Please read till the end...

Submitted by muslim girl (Egypt), Feb 5, 2006 at 13:12

I am literally stunned by the level of these posts. I suggest with all due respect that anyone who talks about Islam pays the least effort of reading about it from an objective source. Most of these posts uncover a whole lot of ignorance that I did not imagine prevailed in the west. To save you the effort of research, and the risk of finding the wrong reading material, I want to give you all a hint about Mohammed and who he was.

Even before Islam came, Mohammed was called "Al Sadek, Al Ameen" (the honest man) by his people. He has never lied. He has never taken something wrongfully from anyone. He has never broken a promise. He has never hit a woman. He has never favored war. He has never insulted peoples of other parts of the world. He has never disrespected another religion or belief. He had always the upper hand, he began with peace and friendship, even to those who hit him with rocks, who tried to poison him, and who threw garbage on him.

Before him the Arabs were at war with each other. They enslaved people, and treated women like objects. They were drunken idiots. And whether you believe he was a messenger of God or not, that is your own freedom. But he has taken the Arab world into the light of a new civilization, he united them as brothers, he made women equal to men, he encouraged rich people to buy slaves and set them free. He made them buy the slaves, not take them away from their owners! It is too sad that the world has forgotten what the Arabs were and by what amount they contributed to sciences and literature after Islam had come. At that time perhaps the west was in our position now. But they were definitely not treated the same way as we are now, because everyone lived peacefully under the rulings of Islam.

However, this is definitely not the fault of the west by any means. Weakness is the problem of the weak. And it's up to the strong to have virtue. Our situation is completely our fault, because of our ignorance and triviality; that's why we are what we are in your eyes. The rapists you talk about, perhaps they are what they are. But they are not Muslims. And Islam is not in what they do. For those who said "There are no moderate Muslims", if you know anything about Islam, you know that simply every true Muslim is moderate. But because we have stopped becoming true Muslims, we have set the worst example. Do you think they rape because they are Muslims? Do you think perhaps the Quran tells them to rape? Or do you think that because they are oppressed they tend to be violent? I really don't get how you explain it. Because I don't think Christians rape because they are Christians. I think rapists rape because they are sick and have problems, and I hardly think that any sick individual who has problems can be religious or can be considered as an example.

Yes, there are jokes about the Jews. I don't know who expects Muslims to like Jews, when they have been for over half a century in our lands killing our people. And yet there are jokes about the people themselves, just like there are jokes in Arabia about Arabs themselves. We have never insulted Moses or any other Holy prophet, because we believe in them all as God's messengers. Actually, we have never insulted the Jewish belief or religion in any way. We tell jokes about the people who live today, who kill us and occupy our land with the support of the whole world. It is sad that we even take it as a joke, but true. Moses is my prophet like it is the Jews' prophet and I love him as deeply.

If you are not aware how dear Prophet Mohammed is to us, not aware that he is more than a figure or a famous person, then at least have the intellectual integrity not to insult a man who was great and honest all his life and who has made one of the greatest contributions to the human civilization, if not the greatest.

Even I, the narrow-minded ignorant Arab, can tell the difference between the freedom of speech, and the wrongful insult of other people's religions. Even I know how to respect the other and conduct a respectful conversation. You need to consider who is being brainwashed.

Take it from a Muslim girl. One of those you think is oppressed and brainwashed. One of those whom you think is made to wear black and cover her face, in your world that is so big and yet so amazingly small. But I dare anyone to witness my life and tell me that I am oppressed or brainwashed. I dare anyone to say that Islam has not been the light that guided my life and drove me every day to become a better person.

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