Islamic Discussion Thread ٥: Free Tajweed, Absolutely Halaal

[Khataiy]

It has been narrated by Abu Huraira that the Holy Prophet (may pceace be upon him) said: Banu Isra'il were ruled over by the Prophets. When one Prophet died, another succeeded him; but after me there is no prophet and there will be caliphs and they will be quite large in number. His Companions said: What do you order us to do (in case we come to have more than one Caliph)? He said: The one to whom allegiance is sworn first has a supremacy over the others. Concede to them their due rights (i. e. obey them). God (Himself) will question them about the subjects whom He had entrusted to them.
Hadith number 4543, Sahih Muslim, Book 20

O you who believe! Obey God and obey the Messenger, and those from among you who are invested with authority.
Quran 4:59

It has been narrated on the authority of 'Abdullah who said: The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: After me there will be favouritism anad many things that you will not like. They (his Companions) said: Messenger of Allah, what do you order that one should do it anyone from us has to live through such a time? He said: You should discharge your own responsibility (by obeying your Amir), and ask God to cuncede your right (by guiding the Amir to the right path or by replacing him by one more just and God-fearing).
Hadith number 4545, Sahih Muslim, Book 20

It has been narrated on the authority of Abdullah b. 'Umar who said: We used to take oath to the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) that we would listen to and obey his orders. He would tell us (to say in the oath): As far as it lies in my power.
Hadith number 4604, Sahih Muslim, Book 20

[Zagrepcanin]

If Muslims wish sharia I think we should respect the free association.

Wat?

If some Muslims wish to go to religious court instead of civil one than they should be allowed. It is line with free association.

[Zagrepcanin]

I hope Islam will become the dominant religion in Western Europe and USA. It is not boring unlike Christianity.

The only reason you don’t think it’s boring is because you grew up with Christianity. If you hadn’t, the situation would be reversed.

Possible. But also Christianity has a bad record of bigotry and tolerance, whereas Islam not. Islam used to had the Golden Age it was quite profressive until few centuries ago.

[Kowani]

Wat?

If some Muslims wish to go to religious court instead of civil one than they should be allowed. It is line with free association.

That’s not what freedom of association is.

The only reason you don’t think it’s boring is because you grew up with Christianity. If you hadn’t, the situation would be reversed.

Possible. But also Christianity has a bad record of bigotry and tolerance, whereas Islam not. Islam used to had the Golden Age it was quite profressive until few centuries ago.

Perhaps if Islam was older, this point might be valid. But guess what? It’s not.

[Zizou]

Wat?

If some Muslims wish to go to religious court instead of civil one than they should be allowed. It is line with free association.

You realize that setting up different legal standards for different groups of people based on religion is literally the definition of discrimination, right?

[El-Amin Caliphate]

Wat?

If some Muslims wish to go to religious court instead of civil one than they should be allowed. It is line with free association.

Muslims don't have a choice Islamically speaking.

If some Muslims wish to go to religious court instead of civil one than they should be allowed. It is line with free association.

That’s not what freedom of association is.

Possible. But also Christianity has a bad record of bigotry and tolerance, whereas Islam not. Islam used to had the Golden Age it was quite profressive until few centuries ago.

Perhaps if Islam was older, this point might be valid. But guess what? It’s not.

Actually it is. If you just take the definition of Islam - which means submission (to Allah SWT that is), it's the oldest religion in the universe (or multiverse).

[El-Amin Caliphate]

If some Muslims wish to go to religious court instead of civil one than they should be allowed. It is line with free association.

You realize that setting up different legal standards for different groups of people based on religion is literally the definition of discrimination, right?

It's also what Al-Islam prescribes. Non-Muslims are not to be subjected to Shari'ah, only Muslims are. Hence they should be subject to their own laws.
https://legacy.quran.com/5/48

[Zizou]

You realize that setting up different legal standards for different groups of people based on religion is literally the definition of discrimination, right?

It's also what Al-Islam prescribes. Non-Muslims are not to be subjected to Shari'ah, only Muslims are. Hence they should be subject to their own laws.
https://legacy.quran.com/5/48

How does this say that there should be separate legal systems for muslims and non-muslims?

[El-Amin Caliphate]

It's also what Al-Islam prescribes. Non-Muslims are not to be subjected to Shari'ah, only Muslims are. Hence they should be subject to their own laws.
https://legacy.quran.com/5/48

How does this say that there should be separate legal systems for muslims and non-muslims?

"So judge between them by what Allah has revealed and do not follow their inclinations away from what has come to you of the truth. To each of you We prescribed a law and a method."
Obvs the Holy Qur'an isn't their Book since they don't believe in it, so we should judge by what they believe in, ex the Torah, Bible, Vedas, etc. On top of that, Prophet Muhammad SAWS punished 2 Jews according to the Torah's law: https://sunnah.com/bukhari/86/48

Edit: Also, this: https://legacy.quran.com/2/256 We can't force Non-Muslims to obey Allah's SWT Law, so obvs they would be ruled according to a separate law.

[Kowani]

If some Muslims wish to go to religious court instead of civil one than they should be allowed. It is line with free association.

Muslims don't have a choice Islamically speaking.

That’s not what freedom of association is.



Perhaps if Islam was older, this point might be valid. But guess what? It’s not.

Actually it is. If you just take the definition of Islam - which means submission (to Allah SWT that is), it's the oldest religion in the universe (or multiverse).

Yes, and if you take the word county as literal, it means that you live in an area ruled by a count.
Also, there’s two types of meaning, linguistic and descriptive. You conflated the two.

[Zagrepcanin]

Actually it is. If you just take the definition of Islam - which means submission (to Allah SWT that is), it's the oldest religion in the universe (or multiverse).

How? I dont follow this logic...

[Zagrepcanin]

If some Muslims wish to go to religious court instead of civil one than they should be allowed. It is line with free association.

