Modern PC-culture eliminates criticism of a barbaric and militant religion under the guise of "racism" and xenophobia
Islamophobia. You've likely heard it thrown around by newscasters and on social media, but what does it mean?
Islam is of course a religion, while a phobia is an irrational fear, yet the word islamophobia is defined by the Oxford dictionary as the "dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force" while other sources often define it as hatred toward Islam or Muslims.
In modern society many groups add "phobic" to their designation to describe those that critique or make fun of them, implying that anyone who mocks or speaks poorly of them is afraid of them. Comedians for example are regularly called "transphobic" or "homophobic" for making jokes about being transgender or gay, as if being a part of the group makes one immune to anyone making fun of them and anyone that says otherwise is hateful or afraid of them.
Anyone that disagrees with their views are likewise labelled as such; even those who may disagree with those views but still believe in their right to behave in the way they choose are unjustly labelled as bigots, which is quite ironic as this practice is in itself a shining example of bigotry.
It's a little odd to see the word "Islamophobia" used so often when in fact the most persecuted religion in the world is Christianity, yet there is no word used to describe someone that dislikes or has prejudice toward Christians or their faith or those that are "afraid" of them.
Even more oddly, the word has become synonomous with racism in western media, with those labelled as Islamophobic slandered as being racist or xenophobic for their critical stance toward Islam.
This is particularly nonsensical given that Islam is purely a religion and has nothing to do with race - there is no Muslim race and no such thing as an "ethnic" Muslim. Nobody is born a Muslim, it is taught or passed down and requires adherence to the religion's views, and race plays no part in the religion; Muslims can come from any race and nation in the world.
It's a slanderous and completely erroneous claim that someone who disagrees with Islamic teachings or critiques the religion is doing so based on race, but it's not meant to be an accurate label; rather, it's a tool to shut down conversation and avoid debate.
Ironically, the left-leaning members of the media and liberal politicians are the ones that so often spout this nonsense, when their own platforms suggest that they themselves are deeply against the teachings of Islam and against allowing it to flourish - the left regularly attacks Christian groups for their stance on transgender people and gay rights, yet Christian views on those subjects are extremely tame and tolerant compared to those found in Islam.
Women's rights in particular are another extremely contradictory area - one cannot claim to support Islam and also women's rights and freedoms simultaneously, as they are directly opposing ideas. We will get more into the way Islam treats women shortly.
There's also a pervasive myth that all cultures and religions are completely equal; each just as good as any other, and conversely, just as bad. This is an incredibly naive way of thinking and is so easily shown to be a fake concept - if you believe this to be the case, what are your thoughts on Scientology - is that religion just as good (or conversely, equally as bad) as Buddhism for instance?
Oh, Scientology is a cult you say? Please explain why it's any different than the thousands of other religions out there - and if you think you can, you probably haven't researched religions very thoroughly.
The equality fallacy is in place to stifle discussion and if it were true, there would be no need for changing laws, of progress in society, of changing ways of thinking, because things would already be perfect. Those that would argue this idea imply that Iran, which executes people for horrible crimes such as speaking negatively against their government or being gay, is just as just and moral as western civilization. It's a laughably stupid concept that often betrays one's own politics (which always include social reform of some sort) and yet you'll hear it often repeated.
Critiquing a religion, just like critiquing virtually anything, is important to evolve one's understanding of the world. I'm personally not a fan of any organized religion, but I cannot say that I do not support many of the values of certain religions and see value in aspects of them; western civilization as we know it, one of (if not the) most free and prosperous societies in recorded history (no matter how much certain people claim otherwise) was founded on Judeo-Christian morals and values that are still fundamental to its success today.
Islam however, is unlike most religions.
It is militant and political in nature - violence is not only a vital part of its origins, past, and present, but the Quran and other Islamic scripture's explicit calls for violence and imperialistic expansion is nothing short of barbaric.
Those that rear their heads at such statements, I challenge you to read the Quran; if you haven't seen the source material and haven't learned about a topic firsthand, how can one defend it or deny the criticisms it draws? In fact, I have yet to see a single defender of Islam (that isn't Muslim themselves) that has actually read the Quran.
