Should Europe resist Islam?

[~Amin~]

I find it amazing that a person is offended that another person does not want to convert to his own personal beliefs, to me, this is selfishness and ignorance of the highest degree.

Oh my Great Lord, if i felt offended i wouldn't be afraid to tell you.

I wouldn't want to contradict the Qurán now will I?
"To you be your religion, and to me be my religion"
Qurán.

 

[Caladan]

Oh my Great Lord, if i felt offended i wouldn't be afraid to tell you.

I wouldn't want to contradict the Qurán now will I?
"To you be your religion, and to me be my religion"
Qurán.

If only you took it to heart. by all means keep your religion to yourself. after all if you do not fulfill your own religion and just praise it to other people, something is evidently wrong.

 

[kai]

Because they say we Muslims are intolerant, but there responses prove that
they are intolerant.


[/COLOR]My Goal is ''Your duty is to convey the message clearly" Qurán
thats it nothing more.

"Allah to Whom Belongs all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth" Qurán.
No its not my duty to return anything to Him, except my heart turned to Him sincerely.

but is it not true that Allah has made Muslims the leaders and rulers of mankind through whom He would reform the world and to whom people would submit, so that they would have in exchange a safe security after their fear?

 

[sandandfoam]

I reject the idea that Islam is inherently aggressive. I believe Islam to be a religion of peace. Muslim scholars repeatedly say so e.g.

CHRISTIAN and Muslim scholars of England said on Friday that recent incidents of terrorism in Pakistan were not related to religion rather vested political forces were behind the incidents. They urged the followers of both religions to work as a team for peace and harmony in Pakistan as well as in the world.

The scholars were addressing an interfaith dialogue at the Punjab University’s Sheikh Zayed Islamic Centre. The delegation included Bishop of Bradford and Member of House of Lords England David James, Bishop of Pontificate Tony Robinson and Chairman Christian Muslim Forum England Musharraf Hussain. From Pakistan, Bishop of Lahore Dr Alexander John Malik, PU Dean Islamic Studies Dr Hafiz Mahmood Akhtar, Prof Dr Mazhar Moeen and Director Islamic Studies Dr Shabbir Mansoori participated in the dialogue. PU Acting Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Jamil Anwar presided over the dialogue. A large number of Islamic Studies students were also present. Lord Bishop David James said Christians and Muslims should work for establishing peace, justice and love in the world.

Musharraf Hussain said Islam emphasised the dealing for the followers of other religions with love and care. He said participation in the ceremonies of the people of other religion was like “silent preach”. He said Christians of England took care of Muslim minority, hence Pakistani people should also take care of Pakistani Christians with love and care.

Dr Jamil Anwar said it was unfortunate that a bad picture of Islam was being presented before the world. He said Islam is the religion of peace and no Muslim can kill other people, adding some vested political powers were using them for their interest and agenda. He said it was the duty of Muslims to highlight the true picture and present true face of Islam before the world. He said religion is always for the betterment of society but some people misuse it.

Bishop of Lahore Alexander John Malik said that the English delegation was visiting Pakistan at the invitation of President of Pakistan who invited them to visit and see Pakistani people after Gojra incident. He quoted a verse of Holy Quran that “killing one human being is like killing the whole humanity” and said no Muslim can kill others as per teachings of Holy Quran. He said political reasons were behind the increased terrorist incidents in Pakistan.

Dr Mazhar Moeen, Dr Hafiz Muhammad Akhtar and Dr Shabbir Mansoori also spoke.

from Interfaith harmony urged for world peace

It is a mistake to listen to those minority of extremists who would usurp the majority. It is like saying the Real IRA are representative of Ireland. Nonsense.
All this hype about Muslim bogeymen is counter productive and does not reflect reality.
Islam is a religion of Peace. Why not pay attention to those Muslim leaders who say so?

 

[kai]

Stephen there are no Muslim leaders, you pays your money you takes your choice on who you listen to.

 

[~Amin~]

after all if you do not fulfill your own religion and just praise it to other people, something is evidently wrong.

Definitly.

 

[sandandfoam]

Stephen there are no Muslim leaders, you pays your money you takes your choice on who you listen to.

