Hey, on the positive side, at least someone is trying to define a progressive version of Islam.

The writings underlying Christianty and Judaism have their own ugly passages, but these religions have mostly progressed beyond them. Perhaps people like this are working towards the same for Islam?

I can't believe I'm about to write this but frankly there are pesky passages in the Old Testament that one could strip out of context and interpret as, well troublesome.

I'm not equating the Qu'ran and the Old Testament. I'm just saying that when we get to the point where a very large percentage of Muslims say what this woman is saying, we will really be somewhere good (well, much better). So if your point is to help yourself understand how someone can be humane and guide themselves with the Qu'ran I'm all for your points and your email.

On the other hand if your point is that the Qu'ran is not redeemable you should state that outright.

I'm sure you don't need to tell me that this woman is probably besieged by her fellow co-Muslims. And I mean besieged literally. Given that, she's got more courage than the rest of us have a right to expect, and she hardly deserves to be treated harshly for it.

Please reconsider.

RE: Christianity and Judaism. Yes, they do have their own 'ugly' passages. However, in both quantity and centrality, they don't begin to compare with the Quran. The central tenet of Christianity, for example, is Love. The central tenet of Islam is "submission" - a crucial distinction.

Another example: there is simply nowhere in the Christian bible that divvies up humanity into various classes and then assigns various human rights abuses that are suitable and appropriate.

Thus, "progressing beyond them" did not pose a challenge to the religion itself so much as to various historical forces that had creatively re-interpreted the Bible to serve their own selfish desires. What worries many about the search for a tolerant Islam is that the Quran itself will always encourage the more extreme to mock the more progressive as Kafir.

I get tired of reading how there are "pesky" passages in the Bible that somehow equate to the Quran. This is non-sense. Those "pesky" passages are either laws given to the Israelites thousands of years ago which 1) dont apply to non-Jews 2) are just a recounting of historical events with no insinuation that those laws should be followed today. There is nothing in the Bible even coming close to calling Muslims pigs or monkeys (thats what the Quran says we Christians and Jews are) or anything forbiding us to be friends with Muslims (according to the Quran a Muslim CANNOT be a friend to Christians or Jews) or anything commanding us to KILL Muslims if they don't convert or refuse to be subjegated (this is the fate of those who refuse Islam - dhimmitude or death).

Most Christians and Jews I know don't know enough of their religion to defend themselves and they easily fall prey to the belief that "Hey we were just like them before we reformed". Even in the Dark Ages that wasn't even close to being the case.

Thank you, Rich and Wildmonk - exactly.

The late George Mason writes of how "Islam is a global movement, the goal of which is to bring every living human being on the planet under its crushing totalitarian rule, the likes of which has never before been seen":

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2007/12/04/the_religion_ba_1.html

Judaism and Christianity do not serve as action plans for world conquest; their sacred documents are not war manuals that describe some of the cruelest, most inhumane strategies and tactics ever devised; they receive no divine marching orders to bring the world's population into submission.

Most of us subscribe to the principle that whatever philosophy we choose as roadmaps for our lives, be it related in some way to a divine source or not, is a matter of our personal choices. We can talk to each other about the pros and cons of each others belief systems; we can try to persuade each other to adopt our views. That is where it ends. Force plays no role here. For Islam, there is just one acceptable religion and way of life: Islam. Force is indispensable to the implementation of Islam's agenda.

... Start calling Islam what it is.

Call it a toxic ideology, a death cult, even your death sentence. In fact, Islam, among other things, is a vicious political movement, which gives itself a mantle of respectability and gets away with its actions only by providing itself with the "cloaking device" of religion. Islam is totalitarianism. It wants to conquer you, and kill you and yours. It wants to destroy everything you value.

If you do not withdraw your sanction of Islam, you will play right into the Islamists' hands. This is happening right now at the highest level of government. We watch our highest officials bowing and scraping to their future Muslim killers, while reassuring our people that Islam is peaceful, that Islam is a great religion, that Islam is wonderful, and worst of all, that Islam has been hijacked by some bad guys who twist it to their uses. Don't be played like a Wurlitzer. Islamists are selling you sanitized Islam while practicing the real thing. It is terribly important to remember that lying and deceit are among Islam's most valued weapons.

