Protesting the mosque: A post Founding Fathers America
Last week protestors poured into the streets of Murfreesboro, TN to voice their displeasure at a proposed new mosque just outside of the city in central Tennessee. Some of the protestors were very clear on why they were opposed to a mosque in their neighborhood. “We’re at war with these people,” said one woman. Local political figures likewise did not mince words. Lou Ann Zelenik, a congressional candidate said Muslims aimed to “fracture the moral and political foundation of Middle Tennessee."
In a television news report, local Channel 5 reported on a small Muslim community in a rural part of the state. The reporter seemed shocked to find the there were no signs of “anti-American activity” or “flag desecration”. Nor, he told us, were there “reports from neighbors complaining of unexplained gunshots or explosions.”
This animosity towards and suspicion of Islam is by no means restricted to Tennessee. Mosques across America are being attacked at a startling rate. In the past few months, mosques in Iowa, Florida, Georgia, New York, have been targeted with physical attack.
Over the last few years, I have visited to over 100 mosques throughout the country for field work research which resulted in the book Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam and a film by the same name by world renowned scholar Akbar Ahmed. We found that these occurrences were far too common. I would estimate that over half of the mosques we visited have been targeted in one way or the other—sometimes with aggressive actions like windows being broken or arson. Sometimes more passive actions are taken like complaints over parking issues, or threatening letters. Some mosques protect themselves by hanging no sign or image indicating that the building is even in use.
In Columbia, Tennessee, about 50 miles due west of Murfreesboro, last year we met Daoud Abudiab, director of the local Islamic Center, and heard the remarkable story of his community.
The community of 55 people had purchased the building and were proud of their adopted home in this idyllic small town. The mosque was the only one within a wide radius at the time and Muslims from other small towns in the area came to worship there. It was the center of all community life.
Abudiab was awakened by a call from the fire department one morning in early 2008. The town’s only mosque was ablaze. Three individuals, from a group called the Christian Identity Movement, had broken in and spray-painted several swastikas and the words “white power, we run the world”. They then torched the mosque with Molotov cocktails.
A small vigil in the town was organized by local Muslims but hardly any non-Muslims one attended. Daoud was disheartened. Since it was rare to hear a condemnation of the attack, Daoud’s children asked him if all Christians hated them. One of his children was mocked in school, called a terrorist and teased mercilessly. The victim of terrorism was himself, accused of being a terrorist.
Yet in the midst of the silence, one man stood up against the tide of anti-Islamic sentiment. Reverend Bill Williamson of the local Presbyterian Church offered money and a key to his church to the Muslim community. He brought Daoud and others from the Muslim community to a room that he had set aside for them to use for meetings and prayers. He even offered to remove any symbols or pictures which might offend.
Presumably, Williamson was drawing his compassion from Christ. Others without that same set of beliefs could look to further into history, to the namesake of the county directly west of Murfreesboro, Franklin. Benjamin Franklin so strongly believed in religious pluralism that he offered financial support to the construction of a large new hall in Philadelphia that would provide a pulpit to members of all faiths, “so that even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service.” Franklin was not alone among the Founding Fathers in welcoming Muslims. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams, professed similar beliefs. Adams even placed the Prophet of Islam alongside Confucius and Socrates as one of the world’s great thinkers.
Islam was commonly seen as a violent religion during the founding fathers time as well. But they saw through the distortions and went to the original text. When they did, they saw a religion that they believed would make a great contribution to America and enrich their vision of freedom for all. To the founding fathers, this vision was the very essence of the America they had created.
Most Muslims see the resistance of the mosque developments in Tennessee, Manhattan and Brooklyn as a simple case of Islamophobia. The detractors, for their part, have cited more banal reasons for their opposition. Whatever the mechanics of the conflict, the principals could look to the founding fathers for inspiration and guidance. While they may not always provide easy or lucid answers for the issues we face today, on the freedom of religion and worship, they showed remarkable clarity.
Jonathan Hayden is a research assistant with The Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University’s School of International Service
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Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
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Comments
I did a small paper on US Majids which showed that they had an American flavor by being a planned center for families together--quite like Christian churches Of Jewish Synagogues.
