File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2001/postcolonial.0110, message 42


Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 13:30:11 -0400
From: Lesk Andrew <leska-AT-MAGELLAN.UMontreal.CA>
Subject: wolf's interesting post



Glad to hear it wolf....maybe you can begin by apologizing to those on the Left
whose arguments you oh so casually dismissed earlier, in your statement about
Roy: "a little muddled and simplistic in the usual left-wing way."

Happy to know we're on the same page.

Andrew

On Tue, 2 Oct 2001, Wolf Factory wrote:

> I have been engaged in an e-mail debate with Richard
> Dawkins since he wrote his article 'Religions'
> misguided missiles (Guardian 15 Sep 2001). He has
> asked me to distribute the letter below amongst
> Muslim friends. I am posting it on this listing
> because there are some amongst you of Islamic/Arabic
> background who might want to comment on it. I also
> think the message has broader relevance to
> post-colonialists who might want to comment about
> the validity of such a calling, its usefulnessetc.  
> 
> My own view differs from Dawkins. I basically think in
> focusing so much on religion he is chasing after the
> tail of the snake and not its head. However, I still
> think the view he holds ought to be debated and
> analyzed. I hope we can keep this thread clean and
> free of personal insults.
> 
> W.F.
> 
> A Call to the Muslims of the World from a Group of
> Freethinkers and Humanists of  Muslim Origins . 
> 
> Dear friends,
> 
> The tragic incidents of September 11 have shocked the
> world. It is unthinkable that  anyone could be so full
> of hate as to commit such heinous acts and kill so
> many innocent people. We people of Muslim origin are
> as much shaken as the rest of the world and yet we
> find ourselves looked upon with suspicion and distrust
> by our neighbours and fellow citizens. We want to cry
> out and tell the world that we are not terrorists, and
> that those who perpetrate such despicable acts are
> murderers and not part of us. But, in reality, because
> of our Muslim origins we just cannot erase the "stigma
> of Islamic Terrorism" from our identity! 
> 
> What most Muslims will say:
> 
> "Islam would never support the killing of innocent
> people. Allah of the Holy Quran never advocated
> killings. This is all the work of a few misguided
> individuals at the fringes of society. The real Islam
> is sanctified from violence. We denounce all violence.
> Islam means peace. Islam means tolerance."
> 
> What knowledgeable Muslims should say:
> 
> That is what most Muslims think, but is it true? Does 
> Islam  really preach peace, tolerance and
> non-violence? The Muslims who perpetrate these crimes
> think differently. They believe that what they do is
> Jihad (holy war). They say that killing unbelievers is
> mandatory for every Muslim. They do not kill because
> they wish to break the laws of Islam but because they
> think this is what true Muslims should do. Those who
> blow-up their own bodies to kill more innocent people
> do so because they think they will be rewarded in
> Paradise. They hope to be blessed by Allah, eat
> celestial food, drink pure wine and enjoy the company
> of divine consorts. Are they completely misguided?
> Where did they get this distorted idea? How did they
> come to believe that killing innocent people pleases
> God? Or is it that we are misguided? Does really Islam
> preach violence? Does it call upon its believers to
> kill non-believers? We denounce those who commit acts
> of violence and call them extremists. But are they
> really extremists or are they following what the holy
> book, the Quran tells them to do? What does the
> Quran teach? Have we read the Quran? Do we know what
> kind of teachings are there? Let us go through some of
> them and take a closer look at what Allah says.
> 
> What the Quran Teaches Us:
> 
> We have used the most widely available English text of
> the Quran and readers
> are welcome to verify our quotes from the holy book.
> Please have an open mind and read through these verses
> again and again. The following quotes are taken from
> the most trusted Yusufalis translation of the Quran.
> 
> 
> The Quran tells us: 
> "not to make friendship with Jews and Christians"
> (5:51),
> "kill the disbelievers wherever we find them" (2:191),
> 
> "murder them and treat them harshly"  (9:123),
> "fight and slay the Pagans, seize them, beleaguer
> them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem"
> (9:5). 
