Afghanistan and Taliban

[Machine_Washable]

3 hours ago, Mercedes said:

Why do you think ISIS has carried out todays massacre when the allies are moving out?  Seems counter productive.

Counterproductive to the Taliban. But the Taliban and ISIS have been in conflict for years. So their interests don’t necessarily align. I don’t know if ISIS even considers the Taliban Muslims. I don’t know why ISIS did this. There could be some local goal or motive. If I run into any brothers from the area tomorrow I’ll ask them what they think and let you know. 
 

Some years ago I got on Twitter and I had some arguments with these guys who support ISIS. My impression of them is that they’re ignorant of their religion, have little to no fear of God, and entertain violent ideations. They just like hurting and killing people. I’m not saying there was no reason. They may well think it’s to their advantage for America to stay in Afghanistan. But I also don’t think they need a reason to want to kill people. It wouldn’t surprise me if the real root of this action was that they were defeated by America in Iraq and Syria while the Taliban defeated America in Afghanistan. They like hurting people, they like striking fear in people’s hearts, they like attention. They may just be mad that the spotlight is on the Taliban. 

[little2add]

I keep hearing that it’s the fighting season in Afghanistan.  
In America we have four seasons, fall, winter, spring and summer. 

What is this, so-called “ fighting season” all about?

[chrysostom]

1 hour ago, little2add said:

I keep hearing that it’s the fighting season in Afghanistan.  
In America we have four seasons, fall, winter, spring and summer. 

What is this, so-called “ fighting season” all about?

As far as I know...wintertime puts an end to fighting season as it is quite harsh.

[rosamundi]

1 hour ago, little2add said:

What is this, so-called “ fighting season” all about?

Fighting is seasonal - the harvest is in, the weather is better, manpower can be spared from the fields and you're way less likely to get bogged down in harsh weather.

Europe used to have similar.

Edited August 27, 2021 by rosamundi
bad apostrophe! Go to your room!

[hakutaku]

On 8/25/2021 at 1:43 AM, Machine_Washable said:

One thing to consider is that Afghanistan is a very conservative place. I would even say there is a lot of outright misogyny in the culture. So you’re not comparing the Taliban to a situation where women are given their rights. You’re comparing the Taliban to a culture that treats women very badly. 

Women had made great strides in the 50s and 60s, before Russia then the US decided to invade.

[little2add]

3 hours ago, rosamundi said:

4 hours ago, little2add said:

 

Fighting is seasonal - the harvest is in, the weather is better, manpower can be spared from the fields and you're way less likely to get bogged down in harsh weather

Not when, what is it exactly?  open warfare? What do you call it:  the“time to murder” season?

that reminds me of a song:

For everything there is a season, A time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest.
 

 

Edited August 27, 2021 by little2add

[Machine_Washable]

6 minutes ago, little2add said:

Not when, what is it exactly?  open warfare? What do you call it:  the“time to murder” season?

that reminds me of a song:

For everything there is a season, A time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest.
 

 

It’s not a religious term. The Afghans are fighting an occupying force. When do they fight? They fight when they can move around the country. I live in Canada. If there was an occupying army here you’d see a lull in fighting during the winter. There’s snow everywhere. It’s hard to get around for the occupiers and the occupied. Nobody is moving much. That’s really all it is. 
 

I don’t even know if this is a word the Afghans came up with or the Americans. Either way it describes a tendency. Not a rule or anything. 

[little2add]

 

 

[Ice_nine]

On 8/23/2021 at 1:10 AM, Machine_Washable said:

I have never heard of a Christian community in Afghanistan.

gee, wonder why that is.

[hakutaku]

21 minutes ago, Ice_nine said:

gee, wonder why that is.

Because religious belief is usually the product of local social forces rather than philosophical investigation, so pockets of minority religions arising from homogeneous communities are rare?

[Ice_nine]

On 8/24/2021 at 9:28 AM, Peace said:

From the standpoint of many Afghani people

There is no such thing as "Afghani people" in a sense. A lot of the geopolitical lines drawn in the past few hundred years don't really make sense. Most of Africa was cut up by imperialist powers in ways that would make little sense to the people actually living there. I don't know about Afghanistan specifically, but I would guess it's something similar. Try to find someone in Afghanistan that identifies as an Afghani and you might be there for a while.

Building an "Afghan army" and an "Afgan government" was doomed from the start.

[Peace]

5 minutes ago, Ice_nine said:

There is no such thing as "Afghani people" in a sense. A lot of the geopolitical lines drawn in the past few hundred years don't really make sense. Most of Africa was cut up by imperialist powers in ways that would make little sense to the people actually living there. I don't know about Afghanistan specifically, but I would guess it's something similar. Try to find someone in Afghanistan that identifies as an Afghani and you might be there for a while.

