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Defining Islamophobia

stevecanuck said:
Another deflection. Pakistan has sentenced people to die for blasphemy against Islam. Brunei recently announced stoning for gays. Do you feel the love and tolerance of Islam yet?
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England and Canada only recently rescinded blasphemy laws. Several US states still have laws.
 
Fledermaus said:
England and Canada only recently rescinded blasphemy laws. Several US states still have laws.
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Yes. Thank you for pointing that out. The civilized world is indeed moving away from the excesses it once employed in the name of Christianity (despite the fact that the mythical Jesus would NEVER have agreed with any of the atrocities Christians used carry out in his name).

In sharp contrast we have today's Islamic societies ramping up and doubling down on Sharia's excesses (all of which come straight from the Qur'an and hadiths, and therefore straight from the mouth of Mohamed).

I'm happy to see you finally getting it.
 
stevecanuck said:
Yes. Thank you for pointing that out. The civilized world is indeed moving away from the excesses it once employed in the name of Christianity (despite the fact that the mythical Jesus would NEVER have agreed with any of the atrocities Christians used carry out in his name).

In sharp contrast we have today's Islamic societies ramping up and doubling down on Sharia's excesses (all of which come straight from the Qur'an and hadiths, and therefore straight from the mouth of Mohamed).

I'm happy to see you finally getting it.
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And yet many of what were hard-line Islamic states have moved towards secularism....
 
stevecanuck said:
You didn't just move the goal posts, you went to a different stadium where they're playing a different game.

In post 105 you said: critics default to blaming the Quran, citing its allegedly “violent” verses..

I have since shown you many verses in which God and Mohamed explicitly urge Muslims to kill infidels, and here you are shouting, "SQUIRREL!!"

Again I ask, did I or did I not clearly demonstrate that there is no "allegedly" about it, and that the word violent does not belong in quotes? The exhortations to kill are explicit. Yes or no?

You recently (and rightly) challenged someone else to answer a direct question for once, and now I'm extending that challenge to you.
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The number of dead speaks for itself. Sri Lanka is safer than the US.
 
zyzygy said:
The number of dead speaks for itself. Sri Lanka is safer than the US.
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Sometimes I'm absolutely gob-smacked at the degree to which some posters seem to have zero regard for their credibility. This would be one of those times. You issued a challenge to a certain poster (and you know who I'm talking about). and then you hypocritically mirror her type of response. Un-frigging-believable.
 
Fledermaus said:
And yet many of what were hard-line Islamic states have moved towards secularism....
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If, by many, do you mean Turkey under Ataturk? Because, if you look around the globe, you'll see Sharia becoming more and more enforced. Your rose-colored glasses need a cleaning.
 
Fledermaus said:
Back to flog the dead horse I see....
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Are you actually denying that Sharia is becoming more enforced? Really? Because you have to know it is. (he asked yet again).

If you look back at this thread, you'll see that you and your brethren simply run away when asked an uncomfortable question. That should tell you something about your position AND your character.
 
zyzygy said:
Countries That Follow Sharia Law
1 Afghanistan
2 Iran
3 Iraq
4 Maurtania
5 Pakistan
6 Saudi Arabia
7 Sudan
8 Yemen

Countries That Follow Sharia Law - WorldAtlas.com
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Yup, that's an accurate partial list. Didn't you notice the absence of Brunei, just to name one? It made the news recently for ramping up Sharia to include stoning gays and adulterers to death in the loving name of The Merciful, The Compassionate. Pakistan has in the last few years upped the ante on blasphemers by sentencing them to death (yet to be carried out, but on the books). Look at pictures from northern Africa and the ME from 50 years ago and compare them to those of today. They've clearly gone from aping Westerners back to the burkha. Why do you try to deny to obvious? What the hell does it gain you? Islam is a repressive, highly discriminatory creed that is gaining strength and plunging headlong back to the 7th century, yet you seem to have sacrificed your credibility to insist otherwise. You know the facts are against you. What the hell are you doing this for?
 
