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Susan Lindauer discusses terrorism & religion, Part 2


Why did Iraqis refuse to greet American “liberators” with flowers and candy, as Paul Wolfowitz had predicted, and instead greeted them with IEDs? Is Islam a force for enslaving women – or liberating them? Since Islamic law prohibits harming civilians, why do some nominal Muslims such as al-Zawahiri argue that attacking Western civilians is OK? Why would intelligent, competent Muslim terrorists – whose goal is to get the US out of the Middle East – want to attack the US homeland, which will only serve to bring the US in to the Middle East? Why do a majority of Muslims say they would like to see Muslim-majority countries unite into a single entity to be ruled by Islamic law?


One Thought to “Susan Lindauer discusses terrorism & religion, Part 2”

  1. When well-meaning naive muslims talk about wanting "Shari'a" – ie : "live under the rules of Islam" – it can convey a very misleading idea for one who does not know any better.

    The idea one might get is that there are a set of Islamic rules (“Shari'a’), that are fair, reasonable and Beautiful, just waiting to be implemented by 1 billion Muslims…if it weren't for the interferences and machinations of the western powers.

    That couldn't be farther from the facts.

    Indeed, “Shari'a” means a totally different thing for different muslims, according to their social status, level of education, how broad is their cultural horizon, how spiritual they really are, how devoid their heart is of hatred and their mind of deep-rooted psychological issues.

    For instance, a few times I came across some "very observant" muslims (addicted to rituals and appearances) and I, as a muslim, would consider it a punishment to have to live under THEIR understanding of “Shari'a”.

    Muslims have to re-learn Islam from the beautiful Quran – understood through intellect and the context of revelation – instead of just insisting on following the interpretations of some 12th century scholars, whose verdicts are based on sound bites from alleged Hadiths and influenced by the culture of their era (no matter how sincere they were).

    Most Shari'a-peddling muslims just want to be told what buttons to push on the machine; they have no desire nor interest in investing intellectual energy to try to understand how the beautiful machine works. They are just waiting for Mahdi to clean the stables for them. They are like a cancer patient who is not interested in radically changing his lifetime junk-food diet, he only wants to know what pill to take and when to show up for chemotherapy.

    According to non-muslim historians, Islam's success as a social phenomenon, the few years after its inception, was in large part due to its simplicity and it being free from religious priesthood and hierarchy. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case IMHO.

    When Susan Lindauer is expressing some concerns about the concept of “Shari'a”, I can totally understand that, for I know for a fact that there is no shortage of hate-filled well-meaning cretins considering themselves to be very pious muslims.

    My comment above is not an endorsement of the cruel and hypocritical system designed and enforced by the self-deluded power-hungry greedy western bankers, fully supported and fueled by their opportunistic subjects on the plantation.

    Caught between a rock and a hard place.

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