Afghan man faces death for abandoning Islam


Prosecutors, judge, family insist convert should die

By Kim Barker
Tribune foreign correspondent
Published March 21, 2006

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Abdul Rahman told his family he was a Christian. He told the neighbors, bringing shame upon his home. But then he told the police, and he could no longer be ignored.

Now, in a major test of Afghanistan's fledgling court system, Rahman, 42, faces the death penalty for abandoning Islam for Christianity. Prosecutors say he should die. So do his family, his jailers, even the judge. Rahman has no lawyer. Jail officials refused to let anyone see Rahman on Monday, despite permission granted by the country's justice minister.

"We will cut him into little pieces," said Hosnia Wafayosofi, who works at the jail, as she made a cutting motion with her hands. "There's no need to see him."

Rahman's trial, which started Thursday, is thought to be the first of its kind in Afghanistan. It goes to the heart of the struggle between Islamic reformists and fundamentalists in the country, which is still recovering from 23 years of war and the harsh rule of the Taliban, a radical religious regime that fell in late 2001.

Even under the more moderate government now in power, Islamic law is supposed to be followed, and many believe it requires the death penalty for anyone who leaves Islam for another religion.

"We are Muslim, our fathers were Muslim, our grandfathers were Muslim," said Abdul Manan, Rahman's father, who is 75. "This is an Islamic country. Imagine if your son told a police commander, also a Muslim, that he is a Christian. How would this affect you? It's very difficult for us."

Much of Afghanistan remains conservative and religious. But Islamic rules are violated in Afghanistan every day--whether by alcohol being sold openly on the streets, or by prostitutes who cater to both foreigners and Afghans, or by the booming opium trade.

Many Islamic scholars believe that Muslims who convert from Islam should be killed, but liberal and moderate scholars disagree. One Afghan liberal scholar, Ali Mohaqeq Nasab, spent almost three months in jail last fall after publishing a magazine challenging many traditional views on Islamic law, including the belief that Muslims who convert to other religions deserve to die.

Most Afghans are Muslim--only a few are publicly Sikh or Hindu. Christians are rare and prefer to hide their religion. Afghan Christians have no church, and foreigners worship either in small groups, or at embassies or military bases.

Rev. Giuseppe Moretti, who ministers to Catholics in Afghanistan, said he has heard of some Afghan Christians who converted overseas, but most keep that secret once they come back. No Afghans worship under him.

"I hope this man is not condemned," Moretti said. "It's a very delicate situation."

Rahman and his family have a history of problems. Manan said his son never worked, beat up family members and seemed mentally ill.

Rahman left Afghanistan shortly after the birth of his daughters, now 12 and 13. He and his wife divorced. While overseas, Rahman converted to Christianity. He returned to Afghanistan about three years ago and moved back in with his father and daughters. He left for months at a time, working at a restaurant or as a security guard.

He stayed with cousins, who asked him to leave after he said he was a Christian. Eventually, Rahman moved back with his father.

"He is my son," said Manan, crying. "But if a son does not care about the dignity of his family, the dignity of his father, God can take him away. You cannot make anything out of such a son. He is useless."

He complained about Rahman's behavior to local police, but did not mention his religious conversion. At first, police asked the family to try to resolve its own problems. Then in early February, Rahman showed up at the police station and complained about how his family treated him. While there, he announced he had become a Christian.

Police said they had no choice except sending the case to central police command.

"We knew he had converted, but we didn't want to get involved in religious issues," said Col. Abdul Mohammed, the deputy commander of the police district. "So we filed a report on the family's problems to send to the central police. And he insisted over and over, `Please write in my file that I converted to Christianity.'"

On Thursday, the first day of the trial, Rahman appeared in court with no lawyer. Prosecutor Abdul Wasi said Rahman had been told repeatedly to repent and come back to Islam, but Rahman refused. Wasi called Rahman a traitor.

"He is known as a microbe in society, and he should be cut off and removed from the rest of Muslim society and should be killed," Wasi told the court.

Rahman said he had surrendered himself to God. "I believe in the holy spirit," he said. "I believe in Christ. And I am a Christian."

Judge Ansarullah Mawlawizada, who is handling the case, said he normally takes two months to decide on cases. But because this case is so serious, he expected to hold another hearing within the next week and make a decision.

Mawlawizada, who kept Rahman's green Bible on his desk, said he respected all religions. He emphasized that he did not favor the aggressiveness of the Taliban, who cut the hands and feet off criminals in a soccer stadium. But he said Rahman had to repent.

