Posted by unregistered user at 8/5/08 4:31 p.m.

Why is it that only the Muslim Women have to cover up and not the men?

Why is that?

Why not make the men cover up as well?

Or make them where blinders/blinkers, so that can't look at women.

Sorry, but I can't respect any religion which promotes women being made to hide themselves so completely. As if to make themselves invisible. Religion is the scourge of this planet, for sure. Always the women who suffer the most.

Posted by Traci_UDistrict at 8/5/08 4:48 p.m.

Why don't you ask Lesley Ahmed herself how she feels about it? Or, doesn't her opinion on what she feel comfortable about wearing count?

Posted by unregistered user at 8/5/08 5:44 p.m.

Let me put it this way:

If there was a religion that said all Black Men should be made to cover themselves, everybody would be all over it = saying it's racist, it's sexist, etc.

Now, of course, if it's women we're talking about... it's "cultural". Or "religious". Not racist. Not sexist. It's acceptable because it's being done to women.

I cannot respect a religion which wants half of the human population to be virtually invisible.

As I mentioned above, religion is the scourge of this planet. The very worst acts are perpetrated in the name of religion, and the "cultures" which they create.

Posted by Traci_UDistrict at 8/5/08 5:48 p.m.

::If there was a religion that said all Black Men should be made to cover themselves, everybody would be all over it = saying it's racist, it's sexist, etc.::

Last time I checked, plenty of Muslim do not wear head coverings.

In the US, it is choice, in Iran, a headscarf is mandatory in public, in Turkey, public/government officials are forbidden from wearing hijab.

You generalize, that is bad and narrow-minded.

::The very worst acts are perpetrated in the name of religion::

What was the religion of Mao and Stalin?

Posted by Traci_UDistrict at 8/5/08 6:09 p.m.

::Last time I checked, plenty of Muslim do not wear head coverings.::

should have been typed

"Last time I checked, plenty of Muslim women do not wear head coverings."

Also, the same strict Islam that requires women dress modestly requires modest dress from men. Feel free to google it.

Posted by unregistered user at 8/5/08 6:13 p.m.

"Also, the same strict Islam that requires women dress modestly requires modest dress from men. Feel free to google it."

Don't need to.

I lived in 2 Muslim countries and saw enough to know what the reality is ... not some P-C, wishy-washy garbage.

I think perhaps you should re-sit your Intro. to Islam class and follow it up with a few years abroad.

Posted by Traci_UDistrict at 8/5/08 6:38 p.m.

Fact: as I stated, some countries require it. Turkey has headscarf bans. If a Muslim woman in the U.S. CHOOSES to wear it, what's your problem with it?

Aren't you also playing "father knows best"?

Ya think?

Posted by Onyotaka Lukwe at 8/5/08 7:54 p.m.

Well, Monica G., thank you.

Posted by unregistered user at 8/5/08 8:14 p.m.

I don't mind what people wear -- what I DO mind are the belief systems under the headgear:
That Muslims are supreme and everyone else inferior (Koranically sanctioned)
That women's worth is only half that of a man (Koranically sanctioned)
When Islam drops its supremism and allows that men and women are created equal and that non-Muslims are as valuable and as loved by God as they believe they are, then people might start respecting it

Posted by Traci_UDistrict at 8/5/08 8:17 p.m.

You turn an article about INDIVIDUAL Muslims into a diatribe against Islam and the fact that one of the INDIVIDUAL Muslims chooses to wear a headscarf (and likely doesn't feel she needs you to save her from oppression).

Do you see why I think you are an intolerant bigot with an axe to grind looking for a space to grind it?

Posted by Traci_UDistrict at 8/5/08 8:30 p.m.

As for what exactly is believed by all Muslims and Muslim scholars, I don't think this is the board to be covering it. And I don't pretend to know but I know your one-size fits all is total BS. You apparently are another who thinks religions (and their participants) are all philosophically stagnant monoliths without individual views or observance or any views that might stray from the printed word of a scripture. You think all that a religion is can be summed up in neat little "I gotcha phrases" which ignore the fact that many believers interepret their religions and read their scriptures in context.

You appear to despise religion for fundamentalist versions of it but at the same time are your own fundamentalist and blind to their being other than religious fundamentalism.

