The myth of the ‘moderate Muslim’

If you arte expecting some long winded diatribe about the evils of Islam then you will be sadly disappointed and maybe should move on…..

There are some in the US that cannot get past the fact that someone is a Muslim…..to these short-sighted people there is only one Muslim and they are the people in ISIS and AQ…..none of the others matter…..that is to some.

Nothing is further from the truth….but of course I will be hard pressed to find many people on the street that has any idea what I am speaking about……When I see the lies spread I have tried to show that their belief is just wrong…..but as usual those posts degenerated into….warning about those darn “terrorists” coming down Main Street chopping off heads……I guess that is easier than admitting you are WRONG!

Deconstructing the mythic “good versus bad” Muslim paradigm.

After winning four pivotal presidential primaries on April 26, Hillary Clinton drew a line between “hard working, terror-hating Muslims” and (Muslim) terrorists.

In front of a raucous audience of supporters in Philadelphia, Clinton – the presumptive presidential candidate for the Democratic Party – only made mention of Muslims in relation to terrorism, and reaffirmed the mythic “good versus bad” Muslim paradigm.

Muslim Americans were either “terror-hating” or terrorists, slotted into one of these two caricatured categories with no space in between, or existential affiliation beyond.

Source: The myth of the ‘moderate Muslim’ – Al Jazeera English

I do not expect that Muslims will get much respect here….but at least there is someone trying to right the wrong thinking of the population.

Finding Ways To Protect

Note:  I am pretty sure that this will attract a bunch of comments…..It seems to whenever this subject is written about by me.  I am sure about here that those people that want to pass on misinformation and their brand of bigotry will see this post and make some statements that have nothing to do with the post but want to pass on their little small  minded ideas……

One of the silliness arguments these days is the one where all Muslims are blamed for the atrocities of ISIS/AQ simply because they are Muslims….I mean that is like blaming all hamburger sellers for the one bad one you got elsewhere….or blaming all Christians when a “believer” committed an unspeakable crime……like I said …..silly.

I have read many “conservative” blogs and site that are always de-railing Muslims for not speaking out against those that are committing the barbaric acts….well it is, as usual, disingenuous…..I have reported several cases where they are speaking out and in strong words but that will fall on deaf years…..for reason and one reason only….they WANT to hate……it will not help drive their agenda if they admit that steps are being tried…..

I will try again to point out a conference being called to find a solution to the violence…

Hundreds of Muslim scholars will meet in Morocco next week to reassert the rights of non-Muslims living among them as Christians and other religious minorities flee extremism across the Middle East for safety and freedom elsewhere.

Source: Muslim leaders plan summit on protecting non-Muslims in their midst – The Washington Post

Will this be a solution?  Of course not….but at least they are addressing the problem and maybe once the conversation is opened more people will join and a workable solution can be found…..conferences and meetings will not end the violence against people….but it is a start….who knows what will come out of this effort?

Then there is this film that shows just how the extremists pervert Islam…..

Source: New film shows how extremists pervert Islam | The National

Another good attempt to try and show the world that not all Muslims are the enemy…..again there will be very little about these efforts that will make any difference to the haters…..but ignoring the facts is a traditional way to show bigotry……

Then there is this post that I wrote recently……..

Source: The Islam No One Knows – In Saner Thought

Since NO bigoted troll will applaud these efforts…..I will take this opportunity to say…I wish them luck and thank them for their effort……

I regret that I must bounce…..my classroom awaits…..back later and we will continue…….peace….out

This Man Knows Everything He Needs To Know About Muslims

I read this piece and just had to post it here on IST……there has been so much said about Muslims and their religion and this piece is excellent…..I will not post a link because it will spoil the post…..I hope the author will forgive me for posting the whole thing……(I will explain my reasoning later)……

SALINA, KS—Local man Scott Gentries told reporters Wednesday that his deliberately limited grasp of Islamic history and culture was still more than sufficient to shape his views of the entire Muslim world.

Gentries, 48, said he had absolutely no interest in exposing himself to further knowledge of Islamic civilization or putting his sweeping opinions into a broader context of any kind, and confirmed he was “perfectly happy” to make a handful of emotionally charged words the basis of his mistrust toward all members of the world’s second-largest religion.

“I learned all that really matters about the Muslim faith on 9/11,” Gentries said in reference to the terrorist attacks on the United States undertaken by 19 of Islam’s approximately 1.6 billion practitioners. “What more do I need to know to stigmatize Muslims everywhere as inherently violent radicals?”

