Dawood...

I do not expect "every Muslim (regardless of age and experience) to be able to either know about or answer complex questions on hadith."

All I want is for them to answer the simple, easy questions.

When I read from their hadith that says Mohammed had two men brutally tortured, I want them to say "Yes, it appears that he had two men tortured."

When I read a passage that says Mohammud's followers killed an old woman (Asma) for criticizing him, I want them to say "Gee, he had an old woman killed."

When I read from the Quran and its says that a man can rape his married female slaves, I want them to say "Yes, it says a Muslim can have sex with his married female slaves when he wants."

When I read verses like "So, fight them till all opposition ends and the only religion is Islam" (8:39) and Koran "Muhammad is the apostle of Allah. Those who follow him are merciful to one another, but ruthless to unbelievers" (48:29) or even the famous "kill them whereever you find tem ) I want to Muslims to look at me and say "Yes, old man, that is real mean. I can understand why you are offended."

But no luck! Muslims cannot be honest. I cannot even get them even to tell me what the verses say. They ignore you, attack you, say its out of context or drool in their beards. They don't want to even think about it. That is why you cannot trust Muslims and that is why their condemnations ring hollow.

If they refuse to contemplate the obvious conseguences of this, well, this means big trouble for all of us. Think about it!

John Kactuzki

Philo,

I am somewhat less than surprised that leaders of Australian moslem community are unimpressed with ML. I think that what she did was disgusting, and a blatant, cynical abasement of a religion for her own benefit. Magazines in Australia should choose not to featyre her in order to help protect her soul, because obviously she suffers from such incredible, internal conflict over her occupation, perhaps they should assist?

BTW, if posters are in doubt about travelling to Bali, because of terrorism or SC, please feel free to help establish tourism in East Timor. This country is predominantly christian (with a very low tolerance toward indonesians), and is unlikely to suffer suicide bombings.

NB If one is worried about what happened to Schapelle happening to them, DO NOT pass the 'I have something to declare' counter.

Then, once we get past the simple, obvious stuff, we can begin to talk about what this means.

The problem is that we never get past the basics. Muslims are in denial.

How do you expect Shakira to discuss the topic of women and rape in depth when she limits the discussion to a few Imams and Australians? It is a much, much more complex issue, and it must be analyzed in the context of the life of Mohammed, the teachings of the Quran, the stories in the hadiths and events in contemporary Muslims societies.

However, do do that is to expose herself the things she prefers to ignore, so she builds an irreal world where theory and nice thoughts are everything, and the reality of Islam and Muslims is ignored.

And woe to you if you even suggest otherwise. If you criticize Islam and Mohammed, even using their own words, you are a vile racist, a fascist, a hate-monger and maybe you even kick puppies for fun (not that Muslims should care about that - dogs are unclean and cursed, you know!). In fact, to criticize Islam is a good way to get yourself killed in Muslim societies.

Then Muslims can't understand why they are so 'misunderstood' and why Islamic societies are a mess. No wonder they want out - and then when they get to the West, things are still bad. So what do they do? they whine and complain, always blaming others (the West, crusaders, jews, Bush, America, Donald Duck, or as in this case, the dozen or so 'bad' Muslims. Never ever do they even consider the possibility that the problem is in their own hearts and religion. Oh horrors!

All I want is honesty.

John aka kactuz aka kactuzkid

Kaktuz,

Again you assume that Muslims take all Hadith as fact or part of the religion, this is your assumption.

None of my business but your comment on Quran is the interesting one and it tells me you are reading missionary work:

- "So, fight them till all opposition ends and the only religion is Islam" (8:39)
Meaning translation is ‘until they persecute you no more’ meaning is proven in the following and previous verse.

- The famous ‘slay them where you find them’ is another missionary dishonesty, the full verse (5:6,9,11) talks about those who fight you, drive you out of your homes. Until they stop their aggression.

I can’t ask you to read in its genuine language but at least read a certified meaning translation by a Muslim (or even a historian) like Pickthall.

It is important to read what is written about specific theology as seen by there own people for no reason other than it will tell you how people see their own faith. Most of my reading on Christianity in Egypt was either through the Bible society Dr Milad Hanna or Father Samuel.

And finally Kaktuz, I have to thank you for giving me the opportunity to read, study and compare..

BTW, I like the 'donald duck' one its funny, humour is appreciated.

Aaron,

Very good point, I published a comment on ML and Dr Ameer Ali on my blogspot this morning:
www.musliminsight.blogspot.com

R0bert

The ‘dark side’ to which I referred was the unremitting diatribe of prejudice from the likes of redneck, kactuz, Boaz, Philo, skid marx, who continually paint all Muslims with the same brush either with quotes from the Q’uran, Googled stats or even complaining about diet!

Fellow Human has made a worthwhile attempt to provide an informative blog for all who are interested. However there are those who will look for fault and of course will find it (real or imagined). I hope that people will access FH’s blog and decide for themselves rather than take the word of a blighted few, who only wish to spread hate and create division.

Of course I am aware that there are a minority of Muslims who loath all Western culture – I am not ignorant. However I am tired of the constantly black and white views of the above mentioned and had feared that you had been ‘taken in’. I guess we both insulted each other’s intelligence here and I apologise.

While I did not appreciate the lecture you gave – I do in fact agree with all the points you raised.

It is not a simple issue at all – least of all for those of Muslim faith who must be feeling alienated and uncertain in these appalling narrow minded times.

Those who judge the majority by the actions of a few extremists are reactionary and just as extreme as those they decry.

kactuz: But you refuse to even accept how mainstream Muslims understand these issues, instead chalk it up to "taqiyya" or "avoiding the issue". You make a lot of generalizations about what Muslims are like or believe, yet talk about "getting beyond simple stuff".

The fact is as Fellow_Human states: the hadith are the second source of law in mainstream Sunni Islam (more specifically the Sunnah, which is different to hadith), but they are not infallable and free from error. If that was the case Bukhari, Muslim and the others would not have had to weed out the majority of those they heared. It does not take rocket science to work that out. Neither too that Ibn Hajar a century or so later weeded out some hadith in Bukhari that did not meet Bukhari's own criteria of authentication, and so on.

But I don't want to bore you with the details as you are not interested.

Certain exponents of Islam teach the doctrine you espouse (specifically the extremist side), but mainstream Islam does not. Yes, it is generally the 2nd source of law, but there are many caveats when referencing them.

Which again, you and others seem to ignore, just so you can find nasty ones to make us all look bad.

Even simple things like: Does the hadith have any legal import? (Not all do, many don't.) Was it a normative practise (ie. Sunnah), or something abnormal? (not all hadith are normative, some are exceptional to the norm.)There are many questions that cannot be answered from googling hadith online, but only from the depths of the Islamic legal tradition.

You quote these obscure hadith that the majority of people probably dont even know is in Bukhari etc, and expect people to answer them. You blame them for all the ills in the world, yet mainstream Muslims do not even follow them; they have no legal precedent (apart from extremists) and most of the community here that I have talked with find even the fact that the guy may be hung in Singapore for the drugs crime absolutely abhorrent.