Apologies GZ, but you and horus do sound remarkably similar.

Especially when you make such patronizing and arrogant comments as:

>>Is it ever possible for someone to grasp what's beyond his wisdom? No wonder Chamberlain sought peace with Hitler!!<<

to go alongside horus'

>>For peace in our time , all we need do is smile & talk nice<<

These two snide remarks show how little history you understand.

Appeasement was the formal policy of both the British and French governments between the two world wars. Its objective was to avoid the repetition of the senseless slaughter that had wrecked Europe between 1914 and 1918.

Chamberlain had been Director of National Service in 1916, a position that would have been mentally devastating for any person with a vestige of humanity.

Try to imagine yourself in the position of organizing seemingly endless lines of cannon-fodder to send to the front. Would you not spend the rest of your life trying to find ways to avoid anyone having to do it again?

It is also a gross calumny to suggest that it was "beyond his wisdom" that seeking peace with Hitler was the wrong thing to do, or that he negotiated by "smiling and talking nice".

It might seem self-evident in hindsight, like Ponting's decision to put England in to bat at Edgbaston, but it's so much easier to criticize once you know the result, isn't it?

Neville Chamberlain was a highly intelligent, extremely accomplished and caring person. The proof, if it were needed, is in the long list of reforms he made during his political career - the Factory Act, Housing Act, Holidays with Pay Act etc.

Check it out sometime, when you have overcome your attraction to lazy soundbites as a substitute for rational discussion.

Scaremongering is such a satisfying game, isn't it?

You don't actually have to do anything more than round up a few bogeymen, extrapolate their power and influence to the nth degree with speculation and hyperbole, then slag off anyone who disagrees with you as being either naive or cowardly.

What fun you must have.

Perilous.. anywhere Islamists are in military conflict, you will find (if you dig) that down there somewhere is the concept of 'Islamic Lands' (Waqf) I wont argue that further, but I commend you on your research. You conclusion is just spurious.

F.H. I'm still here.. haven't ignored you or run away.

Your statement is classic "Muslims understand".... huh ? I showed you clearly in other posts that some muslims disagree with your understanding. You cannot presume to speak for all muslims.

You have selected a verse which supports your 'spin' "but do not transgress" then you deflect the clear meaning of bukhari's and muslim hadith with a bit of a con job "There is a science of hadith" without going any further, providing sources, or references.

How about you actually support that claim by showing how the 5 major schools of Islamic Sharia understand these hadiths? Now that would be a verrrrry good start.

There must be a rich discussion on the meaning of both Quran 9:29/30 and Bukhari Vol4 book 53 number 386 which is so UNambigious and totally clear that no science I know of can change the plain meaning of words.

Mughira is responding to people who asked him why Omar/Arabs are invading them. He justifies the invasion by referring to the command to "fight those etc" The context has ZERO to do with fighting BACK, because I've read up on the background, which in any case is clearly stated in the hadith "Omar was considering which countries to INVADE" -I'm sorry mate but this is 'un-spinnable'

OMar apparently regarded the world as a bit of a supermarket.. "Hmmm which product will I choose today"? (for invasion that is.)
Subsequent history verifies that this was the understanding of "Muslims" and the Barbary wars also support this traditional understanding.

The most I will concede to you is this:

"Some moderate muslims in minority status in Western countries, prefer to choose less confrontational understandings of Islam for the sake of their social well being"

You, my friend are one of those. But the facts remain.

Boaz,

“I showed you clearly in other posts that some muslims disagree with your understanding. You cannot presume to speak for all muslims”

I am saying that my understanding of Islam is: a) How I understood it, b) how it is taught c) the way it should be taught. When I see a discrepancy that’s when you and I have a common interest is to correct the youth.

2 “You have selected a verse which supports your 'spin' "but do not transgress".
There is no spin, the Quran for us is the rules of God and the prophet hadith are interpreting the rules. If God says ‘shall not transgress’ then the hadith is the one we need to examine. But then you knew that :-)

3 “How about you actually support that claim by showing how the 5 major schools of Islamic Sharia understand these hadiths?”
You can answer your own question here: each one of these imams in the opening statement of their books they clearly state they are fallible and could have got take on hadith right or wrong given the time. Further more, many of the modern day scholars like Ghazali corrected understanding of hadith in the 1980s. Google science of the hadith.

4. “The most I will concede to you is this”
"Some moderate muslims in minority status in Western countries, prefer to choose less confrontational understandings of Islam for the sake of their social well being"

Sorry but that’s not good enough. This statement implies that Islam in essence have 2 version an aggressive one and a peaceful one. That’s not correct and here is my challenge to you through actions and history:

- Why in history’s most confrontantional wars, with Islam, Christians, Jews, Sabeans still existed (until today) with their churches, synagogues untouched. If islam is at war with Christianity and Judaism, then the early muslims (including Saladdin time) should have wiped them all out.
- You would agree that the most peaceful religious sect on earth is Islamic Sufism. How can that many millions interpret Islam in this sense unless it’s the rule?

