Oh, but the teachings of Islam are perfectly clear

Submitted by Alain Jean-Mairet (Switzerland), Jun 17, 2006 at 03:08

Muslims had to define them, and they did. Along the way, they built half a dozen (important) independent schools of jurisprudence (madhahib) in order to clarify those teachings. And all those schools have agreed on jihad (military expedition against non Muslims to expand Islam's territory), dhimma (humiliating statute for people of other recognized faiths), hududs (mandatory fixed public bodily punishments) or slavery (which become en extremely fruitful economic activity in Islam).

These are hard, quite consensual, facts. And let's consider that those legal teachings were jurists' work, that is, the result of a very serious, rationale and collegial – and thus most solid and trusted – process of interpretation. Let's add that those teachings, made laws (charia), God's laws at it were, have guided the strongest forces (police, army, justice) of Islamic societies. Therefore, this is what Islam has been doing, and does, most predominantly, as a matter of facts, guided by its teachings.

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