Posted by Traci_UDistrict at 8/5/08 8:37 p.m.

::their being other than::

Change to "there being other than"

Posted by unregistered user at 8/5/08 9:00 p.m.

Traci,

Why don't you move to a muslim country for a few years and report back on how tolerant they are ... I'd really love to hear about what you experience.

Posted by Traci_UDistrict at 8/5/08 9:10 p.m.

Another strawman.

You lived in 2 Muslim countries (whatever is meant by that because you aren't revealing any other details) which can be as different as Morocco from Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan from Turkey. You aren't explaining why you were there, what you were there as. All it tells me is you had a bad experience in the nations you visited but not that all or most of Islam or its believers are bad and intolerant.

FURTHER this article is about this country and the Muslims in this article are U.S. citizens and obviously believe in the democratic political process.

As for visiting a Muslim country, if you have the money to pay my way I would gladly visit say Algeria to start with--can you afford to send on me a tour of Algeria? Nope? Thought not.

Posted by Wally at 8/5/08 9:34 p.m.

I was going to comment, but I can't respect anyone who hides anonymously behind the moniker of "Unregistered User." You could be any one or any twenty people.

If you are a US citizen, you aren't required to respect someone else's religion, you are only required to tolerate it.

BTW, your "Why" questions at the top completely belie any credibility you may have had regarding having allegedly visited a "Muslim country."

Posted by unregistered user at 8/5/08 10:07 p.m.

*Wally* is that your real name? What's your last name?

You really believe that your comments are more valid than those of an "unregistered user"?

Oh dear.

I'm sorry that you apparently have never lived abroad -- oh, I mean outside of invading other countries, I mean.

I happened to have lived in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan for over 3 years. I lived, worked and travelled extensively throughout Central Asia whilst working for a private entity.

Yes, you are right: my questions are rhetorical. For there is no valid answer as to why the men in those countries, who are muslim, should rationally believe that women are inferior and should be invisible. None.

Traci, I think you would have a really wonderful time in Algeria. You really should save your pennies and go there.

Oh, and Wally, do you know what a "Wally" means in England?

Posted by Wally at 8/6/08 6:51 a.m.

"I'm sorry that you apparently have never lived abroad -- oh, I mean outside of invading other countries, I mean."

Right, believe whatever makes you feel better...just like a good little tool.

Posted by Traci_UDistrict at 8/6/08 1:24 p.m.

::I happened to have lived in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan for over 3 years. I lived, worked and travelled extensively throughout Central Asia whilst working for a private entity.::

Very troubled former USSR nations. Yes? I would wonder how much of their current condition is part of any intolerance you felt and also the repression of women by extreme religious fundamentalists (who thrive in desperate conditions and on peoples' poverty and fears).

::Traci, I think you would have a really wonderful time in Algeria. You really should save your pennies and go there.::

Lots of places I would like to go--Spain, Israel, Algeria, Iran, India, Scandinavia, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Egypt...heck, I have never been to Mexico.

I envy you going to the places you went even though you had negative experiences. There are so many resentments that unfairly get attached to those wrongly seen as representing the resentment.

Posted by jeffs at 8/6/08 6:31 p.m.

Greetings all,
In my experience bigotry is the product of ignorance and fear...which leads to hate and thence to Bigotry.
From the above comments and from a lot of comments that I have received especially in the past few years, there is much to hate about Islam and 'Muzlems' by people who don't seem to have taken the time to verify their opinions or the opinions they hear form others. Nazis did that, so did the Hutus and the Serbs and many others.
RELIGION, any religion that I am aware of, is much the same; it teaches people to treat others as they would have others treat them, with honesty, fairness, mercy and love. Then we have the hate-mongers who ignore what religion says and invoke religion in their own twisted way, to justify atrocities in the names of "Freedom","Democracy", Defense of their "Way of life" and other evocative reasons that have nothing to do with faith.
Islam is not exempt from such warped leaders, nor is any other leader of any other faith or non-faith.
I will close by informing you that the Quran requires BOTH men and women (24:31-31), to be modest in the same fashion (women must also not show off their jewelry). All faiths and all prophets are regardedas equal in the eyes of God, non greater than another (2:136).
I could go on and on but I doubt the close-minded will wish to disabuse themselves of their willful ignorance. I will close by two quotes from the Quran:
1."Do not follow advice which you do not understand. Make detailed inquiries with your eyes, ears and mind"(17:36-38)
and "Show forgiveness, speak for justice and avoid the ignorant" (7: 199)
If you wish to take up anything about us 'Muzlems', myself in particular or, pretty much anything else, feel free to e-mail me"jeffsiddiquiATmsnDOTcom"; I doubt if I will be carrying on further counter-comments here. Regards, Jeff

