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originally posted by: seagull
These actions, if true, are beyond reprehensible.
In what way, however, does it color all Muslims? Muslims such as my neighbor down the hall? Or the kid I work with? Or millions, quite literally, who do nothing like this, but who are, for lack of a better way to describe it, very resolute Muslims?
originally posted by: Boeing777
a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck
Extremists nutcases who believe God revealed these verses specifically to them and use it to murder people love cherry picking verses and taking them out of context as much as you do.
Quran(8:12)
When your Lord revealed to the angels: I am with you, therefore make firm those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them [Quran 8:12]
EXPLANATION
These verses were revealed when the Muslims were in a bitter struggle with the pagans of Mecca who were persecuting them. Here the reference is to Battle of Badr when a Pagan army consisting of about a thousand soldiers was heading toward Madina to destroy the Musims. There was another trade caravan of the pagans, which also had 30 to 40 armed guards, and it was heading towards Mecca. Because the Muslim consisted of only 300 people with only two or three horses and 70 camels, it was suggested that the Muslims should launch an attack on this caravan and thus divert the attention of the pagans. The Muslims decided to confront the pagan army instead. In these passages, God is comforting the Muslims in that battle and encouraged those who were weak of heart that it is time to confront the enemy, otherwise, Muslims would be wiped out during that battle.
Quran(9:29)
قَاتِلُوا الَّذِينَ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ وَلَا بِالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ وَلَا يُحَرِّمُونَ مَا حَرَّمَ اللَّهُ وَرَسُولُهُ وَلَا يَدِينُونَ دِينَ الْحَقِّ مِنَ الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ حَتَّىٰ يُعْطُوا الْجِزْيَةَ عَن يَدٍ وَهُمْ صَاغِرُونَ
Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not acknowledge the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture, until they give the tribute willingly while they are humbled.
Surah At-Tawba 9:29
On the surface, this appears to be an open-ended command to fight non-Muslims until they are conquered. However, a fundamental principle of Quranic exegesis (tafseer) is that the verses must be understood in the context in which they were revealed (asbab an-nuzul) and in conjunction with other verses delineating the rules of warfare.
عَنْ مُجَاهِدٍ قَاتِلُوا الَّذِينَ لا يُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ وَلا بِالْيَوْمِ الآخِرِ… حِينَ أُمِرَ مُحَمَّدٌ وَأَصْحَابُهُ بِغَزْوَةِ تَبُوكَ
Mujahid reported concerning the verse, “Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day…” that it was revealed when Muhammad and his companions were commanded with the expedition of Tabuk.
Source: Tafseer At-Tabari 9:29
The expedition of Tabuk was preceded by the battle of Mu’tah which began when the emissary of the Prophet was assassinated while delivering a letter to a Roman ally.
Ibn Al-Qayyim writes:
وَكَانَ سَبَبُهَا أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ بَعَثَ الحارث بن عمير الأزدي أَحَدَ بَنِي لِهْبٍ بِكِتَابِهِ إِلَى الشَّامِ إِلَى مَلِكِ الرُّومِ أَوْ بُصْرَى فَعَرَضَ لَهُ شرحبيل بن عمرو الغساني فَأَوْثَقَهُ رِبَاطًا ثُمَّ قَدَّمَهُ فَضَرَبَ عُنُقَهُ وَلَمْ يُقْتَلْ لِرَسُولِ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ رَسُولٌ غَيْرُهُ فَاشْتَدَّ ذَلِكَ عَلَيْهِ حِينَ بَلَغَهُ الْخَبَرُ فَبَعَثَ الْبُعُوثَ
The cause of the battle was that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, sent Harith ibn Umair Al-Azdi of the tribe of Lihb with his letter to Syria for the Roman king or Busra. He presented it to Sharhabeel ibn Amr Al-Ghassani and he bound him and struck his neck. Never had an ambassador of the Messenger of Allah been killed besides him. The Prophet was upset by that when news reached him and he dispatched an expedition.
Source: Zaad Al-Ma’ad 336
Safiur Rahman writes:
The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, had sent Al-Harith ibn Umair Al-Azdi on an errand to carry a letter to the ruler of Busra. On his way, he was intercepted by Sharhabeel ibn Amr Al-Ghassani, the governor of Al-Balqa and a close ally to Caesar, the Byzantine Emperor. Al-Harith was tied and beheaded by Al-Ghassani.
Source: The Sealed Nectar p. 245
This was the first act of Roman aggression that further led to the expedition of Tabuk concerning which the verse 9:29 was revealed. The verse describes the aggressors as those “who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day,” because they committed this act of treachery. Executing emissaries from other countries is a war crime that could never be committed by those who sincerely believe in God.
