Additional Notes:
Other
than the fact that Muslims haven't killed every non-Muslim under their
domain, there is very little else that they can point to as proof that
theirs is a peaceful, tolerant religion. Where Islam is in dominant (as
in the Middle East and Pakistan) religious minorities suffer brutal
persecution with little resistance. Where Islam is in the minority (as
in Thailand, the Philippines and Europe) there is the constant threat of
terror if Muslim demands are not met.
The
reasons are obvious and begin with the Quran. Few verses of Islam's
most sacred text can be construed to fit the contemporary virtues of
religious tolerance and universal brotherhood. Those that do are
earlier "Meccan" verses that are obviously abrogated by later ones.
This is why Muslim apologists speak of the "risks" of trying to
interpret the Quran without their "assistance" - even while claiming
that it is a perfect book.
Far
from being mere history or theological construct, the violent verses of
the Quran have played a key role in actual massacre and genocide. This
includes the brutal slaughter of tens of millions of Hindus for five
centuries beginning around 1000 AD with Mahmud of Ghazni's bloody
conquest, including the massacre of those who defending their temples
from destruction. Buddhism was very nearly wiped off the Indian
subcontinent. Judaism and Christianity met the same fate (albeit more
slowly) in areas conquered by Muslim armies, including the Middle East,
North Africa and parts of Europe, including today's Turkey.
Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of a proud Persian people is
despised by Muslims and barely survives in modern Iran.
So
ingrained is violence in the religion that Islam has never really
stopped being at war, either with other religions or with itself.
Muhammad was a military leader, laying siege to towns, massacring the men, raping
their women, enslaving their children, and taking what was once the
property of others for his own. On several occasions he rejected offers
of surrender from the besieged inhabitants and killed those whom he
could take prisoner.
He inspired his followers to battle even when they did not feel it was
right to fight, promising them slaves and booty if they did and
threatening them with Hell if they did not. Muhammad allowed his men to
rape traumatized women captured in battle.
It is important to emphasize that Muslim armies waged aggressive
campaigns, and it was the companions of Muhammad who made the most
dramatic military gains in the decades following his death. The
principle set in motion early on was that the civilian population of a
town was to be destroyed (ie. men executed, women and children taken as
slaves) if they defended themselves. Although modern Muslim apologists
often claim that Islam only attacked in self-defense, this is not only
an oxymoron, but it is flatly contradicted by the accounts of Muslim historians and others going back to the time of Muhammad.
Consider the example of the Qurayza
Jews, who were completely wiped out only five years after Muhammad
arrived in Medina. Their leader opted to stay neutral when their town
was besieged by a Meccan army, sent to take revenge for Muhammad's
deadly caravan raids. The tribe killed no one from either side and even
surrendered peacefully to Muhammad after the Meccans had been turned
back. Yet the prophet of Islam had every male member of the Qurayza
beheaded, and every woman and child enslaved, even raping one of the
captives himself (what Muslim apologists call same day "marriage").
Muhammad's
failure to leave a clear line of succession resulted in perpetual
internal war following his death. Those who knew him best first fought
to keep remote tribes from leaving Islam and reverting to their
preferred religion (the Ridda or 'Apostasy wars'). Then within the
closer community, early Meccan converts battled later ones. Hostility
developed between those immigrants who had traveled with Muhammad to
Mecca and the Ansar at Medina who had helped them settle in. Finally
there was a violent struggle within Muhammad's own family between his
favorite wife and favorite daughter - a jagged schism that has left
Shias and Sunnis at each others' throats to this day.
The
strangest and most untrue thing that can be said about Islam is that it
is a Religion of Peace. If every standard by which the West is judged
and condemned (slavery, imperialism, intolerance, women's rights,
sexuality, warfare...) were applied equally to Islam, the verdict would
be absolutely devastating. Islam never gives up what it conquers, be it
religion, culture, language or life. Neither does it make apologies or
any real effort at moral progress. It is the least open to dialogue
and the most self-absorbed. It is convinced of its own perfection, yet
brutally shuns self-examination and represses criticism.
This
is what makes the verses of violence so dangerous. They are given the
weight of divine command. While Muslim terrorists take them as
literally as anything else in the Quran, and understand that Islam is
incomplete without Jihad, moderates offer little to contradict them -
outside of opinion. Indeed, what do they have? Speaking of peace and
love may win over the ignorant, but when every twelfth verse of Islam's
holiest book either speaks to Allah's hatred for non-Muslims or calls
for their death, forced conversion, or subjugation, it's little wonder
that sympathy for terrorism runs as deeply as it does in the broader community - even if most Muslims personally prefer not to interpret their religion in this way.
In
fact, many Muslims are simply unaware of the Quran's near absence of
verses that preach universal non-violence. This is because their
understanding of Islam comes from what they are taught by others. In
the West, it is typical for Muslims to come to believe that their
religion must be like Christianity - preaching the New Testament virtues
of peace, love, and tolerance - because Muslims are taught that Islam
is supposed to be superior
in every way. They are somewhat surprised and embarrassed to learn
that the evidence of the Quran and the bloody history of Islam are very
much in contradiction to this.
Others
simply accept the violence. In 1991, a Palestinian couple in America
was convicted of stabbing their daughter to death for being too
Westernized. A family friend came to their defense, excoriating the
jury for not understanding the "culture", claiming that the father was
merely following "the religion" and saying that the couple had to
"discipline their daughter or lose respect." (source).
For
their part, Western liberals would do well not to sacrifice critical
thinking on the altar of political correctness, or look for reasons to
bring other religion down to the level of Islam merely to avoid the
existential truth that this it is both different and dangerous.
There
are just too many Muslims who take the Quran literally... and too many
others who couldn't care less about the violence done in the name of
Islam.
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