Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 10:37:16 -0700 (MST)
From: thekoba 
Subject: [az_american_atheists] [nebukhadhnasar@yahoo.com: Re: The BOOK: Presiden G. W. Bush Is A
To: azsecularhumanists@yahoogroups.com
Cc: az_american_atheists@yahoogroups.com, nebukhadhnasar@yahoo.com
Reply-To: az_american_atheists@yahoogroups.com




The following are Eric Mueller's comments on this issue.  For those who
don't know this already, Comrade Mueller is an atheist who is fluent in
Arabic and actually studied in Saudi Arabia during the 1970s.

--Kevin Walsh

    ================= Begin forwarded message =================

    From: nebukhadhnasar@yahoo.com (Abdallah Tahhan)
    To: thekoba 
    Subject: Re: The BOOK: Presiden G. W. Bush Is A Moron: Islam Is NOT Peace
    Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 10:29:59 -0700 (PDT)


    Dear Kevin,

    Thanks for the heads up on this piece of trash.  When
    "atheists" do the work of fanatic missionaries, there
    is justification in the statement by some religious
    people that atheism is a religion too, and no less
    subject to the influence of class pressures than the
    traditional theistic belief systems.

    Obviously this guy, whatever his religious or tribal
    background, has a political motive and it is certainly
    not world peace -- unless Pax Americana or Pax Judaica
    is his concept of peace.

    The book's main analytical problem is that it is
    metaphysical and idealist in its approach.  Islam is
    this, Islam is that.  Always and for all time there is
    some eternal and unchangeable social verity which is
    "Islam."  But in every age people make their version
    of Islam in accordance with the class and social
    realities of their time.  Often there have been
    different versions depending on which class interests
    were being represented.

    You, Kevin, levelled some very good criticisms.  For
    the most part what he calls "Islam" is the medieval
    feudal practice of that religion which is not
    identical with the practice today, and in fact is not
    entirely in accordance with the Prophet's practice in
    a society where tribal organization was only beginning
    to give way to class differentiation and the emergence
    of a state.  Medieval feudal Islamic penal law has
    largely been superseeded by western codes in all but
    Saudi Arabia, and in all these countries there is a
    heritage of vary widely different interpretation of
    laws.

    Let's look at a couple examples of the author's
    misleading message.

    As you, Kevin, pointed out, the non-Muslim in the
    medieval context who accepted the rule of an Islamic
    state was required to pay jizya not to humiliate him
    but to make a contribution to the state of which he
    was now a part.  He didn't have to convert, was
    allowed to retain his own legal system within his own
    community in fact, but had to pay a tax to the
    government.  He didn't pay Muslim zakat (alms); he
    also didn't serve in the military.  Since we today are
    quite familiar with the notion of paying taxes for
    public services including the often dubious one of
    "defense", it should not be hard to understand the
    institution of jizya.

    A Muslim woman can't divorce?  Well, unfortunately
    that has often been the case in feudal patriarchal
    Islamic societies.  But the hadith literature of
    statements by Muhammad and the principles of the legal
    system based upon that body of literature contain a
    very clear authorization for divorce instituted by a
    woman.

    The story was that a woman came to the Prophet and
    said that she had nothing bad to say about her
    husband, that he treated her ok, but that she just
    wasn't happy with him.  The couple was, as we'd say
    today, incompatible.  So the Prophet sent for the
    husband.  The Prophet told the woman to give back the
    dowry that the husband had given her upon marrying her
    (a custom aimed at providing insurance for the woman
    in the event of the husband's death) and he ordered
    (not "asked") the husband to divorce her.  This whole
    procedure is called khul` in Islamic law and is well
    known.  It is the basis for much legislative reform
    today that is retrieving for Muslim women their right
    to divorce not by opposing the Islamic texts, but by
    invoking them and going back to them.

    Overall, whether the author is idealist and
    metaphysical or not, I think it's clear that by saying
    "Islam is not peace" he is sending the message that
    the US must make war on the Muslims (don't say on
    "Islam" because really we are talking of war on
    people, and the people associated with Islam are the
    Muslims.)

    Essentially, then, his book is a call for a crusade. 
    Perhaps the author is not a believer in God, but
    nevertheless he is calling for a crusade by the US
    (which is not, by and large, an atheist country)
    against Islam.  Obviously this sort of propaganda will
    result in spreading the most primitive religious
    prejudices in the US, demonizing the "enemy,"
    identifying his religion as "evil," and so forth, as
    well as among the targeted victims.

    Solomon Tulbure might want to pose as a fighter for
    healthy enlightenment, but with his dark age call for
    war against a billion people, he reveals himself as a
    latant toxin from a medieval plague.

    Comradely,

    Eric




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