Jump over the religion barrier. Keep your own peaceful religion, which teaches that the initiation of force is wrong, but that self-defense is right. Recognize and reject Islam, which has as a central commandment to erase the Infidel -- that's you -- from the face of the earth.

This woman can say Islam is a really nice religion, really loving and peaceful, until the Jihadists come chop her head off for that, or maybe for not wearing a hijab, but that doesn't make what she's saying a correct description of the religion.

Amy, you have no idea! Well, maybe you do. Actually - you, at least - unlike most of our fellow citizens, understand Islam. It is a religion of hate, violence and anger. It is not just a religion, but a political creed that requires a person to subjugate and discriminate. Remember that according to the Quran, "Muslims are the best of people" and we (non-Muslims) are "lower than animals in the site of Allah".

The problem is that many (most?) Muslims are in denial, and many are dishonest. They know what the Quran teaches and they known the hadith (the traditions concerning the life and words of their dear prophet). These tell us that Mohammad murdered, attacked villages and caravans dozens of times, conquerered, plundered, enslaved men women and children, raped and even beat his own wife. It gets worse" Muslims consider this man a great moral example -- one to be emulated. Figure out, if you can, what that means.

I have quite a bit of experience with Muslims and the news is not good. They are not honest about their religion, about the situation of Islamic societies and, of course, the words and deeds of their dear prophet.

I have even collected a series of "excuses" that I have found on Islamic websites that Muslims use to explain the bad things:
http://www.kactuzkid.com/blame.html

Muslims must always blame something or somebody else for all the evil things, else they would have to look into the dark soul of Islam. They cannot be honest about their religion, because if they were, it would be the end. If you give facts and post links to Islamic sites with quotations from the Quran and ahadith they usually delete your comments.
http://www.kactuzkid.com/censored.html

The future will not be nice. Our political correctness and multiculturalism are working hand in hand with the hate and deception in Islam to create a very bad situation. Good people are going to get hurt. I blame Islam and the PC media, academia and government that also refuses to be honest. Bad times are coming!

Amy, thank you for your work and for caring about the truth.

J 'old man' Kactuz

"Radical Muslims kill, moderates make excuses and blame others"

Great page of "excuses," Jay. My only suggestion, if you don't mind me making it, is that you should put a double space between each "excuse" to make it easier to read.

Thanks, Amy, for confronting this propagandist with such embarassing facts. My experience is that when you do so, you never get an answer. Muslims don't debate nor defend their religion, they just move on to another forum where they can deliver a monologue. Of course, their problem is that the Islam defined by the Koran and hadith is indefensible. Islam is an evil religion which seeks to dominate all other religions and philosophies by any means necessary. Terrorism, the hard jihad, is one mode of doing so. Putting out a bogus version of smiley-face Islam in letters to the editor for gullible Americans is another mode, the soft jihad of lies and deception.

Paul A'barge, you are speculating in error when you assert that this Muslim woman is under attack from her fellow Muslims for spinning a progressive version of Islam. The Islamic doctrine of taqiyya holds that Muslims may deceive non-Muslims about their faith, especially when living in an infidel land. The ultimate goal of Muslims is to overthrow our democracy, which they consider to be blasphemous man-made law, and substitute Sharia law. Her fellow Muslims will not be condemning her for propagating a progressive version of Islam but congratulating her for deceiving the infidels so as to further the ultimate victory of Islam.

There is a massive semi-organized effort in taqiyya afoot in America and beyond, funded mostly by Saudi petrodollars. My informed speculation is that if you trace the funding for Ani Zonneveld's Progressive Muslim Union you will find its source in Riyadh. It only took seconds of googling to find Daniel Pipes dissection of the PMU here:
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2004/10/failing-to-find-moderate-muslims-at-the.html

Simply put, the PMU is another taqiyya group committed to defending Islam against any criticism, no matter how valid, by presenting bogus Muslim moderates with arguments appealing to American religious tolerance, a tolerance which Islam itself rejects and, in fact, considers evil.

