Hello, Maheen,
“freedom does not protect you from looking ignorant when you quote sacred text out of context.”Please, show me where I’ve misrepresented the Islamic texts I posted. It should be easy to do, since I am so “ignorant.” (Didn’t Mr. Appel say we were supposed to be nice?)
“I encourage you to educate yourself on the sacred tradition of hijab and follow it through its heritage in all of the Abrahamic faiths, including Christianity.”What “sacred tradtion” has hijab outside of Islam?
It is true that propriety in worship in the ancient church included clear gender
distinctions, but that was completely devoid of the tyranny in Muhammad’s
“revelation” and practice.
“Christianity too has quite a violent past but one should not blame the religion for the work of the ignorant. I do not attribute the savage crusades to the peaceful Christian friends that I have, and likewise, you should not attribute the evil works of some Muslims to the beautiful faith of Islam and other Muslims.”[At least she admits Islam's "violent past." Now, to address the Source and Sustenance of that bloodshed!]
That’s a false moral equivalence and a false tu quoque, two “arguments” offered often by jihad’s apologists in response to the genocidal content of their own authoritative texts.
Where have I blamed “other Muslims”? Where did I “attribute the evil works of some Muslims to . . . Islam”?
I quoted Allah and his apostle.
Ironically (and tragically, for non-Muslims) enough, so do those Muslims practicing the “evil works.”
How are you going to convince them that they too are “ignorant” and taking passages “out-of-context”?
How will you persuade ["]all four Sunni schools of jurisprudence, Sahih Muslim, Sahih Bukhari, Sunan Abu Dawud, Ibn Kathir, Ibn Juzayy, Tafsir al-Jalalayn, Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Khaldun, Muhammad Muhsin Khan, S. K. Malik [. . .] Averroes, al-Ghazzali, numerous Shi’ites,[" (credit Robert Spencer)] etc. of their grievous error?
Are you honestly unaware of Islam’s traditional understanding and practice of offensive jihad against non-Muslims? If not, will you engage in honest discourse? If you are unaware, how can you engage in intelligent discourse?
Christians did commit great sins during the Crusades. (Do you know why the first was called by Pope Urban II? It was for the defense of Christians under siege by . . . Islam.)
When Christians murder, do they do so in fulfillment of Christ’s commands and in accord with His example or not? Since you are expert enough in Christian theology to claim that the hijab is a sacred tradition in Christianity, you must know the answer.
Produce one verse that has Christ commanding believers to enslave or slaughter non-Christians.
Since you are so well-versed in Islamic theology that you can say that I am “ignorant” and taking passages “out-of-context,” when Muslims slaughter innocent non-Muslims in Allah’s name, is that in fulfillment of his commands and Muhammad’s example, or not?
When, “Allah’s Apostle said, ‘I have been made victorious with terror . . . ’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 220), did he really mean, “I’ve succeeded by love and good deeds”?
“If you go so far as to denigrate the Prophet Muhammad”“denigrate”?
Muhammad married little Aisha when she was six and began raping her when she was nine. What “context” makes that okay? Does that not deserve “denigration”? Are you aware that one of Khomeini’s first acts when he came to power was to lower the marriageable age of girls in Iran to nine? Why is that?
What about Muhammad’s assassinations of those who mocked him — Asma bint Marwan, Abu Akaf? The beheading of the 600-900 bound prisoners of the Banu Qurayza? Muhammad and his followers raping women whose brothers, fathers, and husbands they had just slaughtered? The attack on the innocent Jewish farmers, tilling their fields in the Khaybar Oasis [(credit Hugh Fitzgerald)]? What decent person should not feel rage at such evil?
That is the “Perfect Man,” “uswa hasana[,]” you defend.
If someone who commits theft, slavery, rape, pedophilia, genocide, and blasphemy — and commands others to do the same, calling it “divine” — does not deserve to be denigrated, who does?
More importantly, how can any decent person aware of what Muhammad said and did not condemn his words and deeds?
You claim respect for the Prophets of YHWH and His Christ — how then can you defend Muhammad? For he stated that whoever claims Allah has a son is a blasphemer. If Allah is YHWH (He is not), then Muhammad is calling Jesus a “blasphemer,” since Christ called Himself the Son of God.
