Time To Unmask Muhammad

To know why Islam is a mortal danger one must not only consider the Koran but also the character of Muhammad, who conceived the Koran and the entirety of Islam.

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The Koran is not just a book. Muslims believe that Allah himself wrote it and that it was dictated to Muhammad in the original version, the Umm al-Kitab, which is kept on a table in heaven. Consequently one cannot argue with the contents. Who would dare to disagree with what Allah himself has written? This explains much of Muhammadan behaviour, from the violence of jihad to the hatred and persecution of Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims and apostates. What we in the West regard as abnormal, is perfectly normal for Islam.

A second insuperable problem with Islam is the figure of Muhammad. He is not just anyone. He is al-insan al-kamil, the perfect man. To become a Muslim one must pronounce the Shahada (the Muslim creed). By pronouncing the Shahada one testifies that there is no god that can be worshipped except Allah, and one testifies that Muhammad is his servant and messenger.

The Koran, and hence Allah, lays down that Muhammad’s life must be imitated. The consequences of this are horrendous and can be witnessed on a daily basis.

There has been much analysis of Muhammad’s mental sanity. In spite of all the available research, it is rarely mentioned or debated. It is a taboo to discuss the true nature of the man whom one and a half billion Muslims around the world regard as a holy prophet and example to be followed. That taboo must be breached in the West, and here in the Netherlands.

Ali Sina is an Iranian ex-Muslim who established the organisation for apostates of Islam Faith Freedom International. In his latest book he posits that Muhammad is a narcissist, a paedophile, a mass murderer, a terrorist, a misogynist, a lecher, a cult leader, a madman, a rapist, a torturer, an assassin and a looter. Sina has offered 50,000 dollars for the one who can prove otherwise. Nobody has claimed the reward as yet. And no wonder, as the description is based on the Islamic texts themselves, such as the hadiths, the descriptions of Muhammad’s life from testimonies of contemporaries.

The historical Muhammad was the savage leader of a gang of robbers from Medina. Without scruples they looted, raped and murdered. The sources describe orgies of savagery where hundreds of people’s throats were cut, hands and feet chopped off, eyes cut out, entire tribes massacred. An example is the extinction of the jewish Kurayza tribe in Medina in 627. One of those who chopped off their heads was Muhammad. The women and children were sold as slaves. Confronted with the lunacy of Islamic terrorists today, it is not hard to find out where the lunacy comes from.

In Vienna the women’s rights activist Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff was recently sentenced to paying a fine for insulting a religion by calling Muhammad a paedophile. However, that is the truth. Numerous hadiths contain testimonies by Muhammad’s favourite wife, the child wife Aisha. Aisha literally says: “The prophet married me when I was six years old, and had intercourse with me when I was nine.”

According to the historian Theophanes (752-817) Muhammad was an epileptic. Epileptic crises are sometimes accompanied by hallucinations, perspiration form the forehead and foaming at the mouth, the very symptoms which Muhammad displayed during his visions.

In his book "The other Muhammad" (1992) the Flemish psychologist dr. Herman Somers concludes that in his forties the “prophet” began to suffer from acromegaly, a condition caused by a tumor in the pituitary gland, a small organ that is situated just below the brain. When the tumor in the pituitary gland causes too much pressure in the brain, people start to see and hear things that are not there. Somers’s psychopathological diagnosis of Muhammad’s condition is: organic hallucinatory affliction with paranoid characteristics.

The German medical historian Armin Geus speaks of a paranoid hallucinatory schizophrenia. A similar analysis can be found in the book “The Medical Case of Muhammad” by the physician Dede Korkut.

In his book "Psychology of Mohammed: Inside the Brain of a Prophet", Dr. Masud Ansari calls Muhammad “the perfect personification of a psychopath in power.” Muhammad had a unhinged paranoid personality with an inferiority complex and megalomaniac tendencies. In his forties he starts having visions that lead him to believe he has a cosmic mission, and there is no stopping him.

The truth is not always pleasant or politically correct. On the basis of the research referred to above it can be argued that the Islamic creed obliges one and a half billion people around the world, including the one million living in the Netherlands, to take Muhammad as their example. There is no turning back once one has become a Muslim. For even though article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that every person has the right to “change his religion or belief,” in Islam there is a death penalty for leaving the faith.

Anyone who voices criticism of Islam and Muhammad is in grave personal danger – as I have experienced. And whoever attempts to escape from the influence of Islam and Muhammad risks death. We cannot continue to accept this state of affairs. A public debate about the true nature and character of Muhammad can provide insight and support to Muslims all over the world who wish to leave Islam.

Apostates are heroes and more than ever they deserve the support of freedom loving people all over the world. Party politics should not be at play in this matter. It is time for us to help these people by exposing Muhammad.

The Missing Moderate Muslims

I keep hoping that the purported peace-loving moderate Muslims are indeed the great majority who would prove me right by demonstrating their peacefulness and moderation in action. Thus far, only a faint murmur of equivocation is all that I hear from these people.

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"I am already against the next war", read the bumper sticker on a car ahead of me. I long to tell the driver: the next war is already here; Islamists are waging it in every corner of the globe and the “moderate Muslims” are either actively supporting them, placing the blame on the West, or simply looking the other way. This war aims to wipe out everything that free people cherish, including the right of expressing their sentiments. Banishing war has been the perennial dream of mankind’s best, while its worst have been frustrating its realization. To renounce war unilaterally and unconditionally is surrender and death.

Humanity has suffered horrific wars in the past. Yet, the present multi-form and multi-front war waged by Islamists has the potential of inflicting more suffering and destroying more lives than any before it. Ruthless Islamic forces are advancing rapidly in their conquests while those of freedom are acquiescing and retreating. Before long, Islamism is poised to achieve its Allah-mandated goal of cleansing the earth of all non-Muslims. Any and all means and weapons are to be enlisted in the service of this final holy war that aims to establish the Islamic Ummah.

