Islam Under Seige

I do more reading here than posting which is obvious by my point total. I wasn't quite sure where to post this. Lately I have been doing a lot of reading here. There are many posters who are in the Islam is a religion of hatred, intolerance, and violence camp. They are countered aggressively by the West causes terrorism, most Muslims are peaceful, fundamentalists aren't true Muslims, etc. camp.

Almost every thread seems to eventually develop along these lines, often with the same posters swinging away at each other.

I believe both sides of the issue are right. There is a powerful component of fundamentalism in the Islamic world, and to me all the negative connotations applied to it are well deserved. Stonings, honor killings, beheadings, suicide bombers, poor treatment of women, etc.; all these well publicized circumstances are hard for this American to wrap his mind around. Quite simply, the fundamentalists make themselves easy to despise.

I can believe the majority of Muslims probably would rather live in peace, go about their lives, worship how they care to without pressure from the West, without worrying that every infidel be converted, or that revenge be extracted for every previous slight. I'll accept that these people exist given the passion with which some of the Muslim members here claim it to be so.

It is this "regular guy" Muslim that is under siege. They are under siege by the fundamentalism that has run amok in the Islamic world. Here on this site it is often stated that the West is a primary cause of the growth of this fundamentalism, that if it weren't for its involvement in the Middle East, and the transgressions of Israel, the need for terror wouldn't exist. But would the raging fundamentalism still exist without the need for terror?

All the above rambling leads me to the questions I really want to ask. I'm hoping some of the Muslim members here answer with some thought, as I am looking to learn something.

Do you have concern regarding the direction your religion is taking? Are the fundamentalists so ferocious that they threaten the way of life of peaceful Muslims? Do they threaten the very basis of what most hope Islam should be about? Hypothetically, if all the western world suddenly said, "sorry Islam, we were wrong, we're leaving the Middle East, and Israel is moving to New Mexico, go about your business", what direction would Islam take? Would fundamentalism continue you to grow in Islamic countries both inside and outside the Middle East?

Would fundamentalism wither and die, or would it snowball? It just seems so ruthless, even toward its own people.

Originally posted by musky

Are the fundamentalists so ferocious that they threaten the way of life of peaceful Muslims?

Would fundamentalism wither and die, or would it snowball? It just seems so ruthless, even toward its own people.

First of I'm Not Muslim (nor Christian for that matter),

there seems to be another powerful driving force which seems to grab the Muslim worlds followers more tenaciously than other ideologies or religious lives.
religious conviction, or devotion alone should not account for so much violence in many aspects of their social-religious community (but i could be wrong).....
[ after all there was a short period in history where Buddhist Monks often set themselves on fire as a means of protest.]


A good place to take a study of the interactions within a Muslim community would be here in the USA, up around Detroit, there's quite a large community all over that area of Michigan...not just neighborhoods
or subsections of a city, as one would find in Muslim communities at places like D.C. or NYC (just 2 random examples).



I would like to draw your attention to this article
www.livescience.com...

and after reading about these blood-brain parasites, which will cause the host into actions & behaviors that are not in the interest of self-preservation.......
maybe my minds in hyper-imagination mode...

but maybe, there's something in the cous-cous milling, or in the ritualized acts which are followed by the faithful, which might harbor this 'other' powerful driving force...and creates an inordinate number of extreme acts, like opting for suicide or martyrdom, as natural & expected acts one should perform// a duty as it were

by St Udio:
there seems to be another powerful driving force which seems to grab the Muslim worlds followers more tenaciously than other ideologies or religious lives

I would think if it were a disease or paracite that the medical community would have identified it long ago as they are rather good at that.
What the middle easterners have in common is a history and ancestry that had a rather violent past ie. they lived by the sword. Read about the early life of Iban Saud who later unified Saudi Arabia. Raids on your neighbor, blood feudes were a way of life. They live to carry on the tradition over there! If they aren't fighting their enemy they are fighting each other and sometimes the fights among themselves are the fiercest. In the early days they had only swords and poorly made muskets that did little harm, their battles were mostly a lot of noise and smoke. The AK47 has changed all of that considerably!

