Muslima wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The topic of THIS thread is NOT "TELL ME ABOUT ISLAM."

I do not want to know much more about Islam other than the last two questions that I asked you that you simply cannot seem to answer when you seem to be so verbose about so much else.

You're very defensive, Muslima, they are simple questions. Speak the truth. Is that not something the Koran commands you to do among so many other things?

Did you even bother to read the opening post of this thread?

As far as your questions are concerned, they have been treated over and over, believe me, they are very "basic" questions. No need to go on and on about why I didn't answer as it is some sort of sacrilege. I can't keep repeating myself over and over. Like I told you in a previous post if you didn't get it then, you won't get it now. Repeating/doing the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity, I choose to stay sane!

Anonymous wrote:Muslima, disagreeing with you is NOT the same as Islamophobia and racism. Most posters on that thread were very respectful, and certainly Mohammed got called a pedophile fewer times than you guys called Mary a 'porn queen" (direct quote).

You are apparently angry about several types of challenges you faced on that thread:

1. Requests for statistics to back up your claims about converts,
2. Clarifications to your simplified presentation of Islam (eg, your claim that Islam "offers captives asylum" neglected to mention the Quranically sanctioned rape of female captives),
3. Challenges to your personal interpretations of various Islamic rules (selective use of hadith and your position on sharia) coupled with the suggestion that you may be out of step with eminent scholars, and
4. Readers simply didn't find your explanations convincing, e.g. that various rules about women are for our own good.

These challenges DO NOT amount to "racist Islamophobia." People disagreeing with you or failing to find your explanations convincing is NOT "racist Islamophobia."

You were warned several times on that thread about your use of ad hominems, your repeated recourse to personal insults instead of answering hard questions. This thread is in the same vein: contentless, with lots of insults.

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The topic of THIS thread is NOT "TELL ME ABOUT ISLAM."

I do not want to know much more about Islam other than the last two questions that I asked you that you simply cannot seem to answer when you seem to be so verbose about so much else.

You're very defensive, Muslima, they are simple questions. Speak the truth. Is that not something the Koran commands you to do among so many other things?

Did you even bother to read the opening post of this thread?

As far as your questions are concerned, they have been treated over and over, believe me, they are very "basic" questions. No need to go on and on about why I didn't answer as it is some sort of sacrilege. I can't keep repeating myself over and over. Like I told you in a previous post if you didn't get it then, you won't get it now. Repeating/doing the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity, I choose to stay sane!

You never provided any numbers to back up your claim that Islam in America (or anywhere) is growing more by conversion than by immigration. [Would you like to take that back, or acknowledge it was your opinion that isn't confirmed by actual statistics?

Muslima wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Muslima, disagreeing with you is NOT the same as Islamophobia and racism. Most posters on that thread were very respectful, and certainly Mohammed got called a pedophile fewer times than you guys called Mary a 'porn queen" (direct quote).

Are you the same poster who keeps repeating you guys did this/that. My posts are easily identifiable so when you say "Muslima" said xyz have the decency to back it up! For one I never called Mary a "porn queen", I actually never even talked about Mary if you should know. I believe that Mary is one of the only 4 perfect women that was created by God. Even the mother of Mohamed saw was not given that title so why would I have anything but respect and love for Mary? I think the other muslim poster started talking about Mary because she was upset about the pedophilia comments, I would think she doesn't believe in those things about Mary but was probably angry and frustrated, which is one reason why I recuse myself from a discussion when it starts being attacks after attacks, disrespectful and dishonest. As human beings it is very easy to go there, get down to the level of nastiness and fight back, to prevent that I stop answering when a discussion goes sterile!

You are apparently angry about several types of challenges you faced on that thread:

1. Requests for statistics to back up your claims about converts,
2. Clarifications to your simplified presentation of Islam (eg, your claim that Islam "offers captives asylum" neglected to mention the Quranically sanctioned rape of female captives),
3. Challenges to your personal interpretations of various Islamic rules (selective use of hadith and your position on sharia) coupled with the suggestion that you may be out of step with eminent scholars, and
4. Readers simply didn't find your explanations convincing, e.g. that various rules about women are for our own good.

