Comment by Nate
CAIRO REVIEW: How would you explain Muslim extremist violence?
SHEIKH HAMZA YUSUF: It can’t be summed up in some short sound byte, unfortunately. It comes from a profound misreading of the Islamic tradition. Revelation is very dangerous. Historically, the Catholics developed a system to ensure that common people did not read the Bible on their own. Protestantism said no, common people should read the Bible on their own. This led to horrible religious wars and the fragmentation of Christianity, which led to the rise of secularism to be an arbiter so that people who were interpreting the Bible on their own were demilitarized. You could have your own church on the corner of the street, but don’t get violent about it. Well, in the Muslim World, this is what has happened. You have people reading primary sources, the Quran and Hadith, without the requisite tools to read those sources, and they are very dangerous without those tools. I’ll give you one example. In the Islamic tradition, the Prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, prohibited burning people. He said only God can punish with fire. That’s in Sahih Al-Bukhari, which is considered an absolutely sound hadith. In fact, the full hadith says, “Burn this person and that person as a punishment for them burning some other people,” but then he came back and said, “No, don’t do that,” because he was given a revelation not to burn and he said, “I told you to burn, but don’t burn, because only God can punish with fire.” That hadith stands but there are other traditions that say, for instance, that Ali burnt people for apostasy in Palestine. That hadith is also sound. But the narrator of that hadith, whose name is Ikrimah, was in a group that was against Ali. So even though the hadith has soundness, it has a problem. So ISIS takes that hadith and burns this Jordanian [captured air force pilot], claiming that they have an authoritative source to do this. They don’t. It’s just ignorance. And then to top that, there’s no application of lex talionis in war. That’s agreed upon by Muslim scholars. Even their application oflex talionis was not correct because in war there’s no qisaas, there’s no killing people for killing people because war is war; the point is to stop the cycles of violence. It’s a gross ignorance. Look at them, they’re all kids. There’s no old people there who have studied. I mean, I’m almost 60, this tradition takes years to learn. I don’t even feel that I’m qualified or adept and I’ve been studying it seriously for many, many years. Historically, you have what are called shuyukh, which literally means “old men,” like senators, from senatus, which is Latin for old. There’s a reason why you can’t be a senator until you are 30; you’re hoping some wisdom will kick in.
CAIRO REVIEW: Where are the scholars?
SHEIKH HAMZA YUSUF: I’ve been to so many conferences condemning this stuff. The media ignores us. There are books written on this.…It’s interesting that ISIS has issued fatwas against scholars who have spoken against them publicly. I guess that came from the khutbas against them, which some of us have given. Then I’ve got these rightwing people saying that I’m a stealth jihadist. There have been several books where they’ve put that in there. I think it threatens me personally; I don’t feel like I did before. It’s a serious concern with me. I think a lot of our mosques feel it now. A lot of Muslims feel that their mosques are no longer these safe havens. Which is really sad because, again, America is one of the few places that really was beginning to become an exemplar for a multireligious, multicultural civilization. That’s very sad for me.
CAIRO REVIEW: Why have you spoken out publicly against ISIS?
SHEIKH HAMZA YUSUF: I gave a khutba that went viral, called “The Crisis of ISIS.” It was seen all over the Middle East. It was translated into Arabic. It was tweeted by even some of the heads of state. I guess they didn’t like that too much. I drew blood first.CAIRO REVIEW: What was your message?
SHEIKH HAMZA YUSUF: That they have nothing to do with Islam.
CAIRO REVIEW: We have ISIS saying that they represent Islam and we have you saying they have nothing to do with Islam.
SHEIKH HAMZA YUSUF: There are insane Christians that say they represent Christianity. Did Rabbi Kahane represent Judaism? Baruch Goldstein, who killed all those people in the masjid: did he represent Judaism? There are a lot of people who claim to represent something. They don’t represent anybody but themselves.
Europe crushed by the fascists, islamofascists, bureaufascists and their masters
http://bit.ly/1O3eaWP
Regarding the incident that happened at Cologne train station on new years eve and elsewhere including Hamburg, I have a feeling the authorities aren’t really coming clean as to exactly what took place that night and the extent of it.
