Islam and the Future of Liberalism

Islam and the Future of Liberalism

“My criticism of Islam, as of any other religion, is aimed at its doctrine and the resulting behavior of its adherents. I am not talking about races of people, or nationalities, or any other aspects of culture.

Should people be free to draw cartoons of the Prophet? There must be at least 300 million Muslims spread over a hundred countries who think that a person should be put to death for doing so. (This is based on every poll assessing Muslim opinion I have seen over the past ten years.) Should Ayaan Hirsi Ali be killed for her apostasy? Millions of Muslim women would applaud her murder (to say nothing of Muslim men). These attitudes must change. The moral high ground here is clear, and we are standing on it.

Of course, millions of Muslims are more secular and are eager to help create a global civil society. But they are virtually silent because they have nothing to say that makes any sense within the framework of their faith. (They are also afraid of getting killed.) That is the problem we must keep in view. And it represents an undeniable difference between Islam and Christianity at this point in history. There are also many nefarious people, in both Europe and the U.S., who are eager to keep well-intentioned liberals confused on this point, equating any criticism of Islam with racism or “Islamophobia.”

The only way to know which way is up, ethically speaking, is to honestly assess what people want and what they believe. We must confront the stubborn reality of differing intentions: In every case it is essential to ask, “What would these people do if they had the power to do anything they wanted?”

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/islam-and-the-future-of-liberalism

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Tajikistan: Muslim mob kills young man dressed as Santa Claus for being an “infidel”

“A young man dressed up as Father Frost, the Russian counterpart of Santa Claus, has been brutally killed in Tajikistan. The assailants reportedly shouted “infidel” as they stabbed him to death.

The tragedy unfolded in the capital, Dushanbe, on Sunday night. Parviz Davlatbekov put on a traditional Father Frost costume to visit his friends and celebrate New Year with them. But before reaching his destination, the 24-year-old encountered a group of youths who beat him up and stabbed him. He died in hospital shortly after.

According to some local media and reports on social networks, the attackers were Muslim radicals who had targeted Davlatbekov for wearing a Father Frost outfit. They are said to have called their victim an infidel during the attack. Reports say some 30 people participated in the killing.”

http://rt.com/news/infidel-santa-killed-tajikistan-133/

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Anjem Choudary, leading Muslim radical: “You can’t say that Islam is a religion of peace”

Anjem Choudary, a leading Muslim radical says Islamic teachings are what shaped his pro-jihad message.

“You can’t say that Islam is a religion of peace,” Choudary told CBN News. “Because Islam does not mean peace. Islam means submission. So the Muslim is one who submits. There is a place for violence in Islam. There is a place for jihad in Islam.”

He openly praises violent jihad.

“The Koran is full of, you know, jihad is the most talked about duty in the Koran other than tawhid — belief,” he said. “Nothing else is mentioned more than the topic of fighting.”

CBN News asked Choudary for his thoughts on the 7/7 bombings on London’s transport system, and whether he condemned them.

“For the people who carried it out, it was legitimate,” he replied. “If you look at the will of the 7/7 bombers Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, they would be justified. And there are many verses from the Koran and many statements to say that’s the Islamic argument. And that is a difficult Islamic argument to refute. And there are many scholars who support that argument as well.”

Choudary says his group is merely following core Islamic teachings and that Islam is much more than a religion.

“This particular belief is more than just a religion,” he declared. “It is not just a spiritual belief. It is, in fact, an ideology which you believe in and you struggle for and you are willing even to die for, because you believe in that: That is your whole life.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64V09tTIjR4&feature=g-vrec&context=G2d10f11RVAAAAAAAABg

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Turkish imam says Santa Claus ‘dishonest’

“The imam of the Turkish town of Kuzan has issued a warning to Muslims about Santa Claus, who he called a dishonest person, Italy’s Corriere della Sera wrote.

Imam Suleiman Eniceri said it was suspicious that Santa Claus brings presents into a house by climbing down a chimney or through windows. “If he was an honest person he would come through the door as we do,” the imam said. The imam cited a passage in the Koran that calls on the faithful to enter houses through doors.”

http://en.rian.ru/strange/20111228/170538693.html

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Nigerians fear more church attacks after 39 killed by Islamists pushing for Shariah Law

MADALLA, Nigeria — Women returned to clean the blood from St. Theresa Catholic Church on Monday and one man wept uncontrollably amid its debris as a Nigerian Christian association demanded protection for its churches.

