Commentary and Dear Geert Wilders and De Graaf in the Netherlands in Regard to Their Proposal to Ban 'Certain Islamic Manifestations'
October 15, 2018In very mild and brief reaction to a proposal credited with being written by Geert Wilders and cosigned immediately beneath, De Graaf, titled 'Legislative bill from members Wilder and De Graaf pertaining to the ban on certain Islamic manifestations', presented September 2018 thereabout, confer https://www.geertwilders.nl/images/Anti_islam_Law.pdf,
Well if all 'Islamic' manifestations would be 'cancelled', then he, or they, would not have written the letter that invokes the name of the deity he observes toward the top of the letter.
Most often, similar phrase is used in the Quran, at the very start, and the start of most as a recitation rule, as well as applicable to a range of matter or words to start out with, letters, speeches, business pursuits, and gatherings.
Islam is old, very old, a way of peace regardless of whether the Arabic tongue is used.
An aspect of the proposal that is a bit discomforting is the letter was signed Wilders, then beneath that De Graaf. Why the discomfort? The first names are not present, whereat giving them the benefit of the doubt, it is out of respect, and the manner of presenting proposals to the President of the entity in power; however, it is strongly possible that not every individual, collective, and spirit with names Wilders and De Graaf, are along with what they wrote. PVV, Partij voor de Vrijheid', translated, 'Party for Freedom', or possibly Party for Liberty, in consideration. Besides, studying the ancestral history of how the Wilders and De Graafs came to be, would set awkward perspectives to what the authors of the proposal stated in it.
What he is referring to are certain cultural and practices that are taken to be traditions in the 'footsteps' of Muhammad, known as the Last, Blessed Prophet. How many times, has even the most devout Muslim found something else out about practices that balance what he or she is doing, that they did not know, 30, 40, or so years before, throughout their lifetime?
In my opinion, he should change the phrase, 'etc.', to what is specific, in the words right beneath 'Legislative Bill'. There are different ways of speaking and colloquialisms; at first take, it looks like it can be said about the lines, please do not assume someone is there with you who really is not, or it is a matter of convenience of who the 'we' is that concurs and supports the bill. Ambiguity, pertinently in this case can be a cause for trouble.
Greetings to all... these present, that is near the same thing as giving greetings in Arabic, yet not in Arabic. Greetings at the beginning is something that Islam promotes.
Section 1, he says Islam is not a way of life but a violent ideology. It appears what he did here was turn around the rebut that is often given by Muslim individuals when describing Islam. Often they will say, to address a higher understanding about Islam, that Islam is a way of life. This 'stuff' about violent ideology, refers to persons that 'call' themselves Muslim, have completely missed the point, and choose to engage in violent extremist activities, and claim those activities to be under the color of Islam. As much of the world found out, about Al Qaeda and ISIS, these groups have records of them engaging in million afters millions of dollars in illicit narcotic 'business'. The Muslim world, and Islam, is not behind that shenanigan. Islam prohibits 'intoxicants'; not just wine to the point of sicknesses, but other substances as well; as a matter of fact, "islam', meaning the way of peace, prohibits abuse of any substance, whether originally or innately poisonous or intoxicating, or not. Abusing bread, rice, meat, potatoes, water, fruits, soil from the earth, medicine, it does not matter, abusing is abusing.
In Section 2, he says,
The following Islamic manifestations are banned:
a. mosques
b. schools
c. the Koran
d. wearing a burka or a niqab
there is an old saying, 'a little knowledge can be dangerous'. The list drawn up in section 2 of the proposed bill is a protuberant case of that in point, it is also relatively superficial. The reason why, is there are other structures, in the Islam world, such as 'markaz', like the Islamic Center in Washington DC was originally named. Needless to say, the list drawn up does not include these and a plethora of relevant terms. The author can argue it is intent, not per se word for word; however, the words are so lacking, his proposal is seriously void of enough viability and fact to really be something of enough substance to make a decision on; respectfully, regardless of how many millions of people, 40% or 400%, 99.999%, of the people there in the Netherlands or elsewhere support what can be described at this point as almost banter. These are not strong words to insult, yet, as you read along here, it can be seen that a few notes from 'off-the-hip' about some of the elements of Islam, will put to rest aspects of the superficialities of what Wilders/De Graaf wrote.
