First hand experience

Submitted by Santanu (United States), Feb 21, 2003 at 15:24

One distinction should be made upfront: culture is not the same as religion. It is a mistake to blame the religion of Islam for the drawbacks of muslim culture. Culture and religion are propagated by people and the human element cannot be discounted.

There are basically no religion in the world that preaches violence, anarchy and domination. But unfortunately, religion can only be spread and practised by certain groups of people. Sometimes they are missionaries and at some other times, they are victorious tribes. Islam was found by Arabic herdsmen and found it's initial popularity in the same group. No wonder it has traits that are seen as barbaric and backward by the liberated western society. All religions of the world have changed over periods of time, to keep up with the new age and social norms, but the least change is in Islam. Islam has a strong principle of brotherhood that is not found in other religions. This leads Muslims to put their religion before their country of birth, livelihood, culture, and race. A Turkish muslim and a Lebanese or Bangladeshi muslim, who speak completely different languages and of separate races, call one another brother and embrace. How often do we see an Irish catholic and an Italian one be so close? This is often a problem in strongly nationalistic country like India. Muslims often are found supporting Pakistan when India play a cricket match with them. These muslims are completely Indian, culturally and ethnically - but they choose to be on the other side of the border. Why?

Because of the worst trait that can be found among muslims (not the religion, remember) is hypocrisy. Islam says: No fornication with other sex before marriage. But they are the ones who jump in at the right opportunity. But they will still have to eat Halal meat. Islam says: respect women. But women's rights are most violated in Islamic countries. By Sharia law (Srtict Islamic Behavious Code), if a man rapes a woman, the woman has to produce 4 (I repeat 4!) witnesses to prove the rapist guilty! Otherwise the victim will be convicted of dishonouring the man. Can there be anything more ridiculous than this? A muslim can take upto 4 wives, provided: he takes care of them equally and loves them all. How is this possible? Many Islamic countries are forward enough (like Malaysia) to legally stop cases where men marries more than once just to satisfy his sexual desires. But as usual, law is controlled and practiced largely by men in most Islamic countries, and they can't see anything wrong in violating a woman's respect. ...

... Women are treated as property to be owned and used. They will not have any say... Muslims must change their viewpoint. They were once pioneers in Science, Medicine, Astrology etc. But those days are long gone. Look around for god's (Allah's) sake! Things have changed. You are already facing the wrong direction. RELIGION IS FOR MANKIND not MANKIND FOR RELIGION.

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