> The Quran demands that we fight the unbelievers, and
> promises "If there are twenty
> amongst you, you will vanquish two hundred: if a
> hundred, you will vanquish
> a thousand of them" (8:65). 
> 
> Allah and his messenger want us to fight the
> Christians and the Jews "until they pay the Jizya [a
> penalty tax for the non-Muslims living under Islamic
> rules] with willing submission, and feel themselves
> subdued" (9:29). 
> Allah and his messenger announce that it is acceptable
> to go back on our promises (treaties) and obligations
> with Pagans and make war on them whenever we find
> ourselves strong enough to do so  (9:3).  
> Our God tells us to "fight the unbelievers" and "He
> will punish them by our hands, cover them with shame
> and help us (to victory) over them" (9:14). 
> 
> The Quran takes away the freedom of belief from all
> humanity and relegates
> those who disbelieve in Islam to hell  (5:10), 
> calls them najis (filthy, untouchable, impure) (9:28),
> 
> and orders its followers to fight the unbelievers
> until no other religion except Islam is left (2:193). 
> It says that the "non-believers will go to hell and
> will drink boiling water" (14:17). 
> It asks the Muslims to "slay or crucify or cut the
> hands and feet of the unbelievers, that they be
> expelled from the land with disgrace and that they
> shall have a great punishment in world hereafter"
> (5:34). 
> And tells us that "for them (the unbelievers) garments
> of fire shall be cut and there shall be poured over
> their heads boiling water whereby whatever is in their
> bowels and skin shall be dissolved and they will be
> punished with hooked iron rods" (22:19-22) 
> and that they not only will have "disgrace in this
> life, but on the Day of Judgment He shall make them
> taste the Penalty of burning (Fire)" (22:9). 
> The Quran says that "those who invoke a god other
> than Allah not only should meet punishment in this
> world but the Penalty on the Day of Judgment will be
> doubled to them, and they will dwell therein in
> ignominy" (25:68). 
> For those who "believe not in Allah and His Messenger,
> He has prepared, for those who reject Allah, a Blazing
> Fire!"  (48:13). 
> Although we are asked to be compassionate amongst each
> other, we have to be "harsh with unbelievers", our
> Christian, Jewish and Atheist neighbours and
> colleagues (48:29). 
> As for him who does not believe in Islam, the Prophet
> announces with a "stern command": "Seize ye him, and
> bind ye him, And burn ye him in the Blazing Fire.
> Further, make him march in a chain, whereof the length
> is seventy cubits! This was he that would not believe
> in Allah Most High. And would not encourage the
> feeding of the indigent! So no friend hath he here
> this Day. Nor hath he any food except the corruption
> from the washing of wounds, Which none do eat but
> those in sin." 
> (69:30-37) 
> The Quran prohibits a Muslim from befriending a
> non-believer even if that non-believer is the father
> or the brother of that Muslim (9:23), (3:28). 
> Our holy book asks us to be disobedient towards the
> disbelievers and their governments and strive against
> the unbelievers with great endeavour" (25:52) 
> and be stern with them because they belong to Hell
> (66:9).  
> The holy Prophet prescribes fighting for us and tells
> us that "it is good for us even if we dislike it"
> (2:216). 
> Then he advises us to "strike off the heads of the
> disbelievers"; and after making a "wide slaughter
> among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives"
> (47:4). 
> Our God has promised to "instil terror into the hearts
> of the unbelievers" and has ordered us to  "smite
> above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off
> them" (8:12). He also assures us that when we kill in
> his name "it is not us who slay them but Allah, in
> order that He might test the Believers by a gracious
> trial from Himself" (8:17). 
> He orders us "to strike terror into the hearts of the
> enemies" (8:60). 
> He has made the Jihad mandatory and warns us that
> "Unless we go forth, (for Jihad) He will punish us
> with a grievous penalty, and put others in our place" 
> (9:39). 
