There we go again: "Islam is the best religion"

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Oct 28, 2012 at 20:48

Dear Dr Pipes:

Reader Mustak Yahub repeats the same rhetoric that we get to hear every so many days: "islam is the best religion" and "you must read Quran to challenge this statement". Since there is no emphasis on critical and free thinking in most of the Islamic world, Muslims by themselves will never challenge this statement and everyday some Muslim will wake up and repeat this rhetoric. For Mustak's benefit here are some counter arguments for his rhetoric:

1) If Islam is the best religion, we must be able to see it in the behavior of Muslims. Yesterday, in Nigeria 5 people were killed in a suicide bombing in a church. Killing people in churches, to my best belief, is not an act of charity. Of course, this action was not done by true muslims. That leads to my next point.

2) Every now and then, some people who clearly qualify to be 'untrue muslims' emerge from the cader of Muslims. How come Islam produces so many 'untrue' muslims and so few true muslims. That shows that Islam may be a good collection of utopian principles but in practice it produces sizable number of people who violate its own doctrines (or may be the doctrine themselves are not good!).

3) No we do not have to read a book to verify that it is good or not-good. You do not have to be a chemist to see the good that chemistry has done to us. And if we grant that we must read a book before criticizing it, how many Muslims have read the Bible cover to cover to claim that it is the corurputed word of God?

And, yes, Islam can be a good religion in practice if it supports non-violence, stops calling every other belief false and the practice of other religions sins, gives freedom of thought to its followers, and encourages inquiry over assertion.

Islamic stubbornness is unprecedented and it must be opposed whenever it raises its head. Hence this message.

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