True.
But why listen to the violent minority not the peaceful majority, or rather why take the extremists as representative rather than the moderate and tolerate for example to whom I linked?

 

[Caladan]

Islam is a religion of Peace. Why not pay attention to those Muslim leaders who say so?

No religion is a religion of peace. its an ideal, sort of a comforting myth. for any Muslim scholar that talks about peace, I can bring you a dozen that speak about executing rebellious women and gays.
All we are saying is, please do not try to idolize a religion to us. we are not blind, we've all saw and experienced whats happening in the world. our baggage is not with those people of Muslims faith who simply live their lives and try to struggle through their everyday issues.
I understand there are Muslims who simply want to live their lives. and truly their religious practices are of no importance to me. but please do not try to tell us that any religion is a religion of truth or peace. people cannot deny the horrible problems in Muslim societies. this is not an insult to Islam. this is simply an observation to those who try to sell us a myth of an ideal religion, or a religion of peace. you cannot disconnect what is happening in Muslims society and create a fiction of a pure religion of peace. there is no religion of peace, there is simply a religion, for the good and the bad.
many of us are secular people. all we want from a religion is to be neutral. we do not want it to try and influence any element of our secular lives. we have been willing to tolerate it all our lives, just don't sell us fictions, try to convert us, or call us infidels. we WILL criticize the problems we see in our societies, because we are citizens of these societies, and it is our right to voice our concerns.
We are not spiritual people. 'religion of peace' is a fiction to us.

 

[kai]

True.
But why listen to the violent minority not the peaceful majority, or rather why take the extremists as representative rather than the moderate and tolerate for example to whom I linked?

I dont listen to any of them, whats the point they are all at loggerheads as to what actually is a Muslim and what is Islamic. do we look to Saudi or Iran or to Pakistan ? in fact i dont think there is anyone to take as representative, If the quran is the unalterable word of God himself how come Muslims cant get themselves on the same wavelength, let alone us.

 

[sandandfoam]

No religion is a religion of peace. its an ideal, sort of a comforting myth. for any Muslim scholar that talks about peace, I can bring you a dozen that speak about executing rebellious women and gays.
All we are saying is, please do not try to idolize a religion to us. we are not blind, we've all saw and experienced whats happening in the world. our baggage is not with those people of Muslims faith who simply live their lives and try to struggle through their everyday issues.
I understand there are Muslims who simply want to live their lives. and truly their religious practices are of no importance to me. but please do not try to tell us that any religion is a religion of truth or peace. people cannot deny the horrible problems in Muslim societies. this is not an insult to Islam. this is simply an observation to those who try to sell us a myth of an ideal religion, or a religion of peace. you cannot disconnect what is happening in Muslims society and create a fiction of a pure religion of peace. there is no religion of peace, there is simply a religion, for the good and the bad.
many of us are secular people. all we want from a religion is to be neutral. we do not want it to try and influence any element of our secular lives. we have been willing to tolerate it all our lives, just don't sell us fictions, try to convert us, or call us infidels. we WILL criticize the problems we see in our societies, because we are citizens of these societies, and it is our right to voice our concerns.
We are not spiritual people. 'religion of peace' is a fiction to us.

With respect I am not trying to idolize Islam. If I thought Islam was perfect I would be a Muslim.
I am making the argument that it is nuts to try and demonize Islam and 'keep it out'
I don't deny that there are problems in MUslim societies - as there are in Christian and secular societies, my point is that Islam is no more a violent or misogynistic a religion than Catholicism or many others and should be treated just the same as any other religion.

 

[sandandfoam]

I dont listen to any of them, whats the point they are all at loggerheads as to what actually is a Muslim and what is Islamic. do we look to Saudi or Iran or to Pakistan ? in fact i dont think there is anyone to take as representative, If the quran is the unalterable word of God himself how come Muslims cant get themselves on the same wavelength, let alone us.

