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printer-friendly version www.NewDemocracyWorld.org Links to Some Facts about Muslims & Islam
Before you decide how to treat a Muslim person based only on the fact that he/she is a Muslim person, you might want to click on the links to videos and articles below, just as a reality check. Keep in mind that the mass media and politicians that are telling us about Muslims do not exactly have a reputation for being the most honest and trustworthy sources of information, do they?
First, a Basic Fact about Religion in General http://www.salon.com/2014/10/10/exclusive_reza_aslan_on_bill_mahers_anti_islam_crusade_frank_bigotry Reza Aslan explains that atheists such as Sam Harris don't understand religion: "There is a fundamental misunderstanding among these critics of religion in that they believe, first and foremost, that people get their values, their morals from their scripture, when in reality the exact opposite is true. You bring your morals and your values to the scriptures; you don’t extract them from them. You learn that on day one of the study of religion — day one, that’s the first thing that you learn!" Is Islam a Religion of War? My copy of an English translation of the Quran reads (60:8): "As for those who have not fought against you for your religion, nor expelled you from your homes, god does not prohibit you from dealing with them kindly and equitably. God loves the equitable." My copy of the King James Bible reads (Exodus 22:20): "He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the LORD only, he shall be utterly destroyed." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjRI2AsF3h0 A refutation of the "Islam is a religion of war" claim, by Mehdi Hasan in a debate at Oxford University. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/70000-indian-muslim-clerics-issue-fatwa-against-isis-the-taliban-al-qaida-and-other-terror-groups-a6768191.html 70,000 Indian Muslim clerics issue fatwa against ISIS, the Taliban, al-Qaeda and other terror groups. Clerics said the terror groups were 'not Islamic organisations' and said they were a threat to humanity. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/22977-new-poll-claims-89-of-arabs-disapprove-of-daesh New poll claims 89% of Arabs disapprove of Daesh http://www.itakelibertywithmycoffee.com/2015/12/50-million-muslims-start-peace-campaign-and-openly-denounce-isis/ 50 Million Muslims Start Peace Campaign and Openly Denounce ISIS http://original.antiwar.com/dan_sanchez/2016/03/28/muslims-do-stand-up-to-extremism/Muslims Are Standing Up To Extremism Far More Than Western Powers Have http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/14/are-all-terrorists-muslims-it-s-not-even-close.html Are All Terrorists Muslims? It’s Not Even Close http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/a-media-microscope-on-islam-linked-violence/ A Media Microscope on Islam-Linked Violence: Selective reporting misrepresents Muslims as prone to killing. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/46-examples-of-muslim-outrage-about-paris-shooting-that-fox-news-cant-seem-to-find/ 46 examples of Muslim outrage about Paris shooting that Fox News can’t seem to find, by Katie Halper http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/26/muslims-rally-against-extremism_n_5889962.html Muslims Around the World Rally Against Extremist Antics of Islamic State Extremism Widely Rejectedhttp://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/Muslims around the world strongly reject violence in the name of Islam. Asked specifically about suicide bombing, clear majorities in most countries say such acts are rarely or never justified as a means of defending Islam from its enemies. In most countries where the question was asked, roughly three-quarters or more Muslims reject suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilians. And in most countries, the prevailing view is that such acts are never justified as a means of defending Islam from its enemies. Yet there are some countries in which substantial minorities think violence against civilians is at least sometimes justified. This view is particularly widespread among Muslims in the Palestinian territories (40%), Afghanistan (39%), Egypt (29%) and Bangladesh (26%). http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/09/who-should-be-blamed-for-muslim-terrorism/print Who Should Be Blamed for Muslim Terrorism? http://www.smh.com.au/comment/killing-of-innocent-people-has-no-place-in--islam-20130527-2n70h.html "Killing of innocent people has no place in Islam" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/27/should-blame-islam-terrorism?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other "Should We Blame Islam for Terrorism?" by David Shariatmadari
Does Islam Tell Muslims to Kill Christians? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/22/kenya-al-shabaab-attack-muslims-protect-christians-mandera Muslims hailed for protecting Christians during terror attack on Kenyan bus. Passengers donated headscarves to help prevent non-Muslims being targeted after al-Shabaab militants stormed a packed vehicle. http://aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/pakistani-muslims-build-church-for-christian-neighbors/587300 Pakistani Muslims build church for Christian neighbors
