FruitandNut
New Member
Ha, ha, ha, I probably know more about the topic than you guys. I think I have looked through most of the stuff given out by all sides, yea, bullshit and all! I have looked into the two versions of Mohammed's life and times. I suspect that too many Islamists have not! As my old Decision Making Prof commented after giving me a good mark for one of my assignments, "You are obviously capable of complex thought and analysis".
From the Kuwait Times, dated 26th Feb 2006
Islam's 'ultimate battles' on horizon in Muslim heartland
This is the final story in a series examining the fault lines within Islam between the forces of moderation and extremism. That split shook America to its core on Sept. 11, 2001, and is now one of the defining conflicts of our era. Across the Muslim world, there's an added anguish for the future: mounting bloodshed as the clashes take on the hallmarks of civil war.
A giant montage of artwork hangs outside one of the hotels hit by suicide bombers last month. The images include tears for the 60 victims and clenched fists to honor the anti-terrorism marches that have set the standard for Arab rage against Al-Qaeda and the offshoots it inspired.
But the most repeated theme of the drawings at the Radisson SAS is a penetrating question: why? The pictures ask: Why us? Why are Muslims killing Muslims? Well before the triple Nov. 9 attacks in Amman, this line was already chiseled into the epitaph of 2005.
The ideological wars between mainstream Islam and its radical fringe have turned inward.
While the West snaps to attention when bloodshed hits home -- most recently in July's London bombings -- there was an even greater toll within the Muslim world in the past year. It includes gunbattles in Saudi Arabia between extremists and government forces, another wave of blasts at resorts in Egypt and Indonesia, the Amman attacks -- whose carnage included a wedding party -- and bombings in Bangladesh blamed on rebels seeking strict Islamic rule. Terrorist cells and militants insist that ordinary Muslims have nothing to fear. The numbers say otherwise. More than 170 civilians were killed this year in attacks by Islamic radicals in Muslim nations outside of Iraq, while Associated Press reporting shows that at least 4,700 Iraqis have been killed since late April alone -- many in extremist-led attacks.
Many experts believe this points to the Islam's next major evolution as it struggles to adapt to the globalized age: bigger and more decisive showdowns in the Muslim heartlands.
"I fear this type of Muslim-on-Muslim violence is the sign of the future," said Abdulmajead Salahin, the dean of the Islamic law department at Jordan University. Some of that turmoil, he believes, will come as payback when moderate Muslims retaliate. "Ordinary Muslims are growing tired of seeing their faith corrupted by radical criminals," he said. "They want to fight back. They want their governments to fight back.
"This is the only way that radicalism can be defeated. It can't come from the outside. Not America or Europe. Islam must fight within itself before it can heal itself." By every objective measure _ the weight of Muslim public opinion, available resources and mounting pressure from authorities -- radical Islam appears to have less and less breathing room. And yet the extremists seem as powerful as ever, and certainly as lethal.
They draw strength and recruits from a resolve that moderates have found difficult to match. To some Muslims -- especially those convinced that Islam is under threat from the West -- there's a compelling bravado from radical clerics and militants who portray themselves as the self-appointed guardians of the faith. They preach about returning to Islam's glory days, such as a pan-Islamic caliphate, or theocratic empire uniting the Middle East and beyond. The West and its allies are described as being part of the "dar al-harb," or territory of war, against Islam. Even the modern nation-state is often scorned as a Western-imposed map that artificially divides Muslims.
Statements attributed to Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi -- leader of Al-Qaida in Iraq and alleged mastermind of the Amman bombings -- have claimed a God-given duty to kill "infidels" and warned of more attacks in his homeland of Jordan.
"The so-called clash of civilizations is really, at the end of the day, a clash within Islam," said Enes Karic, dean of the school of Islamic studies at the University of Sarajevo. "This is where the ultimate battles must be fought." It's moving in that direction.
Pro-Western governments such as Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are applying more pressure on radical Islam after many years of indulgent policies -- essentially turning a blind eye to radical strains as long as their targets were abroad.
On Dec. 8, leaders from more than 50 Muslim nations meeting in Mecca, Saudi Arabia -- Islam's most holy city -- agreed in principle to impose harsher criminal penalties for "financing and incitement" of extremist ideas. They also pledged to fight radical "fatwas," or Islamic religious edicts, that justify hatred or killings, particularly against other Muslims. The promised clampdowns mean that militant factions will forced to either surrender or, more likely, strike back, Karic said. The average Muslim is caught in the middle. "It's no longer some faraway thing like Sept. 11," he said. "It's in their everyday lives." And the more angry and active the Islamic public becomes -- like the protest marches in Jordan -- the more radicals are backed into corners in their own nations. In the short term, this could bring more backlash. But some experts believe it also could ultimately subject Islam's militant factions to greater doubts and defections. "No matter now sweet the stories of (the) revival of the caliph and the caliphate may sound to Muslim ears, we must be aware of the fact that in fighting the battles that are already lost, (Islamic radicals) are showing the greatest possible insanity," he said last month at an Islamic conference in Vienna, Austria.
