How extreme is Islamic extremism?

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treide

New member
Before someone bites my head off, I am in no way condoning the actions of Islamic terrorists (or any terrorists, for that matter)!

I had a heated discussion with my family regarding religion recently, and it got me thinking about \"radical\" Islam. The media seems to imply that the factions engaged in terrorist activities are fundamentalist or extreme forms of Islam, and are a far cry from \"mainstream\" Islamic values. Is that accurate? My understanding is that there are passages in the Koran that encourage the killing of \"infidels\", which I would assume implies all non-Muslims, whereas other sections promote tolerance and \"love thy neighbor\" attitudes similar to other major religions.

Islamic leaders seem to denounce the actions of these radical groups in the media, but then you see scenes of cheering citizens of Islamic countries after a successful suicide bombing attack.

I am certainly no authority on Islam or any other religion, but I am curious what others think about this, especially those that practice Islam or live in predominantly Muslim countries. If Islamic extremism is so far off center from traditional Islam, why is it on the rise?

Let the vitriol commence!
 
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supervike

Super Moderator
To be honest this thread could get ugly fast.

But, in light of the recent Abortion topic, maybe I will be wrong.

We\'ll have to see.
 
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vincegamer

Active member
I think it may be safe to say \"radical\" Islam since there are millions (billions?) of Muslims in the world and only a very few of them kill \"infidels.\"

\"fundamental\" is also a safe term as it refers to people taking the words of the text literally.
 
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lono

New member
If I had to rate it on the extremeness scale I\'d say it\'s definately more extreme than Bam Margera, but not as extreme as Matt Hoffman...

I give Islamic terrorists the rank of Poochie when it comes to radical extremeness.
 
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Ritual

New member
First of, seing \"cheering citizens of Islamic countries\" what does that really mean? You see a group of people from somewhere cheering over something. But the pictures rarely tell you how many people there are, where it is, or what they\'re cheering. Media companies chose the pictures they want to show to make a good story. I\'m not saying it\'s never happened that people cheer terrorist acts, but seeing a cheering crowd doesn\'t mean that the entire muslim world is cheering. It\'s also happened that media companies showed pictures of people cheering something completely different, but most people wouldn\'t know because we don\'t understand the language (I can\'t remember exactly when and what the situation was, but I remember vaguely a case were the crowd was actually cheering a sports event or something).

When you get to the bottom of what the Quran preaches it\'s basically the same values that the Christians believe in. And just like there\'s Christian cultures who are more violent than others and there\'s Christian extremists who won\'t hesitate to use violence, there\'s muslim equivalents. IIRC the Quran says, for instance, that you should be tolerant towards other beliefs and learn things from them that may be useful (unless they contradict Islam, of course :)).

In countries or regions where people are oppressed or insecure (Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, parts of Pakhistan etc.) you could most likely find a slightly larger acceptance for violence toward what people see as foreign oppressors. Still, that doesn\'t mean that all people there condone terrorism. Some are angry and vindictive, but most people just want peace and security, there just like here.

EDIT: Oh, and another thing... I remember back in school my History teacher taught us that basically ALL conflicts there has ever been has more mundane and \"real\" reasons when you see through all the rethorics and smoke screens. I wouldn\'t be the least bit surprised if history will reveal a few \"less righteous\" motives behind Al Qaeda\'s actions.
 
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Ritual

New member
Another thing you need to take into account if you want to understand Islamic hostility against the West is the history of the Islamic world. Al Qaeda constantly uses references to historical \"wrongs\" that have been comitted against the muslim world by the West and reminds people of the humiliation of what once was a great culture. Now, this is of course rhetorics and things are of course not fully as black and white as they claim, but there\'s also lots of truth in it as Europe did some pretty horrible things to them on numerous occasions.

This feeling of humiliation is something that is deeply rooted in many places and can be used, by Al Qaeda more recently but also by others in the past, to fire up segments of the people with a more rebellious attitude.
 
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Brimshack

New member
I remember when the U.S. bombed Libya, back in the stone ages when I went to college. Qaddafi\'s (sp?) Niece, I think that\'s who it was, anyway a small child related to Qaddafi was killed in the attack. That weekend one of the Frats at our university held a party which they advertized as a wake for the little girl. They had a child sized coffin in the Student Union where they were handing out flyers about the upcoming celebration. Smiles all around.

I always think about that whenever I\'m tempted to draw conclusions about \"muslims\" dancing in the street.
 
M

matty1001

New member
xtremists.jpg
 
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Swordwind

New member
Of course Christianity encourages you to burn heretics and kill anyone who doesnt worship God and that those who die on Crusade sit at Gods right hand in heaven...
 
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johnboyjjb

Active member
Originally posted by Swordwind
Of course Christianity encourages you to burn heretics and kill anyone who doesnt worship God and that those who die on Crusade sit at Gods right hand in heaven...
Click to expand...
Where does it say that?
 
G

GreenOne

I paint my thumb.
I once read a book about the crusades, written by a middle-east writter based on actual documentations from scholars and other people who we\'re there. It was very interesting and, I taught, accurate; depicting both sides in this conflict having their rights and wrongs and how sadenning this whole unfortunate affair has been.

For those expecting a flipping flame-inviting comment, just consider it\'s pretty hard to have a call for Jihad with a mouthfull of peanut butter ( Robin William)

And that\'s my say about it...
 
B

Brimshack

New member
Originally posted by Swordwind
Originally posted by johnboyjjb
Originally posted by Swordwind
Of course Christianity encourages you to burn heretics and kill anyone who doesnt worship God and that those who die on Crusade sit at Gods right hand in heaven...
Click to expand...
Where does it say that?
Click to expand...

Here and here
Click to expand...

That particular page makes an odd argument. It uses numerous incidents in which God tells the Hebrews to commit attrocities in order to maintain that he wishes them to today. The lynchpin in the argument is that Jesus said the law does not change. Yet, many of its concrete examples don\'t reas as Old Testament Law, so to speak. I may have missed somethig, but the case looks rather weak there.
 
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Ritual

New member
Nevertheless, that sort of rhetorics was used to get people to join the crusades. When you\'re being promised salvation and the posibility to own land you\'re not really tempted to question the theological stringency. :)
 
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