Pakistani funeral: "Down with the USA"

I can't understand your outrage at the fact that a group of people who'd like to destroy the USA are chanting anti-American slogans...

It's like going to a KKK rally and expecting them to praise the virtues of civil rights laws.

 

I think we should start having rally's with people chanting stuff like "Down With Islam".

 

You'd have to find enough people to give a flip first.

 

I'm not actually serious.

You better watch it Dunk, I know you are vulnerable without your bots.

 

Heheh, and miss Friends??

 

Bigtexxx,

This is a bigger issue in Pakistan than you realize.

<A HREF="http://www.pilotonline.com/breaking/br1119fun.html">
20,000 attend funeral for Pakistani executed in Va.</A>

 

If US had enough guts they would include Pakistan on that Axis of Evil thing. If that ****ty ass country does not support terrorism I dont know who does.

 

This is a religion that is going through what I would compare to the protestant reformation in which there are numerous puritanical-type sects such as the Taliban that are also in the midst of finally achieving freedom 50 or so years ago after being an enslaved people for hundreds of years.

The true irony is that in Islam there is not supposed to be a religious class of people. No one is closer to God than any other individual and even Mosque's, the place of worship for muslims, are strictly prohibited from charging dues.

But with the lack of education, "clerics" are able to interpret the Koran how they see fit. Education and economic stability is hindered by totalitarianistic regimes.

Democracy instills capitalism and education, thereby limiting extremism in many forms. Though education is beginning to grow, the totalitarian regimes still reign free.

 

the parallels between the pre-reformation church and islam today are striking...i particularly agree with your point on disparity of education and literacy between the priest/cleric and the follower.

 

Madmax,

I told You! I wasn't giving the tickets to the Jordan game away for free already...You don't have to agree with me now! j/j

 

Also, intristing to note that the protistant reformation started between 500 & 600 years years ago, and Christianity had a 500 to 600 year head-start on Islam (Mohammed's birth generally attributed to 571 AD).

One begins to wonder if there is some sort of natural maturation cycle for evangelical religions.

 

damn it, Khan!!! i thought this would do the trick!!!

 

Friends is still on?

 

I think it is a quite interesting parrellel because other socio-economic factors came into place such as the recent fall of the Roman Empire creating fee states that did not have imposed rule over order and religion. That freedom allowed for modern thinking along with ideas from the middle east, which was the pinnacle of the world at the time. These ideas created the renaissance which in turn caused the reformation and division within the church.

The muslim/arab world has finally attained freedom around 50 years ago and is now finally beginning to search for an identity. There will be the extremists (as we are VERY familiar with) and the moderates which usually win out in the end.

 

Since the Ottoman Empire was known for being Muslim, I don't understand the part about being <i>enslaved</i>. Yes, France and England had some forays into the Middle East.................but wasn't much of the Arabian Peninsula prior to WW I dominated by tribal factions rather than foreign powers? Over the centuries, Islamic rule/power/force touched much of the world, from Spain to the Philippines, so the idea of freedom from <i>enslavement</i> (by an outside Non Muslim power) and the current radical Islam as a reaction to freedom is puzzling. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt did arise in the 20th century to overthrow British Colonialism, yet it does not explain the fundamentalism in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.

With the Moghul push into the Indian subcontinent, the <i>enslavement</i> angle is still questionable. The British Empire held sway for several centuries, yet it represented a contact with the outside world that some fundamentalists are still resisting. Afghanistan & Pakistan are majority Muslim countries that had less contact with the secular British than India, yet the fundamentalism seems to be a rejection of modernity rather than a reponse to <i>enslavement</i>.

Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab has been dead for over two centuries, yet radical thought/beliefs still exists, so the concept of overlaying timelines with changes and splits in Christianity (Martin Luther, Henry VIII etc) is difficult for me to imagine.

Other than Northern Ireland, I can't think of any area currently with <i>intra</i> Christian violence. If the basis for that conflict dates back roughly five centuries, then it is extremely short compared to the Sunni - Shia strife that has been in place for over thirteen centuries.

