holy.shit. now i think we need to invade the whole place.

[thesightless]

sadly i am with you. cut off foreign aid from any country outside of north america. lets work on this place first. tired of giving money to places that would stab us in the back if givin the oppurtunity. (read:france)

[face]

it's kinda messed up all of this french bashing.

i just wish the US would listen to them sometimes. as i've said before, the US is new to the middle east. our relationship only goes back to the turn of the 20th century (aside from a few missionaries in the late 19th).

having said that, britain and france clearly have much more experience in the region (good experience? ...i dunno). from the mid 19th up until the mid-20th century (give or take), france and britain had control over all of what we call the middle east and north africa (plus much more--france in sub-saharan africa and indochina, britain in india).

i know it is dirty to speak in these terms, but we are the new colonial power in the middle east, and it wouldn't hurt to give history a chance. france and britain had very different colonial policies. france's machiavellian divide and rule policy obliterated indigenous culture, society, and religions; clearly it was very different than that of britan's, which mainly controlled fiscal/military/foreign policy and left the indigens to their fates for the most part.

which was more effective? i can't say. i do know france did a hell of a number on algeria. and they are still recovering from it. but we could learn a lot from france (and britain), which have meddled extensively in the middle east and have massive arab and muslim minority communities (which we are beginning to have as well).

ok, a bit off topic. but i'm just trying to curb the french bashing. from the many french courses i've taken in undergrad, i think that france is suffering from sort of inferiority complex. france represents/represented high culture, and french is/was the lingua franca of the world. the "educated" class of any third world country will speak french (and now english) and you could get by with french almost anywhere in the world. bu with the collapse of the soviet union, leaving america as the lone superpower of the world, france i think feels it should have a chance at competing with the US. i dunno if that made any sense.

i just think it's funny how i hear some people say things like: "if it weren't for the US, the French would be speaking German."

that's very funny and all, but people seem to forget about our war of independence and a certain marquis de lafayette. so one could easily postulate: "if it weren't for the French, we would be sipping tea, riding the lift, and going to the lou (loo?)..."

on that note. i bid thee good night.

[Yao]

From left to right:

top: -e-, Pickles,Psynce
bottom: Ska, Asdf, me, MJ

[face]

eh?

[sammwalk]

After seeing reading this post i have become an isolationist. I'm getting
tired of dealing with other cultures. No more saving the world, no more
AIDS supplies, no more tsunami aid, all troops out of Europe and let
them fend for themselves. Put up huge barbed wire fences and shoot
everyone who crosses into our country.

I don't care about human rights, the U.N., Kuwait, NK, Somalia, or Bosnia. I don't care about Asian textile workers or about people who
get stoned for committing adultery.

Beggars can't be choosers. If your country is defunct and you take our
money, you belong to us from that point on. I WANT A FUCKING RETURN
ON ALL THE MONEY WE GIVE AWAY INSTEAD OF THIS GODDAM HEADACHE!!!!!

k, i'm done

This would be fine except for a few minor problems: trade, immigration, travel, and ultimately our safety. Also, a lot of the world is the way it is because of us, so it's our responsibility. But I think you were being sarcastic, so

[asdf_admin]

I just wanna have sex with women. i could care less about everything else.

[Yao]

WORD. If everybody thought like that, this planet would be a damn paradise!

[sheryar]

The shariah law wasn't in the texts.

It came from the "hadeesth" or "sayings of the prophet" which were handed down from _person to person_ over the years.

no educated muslim believes in it but in some states and provinces or in cases where there's been a major fuckup on the part of someone (aka homosexual acts) shit like this has happened.

oh and there's no way in hell im watching that.

this shit should _not_ be posted on ms.

[sheryar]

and hell, friggin saeed and palash and deep dish are from iran, before people start getting anti-muslim here.

lamers.

[face]

sheryar, rest assured. there are people who do know a thing or two about islam. not everyone is completely ignorant, and i'm doing my part to educate folks.

interestingly enough, the shari'a wasn't codified until the ottoman period. and with the traditions of the prophet and their chain of transmission (isnad), one can only imagine how distorted they could get over time. if anything, hadiths were consciously manipulated or even invented by 'ulama' under state authority out of convenience (and this began during the 'abbasi and umayya caliphates).

anyone who thinks the qur'an is closed to modern (re)interpretation is guilty of taqlid (stagnation). the text is to be interpreted as the times change, which is not to say that it can be distorted as the hadiths were during the early calphates, but that the qur'an is a dynamic text.

there was a fascinating article in the washington post about gamal al-banna, brother of hasan al-banna, the late founder of the society of the muslim brothers in egypt. it's very interesting and worth reading (you might have to sign up on the washpost site to read it, but it's free):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12340-2005Mar6?language=printer

[Yao]

Very nice article Face, never heard of the man before, but damn: he deserve's some respect.

I do still have a few books on Islam and Islamic law...maybe I should read into them again. But what I'm looking for more is books that can explain the corruptive use that is made of the Qur'an by the extremist clergy. I think I'll try and find some of his books.

[face]

well he sounds to me like what i would call an 'islamic modernist'

if you are interested in more modernists and what they have to say, check out (late 19th century to present day):

muhammad iqbal (india/pakistan)
muhammad 'abduh (egypt)
muhammad rashid rida (egypt)
sir sayyid ahmad khan (india)
jamal al-din al-afghani (all over the place!)
ismail bey gasprinski (or gaspirali, russian crimea)
fazlur rahman (pakistan)
muhammad khatami (iran--yes, the president of iran; read his book called islam, liberty and development)

[Yao]

Thanx dude! Hope I have the time to dive into a few of those :wink:

[face]

yeah. they all try to bridge the 'gap' between islam and modernity. some of them go too far on the modernity side, leaving hardly any islam so-to-speak. others do the opposite, and don't accept or reconcile with modernity and rely too much on tradition.

rahman's islam and modernity is a great, short read. and khatami's islam, liberty and development (also very short) is a collection of speeches he made which are very surprising coming from him. his ideas are wonderful; if only they could be implemented, iran would be a great example of a modern islamic state.

[sheryar]

face: i am fucking happy to see that some people here have BRAINS.