16.1 Islam and Jihad

My daughter bought home lessons from school that make Islam appear to be a benevolent, peaceful and tolerant religion.  The 3 Muslims in the picture below don't seem to agree.  In one hand they hold a rifle and the other the Koran.  What are they telling us about the Koran?






 






Jamie Glazov is an editor of Frontpagemag.com an online magazine that often has articles critical of Islam. 

On Saturday, April 14, 2018,  Muhammad Irfan Ayoub a software engineer who lives in Pakistan, started commenting on Jamie Glazov’s Facebook page.  He told Jamie Glazov that Islam is a religion of peace and rebuked Dr. Glazov for writing that the women and girls are persecuted under Sharia.  He told Jamie to convert to Islam. As the exchange ensued over various aspects of Islam, and as Jamie made clear he did not want to convert, Ayoub made it clear that there would be punishment and that “Allah will defeat you.”  Muhammad Ayoub also wrote on facebook: "Come here I will break your mouth". 

Jamie inquired how this punishment from Allah was synonymous with Islam being a Religion of Peace.  Ayoub explained that there is only peace for those who obey Allah and his prophet, but for those who do not, there will be no peace.

Jamie complained to facebook about Muhammad's threat and instead of banning Muhammad Ayoub Facebook banned Jamie for a week. 

There are many people who try and convince us that Islam is not a violent religion.  When asked to explain the violent actions of Muslims they tell us that those Muslims don't understand their religion.  There seem to be an awful lot of Muslims who "misunderstand" their religion.

There is a website satirically called The Religion of Peace that keeps a record of Islamic violence.  Every week there is new Islamic violence on that web page. 

Here are some of the items listed on May 21, 2023 which is the day I took a look for this web page.


Religion of Peace
Atrocity of the Week

Atrocity of the Week
Tunisia: 5 Dead in
Attack on Synagogue

Other Recent "Misunderstandings
 of Islam"

2023.05.20 (Burkina Faso)
A dozen civilians are slaughtered by Religion of Peace proponents.

2023.05.15 (Burkina Faso)
Two women and a child are among eleven slaughtered by Jihadists.

2023.05.14 (DRC)
Islamists open fire on a truck servicing a Christian area, killing the driver.

2023.05.14 (Pakistan)
A young woman is shot dead in an honor-killing by her brother.

The Religion of Peace web site has a counter of all the terrorist attacks since Sept 11 2001 when Muslims flew passenger planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and into the ground in Pennsylvania.  I checked the counter on May 21, 2023.  Here is a screen shot.

That's over 43,000 deadly terrorist attacks between Sept 11, 2001 and May 21 2023.  That comes out to 165 terrorist acts a month, 1980 terrorist attacks a year or more than 5 terrorist attacks a day. Often many people are killed in each terrorist attack. Do you get the feeling that Islam may not be a religion of peace? 

There is another website that keeps track of the Islamic Holy War against the Infidel and it is called Jihadwatch..    

My daughter's lessons were from a textbook called World History by McDougal and Littell.  That textbook had the following paragraph.

Many of the people conquered by the Muslims accepted Islam.  Some found the message of Islam appealing.  Others liked the fact that by becoming Muslims they avoided paying a tax put only on non-Muslims.  But the Quran prevented Muslims from coercing others to accept the religion.  Muslim rulers allowed people to follow whatever beliefs they chose.

Lets think about that for a minute.  If Muslims are forcing you to pay a special tax and telling you that if you become a Muslim you don't have to pay that tax they are coercing you into becoming a Muslim.  Are they allowing you to live as a conquered infidel because of benevolence and compassion or because they want your money?

