Se hvor dumme de er, sier de ...

Hvorfor gjør venstresiden jobben til islamister?

Er Mekka en illusjon? og blir det derfor umulig å skille mellom Mekka og Medina-versene i Koranen?

Og kan koblingen mellom fascisme og flertallspartiet i India føre til blodig splittelse? (Den kristne Johannes M er pådriver her).

Pluss mer ...

Først denne:

https://www.secularism.org.uk/opinion/2023/06/why-are-councillors-doing-islamists-work-for-them

 Why are councillors doing Islamists’ work for them? Posted: Mon, 05 Jun 2023 by Jack Rivington

After a councillor was denied mayoralty for criticising Islam, Jack Rivington warns politicians are playing into the hands of Islamist fundamentalists.

 Last week, members of Boston Borough Council decided that the principle of free expression, and the traditions of their mayoralty, were less important than potentially offended religious feelings.

 By convention as the longest serving member, Councillor Mike Gilbert was due to be appointed mayor of Boston for a one year term. However, following an intervention by several fellow councillors, he was blocked from taking up the position last month on the grounds that he had made past comments criticising aspects of Islamic religious doctrine.

These comments, posted on social media during the football World Cup in Qatar, drew attention to several features of Islam which Cllr Gilbert considered to be in conflict with the rights of women and LGBT people. Namely that in Islam, homosexuality is punishable by death, and women are considered to be of a lower status than men.

Despite Cllr Gilbert very clearly stating that his criticisms were not of Muslims themselves but of particular religious doctrines, a number of borough councillors saw fit to denounce him for what they characterised as 'hate speech'.

Cllr Anne Dorrian, who was serving as mayor at the time, said councillors had a political and moral obligation to "refrain from using hate speech". Failure to condemn such speech, Cllr Dorrian warned, could be interpreted as expressions of "approval or support". Cllr Dale Broughton also criticised the remarks, saying that they did "little to bring about social integration" in Boston.

It's disappointing that our elected representatives don't consider themselves at least equally obligated to defend the right to freedom of expression, integral as it is to our democratic society, or to advance the cause of secularism, which is the best guarantee of social cohesion and integration that we know of.

Through their actions, the councillors have signalled that religion, and in particular Islam, should be beyond the realm of reasonable public debate. Although attempts by religious fundamentalists to impose blasphemy codes and suppress freedom of expression around Islam are so regular as to no longer be surprising, it is alarming to see UK politicians so readily line up to support the same cause.

No argument was presented by the councillors as to why the comments were hateful, or indeed factually incorrect. Cllr Gilbert's concerns were simply deemed unmentionable, remarks which should not have to be read, tolerated, or thought about. Cllr Gilbert's name has been unfairly smeared, and those responsible can't even be bothered provide an explanation.

Is there any justification for such censorship which does not involve the claim that criticism or even discussion of ideas amounts to a personal attack on individuals? If applied to any non-religious ideology the ridiculous nature of this claim becomes apparent. Criticising the idea of a constitutional monarchy, for example, does not amount to a grave insult to the personal dignity of committed royalists – any claim that it did would be worthy of ridicule. There is nothing to justify religious viewpoints being treated any differently.

It is worth recalling the motivation of Cllr Gilbert's posts: to highlight injustices being done to women and LGBT people by those who employ Islamic doctrine as a justification. This, of course, includes people who are themselves Muslims, many of whom are engaged in their own battles against regressive religious dogma. By the logic of Boston's councillors, expressing solidarity with a significant proportion of the Muslim community is somehow hateful towards them.

Let us imagine that Cllr Gilbert's comments had instead been made by, say, an ex-Muslim lesbian. Would the councillors have disparaged and discounted them in the same way? If not, why not? Are the comments themselves hateful, or are they only hateful in virtue of being spoken by a particular kind of person?

Following the council meeting, Cllr Gilbert was invited by the imam of Boston's mosque, Abdul Hamid Qureshi, to a meeting where they could discuss his "assumptions", which he described as "speculative rather than factual" and "out of context and selective". Irritating and patronising though this is, the opportunity for dialogue should be welcomed. It would be nice if Mr Qureshi could also make clear his position on the supposed 'hateful' nature of Cllr Gilbert's remarks, or defend the right to freedom of expression despite his disagreement with what was said.

The people most likely to be grateful to Boston's councillors are religious fundamentalists, who now don't even have to kick up a fuss for free speech to be suppressed. As Boston's councillors have made clear, there's enough useful idiots who are willing to do it for them.

Kommentar: Det er nok virkelig slik at de sier: Se hvor dumme de er ...

