Is Islam a Religion of Peace?

July 27, 2007

 

I took quite a bit of heat from a recent radio show we did. I was reviewing a new DVD entitled, ‘ Islam: What The West Needs To Know.' We've all heard repeatedly that Islam is a peaceful religion. President Bush, Tony Blair, Condi Rice and many others have gone out of their way to make this statement.

 

After hearing the defense of Islam over and over again a thought in the back of my mind kept nagging at me. While my open-mindedness was telling me one thing, my intellect kept pulling me back to the obvious. Surely not all Muslims are terrorists but these days most terrorists are Muslims. In fact, a recent survey of American Muslims found that 26 percent of those under the age of thirty think suicide bombers are justified in some cases. These are American Muslims! After watching the DVD, my mind was opened to the thought that, although there may be peaceful Muslims, Islam is not a religion of peace.

 

The mere uttering of those words can get you banned from most polite conversation but I've never been one to worry much about what others think. I'm only concerned with the truth and the truth of this documentary hit me between the eyes with irrefutable facts.

 

First of all, the prophet Muhammad was not a peace-loving guy. Upon laying siege to a village occupied by the Qurayza Jews, Muhammad twice rejected the tribe's offer to allow the Muslims to confiscate all their possessions but allow the Jews to leave, sparing their lives. Once the Qurayza surrendered, Muhammad had a trench dug where he personally ordered and oversaw the beheadings of between 600 and 900 men, their corpses tossed into the trench atop their severed heads. Their wives and children were sold into slavery and the barbarous Muslims divided the booty. The first question that entered my mind upon learning this was what kind of religion has as its centerpiece a mass murderer?

 

I discussed this issue with a defensive Muslim who rationalized the mass slaughter as conforming to jus in bello or justice in war. This wasn't justice in war. It was a brutal mass murder. He then proceeded to draw parallels to the Bible to which I quickly reminded him that the centerpiece of Christianity is not any selected barbarism of the Old Testament but the forgiving, sacrificial nature of Christ.

 

The DVD prompted me to take a look at some passages, or Suras, from the Koran. Here's a nice gem. “ Ye who believe! Murder those of the disbelievers .” Or how about this one: “ When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield, strike off their heads, and when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly. ”

 

One of those interviewed in the documentary, Walid Shoebat, is a former Palestinian terrorist who was jailed in Israel after a botched bombing. After his release he immigrated to the United States. In 1993 he became a devout Christian and has since spent his life warning anyone who will listen about the dangers of Islam. As he put it, Islam teaches that the infidels, or non-believers in Islam, must be subjugated or destroyed. He also notes that Islam knows no distinction between religion and government. In other words, their religion is their government. True believers in Islam, he maintains, cannot buy into the principles of democracy because Allah's laws reign supreme. Anyone who believes otherwise must be killed. Perhaps not all Muslims are violent but those who strictly follow their religion are. Shoebat asks the question we should all ponder. “What part of kill don't you understand?”