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The Current Crisis
Who Speaks for Reform In Islam?
And against the desecration of mosques and libraries containing holy treatises?
WASHINGTON — How little we know about holy Islam! When those poor wretches who were imprisoned at Abu Ghraib were pictured for all the world to see naked with underpants on their heads, we were told that the naked male Islamic body must never be seen in public. Yet we have been seeing naked male Islamic bodies for years. Often with their hands tied behind their backs and their heads chopped off. Their assailants were devotees of Islam, often very zealous. Few Westerners committed these atrocities and if they were caught they were punished. Then too we were told that mosques were revered places of worship by Islam, and they must not be subject to attack or used in acts of violence. Alas, for years mosques have been blown up. Their inhabitants have been gunned down, even impaled on sharp blades. These were not the acts of unbelievers or of warriors from the Godless West. Rather, they were the acts of the faithful, often members of the same sect or tribe.
Just this weekend in Libya — now freshly liberated from Moammar Gaddafi, his body perforce treated roughly — ancient and venerated shrines of the majority Sufi persuasion were destroyed. In Tripoli at the crack of dawn on Saturday the centuries-old Sidi Al-Sha’ab shrine was flattened by bulldozers. Two separate government security forces idly stood by. The day before in the city of Zlitan Libya’s most revered Sufi mosque was vandalized and an adjoining library had its priceless collection of theological treatises torched. The attackers were fellow Libyans. No Westerner was in sight.
The leader of Libya’s new congress, Mohamed al-Magariaf, condemned the violence and sought answers from the heads of the interior and defense ministries as to why their forces did not intervene. In fact, they seemed complicit in the destruction. Now the interior Minister Fawazi Abdel A’al has resigned in a huff, and other newly elected members of the congress, which is pretty liberal by Arab standards, have compared the weekend’s destruction to the destruction of Afghanistan’s great statues of Buddha by the Taliban.
The whole controversy thrusts into question how stable the government is. A coalition of mostly liberals won heavily in elections held earlier this summer, but they have yet to name a cabinet. The religious parties that did not do well in the elections may be ready to make a move on the government.
Yet why do the religious parties tolerate the desecration of sacred places like mosques and libraries containing holy treatises? Supposedly the desecrators were from the Salafi school of Islam. Most Libyans follow Sufi teachings. The Salafi derive their strength form the Arab Gulf countries. All of northern Africa is generally Sufi. Is this a power struggle by members of Islam from outside the region aided by the Libyan ministries of the interior and defense? Do power struggles in holy Islam involve destroying each other’s places of worship? The Sidi Al-Sha’ab mosque was centuries old and is unlikely to be restored. It looks to me from the pictures I saw that it was reduced to rubble.
The problem with Islam as I see it is that it has never reformed itself to accord with the modern world. Of all the great religions it looks not to the future but to the past. Its impulse comes not from reformers looking to a future living in comity with Westerners. Its impulse comes from fundamentalists looking backwards to centuries long gone and the fundamentalists want to impose their vision of the world on all civilizations.
If there are modernizers in Islam, they do not speak up. They do not even protect their ancient mosques. While the fundamentalists blow things up and savagely slaughter people for failing to observe one or another of their arcane rules and regulations, the voices of modernity hunker down, if they even exist. When will the voices of modernity speak up?
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator and an adjunct scholar at the Hudson Institute. He is the author most recently of The Death of Liberalism, published by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
About the Author
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is the founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is the author of The Death of Liberalism, published by Thomas Nelson Inc. His previous books include the New York Times bestseller Boy Clinton: the Political Biography; The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton; The Liberal Crack-Up; The Conservative Crack-Up; Public Nuisances; The Future that Doesn’t Work: Social Democracy’s Failure in Britain; Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House; The Clinton Crack-Up; and After the Hangover: The Conservatives’ Road to Recovery.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (73) | Leave a comment
More Articles by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.
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John786| 8.30.12 @ 6:35AM
The Muslim world is only recently emerging from decades of occupation (: many are of course still occupied). Colonisation was followed by authoritarian regimes supported by outsiders. In this freedom vacuum extremism flourished. Salafist groups constitute only sub 1% of the Muslim world. Most salafists are peaceable people (: hard to believe but true). The Muslim world will right itself within its own traditions. This is a historic process. The wars by the west have made things worse. USA can help by stopping the wars and don't start any new ones in the ME. Americans can help by supporting a just solution in historic Palestine. And no war towards Iran. The Muslim people are the most peaceable people on the earth.
btims86| 8.30.12 @ 6:40AM
"The Muslim people are the most peaceable people on the earth". Get off the weed you limp-wristed Paulbot.
Islam is the enemy, the ancient enemy of the Judeo-Christian world, of the Western world. Islam is a retrograde, totalitarian political ideology for Arab men to feel good about themselves, given their "under achievement" civilazationally.
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 8.30.12 @ 4:27PM
Islam is not the enemy. The United States has no natural enemies and Judeo-Christian is a mis nomer. You could call Palestine the Judeo-Christian-Islamic world. The fact is that Judaism is different from Christianity is different from Islam. The Muslims I know and especially those who are Muslim in my own family (I am Orthodox Christian but I have Muslims in my family in Central Asia) are wonderful people. Loyal, honorable, family people who are hospitable to visitors and have a deep love for God and for life.
