"Islamophobia is the last remaining acceptable prejudice." Yes or No?

"Islamophobia is the last remaining acceptable prejudice." Yes or No?

Facts, Fallacies and Bigots
by Bill Warner | posted in: Newsletter | 0

The following letter appeared in a newspaper in response to a previous letter-writer who criticized Islam. The letter is an excellent example of authoritarian thinking.

We find otherwise good people become bigots when they discuss Islam. They judge Islam by its extremists. Unfortunately, Islamophobia is the last remaining acceptable prejudice.

When they say that Islam abuses women, murders apostates and hates outsiders, they are talking about a counterfeit Islam. We find such hatred amongst both Jews and Christians as well.

One Muslim writer pointed out that there is enough in the Koran for global holy war. But there is also enough there for people of a peaceful mindset to discover a path to enlightenment and peace. There is bad material in the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament as well. But we can also find sublime uplifting passages.

Our spiritual work, as brothers of the Abrahamic faith, is to combat ugly anti-Muslim sentiments and make it socially intolerable.

Signed: Rabbi …​

First things first. There is not one single fact about Islam in the entire letter. We know this because anything that relates to the doctrine of Islam includes the words: Allah or Mohammed. Instead of facts, the writer substitutes his authoritarian reasoning and the opinion of “one Muslim writer”, not Mohammed. He declares from his high moral ground the judgment that anyone who criticizes Islam is a bigot. Why? He decrees it. Evidence? Facts? No need for those when you have the authority to make decrees.

He uses the word “counterfeit”. And what is the standard to determine counterfeit from the real deal? Simple, the one and only standard of Islam is the Koran and the Sunna. Let’s use that standard. For those who enjoy fact-based logic: Does Islam abuse women? Let’s start with the Koran:

Koran 4:34 Allah has made men superior to women because men spend their wealth to support them. Therefore, virtuous women are obedient, and they are to guard their unseen parts as Allah has guarded them. As for women whom you fear will rebel, admonish them first, and then send them to a separate bed, and then beat them. But if they are obedient after that, then do nothing further; surely Allah is exalted and great!

Now let us turn to Mohammed as found the Hadith (Mohammed’s traditions). Mohammed’s words and actions (Sunna) are half of Islam. If Mohammed did it, then it not extremist, by definition.

Abu Dawud 11, 2142: Mohammed said: A man will not be asked as to why he beat his wife.

This hadith equates camels, slaves and women.

Abu Dawud 11, 2155: Mohammed said: If one of you marries a woman or buys a slave, he should say: “O Allah, I ask You for the good in her, and in the disposition You have given her; I take refuge in You from the evil in her, and in the disposition You have given her.” When he buys a camel, he should take hold of the top of its hump and say the same kind of thing.

More advice about slaves and women:

Bukhari 7,62,132: The Prophet said, “None of you should flog his wife as he flogs a slave and then have sexual intercourse with her in the last part of the day.”

A statistical summary is revealing. Here is a table that summarizes all of the sentences and verses about women that can be found in the Koran and the Hadith by Bukhari. Each sentence was judged as to whether the woman was superior to men, equal to men or inferior. All of the superior sentences were about women as mothers, the equality sentences were about being judged equally on Judgment Day. And what is one of the things a woman is judged on? How well she pleased her husband.

Superior Equal Inferior Neutral
Number of verses and hadiths 7 8 157 47
Percentage based on superior and inferior 4% 5% 91% Not included in calculations
Equality of Sexes in Hadith and Koran

Does Islam murder apostates (those who leave Islam)? Let us ask what the Sunna of Mohammed is.

Bukhari 9, 83, 37: […] This news reached Allah’s Apostle , so he sent (men) to follow their traces and they were captured and brought (to the Prophet). He then ordered to cut their hands and feet, and their eyes were branded with heated pieces of iron, and then he threw them in the sun till they died.” I said, “What can be worse than what those people did? They deserted Islam, committed murder and theft.”

Bukhari 9, 84, 57: […] I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah’s Apostle, ‘Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.'”

Bukhari 9, 84, 58: […] Behold: There was a fettered man beside Abu Muisa. Mu’adh asked, “Who is this (man)?” Abu Muisa said, “He was a Jew and became a Muslim and then reverted back to Judaism.” Then Abu Muisa requested Mu’adh to sit down but Mu’adh said, “I will not sit down till he has been killed. This is the judgment of Allah and His Apostle (for such cases) and repeated it thrice. Then Abu Musa ordered that the man be killed, and he was killed. […]

It is Sunna to kill apostates. Islamic doctrine says to kill apostates. As an aside, when Mohammed died, the next caliph, Abu Bakr, killed apostates for two years because many Muslims wanted to quit. Abu Bakr persuaded the survivors to be contented Muslims.

