Topic: Why is it hard for US and people like me to understand.

[dnasims]

I unfortunately agree that money destroys all here in the US and that it should not shock any one.

As I said when I first started reading Quran, it was from local bookstore and was spelled Koran.

This book turned out to be nothing like the rest of Qurans I have read.  It was just a cheap imitation to make a dollar.

The question is. Is it being put out to try to discredit the Quran or just as a way to make money.

Not that either is correct thing to do but the first scenario is a terrible thought.

Dan Sims

[dnasims]

I unfortunately agree that money destroys all here in the US and that it should not shock any one.

As I said when I first started reading Quran, it was from local bookstore and was spelled Koran.

This book turned out to be nothing like the rest of Qurans I have read.  It was just a cheap imitation to make a dollar.

The question is. Is it being put out to try to discredit the Quran or just as a way to make money.

Not that either is correct thing to do but the first scenario is a terrible thought.

Dan Sims


Sorry some how my replay to another topic woud up as my original post. 

[dnasims]

I have been trying to do a lot of research on history of the Middle East, and at same time figure out why all the fighting.

I constantly here how we (the US citizens and government just do not understand) or that we do not care because we are over here far away from it all.

There is a lot of truth in that, but same time in my effort to understand I think I may have found another reason that we forget exists.

That is that the Middle East has such a history dated back thousands of years.  So there is a since of who does the land belong to and who has wrights to what, who has been suppressed by whom.

This does not exist at all in US.  Sure we had native Americans who we squashed for there lands and put into reservations, and the African American we bought over for slavery, but most countries have the slaves or indentured servants that where bought in from different countries.

So if we take that out of equation then all we have is native Americans, and they would have to fight that the entire continent was theirs and fight for it back.

We have no history of this was once part of Ottoman Empire then Roman ECT. It should be Jews land, it should be Christians land, or it belongs to Muslims.

We have not been hearing long enough for that nor has it ever happened for I fell this makes it a little harder for me to grasp.

I mean I can not the US and Canada fighting to death over Michigan, but that’s because we have never had these situations in the past to try to hold on to.  No since of I must reclaim or protect this place because it was originally the Jews land seven thousand years ago.

I do not mean for any of this to be excuse for what we do, but maybe an explanation of why we can not understand.

Dan Sims

[Peace Counselor]

I mentioned the same idea earlier in another thread, and I completely agree.

In the Middle East, you have countries like Pakistan and Israel. Neither has the military prowess to defeat the other, so you have continued war over a region that has been declared sacred for a couple millennia now. It's a shame that the two are not able to overcome their differences. In my opinion, Jerusalem should just become a 'neutral' zone that belongs to neither Pakistan nor Israel, but is "shared" between the two countries. Nobody would live in the neutral region, so there would be nothing like taxes or anything to worry about.

But the point is, Americans have never had a true struggle on their on turf. The Native Americans, the British... the Americans have always had the advantage in that they have better technology or are fighting on home ground. They've never really been challenged before on their home turf, to say.

Will it ever be able for so many cultures and religions to survive peacefully in the Middle East? Nobody really knows, but there is hope that they can all come to terms sometime sooner or later.

[silkworm]

DNasim, good question, it is said that God cannot change past only the historians can - Now we are tackling with many questions. What are we looking at is it a political question??? or a historical question??? or is a men made menace.
 
Please keep in mind that Middle East is the only place where three Abrahamic Religions were born and thrived, I would be biased if I started with B'nei Israel, there were tons of other people living before B'nei Israel showed up on the screen of history, but going through all of it would mean a lot of time and space - If you want I can suggest you names of few books that would "enlighten" you to some extent.
 
Heroes of History by Will Durant
History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
A History of Crusades by 'steven Runciman (Three Vols.)
Jerusalem, a City of faith by Karem Armstrong
 
I have got a long list, but for now, this will be good. Thanks

[ALIHAYMEG]

It can be hard for those of us who live in the US to understand exactly what issues are driving these conflicts. Our media is divided into two factions that support opposite views (conservative vs. liberal) and the truth can be hard to surmise. There are many like myself who realize that we are being forced into an opinion with misinformation and propaganda. What can we do to help sort some of this out?

[amar_labedi]

DNasim, good question, it is said that God cannot change past only the historians can - Now we are tackling with many questions. What are we looking at is it a political question??? or a historical question??? or is a men made menace.
 
Please keep in mind that Middle East is the only place where three Abrahamic Religions were born and thrived, I would be biased if I started with B'nei Israel, there were tons of other people living before B'nei Israel showed up on the screen of history, but going through all of it would mean a lot of time and space - If you want I can suggest you names of few books that would "enlighten" you to some extent.
 
Heroes of History by Will Durant
History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
A History of Crusades by 'steven Runciman (Three Vols.)
Jerusalem, a City of faith by Karem Armstrong
 
I have got a long list, but for now, this will be good. Thanks

 

Mashallah thank for the useful references...

[silkworm]

Thanks Bro Amar, we do have a long list of authors who claim to be "authority" on Muslim issues like Professor Bernard Lewis, who is a British Jew and is paif for his "research" by the CIA, although he carries incredible knowledge and have written few books like "Muslim Discovery of Europe", "What Went Wrong", "Assassins", "From Babylon to Dragomans", "The Jews of Islam", "the Arabs in History", "The Emergence of Modern Turkey" etc.  but almost all his writings leaves an after-taste and in critical of Islam.

In the beginning, he was very appreciative of Islam, but after the "sell-out" his mind gets clouded and started to write against Islam, for instance let's look at this what he used to say in 1990:

“Islam is one of the world’s great religions. Let me be explicit about what I, as a historian of Islam who is not a Muslim, mean by that. Islam has brought comfort and peace of mind to countless millions of men and women.
It has given dignity and meaning to drab and impoverished lives. It has taught people of different races to live in brotherhood and people of different creeds to live side by side in reasonable tolerance. It inspired a great civilization in which others besides Muslims lived creative and useful lives and which, by its achievement, enriched the whole world.”

After 1990, the recognition of Islamic 'greatness' disappeared, and Lewis' emphasis shifted to an analysis of "Muslim rage".

You see the "Great Sell-Out"
 

[curioustraveler]

I think the muslim rage needs discussing, why all the rage?

[silkworm]

Crusades after Crusades came to Middle East....they say it were nine, wrong, they did it for 250 years

But before writing this I was thinking of presenting you with a whole historical case, but due to paucity of time, I am giving you only the following and I hope that we would discuss it in length, if you would agree to it:

As an Israeli journalist, Arieh Shavit, explains of the massacre (of Muslim men, women and children in Lebanon and Palestine)

    “We believe with absolute certitude that right now, with the White House in our hands, the Senate in our hands and The New York Times in our hands, the lives of others do not count the same way as our own.”

     Israelis today, explains the anti-Zionist Jew Israel Shahak,

    “are not basing their religion on the ethics of justice. They do not accept the Old Testament as it is written. Rather, religious Jews turn to the Talmud. For them, the Talmudic Jewish laws become ‘the Bible.’ And the Talmud teaches that a Jew can kill a non-Jew with impunity.”


.....and look at the size and height of arrogance of the Jews

"One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail." – Rabbi Yaacov Perrin, Feb. 27, 1994 in N.Y. Times, Feb. 28, 1994, p. 1.