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Subject: the West Vs. Islam
Muslim    8/25/2002 11:40:30 AM
A topic came up in the Israel board that I thought was more suited to be on this board, so I'm moving the discussion about over here. To Homplate Umpire: There is something about Islam that you should probably know, even in it's most perfect form, Islam CANNOT coexist in a western based world; meaning, Islam and the West do not and cannot mix, they can exist seperately, but one can't properly exist within the other. The reson for this is because Islam is a comprehensive idealogy, it is a complete way of life, it has answer for every question, from God to politics, from the privacy of one's home to public laws and regulations. What America wants is for muslims to forget about the political portion, to forget about the public laws, and to forget that Islam is a muslim's way of life. When America wants muslims to "moderate" Islam, it means that america want muslims to "loosen up" and forget some rules and aspects of Islam. Now as much Islam treats everyone equally (which it does), it does not leave any room for any alternatives in the political, economic, or any other field of life, a muslim must lead his life according to Islam and only Islam. I agree that many muslims in the world today aren't providing a good image of Islam, and all muslim leaders are providing an even worse image. I don't agree that America doesn't want to eradicate Islam and Muslims, the only problem is that it can't. The west sees Islam as a threat to their way of life, and they try to portray Islam as this barbaric, backwards, heartless, and Nazi-like religion, but none of that is true. Islam is a threat to the west, but not because of those reasons, Islam is a threat to the west because if the western population say a real sincere and accurate implimentaion of Islam, people will flock to it. This has been seen clearly in history of Islam, for 13 years in Mecca, the prophet only managed to gather around 100 muslims, after only ten years in medinah, the prophet - with his Islamic state - managed to gather an army (not counting the muslims who weren't in that army) of 10,000 muslims. The difference between the first 13 years and the last 10 was that in the last ten years, Islam was being fully implemented, it was no longer just a bunch of words, it was now a reality. And today is no exception, if a true and accurate implementaion of Islam was to exist today, I gurantee you will see the same results, people flocking in masses to either live under the authority of Islam, or become muslims. That is the real reason Islam is a threat to the west, it will take away their power, their glory. Islam was made to be a more than just a religion one practices on Fridays, or one month a year in Ramadan, Islam was made to be a way of life, in essence, Islam is the perfect design to how a civiliation should be, and the best part of it, anyone can join. It is this aspect of Islam that makes the west attack it and not other religions such as christianity, judaism, buddism, or any other religion. I am not asking you to become sypathetic, I am asking you to uderstand the nature of Islam, that it isn't as bad the west and the muslims make it seem. Islam is a blessing to mankind. Islam also has a rock solid foundation, one that is not built on any can of faith, it is built on Iman (best translation: Conclusive acknowledgement). I want it to be clear that I'm not talking about something great that you have to just believe in, I'm talking about something great that can be proven to be great and true. That is why the west (political not social) will always be at war with Islam, the west fears Islam, they know what it can become and will do anything in their power to stop it from happening. I can prove this to you, but I will need some time, until then I leave you all to think about all this and leave this topic open for discussions.
 
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Muslim to jeff    RE:Think about what you are saying   8/28/2002 3:56:23 AM
I think you misuderstood me. I didn't say that muslims can't live peacefully with others. what I meant was that Islam as a complete system incompassing but not limited to politics, economics, social life, spirtuality.... cannot be implemented alongside any other system. It can exist as a seperate and independent system, but must be free from all outside influence. This doesn't just apply to Islam, this applies to any system that is meant to remain pure. Again, Islam can, and has existed as a political application in it's own region, not far away from other empires and civilization, but not influenced by them, in fact, it was the other civiliations that were influenced by Islam. I thought I made my statement clear to be restricted to the application of the system, but I guess people read things differently. Let me know If I am clear enough. I must be blunt, yes, I don't think that muslims should integrate into any society that is not implementing Islam, including the so-called Islamic countries (pakistan, Iran, Saudi-arabia etc.) But at the same time, they shouldn't rebel everywhere they live. They shouldn't seek to establish their own state in America, for example. Muslims can live in peace with people from other religions and nations without integrating into the society's way of life.
 
