What Hath Islam Wrought?
The good news is that not every Muslim rejoices in the use of violence, bloodshed, murder, the mistreatment of women, and so on. But sadly many do. And even more sadly, they do so with full warrant from their own sacred religious texts and sources.
The issue then is not whether there are moderate, peace-loving Muslims around. Of course there are – many of them. But the real question to be asked is whether Islam itself is moderate and peace-loving. The answer to that is a clear, unequivocal no.
The use of violence to spread the faith, stop the infidels, and extend Islamic hegemony are all fully enjoined in the key Islamic sources of authority, such as the Koran, the hadith, and the sira. They all give full support to bloody jihad, attacks on religious freedom, the abuse of women, and contempt of non-Muslims.
If a Muslim dies killing for the faith, he is not only assured of a one-way ticket to paradise (the only thing which is assured for the Muslim), but he can find complete support for his actions in the life, example and teachings of Muhammad, and in his sacred texts. But I discuss this more fully elsewhere:
hhttps://billmuehlenberg.com/2010/09/13/violence-in-the-bible-and-the-koran/
ttp://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2008/11/21/jesus-muhammad-and-violence/
And if a Muslim treats his wife or other women as second-class citizens, as mere property, and as objects of disrespect and insult, then he too can find full justification for this in the life of Muhammad and his teachings as recorded in the Koran, hadith, and elsewhere. But I document this elsewhere:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2006/11/02/islam-and-women/
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2012/11/24/women-and-islam/
Just consider the issue of Islamic-based terrorist attacks. Everyone knows of the horrific attack of 9/11 eleven years ago in which over 3,000 innocent men, women and children lost their loves. However, most people would not know that since that time, there have been over 20,000 other Islamic terrorist attacks.
To be precise, there have been 20,043 such attacks since 9/11. But that figure is already out of date, with even more attacks having taken place since when I first wrote this piece. Indeed, one figure of the death toll of Islam in the past 14 centuries is simply staggering: 270 million killed in the name of Islam. 270 million.
Simply consider last month. Here are the stats for November 2012: there were 215 jihad attacks carried out in 22 countries affecting 5 different religions. These attacks resulted in 893 deaths and 1848 injuries. And that is just for one month! The simple and inescapable truth is this: Islam is not a religion of peace.
Tragically we have horror stories every day coming out of Muslim-majority nations – and even in the West where Muslim populations dwell. Consider just a few of these recent stories. One of them comes from Saudi Arabia:
“A Saudi court sentenced a local mother of four to five days in jail and ordered her lashed 10 times for marrying a Syrian man without getting official approval in violation of Saudi laws governing mixed-marriages, press reports said on Thursday. Muna Mohammed Ladan said she married that man in 2005 and had two children from him before she filed for a divorce for mistreatment.
“In 2008, she remarried him after he assured her that he had changed and that he would not abuse her again. They had two other children but she filed for a divorce again last week on the grounds he started to be abusive. ‘I have appealed the sentence and I hope the court will abolish that sentence for the sake of my children,’ Ladan said.”
Or take this story of a raped woman put on trial for “indecency” in Tunesia: “The interior ministry said the woman and her boyfriend were apprehended by three policemen on September 3. Two policemen then raped her, while the third held the handcuffed fiance. Khaled Tarrouche, the spokesperson of the Ministry of the Interior, stated during a press conference on Tuesday that the three police officers ‘caught [the woman] in an immoral act’ with a male companion before reportedly being raped.
“Hamida’s client, who was allegedly raped on September 3, is accused along with her fiance of ‘indecency’ by the policemen, the couple having been taken by surprise in an ‘immoral position,’ according to the ministry. If found guilty of indecency, the couple could be jailed for six months. ‘I never believed that I would be summoned to court accused of wrongdoing. I thought I was the victim, not the accused,’ she told the paper. ‘I will not renounce (my accusation) after being humiliated in this way,’ she said, while denying that she had been in a compromising position with her boy friend in the car when the police arrived. ‘It is not true. When they came, I was dressed,’ she insisted.”
