christmas-spirit-and-islamThis is the time of the year that the air is filled with everything Christmas. There is something for everyone: gifts for family and friends, prayers at churches, and Christmas music everywhere. It puts me in a contemplative mood, particularly when I hear the delightful Christian refrain, peace on earth, goodwill to men. This is the gift I want. This is my Christmas. When there is peace on earth and all people dispense and receive good will.

Yet, I am saddened to see the world as it is, particularly with what Islam is doing to it, which is the exact opposite of working for peace and extending goodwill to all people.


My contemplation takes me to the genesis of Islam. Something I have come to view as a scourge of humanity, and here are a few of my random thoughts about the founder of Islam: the person who launched a religion that has denied peace to mankind right from the start, the person who advanced a religion that began with war, continues with war, and aims to carry on with bloodletting to the end of time. All this makes me think and shake my head in bewilderment.

Starting with the premise that an all-knowing powerful God is the Creator of this awe-inspiring universe where we humans are an infinitesimally insignificant part of His creation humbles me. Muslims call this creator Allah—a recast of one of 360 idols in the pre-Islamic Idolatry of Mecca—and attribute numerous superhuman qualities to him. It is awe-inspiring to realize that a being of that description may indeed exist.

That leads me to some questions: Why would such an indescribably exalted Creator, with his ascribed boundless wisdom and resources, pick an illiterate Bedouin to become His prophet for then and forever? The man himself, Muhammad, admitted in the Quran to his own illiteracy. Yet, Allah persisted in choosing this man? Was Allah bored with the rest of his universe and playing a joke on us helpless mortals? Or was it a case of Allah not being able to get any reasonably literate man to take the job?

I don’t have an answer to this or a bevy of other questions, and the answers I have seen so far from Muslims are far from satisfactory. I am forced to mark this as one of the enigmas of life and move on to further look into Muhammad, his claims, his life and the way all might come together with Allah’s choreography of our life of drama.
boxwood-wreath

Muslims claim that Muhammad was the most perfect man, the kind of saintly man that each and every one of us should adulate and aspire to follow. On the top of their list is the desire to lead their lives in such a way that would please Allah, if they can.

Muhammad has done that, Muslims claim. And apparently Allah, in His infinite kindness, does not require the rest of us mortals to do things that we are incapable of doing. And Muhammad has brought us the perfect life manual, the Quran, to help us in our quest, we are told.

Besides, a great inducement for me to check Islam out is the promise of eternal life in an indescribably lush sensual paradise of Allah if I make the grade. If I fail, I am told, my forever destination is the dreadful inferno of hell.
I have also checked out those schools of thought that say life starts here and ends here. End of discussion. Well, buying into the idea that I am going to end up as fertilizer in some desolate cemetery is not something I would like to contemplate. So, I kept looking into this Islam thing since I was born and raised in it. After all 1.5 billion people have bought into it. They can’t all be misguided, can they?

This quest led me to examine the teachings and life of Muhammad closely. And here are a few of my findings that have thrown me for a loop. Hence, I am sharing my findings with the readers in the hope that someone would supply me with explanations that would relieve me of my perplexities.

I have, in my quest, read, re-read, and read again the Quran—purportedly the literal word-for-word of Allah transmitted to Muhammad by the Archangel Gabriel over the course of some 20 years.

Right away I am troubled. Is Allah the same Creator who has created the entire universe by a single word of his mouth—kon va yakoon—be and became, as Islam claims? Then why did it take this magnificent all-knowing lightning-fast-Allah 20 years to get across a dime-novel-size hodgepodge of contradictory and nonsensical verse called the Quran, to us poor creatures?

Was it because Muhammad was illiterate and he couldn’t write them down? But that can’t be. He didn’t write down anything himself. He dictated to anyone who could write and was around at the time to do it. Therefore, in the course of some 20 years what is claimed to be the word-for-word dictates of Allah went through a number of intermediaries and materialized in several versions.