Building an "Afghan army" and an "Afgan government" was doomed from the start.

Semantics. For my purposes I define "Afghani people" as any people native to the area on your map that is labeled "Afghanistan".

But yeah, you have a point in that there appear to be different ethnic groups within that region that have varying views and practices, and that from a practical point it may not make sense to try to have them all under one government.

But heck, the same thing can be said of California and Mississippi.

[ArciMoto]

On 8/22/2021 at 11:36 PM, Machine_Washable said:

turning to modernization. It’s important to consider what is meant by that. If modernize means embracing American cultural liberalism then that’s not happening. Even without the Taliban Afghanistan is a very conservative place and people don’t want pornography on television like you see in even mainstream shows in the west. But could Afghanistan have a deemphasis on tribalism and rule of law and much more economic growth and stability? I think the answer is yes. And I think the people want that and that’s why they’ve accepted the Taliban. However the question is will that happen. I don’t know.

long ago learned one of the five pillars of islam is "zakat" (i.e. charity),... also learned the prophet muhammad can be looked at as an old school "startup" guy

http://muamalat.nuradli.com/mga1023fairus.pdf

basically modernization of islam to me means applying the "startup" mentality to "zakat" to address modern day issues caused by mankind

to give you a specific example,... as I mentioned years ago had the opportunity to visit that part of the world AND saw first hand how screwed up thing were w/ water resources 

basically a news report from a week ago or so, caught my eye 

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/22/middleeast/middle-east-climate-water-shortage-iran-urmia-intl/index.html

point being the downward environmental trends I noticed long ago,... sadly continue on

so modernization of islam as I see things is addressing environmental issues head on, along w/ recognizing that women can make meaningful contributions 

On 8/27/2021 at 9:33 AM, hakutaku said:

Women had made great strides in the 50s and 60s, before Russia then the US decided to invade.

which will benefit rather than have adverse impact on the people (which is where we are now)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Machine_Washable]

On 8/27/2021 at 11:54 PM, Ice_nine said:

gee, wonder why that is.

I don't understand what you mean by this.

[Machine_Washable]

11 hours ago, ArciMoto said:

long ago learned one of the five pillars of islam is "zakat" (i.e. charity),... also learned the prophet muhammad can be looked at as an old school "startup" guy

http://muamalat.nuradli.com/mga1023fairus.pdf

basically modernization of islam to me means applying the "startup" mentality to "zakat" to address modern day issues caused by mankind

to give you a specific example,... as I mentioned years ago had the opportunity to visit that part of the world AND saw first hand how screwed up thing were w/ water resources 

basically a news report from a week ago or so, caught my eye 

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/22/middleeast/middle-east-climate-water-shortage-iran-urmia-intl/index.html

point being the downward environmental trends I noticed long ago,... sadly continue on

so modernization of islam as I see things is addressing environmental issues head on, along w/ recognizing that women can make meaningful contributions 

which will benefit rather than have adverse impact on the people (which is where we are now)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jazakallah for your opinion. I wish to clarify something. Charity and zakat are not the same thing. Zakat is a tax on wealth that is paid once a year and distributed by the state to the local Muslim poor. For Muslims living in non Muslim lands it is still an obligation but must be distributed by individuals to the local Muslim poor. General charity can be given to anybody at any time. It is highly encouraged and sometimes mandated as an expiation of sin. Zakat is historically a little more political. After the Prophet Muhammad died (SAW) some tribes in the confederation basically announced their rebellion by ceasing to pay zakat. 
 

I agree with your comments about the environment and women. I do not support things like free mixing. But on the other hand, in my opinion, too often scholars take the extreme cautious route. They do this because they don’t want Muslims to imitate secular cultures that glorify lewdness. But this can go to far. This is why I believe we need more women who are scholars. 

[ArciMoto]

13 hours ago, Machine_Washable said:

Jazakallah for your opinion. I wish to clarify something. Charity and zakat are not the same thing. Zakat is a tax on wealth that is paid once a year and distributed by the state to the local Muslim poor. For Muslims living in non Muslim lands it is still an obligation but must be distributed by individuals to the local Muslim poor. General charity can be given to anybody at any time. It is highly encouraged and sometimes mandated as an expiation of sin. Zakat is historically a little more political. After the Prophet Muhammad died (SAW) some tribes in the confederation basically announced their rebellion by ceasing to pay zakat. 
 