The centralization of Christianity (Vatican- Papacy) fractured into multiple parts:

Roman Catholic
Eastern Orthodox
Church of England
Lutheran
et al

while Islam historically has been without the centralization that Christianity had at one time. There is room for interpretation of Islam, but there is no central authority to rebel against.

There are some majority Middle East Islamic countries that would be regarded as having secular governments:

Egypt
Iraq
Syria
Algeria,
Turkey
Iraq

In most cases, the secular government has had to be quite forceful to resist the tug back into a more religious mode. Nasser, Assad and Ataturk did not go down in history as
<i>nice guys</i>

Bin Laden and Dr. Ayman al-Zawahri are educated men, so they are capable of making informed decisions about their religious beliefs and the interpretation of the Koran that they follow.

I do not see the similarity in evolution & timelines between Islam and Christianity.

 

I think this is just a big, big misunderstanding. I think they mean "down with the USA!" like someone here in the US might say, "I'm down with Ice Cube," or some such.

I think the Pakistanis are more hip to our culture than most people know.

 

The Sunni - Shia split and strife predates any Western Colonialism.

<A HREF="http://www.islamfortoday.com/shia.htm">The Origins of the Sunni/Shia split in Islam</A>

<i>Introduction

.........History
Ali is the central figure at the origin of the Shia / Sunni split which occurred in the decades immediately following the death of the Prophet in 632. Sunnis regard Ali as the fourth and last of the "rightly guided caliphs" (successors to Mohammed (pbuh) as leader of the Muslims) following on from Abu Bakr 632-634, Umar 634-644 and Uthman 644-656. Shias feel that Ali should have been the first caliph and that the caliphate should pass down only to direct descendants of Mohammed (pbuh) via Ali and Fatima, They often refer to themselves as ahl al bayt or "people of the house" [of the prophet].

When Uthman was murdered while at prayer, Ali finally succeeded to the caliphate. Ali was, however, opposed by Aisha, wife of the Prophet (pbuh) and daughter of Abu Bakr, who accused him of being lax in bringing Uthman's killers to justice. After Ali's army defeated Aisha's forces at the Battle of the Camel in 656, she apologized to Ali and was allowed to return to her home in Madinah where she withdrew from public life.

However, Ali was not able to overcome the forces of Mu'awiya Ummayad, Uthman's cousin and governor of Damascus, who also refused to recognize him until Uthman's killers had been apprehended. At the Battle of Suffin Mu'awiya's soldiers stuck verses of the Quran onto the ends of their spears with the result that Ali's pious supporters refused to fight them. Ali was forced to seek a compromise with Mu'awiya, but this so shocked some of his die-hard supporters who regarded it as a betrayal that he was struck down by one of his own men in 661.

Mu'awiya declared himself caliph. Ali's elder son Hassan accepted a pension in return for not pursuing his claim to the caliphate. He died within a year, allegedly poisoned. Ali's younger son Hussein agreed to put his claim to the caliphate on hold until Mu'awiya's death. However, when Mu'awiya finally died in 680, his son Yazid usurped the caliphate. Hussein led an army against Yazid but, hopelessly outnumbered, he and his men were slaughtered at the Battle of Karbala (in modern day Iraq). Hussein's infant son, Ali, survived so the line continued. Yazid formed the hereditary Ummayad dynasty. The division between the Shia and what came to be known as the Sunni was set.

An opportunity for Muslim unity arose in the 750's CE. In 750 except for a few who managed to flee to Spain, almost the entire Ummayad aristocracy was wiped out following the Battle of Zab in Egypt in a revolt led by Abu Al Abbass al-Saffah and aided by considerable Shia support. It was envisaged that the Shia spiritual leader Jafar As-Siddiq, great-grandson of Hussein be installed as Caliph. But when Abbass died in 754, this arrangement had not yet been finalised and Abbas' son Al Mansur murdered Jafar, seized the caliphate for himself and founded the Baghdad-based Abbassid dynasty which prevailed until the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258.

