Islam means Peace, dude

From the Religion of Irony comes this op-ed out the Arabic Dar al Hayat. The gist of the op-ed is that murdering hostages is not justified. Great, but notice the contrast between say Paul or Peter or Buddha, who spread their faith through persuasion and Muhammed who used coersion to spread Islam.

There is an undisputed history, from which I will choose what was written back then, and was saved until today.

A military expedition was sent to Syria, in order to convert its people to Islam. [there is no condemnation of this in the op-ed] All the members of the mission were killed, except for 14 men and their commander. Also, Al Harith bin Omeir Al Azdi was sent to Hercules in order to convert him to Islam; but Sharhabil bin Omar Al Ghassani killed him on the way.

The Arab Prophet worried about the enemies who were waiting to kill the Muslims, [notice the spin here: Muhammed sends an army to force people to become Muslims, then the people who are defending themselves are somehow to blame for defending themselves] so he sent an army of 3,000 men, and told them: "do not backstab, do not get carried away, do not kill an infant or a woman, nor an old man, nor a hermit; do not harm palm trees, do not cut tress, and do not demolish constructionsÂ…" [thank you Muhammad, glad to know you just want to force us to convert to your religion, not kill our women, peas be upon your name]

These clear commandments were repeated by Abu Bakr Al Siddiq, who added to it, prior to sending the expedition of Osama bin Zaid, in the first of Apostasy Wars (unlike in Christianity and Judaism, apostasy is punishable by death in Islam). [that was the author's note, not mine. Get it dumbass multiculturalists? In Islam they kill you for leaving the faith. Once again, you leave you die.] He told the Muslim soldiers: "do not betray, do not get carried away, do not backstab, do not disfigure, do not kill an infant, nor the old; do not kill a woman, do not harm a palm tree or burn it. Do not cut a fruitful tree; do not slaughter a sheep, cow, or camel, except for food. You will encounter hermits on your way; let them be, and let them pursue their dedicationsÂ…" [again, thank you Muhammed, peas be upon your name, for only killing me for leaving your faith]

These two commandments were issued when Islam was fighting for its existence. [here is the theologic justification as discussed below. The violence of the period is the exception, rather than the rule] Had Muslims lost the Apostasy Wars [er, and invading Syria to forcibly convert them was about Apostasy?], Islam or Muslims would not have survived. Nevertheless, there is a clear recommendation against the killing of children, the women, and the elderly, and even against backstabbing and disfiguring dead bodies. [Good, thank you.]

Today, there are 2.1 billion Muslims around the world. Islam's existence is no longer in danger. If each man had his own humanitarian conviction, he would not accept the killing of a child or a woman (a non-combatant in the language of our age); [I agree] the Muslim has an additional deterrent, which comes in the form of the commandments of the Prophet and his Wise Caliphs.

The Covenant between Omar Ibn Al Khattab and the people of Jerusalem, preceded the four Geneva Conventions and its two protocols by 1,400 years; nevertheless, the Covenant was framed to protect the lives and rights of civilians in wartime.

We all know that Omar declined the invitation of Patriarch Sophronius to pray with him in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Doomsday Church), saying that if he knelt to pray in the church, the Muslims would want to commemorate the event by erecting a mosque there, and that would mean that they would have to demolish the Holy Sepulchre. Instead, Omar went to pray at a little distance from the church, where a mosque was built in commemoration of the Caliph. Omar also gave the people of Jerusalem what is known by the Covenant of Omar, which stipulates:

"This is an assurance of peace and protection given by the servant of Allah Omar, Commander of the Believers to the people of Ilia' (Jerusalem). He gave them an assurance of protection for their lives, property, church and crosses as well as the sick and healthy and all its religious community.

Their churches shall not be occupied, demolished nor taken away wholly or in part. None of their crosses nor property shall be seized. They shall not be coerced in their religion nor shall any of them be injured. None of the Jews shall reside with them in Ilia'.

The people of Ilia' shall pay Jizia tax (poll tax on free non-Muslims living under Muslim rule) as inhabitants of cities do. They shall evict all Romans and thieves. [What the author fails to mention is that for the next 1000 years, Christians were then forced into second-class citizenship. They were not allowed to proseletyze, which is a central tenant of their faith. Muslims who tried to convert were executed. And throughout the Arab world pograms and mass murder against Christians and Jews was a sporadic if not common occurence.]

There's more of this in the op-ed, which is generally good in that it condemns the attrocity at Beslan. But it seems to me that Christians or Buddhist and Muslims have two different sets of theologic problems to deal with. The Christian or Buddhist is given the command to do no violence, yet in the face of so many evils in the world violence is often the only way to prevent even greater violence. So, the Christian or Buddhist must somehow find justification for doing violence in order to protect the innocent from the unenlightened. On the other hand Islam explicitly condones violence as a means of both spreading the faith and as a means of punishment. The thoelogical problem for Muslims, then, seems to be quite different than that of Christians. For in the face of the command to do violence the good Muslim understands that violence is often sickening and immoral. So, Muslims must find ways around the command to kill the non-monotheist. Is it possible for Muslim societies to become less violent? Of course, but it takes a great deal of theologic sophisticism to overcome the obvious: Muhammed was a violent man himself.

Posted by: Rusty at 11:04 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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