Aids HIV FAQ

Violence, Christianity and Islam

Question:

>Christians have often presented their religion as a religion of love and >peace while presented Islam as a religion of war and sword.

I wonder why.. Quran: [4.56] (As for) those who disbelieve in Our communications, We shall make them enter fire; so oft as their skins are thoroughly burned, We will change them for other skins, that they may taste the chastisement; surely Allah is Mighty, Wise." [22:19-22] But as for those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them, boiling fluid will be poured down their heads. Whereby that which is in their bellies, and their skins too, will be melted; And for them are hooked rods of iron. Whenever, in their anguish, they would go forth from thence they are driven back therein and (it is said unto them): Taste the doom of burning. [8.12] When your Lord revealed to the angels: I am with you, therefore make firm those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them. "Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Americans who are like them." – Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, member of the Palestinian Fatwa Council "Kill a settler every day…. Shoot at settlers everywhere…. Woe to you if you let them reach their homes safely or travel safely on the roads…. I want you to kill as many settlers as possible…. Do not pay attention to what I say to the media, the television or public appearances. Pay attention only to the written instructions that you receive from me." – Yasser Arafat, addressing his people at a public event, July 2001 "I am ready to kill for the sake of my cause; wouldn’t I lie for it?" – Yasser Arafat Quran: [58:5] Those who resist Allah and His Messenger will be crumbled to dust, as were those before them: for we have already sent down Clear Signs and the Unbelievers will have a humiliating Penalty Sahih Muslim Book 019, Number 4366: It has been narrated by ‘Umar b. al-Khattib that he heard the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) say: I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslim. Sahih Muslim The Book of Faith (Kitab Al-Iman) Book 001, Number 0033: It has been narrated on the authority of Abdullah b. ‘Umar that the Messenger of Allah said: I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah, and they establish prayer, and pay Zakat and if they do it, their blood and property are guaranteed protection on my behalf except when justified by law, and their affairs rest with Allah. [9.29] Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection. [9.123] O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness; and know that Allah is with those who guard (against evil). [4.74] Therefore let those fight in the way of Allah, who sell this world’s life for the hereafter; and whoever fights in the way of Allah, then be he slain or be he victorious, We shall grant him a mighty reward. [9:5] But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, an seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem Quran: [5.51] O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people. Terrorism is a logical outcome of putting the Qur’an into practice. The Qur’an promotes permanent struggle against non-Muslims – or at least until non-Muslims are converted to Islam, subjected to Islamic authority, or killed. Below is a listing of relevant verses* in the Qur’an. Quran tells Muslims to kill the disbelievers wherever they find them (Q. 2:191), to murder them and treat them harshly (Q. 9:123), slay them  (Q. 9: 5), fight with them, (Q. 8: 65 ) even if they are Christians and Jews, humiliate them and impose on them a penalty tax(Q. 9: 29). It orders its followers to fight the unbelievers until no other religion except Islam is left (Q. 2: 193). It says that the non-believers will go to hell and will drink boiling water (Q. 14: 17). It asks the Muslims to slay or crucify or cut the hands and feet of the unbelievers, that they be expelled from the land with disgrace and that they shall have a great punishment in world hereafter (Q.5: 34). As for the disbelievers, it says that for them garments of fire shall be cut and there shall be poured over their heads boiling water whereby whatever is in their bowels and skin shall be dissolved and they will be punished with hooked iron rods (Q. 22: 9). Quran takes away the freedom of belief from all humanity and tells clearly that no other religion except Islam is accepted (Q.3: 85). It relegates those who disbelieve in Quran to hell  (Q.  5:11), calls them najis (filthy, untouchable, impure) (Q. 9: 28). Quran prohibits a Muslim to befriend a non-believer even if that non-believer is the father or the brother of that Muslim (Q. 9: 23), (Q. 3: 28). Quran asks the Muslims to strive against the unbelievers with great endeavor (Q. 25: 52), be stern with them because they belong to hell (Q. 66: 9).   The holy Prophet demanded his follower to strike off the heads of the disbelievers then after making a wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives (Q. 47: 4). As for women the book of Allah says that they are inferior to men and their husbands have the right to scourge them if they are found disobedient (Q. 4:34). It teaches that women will go to hell if they are disobedient to their husbands (Q.  66:10). It maintains that men have an advantage over the women (Q. 2:228). It not only denies the women’s equal right to their inheritance (Q. 4:11-12), it also regards them as imbeciles and decrees that their witness is not admissible in the court (Q. 2:282). This means that a woman who is raped cannot accuse her rapist unless she can produce a male witness. Muhammad allowed the Muslims to marry up to four views and gave them license to sleep with their slave maids and as many captive women as they may have (Q. 4:3). He himself did just that. This is why anytime a Muslim army subdues another nation, they call them kafir and allow themselves to rape their women. Pakistani soldiers raped up to 250,000 Bangali women in 1971 after they massacred 3,000,000 unarmed civilians when their religious leader decreed that Bangladeshis are unislamic. This is why the prison guards in Islamic regime of Iran rape the women and then kill them after calling them apostates and the enemies of Allah. Islam promises hell to non-Muslims 3:85, 4:56, 5:37, 5:72, 8:55, 9:28,15:2, 21:98-100, 22:19-22, 22:56-57, 25:17-19, 25:55, 29:53-55 31:13, 6:9, 68:10-13, 72:14- 15, Islam warms against mixing with non-Muslims 2:21, 3:28, 3:118, 5:51, 5:144, 9:7, 9:28, 58:23, 60:4. Islam calls on Muslims to wage war against non-Muslims 2:191, 2:193,4:66, 4:84, 5:33, 8:12, 8:15-18, 8:39, 8:59-60,8:65, 9:2-3, 9:5, 9:14,9:29, 9:39, 9:73, 9:111, 9:123, 25:52, 37:22-23, 47:4-5, 48:29,69:30-37. Islam encourages the war against the non-Muslims by glorifying it 2:216, 9:41, 49:15, or by promising lust in paradise to the Shaheeds who die in such a war 3:142, 3:157-158, 9:20–21. One of the most important theme in the Qur’an, perhaps an indication of the preoccupation in Muhammad’s mind is that of imagery of hell and the punishment for the unbelievers. This is indicated by the huge number of Qur’anic references: al-Baqarah 2:24,119,161,166,201; Al-Imran 3:10,12,116,131,151,162,192; an-Nisa’ 4:55-56,93,97,114,121,169; al-Ma’idah 5:10,37,72,86; al-An`am 6:27,70,128-129, al-A`raf 7:18,36,38,41,50,179; al-Anfal 8:16,36,50; at-Taubah 9:17,35,49,63,68,73,81,95,109,113; Yunus 10:8,27, Hud 11:16-17,98,106,113,119; ar-Ra`d 13:5,18,35; Ibrahim 14:16,49; al-Hijr 15:43; an-Nahl 16:29,62; bani Isra’il 17:8,18,39,63,97; al-Kahf 18:29,53,100,106; Maryam 19:68,70,86; Ta Ha 20:74, al-Anbiya’ 21:39,98; al-Hajj 22:4,9,19-22,51,72; al-Mu’minun 23:103-104; an-Nur 24:57; al-Furqan 25:11-13,34,65; ash-Shu`ara’ 26:91,94; an-Naml 27:90; al-Qasas 28:41; al-`Ankabut 29:25,54,68, Luqman 31:21; as-Sajdah 32:13,20; al-Ahzab 33:64,66; Saba’ 34:12,42; al-Fatir 35:6,36; Ya Sin 36:63; as-Saffat 37:10,23,55,63,68,163; Sad 38:27,56, Sad 38:59,61,64,85; az-Zumar 39:8,16,19,32,60,71-72; al-Mu’min 40:6-7,41,43,46-47,49,60,72,76, Ha Mim Sajdah 41:19,24,28,40; ash-Shura 42:7; az-Zukhruf 43:74; ad-Dukhan 44:47,56; al-Jathiyah 45:10,34-35; al-Ahqaf 46:20,34; Muhammad 47:12,15; al-Fath 48:6,13, Qaf 50:24; adh-Dhariyat 51:13; at-Tur 52:13-16,18; al-Qamar 54:48; ar-Rahman 55:43; al-Waqi`ah 56:94; al-Hadid 57:15,19; al-Mujadilah 58:8,17; al-Hashr 59:3,17,20, , as-Saff 61:41; at-Taghabun 64:10; at-Tahrim 66:6,9-10; al-Mulk 67:5-10; al-Haqqah 69:31; al-Ma`arij 70:15, Nuh 71:25; al-Jinn 72:15,23; al-Muzammil 73:12-13; al-Mudathir 74:26-31,42; ad-Dahr 76:4; al-Mursalat 77:31; an-Naba’ 78:21; an-Nazi`at 79:36,39, at-Takwir 81:12; al-Infitar 82:14; at-Tatfif 83:16; al-Inshiqaq 84:12; al-Buruj 85:10; al-A`la 87:12; al-Ghashiyah 88:4; al-Fajr 89:23; al-Balad 90:20, al-Layl 92:14; al-Bayyinah 98:6; al-Qari`ah 101:9-11; at-Takathur 102:6; al-Humazah 104:6-9; al-Lahab 111:3 99.9% of humans will be in hell. Sahih Bukhari 004.055.567 — * * "Jihad means the conquest of non-Muslim territory. The domination * of Koranic law from one end of the … read more »