.........Shi`ism attracted other dissenting groups, especially representatives of older non-Arab (Mawali) civilizations (Persian, Indian, etc.) that felt they had not been treated fairly by the Arab Muslims...........</i>

There is continued tension and violence between Shia and Sunni in Pakistan.

<A HREF="http://www.ict.org.il/inter_ter/orgdet.cfm?orgid=57">Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP): Guardians of the Friends of the Prophet</A>

Here is a nice article about Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Muhammad Ibn Saud (it never mentions Western Colonialism as the inspiration for Wahhabism):
<A HREF="http://www.1upinfo.com/country-guide-study/saudi-arabia/saudi-arabia13.html">THE SAUD FAMILY AND WAHHABI ISLAM, 1500-1850</A>

<i>.............The rise of Al Saud is closely linked with Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab (died 1792), a Muslim scholar whose ideas form the basis of the Wahhabi movement. He grew up in Uyaynah, an oasis in southern Najd, where he studied with his grandfather Hanbali Islamic law, one of the strictest Muslim legal schools. While still a young man, he left Uyaynah to study with other teachers, the usual way to pursue higher education in the Islamic world. He studied in Medina and then went to Iraq and to Iran.

To understand the significance of Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab's ideas, they must be considered in the context of Islamic practice. There was a difference between the established rituals clearly defined in religious texts that all Muslims perform and popular Islam. The latter refers to local practice that is not universal.

The Shia practice of visiting shrines is an example of a popular practice. The Shia continued to revere the Imams even after their death and so visited their graves to ask favors of the Imams buried there. Over time, Shia scholars rationalized the practice and it became established.

Some of the Arabian tribes came to attribute the same sort of power that the Shia recognized in the tomb of an Imam to natural objects such as trees and rocks. Such beliefs were particularly disturbing to Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab. In the late 1730s he returned to the Najdi town of Huraymila and began to write and preach against both Shia and local popular practices. He focused on the Muslim principle that there is only one God, and that God does not share his power with anyone--not Imams, and certainly not trees or rocks. From this unitarian principle, his students began to refer to themselves as muwahhidun (unitarians). Their detractors referred to them as "Wahhabis"--or "followers of Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab," which had a pejorative connotation.

The idea of a unitary god was not new. Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab, however, attached political importance to it. He directed his attack against the Shia. He also sought out local leaders, trying to convince them that this was an Islamic issue. He expanded his message to include strict adherence to the principles of Islamic law. He referred to himself as a "reformer" and looked for a political figure who might give his ideas a wider audience.

Lacking political support in Huraymila, Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab returned to Uyaynah where he won over some local leaders. Uyaynah, however, was close to Al Hufuf, one of the Twelver Shia centers in eastern Arabia, and its leaders were understandably alarmed at the anti-Shia tone of the Wahhabi message. Partly as a result of their influence, Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab was obliged to leave Uyaynah, and headed for Ad Diriyah. He had earlier made contact with Muhammad ibn Saud, the leader in Ad Diriyah at the time, and two of Muhammad's brothers had accompanied him when he destroyed tomb shrines around Uyaynah.

Accordingly, when Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab arrived in Ad Diriyah, the Al Saud was ready to support him. In 1744 Muhammad ibn Saud and Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab swore a traditional Muslim oath in which they promised to work together to establish a state run according to Islamic principles. Until that time the Al Saud had been accepted as conventional tribal leaders whose rule was based on longstanding but vaguely defined authority.

Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab offered the Al Saud a clearly defined religious mission to which to contribute their leadership and upon which they might base their political authority. This sense of religious purpose remained evident in the political ideology of Saudi Arabia in the 1990s.

..........After Muhammad ibn Saud died in 1765, his son, Abd al Aziz, continued the Wahhabi advance. In 1801 the Al Saud-Wahhabi armies attacked and sacked Karbala, the Shia shrine in eastern Iraq that commemorates the death of Husayn. In 1803 they moved to take control of Sunni towns in the Hijaz. Although the Wahhabis spared Mecca and Medina the destruction they visited upon Karbala, they destroyed monuments and grave markers that were being used for prayer to Muslim saints and for votive rituals, which the Wahhabis consider acts of polytheism (see Wahhabi Theology , ch. 2). In destroying the objects that were the focus of these rituals, the Wahhabis sought to imitate Muhammad's destruction of pagan idols when he reentered Mecca in 628.

