Ramadan

Wednesday

The following is an excerpt from a post by Stephen Decatur, an ACT for America chapter leader.


Ramadan began on June 6 and ends on July 5.

Ramadan is often one of the bloodiest 30 days of the year. Last year IS spokesman, Abu Mohammad al-Adnani said in an audio message at the start of Ramadan on June 17, “O mujahedeen everywhere, rush and go to make Ramadan a month of disasters for the infidels,” and attacks took place over the course of 48 hours in Tunisia, France, and Kuwait—as well as the Kurds in Kobani, on the Syrian-Turkish border.

This year the same IS spokesman called on Muslims to use this Ramadan to “get prepared, be ready … to make it a month of calamity everywhere for nonbelievers…especially for the fighters and supporters of the caliphate in Europe and America.”

While many Muslims focus on spiritual growth during Ramadan, others do not. In fact, Mohammad set the precedential example when he fought his first battle during Ramadan, the battle of Badr.

So when many Muslims are observing the ritual of Ramadan, consider that Ramadan has not always been a peaceful time.

In the first two days of Ramadan this year, in Turkey 12 people were killed, in Jordan 5 people were killed, and the second day of Ramadan was not over yet. As the sergeant in Hill Street Blues said, “Be careful out there.”

The above is also posted on Inquiry Into Islam here and the Foundation for Coexistence here.

Bonus: Here is a great website with a lot of good information about Islam. Go poke around and see what you find: http://www.sneakyislam.com/home.html

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The Words "Extreme" and "Radical" Are a Self-Delusion, Part of a Precious and Comfortable Narrative

Friday

The following is an excerpt from an article about Ayaan Hirsi Ali in The Observer:


With an estimated 140 million girls and women throughout the world subjected to genital mutilation, with thousands murdered each year in so-called "honor killings" and untold millions forced to marry against their will, one would suppose that Ms. Hirsi Ali — the world’s preeminent critic of these practices and advocate on behalf of their victims — would be universally hailed by those who style themselves as progressives. Since Ms. Hirsi Ali’s advocacy for women has meant that she has lived under death threats for over a decade, one would be the more justified in imagining that she would be regarded as a hero by progressives everywhere. But despite a body of work as a parliamentarian, a writer and as head of a foundation that is devoted to the protection of women and has earned her recognition by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 most important people on the planet, Ms. Hirsi Ali finds herself the object of vitriol by some on the left, who cannot bear her for this reason: She is critical of Islam and what she sees in the Muslim world as not only an indulgence in violence but a practice of justifying it. Ms. Hirsi Ali says unapologetically that in Islam there exists a "culture of misogyny [that] needs to be addressed quickly and frankly, and we must not censor ourselves."

But as Ms. Hirsi Ali works to combat those challenges, she finds herself battling the stubborn, unrelenting forces that would have her censored. The efforts to tar her with the tried-and-true epithet of “Islamophobic” come both from powerful Muslim enterprises that would like to squash her like a bug and some on the left, for whom a narrative of the Muslim world as victims and the West as victimizers is precious and comfortable. They regard Ms. Hirsi Ali as trouble. She is, after all, a Muslim-born woman who personally experienced the very abuse that she criticizes. The 46-year-old is also a superb writer, a winning speaker, inarguably courageous and telegenic to boot. She is an atheist as well. For those who wish to suppress criticism of the plight of women under Islam, she is, in short, a disaster.

Ms. Hirsi Ali warns against use of the words “extreme” and “radical” to describe as peripheral an ideology which, she argues, is in fact quite prevalent in Muslim communities around the globe, and which leads easily to violence — whether in the form of female genital mutilation or honor killings or wife-beating or suicide bombings. She views the reliance on those words as self-delusion, a soothing, self-administered palliative whose effect is to mask evidence that violence is the largely natural extension of fundamentalist values sternly dictated and widely embraced in Muslim communities — values that encourage harsh treatment of women and strict, even brutal, punishment of non-believers. Her warnings, and those of others who risk their reputations and lives to criticize Islamic institutions, are distinctly unwelcome in many Western quarters, where they are regarded as grievously politically incorrect, and where the “few-bad-apples” narrative of Islamic extremism is vastly preferred.