"If he doesn't regret his conversion, the punishment will be enforced on him," the judge said. "And the punishment is death."


good thing the Taliban is gone...

short answer, yes.

I thought this was gonna be about basketball.

I think the answer would be yes to that also....

I wonder if he will be seen as a martyr since he is dying (not killing) for his beliefs.

As I'm coming to understand it, "moderate Islams" don't really exist. Rather, what we could consider to be "moderate" is actually (according to the simple and teachings of the Qur'an) are just run-of-the-mill unfaithfuls who aren't even practicing the religion correctly.

My entire understanding of Islam has shifted over the past month. I still want to believe that it's a religion of peace, not violence. But the evidence isn't looking good. Can we justify tolerance of such intolerance any longer?

Moderate muslims do exist, but most have left those countries. Just like moderate Christians exist, but they have left the Republican party.

By that token there are no moderate Christians, just those who lost souls who think they're Christians.

The people involved in this story are lunatics. If there's a hell, they'll burn there. But the problem is extremism, not Islam. The extreme Christian is mostly not prone to violence these days, but there's a whole lot of violence with Jesus's name on it throughout history.

Isn't the problem, though, the percentage of people who hold these beliefs? Maybe we're being fed a bunch of BS by the media and they aren't painting an accurate picture, but when you see demonstrations in the street of thousands of people cheering something like 9/11 (and it was on the basis of religion, not just because we're the big bad US), it's hard to understand that those people, who appear to be your everyday, common citizens, are part of some small lunatic fringe of an otherwise peaceful religion.

It would be like seeing demonstrations in the streets in Atlanta when a radical Christian kills an abortion doctor. Yes, there are those sickos who approve of that kind of thing, but those are truly the fringe, and they stay out of the public for the most part.

I have no doubt that there is a sizable contingent who practices Islam in a peaceful, non-threatening manner. I'm just concerned that the minority is far more than just the fringe.

Unfortunately the extremist Muslims are in the ascendency, more so than extremist Fundie Christians. The Wahabis want every non-muslim off the Arabian Peninsula, and they're willing to spend millions to push that agenda forward. There are tens of millions of the muslim version of the Backwoods Fundie Christians (you know the type, the ones that believe that the 900 foot Jesus really talks to Oral Roberts in his Prayer Tower) across the -stans. The President of Iran was one of the students who kidnapped the Americans in '79 (I'm surprised he denies it, but one day soon I feel he'll admit it). Several North African extremist Muslim groups have all but given up on armed struggle against the infidels, focusing on their growing Meth sales, and targetting each other in gangland turf wars (oddly enough, these are the groups who worked together to perform the Madrid train bombings). Every other week the Anti-Terror Analysts seem to have a new group that Al-Queda's combining with or exporting knowledge to (This week it's Iran, who hate the Al-Queda operatives on sectarian grounds: Sunni muslims have been fighting with the Shi'ites over the succession of Muhammed since 632 AD).

And all this ignores the fact that North Korea has threatened the US with a unilateral first strike nuclear attack, and the administration has backed down and apologized for nothing. A country that harbors terrorists, that definitely has weapons of mass destruction, that exports war to it's neighbors, that has kidnapped citizens of other countries and held them against their wills for 50 years, that's internationally known for it's use of torture and brainwashing for even thinking bad thoughts against the Glorious Leader (who's an Internet Porn junkie with bad hair & lifts in his shoes). And we promise them food & technology, and suck up to them every time they say they can hurt us & our allies with their Nuclear Weapons. No wonder we had to shove a stick into the Iraqi hornets nest, if we weren't blinded by another War we might be expected to attack a prepared enemy.

Oh, and forced conversion or death is usually the fate of Christians in Muslim countries, this story is being pushed by the administration & their lickspittle cronys in the media to distract from 3 years in Iraq with no expected end in sight, and there won't be an end unless Rummsie sucks it up & spends the cash to insert enough well armed troops in-country to make a difference, and that means hiring Arab troopers to do the grunt work: Sunnis for Sunni held areas & Shi'as for Shi'ite held areas, with enforced buffer zones and machine gun armed APCs in every major intersection. We could hire them from the -stans & poorer Arab nations' armies, give'em APCs (make'em use their own small arms) and radios & set them up as adjuncts to the Iraqi Army.

The answer is yes.

Funny, though - This HORRIFIC story wasn't pushed by the Bush Administration or the frothing news pundits - or ANYONE in the media when it occurred (scroll down and look the crying, horrified faces of these boys who know they are about to die - it's just fucking gutwrenching) - in fact, this story was ignored by just about everyone in the world, including all of the major gay rights advocates.
Why is that? Have we just become complacent to this barberic behavior?