I'm not saying you have to read up on every single thing about a topic in order to form an opinion, but in this case considering the Quran is pretty short and is the key pillar to all sects of the religion, at the very least reading it before arguing for or against it is a pretty minimal requirement.
Here, I'm going to delve into the nature of Islam, its teachings, and how it has grown to spread throughout the world over its bloody 1400-year history.
The Origins of Islam
The creation of Islam started with its founder and "prophet", Muhammad. Muhammad was born around 570 CE in Mecca to a noble family in the Quraysh, an Arab merchant tribe. Sometime around 610 CE Muhammad began receiving "divine revelations" from god through the angel Gabriel; those revelations would later form the Muslim holy book, the Quran.
Muhammad spread the "word of god" to the people in Mecca, warning them of the impending judgement day and the need for society to be reformed. Muhammad preached that there was a single god, Allah, and that he had been chosen as his prophet to spread the truth to the people. His initial approach was largely peaceful as he sought to gain influence in the city through his words alone.
Muhammad managed to court a sizable following in Mecca, though he met increasing opposition from powerful figures in the city. Muhammad was left mostly unprotected after his influential uncle passed away, leading Muhammad and his followers to leave Mecca shortly after in 622 CE and settle in Yathrib (later renamed Medina). There, Muhammad was accepted as an arbitrator of the various communities composing the city, where he would use new Quranic verses to guide the law and religious practices of the area.
The verses of the time propped up his status as the latest in the long line of Biblical prophets, but also distinguished his message from Christianity and Judaism. It wasn't long before war broke out between Muhammad and his followers and the Meccans, along with Jewish tribes in the Medina area.
In 629, Muhammad came out victorious and secured Mecca and the allegiance of his old Quraysh tribe; tribal chiefs throughout the area entered into agreements with Muhammad and his Islamic tribe, some through simple alliances, others through acknowledging his prophethood and agreeing to follow Islamic practices, which of course included paying a tax to Muhammad's government.
Muhammad passed away in 632 after a long battle with illness, with his companions writing down his revelations over the years and compiling them into one book after his passing - the Quran (though there are multiple different recitations that have minor differences, Caliph Uthman's Codex is generally the one used to this day).
Along with the Quran, the hadith were also created - while the Quran is the primary holy material used by Muslims, the hadith are essentially reports of statements or actions of the prophet Muhammad, though not all are accepted as accurate by all sects.
Think of it this way - the Quran is the word of god, while the hadith details the life and actions of god's prophet. The Quran is ultimately above all else, but as god's messenger, Muhammad is viewed as the perfect Muslim and is to be looked up to and emulated, with his judgements obeyed and viewed as righteous (this is also outlined specifically in the Quran).
Diving deeper into Islamic scripture, one of the biggest differences between Islam and most other religions is the extremely political and militant nature of Muhammad's teachings and the interpretation of the Quran.
The Bible in essense is a series of stories one can extract meaning from, with very few explicit commands - the ten commandments of course being one of the exceptions, and those were believed to have been spoken by God himself. In contrast, Islam applies the reverence of the ten commandments to the entire Quran as all of its verses are said to be the word of god (even though they were relayed through Gabriel before getting to Muhammad).
Since it's the word of god, any alteration to the Quran is therefore strictly forbidden and considered blasphemy - this is why one is supposed to learn Arabic in order to read the Quran, as translations are in fact altering god's words.
That fundamental difference in interpretation raises many issues about Islam, given that dozens of passages in the Quran quite explicitly call for the murder of non-believers.
In fact there are over 100 explicit calls to violence featured in the Quran, most often directed toward non-believers, like these for example:
"I will cast fear into the hearts of the unbelievers. Therefore behead them and cut off all their fingertips."
"Slay the unbelievers wherever you come upon them, take them captives and besiege them, and waylay them by setting ambushes."
Though the Quran actually starts out more peaceful and tolerant in Muhammad's earlier verses as he sought to gain influence (before he was forced to flee Mecca in 622), as you continue reading you will find that violence and jihad (a fight or struggle against enemies of Islam) begin to dominate the pages of the "holy" book.