Posted by Onyotaka Lukwe at 8/7/08 7:27 p.m.

And thank you too, Jeff Siddiqui.

Posted by Wally at 8/10/08 7:23 p.m.

Onyotaka Lukwe,

"And thank you too, Jeff Siddiqui."

Absolutely! Thank you, Jeff.

Posted by unregistered user at 9/10/08 8:25 a.m.

The people who need to be convinced that Islam is a peaceful religion are mostly Muslim. Jeff, I wish your ideas on Islam could be embraced by the Muslim community, but they are not.

Wherever Islam has migrated, there has been problems. A country without Muslims is blessed. Islam brings illiteracy, ignorance, violence and poverty.

There's not much point calling Islam peaceful and respectful as long as the scriptures of Islam are available for anyone to read.

Jeff, you are a "good Muslim" in the sense you aren't announcing that we all deserve the death penalty for being non Muslim.

The Koran is very specific though. The Koran commands that we should die and that you should kill us.

You can't blame the non Muslim world for being able to read.

There was a time when Christianity was no better than Islam. Then Christianity was forcibly disarmed by secular authorities, and a rennaisance happened.

The only thing wrong with Islam is that Islam is heavily armed. Take the guns away from a religion, and they all become "religions of peace".

Islam is a threat only because Islam says it is a threat. We infidels are beginning to believe what Islam tells us, the occaisional denial by an individual notwithstanding.

You are simply outvoted, Jeff, by hordes of Muslims who work at divesting themselves of humanity so as to be sufficiently murderous to please Allah.

Islam is what Islam says it is.

Freedom and the American way of life be opposed to Isl

Posted by unregistered user at 10/3/08 11:18 a.m.

To the other unregistered user:

I am surprised to see that you lived in Muslim countries and never saw good Muslims? I am now also doubting the Muslim countries you lived in.

To know the truth, judge by objective facts and not by your experience and opinions. For instance, this blog posts shows how MI6 and academics find Islam and terror to be linked: http://blogs.omeriqbal.com/news/131. Robert Pape, a professor, researched on terrorism wrote the following:

"What more than 95 per cent of all suicide terrorist attacks around the world have in common is not religion, but a specific political goal to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland or prize greatly."

Similarly, one of Pew Global's survey "revealed" the following: (http://pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/257.pdf)

"Muslim publics around the world increasingly reject suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets in the defense of Islam. Overall, majorities in 15 of 16 Muslim publics surveyed say that suicide bombings can be rarely or never justified. Fully 77% of Muslims in Indonesia – and nearly as many in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Tanzania – say that such tactics are never justified."

CS Monitor pointed out that Americans are much more to support suicide bombings: (http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0223/p09s01-coop.html)

"The survey, conducted in December 2006 by the University of Maryland's prestigious Program on International Public Attitudes, shows that only 46 percent of Americans think that "bombing and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians" are "never justified," while 24 percent believe these attacks are "often or sometimes justified."

Contrast those numbers with 2006 polling results from the world's most-populous Muslim countries – Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. Terror Free Tomorrow, the organization I lead, found that 74 percent of respondents in Indonesia agreed that terrorist attacks are "never justified"; in Pakistan, that figure was 86 percent; in Bangladesh, 81 percent."

Btw, we should thank Pakistani Army, government and people - who happen to be Muslims very much like Mr Siddiqui - and are fighting the terrorists. Do you realize that they are Muslims too? And so are the fathers and mothers who's children are fighting them? I guess not.

I hope my point is made. If not, then like Jeff said, there is not much use trying to tell the truth to close-minded.

Peace.