Am disheartened by this.
And, by the way - I wish we were called something other than "Americans", because the people of Chile, Venezuela, all the way up to Northwest Territories and Nunavut are all "Americans".
"these attacks are not the result of american foreign policy."
there were rather the assault of crazy muslim devils driven to violence by envy of american freedom. not a public word was said in response. people who were silent then did the dead no respect, for the generations of politicians who crafted the hatred of america felt throughout the middle east are in power still, and creating fresh hatred daily.
it is easy to despise the yokels who are violent or abusive toward muslims, but educated 'progressive' people who should have known what is going on in the world were silent, doubtless protecting their personal careers. let's start by despising them.
My father's friend, who is Muslim, spent his early years in Delhi, India. On the eve of Partition, a Hindu mob drove his family out of their home. While the family hid out in the Pakistani embassy compound under Indian army protection, the mob helped itself to everything they owned, including some family heirlooms.
The family settled in Lahore, which Muslim mobs had recently rendered Sikh-free.
When I heard that story, I realized -- I mean really understood -- for the first time, that no religion has a monopoly on violent behavior.
Would you mind deleting this nonsense characters at the end?
Also "freedom of religion" is for everyone, not some while not others.
People who stand against the mosque are un-American traitors to the Constitution.
In this country, we have a presumption of religious tolerance, but that's all it is....a presumption. The reality has always been quite different, with Protestants and Catholics at each others throats, and both turning against the Jews when the opportunity presents itself.
In this country, we also have a presumption of innocence....and that's the barricade we bumping up against here.
Just as surely as there are innocent masjids, there are also guilty ones, and I've been in both kinds, places where no one would tolerate bigotry, and places where it is the rule rather than the exception.
To suggest that all masjids, or mosques, are riddled with terrorist cells, absent any evidence to that effect, violates the most basic tenets of American democracy, the presumption of innocence and due process in the application of our laws.
To suggest that there are no such masjids, where madmen plot mayhem against us flies in the face of the evidence that certain mosques have, indeed, been places from which terrorist actions have been plotted, supplied and launched.
The Federal government not long ago cracked down on dozens of mosques around the United States which were determined to have been agents of foreign powers.
To my knowledge, no one has refuted those claims in court, proving the thesis.
These facts being in evidence, it makes sense for us, as Americans, to use extreme caution in our evaluations of one masjid or another and to act accordingly when we find enemies in our midst plotting harm against us.
On the other hand, vigilantism is ugly, vile, and inexcusable under any circumstances. Burning down a place of worship, any place of worship is an act of heinous cowardice, which cannot be tolerated.
I suspect that most of the hatred displayed toward Muslim houses of worship comes from the same kind of people who once burned crosses in front of the homes of Black activists, and painted swastikas on the walls of synagogues....people who hate because that's what they were taught to do.
The rest of us can take some reassurance from the fact that the Federal Government seems to be up to the task of identifying and shutting down those places where terrorists are indeed in charge, and that's yet another cause for concern with respect to the erosion of our basic freedoms.
But, in the final analysis, anyone who claims that Islam isn't territorially aggressive, and assertive in its efforts to proselytize among and convert the heathens to their ways, is at least ill-informed, possibly disingenuous, and at worst collusive with their objectives.
There are wonderful, illuminating aspects to the practice of Islam that include some of the most powerful forms of prayer and meditation to be found in any society....but there's also a basic intolerance for the infidel (that would be us) that is as basic a tenet of the Islamic faith as the presumption of innocence is in our society.
Today is hell for me.
Thank you for standing up for what is right. All I end up doing when trying to write about this is say "bigot" every other sentence.
Just think about that for a minute...
But then telling people they can't build a mosque in NYC.
These people are bigots, all these Sarah Palin tea party wingnuts. It's just vile.
(This made me laugh, though:
In a television news report, local Channel 5 reported on a small Muslim community in a rural part of the state... Nor, he told us, were there “reports from neighbors complaining of unexplained gunshots or explosions.”