But Islam is a religion of peace and the great majority of Muslims are not party to any plans and actions of the radicals, so claim academic pundits, leftist journalists, and hired Islamic apologists. The incantation of these “authorities” is the lullaby that puts the people into a sleep of complacency. For an average free human busy with all manners of demands on his time and resources, would hardly want to worry about the threat of Islamism when those he believes are “in the know” emphatically claim that there is nothing to worry about. Some of these advocates of Islam go further by accusing those who sound the alarm as racist, bigot, hatemonger and much more.

But where are all the peace-loving moderate Muslims that supposedly are in great majority? The Muslims who are neither jihadists themselves, nor do they support them? I and others, time and again, have been calling upon them to stand up and show the world that they oppose the fanatical Islamists. It is small comfort even if the vast majority of Muslims are not fanatic radicals, when they do nothing to demonstrate their position. It is instructive to recall that it is invariably a minority, and more often than not a very small minority, that launches a campaign of death and destruction.

Perhaps it is wishful thinking on the part of the non-Muslims to believe that one can be a Muslim moderate, given that Islam is radical at its very core. To be a moderate Muslim demands that the person explicitly renounce much of the violent, exclusionary, and radical teachings of the Quran. By so doing, the individual issues his own death warrant in Islamic countries, is condemned as apostate if he lives in a non-Islamic land and may even earn a fatwa on his head.

It is deadly, in any confrontation, to assess the adversary through one’s own mental template, because the two templates can be vastly different from each other. People in the West are accustomed in relativistic rather than absolutistic thinking. To Westerners, just about all matters range from black to white with an array of gray shades between the two poles. To Muslims, by contrast, nearly everything is in black and white and with virtually no shades of gray. The former type of thinking is typical of more mature minds, while the latter is that of young children and the less-enlightened.

This absolutist thinking is enshrined in the Quran itself. When the starting point for a Muslim is the explicit fanatical words of Allah in the Quran, then the faithful are left with no choice other than literally obeying its dictates or even taking it to the next level of fanaticism. Good Muslims, for instance, do not shake hands with women, even though the Quran does not explicitly forbid it. Although the Quran stipulates that men are rulers over women, good Muslim men take it upon themselves to rule women not much better than they treat their domesticated animals.

All extreme systems operate outside of the constraints of checks-and-balances and according to the principle of negative feedback loop. That is, once it starts, the extreme becomes more and more extreme until self-destructs and takes the larger system down with it. Cancer is a case in point. It begins with only a few cells. Left unchecked, the few cells continue expanding and stop only with the death of the host.

Fanatical Islam may indeed be a minority. Yet it is a deadly cancer that has metastasized throughout the body of the world. Urgent confrontation of this advancing disease is imperative to stave it off.

Dozens of Islamist shooting wars of lesser and greater bloodletting are presently raging in the world, aided and abetted by the “moderate Muslim” majority. The so called moderate Muslims, even if they exist, are complicit in the crimes of the radicals either by providing them with funds, logistics, and new recruits or by simply failing to actively confront and unequivocally renounce them.

As is the case with cancer cells, it is the malignant minority that is death-bearing.

In Germany of the 1930s, for instance, very few people were Nazis and most Germans dismissed them as a bunch of hot-headed fools. Before long, the hot-headed few cowed in the dismissive masses and as a result millions lost their lives.

The tentacles of the Islamist hydra have deeply penetrated the world. The Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood poses a clear threat in Egypt with its large block of representatives in the parliament, but also wages its deadly campaign through its hundreds of well-established and functioning branches all over the world.

The Wahhabis finance thousands of madressehs throughout the world where young boys are brainwashed into becoming fanatical foot-soldiers for the Petrodollar-flush Saudis and other emirs of the Persian Gulf.

The end-of-the-world believers of the bomb-aspiring Iran’s Khomeinism are busy establishing the Shia hegemony in an arc extending from the Gulf of Oman to the Mediterranean Sea.

Al Qaeda and dozens of its like-minded jihadists relentlessly carry their barbaric campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, the Philippines, the former Soviet Union republics, the Russian federation, Somalia, North Africa and parts of Europe, as well as other lands.

I keep hoping that the purported peace-loving moderate Muslims are indeed the great majority who would prove me right by demonstrating their peacefulness and moderation in action. Thus far, only a faint murmur of equivocation is all that I hear from these people.

Are "moderate Muslims" an illusion? The only viable alternative for peaceful people of Islamic background, therefore, is to leave the bondage of violent Islam altogether and join ranks with humanity’s free.

The selected puppet president Ahamadinejad boasts that Iran’s mullahs’ nuclear train has no reverse gear and lacks brakes. He should harbor no illusions. The non-Islamist masses of Iranians will not docilely submit to the mullahs’ maniacal plans. It is the unmatched force of freedom that has no reverse gear and it is the force fully capable and determined to bring the mullahs’ train to a screeching halt before it is armed with the Armageddon nuclear weapons they so doggedly pursue.

Egypt is free.. to be taken over by the Muslim Brotherhood

Not a few of us predicted this would happen - and we were right. Yet, we were chided, castigated and shouted down by those kindhearted souls who truly wanted to believe that the "popular uprising" in Egypt would bring about some democratic, secular fantasy where everyone was happy and fulfilled. Hence the title "Yay! Egypt is free!," a phrase we often saw on places like Facebook and elsewhere.

Huge Muslim Brotherhood Rally in Cairo

We knew that the Muslim Brotherhood was waiting in the wings to take over, as part of this "democratic" process that allowed everyone to have a voice, including the Ikhwan (Brotherhood) naturally. I personally didn't blog about this particular situation, but I did post frequently at my forum and on Facebook, and I was correct about the rise of the MB. It didn't take much guesswork; nor did it require supernatural powers of prophecy. All I did was follow the lead of the MB itself, as its members stated their goals quite clearly.

