ISIS destroying antiquities- Just how angry, deluded, ignorant and cruel do you have to be?

Thank God they are not killing thousands of people - oh! they are...

Dan Cruickshank's excellent programme was on the other night

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/e...isation-under-attack

They are not only destroying, but looting on a mass scale and selling antiquities to fund their murderous activities.

The way I see it with Isis is that it is far far more serious than the wanton destruction of antiquities.

This Isis &  al-Qaeda movement makes the killings on the beach at Sousse & the mosque in Kuwait,  and lets not forget the 220 Kurdish men, women and children also massacred last Thursday, in some ways more menacing than 9/11 & 7/7;  they are promoted or done in the name of or actually carried out by what is now in effect a government - the self-declared caliphate - with its more powerful army than most members of the UN & also more people than the nazi's ruled over at the height of their power.

Sadly, ISIS ideology is no different from that of Pol Pot's regime. The world has been reset and everything before is irrelevant. All those outside ISIS are remnants of the past, an affront to a perfect new world. And there are plenty who will flock to this doctrine.

Maybe time to start again in this region. Wipe the slate clean if you like. 

That's a good comparison, Cat Lover. ISIS and the Khmer Rouge grew from different origins, one is religious, the other grew out of Maoism and 1960s leftist (particularly French) "thinking", but both are driven by a fanatical utopian impulse and the result is death and misery all round.

Unfortunately ISIS and extremist Islam will be much harder to destroy than Pol Pot's regime.

Very true Mike. ISIS is an existential threat to the secular West or indeed any other society that is not fascistic in its interpretation and application of Sunni Islam. Given what we have seen recently in France and Tunisia, it is clear that ISIS' ability to strike has stretched far beyond its borders, and is now knocking at the gates of Western Europe. I can see ISIS' baleful influence spreading to the Balkans - particularly in the toxic sore that is Bosnia, which is already stuffed to the gills with bloodthirsty Salafists looking to spread their repellent brand of clerical fascism.

Part of the problem is the nature of Islam itself. Apologists and hand-wringers can blame the West, or a few bad eggs, as much as they want, but the old narrative, peddled by both the left and David Cameron, that "ISIS is nothing to do with Islam" is, frankly, crap.

ISIS is everything to do with Islam. It is an extrapolation of most of the trends within that religion, which has scarcely moved on since the seventh century. Rather than being an aberration, it is actually incredibly "Islamic" to a large number of Muslims.

Deeply embedded in the Muslim consciousness are a number of myths, which in combination are explosive and hugely thrreatening to secular and democratic societies - and women, non-believers, gays, Jews etc. 1) The so-called Holy Qur’an is the unmediated, complete and final word of God. 2) The prophet Muhammad is the exemplar of the perfect human life. 3) Islam is the natural and perfect state of mankind, towards which all should be aspiring: once arrived at, there is no return. These are locked into place by 4) To question any of the above is blasphemy or apostasy, canonically punishable by death.

So the Qu'ran cannot be subject to exegesis, as the Bible has been, so the "bad" bits can never be disregarded. Mohammed was an aggressive, militaristic and illiterate conqueror of the most bloodthirsty sort who married and had sex with a nine-year old girl. By any modern standards this is about as far from the perfect human life as you can get.

Tony Blair's most catastrophic and egregious error was not invading Iraq in 2003, but his allowing "faith schools" to proliferate. Now we have hundreds, if not thousands, of these institutions, and goodness knows what kind of filth is preached behind their closed doors. Scarily, many of them are funded by Saudi Arabia - take a look at THIS and be very afraid.

 I read a report - not sure where - that 92% of Saudi's believe ISIS is doing nothing wrong & is following the true path of Islam according to the Qu'ran

Not the brightest tools in the box are they, don't forget that 100 or so years ago they were quite content to walk around the desert kicking camel shit about, then by the miracle of european companies hey presto instant massive riches and they became "important" people in the world. Probably no more intelligent though.

Kevin, I'm not sure what you mean when you say "So the Qu'ran cannot be subject to exegesis, as the Bible has been".  Surely Exegesis of the Quran comes in the form of the Hadith.  After all, the many and varied Hadith are at the heart of so many disagreements and conflicts both within Islam and between it and all others.

The irony.

Can we take it you don’t know the meaning of the word antiquity.

Just think about how ancient Britons where living when these antiquities where created.

Richard, some of the most egregious strands of Islamic ideology are to be found in the Hadith, which AFAIK were compiled at various times and by various people, often after Mo's death. Many of them may be "forgeries" and are regarded as "late fictions" by scholars. And I'm not an expert in these matters but AFAIK the Shia and Sunni have different hadith, which presumably leads to the kind of toxic internicine warfare that's led to hundreds of thousands of needless deaths over the centuries. 

However, most of them [hadith] are not fit for purpose in the the governance a 21st century world, particularly secular, liberal democracies, so whether or not people argue about them is frankly irrelevant.

They should not be taken seriously as far as I'm concerned, and they certainly should not be the basis of law here in the UK, despite what aggressive followers of Islam and their fellow-travellers and apologists say.

And surely exegesis of the Qur'an comes from critical examination the Qur'anic texts themselves - this is a tradition called Tafsir. The Qur'an states that the prophet is ultimately responsible for explanation and guidance - but given that the "prophet" in question was a paedophile warlord who may not even have existed, I'm not  sure that in 2015 we should be taking guidance from him about anything.

Yes, Tafsir are perhaps the closest to a form of exegesis, but the Hadith are a key part of any Tafsir and form the backbone of any interpretation of the Quran. As for whether they are "fit for purpose", they're purpose is as a tool for understanding the Quran and as "verbatim" narratives from M to provide explanation.

Yes, different branches of Islam such as Sunni and Shia have different Hadith, although some occurrences and content is the same. The problem is that they have been passed down the line mostly as oral narratives and have also been open to judgement by clerics over the years as good, bad, weak, strong, likely true, likely false, so as well as falling in or out of favour, there's a question mark over authenticity of at least some of them.

Anyway, my point is that the Quran can be (and indeed must be) subject to explanation and interpretation. The only question is how critically, but I think that's best left to the scholars to argue over.

As Nick Cohen said yesterday in The Observer, Islam is "a notoriously thin-skinned religion". Questioning the Qur'an or even interpreting it "in the wrong way"  is likely to lead to traducement, or worse, death. This is the problem.

As things stand, it is unlikely ever to be interpreted in a fashion that is not inimical to 21st century tolerant secular democracy.

Hi Kevin -

I believe this to be a carefully crafted political message, and not just simple crap.

The West does not want another crusade, and the only way to avoid it is to have the Islamic world police their own extremism. As soon as we brand all of Islam as evil, we assume the responsibility for combating it. Volunteer armies will not be large enough for such a worldwide mission, and the last thing I want to see is our young men and women being drafted to fight yet another unwinnable foreign war.

IMO, it is better instead to continue supportIng any and all so-called moderate Islamic governments, even those we have serious disagreements with. It has to be their "boots on the ground", and not ours.

ATB.

Hook

Well, most Islamists in non-Islamic countries, and many in Islamic countries, seem to rub along quite well with the infidel. Radical Muslims kill more of their own religion than they kill infidel.

As ever, it is the few radicals who foment trouble. The Middle East must deal with this, essentially, regional issue or let the Caliphate take control.

If the latter then the West will have to respond in whatever way is appropriate to that situation.