Obama supports "Ground Zero Mosque" (of course he does)

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Konovalov

Can you be specific to which doctrine you are referring to that instructs Muslims to fly planes into buildings?

There were no airplanes at the time when the Quran was put together.

[quote=August]

Originally Posted by August

Eh, anyone that describes such a wide ranging and varied group as "Muslims" in the singular is stereotyping.

Except nazis that is. There are no nazis worth saving.

Sounds-self-contradciting to me, but anyhow. In case you meant me with the above, please note that for the most I approach Islam on it's basis as an ideology, and what this ideology does with and to people. i think I said that often enough over times. However, that does not mean that I save the people holding this ideology alive, no matter in what individual way of theirs, from being confronted over certain critical points. that islam today is like it was over a thousand years ago, is because it has been saved from confrontation and thus: the need to critically ask questions about itself, for way too long.

There are no two Qurans. Not even an old and a new testament in one Quran. The Quran-as-is needs to be known and interpreted in historical sequence, which is difficult without help, because the Suras are not sorted in the sequence of their historic creation, but are wildly mixed in timeline, because it was decided to sort them by length. Both Sunni and Shia traditions have concensus in all their dominant major lines since the 9th or 10th century, that contradicting passages need to be sorted out by the socalled abrogation principle, that is if you have to contradicting passages, the one that came last is the one to go with. By this, many of the internal contradictions of the Quran get sorted out, and the often assumed "freedom of interpreation" already is massively reduced.

Unfortunately even many ordinary Muslim people do not know this - but it is historic fact that is accepted in the six major schools of law since almost a thousand years

If you refer to Islam in search of how to regulate your life, you first look at the Quran, and next at the hadith or prophet tradition. Also, the Shariah is a source to consult, but we in the West ofteh have a queer understanding of it. It is not a book of laws and rules. Let's adress all this one by one to see if there is any real foundation in the islamic theology that would allow different versions of Islam (Islam as defined and understood by the Quran, the Shariah and the life and living exmaple of muhammad - this and only this is what could be claimed to be "Islam")

There is only one Quran. They have an eons-long civil war, which is caused by and is about nothing but political power and claimed leadership, it is not founded on controversy over the Quran and how to "interpret" it. The existence of sunni and shia camps does not compare to the separation of protestants and catholics. The churchlings, to call them precisely, did not seperate just over political powers, but over different views of the teaching itself, and it's meaning. The Islamic shism was about who becomes boss of the board of directors. Theologic dispute played little role in the early caliphs' fight over the validity of their claims to be seen as the successor of muhammad, leading all muslims. Muhammad did not leave orders that regulated his succession after his death, the only hint there is, is questionable: there is a snippet of an old document where he should have said that his cousin Ali should become his successor, but the translation from the Arabic is not possible to be done linear, and already it arabic it is daid to be very ambigous (but that probably still was before introduction of the linguatsic riot when over three centuries they introeduced the idiosyncratic punctuation which has chnaged the meaning of arbaic according to estimations to at least 25 and maybe even up to 70% (of the word'S meanings. academic research has not one gneral agreement on the issue, it is difficult to examine.) . Also, the claim of Ali's power resulting from this, already represents the Shia interpretation of the story - after the shism. So it all is questionable and not without doubt. Ali became the fourth caliph after Uthman was assassinated (that was the Uthman who had major influence as third caliph that various local manipulations and different versions of the Quran were molten back into just one book, the one Quran that we know today), but Ali's claim was not accepted by several rivalling leaders, that is why short after Muhammad's death there already was the first clash in battle, the so called battle of the camel. Short time later, a series of more battles, known as the battles of Siffin, took place over several months, and after some military and diplomatic manouvers that are not of interest here, it ended with the assassination of Ali, who then became known as the missing Imam for whose return his followers - the Shia - are waiting. when he comes, he will unleash the holy war all over the world. So: if you ever hear of somebody gaining wide acceptance by shia to be the missing imam they have waited for, then you know that they are going into carzy mode soon and that we are in trouble. It would be like an imposter who is believed to be Jesus, and then is able to manipulate the crowds in all world. Ali'S predecessor btw was an Ummayadh, and Ali'S enemy at Siffin again represented and fought for the Ummayadh. That are the Ummayadhs who later rose a terror reign of Islam in Spain that was one of the most excessice periods of brutalitiy and violent excesses in islam's history and stood in contrast the islamic rule in Spain before their arrival, which was at least not as brutal as that of the Ummayadhs.

