Question:Do you want a thread on Islam,terrorism & the MENA?

[Aldebaran]

The views on "the Middle East" as I read them on this board are more realistic then when reading the nonsense written about this subject in the USA (US media included, which largely seems to influence the mindset of the US population).
Still... I think the analysis I wrote, titled "Islam and suicidal terrorism: Analysing connections" could be of use here too, to offer a bit more insight in a very complex issue and a very complex region.

It is however a rather long read, 10 chapters (=posts) with the following subjects

1. Introduction
2. Political MENA.
3. Social MENA.
4. MENA and the West.
5. MENA goes to Europe.
6. MENA and Wahhabi influence, over there and everywhere.
7. Radicals: The strategy.
8. And what about Al Qur’an?
9. The future.
10. The Danish cartoons.

to which I want to add a chapter concerning the authority of Islamic Law/Scholars both from the point of view of Sunni and Shia Islam (as soon as I have time for that. Writing in this language isn't all that easily done for me.)

What do you think?
And more specific: What do the moderators think, since I have no clue about the posting rules here when it comes to such long "opening posts" for a thread.

salaam.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Well, no, we don't encourage lengthy c&ps, for the simple reason that they take up loads of space and people don't read them very much in general. Also, it sounds like it would contain too many topics to be discussed in one thread.

I think, though, that if you were to post it up on a static page on the net somewhere, outline a few of the points you think are particularly important and put in a few quotes with links to the full text in case someone wanted to read it all, that would work, and I'm sure people would be interested. If you want any advice on how to do that just say.

 

[Aldebaran]

It isn't about many topics, it is explaining how it is possible for Islam to be abused by Radicals in order to get Muslims to become brainwashed mass murderers.
Hence I made the partitions since every aspect of this problem needs to be explained within its own frame.
More ingeneral and outside the explanation of this suicidal terrorism, it provides for an insight in the societies of the MENA region and in the identity and other problems of Muslims in Europe.

Since I prefer to shield my privacy when on this world wide accessable medium, I don't provide for links to any website which is or could be connected with my identity, sorry.

salaam.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

As a suggestion, you could open a free hosting account with, say, Geocities, and post the text there anonymously if you wanted to link to it.

However, I hope you realise that if it's published elsewhere on the net under your real name, whether you post the text on a board or on a separate page, people will very easily be able to find the original document by Googling for particular phrases in it.

 

[Aldebaran]

I only had it published as "EDU" thread on an other message board (US), under the same membername and where I deleted it recently. From there is was copied by a member, to put it on an other board where she is also a member. Which I asked to be deleted, yet I don't know if she will do that.
If this ever gets published in printed form, that shall be in another language anyway and in an altered, largely extended form too, and only available for a small amount of students.

I have no clue about "free hosting accounts" and their "anonymity" record/trustworthyness.

salaam.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

You can sign up anonymously to somewhere like, say, Geocities (or rather, you don't have to give any real details at all) and put up pages there, and all they will ever have is the IP address you use, and the email address you use, which can be an anonymous one too.

 

[tangentlama]

it is explaining how it is possible for Islam to be abused by Radicals in order to get Muslims to become brainwashed mass murderers.

do you think this could be similar to the way that other religions/cults/politicians/states manage to 'brainwash' their members?

how does a doctor become a mass murderer, or a simple shepherd become a suicide bomber?

 

[maes]

You could email it to one of us (I don't mind doing it) and we could then set up the website etc so there would be no trace back to yourself at all

 

[Aldebaran]

do you think this could be similar to the way that other religions/cults/politicians/states manage to 'brainwash' their members?

how does a doctor become a mass murderer, or a simple shepherd become a suicide bomber?

I'm sure the methods and the psychological impact of brainwash techniques show similarities for every case where such mind-manipulation is the goal.