I have just seen a video posted on facebook by a German worker who works in a restaurant right where the events started. Now he says things kicked off by someone getting stabbed outside where he works and escalated already from there. According to this guy people were shooting (yes I know none of this was reported in any MSM that I know of, is this guy making it up or are the authorities covering up what really took place ?) at the police and at the Kolner cathedral although he didn’t say what with. He said the police were totally out of their depth being too stretched to cover everywhere as they were being called to other incidents but could not respond as they couldn’t leave the detainees they were already guarding.
They called for transport to pick up prisoners but none showed up, eventually having to release people they had already arrested in other to have room for other detainees with the people they released shouting fu*k the police and spitting at people and the police, etc.
Make no mistake about it, somebody organised this co-ordinated attack. What I really want to know is were firearms really used on that night as the ramifications if true spell the doom of Europe. I have said more than once that what the “exceptionals” have long been doing to their perceived enemies they will also eventually end up doing to their so called “allies” and I just cant shake off the feeling we are beginning to witness the start of that. Think what happened in Iraq and Libya and is currently happening in Syria cant also happen in Europe ? Somebody out there wants Europe to burn.
Links, please. If you can.
What goes around comes around!Millions killed in ME without protest in the countries whose army was doing the killing in the name of ‘democracy”Nato and American mercenaries running amok for 4 years without much ado in Syria ,what religion is this?
Not strictly true. Millions protested against the first gulf war throughout Europe and were simply ignored by their so called “elected representatives” who actually dont represent them one little bit. European governments have been hijacked and coerced by those shining paragons of virtue and “democracy” from across the Atlantic.
I saw this video as well. Quite a character!
Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9TOdMzOH1U
Greetings from Hamburg. I enjoy reading this blog since about last summer. :)
Thanks for the link. I am still not sure how accurate this guy was about events that night. For instance what he referred to as shooting might have been just fireworks thrown into the crowd as reported by others ? Who knows, crazy times and the lunatics are running the asylum.
I’m quite sure he meant fireworks, otherwise this would be a wholly different discussion.
There is more reporting on this today, Spiegel and Bild leading with revelations from the Police. Zerohedge gives a summary in English:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-07/monsters-revealed-cologne-cops-say-most-attackers-were-refugees
I honestly can’t say if this was set up or if it was for real. Both would be plausible.
They fired signal guns, partially into crowds. As seen here:
http://www.focus.de/regional/videos/massive-ausschreitungen-video-zeigt-das-chaos-in-der-koelner-silvesternacht_id_5189367.html?fbc=fb-shares
Re:
what the “exceptionals” have long been doing to their perceived enemies they will also eventually end up doing to their so called “allies”
The above, sir, is an axiom of history. Very astute observation.
Look at what Hitler did to the Brown shirts? – Externination and firing squads. Or what Germany did to Italian soldiers (their allies) near the end of the war (whole sale extermination of Italian soldiers in the Mediterranean island of kepalonia).
Without a doubt this incident was organized and some of the witnesses being contacting the media sound like scripted agents, for example:
RT released a clip of a witness (supposedly a non Arabic speaking German woman). She claims to have witnessed the sexual assault of 2 of the young women, the following (in point form) is what she stated:
-Arab men very drunk attacked 2 women
– dragged them onto the ground and touched them in very private parts
– among the men were north African Arabs, specifically Moroccans and Algerians – she said she could tell from the accent
– others amongst these alleged Arab attackers were some from Eastern Syria “for sure” (she apparently could recognized the nuances between Eastern Syria Levantine Arabic and Western Syrian Levantine Arabic – Wow!?
-sounds like one detail too many there
This incident was organized, to a high probability. Based on that premise, the following wild guesses are laid out with no proof:
1) perhaps elements of the BND want to that compromised and very blackmailed hag that runs Germany, Frau Merkel, the excuse she needs (to give her blackmailing masters) to finally close the gate to all those refugees and embedded western trained terrorist infiltrators?
2) perhaps a foreign or domestic intelligence agency organized this rent-a-mob of drunk non-believer hating scum to commit this atrocity to cause backlash riots and further hatred.
What are your theories as to why/how this incident happened.
I read reports that the attackers in some cases were speaking mixed Arabic and French. That may be why people thought they were Algerian or Moroccan. Since the French ruled those areas for a long time many people there have some knowledge of French. And the witness may have thought because of that,they were from those countries. As to the Eastern vs Western Syrian. I would think you would need a wide understanding of the language to be able to tell the difference in the dialects. If the German anti-Merkel political groups played their cards right. This incident could be a huge nail in the coffin of her leadership in Germany. But from what I’ve heard they are too clumsy to even know what to do with a “gift” like this.
