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Inside the Gunman's Mosque
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The alleged Fort Hood gunman had revealed a hard-line Islamist streak to acquaintances in the Muslim Community Center that he made his mosque. The Daily Beast's Asra Q. Nomani reports.
Not long ago, inside the quiet library of the Muslim Community Center here in Silver Spring, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C., Golam Akhter, a local Bangladeshi-American civil engineer, 67, got into a fierce debate with a young Muslim doctor over how to interpret the concept of “jihad” within Islam. Akhter argued, “Jihad means an inner struggle, fighting against corruption and injustice.”
The young doctor responded. “That’s not a correct interpretation. Jihad means holy war. When your religion isn’t safe, you have to fight for it. If someone attacks you, you must fight them. That is jihad. You can kill someone who is harming you.”
A closer look reveals a complex picture of a young first-generation American Muslim man living a life of dissonance between his identity as an American and his ideology as a Muslim who had accepted a literal, rigid interpretation of Islam.
The conversation would be just another theological debate, interesting but irrelevant, except that the doctor was Maj. Nidal Hasan, 39, the gunman in the tragic Fort Hood rampage. After being posted to Walter Reed Hospital as a psychiatrist, Hasan called the Muslim Community Center his local mosque. It’s just a short drive away from Walter Reed.
In interviews with the media, leaders of the Muslim Community Center have painted a portrait of Hasan as a quiet, unassuming Muslim more interested in finding a wife than debating world politics. They express shock at his killing spree and, appropriately, condemn it. But a closer look behind the doors of the mosque and inside the conversations between the engineer and the doctor reveal a more complex picture of a young first-generation American Muslim man living a life of dissonance between his identity as an American and his ideology as a Muslim who had accepted a literal, rigid interpretation of Islam, akin to the puritanical Wahhabi and Salafi interpretations of Islam that define the theology of militancy inside the Muslim world today, according to community members who knew Hasan.
“So many times I talked with him,” said Akhter, a community leader who is sort of like a mosque gadfly, challenging congregants to reject literal, rigid interpretations of Islam. “I was trying to modernize him. I tried my best. He used to hate America as a whole. He was more anti-American than American.”
Despite all the conversations, Akther said, “I couldn’t get through to him. He was a typical fundamentalist Muslim.”
It wasn’t a label assigned lightly. Rather, it emerged after many one-on-one conservations between the engineer and the doctor in quiet spots from the library to the lobby to the prayer hall, discussing issues of interpretation like jihad, polygamy, assimilation, foreign policy, and the cutting of hands for theft. Other members of the community confirm this portrait of Hasan.
The story of Hasan at his local mosque is a cautionary tale to all Muslim communities about the consequences when we fail to win the war of ideas in the Muslim world with moderate interpretation of Islam over rigid, literal interpretations. Part of the problem is that many Muslims are clinging to the notion of an “ummah,” or “community,” with a capital “U,” a view that inhibits dissent and encourages blind loyalty to a global Islam.
In that struggle, we whitewash the truth of men like Hasan responding defensively, rejecting any links to Islamic teachings and, ultimately, I believe, denying the reality of a radicalized ideology of Islam that sanctions violence. In this ideology, men like Maj. Hasan believe they are betraying their fellow Muslims if they fight for the U.S. Army in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Last week, on the eve of Hasan's killing spree, two Iranian-American security guards walked up to a U.S. Army officer in uniform in the parking lot outside the Sears auto repair shop in Herndon, Virginia, not far from where Hasan grew up in Arlington. “I want to join the Army,” one of the security guards said, “but I don’t want to kill my Muslim brothers, you know? So they won’t send me to Afghanistan or Iraq…Will they?” The military officer smiled. Of course, “they” would likely send the men to Iraq or Afghanistan if they joined the military. America is at war in those two countries.
To me, the conversation was revealing. From Seattle to my hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia, and the mosque in Silver Spring, I have heard an ideology that Muslims belong to an “ummah,” in which Muslims can’t turn against other Muslims. As a Muslim-American writer-activist, challenging rules that banish women to the back corners of mosques, I have been told that I must stay quiet so as not to cause “fitna,” or division, inside the community.
Five years ago, in an email to community members, a member of the board of trustees of the Muslim Community Center argued one of my objectives was to “create fitna (chaos) in the community.”
It’s critical that we ditch the concept of the “ummah” with a capital “U” and recognize that we are an “ummah” with a small “u,” meaning our religious identity doesn’t have to supersede other loyalties and identities. This attempt to push an “Ummah” is the politics of ideologues of puritanical Islam who want to mollify dissent. Sadly, too many moderates have bought into it. We aren’t monolithic, and we shouldn’t try to be. Look at al Qaeda, the Taliban and Pakistani militant groups: They don’t have a problem with killing Muslims, slaying Muslims in attacks from Amman, Jordan, to Islamabad, Pakistan.