> Allah speaks to our Holy Prophet and says "O Prophet!
> strive hard against the unbelievers and the
> hypocrites, and be stern against them. Their abode is
> Hell - an evil refuge indeed"  (9:73). 
> 
> He promises us that in the fight for His cause whether
> we slay or are slain we return to the garden of
> Paradise (9:111). 
> In Paradise he will "wed us with Houris (celestial
> virgins) pure beautiful ones" (56:54), 
> and unite us with large-eyed beautiful ones while we
> recline on our thrones set in lines  (56:20). 
> There we are promised to eat and drink pleasantly for
> what we did (56:19). 
> He also promises "boys like hidden pearls" (56:24) 
> and "youth never altering in age like scattered
> pearls" (for those who have paedophiliac inclinations)
> (76:19). 
> As you see, Allah has promised all sorts or rewards,
> gluttony and unlimited sex to Muslim men who kill
> unbelievers in his name. We will be admitted to
> Paradise where we shall find "goodly things, beautiful
> ones, pure ones confined to the pavilions that man has
> not touched them before nor jinni" (56:67-71). 
> 
> In the West we enjoy freedom of belief but we are not
> supposed to give such freedom to anyone else because
> it is written "If anyone desires a religion other than
> Islam (submission to Allah), never will it be accepted
> of him; and in the Hereafter He will be in the ranks
> of those who have lost (All spiritual good) (3:85). 
> And He orders us to fight them on until there is no
> more tumult and faith in Allah is practiced everywhere
>  (8:39). 
> 
> As for women the book of Allah says that they are
> inferior to men and their husbands have the right to
> scourge them if they are found disobedient (4:34). 
> It advises to "take a green branch and beat your
> wife", because a green branch is more flexible and
> hurts more. (38:44). 
> It teaches that women will go to hell if they are
> disobedient to their husbands (66:10). It maintains
> that men have an advantage over the women (2:228). 
> It not only denies the womens equal right to their
> inheritance (4:11-12),
> it also regards them as imbeciles and decrees that
> their witness is not admissible in the courts of law
> (2:282). 
> This means that a woman who is raped cannot accuse her
> rapist unless she can produce a male witness. Our Holy
> Prophet allows us to marry up to four wives and he
> licensed us to sleep with our slave maids and as many
> captive women as we may have  (4:3) even if those
> women are already married. He himself did just that.
> This is why anytime a Muslim army subdues another
> nation, they call them kafir and allow themselves to
> rape their women. Pakistani soldiers allegedly raped
> up to 250,000 Bengali women in 1971 after they
> massacred 3,000,000 unarmed civilians when their
> religious leader decreed that Bangladeshis are
> un-Islamic. This is why the prison guards in Islamic
> regime of Iran rape the women that in their opinion
> are apostates prior to killing them, as they believe a
> virgin will not go to Hell. 
> 
> Dear fellow Muslims: 
> 
> Is this the Islam you believe in? Is this your Most
> Merciful, Most Compassionate  Allah whom you worship
> daily? Could Allah incite you to kill other peoples?
> Please understand that there is no terrorist gene -
> but there could be a terrorist mindset. That mindset
> finds its most fertile ground in the tenets of Islam.
> Denying it, and presenting Islam to the lay public as
> a religion of peace similar to Buddhism, is to
> suppress the truth. The history of Islam between the
> 7th and 14th centuries is riddled with violence,
> fratricide and wars of aggression, starting right from
> the death of the Prophet and during the so-called
> pure or orthodox caliphate. And Muhammad himself
> hoisted the standard of killing, looting, massacres
> and bloodshed. How can we deny the entire history? The
> behaviour of our Holy Prophet as recorded in authentic
> Islamic sources is quite questionable from a modern
> viewpoint. The Prophet was a charismatic man but he
> had few virtues. Imitating him in all aspects of life
> (following the Sunnah) is  both impossible and
> dangerous in the 21st century. Why are we so
> helplessly in denial over this simple issue?
