A Blistering Account of DCP's Scholarship

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Ray,

Islamic law understands jihad exclusively as warfare to establish the religion. In the doctrinal trenches of jihad, while Current Approach advocates and the national security community consistently message non-doctrinal notions of Islam and jihad, the “extremists” will always be able to counter with the requirements of jihad that are grounded in Sacred Islamic law emanating directly from Allah and His Prophet.

Please read this if you want to become a bit more educated on jihad, and the legal definitions it enjoys within the Islamic legal community:

http://www.strategycenter.net/docLib/20 ... tJihad.pdf

- VRDRC

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I thought jihad meant "struggle" and that there are two kinds of struggle:

1. The most important struggle, the struggle against the "natural man" to perfect oneself and be the best Muslim one can be.

and

2. The later and lesser struggle against outside intruders. Here the struggle is to eliminate the infidel or otherwise pacify them from threatening the caliphate. In theory, this would be defensive, but often the best defense is a good offense.

Much less aggressive war on the part of Muslims these days. It's normally imperial America and her bitches droning the hell out of brown folk. (Count the number of warheads psychopaths on bath sides have access to and then tell me the 100,000s is less scary than the 2.)

When assessing the relative merits of the greater jihad, it should be remembered that the spiritual struggle has no real standing in Islamic law.

- VRDRC

[_Kevin Graham]

What you say in incorrect. Maybe you should get it from the horse's mouth.

What I say is is absolutely correct and I get it straight from the source of Islamic doctrines, and I don't only mean the Quran and ahadith (traditions).

For starters, how about we try this popular Islamic Q&A website, which is something along the lines of FAIR for Islam. It states that Islam was most definitely spread by the sword (contrary to Peterson) and this was followed up with direct citations from Islamic sources of doctrine that make that point. Dan ignores all of this when trying to propagate myths about Islam because like his Mormonism, he feels he needs to steer people to certain conclusions by omitting important details. He wants to make sure his readers make decisions based on only the data he carefully selects.

According to Al-Mawrid, which is described as the "Foundation for Islamic research and Education" (sound familiar?): "The Qur'an tells us that when Allah sends His messenger in a people, these people are not allowed to live on Allah's earth if they reject the messenger." Ooops? So much for Dan's myth.

A Pakistani based Islam information site concurs: "Authorities are of the opinion that Muslims must fight the polytheist nations as well as the Jews and Christians of today until they subdue them. It is further held that while the polytheist nations must be put to death if they do not accept faith, the Jews and Christians can be allowed to live on their religions if they submit to Muslim authority by paying Jizyah."

Dan has admitted that Al-Azhar is the highest authority in Islam, essentially the equivalent of BYU in Mormonism accept their employees are not just academians, but rather authorities on Islam. Recently one of their teachers said, “Jihad has become an individual duty incumbent upon each and every one of us,” and that their enemies are “the offspring of pigs and apes." This of course is a different issue, where many faithful Muslims believe, based on Quran and ahadith, that Jews have descended from apes and pigs.

So what about Muslim authorities in academia?

According to Dan Peterson, Bernard Lewis is the world's authority on Islam in the English speaking world. According to Lewis,

The overwhelming majority of early authorities, citing the relevant passages in the Quran, the commentaries, and the traditions of the Prophet, discuss jihad in military terms. According to Islamic law, it is lawful to wage war against four types of enemies: infidels, apostates, rebels, and bandits. Although all four types of wars are legitimate, only the first two count as jihad. Jihad is thus a religious obligation...In Muslim tradition, the world is divided into two houses: the House of Islam, in which Muslim governments rule and Muslim law prevails, and the House of War, the rest of the world, still inhabited and, more important, ruled by infidels. The presumption is that the duty of jihad will continue, interrupted only by truces, until all the world either adopts the Muslims faith or submits to Muslim rule. Those who fight in the jihad qualify for rewards in both worlds - booty in this one, paradise in the next.(p.32)

For most of the recorded history of Islam, from the lifetimes of the Prophet Muhammad onward, the word jihad was used in a primarily military sense. (p.33)

Jihad is sometimes presented as the Muslim equivalent of the Crusade, and the two are seen as more or less equivalent...But there is a difference. The Crusade is a late development in Christian history and, in a sense, marks a radical departure from basic Christian values as expressed in the Gospels. Christendom had been under attack since the seventh century, and had lost vast territories to Muslim rule; the concept of a holy war, more commonly, a just war, was familiar since antiquity. Yet in the long struggle between Islam and Christendom, the Crusade was late, limited, and of relatively brief duration. Jihad is present from the beginning of Islamic history - in scripture, in the life of the Prophet, and in the actions of his companions and immediate successors. It has continued throughout Islamic history and retains its appeal to the present day.(p.37)

All I have done is essentially repeat what the most authoritative sources on Islam have already said. But it drives Dan nuts because he knows that unbridled truths prevents him from working his magic; meaning he can't persuade people to follow his conclusions when they've been given all the facts.

