I like the bits about the Islamic Empire as a comparable to the Roman Empire in its influence on science, technology, and arts. But I wouldn't call the Ottoman Empire "great" for the same reason I wouldn't call any other empire great.

This video is overly reverent. It linguistically presumes Mohammad actually received "revelations". The act of a "religion of peace" being founded through forceful conquest of the known world is at best hypocritical.

Rather then re-re-re-interpreting scriptures to re-re-reconcile Islam with the changing moral zeitgeist, I'd rather read great philosophers like John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell, and think about ethics as its own subject. A cosmic despot's declaration cannot affect the ethicality of a deed to which he is not a party.

Even to put myself in a theist's shoes, if God declared certain acts good and evil, he must have had reasons for doing so, and we should seek to understand those reasons. If we can, there's no need to rely on fallible scriptures based on fallible memory of fallible oral recitations from a fallible slave-owning illiterate merchant named Mohammad who might or might not have had a revelation.

To treat what was probably mere trickery or hallucination as if it were some unquestionably glorious thing is to me a bit offensive because I value truth above almost everything else. The video devotes only about three seconds to skepticism about Mohammad's alleged revelation in the part about the life of Mohammad and quickly dismisses it with Mohammad's own fallacious argument involving combat victories. This is plainly pro-religion bias.

Peace

This isn't personal. In the marketplace of ideas, we are both selling and buying.

Have you thought this out thoroughly? What happens when/if "the Palestinians" get their "own" nation? It will end up another launchpad for rockets.

http://factsandlogic.org/ad_77.html

But how about the legal aspect of this matter? Isn’t the “West Bank” “occupied territory” and therefore the Jews have no right to be there? But the historic reality is quite different. Very briefly: The Ottoman Empire was the sovereign in the entire area. In 1917, while World War I was still raging, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration. It designated “Paleatine” — extending throughout what is now Israel (including the “West Band”) and what is now the Kingdom of Jordan — as the homeland for the Jewish people. In 1922, the League of Nations ratified the Balfour Declaration and designated Britain as the mandatory power. Regrettably, Britain, for its own imperial reasons and purposes, separated 76 percent of the land — that lying beyond the Jordan River — to create the kingdom of Trans-Jordan (now Jordan) and made it inaccessible to Jews. In 1947, tired of the constant bloodletting between Arabs and Jews, the British threw in the towel and abandoned the Mandate. The UN took over. It devised a plan by which the land west of the Jordan River would be split between the Jews and the Arabs. The Jews, though with heavy heart, accepted the plan. The Arabs virulently rejected it and invaded the nascent Jewish state with the armies of five countries, so as to destroy it at its birth. Miraculously, the Jews prevailed and the State of Israel was born. When the smoke of battle cleared, Jordan was in possession of the West Bank and Egypt in possession of Gaza. They were the “occupiers” and they proceeded to kill many Jews and to drive out the rest. They systematically destroyed all Jewish holy places and all vestiges of Jewish presence. The area was “judenrein.”

In the Six-Day War of 1967, the Jews reconquered the territories. The concept that Jewish presence in Judea/Samaria is illegal and that the Jews are occupiers is bizarre. It just has been repeated so often and with such vigor that many people have come to accept it.

How about the “Palestinians,” whose patrimony this territory supposedly is and about whose olive trees and orange groves we hear endlessly? There is no such people. They are Arabs — the same people as in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and beyond. Most of them migrated into the territories and to “Israel proper,” attracted by Jewish prosperity and industry.

The concept of “Palestinians” as applied to Arabs and as a distinct nationality urgently in need of their own twenty-third Arab state, is a fairly new one; it was not invented until after 1948, when the State of Israel was founded.

But here’s a thought: How about a deal by which the “settlements” were indeed abandoned and all the Jews were to move to “Israel proper.” At the same time, all the Arabs living in Israel would be transferred to Judea/Samaria or to wherever else they wanted to go. That would indeed make Judea/Samaria “judenrein,” and what are now Arab lands in Israel would be “arabrein.” The Arabs could then live in a fully autonomous area in eastern Israel and peace, one would hope, would descend on the holy land.

Firstly - the issue of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). This is an appalling crime, and one that is sadly prevelant in some parts of the Islamic world (I have studied FGM under the leading expert on women's rights in Africa - Dr Fareda Banda). However, it is important to be clear about the position of the Shari'ah with regards to FGM - and to do this I am going to have to provide a detailed explanation of some aspects of Islamic law.

Male circumcision is advocated by Islam - as it is by the Jewish faith. There is no dispute about this. However, there is a great deal of dispute about FGM. There is nothing in the Qur'an which advocates FGM. The most important source of Islamic law after the Qur'an is the hadith - sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. The hadith were compiled about 300 years after Muhammad's death. While some are authentic and beyond dispute, others are not and have been held by scholars of Islamic law to be weak. The only possible justification for female circumcision is the following hadith:

"A woman used to perform circumcision in Medina [Madîna]. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said to her: 'Do not cut severely as that is better for a woman and more desirable for a husband." (Sunan Abu Dawûd, Book 41, #5251.)