For ideologues, in a battle over loyalty between the Army and the ummah, the “Ummah” wins. At my mosque in Morgantown, I have heard this Quranic verse used to quiet dissent (3:103): “Hold fast to the rope of Allah, the faith of Islam, and be not divided in groups.” Another verse in the same chapter (3: 110) says: “You [Muslims] are the best nation brought out for Mankind, commanding what is righteous and forbidding what is wrong.” In yet another verse, the Quran (21:92) refers to “ummah wahida” or “one community,” which ideologues push as a unified Islamic world, even a caliphate.
In an essay, “Unity of Muslims,” on a Web site by a Muslim organization, Dar-ul-ehsan, or “the House of Blessing,” with a branch advertised in Bristol, Connecticut, the group’s leader, Shiekh Abu Anees Muhammad Barkat Ali, says, “Oh my dear Muslim brother! Unite together above all sectarian and racial strifes for the promotion of Unity and Brotherhood amongst the Islamic Ummah, the Muslim Community.” The capitalization comes from the group. In a September letter to Muslims, Mullah Umar, the leader of the Taliban in exile, extend greetings to “all Islamic Ummah.”
As a result of this kind of ideology, Muslims such as the writers of a Web site, RevolutionIslam.com, called Hasan “an officer and a gentleman” and praised his alleged killing spree at Fort Hood, sending him “Get Well” greetings.
Throughout the Muslim community, there is a battle over legitimacy, authority, and identity. Back in Silver Spring, on the day of the debate between the engineer and the doctor over the meaning of jihad, Akhter said that Hasan told him that if he didn’t believe in jihad as warfare, “Then you are not a Muslim.”
That politics of making another Muslim illegitimate is a strategy typically used today by literal, rigid interpreters of Islam to discredit other Muslims, in the spirit of a group of 7th century Muslims, the Kharijites, who used a politics called “takfeer” to declare other Muslims apostates.
Akhter responded: “Only Allah can say who is good.”
Hasan answered back: “It is written in the holy Quran. If a believer has any question about the Quran, then he is not a true believer.”
To argue for jihad as holy war is to accept strict adherence to verses such as this one (2: 216), translated in the Noble Quran as: “Jihad (holy fighting in Allah’s cause) is ordained for you (Muslims) though you dislike it.” That translation is published by the government of Saudi Arabia.
Another time, the engineer and the doctor debated the question of whether a thief’s hand should be cut off, a punishment laid out in a literal read of the Quran (5: 38). Akhter made the historically accurate point that Umar, the second caliph after the death of the prophet Muhammad, suspended this punishment during a time of famine. Hasan listened and then responded, “That’s not for everybody. Only Umar can interpret that. We have to follow the Quran in total.” Hasan’s strict adherence to literal readings of the Quran betrays his leanings to extremist Islam.
Ironically, last year, long before the tragedy at Fort Hood, an officer at the Army's Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, wrote a research paper in which he tried to understand the dilemma facing Muslims in the West. In the paper, “American Muslims: Living the Dream,” U.S. Army Maj. Matthew P. Neumeyer wrote that while Muslim immigrants in the U.S. “share the same characteristics as any other immigrant group coming to America looking for a chance at prosperity,” he noted, “At this time, however, Muslim immigrants are at the center of a large struggle among Western governments, moderate Muslim communities, and Islamic extremist groups.”
In the midst of the many conversations he had with Hasan, Akhter stood outside the Muslim Community Center, distributing photocopies of a Washington Post article about an Afghan mother who tried to stop her radicalized son from carrying out a suicide bombing; the bomb exploded in the family’s home, killing the mother, her son, and her three other children. In a later email to mosque members, he urged them, “Let us wake up,” and take note of who are “potential terrorists, who are fanatics, who are fundamentalists” in the community.
No one in the mosque responded with concerns about Hasan’s extremist views. Rather, when he had distributed the newspaper article, Akther said, a member of the mosque yelled at him, charging him with causing “fitna” in the ummah.
Two years later, this past Friday after the Fort Hood massacre, TV crews and journalists thronged the yard of the mosque with questions about the religious identity of one man: Maj. Hasan.
Asra Q. Nomani is the author of Standing Alone: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam. She is co-director of the Pearl Project, an investigation into the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Her activism for women’s rights at her mosque in West Virginia is the subject of a PBS documentary, The Mosque in Morgantown. She can be found on Facebook, and reached at asra@asranomani.com
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This is a very good article.
