BS: Is it correct?

Subject: Is it correct?
From: GUEST,Suzan
Date: 25 Dec 02 - 08:34 AM

The caravan is running and dogs are yapping

A NATION CHALLENGED: AMERICAN MUSLIMS; Islam Attracts Converts By the Thousand, Drawn Before and After Attacks
By JODI WILGOREN
Source: The New York Times : October 22, 2001, Monday
Section: National Desk
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/22/national/22CONV.html

or :
http://www.alhewar.com/nyt_islam_attracts.htm

"Islam is the fastest-growing religion in America, a guide and pillar of stability for many of our people..." Hillary Rodman Clinton, Los Angeles Times, May 31, 1996, p.3 

"Already more than a billion-people strong, Islam is the world's fastest-growing religion." ABCNEWS, Abcnews.com 

"Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the country." NEWSDAY, March7,1989, p.4 

"Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the United States..." NEW YORK TIMES, Feb 21, 1989, p.1 

"Moslems are the world's fastest-growing group..." USA TODAY, The population referance bureau, Feb. 17, 1989, p.4A 

"Muhummed is the most successful of all Prophets and religious personalities." Encyclopedia Britannica 

"There are more Muslims in North America then Jews Now." Dan Rathers, CBSNEWS 

"Islam is the fastest growing religion in North America." TIMES MAGAZINE 

"Islam continues to grow in America, and no one can doubt that!" CNN, December 15, 1995 

"The religion of Islam is growing faster than any other religion in the world."  MIKE WALLACE, 60 MINUTES 

"Five to 6 million strong, Muslims in America already outnumber Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Mormons, and they are more numerous than Quakers, Unitarians, Seventh-day Adventists, Mennonites, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Christian Scientists, combined. Many demographers say Islam has overtaken Judaism as the country's second-most commonly practiced religion; others say it is in the passing lane." JOHAN BLANK, USNEWS (7/20/98) 
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/980720/20isla.htm
"In fact, religion experts say Islam is the second-largest religion in the United States... Islam has 5 million to 6 million members, followed by Judaism, with approximately 4.5 million..... And Islam is believed to be fastest-growing religion in the country, with expansion coming from conversions." By ELSA C. ARNETT, Knight-Ridder News Service 

"It has been a great pleasure for me to help clarify statements in the Qur'aan about human development. It is clear to me that these statements must have come to Muhammad from Allah, because almost all of this knowledge was not discovered until many centuries later. This proves to me that Muhammad must have been a messenger of Allah."
Professor Keith Moore, one of the world's prominent scientists of anatomy and embryology. University of Toronto, Canada. 

"But Islam has a still further service to render to the cause of humanity. It stands after all nearer to the real East than Europe does, and it possesses a magnificent tradition of inter-racial understanding and cooperation. No other society has such a record of success uniting in an equality of status, of opportunity, and of endeavours so many and so various races of mankind . . Islam has still the power to reconcile apparently irreconcilable elements of race and tradition. If ever the opposition of the great societies of East and West is to be replaced by cooperation, the mediation of Islam is an indispensable condition. In its hands lies very largely the solution of the problem with which Europe is faced in its relation with East. If they unite, the hope of a peaceful issue is immeasurably enhanced. But if Europe, by rejecting the cooperation of Islam, throws it into the arms of its rivals, the issue can only be disastrous for both." H.A.R. Gibb, WHITHER ISLAM, London, 1932, p. 379.   

"It (Islam) replaced monkishness by manliness. It gives hope to the slave, brotherhood to mankind, and recognition of the fundamental facts of human nature." 
Canon Taylor, Paper read before the Church Congress at Walverhamton, Oct. 7, 1887; 
Quoted by Arnoud in THE PREACHING OF ISLAM, pp. 71-72.   

"The founder of twenty terrestrial empires and of one spiritual empire, that is Muhammed. As regards all standards by which human greatness may be measured, we may well ask, is there any man greater than he? " 
Lamartine, Historie de la Turquie, Paris 1854, Vol. 11 pp. 276-2727    
"How, for instance, can any other appeal stand against that of the Moslem who, in approaching the pagan, says to him, however obscure or degraded he may be 'Embrace the faith, and you are at once equal and a brother.' Islam knows no color line." (S. S. Leeder, VEILED MYSTERIES OF EGYPT)  
"My choice of Muhammad to lead the list of the world's most influential persons may surprise some readers and may 
be questioned by others, but he was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and 
secular level." Michael H. Hart, THE 100: A RANKING OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSONS IN HISTORY, 
New York: Hart Publishing Company, Inc., 1978, p. 33.   

"Everything made so much sense. This is the beauty of the Qur'an; it asks you to reflect and reason....When I read the Qur'an further, it talked about prayer, kindness and charity. I was not a Muslim yet, but I felt the only answer for me was the Qur'an and God had sent it to me."  Cat Stevens (YusufIslam), former British pop star. 

