Horrible Events In Turkey And Germany
[guest post by Dana]
A gunman assassinated Russia’s ambassador to Turkey during a gallery opening in the capital, an act that Russian officials called an act of terror and that appeared to be aimed as retribution for the Kremlin’s role in bloodshed in neighboring Syria.
A video taken of the event shows Ambassador Andrey Karlov at the podium surrounded by framed artwork and then flinching when the sound of two gunshots are fired. The video then shows a Turkish-speaking gunman, dressed in a black suit and white shirt, yelling as he walked around the body of the ambassador splayed motionless on the floor.
“Don’t forget Aleppo, don’t forget Syria. Until our regions are safe, you won’t have safety. Go Back! Go Back! Only death can take me from here,” shouted the assassin, who walks around holding the pistol toward the assembled crowd of onlookers. “Those who have a part in this atrocity will all pay for it, one by one.”
According to other sources:
The [gunman] also “shouted “Allahu akbar,” the Arabic phrase for “God is great” and continued in Arabic: “We are the descendants of those who supported the Prophet Muhammad, for jihad.”
And dreadful news out of Germany:
At least 9 people were killed and 50 were wounded after a truck plowed into a Christmas market in Berlin on Monday evening, according to German police.
The truck ran into the market outside the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church at around 8 p.m. local time on Monday.
A bystander tweeted that “there is no road nearby,” indicating that the incident was not an accident.
“People were crushed,” she said. “I am safe.”
Reportedly, the 18-wheeler had Polish plates and was speeding through the market at an estimated speed of 40 miles per hour. In spite of this, and in spite of German police at the scene “having indicated the incident is likely to be a terror attack,” two newspapers, the Berliner Zeitung and Berliner Morgenpost are reporting “that it was not immediately clear whether the incident was an accident or some kind of an attack on the market.”
It remains to be seen what further investigations into the matter reveal.
–Dana
Just unbelievable. And yet…
Dana (d17a61) — 12/19/2016 @ 12:47 pmfrau uglybutt warns against doing backlash on her precious poopers in 3 2 1
happyfeet (a037ad) — 12/19/2016 @ 12:50 pmThey will reap what she has sowed. Merkel is a downside of the Wall coming down.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/19/2016 @ 12:55 pmI’m trying to figure out what these events might have in common, but gosh darn, it’s tough.
ras (23f154) — 12/19/2016 @ 12:57 pmThe two events might not be done by the same organization. The assassination of an Ambassador is the first. Most likely, I suppose, a Kurdish group, since they are in Turkey (and who else speaks Turkish? ISIS people don’t.) The gunman’s asserted motives cannot be trusted.
The people who did it must have left some clues.
Sammy Finkelman (7d0f6e) — 12/19/2016 @ 1:13 pmWe may never find out his true motive! — Loretta Lynch
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 12/19/2016 @ 1:17 pmSammy, please take a breath. It is not necessary to reply to comments which are clearly meant to be sarcastic as ras’ is.
elissa (14ecec) — 12/19/2016 @ 1:19 pmSssshhhhh… Sammeh’s on it.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/19/2016 @ 1:22 pmI don’t think anyone has suggested the two events were committed by the same group, Sammy, either in any reports that I’ve read or here in the comments section.
Dana (d17a61) — 12/19/2016 @ 1:24 pmMy first guess is that it’s a wayward Methodist. My second guess is that it’s an angry member of the Dubuque Rotary Club.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 12/19/2016 @ 1:26 pmFwiw, I can believe many people would like to strike back at Russia for their involvement in Syria, whether or not there is a prominent jihadi component to it.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/19/2016 @ 1:27 pmJust stating the obvious.
They say he’s a gylenist, but more likely nusra front, which coincidentally lurch had recently given kudos too.
narciso (d1f714) — 12/19/2016 @ 1:37 pmLet’s just hope and pray that when some Muslims pull off the slaughter of Christians attending a Christmas Eve/Christmas Day mass in Egypt or elsewhere in the M.E., we don’t have one of those horrible backlashes against the other Muslims celebrating it.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 12/19/2016 @ 2:33 pmI’m not inclined to trust “official” reports anymore, because I’m old enough to remember the Orlando Massacre way back in June of 2016. Our so-called government kept saying we don’t know the motive, and even pushed the theory that the terrorist was gay as a motive. Yet, it turned out, that the Orlando police had talked to the terrorist on the phone, and knew exactly what his motive was – terrorism, for ISIS. Yet our so-called government fed us a false narrative and hid the truth.
It’s also well worth remembering that the father of the terrorist, himself a radical islamist, was shortly thereafter an invited guest at a Hillary Clinton rally.
I’m not a Trump enthusiast, but every day that passes makes me gladder that the Democrats lost.
