[Dean's World] Dean: "Taqiyya"

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Posted by Dean:
"Taqiyya"
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1142152576.shtml


   Western islamophobes are generally in love with naming various muslim
   concepts or practices, taking them completely out of context, then
   drawing sweeping conclusions. One such generalization I've noticed
   lately involves the supposed Islamic doctrine of "taqiyya" or
   "al-taqiyya."

   Taqiyya, the Islamophobes will explain, is the doctrine that it's
   entirely permissible, even required, to lie if it helps the goals of
   the Islamic faith. Those goals supposedly include killing everyone on
   Earth who won't convert to Islam. As with many lies, there's a degree
   of truth to this, giving it a sort of "truthiness" that makes it seem
   believable.

   So what's the truth behind this islamophobic whopper? There is a
   pseudo-respectable doctrine among some muslims that it's permissible
   to lie if it's the only way to save your life, or to save someone
   else's life, or to avoid torture. This was used often in 15th-century
   Spain when Christians began murdering any and all muslims who would
   not convert to Christianity. To avoid being burned to death, many
   muslims pretended to renounce Islam, then fled the country. They
   justified it saying that it was al-taqiya--a necessary lie to protect
   themselves and their loved ones.

   The concept seems to have gained its widest currency among muslims who
   were murdering each other: Sunni muslims would try to force Shia to
   convert to Sunni. Citing the notion of al-taqiya, some Shia pretended
   to renounce their Shia faith to save their lives and the lives of
   their families.

   Some muslims will also say that it's better not to utter the complete
   truth in order to bring peace between a quarelling husband and wife,
   or in trying to bring about an end to a war. Sometimes, some of them
   will call that "al-taqiyya," and what they mean by that is what we
   call "being diplomatic."

   There's also a hadith, accepted by some muslims but not others, which
   has Muhammed endorsing lying to an enemy in wartime. That would be an
   enemy who had attacked them--Islam forbids making war on people unless
   they've attacked you first.

   Wikipedia has a [1]pretty good description of the doctrine, with a
   number of useful external links. It also notes that some muslims
   reject the whole idea, saying lying is never justified, even if you
   wind up tortured to death for telling the truth. And in fact there are
   a number of famous muslim martyrs who died rather than renounce Islam,
   which is why some muslims say al-taqqiya is often just cowardice
   (although you'd have to ask how many of them would talk so tough if
   they were facing the .

   Still, it's quite amusing (you have to laugh, otherwise you have to
   get angry) how modern Islamophobes have turned that all that into a
   sort of generalized "taqiyya is the Koranic doctrine that muslims can
   lie about anything if it helps them in their jihad to murder or
   enslave everyone on the planet" bull-crap.

   By the way, for a Christian outlook that looks suspiciously like
   "al-taqiyya," filled with many obvious biblical references to the
   righteousness of deceit in certain circumstances, see [2]this terrific
   piece by Lindsey Hurd.

   Or just ask yourself the obvious question: when the Nazi SS kick your
   door in and ask you where the Jews are that you were seen with earlier
   today, do you tell them the truth and say, "they're hiding in my
   attack?" Or do you look them right in the eye, point in a random
   direction, and say, "the dirty filth ran off thataway!"

References

   1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiya
   2. http://www.fortifyingthefamily.com/Righteous_Lying.html