It's easy cherry picking.
originally posted by: MichiganSwampBuck
a reply to: Boeing777
Thanks for the back story, but I find it interesting that you demand proof from the Quran, but offer only some historical context. I can believe what you have stated though, but you have ignored the basic point of the poster concerning paying the Jizya. I did read though that and found no death penalty attached, but apparently it OK to ignore the comment and demand Quranic proof and then turn around and offer proofs outside of said "holy" book.
That is, IMO, just as bad, if not worse than "cherry picking" verses that seem to stand on their own. However, I will consider what you have offered as I don't regard the Quran as holy nor Mohammad a prophet.
originally posted by: Soloprotocol
Video or it didn't happen..?
originally posted by: greencmp
a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist
Rather than be shocked at the common brutality of so-called peaceful muslims, I fully expect a torrent of defenses from outrage at the attention being paid to this by thinking people to the moral equivalence sophistry of historical citations of the propensity for violence in other religions.
Acts 26:20-22, New International Version
I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds.
That is why some Jews seized me in the temple courts and tried to kill me.
But God has helped me to this very day; so I stand here and testify to small and great alike.
originally posted by: enlightenedservant
Didn't they just close this topic?
www.abovetopsecret.com...
Also, blaming an entire group for the actions of a few is a sign of bigotry & ignorance. Individuals are responsible for their own actions.
No one blames all Christians when a self-identified Christian commits a crime in America. No one blames all Jews whenever some Israeli settlers commit "price tag attacks" on Christian churches & buildings. No one blames all Buddhists when Buddhist extremists attack the Rohingya. And no one blames all atheists for communist China's oppression of its religious groups like the Falun Gong. And no one should blame them because the individuals who commit the crimes are the only ones responsible for them. It's such common sense no one even thinks twice about it.
originally posted by: MichiganSwampBuck
a reply to: Boeing777
Thanks for the back story, but I find it interesting that you demand proof from the Quran, but offer only some historical context. I can believe what you have stated though, but you have ignored the basic point of the poster concerning paying the Jizya. I did read though that and found no death penalty attached, but apparently it OK to ignore the comment and demand Quranic proof and then turn around and offer proofs outside of said "holy" book.
we will delve, a little, into the issue of this “tax” that the barbarians of ISIS demanded be paid by Iraqi Christians, called the jizya. The extremist forces of ISIS told Christians that they can either “covert, pay the jizya, or die.” We already explained how this completely violates both the spirit and letter of Islamic teaching. But, this “tax” called the jizya needs some explanation.
Enter Sohaib Sultan, Muslim chaplain at Princeton and personal friend:
ISIS has also given Christians another option if they want to remain in Iraq: to pay jizya. Jizya is a tax that Muslim empires imposed upon non-Muslim constituents in return for military exemption, protection against persecution and considerable religious freedoms. Most Muslim countries today no longer impose jizya on non-Muslims. The change in political order, rise of nation states and assumptions of citizenship today render certain medieval systems incongruent with modern realities and sensibilities. The Quran makes a reference to the jizya system (9:29), but its application is vague and it can very well be argued that such an imposition was only intended to manage troublesome and treacherous religious minorities. This is all to say that ISIS has no basis whatsoever to force Christians in Iraq to pay the jizya let alone the fact that they cannot even be considered a legitimate government by any stretch of the imagination and, therefore, cannot rightfully impose any taxes on anyone.
Sultan referenced verse 9:29, which the extremists use to justify their imposition of this tax, and Islamophobes use to prove Islam’s barbarity. Here is the verse in its entirety:
[And] fight against those who – despite having been vouchsafed revelation [aforetime] – do not [truly] believe either in God or the Last Day, and do not consider forbidden that which God and His Apostle have forbidden, and do not follow the religion of truth [which God has enjoined upon them] till they [agree to] pay the exemption tax with a willing hand, after having been humbled [in war].
Qur’anic commentator Muhammad Asad makes these notes on this verse:
Lit., “such of those who were vouchsafed revelation [aforetime] as do not believe…”, etc. In accordance with the fundamental principle-observed throughout my interpretation of the Qur’an – that all of its statements and ordinances are mutually complementary and cannot, therefore, be correctly understood unless they are considered as parts of one integral whole, this verse, too must be read in the context of the clear-cut Qur’anic rule that war is permitted only in self-defense (see 2:190-194, and the corresponding notes).
