BBC religion chief says it is wrong to suggest Isis has nothing to do with Islam

[trotsky]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/bbc-religion-chief-says-it-is-wrong-to-suggest-isis-has-nothing-to-do-with-islam-a7060871.html

People should admit the "uncomfortable" truth that Islamic State is made up of Muslims and their doctrine is Islamic, the BBC’s head of religion told an audience of students.

Professor Aaqil Ahmed, the first Muslim to hold the role at the corporation, said it was wrong to suggest the terrorist group "has nothing to do with Islam" during a speech at Huddersfield University last week.

He also responded to criticism of the BBC’s use of the term "so-called Islamic State" in its programming since last year.

Professor Ahmed said: "I hear so many people say Isis has nothing to do with Islam — of course it has. They are not preaching Judaism."

So he's an Islamophobe, right? No wait, he's a Muslim, so... Hmm.

[whatthehey]

1. Well...yeah

This place has a frustrating inability to recognize there is a large grey area in between thinking all 1.6B+ Muslims are jihadi lunatics, and believing that Islam cannot motivate jihadi lunacy. Both those extreme opinions are ludicrous, false and harmful.

ISIS are very real Muslims motivated by very real interpretations of Islam. There are just other interpretations and other Muslims who run the gamut from perfectly benign to loony but not deadly loony, and everything in between. The same could be said for almost any religious group.

[braddy]

2. We have to look at Mohammed to know the religion that he created, and the book that he wrote.

Before Islam Mohammed was a peaceful merchant, and then in his 40s, he became Islam, and he was no longer a peaceful merchant, but became a warrior chieftain of conquest and slaughter.

[whatthehey]

3. But that's like saying Stalin was a peaceful seminarian and poet before Bolshevism

It's hard to be into conquest and slaughter before you become a chieftain with an army. Since he created the religion, it's fair to assume any failings in the religion, at least as initially represented, came from him. Stalin couldn't be a genocidal tyrant without state power, but we can't say that Bolshevism made him a genocidal tyrant, This is even more true of Muhammad, who developed Islam ab nihilo rather than adopting and changing a pre-existing philosophy like Stalin did. Islam has changed much since Muhammad's day, but in that day everything in it came from the man. Scientology didn't influence Hubbard.

There are perfectly valid non-doctrinal reasons for the much-vaunted apologetics that Islam was intially spread by violence and Christianity by peaceful conversion (again, that's true only initially. Ask the Saxons how Charlemagne converted them). Islam from day 1 had a power structure, and operated in an economy where clan feuds were a vital source of wealth, which Muhammad certainly took part in pre-Islam. Christianity was an ignored mystery cult among many in a boondock outpost of a top-down ruled global empire where any flicker of armed troublemaking resulted in a brief and unpleasant visit from the nearest legion. It wasn't for 300 years that Christianity achieved secular power, and essentially the first act afterwards was to slaughter Arianists who interpreted Christianity a bit differently.

Fast forward a few centuries and Islamic extremism is now, in most of the world, a bigger problem than extremist Christianity, or Hinduism or Judaism etc etc. To deny that is PC blame-shifting par excellence. Islam can indeed support and justify violence and terror, as can any philosophy that posits a standard of morality higher than human utility, but it doesn't always do so, or we'd be facing an ISIS with over a billion soldiers.

[braddy]

4. Mohammed is Islam, and devout Muslims will always find the core of Islam.

You can't compare Mohammed himself to what individuals were doing centuries after Christ's death and his example and teachings, Islam is unique.

There will always be devout Muslims that go back to Mohammed and true Islam.

[whatthehey]

6. Can you define true Islam for me?

I think I was actually contrasting the difference between having secular power and lacking it by the way. We have absolutely no damn clue what would have happened if the first Christian disciple had been Tiberius Caesar and Mohammad had started having visions as a poor shepherd, but any cogent analysis would have to include the difference between somebody with an army believing God is calling him to change the world and somebody with a few sheep believing the same.

So these devout Muslims who go back to true Islam. Are they like this Sulayman Nyang or like Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?


And can you outline why and how one of these devout Muslims has gotten his own theology so completely wrong, and what makes that interpretation wrong and the other right? I mean if you know what true Islam is and can explain it well enough to convince devout Muslims, there's a Caliphate in it for you, and you could either make it the cosmopolitan, sophisticated Abbasid type or global ISIS

[braddy]

7. Christ came to deliberately die a humble brutal death of self sacrifice and fulfill bible prophecy,

and hand picked his disciples, who also lived as passive teachers and some of them dying brutal deaths of humble self sacrifice, for centuries that was Christianity, to change the individual for the better and to strive to live peacefully and as a giver, it wasn't until it became part of the state in some areas, that it attracted the corrupting misguided members and we started seeing abuses in it's name.