“And now they want to build a mosque at Ground Zero,” continued Gentries, eliminating any distinction between the 9/11 hijackers and Muslims in general. “No, I won’t examine the accuracy of that statement, but yes, I will allow myself to be outraged by it and use it as evidence of these people’s universal callousness toward Americans who lost loved ones when the Twin Towers fell.”

“Even though I am not one of those people,” he added.

When told that the proposed “Ground Zero mosque” is actually a community center two blocks north of the site that would include, in addition to a public prayer space, a 500-seat auditorium, a restaurant, and athletic facilities, Gentries shook his head and said, “I know all I’m going to let myself know.”

Gentries explained that it “didn’t take long” to find out as much about the tenets of Islam as he needed to. He said he knew Muslims stoned their women for committing adultery, trained for terrorist attacks at fundamentalist madrassas, and believed in jihad, which Gentries described as the thing they used to justify killing infidels.

“All Muslims are at war with America, and I will resist any attempt to challenge that assertion with potentially illuminating facts,” said Gentries, who threatened to leave the room if presented with the number of Muslims who live peacefully in the United States, serve in the country’s armed forces, or were victims themselves of the 9/11 attacks. “Period.”

“If you don’t believe me, wait until they put your wife in a burka,” Gentries continued in reference to the face-and-body-covering worn by a small minority of Muslim women and banned in the universities of Turkey, Tunisia, and Syria. “Or worse, a rape camp. That’s right: For reasons I am content being totally unable to articulate, I am choosing to associate Muslims with rape camps.”

Over the past decade, Gentries said he has taken pains to avoid personal interactions or media that might have the potential to compromise his point of view. He told reporters that the closest he had come to confronting a contrary standpoint was tuning in to the first few seconds of an interview with a moderate Muslim cleric before hastily turning off the television.

“I almost gave in and listened to that guy defend Islam with words I didn’t want to hear,” Gentries said. “But then I remembered how much easier it is to live in a world of black-and-white in which I can assign the label of ‘other’ to someone and use him as a vessel for all my fears and insecurities.”

Added Gentries, “That really put things back into perspective.”

I know I have some more Right wing readers and they will be pleased that I posted such a piece……and after they read it I will let them know what this is all about…..and I pray that the author will understand why I broke protocol and posted the entire piece……

Now……check out the first comment to see where this piece originated……

The Islam No One Knows

There is much suspicion surrounding Muslims worldwide….mostly because groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS have sucked all the air out of the religion leading people to believe that that is all there is to Islam….not so……

In an apartment in Amman, Jordan, three men sit with a man named Mohammed. Their goal: convince the 20-year-old Syrian not to join an armed jihadist group. Later, after Mohammed agreed to hold off for at least 40 days, one of the men declared victory. “Once they open their hearts and join us,” he says, “they never go back.” The men are adherents to Dawah, an Islamic movement that may have up to 50 million followers worldwide—and a reported 50,000 in the US, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Rooted in a 1921 Islamic revival in northwest India, Dawah calls on followers to convey the virtue of “loving thy fellow Muslims and non-Muslims.” Now proselytizing in more than 200 countries, Dawah members give a short talk, offer a blessing, and ask people to join them at a mosque for a prayer and lecture.

Dawah is an apolitical movement that its leaders call nonviolent; followers don’t debate their beliefs or broadcast them via social media. Critics, however, say Dawah’s adherence to conservative practices (like segregating men and women in public and requiring women to cover themselves) make it a possible gateway to extremism. Indeed, shoe bomber Richard Reid followed Dawah and John Walker Lindh, who joined the Taliban, apparently went to Dawah events in the US. Still, former CIA analyst Graham Fuller says the movement should be welcomed as a nonviolent alternative to extremist groups. “If some people say, ‘Look, we don’t want Dawah here at all,’ then they are not living in the real world,” he says. “[Dawah] is speaking to a very basic need to express one’s faith beyond prayer.”

I know this is not what some people want to hear and will ignore any positive aspects of a religion they do not like…..

All I do is try to help in the understanding…..not convert.  I dislike it when religion is used to fuel the dislike of a people…..

News You Will Never Hear

In the western world there is news and then there is NEWS……the first is what you get on cable TV and the other is what the rest of the world gets to read and hear….

For months now I have had a running debate about Muslims and most of their argument is boiled down to…..you never hear any imans condemning terrorism”…..I believe that everyone is acquainted with that argument…..