You realize that setting up different legal standards for different groups of people based on religion is literally the definition of discrimination, right?

It is not. If a group a people build up a membership club for themself they can choose the rules of said club and who do they wish to allow. If I for example found a club for people who love to smoke cigarretes in which we have the same rituals on every meeting we can choose whoever we wish to join our club. Yes, that will mean we might discriminate non-smokers.

[El-Amin Caliphate]

Actually it is. If you just take the definition of Islam - which means submission (to Allah SWT that is), it's the oldest religion in the universe (or multiverse).

How? I dont follow this logic...

"إِسْلَام/Islaam" means "submission" in Arabic. Allah SWT created everything in this universe, and everything worships Allah SWT in their own way, hence they "submit" to Allah SWT. There were Muslims before humans were created is what I'm saying. Now Islam the religion that we know of was revealed to Prophet Muhammad SAWS in the 7th century, yes. But this is really just the final iteration of Allah's message.

[Zagrepcanin]

How? I dont follow this logic...

"إِسْلَام/Islaam" means "submission" in Arabic. Allah SWT created everything in this universe, and everything worships Allah SWT in their own way, hence they "submit" to Allah SWT. There were Muslims before humans were created is what I'm saying. Now Islam the religion that we know of was revealed to Prophet Muhammad SAWS in the 7th century, yes. But this is really just the final iteration of Allah's message.

Oh, I get it you are counting the first humans as Muslims. What is this Bahai faith? They some prophet after Muhammed.

[El-Amin Caliphate]

"إِسْلَام/Islaam" means "submission" in Arabic. Allah SWT created everything in this universe, and everything worships Allah SWT in their own way, hence they "submit" to Allah SWT. There were Muslims before humans were created is what I'm saying. Now Islam the religion that we know of was revealed to Prophet Muhammad SAWS in the 7th century, yes. But this is really just the final iteration of Allah's message.

Oh, I get it you are counting the first humans as Muslims.

I'm counting the first thing in existence as a Muslim.

What is this Bahai faith? They some prophet after Muhammed.

They aren't Muslim, they're their own religion. Baha'is themselves will tell you this.

[New Bremerton]

Slightly lengthy post. Full version spoilered. TL;DR version at the bottom. This post is addressed primarily toward Muslim NSGers on this thread.

The relative anonymity of NationStates is the only reason I'm able to even write this. If the government found out how I truly feel about Islam, I would almost certainly be arrested and jailed for up to 11 years for "insulting Islam", which is why I feel strongly enough to write this in the first place. That, and the recent jailing of a Chinese Christian woman in Indonesia for two years for "insulting Islam" for complaining about the call to prayer being too loud, which led to riots and Buddhist temples being set alight by Islamist extremists.

My sympathy for Muslims and my erstwhile deference to Islam has completely run out. They will no longer continue to bite the hand that has fed them all these years, namely my hand. I'm in a really dark place right now with respect to Islam and Muslims, and I'm trying very hard to restrain myself and avoid trolling this thread. When you persecute someone for who they are and what they believe, expect them to hate you, resent you and plot revenge against you in response. It's human nature, and it's karma. You live by the sword, you die by the sword.

When I first started to question Islam's supposedly peaceful nature back in late 2014/early 2015 after years of state-sanctioned discrimination of my people and threats of incarceration and violence at the hands of a Malay-Muslim majority and particularly in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo terror attacks against freedom of expression, I read the Qur'an (Muhammad Muhsin Khan English translation for Amazon Kindle, which contains explanations and elaborations of verses in brackets by the translator himself) and learned much of what I now know about Islam and Mohammed from Wikipedia as well as TheReligionOfPeace.com and AnsweringMuslims.com, both of which I have to admit are run by Christian apologists. I'm an atheist.

The picture I have of Mohammed, if he even existed to begin with, is that of a self-interested bloodthirsty pedophile warlord who eventually got what he deserved in the end, and that his alleged actions and behavior in life are the reason most Muslims in the Muslim world, while not necessarily violent, are generally intolerant of criticism and dissent, adhere to customs that would be deemed medieval and barbaric in the West, and are the reason why Islamic extremism of the Saudi kind has such an easy time taking hold in my country and elsewhere.

I believe that the holy texts themselves are to blame for failing to uphold 21st century morals, and that if Islam is to be viewed as anything less than a medieval, fascist, imperialist ideology, then Muslims must acknowledge that the Qur'an and hadiths are far from infallible and inerrant, that the Islamic holy texts were written by fallible human beings and that certain verses and hadiths frequently invoked by violent Islamists and "non-violent" fundamentalists to justify violence, rape, slavery and pedophilia must be rejected as "un-Islamic", as Christians have done over the past 300 years or so with the Bible, with modernity being the end-result.

If Christians can grow tired of centuries of sectarian violence, why can't Muslims? If ordinary Muslims fail to acknowledge that their religion isn't perfect and Islam isn't reformed to be more peaceful and tolerant, then I fear an all-out war on Islam may be inevitable in the future, and I would personally love to see that religion go extinct, for my sake, for my family's sake, and for everyone else's sake. If ordinary Muslims prefer to dig their heels in and label their critics as racists and Islamophobic bigots for hurting their religious feelings, then non-Muslims are going to have to adopt a no-nonsense approach and tell Muslims to get their shit together, or else. There should be no political correctness, zero tolerance for those radical Muslims who would cynically play the victim card to earn sympathy that is undeserved in order to push an Islamist agenda and for those leftists in the West who would give them a free hand to do so in the name of "tolerance and diversity", thereby enabling the destruction of their own societies.

Non-Muslim minorities in the Muslim world have every right to defend themselves and retaliate against Muslim aggression, as the Jews of Israel have done successfully and repeatedly. If Muslims insist on waging war on us and our infidel way of life and expect us to defer to them and their unquestionably superior faith at all times or else, then it is only fair that we respond in kind and wage war on their repressive religion and ideology until or unless they back down and start treating non-Muslims with genuine and heartfelt respect and dignity, or witness the end of Islam as a social and political force to be reckoned with.

