Another Muslim "moderate," that is.
I couldn't resist this brief post:
An imam in Germany has been arrested for beating his wife so badly that he broke her nose and shoulder and gave her numerous cuts and bruises. He's charged with grievous bodily harm. He tried to resist the police when they came to his house to rescue his wife from him. It's alleged that he shouted the Koranic verse justifying wife beating while beating her.
He is an official "moderate" who recently gave a lecture at a Catholic University called "An Islam which distances itself from violence," and he has been receiving government protection from extremists because he's been calling for Muslims to "reject radical Islam."
I tell ya', you can't make these things up.
Comments (38)
LOL. You could create an entire blog on Christians who have done terrible things and preached the exact opposite.
Posted by Sharon | December 2, 2010 10:31 PM
Gosh, that's profound. Really addresses the issue of government-stamped "moderates," too.
Posted by Lydia | December 2, 2010 10:52 PM
Maybe he's a "moderate" because he didn't kill her! ROTFL!
Posted by Stephen E Dalton | December 2, 2010 11:40 PM
This returns me to a question I've often asked but to which I've found no answer: What does the term "moderate Muslim" actually mean?
Posted by Bill Luse | December 3, 2010 3:18 AM
Bill, I would be willing to bet that he himself is willing (for tactical reasons, because he feels real distaste for it, or even just because it gets him cushy honoraria) to condemn _terrorism_, but that he doesn't even connect this type of "moderation" with beating the heck out of his wife. To him, I would imagine, they're completely separate things, and the second is just a normal part of private life and entirely up to his discretion.
Posted by Lydia | December 3, 2010 8:50 AM
A muslim moderate, there's millions of them I'm told, breaks his wife's nose, an extremist, there's a couple of dozen, removes it.
Posted by johnt | December 3, 2010 1:17 PM
A moslem extremist will kill you. A moderate moslem explains why you deserve it.
Posted by T. Hanski | December 3, 2010 7:06 PM
Heh. You guys would lead me to believe there's no such thing.
Posted by Bill Luse | December 3, 2010 7:33 PM
Thats' right; 1 billion jihadists, who beat their wives and slay their teen-age daughters when not beheading apostates, and the best we can come up with is, drive them out of the U.S.? Why, so they can slay us from afar after Iran goes nuclear?
I want Islam contained and eventually converted as much as the next guy, but the reckless rhetoric here sounds worse than a leftist caricature of how conservatives talk when they are all alone in their war rooms. It reads like religous crisis from within our own hearts, full of fearful fantasies born from the sin of despair.
Please, man-up! It is Advent, not Armageddon.
Posted by Don Colacho | December 3, 2010 8:31 PM
Don, while the most important warfare that we must fight is that of the spiritual battle, every once in a while that spiritual battle requires of us concrete actions in the public forum that are difficult, distasteful, dangerous, and/or with only modest chance of direct and clear success. So be it. God does not require of us success in our endeavors, he only requires of us that we attempt that which it is our obligation to attempt, and leave the results to him. It is entirely clear that tolerating sharia law is not one of those "toleration" kicks that is a godly kind of care for your neighbor, we are instead called on to resist it, repudiate it, and attempt to defeat the cultural degeneration that tolerates it. If, in the meantime, we also convert some of the Muslims by our charity that lives in and through our attention to social obligations - to the poor neighbor wife who is being beaten, e.g. - that too may be God's will. But we are unlikely to convert the poor neighbor wife while she suffers broken bones and we stand aside letting it happen.
Posted by Tony | December 3, 2010 9:11 PM
Tony -
The thought precedes the word, the word precedes the deed. There is a self-fulfilling aspect to the inflammatory hyperbole on display here. And because it is so bereft of hope, it also lacks nuance and depth.
Posted by Don Colacho | December 3, 2010 9:56 PM
Don, just to let you know; I'm a mixed bag, a package of many things, one of them is hope of which I am not bereft.
Other things I am not bereft of are a sense of humor, an uncertain degree of modesty, a reluctance, sometimes violated, to hector people, and a repugnance of moral posturing.
johnt
closet fearful fantasist,
but working on it.
Posted by johnt | December 4, 2010 10:32 AM
What some people recognize about this story and other people don't is this: This imam was supposedly _known to be a moderate_. Everybody thought they'd figured it out and finally found one. Even the government thought it had found a "true moderate." He was invited to give lectures that basically amounted to, "Hurray! It's possible for there to be a non-violent Islam! I illustrate this fact in my own person!" But it wasn't true.