First the Archangel Gabriel whispered it to Muhammad, then Muhammad found some Arab who could write—not an easy find among the masses of the most backward illiterates of Arabia—and who happened to have a pen of some sort and a parchment to jot down what Muhammad still managed to recall.

Perhaps this does explain the several versions of the Quran that popped up after Muhammad’s death and the Caliph Othman’s choice of one as the genuine and burning of the others. The practice of burning books Muslims don’t like to talk about, goes all the way back to their venerated second Caliph, Othman.

Now, how could a fallible politician like Othman be the judge of Allah’s genuine utterances? Was there another Archangel that helped him out, or he just simply liked that particular version best? One thing you can say about Othman. He was an astute enough politician to realize that you can’t have one Islam with several versions of the word-for-word revelation of Allah.

Here is another problem. Even the chosen version of the Quran, if you can make any sense of it at all, reads like two different books. The early part is known as the Mecca Quran. This part is much about meekness, tolerance, kindness and so forth. This was the time that Muhammad’s wife Khadija—a monotheist Hanif, in contrast to polytheist idolater Muhammad—introduced her young troubled husband to her Christian uncle and exposed him to the teachings of Christianity that influenced his “revelation.”
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During this early phase of his ministry, Muhammad spoke respectfully about the “people of the book,”—Christians and Jews, the people from whose book he liberally plagiarized to launch his monotheistic faith with the invaluable encouragements of his wife Khadija.

It was Khadija who convinced the young man that he was indeed chosen by Allah to be his spokesperson; that the jinn and angels communicated with him were parts of Allah’s plan for him.

Muhammad, during his Mecca years, was ridiculed for his confused sayings by his own tribe of Quraish. He was called shaeron majnoon—crazed poet. At this early stage he went by his birth name of Abulqasem. It was later that he took on the new name of Muhammad—Praiseworthy-One—to go better with his ministry.

Muhammad was judged as a hallucinating insane poet and was tormented by the Meccans in many ways. It got so bad, that after his wife’s death he left for Medina where a significant Jewish community provided a safer place for him to gather followers, build a powerbase, reveal his Medina Quran of intolerance and vilification, and launch his religion in full force and by brute force.

Once in Medina, Muhammad hit on a most powerful formula for success. He justified everything, on the spot, by saying that Allah wants it this way. And Allah was nothing to trifle with. He held the key to the most magnificent paradise as well as to the dreadful hell. The duty of a good Muslim became unquestioning obedience to everything that Muhammad said and wished. Muhammad became Allah’s gatekeeper to paradise and hell.

Muhammad’s formula worked magic with the Bedouins of Arabia who thrived on robbery and murder. His religion spread like a pandemic disease in no time at all. And here we are in the 21st century, at Christmas time, praying for peace and goodwill to men, while Muhammad’s men are working overtime to make sure that men see neither peace nor goodwill.

I would like to join the chorus of peace on earth and goodwill to men. Yet, deep in my soul, I find it my solemn duty to keep on sounding the alarm about the fire of Islam even at this poignant moment of Christmas.

Peace on earth and goodwill to men is a perennial prayer. It can be only when enough men and women of goodwill, with iron resolve arise and disempower the Islamist people of war and ill will.

 

Amil Imani is the author of Obama Meets Ahmadinejad and Operation Persian Gulf.

2011-12-24 04:48:45
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Thank you for this Amil. it explains a lot.

we are ALL children of God. He wants only the best for ALL of us. Not for one set of children to kill the others but to try get along together. From all I have heard about radical Islam that is entirely opposite from what they believe.

Satan knows how to influence and seduce us. He knows what we want and will show us how to get it. He will appear as anyone he wants to.

