Live and Let Live....?

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"Faith also has to be connected with how you treat your fellow human beings"

Catherine Hicks

Much has been written about Islam, its ethics, and its relationships with other religions. Despite this large volume of work, there appears to be something always missing, something even more basic and important to people of all faiths. What is missing is the basic need to study and understand of the faith of Islam with regards to governance and the laws that the Qur'an teaches, particularly regarding its relationship to what we call democracy. The goal of this article is to fill the gap by providing investigations and in presenting its findings.

Why should we choose this subject? The need arises because, throughout the world, we receive starkly conflicting information about the Islamic laws that govern people living under it...

Muslim apologists claim that Islam is a religion of peace! They also claim that our democratic traditions of religious tolerance require us to respect the freedom of Muslims to practice Islam. At the same time, we see Muslims practicing violent religious intolerance around the world???

Now why did I put question marks at the end of the previous sentence...? Well to my understanding, this intolerance of the religion of Islam is often against their non-Islamic neighbors. They range from Orthodox Russians to Sudanese Christians, Hindu Indians, Catholic Filipinos, Buddhist Thais, to other such non Islamic faith followers. Additionally, Muslims also practice religious intolerance against each other as well. We hear of Sunni Muslims persecuting Shia'ite Muslims, Shia'ite Muslims persecuting Sunni Muslims, Ismailies, Deobandis, Barelvis, and Wahhabis persecuting everyone else.

Clearly, something is very wrong with this picture? Yet many people fail to associate the violence committed by these Muslims with Islam itself! They steadfastly seek alternative explanations, such as colonialism, tribal tensions, racism, bigotry and poverty. They refuse to even consider the idea that Islam may be inherently aggressive and intolerant towards other religions or to those who don't agree to its' laws.

This self-deception cannot continue for too long now!!! Islam's presence and influence is growing throughout the world and it demands our great attention. For example, Nigeria's northern states announced their conversion to Islamic Laws in 2002 by sentencing several women to death by stoning for adultery. In 2006, the entire nation of Denmark was terrorized by Muslims around the world because a mid-sized, independent Danish newspaper published some political cartoons of their beloved Prophet Muhammad.

An ever-growing cascade of violence tells us that we are approaching a time when we will have no choice but to confront two disturbing possibilities:

•     Islam is fundamentally incompatible with democracy as we know it, because it opposes the individual freedoms and protections that citizens of democracies cherish.

•     Muslims are in the process of using our own democratic institutions to subvert democracy and to replace democratically determined laws with the Islamic Laws.

Before you dismiss these words as bigotry, please allow me to explain:

I talk about the United States because; the U.S. has embraced principles of tolerance and freedom that may be described as "live and let live."

When this quote is applied to religion, "live and let live" means that no one has the right to force their beliefs on others; nor may they prevent others from changing and challenging their beliefs!

While the Americans may not always live up to these principles, we aspire to them, and use our freedoms to correct ourselves as we progress...

Our virtues of tolerance and freedom are essential parts of what we call democracy. The political theorists usually call this as the Liberal Democracy or the Western Democracy.

In dare to speak situations, this form of democracy is called Free Democracy...

Religious tolerance is an essential principle we live by. In the United States and throughout the Westernized world, this principle has evolved from centuries of futile religious battles that caused us to violate the very beliefs we claimed to fight for. It was codified in complete form by the Constitution of the United States. This has been an example and a beacon of hope for nations around the world. While these nations have created constitutions of their own to serve their particular circumstances, the U.S. Constitution has remained a guiding reference for progressive thinkers everywhere. Why is this constitution so revered? This is because it exemplifies a framework for governance that grants unprecedented powers and freedom to its citizens. In contrast, there is a part of the world where Free Democracy has not flourished, and its freedoms are not valued. Free Democracy did not evolve just there only. We are discovering this in newer civilized nations, who are modernizing their countries with innovative technologies, ideas, and by constantly travelling to and fro to these westernized countries. They know that it does not grow there, despite a variety of working examples in other parts of the world. This infertile soil in the House of Islam tries to adapt to the lush green valleys, where every seed that germinates has its' own freedom to grow and glow and bear sweet fruits.

Why this form of democracy which we dearly cherish has, has failed to take roots and not grow in the Islamic world??? The plain reason is because, Islam ties religion and politics together in a Gordian knot!!! Islam has its own body of laws, known as the Shari'ah and these laws sharply oppose Free Democracy.

Islam and Free Democracy are as opposed to each other as Communism and Free Democracy, or Fascism and Free Democracy.