Non-believers, or infidels, are seen as the natural enemy of Islam and those who will not renounce other religions and teachings and accept Allah as the one and only god have committed sin according to Islam. This enforces how the Islamic faith has spread - through violence and bloodshed.
Defenders of Islam will pull from an early passage in the Quran that states "There is no compulsion in religion. The right way has become distinct from error." yet this very passage is so regularly contradicted both in the Quran itself and by Muhammad's own actions one has to wonder why it's there in the first place. Even the name of the religion contradicts that passage - Islam quite literally means "submission" in Arabic, not "peace" as many falsely proclaim (the Arabic word for peace is salaam).
For proof of those contradictions one can look at the life of Muhammad.
While he was at war with Mecca and even following his victory, Muhammad regularly sent his lieutenants to raid caravans, ordering his men to fight them "until they accepted Islam or were killed". Muhammad ordered or accepted upwards of forty assassinations of his political opponents, including mere poets who had dared challenge him in verse.
In the case of three Jewish tribes which rebelled against his rule in Medina, two of the tribes were banished while the third was condemned to death by his companion with the full endorsement of Muhammad. Roughly 900 male members of the tribe (as young as 13) were beheaded; the women and children were sold into slavery, with some of the women turned into concubines for Muslim men (including one woman that Muhammad later took as a wife).
Those that defend Islam typically refer to one of several passages that expressly forbids anyone from killing an innocent person; it may sound convincing at first, but further research will show you that an innocent person is defined in Islam as only those who accept Allah as their god.
Verses like "Do not take life, which Allah made sacred, other than in the course of justice" sound great until you learn that justice in the Islamic faith includes murder of non-believers. Starting to get the jist of it?
Critics and supporters of various faiths alike always accuse the opposite side of the debate of "cherrypicking" verses, and it's true you can pick out parts of any religion to make them look good or bad to the uninformed. That's why reading the source material yourself is important, so that you can see the whole picture rather than snippets.
It's why defenders of Islam have a hard time defending it against former-Muslims (who are threatened, attacked, and even killed in many countries) or those that have actually read the source material - because while there are some contradictory aspects of the Quran and supporting scripture just like in any religion, the majority of the material endorses violence, oppression, and misogyny and even many of the "positive" verses like the instructions not to kill innocents fail to resonate when you learn the definitions of terms like "innocence" in Islam.
Those who have read the Quran know it is violent and political in nature, and most religions discourage lying, so why lie so openly? That's simple - because they can.
Muhammad encouraged deceit in three situations - to reconcile two quarelling parties, between wife and husband, and in war.
The last one is particularly important, because of jihad - the war against the enemies of Islam. Jihad has been declared since the days of Muhammad as a rallying cry for Muslims - war against the infidel goes on in perpetuity until "all chaos seizes, and all religion belongs to Allah".
So, in essence, because that war is constant, lying to deceive one's perceived enemies is always permitted.
You can see clear examples of this (called taqiyya) all the time, from militant Islamic groups like Hamas lying about Israeli forces in Palestine, to London Mayor Sadiq Khan's wife being "westernized" including wearing typical clothing and appearing to fit in during his election campaign to hide their religious devotion only to then cover up and don the veil once he was elected.
Another interesting deception is one that has been mindlessly been parroted ad nauseum by western media. "Allah hu akbar" is a phrase often repeated by Muslims and is regularly heard shouted by terrorists prior to or during an attack. Most people believe it means "God is great" in English because that's what's reported often in the media; the actual translation is "God is greater" and it's specifically to imply that Allah is greater than other religion's "gods" or idols.
It's no coincidence that the vast majority of terrorists say this before they commit their suicidal attacks to fulfill their martyrdom - they are doing so to eliminate other religions and assert the superiority of their own and fulfilling their duty of jihad.
Islam places jihad or "holy war" as a top priority, and even goes so far as to label Muslims unwilling to fund or help with the holy war as "hypocrites" that will be punished for not fulfilling their duty.
Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) a famous historiographer, articulated this deviation between Islam and other religions as such: "In the Muslim community, holy war [jihad] is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defence. But Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations."
Something else interesting to note is that most terrorists have not committed any crime according to the Quran or other Islamic passages, unless in their attacks a Muslim besides themself is harmed, which would go against harming innocents (or in their case, other believers). Even the exception however is murky territory - further Islamic scripture (especially religious texts used by the Shia) do make exceptions when the death is for the greater good in the advancement of Islam and Muslims killed (alongside the terrorists) are considered martyrs.
Contrast that to issues found in Christianity - take the rash of pedophiles abusing young children while serving as priests for the Catholic church for instance. Those priests have committed horrific acts that are rightfully against the faith's teachings and have no support or allowance in Christian scripture, yet many view it as a problem with Christianity (the religion) rather than a problem with the institution (the Catholic church).
And that brings us to the biggest black mark in Christianity's history...
The Crusades
What were the Crusades?
Ask someone and you'll often hear people explain them as a holy war where Christians committed horrific acts in the middle ages. Ask someone what triggered the Crusades, and very rarely will you get a response besides "I don't know".
This is because very little of the events preceeding the Crusades is discussed in school and public portrayal of the events cast Christians as the sole evil in the story rather than the more complicated truth.
Now I'm not saying the Christians were right, or that the religion should not be held accountable for the horrific atrocities Christians committed during the Crusades, but the overall story taught in school and the public perception of the events doesn't quite match up with reality.
Muhammad began the violent expansion of his religion through war and assassination as discussed earlier in this piece. Prior to his death, Muhammad had given a speech regarding his succession, ordering his followers to pledge their allegiance to his cousin (and son-in-law) Ali ibn Abi Talib.
Following Muhammad's passing in 632 CE, caliphs were chosen to be Muhammad's successors and lead the Islamic faith, with the first being Muhammad's longtime associate Abu Bakr. The choosing of different caliphs actually led to the split into the two main sects of Islam - the Sunnis believe that the caliphs appointed following Muhammad had righteous authority, while the Shia believe that only Muhammad's descendants (starting with Ali ibn Abu Talib) are the only true successors.
With Bakr taking up Muhammad's mantle, several tribal leaders ceased payments to the Muslim government given that Bakr had no claims to prophethood himself. More bloodshed followed. Bakr asserted his authority through military might and continued to expand, adding defeated troops into their ranks and forcing them to adopt Islamic practices. This continued with each subsequent caliph and so some 400+ years of Muslim conquest continued as the religion expanded and gained territory through force and submission.
In times of Christian or Jewish majority, Muslim citizens co-existed with other religious factions and were given the same rights and privileges as their Christian and Jewish counterparts, in much the same way as they are today - invited in and accepted. As Islam spread and their armies advanced, those areas were soon overrun, with Christians and Jews slaughtered and raped by their Muslim invaders and those that survived were subject to oppressive Islamic rule.
While the mainstream narrative often depicts the Crusades as a Christian atrocity, in reality it was a direct response to centuries of Muslim wars of expansion and imposing tyrannical rule using the exact same brutal methods as their oppressors. The only difference? Christianity condemns the slaughtering of the unarmed, the rape of women and children, the torture of innocents, and today Christians as a whole rightfully view the actions of their ancestors to be appalling.
By the late 11th century Islamic factions had captured roughly two-thirds of formerly Christian Europe, subjecting occupied land to Islamic laws and treating non-Muslim peoples as second-class citizens with few rights and freedoms.
Christians and Jews in particular were raped, tortured, and even castrated by Muslim caliphs for entertainment - in fact, it is estimated that Muslims killed more Christians over their imperialistic advancements in Europe that preceeded the Crusades than the amount of Muslims that were killed by Christians during the Crusades, yet you don't hear about the Muslim atrocities committed like you do those by the Christians.
It is just as important to note what happened in the events before the Crusades as it is the events during, yet that aspect of history is rarely told. You can arguably say that the Crusades, which "officially" began according to historians in the late 11th century, really began some 400 years earlier as Muslim expansionism began and spread after Muhammad's takeover of Mecca and the ensuing wars that followed.