"History makes it clear however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point of the sword upon conquered races is one of the most fantastically absurd myths that historians have ever repeated."  De Lacy O'Leary, ISLAM AT THE CROSSROADS, London, 1923, p. 8. 

"I have always held the religion of Muhammad in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion which appears to me to possess that assimilating capacity to the changing phase of existence which can make itself appeal to every age. I have studied him - the wonderful man and in my opinion for from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the Saviour of Humanity. I believe that if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness: I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today."   George Bernard Shaw, THE GENUINE ISLAM, Vol. 1, No. 81936.   

"I am not a Muslim in the usual sense, though I hope I am a "Muslim" as "one surrendered to God," but I believe that embedded in the Quran and other expressions of the Islamic vision are vast stores of divine truth from which I and other occidentals have still much to learn, and 'Islam is certainly a strong contender for the supplying of the basic framework of the one religion of the future.'"    W. Montgomery Watt, ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY TODAY, London, 1983, p. ix.  


"He was Caesar and Pope in one; but he was Pope without Pope's pretensions, Caesar without the legions of Caesar: without a standing army, without a bodyguard, without a palace, without a fixed revenue; if ever any man had the right to say that he ruled by the right divine, it was Mohammed, for he had all the power without its instruments and without its supports."    Bosworth Smith, MOHAMMAD AND MOHAMMADANISM, London, 1874, p. 92. 

"The doctrine of brotherhood of Islam extends to all human beings, no matter what color, race or creed. Islam is the only religion which has been able to realize this doctrine in ractice. Muslims wherever on the world they are will recognize each other as brothers."   Mr. R. L. Mellema, Holland, Anthropologist, Writer and Scholar. 

Note: Mudcat policy prohibits the posting of lengthy non-music cut-and-paste articles. Mudcatters are supposed to post a link, plus a summary of the articles in their own words. I could not find an easily-available copy of this article online, so I left it here.
There ARE many similar articles that are available (click), and it would have been better to post a link to one of them, plus a summary. Please try to go along with this policy. Otherwise, we may have to start deliting entire threads if they're in violation.
Thanks.
-Joe Offer-

 

Subject: RE: Is it correct?
From: kendall
Date: 25 Dec 02 - 11:24 AM

Hope for the slave? Tell it to the women.

Subject: RE: Is it correct?
From: pavane
Date: 25 Dec 02 - 03:19 PM

While working in Saudi Arabia many years ago, I came across the following subversive quote:

A system which attributes success to the wisdom of its rulers, and blames failure on the will of Allah IS trying to fool all the people all the time.

Subject: RE: Is it correct?
From: annamill
Date: 26 Dec 02 - 11:46 AM

Dear Guest, Susan,

I'm afraid that I don't have the time to verify any of your quotes, and I tend to doubt the validity somehow. Islam may be a save-all for some people (not women) in the USA, but, I don't know, I kinda doubt it is the 2nd largest.

Annamill

Subject: RE: BS: Is it correct?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 26 Dec 02 - 10:31 PM

USA- 280,000,000 people in 2000 census, approx. 2% Jewish = roughly 5,600,000. Moslem est. numbers in North America in 2000, 5,000,000 (includes Canada, Mexico); numbers growing because of conditions in Africa and the Middle East. Protestant- 61%; Roman Catholic 25%. (There are 5,200,000 Church of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon)).
Th latest Britannica estimates ("very rough approximations") that, for the World, 1.9 billion profess Christianity and 1.1 billion profess Islam. There are:
Hindus- 781 million
Buddhists- 324 million
Sikhs- 19 million
Judaism- 14 million
Baha'ism- 6.1 million
Confucianism- 5.3 million
Jainism- 4.9 million
Shintoism - 2.8 million
Chinese and African traditional religions excluded from estimates. Note: The Chinese are largely excluded, since the country is officially atheist. Most have some kind of traditional religion.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it correct?
From: Haruo
Date: 27 Dec 02 - 02:39 AM

Is what correct? Islam? Your quotations (each? all?)? Didn't get it.

Haruo
who doesn't think Islam is necessarily anti-feminist

Subject: RE: BS: Is it correct?
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Dec 02 - 07:49 AM

"...who doesn't think Islam is necessarily anti-feminist"

I don't think it is anymore "anti-feminist" than is Christianity, or Judaism, or Buddhism, or Hinduism.

None of the world's major religions has an egalatarian theology, much less a pro-feminist one. Of the five major world religions, how many ordain women? Of those who now do allow women to be ordained, in how many places in the world is it allowed, and how many women clerics are there?   It isn't the religion per se that allows nation states to mistreat women and children and violate their human rights, it is the hierarchy of power, including political power, that allows it.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it correct?
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Dec 02 - 08:45 AM

Hey, I am not surprised by the ascent of Islam since many Christain churches have been taken over by heathens who preace intolerance. Doesn't do much for *teaching* the story of Jesus Christ.