Does Islam hate outsiders? Let us turn to the Koran and consider a word introduced and defined by the Koran. The word is kafir (unbeliever), the ultimate outsider. More that half of the Koran is about kafirs. The only good verses about kafirs are “abrogated” later in the Koran. Allah hates kafirs and plots against them.

Koran 40:35 They who dispute the signs of Allah [kafirs] without authority having reached them are greatly hated by Allah and the believers. So Allah seals up every arrogant, disdainful heart.

Koran 86:15 They plot and scheme against you [Mohammed], and I plot and scheme against them. Therefore, deal calmly with the kafirs and leave them alone for a while.

Kafirs can be tortured, mocked, robbed, enslaved and raped. Kafir is the worst word in the human language.

The rabbi grapples with the duality of the Koran in his paragraph about the good and the bad in the Koran. He makes the usual argument about “it all depends on the interpretation.” This drive for interpretation is an attempt to eliminate the contradictory nature of the Koran. The Koran is filled with contradictions at all levels, and this was pointed out to Mohammed by the Meccans of his day. The Koran uses the principle of abrogation to resolve these contradictions. The later verse is better than the earlier verse.

But since everything in the Koran is the exact word of Allah and Allah is perfect and cannot lie, then every verse of the Koran is true, even if it is contradictory. This violates our logic so we try to decide which side is the truth. But both sides are true in dualistic logic. The Koran is dualistic document and Islam is a dualistic ideology. The answer to the question: “which side is it?” is always–all of the above. That is the genius of Islam. It can have it both ways, and this confuses the kafirs.

Now to the idea of: “brothers in the Abrahamic faith.” Let us look to Mohammed for the relationship between Muslims and their Jewish brothers. At first, Mohammed proved his validity by the fact that his angel was Gabriel, the angel of the prophets of the Jews. Therefore, he was of the same prophetic linage. Since there were no Jews in Mecca to deny him, the idea worked.

When he went to Medina, which was half Jewish, the rabbis told him he was no prophet in the lineage of the Jews. No one contradicted Mohammed and as a result, three years later, there was not a single Jew left in Medina-they were annihilated. Then he attacked the Jews of Khaybar and made them dhimmis after he had killed, tortured, raped and robbed them. On his deathbed he condemned the Jews and Christians to be banished from Arabia. There are no Jews in Arabia today.

That is the Sunna. That is Islam. And that is the way Islam has treated the Jews and Christians ever since-as dhimmis. Dhimmis are kafirs who serve Islam by submitting and laboring for Islam. If the dhimmi is subservient enough, Islam will be kind. There are no brothers of Abraham. Just dhimmis to Mohammed! The root of the problem with Israel is that Israelis refuse to act like dhimmis.

We need to address one last bit of sophistry. He subtly shifts the argument about Islam to Muslims. Muslims are people and as such vary. There are 1.5 billion varieties of Muslims, but only one source of Islam. We need to stick to the study of Islam and leave Muslims out of it. You can prove anything about Islam if you use Muslim-ology; just find the Muslim who says what you want and quote him.

It would seem that before a spiritual leader (although this writer is a Jew, his arguments do not differ a whit from any pious dhimmi Christian pastor) takes on the task of calling those who use critical thought bigots, a better task would be to seek the truth of Islamic ideology. The truth of Islam is found in the Koran, the Sunna (Sira and Hadith) and Islam’s political history. As a spiritual leader, once you have mastered those texts, you can speak to the issue. Until then, play the role of the student and stop referring to those with knowledge as bigots.

This has been an exercise in fact-based rational thought; compare it to his authoritarian thought and assertions.

Bill Warner
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I'm not going into an exhaustive listing because I don't believe in giving flat out bigots that much time, but I am quite confident I could compile a listing very similar to, if not worse, than the one you put out for either Christianity or Judaism. Give me a little more time and I could do it for Buddhism and Taoism. (Don't even get me started on how flat out racist Shinto is.) Do you think we should deport or limit the number of Christians or Jews?

In any case the whole idea is bollocks. It's largely based on the idea in your signature. "We can't tell them good from bad so we have to judge them as a whole." This is really nothing more than the blanket justification for any kind of prejudice, I. E. Stereotyping. It works just as well on blacks, gays, or New Yorkers as it does on muslims and it's just about as valid in reality

The major problem you seem to be having is that, as a conservative, you just can't comprehend that the vast majority of people in just about every religion in the world, including Islam, are NOT fanatical adherents of it, as you are of whatever yours is. Most muslims don't go to mosque, just like most Christians don't go to church. OR read their holy books every day and regard every word as an absolute precept they MUST obey in how to live their lives. YOU probably consult the Bible as to whether you can go to the bathroom every day. Most muslims probably don't even look at the Koran for years at a time.