The death cult are the Salafist/Wahhbists. The one's that we are allied with in Syria and were allied with in Libya before that. They are the bloodthirsty animals that kill those who disagree with them. Not every Muslim is the same.
Alan Obama Fan Brooks | 8.30.12 @ 10:41AM
"Of all the great religions it looks not to the future but to the past."
The past is the compass of your conservatism!
RCV| 8.30.12 @ 11:46AM
Sadly, the Islamic world has been in decline since its heyday in Al Andalusia. Then, it was the center of learning and innovation. Medical advances were centered there, the best of literature and poetry was written in Arabic -- even to the extent that the most learned Christians learned Arabic because that's where the advances in culture were taking place. In Cordoba, learned rabbis, imans and priests actually held public theological debates on the differences among the three Abrahamic faiths.
One reads of these days at the height of Islamic culture with deep sadness when looking at the depths to which Islam has descended. It has become a cesspool of intolerance, of hatred, of terrorism. It has lost any sense of exploration in literature, in theology, in universality. The ossification of Islam is one of the tragic stories of the last 1000 years. And that -- not colonialism or western domination -- is the reason that it has left its adherents in a state of poverty, intellectual backwardness and moral depravity.
TLP| 8.30.12 @ 4:21PM
I can't believe I'm saying this, but - that was Magnificent.
I couldn'ta said it better, if I had all day to think about it.
Nicely done.
Ladies and Gentlmen - RCV.
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 8.30.12 @ 4:20PM
John I agree that there can be and should be peace between the United States and the Muslim world. Foreign Policy speaking I'm in the Ron Paul/Pat Buchanan camp of non-interventionism and reigning in the empire that a Republic of ours does not need in the post-Cold War world.
With that said I am also a person who has spent considerable time in Muslim Central Asia (former Soviet Union) and I can attest to the fact hat most Muslims are wonderful family oriented people. I disagree though that Salafist/Wahhbists only make up 1%. I believe they are much stronger than that and more militant than you claim and even if they are not militant a Wahhabist will most definitely extend moral if not material support for those who are militant. I have Muslims in my family in the former Soviet Union and I don't believe for a minute if Wahhabists took control that they wouldn't kill my family for being the wrong kind of Muslims or too Russified. The only group of people in this world that I can say I hate I hate the Wahhabists and don't believe they have the right to breath the same air as the rest of us.
Chief_Cabioch| 8.30.12 @ 6:10PM
you might want to drop the "taqyyia" we already know all you muslims do is lie....and the world wide stats dont back you up....currently 19,525 acts of terror by those you say are so peaceful...http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/TheList.htm
Chief_Cabioch| 8.30.12 @ 6:17PM
2012.08.30 (Baraki Barak, Afghanistan) - Islamic radicals fire a rocket into a bus stop, killing five civilians.
2012.08.30 (Yala, Thailand) - A Buddhist trader sitting in his truck is shot and beheaded by Muslim militants.
2012.08.30 (Quetta, Pakistan) - Sunnis spray a car carrying a Shia judge with automatic fire, killing three occupants.
2012.08.29 (Logar, Afghanistan) - A woman is killed inside her home by a Taliban rocket.
2012.08.29 (Lapankuri, Georgia) - A doctor is among three people who die trying to rescue innocent hostages taken by Islamic radicals.
2012.08.29 (Zamalka, Syria) - A family of seven Christians, including three children, are shot in the street by 'Liua Islam'.
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 8.31.12 @ 1:45AM
This happend yesterday? A family of seven of my Christian brothers and sisters in Syria was bucthered. by the FSA Wahhabist scum? God's curse on all of them. May Christians, Shia, Druze, Kurds and Sufis in Syria unite to kill every last FSA Wahhabist scumbag in the nation. Long live Bashar al Assad may the good people of Syria tear every Wahhabist apart from limb to limb.
SilkyWiley| 10.11.12 @ 5:21PM
This is what I remember from my study of the factions in Islam. It is hard to believe that you consider Salafists groups to be mostly peaceful considering that their beginning was in the cowardly assasination of Ali, and then on to brutal barbaric murder of anyone they considered not to be fundamentalist to their interpretations beginning with an innocent and pious farmer and his wife. I believe they were the ones who quit the battle against the Damascus hordes because the contending Caliphate from Damascus had his men put pages of the Quran on their spears and the Salafist progenitors quit the fight, they were then shown how their religion had been used against them in their stupidity, what did they do, they killed the messenger. The original Salafists could be called the knuckle draggers of Islam. The Alawites and the Wahabbists are right there with them. Will Islam have a reformation? Yes, but it will be a long hundred year bloody undertaking. In fact a reformation has been underway for a hundred years already, unfortunately the reformers most often end up martyrs. Unsung by the dimwit unhygenic clerics and ayatollahs. The greatest tragedy is this destruction of the Sufi tradition. The enlightened mystical aspect of Islam, the only tradition beside Ba'hai that can legitimately call itself religion.
btims86| 8.30.12 @ 6:37AM
So tell me Mr Tyrrell, why has your GOP party increase Islamic immigration into the USA since 9/11? In my small hometown alone, two old churches were sold, converted and are now mosques (political power centers of Islam).