Serenity said:
Criticising a religion, (Islam), is not Islamophobia. Prejudice, hatred, or bigotry directed against Muslims in general, is. It's pretty simple.
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There is more to it than that, though. Making misleading statements about Islam the religion is also very, very common for Islamophobes. Inflammatory, offensive and incorrect statements are used; these statements have the effect of making any civil discussion impossible.

I would say the definition should also include prejudice, hatred or bigotry directed against Muslims or the religion of Islam.

It's usually easy to tell the difference between someone making legitimate criticisms of religion, and someone who is just a raging bigot motivated by hatred. Islamophobes are immune to all evidence and cannot be reasoned with. They're not interested in a discussion; they've already made up their mind and no amount of contrary evidence will have any impact on them.

One of the most common behaviours of Islamophobes is to conflate Wahhabism with Islam in general, and to deny the existence or validity of any other form of Islam. Another thing they do is present misleading, inaccurate quotations from Islamic scriptures or authority sources, taken out of context, and then attempt to use these as "evidence" for their views - once again, attempting to point out the context of the text, or providing evidence that contradicts their claims, is pointless - these people are immune to all evidence. They are not acting in good faith, as part of a legitimate debate, their only interest is point-scoring and once again, they will dismiss, ignore, or attempt to discredit all evidence or sources that disagree with what they are saying.

Another tactic that they use is to point to majority Muslim societies in the world today, and then use that as evidence to condemn Islam the religion and Muslims in general as being backward, violent, etc. etc. etc. Once again, here they are not being honest. You cannot take countries that are beset by poverty, unemployment, lack of education, constant war, and goodness knows how many other problems, and compare them with countries that are centuries ahead in terms of development. That isn't a level playing field, and it isn't fair.

Yet another logical fallacy that they use is to attempt to apply modern morality (by which I really mean, the morality which has become fashionable in western countries since as recently as the 1990s), and then attempt to judge people who lived in the freaking 7th century AD by that standard. Somehow, they conveniently neglect to do this when those same people idealise the ancient Greeks and Romans (who practised slavery on a vast scale), yet when it comes to Islamic history suddenly they developed a moral conscience? Yeah, right. I call BS. Once again, they are not acting in good faith; instead they are simply out to screw over Islam and Muslims in a dishonest and mean-spirited way, without any pretence of being fair or logical and consistent about it.

Other tactics used by Islamophobes include sexual slander against the Prophet Muhammad, his wives, and so on. They also seek to depict Islam as hostile towards women, even though once again, this argument falls apart under the slightest scrutiny. These arguments are based on medieval, orientalist prejudice, and once again they do not conform to confirmed facts and are largely a product of fiction. Evidence that Islam actually improved the situation of women at the time is ignored, and context (such as the fact that Muslim women had the right to initiate divorce, whereas in England divorce was actually illegal until the mid 19th century!) is likewise ignored and overlooked. Yet again, the efforts of Islamophobes aren't based in reality or an objective, fair look at the facts - instead they're just trash-talking as if the Taliban was the only representation of Islamic society (probably because that's the only information about Islam that they've ever encountered on this subject).

Once again, they demonstrate their remarkable ignorance on the subject. You can tell you're talking to an Islamophobe if they refuse to listen to all counter-examples or contrary evidence, and basically do the equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting "La la la la I'm not listening, nah nah". And then continue running their mouth with hateful nonsense that says a lot more about them than it does about the actual subject.

Anyway I'm in danger of writing so much text that my own post could be called a rant. This was unplanned but once I started, it turned out I had a lot to say. Well that's enough from me. :)
 
PersianCavalry said:
There is more to it than that, though. Making misleading statements about Islam the religion is also very, very common for Islamophobes. Inflammatory, offensive and incorrect statements are used; these statements have the effect of making any civil discussion impossible.
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It can work both ways. I have found that regardless of how factual and civil I try to be when outlining the reasons I am anti-Islam (NOT necessarily anti Muslim), the first casualty is civility. You may complain about "Islamophobes", but much of what you say in this post applies to "Islamoapologists" as well. I would like to converse with you, so let's see if we can manage it.

