Fine Hax. I'll make sure to send you a notice whenever a group is being blamed for the actions of a few lunatics.
Excellent!

As for myself, your whole knowledge about Islam seems to be the kind of knowledge we've been taught at school cause of PC policies: "Islam was a tolerant and open-minded religion", "Jews were better off living in Al-Andalus than in medieval France". All this is pretty much a big myth that has little historical reality.
The kind of knowledge that is directly opposite to people like Edward Gibbon, perhaps, but while I concur that the kind of history that was taught at school is..lacking in its objectivity, it is not necessarily false. Incorrectly phrased, perhaps, but not necessarily incorrect. We have to realise that saying "Jews in Al-Andalus/Andalucia fared batter than Jews in Medieval France" is assuming that Jews in France had horrible lives, all the time. There are a number of things that we cannot deny, however.

- The standard of living in Al-Andalus under the Ummayads, the Almoravids, the Almohads and the Taïfa states was better than the standard of living in most parts(?) of Medieval France.
- Jews were generally not subject to discrimination from Muslims or Christians in Al-Andalus, apart from a few minor incidents.

The concerns of the European leaders were different from those of Muslim leaders at the time; when Tahir al-Sulami called for Jihad in the early eleventh century, he was largely ignored by his contemporary Muslims. Jews, non-Arabs and non-Muslims could also reach high positions within Islamic societies; we know ibn Musa or Ben Maimun, better known as Maimonides, who became the personal physician of Saladin Ayyubi, who was a Kurd, during the 12th century.

While Medieval Europe is not my strong point, anti-semitic sentiment was largely due to the wealth of the Jews, I believe. In the Islamic world this was much less of a problem, since everyone had to pay taxes; zakat being higher than jizya, generally. And to end with a quote by Ibn al-Arabi, a Muslim poet living in the twelfth century:

"My heart has been adopting manyfold appearances
It is the monastery for Christian monks, or the temple for idols, or the Ka'aba for the circle of Pilgrims
The tablets for the Tora or the pages for the Qur'an
But wherver the caravan may bend its steps
Love is my religion"

That doesn't change the fact that Islam as a whole is an extremely conservative (and nowadays, reactionnary) religion, with a strong totalitarian aim.
Islam as a whole doesn't exist, I hope that is quite clear. Shi'ites are generally known to be less conservative than mainstream Sunnites, and mainstream Sunnites are more liberal than Wahhabists. Sufis are sometimes regarded as heretics by the latter. So what is this Islam as a whole you speak of? It is quite unclear to me where the basic sentiment of all Muslims combined lie.

If we look at most Maghribi countries, Tunisia to Morrocco, we will notice a large liberal movement. The same goes for Iran, as we can see. While it does not go for everyone, I outright refuse to condemn moderate Muslims (which make up a huge part of the Muslim population; the vast majority is not even remotely interested in stabbing everyone who says "well I disagree".

As for this "totalitarian aim", I had a long discussion with my father (being a Muslim and all) about this, and he said that nothing is less true, basically. When a Muslim resides in one country, and another country attacks that one, it is a Muslim's duty to defend the country he lives in. Even if it comes under the attack of other Muslims. He said that the best thing you can do in such a situation, as a Muslim, is to make a decision based on common sense (which is something lacking with the conservative Iranian ayatollahs and the Wahhabi ascetics).

You simply can't support Islam on the first hand, and then support women or gay rights, or the separation of church and state on the other hand.
Interestingly, the first person to ever speak out against discrimination of women was a Muslim. We know him as Averroës, but his Arabic name was Ibn-Rushd. Of course, the position of gays is a whole lot more delicate, and the same goes largely for seperation of church and state, although I do think that most Muslims would just shrug when they hear that their nation is no longer there in God's name; something that most Americans do seem to have more trouble with, however.

While gay rights and the seperation of religion and state should be discussed, as often as possible, it is useless to do things as firing Tariq Ramadan or condemn all Muslims, basically saying they follow a backward and barbarous religion and regard a paedophile mass-murderer as a prophet. Do tell me, how does that solve anything? It's an irresponsible message with no value.


Also, the fact that Islam is somehow interchangeable with anti-western or anti-christian sentiment is pretty weird. It's based on a false assumption.

A: People in the Middle East dislike America
B: People in the Middle East are Muslims

C: Muslims dislike America.

The whole reason why a part of the left keeps supporting islam is because islam is the current main opponent of the "western world" and of its flaws. Just like people supported Stalin because he was the leader of the Workers paradise, you support a deeply violent and untolerant religion, on the basis of "anti imperialism", "anti racism", anti colonialism" and "freedom to the people".
I have no intention of defending abstract objects like "religions". I do have an intention which includes a right to happiness for all people, regardless of their religion.

As for Cute Wolf, one of our forum members whose knowledge of Islam goes no further than the ravings of some mad lunatics who probably can't even discern the exact meaning of the Takbeer, you mentioned it yourself:

try to experience "university" here, the breeding ground of anti-western, anti-jewish, anti-christian, and strict sharia law... as well as (considering he's a buddhist), daily scolding from some fanatics is inevitable everyday...
Some fanatics. Exactly. They do not represent the majority of Muslims.