Title: Does Islam Breed Violence? (An Iranian-Born American's View) Source:
FaithFreedomOrg URL Source:http://faithfreedom.org/islam/does-islam-breed-violence Published:Nov 14, 2009 Author:Amil Amani Post Date:2009-12-03 22:32:29 by Liberator Keywords:Islam, Bloody, Muslim, Cult Views:58775 Comments:650
There is a division of the house. On one side are the politically correct in government, the leftist mainstream media, and a raft of Islamist apologists. One and all are tripping over each other in reassuring us that the mass murderers such as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and suicide bombers who detonate their explosive vests in crowded marketplaces and even mosques are individual anomalies and Islam is not responsible for what they do.
On the other hand are those who have been fed up with the numberless daily horrific acts that are clearly committed under the banner of Islam throughout the world. In all fairness, there needs to be a distinction. Numerous criminal acts are also committed, on a daily basis, by non-Muslims. The critical difference is that non-Muslim criminals do not hoist a religious banner to justify their misdeeds, while the Muslims proudly claim that they commit their heinous acts in obedience to the dictates of their religious faith.
Would someone, please, explain what motivated Nidal Hasan who had been, at tax payer’s expense, educated from college all the way through medical school and post medical-school training, to turn his deadly weapons against a nation that gave him everything he had?
If Islam had nothing to do with what Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan did, why:
* had he repeatedly preached the ascendancy of Islam to the U.S. Constitution?
* had he publicly supported Islamic suicide bombing?
* had he proclaimed his highest loyalty to Islam?
* had he been in contact with violent anti-U.S. Islamists and a virulent Yemeni Imam?
* did he distribute copies of the Quran to people the morning of his bloody attack?
* did he keep screaming “Allah-o-Akbar” as he heartlessly sprayed over a hundred bullets, killing thirteen and injuring some thirty innocent men and women?
Here is the truth, as bitter as it may be. Islam is the culprit. Islam is anything but a religion of peace. Violence is at the very core of Islam. Violence is institutionalized in the Muslim’s holy book, the Quran, in many suras:
Qur'an:9:5 "Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war."
Qur'an:9:112 "The Believers fight in Allah's cause; they slay and are slain, kill and are killed."
Qur'an:8:39 "So fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief [non-Muslims]) and all submit to the religion of Allah alone (in the whole world)."
Qur'an:8:65 "O Prophet, urge the faithful to fight. If there are twenty among you with determination they will vanquish two hundred; if there are a hundred then they will slaughter a thousand unbelievers, for the infidels are a people devoid of understanding."
Qur'an:9:38 "Believers, what is the matter with you, that when you are asked to go forth and fight in Allah's Cause you cling to the earth? Do you prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? Unless you go forth, He will afflict and punish you with a painful doom, and put others in your place."
Qur'an:47:4 "When you clash with the unbelieving Infidels in battle (fighting Jihad in Allah's Cause), smite their necks until you overpower them, killing and wounding many of them. At length, when you have thoroughly subdued them, bind them firmly, making (them) captives. Thereafter either generosity or ransom (them based upon what benefits Islam) until the war lays down its burdens. Thus are you commanded by Allah to continue carrying out Jihad against the unbelieving infidels until they submit to Islam."
And the Quran is considered by Muslims as the word-for-word literal edicts of the Muslims’ god, Allah.
Right from the start, violence served as the engine of Islam under the command and supervision of Muhammad himself. For one, the Prophet’s son-in-law cousin, Ali, was titled the Commander of the Faithful for his unsurpassed feats of butchery. Ali with the assistance of one or two of his thugs, beheaded some seven hundred captives, most of them Jews, in only one day. This man, highly esteemed by the prophet of Allah, had a sword that had its own name—Zolfaghar. Ali’s portrait, holding the menacing sword, adorns the homes and shops throughout Shi’a’-lands. And this man, Ali, is revered by the Shi’a at the same level as Muhammad.
On the Sunni side, Muhammad’s co-revered is Umar, another unabashed killer of untold numbers. And of course the choice weapon of these champions of the religion of peace was the sword. And to this day, a sword adorns the flag of the birthplace of the religion of peace, Saudi Arabia.