You could listen to Tariq Ramadan if you wanted to hear a European Muslim voice

 

[sandandfoam]

Here's what Ramadan had to say about the Swiss ban (He was born in Switzerland and is a Swiss citizen)

The campaign against the minarets was fuelled by just these anxieties and allegations. Voters were drawn to the cause by a manipulative appeal to popular fears and emotions. Posters featured a woman wearing a burka with the minarets drawn as weapons on a colonised Swiss flag. The claim was made that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Swiss values. (The UDC has in the past demanded my citizenship be revoked because I was defending Islamic values too openly.) Its media strategy was simple but effective. Provoke controversy wherever it can be inflamed. Spread a sense of victimhood among the Swiss people: we are under siege, the Muslims are silently colonising us and we are losing our very roots and culture. This strategy worked. The Swiss majority are sending a clear message to their Muslim fellow citizens: we do not trust you and the best Muslim for us is the Muslim we cannot see.

Who is to be blamed? I have been repeating for years to Muslim people that they have to be positively visible, active and proactive within their respective western societies. In Switzerland, over the past few months, Muslims have striven to remain hidden in order to avoid a clash. It would have been more useful to create new alliances with all these Swiss organisations and political parties that were clearly against the initiative. Swiss Muslims have their share of responsibility but one must add that the political parties, in Europe as in Switzerland have become cowed, and shy from any courageous policies towards religious and cultural pluralism. It is as if the populists set the tone and the rest follow. They fail to assert that Islam is by now a Swiss and a European religion and that Muslim citizens are largely "integrated". That we face common challenges, such as unemployment, poverty and violence – challenges we must face together. We cannot blame the populists alone – it is a wider failure, a lack of courage, a terrible and narrow-minded lack of trust in their new Muslim citizens.

I agree with him. Europe more generally is in danger of failing in pluralism. We need to stand up to those who generate myths of bogeymen.

 

[Caladan]

With respect I am not trying to idolize Islam. If I thought Islam was perfect I would be a Muslim.
I am making the argument that it is nuts to try and demonize Islam and 'keep it out'

I think people need to separate demonization from much needed criticism. the fact that people cannot criticize Islam without risking their lives, and without the issuing of fatwas and assassinations, tells us: "hey, there is a problem here." trust me stephen, I've read the Qur'an out of genuine interest, I've read plenty of Muslim literature, I've befriended many Muslims, as it were most chances are that the thesis I chose to do in the university is about early Muslim society in Palestine, for heavens sake, part of my family has lived for centuries in a Muslim country. half of my nation has always lived right here in the middle east. we've had our good times and our bad times with Muslims.

I don't deny that there are problems in MUslim societies - as there are in Christian and secular societies, my point is that Islam is no more a violent or misogynistic a religion than Catholicism or many others and should be treated just the same as any other religion.

I whole heartedly disagree. you need to understand that im not placing the blame on the normal Muslim citizens around the world. but there are serious disturbing problems across the world which in great part come from Islam. you cannot compare 'Christian and secular societies' to nations which legally define gays and apostates as criminals up for the death row. you cannot deny that many Muslim nations are dystopic dictatorships, now I do not know if this last fact is the complete fault of Islam, but its there and its mixed with it all.
What im saying is, that people do not need to demonize anyone, but they most certainly need to recognize the problems and not bury their head.

 

[kai]

Here's what Ramadan had to say about the Swiss ban (He was born in Switzerland and is a Swiss citizen)

I agree with him. Europe more generally is in danger of failing in pluralism. We need to stand up to those who generate myths of bogeymen.

stephen people like Adam Khatib are not myths.

BBC News - How British Muslim Adam Khatib became a bomb plotter


maybe when Islam can get its own house in order i would be more inclined invite it to stay in mine.

 

[sandandfoam]

What im saying is, that people do not need to demonize anyone, but they most certainly need to recognize the problems and not bury their head.

I agree with you.

I'm not sure if you'll agree with me on this but I'll throw it out there. I do not deny that there are problems in Muslim countries. Muslims often have regimes, backed by the west foisted upon them, we can't then hold them responsible for the regimes they have had imposed upon them.
Islam in Europe is generally moderate, there is a lot of moderate Islam - look at the site I linked to above. We willfully ignore this and say the radical muslims want to take over. This simply is not true. Sure there may be a minority of headbangers. But they are a minority - it is unjust in the extreme to tar the majority with the same brush. Furthermore Islam is now European. Same as Protestants are Irish. The outsider comes in and they are no longer outsiders.