Searching for the Mythical Moderate Muslim is as futile as searching for Bigfoot. Just as the only Sasquatches you'll find are humans in ape suits, the only moderate Muslims you'll find are Islamic totalitarians presenting themselves as democrats saying their religion has been misunderstood by racists, hijacked by extremists, unfairly associated with terrorism by a biased media.

Here in Washington, a Muslim lawyer tried to organize a demonstration against Islamic terror a couple years ago. Only fifty people showed up and it's not clear how many were Muslim. The lawyer said that the problem was that the local mosques and Islamic organizations supported the terrorist goal of a Sharia state in America, if not necessarily their violent methods. As a result, he was condemned by many Islamic organizations, such as CAIR, who claimed he wasn't the right guy to organize it and there was no need to publicly demonstrate against terror because Islam prohibited it. But really, if not him, who? If not then, when?

A year later, during the war in Lebanon, I saw five thousand Muslims protest in front of the White House. It was pretty obvious after walking around the crowd that this was not a peace protest nor an anti-war protest but a pro-Hezbollah demonstration. Israel was condemned as the cause of the war along with the US, Bush, trans-national corporations, the US dollar, General Electric, et al. Nobody mentioned the real cause of the war: Hezbollah shooting five hundred rockets into Israeli homes.

There were people wearing Nasrallah T-shirts. Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, famously said that Muslims advantage against Israel and the West was that Muslims love death while their opponents love life. It's hard to think of a more succint admission of pure evil. And when push comes to shove, Muslims are quick to cry, we are all Hezbollah.

When Muslims can only assemble fifty people to protest Islamic terror but five thousand to support a terrorist organization like Hezbollah, which loves death, it's fair to say that Muslims support terror by a hundred to one.

If you want to know what kind of religion Islam is, follow the feet of the Muslims and discount their taqiyya.

Many people are familiar with the two main branches of Islam, Sunni and Shia. However there is another branch known as the Sufi. Put simply, they don't seem to be as bad as the other two. For instance, as I understand it, the idea that "jihad" is an internal struggle is a Sufi concept.

There is also the B'hais who seem much more peaceful than their sunni and shia coreligionists.

These branches are the minority in the Islamic world but it's possible that their theology could provide some sort of Islamic reformation.

I admit I have not done a lot of research into these branches and I could be wrong but I throw it out there for consideration.

btw, how does jay kactus get two links on one post?

Amy, you really must learn to read more carefully. Most of these passages are about protecting women.

Sura (24:4) - "And those who accuse free women then do not bring four witnesses (to adultery), flog them..."

Sura (24:13) - "Why did they not bring four witnesses of it? But as they have not brought witnesses they are liars before Allah."

These rules protect women from being even justly accused of adultery, as long as they keep their silence about sexual relations (and keep the group size from totalling the equivalent of four men).

Sura (2:228) - "and the men are a degree above them [women]"

Sura (24:31) - Women are to lower their gaze around men, so they do not look them in the eye.

This just means women are generally shorter than men and should keep their gaze lowered so as not to entice them; it just offers protection from men.

Sura (4:3) - (Wife-to-husband ratio) "Marry women of your choice, Two or three or four"

Again, this is to women's benefit, so that the women will have combined resources and group protection, unlike those who have no co-wives.

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/003-wife-beating.htm

But these also protect women, by making sure they are not injured and only beaten for good reason.

Next you will be trying to say the Koran tells us that Allah had carnal relations with a nine year old girl and said it was okay for his men to rape captured women and not worry about getting them pregnant.

"...only beaten for good reason."

What is a good reason for a man to beat a woman?

He's Muslim and it says he can in the Quran?

Here's more on Mohammed, who married a six-year-old and began molesting her when she was 9:

http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sina/ayesha.htm

(And what is sex by an adult with a 9-year-old but molestation?)

More here -- "Evidence Mohammed Was A Pedophile":

http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10197

I'd be amazed if the "4 witnesses" burden of proof is consistently met when trying men and women for adultery. It's more likely 40 witnesses for men and 0 for women.