Chief_Cabioch| 8.30.12 @ 6:12PM
MY GOP party hasnt, the Democrats have, and they will be speaking as Democrats at the DNC, the GOP is enacting legislation to stop any implementation of Shariah or ANY foreign law in US Court
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 8.31.12 @ 1:51AM
The GOP is so serious about such things that they send George W. Bush out to hold hands with the Wahhabists favorite monarch King Abdullah from Syria. They are so serious about getting tough with the Muslims that they recognized the illegal state of Kosovo that the Democrat Clinton and our NATO allies helped steal from Orthodox Serbs in the late 90's and handed over to Albanian Muslims.
DVG93| 9.3.12 @ 9:55AM
The GOP is wrong too.
Jack in Wi| 8.30.12 @ 7:32AM
Come on Bob; You are almost defending Abu Graib and tortue. Islam is not the problem. It was a backwater until, we started going into their countries and stirring the pot. They need us alot more then we need them. They haven't got anything to sell but oil. Our interference has made us hated all over theMuslim world. The many Christian minorities in these countries are paying the price. The ancient Christian communities in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Israel Palistine have been decimated in the last 70 years. It is time to bring the troops home. All our presence has done is to give the radicals a lot more followers. Modernization in Islamic countries will bring it's own reforms. They have to figure it out for themselves. In every country we have interfered in, the radicals have become much more powerful.
Alan Obama Fan Brooks | 8.30.12 @ 10:43AM
buts we gots to kill them camel jockies to get dat oil.
John Navratil| 8.30.12 @ 12:59PM
Alan Obama Fan Brooks,
That is your all-time winner for stupidity!
Aramco began in 1933, Saudi Arabia acquired 50% in 1950 and 100% years later and is now one of, if not the world's most valuable companies by selling their oil. I wouldn't be very valuable if we had taken their oil, would it. And there are no dead camel jockeys to be seen.
Now explain, in your most inimitable way, what we did with all that oil we supposedly captured? Where was that war during the '73 embargo? Show me the tankers steaming to America with captured oil! Do you know anything? No! You just mindlessly repeat the "war for oil" meme of the left. Open your mouth so you can look out and see for yourself.
Chief_Cabioch| 8.30.12 @ 6:18PM
only a moron would think this is about Oil, if we wanted Oil that bad, we would just invade Mexico like they invade us....
DVG93| 9.3.12 @ 9:56AM
No we'd be drilling in Anwar.
btims86| 8.30.12 @ 12:51PM
You got to be kidding, yes? Abu Graib, torture? Our intererence has made us hated all over the raghead world? Are you twelve years old?
The Mooooslim Worldwas on the side of the Nazi's in WW2. The Mooooslim Worldwas on the side of the USSR and communism for the 2nd half of the 20th Century. The Mooooslim World suffers from great insecurity and they have a chip on their shoulder because they know they haven't done anything in a thousand years.
You on the other hand have no excuse, other than being a government dependent sissy-boy.
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 8.30.12 @ 4:32PM
You talk as if the Muslim world was one solid block. Do you understand that the Muslim world is divided into seperate camps. Sunnis (Saudi Arabia and 85% or more of all Muslims belong to this camp) and Shia (Iranians, Azeris, and 15% give or take of other Muslims belong to this camp). In those too camps are fundamentalist hardliner Islamists and also very moderate Muslims (sufis etc.). There is not one single Muslim block. You wouldn't put Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox Christians all in one block would you? And amongst those Christian groups there would be significant political differences just like in Islam.
cuban pete| 8.30.12 @ 5:07PM
Since 9/11 I have not seen an out pouring concern from "moderate" Muslims. No transcripts of sermons condemning their radical brethren. No letters to the editor disavowing the actions of the perpetrators.
When the inexcusable and criminal behavior of predatory homosexual and pedophile Roman Catholic priests became known, Catholics from the Pope on down condemned it unequivocally.
The priests in my parish talked about it openly and expressed their disgust and disappointment with the church's failure to confront the problem sooner.
I would think there would be wide spread condemnation of the radicals by the "moderates" but so far, not so much.
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 8.31.12 @ 1:54AM
You are wrong. The Shia are at war with the Sunni Islamists (mostly Salafist/Wahhabist). Sufis have suffered under the Wahhabists as well. You haven't heard them speaking out because they are all ready fighting them or they are so outnumbered they are frightened to speak out.
Skippy| 8.31.12 @ 1:33PM
Oh the Catholics hate the Protestants, and the Protestants hate the Catholics, and the Hindus hate the Muslims, and everybody hates the Jews.
If the Shia hate the Sunni, and the Sufi hate the Wahabbis, what can we expect from Islam beyond violence, hatred and death?
Why should Americans care who is who when the deafening silence from "moderates" is all we hear (besides the body count)?
btims86| 8.30.12 @ 5:13PM
In fact, I know quite a bit about Islam, historically and modern day. Individual muslims can be nice people; that's not the point. Individual Germans, Italians and Japanese were nice but we still opposed them decades ago, likewise Russians (Soviets).