Thank you for such an insightful and heartfelt article. Religious extremism, regardless of religion, contradicts the very point and purpose of faith and faithful communities. I am constantly reminded that more people have been killed in the name of God than for any other reason. Serious and rational discussion is needed in regards to this issue, particularly as it pertains to the role and monitoring of organized religion in the United States. Unfortunately the very nature of religious extremism is to prevent the possibility of any such discussion. Politicians routinely bow to the wishes of radicalized minorities of so-called Christians and simultaneously condemn the same sort of gutless kowtowing in the muslim world. I don't imagine much will change or any progress will be made in any area of life until extremists (political and religious) are marginalized to the fringes where they exist (and belong) rather than being given consideration greater than is warranted or deserved. The squeaky wheel sometimes needs to be thrown out.
There's another side to this story. Osman Danquah, co-founder of the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen near Ft Hood thought that the military's chain of command knew about Hasan's anti-american jihad beliefs which had been known for more than year to his classmates in a graduate military medical program. His fellow students complained to the faculty about Hasan's "anti-American propaganda" but said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim student kept officers from filing a formal written complaint. I'm planning to lobby my congressional and senator representatives for public hearings on why Hasan's long paper trail of anti-american propaganda in his personnel record went unnoticed by Commanders at Ft Hood, but instead rewarded with a promotion to Major this past May.
Without knowing what the actual content of Hasan's views were, I feel you are unwarranted in labelling them as "anti-american propaganda"----although you claim, perhaps rightly that this labelling was done by his classmates in their complaints.
However that may be, his views may well be such that there is support in fact for them.....but it's unlikely that the facts as to what his views were will ever come out.
Whatever he thought, or felt, he had taken an oath. And if he could not function with that, then he obviously should have found another way out.
If he wanted to fight Americans, then he could have joined Al Quaeda in Pakistan for combat training. Not the cowardly way of bringing weapons into a guaranteed weapons-free area to assault American soldiers (and a civilian).
I'm sorry, radicalized Christians?
I wasn't aware they were killing people on a grand scale, flying planes into buildings, chopping off heads, strapping bombs onto their children to go out and blow up innocent people, or destroy an entire race of people known as the Jews.
The attempt at Moral Relevance is stunning!
Ignoring your inability to see the connections, suppose you are right. Muslims are terrible and evil blah, blah, blah. What do we do? Start a "War on Islam"? Acknowledge that only "muslims are terrorists"? All this fingerpointing and group-hating gets us nothing accept more potential enemies. Do we stick our head in the sand? No. But neither do we declare a "holy war" against a couple BILLION adherents of a particular religion. The results would be catastrophic.
You're right. They usually start with taunting frightened women at clinics (which I believe Jesus covered on the sermon on the mount, was it? It was right after "The meek shall inherit the earth" I believe) before they shoot doctors. But no, so far, in this country, they haven't strapped any bombs to anybody...yet. In Northern Ireland, on the other hand....
If you want to be a bigot, fine. Be a bigot. Fear Islam, hate muslims, do what you need to do. But let's not pretend that you're religion has any less blood on its hands than any other. The attempt at Moral Superiority is...sad.
syndicatenyc-
I'm just addressing the reality of the situation.
You can bury your head in the sand and speak all of this holier then thou crap if you want to but the truth is, Islamofascism is on the rise and they are in a world wide war against Western Civilization. Reason being, we are infidels. They have stated that as their mission. Somehow I believe them over your sanctimonious BS. For you to not be concerned about this growing problem is the height of stupidity!
To compare them with modern day Christians where you have a few wackos who are off the reservation out of millions is absurd. Christianity doesn't call for jihad against the infidels. Their stated mission is about love not death.
Anyway, I don't recall telling you "My Religion"
They are taunting women at abortion clinics because they believe that those women are Killing their unborn babies. We have laws against killing. If you kill an expectant mother, guess what? You get charged with two murders! Which is it, life, or not life. You can't have it both ways.
You are probably one of those pro abortion zealots anyway so what's the point.
You can call me a bigot if you want to. I take that with the rest of your comments for what they are worth coming from you. Illogical Clap Trap!
brownjackson-
The first thing I would do is disavow this Political Correctness that is absolutely killing the debate and allowing this problem to fester. People just refuse to admit that radical Islam is a growing problem in this country despite the evidence to the contrary.
As you. "Muslims are terrible and evil blah, blah, blah."
This guy who did this "Act of Terrorism" at Fort Hood was a member of the same Mosque as three of the 9/11 hijackers!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6521758/Fort- Hood-shooting-Texas-army-killer-linked-to-September-11-terrorists.html
Call me kooky but I think a reasonable place to start would be to investigate that Mosque and find out what the Imam over there is preaching. If he is brainwashing people to hate Americans and to perform Jihad then it's time to take this guy out.
@escomments, SyndicateNYC is right and you're wrong. Christian extremists do indeed blow up buildings and murder people here in the U.S. (and Ireland, and Bosnia, and... )
You're also wrong about the charges when a pregnant woman is killed. In no state in the nation is this charged as a double homicide.
Sure, there are extremist sects of Islam which are anti-American, etc. But there are extremist sects of Christianity which are anti-American, too, opposing equal rights for women, for gay people, for racial minorities, and for non-Christians. Here in DC, an elderly Christian extremist walked into the Holocaust Museum a few weeks ago and shot a guard dead.
You want to paint "islamofacism" as if it is something unique, and it isn't. Trying to pretend that it is weakens your arguments. Tim McVeigh would have killed just as many people as Osama bin Laden if he'd had the money and the crew. People in Oklahoma City haven't forgotten that. Neither should you.
Every religion has extremists guilty of bloody crimes; every religion has its eras of genocide. In the 1192-1995 war in Bosnia, the U.S. fought on the Muslim side, trying to protect them from genocide perpetrated by Serbian Christians. You say you weren't aware; well, now you are.
1992-1995; my keyboard done me wrong.
Well said! The radiacal elements of the Muslim world are making good progress to turn the ROW against them, and the rest of Muslim propulations. One really has to question the value of religions; they have clearly not kept up with the times. How sad is it to have milliions of people die to prove that 'my imaginary friend is better than your imaginary friend'?
Until we find a solution to religiously inspired terrorism, whether Ft. Hood type or wayward nukes, the extremists will command a center place in our attention.
Very good article. Thank you. I just wonder why when there is a serial killer or a spree killer, we never hear what religion these people were raised -- until now. This guy who just had the 10 bodies in his basement in Ohio -- was he christian, Buddhist, Jewish? What about Andrew Cunanan, or Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer.
I am sorry, I am not particularly religious (between agnostic and athiest), but it just seems that this is quite unfair. The guy clearly lost his mind. Perhaps his religion helped him to deal with his issues for months while he lived in DC and could attend his local parish or mosque, and when he went to Texas, the disconnection from the tenants of his faith left him ungrounded, without community, without support and he cracked.
The issue is not what religion a person practices, but if their actions are perpetrated in the name of or in furtherance of their religion. Bundy did not kill people in the name of Christ. Dahmer did not kill people in defense of Christianity. Their motivations were completely different from "Christian" abortion clinic bombers and "Muslim" defenders of the faith murderers. This is why the religion of the murderer is relevant.
Again genius, what does it matter why he killed? You think if he was a christian instead of a muslim he wouldn't have went on a rampage? People like this could be buddhists and would go on a killing spree. Religion is the rationalization, it's not the cause nor the impetus force.
It doesn't make much difference what religion a person is raised in. What makes the difference is what religion the person lives in. Religion is not like skin color. It requires commitment and action.
is your name from Narnia?
OK. I checked. Jeffrey Dahmer was a Church of Christ (Stone Campbell) Christian. Ted Bundy was a Methodist who even served as a vice-president of the Youth Fellowship. David Berkowitz (son of sam) was born Jewish but became born again Christian. John Wayne Gacy was Catholic. i couldn't find out about spree killer Andrew Cunanan. My super-creepy point is that people of the Islamic faith don't have a monopoly on being crazy serial or spree killers.
I would also suspect that most if not all of these people were...
a) a lot more mentally ill than the rest of us
b) not very good at following the teachings of whatever faith community they were attached to
c) able to twist elements of their faith, if they actually had one, to rationalize their behavior
Patriotchick,
The difference between Dahmer, Berkowitz, Bundy, Gacy, Cunanan and Hasan is that the former did not commit their horrible crimes with faith as a justification. Hasan on the other hand used his faith to justify his actions, as many misguided terrorists do.
To my knowledge Islam itself does not allow for any crimes like the one that Hasan committed. But Islam does seem to leave itself open to interpretation that often rationalizes and justifies these awful acts. Furthermore, in Islam, questioning these "rationalizations" can be interpreted as a sin making it very difficult to snuff out extremism.
speaking of rationalization of violence.....you obviously haven't read the Old Testament of the Bible. Read forward Joshua "claiming" the land for the Israelites. Among other thiings, Jehovah (God) commands Joshua to "grasp the babes by their ankles and bash their heads against stones."
Another example from history: the first crusade ended with the slaughter of all Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem.
The list is long.
Long before Islam was founded in 7th century, Christians supported their faith by immolating themselves----which is a fancy word for saying that they committed suicide to demonstrate their faith. So muslims have no monopoly on religiously inspired violence.
@aibeta18: "The difference between Dahmer, Berkowitz, Bundy, Gacy, Cunanan and Hasan is that the former did not commit their horrible crimes with faith as a justification."
I see your point about D, B, B, G & C, but Tim McVeigh did. So did Scott Roeder, James Kopp (murder and multiple attempted murders), Eric Rudolph (multiple murder and attempted mass murder), John Salvi (multiple murder), Paul Hill (multiple murder), Rachelle Shannon, Michael Griffin, Jim Jones in Guyana (mass murder), and, most recently, James von Brunn down at the Holocaust Museum this summer. The KKK claims to be a Christian organization, too, "defending their faith."