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Ben    Fire worshippers? Muslim, you don't know them!   8/28/2002 8:38:53 AM
Muslim, you should learn more about the religions your kind destroyed. You left a few Zoroastrians alive, though. I know one. To say they are "fire worshippers" would be like saying you worship a crescent moon, or Christians a cross. That line, "I'm sure they are in a better place" is pretty scary. Is that the place for those who follow religions muslims don't like? Or is that better place a neighborhood in New York?
 
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Ben    Don't blame the west for Islamic intramural events.   8/28/2002 8:42:55 AM
The West did nothing to turn the muslims against each other. That goes way back. There was no western infuence behind Karbala. Clue: In any system which says there should be one powerful non-elected leader, you will get at least two people thinking "And that leader should be me".
 
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Phoenix Rising    RE:the West Vs. Islam   8/28/2002 10:08:50 AM
Hmmm ... some things you said apparently contradict what you said earlier, but I may simply have been reading you wrongly. Specifically, I'm talking about your statements regarding Islam's "changeability" and its potential for integration with the West. What you're saying about how "Islam cannot change" but simply the "way people understand it" needs to be changed rings as essentially two sides of the same coin to me. Religions are defined by how people understand them; the text of the Bible is the most religiously (excuse the pun) preserved text of the last 2,000 years. It hasn't changed. There were apocryphal works that were omitted, but that is something that I cannot parallel with Islam because the Bible had several mortal authors, even though Christians believe that the ultimate source of all of it was God (simply working through many messengers instead of one). The point is that Christianity has "changed" in the exact same way that you talk about changing Islam. The texts have not changed at all; it is our understanding of them that has, along with the system of values and principles for living one's life that we derive from that understanding. The texts themselves have not changed. Regarding the "theory that can only be proven once it is seen," I think you're not only asking me to accept a lot on faith, but you're asking a lot of your potential believers in the Muslim world to accept a lot on faith. They've heard the "trust me, I know what I'm doing, this will all work out in the end" lines before--endlessly, in fact--from their own governments. If the current state of unrest in just about every Muslim country means anything, those people are getting fed up with that kind of line, and are able to see through the lie. Even if that is what you truly believe, it would be better if you could find a way to ground it in the current reality of the Muslim world and present something with a little more meat--something that doesn't ask so many people to take so much on faith. Perfect or otherwise, Islam has lost a lot of its credibility as a legitimating force for a country, and making the distinction between your "perfect" Islam and their "imperfect" Islam is not going to impress a lot of people if they have to wait until your "perfect" system is implemented to see that it works. What changes are you talking about that attempted to make Islam more 'appealing' to the West? Have you considered that those changes might have been implemented as imperfectly as you claim Islam itself is? Have you considered that the sincerity of the leaders 'embracing' the change might not have been all they made out in public? I'm not familiar with what or when this happened. Nonetheless, I look at Islam today and in 700 A.D. and I don't see too many changes toward Westernization over the last 1300+ years, when all is said and done. You said: "Well, that's great for you guys, but I must be blunt. Rules will not be derived just so that Islam will be more "similar" to western philosophies, [but] that doesn't mean that they can't have similar ideas ... but none of that means that people went out and searched the quran for any rules that can be similar to [Western philosophies]." Fair enough. The important point that you acknowledge, however, is that the similarities are THERE. No one needs to go "digging through the Koran" to find them; they're already there. This gets back to your earlier point about "the way people understand and 'preach' Islam" needs to be changed. I'll go out on a limb and guess that those similarities you mentioned are NOT emphasized (probably not even taught) in most Islamic schools, nor do most Muslim parents teach their children about our similarities and the values of trying to understand the culture of others, even if you disagree with them. Thus, those similarities you mentioned are not getting the kind of analysis they deserve. Actually, sight unseen and unstudied, based solely on reading you through your words, I believe that the attempted alteration of Islam to Western standards failed simply because of the framework implicit in your statements. The framework you suggest was that the Islamic world attempted to change ITSELF to match Western ideas. That won't work, and most of the Westerners who advocate such things have probably not thought through the meaning of their words. The West is a conglomeration of ideas from dozens of different cultures (many of which don't exist any more in a "pure" form ... Greece, Rome, ancient Babylon (Code of Hammurabi), and so on. However, we did not change OURSELVES to adapt to those cultures, much less adopt them. We allowed ourselves to be exposed to those cultures, and then basically took whatever we thought were the best or most interesting ideas about those cultures and discarded the rest. The Islamic world can do the exact same thing regarding "the West," whatever you take that to be (I wouldn't call it all one culture, bu
 
