auto-da-fe

First, I would like to thank Braces_for_Impact for recommending this board to me. So far I have found the posts and replies here to be very well thought out, succint, thought provoking opinions and ideas, and am very glad to have joined. I hope that I am able to also be thought provoking to all of you as well.

My question revolves around the Islamic religon, and to be more specific, Whabbism. It is my understanding that Whabbism is the fundementalist sect of the Islamic religon, and the demographic most often accoiciated with militant (I dare say, terroist) action that we see displayed on cable news every day. It could easily be argued that Whabbism has, for better or worse, made such and impact on the entire world over the last 5 years that it has changed the very way that some countries operate, and there respective foreign policy has been forced to change as well.

OTOH, the Islamic religon as a whole is known for its tenents of peace. There have been some very famous peace loving Islams in history that have also changed the world. It has been called the fastest growing religon in the world, and many hundreds of thousands of people, in every country, on every continent, have found deep spititual enlightenment, and fullfillment through this religon and regardless of my personal beliefs, I find that a good thing.

My question is: How did the peace promoting Islamic religon morph into Whabbism, and what specifically, are the tenets of Whabbism that cause such anger and hate towards the western culture, and more specifically, America as a whole. Perhaps this hate and anger are best shown in the former Taleban regime. There was, for some time, and over riding hate towards the US the helped produce Usama bin Laden and al-Quidea, which we all know perpertrated the most hideous, and worst act of terrorism in the history of the world. There has never been an act of terrorism that has taken more lifes, or caused so much chaos and destruction.

Rightfully so, the Taleban, and al-Quidea, were smote by the powers that be in the west. Crushed into a pitiful version of its former self, on the run and desperate, the al-Quieda have paid a very very heavy price for there evil deeds. However, Whabbism is not gone. It is not a dead sect. What is it about this group of people that produces terrorist, and could we ever reason with them? Even unrealistically, is there anything that could be done by the western society that would make these people stop hating us?

This has the potential to shape the next decade of conflict for the western way of life, which good or bad, is my way of life. I like it. My wife likes it. My friends and neighbors like it, and members of my family have died on the battlefield defending it. Shall we be forced to persecute, and potentially wipe out, an entire religon (I say it in and of itself is a religon, because I have read that many Islams do not like to be at all associated with Whabbism) or is there a different path.

CX

Welcome to our forum. As it stands I think your post is more appropriate to another forum. This forum is for the discussion of the Hebrew/Xian bible and related archaeology. I'll move your post to the appropriate place. Again, though, welcome to II

CX - B,C&A moderator

braces_for_impact

A standard search on Google revealed a wealth of info on WAHHABISM (what a hard word to spell), time to go do some research. Off I go!

Welcome to II Dave!

Ron

Celsus

I have deleted some of the posts in this thread, as it is losing focus on the legitimate questions raised. Please respect the thread starter's requests and stick to the original topic if you wish to post in this thread. (And a warm welcome to II, MegaDave)

Joel aka Celsus
GRD Moderator

Muffinstuffer

Sorry, you're right.

Ronin

Dammit...I love pizza...is that so wrong?!!

Muffinstuffer

Edit: Originally posted a joke. While the original post was in jest, I did not intend any offense, and apologize if any was taken.

Marduk

“My question is: How did the peace promoting Islamic religion morph into Whabbism, “

How did the fundys turn Jesus who said ‘render onto Caesar that which is Caesar's” into an anti tax pro gun Republican?
As always people form their religious beliefs to what suits them not their alleged God.
Islam means ‘submit’ to Allah. This will be a problem in trying to bring democracy to the Mid East, even moderate Muslims feel the State should be second to Allah. Some are just more extreme than others. Just as the Christians are stuck with Fred ‘God hates fags’ Phelps.

sphinx wui

First, welcome to the forum

You wrote,

Islamic religon as a whole is known for its tenents of peace. There have been some very famous peace loving Islams in history that have also changed the world.


Generally speaking, people are peaceful in spite of the religion not because of the religion and as islam is the issue here Muslims are peaceful in spite of Islam!! Take it from a Muslim! In my humble opinion there is nothing called peaceful religion but the degree of violence varies between different religions and inside the same religion between different sects and geographic location etc. as long as you are speaking with some body who believes that there is something upstairs called ………(fill in the space) and he speaks with him to do certain things there is no actual peace cause once you disagree with such person you don’t disagree with him but you disagree with the Omnipotent! And this is for sure a horrible crime, case closed, time for Holy war, Jihad, Crusade, inquisition,etc etc……………… as some body said “religion is the only socially acceptable form of insanity”


