Reddit reviews Refuting ISIS

I agree that many are loud in good times, if you do something good it shouldn't be for popularity but for genuine good. But I also don't see the point of having to be loud every time something bad happens. There usually are press releases by orgs such as CAIR, ICNA, ISNA. Or if you go to well known American scholars' Facebook pages such as Omar Suleiman, Yasir Qadhi, they generally have a status regarding attacks. But I don't believe I have to go out of my way to openly condemn it, though I do and if someone asked me I would answer. But my words won't stop people like ISIS from being the shit bags they are and honestly I stopped caring what others think or me or my religion because generally people already have their minds made up. But I'd like to believe that if I was in a situation where an attack was happening, that I'd risk or give my life if it saved someone else's.


Also thought I'd leave this here: https://www.amazon.com/Refuting-ISIS-Shaykh-Muhammad-Al-Yaqoubi/dp/1908224193


It's basically a 150 page fatwa regarding ISIS by one of the former top scholars of Syria but it's also written in-depth and made to easily understand

> If they were so far ahead and caliphates are the optimal political systems, why did they fall behind and get conquered in the first place? Something doesn't hold up in your chain of thought.

This is a very complex question but very simply and briefly, part of the reason is because in the 18th century, people in the Ottoman empire decided to "modernize" like in the West. Rather than giving their allegiance to their empire, ethnic groups gave allegiance to their local nations and nationalism started to surge. All of a sudden, there were groups of people within the empire fighting for independence. With the Ottoman empire essentially neutered and occupied, scientific output slowly dropped to zero and the British were able to divide and conquer the empire by bribing local groups to give allegiance to the British empire in exchange for independence. For example, the current ruling Saudi monarchy actually betrayed the Ottoman empire and colluded with the British empire so that they may gain power as kings.

> First, religions are dogmas: they're ideas that are believed despite not having rational bases. Being dogmatic in anything is bad, really, but it's particularly bad when it's applied to entire states. Good governance requires that one is able to rationally assess reality and act on it. Dogmas are obstructions to that.

I disagree that religions are dogmas (i.e. they are ideas that are believed to have a rational basis; see people like Al-Ghazali and the field of the philosophy of religion) but for the sake of argument, let us assume that religions are dogmas. There is not much belief involved in state-building. Building a road doesn't matter if you're an atheist, jew or muslim. Minting a currency? Again, not much belief involved. Economic growth? Setting up borders? Constructing districts and infrastructure? Postal services? Corporate regulations? A lot of this is just politics.

The usefulness in a theocracy is loyalty and unity. Foreign government wants to bribe the people under the president to perform a coup so that he can be replaced with a puppet that will bend over to said government? Not as likely to happen in a theocracy because it would be like stabbing your own brother and yourself in the afterlife for money in this life. If the Ummayad caliphate borders were to be redrawn in today's world in 2017, the caliphate would have between 700 and 800 million people living inside it. Just by virtue of the unity of such a large population (without even taking into account, the large amount of efficiencies we would gain from having such a large population unified and working together), the Ummayad caliphate would become a global power.

>You don't want your state going into war with another simply because it believes God will give it victory. This is what ISIS did and now it is on the brink of destruction.

ISIS's theology is heretical (Refuting ISIS) and it is a product of the Iraq war. But even if we pretend their theology is totally legit, dogmas are not exclusive to theists. China is the least religious country in the world (6%) and yet, it is one of the most superstitious.

> Second, power is always abused, no matter the political system. This is something we have to accept and work with instead of hoping that it won't occur in our favourite system. This said, the abuse will be worse in some systems than others. A theocracy has among the worst potential for abuse of all. The harder it is to challenge the decisions of the leaders, the worse the potential for abuse is. I can't think of any system where the leaders' decisions are harder to challenge than a theocracy; since they can claim to act in the name of God, and no one can oppose God, no one can oppose them. This, by the way, applies to any state that follows a hard set ideology by which the leaders can claim to act, for example North Korea.

