Thursday, February 19, 2015

Dragon Fang Objects

Dragon Fang,
You always claim that I'm just ignorant, then you prove my point.

Heretical or apostate Muslims are not Muslim:
"One who defected from obedience (to the Amir) and separated from the main body of the Muslims - if he died in that state-would die the death of one belonging to the days of Jahiliyya (i.e. would not die as a Muslim)."
And which Ummah is the innocent Ummah, and which is not? Which Ummah is heretical or apostate? Who decides?
"Whoso attacks my Ummah (indiscriminately) killing the righteous and the wicked of them, sparing not (even) those staunch in faith and fulfilling not his promise made with those who have been given a pledge of security - he has nothing to do with me and I have nothing to do with him."
It's easy: they killed my tribe members; they are the heretics!

Kill the heretics:

"So, wherever you find them, kill them, for there will be a reward for their killers on the Day of Resurrection."
Quoting the prophet:
"The Prophet (PBUH) said: 'Soon there will appear disagreement and dissension in my people; there will be people who will be good in speech and bad in deeds. They recite the Qur'an, but it does not pass their collar-bones.'"
The prophet could not have said this; the Qur’an did not exist until Uthman wrote it, after the prophet’s death. Had the prophet said such a thing, it could not have referred to Uthman’s Qur’an.
"They are worst of the people and animals. Happy is the one who kills them and they kill him. They call to the book of Allah, but they have nothing to do with it. He who fights against them will be nearer to Allah than them (the rest of the people)."
Perfect justification for killing. All you have to do is to say: “I say: they don’t believe correctly”. Then you can kill them. Yes. Religion of peace.

Dragon Fang says,
“Simply put, if someone is not a licensed scholar, then his/her personal opinion about any issue in Islam is not associated with the Islamic tradition.”
Out of the Twelver Imams, 11 were murdered, one is in hiding since 872 AD. This last Imam became Imam at 5 years old, so could not have been a licensed scholar.

But wait, these are Shia Imams; you are probably Sunni, and if so, then these Imams would be heretics or apostates or somesuch and “happy is the one who kills them…”, of course.
'Sharia' is a purely academic discipline; you don't see unlicensed lawyers, unlicensed judges, or unlicensed jurists, do we? There are different legal schools of thought, the major ones formed over 12 centuries ago. For a person's opinion to matter on a legal matter, it must be relevant to any of the legal schools of thought and adhere to the methodologies and legal theories adopted by said schools of thought, otherwise the opinion is worthless and not associated with Sharia as Sharia doesn't exist outside these schools of thought.
If by “jurist” you mean juror, then no, there are no such thing as licensed jurors. Judges are for the most part elected or selected, not licensed although they might also be lawyers who are licensed to practice law before a court. However, an individual can represent himself (usually not a good idea in major court cases) and is expected to do so in minor courts. So your analogy does not work, and it appears to not be the universal case for Islam either.

Further, Sharia is not the issue; following the prophet by his example is the issue. And the prophet Muhammad was a willful killer of dissenters. That was, and remains, a barbaric practice, and the official way of the prophet.

From Zohaib Ahmed

“Where do all these Mullahs get their education? What is the standard of being a qualified Mullah? No Answer? See! we have created this gap which creates this fiasco. The person who couldn't get any job becomes a Mullah in most of the cases, this is our standard of Islamic Qualification. What can we expect?...

We gives donation in each and every Mosque and don't care about the right and wrong use of it, we certainly don't. I have seen in times that the home of Mullah in Mosque finish first with the construction fund and then Mosque.

We have created such a big gap which can end in just crisis. We have to step forward, create some rules and standard for become a Mullah, its a hell of a job. We need proper Islamic Education and Research centers for this job. We have renown scholars among us, they are awesome people.
We should accept reality and understand the root cause of this situation and before blaming Mullahs we should accept the fact that it is us who creates them. You can't accept good from an uneducated person who is doing business to run his home, you just can't.”
Perhaps you will attack the credentials of Zohaib Ahmed. If so, that merely proves the original assertion, which is this: anyone’s credentials as a “legitimate Muslim” may be attacked based on the personal bias of some other Muslim, and thus the first Muslim – declared illegitimate – becomes fair game to be killed under the rules of Islam, including the rules you quote above.

