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Why Islam Attracts Criminals
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Why Islam Attracts Criminals
NewsMax.com Wires
Saturday, June 15, 2002
WASHINGTON - What exactly is it that makes people such as suspected "dirty bomber" Abdullah al Muhajir turn to Islamic extremism? According to sociologists of religion and theologians, it is the search for security and structure in their lives.
Al Muhajir, a Puerto Rican born in New York as Jose Padilla, is under arrest for allegedly plotting to detonate a "dirty" nuclear device somewhere in the United States. He is thought to be in league with the al-Qaeda terrorist organization, which nicknamed him the "The Immigrant."
Ironically, this moniker fits into the typology of converts to Islam that Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, a German sociologist of religion, has developed after field studies in the United States and her own country.
Muslim Criminals: Largest Body of Converts in U.S.
Padilla converted to Islam while in jail. He therefore belongs to the largest body of converts in the United States. According to National Association of Muslim Chaplains, between 10 and 20 percent of the 1.5 million criminals in American penitentiaries identify themselves as Muslim.
Most are black men, some Hispanic. More than 30,000 blacks embrace this faith behind bars every year.
Wohlrab-Sahr, who teaches at the University of Leipzig and has spent a research year at Berkeley, has labeled one group of converts "symbolic emigrants." These are people who feel stigmatized or alienated by their own culture, she explained in a telephone interview.
"They emigrate culturally, often without leaving their country," she continued. Thus from the perspective of Islam, they would be religious immigrants. If this applies to al Muhajir, his al-Qaeda nickname would indeed be appropriate.
Perhaps John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban" raised in upper-crust, liberal Marin County, Calif., could be classified that way too, although the Leipzig professor entered the caveat that she would have to study both cases before making an assessment.
'Tolerance'!
Even Torquato Cardilli, the Italian ambassador to Saudi Arabia who became a Muslim last fall, may be called a symbolic immigrant who found the new culture he took on more welcoming than his own. He praised its "dignity, hospitality, tolerance, kindness and relaxation."
But al Muhajir might also come under another rubric Wohlrab termed "methodization of life conduct." It includes people whose lives had gone into a tailspin and require discipline and structure.
'Simplistic Clarity'
"The simplistic clarity of some aspects of this religion appeals to certain elements in society, " agreed Hillel Fradkin, a Jewish specialist on Islam and president of Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Washington think tank.
In a similar vain, Boston University sociologist Peter L. Berger told UPI, "There are indeed many people who are susceptible for the claims of religious certainty offered by Islam and other groups defining themselves as absolute."
Trying to Link Christians to Muslim Terrorists
Berger named Mormonism as one of these groups. Leipzig's Wohlrab added Protestant fundamentalist Christian denominations to this category.
A third category of converts identified by Wohlrab seems less significant in evaluating the al Muhajir and Walker cases: the type she called "implementation of honor" in the realm of sexual and gender relations and morality.
Women, and some men, confused "by the course of changing gender arrangements" rank among this particular group of nominal "Christians" and others embracing Islam.
Surprisingly, theological considerations rarely play a major part in most conversions, even though most converts say they did. "The Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity is often mentioned," Wohlrab said, "but you would have to be a theological virtuoso to change your religion for this reason.
"More likely, they come up with this as an afterthought, when the deed is done and they have received some instruction in their new faith. But in general, people don't switch from Christianity to Islam as a result of their in-depth study of systematic theology."
Gone Slumming
Some did, of course, especially in the past. There were English eccentrics such as Sir Archibald Hamilton, a relative of the British royal family, who died in 1939.
At a stretch, the most educated man in German history, poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, might have been considered a closet Muslim, though that's highly unlikely.
A German Islamic group called Weimar, after the German town where Goethe worked as a grand duke's cabinet minister, claims the illustrious wordsmith might have converted because he mentioned the prophet Muhammad in his poetry and organized readings of the Koran in his sovereign's palace.
But Goethe connoisseurs retort that, given his concupiscent lifestyle, the poet wouldn't have lasted long as a Muslim. On the other hand, studying the Koran, Arabic literature and language were not uncommon pursuits by the educated classes of Goethe's highly cultured era.
But there exists a list of prominent and theologically learned converts. It includes an African Lutheran archbishop, a Methodist minister, a Coptic priest, a Russian Orthodox archpriest and a Pentecostal elder.
However, by and large statements by converts about their former and their present beliefs tend to prove Wohlrab's theory that these were merely afterthoughts.
For example, Ali Selman Benoist, a French physician who left Catholicism for Islam, posted this statement on the Internet: One "point which moved me away from Christianity was the absolute silence which it maintains regarding * cleanliness."
Failure of Christian Clergy?
Clearly, he has never read the Old Testament, which to Christians is as much Holy Scripture as the New Testament. Sighed Johannes Richter, a Leipzig theologian, "The church has but itself to blame if people are moving away from their own faith traditions.
"Many of our clergy have failed to explain these traditions well. So people become fascinated by an alien religion. But that's all right. It means that we have to double our efforts to succeed on the religious marketplace."
Confidently, Richter this former regional bishop, added, "If we do it right we have nothing to fear; we are competitive."
