Why don't we have sikhophobia, hinduphobia or buddhismophobia?

Aha i see. Still their logic is stupid because they would rather spend their life trying to achieve that in which thousands of Muslims lives might be lost...instead of actually practicing Islam and performing important pillars of Islam. Really no sense.

No, we 'came to terms' with Iran (which is a bit of a strong statement tbh, we're hardly that chummy with them) because we had no choice. The Middle East is unstable enough as is, and the Iranian nuclear program is far more threatening than North Korea's. North Korea, in the opinion of every commentator I've heard from, have hardly progressed from dirty bombs. Also, Iran are far more politically involved than North Korea, who has absolutely no interest in agreeing terms with anyone about anything.

It's not really a pilgrimage though, is it?
There is no hardship or extended travelling involved. Everyone looks forward to it with excitement. You jump on a plane direct to Saudi. Air conditioned coach to a luxury hotel. Fully catered. Have you not seen all the websites advertising hajj packages?
Not a holiday. Pfft!

And not all holidays involve relaxation. Never heard of activity holidays?

Sorry, but it is you who lacks understanding. You have been fed this cherry-picked, sanitised version (no, don't deny it - it is obvious from the standard arguments you use) that is not supported by the Quran and sunnah.
Just look at the Battle of Badr (I'm sure I've been through this with you before). That was caused by Muhammad riding out of Medina with an army to attack a large and valuable Quraysh caravan returning from Syria. The Meccan army only rode out from Mecca when they found out about the imminent attack.
Now, how was that "self-defence"? If anything, the Quraysh were acting in self defence.

And explain how Islam expanded from Medina without offensive military actions? How were battles as far away as Syria "self defence". How is besieging tribes who have never attacked you "self defence"?

You just don't question the accepted narrative because you can't. Because when you do, it starts to unravel.

So, Ibn Kathir, and the sahaba whose accounts he relies on, was not a "proper Muslim"?

And Allah, when he commands muslims to "find, besiege and ambush" disbelievers? He is clearly authorising offensive actions. Remember that in 9:5, the conquered polytheists have been given 4 months to convert or go into exile. There is no fighting. The war is over, but Allah still says that Muslims are to hunt down and kill those who did not convert or leave.
Self defence? Hardly!

I didn't say anything about them representing all Muslims though. I know that most Muslims don't subscribe to their reading of Islam.



It's very unlikely, given the coalition assembled to destroy them. They don't have the material means to win this war, but they do present a real danger on the propaganda front. They've already orchestrated (or at least claim to have done so) significant attacks in faraway countries using the native-born citizens of those countries, and that is the far greater danger in the long-term.



Any number of reasons. Cultural Muslims, who constitute the majority of the world's Muslims, don't recognise the Salafi Islam practised by the IS as their own religion; even for fundamentalists, life generally appeals more than a squalid death on some battlefield; others agree with the IS's goals but disapprove strongly of their methods and therefore elect to sit out this conflict until a more suitable/Islamic (from their point of view) opportunity presents itself. And so on.

Though it's important to note that some Muslims (both from there and from around the world) do indeed support them and have joined them. Their tens of thousands of fighters did come from somewhere, after all.



One has to be objective about any ideology. There's a temptation, if one assumes as an axiom that faith = good, necessarily, to give more weight to evidence that suggests that a religion is pacifistic than evidence that suggests otherwise. Like any ideology, we can only judge religions on their scriptures.

The scriptures of the three Abrahamic religions suggest (at least to me) that they are neither completely peaceful nor completely violent, but contain rather a lot of both. The majority of adherents (thankfully) disregard/are unaware of the violent passages in practice, but the existence of that majority may not be used to deny the existence of those passages, in the same way as the existence of a violent minority may not be used to deny the existence of peaceful/compassion-encouraging passages.

So, in summary: we should listen to neither the terrorists nor the peaceful majority when trying to make a statement about what Islam 'really' is, in any sense.

Actually, an Islamic group, whose ideology was very close to ISIS, already tried to seize Mecca - arguably, they succeeded for two weeks. In 1979, they took control of the Grand Mosque with several hundreds of pilgrims.
The Saudi evacuated the whole city and attacked the Mosque; they made a surgical grenade assault that killed pretty much everybody in there.

Ironically, this lead the Saudi to enforce Wahhabism in order to prevent other similar groups from spawning in Saudi Arabia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Mosque_seizure

I would also like to point that Mecca doesn't need ISIS to see thousands of dead during the Hajj.

Ok we should listen to no Muslim is what you saying. Not sure how that will work.....