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Gain Rapport to Get Through

Thursday

When persuading someone of a point of view, rapport is critical. To successfully change someone's point of view, it is more important to have rapport than it is to have enough information (although I suggest you have enough information, but somehow I think you probably already do).

Below are three novel ideas for helping you gain rapport. Rapport isn't all or nothing. There are many degrees of rapport. Each of these can help you gain a greater degree. Practice them one at a time:

1. Notice the person's body posture and make your body posture more like his. Read more about this.
2. Try to use the same phrases he uses. For example, if he calls heterodox Muslims "moderate Muslims" and you happen to hate that term, put aside your personal prejudices for the moment and while talking to him, use his phrase, not yours, when referring to heterodox Muslims.
3. Match the speed of the person's speech. If she talks quickly, and you like to talk slow, you can gain more rapport if you speed up the pace of your speech to more closely match hers. Read more about this.


All these things can help the other person feel more connected to you, and it will actually make you feel more connected to her too. And this will make your ideas have a better chance of finding fertile soil to take root in. It will help open her mind to what you're saying. Attain and maintain rapport with her. It will go a long way to helping you get through.

For more ideas about how to talk to people about Islam, check this out: Tools to Help You Educate Your Fellow Non-Muslims About Islam.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here. You can send an email to CW here. 

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Why Assume Hatred?

Tuesday

When you're talking about Islam to someone who suspects you of hating Muslims, try saying something like this:

If I said (as a criticism of Christianity) "It's written in the Bible that homosexuality is a sin," would you assume I hate all Christians? Would you think I shouldn't say it? Would you think we should not talk about it in public?

So when I say, "It's written in the Koran that Muslims must fight non-Muslims until everyone on earth comes under the rule of Islamic law," why assume I hate all Muslims? Do you think I shouldn't say it? Do you think we should not talk about it in public? Is Islam in some special category of things that can't be talked about?

For more ideas about how to talk to people about Islam, check this out: Tools to Help You Educate Your Fellow Non-Muslims About Islam.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here. You can send an email to CW here. 

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Do We Want to Win or Do We Want to Be Correct?

Saturday

Bill Maher, an outspoken liberal, had Ayaan Hirsi Ali on his show (see a link to the video below). As usual, Maher takes liberals to task for not "getting it" about Islam. Ali suggests that the solution is for Islam to reform. My first reaction is, "Yeah, right." I just don't see how that would be possible. If you edited out all the bad stuff in the Koran, it would not be a book anymore; it would be a small brochure.

But notice that her plea for an Islamic reformation gives her a great opening to say what needs to be reformed in Islam — things which any non-Muslim would find unacceptable, like FGM, Sharia, the death sentence for anyone who leaves Islam, etc.

This might be a useful tactic for all of us.

If you're talking to someone who already understands the threat of Islam, you can dispense with the nonsense about Islamic reform. But when trying to reach someone who doesn't understand, it is an intelligent strategic approach to discuss reformation.

Ali is a brilliant, articulate woman and I'll bet she realized she would be more likely to be invited to talk to mainstream viewers with this approach. And she has been very successful. She's been interviewed on many mainstream television shows and magazines, and she's had her articles published in large, mainstream newspapers. In other words, she's reaching the people who need to be reached.

Technically, she is correct: An Islamic reformation is exactly what is needed. Realistically, that seems completely impossible. But strategically, it may be an intelligent and effective way to sink some solid facts about Islam into the minds of those who need it, with very little resistance. Something to think about anyway. Here's the video:

Bill Maher to Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Why Do Liberals ‘Blame the Victim’ When It Comes to Islam?

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Article Spotlight

One of the most unusual articles on CitizenWarrior.com is Pleasantville and Islamic Supremacism.

It illustrates the Islamic Supremacist vision by showing the similarity between what happened in the movie, Pleasantville, and what devout fundamentalist Muslims are trying to create in Islamic states like Syria, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia (and ultimately everywhere in the world).

Click here to read the article.


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