She's not wrong. Niqab/ burka is cultural, not religious, and you're only 'meant' to cover the hair (indeed the specific Koranic guidance is that you're not allowed to cover the face during the Hajj, so niqab/ burka are banned there).

14 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

She's not wrong. Niqab/ burka is cultural, not religious, and you're only 'meant' to cover the hair (indeed the specific Koranic guidance is that you're not allowed to cover the face during the Hajj, so niqab/ burka are banned there).

Most of muslims follow ideology that person themself doesn't interpret what Koran say but that is left to religious scholars, bit similar to old school Catholicism, which though people themselves interpreting bible was heresy. 

Mainly in my understanding Niqab/ burka use is based on texts of two muslim scholars Ahmad ibn an-Naqib al-Misrin (he says in his text that most muslim scholars, except some that belong in Hanafi school agree that women should hide their faces when in public) and Muhammad al-Ghazali said in his text that God/Allah set 18 punishments for all women because Eve ate forbidden apple, one of those punishments was that women need to use headscarf.

8 hours ago, BruceVC said:

You right, its a pity we dont have more global responsibility to deal with this type of extremism  

You've played too much C&C, don't think there'll ever be a GDI. 😛

6 minutes ago, Malcador said:

You've played too much C&C, don't think there'll ever be a GDI. 😛

Too bad, then I'd be able to join the Brotherhood

Just a thought experiment on my part, but maybe the US, the UK, West Germany and other countries did their job a bit too well when supporting the Mujahedin financially, materially and politically in their fight against the Soviet Union. Lots of those old fighters (who later moved on to lead AQ and other groups) learnt that major, foreign powers can be defeated and driven off if you try hard enough, no matter how big they are. Not that the Soviet Union didn't screw up badly too, suddenly getting mixed up in an Afghan civil war between two factions.

5 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

She's not wrong. Niqab/ burka is cultural, not religious, and you're only 'meant' to cover the hair (indeed the specific Koranic guidance is that you're not allowed to cover the face during the Hajj, so niqab/ burka are banned there).

Yes, that is what I was saying. Her response was perfect to his clumsy statement.

On the state of the Afghanistan army and the U.S. trying to build them up: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/68d75dfkdampyr0/interesting_insight_into_the_abysmal_state_of_the-zy22bendf0i71.mp4

Thought this was a comedy skit at first, but no... Personally, I'm very happy we're finally getting out: sunk costs should not dictate future costs. Sucks for everyone involved (that we wasted so many lives and so much money and time and effort, for those of them that wanted and depended on us being there, and so on), it really does, but that's life - the best time to have gotten out was right away, the second best is right now. Let's not try to do any more nation-building for a long time, thank you very much - we don't exactly have a good track record of it anyways.

Edited August 18, 20214 yr by Bartimaeus

5 hours ago, Gorth said:

Just a thought experiment on my part, but maybe the US, the UK, West Germany and other countries did their job a bit too well when supporting the Mujahedin financially, materially and politically in their fight against the Soviet Union. Lots of those old fighters (who later moved on to lead AQ and other groups) learnt that major, foreign powers can be defeated and driven off if you try hard enough, no matter how big they are. Not that the Soviet Union didn't screw up badly too, suddenly getting mixed up in an Afghan civil war between two factions.

Your post is not a thought experiment but is the historical truth around the sequence of events that led to the  creation of AQ and the Afghan War heavily influenced the strategy of the Taliban

After USSR left Afghanistan Bin Laden created  AQ because he believed that the best way to deal with any attempt to undermine or conquer  Sunni countries was to use a Sunni army and not rely on foreign countries for defense

He wanted Saudi Arabia to not bring the likes of the USA into ME conflicts and blamed the US for  the fact Saudi Arabia and most of the ME countries wanted Western countries to help in the Second Gulf  War... hence the US became the " great evil " and was targeted by AQ which lead to 9/11

But yes Bin Laden and the Taliban views were shaped by the events and success of Soviet Afghan War

But one point I disagree with, the USSR was directly responsible for the Soviet Afghan War. They invaded Afghanistan to support the  puppet Communist government  in 1979 so I am not sure why you would think they are not ultimately responsible for the creation of AQ as you follow the sequence of historical events because if the Soviets hadnt invaded Afghanistan  you would not  have had Bin Laden and other foreign fighters flocking to Afghanistan to support the mujahideen

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet–Afghan_War

https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/al-qaeda

 

New thread: