Comments on Auster and Pipes Debate

Submitted by K Ibrahim (United States), Jan 30, 2005 at 22:48

Moderate Islam is a fantasy that did not, and will not, exist, simply because the teachings of Islam are violent. A moderate version of Islam would be tantamount to creating a new religion. Moderate Muslims, who are the majority of the Muslims of today, are nominal Muslims that do not know much about Islam.

It is important to make a distinction between the teachings of a religion and the actions of its followers. So, despite the fact that Christ teaches purity of heart, love, mercy and forgiveness, some nominal Christians do not follow his teachings. On the other hand, despite the fact that Muhammad teaches polygamy, jihad, violence, bloodshed and killing, many moderate Muslims do not follow his teachings.

Muhammad was the one who started in the seventh century the trail of blood of Islamic atrocities in Arabia. He was responsible for the first Islamic massacre in the bloody history of Islam. It is the massacre of Banu Qurayza, the last Jewish tribe in Medina, in 627 AD. All the men of the tribe (700-800 men), who were not armed and not a threat, were beheaded in cold blood. The women and children of the tribe were sold into slavery and its possessions were looted. You see Muhammad wanted to do ethnic cleansing in Medina and Arabia. He wanted to cleanse them from both Jews and Christians by the sword. He started the process, and his followers completed it. In fact, till this day, it is illegal to build a church in Saudi Arabia. In addition, the religious police will raid a house where Christians are gathered to worship, will arrest the leader of the worship service and torture him in prison. So much about the bloodshed of Islam which continues till this day.

A few years ago, the Roman Catholic Pope John Paul II offered public repentance and regrets for the limited involvement of the Catholic Church in the Spanish inquisition, because those activities do not conform to the teachings of Christ. By contrast, not one important Imam in the Islamic world ever condemned the Islamic atrocities and bloody violence of Islamic history against non-Muslims (including the 9/11 atrocities).

The root solution of the problem of Islam is to open the Islamic countries to Christian evangelism. It is sad indeed that in the 21st century, a Muslim man in an Islamic country does not have one of the most fundamental human rights: the right to choose his religion freely without being dispossessed and killed as required by al-Shari'a of Islam. While Christian evangelism depends on private donations, spreading Islam in the West is financed mainly by petro-dollars mostly from Saudi Arabia. We need to find ways to provide additional financing to Christian evangelism, and to pressure Islamic countries to respect the basic human rights of its citizens.

---

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".