Response:

Violence, Christianity and Islam By: Dr. Ahmad Shafaat Christians have often presented their religion as a religion of love and peace while presented Islam as a religion of war and sword. In the modern media Muslims and Islam have often been covered in a way which reinforces this old perception. For Muslims who have time to think about such things the Christian and Western perceptions appear as a complete disregard of the most obvious facts. In what follows I discuss this issue from the point of view of the teachings of the two religions as well as the conduct of their adherents through history. Christian conduct For centuries now Christian nations have been busy beating up one Muslim nation or another. In the Middle Ages they came as crusaders. Then they colonized many Muslim countries and tried to destroy their cultures and religion. During their struggle for independence some Muslims had to suffer terrible violence. The French killed about a million Muslims in Algeria because they wanted independence. In a way this French war against Islam and Muslims is still continuing through the support of the military dictatorship in Algeria against the Muslim party that was set to win elections and persecutions in France of Muslim men with beards and Muslim women with hijab. The USA and Britain killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (with the approval of about 90% of their people) without letting the world see the blood, thus practicing a lesson learned during the Vietnam war. Serbs have killed hundreds of thousands of Muslims and raped thousands of women in Bosnia and Kosovo. Although in these lands, a combination of rare circumstances put the West (USA and Western Europe) on the side of the Muslims, this did no good to them because the Western powers did not want to loose any of their own soldiers. Had the West left the Muslim Bosnians and ethnic Albanians to their fate without putting an arms embargo on them, their suffering would not have been any greater. Israel has been for half a century destroying the Palestinian people with the help of arms and financial and moral support provided by the USA, the very sort of crimes that have been committed by the Serbs against the people of Kosovo and which have been condemned by the West, even though there were no cameras to record the cries of the Palestinians and photograph the pictures of the massacred people and burning homes. In Lebanon when Christians were in the majority there was war, but now that the Muslims are in the majority there is peace except in the south of the country where Christians have been helping a foreign enemy against their own countrymen. When an American president needs to divert his people’s attention away from his sex scandal the easiest thing he finds is to bomb Muslim countries — Afghanistan, Sudan and Iraq — because he knows that this will be approved by a vast majority of his people. And then there is the media which is ever busy in maligning the Muslims while they do not at this point in time possess the resources to speak up: for every word spoken/written by a Muslim and heard/read by one person, a thousand words from a Christian are received by a thousand persons in the world. At the international level the voices of the Muslims are all but drowned by the Christian voices and those Christian voices are for the most part condemnatory. If a cartoonist was to depict the situation between the Western and Muslim civilizations, he or she will draw a weaker person not able or inclined to stand up or to speak while another stronger person is standing over him with a big stick, now and then beating him, and all the while shouting to him in a loud voice: you are a violent man. It is important for both Muslims and Christians to ask: What will the Christian be if the tables were turned and their lands were first colonized by Muslims and then bombed or maligned or ethnically cleansed? If the past is any guide, the answer is clear: There will be a vicious reaction and given the chance an attempt at almost total destruction of the Muslims. For in Spain Muslims lived for about 850 years as rulers. They lived with Jews and Christians for the most part in a spirit of tolerance and cooperation in promoting science and culture to the point that their work prepared for the modern scientific revolution with all its benefits for mankind. But the moment Muslims became weaker, the hate in the Catholic heart came out with a vengeance. Muslims were either killed, converted, or forced to leave Spain and their heritage was as fully destroyed as was humanly possible. Before Palestine and Kosovo, there was Spain. Above, I have mentioned only what the Christian nations have been doing or are doing to the Muslims. But when we look at what they have done to each other or to other people any validity in their claim of being people of love and peace vanishes, at least as far as Western Protestant or Catholic Christians are concerned. The horrible treatment of the heretics and witches in the Middle Ages probably inspired the tyrants of later centuries. The native peoples of the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand bear a tragic witness to what Christian nations can do to other nations and with the blessings and assistance of Christian churches. In this century alone the Western nations have fought two world wars with tens of millions dead and untold misery for the living. For each victory in these two wars the church bells rang in the victorious countries. The first nation to make a weapon of mass destruction and the only one to use it is a Christian nation. Had not the toll of death mounted too high for the Americans there can be little doubt that the fate of North Vietnam would have been like that of Iraq: it would have been bombed to submission no matter how many Vietnamese lives would have been lost. The lesson learned in North Vietnam was not that there should be no more war but that never again the American casualties would be allowed to mount so high and never again the cameras would be allowed to get so near the horrors of war that a backlash against the war would be created in the public. Often Christian countries have some hand even in the violent conflicts in non-Christian countries in Africa and Asia. The colonial policy of divide and rule sowed seeds of conflicts that later resulted in violence between the groups that the colonial powers turned against one another. Palestinian-Jewish conflict and the Kashmir issue are among the legacy of colonialism. After the colonial period interference by the Western countries continued in the internal affairs of African and Asian countries. More recently, Iran-Iraq war was encouraged by the West so that the Islamic revolution in Iran may not spread to the Arabian peninsula. The military government in Algeria which cancelled the elections that Muslims were poised to win has the support of France and this support is partly responsible for the violence there, which, it seems, is mostly done by the military. In Rwanda the tribe that perpetuated a holocaust of another tribe follows the Catholic religion. The most cruel tyrant in history came from a Christian country and there has been no shortage of other somewhat less ruthless dictators in Christian countries, especially in South America and Africa. Even in terrorism, associated in the media mostly with the Muslims, it is the Christians that hold the record when it comes to the number of children and other innocent people killed. The Oklahoma bombing, carried out by people professing to be Christians, claimed more completely innocent victims than any other single act of terrorism. Terrorism in Northern Ireland which is a direct result of a sectarian conflict between Catholics and Protestants and is often supported by the religious leaders, has probably killed more children and innocent people than Middle East terrorism. Moreover, Muslim terrorism is mostly linked to the sort of unjust treatment suffered by the Palestinians whereas the Oklahoma bombing and, to a lesser degree, Irish terrorism is difficult to link in such a way. Now and then there appear religious sects whose beliefs lead them to violence. David Koreish armed his followers to teeth and led them to their violent death. There seem to exist several Millennium groups who are planning to engage in violence around the year 2000. Several doctors have been murdered by anti-abortionists and some Catholic leaders have not categorically condemned these killings. In some cases the violent impulses in Christian groups turn against the groups themselves. Jim Jones led hundreds of his followers to commit suicide. Then there is racial violence, by no means dissociated from Christianity. Black churches have been burned in America and recently some Americans tied a black man with a rope and dragged him by their truck until he died. Such acts are often carried out by members of groups who also carry crosses. And in South Africa the inhuman system of apartheid was maintained by the church-going white community with the blessing of the churches and indeed the apartheid was practiced by the churches themselves. At an individual level, too, most horrible examples of violence are seen in the Western Christian nations. In some American and British cities a car driver may take out his gun and shoot senselessly whoever happens to be passing by. There are many cases of church-going and Christmas-celebrating serial killers who are privately busy sexually attacking young men or women, killing them in the most horrible way, and then burying them in their backyards. Also, prior to the media focus on churches cases of gross sexual and other abuse of orphans by the Catholic priests and brothers were not infrequent. And there are even larger number of examples of church-going parents who torture their children to death or to destroy them mentally by incestuous relations. In one such case, an American father recently killed his son … read more »

