Honor Killing is Absolutely Islamic!

by Syed Kamran Mirza

Honor killings, which occur with shocking regularity in certain parts of the Middle East and South Asia, target women whose actions – actual or suspected – violate the honor of their family, an honor which is thought to depend on the sexual purity of its female members. Victims are always being killed/slaughtered mercilessly by her own family members. Honor killing is a manifestation of global phenomenon in general and Muslim nations in particular. Since this terrible inhumane practice does exists only among the Muslims of the world—very often civilized people do blame Islam as the precursor of this dreadful act. Most others do not agree with this notion at all; and they try to put the blame on the tribal/cultural practice, and do not consider Islam is anyway responsible for it. In this essay I shall analyze the real issues, cause and origin, and pattern of this heinous act amongst the Muslims of the world to postulate if there is any link, or incitements that originates from the very core of Islam.

What is honor killing?

Honor killing is the bone chilling horrific cruelty committed by the family members—father, mother, brothers, brother-in-laws, even in some cases own sisters also. In this terrible episode the victim is always the daughter/sister or other blood related young women who get killed. Perpetrators are always the family members stated above. Family honor is one of the core values of Arab society. Anything from speaking with an unrelated man, to rumored pre-marital loss of virginity, to an extra-marital affair, refuses forced marriages; marry according to their will; or even women and girls who have been raped—can stain or destroy the family honor. Therefore, family members (parents, brothers, or sisters) kill the victim in order to remove the stain or maintain, and protect the honor of the family. Killers are given light sentences, sometimes with little or no jail time at all. The killers mainly defend their act of murder by referring to the Koran and Islam. Family guardian will say that they are merely following the directives set down in their Islamic ethical beliefs.

Honor killing is committed by the family members - father, mother, brothers, brother-in-laws and even in some cases sisters

These barbaric killings occur only to save the honor of the family, and not for any animosity or for wealth or gold. In 100% of cases—the killers have no animosity, rather they love the girl as their own daughter or sister, but they kill the girl anyway upon their ethical compulsion to save their family honor, or to erase family stigmas. The victims cry, beg for their life but the family members become merciless (out of their ethical prejudices and also religious burden of fear) and kill the victim. After killing family members usually mourn and cry for the victim (usually loving daughter or sister) but feel solace that they have done the right thing to save their family honor.

And this kind of cruel killings to save family honor had happened, still happening, and will remain to happen—only to a Muslim family. Honor killings happen only to some designated Muslim nations such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, the Gaza strip and the West Bank (Palestine), Jordan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Somalia, Turkey, Iran and some other south and central Asian countries. Bangladesh though a Muslim majority country—regular pattern of honor killings never happened as of today. But it is not unknown or impossible to record some stray incidences in Bangladeshi rural Muslim family (only) in which girl was poisoned by family members, or asked to commit suicide after being impregnated by unwed sexual intercourse. However, this same kind of case history was never heard, or recorded in the non-Muslim family of Bangladesh.

Honor killing is different from other killings

Honor killing should never be confused with wife beating, or wife killings by husbands or other relatives. Since pre-historic ancient time people assassinated, killed, or poisoned their wives or husbands, or other family members for either adultery, love affairs (Poro-keya prem) with other man besides her husband, or for property disputes—and these are simple homicide in English terminology. They are never called honor killing. This kind of homicides did occur, still occurs, and will occur in any nations, or race throughout the human history and these are not any race, or religion related happenings by any standard. Honor killings also should never be confused, or mixed up with killings for dowry, acid throwing by unsuccessful/disappointed love stalkers (as frequently happened in the Indian sub-continent), or any other violence against women. These are simply not honor killings, which is the topic of this essay.

Honor killing should never be confused with wife beating, or wife killings by husbands or other relatives.

Some sample cases of horrific honor killing:

Case-1: " Two months ago, when she tried to run away yet again, Kina (father of the girl) grabbed a kitchen knife and an ax and stabbed and beat the girl [his daughter] until she lay dead in the blood-smeared bathroom of the family's Istanbul apartment. He then commanded one of his daughters-in-law to clean up the mess. When his two sons came home from work 14 hours later, he ordered them to dispose of the 5-foot-3 corpse, which had been wrapped in a carpet and a blanket. The girl's head had been so mutilated, police said, it was held together by a knotted cloth."

Case-2: "Kifaya Husayn, a 16-year-old Jordanian girl, was lashed to a chair by her 32-year-old brother. He gave her a drink of water and told her to recite an Islamic prayer. Then he slashed her throat. Immediately afterward, he ran out into the street, waving the bloody knife and crying, 'I have killed my sister to cleanse my honor.' Kifaya's crime? She was raped by another brother, a 21-year-old man. Her judge and jury? Her own uncles, who convinced her eldest brother that Kifaya was too much of a disgrace to the family's honor to be allowed to live. The murderer was sentenced to fifteen years, but the sentence was subsequently reduced to seven and a half years, an extremely severe penalty by Jordanian standards."

Case-3: “A 25-year-old Palestinian who hanged his sister with a rope: "I did not kill her, but rather helped her to commit suicide and to carry out the death penalty she sentenced herself to. I did it to wash with her blood the family honor that was violated because of her and in response to the will of society that would not have had any mercy on me if I didn't . . . Society taught us from childhood that blood is the only solution to wash the honor."

Case-4: "Samia Sarwar, 29, mother of two boys aged 4 and 8, was shot dead today in lawyer Hina Jillani's office by a bearded man accompanying her mother and uncle. `He's my helper, I can't walk,' said the mother, when Hina told the two men to get out. As the mother went to sit down in front of Hina's desk, and Saima stood up from her chair, the bearded man whipped out a pistol from his waistcoat and shot Saima in the head, killing her instantly."

When Samia Sarwar sought a divorce from her violent husband she was gunned down in the office of her lawyer Hina Jilani. The killer was taken there by her own mother.

Case-5: ABU QASH, Palestine: Amira Abu Hanhan Qaoud (mother of 9 children) killed her daughter ‘Rofayda Qaoud’ who had been raped by her brothers and was impregnated. Armed with a plastic bag, razor and wooden stick, Qaoud entered her sleeping daughter's room last Jan. 27, 2003. "Tonight you die, Rofayda," she told the girl, before wrapping the bag tightly around her head. Next, Qaoud sliced Rofayda's wrists, ignoring her muffled pleas of "No, mother, no!" After her daughter went limp, Qaoud struck her in the head with the stick. The 43-year-old mother of nine said. "I had to protect my children. This is the only way I could protect my family's honor."

Case-6: A 23 year old Rania Arafat, whose plight was broadcast live on national TV in Jordan. Rania was promised to her cousin as a very young child. Rania repeatedly told that she doesn't love him and she is in love with someone else. She pled with her family to allow her to marry her lover, instead. She ran away twice, including two weeks before her forced marriage. She wrote to her mother and pled for forgiveness and understanding. Her parents promised that she would not be harmed and she could return home. On August 19, 1997, Rania returned home. The same night, her younger brother, Rami, shot her five times in the head and chest, killing her immediately. Her youngest brother was chosen to commit the murder not only to allow his defense to find protection under the laws protecting so-called honour crimes, but also because he was a juvenile. Rami served six months in jail for his crime.

Case-7: Amal, another Arab woman and victim of honour killing was run away because she insisted on her independence. Her family said that they were ashamed because of that and the gossip of neighbors. One night, when she returned home and went sleep, her brother accompanied by Amal's father, strangled her. He said: "I strangled her. She didn't fight back. I recited the "Holly Koran" as she was dying… it took a few minutes and she was dead." He and his father both given light sentences.

Every two weeks a young woman is killed in Jordan alone in the name of family honour

Case-8: Death of Aqsa Pervez: A reflection on Canadian Muslim-Pakistanis-Honor killing in Canada!, December 16, 2007
A young Mississauga teenager (16-year old) Aqsa Pervez, was killed by her father last week who later called the police and confessed. Mohammad Pervez is now in police custody and his case hearings have begun. The young girl was killed by strangulation for her refusal to wear the hijab.