Well I know this will go NO where because it does not fit the BS that some want to pass off as intellectual thought……but at least I know they are wrong and now….you do to……

Every year in northern India, Muslims gather in Ajmer for the Urs festival to remember the death of Moinuddin Chishti, a Sufi Islamic cleric and scholar. This year, around 70,000 clerics who attended issued a fatwa condemning terrorism, but you’ll never hear about this from the conservative media or politicians who are trying to whip up hatred toward Muslims.

Source: 70,000 Muslim Clerics Issue Fatwa Condemning Terrorism

Like I said I do not expect to see this anywhere on the Right wing blogosphere because those people would rather spread their hatred than get to the truth….

Period!

 

McCain Speaks Truth

I will be honest…in the past I have not been very kind to some of the things that McCain has said or done….but I would like to say here and now that he has once again got my respect…..his stands on benefits for vets has gone a long way to turn me from my path of dislike for him……and he has written a new chapter in my relationship with him…..

We all know the stuff Trump spreads as somehow the truth is nothing manure spread like peanut butter on a cracker…..and his attacks on ALL Muslims has upset many people….most of whom will be called “liberals” or “apologists” or the bigger “Bleeding hearts”…..McCain has come to speak the truth…..

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Donald Trump’s divisive rhetoric is only serving to turn the international Muslim community against the U.S.

“Oh, I think it has an interesting effect of turning Muslims all over the world against the United States of America, which is 99.44 percent people who practice an honorable religion,” the Arizona senator said of Trump on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

McCain, a former GOP presidential nominee, also accused 2016 hopefuls of harping on the Syrian refugee crisis, while the U.S. faces much more substantial threats.

“As all of our candidates bloviate about the refugees, [Syrian President] Bashar Assad is a major cause of the refugees which are now flooding Europe and causing such consternation in the United States,” he said. “A no-fly zone will provide a refuge at least for some of these refugees.”

McCain said the longer the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is able to stay in power, the more the terrorist group’s ideology will begin to sink in.

“And by the way, the fact that is we can succeed here and ISIS is not that strong, but the longer they stay in power, the more this poison spreads and metastasizes from as far away as Afghanistan, Africa, and other parts of the world,” he said.

(The Hill)

While I will never agree with him on much…..I will do so on this issue…..I will never agree with him on US foreign policy for the Middle East…..like blaming refugees solely on Assad or a “no fly zone”….neither of these are the real problems or a real solution…..but I will give McCain props for speaking to truth.

Jihad: it’s Not What You Think it is

I am always looking for ways to help Americans and my readers to understand what they hear daily in the news….believe it or not everything i not as clear cut as politicians and pundits would like you to think…..

I tried to help with the understanding of the term “The Great Satan”…..its origin and use…..and now another one of those terms that is used incessantly is “jihad”……

We all know the term…but we actually do not know the term at all…..

It’s time to deconstruct the media’s false representation of Muslims and Jihad.

Source: Jihad: it’s Not What You Think it is

Keep in  mind….on 9/11 the hijackers not only hijacked some planes but they also hijacked a whole religion……

From The People You Hate

This is a news report you definitely will not see on FOX or Drudge or CNN or WND or most any other news outlet……but you will find it on In Saner Thought………

American Christians are the largest group of haters in the country……..and since ISIS has reared its ugly face the Christian community has done little to stop the hate toward Muslims and in some cases they are the driving force behind the hate…..with Qur’an burnings and pig roast on Ramadan to just plain hateful speech by so-called religious pundits..

No holds barred it is ALL Muslims that are to blame for the chaos that ISIS has delivered…..and a wealth of other lies told to feed the hate…..

For these reasons NO one will see this story on their local TV or their local rag they call a newspaper……..

The coalition — which consists of U.S. organizations Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative and Arab American Association of New York, as well as digital startup Ummah Wide — has so far raised over $23,000 in five days. After the campaign ends on July 18, the money will be given to pastors of the burned churches that  need it most, the groups said.

Like black communities in the United States, the coalition wrote, American Muslims are also vulnerable to intimidation, though not to the same extent as African-Americans.

“The American Muslim community cannot claim to have experienced anything close to the systematic and institutionalized racism and racist violence that has been visited upon African Americans,” organizer Imam Zaid Shakir wrote on the campaign’s website.

However, Muslims can understand the “climate of racially inspired hate and bigotry that is being reignited in this country,” Shakir wrote, saying the American Muslim community should stand in solidarity with African-Americans.

These Muslims are acting more like Christians than the Christians…….this is what Ramadan is about and you would know that if you took the time to understand…..but I guess that is too much to ask.

Why Hate The Hijab?

You know there are many sites and many opinions that are just damn right hateful on the web……..I mean you can find someone that hates puppies or kittens.

