(CNN) – Osama bin Laden wore the mantle of a religious leader. He looked the part and talked a good game, but his theology was a radical departure from traditional orthodox Islam.
The pitch to join al Qaeda did not start with an invitation to put on a suicide vest but, like other religious splinter groups and cults, took advantage of disenfranchisement and poverty.
Bin Laden had no official religious training but developed his own theology of Islam.
“We don’t know that (bin Laden) was ever exposed to orthodox Islamic teachings,” said Ebrahim Moosa, a professor of religion and Islamic studies at Duke University.
The writing of ideologues in the Muslim Brotherhood influenced bin Laden heavily, Moosa said.
“He takes scriptural imperatives at their face value and believes this is the only instruction and command God has given him – unmediated by history, unmediated by understanding, unmediated by human experience. Now that’s a difference between Muslim orthodoxy and what I would call uber- or hyperscripturalists,” Moosa said.
The vast majority of Islamic scholars and imams say the teaching of the Prophet Mohammed happened in historical context that needs to be understood when reading and interpreting the Quran.
“If the likes of bin Laden, if they had spent one day or maybe one month possibly, in a madrassa (Muslim religious school) and understood how the canonical tradition is interpreted, they would not go onto this kind of destructive path they go on,” Moosa said.
In the entire leadership structure of al Qaeda, “no one has had any sort of formal religious training from any seminary,” said Aftab Malik, a global expert on Muslim affairs at the United Nations Alliance of Civilization. He is researching a Ph.D. on al Qaeda.
“What you had was an engineer and a doctor leading a global jihad against the whole world,” Malik said. “That would never happen in normative Islam. It’s just such an aberration.”
John Esposito, a professor of religion and international affairs at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, said bin Laden “appropriates Islam … to legitimate and mobilize people.”
“If you look at bin Laden’s early statements and arguments, his interview with Peter Bergen on CNN … lots of people would see it as something that would go down very well not just with many Muslims but among many analysts when he talks about longstanding political grievances,” Esposito said.
“What bin Laden ends up doing is saying anyone who disagrees with him, any Muslim, is in fact an apostate,” he said. That includes Muslims who would not join his fight, he said. “It’s a distortion of the traditional teaching, and it just extends the parameters and the consequences in order to legitimate how when you’re fighting on the ground you’re fighting against your own people.”
Malik said, “The key issue is of apostasy,” referring to when a person leaves a faith. “One of the things Osama bin Laden deviates from is calling those people who do not implement Sharia, or God’s law, on the planet as apostates. If they did not implement Sharia, they deserved death. This is a major departure from normative Islam.”
“The second major deviation is the targeting of noncombatants. Even when you read in the Quran there are injunctions for fighting. But before and after the injunctions for fighting are calls for restraint. ‘Do not attack monks, do not attack women, do not attack children.’ And these are numerated heavily in the Hadith, which are uncontested,” Malik said, referring to the sayings of the prophet and his close companions.
http://mymuslimnews.blogspot.com/2011/05/bin-ladens-theology-radical-break-with.html
Friday, May 13, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
ISLAM: Islam And The Theory Of Evolution
There are around 30,000 genes in the human body, incorrect sequences of nucleotides making up a gene would render that gene completely useless. Frank B. Salisbury writes in “Doubts about the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution”, American Biology Teacher, September 1971, p. 336:
“A medium protein might include about 300 amino acids. The DNAgene controlling this would have about 1,000 nucleotides in its chain. Since there are four kinds of nucleotides in a DNA chain, one consisting of 1,000 links could exist in 41,000 forms. Using a little algebra (logarithms) we can see that 4^1000=10^600. Ten multiplied by itself 600 times gives the figure 1 followed by 600 zeros! This number is completely beyond our comprehension.”
