Hello Ames

Submitted by Abdul Salaam (United States), Jan 24, 2009 at 16:07

Bismillaahir-Rahmaanir-Raheem (In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful) Ames, please understand that I have nothing to gain by bickering with you my friend - This is not my intention. My only motivation for responding to you again is to salvage the curious reader who may gain the wrong impression of Islam from your words. A

Muslim's duty is to first fulfill the will of God for himself, then that allows him to want the same benefits, if not better, for his brother (which is you!) Just to cure any argument you may be anticipating, you are completely correct when you say that by definition, Islam does NOT mean "peace", but you stopped there which gave the impression that you were not trying to educate, but simply belittle.

What Islam means is "submission" - and what a Muslim submits to is the will of Allah (God). What is Allah's will? That my friend is what leads me to believe you have never sat down to speak with an open-minded Muslim or merely taken the time to open a Qur'an because Allah's will IS that peace you speak of. He gave each of us the great gift of free will to obey his guidance and it's purely up to each and every one of us how that's interpreted so the suggestion that Islam is a "forced" belief is slanderous! The origins of Islam from it's founding has always gone about it's growth through the enlightenment of word and speech and whoever was drawn to it, did so entirely by choice!

This leads me to your proud quoting of Winston Churchill which either highlights your unawareness of history or just allowed your sense of humor to bloom. He wasn't speaking on Islam from an educated perspective Ames, but merely commenting on his first had account of the oppression set upon Muslims and many other religious groups and cultures in regions of eastern Europe and northern South Africa and how they rebelled from the [I]enforcing[/I] of British rule and ideals by the British Empire on the people of the time. To dispute this is to challenge every library and university that contains details of these accounts.

You spoke to the previous gentleman with a comment that suggested that retaliation and [I]"defending your blood"[/I] was just, and though there's a notable difference between retaliation and self–defense, you conveniently overlook the Muslim struggle in history to defend their beliefs. The MAJOR misconception that Islam has always had to deal with is that to fight against oppression equates to terrorism and a merciless death to anyone who is not Muslim. Nothing can be further from the truth. In fact, if you look at the compassionate story of the Dome of the Rock from its origins to the present, I can't offer a clearer account of what true Islam does with power and how after years of conflict and a change of hands, different religious faiths can now live in harmony in its regard. May Allah reward us ALL for our mindful deeds of righteousness and O forgive us and free us from our sinful burdens. Remember that our battles are not with each other, but with the evil impulses that can consume us.

Peace Ames.

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