[Oxymandias]

@Rugoz

So? This isn't in the Middle East, this is in Europe. Also please stop using the term "Muslim world" or "Islamic world". That's like calling Europe the "Christian world" and calling all politics in Europe "Christian politics". It frames the Middle Eastern and European politics in a faulty light assuming all of it is due to religion not socio-economic situations.

Liberalism is no longer an ideology anymore, it is a culture. The liberalism you know isn't the liberalism that exists. In fact your idea of what "liberalism" is can be disagreed on by others. Liberalism is now a culture with it's own abstract values. It encompasses many ideas for people and represents many things.

He is implying that we should put "the Muslims" back in the Middle East and let Europe be for Europeans. He is trying to show this in a positive light while badmouthing liberals at the same time.

@B0ycey

Ok. But how is what you said relevant to my post? Not only that, but I most of it except the part where you associate modernism with liberalism but I can't really get into that right now because a discussion about what modernism and liberalism and why the two are both different and ridiculous isn't relevant to this topic. I understand that you don't care about whether or not it changes Islam completely as long as it suits western society (I believe that is what you are saying you are kind of incoherent in your words) however I will let you know that political reform is temporary. It will eventually lead to a very unstable Islam and will not solve the problem Islam faces in order to have a future and by extension for the Middle East to have a future.

A Muslim who probably was born in the West and identifies with "western society" and therefore wants to mold Islam to fit "western society"

[B0ycey]

Not only that, but I most of it except the part where you associate modernism with liberalism but I can't really get into that right now because a discussion about what modernism and liberalism and why the two are both different and ridiculous isn't relevant to this topic.

@Oxymandias, just to clarify, I'm a Centrist. I believe in human rights and freedom of religion. So I am not stating that modernisation is Liberalism because I am not entirely Liberal myself. Nonetheless it is great that there are Muslims who want to Liberalize Islam. Not because Islam should be liberalized, but because it is a (Western) freedom that they can (and do) if they want. And I hope for more Liberal mosques to allow more Liberal Muslims to share their faith with one another. But as I said, I'm not a Liberal, so I am not insisting on a complete reform in mosques or their teachings within them. After all, everyone is different.

[Oxymandias]

@B0ycey

Ok. I never said that they couldn't make a liberal mosque and I never said that there couldn't be a gathering place for liberal muslims. My point is that liberal mosques won't put a lasting impact on Islam at all since it is a political reform not a theological one. Also are you implying it is an exclusively western freedom to be able to practice your own religion?

[B0ycey]

Also are you implying it is an exclusively western freedom to be able to practice your own religion?

No. Only that it is Western value. And just to prevent confusion, not a value created solely by the West either. The only reason I put it in brackets is that freedom of religion is a western value. So when posters write on here they are against Islam because Islam is against Western customs, I can say, well actually freedom of religion is a western custom so it is your view point that is against Western customs.

[Oxymandias]

@B0ycey

Then I don't disagree with anything you're saying here and already said I agreed with it before several posts before this. I don't see why we are having a debate on this and I don't think it is necessary for a debate on this.

[skinster]

Strangely enough, today it's only muslims who stab, ax, or blow up unsupecting civilians in Europe. Guess some peoples are capable of development, and other aren't.

Rightwing extremists involved in nearly a third of terror referrals

Why Does the Far Right Hold a Near-Monopoly on Political Violence?

[Frollein]

100 Death Threats against Founder of Liberal Mosque

Personal security for the founder of the liberal mosque in Berlin, Seyran Ates, has been considerably strengthened according to WELT AM SONNTAG. After a threat analysis by the National Criminal Police Office (LKA), the feminist and lawyer, born in Istanbul, is now guarded around the clock by several personal security guards. Even Federal Ministers rarely receive this level of protection. The reason for this is an increasing number of death threats against Ates. According to her, the number has now reached approximately 100 threats.

"Over social media, I have received so many death threats because of the establishment of the mosque that the LKA has reached the point of protecting me around the clock," Ates told WELT AM SONNTAG. In 1984, she had already been the victim of an assassination and had been seriously injured.

In the Ibn-Rushd-Goethe Mosque, which was recently founded in the Moabit district, women and men, Sunnis, Shiites and Alevites can pray together. The mosque stands for a secular liberal Islam and thus clearly stands out from the mosques of the Turkish-Islamic Union of the Institute for Religion (Ditib) controlled by Ankara.

Erdogan calls for a closure of the mosque

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who will arrive in Hamburg on 7 and 8 July to the G-20 summit, urges to close the liberal mosque. A corresponding demand from Ankara has been received by the Federal Government.

