The Show Must Go On - Queen

Empty spaces

What are we living for?

Abandoned places

I guess we know the score

On and on
Does anybody know what we are looking for?

Another hero
Another mindless crime
Behind the curtain, in the pantomime

Hold the line
Does anybody want to take it anymore?

Show must go on
Show must go on
Inside my heart is breaking
My make-up may be flaking
But my smile, still stays on

Whatever happens
I'll leave it all to chance

Another heartache
Another failed romance

On and on
Does anybody know what we are living for?

I guess I'm learning
I must be warmer now

I'll soon be turning, round the corner now

Outside the dawn is breaking
But inside in the dark I'm aching to be free

Show must go on
Show must go on

Inside my heart is breaking
My make-up may be flaking
But my smile still stays on


My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies
Fairy tales of yesterday, will grow but never die
I can fly, my friends

Show must go on
Show must go on

I'll face it with a grin
I'm never giving in
On with the show

I'll top the bill
I'll overkill
I have to find the will to carry on

On with the show

Show must go on.

Judging God

[2:26]
Indeed, Allah does not feel shy in citing any parable, be it that of a gnat or of something above it (in meanness). Now, as for those who believe, they know it is the truth from their Lord; while those who disbelieve say, “What could Allah have meant by this parable?” By this He lets many go astray, and by this He makes many find guidance. But He does not let anyone go astray thereby except those who are sinful

[2:27]
- those who break the Covenant of Allah after it has been made binding, and cut off the relations Allah has commanded to be joined, and spread disorder on the earth - it is these who are the losers.

[2:28]
“How is it that you deny Allah, while you were lifeless and He gave you life; then He will make you die, and then He will make you live again, and then to Him you will be returned?

[2:29]
It is He who created for you all that the earth contains; then He turned to the heavens and made them seven skies - and He is the knower of all things.

[2:30]
(Remember) when your Lord said to the angels, “I am going to create a deputy on the earth!” They said, “Will You create there one who will spread disorder on the earth and cause bloodshed, while we proclaim Your purity, along with your praise, and sanctify Your name?” He said, “Certainly, I know what you know not.”

[2:31]
And He taught ’Ādam the names, all of them; then presented them before the angels, and said, “Tell me their names, if you are right.”

[2:32]
They said, “To You belongs all purity! We have no knowledge except what You have given us. Surely, You alone are the All-knowing, All-wise.”

[2:33]
He said, “O ’Ādam, tell them the names of all these.” When he told them their names, Allah said, “Did I not tell you that I know the secrets of the skies and of the earth, and that I know what you disclose and what you conceal.

[2:34]
And when We said to the angels: “Prostrate yourselves before ’Ādam!” So, they prostrated themselves, all but Iblīs (Satan). He refused, and became one of the infidels.

[2:35]
And We said, “O ’Ādam, dwell, you and your wife, in Paradise; and eat at pleasure wherever you like, but do not go near this tree, otherwise you will be (counted) among the transgressors.”

[2:36]
Then, Satan caused them to slip from it, and brought them out of where they had been. And We said, “Go down, all of you, some of you the enemies of others; and on the earth there will be for you a dwelling place and enjoyment for a time.”

[2:37]
Then ’Ādam learned certain words (to pray with) from his Lord; so, Allah accepted his repentance. No doubt, He is the Most-Relenting, the Very-Merciful.

[2:38]
We said, “Go down from here, all of you. Then, should some guidance come to you from Me, those who follow My guidance shall have no fear, nor shall they grieve.

[2:39]
As for those who disbelieve, and deny Our signs, they are the people of the Fire. They shall dwell in it forever.”

[2:40]
O Children of Isrā’īl (the Israelites), remember My blessing that I conferred upon you, and fulfill the covenant with Me, and I shall fulfill your covenant, and have awe of Me alone.

[2:41]
And have faith in what I have revealed, confirming what is already with you, and do not be the first to deny it, nor take a paltry price for My verses. Fear Me alone.

[2:42]
and do not confound truth with falsehood, and do not hide the truth when you know (it).

[2:43]
And be steadfast in Salāh (prayer), and pay Zakāh, and bow down with those who bow down.

[2:44]
Do you enjoin righteousness upon others while you ignore your own selves, although you keep reciting the Book? Have you then no sense?

[2:45]
Seek help through patience and prayer. It is indeed exacting, but not for those who are humble in their hearts,

[2:46]
who bear in mind that they are to meet their Lord, and that to Him they are to return.

[2:47]
O Children of Isrā’īl (Israel), remember My blessing that I conferred upon you, and that I gave you excellence over the worlds;

[2:48]
and guard yourselves against a day when no one shall stand for anyone in anything, nor shall intercession be accepted on anyone’s behalf, nor shall ransom be taken from him, and neither shall any be given support.

Paedophile Marriages?

MEDIEVAL CHILD MARRIAGE: ABUSE OF WARDSHIP?

Paper delivered at Plymouth State College, Plymouth, NH
Conference on Medieval Studies, April, 1997

by
John McLaughlin, PhD

Email: john-mclaughlin@comcast.net


In the unlikely event of the survival of the English monarchy into the 21st century -- with the helpful loan of the Stone of Scone from her ever- courteous neighbors to the north -- it is just conceivable that the future king might wish to consolidate his grasp upon the family billions by announcing his engagement to a future Duchess of Glasgow in order for there to be a royal wedding to keep American devotees of the throne up until 4 AM to join voyeuristically in the festivities. But if said Duchess should turn out to be seven years of age, there would be a barely stifled shriek of horror from every television station in the land that would otherwise have joined in the celebration, and there would be an immediate rush to denial on the front pages of the Star and Globe Weekly, which would also be salivating as they have not done since the discovery of the body of little Jo-Benet Ramsay. The spectre of pedophilia -- that last taboo, which has threatened to close down sections of the Internet to scholars in our day -- would immediately rear its dreadful head. The future king would be whisked away for extended treatment in an exclusive sanatorium at an un-named location. The Queen Mum would have a heart attack on the spot. Fergie would snigger.

And yet it is the case that in 1396, Richard II of England was joined in marriage to young Isabel of France, who had been 7 years old when their engagement was announced the previous year in Paris. Not only was there no uproar; there was considerable happiness expressed over the assumed probability that this marriage would end the Hundred Years War then in one of its periodic states of truce between the two kingdoms. Peace was to be ensured by joining together this man and this little girl in marriage. If some scholars are correct, Geoffrey Chaucer even celebrated the arrival of the little queen in England, in the formal but funny balade, "To Rosemond," remarking her "chekes round," clowning for the child, like "a pike, walwed in galantyne," possibly inducing thereby merry giggles and yet another pension. [See *The Riverside Chaucer* (Houghton Miflin, 1987) ed. Larry D. Benson et al, pp. 649 and 1082 -- where there is, however, note of disagreement among readers, Robbins endorsing Rickert's "conjecture" that the poem was addressed to "Richard II's child-bride," but Edward Vasta being willing to put the poem much earlier, around 1369-70, despite its formal polish.] If it is indeed addressed to Isabel in this way and for this purpose, then it could be argued that Chaucer was just one more profiteer from this bargain, joining in the happy welcome of the little girl to her marriage bed.

The difference between these responses to the prospect of child marriage is one of the clearest markers of the Otherness of the Middle Ages from the 20th century. The very idea of child marriage -- the use of a child as a bargaining chip, a counter in the game of family politics and inheritance -- is as abhorrent to us as it was apparently completely non-exceptionable in the 14th century. A social practice which entered the written record in the 12th century, but which seems to have had roots in the barbaric past, that extended from the royal abattoirs down to the lives of neighboring fishmongers and shop-keepers in medieval London, yet that seems to have received little more than passing notice in canon law beyond exhortation to limit it to age seven and ensure mutual consent of the parties, is now regarded with horror and disgust by decent- minded people from every point along the political and social spectrum. But still it is not even indexed in most contemporary discussions of medieval marriage and family life, from Barbara Hanawalt to James Brundage, GL Brooke to Frances & Joseph Giese, Ian MacFarlane to Georges Duby. It is not exactly passed over in their texts, when you read closely; but it is definitely subordinated in discussion to other matters of canon law and social history. The child who has recently been re-discovered, countering Philip Aries' assertion of her non-existence in the Middle Ages [See for example the Gieses' discussion of this debate, Marriage and the Family in the Middle Ages (Harper & Row, 1987), p.5; it might be argued that Barbara Hanawalt's work has been devoted to countering Aries; see her "Narratives of a Nurturing Culture: Parents and Neighbors in Medieval England,"( http://www.luc.edu/publications/medieval/emsv12.html ) Essays in Medieval Studies, Vol 12 (1995): Proceedings of the Illinois Medieval Association: Children and the Family in the Middle Ages.] is still not fully recognized as being thus casually abused and used for the ends of other people; there is not a single book, not a single article, on the separate topic of medieval child marriage in contemporary scholarship, even where there are passing references in the middle of other discussions of medieval childhood, as in problems of medieval wardship. The sole work devoted to child marriage in or near our area is F.J.Furnivall's edition of 16th century child divorce depositions from the Bishop's Court in Chester, 1561-66 (EETS, 1897), and it is of course open to the possible argument that post-Reformation practice diverged significantly from that of medieval society (itself admittedly sundered by geographical and class differences in this area as in any other).

It is therefore, of course, my duty to rectify this situation, by bringing together scattered references to child marriage from a variety of sources, and to begin to lay the groundwork for the new book or dissertation-length study which, I hope, awaits this initial foray into the field. If in the process I stimulate some younger, better scholar to continue this discussion, to bring this curiously neglected topic to the foreground -- to center the presently marginalized married child of the Middle Ages -- "Thine be the thank, and mine be the travail."