But not all consider extremists so easily beaten. The past year offered a running commentary on the resilience of Islamic militants, and their abilities to strike on home ground.
The most recent front is Bangladesh, where more than 20 people were killed in a spate of bombings since late November blamed on the outlawed Jumatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, which seeks to replace the country's secular laws with Islamic rules.
The other attacks bounced around the Muslim world. Egypt:
Car bombs in July killed at least 64 people at the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheik. Indonesia: Three suicide bombers with alleged linked to an Al-Qaeda backed group killed 20 people on the resort island of Bali in October. Then the blasts in Amman in November.
The concept of waging violent jihad both at home and abroad is not a new one. As far back as the 1950s, the Egyptian-born radical ideologue Sayyid Qutb was refining the idea of two foes: the "far" enemy of America and its backers, and the "near" enemy of Muslim leaders and others who oppose their austere interpretations of strict Islam and "sharia," or Islamic law. Qutb's writings became part of the intellectual foundations for Osama bin Laden. Qutb, who was hanged by Egyptian authorities in 1966, also helped harden the contemporary views of the Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest and largest conservative Islamic movement and a growing force in Egyptian politics.
The grand mufti of Syria, Ahmad Bader Hassoun, offered a bleak depiction of what could come next without a serious effort to counter the spread of extremist creeds in mosques, Quranic groups and on the Internet. He told the Vienna gathering that Islam could develop "a kind of religious Marxism or Leninism" capable of overwhelming moderate voices and opening new assaults against perceived enemies _ particularly in Muslim nations. "We have to break down the wall, like how it was demolished in Berlin," he said.
Jordan, for the moment, appears willing to lead the way. The aftermath of the bombings brought something nearly as stunning to the Muslim world: major street demonstrations _ both government-arranged and independent _ that seethed with disgust against the concept of violent jihad. The crowds waved Jordanian flags and ridiculed Zarqawi as a villain and coward. One banner called Zarqawi "an enemy of God." The largest march was estimated at 100,000 people _ surpassing the anti-American rallies before the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
From the Kuwait Times, dated 26th Feb 2006
Islam's 'ultimate battles' on horizon in Muslim heartland
This is the final story in a series examining the fault lines within Islam between the forces of moderation and extremism. That split shook America to its core on Sept. 11, 2001, and is now one of the defining conflicts of our era. Across the Muslim world, there's an added anguish for the future: mounting bloodshed as the clashes take on the hallmarks of civil war.
A giant montage of artwork hangs outside one of the hotels hit by suicide bombers last month. The images include tears for the 60 victims and clenched fists to honor the anti-terrorism marches that have set the standard for Arab rage against Al-Qaeda and the offshoots it inspired.
But the most repeated theme of the drawings at the Radisson SAS is a penetrating question: why? The pictures ask: Why us? Why are Muslims killing Muslims? Well before the triple Nov. 9 attacks in Amman, this line was already chiseled into the epitaph of 2005.
The ideological wars between mainstream Islam and its radical fringe have turned inward.
While the West snaps to attention when bloodshed hits home -- most recently in July's London bombings -- there was an even greater toll within the Muslim world in the past year. It includes gunbattles in Saudi Arabia between extremists and government forces, another wave of blasts at resorts in Egypt and Indonesia, the Amman attacks -- whose carnage included a wedding party -- and bombings in Bangladesh blamed on rebels seeking strict Islamic rule. Terrorist cells and militants insist that ordinary Muslims have nothing to fear. The numbers say otherwise. More than 170 civilians were killed this year in attacks by Islamic radicals in Muslim nations outside of Iraq, while Associated Press reporting shows that at least 4,700 Iraqis have been killed since late April alone -- many in extremist-led attacks.
Many experts believe this points to the Islam's next major evolution as it struggles to adapt to the globalized age: bigger and more decisive showdowns in the Muslim heartlands.
"I fear this type of Muslim-on-Muslim violence is the sign of the future," said Abdulmajead Salahin, the dean of the Islamic law department at Jordan University. Some of that turmoil, he believes, will come as payback when moderate Muslims retaliate. "Ordinary Muslims are growing tired of seeing their faith corrupted by radical criminals," he said. "They want to fight back. They want their governments to fight back.
