Sunday, February 15, 2015

Op-Ed: Why are They Converting to Islam?

Arutz 7  One of the things that worries the West is the fact that hundreds and maybe even thousands of young Europeans are converting to Islam, and some of them are joining terror groups and ISIS and returning to promote Jihad against the society in which they were born, raised and educated. The security problem posed by these young people is a serious one, because if they hide their cultural identity, it is extremely difficult for Western security forces to identify them and their evil intentions. This article will attempt to clarify the reasons that impel these young people to convert to Islam and join terrorist organizations.

The sources for this article are recordings made by the converts themselves, and the words they used, written here, are for the most part unedited direct quotations.

Many of the converts are convinced that Islam is a religion of peace, love, affection and friendship, based on the generous hospitality and warm welcome they receive from the Moslem friends in their new social milieu. In many instances, a young person born into an individualistic, cold and alienating society finds that Muslim society provides  – at college, university or  community center – a warm embrace, a good word, encouragement and help, things that are lacking in the society from which he stems. The phenomenon is most striking in the case of those who grew up in dysfunctional families or divorced homes, whose parents are alcoholics, drug addicts, violent and abusive, or parents who take advantage of their offspring and did not give their children a suitable emotional framework and model for building a normative, productive life.[...]

Converts to Islam report that reading the Koran and uttering the prayers add a spiritual meaning to their lives after years of intellectual stagnation, spiritual vacuum and sinking into a materialistic and hedonistic lifestyle. They describe the switch to Islam in terms of waking up from a bad dream, as if it is a rite of passage from their inane teenage years. Their feeling is that the Islamic religion has put order into their lives, granted them a measuring stick to assess themselves and their behavior, and defined which actions are allowed and which are forbidden, as opposed to their "former" society, which couldn't or wouldn't lay down rules. They are willing to accept the limitations Islamic law places on Muslims, thereby "putting order into their lives" after "a life of inanity" that they led before "discovering the light" of Islam that cleansed them from all their past sins and mistakes.[...]

One of the significant sources of converts in the USA is the prison system, and there, the overwhelming majority of converts are African Americans. Thousands of them see Islam as a return to roots dating from the days before their ancestors were sold into slavery. They generally do not know that the biggest slave traders were Muslim Arabs that overran idol-worshipping African villages and sold their inhabitants into slavery. And in Arabic, blacks are still called "slaves".[...]

6 comments :

  1. What a wild imagination. But the article in arutz sheva is dealing with reality, not an imagined one.

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  2. Seems like I have company in the loony bin.

    Put this in your test tube and smoke it, Mad One:
    http://fortunascorner.com/2015/01/14/snowden-leaks-may-incite-vigilantes-former-mi5-chief-warns-britons-will-seek-to-defend-themselves-against-jihadis-if-govt-does-not-pass-new-anti-terror-laws/

    ReplyDelete
  3. Maybe I need to make it clearer for you. You are extrapolating imaginary scenarios. You claim that people are arming themselves and expressing willingness to defend themselves against terrorists, and that claim may be true. Meanwhile, you extrapolate that to some imaginary doomsday scenario of armed militias who not only defend but *target innocent people for slaughter and of course your pet population of threatened victims is the Muslims. The article is about westerners converting to Islam and identifying with terrorist jihadist principles therein, and joining terrorist groups, a real phenomenon occurring in real-life. No extrapolation to imaginary scenarios necessary. The author, the blog owner, myself - none of us are attacking your precious muslim population by discussing this real-world issue, so fear not. We do not need to temper the discussion with imaginary postulations.

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  4. The article is has an imaginary component. First line of the article:

    "One of the things that worries the West is the fact that hundreds and maybe even thousands of young Europeans are converting to Islam, and some of them are joining terror groups and ISIS and returning to promote Jihad against the society in which they were born, raised and educated."

    What's the worry about? How many incidents have been documented so far of the converts conducting an act of "terror"? Perhaps a dozen? Two dozen? The worry is that it is imaginable that these incidences can be extrapolated to dozens more. You're the Mad Scientist. Do the math.

    So, I counter-imagined what will happen at that point. If this explanation doesn't satisfy you, however, Then I suppose you could try to use me as guinea pig to try out your experimental Elixir to Keep Commenters On Topic.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Read carefully please. Author is worried about "The Fact" not the possibility. "One of the things that worries the West IS THE FACT that hundreds..." Emphasis added. The article speaks to a real situation unfolding as we speak. Your imagination speaks to an imaginary one.

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  6. http://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guinea_Pig_eating_apple.JPG

    ReplyDelete

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