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Mekka – virkelig?

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-making-of-mecca/

… Mecca was no centre of major international trade in luxury goods and spices. Indeed, if we look to the actual evidence for trade in spices and incense from ancient South Arabia (and India) to the Mediterranean world, this scholarly mirage of Mecca as a wealthy financial centre quickly dissolves.  Trade between the Mediterranean world and South Arabia and beyond had been well established and had been for many centuries by the time Muhammad was born. Yet from the first century AD onwards all such trade was conducted by sea rather than overland. The latter

was a slower, more expensive, and more dangerous option.

It is true that the Meccans had a very small port available to them on the coast some 40 miles to the west of the settlement. But they had no timber and, accordingly, no seagoing vessels. And you cannot reasonably imagine that seafaring traders would have reached this tiny port and travelled 40 miles across the desert just to visit – for whatever reason – the remote and barren village of Mecca. Moreover, the port itself, now the site of modern Jedda, was in antiquity blocked by a large reef and could not receive ships of the size necessary for long distance trade. At best it may have been used by a few small fishing boats, if at all.  

Even the Islamic historical tradition tells us that this location first came into use as a port only well after Muhammad’s death. Muhammad’s Mecca, therefore,

was certainly not a wealthy centre of international trade in spices and perfume. By all indications, in late antiquity international trade bypassed this small, impoverished, remote desert settlement. Mecca’s trade was instead both modest and local, involving the exchange of goods from its subsistence pastoralist economy for desperately needed foodstuffs and other supplies from larger agricultural settlements nearby. 

We might ask, then, was there any religious shrine at all in pre-Islamic Mecca? It is hard to say with any certainty, and if there was, it certainly was not the Ka’ba in its present form, which is from the later seventh century. It does seem reasonable to suppose that the herdsmen of this small remote settlement and their families would have had some sort of local sacred shrine that they revered. Yet there is little chance that a minor, village shrine would have held any significance beyond Mecca’s 500 or so inhabitants and perhaps some nearby nomads. There is also no reason to suppose that it was the focus of any sort of major pilgrimage, or the cause of an inviolable sanctuary, or the impetus for an economy based in high value international trading. Rather, ancient Mecca was by all measures a remote, hardscrabble place whose nonliterate, pastoralist inhabitants must have been quite isolated from the broader worlds of Mediterranean and Mesopotamian late antiquity.  

These cultural and economic limitations obviously raise profound questions about the traditional linkage of a text as sophisticated as the Qur’an with a sleepy hamlet such as Muhammad’s Mecca. The Qur’an’s content demands an audience steeped in the traditions of ancient Judaism and Christianity. How would the goatherds of Mecca have possessed the level of religious literacy required to understand the Qur’an’s persistent and elliptic invocations of Jewish and Christian lore? There is, moreover, no evidence of any significant Christian presence anywhere remotely near Mecca: the closest known community was over 500 miles distant. 

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Hva truer islamsk fremgang?

https://islamism.news/2023/03/28/wokeness-fear-of-criticizing-islam-threaten-muslim-progress/

Wokeness, fear of criticizing Islam Threaten Muslim Progress

By Abdulrahman Bindamnan March 28, 2023

In higher education institutions in the United ‎States, there is a fear of subjecting ‎Islam to criticism. This fear is particularly manifest in the work of liberal ‎professors, who are afraid of being accused of “Orientalism” or ‎‎“Islamophobia.” Ironically enough, this fear—rooted in a desire to be kind and good—has hindered the careers of reform-minded Muslim from the Middle East., of whom I am one. So how does this process play out? Let’s take a look.

Western scholars, who feel guilty about Western dominance in the Middle East, silence me—a native son of the region—because of the guilt they feel.

With his 1978 text, ‎Orientalism, which declared that Western commentary on the Middle East was motivated by a desire to dominate the region, Edward Said made ‎a great impression on liberal scholars in Europe and North America. He prompted profound feelings of guilt on the part of scholars who ‎felt shame over Europe’s colonization of large swaths of ‎the world, and the Middle East in particular. These intellectuals forgot that prior emperors ‎in the region, Muslims included, engaged in grand acts of conquest themselves. With Orientalism and other texts, Said rendered discussion of Islam’s history in the region taboo. In so doing, he hindered the prospect of progress in the Middle East.

As these guilt-ridden scholars write and teach in the long persistent shadow of Said’s text, they try to “have their cake and eat it too.” They want to promote modernity in ‎Muslim societies without ‎critiquing Islam and its impact on life in Muslim-majority countries. This contradiction is ‎antithetical to rigorous scholarship that requires diversity of thought. ‎It is also an obstacle to any hope for progress in the region. Only open, rigorous scholarship will help Islam—and the civilization it helped form—adapt to the modern world.

