Hacker News Reader

Comment by sparkzilla | Hacker News Reader

This response article misses a major point, most likely deliberately, that ISIS are following the actions of Mohammed himself, who they see as the perfect man. In the same way that Christians (in theory) would like to emulate the life of Christ, fundamentalist Muslims want to emulate the life of Mohammed. But Mohammed was not a man of peace. He was a warrior, who killed his enemies, targeted the Jews, kept slaves, encouraged rape of female captives, beheaded prisoners, took territory by force, treated non-Muslims as second-class citizens, and had a child bride. Therefore many of the verses in the Koran and Hadith are about these topics, and as they are a core part of the founder's life, they cannot be removed or reformed.

[1]http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Muhammad/myths-mu-home.htm

View on HN

Religious flamewars are not ok on Hacker News. Please don't.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10588101 and marked it off-topic.

I think I will take the word of the billion Muslims who don't believe Islam is about war, slavery, and rape over the word of you and ISIS.

Judaism is not about emulating Abraham, David, Moses, Jacob, Joseph, or Isaac all of whom did at least some of the terrible things you mention. So why do you presume to speak for Islam, rather than listen to the vast, overwhelming majority of its followers?

I don't think he is speaking for Islam. He said that ISIS is attempting to follow the life of Mohammad. He did not say that what ISIS is doing represents the views of most Muslims.

I understood his point to be implying that Islam inherently and uniquely among religions gives rise to the sort of radicalism we see with Isis. If I'm not misunderstanding, I hope he expands on what he thinks the implications of this worldview are.

The problem with the whole issue is that all of us need to talk much more about religion in general.

Many people feel the need to believe in something which extends beyond physical reality and that's the reason we have freedom of religion.

Time again history has shown though that religions often tend to go overboard in terms of violence so most modern societies have taken a pragmatic approach to offer freedom of religion under certain checks (i.e. not infringing on the freedoms of others from a secular perspective).

That said Einstein believed in god so don't belittle someone because of their religion and most importantly don't let fear take over your humanity (most people never got asked if they wanted to be "a muslim", "a christian" or "a jew").

What we need is more dialogue, not wars - those usually just create even more suffering and pain.

Talk to people - especially to the ones you don't feel comfortable talking to - we are all together on this pale blue dot.

So, this is probably going to get touchy, but I think the more fundamental issue is that religion, both from epistemological and functional perspectives as a movement, is incompatible with democracy.

In the sense that one cannot simultaneously hold the following two sets of beliefs:

Religion: knowledge by authority, submission to authority, authority by appeal to ex-human grantor, otherwise ignorance until submission before authority

Democracy: knowledge by inalienable and intrinsic human nature, authority as composed of the will of individuals, pluralism as a path to better decisions for the whole society

I personally believe religion is a powerful force for good in the world. But, if we're being really honest, a lot of times that's because of the stuff we're leaving out or bending rather than the strict interpretation.

But he explicitly states that he is talking about fundamentalists and Isis, not mainstream Muslims

What we're missing is that most practicing religious people don't literally follow word of their holy text. The torah and the bible and the koran aren't typically interpreted by Supreme Court justices carefully weighing over the meaning of every word. In the present day we think of those types of interpretations as fundamentalist and extremist. The problem is the literal texts contain dated values and typical modern practices are far from the texts. We have reached a point in religious practice where there is a chasm between religious texts and religious practices. Religious pragmatists want to live in the modern world while maintaining the values that they find comforting within their religion but the world is perpetually at risk of damage done in the name of the literal interpretation of religious texts.

I think the response would have done better to focus on this: https://cyberfitna.wordpress.com/2015/02/23/nitpicking-woods...

This article seems to say that ISIS' violence against civilians and other Muslims has its roots in a 13th century interpretation of Islamic warfare, but that's obviously not true. One example is that Mohammed killed the jews in Medina after they had peacefully surrendered. Another is that the Muslim expansion before the that time was accompanied by plenty of violence.

Citation please. And a more trustworthy and neutral one than what you have given.

Which battle are you referring to?

edit: Perhaps the Battle of the Trench.

If so, your comment is misleading. The Jews were forced into a surrender after having betrayed their former muslim allies in favour of the confederates.

From wiki article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Trench) :

"Following the retreat of the Confederate army, the Banu Qurayza neighbourhoods were besieged by the Muslims, in revenge for their treachery. After a 25-day siege of their neighbourhood the Banu Qurayza unconditionally surrendered. When the Banu Qurayza tribe surrendered, the Muslim army seized their stronghold and their possessions.[29] On the request of the Banu Aus, who were allied to the Qurayza, Muhammad chose one of them, Sa'ad ibn Mu'adh, as an arbitrator to pronounce judgment upon them. Sa'ad, who would later die of his wounds from the battle, decreed the sentence according to the Torah, in which the men shall be killed and women and children enslaved.