Response:

Hey Abu Alfalfa, you seem to be ignoring the fact that conflict between Christian and Muslim states started when the second Caliph `Umar launched his expansionist unprovoked aggressive imperialist colonialist invasions against the Christian Byzantine empire — not to mention that Muslims were overall more aggressive and successful in attacking Christians than Christians were aggressive and successful in attacking Muslims for a 1,050-year period from 634 A.D. to 1683 A.D.! P.S. I’ve now added some commentary on the Arabic error in the e-mail address of your new phoney pseudonymic Usenet alias to page http://symbolictruth.fateback.com/abulwafa.htm (scroll a few screens down from the top of the page). — المتبرجة خير من الإرهابي المنتحر Murderers are not martyrs!    http://symbolictruth.fateback.com/

Response:

Hi friends You seem to be dreaming amigo. The Romans and the Roman Empire were not nice guys. They were like the West today a band of empirialist invaders looking to exploit less important peoples and leave them to famine and AIDS as they did in Africa, for example. They did not go to the Middle East through the democratic process. It was Rome who crucified Jesus Christ and destroyed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem at 70 AD. The true followers of Jesus were litterally thrown into gail and given to hungry dogs to eat their bodies. Sounds like Guantanamo Bay and Abu Graib to me!??? They only setup their Roman Church after they ethnically cleansed any remains of Jesus and his true followers. It was a total surprise to them that the liberation of the Holy land and the re establishmnt of the Kingdom of God on earth, ( the announcing of which was the primary reason for Jesus’s ministry) came from the Desert. I hope that answers some of the confusion you have in your mind between true Christianity and the Roman Church. Shalom

Response:

How quickly you change the topic!!  There is no denying the spread of Islam by the sword.  There is also no denying that Mohammed ordered the murders of countless innocent people.  The early days of Islam were bloody ones.  Muslims killings muslims.  Muslims killing apostates. Muslims killing Jews.  It is a violent history.   Mohammed killed those who disagreed with him.  He attacked innocent communites, killed their men, raped their women.   It is all documented by Islamic sources who were under the threat of death if they spoke against Mohammed or the Quran. You can’t argue the facts.   Jim al-Hallerud

Response:

Violence, Christianity and Islam By: Dr. Ahmad Shafaat Christians have often presented their religion as a religion of love and peace while presented Islam as a religion of war and sword. In the modern media Muslims and Islam have often been covered in a way which reinforces this old perception. For Muslims who have time to think about such things the Christian and Western perceptions appear as a complete disregard of the most obvious facts. In what follows I discuss this issue from the point of view of the teachings of the two religions as well as the conduct of their adherents through history. For centuries now Christian nations have been busy beating up one Muslim nation or another. In the Middle Ages they came as crusaders. Then they colonized many Muslim countries and tried to destroy their cultures and religion. During their struggle for independence some Muslims had to suffer terrible violence. The French killed about a million Muslims in Algeria because they wanted independence. In a way this French war against Islam and Muslims is still continuing through the support of the military dictatorship in Algeria against the Muslim party that was set to win elections and persecutions in France of Muslim men with beards and Muslim women with hijab. The USA and Britain killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (with the approval of about 90% of their people) without letting the world see the blood, thus practicing a lesson learned during the Vietnam war. Serbs have killed hundreds of thousands of Muslims and raped thousands of women in Bosnia and Kosovo. Although in these lands, a combination of rare circumstances put the West (USA and Western Europe) on the side of the Muslims, this did no good to them because the Western powers did not want to loose any of their own soldiers. Had the West left the Muslim Bosnians and ethnic Albanians to their fate without putting an arms embargo on them, their suffering would not have been any greater. Israel has been for half a century destroying the Palestinian people with the help of arms and financial and moral support provided by the USA, the very sort of crimes that have been committed by the Serbs against the people of Kosovo and which have been condemned by the West, even though there were no cameras to record the cries of the Palestinians and photograph the pictures of the massacred people and burning homes. In Lebanon when Christians were in the majority there was war, but now that the Muslims are in the majority there is peace except in the south of the country where Christians have been helping a foreign enemy against their own countrymen. When an American president needs to divert his people’s attention away from his sex scandal the easiest thing he finds is to bomb Muslim countries — Afghanistan, Sudan and Iraq — because he knows that this will be approved by a vast majority of his people. And then there is the media which is ever busy in maligning the Muslims while they do not at this point in time possess the resources to speak up: for every word spoken/written by a Muslim and heard/read by one person, a thousand words from a Christian are received by a thousand persons in the world. At the international level the voices of the Muslims are all but drowned by the Christian voices and those Christian voices are for the most part condemnatory. If a cartoonist was to depict the situation between the Western and Muslim civilizations, he or she will draw a weaker person not able or inclined to stand up or to speak while another stronger person is standing over him with a big stick, now and then beating him, and all the while shouting to him in a loud voice: you are a violent man. It is important for both Muslims and Christians to ask: What will the Christian be if the tables were turned and their lands were first colonized by Muslims and then bombed or maligned or ethnically cleansed? If the past is any guide, the answer is clear: There will be a vicious reaction and given the chance an attempt at almost total destruction of the Muslims. For in Spain Muslims lived for about 850 years as rulers. They lived with Jews and Christians for the most part in a spirit of tolerance and cooperation in promoting science and culture to the point that their work prepared for the modern scientific revolution with all its benefits for mankind. But the moment Muslims became weaker, the hate in the Catholic heart came out with a vengeance. Muslims were either killed, converted, or forced to leave Spain and their heritage was as fully destroyed as was humanly possible. Before Palestine and Kosovo, there was Spain. Above, I have mentioned only what the Christian nations have been doing or are doing to the Muslims. But when we look at what they have done to each other or to other people any validity in their claim of being people of love and peace vanishes, at least as far as Western Protestant or Catholic Christians are concerned. The horrible treatment of the heretics and witches in the Middle Ages probably inspired the tyrants of later centuries. The native peoples of the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand bear a tragic witness to what Christian nations can do to other nations and with the blessings and assistance of Christian churches. In this century alone the Western nations have fought two world wars with tens of millions dead and untold misery for the living. For each victory in these two wars the church bells rang in the victorious countries. The first nation to make a weapon of mass destruction and the only one to use it is a Christian nation. Had not the toll of death mounted too high for the Americans there can be little doubt that the fate of North Vietnam would have been like that of Iraq: it would have been bombed to submission no matter how many Vietnamese lives would have been lost. The lesson learned in North Vietnam was not that there should be no more war but that never again the American casualties would be allowed to mount so high and never again the cameras would be allowed to get so near the horrors of war that a backlash against the war would be created in the public. Often Christian countries have some hand even in the violent conflicts in non-Christian countries in Africa and Asia. The colonial policy of divide and rule sowed seeds of conflicts that later resulted in violence between the groups that the colonial powers turned against one another. Palestinian-Jewish conflict and the Kashmir issue are among the legacy of colonialism. After the colonial period interference by the Western countries continued in the internal affairs of African and Asian countries. More recently, Iran-Iraq war was encouraged by the West so that the Islamic revolution in Iran may not spread to the Arabian peninsula. The military government in Algeria which cancelled the elections that Muslims were poised to win has the support of France and this support is partly responsible for the violence there, which, it seems, is mostly done by the military. In Rwanda the tribe that perpetuated a holocaust of another tribe follows the Catholic religion. The most cruel tyrant in history came from a Christian country and there has been no shortage of other somewhat less ruthless dictators in Christian countries, especially in South America and Africa. Even in terrorism, associated in the media mostly with the Muslims, it is the Christians that hold the record when it comes to the number of children and other innocent people killed. The Oklahoma bombing, carried out by people professing to be Christians, claimed more completely innocent victims than any other single act of terrorism. Terrorism in Northern Ireland which is a direct result of a sectarian conflict between Catholics and Protestants and is often supported by the religious leaders, has probably killed more children and innocent people than Middle East terrorism. Moreover, Muslim terrorism is mostly linked to the sort of unjust treatment suffered by the Palestinians whereas the Oklahoma bombing and, to a lesser degree, Irish terrorism is difficult to link in such a way. Now and then there appear religious sects whose beliefs lead them to violence. David Koreish armed his followers to teeth and led them to their violent death. There seem to exist several Millennium groups who are planning to engage in violence around the year 2000. Several doctors have been murdered by anti-abortionists and some Catholic leaders have not categorically condemned these killings. In some cases the violent impulses in Christian groups turn against the groups themselves. Jim Jones led hundreds of his followers to commit suicide. Then there is racial violence, by no means dissociated from Christianity. Black churches have been burned in America and recently some Americans tied a black man with a rope and dragged him by their truck until he died. Such acts are often carried out by members of groups who also carry crosses. And in South Africa the inhuman system of apartheid was maintained by the church-going white community with the blessing of the churches and indeed the apartheid was practiced by the churches themselves. At an individual level, too, most horrible examples of violence are seen in the Western Christian nations. In some American and British cities a car driver may take out his gun and shoot senselessly whoever happens to be passing by. There are many cases of church-going and Christmas-celebrating serial killers who are privately busy sexually attacking young men or women, killing them in the most horrible way, and then burying them in their backyards. Also, prior to the media focus on churches cases of gross sexual and other abuse of orphans by the Catholic priests and brothers were not infrequent. And there are even larger number of examples of church-going parents who torture their children to death or to destroy them mentally by incestuous relations. In one such case, an American father recently killed his son by injecting him … read more »

Response:

> Violence, Christianity and Islam > By Dr. Ahmad Shafaat, 1983 > … > For centuries now Christian nations have been busy beating up one > Muslim nation or another. In the Middle Ages they came as crusaders. > … > Israel has been for half a century destroying the Palestinian people > with the help of arms and financial and moral support provided by the > USA. >…

Same old song and dance. Muslims never seem to get over this one-sided view of History. Muslims do no wrong Jews and Christians do no good. Generations of brainwashing keeps the Fascism alive and well.

Response:

your post says that Violence, Christianity and Islam > By Dr. Ahmad Shafaat, 1983

i assume 1983 is when the article was written rather than when the Dr Shafaat was born he states that Israel has been for half a century destroying the Palestinian people > with the help of arms and financial and moral support provided by the > USA

if he wrote this in 1983 than this whole article is bullshit because there was no Israel till 1948 so the time diffrence between 1948 and 1983 is 35 years only he then goes on to say When an American president > needs to divert his people’s attention away from his sex scandal the > easiest thing he finds is to bomb Muslim countries — Afghanistan, > Sudan and Iraq — because he knows that this will be approved by a vast > majority of his people.

this didnt happen till 20 years later so the good doctor must be nostradamus maybe he can tell us whats going to happen next this whole article if full of bullshit and inaccuracies and dumb muslims who read and believe this crap like yourself cause the problems for real muslims

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Violence, Christianity and Islam > By Dr. Ahmad Shafaat, 1983 > Christians have often presented their religion as a religion of love > and peace while presented Islam as a religion of war and sword. In the > modern media Muslims and Islam have often been covered in a way which > reinforces this old perception. For Muslims who have time to think > about such things the Christian and Western perceptions appear as a > complete disregard of the most obvious facts. In what follows I discuss > this issue from the point of view of the teachings of the two religions > as well as the conduct of their adherents through history. > Christian conduct > For centuries now Christian nations have been busy beating up one > Muslim nation or another. In the Middle Ages they came as crusaders. > Then they colonized many Muslim countries and tried to destroy their > cultures and religion. During their struggle for independence some > Muslims had to suffer terrible violence. The French killed about a > million Muslims in Algeria because they wanted independence. In a way > this French war against Islam and Muslims is still continuing through > the support of the military dictatorship in Algeria against the Muslim > party that was set to win elections and persecutions in France of > Muslim men with beards and Muslim women with hijab. The USA and Britain > killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (with the approval of about 90% > of their people) without letting the world see the blood, thus > practicing a lesson learned during the Vietnam war. Serbs have killed > hundreds of thousands of Muslims and raped thousands of women in Bosnia > and Kosovo. Although in these lands, a combination of rare > circumstances put the West (USA and Western Europe) on the side of the > Muslims, this did no good to them because the Western powers did not > want to loose any of their own soldiers. Had the West left the Muslim > Bosnians and ethnic Albanians to their fate without putting an arms > embargo on them, their suffering would not have been any greater. > Israel has been for half a century destroying the Palestinian people > with the help of arms and financial and moral support provided by the > USA, the very sort of crimes that have been committed by the Serbs > against the people of Kosovo and which have been condemned by the West, > even though there were no cameras to record the cries of the > Palestinians and photograph the pictures of the massacred people and > burning homes. In Lebanon when Christians were in the majority there > was war, but now that the Muslims are in the majority there is peace > except in the south of the country where Christians have been helping a > foreign enemy against their own countrymen. When an American president > needs to divert his people’s attention away from his sex scandal the > easiest thing he finds is to bomb Muslim countries — Afghanistan, > Sudan and Iraq — because he knows that this will be approved by a vast > majority of his people. And then there is the media which is ever busy > in maligning the Muslims while they do not at this point in time > possess the resources to speak up: for every word spoken/written by a > Muslim and heard/read by one person, a thousand words from a Christian > are received by a thousand persons in the world. At the international > level the voices of the Muslims are all but drowned by the Christian > voices and those Christian voices are for the most part condemnatory. > If a cartoonist was to depict the situation between the Western and > Muslim civilizations, he or she will draw a weaker person not able or > inclined to stand up or to speak while another stronger person is > standing over him with a big stick, now and then beating him, and all > the while shouting to him in a loud voice: you are a violent man. > It is important for both Muslims and Christians to ask: What will the > Christian be if the tables were turned and their lands were first > colonized by Muslims and then bombed or maligned or ethnically > cleansed? If the past is any guide, the answer is clear: There will be > a vicious reaction and given the chance an attempt at almost total > destruction of the Muslims. For in Spain Muslims lived for about 850 > years as rulers. They lived with Jews and Christians for the most part > in a spirit of tolerance and cooperation in promoting science and > culture to the point that their work prepared for the modern scientific > revolution with all its benefits for mankind. But the moment Muslims > became weaker, the hate in the Catholic heart came out with a > vengeance. Muslims were either killed, converted, or forced to leave > Spain and their heritage was as fully destroyed as was humanly > possible. Before Palestine and Kosovo, there was Spain. > Above, I have mentioned only what the Christian nations have been doing > or are doing to the Muslims. But when we look at what they have done to > each other or to other people any validity in their claim of being > people of love and peace vanishes, at least as far as Western > Protestant or Catholic Christians are concerned. The horrible treatment > of the heretics and witches in the Middle Ages probably inspired the > tyrants of later centuries. The native peoples of the Americas, > Australia, and New Zealand bear a tragic witness to what Christian > nations can do to other nations and with the blessings and assistance > of Christian churches. In this century alone the Western nations have > fought two world wars with tens of millions dead and untold misery for > the living. For each victory in these two wars the church bells rang in > the victorious countries. The first nation to make a weapon of mass > destruction and the only one to use it is a Christian nation. > Had not the toll of death mounted too high for the Americans there can > be little doubt that the fate of North Vietnam would have been like > that of Iraq: it would have been bombed to submission no matter how > many Vietnamese lives would have been lost. The lesson learned in North > Vietnam was not that there should be no more war but that never again > the American casualties would be allowed to mount so high and never > again the cameras would be allowed to get so near the horrors of war > that a backlash against the war would be created in the public. Often > Christian countries have some hand even in the violent conflicts in > non-Christian countries in Africa and Asia. The colonial policy of > divide and rule sowed seeds of conflicts that later resulted in > violence between the groups that the colonial powers turned against one > another. Palestinian-Jewish conflict and the Kashmir issue are among > the legacy of colonialism. After the colonial period interference by > the Western countries continued in the internal affairs of African and > Asian countries. More recently, Iran-Iraq war was encouraged by the > West so that the Islamic revolution in Iran may not spread to the > Arabian peninsula. The military government in Algeria which cancelled > the elections that Muslims were poised to win has the support of France > and this support is partly responsible for the violence there, which, > it seems, is mostly done by the military. > In Rwanda the tribe that perpetuated a holocaust of another tribe > follows the Catholic religion. The most cruel tyrant in history came > from a Christian country and there has been no shortage of other > somewhat less ruthless dictators in Christian countries, especially in > South America and Africa. > Even in terrorism, associated in the media mostly with the Muslims, it > is the Christians that hold the record when it comes to the number of > children and other innocent people killed. The Oklahoma bombing, > carried out by people professing to be Christians, claimed more > completely innocent victims than any other single act of terrorism. > Terrorism in Northern Ireland which is a direct result of a sectarian > conflict between Catholics and Protestants and is often supported by > the religious leaders, has probably killed more children and innocent > people than Middle East terrorism. Moreover, Muslim terrorism is mostly > linked to the sort of unjust treatment suffered by the Palestinians > whereas the Oklahoma bombing and, to a lesser degree, Irish terrorism > is difficult to link in such a way. > Now and then there appear religious sects whose beliefs lead them to > violence. David Koreish armed his followers to teeth and led them to > their violent death. There seem to exist several Millennium groups who > are planning to engage in violence around the year 2000. Several > doctors have been murdered by anti-abortionists and some Catholic > leaders have not categorically condemned these killings. In some

… read more »

Response:

There wasn’t any Muslim-vs.-Christian violence until the second caliph `Umar launched his unprovoked aggressive expansionist imperialist colonialist attacks against the Christian Byzantine (eastern Roman) empire in the 630’s A.D.  Tell me, are you now apologizing for Caliph Umar’s imperialistic adventurism (which put Cecil Rhodes’ imperialistic adventurism to shame), Abu Alfalfa???  I thought not! Then why do you expect anybody to apologize to you, if you’re not willing to take historic responsibility for the actions of your own "side"? — The non-Dhimmi affirmation (9:29): لن نعطي الجزية ولسنا صاغرين (٢٩   We will fight for our freedom!   Murderers are not martyrs!   http://symbolictruth.fateback.com/

Response:

now for a real view of the muslim problem. http://www.truthandgrace.com/Christianlove.htm

Response:

do us all a favour JIZZ WAD and detonate a suicide belt in your own house

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Violence, Christianity and Islam > By Dr. Ahmad Shafaat, 1983 > Christians have often presented their religion as a religion of love > and peace while presented Islam as a religion of war and sword. In the > modern media Muslims and Islam have often been covered in a way which > reinforces this old perception. For Muslims who have time to think > about such things the Christian and Western perceptions appear as a > complete disregard of the most obvious facts. In what follows I discuss > this issue from the point of view of the teachings of the two religions > as well as the conduct of their adherents through history. > Christian conduct > For centuries now Christian nations have been busy beating up one > Muslim nation or another. In the Middle Ages they came as crusaders. > Then they colonized many Muslim countries and tried to destroy their > cultures and religion. During their struggle for independence some > Muslims had to suffer terrible violence. The French killed about a > million Muslims in Algeria because they wanted independence. In a way > this French war against Islam and Muslims is still continuing through > the support of the military dictatorship in Algeria against the Muslim > party that was set to win elections and persecutions in France of > Muslim men with beards and Muslim women with hijab. The USA and Britain > killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (with the approval of about 90% > of their people) without letting the world see the blood, thus > practicing a lesson learned during the Vietnam war. Serbs have killed > hundreds of thousands of Muslims and raped thousands of women in Bosnia > and Kosovo. Although in these lands, a combination of rare > circumstances put the West (USA and Western Europe) on the side of the > Muslims, this did no good to them because the Western powers did not > want to loose any of their own soldiers. Had the West left the Muslim > Bosnians and ethnic Albanians to their fate without putting an arms > embargo on them, their suffering would not have been any greater. > Israel has been for half a century destroying the Palestinian people > with the help of arms and financial and moral support provided by the > USA, the very sort of crimes that have been committed by the Serbs > against the people of Kosovo and which have been condemned by the West, > even though there were no cameras to record the cries of the > Palestinians and photograph the pictures of the massacred people and > burning homes. In Lebanon when Christians were in the majority there > was war, but now that the Muslims are in the majority there is peace > except in the south of the country where Christians have been helping a > foreign enemy against their own countrymen. When an American president > needs to divert his people’s attention away from his sex scandal the > easiest thing he finds is to bomb Muslim countries — Afghanistan, > Sudan and Iraq — because he knows that this will be approved by a vast > majority of his people. And then there is the media which is ever busy > in maligning the Muslims while they do not at this point in time > possess the resources to speak up: for every word spoken/written by a > Muslim and heard/read by one person, a thousand words from a Christian > are received by a thousand persons in the world. At the international > level the voices of the Muslims are all but drowned by the Christian > voices and those Christian voices are for the most part condemnatory. > If a cartoonist was to depict the situation between the Western and > Muslim civilizations, he or she will draw a weaker person not able or > inclined to stand up or to speak while another stronger person is > standing over him with a big stick, now and then beating him, and all > the while shouting to him in a loud voice: you are a violent man. > It is important for both Muslims and Christians to ask: What will the > Christian be if the tables were turned and their lands were first > colonized by Muslims and then bombed or maligned or ethnically > cleansed? If the past is any guide, the answer is clear: There will be > a vicious reaction and given the chance an attempt at almost total > destruction of the Muslims. For in Spain Muslims lived for about 850 > years as rulers. They lived with Jews and Christians for the most part > in a spirit of tolerance and cooperation in promoting science and > culture to the point that their work prepared for the modern scientific > revolution with all its benefits for mankind. But the moment Muslims > became weaker, the hate in the Catholic heart came out with a > vengeance. Muslims were either killed, converted, or forced to leave > Spain and their heritage was as fully destroyed as was humanly > possible. Before Palestine and Kosovo, there was Spain. > Above, I have mentioned only what the Christian nations have been doing > or are doing to the Muslims. But when we look at what they have done to > each other or to other people any validity in their claim of being > people of love and peace vanishes, at least as far as Western > Protestant or Catholic Christians are concerned. The horrible treatment > of the heretics and witches in the Middle Ages probably inspired the > tyrants of later centuries. The native peoples of the Americas, > Australia, and New Zealand bear a tragic witness to what Christian > nations can do to other nations and with the blessings and assistance > of Christian churches. In this century alone the Western nations have > fought two world wars with tens of millions dead and untold misery for > the living. For each victory in these two wars the church bells rang in > the victorious countries. The first nation to make a weapon of mass > destruction and the only one to use it is a Christian nation. > Had not the toll of death mounted too high for the Americans there can > be little doubt that the fate of North Vietnam would have been like > that of Iraq: it would have been bombed to submission no matter how > many Vietnamese lives would have been lost. The lesson learned in North > Vietnam was not that there should be no more war but that never again > the American casualties would be allowed to mount so high and never > again the cameras would be allowed to get so near the horrors of war > that a backlash against the war would be created in the public. Often > Christian countries have some hand even in the violent conflicts in > non-Christian countries in Africa and Asia. The colonial policy of > divide and rule sowed seeds of conflicts that later resulted in > violence between the groups that the colonial powers turned against one > another. Palestinian-Jewish conflict and the Kashmir issue are among > the legacy of colonialism. After the colonial period interference by > the Western countries continued in the internal affairs of African and > Asian countries. More recently, Iran-Iraq war was encouraged by the > West so that the Islamic revolution in Iran may not spread to the > Arabian peninsula. The military government in Algeria which cancelled > the elections that Muslims were poised to win has the support of France > and this support is partly responsible for the violence there, which, > it seems, is mostly done by the military. > In Rwanda the tribe that perpetuated a holocaust of another tribe > follows the Catholic religion. The most cruel tyrant in history came > from a Christian country and there has been no shortage of other > somewhat less ruthless dictators in Christian countries, especially in > South America and Africa. > Even in terrorism, associated in the media mostly with the Muslims, it > is the Christians that hold the record when it comes to the number of > children and other innocent people killed. The Oklahoma bombing, > carried out by people professing to be Christians, claimed more > completely innocent victims than any other single act of terrorism. > Terrorism in Northern Ireland which is a direct result of a sectarian > conflict between Catholics and Protestants and is often supported by > the religious leaders, has probably killed more children and innocent > people than Middle East terrorism. Moreover, Muslim terrorism is mostly > linked to the sort of unjust treatment suffered by the Palestinians > whereas the Oklahoma bombing and, to a lesser degree, Irish terrorism > is difficult to link in such a way. > Now and then there appear religious sects whose beliefs lead them to > violence. David Koreish armed his followers to teeth and led them to > their violent death. There seem to exist several Millennium groups who > are planning to engage in violence around the year 2000. Several > doctors have been murdered by anti-abortionists and some Catholic > leaders have not categorically condemned these killings. In some cases > the violent impulses in Christian groups turn against the groups > themselves. Jim Jones led hundreds of his followers to commit suicide. > Then there is racial violence, by no means dissociated from > Christianity. Black churches have been burned in America and recently > some Americans tied a black man with a rope and dragged him by their > truck until he died. Such acts are often carried out by members of > groups who also carry crosses. And in South Africa the inhuman system > of apartheid was maintained by the church-going white community with > the blessing of the churches and indeed the apartheid was practiced by > the churches themselves. > At an individual level, too, most horrible examples of violence are > seen in the Western Christian nations. In some American and British > cities a car driver may take out his gun and shoot senselessly whoever > happens to be passing by. There are many cases of church-going and > Christmas-celebrating serial killers who are

… read more »

Response:

Violence, Christianity and Islam By Dr. Ahmad Shafaat, 1983 Christians have often presented their religion as a religion of love and peace while presented Islam as a religion of war and sword. In the modern media Muslims and Islam have often been covered in a way which reinforces this old perception. For Muslims who have time to think about such things the Christian and Western perceptions appear as a complete disregard of the most obvious facts. In what follows I discuss this issue from the point of view of the teachings of the two religions as well as the conduct of their adherents through history. Christian conduct For centuries now Christian nations have been busy beating up one Muslim nation or another. In the Middle Ages they came as crusaders. Then they colonized many Muslim countries and tried to destroy their cultures and religion. During their struggle for independence some Muslims had to suffer terrible violence. The French killed about a million Muslims in Algeria because they wanted independence. In a way this French war against Islam and Muslims is still continuing through the support of the military dictatorship in Algeria against the Muslim party that was set to win elections and persecutions in France of Muslim men with beards and Muslim women with hijab. The USA and Britain killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (with the approval of about 90% of their people) without letting the world see the blood, thus practicing a lesson learned during the Vietnam war. Serbs have killed hundreds of thousands of Muslims and raped thousands of women in Bosnia and Kosovo. Although in these lands, a combination of rare circumstances put the West (USA and Western Europe) on the side of the Muslims, this did no good to them because the Western powers did not want to loose any of their own soldiers. Had the West left the Muslim Bosnians and ethnic Albanians to their fate without putting an arms embargo on them, their suffering would not have been any greater. Israel has been for half a century destroying the Palestinian people with the help of arms and financial and moral support provided by the USA, the very sort of crimes that have been committed by the Serbs against the people of Kosovo and which have been condemned by the West, even though there were no cameras to record the cries of the Palestinians and photograph the pictures of the massacred people and burning homes. In Lebanon when Christians were in the majority there was war, but now that the Muslims are in the majority there is peace except in the south of the country where Christians have been helping a foreign enemy against their own countrymen. When an American president needs to divert his people’s attention away from his sex scandal the easiest thing he finds is to bomb Muslim countries — Afghanistan, Sudan and Iraq — because he knows that this will be approved by a vast majority of his people. And then there is the media which is ever busy in maligning the Muslims while they do not at this point in time possess the resources to speak up: for every word spoken/written by a Muslim and heard/read by one person, a thousand words from a Christian are received by a thousand persons in the world. At the international level the voices of the Muslims are all but drowned by the Christian voices and those Christian voices are for the most part condemnatory. If a cartoonist was to depict the situation between the Western and Muslim civilizations, he or she will draw a weaker person not able or inclined to stand up or to speak while another stronger person is standing over him with a big stick, now and then beating him, and all the while shouting to him in a loud voice: you are a violent man. It is important for both Muslims and Christians to ask: What will the Christian be if the tables were turned and their lands were first colonized by Muslims and then bombed or maligned or ethnically cleansed? If the past is any guide, the answer is clear: There will be a vicious reaction and given the chance an attempt at almost total destruction of the Muslims. For in Spain Muslims lived for about 850 years as rulers. They lived with Jews and Christians for the most part in a spirit of tolerance and cooperation in promoting science and culture to the point that their work prepared for the modern scientific revolution with all its benefits for mankind. But the moment Muslims became weaker, the hate in the Catholic heart came out with a vengeance. Muslims were either killed, converted, or forced to leave Spain and their heritage was as fully destroyed as was humanly possible. Before Palestine and Kosovo, there was Spain. Above, I have mentioned only what the Christian nations have been doing or are doing to the Muslims. But when we look at what they have done to each other or to other people any validity in their claim of being people of love and peace vanishes, at least as far as Western Protestant or Catholic Christians are concerned. The horrible treatment of the heretics and witches in the Middle Ages probably inspired the tyrants of later centuries. The native peoples of the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand bear a tragic witness to what Christian nations can do to other nations and with the blessings and assistance of Christian churches. In this century alone the Western nations have fought two world wars with tens of millions dead and untold misery for the living. For each victory in these two wars the church bells rang in the victorious countries. The first nation to make a weapon of mass destruction and the only one to use it is a Christian nation. Had not the toll of death mounted too high for the Americans there can be little doubt that the fate of North Vietnam would have been like that of Iraq: it would have been bombed to submission no matter how many Vietnamese lives would have been lost. The lesson learned in North Vietnam was not that there should be no more war but that never again the American casualties would be allowed to mount so high and never again the cameras would be allowed to get so near the horrors of war that a backlash against the war would be created in the public. Often Christian countries have some hand even in the violent conflicts in non-Christian countries in Africa and Asia. The colonial policy of divide and rule sowed seeds of conflicts that later resulted in violence between the groups that the colonial powers turned against one another. Palestinian-Jewish conflict and the Kashmir issue are among the legacy of colonialism. After the colonial period interference by the Western countries continued in the internal affairs of African and Asian countries. More recently, Iran-Iraq war was encouraged by the West so that the Islamic revolution in Iran may not spread to the Arabian peninsula. The military government in Algeria which cancelled the elections that Muslims were poised to win has the support of France and this support is partly responsible for the violence there, which, it seems, is mostly done by the military. In Rwanda the tribe that perpetuated a holocaust of another tribe follows the Catholic religion. The most cruel tyrant in history came from a Christian country and there has been no shortage of other somewhat less ruthless dictators in Christian countries, especially in South America and Africa. Even in terrorism, associated in the media mostly with the Muslims, it is the Christians that hold the record when it comes to the number of children and other innocent people killed. The Oklahoma bombing, carried out by people professing to be Christians, claimed more completely innocent victims than any other single act of terrorism. Terrorism in Northern Ireland which is a direct result of a sectarian conflict between Catholics and Protestants and is often supported by the religious leaders, has probably killed more children and innocent people than Middle East terrorism. Moreover, Muslim terrorism is mostly linked to the sort of unjust treatment suffered by the Palestinians whereas the Oklahoma bombing and, to a lesser degree, Irish terrorism is difficult to link in such a way. Now and then there appear religious sects whose beliefs lead them to violence. David Koreish armed his followers to teeth and led them to their violent death. There seem to exist several Millennium groups who are planning to engage in violence around the year 2000. Several doctors have been murdered by anti-abortionists and some Catholic leaders have not categorically condemned these killings. In some cases the violent impulses in Christian groups turn against the groups themselves. Jim Jones led hundreds of his followers to commit suicide. Then there is racial violence, by no means dissociated from Christianity. Black churches have been burned in America and recently some Americans tied a black man with a rope and dragged him by their truck until he died. Such acts are often carried out by members of groups who also carry crosses. And in South Africa the inhuman system of apartheid was maintained by the church-going white community with the blessing of the churches and indeed the apartheid was practiced by the churches themselves. At an individual level, too, most horrible examples of violence are seen in the Western Christian nations. In some American and British cities a car driver may take out his gun and shoot senselessly whoever happens to be passing by. There are many cases of church-going and Christmas-celebrating serial killers who are privately busy sexually attacking young men or women, killing them in the most horrible way, and then burying them in their backyards. Also, prior to the media focus on churches cases of gross sexual and other abuse of orphans by the Catholic priests and brothers were not infrequent. And there are even larger number of examples of church-going parents who torture their children to death or to destroy them mentally by incestuous relations. In one such case, an American father recently killed his … read more »

Response:

>In the Middle Ages they came as crusaders.