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American Kafir    RE:the West Vs. Islam   8/28/2002 11:00:16 AM
Sorry to keep everyone waiting. My promised essay on the historical and theological development and evolution of this eternal war between sun worshippers and moon worshippers is around 25% complete, and has grown from a simple argument for the actual identity of Muhammad's Allah to a full blown criticism of both sides from my agnostic non-theistic viewpoint. I'll post a URL for it when I'm ready for the tomatoes ;-)
 
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Elbandeedo to Tommy    RE:the West Vs. Islam -tomatoes   8/28/2002 11:15:17 AM
:::carrying large bag of VERY ripe tomatoes out into the HOT, HUMID, D.C. sunshine::: I'm nearly ready too AK! ;o) E.
 
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Muslim    RE:Fire worshippers? Muslim, you don't know them!   8/28/2002 3:09:39 PM
I searched the net for any type of source showing the connection between Islam and zoroastrianism. help me out here and show me a source. I simply want a source so that I won't be asuming too many things about it. But from what I learned about it, they do everything to the fire but say that they worship it. Now this can't be compared to the muslims and the crecent, because the crecent has no value, no power, no place in worship. We don't go and rub a crecent when we pray, or place a crecent in front of us, or anything of that sort. The crecent has no meaning in Islam what so ever, it is not a symbol of Islam. The only relationship the crecent has with Islam is that you will find on the dome of almost any mosque, and that's where it ends. That's not who zoroastrians look to fire, fire or light is involved in every aspect of their faith, at least from what I seen. "Is that the place for those who follow religions muslims don't like? Or is that better place a neighborhood in New York?" Actually I meant whatever heaven they believe in.
 
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Muslim to ben    RE:Don't blame the west for Islamic intramural events.   8/28/2002 3:23:10 PM
"The West did nothing to turn the muslims against each other. That goes way back. There was no western infuence behind Karbala." do you know what the romans did when they knew about this???? They offered Moaweyah to help fight Ali, his response was that if they even try to help, he will fight them under Ali's command. That's I will discuss about this topic. If you know anything about this, it really is the one topic that will seperate Sunnis and Shia's for a long time. But my point is that even though the west wasn't the cause of this division, hypocrates were, and the roman tried to fuel the fire. Do you want to know how the west turned us against each other??? forget Krbala and fast forward about 1300 years or little more. The year is 1924, the Ottoman state just got out of world war I with a great defeat. Mustafa Kamal is now the leader (not caliph, he hated that term) and has just removed the authority of Islam from His state. Britain and France were taking pieces out of the former Ottoman empire, britian took Jordan and Iraq, france took syria and lebanon, Palestine was being kept for the jews. North Africa was already colonized. Shortly before all this, a man by the name of Lawrence of Arabia (go watch the movie) an agent of the brits sparked an already hot flame, and was responsible for the Arab nationalist movement against the ottoman State. If all that is not enough to show you how the west divided us and turned us against each other, here's one more, Iran-Iraq war. Is this enough to show you how the west was directly involved in spliting muslims apart? If you read my last post, I wasn't blaming the west, I was blaming the muslims for letting the west do all this, the muslims just stood there and became pawns in the west's game of spliting us apart.
 