Does the absence of unexplained gunfire make rural Tennesseeans more or less suspicious? :-)
When you have incidences of women in the middle east being beaten in the streets by morality police, young girls attacked and killed for going to school, christian converts threatened with the death penalty for converting, and countries like Iran and even still Iraq, where the killing of Homosexuals is constitutionally protected and even encouraged by some religious leaders. When you hear about communities in Europe where there are efforts to install sharia law over local secular law. It gives one pause.
There are fundamentalists on both sides though. I like to remind some of my conservative religious friends here in the U.S. that when they support forcing creationism into school books, prayer in school, not selling alcohol on Sundays, religious definitions of marraige, etc. That this is often coming from the same fundamentalism that they decry in the muslim world.
Religious fundamentalism of all sorts, especially those that seek to force their views and write laws based on those views to impose on others - this has to be avoided at all costs.
Most religions are territorially aggressive. From about 400 CE to 1900 CE, Christianity was the territorially aggressive religion -- now it's the territorially passive-aggressive religion. It was more regional in Greek and Roman times -- but you'll see the pantheon grow as central Greek and Roman power absorbed regional deities (Demeter comes to mind, here). Before /that/, Judaism was fiercely aggressive. Taking back the promised land, anyone?
As has been mentioned before: it's the difference between fundamental and mainstream sections of religions.
I would like to see more efforts at interfaith and intercultural outreach to help eliminate such shameful domestic terrorism.
As I was saying, Jefferson and Adams were certainly aware of the danger Islam posed to America and all non-Islamic nations. They payed a visit in London to Tripoli's Ambassador to Britain Sida Haji Abdrahamand and asked him by what right his conutry and others of the Islamic North Aftrican Barbary Coast practiced piracy against non-Islamic shipping from nations not paying tribute to them, and as Jefferson reported to Secretary of State John Jay, he replied that it was in their Koran that all nations that were not answerable to the law of the Prophet in their Koran were sinners and it as their right and duty to make war upon themwherever they could be found and take prisoners of them and enslave them, and that every Musselman who died in war against them would go straight to Paradise.
It is true that Morocco was the first nation to recognise the new United States of America, as claimed by President Obama in his tour of apology to Egypt and elsewhere last year, but what he left out was that until America declared its independendce, as a colony of Britain its shipping was covered by tribute that Britain was then paying to North American piratical Muslims countries of which Morodcco was one, and enclaves preying on the shipping of non-Islamic nations, Morocco being one. And so they were veryhappy to recognise our Independence, as this made us a seperate source for tribute and/or targets for their piracy and demands of ransom for captured American sailers, merchants and passengers.
This led to a payment equalling fully 20% of the annual American budget in tribute to the piratical muslim nations of the Barbary Coast until Jefferson was elected President and immediately set about the creation of a standing Navy to wage war on the Islamic pirates to put a stop to it.
It is no accident that the greatest number of acts of piracy in the world today are located along Muslim nations of Aftrica and in the straights of Molucca, bounded by the Islamic nations of Indonesia and Maylasia.
http://www.bing.com/search?q=piracy+map+2010&src=IE-SearchBox
Your pro-Islam propaganda piece finds a ready audience here on this leftist website, but the truth is still the truth.
We are at war with Islam because Islam is at war with us.
I guess that these aren't "Real Christians", eh? I mean, they'd "Turn the other cheek" - and learn to "Love Thy (real or perceived) Enemy" - wouldn' they?
That would certainly take the wind out of the Muslim Radicals Sails; as these Idiots don't realioze that that's WHY the 'Bad Guys' are able to rip up on America - they tell everyone that we're out to 'Crusade Against Them', just as we did in the past; which is a seriously unjustifiable infraction that not-stoopid americans would be wise to keep in mind, and then attempt to DEFUSE!!!
Besides, Thomas Jefferson assured the 'Hindoo' and the 'Muselmen' that they would always be Free to erect all of the Temples to Brahma, and Minarets bedecked Mosques that they'd care to; just as George Washington assured the Jewish Congregations of Rhode Island thet they, too, would always be free to worship as they please.