Now comes this "news" from The New York Times, weeks after some of us already knew this would happen. I didn't follow the NYT's coverage of the events, because I can't stand their stomach-churning Islam-appeasement and dhimmitude, but I would suspect that they were ever-so-optimistic about what would happen next, without any clear impression in mind. The waters of the future were murky indeed, except in one direction: That of the Muslim Brotherhood. So, there was really no surprise at all, since that was where all the signs were pointing. Only the sightless would have missed those markers.

"The [Muslim Brotherhood] has replaced the secular youth movement as a driving force."

Did anyone with senses really believe that the MB - rabid, intransigent Islamists with a huge, wealthy and powerful support base spread throughout the world - would allow the secular students to lead one of the world's most ancient and important nations? Such a notion represents the height of naivete and ignorance of history and the nature of the beast.

In any event, it's not good to be right in this instance.

Islamist Group Is Rising Force in a New Egypt

A Muslim Brotherhood celebration in Cairo on March 12. The group has replaced the secular youth movement as a driving force.

CAIRO — In post-revolutionary Egypt, where hope and confusion collide in the daily struggle to build a new nation, religion has emerged as a powerful political force, following an uprising that was based on secular ideals. The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group once banned by the state, is at the forefront, transformed into a tacit partner with the military government that many fear will thwart fundamental changes.

It is also clear that the young, educated secular activists who initially propelled the nonideological revolution are no longer the driving political force — at least not at the moment.

As the best organized and most extensive opposition movement in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was expected to have an edge in the contest for influence. But what surprises many is its link to a military that vilified it.

"There is evidence the Brotherhood struck some kind of a deal with the military early on," said Elijah Zarwan, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group. "It makes sense if you are the military — you want stability and people off the street. The Brotherhood is one address where you can go to get 100,000 people off the street."...

"We are all worried," said Amr Koura, 55, a television producer, reflecting the opinions of the secular minority. "The young people have no control of the revolution anymore. It was evident in the last few weeks when you saw a lot of bearded people taking charge. The youth are gone."...

About six groups from the ultraconservative Salafist school of Islam have also emerged in the era after President Hosni Mubarak's removal, as well as a party called Al Wassat, intended as a more liberal alternative to the Brotherhood....

...in these early stages, there is growing evidence of the Brotherhood's rise and the overpowering force of Islam....

This is not to say that the Brotherhood is intent on establishing an Islamic state. From the first days of the protests, Brotherhood leaders proclaimed their dedication to religious tolerance and a democratic and pluralist form of government. They said they would not offer a candidate for president, that they would contest only a bit more than a third of the total seats in Parliament, and that Coptic Christians and women would be welcomed into the political party affiliated with the movement.

None of that has changed, Mr. Erian, the spokesman, said in an interview. "We are keen to spread our ideas and our values," he said. “We are not keen for power.”

He would not comment on whether the Brotherhood had an arrangement with the military, but he said the will of the people to shift toward Islam spoke for itself and was a sign of Egypt's emerging democratic values. "Don't trust the intellectuals, liberals and secularists," Mr. Erian said. "They are a minor group crying all the time. If they don’t work hard, they have no future."...

Despite the protestations of not being "intent on establishing an Islamic state" and "keen for power," the fact is that the MB has stated its intent to commit "grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house," whereby it most definitely has expressed a desire to see not only an Islamic state but also an Islamic world. The Ikhwan certainly does want to run things, whether or not its members are visibly in the front line.

As for not trusting "intellectuals, liberals and secularists," all of these groups have been battling for the Muslim Brotherhood in numerous Western countries - these are the very groups continually stumping for Islam and attacking critics as "Islamophobes," "racists" and "bigots." Yet, here is what a spokesman for a major global Muslim organization really thinks of its biggest pawns. Will these soon-to-be marginalized groups wake up to the fact that they've been had? In fact, as many of us have stated repeatedly, trashing these supportive groups is evidently one of the first things the MB and other Islamic supremacist organizations do when they come to power.

It is unfortunate, but these possibly well-meaning "liberal" groups fit the classic definition of a "dhimwit," a term created by TROP based on the word "dhimmi," which popularly refers to a non-Muslim who is subservient to Islamic supremacy:

A non-Muslim member of a free society that abets the stated cause of Islamic domination with remarkable gullibility or guile. A dhimwit is always quick to extend sympathy to the very enemy that would take away their own freedom, if given the opportunity.

Slavery in Islam

Slavery, making one human the property of another, was widely practiced in the past by many societies. Regrettably, even in the 21st Century, the horrid practice continues in certain areas, most notably among Muslims.

Islam’s genesis was the Arabian peninsula of the seventh century AD, known for its primitive beliefs and savage practices. So, it is of no surprise that Islam incorporated slavery and much of the ethos of the culture of its birthplace.

Is discussing slavery beating a dead horse? Regrettably, it is not. The Anti-Slavery Society has documented numerous contemporary instances, most of them from Islamic countries. The repugnant practice of slavery presents a real threat to human dignity as Islamic fundamentalism is surging. The Islamic law—the Shariah—is based on the provisions of the Quran.

And the Quran explicitly and implicitly condones slavery in dozens of suras (chapters). Muhammad himself took numerous slaves, mostly women, as spoils of war. Some of the women Muhammad took for himself he called concubines, hardly a consolation to the helpless enslaved women.

Documents show that in the heyday of slavery, Muslims took just as many slaves from East Africa as did the Christians from West Africa.

Slavery is a matter of degrees. On one extreme is the absolute right of the owner to do whatever he wishes to the slave. This form of slavery is no longer prevalent. Yet disenfranchising people from any provisions of the Charter of Human Rights constitutes a form of enslavement.

Slavery seamlessly became a part of Islam, since it was widely practiced by the Arabs. Slavery is repeatedly approved in the Quran. The Old Testament also sanctioned slavery. Yet, Jewish and Christian societies have long banned slavery while the Muslims consider every verse and word of the Quran as those of Allah that can never be revised, discarded or violated. Therefore, with the resurgence of Islam, more and more Islamic laws and ethos, including slavery of various types and degrees, are implemented. One clear validation of the practice of slavery is the sura below:

[Q 16.75] Allah sets forth a parable: (consider) a slave, the property of another, (who) has no power over anything, and one whom We have granted from ourselves a goodly sustenance so he spends from it secretly and openly; are the two alike? (All) praise is due to Allah!