Case- 9: Texas manhunt on for father of slain his two girls (January 3, 2008)
Texas authorities continued a manhunt today for an Egyptian-born taxi driver accused of murdering his two teenage daughters. Yaser Abdel Said, 50, was wanted on a warrant for capital murder after police say he shot the girls Tuesday and left them to die in his taxi, which was found parked in front a hotel in Las Colinas, a suburb north of Dallas. Police said Mr. Said should be considered armed and dangerous.

Friends of Amina Yaser Said, 18, and Sarah Yaser Said, 17, described the girls to the Dallas Morning News as "extremely smart — like geniuses," saying the slain sisters had been enrolled in advanced placement classes and were active in soccer and tennis at suburban Lewisville High School. Family and friends told reporters that the girls' Westernized lifestyle caused conflict with their Muslim father, who immigrated from Egypt in the 1980s.

"He was really strict about guy relationships and talking to guys, as well as the things she wears," Kathleen Wong, a friend of the girls, told KTVT-TV, the Dallas CBS affiliate. Two boys who said they had been dating the sisters told KXAS-TV in Dallas that Mr. Said was upset that his daughters were involved with non-Muslims.

"She just wanted a normal life, like any American girl wanted," one of the boys told the NBC affiliate station, adding that Sarah "was always kind, gentle, always cheerful, always had a smile on her face."

Honor killing is a cultural/tribal phenomenon!!!

Most Muslim apologists and also some gullible westerners want to argue that the ‘so called “honor killing” is not Islamic and it’s a tribal/cultural vice.’ This statement is utterly untrue and only a wish full covers up. It’s true that in pre-Islamic Arab culture this heinous honor killing of women did exist; likewise, many other uncivilized practices like stoning, flogging, beheading, slavery etc also existed in the pre-Islamic Arab society. But Islam did incorporate entirely most of these inhumane/uncivilized practices of pagan society, which they now call them Allah’s laws.

Had it been the tribal/cultural practice, ‘honor killing’ would exist amongst the Arabs only. But honor killing does happen amongst the non-Arab Muslims also. Also Arabs belonged to all religions (Muslims, Christians, Jews, Bhai etc.) would practice honor killing with equal prevalence. Fact of the matter is—no Arab Christians, Jews or Bahai etc do practice this uncivilized act at all. Only Arab Muslims do practice this heinous act with a regular pattern.

Honor killing does happen only amongst the Muslims and these honor killings get support and encouragement from the ethical teachings of religion Islam. In 1986 this kind of honor killing did happen in the United States of America in an Arab Muslim family. In 2003 honor killing happened in Sweden again in a Muslim family. However, some very rare, sporadic case of such killing might have happened in other society or people of other religion. But they are no where near to compare with the regular pattern, or routine feature of honor killings which do happen in the Muslim nations that I have mentioned. It has been reported that in Pakistan and in Jordan several hundreds of “honor killings” do happen every year. Perhaps, it will be more plausible to name this so called ‘honor’ as the “Islamic honor”, which Muslims stupendously try to save by killing their love one!

Dictums of Quran and Hadiths which may dictate/incite honor killing:

Quran- 4:15 “If any of your women are guilty of lewdness, take the evidence of four (reliable) witness from amongst you against them; if they testify, confine them to houses until death do claim them. Or God ordain for them some (other) way.”

Quran-24:2 “The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication—flog each of them with hundred stripes: Let no compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by God, if ye believe in God and the last day.”

Quran-17:32 “ Nor come nigh to adultery: for it is a shameful (deed) and an evil, opening the road (to other evils).

Quran-33:33 “stay quietly in your houses, and make not a dazzling display.”

Now some sahih hadiths:

Bukhari: Volume 7, Book 63, Number 196:
Narrated Abu Huraira: A man from Bani Aslam came to Allah's Apostle while he was in the mosque and called (the Prophet ) saying, "O Allah's Apostle! I have committed illegal sexual intercourse." On that the Prophet turned his face from him to the other side, whereupon the man moved to the side towards which the Prophet had turned his face, and said, "O Allah's Apostle! I have committed illegal sexual intercourse." The Prophet turned his face (from him) to the other side whereupon the man moved to the side towards which the Prophet had turned his face, and repeated his statement. The Prophet turned his face (from him) to the other side again. The man moved again (and repeated his statement) for the fourth time. So when the man had given witness four times against himself, the Prophet called him and said, "Are you insane?" He replied, "No." The Prophet then said (to his companions), "Go and stone him to death." The man was a married one. Jabir bin 'Abdullah Al-Ansari said: I was one of those who stoned him. We stoned him at the Musalla ('Id praying place) in Medina. When the stones hit him with their sharp edges, he fled, but we caught him at Al-Harra and stoned him till he died.
(See also Bukhari: Volume 7, Book 63, Number 195.)

Sahi Bukhari: 8:6814:
Narrated Jabir bin Abdullah al-Ansari: “A man from the tribe of Bani Aslam came to Allah’s Messenger [Muhammad] and informed him that he had committed illegal sexual intercourse; and he bore witness four times against himself. Allah’s Messenger ordered him to be stoned to death as he was a married person.”

Sahi Muslim No. 4206:
“A woman came to the prophet and asked for purification by seeking punishment. He told her to go away and seek God’s forgiveness. She persisted four times and admitted she was pregnant. He told her to wait until she had given birth. Then he said that the Muslim community should wait until she had weaned her child. When the day arrived for the child to take solid food, Muhammad handed the child over to the community. And when he had given command over her and she was put in a hole up to her breast, he ordered the people to stone her. Khalid b. al-Walid came forward with a stone which he threw at her head, and when the blood spurted on her face he cursed her.”

Sahih Al-Bukhari Vol 2. pg 1009; and Sahih Muslim Vol 2. pg 65:
Hadhrat Abdullah ibne Abbaas (Radiallahu Anhu) narrates the lecture that Hadhrat Umar (Radiallaahu Anhu) delivered whilst sitting on the pulpit of Rasulullah (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wa Sallam). Hadhrat Umar (Radiallahu Anhu) said, "Verily, Allah sent Muhammad (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wa Sallam) with the truth, and revealed the Quran upon him. The verse regarding the stoning of the adulterer/ess was from amongst the verse revealed (in the Quraan). We read it, secured it and understood it. Rasulullah (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wa Sallam) stoned and we stoned after him. I fear that with the passage of time a person might say, ‘We do not find mention of stoning in the Book of Allah and thereby go astray by leaving out an obligation revealed by Allah. Verily, the stoning of a adulterer/ress is found in the Quraan and is the truth, if the witnesses are met or there is a pregnancy or confession."

Al-Bukhari:
The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “Whoever guarantees me that he will guard his chastity, I will guarantee him Paradise”.

Al-Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, An-Nisa’i and others:
Abu Hurayrah reports that the Messenger of Allah said, “No one commits adultery while still remaining a believer, for faith is more precious unto Allah than such an evil act!” In another version, it is stated, “When a person commits adultery he casts away from his neck the bond that ties him to Islam; if, however, he repents, Allah will accept his repentance”.

Al-Bayhaqi:
The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “O mankind! Beware of fornication/adultery for it entails six dire consequences: three of them relating to this world and three to the next world. As for the three that are related to this world, they are the following: it removes the glow of one’s face, brings poverty, and reduces the life-span. As for its dire consequences in the next world they are: it brings down the wrath of Allah upon the person, subjects him to terrible reckoning, and finally casts him in hell-fire.”