> 
> When the Prophet was in Mecca and he was still not
> powerful enough he called for tolerance. He said "To
> you be your religion, and to me my religion" (109:6). 
> This famous quote is often misused to prove that the
> general principle of Quran is tolerance. He advised
> his follower to speak good to their enemies (2: 83), 
> exhorted them to be patient (20:103) and said that
> "there is no compulsion in religion" (2:256). 
> But that all changed drastically when he came to
> power. Then killing and slaying unbelievers with
> harshness and without mercy was justified in
> innumerable verses. The verses quoted to prove Islams
> tolerance ignore many other verses that bear no trace
> of tolerance or forgiveness. Where is tolerance in
> this well-known verse 
> "Alarzu Lillah, Walhukmu Lillah." (The Earth belongs
> to Allah and thus only Allahs rule should prevail all
> over the earth.). 
> 
> Is it normal that a book revealed by God should have
> so many serious contradictions?
> The Prophet himself set the example of unleashing
> violence by invading the Jewish settlements, breaking
> treaties he had signed with them and banishing some of
> them after confiscating their belongings, massacring
> others and taking their wives and children as slaves.
> He inspected the youngsters and massacred all those
> who had pubic hair along with the men. Those who were
> younger he kept as slaves. He distributed the women
> captured in his raids among his soldiers keeping the
> prettiest for himself (33:50). He made sexual advances
> on Safiyah, a Jewish girl on the same day he captured
> her town Kheibar and killed  her father, her husband
> and many of her relatives. Reyhana was another Jewish
> girl of Bani Quriza whom he used as a sex slave after
> killing all her male relatives. In the last ten years
> of his life he accumulated two scores of wives,
> concubines and sex slaves including the 9 year old
> Ayesha. These are not stories but records from
> authentic Islamic history and the Hadiths. It can be
> argued that this kind of behaviour was not unknown or
> unusual for the conquerors and leaders of the
> mediaeval world but these are not the activities
> befitting of a peaceful saint and certainly not
> someone who claimed to be the Mercy of God for all
> creation. There were known assassinations of
> adversaries during the Prophets time, which he had
> knowledge of and had supported. Among them there was a
> 120 year old man, Abu Afak whose only crime was to
> compose a lyric satirical of the Prophet. (by Ibn 
> Sad Kitab al Tabaqat al Kabir, Volume 2,  page 32) 
> Then when a poetess, a mother of 5 small children
> Asma Bint Marwan wrote a poetry cursing the Arabs
> for letting Muhammad assassinate an old man, our Holy
> Prophet ordered her to be assassinated too in the
> middle of the night while her youngest child was
> suckling from her breast. (Sirat Rasul Allah (A.
> Guillaumes translation "The Life of Muhammad") page
> 675, 676).
> 
> The Prophet did develop a Robin Hood image that
> justified raiding merchant caravans attacking cities
> and towns, killing people and looting their belongings
> in the name of social justice. Usama Bin Laden is also
> trying to create the same image. But Robin Hood didnt
> claim to be a prophet or a pacifist nor did he care
> for apologist arguments. He did not massacre innocent
> people indiscriminately nor did he profit by reducing
> free people to slaves and then trading them. 
> 
> With the known and documented violent legacy of Islam,
> how can we suddenly rediscover it as a religion of
> peace in the free world in the 21st century? Isnt
> this the perpetuation of a lie by a few ambitious
> leaders in order to gain political control of the huge
> and ignorant Muslim population? They are creating a
> polished version of Islam by completely ignoring
> history. They are propagating the same old dogma for
> simple believing people in a crisp new modern package.
> Their aim: to gain political power in todays
> high-tension world. They want to use the
> confrontational power of the original Islam to
> catalyse new conflicts and control new circles of
> power.
> 
> Dear conscientious Muslims, please question
> yourselves. Isnt this compulsive following of a man
> who lived 1400 years ago leading us to doom in a
> changing world? Do the followers of any other religion
> follow one man in such an all-encompassing way? Who
> are we deceiving, them or ourselves? Dear brothers and
> sisters, see how our Umma (people) has sunk into
> poverty and how it lags behind the rest of the world.
