Is Islam a religion of peace?

Arts & Sciences Religion & Spirituality
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To began, the purpose of this post is not to attack Muslims, or to convert or de-convert anyone. It’s merely a dialogue to come closer to the truth and filter out fallacies. The Socratic method if you will. In recent events, I grew more and more interested about Islam and what the religion in it’s core is about. Instead of listening to clearly bigoted people of biased of the media. I wanted to take a step back and look at things from a factual and historical stand point without the recent events biasing my studies.

I know most Muslims are peaceful normal people, and I know Muslims get demonized unfairly in the media. but It does bother me that they keep saying Islam is a religion of peace. I’ve read the words of Muhammad and they are graphically violent and his actions as are equally violent as a military leader. Sure he started out peaceful, but he was not just a “prophet” but a prolific conquer. His successors, the caliphs, were equally as violent and the 3 out of 4 of them was assassinated. The Islamic empire did not spread that fast without being violent. And since the Quran is the direct word of God, you must accept that as a Muslim or you’re just not facing the truth. For example, Americans revere the founding fathers. But they were ok with slavery and owned slaves, believed women shouldn’t vote. We can say they did some thing right, and some things not right even in the historical context. But you can’t say that about Muhammad as a Muslim.

And I don’t know why people keep quoting “to kill one innocent is like killing all mankind” when thats ripped so out of context. It was a commandment to the Jews if and it’s a long passage that kind of allows Muslims of killing. It’s dumber than people using the 10 commandants on Christians, when it was meant for the Jews. Jesus made a new covenant with man in his crucifixion. First of all, even if that passage was true, it’s scary. Who decides who is innocent? This is not me hating on Muslims, but it’s through my study of theology and since so many people don’t know any history about the spread if Islam. The recent events has lead into so many misconceptions about Islam.

Also, who does speak for Islam? I used to believe it’s not those bombers and killer radicals, but ever since the death of Muhammad, there hasn’t been a real unified Islam. And what leaders of Islam we do have like the Ayatollah is radical and keeps challenges if people are “true” Muslims if they follow their interpretations.

But the other side of the coin is, Muslims dominated trade and this spread not just goods but ideas around the world. And they were amazing scientists, philosophers and mathematicians. They made so many scientific advances and keep a lot of old world knowledge alive while Europe was fighting each other in the name of God. Islam did have a positive impact on the world, not many people know that, but my problem with the Quran is that it leaves a lot to interpretation and the beginning has to many contradictions to the end of what Muhammad was preaching.

The foundation of Islam, is through the actions and words of Muhammad, which from history was super violent. And the Quran, the direct word of God which is equally as violent. There is a huge problem in the Muslim community, For example, If i go on live TV and say Jesus never resurrected, I would have little fear of being killed. But if I say Muhammad was not a real prophet, I would fear for my life. Thats why more Muslims don’t speak out against radical Islam. The ones that do, get killed. Thats a huge problem. And no one is willing speak out because it comes off as bashing and hating Muslims. When it’s not. I bash Christians and their actions far more than Muslims. But I am not arguing about the actions of the followers of the religion, but the fundamentals of the religion itself. I’m not saying all Muslims are violent, because a large majority of them are not. But let’s actually understand more about theology and history and simply not have islamophobia without any knowledge on Islam.

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Context is still everything. Even if one believes that the Qur’an was revealed by God, rather than composed by Muhammad (and it would be interesting to explore what this would actually mean, psychologically), it matters whether the relatively bellicose verses were intended for a wartime situation that may not apply today, here. In fact it is standard among Muslim exegetes to distinguish the suras delivered in Mecca from those in Medina, when the early Muslim community was more secure. Some commandments were changed or abrogated. Some were obviously intended for a specific situation. As for whether it was wicked to have conquered the Arabian peninsula, and later the MENA region in general, consider the advantages of a unified Muslim caliphate over the fractious tribal polities it replaced. As an orphan, Muhammad would have been well aware of the vulnerability of certain population groups. (The Qur’an is rather eloquent on the subject of orphans, as well as female infanticide.)