While I was torturing myself by reading a few of these blogs I came across one about head coverings……the hijab to be exact……in case you are not aware of this item…….is a covering that covers the head and chest, which is often worn by Muslim women beyond the age of puberty in the presence of adult males outside of their immediate family as a form of modest attire.

This jerk wad on his blog was telling the world that it was a sign of jihad and a symbol of hate……I had to point out that the word “hijab” in Arabic literally means a cover.  Then I went about asking this twat what he thought of the habit of Catholic nuns or for that matter the head scarf worn by orthodox Jewish women……..and then ask what is the difference in them from the hijab?  Do nuns want to kill their adversaries?  Or maybe those orthodox Jewish women are secret terrorists.

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It is a traditional head covering worn by women……there is no other meaning than that and to make more of it than there is shows a serious lack of intelligence.

The Condemnation You Will Never Hear

American spend their time hating and the media feeds this paradigm and the Right wing noise machine does nothing to help……

How many times have you heard the BS story of Muslims and their lack for condemnation of the extremists?

Probably NEVER because the media does not want the story out there…..for once it is their domination of the hegemony is on the wane…….

I have even seen what some would call “liberal” bloggers that are on the same page as FOX News when it comes to feeding the hate…….

The truth is that there is almost always condemnation from the Muslim world the problem is the Western media does not report it…….since 9/11 there have been many individuals and organizations that have condemned this type of violence…….

I translated this from a Middle Eastern source……..

Kuwait City (AFP) – A conference of Muslim states on Thursday condemned main jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq and studied a plan for developing an effective strategy against “terrorism and extremism”.

“We condemn the gruesome atrocities committed by all terrorist organisations including Daesh (Arabic for the Islamic State group), Al-Qaeda and Al-Nusra Front (its affiliate in Syria),” said the final communique of a two-day conference by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

The Sunni groups named are involved in armed conflicts in several Arab countries including Syria, Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Yemen.

No Shiite groups, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, were mentioned in the communique.

“The escalation of violence and terrorist crimes threatens regional and international security,” the statement said.

The conference was attended by more than 50 Muslim countries at foreign ministers level, including heavyweights Turkey, Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

I know this is NOT what most Americans want to hear……and they will not even know if this unless they read IST……this does not fit the paradigm the media wants to highlight……..

But to say that there is NO Condemnation of extremism is a LIE

There is more…….we hear that Islamic schools teach hatred and extremism……not so….but why listen to that for it does not aid in your illogical hatred……

In Egypt there is a movement to try and counter extremism in the education system………

In his battle against militant Islam, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is relying not just on bomber planes and soldiers but on white-turbaned clerics from Al-Azhar, Egypt’s 1,000-year-old center for Islamic learning. He wants clerics to counter radicalism in the classroom.

In a televised speech in January at an Al-Azhar conference center in Cairo, Sisi called for “a religious revolution” in Islam. Radicalized thinking, he told the audience of Islamic scholars, had become “a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world.”

That had to change – and the scholars had a leading role to play, in schools, mosques and on the airwaves.

The president’s warning is part of a much larger project. To contain the radical Islamist movement roiling his nation, Sisi has most conspicuously been using the law and brute force. But he is also promoting a more moderate and less politicized version of the faith.

In that struggle the Al-Azhar institution is one of the most important fronts for Sisi – and for the wider region. The outcome of the struggle in Egypt, the intellectual and cultural capital of the Arab world, has ramifications far beyond its borders.

The Al-Azhar mosque was built in the 10th century and is one of the oldest in Egypt. It opened a university that spread Shi’ite Islam until the end of the Fatimid Caliphate in 1171. It later turned into a Sunni mosque and university that taught the four schools of mainstream Sunni Islam.

Today the university’s various faculties and research centers have 450,000 students, many from countries across Asia and Africa. It also has a network of more than 9,000 schools across Egypt attended by more than 2 million students.

Al-Azhar’s teachers, preachers, and researchers have so far introduced a few small changes. They include tweaking text books and setting up an online monitoring center to track militant statements on social media so the institute can better refute them. But there is no detailed reform program yet, and Al-Azhar officials openly acknowledge the magnitude of the challenge ahead

Another one of those stories that the West refuses to report……there are people that are trying to change the perception of Islam from one of extremism to one of tolerance……I am sure that there will be those that will not appreciate this story for, again, does not fit their paradigm…….I will admit that there is a long hard road for reformers to trek…..but at least they are trying.

AS I always say to haters……..CAN’T FIX STUPID!