Does Islam Tell Muslims to Kill Jews? http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drawingroom/the-muslim-nation-that-saved-jews/6390888 The Muslim Nation that Saved Jews https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/09/08/meet-the-muslims-who-sacrificed-themselves-to-save-jews-and-fight-nazis-in-world-war-ii/ Meet the Muslims who sacrificed themselves to save Jews and fight Nazis in World War II https://www.facebook.com/TheDeenShowTV/videos/10152427703566104/ JEWS get jumped and beaten, Muslim Saves Them http://www.upworthy.com/a-prominent-muslim-group-just-offered-a-reward-to-catch-people-targeting-jewish-centers?g=2&c=upw1 A prominent Muslim group just offered a reward to catch people targeting Jewish centers
What about Islam and Women? Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
Some facts about women and the vote in Muslim nations:
Rape Yes, there are Muslims who rape. But Islam is not the reason. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/08/jack-straw-white-girls-easy-meat : Muslims leaders want Muslim gang rapists prosecuted. "Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of Muslim organisation the Ramadhan Foundation, condemned the crimes and called for the issue to be addressed without prejudice. 'No community or faith ever sanctions these evil crimes and to suggest that this is somehow ingrained in the community is deeply offensive.'" Honor Killings https://discover-the-truth.com/2016/07/01/islamic-scholars-issue-fatwa-against-honour-killings-in-pakistan/ Islamic Scholars Issue Fatwa Against 'Honour' Killings in Pakistan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIh_JfoaN9I These Muslim men are fighting domestic violence by building a safe house for women
How Did Muslims ACTUALLY Respond to the Danish Cartoons Insulting Muhammed? Muslims are no more opposed to free speech than non-Muslims in the West. Most Muslims are fine with free speech for even enemies of Islam, as the actual response to the Danish cartoons insulting Muhammed demonstrates. Yes, everybody of course knows that the Supreme Leader of Iran issued a fatwa against Salman Rushdie, i.e., a call for a Muslim to kill Rushdie, after Rushdie wrote The Satanic Verses. But as Reem Saied points out, "The book was on sale in Muslim countries for weeks and no one cared until a dying Ayatollah declared a 'fatwa' on Salman Rushdie for 'blasphemy'. The TRUTH was the Iranian Revolution was battered after the failed Iraq War, and the Islamic Govt of Iran needed a scapegoat to distract attention & "rally the faithful". It's not as if freedom of speech has been honored all that much by the non-Muslim West. There are people in prison in Europe for the crime of merely expressing a disagreement with some aspect of the official Holocaust story. And in the United States one cannot pass out a leaflet critical of Zionism on the campus of Harvard University unless one gets prior permission beforehand, and this permission is typically denied unless the University discovers that it will be publicly shamed if it doesn't back down, as I discovered in 2004 and report here.
What about Islam and Sharia Law? http://www.juancole.com/2016/09/donald-bogeyman-islamophobia.html First, there Is No Such Thing as "Sharia Law" Any More Than There is Such a Thing as "Christian Law" or "Atheist Law." To the extent that "Sharia law" or "Islamic law" has any specific meaning at all, Muslims have widely varying views about it. http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/ "Overwhelming percentages of Muslims in many countries want Islamic law (sharia) to be the official law of the land, according to a worldwide survey by the Pew Research Center. But many supporters of sharia say it should apply only to their country’s Muslim population. Moreover, Muslims are not equally comfortable with all aspects of sharia: While most favor using religious law in family and property disputes, fewer support the application of severe punishments – such as whippings or cutting off hands – in criminal cases. The survey also shows that Muslims differ widely in how they interpret certain aspects of sharia, including whether divorce and family planning are morally acceptable." To put this in perspective, consider that the law in the United States is based on Biblical Law, specifically the Ten Commandments. Look at the place that the Ten Commandments has in the laws of the United States: The State of Texas erected a monument to the Ten Commandments on the Capitol grounds and the Supreme Court ruled it was indeed constitutional. Go here and read about the central role of the Ten Commandments (i.e., "laws given to Moses on the Mount") in U.S. laws; for example:
Now compare the role of the Ten Commandments in the United States with the role of Sharia in Muslim nations (described here) and one will see there is very little difference. Furthermore, as shown here, the Koran and the Bible are quite similar with respect to the Ten Commandments; some of the differences, however, are quite interesting, such as the fact that:
All of this suggests that the hysterical fear of Sharia by some people is quite unfounded unless they are equally hysterically afraid of the Ten Commandments. What about Islam and Slavery? Both the Bible's New Testament and the Koran have passages that endorse slavery. For example, in the Bible's New Testament, Ephesians 6-5 uses the word "bondservant" to mean "slave" (according to Biblia.com here) and says,
According to this source, the Koran contains the following:
Very few Muslims or Christians today defend slavery, no matter what words appear in their scripture. Is All "Muslim Terrorism" Actually Committed by Muslims? 9/11
San Bernardino
The U.S. Government Secretly Backs ISIS While Pretending to Fight It. Ordinary Muslims are ISIS's MAIN Victims & Making Americans Fear Muslims is the Main Purpose http://thefreethoughtproject.com/4-minutes-cbs-news-anchor-explains-created-isis/#iqvuzszQM6rb30Vd.01 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeJzFCAXjEw (also at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr1Jzoot7fY) In Just Under 4 Minutes, CBS News Anchor Explains How and Why the US Created ISIS https://www.rt.com/usa/312050-dia-flynn-islamic-state/ US ex-intelligence chief on ISIS rise: It was 'a willful Washington decision' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqIyJycXxOo ISIS is a U.S. Intelligence tool designed to keep Americans fearful of Muslims http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1502/11/cnr.09.html"ISIS got started through funding from our friends and allies"--General Wesley Clark http://yournewswire.com/french-military-planning-isis-false-flag/ "Exposed: French Military Caught Planning ISIS False Flag Attack" http://www.activistpost.com/2014/09/10-signs-that-isis-is-scripted-psyop.html "10 Signs that ISIS is a Scripted Psyop" https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/israeli-intelligence-chief-not-want-isis-defeat-syria/ "Israel intelligence chief: We do not want ISIS defeat in Syria" http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/04/09/isis-is-us-israeli-creation-top-ten-indications.html "ISIS is a U.S.-Israeli Creation. Top Ten 'Indications'" http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/07/isis-s-gruesome-muslim-death-toll.html "ISIS’s Gruesome Muslim Death Toll: The group’s killing of Westerners gets attention. But ISIS has killed far more Muslims, and publicizing that fact would harm it more" http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30883058 "Are most victims of terrorism Muslim?" (This reports the opinion of the Global Terrorism Database's Erin Miller: "So while she doubts that 95% of terrorism victims are Muslim, she thinks the truth might not be far off. 'It's not out of the realm of possibility, given the extreme concentration of attacks in majority-Muslim countries,' Miller says.") http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/16/muslims-hate-isis-most-of-all.html "Muslims Hate ISIS Most of All: Before the Paris horror, ISIS was killing Muslims on a daily basis. We Muslims despise these crazy people more than anyone else does." See Sibel Edmunds, in this video, give eyewitness testimony to the fact that the U.S. government is deliberately inserting ISIS individuals among the mainly innocent refugees (who are traumatized by these ISIS individuals) going into Europe via Greece, and also that the U.S. is deliberately making people go (as refugees) to Europe who would not otherwise do so. What's the Best Way to Prevent Youths From Joining ISIS? http://www.pdrboston.org/#!preventing-youths-from-joining-isis/c21hq HOW TO PREVENT YOUTHS FROM JOINING ISIS (Hint: it's not by preaching "ISIS is bad; don't be a bad person.") When Non-Muslims Commit Mass Murder Does it Ever Lead to Some Muslims Committing Mass Murder Too? John Pilger describes, here, how Nixon's mass murder in Cambodia enabled Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge to grow strong enough to commit mass murder, and how Bush and Obama's mass murder in Iraq has allowed ISIS to grow and commit its beheadings. What about the Problem of Mass Muslim Migration Into Europe and America? http://memoryholeblog.com/2015/12/09/weapons-of-mass-migration/ This article reports on the writing of Kelly Greenhill, an academic adviser to ruling class think tanks whose book, Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy, explains how the ruling class of one nation uses forced ("engineered") mass migration of refugees into another nation (the "host" nation) as a weapon to coerce the rulers of the host nation to do this or that. The coercion works best, Greenhill argues, when the population in the host nation is sharply divided into two opposed camps, one saying let the refugees in and the other saying keep them out. This division of the host population, according to Greenhill, creates a huge problem for the host nation leaders, especially if the host nation is a "liberal democracy" such as the United States in which the leaders must try to accomodate the desires of all the people in its population. To escape the dilemma of having to satisfy the two camps with opposing demands, the host rulers are inclined to accede to the demands of the rulers who have engineered the mass migration. Greenhill's book is written for an elite ruling class audience, but it is also a book that can be read by anybody. For this reason some of the things Greenhill is communicating to her intended audience cannot be stated explicitly. A sharp example of this is the fact that Greenhill cannot "let the cat out of the bag," i.e., she cannot acknowledge the well-known fact ( also see here and here and here) that the United States is a dictatorship of the rich--an oligarchy or plutocracy to be precise. Instead she "plays the game" of pretending that the United States is a genuine democracy in which the rulers must do their best to accomodate the desires of all the people in the general population. It's as if she's winking to her elite readership. Greenhill