The Uyghur camps. The lockdown of Kashmir. The Muslim travel ban (among many other things)

[ArtTownsend]

Courtesy of the world’s three largest countries, respectively. And I haven’t even mentioned Israel and the Palestinians, or Myanmar, or the rise of fascist Islamophobia all over Europe, or the many dictatorial regimes of Muslims that persecute and kill their own people or others, whom are also Muslims (Exhibit A: Saudi Arabia in Yemen and its campaign against all Saudi dissidents and activists).

For anyone looking within the theological teachings contained within the Koran or various Hadiths for clues to “Radical Islamic Terrorism” in the 21st century - to say nothing of the millions more Muslims who are angry, frustrated, resentful, and fearful - you’re looking in the wrong places.

[Mosby]

1. Why does Hamas and Hezbollah use terrorist tactics?

Who is oppressing them?

[ArtTownsend]

2. I didn't mention either Hamas or Hezbollah.

[Mosby]

3. Ok, so who is to blame for "Radical Islamic Terrorism"?

[Igel]

4. That's part of the problem.

In a good argument, you look at the evidence and reasoning for your claim, but then you look at all the evidence and reasoning that says your claim is rubbish.

It's easy to set up an argument in which the truth is conclusively proven and can withstand all challengers, provided that at no point is anything inconvenient or contradictory allowed into the room and all the challengers are banned from the area.

That was a rule for any paper I dared to write for any of my graduate classes: If you don't show that you actually do understand the opposing views and can appreciate their purpose and arguments and evidence, you haven't shown that you're qualified to evaluate them. And if you're not qualified to evaluate them, how can you say your POV is in any way better? And if you can't claim that yours is in any way better, why should anybody bother to pay any attention to you?

Many Islamists do (or used to) rely on Qutb's exegesis of the Ahadith and Qur'an. He relied on those that came before him. It's not always the text, it's the interpretation of the texts, the situating of the texts in experience and culture, it's what's taken to be implied and entailed by the texts. To say that Islam is monolithic with no diversity is to make a claim that's either specious or has as its goal to shut down any criticism by silencing any would-be critics.

Recently--and orthogonal to this, but still oddly relevant--I heard some Etz Chaim congregants discussing the possible sentences the attack of said synagogue might receive. Many asserted that Judaism did not allow for the death penalty, because only G-d can judge and demand a person's life. But, broad minded of them, they allowed that some members of the congregation, a minority, supported the idea. One boldly suggested that, yes, the Torah "allows" (her word, not mine; I'd have said "requires" ) the death penalty, but cited the Talmud to authoritatively refute the text in the Torah. But mostly there was overall a reluctance to say that the Torah's text, under any reading that doesn't qualify as talmudic in the broader sense, could admit of a human taking a human's life with G-d's forbearance. Why? Not because the text doesn't all but demand that reading, but because it was both against their secular values and the values of those who would condemn them and decry them as not sufficiently humanistic. We all want to be liked.

Hence the monolithic nature of presentations of Islam.

[ArtTownsend]

5. So Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamist scholars are the reason for why so many Muslims are outraged?

I put “Radical Islamic Terrorism” in quotes, because it’s essentially a nonsense term useful only for hate and fearmongering.

I’m talking about ongoing injustices against Muslims around the world, and you brought in Islamist scholars and the other poster who replied brought in Hamas and Hezbollah.

Here’s what I am arguing: I am arguing that, among adherents of a religion of two billion people spread around the world who are more attuned than ever to injustices committed against Muslims all over the world - and there are a lot - it isn’t surprising that there is among that population a lot of anger, resentment, and a sense of humiliation, even rage, especially given the diversity that you rightly noted.

And on that theme, it also isn’t surprising that within that population, given historical and contemporary social, economic, and political context (the injustices I mentioned are part of that), a segment of mostly young men, often middle-class and educated but also very often alienated from healthy community within their own locales, having personal issues, etc., identify with a global, oppressed, politicized, and yes, radicalized notion of “Islam” that offers clear answers and a clear narrative to all of these issues. That’s where certain Islamist scholars and imams and yes, outright jihadist demagogues come in.

Is that a bit more clear?