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Immediately following a sentence calling on Muslims to convert people to Islam by the sword? Sounds more to me like clutching at straws. Every warlord and militant empire in history had some kind of doctrine of sparing people who surrender without a fight. Somehow for Islam you manage to turn this into a just war doctrine. It is astonishing how confused you are about something so simple.

If Muhammad had actually intended to communicate a just war doctrine based on self defence and proportionality, don't you think he would spell it out with something like "aggression may be met by an equivalent response - if they attack you, you may retaliate by inflicting an equitable retribution..."?

polite_gandalf wrote on Jan 15^th, 2018 at 5:57pm:


It does exist, and I did give it to you. Have you forgotten? Do you agree that if it was actually Muhammad's intention, who would have written something clear and explicit like that, rather than forcing you to lie about sparing those who surrender without a fight being the same thing as a self defence doctrine?

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My bad. You are clutching at straws in order to cling to your lies about the Quran.

He does talk about limiting war to self defence and proportional response in the Quran. He does not limit Islamic warfare to this standard. But he does know how to put a just war doctrine into words when that is his intended meaning.

You must have repressed the memory or something. All this torturous twisting of words to try to find a just war doctrine of self defence in the Quran, but you cannot remember a verse that specifically refers to such a doctrine, even after it is pointed out to you.

It can be hard to tell when Muslims are consciously lying or just vacuously parroting the lies of other Muslims.

How confused is FD?

freediver wrote on Jan 15^th, 2018 at 5:49pm:


freediver wrote on Jan 15^th, 2018 at 5:59pm:


but then inexplicably comes out with...

freediver wrote on Jan 15^th, 2018 at 7:20pm:


Can you explain these contradictory statements FD?

Are you
a) correcting your own mistake?
b) admonishing me for not understanding how clearly the Quran spells out a just war doctrine?
c) or just confused?

Auggie wrote on Jan 16^th, 2018 at 11:28am:


Basically, I reject the premise of your question. The defining characteristic of The Quran is how little it deals with "rules for governing society" - and where it does, it is about as vague as it possibly could be. Now there are muslims, it may even be a majority, who hold the traditions of Muhammad - canonised as the hadiths (or ahadith) as doctrinally important as the Quran itself. Here you will find "rules for governing nearly all aspects of society". The orthodox belief amongst muslims is that the Quran gives a general overview, while the ahadith gets into the nitty gritty - and thats how the two doctrines compliment one another. However I have a different belief - I believe that a muslims need not look any further for guidance than the vague and non-specific guide contained in the Quran. I believe that it is deliberately vague because it is meant to be flexible and suitable for all times and places. In fact I can honestly say that what you refer with such sinister intonations as "Islamic Law" - as far as I'm concerned amounts to little more than having strong personal faith and worship practices (ie the regular prayers, give charity, fasting etc), and being good and respectful to others. And if you believe this, then its very consistent with the idea of religion being a personal and spiritual thing, whereas earthly rules and laws in the community in which a muslim finds themselves living - is really a separate matter. Or in other words, my faith is a faith that is very much rooted in the idea of separation of "church" and state.

As for the muslims who believe we must look to the prophetic tradition to tell us how to live day to day life (I call it the "spoonfeeding doctrine"), my personal attitude to this is that its a copout, and moreover inconsistent with true Islam. The desire to be spoonfed how to do everything in your life can, in my opinion, only come from a weak mind who basically is too afraid, or simply can't be bothered thinking for themselves. Whereas if you actually read the Quran, it constantly tells muslims to use their intellect and work things out for themselves. And the history of the two ideas is worth understanding. Where the proponents of the so called 'rational' Islam (mutazilites and others) were strongest in the traditionally non-arab, non-tribal intellectual populations such as Iraq and Syria, whereas the 'traditionalist' approach was strongest amongst the tribalistic arab-bedouin - though it should be noted that the earliest arab muslims, those that were contemporaries of Muhammad that broke out from the peninsular, were very much on the 'rationalist' side. It was really only after the ahadith tradition took hold (many decades after the death of Muhammad), and especially with the rise of the Hanbali school, did the traditional approach took hold.

Most scholars interpret "do not exceed limits" - stated several times when permitting fighting, as commanding a proportional response.

That would make sense if proportional response was stipulated as a limit elsewhere. It is not. Again, Muhammad does talk about proportional response in warfare, plainly and clearly, but does not limit Islamic warfare to this standard. So it is not a translation or communication issue. It's just not there. There are, however, no end of calls to disproportionate slaughter, such as the entirety of chapter 9, and reinforced by the actual slaughtering conducted by Muhammad.

I did not mean to imply a difference, just that Islam applies to Muslims. Muhamamd does not limit warfare in general to the standard of self defence or proportional response. But he does know how to talk about the concepts of self defence and proportionality, plainly and clearly, and he does so in the Quran. Just not in any of the verses Gandalf has been citing. Because to quote them would leave no doubt as to the absurdity of Gandalf's lies.