Copyright 2002 by United Press International.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/6/14/164318.shtml
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
NewsMax.com Wires
Saturday, June 15, 2002
WASHINGTON - What exactly is it that makes people such as suspected "dirty bomber" Abdullah al Muhajir turn to Islamic extremism? According to sociologists of religion and theologians, it is the search for security and structure in their lives.
Al Muhajir, a Puerto Rican born in New York as Jose Padilla, is under arrest for allegedly plotting to detonate a "dirty" nuclear device somewhere in the United States. He is thought to be in league with the al-Qaeda terrorist organization, which nicknamed him the "The Immigrant."
Ironically, this moniker fits into the typology of converts to Islam that Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, a German sociologist of religion, has developed after field studies in the United States and her own country.
Muslim Criminals: Largest Body of Converts in U.S.
Padilla converted to Islam while in jail. He therefore belongs to the largest body of converts in the United States. According to National Association of Muslim Chaplains, between 10 and 20 percent of the 1.5 million criminals in American penitentiaries identify themselves as Muslim.
Most are black men, some Hispanic. More than 30,000 blacks embrace this faith behind bars every year.
Wohlrab-Sahr, who teaches at the University of Leipzig and has spent a research year at Berkeley, has labeled one group of converts "symbolic emigrants." These are people who feel stigmatized or alienated by their own culture, she explained in a telephone interview.
"They emigrate culturally, often without leaving their country," she continued. Thus from the perspective of Islam, they would be religious immigrants. If this applies to al Muhajir, his al-Qaeda nickname would indeed be appropriate.
Perhaps John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban" raised in upper-crust, liberal Marin County, Calif., could be classified that way too, although the Leipzig professor entered the caveat that she would have to study both cases before making an assessment.
'Tolerance'!
Even Torquato Cardilli, the Italian ambassador to Saudi Arabia who became a Muslim last fall, may be called a symbolic immigrant who found the new culture he took on more welcoming than his own. He praised its "dignity, hospitality, tolerance, kindness and relaxation."
But al Muhajir might also come under another rubric Wohlrab termed "methodization of life conduct." It includes people whose lives had gone into a tailspin and require discipline and structure.
'Simplistic Clarity'
"The simplistic clarity of some aspects of this religion appeals to certain elements in society, " agreed Hillel Fradkin, a Jewish specialist on Islam and president of Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Washington think tank.
In a similar vain, Boston University sociologist Peter L. Berger told UPI, "There are indeed many people who are susceptible for the claims of religious certainty offered by Islam and other groups defining themselves as absolute."
Trying to Link Christians to Muslim Terrorists
Berger named Mormonism as one of these groups. Leipzig's Wohlrab added Protestant fundamentalist Christian denominations to this category.
A third category of converts identified by Wohlrab seems less significant in evaluating the al Muhajir and Walker cases: the type she called "implementation of honor" in the realm of sexual and gender relations and morality.
Women, and some men, confused "by the course of changing gender arrangements" rank among this particular group of nominal "Christians" and others embracing Islam.
Surprisingly, theological considerations rarely play a major part in most conversions, even though most converts say they did. "The Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity is often mentioned," Wohlrab said, "but you would have to be a theological virtuoso to change your religion for this reason.
"More likely, they come up with this as an afterthought, when the deed is done and they have received some instruction in their new faith. But in general, people don't switch from Christianity to Islam as a result of their in-depth study of systematic theology."
Gone Slumming
Some did, of course, especially in the past. There were English eccentrics such as Sir Archibald Hamilton, a relative of the British royal family, who died in 1939.
At a stretch, the most educated man in German history, poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, might have been considered a closet Muslim, though that's highly unlikely.
A German Islamic group called Weimar, after the German town where Goethe worked as a grand duke's cabinet minister, claims the illustrious wordsmith might have converted because he mentioned the prophet Muhammad in his poetry and organized readings of the Koran in his sovereign's palace.
But Goethe connoisseurs retort that, given his concupiscent lifestyle, the poet wouldn't have lasted long as a Muslim. On the other hand, studying the Koran, Arabic literature and language were not uncommon pursuits by the educated classes of Goethe's highly cultured era.
But there exists a list of prominent and theologically learned converts. It includes an African Lutheran archbishop, a Methodist minister, a Coptic priest, a Russian Orthodox archpriest and a Pentecostal elder.
However, by and large statements by converts about their former and their present beliefs tend to prove Wohlrab's theory that these were merely afterthoughts.
For example, Ali Selman Benoist, a French physician who left Catholicism for Islam, posted this statement on the Internet: One "point which moved me away from Christianity was the absolute silence which it maintains regarding * cleanliness."
Failure of Christian Clergy?
Clearly, he has never read the Old Testament, which to Christians is as much Holy Scripture as the New Testament. Sighed Johannes Richter, a Leipzig theologian, "The church has but itself to blame if people are moving away from their own faith traditions.
"Many of our clergy have failed to explain these traditions well. So people become fascinated by an alien religion. But that's all right. It means that we have to double our efforts to succeed on the religious marketplace."
Confidently, Richter this former regional bishop, added, "If we do it right we have nothing to fear; we are competitive."
Copyright 2002 by United Press International.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/6/14/164318.shtml
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
If you will blame gun makers for every shooting then blame car maker for every car accident.