 

"Prejudice" is a mostly meaningless word, it's a secular way to categorize beliefs into acceptable and unacceptable, based upon seeking votes through political correctness instead of in service to any clearly defined goals.

 

It does not matter that the majority of muslims are not fanatics, do not go to church, or read the koran. It does not matter that the majority of muslims are peaceful.

The issue in every religion - and every social organization - is determined by the activists.

In the case of Christianity, the activists just want to talk, even the extremists like Westboro.

In the case of islam, the activists have large numbers of followers, and they want to cut your head off. They murder and torture women, children, and men. They engage in kidnapping and the slave trade. When they do establish a nation such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya, they rule by their religious law which is oppressive and severe in its punishment.

Equating islam to all other religions is simply naïve.

 

A phobia is not a prejudice ... it's a phobia!

Like any other phobia it's not "acceptable", it's irrational. So that it's not socially acceptable, and in fact, islamophobia isn't ... if in the West there was all this "islamophobia" someone will be able to explain me why we buy so much oil from Islamic countries [we give money and economical power to Islam!]. Furthermore, why are we accepting Islamic investors to buy our corporations? Muslims invest a lot in US and EU ... so ... where is all this islamophobia?

 

There is a rational fear of islamo-terrorists in Western cultures because they (islamo-terrorists) have pledged to quash Western culture and have committed atrocities to that end. So-called 'islamophobia' is a false characterization of the over-whelming majority of the West who realize that islamo-terrorists do not make up the majority of believers in Islam. That being said, many of us in the West wonder why there isn't more of an outcry against the islamo-terrorist element of Islam by powerful Imams.

 

How would you know? Have you completely forgotten the witch burnings, the Inquisition, the Conquistadors.. or the Blood Libel the Jews were accused of?

 

If they could the Westboro fanatics would kill anyone who disagreed with them. It's not their form of "activism" now but I keep expecting it soon will be

You're right in that bloodthirsty murderers usually get more attention. The world is full of fools and idiots who think vicious criminals are "activists" and subscribe to the notion that huge groups all support rabid dogs in their midst because they fear them

Conservatism 101 Nothing matters, the enemy is the enemy, whether they actually did anything to you or not. Hate is your goal and power is your objective. Thus the Nazis put men, women and children into the ovens by the millions, thus you are trying to revive the new Naziism. The death of billions isn't evil, just "realistic". Anyone who says we shouldn't advocate the slaughter of children is "naïve"

Oh, they were perfectly alright. CHRISTIANS did them. God told them to kill all those people, just like he's telling them to kill all the muslims now. One question for all you devout killers, if GA-HAWD wants all the muslims dead, why didn't he do it himself over all these centuries? (no involvement of Margot here, just piggybacking off her post)

 

Word Salad, Prejudice is very clear in it's meaning, It is Judgement BEFORE any facts are presented. When your "clearly defined goals" are fomenting hatred and using it to gain political power it much behooves you to defend prejudice and to bring up the 'political correctness" meme, which is becoming, by conservative definition, ANY opposition to racism, ethnicism and the fomenting of hatred.

 

There is ongoing condemnation of terrorism by all kind of imams and individuals, powerful and not. It is seriously underreported by ALL Western media, I truly hope the only reason for that is that hatred and death are much more interesting.

 

Of the Abrahamic religions Judaism is the only one that is not accepted to hate because muh six gorrillion died in the holocaust. It's still widely popular to hate Christianity and Islam. The difference is that the left has a tendency to defend Islam while still hating Christianity. In the aftermath of these terrorist attacks we are told it's not okay to hate Muslims as a whole for the acts of a few extremists but if a Christian company refuses to pay for your birth control or some dumb(*)(*)(*)(*) parents decide to pray for their children rather than taking them to see a doctor then HUEHUEHUE THIS IS WHY RELIGION IS DUMB!

 

Then perhaps a more serious effort should be made BY the Imams to absolutely condemn their radical elements so that it is NOT 'underroperted.' They could (for instance) have a world-wide summit telling their followers to personally condemn this radical movement and lay out proposals and plans on how each adherent can contribute to the absolute eradication of this evil strain within the body of their own religious sects. That would at least be a start.

The future of Islam could be at stake here as well you know.

 

It would be more than a start, it would be more than any other religion has ever done or even been asked to do. And yes, other religions have had factions who terrified the world and tried to take it over. What do you think the Victorian colonialists were? and they had MUCH more support in this than Islam has ever evinced.

