First of all, to Seeker, you have a very good answer!, my compliments!. To Amy, I hate to disabuse you, but the Qu'ran is NOTHING like the Bible. And I should mention that the crusades were not an offensive campaign against poor defenseless Muslims. The Crusades were a defensive war which was fought to preserve the free access to the holy lands after countless pilgrims to the holy lands were ambushed and
Imperialism." Here is a link to the article:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/11/the_truth_about_islamic_crusad.html
Allow me to give you a couple of resources to begin to understand this complex issue:
An excellent site about the "religion of peace" with several links and articles about islam. .
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
There is an excellent critical analysis of islam here:
http://www.islamundressed.com/
Another site, with a fascinating article and many quotes from the prophet himself:
http://www.prophetofdoom.net/Prophet_of_Doom_Islams_Terrorist_Dogma_in_Muhammads_Own_Words.Islam
Bible and Qu'ran:
http://bibleandquran.org/quran-word-of-god9.htm
A few personal criticisms of Islam. .
If the Qu'ran, were the unadulterated word of an unchanging god, it seems that any human who read it, would immediately recognize that it was a perfect document. That as the word of god, it would be epipanous experience beyond compare. But it does not seem to be. It is full of repetitions, threats of death and doom and horrible torture for anyone that dares not believe and anyone who questions.
Bear in mind, that in many Islamic countries, renouncing Islam is considered Apostasy. The penalty is death, and it is proscribed in the Qu'ran. . Why would god need man to kill another who is an "unbeliever?"
Even questioning can result in serious penalty and death in these countries. Once again, if Islam were a perfect religion, why would there be any fear of competition. . . But, if you check, there are No churches, or Bibles allowed in Saudi Arabia.
Muslims claim that Quran was directly given by Allah and Sheikh Ahmed Deedat the Muslim Scholar and other Muslims have claimed that Quran is the word of God because it was written in first person speech unlike Bible, where third person speech is used. But the very first chapter of Quran is written in the third person speech.
When you pick up a copy of the Qur'an, several questions should immediately come to your mind:
WHO? AUTHORSHIP
WHAT? LITERARY NATURE
WHERE? PLACE OF ORIGIN
WHEN? TIME OF WRITING
HOW? MEDIUM OF TRANSMISSION
WHY? JUSTIFICATION OF NEED
These questions are good and necessary. But how can we find answers
to them? There are two different approaches to answering these questions:
1. The Muslim approach depends upon secondary sources which were put
together generations after Muhammad died. The Sira and the Hadith supply
the Muslim with the official answers to these questions. Thus while the
Qur'an an does not answer the questions above, the Hadith does.
Note: Muslims are guilty of circular reasoning at this point: They prove
the Qur'an an by the Hadith and then prove the Hadith by the Qur'an!
2. The secular approach focuses on the issue of primary sources. It
questions the veracity of the Traditions as well as the veracity of
the Qur'an. It does not want material written in the ninth or tenth
century telling them what was written in the seventh century. They want
actual material from the seventh and eight century. The failure of the
Muslims to come up with anything has great implications.
Part I The Muslim Approach
The Hadith is sometimes called the second inspiration with the Qur'an
being the first inspiration. The Hadith claims to be the record of the
Muhammad's exposition and application of the Qur'an, biographical
material on Muhammad, and the history of the writing, collection, and
composition of the text of the Qur'an. (Bukhari vol. VI, no. 564).
The authority and authenticity of the Qur'an depends entirely upon the
integrity and teachings of the Hadith. In other words, the Qur'an is
valid only if the Hadith is true. If it is false, then the Qur'an is
automatically false.
A. The Integrity of Muhammad
The integrity of Muhammad is all important. He was either whom he
claimed to be, a liar or a nut case (mentally insane or demon
possessed).This is why the Traditions went to such great lengths to
create a model of Muhammad that depicts him as a "super man" as well as
a prophet. What do we find in the Hadith?
1. Muhammad's credentials for prophethood are unacceptable.
The two prominent Hadithic "proofs" of his prophethood came from pagan
ideas of what a shaman would look like and the manner in which he would
be inspired.
A. The Hadith explains that when the Qur'an an refers to the seal of
prophethood being upon Muhammad (Surah 33:40), the seal was a large
hairy mole on his back. This is found in both Bukhari (vol. I, no. 189;
vol. IV, no. 741) and Muslim (vol. IV, no. 5790,5793). This mole was the
physical proof that Muhammad was a prophet according to Tabari and other
later Muslim authorities. They even claimed that the mole was a fulfillment
of such Scriptures as Isa. 9:6. We cannot accept this proof. While such
ideas can be found in pagan traditions from many primitive cultures, it
is not a part of the religion of Abraham, the prophets, the apostles or
Jesus.
B. Both the Bukhari and Muslim Hadiths describe what happened to Muhammad
when inspiration came upon him. He heard ringing in his ears, fell to the
ground, turned red, sweated profusely, made moaning sounds, spit ran
from his mouth, etc.. While ancient pagans placed a great deal of
importance on such things, they were never a part of the biblical
prophets.
2. He failed a direct test of his claim to prophethood. He was asked to
explain why a child will look like one parent as opposed to looking like
the other. He claimed that Gabriel came and gave the inspired answer.
See Bukhari vol. IV: no. 546. So, we are dealing with revelation and not
just his personal opinion. He said that the child will look like which
parent reaches his or her sexual climax first. The study of genetics
and DNA forever disproves this idea.
3. He believed in magic, the evil eye, amulets, omens, spells, etc. He
was superstitious about many things and made up weird rules about
bathroom duties (Bukhari vol. I, no. 144; vol. IV, nos. 110, 111;
vol. VII, nos. 636, 648, 649, 650; Muslim vol. I, no. 458; vol. III,
nos. 5424, 5427 ). He was afraid whenever a strong wind blew (Bukhari
vol. II, no. 144) and of eclipses (Bukhari vol. II, no. 167).
While this is bad enough, the Hadith tells us that Muhammad was at times
under magical spells, i.e., bewitched, and told lies and did things while
under those spells. (Bukhari vol. IV, nos. 400, 490; VII, no. 660;
Muslim vol. III, no. 5428) Once it is admitted that he told lies and did
things while under satanic influence, then the entire Qur'an could be
satanic in origin.
Later Muslim authorities even went so far as to say that he was at one
time inspired by Satan to put some verses into the Qur'an. They were
later removed because they were Satanic verses. (Surah 53:19,20)
4. The Hadith tells us that "Allah made the prophet wealthy through
conquests." (Bukhari III: no. 495). Was he was in it for the money?