Robert Shapiro, a professor of chemistry at New York University and a DNA expert, calculated the probability of the coincidental formation of the 2000 types of proteins found in a single bacterium (There are 200,000 different types of proteins in a human cell). The number that was found was 1 over 10^40000. (This is an incredible number obtained by putting 40,000 zeros after the 1)
Scientists’ comments regarding “chance”
ISLAM: Islam And The Theory Of Evolution
“A medium protein might include about 300 amino acids. The DNAgene controlling this would have about 1,000 nucleotides in its chain. Since there are four kinds of nucleotides in a DNA chain, one consisting of 1,000 links could exist in 41,000 forms. Using a little algebra (logarithms) we can see that 4^1000=10^600. Ten multiplied by itself 600 times gives the figure 1 followed by 600 zeros! This number is completely beyond our comprehension.”
Robert Shapiro, a professor of chemistry at New York University and a DNA expert, calculated the probability of the coincidental formation of the 2000 types of proteins found in a single bacterium (There are 200,000 different types of proteins in a human cell). The number that was found was 1 over 10^40000. (This is an incredible number obtained by putting 40,000 zeros after the 1)
Scientists’ comments regarding “chance”
ISLAM: Islam And The Theory Of Evolution
Islam And The Moslim World: 'We'll see depleted uranium missiles thrown by Western aircraft on Libya'
Balkans expert Marko Gasic predicts Libya will become a new Iraq. He says that now that the cease-fire is needed for peace, that should be the aim of the mission. The mission has now become compromised, he says, and should be stopped as soon as possible.
Islam And The Moslim World: 'We'll see depleted uranium missiles thrown by Western aircraft on Libya'
Islam And The Moslim World: 'We'll see depleted uranium missiles thrown by Western aircraft on Libya'
Israel admits it used phosphorus weapons
The Israeli government has admitted that it used controversial phosphorus weapons in its attacks against targets during its month long war in Lebanon this summer.
The chemical can be used in shells, missiles and grenades and causes horrific burning when it comes into contact with human flesh.
White phosphorus (WP) weapons are not forbidden by international law but some human rights groups believe they should be re-classified as chemical weapons and banned.
The Israeli admission was made by the cabinet minister, Jacob Edery, who was questioned on the subject by Zahava Gal-On, a member of the Knesset.
Mr Edery told Ms Gal-On: "The IDF [Israel Defence Force] holds phosphorus munitions in different forms. The IDF made use of phosphorus shells during the war against Hizbullah in attacks against military targets in open ground."
Ms Gal-On said that her original question to the government related to suspicions that Israel has been using experimental weapons in Gaza so she was surprised when she was offered a confirmation that Israel had used phosphorus weapons in Lebanon. "My original question was about the use of Dime [dense inert metal explosives] weapons by Israel in Gaza but instead I was given the answer to a different question," she said. "The use of phosphorus weapons in Lebanon is shocking and unacceptable."
http://brutalconvictions.blogspot.com/2011/04/israel-admits-it-used-phosphorus.html
The chemical can be used in shells, missiles and grenades and causes horrific burning when it comes into contact with human flesh.
White phosphorus (WP) weapons are not forbidden by international law but some human rights groups believe they should be re-classified as chemical weapons and banned.
The Israeli admission was made by the cabinet minister, Jacob Edery, who was questioned on the subject by Zahava Gal-On, a member of the Knesset.
Mr Edery told Ms Gal-On: "The IDF [Israel Defence Force] holds phosphorus munitions in different forms. The IDF made use of phosphorus shells during the war against Hizbullah in attacks against military targets in open ground."
Ms Gal-On said that her original question to the government related to suspicions that Israel has been using experimental weapons in Gaza so she was surprised when she was offered a confirmation that Israel had used phosphorus weapons in Lebanon. "My original question was about the use of Dime [dense inert metal explosives] weapons by Israel in Gaza but instead I was given the answer to a different question," she said. "The use of phosphorus weapons in Lebanon is shocking and unacceptable."
http://brutalconvictions.blogspot.com/2011/04/israel-admits-it-used-phosphorus.html
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