It is important to look at the authenticity and strength of this hadith. The hadith is found in the Sunan of Abu Dawud - an important collection of hadith. However, the compiler himself - Abu Dawud - classified this hadith as "weak". A hadith can be classified as weak for a number of reasons - but normally it is because the chain of transmission (isnad) from the Prophet to the compiler is broken or incomplete. When this happens, it is often suspected that the hadith could be fabricated. Consequently, one cannot derive a legal ruling from a weak hadith. Therefore, the vast majority of experts in Shari'ah law believe that there is no justification for FGM in Islam.

However, FGM still exists in parts of the Islamic world, and the above quoted hadith is sometimes used to justify it. What is important to note is that in those countries where Muslims advocate FGM and justify it by reference to Shari'ah law, Christains also practice FGM and justify it by reference to the bible. In reality, FGM is a practice who's origins lie not in the religious texts of the major world faiths but in the barbaric traditions of traditionally male-dominated societies.

Secondly, I will try and qualify what I think Farhad means when he says that "Sharia is no in no way representative of the religion of Islam." Shari'ah in many of its modern manifestations is not representative of the rich traditions of Islam. Much of the rigidity which people associate with Shari'ah law is a relatively recent phenomenon brought about by a number of factors. For example, there was an inherent flexibility in classical Islamic law. For example, there were five schools of law (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali, Zahiri) who differed in their opinions on certain issues, and this gave Shari'ah an inherent pluralism. Judges could choose between the positions of the various schools, and exercise their own judgment in order to reach fair judgments. However, in the 19th Century there was an enormous amount of pressure put on the Islamic world by the West to reform its legal system - either directly, in the form of colonialism, or indirectly in the form of economic/military pressure - to change its legal system in order to facilitate trade with Europe. The result was that the Ottoman empire, during the Tanzimat reforms, instead of working within the rich Islamic legal tradition, simply got rid of Islamic law in many areas and replaced it with European style legal codes. The Islamic law which was kept was that which would be called in Western legal systems the law of personal status - family law, inheritance. But, what the Ottomans did was codify this law - they codified one of the key Hanafi manuals of Islamic law. A similar codification occured in India under the British resulting in what was referred to as Anglo-Muhammadan law.This codification - which has continued in recent years throughout the Islamic world - has removed the inherent flexibility and pluralism in Islamic legal thinking. It has meant that judges only have one opinion to choose, and it has also meant that many judges have stopped practising ijtihad - deriving the law from its sources. All progressive scholars in the Islamic world agree that the Islamic tradition of ijtihad must be revitalized. Scholars must turn back to the sources - Qur'an and hadith - and derive Islamic law which is appropriate for modern times, and which is flexible.

There are some important examples of ijtihad worth mentioning. In the sub-continent, the prevailing legal tradition is Hanafi. Under Hanafi law, the grounds on which a woman could apply for divorce were limited. However in a landmark case, the judges used ijtihad to ensure that women could divorce much more easliy. What they effectively did was adopt a position from Maliki law and extended it. In Tunisia, women have complete legal equality with men - in marriage, divorce, no polygamy, etc. Morocco has also made important advances similar to those taken by Tunisia. In both cases it is important to note that instead of replacing Islamic law, scholars instead embraced the flexibility and pluralism inherent in the classical Islamic legal tradition. They derived new Islamic law - based on the Qur'an and the hadith - which provided full equality for women.

Islam: Empire of Faith is narrated by Academy Award-winning actor Ben Kingsley. The three-hour program tells the spectacular story of the great sweep of Islamic power and faith during its first 1,000 years from the birth of the Prophet Muhammed to the peak of the Ottoman Empire under the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent. Historical re-enactments and a remarkable exposition of Islamic art, artifacts and architecture are combined with interviews of scholars from around the world to recount the rise and importance of early Islamic civilization. Increasingly, scholars and historians are recognizing the profound impact that Islamic civilization has had on Western culture and the course of world history.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7502243539190558658 - Part 2

http://www.pbs.org/empires/islam/

http://www.factsandlogic.org/

What are the facts?

The state of Israel was legally created out of the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. The area was desolate – desert and swamp – with some small towns and a few inhabitants, many of them nomads. The inhabitants, if they thought about it at all, considered themselves Syrians. The legitimacy of Israel arises from the Balfour Declaration issued by the British, who were given the mandate over the area by the League of Nations. Jews have lived in the country since Biblical times. The Arabs from the surrounding areas were lured to “Palestine” by the industry and prosperity that the Jews brought to the region. Envy, hatred, and religious fanaticism turned the Arabs against the Jews. In bloody outrages, horrible massacres, killings and rapes, the Arabs tried to dislodge the Jews, but were unable to do so.

In 1947, the British, having tired of the trouble and the bloodshed, resigned their mandate. That same year, the United Nations mandated partitioning of the territory. The Jews, though disappointed, accepted the partition. The Arabs rejected it out of hand and launched war against Israel. The armies of five Arab countries invaded the nascent state. Following the exhortations of the invaders, the Arab residents got out of the way hoping to return after victory was attained. They could then reclaim their property and that of the Jews, all of whom would have been killed or would have fled. That and that alone is the source of the Arab “refugee problem.”

Had the Arabs accepted the UN partition plan, there would now have been a state of “Palestine” for the last 58 years. They might have attained a similar level of prosperity, advancement, and development as Israel, which, small though it is, is today in almost every regard one of the world’s most advanced countries.

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Op-ed: "Palestinians'" greatest fear would be the elimination of Israel, since they would then be forced to face their own failings.