atheistcartoons: This image was compiled by someone who has no understanding of Islam. I will addres
atheistcartoons: This image was compiled by someone who has no understanding of Islam. I will address each underlined stupid separately. Salman RushdieFirst of all, no one can “excommunicate” anyone in Islam. The idea is ludicrous. There is no central power structure or hierarchy. Everything is between you and your god. A prominent Muslim cleric can say “this man is not a Muslim” and it means nothing. Moreover, even if you could “excommunicate” someone, most Muslims understand that it wouldn’t be a “fatwa”. Muslims understand a fatwa to be the non-binding judgement of a legal expert in specific matters. Have a look at some fatwas on islamicweb.net to get a representative cross-section. You’ll notice none of them come anywhere close to condoning any sort of violence, and every single one of them ends with a sheepish, we-could-be-wrong-about-this, “Allah knows best”. In this view, then, what the then Ayatollah Khomeini pronounced on Salman Rushdie was not a fatwa; it was a death sentence. It probably doesn’t make a difference from Rushdie’s point of view but it demonstrates the lack of basic research that went into this image.Because there is no hierarchy in Islam, the Ayatollah of Iran does not tell the Muslims of the world what to do. He doesn’t even tell the Muslims in Iran what to do. Muslims only take orders from the Koran (the revealed word of their god) and the example set by Muhammad (which they call Sunnah). Even then, they’re always arguing about it. What did the Koran mean by this, what did Muhammad mean by that; it’s endless. A fatwa is a single opinion from one expert in these matters. Functionally, a death warrant was issued from the Iranian government, which, while ostensibly a democracy, answers to the current Ayatollah Khamenei. Indeed, when one unaffiliated lunatic called Mustafa Mazeh made an incredibly incompetent attempt to assassinate Rushdie, he was rewarded not by “Islam” by the Iranian government. However, unlike Israel or Russia or the US, Iran does not send secret agents around the world to kill people. As long as Rushdie stayed out of Iran, he was safe (except from the occasional lone unaffiliated lunatic, from whom it could be argued, as a quick glance at recent U.S. history will reveal, none of us are safe with or without the opinion of an Ayatollah). Rushdie himself referred to the order as “a piece of rhetoric rather than a real threat.”As there are always those who seem eager to misinterpret my posts, this is the official Atheist Cartoons position: sentencing anyone to death for writing a book, no matter how offensive, is unjustifiable and inexcusable. There is no wiggle room here.Boko HaramMuhammad did not rape or murder anyone, at least not in any of the texts Muslims regard as authoritative. The Koran does endorse slavery, as does the Christian bible, and Muhammad did own slaves in the hadiths, but made a habit of freeing them on pretty much any pretext and he strongly recommended others should free their slaves for a variety of reasons. In Islam, Muslims cannot have Muslim slaves. While this is still double-plus-ungood, it still puts them a good 1,000 years ahead of everyone else. Muslims do seek to emulate Muhammad but it’s mostly centred around things like charity, saying lots of prayers in the “right” way, being kind to people, taking care of the elderly and “orphans” and so on. As is traditional in Islam, there are many arguments over what counts as Sunnah and what doesn’t.The Koran explicitly forbids the killing of Muslims and implicitly forbids the killing of non-Muslims (with notable exceptions during wartime or in self-defence). Some Muslims, however, clearly feel that murdering other Muslims is fine. Maybe members of ISIS feel that the wartime exception applies to whatever the hell they’re doing. Maybe ISIS don’t give a shit about Islam and they’re purely a political organisation. I wouldn’t know. As explained above, Boko Haram members cannot be “excommunicated by fatwa” from Islam. The concept is nonsensical for two separate reasons. Whether anyone in Boko Haram is still a Muslim is between them and their god: “Allah knows best”. The remaining accusation is that Boko Haram are not “condemned”. Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari, approved the release of $1bn to fund the fight against Boko Haram. Governor Aliyu of Niger State (to the north of Nigeria) reminded his co-religionists that “Islam is known to be a religion of peace and does not condone violence and crime in any form” and “many prominent Muslims have clearly condemned terrorist attacks”. So Muslim leaders are speaking out against Boko Haram, and Muslim leaders are throwing huge amounts of cash at measures to fight their influence. What else are they supposed to do?Again, for the hard of thinking: I am not defending Islam here. Atheists think that the entire basis of Islam (i.e. that a god exists) is incorrect. What I am doing in this post is attacking stupid. -- source link
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