Originally posted by plumranch

What the middle easterners have in common is a history and ancestry that had a rather violent past

respectfully i reply,

then why isn't the Detroit area & surrounding cities, as i noted in my post,
rife with the type of bloodletting & strife we see throughout Iraq metro areas??
Sunni attacking Shia & visa-versa???

Perhaps the parasite infection is too sensitive to publicize to the masses.
There might be a gag-order imposed by the CDC or the WHO, both health/disease control Orgs.

It might be that it suits the neocons needs for an antidote to not be readied
so as to let the M.E. Muslims decimate each others population...

i appreciate your reply plumranch but the reasoning seems less than open minded.

thanks

[edit on 7-7-2007 by St Udio]

I'm sure there are many historical reasons that can be examined and utilized to explain the propensity for violence in the Middle East. Perhaps my first post wasn't clear in what I'm asking.

If the western influence was removed from the area, what type of Islam would eventually take hold? A diverse tolerant brand of Islam like some of the members of this website insist is what Islam should be, or the extremist brand being pushed by those that stone, behead, rape, and strive to keep women without education, etc.?

Like I stated previously, it appears to me that the ferociousness of the fundamentalism could very well be unstoppable if not kept in check. In a generation or two without western influence, would all or most countries in the area be ruled in a manner akin to Afghanistan under the Taliban?

To me it seems likely, but I no doubt have a lot to learn. If there are reasons to believe this would be the case, and these reasons seem evident to me, perhaps someone could offer some rational why it would not occur. If I was a Muslim that insists the extremists are not true Muslims because of their practices, but could not state with confidence why such a thing would not occur, I would be very concerned about the future of my faith.

Speaking as a non Muslim, I think the primary problem has been the advancement of the Wahabi's in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Royal family has been seeding and funding Mosques and Madras's around the world to spread their branch of Islam. Wahabism. Many of the problems with Radical Islam have their roots in Wahabism/Salafism.

The Shia in Iran are the other primary source of Radical Islam but it is the Saudi's who have taken their branch of Islam and spread Wahabism all over the globe.

If you take a look at Islam in Indonesia or Turkey, they aren't are fundamentalist as those in Iran or S.A.

IMO, Islam will in the future will be having a reformation similar to what Christianity had with Martin Luther between the Fundamentalist and more Progressive forms of Islam.

As for the Detroit Metro area and it's Arab population, most of them have integrated into Amercia and they are the people who had the chance and ability to leave their homelands. Plus they are primarly not from Iran or Saudi Arabia as well. It is not surprising they not as fundamental/militant as some of their Islamic brethern in the ME. Also suprisingly, many are Arab Christians as well.

Muslims in Michigan

[edit on 7-7-2007 by pavil]

Wahabism is on a whirlwind path to it's own destruction, no need to stand in it's way, let it happen. I have worked in a number of Islamic countries for a while, and by far the most destructive people are the Saudis, money rules them, Wahabism is destroying them, and in the end it will be a good end.

This country (The USA) was established by the Pilgrims escaping The British Empire to be able to practice their own brand of religious behaviours. Who are we to want to change the way others practice theirs? Yes some religions practice archaic ways and have for a very long time. Judaism and Islam have stayed almost whole for centuries whereas Christianity has split off so many times and has morphed into something much different then what it used to be. Its going to take time for things to change, but forcing a change may drive people deeper into fanatacism. Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt are the more modern states in the Middle East and up until our meddling and through the interference of Israel in some cases have caused a fall back in this modernization and has allowed for radical religious leaders to get an even stronger hold.

Some of these people are just plain happy with their systems, and are not for a change in the way we may see it as being unfair to women. Many of those women do not care to drive, do not care to be politicians, do not care to hold jobs...they just want to stay home, cook, clean, take care of the kids and the family, to them, these things are more important then driving or being a woman on the fortune 500 top ceo's list. It wasnt that long ago that women were given an equal base here. Just have a look at old shows like "Leave it to Beaver, All In The Family and even The Munsters! The Moms stayed home, dad drove the car, got a job, had dinner ready when Dad came home.