And Islam, by the nature of its very doctrine, appeals to man’s base nature. It promotes intolerance, hatred, discrimination, and much more:
Qur'an:61:2 "O Muslims, why say one thing and do another? Grievously odious and hateful is it in the sight of Allah that you say that which you do not. Truly Allah loves those who fight in His Cause in a battle array, as if they were a solid cemented structure."
In reality, Islam is like a deadly contagious disease. Once it invades the mind of its victim, this debilitating disease is capable of transforming him to a helpless pawn that has no choice but to execute what he is directed to do.
Of the reported 1.3 billion Muslims in the world, millions are already trapped in the terminal stages of this affliction while millions of others are rapidly joining them. The people enslaved with the extreme cases of Islamic mental disease are highly infectious. They actively work to transmit the disease to others, while they themselves engage in horrific acts of mayhem and violence to demonstrate their unconditional obedience to the dictates of the Islamic cult of violence.
The savagery and variety of the actions of these Islamic captives are seen daily around the globe. Many of these acts, committed under the banner of Islam, have become so commonplace that the world has come to view them as the normal part and parcel of a troubled humanity. And, from time-to-time, the world is shocked into a passing and momentary realization of the evil deeds these Islamist robots commit and quickly gets over it and does nothing to seriously address this affliction of humanity.
The recent dastardly mass murder at Fort Hood, committed by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan will be forgotten by the public before very long. Life will continue on its deadly course, pushed along in a variety of ways by agents of death, Islamists. Only the families who lost their loved-ones and those who survived the bullets have to live the rest of their lives with incapacitating injuries, in the main, won’t be able to put the episode behind them.
The mass murderer Nidal Malik Hasan did not riddle people with bullets under the pressure of momentary insanity. The insanity, ironically, in a man who was trained to help people with sanity was introduced in him from the moment of birth and from the very early years when he prostrated himself five times daily toward Mecca in expression of total submission to the dogma of hate called Islam.
Islam is a mental retrovirus that has mutated into numerous varieties and degrees of severity, over the past 1400 years. Everyone born in a Muslim family, as well as those who convert to Islam, contract a particular mutation of the Islamic Virus. As is the case with all retroviruses, the Islamic Virus burrows deeply in the person and erupts, from time-to-time with potentially devastating consequences.
The Islamic Virus first divests the person of his most fundamental human attribute. It takes away his right to make decisions himself and absolves him, in return, of any responsibility for his actions rendered in blind obedience to it.
A true Muslim does not and cannot believe in freedom of choice. In the religion of Islam—Submission—everything is up to Allah, as clearly and repeatedly stipulated in the Quran .The Raison d'être for the Muslim is to be an unconditional submissive to the will and dictates of Allah. Everything that a “good” Muslim does is contingent upon the will and decree of Allah, he is indoctrinated to believe.
Humanity is facing a deeply troubling dilemma. On the one hand is the desire of enlightened people whose aim it is to forge a world of diverse people into one universal society ruled by peace and justice for everyone while, on the other hand, Islamists are hell-bent on imposing their stone-age system on everyone. Tellingly, the Muslims themselves are at one another’s throat regarding which of dozens of Islamic sects’ dogma should rule.
For now, Islam is busy with what it did from the time of its birth, fighting the non-Muslims and infighting.
Truth be told: Violence is the animating force of Islam. Islam is a religion born through violence, raised by violence, thrives on violence and dies without violence.
Author's Bio:
Amil Imani is an Iranian-born American citizen and pro-democracy activist residing in the United States of America. Imani is a columnist, literary translator, novelist and an essayist who has been writing and speaking out for the struggling people of his native land, Iran. He and his family escaped Iran after the radical Islamic revolution.
i'm not an apologist or supporter of either/or. all that the author wrote could be attributed to FANATICS of any religion and that is true throughout the history of the world. mass killings and brutality to both humans and animals in the name of religion is timeless.
no, as i said, i'm neither an apologist or defender of Islam or any other religion, but i'm also not going to indict all muslims either. it's the extremists who are the problem.
since you brought this up, i searched "Is Islam a Peaceful Religion" and found the following. a different point of view. sorry about the formatting.