First of all, this is not how theocracies work in Islam. Caliphs do not claim to be able to speak to God. This is heretical in Islam. Muslims believe the last prophet is Mohammed (pbuh) and therefore, anyone who claims to be able to speak to God after him is a heretic. In Islam, there is a concept called Shura which means "consultation". When the prophet (pbuh) created an Islamic state, he told each tribe to select one representative that will represent their tribe. When the prophet (pbuh) made a state decision, he would consult with those representatives to get their opinions for mutual consultation.

This is an example:

https://www.amazon.com/Refuting-ISIS-Shaykh-Muhammad-Al-Yaqoubi/dp/1908224193

Aymen Jawad Tamimi isn't a scholar of Islam.

Shaykh Yaqoubi IS a scholar of Islam, here he has comprehensively refuted Daesh: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Refuting-ISIS-Shaykh-Muhammad-Al-Yaqoubi/dp/1908224193

Daesh ARE the khawarij. Daesh DO assume shia and other Muslims to be kuffar by default.

So stop peddling nonsense and lies. Daesh are a criminal kharijite group, there is Ijma on it.

"I'd recommend watching ANY ISIS video, and/or reading ANY Dabiq issue. Are you going to try and tell me that they're not "honest and realistic" about what the texts say?
At this point I'm breaking a personal rule to never engage with someone dishonest enough to claim Islam is perfect or otherwise should not be reformed. But let's keep this going, so that others on this subreddit have a record of how Muslim obscurantists argue."

They are not honest and realistic about the texts. I understand how you see things, you see that on the surface the Quran or Hadith says X or Y and then you see isis doing X or Y. It seems to be quite valid, right? No, its not. Here is some evidence: http://www.lettertobaghdadi.com , in this letter to the leader of isis they are destroyed theologically. Here is a book written by Shaykh Muhammad al Yaqoubi that destroys them: https://www.amazon.com/Refuting-ISIS-Shaykh-Muhammad-Al-Yaqoubi/dp/1908224193/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486931882&sr=8-1&keywords=refuting+isis . Here is a lecture speaking about that book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ3MEJ_maRc . Here is an excellent video that references several academic journals and deals with the arguments that someone like yourself would bring up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgsVa-khWp4 . That is in addition to the video on isis that I shared in my previous post. In short, there is a reason why someone like myself and many, many others aren't trying to kill people its because we are following an orthodox interpretation and methodology.

“Yes, you may say we have two alternatives,” he says. “We have the alternative of being Muslim extremists or being extremely Muslim. And I don’t accept the category of moderate at all because it is far from clear. Because when it is used usually by Western pundits and politicians, what is intended is anything other than a form of Islam that politically doesn’t obstruct present Western policies. And I don’t think that is a helpful way of developing a meaningful sense of priorities within a religion. So I don’t use this category ‘moderate’ Muslims at all. I think the ongoing face-off between radicals and the mainstream is a face-off between heresy and orthodoxy. Those are the terms which are more indigenous and authentic than ‘moderation’ and ‘extremism’.”

http://gulfnews.com/culture/people/cultural-investment-is-the-way-forward-1.696524

"So are reformers. They're well aware of what the texts (Quran & Hadith) say. That's why they're reformers."

If they were honest and realistic with the text then wouldn't putting out the idiocy that they do now.

" "Mental gymnastics" is an interesting term to use regarding the interpretation of epistemologically empty belief systems, i.e. religions. Muslims (Christians/Jews/etc) already have to play mental gymnastics to believe that texts clearly written by men were written/dictated by some omnipotent entity. So yeah, I don't see your position that reformers are "dishonest" as being even the slightest bit rational."

Whether you see my point is not really important a perusal of what these morons want to do is enough proof. Its mental gymnastics plain and simple.

"Nope. She only needs to change—or otherwise prevent the formation of—enough Muslim minds to make a difference. Devout conservatives by definition are largely not going to change. The goal, quite frankly, is to marginalize them and make them not representative of Muslims in general. And rightly so."