Slavery, discrimination, exclusivity and many more unjust provisions are systemic to Islam without any possibility for reformation. Muslims revere the Quran as the eternal immutable words of Allah. They accept the Hadith, Muhammad’s sayings, as further elucidation of their faith and emulate the Sunna the way Muhammad, the perfect practitioner of Allah’s teachings, conducted his life.

Muslims believe that Allah himself is the author of the Quran, that he wrote each chapter himself and had the angel Gabriel deliver it to Muhammad, who was illiterate. Muhammad must have been endowed with perfect memory in order to transmit each verse of the Quran exactly as written by Allah. What Muhammad revealed bit-by-bit over twenty years, not a voluminous work by any measure, was recorded by various people on all manner of bones, parchments, and bark. At least four major versions of the Quran eventually emerged. So, Allah’s words were revealed by a perfect unerring messenger and were recorded by a number of imperfect humans in different versions. It remained for other imperfect humans, the Caliphs, to choose the one version they believed to be the literal perfect words of Allah and ordered the rest destroyed.

Based on the Quran itself, a number of Islamic precepts and practices clearly violate the provisions of human rights, institutionalize discrimination, and constrain liberty. A partial list of these violations is supplied below:

• Freedom of assembly, expression, and worship is either denied or severely restricted in every Islamic country.
• Women are relegated to a second class status, depriving them of many rights enjoyed by men.
• Religious minorities are often harassed, their properties are confiscated, their holy places destroyed, their cemeteries leveled, and even their persons harmed without receiving justice.
• “People of the book,” Jews and Christians, are treated as “tolerable,” since they together with Muslims are considered to be followers of the only three divine religions, while members of other religions, or no religion at all, are deemed ineligible for fair treatment under the law. Egypt, for instance, requires its citizens to obtain identity cards to be eligible for all the rights of citizenship, such as education, employment and medical care. Yet, gallingly, the same government denies these rights to those who are not members of the three divine religions or those who have no religious affiliation at all.
• The Islamic Republic of Iran officially bars its largest non-Muslim minority, the Baha’is, from many rights of citizenship, including access to higher education solely for the “sin” of practicing a different faith.
• Censorship of all sort are systemic to Islam. It is its way of mind control: an atrocious practice of keeping the mind in bondage. The press is required to parrot the approved line, and the violators are shut down and their staff imprisoned; Internet access to undesirable sites is routinely blocked; and, book publications pre-screened, and much much more.
• Women, by the very nature of their second class status expressly stipulated in the Quran, are occasionally allowed a token high position in government, while non-Muslim minority citizens are virtually barred from securing any positions at all.

To better understand Islam, a brief reference to its birth may be helpful. The founder of Islam, Muhammad, worked for and married a wealthy woman many years his senior named Khadija. One day, alone in a secluded place, Muhammad had a revelation and reported the experience to Khadija. Khadija assured him that he had been chosen by Allah as his messenger. From that point on, Muhammad proceeded to reveal the Quran and the carved-in-granite Islam and its dogma was born.

Presently, with each passing day Islam is making inroads into both the traditionally Muslim lands as well as much of the non-Muslim world where Islam is beginning to run deep roots and vie with the laws and cultures of its hosts. Muslims are taking advantage of the freedom that democracies grant. They use the same provisions of the law that are intended to protect and enhance liberty to subvert democracy and freedom.

Islam is indeed a dangerous comprehensive form of slavery. Its very name, Islam, means submission or surrender. True to its name, Islam strives for nothing short of enslavement of the body of humanity as well as the bondage of its mind.

Complacency and appeasement on the part of free people can only serve Islam. There is no chance for co-existence with Islam. All one needs to know is to see what is happening in Islamic countries. That is exactly what is in store for the presently free people of the world if Islam is not held in check.

There is a hope that Muslims themselves may leave this Bedouin slaveholder religion. Yet, the hope is slim. Islam has a stranglehold on its slaves and will neither let them go, nor do the Muslims seem to have the insight or the will to leave it in large numbers. But hope, as slim as it is, keeps me sounding the alarm before the fire of Islam engulfs us all.

Warning to free people: Don't bank on the politicians, the master practitioners of the art of the politically correct, to protect liberty. Politicians must be urged by the citizens to safeguard liberty, scrutinized closely that they do the work, and be held accountable if they fail to do so. You, a citizen, also have a job to do. Take a few minutes a day and do what you can to protect freedom. “Freedom is not free,” may be a cliché. Yet, it is the most profound four-word sentence in the lexicon of the free.

Blasphemy Law & Its Cruelties

When the world's 1.5 billion Muslims want to project Muhammad -- who was a vile rapist, pedophile, mass murderer, plunderer and robber -- as a pious soul and a prophet, they can do so only in engaging in barbaric laws and actions.

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Why Muslims are so sensitive to defamation of Muhammad

Islamic religious concepts and practices include the five pillars of Islam, called arkan al-Islam, namely (1) the shahadah (creed), (2) daily prayers (salat), (3) almsgiving (zakah), (4) fasting during Ramadan and (5) pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj) at least once in a lifetime. The Shia and Sunni sects both agree on the essential details for the performance of these acts.

The Shahadah, which is the basic foundation of Islam, contains six oaths or kalemas, and the first kalema, namely kalema Taib, is most important. It says “La Ilaha Illallah, Muhammadur rasulullah”, i.e. “Allah is the only God to be worshipped and Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah”. This kalema is considered the "soul" of Islam. Slightest doubt in it will make even a devout Muslim "an apostate" at once, who is to be killed.

