I remember you mentioning in several of your books about Islam that many Muslims outside of the Arab world do not understand what Qur’an says because they don’t understand Arabic. I guess my question is more about how this is possible and how a mosque can function (and incite such religious fervor) without the understanding of the group.

The prayers, including recitation of the Qur’an, are in Arabic. Muslims must learn the prayers in Arabic. So the mosque can function just fine, with the five daily prayers, without many people necessarily knowing what the Arabic says.

How is such religious fervor incited? That can be done by the imam, in his Friday sermons and other efforts, without requiring that his congregation know Qur’anic Arabic.

I remember you mentioning in several of your books about Islam that many Muslims outside of the Arab world do not understand what Qur’an says because they don’t understand Arabic. I guess my question is more about how this is possible and how a mosque can function (and incite such religious fervor) without the understanding of the group.

So how do any Muslims with a straight face insist that there is one interpretation of the Quran?

rokemronnie on July 1, 2007 at 10:58 AM

I had a Pakistani-American roommate that was Muslim while I was at NYU. He was the first Muslim that I had the chance to get to know and be friends with. I once asked him “What’s the difference between Sunni & Shiite Muslims?” It was pre-9/11 and I was only mildly interested and was mostly just making conversation.

He got really agitated and said, “There’s no difference. There is no such thing as Sunni or Shiite….there are just Muslims. We’re all Muslims. Those are just lies made up by the press to make it seem like there are divisions in Islam, but it’s not true.”

I don’t know if he was just repeating what he had been told (and didn’t know any better) or if he was willfully deceiving me about it, but he was angry & adamant.

Of course, now that I’ve had the chance to study Islam (and actually see their handiwork up close and personally), I’d have to call shenanigans. Until Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq stop decapitating each other and drilling holes in each other’s heads, I’m going to continue believing there’s at least some *small* difference.

Muslims, as a part of religious observance, not only obey, but also seek to emulate and imitate their Prophet in every aspect of life. Thus Muhammad is the medium as well as a source of the divine law.”

That’s a big enough problem in and of itself.

Thanks. That explains it all.

My question was partly answered, but I was also asking how the latter part of the verse

But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against Az-Zalimun (the polytheists, and wrong-doers, etc.)

fits in with the above verse? I somehow read that as meaning that if they convert to Islam or accept Islamic hegemony, let there be no transgression.

Yes, if they convert or submit, there should be peace. That’s the idea.

Also, how does ‘until all religion is for Allah’ square with allowing the ahl al Kitab (Christians & Jews) to practice their own religion, but as Dhimmis? I understand that it calls for establishing the political hegemony of Islamic law, but that isn’t waht the above phrase seems to suggest. While 9:29 calls for the hegemony over Infidels, this verse 2:193 doesn’t seem to suggest that, and the weasel phrase at the end doesn’t make that obvious.

The idea here is that dhimmitude is a temporary condition. In Sunni eschatology, and also in Shi’ite in a modified way, Jesus will return at the end of the world and abolish the dhimma, killing or Islamizing all the dhimmis.

Let’s not forget that Jesus said “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” I’ve read the book and we win in the end, no problem.

Praise God and pass the ammunition.

If this becomes a struggle between Islam and Christianity, Christianity will lose. You can’t turn the other cheek to Islam. RedWinged Blackbird on July 1, 2007 at 10:08 AM

Let’s not forget that Jesus said “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” I’ve read the book and we win in the end, no problem.

Farid Zakaria is the son of Rafiq Zakaria, who was a major Muslim leader of India’s Congress party – the ruling party for 50 years, and a champion of Dhimmitude both within and outside India. It’s a mistake to look at him as somebody rooting for the West against Islam.

Anything he says in Newsweek has to be for public consumption – I find it unbelievable that he’d actually be opposed to Islamic supremacy, if not Jihad.

What an $ss.

Of course we are losing the “war” against Islam, as “we” can not say Islam, but instead have to say radical Islam.

The radicals in Islam are those who are apostates, not the ones who follow the teachings of Mohammad!

We would have lost WWII, if “we” had been of the same frame of mind and had a “war” with radical Nazis and believed that most all Nazis were a government of peace.

Or am I misunderstanding your question?

Robert

My question was partly answered, but I was also asking how the latter part of the verse

But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against Az-Zalimun (the polytheists, and wrong-doers, etc.)

fits in with the above verse? I somehow read that as meaning that if they convert to Islam or accept Islamic hegemony, let there be no transgression.

Also, how does ‘until all religion is for Allah’ square with allowing the ahl al Kitab (Christians & Jews) to practice their own religion, but as Dhimmis? I understand that it calls for establishing the political hegemony of Islamic law, but that isn’t waht the above phrase seems to suggest. While 9:29 calls for the hegemony over Infidels, this verse 2:193 doesn’t seem to suggest that, and the weasel phrase at the end doesn’t make that obvious.