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Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Re: [mukto-mona] Condemning Mumbai Violence



"As I said before - religion helped people find ways at a time when humanity was immerged in total darkness." - "totally untrue."

I would agree with Prof. The darkness factor is basically a relative term. The darkness has not vanished yet from the earth even though the business of religions has never been better. People are ready to commit supreme sacrifice for the sake religions, the least to mention. What should we call it? Enlightenment? 

The question is, what is really a religion? And, who is really carrying the book and following its words? Not many, I suppose. So, how did we get enlightened? I think we, all know the answer!
-SD
 
"All great truths begin as blasphemies." GBS

From: Kamal Das <kamalctgu@gmail.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2012 8:35 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Condemning Mumbai Violence

 
"As I said before - religion helped people find ways at a time when humanity was immerged in total darkness." - totally untrue.

In Europe, the dark age was caused by Christianity.  Before that Judaism brought dark age in Ugarit.  Islam did the same to Egypt, India, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Byzantium.  Even in relatively modern age, Christianity decimated the aboriginals in Americas and Australia.

On Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 6:25 AM, Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com> wrote:
 
As I said before - religion helped people find ways at a time when humanity was immerged in total darkness. World is no longer in darkness. Humanity has learned from the past, and they have come to a point when it is time to look at the future, instead of dwelling in the past. So, it will be better for the humanity if we all look ahead.  In going forward - I do not see any role religion can play in our lives.
 
I did not imply every Bangladeshi is corrupt. That's a foolish notion. As I said in another response - that example was given only to dispute the notion that religion brings morality in life.
 
Jiten Roy


--- On Wed, 8/15/12, qar <qrahman@netscape.net> wrote:

From: qar <qrahman@netscape.net>
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Condemning Mumbai Violence
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, August 15, 2012, 12:52 PM


 
You made some good points. However I differ with couple of your opinions.....

I am convinced that – most of the evils that are happening around the world are somehow or other due to the religious divisions among us,


>>>>>>> I slightly disagree. Yes there are fights among religious people but religion is NOT the cause of the fights. The hunger for money and power (AKA greed) is the reason. There are plenty of critic of Islam talks about India before Islam was accepted by great number of Indians. If you take a dispassionate view of history, you will see there were plenty of wars, destruction and murders among Indians BEFORE Muslims came to India.

Same goes in Arabia. Before prophet Muhammad (PBUH) started talking about Islam (Not until he was forty years old!!), there were plenty of wars among tribes. History tells us, he was invited to city of Medina to resolve some of these fights and bring peace into the community. Which he did with great success and more people accepted his religion as a result.

Before Christianity reached Europe, there were plenty of wars as well.

Even after most of Europe accepted communist/socialist ideals, we witnesses more persecutions and wars.

Therefore, it is easy to blame religion for wars but in reality, it is greedy people who abuse religion, nationalism etc who cause wars, death and destruction.

where there is division, there is competition and rivalry

>>>>>>> Rivalry comes from Ego and good old "Greed".

. I criticize religion for its very existence in this day and age, not because it has nothing good to offer anymore.

>>>>>>> Lot of your observations are valid. But I feel a lot of good came out of it and coming out of it. My observation is people are not properly educated about religion which often causes problem.


Morality in our lives comes from societal demands and environment

>>>>>>>> Yes. That is why religion helps us to come to some universal agreement of morality. The Biblical teaching of "Thou shall not steal" works for all people. Honor thy parents is practiced my most people of our "Mother earth" despite their religious differences. So it would be wrong to blindly blame religion. We should focus on how religion is used by corrupt people.

As I said many times (A politically incorrect statement) that, my people (Bangladeshi) are in need of Islamic education badly. They knowingly and without knowledge violate many religious ideals which gives religion a bad name. 


yet Bangladesh is one of the most corrupt countries in the world.

>>>>>>> Yet most Bangladeshis outside Bangladesh is well known as hard working honest people. It is the corrupt environment which make people bad and we have bad leadership as well. There are plenty of hard working honest people who make great sacrifices to make an honest living but they don't make headlines.