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A LECTURE BY HADRAT MIRZA MASROOR AHMAD, KHALIFATUL MASIH V, SUPREME HEAD OF THE WORLDWIDE AHMADIYYA MUSLIM COMMUNITY DELIVERED AT THE UNIVERSITE D’ABOMEY- C A L AVI COTONOU, BENIN, DURING HIS RECENT M O S T SUCCESSFUL VISIT IN GHANA, BURKINO FASO, BENIN AND NIGERIA.
Dear students and staff members at this university, Assalamu alaikum warahmatullah.
I have been asked to shed some light on Islam as a peaceful religion. In view of the shortage of time, I can only address this subject briefly.
Whenever one wishes to speak about Islam as a religion of peace, the question naturally springs to mind that whereas there are so many religions in the world such as Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc., when it comes to finding out whether Islam is a religion of peace, why should Islam be the odd one out? One reason for this is that a few years after the beginning of Islam, anti- Islamic powers began a propaganda that Islam is a religion of extremism and violence and wants to compel others into belief by means of the sword. This, of course, is incorrect. In the beginning, the Muslims of Makkah suffered persecution but they remained silent. Finally, they migrated to Madinah but there too the disbelievers hounded the Muslims and forced upon them a battle to which I will revert later.
The proof against those opponents who allege that Islam was spread by the sword is that although the disbelievers of Makkah raised all sorts of objections, yet history stands witness to the fact that the people of Makkah themselves never complained that the Muslims had used the sword against the disbelievers to compel them to change their faith. Secondly, what has given Islam a bad name is an ugly and awful image of extremism presented, whether knowingly or unwittingly, by some Muslim groups and o rganisations, and these groups unfortunately had personal vested interests.
In order to see a religion’s beauties or its defects, justice requires that you should make its teachings or its holy scripture the anvil by which to judge it, otherwise everyone would accuse every other faith willy-nilly. For instance, the teaching of Christianity, according to the Holy Bible, is: ‘But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.’ (Matthew: 5:39)
But, in Bosnia or Iraq or other countries, America and the other Western powers, resorted or are resorting to aggression. If, however, we say that the Christian teaching is that if anyone raises his head against you, you should use all your might to trample it to death, this would be a grave injustice. In the same way, to find out the true teachings of Islam, we would have to study the Holy Qur’an and see what it says and not base it on the actions of some Muslims who have forgotten the teachings of the Holy Qur’ a n . The stand of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community is that the teaching of the Holy Qur’an promotes peace. We have to take this message to every corner of the world. Therefore, I shall begin my message today by reference to the Holy Qur’an. After that we shall examine the practice of the Holy Prophet Muhammad(sa) to whom the teachings of the Holy Qur’an were revealed. Did he ever support any kind of cruelty, violence or extremist terrorism? Then, based on the Holy Qur’an and the Traditions of the Holy Prophet( s a ), some important clarification has been provided to us by the Founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, Hadrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian( a s ), who claimed that he was the Promised Messiah, and I shall refer to some of his writings.
PAGE 2 The Founder of the wo r l dw i d e A h m a d i y ya Muslim C o m mu n i t y, H a d rat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (the P romised Messiah and Mahdi) had a keen interest in religion from a very early age. Over time his k n o w le d ge and understanding of religion and its ap p l i c ation to society deep e n e d . B e i ng a Muslim it was his firm b e l i e f t h at all religions we re tru e and he always sought to uphold the dignity of religion and to d em o n s t rate its re le vance to e ve r yone.
His mission was to re v i t alise the t ruth that all religions held within t h em and to re v ive the teachings of I s lam. It was through this that he would bring mankind together and e s t ablish eve r la s t i ng peace. H a d rat Ahmad( a s ) had establ i s h e d h i m s e l f as a respected writer and had written over 80 books. One of his gre atest schola r ly wo r ks wa s The Philosophy of the Teachings of Islam, prepa red as a paper and read out at the Conference of Great Religions in 1896. He al s o w rote a fa s c i n at i ng tre atise in 1899 entitled Jesus in India, a book that uncove red rem a r kable evidence of J e s u s ’( a s ) j o u rney to India.
