Islam and the West

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41

Re: Islam and the West

The person you mentioned in your post (Siraj Wahaj) is one of the "moderate" or soft scholars but the media showed him as some extreme radical preacher and unfortunately most people including yourself bought that without questioning.

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Re: Islam and the West

alright what about the outspoken hezbollah supporter? and there was another extreme muslim character in the UK saying some insulting things about a muslim holding a prestigious position in UK politics and so many similar types that are always shown in the media.

plus hareem, i've seen muslims themselves taking quranic verses out of context and not really understanding them before using them as a way of writing/saying hateful things about nonmuslims or america

let me show you an example of a verse that's been used quite a few times by muslims or ignorant ones, i need to find it online. give me a second, i used to have it memorized but it's been a while since i read a quranic verse.....and you tell me if what i know about it is correct or not or whether it is how some muslims perceive it.

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Re: Islam and the West

"O, Prophet, strive hard against the disbelievers and the hypocrites and be harsh against them....their abode is hell, and evil is their destination," (Holy Qur-an 9:73; read 9:74).

not sure about whether it is the exact verse but this one is constantly used by ignorants to show their hate against america and nonmuslims. it is taken out of context right? as far as i know and have found out from quite a few knowledgeable muslims it applies only to a situation where the prophet was attacked by a small group of nonmuslims that were trying to harm him and it doesn't apply to all nonmuslims but quite a few muslims use it for hate propaganda against america......

wish knowledgeable muslims would correct those muslims or inform them

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Re: Islam and the West

Let me clarify few things please:

1) Muslims are asleep and they need to wake up and start defending Islam with wisdom and educate the West but before that they need to educate themselves.

2) They also need to educate other muslims who believe in hating America because of misinterpreting Quran, but what if that is just another myth created by media and in reality most muslims hate America because of her foreign policy?

3) There are irrational lunatics in every community and media intentionally picks up those lunatics from muslim community to represent islam.

4) This is the first time I heard the name of Malik Ali and that was through the American anti-muslim media.

5) Malik Ali and alikes are very few in numbers but media makes you believe that "there are so many of them".

6) people can quote and twist it from any religious scripture and if we come across anyone misquoting Quran to justify evil or proving Islam evil then we should clarify their misconceptions.

7) There is an ongoing battle between correct Muslim representation versus media picking up the bad sheep, but this should not make us concerned, we should just carry on doing our bit and hope that its enough. If they turn against us for being Muslim then we know that Allah (SWT) is enough for us and we should not really worry too much either, because that over apologetic mindset is just as unhealthy as being radical.

I also disagree with the behaviour of some Muslims who think we should ignore the accusations on Islam and keep quiet, they think that they have good neighbors and everyone is nice at work with them so there is no chance that anything bad will happen to them personally so they have no reason to get involved. If an anti semitic book is published the jewish community do protest by writing letters to publishers so why shouldn't we when it happens to us? Just browse around your local bookshop and compare the books written about Islam and books written about other religions you'll find hardly any positive book on islam and hardly any negative book on other religions including satanism.

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Re: Islam and the West

In the Holy Qur'an it's written that despite knowing the truth people turn and twist verses from the scriptures to justify their evil intentions.

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Re: Islam and the West

does anybody care about what will happen when the populations of muslims and christians are about equal around the world and in the united states. the hamas/hezbollah supporters against the ones that consider those orgs and their supporters as 'terrorists'...........at that time what will happen to the other brown/beige minorities that want nothing to do with either side or are irreligious.

i guess we'll hope for the best, and hope that balanced sane of every religion are in the majority rather than the above situation

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Re: Islam and the West

You and your worries. :smiley:

People need to worry about their problems than coming so bold and tell muslims what to do. These kind of ‘suggestions’ are made not in favor of muslims.
Moderate need to do this or that. “you need to do more”! …Boring rant! :smack:

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Re: Islam and the West

The balanced sane ARE in the majority in Islam, Nisha, but is the present situation anything short of a disaster?

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Re: Islam and the West

No need to conjure doomsday scenarios. Most Muslims are content with leading their own lives and want nothing to do with terrorist groups like Hamas/Hezbullah in far flung areas. At the same time most Americans, Christians etc are content with leading their own lives and have no qualms at co-existing with their other country folks, including Muslims. A few might have some misconceptions initially but once they get to know a fellow Muslim neighbor/ colleague/ fellow soccer mom etc they warm up and can be the sweetest of people. “Brown/beige” minorities have nothing to fear so don’t make a mountain out of a molehill.

Besides, I don’t know where you got the bizzare idea that American Muslims would someday equal Christians in the United States? By some estimates American Muslims amount to less than 1% of US population and their proportion will remain around 2-3% at most even many decades from now. Did you miss the recent much publicized PEW’s projections on growth of religions? Yes, the demographics of the United States will change but that is because of the influx of immigration of Hispanics. Many of them resemble desis anyways so all the squeamish “brown/beige minorities” could rejoice I guess. :rolleyes:

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Re: Islam and the West

Peace Nisha25

You have nothing to worry about from our side. Muslims throughout history have proven that when we have been powerful or in majority we exercise fullest levels of peace and security to all people, the reverse has historically never been the case, except for certain African Christian states. The "terrorists" you see as hezbollah are only in existence because of their state of injustice. If however, we become so strong to lobby against the presence of Israel for example who do you think will cause the bloodshed? It won't be us! If the world manages to lobby against Israel on a political level trust me they will not just pack their bags. They will start the full out war not us. When you fear the growth of Islam taking more of a political foothold it is not us that you need to fear, but these states that invest in war such as the US and Israel and yes even the UK and most of western Europe. As our numbers increase in the modern world with population growth and conversions - the other camp are piling up on bigger and better weapons. They are not relying on politics - democratic politics that is, because they know democratics will become demographically lame for their cause. They invest in weapons and they intend to use them if in future the democratic swing works against them.