By "child" in this context is meant a male or female human being above the age of 7 -- for either gender -- and below the age of 14 for males, and 12 for females. This follows medieval canon law, in recognizing these as the limits of infancy and puberty, below which the infant could not give meaningful consent, and above which the person was no longer a child. [See Frances and Joseph Giese Marriage and the Family in the Middle Ages, pp. 139-40; Christopher Brooke, The Medieval Idea of Marriage (Oxford, 1991), p.138; James Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago, 1987), p.238.] Thus, for example, when the Wife of Bath boasts of having had five husbands since the age of 12, she is not casting herself in the role of child bride, technically speaking, at least not in medieval terms. Lee Patterson's discussion of child marriage in Peter Beidler's lovely new edition of The Wife of Bath, is thus irrelevant to the present discussion, except as it relates to Richard and Isabel; Christine de Pisan, for example, was already aged 15 when she was "given" to her husband, and therefore according to medieval definition an adult woman. [Lee Patterson, "'Experience wot well it is noght so': Marriage and the Pursuit of Happiness in the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale," in The Wife of Bath, ed. Peter G. Beidler (St. Martin's, 1996), p.145; at the bottom of this and on the following page, Prof. Patterson goes on to make precisely this point.] This means that when the age is unspecified, it is not always easy to tell from context whether there is a true child (up to age 12) or a child by rhetorical exaggeration (below the age of legal majority, which might go as high as 21, or 18 or 16, depending on the context). Thus when Robert Mannyng of Brunne in Handlying Synne denounces parents for what GC Homans calls "child marriage": 3if pou dedyst euer swyche outrage/ To wedde chyldren or pey hadde age, /Pare-of may come grete folye/ 3yf pey so 3unge to-gedyr lye" [II, 1663-1666: cited in GC Homans, English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century (Harvard, 1940, repr. Russell & Russell, 1960, p. 163.] it is not clear that Mannyng is truly speaking about what I would here call child marriage, any more than when Phillip Stubbes, some two hundred years later, attacked the practice whereby 'little infants, in swaddling clouts, are often married by their ambitious friends, when they know neither good nor evil, and this is the origins of much wickedness'" [The Anatomie of Abuses (1585), cited -- and characterized as Stubbes' "typical rhetorical exaggeration" -- in Ian MacFarlane, Marriage and Love in England, 1300-1840 (Basil Blackwell, 1986), p. 134.] It is, of course, easy enough to boost the statistics on "child marriage" by using the looser definition of the term, but I would have preferred to restrict myself to the smaller sub-group of clearly-defined cases of child marriage, as canon law recognizes it, if that had always been possible. In Furnivall's Child-Marriages, of course, the ages of the partners is carefully specified, as part of the divorce pleas being made in the Bishop's Court.

Literature, however, is not confined to the factual truth; but then, as some of us may know from personal experience, neither is every case in divorce court. But where it is not afterwards opposed or appealed, by definition medieval child marriage does not enter into the records of the ecclesiastical courts; and more than one scholar -- Christopher Brooke comes to mind at once -- has remarked on how difficult it is to find out the ages of parties entering into matrimony, simply going by village records, with namesakes and relatives crowding the pages of the parish registers, making it nearly impossible, except in well-documented cases of appeal to the courts, to track anything like a representative demographic sample in this matter. [Brooke, pp. 3-19] on the difficulties for demographers in tracking medieval marriages below the ranks of the aristocracy.] Still the Church had its limits, and refused -- except for special affairs of state, involving the peace -- to sanction marriages contracted before seven years of age, below which it considered the child as truly an infant, incapable of giving consent to marriage. Thus, when Bishop Hugh of Lincoln intervened in the multiple marriages of Grace of Saleby, it was, among other reasons, because she had been married at age 4; it was this, combined with the other fraudulent behavior of her mother and her female accomplices, which brought down the censure of the saintly bishop. If they had only waited until she was seven, things might have been alright, given the swift deaths of the hasty spouses. [See the discussion of this case by Paulette L'Hermite Le Clerq, in "The Feudal Order," in A History of Women, Vol II: Silences of the Middle Ages (Harvard, 1992), ed. Christine Klupisch-Zuber, gen eds. George Duby and Michelle Perrot, pp. 204-206.]

But affairs of state might sanction infant marriage, let alone the marriage of seven-year-olds; numerous sources testify to "the widespread practice of child marriage at the highest levels of society" [Le Clerq, p. 274]; the children of Henry II "had been married in babyhood," and the Council of Westminster (1175) conceded that these could be valid marriages "pro bono pacis" (for the sake of peace), even although it also said that "where there is no consent of both parties there is no marriage, and so those who give girls to boys in their cradles achieve nothing" [Brooke, p. 140]. It is also clear -- contrary to the verdict of the Gieses, who in their study of marriage in the Middle Ages claim that, "Child marriage was confined to the aristocracy, peasant and artisan classes having no need for it," (p. 209) -- that in fact child marriage was entered into well below the exalted circles of the court, for reasons making as much economic sense, at their level, as did the regal exchange of provinces and castles. GC Homans cites the court books of the village of Cahiers, Herts, for the year 1294: "Walter, Ailrich's son, came and made fine for the land which belonged to Ailrich, his father. And thereupon came Adam Irman, and took said land, and said Walter the heir until he is of age, so that in the meantime he will build and will maintain the land and the holding and will give Helen the daughter of said Adam to said Walter. And he will do the due and accustomed services. And he gives, for the fine and for the term of years and for the license to marry, a half-mark." [English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century, p. 162.] (This case should remind us that, contrary to Carolyn Dinshaw's assertion in Chaucer's Sexual Poetics (Wisconsin, 1989), p. 57, which ties medieval child marriage solely to the exchange of women that she believes characterizes the patriarchal society of the Middle Ages, an argument that she believes she derives from Claude Levi-Strauss' Elementary Structures of Kinship, young boys as well as young girls, on the peasant level as on the aristocratic level, were traded in this fashion.) Other cases are cited by Barbara Hanawalt, in Growing up in Medieval London (p. 101): "Agnes, widow of John Laurence, and her new husband, Simon de Burgh, were appointed guardians of little Agnes, who was eight months old. The couple contrived to marry Agnes, who had property worth 40 marks, to Thomas, son of Simon, who was eleven years old. The banns had already been read, and the wedding garments purchased (little Agnes' dress must have been a glorified christening dress), when the "next friends" intervened and Agnes was removed from her mother's custody. In a similar case the marriage actually occurred. The guardian had married the widowed mother of an orphan and had then married off the little girl [age not given], even though he had covenanted with the mayor not to marry her off." Elsewhere, Hanawalt refers to John Bryan, a fishmonger, who marries off one Alison Rayner to Richard Fraunceys, "with permission of the chamberlain" (p. 245, note 30); thus even in London, where orphans and children were supposedly under the direct protection of the mayor, the marriage of children in far from aristocratic state might still take place.

While far from as plentiful in the records as evidence of royal marriages and betrothals -- peasants could not afford the expensive and extended litigation which makes the entry of aristocratic appeals for annulment and divorce appear so much more readily in the records -- the routine nature of these transactions (and the petty amounts involved) provides supporting evidence of the widespread abuse of wardship involved in medieval child marriage, from the aristocracy to the peasantry. If Furnivall's 27 cases of child divorce in five years within one diocese in the 16th century could be permitted to enter the argument as at least tangential evidence of the continuing practice of child marriage below the aristocracy, then it would count as no small measure of the difference between the Middle Ages and the 20th century that this custom, once so widespread and so apparently accepted in the statute books and the church registers and court rolls, with its own limits and regulations, its own boundaries and acceptable practices and precedents, has now passed into history, as a clear marker of the Otherness of the Middle Ages from our era.

But of course Furnivall makes the case for recognizing the practice of child marriage in England even into the 17th century and beyond, citing Lord Henry Swinburne, Judge of the Prerogative Court of York, in his Treatise of Spousals or Matrimonial Contracts, pp. 19-22, 25-27, (Furnivall, pp. xxxv-vii), on the English laws governing grounds for dissolution of these child marriages, in terms remarkably similar to Gratian and Peter Anchiorno. At the same time, and even more disturbing to 20th century sensibilities, there may be little reason to doubt and some reason to suspect that swift consummation of such marriages was an option to be explored in securing the inheritance of the child in question. At issue are the two competing definitions of marriage, involving both consent and consummation (the model of Gratian in the 12th century and Peter Anchiorno in the 15th century, in concert with the received wisdom and practice of the common people), as opposed to that involving consent alone (the idealistic model of Ivo of Chartres and Innocent III) [ See Brundage, Brooke, et al]. There is little evidence to support the argument that the second model alone was supposed to be applied to child marriage, with the first reserved for adult marriage only. The records do not support this way out of the possibility of what we would now regard as blatant child abuse. Discussion of definitions of consummation consumed the learned doctors of the Church: Deposition of semen only, or penetration beyond the vulva? What are the grounds for annulment? Is gross disparity between the sexual organs grounds for such relief from vows entered into between consenting parties? Can a wife be put away for failure to bear a child? Is impotence equally valid grounds for divorce as adultery? Is it legitimate to test a claim to impotence by using naked women in the examination? These queries crowd the pages of the early penitentials and the later decretals, with never a special case for child marriage noted or discussed. [See Brundage, pp 36, 92, 130, 202, 296, 437, 502, passim.] And yet this was an age of logic-chopping and special cases. If there had been an exception for children, it would have been easy enough to make; I have been unable to find it in my research on this topic. Even in Furnivall, the clearly- rehearsed deponents, whose testimony appears and re-appears in almost identical wording in the 27 cases that form the main body of his evidence, (pp. 1-52) insist to a person that there has been no possibility of consummation -- or even cohabitation -- between the parties from the beginning, in case the faintest hint of even attempted intercourse should pose a barrier to the child divorces being sought by on their behalf. This follows, of course, from recognition that, in an age which accepted Original Sin but had not embraced the Freudian "latency myth," in an agricultural society where animal copulation was readily observable, along with the example of servants and other adults -- with privacy, practically speaking, a non-issue -- the Romantic conception of the "innocent child" had not yet been arrived at. [See for discussion James R Kincaid, Child-Loving: The Erotic Child and Victorian Culture ( Routledge, NY, 1992), pp. 120-133, and notes.] Precocity was in fact recognized in the medieval period: "[...] Hostiensis reminded his readers that the real criterion of readiness for marriage was sexual capacity; a girl who was able and willing to consummate a sexual union was fit for marriage, whatever her chronological age, and boys who were fit for sex were likewise capable of contracting marriage. (Brundage, p.434] [Hostiensis was Henry of Segusio, Cardinal bishop of Ostia, d. 1271] As abhorrent as we find it in the 20th century, then, the merciless logic of a marriage theory which required consummation to complement consent winds up in at least a possibility of pedophilia in medieval child marriage.

