Democracy is against Islam.

March 23, 2005 1:29 PM

Democracy is kufr.(A 26-page PDF.) "The democracy which the Kaafir West promotes in the Muslim countries is a system of Kufr. It has no connection whatsoever with Islam. It completely contradicts the rules of Islam..." Lots of interesting reading at 1924.org. (Look for the "PDF Version" links, they're a dim light gray in my browser.)
posted by davy (23 comments total)

Also see the various other "Islamofascist" propaganda at 1924's sister site, Hizb ut Tahrir.

(No, I did not vote Republican. Guess again.)
posted by davy at 1:37 PM on March 23, 2005

And there's even more at yet another such site, Khilafah.com. (And no LH, I'm not trolling you.)

Today's links via The Online Books Page..

And by the way, should I have squeezed all these links into one FPP?
posted by davy at 1:47 PM on March 23, 2005

Ooooooooooh religion sucks.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 2:07 PM on March 23, 2005

Oh wow. Islamic fundamentalists don't like secular democracy. You learn something new every day around this place.
posted by Jimbob at 2:08 PM on March 23, 2005

Thanks for the reading material, davy.
posted by sonofsamiam at 2:12 PM on March 23, 2005

There is a song called "1924" by militant Islamic rap group Soldiers of Allah. They aren't very good rappers, but they do read the script of events and grievances that they have like this section:

In 1924 the state was demolished
100 years of planning and the plans were accomplished
Kafirs broke our bondage
Contaminated our knowledge
Listen up close cause you won't learn this in college

Those lyrics moved me... to annoy my friends with these songs.
posted by crazy finger at 2:14 PM on March 23, 2005

Jimbob, it's their own site in their own words. No interpretation by any drug-addled rant-show host needed.
posted by davy at 2:25 PM on March 23, 2005

Bah. Where do I sign up for my

Heretic
_____

Qafir
___

Goyim

Tattoo? I've pretty much had it with all of them.
posted by Scoo at 2:29 PM on March 23, 2005

Along the same lines.

An interesting new publication to hit the web gives insight into the thinking of an al-Qaeda strategist on the next stages of the struggle. Posted on the al-Ikhlas jihadi forum [http://ekhlas.com/forum] the work is entitled Idarat al-Tawahhush, "The Management of Barbarism," further defined as "the phase of transition to the Islamic state." Due to the strategic importance of the document, Terrorism Focus has undertaken an in-depth examination of the Arabic text.

posted by wah at 2:32 PM on March 23, 2005

From the main link: One of these accepted things is that women enjoy the sun in summer getting a tan in the parks, naked as the day their mothers bore them, except for something the size of a little plant leaf to cover their private parts. Likewise it is normal and natural for women to walk in summer semi-naked covering only a little of their body.

No matter the fundamentalism, it always comes down to this: pathetic men frightened by the sight of female anatomy, terrified by the natural lawlessness of pleasure (in general) and sex (in particular). The rest is just theoretical blah blah blah to make it look serious. We can note that the scholarly discussion about democracy comes after the girls/gays-gone-wild horror stories. Someone has his priorities straight.

And it looks like the writer had to douse himself with cold water right after writing this. Little plant leaf, indeed.
posted by elgilito at 3:54 PM on March 23, 2005

You know, I'm fairly sick and tired of reading statements like, "Democracy is against Islam."

There is a strand of Islamic opinion that's hateful and vile to some folks, and yes, it's anti-free market Democracy and all it enshrines -- kufr.

On the other hand there's a bunch of edicts laid down by Christians that act with an anti-Democratic impulse. Who could forget the ramblings of a Pope, for example. And more recently, the blurring of the separation of Powers in the United States.

So yes, this link and its subtext is, in itself, an example of hateful propaganda. Link well, broadly, or go have a wank.
posted by gsb at 4:10 PM on March 23, 2005

Democracy is Against Islam


And the corrupt, ungovernable factions of Radical Islam are against anything that is not Radical Islam. The Religion of Peace has had a banner week:

->
Qatari authorities on Sunday blamed an Egyptian national for the suicide car bombing of a theater that killed one Briton and injured 12 other people in a rare attack in the tiny Gulf state.