While it's true that Islam is repugnant for the above-cited reasons, it's not like Christianity isn't trying to cripple us all.

I'm no fan of anybody's primitive, evidence-free belief in god, and I'm just disgusted and horrified by stuff like the example you linked above. Still, Christian ministers aren't standing up before their congregations condoning and sometimes even inciting the murder of those who don't believe in their particular Imaginary Friend.

Regarding those "pesky passsages in the Old Testament"...

...there are also those "pesky passages in the New Testament, about turning the other cheek, casting the first stone, judging not, etc. etc.

There were also the fortunate interludes of the Reformation and the Englightenment.

At best, it could be said that Islam and the Caliphate once represented a transcendant culture -- once -- but which is sadly now in the midst of the Benightenment, and which, quite literally in the hands of its numerous fanatic adherents (1% of the Faithful =~ 10 million,) has internalized a deathwish based on a pornographic afterlife.

Hmm. Pretty sure B'hais aren't Muslims at all, and don't claim to be.

Also here's the thing: Christianity has at times, shamefully, been spread by the sword. It is impossible however to imagine Jesus himself taking up a sword, and Christianity can always get back to that base truth.

Here's a passage from a piece by Larry Miller about how Arab patients being treated in a Jewish hospital cheer as Jewish victims are brought in:

http://weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=1568&R=1156B1732C

All right, back to the story. As I said, I went to two places to meet the terror victims. One was in Tel Aviv. I met an emergency room doctor, a woman, whose husband was killed a year ago in a bombing. She has two children. Had. Now she has one. She was on duty, weeks ago, in the middle of the night (Don't they call that the graveyard shift?), the night a disco was bombed. Maybe you heard about it. The victims were brought to her hospital. To her. Her daughter was one of them. Now the mother is a patient. "It was good of you to let her tell you her story," the head of the place told me. "It's therapeutic." Good of me? What do you say to that? "I'm glad I could help so much. Gotta go now. Soon I'll be back in the hotel room."

Then we went to Hadassah Hospital, in Jerusalem. This is the hospital where they brought the victims of the bombing at Hebrew University. I met a woman who had been having lunch that day, in the Frank Sinatra Commissary (really) with her daughter, a student. An "A" student, the mother told me. It wasn't possible for the daughter to tell me, since they were still trying to put her back together. At this writing she's still alive, thank God. Just. An "A" student, the mother kept saying. She was the lucky one, whatever that means. Hey, what's that on the table? Oh, it's a cup with the nails they took out of me. Some are still inside. They can't take them out yet. Oh. Okay. Gotta go. Wait, go in there, here's someone else, the brother of someone else, the fiancee of someone else, the father of someone else. Thank you for letting them tell their stories. Yes, I know, it's therapeutic.

Downstairs, before we left, the head of the hospital, an Israeli named Audrey, was showing me the children's waiting room. I couldn't help but notice, all around, an Arab woman with her son, an Arab family over there checking in, Arab children playing with the toys while waiting. The doctor saw the look on my face and laughed. "Oh, yes, we treat everyone." I guess I was astonished. She just shrugged. "We're Jews. This is how we live. It's also for the future. They're not going anywhere, and we're not going anywhere. There will eventually be peace. There has to be." When? A month? A year? A hundred years? More? She didn't know. I had to say it. You're incredible. You take everyone, you treat everyone, no one goes first, no one goes last, you just go in order of who needs help. That's, like, Mother Teresa stuff. "We're not saints, we're just doing our jobs. It's not easy, I admit. And it gets hard when they cheer when the bodies are brought in." I looked at her. What did you say? She sighed. "Yes, it gets hard when they cheer." This was one of the times during my trip when I held up my hands and said, "Stop. Wait." I turned and walked away to breathe deeply for a minute.

Oops. That last paragraph and sentence should include "Allah's prophet," rather than Allah. I need more coffee and fewer pets jostling me.

"Hmm. Pretty sure B'hais aren't Muslims at all, and don't claim to be."

They accept Mohammed as A prophet, if not THE prophet. So technically you're probably right, but I think my overall point is still in play.