Jesus Christ came, lived and died so that ALL MANKIND would be saved. ALL will rise from the grave (immortality) but not all will have everlasting life.
Steven,
Regarding Islam, one has to take Muhammad's word that he had a revelation from Gabriel or Allah to believe it. Other than his sucess in battle there are no accounts of witnessed miracles. It does appear that he had made up revelations to fit the situation and hold sway over his folowers but for Islam to last 1400 years makes me think he did have some kind of supernatural revelation, but an evil one.
As far as Christianity, the Gospels were written by two Apostles, John and Matthew, who were eye witnesses to Jesus Christ's miracles including raising three people from the dead. Luke was a doctor and traveled with St. Paul who testified to persecution of Christians before he was blinded by the risen Christ (read Acts of the Apostles). Mark may have been Peter's son and would also most likely be an eye witness to Christ's miracles. The teachings are love and forgiveness. Islam is hatred and killing of the infidel. Paul says in Acts that there were 500 who witnessed Jesus' Acension into Heaven. Christianity spread under persecution by the Roman Empire the first three hundred years. Islam spread by the sword. It was coversion, pay the subjugated tax or death for Christians and jews and for Pagans paying the tax was not an option, only conversion or death. The Muslims claim the same god as Christians and Jews. I cannot accept that as the message of Christ was love and forgiveness and the message of Muhammad (Allah) was hatred and killing of the unbeliever.
Good article Amil. I have the same wonder about good will to men and then read the Quran where it is hate and killing of infidels, boiling water, hot black pitch and the like. Sounds like a religion out of hell, doesn't it?
Awesome post! Thanks.
How does it feel to get up everyday, a member of a religion that requires you to lie about its true meaning and intentions? We can read the Qur'an and Sunna of Muhammad too. The verse you quote was a warning to the Jews while Muhammad had them under seige. There is no universal "Thou shalt not kill" in Islam. As a Christian, I am kicking Islam out of the "Three great monotheistic religions" club. Can I get a Jew to second that motion? It embarrasses me to have people even compare Judaism or Christianity to Islam. Islam is such a barbaric belief system.
Sorry but the quote you have cited is originally Jewish teaching. Here is proof:

"He who saves one life... it is as if he saves an entire universe. He who destroys a life... it is as if he destroys an entire universe"
TALMUD - Sanhedrin 4:5

Muslim apologists have many times quoted Jewish text to try to prove the validity and harmlessness of Islam. Yes, really!

One such example is where Muslims credit the Qur’an with the saying which proclaims that "if one person is killed, it is as if all of mankind has been killed." The fact is: That is not even an Islamic teaching to begin with; it came from the Jewish teaching as cited above and also found in Mishna 5 which states:

3) “Therefore but a single person was created in the world, to teach that if any man has caused a single life to perish from Israel, he is deemed by Scripture as if he had caused a whole world to perish; and anyone who saves a single soul from Israel, he is deemed by Scripture as if he had saved a whole world.”
Source: http://mishnahyomit.org/sanhedrin/Sanhedrin%204-5.doc

Now, here is where Muslims put an out of context “spin” on the Jewish saying and fail to reveal the complete message as written in the following text:
Qur’an 005.032

YUSUFALI: 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.

PICKTHAL: For that cause We decreed for the Children of Israel that whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind. Our messengers came unto them of old with clear proofs (of Allah's Sovereignty), but afterwards lo! many of them became prodigals in the earth.

SHAKIR: For this reason did We prescribe to the children of Israel that whoever slays a soul, unless it be for manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as though he slew all men; and whoever keeps it alive, it is as though he kept alive all men; and certainly Our messengers came to them with clear arguments, but even after that many of them certainly act extravagantly in the land.
However, guess what happens next?
Qur’an 005.033

YUSUFALI: The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter;
PICKTHAL: The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land. Such will be their degradation in the world, and in the Hereafter theirs will be an awful doom;
SHAKIR: 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,
Sorry, but your interpretations is entirely out of context. Here is the true explanation of that Surrah that you have cited:

"He who saves one life... it is as if he saves an entire universe. He who destroys a life... it is as if he destroys an entire universe"
TALMUD - Sanhedrin 4:5

Muslim apologists have many times quoted Jewish text to try to prove the validity and harmlessness of Islam. Yes, really!

