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| The Truth about Islam? | |||||||
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Recently several friends have forwarded to me an Internet story that purports to tell "the truth about Islam," claiming that nearly all Muslim leaders have declared a jihad against Christians as "infidels." I do not claim to be an expert in Islam by any stretch of the imagination but there are several clear clues that this message is a fraud: 1) This email doesn't even have the names of the player right: the followers of Mohammed are called "Muslims," not "Islamists," and their faith is called "Islam," not "Islamism" – pretty strong clues that this story is fake. 2) "Jihad" in the Qu'ran primarily means to struggle to become a better person and only the terrorists and nut cases use the term in the sense of "holy war" against the West. Those who attempt to hijack Islam for their own purposes may call themselves something such as "Islamic Jihad," but they are no more representative of most Muslims that the KKK is of most Christians. 3) As far as I can tell, Mohammed and the Quran never taught that Christians or Jews were "infidels" anyway: we are considered fellow "people of the Book." They think we interpret the Bible wrong – which is precisely my complaint about them – but they hardly see us as unbelievers. Mohammed, in fact, always claimed that he was merely teaching pagan Arabs what he had learned from Jews and Christians. Unfortunately his followers in Arabia also embraced some dubious customs of their Christian neighbors, such as uniting religious and political power and making women wear veils-but we can hardly blame them for taking these ideas from Christians. This is really the pot calling the kettle black, anyway: it is Christians who are far more likely to wrongly call Jews and/or Muslims "infidels" or unbelievers, and our track record is far worse for slaughtering those whom we label this way. 4) And here's the really outrageous part: this claim that Muslims endorse jihad against us is being made at precisely the time when Muslim leaders across the nation are making the greatest efforts to condemn terrorism. Muslim leaders around the world have been condemning terrorism for years, even if their comments are not always covered very widely in the media. In case you haven't seen it, here's the latest "fatwa" issued by American Muslim leaders last week, the strongest possible declaration they can make. If you would like to learn more about your Muslim neighbors, you might want to look at the half-hour video/DVD that the Long Island Multi-Faith Forum recently produced. I'm including further information about this at the end of this message. And if you live or work on Long Island, you might want to invite the LIMFF to send one of its "Building Bridges" teams to your workplace, school, or house of worship to hear from Muslims and others how they practice their beliefs in their daily lives on Long Island. Let me know if you would like further info on this program! Shalom/Salaam/Shanti/Pax |
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