These challenges DO NOT amount to "racist Islamophobia." People disagreeing with you or failing to find your explanations convincing is NOT "racist Islamophobia."

You were warned several times on that thread about your use of ad hominems, your repeated recourse to personal insults instead of answering hard questions. This thread is in the same vein: contentless, with lots of insults.

I am not angry because of challenges faced on a thread, com' ON ! If you should know real life islamophobia is harder to survive than online rhetoric, you can just turn your computer off and move on. I have said it before and will repeat it. What is offensive is for someone to cut and paste random verses of the Quran totally ignoring the context the verses were revealed in, totally ignoring what the verses are referring to and blatantly using this to advance their own propaganda. Self-imposed ignorance is offensive! But being challenged by what Islam is or teaches? No, i don't have that challenge! And btw, my "self-interpretations" of Quran, no dear, I studied and read, studied and read for years with scholars who studied and read for decenies, whatever I present, when I present it as "Islam" you better believe it is not my personal interpretation, but when I say in my opinion, then yes you can take it as such! And one little note stop saying "readers did not find x, y, z", nobody made you speaker of the house~

Muslima wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The topic of THIS thread is NOT "TELL ME ABOUT ISLAM."

I do not want to know much more about Islam other than the last two questions that I asked you that you simply cannot seem to answer when you seem to be so verbose about so much else.

You're very defensive, Muslima, they are simple questions. Speak the truth. Is that not something the Koran commands you to do among so many other things?

Did you even bother to read the opening post of this thread?

As far as your questions are concerned, they have been treated over and over, believe me, they are very "basic" questions. No need to go on and on about why I didn't answer as it is some sort of sacrilege. I can't keep repeating myself over and over. Like I told you in a previous post if you didn't get it then, you won't get it now. Repeating/doing the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity, I choose to stay sane!

You never provided any numbers to back up your claim that Islam in America (or anywhere) is growing more by conversion than by immigration. [Would you like to take that back, or acknowledge it was your opinion that isn't confirmed by actual statistics?

Go and bring the quote where I made that statement

Muslima wrote:
Go and bring the quote where I made that statement

Muslima wrote:
I am not angry because of challenges faced on a thread, com' ON ! If you should know real life islamophobia is harder to survive than online rhetoric, you can just turn your computer off and move on. I have said it before and will repeat it. What is offensive is for someone to cut and paste random verses of the Quran totally ignoring the context the verses were revealed in, totally ignoring what the verses are referring to and blatantly using this to advance their own propaganda. Self-imposed ignorance is offensive! But being challenged by what Islam is or teaches? No, i don't have that challenge! And btw, my "self-interpretations" of Quran, no dear, I studied and read, studied and read for years with scholars who studied and read for decenies, whatever I present, when I present it as "Islam" you better believe it is not my personal interpretation, but when I say in my opinion, then yes you can take it as such! And one little note stop saying "readers did not find x, y, z", nobody made you speaker of the house~

Anonymous wrote:I feel that I am a realist, and fearful of Islam.

I don't know how to correlate what Muslima says about the beauty of Islam with the overwhelming number of violent attacks committed in the name of Islam.

I think it is a coordinated ploy by Saudi Arabia to push Wahhabism on the rest of the world. And until we recognize this and shut off the flow of money at the source, Islam will continue to be manipulated into the barbaric sharia law type system that it is today.

What you're saying is that, if we wanted to look for the causes of what's happened -- Al Qaeda and the movement worldwide -- we would have to look to the schools, to the educational system which Saudi Arabia has fostered in the Islamic world?

... In order to have terrorists, in order to have supporters for terrorists, in order to have people who are willing to interpret religion in violent ways, in order to have people who are willing to legitimate crashing yourself into a building and killing 5,000 innocent people, you need particular interpretations of Islam.

Those interpretations of Islam are being propagated out of schools that receive organizational and financial funding from Saudi Arabia. In fact, I would push it further: that these schools would not have existed without Saudi funding. They would not have proliferated across Pakistan and India and Afghanistan without Saudi funding. They would not have had the kind of prowess that they have without Saudi funding, and they would not have trained as many people without Saudi funding.

richard holbrooke
U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in the Clinton administration

I think that one of the tragedies of this story is that the Saudi Arabians exported their problem by financing the schools, the madrassas, all through the Islamic world. I saw this in Uzbekistan a few years after Uzbekistan got out of the Soviet Union, became an independent state in cities like Tashkent and Samarkand, where the Saudis were funding these schools teaching Koranic studies and creating a class of people for whom education was simply the Holy Book, the Koran.