In his creation of Islam, Mohammed was called by Allah to form an Army and kill and conquer, and Islam WAS the state from the beginning. When he created Islam Mohammed went from peaceful merchant to warrior leader, head of state, slave owner, multiple wives and sex slaves, child sex, he was suddenly the prophet imposing mass beheadings.

Mohamed is not a guy who centuries later abused, or misinterpreted, or capitalized on and exploited Islam, he IS Islam, and his example and the Holy book that he wrote himself, IS Islam.

I'm not aware of any other notable religion founded on killing and conquest, Islam is unique.

[trotsky]

19. Cool story, bro! n/t

[Major Nikon]

8. Going back before that you have the warrior King David of conquest and slaughter

Fully venerated by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

[braddy]

9. What does that have to do with Mohammed? Mohammed is the creator of both Islam and the Quran.

Mohammed is not an historical figure in Islam, he IS Islam.

[Major Nikon]

10. I'm pretty sure Muslims don't see it that way

Islam, Christianity, and Judaism are all Abrahamic religions each with their own continuum all of which trace their lineage through King David. Muslims don't believe Muhammad created god anymore than Jews believe Moses created god. While Muslims certainly believe Muhammad set them on a different path from Christianity and Judaism, much like Jesus set Christianity on a different path from Judaism, all roads lead back to Abraham through King David.

If it's true that one must understand the foundational prophet to understand the violence perpetrated on behalf of the religion, then how is it that Christians justified so much violence when Jesus was a pacifist? People figure out ways to use religion to justify conquest and slaughter regardless.

[braddy]

11. I already answered your question about Christians, early in the thread

Mohammed is not a figure from centuries after his life, he is Islam, he created it, and established it, and wrote the book of it.

The BBC guy is correct.
"BBC’s head of religion Professor Aaqil Ahmed, the first Muslim to hold the role at the corporation, said it was wrong to suggest the terrorist group "has nothing to do with Islam" during a speech at Huddersfield University last week."

[Major Nikon]

12. Your answer amounts to a no true Scotsman fallacy

You write off violence perpetrated in the name of Christianity as "abuse" while trying to claim violence perpetrated in the name of Islam is simply adherence to their faith. The reality is all Abrahamic religions simply would not exist without a foundation of killing and conquest and adherents to all of them will simply find ways to use their religion to justify violence, hate, or whatever else they want. Man created god in his image, not the other way around.

[braddy]

13. You must not have read it, you sure didn't understand it, read it again.

Christ came to deliberately die a humble brutal death of self sacrifice and fulfill bible prophecy, and hand picked his disciples, who also lived as passive teachers and some of them dying brutal deaths of humble self sacrifice, for centuries that was Christianity, to change the individual for the better and to strive to live peacefully and as a giver, it wasn't until it became part of the state in some areas, that it attracted the corrupting misguided members and we started seeing abuses in it's name.

In his creation of Islam, Mohammed was called by Allah to form an Army and kill and conquer, and Islam WAS the state from the beginning. When he created Islam Mohammed went from peaceful merchant to warrior leader, head of state, slave owner, multiple wives and sex slaves, child sex, he was suddenly the prophet imposing mass beheadings.

Mohamed is not a guy who centuries later abused, or misinterpreted, or capitalized on and exploited Islam, he IS Islam, and his example and the Holy book that he wrote himself, IS Islam.

I'm not aware of any other notable religion founded on killing and conquest, Islam is unique.

[Major Nikon]

14. In truth,there was only one christian and he died on the cross

― Friedrich Nietzsche

Just because I understand what you wrote, doesn't mean I agree with it. Pretending any religion is what it's founders intended or claim to have intended is folly. All religions evolve over time into whatever their followers want them to be.

[braddy]

15. No one said anything about you agreeing with, you don't even understand it.

You have responded to to it twice making no sense in regards to what I posted, you clearly don't understand the post.

ISIS is just what Mohammed was, if they could time travel, they could ride with Mohammed as his true Muslim warrior devotees.

[Major Nikon]

16. Actually what you are saying just isn't all that original

[jonno99]

20. FYI: I'm pretty sure that Islam does not trace it's roots through King David, but rather through

Abraham's son Ishmael.

Christianity traces it's roots through King David and back to Abraham through his son Isaac.

[mr blur]

18. And paedophile, don't forget that.

[Cartoonist]

5. The book and the people

I am so sick of the argument that by criticizing the Qur'an, that one is criticizing every Muslim on the planet. Same with the Bible.

It is the book that contains the evil. Different people react differently to what it says. Some people take the evil to heart, hence ISIS. Hence the religious right.

We need to address the evil in these books, that indeed, these books are not the word of God or the word of Allah.

[Major Nikon]

17. Sometimes when you endeavor to throw out the bathwater you discover there never really was a baby