One more recent example: “A student and polio volunteer has been shot dead by armed men in a rural Afghan village. The brutal killing has raised questions about women’s safety in the region, with reports suggesting that females are too scared to attend school or work following the murder.
“The girl, known only as Anisa, was shot outside her home in Afghanistan’s Kapisa province, having survived an attack only a day before. After the gunmen opened fire, Anisa was carried to hospital by her brother but she later died with six bullets found in her stomach.”
Her story is of course similar to that of the Pakistani 15-year-old student Malala Yousufzai who was shot by the Taliban as she sat on a school bus for speaking out against militants in the region and advocating education for girls. She at least survived after having a bullet removed from her spine at a hospital in Britain.
There are plenty more such stories that could be mentioned here. There is something fundamentally barbaric and demonic about a religion – really a political ideology – which regularly allows these sorts of things to happen. Indeed, they are all fully justified by the example of its leader, and given the green light in his teachings.
Not all religions are equal. Some justify the most horrific acts, while others repudiate them. We can support and applaud those Muslims who also are disgusted by all this. But then they should really stop calling themselves Muslims, since the ones doing all this evil are in fact the ones who can rightly claim to be true Muslims, and who are truly following in the footsteps of their prophet.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/saudi-arabia-lashes-abused-woman-for-remarrying-without-consent/
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/moderate-tunisian-islamists-put-raped-woman-on-trial-for-indecency/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2244133/Afghan-girl-Anisa-worked-polio-volunteer-shot-dead-suspected-Taliban-attack.html
[1071 words]
I think the biggest mistake people make is they think of Islam as a religion. It is clearly primarily a political ideology using the facade of a religion to hide behind. Basic freedoms and Islam have an inverse relationship with each other, that has been observed of this inherently violent way of life for centuries. Governments that become awash with Islam reduce rights to women severely and can include many barbaric and/or extreme official methods of justice.
Contrast that with the Judeo-Christian influenced world, which – even though Christianity is not primarily about things here on earth but about eternal salvation – has extended more rights and freedoms and raised the standard of living more for more people than any other spiritual and moral framework. Be it the eradication of slavery or rights, recognition and benefits to women… you don’t even need to be a believer to benefit, not that you would know this listening to the leftist historical revisionists. The Western world still trades on the spiritual and moral capital that God delivered to the world through His Word to Israel and His Son Jesus, although we are fast running out of the inheritance. I pity those who think giving any political power to Islam is a good idea.
Individual muslims may say this or that or live a certain way, but the history and teachings of Islam as an ideology are inherently full of making life worse for people. But really, the worst thing is the mainstream media, which refuses to tell the truth about Islam so that people are properly informed. Especially our tax-payer funded ABC.
Mark Rabich
Yes quite so Mark. Islam is a political ideology first and foremost.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Islam is a total way of life. Thanks for updating and alerting us to the terrors is the Muslims.
Judith Bond
Don’t you realise you are a bigot for mentioning this? /Sarc
Ian Nairn
Bill, our parish priest says we catholics don’t seek to convert muslims to christianity but rather we pray to help them become better muslims. It is difficult to reconcile this view with what you have written above? I shall make your article available to him for comment if he so wishes. My reading of the ‘great commission’ Mt 28:16-20 is likewise difficult to reconcile with the ‘better muslims’ position. Nevertheless catholics and muslims are in dialogue at a high level I believe.
B T Walters
Great blog Bill. Love it. You’re one of my favourite bigots of all time 😉
Jenna Priest
Thanks BT
Jesus of course said “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man comes to the Father but by me”. He certainly never said that a better Buddhist or a better atheist or a better secular humanist or a better Muslim would be just peachy. Sounds like you need a new parish priest.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Thanks Jenna
I aim to please!