Don't kid yourself. Christianity is just as open to Islam as being "open to interpretation [which] often rationalizes and justifies these awful acts." In the hearts and mouths of murderers, any faith can be used as an excuse.
Stop making excuses for suicide bombers by quoting old testament.You obviously have no understanding of Christianity or the bible seeing that you don't even know that Christianity is based on the New Testament and islam draws from the Old Testament.
In Iran they finish every prayer session by chanting "death to Israel and America".That's happening today,not the seventh century,today.You live in a liberal fantasyland that won't allow you to recognize that militant Islam is the main force of evil in the middle east and is promoted by entire Governments with militaries and aspirations for nuclear weapons.
No legitimate government or person praises any act done in the name of Jesus.But you have to look no further than this comment board to find moral justifications being made for the Fort Hood idiot.
10% too 20% of Muslims see nothing wrong with suicide bombers.That's millions of people driven to murder for their religion.
Christianity may be open to violent interpretations by some,but they are so minute that to compare them to radical Islam is intellectually dishonest.
The irony of your equivocations is that you libs. would be the first ones killed by an islamic theocracy.
LIBERALS,WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE !
dissent is a fundamental human right. if any "community" tries to suppress dissent it is no community at all. Islam has to learn this and stop drawing a line between "believers" and "non-believers" and view all people equally. other religions have made this transition. the leaders of islam should consider this very important question
I agree. If Islam didnt exist there would be almost no violence or very little in this world. We would at least be able to get the oil.
Dear friend,
I agree-----but! In about the 12th century, muslim sufis launched the idea of the equality of all religions. And the right of all to practice as they wish.L
Like many other Sufi ideas, this one was widely accepted. Prior to that, Jews and Christians were allowed to pay an extra tax under muslim rule and have full religious freedom.
Pick up Karen Armstrong's book "Islam" and take a look.
Shame the Sufis aren't a important players in the Ummah. The Sufis (and Ismailies) are wonderful, happy, laissaiz-faire (sp?) people who have nothing to do with the terrorist elements of Islam. Implying that the Sufi philosophy has any real influence in the modern Sunni/Shia Ummah is a very Karen Armstrong fluffy attempt at encouraging head burial in sand.
a very thought provoking article indeed..... true that mr hasan wrongfully used Islam as his shield to justify the horrendous act which he committed.... one aspect though which was left untouched was the fact that the shooting spree was a reaction too.... it was a response to the treatment he was meted out by his fellow army men...reminds me of the Virginia tech University Shoot-out and a movie called the Dark Matter... hope this part of the story too is highlighted....
This is a sick comment -- blaming the victims for their own murders.
And yet so common a point among those who rationalize murder.
It should be known as "The Little Eichmanns Defense."
i am not blaming the victims and not defending hasan.... what i am saying is that the incident has another aspect to it... and it needs to be highlighted too...
Where's Dick Cheney when you need him.
Do you also blame American foreign policy for 9/11?
Very good article that gives us some insight into Hasan's mind.
Imagine Hasan's shock when he woke up and he wasn't surrounded by sixteen virgins.
Why the article seems bit confusing, is it because its full of religious arguments, which seems to be biased as they are just put up for the sake of proving one's opinion, or because it quotes the statements from a character who never spoke, when he could have stop this to happen. Any ways, Islam does have many interpretations, and its not the only religion that has it. What Maj. Hassan did is still a question, whether it is religiously motivated or it was because of the anger or sense of insecurity, or disrespect to him by his colleagues, we all do not know. It will be definitely very hard to convince either side from stop killing the innocent, which obviously both sides do, and one does it in high numbers.
My God .. Another comment that suggests maybe we should blame the victims!
He yelled allahu akbar as he mowed people down,I would say there's a chance it was religiously motivated! Islam has many interpretations?
I'm looking for cheney's telephone number.
@ game on... that means that any religious man who goes mad and kills innocent people is not a killer but a JIHADIST of his religion.... come on grow up buddy.... the story has two faces
No, it means that any man who contacts Al Qaeda ,declares he's a "soldier of Allah and then proceeds to execute soldiers,including pregnant women while screaming Islamic phrases is an Islamic Jihadist.What do you think the victims were thinking as he was murdering them? I'll bet ya they thought he was an Islamic Jihadist also.
What kind of woman who is free to choose, living as she does in the free society that she does, enjoying the freedoms that she does, hard won as they are, could possibly want to encourage in others, or attempt to reform, or have anything to do with the absurd hateful misogynistic superstition of an old bedouin soothsayer is beyond me.
You are a fraud, a joke. Like all 'ordinary people' who allow such muck to still pollute the air of free-thinking scientific liberalism that is possible in western societies. You don't deserve the space on this web page that you have been given. Take your equivocation and intellectual cowardice and get lost. Take the bible thumpers with you when you leave.