3

Context is indeed important to verses in the Quran. I do agree can be interpreted for war time situations. But the problem rises when there are Muslims who do believe it’s still “war time” and fighting is still necessary today. Especially with the fall of the Islamic empires, it’s not out of the question that you can interpret some of these verses as relevant today to secure a caliphate. And a problem with this is, monotheistic religions all claim to have the one true God. But Islam is very clear with non-believers. It’s literally convert or die even when it’s read in war time situations.

4

Wasn’t Muhammed promoting slavery and pedophelia as well. Looking back into the dark ages, how can modern people take inspiration from those barbaric ignorant times. The problem is not only Islam but superstition and dogmatism. Islam is just the worst of the lot because they are forcing people in majority Islamic lands to live by their ways and beliefs and if you don’t you’ll end up with bits hacked off you. We don’t need this in our free and democratic lands, they can keep it to themselves.

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Islam also says only non Muslims could be held as slaves. There is no equality in Islam, they only see for or against.

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Head Honcho II, you are seeking out the worst aspects of early Islamic history and culture, but every society is a mixed bag. Why not let yourself be inspired by the positive aspects, and set aside the negative ones? After all, the medieval Christian “Dark Ages” were not uniformly dark–this represents rhetoric from the Renaissance.

Slavery is accepted in the Qur’an, just as it is in the Old and New Testaments. Arabia was, after all, a slave society–they could no more imagine an end to slavery than we can imagine an end to capitalism. However, restrictions were put in place regulating who could be a slave, and what rights they had, and encouraging Muslims (many of whom had BEEN slaves) to free their own slaves, and raise money to free the slaves of others. On the other hand, Islam did allow, for example, enemies to be taken as slaves, and their wives to be forced into slavery (and sexual relationships, perhaps marriage) as well.

On pedophilia, it is true that one often reads hadiths to the effect that Muhammad married a 6- or 7-year-old (Ayesha) and consummated the marriage when she was 9 or 10. Other textual clues suggest that she was much older, and this is exactly the sort of detail that might have been invented in order to bolster the claim that she had been a virgin (and her successors therefore more legitimate). Muhammad’s first wife, Khadiya, was much older than he was, so “pedophilia” as a clinical term is off the mark. Of course, in general, child marriages were more accepted in ancient times, as well as in some non-Western societies recently, and whether it is right to judge them by modern values is debatable. Marriage age remains a live political issue in some Muslim countries even today.

On having your hands hacked off for not converting, no–that’s for stealing. Non-Muslim communities have existed within a number of Muslim societies, just as they do today. Yes, there is often legal and social discrimination, and the “dhimmitude” thesis has a point, so I don’t want to oversell this. But inequality is hardly limited to Islam.

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The other problem with many Islamic countries is the idea and law of apostasy. You cannot ‘unbecome’ a Muslim.
And yes people often get hacked up in places like Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia , Pakistan and Afghanistan because they dont believe in Islam. Why they get killed usually is because they challenge Islam in public and that is a big no no which is then faced by extreme violence. The Koran legitimizes this violence. This is why many westerners and others worry about immigration from Islamic areas, the Muslim
Immigrants are mostly living by a code that is inherently undemocratic and don’t want to follow western secular values which means allowing individuals to live and think and express themselves freely (within some limits).

Let’s face it Islam is a form of brainwashing and social control like almost all religions (ritual prayer calls 5 times a day) but it’s got that nasty kick to it that once you’re in you can’t really get out in those societies.
I haven’t even started in on Islamic control of women yet!!! So many things wrong with that religion.

If Islam is go great why don’t the Syrians all run to the gulf states? We know why.

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ugh, “dark ages” is possible the worst term for the middle ages. In Europe, life expectancy was higher then the so called “Renaissance” which also was not a real thing from a historical stand point. There was little war, and not major disease until the plague. Outside of Europe, Asia and the Islamic empires went made a lot of head way in advances in all sorts of field. I would hardly call it an barbaric ignorant time.

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One of the major problems I see with Islam not being able to transition well into modern democracy is that at the core is the fact that in Islam, God is the giver of laws, and men have only limited autonomy to implement and enforce God’s laws. These laws, known as sharia, apply to all aspects of religious, political, social, and private life. Interpreted literally, they can clash with Western democratic ideals. An Islamic democracy has to navigate tensions created by Islam’s traditional rules.