... What happened here was that the Saudi Arabian government had two wings. The mainland Saudi leadership went into financial issues, defense issues, and they controlled the elite establishment in order to purchase support. From the more fundamentalist religious groups, they gave certain other ministries, the religious ministries, education ministries, to more fundamentalist Islam leaders. And that's how the split occurred.

So the Saudi government was, to a certain extent, pursuing internally inconsistent policies throughout this period -- reaching out to the West with sophisticated, well educated, internationally minded leaders like its foreign minister, like its ambassador in Washington and others. At the same time, it was funding with this vast oil revenue a different set of efforts: education, which was narrowly based in the Koran. .

The reasons why someone picks up a gun or blows themselves up are ineluctably personal, born variously of grievance and frustration; religious piety or the desire for systemic socio-economic change; irredentist conviction or commitment to revolution. And yet, though there is no universal terrorist personality, nor has a single, broadly applicable profile ever been produced, there are things we do know. Terrorists are generally motivated by a profound sense of (albeit, misguided) altruism; deep feelings of self-defense; and, if they are religiously observant or devout, an abiding, even unswerving, commitment to their faith and the conviction that their violence is not only theologically justified, but divinely commanded.

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The topic of THIS thread is NOT "TELL ME ABOUT ISLAM."

I do not want to know much more about Islam other than the last two questions that I asked you that you simply cannot seem to answer when you seem to be so verbose about so much else.

You're very defensive, Muslima, they are simple questions. Speak the truth. Is that not something the Koran commands you to do among so many other things?

Did you even bother to read the opening post of this thread?

As far as your questions are concerned, they have been treated over and over, believe me, they are very "basic" questions. No need to go on and on about why I didn't answer as it is some sort of sacrilege. I can't keep repeating myself over and over. Like I told you in a previous post if you didn't get it then, you won't get it now. Repeating/doing the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity, I choose to stay sane!

You never provided any numbers to back up your claim that Islam in America (or anywhere) is growing more by conversion than by immigration. [Would you like to take that back, or acknowledge it was your opinion that isn't confirmed by actual statistics?

Go and bring the quote where I made that statement

Well I have to apologize since it seems it wasn't you, it was your passionate friend, posted at 00.27

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/120/405354.page

No worries, she hasn't brought the answer either.

You two seem to be close. Maybe you can figure something out?

I hope you see how outrageous claims like this make you two so...dismissable.

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:
I am not angry because of challenges faced on a thread, com' ON ! If you should know real life islamophobia is harder to survive than online rhetoric, you can just turn your computer off and move on. I have said it before and will repeat it. What is offensive is for someone to cut and paste random verses of the Quran totally ignoring the context the verses were revealed in, totally ignoring what the verses are referring to and blatantly using this to advance their own propaganda. Self-imposed ignorance is offensive! But being challenged by what Islam is or teaches? No, i don't have that challenge! And btw, my "self-interpretations" of Quran, no dear, I studied and read, studied and read for years with scholars who studied and read for decenies, whatever I present, when I present it as "Islam" you better believe it is not my personal interpretation, but when I say in my opinion, then yes you can take it as such! And one little note stop saying "readers did not find x, y, z", nobody made you speaker of the house~

You guys started this entire thread to vent about your anger towards so-called Islamophobes and Racists on DCUM.

Nobody here has denied the existence of Islamophobia in the real world: I have not seen a single person on either of these threads deny that Islamophobia exists in the real world.

The point is, we are quibbling about your DEFINITION of Islamophobia, which you have extended to include all those DCUM "Christian/Crusading/Evangelical/Racists" who merely asks questions about your statements, and/or provide alternative points of view.

Muslima wrote:Furthermore, we have to take seriously the reality that 1400 years of Islamic history, going back to the very example of Muhammad saw, condemns the usage of violence against non-combatants, what today we would call a civilian population.