"This is the only way that radicalism can be defeated. It can't come from the outside. Not America or Europe. Islam must fight within itself before it can heal itself." By every objective measure _ the weight of Muslim public opinion, available resources and mounting pressure from authorities -- radical Islam appears to have less and less breathing room. And yet the extremists seem as powerful as ever, and certainly as lethal.
They draw strength and recruits from a resolve that moderates have found difficult to match. To some Muslims -- especially those convinced that Islam is under threat from the West -- there's a compelling bravado from radical clerics and militants who portray themselves as the self-appointed guardians of the faith. They preach about returning to Islam's glory days, such as a pan-Islamic caliphate, or theocratic empire uniting the Middle East and beyond. The West and its allies are described as being part of the "dar al-harb," or territory of war, against Islam. Even the modern nation-state is often scorned as a Western-imposed map that artificially divides Muslims.
Statements attributed to Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi -- leader of Al-Qaida in Iraq and alleged mastermind of the Amman bombings -- have claimed a God-given duty to kill "infidels" and warned of more attacks in his homeland of Jordan.
"The so-called clash of civilizations is really, at the end of the day, a clash within Islam," said Enes Karic, dean of the school of Islamic studies at the University of Sarajevo. "This is where the ultimate battles must be fought." It's moving in that direction.
Pro-Western governments such as Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are applying more pressure on radical Islam after many years of indulgent policies -- essentially turning a blind eye to radical strains as long as their targets were abroad.
On Dec. 8, leaders from more than 50 Muslim nations meeting in Mecca, Saudi Arabia -- Islam's most holy city -- agreed in principle to impose harsher criminal penalties for "financing and incitement" of extremist ideas. They also pledged to fight radical "fatwas," or Islamic religious edicts, that justify hatred or killings, particularly against other Muslims. The promised clampdowns mean that militant factions will forced to either surrender or, more likely, strike back, Karic said. The average Muslim is caught in the middle. "It's no longer some faraway thing like Sept. 11," he said. "It's in their everyday lives." And the more angry and active the Islamic public becomes -- like the protest marches in Jordan -- the more radicals are backed into corners in their own nations. In the short term, this could bring more backlash. But some experts believe it also could ultimately subject Islam's militant factions to greater doubts and defections. "No matter now sweet the stories of (the) revival of the caliph and the caliphate may sound to Muslim ears, we must be aware of the fact that in fighting the battles that are already lost, (Islamic radicals) are showing the greatest possible insanity," he said last month at an Islamic conference in Vienna, Austria.
But not all consider extremists so easily beaten. The past year offered a running commentary on the resilience of Islamic militants, and their abilities to strike on home ground.
The most recent front is Bangladesh, where more than 20 people were killed in a spate of bombings since late November blamed on the outlawed Jumatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, which seeks to replace the country's secular laws with Islamic rules.
The other attacks bounced around the Muslim world. Egypt:
Car bombs in July killed at least 64 people at the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheik. Indonesia: Three suicide bombers with alleged linked to an Al-Qaeda backed group killed 20 people on the resort island of Bali in October. Then the blasts in Amman in November.
The concept of waging violent jihad both at home and abroad is not a new one. As far back as the 1950s, the Egyptian-born radical ideologue Sayyid Qutb was refining the idea of two foes: the "far" enemy of America and its backers, and the "near" enemy of Muslim leaders and others who oppose their austere interpretations of strict Islam and "sharia," or Islamic law. Qutb's writings became part of the intellectual foundations for Osama bin Laden. Qutb, who was hanged by Egyptian authorities in 1966, also helped harden the contemporary views of the Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest and largest conservative Islamic movement and a growing force in Egyptian politics.
The grand mufti of Syria, Ahmad Bader Hassoun, offered a bleak depiction of what could come next without a serious effort to counter the spread of extremist creeds in mosques, Quranic groups and on the Internet. He told the Vienna gathering that Islam could develop "a kind of religious Marxism or Leninism" capable of overwhelming moderate voices and opening new assaults against perceived enemies _ particularly in Muslim nations. "We have to break down the wall, like how it was demolished in Berlin," he said.
Jordan, for the moment, appears willing to lead the way. The aftermath of the bombings brought something nearly as stunning to the Muslim world: major street demonstrations _ both government-arranged and independent _ that seethed with disgust against the concept of violent jihad. The crowds waved Jordanian flags and ridiculed Zarqawi as a villain and coward. One banner called Zarqawi "an enemy of God." The largest march was estimated at 100,000 people _ surpassing the anti-American rallies before the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
