Racial profiling

[reed]

rhisiart....

A metaphor.
Red States.Terrible, stupid and dangerous thinking. US/Right Wing/Religious/ignoranant policy at present. Bush & co what. I'v seen it with my own objective eyes. Just in case there was a doubt my spies are out there as well confirming this.

Nothing new under the sun.

Rangoon, over and out.

[Cat]

Technically, AFAIK, the unbelievers the Q'ran talks about are the primitive politheistic religions and sects spread throughout the middle-east at the time. Jews and Christians are referred to as People of The Book. All three great monotheistic traditions share their origin in Abraham/Ivrahim and got along fairly well with each other in the beginning. Jesus is even acknowledged as an important prophet by Islam. However, he is not considered the saviour and son of god. Just like the Jews, Muslims are still waiting. Doesn't that make them more open-minded on the average than those who profess already to know the ultimate truths?

[Rhisiart]

Originally Posted by Cat

Technically, AFAIK, the unbelievers the Q'ran talks about are the primitive politheistic religions and sects spread throughout the middle-east at the time. Jews and Christians are referred to as People of The Book. All three great monotheistic traditions share their origin in Abraham/Ivrahim and got along fairly well with each other in the beginning. Jesus is even acknowledged as an important prophet by Islam. However, he is not considered the saviour and son of god. Just like the Jews, Muslims are still waiting. Doesn't that make them more open-minded on the average than those who profess already to know the ultimate truths?

Cat, I honestly don't know.

Originally Posted by reed

rhisiart....

A metaphor.
Red States.Terrible, stupid and dangerous thinking. US/Right Wing/Religious/ignoranant policy at present. Bush & co what. I'v seen it with my own objective eyes. Just in case there was a doubt my spies are out there as well confirming this.

Nothing new under the sun.

Rangoon, over and out.

Agreed * STOP * Very dangerous * STOP * In much peril * STOP * Complete nutters * STOP * Mandalay, over and out * STOP

[rubaiyat]

Originally Posted by Cat

Technically, AFAIK, the unbelievers the Q'ran talks about are the primitive politheistic religions and sects spread throughout the middle-east at the time.

Not at all as you can see by my references.

Jews and Christians are referred to as People of The Book. All three great monotheistic traditions share their origin in Abraham/Ivrahim and got along fairly well with each other in the beginning.

Only as subjugate peoples who had to pay the Jizya, a tax on the non-believers. It was a practicality as the Muslims were initially the minority. The choice was death, slavery or conversion. Once converted, even under threat of death, changing your faith is apostasy and punishable by death. By declaring any deviation from Islam apostasy each of the sects has been able to kill the others without retribution.

Doesn't that make them more open-minded on the average than those who profess already to know the ultimate truths?

Hardly as there is but one God and his name is Allah and Mohammed is his prophet. Christians and Jews get the protection of the law by paying the Jizya but in any legal conflict they, as unbelievers, can not give witness so the word of any muslim prevails. Women have it somewhat better, The word of 2 muslim women is equal to that of one muslim man.

People of other faiths can choose to believe their creeds, muslims have no choice. The Koran is the word and is quite clear in most cases what it says.

You do need to read a little more than just the Introduction to Islam. It is a really compelling study as it is so different from our beliefs.

[rubaiyat]

As late as 1894 jizya was still being collected in Morocco; an Italian Jew described his experience there:

"The kadi Uwida and the kadi Mawlay Mustafa had mounted their tent today near the Mellah [Jewish ghetto] gate and had summoned the Jews in order to collect from them the poll tax [jizya] which they are obliged to pay the sultan. They had me summoned also. I first inquired whether those who were European-protected subjects had to pay this tax. Having learned that a great many of them had already paid it, I wished to do likewise. After having remitted the amount of the tax to the two officials, I received from the kadi’s guard two blows in the back of the neck. Addressing the kadi and the kaid, I said” ‘Know that I am an Italian protected subject.’ Whereupon the kadi said to his guard: ‘Remove the kerchief covering his head and strike him strongly; he can then go and complain wherever he wants.’ The guards hastily obeyed and struck me once again more violently. This public mistreatment of a European-protected subject demonstrates to all the Arabs that they can, with impunity, mistreat the Jews."

As this example shows the problem many Muslims have with Jews is that of a subject people who dares to usurp their natural masters. Much as the white Southerners in the USA direct particular venom against the ex-slave black population.

Even in its specifics this is not some ancient history, as demonstrated by the Sudanese Arabs against the southern black Christians and animists, and also against the black Sudanese of Darfur. In fact the Sudanese, Saudis and Mauritanians still practice slavery, with the justification of the Koran.

