Why are some attacking Islam (a religion), for the political turmoil in the Middle East?

Question

One can not ignore the histroy of the Middle East, how the great powers reshuffled the map & created facts of geography, & the politics of Oil.
It is much more politics at work than religion. Religion is just a cover.
& now years after the invasion of Iraq, the Middle East is on the brink of chaos. What does this all have to do with Islam???

hasse_john: Indeed! The CIA removed Mussadeq, who was democratically elected, & replaced him with a dictator. Why? Because Mussadeq wanted to nationalize the oil industry. & the US is against nationalism in that OIL rich region. Wake up people!!!!
The media is just playing with your minds!

God Bless

John D: Extremists use religion to mobilize. It has nothing to do with Islam as a religion in itself. Terrorism is a tactic used by the weak to hurt the strong. That is a fact.
Islam means submission & peace.

Matt A: Muslims rioting in France has nothing to do with Islam. It has more to do with an intolerant French culture & their discrimination tactics.
I will not defend the cartoon riots nor the Teddy bear incidence. But I find it highly amusing that the Western media is so keen to highlight these incidence & blame Muslims but when atrocities are done by others, only their persons are blamed but not their religion.
& honestly, the concept of Islam against all others, will only benefit the extremists & not the majority who are peace loving.

Job: Well said!

First of all, Bhutto was a Muslim herself. So why not say that radicals terrorized a Muslim. Secondly, Bhutto was a political figure who was friendly to the West. Al-Qaeda wants to change the status-quo set according to US agenda.

For those of you who have Arabic as second language:
The Arabic word islam is related to the Syriac 'aslem which means "to make peace, surrender" and that in turn appears to be derived from the Semtic stem of *slem which means "to be complete." The Arabic word islam is thus also closely related to the Arabic word for peace, salem. Muslims believe that true peace can only be achieved through true obedience to the will of Allah.

Answer 1

There is a histroic legacy of Christians attacking Islam, just as Christianity has a historic past of hating Jews, all of which has become a polticial model for keeping others divided for one's own advantage.

In more recent political developments, it has also proven advantageous for those in power to pit one group against another.

Religion is also a workable tool for getting the masses excited. It is often easier to urge others to kill their fellow human beings if you can promise them that should they do so or even if they should die while doing so they will be rewarded with eternal bliss and all of the things they did not have in this life (i.e., wealth, fancy houses, material goods of all types and sorts without anyone stopping to ask why would spiritual being have material needs or even desires?)

People also like to be right. They also usually dislike being wrong. To that end, if one has a set of beliefs and another person says those beliefs are not correct, persons will often fight about the differences rather than seek to celebrate the common grounds of both.

Another consideration is the history of oil and exploration for such and money to be gained from possessing the same. Oil companies are extremely well off financially and they intend to do all that they are able to do so as to maintain the same. This includes, but is not limited to lying, cheating, stealing, formenting revelutions so as to manipulate governments and peoples, bribery and murder. Greed has over ruled morality and reason.

Religion has simply become a scape goat used to create the mindless hate fueled by ignorance and stupidity for governments and the wealthy to control the masses.

May God/YHWH/Allah, Subhanna wa Ta'ala, have mercy on us all and guide us all to the truth and towards the unity of all mankind.

Answer 2

Well it's like this. Before 9/11/2001 most Americans didn't give Islam, or bin laden a single thought. Matter of fact, they probably never heard of them.
Then 3000 innocent, men women and children, are murdered on live TV, and the media says this act of terror was carried out by "Islamic fundamentalist".
CNN shows people in the streets of "Islamic" nations, cheering as the towers fell. This does not endear the American people to Islam. Oh and the "beheadings". Those really riled some folks. People that were on the wall about Islam, before seeing some poor bastard have his head sawed off with a dull knife, fell squarely on the side of anti Islamic thinking.
I personally don't think Islam is to blame. I think terrorist are after their own agenda, and use Islam as a guise to gain supporters.