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:Furthermore, we have to take seriously the reality that 1400 years of Islamic history, going back to the very example of Muhammad saw, condemns the usage of violence against non-combatants, what today we would call a civilian population.

Furthermore, we have to take seriously the reality that 1400 years of Islamic history, going back to the very example of Muhammad, non-Muslim non-combatants were routinely enslaved, including enslavement for sexual purposes, something that is expressly permitted by Islam and conducted by the Muhammad himself.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:Furthermore, we have to take seriously the reality that 1400 years of Islamic history, going back to the very example of Muhammad saw, condemns the usage of violence against non-combatants, what today we would call a civilian population.

Furthermore, we have to take seriously the reality that 1400 years of Islamic history, going back to the very example of Muhammad, non-Muslim non-combatants were routinely enslaved, including enslavement for sexual purposes, something that is expressly permitted by Islam and conducted by the Muhammad himself.

And still going on today. Disgusting.

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The particular posts were reported and Jeff contacted me. While he sympathized, he said the thread was extremely long and it would be a very arduous task for him to delete every single post that contained the racist comments. It would take him an entire afternoon. Upon reflection, I realized that perhaps it is indeed best such racist remarks are permanently recorded in that thread, because it provides the clear evidence how deceptive islamophobes inquire about Islam under the guise of intellectual curiosity, when, in fact, their motive is far more sinister.

PP again. Really? Or did Jeff say the problem was that it would take all afternoon to read a 22-page thread? I'd really be interested in Jeff's take on this. The "racism" that got you so outraged was when one poster (not me) pointed out that many converts to Islam are African American. I'm fairly sure that's a fact. You guys banged on for pages about how racist it is to say that. Jeff, I'd be really interested in your opinion.

It has to be said, that one poster (again, not me) called Mohammed a pedophile 2-3 times, and somebody (again, not me) told Muslima to go back to Iran. And you guys certainly held your own, calling Mary a slut even more times and flinging the ad hominems left and right. However, what are we to make of your claims that immigrants are "rich' and many converts are white - don't these statements seem equally racist?

I'm actually quite happy that thread is still up, if for no other reason that anybody who wants can see how shallow your claims of racism and Islamophobia really are.

The OP reported a single post that was several pages from the end of the thread. I replied that it was likely that particular post had been quoted or referenced many times in the rest of the thread and it would take me all afternoon to remove every quote and reference. But, I am content with your interpretation as well since they amount to the same thing.

There is no "one" Islam. Sunni Islam, in particular, is decentralized much like protestantism in Christianity. So arguing whether Islam is "peaceful" or "violent", for instance, is a fool's errand. It is both, just as are almost every other religion. The only way that you can constructively have this sort of conversation is to take specific topic and discuss how they are addressed by Islam. The goal cannot be to determine whether Islam is "right" or "wrong" or "better" or "worse", but simply to understand how Islam treats the topic. In all likelihood, there will be more than one answer for most topics.

The Islam practiced by IS grows directly from the Wahhabism practiced centuries ago in the Saudi peninsula. It has the same roots as the Islam practiced by al-Qaida and the "official" Islam of today's Saudi Arabia. However, those are all branches of the same tree that diverged some time ago. Many of the traditions and precepts are alien concepts to the vast majority of the World's Muslims. Drawing conclusions about Islam based on the actions of IS is about as accurate as explaining Christianity based on how it it practiced by the Westboro Baptist Church.

I haven't read the entire other thread, just enough to know that I didn't want to waste my time reading it, but as far as I know, many Muslims in America are African American. However, I don't know how many are "converts" as opposed to those born into the religion. I believe conversion was much more common during the 1960s, but I haven't seen any data on this. I don't know how any discussion of the topic would be considered racist unless that was being argued in order to somehow tarnish the religion (eg. "it's only a religion for black people which means it's inferior" and I don't thing that was happening).

I also have little tolerance for the constant attacks on Muslima. Anyone who uses a username on DCUM gets a target on their back -- including me -- and it is really annoying to be followed thread to thread by people who don't want to do anything other that attack you. Finally, if you find yourself asking questions begin as "why do Muslims" or "why does Islam", you are probably not going to get a satisfactory answer. Muslims are not a monolithic block. If you are talking to Muslima, phrase your question as to "why do you..". She appears quite willing to provide the answers.