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"how Arab culture subsumed Islam and turned it into a political empire" ... you do realize that it's the (paedophile) prophet who did that. This statement of you is akin to saying that what Jesus Christ did has nothing to do with Christianity. That Krishna's actions do not have anything to do with Hinduism. That Marx and communism are totally unrelated, and anyone implying connection between Hitler and Nazism is just babbling racist nonsense meant to "hurt nazi feelings".

Which part, exactly, of islam does not support the political empire ? I am very interested in your opinion. And please, refrain from naming tiny sects that are persecuted and massacred in the muslim world. It may very well be true that Bahai islam, Sufi islam and Ahmadiyya islam have different ideas about this, but let's get real here.

Your points, when you're attacking the political culture of Islam as defined by a state, are mostly valid. But you are making an error in combining Islam as political culture and Islam as religion. Unfortunately, I will concede to you that most people, many Muslims (and Christians, and Jews) make the same mistake. We are only human after all, and definitely not perfect

Yes where would I get the idea that islam is only a totalitarian political system, literally encompassing every last action one ever takes, from being born to wiping one's ass, sitting down only in the allowed manner ? From killing any dissenters, to cleaning sandals, ... everything. Joseph Stalin would find these rules suffocating.

Feel free, in any rebuttal, to include the reason that you think you know better than all "schools" of islam. Not just one, but all of them. Furthermore, I seriously doubt you've ever even talked to a muslim. I seriously doubt you've ever even touched that most boring of books (seriously it takes all one's willpower to read even a single chapter, it's that convoluted and boring. Okay there are 2 or 3 pages that are weak versions of biblical stories at the end, and they color it just a little bit, but if you actually read it up to that point either you're studying it, or there is something wrong with you. Seriously. Reading the bible is hard, for it's a very long book indeed. But I guarantee there are a whole lot more Christians that have read the bible cover to cover than there are muslims that have read even one of the longer chapters of the quran)

Also feel free to explain how having a 9 year old girl dragged into your bedroom, an action that according to muslim texts required several slaves to accomplish, and then "having sex" with her as a 53 year old man (note that the text conspicuously doesn't say that those slaves left before the act. One that reads between the lines might think that physical restraint was required for the act, and that the actual man was incapable to provide it) is comparable to marriages between 14 year old boys and 12 year old girls. You'd even be right in pointing out that the paedophile prophet's actions weren't that strange for a man that probably had visited brothels of the Roman empire, and that he was probably not the only guy in the Roman empire doing it. However, it is, was, and always will be a vile, reprehensible action and any religion that condones it is equally vile and repr

In Pakistan it might...

Never did anybody other than retarded atheists with nothing else to do claim that christians or jews say the earth is 6000 years old.

There are plenty of Young Earth Creationist Christians who believe the earth was created in 4004 BCE, making the earth 6000 years old. By saying atheists all came up with it you're showing your ignorance.

As for political, yes, it has changed the face of politics for good.

Burning witches on the stake was good? The crusades were good? Queen Isabella of Castile forcibly making Jews and Muslims either convert or leave Spain was good? The persecution of Gnostic Christians by the church was good? If you mean religion brought us democracy and liberty, you're wrong there too. Democracy and liberty came out of the Age of Enlightenment which was preceded by the Age of Reason in Europe. Both were rebellions from church authority. Among the Founding Fathers of the USA, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamen Franklin were supporters of Enlightenment, which gave rise to Classical Liberalism, meaning liberty and small governemnt.

Where is compassion without christianity or judaism I ask you?

Compassion is partially what Buddhism is about. Specifically Buddhism is about eliminating suffering. The Four Noble Truths focuses on suffering. Islam too deals with compassion and suffering.

Oh, yeah, about those Crusades: many, many, centuries ago, my li'l crystal polisher.

The fact that there are any Muslims -- no matter how statistically insignificant their numbers -- who consider these acts to be religious acts is in and of itself shocking. And therefore we as Muslims have to ask the question, 'How is it that our religious leadership has failed to reach these people with the true message of Islam?'' Because the acts of these criminals have indicted an entire religion in the hearts and minds of millions. Ultimately, this is a result of the bankruptcy of these type of people who claim to be adherents to the Islamic religion. These people are so bankrupt that all they have to offer is destruction.

