I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

[Seleucus]

Are you referring to your domicile in some Islamic country, Seleucus? If you are referring to a country in the free world i.e. Europe and its Europeanised colonies please give references.

This report is coming to you from an upper-class compound in the 3rd-world. The loudest most persistent mosque is actually outside the compound on the other side of the wall. My attitude towards Islam would go up by 1000% if the megaphones were taken off the minarets. Since radial Islam is a big fear here and the khutbah (Islamic sermons) are broadcast on loudspeakers, the content is not overly radical. It tends to be moralizing about current affairs like railing against corruption or who not to vote for. It has a question begging inflection that goes like: Don't you know what Rasulullah (the Prophet of God) says? Do you want to be...? Are you...? So you can distinguish it even from a distance compared to an announcement of a passing or a lost child. I assume the hardcore jihadist preaching and ISIS recruiting goes on in greater privacy; I only hear about it by arrests reported in the local newspaper. FYI, in the wealthy Gulf states the Friday sermons are scripted by the central authorities so every mosque has the same one.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Immanuel Can wrote:

the things Islam actually teaches its people to do.

I understand that Imams in European and American mosques actually teach an interpretation of the holy scriptures which is indistinguishable in ethical content from other legal and mainstream religions. I expect that in America as in Britain it's illegal for imams or anyone else to preach subversive doctrines ; sharia law is a doctrine as well as a form of law.

I don't understand what you mean here? Or are you just unaware that hundreds if not thousands of imams are being investigated, arrested and denied visas for anti-Semitic hate-speech, inciting violence, and supporting terrorist organizations?

One thing I will tell you, as I'm assuming you don't often go to Friday prayers, is the major rhetorical style of imams is Hitlerian. It is enraged and ranting. This is common all over the place, not just in the mosques that surround my home and I must endure ruining the peace of my Friday mornings. You probably would have found this in the old fire-and-brimstone days coming from Christian pulpits too?

Yes. There are plenty of videos on Youtube of 'imams' doing just that. The chanting would drive me nuts too. What did they do before amplifiers were invented? Do you have to go to prayers btw? Do they police who goes and who doesn't?

[Seleucus]

Do they police who goes and who doesn't?

""There are differences between scholars as to whether congregational prayers are obligatory. But they are currently obligatory because of the laws of the kingdom," he tells the Saudi Gazette."

[Belinda]

Vegetarian Taxidermy wrote:

Yes. There are plenty of videos on Youtube of 'imams' doing just that. The chanting would drive me nuts too. What did they do before amplifiers were invented? Do you have to go to prayers btw? Do they police who goes and who doesn't?

I had no idea that hundreds or thousands of imams were being arrested for subverting the laws of free countries. I'd rather learn about it from a more august source than YouTube though.Who arrests them, and are they brought to justice?

I too have wondered what the shouting minaret men( do they still use minarets?) did before electronic loud speakers. Did old- time imams use big horns perhaps animal horns although those could not have been cow horns could they?

Seleucus's testimony is impressive not least for its passion with which I sympathise. I am trying to be coolly anthropological and not finding it easy.

Seleucus had written:

This report is coming to you from an upper-class compound in the 3rd-world. The loudest most persistent mosque is actually outside the compound on the other side of the wall. My attitude towards Islam would go up by 1000% if the megaphones were taken off the minarets. Since radial Islam is a big fear here and the khutbah (Islamic sermons) are broadcast on loudspeakers, the content is not overly radical. It tends to be moralizing about current affairs like railing against corruption or who not to vote for. It has a question begging inflection that goes like: Don't you know what Rasulullah (the Prophet of God) says? Do you want to be...? Are you...? So you can distinguish it even from a distance compared to an announcement of a passing or a lost child. I assume the hardcore jihadist preaching and ISIS recruiting goes on in greater privacy; I only hear about it by arrests reported in the local newspaper. FYI, in the wealthy Gulf states the Friday sermons are scripted by the central authorities so every mosque has the same one.

Very interesting reportage. Thanks. Would you say, Seleucus, that Islam is Islamist in that country? Are the "hardcore" preachers brought to justice and are the trials public? Can Islam survive if Islamist countries change their ways?

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Vegetarian Taxidermy wrote:

Yes. There are plenty of videos on Youtube of 'imams' doing just that. The chanting would drive me nuts too. What did they do before amplifiers were invented? Do you have to go to prayers btw? Do they police who goes and who doesn't?

I had no idea that hundreds or thousands of imams were being arrested for subverting the laws of free countries. I'd rather learn about it from a more august source than YouTube though.