This is significant. This isn't a story about "religious hypocrisy" or anything generic like that. This is a story about the difficulty identifying Muslim moderates and about the pitfalls in attempting to do so and triumphantly displaying, celebrating, and rewarding particular people for allegedly fulfilling that category.
Posted by Lydia | December 4, 2010 11:00 AM
Don, I am having trouble figuring out what you mean by "inflammatory hyperbole" that fits the bill. Do you mean Lydia inflaming us into action by repeating a story of a Muslim beating his wife? OK, I guess so - the Muslim's action is, indeed, inflammatory, and it ought to goad us into action. And repeating the story broadcast ought to inflame more people into action. I for one would never be ashamed to stand before God and admit that hearing about a man breaking his wife's bones goaded me into action to try to put an end to it. That sounds a lot like Christian charity to me.
And you needn't try to bring in this "bereft of hope" business into the discussion: like most Christians, we put our hope in the Lord, not in the things of this world. But nobody needs to think with a lot of nuance and depth to decide to put a stop to a guy breaking his wife's nose. Nuance and depth has its place, but not here.
Posted by Tony | December 4, 2010 1:01 PM
JohnT -
The theme is this;the Islamic world operates between 2 poles, public acts of terrorism and private acts of domestic violence. In other words, we are faced with an astounding human mass of evil and oppression.
What actions do you plan on taking; "to put an end to it"?
Posted by Don Colacho | December 4, 2010 2:52 PM
The biggest thing I'm trying to "inflame" people into by this post is caution in declaring that they have found a moderate Muslim and in parading about supposed exemplars of moderate Islam. In fact, I think the title "An Islam that Distances Itself From Violence" followed by this particular arrest for private violence is instructive and may indeed point to the kind of split way of thinking that I conjectured in my comment to Bill above.
Posted by Lydia | December 4, 2010 3:09 PM
Lydia -
I understand your point; be extremely wary of Moslem proclamations of non-violence because their self-understanding sanctions domestic abuse and cruelty. The next leap for the reader (see the comments above)is a small one to make; any man who beats his wife won't be disinclined from doing worse to strangers, or quietly celebrating the murder of others behind the walls of his home.
Both Islam and human nature are far more complex, and a relatively peaceful, stable settlement in the global order requires more caution and subtlety than found in your argument.
Posted by Don Colacho | December 4, 2010 4:37 PM
Tony -
There are no shortage of monsters in the world I would like to slay. The trick is not becoming one myself in the process.
I do not advocate stoical resignation when confronted by evil, but letting the moral, intellectual and theological virtues guide one's response.
Posted by Don Colacho | December 4, 2010 4:53 PM
So for the sake of global stability we should pretend that it's easier to find reliably moderate Muslims than it really is?
C'mon, sir, admit it: You just don't like the "tone" here. If you adopted it, you wouldn't be able to congratulate yourself on depth and subtlety. But you don't actually have anything concrete and substantive to put up as an argument against anything I've actually said in this post or in the comments to it.
Posted by Lydia | December 4, 2010 5:24 PM
Don, don't misunderstand, my only purpose in posting was to save you from what I feared was coming next, the awful "islam is a religion of peace" vacuity. I expected a dollop of gratitude, instead I am asked for my war plans.
It is a bit ironic that given the necessary brevity of online posting that you make haste to sequester our small but honorable & intelligent members into a Manichean divide, you being for now the only representative of the Good. Please consider widening your circle.
Back tomorrow, at which time I will expand on "end", your word, satisfaction not guaranteed though. After all,as it takes to to tango, so it takes two to wage war, and an "end" presupposes those two sides to will such jointly. No?
Posted by johnt | December 4, 2010 5:33 PM
It is your substance, or the lack of it that is the problem. Another One Bites The Dust is a gloat of;" look these people are void of anything noble or good - do not trust any of them!"
Ending immigration isn't enough for you. Traipsing out this German iman is necessary for whipping up a climate conducive for a mass exodus of Moslems from here. You haven't counted the cost that comes with the realization of your reckless vision.
Fortunately, your agenda is dead on arrival.
Posted by Don Colacho | December 4, 2010 6:05 PM
JohnT-
Sorry but I confused your comments with Tony's. Happy to hear you reject a Manichean world view. Makes you less likely to emotionally stagger into a geopolitical and moral blunder.
Posted by Don Colacho | December 4, 2010 6:30 PM
Oh, yes, I must be a Manichean, for I oppose allowing sharia law to displace (and eventually suppress) standard federal and state law. Wow. Who knew? All those Founders of the American vision, those men so intent on the rule of law, were closet Manicheans out to get the Muslims.
