Al Qaeda attack on the Hajj foiled

Salaams Aziz,

Normally I just link and excerpt, but I picked up this entire piece and republished at my blog to keep the sense of it (with appropriate link-love, of course). Let me know if this is a problem for you and I'll remove it.

A question: Is self-defense against the indiscriminate violence of others who claim to be Muslim de facto takfir?

Does a Muslim who supports US military (or other Western governments) efforts to engage such people with potentially deadly force avoid the proscription against Muslims making war on other Muslims?

Salaam says: "Does a Muslim who supports US military (or other Western governments) efforts to engage such people with potentially deadly force avoid the proscription against Muslims making war on other Muslims?"

This is a very good question.

We in the West usually get the impression, for watching Muslims in the Muslim lands articulating their opinions, that Muslims generally do not have a very strong tradition and history of DISSENT, of openly CRITICIZING the Muslim establishment like often we do in the parts of the world where democracy has flourished. Whatever Muslims do is fine, it seems, as long as they're Muslim.

I can't expect Muslims to trust the US or Western governments, necessarily, but: What will it take for Muslims to stop being paranoid and realize that we share a common enemy and a common threat to all of human civilization, not just to 'muslims in prayer'?

And ... what motivation would al Qaida have for attacking pilgrims during hajj?

Done. I excerpted the story direct and extended your invite to readers to come here for discussion.

personally i dont beleive this article at all, that a muslim person would attack the holy cities at all, and believe it an attempt by cia /the west to get muslims agreeing with the so called "war on terror".