Turks, do most Muslims practice Islam?

[RazPaK]

I'm an sitting in the us. I see people insult my religion. I don't insult in what they believe, but if i defend my self, I am automatically labeled as an extremist? How is this fair?

 

[TurAr]

I don't know why but i can't display page 19.

 

[RazPaK]

This is not fair. Some extremist kemalists are behaving like nazis. Why just because I am Muslim?

 

[TurAr]

I'm an sitting in the us. I see people insult my religion. I don't insult in what they believe, but if i defend my self, I am automatically labeled as an extremist? How is this fair?

Are you defending yourself by beating those "anti-Islamists" like a dog? Then you are whining, it's not fair?
What is your understanding of anti-Islam?

Edit: Why are you calling me Nazi? I'm not the one who is threatening people by beating them up like a dog.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

You're not just a Muslim but an extremist:



Atanz, look how peaceful he is ^

Precisely !


RazPak.

Calling yourself 'nice person' or 'peaceful' does not make you either of those things .... I am sure you have heard the saying 'self praise is no praise'.

And I am still lat a loss how did I insult Islam? I am a Muslim myself.Please reply to questions posed by me in post # 269.Your behaviour just reinforces my view that we need at least couple of decades of Kemalism to calm things down.

 

[RazPaK]

Precisely !


RazPak.

Calling yourself 'nice person' or 'peaceful' does not make you either of those things .... I am sure you have heard the saying 'self praise is no praise'.

And I am still lat a loss how did I insult Islam? I am a Muslim myself.Please reply to questions posed by me in post # 269.Your behaviour just reinforces my view that we need at least couple of decades of Kemalism to calm things down.

And I have accused you of?

I was simply stating my sentiments as a Muslim...

 

[LegionnairE]

I have no problem with RazPaK but he's wrong about this issue.

There will always be some things in universe that you don't like. You can't expect from them to vanish in a cloud of smoke. Beating or killing people does not destroy the idea.

 

[RazPaK]

I have no problem with RazPaK but he's wrong about this issue.

I am happy to debate with people. I am not going to bite your head off. I am giving my view as a common person.

 

[TurAr]

I am happy to debate with people. I am not going to bite your head off. I am giving my view as a common person.

Then please start with answering my questions.

I think you missed them, check #274.

 

[RazPaK]

Then please start with answering my questions.

Give me your questions brother. List them and I will answer to the best of my ability.

 

[Armstrong]

Well, Armstrong your suggestion would be darn sight better than what we have but I still think we need a strong dose of 'Kemalist secularism'. After reading Zulkarnane's posts it is very possible that there has been 'overkill' of Kemalism in Turkey but in Pakistan we face the opposite problem.

Despite what you say about Kemalism in Turkey Islam is not dead. AKP did win the elections. To my eyes Erdogan is a better Muslim than Mullana Fazlur Rehman. Are they blowing up mosques in Istanbul? So ask yourself who are better Muslim? If your measure is beards well yes Pakistan wins but come on it has got to be more than that.

Mate, even a vermin would be better than Fazlur Rehman but if we're going to gauge Islamic polity by what Molana Diesel does or doesn't do then we'd be not only doing a disservice to Islam but also with our ability to think critically ! Fazlu is as representative of 'Political Islam' as Nixon was of all those wonderful ideals and freedoms that the US stood for when 'WaterGate' happened.

'Is my measure of a good Muslim the length of his beard ?' - Don't you think that thats a little too presumptive ! Contrary to popular perception there are many of us liberal and progressive Muslims out there who have a certain reference point in life i.e Islam, but we certainly don't want others to agree with it by hook or by crook !