What right you have to judge? and why all these white freaks not just join the army if they want to do something? either drug addicted, or too fat, they are worthless at the end of the day they are all just go back to steal money from their grandma.
Racist loon alert.
Your comments are always racist and have an incredibly poor use of the english language.
About the only thing I can understand from your comment is that you're a racist. Other than that, it's incomprehensible.
Actually, why don't YOU leave and take your "free-thinking scientific liberalism" with you."
The majority of us, unlike rigid freaks like you, prefer good ol' FREE-THINKING!
Willaboy--stupid name. The majority of us blah blah blah...free thinking..blah blah blah.....rediculous.
Don't know where you get the idea that Mohammed was against women.
Fact: Prior to Mohammed, women in Arabia had the status equivalent to slaves.
Fact: Mohammed gave women the right of divorce, the right of inheritance, and the full right to worship God on a equal footing with men. (Koran sura 33, verse 35)
Fact: With the expansion of muslims they came in contact with Christians, Jews and Persian Zoroastrians, who with their customs of covering up women and hiding them in harems had great inflrence on the muslims. Paternalistic suppression of women is a universal custom since time eternal.
A bunch of throwbacks who make their women live like animals.Nice try with the jews made them wear burqa thing,get real.Whens the last time you saw a christian treating their wife like that?It's because everybody else has progressed except for muslims.
Having an internal debate over differing religious interpretations is one thing, but killing innocent people is entirely different, and criminal (no longer religious, fundamentalist or moderate).
Suicide bombers in Pakistan, Afhanistan and Iraq
kill mostly their own people (ummah, with or without Captal 'U'), or shia killing Sunnis and vice-versa.
Maybe they can justify that too. Religion is supposed to be based on love, not hate This is the 21st century, not 7th.
A very disturbing regressive trend !
This incidence and this article on it just another sad reminder.
Religioins are stupid, period. They are irrelevant to this society, we are no longer in the cave and afriad of lightening. We don't have to pray for rain anymore, and knowing that Santa Clause is not real---why are we still talk nonsense in this day and age? Are we still that stupid?
Religion may be stupid to you, but to some of us well educated, deep thinking people it is very important. Maybe, if you were more informed about religion you wouldn't be so hostile. If you were more informed you'd know that Santa Claus is only a feature of the Church of Shopping.
Still that stupid from someone who can't spell religions and Santa Claus! All righty then... Billions of educated, intelligent people, many of whom can spell, are adherents of the various world's religions.
Religion is a plague on humanity. I hope that at least some good can come of this atrocity and we begin to dismantle all religions, everywhere. Islam and Scientology are among the most dangerous and should be the first to go, but the other major religions like Judaism and Christianity must be abandoned if we, as a society, can ever hope to be ruled by reason, logic, and wisdom. Folks, no matter which way you slice it delusion is delusion and we have too many other issues to be concerned with to be dealing with warrantless barbarism.
Don't let anyone ever tell you they know what happens after you die, because they don't. Anyone who claims to know is 1) lying and 2) psychotic.
Be strong enough to know the universe isn't that small or simple. Use your own thoughts and convictions to give rise to spirituality unique to yourself and make your own reasons to live life as a good person. It's time we, as a nation, stop clinging fearfully to these ancient fictions and start being spiritually self-sufficient.
TheGreatGrayFox-
No Religion isn't a plague on humanity.
That would be KNOW IT ALL PROGRESSIVES!
Did you read what I wrote at all? The point is we don't know. None of us. The point is to do the hard mental work it takes to forge a strong spiritual foundation, without the gimmicks and myths and whatnot. Atheism is just as wrong as any other religion because it claims to know absolutely that nothing exists after death.
And no, this idea is not progressive at all. In fact, it's incredibly conservative in nature. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, spiritually.
Religion would not be a problem if everyone understood these ancient books are meant to be metaphorical. This is to say that none of these "miraculous" events actually happened. They're stories, and that is /ok/. Their hyperbolic nature is meant to make abstract ideas concrete. Just because they aren't true doesn't mean they're trivial or unimportant. For goodness' sake just don't take them literally and things will improve greatly.
ThatGreatGrayFox -
Although some atheists may claim to know that nothing exists after life, there is no god, etc, atheism per se only refers to belief, not knowledge. Gnosticism has to do with knowledge. I am agnostic (as it sounds you are) because I don't know whether or not there is a god. I am an atheist because I don't believe that there is a god. Atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive.
P.S. other than that I completely agree with you, Fox.