> Isnt it because we are following a religion that is
> outdated and impractical?  In this crucial moment of
> history, when a great catastrophe has befallen us and
> a much bigger one is lying ahead, should not we wake
> up from our 1400 years of slumber and see where things
> have gone wrong?
> 
> Hatred has filled the air and the world is bracing
> itself for its doomsday. Should we not ask ourselves
> whether we have contributed, wittingly or unwittingly,
> to this tragedy and whether we can stop the great
> disaster from happening?
> 
> Unfortunately the answer to the first question is yes.
> Yes we have contributed to the rise of fundamentalism
> by merely claiming Islam is a religion of peace, by
> simply being a Muslim and by saying our shahada
> (testimony that Allah is the only God and Muhammad is
> his messenger). By our shahada we have recognized
> Muhammad as a true messenger of God and his book as
> the words of God. But as you saw above those words are
> anything but from God. They call for killing, they are
> prescriptions for hate and they foment intolerance.
> And when the ignorant among us read those hate-laden
> verses, they act on them and the result is the
> infamous September 11, human bombs in Israel,
> massacres in East Timor and Bangladesh, kidnappings
> and killings in the Philippines, slavery in the Sudan,
> honour killings in Pakistan and Jordan, torture in
> Iran, stoning and maiming in Afghanistan and Iran,
> violence in Algeria, terrorism in Palestine and misery
> and death in every Islamic country. We are responsible
> because we endorse Islam and hail it as a religion of
> God. And we are as guilty as those who put into
> practice what the Quran preaches - and ironically we
> are the main victims too. If we are not terrorists, if
> we love peace, if we cried with the rest of the word
> for what happened in New York, then why are we
> supporting the Quran that preaches killing, that
> advocates holy war, that calls for the murder of
> non-Muslims? It is not the extremists who have
> misunderstood Islam. They do literally what the Quran
> asks
> them to do. It is we who misunderstand Islam. We are
> the ones who are confused. We are the ones who wrongly
> assume that Islam is the religion of peace. Islam is
> not a religion of peace. In its so-called "pure" form
> it can very well be interpreted as a doctrine of hate.
> Terrorists are doing just that and we the intellectual
> apologists of Islam are justifying it. We can stop
> this madness. Yes, we can avert the disaster that is
> hovering over our heads. Yes, we can denounce the
> doctrines that promote hate. Yes, we can embrace the
> rest of humanity with love. Yes, we can become part of
> a united
> world, members of one human family, flowers of one
> garden. We can dump the claim of infallibility of our
> Book, and the questionable legacy of our Prophet. 
> 
> Dear friends, there is no time to waste. Let us put an
> end to this lie. Let us not fool ourselves. Islam is
> not a religion of peace, of tolerance, of equality or
> of unity of humankind. Let us read the Quran. Let us
> face the truth even if it is painful. As long as we
> keep this lie alive, as long as we hide our head in
> the sands of Arabia we are feeding terrorism. As long
> as you and I keep calling Quran the unchangeable book
> of God, we cannot blame those who follow the teachings
> therein. As long as we pay our Khums and Zakat our
> money goes to promote Islamic expansionism and that
> means terrorism, Jihad and war. Islam divides the
> world in two. Darul Harb (land of war) and Darul Islam
> (land of Islam). Darul Harb is the land of the
> infidels, Muslims are required to infiltrate those
> lands, proselytise and procreate until their numbers
> increase and then start the war and fight and kill the
> people and impose the religion of Islam on them and
> convert that land into Darul Islam. In all fairness we
> denounce this betrayal. This is abuse of the trust.
> How can we make war in the countries that have
> sheltered us? How can we kill those who have
> befriended us? Yet willingly or unwillingly we have
> become pawns in this Islamic Imperialism. Let us see
> what great Islamic scholars have had to say in this
> respect. 