Not only that, but Muslims in India killed an estimated 60-80 million Hindus between 1000 and 1525, a period that encompasses the entirety of the Crusades. Why is it that Christian atrocities are so frequently referenced yet the wanton slaughtering of so many (more) people is completely forgotten about when it comes to talking about Islam despite it occurring simultaneously?
Modern Islamic Expansion and Jihad
One of the important parallels to draw from the time preceeding the Crusades to now is the dynamic between the religions.
While small-scale wars and conquests between all of the religions and the sects within have always been common, civilians of different religious affiliations typically lived alongside one another regardless of who controlled the area.
With the advent of Islam, that dynamic changed - though Muslims took advantage of those freedoms when in areas controlled by Christians or Jews, when Islamic rulers took over an area anyone not adhering to Islamic practices was subjected to cruelty and stripped of most of their basic freedoms, from being able to bear arms to owning horses.
You can see this dynamic between the religions still in place today - the western world has specifically taken steps to ensure all religions are protected and treated equally under the laws of the land. That freedom does not however get reciprocated - in majority Muslim nations, non-Muslims are regularly cast out, attacked and even killed in most areas, except in tourist areas where the local government wants to keep the peace in order to protect their cash flow.
This one-sided dynamic has led Muslims to have at least a small foothold in virtually every western country where they are free to practice their religion and beliefs.
As those Muslim communities grow larger, so too do the problems that the faith brings.
Sexual assault is not a problem exclusive to Islam, but to say that the Islamic religion supports sexual assault and pedophilia and the oppression of women would be an understatement.
Sexual assault and pedophilia are deeply rooted in Islam, especially as non-believers are viewed as sub-human and women revealing themselves in the presense of men are essentially "asking for it". As such, Muslim women require the consent of their male family members or spouse to leave the house and require restrictive clothing to cover most of their body when not exclusively in the presence of direct family or their spouse, as most people know.
Links between rises in sexual assault, sexual harrassment, and rape in Europe (see Sweden, Germany, the UK) and Muslim immigrants have long been drawn and can even be seen in Canada, often with defenses when caught such as "not knowing it was illegal" or being "from another culture" to excuse their actions.
Not only is that kind of crime and the excuses for it despicable, but western judges and even police have made decisions on many cases that are downright disgusting.
A Canadian judge gave one of Justin Trudeau's Syrian "refugees" just 8 days in jail after beating his wife for half an hour with a hockey stick. Grooming gangs operating in the UK in places like Rotherham and Rochdale had been largely ignored by police for years and even decades for fear of being labelled "racist" for going after the "Asian" (more accurately: Pakistani) men in charge of them. Muslim pedophiles and rapists in Sweden have been acquitted or given minimal jail time for being from another culture or, in this case, found not guilty of raping a 14-year-old because having ADHD is apparently a valid excuse for child rape.
In Islam, Muhammad is viewed as the perfect Muslim - he was the messenger chosen by god after all. Much like Jesus to Christians, Muhammad is thus revered and his actions viewed as just and honourable.
Well Muhammad had 13 wives, many of which concurrent - multiple wives are permitted in Islam, though a woman cannot have multiple husbands, and arranged marriages are also quite common.
As further evidence of how Muhammad and Islam treated women like property, marrying one of Muhammad's wives even after his death was expressly forbidden in the Quran - "Nor is it right for you that ye should annoy Allah's Messenger, or that ye should marry his wives after him at any time."
Muhammad's wives included a very young girl named Aisha who was the daughter of his close companion Abu Bakr; she was betrothed at the age of 6 or 7 to marry Muhammad, though most sources state she continued living with her parents until she was 9 (Muhammad was then 53). He also married one of his first cousins, who also happened to be the ex-wife of Muhammad's adopted son.
Muhammad's legacy of marrying young girls and cousins are practices still regularly found in Muslim communities. Sweden and other European countries that have taken in large amounts of Muslim immigrants are having to deal with issues surrounding child marriages. A London burrough saw drastic increases in child deaths as its Pakistani (a country that's 95-98% Muslim) community grew due to complications from incest.
