| Name |
Views and Comments | Date |
| MSMegalommatis |
Omar, you are correct! Islam is a way of life, not just a small part of it. A way of life preached approximately before 1400 years. It corresponded to needs and practices of those days. Islam did not reveal that there will be railways, transatlantic seafaring, airplanes, and – either the Prophet knew or not – spacecraft and space travels. Islam did not correspond to societies of post-Industrial times, was not prophesied for people living in electrified buildings, let alone working in front of a Computer (while interconnected with others faraway). Of all these things the prophet did not say anything. What the Prophet taught was analyzed by later Philosophers who brought Islam to cultural peaks that are incommensurably higher than the low intellectual level of Madina and Mekka of the days of the Prophet. Islamic Sciences, Philosophy, Arts, Literature, Knowledge and Erudition were at their top in Baghdad of Haroun al Rashid, not in miserable Madina of Omar ibn al Khattab. Kairwan, Andalusia, Cairo, Samarqand, Esfahan, Shiraz, Istanbul, Maragheh, Sivas, Kayseri, Konya, Buhara, these are the really holy places of Islam, of the real, the unsurpassed, the historical Islam. Not Hedjaz of Bakr, Omar and Uthman, not Damascus of Muawiyeh and Yazid. These intellectual peaks of Islam conceptualized the preaching of the Prophet into various philosophical systems, and let us understand what the real Principles of Islam are. And that for Islam Principles matter, not practice of imitational idiocy that simply reproduces barbarism. You cannot insist on an obsolete way of life that ridicules Islam, and justifies all those who say that Islam is backward and obscurantist. And they are right, because any religion that cannot adapt itself in new environments is obsolete and dead, Like the ape’s movements during the prayers, since the people who just repeat idiotically these movements know nothing about transcendental meditation (which was common practice to Great Intellectual and Spiritual Scholars like Ali Ibn Abu Taleb, Qurdubi, Tabari, Ferdowsi, Ibn Rushd, and many others). When Muslims find themselves in a new environment set up by others, their only chance is to stick to Islamic Principles, reassess them, and adapt to the new situation. Quite unfortunately, Islam is spiritually and intellectually dead from the times the system of Ibn Taimiya prevailed, and even worse Islam turned to Satanism with the gradual and pernicious diffusion of the antihuman system of Abdel Wahhab. So, Muslim intellectuals practically speaking do not exist, and as it is so, no adaptation of the Islamic Principles into our new world has ever taken place. More this continues, more defamation will fall upon this altered and false Islam. Yet, I can tell you that the Principles of Islam can be all comprised within a modern secular society which is certainly closer to the original concept of Islam than the criminal paranoia of the Satanic sheikhs of Hatred and Fornication. Islam is above all the religion of Direct Contact between the Human Being and the Creator. There are no priests in Islam, and the institutionalization of sheikhs and imams turned Islam into a ridiculous copy of Christianity. Within a modern secular society anyone, who wants Islam as his /her way to contact God, after a lot of studies and readings (not simple pathetic and idiotic reading of the Coran that you think you understand but you don’t because you are ignorant of many other subjects), can reach Communion with God. It is not obligatory for anyone; people must feel the need. All those who want to impose Islam (truly speaking: "their Satanic version of false Islam" like Qaradawi, Shaarawi, and Banna) either on Muslims or non-Muslims will soon or late be exterminated with no exception. For them there is no place on Earth, and there is no place in Paradise. |
9/26/2006 |
| Omar |
"all the Muslim countries should turn secular"
Islam is a way of life, not just a small part of it. You can't seperate Islam from Law or ethics, etc.. therefore you can't have a Secular state that is "Islamic" |
9/25/2006 |
| MSMegalommatis |
Filip,
Thank you very much!
You are right; reason must win over 'feelings'- especially low level feelings of psychologically complexed and uneducated people.
And I indeed feel ashamed because of my coreligionists... |
9/21/2006 |
| Filp Jansen |
Thank you Dr. Megalommatis.
I read not all of the quran's verses, I'm ashamed to admit, but you text expresses, tough in hard words, the sentiment I had when all this broke out.
As a christian I would be rather ashamed if fellow chrisians would react in a similar way on a similar occasion.
