True, that is why it is important for the community to explain. In other words, we need to have rallies where people say - "Jihad is an obligation, but we assure you that under no circumstance we will support violence here because we believe the obligation of jihad requires the following preconditions that are not met"
Peace JaanBaazz
Your understanding of Jihad is not correct brother.
Jihad is an obligation ** - correct**
but we assure you that under no circumstance we will support violence here - clarify more by saying not from any side not the people nor the establishment.
preconditions? - not so ... every situation is potentially a means to Jihad. Jihad is doing right even when it means we could endanger our own lives. So coming in the way between two people fighting to stop them when you know you could get hit .... that is Jihad. There is this natural urge for self preservation inside us ... Jihad is when we compromise that urge to fulfil principles. The moment we back down without voicing the truth and allow ourselves to become subdued then we are doing the very opposite of Jihad.
These questionnaires should be answered with wisdom or not at all. The Muslims who gave responses aught to have asked for clarification. There is no shame in admitting that we will do for our religion what every patriotic citizen will not fail to do for his country - die for it, fight to preserve it, but we should add that we will not do as the government does either ... which is unethical warfare and creates unethical laws for its own inhabitants. Muslims will engage in our struggles with ethical consideration. Those people who do not struggle ethically, I disassociate from them. 7/7 whether it was Muslims youths or not, (if really were Muslim then what sort of scruples did they have for bombing Muslim population hotspots in London?) anyway or whether it was the powers that be who wanted to create an arena for more strict action ... G8 took place same time in Scotland and they were about to forgive and forget billions of dollars of developing country debt ... what a distraction! The black suits from the states were in town ... we said years ago before the latest Iraq war, that they only wanted the oil ... people saying that such and such was a conspiracy theory ... I wonder when theories are considered proven?
Muslims .... we should have a backbone and speak what is truthful!
British soldiers going ape in Iraq is a national issue. If I recall correctly, most of the harshest critics of such activities, even British involvement in Iraq in the first place, are all non-Muslims.
In no small part because any criticism coming from Muslims will be construed as disloyalty. But that is simply diving further away from the topic at hand.
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That said, I never disputed your assertion that the question was vague. What I ask you to understand is that such vague questions are solely being asked of British Muslims because some of their brethren crossed a line not too long ago.
[/quote]
I know. and I'm asking you to understand that there will be inherent double standards being applied here, so Muslims should simply not take it to heart, and challenge them on the double standards. Wishy-washy retorts about the exclusive right of a state to exercise violence shouldn't sway us, since that's not really what this is about.
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Modern nation states need some rules to be inviolate in order to survive. One of them is that your loyalty to religion, community, club or whatever cannot ever threaten to usurp the sole prerogative of the state.
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I'll repeat this. If a state delcares war on a religion (and this is the assumption behind the statement that one is willing to kill in the name of faith if attacked), then talking about the exclusive right of the state to violence is absurd. We're well beyond the role of a "good" citizen within the state, as the state has effectively declared war on particular citizens.
Understand the assumptions behind the response.
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I can see why you are upset at this poll and this whole concept of asking such questions.
Re: Controversial Survey about Muslim Students in UK
JaanBazz
The inherent flaw in your argument is that you assume innocence on part of the state and present the minority group as in fault or not persecuted or not sidelined for certain reasons. First you must establish that the role of the state does cause provocation to the minority groups.
Re: Controversial Survey about Muslim Students in UK
As far as the survey goes, a survey with a sample of just 600 muslim students, is not credible enough to cast sterotype opinions about the muslim at large. Whether muslims think it is justified to resist when they are attacked for their faith is another discussion, which is not linked with the credibility of this survey.
Simple. For society to function, the government should be the only medium authorized to kill. Otherwise societies break down. The religion based state was extinct when the modern nation state evolved.
What a farce argument. What is more realistic, is that once a state gets involved into the progression of killing for its preservation then, its not about who has the right to kill but who succeeds in its preservation by means of killing. The killing ends up being justified on both sides of a confrontation. Both confronting parties each other are at views diametrically opposed and one instigating the persecution of another for its views. Every state whether modern or religious erects itself on an idealogy and when its idealogy is threatened it attacks those people, whether it is another nation state or people within the state. Modern state has no unique right to persecution or killing. Your view presents citizens as slaves on the nation state who can be whipped or put to the grind irrespective of their views, which is in no way, a modern concept at all but very ancient, a concept which an Islamic state actually challenged and changed.