Islam does not have strong philosophical basis; instead, it commands blind belief in the most irrational and unscientific dictates of the Koran and Sunnah. It has survived the past 14 centuries on this blind faith and fear psychosis. If a Muslim derails from this belief system, he/she would risk even his/her life. Islam is, therefore, may be imagined as an extremely brittle glassware hanging in the air with the help of a delicate thread, called kalema Taib. So, if reverence or faith in the Prophethood of Muhammad weakens, the fine thread kalema Taib would snap and entire edifice of Islam would collapse.

Therefore, the image of Muhammad is strictly guarded from suffering any damage. He was the perfect man ever. His deeds should always be praised. He must be projected as an apostle of peace and compassion, notwithstanding his extremely cruel deeds. No one is to be allowed to make critical comments on his life and actions. Divinity must be sought in his marrying 12 (or 22) wives in his declining years, even in his marrying of 6-year-old Aisha at the age of 52. Any thought contrary to this paradigm should be labeled as "blasphemy" and such blasphemers should be punished with death. Even simple statement of facts of his life, which may unmask his true color, must also be treated as blasphemy.

Saying truth about Muhammad's life is also blasphemous

The Kolkata-based English daily Statesman ran on 5 February, 2009 an article of award-winning British journalist and writer Johann Hari, entitled Why should I respect these oppressive religions?—earlier published in The Independent. In it, he wrote, “I don’t respect the idea that we should follow a ‘Prophet’ who at the age of 53 had sex with a nine-year old girl, and ordered the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn’t follow him.” What Mr Hari wrote is fact proudly documented in revered Islamic literature, but Muslims considered it a blasphemy of Muhammad by Hari.

Muslims protesting against Statesman

After republication of the article by Statesman, angry Muslims organized demonstrations in front of paper's office in Calcutta. Muslims allied with the Jamiat-e-Ulema e Hind (The Organisation of Indian Scholars, a leading Islamic group in India) filed a complaint with police alleging that the publication had “outraged their religious feelings”, which is an offence under Section 295 A of the Indian Penal Code.

Police arrested the Statesman’s editor Ravindra Kumar and publisher Anand Sinha on charges of “hurting the religious feelings” of Muslims and produced them in court. Kumar said he had already issued a public apology for reproducing the article. “I admit it was an editorial misjudgement but it was never intentional,” Kumar told the BBC.

Demonstration by Muslim protesters, including attack on police and blockade on streets, continued for days. When police tried to chase away the protesters to restore order, "Demonstrators threw stones, soda bottles and shoes injuring four cops. Some agitators later took shelter in a nearby mosque and threw stones, empty bottles and shoes targeting policemen." On February 8, more than 20 people, including four policemen, were injured in a clash that broke out when police tried to clear Lenin Sarani.

Blasphemy law in Pakistan

Today, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is one of the most notorious for applying "blasphemy laws" to prohibit and punish blasphemy against religion. While the law in theory is designed to prevent blasphemy against all religions, it only applies to Islam. Penalties for blasphemy under this law range from a fine and prison term to death. Apart from judicial procedure, an accusation of blasphemy commonly leads to extrajudicial harassment, threats and attacks.

According to the constitution (Article 2), Islam is the state religion of Pakistan. By the constitution's Article 31, it is the country's duty to foster the Islamic way of life. By Article 33, it is the several sections of Pakistan's Criminal Code comprise its blasphemy laws. Article 295 forbids damaging or defiling a place of worship or a sacred object. Article 295-A forbids outraging religious feelings. Article 295-B forbids defiling the Quran. Article 295-C forbids defaming the prophet Muhammad. Except for 295-C, the provisions of 295 require that an offence be a consequence of the accused's intent. Defiling the Quran merits imprisonment for life. Defaming Muhammad merits death with or without a fine. If a charge is laid under 295-C, the trial must take place in a Court of Session with a Muslim judge presiding.

Article 298 states:

Whoever, with the deliberate intention of wounding the religious feelings of any person, utters any word or makes any sound in the hearing of that person or makes any gesture in the sight of that person or places any object in the sight of that person, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both.

Article 298-A prohibits the use of any derogatory remark or representation in respect of Muslim holy personages. Articles 298-B and 298-C prohibit the Ahmadiyya from behaving as Muslims, and the violator is liable to imprisonment up to three years and a fine. Article 45 of the Constitution says, "The President shall have power to grant pardon, reprieve and respite, and to remit, suspend or commute any sentence passed by any court, tribunal or other authority." It is claimed that, no judicial execution has so far occurred under the charge of blasphemy in Pakistan. On Jan. 12, 2011, Prime Minister of Pakistan Yousuf Raza Gilani once again said that there would be no amendments to the blasphemy law.

However, the punishment for the defamation of Prophet Muhammad is death under the provision Article 295C. The Federal Sharia Court (FSC) also maintains this view and says, "The penalty for contempt of the Holy Prophet… is death”. Those accused of blaspheming Muhammad are subject to immediate incarceration, and are denied bail to forestall mob violence. It is common for those, accused of blasphemy, to be put in solitary confinement for their protection from other inmates and guards. Those, who have served a sentence for blasphemy or acquitted of the charge, usually go into hiding or leave Pakistan.

In May 2010, Pakistan blocked access to Facebook, because the website hosted a page, called Everybody Draw Muhammad Day. Pakistan lifted the block after Facebook prevented access to the page. In June 2010, Pakistan blocked seventeen websites for hosting content, which the authorities considered offensive to Muslims. At the same time, Pakistan began to monitor the content of Google,Yahoo, YouTube, Amazon, MSN, Hotmail, and Bing.

Application of the Law

Between 1986 and 2007, Pakistani authorities charged 647 people with offences under the blasphemy law. Ironically, 50% of the people charged were non-Muslims, while they constitute only 3% of the total population. So, it is often said that Pakistan's blasphemy law is used as a tool for persecuting the minority religious communities. It is also interesting to note that 20 of the accused were murdered by fanatic Islamists and mobs.

