Muslim scholar issues fatwa against terrorism

And likewise there are not enough Muslims in the world to supply a million for every individual involved in terrorism. Are we really going to quibble about this?

Not my perception. I found the stuff about facing a stark choice between silently suffering murderous injustice or "kicking back" to be pretty unequivocable. And offensive, in its endorsement of the AQ worldview.

And to that point: I've been noticing an increasing disconnect between the characterizations of her that appear in your apologetics, and the reality of her posts.

These people went to prison, and are almost unanimously considered sources of shame by Americans. They're openly reviled.

Should more people have gone to prison, farther up the chain, and more been done to fix these issues? Undoubtedly. But that doesn't make them legitimate representatives of America-writ-large.

One could make the same sorts of arguments about terrorists representing Islam - minus the elected government part - and one would be just as wrong-headed in doing so. Wasn't SAM's point in making such accusations supposed to have something to do with illustrating how offensive and spurious such a line of rhetoric is? Or is that just a sham justification she trots out when she's called on her trolling?

It is when they have already been publicly repudiated, their heirs apparent trounced in an election, etc. You're talking about a cadre that went out as the least popular administration since poll numbers have been recorded.

And anyway that isn't what SAM has been doing here. In this particular thread, she's treating Israeli actions in Lebanon in the 1990's as the spokesmen and representatives of the US. To the extent that there's any "speaking" going on at all in the picture; mostly it's naked assertions that America is the prime agressor and imposes intolerable injustice on everyone of Muslim faith or Arab ethnicity, everywhere. This is not "representation" or "spokesmanship" but characterization and generalization. Disrespect for the agency of others to speak for themselves is a major, ongoing part of the bad behavior SAM exhibits, and I see no reason to let it slide in this case.

We're supposed to start with honest, meaningful categories of interrogation - no right-wing memes equating support for the troops in the abstract with support for imperialist designs, etc. All I've asked for there are criteria that aren't blatantly loaded.

The offensive part here is the reduction of huge groups of diverse individuals to crude propaganda entities, no? The primary, obvious purpose of such (which we must assume is intended when an adult does it) is to subvert any possibility of compassion and unity, and thereby promote division, hatred and strife. To the extent that observations about relatively greater political agency amongst the American population are employed in furtherance of such charicature, then I have a problem with them: they are being used to obscure and villify. If they were made in the context of honest recognition of the range of opinions in the polity - which includes large-scale, overt resistance - i.e., the sort of stuff SAM routinely demands in analyses of Islam wrt terrorism (a demand I happily endorse, BTW) - then I would not have a problem with it.

But when that specific subject comes up, what she throws at me is a mass of cheap slurs equating simple patriotism with endorsement of right wing imperialist agenda. This is not honorable, and the point she's trolling in defense of is nefarious to begin with.

Which is to say, to the relative capabilities.

It is badly unbalanced to the malevolence of the political agendas involved, and as such misleading in its implications in that area - which are the primary object of the rhetoric, not the question of capability.

More to the point, it is badly unbalanced to the requirements for inclusive, productive discussion. That isn't to say that the balance of criticism in a good dialogue can't tend towards the USA; rather, it is necessary that participants establish a basic level of good faith that they are not simply partisans pursuing divisive tactics. And I have not seen this from SAM; rather the opposite.

So what? Is promoting an equally inane discourse here supposed to fix that, or otherwise achieve anything worthwhile? Even if SAM's trollings were cleanly targetted at that subset of US posters here who exemplify such discourse and endorse the related agendas - and they pointedly are not - what would this achieve anyway?

Justifying bad behavior by someone else's bad behavior doesn't result in anything but the proliferation of bad behavior. I mean, it wouldn't particularly bother me if it were confined to dealings with other trolls. But we're to the point where she pre-emptively applies it to anyone that disagrees with her about much of anything, overwhelms multiple threads simultaneously, etc. It seems clear to me that SAM wants to play that game - and only that game - and between that and her energy it ends up having a fairly definitive impact here.

In purely material terms, you mean?

This recurring materialist reduction of 9/11 is another problem with this thread (and others like it). In the first place we have SAM reducing the event to "a couple of buildings." But more generally we have the ignorance of the political and social aspect of the attacks, which were far more grievious as far as the great majority of people are concerned. And, for all that, obvious. Which makes the evasion of them look a lot like bad faith, to me.

To wit: it isn't possible to have a 9/11 every few days because that dream has already been dead for almost a decade now. We'd have to revive it first, in order for someone to murder it again.

Likewise in Iraq: they'd have to regain sovereignty in order for it to get violated again.

