Explaining negativity towards Muslims and/or Islam?

[Tambourine]

My initial opinion of Islam was engraved in my mind the day after 9-11-01, when Muslims were shown on TV cheering and celebrating the deaths of innocent civilians, women, children... Honest everyday people murderered in mass.

It's fascinating and disturbing just how badly manipulative media coverage can poison people's minds, isn't it.

 

[danieldemol]

Not at all. Muslims, like Atheists, Satanist and Christians, and anyone else, can and do do terrible things

Where they do these terrible things, we often find underlying beliefs that motivate them.
You are acting as though it is one misinterpreted word which motivates apostasy laws, but there may be hadith which do not even use that word that motivate them. Perhaps you could tell us where the word irtihad (apostasy) appears in the following hadith;

‘It was narrated from ‘Ikrimah that ‘Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) burned some people. News of that reached Ibn ‘Abbaas and he said: If it were me, I would not have burned them, because the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “Do not punish with the punishment of Allah.” And I would have executed them as the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “Whoever changes his religion, then execute him.” Narrated by al-Bukhaari (3017).’

I notice you seem reluctant to answer @Piculet ’s questions/statements, could it be because he is an authentic follower of his own interpretation of Islam which shows that the interpretation you follow is not followed by all Muslims?

 

[Cooky]

It's fascinating and disturbing just how badly manipulative media coverage can poison people's minds, isn't it.

Poisoned with reality.

 

[Mock Turtle]

?

Poisoned with reality.

The reality that a few can cause the many to be painted as just the same? Which I believe is a common fallacy.

 

[loverofhumanity]

My personal opinion is that prejudice towards Muslims is due to generalisation in judgement, assuming wrongfully for instance that because a terrorist committed crimes that all Muslims are evil or the same. Muslims by nature are a peaceful people like anyone of us. It’s like saying if an American terrorist killed people then all Americans are evil or bad. Simply nonsensical and false.

As far as Islam goes. What basically do westerners know about Islam? Where do they get their knowledge from? The west’s first introduction to Prophet Muhammad came from Christian missionaries who mentioned the word ‘sword’ and ‘satan’ more than Islam’s emphasis on the pen, education and scholarship.

For hundreds of years our knowledge of Muhammad, the Holy Qur'án, and Islam in general, has come to us through biased intermediaries. Literary geniuses such as Dante, Shakespeare, Gibbon, Sale, Thomas Carlyle, and Washington Irving, have transmitted to us opinions of the Arabian Prophet which at best can be described as 'damning with faint praise' and at worst to believing Him worthy of Hell's greatest torments.

As an example; for nearly a century Sir William Muir's (1819-1905) four volume biography, The Life of Muhammad, was held up (and to some it still is!) as the principal English language authority on the life of the Arabian Prophet. Muir said, 'The sword of Mahomet and the Coran [Qur'án] are the most fatal enemies of civilization, liberty and truth which the world has yet known.'source - Islam and the Bahá'í Faith)

 

[Piculet]

No, it is variable and relative.

How?

 

[Piculet]

And there we have it - the no true Scotsman. Okay, I suspect that these Muslims would still consider themselves Muslims and I would, but I accept that you don't do that.

I wonder if you chose to miss the "based on the Qur'an and the Hadith" part.

 

[Piculet]

I know about the Hadith, thank you very much. What I'm not sure about is why my criticism of Islamic ideas would be related to Hadith rejectors. A person can criticize basic Islamic ideas by focusing on the Quran OR by taking a broader source of material.

My reply was related to what I quoted you saying about denominations.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

How?

There is no united single uniform interpretation of what Islam is within Islam.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I wonder if you chose to miss the "based on the Qur'an and the Hadith" part.

Not all Muslims accept the Hadith or rather they do not arrive at the same conclusions based on based on the Qur'an and the Hadith.

 

[Piculet]

Not all Muslims accept the Hadith or rather they do not arrive at the same conclusions based on based on the Qur'an and the Hadith.

So is your argument that the Quran supports secularism? What is it based on?

Or rather they don't arrive at the same conclusions? Whom are you talking about?

 

[Piculet]

Now you're skipping a question here. I wanted to know more about what you meant by more. Obviously I assumed you meant the Sunnah, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Indeed if you look closer there is not single set of ideas, because Islam is more than just the Qur'an.

Sounds like you're implying that that more is something unknowable, but it isn't.

No, it is variable and relative.

How?

There is no united single uniform interpretation of what Islam is within Islam.

I have heard this claim many times. I think it saves everyone's time to pass that point. Instead I would like to understand your reasoning behind it.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

So is your argument that the Quran supports secularism? What is it based on?

Or rather they don't arrive at the same conclusions? Whom are you talking about?

Well, that is the question. Take Albania - they have depending on what counts you trust 55% to 70% Muslims yet they are not a Muslim country and thus since they accept a different kind of law than the one you require for them to be Muslims, they are not Muslims.