Ates confirms such an intervention to the WELT AM SUNDAY: "This shows once again what kind of person Erdogan is, who has never understood democracy nor ever wanted it. Erdogan does not tolerate any personal freedoms." The Foreign Ministry, on request, however, said "we are not aware of the fact that the Turkish government has turned to the Federal Government in this matter. "

Erdogan is said to have instructed Ditib and Diyanet, the religious authority in Ankara, who sent many imams to Germany, to step up their efforts against the liberal mosque in Berlin. The organizations claim that Ates' house of worship is actually a project of the preacher Fethullah Gülen, who is made responsible for the coup attempt in Turkey in July 2016. Ates denies having connections with the Gulen movement.

Seems that fervent liberal thoughts of encouragement don't have magical properties against reality after all.

[The Sabbaticus]

'A threat to social harmony'

Interior Ministry spokesman Plate called the Turkish criticism bewildering and "unacceptable."

"It cannot be ruled out that such statements have the potential to threaten social harmony within German society," he added.

According to media reports, Ankara has been aggressively pursuing and threatening alleged members of the Gulen movement, as well as institutions connected to it, such as schools - even in Germany.

The German Foreign and Interior ministeries emphasized that their own criticism was not only directed at Diyanet, but also at the supreme authority on fatwas in Egypt. That authority sharply criticized the Berlin mosque for violating Islamic religious responsibilities.

(...)

DW

Both Turkey and Egypt have condemned this liberal mosque. With the one being a major proponent of the pan-global Islamofauxbia industry (which Skinster likes to peddle) and the other one being one of the 'highest authorities' in the Islamic hemisphere.

These mosques are like lightning rods that bring out all the lunatics, exposing the fault lines of the Regressive Left and the ultra-orthodox right-wing conservative Islamic religion. It's great. I applaud the efforts of these pseudo-Muslims in denial.

[Rich]

The people behind this Mosque should be condemned, debunked and ridiculed, for pedalling their disgusting racist lies.

1 Mohammed was not the seal of the Creator of the universe's prophets.

2 The Koran is not the word of God.

3 Islam was not the righteous practice of God's will on Earth, but a crude propaganda con trick to justify Arab thievery, Arab terrorism, Arab murder, Arab rape, Arab status, Arab bigotry and Arab conquest. Arabs were not the vehicle for the Creator of the universe's plan for mankind.

Any Muslim who denies any of the three points above is an extremist and should be treated as such.

[Oxymandias]

@Rich

What's so racist about the stuff you listed? And why does it justify harassing a person instead of just harassing the ideology.

1. In the Quran, Mohammed is just the last of the prophets and the most well-known. Other than that, he's pretty much just a normal dude. I don't know where you're getting this seal stuff from.

2. And apparently that's a reason to harass a person. Can you just admit that the literal only reason why you want the mosque to be harassed is because it's a liberal mosque and that, if Islam becomes liberal, you'll be essentially unable to make the argument that Islam is incapable of reform.

All religions say that their book is the holy book. Yet for some reason, not only do you not blame this on Islam (like you usually do) but you instead blame it on a group of people.

3. That is an oversimplification. There's lots of stuff in the Quran that prohibit Arab [insert any of the things you said] for example, you can't steal, there are rules in war which include not touching innocents such as civilians, women, and children, and if you murder someone it will be as if you murdered everyone in the world according to the Quran.

Um, Mohammed himself stated that Arabs are no more better than anyone else and that they are not God's chosen people. Of course there is some sort of bias towards Arabs given that the Quran was written in Arabic however in terms of Arabs have more rights or status than other people, that's false. You can read it in Mohammed's last sermon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farewell_Sermon

WTF is so extremist about not believing in those things? I assume you mean extremist as in ISIS and Wahhabism but I don't see anything particularly or uniquely extremist about a person believing those beliefs.

[Decky]

How are these threats any different to what true Christians did to Protestants when that disease started to spread across Europe? You can hardly argue that it is a purely Muslim trait, people have a tendency not to like heretics.

[JohnRawls]

How are these threats any different to what true Christians did to Protestants when that disease started to spread across Europe? You can hardly argue that it is a purely Muslim trait, people have a tendency not to like heretics.

Yes, let us remember the crusades also Let us pretend we live centuries in the past instead of the present

[Decky]

Nowt wrong with the Crusades. Christianity was there first after all. There is no comparison between the crusades and anything in the Muslim world anyway. The Muslims have not lost the birthplace of their religion to another faith like Christians did so they have never needed to try and recapture it.

[Frollein]

How are these threats any different to what true Christians did to Protestants when that disease started to spread across Europe? You can hardly argue that it is a purely Muslim trait, people have a tendency not to like heretics.

