New wave of foreigners in Syrian fight

[xchrom]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/new-wave-of-foreigners-in-syrian-fight/2013/06/21/e32d9d58-d9b8-11e2-b418-9dfa095e125d_story.html

CAIRO — He was young and bright, with an education from Egypt’s premier school of Islamic studies and lucrative job offers in the Gulf.

But Bilal Farag chose a different path, friends say, one that led him to die on a distant Syrian battlefield while fighting Shiite Muslims he regarded as infidels.

“Everybody has their own goal in life,” said a close friend, Hosam Ali. “Bilal’s was to be a martyr.”

Waves of Egyptians are now preparing to follow, fired by the virulently sectarian rhetoric of Sunni preachers and encouraged by the newly permissive policies of Egypt’s Islamist government. In recent days, this city’s ancient mosques have crackled with calls for jihad, as hard-line Sunni Muslim leaders command the faithful to respond to recent escalations in Syria by the Shiite forces of Iran and Hezbollah.

[snagglepuss]

1. It cetainly puts the lie to the notion of the ummah. Islam simply can't deal with plurality,not even

within it own community.

[Igel]

2. How so?

Does saying "I want my America back" put the lie to the notion of America?

Does saying that "we the people" excludes a lot of Americans that the Constitution applies to "put the lie" to the notion of Americans or the Constitution?

It works like this. If Syria were attacked by Israel, the ummah preached by Sunni clerics would immediately include Assad. You see it in having Hamas--a branch of the Ikhwan--working with Tehran against Israel.

If there's an outbreak of hostilities between Shi'ites and Sunnis, suddenly wimply Sunnis become "ummah" while the Shi'ites are in no way ummah.

If there's an outbreak of violence between wimpy Sunnis in Egypt and Salafiy, then it's a bit harder to draw the line but you still get the line drawn by some of the most Salafist of the Salafiy.

But you're right in a way: As soon as there's an attack on a Muslim, then there's only one Islam. You try to divide them in ways that a Muslim cleric doesn't like, and Islam is monolithic. On the other hand, as soon as a Muslim does something truly wrong that doesn't facilitate the clerics' goals, then that person isn't really a Muslim. (Notice: He's not a different kind of Muslim.) That's one reason why it was so hard for so long for Muslims in the US to denounce and decry Muslim terrorists and it was easier to deny the facts and say that it was done by non-Muslims. To say somebody isn't a Muslim is a grievous thing.

The degree of diversity of thought allowed by a Muslim is frequently variable. Some are tolerant. Some intolerant. Some sort of undecided.