Islam is not a monster.

Submitted by Syed Kasim (Canada), Sep 30, 2007 at 23:16

Western civilisation prospered with the name of secularism(supposedly blind to color and religion). But Albania(muslim majority) is still the poorest country of Europe even when they by and large chose secularism as their way of life.
And Turkey(Muslim majority secular) was not considered as a right member of EU when inland asian Cyprus(white majority christian) did not find any problem in becoming a member of EU.

So, in short we can say that Golden age has not yet started in the secular western civilization as discrimination is there to see and feel. When the west could create a developed Germany and Japan in the non-muslim world and the west could not create a single Germany or Japan in pre-western-renaissance muslim majority countries, secularism is surely not blind to color and religion as it is practised in world politics.

But historians by and large say that 750-1500 AD was a golden age of Islamic civilisation.

Secularism can accommodate people of different color and religion in a society comfortably. But it is wrongly implemented in the east
as the west is confusing democracy with secularism. Democracy may lead to secularism. The west does not support the leaders (with islamic trait) in muslim majority countries who are really popular among its masses to promote democracy mostly to exploit the resources in those countries by controlling/bribing one dictator.

Islam also theologically can accommodate people of different color and religion in a society comfortably as it says your way of life
is for you and my way of life is for me. This is the way Islam says "all muslims, christians and Jews would go to heaven in case they
led a reasonably good life".

But what about christianity... Jesus is the only way to go to heaven. How can a non-christian(muslim) comfortably live in a christian society
theologically.

Muslim rulers did not impose Islam in any society in their golden age of 750-1500. Anyway Islam can not be imposed by its very nature.
People can revert. Muslim rulers' Jizya tax system itself was discouragement for rulers to force non-muslim to become muslims which leads to reduced tax collection for the government. And also Zakat (Charity tax) was also there for Muslims which was far more than Jizya taxed against non-muslims. So Zakat also discouraged the conversion. Why did not muslim society revert when France, Britain, Spain, etc. colonialized the muslim world.

No foreign muslim ruler conquered Indonesia to impose Islam. Islam was promoted by merchants' reasonable good behaviour.
Indonesia used to be a Buddhist majority country. Dutch were the foreign rulers in Indonesia. Yes some extreme Mughal muslim rulers were there like Aurangzeb in India. They were really bad in treatement of non-muslims. They belonged to the post golden-age(750-1500 AD). That is why the Islamic civilization fell politically and economically and also technologically, but not yet spiritually as no muslim majority country in the last 1400 years reverted back to non-muslim majority country.

So, western civilisation should invent a new ideology which should be better than secularism and christianity in accommodating all kinds of people including muslims if western civilisation wants to give a better service to muslim world. Islam is by nature secular as it allows accommodation of different kinds of people. It proved the same for 750 years. Islam does not need a foreign ideology to accommodate all kinds of people if it is rightly implemented as per paper.

So Islam is not a monster.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".