from the website : Religion of Peace The Reality of Islam ( under "Notes: in the section which lists 109 jihad verses. Actually about 9 or 10 of these verses, while objectionable, seem to be about other subjects. ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------- 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. Those that do are earlier "Meccan" verses that are obviously abrogated by later ones. Small wonder that Muslim apologists spend a lot of time speaking of the "risks" of trying to interpret the Qur'an without their "assistance." Far from being mere history or theological construct, the violent verses of the Qur'an 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_ (http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Muhammad/myths-mu-qurayza.htm) the men, _raping_ (http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Muhammad/myths-mu-rape.htm) 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_ (http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Muhammad/myths-mu-captives-kill.htm) . 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_ (http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Muhammad/myths-mu-self-defense.htm) by the accounts of Muslim historians and others going back to the time of Muhammad. Consider the example of the _Qurayza_ (http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Muhammad/myths-mu-qurayza.htm) 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 Qur'an, 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_ (http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/53865) 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 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_ (http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/Quran-Hate.htm) 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. 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_ (http://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/28/us/terror-and-death-at-home-are-caught-in-fbi-tape.html?pagewanted=1) ). 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 Qur'an literally... and too many others who couldn't care less about the violence done in the name of Islam.
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