It seems that Muslims cannot help but prove the inherent vicious circular logic which infects Islam, enabling the killing which Islamists do every day, as they scream
“Join OUR tribe or die a heretic – Allahu Akbar!”

7 comments:

ShadowWhoWalks said...

Heretical or apostate Muslims are not Muslim

Naturally. Stating otherwise is an oxymoron.


And which Ummah is the innocent Ummah, and which is not? Which Ummah is heretical or apostate? Who decides?

Not sure what you are talking about; there is one Ummah which is based on the Quran and Sunnah.

It's easy: they killed my tribe members; they are the heretics!

Kill the heretics


That is one of the worst badly-executed strawmen I have ever seen. As I've said: Ignorance filled and motivated by irrational bias.


O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted. (Quran 49:13)

If someone kills some "tribe member" due to greed doesn't mean he is a heretic. Saying that killing people due to greed is acceptable is heresy.


The prophet could not have said this; the Qur’an did not exist until Uthman wrote it, after the prophet’s death. Had the prophet said such a thing, it could not have referred to Uthman’s Qur’an.

This guy believes the Quran is a manuscript and did not exist before the Prophet's time... Ignorance + irrational bias.


Perfect justification for killing. All you have to do is to say: “I say: they don’t believe correctly”. Then you can kill them. Yes. Religion of peace.

Incorrect; the person could simply be a Muslim who knows that his action is a sin but does it anyway for person reasons (unless he does something drastic like worship an idol, or say that the Quran is not the word of God), or he could simply be ignorant regarding his belief being wrong.

Narrated Abu Huraira:
Allah's Messenger (PBUH) said, "A man who never did any good deed, said that if he died, his family should burn him and throw half the ashes of his burnt body in the earth and the other half in the sea, for by Allah, if Allah should get hold of him, He would inflict such punishment on him as He would not inflict on anybody among the people. But Allah ordered the sea to collect what was in it (of his ashes) and similarly ordered the earth to collect what was in it (of his ashes). Then Allah said (to the recreated man ), 'Why did you do so?' The man replied, 'For being afraid of You, and You know it (very well).' So Allah forgave him."
-Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol. 9, Book 93, Hadith 597

For example, the guy above believed that God's ability is limited, yet was forgiven for his ignorance.

And even if the above two cases don't apply, there is no killing at will; the person can retract his claim, which is naturally not acknowledged by an Islamic society, and only the court can decide whether a certain person is apostate/heretic (although anyone can judge the action).

If by “jurist” you mean juror, [..]

"The analogy is not perfect!" Duh. Otherwise, it would be called an identity. Since I mentioned that it is an academic discipline, there needs to be a degree, something judges and professional lawyers have. The word "license" means "given permission", hence what you originally claimed is similar to barging in a courthouse and claiming the authority of the judges, lawyers, and jury.


Further, Sharia is not the issue; following the prophet by his example is the issue. And the prophet Muhammad was a willful killer of dissenters. That was, and remains, a barbaric practice, and the official way of the prophet.

Says the person who has no moral basis, tolerates no dissent from the US constitution, and stated that he would be willing to take up guns if the anti-dissent situation calls for it. The irony is enough to drop a water buffalo.

Right. ISIS follows the Prophet by burning someone, despite the Prophet explicitly forbidding burning. Nice illogic/ignorance.

Ahmed stated a common belief; education is important. What is to disagree with?

Stan said...

I’m on the road, and have only a short time for a couple of responses:

"Heretical or apostate Muslims are not Muslim"

Naturally. Stating otherwise is an oxymoron.


So: kill them. Because you – you or someone like you – decide that (a) the other persons don’t do Islam per YOUR interpretation and thus the other persons are heretical, and (b) that makes them killable. That “right” to decide the fates of others by yourself or by someone else who takes that “right” on himself, is so obvious to you that you miss the point completely. Here's the point: Your religion allows you to kill anyone you deem fit to kill. So slaughter is part of your religious duty. They - dissenters - are by some human Muslim’s interpreted standards heretical, so they are by that human Muslim’s interpreted standards killable. So: kill them.

And which Ummah is the innocent Ummah, and which is not? Which Ummah is heretical or apostate? Who decides?

