On today's CNN's Fareed Zakarias show he speaks about Sufi Islam. If you are STILL questioning the Community Center in Lower Manhatten and the man behind it, Imam Rauf, I hope you will watch this program.
Have you heard of Sufi Islam? Well, Al Qaeda sure has.
It is the mystical brand of Islam that embraces a more liberal interpretation of the Koran. Sufism embraces music and song. It is an interpretation that Al Qaeda views as its mortal enemy. This is the sect of Islam embraced by Imam Rauf, and Al Qaedas hatred of Sufi Islam should tell you where the Imam stands on the Islamic spectrum.
After 9/11 Pres. Bush reached out to the Sufi sect, to spread the message of peace across the world. He used Imam Rauf to do this important work. Imam Rauf is a bridge builder and Bush embraced that. You can read more of the Bush story at Shaw's Progressive Eruptions, it's fascinating.
I was watching C-Span this morning(I'm a C-Span nerd!), Bobby Ghosh, Deputy International Editor for Time Magazine was on. A guy from Georgia called into the program, he said to Ghosh there was no condemnation coming from Muslim religious leaders around the globe after the 9/11 terror attacks. Ghosh answered him saying that is absolutely false. Tens of thousands of leaders in the Muslim community denounced the attack! So my guess is this guy from Georgia gets his news and info from Fox...
A segment of our population are just simply bigots and won't open their minds to what Islam is, sadly Fox adds fuel to the fire and these people are misinformed and led astray. Also interesting, callers who were simply wrong in their assumptions of Islam and while knowing not what they were talking about tried to portray themselves as more knowledgeable about the subject than Bobby Ghosh! People need to educate themselves before they pass judgement on other cultures...
Today was the rally in NYC.
Police estimated that by 11:30 a.m. supporters of the center numbered up to 250, and critics numbered about 450. Oh well...
It was pouring rain, I hope Pam G. came away looking like a drowned rat! :-)
Open Thread May 2, 2024
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Yesterday, going through my email, I came across this headline at Wonkette:
“Does It Count As A ‘Post-Birth Abortion’ When DeSantis Takes Away A Sick
Child...
51 minutes ago
31 comments:
Check this out.
http://www.mysticsaint.info/2010/07/sufi-reading-of-jesus-teaching-parables.html
Also check the home page.
I go here a lot.
It brings me peace and serenity.
I don't care if they sing, chant or stand on their heads, so long as they respect our culture and our freedoms.
They have a constitutionally protected right to build that mosque, and 2/3 of America has the right to not like it and not like the people behind it.
We argue over gay marriage and religion, but we don't cut people's heads off over it.
We are free to worship, and we are free to desecrate the religious symbols of others.
Christians did not riot, burn down theaters and kill "infidels" over "The Last Temptation of Christ," Virgin Mary's carved out of elephant dung and crucifixes dunked in jars of urine.
If they can handle the heat and the sharp elbows of Western civilization's classical liberal values, then come on in!
If you get pissy over cartoons and express your frothy rage by doing violence, then get the hell out and go back to the snake pit you came from. We have enough home-grown nuts. We don't need to import any.
Thanks RZ, I'll look at it.
SF, I don't see any American Muslims or Muslims in general acting violent or cutting off heads over this community center debate. It's the Imam who is showing respect by his reaching out to all faiths to come to the center. It's supposed to be a place of learning and of tolerance. Americas Christians are the most intolerant group I have ever encountered!
I never heard of Sufism until reading of Richard Thompson's conversion to the religion. I've been a fan of his since his days in Fairport Convention way back when.
National Geographic Channel did a great special on the faces of Islam several years ago, and showed a Sufi prayer service; men and women worship together, all in modern dress, but women did wear head scarves in the mosque...lots of singing and chanting- there seemed to be an emphasis on transcendence. In that way it did remind me of elements of Buddhism and Hinduism, repetition of prayer or meditation with personal experience with The Divinity.....God or Allah, if you will ...as the desired outcome.
Very hard to reduce the theology into a few sentences, but one of the appealing features of Sufism is it's adaptability to the culture that surrounds it, it's serene and spiritual nature, and it's live and let live tolerance.
BTW....Sue, not all of America's Christians are intolerant. We just have an inordinately high number of them who have forgotten why most of their ancestors came to this country in the first place.
Hugh, you are correct, I should not have said that, afterall, you, me and our friends here are Christians. What I should have said was the wacko self serving "christians" are intolerant.
"A segment of our population are just simply bigots"
I wonder if that's the same 18% who thinks Obama is a Muslim?
Sufis are under attack in the Middle East, which goes to show Islam is much more intolerant that Christianity.