Alas we will do as we will. Yes we will offer all minorities security including those whose governments were against us that is what our religion expects and we will do that without hesitation. Rest assured a world of Islam is potentially the best one that can be in place, but with certain crazies who live here with us who invest in war, bloodshed and powermongery they may not let that situation come to fruition.

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Re: Islam and the West

I thought you were concerned about Muslims, seems like you are just worried about saving your own ... self.

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Re: Islam and the West

there is nothing such as moderate muslim. get over it.

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Re: Islam and the West

It's mostly media propaganda. Fox News is so shockingly biased and most Americans don't even realize it. Watch the video of John McCain correcting a woman when she calls Obama an Arab. McCain responds: "no ma'am, he's not an Arab, he's a good man". What?! Even Ben Affleck responded to that by saying that Arab and good man, are not antithetical. Can you imagine if someone had said "no he's not a Jew, he's a good man" or "...he's not a Christian, he's a good man"

America has always needed an enemy so that it can patrol the world unchecked. After the Soviet collapse, many politicians warned against policing the world like before but Americans continued unabated and look what happened. Now they made up an enemy in Islam and, sadly, this environment of hostility has allowed the extremists (which have always existed) to grow.

Add to that, there is a powerful Jewish lobby in the States which looks out for Israel and conservatives in Israel have some kind of crusade against Islam.

I agree with you that moderate Muslims should correct others, and I do that. If my friends ever ask my about Islam, I give them straight up common sense answers and they usually agree with me about the media warping and extremists being isolated incidents. Except for my one friend who's an atheist, but he's as tolerant of Islam as other religions lol.

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Re: Islam and the West

Also i dont get how exactly we muslims can 'show' to the west that we are not all evil terrorists. the media representation of us is not gonna change from being negative, and i cant see many media outlets being too interested in promoting 'good' muslims. like someone said before, its boring and its also not in the interests of the propaganda against us.

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Re: Islam and the West

Nisha we are not here to make west happy we are here to make ALLAH and his RASOOL SAW happy Quran says untill you leave Islam Non Muslims are never going to happy with u

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Re: Islam and the West

Nisha Muslims are still underattack and Islam says to hit back and we will hit back and INSHALLAH hit back hard

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Re: Islam and the West

Napoleon once said "The world suffers a lot. Not because of the violence of bad people, but because of the silence of good people!"

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Re: Islam and the West

well i thought you said that muslims like yourself aren't hezbollah supporters, you said it in this thread and you already forgot what you said, umm i'm talking about the muslims and the other minorities that don't support such organizations and are pretty much neutral, see i'm including muslims in that. i didn't know i was the only self that was neutral in terms of those orgs....

what i'm trying to say all along is what girgit has summed up so well with this quote: Nice!

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Re: Islam and the West

Nisha- there are plenty of muslims and plenty of muslim organizations which have been speaking out, educating, involved in community activities (and i dont mean just the muslim community) .. if that is not picked up by the talking heads then there is not much that one can do.

as far as haters go, the type of people whose grandparents were against civil rights movement and really never got rid of their bigotry, It is amusing to me that they can find the most remote examples of some jackass of a muslim doing something moronic in US or in Burkina Faso, but are unable to find anything good that any muslim group is doing. It is the same type of jackasses who dont even know that fatwa against suicide attacks has been made, against attack on civilians, agsinst terrorism, with hundreds of muslim organizations and leaders signing on it.

At the end of the day, the responsibility is a two way street. I completely whole heartedly agree that muslims need to educate people, to take a stance to limit the influence of the political extremists in our institutions, and at the same time responsibility rests on the people to go out and search and find info, find people and have a dialogue.

There may not be a muslim organization or a mosque in Po Dunk, tennessee, but does that justify bubba hatin muslims because of what he read on some 'conservative'... bigoted rightwinger site. What happened to the concept of personal responsibility to increase one's awareness.

Sorry, I dont have time to educate bigots who are a lost cause, what I can tell them is something available all over the internet and something many prominent muslims and groups have said already and continue saying. Their excuses to justify them being buncha bigot thugs go only so far.

I am a very liberal dude with no room for extremist views of anyone, whether it is some muslim or a muslim hater.

Now could a stronger more coordinated PR campaign help? sure.. never hurts, but in a place where we have birthers or people who think Obama is a muslim, those type of ass clowns can live in their own la la land, logic and facts dont really get in their way.

There is a saying in urdu, Bhains kay aagay been bajana..thats what it is like trying to educate such people. They will find some other excuse. Now.. in my workplace, community and neighbourhood, my actions speak louder than words and conversations with others even if not about religion have them of get a better understanding of me as a person and my family and their views of muslims get shaped from there, that I am very much aware of and do my best. Edumacating some bigot thug from podunkville, Crappy Red state is not my responsibility. its his responsibility to go learn. His ignorance is due to him not doing enough, not due to me not doing enough.

PS: what are these types doing to educate me that they are not all part of the racist anti govt militias and that they dont support them. booo hoo I am so scared..their silence is deafening..add other cliches..

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Re: Islam and the West

X2 bro, you just did the same thing.....in the case of OP.
(Don't mean literally)
For 60 post so far, she/he has same/similar agenda despite sincere answers. :(

She/he knows very well the answer is out there but 'had' to go with the flo! :)

Its about time people stop wasting time explaining someone who has a biased mind.