Perhaps this is the place -- in a conference paper at least, if not in a published essay -- to note that in my work with abused children for an arts and social service agency in the Poconos, I have found that one of the most distressing side-effects of the incest-abused children with whom I have had to deal has been their promiscuous behavior, towards adults and towards other children. It is as if the abuse had awakened desires and behaviors which would otherwise, in this society, have lain dormant until puberty. Speaking personally, I find this one of the most dreadful side-effects -- if that is the word -- for such child abuse. I recognize that this may not be a totally clinical response; but then I'm not that kind of doctor.

Medieval child marriage, then, might well have been an elaborate doll-game involving pseudo-consent obtained from a dazzled child by overbearing parents (although precisely this pseudo-consent lay at the heart of the ecclesiastical litigation concerning dissolution of marriages, as brought by the few defiant and well-heeled children and their friends in the period). It might have involved nothing more than transfer of a child from one nursery to another, following a childish scrawl in a church register, but with immediate transfer of lands and inheritance from one guardian to another, or to a greedy or complaisant, self-seeking parent (These are the kinds of claims made in Furnivall's cases.) It might have followed upon family discussion of the benefits to be mutually obtained for the family, in bringing together adjoining fish-shops or fields -- or fiefdoms and royal treasuries. And at the same time it might, in fact, have involved what we must call unanswerable violation of the child, making annulment -- and return of the prizes -- impossible by any except the most complex definition of marriage, such as only the richest of magnates -- and the cleverest of lawyers -- could wring from the highest courts, following the most arduous, difficult, time-consuming and expensive trail of litigation. And it might have been a purely formal matter, involving childish consent obtained not even in front of witnesses, passing thereafter into the non- remarked and the obscure, ripening with age into the eventual production of children and the passage of generations, in a conspiracy of silence concerning what had been done to a child in the name of lustful greed.

John McLaughlin, April 1997.

http://www.thedigitalfolklife.org/childmarriage.htm

PS, Lord Lavendon,

Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. married Aisyah r.a. in 623 or 624, and the marital age of a 'child bride' during George Washington was 10 years old, and that was around 1789-1797.

I'm still looking for articles about same sex marriages or homosexual behaviours, abortions and engaging the enemies in wars based on lies, to find out whether these practises were considered as a norm within certain elapsed of time frame. Wish me luck.

PSS, You might want to check a confession of an abortion doctor in the USA that confess to conduct abortion on girls as young as 9 or 10 years old, and it is in our recent frame of time. You might want to check it out yourself, me lord!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OZH-mdbCXI&feature=channel

Futher readings:
http://www.faqs.org/childhood/A-Ar/Age-of-Consent.html
http://www.faqs.org/childhood/Re-So/Sexuality.html

Hard

"Hard"

Rihanna
(feat. Young Jeezy)

Yeah, yeah, yeah (Yeah, yeah, yeah)
Yeah, yeah, yeah (Ah yeah, yeah, yeah)
Ah yeah, yeah, yeah (Ah yeah, yeah, yeah)
Ah yeah, ah yeah, ah yeah, yeah
Ah yeah, ah yeah, ah yeah, yeah

They can say whatever
I'ma do whatever
No pain is forever
Yup, you know this

Tougher than a lion
Ain't no need in tryin'
I live where the sky ends
Yup, you know this

Never lyin', truth teller
That Rihanna reign, just won't let up
All black on, blacked out shades
Blacked out Maybach

I'ma rock this shit like fashion, as in
goin' til they say stop
And my runway never looked so clear
But the hottest bitch in heels right here

No fear, and while you getting your cry on
I'm getting my fly on
Sincere, I see you aiming at my pedastal
I betta let ya' know

That I, I, I, I'm so hard
Ah yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm so hard
That I, I, I, I'm so hard
Ah yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm so hard
That I, I, I, I'm so hard
Ah yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm so hard
So hard, so hard, so hard, so hard

Ah yeah, yeah, yeah
That Rihanna reign just won't let up
Ah yeah, yeah, yeah
That Rihanna reign just won't let up
Ah yeah, yeah, yeah
That Rihanna reign just won't let up
So hard, so hard, so hard, so hard

All up on it
Know you wanna clone it
Ain't like me
That chick too boney
Ride this beat, beat, beat like a pony
Meet me at the top (top, top)
Gettin' lonely

Who think they test me now
Run through your town
I shut it down
Brilliant, resilient
Fan mail from 27 millions

And I want it all
It's gonna take more than that
Hope that ain't all you got
I need it all
The money, the fame, the cars, the clothes

I can't just let you run up on me like that (all on me like that)
Yeah
I see you aiming at my pedastal
So I think I gotta let ya' know

That I, I, I, I'm so hard
Ah yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm so hard
That I, I, I, I'm so hard
Ah yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm so hard
That I, I, I, I'm so hard
Ah yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm so hard
So hard, so hard, so hard, so hard

Go hard or go home
Back to your residence
Soon the red dogs will give the block back to the presidents
I used to run my own block like Obama did
You ain't gotta believe me, go ask my momma then

You couldn't even come in my room
it smelled like a kilo
Looked like me and two of my boys playing casino
Trying to sell they peeping my bag they can't afford it
Tell 'em to give me back my swag
They tryin' to clone me

See my Louis tux, Louis flag, Louis frames, Louis belt
What that make me
Louis mane?

I'm in an all white party wearin' all black
With my new black watch call it the heart attack
Cardiac arrest, cardiac a wrist
Yeah, they say they're hard
They ain't hard as this

Hard!

The one word describes me
If I wasn't doin' this
You know where I be, too hard

Where dem girls talkin' trash
Where dem girls talkin' trash
Where they at, where they at, where they at?

Where dem bloggers at
Where dem bloggers at
Where they at, where they at, where they at?

Where your lighters at
Where your lighters at
Where they at, where they at, where they at?
So hard, so hard, so hard, so hard

That I, I, I, I'm so hard
Ah yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm so hard
That I, I, I, I'm so hard
Ah yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm so hard
That I, I, I, I'm so hard
Ah yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm so hard
So hard, so hard, so hard, so hard

That I, I, I

A Cause vs. A Cause

Anglican Samizdat

January 29, 2010
Born-again Christian says he killed abortion doctor to save lives
Filed under: Abortion — David @ 12:01 am

Tags: Abortion

An interesting defence:

In an impassioned plea before a US court, a born-again Christian argued on Thursday that he had killed a prominent abortion doctor because he wanted to save the lives of unborn babies.

Scott Roeder, 51, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of first-degree murder in the May 2009 slaying of Dr George Tiller in the foyer of a Kansas church.

Instead in an unorthodox move he is seeking to convince jurors that he is guilty of the lesser offence of voluntary manslaughter, because he honestly believed he was saving people from greater harm.

George Tiller performed late-term abortions: he aborted babies after the 21st week of pregnancy, babies that have the potential for surviving outside the womb.

Now, if Roeder had killed a madman with a gun threatening babies in a nursery, he would be a hero; is his murder of Tiller substantially different?

http://anglicansamizdat.wordpress.com/2010/01/29/born-again-christian-says-he-killed-abortion-doctor-to-save-lives/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OZH-mdbCXI&feature=channel
http://anglicansamizdat.wordpress.com/2009/11/07/the-abortion-doctor-who-admits-to-killing-babies/

A Confession of An Ex

CONFESSION OF AN EX-ABORTIONIST

By Dr. Bernard Nathanson


I am personally responsible for 75,000 abortions. This legitimises my credentials to speak to you with some authority on the issue. I was one of the founders of the National Association for the Repeal of the Abortion Laws (NARAL) in the U.S. in 1968. A truthful poll of opinion then would have found that most Americans were against permissive abortion. Yet within five years we had convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to issue the decision which legalised abortion throughout America in 1973 and produced virtual abortion on demand up to birth. How did we do this? It is important to understand the tactics involved because these tactics have been used throughout the western world with one permutation or another, in order to change abortion law.

THE FIRST KEY TACTIC WAS TO CAPTURE THE MEDIA

We persuaded the media that the cause of permissive abortion was a liberal enlightened, sophisticated one. Knowing that if a true poll were taken, we would be soundly defeated, we simply fabricated the results of fictional polls. We announced to the media that we had taken polls and that 60% of Americans were in favour of permissive abortion. This is the tactic of the self-fulfilling lie. Few people care to be in the minority. We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000 but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1,000,000. Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200-250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was 10,000. These false figures took root in the consciousness of Americans convincing many that we needed to crack the abortion law. Another myth we fed to the public through the media was that legalising abortion would only mean that the abortions taking place illegally would then be done legally. In fact, of course, abortion is now being used as a primary method of birth control in the U.S. and the annual number of abortions has increased by 1500% since legalisation.