Shalom!

-----Original Message-----
From: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>
To: mukto-mona <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wed, Aug 15, 2012 5:27 am
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Condemning Mumbai Violence

 
I agree mostly.
 
Religion is like a jungle; one can find delicious as well poisonous fruits there. The problem is - there is no guarantee that everyone will always pick the delicious fruits. This is what's going on with the religion. Some people are picking poisonous fruits either advertently or inadvertently. The deliberate use of poisonous fruits (of religion) is causing havoc around the world, and it is not decreasing; it's being used increasingly to settle religious group rivalries across religious boundaries or even within the same religious boundary.
I am convinced that – most of the evils that are happening around the world are somehow or other due to the religious divisions among us, irrespective of how good religious principles are. It's because – where there is division, there is competition and rivalry. This is one of our instinctive characteristics. You may keep it dormant for a while through proper education and training, but can't eliminate it
After the scientific renaissance, science took over our lives and religion lost its utility.  Morality in our lives comes from societal demands and environment. The populace in Bangladesh is devoutly religious, yet Bangladesh is one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
Jiten Roy

--- On Tue, 8/14/12, qar <qrahman@netscape.net> wrote:

From: qar <qrahman@netscape.net>
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Condemning Mumbai Violence
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tuesday, August 14, 2012, 10:03 AM

 
Some people are just reacting to what religion is feeding to them. Obviously, not everybody will react to the same extent, but - some will. Don't blame them for reacting.


>>>>>>>>>> I think sometime religion looks "Bad" because we "Selectively" follow some ideas and don't follow others. For example, Bangladeshi Muslims are pretty big on "Showing" they are Muslims, when it benefits them. However you check on most of them if they paid, obligatory charity (Zakat) or made sacrifices to make an honest living (Halal income), you will see plenty of hypocrites.

I have seen plenty of Muslims, foaming their mouth about their "Rights" but not so eager to worry about their "Responsibilities". Which is the very reason why "Religion" looks bad to many of us (Muslims and non-Muslims alike). When I look back to teachings of prophet Muhammad (PBUH), he was more worried about his responsibilities and often "forgave" others when it came to his rights over them (Muslims and non-Muslim alike). Most Muslims don't follow it and those who do, they don't make headlines.

This is the "Root cause" of problems we see when it comes to religion. So in one word, we are greedy and often we prefer money/power over God.

Shalom!


-----Original Message-----
From: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>
To: mukto-mona <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sun, Aug 12, 2012 9:56 pm
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Condemning Mumbai Violence

 

Most religious people are either unwise or fake. They are unwise because they can't visualize the evil done on earth by what religion. All they need to do is - look around the world with open eyes and minds, but – they can't.
I know – people will still say – religion is not to blame; it's the people, the so called misguided religious fundamentalists, to blame.  That's hogwash; I don't blame anybody, but religion, for this. Some people are just reacting to what religion is feeding to them. Obviously, not everybody will react to the same extent, but - some will. Don't blame them for reacting. 
So, please - no more blame, excuses, and double talks; try to analyze the root cause, if you can, and try to expose all evils of religion on humanity. Also, please don't tell me that some big-shot said - religion is the 'shuva-sanskar,' on earth, because I have seen enough of those shuvo-sanskars by now already. Don't show me anymore.
 
Jiten Roy
 

--- On Sun, 8/12/12, ram puniyani <jhang45@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: ram puniyani <jhang45@yahoo.com>
Subject: [mukto-mona] Condemning Mumbai Violence
To: "Ram Puniyani" <ram.puniyani@gmail.com>
Date: Sunday, August 12, 2012, 1:24 AM

 
Condemnation of Attack on Media in Mumbai
 
 
We strongly and unequivocally condemn the attack on media in Mumbai by a section of people gathered at the Azad maidan to protest the violence in Assam and Burma. Using violence in a protest against violence is an insult to the suffering victims in whose support the protest was purportedly organised.
 
