To what will "moderates" appeal?

From EO:

Boonton,

The data sits right in front of your face. Considering the millions of Muslims in the US and Europe the number of incidents of malevolence, mayhem and murder have been trivially small if what you describe is a central part of their belief system.

Not "if," but "even though."

You're confusing your ignorance of Islam's greatest work for its not existing.

Jihad is a central part of historic, Qur'anic Islam. Mohammed said no other work for Allah was like it and that those who are able to carry out Jihad but refuse when called are to expect "grievous" punishment from Allah:

"O ye who believe! what is the matter with you, that, when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling heavily to the earth? Do ye prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the Hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty..." (Qur'an 9:38, 39).

Will you tell Mohammed that he too is blind?

That many in the West do not engage in open violence against their neighbors is attributable to many things, not the least of which are Qur'anic-illiteracy, demographic, political, and martial weakness (compared to their host nations' majority populations), and the decency of most Western Muslims.

(I don't suppose you happened to notice European Muslims "peacefully" demanding "Death to those who insult Islam!" and warning Europe that their "9/11 will come"? Probably not.)

And I am confident that those acts you so easily dismiss are not "trivial" to those who must endure them and their consequences.

Are you going to tell me that they are all more ignorant of their religion than you are?

Another ad hominem attack. Why don't you demonstrate from Islam's own "holy" texts that I have misrepresented them?

Instead, you should be asking, "Does Allah require the fighting against, subduing and humiliating, and killing of non-Muslims to make the world Islam?"

I have provided a number of passages from Qur'an and Hadith to demonstrate that not only does Allah require this, but Mohammed understood that he did and worked to make it happen.

No serious text can be so nailed down to a single meaning. This is not the same as relativism but it is important.

That is irrational. If you are right, then what point is there in your making any comment at all, on any topic whatsoever?

Words have meaning. An author intends to convey a certain message by the words he or she uses. Intellectual honesty requires that you take a text the way the author intended.

Language is complicated and imperfect because it is manmade. Most Muslims probably will not want to agree with me about reading 'sacred texts'. They would probably argue that the text is very clear and does not require what you say it requires.

That language is imperfect does not imply it is meaningless.

I allow Allah and his apostle to speak for themselves, but you speak for "most Muslims." Who should be believed, Allah and Mohammed, or you? He says:

"...fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)..." (Qur’an 9:5).

"Fight those who believe not...the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued" (Qur'an 9:29).

...fight them on until there...prevail justice and faith in Allah altogether and everywhere..." (Qur'an 8:38, 39).

"O ye who believe! fight the unbelievers who gird you about, and let them find firmness in you: and know that Allah is with those who fear Him" (Qur'an 9:123).

"Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not" (Qur'an 2:216).

“Muhammad said, ‘A single endeavor of fighting in Allah’s Cause is better than the world and whatever is in it’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 50).

“A man came to Allah’s Apostle and said, ‘Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad in reward.’ He replied, ‘I do not find such a deed’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 44).

..."Ye shall be summoned (to fight) against a people given to vehement war: then shall ye fight, or they shall submit...if ye turn back as ye did before, He will punish you with a grievous Penalty....he who turns back, (Allah) will punish him with a grievous Penalty" (Qur'an 48:16, 17).

"O ye who believe! what is the matter with you, that, when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling heavily to the earth? Do ye prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the Hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty..." (Qur'an 9:38, 39).

"Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): 'I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them'" (Qur'an 8:12).

“Allah’s Apostle said, ‘I have been made victorious with terror. The treasures of the world were brought to me and put in my hand’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 220).

"Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks......if it had been Allah's Will, He could certainly have exacted retribution from them (Himself); but (He lets you fight) in order to test you...But those who are slain in the Way of Allah,- He will never let their deeds be lost" (Qur'an 47:4).

"I heard the Prophet saying...'Far removed (from mercy), far removed (from mercy), those who changed (the religion) after me!'" (Bukhari Volume 9, Book 88, Number 174).

"War is deceit" (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 268).

But no, you'd prefer to lie for Allah and his messenger.