At least 35 people died at St. Theresa and dozens more were wounded as radical Muslim militants launched coordinated attacks across Africa’s most populous nation within hours of one another. Four more people were killed in other violence blamed on the group known as Boko Haram.

Crowds gathered among the burned-out cars in the church’s dirt parking lot Monday, angry over the attack and fearful that the group will target more of their places of worship.

It was the second year in a row that the extremists seeking to install Islamic Shariah law across the country of 160 million staged such attacks. Last year, a series of bombings on Christmas Eve killed 32 people in Nigeria.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501710_162-57348370/nigerians-fear-more-church-attacks-after-39-killed/

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Islamist party threatens to destroy or “conceal” the great pyramids

The Pyramids at Giza are under threat from destruction or ‘concealment’ by covering them with wax

For now members of the Nour (The Light) Salafist party, which won 20 per cent of the vote in recent elections, are talking about putting an end to the ‘idolatry’ represented by the pyramids.

This means destruction – along the lines essayed by the Afghan Taliban who blew up the Banyam Buddhas – or ‘concealment’ by covering them with wax. Tourists would presumably see great blobs rather than the perfectly carved steps.

This last suggestion was made by Abdel Moneim Al-Shahat, a Nour candidate for parliament. Apart from wanting to do away with this ‘rotten culture’, this gentleman also wants to ban the Nobel prize winning novels of Naguib Mahfouz, one of many great Egyptian writers.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2077964/The-Salafist-partys-plan-Pyramids–cover-wax.html#ixzz1hiGpcWxB

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Islamists kill dozens in Nigeria Christmas bombs

“Islamist militants set off bombs across Nigeria on Christmas Day – three targeting churches including one that killed at least 27 people – raising fears that they are trying to ignite sectarian civil war.

The Boko Haram Islamist sect, which aims to impose sharia law across the country, claimed responsibility for the three church bombs, the second Christmas in a row the group has caused mass carnage with deadly bombings of churches. Security forces also blamed the sect for two other blasts in the north.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/25/us-nigeria-blast-idUSTRE7BO03020111225

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Pat Condell: The intolerance of diversity

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In Islamic Law, Gingrich Sees a Mortal Threat to U.S.

WASHINGTON — “Long before he announced his presidential run this year, Newt Gingrich had become the most prominent American politician to embrace an alarming premise: that Shariah, or Islamic law, poses a threat to the United States as grave as or graver than terrorism.

“I believe Shariah is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it,” Mr. Gingrich said in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute in Washington in July 2010 devoted to what he suggested were the hidden dangers of Islamic radicalism. “I think it’s that straightforward and that real.”

“Stealth jihadis use political, cultural, societal, religious, intellectual tools; violent jihadis use violence,” Mr. Gingrich said in the speech. “But in fact they’re both engaged in jihad, and they’re both seeking to impose the same end state, which is to replace Western civilization with a radical imposition of Shariah.”

Echoing some Republicans in Congress, Mr. Gingrich blasted the Obama administration’s policy of declining to label terrorism carried out in the name of militant Islam as “Islamic” or “jihadist.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/us/politics/in-shariah-gingrich-sees-mortal-threat-to-us.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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UK: Two Afghani teenagers rape woman

   
Two Afghani teenagers subjected a woman to a terrifying rape ordeal after stalking her and abducting her as she left a nightclub.

Jailat Khan and Shahzada Khan, both just 16, were caught after they were captured on CCTV celebrating their sickening attack in Leeds city centre.

The victim, in her early 20s, was on the phone to her boyfriend asking him to get her a taxi at around 2am when she was dragged into a doorway.

He could hear her screams for 30 seconds before the line went dead. She was then raped.

Shahzada Khan (left) and Jallat Khan (right) were ‘looking for an easy target’ on the night they raped a woman in Leeds city centre

A court heard the pair, both Afghanis, were prowling the streets on June 12 this year looking for an easy target when they came across their victim.

‘After stalking lone women until they were able to find a victim, they then celebrated their crimes in full view of CCTV cameras. This proved to be their undoing.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2077029/Teenage-rapists-aged-just-16-caught-camera-elated-horiffic-sex-attack-woman-20.html#ixzz1hEfC3rb3

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