Because, as I said, and which you said was fair enough, it's not up to me, a non-Muslim, to tell people who consider themselves Muslim whether they qualify or not; that's for them to decide.
Ok, I'll concede that. But I'd still call their actions, be it blowing themselves up or celebrating those who do as martyrs un-Islamic, indeed anti-Islamic.
MSizer said:
Perhaps, but as far as the terrorists are concerned they're martyrs in the name if allah, and bickering over semantics or over what one particular sect says vs. another doesn't change the facts.
Originally Posted by
Baydwin
It's relevant because the people in 1193 were martyrs, they died defending the faith from aggressive combatants. Blowing up civilians is murder, not martyrdom.
No, it's not relevant at all. I can call those people from 1193 martyrs, I can call them terrorists, I can call them rabbits or I can call them Steve. The fact remains that they're long dead and don't matter today. The misguided 18 year old fanatic on a bus in Jerusalem right now with a bomb tucked under his jacket and pockets stuffed with steel nails and rat poison certainly does matter very much right now to the 30 other people on the bus and their loved ones. Tell the mother of the teen aged girl on that bus that faith (in this particular case the Islamic faith) is the victim of prejudice or seterotype.
Look MSizer, they're not blowing themselves up because they're Muslim or because Islam tells them it is right.
That they are Muslim is almost incidental, if the situation were different they could just as easily be Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Sikh, non-religious etc.
The reason they are blowing themselves up is because they are brainwashed, it just so happens that the militant groups doing the brainwashing are using these young people's Islamic faith as a vector through which to coerce them into performing these heinous, politically motivated, acts.
JeLy said:
Well, whatever his specific reasons were, they were related to his belief in communism and not his lack of belief in a deity.
The point I was trying to make was that, even though Stalin was an atheist and attempted to annihilate the Russian Orthodox Church because of his dislike of religion, atheism can't be to blame for the actions of an individual. Just as Islam can't be to blame for the actions of backward extremists.
YmirGF said:
*giggle*
Oh really? I am going to call your bluff on this one. Prove your point. Go ahead... I'll wait.
Suicide is prohibited in Islam, as is the killing of innocent bystanders.
YmirGF said:
Care to tell us what precipitated the Crusades? It's ok... I'll wait. Considering that the Crusaders were fighting to repel the advance of Muslim imperialism and that Muslims were occupiers of those lands, the martyrdom shtick just doesn't fly. Nice try though.
They were martyrs because they were soldiers fighting soldiers, defending themselves and their faith. That the Jewish occupants fought alongside the Muslim occupants of Jerusalem should tell you something about who was welcome in the city and who were the imperialistic invaders.