Yet I explained briefly how it is possible to use the particularities inherent to the "Muslim" mindset = How a normal functioning person can be transformed in a mindless murder machine, all while this behaviour is completely and totally in violation with the commands and instructions of Al Qur'an itself.
In my experience "Westerners" find this phenomenon completely incomprehensible. Hence "the West" wants to find "explanations", looking in the the wrong direction because they can't understand what happens and why. Which then leads to the "conclusion" that "it must be something inherent to Islam", or "it is inherent to a backwards religion" or "to a backwards people" etc... etc..

I asked a UK woman I know from "cyberspace" if she has a website to host it (I gave her a link to this site. I think she would like this board.)

However - with that possibility or the offer of maestrocloud in mind - .... It is not that I wrote a bookwork on it, since it was written especially for the public of a message board.

As Word document it counts in its current form:
5.502 words = 26.703 characters = 32.197 characters spaces included (that can be reduced)= 110 alineas = 447 lines.

It is deleted now also on that other website to where it was copied. This means totally Urban75 exclusivity. You have no clue how much I normally ask pro written character

salaam

 

[free spirit]

Well, no, we don't encourage lengthy c&ps, for the simple reason that they take up loads of space and people don't read them very much in general. Also, it sounds like it would contain too many topics to be discussed in one thread.

I think, though, that if you were to post it up on a static page on the net somewhere, outline a few of the points you think are particularly important and put in a few quotes with links to the full text in case someone wanted to read it all, that would work, and I'm sure people would be interested. If you want any advice on how to do that just say.

Fridge, I know you're the mod and all that, but I'm going to disagree with you here mate...

Surely if this is his own original work then by definition it ain't cutting and pasting - IIRC that rule's there largely to stop people breaching copyright agreements and stay within fair use limits on copyrighted material from other sites, as well as saving server space etc.

If the poster wants to post up an essay they've gone to the trouble of writing that adds to the debate, and isn't available elsewhere then surely this is a better use of u75 bandwidth than some of the dross that permeates this site like the yes/no thread etc. that'll take way more server space.

Just my opinion like, but I say post it.

 

[invisibleplanet]

The first and only time that I hit the urban75 maximum character per post of quote-free, 'original' ranting, I sent a little pm to the editor in a kind of triumphant cyber-dance

 

[oi2002]

What an oddly polite person. You could click the Rules/FAQ link above. I'd just fling a couple of posts up and see if anyone bites.

 

[newharper]

only to say welcome Aldebaran.

Your input is needed.

salaam, shalom; and as an atheist, peace.

 

[nino_savatte]

Aye, welcome Aldebaran (the name of a star in the constellation of Taurus iirc).

 

[tangentlama]

Aye, welcome Aldebaran (the name of a star in the constellation of Taurus iirc).

discovered through an Arab-made telescope, no doubt with a name like that, i wouldn't wonder. a fixed star?

 

[nino_savatte]

discovered through an Arab-made telescope, with a name like that, i wouldn't wonder. a fixed star?

I would imagine so. The Arabs were the first to name many of the stars we see in the heavens.

 

[tangentlama]

Aliena nobis, nostra plus aliis placent

I would imagine so. The Arabs were the first to name many of the stars we see in the heavens.

after the (Byzantine Christians drove Western World through Hundreds-of-years of a Cultural , Scientific and Literary Dark Age, the Arabs continued pursuing their love of Science as the ultimate scholarly pursuit in the Islamic world.

 

[nino_savatte]

after the (Byzantine Christians drove Western World through Hundreds-of-years of a Cultural , Scientific and Literary Dark Age, the Arabs continued pursuing their love of Science as the ultimate scholarly pursuit in the Islamic world.

I think it's unfair to blame it all on the Byzantines, the Westerners were a pretty backward lot.

 

[tangentlama]

I think it's unfair to blame it all on the Byzantines, the Westerners were a pretty backward lot.

wouldn't you say that alot of that was artificially brought about by their early love of book burning? (a delightful rite which is still carried on today in megachurch USA)

but anyway: http://physics.unr.edu/grad/welser/astro/arab.html
from Nevada University Physics Dept.