In the Middle Ages, christians came as crusaders to free the Holy Sepulchre from the muslims who occuped it since centuries and prohibit to christian pilgrims to visit it. They came to stop the violences, the attacks, the lootings muslims were doing since more than 400 years against the christian countries. For example, muslims conquered Hungary and deported 3,100,000 people to sold them as slaves. Islam is a devil religion and will be defeated. You are a liar and God will send you in the Hell to burn for the eternity. Logos Remove A B C

Response:

> Violence, Christianity and Islam

How the Media Misconstrue Jihad and the Crusades Timothy Furnish, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, World History, Georgia Perimeter College. http://hnn.us/articles/1178.html It’s axiomatic among historians that winners write (or sometimes rewrite) history. How strange it is, then, that on the topic of Jihads and their Western analog, the Crusades, the losers in the post-1492 struggle for world mastery (the Islamic world) and their willing spinmeisters (academics and media pundits) are currently foisting their ahistorical views on the rest of us. That view, a two-sided coin of deceit, consists of the following contentions: 1) that jihad almost always means "moral self-improvement in order to please God" and, on the rare occasion that it does take martial form, it only does so as a desperate defensive measure against the Christian West; and 2) that the history of Christian-Muslim interaction is almost entirely one of invasion and exploitation of the latter by the former, exemplified by the Crusades. As examples, consider these recent propaganda gems: 1) MSNBC, in a segment discussing the new PBS video "Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet" (Dec. 18, 2002), runs a graphic explaining that the true definition of jihad is "the struggle to please God." 2) History Channel/A & E’s recent (summer 2002) "Inside Islam" special presents the Crusades as the first violent struggle between Christendom and the Islamic world. 3)U.S. News and World Report’s cover story "The First Holy War" (April 8, 2002) does likewise, claiming that "during the Crusades, East and West first met–on the battlefield." 4) History Channel/A & E’s (otherwise fine) 1995 video series "The Crusades" (hosted by former Monty Python member Terry Jones) has Salah al-Din, the Kurdish Muslim leader who retook Jerusalem from the Crusaders, telling Richard the Lion Heart that "this land has always been ours" and it also avers that jihad only developed as a response to the rapacious Crusades. 5) The PBS video "Islam: Empire of Faith" (2001) presents Islamic military expansion, both pre-modern and Ottoman, as natural and understandable and never calls it by its true name: jihad. Such examples could be multiplied many fold, if every self-styled expert on Islam who has been interviewed by any American newspaper since 9/11 were adduced. But sticking with the five aforementioned contentions, what is wrong with each of them? Re: 1) As Daniel Pipes and Douglas Streusand so convincingly point out, jihad does NOT mean primarily "the struggle to please God" but indeed–as both Islamic doctrinal writings (especially al-Bukhari’s ninth c. CE collection of Hadith, or traditions) and Islamic history demonstrate–"holy war." The so-called "greater jihad," which emphasizes conquering one’s sins, is actually a minority Sufi (Islamic mystic) view that is based on an untrustworthy, probably forged, tradition. Throughout most of Islamic history most Muslims, lay and scholar alike, have understood "jihad" in its Arabic dictionary–and Bin Ladinesque–sense of "holy war." (1) Re: 2) & 3) As Vincent Carroll so eloquently explains, only a historical ignoramus–or, I would add at the risk of redundancy, a tendentious PBS editor –could produce the claptrap statement that the Crusades marked the first time Islam and the West met on the battlefield. Islam began with one man in Mecca and, within less than two centuries, encompassed territory from the Iberian Peninsula to the Hindu Kush. This expansion did not happen peacefully. The Arab Muslim armies attacked and conquered Byzantine Christian territories in Syria and Egypt and, a bit later, Arab-Berber Muslim forces conquered the formerly Roman, but still Christian, cities and towns across North Africa and into what is now Spain and Portugal, ruling there for seven centuries. Muslim armies invaded the Frankish Kingdom, later to become France, in 732 and were defeated by Charlemagne’s grandfather, Charles Martel. Over the next three centuries the Sunni Muslim Seljuq Turks further dissected the Byzantine Empire, beginning a process that would be completed by their cousins the Ottomans, who conquered Constantinople in 1453 and ruled southeastern Europe for centuries.(2) So the Crusades, far from being the first time Muslims and Christians fought, were actually merely the first time that Christians, after four centuries of defeats, really fought BACK.(3) Re: 4) Salah al-Din’s quote — "this land has always been ours" — seems almost an Islamic version of the old Soviet Brezhnev Doctrine: once you go Communist–or in the case at hand, Muslim–you cannot go back. "This land has always been ours?!" That would have been news to the two major erstwhile denizens and rulers of the Holy Land, Jews and Christians (not to mention Romans, Persians, Assyrians, Philistines, Canaanites, etc.). Muslims didn’t conquer what is now Israel/Palestine until the mid-7th c. CE. And, as mentioned earlier, jihad existed in Islamic theory and practice long before the admittedly-nasty Crusaders showed up in the Middle East. The reason it took so long (almost two centuries) for the Muslim world to expel the Crusaders was NOT lack of a militant ideology but rather lack of a sufficiently strong and determined state–a deficiency which the Egyptian Mamluks rectified in the 13th c. CE. Re: 5) The Ottomans had as one of their long-term, explicit goals the complete conquest of Europe and often declared jihads in order to further this agenda. In 1529 and 1683 their holy wars took them to the gates of Vienna. In 1828 they declared an (unsuccessful) jihad against the Greeks’ attempt to gain independence. The Crimean War of 1854 prompted a jihad against France and Russia. The Ottomans fought World War I as an openly-trumpeted holy war against the British, French, Russians and (later) Americans. Now, one might argue that by the 19th century Ottoman jihads were merely a cynical, defensive propaganda ploy by the leadership of a tottering Islamic empire. Perhaps. But when the leading political (sultan-caliph) and religious (shaykh al-Islam) figures of the planet’s most powerful Islamic state call something a jihad, should we not take them at their word? Furthermore, it is worthy of note that far more people (mainly Armenians) died as part of that last Ottoman jihad against the Russians than died in all of the Crusades combined.(4) Two questions, to conclude: Why are influential segments of the American media perpetuating and, indeed, promoting, historically inaccurate views of two major post-9/11 issues: Jihad and the Crusades? And, more importantly, why does it matter? To answer the second question first: it matters because peoples’ view of history shapes their cultural and political views. We Americans are constantly reminded to pay attention to the "Muslim street," lest we callously provoke those millions for whom, allegedly, the Crusades of almost a millennium ago are still festering wounds. Yet, as Carroll observes, "if the impact of the Crusades ‘created a historical memory’ for Muslims, why isn’t the historical memory created among Christians by the Muslims conquests of the previous five centuries worth mentioning?" To that could be added: why aren’t the Ottoman conquests and jihads of the subsequent six centuries worthy of report? Indeed, for centuries Christian Europe lived in fear of "the Turk" and Luther even had a prayer specifically asking for deliverance from the Ottomans. 1683 is a lot nearer to our time than 1099. Attacks have not been all from West to (Middle) East, and it is high time the "Muslim street" received the solid food of historically accurate teaching rather than the milk of Islamic propaganda. This is not merely a tu quoque spat but a matter of accurately and fairly addressing the issues that divide the civilizations produced by the world’s two largest faiths, Christianity and Islam.(5) Ultimately, of course, modern Americans are in reality no more responsible for the Crusades than, say, modern Mongolians are for the Eurasian depredations of their ancestor Genghis Khan; less so, in fact (since many Americans are descended from societies which had nothing to do with the Crusades). What prevents this argument from becoming much ado about nothing are two things: 1) that Osamah bin Ladin and his ilk have been playing the "Crusades" card for a decade now, to no small effect; and, what’s almost as disturbing, 2) many American college students have internalized the neo-Marxist, "blame the West first" attitude, presented in high school history classes, along with the requisite guilt. Garbage in, garbage out then holds sway. Regarding the Jihads of the last 14 centuries, the useful idiots at PBS and MSNBC also present an ahistorical view but take the opposite tack from that vis-

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