Show Me a Muslim Who Doesn't Crave Murder & I'll Show You a Mormon Misspelled
Pray or Die, Somali Sheikh Tells Muslims
from Reuters
MOGADISHU - A leading Mogadishu sheikh said on Friday Muslims who do not pray five times a day should be put to death - the latest sign of a fast-emerging hardline face to Somalia's newly-powerful Islamists.
The sheikh's statement - which he confirmed to Reuters after it was broadcast on local media - caused consternation among residents and will fuel foreign fears the Islamists are planning a hardline Taliban-style rule.
"He who does not perform prayer will be considered as infidel and our sharia law orders that person to be killed," said Sheikh Abdalla Ali, who runs a sharia court in the Somali capital which the Islamists took last month.
After kicking out the U.S.-backed warlords from Mogadishu on June 5, the Islamists took a large swathe of southern Somalia from the coastal capital to near the border with Ethiopia.
The Islamists initially sought to project a moderate face.
But in recent weeks, a hardline cleric on international terrorism lists has risen to their most senior position, strict sharia law such as whipping has been increasingly applied to criminals, and zealous militia have broken up World Cup viewing.
An elder in the Gubta area of Mogadishu, which is the base of the sheikh who pronounced on the prayers, said he did not approve of the strict sharia punishments, "We are very sorry at these kinds of activities," said Aw Ahmed Jilacow.
The Islamists' hardline leader, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, said a video purportedly showing foreigners fighting alongside local militants was fabricated to discredit his movement, according to remarks published on Friday.
The potentially explosive tape circulating in Mogadishu this week appears to show foreign radicals alongside local Islamist militiamen during the recent battles against warlords.
If true, that would puncture the Islamists' claim to be an entirely home-grown movement, and fuel fears in Washington and elsewhere that their rise could make the Horn of Africa nation a magnet for Muslim extremists.
"This tape is fabricated and fraudulent and aims to harm the reputation of the Islamic Courts," Aweys, who is on a U.N. and U.S. terrorism list, told London-based Asharq al-Awsat daily.
Separately, Islamist militiamen faced off with a group vowing to fight Mogadishu's new rulers on Friday as residents feared another flare-up after a month of relative peace.
Manning checkpoints and driving pick-ups mounted with heavy guns, rival militias stood just 150 meters (yards) apart in the Kilometer Four area of Mogadishu.
Seeking to cling to an enclave in Kilometer Four, the warlord-linked Sa'ad sub-clan has boosted its defenses and refused to hand over weapons, as well as briefly seizing a vehicle from the pro-Islamist Ayr sub-clan, residents said.
"There are fears of fighting in Kilometre Four between Islamic Courts Union and the Sa'ad," resident Abdikarim Ahmed said. "The Sa'ad took over a vehicle owned by the Ayr and held it for several hours. They took several guns from the vehicle and later released it."
Warlord fighters linked to the Sa'ad last month vowed to regain territory they lost in the fight for Mogadishu, which killed 350 people in close range artillery duels.
Darren Said, Let There Be Post! at 10:13 PM
2 Comments:
Dude, did you just surf out this article or have you been following the events taking place in Somalia? If the latter, how can you generalize 1.5 billion muslims to the geo-politics of a war-torn country of 15 years..much a less to the ideologies of warlords seeking power and control over a region?
Please, educate yourself.
For a time, between the late 6th century C.E. and the early 10th century C.E., the the most rigorous, advanced astronomy, medicine, and mathematics was being practiced and perpetuated almost only by Muslims. A lot has changed since then. The Quran and the Hadith (traditional sayings and ethical teachings attributed to the prophet Muhummad) are unfortunately rich in very specific rules that either approve or affirmatively require the killing of all non-believers who reject Islam and especially apostates (who were once Muslims but have strayed from or renounced the faith). In the many specific passages in the Quran and Hadith that sanction intolerance, capital punishment for minor offenses, and the permanent second-class status of women, Islam is perhaps not much worse than Christianity and Judaism, both of which have just as many instances of "holy scripture" that advocate capital punishment for dozens of offenses (including disobeying one's parents), slavery, the second-class status of women, anti-rationalism, and the killing of non-believers. The difference is that Christians and Jews (or at least a slim majority of them, anyway), have had many additional centuries in which to discard or ignore the inconveniently barbaric aspects of their holy scriptures, and to decline to take these distasteful aspects literally. Islam, being at least 400 to 500 years younger than modern Christianity (which dates from between 190 C.E. and the mid-fourth century C.E.) and at least a thousand years younger than Judaism, has not had as much time to work up the courage to abandon slavish adherence to the literal text. Hence, "moderate," non-lit eralist, non-violent, and tolerant Muslims appear to be a minority. It may be a couple of decades or more before a clear majority of Muslims reject a fundamentalist, anti-intellectual outlook.
For now, unfortunately, the story of the sheikh who advocates death for those who don't pray 5X per day rings true, as well as being true.
jeff d (F.I.S.H.M.A.N.)
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