thus pretends that the only people who would ever want to create a sharp division of the population of a host nation, into a camp in favor and a camp opposed to the engineered mass migration, are the rulers of a different nation. She never so much as hints that the rulers of the host nation, itself, might want to divide-and-rule "their own" people. But surely Greenhill and her intended elite readers get the point, without her having to "spill the beans" to the other readers by making the point explicitly. The ruling class of the United States uses divide-and-rule all the time, especially along racial lines, and it is not hard to see that it is using mass migration for the same purpose. Part of this strategy requires creating as much internal conflict as possible between those for and those opposed to allowing the immigrants (be they Mexicans or Muslims) to enter. The liberal "Let the Muslim refugees immigrate--its bigotry to keep them out" politicians and the ones like Donald "keep the Muslim refugees out" Trump are in cahoots; they are not real antagonists. The ruling class divide-and-rule strategy requires both a Donald Trump and a Hillary Clinton (and their equivalents in European nations) on opposite sides of the "ban all Muslims from entering" issue. My Reply to Douglas Murray's Speech: "Europeans Have Been Let Down by Muslims & Islam" In a speech given in Great Britain, Douglas Murray makes the following points: #1. Muslims did 9/11, not Buddhists
#2. Muslims don't tolerate gays
#3. Muslims don't tolerate free speech
#4. Muslims call for a parallel legal system
#5. Muslims believe laws derive from revelation whereas the West believes laws derive from reason
#6. Muslims have no right not to be offended
My replies: #1 There is no evidence for this.
#2 This assertion does not distinguish Islam from Judaism and Christianity as far as their scriptures are concerned, nor does it distinguish Muslims from Jews and Christians, among all three groups of which there are people who don't tolerate gays and also people who do tolerate gays. Some Muslim nations such as "Albania, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone have signed a UN Declaration supporting LGBT rights.[13][14] OIC member-states Mozambique and Albania provide LGBT rights protections in law in the form of non-discrimination laws, and discussions on legally recognizing same-sex marriage have been held in both countries.[15][16] Kosovo as well as the (internationally not recognized) Muslim-majority Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus also have anti-discrimination laws in place." [from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_in_Islam ].
#3. Some Muslims do tolerate, even advocate, free speech (read about some of them here) while many Europeans support the laws that ban speech that is critical of the official Holocaust story. France has made it illegal to demonstrate in support of Palestinians.
#4. Some Muslims do NOT call for a parallel system: American Muslims Don't Want Shariah, According To Study By University Of Windsor. On the other hand, some non-Muslims DO want a parallel legal system: Jews actually have a parallel legal system in places such as Brooklyn, New York. Jewish Beth Din courts have operated in this country [Great Britain] for centuries, used mainly by Orthodox Jews, and are recognised under the 1996 Act.
#5. Western laws derive from revelation (scripture) too: read about it here. (A U.S. Federal prison punishes prisoners with 30 days of solitary confinement if they masturbate when alone in their cell at night, and it is hard to see how this reflects reason and not revelation.) So-called "sharia law," by the way, is not a well-defined set of laws at all, as is evident from reading about it here, where it says, "Thus, it is difficult to speak of Sharia as a distinct or cohesive body of law" and where it shows that "sharia law" is often interpreted in extremely different ways to accommodate very different circumstances and concerns (just as the Ten Commandments are likewise interpreted in Western law in extremely different ways to accommodate very different circumstances and concerns.) #6. See #3 above The point is NOT that there are no bad things in Islam's Koran. (And nor is the point that there are no bad things in Christianity's Bible). The point is NOT that there are no bad Muslims. (And nor is the point that there are no bad Christians). The point is NOT that no Muslim is influenced by bad things in the Koran. (And nor is the point that there are no Christians influeneced by bad things in the Bible.)
The point is that there are some good Muslims (many in fact) who are NOT so negatively influenced by the bad aspects of Islam as to be deserving of being called bad people, and who use the good aspects (such as the Golden Rule) of Islam to justify admirable behavior. For example, read about how Muslim leaders want Muslim gang rapists prosecuted. Likewise, there are some bad aspects of Christianity's Bible but there are good Christians (many in fact) who are NOT so negatively influenced by the bad aspects of Christianity's Bible as to be deserving of being called bad people, and who use the good aspects (such as the Golden Rule) of Christianity to justify admirable behavior. It makes perfect sense to judge a person by his or her behavior. It does not, however, make sense to judge a person merely by his or her stated religion.
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