Islam, as any other religion has many faces and you can understand it in many ways. To give you an example, in the Quran it is said that if you touché a woman you have to take a shower if you want to pray, most of Muslim scholars understand this word “touch” as an indirect sympol for sexual intercourse cause most of the time when Quran spoke about those things it spoke in an indirect language and this is how most of Muslims follow but some smart asses understand it literally and you have to take a shower if you come in contact with any woman, in the street, in work, etc.etc and for sure by this way you will spend your entire life taking showers!!! The original text was one but their way of understanding it differs greatly .

in Islam especially Suna, there are many schools of thoughts and you can follow whatever you like and there is no central religious authority as the case with the Catholics to direct the community in religious matters or as Muslims say it “I will stand a lone in front of god in the day of judgment and no body will help me so it is none of your business” if some body try to advice them in religious affairs. This lack of central authority give a lot of people space to wiggle and sound more flexible but some times some smart assess come with strange stuff and tell every body that this is how we understand it and it is none of any body business!!!!
In the history of Suna Islam there are four main Schools of thoughts plus many subs, but the main four are Malki, Shafi, Hanafi, Hanbali. Some of those schools are very flexible and accommodating while others are very restrict and closed minded. For example the Shafi, which named after Imam Shafi used to live in Iraq and has his own school of thought but later in his life he moved to live in Egypt under different circumstances and he changed many of his previous opinions to accommodate the new situation and on the other hand you will find school like Hanbali, which named after Imam Ahmad Bin Hanbal very stiff and rigid with harsh opinions about almost every thing to the degree that there is a common proverb in Egypt “don’t be Hanbali”that people use to say to some body who is rigid, meticulous and uncompromising.

Those schools of thoughts are about the way you can conclude a legal decree from Islamic sources, the ones than no body differ about them is Quran and right Hadith” how Mohamed acted” and the consensus of the nation (for example if the whole nation agree that every body will stop at the red light, it will be a law) and measurement i.e. to measure something against something else, for example Quran forbid alcohol but said nothing about drugs cause it was not there during that time but Muslims concluded that the cause of forbidding alcohol is that it affects the mentality and judgment which also the case with drugs, so we can measure drugs against alcohol and infer that it is also forbidden. Other than those four principles they differ on other principles, for example Shafi recognized a principle called “necessity allow forbidden things” meaning that if you are for example lost in the desert and can’t find something to eat or to drink and you find alcohol and pork is it allowed to eat and drink them to survive or no? Shafi said yes according to this principle but Hanbali said no cause it is said in the Quran you can’t use those things if you even will gona to die!!!! And both are good Muslims and Suni conservatives!!!!
Those differences among the schools of thoughts were recognized inside the Islamic state but you will find areas with big cities, agricultural background and civilizations beside rivers stick to the nice descent reasonable schools of thoughts while harsh Bedouin areas stick to the harsh ones.
Another factor in determining the development of a school of thought is the historical period where the founder of it lived and if it was peaceful prosperous period you will find his school of thought easy going but if it is a harsh period and full of wars you will find the strict closed minded militant opinions and the best example of it was Imam Ibn Taimya who lived during the Mongol invasion and destruction of Baghdad and its library and museums (sound familiar!!!!) and you will find his opinions regarding non muslims very aggressive and even his opinion about Shia is very hostile and he was the first schoolr in Islam to issue a fatwa called the “shield fatwa” based in a principle in his school of thought called “the benefit of the majority has priority above the benefit of the minority” cause the Mongols used to put the Muslim POW and their own women and kids in the front line knowing that Muslims will not shot them and they defeated the Muslims in many battles by this way until the fatwa came from Ibn Taimya allowing to kill those in front line to save the whole nation from anhiliation by the Mongols and it worked!! And to know the effect of history, Osama Bin Laden used the same fatwa that Ibn Taimya issued thousand years ago to justify his attack on the WTC!!!!!!!!! Claiming that America is taking shield behind its civilians and still some people think that history is not important!

You can now extend a line from Hanbali school passing through Ibn Taimya until Mohamed ibn Abdel Wahab and the harsh weather of the desert and later billions of dollars and you will get the super ultimate shit that you never dreamed of in your life.

I have to go now and I will put a link about it but all I said was from personal experience as a Muslim and I will be back later.

p.s. don’t go to the political forum cause there are some bad people over there, if you have to go you will find over there a poll about something starts with h, do me a favor and vote no, OK and the same thing aply for your wife, friends, neighors and your relatives also in the battlefield, tell them to vote no and go again to the battlefield OK.

http://www.medea.be/site.html?page=2&lang=en&doc=206

Omar

sphinx wui

and here is a link to some sites about Ibn Arabi, the complete opposite of Wahabism!



http://www.kheper.net/topics/Islamic.../Ibn_Arabi.htm


http://www.ibnarabisociety.org/IbnArabi.html