I too have wondered what the shouting minaret men( do they still use minarets?) did before electronic loud speakers. Did they use big horns perhaps animal horns although those could not have been cow horns could they?

Seleucus's testimony is impressive not least for its passion with which I sympathise. I am trying to be coolly anthropological and not finding it easy

I'm sure they just sang it unplugged. And the videos are of actual imams giving actual (sermons?). There's not much point in denying that it happens. I don't know anything about any arrests though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mXbp5sTiM0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSzSTd3kN3E

[Belinda]

Vegetarian taxidermy, it is as you say singing not shouting like I said. I will have a listen if that video is available. The Arabic in the Koran has been said to be intrinsically beautiful. Not that I am saying I might possibly like the megaphoned rendition that Seleucus has to endure.

VT, I note your links to talks. Interesting, and I feel I have heard of that bad imam who was arrested in Canada for making threats against Jews.

I will try and listen to one of those muezzin performances. Perhaps a nice one, and a megaphone one.

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel Can wrote:

the things Islam actually teaches its people to do.

I understand that Imams in European and American mosques actually teach an interpretation of the holy scriptures which is indistinguishable in ethical content from other legal and mainstream religions. I expect that in America as in Britain it's illegal for imams or anyone else to preach subversive doctrines ; sharia law is a doctrine as well as a form of law.

This would appear to be entirely untrue, unfortunately.

In Britain, the Islamic schools are pretty much given a free hand, under the guise of multicultural self-determination. They get public funds, but little regulation or monitoring. In America, they're not publicly funded, but they do have a free hand. Arabic is also a very helpful barrier for Muslims: you and I cannot understand what is being taught, in many cases; and it's not until we find a translator that we can detect the anti-Semitic and anti-Western rhetoric.

As for Sharia, you're right about it being both a doctrine and a form of law. Unlike in the West, there is no "Church-State" separation for a Muslim. That dichotomy is unknown and illegitimate, so far as they are concerned. But that should tell us something: it should tell us that there's really no such thing as a committed Muslim who's not also going to impose Sharia.

Nevertheless, fight Sharia, not Muslims. Sharia is a set of precepts; but Muslims are people. Keep them separate, and the issues will be clear.

The right way to talk is simply to say that some people have legitimate, principled antipathies to Sharia, and to the "religion" that promotes it. If the Left was interested in truth, that's the way they'd speak too.

It's safe to presume that the Left is interested in truth

.
Not at all. They're interested in virtue-signalling, not truth. They want to show themselves "tolerant," or pose as "advocates of the oppressed," because it gives them a happy, self-righteous feeling. They have no concern for the truth...nor, ultimately, for Muslims. They use every minority group the same way -- to make themselves feel virtuous.

I am left wing by nature and I am interested in truth especially truth in the form of reality. I presume that you yourself, Immanuel, are interested in truth so why would you presume otherwise about me?

I didn't say "you," Belinda. If you self-identify with the Left, then maybe you're a glorious exception to the rule. How would I know? Nevertheless, the rule still holds for the Left itself. Anybody can see it. After all, it's the Left that says, "There is no truth," or that "Everybody has his/her own truth."

And if that's so (we might ask the Left rather, "Is it true?" ), then the Islamist's belief that the Left are merely useful patsies who deserve to die first when Sharia is finally imposed is just as "true" at anything the Left believes.

As to to your first sentence I agree. I also agree with you about the nature of 'Islamophobia'. However what you say is not all that Islamophobia is. Islamophobia is also a particular expression of general distrust of strangers.

No. That's called "xenophobia." And the reason that Islamists are mistrusted is not because they're "strangers." We have lots of different people in our Western polities, and most are accepted by most people these days. Multiculturalism is very popular, and ordinarily fairly unproblematic. But Islam's a special case, one in which real danger exists.

Here a special Leftist problem comes to the fore: the Left doesn't believe any ideology but its own is ultimately profound or compelling to anyone. Their rhetoric displays a blithe confidence that every other ideology -- say, capitalism, nationalism, conservatism, Christianity or Islam itself -- are temporary phases of human development on the way to everybody becoming sweetly and reasonably Leftist. The Left thinks it's only a matter of time. (This is one of the byproducts of Marxism's teleology of history, by the way.) So they can't accept the idea that Muslims could really hate them, could really want to kill them, and have no reason to be drawn to Leftism. They continually underestimate their enemy, because of their own devotion to their own narrative; and they'll let their neighbourhoods be turned Sharia and their women be raped in the public square rather than admit that Leftism isn't the default destiny of all human beings.

