Job Discussion Forums

[Jim Bigelow]

I was given this web site by a colleague of mine. Personally I found it pretty useful especially living in Saudi and being surrounded by these people!

Thought I'd share it with you!

www.thewahhabimyth.com

[johnslat]

Dear Jim,
( Please see my Nov. 7th posting, entitled "Idealists", on the " A Mecca for . . " thread. ). That web site is a curious one, indeed. Now perhaps all this confusion / disagreement about just who "Wahhabis" are and just what (if anything) "Wahhabism" is can be explained by the factionalism so widepread among smaller sects of ALL religions. I know for a fact, for example, that there are certain "Southern Baptist" congregations that distance themselves from the "mainstream Southern Baptists" (owing to doctrinal differences) and consider themselves to be the "true Baptists".
Currently the Episcopalians are threatened with a major split over the issue of the election of a gay bishop. And there are "sects" of "reactionary Catholics" ( e.g. ):

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/44/161.html

http://www.dailycatholic.org/issue/2003Feb/febcoc.htm

who have "split" from the Vatican and believe that they alone still maintain the "true faith". So, perhaps this is simply an argument over nomenclature. What I think IS important, however, is that, no matter what he might be called, or no matter what he calls himself, Osama adheres to a very puritanical, back-to-the-basics form of Islam that is totally intolerant of both other religions and even ( or perhaps I should say "especially") of other Muslims who differ from his beliefs in any respect. Whether this "brand" of Islam is called "Wahhabism" or, for that matter "Osamaism", is, I'd say, rather irrelevant. But Osama's beliefs certainly do mirror those of the Wahhabis in the particulars mentioned above. So, is Osama "giving the Wahhabis a bad name"? Uh, I don't think so. They've been doing a bang-up job of THAT on their own.
Regards,
John

[johnslat]

Now here's a coincidence - Mr. Friedman discusses Wahhabism, including (wait for it) "Jewish Wahhabism".

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/13/opinion/13FRIE.html?th

And, in my opinion, now that he's NOT trying to run administration policy on Iraq, he seems to be "back in the saddle again".
Regards,
John

[ohman]

[scot47]

One of the problems here is that the Wahabis do not like us calling them "Wahabis". By their reckoning they are "muwahidun" (unitarians) or "Mu"uminun" (faithful).

I notice one of the euphemisms now common in the Saudi press is "pious" by which they mean one of those guys with short thobe and long beard and a strange look in the eyes.

[Jim Bigelow]

Hmm...nice points John.

[ohman]

[scot47]

I do not see the Wahabi as the enemy. The mutawa are very often our best students. And polite too.

The enemy are the looneys in their midst. And most of the real looneys are really from the Ikhwanat Al-Muslimun or Muslim Brothers.

[Jim Bigelow]

Scot 47:

Bang on the money. I think what you've said is a very acurate observation!

[johnslat]

Dear scot47,
I'll certainly grant that the mutawa are frequently the best students; that was so often the case in my experience. However, to make a comparison that stretches a bit, I understand Hitler loved dogs, too. Depite their being the best students, if you talk to them outside the classroom, I think you may find ( as I did ) that, admittedly with some exceptions, the mutawa are - no to put to fine a point on it - highly intolerant of anyone who doesn't agree totally with their brand of Islam. Strangely enough, I even had matawas confess to me (why, I have no idea) that most of their fellow students and the Muslim teachers and administrators at the IPA were not "real Muslims". And they seemed to harbor more disdain for such " non-Muslim Muslims" than they did for me, an infidel ( of course, when they were talking to the "non-Muslim Muslims", pehaps the reverse was the case ).
Regards,
John

[ohman]

John,
No Stockholm Syndrome for you.
Here's are some more warm fuzzies for the bearded ones--they never begged me to change a grade, if they didn't understand something, they'd approach me after class and ask relevent questions, they admired Anthony Quinn in "Lion of the Desert" because he carried a Quran in hand and a pistol in the other. :!

[johnslat]

Dear ohman,
Can't help it - I'm prejudiced against bigots. Oh, as I said, there certainly WERE exceptions. But most of the matawas I encountered were individuals that had an intolerant mind-set and a "direct line to Allah". Such people - of ANY religion - make me uncomfortable. It's the "pistol in the other (hand)" that disturbs me.
Regards,
John

[ohman]

John, I grew up in the deep south, Louisiana, came of age in the 60s. Not so long ago, accusing someone of being a bigot wouldn't have been slanderous. It might have gotten you a "Why thank you."

We're getting ready to elect a 32 year old first generation Indian-American, ex-Hindu (Catholic convert no doubt for political reasons) to governor.

Same Louisiana of neo-Nazi David Duke infamy not so long ago.
Y'never can tell where this ol' world is headed.

[johnslat]

Dear ohman,
Despite what some may see as my skeptical, even cynical, outlook on life in general and humanity specifically, I'm actually an optimist - REALLY!
I sort of like Teilhard de Chardin's idea:
" Teilhard aimed at a metaphysic of evolution, holding that it was a process converging toward a final unity that he called the Omega point. He attempted to show that what is of permanent value in traditional philosophical thought can be maintained and even integrated with a modern scientific outlook if one accepts that the tendencies of material things are directed, either wholly or in part, beyond the things themselves toward the production of higher, more complex, more perfectly unified beings. Teilhard regarded basic trends in matter � gravitation, inertia, electromagnetism, and so on � as being ordered toward the production of progressively more complex types of aggregate. This process led to the increasingly complex entities of atoms, molecules, cells, and organisms, until finally the human body evolved, with a nervous system sufficiently sophisticated to permit rational reflection, self-awareness, and moral responsibility. While some evolutionists regard man simply as a prolongation of the Pliocene fauna � an animal more successful than the rat or the elephant � Teilhard argued that the appearance of man brought an added dimension into the world. This he defines as the birth of reflection: animals know, but man knows that he knows; he has 'knowledge to the square'."
" We must not forget that the human soul, however independently created
our philosophy represents it as being, is inseperable in its birth and in its growth from the universe into which it is born."
"It is not our heads or our bodies which we must bring together, but our hearts. . . . Humanity. . . is building its composite brain beneath our eyes. May it not be that tomorrow, through the logical and biological deepening of the movement drawing it together, it will find its heart, without which the ultimate wholeness of its power of unification can never be achieved?"

And some other guys and gals whose notions I like:

"God is the nest we build together."
Gene Wolfe, "The Book of the New Sun"

"He no longer saw the face of his friend Siddhartha. Instead he saw other faces, many faces, a long series, a continuous stream of faces�hundreds, thousands, which all came and disappeared and yet all seemed to be there at the same time, which all continually changed and renewed themselves and which were yet all Siddhartha� He saw all these forms and faces in a thousand relationships to each other, all helping each other, loving, hating, and destroying each other and become newly born. Each one was mortal, a passionate, painful example of all that is transitory. Yet none of them died, they only changed, were always reborn, continually had a new face: only time stood between one face and another."
Hermann Hesse, "Siddhartha"

"Anything we do randomly and frequently starts to make its own sense
and changes the world into itself. Anything you want there to be more
of, do it randomly. Don't wait for reasons."
Ann Herbert, Margaret M. Pavel, and Mayumi Oda, "Random Kindness & Senseless Acts of Beauty"

"�May there not be superior beings amused with any graceful though instinctive attitude my mind may fall into, as I am entertained with the alertness of a Stoat or the anxiety of a Deer? Though a quarrel in the streets is a thing to be hated, the energies displayed in it are fine� By a superior being our reasonings may take the same tone � through erroneous they may be fine� This is the very thing in which consists poetry�"
John Keats, in a letter to his brother


"The universal nature out of the universal substance, as if it were wax, now moulds the figure of a horse, and when it has broken this up, it uses the material for a tree, next for a man, next for something else; and each of these things subsists for a very short time. But it is no hardship for the vessel to be broken up, just as there was none in its being fastened together."
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,
Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are!
And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,
That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but
a star.
Robert Browning, Abt Vogler



And some questions:

Are we all part of God � everything, everywhere, simultaneously? Do things not exist just because we cannot see them? Are time, chaos, and coincidence artificial constructs created out of our ignorance? Why do we kill things that are ugly or that we don�t understand? Do feelings of love have physical power? Are we really the most intelligent life form, when we don�t even understand the language of other creatures on our own planet? Is it possible to make God proud of us through our own accomplishments? Would these collective accomplishments lead to further evolution? Do organized religion and money hold us back from evolution? Would our ultimate evolution bring us into true consciousness and oneness with God? Is life a dream?

Regards,
John

[johnslat]

Here's an article from the Arab News:

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=35132&d=15&m=11&y=2003

In it, you'll find that the iman of the Grand Mosque in Makkah, Dr. Saleh Bin Humaid, compares the terrorist suicide bombings in Riyadh with the actions of Israel against the Palestinians. Well, I suppose such a comparison is only to be expected, comsidering the source. And certainly the Israeli army has done some terrible things. But for me, at least, the phrase "suicide bombers" would lead to what I'd say is a much more appropriate comparison, one not mentioned by the imam.
Also, here's another item I find interesting, this one from Islamic Affairs Minister Saleh Al-Asheikh. He said that killing an innocent person, especially a believer, without any reason was one of the biggest crimes in Islam.
It's the "especially a believer" part that gives it that special ring of authenticity.
Regards,
John