The car bombing came days after a man purporting to be al-Qaida's leader in the Gulf called for attacks on Western interests.

->
Wan Min Wan Mat, a former university lecturer who was detained in 2002, allegedly provided about US$30,500 to members of the Jemaah Islamiyah terror group to carry out the Bali bombings, which killed 202 people, mostly foreigners.

Wan Min was released on Monday "after he had shown remorse over his past actions and militant-like views," a security official told The Associated Press on customary condition of anonymity.

->
BEIRUT, Lebanon's pro-Syrian president invited anti-Syrian opposition and loyalist politicians to begin immediate talks on Saturday, hours after a car bomb raised fresh fears of a return to the country's violent past.

The blast wounded several people in a Christian suburb of eastern Beirut, gutting the ground and first floors of a residential block and destroying nearby cars.

->
Two of Southeast Asia's deadliest Islamic militant groups are collaborating in the southern Philippines to train extremists in explosives, weapons and combat tactics, graduating 23 Indonesian recruits just over a week ago, a jailed terror suspect said Wednesday.


----

And "reformed Muslim" Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who has been in hiding, spoke with Morley Safer last week about "her views on the Muslim faith and how the Dutch society deals with it."

"My accusation towards the Dutch society was, 'You think you are tolerant, but if you look behind those curtains in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, there are women who are abused. There are women who are taken to Morocco and Turkey and are killed there. They're murdered. And there are no records of those murders,' " says Hirsi Ali.
posted by jenleigh at 4:43 PM on March 23, 2005

Is Islam Compatible With Democracy and Human Rights?

One of the fundamental principles of Democracy is the separation of church and state (Amendment I of the American Bill of Rights: " Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...").We have seen, that in Islam there is no such separation, instead, we have, what Thomas Paine calls, the adulterous connection of church and state. Why is this separation so essential? If Muslims are sincere in espousing the cause of Democracy in their own countries, then they must learn the profound reasons underlying the adoption of this separation. They must then decide whether these underlying principles are at all compatible with Islam, or whether they entail too many compromises with the orthodox tenets of their creed. This is not the time for moral, intellectual and doctrinal evasiveness.
posted by jenleigh at 5:09 PM on March 23, 2005

Islamists See Opening in C. Asia Chaos
Hizb ut-Tahrir, or the Party of Liberation, has a following among the young in Central Asia. It has called for Islamic rule to replace secular governments and unite the Muslim world. And its pamphlets criticize U.S. bases established in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to support the war on terror.
posted by jenleigh at 5:10 PM on March 23, 2005

One of the fundamental principles of Democracy is the separation of church and state... We have seen, that in Islam there is no such separation

Well, neither was there a separation of church and state in the western world (broadly speaking) until pretty recently. In fact the US was an aberration in separating church from state, as was France at the time, although in that case the split from religion was more due to the traditionally cosy relationship between the King and Rome.

Even in the modern era, however, there are plenty of examples of religion encroaching on the political sphere. Education, for instance, has in many instances been something in which religious organizations have been particularly active, in democratic countries. In some Canadian provinces and in Ireland the Church basically ran the education system until fairly recently.

Even besides that, would someone argue that the current pro-religion bent of the US government is tantamount to an actively anti-democratic (small d) effort?
posted by clevershark at 5:29 PM on March 23, 2005

Quoting secular islam.org for an objective viewpoint?..

A coupla other viewpoints:
http://www.q-news.com/352.htm
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR28.2/contents.html

Most muslims consider HT pretty strange.. And loud..
posted by Mossy at 5:51 PM on March 23, 2005

clevershark,
I think you're missing her point. As she is saying, all of those are bad things. Her point was that church and state should be separated, not that only Muslims do it. Of course it's only a recent aberration, but so is most social progress. The point is that, despite lapses, we in the West do hold as a fundamental principle that religion and the state should not be united, whereas, her articles seem to argue, Islam does not.

