Sri Lanka expels 161 foreign Muslim clerics, including Indians

[Bhadra]

SL has majority Sinhla that does not mean you extreminate and wipe out others! But you day after day are exposing your fascist JVP tendencies, thoughts and desire..

Forget it , it is never going to happen that way! Even if it happens that way so what? Are are Sinhalese going to get Nirvana by exterminating others?

You are such an anti Buddhist guy !

 

[Vyom]

I think there is question; no doubt thanks to OBL and the AlQaeda and the whole terrorism issue on how threatening the Muslim community is perceived. Its not widespread or problematic as some claim, but it lingers in the back of the mind. I can't really complain against it and I completely understand and empathize with this. But I think it would be not fair if I try to explore and debate this viewpoint. For example, we saw how the Maoists death are ten times those of terrorists violence in the last five years, but many others were surprised when I said that we suffer more Maoists afflicted deaths than from terrorism.

Maoists deaths are more because they have a stronghold in certain areas of India and they can strike at will and at much insecure targets. And Maoists have a very different agenda than the terrorists from across the border, all because of the different ideology driving them. That is of more concern than the amount of deaths or attacks.

If we look at statistics on terrorism in the US and Europe it is also revealing.
For example, a CNN report on FBI statistics for all terror attacks in the US since 1980 - 2005 indicated that only 6% are Islamic extremists
Study: Threat of Muslim-American terrorism in U.S. exaggerated - CNN.com
FBI — Terrorism 2002/2005

Ironically, according to FBI stats, there are more terror attacks by Jewish extremists(7%) than Islamic extremists but that is another story.

Similarly in Europe, less than 1% acts of terrorism int he period 2006-2011 were committed by Islamist extremists. You can check out the reports for each here on the Europol website here.
https://www.europol.europa.eu/latest_publications/2

Skewed statistics presenting the incomplete picture. Why leave the rest of the world out? USA and Europe have already fortified themselves keeping particularly "Islamic terror" in mind. Again the problem is not the relative number of attacks but the intention to use religion as a tool of political control.

This instead is a major cause of concern: Where Terrorism Finds Support in the Muslim World - Pew Research Center

Another example, the United States has been at war for almost its entire history except 21 years. That is, out of its 214 years of existence since 1776 till today, the US, a deeply Christian and openly religious nation, has been at war for 91% of its life. A timeline of major wars in US history will bear this out. But clearly people don't see Christianity as a violent faith despite this.

Christianity was, but is no longer in the same league as Islam is now. Particularly because of its discomfort to adjust with other religions. Please don't compare statistics, just count the number of news articles that favor the assertion.

I think its a perception baggage that keeps building over time, particularly post 9/11 that has added. The caricatures of Muslim, particularly in European and Republican debates is very similar to how the Nazis use to talk about Jews.

People in general do not build a solid impression of a matter over just a few incidents and without any major cause looming behind it. The major cause being the extremists in Islam trying to deride everyone else who do not belong to their faith. The problem is also accentuated by the fact that moderate Muslims voice could hardly be heard.

The "Muslims have a problem with everyone" does not hold true when you look at hard statistics rather than go with news reports and perceptions. For example, the statistics from the FBI and Europol show what the threat of terrorism from Muslim extremists really is.

Muslims in USA are far more moderate than in Europe, which is a fact. The way the law is upheld and the environment of life plays a major part in people behave. In USA Muslims are doing well and well educated and hence they do not go by all the wrong inferences of the mullahs of their faith, they strive to think on their own.

At the same time, you have the vast majority of the Indian Muslim community including the religious Muslim community that openly came out and declared that Kashmir is a part of India, that there is no Jihad applicable here and that Muslim soldiers can loyally fight to defend their country against aggression as part of their faith. I think this is more crucial test of loyalty than say the amorphous "cricket test".

In India, Muslims in general are moderate, probably a thing about their forefathers not willing to join Pakistan in the first place, which perhaps engraved in them the thought that religion cannot be the criteria for division of land. But that does not means that India does not has its share of bad apples. India has seen a number of cases of Islamic extremism to well be wary of it.

The fact is that Muslim majority countries will continue to face the most violence from Muslim extremists, not non-Muslim countries. Countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan face the largest share of such attacks from Muslim extremists. Al Qaeda has killed man more Muslims than non-Muslims as well. It is imperative that Muslims tackle extremism which they are doing. The only thing is that they do it WITHIN the Muslim community because that is where the problem is. IF people follow the Arabic or Urdu press and the work done in tackling extremism and extremist ideology, people will know how much effort is being done on this. Of course there are some black spots like Pakistan where they have still not tackled the ideology seriously. So it is much much more important for Muslims themselves to extricate the cancer of terrorism as well as its ideology for their own sake.