Arizona CJ (191c8a) — 12/19/2016 @ 2:39 pmSammy. WRT the possibility of a Kurd doing this, would the Turks allow a Kurd into the police, not to mention big-time security?
Richard Aubrey (472a6f) — 12/19/2016 @ 2:42 pmSssshhhhh… Sammeh’s on it.
I’m just impressed that Captain Obvious kept it to under 27 paragraphs.
Jack Klompus (4dd701) — 12/19/2016 @ 2:42 pmThis is the business Putin and his Ambassador have chosen. They refused to lift a finger to help us fight global jihad? This is what they get and deserve.
Note well I am NOT referring to the Syrian situation. I am talking about everything post 9-11 until Obama’s infamous “red line.” Putin and the Russians were all about agitation. Their invasions of Georgia, Crimea, and Ukraine? Crimes against humanity. F them.
Ed from SFV (3400a5) — 12/19/2016 @ 2:56 pm@steve57: we don’t have one of those horrible backlashes against the other Muslims celebrating it.
“New York Times Frets About Backlash from Tomorrow’s Train Bombing”
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 12/19/2016 @ 2:57 pmYes, whenever some Abdul or Muhammad or Ummar or Achmed goes on a killing spree while yelling Allahu Akbar! it’s always a complete mystery. We are forced to wonder, was everything OK at home? Perhaps the poor soul was having trouble with his or her spouse. Obviously not the case when both husband and wife go on the killing spree together as in San Bernardino. So maybe the friction was with a parent or in-law. Was his house being repossessed? Money problems can drive anyone crazy. How about work. Was anyone harassing him at work? Maybe the beloved family dog Old Yeller died.
Otherwise, I can’t figure out what trait might such an eclectic group as Mohammad Atta, Abdulaziz al-Omari, Wail al-Shehri, Waleed al-Shehri, Satam al-Suqami, Marwan al-Shehhi, Fayez Banihammad, Mohand al-Shehri, Hamza al-Ghamdi, Ahmed al-Ghamdi, Hani Hanjour, Khalid al-Mihdhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaf al-Hazmi, Salem al-Hazmi, Ziad Jarrah, Ahmed al-Haznawi, Ahmed al-Nami, Saeed al-Ghamdi, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Faisal Shahzad, Mohammod Abdulazeez, Nidal Malik Hassan, Tashfeen Malik, Syed Farook, Omar Mateen, or Abdul Razak Ali Artan have had in common that could explain this behavior.
I’ve got nothing. So I just have to throw up my hands and say, Inshallah.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 12/19/2016 @ 3:13 pmThey all studied engineering and/or urban planning.
narciso (d1f714) — 12/19/2016 @ 3:23 pmFestive German Christmas market in square near historic Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church turned into a murder scene. It was a Pakistani lorry driver according to German TV reports.
elissa (14ecec) — 12/19/2016 @ 4:18 pmTurkey.
Brought to mind Ruby plugging Oswald in Dallas– only in color.
But watch. See how Russia responds. It will be a true reveal.
_____
Deutschland.
Terrible. But then, kamikaze trucks signal desperation.
“What a world, what a world….” – Wicked Witch of the West [Margaret Hamilton] ‘Wizard of Oz’ 1939
DCSCA (797bc0) — 12/19/2016 @ 4:47 pmA refugee re n24/welt also the train attacker from last summer confessed
narciso (d1f714) — 12/19/2016 @ 4:50 pmAn observation. There’s something peculiar about the taste and decision making of young news producers/directors at these cablers anymore.
Running the Zapruder film with JFK’s head exploding and the video of Oswald’s murder doesn’t phase them in the least. Yet they’ll blur or out right edit the tape of the assassination of the Russian ambassador by the Turkish cop… even with the raw feed available worldwide on the web.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 12/19/2016 @ 5:26 pmOne is considered history, the other wAS ‘live in direct from network 23’
Max headroom 1987?
narciso (d1f714) — 12/19/2016 @ 5:31 pmthe sleazy googletrash sluts have removed the video drudge’s been linking to all afternoon
why would they do that
happyfeet (28a91b) — 12/19/2016 @ 5:32 pmSyrian opposition seems to acting in an illconsidered manner.
narciso (d1f714) — 12/19/2016 @ 5:41 pmThe Berlin mauler had only been in country since February.
narciso (d1f714) — 12/19/2016 @ 5:46 pm@25. Oswald’s plugging was live. We were an NBC News family at the time and we watched it as it happened. Then over and over and over. History isn’t an excuse for these news directors. It’s a peculiar set of values. They ceased almost immediately airing individual souls jumping to their deaths from the WTC– yet aired hundreds dying instantly over and over and over as their planes slammed into the towers.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 12/19/2016 @ 5:50 pm27. True, Narciso. If that cop could have avoided referencing the snackbar when referencing Syria, that silouette with the pistol would have been neck and neck with Che shirts. Might have had a lot more resonance amongst a broad group, instead it’s just regular Islamic terror.