Don, the costs within the US of undertaking an intentional opposition to eventual dhimmitude may be significant but are certainly worth it. The geo-political costs elsewhere I feel less sure of, but in part that is because they are inherently less certain, and therefore nobody can claim confidence as to what the costs would be.
Posted by Tony | December 4, 2010 9:48 PM
It is not Manichean to oppose Islam, but to hold Moslems are either active jihadists, or clandestine fellow travelers. This notion is the pretext for a campaign of social coercion leading to "voluntary deportation."
The tumult of a Kulturkampf would not be confined to our shores. Those Moslems assisting our occupations and interests in the Middle East would feel betrayed and act accordingly. The safety of our troops compromised, our diplomacy complicated and strategic maneuvering constricted. We would have entered dark and uncharted waters at a time when our ship of state can ill afford the journey.
Only our enemies would gain as we fulfilled their narrative and fell for their trap.
Posted by Don Colacho | December 5, 2010 1:20 AM
Guess what, though? Our need to "occupy" Middle Eastern countries will come to an end as a result. They can have their countries back and everybody's happy.
Posted by Jeff Culbreath | December 5, 2010 1:40 AM
That isn't Manichean either if Islam is something real and understandable, rather than the dodgy, slippery, nebulous body of non-beliefs its apologists wish it were. Christendom wasn't born yesterday, Don, and neither was Islam. We know what it is, we know how it behaves and under what circumstances. Here's an interesting tidbit I came across recently, from "Slavery, Terrorism and Islam" by Peter Hammond:
Posted by Jeff Culbreath | December 5, 2010 1:55 AM
The percentage of Muslims in the U.S. is outdated. At 2.5 to 7 million, it's more like 1% to 2.5%, depending on whose figures you believe. Keep in mind that tens of thousands - likely more than 70,000 - arrive legally on visas every month.
And let it be noted that even with our comparatively small Muslim population, we are already seeing many threats and some successful attacks from domestic Islamists, recruiting in prisons and among disaffected minorities, demands for accommodation in the workplace, intimidation of non-Muslims, the formation of Islamic "ghettoes", the corruption of our legal system, the propogation of jihad and sharia, and so forth - see Lydia's documentation in Part I.
For whatever reason, the menace of domestic Islam in the U.S. is far advanced for its relative size, probably due to the ease of forming a prosperous, educated, and internationally connected Islamic sub-culture here.
Posted by Jeff Culbreath | December 5, 2010 2:06 AM
Don, well at least credit me with adding a word into the debate.
Have you heard about the NYC WTC mosque sponsors seeking a cool five million on a federal grant basis?
What ever happened to separation of mosque and state?
Mr Culbreath covers things pretty well, I cede my place to him. And Don, do keep your eyes on Europe, experience teaches best at a distance sometimes.
Posted by johnt | December 5, 2010 10:50 AM
The tumult of a Kulturkampf would not be confined to our shores. Those Moslems assisting our occupations and interests in the Middle East would feel betrayed and act accordingly. The safety of our troops compromised, our diplomacy complicated and strategic maneuvering constricted. We would have entered dark and uncharted waters at a time when our ship of state can ill afford the journey.
There we see the outlook bereft of hope.
Don, in fact people like Lydia and Jeff have in fact counted these costs (which, I must insist, are only potential outcomes, not certain, and not representing the full panoply of results) and found that these costs do not outweigh the likely goods from their proposals of what we should undertake here at home.
More generally, people often fear to (and, finally refuse to) undertake difficult and potentially dangerous courses of actions because they see the evils that result, without taking sufficient thought of the difficulties and potentially dangerous consequences of REFUSING to act. Such as, for example, the frog boiled slowly. Or, as a less pernicious example: the effort of Louis Pasteur to insist on anti-germ practices. But more to the point in the political arena: while the kinds of things that would stymie Islamicization here are indeed difficult and fraught with problems, it is also the case that a fully committed effort in this direction would bring about other changes - not expected in clear detail - that would improve our political maneuvering room, and improve our capacity to act internationally in some respects. This is probably the clearest truth that comes home to us from Ronald Reagan's sticking it to the Evil Soviet Empire. We won that war over evil by refusing to accommodate the imperialism of the Soviets, in the face of liberals claiming calamities would befall us both at home and abroad for such an intransigent approach. The liberals were, in a word, WRONG. 100%, totally, breathtakingly wrong on this prediction.
Posted by Tony | December 5, 2010 12:11 PM
Jeff C.