THE SECOND KEY TACTIC WAS TO PLAY THE CATHOLIC CARD

We systematically vilified the Catholic Church and its "socially backward ideas" and picked on the Catholic hierarchy as the villain in opposing abortion. This theme was played endlessly. We fed the media such lies as "we all know that opposition to abortion comes from the hierarchy and not from most Catholics" and "Polls prove time and again that most Catholics want abortion law reform". And the media drum-fired all this into the American people, persuading them that anyone opposing permissive abortion must be under the influence of the Catholic hierarchy and that Catholics in favour of abortion are enlightened and forward-looking. An inference of this tactic was that there were no non-Catholic groups opposing abortion. The fact that other Christian as well as non-Christian religions were {and still are) monolithically opposed to abortion was constantly suppressed, along with pro-life atheists' opinions.

THE THIRD KEY TACTIC WAS THE DENIGRATION AND SUPPRESSION OF ALL SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE THAT LIFE BEGINS AT CONCEPTION

I am often asked what made me change my mind. How did I change from prominent abortionist to pro-life advocate? In 1973, I became director of obstetrics of a large hospital in New York City and had to set up a prenatal research unit, just at the start of a great new technology which we now use every day to study the foetus in the womb. A favourite pro-abortion tactic is to insist that the definition of when life begins is impossible; that the question is a theological or moral or philosophical one, anything but a scientific one. Foetology makes it undeniably evident that life begins at conception and requires all the protection and safeguards that any of us enjoy. Why, you may well ask, do some American doctors who are privy to the findings of foetology, discredit themselves by carrying out abortions? Simple arithmetic at $300 a time, 1.55 million abortions means an industry generating $500,000,000 annually, of which most goes into the pocket of the physician doing the abortion. It is clear that permissive abortion is purposeful destruction of what is undeniably human life. It is an impermissible act of deadly violence. One must concede that unplanned pregnancy is a wrenchingly difficult dilemma, but to look for its solution in a deliberate act of destruction is to trash the vast resourcefulness of human ingenuity, and to surrender the public weal to the classic utilitarian answer to social problems.

AS A SCIENTIST I KNOW, NOT BELIEVE, KNOW THAT HUMAN LIFE BEGINS AT CONCEPTION

Although I am not a formal religionist, I believe with all my heart that there is a divinity of existence which commands us to declare a final and irreversible halt to this infinitely sad and shameful crime against humanity.



[Dr. Nathanson has since converted to Catholicism, being baptised in 1996.]

http://www.aboutabortions.com/Confess.html

The Abortion Cause

Anonymous Simon I said...

'Channel Four TV Marie Stopes 'Abortion' advertisement 10.10 pm Monday 24 May 2010. I object to this advertisement in the strongest terms as it is completely misleading. It is what it doesn't say. It doesn't give a realistic picture or the terrible lasting effects an abortion can have on a woman for the rest of her life. Neither does it mention alternatives to abortion. But most of all it is callous in its approach to the healthy unborn child, as though the unborn child has no value whatsoever. It is a very sad day that Channel 4 have crossed this line in helping this vile business just to make money. Over 97% of the 200,000 plus abortions every year in England and Wales are for social reasons only. A mother's womb is now the most dangerous place to be; when it should be the safest.

Advertisements like this encourage more abortions when everyone should be working towards reducing the appalling number of abortions in the UK every year. Over 6 million healthy unborn babies killed since the 1967 Abortion Act; about the same number of innocent Jews killed by the Nazis before and during the second world war. It is perhaps no surprise that the 'Marie Stopes' name is connected to both human holocausts: Both horrific and barbaric events are about the killing of innocent and defenseless human life en masse and both supported by the Government of the day.

'As a society, we are only as civilised as we treat the most vulnerable amongst us'.

27 May 2010 17:46

http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/Marie Stopes, Hitler and eugenics

Forgetting Turns

Blogger psybermonkey said...

And so you have contradicted your own beliefs by saying such things. You have broken the core standards that people like yourself claim to be true of god:

1) Nothing is impossible of god.

Yet you say, "Such a question would not be considered as possible...No other new revelation or prophet can come."

2) You nor anyone else has the right to judge god due to his vast superiority and absolute authority; He makes the rules.

Yet you say, "Your definition of God is someone that would ask me to do hideous and vile things that contradict any nature of goodness and he is god?"

But srizals, according to your own standard, god makes the rules on what is ethical and so it would no longer be vile if he said so. He decides what is ethical, not you. Who are you to judge god, srizals? Like you said before, "He [God] is the most powerful above all, incomparable with all that exist here in the universe." So which is it?

This hypothetical question is designed to reveal on of two things...either reveal your strict obedience to god under any circumstances due to his absolute authority and ability to do anything, or reveal the fact that you contradict your own beliefs when it comes time to put them on the line - which you have clearly shown as outlined above.

So decide: is nothing impossible for god and does he have absolute authority over what is ethical? Or is god someone who does have his limits and whom we do have the right to judge? If the ladder is true, then go ahead and say it - since so far you've only contradicted yourself according to the standards of belief regarding god.

Yes, you have responded to my question. Before moving on however, I am giving you the chance to respond to your contradictory answers.

Tue May 25, 10:17:00 AM 2010
Blogger Srinivasan said...

Allow me to contribute to the great debate between psybermonkey and srizals.

Allah coming to someone and condoning rape, paedophilia etc. is not a hypothetical situation. It has happened. If you look at the Qur'an and the accompanying Hadiths and Siras, you will realise that Allah has indeed sanctioned such behaviour.

You see, Allah sent his greatest messenger, Mohammed, to the world as an exemplary human being. So every action that Mohammed performed is not only divinely sanctioned, it is to be emulated by all good Muslims throughout their lives. In the course of his life, Mohammed has committed the following:

Paedophila (carnal knowledge of his child-brde Aisha at age 9)

Rape (see above. Also, he raped women captured in battle, usually whilst the bodies of their slain fathers/husbands where still warm)

Murder (of apostates and Jews and pagans, in countless numbers. Most of the murders were carried out by his followers upon his instruction, but a few privileged individuals were personally despatched to Allah by Mohammed himself)

Muslims are indeed following in the footsteps of Mohammed today. So to answer psybermonkey's question on behalf of srizals: yes, a good Muslim will indeed rape, murder etc if Allah commands him to do so. Hope that helps srizals.

srizals@gmail.com

All hail to the mighty Kali. I can't have a quarrel with you since you're not a Brahmin. All talk with no proof and comparison? Don't forget your sacrifice to Kali now, Srinivasan. Suttee is enough for you.

Psybermonkey, it's your turn to answer my questions. Have you eaten your own words now? Let our readers read your explanation. If not, it's going to be a dull stereotype argument, won't it? You keep on asking, I keep on answering. Where's the fun in that?

A Discussion With An Atheist

I remembered in a discussion with an atheist, he said that he would only believe in God if he could see God for himself, just about the same in this verse, [2:210], I cannot recall whether I had put it in my blog or not. And I cannot recall what his response was when I presented this verse to him when he said of it more or less likely the same. I'll be busy in a few days ahead. Hope I'll get a response soon.

[2:208]
O you who believe, enter Islam completely, and do not follow the footsteps of Satan. Surely, he is an open enemy for you;

[2:209]
and if you slip, even after clear signs have come to you, then you must know that Allah is Mighty, Wise.

[2:210]
They are looking for nothing (to accept the truth) but that Allah (Himself) comes upon them in canopies of cloud with angels, and the matter is closed. To Allah shall all matters be returned.

[2:211]
Ask the Children of Isrā’īl (Israel) how many a clear sign We have given to them; and whoever changes the blessing of Allah after it has come to him, then Allah is severe in punishment.

[2:212]
Adorned is the present life for those who disbelieve, and they laugh at those who believe, while those who fear Allah shall be above them on the Day of Resurrection. Allah gives provision to whom He wills without measure.

[2:213]
All men used to be a single ’Ummah (i.e. on a single faith). Then (after they differed in matters of faith), Allah sent prophets carrying good news and warning, and sent down with them the Book with Truth to judge between people in matters of their dispute. But it was no other than those to whom it (the Book) was given who, led by envy against each other, disputed it after the clear signs had come to them. Then Allah, by His will, guided those who believed to the truth over which they disputed; and Allah guides whom He wills to the straight path.

[2:214]
Do you think that you will enter Paradise while you have not yet been visited by (difficult) circumstances like those that were faced by the people who passed away before you? They were afflicted by hardship and suffering, and were so shaken down that the prophet, and those who believed with him, started saying: “When (will come) the help of Allah?” (Then, they were comforted by the Prophet who said to them) ‘Behold, the help of Allah is near.’

A Trick Question

Psybermonkey,

Such a question would not be considered as possible since according to my faith, God has informed us that He has only forbidden act of indecency and inappropriateness.

No Muslim can claim that God had revealed Himself to him nor appoint him as a new messenger nor even imagine that God would ask them to do bad things.

[5:3]
Prohibited for you are: carrion, blood, the flesh of swine, and those upon which (a name) other than that of Allah has been invoked (at the time of slaughter), animal killed by strangulation, or killed by a blow, or by a fall, or by goring, or that which is eaten by a beast unless you have properly slaughtered it; and that which has been slaughtered before the idols, and that you determine shares through the arrows. (All of) this is sin. Today those who disbelieve have lost all hope of (damaging) your faith. So, do not fear them, and fear Me. Today, I have perfected your religion for you, and have completed My blessing upon you, and chosen Islam as Dīn (religion and a way of life) for you. But whoever is compelled by extreme hunger, having no inclination towards sin, then Allah is Most-Forgiving, Very-Merciful.
[5:4]
They ask you as to what has been made lawful for them. Say, “Made lawful for you are good things, and (hunting through) birds and beasts of prey that you train, teaching them out of what Allah has taught you. So, eat of what they hold for you, and recite the name of Allah upon it.” Fear Allah. Surely, Allah is swift at reckoning.

It has been stated clearly in my prophet’s last sermon which I’ll be presenting here briefly.

“Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you. Remember that you will indeed meet your Lord, and that He will indeed reckon your deeds”. …

…“Do not therefore do injustice to yourselves. Remember one day you will meet Allah and answer your deeds. So beware: do not stray from the path of righteousness after I am gone.

O People, no prophet or apostle will come after me, and no new faith will be born. Reason well, therefore, O People, and understand my words which I convey to you.

I leave behind me two things, the Qur'an and my Sunnah and if you follow these you will never go astray”.

The religion of God has been perfected. No other new revelation or prophet will be coming.

If you referred to the ancient people of Israel, they had demanded what modern day atheists had demanded, they would only believe in God that they can see and comprehend physically, even Moses was not able to see God, so how could I? They were very stubborn and liked to play around with their prophet like Steve has said, all the trouble and lengthy explanation about the description of a cow. What Steve has failed to understand, the incident showed how arrogant and reluctant they were in obeying their own prophet which had given the order from their Lord in the first place. And they are still making it a habit for us all to see regarding Palestine.

[5:12]
Allah has made the Children of Israel take a pledge. We appointed twelve chiefs from among them. Allah said, “I am surely with you. If you establish Salāh, and pay Zakāh, and believe in My Messengers, and hold them in reverence, and advance to Allah a goodly loan, I shall certainly write off your evil deeds, and I shall certainly admit you into Gardens beneath which rivers flow. So, whoever from you disbelieves after that has lost the straight path.”
[5:13]
So, because they broke their pledge, We cursed them and made their hearts hardened. They change words from their places, and they have overlooked a good deal of the Advice they were given. Every now and then you come across a certain treachery from all of them, except a few. So, forgive them and forego. Indeed, Allah loves those who are good in deeds.

You have to give an example of hideous and vile things that were commanded by God in the Koran as proof God would give an order to such a thing. Not making a probability out of impossibility.

Steve has managed to show how bad god is through the bible, I wonder if he could do that in the Koran. Every action has consequences. Everyone is well informed of this in a very clear manner. God didn't intend His creation to end up in Hell and suffer great mischief here and in the next life by guiding us clearly. It is our own arrogance that had blinded us.

[50:24]
(Then it will be said,) “Cast, (O two angels,) into Jahannam (Hell) every obstinate disbeliever
[50:25]
who used to prevent (others) from good (behavior), who transgressed all bounds, who cast doubts (in true faith),
[50:26]
who set up another god along with Allah. So cast him (O angels) in the painful punishment.”
[50:27]
His (evil) companion (i.e. the Satan) will say, “O our Lord, I did not cause him to rebel, but he was himself (involved) in straying far from the track.”
[50:28]
He (Allah) will say, “Do not quarrel before Me, while I had sent to you My threat well in advance.
[50:29]
The Word is not changed with Me, and I Am not so unjust to My servants.

How could God be the one that ask his creation to do evil? It doesn’t make any sense at all. Your question is a probability that had not and would not occur.

[3:104]
There has to be a group of people from among you who call towards the good, and bid the Fair and forbid the Unfair. And it is these who are successful.
[3:105]
Do not be like those who became divided and fell into disputes after the clear signs had come to them. Those are the ones for whom there is a grave punishment
[3:106]
on a day when some faces shall turn bright, and some faces shall turn dark. As for those whose faces turn dark, (they shall be questioned): “Did you disbelieve after you had accepted the Faith? Now taste the punishment, because you used to disbelieve.”
[3:107]
As for those whose faces turn bright, they will rest in Allah’s mercy. They will live there forever.
[3:108]
These are the verses of Allah We recite to you with all veracity. Allah does not intend to do injustice to (anyone in) the worlds.

I know what you are trying to do Steve. It won’t work on me. If I had said yes, you would say that it is the reason why you can’t accept the existence of a God, if I had said no, you would still say it as the logical reason for not accepting a God as a ruler of what is good and bad. Where’s my answers?


----------@@@@@@@@@---------------------------------

PS, I'm having difficulties in posting my comments, the word verification didn't come out. So I'll post it here just in case, as always.

Cruelty and Oppression

srizals@gmail.com

Reading how ones describe God based on his understanding of a scripture that has been tampered with is beyond my logic and comprehension. Is this the outcome of associating God with His creation or making a similitude between the created ones with the Creator?

Some people are so afraid of Islam and see it as a cancellation order or some kind. What they have failed to notice, it is a confirmation and a correction measure from God to His God-fearing servants. I just don't understand on how certain people can believe all the hideous things said to be done by God and His messengers and prophets. Their attributes are and were the same with everything that is evil and bad. What boundaries then that separate between the good and the bad? Worst, Satan ends up to be one of the good guys according to Steve. Have all the devil worshippers got it wrong all this while? Were they all mixed up together just like the good and the bad that exist inside all of us? When our sanity and desire of goodness overwhelmed the insanity and the craving of fulfilling all our wants and needs, we've become a good person and vice versa. The battle within us would not stop, the battle of good and evil are more intense and brutal inside of us. The end result usually manifest themselves on our outer-self of observable behaviours, on how we tend to say things and how we carry ourselves outside of our mind and emotion in acting and reacting to changes and the variables around us.

In the Koran, all the verses except one, begins with In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful. In every mention of sin and wrong-doings, there is alternative being presented almost simultaneously. We were told about Hell and the end result of evil. Paradise and the victorious good will follow suit or precede it.
Option is always at hand. The decision maker is us. We have to decide in determining our action and of course bear the consequences. We won't just disappear and be nothing after being something. And have no justice on our previous decision and action. What more are our victims and the ones that had lost their precious ones, whatever that maybe, to the mighty and rightfully us. Does it make any sense?

An Awkward Question

Blogger psybermonkey said...

For some reason it seems my comment didn't get published so I'll repost it...

Your response is quite ironic. At one point you said that "He [God] is the most powerful above all, incomparable with all that exist here in the universe." You also said that if he did reveal himself to you and made such commandments, you would call him a liar because you believe that god wouldn't do such a thing.

Well, if you hold to your first statement above, who are you to judge god? Can't he do whatever he wants? Isn't he above you? Aside from the fact that he is recorded in scripture to have actually appeared "face to face" to people, why couldn't he do so if he chose to unto you? Doesn't he have the power to do so and prevent you from being overwhelmed? Also, I never said that he would appear to everyone to prove his existence...I merely asked what you would do if he appeared to you. For arguments sake, let's pretend that he came unto you as a new age prophet like he did Moses and others.

So here's the setup. One that you cannot get around:

1) God can do anything

2) You nor anyone else has the right to judge god due to his vast superiority and absolute authority

3)God makes the rules

4)If you believe that the previous circumstances above are true, answer the following question: If god came before you as he did unto others (and you KNOW without a DOUBT that it is your god) and commanded that it is now acceptable to rape and murder children and that you should go out and advocate others to do the same...would you? Again, if the first three circumstances are true, as you seem to believe, why wouldn't you do what god commands of you? why wouldn't they be acceptable?

Simply stating that it's "the wrong question" is a cowardice response given by those who do not want to admit to their imploding ideology.

Please, just answer the question. It's quite simple given the 4 circumstances I laid out for you. Prove to me that you have the courage to honestly do so, unlike most of the others.

Mon May 24, 09:49:00 AM 2010

srizals@gmail.com

Psybermonkey,

You have prescribed all Muslims with the likes of the few that has abandoned the teaching of their faith and chose a violent way to respond to aggression, both in intellect and bloody conflict, and yet, you have rejected my mentioning about the conduct and behaviour of the majority of atheists, not the minority nor a handful, but a well organised and powerful governments and organisations, not in an act of defence and retaliation, but in the act of aggression and oppression. What they had done is simply irrelevant. You don’t like to be associated with the likes of them. Muslims on the other hand are not entitled to your exclusive privilege.

You are using a Christian point of view to ask me a question as a generalisation of your comprehension on religion.

Regarding your question psybermonkey, this is what you should know about God according to Islam,

A saying of Muhammad, narrated by Muslim: Hadith Qudsi 1.

“When Allah decreed the Creation He pledged Himself by writing in His book which is laid down with Him: ‘My mercy prevails over my wrath.”

The Koran,
[10:44]
Surely, Allah does not wrong people at all, but the people do wrong their own selves.

Unlike the descriptions of god in other religion, God in Islam has laid a foundation and law to Himself and His creation known as Sunnatullah. Sunnatullah means the law that binds Him and His creation made by Him. For example, He has forbidden cruelty for Him. If you care to read the Koran you’ll find the verses explaining that even when God is above others, He didn’t act like a crazy person that will do whatever crossed his mind just because He has the ultimate power and no one could and should question Him. In Islam, God is unlike anything and do not possess the attributes of His creation. Man in the other hand, is in complete contrast.

I have answered your question or at least have tried to. You on the other hand, did not. None of you. How could I answer yes or no, since your definition of God is someone that would ask me to do hideous and vile things that contradict any nature of goodness and he is god? For me it is more an assumption and probability than a question.

Hadith Qudsi 16,
“Allah has written down the good deeds and the bad ones.” Then He explained it [by saying that] “he who has intended a good deed and has not done it, Allah writes it down with Himself as a full good deed, but if he has intended it and has done it, Allah writes it down with Himself as from ten good deeds to seven hundred times, or many times over. But if he has intended a bad deed and has not done it, Allah writes it down with Himself as a full good deed, but if he has intended it and has done it, Allah writes it down as one bad deed.”- related by al-Bukhari and Muslim.

The Koran,
[10:35]
Say, “Is there any one from your associate-gods who guides to the truth?” Say, “Allah guides to the truth. Is, then, He who guides to the truth more worthy of being obeyed, or he who has no guidance at all unless he is guided (by someone else)? So, what has happened to you? How do you judge things?