Also, something has come up several times in this thread that is irksome. gsb did it first:
" You know, I'm fairly sick and tired of reading statements like, 'Democracy is against Islam.' " But then he goes on to talk about how it's done in the West too, as does clevershark. This seems to happen often, whenever this question of the compatibility of Islam and democracy comes up. There is an immediate cry of "the West does it too", but that wasn't the issue. Regardless of what the West is doing, is Islam compatible with democracy? I could see the usefulness in comparing a Western country that had democracy and also the kind of religious fervor seen in Muslim nations with those nations, but that's not what's being done, so it seems pointless.
posted by Sangermaine at 6:19 PM on March 23, 2005

The view that democracy is anti-Islam is not a mainstream one at all.

However, the view that Islam must be supreme in a society, without regard to the political structures which administer the society on a day to day basis, does seem to be quite a bit closer to the mainstream.

Thus, the western concept of a secular state is unacceptable, but the Shi'a approach (democracy subject to clergy oversight, as in force in Iran and possibly soon to be in force in Iraq) or the Saudi approach (monarchy explicitly committed to enforcing the clergy's version of orthodoxy) can be valid.
posted by MattD at 7:17 PM on March 23, 2005

Will anyone sum up some of the arguments in these rather long posts for someone without the patience to read a 26p PDF?
posted by papakwanz at 7:58 PM on March 23, 2005

On the other hand there's a bunch of edicts laid down by Christians that act with an anti-Democratic impulse.

Christianity, at least organized Christianity as it's practiced in "the West", is also against democracy. But since I'm an American I regard that fact as glaringly obvious.

Again, guess again.
posted by davy at 9:20 PM on March 23, 2005

You know, I'm fairly sick and tired of reading statements like, "Democracy is against Islam."

By the way, you know, I'm tired of having to teach adults basic Reading Comprehension. If you don't like that statement take it up with the people who made it. On their very own Islamic web site. Did you bother to click on any of the frigging links at all?
posted by davy at 9:29 PM on March 23, 2005

Yes I clicked/read the links, and I'm also fairly sick and tired of people saying something, I.e linking, then disowning the thing. "Oh it just says XYZ, I'm really trying to have an objective conversation here banging the drum for Western humanitarian ideals, honest!"

I guess you think "Democracy is NOT agaisnt Islam", or was the title of your post just for kicks? It's very nice advertising to capture eyeballs, yes, very impressive.

>Christianity, at least organized Christianity as it's practiced in "the West", is also against democracy. But since I'm an American I regard that fact as glaringly obvious.

>Again, guess again.

Well, it's glaringly obvious from your link selection, was it? And I'm not guessing anything, it does not put me up or down if you believe one thing or another -- it's just the way a conversation starts that makes it seem like intellectual masturbation.
posted by gsb at 10:10 PM on March 23, 2005

Admittedly it's not as sexy and fun as davy's and jenleigh's cherry-picked-ala-Memri style Muslim bashing but...

Smaller groups of American and British experts, including retired former intelligence and other officials, are quietly meeting with Hizbullah, Hamas and other leading Middle Eastern Islamists to probe each other's perceptions, positions and goals. In the process, according to participants in the Beirut gathering, they may be identifying a tantalizing middle ground of democratic reform, where Islamists and the West seem to share core values. One day, they might move toward political processes to give those values life and meaning, judging by some sentiments expressed by participants at these novel meetings...

A common theme throughout the discussion, according to participants, was the strategic challenge facing Islamist groups who are demonized by the U.S. and others in the West, but who are often lionized in their own societies and seek to engage in domestic democratic politics.

"The Islamists are very aware of the challenge they face in transforming themselves, now or in the future, from resistance or liberation organizations into political groups, especially Hamas in Palestine," Crooke said.

He added: "Many of us who know these societies think that Western powers are wrong to demonize and isolate Islamists based on misunderstanding their legitimate roles and status in their own societies. The issues of use of violence and accusations of terrorism must be addressed, of course, but front-loading the process by demanding that groups be disarmed before anything else can happen is likely to fail, as has happened in many other countries around the world."

Arab and Western participants repeatedly noted the Islamists' unambiguous emphasis on the importance of elections, constitutionalism, pluralism, democracy and reform in their societies. At the same time, these Islamist groups derive their legitimacy from their status as liberation and resistance groups that challenge American "hegemony," Israeli occupation and homegrown Arab or Asian corruption and abuse of power by local elites supported by the West.

Western-Islamist talks counter confrontation trend
posted by y2karl at 11:10 AM on March 25, 2005