Tis explains why there are shia and Sunni. Two Qurans or two Sharias have nothing to do with it. Ah, and onsharia, I just refer to myself:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...6&postcount=63

Sharia is not so much a closed canon of Islamic scriptures in itself. It includes descriptions and understandings of deeds and thoughts that are desirable, deeds and thoughts that are not desirable, and deeds that must be punished. In the West, usually only the latter is meant by us infidels when reference is made to Sharia, the other four "categories" usually are left unknown. But that is wrong, and misleading. For example, Sharia does not include the penalties for punishable deeds, only the description of punishable deeds. For the penalties, it instead directly refers to the Quran which desribes them and from which the adequate penalty for a punishable crime is taken. for any penalty ever given, not Sharia, or Hadith is the fundament, but the Quran - and only the Quran.

[ Back then you implied that there are different versions of Sharia itself, and different traditions of interpreting it, which described in these words also is wrong again.] Sharia is Sharia, and there is only one Sharia like there is only one Quran. Sharia gets "handled" and "used" by the scholars of islamic law, of which there are maybe around half a dozen major schools that indeed have influence. There are more lineages or schools of law, but we talk about those acutally having any noticable influence in the islamic world, and that are not many. On many questions of interpretation, these schools agree, however, on others not, which is misleading anyway, since the Quran does not leave much room for "interpretation", the legal schools' differences only vary in the degree to which they quote references from the Quran in completeness, or opportunistically only that stuff that serves their wanted purpose.
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All of them [these schools] handle one and the same Sharia, and one and the same Quran. There are not different forms of Sharia, therefore. there are no different traditions of sharia, as you implied back then. there are only different legal traditions that have different habits of quoting relevant references in more or less completeness. Sharia itself - is left uneffected from that, as is the Quran.

Even more, Sharia serves as a system of interlinking various parts of Islamic scripture (Quran, Hadith, Sira -> Sunnah) and the people's code of behavior rules, which are very total and complete and cover every aspect of life an individual could stumble into, this is to maximise control of the islamic dogma over the individual, the family, and every level of social collectives. This is what makes Islam a totalitarian ideology, and more so than that of fascism, Nazism or Stalinism, because none of these great evils went as far in their demand to control every aspect of life, behavior, thinking. compared to Islam, they all were relatively shallow and superficial, caring only for the functioning of the individual inside the collective. Islam's intended regulation reaches much deeper.

Sharia is a system of interlinking all these aspects and parts of scripture, and puts them into relation to each other. It also is understood to be the tool that helps the faithful to stay on the right path (by telling him what to do and letting him know the sanctions he has to suffer when he strays off). for a muslim, Sharia is guidance and assistance. For a psychologist, it is classical conditioning. For Christains, the focus is on beloieving in the right things - in Islam, the focus is on the correct way or process of believing. The first is about the object of belief, the latter prioritizes the process of believing. Without Sharia, the rules of Quran, so it is understood, cannot correctly be followed, which would mean failure in the understanding and following of Allah's will. and that truly is a worst case scenario. So, Sharia is inevitable.

Sharia is like the mortar in the wall that keeps the stones of islamic scripture, rules and dogma together. Take Sharia away, and the wall collapses. That'S why it is said that you cannot imagine an Islam without Sharia, or a "modernised" Sharia. Imagining that you can have a tame Islam by altering Sharia (that is heresy!) is nonsense from minds not knowing what they are talking about. You could as well try to imagine a christian meaning without the content of the sermon on the mount. Some things are so vital to an idea that you cannot take them away or alter them without rendering that idea meaningless and pointless.

On the grounds of real Islam, August, that means: on the basis of Quran and Sharia, there can be only one Islam. And quite some Muslim spokesman and politicians tells you that right into your face. You may have noted that I quoted Turkey's premier Erdoghan repeatedly on his outburst on the offendind habit of the west to always differe between moderate and radical islam. I refer to him only becasue he is the latest and currently most known - but he is just one in a long line of names. He angrily insisted that this differentiation is offensive, and that there is only one Islam. He has the support of several hundred million muslims in his region now. Who are you to tell him, or them, that he/them understands Islam wrong?

I recommend to follow Occam's razor. It served us so damn well in western sciences. So: why do you not simply take Islam by its words?

One thing you really should not do: compare it to history in the West. The doogma of the church and islam do not compare. the histories of both cultural sophere do not compare. To think of islam in terms of equivalents for western examples, is a heavily misled attempt. and without wanting to start a fight here, I would say that especially Americans are extremely vulnerable to attempt right this, more than any other western people - maybe due to their american missonary spirit. Don't!