[noqc]

Took the same path recently. Probably the easiest thing to point to if you're looking for something to convince people of Al Jazeera's nature, (besides specific articles), is the incredible amount of time and editorial space devoted to Yusuf al-Qaradawi on the arabic channel (before his death). The man had an audience of 60 million people for a decade and a half, and could reasonably be called the face of Al Jazeera Arabic. He has caused a lot of problems through that platform that hopefuly only the most radicalized westerner won't view as monstrous.

Probably no one who needs convincing is willing to read the ADL on him, but you can basically pick your source.

https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/Sheik-Yusuf-al-Qarad...

Here's a video of him asserting that "Hitler was a god given punishment upon the Jews, (not that the holocaust was as bad as they say)" on Al Jazeera TV.

https://www.memri.org/tv/sheik-yousuf-al-qaradhawi-allah-imp...

I guess you have to trust Memri's translation?

[Cyph0n]

Just to clarify: that clip was broadcast on a separate channel called AJ Live (“Mubasher”). It’s a 24/7 channel that basically broadcasts entire live events and re-runs - think press conferences, speeches, etc. I would compare it to something like C-SPAN in the US.

Now, how much editorial input AJ has over this channel, that I don’t know.

Edit: Kind of proud that my quick explanation lines up pretty well with the wiki entry haha: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_Mubasher

[aprilthird2021]

> the incredible amount of time and editorial space devoted to Yusuf al-Qaradawi on the arabic channel (before his death). The man had an audience of 60 million people for a decade and a half, and could reasonably be called the face of Al Jazeera Arabic. He has caused a lot of problems through that platform that hopefuly only the most radicalized westerner won't view as monstrous.

I don't know Arabic, but I am Muslim, and Yusuf al Qaradawi is probably most known as a preeminent Islamic scholar. Any mosque you go to will likely have a work by him because his scholarship on the Quran and Hadith (not necessarily his views on current events) are very renowned. I'm not sure what makes him so radical and evil to be honest. He has written tons of scholarly works about Islam, interpretation of Islamic rules and laws, etc. And from looking online I see he was on Al Jazeera hosting a program called "Sharia and Life". These kinds of call-a-sheikh / Islamic info shows are pretty common in the Muslim world and probably have more viewership than news channels. Something Americans probably might not understand...

But it makes total sense for Al Jazeera Arabic (a channel with possibly a 90% Muslim viewership) to have a Muslim ask-a-sheikh show.

[noqc]

Scholarship on the Quran means what, to you, exactly?

To me it just sounds that he's an expert in convincing people that it is god's will to implement his agenda. Taking the Quran as a source of absolute truth and then taking the further step of handing the reins of interpretation to some "preeminent scholar" is a recipe for exactly the kind of extremism that you see plaguing the Islamic world.

Your and my claims about what Qaradawi is are not mutually exclusive, and are in fact deeply correlated.

[aprilthird2021]

> Scholarship on the Quran means what, to you, exactly?

The guy famously studied for like 20 years at Al-Azhar getting a bunch of degrees in Islamic scholarship from the largest mainstream Islamic school in the world. That's what I mean.

>To me it just sounds that he's an expert in convincing people that it is god's will to implement his agenda

Can you cite some controversial or not seen before analysis from any of his works? Most of his publications, that I'm aware of, are pretty standard interpretations of Islamic jurisprudence. It's nothing that would shock or surprise an average Muslim, imo.

>Taking the Quran as a source of absolute truth and then taking the further step of handing the reins of interpretation to some "preeminent scholar" is a recipe for exactly the kind of extremism that you see plaguing the Islamic world.

That's actually the kind of stuff he and other modernist Islamic scholars (Israr Ahmed is a similar scholar but for South Asia, where I'm from) were against. They both championed the idea that the Quran and Hadith are pretty clear and don't need expert opinion for many things. That people should take the time to read Arabic and read Quran and hadiths and they would not have much need for Sheikhs.

