[Bleeding Red]

Originally Posted by Lucky boy

Okay Bleeding, I will bite and respond to your arguments

I am pretty sure that muslims try to stay as far from alcohol as they possibly can. A muslim man I work with was holding a small house party and had invited several guests. One of the guests had brought a bottle of wine as a gift, obviously not knowing that islam prohibits alcohol. The muslim was clearly very uncomfortable when the guest tried to hand him the bottle of wine. He politely refused the gift and asked his guest to place the wine on the nearest coffee table to the door. At the end of the night, he politely asked his guest to take the bottle of wine with him. Not once did he touch the bottle, not even to move it from one spot to another.

I am pretty sure islam prohibits muslims from going to areas where alcohol is being consumed, as well as any form of physical handling of the alcohol as well.

I think the article is a little overblown. I highly doubt cabbies ask all their passengers to open up their suitcases and start searching for alcohol. I would think it is more along the lines were the cabbie can visibly see the alcohol, possibly in a duty free bag, and immediately feel uncomfortable having it in his car.

Personally i think its silly for muslim cabbies to not give rides to people who have alcohol with them. Almost any line of work in any non-muslim society will probably have some sort of contradiction to some of the practices of Islam. It is part of the package that comes with living in a country that is different from your own.

I am pretty shocked with the reaction on this board to a silly issue like this. This isn't the end of the world. Muslim cabbies are not going to start rulling NA because they don't want to give rides to people with alcohol. Is this topic really worth 12 pages?

This is quite the misinterpretation. From the same page where you copied that verse from, it quite cleary explains that God "warns the muslims of the danger which brought the downfall of the jewish nation". This danger is as explained in the verse as those who read the books of God but do not observe its teachings. God compares those types of peoples to donkeys carrying books. This verse is not meant for only Jews, it is a stern reminder to Jews, Christians and Muslims to make sure they read the books of God and follow its teachings.

I am not overly interested in entering a religous debate with you Bleeding Red, but I am concerned that you threw in the "Muslims descriminate against Jews" card into the circle when not once in the article was there any mention of anything to do with Jewish people. Not only that, but you tried to make it sound as if the Quran commands muslims to descriminate against the Jews. I hope you don't answer to this post with quotes of anything to do with muslims vs jews, as it has nothing to do with the article at hand and I will not respond to it.

I would also like to ask people to stop quoting Jolinar, I really don't need to read his posts.

The point of all the quotes is, as YOU say, in the interpretation. The Muslim in your example still allowed the unopened bottle of wine in his home (in order not to embarass his guest - also a Muslim belief) the Muslim cabbie would have refused entry to the guest/patron holding the unopened bottle of wine. It is in the interpretation of the text where you get the religious belief - for example Rabbis read "do not boil a kid in it's mother's milk" and interpreted it to mean do not combine dairy foods with meats (no cheeseburgers). It is all in the interpretation. They could take a lienent view - drinking alcohol is ok so long as it is not before prayer time; a mederate view - you can be in a public place with alcohol so long as you yourself do not drink it (at a Flames game); or a strict view - you cannot be in the presence of alcohol.

(note - the second class status of 'Dhimis' (non-muslims) is a result of interpretation of lines from the Quran such as what I posted.)

Also, it is clear that we are discussing passengers holding bottles or duty free bags of alcohol in a visable manner. The article also noted two other examples - refusing service to the blind with seeing-eye dogs and a Muslim bus driver refusing to drive a bus with offensive advertising.

Muslim cabbies are not going to start rulling NA because they don't want to give rides to people with alcohol.

No. BUT - recently the Ontario Government declared that Sharia Law (and Jewish Beit Dins (houses of judgement) could no longer leagally arbitrate cases. These religious courts could arbitrate disputes regarding divorce, small claims, child custody. No longer.

And this is a case of should Sharia Law become a legal standard in NA? That cabbie is only following what his Imam (Muslim Clergy) taught him. If the Imam next decides that co-ed elementary classrooms are against Islamic belief should the school board have special segregated classrooms for Muslims? (Yes, they could go to private school, but the cabbie could also change jobs).

A two teir system - one for Muslims and one for everyone else - starts here.