As an aspiring Muslim scholar studying in the United States, I have been criticized and accused of “Islamophobia” ‎by some liberal professors for being too “presumptuous” about the Muslim world in ‎which I was born, raised, and ‎educated. In so doing, my ‎professors, who ostensibly claim to value ‎diversity of thought, dismiss my ‎contributions as unsubstantiated ‎assumptions—merely because I ‎am making observations from my lived ‎experiences in those societies. These professors, as well-meaning as they are, are engaging in the very act of dominance Said warned them against.

The irony is palpable. Western scholars, who feel guilty about Western dominance in the Middle East, silence me—a native son of the region—because of the guilt they feel. And in so doing, they obstruct prospects for change in the region.

Change will not occur ‎in any conservative Muslim society unless we reform ‎Islam. But the challenges Islam faces in the modern world is a taboo topic in much of the ‎academy. It’s an unworthy topic of inquiry. That such a taboo exists in institutions of higher ‎learning is simply preposterous.

In his 2006 text, The White Man’s Burden (Penguin), William Easterly ‎argued against transplanting Western ‎institutions into developing countries. I agree. Pre-existing institutions must be changed by the people who live in these countries. But liberal professors obstruct this process because they are ‎unwilling to entertain alternative ways of ‎doing, knowing, and being in the world of ‎research.

When I point out that the more well-known fundamentalist Islam denies human rights and independent thinking; that the less well-known enlightened branch of Islam affirms universal human rights and independent thought; and that Islamism as a political ‎movement attempts to install and enforce fundamentalist Islamic beliefs in a nation’s government—some ‎ liberal professors appear threatened by my ‎approach, misinterpreting my way of thinking, apparently unfamiliar in their woke circles, as heresy.

“Islamophobia” has become the popular term for religious bigotry toward Islam. But criticizing Islam as a religion, ‎and Islamism as a political movement, on the basis of informed reason and evidence—not ignorant religious prejudice—is not an act of bigotry. ‎If Muslim societies are to transcend their ‎predicament with modernity, Islam, with all of ‎its facets, must be subject to rigorous ‎debate and criticism—even, or especially, in the West.

Islam has a predicament with modernity. Readers who disagree with this proposition can try to go and live in a Muslim country—not as a detached expert—but as an active participant in those societies as a native son of the region, as I have. In fundamentalist Muslim societies, people are trained and socialized to accept unquestioned the opinion of dominant religious and state authorities. People are encouraged to memorize these correct opinions and discouraged to think for themselves.

How can a nation or culture advance and join the modern world when so much of its accepted opinion is often feudal in origin, and independent thought and debate are regarded as socially unacceptable and strongly discouraged by social pressure? How is it possible that a traditionally raised and ‎trained Muslim can be charged with ‎”Islamophobia?” This name-calling makes true scholarship impossible by forcing intellectuals to speak evasively as a matter of survival.

 

Like all major religions, Islam is complex, with aspects both beautiful and ugly, and I ‎have experienced both. When scholars face ‎with complexity, they can either shy away or ‎scrutinize it. Calling reasoned criticism of Islam “Islamophobia” is simply name-calling—an attempt to stifle debate through the use of fear and demands of political correctness.

Whether at the personal or societal level, change comes from within. This is a principle enunciated in the Qur’an. Outsiders, ‎especially liberal professors, will have great difficulty helping Muslim societies modernize because part of being a traditional Muslim is ‎not to solicit advice from non-Muslims. That is a Quranic principle as well.

The best way for outsiders to help ‎change Muslim societies is to help ‎insiders who can promote change from within. ‎And if they can’t help them, they can at least get out of their way. Such intellectuals may be able to promote enlightenment on the periphery of the Middle East. These countries could challenge the teachings promoted by the nations where fundamentalist Islam is dominant. If it happens, an intra-Islam dialogue of enlightened Islamic ideas and interpretations could percolate across the borders into the more fundamentalist regimes.

Unfortunately, too many liberal professors are ‎busy converting their students to a program ‎of “wokeness” that engenders great fear of being labeled as an “orientalist” or “Islamophobic.” These professors think they are doing good by indoctrinating students to their point of view. But with their inability to even listen to unconventional voices beyond their “woke” blinders, they are not doing good. They are stifling the very debate needed for Islam to become the dynamic religion and culture it once was 800 years ago, when it led the most advanced societies in the world and served as a powerful positive force at the dawn of the modern world.

