Middle East Ideas: Iraq War Links

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Iraq War Links

I took a little different approach in that I focused on the Kurds and Turkey as I knew less about them and their role in the conflict. My one link is to a news article and the other to an actual website. See ya in class.

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Here's a little piece of information about Islam

What is Qur'an and Islam's position on war, violence, suicide, the killing of civilians, jihad?

The situation with Islam is the same kind of situation we find with other traditions. What is the Bible's position on war and violence? For some, the Bible authorized the crusades, the Inquisition, slavery, the extermination of the American Indians, the killings of the Ku Klux Klan, the atrocity in Oklahoma City, and most recently, the organized genocide against Bosnian Muslims. For others, the Bible has motivated and sustained movements of non-violence, the anti-slavery movement, efforts to support Bosnian Muslims and others in the face of genocide, the nurturing of movements of democracy and social justice, and lifetimes of sacrifice in the service to other human beings.

Many Muslims view the concept of Jihad (a word that means struggle) as primarily a spiritual struggle against one's own faults, but others view it primarily as military struggle -- just as many Hindus (including Gandhi) viewed the Hindu sacred text the Bhagavad Gita as advocating non-violence while many others view it as advocating the obligation to fight war. And even among those who view jihad primarily in military terms, there are a thousand positions on when and where the use of force is justified.

It is vital that Americans come to know the Qur'an better and Islamic civilization more deeply. I spend much of my time working on ways that non-Muslim Americans can understand and read the Qur'an and other Islamic texts, which is very difficult to understand if one picks up a translation and starts reading from the beginning. (The logical thing to do, but something that is the reverse of how the Qur'an is learned and taken to heart). Everyone should have some education in the sacred text of the world's fastest growing religion, a religion practiced by 1/5 the world's population. But it will take a revision in the way in which diverse religions are presented to the general public and understood by them.

This education will not, however, explain a criminal regime like the Taliban, but it will allow us to see the humanity in our Muslim neighbors and the full range of human expression within Islamic civilization, and to realize that the Taliban are no more representative of Islamic civilization as a whole that they witch-hunters of Salem were of Christian civilization as a whole.

Michael Sells
Department of Religion
Haverford College

Middle East Ideas

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Iraq War Links

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The White Castle

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Complications with Turkey and the US

Kurdistan

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Destruction in Beirut

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Rafah Refugee Camp, Gaza Strip

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Here's a little piece of information about Islam

Topkapi Palace

Muhammad's footprint

Info on the Crusades from Wikipedia

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