← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · arya
Thread ID: 10710 | Posts: 5 | Started: 2003-10-24
2003-10-24 15:20 | User Profile
----------DANGEROUS SIGNALS?---------------------------------------------------------------------- Could contact with prisoners be having an effect?
A number of the US troops guarding the 660 suspected al-Qaida and Taliban detainees in Guantanamo Bay have converted to Islam, according to an Algerian mediator.
Hasan Aribi, who chairs his country’s committee on the Guantanamo question, has negotiated the release of 18 detainees from the heavily-guarded detention camp at the eastern tip of Cuba.
He claimed that the freed detainees told him that some of their American guards had converted to Islam as a result of daily interaction with Muslim prisoners for the past two years.
The US military refused to comment when contacted by Aljazeera.net on Tuesday.
Release of prisoner
Aribi made his claims at a seminar in Egypt recently which was covered by Islam Online.
Speaking to the Cairo seminar, he said his negotiations, held in Washington before the Iraq war, resulted in the release of eight Algerians and ten other detainees.
"They told me that the American guards were very sympathetic with them to the extent of buying the detainees’ needs (with) their pocket money," Aribi said.
Aribi appealed to other Arab governments to act immediately for the release of their citizens, held without charges in Guantanamo.
He said 90% of those held had "no relation whatsoever with al-Qaida or Taliban. They were working with humanitarian relief agencies and were only arrested as part of an American campaign against possible suspects."
A New York representative of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said he had also heard reports of US guards converting to Islam in Guantanamo.
Arrests
No comment was immediately available from the camp. US military officials have imposed stricter reporting limits since the arrests of a Muslim army chaplain and two interpreters.
The arrests involved civilian interpreter Ahmad Mihalba, a naturalised US citizen from Egypt, allegedly found with classified documents from Guantanamo and Air Force Airman Ahmad al-Halabi, an interpreter accused of espionage for allegedly sending classified information about the camp to an unspecified "enemy."
Army Capt James Yee, a Muslim chaplain, has been charged with disobeying orders. He is accused of leaving the base with a layout of the prison block.
All three say they are innocent.
2003-10-24 15:37 | User Profile
Islam has a strong and collective believe, something Europeans lack nowadays.
The main weakness of Islam is the (at least of the real extreme side) lack of rationality and effectiveness. Their believe is good to motivate people in fighting or in collective actions, but not for structuring a modern society effectively.
There are states Islamic states which are more progressive, but those are not ruled by people like the Taliban or the Wahhabits of Saudi Arabia.
2003-10-25 12:53 | User Profile
islam is more an political idealogy and less a religion.there is hardly any spirutuality in islam.since it is a political idealogy like communism,it is easy to collect people on one platform.beyond that islam is useless.and that is the main problem.here we have millions of people brain washed by koran and haddes because they think it is a religion.but in reality it is a political idealogy.
2003-10-25 14:12 | User Profile
[QUOTE=arya]islam is more an political idealogy and less a religion.there is hardly any spirutuality in islam.since it is a political idealogy like communism,it is easy to collect people on one platform.beyond that islam is useless.and that is the main problem.here we have millions of people brain washed by koran and haddes because they think it is a religion.but in reality it is a political idealogy.[/QUOTE]
What is the real difference between ideology and religion? A pure ideology has at least the demand to be rational, religion not. Religion is given by prophet or god himself. Religion says something about life after death. That are the two major differences, there are not other between ideology and religion. Religion can be ideology, but ideology doent have to be a religion.
Islam has very much spiritually, the only problem which Islam is that he is too inflexibel, irrational, inhuman and to strict for an effective modern state in its pure form.
But if there would come something up like "progressive Islamism" than this would have great potential. So far I see small developments in this direction mainly in Shia Islam in Iran and Hisbollah.
The difference between Christendom and Islam is that Mohammed gave his believer clear instructions, Christendom is rather a quiz in some parts. You can interpret both, but you can interpret the New testament much more than the Koran.
2003-10-26 07:05 | User Profile
agrippa,thanks for the information.
but i just want to correct u one thing.religion is not necessorily given by prophet or god.for example hinduism the world's third largest religion after chiristianity and islam is purely man made religion,nothing to do with prophet or for that matter god.the significant aspect of hinduism is even if u do not beleive in god u could be a hindu.but it is also considered to be most spirutial religion in the world.there are many ways to attain spirutuality,not neccesarily through prophets.idea of phrophets is essentially a semitic concept found essentially in semitic religions starting from judaism to christianity to islam.even though u have prophets in non-semitic religions,they are not given as importance to prophets as they are given in midddle eastern religions.
i have read koran and hadith,as also bible.even though i am not an expert in these religion,i can tell the features of these religions broadly.
with all due respect i can say that islam lacks spirutuality.since spirutuality is a broad term,many people intepret it differently.so in that sense it can be argued that islam has spirutuality.but going by koran and hadith,i can surely say that islam has no spirutuality.
there is nothing called"prograssive islam".there is only one islam and that is defenitely not prograssive.islam followed in iran and aslo by hizbollah is shia islam as opposed to sunni islam which is practised by majority muslims.
when i asked some schlors the reason they gave is islam is spread in persia,as every where else by force and invasion.so the persions after their defeat choose to retaliate by adopting a form of rebel islam called shia islam.shia meaning "following".
although many shias deny,even voilently that their religion is a rebel against the sunni islam,many sunni schlors i spoke to were equally adament that shia islam is not a true islam as propounded by mohhammed in quran and hadith.
another interesting thing is the more extremist u are, the more islamic u are.the more moderate u are, the more unislamic u become.for example in koran mohammed has explicitly said that women are inferior to men and their job is confined to bearing children for jihad.but many so called modrate muslims says that koran and women rights are compitable,which is nothing but "white lies" the same also can be said of jehad and muslim attitude towards kafirs(non believers).koran explisitely says that kafirs have no right to live in a "dar-ul-islam"(land of islam).but again moderate muslims try try to foool themselves and also others that islam has no enimity towards kafirs.
anoher thing is in koran it is clearly stated that all non muslims like chiristians and jews(and also hindus and budhhists)should pay a tax called"jaziya " which means muslim living in muslim lands should pay money to muslim ruleres as a protection moneyfor their lives.the only alternative to jaziya is death.