I look around me and see the folks that the rest of the world are hearing. These are the George Bush's and Johmn Ashcroft's, the Jerry Falwell's, the Trent Lott's, the Dick Army's. These folks one one hand say to the world, "We are Christains." Then they go about engaging in behaviors that would make Jesus get down on his kness and puke. Intolerance. Hatred, Killing, Lieing. Stealing. Blasphomy!

Yeah, you don't see Christains praying in public. You don't see Christains making sacrife. But we Islamic people taking time out during a battle in Afganistan to pray.

Now, for once I don't know how real Follower's of Christ can win back the churches, win back the heathens who use *Christianity* as political tool but if it doesn't happen, then at least the Christain churches will loose more and more people to the Islam temples.

I myself try every day to hear God, to know Jesus and to let others know that He is just waiting for them to join in and begin to accpet His love and His blessings but, like I said, there aren't enough folks like us to counter the PR driven maniacs who get all the press.

We just need to take back the churches that have been corrupted and the souls of those wolves in sheep clothing. One at a time...

Praise be to Jesus!

Bobert

Y

Subject: RE: BS: Is it correct?
From: *daylia*
Date: 27 Dec 02 - 08:52 AM

Amen, Bob! And praise 'Allah' too ...

I'm just sorry that Cat Stevens put himself out of the music business by following Islam. I don't understand why any religion would try to kill off musical expression!

That, plus the way Islamic women are treated, are the reasons I've never had an interest in studying Islam.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Is it correct?
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 27 Dec 02 - 09:43 AM

As I've heard it, inequality and the mistreatment of women is in direct contradiction of Muslium teachings and the origins of the religion, when women were powerful forces in the church. Don't know much else about it.
   Cat Stevens, or Mr. Islam, or whatever, can keep his tunes, after his comments about Salmon Rushdie. Wild World always seemed to me to have a ridiculous tone of condescending menace, like the song of a jilted stalker. Figures.

Subject: ADDPOP: The Boy With The Moon And Star On His Head
From: *daylia*
Date: 27 Dec 02 - 11:45 AM

THE BOY WITH THE MOON AND STAR ON HIS HEAD

"A gardener's daughter stopped me on my way, on the day I was to wed.
It is you who I wish to share my body with, she said.
We'll find a dry place under the sky with a flower for a bed.
And for my joy I will give you a boy with a moon and star on his head.

Her silver hair flowed in the air, laying waves across the sun.
Her hands were like the white sands, and her eyes had diamonds on.
We left the road and headed up to the top of the whisper wood.
And we walked till we came to where the holy magnolia stood.

And there we laid, cool in the shade, singing songs and making love.
With the naked earth beneath us, and the universe above...

The time was late, my wedding wouldn't wait.
I was sad but I had to go.
So while she was asleep I kissed her cheek for cheerio.

The wedding took place and people came from many miles around.
There was plenty merriment, cider and wine abound.
But out of all that I recall I remember the girl I met,
'Cause she had given me something that my heart could not forget.

A year had passed and everything was just as it was the year before.
Until the gift that someone left, a basket by my door.
And in there lay the fairest little baby crying to be fed.
I got down on my knees and kissed the moon and star on his head.

As years went by, the boy grew high and the village looked on in awe.
They'd never seen anything like the boy with the moon and star before.
And people would ride from far and wide
just to hear the word he spread.
I'll tell you everything I've learned - and LOVE IS ALL - he said."

                      - Cat Stevens -

Just had to stick up for my long-lost friend Cat. What a poet! Looks like he found that moon and star on his head too!

Always wondered how his new wife felt about it all though. Guess that doesn't matter much to "Mr. Islam!"

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Is it correct?
From: NicoleC
Date: 27 Dec 02 - 04:16 PM

Islam, as it is written down by Mohammed, was *radically* feminist for the times, and still is compared to the Christian Bible or Jewish religious writings. Many American women ARE converting to Islam for many of those pro-female points of view, and Islam as practiced in the US is pretty liberal.

Yet, as a general rule, Jewish and Christian women have more rights and priviledges than women in predominantly Muslim countries, which they achieved through social changes and law, not religion. It's not true overall though -- in Iraq, where there is a secular government, women have equal priviledges under the law, and prior to 1991 were getting the same educations and getting paid the same wages as men.

It's pretty much only in places where there are fundamentalist governments that women are oppressed. Most Christian fundamentalists aren't exactly kind to women either, and their views can be fully justified by the Bible -- although IMO Jesus' attitude toward women was pretty feminist, too. And bride-burnings and honor killings are still common in India, despite it being technically illegal.