The best explanation of what is Islam is about, in my opinion was made by Dr. Abu Bakr Al Qadi in a sermon he gave in Egypt in the Ubad Al Rahman Mosque in 2017 .  He said to his fellow Muslims:

“You are the best nation produced for mankind”. The Quran does not tell us to sit at home, to isolate ourselves from the world like dervishes, and to interpret our religion as nothing but prostrations of prayer, rites, and ceremonies. Rather, this nation will achieve superiority by going out to the people, by commanding good and forbidding evil not only in its own land, but by going out and waging Jihad. I am not talking here about defensive Jihad – about merely fending off the enemies from [Muslim] mini-states, lands, and sanctities. I am talking about seeking out the infidels on their own turf, calling them to believe in Allah, and giving them the option to convert to Islam. “There is no compulsion in religion. The right path is henceforth distinct from error.” [If the infidels refuse to convert], they may pay the jizya “willingly and in submission”. Otherwise, they should be fought until the word of Allah reigns supreme, until religion in its entirety belongs to Allah, and until there is no more fitna – or polytheism – ruling the world. Oh servants of Allah, Islam alone should rule the world.

The textbook paragraph said that many people conquered by Islam accepted it and some even liked it.  Muhammad and his followers started out by robbing caravans.  I doubt the caravans liked being robbed.  When the Muslims became powerful enough they robbed entire countries.

The Turkish historian Seaddedin wrote about the Muslim conquest of Constantinople in 1453.  He wrote:

Having received permission to loot, the soldiers thronged into the city with joyous hearts and there, seizing the possessors and their families, they made the wretched unbelievers weep.

Doesn't sound like the people of Constantinople enjoyed being conquered. 

In 1922 the Turks conquered the city of Smyrna.  Serge Trifkovic in his book The Sword of the Prophet wrote:

The burning of Smyrna and the massacre and scattering of its 300,000 Christian inhabitants is one of the great crimes of all times.  It marked the end of the Greek civilization in Asia Minor, which at its height had also given the world the immortal cities of Pergamus, Philadelphia, and Ephesus.  On the eve of its destruction, Smyrna was a bustling port and commercial center.  The seafront promenade, next to foreign consulates boasted hotels modeled after Nice and elegant cafes.   Yellowing postcards show its main business thoroughfare, the Rue Franque, with the great department and wholesale stores, crowded by the ladies in costumes of the latest fashion...

 

Sporadic killings of Christians, mostly Armenians, started immediately after the Turks conquered it on September 9, 1922, and within days escalated to mass slaughter. 

Dr. Esther Lovejoy, chairman of the Executive board of the American Women's Hospitals and President of the Medical Women's International Association spoke about what she saw at Smyrna to the New York Times (October 9, 1922).

There were massed on the quays 250,000 people--wretched, suffering and screaming with women beaten and with their clothes torn off them, families separated and everybody robbed. "Knowing their lives depended on escape before Sept. 30, the crowds remained packed along the water front--so massed that there was no room to lie down. The sanitary conditions were unspeakable. "Three-quarters of the crowd were women and children, and never have I seen so many women carrying children. It seemed that every other woman was an expectant mother. The flight and the conditions brought on many premature births, and on the quay with scarcely room to lie down and without aid most of the children were born. In the five days I was there more than 200 such confinements occurred.

Even more heartrending were the cries of children who had lost their mothers or mothers who had lost their children. They were herded along through the great guarded enclosure, and there was no turning back for lost ones. Mothers in the strength of madness climbed the steel fences fifteen feet high and in the face of blows from the butts of guns sought the children, who ran about screaming like animals. ...  The Turkish soldiers searched and robbed every refugee. Even clothing and shoes of any value were stripped from their bodies. "To rob the men another method was used: men of military age were permit to pass through all the barriers till the last by giving bribes. At the last barrier they were turned back to be deported. The robbery was not only committed by soldiers, but also by officers. I witnessed two flagrant cases committed by officers who would be classed as gentlemen. "On September 28, 1922 the Turks drove the crowds from the quay, where the search lights of the allied warships played on them, into the side streets. All that night the screams of women and girls were heard and it was declared next day that many were taken for slaves. The Smyrna horror is beyond the conception of the imagination and the power of words. 

Does this sound liked the conquered people liked being conquered by Muslims?