That is they might possibly contribute to an Islamic reformation.

"What is a good reason for a man to beat a woman?"

You've obviously never met a woman into S&M games

Last night I watched a Fox News special about India Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, which fought in the Second Battle of Fallujah in 2004.

One of the officers interviewed gave as concise description of Islamism I've ever heard.

He said the terrorists they captured alive boasted that their goal was to completely destroy the United States, raze it down to the ground, and then rebuild it according to their version of Islam.

If that doesn't make you want to bomb somebody, I don't know what would.

Islam is peaceful, non-violent, and tolerant, unlike the false propoganda spread by Zionists. If anyone says anything different, they will be beheaded and shot immediately.

Amy,

Since Ms. Zonneveld is obviously functioning as a (witting/unwitting ... I'll take witting, Alex, for $500) taqiya tool for the silent jihad, you should go ahead and forward your letter response to her to the LA Times.

No guarantee your reply will be published, of course. But crap like the stuff Ms. Zonneveld posted needs to be confronted in the very same forum that provided her "insight" in the first place.

> Christianty and Judaism have
> their own ugly passages.

Amy is often harrassed by people (me) for being too simplistic in her condemnation of religion... I'm trying to convice her to go on an excursion to church.

But I think she's right about the big picture. First, the text of Islam is particularly odious. Christianity at least compels adherents to dance through some intellectual and moral jungles ("Turn the other cheek", etc). But Islam indulges the worst and laziest of human nature ('Be mean to women; History's over, so tamp down your aspirations,' etc).

And even if Islam could be fragmented into docility as Christianity has been here in the States, Amy's correct on the larger point: it's not like the ugly passages will go away. These are holy texts, and people get twitchy when you try to improve them.

My favorite explanation of this second point, cited here earlier, is heard 2 minutes into this convenient video.

This was a good thread, Amy, and congratulations for confronting Ani. We know she is being disingenuous to the point of lying about Islam, but not enough people understand enough to know that. I'm beginning to think we need something like the Defenders Council of Vermont for every state.

In re: Sufism, there is a good amount of info here.

I'm a little confused here.

For a long time, Amy, you've been posting stuff to the effect of "You-hoo! Where are all these so-called moderate Muslims?"

One finally shows up, and you tell her essentially that she's a liar and should disown her religion because she obviously interprets it wrong.

Isn't that the equivalent of someone telling you that you can't possibly be an atheist because being an atheist means denying the notion of objective morality, and you don't?

The best religious people I know recognize their holy books as products of people from a bygone era trying to make sense of the universe, and build upon that rather than taking it literally. I grant that this woman MAY be dishonest, but I don't think it's necessarily an either/or choice between murderer or apostate.

She's a propagandist, and from what I've read on some Muslim sites, one with less knowledge of the Quran than I have. She's not crowing for Muslims to ignore the Quran's dictates to kill all the rest of us, she's trying to get the rest of us to believe a nicey-nicey version of Islam that simply isn't true. And believing that will ultimately be the death of us, and of everything we value in this society. She's a cult of death enabler.

And I have to wonder why -- what it's really about. Maybe what she really cares about is a convenient political platform to promote her singing career. She sure doesn't seem most interested in getting the truth out.

Lyt, it's good to see you around here, but point goes to Alkon.

"Christianity has at times, shamefully, been spread by the sword. It is impossible however to imagine Jesus himself taking up a sword, and Christianity can always get back to that base truth."

When was Christianity spread by the sword? I honestly want to know and I'm not playing "gotcha". If you're referring to the Crusades, they were a response to Muslim conquest of the Christian lands of the ME. I can't think of any Christian nation which conquered another for the SOLE purpose of spreading Christianity.

"When was Christianity spread by the sword?"

Charlamange conquered the Saxons and forcibly, brutally converted them to Christianity.

Was this the SOLE reason he conquered the Saxons. Probably not, but it's a pretty small distinction.

The difference between Christianity and Islam on this subject is Charlamange was acting against Jesus' teachings. While Islamic conquests are in keeping with Mohammed's teachings.