The Muslim majority nations are facing major terrorist issues because there is no moderating factor there, vis-a-vis, people of other faiths. I totally agree that Christianity has led to far more deaths than all terror that has originated from extremism in Islam, but that is not the case anymore. Christians now totally abide by the law of the land and there is nothing like Muslim brotherhood that makes them even think for a while that they have to choose between their nation or religion. Islamic extremism cannot escape the blame, but they also have every opportunity to show that they are tolerant, peace loving and law abiding people, who do not differentiate people on the basis of religion.

 

[ejazr]

Could you give where it is written so in the Quaran?

It is not the interpretation I have heard from what is popularly called in Muslim circles as 'scholars'.

Since it does not refer to the modern nation state, the issue of a nation beyond Islamic ummah, does not arise. It must be remembered that it is stated that whatever was to be known has been stated in the Koran. That is why Islam is not amenable to changing to the modern societal realities. In fact Ijtihad was done away with in the 10th Century because it was felt none had the scholarship to interpret what was already stated in the Quran and the Hadith.

Well this is going into Islamic theology now so forgive me if this is too detailed. I will just bring up a few points on this

The idea of loyalty to the nation comes under the "sanctity of a promise/covenant" concept. In other words, under shariah or Islamic law a muslim is required to uphold his promise or covenant i.e. follow the law of the land. Once you become a citizen of a country your basically sign a contract with the constitution of that country. If you can't follow this "contract", you are suppose to leave the country.

So you have to obey the laws of the land they live in, even if it be one ruled by nonbelievers. Muslim jurists consider citizenship (or visa) to be a covenant (aqd) held between the citizen (or visa holder) and the state, one which guarantees safe passage/security (amaan) in exchange for certain obligations (such as obeying the laws of the land); covenants are considered sacredly binding in Islam.

And fulfill every covenant. Verily, you will be held accountable with regard to the covenants. (Quran, 17:34)

The Quran condemns those who break covenants as not being true believers:

It is not the case that every time they make a covenant, some party among them throws it aside. Nay! The truth is most of them believe not. (Quran, 2:100)

Prophet Muhammad described the religious hypocrite as follows:

When he enters into a covenant, he proves treacherous. (Sahih al-Bukhari)

Citizenship (and visa) is called in Islamic legal parlance as a "covenant of security" (aqd al-aman). For over a thousand years, Muslim scholars have rigorously affirmed the binding nature of the covenant of security.

This has been affirmed by many Islamic scholars, I don't want to bore people with quotes from these scholars, but I would like point out a Deoband press report on this matter as this is considered the most "conservative" school of thought.

"There is no question to call it Dar ul Harb. It is Dar ul Amn. So long as Indian Muslims enjoy protection according to Indian Constitution, they are bound to serve their motherland. We are patriotic Muslims and shall ever remain so according to the Indian Constitution...According to Indian Muslims, India is their motherland. They have been prepared and are still being prepared to serve their country in all possible constructive manners."
Constitution MuslimsÂ’ article of faith: Deoband chief - Indian Express

Not only that, they have also along with all kinds of other Islamic schools of thoughts including the much reviled Salafis/Ahle Hadith have declared that Kashmir is an integral part of India and as freedom of religion is enshrined in our constitution there can be no Jihad applicable here. This included all major clerics of all schools of thoughts.

Ijtihad has been taking place at different times and places. As recently as the 17th century, the grand Mufti of the Ottoman empire abolished things like Apostasy laws differentiating between leaving a religion and treason whose punishment is death. It also established common single citizenship and single tax code to do away with Zakat and Jizya and so on.

In the subcontinent, again I give the example of Deoband which theologically established the idea of composite nationalism and its basis in Islam. There is a complete book he wrote which justifies this under Islamic principles.
Composite Nationalism and Islam (Muttahida Qaumiyat Aur Islam)

One has to also understand what encompasses Dar ul Harb and Dar ul Islam. And why is there this difference. Within these two lies the verities of Islamic thought.

Such a thought process is not there in Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism or any other religion.