Sad, but there it is. You can see all this on YouTube for yourself. You'll see public officials excusing things like Tampa or Manchester, or like the Cologne or Malmo assaults, and saying, "Well, we don't know who did it or why, so let's not rush to judgment," and then having to eat crow later on.

But they only ever take small bites, and then go right back to saying, "Don't blame Islam." That's Leftism for you: blind to the point of death.

[Arising_uk]

In philosophical terms, Obama and allies had been reading too much Montaigne and not enough de Maistre. ...

I doubt the French had much influence here either way. In realpolitik and historical terms they should have listened to the British Foreign Office, learnt from the British Empire, listened to the anti-Saddam Imam who told them that if they were going to overthrow a dictator they'd better stay for two generations at least or even listened to their and our own ME analysts who told them what was going to happen. But they didn't as it was about Oil, the Great Game and their need to get their infidel boots out of Saudi Arabia and relocate them in Iraq as this was causing the House of Saud internal problems.

It was expected that when the dictatorial governments of the ME and North Africa were overthrown the people would choose freedom and democracy. ...

The Americans are so naive that they believe their own revolutionary myths.

But the people turned out not to be blank slates and noble savages who easily re-set, instead they did not want to give up their cultural identity, they voted for and supported the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS, those dictatorships had been preventing radial Islam from taking over. ...

That was Egypt not Iraq. What happened in Iraq was that a puppet was allowed to continue alienating the Sunni's in their homelands hence an increase in support for such as Al-Queda and later ISIS. The yanks were told quite clearly that these countries would collapse into sectarian strife and radical Islamic revolutionaries would take advantage of such a situation but the problem with America is it likes to throw its weight around imperially but is not willing to do the hard graft of ruling afterwards.

As it turns out, "there is no such thing in the world as Man. In the course of my life, I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, etc.". These events mark the end of the Enlightenment project.

I doubt there ever was such a coherent project in the first place. Personally I think a lot of this is due to the collapse of the Marxist/Communist utopian project.

I've read some of your posts and have sympathy for your plight in Indonesia and definitely think that if it becomes a radical Islamic State then it's neighbors and indigenous non-muslims are in for some shit. Given Indonesia's history of military dictatorship I can understand how easy it would be for Indonesia to go down this path but I think there will also be some upsides as currently Saudi and the Arabs make tacit claim to being the word and world of Islam but Indonesia might well not wish to kowtow so easily to the Arabs saying what's what in the Muslim world, especially since they are one of the biggest Muslim states around. There's also the usual theist religious issue of schism what with the Sunni/Shia split and if it wasn't for the 'West' providing an enemy I think they'd be well on the way to having their religious wars by now and wouldn't be bothering us much at all. My we live in interesting times.

[Arising_uk]

In Britain, the Islamic schools are pretty much given a free hand, under the guise of multicultural self-determination. They get public funds, but little regulation or monitoring. ...

Not true as usual, if they get public-funding then they are subject to Ofsted same as the other religious schools.

As for Sharia, you're right about it being both a doctrine and a form of law. Unlike in the West, there is no "Church-State" separation for a Muslim. ...

There is no church-state separation in the UK. The monarch is the head of state and the church.

I didn't say "you," Belinda. If you self-identify with the Left, then maybe you're a glorious exception to the rule. How would I know? Nevertheless, the rule still holds for the Left itself. Anybody can see it. After all, it's the Left that says, "There is no truth," or that "Everybody has his/her own truth."

And if that's so (we might ask the Left rather, "Is it true?" ), then the Islamist's belief that the Left are merely useful patsies who deserve to die first when Sharia is finally imposed is just as "true" at anything the Left believes.

No. That's called "xenophobia." And the reason that Islamists are mistrusted is not because they're "strangers." We have lots of different people in our Western polities, and most are accepted by most people these days. Multiculturalism is very popular, and ordinarily fairly unproblematic. But Islam's a special case, one in which real danger exists.

Here a special Leftist problem comes to the fore: the Left doesn't believe any ideology but its own is ultimately profound or compelling to anyone. Their rhetoric displays a blithe confidence that every other ideology -- say, capitalism, nationalism, conservatism, Christianity or Islam itself -- are temporary phases of human development on the way to everybody becoming sweetly and reasonably Leftist. The Left thinks it's only a matter of time. (This is one of the byproducts of Marxism's teleology of history, by the way.) So they can't accept the idea that Muslims could really hate them, could really want to kill them, and have no reason to be drawn to Leftism. They continually underestimate their enemy, because of their own devotion to their own narrative; and they'll let their neighbourhoods be turned Sharia and their women be raped in the public square rather than admit that Leftism isn't the default destiny of all human beings.