Freedom of Religion is one of our Greatest Assets, as a People and a Country; and these fools, in TN., would be wise to turn the Glenn Beck and TBN ranters off, and Be "Real Americans" - for a change; if they can actually figure out, for once, what that actually MEANS!!!
Refusing to reply to their Hate - with more Hate, and the kind of Suppression taht the Crazy Mullahs teach their Own Ignorant Masses to FEAR, to Hate; is the only Sensible Way to acheive Peace!
http://www.libertymagazine.org/index.php?id=1550&searched=Suras&advsearch=oneword&highlight=ajaxSearch_highlight+ajaxSearch_highlight1
The fact is that Islam only condoned warfare ONCE; when Mohamed, and his entourage, were under attack by the Pagan Idolitors of Mecca; which is why, after the Mohamedians won the battle, they renamed it that; Mecca = Refuge.
It was pointing this fact out that got Salmon Rushdie is hot water!
Thirty years ago, when I was still married to a secularized nominal/cultural Muslim, a political refugee from Hafiz al-Assad's Syria and then in his last year of medical school as an eye doctor (ophthalmologist; he diagnosed the nature of my inborn eye defect) and I was on a graduate school course as an academic translator, we were pleased with our kind of "cultural exchange", trying to echo the Medieval and Renaissance back-and-forth translations of medical, mathematical and artistic works between the Islamic and the Christian worlds (we were, and are, both agnostics but interested in other people's religious concepts anyway) - thirty years ago it was easy to find vast swathes of common/neutral ground with the two cultures, and try to keep the best from both. I have great respect for Islamic advances in medicine, architecture, music, poetry, mathematics, including those from the Middle Ages, which kick-started our own European Renaissance and Enlightenment. My then husband, then a hospital registrar, spent his spare time going to seminars about 18th and early 19th century German literature and music. He had not asked for, and I had not offered, conversion. It did not arise, it was that simple - even though my then mother-in-law was a very pious Sunni Bedouin. My ex' secondary education had been under the rigorously secular French system in Damascus, a system the French introduced in the Maghreb (North Africa) as well. It still exists everywhere the French had colonial interests, and of course in France itself.
It is perfectly possible to judge other people on their individual merits and not on their religion; that way we can learn from each other.
HenryR, in the Maghreb/"the Barbary Coast", the Europeans and the fledgling "Americans" vied with the local people for monopolies/oligopolies IN THE SLAVE TRADE, so neither the Arab/Berber resistance against white predators nor the white predators' payback are anything to be proud of, especially not after 250 years - during which we are supposed to have progressed from slavery and imperialism to "equal rights for everyone". Of course we are not, and never were, at war with "Islam", or with all Muslims, and certainly not for 250 years. That is a paranoid thing to say. "We" (white people, European and "American", were at the Barbary Coast for unholy reasons (the slave trade) too.
It's all about profit and monopoly, not religion. "Religion" is just the screen, just as "Democracy" is just the screen. In reality all we need to do is respect each other and learn from each other.
Retired German-born translator living in London, England, with a Holocaust survivor. known to SALON as "jochebed".
The Channel 5 reporter will find many more pleasant shocks if he looks harder and realizes we aren't psycho killing machines on principle.
Rated!
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html
It is prohesied in their book that they will eventually conquer the entire world. Lieing in the cause of Islam is perfectly ok. Muhammad said "War is deception." And the deception today is that it is not at war against all infidel countries. But Islam divides the world into two parts: Dar al Islam, the land of Islam, and Dar al Harb, the land of war. Guess which one you live in.
Dn't just react out of your own personal belief system to reject the historical record. Instead, actually do some research. Read their book. Read their history. Read the history of their "prophet."
If ignorance is bliss, Open Salon is sure a blissful website.
You advise the readers to, and I'm quoting you here, "Dn't just react out of your own personal belief system to reject the historical record. Instead, actually do some research. Read their book. Read their history. Read the history of their "prophet."" I request you to do the same, this time without assuming beforehand that Muslims are inherently out to kill all. Please and thanks.