The main difference is that it is affecting people living today. What the fuck do I care about what people did to other people centuries ago? They're all dust now, and totally irrelevant to the problem we have with Islam today.

[Pants-of-dog]

Neither this mosque nor its conservative opponents affect me in any way.

It is, however, not surprising that conservative elements of a group are angry with progressive elements of the same group. This seems common behaviour for conservatives of all stripes.

[Decky]

The main difference is that it is affecting people living today.

I can see that you are from some insignificant far off land on the wrong side of the channel.













The fight between civilisation and Protestantism is going on even now in the 21st century. I need not remind you who's fault the whole thing is, your nation were the ones who turned their backs on Christ and started worshipping the antichrist!

[Frollein]

Oh, and btw:

Co-Founder of Liberal Mosque Revealed to Play a Double Game

For weeks now, there has been a big fuss about the Ibn-Rush-Goethe Mosque in Berlin-Moabit. In the liberal mosque preaches a female imam, she is not wearing a headscarf, and there is no separation between women and men. Too much for some Muslims, especially abroad: the mosque came under fire.

Now the mosque, which was co-founded by the lawyer Seyran Ates, is again in the spotlight. For it is clear now that one of their campaigners does not really want to reform Islam. But he pretended to do so quite successfully, as the "Berliner Zeitung" first reported.

On his Facebook page, Mimoun Azizi, a surgeon from Oldenburg and co-founder of the mosque, shared the incredible story, which a different user had published on his behalf. He writes, among other things, that "he has been dealing with political extremism in the form of Islamophobia in Germany for years in the context of a political science investigation." For this reason, he had decided to apply "the most promising method - to infiltrate the 'self-declared reformists' in order to analyze the motivation, intent, and structures of Islamophobes. "

The message: Azizi didn't care about reforming Islam. Rather, he wanted to explore the structures of liberal Muslims in order to use them for his own studies. For this he needed "to establish relations and trust with the leaders of this new fascist ideology".

Azizi now wants to publish his results after two years of "taking inventory". In addition, he explicitly dissociated himself from the content of the liberal Muslims: "They never corresponded to my religious understanding at any time."

He admitted to making recordings of conversations, memos, records, news, and correspondence. Azizi wanted to "unmask this new anti-Muslim fascism".

In the meantime, Ates has also commented on the case, apparently she does not trust the claim. She said to the "Berliner Zeitung": "I have gotten to know him closely. He would have to been play-acting all the time. What scientist would do that? "

Nevertheless, there are said to have been some kind of incidents before the unmasking. Azizi, for example, who had opposed religious radicalism in many of his publications, had canceled his participation three days before the opening of the mosque. Shortly thereafter, one day after the celebration, he published an explanation on Facebook: "For personal reasons I would like to withdraw from political discourse. I do not want to engage either the liberals or the conservatives. I will end my involvement in the project Ibn-Rushd-Goethe-Moschee with immediate effect. "

[Frollein]

@Decky, I can see that you are from some insignificant far off land on the wrong side of the channel.

[B0ycey]

A hundred conservative Muslims giving death threats to Ates. As appalled as I am, this is hardly in the billions is it? Yet why do we taint every single Muslim with a notion that they all hate this cause? Let the Berlin police find these imbeciles and promote Ates cause to stand up to extremist views - whatever the faith. After all it's a worthy cause and shows xenophobes that Islam does have a place in Western society today.

[Oxymandias]

@Frollein

First, Die Welt is a conservative newspaper. This can mean that there could be some bias. I am not saying that they are wrong or lying. However the way with the article was written it seems laid out and excludes some information could show some bias. For example, the time in which the Facebook post was made is not shown at all. Furthermore, the article does not tell us whether or not the user who posted the article was lying and that Mimoun Azizi did not ask that user to post this for him. Another thing is that there is no reason for Mimoun Azizi to ask another person to post that for him given he understands German and knows how to write it. He has written many publications in German before, a Facebook post is a trivial matter.

Second, even though the co-founder wasn't invested in this, Ates certainly is and Ates is the founder and leader of the mosque and thus, she controls it. If you have proof that Ates herself is making the Mosque for other reasons then I'll believe you. Not only that, but due to Azizi being the co-founder, she would've gotten to know him closely has Ates said. Now I know scientists and I have to say, scientist suck at regular social interaction most of the time let alone acting and let alone acting 24/7 (which is impossible for even the best professional actors).

And third, the co-founder is in fact leaving the mosque which means he is no longer associated with it. Thus, using internal politics like this as proof that Islam cannot be reformed (I don't think you are dull enough to think that) is in vain.