« What Is Islam Doing Wrong? They're Not Jews | Main | Unexploded Devices Discovered In London Amidst A Report That At Least One Operative Was Gitmo Release »
July 7, 2005
On Daniel Pipe's "Has Islam Been Hijiacked?"
Topics: Understanding IslamFinally, someone has come along to put the issue of 'true' Islam to bed - dead! I'm tired of Islamic apologists and appeasers cowtowing to Islamists like tinker Belle through a patch of egg shells, and acting politically correct so that the followers of Islam can plan and carryout the destruction of my country, my allies, my friends and my family.
"There is no "true" or "essential" Islam; the religion has evolved over fourteen centuries and continues to do so. It could even go the way of bin Laden."
Daniel Pipes asks, "Has Islam Been Hijiacked?"
Pipes answers his own question with, "Yes, according to many analysts, both Muslim and non-Muslim, the religion has been hijacked by Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, and more broadly by violent Islamists."
- From Daniel Pipe's Blog (July 6, 2005)
Hamza Yusuf, an American Muslim leader: "Islam has been hijacked by a discourse of anger and a rhetoric of rage."Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysian politician: "Who Hijacked Islam? Repressive Muslim regimes are partly to blame for bin Laden's rise."
Reuven Firestone, professor of Medieval Judaism and Islam: "God has been hijacked by terrorists. Islam is not the problem. Terrorism is the problem, and terrorists have hijacked both Islam and God."
However, in a new book, Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence (Prometheus), Héctor Avalos explains on pp. 283-84 why this concept is dead wrong:
"Most modern philosophers have rightly cautioned against committing acts of "essentialism." The essentialist fallacy ... claims that entities have unchanging characteristics that identify them as what they are. ... However, it is precisely essentialism that is at the root of characterizations of Osama bin Laden as "hijacking" or "perverting" Islam. Such notions of "perversion," of course, are meaningless unless one has already decided what constitutes the "true" or "essential" Islam.There is no "true" or "essential" Islam; the religion has evolved over fourteen centuries and continues to do so. It could even go the way of bin Laden."
If Prof. Avalos is right, just which Islam are we suppose to be kissing up to? Osama's or ??????????
In a related read, I turn to comments left on one of Daniel Pipe's 2002 articles, " A War Against What?":
To date, while we have heard from Muslims how they were slaughtered by Christians during the Crusades of years gone by, they also turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the wanton slaughter of Christians by Mohammed and his followers in the same era.
While they call for Christian apologies for the Crusades and receive such apologies, there are no apologies forthcoming from Muslims for their bloodshed. Furthermore, may I point out that biblical Christians can categorically condemn the Crusades as being unbiblical, something that is totally out of character with Jesus and the standard of Christianity, the Bible. The same cannot be said of Islam. Mohammed not only called for the death of "infidels" in the Qu'ran, but also participated in the same. In other words, the Crusades were typically "un-Christian;" the same cannot be said of the Muslim equivalent.
It would be rather simple for the Islamic world to show that they are a religion of peace. All they would have to do is to categorically condemn the present day slaughter of Christians; to demand the release of Christians imprisoned in Islamic prisons around the world; to provide for the free worship and movement of Christians in the Islamic world. The continued silence of the Islamic world in the light of these atrocities only provide further proof that those who belong to Al Qaeda may in fact be better defined as "true Muslims" rather than "militant Muslims."
Posted by Hyscience at July 7, 2005 4:27 PM
Articles Related to Understanding Islam:
- On Daniel Pipe's "Has Islam Been Hijiacked?" - Jul 07, 2005