Some Muslims are ignorant of this Hadith and claim that Muhammad was
poor like Jesus.
5. He did not keep the rules he imposed upon others. He had more wives
that four (Bukhari vol. I, no. 268) and did not write a will (Bukhari
vol. IV, nos. 3,4).
6. He commanded that anyone who fell away from Islam should be murdered.
(Bukhari vol IV, no. 260; vol. V, no. 630) Volume IX is filled with
death threats against apostasy (pgs. 10,11, 26, 34, 45,50, 57, 341,342).
These Hadiths contradict other Hadiths which say that no one ever leaves
Islam (Bukhari vol. I, nos. 6, 48).
The punishment of apostates reveals that he did not believe in the
freedom of religion, the freedom of speech, the freedom of assembly
and the freedom of the press. The fact that he commanded that no
churches or synagogues be allowed in Arabia is a telling argument that
he was not a man of peace.
7. The Hadith reveals that Muhammad had to ask forgiveness for sin more
than seventy times a day. (Bukhari vol. I, nos. 711; 78; vol. V, no. 724)
Since Muslims believe that prophets must be sinless, this means that
Muhammad was not a prophet.
8. He was guilty of false prophecies.
1. The 100 yr. Prophecy. (Bukhari vol. I, no. 539)
2. The end of the world predictions. (Bukhari vol. IV, no.401)
9. He kissed and caressed the idol of black stone set into the wall
of the Kabah. (Muslim vol. II, no. 2912,2916) We cannot imagine
Abraham or Jesus kissing a pagan idol and then commanding their
followers to do so.
10. While Muslims claim that Muhammad was illiterate order to make the
Qur'an a miracle, the Hadith records that he could in fact read and write.
(Bukhari vol. IV, no. 393)
II. The Teachings of Muhammad
Just as the Hadith gives us good reasons to question the integrity of
Muhammad, his teachings recorded in the Hadith give us even more reason
to doubt he was a prophet. The following is a brief list of some of the
strange and absurd teachings of Muhammad.
1. Adam was 60 cubits tall! (Bukhari vol. IV, no. 543) Then how tall
was Eve? If they were that tall, how did we get here? Is it medically
possible for him to be that tall?
2. Muhammad was a dog hater. He thought that angels could not enter
a house if a dog was there and that black dogs were devils. Thus he
ordered dogs to be killed and forbid the selling of dogs. (Bukhari
vol. IV, nos. 539, 540; Muslim vol. I, nos. 551,552; vol. II, nos.
3803, 3829)
3. Satan lives in the nose over night. He can be flushed out if you
snort water up and then out the nose. (Bukhari vol. IV, no. 516;
Muslim vol. I, no. 462) How big is Satan? Is he in everyone's nose?
Is he omnipresent?
4. Muhammad forbade the game of chess! (Muslim vol. IV, no. 5612)
This makes no sense to me.
5. People turn into rats, pigs and monkeys. (Bukhari vol. IV, nos. 524,
627; Muslim vol. IV, no. 7135). Abraham's father was turned into an
animal (Bukhari vol. IV, no.569)
6. Muslims have one intestine while non-Muslims have seven! (Muslim
vol. III, no. 5113-5115)
7. If you lift up your eyes towards heaven while praying, your eyes
will be snatched out! (Muslim vol. III, nos. 862-863)
8. One wing of a fly has poison but the other wing has the antidote to
it. (Bukhari vol. IV, no. 537)
9. We should drink camel urine as a medicine. (Bukhari vol. 1, no. 234)
10. Fevers are from the fire of hell and can be cooled by water.
(Bukhari vol. IV, nos. 483,486)
III. The Text of the Qur'an
Who wrote out the Qur'an? On what materials? Who put the Qur'an
together? Where did he find the materials to do this? Why did he do
this? Were others putting together their own Qur'ans? Did these
Qur'ans contradict each other? How did one text gain dominance over
all the others? What happened to the other Qur'ans? Only the Hadith
gives us answers to these questions.
1. From Bukhari vol. VI, no. 509 we learn the following things:
a. Muhammad did not collect the fragments of the Qur'an and make them
into a manuscript.
b. Some of the Companions of Muhammad were killed in battle and whatever
surahs they had memorized died with them.
c. Abu Bakr asked Zaid to collect the fragments of the Qur'an and
arrange them into a manuscript.
d. Zaid hesitated because the task was harder than sifting through an
entire mountain.
e. The task was difficult because of:
1. the fragile nature of the fragments: palm leaves, stones, bones, etc.
2. the faulty memories of men (vol. VI, no. 527)
3. the false claims of men (vol. VI, no. 523)
4. conflicting versions of the Qur'an ( vol VI, no. 510, 514, 523)
5. contradictory orders of the surahs (vol VI, no. 515, 518)
6. God caused verses to be abrogated or forgotten. (vol. IV, nos.57,
62, 69, 299, 393; VI, nos. 510, 511, 527,
7. Muhammad himself forgot and missed various parts of the Qur'an
(vol. VI, no. 558, 562)
2. Even after the manuscript was put together, they found that they had
missed some verses (Bukhari vol. IV, no. 62; VI, no. 510).
3. They tried to burn all the other Qur'anic fragments and manuscripts.
(VI, no. 510)
4. Uthman is usually credited for making the present text. (vol. I, no. 63;
vol. IV, no. 709; vol. VI, nos. 507, 510)
It is clear that the text of the Qur'an was not perfect and that conflicts
arose which made it necessary to make one uniform text. That Uthman tried
to burn all the other Qur'ans is clear. Yet, there are thousand of variant
readings and there remains controversies about verses such as the one about
stoning which were omitted by mistake.
IV. The Contradictions and Variant Readings in the Hadith
One problem all Muslims face is that there are contradictions in the
Hadith, conflicting readings and abrogations of Hadiths (Bukhari vol. I,
nos. 42, 47, 74, 78, 80, 81, 86, 102, 107, 112, 159 vs 160, 161, 179, 180;
vol. III, nos. 159,161; Muslim vol. I, nos. 682,685, 689,699; vol. II,
nos. 2547,2548)). The footnote on Bukhari vol. III, no. 159 says,
"Hadith no. 159 contradicts the Hadith of Al-Hassan" Evidently Allah was
not capable of preserving a perfect text of the Hadith. On what grounds then
can we assume that the Qur'an was kept perfect?
