Hamza Yusuf defends Dante

[kattarsunni]

my line is this: people should be free to do what they like and say what they like as long as it doesn't harm others.

How do you define 'harm'?

Were the cartoons harmful? Is Dante's 'Inferno', and Rushdie's 'Verses' harmful?

[kattarsunni]

Those oil rich Arabs are not Sunni. They are either Wahabi, Shia or secular like you.

The Sunni Arabs I love are the like of the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEwU7BTkFRs

learn to love yourself first. at least in england you are treated the same as
any other british citizen.

Not entirely true:

http://www.freebabarahmad.com/

[kattarsunni]

What Sayyid Muhammad bin Alawi rahimahu Allah is talking about is the tribulations that happen after the death of real Ulama.

From the Babar Ahmad page:

Babar Ahmad is a 38 year old British Muslim and the longest detained-without-charge British detainee held as part of the global ‘war on terror’. In December 2003 Babar was arrested at his London home under anti-terror legislation. By the time he reached the police station Babar had sustained at least 73 forensically recorded injuries, including bleeding in his ears and urine. Six days later he was released without charge.

In August 2004 Babar was re-arrested in London and taken to prison pursuant to an extradition request from the US under the controversial, no-evidence-required, Extradition Act 2003. The US has alleged that in the 1990s Babar was a supporter of “terrorism”. Babar denies any involvement in terrorism. He has now been in prison for more than seven years even though he has not been charged in the UK, despite 141,000 British citizens signing a petition to put him on trial in the UK.

[kattarsunni]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17576745

[Unbeknown]

The 'Caucasians' have always considered themselves to be a superior race, no one needs to be reminded of the ordeal that the 'negros' have gone through (the utterly rational, openminded and scientific, James Watson, has some interesting things to say).

http://www.theroot.com/views/science-racism:

Having spent the past three decades studying racist discourse in the West (starting with my Ph.D. dissertation on the Enlightenment), I know that such conclusions—say, about an entity called "Jewish intelligence"—would deleteriously affect me as a black person because it would reinforce stereotypes about Jewish people being genetically superior to us, and that such a conclusion would reinforce stereotypes about black people being inherently less intelligent than other members of the human community. If such differences in intelligence were purported to have a genetic basis, as David Duke proclaimed on his Web site with such naked glee, all of the social intervention in the world could have only so much effect. (Head Start? Why bother, when nature is to blame.) Sooner or later, in a time of increasing economic scarcity, members of these supposedly "different" or "lesser" ethnic groups or genetic populations could very well find their life possibilities limited and perhaps even regulated. Who among us can doubt that this would be true?

Likewise, I worry even more that Dr. Watson confessed to me that "we shouldn't expect that different persons have equal intelligence, because we don't know that. And people say that these should be the same [that is, that all human beings, that all members of different "racial" groups, should have the same basic range and potential for development of intelligence genetically]. I think the answer is we don't know." And later, he remarked in passing that "we're not all the same," by which he meant genetically. Rest assured that in the very near future, some scientist somewhere will claim to have proven this through our genes, and that claim will be deeply problematic for the future development of black people in American society.

As I drove away from Cold Spring Harbor, I realized that my conversation with Dr. Watson only confirmed something I already, with great trepidation, have come to believe: That the last great battle over racism will be fought not over access to a lunch counter, or a hotel room, or to the right to vote, or even the right to occupy the White House; it will be fought in a laboratory, in a test tube, under a microscope, in our genome, on the battleground of our DNA. It is here where we, as a society, will rank and interpret our genetic difference.

Its well known that the many upper-caste hindus (Aryans) still despise the lower castes (dravidians).

Then we have the Arabs who have, since the time of 'jahiliyya', looked down upon the non-Arabs as 'ajam' (dumb). We still have konkani muslims (known to have descended from the arabs: ignorance of arabic notwithstanding) consider those known as momins/sheikhs as 'inferior' to them.

Only two things contribute to a change in these attitudes:

1) socio-politico-economic trends.
2) islamic knowledge.

Those who are untouched by these, continue to be rascists (whichever race they be from).

That is why the Holy Prophet (peace be upon Him) emphasized at His farewell pilgrimage:

“All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly.

[Noori]

nj you better leave this forum, i had a little soft corner for you in my heart but sorry not any more. yes, it doesn't matter to you, which is fine, but what should matter to you is your iman.

don't waste your time replying every other post and digging your own pit. in my opinion what sherkhan has suggested is really good and enough for you to realize where you are heading. either you should quit this forum or before you post anything else try to do what he has suggested.

[AbdalQadir]

iman

apparently for some idiots, it's damaging to one's iman to speak against a charlatan who claims to be sultan al-awliyaa and yet asks the pope (someone who badmouthed our beloved Prophet, 3alaihis salam) to pray for him...

but for these idiots, there is no damage to one's iman to defend a kafir who wrote rubbish against the Prophet, and such a defender of dante must be defended for his defense of dante at any cost, because he offers a white liberal secularist "version" of "islam" to all butlers with an inferiority complex.

if that's the case, then really these guys are being unfair to ashraf ali thanvi based on his skin color!

[kattarsunni]

Hundreds of wicked, immoral, accursed and abominable Muslims of high standing, Islamic judges, preachers, teachers and important personalities nowadays speak, write and print derogatory remarks, but nobody is there to check them. If somebody does so, he, in the eyes of some so called civilized persons, is uncivil, uncultured and violent.

Imam Ahmad Rida Khan (Allah have mercy on him)