If some of you were really on top of things and saw some of the youth in these Middle eastern countries, you would see that change is coming , and its just taking a little longer for these people to catch up to us and the rest of the world. They look just like any other youth in a modernized western nation. Kill them or force them to leave the ME (IE: Like the 4million Irai refugees) and they wont be around to change it. The only people that will be left to stick around will be the die hard religious fanatics.








[edit on 8-7-2007 by ThePieMaN]

Originally posted by ThePieMaN
Its going to take time for things to change, but forcing a change may drive people deeper into fanatacism. Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt are the more modern states in the Middle East and up until our meddling and through the interference of Israel in some cases have caused a fall back in this modernization and has allowed for radical religious leaders to get an even stronger hold.

Some of these people are just plain happy with their systems, and are not for a change in the way we may see it as being unfair to women. Many of those women do not care to drive, do not care to be politicians, do not care to hold jobs...they just want to stay home, cook, clean, take care of the kids and the family, to them, these things are more important then driving or being a woman on the fortune 500 top ceo's list.

[edit on 8-7-2007 by ThePieMaN]

I can understand that many Muslim women may think that a fundamental Islamic lifestyle is fine. I have no problem with that, but what of the women in the more modern countries you mention? What if they want to have the choice, for lack of a better term, of a more "modern" lifestyle? If extreme fundamentalism were to spread into these more modern countries, that choice could disappear, and even wanting to have it could become dangerous.

So I wonder if these more "modern" Muslims are concerned about where the faith could be headed? Do they feel that extremism has not only besieged the West, but could also eventually besiege modern Islam itself?

Islam has been under siege from within for a long time. And yes, Pieman is right, western and Israeli intervention and meddling have played their parts in a major way. But situations like this begin from within, not from the outside. Fundamentalism in any form is horrible in my opinion, it moves to remove freedom of choice, thought, and individuality. Tries to mold you into one of the flock, so to speak. The factors perpetuating this are many, from inter-sectarian and enter-sectarian violence, intervention from the outside, those countries governments themselves and their policies ect ect. Not to mention history.

Originally posted by Musky

So I wonder if these more "modern" Muslims are concerned about where the faith could be headed? Do they feel that extremism has not only besieged the West, but could also eventually besiege modern Islam itself?

You tell me. A modernized Lebanese Muslim Boy/Girl has just had a US Made/financed , Israeli dropped, 500lb bomb land on their house and kill their entire family. Are they worried about Islam or ?

Kids in Iraq who may have been running around with I Love NY tshirts, Nike sneakers, and NY Yankees baseballs hats before the war are now orphaned and homeless...will they be thinking Islam is to besiege them or that they have already been besieged from something else?

We are making the case for those firebrand spewing imams preaching the evils of the west. Just like all these studies being done revealing that terrorism has gotten worse since the WOT. We are causing more people to go towards these fanatics then bringing more towards our way of thinking.

Originally posted by ThePieMaN

We are making the case for those firebrand spewing imams preaching the evils of the west. Just like all these studies being done revealing that terrorism has gotten worse since the WOT. We are causing more people to go towards these fanatics then bringing more towards our way of thinking.

I'm not going to argue this point. At least not in this thread. I'm just getting started here. I don't want to politicize what I was hoping could be a dialogue about what I thought was a simple question. However, I guess from your point of view there's no reason for moderate more "modern" Muslims to be concerned. They have more to worry about than whether a generation or two from now, there's a possibility that extremists could drastically alter their lives.

I, on the other hand, would think some nervous conversations about that possibility are occasionally taking place in some of these more "modern" countries. There have to be many Muslims saying, "Hey, these idiots are hijacking our religion, this is pretty scary. What happens if they win?"

Originally posted by ThePieMaN
You tell me. A modernized Lebanese Muslim Boy/Girl has just had a US Made/financed , Israeli dropped, 500lb bomb land on their house and kill their entire family. Are they worried about Islam or ?

Kids in Iraq who may have been running around with I Love NY tshirts, Nike sneakers, and NY Yankees baseballs hats before the war are now orphaned and homeless...will they be thinking Islam is to besiege them or that they have already been besieged from something else?