Hadith Qudsi 17,
‘O My servants, I have forbidden oppression for Myself and have made it forbidden amongst you, so do not oppress one another. O My servants, all of you are astray except for those I have guided, so seek guidance of Me and I shall guide you. O My servants, all of you are hungry except for those I have fed, so seek food of Me and I shall feed you. O My servants, all of you are naked except for those I have clothed, so seek clothing of Me and I shall clothe you. O My servants, you sin by night and by day, and I forgive all sins, so seek forgiveness of Me and I shall forgive you. O My servants, you will not attain harming Me so as to harm Me, and you will not attain benefiting Me so as to benefit Me. O My servants, were the first of you and the last of you, the human of you and the jinn of you to be as pious as the most pious heart of any one man of you, that would not increase My kingdom in anything. O My servants, were the first of you and the last of you, the human of you and the jinn of you to be as wicked as the most wicked heart of any one man of you, that would not decrease My kingdom in anything. O My servants, were the first of you and the last of you, the human of you and the jinn of you to rise up in one place and make a request of Me, and were I to give everyone what he requested, that would not decrease what I have, any more than a needle decreases the sea if put into it. O My servants, it is but your deeds that I reckon up for you and then recompense you for, so let him who finds good praise Allah and let him who finds other than that blame no one but himself.’” - related by Muslim (also by at-Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah).

Psybermonkey, to look for something, you must have an idea and the right tools to look for it in the first place. Things near to us would be a good medium of comprehension. To understand certain things, we have to observe and compare them with one another. Since the dark nature of man exist in all of us, the quantity, frequency and the reason behind such equation should be taken into consideration in order to make sense of them.

Some say it is their right to do anything according to their will even though it is offensive and uncalled-for, but when someone else did it to them, the first rule is void hence it is only reserved for them. What kind of judgement is this? The thinking of a higher being? Or just plainly snobbish? You on the other hand are trying to show your superiority by oppressing the Muslim and pushed them into a corner in the cyber world like what your military is doing now in their homeland in the real world. And you are wondering how hostile some of them are. Haven’t you learned physics?

I'm just explaining some relevant concept of things in Islam regarding our discussion. I'm not trying to influence you or make you a believer. It is beyond me.

Playing Dumb

Blogger TaoCat said...

Well, srizals since you only selectively choose questions to answer, (and then do so with a stunning degree of verbosity and semi-poetic double-speak)I doubt anybody is interested in answering your question. All you've done is reveal yourself to be terribly ignorant of atheism, of the arguments of secularism and all the while apparently believing yourself to be a wonderfully clever proselytizer of islam .

Much as I hate to disabuse you of the notion of your cleverness, I would suggest you do some more reading, outside of the Qur'an, and then come back.


"Just like Dawkin had to argue with me, an average Joe and Dawkin is just a mere man, get my point?"

You actually personally argued with Dawkins? I'd like to see some proof of that. Until then, Buh-bye!

Mon May 24, 08:18:00 AM 2010

srizals@gmail.com

Either my English is too bad for your Tao background or you have purposely unable to comprehend my simple writing. You can't read between the lines can you? You can't even understand the comparison that I've made. Sorry, I won't repeat myself this time. You have to read up on your own.

You are giving the atheist a bad name for not being able to understand a simple piece of writing. Go draw another cartoon. At least that is what you are good at. I hope.

The Killer Question

Blogger psybermonkey said...

As I expected, you dodged my question. Out of the many theists I have asked, only one has ever had the courage to honestly give me an answer, so I kindly ask you to do the same. Otherwise I won't reply to anything you just said. Again, the question is this:

If your foundation for ethics is constructed based on what god says...would pedophilia, rape, and anything else be OK if god came before you and said that they were? If he makes the rules as to what is moral and what isn't, why wouldn't you uphold and practice them under his command?

Sun May 23, 08:02:00 PM 2010

srizals@gmail.com

I would call him a liar since it is unfitting for God to came down here and reveal Himself in order for His mere creation to believe in Him. It would be completely pathetic. Just like Dawkin had to argue with me, an average Joe and Dawkin is just a mere man, get my point? Is this a true question or a trick question? I’ll never know, since I cannot see what’s in your heart, only predict based on your writing, so I would take it for granted that it is a genuine question from you. There are things that in this life that are so powerful that we would melt upon seeing and having a contact with them. What more is God? He is the most powerful above all, incomparable with all that exist here in the universe. We can only see Him when we have undergone the second transformation of our existence here, just like before when we born. We were nothing then in this world, then we have become something and I don’t think Science would agree that after being something, we would just vanish into thin air, since it would contradict the basic of Science that everyone had learned at some times in their life. Just like a dead body and a life one. What is the difference? Can you tell? One heart has stop beating while the other keeps on beating. They look the same physically, but they are not. What made the heart beats a rhythm in the first place? Can I have a secular humanistic view on it right from its believer?

First of all you are asking the wrong question. If God kept on popping here and there and pleading helplessly to every man that didn’t believe in Him, what kind of God is that? It is unfitting for Him to do that. Instead, He sent messengers and prophets to all mankind. You have mistaken me as those who have taken the physical created being as god. God is unseen, just like your emotion; it lies deep beneath your heart and mind. When you manifest them physically, only then they are seen and understood by others.

God doesn’t need us. It is the other way around. What’s your explanation of the hollowness in us that we kept on trying to fill with theories and ideas in order to make sense of our existence? God has shown us a way to live accordingly. But this is of course unacceptable for those who have defied the nature of themselves.

You have confused the descriptions of god in the bible with the descriptions of God in the Koran. They are completely different. Unless you can point to a sin or immorality as to you were asked by God to be done by man in His service, I have to say your question is the most absurd question I’ve ever encountered and therefore the most precious trophies of them all. Thank you for asking me the question. Now, where’s the answer to my questions? Or are you trying to do what you have accused me of earlier?

Having No Legs to Stand On

Blogger psybermonkey said...

"who is the dreadest of them all? As I recall, the atheists' mind, as they went down in history, a quite number of them of course, tend to be genocidal if not suicidal and are close to insanity."

Ah, this old pathetic argument again. Can't say I'm surprised to see it coming from you.

Atheism is simply the non-acceptance to the claim that god exists. That's it. It says absolutely nothing about your morals as that is not the term is meant to provide any more than "non-stamp collector." Provide me evidence where the historical figures you mentioned killed IN THE NAME of atheism - just as religious people do. You can't because that wasn't their agenda. Atheism is nothing more than not accepting the claim of the existence of god and so you can be incredibly evil or incredibly moral. Even you cannot deny that you don't have to be religious to be moral - as its simply depends on being raised in an environment that teaches you to be so. A belief in an invisible sky god is not a required factor.

And are you going to tell me that the only reason why you (I assume) don't go out committing crimes and hurting people is because you believe god says its wrong? I think we both know that it goes much deeper than that. Take god away and you will still have the internal ability to sympathize and uphold the universal golden rule.

And I'd also like you to answer me this: if you foundation for ethics is constructed based on what god says...would pedophilia, rape, and anything else be OK if god came before you and said they were? If he makes the rules as to what is moral and what isn't, why wouldn't you advocate them?

That reminds me...Mohammad married his wife Aisha at 6 years old and had sex with her once she turned 9. Show me the handbook for atheists where such disgusting and horrible behavior is advocated. You won't because it's not a dogmatic religion (or a religion at all!). It's simply the non-acceptance of the claim for the existence of god. That's it. It doesn't even mean that you cannot be religious, such as the fact that many Buddhists are secular.

So what is our basis for morality then, if not god? Again, even those the term "atheist" isn't meant to say anything about one's morals any more than "non-stamp collector," you should look up secular humanism sometime. That is what I consider my basis. So long as you are raised to be moral and to exercise your built in ability to sympathize, as millions of atheists are, your god is not necessary any more than the billions of other proposed gods. After all, I think people came to the conclusion that it wasn't good to kill, rape, and steal from each other before the 10 commandments. You're silly stereotype had no leg to stand on.

Sun May 23, 10:23:00 AM 2010
Blogger Matthew Blanchette said...

Methinks srizals doth protest too much; he may be intelligent, but he's generalizing the whole of atheism into one amorphous blog for his own usage.

Seriously, would anyone in their right mind contemplate Stephen Fry and Richard Dawkins and subsequently lump them in with Stalin and Pol Pot?

Sun May 23, 05:26:00 PM 2010

srizals@gmail.com

What can I say Matthew, It’s just a day in the life. Without a good discussion our neurons won’t get enough exercise and would be dwindling, hopefully not in unbelief.

You jump too fast psybermonkey, tell me a paedophile that married his victim upon the approval of the parents and the society and no one, not even his dreaded nemesis at that time mocked him for it. You forgot the most important characteristics of paedophiles; they do not stop at one child and never marry one. A girl in Thailand, a nine year old gave birth to a baby in our own millennium; gay boy will never have such privilege. He is only entitled to Aids if not HIV. Tell me, have nature forgotten the rights of the misfits? Why is there so much diseases threatening the sexual deviated? Natural selection?

Yes, atheists are smartie pants. They wouldn’t dare to declare it to the world that they were doing all the hideous things in the name of atheism. They only say that they were getting rid of the plague that was polluting the society that made them render useless, uncreative and rebelling against them, religion. Tell me what religion had done the same? When did any religion exterminated atheists in a genocidal scale like what atheists did to the religious? In a very inhumane way for any humanistic view. Do you know the background of humanism? I mean where did it come from? I think all of us knew where secular came from and the reason behind it.

Sadist came from the name of a person, Sade. Go check him out. He used sex to defile religion, in the vilest manner he could think of, and he is a respected philosopher. And I don’t think he’s doing it in the name of any religion.

Are you now beginning to see what you guys are actually doing? You don’t like to be mocked at and overgeneralized and yet that is exactly what you are doing here.

Tell me psybermonkey, atheists seem to be championing the abortion cause. Any religious man and woman would say that it is bad, if not based on medical and crime’s perspective. What say you?

