Did I Miss It On The News?

[Toad]

I've been waiting to see some "leadership and guidance" from the "normal" Muslim clerics. We've been hearing from the talking TV heads for almost two weeks that Islam is a religion of peace and that the "radicals" like OBL, Hammas, etc. are way out of line.

Did I miss the part where the Muslim clerics have spoken out against the terrorists? Are the "newsies" just not giving them any airtime?

Something like whichever Muslim cleric presides over The Ka'bah in Mecca getting up and giving the big speech about how "terrorism isn't the answer".

Maybe a famous Muslim Mullah standing over Mohammed's grave in the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina and denouncing the attack on the WTC while declaring a "jihad" against those who would so pervert the true principles of Islam?

Not saying they didn't do it. Just saying I haven't seen anything saying they did.

Anyone got any links?

[Ripsnort]

Talking heads on TV have been calling for the same thing you have.  By the way, where's Alec Baldwin, and Barbara Striesand thru all this?  

[GRUNHERZ]

Has Baldwin left the country yet?

[Dinger]

It's there; but Islamic leaders aren't deemed newsworthy.  Besides, there are such deep divisions within Islam (as there are within Christianity), that there really isn't a single "voice".  Do you think Jerry Falwell speaks for the pope and the elders of the mormon church?

[CptTrips]

Actually I've seen more than I expected.

I think alot of countries like Saudi Arabia really want to help but are afraid of their own militant factions.  You sometimes have to walk a fine line when you're surronded by 20% of your own population that are radical militant fundementalists.  Just ask Anwar Sadat.    

I think its being handle pretty well.  I think in the end there will be all kinds of covert assistance from various Islamic goverments.  They may not be able to crow about it publically but I'll bet they are some remote military installations in the Saudi deaster that will get used without anyone knowing.  I bet we'll get some undisclosed intel even from the likes of Syria, Saudi Arabia, even Iran.  (Jeez Ladin has to know he's buttered when even Iran wants him dead.)

To me, its pretty signifigant how little Muslim street protests we've seen.  Some but not nearly as much as I expected. Of course we'll really have to wait and see when the shooting starts.  But my guess is that 80% of most of the modern Muslim countries would be glad to see Osama get him comeupence.  They may not cheer openly but sometimes silence can speak volumes.


Regards,
Wab

[Toad]

Dinger, got any leads at all showing this has happened? I'd like to read them; might improve my present outlook/mood.

I'm not looking for a single voice anyway.

I'm looking for multiple voices that speak for that vast majority of Muslims that decry these terrorists and their actions.

I'm looking for "A few good Mullahs", to paraphrase the Marine ads.

I've heard the Taliban Mullahs. I've read of some Pakistani Mullahs that support OBL and his group. I've seen the huge crowds of "everyday" Pakistanis, Afghans, Palestians, Philippino, Indonesian, etc. Muslims chanting "death to the USA" and making threats.

I want to see and hear the other "kinder, gentler" Muslims.

In short, I want to believe that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance.

But I need a little evidence right now.

<EDIT> I'm not talking about Governments here. I'm talking about the Religious leaders themselves. The Saudi Royal Family isn't the question. It's the Religious leaders that interpret and teach Islam; the "big cheese" at Mecca and Medina.

As far as Falwell and Robertson... they IMMEDIATELY got slapped around by both the media and other religious leaders. They richly deserved it too.

Yet no Muslim cleric can get on the Tube and say the Taliban is out to lunch?

[ 09-24-2001: Message edited by: Toad ]

[indian]

Ditto  

[Dinger]

There are plenty of Muslim clerics who criticize other clerics.  Just get a Sunni and a Shi'ite together and ask them who the true successor to the Prophet was.
To be frank, though, political leaders will make the news, but the only times in which spiritual leaders of Islam become newsworthy is when they wield a lot of temporal power.
So, no I haven't seen anything, but that doesn't mean they haven't come out against it.  It doesn't mean the opposite either, but  given world opinion, it would be odd for it not to be the case.

Over on AGW webs posted a link to a US-published newspaper with a readership of Iranians around the world.  It's worth checking out.
For example,
 http://www.iranian.com/memory.html

[Udie]

Originally posted by Dinger:
Over on AGW webs posted a link to a US-published newspaper with a readership of Iranians around the world.  It's worth checking out.
For example,
 http://www.iranian.com/memory.html

 A side note....

 When I was a teenager I met a guy who is Iranian (American now   )  I have to say that with out a doubt he and his family are if not the nicest, some of the nicest people I've ever met.  They befriended me, a white guy, after they went through all kinds of bigotry following the hostage crisis. (they moved here in '78)

 They taught me about their culture and history, not the stuff you see on TV.  To this day I still want to go see Persopolis. That's the castle/pallace that King Daryush (Darius) built in 528 B.C.  Alexander the Great burned it down in 400 and something when Darius III lost the war and his head.