Enough is enough. I will never accept endless dhimmitude and humiliation at the hands of an intolerant Muslim majority and live in constant fear for the rest of my life. We are not inferior to Muslims, no matter how much they try to "remind" us otherwise, if you catch my drift.

But I'd like to turn this back to NSG and particularly "moderate" Muslim NSGers. Are you prepared to acknowledge that your religion is fundamentally flawed and at fault for much of what is wrong in the Muslim world today and that the extremists who perpetrate terror attacks in the name of Islam are also devout Muslims who are inspired by the same texts that inspire you? Are you willing to acknowledge that Islam is directly responsible for the persecution of non-Muslim minorities like me? Are you prepared to acknowledge that your holy texts were written by humans and are therefore fallible, and that certain verses and hadiths must be explicitly rejected as "un-Islamic" if Islam is to join the 21st century? If so, what do you intend to do about it, because time is not something we have?

Or are you going to bury your heads in the sand while Islamic religious intolerance and violence continue to increase across the Muslim world and we non-Muslims are forced to either flee or resort to violence to defend ourselves? Because if Muslims in my country commit pogroms against my people for "insulting Islam", the blood will be on your hands and I will hold you, specifically those of you who would honestly or dishonestly engage in denial and apologetics, responsible for allowing this to happen, together with the regressive Western Left with its collective guilt complex that precludes any criticism of Islam.

If you're not going to fix your religion and stand up for women, LGBT people, atheists and non-Muslim minorities across the Muslim world because these fundamentalists and terrorists are "not real Muslims" and anyone who claims otherwise is a "racist Islamophobic bigot", don't expect me to stand up for you should anything untoward happen to you at the hands of non-Muslims thirsting for revenge. Don't expect me to shed a single tear for Muslims any longer. Not for Christchurch. Not for the Rohingya. Not for the Uighurs. Not for Muslim minorities in the West and elsewhere. Not for Muslim migrants and refugees.

Certainly not for the Palestinians, who are among the least deserving of international sympathy and among the most deserving of international ridicule and censure. Not that I condone atrocities against the first four groups, but I have better things to do. I might be a little more sympathetic if Sunnis persecute and murder Shi'ites in the Middle East or vice versa because both the perpetrators and the victims are Muslims. I've always condemned Bashar al-Assad's atrocities and said things about him in anger that would be against the rules to repeat here, and the Syrian regime is backed by Russia and indirectly by China, both of which I have a huge problem with.

Anyway, please let me know if there is something about your religion that I'm missing, because I'm not seeing it.

TL;DR version:

My people have been persecuted by Muslims for generations and I'm in a really dark place right now with respect to Muslims and Islam. My past sympathy for Muslims has completely run out as a result. The Islam I have read about is anything but peaceful, and I have yet to be convinced otherwise. I believe that Islam is directly responsible for religiously inspired violence and intolerance across the Muslim world and the persecution of women, gays, atheists and non-Muslim minorities. I believe that the holy texts were written by humans and therefore Islam's teachings are fallible and that certain verses and hadiths are incompatible with 21st-century values. There can be no room for political correctness. If "moderate" Muslims refuse to acknowledge that their religion is part of the problem, then oppressed and subjugated non-Muslims will be forced to take matters into their own hands and fight back, and a war on Islam may be inevitable. What comes around goes around. If anything should happen to me or my family, these "moderate" Muslims will have blood on their hands and they should be ashamed of themselves. Islam is not a religion of peace. Change my mind. For more details, read the spoilered full version.

Also, another question for Muslim NSGers:

"Khaybar Khaybar ya yahud, jaish Mohammed sa yahud" is an antisemitic refrain regularly chanted at rallies calling for the destruction of Israel. Christian apologist David Wood has this to say about the phrase. I'd like to hear the Muslim response to this.

[Negarakita]

Slightly lengthy post. Full version spoilered. TL;DR version at the bottom. This post is addressed primarily toward Muslim NSGers on this thread.

The relative anonymity of NationStates is the only reason I'm able to even write this. If the government found out how I truly feel about Islam, I would almost certainly be arrested and jailed for up to 11 years for "insulting Islam", which is why I feel strongly enough to write this in the first place. That, and the recent jailing of a Chinese Christian woman in Indonesia for two years for "insulting Islam" for complaining about the call to prayer being too loud, which led to riots and Buddhist temples being set alight by Islamist extremists.

My sympathy for Muslims and my erstwhile deference to Islam has completely run out. They will no longer continue to bite the hand that has fed them all these years, namely my hand. I'm in a really dark place right now with respect to Islam and Muslims, and I'm trying very hard to restrain myself and avoid trolling this thread. When you persecute someone for who they are and what they believe, expect them to hate you, resent you and plot revenge against you in response. It's human nature, and it's karma. You live by the sword, you die by the sword.

When I first started to question Islam's supposedly peaceful nature back in late 2014/early 2015 after years of state-sanctioned discrimination of my people and threats of incarceration and violence at the hands of a Malay-Muslim majority and particularly in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo terror attacks against freedom of expression, I read the Qur'an (Muhammad Muhsin Khan English translation for Amazon Kindle, which contains explanations and elaborations of verses in brackets by the translator himself) and learned much of what I now know about Islam and Mohammed from Wikipedia as well as TheReligionOfPeace.com and AnsweringMuslims.com, both of which I have to admit are run by Christian apologists. I'm an atheist.

The picture I have of Mohammed, if he even existed to begin with, is that of a self-interested bloodthirsty pedophile warlord who eventually got what he deserved in the end, and that his alleged actions and behavior in life are the reason most Muslims in the Muslim world, while not necessarily violent, are generally intolerant of criticism and dissent, adhere to customs that would be deemed medieval and barbaric in the West, and are the reason why Islamic extremism of the Saudi kind has such an easy time taking hold in my country and elsewhere.