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Muslim    RE:the West Vs. Islam   8/28/2002 4:08:06 PM
"needs to be changed rings as essentially two sides of the same coin to me." Then try to understand it from this view point: What really represents Islam? Is it the people, or the books (Quran and Hadith)??? You view seems to be that the people represent the religion, that is not true at all. The books are what represent islam, the people simply follow what they think it's saying. Anyways, the Quran will never change, any "new" changes need to be from the Quran and NOWHERE else. Islam will never go through a modernization period simply because it doesn't need to, it has all the rule and laws that muslims need, to live AND prosper in this life and the next. "I believe that the attempted alteration of Islam to Western standards failed simply because of the framework implicit in your statements" Actually, I don't believe it failed, I believe that the west succeded in changing the people's viewpoints of Islam, It was changed into two opposites, in some parts of the Islamic world, Islam was changed to be more flexable to the West, and in other parts it was changed to be more hateful to the west. The correct attitude is neither. Islam must always remain free from outside influences, but it doesn't mean that muslims should hate all others. There is a saying from the prophet "the best of issues is the middle". Islam is the middle, it is the middle between spirutuality and materialism. It is the middle between capitalism and Communism. It is the middle between total seperation of church and state and total involvement (True Islam is fully involved in the state affairs, but there isn't just one opinion to everything, so the state itself can be very flexable and open to new ISLAMIC ideas supported by the text.) Let me make this as clear as possible..... ISLAM CANNOT ADOBT OTHER IDEAS INTO ITSELF. All ideas must be from within Islam (this does not apply to science, technology, certain administrative issues like postal services and traffic lights etc...) ". I'm betting that on many levels, Islam and the West are more compatible than you think, and could be even more so based on emphasizing different interpretations of your religious texts that already exist" If you mean that Islam has similarities with the west, you are correct. But If you mean that Islam can "learn" from the west, and adobt some of it's ideas, you are incorrect. It is mentioned many times in the quran that if a man rules by anything other than what allah comanded is: either a kaffir, disobedient, or trangressor (all three apply to muslims only). So any idea that needs to be implemented must come from the quran or sunnah. "the Islamic world must break off all ties with the West," I never said this. There can be trade, interaction, muslims visting the west, and westerners visiting the Islamic world. On a political scale, there can be time-limited treaties, it doesn't have to be war war war. "Regarding the "theory that can only be proven once it is seen," I think you're not only asking me to accept a lot on faith, but you're asking a lot of your potential believers in the Muslim world to accept a lot on faith. " Well, you need to understand that muslims already believe in Islam, obviously. So the faith part is over with. Now, all I have to show them is where Islam says that we should rule by Islam, and where Islam says that once it is succesful, people will flock to it. I can show you all that stuff, but you won't believe in it unless you know Islam is the truth (again this doesn't require one to be muslim, many enemies of the prophet knew Islam was the truth, and they fought him nontheless). "and making the distinction between your "perfect" Islam and their "imperfect" Islam is not going to impress a lot of people if they have to wait until your "perfect" system is implemented to see that it works." I agree with you 100%, there is a method that I follow, but really is outside the scope of discussion. That method does not involve going around telling everyone they are wrong and I am right, now follow me, I know that is arogant and will never bring any followers, or at least not a substantial numebr. "We didn't, and never considered doing so, never have, and hopefully never will." And why not? because it has bad consequences on the environment, the political arena, and many many many aspects. Just nuking the hell out of muslims won't get rid of them, that's why they don't do it. What they do instead is deviate muslims away from Islam, they try to make the six million muslims here as American as red white and blue. Let me put one thing into prespective, Everything Islam is going through right now, it has been through before, EVERYTHING. The first thirteen years of the prophet's life as a prophet were without a state. during that period, muslim blood was the cheapest, no one but a select few cared to fight for them. Muslims were being tortured left and right. Today, we live in the same thing, muslim blood is the cheapes
 
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Muslim    RE:the West Vs. Islam   8/28/2002 4:09:53 PM
"sun worshippers and moon worshippers" I know you think Muslims are the moon worshipers, but who are you claiming to be the sun worshipers????
 
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