Misconceptions about Islam

[Martinus]

So I have been reading a bit about the history of Islam, and it seems to me there is a lot of misconceptions thrown around about it.

For example, anti-Islamic folks often use the doctrine of taqiyya - deception or obfuscation - as a proof one cannot trust devout Muslims who may be deliberately hiding terrorists. Only that it seems to me that taqiyya is practiced by the Shiites (mainly the Ismailis) to avoid Sunni persecution - while most terrorists are Sunni (eg. Wahhabists). It's a bit like mixing up Catholics with Calvinists.

[Jacob]

So I have been reading a bit about the history of Islam, and it seems to me there is a lot of misconceptions thrown around about it.

For example, anti-Islamic folks often use the doctrine of taqiyya - deception or obfuscation - as a proof one cannot trust devout Muslims who may be deliberately hiding terrorists. Only that it seems to me that taqiyya is practiced by the Shiites (mainly the Ismailis) to avoid Sunni persecution - while most terrorists are Sunni (eg. Wahhabists). It's a bit like mixing up Catholics with Calvinists.

I will follow this thread with interest.

[HVC]

The logic seems odd to me anyway. Someone is hiding a terrorist and won't tell you because it's in his religion. Isn't he just not going to tell you because he's a horrible person who's aiding terrorists anyway, whether his religion always it or not?

[Admiral Yi]

The logic seems odd to me anyway. Someone is hiding a terrorist and won't tell you because it's in his religion. Isn't he just not going to tell you because he's a horrible person who's aiding terrorists anyway, whether his religion always it or not?

The issue is whether Muslims have a predisposition to lie in situations in which telling the truth might harm their religion, or co-religionists.

[Martinus]

Yup. Also, while people do break their religious commandments there is still a difference, I would posit, between some behaviour that is prohibited or frowned up and behaviour that is permitted or encouraged, especially when dealing with religious people.

[The Brain]

This misconception bores me. Of course you take what people of the same ideology as terrorists say with a grain of salt. I don't expect Communists to be statistically as forthcoming about Communist terrorists in hiding as normal people would be. Whether or not there's some fine print in their holy books seems meh.

Mart, next misconception please.

[CountDeMoney]

So I have been reading a bit about the history of Islam, and it seems to me there is a lot of misconceptions thrown around about it.

For example, anti-Islamic folks often use the doctrine of taqiyya - deception or obfuscation - as a proof one cannot trust devout Muslims who may be deliberately hiding terrorists. Only that it seems to me that taqiyya is practiced by the Shiites (mainly the Ismailis) to avoid Sunni persecution - while most terrorists are Sunni (eg. Wahhabists). It's a bit like mixing up Catholics with Calvinists.

Chinese strategic thought has placed a premium on deception or obfuscation for centuries, and for longer than Islam has been around.  Are they deliberately hiding terrorists, too?

[Martinus]

You guys are missing the point.

The anti-Islamist people are saying that Muslims have a specific quasi-devotional practice called taqiyya that involves lying and misrepresenting your religion in the name of God. They claim this makes Muslims more untrustworthy than members of other religions which eg prohibit lying.

This is true (that is, such practice exists) but misrepresents the situation because it is limited to Ismaili Shias who used it to escape persecution by Sunnis - and it's Sunnis, not Shias who are committing acts of terror.

[Barrister]

it's Sunnis, not Shias who are committing acts of terror.

This is not true.

While Al Qaeda, and then Daesh, are Sunni muslims, there's no shortage of Shi'ite terrorists, namely Iranian/Hezbollah.

[Martinus]

I would say that Shia terrorists are more similar to the likes of IRA or ETA - they have a clear nationalist political goal than a religious one.

[grumbler]

I must admit that I don't understand the difference between lying as a Muslim and lying as a non-Muslim. Certainly, the Judeo-Christian tradition includes their god lying, so it can hardly be argued that Judaism or Christianity forbids lying.  Confucian-derived cultures think that lying is a positive virtue when the truth would harm a member of the family.  Hindu heroes in the epics lie under some circumstances (often by pretending to be someone else).  Maybe Buddhism and Sikhism think lying always a sin, but I have no evidence there.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Eh, there's definitely Christian lines of thought that lying is wrong. One of the most famous in all of philosophy is Kant (deeply religious dude) and his famed argument about whether or not you should lie to someone who asks you where your brother is located, so that he might murder him. God is definitely deceptive in many of the parables in the Bible, but God is also granted the theological authority to do things that for us are sins (like taking vengeance, killing etc.)

[Hamilcar]

Eh, there's definitely Christian lines of thought that lying is wrong. One of the most famous in all of philosophy is Kant (deeply religious dude) and his famed argument about whether or not you should lie to someone who asks you where your brother is located, so that he might murder him. God is definitely deceptive in many of the parables in the Bible, but God is also granted the theological authority to do things that for us are sins (like taking vengeance, killing etc.)

The Biblical god is a psychopath.

[HVC]

Old testament God is cool. New testament God is a hippy and an abusive father.

[grumbler]

Eh, there's definitely Christian lines of thought that lying is wrong. One of the most famous in all of philosophy is Kant (deeply religious dude) and his famed argument about whether or not you should lie to someone who asks you where your brother is located, so that he might murder him. God is definitely deceptive in many of the parables in the Bible, but God is also granted the theological authority to do things that for us are sins (like taking vengeance, killing etc.)

Lying is evil in Islam as well, with a few exceptions.  I don't see the difference between the Christian concept of lying and the Muslim one:  it is wrong except under extraordinary circumstances (or whimsical ones, if one is the god of both Christians and Muslims).