Answer 3

Because that is the cover that the people causing the termoil over in the Middle East have chosen to cloak themselves in. Bin Laden and all the terroist cells commit their global attacks in the name of Islam and Allah. The quotes that these Islamic radical groups are sending out speak towards killing all people who refuse to convert.

It doesn't help that Islamic cultures and governments have been extremely outspoken against Western cultures and their values. They've accused Western culture as waging a social attack on Islamic culture and winning over it's people with our "evil ideals" of capitalism and Levi Jeans.

Then there's the femanists in the Western World who are disgusted with the way traditional Islamic women live. Or the Humanitarians that have a real problem with Islamic law and punishment.

While i'm not Mouslim in the least and I'm firm in my Christian Faith. The reason Islam is portrayed in such a negative light is because you have so many people who actually claim to follow the teachings abusing the name of Islam and committing attrocities in the name of the religion.

Then you have a large and publicly loud group of people who are completely ignorant to the actual ideals and teaching of the religion talking about it publicly and imposing their idea of right and wrong on another cultures. Many of these people are of weak (if any) religious faith and don't understand how morality comes from religious doctrine and not an eclectic compilation of "feelings" and social comprimises.

Answer 4

You and some of the respondents make great points. Bottom line, I think, is the media is too lazy to properly analyze and explain these things, and Americans are equally lazy. When there was widespread rioting in American streets in the '60's and early '70's no one here blamed it on Christianity.
Great job, Azadeh, of responding to some of the more ignorant comments.

Answer 5

In Cartholicism the Pope speaks for the religion. Hinduism has the Dali Lama. Protestants have George W. Bush and the Baptist HAD Jerry Fallwell.

WHO speaks for the Muslims? Think about it.

Theirs is a not hierachael religion. Their teachings are taken from a book and dispensed as truths based on the teacher. Islam IS whatever the teacher SAYS it is.

In this case, the FOCAL point of Osama bn Laden is the sacred lands of the Muslim religion, Mecca and Jedda. Being the guardian of these sacred Muslim shrines, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Royal Family, known as the House of Saud, are held in great contempt by bin Laden. He sees the current administration of this government (Saudi Arabi) to be corrupt and irresponsible in its handling of the oil revenues from its hugh oil reserves.

The fact that they let the United States (the infidel) onto their land in 1990 to fight the Gulf War against Iraq and Kuwait was a desecration to him and many Muslims of his irk.

The fact that we stayed and conduct operations still in that country is a further irritant to him.

I has always been a tenent of the Muslim religion to hate the Jew. The US is seen now on two fronts to be an enemy of the tenants of the Musilim religion, becasue of its presence in Saudi Arabia and its support of the country of Isreal.

It has been the strategic goal of bin Laden from 9/11 on, to create turmoil between the US and the House of Saud. If genuine turmoil can be incited PERHAPS the infidel can be chased out of the Kingdon and this will permit a n unfettered opportunity to bring civil and military unrest to the Kingdom, thus being deprived of our military support.

There is REAL concern on the part of bin Laden thatthe current overseers of the Saudi Arabian oil reserves is squandering them, going into unphantomable debt to build, buy, and bully their way in the world, that they (the House of Saud) will soon find their oil reserve depleted and their ability to produce income and pay off theses satggaring debts will leave the Kingdom open to usurpation of thier assets by the West.

It is his intent to intervene in this scenario and take control not only of Saudi Arabi but all of the Islamic peoples and all of their countries and put them under a calepha, of Muslim religious rule.

His means of doing this is to call on all Muslims around the world to a call to arms (A Fatwa, or a jihad) and the PROBLEM IS, there is NO central leadership of the Muslim religion to say NO! We speak for the religion of Islam, Not Osama bun Laden.