Religious freedom for U.S. citizens should be considered in relation to the civil rights of other citizens and their safety. The Islam religion calls for worshipping Allah and core values of the Koran teach “holy wars” against Western infidels and most imams do not teach tolerations or acceptance of other religions.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan want to build the mosque that is a church structure of the Islam, Allah God of the Prophet Muhammad. The have a lot of money and want the mosque located near the site of the World Trade Center twin towers for NY public view.
The Imam, Rauf Muslim Mosque wants to replace the World Trade Center (WTC) twin towers destroyed by an Islam religion “holy war, jihad” of the Muslim world 9/11terrorist attack on the homeland of the U.S.A. killing thousands of innocent civilians. Public message: Bring down the WTC and replace with Islam Mosque.
If this is permitted by Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of NY and his Muslim constituency of the liberal left-wing Democrats, Muslims win a big victory for the Islam religion in the U.S.A. This is not freedom of religion and it will be viewed as U.S.A. surrenders to the Islam terrorist enemy attackers of the Muslim world who worship their God Allah in a Mosque.
Do you think the American people should allow Islam religious (mosque, church) structure on Ground Zero site of the 9/11 Islamic al-Qaeda terrorist attack on the U.S.A.? Remember who is behind it and who supports it.
A Mosque approved by Mayor Bloomberg for the NY site would disgrace and insult the American people as much as it would if FDR had put Nazi symbols on head stones of U.S. soldiers at the National Cemetery killed by Nazi soldiers in World War II.
The U.S.A stands for separation of church and state even though FDR sent copies of the New Testament of the Bible to all U.S. Armed Forces in WW II. But, to build a church of the Islam religion of the Muslim world on that NY attack site is degradation to all Americans who love their country.
Remember Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder wants a civilian court “show trial” for the master mind Islamic terrorist who planned and executed the 9/11 attack on the U.S.A. Something is wrong, vote them out of office and elect Republicans.
//www.thehypertexts.com/Nakba%20Holocaust%20Palestinians%20Simple%20Path%20to%20Peace%20in%20the%20Middle%20East.htm
I welcome your comments at mikerburch@gmail.com
Mike Burch
You want to use the persecution of Muslims as an excuse for piracy? I know Muhammad and his followers were persecuted by the m0on cult that ruled Mecca, and that is why they were forced to flee to Medina. If I neglected to say specifically that they were persecuted (I don't remember reading specifically of torture as you say they were, though they were in fear of their lives) that is still implicit in my comment: " He taught peace with non-believing neighbors until expelled from Mecca. Forced to relocate to Medina, he began preaching armed jihad and himself took up the sword to lead his followers in raids on the merchant camel caravans of Mecca, and never quit carrying out armed jihad until his death by which time he and his followers had succeeded in conquering all of Wester Arabia."
Persecution might be an excuse to fight back, but he never stopped there when Mecca finally surrendered to him and his jihadist followers. He continued with the sword until all of Western Arabia was under his control by the time of his death, and so do did his successors the Caliphs as I said:
"His successors the Caliphs continued right on with his armed jihad in keeping with his instructions (contrary to what JimRinX would have us believe) until in the next sixty years they had succeeded in conquering nearly all the territorythat they hold today, though they have subsequently been repulsed and thrown back from Southern France, and finally expelled from Spain in 1492 after holding that nation for several hundred years."
Persecution is reason enough in the minds of many for striking back. But the persecution he struck back at was from the moon cult leaders of Mecca. Why did he then continue to wage armed jihad against other towns and areas that never persecuted he and his followers at all? Why did his successors the Caliphs continue waging armed jihad until all Arabia had been conquered, and not content with that, then began spreading beyond Arabia into other nations throughout the middle east and then into Southern Asia, Northern Africa and up into Southern Europe through Spain and southern France? What was the persecution that sparked that? It wasn't persecution. It was the emulation of their "prophet" by his successors in following his example and instruction.
You cite one verse that believers are allowed to defend themselves when attacked. And you are certainly not the first to do so. I've seen that verse cited before.