[Cat]

When you say that "there is but one God and his name is Allah" I think you make a mistake. You seem to refer to the basic creed expressed by the phrase: "La ilaha illa Allah" "There is no other god than God" i.e. there is just one God. You will find the same formulation in Jewish and Christian texts. "Allah" just means God and is not a proper name. Hence, the Q'ran tells us that Allah is the same God as the God of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed.

What you describe concerning taxes etc. is not so very different from what has been done in the name of religion by so many christian rulers. People of other faiths have always been persecuted, expropriated, discriminated etc. think of the jews in Spain in 16th and 17th century, catholics and protestants in England, repression changing with every newly crowned king or queen, etc. etc. That doesn't make muslims any worse than christians or jews.

About the mistreatment of "europeans" ina muslim country, isn't racial profiling the exact same thing? Mistreating people, criminalizing them because of their beliefs or ethnicity?

[rubaiyat]

Cat, the difference is that the discrimination is not a dictate of the Christian New Testament, in fact it is counter to the teachings of Jesus, the Zororastrians, the Jain, the Bahaii, the Buddhists, Confucians, Daoists to just name a few. Even Judaism which had some primitive injunctions in the Old Testament has purged them from modern practice.

Infidels are still infidels. Jews were driven from Arabia and Infidels are excluded from certain Islamic sites and held inferior under Sharia so it is clear Islam does not equate belief in one God with belief in Allah.

Can you show me where Muslims have been forced to pay a poll tax and humiliated ritually in the payment? Where in western society are Muslims held to have no legal rights, unable to bear witness in a court of law? Where are Muslims not allowed to preach or proselytize?

The only reason some of the Islamic practices, such as slavery and misogynistic acts against women, have been moderated (but not eliminated) has been under pressure from the West. The fact that the West has done so seems to particularly anger many Muslims who are forming the support for militant Islam everywhere.

I do not hold with discrimination against muslims and would dearly love that that muslims reciprocated but clearly muslim violence and discrimination against non-muslims is spreading. I am hard put to find any creed or nationality that hasn't been attacked.

What is extremely disturbing is that they hold the Koran as supporting their actions, and clearly it does. Even those who would not dream of committing any of the crimes themselves have trouble declaring those actions are in conflict with the Koran.

The crime of apostasy makes even expressing a contrary view extremely dangerous. Islam's biggest problem is it has no way of safely allowing self criticism.

The non-muslim world emerged from most of its injustices long ago through liberalism and an increasingly open, free debate, that allowed the change.

Islam seems to be caught in a time warp and even has a large percentage trying to turn back time and lashing out at everyone else in the process.

To address directly your last issue of "racial profiling", this does not implicitly mean discrimination or persecution. If the criminal being sought is clearly a self declared muslim and largely Arabic or South Asian, are the police discriminating by searching for those characteristics? Neither are they being persecuted when they are going through due legal process, even if that is a legal process they themselves do not practice or respect.

Those muslims standing on the sideline but acting as the militants' cheersquad are being disingenuous if they think that doesn't make them accomplices to the act and therefore bring them under suspicion also.

[Cat]

The problems you report are not problems of islam as a faith, or even as an organised religion, but problems generated by Islamic nations, i.e. states where the official law is Islamic law, but the Sharia is based upon the Q'ran, it is not identical with the Q'ran and has changed over time. When have we stopped swearing on or by the bible or god in courtrooms and other pledges? Problems are generated when there is no clear separation between church and state. A personal faith becomes a tyrannical law for those who do not share it, it has happened everywhere in the world throughout history.

The problems you address come from islamic law not from islamic faith. Crusaders supported their actions also by appealing to the bible. Many States in the USA, "one nation under god", "in god we trust", carry out the death sentence even though in the bible it says "thou shalt not kill", how do you think they justify that? Well, you go poring over the theological literature until you find a loophole. Theologicians are notable for being even more insidious than lawyers. No wonder that fanatics can find all justification they need in their holy texts for their unholy actions.

Islam is every inch as peacful as christianity. Both can be twisted hither and tither by ruthless governments, but do not confuse the religious justification of political acts with faith.

With racial profiling you are not searching with an identikit at hand. You are scrrening millions of people that haven't yet done anything. That's racism. "Arabs/Northafricans/etc. are more likely to commit crimes, hence we keep a closer eye on them". Sounds reasonable, but is wrong. Justice cannot act by prejudging. Since when do we have a thought-police that can read minds? Since when are people condemned on vague signs of possible intentions alone?

Do you really think that the goal (temporarily increasing the public's sense of security by showing that "something is being done") justifies the means (abandoning the democratic principle that all subjects are equal before the law and presumed innocent until proven guilty)?