American Christians are the most intolerant group, Sue? Really? More intolerant that Middle Eastern muslims who stone women to death and collapse walls on homosexuals? Are you really saying they are not as intolerant as American Christians!
We do agree on one point: Muslims in this country are a blessing to our society, and thank God for that. May he save us from the misogynist, intolerant muslim bigots who have infested Europe.
Please go here
http://eyeonhate.com/mcveigh/mcveigh3.html
First of all, I cannot tell you how much I love that quote from HST, and his writing in general. Good choice!
I think it's truly a sign of how desperate the right has become when they stoop to the mosque non-issue as they scramble to find a fear-based wedge issue...They couldn't do better than this???
Great post, and terrific arguments, as always, my friend!
precisely Tom
SF I have corrected my comment about Christian intolerance. I should have been more specific and talked only about the fanatics who claim to be christian but show no signs of real christianity. They are the bigots who hate Muslims, whether they admit to it or not, we know the truth...
MP thanks for coming by, every day I look at your name in my bloglist and tell myself to get over to see you!! I promise I will!
MP I kept going over and over my post and comments looking for a quote from a HST, I said who the fuck is she talking about??! Then I see you meant my header and HST!!!LOLOL!!
Radical Muslim terrorists cut off the heads of those they disagree with? Are you sure Silverfiddle? I don't believe I've ever heard this argument before. If true, surely the actions of those on the radical Right pales in comparison...
Radical Right-wing Christian terrorist Scott Roeder assassinated a doctor who provided a legal medical service he disagreed with. This was not the first time George Tiller had been shot.
Mike Connel, a "devout Catholic", believing he was "saving the unborn", helped subvert democracy by aiding in the theft of the 2004 presidential election.
Radical Right-wing Christian homophobes opposed anti-terrorism hate crime legislation that would have applied to the murderers of Matthew Shepard... because it wasn't needed, or because the fact that Matthew Shepard was killed because he was gay is a "hoax".
Right-wing terrorists looking to kill "liberals and Democrats", or afraid of a non-existant Obama "gun ban" murdered people attending church, or police officers doing their job.
Right-wing pundits stoke hatred of the Left but disavow any responsibility when any of their followers "goes postal" (see above).
Congressman Steve King of Iowa commented on the murder/suicide of a man who crashed his plane into an IRS building, saying "I think if we’d abolished the IRS back when I first advocated it, he wouldn’t have a target for his airplane". One IRS employee was killed, and this a-hole can't help but take the opportunity to make a partisan statement!
We can argue over gay marriage and religion, but I draw the line when the Right-wing stokes hatred for the Left and then disavows the violence that inevitably follows. If they can't handle the heat that might come when the constitutional rights of other groups is defended -- perhaps they should get the hell out of our democracy and set up some intolerant Right-wing Christian theocracy elsewhere. These Constitution-haters can go back to the snake pit they crawled out of.
(BTW, Silverfiddle, you are aware that there are people who practice Islam and were born here in the United States, aren't you?)
Violence against your ideological enemies is wrong, regardless of where it comes from.
Keep digging up the few instances of rightwingchristian hate, join Southern Poverty Law Center and donate to it, but please open your eyes to what islam has done to every culture it has touched. You wanna talk ultraconservative?
btw, Tim McVeigh was a self-avowed agnostic, and Christianity had nothing to do with his terrorism.
The Turner Diaries and the Christian Identity movement did.
http://eyeonhate.com/mcveigh/mcveigh3.html
I'm not defending any of that, RZ. you attack christians and fawn over muslims.
Open both eyes. Look around.
Muslims are snuffing the light of secular liberalism in Europe, and they have snuffed it completely in the Middle East and South Asia. Lebanon was the last island of learned liberalism until Hizbollah moved in.
It there is a Christian analog of this magnitude, it has escaped the attention of mankind.
Christi
Do the Crusades, or the Inquisition ring a bell?
"Tim McVeigh was a self-avowed agnostic, and Christianity had nothing to do with his terrorism."--SF
President Obama is a self-avowed Christian, but a good number of Americans (mostly conservative Christians I would guess) think he's a Muslim or a "secret" Muslim.
McVeigh was raised a Christian--Irish Catholic.
You want us to accept that McVeigh was an agnostic, because that's what he avowed. Wouldn't it be nice if the irrational conservatives would extend the same courtesy to Mr. Obama, an avowed Christian.
It seems to work only one way.
"I don't care if they sing, chant or stand on their heads, so long as they respect our culture and our freedoms.
