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by Martin Willett
Fighting and killing non-believers is not something alien that has been added onto Islam by fanatics. It is right there in the text, in several different passages, it is fundamental to the religion. Catholicism for example is chock full of added dogmas which are not supported or even mentioned in the key texts: original sin, the sacred heart, the immaculate conception and assumption of Mary, limbo, transubstantiation, the trinity, the stance on “artificial” birth control and other lesser additions. But Jihad and the beheading of infidels is a different kind of thing. It was not added on by pious believers late in the story, the support for this interpretation of Islam is right there in the basic texts of the religion. It is the “moderates” who ignore this aspect of Islam or downplay it who are inventing their own version of the religion and perverting the original teachings.
Jesus might have said that he came to bring a sword but he was never seen wielding one. Muhammad, peace be upon him (?) was. Jesus was never found making or bringing peace but Muhammad was found making war. The only time Jesus is depicted raising a hand it is in blessing. The only time Muhammad is depicted those doing so risk being slain by his followers.
Islam is different. It is not a religion which tries to spread good news peacefully or ignores the unbelievers and leaves them to their fate. Islam is by its nature aggressive, violent, intolerant and assertive. It preaches killing and war, mutilating and executing. Of course it does not do so by warlike means entirely because for several years Muhammad was trying to spread Islam solely by preaching, an enterprise he gave up. Muhammad spent eight years fighting rival tribes and spreading Islam by the sword. Peaceful passages come from the early years when he was trying to live in peaceful cooperation but the words of his later years are filled with much more violence and intolerance.
Islam is not the same as other religions because while other religions have used war to spread this has been an aberration, contrary to their own central dogmas and contrary to the content of their scriptures.
Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism do not set out to achieve world domination through military might and to cause the entire human race to surrender to their god or be killed. Of course most Muslims today are not planning for this to happen in their lifetime. But the reason they are not planning it is not because they don't think it should ever come to pass or is not the duty of Muslims, the reason for not striving to see global Jihad is that they recognize that Muslims are outnumbered four to one by filthy hell-bound unbelievers and if they did decide to fight they would be annihilated.
If Allah is all powerful why does he need men with swords to do his bidding? Any self-respecting one and only god could achieve world domination with a click of his fingers. Every time a Muslim performs any act of violence in the name of his god he is demonstrating that his god is either impotent, indolent or non-existent.
Communists have a legitimate reason to spread their beliefs with violence, they have no god to do it for them, if they have decided it should be done they have to do it because it will never get done any other way. But this excuse does not work for Islam. Islam has a god who is supposedly capable of doing anything he sets his mind to and yet he does absolutely nothing except inspire men through hearsay accounts of his greatness. If you have faith in something you are empowered to act. Faith is required, truth is not. Nobody can maintain that people can only fight to the death if what they believe in is true because history is full of accounts of people killing and dying for mutually incompatible claims.
Just look at the Crusades: people on both sides killing and dying with the unshakable conviction that were doing the bidding of the same one and only god. Logically at least one of the sides was killing and dying in bad faith, for false beliefs, in response to interpretations of worthless scriptures.
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Fervour proves nothing but fervour, it does not prove that what you believe in is real, it does not even prove genuine belief. If somebody kills in the name of their god they have not proven their god is real or even that their faith is genuine, all they have proven is that they are a killer. Similarly being killed because somebody disagrees with what you believe in does not make you a martyr or your ideas right or wrong. It just makes you dead. |
Whose ideas become the stronger after a man is killed over a difference in belief does not depend upon who is right, if either killer or victim is right, it depends upon who is left alive to interpret the death. Islam and Christianity have both killed hundreds of thousands of people because of their deeply held religious convictions who are never accorded the status of martyr because only survivors tell their story.
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