Why Is It Commonly Said Islam Is A Religion Of Peace When There Is So Much In The Quran That Says Otherwise?
July/11/2014 12:13 PM Filed in: World Religions
Abdurrahman Wahid, the former president of Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, in an essay titled “Right Islam, Wrong Islam,” agrees that a literal reading of the Quran leads to what is popularly called Muslim extremism.
History speaks for itself. Islam is not a religion of peace. The Quran commands conquering by the sword. Mohammed’s followers conquered by the sword. When Islam takes over a country the people are given three options. Convert to Islam, die or become a dhimmi and be enslaved into starvation. If Muslims were given the freedom to choose their religion, Islam would not survive.
Why do we hear that Islam is a religion of peace? Thankfully many Muslims do not read their Quran. If they did, they do not follow Mohammed and his practices literally. They are like many Christians who know a little of their faith and do not open their Bible.
Christianity is often portrayed as militant and imperialistic in place of Islam and the crusades are used as an example. Let me set the record straight. In the seventh century the Muslims invaded the Holy Land unprovoked to capture Christian lands. The conquest of Jerusalem in 638 stood at the beginning of centuries of Muslim aggression. Brutal subordination and violence became the rule of the day and by the ninth century many Christians left the Holy Land for Constantinople and other Christian cities. In 1044, the sixth Fatimid Caliph ordered the destruction of churches and the burning of crosses. Over the next ten years 30,000 churches were destroyed and untold numbers of Christians became Muslims to save their lives.
From the seventh to the tenth centuries, Muslims conquered two-thirds of the Christian world. It wasn’t until the eleventh century that Europe responded. It was hundreds of years of unrelenting violence and persecution that sparked the crusades. Thomas F. Madden, the world’s foremost authority on the Crusades, says, “The crusades were in every way a defensive war.”
Today the Western media portrays the crusades as an unprovoked imperialistic attach upon peaceful Muslims. In reality, the crusades were preceded by centuries of horrific Islamic invasions and widespread killing and cruelty against Christians.
I am not justifying some of the brutality of the crusades. I don’t want us to forget that the crusades began as a defensive war to fight of Muslim violence and brutality.
Today very little media attention is given to the growing influence American-based Muslim organizations are having on government agencies, the education system, the media, politics, the legal arena. The popular spin given to Islam is that it is a religion of peace when history and the new testify the exact opposite.
History speaks for itself. Islam is not a religion of peace. The Quran commands conquering by the sword. Mohammed’s followers conquered by the sword. When Islam takes over a country the people are given three options. Convert to Islam, die or become a dhimmi and be enslaved into starvation. If Muslims were given the freedom to choose their religion, Islam would not survive.
Why do we hear that Islam is a religion of peace? Thankfully many Muslims do not read their Quran. If they did, they do not follow Mohammed and his practices literally. They are like many Christians who know a little of their faith and do not open their Bible.
Christianity is often portrayed as militant and imperialistic in place of Islam and the crusades are used as an example. Let me set the record straight. In the seventh century the Muslims invaded the Holy Land unprovoked to capture Christian lands. The conquest of Jerusalem in 638 stood at the beginning of centuries of Muslim aggression. Brutal subordination and violence became the rule of the day and by the ninth century many Christians left the Holy Land for Constantinople and other Christian cities. In 1044, the sixth Fatimid Caliph ordered the destruction of churches and the burning of crosses. Over the next ten years 30,000 churches were destroyed and untold numbers of Christians became Muslims to save their lives.
From the seventh to the tenth centuries, Muslims conquered two-thirds of the Christian world. It wasn’t until the eleventh century that Europe responded. It was hundreds of years of unrelenting violence and persecution that sparked the crusades. Thomas F. Madden, the world’s foremost authority on the Crusades, says, “The crusades were in every way a defensive war.”
Today the Western media portrays the crusades as an unprovoked imperialistic attach upon peaceful Muslims. In reality, the crusades were preceded by centuries of horrific Islamic invasions and widespread killing and cruelty against Christians.
I am not justifying some of the brutality of the crusades. I don’t want us to forget that the crusades began as a defensive war to fight of Muslim violence and brutality.
Today very little media attention is given to the growing influence American-based Muslim organizations are having on government agencies, the education system, the media, politics, the legal arena. The popular spin given to Islam is that it is a religion of peace when history and the new testify the exact opposite.