Boaz, it is annoying when you simply run away like that.

>>anywhere Islamists are in military conflict, you will find (if you dig) that down there somewhere is the concept of 'Islamic Lands' (Waqf) I wont argue that further, but I commend you on your research. You conclusion is just spurious.<<

At the very least, I expected you to quote back at me some sources, at least as authoritative as those I posted, to explain why you believe that my conclusion is spurious.

It is not up to me to look for this material, because I did not make the claim in the first place. It is important that you understand this, because it may help you come to the realization that you cannot simply fire off any old accusation, and expect those who ask "say what?" to go away and do your research for you.

Your claim was:

>>Look at Sudan/Dafur.. Somalia,Nigeria and umpteen places where the concept of 'Muslim Lands' (Islamic Waqf) is at play<<

All I had to do was look at the situation in the first two that you mentioned to discover that we are talking about internal strife between factions and warlords.

If there is any substance at all to your claims, I expect you to back them up with facts, and credible references that don't come from the hate-sites that you clearly frequent, and that provide you with your propaganda.

At the very least, you should be able to see by now why you sound increasingly like a 1930's rabble-rouser whose name we both know. His game was to stir up the mob against Jews, yours appears to be to stir up the blogosphere against Islam.

You both use the same tricks. Telling stories that are readily accepted by the hoi polloi as being factual, when in fact they are nothing more than innuendo, wrapped in a paranoia born of fear.

As I suspected, we are still in "The virginia Uni massacre.. done by a Muslim? 'Ismail X'" territory, aren't we.

Aren't we?

Pericles,

Patronizing and arrogant, yes. However I suggest what's important is not sentiment, but facts and logic.

You have some facts but poor on logic.

For Pete's sake, Chamberlain was a leader of Great Britain, a position that requires wisdom, leadership and courage.

Wisdom - To correctly read Hitler's intentions, know how to respond.
Leadership - For a start, successfully dissuade Britain from a policy of appeasement.
Courage - Not avoiding war (at all costs) DESPITE past war experience.

I have no doubt Chamberlain was a fine gentleman, precisely why he was a wrong leader at the wrong (or even best of) time.

It was his kind of leadership failings that highlighted Churchill's quality wisdom, leadership and courage.

Draw up countless pages of Chamberlain's virtues and good deeds if you'd like. They are irrelevant to the crux of the matter - Win or Loss.

Try to imagine myself in same position as Chamberlain?
Whether I succeed or fail in an operational sense, my judgement calls would be quite different from yours for a start. But I can tell, you would indeed repeat his failings.

Likewise, when Islamic lunatics rule the streets one day, similar questions will be asked of some people & leaders, belatedly :

Notwithstanding all virtues and good deeds, have you ever demonstrated qualities that really matter? Qualities of wisdom, leadership and courage; qualities that would have saved this place from it's predicament?

GZ, you're a tough taskmaster.

>>Wisdom - To correctly read Hitler's intentions, know how to respond<<

Take a look at some documentation on Chamberlain's meetings with Hitler, and see what he was up against.

It is so easy to judge from this distance.

http://www.learningcurve.gov.uk/snapshots/snapshot31/snapshot31.htm

Don't forget also that many intelligent people saw Hitler first and foremost as a charismatic and effective leader of his people.

A decade and a half earlier, German workers had to collect their wages three times a day, and spend it before they got home, otherwise it would be worthless - the German Wholesale Price index went from 100 in 1914, to 7.26 billion in 1923.

Hitler's Third Reich was frequently referred to as a model of economic and organizational genius. Only hindsight tells us that it was also a fermenting hotbed of evil.

>>Courage - Not avoiding war (at all costs) DESPITE past war experience.<<

Chips Channon (MP) wrote in his diary on 14th September 1938:

"...world stirring news, that Neville (Chamberlain), on his own initiative, seeing war coming closer and closer, had telegraphed to Hitler that he wanted to see him, and asked him to name an immediate rendezvous. The German Government surprised and flattered, had instantly accepted and so Neville, at the age of 69, for the first time in his life, gets into an aeroplane tomorrow morning and flies to Berchtesgarten! It is one of the finest, most inspiring acts of all history"

The man did not lack courage.

>>Leadership - For a start, successfully dissuade Britain from a policy of appeasement.<<

Herbert Morrison, contemporary politician:

"The coldness of his character encompassed him like an aura. If he had little heart he certainly had a brain. He was a first-class administrator, probably one of the most capable Ministers of Health of this century. When he became prime minister his personal tragedy was that he was genuinely aghast at the possibility of war and he adopted the role of a man of peace because he was convinced that he had the political acumen to achieve it"

Leadership. Taking a path you believe in.