There are many non violent and democratic ways to communicate and protest any grievances, including against the media.  This mindless and shameful action by a few misguided individuals discredits protest and becomes a disservice to a cause.
 
We offer our solidarity with media; sympathy with all those injured and wish for their quick recovery. We urge the government to take immediate and exemplary action against the guilty. We also appeal to all citizens not to get swayed by this isolated and dastardly incidence and allow the situation to become a cause of conflict.  Any communalisation of the situation will be harmful for everyone and totally against the interests of the nation.
 
 
Lalita Ramdas- Ali Bagh
Mazher Hussain – Hyderabad
Admiral L. Ramdas- Ali Bagh
Mahesh Bhatt- Mumbai
Ram Punyani- Mumbai
Kamla Bhasin- Delhi
Sandeep Panday- Lucknow
Jatin Desai- Mumbai





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[mukto-mona] Fw: Wise sayings

FYI:



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Re: [mukto-mona] FW: Who's Afraid of Shariah?

My guess is - she was born and brought up in the USA, the land of naivety. Especially, the new generations are ignorant about the realities of outside the USA because of the international lobbies, which have seized the entire education system from high school through graduate school. I am not surprised to see her naivety about Sharia-issues.
 
Jiten Roy
 

--- On Wed, 8/15/12, Sukhamaya Bain <subain1@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Sukhamaya Bain <subain1@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] FW: Who's Afraid of Shariah?
To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, August 15, 2012, 10:10 PM

I think the woman is actually a joker. She is trying to mislead some unsuspecting minds in places like the USA.
 
Instead of using adjectives like anti-Islam, Islam-haters and Islamophobes on the skeptics, she should criticize the states that claim to have the Shariah laws. Following is a list of countries that claim to operate fully/mostly/partly under Shariah laws/principles: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Yemen, Oman, and Pakistan. Is this woman ready to go live in one of these countries to enjoy the fruits of the six principles of Shariah that she listed in her writing? If not, she should criticize those countries for failing her religion, as opposed to bad-mouthing people who see the Shariah in action in those countries and get disgusted.
 
She should imagine herself to be a non-Muslim who is neutral about religions, and look at Shariah in action in some of the countries mentioned above, and decide for herself if she would have any interest in reading the Islamic holy books to find out how great the Shariah laws/principles are. I do not think her deceptive technique of preaching religion would work with intelligent people.
 
Sukhamaya Bain
 
=========================================
From: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2012 7:24 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] FW: Who's Afraid of Shariah?

I liked most of what Sumbul Ali-Karamani is saying, except that - she is implying - those who are opposing 'Sharia-laws' are anti-Islam or Islamophobe. She did not say why millions of Muslims oppose them also.
 
I agree - there is nothing to be worried about Sharia principles, and many of those principles are already implemented in most societies. The fact is - people are not opposing those principles either.
 
Her message is – don't worry about Sharia, it's OK for the society. That's a simplistic, if not misleading, message.
 
People are genuinely concerned about Sharia Laws, and the promoters of Sharia-based society are not promoting those principles just to educate people; they want to implement Sharia laws in the society by replacing existing laws of the land. The fact is - majority of Muslim countries did not adopt Sharia-laws in the state level also. Therefore, I think, she needs to think a little deeper to understand why people are protesting.
 
 
Jiten Roy
 
--- On Wed, 8/15/12, Farida Majid <farida_majid@hotmail.com> wrote:

From: Farida Majid <farida_majid@hotmail.com>
Subject: [mukto-mona] FW: Who's Afraid of Shariah?
To:
Date: Wednesday, August 15, 2012, 6:30 AM

 
                    This is a very good, basic talk about the myth of Sharia that is being demonized by the Islamophobes and lionized by the African Islamists.
Subject: Who's Afraid of Shariah? From: omarhuda@aol.com Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2012 02:41:29 -0400
The Huffington Post: Understanding Islam.
 
