Wah'habism

[Charles Brown]

I appreciated the history lesson below
from Barkley. I was wondering about 
bin Laden's switch from fighting with
the U.S. in Afghanistan to the present
fighting against the U.S., but I suppose
from his perspective, the U.S and
USSR in Afghanistan were both 
enemies.

On something not directly
on point of the discussion below,
but on the embassy bombings, it 
strikes me that most of the people
killed in the U.S. embassy bombings
were not Americans. This seems a somewhat
vicious indifference by bin Laden to
the lives of those bystander Africans.
This implies an enormous failing in
bin Laden's ideology. He has no basis
of accusing these innocent bystanders
of attacks or hatred of Islam or occupation 
of Mecca. They are not responsible for
U.S. embassies in their nations. And
these U.S. embassies were not in
an Islamic holyland. The African deaths
were forseeable by those who planned the
bombing.

Let me say as background that 
I do not endorse, the terrorism, but
the U.S. is the most terrorist nation in
history by the definition of knowingly
killing civilians. The U.S. dropped 
nuclear bombs on  TWO CITIES in Japan.

 This
is just one example world historic
terrorism , of course. More
recently it bombed civilian neighborhoods
in invading Panama and attacking
Iraq. So, it is absurd for the U.S. to call
anybody else terrorist.

However, would bin Laden blow
up an U.S. embassy in a nation
where many , non-American Islamic
bystanders would be killed  ? U.S.
terrorism does not justify bin Laden's
disregard of
African bystanders as somekind of 
non-humans or lesser humans.

Charles Brown

    Detroit


>>> "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <rosserjb at jmu.edu> 08/24 5:57 PM >>>

     Besides pan-Islamic anti-colonialism (with an emphasis 
on the US) and anti-Zionism, the ideology of Osama bin 
Laden is more specifically a radical variant of the 
ideology of the Sa'udi royal family, Wah'habism.  In this 
post I shall discuss its history and characteristics, 
especially in relation to the Kingdom of Sa'udi Arabia 
(KSA) and its relations with the US.

     An Islamic law code is a Shari'a, the Way, and all 
Islamic fundamentalists support nations being ruled by a 
Shari'a.  In Sunni Islam four Shari'as evolved: Hanafi, the 
oldest and loosest in interpretation, Melki, prominent in 
North Africa, Shafi, prominent in Southeast Asia, and the 
most recent and strictest, Hanbali.  The ideology of 
Wah'habism is that the Hanbali Shari'a should be imposed, 
as it is in KSA and Qatar.  The Hanbali Shari'a accepts 
only the Qur'an and selected parts of the Hadith (sayings 
of the Prophet Muhammed) as legitimate foundations for law.

     Although the Hanbali code had been around for several 
--clip-  etc. etc.