Reason should rule emotion in debates - it is too easy to stampede people with quotations torn out of the context.
|
9/21/2006 |
| Irena Knehtl |
Thank you. I stand by my view. |
9/20/2006 |
| MSMegalommatis |
Dear Nick!
Thank you!
And thank God for your inquisitive nature!
What is better than the Search for the Truth in this ephemeral world? |
9/20/2006 |
| Nick Dalmulder |
Dear Professor,
I find your comments on the Pope Benedict controversy and your views on religious freedom heart-warming and completely in tune with my own views(I am a 63-year-old Protestant Christian) and with the best traditions of my own country (Holland). Thank you very very much for sharing them with us (And thank Google for leading me to your site!).
Yours very gratefully,
Nicholas Dalmulder |
9/19/2006 |
| MSMegaommatis |
Irena: I disagree! You say: "The issue here is that Muslims feel themselves not well treated and the Muslims in the Middle East feel themselves as terrorists from those who always use power and interfere in their region".
Reason 1: I do not think that "feelings" are (or can be) an issue; ideas, concepts, principles, yes!
Reason 2: If someone feels "not well treated", one is not entitled to react! First comes the examination of the situation. If someone calls me "you, beggar!" in the street, I should not insult him or scream at him, but I should first check myself, and examine whether I wear poor clothes that are tore up, whether I am barefoot, whether my clothes are extremely filthy like those of the beggars, and whether I stink or not. Only after I check all these points, I should react, if I find that I am ok, and the term "beggar" is wrong.
So, now you understand that the execrable and miserable, analphabetic Arabic speaking masses, their ludicrous and vulgar political, economic, bogus-intellectual, and bogus-spiritual leaders, the miserably uneducated and disgustingly materialistic upper middle class of countries like Jordan, S. Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, Kuwait, etc., never ever went through a self-examination, self-criticism and self-improvement procedure. They advance from ignorance to filthiness, from misery to idiocy, from lethargy to apathy.
They have therefore no reason to complain, whatever others may do to them or not.
Reason 3: You say "those who always use power and interfere in their region". This is most erroneous! If I was idiotic enough to open the doors of my house, and the thief entered, and in addition I do not even consider him as a thief, whatever happens in the continuation of the first event is a normal consequence for which I bear fully and irreversibly the entire responsibility.
I will say it more easily, by asking the following:
- Where were the Algerians when the French invaded that part of the Ottoman Empire in 1830?
- Where were the Egyptians, when Napoleon occupied Egypt and detached that province from the Ottoman Empire?
- Where were the Iraqis, when the British fought against the Ottoman army at Basra in 1915 - 1916? Why my father’s uncle who was Ottoman army officer originating from the Black Sea area did fight in Basra, and the morally filthy and rotten - supposedly Muslim – populations of today’s southern Iraq did not fight for the country in which they belonged, which happened to be the Islamic Caliphate?
- Why the "Palestinians" deserted the Ottoman army, providing modern historians with the worst example of betrayal throughout all Islamic ages, when the British were marching from their protectorate Egypt to Jerusalem (and why the supposedly Muslim Egyptians did not revolt in order to prevent the British from succeeding in their obviously anti-Islamic targets?)
You know, there is something called consequence, and it is the real essence of God and of Divine Work. Because you are good, you go to Paradise, because you are bad, you go to Hell. This is consequence, call it Karma if you like, it makes no difference.
The acts of the ancestors of all these morally devious and corrupt peoples predestined their forthcoming disastrous future; they have nothing to claim and nothing to defend. They can – if lucky – only repent; now, and in the years ahead, they will pay; it will be a terrible punishment that will be fallen – justly – upon them, and they will not avoid it in any case. They are dead already, and ‘dead’ means Hell for them.
Mane, tekel, ufarsin!
|
9/19/2006 |
| MSMegalommatis |
Jonathan: I agree!
Lee: I believe that Vatican has already developed a strategy, and it’s "up to something". They may be successful in the implementation, but they also may fail! Certainly, the reference was not the result of fast thinking!