Humans are equipped with good and bad judgements. Religion perfected them.

A Sincere Smile

srizals@gmail.com

I went to a place previously for a public speaking competition. Nothing unusual about it. It was just like any other public speaking competition that I've taken my students to throughout the years, but all of a sudden, an American saw me and the way she looked at me, with her big rounded eyes and smile, warms me right into the heart. She caught the face but couldn't recall where we've met before. She is one of the ETA, or English Teacher Assistant here in Malaysia to help improve English, more likely to nurture the interest to learn English among the students here by having a native speaker to interact with them. They are something, their openness and willingness to be here and dwell among the Muslims a thousand miles away from their home.

Interactions with these nice average people, the Westerners that are so different than me, and yet so similar in humanity warms my heart and keeps the faith in me that one day, all the wars and aggressions would go away. The good and the sane would eventually prevail, no matter what colours and faith they hold. Goodness and kindness are universal indeed.

Thank you Bob. Your links are very refreshing. Surely I will visit your blogs after this.

To the rest of my readers, do stop me from time to time if I got carried away or made mistakes or caused confusion from time to time. I do need your kind advice and reminder. I am only human. Never did I claim I am the perfect one or the best of them all. I'm here for a reason. Glamour and wealth are not either one of them. Religion is advice. If you think I'm crossing the lines or presenting confusion statements or facts, feel free to comment or email me personally. Thank you very much for coming here and read the mind of an average guy that is not trying to be an ulama nor an umara'. I'm just the average Joe, doing what an average man could do in the face of such powerful and intellectual menace that is about to engulf us to uncertainties in order to prosper. They are like leeches. And I'm going to bring them down. Their deluded hardcore supporters of course. At least their pride. Give them face. Let the big shots have their glory. You can't expect them to respond to me nor discuss with me openly in the worldwide web for everyone to see. I'm not their equals.

Robert Spencer: The Smiling Face of A Liar

Do Muslims want to reimpose dhimmitude or live as equals?

Posted on 22 May 2010

by Danios

Robert Spencer, a Catholic apologist, spouting his vitriolic propaganda on the Christian Broadcasting Network

Robert Spencer, one of the leading anti-Islam ideologues of the Western world, published The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). This is a rebuttal of chapter four of his book.

Spencer’s claim:

1. Historically, Jews fared better in Christian Europe than in the lands of Islam. Says Spencer: “…The Muslim laws [imposing dhimmitude] were much harsher for Jews than those of Christendom…In Christian lands there was the idea, however imperfect, of the equality of dignity and rights for all people…” [1]

Rebuttal:

Spencer’s claim contradicts the predominant opinion held by Western scholarship. Prof. Mark R. Cohen, the leading expert in the field, concludes that “the historical evidence indicates that the Jews of Islam, especially during the formative and classical centuries (up to the thirteenth century), experienced much less persecution than did the Jews of Christendom.” [2] Spencer’s book is horribly one-sided: it mentions “dhimmitude” (a spurious term), but makes no mention of the Church’s doctrine of Perpetual Servitude. Comparing the two, Cohen writes: “…The dhimmi enjoyed a kind of citizenship, second class and unequal though it was…[in contrast to] Jews living in Latin Christian lands, where…[they were] legally possessed [as slaves] by this or that ruling authority.” [3]

Read my complete rebuttal here.

Spencer replied, and I counter-replied here and here.

Spencer’s claim:

2. The Pact of Umar, a document that enumerates a number of humiliating conditions to be imposed upon non-Muslims, is “still part of the Sharia today.” [4] As soon as Muslims are able to, they will enforce it.

Rebuttal:

Numerous Islamic and Western scholars have declared the Pact of Umar to be a forgery. Muslims do not believe that a forgery can be a “part of the Sharia.” More importantly, although the document may have had some significance hundreds of years ago, it has now fallen into complete disuse and obscurity in the Islamic world. It is highly unlikely that contemporary Muslims want to reimpose a document that they themselves have never heard of. This is very similar to how most Christians today have no familiarity with the Church’s doctrine of Perpetual Servitude. To argue that either Muslims or Christians in general want to reimpose these respective doctrines–dhimmitude and Perpetual Servitude respectively–is conspiratorial and far-fetched. Read my complete rebuttal here.

Spencer replied, and I counter-replied here.

Spencer’s claim:

3. Robert Spencer writes:

*Islamic law mandates second-class status for Jews, Christians, and other non-Muslims in Islamic societies.

*These laws have never been abrogated or revised by any authority. [5]

Spencer challenges me, claiming that I will do

virtually anything other than actually prov[e] that there exists a sect or school of Islam that teaches that Muslims must live with non-Muslims as equals on an indefinite basis

Rebuttal:

I accept his challenge.

Spencer’s claim–that no Islamic “authority” or “sect or school” has ever “abrogated” the laws of “dhimmitude”–is quite simply false. It is a boldfaced lie or profound ignorance, either of which casts great doubt on Spencer’s “scholarship.” Over 150 years ago, the caliph (supreme leader of the Islamic world) abolished the dhimmi system entirely. In 1839, a caliphal decree known as the Hatt-i Sharif of Gulhane was issued, implicitly recognizing the equality of all Ottoman subjects, Muslim and non-Muslim alike. In 1856, “the Hatt-i Humayan [was issued], in which the principles of 1839 were repeated and the guarantees of the equality of all subjects were made more explicit. Thus, Muslim and non-Muslim were to have equal obligations…and equal opportunities…” [6] The decree abolished the jizya and dhimmi system for all time. (Read more about these caliphal decrees here.)

In the mid-nineteenth century, a group of Islamic intellectuals emerged, known as the Young Ottomans (not to be confused with the secularized Young Turks). They expounded Ottomanism, a doctrine stating the inherent equality of all peoples in the Empire regardless of religion or ethnicity. The Young Ottomans believed that Islam advocates constitutionalism and that the government must enter a contractual agreement with those whom they rule over. In other words, there is to be mutual consent between the rulers and the ruled. The Young Ottomans opposed the royal autocracy, and demanded democratization of the Empire. They argued that not only should all religious communities be viewed equally by the state, but there were certain inalienable rights that all citizens possessed, which the government could not infringe upon. The efforts of the Ottoman government on the one hand and the Islamic intellectuals on the other hand culminated in the passage of the Nationality Law of 1869, which “reinforced the principle that all individuals living within Ottoman domains shared a common citizenship regardless of their religion.” [7] (Read more about these Islamic intellectuals here.)

The Young Ottomans had a long-lasting effect on Islamic discourse, and gave birth to the modernist school of thought. Arguably the key figure of modernist Islam was Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905), who served as rector of al-Azhar University (the foremost Sunni institution) and who held the position of Grand Mufti of Egypt (the highest ranking religious position in the country). Abduh issued a fatwa declaring Muslims and non-Muslims “to be equal under the law, with full citizenship rights.” [8] He further supported parliamentary democracy and constitutionalism as a means to protect these individual rights. In 1908, Mehmed Emaleddin Efendi (Turkey, 1848-1917)–the chief religious authority of the Ottoman Empire, appointed directly by the caliph–concurred with Abduh. During this period, numerous Islamic reformers emerged, and reconciled Islam with modernity. They revised traditional opinions dealing with jihad, women’s rights, human rights, science, and interfaith relationships. Quite consistently, the modernist trend of Islam has held the opinion, to use Robert Spencer’s own words, that “Muslims must live with non-Muslims as equals on an indefinite basis.” (Read more about modernist Islam here.) Muhammad Abduh’s work “fostered not only a modernist school of thought but also a reformed traditionalist school…spearheaded by [the more conservative] Muhammad Rashid Rida, a disciple of Abduh.” [9] In this manner, reformist ideas seeped into the discourse of the conservative Ulema. One can say that the fire of reform burned greatest at its modernist core, but its warmth reached even more traditionalist elements, defrosting some of their more [f]rigid opinions.

It should be noted, however, that “few Muslims explicitly self-identify as ‘Muslim modenists,’ [and] instead refer[] to themselves simply as Muslims.” [10] The term “modernist Islam” is instead used most frequently by Western scholars–those outside of the faith–to describe a clearly discernible trend that has had profound influence on contemporary Islamic discourse. Anti-Islam ideologues often dismiss modernist interpretations, choosing instead to “look at the more conservative articulations of Islam (such as some traditional scholars) and even Muslim extremists as somehow representing ‘real’ Islam.” [11] However, modernists should not be disregarded so easily, because although they diverge from classical formulations, they maintain fidelity to the canonical texts. Muhammad Abduh argued that his was a “properly understood interpretation of Islam”, consistent with the “standards of the Quran [and] the hadith.” [12]

In fact, the modernists argue that in reality it is “the inherited, calcified shari’a tradition” that does “not reflect the true spirit of the Qur’an and the Prophet’s Sunna.” They disregard the classical formulation as “centuries old legal baggage derived from the [spurious] Pact of ‘Umar.” [13] The modernists look instead to the Constitution of Medina, drafted by the Prophet Muhammad, which granted “equality” to the Jewish residents of the city. No jizya was taken from them, and they served in the military alongside Muslims. The nineteenth century Islamic reformers “cited the ‘Constitution of Medina’ as a model of good sectarian relations. If the Prophet could extend political rights to non-Muslims then so too could a modernist Islamic polity, without endangering its Islamic character.” [14]

The Constitution of Medina declared that the “Muslims of Quraish and Yathrib, and those [Jews] who followed them and joined them…are one nation (ummah) to the exclusion of all men.” Nineteenth century modernists used this powerful sentence to dismiss the medieval division of the world into a Muslim ummah and a non-Muslim polity. Instead, they argued that there was a religious ummah and a political ummah. Muslims and non-Muslims living in the same country were then part of the same ummah, and owed their loyalty and allegiance to each other. Similarly, Muslim Americans today believe that the United States is their ummah (nation) to which they owe their loyalty and allegiance, so when anti-Islam ideologues deride them by saying “the Muslim Americans owe their loyalty and allegiance to the ummah,” the Muslim Americans could not agree more. (Read the relevant parts of the Constitution of Medina here.)