Islam is the problem because it is a fascist-style, secretive, political ideology dressed up as a religion.
I also am not interested in "universality". Muslim should stay in their part of the world, they are not liked by Westerners in Europe, Australia or the US. Islam uses liberal ideas like mass immgiration to send their people to other countries to spread Sharia and Islam.
And while most Moooooslims oppose violent jihad, a healthy percentage (perhaps 40%) quietly agree with their violetn brethren. They support the same goals: Sharia (Islam).
TLP| 8.30.12 @ 7:34AM
There is nothing wrong in the Arab World that can't be fixed by turning the whole place into Vitrified Rock, and Glass.
They are a Cancerous Tumor on the rest of the world, and Cancerous Tumors require Radiation Treatments, to stop their growth, so they can be Cut Out of the Body.
They cannot be reasoned with, and they will not Coexist with anyone else.
They live by their Holy Screed of - Submit or Die.
Throughout Human History, there has always been but one way to deal with their like.
Kill or be Killed.
Reform?
Grow up, Bobby.
nathan| 8.30.12 @ 7:49AM
TLP: I've studied the Holocaust since I was nine. And it amazes me, absolutely amazes to see someone on a site like this OPENLY I mean OPENLY advocate mass murder of entire race, men, women, and children most of whom are guilty of NOTHING. WHO HAVE INDIVIDUAL UNALIENABLE RIGHTS that unless you sir have been walking on water, have no authority to take from them without due process. No, those unalienable rights are universal and unless an INVIDUAL harms another they cannot have their life liberty or property taken from them. This kind of talk has no place on this site. Go peddle this hate some place else.
Unbelievable. And to the rest of you. Understand what you're looking at. Germany in the 30's. Substitute Jews for Arabs and you have Auschwitz. He's saying the same thing they did different race. No difference. Or go back to the west in our country. Instead of arabs, substitute Indians. That's how we justified exterminating them. Tolerate this, and it will happen again and it will happen again here.
I remind you again that INDIVIDUALS have rights. TLP does not have the authority to take those rights from them. Nor do any of you.
Jacob McCandles| 8.30.12 @ 9:42AM
Good point, individuals have rights. But there is a reason why anyone who has seen war says, "war is hell." Individuals get slaughtered. Our actions in WWII were horrific, but justified. When an evil nation's leaders send them down a path to war, the the individuals in that nation are unfortunately subjected to a terrible fate. I do not see any way around this. When you try to get too cute, like we did in Iraq and Afghanistan, you end up nation building and Americans are then subjected to decade-long wars.
Casualties of war are not victims of mass murder. I'm glad we bombed Dresden. 600,000 deaths. Horrible loss of life. But we had to eliminate the REAL MURDERER'S war making machine.
nathan| 8.30.12 @ 10:26AM
Unlike so many others here I actually cite sources. (I read a lot.) I recommend to you "Bomber Command" by Max Hastings. Hastings is one of the best writers on WWII and this is an excellent book.
You will note that only some 7o years after WWII is the monument to Bomber Command being opened when virtually all the survivors are dead. (Only 5,000 attended.) As Hastings so well documents the attacks directed purely at the cities was VERY controversial AT THE TIME and subject to considerable debate. Even for the Eighth Air Force there were concerns voiced at the time that the participants might be viewed as war criminals after the war.
What TLP is talking about goes far beyond that. He is proposing outright genocide of an entire race, children included. Be clear on this. He is openly advocating genocide down to the last man woman and child. Total extermination.
The success of the bombing offensive is debatable to this day especially given the massive resources devoted to it something Hastings addresses. Yes a case can be made about the Lufwaffe being bled dry. But on the other hand since the targets were poorly chosen, had those resources been put towards say the Battle for the Atlantic as was proposed, would that have had more impact? Maybe. With less loss of life.
In any case we can never, I mean never since we committed genocide against the Indians (yes, we did) EVER support such proposals again and that is what TLP is advocating.
TLP| 8.30.12 @ 4:35PM
Every Conflict on this Planet involves them.
We twiddled our thumbs while Hitler's Germany built up their Military, and the end result was MILLIONS DEAD.
The way I see it. It's just a matter of time.
We're gonna end up having to Nuke Them, anyway.
I say - Do it now, and save Millions of lives.
And, what do you care, anyway?
They Strap Bombs to their own kids, hoping they'll Kill other people's Kids.
They Car Bomb. They Suicide Bomb. They Fly Jets into Skyscrapers. They Murder their Daughters, in the name of Honour. They cut off the heads of people for being Jews, for converting to Christianity, and for the Hell of it.
They Love Death.
They Live, to Die.
And they would slit your Children's Throats, in the name of their God, if they ever got the chance, AND YOU KNOW IT.
I PRAY that the next time we're HIT, you're Family is the first ones to be incinerated.
Cause that's what it's gonna take, to get your Head outta your Ass.
They are Coming.
I say - Kill'em Now.
Before it's too late.
If you don't like it?