The above Quranic verses and authentic sahih hadiths clearly demonstrate beyond doubt that Prophet Muhammad, under Allah’s direction, stoned adulterers to death and flogged fornicators. Allah’s decree/choice of death for fornicators (Quran: 4:15) and flogging adulteress 100 times with no mercy (Quran: 24:2, which also could lead to certain death) has clearly sanctioned/dictated dreadful punishment for sexual intercourse outside marriage. It is from these scriptural divine spirits Iranian fundamentalist Islamic government practices stoning and flogging adulterers even today. The Iranian Supreme Court sanctioned that an adulteress should be buried up to her chest and stoned to death. Mullahs of Iran know the hadiths quite well. This august body is closely following Allah’s prophet. It is also quite prudent to consider that Muslim parents those who are practicing honor killing are directly motivated, or influenced by the above scriptural and historical (Hadiths) support; hence they are able to commit heinous crime called ‘honor killing’ with (almost) impunity, exultantly and with ample satisfaction that they are following the strict Islamic ethical code to guard chastity, as the holy Prophet repeatedly cautioned Muslims so seriously to guard their women’s chastity.

Islamic ethics for adultery:

The Arabic word ‘Zina’ means all extramarital sexual intercourse between a man and a woman. According to Islam “Zina” constituted social suicide—an entire society commits suicide over time if it allows fornication and adultery to go unpunished in the Islamic style. As per Islamic justice—unmarried fornicators receive a hundred stripes, but married adulterers must die by stoning, as described in the sahih hadiths.

Opinion of some famous Islamists about Zina

The Saudi Ambassador to London, Ghazi al-Qusaibi, says that stoning may seem irrational to the western mind, but it is "at the core of the Islamic faith." An intellectual, the Saudi ambassador to London asserted that stoning adulterers to death is a legitimate punishment for society. He also says that Westerners should respect Muslin culture on this matter.

Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states:
“Adultery in Islam is one of the most heinous and deadliest of sins. Its enormity can be gauged from the fact that it has often been conjoined in the Qur’an with the gravest of all sins: shirk or associating partners with Allah.”

Hani Ramadan head of the Islamic Center in Geneva (Hani Ramadan is the elder brother of famed Swiss Muslim intellectual Tarek Ramadan, who are both the grandsons of Hassan Al-Banna, the founder of Egypt’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.) stated,
“Islam has taken a firm and decisive stance against Zina (fornication or adultery). Allah, the Almighty, commands in explicit and unequivocal words: “And come not near unto adultery. Lo! it is an abomination and an evil way.” (Al-Isra’: 32).”

Mufti Muhammad Aashiq Illahi Muhajir Madani (Illuminating Discourses on the Noble Qur’an, Karachi, Pakistan, Zam Zam, 2003) also follows this tactic of describing society that does not undergo Islamic punishments for the two sexual crimes. Families fall into ruin, which means society also is ruined. Sexual sins also cause widespread disease (vol. 6, pp. 360-66).

Al Skudsi bin Hookah , (roving reporter and foreign correspondent for The Gaza Gajeera.):
“I am very unhappy. Our way of life is under attack. And we are not fighting back. Deep down, we know that when a woman has disgraced her family, nothing will restore honor except by killing her. This is understood in Jordan, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Egypt, the Gaza strip and the West Bank. So why are we Arabs telling the Western press that honor killing is cultural, that it is not really part of Islam? Our way of life is based on maintaining our honor. And make no mistake about it: a woman does tarnish her family's honor by engaging in pre-marital sex, or by getting herself raped, when she seeks divorce and when she marries against her family's wishes. And keeping our women pure is a big part of our honor. So there's no point saying honor killing isn't really part of our religion. Honor and Islam are inextricably bound; they are what give our life meaning. A strong religion demands we choose to maintain our honor.”

Bassam al-Hadid, (A Jordanian with an American doctorate who spent 12 years as a hospital administrator in the United States): “I would do what I have to do,” said, when asked whether he would kill a daughter who had sex outside marriage."

Status of Women in Muslim society:

According to Islamic tradition the woman is an object owned by the man who assumes responsibility for her behavior and her life. The social and religious traditions lead to the isolation of the woman in her home. She is required to cover her entire body in order to maintain the honor of the man. In Qur’an, prophetic tradition and law, one finds a very strong presumption of women’s chastity along with numerous safeguards to prevent any imputation of un-chastity A Muslim feminist sexual ethics must help create the conditions for the Qur’anic and traditional values of modesty and chastity to be lived by Muslim women and men in ways that are faithfully chosen and equitably maintained.

A woman who is either raped or commits adultery becomes the source of shame to her family. People will not marry her because she has been spoiled; she and her family becomes the object of gossip of everyone in the society; hence the entire family can lose prestige. No one would give a daughter to the brothers of that girl in marriage and no one would marry her sisters. The family and even the extended family are maligned and become outcasts. This can only stop if the family cleanses that stain with blood. The woman thus defiled must be killed even if she is a victim of rape.

Role of Misogynistic attitude in Islam:

Islam is dreadfully anti-women. This statement can be proven with 100% guarantee by the well known and established fact that—women folks in every Muslim country in general, and in every Islamic paradise (country where Islamic Shariaat is enforced) in particular, are severely subjugated, oppressed, and considered less than second class citizen. Women in Islam are considered half human and in the Quran women have half the rights of men, sister has half the rights of brother, and women are considered deficient in intelligence.

Practically and Literally Islam consider women as the sources of great shame. Prophet Muhammad said women are awrah which can be translated as object of shame. What is awrah? The Encyclopedia of Islam defines 'awrah’as pudendum, which is the external genitals, especially of the female. The word Pudendum derives from the Latin pudor which means sense of shame and modesty. Therefore, awrah signify an object of shame that needs to be covered.

Interestingly, in the Indian sub-continent (Bangladesh-India-Pakistan)—women have another alternative name calling, in spite of having their usual name for the English word woman in the respective language. And this famous name calling is “Auraat” and common in all the three countries of the Indian sub-continent. Obviously this common word “Auraat” for women came from the Arabic word Awrah. This common word “Auraat” is usually used as the synonym for woman with empathy, hatred, mercy and shame.

According to the following Hadiths, women not only have ten 'awrah, but the woman herself is perceived as 'awrah: "The woman is 'awrah. When she goes outside (the house), the devil welcomes her" (Ihy'a 'Uloum ed-Din by Ghazali, Dar al-Kotob al-'Elmeyah, Beirut , Vol II, Kitab Adab al-Nikah, p. 65. Reported by Tirmizi as a true and good Ahadith).

Hazrat Ali (rightly guided Caliph) reported the Prophet saying:
“Women have ten ('awrah). When she gets married, the husband covers one, and when she dies the grave covers the ten." ( Kanz-el-'Ummal, Vol. 22, Hadith No. 858. See also Ihy'a).

In most fanatical Islamic nations when a woman loses her awrah by e.g. through rape, she becomes the object of shame for her entire family, and also for the society. Only way to remove that shame and restore the honor is to remove that defiled woman. It is practiced in most Islamic countries with a regular pattern. The more religious is a country, the more is widespread the honor killing. As for example, Pakistan a Muslim majority nation did not have practice of honor killing until the fanatic and despotic Military dictator General Ziaul Hoq came to power. This despotic ruler by his decade long dictatorship turned Pakistan into an Islamic Sharia country. Along with intense acceleration of making Pakistan into a hub of Talibans, and Islamic terrorist’s country, citizens of Pakistan also started vigorous practicing of honor killing on a regular basis.

Conclusion:

Judging everything I have described in this essay, one can very genuinely lead to the conclusion that ‘honor killing’ is indeed the vice of Islam. Islam has much to do with honor killing practices which only do exist amongst the Muslims of the world. Had it been un-Islamic practice, we would have seen some Muslim nations prohibiting such cruel practice by Sharia law. We have not seen any Muslim country did enact any such law to curve honor killing. We have seen innumerable cases of fatwas by Mullahs to prohibit alcohol drinking, pork eating or listening western music; but never ever heard any such fatwa against honor killing. Rather, honor killing has silent support from the devout Islamists of all kinds. Islamists condone honor killing silently! No wonder that the Al Skudsi bin Hookah (reported of Gazagejeera) so passionately said: “So there's no point saying honor killing isn't really part of our religion. Honor and Islam are inextricably bound; they are what give our life meaning. A strong religion demands we choose to maintain our honor.”

