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[Ashes]

We are breaking free from the Ramadan Thread OT. They want to talk and post gifs only about food, diet etc stuff in there.

Okay so I don't want to single out posters so I'll just talk about my view regarding this video. Let's just say I disagree with quite a few parts in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjBCfHznM-o

Summary/comment of video/replying to another poster

It's Ramadan, so I just thought I'd watch this anyway. So I have watched 30 minutes and these are my thoughts on what I have seen thus far. Several times he has talked of civil liberties being overridden and abused in so called free societies such as in the US, for example Guantanamo Bay. That merely implies that the so called liberties of the US are not as free nor as universal as they claim to be. This says nothing on whether secular liberalism is a good idea or not - just that its core principles are not being all that equally applied in some societies. He says he is more free in Malaysia to speak without the threat of being put on a government black list or detained, it means that in some ways Malaysia is freer than the US.
The other main thing is this idea of erosion of religion in society. Basically popularity of ideas. Again he cites societies such as the US, where he experiences harassment due to being Muslim, and not being allowed to pray anyway in public 'freely'. Whereas in Malaysia, he is. So Islamic religious freedom is triumphant in Malaysia over US.
I hope you see the pattern emerging here. Most of these examples aren't pointing out flaws in secular liberalism, but to specific flaws in an anti-Islamic or anti-religious aspect of society, or an islamaphobic society.

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He is about to talk of the reduction of religion to the personal space. He doesn't really. Not yet, anyhow, He talks about the relegation of Islam to within the confines of a civil constitution. What about non-muslims? Asadullah Ali doesn't seem to care all that much about balancing opinions. He doesn't seem to care that this is the fairest solution for all concerned. He just wants everyone to accept that Islam should be the highest rule in the land. And all should fall under its grace. [on reflection, no. later on, he talks about Muslims being ruled under Muslim laws. Jews being ruled under Jewish laws.]

There are times where he is saying stuff without attempting to prove it. And just moves on, as if his words are self evident and cannot be challenged. He talks of liberal Islam, and how its not Islam at all just secular liberalism, with Islam attached to it. Then just carries on. No examples. How can this be? Secular liberalism, in this context, separates religion from the state, you can criticise religion if you want to and allow for the freedom of being religious too. Whereas Liberal Islam - forgive me the use of this monolithic sounding term - searches for interpretations and meaning from the holy texts themselves in a modern light. There is a subtle but fundamental difference between the picture represented by Asadullah Ali, and how it actually is.

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So he is now going to talk about how radical islamists are not really terrorist; he says he will prove that they are in fact liberal extremists instead.

With all due respect, you should have really thought about posting this video. I hope I haven't misunderstood him, and that he is not going to talk about how ISIS are not Islamic radicals but liberal extremists. To be honest, it is hard to follow him now. And even he is saying that this is going to surprise people .

He starts proving his case by talking about how terrorists are not radicals. Cites many studies. One after the other. Mounting evidence suggests terrorists are not radicals - most don't pray, are religious novices etc.. All probably true, and stuff that I agree with and have said so on numerous occasions. And lots of gaffers have said this over the years

The second notion is Bin laden talking about retaliation. Speaker talks about Bin Laden reacting to foreign policy rather than following the Quranic text per say.
I think I know where he is going with this. He may talk about stuff I've talked about before - about the transgression of limits. How modern jihadi want to a return to a time, where most of their actions would be transgressions.

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And he just talked about transgressions. I like how our paths are merging when he starts talking about the evidence.

I have my source bookmarked:

http://vridar.org/2013/04/25/terrori...-even-muslims/

Which borrows from: peer-reviewed Asian Journal of Social Science 38 (2010) 364-378, “The Alchemy of Martyrdom: Jihadi Salafism and Debates over Suicide Bombings in the Muslim World”, by Mohammed M. Hafez.

It'll be interesting to note whether he refers to this. This is western university type scholarship though, not the ulemma, but I think you were not the poster who had a problem with non-ulemma scholar views.

