Please, everyone, especially MajGenSnowbear, take some time to visit these two websites:

http://www.jihadwatch.org

and

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch

I don't ask anyone to take what Robert Spencer says as gospel.  However, no other site addresses current events in the Muslim world that are of interest to both Muslims and Non-Muslims.

If you would like to visit a website that you CAN take as gospel, I recommend: http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/reference/searchhadith.html

This site allows you to view any part of the Sunnah or Hadith of the Muslim faith.  

You could also read the Koran, but, if you're like me, or like most Muslims, the second half of the book is nearly incomprehensible gibberish.  The Hadith provide a better, more direct, understanding of the Muslim faith.

I would recommend that those who would argue that Islam is not the problem, or that Islam is a "Religion of Peace", please do some actual research into the Islamic faith, their beliefs, their laws, their agenda, and their history before posting a comment about Islam or Muslims that is based on anecdotal evidence or total ignorance of the Islamic religion.

I can't force anyone to know what the heck they're talking about before posting, but it might help an informed and educated debate on certain issues.  It's just a suggestion.

Words to know:
kafir
fitna
fatwa
taqiyya
sira, surah
hadith
sunnah
isna
matn
tawhid
risalat
khiafat
dajjal
mahdi
ar-raya
gharqad
jizya
DHIMMI, or DHIMMITUDE



Words to know, and to truly understand:
Jihad

Does ATF care what we do to Islamic centers? Not saying that we will do anything but would they? lol

Jihad means" Struggle ", You can find things in the Koran,Torah and Bible that people will read with their own interpretation and agenda.

What does the Arabic word jihad mean?

One answer came last week, when Saddam Hussein had his Islamic leaders appeal to Muslims worldwide to join his jihad to defeat the "wicked Americans" should they attack Iraq; then he himself threatened the United States with jihad.

As this suggests, jihad is "holy war." Or, more precisely: It means the legal, compulsory, communal effort to expand the territories ruled by Muslims at the expense of territories ruled by non-Muslims.

The purpose of jihad, in other words, is not directly to spread the Islamic faith but to extend sovereign Muslim power (faith, of course, often follows the flag). Jihad is thus unabashedly offensive in nature, with the eventual goal of achieving Muslim dominion over the entire globe.

Jihad did have two variant meanings through the centuries, one more radical, one less so. The first holds that Muslims who interpret their faith differently are infidels and therefore legitimate targets of jihad. (This is why Algerians, Egyptians and Afghans have found themselves, like Americans and Israelis, so often the victims of jihadist aggression.) The second meaning, associated with mystics, rejects the legal definition of jihad as armed conflict and tells Muslims to withdraw from the worldly concerns to achieve spiritual depth.

Jihad in the sense of territorial expansion has always been a central aspect of Muslim life. That's how Muslims came to rule much of the Arabian Peninsula by the time of the Prophet Muhammad's death in 632. It's how, a century later, Muslims had conquered a region from Afghanistan to Spain. Subsequently, jihad spurred and justified Muslim conquests of such territories as India, Sudan, Anatolia, and the Balkans.

Today, jihad is the world's foremost source of terrorism, inspiring a worldwide campaign of violence by self-proclaimed jihadist groups:

The International Islamic Front for the Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders: Osama bin Laden's organization;
Laskar Jihad: responsible for the murder of more than 10,000 Christians in Indonesia;
Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami: a leading cause of violence in Kashmir;
Palestinian Islamic Jihad: the most vicious anti-Israel terrorist group of them all;
Egyptian Islamic Jihad: killed Anwar El-Sadat in 1981, many others since, and
Yemeni Islamic Jihad: killed three American missionaries on Monday.
But jihad's most ghastly present reality is in Sudan, where until recently the ruling party bore the slogan "Jihad, Victory and Martyrdom." For two decades, under government auspices, jihadists there have physically attacked non-Muslims, looted their belongings and killed their males.