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
BT is your priest a Jesuit for that sounds like something they would say now.
Bill, Saudi Arabia is the exporter of Wahabism and this jihadism. I believe that because of this God will judge Saudi Arabia as he will Pakistan for the persecution of Christians and other minorities.
Wayne Pelling
It is frustrating that there does seem to be considerable number of Christians who are totally oblivious to the well documented fact that Islam has been the biggest and most aggressive persecutor of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ since its inception 1300 years ago. That’s a long history of bloodshed.
Often, these people demand ‘tolerance’ from us who speak out even as they slap the faces of the countless numbers who have been mowed down by the spread of this deceptive religion. They defend Islam from precisely that at which Islam excels: violent oppression.
My current opinion is that Islam will be the power base from which the antichrist arises. I’m open to changing that opinion as the events unfold in the middle east but from what I currently see, Islam has begun to make a serious comeback and will at some point have a dominance beyond even that which it had in the ‘glory days’ of the Ottoman empire.
And by that time, we’ll need a dear love of truth to stand firm and speak against such a violent and oppressive ideology.
Despite all this, Jesus is King and in control, so we need not despair by any means.
Thanks again Bill for putting truth out there!
Simon Fox
The problem is not only with the ABC and other media. The Gillard Government delayed the visa of the Dutch politician Geert Wilders till all his speaking engagements had to be cancelled. Geert Wilders preaches the same message regarding Islam and is hounded down for it in most parts of the world while he is adamantly opposed to any form of violence, while a Muslim imam who calls for the destruction of Israel and critical of Australia’s involvements in Iraq and Afghanistan was granted an Australian visa without any problem. Geert Wilders’ visit to Australia is now rescheduled for February. I heard also of another overseas person critical of Islam suffering a similar visa treatment as Geert Wilders.
Joost Gemeren
Thanks Bill. I`m continualy wondering why Australia (and the west) is blind to this, and to what you wrote in the “World AIDS Day” article. Keep shineing light Bill (and add some scripture where practical) , I appreciate how you write, knowing you want us informed, but you also encourage us to love not judge.
Johannes Archer
Bill, this article cited by Ewan McD on Facebook might give us hope that the politics of rel;ating to “Islam” might change over the next few years…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2244822/Thought-running-fossil-fuels-New-technology-means-Britain-U-S-tap-undreamed-reserves-gas-oil.html#ixzz2EYbnWn99
John Angelico
No he is not a Jesuit Wayne so it looks like it’s contagious.
B T Walters
Over 35 years ago I was reading a book by a Christian author who stated that the biggest thread to western freedom will come from Islam. I can’t remember who the author was but I thought it ridiculous at that time to take seriously! How immature I was.
However, some of the comments above regarding the wisdom of a Catholic priest brings me to once again state plainly what I have always believed: Get out of that church if you love the Lord!
Manfred Sollorz
Manfred, as someone has already said, whatever that priest has is contagious, so it’s not confined to any particular denomination.
John Angelico
Thanks guys
Yes the sad truth is, this kind of dumb and un-Christian thinking by religious leaders is found in all sorts of denominations.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
What we sow we reap! As citizens we have to take responsibility for our nonchalance and have allowed this evil to permeate our societies. This so called tolerance for all religion and multicultures will eventually be our undoing and draw us away from the recognition of and true worship of our God. He honours our choices with a description of blessings and curses Deut 28.
Kevin McDonald
Hi Bill,
I’ve just had an old school friend (Tekohi Andrew Rivera) post a comment about this article I posted on my Facebook page. I believe he calls himself a Muslim. Could you please respond to his comments on Facebook? Thanks for your research and honesty.
David Roberts
Mark, I believe Islam is actually a true world view with a theological component out of which the other disciplines, of which politics is only one of them, receive their instructions.
I wish Christians would foster a similarly close tie between what they believe and what they do in all areas of life.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
Thanks David. Done.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch