Monday, December 27

Prejudice against Islam

In response to this post, Ray McIntyre offered this:
Let me see:

Muslims died in the WTC buildings. The Mosque is 2 blocks from the WTC ground Zero area. It is being built by a Sufi group, sufis are among those people that those who attacked the WTC attack, murder and whose graves they desecrate.

But I don't imagine this will dent your prejudice and fear.
Many are prejudiced regarding Islam. The question is, who is judging Islam unfairly and out of ignorance? Are those who've read its "sacred" texts "bigoted," or are those who know nothing of what Muhammad actually said and did misrepresenting the "great world religion"?

Here's my reply to someone in the latter group:
It is clear that even nine years after 9/11, nothing's "dented" your prejudice regarding Islam.

Despite propaganda to the contrary, Sufis do not reject jihad against non-Muslims*. No major school of Islamic jurisprudence does. If you want to find genuinely non-violent Muslims, you have to go to groups like the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at, who are persecuted as apostates by their more orthodox coreligionists, even in modern, moderate, Muslim nations like Indonesia.

To your ad-hominem-in-place-of-argument: Even if I were prejudiced and fearful, what does that have to do with what Muslims do in obedience to their god and prophet? What about what I've written is false? What does "two blocks" have to do with whether or not we should allow a trophy mosque at Ground Zero? (By the way, "Mosque at Ground Zero" was the name its backers came up with, not its opposition.)

If I quote Muhammad, then where is the "prejudice"? If I cite nearly one and one-half millennia of slavery, rape, and slaughter in Allah's name and in accord with Muhammad's example, where is the "phobia"?

Let's examine your logic a bit: Some Muslims who weren't flying planes died in 9/11. Does that mean that their coreligionists flying the planes weren't Muslim? Weren't trying to kill and terrorize non-Muslims? Weren't acting on the words and deeds of their "Ideal Man," the genocidal pedophile Muhammad?

Just the other day a Muslima suicide bomber killed dozens of her fellow Muslims. For fourteen centuries, Sunni have slaughtered Shia and Shia Sunni. None of that internecine violence negates the fact that Muhammad was a bloodthirsty, child-raping tyrant. In fact, Muhammad's words and deeds explain that violence.

So, why do you defend Muhammad's "sacralized" crimes against God and Man? Do you do so out of "prejudice" or "fear"?
*Al-Ghazali was “acclaimed in both the East and West as the greatest Muslim after Muhammad."

Here he is on jihad and dhimma (by way of Andrew Bostom):
"[O]ne must go on jihad (i.e., warlike razzias or raids) at least once a year . . . one may use a catapult against them [non-Muslims] when they are in a fortress, even if among them are women and children. One may set fire to them and/or drown them...If a person of the Ahl al-Kitab [People of The Book – primarily Jews and Christians] is enslaved, his marriage is [automatically] revoked . . . One may cut down their trees . . . One must destroy their useless books. Jihadists may take as booty whatever they decide . . . they may steal as much food as they need . . . .

"[T]he dhimmi is obliged not to mention Allah or His Apostle . . . Jews, Christians, and Majians must pay the jizya [poll tax on non-Muslims] . . . on offering up the jizya, the dhimmi must hang his head while the official takes hold of his beard and hits [the dhimmi] on the protruberant [sic] bone beneath his ear [i.e., the mandible] . . . They are not permitted to ostentatiously display their wine or church bells . . . their houses may not be higher than the Muslim’s, no matter how low that is. The dhimmi may not ride an elegant horse or mule; he may ride a donkey only if the saddle[-work] is of wood. He may not walk on the good part of the road. They [the dhimmis] have to wear [an identifying] patch [on their clothing], even women, and even in the [public] baths…[dhimmis] must hold their tongue…. [2] (From the Wagjiz, written in 1101 A.D)"