FCK YOU.
nathan| 8.31.12 @ 8:17AM
I'm going to quit responding to you after this. Or similar posts. With reasonable men I will reason, Churchill said. Well, at some point . . . .
But understand something you and those who think like you. You aren't any different or better than they are. Advocating genocide against an entire race of people based on the actions of a small minority of that group, and that's all it is, a small minority, makes you as bad or worse than they are. Because they may kill a thousand here a few hundred there, but you want to kill hundreds of millions. That's what the the Nazis did, that's what Stalin did, Pol Pot did, Mao did, what Sherman and Sheridan out west did. It is NOT what we, if we follow the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence do. It is not what Madison would remotely support. We who tried and hung people at Nuremburg and Tokyo for the very same actions you so openly advocate cannot repeat cannot engage in those actions now. We who helped draft and then signed those Geneva Accords and spoke out forcefully for them around the world cannot now do what you seek to do. Call yourself whatever you wish but do not call yourself an American or conservative because you are neither. No real ones would talk the way you do. Good day sir.
TLP| 8.31.12 @ 6:29PM
We Firebombed Dresden and Tokyo.
We Bombed Berlin into the Stone Age.
We Nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And, the guys who did it, are recognized as THE GREATEST GENERATION.
Don't tell me we can't do it.
We already have.
loulou| 8.30.12 @ 3:09PM
It's kill or be killed, you stupid self-described student of the Holocaust.
Rhoetus| 8.30.12 @ 3:29PM
Totalitarianism is an auto-immune disease of mankind. No society, no civilization [sic] is protected from its symptoms or spread. In its earliest stages it creates a mob mentality where mass hysteria or hatred occurs resulting in property damage or the death of its victims. If the values underpinning society are not embedded in the majority of the people the second stage progresses to the point where politicians are elected that use envy, hatred, and identity to motivate members of a race, class, creed or national ancestry to act politically resulting in the transfer of power from the people to the State. In its final and fatal stage, constitutions are made impotent, power is concentrated in a tiny oligarchy, and the State’s ministries disseminate propaganda resulting in mass man accepting the State’s lies as truth. Only when the State losses all moral authority will it collapse and a new society be built.
nathan| 8.30.12 @ 8:00AM
Now to get to what I wanted to say. As the writer points out, Just as Christianity has various versions so does islam. You cannot talk of islam as any unity religion. We have seen through recorded history how Catholicism and various protestant groups warred with each other.
When the writer asks who speaks for reform, well during the Inquisition, the same question could have been asked. That lasted some 600 years. We well know it took centuries to reform the Catholic church and even today it's dealing with a major child sex abuse scandal with high ranking officials going to jail. The same question is being asked, who speaks for reform. And during the Inquisition, it was areas where islam reigned that were places of learning and tranquility.
These things come and go in phases. Tyrrell knows perfectly well that there are those out there advocating for reform. But notice how fractured islam is. If it comes it will be slow just as it took 600 hundred years for the west to deal with the horrors of the Inquisition. Even in our own country the Salem witch trials remind us not to be complacent here. We need a policy of engagement where we encourage at whatever level the reformers. And basically stay of the way of the others as they fight among themselves.
Tomper| 8.30.12 @ 8:35AM
Nathan, have you read the koran?
Jack in Wi| 8.30.12 @ 8:48AM
Nathan: The Catholic Church has given the world the idea of universal brotherhood, The Bible, Holy Tradition, mass chariy to the poor and destitute, the University, the Hospital, modern science, which comes from the Church's hospitals, monastaries, and universities. It has also give the world great art, music, architecture, philosophy and theology.
The Inquisition executed about 4000 people in 300 years.That was after long and for the times very fair trials. Jews were not subject to the Inquitition, nor were Muslims. Many of the crimes committed that were judged by the Inquistion had nothing to do with theology but were abortionists and they included 19 pediophile priests. The vast majority of judgements involved spiritual penances.
Jack in Wi| 8.30.12 @ 8:56AM
The Catholic Church was founded by God Himself, Jesus Christ. He remains the Head of the Church and the Pope is his earthly general manager. The Churhc has survived thousands of persecutions, many millions of martyrs and many herisies and schisms.
Rabbinical Talmudic Judasim, Islam, 35000 Protestan sects, the French Revolution, Communism, Socialism, National Socialism, and the new neopaganism were founded to destroy and replace the Church. so far they have not succeeded.
Rhoetus| 8.30.12 @ 3:32PM
oy vey :roll eyes:
nathan| 8.30.12 @ 10:37AM
Sorry I have read numerous books on the Inquisition and and those trials were anything but fair. The "Holy Inquisitors" (what a joke, nothing holy about them) freely used tortured including waterboarding or call it what you will, a method of inducing a feeling of drowning on the part of the victim. There's actually transcripts of those "enhanced interrogation" sessions. The guy/girl being tortured would be asked, "did you fly through the air with the devil?" Response: "Sure I did! Now will you please stop burning me with those hot pokers!" What you love about those transcripts is that it shows how reliable torture is at eliciting information. IE, mostly useless then and now.
And who were a lot of the victims. Jews of course. If you were a Jew, where were you safest at that time? In places where islamic writ ran. Not in "christian" europe.