If you're referring to the distinction between the power elites in any given polity and the masses they rule, then you clearly have a point.

To the extent that you're comparing America with political Islam, I think the saliency of that difference is greatly exaggerated - frequently to the point of dishonesty, in the discourses in question. On the one hand, Americans never seem to end up getting what they thought they were voting for (and I'd note that SAM is a vocal advocate of various elite media conspiracy theories related to this), and on the other AQ is itself an all-volunteer army funded through donations.

At the end of the day, I'm unshaken in my conviction that SAM's rhetoric is basically craven and destructive. If you really want to sway me, refer me to a positive discursive outcome that has resulted.

 

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If nothing else, I'm pleased to see the first person being used here.

 

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The firebombing, the nukes, were not what subdued the Germans, the Japanese. The firebombing of Dresden was evaluated later, found to have been counterproductive - stiffened resistance, improved logistical support efficiency. The nuking of Japan did not have time to terrorize the Japanese - most had no idea what had happened until after the surrender, the professionals who were only allowed to surrender after the second nuke had been subdued for months.

Terrorism is effective, but not in good causes.

No.

I see no endorsement of the AQ worldview, insofar as it supports terrorism.

My intention is to object to what I see as misrepresentations of her posts - not apologize for their reality. I have and have had plenty of objections to what I see her actually posting.

That is not true. Only a few minor actors have seen prison, and even those few are openly defended as well as reviled. The great majority of the major actors are not "unanimously considered a source of shame", or anything remotely approaching that.

Which is one of SAM's common points.

Another one being that reviling and pilloring an accidently exposed scapegoat or two, while continuing to honor and support the policies and programs and major actors and people in charge as they continue to do what they have been doing and defend what they have already done, is not to be taken seriously.

Yes, it does. Sorry about that - but there they are, acting in America's name and with full official support, as we speak.

To little, too late, too ambivalent. Dick Cheney is all over my TV screen, being honored and cheered, his opinions on Ms Engalnd's assigned tasks amplified and broadcast with respect. He represents America.

That's nto quite what she is saying; and besides - That's way far out of line?

Obscure what, and vilify whom? The question of how much slack the US public deserves to be cut is a real one - you can't just assume a free and powerful and well-informed people choosing among alternatives deserve the same slack as an oppressed and cornered and desperate people without such choices.

As I take it, SAM's point is not about "malevolence", but evil. The banality of evil is a truism, no? SAM is not accusing the US soldiers who pilot cruise missiles into houses full of children on the estimated possibility of killing a "terrorist", twiddling their thumbs on the video keyboard as they guide its approach, of "malevolence". Nor any of their superiors and policy setters.

Meanwhile: If lack of malevolence is sufficient excuse, some evidence of malevolence - personal, twisted hatred and the like - on the part of people like OBL becomes necessary. I have seen little sign of forgiveness for the non-malevolent terrorist, in the US public discourse.

No.

I think the differences in the power, the ability to act, the information available and the means at hand, the choices that can actually be selected from, have been denied and diminuated - not exaggerated. Ludicrously so. Consider AQ's ability to invade, destroy, and rule the countries of its enemies.

 

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Some of these pawns are and were criminals. Some were sentenced to jail. Others are not criminals. Unless they've all broken some international law. Have they?

 

As do Noam Chomsky, Barack Obama, John Stewart, and any number of other characters. It isn't so much that I disclaim these elements of our polity, as I resent the cherry picking. America is a big country, and so anyone with an agenda can find support for whatever characterization they might wish. That these examples really do exist doesn't make that process honorable, or the result accurate.

As above, it would be fine as one element in a holistic appraisal of the behavior of America's allies. But we don't get that. Instead we get the worst excesses held up as typical, uncontroversial, even lauded. Meanwhile, we get no credit for the times we've restrained Israel, or otherwise behaved well. And so this myopia ends up in dishonesty, and its repetitive nature makes it look intentional.

Moreover, this whole standard of judging the electorate - as opposed to the actual politicians - according to the behavior of allies is fairly problematic in the first place. We didn't get to vote on whether Israel would shell Qana.

And so I don't. My complaint is that we're being cut zero slack here. I've voted against these assholes time and time again - along with millions of other Americans. I didn't choose to be born here, and I've done the best I could - along with millions of other Americans. And yet I'm supposed to accept blanket condemnations of my nationality? I could care less if someone wants to slam the perversity of our politics, or the disfunction of our media, or things like that, but when it veers into attacks on the nation as such, we've crossed a line from possibly-productive criticism into promotion of conflict.

Even if that's "fair" in some sense, what good does it do? Plenty of things that are fair are also destructive. I'm sure you're familiar with the old saw about where an eye for an eye leaves the world.