Besides, I dont't think it would do any good. Hatred of Islam is not based upon any rational thing just like there never was a real "Jewish Conspiracy" for the Nazis to oppose. It was a strategy to seize power, just like it is now. if the muslims had a summit it would be like what happened in Texas. (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*) conservatives would attack it. Rightists don't WANT peace in the world and never have, they thrive on conflict and hatred.

 

Yes we can look to the past and see other religions doing the same or worse that is true however, that was then and this is TODAY. The ONLY religion associated with PRESENT DAY terrorism, beheadings, rape, torture, killing of innocent souls is Islam. Other religions may have been as brutal or worse however they have reformed. Isn't it time for Islam to come into the 21 century?

There is no overall hatred of Islam but there is a growing outrage among Westerners at the outright slaughter of innocent souls perpetrated by radicals claiming to be of the Islam faith. It's time for Islam to reform itself...denounce and throw out the radicals that are a blight upon their faith.

No one would attack a world-wide summit of the most powerful Imams under the banner of eradicating ISIS, Taliban, Al Queda, etc. I submit that a majority of the Western powers would become allies with those Imams.

'Rightists' is a vague term. Who are you talking about the Euro-right? Because the Western 'Right' really hasn't had much power in the last 8 years.

 

The minority's does not represent the majority... in any religion.

 

Fear of Islamic terror and to an extent the corresponding dislike of Muslims is indeed a prejudice...and justified based on the actions of entities such as ISIS, Alqueida, Boka Haram...etc. For myself, I simply have decided to avoid anyone of the Islamic faith and stay away from befriending Middle Eastern people completely...I suppose I have become something of a bigot.

 

True, the Christian community has its flaws, but the degree is significant. How many "witches" were killed? A trivial issue of very low numbers.

The Inquisition was a significant operation which oppressed many, stole from many, but killed relatively few. Estimates are that over its 170 year reign, the Inquisition investigates between 150,000 to 250,000 people and killed around 2,000 - although many of those not killed suffered torture to various degrees.

The Conquistadors had a great impact, but they were state soldiers of Spain and Portugal. They had religious trappings, but were clearly operating for their nations, not a religion.

But you have to go back 1,000 years to find examples of Christian excess.

Now, how many innocent people have the muslims killed just last week? Last year? And the muslims relish in the killing, the more barbaric the more they enjoy it.

 

And you have some support for your claim that Westboro would slaughter all who did not agree with them? Or is that just your convenient assumption?

LOL to jump from what this discussion is about to this post is revealing of your bias, closed mind, and mental health.

 

That is irrelevant, its the ones who ACT that set the direction and tone. A silent and inactive majority is irrelevant to a highly active and motivated minority. Hitler, Lenin, Castro, Mao, most revolutionaries start from a position of minority but gain power by the force of their actions. Estimates are that only 3% of colonists actually directly participated in the Revolutionary War, with another 20% or so who provided non-military support.

 

Nice opinion. If you want to elevate that to a fact then I will need source citation.

Correlation does not imply causation. Your argument is interesting but to elevate it to some inevibility in America is just speculation. You going to convert to Islam? No? Me neither. Is Christianity so feeble in America that it's practitioners will bow to another theological belief?

 

Are we allowed to be anti Crips and Bloods? WHy? Because they teach violence against innocent people? Well, there ya go!

 

1. The God of the Old Testament which Jews and most Christians believe in....

ordered infanticide.

1 Samuel 15:3


2. I once took a line from a Hitler speech and substituted the words "Muslim" and "Islam"....for "Jew" and "Judaism"....

and found numerous Rightwing Islamophobes who shared a common belief with Der Furhrer....IOW, they all agreed with the statement.

Ask one sometime...."You claim Muslims, not just jihadists not just overseas Muslims, but American Muslims threaten our very existance...okay. What EXACTLY do you want to DO with (or to) American Muslims?"

Most will clam up or dodge and deflect....because they're big TALK, but intellectually dishonest and cowardly. A few, will be truthful....and will sound a lot like certain German leaders in the late 1930s.

 

You have no clue what you are talking about. Christianity is focused on the New Testament, which is a new covenant between man and God under which your sins are forgiven through the sacrifice of Christ. There is no Christian organization out there killing people because they believe the Bible told them to do so. In fact the overriding commandment of Christianity is "love thy neighbor as thy self". And please don't dredge up some skewed perspective on something that happened centuries ago, we are talking about right now.

 

This video expands on the subject. The real items start at about 2 minutes in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry3NzkAOo3s

 

So Christians believe that the God of the Old Testament is NOT the same God in the New Testament?

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