Dan Peterson has also admitted that he is a big fan of Daniel Pipes. According to Pipes,

As this suggests, jihad is "holy war." Or, more precisely: It means the legal, compulsory, communal effort to expand the territories ruled by Muslims at the expense of territories ruled by non-Muslims. The purpose of jihad, in other words, is not directly to spread the Islamic faith but to extend sovereign Muslim power (faith, of course, often follows the flag). Jihad is thus unabashedly offensive in nature, with the eventual goal of achieving Muslim dominion over the entire globe.

Jihad did have two variant meanings through the centuries, one more radical, one less so. The first holds that Muslims who interpret their faith differently are infidels and therefore legitimate targets of jihad. (This is why Algerians, Egyptians and Afghans have found themselves, like Americans and Israelis, so often the victims of jihadist aggression.) The second meaning, associated with mystics, rejects the legal definition of jihad as armed conflict and tells Muslims to withdraw from the worldly concerns to achieve spiritual depth. Jihad in the sense of territorial expansion has always been a central aspect of Muslim life. That's how Muslims came to rule much of the Arabian Peninsula by the time of the Prophet Muhammad's death in 632. It's how, a century later, Muslims had conquered a region from Afghanistan to Spain. Subsequently, jihad spurred and justified Muslim conquests of such territories as India, Sudan, Anatolia, and the Balkans.

Also check out David Cook of Rice University: Understanding Jihad, where he corrects the apologetic crusade led by a few fringe academians. Cook dismisses as "pathetic and laughable" the contention that jihad refers to "the effort to lead a good life." Cook definitively establishes that the term primarily means "warfare with spiritual significance."

So please Ray, don't tell me I haven't received my information from the Horse's mouth. The fact that you would even says this proves that you have judged me based on misinformation. I've done exactly what you say I should. I don't engage people like this unless I have all my ducks in a row, and I have support from not only Islamic sources, but also non-Muslim scholars of Islam.

So now that we've come full circle, maybe you can answer the question. How important is the truth to you? You see, for me, what is true is paramount to any rationalization or politically correct riff raff Peterson comes up with.

It was nearly five years ago when I last pointed these things out in a thread on this forum explaining why Dan Peterson cannot be trusted as an authority on Islam: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4129&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

He is on a mission to make sure the object of his profession is recreated in an image to his liking.

[_EAllusion]

I find DCP to be reliable and engaging on the subject of Islamic studies. This makes sense as it is what he actually has meaningful professional expertise in. It's a shame that so much of his career is dedicated to substandard work through Mormon apologetics.

[_Kevin Graham]

I find DCP to be reliable and engaging on the subject of Islamic studies. This makes sense as it is what he actually has meaningful professional expertise in. It's a shame that so much of his career is dedicated to substandard work through Mormon apologetics.

So what do you make of Dan's claim that Jihad is always understood as self defense? Does that sound reliable to you?

[_RayAgostini]

Kevin, I grabbed this from Muslim Village Forums in Australia (I visit but haven't posted, and don't know if I will). Please listen/view carefully, in particular from 3:30 on:

Shaykh Dr Mohammmed Tahir-Ul-Qadri Interview With Australia Ntwk Newsline.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Taqiyya, Ray. There's no need to fall on your sword over an ideology that has no issue placing one against your neck.

- VRDRC

[_RayAgostini]

Taqiyya, Ray.

When under persecution, sure. Visit Muslim Village Forums and post your views there. If you have a valid conspiracy theory, it should be able to stand up.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Are you defending Muslims in general, or Islam? I think you're conflating the two. If not, then knock yourself out. I'm not sure you'd feel a kinship with Islam since it would force you to pay jizya, and judge you under sharia law.

And you're wrong about taqiyya being used only under persecution. I'd bother to link you to authoritative quotes, but you're clearly mired in some notion that has no basis in Islamic law, nor its scholarly interpretation.

- VRDRC

[_RayAgostini]

Are you defending Muslims in general, or Islam? I think you're conflating the two. If not, then knock yourself out. I'm not sure you'd feel a kinship with Islam since it would force you to pay jizya, and judge you under sharia law.

Most Muslims I talk to, in fact almost all here in Oz, tell me they'd dread living under Sharia. Only one province (Aceh) in Indonesia (the world's largest Muslim country) practices Sharia.

What is Islam? You view it as some kind of monolithic entity?

And you're wrong about taqiyya being used only under persecution. I'd bother to link you to authoritative quotes, but you're clearly mired in some notion that has no basis in Islamic law, nor its scholarly interpretation.

When did you get your degree in Islamic studies?