The Muslim world needs to catch up with civilization. Everyone talks about how evil the western culture is, with our capitalism and wealth. The thing is - we do NOT publicly execute gays, we don't forcibly remove a women's clitoris or stone her to death for committing adultery - or, gasp, showing her face in public - nor do we hold government endorsed executions of people who believe in Jesus, or Allah - or Oprah.

No, it wasn't long ago that vile injustices were being commited against blacks and other minorities in this country - and there is still plenty of injustice to go around. We are not perfect - but we have progressed as a people. As much as I despise the Bush administration and the radical Christian right in this country - any comparisons between them and what occurs regularly in the Muslim world are absurd, irrational and only add to the chaos. Liberals and conservatives alike should be outraged by the human rights violations committed "in the name of Islam" or by sick communist dictators - we should all stand in solidarity against it, not play blame games and "let's compare the atrocity". Enough is enough.

I think better understanding requires the laborous effort of trying to put yourself in their shoes. Consider the sort of 'bs' their media feeds them, the strange otherwordly force America must seem, the lack of civil channels for political expression, the problem of the Palestine, etc. It's not an excuse, but it can help you understand where they're coming from.

If you visit here you can listen to a lecture by Washington Post foreign editor Pamela Constable. She used to be a writer in the Muslim world and she talks frankly about trying to figure out their way of life. She's hardly optimistic, but the cartoons offer her an opportunity to muse a little bit.

I don't know what you're suggesting, but you must realize that the brunt of our military and political system has been ostensibly focused on exterminating radical Islam ideology for several years now. What would you suggest?

andrew sullivan posted quite a bit about this- it really was heartbreaking looking at those pictures. As for becoming complacent, the proof is in the pudding. We get the government we deserve- and the voter turnout numbers of yesterday are absolutely pathetic, primary election or not. It's easy to bash the Bush administration (sooooo easy), but we deserve as much derision.

Our apathy + his stupidity = the mess we're in.

Can we get this on a bumber sticker!!!!

There can be no moderate Islam until a Reformation of some kind. They have never had one. The Islamic world is literally in the 7th century. Read parts of the Quran. You'll see Islam is not about peace. Muhammad and Jesus are very, very different. The goal of Islam is to assimilate the world. If the world will not be assimilated, it must be destroyed. That is the heart of Islam right there. It's core message is very much the opposite of Christianity.

When I think about the Iraq war, I do indeed wonder if it is a battle against Islam, more than anything else. I mean, they very notion of instilling a Western Democracy, in literal terms: is the destruction of Islam there. In Islam there is no division of Church and State. There is no law but Islamic Law. True Islamic countries are total Mullacracies. Strict caste systems where Christians and Jews can exist, but are seen as half human, or at least treated that way socio-economically. Women basically have no rights at all. You can't have women's liberation in Islam, you can't have a Republic in Islam, you can't have freedom in Islam:

So, by waging this war there is no doubt than that the aim, if not directly, is indeed to wipe out Islam. Yes? To spread democracy across the ME, is to say, Islam, as it has always been known, will be gone? Correct? Muslims can practice, but it'll be a completely different version than what a true Muslim would think it should be and it will directly conflict with their scriptures.

Actually it's literally the 15th century.

But what you're talking about is fundamental Islam. True: women's lib, democracy, republicanism equality, religious freedom, etc. cannot exist with under fundamental Islam. But these things can't exist with fundamental Christianity or fundamental Judaism either. Fundamentalism and extemism are the problems, not Islam.

You're correct about what's needed though: not the destruction of Islam but a reformation. Unfortunately, that can really only happen from within, and while there are tiny sections pushing for change, the encroachment of the West seems to only be serving to make fundamentalists push back harder.

I very much doubt the Iraq war was a strike against Islam, though, unless it was meant as a preliminary round before we really got down to business. As far as the Middle East goes, prewar Iraq was largely secular. Hussein may have been a Muslim, but he really only worshipped his own power. If it were a war against Islam we were looking for, there were/are better targets.

I'm not justifying the human rights abuses of the Muslim World. They sicken me. I just think trying to find some common ground is more worthwhile than outright denouncing that entire part of the world.

There have been Reformations within Islam, but they usually end up being swollowed by Fundie counter-reformations, much as what happened between the Protestant & Catholic churches in the years before Martin Luther. It was only after Luther nailed his Theses to the church door that there was enough pressure behind him to push Rome back & hold them back.

