There is a video that is on Google Video that sums up some striking similarities between the modern day terrorists movements and the rise of neoconservatives. Although the video has errors and some views that we might take issue with as Muslims, it’s an interesting movie nonetheless. Maybe you’ve heard of it, “The Power of Nightmares”: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2798679275960015727&ei=Dbj5SrWPAp3eqALVibCKCw&q=the+power+of+nightmares&hl=en&view=2#

Derrick

can you please address Um Hana & Afghani Muslim’s questions? They are really interesting perspectives and I find myself questioning similar things.

jazakAllahu khairan.

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/declassified/archive/2009/11/09/imam-anwar-al-awlaki-calls-hasan-hero.aspx.

Yes, I understand and agree and indeed apply the duty to obey US laws.

My question is: according to scholars are there circumstances under which disobedience to laws is required?

Under international law, it is established – most conspicuously in the Nuremberg trials – that obeying orders, or obeying the law, is not an excuse for committing – for example – “crimes against humanity”. It is in fact the law that one must obey one’s individual moral conscience in defiance of the law when that law is unjust (and that law may only be deemed unjust retroactively, after one has suffered the consequences for disobeying it).

Would muslims in Nazi Germany or Nazi-occupied Europe have had to obey the 3rd Reich and not rebelled against it – e.g. by joining the French Resistance – because it was the ruling authority and legally established entity at that time, doing everything it did “legally”?

More recently, and at home in the US – would muslims have been wrong or right in joining the civil rights movement tactics that disobeyed laws – like seating african americans at “whites only” lunch counters – which was against state law at the time.

Laws in the West are man-made and make no claims to divine revelation, and democracies depend on the consent of the governed – so within its own legal framework it allows change and dissent, and even mandates it when men have created unjust laws. Do muslims in the West have a similar relationship to laws in the west or must they obey laws regardless?

By the way, Anyone who thinks i’m trying to support Hasan’s actions by the above question is absolutely wrong and has misinterpreted my question.

I’m trying to understand more about the moral obligations of the individual to conscience vs. to the state/legal entities according to the scholars.

When we take such a covenant is it allowable for us to abide by laws that directly oppose Islam? For example in Islam we are allowed to defend ourselves and our property, we are commanded to not kill innocent lifes. If a command issued by those who we took a covenant say that we must go kill innocent people are we allowed to obey them when this is against what Allah commands us?

Now if we take the US military as unlawful invaders of a foreign land – killing innocent people, then what ‘covenant’ does he have with the US when it opposes the covenant he has with God in the Quran. He saw this as his chance to kill the oppressors who are going on a mission to improperly invade another country – he saw it as God’s work, so he yelled ‘Allahu Akbar’ when he pulled the trigger.

Now for me, I think the US is implenting justice in the foreign lands of Iraq and Afghanistan. If you think the US Army is illegal in it’s invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq- and think they are killing innocent people- then for you what this man did was noble and he is a martyr, for me he was a criminal.

Call the cards the way the are, and don’t call the jack of spades and ace of hearts. This man didn’t kill his neighbor, or the police force, or his governor, he killed soldiers, and not just any soldiers – those that were going overseas to fight in a war he thought was illegal based on the covenant he has with God’s word in the Quran, however for Muslims we should be supporting the US army not because we are in the minority in this country or have taken a “covenant” with the US government so we are law-abiding against our will, but because we believe in what the US gov. is doing overseas! And we Muslims should know very well the nature of our past corrupt rulers in the Taliban and Sadaam, and the fact that the US is sacrificing much in our lands for the betterment of the next generation of Iraqis and Afghanis should be recognized by respect for our US army. And aid and support of the US army not b/c of a covenant against our will, but a covenant we make conciously and willingly, a covenant we make before God to do good on this earth while we have life.

So, a Muslim army major has gone on the rampage with two automatic handguns on a US army base in Texas, and killed (so far) 13 people. Obviously, the usual suspects rush to blame Muslims generally and to cast aspersions on the loyalty of Muslims or th…