A profound argument for keeping religion in the home and out of government.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it correct?
From: kendall
Date: 27 Dec 02 - 04:27 PM

Is there aNY other religeon that engages in female circumcision and stoning? I'll bet that woman in Nigeria who is to be stoned to death for having a child out of wedlock doesn't think Islam is very liberal.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it correct?
From: wildlone
Date: 27 Dec 02 - 05:16 PM

I have a great friend who is a muslim and follows the teachings of the Prophet closly. he owns his own business and the only person ever to rip him off was a religious teacher of Islam.
I own a copy of the Holy Koran and I have never found any thing therin that suports religious intolerance, in fact it is the opposite.
Whilst Mohammed was alive and preaching the word of the Lord as passed down to him a then Pope heard about it and sent a priest to find out what this man was saying.
The priest met Mohammed and they talked when the priest wanted to pray he asked Mohammed if he could have a private room for his devotions, Mohammed replied "my mosque is there for prayer-We both are praying to the same god in our own way".
It is also a fact that the Virgin Mary appears more times in the Koran than in the Bible.
It is an unfortunate fact that religion is twisted by men for their own ends whatever their creed.
dave

Subject: RE: BS: Is it correct?
From: NicoleC
Date: 27 Dec 02 - 07:17 PM

Yes, Kendall. Female circumcision is practiced in different ways by literally hundreds of cultures worldwide, including in the US. It is practised extensively in Africa, Egypt, Oman, Yemen, UAE, and is also practised in Asia, the Pacific Islands, Latin America, Australia, North America and Europe.

There is NO mandate for circumcision for females in Islam. It is a pre-Islamic practice which is not specifically prohibitted by the Q'aran. On the other hand, the Q'aran DOES protect a woman's right to sexual enjoyment, so more extreme forms are specifically prohibited. (Which doesn't stop a few sects form doing it anyway.)

In the same parts of the world, Christians also perform female circumcisions for the same lingering cultural reasons. It has also been practised by some sects of Judaism.

I did a documentary with a lady on circumcision several years ago -- she was a refugee in the US. She brought in horrifying footage, most of which didn't make it in to the movie because of it's graphic nature. Some of the interviews with women who had undergone the process were with white, Christian American women who had been circumcised as young girls by their doctor's to prevent them from playing with themselves and as a preventative against "hysteria."

As for stoning, several fundamentalist ministers (sometimes called reconstructionists) have recently been trying to revive the practice in the US, along with public burnings and floggings, beheading with the sword

Subject: RE: BS: Is it correct?
From: NicoleC
Date: 27 Dec 02 - 07:26 PM

Yikes, hit the submit key too soon!

Anyway, obviously there are factions in the US who would advocate the same punishment for infidelity, worshipping "false gods," homosexuality, juvenile delinquents and many other penalties.

Worse yet, the largest one has been received at the White House and members of Congress have accepted invitations to speak to them.

"Let he who is without sin..."

Scary stuff:
National Reform Association

Any coincidence they are also called the NRA?

Subject: RE: BS: Is it correct?
From: *daylia*
Date: 27 Dec 02 - 11:39 PM

Nicole, wildlone - thank you both very much. It's good to have one's perspective widened - much food for thought here.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Is it correct?
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 28 Dec 02 - 08:07 AM

If you wanna leave take good care.
I hope you have a lot of nice things to wear.
Just remember there's a lot of bad and beware.
And remember always wear clean underwear.
In case you get hit by a bus or something out there.
It's hard to get by just upon a smile (you grinning moon-faced simpleton)

And if a piece of toast gets stuck in the toaster
don't try to get it out with a fork
Your going to put out your eye, if you don't watch where you point that cork
quit leaving the wood-handled knives to soak in the sink!
You gotta quit playing that radio on the edge of tub. Dammit, think!

I'm being followed by a big Muslim, big Muslim, big Muslim.

                   Forgive me, I have to tease.

Subject: RE: BS: Is it correct?
From: *daylia*
Date: 28 Dec 02 - 08:46 AM

And if I ever lose my humour
I'll end up with a big brain tumour...

Thanks, Fred! I needed that!

:-)   daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Is it correct?
From: Amos
Date: 28 Dec 02 - 12:19 PM

Nicole:

Interesting link, and yes, a bit unsettling. Here's a cutey:

Man in his native state is totally depraved. This is the first point of Calvinism; it is also a statement of history. And it is the starting point of any discussion of reform.

Total depravity as a theological concept means that, whatever it is God wants, man will rebel against that thing, or else do what is required for the wrong reason.

Of course the hidden hook in this bait is that one must turn to those who are blessed with the power to interpret what God wants. As though he had intentions on a stubby little human scale, and was actually just a slightly pissed old white male.

This anthropomorphism is a shallow and obvious power-grab and is so depraved itself as to be stomach-turning in contemplation of its ramifications.

A