Comments on: The Iranian Bomb And Nuclear Terror http://informedspeculation.com/2006/10/29/the-iranian-bomb-and-nuclear-terror/ Refunds Cheerfully Given To All Who Disagree Fri, 10 Feb 2012 06:53:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: peter http://informedspeculation.com/2006/10/29/the-iranian-bomb-and-nuclear-terror/comment-page-1/#comment-121447 peter Mon, 30 Oct 2006 05:00:35 +0000 http://decision08.net/2006/10/29/the-iranian-bomb-and-nuclear-terror/#comment-121447 I also was struck by Feldman's essay. He spends a lot of the article discussing how the militancy of bin Laden is a perversion of Islam and how (unreported in the West) this has drawn condemnations from senior Muslim clerics and scholars. In discussing the Koran's prohibition of the murder of innocents, he makes a striking point: while the twentieth century saw mass extermination in Africa, Asia, and Europe, the Muslim countries were largely exempt from these horrors. While there were exceptions -- Hussein's gassing of the Kurds being the most notable -- there was nothing in the Muslim world which remotely approaches the things done by Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot, the Japanese, the Sudanese, the South Africans, etc., etc.... Of course, this flies in the face of the popular conception of Islam as a murderous religion sworn to the destruction of the West. In the sorry history of the previous century, it was the Muslim peoples of North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia which -- at least compared with peoples elsewhere -- avoided the worst atrocities perpetrated against others. I also was struck by Feldman’s essay. He spends a lot of the article discussing how the militancy of bin Laden is a perversion of Islam and how (unreported in the West) this has drawn condemnations from senior Muslim clerics and scholars. In discussing the Koran’s prohibition of the murder of innocents, he makes a striking point: while the twentieth century saw mass extermination in Africa, Asia, and Europe, the Muslim countries were largely exempt from these horrors. While there were exceptions — Hussein’s gassing of the Kurds being the most notable — there was nothing in the Muslim world which remotely approaches the things done by Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot, the Japanese, the Sudanese, the South Africans, etc., etc….

Of course, this flies in the face of the popular conception of Islam as a murderous religion sworn to the destruction of the West. In the sorry history of the previous century, it was the Muslim peoples of North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia which — at least compared with peoples elsewhere — avoided the worst atrocities perpetrated against others.

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