Terrorist attack in Sinai kills over 200
There’s been a terrible terrorist attack in Egypt:
Egyptian state news agency MENA is reporting that the death toll from an attack on a mosque in the volatile northern Sinai Peninsula has risen to 235 people killed. The attack appeared to be the latest by the area’s local Islamic State affiliate. It added that 109 people had been wounded.
The attack on the al-Rawdah mosque, largely attended by Sufi Muslims, in the town of Bir al-Abd, 40 km (25 miles) from the North Sinai provincial capital of El-Arish.
Officials said militants in four off-road vehicles bombed the mosque and fired on worshippers during the sermon segment of Friday prayers.
ISIS may not hold a lot of territory anymore, but that doesn’t stop it from brutally murdering people. Sufi Moslems are particularly infuriating to ISIS (the likely perpetrators) because it’s a different sect that is more tolerant and less militant in general. More here:
Sufism is a mystical branch of Islam that some ultra-orthodox Muslims consider heretical…
The mosque in the northern Sinai is known as the birthplace of an important Sufi cleric.
This is the sort of barbarism that was involved:
The gunmen had set up “ambush” locations and opened fire on ambulances as they were transporting wounded worshippers from al-Rawdah toward al-Arish before the arrival of security services, eyewitnesses reported.
Horrific!
I think this shows quite graphically how the Salafi/Wahhabi strain of Islam is a danger to other Muslims. Therein lies the vulnerability of the jihadis. They are not accepted by large masses of Muslims. Their fundamentalism makes them a danger to other Muslims as well as infidels. Since General al Sisi (President of Egypt) has stated this in a well known speech, it behoove the U.S. to get on board with moderate Muslims in denouncing and delegitimizing the Salafi/Wahhabi jihadists and their aggression. They are killing innocent people because of an interpretation of the Quran that is not universally accepted by Muslims and is totally unacceptable to freedom loving people worldwide.
This is fully expected and happens daily (on a smaller scale) in the Islamic world. Check out the website The Religion of Peace.
Islam will NEVER reform itself. If the Islamists aren’t killing Christians and Jews, we are then treated to the Sunni v. Shia civil war.
Islam is incompatible with Western civilization. It needs to be contained and not imported into the United States.
I said essentially the above to a liberal millennial. She said that she was “sad” about the loss of life. She couldn’t appreciate the brutal nature of Islam and the inferiority of its FAILED culture. You see all cultures are equal. And, of course, white people are the cause of all the world’s problems.
Sufi Islam should be ordained throughout the Islamic world as the will and the wish of Allah.
I think we could live next door to Sufis, but never next to Sunnis or Shias.
What we predominantly have throughout the West is Sunni, thanks to a half-century of Environmentalist-enabled Saudi recycling of petrodollars. All US prisons have Sunnis as Muslim “clergy”, activating and motivating men, usually black, who are already felons and whose main recreation is muscle-building, ‘bulking up’.
The Jihadis will never run out of people to slaughter. ISIS (uhhh, ISIL to Barack Hussein and no-one else) just decapitated 15 of its own, it is reported.
I don’t think they should have made Egypt angry.
They should send a personal thank you letter to Americans for giving them the weapons for that one.
The US denizens can live next to Sufis but the Sufis cannot live next to Americans supplying ISIL with weapons or Evangelicals that want to purge heretics and pagans ala West Boro Baptists (and the non Leftist Evangelicals too)
“Since General al Sisi (President of Egypt) has stated this in a well known speech, it behoove the U.S. to get on board with moderate Muslims in denouncing and delegitimizing the Salafi/Wahhabi jihadists and their aggression.” J.J.
al Sisi said that some time ago, the responsive silence is deafening. How can Muslims ‘delegitimize’ the Salafi/Wahhabi jihadists or any other fundamentalist jihadists, when they are doing exactly what Allah in the Qur’an and Muhammad have repeatedly commanded them to do?
“Islam is incompatible with Western civilization. It needs to be contained and not imported into the United States.” Cornhead
Perhaps after a few more millions have died…
“Sufi Islam should be ordained throughout the Islamic world as the will and the wish of Allah.” Frog
Ah, the ‘impossible dream’…
“Sufism is a mystical branch of Islam that some
ultra-orthodox[almost all] Muslims consider heretical…” CNN“I don’t think they should have made Egypt angry.” AesopFan
84-86% of Egyptians support the death penalty for apostasy…
Mohammed didn’t pay much attention to what was in the Koran. Muslims follow Moh, but Moh is dead so their next best bet is the Sunni and Shia Caliph.
The Sunni and Shia Caliph is acquired through conquest and war, the strong horse mark of distinction and credential.
Which mufti or cleric is correct in Islam generally ends up as being the one that can live past the war and assassinations. That is their proof of divine authority.
Muslims don’t get direct divine commands like some other religion followers do. So their best bet is always State Religion. State Religions follow a unique logic, like the Vatican.
Other than war, the Shia Caliph can proclaim his claim via his lineage, if it goes back to Fatima and Ali…. but I seriously doubt if that is enough by now.
The Sunni Caliph can do the same, but generally even with the lineage as a credential, they still need the backing of the muftis and a large enough military force that they can’t easily be killed.
