RELIGION OF PEACE WATCH: RAMADAN PRAYERS
While President Bush was inviting Muslim leaders to the White House and insisting Islam means peace, this is what a leading Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia had to say:
Shaykh Salah Bin-Muhammad Al-Budayr delivered the sermon, which he devoted to hailing the month of Ramadan, urging Muslims to spend it in piety and charity. The imam continues with the same theme in the second sermon. He warns against wasting food in Ramadan. The imam concludes with a prayer to God to support oppressed, destitute, imprisoned, and persecuted Muslims everywhere. He prays: "O God, support Islam and Muslims and destroy the enemies of Islam, including Jews, Christians, and atheists. O God, whoever wishes our country or Muslim countries evil, busy him with himself and make his plot turn against him." He also prays: "O God, support our oppressed brothers against the usurper Jews in Palestine. O God, deal with Jews for they are within Your power. O God, show us the miracle of Your power on them. O God, shake the land under their feet, instill fear in their hearts, and make them booty for Muslims and a lesson to others. O God, free the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque from the clutches of the Jews."
Horsefeathers argues that the conflict between our State Dept. utopians and Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Dept. mirrors a conflict in the mind of the President. His realist instincts recognize that we have real enemies who will kill us unless we kill them first. However, his utopian sentiments argue that "all you need is love", and therefore 'Islam means peace.' Diana West nails this mind set when she writes: "What was that the president was saying about Judaism, Christianity and Islam being equally committed to freedom of religion? It sounds like the voice of diplomatic politesse — as it does every time Mr. Bush insists the Muslim terrorists waging jihad on Western civilization "are evil people who have hijacked a great religion." It may seem nice and neighborly, but such a formulation categorically denies the fact that there is something inherent to that "great religion" — jihad and dhimmitude, for starters — that inspires the supposed "hijacking," shaping a theology that has always been part terrorist manifesto. This same soft-soap routine also obscures the desperate need for Islamic reformation, an accommodation with modernity that would allow other religions to coexist with Islam without fear...". Read the rest of the article here. President Bush needs to put aside his own utopian dreams in order to lead us in an all out war against the forces of barbarism. There is ample time for benign sentiment- after the war is won.
There is hate mongering in many sub-cultures, religions, regions. Is there something innate about Islam that leads to violence, hatred, and/or antisemitism? Certainly there are many peaceful, accepting practioners of Islam. For thousands of years, Islam accepted Jews into their societies (albeit as second class citizens to a degree) while Christians were conducting Crusades. Now Arabs are second class citizens in Israel. That there is something inherent in religion, group identy, humanity that leads towards violence on this level I am sure... but is it particular to Islam? Stephen ends by saying "after the war is won." Not sure what war he is talking about... war on terrorism? war on Islam? on Iraq? All of these would seem to be misguided to me.
Posted by: haiskorz on October 31, 2003 05:09 PMDear Haiskorz: Get the facts straight...Jews were never equal citizens in any single Arab country. They were always "dhimmis"- subject to harassment, dislocation and murder. Even in Baghdad where at one time they were almost fifty percent of the population, Arabs turned on them, hanged them, persecuted them and offered them no state protection.
Posted by: RUTH KING on October 31, 2003 05:32 PMIn Morocco where they had the ostensible protection of King Hassan;in Algeria where they flourished for a short time in Oran; in Tunisia where Bourguiba offered them a modicum of protection;
in Egypt where they represented the professionals in Alexandria; riots, plunder, pogrom and murder drove them out without a shred of state protection.
The Arabs in Israel enjoy the franchise, state protection, medical and social entitlements, education, freedom of press, assembly and religion. These are civil rights unavailable to them in any Arab country. Steve is right on target here. This war is about Moslem barbarians against all infidels, including you.
Anyone who persists in believing that it's possible for Christians and Jews to coexist with Muslims on terms of mutual tolerance has not been paying attention.
Islam is not a religion, anyway. It's a totalitarian ideology that tolerates no competition. Ask Any Nigerian or Sudanese Christian.
Posted by: Francis W. Porretto on October 31, 2003 05:39 PMinitially the president's statements and positions could be given the benefit of doubt as hopeful, tempered, and diplomatic, but now that he's committed and hip deep in happy talk, a way out is increasingly problematic politically. a one-eighty is in order, but from a polititian, how likely is that?
i hope it doesn't take another 3000 to end the denial.
Posted by: firq krumpl on November 1, 2003 11:49 PMI'm lost. How do you help somebody when the helpers get shot at and the people getting helped just stand there and watch?
Posted by: steve on November 2, 2003 10:38 AMAlso, is peaceful Islam a heresy of violent Islam or is violent Islam a heresy of peaceful heresy? Belloc wrote a essay about Islam being a heresy of Christianity that was interesting.
Perhaps it is time for the more moderate and--dare I say it?--peaceloving Muslim leaders to speak out against the kind of drivel being spouted by the likes of Shaykh Salah Bin-Muhammad Al-Budayr.
But that presupposes there ARE individuals who qualify as peaceloving Muslim leaders. I am willing--still--to believe such persons may exist, but they have been conspicuous by their silence. And by keeping silent they have proven woefully ineffectual as leaders.
Posted by: Bernard on November 6, 2003 09:15 AM