Re: Controversial Survey about Muslim Students in UK
Non sequiturs galore.
No one is talking about the government going and killing anyone it pleases. States have laws and a proper procedure by which they decide when to execute someone who breaks certain laws.
In other words, if a group of British Muslims gets assaulted, the police will catch the culprits and if necessary, execute them.
But no state can allow some group to say "My fellow brothers in Afghanistan are dying at the hands of British troops, so my religion requires me to kill any soldier I see." Now you can protest peacefully, work through the system to change policies etc. but the moment you say "I will kill" you are essentially saying that you are no longer bound to the country you live in but to a pan-national cause.
I mean, if some people believe that being British simply cannot coexist with being Muslim, the simple thing to do is to go to a place where you are comfortable. Don't go around bombing people.
Regardless, it is because of the stupidity and fanaticism of a small group of extremists who did 7/7 that all this is being asked. We need to both defend against defamation of Islam and our way of life while also making sure that extremists among us do not get support.
Simply crying conspiracy theories and "we are innocent, it's all persecution" will get us nowhere.
No one is talking about the government going and killing anyone it pleases. States have laws and a proper procedure by which they decide when to execute someone who breaks certain laws.
In other words, if a group of British Muslims gets assaulted, the police will catch the culprits and if necessary, execute them.
But no state can allow some group to say "My fellow brothers in Afghanistan are dying at the hands of British troops, so my religion requires me to kill any soldier I see." Now you can protest peacefully, work through the system to change policies etc. but the moment you say "I will kill" you are essentially saying that you are no longer bound to the country you live in but to a pan-national cause.
I mean, if some people believe that being British simply cannot coexist with being Muslim, the simple thing to do is to go to a place where you are comfortable. Don't go around bombing people.
Regardless, it is because of the stupidity and fanaticism of a small group of extremists who did 7/7 that all this is being asked. We need to both defend against defamation of Islam and our way of life while also making sure that extremists among us do not get support.
Simply crying conspiracy theories and "we are innocent, it's all persecution" will get us nowhere.
Again, the survey did not put a context around the question as you are presenting a very specific sitaution and collating the survey with that. In general, killing can be justified for many a purpose but to get an answer to a question and manipulate the context around it later is scheming and underhanded.
No one here is supporting what happened on 7/7 but to align every answer with that one incident is distorting the facts of an answer.
Re: Controversial Survey about Muslim Students in UK
USResident,
I'm not aligning everything with one incident. But that is the reality.
I have been to UK several times since I was a child. Many places were almost like Pakistan and there was no harassment of Muslims.
Only after 7/7 we are hearing of all these studies and surveys. We cannot get away from it. Just like 9/11 was a watershed moment for US Muslims, 7/7 was for UK Muslims and the Madrid attack was for Spanish Muslims etc.
No one is talking about the government going and killing anyone it pleases.
Let's spell this out:
a) Survey asked if it is EVER justified to kill in the name of religion
b) Being attacked for being a part of a faith, and rising to defend the faith...in the name of religion, is a scenario many (rightly) would answer the above question in the affirmative...no matter how unlikely the scenario
c) That means ther eis at least one situation, that all and sundry with an iota of common sense would agree that there is a reasonable point at which it is justified to kill in the name of religion. Semantic games aside, this connection is being made...and I'm perplexed as to why....
So if people have qualms with the answer, they need to either restate the question to be more specific to see if their fears are deserved, otherwise, if they're looking for an excuse to be paranoid...they just found one.
I'm not aligning everything with one incident. But that is the reality.
I have been to UK several times since I was a child. Many places were almost like Pakistan and there was no harassment of Muslims.
Only after 7/7 we are hearing of all these studies and surveys. We cannot get away from it. Just like 9/11 was a watershed moment for US Muslims, 7/7 was for UK Muslims and the Madrid attack was for Spanish Muslims etc.
If anything I agree with in your response, it is "that is reality" and that is what we are objecting to. Its a reality that is being created but does not exist. Facts are being twisted to make it look real.
So if you are not aligning everything with this one incident then explain why cannot it be justified that there are situations where attacking back for the preservation of religion is not justified unless you are one of those who view religion is an enemy and the need to annihilate religion. In other words your thought process supports attacking for the preservation of secularism.