Not sure what you are talking about; there is one Ummah which is based on the Quran and Sunnah.


Again you miss the point entirely. Who gets to decide who is IN and who is OUT? This is important, because one sect’s Ummah is not necessarily another sect’s Ummah. Perhaps you are Ummah for the dominant sect, perhaps not. If someone decides that YOU are not Ummah, then YOU are killable by that Muslim’s Islamic interpretation. It’s really very simple, and very deadly, bloody deadly. The evidence for the truth of that is experienced daily, as Muslims go about judging other Muslims as KILLABLE, and then kill them.

It's easy: they killed my tribe members; they are the heretics!

Kill the heretics

That is one of the worst badly-executed strawmen I have ever seen. As I've said: Ignorance filled and motivated by irrational bias.


You cannot make that charge of fallacy stick without any explanation, and quoting Uthman’s Qur’an is no proof. Further, there is empirical evidence to the contrary: the mere existence of Shia vs Sunni is one example. The fact that this is happening falsifies any charge of logical error: when fact and logic match, then the logic is valid.

The prophet could not have said this; the Qur’an did not exist until Uthman wrote it, after the prophet’s death. Had the prophet said such a thing, it could not have referred to Uthman’s Qur’an.

This guy believes the Quran is a manuscript and did not exist before the Prophet's time... Ignorance + irrational bias.


If the Qur’an pre-existed the prophet, then the prophet wasn’t needed to produce it, was he. And if the pre-existing Qur’an was impeccable in all regards, then Uthman was not required to edit it, was he. When logic trumps religious claims, Islamists always repudiate logic. It’s actually amazing, especially when they assert “ignorance and irrational bias”, while denying logic completely.

I’ll have to finish this later.

Stan said...

”Perfect justification for killing. All you have to do is to say: “I say: they don’t believe correctly”. Then you can kill them. Yes. Religion of peace.”

Incorrect; the person could simply be a Muslim who knows that his action is a sin but does it anyway for person reasons (unless he does something drastic like worship an idol, or say that the Quran is not the word of God), or he could simply be ignorant regarding his belief being wrong.


This in no manner changes what I said, above. The charge of heresy/apostacy IS justification for killing.

” For example, the guy above believed that God's ability is limited, yet was forgiven for his ignorance.

And even if the above two cases don't apply, there is no killing at will; the person can retract his claim, which is naturally not acknowledged by an Islamic society, and only the court can decide whether a certain person is apostate/heretic (although anyone can judge the action).”


Functional Islam shows that “anyone can judge the action”, as you say. It is absurd to claim that “killing at will” is restricted by a person retracting his claim. Had he not, he still is killable at will. Further, the claim itself has value which is relative to the individual’s personal interpretation. And that is why Sunnis and Shias kill each other… at will.

” If by “jurist” you mean juror, [..]

"The analogy is not perfect!" Duh. Otherwise, it would be called an identity. Since I mentioned that it is an academic discipline, there needs to be a degree, something judges and professional lawyers have. The word "license" means "given permission", hence what you originally claimed is similar to barging in a courthouse and claiming the authority of the judges, lawyers, and jury.”


If the comparison were not a correct representation of your point, then why did you use that analogy? Never mind, the answer to that would be trivial in the overall context of this discussion. This discussion remains that Islamists are not a universal body controlled by a universally understood and interpreted law; they are divided into major and minor sects. The major sects, Sunni and Shia, kill each other frequently and en masse. So do the minor sects. It is a fact of daily life which is empirically observable.
(more below)

Stan said...

” Further, Sharia is not the issue; following the prophet by his example is the issue. And the prophet Muhammad was a willful killer of dissenters. That was, and remains, a barbaric practice, and the official way of the prophet.

Says the person who has no moral basis, tolerates no dissent from the US constitution, and stated that he would be willing to take up guns if the anti-dissent situation calls for it. The irony is enough to drop a water buffalo.”


Two outstanding logic errors there:

(a) Tu Quoque Fallacy, falsely used to avoid the obvious issue of Islamic killing to protect and extend a totalitarian dogma - Islam;

(b) Claiming that attempts to assert totalitarian control over freedom cultures is “dissent” is logically absurd, because freedom allows all types of intellectual and religious dissent, but would not be freedom if the totalitarian is allowed physical control over the free, which is exactly what is hidden (unsuccessfully) in your claim of “dissent”. Conquest is not "dissent". Islam is bent on conquest, not intellectual dissent.