Pe o p le joining his commu n i t y re flected his success in conve y i ng the truth of I s lam. From 1889 until the time of his demise in 1908 tens of thousands of p e o p le a c c epted him. This ble s s i ng has continued and will continue t h rough his K h a l i f a s (successors). A n y h o w, let us first see what the Holy Qur’an commands us to do in order to establish peace. God Almighty says in the Holy Qur’ a n :
Whosoever killed a person – unless it be for killing a person or for creating disorder in the land – it shall be as if he had killed all mankind. (Al Maidah, Ch.5: v. 33) Explaining this verse, the Founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community says: ‘ A person who kills a person unfairly or who kills someone who had neither rebelled, nor became a source of violating peace amongst the people nor created disorder in the land, it is as if he has killed the whole of mankind. In other words to kill a person without any cause is, according to God A l m i g h t y, like the murder of the entire human race. It is obvious from this verse, how big a sin it is to take the life of another person without r e a s o n . ’ (L e c t u re Chashma-e-Ma’rifat pp 23-24: C o m m e n t a ry by the Promised Messiah Vol.2: p.405)
Thus, this is the beautiful teaching of Islam that the unlawful killing or the shedding of innocent blood of someone is like the killing of the entire human race, that is to say, the taking of a single life is like the massacre of thousands of innocent lives. Now, everyone can very well imagine what kind of sentence would be passed on someone who is found guilty of the taking of thousands of innocent lives. So this is the beautiful teaching given to us by God Almighty in the Holy Qur’an. Whosoever acts against this, acts against the teachings of Islam. Then, the Holy Founder of the Ahmadiyya community takes us further than this because it was after his true reflection and deliberation and his understanding of Islamic teachings that God Almighty provided him with the guidance. Commenting on this verse, he adds:
PAGE 3 H a d rat Mirza Masroor Ahmad – Khal i fatul Masih V, Head of the wo r l dwide Ahmadiyya M u s l i m c o m mu n i t y. H a d rat Mirza Masroor Ahmad is the gre at grandson of t h e P romised Messiah (peace be upon him). In 1977, he devo t e d his life for Islam and went to Ghana wh e re he held va r i o u s posts including manager of t h e A h m a d i y ya Agr i c u l t u ral Fa rm wh e re he successfu l ly pla n t e d and nurt u red wh e at for the fist time in that country. In 1985, he re t u rned to Pa kistan and held various senior positions in the areas of f i n a n c i al affa i r s, Director of E d u c ation, Principal Dire c t o r and the Exe c u t ive head. In addition, he has held many other high-le vel positions within the commu n i t y.
On 22nd April, 2003, his e lection as Khal i fatul Masih V ( Fifth Successor to the Pro m i s e d Messiah (peace be upon him) was announced. The wo r l dwide Ahmadiyya C o m munity look to their s p i r i t u al leader for guidance and leadership in matters of fa i t h . Since the community wa s e s t ablished over a hundre d years ago, it has establ i s h e d i t s e l f as a community of la w - ab i d i ng citizens who help al l c o m munities in various activ i t i e s and has tru ly made its mark as one that promotes the tru e t e a c h i ngs of I s lam as a re l i g i o n o f p e a c e .
‘He who abandons kindness abandons religion. The Holy Qur’an teaches that whosoever kills a person without justifiable cause will be as if he has killed the whole world. In the same way, I say that if someone is not kind unto his brother, it is like he has been unkind to the whole world.’ (Al Hakm Vol. 9 No.15 dated 30 April 1905 p.2: Commentary by the Promised Messiah, Vol.2: p.405)
Now on this verse, the Founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community has drawn an interesting conclusion that people think that Islam is an extremist religion but this is a mis-understanding on their part. Islam is saying that even if you are unkind in your treatment with your fellow human being, you are a cause of destroying the peace and harmony of the world. Forget killing anyone, you should always be kind in your dealings with every person in the world and spread the peaceful message of Islam.