And to the latter: the subject was the 9/11 attacks. I haven't invoked in-theater insurgent operations under "terrorism" (and, indeed, would exclude a great deal of them from that category). These were not perpetrated by cornered, desparate people. Those guys were middle-class-or-better, with opportunities for study and work abroad, good marriage prospects, countries that have been at peace for decades, etc.

By SAM?

 

None of whom have had near the influence of Cheney on US foreign policy, or the behavior of representative Americans (such as soldiers and mercenaries) in foreign places.

And none of whom counter the salient point - Cheney is not imprisoned, unanimously reviled, etc. He is lauded, honored, respected, etc.

They have been, barring some controversy.

You get credit for effort. But you failed, more or less completely. Your armies are occupying foreign countries, the prisons and black ops and corporate tyrannies and financial destruction done in America's name rolled unimpeded. The blanket condemnations are reasonably accurate.

And here is where the enormous disparity in power comes in. You are objecting to an eyelash for an eye.

That's not up to you.

No.

 

There are, I might note, other representative Americans in foreign places besides soldiers and mercenaries. The Peace Corps, for example. Or Habitat for Humanity. But they seem to go unaccounted, in these contexts.

Sort of like how all those non-terrorist Muslims don't figure into the "actions speak louder than words" condemnations of Islam that SAM is so fond of objecting to.

It does not appear that I do, from the objects of my criticism. The distinctions go unmade.

So I'm unable to democratically overpower the military-industrial-kleptocrat complex, and this makes me responsible for their behavior. This despite them exerting the lion's share of political power in my country.

Meanwhile, citizens of Arab states are unable to democratically overpower their respective military-industrial-kleptocrat complexes, but this is also held to be my fault. To the point where I can't complain if they target me for violent death.

In which case: where is my purported greater power and agency that is supposed to legitimate this double-standard? As far as I can see, it's power elites having their way with the world, everywhere.

Or, to put it another way: you can't vote away interests, and the assumption that citizens of undemocratic countries are not accountable for their collective interests is faulty.

I don't buy that but, again, I suggest that utility is the salient razor here: accuracy is necessary, but insufficient, for a post to be productive, good-faith, etc. There are plenty of accurate statements that one can make which will harm worthwhile causes, and advance nefarious ones.

So, again, where have we gotten anything but division and anger out of SAM's project - accurate or not? You've swooped in to defend certain specific components of it, but I'm at a loss as to why you'd consider the larger effort worth endorsing, to begin with.

Or do you? Perhaps you're just building up credibility for when you confront her about religion or other subjects.

What I'm objecting to is SAM's blanket aspersions about Americans, executed (purportedly) as reflections of comparable blanket aspersions about Islam. That situation is symmetric, by construction, as it applies here. When it comes to me personally, it's anti-symmetric in my favor: I've never promoted such views about Islam, while SAM spends lots of time promoting that sort of view about my nationality.

But as far as your point goes: sure. The cycle of violence is an objectionable thing regardless of its proportions. The worthwhile goal is peace, not revenge. I don't recall proportionality figuring into my complaints, here.

Yes it is. I get to decide what I consider terrorism, and am not accountable for designations made by others. Particularly ones that I have explicitly disclaimed.

And so I repeat my objection to conflating the 9/11 attackers with desparate, cornered people under military occupation. That's simply inaccurate, regardless of any conflations the political media might exhibit.

Well then, again: relevance?

I think I've been pretty clear that my core objection is to SAM's strategy of using bad behavior to excuse further bad behavior (both her own trolling, and terrorism, etc.). Such a process just fucks everyone over in order to gratify the baser leanings of its employers.

So, criticize the US media all you like: I'll largely agree with you. But that doesn't excuse counter-distortions; that stuff remains just as objectionable as the original distortions. The opposite of propaganda is not counter-propaganda but truth.

 

Because they are relatively trivial. The foreign face of the US is its corporate and military extensions.

No - it makes their behavior representative of the US.

It is held to be the US fault, in many instances. That is accurate. Do you justify them, their motives, their mistakes?

The US power elites.

You blame the project?

Ha! I deny the motive, while recognizing the legitimacy of the question - made my stop and consider. But no.

I don't think you can use your private definition of terrorism to object to blanket aspersions cast on representative American behavior.

I just don't think SAM's stuff is as distorted, and definitely not symmetrically so.

 

Again, not asking about their motivations or accountability or legality.

When you personally, meet an American soldier, do you think - this guy volunteered to commit violence against people in Afghanistan and Iraq? He is a criminal.