All a bit confused here but no surprise as its about something called the 'Left', its a bit like his idea of the 'Atheist'.

Sad, but there it is. You can see all this on YouTube for yourself. You'll see public officials excusing things like Tampa or Manchester, or like the Cologne or Malmo assaults, and saying, "Well, we don't know who did it or why, so let's not rush to judgment," and then having to eat crow later on.

No-one is saying this over here. What we are asking is why a minuscule minority of our young muslims are turning to terrorism and the causes are myriad.

YouTube! Still, there is a serious point about how social media is the access grooming point to the disaffected and disturbed by radicalists and there has always been serious issues with the American ideological import of 'multiculturalism' into this country.

But they only ever take small bites, and then go right back to saying, "Don't blame Islam." That's Leftism for you: blind to the point of death.

You obviously haven't met the revolutionary Marxists, we'd shoot the lot of you godbothering loons.

[Seleucus]

I had no idea that hundreds or thousands of imams were being arrested for subverting the laws of free countries. I'd rather learn about it from a more august source than YouTube though.Who arrests them, and are they brought to justice?

Simply google "imam arrested hate speech" and you can read news articles to your heart's content.

IWould you say, Seleucus, that Islam is Islamist in that country? Are the "hardcore" preachers brought to justice and are the trials public? Can Islam survive if Islamist countries change their ways?

I suggest you look at Pew (2011 & 2013) to get an idea of what people really think. You can also look at voting results and see how many support Islamist versus other parties. There was an acid test election recently and the Islamists cleaned up so I guess that is part of an answer. There are different degrees of hard-core. One level is those who want to establish an Islamic state under sharia law, via democratic means, judging by Pew and election results this must be more than fifty percent here. The next level of hard-core is the militant level. To give the simplest answer I can given what I actually know about all this is that the government is arresting and battling militants as much as possible in a rugged country and the political wing gets some legal problems but also a lot of passes on rioting while the police look the other way and no arrests are made.

[Seleucus]

The Arabic in the Koran has been said to be intrinsically beautiful. Not that I am saying I might possibly like the megaphoned rendition

"loud mosque" or "noisy mosque" on Google or YouTube will give some perspective on the problem. Most people who are suffering this are however not writing in English so you'll get only a slice if you use English search terms.

[Seleucus]

fight Sharia, not Muslims. Sharia is a set of precepts; but Muslims are people. Keep them separate, and the issues will be clear.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts as they say.

[Seleucus]

if they were going to overthrow a dictator they'd better stay for two generations at least

Basically that's the way to do it, agree. It has to be done the right way though, historically mere occupation isn't sufficient. I expect the exciting new fields of nation building and ethnogenesis will find ways to help speed up the process.

[Immanuel Can]

The Arabic in the Koran has been said to be intrinsically beautiful.

Seriously...read the darn thing. You won't think what it says is "beautiful." Start with "The Chapter of Women," and you won't need to go very far.

After that, who would care if it sounds like Maria Callas in full voice? It's a hideous piece of writing.

[Science Fan]

I've read the Koran, in English, as I do not know Arabic. It is perhaps the most boring book I have ever read. There is no narrative story in the Koran, and the chapters are arranged by length. The last third of the Koran consists of one chapter after another telling us how the non-believer shall burn in hell. There is absolutely nothing about the book that remotely indicates some sophisticated intelligence behind the writings ---- it reads exactly as if very primitive people wrote it. But because there is no story in the entire Koran, just disjointed chapters arranged by size, it's far less entertaining than the Christian and Jewish Bibles, which at least contain actual stories. I have a hard time understanding how any intelligent person can read the Koran and conclude that there is anything significant about the Koran. I have a feeling very few people have taken the time to read it, because hardly anyone ever mentions how boring the Koran is, which leaps out at anyone who does take the time to read it.

The Hadith collections contain the stories of Islam, and they contain a lot of childish nonsense too, and the stories often conflict with each other.

At the end of the day, Islam is a false doctrine, not only from a scientific standpoint, but from an historical one as well, and it has been used, to this day, to spread a totalitarian political ideology. Why it gets a free pass from the Left, including from the British Labour Party that is essentially aligned with Hamas and terrorism, can be explained by sharing a common enemy --- a hatred of Jews, as well as a hatred of capitalism and free-speech and civil liberty that were developed in the western world. It really does, however, show the Left to be as intellectually bankrupt as the alt-right.