The recent incident that aroused international attention is the case of Christian woman Asia Bibi (Noreen), who was sentenced to death in November 2010 on charges of blasphemy. An appeal against the verdict now sits before the Lahore High Court. Meanwhile, the Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, who felt outraged by the bogus charge against Asia Bibi and demanded amendment of the law, was shot dead by his own security guard.

His support for the acquittal of Asia Bibi and changes in the blasphemy law attracted mass protests across Pakistan. Imams of Mosques accused Salman Taseer of defying Prophet Mohammed and demanded death sentenced for him. On December 12, 2010, major Islamic parties in Pakistan launched a campaign for upholding the sanctity of Muhammad against the proposed amendment in blasphemy laws.

Next, not long after assassination of Taseer, Shahbaz Bahtti -- a Christian and the Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs -- was assassinated on March 2 by unknown assailants in Islamabad. Bhatti was killed, because he had been struggling to bring changes in the blasphemy law.

A few other cases of blasphemy

In another case, the Lahore High Court, in July 2010, ordered the release of Zaibun Nisa, a woman who was jailed in 1996 on a charge of blasphemy. While a complaint that a Quran had been defiled by her was investigated by police, her lawyer reported: "There was no evidence linking her to the crime."

In July 2010, a trader in Faisalabad complained that one of his employees had been handed over a pamphlet, which contained derogatory remarks about Muhammad. According to police, the pamphlet appeared to have been issued by Christian Pastor Rashid Emmanuel and his brother Sajid. Both brothers denied the charge, and they were arrested without investigating the alleged offence. While policemen were escorting the brothers from a district court, fanatic Islamist gunmen shot and killed both the brothers.

Minister Shahbaz Bhatti's death may have been linked to the case of Emmanuel brother. Pakistani cleric Allama Ahmed Mian Hammadi has claimed that Minister Bhatti had himself committed blasphemy by branding the Christian brothers, recently murdered, as victims of Pakistan blasphemy laws. Bhatti had said that the murder of Rashid Emmanuel, 30, and his brother Sajid, 27, by unidentified masked gunmen inside a courthouse in Faisalabad was highly deplorable.

Pakistani Urdu daily, Daily Jasarat, had earlier quoted cleric Mr Hammadi as saying: "Muslims cannot tolerate blasphemy against Muhammad." Hammadi added: "It is not a cruelty to kill blasphemers, rather blasphemy itself is such an enormous brutality that the one who commits it neither has got a right to live in this world nor is there any pardon for the blasphemer… Muslims won't tolerate even a slightest blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad. If Shahbaz Bhatti committed blasphemy he would be beheaded."

The interesting part of Pakistan's "blasphemy law" saga is that Islam needs to legislate laws and murder people to save the image of Muhammad. There are many great men like Gautama Buddha, Jesus Christ, Guru Nanak, Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa et al, the followers of whom do not require such barbaric means (at least not any more) to protect their image. It is no wonder either that when the world's 1.5 billion Muslims want to project Muhammad, who was evidently a vile rapist, pedophile, mass murderer, plunderer and robber, as a pious soul and a prophet; they can do so only in engaging in such barbaric acts and means.

Islam - A Grand Delusion

"We are our beliefs," it is said. Beliefs steer people in life. Some beliefs are harmless, some are the motive force for good, and yet others are delusional, misguided, and even outright dangerous. Every version of the belief called “Islam” ranges from the delusional to the dangerous.

Islam is a Grand Delusion, birthed by Muhammad’s hallucination that he relayed to his first wife and employer, Khadija. Greatly frightened, he told Khadija that he was visited by jinn (devil) in the Hira cave. Khadija comforted the distraught man by assuring him that the episode was Allah’s way of choosing him as his messenger. Muhammad believed his rich wife-employer who was 15 years his senior and the delusion became a belief—Islam.

Remarkably enough, under the early tutelage of Khadija, Muhammad succeeded in attracting a number of influential followers. Before long, the movement gathered more and more power through violent campaigns and the faith was taken to new people and alien lands. This grand delusion, Islam, presently has in its stranglehold over a billion humans, posing an existential threat to all non-Muslims.

Islam is rooted in the primitive tribal mentality of “We against Them,” “We the righteous against the heathens,” “We the servants submissive of the Great Allah against the rebellious enemies of Allah.” Islam is a polarizer. Islam is an enemy-maker. To Islam, a non-Muslim is a combatant against Allah and he is fair game to be subjugated and killed.

When some billion and a half adhere to the pathological belief of Islam and use it as their marching order of life, the rest of humanity can ignore the threat only at its own peril.

Once again, a resurgent Islam is on a campaign of conquest throughout the world. Hordes of life-in-hand foot-solider fanatical Muslims are striving to kill and get killed. All they want is the opportunity to discharge their homicidal-suicidal impulse, on their way to Allah’s promised glorious paradise. And in the background granting the foot-soldiers’ wishes are their handlers, the puppeteers, who pull the strings and detonate these human bombs. Those who cherish life must recognize these emissaries of death, what makes them, what motivates them, and how best to defend against them.

The campaign of death waged by the Islamist-jihadist, be he a puppet or a puppeteer, is energized by the belief of delectable rewards that await the faithful implementer of Allah’s dictates. Through a highly effective indoctrination, the jihadist has come to believe firmly in Islam’s grand delusion. He believes that Allah is the one and only supreme creator of earth and heavens; that it is his duty and privilege to abide by Allah’s will and carry out his plans at all costs; he believes firmly in a gloriously wonderful immortal afterlife in paradise, for which a martyr’s death is the surest quickest admission. Although the dominating theme of the delusion is quasi spiritual, the promised rewards of the afterlife awaiting the martyr are sensual and material. All the things and activities that the jihadist desires and cannot attain or practice, and rejects in his earthly life will be purified and proffered to him in the paradise of the next life. Thus goes the delusion.

It is important to understand that the human mind is not a perfect discerner of the objective reality. In actuality, reality is in the mind of the beholder. The outside world only supplies bits and pieces of raw material that the mind puts together to form its reality. Depending on the type and amount of bits and pieces that a given mind receives, its reality can be very different from that of another mind.

