Why do the Jihadists hate America? There are three broad schools of thought in the US on this topic:

• Progressives insist that jihadists are only reacting to our provocations of them, from attacking their countries.
• Libertarians assert that it is cynical US manipulation of Middle Eastern governments, which they consider to be (or have been) US ( Read more... )

(More from the conversation with “THE RIPENING WANDERER” on the “only a few” defense of Islam. He wrote:)

… I am really personally suspicious of an ideology that preaches peace and practices something else and I do not know for sure that I accept the “It is only a few who cause the problems” rants because the very center of the ideological ( Read more... )

Where Muslims have enough population, but not complete control, they push for Shariah law to apply, at first, to Muslims only. Much of Europe and Canada are moving in this direction with some success on the part of Muslims, and it is being pushed in the US as well.
( Read more... )

There is precisely one religion on the planet now that broadly teaches, in every country where it holds sway, that leaving the religion is a crime. In many of the countries, this crime earns capital punishment (see the map below). But there are apostasy apologists …

One subtlety to keep in mind in any discussion of Islamic rulings, including and ( Read more... )

On Steve Goddard's RealScience site, he links an article describing (in 1989) our supplying of arms to jihadists in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union:
U.S. Is Reported to Send Arms To Revive Afghan Rebels’ Drive
By ROBERT PEAR, Special to The New York Times
Published: July 17, 1989

American officials said today that the United States was ( Read more... )

I was intrigued by this former Muslim’s statement about the history of Islam:

In 1,300 years of Islamic history, we have fought for 1,100 years. So there have been only 200 years of peace in Islam, by-in-large. In 1,110 years we have either fought each other or a common enemy. And there have only been two times where fighting a common enemy has ( Read more... )

One writer in a forum about the excellent webcomic Doc Rat asked “Is Egypt the source of jihadism, though? I was under the impression that the Wa’habi sect in Saudi was the main cause…”

I think he’s sort of right both ways. Egypt is the home of the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the “double-nucleus” pieces that form the core of jihadism in the past ( Read more... )

The most troubling thing to me is that there are countless religious leaders -- hundreds on YouTube -- using the most violent and aggressive verses of these holy works to drive jihadism. Jihadists are a minority of Muslims, but they are an armed, vocal, and violent minority -- to the point where others fear to oppose them ( Read more... )

This seems to be accessible and relatively easy to get around in ( Read more... )

(A note in general; I am not an Islamic scholar -- nor a scholar in Islamic traditions. And even such scholars do not agree with each other on these topics. My descriptions below are necessarily simplistic, and I encourage you to pursue this on your own if interested.)

A question arose on a quotation from the Palestinian charter that I posted ( Read more... )