thelemurgod

TEN REASONS WHY ISLAM IS NOT AN "EVIL & WICKED"
RELIGION,
by Tim Zeak.

Ned Graham shamefully declared recently that Islam
was an "evil and wicked" religion. His attack of
Islam has been echoed by Jerry Falwell and a host of
other right-wing conservatives, many carrying the
banner of Christianity. Given the following
realities, such statements show nothing but blind
bigotry and ignorance.

> One. Anyone who has Muslim friends or who has
sought an informed and objective understanding of
the Islamic culture and history knows that it is not
an evil religion. The majority strive to be moral
and ethical in all they do. Yes, there are evil
people who claim to be Muslims, but they are no
different from the evil people who claim to be
Christian (Hitler, Milosevic, the KKK, etc).

> Two. The Koran has been demonized because of
passages that advocate violence. I readily concede
that there are difficult passages in the Koran, but
we also find difficult passages in the Bible. A few
passages from the Bible that also advocate violence
are:

A. Psalm 137:9 "How blessed will be the one who
seizes and dashes your little ones against the
rock."

B. 1 Samuel 15:3 "Now go and strike Amalek and
utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare
him; but put to death both man and woman, child and
infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."

C. Deuteronomy 2:33-35 "And the Lord our God
delivered him over to us; and we defeated him with
his sons and all his people. So we captured all his
cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men,
women and children of every city. We left no
survivor. We took only the animals as our booty and
the spoil of the cities which we had captured."

D. Deuteronomy 3:6-7 "And we utterly destroyed them,
as we did to Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly
destroying the men, women and children of every
city. But all the animals and the spoil of the
cities we took as our booty."

E. Numbers 15:32, 35 "Now while the sons of Israel
were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering
wood on the Sabbath day. Then the Lord said to
Moses, "The man shall surely be put to death; all
the congregation shall stone him with stones outside
the camp."

F. Joshua 6:21 "And they utterly destroyed
everything in the city, both man and woman, young
and old, and ox and sheep and donkey, with the edge
of the sword.

If the Koran is condemned because of violence, the
Bible equally be must condemned, if the same
consistent standard is used.

> Three. Contrary to the slander committed against
the Islamic culture, the majority of Islamic
scholars interpret Jihad to be a war against one's
personal spiritual weaknesses and not against other
people. The Bible has a parallel teaching of
"dying to the flesh." "Jihad" means "struggle or
striving" in the way of God. Muhammad taught that
"jihad" was the fight with one's own soul against
selfishness, greed, lust, and a hundred other evil
inclinations and promptings of the heart.

> Four. Islam does not disrespect the Christian
Jesus. It teaches that he was born of a virgin,
lived a sinless life, and will be the Messiah in the
coming Kingdom. Islam views Jesus somewhat as
Judaism does, although with infinitely more respect.
The Koran teaches that while on earth, Jesus healed
the sick and raised the dead. It teaches that he is
the Word of God and will be an intercessor on
Judgment Day. Islam, like Judaism, does not accept
the Trinity, which every Christian theologian admits
is a doctrine that cannot be understood or
explained, and if accepted, must be accepted as a
mystery beyond human understanding and
comprehension. Islam's "problem" with that doctrine
is solely based on the doctrine that there is one
God, and only the great almighty creator God is
worthy of worship (Allah is not a name for God but
literally means God. Its linguistic origin is from
the root El, as in Elohim or El Shaddai.) A recent
survey by George Barna (the premier researcher of
studies regarding spiritual beliefs) reveals that
over half of all Christians believe that the Holy
Spirit is not a real person but only a figurative
force, which is, by definition, the denial of the
Trinity.

> Five. Most objective historians agree that when a
so-called "Islamic army" took over a non-Islamic
population, that population was treated more
humanely and were given more rights than populations
taken over by so-called "Christian armies."
Notwithstanding, this author believes both types of
"armies" are oxymorons.

> Six. The following are several passages from the
Koran that we do not hear quoted by the mainstream
media or by those who attack Islam.