Lets stop making excuses for this looser. We, the taxpayers, pay for his college, medical school, training, housing and food while in the base. We asked him, in exchange, to provide services to soldiers in need of psychiatric treatment. But he leeched as much as he could and "surprise, surprise" one day he realized that America is "evil". This guy is a looser, a loner, a fanatic that killed people because this is what religious fanatics do and lately it seems that there is an oversupply of them between muslims. In times of war you treat traitors as traitors, and those in the military who overlooked his traitorous remarks are responsible and must be held accountable. I he had been a member of the Aryan Nation or a member of the KKK everybody would have stopped making excuses for him. Well there is no much difference between the Aryan Nation the KKK and these fanatics. By the way we are still waiting condemnation of his actions from the religious leaders of his persuasion. Go figure.
A great post. This muslim looser has never worked a day in his life. He sucked the American Taxpayer tit since he got out of high school. We will have to continue paying him until he dies. I hope the a**hole suffers in horrible pain for the next 100 years.
Wonder if they have taken him off the payroll yet? Or maybe that is discrimination......
Only one 'o' in 'loser' guys....
Here, Here!
If he was a White Supremest, we would never hear the end of it. Matter of fact, that is all we are hearing now, how we need to make sure that there isn't any undue reaction to this incident towards Muslims at large, like that needed to be said! Seems that the next Timothy McVeigh was this guy. A Muslim Terrorist.
They condemned his actions about4 hours after his identity was revealed.
But maybe facts don't interest you, even if they are shown on TV.
While admiring the sentiments expressed in this article, it can hardly be denied that its author faces an uphill struggle. After all, on Sept. 18, 2008, the secretary general of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu declared, in a speech at Columbia University, that:
"The Muslim Ummah, means the 'community of the faithful'. It is a unique bond that has no similar example under any other political or religious system in the world. It is a belonging to ideals which bring Muslims together in an eternal brotherhood lock which transcends all other consideration of allegiance or loyalties or barriers of nationhood, ethnicity, geography or language."
See also Qur'an 48:29, which mandates that Muslims be "hard against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves."
If so, then it seems that a belief in the "Muslim Ummah" would be a direct violation of the oath of allegience that officers take to serve in the U.S. military.
I meant theoretically, in practical terms you are right.
It is just like a manager hired by, for example a restaurant, and lets people walk out without paying cause they are poor, theoretically that is nice for poor people, but in practical terms, if he is the owner that is one thing, but if he is the agent of the owner, he is ignoring his duty to his employer, and he needs to be fired because he is not doing his job.
I just hope it is just one, and not a whole bunch. It is pretty scary for the people that work there, especially if they are not allowed to carry arms.
They are sort of like sitting ducks, in a war zone, sort of.
They are hired to fight a war. If they don't agree with the war, they will have a conflict in that job, which makes a person a soldier first, and a doctor or what have you second.
In this case, his actions, made him a traitor. Technically.
I can see people with a Muslim background being an asset. If they are in that line of work, and they have their doubts on what side they are on, that is a liability, and I would not want to be a soldier, unarmed, in that room again, until a reasonable effort is made to rule out the possibility of a sleeping cell existing in that base.
I would think there is a possibility there is a sleeper cell in that area.
Why wouldn't there be?
I would not want to be unarmed in a situation like that.
Thr important thing is diversity. A dozen of our citizens being murdered from time to time is a small price to pay.
Besides, why try to tie Hasan's actions to Islam? Just because he happened to shout Allahu Akhbar doesn't mean a thing.
Just because he told his neighbor he was going to do good work for God just before the shooting, so what?
So what if he praised suicide bombers? So what if he spoke up for violent jihad? So what if he said Muslim should fight against the army he was a part of?
The important thing is to stress the Post Traumativc Distress thing. Or maybe him snapping over worry regarding his deployment.
That's the ticket...
That IS the ticket! Is this head-burial-in-the-sand spot free? :)
I do not have a religious faith myself, but I have the same problem with atheism as I do with belief in a God: if you're going to define a thing as impossible to understand-all knowing, all powerful, etc.-then I object to any human being saying he or she knows any more about it than I do. It does not matter a whit if studying it is all you've ever done. I have a decent brain myself. And I have pondered the what and why of God. But I would not presume to tell anyone else that as a result I know God any better than they do. Whatever I do know, that is between me and God.
Anyone who says a thing is unknowable (to you) except that somehow THEY know it, they are delusional, or else they are false prophets. That means all priests, ministers, and mullahs who claim anything more than that they too are seekers after truth. NO human is infallible in judgement, not a Pope, not any Imam. Not even me (smile).
Needless to say, this makes the 'Ummah' idea anathema to me. And I cannot foresee any happy ending to this warefare they make on all who are outside their little circle, unless the more rational among them take control of their extremes and, as Nomani writes here, start by knocking that 'u' out of upper-case. Good luck to you, M'am.
Hasan's fellow students complained to the faculty about his anti-American propaganda but they said that a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim student kept officers from fililng a formal written complaint....He instead was promoted to Major before his scheduled deployment. Hearings should be held to investigage why Hasan's long paper trail was ignored for so long and resulted in his carrying out what he believe necessary to achieve his goals.