 

[nino_savatte]

wouldn't you say that alot of that was artificially brought about by their early love of book burning? (a delightful rite which is still carried on today in megachurch USA)

but anyway: http://physics.unr.edu/grad/welser/astro/arab.html
from Nevada University Physics Dept.

Are you referring to the Iconoclast controversy? If the Byzantines burned so many books how does one explain The Alexiad of Anna Comnena or The Fourteen Byzantine Emperors by Michael Psellus, both books relied heavily on classical texts for their rhetoric. Heretics were burned (Alexius I Comnenus had the Bogomil leader burned at the stake). Much of the learning that occured in Constantinople was preserved then transmitted by the scholars fleeing the city before the invading Ottomans.

Early Byzantine Emperors closed the universities (but I can't remember which ones off the top of my head) but ther were reopened later (again I can't remember which emperor).

There is a great deal written about how the Byzantines veiwed the uncouth and boorish Westerners who were, largely, illiterate. Those who partook in the First Crusade were especially so. Barbarossa wasn't particularly literate iirc.

The Byzantines had much more contact with the Arabs than the Westerners and the Iconoclast controversy can be partly attributed to the Emperor Leo III's early influences and contacts with Muslims. Indeed it was this proximity to the east and its values that made the west suspicious of the Byzantines. The West left Constantinople to its fate largely because of this prejudice.

 

[tangentlama]

i think you know more than me about this, nino_savatte

*puts kettle on and fetches hob-nobs*

 

[nino_savatte]

i think you know more than me about this, nino_savatte

*puts kettle on and fetches hob-nobs*

Sorry I added some more to the post. I'm not a Byzantine scholar but I have read a great deal about the Byzantines, who are largely ignored in this country for the sake of the classical Roman period. I blame it on Gibbon, tbh.

 

[Aldebaran]

Thank you for the welcome.

The red star Aldebaran is also known as Alpha Tauri or Bull's eye... I found the idea to adopt a overheated red burning star as my cyberspace name not such a bad comparison


I had the history of Byzantine as a normal part of my university education program. The fall of the Empire was already induced by the necessary deals they had to make with the Muslims - especially the Turks - to help them defend themselves against their Christian "brothers" which costed them gradually more and more territory. This combined with the destructions and occupation of the invading "Crusaders" weakened Byzantine that much that in the end all Mehmed II had to do was marching into Constantinople, the only "territory" the Byzantine Emperor had left.

It is indeed amazing that when you study European history (which I did too, with major in Middle Ages) in Europe you have to enter university level before you discover all these contacts between European powers and the Muslim powers (this includes the whole Ottoman Empire period).

Children simply learn- vaguely - that "The Muslims" were "the Evil threatening good Christianity". Still.
Amazing is also to see how the influence of the early "Orientalists" (read: Christians looking at everything Islam and Muslim related from their one sided prejudiced point of view) still works through in the general "Chrisitian" Western mindset. I even read shortly after "9/11" an article in a magazine targetting a (Catholic) university students public that was one big sensationalism and misinformation of that same type. (Needless to say I mailed them and adviced them to take some classes at the university to avoid further repetition of their idiocies)

On the thread I wanted to make:

I thought about it and the trouble of setting up of a website etc.. only and especially to have it read here - or even delivering it to a website where I can't control or alter it - just doesn't seem a good idea to me.

salaam.

 

[oi2002]

Sorry I added some more to the post. I'm not a Byzantine scholar but I have read a great deal about the Byzantines, who are largely ignored in this country for the sake of the classical Roman period. I blame it on Gibbon, tbh.

I'd not blame Gibbon; as I recall a full half of Decline And Fall is on the Eastern Empire.

 

[nino_savatte]

I'd not blame Gibbon; as I recall a full half of Decline And Fall is on the Eastern Empire.

I'd read that Gibbon's atheism had led him to be rather scathing of the superstitious Byzantines. I wouldn't dispute their superstitious nature (the veneration of icons and the belief that a portrait of the Virgin Mary would protect Constantinople).