A. Surah 2:62 "Believers, Jews, Christians, and
Sabaeans - whoever believes in God and the Last Day
and does what is right - shall be rewarded by their
Lord; they have nothing to fear or to regret."

B. Surah 2:190 "Fight for the sake of God those
that fight against you, but do not attack them
first. God does not love aggressors."

C. Surah 3:45 "The angels said to Mary: 'God bids
you rejoice in a Word from him. His name is the
Messiah, Jesus son of Mary. He shall be noble in
this world and in the world to come."

D. Surah 107:1-7 "Have you thought of him that
denies the Last Judgment? It is he who turns away
the orphan and has no urge to feed the destitute.
Woe betide those who pray but are heedless in their
prayer; who make a show of piety and forbid
almsgiving."

Islam teaches emphatically that if you are not
striving to live a godly life, your prayers and
rituals mean nothing.

> Seven. Contrary to many media reports, nowhere in
the Koran does it teach that martyrs go to Paradise
with the reward of being served by multiple virgins.
Just as some Christian preachers preach things that
are not in the Bible, some representatives of Islam
teach things that are not in the Koran. Islam's
understanding that women are a "weaker vessel" is
really no different than most Southern Baptists and
many other denominations (most Christian
denominations teach that wives are to be
"submissive" and are to "serve and obey"). While
the Koran suggests that a man may have more than one
wife (four maximum), many Muslims believe that the
Koran's mandate that if a man does in fact have more
than one wife he must love each one equally, is
actually a practical prohibition against more than
one wife. The vast majority has only one wife.
Let's not forget how many wives Abraham, Jacob,
Solomon, and David had. Multiple wives have on
occasion been society's only solution for
repopulation where war has devastated the male
population. We would do better to realize that
cultures and customs not exactly like ours are not
automatically invalid or wrong. I have talked with
Islamic women who absolutely love the "protection"
they have in their culture and proudly wear their
hijab (veil) as a covering of modesty. Also, most
Islamic countries give the wife the right to work
outside the house and strictly teach that all of her
wages are hers to spend as she pleases. The husband
has the sole responsibility to pay all the bills and
family expenses.

> Eight. If Islam is condemned as evil and wicked
because of action by a few, so must Christianity be
condemned by the action of Christian slave owners,
Hitler, and Milosevic, not to mention numerous
others. Let's also not forget the Crusades and the
Inquisition. All committed numerous atrocities, yet
declared themselves followers of (and warriors for)
Jesus Christ. Either we must condemn both religions
equally or stop our wrongful and inconsistent
stereotyping, demonizing, and racist discrimination.

> Nine. Islam seeks to live out a standard of living
and virtue at least as high as that of sincere
Christians in this country. They discourage
drinking and gambling and promote sexual conduct
only inside of marriage. No one emphasizes
truthfulness and honesty more than Muslims. They
prohibit the charging of any interest and insist
that a person who does not pray and give liberally
to the poor is not a good Muslim. Until the recent
war, homelessness was unheard of in Iraq, as a
family would be shamed to allow one of its members
to be homeless. If we want to talk about "family
values," our culture can learn a lot from Islam.

> Ten. The cliche that "perception is truth" is a
reality that no thinking person can deny. How would
we view this country from another perspective? They
have witnessed us dropping bombs on 19 different
countries since the end of World War II. In fact,
in many parts of the world the nuclear bomb is
referred to as "the Christian bomb." When we add
the consequences of colonialism to our bombing of
numerous peoples who were in no position to defend
themselves, we certainly do not present a picture of
a "peace-loving and democratic society." Even our
history in which we committed genocide against the
populations that inhabited this country before we
conquered it and then kidnaped and enslaved millions
of people does not reveal us as a nation of peace
and friendliness. How would you truly view this
country if you were living on the other side of the
world? I believe most people from this country are
kind-hearted and well-intentioned, but a distorted
understanding of our history and political
"adventures" can very easily distort reality.