 

Sam I know its inconvenient but would you mind please addressing post #59

The soldier volunteered for the armed services no matter where the war may be and the task can be anything from armed conflict to engineering to training. So no he is not a criminal...unlike your friendly neighborhood terrorist

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Yeah, I don't understand what your post has to do with what I said.

 

I have added an edit to my above post.

You don't understand? Then I will re-fresh your memory:

Originally Posted by S.A.M.

"Doesn't everyone know yet that moderate Muslims enjoy being occupied by foreign troops, enjoy having a puppet government imposed upon them, enjoy being bombed by drones or white phosphorus?

You give me your Muslim scholar, I raise you a drag queen who hosts a political show in Pakistan

Oh yeah, he has a bigger following in Pakistan than the Mullah in the UK. [mullah ki daud masjid tak, or the mullah only runs as far as the nearest mosque which means that when there is a crisis, the mullah is the first to seek refuge]"

And my response and questions:


I don't understand Sam. Is it that he should be dismissed because he is a drag queen? The Lutheran Church accepts homosexuals as clergy should I dismiss what they say based on this? Does being a drag queen dismiss scholarship? Also just because someone speaks out against terrorism and terrorists doesn't mean they support troops in Afghanistan and Iraq or wherever. So why do you pretend as if a moderate muslim wouldn't despise terrorist acts by muslims? I mean do you dismiss Ghandi just because he thought colonization in South Africa was good enough for blacks? I mean your argument that someone is a drag queen is besides the point unless you want to simply malign them to distract from their message.

I would think you would be pleased that there are more voices proclaiming terrorism as wrong.

Here. You keep bringing up terrorism and linking it to Western invasions and say this is the reason why there is terrorism, never mind the fact that they tend to kill more innocent muslim civilians than Westerners. So you behave as if this is a proper justification, ok. What about Beslan? Do you believe that it was okay for Chechnyans terrorists to take over a school and kill 176 children and 500 others as a form of protest? They didn't attack soldiers but a school for children from 1st to 11th grade. Your okay with that I suppose, I mean you would think it unfortunate but hey there are atrocities in Chechnya which makes it okay right? I guess then the reprisals aimed at innocent Chechnyans in Russia by gangs is also ok after all an entire town was affected by the loss of children.

Sam: No it wasn't. Violence doesn't work. If you were a karmic person, like me, you would recognise that. But if you were to walk into your home and see your wife or kid being mutilated or raped. Or see them lying on the floor, dismembered, with you possibly being next. Or if you drove over some bumps on the road got out and saw that it was not bumps but a street full of hacked people you were driving on, you'd find that "knowledge and humanity" might not be what you reach for in self defense.

I hope you remember that when a russian fascist beats the shit out of some innocent muslim because of Beslan or when Danes refuse to accept more muslim immigrants and the Swiss refuse to build anymore mosques on home soil. You say you are non violent and I believe you but you still make excuses for terrorism and then don't understand why no one can take you seriously when you rail against the west. I mean its all tit for tat right?

Sam: How much Americans will weep for two buildings, will they not? How many they will kill, burn, dismember and torture for just two buildings

Interesting terminology. Are you going to desensitize yourself now and call it a loss of two buildings? There were people of all races and religious persuasions working in that building at the time. A total of 2,974 fatalities, 246 on the four planes (from which there were no survivors), 2,603 in New York City in the towers and on the ground, and 125 at the Pentagon. So no Sam they weren't weeping over two buildings.

 

I'm not sure how repeating the same thing is supposed to be more enlightening. Its like shouting English at the French, it still doesn't make sense

You gave the opinion of an unknown randon "Muslim scholar" [what is that?] who some people know in the UK and I gave the opinion of a popular drag queen from Pakistan, who represents what I consider the view of any educated secular person with ethics.

 

Ok so then I have to assume from what you posted that you are intolerant of him based on your link

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/america/2007/08/begum_nawazish_ali_drag_queen.html

Which you say connects this cleric with this talk show host and yet the article doesn't say anything of the kind.

In short you were maligning this person here:

Within the British Pakistani community Shaikh Dr Qadri – and his grassroots organisation Minhaj-ul Quran – is well known and respected. He is a “shaikh ul-Islam”, one of the highest positions in Islamic jurisprudence, and the UK branch of Minhaj boasts some 25,000 signed up members, most of whom hail from the British Pakistani community.

He learned Islamic jurisprudence under the guidance of Tahir Allauddin, a globally admired scholar who was born in Iraq and migrated to the Pakistani city of Quetta in the late 1950s. Although their teachings have Sufi leanings – like much of Pakistan’s Barelwi school of Islam does – the Minhaj school of thought is very much considered part of the Sunni mainstream.

