This past March in Uganda, an imam ordered the rape of three Christian girls after a mosque leaders’ wife was baptized into the Christian faith. In a clear act of retribution, the imam also planned to attack the pastor’s church where the Ugandan lady embraced Christianity. In compliance with the hadith in which the Prophet Muhammad ordered: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him” (Sahih al-Bukhari 84, 57), the woman’s husband sought to kill her.

When my husband interrogated me about being a Christian, I refused to answer him,” the wife later explained:

“Soon a Christian neighbor told me that my husband was out to kill me, hence I should escape with my children. That particular day in the evening hours, I escaped with my five children. I am thankful that the church received us.”

In any case, the rapes of the Christian girls — aged 16, 17, and 19 — came two days after the imam learned of his wife’s conversion. Before the orgiastic punishment, one of the girls heard one of the Muslims tell his fellow rapists not to harm them, since “we were sent only to bring embarrassment and a warning signal to the church.” *

Also in March, a newlywed Muslim couple launched a suicide attack on Sacred Heart Cathedral during Palm Sunday service in Makassar, Indonesia. Thanks to security, who prevented the motorcycle-riding couple from entering the building, only the two suicide bombers died in the blast near the building’s entrance, but approximately twenty parishioners were injured. *

Unlike the persecution of Christians in Communist China, which have been met with silence by the Vatican, the Pope, as well as left-wing politicians, have become defensive at the accusations that Islam is to blame for terror acts carried out by Islamists, nay, Muhammad as a Prophet of violence and sexual promiscuity.

What tends to be more ominous is the crusade on part of Vatican personnel to present Islam as a religion of peace. This was obvious, as in what has now become a yearly custom, the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, on behalf of Pope Francis, released last week a message addressed to “all Muslim brothers and sisters” to show solidarity and friendship as they start their month of Ramadan — the same can be said of U.S. President Joe Biden who also extended his “warmest greetings and best wishes to Muslim communities in the United States and around the world.”

Notwithstanding peaceful and law abiding Muslims, there are two evident factors that would challenge the drive to present Islam in itself as a moderate religion, : the Quran and the life of the Prophet Muhammad himself as written in the hadiths.

Distasteful Quranic Verses and Hadiths

In the past, the Bishop of Rome went so far to say that the Quran is “a prophetic book of peace.” He even insisted that “[a]uthentic Islam and the proper reading of the Quran are opposed to every form of violence.”

First and foremost, there are numerous Quranic verses that not only instill fear but incite the Muslim faithful to commit violence against non-Muslims:

• And as for those who disbelieved, I will punish them with a severe punishment in this world and the Hereafter, and they will have no helpers. —Sura 3, 56
• And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush. —Sura 9, 5
• The Jews say, “Ezra is the son of Allah,” and the Christians say, “The Messiah is the son of Allah.” That is their statement from their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved [before them]. May Allah destroy them; how are they deluded? —Sura 9, 30

The other underlying factor, as already indicated, is that the hadiths not only present Muhammad as a looting warrior, but as a prophet who engaged into what normal civilization would classify as pedophilia:

• Allah’s Apostle said: “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.’” —Sahih al-Bukhari 52, 177 
• The Messenger of Allah said: “I have been commanded to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is no god but Allah.” —Sahih Muslim 1, 30
• The Prophet engaged me when I was a girl of six (years). We went to Medina and stayed at the home of Bani-al-Harith bin Khazraj. Then I got ill and my hair fell down. Later on my hair grew (again) and my mother, Um Ruman, came to me while I was playing in a swing with some of my girl friends. She called me, and I went to her, not knowing what she wanted to do to me. She caught me by the hand and made me stand at the door of the house. I was breathless then, and when my breathing became all right, she took some water and rubbed my face and head with it. Then she took me into the house. There in the house I saw some Ansari women who said: “Best wishes and Allah’s Blessing and a good luck.” Then she entrusted me to them and they prepared me (for the marriage). Unexpectedly Allah’s Apostle came to me in the forenoon and my mother handed me over to him, and at that time I was a girl of nine years of age. —Sahih al-Bukhari Book 5: 58, 23 
• “The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death).” —Sahih al-Bukhari Book 7: 62, 88

Muhammad’s Example to be Emulated

As I explain in my book Islam: Religion of Peace? – The Violation of Natural Rights and Western Cover-Up, Islam and how it is observed by Muslims is almost exclusively based on Muhammad’s life. Every single Muslim is conditioned because “He who obeys the Messenger has obeyed Allah.”  —Sura 4, 8 

Allah established in the life of Muhammad an eternal and all-inclusive characteristics model to be imitated. Hence, as Robert Spencer says: “If the jihadists are correct in invoking his example to justify their deeds, then Islamic reformers will need to initiate a respectful but searching re-evaluation of the place Muhammad occupies within Islam.” 

While some of the deeds of the Prophet are considered criminal in the West, they are presented in Islamic biographical works as pious.

Defensive Position

It is both duplicitous and oblique to promote Islam as a religion that safeguards and propagates peace and stability while simultaneously holding that, for example, marrying a girl at six or seven years of age and consummating marriage with her at nine, as Muhammad did with Aisha when he was in his 50s, is still acceptable in today’s society — this is precisely why this pedophile practice continues in certain Muslim countries today. 

And yet most Western leaders and Christian officials refrain from criticizing such observances out of respect for Islamic culture, holding that it can coexist with ours. Culture, however, is supposed to create harmony and foster human development, not suppress them.

Perhaps it would be beneficial to them if they grasp what Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in 2017: “These epithets of ‘moderate Islam’ are very ugly, it is disrespectful and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it!”

* From Raymond Ibrahim’s article “Hatred, Enmity, Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide”: The Persecution of Christians, March 2021″ published by gatestoneinstitute.org.

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Mario Alexis Portella is a priest of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Florence, Italy. He has a doctorate in canon law and civil law from the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome; he also holds a M. A. in Medieval History from Fordham University, as well as a B.A. in Government & Politics from St. John’s University. He is also author of Islam: Religion of Peace? – The Violation of Natural Rights and Western Cover-Up.

Book available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or WestBow Press.