Talk:Jihad/Archive 3

message: :"Muslims hold that an "Offensive Jihad" can only be declared by a lawful and legal Muslim authority, traditionally the Caliph. However, no authority is needed for the "Defensive Jihad" to become effective in Islamic traditional law, which holds that when Muslims are attacked then it becomes obligatory for all Muslim men of military conscription age, within a certain radius of the attack, to take up arms against the attackers. If the attacker is not defeated, then the "radius of obligation," so to speak, continues to expand, until it may encompass the whole world and every Muslim male of military conscription age."
Again, an earlier part of the article needs to clarify where it states that there is such a thing as an "Offensive Jihad" and a "Defensive Jihad". Also, a reference to the information about "radius of obligation" needs to be provided, as there is a risk that this will be accused of being original research. This definitely needs tightening.
:"The question of which Muslim authority, if any, may carry out duties such as declaring Jihad has been problematic since March 3, 1924 CE, when Kemal Atatürk abolished the Caliphate, which the Ottoman sultans had held since 1517. There is no longer a single Muslim authority, which is considered a violation of the shariah (see Caliph). Sunni Islam (the largest denomination) has no religious hierarchy comparable to that of many Christian churches (although Shi'a Islam, which was historically persecuted by the Islamic state, does); its religion and government have been at times tightly woven into a political system known as the Caliphate, or khalifah. (Many of those termed Islamists in contemporary political rhetoric wish to return to this system of government.) Due to this lack of clerical organization amongst the vast majority of Muslims, any adherent may proclaim himself an "ulama" (Islamic scholar) and proclaim a defensive jihad by way of fatwa. Recognition is at the discretion of the listener." 
Seems OK. 
:"In the absence of a Caliph, the only remaining "de facto" Islamic leaders would be the heads of the Islamic nation-states. However, due to the rampant corruption plaguing governments in the Muslim world and the view amongst some Muslims that the democratic or monarchic nation-state is an un-Islamic institution, there is widespread distrust of these heads of state. As a result Islamist movements (such as Al Qaida or Hamas) have declared jihad themselves, thus attempting to bypass (and even overthrow) the de facto authority of the nation-state."
Rampant corruption? Please expand and clarify! Also, another weasel word alert: "the view amongst some Muslims". Which Muslims please. Is the article referring to Al Quaida or Hamas exclusively, or is it referring to these and other movements? Or is it referring to other organisations entirely? - Ta bu shi da yu
I would add: 
*(although Shi'a Islam, which was historically persecuted by the Islamic state, does)" : the "historically persecuted by the Islamic state" bit is both vague (Shia have established their own states many times, starting with the Idrisids, and done their own fair share of persecuting too) and explains nothing (Kharijites were persecuted and developed no such structure.)
*"Due to this lack of clerical organization amongst the vast majority of Muslims," - "lack of clerical organization" is a decided oversimplification of a complex issue. - Mustafaa 03:45, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Please, feel free! Be bold, and try to write from a neutral point of view. Please also cite external sources :) - Ta bu shi da yu 04:04, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Political military authority 

message: :To non-Muslims, militant attacks under the rubric of jihad may be perceived as acts of terrorism. Two Islamist groups call themselves "Islamic Jihad": Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Supporters of these groups perceive a strong religious justification for a militant interpretation of the term jihad as an appropriate response to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
OK, this seems OK. It's specific, seems pretty accurate and just attempts to state facts. 
:To many Muslims, a person who dies as a part of struggle against oppression is a shahid (martyr) and is assured a place in Janna (Paradise) where they will have 72 virgins, rivers of wine and fresh fruit. 
I've heard this also, however where does this information come from? I've always wanted to know. Can we have a citation for this information?
:If the death of the person is certain, some consider the act martyrdom rather than suicide, which is a hell-worthy sin under Islamic religious law. If non-combatant Muslims perish in such attacks, they are also considered shahid and thus have also secured a place in paradise. Hence, the only true victims are the kaffir, or unbelievers. 
More weasel words! "some consider the act martydom rather than suicide". Who considers this martydom? Not only that, but for this whole paragraph I don't know where the writer is getting this information from. Sources for this information, please!
:This section has been elaborated on. Sources are now given. --Pename 08:17, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC) 
:Those Muslims who disagree with the militant interpretation believe instead that suicide and killing civilians remain sins, since neither suicide nor attacks against civilians are considered legitimate outcomes of jihad. 