I think if people could only treat others the way they would like to be treated, people might feel more kindness to each other, because they would have felt that they had received some kindness.
If a person feels boxed in, unloved, disrespected, then how can he be objective enough to be functional, in such a situation?
If he was snickered at, as he tried to fit in, from both sides, he could have felt that there was no point anymore.
I would also think there would be a personal conflict, between the need to keep one's oath of not doing any harm, and counseling/analyzing, people who may have just killed Muslims, or civilians.
If a person does not fit the role, maybe there should be some honorable way they can escape, and serve their country some other way?
dooreen said, "I would also think there would be a personal conflict, between the need to keep one's oath of not doing any harm, and counseling/analyzing, people who may have just killed Muslims, or civilians."
No, there cannot be any personal conflict to anyone who is loyal to his oath of allegience.
As I suggested above, we should consider whether a belief in a "Muslim Ummah" which "which transcends all other consideration of allegiance or loyalties or barriers of nationhood, ethnicity, geography or language" is compatible with the U.S. military oath of allegience.
Who cares. It's over. BOKO
Wonderful article!
T1Brit, Your ideological scientific militancy is scary, not to mention that I am bewildered by your ignorance. Four leading genocidal maniacs of the 20th century were not religious in the sense that you use the term. The first three used a great deal of science to perpetrate their crimes, most notably in the use of chemical warfare.
1. Hitler
2. Stalin
3. Mao
4. Pol Pot
Try not to reduce religious traditions to the actions of a few. Try not to reduce traditions to their origins, which is as absurd as reducing the value of a person to their conception. And please do not turn science into a religious institution or a militant posture toward others. Scientific methods and results are often wonderful, but last time I checked, the hard sciences do not hypothesize and prove ethics, compassion responsibility, loss, etc., nor does science address the problem of dehumanizing others.
Many lives was taken by this man.Fathers.loved ones,sisters.to prove what point.I have never seen a muslim who was hurt by anyone. He was to help soldiers through hard times, he was a failure to his beliefs. Why do muslin feels any different than Japaneese and germans,after the second world war.You know what you believe and how you were raised to see other people from different countries.This is my country,which I love,would die for,you believe how ever you want,if you dont like America ,go home.
Are you kidding me,there's still a debate about whether he did this because of his religion! He is a muslim terrorist who infiltrated our military to gain intel.,then after gathering all that he could decided to take as many infidels with him before he was deployed.
He was screaming islamic phrases as he shot soldiers,what point do you think he was trying to get across with that?
What kind of la-la land does a person have to live in to not recognize this simple truth; muslim extremism is a huge problem in this country and is promoted in Islamic mosques and schools throughout this country.It's not rare,it's not isolated.How many attacks before you realize this?
I wish I had some hope people will wake up,but I just know that the libs are to soft to protect this country and themselves.
I guess I should get my wife fitted for a burqa, it seems inevitable
Thank you for a very interesting article, and for your willingness to speak out about these issues. It is very difficult for non-Muslims to get a sense how Islamic communities in the US fit into the fundamentalist aspects of the religion that we tend to associate with other countries. It is important to have factual information rather than the stereotypes we so often get in discussing these disturbing trends.
While I believe that ultimately, progress can only be achieved by those working within the Muslim community, the more the rest of us understand about how these extremist beliefs are perpetuated, the more constructive help we can offer. For example, I would not be surprised to find out that Saudi money is still a major force behind fundamentalist teachings in Western mosques.
And yes, it is relevant that Mr. Hasan's religion be discussed in relation to the tragedy at Ft. Hood. It is not because he just happens to be a muslim, but because there appears to be considerable evidence that his religious beliefs were a motivating factor in his actions, and that they were not isolated beliefs, but part of a larger pattern of indoctrination within certain elements of Islam. To deny this and hide behind political correctness is just as cowardly as the broad condemnation of anyone who practices a particular religion.
Again, I applaud the author's efforts to help bring about progress in her community, and educate the rest of us. For those people who insist on continuing to perpetuate ugly stereotypes about all Muslims out of laziness or ignorance, please consider how you would have viewed Christianity during the time of the Crusades, particularly if you did not happen to be a Catholic. Any religion can become corrupted and twisted into a destructive cult, and unfortunately, most of them have at various times in history. The Islamic world was once an enlightented society and there is no reason it cannot be that again. We may not see it in our lifetime, but that does not mean we can simply dismiss over a billion people around the world.
I wish someone would write an article about each individual person who was the victim of this terrorist. I've heard more than enough about the murderer. Maybe it would help for people to see that there were real people who are now dead. The families who are in agony at their loss. They are the ones who shoud receive attention and be remembered, not this lunatic.
Obama, General Casey and Janet Napalatano seemed confused, the rest of us not to much. This is where Dick Chaney shines.
This reminds me of the "no-snitch" culture in the ghetto.
Thank you.
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