One could make the case that those deaths were caused equally by 2 radical Islamic groups in their midst, so Islam in that sense would be under siege / held hostage by fellow Muslims.

Hezbollah, who are about as hardcore fundamentalist as the Taliban were/are have basically set up a no mans land in Southern Lebanon that the Central government of Lebanon did not want.

A.Q. in Iraq are basically non Iraqi Muslims killing innocent Iraqi civilians, you tell who the Iraqi population hates more? For every 10 U.S. and Iraqi soldiers that are slain, A.Q. in Iraq kills about 100 civilians it seems. Hardly a way to win hearts and minds if you ask me.

In both cases you have Muslim extremist groups holding their fellow Muslims hostage and getting innocent Muslim civilians killed directly by those same extremist group's actions.

I'm not saying the Israelis and the U.S. don't acerbate the problem or cause even more problems, but the problem is as internal with the Muslims as it is external in regards to Iraq and Lebanon.

Islam is slowly waging a war between the moderate and fundamentalist groups in the M.E. You might even have a Shia (Iran) backed fundamentalist group go against a Sunni (Saudi Arabia) backed fundamentalist group if Iraq descends into full blown sectarian civil war.

Still in my book, Wahabism is the poison that has been injected into the bloodstream of the rest of Islam by the Saudis.

Even with a resolution of the Israeli / Palestinian situation that pleases both the Israelis and Palestinians, there we still be problems within Islam in the M.E.

Musky, ya should post more often, to much do people post in the fashion your talking about, where as we need more people accepting others instead of stereotyping.

Ive said this a couple of times, but as of late in my local news paper, in the comments sections im shocked at some opinions that are being printer
''How can any Australian be safe when there are muslims in our land''

''We need to elect someone strong enough to deport every muslim''

I was shocked that people could say such things, let alone have a news paper PRINT them.

In saying that, I feel the onus is on Muslims to stamp out this disease infecting their people.. we cannot remove it, we will only fuel it if we try.
But it seems muslims arent prepared to try.

Originally posted by pavil
One could make the case that those deaths were caused equally by 2 radical Islamic groups in their midst, so Islam in that sense would be under siege / held hostage by fellow Muslims.

Whuup...sorry pavil...first of all in the case of Iraq..please show me where Al-queda was in Iraq pre-war and that there were any existing WMD's that THE PEOPLE OF IRAQ should be made to pay for following 9-11. Please dont invent something that exists only now and didnt exist pre-war.



and in the case of Lebanon, well show me where it was prudent to allow the Israelis to bomb and kill so many civilians because of a border skirmish with a bunch of militants. It was nothing more then the case of cruel mass punishment and that was quite clear when the Israelis said they would bomb Lebanon back to the stone ages. It had nothing to do with a rescue attempt as already been established by the Winograd Committee. Olmert himself already has admitted that the kidnapped soldiers were irretrievable.

For every action there will be an equal and opposite reaction. The war in Iraq created more of the very thing we were trying to eradicate and the attack on Lebanon pushed more people to the other side of the spectrum then there was before and that includes Christians as well as Muslims. For every child that dies almost 1 year following the war from unexploded ordinance dropped within the last few hours before the cease-fire PURPOSEFULLY there will continue to be people turning against Israel as well as the USA for providing them with these disgusting weapons.


The one good thing that came out of the Lebanon war is that the USA recently made the decision not to sell Israel Cluster Bombs in any future transactions. This was a great accomplishment and a excellent decision. If more things were done like this we would be doing ourselves a great service towards our own safety and security.

By St Udio:
i appreciate your reply plumranch but the reasoning seems less than open minded

No PC here, just trying to be objective and remind you about the historic realities. These warriors are not like midwesterners they have an extensive history to relive and defend. When the same factions move to the midwest, the melting pot of the New World they begin to forget why they were fighting. That is the beauty and wonder of this country, this hemisphere. Blood feuds tend to dissapear. Too bad there is not a formula for importing that to the mideast!

Originally posted by ThePieMaN

Whuup...sorry pavil...first of all in the case of Iraq..please show me where Al-queda was in Iraq pre-war and that there were any existing


and in the case of Lebanon, well show me where it was prudent to allow the Israelis to bomb and kill so many civilians because of a border skirmish with a bunch of militants.

