"Robert Houghton" <robert45@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:000301c8a499$3ab8cbc0$537089c3@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> ...
> One finds it repeated by apparently authoritative sources ...
<snip> ...
Comment:-
But your so-called "authoritative sources", namely Sookhdeo and Memri, are
notoriously unreliable, as has been demonstrated on many previous
occasions
in the forum. Why should any intelligent reader unthinkingly accept the
unscrupulously partisan and biased opinions of these bigoted sources to
accurately explain anything sensible about "jihad", Islam or actual Muslim
beliefs, in the real world of today?
Why haven't you learnt anything new from Professor Patricia Crone and
Professor Fred Halliday's articles on "jihad" from these links given to
you
previously in this forum? :-
http://www.opendemocracy.net/faith-europe_islam/jihad_4579.jsp#four
<Quote> ...
This leads to the fourth question: what is the relevance of all this to
the
modern world? The Muslims have not practiced missionary jihad since the
decline of the Ottoman empire, at least not under the sponsor****p of
states,
and to my knowledge there are no serious calls for its return. What the
tradition has left is a strong activist streak, a sense that it is right
to
fight for your convictions. "Look at you, you Christians, with your
passivity you have turned religion into something that doesn't exist", as
demonstrators against Salman Rushdie said in Paris in March 1989. But to
understand the fundamentalists we need to go to the other kind of jihad,
the
one practiced when the Muslims are politically weak.
What happens when Muslim territory falls under infidel sovereignty? Can
Muslims stay on and live under non-Muslim rule? Some jurists said yes,
others denied it on the grounds that Islamic law could only be applied in
full under Muslim sovereignty. If infidels conquered Muslim land, the
Muslims had to emigrate, they had to make a hijra to a place where they
could practice Islamic law - either an existing Muslim state or a new one
set up by themselves - and then they should start holy war in order to
reconquer their homeland. Not all scholars subscribed to this view, but it
was upheld by many in response to the loss of Muslim territory in Spain
and
it also inspired anti-colonial movements in British India, French Algeria
and elsewhere.
<Unquote> ...
AND:-
http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization/left_jihad_3886.jsp
<Quote> ...
All of this is - at least to those with historical awareness, sceptical
political intelligence, or merely a long memory - disturbing. This is
because its effect is to reinforce one of the most pernicious and
inaccurate
of all political claims, and one made not by the left but by the
imperialist
right. It is also one that underlies the US-declared "war on terror" and
the
policies that have resulted from 9/11: namely, that Islamism is a movement
aimed against "the west".
This claim is a classic example of how a half-truth can be more dangerous
than an outright lie. For while it is true that Islamism in its diverse
political and violent guises is indeed opposed to the US, to remain there
omits a deeper, crucial point: that, long before the Muslim Brotherhood,
the
jihadis and other Islamic militants were attacking "imperialism", they
were
attacking and killing the left - and acting across Asia and Africa as the
accomplices of the west.
<Unquote> ...
AND:-
http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization/liberal_riposte_4242.jsp
<Quote> ...
I am grateful to Fouzi Slisli & Jacqueline Kaye for their thoughtful reply
to my article on the left and radical Islam ("A liberal logic", 8 December
2006). It has led me to clarify some of my argument in the original
version,
but also to see more clearly a larger issue which divides us.
The points of disagreement may be approached by way of an *****sment of
the
political character and potential of religions. I entirely agree with the
co-authors in regard to the possibility of a reading (and a subsequent
politics) based on Islam which is compatible with human emancipation,
democracy and (if it is so wished) socialism. The examples they cite - of
nationalist struggle, arguments for social justice from the Soviet past,
and
the work of Maxime Rodinson (of which I am an intellectual disciple) -
bear
this out.
This is not, however, because Islam, any more than any other religion, is
"essentially" or necessarily the embodiment of one politics or another,
but
rather that it is - like Christianity, or Judaism - contingent. Religions
are not a fixed menu, more an á la carte; they permit of different
choices.
With all the variety of themes and messages that they contain, they allow
of
plural contem****ary readings compatible with diverse political positions.
I am at the moment engaged in a long-term project on ways of realising the
principles of cosmopolitanism in the 21st century. This involves examining
how these monotheistic religions have or can (in text and tradition) be
used
for cosmopolitan or internationalist purposes, even as they have also been
used for ends that are nationalistic, chauvinist, exclusive, not to say
murderous.
The key question is one of control over interpretation, ultimately of
power:
who decides which reading to promote. My own argument in this context is
that, for much of recent decades, the predominant reading within the
Muslim
world - by states and opposition movements alike - has been one that sees
the socialist, left, forces inside their countries as the enemy. This is
not
the product of some dogmatic or essentialist necessity: it is a result of
politics, particularly the politics of the cold war and of the ways in
which
Muslim states, and their sup****ters in the United States, have used
Islamic
politics to counter the left, in a whole range of countries.
<Unquote> ...
Perhaps then, after reading these sober articles, intelligent readers
might
just discover, that the only offence is ignorance, lies and mindless
reliance on malicious misinformation about "jihad", from unscrupulous and
offensively loud sources, such as Sookhdeo and Memri, including their
ideological cohorts in this forum?
The signature below summarises it all, some would conclude!
--
Peace
--
For malice will with joy the lie receive, Re****t, and what it wishes true
believe. [Rev. Thomas Yalden]
Zuiko Azumazi.
zuiko.azumazi@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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