Thoughts on the Woolwich killing

[ideologue08]

Fr0d0/Fidel, I know what you mean. Although both the Islamic Society of Britain and the Muslim Council of Britain spoke out against the attack, condemning it in no uncertain terms, they both stated that there was 'no justification in Islam' for the killings. As most of us know, Qu'ran 8:12 (and other passages) specifically mandates the killing of unbelievers so there is a justification, it's just one that almost all UK muslims reject in favour of a far more tolerant form of Islam. Whilst it's highly encouraging to see the public representatives of Islam formally decry the killings as 'un-islamic', it is telling that they don't address the problem of the passages that can be used to justify such action. I assume this is a political distancing from those passages to avoid backlash. Personally, I feel that ignoring the problem won't make it go away.

Hi there Ben.

The reason why Muslims don't attempt to link the passages of the Qur'an to violent extremism is because the invocation of any text as a justification for any act of violence does not imply that the text in question is the cause.

The verse you mentioned 8:12 is not rejected by any Muslim organisation or scholar, in fact it is accepted literally by all scholars in all periods of Islam by unanimous consensus, there's no difference of opinion. And I know pretty much everything about that verse including the location that verse was revealed, the date it was revealed and why it was revealed and what it was concerning and what actions were taken historically as a result of the revelation of that verse. I can PM you the details if you want, I'm happy to help.

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I disagree, but I think the point you're making a good one.

I actually said in the post you quoted that 'religion per se' may not be the cause, and certainly not 'Islam' per se (as deduced). However, these guys were using an ideological brand of their religion (whether be general Islam or something more unique and bespoke to their clique [probably the latter]) to justify their behaviour and their subsequent actions. This is their words, not mine.

I think we're misdiagnosing the patient if we miss out an integral aspect of their MO which they themselves say we should take into account. We can't say for sure that their behaviour was manifestly down simply due to the political aspect of the context they were acting in. Instrumentalism would say yes, but primordialism and (de~)constuctivism would say no and maybe respectively.

It requires more analysis, more studies, and above all, less fear of including religion within the analysis (if nothing to discount it).

I do agree, however, as an instrumentalist and a pragmatist the the behaviour of these two individuals specifically may have been triggered purely by the actions of the west in states like Iraq et al (again, we can't be sure, as nobody yet knows). But the ideological underpinnings behind their actions I think are much more expansive beyond tha (and I mean in a time based context).

Well, right after he butchered that poor guy in the middle of the road, he went in front of the camera- with blood on his hands quite literally- and said that the reason why he done the action was because it's "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth". That pretty much sums it up. People like him have no place in our society, two wrongs don't make a right.

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Yeah! Killing people is wrong! Lets demonstrate that by... killing more people?

Let's agree to disagree And I don't believe that killing a murderer is morally wrong...the blame is on the one who committed the act in the first instance.