China has just banned the burqa in its biggest Muslim city

[Proxy-Pie]

Samus Aran said:

padib said:

Samus Aran said:

I have a Masters Degree in History, specialising in antiquity and Islam...

Many factors are at play in the Middle East, religion is a very important one of them. Islam isn't just Shia and Sunni, it runs much deeper than that. 

In the Middle East religion and politics go hand in hand by the way... Why seperate them? Do you know what khalif means? 

I respect your degree. How then can you say that the killings by ISIS are purely religious in nature? You are aware that many of the Sunni people in Saudi Arabia joined ISIS after having been frustrated by their Shia leader.

A Khalif is a religious leader of a country. Basically if the president of the united states were an imam and led the country on the basis of religion he'd be a Khalif.

I understand that religion and politics go hand in hand, but what I'm trying to say is that, with ISIS specifically, it is a political reason that led a group of violent fanatics to recruit the more moderate people to the cause. That's why I separate them, I don't just blame everything on religion.

No, a khalif is a religious and worldly leader of a community. 

According to Wiki: "A caliphate (Arabic: خِلافة‎ khilāfa) is a form of Islamic government led by a caliph (Arabic: خَليفة‎ khalīfah  pronunciation (help·info))—a person who claims to be a political and religious successor to the prophet Muhammad and a leader of the entire Muslim community.^[1]"

I know people often mock wikipedia, but they're correct in this. ;)  

I never said that the killings of ISIS are purely religious in nature. I'm saying that religion and politics go hand in hand in the Middle East.

The Caliph was just a religious leader for centuries due to the political stuff becoming the Sultan's business.