As for science, if you read history you will note that Alexandria was a center of learning during those days when Europe was still in its barbarian throes. A lot of that would make its way to europe later.
And who pray tell stood up to those ghastly inquisitors at the time? NO ONE. Who besides David Crocket stood up for the rights of Indians during the ethnic cleansing in the east? Almost no one. We again can't be overly "holier than thou" here. Humility is a virtue.
CJW| 8.30.12 @ 10:52AM
How many people were killed in the Salem witch trials?
How many people were killed during the Inquisition?
Rhoetus| 8.30.12 @ 3:33PM
See my post on Totalitarianism.
Jack in Wi| 8.30.12 @ 12:49PM
Nathan: The number of people executed by the Inquistition was under 4000. I said that the trials were fair for the time and place. Torture was a part of the criminal justice system of the time and still is in the good old USA and Israel as well as the rest of the Middle East. Jews were not subject to the Inquisition, but only baptised Christians. Your ignorance on the subject is quite telling. In fact the Jews and Muslims were expelled from Spain beginng 1492. They just were not subject to the Inquisition. I suggest you read a little about all the people killed in Geneva by Calvin, The annabaptists in Munster and how Luther pushed for their extermenation. Read about Luther's anti semiticism and how it effected German history. The Calvinist Cromwell murdered many in Ireland long after most religious wars in Europs had been settled. You might read up on all the murders and starvations of millions of Catholics in Ireland only 170 years ago. Then read up on how many tens of thousands were burned as witches and heritics in Protestant England, Germany, Holland and Scandanavia.
C. Vernon Crisler | 8.30.12 @ 9:47PM
Jack, your understanding of Protestant history is rather unique.
Jacob McCandles| 8.30.12 @ 11:26AM
When you begin pointing out Christian and Catholic problems in an effort to defend your point, you lose me. Any religion that advocates the enslavement of an entire gender has major problems. Denying the holocaust and advocating outright genocide of an entire race, children included is a problem also for guys like Iran's leader.
John786| 8.30.12 @ 9:11AM
The major Christian denominations have an advantage ( : maybe a disadvantage) of having a hierarchical organising authority. Muslims have no such structural authority to follow. Every Muslim is essentially free to practice as he sees fit. A Muslim is not mandated to follow anybody alive today or to follow a particular city or region. This is at once liberating but also chaotic. For better or worse Islam is a ground up religion. The Quran, sunnah ( prophetic teadition) its leading lights. The ulema ( scholars) have only moral authority.
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.30.12 @ 10:16AM
Emmett, In my recent novel, (America Alone Said No..to sharia law), after repeated nuke attacks on us, our government simply decides to "encyst them". No western trade in grain or technology, and watch their societies wind down to squatting in the dirt as they did for thousands of years on their own.
KyMouse| 8.30.12 @ 10:33AM
The book of Genesis, written some 3,400 years ago, foretold that the descendant of Ishmael would be "a wild ass of a man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him..." (Gen. 16:12)
"Clarke's Commentary on the Bible" (early 19th century) notes that "what is said of the wild ass, Job 39:5-8, affords the very best description that can be given of the Ishmaelites, (the Bedouins and wandering Arabs), the descendants of Ishmael: 'Who hath sent out the wild ass free? or who hath loosed the bands of the brayer? Whose house I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwellings. He scorneth the multitude of the city, neither regardeth he the crying of the driver. The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searcheth after every green thing.' Nothing can be more descriptive of the wandering, lawless, freebooting life of the Arabs than this..."
All jokes about wild, braying asses aside, the Bible got it right. Again.
Who Knows?| 8.30.12 @ 10:38AM
Especially since 9-11, the big question about Islam has been, when will it “reform”, essentially “grow up”, the way Christianity got “modern”---the Reformation, and all that.
Consider---we are now living in a postmodern world. By “we”, I mean cutting edge Western Civilization.
Still, the ineluctable “form” of ANY changing reality continues to be: birth-endure-die, or begin-last-end; or in religious terms, create-sustain-destroy. For Christians, it’s all about Yahweh-Jesus-Satan. For Hindus, it’s Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva.
Put it all together, and maybe the truth is that Islam is actually experiencing it’s “re-formation”, in a postmodern AND pre-modern unique way. There are many ways to re-form = change.
Islam and Buddhism share at least one common trait. Images are verboten! Or, at least in esoteric terms, this is so.
One of my favorite Buddhist sayings goes like this—if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him! And, we all know how radical Islamists destroyed those Buddhist statues.
The destroy aspect of reality will always find ways to wipe slates clean. Islam is very dirty, so----
Like a colon, almost too clogged to allow any waste to lawfully escape---just a monthly trickle of liquid, say---Islam is so full of centuries of “waste”, it must burst out, in waste-bringing ways.
Yuck!
C Smith | 8.30.12 @ 11:24AM
"When will the voices of modernity speak up"?
