For Reema: Islam and polemics, and "one of my closest friend is a Christian" part two!!
Reader comment on item: Female Desire and Islamic Trauma
in response to reader comment: No the media is not the enemy of Islam. And I am not kidding!

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Aug 8, 2006 at 07:45

Hi Reema:

Your above remark about: "one of my closest friends is a Christian" is, and you must pardon me, a patronizing remark. More later.

But again you are the victim of the very poor Islamic theology that is based on polemics against the other great religions of humanity be it Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism (oh I forgot here that the author(s) of the Qur'an had no clue that such great religions as Hinduism or Buddhism did exist, which makes you wonder that Allah was indeed an Arabian God nothing more and nothing less after all can you imagine fasting for 24 hours if you happen to live in the arctic during the month of Ramadan? But again Allah only knew Arabia and nothing beyond), Atheists, Sikhs, Mormons etc...

John Wansbrough in his great books: "Quranic Studies" and "Sectarian Milieu" subjects the early Muslim literature to literary criticism and the end result is indeed very startling (included here would be that the Qur'an was not canonized until the 8th century) but most significant was the fact that Islam is the by-product of the great sectarian debates between the great religions in the Middle East in the late antique period and _prior_ to the Arab invasion of the Middle East in 635 CE. So you are partially correct when you mentioned some thing to the effect that Islam is an extension of Judaism and Christianity.

What Muhammad presented nothing new but was old polemics agaisnt the Jews and Christians and hence the term "Sectarian Milieu." What Wansbrough proposes is that when the Arabs invaded the Middle East in 635 CE the invading Arab polity had no defined religion (and this is indeed correct as all the major works abotu Islam including examination of the Arabic grammar, the Muslim masora, the hadith, sira , law etc...were written in the 3rd century of Islam and afterwards. More puzzling is that the name of Muhammad does not appear in extant Arabic literature until 72 years after his death, the word Islam does nto appear until 691 CE during the building of al-Masjad al-Aqsa, the word Muslimeen does not appear until 767 CE !!) This invading polity selected an emerging religion and that religion is what was to become Islam. And this indeed makes much sense as the rule of the Arabs in their own civilization (the examination of the Arabic langauge grammar and all, the Islamic law, the collection of the hadith, the sira are the products of non-Arabs! and for this see Ali Dashti) So what did the Arabs do? They did what they always did best and that is invade, rape, enslave people, collect ghanima etc...and have the audacity to claim that such atrocities are committed in the name of their God!

So where would such polemics fit in here? Muhammad or is it Allah claims the following:

1. Jews and Chrstians did corrupt their books. Which is a big time joke.

2. Shirk is the major sin in Islam (notice that it is not killing innocent people as in the 9/11 atrocity! It makes you wonder why is Allah that insecure)

3. Then Allah accuses the Jews and Christians (See Q 9:30 and for Christians only see Q112) of being mushrikeen. Your Allah is attacking some of the major tenants of such religions. If this is not intolerance, I have no idea what intolerance would be. So Christians believe in the Trinity why should Allah be upset? all it takes if he is really omnipotent is that he can change this without being involved in polemics.

4. Then your Allah declares in ayat al-saif (Q9:5) that Muslims should kill al-mushrikeen ( I know that you sound like a good person and you would not do such a thing).

5. And as usual the Qur'an is such a confused piece of literature your Allah demands in Q9:29 that because Jews and Christians (defined as ahl al-kitab) are mushrikeen in Q9:30 Muslims must declare _unconditional_ war against them until Islam becomes the dominant religion. So much for the peace of all of humanity. And then your Allah demads that Jews and Christians that do not convert to Islam pay this mafia tax called Jizya (Q9:29)! So much for Islam and tolerance.

To add insult to injury later on the 'Ulama added Hindus and Buddhists to the term ahl al-kitab! This way Muslims can collect more mafia taz AKA jizya.

I just wonder: did you as a palestinian ever ask yourself why did your ancestors convert to the religion of the Arabs? And did the invading Arabs brutalize them and tax them to death? The destruction of the major civilizations (languages and religions and all) of the Middle East in the late antique period by the invading Arabs is one of the major crimes agaist humanity. So much for Arabian imperialism.

So you see my dear reema that Muhammad or is it Allah created fault lines between Muslims and the rest of humanity that cannot be fixed because if you try to fix them Islam would fall apart. And these fault are the following:

1. The in-equality of Muslims and non-Muslims.

2. The in-equality of men and women.

3. Islam is both anti-human and anti-reason

But the final nail in the coffin of the islamic theology is why would the God of the universe get himself involved in polemics which is a very human activity? And why would he ask Muslims to do the dirty work for him as in killing al-mushrikeen and fighting ahl al-kitab unless he is not omnipotent as he claims after all he can change the hearts and mind of us proud kuffar without creating wars. What do you think my dear Reema?

So do us all a favor and stop repeating your little gem: "one of my closest friends is a Christian" because it is a patronizing remark.

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