See, that was easy. According to you they are not Muslims and according to themselves they are Muslims.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Now you're skipping a question here. I wanted to know more about what you meant by more. Obviously I assumed you meant the Sunnah, but correct me if I'm wrong.





I have heard this claim many times. I think it saves everyone's time to pass that point. Instead I would like to understand your reasoning behind it.

Okay, I will explain something. I am a Christian in some sense, but I am a Protestant. It means that in my tradition within Christianity we don't accept the clergy or the state to regulate our relationship with God. My relationship with God is mine personally and the only one who can judge me about that, is God.
I live in a secular state and thus my relationship with God is mine alone and not the problem of the clergy or the state.

Now that means that I can't rely on any outside Authoritative Tradition of what to do. I am on my own. I can ask others for their opinion, but that is it. It is their opinion.

So do you get it? I don't want to offend you or anything. But my way of understanding the relationship between God and humans are different than yours. So when I look at any religious human, all I ask is that do the individual have such a relationship? If yes, then it stops there. That person is religious and of whatever belief that person subscribes to.

We are both be of the same Abrahamic "stock", but in practice we differ in how we view the relationship between God and humans.

Regards
Mikkel

 

[Piculet]

Okay, I will explain something. I am a Christian in some sense, but I am a Protestant. It means that in my tradition within Christianity we don't accept the clergy or the state to regulate our relationship with God. My relationship with God is mine personally and the only one who can judge me about that, is God.
I live in a secular state and thus my relationship with God is mine alone and not the problem of the clergy or the state.

Now that means that I can't rely on any outside Authoritative Tradition of what to do. I am on my own. I can ask others for their opinion, but that is it. It is their opinion.

So do you get it? I don't want to offend you or anything. But my way of understanding the relationship between God and humans are different than yours. So when I look at any religious human, all I ask is that do the individual have such a relationship? If yes, then it stops there. That person is religious and of whatever belief that person subscribes to.

We are both be of the same Abrahamic "stock", but in practice we differ in how we view the relationship between God and humans.

Regards
Mikkel

I'm aware of this Christian idea and it is not from Islam. I just listened to a lecture a couple days ago about how the non-Muslims are trying to put such a practice in place within Islam in order to weaken the unity of the Muslims. Allah says in the Qur'an 2:120 "Never will the Jews or the Christians be satisfied with thee unless thou follow their form of religion. Say: "The Guidance of Allah,-that is the (only) Guidance." Wert thou to follow their desires after the knowledge which hath reached thee, then wouldst thou find neither Protector nor helper against Allah." and the lecturer said that this does not require changing one's religion, but only that one accepts this type of thinking that everyone can make their own kind of relationship with God.

With that said, you absolutely did not answer my question.

 

[Piculet]

Well, that is the question. Take Albania - they have depending on what counts you trust 55% to 70% Muslims yet they are not a Muslim country and thus since they accept a different kind of law than the one you require for them to be Muslims, they are not Muslims.

See, that was easy. According to you they are not Muslims and according to themselves they are Muslims.

And which individual would be the one deciding what the government does? They are not able to control that. You misunderstood my point.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I'm aware of this Christian idea and it is not from Islam. I just listened to a lecture a couple days ago about how the non-Muslims are trying to put such a practice in place within Islam in order to weaken the unity of the Muslims. Allah says in the Qur'an 2:120 "Never will the Jews or the Christians be satisfied with thee unless thou follow their form of religion. Say: "The Guidance of Allah,-that is the (only) Guidance." Wert thou to follow their desires after the knowledge which hath reached thee, then wouldst thou find neither Protector nor helper against Allah." and the lecturer said that this does not require changing one's religion, but only that one accepts this type of thinking that everyone can make their own kind of relationship with God.

With that said, you absolutely did not answer my question.

So I look at the Muslim world and I see this, just as among the Christians. Even in Judaism there is not just one form.

What do you want me to say? That is Islam is united as one uniform whole?

Now if you can explain this diversity as not being there, I will learn from you and stand corrected.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

And which individual would be the one deciding what the government does? They are not able to control that. You misunderstood my point.

Well, it is a democracy and they are the majority, so they could enact Muslim rule.
So what was your point? That all Muslims in majority Muslim countries must have Islamic rule or otherwise they are not Muslims or was it something else?

 

[Tambourine]

Poisoned with reality.

Reality is a curious thing. Many Americans still refuse to believe that their military set up torture camps for Muslims back in Iraq, or that their border agents maintain concentration"detention" camps for kids.

 

[Cooky]

Reality is a curious thing. Many Americans still refuse to believe that their military set up torture camps for Muslims back in Iraq, or that their border agents maintain concentration"detention" camps for kids.

Do you see Americans chanting and cheering when the government does that to everyday women and children?

Nope... Americans have not been recorded celebrating the deaths of innocent Muslim civilians by the thousands.

...We don't do that as a people.