Muhammad Quotes

She was born a Muslim herself and her life has been threatened by other, Muslims who are fundamentalists who are living proof or her point.

What makes this quotation very notable is the fact that Dr. El-Naggar is not even a cleric but a scientist. and yet in spite of his education, much broader than most Muslim men, he still thinks of the Koran as the only source of truth available to man. Observation, deduction, induction, experimentation all have no weight. Herein lies one basic difference between Islamic Fundamentalists on the one hand and Christian, Jewish, Hindu & Buddhist and other religion’s fundamentalists. All may accept their holy book as the revealed truth, but it is only the fundamentalist Muslim who believes that it is the ONLY source of truth and wisdom. A classic difference between the radical fundamentalist and the moderates is that moderates, like almost all religious people on earth, believe that there are other sources of knowledge, truth and wisdom besides their holy book.

She is a leading American Arab who is a Syrian expatriate.

At the time Islam was quite conflicted about the role of innovation, science and reform. Innovators were to many theologians as dangerous to society as heretics and had to be refuted. Al-Ashari’s school of thought has prevailed in much of the Muslim world to this day.

Munir was a strong advocate for civilian control over the military and as exposed many military atrocities and disappearances. He was poisoned on a Garuda Airlines flight to Holland where he was exposing more of the human rights violations of the Indonesian Military.

Turks and Arabs tend to blame each other for the stagnation of Islam.

al-Mansur Abu Ali. Even though the Caliph was trying to return to Muslim Fundamentalism, there was a general tolerance that was far in advance of Christian societies at the time. It is dramatically at variance with many of the more rigorous Islamic countries today.

Later he threatened the Pope with Assassination. See {615446}.

Martyrs to most Muslims are people who die when defending Islam, which includes under the definitions of the Muslim Fundamentalists murdering innocent civilians including women and children. In addition to ascending directly to heaven, the male martyr gets 72 virgins in Paradise.

This is the type of person who suicide bomber recruiters seek out.

Ironically, without the word “wicked” most people would regard the first sentence as a good description of elements of a modern democracy. It illustrates that for the Islamic fundamentalist democracy substitutes the rule of man for the rule of God, freedom of speech allows heresy and blasphemy to to uttered and communicated, and religion which is supposed to inform and direct politics. So what is good for the lover of democracy is the very thing that is bad for Islam. This is not a uniquely Islamic viewpoint. It has been and is held by fundamentalist Christians and Jews as well who would return to Biblical law punishing blasphemy and heresy with death and have religion drive all politics.

One remarkable aspect of this quote is that most Western nations have the exact same perception he claims the Islamic word does of what the West is doing. While the Western nations think the defense is necessary and desirable, the Muslim nations fundamentally believe that Christianity and Judaism should and will be supplanted by Islam. To the Islamic fundamentalist religion is a zero sum game. Every person in the world who is not a Muslim is an attack on Islam in that God wants all to follow Islam and wants the faithful to make it so.

Some Muslims claim that Jihad really means a struggle that does not necessarily involve weapons, killing, and may be directed at mastery of self and social improvements in a society. However, the majority of Muslims in the world seem to accept the description given be Assam. In 1989 Assam was fomenting his extremist view of Islam in Pakistan where he had his headquarters when a bomb blew up killing Azzam and his two sons. It is not known whether it was an accident with the explosives they were storing for terrorist activities or they were killed by another Islam faction. Sunni and Shiite are often at each other’s throats.

Al-Maarri’s quotations are not only meaningful in their own right, but they illustrate the openness and free thinking that was allowed in the early days of Islam before about 1100. If anyone wrote such things today in most Islamic countries he would at least be jailed if not executed for blasphemy. And if any Christian in Europe made the same statement, he would have been excommunicated at least if not tortured and murdered.

Fifty years later, the Taliban of Afghanistan make the fundamentalist prohibition against music the law. See {620308}. Where he got his ‘facts’ about music is unknown, but it does not even comport with Islamic history. The Muslim Ottoman Turks invented the military band and the playing of music to increase men’s courage. It was so effective that virtually every other military on earth adopted the use of a military band playing music. Yet this Ayatiollah claimed music stifled courage and valor.

This statement by The Prophet has been interpreted by Muhammad Abduh and other Islamic modernists and reformers as a call for co-existence and common ground between Muslims on the one hand and Christians and Jews on the other. However, some Muslim extremists interpret this sura to mean that the call is for the Christians and Jews to accept Islam and THEN there will be common words. There is in modern times, there is no Islamic Hierarchy like a Pope to make a definitive determination about such an interpretation so Muslims are split on the interpretation. In that sense Muslims today are like Protestants, Jews and Buddhists.

This is not terribly different however from Christians and Jews selectively quoting the Bible.

One Islamic belief that has stood since the inception of the religion is that if a true believer who is defending the faith in a jihad is killed, he will immediate be transported to Paradise where he will receive the best of the other world. If a Muslim dies under normal circumstances, he is judged and may or may not attain Paradise depending on his past life. However, if he dies in jihad, all past sins are immediately erased and he is guaranteed Paradise. This quotation is exactly what is told to Muslim fighters and suicide bombers today (see {635766}, {588728} and {590762}) and it is just as effective as ever in persuading men to fight and sacrifice themselves. The Roman Catholic Pope issued a similar edict in the Crusades and fights of both religions were willing and almost anxious to die in battle. In modern times Christian leaders do not make such appeals and if they did, few would believe them.