V. The Inspiration of the Qur'an
The mistakes in the Qur'an are well known. I list over one hundred such
problems in Islamic Invasion. The following is a few of the more
glaring problems that the average person has no problem seeing. All we need
is ONE factual error to disprove the Qur'an. We are not talking about
conflicts with theories but with brute facts.
1. Theological errors: The Qur'an is mistaken about what Christians and Jews
believe. (Surah 5:73,75; 9:30).
2. Historical mistakes: the Samaritans (Surah 20:85,97), Alexander the Great,
etc.
3. Grammatical errors: Arabic scholars point out errors in Surahs 2:177, 192;
3:59; 4:162; 5:69; 7:160; 13:28; 20:66; 63:10, etc.
4. Linguistical errors: Even though the Qur'an claims to be in pure Arabic
(12:2; 13:37; 16:105; 41:44;42:7 ), it has foreign words.
5. Scientific errors: sun in muddy pond (Surah 18:86), mountains never shake
(Surah 16:15; 21:31; 31:10; 78:6,7; 88:19)
6. Moral errors: Muhammad justifying the taking of his daughter-in-law
Surah 33:36,38)
7. Mathematical errors: Did creation take six days (Surahs 7:51; 10:3) or
eight days (Surah 41:9, 10, 12)?
8. Chronological errors: Puts Muslim vocabulary put into mouth of Patriarch,
prophets, etc. (Surah 2:128133; 7:124,126, etc.). The words did not exist
in Hebrew or Arabic at that time.
9. Biblical errors: The convolution of names, places, events and times.
Couldn't even get the name of Jesus right. He was the Son of God who died
for our sins on the cross according to the Bible. The Qur'an contradicts this.
10. Political errors: Commands Jihad against apostates and non-Muslims
(Surahs 4:91; 5:33; 9:5)
Conclusion
The Hadith and the Qur'an stand or fall together. The facts are clear that
they are not from God and are false works.
Part II The Secular Approach
Modern scholars such as Crook, Crone, Wansbrough, Rippin, etc. are
giving us a totally different model of the origins of Islam and the
Qur'an. Once you put aside the Qur'an and the Hadith, you begin to
see that Islam created the Qur'an instead of the Qur'an creating
Islam. Islam created a mythological Muhammad who is nothing like
the historical Muhammad, if that was his true name. The Qur'an had
multiple authors from various locations who combined different
legends and materials to make the stories found in it. It took
150-200 years for the Qur'an to appear. Muhammad never saw the
present Qur'an and would disown it if show it. He is not the source
of it. This explains the contradictions and mistakes in it.
Time line
570 Muhammad's birth
7th Century
610 Muhammad's call to prophethood
632 Muhammad's death
650 Calif Uthman
691 Dome of the Rock
8th Century 700
legends
myths
9th Century 800 traditions
700,000 Hadiths
850 Bukhari's Hadith
10th Century
923 Tabari's Commentary
1. No references to Muhammad as a prophet have been found in
contemporary literature, rock inscriptions or coins.
2. No manuscripts of the Qur'an exist before 150-200 years after
Muhammad. This allows opportunity for myths and legends to arise.
3. The claim that Uthman complied the Qur'an has no evidence to
support it.
4. The claim that two "original" Uthman Qur'ans can be seen at
Topkapi, Turkey and in Tashkent, Russia is false. The manuscripts are
in the Kufic script which did not exist in the 7th Century. They are
clearly fron the 9th Century and are in "landscape" format which was
not used in the 7th century.
5. The present text of Qur'an came from multiple authors using
erroneous legends, myths, and stories. It has many additions, deletions,
variant readings, and no primary source materials to support it. It is
thus a corrupt text and cannot be trusted to tell us what Muhammad
really taught or did.
6. The text and stories of the Hadith are as corrupt as the
Qur'an. Where is the evidence to support its claims?
Surah 1:1-7. "In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds; Most Gracious, Most Merciful; Master of the Day of Judgment. Thee do we worship, and Thine aid we seek. Show us the straight way, The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray."
ABOUT VIOLENCE AND THE QU'RAN
The Quran contains dozens of verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers. Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers, and kill the infidels wherever they may be hiding. Muslims who do not join the fight are called 'hypocrites' and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter.
These verses are mostly open-ended, meaning that they are not embedded within historical context (as are nearly all of the Old Testament verses of violence). They are part of the eternal, unchanging word of Allah, and just as relevant or subjective as anything else in the Qur'an.
Unfortunately, there are very few verses of tolerance and peace to abrogate or even balance out the many that call for nonbelievers to be fought and subdued until they either accept humiliation, convert to Islam, or are killed. This proclivity toward violence and Muhammad's own martial tradition have resulted in a trail of blood and bodies across world history.
The Qur'an:
Sura (2:191-193) - "And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution [of Muslims] is worse than slaughter [of non-believers]...and fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah." There is a good case to be made that the overall context of these verses is defensive war, however, there are two worrisome pieces to this passage. The first is that the killing of others is authorized in the event of "persecution." The second is that fighting may persist until "religion is for Allah."
Sura (2:244) - "Then fight in the cause of Allah, and know that Allah Heareth and knoweth all things."
Sura (2:216) - "Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not."
Sura (3:56) - "As to those who reject faith, I will punish them with terrible agony in this world and in the Hereafter, nor will they have anyone to help."
Sura (3:151) - "Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers, for that they joined companions with Allah, for which He had sent no authority". This speaks directly of killing Christians, since they believe in the Trinity (ie. what Muhammad incorrectly believed to be 'joining companions to Allah').
Sura (4:74) - "Let those fight in the way of Allah who sell the life of this world for the other. Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him We shall bestow a vast reward."
Sura (4:76) - "Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah…"
Sura (4:89) - "They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (From what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks."
Sura (4:95) - "Not equal are those believers who sit (at home) and receive no hurt, and those who strive and fight in the cause of Allah with their goods and their persons. Allah hath granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and persons than to those who sit (at home). Unto all (in Faith) Hath Allah promised good: But those who strive and fight Hath He distinguished above those who sit (at home) by a special reward,-" This passage not only criticizes "peaceful" Muslims who do not join in the violence, but also demolishes the modern myth that "Jihad" doesn't mean holy war in the Qur'an, but rather a spiritual struggle. Not only is the Arabic word used in this passage, but it is clearly not referring to anything spiritual, since the physically disabled are given exemption. (The Hadith reveals the context of the passage to be in response to a blind man's protest that he is unable to engage in Jihad).