One may argue that Quran does not say clearly about honor killing! Fact is there are plenty of things Muslims practice that are also not mentioned in the Quran. Stoning death also not available in the Quran. Yet Iranian Islamic government does practice stoning death by the decree of Islamic court. Afghan Taliban government did routinely practice stoning and flogging of adulterers. Most importantly, Quran did not create any scriptural instruction to ban the so called Arab tribal practice of “honor killing” either! Besides, if the honor killing was simply a tribal practice—then it would have been prevailed amongst the Arabs of all religions. There is no evidence to support that a Christian or Jewish family of Jordan or Palestine did practice honor killing.

Muslims who are stunningly devout and laden with Islamic superstitious beliefs do commit crime of Honor killing to fulfill their obligation of preserving Islamic ethics, and women chastity. The more a country gets fanatically religious the more frequent are honor killings (Pakistan is a perfect example). Islam has incorporated many pre-Islamic practices of Arab pagans (stoning deaths, flogging the fornicators, slavery, war booty, beheading the criminals, cutting hands and foots of thieves, many rituals of animal sacrifice, annual pilgrimage to Mecca etc.) and readily called them Islamic or Allah’s laws. Honor killing is one such pre-Islamic practice of Arab pagans which has been practicing by some devout Muslim families of many good Islamic nations of the world.

Because of the fact that the “honor killings” do have silent support from Islam, the killers are given light sentences, sometimes with little or no jail time at all. The killers are primarily influenced by Islamic ethics, and mainly defend their act of murder by referring to the Koran and Islam. They usually justify their evil deeds by the directives set down in the Islamic ethical beliefs and principles. Koran is very strict and belligerent regarding how to control women's sexuality, and Islamic Law; Sharia, rules harsh punishments including lashing and stoning to death for women's voluntary sexual activities. And it is because of these Islamic elements of support, no Islamic government dares to enact any criminal law to ban this barbaric slaughtering of innocent family girls. Even then some Islamists will still say that “honor killing” has nothing to do with Islam; just the way they say “Islamic terrorism” has nothing to do with the so called peaceful Islam. Their hypocritical denial is utter nonsense and stupendously deceptive. I urge those Islamists to tell us why this “honor killing” never happens among the non-Muslim Arab families? They must also tell us—why no Arab and non-Arab Muslim government dare to make any strict law to ban honor killings in their land?

Denying the truth is tantamount to committing this heinous crime to humanity, and denying will never solve this chronic problem of Islamic nations. Only way honor killing can be stopped is to admit the truth (real cause), and stop controlling public lives by the draconian laws (Sharia) of Islam. Let there be a strict separation of ‘Mosque and State’ in every Muslim majority nation of the world. Honor killing will definitely cease to exist.
References:

1. Honor killing-maintaining family honor: by Al Skudsi bin Hookah, roving reporter and foreign correspondent for The Gaza Gajeera. Jan 20, 2003

2. The Seattle Times: 'Honor killing' shakes up Sweden after man slays daughter who wouldn't wed: By Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times.

3. Culture of death? Palestinian girl's murder highlights growing number of 'honor killings’.

4. Honor Killing: By Ali Sina.

5. The Holy Qur’an, Translated by A. Yousuf Ali, Published by Amana Corporation, Brentwood, Maryland, 1983

6. Buchari Sharif, Bengali Translation by Maulana Muhammad Mustafizur Rahman, Sulemani Printers and Publishers, Dhaka, Second edition-1999.

7. "Crimes of Honour" Women's Tragedy under Islam & Tribal Customs By Azam Kamiguian.

Syed Kamran Mirza is the author of Roots of Terrorism in Islam. He has also contributed in Beyond Jihad — Critical Voices from Inside Islam and Leaving Islam — Apostates Speaks Out. He can be contacted at mirza.syed@gmail.com.



This article originally appear on Islam-Watch.Org

Islam, Virgins and Grapes

by Nicholas D. Kristof

In Afghanistan, 300 brave women marched to demand a measure of equal rights, defying a furious mob of about 1,000 people who spat, threw stones and called the women “whores.” The marchers asserted that a woman should not need her husband’s consent to go to school or work outside the home.

In Pakistan, the Taliban flogged a teenage girl in front of a crowd, as two men held her face down in the dirt. A video shows the girl, whose “crime” may have been to go out of her house alone, crying piteously that she will never break the rules again.

Muslim fundamentalists damage Islam far more than any number of Danish cartoonists ever could, for it’s inevitably the extremists who capture the world’s attention. But there is the beginning of an intellectual reform movement in the Islamic world, and one window into this awakening was an international conference this week at the University of Notre Dame on the latest scholarship about the Koran.

“We’re experiencing right now in Koranic studies a rise of interest analogous to the rise of critical Bible studies in the 19th century,” said Gabriel Said Reynolds, a Notre Dame professor and organizer of the conference.

The Notre Dame conference probably could not have occurred in a Muslim country, for the rigorous application of historical analysis to the Koran is as controversial today in the Muslim world as its application to the Bible was in the 1800s. For some literal-minded Christians, it was traumatic to discover that the ending of the Gospel of Mark, describing encounters with the resurrected Jesus, is stylistically different from the rest of Mark and is widely regarded by scholars as a later addition.

Likewise, Biblical scholars distressed the faithful by focusing on inconsistencies among the gospels. The Gospel of Matthew says that Judas hanged himself, while Acts describes him falling down in a field and dying; the Gospel of John disagrees with other gospels about whether the crucifixion occurred on Passover or the day before. For those who considered every word of the Bible literally God’s word, this kind of scholarship felt sacrilegious.

Now those same discomfiting analytical tools are being applied to the Koran. At Notre Dame, scholars analyzed ancient texts of the Koran that show signs of writing that was erased and rewritten. Other scholars challenged traditional interpretations of the Koran such as the notion that some other person (perhaps Judas or Peter) was transformed to look like Jesus and crucified in his place, while Jesus himself escaped to heaven.

One scholar at the Notre Dame conference, who uses the pseudonym Christoph Luxenberg for safety, has raised eyebrows and hackles by suggesting that the “houri” promised to martyrs when they reach Heaven doesn’t actually mean “virgin” after all. He argues that instead it means “grapes,” and since conceptions of paradise involved bounteous fruit, that might make sense. But suicide bombers presumably would be in for a disappointment if they reached the pearly gates and were presented 72 grapes.

One of the scholars at the Notre Dame conference whom I particularly admire is Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, an Egyptian Muslim who argues eloquently that if the Koran is interpreted sensibly in context then it carries a strong message of social justice and women’s rights.

Dr. Abu Zayd’s own career underscores the challenges that scholars face in the Muslim world. When he declared that keeping slave girls and taxing non-Muslims were contrary to Islam, he infuriated conservative judges. An Egyptian court declared that he couldn’t be a real Muslim and thus divorced him from his wife (who, as a Muslim woman, was not eligible to be married to a non-Muslim). The couple fled to Europe, and Dr. Abu Zayd is helping the LibForAll Foundation, which promotes moderate interpretations throughout the Islamic world.

“The Islamic reformation started as early as the 19th century,” notes Dr. Abu Zayd, and, of course, it has even earlier roots as well. One important school of Koranic scholarship, Mutazilism, held 1,000 years ago that the Koran need not be interpreted literally, and even today Iranian scholars are surprisingly open to critical scholarship and interpretations.

If the Islamic world is going to enjoy a revival, if fundamentalists are to be tamed, if women are to be employed more productively, then moderate interpretations of the Koran will have to gain ascendancy. There are signs of that, including a brand of “feminist Islam” that cites verses and traditions suggesting that the Prophet Muhammad favored women’s rights.

Professor Reynolds says that Muslim scholars have asked that conference papers be translated into Arabic so that they can get a broader hearing. If the great intellectual fires are reawakening within Islam, after centuries of torpor, then that will be the best weapon yet against extremism.



