Blogs to read while watching the crocodiles eat.* 1) A letter to the editors. 2) Apparently the Holzbergs were not tortured. Does that mean that their brutal murders weren’t antisemitic? 3) Deferring to Islam at the UN. Deferring to Islam at YouTube. …

I just hope he wasn’t waterboarded. The horror. The horror.

TexasDan on December 1, 2008 at 1:18 PM

Bud, I doubt if many people here in India would even consider waterboarding to be torture.

Interrogation of terrorists captured in Jammu and Kashmir starts with a nice beating to warm them up. That is followed by a slow and gentle manicure where individual nails are ripped out. Then you have the deluxe package where their genitals are “stimulated” with 440 volts. And finally, if said terrorist is especially evil, there are always nails that need to be hammered home.

We’re not squeamish that way …

Rishi Patanjali described peace as the great vow and foremost spiritual discipline, which Truth-seekers must follow strictly and without fail. This extends to harm of all kinds caused by one’s thoughts, words and deeds–including injury to the natural environment. Even the intent to injure, even violence committed in a dream, is a violation of ahinsa.

The Deobandis have issued a fatwa against terrorism.

Jazzman on December 1, 2008 at 4:16 PM

How’s that going so far?

Trust but verify.

1) Get pig trough.
2) line the bottom of trough with gay porn.
3) toss said Muslim freak (buck nekid) in trough- face down ( so he/she can see where their going as well as get an eye full of ” dastardly darin” and “pals and palies”.)

4) place favorite piece of muslim freak fiction in muslim freak butt crack.

5) A line of 15 of our best in uniform, who each have drank five gallons of water- can take turns pee’ing on said muslim freak.

6) cover said freaks body with a bunch straight porn.

7) Top off with GW taking a giant dump on top, for garnish and decoration purposes of course.

What I was suggesting is that we shouldn’t be constantly second-guessing them when they make statements condemning terrorism.

Why not? When all that they identify as the terrorism they are condemning are actions by the U.S. and Israel, I’m supposed to be reassured by this?

Still, your distrust of Deobandis need not spill over to all Indian Muslims.

It didn’t.

Perhaps instead of “radical Islamism” I should have said “militant jihadism”. There is no doubt that the Deobandis are an extremely regressive and puritanical sect of Islam, and I certainly have no affection for them. What I was suggesting is that we shouldn’t be constantly second-guessing them when they make statements condemning terrorism. From what I understand, while the Taliban’s ideological roots are in the Darul Uloom, they were much closer to the more radical Deobandi branches in Pakistan than to their counterparts in India. But perhaps you are right that I am giving them too much credit.

Still, your distrust of Deobandis need not spill over to all Indian Muslims. I am not aware if the Jama Masjid trust has any particular sectarian affiliation, but since they are not North Indian, I would assume they are not Deobandis.

They mention Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen’s terrorist attacks in Bangladesh, the 9/11 attacks, the attacks on the Indian parliament, and terrorism by Muslim groups in Kashmir.

I finally had a chance to go to their site, and I looked around for this but didn’t find it. Can you please point me to it? In fact, all I found was news about the Deobandi fatwa against terrorism, which I find duplicitous for the reasons I stated above and at the Jihad Watch link above.

Apologies — I haven’t followed the link to the Jama Masjid. My remarks were focused on the Deobandis, whom I don’t trust one bit. They’re “opposed to radical Islamism”? They’re the primary ideological force behind the Taliban!

Whatever you feel about the tenets of Islam itself, you should recognize that it is an unambiguously positive development when an influential Muslim group denounces terrorism.

Here is one word for it : TAQUIYYA

http://www.islam-watch.org/Warner/Taqiyya-Islamic-Principle-Lying-for-Allah.htm

Islam is a religion of peace as much as a hooker is a virgin!

The website I linked to includes specific examples of what the Jama Masjid Forum considers under the label “terrorism”, and it’s quite clear that they’re not excluding jihadism. They mention Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen’s terrorist attacks in Bangladesh, the 9/11 attacks, the attacks on the Indian parliament, and terrorism by Muslim groups in Kashmir.

It’s true that there is a conspicuous absence of any mention of Middle Eastern terrorist groups and attacks on Israel. But these are Indian groups, and they are understandably focused on terrorism in their back yard. It is at least clear that they are not completely ignoring terrorism perpetrated by Muslims.

I’m not claiming the Deobandis are perfect allies. Their clerics have made incendiary anti-Israel and anti-US statements in the past. But they also appear to be opposed to radical Islamism, and all I am saying is that they should be encouraged on that front. After all, they influence millions of Muslims.

And from one of the statements you quote above:

Islam forbids the killing of innocent people, irrespective of the cause – religious, political or social beliefs.

Quite so. But who is innocent? Here is British Muslim leader Anjem Choudary explaining that no non-Muslim can possibly be innocent, because all are renegades from the truth of Islam.

Am I saying that the Jama Masjid feels the same way? Absolutely not. But since the question of who is innocent is what is disputed in the Islamic world, not the question of whether or not it is permissible to kill innocent people, that is what moderate Muslims need to clarify: that by “innocent people” they mean, say, Chabad House residents in Mumbai, or office workers in the World Trade Center on 9/11/01.

And if they do not explain what they mean by “innocent,” their statement is useless to stop jihadists from killing people whom they don’t regard as innocent, no matter what the good intentions may have been of the people issuing the statement.

With respect, you’re assuming in all this that what the Deobandis mean by “terrorism” is what we mean by “terrorism.”

