How ISIS drives Muslims from Islam

[Perspicuo]

NYTimes: How ISIS Drives Muslims From Islam
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/o...-how-isis-drives-muslims-from-islam.html?_r=0

THE Islamic State has visibly attracted young Muslims from all over the world to its violent movement to build a caliphate in Iraq and Syria. But here’s what’s less visible — the online backlash against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, by young Muslims declaring their opposition to rule by Islamic law, or Shariah, and even proudly avowing their atheism. Nadia Oweidat, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, who tracks how Arab youths use the Internet, says the phenomenon “is mushrooming — the brutality of the Islamic State is exacerbating the issue and even pushing some young Muslims away from Islam.”

On Nov. 24, BBC.com published a piece on what was trending on Twitter. It began: “A growing social media conversation in Arabic is calling for the implementation of Shariah, or Islamic law, to be abandoned. Discussing religious law is a sensitive topic in many Muslim countries. But on Twitter, a hashtag which translates as ‘why we reject implementing Shariah’ has been used 5,000 times in 24 hours. The conversation is mainly taking place in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The debate is about whether religious law is suitable for the needs of Arab countries and modern legal systems. Dr. Alyaa Gad, an Egyptian doctor living in Switzerland, started the hashtag. ‘I have nothing against religion,’ she tells BBC Trending, but says she is against ‘using it as a political system.’ ”

I find the article's title a contentious statement, because first, it is based on perception, not statistics, and because more vocal dissenters/apostates does not necessarily mean more dissenters/apostates.

In any case, I liked this very much:

In this recent segment on YouTube, which has been viewed 500,000 times, Brother Rachid addressed President Obama:

“Dear Mr. President, I must tell you that you are wrong about ISIL. You said ISIL speaks for no religion. I am a former Muslim. My dad is an imam. I have spent more than 20 years studying Islam. ... I can tell you with confidence that ISIL speaks for Islam. ... ISIL’s 10,000 members are all Muslims. ... They come from different countries and have one common denominator: Islam. They are following Islam’s Prophet Muhammad in every detail. ... They have called for a caliphate, which is a central doctrine in Sunni Islam.”

I personally don't blame Obama for his statements, because more than academic he must be effective to be the leader of the most militarily powerful, most culturally and politically influential country on Earth, that also happens to be religiously diverse, containing some sects with a great propensity for fundamentalistic calls for lynching and crusade.

 

[Herrick]

I wonder if Obama really believes that. If no religion condones killing innocent people, then what do these verses about killing people mean? Are they metaphors? Are they not the "true" words of gods?

 

[bilby]

I wonder if Obama really believes that. If no religion condones killing innocent people, then what do these verses about killing people mean? Are they metaphors? Are they not the "true" words of gods?

No religion condones killing innocent people.

They all have pretty narrow definitions of 'innocent' though.

Killing the guilty is mandatory in most religions; and most religions have a broad enough definition of guilt to be able to apply it to pretty much everyone and anyone, when it suits them to do so.

It's a bit of a loophole.

 

[DBT]

The Quran stipulates that it is the disbeliever who should be killed. That disbelief is worse than the act of killing, being worse, it is not only permissible to kill disbelievers but the duty of a true believer.

 

[Underseer]

I wonder if Obama really believes that. If no religion condones killing innocent people, then what do these verses about killing people mean? Are they metaphors? Are they not the "true" words of gods?

Well, his statement is technically correct.

Most religious people generally define "moral" as "follows my religion," so all those calls to kill non-believers in the Bible and the Koran are about killing evil people, not innocents. People who are not part of your religion never count as innocent because they are all minions and servants of Satan.

 

[ideologyhunter]

That's what's so stupid about all the Abrahamic religions, as followed today. The believers in most cases have positioned a warm 'n' fuzzy Love God (TM) in place of the one who urges you to put all the heretics to the sword. I suspect Obama has read enough to know how berserk God's laws really are, but there aren't any advantages in politics to talking truth about the religious past. Look how his offhand remark about people 'clinging' to their religion in economic bad times was parsed, nitpicked, and endlessly bitched about, by the right wing.