Hypocrisy is built into the doctrine

Submitted by Ted (United States), Jan 10, 2011 at 02:20

Dear Dr Pipes:

Your reader Doug correctly points out that Islamists "violate their own rules if it benefits them". I think hypocrisy is built into the doctrine. I have read Quran many times and I find that in Quran some very good ideas are hidden in a not so good template. Many times in quran you will read passages like: "Allah is great. Do the following good .... But stay away from Jews and Christians and infidels because they are sinners. God will punish them. Allah is great and merciful." Anyone who takes this advice literally will be utterly confused: How does some one become a sinner without doing anything bad? Why do I have to stay away from Jews and Christian and others if they did not do anything wrong. Why would a merciful Allah punish someone for no apparent reasons.

The answer that this person will get is that just the tag of Islam is enough and nothing else of substance is needed to be declared a good person. And this may be the cause of hypocrisy that we see around the Islamic world. A Muslim ends up supporting another seven oceans away just because they share the tag. And when the tag is shared all other good/bad, fair/unfair, and right/wrong is irrelevant. If Allah can punish people just because they do now wear a certain tag, who am I to argue with that? If a rule can be broken once for the tag of Islam, any rule can be broken for the perceived good of Islam.

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