 

[sandandfoam]

stephen people like Adam Khatib are not myths.

BBC News - How British Muslim Adam Khatib became a bomb plotter


maybe when Islam can get its own house in order i would be more inclined invite it to stay in mine.

Look at what Paisley said here. And he's a Christian minister

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In September 1969 Paisley wrote to the British Home Secretary telling him the cause of high Catholic unemployment and poor housing was because "these people breed like rabbits and multiply like vermin"[/FONT] [ 11 ][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]. In Omagh in 1981 Paisley said "Our ancestors cut a civilisation out of the bogs and meadows of this country while Mr Haughey's ancestors were wearing pig skins and living in caves."[/FONT] [ 12 ] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]On the 29th May 1984 Belfast DUP councillor George Seawright said of Catholics "Taxpayers money would be better spent on an incinerator and burning the whole lot of them. The priests should be thrown in and burned as well"[/FONT] [ 13 ][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]. John Bingham a senior UVF leader suspected of involvement in the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings acted as Seawright's election agent. After Bingham was killed by the IRA in 1986 Seawright called for retaliation while Nigel Dodds (now a DUP M.P.) and other senior DUP politicians visited the Bingham home to offer condolences [/FONT][ 14 ][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif].[/FONT]

from Irish National Congress - Comhdáil Násiúnta na hÉireann

Yet no one would suggest Protestants would be welcome to stay when they get their house in order. What's the difference?

 

[Caladan]

I agree with you.

I'm not sure if you'll agree with me on this but I'll throw it out there. I do not deny that there are problems in Muslim countries. Muslims often have regimes, backed by the west foisted upon them, we can't then hold them responsible for the regimes they have had imposed upon them.

Have you developed a tormenting Jewish conscious stephen?
I've never claimed international politics is sweets and candies. it is mostly cow dung.

Islam in Europe is generally moderate, there is a lot of moderate Islam - look at the site I linked to above. We willfully ignore this and say the radical muslims want to take over. This simply is not true. Sure there may be a minority of headbangers. But they are a minority - it is unjust in the extreme to tar the majority with the same brush. Furthermore Islam is now European. Same as Protestants are Irish. The outsider comes in and they are no longer outsiders.

I understand where you are coming from. what im trying to convey is my agenda, in which. Europeans need to tolerate Muslims and be positive to moderate Islam. but by no circumstances do Europeans need to have their mouth shut in their own nations when the European ethos and hard earned reality is being mutilated.
im not talking about taking arms. im talking about using the accepted modern instruments that western society has used for decades to moderate itself. use the media, education, domestic politics and any other relevant tool that a democracy uses to protect its foundations.

 

[kai]

Look at what Paisley said here. And he's a Christian minister
from Irish National Congress - Comhdáil Násiúnta na hÉireann

Yet no one would suggest Protestants would be welcome to stay when they get their house in order. What's the difference?

dont get me started on that gob****e! lol

 

[zenzero]

Friend stephenw,

Should Europe resist Islam?

Resistances in Europe is as we all know a reaction stemming from the closed door policy on other religions from some non-secular / non- democratic countries.

Religion everywhere should be OPEN everywhere on earth besides it should be the fundamentalism of few who under the guise of religion that spreads terrorisms worldwide should humans be against.

Love & rgds

 

[cottage]

Some portray Islam as a moderate religion and of course there are many moderate Muslims, the majority no doubt. But there is no getting away from how it is represented by a hugely significant number of its followers who are unforgiving, easily offended, and who mean to see Islamic beliefs imposed on the world. And while it would be quite false to say all Muslims are terrorists, the statement 'All terrorists are Muslims' does at least have something approaching a ring of truth about it. And where Islamic beliefs exist to any great extent there is likely to be a number among them who take a more extreme view of that religion, its place in the world and how that should be achieved.

What I've described is the ugly aspect of Islam, but I think we have to recognise that, even without the extremists and fanatics, any belief system imposing the overtly symbolic effects of a particular way of life, whether intended or unintended, on the settled community, may be harmful and divisive. The Islamic religion is intense and authoritative, and we've seen that its beliefs, or the way they are interpreted, are not always going to be compatible with its host nation. And we need to be aware of that.