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Reader comment on item: A New Round of Anger and Humiliation: Islam after 9/11

Submitted by A.F. (Canada), Nov 28, 2005 at 22:13

The article itself was well written I admit...that is, from a "Western Perspective". I believe in order to efficiently write any sort of script and pubilsh it, one should at LEAST complete research.

People of Islam are not all "Islamists", and not all muslims world-wide went unaffected by the horrible acts that happened years ago. It seems while reading your article that you seem to know how muslims think and why, and even though your research is done and your writing is fair, your take the Quran out of context. Every holy book has slurs of violence; but if you are truly trying to understand a minorty group, you must look at the bigger picture...why does the Quran talk about war, and what was occuring historically that affected the speech? The Quran is 100% against war, and it is also against violence against those who are not directly fighting a muslim. Suicide is also religiously intolerable.

One should consider these well stated facts before thinking that what a small number consider to be true is the consensus of an entire population. This article touches on why Muslims are bitter (not Arabs, Muslims), however most muslims have suffered enough and would never want another populace to experience what they have gone through.

People pull quotes from newsreports and see clips on TV, but like I said before, this represents only a small group of people. Would we want the world to consider all Americans like Timothy McVeigh? Or Columbine High shooters Eric Harris and Sylan Klebold? Or maybe we should consider Canadians to be vicious murderers after what happened to Shidane Arone in Somolia by Canadian troops.

Common people...we can't pretend we know who everyone is and how everyone thinks. In order to understand them, we need to understand their religion. Not pull out what we think is bad and ommit everything else. Islam is a religion of peace - however it openly discusses that in the occurances of war, what tactics may be used and why.

Oh, and F.Y.I. - in case anyone thought Jihad means "holy war" is the language of the quran - it translates into the way for water and it signifies struggle for religion. Struggles include everything from war, to a man trying to clean his house.

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