NY Times

Joys of Muslim Women

by Nonie Darwish

In the Muslim faith a Muslim man can marry a child as young as 1 year old and have sexual intimacy with this child. Consummating the marriage by 9.

The dowry is given to the family in exchange for the woman (who becomes his slave) and for the purchase of the private parts of the woman, to use her as a toy. Even though a woman is abused she can not obtain a divorce. To prove rape, the woman must have (4) male witnesses. Often after a woman has been raped, she is returned to her family and the family must return the dowry. The family has the right to execute her (an honor killing) to restore the honor of the family. Husbands can beat their wives ‘at will’ and he does not have to say why he has beaten her. The husband is permitted to have (4 wives) and a temporary wife for an hour (prostitute) at his discretion. The Shariah Muslim law controls the private as well as the public life of the woman.

In the West World (America) Muslim men are starting to demand Shariah Law so the wife can not obtain a divorce and he can have full and complete control of her. It is amazing and alarming how many of our sisters and daughters attending American Universities are now marrying Muslim men and submitting themselves and their children unsuspectingly to the Shariah law.

By passing this on, enlightened American women may avoid becoming a slave under Shariah Law. Ripping the West in Two.

Author and lecturer Nonie Darwish says the goal of radical Islamists is to impose Shariah law on the world, ripping Western law and liberty in two. She recently authored the book, Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law.

Darwish was born in Cairo and spent her childhood in Egypt and Gaza before immigrating to America in 1978, when she was eight years old. Her father died while leading covert attacks on Israel. He was a high-ranking Egyptian military officer stationed with his family in Gaza. When he died, he was considered a “shahid,” a martyr for jihad. His posthumous status earned Nonie and her family an elevated position in Muslim society. But Darwish developed a skeptical eye at an early age. She questioned her own Muslim culture and upbringing. She converted to Christianity after hearing a Christian preacher on television.

In her latest book, Darwish warns about creeping sharia law – what it is, what it means, and how it is manifested in Islamic countries. For the West, she says radical Islamists are working to impose sharia on the world. If that happens, Western civilization will be destroyed. Westerners generally assume all religions encourage a respect for the dignity of each individual. Islamic law (Sharia) teaches that non-Muslims should be subjugated or killed in this world.

Peace and prosperity for one’s children is not as important as assuring that Islamic law rules everywhere in the Middle East and eventually in the world.

While Westerners tend to think that all religions encourage some form of the golden rule, Sharia teaches two systems of ethics – one for Muslims and another for non-Muslims. Building on tribal practices of the seventh century, Sharia encourages the side of humanity that wants to take from and subjugate others. While Westerners tend to think in terms of religious people developing a personal understanding of and relationship with God, Sharia advocates executing people who ask difficult questions that could be interpreted as criticism. It’s hard to imagine, that in this day and age, Islamic scholars agree that those who criticize Islam or choose to stop being Muslim should be executed. Sadly, while talk of an Islamic reformation is common and even assumed by many in the West, such murmurings in the Middle East are silenced through intimidation. While Westerners are accustomed to an increase in religious tolerance over time, Darwish explains how petro dollars are being used to grow an extremely intolerant form of political Islam in her native Egypt and elsewhere. In twenty years there will be enough Muslim voters in the U.S. to elect the President by themselves! Rest assured they will do so… You can look at how they have taken over several towns in the USA .. Dearborn Mich. is one… and there are others…

I think everyone in the U.S. should be required to read this, but with the ACLU, there is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on! It is too bad that so many are disillusioned with life and Christianity to accept Muslims as peaceful.. some may be…….. but they have an army that is willing to shed blood in the name of Islam.. the peaceful support the warriors with their finances and own kind of patriotism to their religion.. While America is getting rid of Christianity from all public sites and erasing God from the lives of children the Muslims are planning a great jihad on America ..

This is your chance….maybe this page will make a difference…!

Pass it on to your to every one in your email list or at least those you think will listen.

The Myths of Islam

Muslims often complain of the popular "misconceptions" about their religion in the West.

We took a hard look, however, and found that the most deeply held myths of Islam are the ones generated by Muslims and Western apologists. The only glaring exception to this is the misconception that all Muslims are alike (they aren't, of course), but even Muslims fall into this as well, as evidenced by the various contrary factions insisting that they are the true Muslims, while those who disagree with them are either infidels, hijackers, or hypocrites.

Don't be fooled! Hear the myths, but know the truth.

Islam Means ‘Peace’


The Myth:

Lesser educated Muslims sometimes claim that the root word of Islam is “al-Salaam,” which is “peace” in Arabic.

The Truth:

An Arabic word only has one root. The root word for Islam is “al-Silm,” which means “submission” or “surrender.” There is no controversy about this among Islamic scholars. al-Silm (submission) does not mean the same thing as al-Salaam (peace), otherwise they would be the same word.

Submission and peace can be very different concepts, even if a form of peace is often brought about through forcing others into submission. As the modern-day Islamic scholar, Ibrahim Sulaiman, puts it, "Jihad is not inhumane, despite its necessary violence and bloodshed, its ultimate desire is peace which is protected and enhanced by the rule of law."

In truth, the Qur’an not only calls Muslims to submit to Allah, it also commands them to subdue people of other religions until they are in a full state of submission to Islamic rule. This has inspired the aggressive history of Islam and its success in conquering other cultures.

Islam Respects Women as Equals


The Myth:

The Qur’an places men and women on equal foundation before Allah. Each person is judged according to his or her own deeds. Women have equal rights under Islamic law.

The Truth:

Merely stating that individuals will be judged as such by Allah does not mean that they have equal rights and roles, or that they are judged by the same standards.

There is no ambiguity in the Qur’an, the life of Muhammad, or Islamic law as to the inferiority of women to men despite the efforts of modern-day apologists to salvage Western-style feminism from scraps and fragments of verses that have historically held no such progressive interpretation.

After military conquests, Muhammad would dole out captured women as war prizes to his men. In at least one case, he advocated that they be raped in front of their husbands. Captured women were made into sex slaves by the very men who killed their husbands and brothers. There are four Qur’anic verses in which "Allah" makes clear that a Muslim master has full sexual access to his female slaves, yet there is not one that prohibits rape.

The Qur’an gives Muslim men permission to beat their wives for disobedience, but no where does it command love in marriage. It plainly says that husbands are “a degree above” wives. The Hadith says that women are intellectually inferior, and that they comprise the majority of Hell’s occupants.

Under Islamic law, a man may divorce his wife at his choosing. If he does this twice, then wishes to remarry her, she must first have sex with another man. Men are exempt from such degradations.

Muslim women are not free to marry whom they please, as are Muslim men. Their husband may also bring other wives (and slaves) into the marriage bed. And she must be be sexually available to him at any time (as a field ready to be “tilled,” according to the holy book of Islam).

Muslim women do not inherit property in equal portion to males. Their testimony in court is considered to be worth only half that of a man’s. Unlike a man, she must cover her head - and often her face.

If a woman wants to prove that she was raped, then there must be four male witnesses to corroborate her account. Otherwise she can be jailed or stoned to death for confessing to “adultery.”

Given all of this, it is quite a stretch to say that men and women have “equality under Islam” based on obscure theological analogies or comparisons. This is an entirely new ploy that is designed for modern tastes and disagrees sharply with the reality of Islamic law and history.

Jihad Means 'Inner Struggle'


The Myth:

Islam’s Western apologists sometimes claim that since the Arabic word, Jihad, literally means “fight” or “struggle,” it refers to an “inner struggle” rather than holy war.

The Truth:

In Arabic, "jihad" means struggle. In Islam, it means holy war.

The Qur’an specifically exempts the disabled and elderly from Jihad (4:95), which would make no sense if the word is being used merely within the context of spiritual struggle. It is also unclear why Muhammad would use graphic language, such as smiting fingers and heads from the hands and necks of unbelievers if he were speaking merely of character development.

With this in mind, Muslim apologists generally admit that there are two meanings to the word, but insist that “inner struggle” is the “greater Jihad,” whereas “holy war” is the “lesser.” In fact, this misconception is based only on an a single hadith that is extremely weak and unreliable.