I think if we could just sit down with the radicals over a nice honey-baked ham and a couple of ice cold beers we could really reach an understanding with them fellers.

What we have here is more hate of goys by jewish radicals.

When was Christianity spread by the sword? I honestly want to know and I'm not playing "gotcha". If you're referring to the Crusades, they were a response to Muslim conquest of the Christian lands of the ME. I can't think of any Christian nation which conquered another for the SOLE purpose of spreading Christianity.

Ever heard of Pogroms? Ever heard about Spanish and Portuguese oppression of Jews prior to the Spanish Inquisition? The Inquisition gets all the publicity, but what is not generally mentioned is that it was preceded by a number of pogroms (attacks on Jews and Muslims throughout the Iberian Peninsula), with forced conversions at the point of a sword. Once forcibly converted, they were forbidden on penalty of death for apostasy from being Jewish or Muslim again. The Inquisition was seen by Queen Isabella as a good thing because it would root out the formerly Jewish and their descendants who were apostates, while preventing the legitimate converts from being harrassed and falsely accused of apostasy. By evicting Jews in 1492, they hoped to cut off all Jewish ties these legitimate converts had. But the Portuguese were worse--they were going to expel the Jews as the Spanish had, but then decided that instead, they'd take all the Jewish children, forcibly convert them, and then spread them throughout Portugal to be servants. The adults agreed to conversion or were killed, their "choice". The genocide of Native Americans by the Spanish was done under the aegis of spreading religion, too, and therefore had everything to do with the Christianity of the time, whether or not it fits the exact model of religious wars engaged in by Muslims. What about all of the Protestant and Catholic religious wars throughout Europe? I could go on and on. Many many atrocities have been committed in the name of Christianity, and they all count. And you don't get to say the Crusades "don't count" as atrocities at the hands of Christians just because of whatever apologist stance you want to take. Do you really think that just because Christians forcibly converted people and committed wholesale slaughter and rape while invading an area of the world they weren't from in an attempt to Christiainize it, it doesn't count because they were only repeating what Muslims were doing? It counts. It would be nice and simple if Muslims had a monopoly on atrocities in the name of religion. But it's not so.

There is a very simple point here. Christianity is based on the teachings of Christ, a peaceful man. Islam is based on the teachings of Muhammad who was not a peaceful man.

So one can certainly say that various Christians throughout history did horrific things, but they were not Christ-like. On the other hand, Muslims try to emulate their warrior prophet now just as they did when he was alive.

Even if one does not believe that Christ was the Messiah, (or even if one doesn't believe in religion at all), there is no discounting the fact that it is beneficial to individuals and to society as a whole to use him as a role model.

Muhammad not so much.

And, of course, the other point is that Muhammad perverted the scripture of the Jews and the Christians specifically to create hatred and gain personal power over them.

So Ani shows up and we are supposed to believe her when she evidently believes what Muhammad did was a good thing? As she advocates for human rights, will she ask for a rewritten Qur'an? Will she advocate that young children not be taught to recite scripture from that hideous book so they will not be indoctrinated with hatred for non-Muslims? If the spin she puts on the original Qur'anic and hadithic teachings is so great that it becomes something different, and she considers herself that "progressive," why not just break with regressive Islam and study at the Church of Oprah?

There are many moderate and even "progressive" Muslims. Unfortunately, like Amy highlighted, they are woefully ignorant about either the truth of what their scriptures teach or history itself. I once corresponded with a very nice lady in Canada who was married to a Palestinian. She tried to equate the terrorism against Israel with Mandella and the ANC in SA, claiming that the ANC blew up busses and police stations. I pointed out to her that after an hour on Google I was unable to find a single example of such terrorism by the ANC and asked for specifics or references. She had none, and I did not hear from her again. It was clear to me that she was simply repeating the stories she had been told probably all her life and when presented with evidence they were wrong she simply chose to believe what she wanted (not purely a Muslin trait, by the way).

As for the "there's extreme stuff in the Old Testament" trope, I'd be inclined to spend more brain cells thinking about it if there were even half as many folks trying to live their lives acording to those extreme examples as there are trying to impose the extreme teaching of the Q'ran on others.