Whether they are right or wrong about it being clear is irrelevant unless you want Muslims to be more violenct because you think that is more 'true' to the Koran.

Never has this been about what I want. This is about what Allah wants. Either Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira say what I claim they do, or they don't.

If you want to argue that I have misrepresented Islam's "sacred" texts, demonstrate that. As you can see, I've provided citations from Qur'an and Hadith to support my statement that traditional Islam requires the fighting against, subduing and humiliating, and killing of non-Muslims until "all religion is for Allah."

Indeed, the support for this statement was posted by Amillennialist himself as an English translation from Sura 9 of the Koran. Islam is not Scientology where only those at the highest levels are let in on the 'secret wisdom'.

Any Infidel with a computer can discover Allah's will for themselves (and it isn't pretty).

Amillennialist wants to have it both ways. He would have us believe that killing unbelievers is a central tenant of any believing Muslim

(More argumentum ad hominem. When will you use Allah's revelations to expose my falsehood?)

Whether your statement above is the result of your imprecise use of language (you say language has no meaning anyway, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised) or an intentional mischaracterization of what I've stated, it is false.

Mohammed says that Jihad is a central tenet of Allah's religion, not me. Whether or not self-professed Muslims accept this is not the point. (Too many do. What will your denials do to change their minds?).

and the evidence for this is so obvious and blatent that one doesn't have to read anything more about Islam than maybe a paragraph or two of translation from the Koran.

For the Infidel, a bit of reading is required to make sense of Qur'an.

But the following verse does have a special appellation ("the Verse of the Sword"): "...kill the unbelievers wherever you find them" (Qur'an 9:5). I wonder how it got its name?

At the same time he would have us believe that millions of Muslims are ignorant of what is supposedly a central tenant of their faith. Is he telling us that Muslims in the West don't read the Koran in either Arabic or translated form? Then what do they read & do?

Probably the same thing you (apparently) do. Or would you have us believe that those "millions of Muslims" do know and are just hiding it from us? (How phobic of you!)

How many Christians do you know who are familiar with the Bible?

Is it so unrealistic to expect that many of the world's Muslims (most of whom are not Arabic) are unfamiliar with Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira? Why is it that when many Muslims do learn of their contents, they either "radicalize," apostatize, or allegorize (them away)?

You may not have to worry much longer about American Muslims being Qur'an-illiterate. I hear the more devout of their co-religionists have been working through Saudi-funded mosques here in the U.S. to disseminate the more "traditional" form of their faith.

One reason why most Muslims do not believe violence is needed against non-believers is that Islam is a mature religion. Like any other mature religion it reaches a point where it becomes very diverse internally as well as encounters resistence externally to conversion by the sword.

There is diversity in Islam, but not on certain doctrines.

-You can't cite a surah to save your soul, but you can speak authoritatively on what "most Muslims" secretly believe?

-You deny the clear words of Allah and Mohammed, yet you speak for a billion Muslims using words like "probably."

-You are apparently ignorant of (or indifferent to) the suffering of non-Muslims around the world,

but still we should believe you. I heartily encourage you to do your own research.

Last week the NY Times Magazine had a very fascinating article about radical Jordanians. It was interesting because Jordan has always been known as a somewhat sleepy 'moderate' Muslim country...

Were they "moderate" because they were "sleepy"? When they awake, to what will that be? The clear words of Allah and his apostle?

(How does citing the rise of "radicals" in a "moderate" Muslim country support your point?)

...most became radicalized in prison where Islamist groups form and recruit....

Which is a good argument for disallowing clerics access to our prisons.

...had a running dispute between external versus internal jihad.

I know who's going to win that debate.

The jist of it was that they believed violence was justified against any and all non-Muslims but non-Muslims include, to them, most Muslims as well.

What else can one who rejects the clear word of their god be called other than an "unbeliever," unless you're just so used to watered-down, weak-kneed, anything-goes, words don't mean anything, liberal "Christianity"?

The jihadists will appeal successfully to Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira for support of their position. To where will the "moderates" turn?