Sumbul Ali-Karamali is an attorney with an additional degree in Islamic Law, as well as the author of "The Muslim Next Door: the Qur'an, the Media, and that Veil Thing."  The following article is for your reading pleasure.  You may not necessarily agree with everything she writes, but it is always good to be aware what people are thinking and  how  they are interpreting Islam.

Who's Afraid of Shariah?


by Sumbul Ali-Karamali.
 
Hasn't the whole notion of shariah in America gotten a bit out of control? No, it hasn't -- it's gotten hugely, obscenely, ignorantly out of control. How many of those anti-Islam protesters holding "NO SHARIA LAW" signs (as if anyone were advocating shariah law in the U.S.) actually know what the word means? I'd say, oh, none. Roughly.
 
Shariah (also spelled shari'ah or sharia or shari'a) is the Arabic word for "the road to the watering place." In a religious context, it means "the righteous path." Loosely, it can mean simply, "Islam."
 
There are six principles of shariah. They are derived from the Qur'an, which Muslims believe is the word of God. All Islamic religious rules must be in line with these six principles of shariah.
 
Aha! The six principles must be about killing infidels, veiling women, stoning people for adultery, honor killings and female genital cutting, right? Nope.
 
Here they are, the six principles of shariah:1. The right to the protection of life.
2. The right to the protection of family.
3. The right to the protection of education.
4. The right to the protection of religion.
5. The right to the protection of property (access to resources).
6. The right to the protection of human dignity.
 Well, bless me, as a pledge-of-allegiance-reciting, California-raised Muslim girl, these six principles sound a lot like those espoused in my very own Constitution of the United States. Except that these were developed over a thousand years ago. This is the core of shariah -- these six principles. The term "shariah law" is a misnomer, because shariah is not law, but a set of principles. To Muslims, it's the general term for "the way of God." But how do we know what the way of God is? Early Muslims looked to the Qur'an and the words of the Prophet Muhammad to figure this out. They filled books of interpretive writings (called fiqh) about how to act in accordance with the way of God. They rarely agreed -- the fiqh is not just one rule, but many differing opinions and contradictory rules and scholarly debates. Sometimes, shariah also refers to the whole body of Islamic texts, which includes the Qur'an, the sayings of the Prophet, and the books of interpretive literature written by medieval Muslim scholars. The first two are considered divine. The interpretive literature, thefiqh, is not.The fiqh was meant to develop and change according to the time and place -- it has internal methodologies for that to happen. It is not static, but flexible. No religion gets to be 1400 years old and the second largest in the world unless it's flexible and adaptable.The Qur'an is old. The fiqh books of jurisprudence are old. To modern eyes, they can look just as outdated as other ancient texts, including the Bible and Torah. That's why, just like the Bible and the Torah, the Islamic texts must be read in their historical context.Assuming all Muslims follow medieval Islamic rules today is like assuming that all Catholics follow 9th century canon law. Islam, like Christianity, has changed many times over the centuries, and it continues to change. Focusing only on the nutcases who advocate a return to medieval times is ignoring the vast majority of modern Muslims. For example, stoning for adultery is a punishment that appears in fiqh, as well as early Judaic law. But it does not appear in the Qur'an. In Islam, therefore, stoning was a result of cultural norms imposed on the religious texts. Moreover, in the fiqh, though the punishment for adultery was stoning, adultery was made such a fantastically difficult crime to prove that the punishment was impossible to apply. Historically, stoning was very rarely implemented in the Islamic world, which is ironic, since today the Saudi and Iranian governments apply it as though they'd never heard of the strict Islamic constraints on it. The vast majority of Muslims today do not believe in stoning people for adultery, and many are working hard to eradicate it. Stoning is horrific and has no place in our world. The miniscule percentage of Muslims who advocate it are imposing the medieval penalty while ignoring all the myriad limitations meant to make it inapplicable. As for other scary stories attributed to shari'a, like honor killings, veiling of women, and female genital cutting, these are cultural practices and not Islamic. They are practiced by non-Muslims of certain cultures as well as Muslims. Shari'a is a set of religious principles and is not the law of the land anywhere in the world. The 50-some Muslim-majority countries are all constitutional states and nearly all of them have civil codes (many of these based on the French system). Being Muslim does not require a governmental imposition of something called "shari'a law," any more than being a Christian requires the implementation of "Biblical law" (though there are, of course, a tiny minority of both Christians and Muslims who do advocate such things, including Sarah Palin).As for Islam being a political system, there is nothing in the Qur'an about an "Islamic state," and the Prophet himself never tried to implement an "Islamic state," despite hysterical accusations to the contrary. Those under his leadership practiced a variety of religions.Traditionally, in the Islamic world, the institutions that governed were always separate from the institutions that developed religion. In fact, they often checked and balanced one another. Although no civilization has been free from all conflict, every Islamic empire was a multi-religious, multicultural empire, in which religious minorities were governed by their own laws. The term "Islam as a religion and a state" really only became popular in the 1920s, as a reaction to Western colonization of the Muslim world. In fact, Islam contains plenty of concepts consistent with modern democracy -- for example, shura (consultation) and aqd (a contract between the governed and the governing). In other words, Muslims can be perfectly comfortable in America, following state and federal laws.The Qur'an contains many verses advocating religious tolerance, too, though the anti-Islam protesters won't believe it. The Qur'an says that: God could have made everyone into one people, but elected not to (11:118); God made us into different nations and tribes so that we can learn from one another (49:13); there is no compulsion in religion(2:256); and that we should say, "to you your religion, to me mine" (109:6).The only verses about fighting in the Qur'an refer specifically to the polytheistic Arab tribes who were trying to kill the Prophet in the 7th century. So the Islamophobes who look in the Qur'an for the fighting verses and assume that these verses refer to them personally are simply being narcissistic. Contrary to counting Jews and Christians as "infidels," the Qur'an repeatedly commands particular respect of Jews and Christians. It is established in Islam that you don't need to be Muslim to go to heaven. Repeating a lie over and over again doesn't make it true; but it certainly results in people believing the lie. That's what the Islam-haters are counting on. That, and the ignorance about Islamic tenets. So the best thing to do is find out what Islam really is about. Talk to a Muslim in person. Read an introduction to Islam (try a fun one like mine). Read Loonwatch to read about the holes in the anti-Islamic rhetoric. Or take a look at the University of Georgia's informational website on Islam, for some quick answers and further reading. If you read the anti-Islam fear-mongering websites, all you'll learn will be tall tales.Bigotry may be a human tendency, but America has never stood for bigotry. I believe in an America that stands for pluralism and multicultural understanding. The hysteria and hate toward Muslims - resulting in several acts of violence against Muslims, such as stabbing and arson - is un-American. 