Pakistani-born Shaikh Dr Tahir ul-Qadri is launching his fatwa in London as part of a drive to combat the power of jihadist rhetoric on the web and provide English-speaking Muslims with an authoritative theological explanation detailing why terrorism is not permitted.

By linking him to a drag queen who's only opinion is that there should be more anti americans. What the hell does that have to do with Shaikh Dr Tahir ul-Qadri's fatwa?

Why should he be known to you since you don't live in the UK? But as you don't read links I don't expect you to know who he is. For sure though he isn't a drag queen. So why do you bring up this disparaging sentence in your first post?

"You give me your Muslim scholar, I raise you a drag queen who hosts a political show in Pakistan"

What is important is that he is a voice for many muslims in the UK who do not want further fundie radicalization in the country. What's so fucking hard to understand about that?

Also I would like to know why you refer to the twin towers as being buildings that people 'weep' over and do not take into account all those who died during 9/11 (which why they wept)?

Are you becoming yourself desensitized in the way you accuse others?

I also asked you if the bombing in Beslan was a proper 'military' or 'activist' response to the war in Chechnya?

These are not difficult questions to answer.

 

Hmm I like Ali Salim, I watch his shows and he echoes my own views on American foreign policy. I have no idea who that "Muslim scholar" is and I know that no one listens to fatwas anyway, while Begum Ali is one of the highest rated shows in Pakistan. I think most fatwas are pointless anyway, since they have no legality or authority and are generally considered the same as opinions of Tom, Dick and Harry. Even in Iran, which is the only sharia run state, fatwas are not law.

No one cares about these things unless they need them to justify their own POV. Its like saying the Sunday sermon in your local chapel was about the war. Ho hum

see fatwas against terrorism, circa Sept 2001
http://www.unc.edu/~kurzman/terror.htm

So again your analysis makes no sense to me.

 

We are not speaking of Ali Salim, this thread isn't about Salim. Again is it that you know all muslim scholars?

Is it that if you haven't heard from a scholar living in the UK then there must be something wrong with his opinions?

If no one listens to fatwas why do they listen to them in Malaysia?

"Millions of people in Malaysia have been banned from doing yoga because of fears it could corrupt Muslims.

The Islamic authorities have issued a ruling, known as a fatwa, instructing the country's Muslims to avoid yoga because of its Hindu roots.

The ruling is not legally binding but many of Malaysia's Muslims abide by fatwas."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7743312.stm:shrug:

I know you love skipping and dodging but can you answer these following questions also in the previous post:

What is important is that he is a voice for many muslims in the UK who do not want further fundie radicalization in the country. What's so fucking hard to understand about that?

Also I would like to know why you refer to the twin towers as being buildings that people 'weep' over and do not take into account all those who died during 9/11 (which is why they wept)?

Are you becoming yourself desensitized in the way you accuse others?

I also asked you if the bombing in Beslan was a proper 'military' or 'activist' response to the war in Chechnya?

Whether the suicide freaks heed the fatwa or not is not the purpose. The purpose is to have more muslim's come out and voice this opinion, in the present case this cleric has some weight in the UK so it does count for something. The point is that as long as there is this attitude of muslims making excuse and justifications for terrorists acts then it makes it difficult to really see them as being actually against these radical islamic ideas.

 

You're right. This fatwa unlike all the other fatwas in the world will have far reaching measurable consequences.

Islam is not a hierarchical religion, no one gives a crap about this stuff. Why is that so hard to comprehend?

wiki:

 

You obviously missed this last part of the post:


"Whether the suicide freaks heed the fatwa or not is not the purpose. The purpose is to have more muslim's come out and voice this opinion, in the present case this cleric has some weight in the UK so it does count for something. The point is that as long as there is this attitude of muslims making excuse and justifications for terrorists acts then it makes it difficult to really see them as being actually against these radical islamic ideas."

If speaking out against these things isn't of any use then why are you constantly repeating yourself against the west or atheists or what you find to be an injustice? Why speak on these forums about your personal opinions since it obviously doesn't mean diddly squat to anyone since you are not a scholar or anyone we really know anything about? I mean its really of no consequence what you think of palestine or anything else.

You also skipped these questions:

What is important is that he is a voice for many muslims in the UK who do not want further fundie radicalization in the country. What's so fucking hard to understand about that?

Also I would like to know why you refer to the twin towers as being buildings that people 'weep' over and do not take into account all those who died during 9/11 (which is why they wept)?

Are you becoming yourself desensitized in the way you accuse others?

 

Good for him, he can add his 2 cents to the pile.

 

I see your using the James definition of libel(ie. I don't like it)