In Islam, the way to solve disagreements over Allah and Mohammed is to see whose head is LEFT ATTACHED TO THEIR HEAD by the time the argument is over. And to some Americans that actually is preferable to our way of solving things.
The victim count is now at 305.
!
How many times must the preparations for this complicated operation have been seen, at least partially, by ordinary believers?
Dimes dropped?
Cornhead said:
“Islam will NEVER reform itself. ”
Islam CANNOT reform itself. The underlying premise is that the Koran is the explicit, revealed word of allah. In contrast, the Bible, while being revealed truth, is considered written by men under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Thus, we can re-interpret and re-analyze (and disagree).
Pope Benedict called this out in one of his speeches as a thorny challenge to the Muslim world.
Cornhead said:
From the beginning of Islamic history the religion has never had a shortage of one group of Muslims willing to declare another group of Muslims insufficiently Muslim and engage in takfir, excommunication or more properly expulsion. And therefore worthy of being killed. In fact, Allah himself wholeheartedly approved of the activity.
Surah 9:73
The hypocrites are of course people who call themselves Muslims but aren’t strictly observing all the rules required of a Muslim. At least in some other group of Muslims’ opinion. If Islam had a “national” sport it would be takfir. They’ve been playing it as long as there has been Islam. The first “rightly guided” Caliph after Muhammad died was Abu Bakr. He immediately launched the Wars of Apostasy. Some people renounced Islam entirely as they only had become Muslims because they didn’t want to be killed. Those were the apostates. Others continued to practice Islam but simply refused to recognize Abu Bakr’s authority. This caused Abu Bakr to famously say “By Allah I will not distinguish between Salat (prayer, referring to a time when his prophet wanted to burn the houses down around anyone who didn’t show up at the mosque for prayer, considering them apostates) and Zakat (tithing, the money they owed to the leader of the Muslim community). If they paid so much as kid goat to Muhammad they will pay it to me.”
Now you know why al Baghdadi chose to style himself after Abu Bakr.
Frog said:
The CNN article is somewhat misleading. Sufism isn’t a separate branch distinct from Sunni or Shia. In fact, all Sufis are either Sunni or Shia. They generally take a more tolerant view of things; the Yazidis venerate a Sufi mystic that chose to live in the mountains near them. But on the other hand, historically the Sufis have contributed some of Islam’s most fanatical fighters.
So you just never know.
Julia said:
You are of course correct. But despite that Islam has had several “Martin Luthers.” Such as ibn Taymiyah of the 14th century. Much like Martin Luther, he railed against the state of Islam, as what was then orthodox Islam had acquired un-Islamic baggage that had not been approved of by the prophet and could not be found in the Quran. Such as worship of Islamic “saints.” He demanded that these un-Islamic practices be stopped and that Islam must be restored to the “pure” form as practiced by Muhammad and his companions.
The practice of the Salaf, which means “forefathers.” Remind you of anybody today?
ibn Taymiyah had a profound effect on ibn Wahhab. Both belonged to the more rigid Hanbali school which held sway on the Arabian peninsula. Of course, Wahhabism is named after ibn Wahhab. And Wahhabism produces Salafis, naturally.
Which is why you are correct about Islam’s inability to reform. If by reform you mean rounding off Islam’s sharp edges and making it more flexible and tolerant, which I imagine you do. When it tries to reform, some “Martin Luther” arises in Arabia and demands that those un-Islamic accretions the reformers are trying to tack onto Islam be removed. Violently if necessary. And they keep dragging Islam back to the 7th century and the pure practice of Muhammad and the Salaf. And they do this because the reformers don’t have a theological leg to stand on. Islam is, essentially, a demand that everyone involved think, act, dress, eat, and even go to the bathroom like a 7th century Arab.
By the way, Julia, you committed an Islamic heresy (like you care). The Quran isn’t just the revealed word of Allah. It is the uncreated word of Allah, which has existed engraved on tablets in heaven eternally along with Allah. There was once a group called the Mutazilites that objected to the dogma of the uncreated nature of the eternal Quran. They realized that it undermined Islam’s claim to strict unitarian monotheism. Because how could Islam claim that while making the claim that there were two eternal, uncreated beings in heaven. I chose those words because there are ahadith in which the eternal Quran begs Allah to show mercy on a Muslim who has memorized it or recited it. So it has aspects of personhood, bringing the nature of the two eternal, uncreated beings in Islamic heaven dangerously close to the Christian concept of the trinity.
The Mutazilites believed Islam should abandon the dogma of the uncreated nature of the Quran and instead adopt the position that the Quran was one of the earliest creations of Allah. But this was a screaming heresy in the medieval Islamic world so naturally the Mutazilites were wiped out by less forward thinking elements among the Muslims. Islam a hot mess of irreconcilable internal contradictions, and this just adds to the insanity.
My bad; dangerously close the ISLAMIC concept of the trinity. The Quran teaches that Christians worship three gods; Allah, Jesus, and Mary (5:116).
So much for the divine origin of the Quran. No Christians, not even heretical sects, have ever believed that was the trinity. One would expect God would at least know what Christians proclaim. This Allah lacks omniscience, which along with omnipotence and omnipresence are essential qualities of God. Whoever fabricated the Quran fabricated it…poorly.