Sura (4:104) - "And be not weak hearted in pursuit of the enemy; if you suffer pain, then surely they (too) suffer pain as you suffer pain..." Pursuing an injured enemy is not an act of self-defense.
Sura (5:33) - "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement"
Sura (8:12) - "I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them"
Sura (8:15) - "O ye who believe! When ye meet those who disbelieve in battle, turn not your backs to them. (16)Whoso on that day turneth his back to them, unless maneuvering for battle or intent to join a company, he truly hath incurred wrath from Allah, and his habitation will be hell, a hapless journey's end."
Sura (8:39) - "And fight with them until there is no more persecution and religion should be only for Allah"
Sura (8:57) - "If thou comest on them in the war, deal with them so as to strike fear in those who are behind them, that haply they may remember."
Sura (8:59-60) - "And let not those who disbelieve suppose that they can outstrip (Allah's Purpose). Lo! they cannot escape. Make ready for them all thou canst of (armed) force and of horses tethered, that thereby ye may dismay the enemy of Allah and your enemy."
Sura (9:5) - "So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them."
Sura (9:14) - "Fight them, Allah will punish them by your hands and bring them to disgrace..."
Sura (9:20) - "Those who believe, and have left their homes and striven with their wealth and their lives in Allah's way are of much greater worth in Allah's sight. These are they who are triumphant." The "striving" spoken of here is Jihad.
Sura (9:29) - "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."
Sura (9:30) - "And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah; and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them; how they are turned away!"
Sura (9:38-39) - "O ye who believe! what is the matter with you, that, when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling heavily to the earth? Do ye prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the Hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place." This is a warning to those who refuse to fight, that they will be punished with Hell.
Sura (9:41) - "Go forth, light-armed and heavy-armed, and strive with your wealth and your lives in the way of Allah! That is best for you if ye but knew."
Sura (9:73) - "O Prophet! strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites and be unyielding to them; and their abode is hell, and evil is the destination."
Sura (9:88) - "But the Messenger, and those who believe with him, strive and fight with their wealth and their persons: for them are (all) good things: and it is they who will prosper."
Sura (9:111) - "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."
Sura (9:123) - "O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness."
Sura (21:44) - "We gave the good things of this life to these men and their fathers until the period grew long for them; See they not that We gradually reduce the land (in their control) from its outlying borders? Is it then they who will win?"
Sura (25:52) - "Therefore listen not to the Unbelievers, but strive against them with the utmost strenuousness, with the (Qur'an)." "Strive against" is Jihad, obviously not in the personal context. It's also significant to point out that this is a Meccan verse.
Sura (47:4) - "So when you meet in battle those who disbelieve, then smite the necks until when you have overcome them, then make (them) prisoners,"
Sura (47:35) - "Be not weary and faint-hearted, crying for peace, when ye should be uppermost: for Allah is with you,"
Sura (48:17) - "There is no blame for the blind, nor is there blame for the lame, nor is there blame for the sick (that they go not forth to war). And whoso obeyeth Allah and His messenger, He will make him enter Gardens underneath which rivers flow; and whoso turneth back, him will He punish with a painful doom."
Sura (48:29) - "Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. And those with him are hard (ruthless) against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves"
Sura (61:4) - "Surely Allah loves those who fight in His way"
Sura (61:10-12) - "O ye who believe! Shall I lead you to a bargain that will save you from a grievous Penalty?- That ye believe in Allah and His Messenger, and that ye strive (your utmost) in the Cause of Allah, with your property and your persons: That will be best for you, if ye but knew! He will forgive you your sins, and admit you to Gardens beneath which Rivers flow, and to beautiful mansions in Gardens of Eternity." This verse was given in battle. It uses the Arabic word, Jihad.
Sura (66:9) - "O Prophet! Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be stern with them. Hell will be their home, a hapless journey's end." The root word of "Jihad" is used again here. The context is clearly holy war, and the scope of violence is broadened to include "hypocrites," those who call themselves Muslims but do not act as such.
From the Hadith:
Bukhari (52:177) - Allah's Apostle said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."
Bukhari (52:256) - The Prophet... was asked whether it was permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women and children to danger. The Prophet replied, "They (i.e. women and children) are from them (i.e. pagans)." In this command, Muhammad establishes that it is permissible to kill non-combatants in the process of killing a perceived enemy. This provides justification for the many Islamic terror bombings.
Abu Dawud (14:2526) - The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: Three things are the roots of faith: to refrain from (killing) a person who utters, "There is no god but Allah" and not to declare him unbeliever whatever sin he commits, and not to excommunicate him from Islam for his any action; and jihad will be performed continuously since the day Allah sent me as a prophet until the day the last member of my community will fight with the Dajjal (Antichrist)
Abu Dawud (14:2527) - The Prophet said: Striving in the path of Allah (jihad) is incumbent on you along with every ruler, whether he is pious or impious
Muslim (1:33) - the Messenger of Allah said: I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah
Bukhari (8:387) - Allah's Apostle said, "I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah
Muslim (1:149) - "Abu Dharr reported: I said: Messenger of Allah, which of the deeds is the best? He (the Holy Prophet) replied: Belief in Allah and Jihad in His cause..."
Muslim (20:4645) - "...He (the Messenger of Allah) did that and said: There is another act which elevates the position of a man in Paradise to a grade one hundred (higher), and the elevation between one grade and the other is equal to the height of the heaven from the earth. He (Abu Sa'id) said: What is that act? He replied: Jihad in the way of Allah! Jihad in the way of Allah!"
Muslim (20:4696) - "the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: 'One who died but did not fight in the way of Allah nor did he express any desire (or determination) for Jihid died the death of a hypocrite.'"
Muslim (19:4321-4323) - Three separate hadith in which Muhammad shrugs over the news that innocent children were killed in a raid by his men against unbelievers. His response: "They are of them (meaning the enemy)."
Tabari 7:97 The morning after the murder of Ashraf, the Prophet declared, "Kill any Jew who falls under your power." Ashraf was a poet, killed by Muhammad's men because he insulted Islam. Here, Muhammad widens the scope of his orders to kill. An innocent Jewish businessman was then slain by his Muslim partner, merely for being non-Muslim.
Ibn Ishaq: 327 “Allah said, ‘A prophet must slaughter before collecting captives. A slaughtered enemy is driven from the land. Muhammad, you craved the desires of this world, its goods and the ransom captives would bring. But Allah desires killing them to manifest the religion.’”