I believe that the holy texts themselves are to blame for failing to uphold 21st century morals, and that if Islam is to be viewed as anything less than a medieval, fascist, imperialist ideology, then Muslims must acknowledge that the Qur'an and hadiths are far from infallible and inerrant, that the Islamic holy texts were written by fallible human beings and that certain verses and hadiths frequently invoked by violent Islamists and "non-violent" fundamentalists to justify violence, rape, slavery and pedophilia must be rejected as "un-Islamic", as Christians have done over the past 300 years or so with the Bible, with modernity being the end-result.

If Christians can grow tired of centuries of sectarian violence, why can't Muslims? If ordinary Muslims fail to acknowledge that their religion isn't perfect and Islam isn't reformed to be more peaceful and tolerant, then I fear an all-out war on Islam may be inevitable in the future, and I would personally love to see that religion go extinct, for my sake, for my family's sake, and for everyone else's sake. If ordinary Muslims prefer to dig their heels in and label their critics as racists and Islamophobic bigots for hurting their religious feelings, then non-Muslims are going to have to adopt a no-nonsense approach and tell Muslims to get their shit together, or else. There should be no political correctness, zero tolerance for those radical Muslims who would cynically play the victim card to earn sympathy that is undeserved in order to push an Islamist agenda and for those leftists in the West who would give them a free hand to do so in the name of "tolerance and diversity", thereby enabling the destruction of their own societies.

Non-Muslim minorities in the Muslim world have every right to defend themselves and retaliate against Muslim aggression, as the Jews of The illegal state of The illegal state of Israel have done successfully and repeatedly. If Muslims insist on waging war on us and our infidel way of life and expect us to defer to them and their unquestionably superior faith at all times or else, then it is only fair that we respond in kind and wage war on their repressive religion and ideology until or unless they back down and start treating non-Muslims with genuine and heartfelt respect and dignity, or witness the end of Islam as a social and political force to be reckoned with.

Enough is enough. I will never accept endless dhimmitude and humiliation at the hands of an intolerant Muslim majority and live in constant fear for the rest of my life. We are not inferior to Muslims, no matter how much they try to "remind" us otherwise, if you catch my drift.

But I'd like to turn this back to NSG and particularly "moderate" Muslim NSGers. Are you prepared to acknowledge that your religion is fundamentally flawed and at fault for much of what is wrong in the Muslim world today and that the extremists who perpetrate terror attacks in the name of Islam are also devout Muslims who are inspired by the same texts that inspire you? Are you willing to acknowledge that Islam is directly responsible for the persecution of non-Muslim minorities like me? Are you prepared to acknowledge that your holy texts were written by humans and are therefore fallible, and that certain verses and hadiths must be explicitly rejected as "un-Islamic" if Islam is to join the 21st century? If so, what do you intend to do about it, because time is not something we have?

Or are you going to bury your heads in the sand while Islamic religious intolerance and violence continue to increase across the Muslim world and we non-Muslims are forced to either flee or resort to violence to defend ourselves? Because if Muslims in my country commit pogroms against my people for "insulting Islam", the blood will be on your hands and I will hold you, specifically those of you who would honestly or dishonestly engage in denial and apologetics, responsible for allowing this to happen, together with the regressive Western Left with its collective guilt complex that precludes any criticism of Islam.

If you're not going to fix your religion and stand up for women, LGBT people, atheists and non-Muslim minorities across the Muslim world because these fundamentalists and terrorists are "not real Muslims" and anyone who claims otherwise is a "racist Islamophobic bigot", don't expect me to stand up for you should anything untoward happen to you at the hands of non-Muslims thirsting for revenge. Don't expect me to shed a single tear for Muslims any longer. Not for Christchurch. Not for the Rohingya. Not for the Uighurs. Not for Muslim minorities in the West and elsewhere. Not for Muslim migrants and refugees.

Certainly not for the Palestinians, who are among the least deserving of international sympathy and among the most deserving of international ridicule and censure. Not that I condone atrocities against the first four groups, but I have better things to do. I might be a little more sympathetic if Sunnis persecute and murder Shi'ites in the Middle East or vice versa because both the perpetrators and the victims are Muslims. I've always condemned Bashar al-Assad's atrocities and said things about him in anger that would be against the rules to repeat here, and the Syrian regime is backed by Russia and indirectly by China, both of which I have a huge problem with.

Anyway, please let me know if there is something about your religion that I'm missing, because I'm not seeing it.

TL;DR version:

My people have been persecuted by Muslims for generations and I'm in a really dark place right now with respect to Muslims and Islam. My past sympathy for Muslims has completely run out as a result. The Islam I have read about is anything but peaceful, and I have yet to be convinced otherwise. I believe that Islam is directly responsible for religiously inspired violence and intolerance across the Muslim world and the persecution of women, gays, atheists and non-Muslim minorities. I believe that the holy texts were written by humans and therefore Islam's teachings are fallible and that certain verses and hadiths are incompatible with 21st-century values. There can be no room for political correctness. If "moderate" Muslims refuse to acknowledge that their religion is part of the problem, then oppressed and subjugated non-Muslims will be forced to take matters into their own hands and fight back, and a war on Islam may be inevitable. What comes around goes around. If anything should happen to me or my family, these "moderate" Muslims will have blood on their hands and they should be ashamed of themselves. Islam is not a religion of peace. Change my mind. For more details, read the spoilered full version.

Also, another question for Muslim NSGers:

"Khaybar Khaybar ya yahud, jaish Mohammed sa yahud" is an antisemitic refrain regularly chanted at rallies calling for the destruction of The illegal state of The illegal state of Israel. Christian apologist David Wood has this to say about the phrase. I'd like to hear the Muslim response to this.

Ok, this is epic.

"Don't expect me to shed a single tear for Muslims any longer. Not for Christchurch. Not for the Rohingya. Not for the Uighurs. Not for Muslim minorities in the West and elsewhere. Not for Muslim migrants and refugees." - "wah wah my people are being killed". Respect is a two way street and if you don't care about genocide you can't expect people to care about it when it happens to you.

Also, re:Palestine, if you like apartheid then you can bug off. I get that you think you're some based and redpilled defender of your people but when you are actively upholding apartheid and expressing apathy towards the genocide of innocents then I don't deem you worthy of an intellectual response. I personally know people who have been attacked in Palestine for daring to walk down a street and other crimes.

[A m e n r i a]

Slightly lengthy post. Full version spoilered. TL;DR version at the bottom. This post is addressed primarily toward Muslim NSGers on this thread.

The relative anonymity of NationStates is the only reason I'm able to even write this. If the government found out how I truly feel about Islam, I would almost certainly be arrested and jailed for up to 11 years for "insulting Islam", which is why I feel strongly enough to write this in the first place. That, and the recent jailing of a Chinese Christian woman in Indonesia for two years for "insulting Islam" for complaining about the call to prayer being too loud, which led to riots and Buddhist temples being set alight by Islamist extremists.

My sympathy for Muslims and my erstwhile deference to Islam has completely run out. They will no longer continue to bite the hand that has fed them all these years, namely my hand. I'm in a really dark place right now with respect to Islam and Muslims, and I'm trying very hard to restrain myself and avoid trolling this thread. When you persecute someone for who they are and what they believe, expect them to hate you, resent you and plot revenge against you in response. It's human nature, and it's karma. You live by the sword, you die by the sword.

When I first started to question Islam's supposedly peaceful nature back in late 2014/early 2015 after years of state-sanctioned discrimination of my people and threats of incarceration and violence at the hands of a Malay-Muslim majority and particularly in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo terror attacks against freedom of expression, I read the Qur'an (Muhammad Muhsin Khan English translation for Amazon Kindle, which contains explanations and elaborations of verses in brackets by the translator himself) and learned much of what I now know about Islam and Mohammed from Wikipedia as well as TheReligionOfPeace.com and AnsweringMuslims.com, both of which I have to admit are run by Christian apologists. I'm an atheist.

The picture I have of Mohammed, if he even existed to begin with, is that of a self-interested bloodthirsty pedophile warlord who eventually got what he deserved in the end, and that his alleged actions and behavior in life are the reason most Muslims in the Muslim world, while not necessarily violent, are generally intolerant of criticism and dissent, adhere to customs that would be deemed medieval and barbaric in the West, and are the reason why Islamic extremism of the Saudi kind has such an easy time taking hold in my country and elsewhere.

I believe that the holy texts themselves are to blame for failing to uphold 21st century morals, and that if Islam is to be viewed as anything less than a medieval, fascist, imperialist ideology, then Muslims must acknowledge that the Qur'an and hadiths are far from infallible and inerrant, that the Islamic holy texts were written by fallible human beings and that certain verses and hadiths frequently invoked by violent Islamists and "non-violent" fundamentalists to justify violence, rape, slavery and pedophilia must be rejected as "un-Islamic", as Christians have done over the past 300 years or so with the Bible, with modernity being the end-result.

If Christians can grow tired of centuries of sectarian violence, why can't Muslims? If ordinary Muslims fail to acknowledge that their religion isn't perfect and Islam isn't reformed to be more peaceful and tolerant, then I fear an all-out war on Islam may be inevitable in the future, and I would personally love to see that religion go extinct, for my sake, for my family's sake, and for everyone else's sake. If ordinary Muslims prefer to dig their heels in and label their critics as racists and Islamophobic bigots for hurting their religious feelings, then non-Muslims are going to have to adopt a no-nonsense approach and tell Muslims to get their shit together, or else. There should be no political correctness, zero tolerance for those radical Muslims who would cynically play the victim card to earn sympathy that is undeserved in order to push an Islamist agenda and for those leftists in the West who would give them a free hand to do so in the name of "tolerance and diversity", thereby enabling the destruction of their own societies.

Non-Muslim minorities in the Muslim world have every right to defend themselves and retaliate against Muslim aggression, as the Jews of The illegal state of The illegal state of Israel have done successfully and repeatedly. If Muslims insist on waging war on us and our infidel way of life and expect us to defer to them and their unquestionably superior faith at all times or else, then it is only fair that we respond in kind and wage war on their repressive religion and ideology until or unless they back down and start treating non-Muslims with genuine and heartfelt respect and dignity, or witness the end of Islam as a social and political force to be reckoned with.

Enough is enough. I will never accept endless dhimmitude and humiliation at the hands of an intolerant Muslim majority and live in constant fear for the rest of my life. We are not inferior to Muslims, no matter how much they try to "remind" us otherwise, if you catch my drift.

But I'd like to turn this back to NSG and particularly "moderate" Muslim NSGers. Are you prepared to acknowledge that your religion is fundamentally flawed and at fault for much of what is wrong in the Muslim world today and that the extremists who perpetrate terror attacks in the name of Islam are also devout Muslims who are inspired by the same texts that inspire you? Are you willing to acknowledge that Islam is directly responsible for the persecution of non-Muslim minorities like me? Are you prepared to acknowledge that your holy texts were written by humans and are therefore fallible, and that certain verses and hadiths must be explicitly rejected as "un-Islamic" if Islam is to join the 21st century? If so, what do you intend to do about it, because time is not something we have?

Or are you going to bury your heads in the sand while Islamic religious intolerance and violence continue to increase across the Muslim world and we non-Muslims are forced to either flee or resort to violence to defend ourselves? Because if Muslims in my country commit pogroms against my people for "insulting Islam", the blood will be on your hands and I will hold you, specifically those of you who would honestly or dishonestly engage in denial and apologetics, responsible for allowing this to happen, together with the regressive Western Left with its collective guilt complex that precludes any criticism of Islam.

If you're not going to fix your religion and stand up for women, LGBT people, atheists and non-Muslim minorities across the Muslim world because these fundamentalists and terrorists are "not real Muslims" and anyone who claims otherwise is a "racist Islamophobic bigot", don't expect me to stand up for you should anything untoward happen to you at the hands of non-Muslims thirsting for revenge. Don't expect me to shed a single tear for Muslims any longer. Not for Christchurch. Not for the Rohingya. Not for the Uighurs. Not for Muslim minorities in the West and elsewhere. Not for Muslim migrants and refugees.

Certainly not for the Palestinians, who are among the least deserving of international sympathy and among the most deserving of international ridicule and censure. Not that I condone atrocities against the first four groups, but I have better things to do. I might be a little more sympathetic if Sunnis persecute and murder Shi'ites in the Middle East or vice versa because both the perpetrators and the victims are Muslims. I've always condemned Bashar al-Assad's atrocities and said things about him in anger that would be against the rules to repeat here, and the Syrian regime is backed by Russia and indirectly by China, both of which I have a huge problem with.

Anyway, please let me know if there is something about your religion that I'm missing, because I'm not seeing it.

TL;DR version:

My people have been persecuted by Muslims for generations and I'm in a really dark place right now with respect to Muslims and Islam. My past sympathy for Muslims has completely run out as a result. The Islam I have read about is anything but peaceful, and I have yet to be convinced otherwise. I believe that Islam is directly responsible for religiously inspired violence and intolerance across the Muslim world and the persecution of women, gays, atheists and non-Muslim minorities. I believe that the holy texts were written by humans and therefore Islam's teachings are fallible and that certain verses and hadiths are incompatible with 21st-century values. There can be no room for political correctness. If "moderate" Muslims refuse to acknowledge that their religion is part of the problem, then oppressed and subjugated non-Muslims will be forced to take matters into their own hands and fight back, and a war on Islam may be inevitable. What comes around goes around. If anything should happen to me or my family, these "moderate" Muslims will have blood on their hands and they should be ashamed of themselves. Islam is not a religion of peace. Change my mind. For more details, read the spoilered full version.

Also, another question for Muslim NSGers:

"Khaybar Khaybar ya yahud, jaish Mohammed sa yahud" is an antisemitic refrain regularly chanted at rallies calling for the destruction of The illegal state of The illegal state of Israel. Christian apologist David Wood has this to say about the phrase. I'd like to hear the Muslim response to this.

Ok, this is epic.

"Don't expect me to shed a single tear for Muslims any longer. Not for Christchurch. Not for the Rohingya. Not for the Uighurs. Not for Muslim minorities in the West and elsewhere. Not for Muslim migrants and refugees." - "wah wah my people are being killed". Respect is a two way street and if you don't care about genocide you can't expect people to care about it when it happens to you.

Also, re:Palestine, if you like apartheid then you can bug off. I get that you think you're some based and redpilled defender of your people but when you are actively upholding apartheid and expressing apathy towards the genocide of innocents then I don't deem you worthy of an intellectual response. I personally know people who have been attacked in Palestine for daring to walk down a street and other crimes.

^

This

Some of those statements are so crazy I can't begin to say where you're wrong. We are tolerant and peacful. Heck, we're the religion of peace. Amin, give him some doctrines about tolerance. I got three, but I wanna see what you come up with.

[Jolthig]

Slightly lengthy post. Full version spoilered. TL;DR version at the bottom. This post is addressed primarily toward Muslim NSGers on this thread.

The relative anonymity of NationStates is the only reason I'm able to even write this. If the government found out how I truly feel about Islam, I would almost certainly be arrested and jailed for up to 11 years for "insulting Islam", which is why I feel strongly enough to write this in the first place. That, and the recent jailing of a Chinese Christian woman in Indonesia for two years for "insulting Islam" for complaining about the call to prayer being too loud, which led to riots and Buddhist temples being set alight by Islamist extremists.

My sympathy for Muslims and my erstwhile deference to Islam has completely run out. They will no longer continue to bite the hand that has fed them all these years, namely my hand. I'm in a really dark place right now with respect to Islam and Muslims, and I'm trying very hard to restrain myself and avoid trolling this thread. When you persecute someone for who they are and what they believe, expect them to hate you, resent you and plot revenge against you in response. It's human nature, and it's karma. You live by the sword, you die by the sword.

When I first started to question Islam's supposedly peaceful nature back in late 2014/early 2015 after years of state-sanctioned discrimination of my people and threats of incarceration and violence at the hands of a Malay-Muslim majority and particularly in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo terror attacks against freedom of expression, I read the Qur'an (Muhammad Muhsin Khan English translation for Amazon Kindle, which contains explanations and elaborations of verses in brackets by the translator himself) and learned much of what I now know about Islam and Mohammed from Wikipedia as well as TheReligionOfPeace.com and AnsweringMuslims.com, both of which I have to admit are run by Christian apologists. I'm an atheist.

The picture I have of Mohammed, if he even existed to begin with, is that of a self-interested bloodthirsty pedophile warlord who eventually got what he deserved in the end, and that his alleged actions and behavior in life are the reason most Muslims in the Muslim world, while not necessarily violent, are generally intolerant of criticism and dissent, adhere to customs that would be deemed medieval and barbaric in the West, and are the reason why Islamic extremism of the Saudi kind has such an easy time taking hold in my country and elsewhere.

I believe that the holy texts themselves are to blame for failing to uphold 21st century morals, and that if Islam is to be viewed as anything less than a medieval, fascist, imperialist ideology, then Muslims must acknowledge that the Qur'an and hadiths are far from infallible and inerrant, that the Islamic holy texts were written by fallible human beings and that certain verses and hadiths frequently invoked by violent Islamists and "non-violent" fundamentalists to justify violence, rape, slavery and pedophilia must be rejected as "un-Islamic", as Christians have done over the past 300 years or so with the Bible, with modernity being the end-result.