urbanleftbehind (847a06) — 12/19/2016 @ 6:04 pm12 are now confirmed dead in Christmas market attack. Lorry was from Poland and dead “passenger” found inside the truck was a Polish national. German police believe the delivery truck and the Polish driver were probably hijacked by the terrorist who plowed into the market and who is now reported to be in custody. Best info seems to be coming from British media. Go Figure.
elissa (d64160) — 12/19/2016 @ 7:03 pmGreetings:
Growing up in the Bronx of the ’50s and ’60s, there was bit of folk wisdom that concerned a guy who told the judge that he was just standing on the corner cleaning his knife when a guy ran up and jumped on it 27 times. So, theoretically at least, maybe the guy was just driving through the Christmas market when kuffars started throwing themselves in front of his truck.
11B40 (6abb5c) — 12/19/2016 @ 7:13 pmThe torygraph is a bit circumspect, the daily mail and other broadsheets are more frank. American fishwrap is more vanilla, it did get them off their two minute hate.
narciso (d1f714) — 12/19/2016 @ 7:17 pmI know Canadian broadcasters are even more ostrich like, but why dint they just say ‘Berlin terror attack kills 12’
narciso (d1f714) — 12/19/2016 @ 7:31 pmThis:
http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/19/berlin-truck-driver-was-refugee-pakistan-report/
Dana (d17a61) — 12/19/2016 @ 7:34 pmAlso, it is being reported that it’s now 12 people killed in the attack in Germany today.
Dana (d17a61) — 12/19/2016 @ 7:39 pmThey focus so intently on a phishing attack purportedly by Russians but lathe equivalent of a mass shooting spree for ideological reason they resort to the third person
narciso (d1f714) — 12/19/2016 @ 7:40 pmThere is an annual German Cristkindlemarket in Chicago and also one in New York (and possibly other American cities). It is set up like a little European village. Most vendors come from Germany and they have the booths/tents which serve German foods and drinks, and sell typical German gift products, glass Christmas ornaments, ski hats and sweaters, sausages, cheeses, clocks, nutcrackers, wood puzzles and toys, etc. There is a German band and recorded holiday music playing. Having just been to the Cristkindlemarket in Chicago two weeks ago today I can easily imagine what it must have been like for the festive shoppers and vendors in Berlin when the truck unexpectedly plowed into the crowd and booths. It is really giving me chills to think about it.
elissa (d64160) — 12/19/2016 @ 8:24 pmI can’t imagine, elissa. Just so awful.
Dana (d17a61) — 12/19/2016 @ 8:52 pmTerrible but the goal is world capitals, Amsterdam and Rome are perhaps the remaining ones in western Europe. How could add Vienna.
narciso (d1f714) — 12/19/2016 @ 9:02 pmI had wanted to go to Berlin last year, and decided against it. this is why. I knew it was coming.
Our insane leaders have yet another dozen dead citizens’ blood on their hands.
I have been out of touch all day but heard about the assassination this morning. We all said, of course, this is how WWI started.
Is that what it’s coming to?
Patricia (5fc097) — 12/19/2016 @ 10:24 pmDana, I’ve seen this as well. I haven’t seen it corroborated by any other sources, which do identify the perp as a refugee but don’t identify his nationality. Please don’t take this in anyway personal, but one thing leaps out at me and underscores the stupidity of Western governmental policy toward this flood of Muslim invaders. And the blind, slavishly obedient reporting on it.
What the hell is a Pakistani refugee?
I thought the whole rationale for taking in these self-proclaimed refugees is that they’re fleeing the war in Syria. Pakistan is a couple of countries removed from Syria. This guy may well turn out not to be Pakistani, but the mere fact that somebody could write it and no editor would think twice about is amazing, and appalling.
I’m sick and tired of having these people insult my intelligence by insisting on calling these people when they are for the most part not coming from any recognized war zone, if they they are they are the aggressors in those wars, and will tell anyone who listens that they are conducting a hijra, a migration in the cause of Allah. That they are going to the West to establish Sharia rule, live off of the “jihad seeker’s share,” the jizya, which is theirs by right and how they view living off of the benefits that are provided through the taxes of the non-Muslims.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 12/19/2016 @ 11:21 pmErdogan is an Islamist: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers”. He got locked up for that in 1997, and he’s been very busy lately purging the secularists who locked him up. It makes perfect sense that the assassin of the Russian ambassador would be a member of his “riot police”.
nk (dbc370) — 12/20/2016 @ 1:26 amYou may have missed this story, but this attacker in Berlin wasn’t the first Muslim in Germany to target a Christmas market.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/christmas-market-targeted-nail-bomb-boy-12-german-officials-n696811
I don’t believe in the historicity of the so-called “Pact of Umar,” which were the humiliating and debilitating Jim-Crow type discriminatory conditions known as the dhimma imposed on the conquered “People of the Book,” primarily Jews and Christians but also including Zoroastrians and from time to time and place to place others, by the second “rightly guided” Caliph Umar. Like everything else that comprises the mythology of the early history of Islam (and unlike the Biblical assertions regarding both Jews and Christians and their history) there is no documentary, numismatic, archeological, or any other type of evidence you can imagine to support the story.