I would say the definition should also include prejudice, hatred or bigotry directed against Muslims
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Agree

or the religion of Islam.
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Disagree. The Qur'an calls unbelievers every name there is. According to it I am the worst of God's creation, evil, a liar, etc. simply for not being a Muslim. Nobody should be expected to listen to that and not have feelings of animosity in return.

It's usually easy to tell the difference between someone making legitimate criticisms of religion, and someone who is just a raging bigot motivated by hatred. Islamophobes are immune to all evidence and cannot be reasoned with. They're not interested in a discussion; they've already made up their mind and no amount of contrary evidence will have any impact on them.
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A phobia is an unreasonable fear of something. I have been reading the Qur'an for the better part of two decades now (I can read some Arabic). I started after 9/11 because I didn't believe what some "Islamophobes" were saying. I got as far as 2:6 through 2:10 before sitting there gob-smacked at the sheer vitriol directed toward me and every other "unbeliever" in the world. And it certainly did not stop there. God can barely contain his glee at the thought of roasting my skin over and over and over for eternity for committing the greatest of all sins: not believing in him. The depiction of unbelievers in the Qur'an is pure Kafraphobia.

If that sounded aggressive, I apologize, but I'm just responding in kind to the tone set by the Qur'an.

More later.
 
PersianCavalry said:
One of the most common behaviours of Islamophobes is to conflate Wahhabism with Islam in general, and to deny the existence or validity of any other form of Islam. Another thing they do is present misleading, inaccurate quotations from Islamic scriptures or authority sources, taken out of context, and then attempt to use these as "evidence" for their views - once again, attempting to point out the context of the text, or providing evidence that contradicts their claims, is pointless - these people are immune to all evidence. They are not acting in good faith, as part of a legitimate debate, their only interest is point-scoring and once again, they will dismiss, ignore, or attempt to discredit all evidence or sources that disagree with what they are saying.
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Feel free to point out if you think I do that. I'll do the same.

Another tactic that they use is to point to majority Muslim societies in the world today, and then use that as evidence to condemn Islam the religion and Muslims in general as being backward, violent, etc. etc. etc. Once again, here they are not being honest. You cannot take countries that are beset by poverty, unemployment, lack of education, constant war, and goodness knows how many other problems, and compare them with countries that are centuries ahead in terms of development. That isn't a level playing field, and it isn't fair.
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Poverty etc. has nothing to do with, for example, a legally elected government of a country sentencing a Christian to death for doing nothing more than defending her religion. That sentence was imposed on Asia Bibi by a Sharia court, for and by the religion of Islam. Brunei recently announced they will stone gays and adulterers. How can the West look at those examples and feel Islam is just another religion. I can't.

Impoverished and Catholic Central and South America don't impose penalties on people who disrespect Jesus. Sorry, but poverty is a red herring.

Yet another logical fallacy that they use is to attempt to apply modern morality (by which I really mean, the morality which has become fashionable in western countries since as recently as the 1990s), and then attempt to judge people who lived in the freaking 7th century AD by that standard. Somehow, they conveniently neglect to do this when those same people idealise the ancient Greeks and Romans (who practised slavery on a vast scale), yet when it comes to Islamic history suddenly they developed a moral conscience? Yeah, right. I call BS. Once again, they are not acting in good faith; instead they are simply out to screw over Islam and Muslims in a dishonest and mean-spirited way, without any pretence of being fair or logical and consistent about it.
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There is a certain amount of truth to this given the excesses of the churches and Christians of centuries past. Where it falls down is in comparing Islam to the rest of the world today. Far too much of the Islamic world seems to be trying to return to the 7th century, and to take us with it.
 