Dr. Andrew Bostom is one of the foremost non-Muslim experts on Islam.  He has written several major works on Islam including The Legacy of Islamic Anti-Semitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History and Shariah versus Freedom: the Legacy of Islamic Totalitarianism.  What makes Dr. Bostom even more impressive is that in addition to being a scholar on Islam and an author, he is also a practicing physician, He speaks about Dhimmitude in the video below.  Once an infidel was conquered by Muslims he becomes a Dhimmi.  A Dhimmi is a second class citizen who has to pay a special tax to the Muslims but that's not all. You can find out more by listening to Dr. Bostom's talk below.

 

My daughter's text book said that Islam won't coerce subjugated people to be Muslim.  It makes it sound like living under Islamic conquest is not that bad. 

World History by McDougal and Littell is only one of many textbooks that whitewash Islam.  Why do they do that?  Perhaps they fear antagonizing Muslims.  Perhaps they are worried that if people knew the truth about Islam they would discriminate against Muslims. 

My personal opinion is that discrimination against individual Muslims is wrong.  Everyone is an individual.  Not all Muslims are holy warriors, who take every opportunity to subjugate or kill the infidel.  Some Muslims are very nice people who contribute to society.  Some of the top physicians in the United States are Muslim.  Some Muslims are victims of their own religion.  It's no one's fault if they are born into a radical Islamic family.  It doesn't make them a bad person.  They may be trapped in a religion that they don't want to be part of but are afraid to leave.  Aqsa Parvez was a sixteen year old Muslim girl who lived in Canada and who didn't want to wear the Hijab.  Vivacious and outgoing, Parvez wanted to dress like a Western woman in tight-fitting clothes and show off her long, dark hair by removing her hijab. Her strict Islamic family felt dishonored by her un-Islamic behavior and killed her.  The Toronto Star reported:

Parvez, who loved to dance and snap pictures of herself, will be sorely missed, her friends said. "She wanted to show her beauty but her dad wouldn't let her," Rance said, before breaking down. "I can't believe it. I'm so sad."

Aqsa Parvez was a Muslim and a nice girl.  It would be very wrong to judge her in a negative way because she was a Muslim just as it was wrong of her parents to judge her in a negative way for not being Muslim enough.  What was done to Aqsa Parvez is known as an honor killing.  Every year 400-500 women are killed brutally by Muslim relatives in Iran to protect their families “honor.”  Romina Ashrafi was a 13 year old girl who ran away to marry a man her parents didn't want her to marry.  The police handed her over to her parents and that night her father killed her.  After that the majority of members of Iran's parliament voted for a stronger punishment for killing of children.   The bill, however, was rejected by the Guardian Council of Iran, which claimed that the law was against sharia. Pakistan, like Iran is an Islamic country and it too has hundreds of honor killings a year.

Should we hide the truth about Islam so as to protect Muslims from discrimination?  Pretending honor killing don't exist just makes it easier for people to commit them.  Another problem with hiding the truth is that we than don't protect ourselves against those Muslims who are a threat to us.  Pamela Geller a writer who frequently warns about the threat of Islam created a memorial for Aqsa Parvez.  Ms. Geller cares about Muslims but at the same time has dedicated her life to warning about the threat they pose both to themselves and to others. 

Another problem about hiding the truth to prevent discrimination is that Muslims discriminate.  Islam teaches discrimination against non-believers.  When we bring in Muslims into our country we bring discrimination into our country..  Leftists who are for mass immigration of Muslims say they are for LGBTQIA+ rights but Muslims are not.  Shaykh Hamza Sodagar is a Muslim allowed to immigrate to Britain.  He  said: “If there’s homosexual men, the punishment is one of five things. One – the easiest one maybe – chop their head off, that’s the easiest. Second – burn them to death. Third – throw ’em off a cliff. Fourth – tear down a wall on them so they die under that. Fifth – a combination of the above.”

The Western world has allowed in large populations of Muslims who declare themselves to be refugees, not recognizing the threat that many of them are.  Here is a video that demonstrates that there are radical Muslims all over the world and they are dangerous.  It is frightening and not suitable for anyone younger than 15 years old.

 

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