I wish I had a crystal ball to gaze into to be able to answer your question definitively for you but I havent. All I know is if the so called leaders of Europe and especially of Germany deliberately want to stir up racial hatred and social unrest they couldnt have found a better way of doing so than to flood Europe with hundreds of thousands of mainly young, male, arabic men of unknown origin. These people arent stupid, are people trying to say they couldnt have foreseen the consequences of their actions on their own native populations ? I dont think so.
And then with Soros and his NGOs also putting pressure on Europe to accept yet more refugees the whole scenario stinks. I dont know if the EU “leaders” who are actually donkeys in my opinion have such a blind faith and trust in America or whether they are being completely blackmailed but the results are the same whichever one. The political leaders of the EU are traitors to their own people and I cant shake the feeling we have over the past year been seeing the infiltration of al-CIAda into Europe on a massive scale to await instructions for future operations.
Anonym. 11:39
I replied to your post but my reply has been placed under Uncle Bobs post.
Where’s the reply to Anonym placed under Bob’s post that went to Ann’s post that held up the post of know the truth that secured the post of eimar that released Saker from his post of the post in the house that Jack built?
Organized? Certainly possible. Without a doubt? Certainly not. For example, the interviewed girl may have learned about the nationalities from the police after they had taken into custody and identified the perpetrators. You now, police and waitresses are people and people talk to each other, especially in a situation that is challenging to wrap your head around.
Your wild guesses: Interesting. But Merkels reaction so far does not fit to 1). Regarding 2): I think backlash riots is a long way to go. So far all larger anti-immigration protest saw only violence from the left, anti-German, anti-anti-immigration protest (partly hired) goons.
Most likely theory in my mind is the obvious: This really and actually happend as a consequence of letting too many of the wrong people into the country in a too short time frame.
@ Gaspard de Coligny:
“Most likely theory in my mind is the obvious: This really and actually happend as a consequence of letting too many of the wrong people into the country in a too short time frame”
As in most cases, the simplest most logical explanation is often the correct one.
Trouble is that in this case; the simplest explanation doesn’t fit the plutocrats agenda, so it gets viciously suppressed. The neo-liberal MSM are bending over backwards to either: not report about the Cologne attacks or downplay them as much as humanely possible.
I haven’t checked The Guardian today, but yesterday all they had about this story were very short news reports with no comments allowed on them. They do this all the time when a story doesn’t fit their PC, neo-liberal meme: they censor comments or they get rid of the comment section all together.
Truth is that there have been plenty of reports about sexual assaults and rapes by these so-called “refugees” happening all over Europe (but most notably in Sweden) and this have been happening from some time now, but the media refuse to air/publish them.
What happened in Cologne comes as no surprise to those of us who have been paying attention.
A posed picture of a dead toddler caused a global outroar [not dissimilar to the global mourning over that French anti-bomb dead dog after the Paris terrorist attacks] but the mass sexual attacks on women (and children) all across Europe, not just Cologne, doesn’t arouse a similar global disgust. (?)
It goes to show how much men (and I’m not just talking about the perpetuators here) care about the welfare women in general.
It makes me wonder if instead of little boy Aylan, it was a picture of drowned little baby-girl Aiyla, the world would have reacted in the same way.
I’m staring to think… probably not.
–
And after some declarations by some EU officials suggesting that we have no way of knowing these “men” were not German nationals… [even though early reports said most of them were carrying Asylum Seeking papers…] we have this:
The “Monsters” Unmasked: Cologne Police Admit “Most Of The Attackers Were Refugees”
“[..] While previously there was some ambiguity with regard to who actually perpetrated the attacks, authorities are now sure that “most” of those involved were “freshly traveled asylum seekers.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-07/monsters-revealed-cologne-cops-say-most-attackers-were-refugees
–
Oh! Well…color me shocked! NOT!
-TL2Q
Thank you for this piece, using religion to form mercenary armies does not make such armies religious, they are proxy forces and war lords the product of money and strategies hatched far away, using stupid kids and ambitious cadre it is not new nor religion in any form.
Trying to deconstruct the singular origins of “Islamic extremism” would require isolation of all known and unknown variables and a detailed analysis of their effect in flux.