My personal beliefs are that the original reasons for overthowing Saddam were to put a Democratically elected government in charge of a major player in the heart of the Middle East, a government that would then shine out as a beacon to the rest of the region. 99% of the Middle East is governed by dictators & strongmen, and the remaining 1% is Iran, which is governed by a democratic parliment under Sharia Law (meaning that any law passed by parliment can be over ruled by the Ayatollahs, and their decisions will be enforced by the Revolutionary Guards). But Bush's Real Politik has a flaw.

Iraq was governed by Clan chieftans, the over throw of Saddam was an attack against his Clan's power and many of the original insurgents were members of Albu Nasir (Saddam's Clan affiliation), and the core of them were from Tikrit, saddam's hometown. What we've entered into is not a fight to create a democracy, but a street fight over whether someone's Great-great Uncle stole someone elses goat, or whether the goat was payment for access to a well, but the well wasn't on Uncle's Clan's land, but that land had been in the family for centuries until Uncle's Grandfather's time...

The battles for power in the streets are little different than gangland turf wars on the streets of Belfast. The divisions may be religious, but what they're fighting for isn't. And Bush's dreams of a Shining City on a Hill convincing the Arab world that Democracy will empower them and pull them up from the darkness of Dictatorship up into the light of Freedom is just that, a dream. Too many of the Shi'ites & Sunni's want to play Hatfield & McCoys for scraps for them to look up & say "If we work together everybody wins."

Perhaps my final sentence ("Can we justify tolerance of such intolerance any longer?") sounded like a call to arms. But I'm not suggesting any specific action. I'm only saying that continued complacency to such atrocities is inexcusable in the twenty-first century.

Our military hasn't gone after radical Islam ideology on a whole so much as it's just pursued a handful of figureheads that have been scapegoated as being the cause for all intolerance and injustice in that part of the world. No, to truly exterminate radical Islam would require an all-out Crusade, and I'm afraid that no one in the world would be able to escape the ramifications of that.

To paraphrase a quote from "that crap-looking movie" that's out right now: "you can kill [men], but an idea can live forever." The Taliban is only the tip of the iceberg. These are ideas that are part of the fabic of the culture of a very large part of the world, and taking out a few celebrity terrorists with mini-nukes or suddenly foisting Democracy onto a country or two isn't going to change that.


I never thought I'd say this, but Mr. Inches is otm.


While I detest the inherent intolerance and the reason-free lifestyle of Christianity at its most fundamental, even its most extreme fringes can't hold a candle to radical Islam today. Sure, anyone can go back to the history books and point to the inquisition as proof that Christianity can be a dangerous religion as well. But unlike Islam, it has evolved (to a point) and reformed over the centuries. Throw your worst accusations at it and you're still left with the fact that outside of a handful of harmless nutcases with cult followings (Fred Phelps, etc.), there are no Christians leaders in the western world (at least that I'm aware of) who would advocate such violence in the name of their beliefs. And on the occasions that some do, they're almost always forced to account for their words, which thankfully carry no authority in the first place, thankfully.

Fundamentalism and extremism are problems, but you'll be hard pressed to find any fundamentalist Christians or Jews who would kill their neighbors, denounce their children, or blow themselves up on a bus. Through their interpretation of scripture, fundamentalist Christians might strive to deny certain people certain civil rights, but they certainly aren't hanging or beheading people in the town square.

Western culture, where Christianity has thrived, has gone through The Reformation, The Renaissance, and Modernism. What even the most fundamental Christian of today believes in has been filtered through a whole lot of outside influences over milenia, and for it Western culture has become more complacent and tolerant of other ideas, religious or otherwise. Helping all this out is the 600-some year head start Christianity has on Islam, as well as a good deal of local isolation the Muslim world has had. At the bones, Christianity is more about peace and Islam more about justice, but the texts in either one could be used to justify the awful things Muslims are doing to "lesser" Muslims these days. It's a matter of interpretation, and for my buck the Wahabbists have it way wrong. Considering that Christianity should be about peace and love and that Western culture is typically about tolerance, it's amazing there are still those who are convinced bombing abortion clinics and beating down homosexuals is the right thing to do in the twenty first century. So take that mindset, move it to another part of the world that's had 600 fewer years to put it all together, replace a figure of peace with a warrior of justice, and add massive numbers in an intellectually isolated area of the world, well, this is the outcome. It's the mindset that all that matters is what my book says about god, everything else can burn to hell for all it matters. That's the problem. And it exists in Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Atheism and any other ism you can find out there. You can say that Eastern Muslims' problem is they have too much faith, that they should become more lax, like Western Christians.