There is an unbridgeable gap between allowing you to dissent intellectually from freedom culture, and allowing you to assert violent control over freedom culture. That you do not comprehend that difference between those two non-congruencies demonstrates dramatically your tacitly held assertion of personal right to control me, while not comprehending my right as a free person to defend myself from your control over me.

Yours is a completely totalitarian mindset, one which is engendered by Islam, and one which is a danger to every free person on the planet. That Islamic mind-set is the source of Islam’s internal bloody battles and Islam’s assault on free cultures outside and beyond the bounds of current Islamic hegemony.

” Right. ISIS follows the Prophet by burning someone, despite the Prophet explicitly forbidding burning. Nice illogic/ignorance.

What ISIS does is to follow the behaviors of the prophet by disregarding "rules" that are inconvenient, which follows the prophet’s perfect and divine behavior to a “T”.

And it is not the killing of humans which is your issue, is it? It is merely the triviality of the method of killing. The Islamic scholars within ISIS quoted verses which not only justified burning, but demanded it of them. Islam in action, find verses and justify your actions. Any action can be justified that way. That is possible only in a context of contradictory injunctions, proscriptions and prescriptions, i.e. Islam or contemporary Leftist totalitarianism.

Ahmed stated a common belief; education is important. What is to disagree with?”

Ahmed actually said that Mullahs are ignorant yet feign Islamic knowledge and credentials; apparently you don’t disagree with that refutation of your own claims, above.

ShadowWhoWalks said...

So: kill them. Because you – you or someone like you – decide that (a) the other persons don’t do Islam per YOUR interpretation and thus the other persons are heretical, and (b) that makes them killable.

Why would I kill them in a situation that is no self-defense? Already stated that I don't have the authority to judge whether a person is heretical, only that his actions or beliefs are heretical. And no, I don't have the authority to deem them killable, and they are not killable on sight.

Again you miss the point entirely. Who gets to decide who is IN and who is OUT?

The Quran and Sunnah; any statement contradicting them gets readily dropped. Islam does not acknowledge sects; the Quran and Sunnah are the only guideline and any differences are judged upon them with no fighting (if it happens, the aggressor is at fault until the aggression ceases). Defending actions, statements, or beliefs that demonstrably contradict precise statements in the Quran and Sunnah are obviously out.
I have already stated I have no obligation to defend actions based on ignorance or personal reasons.

You cannot make that charge of fallacy stick without any explanation,

You made a statement (ignorance motivated by irrational bias) about Islam being a tribal system. I refuted it. Unless you are claim the Quran is irrelevant to what a Muslim is ought to believe, it is relevant. You obviously fail in supporting your claims or providing reasons to reject other people's claims.


If the Qur’an pre-existed the prophet, then the prophet wasn’t needed to produce it, was he.

Conveniently ignoring that the prophet's time goes up to his death.
How did Uthman edit the Quran? Did he use some device to alter people's memories?

This in no manner changes what I said, above.

And your statement, which refutes your previous statement, is not changed as well.
Reminder: I don't have the authority to kill other citizens at will. Gee.


Functional Islam shows that “anyone can judge the action”, as you say.

I am hella confused, are you defining "Killing at will" as "Killing restricted from civilians and decided by court"?


If the comparison were not a correct representation of your point, then why did you use that analogy?

Analogies are used to simplify the gist behind the point. Your statement that all analogies (which are not identities) must be identities is ridiculous. A universal belief does not mean every single person on the planet must believe in it.

ShadowWhoWalks said...

Two outstanding logic errors there:

How about two outstanding logic errors on your part you are trying to hide through strawmans?

I demonstrated your internal incoherence; making moral statements without having a moral basis. What is sad is that you wish for people to believe in something you can't demonstrate is sound. That is not Tu Quoque.

Furthermore, you employ special pleading for the sake of maintaining your cognitive dissonance.

Your shift of goal post is hilarious: Dissent allows all types of intellectual and religious dissent, but I deem this type of intellectual and religious dissent unacceptable. Notice that I never mentioned conquest or US-styled invasion; I mentioned dissent from the US constitution. More desperate needs of strawmen. The fact you have fewer tenets (which you are unable to rationally support) to dissent from doesn't change a thing.