There’s just no feasible way to make a sweeping affirmative or negative claim on this subject.
For example: we know Brezinki’s geopolitical chessboard theory requires control of the Eurasian continent; that western powers recognize and agree to this view; that Gladio B activities exist to shape public opinion in Europe; and that the Iraq invasion was for reasons not admitted to the public; that the U.S.has been caught red handed helping extremists in Syria and Chechnya; and that a strategy of tension is frequently employed within countries to stop unity. We could argue a motive and evidence exists for the Western cabal to destabilize the Middle East. If that’s the case, then major actors of militant Islam such as Saudi Wahabiasm, would be unlikely to exist on their own but persist due to outside geopolitical influence.
This type of a general discussion is useless unless one focuses on a specific topic like fundamental orthodox interpretations of the Quran or The role of western influence on the funding of fundamentalist religious schools, etc.
I don’t know. I just don’t this question is ever truly properly addressed.
First of all ISIS is a creation of zio-imperialists – that is a fact that is widely acknowledged throughout the region – the ones who are actually going out and confronting ISIS on the ground have pointed this out a number of times.
Let’s , for argument’s sake, say that ISIS et al. are in fact “extremists” not created by the zoo-imperialists, then to ignore imperialism – the slaughter of a over a million just over the past decade in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (not even counting Libya, and Syria, Palestine, Lebanon) -that is just plain ludicrous. IF ISIS et al. are true “indigenous” grown groups – then they are a reaction to those real on the ground conditions created by the zio-imperialist wars.
Both of the above issues are duly ignored by Hamza Yusuf who is barely a “scholar” – and his relevancy is questioned given the kinds of stances he has taken over the years. More recently against those who are actually carrying the load of confronting the extremists in Syria. See more on this guy at this link below, where he appears at a rally supporting the extremists in Syria:
https://samraji.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/hamza-yusuf-emerges-once-again-as-tool-of-us-imperialism/
Moderate Islam is irrevelant in our current situation. ACTIONS need to be taken to stop this radicalism that threatens white europe even it hurts some of the moderates. We’re at threat not the moderate Muslims. Bringing up Islamaphobia everytime the question comes up is just a stall tactic and is not only counter productive but destructive. Every minute that we decide on how to eradicate the “bad” ones and spend time analyzing the psychology of the bad ones another Swedish Blonde gets raped. So the question is WHAT do we do about the problem Saker? I have a solution, do you? Or are we going to keep bringing about the obvious facts that Moderates exist, that extremists are not true Muslims, and keep kocking the can down the road?
https://youtu.be/vYjiSaV5VoE
“We are at threat not the moderate muslims”.
Which goes to show your ignorance and limited thinking. It is a fact that the majority of victims of these rabid lunatics who call themselves muslims have in fact been other genuine muslims. Everybody is at threat from these blood thirsty common criminals, everybody, and I wish people would get their brains in gear and realise this and stop making it into a racial issue.
how is this a racial issue? Where did you get that from? we’re talking about a religious or better yet an ideological problem and how to stop it. I cant consider getting my brain in gear without you making a good argument for it.
The non-white invasion of Europe is not motivated by religion or ideology, those are just attempts to justify the ongoing resource/land grab. It’s just the age-old issue of expanding populations and lebensraum.
In this case, the generally low-IQ foot soldiers of the invasion are urged on by race-hatred and envy, which was made obvious by their sexual humiliation of the victims.
And just as the so-called ‘democratic’ governments of the West did not pay attention when their citizens warned them before the ill-advised wars not to kick the hornets nests, so too the Western armies and border guards, well equipped with rifles and tanks, do nothing to serve their people by stopping the invaders at the borders.
Hamza Yusuf is not credible, and his interview is not worthy of being posted at The Saker’s site. Yusuf says in essence that common people (his expression, not mine) should not be allowed to read the Bible, Quran and Hadith. That is nonsense.
Suppose a million people of no particular faith are given Bibles in their native language and strong incentive to read the Bible from cover to cover and equally strong incentive to consult no other sources. How many of them after reading the Bible will go to the zoo and climb the fence at the lion exhibit because of Daniel 6? How many will attempt to handle poisonous snakes because of Acts 28? Exactly zero. A mere reading of the Bible does not cause fundamentalism.