 I've met their family from Iran when they'd come to visit, eaten their food (very good cuisine) slept in their homes and gone to their weddings.  They've even told me I'd be welcome to go to Iran with them, to which I laughed at and said "maybe one day it will be safe enough"  They would always come back with, "it's safe enough now, white Euro's go there all the time"

 Iran is a fairly educated country too, for the middle east.  So the citizens there have the intelectual ability to see how the world realy is, and most if not all of the ones I've met know that their religious leaders have it assbackwards.  One of the things I found strangest about them was their attitude towards "arabs".  They hated them and look at them as criminals.  The only time I ever pissed off Koroush (Keven) is when I'd call him arab!!

 sorry for the long "side note" but I just wanted to let people know that the Iranian people have gotten a bad wrap over the last 20 or so years, for what a small but vocal/activist minority of their citizens did and say.  Squeeky wheel get's the oil kind of thing you know?


 Now, how about you ask me about the Lebonese and Palestinian friends I had.  Notice I said had....  Gulf war thing.... Crazies I tell ya just plain crazy.


U

[ 09-24-2001: Message edited by: Udie ]

[Dinger]

Hehe.  Or just ask an Arab what s/he thinks of Persians.  Same response.
So the politically correct name is "Arabian Gulf", not "Persian".
Yeah, I had a housemate last year who was an Iraqi Shi'ite refugee who grew up in Iran.  Nice guy, not a fan of Persians, but told a bunch of really dumb "Kurd" jokes.
Lebanon is such a mixed up country, it's hard to classify.  Beirut is a very cosmopolitan town, but you get up in the hills and you start seeing black paint smeared on the panty-hose ads.
Anyway, the point is that the Islamic world is not monolithic, neither in terms of beliefs, nor ethnicity.  And most people in the world are good people.

[Wotan]

Most prople I know can't tell what the difference is between a sunni or shi'ite or persian or arab or Kurd is. Most don't even know that Islam is practiced more by non-Arabs. Or that there is any difference.

They also have a hard time understanding the huge expanse between religious variations with in Islam.

When the only image you see is of the fanatical stereo-type it becomes easy to lump them together.

During the gulf war many Middle Eastern States supported the US against Suddam not only because he invaded a neighbor but his political party is based on "baath" idealogy which would upset the historic political order within the middle east.

As much as Osama is against the royal family in Suadi Arabia he was also in opposition to Suddam. But I guess terror makes strange bed fellows.

fyi:
The Arab Baath (Resurrection) Socialist Party (ABSP) was founded by three French educated intellectuals: Michel Aflaq, a Christian; Salah al ditan Bitar, a Sunni Muslim and Zaki al Arsuzi, an Alawite. It is a self professed revolutionary Party with a doctrine that combines Pan Arabism with Socialism. In 1944, in an article entitled "The New Arab Generation" Aflaq wrote:

"The nation is not a numerical sum, but an "idea" (spirit) embodied either in the total or in part of it. t. The numerical total is not a holy thing and end of itself, but only in so far as it has an embodiment of the "idea" of the nation ... The leader in times of weakness of the idea and its constriction, is not one to appeal to a majority or to consensus...: He is not one to substitute numbers for the "idea", but to translate numbers into the idea. He is not the in gatherer, but the unifier ... He is the master of the idea from which he contradicts all those who contradict it."

a sort of nazified Islamic State..........

[Dowding]

Superb posts, Udie, Dinger and Wotan. Very interesting. And refreshing.  

I think most divisions of the media dumb down many issues, and the recent events are just one example among many. I honestly find CNN insulting to my intelligence - it's all hot air, sensationalism and speculation. The same goes for just about every tabloid newspaper (and some broadsheets) I read.

I might be biased, but the BBC does a better job. There's been plenty of programmes discussing Islam and the origins of the conflict.

It's the detail of information that is the most important - and it seems to be very lacking in main stream media.

They all seem to be waiting for the explosions and tracer fire.

[ 09-24-2001: Message edited by: Dowding ]

[Karnak]

I have to back up what Udie said.  All the people of Iranian ancestry that I have known have been great people, Americans or Iranians.

The President of Iran is a cleric and he has repeatedly condemned the attack and offered assistance. Unfortunately the true power in Iran is not the democratically ellected president and congress, but the Ayatollah who is a conservative loon.  The Iranian people are aware of this which is why Khatami, who is a moderate trying to reform the government and nation, won his second term with nearly 80% of the popular vote. This in a field of 6 candidates.

Imagine a cadidate in the US winning 80% of the popular vote.

[Toad]

Nice and interesting commentary and history.

Where's the open condemnation of terror that has been caused by Islamic radicals?

Anyone really think that the cleric or group of clerics that supervise Mecca or Medina's shrines, two of the most important in all Islam, couldn't get CNN or BBC to give them 5 minutes of air?

That's what I'm talking about.

Where's the guy, respected in his religion by Muslims world wide, that will stand and say "This is abomination!"?

Be a nice counterpoint to OBL's latest Fax I think.

[Toad]

NM. It's pointless.

[ 09-25-2001: Message edited by: Toad ]