But the dhimma was very real. Like the Quran, the Sunnah, and even Islam itself it evolved later over time and then was projected back in time to what Muslims were told was their early history and were said to have originated from a companion of Muhammad, a “rightly guided” Caliph that Muhammad commanded in his Sunnah to obey, and therefore is a legitimate practice ordained by Allah.
The dhimma was extremely harsh. In addition to having to pay a wealth tax ranging from 20 to 60 percent based on how well off the Muslim authorities thought you were, dhimmis (people of the Book who submitted to Muslim rule) had to let Muslim travelers sleep in their churches or synagogues and feed them for three days. No dhimmi could posses a weapon, ride a horse, or use a saddle. If a Muslim wanted a seat, the dhimmi had to rise and give up his seat. A dhimmi had to wear distinctive clothing (think the yellow Star of David) so Muslims could recognized them and know not to give the dhimmi the greeting. The dhimmi would have to step off the sidewalk or otherwise get out of the Muslim’s way to let the Muslim pass.
To make sure the subject people’s communities were in a constant state of decline Muslim men could marry Christian or Jewish women, and these marriages were often if not usually by force, as we see today in places like Pakistan or Egypt. Dhimmi men could not marry Muslim women. Dhimmis could not hold any job which might give them any authority over a Muslim, relegating them to the most menial and servile jobs, hence the colloquial term for Christians in Pakistan is “street sweeper.” that is the highest type of employment a dhimmi could aspire to. Dhimmis could not build new houses of worship or repair old ones (this included any building which had a religious purpose such as a monastery), they could not display crosses or whatever religious symbol might have otherwise been appropriate, they could not sing loudly during their services, they could not publicly sell wine, and most appropriate to this topic, they could not hold public religious festivals such as this.
I’ve brought up Pakistan several a few times because this Berlin attacker is allegedly a Pakistani. Pakistan claims it isn’t a Sharia state, and it it is true that it does not enforce Sharia as strictly as Iran or the Sudan (there is very little difference between Sharia as practiced by Shia or Muslims and indeed they’ve signed several pacts recognizing each other’s major schools as valid sources of Sharia). It’s also true that technically Pakistan has never reintroduced the dhimma after partition. But as in all Muslim majority countries, there have never been a single one where non-Muslims have enjoyed anything like equal rights with Muslims. In fact, Pakistan ranks toward the end of the spectrum with the the worst offenders, the true Sharia states.
And while festivals like these German Christmas markets might be technically legal in Pakistan, Pakistani Muslims would never tolerate them.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/28/asia/pakistan-bombing-lahore/index.html
It’s a matter of life and death for Christians to know their place in Pakistan. Indeed, any country that has laws based on Sharia. It might be tolerable if a couple of families to get together in a park in a Pakistani city and hold a small, quiet religious celebration. But they had better not let it get too loud, too boisterous, too large, and too obvious. They better not attract attention to themselves, because like ringing church bells or singing so loudly in their churches so that Muslims outside can hear them, that offends Muslims. Bad things happen when non-Muslims offend Muslims with their unbelief in “the religion of truth.” That’s what happened in Lahore this past Easter, and that’s what happened in Berlin yesterday.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 12/20/2016 @ 1:34 amGerman authorities now doubt that the man being held is the perpetrator. He was only taken on the word of an eyewitness. The putative suspect has a firm alibi, and tests show that he lacks the powder residue that would have been found on him if he had shot the Polish truck driver. This means that the German police now have to undertake a massive manhunt.
Golden Eagle (0aed02) — 12/20/2016 @ 5:33 amElissa re 31: Pakistani suspect with a Polish driver (whether carjacked or willful) is a post Brexit twofer for their press.
urbanleftbehind (191273) — 12/20/2016 @ 5:42 amFrom the various news reports available this morning I don’t think anybody in LE believes the dead Polish National was “the driver” when the lorry went into the crowd. A manhunt for the armed and dangerous perpetrator is still on now that German Security Forces say they believe they initially were led to, and captured the wrong terrorist. Ugh.
elissa (d64160) — 12/20/2016 @ 6:20 amOf course the. You have Eloi like the ‘good’ reverend everhard, sheep to be culled. Some stories like qutbs sudden turn after some encounters with church girls in greeley seems overwrought, he had been a bureaucrat in the education ministry for 16 years part of that time in Cairo
narciso (d1f714) — 12/20/2016 @ 6:55 amMeanwhile Obama is busy,restocking the jayvee and varsity teams, up to 22 detainees may be released from club gitmo
narciso (d1f714) — 12/20/2016 @ 8:06 am@Elissa The New York Times said police in Berlin said a man had been found dead in the passenger seat of the cab of the truck.