Ibn Ishaq: 990 Lest anyone think that cutting off someone's head while screaming 'Allah Akbar!' is a modern custom, here is an account of that very practice under Muhammad, who seems to approve.
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. Few verses in the Qur'an can be construed to fit the contemporary virtues of religious tolerance and universal brotherhood, and those that do are earlier "Meccan" verses that are obviously abrogated by later ones.
Far from being mere theological construct or history, the violent verses of the Qur'an have played a key role in the many massacres in Muslim history, including the brutal slaughter of tens of millions of Hindus for five centuries beginning around 1000 AD with Mahmud of Ghazni's bloody conquest. Buddhism was very nearly wiped off the Indian subcontinent. Judaism met the same fate in the Middle East as did Christianity, there as well as across North Africa and parts of Europe, including 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, threatening them with Hell if they did not, promising them slaves and booty if they did. Muhammad allowed his men to rape traumatized women captured in battle. Neither did he leave a clear line of succession, which resulted in internal war after his death and a jagged schism that has left Shias and Sunnis at each others' throats to this day.
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.
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, 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 never open to critical examination.
This is what makes the verses of violence so dangerous. While Muslim terrorists take them as literally as anything else in the Qur'an, and understand that Islam is incomplete without Jihad, others do little to contradict them. 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 Qur'an's near absence of verses that preach 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 Qur'an and the bloody history of Islam are very much in contradiction to this.
For their part, Western liberals would do well not to sacrifice judgment and distinction 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 Qur'an literally... and too many others who couldn't care less. (1)
There are many muslims that will incist the information given here is false and a slur against them personally or the religion. Here is some info about some of the games that are played:
“If Islam were a violent religion, then all Muslims would be violent.”
The Muslim Game:
Most Muslims live peacefully, without harming others, so how can Islam be a violent religion? If Islam were the religion of terrorists, then why aren’t most Muslims terrorists?
The Truth:
Simply put, because it’s wrong to kill people, regardless of what Islam may or may not teach.
All religions align in some form or fashion with intuitive utilitarian principles. Many Muslims in the West often hold an interpretation of Islam that is much closer to Judeo-Christianity than to the actual way of Muhammad, since that is how their religion is presented to them. They only know the biographical details of their prophet that are in line with moral restraint, and not the ones that speak of hedonism, deception, power and violence.
Decent Muslims are that way because they are more loyal to the moral law written in their hearts than they are to the details of Muhammad’s religion, whether they know it or not. They filter out evidence to the contrary - when they may encounter it - and truly believe that their religion is inclusive of the many freedoms and values that are cherished in the West (perhaps never questioning why liberty and tolerance are conspicuously lacking in Muslim lands).
Although it is a broad religion, it is no coincidence that the purists in Islam – those most prone to taking the words of Muhammad literally – are almost always the more dangerous. They may be called ‘extremists’ or ‘fundamentalists,’ but, at the end of the day, they are always the more dedicated to the Qur’an and following the path of Jihad as mandated by Muhammad.
Of course, the same question can easily be turned around. If Islam is a religion of peace, then why is it the only religion that consistently produces religiously-motivated terrorist attacks? Why are thousands of people able to cut off an innocent person’s head or fly a plane into a building while screaming praises to Allah? Where’s the outrage among other Muslims when this happens… and why do they get more worked up over cartoons?
“Other religions kill, too.”
The Muslim Game:
Bringing other religions down to the level of Islam is one of the most popular strategies of Muslim apologists when confronted with the spectacle of Islamic violence. Remember Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber? Why pick on Islam if other religions have the same problems?
The Truth:
Because they don’t.
Regardless of what his birth certificate may or may not have said, Timothy McVeigh was not a religious man. At no time did he credit his deeds to religion, quote Bible verses, or claim that he killed for God.
The so-called “members of other faiths” alluded to by Muslims are nearly always just nominal members who have no active involvement. They are neither inspired by, nor do they credit religion as Muslim terrorists do, and this is what makes it a very different matter.
Islam is associated with Islamic terrorism because that is the association that the terrorists themselves choose to make.
Muslims who compare crime committed by people who happen to be nominal members of other religions to religious terror committed explicitly in the name of Islam are comparing apples to oranges.
Yes, some of the abortion clinic bombers were religious (as Muslims enjoy pointing out), but consider the scope of the problem. There were five deadly attacks over a 35 year period in the U.S. Seven people died. This is an average of one death every five years.
By contrast, Islamic terrorists staged nearly ten thousand deadly attacks in just the six years following September 11th, 2001. If one goes back to 1971, when Muslim armies in Bangladesh began the mass slaughter of Hindus, through the years of Jihad in the Sudan, Kashmir and Algeria, and the present-day Sunni-Shia violence in Iraq, the number of innocents killed in the name of Islam probably exceeds five million over this same period.
In the last six years, there have been perhaps a dozen or so religiously-inspired killings by people of all other faiths combined. No other religion produces the killing sprees that Islam does nearly every day of the year. Neither do they have verses in their holy texts that arguably support it. Nor do they have large groups across the globe dedicated to the mass murder of people who worship a different god, as the broader community of believers struggles with ambivalence and a radical clergy that supports the terror.
Muslims may like to pretend that other religions are just as subject to "misinterpretation" as is their “perfect” one, but the reality speaks of something far worse.
Muhammad preached “No compulsion in religion.”
(Qur’an, Verse 2:256)
The Muslim Game:
Muslims quote verse 2:256 from the Qur’an to prove what a tolerant religion Islam is. The verse reads in part, “Let there be no compulsion in religion; truth stands out clearly from error…”
The Truth:
The Muslim who offers this verse may or may not understand that it is from one of the earliest Suras (or chapters) from the Medinan period. It was “revealed” at a time when the Muslims had just arrived in Medina after being chased out of Mecca. They needed to stay in the good graces of the stronger tribes around them, many of which were Jewish. It was around this time, for example, that Muhammad decided to have his followers change the direction of their prayer from Mecca to Jerusalem.
But Muslims today pray toward Mecca. The reason for this is that Muhammad issued a later command that abrogated (or nullified) the first. In fact, abrogation is a very important principle to keep in mind when interpreting the Qur’an – and verse 2:256 in particular – because later verses (in chronological terms) are said to abrogate any earlier ones that may be in contradiction.
Muhammad’s message was far closer to peace and tolerance during his early years at Mecca, when he didn’t have an army. This changed dramatically after he attained the power to conquer, which he eventually used with impunity to bring other tribes into the Muslim fold. Contrast verse 2:256 with Suras 9 and 5, which were the last “revealed,” and it is easy to see why Islam has been anything but a religion of peace from the time of Muhammad to the present day.