It sounds noble and great but entirely misses the point. It's easy to condemn the bombers compared to the harder task of formally and persistently issuing fatwas against those who preach that hate and categorize themselves as true muslims. Attacking the preachers who conceive and spread the salafist memes used to justify these attacks is the heart of the Muslim duty to fight these extremists and he passes on a few opportunities to do it.

Second link:

Just a few days ago, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, the highest and most respected Islamic authority in the world, who resides in Egypt, also made this clear. The Grand Imam said that the Koran specifically forbids the kinds of things the Taliban and al-Qaida are guilty of. He said the jihad Usama bin Laden has called for against America is invalid and not binding on Muslims. He said that "Islam rejects all of these acts." He called terrorism un-Islamic. In fact, he says, "Killing innocent civilians is a horrific, hideous act that no religion can approve."

The condemnation is again of the acts, not the underlying theology, a theology that is making great strides in the muslim world carried far and wide via petrodollar donations to build mosques and fund imams.

Third link:
This one is better but it's been three years since that conference discussed in the story and there seems little evidence that the imams have even made much of a dent in impressing on muslims the difference between commendable jihad and sinful irhab. You'd think all those moderate muslims might persuade Sheikh Hamad of Qatar, who funds and protects Al Jazeera to hold some religious instruction training for the news staff at Al Jazeera to impress upon them that they are promoting irhab on a regular basis. No go, apparently. Converting the commanding heights of muslim communication to a channel that properly uses irhab and jihad apparently not important enough to get done, maybe next year.

Fourth Link:
Now it's useful to condemn OBL

In the light of this evidence, the Taliban had no justification for continuing to protect bin Laden. Why protect him? Is he a saint or a prophet? He is a man who himself has admitted arranging car-bomb attacks on U.S. embassies. He is no saint."

But it misses the point that there was an infrastructure of teaching that produced OBL and the actions that he did. That, however, did not come in for the same condemnation. This is like pulling dandelion stems out but leaving the roots in. You know that you're not really attacking the problem, just today's symptom.

Fifth Link:
You're quoting a Hezbollah imam as part of the solution? You've got to be joking. Hezbollah is part of the problem as their pimping for Syria after the Hariri assassination amply demonstrates. When Hezbollah and Al Queda fri

The leading moral authority for Sunnis is the rector or Grand Imam of the al-Azhar Seminary/ University in Cairo, Egypt. Al-Azhar is perhaps the world's oldest continuous university and has been since the time of Saladin a major center of Sunni religious authority. The current incumbent is Shaikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi. So what about Tantawi and Bin Laden?

Grand Imam of Al-Azhar seminary, Shaikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, condemns Osamah Bin Laden. Here's another cached link from Washington Post reporting on the same condemnation.

What about Pakistan? Pakistani Cleric Tahir ul Qadri condemns Bin Laden.

Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi is a TV preacher, and pretty popular with a wide Arabic audience on Al-Jazeera. He absolutely despises Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaradawi has repeatedly condemned Al-Qaeda. He even gave a fatwa that it was a duty of Muslims to fight alongside the US in Afghanistan against al-Qaeda! Yusuf Qaradawi Condemns Al Qaeda.

Hamza Yusuf is a sheikh, what about the Shi'ites? Most fatwas of that sort are in arabic, but here's one reported: Ayatollah Muhammad Husain Fadlallah of Lebanon condemns Osama Bin Laden

Don't forget the West!> There are 250,000 Muslims in Spain: Spanish Muslim Clerical authorities Issue Fatwa against Osamah Bin Laden. Russia is 15% Muslim, with 20 Million Muslims. High Mufti of Russian Muslims calls for Extradition of Bin Laden. And they're not saying that to please Putin or anything.

If you're looking for someone to make a fatwa that says so-and-so is in Hell right now, you're not going to find that, as Muslims aren't allowed to judge people, only God can. They can say that murder and suicide are both hell-worthy sins, and they all said that. This isn't like Catholicism where you can just excommunicate people either. You can label Bin Laden a sinner (and believe me, there's quite a lot of people who did), but in Islam you can't say whether he's an atheist or not. That's just semantics, everyone knows Bin Laden is a wrongdoer, and have said so.

As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them first, next refuse to share their beds, and last beat them lightly; but if they return to obedience, seek not against them means of annoyance.