If the Al Saud had remained in Najd, the world would have paid them scant attention. But capturing the Hijaz brought the Al Saud empire into conflict with the rest of the Islamic world. The popular and Shia practices to which the Wahhabis objected were important to other Muslims, the majority of whom were alarmed that shrines were destroyed and access to the holy cities restricted.........</i>


Conversion of South America to mainly Roman Catholicism prevents using that as an example in this discussion.

Communism in Mainland China precludes examining that country for this discussion.

Buddhist and Hindu countries had extensive contact with Western colonialism and the relgious fervor is not nearly as intense as in the Muslim world. India is predomiantly Hindu and had considerable British contact. There are some strong fundamentalists of the Hindu faith, but you would be hard pressed to classify them as extreme as the fundamentalist Muslims.

India (majority Hindu) was able to do this:



but could Pakistan be expected to do the same in a similar situation? The reaction to Western Colonialism would be blamed for Pakistan's inability to do that?


Many view current Islamic thought (extreme fundamentalist part) as a negative reaction to the modern world rather than a reaction to Western Colonialism.

<A HREF="http://www.mackenzieinstitute.com/1998_01_World_Islam_Modernity.html">Can Islam Cope with Modernity?</A>

<i>
Westerners have rarely understood Islam. Attempts to describe it are normally done in the school of thought typified by Rousseau, wherein other peoples are assumed to have the virtues that the writer believes his own lack. There are profound differences between Western and Islamic thought, between perceptions of institutions, and understandings about the basis of society.

At that basic level of truth which is never exact, Western civilization is only built in part on religion.<b> Judeo-Christian morality underlies Western political, legal and social structures, but Christ's distinction between the authorities of God and Caesar have generally kept Church and State in different spheres. In Islam, no such difference exists. Church and state are inseparable and Muslim concepts of what is meant by these are also completely different from those held by Westerners.</b>

.......The full panoply of modernity is hard to accept. Successful democratic models in the Islamic World are few and far between. Pakistan hasn't been too stable, and the generals have ruled more often than not. Lebanon functioned briefly -- and provided a clear warning of the dangers of a multicultural political structure. Iran, while using mass media to foster the revolution, is extremely resistant to the idea of letting its citizens have full access to the global media.

Islam is troubled by the conflict between secularism (which Kemal Ataturk realized was essential for modern life) and traditionalists in every Islamic nation. The Turkish experiment has seldom been easy -- or widely replicated. Many Muslim leaders turned to homegrown combinations of nationalism, socialism and militarism. This has yielded a variety of interesting results ranging from the Algerian Junta to Colonel Qhadafi and Saddam Hussein; while Egypt and Tunisia seem to be hanging on to a degree of stability. All of these societies, of course, have an armed Fundamentalist opposition.

Interestingly, Tunisia has the greatest tolerance for diverse political expression, and its fundamentalist Muslim movement has largely confined itself to peaceful expressions of protest. Qhadafi's effort to reconcile Islam with national-socialism inevitably lead to compromises in Islamic doctrine, and these have helped create a new internal opposition.

All of these Modernist/Secularist traditions have little depth. Moreover, they have proven remarkably susceptible to corruption and single-party rule, even in their most benign forms.

Any political, legal or social structure or reform that could not withstand a challenge from orthodoxy is built on sand and cannot last. Freedom of expression and open intellectual inquiry are likewise limited -- notwithstanding the art, philosophy and science that has appeared during occasional permissive periods.

This basic conflict between religious ultra-conservatism and illiberal forms of secularism will continue to divide every Islamic nation. It will continue to generate resentment against the West for generating new technologies and forcing new notions. The only alternative is for a new school of Islamic scholars to completely reinvent their religion --- and this would only add a new dimension to the internal conflict.

The Islamic world will know little peace in coming decades. Indeed, it knows very little now, and its internal frustrations have already been projected outwards. More will come.
</i>