In general, this type of "democratic" or "non-hierarchical" view of Islamic scholarship is pretty modern. Older peoples (before the "extremism" you're talking about ostensibly) would have been much more hierarchical and rigid about the need to consult scholars rather than attempt to learn things oneself.

> Your and my claims about what Qaradawi is are not mutually exclusive, and are in fact deeply correlated.

So then you agree it's not a big deal that Al Jazeera has him on their network, since he's a pretty mainstream scholar? Okay, thanks for the chat I guess

[noqc]

I believe that you don't have the perspective to understand my claim, because you are a believer. I would very much like you to try though.

I claim that religious scholarship and religious fundamentalism are one and the same. You're arguing that Qaradawi was an Islamic scholar, I'm arguing that he was an Islamic fundamentalist. However, in all religious scholarship, there are further choices to be made once you are a fundamentalist. The book contradicts itself (intentionally, as it's more important that people who believe different Islams both be able to call themselves Muslim), and Qaradawi had further used his position of "celebrated religious scholar" to assert that it is Shari'a to annihilate the Jews, and used his general credibility to deny the severity of the holocaust. That's just this clip.

You can't become a religious leader without being a religious scholar, and you can't lead an extremist sect without leaning on that classification pretty heavily.

[aprilthird2021]

Rather than assuming anything about me, just ask. That's what an online forum is for.

> I claim that religious scholarship and religious fundamentalism are one and the same

This is straying quite a bit from the original claim, that Al Jazeera was wrong to have the scholar on the air. But if you believe, as you claim to, that religious scholarship and religious fundamentalism are the same, then you can't really begrudge the network for having him on, for they could not have any religious scholar on who was not a fundamentalist, according to you. And at least they picked a very mainstream one, no?

That logic out of the way, what do you describe as "fundamentalism"? If the idea that the Quran is the literal, unchanging word of God is fundamentalist, then yeah, all Islamic scholarship will be fundamentalist. If non-fundanentalisn is described as beliefs not orthogonal to the fundamental beliefs of the religion, then yes, you'll be right.

It depends on what you mean.

> The book contradicts itself

In what way, relevant to the discussion we are having where you seem to be most concerned with Qaradawi's anti-Semitic remarks? There's a whole litany of irrelevant arguments we could have about contradictions in the source material, but what specific contradiction do you think he can exploit to make questionable claims in your mind about Israel and/or Jews?

> is Shari'a to annihilate the Jews, and used his general credibility to deny the severity of the holocaust.

So the clip you linked does not say that. Sharia is law. What he's echoing is the belief that sometimes calamities in the world are punishments for moral failings of groups of people. Many religions believe this. It was even insinuated by Muslim scholars that loss of dignity and faith by Muslims was what led to the calamity suffered by the Palestinians. [1]

Is it anti-Muslim to believe that the moral failings of billions of Muslims can cause many Muslims to face calamities as we see today? I don't think so. Many Muslims believe that. Likewise, I don't think it's wrong to believe this about any people, and that's what he's saying in this clip.

If you believe people are not collectively punished by God as groups, that's fine, but there are very clear examples of this happening in religious source material (Sodom is the main one). And as such, I think the only questionable element is him saying "they exaggerate" when referring to the Holocaust. And yes I disagree with that. But it's not an Islamic scholarship issue, that.

[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZdPxihcKEIk

[alchemist1e9]

We are all trained starting from childhood to use a Hero-Villain framework when observing conflicts and it leaves us very confused when the real world is closer to Villain-Villain situation.

Anytime I ever bring up say Kissinger and the crazy realpolitik actions he took, or now this lunatic Ben-Gvir in Israel I’ve recently learned about, other people are trained to see me as a communist or anti-semite immediately, because if I object to a US figure, I must be with the other side, same with Israel.

I don’t really know how to navigate this problem to be honest.

You are 1000% correct al-Qaradhawi is total evil.

[jfim]

> I don’t really know how to navigate this problem to be honest.

Realistically, you can't, other than finding people who can accept that reality is shades of grey, not "my team good, other team bad."

[wahnfrieden]

Maybe you are ready to learn about Anarchism