Jihadists then enslaved tens of thousands of females and children, forced them to convert to Islam, sent them on forced marches, beat them and set them to hard labor. The women and older girls also suffered ritual gang-rape, genital mutilation and a life of sexual servitude.

Sudan's state-sponsored jihad has caused about 2 million deaths and the displacement of another 4 million - making it the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of our era.

Despite jihad's record as a leading source of conflict for 14 centuries, causing untold human suffering, academic and Islamic apologists claim it permits only defensive fighting, or even that it is entirely non-violent. Three American professors of Islamic studies colorfully make the latter point, explaining jihad as:

An "effort against evil in the self and every manifestation of evil in society" (Ibrahim Abu-Rabi, Hartford Seminary);
"Resisting apartheid or working for women's rights" (Farid Eseck, Auburn Seminary), and
"Being a better student, a better colleague, a better business partner. Above all, to control one's anger" (Bruce Lawrence, Duke University).
It would be wonderful were jihad to evolve into nothing more aggressive than controlling one's anger, but that will not happen simply by wishing away a gruesome reality. To the contrary, the pretense of a benign jihad obstructs serious efforts at self-criticism and reinterpretation.

The path away from terrorism, conquest and enslavement lies in Muslims forthrightly acknowledging jihad's historic role, followed by apologies to jihad's victims, developing an Islamic basis for nonviolent jihad and (the hardest part) actually ceasing to wage violent jihad.

Unfortunately, such a process of redemption is not now under way; violent jihad will probably continue until it is crushed by a superior military force (Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, please take note). Only when jihad is defeated will moderate Muslims finally find their voice and truly begin the hard work of modernizing Islam.

and Bush has caved in that he will not nor any of his Administration will not say the word Jihadist any longer.

TruthSeeker wrote:Jihad means" Struggle ", You can find things in the Koran,Torah and Bible that people will read with their own interpretation and agenda.

Jihad is the equivalent of the English word "Crusade".  I could go on a crusade against adult illiteracy, or littering, or for equal pay for women in the workplace, or against smoking.  

Or, ..... I could join a Crusade; a military conflict of a religious character waged by much of Christian Europe against external and internal threats.

Crusades were fought against Muslims, pagan Slavs, Russian and Greek Orthodox Christians, Mongols, Cathars, Hussites, and political enemies of the popes.

When a muslim speaks of Jihad - 99,999 times out of 100,000 - the equivalent usage of "Crusade" is the latter, not the former.

In short, the word Jihad can be used in the context you suggest; but it almost never is.

A little more "truth seeking" and a little less muslim apologizing might be warranted.  It's pretty clear you've made no attempt to actually seek the truth, only listened to muslim apologists and (beyond all reason, experience, evidence, or common sense) accepted a lie as truth.

Here is a sober article that I think illuminates our understanding of Islam.


http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=f6848b98-417b-4db9-ba63-0ebb7f4228a7&k=30619&p=1

Eyas wrote:

TruthSeeker wrote:Jihad means" Struggle ", You can find things in the Koran,Torah and Bible that people will read with their own interpretation and agenda.

Jihad is the equivalent of the English word "Crusade".  I could go on a crusade against adult illiteracy, or littering, or for equal pay for women in the workplace, or against smoking.  

Or, ..... I could join a Crusade; a military conflict of a religious character waged by much of Christian Europe against external and internal threats.

Crusades were fought against Muslims, pagan Slavs, Russian and Greek Orthodox Christians, Mongols, Cathars, Hussites, and political enemies of the popes.

I don't know that I agree that jihad is the same as crusade.  Let me make three points.  

First, the Christian crusades were a response to 4 centuries of Muslim jihad aggression beginning in the 7th century.  The crusades in the Holy Land were to liberate conquered Christians and reclaim Christian lands and holy sites.  

Secondly, crusading was never a Christian obligation.  Jihad is a Muslim obligation.  

Finally, jihad and Muslim aggression continued long after the last crusade.  The Ottoman Turks were attacking Christian Europe as late as the 1680s.  Their were seven crusades in the Holy Land between 1095 and 1291.