PersianCavalry said:
Other tactics used by Islamophobes include sexual slander against the Prophet Muhammad, his wives, and so on. They also seek to depict Islam as hostile towards women, even though once again, this argument falls apart under the slightest scrutiny. These arguments are based on medieval, orientalist prejudice, and once again they do not conform to confirmed facts and are largely a product of fiction.
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True, Islam is not hostile toward women (at least Muslim women). It is, however, entirely paternalistic toward them while putting men in the position of undisputed decision maker. Anyone who has read the Qur'an will notice that in every verse in which it is obviously speaking to one gender or the other, it is always speaking to men. Where the Qur'an is mired is in its stance on sex. Women are given NO choice in that regard. They are described as a "tilth" that can be "approached when and how you will" (2:223). Verse 4:34 establishes the household pecking order in no uncertain terms. Disobedient wives are to be beaten. Men are allowed prepubescent wives (65:4), and they are allowed to rape their captives (70:29-30) Bukhari, Volume: 7, Book Number: 62, Hadith Number: 137, Narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri:
We got female captives in the war booty and we used to do coitus interruptus with them. So we asked Allah's Apostle about it and he said, "Do you really do that, repeating the question thrice, "There is no soul that is destined to exist but will come into existence, till the Day of Resurrection." (In other words, why restrict yourself to coitus interruptus when God has already ordained whether the rape victim will become pregnant?)

On the plus side, women are to be given an inheritance, but the trouble is it's half of what a male gets, and because it's in the Qur'an, it can never change. Yes, they were given some advancements by 7th century standards, but those standards are now long since out of date.

PS. War booty? Why does a religion of peace have rules for war booty?
 
PersianCavalry said:
Once again, they demonstrate their remarkable ignorance on the subject. You can tell you're talking to an Islamophobe if they refuse to listen to all counter-examples or contrary evidence, and basically do the equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting "La la la la I'm not listening, nah nah". And then continue running their mouth with hateful nonsense that says a lot more about them than it does about the actual subject.
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My objections to Islam are entirely based on what it teaches in the Qur'an, in the hadiths, in the example set by Mohamed, and in the example set by the first Muslims who conquered their way to a vast empire . There is no racial bias and no my-god-is-better-than-your-god (I'm an atheist). A religion that tells me I'm inferior and evil, and wants to dominate me is not my friend. That's pretty much it.
 
lwf said:
How so?
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Bezukhov is referring to verse 9:29 of the Qur'an. The Quranic Arabic Corpus - Translation

Shakir: Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.

This IMO is the most important verse in the Qur'an with regard to warfare because it's the LAST verse "revealed" that speaks of warfare. It came AFTER the Jews of Medina had been wiped out by Mohamed, and AFTER the pagans of Mecca had surrendered, which is why this verse needs no mention of pagans. There aren't any left. Mohamed was now fully on the offensive. In Hugh Kennedy's book 'The Great Arab Conquests' (page 113), he describes how Muslim armies would send an emissary to the poor buggers they were about to conquer and give them those exact choices; either accept Islam, live as a subservient dhimmi, or prepare to have your ass kicked. In other words, they were given the choices outlined in 9:29. It became the blueprint for conquest.
 
Bezukhov said:
Those are three important steps to keeping the peace with Islam. If you refuse any of them, you don't want peace with Muslims, and therefore, an Islamophobe.
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This is false. None of those steps are required to keep the peace with Muslims, as over 3.4 million Muslims currently living in America prove.
 
stevecanuck said:
Bezukhov is referring to verse 9:29 of the Qur'an. The Quranic Arabic Corpus - Translation

Shakir: Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.

This IMO is the most important verse in the Qur'an with regard to warfare because it's the LAST verse "revealed" that speaks of warfare. It came AFTER the Jews of Medina had been wiped out by Mohamed, and AFTER the pagans of Mecca had surrendered, which is why this verse needs no mention of pagans. There aren't any left. Mohamed was now fully on the offensive. In Hugh Kennedy's book 'The Great Arab Conquests' (page 113), he describes how Muslim armies would send an emissary to the poor buggers they were about to conquer and give them those exact choices; either accept Islam, live as a subservient dhimmi, or prepare to have your ass kicked. In other words, they were given the choices outlined in 9:29. It became the blueprint for conquest.
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Sounds terrible. And familiar to anyone who has studied the early spread of Christianity.
 
lwf said:
Sounds terrible. And familiar to anyone who has studied the early spread of Christianity.
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Right. Oh btw, could you please give the quote from the bible in which Jesus said to go out and conquer the world? I seem to have missed that one.
 