Continuing further, a 'markaz' can perform slightly different functions than a 'masjid', although it can still include prayer, and look like a 'masjid', a masjid is commonly what is 'translated' into mosque. Some that are Muslim refuse to even use or acknowledge the word 'mosque'; which could put a little bit of an angular weight on the matter.
Schools; to be on the banned list, the proposal says. ?. Quickly, it is not schools, but what is taught in them. If schools teach to veer away from violent ideology, extremism, then it would seem logical he would promote it. If (I were) in the Netherlands, the argument would be to ensure extremism is not taught in schools, any and all schools, Muslim schools, Islamic schools, special education training academies, public schools, private schools, and other curriculums, which could include 5 kids being taught inside a house.
Speaking of house, when haphazard blanket oppression starts occurring on schools and masajid (plural for masjid), it may pressure individuals to meet secretly in houses. In turn, ensuring that violent ideology and extremism is not being taught to kids can get even tougher.
On his proposal of 'banning' the Quran, he has it spelled Koran; being banned, is about a trifle thrown into an ocean a million miles wide with about the same number of ripples. For many, the Quran was carried by memorization, and taught from mouth handed to mouth, not by ink on paper tangible written materials. If memorization method continues, then 'banning Koran' or Quran, is about a nonexistent entity in terms of a concept. In compressed words, it is almost impossible to put a ban on memory. Many in Islam World, believe that Quran is a revealed 'book', already 'written', such as ready in the provisions of the Lord, just like the Zabur, and other books 'revealed' to other Prophets, the Torah revealed to Musa/Moses, another example. What was revealed is there, existent, whether you can access it on a piece of paper or not.
Wearing burqa or niqab; now there are numerous types of wear the Muslim women wear, and numerous circumstances that affect what to wear and what not to wear, when and where. Unfortunately, in this day and age, there are some people that know little, some even ignorant, and there are some learned, as well as those pressured, such as by foreign grandparents that dressed certain ways back in their home village. Terms like hijab exist. And the meanings is more that just a fabric, or a 'rag over their head'; it could mean walking in public in manner a bit hidden from view from the rest of the public not immediately related to them. It all depends on what they were taught. It is about meeting the requirements of dress at times. Places in the world are extremely cold, and heavy coats and hats are necessary to survive, they might look different than what was worn int the Middle East a thousand years ago. There are traditions of how the Prophet's wives used to wear head dresses while in there house, referring to what was shown and what was not, accounts made by visitors of the house. The important thing, is that the coverings used today are not used to hide for acts of violent extremism, illegal immigration, and activities of that sort.
Honestly, there are numerous European scholars that have written great extents about Islam that can explain all of this and much more; it is rather ironic that simplistic proposals would come from a hotbed of some of the world's most educated men and women. There are some scholars from the Netherlands that 'know more about Islam' than some people that claim to have been practicing Islam all their lives. Perhaps conferring with these scholars, not named here, could materialize in proposals and policies that have a stronger viability, and are more universally accepted.
As far as every space for worship, there is ludicrousy in that; as people can pray without the bending and postures commonly seen in masajid in the Middle East; people can pray as they walk to work. How can that conceivably be banned? People can pray silently to themselves with no noticeable bodily movement, and their lips barely, if at all, move at all.
'Anyone taking part in the manifestations listed in sub-sections 1 .a and 1 .b of this section and subsections 2 and 3 of this section, or anyone who facilitates or organises them, is punishable', says the proposal; well what happens when Middle East royalty comes to town, they are visiting leaders and government officials of the Netherlands, and they would like to donate billions of dollars for food, shelter, clothing, oil, schools, trade, transportation, and infrastructure, or even just a kind gift to government, and they wish to take a few minutes to pray on their 2 day visit?
Not sound disrespectful, but traditionally, these moments of prayer by kings and diplomats are often allowed in these circumstances. Kings in the Middle East are not going to skip their prayers when they come to the Netherlands to honor nobility, conventions, and events of that nature; (because member of political party, such and such, said so.)