Born and raised in Yemen, Abdulrahman Bindamnan is a PhD Student and ICGC Fellow at the University of Minnesota. Bindamnan earned a MSEd from University of Pennsylvania and BA from University of Miami. He is a contributing author at Psychology Today.

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Voldtekt – lovlig?

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19724/rape-enslave-non-muslim-women

The 'Right' to Rape and Enslave Non-Muslim Women

by Raymond Ibrahim June 14, 2023 at 5:00 am

• Last month, in France, a Muslim man told an underage girl with whom he had been chatting on Facebook, "I will burn you all. I will cut your throats. I will rape you and your mother because I have the right to do so."
• The girl's father, described as "devastated and angry," responded to the terror threats with which his family and he had been living, saying, "Islam is not what I have been hearing [it is]... Religion is peace, tolerance, respect... We have been living in fear for a year!"
• The ongoing narrative is that Islam means peace; what is not said is that this peace comes only after everyone enjoys the "peace" of being Muslim. Until then, what is often presented to hasten this result is the exact opposite: jihad, or violence in the service of Islam. Many Muslims, just want, of course, to live in quiet lives, have good jobs and enjoy the blessings of this life. Others however, such as Western converts to the "religion of peace" suddenly and inexplicably become terrorists.
• Such men routinely cite the same hadiths and verses from the Koran. Verses 4:3 and 4:24, for instance, permit Muslim men to have sexual relations with as many women as "their right hand possesses" — meaning as many women — all non-Muslim, of course — as they are able to take captive during a jihad.
• "In the moments before he raped the 12-year-old girl, the Islamic State fighter took the time to explain that what he was about to do was not a sin. Because the preteen girl practiced a religion other than Islam, the Quran not only gave him the right to rape her — it condoned and encouraged it, he insisted." [Emphasis added] —New York Times report.
• In Germany, some Muslim migrants act out their conviction that all "German women are there for sex." In the 2016 New Year's celebrations in Cologne, migrants ended up molesting a thousand women.
• In Britain, where a large Muslim minority has long existed, thousands of British girls in various regions have been by abused and gang-raped by "grooming gangs" made up largely of Muslims, who apparently deemed it their Islamic right. One rape victim said, "The men who did this to me have no remorse. They would tell me that what they were doing was OK in their culture."
• In a separate case, another Muslim convicted of rape told a British court that sharing non-Muslim girls for sex "was part of Somali culture" and "a religious requirement."
• [T]he subhuman treatment and sexual degradation of non-Muslim women and children by Muslim men who deem it their "right" is apparently another "exoticism" the West is apparently expected to embrace at the altar of multiculturalism.

 

Hindutva as a Nazi ideology, as a fascist ideology?

https://www.meforum.org/64498/the-challenges-of-countering-islamism-in-the-west

The Challenges of Countering Islamism in the West, by Sam Westrop May 17, 2023

The following is a summary of a panel held during the Middle East Forum's Transformations 2023 conference in Washington, DC, on May 16 - 17, 2023.

In a May 17, 2023 panel iscussion (video) in Washington, D.C., on the future of Islamism and counter-Islamism in America, Abha Shankar, director of research at the Investigative Project on Terrorism, and Kyle Shideler, director and senior analyst for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy, examined the new ideological developments within leading American Islamist movements, discussed new threats posed by these networks, and explored new potential alliances and strategies to advance the counter-Islamist cause. The following is a summary of their remarks:

The panelists shed light on divisions within Islamist movements, collaborations with the Left, the growing focus on Israel and India, potential ties with far-Right groups, and the significance of empowering moderate Muslim voices.

MEF Islamist Watch director Sam Westrop, who hosted the panel, began by reflecting on the transformation of Islamism over the past decade. He mentioned political changes in the Gulf, the collapse of Islamist branches such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East, and the rise of new Islamist movements in South Asia, the Far East, Africa, and South America.

Westrop emphasized that understanding the nature and evolution of Islamism is essential for predicting its impact in regions with contrasting demographics, such as Europe and the United States. There is an interesting shift in the flow of money and ideas, which now largely move from the West to the East. For example, a Malaysian prime minister led a wealthy Islamist network in Virginia, but he is now implementing American Islamist agendas in Malaysia.

Westrop also expressed concern that despite the evolving nature of the Islamist threat, the interest in Islamism among the public and media appears to be waning, which he believes is a problem.

Abha Shankar presented her observations on recent trends in Islamism, noting an increase in vitriol and activism against India – particularly on the subject of Kashmir – and likening this effort to the longstanding Islamist campaign against Israel.