Thanks to the large influx of Muslim migrants in areas of France, Germany, Sweden and the UK, places where Muslim "gangs" and communities have been stationed have led to drastic rises in sexual assault, rape, and other violent crime. No-go zones are unofficially designated areas which were long denied but proven by locals and whistleblowers; firefighters and ambulances are attacked by young men when entering said zones, police are not allowed into their mosques and only enter those areas en masse for their own safety, and even explosions are a daily occurence in Malmo as Muslim gangs torment local police.
Throughout the world Christians have been increasingly attacked by Muslims, whether it be by arsonists setting fire to churches or mass killings of Coptic Christians in Egypt.
Anti-semitic attacks have ravaged the Jewish community as the Muslim population has grown in places like New York and Germany; from stabbings and shootings targeting Jews in NY, to the German government releasing an official statement advising Jews to hide their religious affiliation to avoid violent attacks against them, it hasn't been this unsafe to be Jewish in the world since the days of Nazi Germany.
Ironically in the western world many of the defenders of Islam are also supporters of the LGBTQ+ community (did I get all of the letters?), and indeed many in the LGBTQ+ community itself offer vocal support of Islam. Considering that being gay is punishable by death quite explicitly in Islam, it's a peculiar stance.
In many Muslim majority countries being outted as homosexual leads that person to be thrown off rooftops or otherwise killed, whether it be by angry locals, their own family members, or officially via a government execution. Iran, a country led by Shia Muslims that have instituted Sharia Law (a set of laws and punishments stemming from the Quran and hadith) in the country and one of the largest supporters and facilitators of terrorism on earth, executes people en masse for crimes that include being gay or speaking poorly of their government.
Roughly 1500 people were executed in Iran shortly before a US contractor was killed that sparked the latest Iran controversy (the one everyone in the media was blaming Trump for and said would lead to World War III, which of course didn't happen). Most were killed by hanging, but unlike a traditional hanging execution, Iran's version is much more brutal - rather than dropping the victim which causes their neck to break and thus leads to a near-instant death, Iran wraps a noose around the victim before hoisting them up via a crane, making them suffocate helplessly before they pass out and die.
Just remember that the next time you see an idiot with an Iranian flag in their social media profile.
Imperialistic wars for territory still go on in the middle east as they have since Islam's inception. While Muslims typically band together against other religions and the different sects rally behind one another to take on external forces, some more extreme groups have targeted other Islamic sects.
ISIS for example follows an extreme Islamic doctrine that sees them regularly attack other Muslims, labelling those unwilling to go to their extremes as hypocrites that are nearly as bad as non-Muslims (there is some Islamic scripture backing those claims as well, with Muhammad himself calling those unwilling to fund or participate in holy war as hypocrites that will be punished along with non-believers in their time of judgement).
This is why even other terror cells like Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah and countries like Iran stand united against ISIS and actively seek their destruction, and why western countries like the US have aided those terrorist groups in recent years - as if those terror cells won't then turn those weapons on the western world when ISIS is gone (and prior, as we've already seen).
While the main opponent in the eyes of Islam has always been non-Muslims, the deviation within the religion itself has fuelled almost as many wars as jihad has and will continue to do so in the future.
This article seeks to enlighten those who otherwise know little about the true nature of the Islamic faith and its history. Hopefully those who read it will have learned something about the "religion of peace" and perhaps be inspired to learn more about the truth behind the veil.
Those in the Western world who have defended Islam simply have no idea what Islam really is. You can't argue you're for human rights, women's rights, protecting children etc. and support Islam - they are directly opposing ideals.
Ironically it is western culture that is inviting in and embracing the Islamic world, repeating the mistakes of the past and completely ignoring the dangers that Islamic expansion has caused throughout the world for the past 1400 years. We may very well be in the midst of a pre-Crusade period, one in which the Christian-Judeo values that western civilization was built on are systematically demolished and attacked until those forced to live under the tyranny of Islam are left no choice but to fight back.