God's Religion: Islam

The CAIR listed a number of socially conservative commentators such as William Lind, who suggests that American Muslims “...should be encouraged to leave [the U.S.]. They are a fifth column in this country.” Also listed were Ann Coulter, Jerry Vines, and Paul Weyrich. Conservative Christian author and radio pastor Dave Hunt claims: "...there are more than 100 verses in the Qur'an advocating the use of violence to spread Islam. In the Qur'an, Allah commands Muslims, "Take not the Jews and Christians as friends....Slay the idolaters [non-Muslims] wherever ye find them.... Fight against such...as believe not in Allah..." (Surah 5:51; 9:5, 29, 41, etc...). Though most Muslims would shrink from obeying such commands, this is official Islam and it cannot change without admitting that Muhammad was a false prophet and murderer (5).” They say that Islam is a false religion. That it is a trick to fool people to hurt each other. People who follow this religion are murderers. That's what they are trying to say.

Because of the 9/11 incident people think that Muslims are murdering killers. What they are saying is a lie. Muslims are not like that. It is not a false religion. People should really open there eyes instead of listening to what other people say. That is what I think.

Which point of view is right?

They both are. Islam is not a homogenous religion. It is divided into many

Subgroups, including Sunni, Shi'ite, and Sufi. A very small, radical, hate-filled, extremist, Fundamentalist, terrorist wing does exist. So too does a much larger peaceful, moderate wing. Unfortunately, the former seem to capture all the media's attention, while the latter is rarely heard from (2). Islam is not a one religion it divides into may subgroups that make it up. There is a small group of bad Muslims but a larger peaceful group of Muslims exist.

It obvious that no one individual speaks for all Muslims. Islam has no single central human authority, comparable to the pope and Vatican for the Roman Catholic Church, or to various General Assemblies and the Lambeth Conferences for the Anglican Communion. Rather, it is divided into many traditions and schools. This phenomenon is true of most religions. Consider the over 1,000 Christian groups in North America. They include some hate-filled groups as well:

The Christian Identity movement

Various white supremacist organizations which usually consider themselves to be Christians.

The terrorists who blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (2). Even Christians have bad people in their religion. Also Christians and Catholic's has a person who is the central unlike Islam it has no central person who represents all Muslims.

There is no one person who represents all Muslims and yet sine the 9/11 incident people make it that the terrorists represents all Muslims. There are a couple bad eggs in every religion. It is like Hitler when the Jewish doctor could save his mother from an illness and she died. Then he marked all Jews as and Enemy as evil people. But we all know that most Jews are not bad people.

What Islam did for Europe

The conflict between Islam and the west can be traced back to a myth that inaccurately painted Muslims as the killers of a Christian hero. Now, scholars are beginning to reassess the fundamental role that Muslims played in shaping western civilization. By Jason Webster What Islam did for Europe God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe (570-1215), David Levering Lewis, W Norton, 384pp, £17.99. Until very recently, suggestions that western civilization owed much to Islam were rejected out of hand. "Europe", according to the orthodox model, was born out of a marriage of classical and Judea-Christian cultures. The missing element in this formula- the Islamic component - was ignored. During the first half of the 2Oth century a number of Arabic's challenged this view, but their opinions made little popular headway. Today, however, thanks largely to the current friction between Islam and the west, new efforts are being made to understand and interpret the influence oriental culture has had, mostly via Spain, on its occidental cousin (Webster 1). It says that Muslims killed the Christian hero. Islam helped build Europe but then Europe rejected Islam.

Following the important groundwork done by Salma Khadra Jayyusi's Legacy of Muslim Spain, the edifice of ignorance and prejudice is slowly beginning to crumble. "More than ever before, light needs to be shone on the long Andalusia aftermath that is pressingly with us now," David Levering Lewis concludes in God's Crucible. He is absolutely right. Historians dealing with the impact of Islamic Spain have to address two important questions with deep contemporary resonance: the extent of Moorish influence over medieval Europe, and the nature of the society from which this sprang. Just how tolerant was it? Were Christians, Muslims and Jews in al-Andalus really able to live harmoniously together, in connivance, as some claim? Or were the distinct communities continuously at war, with any cultural interchange between them being secondary or accidental (1)? People started to live in harmony there was rarely any prejudice or ignorance. But we don't know for sure.