Your implication that liberalism does not fully support tolitarianism when convenient is amusing.

A total logical mess from your part.


What ISIS does is to follow the behaviors of the prophet by disregarding "rules" that are inconvenient,

Ugh... So they follow the Prophet by not following him, even though they must follow him to be Muslims. are you saying that the prophet makes rules based on whims or personal opinions? You just love to question beg, don't you. Get on with it: Is the burning Islamicly justified or not? A yes or a no would do. Allow me to guess your answer, and correct me if I am wrong, it is a no because Islam is ought to be morally bankrupt and lacking any basis; therefore an action like idolatry, adultery, or deliberately getting drunk is justified. Can you tell me which legal school of thought and methodology ISIS subscribe to?

I believe I already stated that khawarijite are illegitimate and bloodthirsty, therefore I don't support any of ISIS actions. What is justified through falsehood shall be treated as such.


Ahmed actually said that Mullahs are ignorant yet feign Islamic knowledge and credentials; apparently you don’t disagree with that refutation of your own claims, above.

I recommend more proper readings of what you cite in the future. He stated that ignorant mullahs are correlated with general ignorance, and the best way to reduce unqualified mullahs is for people to know how to identify one. Never that qualified scholars don't exist.

Stan said...

Dragon Fang, and the Islamic Apologia descent into absurdity.

Stan said:
"And the prophet Muhammad was a willful killer of dissenters. That was, and remains, a barbaric practice, and the official way of the prophet."

Dragon Fang said:
"Says the person who has no moral basis,”


Dragon Fang now claims that his error is not a Tu Quoque Fallacy, because I have no moral authority to claim barbarism. That would mean, if true from the Islamic viewpoint, that barbarism is a moral term which cannot be defined by anyone other than Muhammad via the Qur’an, Hadith and the life of the prophet.

That in turn means that nothing the Prophet does can be morally judged by anyone other than the prophet himself; thus Muhammad was tautologically moral, regardless of whatever he chose to do. This is accomplished merely by assigning moral authority.

So of course Muhammad’s life cannot be barbaric as a moral judgment; and so neither can the lives of those who mimic the moral life of the prophet. Moral behavior is, after all, moral, regardless of whose behavior it is. If it is moral for Muhammad, then it is moral for everyone, unless there are separate moralities. And if that moral equity is not true, then there are multiple definitions of “moral” and “morality”, to be applied to different people, depending upon who, exactly, they are.

If the prophet does B and it is moral, then it must also be moral for any person to do B... or Islamic morality is relative to persons and is not constant.

So if ISIS is doing the same behaviors as those of the Prophet, then they are behaving in a moral fashion.

But if ISIS behaves the same as Muhammad, but is immoral, then either Muhammad was immoral in doing the same behaviors as ISIS, or there is a different standard applied to ISIS than the standard used for Muhammad.

Therefore, declaring the behaviors of ISIS to be immoral when they are mimicking the behaviors of the prophet is internally contradictory and non-coherent – unless there are multiple moral standards rendering Islam to be relativistic.

And if Islam is relativistic (escaping that original specific non-coherence problem of non-equitable moral principles), then it is still non-coherent because the term “moral” now means contradictory things relative to different persons, depending upon its use.

Further, accepting that this situation is normal and acceptable renders Islam outside the boundaries of intellectual cohesion; i.e. it is a type of non-coherence which is irrational.

NOW. I can understand Dragon Fang claiming that I have no moral authority to point out the barbarism in the behaviors of Muhammad. He feels qualified to control my moral position in the universe all by himself. Still, the term “barbarism” derives etymologically from the historical behaviors of Muslim pirates off the Barbary Coast, and therefore actually the word is not a moral term, it is a descriptive term for Islamic behavior: barbarian behavior. Therefore, I have every intellectual right to use the term in describing the prophet, upon whose life the pirates modeled their behaviors.

This is yet another discontinuity in Dragon Fang’s thought processing.

This type of inconsistency occurs in all totalitarian justifications for controlling other people.

I think that I’ll leave the rest of DF’s response for later. It's getting much too long again.