? Consider these things.

John kactuz