There is some evidence that verse 2:256 may not have been intended for Muslims at all, but is instead meant to be a message to other religions concerning their treatment of Muslims. Verse 193 of the same Sura instructs Muslims to "fight with them (non-Muslims) until there is no more persecution and religion is only for Allah." This reinforces the narcissistic nature of Islam, which places Muslims above non-Muslims, and applies very different standards to both groups.
Though many Muslims today reject the practice of outright forcing others into changing their religion, forced conversion has been a part of Islamic history since Muhammad first picked up a sword. As he is recorded in many places as saying, "I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah..."
Muhammad put his words into practice. When he marched into Mecca with an army, one of his very first tasks was to destroy idols at the Kaaba, which had been devoutly worshipped by the Arabs for centuries. By destroying these objects of worship, he destroyed the religion of the people and supplanted it with his own.
Interestingly, even the Muslims who quote 2:256 usually believe in Islamic teachings that sound very much like religious compulsion. These would be the laws punishing apostasy by death, and the institutionalized discrimination against religious minorities under Islamic rule that is sometimes referred to as “dhimmiitude.”
Dhimmitude prohibits non-Muslims from sharing their faith and even includes the extortion of money from them in the form of a tax called the jizya. Those who refuse to pay this arbitrary amount are put to death. If this isn’t compulsion, then what is?
The Crusades
The Muslim Game:
Muslims love talking about the Crusades… and Christians love apologizing for them. To hear both parties tell the story, one would believe that Muslims were just peacefully minding their own business in lands that were legitimately Muslim, when Christian armies decided to wage holy war and "kill millions.”
The Truth:
Every part of this myth is a lie. By the rules that Muslims claim for themselves, the Crusades were perfectly justified, and the excesses (though beneath Christian standards) pale in comparison with the historical treatment of conquered populations at the hands of Muslims.
Here are some quick facts…
The first Crusade began in 1095… 460 years after the first Christian city was overrun by Muslim armies, 457 years after Jerusalem was conquered by Muslim armies, 453 years after Egypt was taken by Muslim armies, 443 after Muslims first plundered Italy, 427 years after Muslim armies first laid siege to the Christian capital of Constantinople, 380 years after Spain was conquered by Muslim armies, 363 years after France was first attacked by Muslim armies, 249 years after Rome itself was sacked by a Muslim army, and only after centuries of church burnings, killings, enslavement and forced conversions of Christians.
By the time the Crusades finally began, Muslim armies had conquered two-thirds of the Christian world.
Europe had been harassed by Muslims since the first few years following Muhammad’s death. As early as 652, Muhammad’s followers launched raids on the island of Sicily, waging a full-scale occupation 200 years later that lasted almost a century and was punctuated by massacres, such as that at the town of Castrogiovanni, in which 8,000 Christians were put to death. In 1084, ten years before the first crusade, Muslims staged another devastating Sicilian raid, burning churches in Reggio, enslaving monks and raping an abbey of nuns before carrying them into captivity.
In theory, the Crusades were provoked by the harassment of Christian pilgrims from Europe to the Holy Land, in which many were kidnapped, molested, forcibly converted to Islam or even killed. (Compare this to Islam’s justification for slaughter on the basis of Muslims being denied access to the Meccan pilgrimage in Muhammad’s time).
The Crusaders only invaded lands that were Christian. They never attacked Saudi Arabia or sacked Mecca as the Muslims had done (and continued doing) to Italy and Constantinople.
The period of Crusader “occupation” (of its own former land) was stretched over less than two centuries. The Muslim occupation is in its 1,372nd year.
The period of Crusader “aggression” compresses to about 20 years of actual military campaign, much of which was spent on organization and travel. (They were from 1098-1099, 1146-1148, 1188-1192, 1201-1204, 1218-1221, 1228-1229, and 1248-1250). By comparison, the Muslim Jihad against the island of Sicily alone lasted 75 grinding years.
Unlike Jihad, the Crusades were never justified on the basis of New Testament teachings. This is why they are an anomaly, the brief interruption of fourteen centuries of relentless Jihad against Christianity that began long before the Crusades and continued well after they were over.
The greatest crime of the Crusaders was the sacking of Jerusalem, in which 30,000 people were said to have been massacred. This number is dwarfed by the number of Jihad victims, from India to Constantinople and Narbonne, but Muslims have never apologized for their crimes and never will.
What is called 'sin and excess' by other religions, is what Islam refers to as the will of Allah.
"Muhammad never killed anyone.”
The Muslim Game:
In order to give others the impression that Muhammad was a man of peace, Muslims sometimes claim that he never killed anyone. By this, they mean that he never slew anyone with his own hand (except in battle… which they may or may not remember to mention).
The Truth:
By this logic, Hitler never killed anyone either.
Obviously, if you order the execution of prisoners or the murder of critics by those who are under your command, then you are at least as guilty as those who carry out your orders. In Muhammad’s case, the number of people that he had murdered were literally too many for historians to fully know.
There were the men taken prisoner at Badr (including one who cried out for his children at the point of execution), a mother of five (stabbed to death for questioning Muhammad’s claim to be a prophet), dozens of Jewish citizens, including poets and merchants who were accused of mocking Islam, numerous adulterers, at least one slave girl, 800 Qurayza men and boys taken captive and beheaded on Muhammad’s order, a Qurayza woman made delirious by the execution of her family, and an unfortunate individual who was tortured to death so that the prophet of Islam could discover his hidden treasure and then “marry” his freshly-widowed wife.
Indirectly, Muhammad is also responsible for the millions upon millions of people who have been slaughtered down through the centuries by those carrying on his legacy of Jihad. Not only did he kill, he is truly one of the bloodiest figures in history.
“Just like the Bible, the Qur’an also says ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill.’”
(Qur’an, Verse 5:32)
The Muslim Game:
Many Westerners prefer to believe that all religion is either equally bad or equally good, and eagerly devour anything that seems to support this preconception. The myth usually works to Islam’s advantage as well, since it either raises it to the level of others, or brings the others down to it. To compete with Western religion, Muslims vigorously employ verse 5:32, which is the closest thing they have to the Old Testament command of ‘Thou shalt not kill.”
It reads, in part:
“…if any one slew a person… it would be as if he slew a whole people; and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of a whole people…”.
