The Hall of Fire

Well personally halplm I think the Obama administration is frustrated by the Israeli one and its actions. Let me start off by making sure I state that I am not a neutral party towards this issue by any means. The whole Palestine/Israel issue is a personal one for me (my grandfather was born and grew...

Thanks you guys

Good luck to your son too Prim!

I haven't posted here before but I do send my send my prayers whenever I come accross this thread I promise :) Anyways, I've finished my applications to graduate schools and I'm awaiting results right now and I'm really nervous. I have already gotten rejected from one grad school and my 3 friends wh...

Ismailis only make up about 2% of the total Muslim population (~15-20 million in total). They have several different beliefs then Sunnis and mainstream Shi'is. When people say Shi'i they usually refer to a branch of Shi'ism-Twelver Shi'ism which is by far the largest and the one that's on the news. ...

Nice to see a thread about this! I've read his book and talked with Eboo a few times; he's a really a smart, eloquent, nice guy. We awarded him the Muslim American Contribution Award (http://msan.stanford.edu/maca/past_recipients.html) a few months ago and he was gracious enough to accept it. In cas...

Superwizard, I don't disagree at all, and I am *not* trying to lump all Muslims or all of Islam in with the radicals. But the quotation demonstrates that there exists a strain of religious belief (in this case a branch of Islam, but it could be a branch of Zoroastrianism or anything else) which ass...

Anwar al-Aulaqi, Hasan’s one-time spiritual leader, after the mass murder: Nidal Hassan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people. This is a contradiction that many Muslims brush ...

Then we have the very modern "anti-Semitism" of some Middle Easterners. That is not rooted in the old slanders of Medieval Europe, but IMHO has been skilfully created by Israel's enemies. It is not ancient, the earlier days of Islam were marked by tolerance for the Jews, the people of the...

Were there any questions about ISI's involvement in terrorist cells? I believe someone asked him how much control he had over the ISI and the army and he stated that he had as much control over the ISI as India had over it's intelligence agency (forgot its name but I'm sure you know it). He also sa...

Hey everyone. Today I spent most of the day with former Pakistani President Musharraf and I just thought I'd share my experiences with my friends here. :) I was lucky because I was able to obtain a VIP pass (pulled a few strings) and so I was able to not only go to the main event but also to a small...

Lord_Morningstar wrote:

superwizard wrote:

Lord_Morningstar wrote: And as it stands now, the side doing this is Hamas.

As it stands now both sides are doing this.

Israel is dropping bombs in civilian areas not to punish Hamas but to destroy its weapons. There's a difference.

Not to the people who live there though Lord M.

My point is this: dropping bombs, even smart bombs, in a civilian area to punish a government does not endear you to a population. And as it stands now, the side doing this is Hamas. As it stands now both sides are doing this. I completely agree with what V and River. I cannot speak about public op...

who wants to defend Hamas? Not me sir you can look elsewhere. Who wants to stand up and say that the killing of over 100 women and children was wrong? I cannot but say I. I will not go into a lengthy argument about this issue and I must apologize for that really but I can't right now my plate is too...

[offtopic] Scotty really is an amazing guy. I've gotten to know him over the past few years and I can say with great certainty that he definitely has some of the most interesting and insightful views on religion and spirituality that I know of. [/offtopic]

Yes that is quiet worrying :( I'm also concerned about tensions within India between Muslims and Hindus. When some of my Muslim friends went there over the summer (they took part in a three week seminar about Gandhi) they said that they did find some animosity between Hindus and Muslims there (one o...

eek this is atrocious! I've been following the news all day and this is just horrible! What a devastating year in India (so many of my friends were in India over the summer and it was awful reading about the terror attacks that happened then as well). Quite honestly when I heard the news the first t...

( sorry superwizard, if you prefer a term you think is more accurate I will use it ) :) thanks for thinking of me but no I really don't mind the term (the one I don't think people should use is Jihadist simply because that is what they want to be known as as it translates roughly to holy fighter in...

Hmm Lord M what do you think about simply giving them life in prison instead? I've been thinking about it and it seems that way you lessen the sort of 'prestige' and infamy that they get. Let them just rot in a cell and never mention them again. Wouldn't that be what they truly dread?

The Qur'an tells them to kill infidels. The Bible does no such thing. Ok first of all you really need to place such statements into context. There are many passages which deal with living harmoniously together in the world and the striving for peace. Also as I've mentioned a few times before the te...

Holy cow! Five hours? And that's several weeks before the election? What is it going to be like on election day itself? That is really concerning (not from a partisan point of view, but simply from the point of view of wanting the election to go smoothly so that everyone who wants to vote can do so...