The Jakarta Post has always been one of my favorite newspapers. Not because it’s the most popular periodical in Indonesia, but because it’s the most available on in a language I can understand. Indonesians writing in English. Always an interesting read.
In his 1922 Munich speech, Hitler stated “It is in the nature of the Jew to destroy and he must destroy. The Jew is harmful to us.” Not unlike Wilders’s closing message in his film Fitna, stating “Islam wants to rule, submit, and seeks to destroy our Western civilization…”
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/04/23/islamphobia-and-eternal-muslim.html
Always an interesting read. The basis of the propaganda film Fitna is easy to see - post up the same ayaat the khawaarij and terrorists take out of context and claim this is the true Islaam.
Unfortunately for the film’s director, that ideology has already been thoroughly refuted by the scholars of true Islaam over the past thousand years or so. He’s basing a film off of a defeated idea grounded in a lack of education and understanding, and a certain bigoted element in the West - completely unaware of the religion of Islaam, unable too read its texts and discourse, and unaware of the history of the Muslim world - apparently thinks that after more than a thousand years, a Westerner who doesn’t even speak Arabic has discovered what Islaam is actually like rather than an actual scholar of the religion doing so.
Honestly, I don’t understand why Muslims would even be angry over this. I actually find it humorous. The Khaarijee-Ikhwaanee ideology held by people such as Bin Laden and Zawahiri now, and by Sayyid Qutb and Hasan al-Bannaa earlier, has already been owned beyond belief by actual scholars of Islaam. In earlier times, the ideology of the earlier khawaarij had already been eviscerated by scholars at that time as well. Having a Western non-Muslim who has never studied Islaam formally, and who only speaks European languages, suddenly come along and decide what the correct position is just comical. It’s a suggestion that is neither logically nor practically sound; his argument certainly wouldn’t be given any credence in a real academic setting.
Once again I think Muslims have just made fools of themselves by creating controversy over this. The film is so weak that it honestly doesn’t even warrant a second glance. If Zarqawi, who actually does speak Arabic and actually does know a few things about Islaam - the director of the film can claim neither - has already been refuted beyond belief, why even bother with some Dutch movie man? It’s like arguing with a spoiled college hippie about Marxism. Why waste your time on him when people much more knowledgeable on that same mistaken idea have already been defeated?
The ummah needs to learn the Sunnah. Were that the case, I have the feeling people wouldn’t feel threatened by hack films like this at all. Unfortunately ignorance again prevails amongst the Muslims, and we condemn ourselves to continued foolishness because of it.
The problem is that people think too much with their emotions and desires that it blocks their ability to refer back to the authentic Sunnah with the understanding of the Sahaabah. Rather than go wild about a movie made by an ignorant kaafir, then why dont we just refute the movie based on evidences rather than rush to boycott an entire country who could benefit greatly from Islaam?