I didn't say that it was prudent first off. Nor do I debate the Iraq war on this thread. I merely point out that currently in Iraq most of the civilians killed, are killed by non Iraqi Muslims, do you dispute that?

In Lebanon, if Hezbollah was not a defacto state in the South, I seriously doubt Israel goes after Lebanon. Not excusing Israel for it's bombing of civilian areas and general panic causing. The problem was initally caused by Hezbollah setting up a mini-state in Lebanon, against the wishes of the Lebanese government.

In both cases Muslims are either directly (A.Q. Iraq) killing Muslim civilians or indirectly (Hezbollah setting up in S. Lebanon). Those civilians are held hostage by those two groups more then they are by any nation (Israel, U.S.)

Originally posted by pavil

I didn't say that it was prudent first off. Nor do I debate the Iraq war on this thread. I merely point out that currently in Iraq most of the civilians killed, are killed by non Iraqi Muslims, do you dispute that?

No I would not dispute that but they were not there before the War On Terror came into existence and we attacked Iraq. Do you dispute that?

In Lebanon, if Hezbollah was not a defacto state in the South, I seriously doubt Israel goes after Lebanon. Not excusing Israel for it's bombing of civilian areas and general panic causing. The problem was initally caused by Hezbollah setting up a mini-state in Lebanon, against the wishes of the Lebanese government.

I wouldnt say Mini-state. They provide social services that aid their people. Do you know why the Lebanese government was unable to fully provide those services and why those people came to rely on Hezbollah? Because they were still busy trying to rebuild the country from occupation by Syria and Israel as well as a civil war between muslims and christians for over 20 years. If you have a look at the UNIFIL reports following the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon you will see that Hezbollah was the only entity that was attempting to repel repeated Israeli incursions into Lebanese airspace which did not just include southern Lebanon but deep into Lebanese territory Christian and Muslim. The Lebanese army was incapable of any such thing.

Hezbollah did not exist before. They came into existance after Israeli agressions had already occured numerous times. The PLO did not come into existence until well after Israeli agressions. Likewise with Hamas.
You never saw terror groups up until the 60's and 70's and that was mostly after many Israeli actions had taken place and many tmes ignored or covered up. Bear in mind that only in the past decade or so has their been proper reporting in the Palestinian territories and before then Israel had full control of media access to Palestine. While in the Middle East many knew of what was going on in Palestine we only saw one side of the story here in the West. Thse groups would never have come into existence if there hadn't been inaction on the part of Western society. Tyhese groups formed to take the battle into their own hands.

*Fixed your quote tag

[edit on 9-7-2007 by dbates]

That is accurate but still the central government of Lebanon would like Hezbollah to disarm and Hezbollah has declined. The central government of Lebanon wants to extend it's authority to the Israeli border but cannot with Hezbollah being an active military force in Southern Lebanon. With the UN there there is no reason for Hezbollah to remain as an armed milita. Iran and Syria have meddled in Lebanon as much as Israel, they all need to leave Lebanon alone.

In Lebanon, you have a Fundamentalist Islamic Movement (Hezbollah) trying to force it's will on the rest of Lebanon, one of the most diverse religious/ethnic regions in the Middle East. Just trying to get back on topic.

A suicide bomber drove a load of watermelons and vegetables to the center of a village marketplace in northern Iraq on Saturday and then detonated his large yellow truck...150 people were killed and 250 wounded.

A similar bombing in March in Tall Afar, a town near the Syrian border that also has a large Turkmen population, left more than 80 dead. Shoppers were lured to their death by the promise of free flour from the back of a truck. The reprisal attack(the next day) claimed the lives of 70 Sunnis
latimes.com

It's pretty clear that these attacks were targeting other Muslims. The terrorist targeted the marketplace in both instances to kill as many civilians as possible. If they were going to kill coalition forces they would have driven to an army base or outpost. There's a definite power struggle between the Shiite and the Sunni sects. This has been going on since Muhammad died, so nothing really new here. The west finally stuck their noses right into the middle of a century old conflict.