The horse before the cart aspect is a problem. We have no need to occupy Moslem lands now and have tp make the first move. We will also need to provide safe haven for our allies on the ground who face massacre when we withdraw. Removing our military presence needs to top the agenda for our foreign policy.
Our withdrawal from over there, coupled with an end to Islamic immigration here would be part of a common sense effort to lower the global thermostat and derail the clash of civilizations bonfire from coming to fulfillment. It would enjoy a consensus that your proposal for a Moslem exodus could never gather.
The social reality is this, Americans are not going to sign on to plan that says the Moslem who coaches your kids soccer, works with you or helps your wife stock the community food pantry is a closet jihadist bent on your destruction. The rhetoric and energy required to underwrite such an effort would only sabotage the efforts of restrictionists.
Posted by Don Colacho | December 5, 2010 12:14 PM
JohnT -
Worry not, the Ground Zero mosque will not be built in that neighborhood. The trade and construction unions of NY will not assist the effort and Bloomberg is looking for a dignified exit from this plan.
Posted by Don Colacho | December 5, 2010 12:18 PM
I believe that Jeff Culbreath has said it better when he speaks of someone as "ripe for radicalization" and when he and I talk about what Islam really does teach.
Be that as it may, I'm getting more than a little weary, D.C., with your, "Let's not say this because it will make Muslims mad" or "Let's not say this because people won't sign onto it" or "Lydia's post lacks nuance" shtick.
Bag it. I believe in speaking the truth. If you don't like the truth, because it doesn't sound sufficiently suave and foreign-policy-savvy to you, go post on somebody else's thread. This thread is about the folly of parading about, much less government-funding, token Muslim "moderates" who, it turns out--surprise, surprise--believe in wife beating.
If you don't like my pointing out that folly, tough. Your "I'm-so-knowledgeable-about-foreign-policy-so-you-shouldn't-talk-that-way-because-it-doesn't-sound-nice" act is getting real old, real fast.
Posted by Lydia | December 5, 2010 12:27 PM
Tony -
You are without a Reagan to lead and a grass roots movement to follow. You should ponder why.
Islam is not the Soviet Union and driving Moslems out of America will not become the organizing principle for all but a small and insignificant cadre of people.
The second Sunday of Advent is here and the festivities are on. I don't think there is anymore to say on this matter
Posted by Don Colacho | December 5, 2010 12:29 PM
Don Colacho: "The people does not convert to the religion preached by a militant minority, but to the one imposed by a militant minority. Christianity and Islam knew it; Communism knows it."
I think this is the concern expressed by Lydia and Jeff, that Muslims, who do not assimilate, do impose themselves. They will not have their feelings hurt if we resist this imposition, even were we a minority, although, yes, they may try to hurt us in another way. Their heart is not in befriending the west, but serving Allah as they think best.
Posted by Timon | December 5, 2010 9:56 PM
The Ahmadiyya Muslim sect is only 120 years old, but it looks to be a genuinely moderate form of Islam that has, thus far, been living peacefully among Christians in the West.
It also sounds like they could take the anti-jihad and sharia oaths in good conscience, and would not be censured by the proposed constitutional amendment:
Ahmadiyya Muslim Community - Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadiyya_Muslim_Community
Why Americans Should Care About Ahmadiyya Muslims
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadiyya_Muslim_Community
Muslims Call for Loyalty to America
http://www.examiner.com/muslim-in-portland/muslims-call-for-loyalty-to-america
Posted by Jeff Culbreath | December 5, 2010 10:48 PM
Timon -
Society’s most serious ailments usually come from the imprudence with which they are treated.
Curtailing Islamic immigration is a necessary project. Adding a Moslem diaspora to it, is among other things; self-defeating.
Posted by Don Colacho | December 5, 2010 10:53 PM
With respect to the imposition of sharia, apart from a few in-house differences with other Muslims, the main difference is that Ahmadiyya sect insists that sharia law must not be imposed until a whole society is genuinely Muslim.
See http://www.alislam.org/library/articles/Philosophy-of-Punishment-in-Islam.pdf
Well. That's weak and disappointing. Can a "whole society" be, say, a neighborhood or suburb? If not, why not?
What we need is something like a Mormon-Islam, where the peaceful teachings of the new false prophet replace the seditious teachings of the old false prophet. The search continues ...
Posted by Jeff Culbreath | December 5, 2010 11:16 PM
Yep, and a quick googling of "Ahmadiyya" and "wife" and "beating" is not encouraging, either.
Posted by Lydia | December 6, 2010 9:15 AM