By contrast, the most reliable of all Hadith collections is that of Bukhari. Jihad is mentioned over 200 times in reference to the words of Muhammad and each one carries a clear connotation to holy war, with only a handful of possible exceptions (dealing with a woman's supporting role during a time of holy war).

Islam is a Religion of Peace


The Myth:

Muhammad was a peaceful man who taught his followers to be the same. Muslims lived peacefully for centuries, fighting only in self-defense - and when it was necessary. True Muslims would never act aggressively.

The Truth:

Muhammad organized 65 military campaigns in the last ten years of his life and personally led 27 of them. The more power that he attained, the smaller the excuse needed to go to battle, until finally he began attacking tribes merely because they were not part of his growing empire.

After Muhammad’s death, his successor immediately went to war with former allied tribes which wanted to go their own way. Abu Bakr called them 'apostates' and slaughtered anyone who did not want to remain Muslim. Eventually, he was successful in holding the empire together with blood and violence.

The prophet of Islam's most faithful followers and even his own family soon turned on each other as well. There were four caliphs (leaders) in the first twenty-five years, each of which was a trusted companion of his. Three of these four were murdered. The third caliph was murdered by those allied with the son of the first caliph. The fourth caliph was murdered in the midst of a conflict with the fifth caliph, who began a 100-year dynasty of excess and debauchery that was brought to an end in a gruesome, widespread bloodbath by descendents of Muhammad’s uncle (who was not even a Muslim).

Muhammad’s own daughter, Fatima, and his son-in-law, Ali, who both survived the pagan hardship during the Meccan years safe and sound, did not survive Islam after the death of Muhammad. Fatima died of stress from persecution within three months, and Ali was later assassinated by Muslim rivals. Their son (Muhammad’s grandson) was killed in battle with the faction that became today’s Sunnis. His people became Shias. The relatives and personal friends of Muhammad were mixed into both warring groups, which then fractured further into hostile sub-divisions as Islam expanded.

Muslim apologists, who like to say that is impossible for today's terrorists to be Muslim when they kill fellow Muslims, would have a very tough time explaining the war between Fatima's followers and Aisha to a knowledgeable audience. Muhammad explicitly held up both his favorite daughter and his favorite wife model Muslim women, yet they were invoked respectively by each side in the violent civil war that followed his death. Which one was the prophet of God so horribly wrong about?

Muhammad left his men with instructions to take the battle against Christians, Persians, Jews and polytheists (which came to include millions of unfortunate Hindus). For the next four centuries, Muslim armies steamrolled over unsuspecting neighbors, plundering them of loot and slaves, and forcing the survivors to either convert or pay tribute at the point of a sword.

Companions of Muhammad lived to see Islam declare war on every major religion in the world in just the first few decades following his death - pressing the Jihad against Hindus, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and Buddhists.

By the time of the Crusades (when the Europeans began fighting back), Muslims had conquered two-thirds of the Christian world by sword, from Syria to Spain, and across North Africa. Millions of Christians were enslaved by Muslims, and tens of millions of Africans. The Arab slave-trading routes would stay open for 1300 years until pressure from Christian-based countries forced Islamic nations to declare the practice illegal (in theory). To this day, the Muslim world has never apologized for the victims of Jihad and slavery.

There is not another religion in the world that consistently produces terrorism in the name of God as does Islam. The most dangerous Muslims are nearly always those who interpret the Qur’an most transparently. They are the fundamentalists or purists of the faith, and believe in Muhammad’s mandate to spread Islamic rule by the sword, putting to death those who will not submit. In the absence of true infidels, they will even turn on each other.

The holy texts of Islam are saturated with verses of violence and hatred toward those outside the faith, as well as the "hypocrites" (Muslims who don't act like Muslims). In sharp contrast to the Bible, which generally moves from relatively violent episodes to far more peaceful mandates, the Qur’an travels the exact opposite path (violence is first forbidden, then permitted, then mandatory). The handful of earlier verses that speak of tolerance are overwhelmed by an avalanche of later ones that carry a much different message. While Old Testament verses of blood and guts are generally bound by historical context within the text itself, Qur'anic imperatives to violence usually appear open-ended and subject to personal interpretation.

From the history of the faith to its most sacred writings, those who want to believe in "peaceful Islam" have a lot more to ignore than do the terrorists. By any objective measure, the "Religion of Peace" has been the harshest, bloodiest religion the world has ever known. In Islam there is no peace unless Muslims have power - and even then...

Islam is Tolerant of Other Religions


The Myth:

Religious minorities have flourished under Islam. Muslims are commanded to protect Jews and Christians (the People of the Book) and do them no harm. The Qur'an says in Sura 109, "To you, your religion. To me, mine."

The Truth:

Religious minorities have not “flourished” under Islam. In fact, they have dwindled to mere shadows after centuries of persecution and discrimination. Some were converted from their native religion by brute force, others under the agonizing strain of dhimmitude.

What Muslims call “tolerance,” others correctly identify as institutionalized discrimination. The consignment of Jews and Christians to dhimmis under Islamic rule means that they are not allowed the same religious rights and freedoms as Muslims. They cannot share their faith, for example, or build houses of worship without permission.

Historically, dhimmis have often had to wear distinguishing clothing or cut their hair in a particular manner that indicates their position of inferiority and humiliation. They do not share the same legal rights as Muslims, and must even pay a poll tax (the jizya). They are to be killed or have their children taken from them if they cannot satisfy the tax collector’s requirements.

For hundreds of years, the Christian population in occupied Europe had their sons taken away and forcibly converted into Muslim warriors (known as Jannisaries) by the Ottoman Turks.

It is under this burden of discrimination and third-class status that so many religious minorities converted to Islam over the centuries. Those who didn’t often faced economic and social hardships that persist to this day and are appalling by Western standards of true religious tolerance and pluralism.

For those who are not “the People of the Book,” such as Hindus and atheists, there is very little tolerance to be found once Islam establishes political superiority. The Qur’an tells Muslims to “fight in the way of Allah” until “religion is only for Allah.” The conquered populations face death if they do not establish regular prayer and charity in the Islamic tradition (ie. the pillars of Islam).

Tamerlane and other Muslim warriors slaughtered tens of millions of Hindus and Buddhists, and displaced or forcibly converted millions more over the last thousand years. Islamists in Somalia behead Christians. In Iran, they are jailed.

One of the great ironies of Islam is that non-Muslims are to be treated according to the very standards by which Muslims themselves would claim the right to violent self-defense were the shoe on the other foot. Islam is its own justification. Most Muslims therefore feel no need to explain the ingrained arrogance and double standard.

There are about 500 verses in the Qur’an that speak of Allah’s hatred for non-Muslims and the punishment that he has prepared for their unbelief. There is also a tiny handful that say otherwise, but these are mostly earlier verses that many scholars consider to be abrogated by the later, more violent ones.

As for Sura 109, any true Qur'an scholar will point out that the purpose of the verse was to distinguish Islam from the gods of the Quraysh (one of which was named "Allah") rather than to advocate religious tolerance for non-Muslims. At the time that he narrated this very early verse, Muhammad did not have any power, and thus no choice but to be "tolerant" of others. By contrast, there was no true tolerance shown when he returned to Mecca with power many years later and demanded the eviction or death of anyone who would not convert to Islam. In fact, he physically destroyed the cherished idols of the people to whom he had previously addressed in Sura 109.

If tolerance simply means discouraging the mass slaughter of those of a different faith, then today's Islam generally meets this standard more often than not. But, if tolerance means allowing people of other faiths the same religious liberties that Muslims enjoy, then Islam is fundamentally the most intolerant religion under the sun.

Islam and the “Golden Age” of Scientific Discovery


The Myth:

Muslims often claim that their religion fostered a rich heritage of scientific discovery, “paving the way” for modern advances in technology and medicine. On this topic, they usually refer to the period between the 7th and 13th centuries, when Europe was experiencing its “Dark Ages” and the Muslim world was acquiring new populations and culture through violent conquest.