What about the overt complicity of Hillary and the rest of the "civilized" world in replacing order with anarchy in Libya:
“No,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bluntly stated when asked on “Face the Nation” if the U.S. would intervene in Syrian unrest as in Libya. She defended her position by saying that the situations in Syria and Libya are respectively "unique." Yes, each are unique, but not for reasons mentioned:
Syria's human rights record is among the worst according to Human Rights Watch. Syrian secret police detain, torture, and are suspect in the disappearance of an estimated 17,000 political prisoners. Libya, by comparison, is not even in the ball park....
Syria possesses weapons of mass destruction (chemical and biological) and the capability to deliver them according to U.S.defense and intelligence reports. However, a September 2007 Israeli air strike is generally credited with putting Syria's nuclear program on hold. Libya, in stark contrast, has complied with the "world community," and what was her reward, "decimation"....
Clinton's unsubstantiated preference of Syria over Libya is not an error in judgment, but rather something more sinister:
http://theisraelofgod.blogspot.....salem.html
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 8.30.12 @ 4:36PM
We should never get involved in Syria. We will be replacing a secular Baathist government for a Sunni Islamist government and Christians, Druze nd Alawites will suffer if not be ethnically cleansed in the wake.
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.30.12 @ 11:38AM
I wish we could get a better class of trolls around here. Our current crop are so ignorant/they are no fun at all to laugh at any further.
John786| 8.30.12 @ 12:05PM
Ken ( the rapturing Texan)
You haven't abused me yet Ken. You must be having a good Day. Me thinks the descendants of Ishmael (pbuh) have done pretty well: you know conquer the known world: while their first cousins still cling to a slither of coastline. But we're generous; the sons of Issac are always welcome.
Houdini| 8.30.12 @ 12:22PM
Why is it that when the subject is Islam, the trolls bring out acts carried out by various christian denominations some 700 years ago as a justification for muslims to behave as if they were still living in the 8th century. If there are reformist muslims then why are they not shouting from the rooftops for their "reforms". Where is the King James version of the Koran that excises the parts that OK the killing of non-believers and that considers females something more than chattel? Since they (Islam) have made it clear that they reserve the right to cleanse the world of non-believers why don't we take them at their word and respond in kind? The fact that we have superior weapons is irrelevant.
nathan| 8.30.12 @ 12:42PM
@Houdini: I assume you're talking to me here. So let me make myself clear. Absolutely clear.
I do not tolerate, support advocate any acts of murder, genocide, or the violation of individual rights by anyone. PERIOD. Is that clear enough for you. You sir ask here where are the reformist muslims and why are they not shouting from the roof tops? You are imposing a standard that broadly historically doesn't get met most anywhere. To be a reformist in many parts of the islamic world potentially risks death to you and your family. Many people don't wish to take that risk although we know there are those who are and do.
But again, go back to the Inquisition. Find me the people who spoke up against those people. Hard to do because to do so meant a date with a torturer. That's the point of the historic reference.
How many people in the south during the night riders spoke out against the murders of blacks by the noble whites who oppressed them? In the early 1900's not a lot. How many spoke against in the mid to late 1800's against the genocide directed against the Indians? Almost no one. Again you impose a standard that in our own history seldom gets met. Do you sir speak out against the human rights violations committed in our name by our government like Abu Ghraib, the non judicial executions in Yemen, the unconstitutional detention of Padilla? Are you doing what you ask them to do?
Houdini| 8.30.12 @ 3:30PM
Frankly Nathan I don't give a rats patute what happened in past centuries (before the 20th) I wasn't there. Comparing genocide to a few terrorists forced to wear their underwear on their heads is really not worth commenting on. As I stated in my earlier post since the muslims have publicly stated that they reserve the right to kill any of us non-believers which in essence is a declaration of war, so be it, we should reserve the right to respond in kind. After we were attacked in ww2 we did not go to Japan or Germany and ask who were the bad guys and only bomb or shoot them.....they got the government and leaders they deserved and their fate was intertwined with those that either chose or followed due to cowardice. Like Japan and Germany before them, the muslims have chosen the path of war....let them now live or die as consequence of their actions or lack thereof. When enough of them are sent bact to an era worse than the stone age they choose to live in, perhaps then they can be reasoned with.
John786| 8.30.12 @ 12:47PM
Islam is a salvation faith: success lies in the worship of the creator. The rest is window dressing. Islam has no connection with killing. It is the most peaceable civilisation on Any measure.
Dave Williams| 8.30.12 @ 6:56PM
Know much history, Dhimmi-John? Didn't think so.
JD| 8.30.12 @ 1:16PM
CNN is running an editorial today talking about the "GOP's Muslim problem".
Hogwash. There is a Muslim problem, but it doesn't just belong to the GOP. Countries that terribly abuse human rights are a threat to all of us. But in addition to that problem, Democrats have a problem. They hate Republicans so much that they'll side with fundamentalist Islam to spite Republicans!
cuban pete| 8.30.12 @ 1:47PM
For what it is worth, visit an interesting website.
www.thereligionofpeace.com
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 8.30.12 @ 3:52PM
I hate Wahhabists...Assad knows how to deal with the Wahhabists, Ghaddafi knew how to deal with them too. Apparently the United States government loves Wahhabists which makes sense because our leaders like to hold hands with members of the Saudi royal family.
