Busting The Myth of Islam

As promised here is a little something I've cooked up on Islam and why it is most definitely NOT a Religion of Peace.

I guess first we better first go over the main argument concerning the Qu'ran and Mohammed. The Qu'ran is, according to Islam, the literal word of Allah, sent down as revelations to his chosen Prophet Mohammed over many years. Allah claimed to be the same God Christians had worshipped for many hundreds of years before this. Indeed, Islam does consider Abraham and Jesus to be Prophets of Islam. In the beginning, Islam was indeed fairly benign.

However, when Mohammed tried to present himself to the Christians and the Jews as their new Prophet, they turned him away. This angered him greatly. From this point on, his teachings gradually became more and more hateful and violent towards these groups and towards non-Muslims in general. These are just a few of his actual teachings as they are written in the Qu'ran:

Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. (9:29)

Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth, through the Law, the Gospel, and the Qur'an: and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah? then rejoice in the bargain which ye have concluded: that is the achievement supreme. (9:111)

The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter; (5:33)

As you can see, Mohammed quite clearly commanded that all non-Muslims be fought in violent jihad until they were subjugated under Islamic rule, living in second-class dhimmi status, and that those who fought and died slaying infidels would be rewarded with a place in Paradise. Many similar teachings can also be found in the hadiths, Mohammed's official biographies. These are the passages that modern-day jihadists use to justify their actions.

Now then, there are several common criticisms apologists for Islam come up with when presented with the above facts. One is: If Islam is so violent, why are so many Muslims non-violent? The answer is that, as with any religion, many people do not take the words of their Holy Texts literally and do not practice the religion in every way possible. This is the same as the way many Christians do not subscribe to every fundamentalist or out-dated teaching in the Bible, and disapprove of evangelists and other forms of fundamentalism. Also, in Islam there is not much importance placed on understanding the religion; in many British mosques the worshipers simply recite passages from the Qu'ran in Arabic with no clear idea of their meaning. Those of us who are critical of Islamic ideology do not pretend that all Muslims are terrorists; in fact we realise that this is not the case; but we also recognise that Islamic core teaching IS fundamentally violent and that even a "tiny percentage" of "extremist" Muslims still amounts to an inordinately huge number, given how many Muslims exist in the world today. It is not "racist" to point this out; firstly because Islam is a religious and political movement, not a race; and secondly because we are only pointing out the depredations of the jihad ideology, not inciting hatred against anyone.

Other critics, often Muslims themselves, will attempt to point to the more peaceful passages of the Qu'ran as a form of counter-evidence. For example:

Do not take life - which Allah has made sacred. (17:33)

However, this tactic does not hold water; firstly because they still do not explain the more violent passages, and secondly because they do not take into account the Qu'ranic concept of naskh, or abrogation, which is accepted by all major Islamic scholars and theologians. Simply put, this states that any of Allah's later revelations which contradict earlier teachings automatically abrogate and render invalid and defunct the earlier passages. And, shucks, the violent passages came later chronologically than the peaceful ones, therefore they take precedence as the "true" word of Allah. It should be noted that, unlike the Christian Bible, the Qu'ran is not arranged chronologically. Apart from the first chapter, it is simply arranged from longest to shortest. So peaceful and violent commands are spread all over the Qu'ran, but chronologically the orders to kill and enslave and subjugate all come later in history and are the core of true Islam.

Another question thrown our way is: what about the violence in the Bible? Again, this is a really bad deflection of blame and shows a clear lack of understanding of both religions. Firstly: where are the Christian suicide bombers rampaging across the Middle-East killing in the same of God? Secondly, and more potently, the two Holy Texts simply have NO moral equivalence. The Old Testament is undoubtedly violent, but there is nothing in it which orders all Christians to take up their duty and fight or subjugate all non-Christians on a generalised and indefinite basis. Admittedly, God did order the Israelites to wipe out the odd nation on occasion, but he only did so after he had warned them for hundreds of years to quit their sinning and they refused. When he finally sentenced them to their deaths, he did not glory in it; it broke his heart. There can also be no equivalence made between Jesus and Mohammed. One was strictly non-violent. He wept for the Pharisees who he knew would go to Hell; he did not try to kill them or forcefully convert them to his point of view. The other was a genocidal warrior who ordered thousands killed and slew many with his own sword, often simply for disagreeing with him on trivial issues, kept numerous slaves and married (and had intercourse with) a nine-year old girl named Aisha. No equivalence can be drawn between the two religions or the two people.

Another question sometimes raised includes the mention of the Crusades - traditionally seen as a Christian invasion of Islamic lands - as a legitimate basis for Islamic hatred of the West and Christians. However, despite what historical revisionists would have you believe, the Crusades were actually a response to hundreds of years of attacks by Arabs on their soil, a pre-emptive measure, if you will. This is made clear in the book "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)" by Robert Spencer.

Finally, some point to Western colonialism and cultural decadence as the reason for the jihadists' hatred of us. However, as outlined above, Mohammed's command to kill or subjugate all non-Muslims until the entire globe is living under Islamic rule pre-dates all of those things.

So is it fair to paint Muslims as potential terrorists, and what can be done about this problem? Well, as for the first part: no, of course it is not fair to discriminate against individual Muslims based on a generalised picture. Many of them really are moderate. However, ALL the schools of Islamic jurisprudence teach that Muslims have a religious duty to make war against unbelievers. The only thing they disagree on are technicalities such as whether infidels should be given the chance to surrender before being beheaded. There is not a single major Muslim group in the world that teaches that violent jihad is wrong. Even groups that claim to be moderate, such as America's Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Council of Britain are funded by extremist Saudi groups and pursue agendas to make Westerners comply with Islamic law and ideology, even in their own non-Muslim countries. They also refuse to flat-out condemn organisations such as Hamas and Hizbollah as terrorist organisations. Does this mean that all Muslims who profess moderation are being deceptive? No. But it does mean that we have a right to be suspicious and to delve deeper into their true motivations.

Can Islam be reformed? The simple answer is that if so-called moderate Muslims are truly serious about ending friction with the West they should be considering the aspects of the Islamic faith that give rise to the jihad ideology and attempting to change or remove those passages and teach Muslims not to obey them. Very few do this, however. Instead, they prefer to cry that we are "racist" and "Islamophobic" and nobody gets anywhere. In other cases, they fear to speak out because of the death threats they will receive from those Muslims who take heed of Mohammed's Qu'ranic order that: "Whoever changes his Islamic religion, kill him." (9:57) While this remains so, I'm afraid Islam will not reform in our lifetimes or even our children's lifetimes.

I hope this has been informative and I'm done now. Promise. Thanks for reading.