The Truth:

Although there is no arguing that the Muslim world was relatively more advanced during this period than the “Christian” world, the reasons for this have absolutely nothing to do with the Islamic religion (other than its mandate for military expansion). In fact, the religion tends to discourages knowledge outside of itself, which is why the most prolific Muslim scholars have always tended to be students of religion rather than science.

[It is a fact that the country of Spain alone translates more learning material and literature into Spanish each year than the entire Arab world has translated into Arabic since the 9th century.]

There are four basic reasons why Islam has little true claim to scientific achievement:

First, the Muslim world benefited greatly from the Greek sciences, which were translated for them by Christians and Jews. To their credit, Muslims did a better job of preserving Greek text than did the Europeans of the time and this became the foundation for their own knowledge. (One large reason for this, however, was that access by Christians to this part of their world was cut off by Muslim slave ships and coastal raids that dominated the Mediterranean during this period).

Secondly, many of the scientific advances credited to Islam were actually “borrowed” from other cultures conquered by the Muslims. The algebraic concept of “zero”, for example, is erroneously attributed to Islam when, in fact, it was a Hindu discovery that was merely introduced to the West by Muslims.

In truth, conquered populations contributed greatly to the history of “Muslim science” until gradually being decimated by conversion to Islam (under the pressures of dhimmitude). The Muslim concentration within a population is directly proportional to the decline of scientific achievement. It is no accident that the Muslim world has had little to show for itself in the last 800 years or so, since running out of new civilizations to cannibalize.

Third, even accomplished Muslim scientists and cultural icons were often considered heretics in their day, sometimes with good reason. One of the greatest achievers to come out of the Muslim world was the Persian scientist and philosopher, al-Razi. His impressive works are often held up today as “proof” of Muslim accomplishment. But what the apologists often leave out is that al-Razi was denounced as a blasphemer, since he followed his own religious beliefs – which were in obvious contradiction to traditional Islam.

Fourth, even the contributions that are attributed to Islam (often inaccurately) are not terribly dramatic. There is the invention of certain words, such as alchemy and elixir (and assassin, by the way), but not much else that survives in modern technology which is of practical significance. Neither is there any reason to believe that such discoveries would not have easily been made by the West following the cultural awakening triggered by the Reformation.

As an example, consider that Muslims claim credit for coffee, since the beans were discovered in Africa (at the time, an important venue for Islamic slave trading) and first processed in the Middle East. While this is true, it is also true that the red dye used in many food products, from cranberry juice to candy, comes from the abdomen of a particular female beetle found in South America. It is extremely unlikely that the West would not have stumbled across coffee by now (although, to be fair, coffee probably expedited subsequent discoveries).

In fact, the litany of “Muslim” achievement often takes the form of rhapsody, in which the true origins of these discoveries are omitted - along with their comparative significance to Western achievement. One often doesn't hear about the dismal fate of original accomplishments either. Those who brag about the great observatory of Taqi al-Din in [freshly conquered] Istanbul, for example, often neglect to mention that it was quickly destroyed by the caliphate.

At the end of the day, the record of scientific, medical and technological accomplishment is not something over which Muslim apologists want to get into a contest with the Christian world. Today’s Islamic innovators are primarily known for turning Western technology, such as cell phones and airplanes, into instruments of mass murder.

To sum up, although the Islamic religion is not entirely hostile to science, neither should it be confused as a facilitator. The great achievements that are said to have come out of the Islamic world were made either by non-Muslims who happened to be under Islamic rule, or by heretics who usually had little interest in Islam. Scientific discovery tapers off dramatically as Islam asserts dominance, until it eventually peters out altogether.

Islam is Opposed to Slavery


The Myth:

Islam is intolerant of enslaving human beings. The religion eradicated the institution of slavery thanks to the principles set in motion by Muhammad, who was an abolitionist.

The Truth:

There is not the least bit of intolerance for slavery anywhere in the Qur’an. In fact, the “holy” book of Islam explicitly gives slave-owners the freedom to sexually exploit their slaves – not just in one place, but in at least four separate Suras. Islamic law is littered with rules concerning the treatment of slaves, some of which are relatively humane, but none that prohibit the actual practice by any stretch.

The very presence of these rules condones and legitimizes the institution of slavery. Adding to this is the fact that Muhammad was an avid slave trader. After providing ample evidence of his activities according to the most reliable Muslim biographers, the Center of the Study of Political Islam summarizes its findings as such:

Muhammad captured slaves, sold slaves, bought slaves as gifts of pleasure, received slaves as gifts, and used slaves for work. The Sira is exquisitely clear on the issue of slavery. (Muhammad and the Unbelievers: a Political Life)
Even the very pulpit from which Muhammad preached Islam was built by slave labor on his command!

As such, this deeply dehumanizing horror has been a ubiquitous tradition of Islam since the days of Muhammad to the current plight of non-Muslims in the Sudan, Mali, Niger and Mauritania, as well as other parts of the Muslim world.

There has never been an abolitionary movement within Islam (just as the religion produces no organized resistance to present-day enslavement). The abolition of slavery was imposed on the Islamic world by European countries, along with other political pressures that were entirely unrelated to Islamic law.

Although horrible abuses of slaves in the Muslim world were recorded, there has been little inclination toward the documentation and earnest contrition that one finds in the West. The absence of a guilty Muslim conscience often leads to the mistaken impression that slavery was not as bad under Islam - when it is actually indicative of the explicit tolerance the religion has for the practice

So narcissistic is the effect of Islam on the devoted, that to this day many Muslims believe in their hearts that the women and children carried off in battle, along with their surviving men folk, were actually done a favor by the Muslim warriors who plucked them from their fields and homes and relegated them to lives of demeaning servitude.

Shame and apology, no matter how appropriate, are almost never to be found in Dar al-Islam. Caliphs, the religious equivalent of popes, maintained harems of hundreds, sometimes thousands of young girls and women captured from lands as far away as Europe and consigned to sexual slavery. Hungarians were hunted like animals by the Turks, who carried 3 million into slavery over a 150 year period in the 1500-1600's. In India, 200,000 Hindus were captured and transported to Iranian slave markets in just a two year span (1619-1620) by one of the kinder Muslim rulers.

African slaves were often castrated by their Muslim masters. Few survived to reproduce, which is why there are not many people of African descent living in the Middle East, even though more slaves were taken out of Africa in the 1300 years of Arab slave trading than in the 300 years of European slavery. The 400,000 slaves brought to America, for example, have now become a community of 30 million, with a much higher standard of living than their African peers.

There is no William Wilberforce or Bartoleme de las Casas in Islamic history as there is in Christianity. When asked to produce the name of a Muslim abolitionist, apologists sometimes meekly suggest Muhammad himself. But, if a slave owner and trader, who commanded the capture and sexual exploitation of slaves, and left a 13-century legacy of divinely-sanctioned slavery, is the best that Islam can offer in the way of an abolitionist, then no amount of sophistry will be enough to convince any but the most ignorant.

Islam is Completely Incompatible with Terrorism


The Myth:

Islam is completely incompatible with acts of terrorism. It is against Islam to kill innocent people.

The Truth:

Islam does prohibit killing innocent people. Unfortunately, you don't qualify.

Even though many Muslims earnestly believe that their religion prohibits the killing of innocent people by acts of terrorism, the truth is certainly more complicated. This is why the Jihadis and their detractors are both able to point fingers at the other, while confidently insisting that they, themselve, are the true Muslims. It is also why organizations that commit horrible atrocities in the name of Allah, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, receive moral and financial support from mainstream Muslims and Islamic charities.

In fact, the definition of "terrorism" in Islam is ambiguous at best. And the definition of an “innocent person” in Islam isn't something that Muslim apologists advertise when they say that such persons aren't to be harmed. The reason for this is that anyone who rejects Muhammad is not considered to be innocent under Islamic law.