The more prescribed and homogeneous a group, the greater is the group’s consensual reality, since the members share much in common experiential input and reinforce each others’ mindset. Thus, members of a given religious order, for instance, tend to think much more similarly to one another than to members of other groups with different experiential histories.

Various approximations of the objective reality, therefore, rule the mind. The degree to which these approximations deviate from the larger group’s consensual reality determines its delusional extent and severity.

A cocaine mainliner, for instance, under the influence of the drug, may become convinced that a bug is burrowing under his skin. In his absolute, although clearly false, certitude of the reality of his perception, cocaine users are known to take a knife to their own body to dig the burrowing bug out before it has penetrated too deeply.

A methamphetamine user’s reality is often distorted in a different way. Under the influence of the drug, an intense paranoia overtakes him. His reality is dominated by the belief that one or more people are lurking about to harm or kill him. He may wield a deadly weapon, going from room to room, from closet to closet, in search of the assailants.

If you believe that a bug is camping deeply inside your body, then you might go ahead and try to dig the non-existent bug out. If you believe that people are lurking around the house to harm or kill you, you go after them before they get you. If you believe that all the troubles of the world are due to the evil-doings of the non-Muslims who war against Allah, then you do all you can to fight and kill them, particularly since Allah tells you to do so in the Quran.

The drug-induced delusions are hallucinations. They are dramatic and usually transitory, while religiously-based implantation of ideas program the mind with lasting delusions.

Delusions, even when they are at great variance from the objective reality, can rule the mind without the need for drugs, or as a result of neurological dysfunctions or other factors. The young and the less-educated are most vulnerable to believe the claims of charlatans, con artists, and cunning clerics, as truth and reality.

A tragic example of the young’s susceptibility to induced delusion is the case of thousands of Iranian children who were used as human minesweepers in the last Iran-Iraq war. The mullahs issued made-in-China plastic keys for paradise to children as enticement to go forward and clear the minefield with their bodies ahead of the military’s armored vehicles. The children believed the murderers and rushed to their death, thinking that they were headed for Islam’s glorious paradise.

The repeated intense indoctrination of the children even changed the perception of some of the charlatan mullahs so that they, themselves, believed their own lies, took their own keys to Allah’s paradise and rushed to their death clinging to the plastic trinkets. Hence, some of the puppeteers, in this instance, became puppets themselves. Such are the follies and fallibilities of the human mind.

It is, therefore, understandable that many of the higher-up Islamic puppeteers, who are usually brainwashed from early childhood, devote their fortunes and persons to the implementation of their deeply engrained delusions.

Deluded by the threats and promises of Islam, Muslims, poor or rich, vie with one another in furthering the violent cause of Allah.

Many non-Muslims are also victims of a different, yet just as deadly, delusion. They believe that Islam is a religion of peace, that only a small minority of Muslims are jihadists, and that Muslims can be reasoned with to abandon the Quran-mandated elimination of the non-believers. These well-meaning simpletons are just as deluded as the fanatic jihadists by refusing to acknowledge the fact that one cannot be a Muslim and not abide by the dictates of the Quran.

Brothers of Iran! Liberate from the Shackles of Arab Religious Imperialism

A group of Iranian intellectuals, writers, thinkers, poets, artists and academicians issued a call to Iranians, asking them to leave Islam. They should heed the call and return to their glorious past and legacy of great humanitarians, like Cyrus the Great, as was dreamt by Ferdowsi.

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A call to Iranians to liberate from Islam

On March 23, 2011, a report in www.faithfreedom.org said:

"The 21^st of March was the first day of spring in the Northern hemisphere and the New Year for Iranians. In this year, a group of Iranian intellectuals, writers, thinkers, poets, artists and academicians issued a declaration asking the people of Iran to leave Islam. They blame Islam for the downfall of their country. They believe Islam is violent and abusive and incompatible with the peace loving nature of Iranians. Today Islam is the biggest abuser of human rights. The Islamic regime of Iran kills more Iranians per capita than any other regime killing their citizens. This has not always been the case. The first declaration of human rights was issued in Iran by King Cyrus 2500 years ago."

This is highly encouraging, which repudiates the common notion that Muslims are so thoroughly brainwashed that it is impossible for them to question Islam and come out of it; instead, in every eventuality, they will seek a solution within the frame-work of Islam. The above report clearly shows that a section of the Iranian society have succeeded in coming out of the labyrinth of Islam, and are aspiring to liberate their nation from the slavery to Arab religious imperialism embedded in Islam. Presently, young Muslims in the Islamic world are agitating for freedom from despotic rulers. But real freedom cannot be achieved unless they abandon Islam, an authoritarian and suppressive religio-political creed, which stifles critical and independent thinking and freedom of expression, without which a nation cannot prosper. So, the young protesters, who are taking to the street in the Muslim world, must include Islam alongside the despotic rulers in their campaign for freedom and liberty. They must realize that it is Islam that incubates, fosters and nurtures authoritarianism, misrule and oppression. To establish true freedom, rule of law and democracy, uprooting the edifice of Islam is as important, if not more, as deposing their current dictatorial rulers.

The ideal Islamic state is what Prophet Muhammad had founded in Media, in which Muhammad was the supreme dictator: the head of administration, chief of army and the head of judiciary. So, there lies a strong propensity for the government of an Islamic state to become dictatorial, rather than democratic. As a result, most Islamic states in the world are dictatorial as we witness today. To achieve real freedom and democracy, Islam must be thrown into dustbin of history.

Pernicious Impact of Islam, the Arab Imperialism

Islam, in the guise of a religion, is an imperialism Arab religious-cultural-social doctrine that uproots a convert from his/ her ancestral culture, thus, crippling the natural growth of a human being. Furthermore, Islam is a creed of intense hate and violence, and pollutes the mind of its follower with the bane of hatred and bloodshed, thus, driving its followers of their humanity. So says the Nobel Laureate author V S Naipaul:

“Islam is not simply a matter of conscience or private belief. It makes imperial demands. A convert’s worldview alters. His holy places are in Arab lands. His sacred language is Arabic. His idea of history alters. He rejects whatever is his own: he becomes, whether he likes it or not, a part of the Arab story. The convert has to turn away from everything that is his.”