(As quoted by the Fiqh Council of North America in their ultimately meaningless “Fatwa against Terrorism”)
The Truth:
Oh goodness… if only the Qur’an stopped right there! What would the world be like without large numbers of Muslims eager to commit mass murder in the name of their religion across the globe each day? Think of the lives, money and heartache that would be spared if Muhammad had commanded Muslims to cherish human life in the Judeo-Christian tradition
Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. This fragment of verse 5:32 is what Muslim apologists want non-Muslims to believe is in the Qur’an, rather than the dozens of other open-ended passages that command warfare, beheadings and torture. But even what they usually quote from 5:32 isn’t quite how it appears. Remember all those ellipses? There's something being left out.
Here’s the full text of the verse:
“On that account: We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people. Then although there came to them Our messengers with clear signs, yet, even after that, many of them continued to commit excesses in the land.”
First, notice the gaping loophole. Killing is allowed in cases of murder or “for spreading mischief in the land.” Murder is pretty straightforward, but “spreading mischief?” If anything begged for a careful and precise explanation, this phrase certainly would. But generations of Muslims are left to apply their own interpretation of what “mischief” means. (Needless to say, the standards vary).
Secondly, note the broader context of this verse. It turns out that this isn’t a command to Muslims after all. It’s a recounting of a rule that was handed down to the Jews. It isn’t an admonition against killing. It’s an indictment against Jews for violating God’s law. “Any one” doesn’t mean “anyone,” but rather “any one” of the Jews.
Rather than encouraging tolerance, Sura 5 as a whole is actually an incitement of hatred with a hint of violence. Jews and Christians are explicitly cursed as ‘wicked’ people with ‘diseased hearts’ and as hateful ‘blasphemers’ respectively. Muhammad goes on to coyly remind his people that Allah loves those who “fight” in his service (and it’s fairly obvious who the enemy is).
Muslims also conveniently leave out the fact that the verse which follows 5:32 actually mandates killing in the case of the aforementioned “mischief.” It even suggests crucifixion and “the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides.”
With this being the best that Islam has to offer, it’s not hard to guess why the religion contributes over a thousand deadly terrorist attacks each year.
“Muslims only kill in self-defense.”
The Muslim Game:
Muslims often claim that their religion only orders them to kill in self-defense (ie. when their own lives are in danger).
The Truth:
In fact, self-defense is is just one of several conditions under which Muslims are permitted to take the lives of others. The myth of killing only in self-defense is easily disproved from the accounts of Muhammad’s own life as recorded in Islam’s sacred texts (with which Muslim terrorists are only too familiar).
Muhammad’s career of killing began with raids on merchant caravans traveling between Syria and Mecca. His men would usually sneak up on unsuspecting drivers and kill those who defended their goods. There was no self-defense involved here at all. This was old-school armed robbery and murder – sanctioned by Allah (according to Muhammad, who also demanded a fifth of the loot).
The very first battle that Muhammad fought was at Badr, when a Meccan army of 300 was sent out to protect the caravans from Muslim raids. The Meccans did not threaten Muhammad, and (turning this Muslim myth on its ear) only fought in self-defense after they were attacked by the Muslims. Following the battle, Muhammad established the practice of executing surrendered captives – something that would be repeated on many other occasions.
The significance of this episode can hardly be overstated, because it lies at the very beginning of the long chain of Muslim violence that eventually passed right through the heart of America on September 11th. The Muslims were not being threatened by those whom they attacked, and certainly not by those whom they had captured. They staged aggressive raids to eventually provoke war, just as al-Qaeda attempts to do in our time.
Muslims try to justify this early violence by claiming that Muhammad and his followers “suffered persecution” at the hands of the Meccans in an earlier episode, in which Muhammad was evicted from the city of Mecca and had to seek refuge at Medina. But even the worst of this persecution did not rise to the level of killing, except in one or two disputed instances. Muhammad and his Muslims were not in any danger at all in Medina.
Even Muhammad’s own men evidently questioned whether they should be pursuing and killing people who did not pose a threat to them, since it seemed to contradict earlier, more passive teachings. To convince them, Muhammad passed along a timely revelation from Allah stating that “the persecution of Muslims is worse than slaughter [of non-Muslims]” (Sura 2:191). This verse established the tacit principle that the authority of Muslims is of higher value even than the very lives of others. There is no larger context of morality against which acts are judged. The only thing that matters is how an event impacts or benefits Muslims.
Under Muhammad, slaves and poets were executed, captives were beheaded, and adulterers were put into the ground and stoned. None of these were done during the heat of battle or necessitated by self-defense. To this day, Islamic law mandates death for certain crimes such as blasphemy and apostasy.
Following his death, Muhammad’s companions stormed the Christian world - taking the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Europe. They attacked and conquered to the East as well, including Iran, Afghanistan and well into the Indian sub-continent. Few, if any, of these campaigns involved the pretense of self-defense. They were about Jihad.
"The words, ‘Holy War’, aren’t in the Qur’an.”
The Muslim Game:
In early 2005, a well-known Muslim apologist named, Jamal Badawi, offered $1 million to anyone who could prove that the Qur’an contained the words, “Holy War.” Whether he actually had the money to put up is somewhat in question, but his intention was to make people believe that Jihad is not advocated in the Qur’an and that the terrorists are somehow tragically mistaken when they wage their campaigns of holy war in the cause of Islam.
So successful is this myth, that it has been repeated on popular television shows, such as “Criminal Minds.” Many now believe that not only is holy warfare not advocated by the Qur’an, but that the word, “Jihad” must not appear in it either, since Jihad has come to mean “Holy War” (most especially by those who kill in the name of Allah).
The Truth:
In fact, not only is the word “Jihad” mentioned in several places within the Quran, such as the infamous Sura 9 (“Verse of the Sword”), there are over 150 calls to holy war scattered throughout the entire text.
So what’s the catch?
Well, when knowledgeable infidels such as Robert Spencer immediately responded to the challenge and went to collect their prize, Mr. Badawi was forced to reveal the fine print on his offer. You see, he wasn’t talking about the concept of holy war. He only meant the exact Arabic phrase, “Holy War.”
And what about “Jihad?” Well, this doesn’t count, according to Mr. Badawi, because technically it can be used in a context that doesn’t mean ‘holy war’ (even if that is not how it was interpreted in Muhammad’s time, nor in ours). "Jihad" is like the word “fight,” which can be used in a benign sense (as in, “I am fighting a craving to call Mr. Badawi a disingenuous hack”).
