Yeah Marsh we know what Allaha Akbar, Aluah akbahr and all the varations mean. Despite your attempts to " educate" us some of us have heard it before things go boom and while things went zing around our heads. So actually you can save the course in Islam cause we've had it.
A muslim , at least the ones I know consider their Koran theirs they give it to a loved one at death. So the question is how many Muslims do you know?
You really want this not to be about Islam. sorry it is about islam to a great extent.
How many Muslims do I know? Well lets see: Since I'm in Europe (where there are many) and your're somewhere in Middle America (where there are few) I am going to guess: -quite a lot more than you do. Not only that, I have friends and colleagues at work who are Muslim. But by your logic, when a Japanese cries "banzai" that must automatically mean he's going into a Samurai suicide charge right? Its the same principal. Because *obviously* that's the only possible meaning of the word.
And if you want an example from personal experiance. I had a colleague once shout "Allah Akbar" at work when he found out his wife had given birth. And funny enough, he didn't have a bomb strapped to himself at the time. He must have forgotten it.
This isn't about Islam (not in a any serious sense), its about a seriously screwed up individual who was a nutcase without the religious aspect to it and would have probably acted the way he did even if he were not a Muslim. But because he WAS a Muslims, that automatically explains it. After all, Islam is so violent and Christianity and Judiaism are so "peaceful", right? You could fill an ocean with the amount of blood Christians have split over the centuries.
19kilo30K4
Well, then I would say you haven't been around too many Muslims. I have heard it at political meetings, at marriage ceremonies, births, in religious speeches (not the extremist ones), etc. And yet this common phrase in Arabic is automatically assumed by misinformed Americans to be some suicide battle cry. What I am saying: its a very common phrase that can mean alot of different things and that in and of itself its meaningless.
No, but they (Koresh, Jones) did use the name of God to justify their actions. And yet nobody comes down on radical Christianity now do they? Or are we only going to count the massacres committed by non-Christians/Jews as unacceptable. Its Hypocrisy.
I have colleagues who think that the US invasion of Iraq is a war on Islam that too is a pretty common opinion amongst Muslims. I don't agree with it, but it doesn't suggest that they are terrorists either.
You are so wrong about comparing France to America. The French Headscarf ban had nothing to do with being anti-Islamic, it has to do with protecting the French Secular State. The same laws that apply to Muslims also apply to Jews and Christians, its just the Muslims were the most vocal against these laws. But the ban applied to everyone. Don't think for one second that the French are more prejudice than in America. There is far more prejudice in America than in the entirety of Europe and you can take that from someone who knows best.
George
Yeah I forgot what a law abiding sane citizen David Koresh was. After all he wasn't stockpiling illegal weapons, he didn't believe himself to be the Messiah, and he wasn't accused of multiple counts of sexual child abuse, polygamy, and various other crimes. He was merely defending himself from those nasty government types right? RIIIIGHT. But if we use the same logic as we are using in this case, then obviously the fault isn't on some screwed up drifter, obviously the real fault is on Christianity itself.