Which Muslims disagree with the militant interpretation? Also, tighten up the language (I'll probably do this) in the last sentence. 
: I didn't write this paragraph and I'm not sure what to do with it. If someone else can improve upon it, it would be appreciated (e.g. if someone could elaborate on arguments by Muslim Islamic scholars AGAINST suicide bombings) --Pename 08:17, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)
:The basis of shahid can be traced back to the words of Muhammad prior to the battle of Badr where he stated:
::"I swear by the One in whose hand Muhammad's soul is, any man who fights them today and is killed while he is patient in the ordeal and seeks the pleasure of Allah, going forward and not backing off, Allah will enter him into Paradise."
:There are Muslim clerics who authorize suicide bombing as a valid form of jihad, especially against Israel, her allies, and her supporters, believing that such attacks are legitimate responses to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza .  One of these so named is the United States. However, there is also a significant number of Muslims residing in the United States and the United States gives more foreign aid to all Muslim countries together than it does to Israel, the largest single recipient of such aid. 
Do we have specific instances of Muslim clerics who authorize suicide bombings? The link may talk about this, I haven't had a chance to check this... perhaps we could clarify this. 
: Yes, the link gives a specific instance of such a Muslim cleric. Other such instances are mentioned in the Wikipedia entry on suicide bombing.
:Many Islamic legal rulings view any killing of civilians (whether through combat or any other such militant activity) as against the ethics of Islam. 
Good to hear, however can we have specific instances of these rulings so we can verify the validity of this statement?
: I dont have any on me. I wish the person who wrote that sentence had given a reference. Maybe someone else can do this (e.g. a moderate Muslim contributor)?
:Moreover, since terrorist organizations do not constitute any autonomous state or de facto authority, and because targets of jihad can only be recognized military targets, most Muslims do not consider terrorism to be an extension of jihad. 
OK... this statement might be OK, but I think that we could clarify this. 
: I dont agree with this statement. I agree it needs clarification. It also needs references. It also has a Weasal Word. But I won't delete it for now; maybe someone can clean it up. --Pename 08:17, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)
:Islamist proponents of terrorism argue, on the other hand, that economic targets can be seen as military targets, and often cite Muhammad's numerous caravan raids (see Battle of Badr for a description of one such caravan raid and the war that it led to). 
Which proponents is the article referring to?
:The Qur'an specifically forbids attacking women, children, elderly people, and civilian buildings during a military campaign. 
Where does it say this in the Qur'an? I am not an expert, and I would like specific information so that I can verify this claim (I'm not saying this info is wrong, it just needs to be clarified).
: I don't think that the Qur'an actually forbids these things, I believe they are forbidden in the hadiths. The person who wrote this statement should have provided a verse number. Now we don't know what he or she was talking about. --Pename 08:17, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)
:However, there can be exceptions. Just as Western philosophies of war permitted harm to civilians and categorized it as "collateral damage," so too did Muhammad and his followers devise similar justifications. 
OK, dangerous ground. Which Western philosophies is the article referring to? How is it relevant to Jihad? Are we comparing the same things? Islam is more than a philosophy, after all. It's a religion. This bit most definitely needs clarifying!
:Western philosophies such as the modern study of ethics, and secular humanism. In Western philosophical thought on ethics, the concept and legitimacy of collateral damage is well-established. For example, droppings bombs that might killed civilians is not concidered wrong in the Geneva Conventions. I don't think it needs much clarifying - I think it's common knowledge that the concept of "collateral damage" has legitimacy in conteporary western thought and discourse.   --Pename 08:17, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)
:In 630 CE Muhammad led the Siege of al-Ta'if, where the Muslims first discovered catapults. Muhammad deemed it permissible to use the catapults against the enemy, despite the fact that women and children would be put at risk of being killed by the boulders and burning missiles launched from the catapults. Muhammad deemed this to be a sort of permissible collateral damage. 
Very specific info, something this article lacks. Look OK to me.
:One hadith discusses the circumstances in which military action may be taken against the enemy, even if it is known that fellow Muslims taken prisoner by the enemy would be killed as a result of such military action; the essential message is that it is permissible to take the life of an innocent person (even a fellow Muslim), during war, if it is demonstrably for the greater good.
Which hadith? Again, we need to verify this information.