In other words, the above injunction to fight is relevant only in the event of aggression committed against the Muslim community or state, or in the presence of an unmistakable threat to its security: a view which has been shared by that great Islamic thinker, Muhammad `Abduh. Commenting on this verse, he declared: “Fighting has been made obligatory in Islam only for the sake of defending the truth and its followers…. All the campaigns of the Prophet were defensive in character; and so were the wars undertaken by the Companions in the earliest period [of Islam]” (Manar X, 332).
This is the key-phrase of the above ordinance. The term “apostle” is obviously used here in its generic sense and applies to all the prophets on whose teachings the beliefs of the Jews and the Christians are supposed to be based – in particular, to Moses and (in the case of the Christians) to Jesus as well (Manar X, 333 and 337).
Since, earlier in this sentence, the people alluded to are accused of so grave a sin as willfully refusing to believe in God and the Last Day (i.e., in life after death and man’s individual responsibility for his doings on earth), it is inconceivable that they should subsequently be blamed for comparatively minor offenses against their religious law: consequently, the stress on their “not forbidding that which God and His apostle have forbidden” must refer to something which is as grave, or almost as grave, as disbelief in God.
In the context of an ordinance enjoining war against them, this “something” can mean only one thing-namely, unprovoked aggression: for it is this that has been forbidden by God through all the apostles who were entrusted with conveying His message to man. Thus, the above verse must be understood as a call to the believers to fight against such – and only such – of the nominal followers of earlier revelation as deny their own professed beliefs by committing aggression against the followers of the Qur’an.
Sc., “and having become incorporated in the Islamic state”. The term jizyah, rendered by me as “exemption tax”, occurs in the Qur’an only once, but its meaning and purpose have been fully explained in many authentic Traditions. It is intimately bound up with the concept of the Islamic state as an ideological organization: and this is a point which must always be borne in mind if the real purport of this tax is to be understood.
In Islamic state, every able-bodied Muslim is obliged to take up arms in jihad (i.e., in a just war in God’s cause) whenever the freedom of his faith or the political safety of his community is imperiled: in other words, every able-bodied Muslim is liable to compulsory military service. Since this is, primarily, a religious obligation, non-Muslim citizens, who do not subscribe to the ideology of Islam, cannot in fairness be expected to assume a similar burden. On the other hand, they must be accorded full protection of all their civic rights and of their religious freedom: and it is in order to compensate the Muslim community for this unequal distribution of civic burdens that a special tax is levied on non-Muslim citizens (ahl adh-dhimmah, lit., “covenanted” [or “protected”] people”, i.e., non-Muslims whose safety is statutorily assured by the Muslim community).
Thus, jizyah is no more and no less than an exemption tax in lieu of military service and in compensation for the “covenant of protection” (dhimmah) accorded to such citizens by the Islamic state. (The term itself is derived from the verb jaza, “he rendered [something] as a satisfaction”, or “as a compensation [in lieu of something else]” – cf. Lane II, 422.) No fixed rate has been set either by the Qur’an or by the Prophet for this tax; but from all available Traditions it is evident that it is to be considerably lower than the tax called zakah (“the purifying dues”) to which Muslims are liable and which – because it is a specifically Islamic religious duty – is naturally not to be levied on non-Muslims.
Only such of the non-Muslim citizens who, if they were Muslims, would be expected to serve in the armed forces of the state are liable to the payment of jizyah, provided that they can afford it. Accordingly, all non-Muslim citizens whose personal status or condition would automatically free them from the obligation to render military service are statutorily – that is, on the basis of clear-cut ordinances promulgated by the Prophet – exempted from the payment of jizyah: (a) all women, (b) males who have not yet reached full maturity, (c) old men, (d) all sick or crippled men, (e) priests and monks.
All non-Muslim citizens who volunteer for military service are obviously exempted from the payment of jizyah. My rendering of the expression `an yad (lit., “out of hand”) as “with a willing hand”, that is, without reluctance, is based on one of several explanations offered by Zamakhshari in his commentary on the above verse. Rashid Rida’, taking the word yad in its metaphorical significance of “power” or “ability”, relates the phrase can yad to the financial ability of the person liable to the payment of jizyah (see Manar X, 342): an interpretation which is undoubtedly justified in view of the accepted definition of this tax.
So, this is what the jizya is all about, and like Sohaib Sultan mentioned, it is largely moot in today’s day and age. Just because ISIS has the word “Islamic” in its name, it doesn’t mean that anything it does is in line with true Islamic teaching. In fact, everything ISIS does is the total antithesis of what Islam is all about.
That is, IMO, just as bad, if not worse than "cherry picking" verses that seem to stand on their own. However, I will consider what you have offered as I don't regard the Quran as holy nor Mohammad a prophet.