To Michael on what is it they really fear

Submitted by Plato (United Arab Emirates), Jan 21, 2007 at 07:20

At last one of the saner voices on these Danielpipes blogs. Michael you have the right idea. Deriding, threatening, fulminating against Muslims only makes them dig their heels in and draw up protective mental barricades. A degree of amusement or sarcasm would perhaps not be misconstrued. I don't know how many have noticed but at least I have found that many of the Muslims on these blogs quitely fade away when the points they rasie are refuted with reason and facts and not with bluster and derision. I am hoping that they have retired to think things through in the light of what they have learnt on these blogs. I have found this to be true with some of the Muslims I was arguing with.

There was Raqib, who came up with the standard beliefs of scientific accuracy in the Koran, the great conduct of the Prophet, the injunction against harming women and agriculture in war, the Jews of Banu Quraiza being condemned to death by one of their own, the offensive nature of the Prophet's ghazwas, the capricious nature of god and so on. He has not been able to counter any and has not replied to the last two posts. Hopefully he has enough food for thought and he sees some inkling of what his religion is all about.

There was Ferdos who came up with the notion of the "purity and authenticity" of Islam. I confronted him with several impure and false beliefs. There have been two or three others too. I think all of them when confronted with reality are now doing some thinking, which is all to the good. Even if they are unwilling to admit it there probably is a battle going on their hearts and minds. There are almost 1.5 billion of them out there who have no clue to the true nature of their religious beliefs. They all faithfully follow the rituals, pray without understanding what it is they are saying. They need to be helped not threatened and abused or villified. What needs to be done is prick the inflated bubble of Islam and question the idealised image they have of their religion.

As you say:" ...using his own energy against himself is much more efficient than responding with a simple push back, threats and/or oppression." Let them come out with their responses, their beliefs (their energy). Pick holes in them using real world examples, their history and their scriptures. The holes are always there and very big holes if you only look for them.

[Take a simple question I have posed to many. What would happen if someone, as did the Prophet, went to Mecca or any mosque in an Islamic nation and started preaching a new religion. And what would be the result if it was repeated in front of the Vatican or in front of a religious establishment in the free world. They all know the answer. There would be blood on the street in the Muslim world and amused looks on the beholders in the free world. I am sure bloggers here can come up with more mental experiments for Muslim readers]

It is better than gloating over the failures of the Muslim world. It is better to demonstrate that the failure is due to their beliefs and practices. For instance in the vast majority of the Muslim world nearly fifty per cent of their human resources are wasted. The womenfolk make practically no contribution to their society except bring up children. In other religions women not only bring up children but contribute hugely to human creative endeavours. One has to show them that contrary to the claim that Islam emancipated women it imprisoned them forever behind veils and walls.

It should be pointed out to them that before Islam, the so called jahiliya period, their own history shows women taking part in business (Khadija, Abu Sufyan's wife Hind, both successful international businesswomen), being poets (the assassinated Asma bint Marwan is just one example), took part in public debates, were rulers (Queen of Sheba the best known example among others), there were matriarchal societies in existence, women walked freely, chose their husbands often (Khadija, and the women who approached the prophet with marriage on their minds). The brief spirit of independence and courage shown by Ayesha in the battle of the camel was perhaps the last act of women in public life in the Muslim world, particularly in the Arab region until modern times.

Arguing about whether the West is better or not, its political policies, is a mindless game like disputing whether my father is better than your father. Rather what should be given an airing is the very fundamentals of the religion and the beliefs should be exposed to the cleansing rays of human reasoning, which is alive and well in all of us, including Muslims.

Given the 50-50 split between nature and nurture. Nature is what gives us our reasoning power and nurture (madrassas, pious propaganda) can do only so much against it. I say plug away, bring to light the horrors committed by people who they are hoodwinked into revering, show how the basics of the religion are ethically indefensible.

Muslims out there do not want their children to grow up in a violent dangerous world. The genes nature has provided all of us with militate against it. They want their children to survive and in turn procreate. That instinct is hardwired into us. However much the mullah in the madrassa may try to nurture an inclination to jihad and annihilation the drive to live, survive and prosper is hard wired into our nature. No religion, no imam can rewire nature try as they might. But they can do immense harm in their trying and that is where sane people must make the effort to undo their baleful influence.

Just as the printing press brought the age of reason to christendom there is great hope that the internet age will usher in the Islamic age of reason. And what you see on these blogs is a small demonstration of it. It must be happening on other such innumerable site.