: I'm trying to locate this hadith. I've read it before, but must locate it. --Pename 08:17, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)
:The Qur'an denounces the killing of any person who is not guilty of at least one of two crimes:
::"Whosoever killed a person - unless it be for killing a person or for creating disorder in the land - it shall be as if he killed all mankind; and whoso saved a life, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind." (5:32)
:::State the entire thing please. "Because of this, we decreed for the Children of Israel that anyone who murders any person who had not committed murder or horrendous crimes, it shall be as if he murdered all the people. And anyone who spares a life, it shall be as if he spared the lives of all the people. Our messengers went to them with clear proofs and revelations, but most of them, after all this, are still transgressing." (5:32)
:However, it is not entirely clear who is and who is not an "innocent person," nor is it entirely clear what qualifies as "creating disorder in the land." Muhammad considered poetry against his new religion to be a form of "creating disorder in the land" and silenced a number of great poets of his day by having them murdered. One such silenced poetess was Asma bint Marwan. Another such poet was Abu 'Afak. 
Specific information is included here, so that's good. Seems OK to me. 
:In a similar spirit, "Theo van Gogh (47), a Dutch filmmaker who had made a movie critical of some aspects of Islamic society and culture, has been shot dead in an Amsterdam street on November 2 [2004]. The late great-grand-nephew of famous Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh had received many death threats after releasing Submission last August, a short film detailing the treatment of Muslim women. He shrug off the threats, saying there was nothing offensive in his movie. The killer, a 26-year-old Moroccan residing in Holland, was wearing a long beard and Islamic garb when he shot and stabbed van Gogh in broad daylight. He was arrested after a shootout with the police." 3 
Uh... we don't need the whole report quoted verbatim. We can just state what happened and point people to the referenced information, also to the Theo van Gogh article. Perhaps clarification of the specific reasons for him being shot due to Jihad could be given also.
: I removed the sentence about Theo Van Gogh "shrugging off" the death threats. As for the specific reason for his murder - it's stated right there above: he "had received many death threats after releasing Submission last August, a short film detailing the treatment of Muslim women." --Pename 08:17, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)
:Another famous incident of this kind was the death fatwa against Salman Rushdie, issued by Ayatollah Khomeini, in which Khomeini called upon any Muslim in the world to murder Salman Rushdie, because of the books which Rushdie wrote about Islam. 
Fair point I think.
:Today, most publicly known Western critics of Islam recieve a constant stream of death threats from Islamic fanatics seeking to silence them, and have to employ constant the service of body guards (Canadian TV producer and publicly known Muslim critic of orthodox Islam, Irshad Manji, is sometimes cited as the "new Salman Rushdie" and employs the service of a number of Israeli trained body guards). In the Muslim world, those who dare to publicly criticize Islam are usually executed or imprisoned by their governments, under laws against "spreading disorder through the land" and apostasy.
Seems OK, however someone may disagree.
:Other examples of this ambiguity as to who is an "innocent person" and who is a "guilty person," and thus must be killed, are found in the discussion above suicide bombers in Israel (and their ideological supporters) who view all Isrealies as guitly persons who can legitimately be killed. Yet another example of this ambiguity can be found in the discussion above regarding the issue of apostasy in Islam, and the fact that traditionally Muslims who defected from Islam were guitly persons who had to be executed for their beliefs. Clearly, there are instances where Islam's and Islamists' views of who is innocent and who is guilty differ from modern secular democratic ideals. Also discussed earlier was Islam's 1,300 year history of imperialism and expansionism, a practice that started with Muhammad himself. Traditional Islamic jurists did not concider it a sin to aggressively make war against non-Muslims in order to conquer their lands; thus countless innocent lives were taken by Islam's imperial armies as they spread their empire, but the Islamists saw these non-Muslims as guilty persons who could legitimately be killed. The Qur'an explicitly outlaws many "crimes" which modern secular society sees as fundamental rights or civil liberties. The point being that the concept of who is an "innocent person" and who is a "guilty person" can vary widely between different cultures, nations, religions, and eras in history. Hence a solitary verse of the Qur'an declaring that "whosoever kills an innocent person or creates disorder in the land will burn in Hell" is not by any means the complete Islamic legal framework about who can and cannot be killed and under which circumstances.
I've done a bit of a copyedit already, but I think the piece needs tightening. Perhaps instead of saying "are found in the discussion above about" could be rephrased. This whole section seems to be arguing a point to convince the reader something. I think that this needs a whole lot of work, because we don't argue for or against anything, we only characterise and describe situations, facts and opinions. I think this clearly comes out in words like "the point being" (we're trying to make a point? Why?). This bit needs significant tightening!