The problem, which is nothing new, is that people are vulnerable to other people who twist God’s word by adding to it or taking away from it. Yusuf himself illustrated this when he mentioned Rabbi Meir Kahane and his follower Baruch Goldstein. As others have already commented, this problem is compounded when governments actively encourage false teaching. Governments sow the wind, innocent people reap the whirlwind, and this also is nothing new.
The attempt to find predisposition in the morals of this religion or another justifying violence simply dislocates that which should be the focus of the discussion. A distraction made for non-religious and another confession members alike. Or more expansively:
“You have people reading primary sources, the Quran and Hadith, without the requisite tools to read those sources, and they are very dangerous without those tools.”
This is as true to religion as it is to science, Hamza does not define “requisite tools” anywhere, neither explicitly neither on subtext that I could grasp, aside of “authority”. It appears we are expecting subjective/personal, arbitrary/authoritative approaches to shine light on our path to a semblance of violence rejecting harmony between cultures.
If I advance myself a definition such as critical thought, notion which can be found elsewhere in the interview, we remain in the camp of subjectiveness. The point I attempt to further is objectivity is what we are lacking, not primarily ethics or morality.
Objectivity as the imperfect means to reach “universal” truths. Admittedly it is not the pretence of universality, hence the quotes, it is the conditioned universality. Under such and such condition some truth remains valid, it can therefore be “upgraded” and acquire a still temporary, still localized quality of universal reality to be communicated and shared. When communicated, if one detaches the conditions that make some truth real, it becomes unfalsifiable, false, or fallacious.
I hate that the previous is as condescendant as it is, but the purpose is to make obvious, from my non-religious approach, how pointless it is sometimes to observe religious scholars debating what exactly lies behind the words of some text for the purpose at hand, which I recall was:
“How would you explain Muslim extremist violence?” (And we could expand here to any other religion or belief system in as much as it turns violent)
An answer one will not find in the texts which dress up morally the members of this or that community, their differences, their predominantly religious traits, is the simple undisputed factual material objective realities that these cultures/communities/countries have been viciously colonized/bombed/destroyed. The reactions measured or violent follow dependent on conditions which remain to be recognized and studied. But the main point is that we overlook the truth at hand for the endless domain of the discussion.
More briefly, religious (or free thought) morals may sharpen our bearing on the justice or injustice of some contextualized violence, whereas it appears to originate it, it helps us understand it instead, but ultimately, learning us the path out of it is best left for more objective approaches to both the material and moral realities.
In the full interview, when addressing head on the material domain:
“The trauma of being colonized, especially when you were as great as the Muslim civilization was. They live in the ruins of greatness. If you’re in Cairo, it’s very hard to ignore the Mamluk majesty. It’s very hard to ignore the incredible past that they had; even the pyramids and the Pharaonic history. They live in the ruins of greatness. And, when they were colonized, beginning with the Napoleonic invasion, and then with the coming of the English and Lord Cromer, I think they really grappled with the collapse. Unfortunately, they identified the crisis with a lack of know-how. Most of the Muslims really believed that the reason that we were colonized was because the West got ahead of us. Hence, they direct all of their young people to study things like engineering and medicine because if we could just get the know-how and learn how they do these magical things, we’ll once again restore our greatness. The problem with that is that the real foundation of any civilization is morality.”
…cause is still attributed to morality. Which given my experience is knee jerk common among religious thinking, something I find unfortunate. Not to mention that Hamza is focused on the morality of the Muslim victims instead of the morality of the Colonizers, loosing track of causes and effects and the relative proportionality on the way. Grave enough, but lets dismiss the latter:
Religion is not the best tool one may reach to address these collective issues. There are plenty of domains where it can help in personal ways but in my humble opinion this is not one of them.
To weight morality as more relevant and determinant for the causes of colonial/imperial exploitation and the consequential social reactions as opposed to the economic factors, interests and ability to impose them against competing ones in foreign land, diminishes our capability to understand and transcend the vicious cycle of violence humanity still finds itself in.
You have to study 60 years to learn that burning people is wrong? Listen, it takes only 5 minutes to learn that the argument from authority is fallacious, if you’ll only use your brain.
So, according to this guy there are NO scholars of Islam who support Islamic terrorism? He must take a reality test. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, for example, the leader of Isis, has a PhD in Islamic studies. Does the interviewee really want us to believe that this man knows nothing about Islam? http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/