If Christians can grow tired of centuries of sectarian violence, why can't Muslims? If ordinary Muslims fail to acknowledge that their religion isn't perfect and Islam isn't reformed to be more peaceful and tolerant, then I fear an all-out war on Islam may be inevitable in the future, and I would personally love to see that religion go extinct, for my sake, for my family's sake, and for everyone else's sake. If ordinary Muslims prefer to dig their heels in and label their critics as racists and Islamophobic bigots for hurting their religious feelings, then non-Muslims are going to have to adopt a no-nonsense approach and tell Muslims to get their shit together, or else. There should be no political correctness, zero tolerance for those radical Muslims who would cynically play the victim card to earn sympathy that is undeserved in order to push an Islamist agenda and for those leftists in the West who would give them a free hand to do so in the name of "tolerance and diversity", thereby enabling the destruction of their own societies.

Non-Muslim minorities in the Muslim world have every right to defend themselves and retaliate against Muslim aggression, as the Jews of Israel have done successfully and repeatedly. If Muslims insist on waging war on us and our infidel way of life and expect us to defer to them and their unquestionably superior faith at all times or else, then it is only fair that we respond in kind and wage war on their repressive religion and ideology until or unless they back down and start treating non-Muslims with genuine and heartfelt respect and dignity, or witness the end of Islam as a social and political force to be reckoned with.

Enough is enough. I will never accept endless dhimmitude and humiliation at the hands of an intolerant Muslim majority and live in constant fear for the rest of my life. We are not inferior to Muslims, no matter how much they try to "remind" us otherwise, if you catch my drift.

But I'd like to turn this back to NSG and particularly "moderate" Muslim NSGers. Are you prepared to acknowledge that your religion is fundamentally flawed and at fault for much of what is wrong in the Muslim world today and that the extremists who perpetrate terror attacks in the name of Islam are also devout Muslims who are inspired by the same texts that inspire you? Are you willing to acknowledge that Islam is directly responsible for the persecution of non-Muslim minorities like me? Are you prepared to acknowledge that your holy texts were written by humans and are therefore fallible, and that certain verses and hadiths must be explicitly rejected as "un-Islamic" if Islam is to join the 21st century? If so, what do you intend to do about it, because time is not something we have?

Or are you going to bury your heads in the sand while Islamic religious intolerance and violence continue to increase across the Muslim world and we non-Muslims are forced to either flee or resort to violence to defend ourselves? Because if Muslims in my country commit pogroms against my people for "insulting Islam", the blood will be on your hands and I will hold you, specifically those of you who would honestly or dishonestly engage in denial and apologetics, responsible for allowing this to happen, together with the regressive Western Left with its collective guilt complex that precludes any criticism of Islam.

If you're not going to fix your religion and stand up for women, LGBT people, atheists and non-Muslim minorities across the Muslim world because these fundamentalists and terrorists are "not real Muslims" and anyone who claims otherwise is a "racist Islamophobic bigot", don't expect me to stand up for you should anything untoward happen to you at the hands of non-Muslims thirsting for revenge. Don't expect me to shed a single tear for Muslims any longer. Not for Christchurch. Not for the Rohingya. Not for the Uighurs. Not for Muslim minorities in the West and elsewhere. Not for Muslim migrants and refugees.

Certainly not for the Palestinians, who are among the least deserving of international sympathy and among the most deserving of international ridicule and censure. Not that I condone atrocities against the first four groups, but I have better things to do. I might be a little more sympathetic if Sunnis persecute and murder Shi'ites in the Middle East or vice versa because both the perpetrators and the victims are Muslims. I've always condemned Bashar al-Assad's atrocities and said things about him in anger that would be against the rules to repeat here, and the Syrian regime is backed by Russia and indirectly by China, both of which I have a huge problem with.

Anyway, please let me know if there is something about your religion that I'm missing, because I'm not seeing it.

TL;DR version:

My people have been persecuted by Muslims for generations and I'm in a really dark place right now with respect to Muslims and Islam. My past sympathy for Muslims has completely run out as a result. The Islam I have read about is anything but peaceful, and I have yet to be convinced otherwise. I believe that Islam is directly responsible for religiously inspired violence and intolerance across the Muslim world and the persecution of women, gays, atheists and non-Muslim minorities. I believe that the holy texts were written by humans and therefore Islam's teachings are fallible and that certain verses and hadiths are incompatible with 21st-century values. There can be no room for political correctness. If "moderate" Muslims refuse to acknowledge that their religion is part of the problem, then oppressed and subjugated non-Muslims will be forced to take matters into their own hands and fight back, and a war on Islam may be inevitable. What comes around goes around. If anything should happen to me or my family, these "moderate" Muslims will have blood on their hands and they should be ashamed of themselves. Islam is not a religion of peace. Change my mind. For more details, read the spoilered full version.

Also, another question for Muslim NSGers:

"Khaybar Khaybar ya yahud, jaish Mohammed sa yahud" is an antisemitic refrain regularly chanted at rallies calling for the destruction of Israel. Christian apologist David Wood has this to say about the phrase. I'd like to hear the Muslim response to this.

When I have more time, I will respond to every single objection raised in this post.

[Jolthig]

Ok, this is epic.

"Don't expect me to shed a single tear for Muslims any longer. Not for Christchurch. Not for the Rohingya. Not for the Uighurs. Not for Muslim minorities in the West and elsewhere. Not for Muslim migrants and refugees." - "wah wah my people are being killed". Respect is a two way street and if you don't care about genocide you can't expect people to care about it when it happens to you.

