One effect of this orthodoxy has been to obscure a remarkable fact: the first full Korans we possess are from the ninth century, some two hundred years after the death of Muhammad.
.. As the Encyclopedia of Islam points out, “the closest analogue in Christian belief to the role of the Kur’an in Muslim belief is not the Bible, but Christ.” The Koran is an embodiment of God’s word. It is held so sacred that a host of fastidious traditions adhere to it: it must be placed at the top of any pile of books; it must be held above the waist. Muslims have been excommunicated for the seemingly modest claim that their holy book, though uttered by God, is composed of human language that is historically specific. For most orthodox Muslim scholars, the Koran is outside of human history and far above it.
.. The Yemeni fragments seemed to suggest an evolving document, and for that reason, they have been controversial, and few scholars have been granted permission to see them.
Belief And Belonging
‘In Philadelphia I’m struck by how many women I now see on the street wearing the hijab or even the burqa. Some of my friends are annoyed by that kind of “in your face” Islam. But I understand it. The hijab and the burqa say two important things in a morally confused culture: “I’m not sexually available;” and “I belong to a community different and separate from you and your obsessions.” I have a long list of concerns with the content of Islam. But I admire the integrity of those Muslim women.’
.. He is not dismayed by the Muslims praying together in public, he is lamenting his own lack of community that shares and reinforces his beliefs.
Hard-Line Islamists Capture Spotlight in Indonesia
Islamist activists use blasphemy case to galvanize population in world’s biggest Muslim-majority nation
A darker side also has emerged: vigilante groups have grown more emboldened in attacking religious and sexual minorities, rights groups say.
The FPI has galvanized opposition to Mr. Purnama, who is running for re-election, saying that a non-Muslim should not govern Muslims. The organization seeks his conviction on blasphemy. Two FPI-led rallies in Jakarta each drew hundreds of thousands of people, despite admonitions by officials and mainstream Muslim leaders to stay away.
.. Groups like the FPI have capitalized on the case to boost their street credentials. By tapping into anger at Mr. Purnama, an ethnic Chinese Christian whose brash manner and attempts to overhaul the bureaucracy have earned him enemies, they have united moderates and conservatives and exploited divisions in mainstream Muslim groups, rights activists say.
.. the FPI is believed by rights groups and many academics to have had support from Indonesia’s security forces to act as an periodic check on potential threats, such as communists or deviant sects.
.. What is clear is that hard-line influence has grown, amplified by social media, which has allowed the FPI to spread its message more widely and call people to action. The FPI’s 70,000 Twitter followers are exhorted to fight blasphemers. The group has also built support by providing charity to disadvantaged communities.
..
- March 2006 The government issues a decree that requires community approval for a house of worship to be built. A spate of churches are closed after Islamic hard-liners allege they don’t have proper building permits.
The Disruptive Career of Michael Flynn, Trump’s National-Security Adviser
In Afghanistan and Iraq, Flynn ordered jsoc commandos to collect and catalogue data from interrogations, captured electronic equipment, pocket trash—anything that could yield useful information. By analyzing these disparate scraps of intelligence, they were able to discover that Al Qaeda was not a hierarchical group after all but a dynamic network of cells and relationships. As I learned while doing research for my book “Top Secret America,” Flynn and McChrystal dramatically increased the pace of jsoc attacks on enemy hideouts by devising a system in which commandos on missions transferred promising data—cell-phone numbers, meeting locations—to analysts, who could then quickly point them to additional targets to hit. Multiple raids a night became common.
.. Flynn was one of the few high-ranking officers who disdained the Army’s culture of conformity. But McChrystal also knew he had to protect Flynn from that same culture. He “boxed him in,” someone who had worked with both men told me last week, by encouraging Flynn to keep his outbursts in check and surrounding him with subordinates who would challenge the unsubstantiated theories he tended to indulge.
.. But they described how he lurched from one priority to another and had trouble building a loyal team. “He made a lot of changes,” one close observer of Flynn’s time at the D.I.A. told me. “Not in a strategic way—A to Z—but back and forth.”
.. But, without loyal junior officers at his side to vet his facts, he found even more trouble. His subordinates started a list of what they called “Flynn facts,” things he would say that weren’t true, like when he asserted that three-quarters of all new cell phones were bought by Africans or, later, that Iran had killed more Americans than Al Qaeda. In private, his staff tried to dissuade him from repeating these lines...Flynn’s temper also flared. He berated people in front of colleagues. Soon, according to former associates, a parallel power structure developed within the D.I.A. to fence him in, and to keep the nearly seventeen-thousand-person agency working. “He created massive antibodies in the building,” the former colleague said... He wrote a book with Michael Ledeen, a controversial neoconservative foreign-policy analyst, about defeating terrorism. Islam is not a religion, Flynn and Ledeen wrote, but a political ideology bent on destroying Judeo-Christian civilization.Flynn began saying that he had been fired because President Obama disagreed with his views on terrorism and wanted to hide the growth of isis. I haven’t found anyone yet who heard him say this while he was still in the military. In the past, I’ve asked Flynn directly about this claim; he has told me that he doesn’t have any proof—it’s just something he feels was true...He led the crowd in chants of “Lock her up! Lock her up!” His former colleagues say they were shocked by what they saw.What Flynn saw was corruption: Clinton, the media, the Justice Department, the intelligence community—they are all corrupt.
.. He led the crowd in chants of “Lock her up! Lock her up!” His former colleagues say they were shocked by what they saw.
What Flynn saw was corruption: Clinton, the media, the Justice Department, the intelligence community—they are all corrupt.