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I spend considerably more time speaking with my Brothers and Sisters. Than I spend here. However I find that there are very few if any potential terrorists among American Muslims. Although I have been accused of being a terrorist on more than one occasion and am frequently stopped and asked about my activities. I do maintain a high profile and my life is pretty much an open book. I do have a few websites and am active on several Islamic forums. I do put my money where my mouth is.
Have a lot more pages to add and will be moving my online stores to their own sites. I am also an administrator on a few reasonably large Islamic Web sites.
Thank you for that but you overlooked a few other questions in my post. We knew Arab Muslims engaged in slavery and I mean Arabs from the homeland of Muhammad. If he were alive, would he have condoned it and is there anything in the Koran that we can point to that would have prohibited the act?
LOL The Arab world is actually quite small. The Majority of the world's Muslims still live on the Arabian Peninsula. While the Qur'an does not specifically prohibit Slavery it does speak of the benefits for releasing slaves and does encourage not having slaves. One of Muhammad(PBUH)'s closest companions was Bilal who was a freed Slave. The Qur'an gives reasons one should free any slaves:
I really doubt Muhammad(PBUH) would have condemned slavery, but I do believe he would have freed slaves and discourage people from wanting slaves.
. 2:177 (Y. Ali) It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces Towards east or West; but it is righteousness- to believe in Allah and the Last Day, and the Angels, and the Book, and the Messengers; to spend of your substance, out of love for Him, for your kin, for orphans, for the needy, for the wayfarer, for those who ask, and for the ransom of Slaves; to be steadfast in prayer, and practice regular charity; to fulfil the contracts which ye have made; and to be firm and patient, in pain (or suffering) and adversity, and throughout all periods of panic. Such are the people of truth, the Allah.fearing.
5:89 (Y. Ali) Allah will not call you to account for what is futile in your oaths, but He will call you to account for your deliberate oaths: for expiation, feed ten indigent persons, on a scale of the average for the food of your families; or clothe them; or give a Slave his freedom. If that is beyond your means, fast for three days. That is the expiation for the oaths ye have sworn. But keep to your oaths. Thus doth Allah make clear to you His signs, that ye may be grateful.
24:33 (Y. Ali) Let those who find not the wherewithal for marriage keep themselves chaste, until Allah gives them means out of His grace. And if any of your Slaves ask for a deed in writing (to enable them to earn their freedom for a certain sum), give them such a deed if ye know any good in them: yea, give them something yourselves out of the means which Allah has given to you. But force not your maids to prostitution when they desire chastity, in order that ye may make a gain in the goods of this life. But if anyone compels them, yet, after such compulsion, is Allah, Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful (to them),
58:3 (Y. Ali) But those who divorce their wives by Zihar, then wish to go back on the words they uttered,- (It is ordained that such a one) should free a Slave before they touch each other: Thus are ye admonished to perform: and Allah is well-acquainted with (all) that ye do.
I often wonder if I conflate an Islam issue with what is actually a cultural arab issue. So that what I believe is being caused by religious beliefs is actually being caused by cultural beliefs.
The problem is, even if you somehow remove all the violence from Islam, you still have way too many things wrong with it. Ignorant, hateful, stupid things.
Islam is too wide to be represented by both of us. I benefit from Woodrow and consider him as a mercy of the Truth on me.
Peace.
Jazakallahu Khayran Akhi, (trans: May Allah grant you greater blessing my Brother)
I also benefit greatly from you my Brother. I agree Islam is too wide to be represented by 2 people or even entire nations. Any of us could never learn all we need to know even if we lived for 1000 years. Each Muslim is just a small speck in Islam and it is the sum of all of these tiny specks that makes the Ummah. We are like single cells in something bigger then ourselfs and like single cells we are not the Ummah, it takes all of us together to be the Ummah. Islam can not be seen by looking at individual Muslims.
One can not see the forest if they look just at one tree or even all of one type of tree.
Jazakallahu Khayran Akhi, (trans: May Allah grant you greater blessing my Brother)
I also benefit greatly from you my Brother. I agree Islam is too wide to be represented by 2 people or even entire nations. Any of us could never learn all we need to know even if we lived for 1000 years. Each Muslim is just a small speck in Islam and it is the sum of all of these tiny specks that makes the Ummah. We are like single cells in something bigger then ourselfs and like single cells we are not the Ummah, it takes all of us together to be the Ummah. Islam can not be seen by looking at individual Muslims.
One can not see the forest if they look just at one tree or even all of one type of tree.
But that leaves us with a problem. If you can not represent the truth of Islam, why should we believe you when you say Islam doesn't promote violence? After all, there are other muslims who clearly think it does, and it seems to me that you are admitting that you don't have the answers.
Woodrow, in many cases I have seen you defending, or rationalizing Muslim violence, when you really should be condemning it...Your comments on the riots following the publishing of the Danish cartoons of Mohammed is but one example....Why do you do that?
Woodrow, in many cases I have seen you defending, or rationalizing Muslim violence, when you really should be condemning it...Your comments on the riots following the publishing of the Danish cartoons of Mohammed is but one example....Why do you do that?
I thought I was condemning the riots there. But I was also trying to show why they occurred. Sort of like Lt. Calley in Nam and the Mai Lei Massacre, while his actions were horrible and not representative of the US Military, every person who served in Nam can understand how it happened. Explaining why something happened is not condoning it.
The Danish cartoons were a deliberate act to elicit a response from Muslims. The response was wrong, but understandable.
During my time in the Military I did some pretty horrible things. Even laughed about them at the time. Like I made a calculation error of less than 1 degree, but when traveling at nearly 500 knots that error put my Napalm 20 miles off target. It was horrible, not justified but understandable. It is not easy calculating your course at night and dodging SAMs. Part of the private Hell I must live with. I can't forgive myself, but I hope others can understand how such things happen. so it is with my view of the danish riots. I can not condone their actions, but I try to understand how they happened.
Have you seen the Cartoons? Several of the cartoons were depictions of a satanic looking Demon engaging in back door sex with a goofy looking man labelled as our Prophet who in turn was doing the same to a herd of sheep labelled Muslims. I do not think the intent was to make Muslims laugh.
The most widely distributed cartoon and the only one seen by most of the Western world was the one with a man wearing a turban with a lit bomb poking out of it. The ones in that vein probably would not have caused much of an uproar. but the ones that were of graphic. explicit perverted sex acts and labelled things like "Muhammad and a Muslim" did cause considerable anger. I can not prove the purpose was to anger Muslims, possibly they were meant to anger the the Swedes. But, it sure looks like Muslims were the target.
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