One such example is where Muslims credit the Qur’an with the saying which proclaims that "if one person is killed, it is as if all of mankind has been killed." The fact is: That is not even an Islamic teaching to begin with; it came from the Jewish teaching as cited above and also found in Mishna 5 which states:

3) “Therefore but a single person was created in the world, to teach that if any man has caused a single life to perish from Israel, he is deemed by Scripture as if he had caused a whole world to perish; and anyone who saves a single soul from Israel, he is deemed by Scripture as if he had saved a whole world.”
Source: http://mishnahyomit.org/sanhedrin/Sanhedrin%204-5.doc

Now, here is where Muslims put an out of context “spin” on the Jewish saying and fail to reveal the complete message as written in the following text:
Qur’an 005.032

YUSUFALI: 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.

PICKTHAL: For that cause We decreed for the Children of Israel that whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind. Our messengers came unto them of old with clear proofs (of Allah's Sovereignty), but afterwards lo! many of them became prodigals in the earth.

SHAKIR: For this reason did We prescribe to the children of Israel that whoever slays a soul, unless it be for manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as though he slew all men; and whoever keeps it alive, it is as though he kept alive all men; and certainly Our messengers came to them with clear arguments, but even after that many of them certainly act extravagantly in the land.
However, guess what happens next?
Qur’an 005.033

YUSUFALI: The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter;
PICKTHAL: The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land. Such will be their degradation in the world, and in the Hereafter theirs will be an awful doom;
SHAKIR: 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,

And as for Muslim apologists’ comments that downplay the fact that Muslims are encouraged to lie for a specific means, here is what is taught in Islam:

Chapter 261
Falsehood that is Permissible
The learned compiler of this book has put forth some arguments to prove that it is lawful to tell a lie under the stress of circumstances. An example of this is the case of a Muslim who hides himself or his money from a tyrant who is bent on killing him or taking his money from him. If one knows the whereabouts of this Muslim or his money and is asked about it, it is permissible to lie in this case to save a Muslim's life or his property, but it is better to give an equivocal answer, that is one which is not clear or definite in meaning, and that can be interpreted in more than one way in order to shun lying altogether. The sum and substance of discussion has been derived from the narration ascribed to Umm Kulthum (May Allah be pleased with her). She said: The Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said, "A liar is not the one who tries to bring about a reconciliation between the people and speaks good to avert dispute or to convey good.''
[Al-Bukhari].
It may be concluded that falsehood is permissible in the following three cases:
(i) While fighting Jihad in the Cause of Allah.
(ii) To conciliate between people.
(iii) For the husband to please his wife and the wife to please her husband.
Source: http://www.witness-pioneer.org/vil/hadeeth/riyad/17/book17.htm


Why did God create all of mankind out of one single person? “To teach you that whoever destroys one life is considered as if he had destroyed the entire world, and whoever saves one life is considered as if he had saved the entire world” (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5). 3
Source: http://www.theshalomcenter.org/index.php?q=node/1063


I constantly hear Muslims quote that Sura out of context on radio and television programs all the time and I believe it is because that is what they are taught to say publicly while perhaps not knowing that they are misleading the public when they make this out to be an Islamic "peaceful view" of mankind. If only American Muslims would read Suras 005.032 and 005.033 in context they would see the true picture of what is really being said in the Qu'ran.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/AmericanAttacks.htm

A link to Islam's true contribution to American society - terrorism & murder.
As sad as it may seem I believe that we will be at war against Islam and our own governments before it is all over. However, it is our own faults for allowing our governments to take the path of least resistance. Freedom of speech and its aggressive and relentless use is our best weapon against Islam. If we lose it, or refuse to aggressively use it, we will be left with only blood, sweat and tears. No honest, intellectually sound person can read the Qur'anic holy texts and see what is going on in the world today and NOT conclude that Islam is a violent, aggressive and expansionistic belief system "hell bent" on imposing itself on the rest of the planet.
Peace be with you!Brother can I ask you which belief do you follow?May Allah guide you and keep you on the right path inshallah !