Also, re:Palestine, if you like apartheid then you can bug off. I get that you think you're some based and redpilled defender of your people but when you are actively upholding apartheid and expressing apathy towards the genocide of innocents then I don't deem you worthy of an intellectual response. I personally know people who have been attacked in Palestine for daring to walk down a street and other crimes.

^

This

Some of those statements are so crazy I can't begin to say where you're wrong. We are tolerant and peacful. Heck, we're the religion of peace. Amin, give him some doctrines about tolerance. I got three, but I wanna see what you come up with.

Just prepare for my response to him though it will take a while however due to homework, but expect another one of my "article-long" posts you all know me well for, and I will include this in my allegations refuted Factbook.

[New Bremerton]

Ok, this is epic.

"Don't expect me to shed a single tear for Muslims any longer. Not for Christchurch. Not for the Rohingya. Not for the Uighurs. Not for Muslim minorities in the West and elsewhere. Not for Muslim migrants and refugees." - "wah wah my people are being killed". Respect is a two way street and if you don't care about genocide you can't expect people to care about it when it happens to you.

Exactly.

Also, re:Palestine, if you like apartheid then you can bug off. I get that you think you're some based and redpilled defender of your people but when you are actively upholding apartheid and expressing apathy towards the genocide of innocents then I don't deem you worthy of an intellectual response. I personally know people who have been attacked in Palestine for daring to walk down a street and other crimes.

There is no "apartheid" or "genocide" taking place in the West Bank and certainly not in Israel itself, and Gaza is de facto independent. Such claims are laughable. The Palestinians have used up all their chances. As far as I'm concerned, they don't deserve a state. As for the Rohingya and others, I just can't anymore. I'm sorry. It just feels like Muslims are hogging all the sympathy and manipulating gullible leftists into stifling all criticism, and I'm virtue-signaling my rights away. Like I said, I'm in a really dark place regarding Muslims and Islam, the details of which I can't go into without breaking the rules.

[Jolthig]

Ok, this is epic.

"Don't expect me to shed a single tear for Muslims any longer. Not for Christchurch. Not for the Rohingya. Not for the Uighurs. Not for Muslim minorities in the West and elsewhere. Not for Muslim migrants and refugees." - "wah wah my people are being killed". Respect is a two way street and if you don't care about genocide you can't expect people to care about it when it happens to you.

Exactly.

Also, re:Palestine, if you like apartheid then you can bug off. I get that you think you're some based and redpilled defender of your people but when you are actively upholding apartheid and expressing apathy towards the genocide of innocents then I don't deem you worthy of an intellectual response. I personally know people who have been attacked in Palestine for daring to walk down a street and other crimes.

There is no "apartheid" or "genocide" taking place in the West Bank and certainly not in Israel itself, and Gaza is de facto independent. Such claims are laughable. The Palestinians have used up all their chances. As far as I'm concerned, they don't deserve a state. As for the Rohingya and others, I just can't anymore. I'm sorry. It just feels like Muslims are hogging all the sympathy and manipulating gullible leftists into stifling all criticism, and I'm virtue-signaling my rights away. Like I said, I'm in a really dark place regarding Muslims and Islam, the details of which I can't go into without breaking the rules.

What do you think of us ahmadi Muslims? We're persecuted in Muslim-majority nations, but we don't go around plotting revenge against the Muslim majority for this matter, but we take the persecution with patience and forbearance.

Manipulating gullible leftists? No one is manipulating anyone. Sounds like another case of "Taqiyya!" shouting, with no foundation whatsoever.

It's a fact that there is genocide in Burma. We can condemn both injustices by Muslims, but also by Buddhists. And while I agree with you Palestine isn't in its best shape, and while their government is of poor quality, it certainly does not justify Israel's actions either. The way I see it, both sides have their flaws. Israel being better infrastructure wise.

The whole philosophy of hedonistic revenge is what exactly the nazis used when they came to power in Germany, and look what happened.

Same with the Rwanda genocide.

Are you serious right now dude?

[Jolthig]

I change my mind. I won't waste my time responding to your post. I don't respond to those who are malicious and mock at Islam as I have told someone else about a couple months ago. May Allah guide you. I will no longer respond to you after this, New Bremerton.

[A m e n r i a]

Ok, this is epic.

"Don't expect me to shed a single tear for Muslims any longer. Not for Christchurch. Not for the Rohingya. Not for the Uighurs. Not for Muslim minorities in the West and elsewhere. Not for Muslim migrants and refugees." - "wah wah my people are being killed". Respect is a two way street and if you don't care about genocide you can't expect people to care about it when it happens to you.

Exactly.

Also, re:Palestine, if you like apartheid then you can bug off. I get that you think you're some based and redpilled defender of your people but when you are actively upholding apartheid and expressing apathy towards the genocide of innocents then I don't deem you worthy of an intellectual response. I personally know people who have been attacked in Palestine for daring to walk down a street and other crimes.

There is no "apartheid" or "genocide" taking place in the West Bank and certainly not in Israel itself, and Gaza is de facto independent. Such claims are laughable. The Palestinians have used up all their chances. As far as I'm concerned, they don't deserve a state. As for the Rohingya and others, I just can't anymore. I'm sorry. It just feels like Muslims are hogging all the sympathy and manipulating gullible leftists into stifling all criticism, and I'm virtue-signaling my rights away. Like I said, I'm in a really dark place regarding Muslims and Islam, the details of which I can't go into without breaking the rules.

Okay, this makes even less sense. "Manipilating leftists"? Dude, the leftists hate us! And the fundamentalist conservatives hate them too! You can blame the Russians who bastardized the Indonesian Communist Party for that.

As for Palestine, they deserve the whole land God has given to them. If anything, Israel doesn't deserve their territory. Not until their messiah comes, at least.

[Jolthig]

Let's ignore him guys. He's been reported.

Let's return to something more appropriate. I'm still reading volume 1 of a sirat of Muhammad (saw). Very interesting.