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Speaker says bin laden is not a sheik. And that he was an accountant. And talks about how him [Bin Laden] and his comrades had their ideas 'firmly rooted in liberal societies.' Went to Secular universities. Kind of forgetting that they left those societies to go live in a cave for their notion of true islam ( a version of islam that forgoes modernity and supposedly goes back to the good old days). But that doesn't seem to matter.
And [Bin Laden] holds nothing that seems to mirror what I would see as liberal secularism. Bin Laden wants all church - Mosque I should say. All day. Everyday. No? if everything were to be his way.

Asadullah Ali said, I repeat, these were young men with 'firmly rooted ideas in liberal societies.' Who here on gaf thinks Bin laden was a feminist?

I think he is losing me again. Like almost entirely. Going to Secular universities don't mean you hold secular liberal citizenships. Especially if you happen to be entirely critical of the western style of living. It's incomprehensible and illogical. Hopefully he [Speaker] is going to tie everything together.

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He is now prefacing what he says might offend Muslim Liberals. He says, and I quote:
"I see very little difference between the extremists such as ISIS, and many of the Muslim liberals society.' (38 minute mark)

For which he gets an applause. He stops the clapping, and says he can justify this.

I think he sees what he wants to see.

Speaker says most of the Muslim liberals that he knows support US invasions. So the only difference is that the disenfranchised ISIS want to blow them selves up; whilst Muslim liberals want to send the US in on boats.

With all due respect, a straw man argument to shore up your entire argument based on people you have met personally is weak. Not to mention all the actual major differences espoused by the two camps. I don't mean to embarrass you by stating this. But a heck of lot of liberal non-muslims are anti-war never mind muslim liberals.

Just because Asadula Ali is blind to major differences between those who want women to have more rights such as in property law [Liberal Muslims], and those who are raping and making slaves of women [ISIS], doesn't mean you have to be blind too.

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Moving on. He is now talking about Sam Harris debating with Noam Chomsky. Gaf had a thread on this. Ali says Sam Harris talked about US intentions. Chomsky said US devalues life.
From this, Ali says we shouldn't be surprised that ISIS members adopts strategies from where they come from - I don't follow how he says this from the above debate, but I think he is talking about ISIS coming from western societies. Except most come from Iraq... no? civil war iraq. Which in a round about way proves it's all the US and Brits fault, but not in the way Ali suggests.

He is saying ISIS is not islamic. He has different ideas of where ISIS came from. They come from Liberal societies that oppress religion. They will not listen to the scholars who condemn them. Just like the liberal Muslims don't listen to the scholars. What an appalling comparison. One is blind to reason and will chop off your head and means to start a caliphate - the so called Muslim state; the other is open to reason, and looks to challenge the ulema, for a truer fairer society, and hopes for a democratically elected government.
There's huge huge differences. Not just intention, not just by actions, not just philosophically, but on a lot of levels.

Now Ali is talking about how ISIS is not starting a true state. ISIS is one law for all ere go similar to modern secular democracies. [There are many differences. This similarity is very weak in my opinion] True Caliphate would have the Jews unto a law on themselves. Muslims unto a law on themselves. etc.. And Ali says one law for all neutralises values.
This he says is reflected by ISIS in Iraq by their wholesale murder, the raping and pillaging. About shooting people and putting up on youtube. [Note this isn't the barbaric stuff Ali will speak off in the next minute]

Ali says ISIS is very much liberal in that they they practise the only one form of barbarism in our day and age. That is coercing ones values onto others. This person does not know how to reason. And uses very poor examples to lend weight to his argument.

Tldr or watch or take part in the discussion before: We're talking about secular liberalism affecting Islam in the modern world; and its path over the course of the future.

 

[Ashes]

I mean that the foundation of liberalism is a twofold impetus of European imperialism and anti-religious imperatives and so the adoption of the language and narratives of liberalism brings both into the homes and minds of Muslims within the core of Empire.

It can do so precisely because of its claims to universality.

I wrote this after Charlie Hebdo: https://squashingbutterflies.wordpress.com/2015/01/23/cartoon-violence-and-the-violence-of-cartoons/

In the wake of the brutal and targeted killings of staff at French magazine Charlie Hebdo a huge volume of cartoon eulogies have emerged. The common trend amongst these cartoons is a contrast; the violence of the gun with the pacifism of the pencil. Bleeding pencils, snapped pencils, weeping pencils, all have flooded our timelines to reinforce the point that not only were the cartoonists non-combatants, but that freedom of speech is dichotomous with violence.