Earlier, the owner of the truck said the driver was his cousin and he’s known him for ages, and he trusts’s him completely and he is a very experienced driver and he always takes care of the equipment (so it’s no accident)
But he hadn’t heard from him since around noon. (He didn’t hear that the truck was hijacked.) I
It sounds like the hijacker killed him and put him in the passenger seat, so it wouldn’t be discovered. That sounds a little like the Mumbai (Bombay) attack in 2008 when they hijacked a boat and killed everyone on it – so at this point right now I’d say it’s agood possibility that he was trained in Pakistan. This was a very professionally trained terrorist.
An amateur wouldn’t make sure to kill the driver and keep the body with him. And I don’t know when else this (hijacking a vehicle and making sure it does not become known by killing everyone aboard) has ever happened except this Mumbai attack.
Sammy Finkelman (7d0f6e) — 12/20/2016 @ 8:54 amThe police think they were lied to? Very, very professional. This was not run out of Raqqa, Syria. And it wasn’t a suicide attack.
Sammy Finkelman (7d0f6e) — 12/20/2016 @ 8:56 amI don’t doubt it, there were nine? Persons nabbed in connection with nice, but you don’t need to go to raqqua they were probably casing the market for days.
narciso (d1f714) — 12/20/2016 @ 9:03 amHas Barack condemned these attacks?
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 12/20/2016 @ 9:05 amOr has he merely condemned the people who’ve already condemned the attacks?
Pakistani suspect? I said that before reading Pakistan mentioned anywhere, including this thread.
The modus operendi is something invented in Pakistan. Probably used in cass I don’t know about. The modus operendi is always a good clue, but often overlooked. Things are just not that easily or often copied without personal contact.
The attacker doesn’t himself have to be Pakistani – he just has to have spent a lot of time there.
If someone just pointed the suspect out, it is hard to just find someone. But just the fact that he didn’t fire the gun doesn’t mean this person didn’t drive the truck. There could have been two or more hijackers. Only one was needed to drive the truck. Two or more would make it easier to hijack the truck and get the driver not to resist. There might be blood wherever the truck was hijacked.
Now I don’t know how he was identified. It could be wrong – or it actually be the exact right person.
Sammy Finkelman (7d0f6e) — 12/20/2016 @ 9:07 amYes, he has… http://ace.mu.nu/archives/terrorists.jpg
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/20/2016 @ 9:07 amSomeone had to case the truck.
Sammy Finkelman (7d0f6e) — 12/20/2016 @ 9:08 amCol Haiku @55:
In this morning’s New York Times we see the people really not jumping to conclusions are top German government officials:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/world/europe/berlin-christmas-market-truck-crash.html
Sammy Finkelman (7d0f6e) — 12/20/2016 @ 9:13 am#55 Colonel, (LOL) on the link.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 12/20/2016 @ 9:47 am45. Did he really have an alibi? I am not exactly ready to trust those police.
Sammy Finkelman (7d0f6e) — 12/20/2016 @ 9:54 amWhen I say this was not run out of Raqqa, Syria, I mean I think nobody in Raqqa had anything to do with this.
I also don’t think this was really religous motives, and I don’t think this market was religious enough to get someone to feel it is OK in a way that some other venue would not be. Whoever did it or partci[ated I don’t think cares. They couldn’t even assume that no Moslems would be there. (if they were trying to avoid killing Moslems that is something that would mean it wasn’t ISIS, but I don’t think it was ISIS in the first place.)
Sammy Finkelman (7d0f6e) — 12/20/2016 @ 10:13 am15. Richard Aubrey (472a6f) — 12/19/2016 @ 2:42 pm
At that time I didn’t know anything about the killer, or that he was a policeman.
Sammy Finkelman (7d0f6e) — 12/20/2016 @ 10:24 amWe may not be at war with islam, but islam is sure at war with us.
NJRob (d59b4d) — 12/20/2016 @ 10:53 amElissa, where in NY is the German market. I grew up there and never noticed.
NJRob (d59b4d) — 12/20/2016 @ 10:57 amGreetings, NJRob: ( @ 63 (d59b4d) —12/20/2016 @ 10:57 am)
86th Street in Manhattan and its environs used to (”50s & ’60s) be considered a bit of a Germantown.
Bringen sie mir drei glas beir, bitte.
11B40 (6abb5c) — 12/20/2016 @ 12:49 pmThis is by definition true. It’s Islam that divides the world into Dar al-Islam, where Muslims establish Sharia, and Muslims rule over non-Muslims. Contrary to popular opinion the goal has never been universal conversion. Idolators and atheists will have to choose between accepting Islam or death, but the “people of the book” will simply have to subjugate themselves as third class citizens, pay the jizya “with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued (humiliated).”
