The
website Islam Q&A gives an explanation of why it is forbidden for
Muslim men to wear silk in this life, but permitted in Paradise, just as
the case is with wine, which is also forbidden on Earth but exists in
abundance in the afterlife. Islam is adept at taking something away from
its Believers, but promising lots of it to them after death. Again, it
doesn’t matter to a true Believer whether this makes any sense. Islam
means “submission,” so you should simply submit to the wisdom of
Allah:
Why are men not allowed to wear
silk?
It is not right to make following a
command or prohibition dependent upon knowing the wisdom behind it; rather
we should hasten to carry out the commands of sharee’ah, regardless of
whether the wisdom behind it is clear to us or not. If it is clear, then
praise be to Allaah, and if it is not, then the Muslim should not let the
fact that he does not know it prevent him from acting in accordance with
the ruling of sharee’ah. Islam means submission to Allaah, may He be
exalted, and obeying Him. If a person makes his actions dependent on
understanding matters which may or may not convince him, he is in effect
following his own thoughts and desires, not his Lord and Master. (….)
(silk) was basically created for women, as is the case with gold jewellery,
so it was forbidden for men because it can corrupt them by making them
resemble women. (…) when it touches the body, it makes a man effeminate
and goes against his masculinity and manliness, so if he wears it his
heart gains the characteristics of femininity and softness. There is no
doubt that wearing silk will diminish manly characteristics(…) Whoever
is too dense to understand this should just submit to the Wise
Lawmaker.”
Yes, the Internet is important in this struggle, but it is at least as
important for informing non-Muslims about the true nature of Islam as
enlightening Muslims, many of whom will be mentally immune to criticism of
Islam. Some of them, however, can be reached. There are approximately one
billion nominal Muslims in the world. How many of these are secret
ex-Muslims? Ibn Warraq has estimated that 10- 15% of the Muslims in the UK
are actually apostates. If that percentage reflects the Islamic world as a
whole, we are talking about a number of people the equivalent of a country
the size of Japan. Even half of this is a country the size of Britain.
Although only a (fast-growing) minority of Muslims around the world have
access to the Internet, simple mathematics indicate that there are already
hundreds of thousands, probably millions or maybe even tens of millions of
ex-Muslims in cyberspace. This, as well as additional tens of millions of
Muslims who already have at least some doubts, is the soft underbelly of
Islam.
We’re now stuck in a race against time, and Muslims know it. That’s
why they are working so hard to shut down freedom of speech and any
“mockery” or rational criticism targeting Islam in infidel countries.
Will Muslims bomb away freedom of speech in the West before we detonate
this unexploded bomb underneath Islam’s feet? Every time they hit us
with a terrorist attack, we should respond by increasing the volume of
criticism of Islam in circulation on the Internet. Some would claim that
this isn’t our fight. It is now. Ernest Renan has said that if there
ever was something like a Reformation in the Islamic world, the West
should gracefully stay out of it. However, he lived in the 19th century
and could not have imagined that we would be stupid enough to let millions
of Muslims settle in our major cities. We are implicated now, whether we
want to or not. We are no longer just fighting against Islam but for our
own freedom of speech, and thus democracy itself. Maybe we cannot slay
this dragon, but we can certainly help the people who can.
Muhammad and his thugs went to great lengths already in the early days of
Islam to shut up critics. The punishment for leaving Islam is death, a
fact which has largely kept organized groups of ex-Muslims from forming.
Until now. With a significant Muslim presence in the West, we see elements
of such groups forming for the first time in history. Secret ex-Muslims
around the world are quietly watching these developments. Some are
stepping forward.
Dr. Wafa Sultan was a largely unknown Syrian-American psychiatrist living
outside Los Angeles until she
blasted Islam on Aljazeera. TV is a powerful medium, and has a
stronger immediate impact than the Internet. However, many ex-Muslims will
probably prefer to hide on the Internet rather than showing their face in
front of millions of Muslims, many of whom think they deserve to die. It
takes the extraordinary courage of someone like Wafa Sultan to do so, and
it takes a TV station to air these views in the first place. For these
reasons, this movement may best be nurtured and spearheaded through the
Internet, the way Ali Sina and Ibn Warraq are doing now, and let the
ripples spread to other media.
I have earlier stated that Islam is a “dinosaur in the age of
mammals.” I believe this is true. However, it is still a big and bad
beast, even more dangerous and angry now precisely because it is wounded.
We cannot allow such a creature to roam the streets where our children are
growing up. We need to cage it, and hope that rational criticism, which
its immune system cannot in the long run withstand, will slowly wear it
down. This is a world war, and the best thing we can hope for is a
prolonged “cold” war, with many minor clashes but no huge, cataclysmic
hot war. This will require a global containment of the Islamic world, the
expulsion of any Muslims in the West deemed to be a security threat and
strong support to the movement of ex-Muslims. All of these steps will have
to be implemented soon, or we will have no other options left but a
full-scale war, with massive casualties. We will probably win such a war
if it comes to it, but the death toll will exceed that of any other war in
human history, and leave scars for generations to come. Time is growing
short. Are we up to the job? <
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