Many people refuse to consider the possibility that Islam and Free Democracy are irreconcilably opposed to each other. After all, the benefits of Free Democracy are obvious, and many Islamic nations have worked diligently to adopt it. Unfortunately, the fruits of these efforts confirm that Islam and Free Democracy do not mix and never will!

Islamic nations like Turkey, Egypt, and Algeria have histories of secular governments, but these governments have uneasy relationships with their Citizens... These nations have often found themselves resorting to warlike tactics against Islamic fundamentalists to preserve themselves. In Iran, Islam's mullahs won such a war, and they now use their authority to thwart the superficially democratic institutions they control.

What makes Islam different from other religions? Why is it so hostile to Free Democracy? To put it plainly, it does not believe in "live and let live." Devout Muslims do not feel obligated to convince others to convert to Islam through reason! Instead, the Qur'an encourages them to use persecutions...

According to the holy Qur'an, people of other faiths are allowed to continue in their practices only if they acknowledge that Islam is a superior religion and that they pay extortion money to the Islamic governments in the form of special taxes called 'Jaziya'. This exception, which is extolled by Muslims as an example of tolerance, is actually designed to grind down other religions to just plain nothings over time. To people who are weak, or young in their faiths, this persecution raises a vary question: "Why to pay extra taxes and accept an inferior position in society when all I have to do is convert to Islam?"

In a sense, these mercenary conversions are a saving grace. There are many Muslims in the world who are Muslim in name only. They know that if they left Islam, their Apostasy would be considered a capital crime. They are prisoners of their own faiths instead being of believers!!! The apparent strength of Islam can therefore be deceptive, and many nominal Muslims are far more benevolent than Islam calls them to be...

Many of the Westerners grew up ignorant of Islam and therefore, with few experiences and knowledge to contradict their democracy-inspired beliefs; which seek to accommodate different religions... We have absorbed the notions that, the world's religions are as merely different paths to the same goals? For people who still believe this, these words come as a shock, because Islam violates these assumptions point blankly...

Islam is overtly hostile towards other religions! More importantly, it will show that Islam is overtly hostile to non-Islamic governments which we need to uncover the subterranean wars that the Muslims are currently waging against the world's Free Democracies.

We need right now to lay out these issues, provide references to back them up, and begin to discuss these actions that Westerners can take to preserve Free Democracy for our future generations.

The holy book of Islam quotes extensively from the holy Qur'an (a compilation of recitations that Muhammad claimed were Allah's) and the Hadiths (compilations of Muhammad's other words and deeds), as well as the recent news articles and modern religious books written by Muslims.

It does so to demonstrate two key points:

1.   The portions of Islamic holy scriptures that carry disturbing messages are not merely stray quotes in the otherwise benign books. They are essential components of Islam, and the Qur'an and the Hadiths emphasize them repeatedly. Faithful Muslims take these messages seriously and act on them.

2.   The actions of Islamic terrorists around the world are not merely the products of a few deviant minds or some splinter groups but thee commands come from the violent messages of one "eternal" source -The Islamic Holy Scriptures!

As long as Islam is treated as a respectable religion, and not as a hostile political ideology bent on global domination, Islam will forever continue to expand and sow its seeds of terror and hatred throughout the world. If we allow this to happen and don't heed to these warnings; the nations  of the world that currently embrace Free Democracy may one day may find themselves destitute and chaotic. These countries with their democratic laws will ultimately to be replaced by the Islamic ones.

I have read recently this book "Islamic Jihad: A Legacy of Forced Conversion, Imperialism and Slavery (by MA Khan)". Here Mr. Khan has detailed a very deep understanding that our 'tomorrows' world will be like hell, as Islam will spread to all parts of the four corners of the world...

Islam deceives the world not just by its' impressive populational growth or like the flowery fields in valleys, but in reality it lies thru its' princely teeth. Portraying rosy garden which has carnivorous plants Nepenthes mirabilis disguised as beautiful flowery plant which grows in a care free environment....

I would like to quote the great Mr. Ali Sina from his recent article "The Illusion of Reforming Islam'.

"Islam cannot be reformed. They tried it in every imaginable way. The Mu'tazelis tired it, the Sufis tried it, hundreds of old and new schools tried it and they all failed. If you cannot stomach the Sharia'h, why do you want to keep Islam at all? Islam belongs to the toilet of history. Dump it and flush. Get rid of it and don't fool yourself with this nonsense. Accept the truth. Yes truth matters. Islam is a lie"...