Then there’s Dar al-Harb, the “house of war.” This is where the non-Muslims have not been subjugated and Islam and Sharia do not rein supreme. Muslims are commanded to fight us until we are subjugated and the whole world is Dar al-Islam.
These are open ended commands; there are no sunset clauses in any of the 149 “sword verses” in the Quran. As the Quran itself makes clear.
Surah 60:4 Al-Mumtahanah (She that is to be examined)
There is not golden rule in Islam. Allah hates the unbelievers, and therefore Muslims are commanded to hate the unbeliever. But to call these “hate crimes” misses the whole point. For instance Omar Mateen didn’t shoot up that gay nightclub in Tampa because he’s some “homophobe” suffering from “gay panic” or anything. He has a religious obligation to hate homosexuals. Reread the above ayah (which is not one of the 149 sword verses; there are approximated 480 verses exhorting Muslims to hate, fight, subjugate, punish, and humiliate non-Muslims in total and the sword verses which literally command Muslims to take up a sword and “strike the necks” are only a portion of those). What part of “between us and you animosity and hatred forever” don’t people understand. The book is quite clear. Abraham is a good example for Muslims to emulate but he’s not perfect. Muslims are not allowed to pray for non-Muslims. Because that’s somewhat less than complete hatred and animosity.
Muhammad, according to the Quran, is the perfect example. Muslims must emulate him if they wish to see paradise. That’s why about 90% of Muslims today call themselves Sunnis, or in Arabic “Ahlus Sunnah,” Adherents of the sunnah (example) of Muhammad. And Muhammad’s attitude toward non-Muslims is quite clear.
Sahih al-Bukhari Book of Fighting for the Cause of Allah (Jihaad)
Muhammad is saying Muslims are to fight unbelievers, in this case Jews, until judgement day. This is not describing religiously ordained violence as you have in the Torah/Old Testament, which describes violence which was confined to a certain time and place, and against a particular people. The commands for Muslims to fight against unbelievers are valid until judgement day. Indeed, to bring it about.
And to try and twist this prescriptive exhortation to commit violence into something similar to the descriptive violence of the Old Testament is to miss the entire point of Sunnah. The reason why Sunnis are Sunnis, and have called themselves that since the schism with the Shia is that Muhammad’s example is to be followed at all times, in all places, until the end of time. The can not honestly look at the plain language of the texts, 1200 years of Sunni scholarship, and allow that Sunnis have a right to define religious orthodoxy for themselves, and deny that this command (along with every other command in every other canonical hadith collection every one of which contains chapters or volumes on waging violent, military jihad against unbelievers simply because of their unbelief) is valid for all Muslims for all times.
Apologists, Muslims as well as non-Muslim leftist academics, try to convince Americans and Europeans, both Muslim and non-Muslims, that the Quran, Ahadith, and Sirah literature (the latter two categories comprise the Sunnah) don’t really say what they clearly say. Which is pretty easy to do as most people in the West, including Westernized Muslims, have no idea what any of. Nominal Christians, or more accurately post-Christian artifacts of what used to be Christendom, also don’t know the Bible from the phone book.
So pretty much everybody can be convinced of nonsense such as, “The Bible is more violent than the Quran.” And that the message of the Bible, particularly the New Testament, and the Quran is the same. In fact, the Quran turns the message of the New Testament on its head. The Old Testament in the “Holiness Code” says that you are to love your neighbor as yourself, including the non-Jew living among the Jews. Jesus took the command a step further and said you are to love your enemies and pray for them. The Quran says you are to hate the unbeliever and you most definitely can not pray for them.
Here’s how much the Quran rejects the very idea of anything like the Golden Rule. An Egyptian cleric with impeccable credentials (attended all the best madrassas, including Al Azhar University) recently issued a Fatwa reminding Muslim men that while they can marry Christian and Jewish women, unless they convert to Islam they are to hate them in their hearts. Moreover, these men must show these Christian and Jewish wives that the do in fact hate them in their hearts. Because they’re still unbelievers, Allah hates the unbeliever, and they need to suffer in this life and the next.
A fatwa is not merely the opinion of a cleric. It must be strongly rooted in the Quran and the Sunnah. It carries no additional weight other than that which is contained in the Sunnah and Quran and used by the scholar to support the fatwa, but it carries weight.
This is important to us because you keep hearing people claim that if only Islam could have a reformation similar to the Protestant Reformation that would somehow mean Islam would become less violent and more compatible with modernity as we define it in the West. This simply reflects theological, cultural, and historical blindness on our part. An Islamic Reformation winds up ant a completely different place than the Protestant Reformation.