And it’s hard to change that because unlike Christianity, there is no unified voice of Islam. Christianity was problems with democratic ideas due to the Catholic church and the Holy Roman empire which was neither holy, roman or an empire. But Catholic means universal. And Christians at the time were Catholics. But they were able to go through the protestant reformation to reform. There is no universal version of Islam or a establish council or ect that unifies Islam. So reform is almost impossible.

also, to bring this topic back to the original subject. A democratic government does not equal peace.

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ugh, “dark ages” is possible the worst term for the middle ages. In Europe, life expectancy was higher then the so called “Renaissance” which also was not a real thing from a historical stand point. There was little war, and not major disease until the plague. Outside of Europe, Asia and the Islamic empires went made a lot of head way in advances in all sorts of field. I would hardly call it an barbaric ignorant time.[/quote]

You are right there were flourishing cultures abd some intellectual development but I use the term ‘the dark ages’ to really refer to the period before the enlightenment in Europe. Ideas around freedom of expression, freedom of religion, one man (and then woman) one vote. Western and Asian nations have largely moved on from those dark ages, Islamic countries on the other hand haven’t. We don’t need to reimport these ideas that many of our ancestors fought or rebelled against. We’ve had these rights to some level for 100-300 years in the West. We don’t need them and we don’t want them (unless you are herr Merkel looking for cheap labor or some Swedish out of touch bureaucrat safely ensconced in the nice part of town). I would say the same thing about any immigrants who want to go to Europe but not adopt basic European values, why the hell do they want to go to Europe and why should we accept them? We don’t see Asian countries doing this.

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[quote=“Andrew0409”]One of the major problems I see with Islam not being able to transition well into modern democracy is that at the core is the fact that in Islam, God is the giver of laws, and men have only limited autonomy to implement and enforce God’s laws. These laws, known as sharia, apply to all aspects of religious, political, social, and private life. Interpreted literally, they can clash with Western democratic ideals. An Islamic democracy has to navigate tensions created by Islam’s traditional rules.

quote]

There is also no real space for science or reason in Islam. Everything is down to God’s Will, Islamic scholars rejected Cause and Effect in teh 11th century.

Yes, Islam had a Golden Age of science and innovation, but people have to understand that this was before the current paradigm of literalism that has rejected reason for the past 900 years.

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Yes, the Islamic world is home to any number of abuses, such as the attacks on atheist bloggers in Bangladesh. Sharia, however, is not what you think it is. Most “Islamic” countries permit banking with interest, for example. Like the Torah, it’s all in the interpretation, and the majority of Muslims tend to ignore the rules (e.g. on drinking) just as Catholics do with respect to canon law.

For the sake of comparison, the Buddhists have a good reputation, and yet are responsible for atrocities in Burma, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. Should we be treating Buddhism on a par with Naziism? Surely not–there has to be room for some nuance, or else we are all doomed and damned. Doesn’t Islam deserve the same consideration as Buddhism (and the other religions)?

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[quote=“Zla’od”]Yes, the Islamic world is home to any number of abuses, such as the attacks on atheist bloggers in Bangladesh. Sharia, however, is not what you think it is. Most “Islamic” countries permit banking with interest, for example. Like the Torah, it’s all in the interpretation, and the majority of Muslims tend to ignore the rules (e.g. on drinking) just as Catholics do with respect to canon law.

For the sake of comparison, the Buddhists have a good reputation, and yet are responsible for atrocities in Burma, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. Should we be treating Buddhism on a par with Naziism? Surely not–there has to be room for some nuance, or else we are all doomed and damned. Doesn’t Islam deserve the same consideration as Buddhism (and the other religions)?[/quote]

What you are saying is simply not true. Religions are not the same, they are sets of ideas with their own forms and concepts. Some religions and ideas are worse than others.

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Yep, it’s no use trying to make everything equivalent. Buddhism has Buddha, Christians have Christ and Islan has Mohammed. I know which two out of three that were the hippies.

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[quote=“OrangeOrganics”][quote=“Zla’od”]Yes, the Islamic world is home to any number of abuses, such as the attacks on atheist bloggers in Bangladesh. Sharia, however, is not what you think it is. Most “Islamic” countries permit banking with interest, for example. Like the Torah, it’s all in the interpretation, and the majority of Muslims tend to ignore the rules (e.g. on drinking) just as Catholics do with respect to canon law.