Re: [mukto-mona] FW: Who's Afraid of Shariah?

I think the woman is actually a joker. She is trying to mislead some unsuspecting minds in places like the USA.
 
Instead of using adjectives like anti-Islam, Islam-haters and Islamophobes on the skeptics, she should criticize the states that claim to have the Shariah laws. Following is a list of countries that claim to operate fully/mostly/partly under Shariah laws/principles: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Yemen, Oman, and Pakistan. Is this woman ready to go live in one of these countries to enjoy the fruits of the six principles of Shariah that she listed in her writing? If not, she should criticize those countries for failing her religion, as opposed to bad-mouthing people who see the Shariah in action in those countries and get disgusted.
 
She should imagine herself to be a non-Muslim who is neutral about religions, and look at Shariah in action in some of the countries mentioned above, and decide for herself if she would have any interest in reading the Islamic holy books to find out how great the Shariah laws/principles are. I do not think her deceptive technique of preaching religion would work with intelligent people.
 
Sukhamaya Bain
 
=========================================
From: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2012 7:24 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] FW: Who's Afraid of Shariah?

I liked most of what Sumbul Ali-Karamani is saying, except that - she is implying - those who are opposing 'Sharia-laws' are anti-Islam or Islamophobe. She did not say why millions of Muslims oppose them also.
 