As a matter of fact, if you know anything about Islamic history you know that Islam has already had more than one Martin Luther, and the formula was exactly the same. I mean, after all, what did Martin Luther do? He condemned the Catholic Church for relying on church traditions as much or more than scripture. In fact, traditions that couldn’t be found in scripture. He rejected those traditions and said the church need to be purified and rely on scripture alone, the doctrine of sola scriptura.
Several Martin Luthers have come along, most notably ibn Taymiyah in the 1300s and ibn Wahhab in the 1700s, and preached exactly what the Protestant Martin Luther preached. That certain un-Islamic, un-Quranic practices or traditions had crept in and corrupted the practice of Islam. Some historians call this the Medieval synthesis. Essentially some Caliphs watered down Sharia and didn’t impose the more stringent demands on their subjects, Muslims and non-Muslims alike. We can see this most clearly in India, where a number of rulers simply decided they didn’t want to execute every single Hindu in the land. There were far too many of them, and the rulers enjoyed getting rich of the jizya. So they simply declared Hindus to be “people of the book” and that was that. But the the Quran is quite clear; pagans, idolators, or in the Arabic al-Mushurikun, are not people of the book their only two choices are convert or die. And Hindus worship a multiplicity of gods. Some put the number at 330 million.
So these Muslim Martin Luthers demanded a return to sola scriptura. And the practices of the synthesizers have and still have a very hard time defending their practices because you can’t find scriptural support for them in any o their canonical texts. It’s why “moderate” Islam doesn’t survive in Muslim majority countries now that the Saudis have used their petrodollars to spread Wahhabism (their brand of Islam as preached by their 18th century Martin Luther, ibn Wahhab) throughout the Muslim world, into Europe, and the Americas.
What you get from the doctrine of sola scriptura varies widely depending on what that scripture has to say. We don’t need an Islamic Reformation. The problem is we’ve had too many of them. And you can trace the ideas of ibn Taymiyah, ibn Wahhab, ibn Hanbal, and others directly to the writings of modern jihadist writers and scholars such as Hassan al Banna, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 for reasons wholly unrelated to the founding of Israel (it wouldn’t exist) or imperialistic US foreign policy in the Muslim world (we had really not foreign policy or presence in the Muslim world since the wars against the Barbary Coast pirates ended until after WWII and the British Empire collapsed). The problem is that Biblical scripture, particularly Christian scripture, is entirely compatible with secular government and Quranic scripture is not.
As long as Islam keeps having reformations, as long as it keeps returning to sola scriptura, it will never be compatible with secular government, everyone being equal before the law, the dignity of women, representative government, indeed modernity itself. It’s why Western civilization developed one way, and Islamic civilization developed in a different direction.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 12/20/2016 @ 1:15 pmNot at all disagreeing with Steve above, just adding a bit of a different angle.
I have read from one former Muslim turned Christian that indeed many if not most who consider themselves Muslims do so on the basis of what they have learned from largely oral tradition within their mosque(s). So, indeed, there are many, many Muslims who are not jihadists, but that is because what they have been taught are more traditions than “solo scriptura”, and when people in conflict with modernity want to “get back to their Muslim roots”, they find that indeed the problems of interacting with contemporary non-Muslim society get amplified, rather than simplified, and radical action including violence becomes justifiable.
“Moderate” Muslims, by “our standard”, are ones who champion a “revised” understanding of the original texts, a forced adaptation to coexist with western democratic freedom that has no coherent agreed upon basis.
Just like in the NT, people believe what they want to believe.
So, you get people around the world becoming adherent to a form of Islam more in keeping with the original documents, you get people finding out what is there and rejecting it with their own form of Islam or newfound agnosticism/atheism, and you get people becoming Christian, because they have a faith in a Creator, Sovereign God, but reject Mohammed and Islam as being a true representation of Him.
Hence, the issue of what to do with “Islam” as different from what to do with people who call themselves “Muslims”, meaning they don’t all mean the same thing.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/20/2016 @ 2:08 pmSome people who call themselves “Christian” do not think they need to tell you about Jesus and encourage you to give your life to Him, others think that is essential,
but in either case, consistent with the NT texts themselves,
it would be unusual and opposed by others for someone to suggest such belief be imposed by force or coercion of any kind.
Went to junior high/high school at 94th and Madison and I never noticed. Small world.
Das it eine gute idee fur etwas Bier.
NJRob (8d54f3) — 12/20/2016 @ 2:31 pmDanke.
NJ Rob @10:57 A.M. –Damn good question! It looks like in New York it’s now called the “Union Square Holiday Market” Apparently since sometime around 2010 they’ve renamed it a “Holiday Market” and widened its wares to be more international and more crafty and more, you know, inclusive.
