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Technically what we call 'moderate' Muslims are actually 'cultural' Muslim.
He is a Muslim or, better, a 'cultural' Muslim as he defines himself.
He is from one Muslim country and is familiar with the practices there. I get the impression that he is not familiar with the great deal of variety in the Muslim world.
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All you write is true and well know, although I admit my knowledge of the different school is somewhat lacking.
The point is Yabanci: how do you define 'moderate Islam' and how 'truly Islamic' are terrorists?
A very important question which few seem interested (or capable) of answering. Based on my experience as a non-Muslim living in a Muslim country and interacting with both local and foreign Muslims, I'd categorize Sunnis like this:
Nominal Muslims: These people believe in Allah a nd that Mohammed was a prophet, but they see no reason follow the rules of the religion, or at least not the ones they don't feel like following.
Moderate Muslims: These people believe in the religion and make more of an effort to follow the rules, although not completely to the letter. A fair number of them drink alcohol, and even if they don't, they have no problem hanging out at a bar with people who do. They might or might not fast during Ramadan, they rarely pray more than once a week (and many don't pray at all) and usually the women don't wear the hijab.
Tolerant Conservative Muslims: They follow the religion pretty closely or to the letter, but they are respectful to those who do not. In many cases women are allowed to choose whether or not they will work.
The Muslims I just listed are not a threat to anyone. The following Muslims, however, are:
Intolerant Conservative Muslims: They follow the religion to the letter, or at least pretend to, and they have no tolerance for those who do not. This doesn't mean that they want the law of the land to be completely Sharia, but they would be very happy if many aspects of Sharia were incorporated into the law.
Fundamentalists: They generally don't want to interact with non-Muslims.
Fanatics: Mujaheddin and their friends.
Though many fit neatly into these categories, there are plenty of cases in which someone could fit in more than one category depending on the situation at hand.
The problem with the Western media's concept of Moderate Muslim is that they portray Tolerant Conservatives and occasionally Intolerant Muslims as 'moderates'. This is inaccurate and, in my opinion, does a great disservice to those who want to have an intelligent discussion about the problems in the Muslim world.
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Because a point is also worth being mentioned in my opinion: let's say my neighbor is a peaceful Muslim, he never harms anybody, he doesn't complain or disturbs, he just prays and follows his religion, he pays taxes and lives on normally.
So far all normal right? Nobody here would complain about him (aside from radical and true xenophobes).
You just described a Tolerant Conservative Muslim.
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Yet, what if he supports the restriction of women rights? if he thinks that homosexual are perverted animals? that apostates are committing a crime against God? what if he finds nonetheless acceptable the idea of having the Sharia law governing the country or part of it?
These people are either Intolerant Conservatives or Fundamentalists.
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Beware, I'm NOT saying that all Muslims are an ISIS fifth column, I'm saying that we shall define what moderate Islam is and openly fight those elements of Islam (such as the treatment of gay, apostates and women, the Sharia law, the absence of secularism etc) that are not compatible with a modern European society (i.e. this applies to Muslims living here, in Muslim countries they can do whatever they want, I don't care).
I agree with everything except your last point. There is no room for theocracy in the modern world.
What populist tones? Populist tones (and I find the word 'populist' so abused today that it has lost any meaning) would be 'kill them all, the only good Muslims is the dead one, deport them, sterilise them, Muslims are always terrorist etc'.
To say that Muslims are the hardest immigrant group to integrate, that their culture often has very controversial aspects or that Islam in its entirety is, at best, only partially compatible with Western culture are very sound arguments.
The same points would be valid if we were importing gazillions of Christian fundamentalists, I have no preference over religious zealots, the only true point is that, unfortunately, they are mostly found within Islam.
I welcome Albanians also because they are not that religious (in this case one of the few positive legacies of 50 years of communism).
As for Algeria, I fear you have a very romanticised vision of it, it's basically a military dictatorship although Bouteflika (the leading president) seems to be about to give up power.
Populism for me has taken the meaning of oversimplifying thing, finding a common enemy and profiting from it. That's what Lega Nord does with immigrants and Berlusconi has tried to do against communism (term to brand any leftist idea) but that's not something exclusively common to the right of course, although a Populist is more likely to be from the right.
I agree with several of the points you bring up. As i said you are the most sound of the people i am discuting against. The problem is that you are repeatedly also making di tutta un erba un fascio. I acknowledge that Muslims when taken as a whole are certainly the hardest group to fully integrate but my point is that you can't prohibit anyone to enter his country on his religion because for 10 who are fundamentalist there are other 90 who would accept Italian law and culture as well on as immigrants with any other belief
By the way the Algerian parliament just limited the amount of times you can be elected as PM and recognized Berber (Kabylian) as pne of the country's official languages. That should solve their two main issues at the moment which are Kabylian terrorism (which ranges to left wing terrorism to Islamic terrorism) and disenfranchisement of youth from politics.
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Originally Posted by erasure
Saudi Arabia is not an "extreme example" - it's the birth place of Islam, where Islam exists in its original form as it intended to be. That's why the constitution of Saudi Arabia is koran and the "true language of Islam" is Arabic language. Saudi Arabia is the epicenter of it all; the rest of Islamic nations follow "the leader" with different degree of submission. At that, the rule of the game can be quite unpredictable; the country that yesterday seemed so "moderate' and "Westernized' can turn violent and "extreme" as you say overnight, demanding stricter adherence to Islamic rules and regulations.
Iran is the best example, so is Afghanistan. I'm sure there are other on the list to watch.
Saudi Arabia is an extreme example, it's a fundamentalist country where Islam is interpretated letter by letter, imagine if there was a Christian country justifying all of its actions with such a fundamentalist view of the Bible. Your problem is that there are several interpretations of Islam and the Wahhabbist one is only one of thousand.