In the 'Explanatory Memorandum' of the proposal, it almost sounds as if the Crusades is being continued, with what is a borderline rant about Judeo-Christian norms and values. Whether they were always humanistic is another conversation, reference to certain times in history when their was mass slaughter at that hands of others that were not Muslim. There are European traditions that go back in the Netherlands, that precede Muhammad, precede Judaism, Judeo-Christian, Christian and some of the other popularly known religions practiced by billions of people at a time today. Does the author, or authors, care to discuss the angelic ways of peace, and ideologies that are far beyond many of today's human beings that care not to exert the due diligence to keep up with moral standards from those eras? Probably not. Begs the question, why not? Does he know for certainty, that some of the saintly ways of 3000 years ago that existed in the Netherlands, were not practicing true, uncontorted, ways of peace, which to be forthright, in some cases could be Islam as it was practiced before Muhammad, that walked among those he interfaced with about a millennium and a half ago?
The letter, in the second address line, states the Hague, for September 2018, the voluminous amount of history that has happened at leadership and decision making levels in and around the Hague over the centuries, and the overwhelming amount of knowledge that has come with it, would shrink the proposal down, to a small spec that seems intended to spur certain behaviors and attitudes, which are a reaction to certain behaviors and attitudes.
Addressing the insertions by Howard Kainz; the Quran says explicitly, translated. la ikraha be-deen', translated very roughly, as 'there is no compulsion in the belief system practice of the way of life'.
Later in the paper he discusses jihad, and the root word JHD; he started off correctly, but who said it expands to a 'yoke of Islamic law'?- was that him speaking, or the Quran? The root, 'educationally' speaking, can refer to an individuals thoughts, that he 'fought' against himself, to curb so much as thinking evil thoughts; practical applications are refraining from becoming obese, using intoxicating drugs for illicit uses, trading in these drugs illegally, fighting an acquaintance out of anger over a matter undeserving, engaging in public nudity when uncalled for, spending absurd amount of times in the theaters out in public observing persons on screen engaging in nudity, fornication, and adultery, for the sake of mere profit. Jihadul nafs, it is called, the fight against unideal dimensions of oneself, popularly known as the 'baser self'. There is plenty of knowledge out there about what jihad means. Again, the concern pertains to those that are out of control and engaging in violent extremism, moreover, behavior unjustified by Islam.
Look very carefully at the term Vrijheid. Take away the first three letters, or break the word into two and study the etymology.
What is actually jihad, and how old is the concept?
The list of constructive criticism can go on and on; the list of verses and Hadeeth he cites are translations, not the original Arabic; suggestion, rather hard and harsh, is to learn Arabic, gain a thorough understanding of what each and every word in Arabic that those verses and sayings were translated from, and gain enough command of the language to translate himself. Then he might see, these are slants of translations made available for easy reading today. People at times sell books with good intentions, sometimes they sell for profit.
There are prohibitions for Muslim to engage in the act of hate, reference 'apes and pigs, and hating', pun appropriate, that is hogwash. A well known story is when Ali, relative of Muhammad, stated Prophet, known for a beard that was (original words deleted) a pronounced formidable wide, an extremely strong man by the standards of the history of human kind, stood over a man with a spear on the battlefield, and refused to throw the sword down upon him, the man on the ground then spat at him, and Ali still refused to throw the spear, why, well the moral of the story is, the act of violence, and actions at all, are not about ego, and not about the hate of another human regardless of his or her religion, it is about purity of action, intentions, and reasoning for actions.
On page 9, towards the bottom, the authors mention Sarajevo. Can the oppression of Bosnia and Herzegovina that happened just 20 years ago, be reminded? Reiterating, there seem to be more Crusade threads, than protect the European people, culture, tradition, and history.
Adam was the 'first man', a universally accepted presupposition, that disobeyed the command of his Lord, in partaking of referent fruit, and was cast down from high station to lower abode. That story is in the Quran.
The Netherlands is a very likable place with a tranquil air, all the more reason for those with clean hearts to enjoy the land.
Posted by HCN.