If “Jihad” is holy without war, then “Qital” must be war without the holy. It is an Arabic term that literally means to wage military combat. But, like Jihad, it is most certainly used within the context of holy war, such as in Sura 2: “Fight against them until idolatry is no more and religion is only for Allah.” Mr. Badawi is even on record as admitting that Qital can be a form of Jihad… but even this doesn’t qualify according to the niceties of his offer.
So, although the Qur’an tells believers to “slay the infidels wherever ye find them,” and “smite their necks and fingertips,” showing “ruthlessness to unbelievers,” and 150 other violent admonitions to fight explicitly in the cause of Allah… the Arabic words “holy” and “war” don’t literally appear side-by-side. (Neither do the German words, “concentration” and “camp,” appear consecutively in Nazi documents, by the way).
My, what a hollow victory this is. One has to wonder whether Mr. Badawi sincerely believes that he has a point or if he recognizes this for the shameful word game that it is.
At the very least, people should know that “Jihad” is used within the context of religious warfare time and time again throughout the Qur’an and Hadith, and that, regardless of the exact terminology, Islam’s most sacred texts clearly advocate the sort of holy war that propels modern-day terrorism.
“Verses of violence are taken out of context.”
The Muslim Game:
Verses like, “Slay the infidels wherever ye find them,” were issued during times of war, according to the apologists. They accuse critics who use Qur’anic verses to discredit Islam of engaging in “cherry-picking” (pulling verses out of context to support a position, and ignoring others that may mitigate it).
The Muslims who rely on this argument often leave the impression that the Qur’an is full of verses of peace, tolerance and universal brotherhood, with only a small handful that say otherwise. Their gullible audience may also assume that the context of each violent verse is surrounded by obvious constraints in the surrounding text which bind it to a particular place and time (as is the case with many Old Testament passages).
The Truth:
The truth, unfortunately, is just the opposite. This is why new Muslims and non-Muslims alike, who begin studying the Qur’an and Hadith, are often confronted with an array of disclaimers and warnings by well-meaning Muslims who caution that it takes “years of study” to fully understand the meaning of certain passages. Neophytes are encouraged to seek the counseling of a Muslim scholar or cleric to "help them along" with interpreting what they read.
It is not the verses of violence that are rare, however, it is the ones of peace and tolerance. Neither is the “historical context” of these verses of violence at all obvious from the surrounding text (in most cases).
In the Qur’an, ideas and topics often seem to come from out of nowhere, emerging almost at random in a jumbled mess that bears no consistent or coherent stream of thought. But, with external references to the Hadith and early biographies of Muhammad’s life, it is usually possible to determine when a Qur’anic verse was “handed down from Allah,” and what it may have meant to the Muslims at the time. This is what apologists opportunistically refer to as “historical context.” They contend that such verses are merely a part of history and not intended as imperatives to present-day Muslims.
But “historical context” cuts both ways. If any verse is a product of history, then they all are. Indeed, there is not a verse in the Qur’an that was not given at a particular time to address a particular situation in Muhammad’s life, whether he wanted to conquer the tribe next door and needed a “revelation” from Allah spurring his people to war, or if needed the same type of “revelation” to satisfy his lust for more women (free of complaint from his other wives).
Here is the irony of the “cherry-picking” argument: Those who use “historical context” against their detractors nearly always engage in cherry-picking of their own by choosing which verses they apply “historical context” to and which they prefer to hold above such tactics of mitigation.
Islamic purists do not engage in such games. Not only do they know that the verses of Jihad are more numerous and authoritative (abrogating the earlier ones), they also hold the entire Qur’an to be the eternal and literal word of Allah… and this is what often makes them so dangerous.
"Islam is the world’s fastest growing religion"
The Muslim Game:
How can Islam be a bad religion if it is growing so fast? Doesn’t this mean that it is actually a truthful religion, since so many are accepting it?
The Truth:
In the first place, the truth of an idea or doctrine is never established by mere belief. Up until the last hundred years or so, the vast majority of people on our planet did not even believe that they were on a planet. Nor did they believe that the earth was spinning at a thousand miles an hour or hurtling around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour. Does this mean that the earth wasn’t doing these things up until people believed that it was?
Secondly, Islam is not "growing faster" than other religions because “people are accepting it,” but rather because the birthrate among Muslims is significantly higher than it is among Christians and others, particularly in the West. Kids can be raised to believe in just about anything, so this hardly constitutes any sort of accomplishment.
Of the so-called “converts” from other religions, only a miniscule number were active believers. Nearly all are really just people who have no faith to convert from – regardless of their nominal designation. In the West and non-Muslim Third World, where all religions are allowed to compete equally, such people (who experience a spiritual awakening) are much more likely to turn to Christianity than to Islam.
Finally, the real reason that Islam is making headway in other faiths, while losing few of its own, is actually something that Muslims should feel a sense of embarrassment over, rather than pride. In truth, it speaks more to the insecurity that Muslims have in their own religion, and the banal immaturity that Islam has, compared with other faiths.
Let’s say that you are playing chess with a 6-year-old boy. Instead of following the same set of rules, however, the child is allowed to make up rules that are preferential to him. One of the rules he decides on is that you aren’t allowed to make any moves in his half of the board, but he is allowed to make moves in yours. Another might be that it is impossible for any of his pieces to be taken.
Now, if the child is winning the game – which is assured by the conditions that he has imposed - is it really something in which he can take true pride?
The rules that Muslims impose on the “conversion game” are almost exactly like this chess analogy. Other religions are not allowed to operate in Islam’s own territory (ie. preaching their faith and evangelizing) as Muslims are in others. Neither is conversion away from Islam allowed – on penalty of death.
Watching Muslims gloat over being the “fastest growing religion” is no different than watching a child delude themselves into thinking that they are smarter and better for “beating” a much wiser adult in a game played under manufactured conditions that render the artificial “victory” entirely meaningless.
Islam has been playing by its own rules since its inception. It is unlikely that Muslims will soon develop the confidence in their own religion (or the necessary social maturity) to lift the shameful restrictions to which it owes its success and risk competition with other faiths on a level playing field.
As was first mentioned, the truth of a belief or creed is never established by how many followers it has. But when a religion has to be supported by double standards and death threats, there is all the more reason to doubt its veracity.
(Note: Our article does not take issue with the claim that Islam is the fastest growing religion, not because we necessarily believe it, but because others have done a better job of refuting it. See Islam is not the Fastest Growing Religion in the World for an example.) (2)
This is a complex and often difficult search, I wish you well in your quest.