D.G.: Of course, the Saudi millionaires are the real enemy of the West. Not the idiotic and illiterate sheikhs who bark like dogs!
|
9/19/2006 |
| D.G. |
Pope should keep mouth shut-or declare Crusade
Moslems have no sense of humor-the real backers of terrorism are saudi millionairs and the whole system of Wahabi religious schools nuke 'em! |
9/18/2006 |
| Jonathan Wallac |
I think that the pope may not be "politically correct" in making his statement. But it does appear to be true that many of Islam faith will use any excuse to kill or injure those who are not. If it is not ordained by the religion, maybe it is all the sand in their brains. |
9/18/2006 |
| Lee Cooke |
The Vatican has been around a long time, and the Pope does not go around dropping bricks lightly. He's up to something. What do you think it is? |
9/18/2006 |
| MSMegalommatis |
Hi David, and thank you for your visit and comments!
I believe your rejection of Islam (which is of course your right) is confused with some historical misinterpretations.
Decisively not, the Muslims ‘did not conquer’ the lands of anybody!
This is a serious error of the colonial version of History that is accepted in both, the West and the Islamic countries, and as such it functions as a natural hatred and division generator. Yet, nothing is more erroneous than to believe that ‘our lands have been invaded’ or ‘we invaded lands’.
In reality few lands have been invaded by Muslims, and in these lands the Muslims were a tiny minority. More importantly, you understand that ephemerally invading is not as grave and serious as permanently staying / remaining.
Let’s start with a historic promenade; Yemen was not invaded by Arabs! Ali and some companions moved and preached there, and the Yemenites accepted Islam in their outright majority, and along with them the Persian Satrap (local administrator) – since Yemen was in 630 CE an Iranian province under the scepter of the Sassanid Shah. In this regard, it is crucial to bear in mind that the Yemenites were not Arabs; they were (and still are) Semitic but the Ancient Yemenite language and scripture were different than Arabic and closer to Gueze (Ancient Abyssinian).
Other parts of the Hedjaz and the Nafd (the western and central part of the Arabic peninsula) had been invaded (that is true) by the Arab Muslims of Mekka and Madina, when Prophet Muhammad was still alive.
Yes, it is true that Arab and Yemenite Muslim forces attacked the Eastern Roman borders after the death of Prophet Muhammad, and at the same almost time they attacked Iran.
The reasons of the attacks were different, but remain almost unknown to most of the people in either the West or the Islamic World. In reality, Islam was in the beginning perceived – not as a new religion but – as a Christological heresy, let’s say a an extreme branch of Nestorianism. To this testify early Eastern Roman sources describing the events at the peninsula and the attacks against Jerusalem, Damascus, Antioch, and Alexandria, like the Chronicle of Theophanes.
One must bear in mind that the local populations of the provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire that cover the surface of modern states Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, the SE part of Turkey, and the NW part of Saudi Arabia, were – all – Aramaeans, and few Greeks and Romans were living among them. Throughout these provinces, Aramaeans (all Christianized) were divided into Monophysites and Nestorians, and that both were rejected by the Constantinopolitan Patriarch and the Roman Pope as heretics. Islam, viewing Jesus as a Prophet, was very close to the Nestorians who believed that Jesus was not God, but the Messiah (Christus), and they were calling Mary not Theotokos (Mother of God) but Christotokos (Mother of Christ).
With their Islamization, Arabs had been culturally aranaized (accepting all sorts of traditions and theoretical backgrounds familiar to Nestorian Aramaeans) and therefore ultimately de-arabized. Now, if you take into consideration that for more than 400 years before the Islamic expansion in the provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire, Christological divisions had caused fights, divisions, hatred, and bloodshed to unbelievable extent, if you take into account that fact that the Aramaeans were repeatedly revolting and continuously oppressed by the Constantinopolitan armies and garrisons, if you bear in mind that Aramaeans were the main victims of the continuous Perso-Roman wars (because they were living in the area near the borders and were therefore exposed to ferocious armies), you have good reason to understand that it was only normal for the Muslims to get involved.
And it was normally expected that the majority of the local Aramaeans would prefer a third rule (not Eastern Roman not Sassanid Iranian) that would allow them to live in peace and prosperity without the heavy taxes Constantinople was annually asking them to pay!
I find strange that people attack Islam for the Muslim ‘invasions’ of 634 – 642, and they accuse these armies for spreading war and terror for a moment there, and yet they fail to condemn the murderous policies of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Emperor who controlled these vast and rich provinces spreading more lethal wars, Christian fratricide, worst oppression, and absolute terrorism.