Guess you’ll all just have to come to Chicago for a real German outdoor Christkindlemarket next year. Here is a link with a short video from a couple years ago to give you a flavor of it. It’s very fun. I noticed a couple of Irish vendors snuck in this year, though.
http://www.christkindlmarket.com/about-us/
elissa (b4b683) — 12/20/2016 @ 2:56 pmSteve57 @65. This is getting to be pretty accurate, except I don’t think the “reformers” go to sola scriptora, at least in the sense of every person reading for himself, but rather they claim to be authorities and issue their own interpretations. These are called fatwas. The ordinary Muslim is not supposed to rely on his own reading of the Koran or the supplementary authorities.
They actually can’t make a full religion just from the Koran because there’s not enough there, so it’s always more sources.
What you write is also doesn’t explain why, in fact, for long periods of time there has been no ongoing jihad. There is a reason, and it’s not just everyone ignoring what Islam actually teaches. The fact is, it is not so clear what Islam says on a practical level. Writers can support very bad things, but they can’t demand it.
Not only that, but the modern jihadists have to invent things not supported by their texts, and/or lie about political facts to get to where they are going with the killing and everything.
Some of the fatwas they come out with are quite novel, like killing people at random (dates back maybe to Imperial Germany and 1914, that is, the fatwas written in German by Max von Oppenheim and translated into various languages) and also waging war without there being a caliph. (which is why appointing a caliph has been avoided. Or launching a jihad. It’s hard to call it off)
But you’re right. The only “reformation” we are seeing is in the direction of evil. People inclined the other way just discard Islam usually maybe because of other objections, like they want to drink alcohol. Now maybe moderates would be inauthentic, in the sense of being too tolerant, but the terrorist supporters are even more so.
There’s no real hierarchy in Islam except maybe among the Shiites, I think (and the mullahs who rule Iran are not at the top of it – Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq is. Shiism is actually against clerical rule – which the Iranian government calls rule by the judge) In Shiism the legitimate ruler has disappeared and will come back one day. Which just shows you the Iranians are making it up.
scholars such as Hassan al Banna, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 for reasons wholly unrelated to the founding of Israel
Another point. The Moslem Brotherhood probably did have a lot to do with Israel. Opposition to Zionism, and Jewish immigration, and murderous attacks on Jews goes back to the early 1920s and was organized by the Mufti of Jerusalem. This was entirely a religios thing at the time. Later it became secular.
Sammy Finkelman (7d0f6e) — 12/20/2016 @ 3:02 pmMD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/20/2016 @ 2:08 pm
In fact as Steve57 says, they do not want to impose belief – if they are sticking to authentic Islam – but rule, although forced conversions did happen. They are supposed to stop certain kinds of beliefs.
Hindus now claim that they don’t really worship multiple gods, but they are like the Christians – while the Christians have 3 manifestations of God, they have dozens.
Sammy Finkelman (7d0f6e) — 12/20/2016 @ 3:05 pmhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/20/isis-we-did-berlin-truck-attack.html
ISIS, or rather I should say, pseudo-ISIS, has claimed responsibility.
Sammy Finkelman (643dcd) — 12/20/2016 @ 4:26 pmThe original truck driver in Berlin was found both shot and stabbed, but no weapon was recovered.
An Israeli man in his 60s was gravely wounded, and visited in the hospital by the Rabbi of Berlin, Chabad-Lubavitch movement Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, and the man’s wife is missing. (He could be along -term resident)
Sammy Finkelman (643dcd) — 12/20/2016 @ 4:29 pm@66, trie doc. Most Muslims know very little about what the Quran teaches. It isnt because they are stipid. The vast majority of Muslims are not Arabic speakers or readers. Not even those Muslims who can read.Arabic can read 7th century Arabic. Only scholars can and even they cant understand 20 percent of it.
Also self study is discouraged.
So historically, and still true today, most Muslims just know the basics; the five pillars, few prayers.memorized syllable by syllable, and they have to take their religious authorities word for.anything more.
Steve57 (584a9c) — 12/20/2016 @ 6:35 pm@66, trie doc. Most Muslims know very little about what the Quran teaches. It isnt because they are stipid. The vast majority of Muslims are not Arabic speakers or readers. Not even those Muslims who can read.Arabic can read 7th century Arabic. Only scholars can and even they cant understand 20 percent of it.
Also self study is discouraged.
So historically, and still true today, most Muslims just know the basics; the five pillars, few prayers.memorized syllable by syllable, and they have to take their religious authorities word for.anything more.
What Muslims, particularly westernized Muslims,.think Islam teaches.and what.the texts really.say are two different things.
Steve57 (584a9c) — 12/20/2016 @ 6:40 pmSpelling.errors courtesy of trying.to comment.using my Android.
Steve57 (584a9c) — 12/20/2016 @ 6:41 pmSteve57 (584a9c) — 12/20/2016 @ 6:40 pm
That’s what I said. They don’t do sola scriptura.
Sammy Finkelman (96f386) — 12/21/2016 @ 6:06 pm