My thoughts

Submitted by A muslim (United States), Sep 18, 2006 at 01:01

I have heard "Islam is evil" numerous times now. And it amazes me how educated and so called rational people, accuse a religion for the sins that men commit. Religion has always been used as a scapegoat, be it to fulfill a notorious political agenda or a more personal bias.

Islam is not bad, what that beautiful religion preaches is not bad - and mind you not very different from what chritianity and judaism preaches. All these books have been revealed by the same God (Allah) at diffferent times and eras and to different race of people. They are from the same genre.

Now to more specific accusations:

1) Koran does say in one surat that one could beat his wife. But if you go and read the whole sura then you will understand under what condition one is allowed to hit his wife (and the idea here is not beat her to death but to gently tap her on her head - islam highly respects women and demands that a man treats females with love and kindness.

It also says that "paradise is under the feet of mothers" . Also, a son who looks at his mother with love and kindness earns himself a place in heaven". Now coming to the actual beating surah. A man whose wife goes and sleeps with another man, is allowed to reprimand her verbally first, if she stops commiting adultery, then he should treat her with love and kindness and never mention her sin again, however, if she continues to sleep with other men, then he should stop sharing the bed with her, and in the end, even after doing all this, if the wife continues to have an illecit affair, only in that case (and after having given the earlier two warnings) is he allowed to hit her).

Now my question to you is that what a man would do if his wife was cheating on him? In the absence of God's guidance on this situation, i am sure that in most cases, the man would either kill his wife or beat her up immediately with going through the process prescribed by Islam. Islam is know as a religion that gives you guidance on how to live. And this surah is an example of it.

2) Koran also says that one should seek knowledge and intrepret meaning of surahs in the context of time and circumstances. Most of the surahs in the Koran, were revealed at the time of war. So these surahs were direct commandments for that point in time. When muslims were being persecuted by non-believers and when muslims were at war with pagans. These surahs have to be taken into context. No one is fighting pagans right now.

3) A majority of the muslims in the world belong to third world countries and a lot of them are illiterate. So, if a bunch of extremist are acting weird, then please do not drag "Islam" into this.

This is all i have to say.

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