lwf said:
This is false. None of those steps are required to keep the peace with Muslims, as over 3.4 million Muslims currently living in America prove.
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Right again. Why on earth aren't those 3.4 million waging jihad on only 350 million infidels. What are they waiting for?????
 
stevecanuck said:
I have been reading the Qur'an for the better part of two decades now (I can read some Arabic). I started after 9/11 because I didn't believe what some "Islamophobes" were saying. I got as far as 2:6 through 2:10 before sitting there gob-smacked at the sheer vitriol directed toward me and every other "unbeliever" in the world. And it certainly did not stop there. God can barely contain his glee at the thought of roasting my skin over and over and over for eternity for committing the greatest of all sins: not believing in him. The depiction of unbelievers in the Qur'an is pure Kafraphobia.

If that sounded aggressive, I apologize, but I'm just responding in kind to the tone set by the Qur'an. More later.
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An interesting series of posts, stevecanuck. First up, there's no need to apologise - I thought this series of posts was better than most, given the relatively calm tone (this is The Internet, after all... ;) ) and good awareness of texts. I was also surprised and slightly intrigued by your comment about reading the Quran for 20 years and being able to read Arabic. That's pretty unusual, from my experience a lot of people who post about these kinds of discussions on the internet haven't gone to that level of trouble to find out for themselves. Straight away that gets a lot of respect from me. But I also wondered, why someone would go to the level of even learning Arabic? Even I can't do that.

To go to that level of trouble suggests an interest in the subject... were you already interested in religions generally anyway? Or did you meet people that prompted you to try to find out the truth for yourself? Here I know I'm getting a bit into personal questions and I apologise for that - I'm just genuinely curious, because it's so unusual!

Also, full disclosure (about me) - as a Secularist, I do not believe that religion and politics should mix. Rather, I believe that religion should be a private matter and the state has no business legislating that. My extended family contains Christians, Muslims and Atheists.

My personal stance on Islam is complex and would take a whole post of its own to explain properly. But to summarise - generally favourable, with very positive views on aspects relating to charity and good conduct to others; highly critical of extremist factions which seek to use religion in bad ways, or which seek to distort the religion in ways which I believe do not represent its original spirit and intent.

I guess a final thought before going into the details is this: I had someone there who I could ask, when I had questions about what the meaning of various Quran verses was. The answers drastically change my understanding of what those verses mean. But if I had read them without anyone to guide me, I'd have been miles away from what they actually mean. I do not mean to be misunderstood - I'm trying to picture what would happen, if someone from a non-Islamic society read the Quran without anyone to ask questions in person. I don't think it would work. Because it would result in loads of misunderstandings, and I see that in some of the things you've said. Not a criticism - what I'm trying to say is that I think a lot of criticism of Islam, even based on reading the text itself, come from misunderstandings which happen when we try to read the text without an understanding of crucial background information and context, which utterly changes the meaning.

Basically, to simplify right down, what I'm saying (almost to myself, as writing this down is prompting me to realise things as I go) is this: to understand the Quran and other Islamic texts, we first must study, but even this is not enough - a person would need to actually meet and spend time with ordinary Muslim people, who themselves understand it correctly and are well-educated, in order to be able to read it and understand what it is saying correctly. That means meeting reliable people - persons who are educated, and with wisdom and compassion. Because reading alone isn't really enough to answer all the questions that a person might have. We (as readers) need to have someone there, someone we trust, and who is well-informed and wise, to really be able to give a full and satisfying answer to our questions. Only then can we really understand it. At least that's reflecting from my personal experience.

Here I think then is where almost all efforts at online discussion fall down. It may even be that the very nature of the format (posting anonymously online) makes it virtually impossible to have a productive discussion, because if I look back at my past, I don't think an online discussion would have helped answer the questions I had, a lot of which are found in your post too. But I'm not really interested in posting to change anyone's mind (not aimed at you, I mean more generally). I'm more participating because I find the subject interesting, and I enjoy sharing my perspective.
 
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