Consider that a great deal of the Qur'an is devoted to describing the horrible punishment that awaits those who refuse to become Muslim. How can Muslims say that the subjects of such divine wrath are innocent persons?

The most protected and respected of all non-Muslims are the dhimma, the “people of the book.” These would specifically be Jews and Christians who agree to Islamic rule and pay the jizya (tribute to Muslims). Yet, the word “dhimmi” comes from the Arabic root meaning “guilt” or "blame." ["...the dhimmi parent and sister words mean both 'to blame' as well as safeguards that can be extended to protect the blameworthy" Amitav Ghosh, "In an Antique Land"].

So, if even the dhimma have a measure of guilt attached to their status (by virtue of having rejected Allah’s full truth), how can non-Muslims who oppose Islamic rule or refuse to pay the jizya be considered “innocent?”

Even within the Islamic community there is a category of Muslims who are also said to bear guilt – greater even than the average non-believer. These are the hypocrites, or “Munafiqin,” whom Muhammad referred to in the most derogatory terms. A hypocrite is considered to be a Muslim in name only. They are distinguished either by an unwillingness to wage holy war or by an intention to corrupt the community of believers (by befriending Christians or Jews, for example).

When Muslims frequently kill Muslims in the name of Allah, they usually do so believing that their victims are Munafiqin or kafir (unbelievers). This is actually a part of Islamic Law known as takfir, in which Muslims are declared apostates and then executed. (A true Muslim would go to paradise anyway, in which case he or she could hardly be expected to nurse a grudge amidst the orgy of sex and wine).

In addition to the murky definition of innocence, there is also the problem of distinguishing terrorism from holy war. Islamic terrorists rarely refer to themselves as terrorists, but usually as holy warriors (Mujahideen, Shahid, or Fedayeen). They consider their acts to be a form of Jihad.

Holy war is something that Muhammad commanded in the Qur’an and Hadith. In Sura 9:29, he establishes the principle that unbelievers should be fought until they either convert to Islam or accept a state of humiliation under Islamic subjugation. This is confirmed in the Hadith by both Sahih Muslim and Bukhari.

In many places, the prophet of Islam says that Jihad is the ideal path for a Muslim, and that believers should “fight in the way of Allah.” There are dozens of open-ended passages in the Qur’an that exhort killing and fighting – far more than there are of peace and tolerance. It is somewhat naïve to think that their inclusion in this "eternal discourse between God and Man" was of historical value only and not intended to be relevant to present-day believers, particularly when there is little to nothing within the text to distinguishe them in such fashion.

Combine the Qur’anic exhortation to holy war with the ambiguity of innocence and a monumental problem develops that cannot be patched over by mere semantics. Not only is there a deep tolerance for violence in Islam, but also a sharp disagreement and lack of clarity over the conditions that justify this violence... and just whom the targets may be.

Even many Muslims who claim to be against terrorism still support the “insurgency” in Iraq, for example, and often entertain the allegation that there is a broader “war against Islam.” Although American troops in Iraq are trying to protect innocent life and help the country rebuild, Muslims around the world and in the West believe that it is legitimate for Sunnis and Shias to try and kill them.

Enjoying the sanction of holy war, the Mujahid reasons that it is permissible to attack fellow Iraqis – the ones helping the Americans… even if they are part of a democratically-elected Iraqi government. These non-combatants and combatants alike are believed to be the “Munafiqin” or "Takfir" assisting the enemy “Crusaders.”

Although we use Iraq as an example here, this is the same rationale that is ultimately behind all Islamic terror, from the Philippines to Thailand. Wherever the religion of Islam is a minority, there are always radicals who believe that violence is justified in bringing it to dominance - just as Muhammad taught by example in places like Mecca and the land of al-Harith.

And what of the so-called “innocents” who suffer from the bombings and shootings? Even in Muhammad’s time they were unavoidable. The much-touted hadith in which Muhammad forbade the killing of women, for example, also indicates that there were such casualties in his conflicts.

If there is any doubt that he believed that the forbidden is sometimes necessary, it should be put to rest by an incident in which Muhammad's men warned him that a planned night raid against an enemy camp would mean that women and children would be killed. He merely replied “they are of them,” meaning the men.

This is the slippery slope that is opened by the sanction of holy war. What starts out as the perception of a noble cause of self-defense against a supposed threat gradually devolves into a "let Allah sort them out" campaign through a series of logical steps that are ultimately justified by the sublime goal of Islamic rule.

Islam is not intended to co-exist as an equal with other religions. It is to be the dominant religion with Sharia as the supreme law. Islamic rule is to be extended to the ends of the earth and resistance is to be dealt with by any means necessary.

Apologists in the West often shrug off the Qur'an's many verses of violence by saying that they are relevant only in a “time of war.”

To this, Islamic terrorists would agree. They are at war.

Islam is a Democracy


The Myth:

Islam is compatible with democratic principles. The religion itself is a democracy.

The Truth:

A democracy is a system in which all people are judged as equals before the law, regardless of race, religion or gender. The vote of every individual counts as much as the vote of any other. The collective will of the people then determines the rules of society.

Under Islamic law, only Muslim males are entitled to full rights. The standing of a woman is often half that of a man's - sometimes even less. Non-Muslims have no standing with a Muslim. In fact, a Muslim can never be put to death for killing an unbeliever.

The Islamic state is guided by Islamic law, derived from the Qur'an and Sunnah. A body of clerics interprets the law and applies it to all circumstances social, cultural and political. The people are never to be placed above the Qur'an and Sunnah any more than man should be above Allah.

It is somewhat debatable as to whether there are any states in the Muslim world that qualify as actual democracies. There is no denying, however, that the tiny handful that are often held up as democratic nations are ones in which deep tension exists between the government and religious leaders, as the latter often complain that democracy is an idolatrous system imposed on them.

Islam does not facilitate democracy.

The Qur'an is the Muslim Counterpart to the Bible


The Myth:

The Qur'an is to Muslims what the Bible is to Christians (and the Torah to Jews).

The Truth:

The Qur'an only contains what is presented as the literal words of Allah - as relayed by Muhammad. It can be compared to a manufactured text that includes only the words of Jesus (the so-called "red-letter" verses) extracted from their New Testament historical context and then randomly mixed together (the chapters of the Qur'an are arranged by size and themes are rarely consistent even within each chapter).

By contrast, the Bible contains history and biographical detail. For example, there is nothing in the Qur'an that details Muhammad's life, whereas the Bible contains four books that present all that is known about the biography of Jesus. Another distinction is that when the Bible commands violence - as it does in a handful of Old Testament verses - the intended target is explicitly defined within the passage, leaving little doubt that it is a recounting of history and not an open-ended command for anyone else to do the same.

Despite the rhapsody with which Muslims sing the Qur'an's praises, there is an obvious reason why only a minority have actually bothered to delve deeper than an occasional sporadic perusal through its pages. The random arrangement of verses and near absence of context makes it difficult to understand. For this reason the Qur'an is rarely printed without the incorporation of voluminous commentary (that usually expresses the personal preferences of the translator).

In fact, the Muslim counterpart to the Bible is the Qur'an, Hadith and Sira combined.

The Hadith is a collection of anecdotes and historical snippets of Muhammad's life based on the relayed narrations of those who lived with him. Unfortunately, authenticity varies. But the most dependable compilers are agreed by Muslims scholars to be Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, followed by Abu Dawud. It is on the Hadith that Islamic law (Sharia) is based.

The Sira is the biography of Muhammad's life. Again, there are reliability issues which would appear somewhat bewildering to Christians, given that the gospels were well in place within the first few centuries following the crucifixion - which preceded Muslim history by over 600 years. Still, the most reliable biography of Muhammad was compiled by Ibn Ishaq, who wrote about 150 years after his death. His original work survives only in what was "edited" by a later translator (Ibn Hisham, who admitted that he filtered out several accounts that were of a distasteful nature).

A failure to recognize that the Bible is only comparable to the Qur'an, Hadith and Sira together often leads to faulty accusation and misplaced analysis.





The Religion of Peace