What is worse? A war for 2 to 3 years or a war for 300 years?
Where was it worse for the Aramaeans? Under the Eastern Roman Empire or under Islamic Caliphate? Certainly in the former case was more devastating, and we have plenty of sources for this.
Where are all the texts written by so many Christians like Eutyches, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Nestorius and hundreds of other great intellectuals, who either Monophysitic or Nestorian or Arian rejected the official Christianity?
Burnt by the murderous and criminal priests, monks and emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire? This is the peace you want?
When judging comparatively, one must be neutral and as objective as possible.
This is essential if you want to attain the historical truth and not to repeat your own personal idea that is – as in almost all cases – wrong.
Yes, today’s Muslims are believing a wrong Islam.
But also today’s Christians believe a very false Christianity, and Nestorius, Ephraim the Syriac, and Arian could tell you word or two about that.
That is why what is mostly needed is our world is patience, temper, and objectivity matched with a pure and definite rejection of any egocentrism.
To go ahead, similar stories happened with the arrival of Aramaen – Yemenite – Persian – Arab Muslim armies in Egypt (642) and North Africa; local populations (Copts in Egypt and Berbers in Libya and North Africa) were oppressed by the Eastern Roman armies that were imposing for many long centuries a false Christianity rejected by the Coptic Monophysitic majority of the Egyptian Christians. Copts sided with the Muslims, and few accepted Islam in he beginning. But there is a vast difference between accepting Islam as religion, and accepting political Islam.
This epicenter of historical truth has systematically been passed under silence either in the West or in the Islamic World. In the former case, it would show the repellant face of murderous Christianity of Middle Ages, whereas in the latter case it would show a massive support for Islam as religion which was not the case. When today’s Muslims say that Islam was widely accepted in the 7th century, they are talking nonsense. It was not!
On the other hand, the attack against Iran, where millions of Nestorian Aramaeans were terribly oppressed for many long centuries (erroneously taken as fifth phalange of the rival Eastern Roman Empire), was due to the fact that the Sassanid Shah Khusraw Parviz (Chosroes II) had tore up a letter sent to him by Prophet Muhammad. In addition, Sassanid Iran was divided at all levels, religious, cultural, ideological, and socio-political, and this did play a certain role.
Yes, after losing provinces with ethnically different populations, the Eastern Roman Emperors regretted and found in the theory of Islamic Jihad the reason of that loss; this was their mistake again! They did not realize that the mistake was in themselves and in their acts of barbaric oppressors and murderous dictators (against other Christians).
Of course, it was their right to make a mistake, and to pursue their propaganda’s targets; anyone is free to say anything. Historians can check the veracity of these facts.
And in the same way, it is today’s Muslims’ mistake that they do not realize that when their countries have become a disgusting and filthy realm of ignorance, analphabetism and utmost misery, they do not represent Islam and they cannot teach History to any audience. And they cannot claim any Heritage.
When they say that defending Islam they demonstrate against Benedictus XVI, they are hypocrites, and as such (‘Munafiqqin’ in Arabic) they are considered as
Islamically infidel. The only answer they deserve is: "shut up"!
|
9/18/2006 |
| David |
Muslims have conquered our lands, forced our people to convert, burned our churches, destroyed our cities, stolen our sons to convert and serve in your armies, and daily Muslims insult our Faith. And what are we to do? We 'turn the order cheek', we are meek and submit - when will it stop? Was the Jihatist war against the Byzantine Empire right? Muslims glorify the capture of Constantinople and the conversion of Orthodoxy's holiest church and center to Muslim worship. I see nothing but violence and war ... please I wait for your answer... |
9/17/2006 |
| Irena Knehtl |
You too Benedictus! The issue here is that Muslims feel themselves not well treated and the Muslims in the Middle East feel themselves as terrorists from those who always use power and interfere in their region. The US lead invasion of Iraq in one such example. The Danish cartoons and now Pope`s remarks have become the point of expressing their anger. If, for example, goes for the Jews, the Europeans have much more of feel what is proper, and what it not, what can be said, and what cannot be said. But are totally lacking of this feel in regard to Muslims. |
9/17/2006 | |