I agree with your comments about the environment and women. I do not support things like free mixing. But on the other hand, in my opinion, too often scholars take the extreme cautious route. They do this because they don’t want Muslims to imitate secular cultures that glorify lewdness. But this can go to far. This is why I believe we need more women who are scholars. 

as I mentioned the only formal education I have about islam is a single class I took long ago when I was a student at university,... so I don't know lots of details about islamic culture

but the point I was trying to make WRT modernization of islam is it should also be outward thinking,... IOW charity should not only be concerned about helping poor believers of islam but also poor christians as well (for example)

FWIW I think too many catholics are too inward looking as well,... for example when the pope tried some out reach a few years ago down in South America

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2019-10/pope-francis-amazon-synod-closing-speech.html

this caused a bit of an internal political uproar here in the USA by so-called scholars as well as the rank-in file

https://catholiccitizens.org/issues/synodality/92761/pope-francis-says-amazon-synod-was-for-discernment-not-fighting-on-married-priests/

anyway,... to give you a specific example of modernization of islam I'm thinking about is a project sponsored by a couple of saudi women

basically a few years ago happened to be at a conference, where the individual who made the YouTube video gave a detailed presentation about the pilot program in the KSA,... and from what I recall it was mentioned this pilot program was suppose to be the model for redoing 60,000 more hectares of lands in the mountains beside the Red Sea (an area that is on my bucket list of places to explore)

https://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/mysteries-of-the-red-sea

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Machine_Washable]

On 8/26/2021 at 6:48 PM, Mercedes said:

Why do you think ISIS has carried out todays massacre when the allies are moving out?  Seems counter productive.

To give you an example of the tension between these groups. Here is a najdi dawah sheikh discussing the Deobandi (the sect the Taliban belong to). This sheikh is a moderate within the najdi dawah. ISIS are extreme and would like consider this sheikh severely compromised (at best). So you can imaging how much more extreme the ISIS opinion of the Taliban must be
 

 

12 hours ago, ArciMoto said:

as I mentioned the only formal education I have about islam is a single class I took long ago when I was a student at university,... so I don't know lots of details about islamic culture

but the point I was trying to make WRT modernization of islam is it should also be outward thinking,... IOW charity should not only be concerned about helping poor believers of islam but also poor christians as well (for example)

FWIW I think too many catholics are too inward looking as well,... for example when the pope tried some out reach a few years ago down in South America

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2019-10/pope-francis-amazon-synod-closing-speech.html

this caused a bit of an internal political uproar here in the USA by so-called scholars as well as the rank-in file

https://catholiccitizens.org/issues/synodality/92761/pope-francis-says-amazon-synod-was-for-discernment-not-fighting-on-married-priests/

anyway,... to give you a specific example of modernization of islam I'm thinking about is a project sponsored by a couple of saudi women

basically a few years ago happened to be at a conference, where the individual who made the YouTube video gave a detailed presentation about the pilot program in the KSA,... and from what I recall it was mentioned this pilot program was suppose to be the model for redoing 60,000 more hectares of lands in the mountains beside the Red Sea (an area that is on my bucket list of places to explore)

https://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/mysteries-of-the-red-sea

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I understand. I am just clarifying some terms because I think it will help with the conversation. The basic structure of zakat will not change. I mentioned that there were wars in early days of Islam after Prophet Muhammad’s death (SAW) over the payment of zakat. It’s a pillar of faith and will not be altered by religious Muslims. So zakat will always go to the ummah. But general charity can and should go to everyone in need. Giving to someone in need, Muslim or non Muslim, is a highly encouraged act in Islam. I agree with you that the ummah needs to be more outward facing. Particularly the part of the ummah that is practicing. Many get angry that our community is only represented in the media by “progressive Muslims” but a cause of that is how insular many religious Muslim communities are (along with the media agenda). Jazakallah for the video. I cannot watch all of it now but I will tomorrow. Inshallah. 

[Ice_nine]

All in all, I can't be too mad at the people in Afganistan not wanting the USA there, and preferring the Taliban. We used to export manufactured goods and ideals of freedom. Now it's just about exporting abortions and shoving rainbow flags and intersectionality down your throat. Can't blame them for not wanting that croutons. I don't either.

I mean I also don't want the Taliban, but I'm not a Muslim so that is sort of obvious.

[ardillacid]

On 8/29/2021 at 12:06 AM, Machine_Washable said:

I don't understand what you mean by this.

I once worked with a Nigerian who was adamant there were no gay people in Nigeria. If there were, he assured me, straight to prison.

[Machine_Washable]

8 hours ago, ardillacid said:

I once worked with a Nigerian who was adamant there were no gay people in Nigeria. If there were, he assured me, straight to prison.

Ok. I understand now. The social and legal pressure almost probably stops some minuscule number of Afghans from converting to Christianity. But I do not think that is the cause of there being no substantial Christian population in Afghanistan. Even Afghans in the west who have abandoned their religion don't flock to Christianity. But that is just my guess.