Again, let me clarify this common misconception here. First of all the concept of Dar ul Harb and Dar ul Islam is not from the Quran or the sayings of the prophet. This concept was propounded around the 13th century when the concept of freedom of religion was not there. In present day and age, it is almost unanimous that Dar ul Harb does not exist as almost all countries provide freedom of religion. And most prominently, you forgot the third major category that was proposed and that is Dar ul Aman or countries that are not Muslim majority but have a peace treaty with them. In other words, almost all countries with non-Muslim govt.s will come under Dar ul Aman.

Again, if you look at the even conservative groups like Deoband in India, they have declared India and all countries that provide freedom of religion as Dar ul Aman.

No religion can claim that they have only good and honest people and so no one is stating that the Muslims are claiming so; at least not the educated ones. Though you do hear of eulogies given to even scoundrel that he is not a scoundrel because he is a pious Muslim, who prays five times a day!

Wife of Seattle jihad mass-murder plotter: "He just good Muslim. Perfect Muslim. He pray five times a day."
Wife of Seattle jihad mass-murder plotter: "He just good Muslim. Perfect Muslim. He pray five times a day." - Jihad Watch

This is what upsets others. What has undertaking prayers absolves a criminal and makes him good!

No other religion uses reciting prayers as an defence that absolves all crimes!

You find this phrase everywhere. Try PDF also.

Ofcourse, there are good and bad people in every religion. I anyone has followed me on PDF when I was active there, they will know how I had wrote against the ideology of militant political Islamic ideology and how this gives way to terrorism. I debated this where most of the forum members where muslims and many with political Islamic leanings and I showed how this ideology goes AGAINST traditional Islam with proofs from Quran and Sunnah.

And this is an ongoing debate within the Muslim world. We can have another thread which discusses how much work and effort has been put by Muslim scholars both in Arab world and at least within India on tackling terrorism and terrorist ideology. Even former Al Qaeda members have come out and written against their idea and debuked their concept of Jihad. In India itself, there was a four year campaign primarily within Muslim community led by Jamiat Ulema Hind in at least 30 different cities where between half a million to 1 million people gathered in anti-terrorism conferences.

These things might not make it to the Mainstream media, but these have happened. And more of this particularly in Pakistan should happen. Saudi Arabia in particular has done an amazing job in tackling militant Jihadi ideology within the Kingdom both through clerical outreach as well as targeting online websites and terrorist cells post 9/11.


And finally, I don't know if you know that the administrator of Jihad Watch Robert Spencer and his partners have called for nuclear holocaust of Muslims. Getting information about Muslims from such websites is like going to a WWII nazi propagandist and expect authentic information about Jews. And I am not exaggerating at all here. He really supports a Muslim holocaust. I suggest you check out this site that documents a lot of his false information and maybe this might be the root cause of your apprehensions about Muslim loyalty. You can't get accurate information about Muslims from such a site.

Please do check: Robert Spencer Watch


On the incident reported itself, the response must be from the horrified wife who can't believe that her husband would not realise despite praying that how wrong it was in Islam to kill innocent people. She is his wife, so I can understand her disbelief.

In another report about the conviction, I found this

Durkan went on to thank law officers involved in the investigation and Muslim leaders who worked with them.

Defense attorney Michele Shaw told the Associated Press Mujahidh has a long history of "chronic, relentless" mental illness, including 12 stays at psychiatric hospitals. He has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder with bipolar tendencies.

"Walli is very ashamed of his behavior and has wanted to accept responsibility for his participation," Shaw said. "He had a fundamental misunderstanding of Islam."
Would-be Seattle terrorist avoids life sentence with guilty plea - seattlepi.com

So the local Muslim leaders helped the authorities in cracking the case. That the two arrested were new converts with a history of mental issue. And that atleast one of them admits that it was a flawed understanding of Islam i.e. his actions were unIslamic.

What the wife said was in no way absolving the crimes by saying that her husband prays. Its like how some Hindu religious leaders were insisting that no Hindu can be a terrorist when Aseemanand and Sadhvi Pragya were arrested. In other words, no "true Hindu" would commit such acts, not that being Hindu absolves them from such crimes.


Finally, along with the recommendation of avoiding sites like "Jihad watch" which are really hate-sites for gathering information about Muslims, I may add that apart from the theological basis discussed above, survey polls after survey polls in different countries of the world have shown that the extra-territorial loyalty of Muslims is a myth.

Here is a summary of polls conducted in US, UK, France, Germany and India and a discussion about them
Myths about Muslim loyalty and terrorism end must end - The National

And I am sure the same would apply if a survey was conducted in Sri Lanka as well.
Its sad that people expect the result to be different and like I indicated earlier, its in many cases the suspicion on Jews about extra-territorial loyalty put on them in midieval Europe and Germany even though many Jewish military officers gave up their lives fighting for Germany. Just like many British, American, and Indian Muslim soldiers have given up their lives defending their respective countries.