As for People blowing up in Mosques - This deserves a detailed discussion in its own right ! But if I can I'd try to put my view point, about it, across in a few lines : The root of that problem lies not, ironically, in Islam but how a twisted, regressive and utterly deplorable version of it was taught to the Taliban and their ilk by all of us who were involved in Afghan Jihad; as such it would be, in my opinion, as wrong of us to blame 'Islam' in this as it would be for any other to blame 'German Nationalism' for all that Hitler did ! It likewise was used as a tool to be used and then discarded as soon as the Cold War was won and such tools have been used throughout history to wreak unimaginable suffering. But when all is said and done they're simply tools, intensifiers.
Currently the problem we face is that we're embroiled in fighting against an enemy that was created as a reaction to our actions; the TTP wouldn't get a single foot-soldier to fight against the Pakistan Army if it were not for a combination of us joining the WOT, turning a blind-eye to the drone-strikes in Pakistan and its collateral, perceived arse-kissing by Musharaf, a lack of opportunities in FATA, an absolutely abysmal state of governance over there and us providing NATO supply lines to go through our lands and into Afghanistan ! A backlash was the natural reaction to all of this. Having said that I do not for a moment condone any of what the TTP does in Pakistan or what the Taliban do in Afghanistan, I condemn either in the strongest sense of the word but I can understand where they're coming from ! Consequently unless we address the causes and stop focusing solely on the their manifestations this isn't going to stop. One might even argue that this is the proverbial 'lull before the storm' because once NATO withdraws the Taliban aren't going to sit back and say 'We forgive you and we forget', they'd probably come at us with all guns blazing.
In my humble opinion if we don't take a 3 staged approach to this - Economic Opportunities, Education and Rehabilitation - we're not going to break free from this ! And the ironic thing is that it would be very hard to justify that 'religion' is the culprit here when we deliberately misused it for our own ulterior motives by twisting and turning it into something that most of us here wouldn't be able to recognize as Islam.

In Pakistan it is not just minorities that are now targeted. The fundamental problem in allowing religion into the public space is that you empower the Mullah. After all he is the expert on Islam so don't be surprised if the Mullah's pushes into the affairs of the state.

Once you allow Mullah into the public space you have major problem on your hand. A state can only be run with one law or one set of rules. So whose 'Islam' are you going to enforce? Even within the majority Sunni groups they have splits and then sub-splits. There is only one Quran but whose interpretation are you going to enforce - You know the Mullah's can't even agree on the sighting of the moon for Eid.

This creates recipe for disaster because all those groups jostle and push for power. Then they all start giving Fatwa's. Then they start killing each other. That is the madness we have unleashed in Pakistan. Mate I suggest you read the Munir Commission report 1953 in which one of the question posed to various noted Mullah's was 'What is definition of a Muslim' - They could not even agree on one single definition. Please read this report because it warned in 1953 about the danger to Pakistan in the future if the Mullah's were let loose. The warning given has come true in Pakistan today when you see suicide bombers blowing up people in mosques.

Do try to read the entire report and your gonna think Justice Munir was some sort of Nostradamus in 1953 who could predict the dystopian hell we face in Pakistan today.

http://www.thepersecution.org/dl/report_1953.pdf

Munir Commission Report-24: The Definition of a Muslim, Books and Documents, Justice M. Munir commission investigated the large-scale riots against the Ahmadya sect in Pakistan in 1953. His report is an eye-opener. It shows that our ulema are not eve

The thing is that because we're a majority Sunni state, any concept of theocracy is completely foreign to us; thank fully our Shi'ite minority is also, barring the Khomeni fan-boys, on the same page with the rest of us ! So a 'Mullah' pushing himself into the affairs of the State to that degree isn't entirely possible right now. But tis also true that Mullahs do hold a lot of sway over the common man but then again so does 'a Doctor, a Civil Servant and a Police Officer' and amongst the well-read 'a Scholar'; consequently whereas the Mullah, in an un-educated society, has the propensity to inflict a lot of harm he is no different than any of the others who have the same potential to shape public opinion ! What would you propose anyhow ? Lock them all up ? Shoot them ? Cut off power to the Mosque every time they're going to give a sermon that is of disapproving nature ? As much as I'd like to say 'Line'em up and shoot them', I don't think Pakistan will be able to handle the backlash nor be able to weather a future one because of a dangerously transgressive precedent, with respect to where do you draw the line ?, being set ! So, in my opinion, we can only approach this situation with a) educate the masses make them literate enough to choose and refuse, and b) economic upliftment of the common man; you do that and you would already have set the ball rolling and everything else would fall in line ! Give the People the ability to think critically and you're not only give them the chance to 'shut' the Mullah up but you're giving them a purpose to live for i.e they've started thinking about the so many possibilities in life. And by giving them some kind of economic upliftment you're supplementing your other action. Do this and over a generation it'll all fall in line; yes it takes time but any other option that promises a hasty result will lead us, in my opinion, to great ruin. In the meantime we can try to regulate the Madrassas by legislating and then ensuring that only those who've had 12 years of complete schooling as per Government or equivalently acceptable curriculum may be allowed to join them ! By having all charity to the Madrassas and the expenditures incurred there-of be audited by the FBR on an annual basis ! These last two will bring about some kind of back-lash too but it probably won't be bloody and with the right amount of brains it can be handled.