To revisit the earlier sub-topic of expelling immigrants involved in illegal or violent activity:
In a recent article in US newspapers, it was revealed that the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) computers keep track of legal immigrants and their brushes with the legal system. If someone turns up in the system more than once for a serious crime (not counting something like driving tickets) or something like bankruptcy plus a crime, the computer flags them as undesirables, and they get booted from the country.
It's interesting, because in this way, to some extent the responsibility for making a decision on each case is removed from human agency, so there's no issue about some kind of national guilt or political correctness, or whatever. It's something that's programmed into the computer.
Saudi Arabia is an extreme example, it's a fundamentalist country where Islam is interpretated letter by letter,
It is, because Saudi Arabia practices "pure Islam" - the way it intended to be, and that's why it has so many "letters" ( i.e. practical instructions.)
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imagine if there was a Christian country justifying all of its actions with such a fundamentalist view of the Bible.
It is impossible to imagine it, since Bible does NOT contain the kind of practical instructions pertaining to the organization of the state and legal matters, the way Koran does. And that's the major difference I am trying to point you over and over.
If you wish, Christianity in its "fundamentalist view of the Bible" - that's probably Catholicism. But other than that, this "fundamental view" has been practiced in the Western world up until the end of the sixties - seventies, with the negative attitude to abortions, and understanding of women's role\place in the family. ( At least it was a case in the US, I am not all that familiar with the situation in different European countries back in the fifties-sixties for example.) This "fundamentalist view" came to an end only with so-called "sex revolution."
And of course you can say that the US ( for example) still practices Christianity, however not in "fundamentalist form." But what does it mean in this case "non-fundamentalist form?" In means that a lot of church-goers simply refuse to accept he Bible instructions, that you quoted yourself earlier.
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Your problem is that there are several interpretations of Islam and the Wahhabbist one is only one of thousand.
Correct, but it's the same as in case of "fundamentalist view" vs the absence of desire to follow the teaching ( Islam in this case) in its "prescribed by the original source" form, the form in which Saudis still practice it, more or less. Because Wahhabism ( or rather Salafism) is "pure Islam" (David Commins, paraphrasing supporters' definition),[45] that does not deviate from Sharia law in any way and should be called Islam and not Wahhabism."
Particularly if to take in consideration that this 'pure Islam" is practiced in the land, where it originally started.
And what is Sharia law ( that is again if we talk about the major differences with the Bible)
"Sharia, Islamic sharia or Islamic law
(Arabic: شريعة (IPA: [ʃaˈriːʕa]) for law) is the basic Islamic legal system[1] derived from the religious precepts of Islam, particularly the Quran and the Hadith. The term sharia comes from the Arabic language term sharīʿah, which means a body of moral and religious law derived from religious prophecy, as opposed to human legislation.[2][3][4] Sharia deals with many topics, including crime, politics, marriage contracts, trade regulations, religious prescriptions, and economics, as well as personal matters such as sexual intercourse, hygiene, diet, prayer, everyday etiquette and fasting."
So as you can see, those strict Islamic laws that Saudis practice, are in Koran - they didn't make them up. And even if part of them didn't come from Koran but from so-called Hadith, which
we would probably like to disregard as some kind of "interpretative literature or source, other than "original source" - (i.e. Koran,) but in Islam it is impossible, since Hadith " are collections of the reports claiming to quote what the prophet Muhammad said verbatim on any matter.[3]"
And since Mohammed was speaking in very practical terms, Hadith "are second only to the Quran in developing Islamic jurisprudence."
Not only that, but "the hadith literature is based on spoken reports that were in circulation in society after the death of Muhammad" and goes back to 8th-9th century.
("Hadith were evaluated and gathered into large collections during the 8th and 9th centuries, generations after the death of Muhammad, after the end of the era of the "rightful" Rashidun Caliphate, over 1000 km from where Muhammad lived.")
So not something you can easily disregard, as some interpretations of Biblical scholars.
Therefore in purely PRACTICAL terms, when it comes to organization of the state and jurisprudence Koran and Bible are not comparable at all.
And even if there are "several interpretations of Islam" out there, ( that branch off of Shia Islam first of all,) it all depends on how much people practicing it, want to get away from its original form and bend it to their own desires and needs. ( Sort of the way Christianity is bent to the "wants and needs" of modern American society.)
The only legitimate "interpretation of Islam" is probably the Shia version of it itself.
But look what happened to Iran - the ultimate country of Shia branch of Islam, and how much they differ from the Saudis in this respect, when it comes to the "fundamentals" of Islam.
Yeah, Soldiers of Odin are just "concerned citizens". So it seems: nazi memorabilia, talking about 'Aryans', guns, knives, and a motorcycle club style hierarchy with prospects and so on. FB are revealing their true colours. Then they are discussing about beating up people etc.
They are building a racist criminal conspiracy and nothing else. Secret Intelligence Service: start your engines.
Yeah, Soldiers of Odin are just "concerned citizens". So it seems: nazi memorabilia, talking about 'Aryans', guns, knives, and a motorcycle club style hierarchy with prospects and so on. FB are revealing their true colours. Then they are discussing about beating up people etc.
They are building a racist criminal conspiracy and nothing else. Secret Intelligence Service: start your engines.
Luckily, this phenomenon hasn't affected Italy and seems to be mainly happening Central/Northern European. The more i read about them the more they seem a 21st century version of black/brownshirts
Finland, i think, doesn't have strict laws regarding gun ownership, at least relatively to the rest of Europe. That partly explains the high number of suicides, mass shootings and homicides (not high overall but higher than most if not all of Western Europe)
That reminds me of a country whose flag has fifty stars and thirteen stripes. Can't remember the name though..........
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