For the sake of comparison, the Buddhists have a good reputation, and yet are responsible for atrocities in Burma, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. Should we be treating Buddhism on a par with Naziism? Surely not–there has to be room for some nuance, or else we are all doomed and damned. Doesn’t Islam deserve the same consideration as Buddhism (and the other religions)?[/quote]

What you are saying is simply not true. Religions are not the same, they are sets of ideas with their own forms and concepts. Some religions and ideas are worse than others.[/quote]

You are talking about the actions of the followers of certain religions. If a Christian shot a man does that make Christianity evil? No. It was the action of a person. I want to separate the two as much as possible I want to get to the core beliefs of religion without the tainted actions of the followers of that religion. My question is still, Is Islam in it’s core founding beliefs peaceful. For example, Christianity’s foundation is the resurrection and the action and words of Jesus whether you believe he resurrected or not. His actions and words were peaceful, it was all love thy neighbor like you love yourself, give to the poor, help others, ect. But most of the actions of Christians today do not reflect that at all. In America, politicians hijacked Christianity and made it like if you’re christian you must be against gays and abortion. Which is barely touched on in scripture. So you find me bash Christians more than Muslims most of the time, but I dont bash Christianity.

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Ask two Christians what the “core” of Christianity is, and you’ll get two different answers (at least). Same with Islam. People find in this disparate mass of tradition whatever they want to find.

Head Honcho, what was that about the hippies? I’m not following.

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[quote=“Andrew0409”][quote=“OrangeOrganics”][quote=“Zla’od”]Yes, the Islamic world is home to any number of abuses, such as the attacks on atheist bloggers in Bangladesh. Sharia, however, is not what you think it is. Most “Islamic” countries permit banking with interest, for example. Like the Torah, it’s all in the interpretation, and the majority of Muslims tend to ignore the rules (e.g. on drinking) just as Catholics do with respect to canon law.

For the sake of comparison, the Buddhists have a good reputation, and yet are responsible for atrocities in Burma, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. Should we be treating Buddhism on a par with Naziism? Surely not–there has to be room for some nuance, or else we are all doomed and damned. Doesn’t Islam deserve the same consideration as Buddhism (and the other religions)?[/quote]

What you are saying is simply not true. Religions are not the same, they are sets of ideas with their own forms and concepts. Some religions and ideas are worse than others.[/quote]

You are talking about the actions of the followers of certain religions. If a Christian shot a man does that make Christianity evil? No. It was the action of a person. I want to separate the two as much as possible I want to get to the core beliefs of religion without the tainted actions of the followers of that religion. My question is still, Is Islam in it’s core founding beliefs peaceful. For example, Christianity’s foundation is the resurrection and the action and words of Jesus whether you believe he resurrected or not. His actions and words were peaceful, it was all love thy neighbor like you love yourself, give to the poor, help others, ect. But most of the actions of Christians today do not reflect that at all. In America, politicians hijacked Christianity and made it like if you’re christian you must be against gays and abortion. Which is barely touched on in scripture. So you find me bash Christians more than Muslims most of the time, but I don’t bash Christianity.[/quote]

No I’m not, im talking about ideas. Some ideas are more dangerous than others.

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[quote=“Zla’od”]Ask two Christians what the “core” of Christianity is, and you’ll get two different answers (at least). Same with Islam. People find in this disparate mass of tradition whatever they want to find.

Head Honcho, what was that about the hippies? I’m not following.[/quote]

Look, what you are saying is not true. All religions are not basically the same. Find me one line of text in the Buddhist sutras that could evoke someone to kill an non-beliver.

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All of the Abrahamic religions, if followed literally a pretty excellent recpies for misery. Just various degrees of misery

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[quote=“Zla’od”]Ask two Christians what the “core” of Christianity is, and you’ll get two different answers (at least). Same with Islam. People find in this disparate mass of tradition whatever they want to find.

Head Honcho, what was that about the hippies? I’m not following.[/quote]

Well those 2 Christians must not know any theology. The foundation of Christianity is the resurrection. Without going into a theology lesson here, basically a perfect being came on earth as a perfect man to take on all the sin’s of imperfect man to be sacrificed. Also, to be Christ like is the core ideas and Jesus’s words and actions leave little to interpretation.