It took a long time for us to get here, and we expect the Middle East to turn it around over night? I actually think they'll get there. It's just gonna take a long ass time.

Do you have some kind of documentation of this? All I remember seeing was that Reuters video of a few dozen people in East Palestine on the afternoon of 9/11.


From what I've read, female genital mutilation is a cultural practice, not a religious one.
And catching up to the rest of civilization is a lot easier when you're not in a constant state of war and poverty. While everyone agrees with this in spirit, it seems people in the west are perfectly willing to say "We took our time solving our own horrible culture problems, but now that we know what's what, you have to change right now." Which is understandable but perhaps not realisitic.


Your argument doesn't make any sense. Iraq was a largely secular state under Saddam Hussein and since the U.S. invasion is now much closer to becoming a religious state.
If the United States wanted to wage war on the ultra-conservative Islamic church state, it would have followed Afghanistan with an attack on Saudia Arabia.


Quoted for emphasis.


What's your basis for believing this?
Everything I have read and heard has suggested these ideas only prosper because they are offered to people who literally have no other prospects for improving their own lives.


1. "in the western world" (ie, allowing for stable economies and domestic peace, which, you know, makes this a lot easier)
2. Islam is quite a bit younger than Chrisitianity, so maybe it deserves the same amount of time to come to that era of modern reform


Well, um, if those fundamentalists had AH-64 Apache helicopters like the (arguably fundamentalist) Jews do, suicide bombings probably wouldn't be their chosen method of attack.
I hate to sound condescending, but 13-year-old kids in Palestine don't try to stop tanks by throwing rocks because a religious leader told them to; they do it because their lives are shit and they don't have very much to lose anymore. Palestinians don't vote for Hamas because they hate the west and think giving up their liberties is a great idea; they vote for Hamas because literally almost no one else has made an effort to improve their lives.

As always, people on the SOMB conflate the religious, the social and the political into one blurry mess.
Props to Duff, Freddie and Ben for bringing some insight to this thread.

Cultural practice, religious practice... I don't see it here. If I'm wrong please call me out on it, but to call it a "cultural" practice would be to imply that there's a perfectly logical reason for it.

Most of the 9/11 hijackers were educated young men who came from respectable and well-to-do families.


Say what you will about the sad state of affairs there and I won't deny that the Palestinians have been systematically marginalized and pushed to the edge, but when you kill innocent and defenseless people by walking into a crowd with a bomb strapped to your back, you've lost my sympathy.



You're my bro and I'd like it to stay that way, so I had better just leave this last part alone and slowly back out of this thread for a while, lest I say anything I'll later wish I could take back.

If this is an "x better than y" question... then by the standards accepted in this thread, I would assume SOMB would agree that:

Buddhism (long record of peaceful spirituality, the advancement of thought, and the acceptance of all people) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Judaism >>> Christianity >> Islam

All else aside, it is historical fact that all major Western monotheistic religions are characterized by massive strife and repression while Eastern religions like Buddism and Taoism have relatively unmarred records.

No, it's not logical at all (it's repungent, sickening, and monstrous).
I'm saying its based in certain non-religious cultural practices (mainly African) not religious ones (they probably predate Islam's entry into Africa). It belongs in the "we really are better than black people" thread, not in this one.


Which in my mind just further proves how far removed Islam's extermists are from the masses out in the streets.


They've lost mine too, but what does their religion have to do with that? Why are you holding it against them as a religious group as opposed to holding it against them as a national group?
And it bears repeating, when the other side is firing rockets into crowds of civilians (including children) to get at those guys who are planning to blow themselves up, they've lost my sympathy as well.


I apologize if I stepped on any toes. I usually skip these threads because they rarely go anywhere constructive, but I've seen this come up enough times that I felt obligated to say something.

Here's a fun fact: On the day of India's first nuclear test in 1974, Indira Ghandi's advisor is said to have related her the news of their successful explosion with the words "The Buddha is smiling." (source)

Some people have even dubbed the bomb "Smiling Buddha," much like we had Little Boy and Big Boy.

I think it should also be noted that there is a great degree of pan-Arab feeling out there that blends the religious with the political quite strongly. There are sectarian divisions between Sunni and Shiite (OBL/Iran) and many complications (Egytian nationalism, Hashemites, Persian traditions) but there are factions in each that pay at least homage to the idea of returning to the Islamic empire of the caliphate, a pan-Arab state that would theoretically stretch from Morocco to Afghanistan and be ruled by a theocratic class under Koranic law. That's OBL's stated quest.