: The pargraph is not arguing for or against anything, it is describing the disparity between modern notions of "innocent persons" and the traditional Islamic (i.e. medieval Arab) notions of "innocent persons." In past centuries, Muslims deemed it permissible to aggressively wage wars of imperialism against non-Muslims. Normally, if somsone tries to kill you then that person is "guiltly" and can justifiably by killed. BUt if someone is not bothering you, and you kill that person, then most people would say that you've killed an "innocent person." But Islamic imperial ideology is not compatable with this notion of "innocent person" because imperialism requires attacking and killing people who are not bothering you. I think it's pretty a obvious fact and common sense fact that Islam's notions of "innocent" and "guilty" are different from modern secular liberal democratic ideas of about who are "innocent people" and who are "guilty." This is not an argument for against anything, it's a description of the state of current affairs as far as Islamic law compares to modern secular law. That's what this paragraph conveys.  --Pename 08:18, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)
:This ambiguity and disagreement, within Islam, over who are "innocent persons" and who are "guilty persons" is most clearly evident in the modern history of Jihad and the theories of warfare that its modern proponents wrote. One of the most well known contemporary Jihad theorists was Sayyid Qutb (an Egyptian who was one of the founders of contemporary militant Islamic ideology) who wrote a series of books, while in prison, in which he declared that all people who participated in any form of government that was not an Islamic theocracy (either by participating in the councils of such a form of government, or campaigning for a political party in democratic system, or even encouraging people to vote in a democratic form of government) could be considered guilty persons who could justifiably be killed. In a recently aired documentary by BBC, titled "The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear," in its second eposide, it was explained that "The implication [of Qutb's belief] was that these leaders could justifiably be killed, because they had become so corrupted, they were no longer Muslims, even though they said they were." . One of Sayyid Qutb's followers was to become Osama bin Laden's personal mentor; he was an Egyptian named Ayman al-Zawahiri,  who wrote (like Qutb, while in prison) an even more radical framework for the contemporary militant Islamic ideology. In the first eposide of the BBC documentary, it was explained that "The mystery, for Zawahiri, was why the Egyptian people had failed to see the truth and rise up [against their un-Islamic secular leaders]. It must be because the infection of selfish individualism had gone so deep into people’s minds that they were now as corrupted as their leaders. Zawahiri now seized on a terrible ambiguity in Qutb’s argument. It wasn’t just leaders like Sadat who were no longer real Muslims, it was the people themselves. And Zawahiri believed that this meant that they too could legitimately be killed. But such killing, Zawahiri believed, would have a noble purpose, because of the fear and the terror that it would create in the minds of ordinary Muslims. It would shock them into seeing reality in a different way. They would then see the truth." 
Interesting information, however the paragraph starts by saying "This ambiguity and disagreement, within Islam, over who are "innocent persons" and who are "guilty persons" is most clearly evident in the modern history of Jihad and the theories of warfare that its modern proponents wrote." Then two proponents of an extreme view are given a large amount of coverage, from one source (a BBC series). There is nothing written about the disagreement that others have with their views, nothing about ambiguity over... something. Ambiguity over what? This seems biased to me, and should be expanded, clarified and NPOVed. 
: Ambiguity over who is an "innocent person," who is a "guilty person," who is a "real muslim," who can be killed and under what circumstances. There is a great deal of disagreement over these issues amongst Muslims, due to the ambiguity, in the Islamic ideology and legal theory, regarding these issues. But I agree that that the opposite point of view should also get more coverage in the article, like I said above, a moderate Muslim contributor could perhaps explain the arguments that moderate Muslims have against Islamist terrorism. --Pename 08:18, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)
 
Ta bu shi da yu 03:57, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Islamist terrorism

message: Some anon Islamophobe came in and tried to rewrite the whole article. Much of the garbage was deleted. If you, Viriditas, or anyone else wants to reinsert any of it, you should discuss it here first. --Alberuni 00:19, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits to this article should be discussed in Talk first 

message: I have tried to come to a comprimise with Alberundi's edits and the article before Alberundi's edits. It would help to scale down the revert war if everyone would explain their objections and edits in the talk section before editing the article.
:A worthy course of action. - Ta bu shi da yu 10:03, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Attempting to End the Reversion War

message: I strongly suggest that you read Wikipedia:Cite sources.  If you do not cite sources, then  your information, whether credible or not, will probably be removed. This has been copied to your user page. --Viriditas 04:07, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Pename