For any who are not familiar with the Koran, or Qur'an, here is the url for an online website put up by the University of Southern California with three different translations, so you can check these things out for yourselves and compare various translations with each other:
http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/quran/
Here is the verse cited by Maliha, in the three translations provided by the USC website:
022.039
YUSUFALI: To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to fight), because they are wronged;- and verily, Allah is most powerful for their aid;-
PICKTHAL: Sanction is given unto those who fight because they have been wronged; and Allah is indeed Able to give them victory;
SHAKIR: Permission (to fight) is given to those upon whom war is made because they are oppressed, and most surely Allah is well able to assist them;
It does say what Maliha says that it does, but it does not say that this is the only reason for waging armed jihad as you have said that it does, Maliha. Otherwise why would Muhammad have continued leading his jihadist followers in attacks on more and more towns and cities that never attacked him, unless it was to continue the spread of his power and religion in jihad? Why would the Caliphs have continued doing so for the next 60 years or so after his death, were defense when attacked the only legitimate purpose for armed jihad?
You say "You advise the readers to, and I'm quoting you here, 'Dn't just react out of your own personal belief system to reject the historical record. Instead, actually do some research. Read their book. Read their history. Read the history of their "prophet." ' I request you to do the same, this time without assuming beforehand that Muslims are inherently out to kill all. Please and thanks."
In this you are mistaken, Mahila A. I do not assume that all Muslims "are inherently out to kill all." Muslims are people just like non-Muslims, and by and large they are members of their religion for the same reasons as most non-muslims. They were born into it, had it instilled in them from their childhood, and so continue in it believing it to be the true religion of God even as most Jews, Catholics, Protestants, etc. do. But that doesn't mean that any one of them truly is. God alone can prove to us who He is and What he thinks. No man can do so, whether in person or through writings. Men can convince others to believe in their version of personal belief in God, but men cannot prove God or his religion or even that He has a religion. God and God alone can do that
Muslims are people just like all other people of the world, as I have said. And they do not and would not all be "inherently out to kill all." However, in a religion of over a billion believing in a prophet and book that commands all to take up jihad for the cause of Islam, there would be and are many willing to do so. As an example, let us take suicide bombers and the jihadists who took over the airplanes and succeeded in crashing them into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
Prior to that occurance, I never had any feelings about Islam one way or the other at all. I had in fact even attended a truck driving training school in the early 90's and became good friends with a very devout Muslim, a Palistinian man attending the training program, so that we chose to room together in the Motel where the company was putting us up two to a room for the duration of our training after getting to know one another.
But when the assault on our nation through the hyjacking and crashing of the airliners into the World Trade Center occured, for the first time I was moved to go out and buy a Koran or Qur'an for myself. I wanted to know what was in that book that would cause so many to deliberately seek to kill themselves simply in order to strike a blow for their cause. It took me a while, but I finally found it. Here it is, from the three translations provided through the website url given above:
004.066
YUSUFALI: If We had ordered them to sacrifice their lives or to leave their homes, very few of them would have done it: But if they had done what they were (actually) told, it would have been best for them, and would have gone farthest to strengthen their (faith);
PICKTHAL: And if We had decreed for them: Lay down your lives or go forth from your dwellings, but few of them would have done it; though if they did what they are exhorted to do it would be better for them, and more strengthening;
SHAKIR: And if We had prescribed for them: Lay down your lives or go forth from your homes, they would not have done it except a few of them; and if they had done what they were admonished, it would have certainly been better for them and best in strengthening (them);
In the translation I purchased by Muhammad Zafrullah Khan, it says "If we had said, kill yourselves..."
As you can see, not all would do so, just as he said. And out of a billion plus, though not all would do so, there are still a significant enough numbers who for one reason or another would. And so too are there even more who are willing to engage in other acts of jihad, though by and large the vast majority simply want to live their lives in peace even as the vast majority of us infidels do.
Rated.
Islam is not tolerance and peace. We cannot continue to extend it the olive branch, when it holds in its hands the dagger and the sword. It is not the actions of a few that taint Islam, it is Islam that is twisting the minds of many and indoctrinating them into a culture of hate and violence that relies on subjugation and oppression to propagate and grow.