We can see anguished Muslims crying for explanations of some verses of the Koran, the age of marriage of Ayesha, the marriage of Zainab, Safiya and Rayhana, the treatment of the Banu Quraiza. Many Muslims will see through the soothing often incoherent replies from the "scholars" who reply to them. They will not , for instance, be able to keep from them the fact that the much trumpeted Battle of Badr was a raid on a peaceful caravan, that surprise raids were conducted on unsuspecting people and without provocation. These are all there in the history written by admiring Muslims, not cunning missionaries.

Show them that the heroes of islam talked about in the madrassas and books would in todays world be jailed or hanged as mass-murderers (Khalid bin Walid).The treatment of dhimmis, including the famous pact of Oman, a matter of shame. You can show them passages inciting to kill and be killed in exchange for a binding promise of paradise. Show them moral depravity - captured women being freely used as concubines. Flawed ethics as when slavery is not condemned whereas something like usury is condemned and alcohol banned. Ask why slavery was not progressively banned. It continued in some Islamic countries until the late 20th century. Many Muslims will see through the lame, jaded excuses that will be trotted out.

Islam has created the illusion that all Muslims are brothers by making them pray in one language, even if they don't understand it, and in one direction, have been taught about greatness of Muslim culture, science, literature etc. so much so that believers whereever they reside tend to look down on their own ancestors' achievements even if far superior to the muslim works.

A good example is that of Pakistan where the undoubtedly superior achievements of their forefathers is dismissed as of no consequence. Some on these blogs seriously believe the decimal system was the proud contribution of Muslims, when quite plainly it is a Hindu achievement. They look to the past achievments of the Arabs as against their own Mohenjodaro, Harappa, Taxila, Gandhara and so on.

Why does the religion devalue all pre-Islamic achievements as inconsequential, one's own heritage rejected and replaced with an alien one in the name of brotherhood. You have the sad spectacle of wannabe Arabs in the Indian subcontinent, Malaysia, Indonesia and Africa. They take pride instead in the Islamic civilisation in Spain, the Abbasids, the Ottoman Empire, people like Avicenna, Al Razi, Harun Al Rashid. This is a sorry spectacle which Muslims will ponder over when they read the facts on the internet.

Muslims are also rational beings made irrational by religious indoctrination, and kept in thrall by selfish imams.Most have no clue to what underpins their religious beliefs. Some of the facts of their prophet's behavious they find devastating and they go into what is popularly known as denial a kind of retreat into a fantasy world where everything that is exposed is the work of Christian missionaries, Orientalists and Muslim subversives.

Argue using original sources, the Koran, Hadith, Sira and history written by Muslim historians. All other sources, history will probably arouse suspicion except when they sing paens to Islam. Even when filtered through Islamic spectales, the truth of the facts will shine through. That is the strength of the internet. They can have the facts confirmed from various sources. Almost all Islamic countries censor the internet which itself shows they fear the truth as not just pornography but sites which are even mildly critical of Islam are blocked.

No other nations censor the Internet as extensively. They are not afraid of ideas, pornography or criticism because they have the confidence in the strength of their value systems. That their cultures can withstand onslaught from within and without. The internet shows plainly that Islam is the most insecure of all the religions now practised having to silence critics either by censorship, jailing or assassination. No other cultural or religious group blocks sites critical of them, jails critics or assassinates them.

And this has been a continuing leit motif in the history of Islam, almost from day one. Kaf bin Ashraf, Abu Afak, Asma Bint Marwan, Refa Bin Qays, Sallam Bin Haqayq, to name a few, were all assassinated on the prompting of the Prophet. All the killings were greeted with relief and praises to Allah. Today Farag Foda, in Egypt, and Theo Van Gogh in Netherlands come to mind. Many are in hiding or protected by non-Islamic countries. What better demonstration of the insecurity felt by Islam. That feeling of insecurity has come down the ages as book bannings and assassinations have continued to the present day.

No other religion, let it be repeated, no other religion has such a record. The nearest is Christianity but only during the dark ages. Though not smelling of roses, the beginning and the modern age of Christianity at least are not drenched in blood. Buddhism is virtually spotless, Hinduisim has taken huge strides to reform itself. All show a willingness to honestly and rationally examine their past, their scriptures, admit to what was wrong and attempt to make amends.

Fancy stories like not a comma of the Koran has been shifted to the left or right through the ages, that the tongues of the early reciters of the holy book were literally guided by the angels themselves so that each recited it exactly alike and when diacritical marks were put in not a dot or a dash was misplaced have been driven deep into the subconscious of Muslims. It is our task to wrestle them back to their conscious level so that they seem them for the fairy tales they are.

Using original sources you can show that Islam is as contradictory, as gory as irrational as any other religion and is not the splendidly unblemished religion its votaries claim it to be.

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