As for whose Islam ? I think Iqbal's proposition about this was the most suitable - let the Parliament decide ! Let it decide what the 'Huddoods or Limitations' are up to which the Government can interfere in the affairs of an individual and then they should be stuck too vociferously. In the meantime let the Sunnis, the Shi'ites, some of the sects considered deviant by mainstream Islam and the rest of us moderate, liberal Muslims come together on one forum (the Parliament) and legislate on some of the more 'communal' aspects of our faith and let the will of the majority be the deciding factor. Naturally whenever a consensus is to be achieved there is a give and take process till a compromise solution is reached. I think thats how you'd take power back from the Mullahs because a representative Parliament would first not be able to come up with Huddoods that interfere in someone's private life too much and regulates his/her religion for him simply because of our 'sectarianism' because a Shi'ite wouldn't want a Sunni telling him how to follow his religion and live his life and vice versa for a Sunni; and so they'd come up with injunctions that are common between a 'Sunni and a Shi'ite' and are much less intrusive, say - a portion of Zakat should be collected from the individual to dispense with all the expenses that are needed to be incurred for the poor and the needy ! Whereas a Sunni may wholeheartedly (in theory !) agree with the collection of Zakat at a central place - the Baitul Maal, a Shi'ite may prefer giving it to his/her Imam instead ! Perhaps a compromise solution can be reached whereby a portion of the Zakat is given by the Imam directly to the Baitul Maal - hence the namesake 'Consensus' for the democratic process.

Any fear of an Ultra-Radical party winning the elections appears to be unfounded because in Pakistan's 65 year history the Islamic parties have never been able to win anything more than a handful of seats, never nearly enough to form a majority in even a single province let alone at the centre where constitutional changers are enacted.

Furthermore, coming back to Iqbal's Political vision, I think with consensus comes acceptance and ownership because as elected representatives of the People of Pakistan any law with a religious connotation will have the indirect patronage of the People. The positive side-effect of this is that it will help end the poison of sectarianism because workable solutions are being come up at the centre that show that Sunnis and Shi'ites and other sects can live in relative peace and harmony !
Additionally a further aspect of Iqbal's vision is that we're in this state of intellectual decay because we stopped thinking, because we stopped asking questions and so we need to shun this curse of 'mindless' Taqlid (or imitation) and instead conduct Ijihad (or consensus to form a legal opinion) to reinterpret Islam in the light of modernity; to ask some of the more important questions facing us - What is our relation with the Non-Muslims ? Does the sanctity of life extend to abortion or not ? Should the old laws forming the Shariah be reinterpreted in the light of changing dynamics or do they have a lasting relevance in their existing interpretation ? etc.

I can understand your thought process going - but thats a highly utopic, best-case scenario that you've drawn up ! To that I'd say that this requires the same conditions to function as would any other 'political system' which is characterized by an efficient and effective legislature; namely - honesty and will ! Without these two things take any political ideology whatsoever and you'd end up with at least one example from History where you'd find its grotesque misuse. Socialism, Secularism, Nationalism and Islamism have all wonderful models worthy of emulation and horrible occurrences deserving to be learned from ! For its not the 'ideology' but the men behind the ideology that define its use or misuse.

And yes to achieve general 'honesty' and the 'will to change' we need to make 'education' and 'economic welfare' of the common man our first and foremost priority ! Give them the means to think and to excel and they'd not only elect good leaders but will also hold them accountable !