I agree - there is nothing to be worried about Sharia principles, and many of those principles are already implemented in most societies. The fact is - people are not opposing those principles either.
 
Her message is – don't worry about Sharia, it's OK for the society. That's a simplistic, if not misleading, message.
 
People are genuinely concerned about Sharia Laws, and the promoters of Sharia-based society are not promoting those principles just to educate people; they want to implement Sharia laws in the society by replacing existing laws of the land. The fact is - majority of Muslim countries did not adopt Sharia-laws in the state level also. Therefore, I think, she needs to think a little deeper to understand why people are protesting.
 
 
Jiten Roy
 
--- On Wed, 8/15/12, Farida Majid <farida_majid@hotmail.com> wrote:

From: Farida Majid <farida_majid@hotmail.com>
Subject: [mukto-mona] FW: Who's Afraid of Shariah?
To:
Date: Wednesday, August 15, 2012, 6:30 AM

 
                    This is a very good, basic talk about the myth of Sharia that is being demonized by the Islamophobes and lionized by the African Islamists.
Subject: Who's Afraid of Shariah?From: omarhuda@aol.comDate: Wed, 15 Aug 2012 02:41:29 -0400
The Huffington Post: Understanding Islam.
 
Sumbul Ali-Karamali is an attorney with an additional degree in Islamic Law, as well as the author of "The Muslim Next Door: the Qur'an, the Media, and that Veil Thing."  The following article is for your reading pleasure.  You may not necessarily agree with everything she writes, but it is always good to be aware what people are thinking and  how  they are interpreting Islam.

Who's Afraid of Shariah?


by Sumbul Ali-Karamali.
 
Hasn't the whole notion of shariah in America gotten a bit out of control? No, it hasn't -- it's gotten hugely, obscenely, ignorantly out of control. How many of those anti-Islam protesters holding "NO SHARIA LAW" signs (as if anyone were advocating shariah law in the U.S.) actually know what the word means? I'd say, oh, none. Roughly.
 
Shariah (also spelled shari'ah or sharia or shari'a) is the Arabic word for "the road to the watering place." In a religious context, it means "the righteous path." Loosely, it can mean simply, "Islam."
 
There are six principles of shariah. They are derived from the Qur'an, which Muslims believe is the word of God. All Islamic religious rules must be in line with these six principles of shariah.
 
Aha! The six principles must be about killing infidels, veiling women, stoning people for adultery, honor killings and female genital cutting, right? Nope.
 