Not sure about your last sentence. I am talking about murder here. The hajj is still being performed til this date so they did not succeed in their plan.

Do you think anyone can stop hajj from taking place? I believe it is protected.

No, that's not what I'm saying. Muslims who want to discuss the faith from a scriptural point of view should obviously be listened to (e.g. scholars, interested non-scholars, etc.) What I'm saying is that in the same way as it's not possible to look at the actions of the IS and say, 'this definitely represents the teachings of Islam', it's also not possible to state that the peaceful majority definitely represents Islam (especially given that peaceability is the only thing they have in common, and are otherwise diverse in opinions), for the simple reason that Islam is a set of ideas, and Muslims are people with identities, who tend to carry all sorts of cultural and political influences/biases.

A set of ideas can only be debated on its contents, not on the actions of those that claim to hold to them. Otherwise a Muslim from Indonesia would be no different to a Muslim from tribal areas of Pakistan, nor from a Muslim from England, when vast differences between these is clearly the observed state of affairs.



Well, the IS partly captured its weaponry from the Iraqi army, which all but collapsed during their initial offensive in 2014. As for the rest of it - captured from other opposition groups, the Syrian army, and acquired illegally using money from illegal oil sales (with some suspicion of Turkish collusion in this respect), private donors, extortion, ransom, etc.



Whether they can or can't depends rather on what you mean by stopping them. Can their territory be taken from them and their fighters/leaders killed, given enough time? Without a doubt. But this is essentially a war of ideas, and it's much harder to defeat them in that area, given the ease with which propaganda can be disseminated these days.

No, that's not what I'm saying. Muslims who want to discuss the faith from a scriptural point of view should obviously be listened to (e.g. scholars, interested non-scholars, etc.) What I'm saying is that in the same way as it's not possible to look at the actions of the IS and say, 'this definitely represents the teachings of Islam', it's also not possible to state that the peaceful majority definitely represents Islam (especially given that peaceability is the only thing they have in common, and are otherwise diverse in opinions), for the simple reason that Islam is a set of ideas, and Muslims are people with identities, who tend to carry all sorts of cultural and political influences/biases.

A set of ideas can only be debated on its contents, not on the actions of those that claim to hold to them. Otherwise a Muslim from Indonesia would be no different to a Muslim from tribal areas of Pakistan, nor from a Muslim from England, when vast differences between these is clearly the observed state of affairs.



Well, the IS partly captured its weaponry from the Iraqi army, which all but collapsed during their initial offensive in 2014. As for the rest of it - captured from other opposition groups, the Syrian army, and acquired illegally using money from illegal oil sales, extortion, ransom, etc.



Whether they can or can't depends rather on what you mean by stopping them. Can their territory be taken from them and their fighters/leaders killed, given enough time? Without a doubt. But this is essentially a war of ideas, and it's much harder to defeat them in that area, given the ease with which propaganda can be disseminated these days.

The goal of Ikhwan (the Wahhabi group that seized the grand Mosque) was not to prevent the Hajj. It was to "free" Mecca from the Saudi and start a revolt against them.

I meant that there have been many deadly incidents during Hajj without ISIS.

Yep I certainly do not want to listen to individuals that calim they are Muslims but kill innocent Muslims and non-Muslims.

A small but important distinction: we're talking about actions here. You may personally not want to listen to the opinions of extremists, and that's fine, but what I'm saying is we can't say anything about Islam based on the actions of Muslims (tendency to violence/peaceability). So you can't look at the aforementioned Muslims and use that as evidence for what Islam says (though the two may be found to be in partial agreement on further study), but the same goes for peaceful cultural Muslims.



How do you mean? If you mean to ask whether I'm aware that Syria isn't a two-dog fight between the regime and the IS, the answer is yes. It's a messy civil war with multiple groups fighting.

No no. You are so wrong. Look at the reason and purpose of going to hajj. And ofcourse Muslims will be excited, they getting to fulfill something really important in Islam.

Funny thing is there isn't really any evidence that muhammed existed in the way that people think he did.

Infact islam seems to be a product of the arabic conquests and was created after the conquests started.

There is very little evidence for pretty much anything in the quran (mecca is only mentioned once)

Muhammed probably didn't even exist, but the arab empire needed a holy figure (the same way the roman empire had jesus)

Ok we should listen to no Muslim is what you saying. Not sure how that will work.....

The question has statistical background. All Islamist are not cruel but majority are which leads to this phobia . In case of other religion vice versa is applicable imo . I am not always correct.

majority? Nah.