99% of what the Muslims proactice is cultural & not religious. The Koran doesn't say: "All women must wear a Burqa or be stoned to death." I believe there's comments about being modest & covering their heads, but nothing about never showing your face to anyone except your family. Female "Circumcisism" is practiced by Animists in non-Muslim areas, too, so it's not merely a religious practice.

One of the reasons that people mix up everything like that is because it is all mixed up to some extent. Cultual norms in place before a religoin is accepted into a region remain and later become accepted parts of the religion (Look at Christmas & Easter, both Pagan holidays that became Christian). People later use the religious norms as basis for political expediencies (in the '80s there were many political hacks elected to high office on a single plank platford" abortion. And there still are some out there). People believe that however they were raised is "Right," and when they go out to affect the world as adults they try to use that sense of "Rightness" as the basis of how they interact with the world. If most of the people they interact with have the same sense of "Rightness," they reinforce each other's beliefs and gain strength in the belief set. And people like to interact with others who share their belief sets, it's alot easier than going out & trying to hack a place out in the world somewhere where no one believes what you do. This is also the basis for the formation of Ghettos.

So culture bleeds into religion, religion bleeds into politics, and everyone wants to hang out with people who believe that these things should be just so for everything to be "Right." Does that sound right? (as he looks to find those who believe the same thing & build concensus... ).

This is essentially the argument George Bush has been making since 9/11. How do you justify this? Forget Iraq for the moment, in the fall of 2001 our military partnered with Pakistan and others in Central Asia to obliderate the Taliban and install an entirely new government in Afghanistan. Certainly we haven't invested the resources, or incurred the losses, in terms of lives and political capital, it would requre to completely clear the area (evidence, OBL, Mullah Omar, etc., still on the loose, Taliban still making ALL SORTS OF NOISE in border regions) but I don't see how the effort can be so easily dismissed.Are you aware of how closely you're hemming to President Bush's lastest national security strategy (pdf)? This is the sort of fuzzy rhetoric that people criticize as imperlialistic and fear mongering, you know. Forever war, etc. etc.

Also, I'm not trying to attack you here duder. I just want to have a conversation. I hope you feel like you can say what you think.

terremoto! pretty much OTM in this whole thread.

Maybe someone should draw a cartoon of this whole situation.

Paging Sausage to thread. Sausage to thread. Please bring your crayons, felt, and glue.

Well, that's true, and I'm not trying to say they can or should be separated out to the degree where each can be considered neatly on its own.

What I am saying is that the argument made by Mr. Inches (and apparently seconded by Undo) — that Islam is fundamentally flawed, inconsistent with democracy, and morally wrong at its core — is overly simplistic at best and capable of justifying the most terrible acts, at worst.

I thought this thread was pretty distubing and myopic yesterday. Good to see this discussion becoming much more insightful today. Very refreshing comments from terremoto and ben.

I never meant to say that we were attacking Islam outright. But, that we are attacking it just by what we are doing, indirectly.

THANK YOU ALL FOR THE INTERESTING INFORMATION / OPINIONS--- I APPRECIATE IT

Just for fun, here's the tail end of Ann Coulter's column "This is War" from Sept. 12, 2001 (full text), of which I hear a few echoes here:

Allow me to attempt to re-articulate my inital statement. It is my opinion that brutal acts like the ones described in the first post of this thread (killing someone for abandoning Islam, or as later mentioned, being homosexual), are not based on so-called "extremist" interpretations of the Qur'an, but rather, simple and straightforward readings of it. That said, such "fundamentalist" Muslims who follow these teachings are not necessarily more extreme than Muslims who don't, only more traditional in their practice and faithful to their god.

The thing is, I really am trying to see it from their point of view in making such a judgement. I don't profess to their faith and I absolutely do not condone their actions. I am merely saying that they are just following the words of the Qur'an... in the same way that their great-great-great-etc. ancestors did.

I will not pretend to be the most knowlegable person about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (I'm actually quite ignorant on the matter) or the history of the Taliban (I could be this guy but I'm really trying not to). I'm only speaking to the topic at hand (Afghan man faces death for abandoning Islam), which no one has mentioned for at least a page or so in this thread. Just trying to say that that's a long running tradition that has its roots at the heart of Islam.

That's how I see it anyway.

I'm in a transitional state right now, ideologically speaking, and it's actually caused me a lot of stress. Forgive me if I'm not making much sense or coming across as too judgmental. I probably sound like a Fox News junkie who has a bumper sticker on his truck that says NUKE THEIR ASS AND TAKE THEIR GAS but that couldn't be further from the truth.

I might not be posting Jeanine-like numbers of Bush-bashing threads around here, but believe me, I loathe the man and his policies. So I'm torn between feelings of great amusement and great disappointment upon being told that I basically agree with his stance in dealing with the matter.

Maybe we are finally taking on radical Islam, but it's only because they finally attacked us first. Let's not pretend that our motives for going after OBL and the Taliban in Afghanistan are completely altrusistic or in the name of protecting human rights. For centuries now, they've been executing their own people for committing adultery or questioning dogma. Funny how we never called them out on it before they started crashing planes into our skyscrapers here.

Well, if it's any comfort, I think there's significant room to navigate between George W. Bush's stated goals and his actual results. Andrew Sullivan please stand up. (Have you ever read his blog, http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/ ... It sounds like you might really dig it.)

Undo, these acts aren't called for by the Koran, but by the commenteries written about the Koran that're used by the Sharia and other Islamic religious courts. Muhammed didn't leave enough information for his followers to create a new way of living around, so Koran scholars began writing opinions, histories & other stories based on the available writings, and those writings became the basis for later writings, and so on, and so on.

Also, I think undo's point makes clear the inadequacies of the reformation analogy I hear so often. The gist seems to be that Muslims are some sort of juvenile culture that, unlike us, haven't fixed their religion yet. Well, while most muslim nations lack much the civil tradition of parliaments, the peaceful exchange of power, and legal protections of minorites etc. etc. of which we are so proud (and I think rightfully, though there are many many occassions where we've failed to live up to our lofty rhetoric), I think the analogy is based upon a fundamental misunderstanding of the reformation, which was at its doctrinal heart a conservative movement back towards strict adherance to so-called revealed texts, and exactly the sort of literal reading of scripture that Undo is abhorring in Islam. In that sense, the analogy is actually wrong. The Catholic tradition was one of philosophy and reasoning based out of scripture that moved it foward and adapted to changing circumstances. Certainly it was oppressive, but philosophically it was much more like the reasoning intellectual readers of Islamic law that America has tried to engage constructively. Of course, comparing any of this directly to Islam, which Freddie I think accurately points out is a very legalistic faith, is always going to be problematic.

I think the principles of Voltaire (yes, this stuff is really really French) and The Enlightenment is better place to focus out attention than Luther, and not just when addressing problems that arise outside our borders.

I better calm down before I get crazy fish out that Gordon Brown speech.

I agree with you on this: the fundamentalists reading of the Quran is straight forward (it appears to me: at least what I have read of it). Muhammad was all about war and conquering. The passages I read basically said that he felt close to God when in battles, and on the battlefield. And, nobody could really experience life unless in battle. That was part that I personally read, and it sounded pretty violence-oriented to me. Which, in my reading of the NT, seems pretty opposite of Christianity.

As far as people blurring the lines of religion, politic, social, etc. (touched in another post), when dealing with Islam: is that they are blurred in Islam, correct? There is no distinction between political, social and economic lines. The Caliphate rules, he is a religious leader. The Sharia is the law, which is religious. The leader is religious. It's all religious: right?

Good post. You make a lot of sense here. Christianity was very, very violent in it's day. And, it WAS based on how they read the NT. Good work kid.

And, keep in mind: aren't 50% of people in the Arab world: males of 18 or under?

You have to look at the stats on these Muslim countries. They are staggeringly bad. These people live beyond the third world under terrible conditions. Was just reading about Yemen, which apparently is a progressive country in the region, it's 15th century for sure...

And, further about the stats: you aren't dealing with educated well developed countries. Is it really any wonder that they have ill-educated superstitious views of their religion? Even further, Islam is a really divided up religion. They don't share the same religious beliefs in within some countries. Iraq for sure.

The BBC reports that 60 percent of the world's 250 million person Arab population is under 25 years of age. Click here to read and listen to four part series -- Lebanon, Egypt, Bahrain, Morocco -- interviewing members of this baby boom.

Personally, I don't think it's something to be terribly pessimistic about. It was only seven years ago that students rioted in the streets of Iran protesting the establishment there (source). And it was a disporportionately large youth population that sparked the 68 riots in France and all across Europe, which led to liberalizing reforms that moved away from fascism and toward a united Europe.