Deuteronomy 20:10-14 says:

When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies. [30]

Muhammad approved of this decision, and the next day the sentence was carried out."

Your point illustrates rather than negates mine, which is that Mohammed was a military leader, rather than a peacemaker. After the Battle of the Trench his army, under his command, killed many hundreds of Jews, who had surrendered. Here is the next section of the Wikipedia page:

>Then they surrendered, and the Apostle confined them in Medina in the quarter of d. al-Harith, a woman of B. al-Najjar. Then the Apostle went out to the market of Medina (which is still its market today) and dug trenches in it. Then he sent for them and struck off their heads in those trenches as they were brought out to him in batches. Among them was the enemy of Allah Huyayy b. Akhtab and Ka`b b. Asad their chief. There were 600 or 700 in all, though some put the figure as high as 800 or 900. As they were being taken out in batches to the Apostle they asked Ka`b what he thought would be done with them. He replied, 'Will you never understand? Don't you see that the summoner never stops and those who are taken away do not return? By Allah it is death!' This went on until the Apostle made an end of them. Huyayy was brought out wearing a flowered robe in which he had made holes about the size of the finger-tips in every part so that it should not be taken from him as spoil, with his hands bound to his neck by a rope. When he saw the Apostle he said, 'By God, I do not blame myself for opposing you, but he who forsakes God will be forsaken.' Then he went to the men and said, 'God's command is right. A book and a decree, and massacre have been written against the Sons of Israel.' Then he sat down and his head was struck off.

This actually says that Mohammed himself beheaded the Jews, but even if he didn't, he allowed it to happen. Thus, ISIS follow this same pattern.

> that ISIS are following the actions of Mohammed himself

Maybe, or maybe not. Anyway religions have no inherent meaning external from the way in which they're practiced and understood by their practitioners.

What I'd like you to expand on is: what do the distinctions you're making in your argument entail (w/r/t public policy or just personal behavior)?

For each of the points you mentioned I can make a solid case supported by examples that Mohammad was a proponent of peace, extraordinarily lenient towards his enemies, protected Jews as well as Christians, spearheaded the liberation of slaves and the abolition of slavery, was extremely strict about the fair treatment of captives including women, and in general instituted protections for the weak parties in society, including children and widows.

As a peaceful, tolerant and rational Muslim, the likes of which somehow manage to exist in spite of the purported bad example of the man we strive to follow, I just want to put this out there not to leave your comment undisputed, in case there are people who are not knowledgeable about the topic. I don't have time for a treatise but as I said, there are more sides to every story, so do your own research.

(On an unrelated note I flagged this story, since sigh HN is one of the few places where this stuff doesn't get stuffed in your face all the time.)

I think the point is that like all religions, Islam contains in its holy books rationale and justification for many barbaric acts that most Muslims (such as yourself) don't follow.

There is nothing special about Islam in this regard; however, in the modern world Islam happens to be 'It' right now in that it has a large armed and motivated radicalized branch of followers.

This doesn't indict all Muslims in their crime, nor does it indict Islam any more than in indicts any other religion, for better or for worse. All it means is understanding that we're fighting a religious enemy bent on religiously motivated ends.

In fact, fighting this enemy requires the vocal support of peaceful Muslims whose countries are being taken over by these theocrats, those whose livelihoods in Beirut and Baghdad and Karachi and Jakarta are much more at threat than livelihoods in Paris and Madrid and New York City.

That said, I don't have a solution; I don't think anyone does. You can't fight a religion, only people, and you can't blame all followers of a religion for the actions of a subset of that religion (or, as some would have you believe, a non-subset of that religion). All you can do is name your enemy, and when they declare war on you (which they have--they've declared war on civilization, modernity, Muslims and non-Muslims alike), declare war back.

> You can't fight a religion, only people

I feel like the Church of England and the Eastern Orthodox Church would disagree with you (and Batman). Ideas can be fought just the same as people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_Church#Great_...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_England#Secession_fr...

> For each of the points you mentioned I can make a solid case supported by examples that Mohammad was a proponent of peace

Prior to Mohammed, his people lived in a remote, mostly peaceful backwater.

Afterwards, Mohammed terrorized some caravans, gained a few new converts, and conquered Mecca, and then Arabia. Then his friends, followers, and immediate successors, by 661, conquered the Persian empire and made rapid inroads into the Byzantine Empire.

It is very difficult to see how anyone could look at a map in 622 and then a map in 661 and come to the conclusion that Mohammed was a proponent of peace.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com