TRTL,

I think there is a huge difference between a drunken explosion and sincere apology for the violence...and stone cold sober prolonged, as in day after day, calculated attacks of much greater damage and harm...with no apology... surely you can see the difference?

TurningRightThenLeft: “The other key point is that when moderates attempt to defend their religion, you and others attack them. Witness every attack you yourself have made on people such as Irfan Yusuf.”

TRTL’s best example of a “moderate” Islamist was Irfan who has a history of writing not only tendentiously but inaccurate reporting and twisting of facts to defend the violent nature of Islam.

Twice he apologised to Daniel Pipes ,

‘Irfan Yusuf Apologizes to Daniel Pipes’ http://www.meforum.org/press/1983
‘Irfan Yusuf Apologizes Again to Daniel Pipes’ http://europenews.dk/en/node/14653

One wonders why TRTL turned from Cronulla to Christianity and taking a swipe at Christians. Perhaps s/he has been told to repent of his sins.

TR: you seem to have investigated the subject as far as some recent, sensationalist Culture-War translations will allow, but I insist that you're wrong, and vulnerable to selective and blinkered perspectives more applicable to our own modern western culture. Within that culture too is a presumption that it is itself superior - a progressive result of all higher civilized, charitable and compassionate impulses, generally an almost polar opposite to past barbarism and moral depravity.

Such a “crossed wire” view is not unusual when trying to comprehend a separate time, place and culture. The vast writings in hadits involve recorded statements from thousands of sources, all attributed in a reference system which – with the Talmud – led that now-routine process of scholastic citation. In the many hadits referring to the youngest-betrothed Aisha there are two potential problems today, especially for translators. First is the overwhelming linguistic emphasis on “nikah” as the surest direct notion of “betrothal”. Next is the modern Arabic's shifted meaning applied to just two other references beside the many references to “nikah” (Imagine just a very recent shift in the English “gay”, for comparison).

The case concerns an engagement by official pledge, or betrothal, followed by marriage into the prophet's group, perhaps clan-style. The overriding social-political context was anarchic warfare, and the Prophet's followers and allies established secure networks of kinship, including flexible arrangements for controlled divorce, eventually spreading law, order, learning, and strict, detailed morality from the Indus Valley to the Pyrenees.

But absence of pregnancies is the clearest confirmation of the protective, chaste and even political nature of these exceptional polygamous marriages. Histories record only one offspring from the many unions after Muhammad's first wife Khadijah bore six children (the later, post-Khadijah birth died in infancy). Where practised, ancient and medieval contraception was very unreliable, especially if the practitioner had the unrestrained voracious appetite claimed by Islamophobic enemies in this case.

[TRTL, you typed 146 words for “mil-observer: your post is verbose; that seems a tactic meant to overwhelm and silence opponents”. I should be flattered that you chose against such contrasting succinctness and punctuation.]

I am very concerned about reports from Melbourne with Muslims secretly complain about domestic abuse against them and the wives of their husband. As well as the complaint that Muslim men in Australia are holding secret Islamic marriages to girls as young as ten years old. Once again, marshmellow politicians turn their backs like the pathetic traitors they are.

Ah spider, from National Party to National Action! Who'd have thought? Now I can see why Nats bosses like Boswell and Barnaby often look so exhausted... ;-)

TR: very interesting that you bristled most about Hitchens. One of the most serious allegations possible is that concerning Hitchens' vocal and written endorsements for a massve war crime/crime against humanity which caused 1.2 million civilian deaths and counting. I mean, with that kind of knotch on his club, perhaps Hitchens could make Colombia's Pablo Escobar seem unfairly demonized. And unlike your own seething and tunnel-visioned Islamophobic vilifications, simple judgement of Hitchens implies none of the strong challenge from historical contexts, associated facts and linguistic ambiguity.

In the recent Israel defence against Palestinian Arab-Muslims rocket attack, many non-Arab Muslims volunteered to fight alongside their Arab-Muslim masters. This is a typical mentality of stooges. It is for this reason why non-Islamic countries should be very careful in having Muslims in their security forces. Should a conflict arise between Australia and Indonesia, is the Australian government going to trust the lives of her soldiers and security of her country in the hand of a Muslim commander?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/cleric-who-called-for-muslim-soldiers-to-be-killed-is-arrested-435651.html

In “moderate” Islamic Malaysia, the Muslims destroyed many Hindu temples, restricted the building of churches and forced many Catholic schools and churches to remove icons and statues held sacred by them. Recently they banned non-Muslims from using the word “Allah” for “God”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/24/malaysia-islam-muslims-yoga-ban
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/01/05/malaysia-forbids-newspaper-from-using-the-word-allah/

mil-observer is typical of the Islamists whose head is stuck deep in the sands of Arabia and ears plugged full of camel dung, unaware of what Islam has done to Islamic countries and keeping many Muslims backward and mentally retarded.

http://www.islam-watch.org/Omar.Zia/Pakistan-A-Blinkered-Nation.htm