Have you ever seen any videos of her or Quilliam? They want to change Islam so that they can change the minds of Muslims. They first have to change Islam, which isn't possible. Their goal is explicitly to change the religion. To marginalize is also never going to happen, conservative Muslim have way more children and will continue to do so. We are growing, quickly. To try to side step this fact is quite sad, just look at the people who work at Quilliam, they always try (pathetically) to put things in religious terms. Why? Because they want to reach out to conservative Muslims and pretend that Quilliam is legitimate and mainstream.

"You are, and I've clearly demonstrated it."

No, you are delusional, you've demonstrated your delusion.

"If you want to call universal, equal human rights for all "liberal", then sure. Not only do they want that, but the entire world desperately needs it."

There is not much to really say here. We don't believe in many of those values and rights. Take free speech, you will never have absolute free speech such that there can be a billboard with cartoons of the Prophet (PBUH) in Medina, or gay marriage in a place like Mecca. It won't happen. And it is delusional to think that such things are possible. Serious question for you, do really think those things are a possibility?

"No, that's what obscurantists do. The first step to reform is honesty about what is being reformed. For example, to paraphrase Maajid Nawaz: if all the Sharia conditions are met, do you believe that chopping the hand off of a thief is the appropriate punishment?"

This is basically about hudud punishments. https://yaqeeninstitute.org/jonathan-brown/stoning-and-hand-cutting-understanding-the-hudud-and-the-shariah-in-islam/

"Almost. It's because they're honest about the texts, they honestly believe that these texts, and how they're interpreted today represent the one truth for all of eternity, and neither the texts nor the interpretations can ever be altered. The largest amount of dishonesty actually belongs to conservatives like yourself, because you fail to recognize that Islam has been reinterpreted many times throughout history, across many cultures. Which means that reform is absolutely something that is coherent and possible."

Let me be clear, there is a spectrum of interpretation, no problem. But, there will NEVER be an interpretation that allows a women to not wear a hijab or to eat pork or engage in same sex actions or to date or to believe in human evolution, etc. To try to get those things from the texts is mental gymnastics and ABSOLUTE dishonesty. Watch this debate between Shaykh Yasir Qadhi and Usama Hasan of Quilliam and if you are honest with yourself you will inevitably conclude that Hasan simply lies, misrepresents, and does mental gymnastics to try to prove that which is simply not possible. Islam cannot accept human evolution and just as it can't accept human evolution it can't accept the other things I mentioned. Here is the debate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbynBJVTWKI&t=2h22m22s . This debate is an excellent example of how the "reformers" are dishonest and for you to accuse me of dishonesty is incredibly rich and hilarious.

"Yep. ✊🏾✊🏽✊🏿✊🏼. This is exactly why I express solidarity with reformers."

The delusion knows no bounds. Your proving this in real time.

"And now you must stand up to the scrutiny of all of us: global civilization."

Your us vs them mentality is not going to get you anywhere, you must accept reality. Islam has endured through 1400 years of scrutiny and its not going anywhere anytime soon. Its best for people like yourself to reach out to scholars like Shaykh Yasir Qadhi or Shaykh Hamza Yusuf or your local Mosque and build bridges with conservative Muslims.

There are plenty of traditional Islamic scholars that have refuted Da'esh in theology. Right now off the top of my head I can link you this book (its one of the most famous)


Refuting ISIS by Sh. Muhammad Al Yaqoubi


"...penned this second edition to further elaborate on many important topics, such as the prohibition of burning human beings, the abolition of slavery, and Islam’s position towards minorities. New subjects are also tackled, such as the invalidity of excommunicating Muslim rulers for not applying certain aspects of Shari’ah, Islam’s position towards democracy, and the prohibition of destroying pre-Islamic monuments and sacred sites. Several other topics benefitted from more rigorous proofs, especially the section confirming that ISIS criminals have left the fold of Islam and are no longer Muslims."


Have a read on the review on Goodreads and tell me what you think.


Edit: Formatting