Here they are, the six principles of shariah:1. The right to the protection of life.
2. The right to the protection of family.
3. The right to the protection of education.
4. The right to the protection of religion.
5. The right to the protection of property (access to resources).
6. The right to the protection of human dignity.
 Well, bless me, as a pledge-of-allegiance-reciting, California-raised Muslim girl, these six principles sound a lot like those espoused in my very own Constitution of the United States. Except that these were developed over a thousand years ago. This is the core of shariah -- these six principles. The term "shariah law" is a misnomer, because shariah is not law, but a set of principles. To Muslims, it's the general term for "the way of God." But how do we know what the way of God is? Early Muslims looked to the Qur'an and the words of the Prophet Muhammad to figure this out. They filled books of interpretive writings (called fiqh) about how to act in accordance with the way of God. They rarely agreed -- the fiqh is not just one rule, but many differing opinions and contradictory rules and scholarly debates. Sometimes, shariah also refers to the whole body of Islamic texts, which includes the Qur'an, the sayings of the Prophet, and the books of interpretive literature written by medieval Muslim scholars. The first two are considered divine. The interpretive literature, thefiqh, is not.The fiqh was meant to develop and change according to the time and place -- it has internal methodologies for that to happen. It is not static, but flexible. No religion gets to be 1400 years old and the second largest in the world unless it's flexible and adaptable.The Qur'an is old. The fiqh books of jurisprudence are old. To modern eyes, they can look just as outdated as other ancient texts, including the Bible and Torah. That's why, just like the Bible and the Torah, the Islamic texts must be read in their historical context.Assuming all Muslims follow medieval Islamic rules today is like assuming that all Catholics follow 9th century canon law. Islam, like Christianity, has changed many times over the centuries, and it continues to change. Focusing only on the nutcases who advocate a return to medieval times is ignoring the vast majority of modern Muslims. For example, stoning for adultery is a punishment that appears in fiqh, as well as early Judaic law. But it does not appear in the Qur'an. In Islam, therefore, stoning was a result of cultural norms imposed on the religious texts. Moreover, in the fiqh, though the punishment for adultery was stoning, adultery was made such a fantastically difficult crime to prove that the punishment was impossible to apply. Historically, stoning was very rarely implemented in the Islamic world, which is ironic, since today the Saudi and Iranian governments apply it as though they'd never heard of the strict Islamic constraints on it. The vast majority of Muslims today do not believe in stoning people for adultery, and many are working hard to eradicate it. Stoning is horrific and has no place in our world. The miniscule percentage of Muslims who advocate it are imposing the medieval penalty while ignoring all the myriad limitations meant to make it inapplicable. As for other scary stories attributed to shari'a, like honor killings, veiling of women, and female genital cutting, these are cultural practices and not Islamic. They are practiced by non-Muslims of certain cultures as well as Muslims. Shari'a is a set of religious principles and is not the law of the land anywhere in the world. The 50-some Muslim-majority countries are all constitutional states and nearly all of them have civil codes (many of these based on the French system). Being Muslim does not require a governmental imposition of something called "shari'a law," any more than being a Christian requires the implementation of "Biblical law" (though there are, of course, a tiny minority of both Christians and Muslims who do advocate such things, including Sarah Palin).As for Islam being a political system, there is nothing in the Qur'an about an "Islamic state," and the Prophet himself never tried to implement an "Islamic state," despite hysterical accusations to the contrary. Those under his leadership practiced a variety of religions.Traditionally, in the Islamic world, the institutions that governed were always separate from the institutions that developed religion. In fact, they often checked and balanced one another. Although no civilization has been free from all conflict, every Islamic empire was a multi-religious, multicultural empire, in which religious minorities were governed by their own laws. The term "Islam as a religion and a state" really only became popular in the 1920s, as a reaction to Western colonization of the Muslim world. In fact, Islam contains plenty of concepts consistent with modern democracy -- for example, shura (consultation) and aqd (a contract between the governed and the governing). In other words, Muslims can be perfectly comfortable in America, following state and federal laws.The Qur'an contains many verses advocating religious tolerance, too, though the anti-Islam protesters won't believe it. The Qur'an says that: God could have made everyone into one people, but elected not to (11:118); God made us into different nations and tribes so that we can learn from one another (49:13); there is no compulsion in religion(2:256); and that we should say, "to you your religion, to me mine" (109:6).The only verses about fighting in the Qur'an refer specifically to the polytheistic Arab tribes who were trying to kill the Prophet in the 7th century. So the Islamophobes who look in the Qur'an for the fighting verses and assume that these verses refer to them personally are simply being narcissistic. Contrary to counting Jews and Christians as "infidels," the Qur'an repeatedly commands particular respect of Jews and Christians. It is established in Islam that you don't need to be Muslim to go to heaven. Repeating a lie over and over again doesn't make it true; but it certainly results in people believing the lie. That's what the Islam-haters are counting on. That, and the ignorance about Islamic tenets. So the best thing to do is find out what Islam really is about. Talk to a Muslim in person. Read an introduction to Islam (try a fun one like mine). Read Loonwatch to read about the holes in the anti-Islamic rhetoric. Or take a look at the University of Georgia's informational website on Islam, for some quick answers and further reading. If you read the anti-Islam fear-mongering websites, all you'll learn will be tall tales.Bigotry may be a human tendency, but America has never stood for bigotry. I believe in an America that stands for pluralism and multicultural understanding. The hysteria and hate toward Muslims - resulting in several acts of violence against Muslims, such as stabbing and arson - is un-American.