I must say that despite our ideological difference, I don't think that 'ideology' is our most pressing concern but rather its 'thankless' brother - Governance ! Our present system with all its shortcomings still provides for ample opportunities to make things right ! Why hasn't Taseer's murderer still been hanged ? It is provided for in the current laws and by-laws of Pakistan...if we choose to ignore them then why blame 'religion' for it ? Why is the widow that lines the streets of the local bank waiting for hours to collect her pension not facilitated ? Does this have anything to do with the ideology of the country ? Why did Pakistan's military establishment wholeheartedly jumped into the American bandwagon and help create the Taliban, the NA and a bunch of other similar vermin ? Did not common sense prevail then ? If not..then why blame religion ? Why were the Ahmedis not given adequate protection when there was clear indication that their places of worship maybe attacked....especially when as per our own Mullah's the places of worship of Non-Muslims are to be given more protection when compared with a Mosque ? Why blame religion when the Police, the bureaucracy and the CM of Punjab couldn't be arsed to care about his own citizens when he is required by the existing law to ? Why are Hindu girls kidnapped in lower Sindh, raped and then forcibly converted to Islam and then married when the same constitution and the same Hudood Laws, give clear instructions that no one...no one will be forcibly converted to any religion and that rape is punishable by death ? Why is it that acid attacks victims don't get justice when the constitution guarantees the death penalty for the culprit ? Why is it that rapists go free when he should be hanged ?

Why is there so much non-compliance with the existing laws ? And what prerogative do we have to blame religion in these instances when all of these things are allowed for in the existing laws and by-laws and yet not obeyed ? So, my friend - Lets take care of the Governance first and the rest will follow for the solution to a surprisingly huge number of our existing problems lies within our existing framework and their compliance. In fact I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, who is an advocate, and I was surprised to learn that Pakistan is perhaps one of the, if not the, most regulated countries in the world - we've got legislation and secondary legislation for an obscene amount of things and yet a very small of they are complied with because of bad governance ! So lets begin there.

Lastly, even from the point of view of expediency, how do you propose to make a 'Secular Pakistan' when something like 95% of all Pakistanis *dunno whether this was gallup or some other survey* want the Shariah Law in this country. If the change isn't going to come from a gradual democratic process then from where ? A dictator ? And can you even imagine the possible repercussions of such an 'imposed' action ? The country will tear itself apart ! The only reasons, despite our massive goofups, that we're together is because of 'Islam' and something called 'Muslim Nationalism' any threat to Islamic Polity will trigger a severe back-lash amongst some of the more conservative areas of our society - FATA and KP will be on fire, parts of Balochistan, Punjab and Sindh will erupt ! We're talking about a country where the very mention of the word 'Secularism' is considered an abuse ! So for better or for worse...these are the realities of Pakistan and unless we're not extra sensitive to them any course of action will bring us to terrible ruin and possibly a lot of blood being spilled; consequently I don't think that the Nation is ready for a Secular Pakistan, but we may yet convince People to come towards a more Democratic Pakistan in the mould of what I'm proposing ! I may be wrong in this assessment and they might even lynch me but mate, you and you're political stance, is going to get shot to bits long before I'm even touched !

Either way, Pakistan Zindabad !

 

[Jf Thunder]

Well by practising İslam if you mean raping,torturing,bullying women & children,hanging people on the streets because of their sexual preference or banning women from dancing with men,banning women from driving(facepalm),brainwashing people to commit suicide for the name of Allah(?!) like they do in Afghanistan,Pakistan,Iran,Saudi Arabia etc..Nope majority of turks do not practice Islam...

Some use Islam for personal agenda some like tayyip use it for political agenda and a minority of people like my parents who btw hardcorde kemalists just practise islam because they belive in it.I'm an atheist and my parents prays 5 times a day but we get along fine.Noone force their believes onto others in our house.We joke around time to time but thats about it...Unfortunately can't say the same thing for the rest of islamic(?) aka arabized world.

I find that offensive, but i will not argue, because of the things you said i think it will not be wise to engage you.

no offense meant to any other Turkish brother

 

[xenon54 out]

Its nobodys business!

 

[Jf Thunder]

Its nobodys business!

wow, dude, no need to get angry, or i might cry

 

[T-123456]

wow, dude, no need to get angry, or i might cry

You do know that you keep posting on old threads?