 

Such radicalism leads to violence. Shankar noted: "I think this targeting of Hindutva as a Nazi ideology, as a fascist ideology, has been having repercussions on diaspora communities. We saw the violence in Leicester [in the UK]. And then of course over here [in the United States] there is also rising Hinduphobia. Temples are being attacked, Hindus are being targeted."

Shankar further explained that Islamists have successfully marketed themselves as civil rights groups and framed issues like the Palestinian and Kashmir conflicts in human rights terms. Islamists take advantage of public ignorance about complex conflicts like the Palestinian and Kashmiri conflicts to spread a broader radical narrative. The furor around the topics are designed to serve as an accelerant in the Islamist pursuit of a caliphate.

Shankar also issued stark warnings about the alliances Islamists have built with far-Left activists and progressive groups, their rising influence in politics, and their efforts to overturn the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism. A unifying agenda with the far-Left is a shared disdain for ostensible American imperialism.

Shideler, meanwhile, suggested that Islamism should be examined along two axes: non-state versus state actors; and the positioning of Islamism along the Western Left-Right spectrum. As non-state actors such as the Muslim Brotherhood have evolved, they have moved away from focusing on their own networks. Now, "you have a real uptick in Turkish influence, Qatari influence, Pakistani influence. Where these networks [were] once operating for their own ends, they are now operating really explicitly for the agendas of these states."

Shideler also touched on the changing dynamics of Islamist groups within the Left-Right spectrum, explaining how Islamist groups that twenty-five years ago aggressively targeted Republicans have since moved towards the Left. Pointing out the involvement of Islamists in issues not directly related to Islamism, such as LGBT rights or the Black Lives Matter movement, he asked, "To what extent are Islamists influencing the Left and to what extent are they being influenced by the Left?"

Some Islamists stood accused by other radical voices of compromising Islamic values by embracing Left-wing groups a little too tightly.

Westrop agreed and emphasized some curious side-effects of extant alliances between Islamists and the Left, noting that some Islamists stood accused by other radical voices of compromising Islamic values by embracing Left-wing groups a little too tightly.

In response, Shideler proposed promoting internal debates within Islamist movements. This approach provides insight into the internal dynamics of all the competing Islamist sects. While this strategy might not ultimately cause the modern Left to abandon key Islamist figures, such efforts are nevertheless worthwhile.

Meanwhile, too many Islamists, Shideler argued, regard the dilution of dogma as a necessary compromise. "I saw a poll that said two-thirds of American Muslims support gay marriage, which, if I was an Ikhwani of 1970, I would consider it a complete failure. But they don't seem to consider it a failure today."

Shideler also addressed the infiltration of Islamists into government institutions, highlighting their concerted efforts to recruit candidates and support and fund them through various organizations. He emphasized the need for counter-Islamists to establish their own institutions and identify individuals who align with their values, stressing that "we need to think about what institutions do we need to create, as counter-Islamists, to train the people that we need."

Shankar warned that groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have been particularly busy "grooming a new generation of leaders." She noted an increasing number of Islamist-sponsored Muslim advocacy days in legislatures, along with Islamist-run initiatives to appoint Muslim Americans to public service positions, plus meetings with congressmembers and the White House.

Shideler addressed the infiltration of Islamists into government institutions, highlighting their concerted efforts to recruit candidates and fund them through various organizations.

The panelists also discussed potential collaborations between Islamists and far-right groups. Shideler pointed out that there is a perceived envy among far-right groups for the ability of Islamists to voice views that may be considered beyond the pale for others, particularly on matters such as women's rights. Shankar brought up instances of overlap between Neo-Nazis and Islamism, highlighting an example of a transit cop prosecuted for supporting ISIS while also being a Neo-Nazi.

The importance of empowering moderate Muslim voices remains a key pillar of counter-Islamism, the panelists agreed. Shankar identified Muslim reformers and organizations such as Zuhdi Jasser's American Islamic Forum for Democracy and activists such as Asra Nomani as key allies.

Shideler welcomed the recent launch of the Clarity Coalition, a new alliance of former Muslims, Muslim reformists, and counter-Islamist activists and journalists. He added that he found it extremely "heartening" that there is now close cooperation between a mix of counter Islamists from both the Left and Right.

However, he warned that this is still a small contingent, and that he wished there were a larger selection of allies to whom counter-Islamists could turn. Westrop suggested there may potentially be new allies within overlooked, previously apolitical, black Muslim communities.

Sam Westrop is the director of Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.

 

Se denne:

https://www.prageru.com/video/what-are-judeo-christian-values