> 
> Dr. M. Khan the translator of Sahih Bukhari and the
> Quran into English wrote: "Allah revealed in Sura
> Baraat (Repentance, IX) the order to discard (all)
> obligations (covenants, etc), and commanded the
> Muslims to fight against all the Pagans as well as
> against the people of the Scriptures (Jews and
> Christians) if they do not embrace Islam, till they
> pay the Jizia (a tax levied on the Jews and
> Christians) with willing submission and feel
> themselves subdued (as it is revealed in 9:29). So the
> Muslims were not permitted to abandon "the fighting"
> against them (Pagans, Jews and Christians) and to
> reconcile with them and to suspend hostilities against
> them for an unlimited period while they are strong and
> have the ability to fight against them. So at first
> "the fighting" was forbidden, then it was permitted,
> and after that it was made obligatory" [Introduction
> to English translation of Sahih Bukhari, p.xxiv.]
> 
> Dr. Sobhy as-Saleh, a contemporary Islamic academician
> quoted Imam Suyuti
> the author of Itqan Fi Ulum al- Quran who wrote: 
> "The command to fight the infidels was delayed until
> the Muslims become strong, but when they were weak
> they were commanded to endure and be patient". [ Sobhy
> as_Saleh, Mabaheth Fi Ulum al- Quran, Dar al-Ilm
> Lel-Malayeen, Beirut, 1983, p.
> 269.]  
> 
> Dr. Sobhy, in a footnote, commends the opinion of a
> scholar named Zarkashi who said: 
> "Allah the most high and wise revealed to Mohammad in
> his weak condition what suited the situation, because
> of his mercy to him and his followers. For if He gave
> them the command to fight while they were weak it
> would have been embarrassing and most difficult, but
> when the most high made Islam victorious He commanded
> him with what suited the situation, that is asking the
> people of the Book to become Muslims or to pay the
> levied tax, and the infidels to become Muslims or face
> death. These two options, to fight or to have peace
> return according to the strength or the weakness of
> the Muslims." [ibid p. 270]
> 
> Other Islamic scholars (Ibn Hazm al-Andalusi,  Gafar
> ar-Razi, Rabi Ibn
> Ons, Abil-Aliyah, Abd ar-Rahman Ibn Zayd Ibn
> Aslam, etc.)  agree that
> the verse "Slay the idolaters wherever you find them"
> (9:5) cancelled
> those few earlier verses that called for tolerance in
> the Quran and were revealed
> when Islam was weak. Can you still say that Islam is
> the religion of peace? 
> 
> We propose a solution. 
> 
> We know too well that it is not easy to denounce our
> faith because it means denouncing a part of ourselves.
> We are a group of freethinkers and humanists with
> Islamic roots. Discovering the truth and leaving the
> religion of our fathers and forefathers was a painful
> experience. But after learning what Islam stands for
> we had no choice but to leave it. After becoming
> familiar with the Quran the choice became clear: It
> is either Islam or humanity. If Islam thrives, then
> humanity will die. We decided to side with humanity.
> Culturally we are still Muslims but we no longer
> believe in Islam as the true religion of God. We are
> humanists. We love humanity. We work for the unity of
> humankind. We work for equality between men and women.
> We strive for the secularisation of Islamic countries,
> for democracy and freedom of thought, belief and
> expression. We decided to live no longer in
> self-deception but to embrace humanity, and to enter
> into the new millennium hand in hand with people of
> other cultures and beliefs in amity and in peace.
> 
> We denounce the violence that is eulogized in the
> Quran as holy war (Jihad). We
> condemn killing in the name of God. We believe in the
> sanctity of human life, not
> in the inviolability of beliefs and religions. We
> invite you to join us and the rest of humanity and
> become part of the family of humankind - in love,
> camaraderie and peace.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ====> "All the wolves in the wolf factory paused at noon, 
> for a moment of silence."
> ........from laughing Gravy by John Ashbery.
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Looking for something good and original to read?
> Check out: http://www.mesopotamia.free-online.co.uk
> 
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