 

[Ray]

One could be a faqih, a mufti, a qadi yet not be a mujtahid who derives new rulings.

A mujtahid mutlaq or "absolute mujtahid" is one that attained the rank of the Four Imams Abu Hanifa, Malik, al-Shafi`i, and Ahmad in knowledge of Arabic, qualification to apply legal reasoning, draw analogies, and infer rulings from the evidence independently of the methodology and findings of the Sunni Schools, through his own linguistic and juridical perspicuity and extensive knowledge of the texts.

There is no mujtahid mutlaq today nor even a claimant to that title.

The qualifications for a mujtahid were set out in the 11th century by by Abul Husayn al-Basri in "al Mu'tamad fi Usul al-Fiqh". These were accepted by later Sunni scholars, including al-Ghazali, although al-Ghazali believed that innovation had ended, as there was nobody qualified to be a Mujtahid. Such qualifications require proficiency in Shari'ah and its interpretation.

 

[Ray]

Another description can be found in Shaykh `Ali Hasabullah's _Usul al-Tashri` al-Islami_ (5th ed. 1976) p. 94-95:

The Mujtahid is he who possesses, together with complete soundness of mind and of Religion, three necessary traits:

1. Knowledge of the Arabic language and the ways in which its signifies meanings. This knowledge does not come except to one who has frequented its various disciplines and read much of the works of its masters of eloquence until he knows how to differentiate between the specific and the general, the literal and the figurative, the explicit and the ambiguous, and other aspects upon knowing which depends his ability to infer rulings.
He does not have to reach the mastery of language of a Khalil or a Sibawayh or al-Asma`i and others of the Imams of Arabic. It suffices that he attains the rank necessary to understand texts in the right way.

2. Knowledge of Qur'an and Sunna and whatever is in them of rulings, those that were abrogated and those that were not, together with the linking up of the universal with its particulars, the absolute with its restricted sense, and the general with the specific. He does not, in this, have to have memorized all that is related.
It suffices that he has to be able to gather up all that is connected with the topic he is investigating and to know what the experts of hadith have said concerning sound or weak gradings as well as what they said concerning the narrators with regard to discreditation and commendation.

3. Knowledge of the objectives of the Law and of the living contexts of people as well as the customs they share and whatever harms or benefits them, and the ability to know the minute defects of legal rulings and to compare and contrast their similarities so as to better understand facts and infer the rulings that most precisely correspond to the objectives of the Lawgiver and implement the welfare of those under consideration.

 

[Mad Indian]

Ha, atlast . Atleast now it will be easy to understand how life was for tamils in Sri Lanka. But i really cant understand one thing though, buddhism is among the most peaceful religions in the world(buddha said, all lives from ant to goat deserve love). How can they practice buddhism and be like this. Have they developed a twisted version of buddhism in which it is justified to kill , rape, torture others?
Off topic or not, do you know that no sri lankan army personnel can get visa into Canada, for the humongous human rights violation by that country.

 

[HeinzGud]

Ha, atlast . Atleast now it will be easy to understand how life was for tamils in Sri Lanka. But i really cant understand one thing though, buddhism is among the most peaceful religions in the world(buddha said, all lives from ant to goat deserve love). How can they practice buddhism and be like this. Have they developed a twisted version of buddhism in which it is justified to kill , rape, torture others?
Off topic or not, do you know that no sri lankan army personnel can get visa into Canada, for the humongous human rights violation by that country.

Tamils and Sinhalese lived happily for more than 2500 years until Brits came here.....

We don't care about Canada or US or EU anymore the situation there is hopeless to counter...... we only hope one day that they come to their senses.....

 

[Mad Indian]

Tamils and Sinhalese lived happily for more than 2500 years until Brits came here.....

We don't care about Canada or US or EU anymore the situation there is hopeless to counter...... we only hope one day that they come to their senses.....

add these to your sentences respectively,
1. But after brits came, Sinhalese happily started Killin and raping Tamils(you can deny all you want , we know the truth).

2. Of course you wont care what the west thinks, else you people would have stopped the killing and Raping of Tamils.

3. So is the situation for the Tamils there now that our congressi Bitc* Sonia took revenge for her Hubby's death by destroying the only hope Tamils there ever had.