Observations about Muslims in non-Muslim societies

Submitted by Prashant (India), Sep 28, 2022 at 01:17

Dear Dr Pipes, During my visit to India I got a chance to observe Islamic sections of the Indian society more closely. My fear is that the threat of Islam to other religions, societies and civilizations is more serious than what we assume. I will like the people who live in multi-faith societies, like Northern states of Nigeria, East Jerusalem, South Africa, Singapore, United Kingdom, etc., to confirm or deny my observations.

Indian Muslims of today are different from the Indian Muslims of 25 years ago. In those days, there were no Hijabs on the street and only old and/or religious Muslim men grew beard. White skull caps were hardly visible on the streets. Burkhas in those days were confined to women in rural and poor regions. Now, it is easy to find people on the street who look Muslims by their attire and/or grooming. Arabic versions of women's head covering are making way into the Islamic sections of Indian society. I must add Christian/Zoroastrian/Jains/Buddhist people in India are completely unrecognizable in the society. Hindus can sometimes be recognized by a small mark on their forehead or a thread in their wrist. Short of that they are also unrecognizable. This Sikhs are, of course, very easily recognizable but they have been that way for centuries.

No one can ever prove that Muslims' choice of how they dress and groom themselves is dictated by religion or politics but it is always protected by their civil rights. On the surface, it is quite harmless. You meet a Muslim fruit vendor, bank clerk, cab driver etc. and they pretend to be well integrated into the society. But the threat becomes apparent when you go dig deeper.

When you visit the Muslim ghettos, you see huge congregations of people praying together. These prayers do not happen just three or four times a year. They happen every week and sometimes every day. Even five times a day.

When you fall in love with a stranger, you discover that you have no choice but to convert to the religion of the stranger if the he or she happens to be a Muslim.

When you watch a cricket match on the TV, an Indian Christian will never support the English cricket team but you might find people chanting slogans for Pakistani Cricket team in Muslim ghettos.

When you meet a politician in India, you will find him lying like politicians every where. But if he is a Muslim politicians, he will be constantly lying and trumpeting the cause of Islam and Muslims.

On some topics related to the world politics, Islamic opinion is always fixed. I have never met a Muslim who supports Israel, for example.

The list can go on and on.

President Obama once boasted that Muslims have always been a part of America (https://www.firstpost.com/world/muslims-have-always-been-a-part-of-america-barack-obama-2907962.html).
Being a part of a society is not enough. A well-integrated Sikh/Jew/Christian/Hindu/Jain/Atheist is not the same as a Muslim who appears to be well-integrated. The latter is an agent of Islam and is constantly advancing the Islamic political and religious agenda.

Muslims thrive on this pattern.

Islamic amalgamation of religion and politics needs to be broken.

The people who convert to Islam for marriage and love need to be told that reciting two Arabic verses at the time of Nikah is not as innocuous as it sounds.

The naïve people who get impressed by Islam's stubborn monotheism must be told that if they are looking for strict Monotheism, Islam is not the answer because it comes with a huge baggage.

The people who run away from their religions to the faults that they find in them, need to be told that Islam will give them fewer avenues to find faults in Islam and little of no change to leave Islam.

It is not that Islam has no people with rational, objective, or rebellious outlook. The problem is that a smaller percentage of Muslims have such outlooks and that is exactly what Islam needs to grow and thrive and change the demographics of a society. That is why the threat of Islam to other cultures and religions is bigger than what it might seem.

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