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April 17, 2006
'Alienated From Islam'
Topics: Understanding IslamFrom the mouth of a Muslim (via Egyptian Sandmonkey) comes some "must read" common sense on Islam:
Over the past decade, the words "Islam" and "Muslim" have become correlated with bombings, terrorism, suicidal bombers, and violence.Be sure to read it all ...Like any beings, there are good Muslims and there are bad Muslims. Unfortunately, we have earned ourselves a reputation, as Muslims, of being evil.
It's reached the extent that just for someone to find an Arab-looking person on the same airplane flight makes them break into a cold sweat!
I believe that just like anything in life, religion should be practiced by heart and mind. God gave us brains to use them. If, when He created us, He meant for us to follow blindly, He would've given us bird brains.
For some reason, following without questioning has become the only acceptable way of practicing Islam. People are being taught, as Muslims, that they have to take for granted what the Islamic figures teach them. Those who question are deviant strays, who are destined for hell.
So why is Islam an exception to using your brain? Why is it an exception to thinking for yourself and judging how God expects us to behave? Why is Islam an exception to question the disturbing Islamic teachings, especially about what our attitudes are supposed to be towards people from different countries, religions, or even about other Muslims who don't practice Islam the way these people are trying to dictate- referring to them as "kafara" (atheists, nonbelievers, destined for hell).
Last Friday, at Friday prayer time, our neighborhood mosque was flaring the Friday preaching on its speakers. God knows who assigned the preacher, or what credentials he had to be preaching to people in the first place? Was he really a sheikh? By whose standards? According to whose teachings? How is someone declared fit to recite preachings at Friday prayer anyway?
This guy was clearly uneducated, and judging by his accent, a fala7 (peasant)! Not to mention, from the shit he was saying, he was completely disconnected with the today's world and today's people, and hadn't the faintest idea about anything! Clueless. Definitely a graduate of the Predators' Academy of Brainwashing. The perfect candidate: uneducated, ignorant, naïve and plain stupid.
This idiot loudly and audaciously claimed that:
- Parents should never let their teenage boys out of the house unchaperoned. According to him, any teenage boys that are allowed out without their parents' supervision, will surely and indisputably do drugs, and in turn, become a drug addict.
- Not only this, but he will become a drug-addicted pervert who will rape his mother and sister.
- To top off this very enlightening speech, it sickens me to even repeat what he said: "They will become like dogs and pigs, just like the Jews and Christians."
Now I am neither Jew nor Christian, but I am a person who respects other people's beliefs. I was profoundly offended.
Do you know what the worst part of all was? People continued listening. No one had the morality or guts to object and say, "Excuse me? Who allowed you to preach? Are you teaching people to hate and fester disgust at each other instead of love, kindness and giving? Shouldn't you be preaching about how each person can influence the world by good deeds-to feed the hungry, charity to an orphanage, donating to the childrens' cancer hospital, etc?
Welcome to the world we live in. Welcome to the new Muslim world; a world of ignorance, hatred, and intolerance; a very sad, sick world.
The take home message here is NOT ONLY that there are good Muslims and bad Muslims just as there are good people and bad people everywhere of all faiths, rather that such hate is being preached to so many gullible people at "neighborhood mosques" throughout the world (and that especially includes the U.S. and Europe) by so many Islamist preachers like the one described here by a "thinking Muslim".
And further, think about his comments that speaks volumes for reform:
... at Friday prayer time, our neighborhood mosque was flaring the Friday preaching on its speakers. God knows who assigned the preacher, or what credentials he had to be preaching to people in the first place? Was he really a sheikh? By whose standards? According to whose teachings? How is someone declared fit to recite preachings at Friday prayer anyway?In other words, whose watching the Muslim store and regulating what's being sold to Muslims throughout the world? There is no such authority, and therein lies much of the problem with Islam today and why we are seeing a world wide war against terrorism and Islamofascism in juxtaposition with a war within Islam itself.
Somehow, we need to find a way to be able to clearly and succinctly identify thinking Muslims, and work with them to wipe out the cancer within their faith - the radical Islamists, the jihadists, and counter the hatred that so dominates what is preached in the mosques throughout the world today.
Posted by Richard at April 17, 2006 8:57 AM
Articles Related to Understanding Islam:
- 'Alienated From Islam' - Apr 17, 2006