Individual practioners of the religion are pressured by their peers to do nothing or say nothing in response to these atrosities so they go unchallenged. The reality of this war is this, at anyone time there are 1,000,000,000, (that's Billion with a B), Muslims in the world and each is expected to be available to assist in this fight when asked to do so. How will the 20 million or so in this country respond to that call?

In all of the violence perpetrated in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world, a simple scratching of the surface will reveal the imprint of the Muslim religion in the details. To a Muslim, politics and religion are as inseparable as anything on earth can be.

Answer 6

pakistan's problems go back long before iraq even existed in its present form, and have always been primarily religious. (try reading up a little about the civil war at the end of the 1960s).

ms. bhutto's murder was political only in the sense that to be a woman and to be a moderate are political statements in modern day pakistan.

being a woman and being a moderate are political statements only in the context of hard-line islam.

Answer 7

Islamic prophets have been born in center east. Arabic isn't even primary language. many of the Muslims don't be responsive to Arabic. it rather is sufficient to tutor Islam isn't primary faith.

Answer 8

Politics don't make people blow themselves up to kill people.

Where are the atheist suicide bombers? You have to believe in an afterlife, or just be a flat out lunatic, if you to want to participate in a war of violence and/or kill yourself.

Muslims aren't the only ones at fault, in fact, I think Christians are the cause of most of the turmoil in the Middle East. If Israel had not been placed where it is now, by Christians, we wouldn't be in half the mess we are now.

You can read the Bible and the Qu'ran and find answers to why fundamentalists act the way they do...because they take their holy books seriously and abide by them. They are following the teachings of bronze age savages, that's why they act as such.

You won't find a suicide bomber who doubts their religion. If there is the smallest bit of doubt in their mind they wouldn't blow themselves up.

To read about the immoral teachings of the Bible:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/

And the Qu'ran:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/index.htm

Answer 9

Because that's the religion that the vast, vast bulk of the people there follow there, and much of the turmoil is a result of the inability for different sects and ideologies of Islam to get along with or even tolerate one another.

Protestants in the US often think of Catholics as wrong/scary for some dumb reason but how often do you hear of an Evangelical blowing up a Catholic church? Evangelicals annoy the hell out of me, but I'm just saying.

I'm an atheist and think it's all pointless anyway.

Answer 10

Because most of the violence has religious undertones. Suicide bombings, terrorist attacks etc are all committed in the name of Islam. The terrorists explicitly use verses from the Koran and the Hadith to justify their actions.

Political turmoil is one thing, religiously inspired violence is another. For example, the assassination of Bhutto has been claimed by Al Qaeda. Clearly this has religious undertones, since Al Qaeda is an Islamic terror organization, when militants cause trouble and use Islam to justify their actions, it becomes very difficult to separate the two.

EDIT:
I read the Quran and Hadith, and frankly the verses they quote clearly support their line of thinking. In addition, Islam means Submission, it does not mean peace. I speak Arabic as a second language and I know what it means. Islam means Submission to Allah, the peace part seems to be used nowadays by Islamic apologists to whitewash their image.

When people use Koranic verses and Hadith of the "prophet" to condone violence, the first thing that should be done is to read the quoted material to see if there is any validity to their claim. I have read them and I can gladly quote them here if you wish me to. Just let me know and I will be more than willing to oblige. That is why most people blame Islam for violence in the middle east.

EDIT:
I will add just one more thing. Why do you ignore the cartoon riots and the bear incident? They where caused by Islam. It was not a case of Muslims committing a crime for personal gain, they committed those acts BECAUSE of Islam. Likewise, it was Sharia law that was used to sentence the rape victum in Saudi Arabia to 200 lashes, to put an Afghan on death row because he converted out of Islam, to kill the Dutch film maker Van Gogh because of his art, to issue a death sentence to Salman Rushdie because of his book etc.

The list goes on. In all these cases, it was the religion, specifically Islam, that inspired the violence. You seem to be in denial. If Islam did not exist non of those incidents would have occurred.