This contrast, however, is a false one. Cartoons, like the rhetoric of freedom of speech, have never been distinct from violence. Sinister caricatures of a racist Jewish archetype haunt Europe still. The distorted characterisations of various racial others formed the architecture of the European race sciences which in turn permeated European empire. The height of so called ‘enlightenment values’ was simultaneously the height of European expansion into the rest of the world, often with the purported goal of their spread.

Who, misquoting Voltaire regarding freedom of speech, acknowledges his Napoleon; French ‘freedom’ spread by an Imperial Philosopher King with musket and bayonet? The ‘enlightened absolutism’ of much enlightenment thought shifted from Kings within Europe to Europe as King of the world. Just as the ruler legitimated their rule through enforcing the values of the enlightenment upon the populace, so Europeans’ right to its colonies and ‘mandates’ was made legitimate by the same.

The cry of ‘liberté, egalité, fraternité’ thus echoed over vast Imperial holdings long after the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen were on the books. French colonial violence was justified by the language of rights dangled above the heads of French colonial subjects. The historical violence associated with French rights discourse and racial caricature may be easily forgotten by those to whom it was never directed.

But some cannot forget; cannot remove the vicious caricatures of dead Arab men and raped Nigerian women from those historical continuities. A cartoon of a bullet ridden Arab futilely holding up the Qur’an in defence is not separate from Sisi welcomed in France with the blood of thousands on his hands. The mockery of raped African women cannot be removed from French military cooperation deals, residual Imperial taxes and military bases in West Africa. For some, there is no joke to get, the cartoons, like the language of ‘freedom of speech’, necessarily evokes all the above.

Here I'm talking about a particular part of liberalism but you get the point.

Alright OS... give me a few moments... I know you're not talking about the video but about the subject in a wider context.

 

[Brakke]

is there a thesis statement here...?

 

[Hyperactivity]

is there a thesis statement here...?

Ramadhan thread was getting a little out of hand with theological discussion, so everyone decided to move it to a new thread

 

[RustyNails]

I have to disagree on secular liberalism being tied to colonial past ergo secular liberalism is flawed. That is similar to saying Islam is flawed because it was tied to qutbism. I am sure we can separate these facts. Secular liberalism is only so much of a threat if it forces Islam to change from outside. I see in secular socities that this is not the case. You can be a salafist or a Sufi in such society and Islam is not threatened at all. So my point being, Islam is not under threat. Muslims are free to follow whatever flavor they please. If some are following a "deviant" flavor, Islam is not being rewritten.

 

[Ashes]

is there a thesis statement here...?

ISIS is a liberal extremist according to the speaker in that posted video.

I've never heard of anyone argue that ISIS are liberal - let alone liberal extremist. And don't think much of the speaker's theories. His best bits, according to me, are those he borrows from western scholars, secular or otherwise.

Myself and OS are talking about the broader aspects I believe. He didn't post the video. And hasn't commented on the video as yet.

 

[Ashes]

I mean that the foundation of liberalism is a twofold impetus of European imperialism and anti-religious imperatives and so the adoption of the language and narratives of liberalism brings both into the homes and minds of Muslims within the core of Empire.

An ever changing empire. No? Not a static dead body that you can poke a stick at.

Cards on the table. I live in London. Which is awesome. And amongst the best cities in the world in some ways.

But, on point, I think secular liberalism along with democracy is the best current idea going. God only knows it's not perfect. But you do have enough freedom to be

a, Muslim.

Sure you may have a few more rights biased in favour of Muslims, in some Muslim majority countries. But no society can be perfect. Not even a Muslim Society based one. So in those societies you may lose rights that some Muslim scholars think you should have - and gain them in secular societies for example.

And where Britain fails to be as liberal as it purports to be, than it fails and isn't free in that aspect, and has eroded a liberty. Such as the right to privacy for example.

 

[duckroll]

Don't try to force a discussion in an existing thread into another thread especially if whoever you are trying to engage with clearly doesn't care to post in your new thread.