How many murders must be committed in its name? How many innocent people must die before people are willing to accept the hard truths?
It is not necessary for every single Muslim to commit an act of violence in order to demonstrate the nature of the belief. It is only necessary that they allow that violence, that they justify the actions of their fellow muslims, that they shift blame onto the innocent dead in defense of Islam when its followers perform the violent actions that Islam demands of them.
Over the last 20 years, there have been THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of muslims committing murder and engaging in terrorism. How many Christians are out there burning and pillaging, stoning wives for percieved marital offenses, cutting off hands and feet for stealing a loaf of bread, murdering because their religions calls them to it? How about Jews? Buddhists? Are there any other religions so associated with violence as Islam? Perhaps if we look back 2,000 years, we can find a bloody period or two in Christian history to try and make feeble comparison, but these are disengenuous.
While it would be nice to think that we as a nation could include and tolerate everyone, that is neither realistic or sane.
Mosques are being resisted, Islam resisted, not because people are simply intolerant or ignorant, but rather because they have reached the point of decision. Theyhave decided that enough is enough, and that to allow themselves to be blinded by noble yet unrealistic ideals is not a strength but a weakness. One that Islam is exploiting the world over.
Rather than simply lable and attack those who resist Islam as intolerant, perhaps some of us would do well to look a little more critically at just what it is that these folks are against.
Non-believers - atheists under Islam do not have "the right to life ". They are to be killed. According to Islamic culture, sins are divided into great sins and little sins. Among the seventeen great sins, unbelief is the greatest, more heinous than murder, theft, adultery and so on."
http://www.iheu.org/node/1540
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/5994047/Muslim-Europe-the-demographic-time-bomb-transforming-our-continent.html
As for the Caliphs: after the Prophet’s death, many tribes who had previously formed alliances began to rebel. Wars were then fought with them in order to maintain the safety of Muslims. Sometimes armies were sent to surrounding tribes from whom signs of aggression or treason were seen, as a preemptive measure. Beyond that, I cannot justify any war. It is a grave human failing and it is unfortunate that it is thought to be the last resort for peace. Islam strongly discourages war but it also understands that it is sometimes inevitable. In those circumstances, it works strongly to regulate warfare and stresses the kind treatment of prisoners of war.
As far as the “hijacking and crashing of the airliners into the World Trade Center” is concerned, I can assure you that is not what Islam suggests at all. It was a most unfortunate event where people regardless of their religion lost their lives. And it was a work of extremist and brainwashed groups who use religion out of context to justify their vile political agenda. Let me also point out that these terrorists are born out of lack of education. They are recruited from socio-economically underdeveloped regions and brainwashed to believe that blowing themselves up while reciting a random verse from the Quran will get them to heaven, and that the families they leave behind will be provided for by their so-called mentors. I can tell you as a Muslim that that sort of sick thinking is certainly not what most Muslims believe nor is it anything that Islam encourages. We are extremely against it and our lives are also threatened by this violence.
You say that ‘I do not assume that all Muslims "are inherently out to kill all."’ Then with regard to the topic at hand, why deny them their place of worship? Most Muslims just want to say a prayer and get on with their lives.
I understand that you will continue to have reservations towards Islam. I can’t ask you to change that, but I can try to clear your misconceptions. Go ahead and believe in whatever faith you want to. But I will request you not to attack Islam because of the actions of extremists who use it as a cover. Let's just hope that they somehow get some education and a sense of humanity and work on becoming decent human beings instead of debasing the name of Islam and making life hell for all of us.
Hahahahahaha!
What these radical Islamist human waste of breath did to us?!!!
Really?
Really?
What freaking dumb@ss thought someone would even "think" of building an enemy building, much less a mosque at ground zero...really?
Who ever thought this was a great idea, needs to be stoned/beheaded/and then @ssed kicked then punished!
Really? This is for real?
What the hell?
Are you serious?
Do you know how many people died, families suffered...and someone thinks a mosque would be cool?
I am mad this is even an option!
What an insult to put mildly!