It ain’t necessarily so. See here:

This condemnation of terrorism by Dar ul-Uloom Deoband has gotten — not unexpectedly — a lot of enthusiastic media attention, and yet — also not unexpectedly — the more one looks at this, the less there is to see. Marisol already noted here the chief problems with this declaration: “The question of when and whether it is legitimate to use violence to further Islamic causes is left untouched. The other is the definition of innocents. We’re expected to supply our own cultural definition of innocents and non-combatants, and assume that their definition does not differ.”

Exactly so. But when the document itself condemns all terrorism, without explaining what it considers terrorism to be, and then condemns “state-sponsored terrorism” in “Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan,” as well as “in Bosnia and various South American countries,” conspicuously absent from this list is any terrorism of which Muslims are the perpetrators. People get impatient with me when I respond to Muslim condemnations of terrorism by asking, “Yes, but what do they mean by terrorism?,” but this is precisely the question that needs to be clarified. Why? Consider the Hamas TV program for children just last week, in which a character said: “Assud, we are not terrorists. All we want is to get our beloved homeland, Palestine, back. We want all of Palestine to be ours. We are not terrorists…” And Assud the Jihad Rabbit replied: “They are the terrorists.” This is not just kid-show fare. This is standard bedrock assumption in many areas of the Islamic world. And consequently, if the Deobandis really want to come out against jihad terrorism, they need to specify that. Otherwise their condemnation stands only as a condemnation of various actions by Western countries in defense against the global jihadists, and does nothing to repudiate those jihadists, or their jihad, at all.

There is more at the link, should you wish to get into specifics.

If the Deobandis or the Muslim Jama Masjid Trust issues a statement repudiating the idea that Muslims must fight (in various ways) to impose Islamic law upon believers and may in some circumstances legitimately kill unbelievers, I will happily retract these words.

Robert Spencer on December 1, 2008 at 3:27 PM

From the Jama Masjid website:

JMUF has decided to organize an International Conference against terrorism in May 2007 by inviting religious leaders, scholars and media personnel from twenty five countries to discuss and highlight the challenges which the world is facing today; prepare a White Paper on terrorism to tackle the problem by addressing basic and fundamental issues; and pronouncing an International Declaration against terrorism…

Being an active part of the biggest secular democracy of the world, JMUF understands its responsibilities and wants to show the whole world the role our Great Nation is playing not only against terrorism but also in determining its solution.

Also:

Rishi Patanjali described peace as the great vow and foremost spiritual discipline, which Truth-seekers must follow strictly and without fail. This extends to harm of all kinds caused by one’s thoughts, words and deeds–including injury to the natural environment. Even the intent to injure, even violence committed in a dream, is a violation of ahinsa.

Muslims (submitters to the will of God) and terrorism are the two poles apart. Islam forbids the killing of innocent people, irrespective of the cause – religious, political or social beliefs.

The Deobandis have issued a fatwa against terrorism.

You know, I’ve often seen commenters on this site take moderate Muslims to task for failing to speak out against the extremists. But when a Muslim group does speak out forcefully (as the Jama Masjid trust has done), their actions are dismissed as dishonest or irrelevant. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

Whatever you feel about the tenets of Islam itself, you should recognize that it is an unambiguously positive development when an influential Muslim group denounces terrorism. Islam is not vanishing off the face of the Earth any time soon. What we can hope for is that extremist interpretations are increasingly sidelined And we can contribute to this by encouraging the forces of moderation when they try to wrest control of their religion, rather than sniping at them.

They aren’t doing this out of kindness, but out of recognition that it will bring increased, deserved ill will toward them from non-Muslims in India who are sick and tired of their crap.
Debbie Schlussel on December 1, 2008 at 1:58 PM

Only for the present; until the unspeakable atrocities are forgotten and rationalized. Gauging public opinion of the moment is one the jihadists’ major strengths, and one of our major weaknesses.

Has the Muslim Jama Masjid Trust buried these in the past?

exception on December 1, 2008 at 3:14 PM

Makes no difference–a red herring question. When they refuse to take ANY Islamic terrorists, then it will be worth noting. And when Muclim cemeteries in the Mid-East refuse to take any Islamic terrorist murderer’s bodies, then it will be of note. And when they don’t feel the need to make it a PR point about Islam, which we all know is phony. This is not about doing the right thing. It’s about avoiding further reaction from the Indian people, who are not as gullible and flat-out ignorant as apparently so many Americans are about Islam and its pattern of deceit and PR BS.

Calling attention to this story or praising this is like saying you believe in the post-9/11 “the hijackers hijacked our religion” BS.

Oh, and by the way, had these terrorists only targeted the Jewish Chabad House, you can bet this cemetery wouldn’t be denying them burial.

That they announced this to the press–when these men were Pakistani and would be buried in Pakistan anyway–should tell you that this is story designed for good Muslim PR. Nothing else.

Has the Muslim Jama Masjid Trust buried these in the past?

The point is that in other areas, Islamic jihadists are celebrated as heroes and buried as martyrs. Even Suleyman Talovic was given an Islamic burial in Kosovo. That this is the single example to the overall practice, coming in a country where Deobandi Islam preaches jihad and Islamic supremacism openly (they recently condemned “terrorism” — by the West), is entirely singular, and apparently not based on any refutation of the Islamic principles upon which the Mumbai jihadists based their actions (in fact, the Dar ul Uloom Deoband holds to those principles). As such it is much more likely that Debbie is right that this is just a PR move rather than a genuine rejection of what happened at Mumbai.

If the Deobandis or the Muslim Jama Masjid Trust issues a statement repudiating the idea that Muslims must fight (in various ways) to impose Islamic law upon believers and may in some circumstances legitimately kill unbelievers, I will happily retract these words.