“Just look at Spain. Muslims, Christians, Jews, and agnostics/atheists all lived peacefully under the Muslim rule of Spain for hundreds upon hundreds of years; however, the moment Christians overthrew the Muslims, they slaughtered every Muslim man, woman, elderly and child.”If things were so peaceful, why did the Spaniards slaughter “every Muslim” as soon as they regained their freedom? Why did they overthrow them in the first place?
So, is that what you’ve been taught, or is that what you’ve been taught to offer as a rebuttal to non-Muslims who discover Islam’s texts and history?
“Do a little more reading with the aid of understanding of what you read in a historical context, and you will find a lot of your false notions answered.”You’re going to have to show from Qur’an, ahadith, and sira that:
-When Muhammad commanded, “Invite . . . demand the jizya . . . then fight,” he really meant, “Invite . . . make small talk . . . befriend.”Here’s a final quotation for you; perhaps [Moses ben Maimon] didn’t really mean what he said, just like Muhammad:
-When Muhammad told some Jews, “accept Islam and you’ll be safe,” he really meant, “Let’s have a potluck! How ’bout those Greeks?”
-When Muhammad began raping little nine-year-old Aisha, he was really only giving the local kids a puppet show.
-When Muhammad commanded that whomever leaves Islam should be murdered, he really only meant to exclude him from Bingo.
Remember, my coreligionists, that on account of the vast number of our sins, God has hurled us in the midst of this people, the Arabs [Muslims], who have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us … Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they . . .
[Although we were dishonored by them beyond human endurance, and had to put up with their fabrications, yet we behave like him who is depicted by the inspired writer: “But I am as a deaf man, I hear not, and I am as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth (Psalm 38: 14).
Similarly our sages instructed us to bear the prevarications and preposterousness of Ishmael in silence . . .
We have acquiesced, both old and young, to inure ourselves to humiliation . . .
All this notwithstanding, we do not escape this continual maltreatment which well nigh crushes us.
No matter how we suffer and elect to remain at peace with them [Muslims] they stir up strife and sedition . . .]
-Maimonides, victim of Islam in conquered Spain[, Iggeret Taiman (Epistle to Yemen), edited by A S Halkin; translated by B. Cohen, New York, 1952]
Al-Andalus [or any other Muslim-dominated land] was no paradise for non-Muslims. It was — to varying degrees — just what Allah requires (Qur’an 9:29). Pact of Umar, anyone? You know what that requires, right?And here is how Maimonides ended up in Cairo:
Again, please show from the Islamic texts where I’ve erred. Show me where I’ve been false or unfair.
I encourage you to put your faith in Christ, the Son of God, Who reconciled you to His Father in His body on the cross. True religion is in Him alone.
Moses was only thirteen years old when Cordova fell into the hands of the fanatical Almohades, and Maimon and all his coreligionists there were compelled to choose between Islam and exile. Maimon and his family chose the latter course, and for twelve years led a nomadic life, wandering hither and thither in Spain.
In 1160 they settled at Fez, where, unknown to the authorities, they hoped to pass as Moslems. This dual life, however, became increasingly dangerous. Maimonides' reputation was steadily growing, and the authorities began to inquire into the religious disposition of this highly-gifted young man.
He was even charged by an informer with the crime of having relapsed from Islam, and, but for the intercession of a Moslem friend, the poet and theologian Abu al-'Arab al-Mu'ishah, he would have shared the fate of his friend Judah ibn Shoshan, who had shortly before been executed on a similar charge. These circumstances caused the members of Maimonides' family to leave Fez. In 1165 they embarked, went to Acre, to Jerusalem, and then to Fostat (Cairo), where they settled.Death or Islam? Wandering for twelve years? Trying to pass as Muslims? Shared the fate of his friend, executed for "relapsing from Islam"?
So much for that "Golden Age of Islam in Al-Andalus."
*Updated November 16, 2009 a.D. Originally posted 05/11/09 at 12:28 AM
A visit to Ms. Siddiqi's site shows that she never had the decency to post my incisive and irrefutable rebuttal.