According to the Constitution, the Muslims and Jews were obligated to defend the other in case of attack, a very real fear considering the hostile polytheist tribes surrounding Medina. Prof. Francis E. Peters writes: “Muhammad’s attitude toward the People of the Book [Jews and Christians], as he called those who shared the same scriptural tradition with Islam, was generally favorable…But as time passed, the Quran came to look on Jews and Christians as adherents of rival rather than collegial faiths. Some of this change in attitude was dictated by events at Medina itself, where Jewish tribes made up part of the population. Not only did the Jews reject Muhammad’s prophetic claims; they began secretly to connive with his enemies.” [15] Fear of a fifth column prompted the Prophet Muhammad to banish the Jewish tribes of Banu Nadir and Banu Qinaqa from Medina, a controversial decision receiving its share of criticism by historians and polemicists alike. Jewish tribes not involved in the treachery were allowed to stay in the city, so long as they honored the terms of the Constitution.

S.A. Rizvi writes: “The banishment of the Jewish tribes of Banu Nadhir and Banu Qinaqa from Medina had accentuated the animosity of the Jews towards the Muslims. These tribes had settled down at Khaibar at a distance of about eighty miles from Medina.” [16] Two years later, the banished Banu Nadir sought to exact revenge, and joined the polytheists in an assault on Medina. The Banu Nadir bribed various tribes to join in the attack, including the Banu Ghatafan, the Bani Asad, and the Banu Sulaym. They also convinced a Jewish tribe in Medina to attack the Muslims from the inside. The combined forces outmatched Muhammad’s army 10,000 to 3,000. However, the Muslims saved Medina from almost certain doom by building a trench which successfully impeded enemy advance, a tactic hitherto unknown to Arabia. After several weeks of trying to cross the trench, the besiegers retreated, the Quraish polytheists to Mecca and the Jews of Banu Nadir to Khaibar.

The Muslims launched a counter-attack on Khaibar, and won a decisive victory. Terms of the surrender included a provision for the defeated Jews to “relinquish any intention of maintaining a military force and to rely on Muslims for their personal security and that of their possessions in exchange for the payment of [jizya].” [17] This was the first time jizya was instituted, and the context in which it was. In the time of the Prophet Muhammad, no other condition was placed on the dhimmis, except that of jizya and the prohibition from serving in a military capacity. As such, the conditions placed on them seemed to be about security rather than humiliation.

As the Islamic legal tradition developed, the jizya became accepted as the normative practice towards non-Muslims (along with the trappings of the Pact of Umar), whereas the Constitution of Medina fell to the wayside. Islamic reformers in the nineteenth century, however, argued that jizya is to be demanded only of those disbelievers who have “violated their pledges (of peace)…and attacked you first” (Quran, 9:13), those whose belligerence must be “subdued” (Quran, 9:29). The Prophet Muhammad’s decision to demilitarize certain tribes and take jizya to fund their protection was seen more of a military consideration than a theological obligation. The modernists revived the Constitution of Medina, arguing that peaceful and loyal non-Muslims ought to be considered equal citizens alongside Muslims. There was to be religious equality, with people of all faiths having the same rights and obligations.

These ideals were enshrined in the Objectives Resolution of 1949, a document that represents the culmination of over a century’s worth of modernist reinterpretation of Islamic texts. This fascinating synthesis of Islam and modernity declared that “the principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance, and social justice as enunciated by Islam shall be fully observed…adequate provision shall be made for the [religious] minorities to freely profess and practice their religions and develop their cultures; Wherein shall be guaranteed fundamental rights including equality of status, of opportunity and before law, social, economic and political justice, and freedom of thought, expression, belief, faith, worship and association…adequate provisions shall be made to safeguard the legitimate interests of [religious] minorities…” (Read more about the Objectives Resolution of 1949 here.)

The idea of religious equality may have been considered exclusively modernist a century ago, but now finds resonance in wider Islamic circles as well. As Prof. Cleveland writes: “If, after the passage of nearly a century, Abduh’s proposals seem somewhat…conservative, we must attempt to appreciate how bold they were at the time.” [17] Accordingly, numerous contemporary scholars ranging from modernist to conservative have issued rulings declaring their belief in equal citizenship regardless of religion. My very cursory research found several such Islamic intellectuals and scholars who have issued rulings saying as much, including: Jasser Auda, Tariq Ramadan, Yousuf al-Qaradawi, Rashid al-Ganoushi, Muhammad Salim al-Awa, Muqtedar Khan, Mukarram Ahmad, Muhammad Yahya, Abdul Hameed Nomani, Syed Shahabuddin, Tahir Mahmood, Mujtaba Farooq, Ataur Rahman Qasmi, Waris Mazhari, Zafar Mahmood, S.Q.R. Ilyas, Zafarul-Islam Khan, Mirza Yawar Baig, Shahnawaz Ali Raihan, Khaled Abou El Fadl, Moiz Amjad, Shehzad Saleem, and Javed Ahmad Ghamidi. Representatives from the following Islamic organizations have issued these rulings: UK Board of Muslim Scholars, International Union for Muslim Scholars, European Muslim Network, Al-Nahdha Islamic Movement, World Assembly of Muslim Youth, Circle for Tradition and Progress, European Council for Fatwa and Research, International Association of Muslim Scholars, Egyptian Association for Culture and Dialogue, Association of Muslim Social Scientists, All India Jamiat Ahl-e Hadees, Jamiat Ulama-e Hind, All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat, Jamaat-e Islami Hind, Muslim Personal Law Board, All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat, Students Islamic Organisation, All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat, and Al-Mawrid Institute. (Read these religious rulings here.)

Spencer would have unearthed this if he had only spent the couple hours I did to find it. Or had he picked up a real history book, he would have known that over a century ago, these views became the law of the land due to the efforts of the caliph and numerous Islamic intellectuals. He would have known that such a fatwa was passed by al-Azhar, the same university which he invokes as the absolute most ultimate Islamic authority when ranting about Reliance of the Traveler. He would have known that the highest religious authority in all of the Ottoman Empire declared the same. In light of all this, Spencer’s claim that the “laws [of dhimmitude] have never been abrogated or revised by any authority” is truly absurd. The only question that remains is: is his claim willful prevarication or simply the result of his lack of scholarly training?

Robert Spencer will learn to regret the day Danios spent $5 to add a used copy of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) to his bookshelf.

I have a nagging suspicion that Spencer will now move the goalposts, and argue that there are some ultraconservative Muslims who don’t have such enlightened views about the topic. But that was not his claim. His claim was that no Islamic authority has ever “abrogated or revised” the dhimmi laws. (Can Spencer ever defend his actual argument when he debates me!?) If Spencer limited his criticism to ultraconservative Islam alone, and argued that Islamic puritans who believe in reimposing “dhimmitude” need to be opposed, I would have absolutely no issue with him. In fact, I would then support his work, and help him in that important task.

Of course, I would also be consistent and criticize extreme right-wing Christians who argue to this day that the Church’s Doctrine of Witness and of Perpetual Servitude should be revived; for example, this website (which boasts an impressive membership of a couple hundred thousand) argues that “the theologically correct, and socially just Catholic social policy is to subjugate [the Jews], regulate them, segregate them and expel them.” (Here, Spencer would mistakenly invoke the tu quoque defense, not knowing that tu quoque is not always considered a fallacy but in fact has legitimate uses; see hypocrisy, argument for equal treatment, and clean hands doctrine.)

I would also point out to Spencer that the best way to undermine ultraconservative interpretations is to support reformist ones. But Spencer wants to deny this option to Muslims, because it would mean that the entire faith of Islam could not be vilified. The only option that should be given to Muslims, according to Spencer’s philosophy, is to leave Islam, and of course it would be ideal to convert to Christianity. At the end of the day, Spencer is a Catholic polemicist who is waging a crusade against Islam. The very first words in his book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) are “Deus Vult!” (God wills it!), which was “the rallying cry of the First Crusade”; and the very last sentence of his book explicitly calls for a crusade against Islam. His book then is “Deus Vult…Crusade”, and everything in between those two words is just propaganda to justify the Crusade that God willed.

Footnotes

refer back to article 1. Robert Spencer, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), pp.57-59. ISBN: 0-89526-013-1

refer back to article 2. Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages, xix. ISBN 069101082X, 9780691010823, p.xxi-xxiii

refer back to article 3. Ibid., p.195

refer back to article 4. Spencer, p.51

refer back to article 5. Ibid., p.47

refer back to article 6. William L. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, p.83. ISBN: 0-8133-3489-6

refer back to article 7. Ibid., p. 83

refer back to article 8. William Brown, Ordering the International: History, Change, and Transformation, pp.273-275. ISBN: 0745321372, 9780745321370

refer back to article 9. Caeser E. Farah, Islam: Beliefs and Observances, p.243. ISBN: 0764122266, 9780764122262

refer back to article 10. Vincent J. Cornell, Voices of Islam, p.xvii. ISBN: 027598737X, 9780275987374

refer back to article 11. Ibid., p.xviii

refer back to article 12. Cleveland, p.125

refer back to article 13. Bruce Masters, Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World, pp.175-176, ISBN: 0521005825, 9780521005821

refer back to article 14. Ibid.

refer back to article 15. Francis E. Peters, The Monotheists: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Conflict and Competition, p.273. ISBN: 069112373X, 9780691123738

refer back to article 16. S.A. Rizvi, The Life of the Prophet Muhammad, Chapter 16.ISBN: 0-9702125-0-X

refer back to article 17. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, p.28. ISBN: 0521599849, 9780521599849

refer back to article 18. Cleveland, p.125

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