"--SF
Who are "they?" American Muslims? Because that's what this controversy is all about. Americans wanting to build a community center on private property. Their "culture" is American, like yours, and their "freedoms" our the exact same as yours.
What has Islam got to do with it?
"We argue over gay marriage and religion, but we don't cut people's heads off over it."
Neither do our American Muslim citizens. Why do you bring up something that occurs in radical Islamic countries?
"If you get pissy over cartoons and express your frothy rage by doing violence, then get the hell out and go back to the snake pit you came from. We have enough home-grown nuts. We don't need to import any."--SF
I have lived long enough to have heard this same sort of rancid bigotry hurled at other minorities. None of what you've laid out as grievances against Muslims has anything to do with our American neighbors who practice their Muslim faith.
You're talking about what happens in repressive Muslim countries. And that has nothing to do with America and how we respect our Constitution when it guarantees freedom of religion for all faiths.
You seem not to understand the difference.
Silverfiddle, why don't you open YOUR eyes and "look around". Nobody here is "fawning over" Muslims or attacking Christians. We're commending a Muslim who embraces a liberal interpretation of the Koran and is attempting to build bridges. We're condemning Radical Christianity.
I don't care if "2/3 of America" doesn't like the mosque. They are wrong. Shouldn't a "conservative trending libertarian" stick up for the 1st amendment rights of those wishing to build this mosque, and not be in favor of subjecting them to the tyranny of the majority?
Great misdirect, Shaw. I don't traffic in media-generated (Time magazine poll) garbage about how almost as many people who believe in UFOs also believe Obama is a Muslim. This idiotic non-issue has nothing to do with what I am saying.
I also have nothing against muslims here as long as they are not "honor killing" their daughters for looking at a boy. I almost got kicked out of Free Republic, and I got dogpiled at American Thinker, for defending the family of Rifqa Bary
What I am saying is we should guard our freedoms. Muslims have a history of snuffing classical liberalism everywhere they go, our country excepted so far. If they can respect our culture and freedoms and not burn down embassies over cartoons, they they are welcome.
So we share the hope that muslims here can indeed continue to eschew the violence and foam-at-the-mouth hatred their brethren have visited upon every other country that has had the misfortune to host them.
Dervish: I absolutely defend their right to build this mosque, as I've repeated about a thousand times...
That doesn't mean I have to like it.
If they're trying to build bridges, pissing off 2/3 of the country is a hell of a way to do it.
You're use of the strawman is Obama-esque.
Please excuse my "Obama-esque" strawman then. I didn't realize that it was a thousand times that you said you're opposed to the mosque because it "pisses you off"... NOT because you believe the constitution shouldn't apply to "certain groups".
I thought it was a thousand times that you said how terrible Islam is.
2/3 of America isn't going to stay "pissed off". Once it's built the controversy will go away, because the radical Right won't have an issue to score political points with anymore.
Is there any religion that doesn't have kooks who use it to commit despicable acts or justify despicable behavior?
what a great conversation, thanks guys for a great debate. There's a 3 yr old here with me, driving me bonkers and I can't think straight, so enjoy!
Dervish: Your comment betrays an ingrained liberal tendency that explains why you guys are such suckers for heroic, iconic statists.
The mentality seems to be: "The law has spoken! Everybody shut up!"
Well, we won't shut up. Go read Voltaire. One can simultaneously oppose an idea while supporting the right to hold and act upon that idea. At least those whose brains are not eaten up by party propaganda...
Sue: It is a blessing to be driven bonkers by a 3 year old!
aaaaahh yes the blessing finally fell asleep!
The argument about Islam can get repetitive, I can see there is no changing anyone's mind. I love what w-dervish said about practicing Muslims who were born here and are Americans. I was thinking the same thing today. People like SF fear Muslims, they look at all Muslims like they are the boogeyman radical out to destroy OUR way of life. That's absurd. They may pray different than you, but so do Catholics and Mormons. Do you fear them?
I really can't add anymore to the conversation, my liberal friends have done a great job explaining our view to SF. Thanks all!
I guess the "ingrained liberal tendency" of insisting the opposition shuts up after "the law has spoken" explains why there were no protests by the Left during the time bush held office.
Sounds like a Rove-esque strawman to me.
Sue: This really is a superb post. I don't have anything to add, though. I can't handle talking to conservatives - they're so depressing and so scary and a few other things I won't say in public.
"there were no protests by the Left during the time bush held office."
And Sue is a right wing conservative.
So, Lisa the Loon, provide some examples. The only protests I remember during the Bush years took place on Tax Day each April 15.
Even if Sue were conservative, she'd have 100 times the brains you have. Believe it or not, there are some intelligent conservatives - you just ain't one of them.
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