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 8.30.12 @ 4:04PM
I have a deep love and respect for Muslims especially Sufi Muslims but I have nothing but hatred for Salafist/Wahhabist psychopaths of the kind that destroyed these shrines. The Wahhabists are at war with everybody...Sufi's, Shia, Druze, Christians, Jews, etc....anyone who doesn't agree with them they are at war with. They murder little children like they did in Beslan. Wahhabists deserve a blade across the throat and nothing short of that.
Chief_Cabioch| 8.30.12 @ 6:07PM
all we need to kno0w about Islam is in the "taqyyia-kitman" and hadith, where the Quran (koran) tells it's followers to Lie to any and all that it needs to for the furthering of Islam, the rest we learned on 9/11
Chief_Cabioch| 8.30.12 @ 6:14PM
Sir Winston Churchill
"Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.
No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step..."
Chief_Cabioch| 8.30.12 @ 6:15PM
"The sword of Muhammad and the Quran are the most fatal enemies of civilization, liberty, and the truth which the world has yet known." - The eminent orientalist Sir William Muir (1819-1905)
Dave Williams| 8.30.12 @ 6:58PM
"Great religion" is an oxymoron. Yes, occasionally a religion will stumble into something poetic or ethically valuable, but the metaphysics of ALL of them are, without exception, HORSE HOCKEY. There is NOTHING beyond this material world, NOTHING, ZERO, ZIP, NADA...go ahead, theists, try to prove me wrong. *Note: PROVE. This should be amusing....
Skippy| 8.31.12 @ 2:04PM
You will get no takers as religion requires faith beyond evidence.
If you don't have it, you won't get it.
Remember; if you're right, I'm a fool. So be it. I've been worse.
If I'm right, you're screwed.
cicero| 8.30.12 @ 10:54PM
There is no need to bomb or nuke Islamic dominated countries. All we need do is avoid them, and then ignore them. If we, and the rest of the West, were to exploit our own energy resources, the price of the stuff would drop like a shot. At that point, the Middle Eastern governments not only would not be able to finance terrorism, and export war, but would not even be able feed and support its own people. Revolution and the overthrow of these regimes would follow. In addition, the west would have to stop importing Islamic immigrants. They have refused to assimilate, in virtually all instances. With these two steps, the problem would solve itself in very short order.
Rich Rostrom| 8.30.12 @ 11:20PM
"Who Speaks for Reform In Islam? ...
And against the desecration of mosques and libraries containing holy treatises?"
This headline is ironic. During the Protestant Reformation, militant Protestant Christians vandalized thousands of Catholic (or Catholic-style) churches. Protestants of the "Reformed" (Calvinist) persuasion were the most active in this. Cromwell's soldiers were notorious for destroying most of the medieval stained glass windows in England. French Huguenots routinely destroyed icons, relics, crucifixes, and vestments.
The problem for Islam is that the oil boom dropped hundreds of billions of $ (most of the disposable money in the Islamic world) into the pockets of the Wahhabi sect of Saudi Arabia. This sect used to be called "the trouble out of Nejd" by other Moslems. Now they have lots of money, which they use to preach their doctrines and co-opt Islamic institutions.
As with the Puritan and Huguenot vandals of the 1500s and 1600s, they have scriptural support for their doctrine, and their adversaries (especially the Shi'a) have let a lot of theologically dubious stuff accrete around their doctrines and practices. (Ask some hard-core Presbyterians what they think of Catholic doctrine and practice.) So what is happening is in many ways a "Reform" movement analogous to the Reformation of Christianity.
What Islamic societies need is an Enlightenment; but that's a very different phenomenon.
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 8.31.12 @ 1:57AM
You are 1000% correct Rich. I think Osama bin Laden and Oliver Cromwell would have been friends.
The Infidel Alliance| 9.1.12 @ 10:39AM
The hard truth is that EVERY Islamic sect venerates Muhammed as a 'holy prophet', civilizational role model and moral standard bearer. As recorded by Muslims in their own religious texts, however, Muhammed was in truth a sadistic sociopath, a gran mal narcissist consumed by unquenchable sexual lust, unending material greed and asymptotic violence and savagery.
Muhammed was a sick man, a barbarians barbarian, a mass murderer, a human slaver, a serial rapist, a head chopping decapitator, a mutilating torturer, a hand and foot chopping sadist, a child rapist and sexual deviant, a looting stealing thief, a perfidious liar, an intolerant bigot, a woman abusing misogynist, a genocidist and self proclaimed terrorist.
Far from being a 'holy prophet' Muhammed was objectively one of the most vile examples of a man in the pantheon of human history. Muhammed was little more than a 7th century Arabian Hitler, an Arabic Charles Manson, only more successful in his evil and terror.
Every morbidity that afflicts the Islamic world comes directly from this sick savage, and the whole world suffers because of him. There will be no peace in the world until the myth of Muhammed as a 'holy prophet' has been exposed as the biggest lie in human history, the truth of his barbarity is widely understood, and his 'holy prophethood' repudiated.
Muhammed delende est!
~ The Infidel Alliance
TLP| 9.1.12 @ 5:21PM
I'm thinking - CALIGULA.