But the million dollar question for us is whether American policy since 911 is improving that environment. Are we safer, are they less hostile toward us, are those two things correlated and having we been acting in a way that improves both.

Also, David Remnick's New Yorker article from the Palestinian territories last month, "The Democracy Game," is the best thing I've read on the Hamas victory yet. In fact, it's one of the best pieces of quick reaction news coverage I've ever read. He's so god damn good. Let me look for it. Oh crap, looks like they didn't post that one online.

That's because they keep blowing themselves up at 25.

Seems interesting. I don't know where he stands on the issues but I get a good idea from reading most of the first page or so here. I'll bookmark this one.


Understandably, this would be a hard pill for any Muslim to swallow, especially when prescribed by someone a world away and of a different faith altogether (I'm presuming that Duff isn't Muslim).

It would be really nice if they just became "more lax" but like Duff says, it's gonna take a long ass time. Is simply waiting for natural reformation from within an option when radicals are pursuing WMDs to use against their enemies? Therein lies the rub. I'd love it if we could all afford to just wait and see what happens but it's possible that's not a luxury we can afford any longer.

I get sick to my stomach reading this shit rhetoric I'm spewing here, but I can't figure out any other way to explain the gravity of the situation.

I've read Christian books that marvelled at the faith of the average Muslim. The authors will often say that we should strive for that kind of faith (obviously for the one true god, though, in the author's eyes). That always fascinated and frustrated me.

Anyway, I'm of the opinion that all we can do is wait. It seems to me that our intervention is only strengthening the resolve of Muslim leaders, pushing up the urgency in keeping all things Muslim, all laws made by Allah. They can blame the US for their lousy lives instead of the giant gap between the wealthy few and the poor masses. They can claim the Americans are trying to destroy their culture and replace it with their own, which wouldn't be too far from the mark. Continuing on our current road, I have no doubt we're gonna get hit hard again. I'd be surprised if doesn't happen before our next president takes office (for the record, I'd've believed that no matter who was in office). Maybe I'm naive, but I think it'd be more productive to find a way to convince the people of the region we can be trusted and we are willing to trust them. The oil their all sitting on makes leaving them alone a nonoption.



Wish I'd thought to post that. Exactly.



Yep, my mistake.



Every once in a while I post something intelligent, if only by accident.

A big problem is that a lot of the rich kids get great educations, but it's mostly in theology, and strict-as-hell Islamic theology at that. They don't hear the ideas of the Greek philosophers, nothing from the West, no Confucius, just the most iron-clad version of the Quran available. Given years to do nothing but let those ideas swirl around in their heads, it's no wonder they're ready to kill anyone for Allah.

Gay conservative. Used to edit The New Republic. Pundit type. Big time Bush backer before the war who has since soured. Writes a lot about examples of injustice in the Muslim World, like the one you cited, and elsewhere. Here is Dana Milbank's Washington Sketch of a recent think tank panel where Sullivan went off on W.

I understand your argument on the subject of reformation, but, what if Muslims simply do NOT want to embrace change? What if they look at how amorality is eating our society from the inside out? What is they see freedom and feel that it is a negative thing? What if they look at Capitalism and say to themselves, Gee Wiz, if it wasn't for Americans consuming and destroying: maybe we wouldn't have environmental problems and Global economic disparity as we do now.

I am not advocating any of this as something I stand behind or feel, but there are a lot of reasons why a Muslim could look at our country and actually want to go back to strict Islam in their country.

It also has to do with want. Look at the women's rights situation, for instance. Ask yourself: do Muslim women want liberation? The statements I have personally read don't make it seem so. So, if you are trying to establish liberation for women, but they don't really want it, you have failed from the beginning. And, byt the same token, if you are trying to establish a Western style democracy in the ME, but they don't really want it, you have failed from the beginning.

That's why I say scale back troops now and allow them to establish whatever form of government they want, because trying to make people do what they do not want, isn't going to work and will end in disaster. Democracy GROWS from within a community, it does not get exported like so much wheat or milk.

I say: scale back the troop to about 50K and leave em there like we did in Germany and S. Korea. Support the security forces with the best air force in the world. And, completely remove ourselves from the political process. It's risky, but I say it has a better chance of working: and a WAY better chance of convincing Arabs we are not there to subjigate and steal resources, which is exactly what they think. Remove our Army bases from Iraq, because this is a big topic in the Arab world, and move to country like Kuwait for big army bases. If we don't do this now, we'll be doing the same thing now in four years and it'll all fall apart when we leave. If we scale back now, in four years they might actually rebuild into a pseudo-republic of some kind.