He add:

“Islam asks its followers to abandon their past histories, culture, and identities… Islam has had a calamitous effect on converted peoples. To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say ‘my ancestral culture does not exist, it does not matter’….” (Beyond Belief)

Islam, thus, aims to turn every convert into a slave of Arabia.

Naipaul's above-mentioned observation is beyond dispute; it's all too obvious to the discerning eye. In Islamic Iraq today, there is no taker of the rich ancient Mesopotamian and Babylonian culture; the same applies to Iran, a proud heir to one of the world's finest ancient civilizations. In Pakistan, there are no takers for the ancient Harappan civilization. The same pattern runs through the entire Islamic world.

The greater irony is that the Muslim invaders -- who once massacred their ancestors, enslaved and raped in massive numbers, and converted them to Islam through inhuman torture and at the point of sword -- are seen by today's Muslims as their saviors. For example, Pakistan has named its most up-to-date long-range missile as Ghauri, after the same of one of the most brutal Muslim invaders of India. And when they sought to celebrate the cessation of Pakistan on August 14, 1947 from India, they chose Karachi as the venue, because this was the place where Mohammad bin Qasem, the first successful Islamic invader of India, brought the light of the Koran and Hadith in 712.

Iran's glorious heritage

Iran has a glorious past, a brilliant cultural heritage, which was much more superior to that of the nomadic Arabs, who invaded it in the 630s. In this context, it should be mentioned that, in the early days of human civilization, people earned their living either by food-gathering or by hunting; later on they raised themselves to the pastoral stage through domestication of animals. Up to this stage civilization, killing of animals was a daily routine matter and meat was the principle food item and this practice turns people naturally cruel. Then, with advent agriculture, men became less and less dependent on animal flesh and in this regard, the position of Iran was unique. There is sufficient evidence that Iran became agricultural as early as 8000 BC. Early agricultural communities such as Chogha Bonut etc. lived nearly in 8000 BC.

It is also important to note that, with the advent of agriculture, urban civilization came into being in western Iran as early as in 8000 or 7000 BC. The city of Susa and Chogha Mish still exist since their founding in 7000 BC and 6800 BC respectively. Dozens of pre-historic sites across the Iranian plateau point to the existence of ancient cultures and urban settlements in the fourth millennium BC, centuries before the earliest civilizations arose in nearby Mesopotamia.

Arabia on the other hand is land of semi-desert nature and paucity of rainfall made it hopelessly unsuitable for agriculture. As result, the Arabian society, till today, is somewhat pastoral in nature. Due to their pastoral life-style, the Arabs still manage their daily affairs by using the lunar calendar (Hijri). But adoption of a solar calendar is a must for an agricultural society, as farming is intimately connected with the annual movement of sun and the subsequent changes of seasons. This is the reason why the National Calendar of Islamic State of Bangladesh is not Hijri, but the Bengali solar calendar, as the Bangladeshi society is agricultural.

Agriculture was a milestone in the history of human civilization. Firstly, it terminated the nomadic and pastoral lifestyle and provided man with permanent settlements, which in turn led to the formation of states and governments with well-defined constitutions and judiciaries. Secondly, with the progress of farming, a section of people was able to detach them from hard day-to-day labor for earning a living, and devote their time on pursuit of knowledge and other cultural activities. So, it can safely be said that agriculture was womb of modern human civilization.

Ferdowsi, Persian poet & philosopher Cyrus the Great

In Iran, this process began very early, ca. 8000 BC, and helped her to emerge as one of the oldest as well as the richest civilization on earth. In fact, this enabled Persian thinkers and seekers of truth to spend much time to devote themselves in very intricate as well as subtle philosophical thoughts, while people in the other part of the world, including Arabia, stayed far behind in the race of civilization. So, today’s Iran did not become Islamic due to the superiority of the Arabian culture. It was, instead, forced upon the civilized people of Persian with brute force by the Arab Muslim invaders. In fact, Islamization has dragged down Iran from the pinnacle of civilization.

It should also be mentioned that, Iran was not Islamized overnight but gradually; and its Islamization was never complete, it was never totally Arabized unlike Egypt, Syria and Palestine. Iran could retain strands of cultural identity and vigour, and this inner strength of Iran helped it re-emerge with a separate and distinctive character, and enabled her make immense contribution to the Islamic civilization even within an atmosphere of alien Islamic-Arabic culture. Arab Islam in Iran emerged as a distinct Iranian Islam or Persian Islam; this new Islam is sometimes referred to as Islam-i Ajam (Persian Islam) by scholars.

The Great Iranian poet and philosopher Ferdowsi (d. 1020 CE) comprehended this tragic downfall of his motherland, her culture and civilization. So, nearly a thousand years ago, he gave a call to his converted countrymen through his literary epic, Shahnameh, to return to their cultural and civilizational roots by narrating the Herculean efforts of the Princes of Samanid dynasty (r. 819–999 CE) to revive the Persian cultural heritage, which had been ravaged by the Arab invaders. But unfortunately, the Samanids were later on conquered by the Ghaznavid Turks. He wished that his masterpiece epic would last the test of time, and inspire his countrymen to return to original culture. Ferdowsi's call to the Iranians still rings in the air of Persia.

Today Muslims youths, who are taking to the streets in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain and other Islamic states in the Middle-East, defying bullets and death, must also keep in mind that in 1979, the Iranian people revolted against the oppressive dictatorship of Shah Reza Pahlavi, but the Iranians ended up within the clasp of a much more brutal and ruthless Islamic dictatorship, leading their nation into greater abyss and darkness. If they sidestep Islam today, it will create another, probably more vicious, dictator.

Conclusion

Amidst the wind of aspiration for freedom in the Muslim world, our brothers of Iran should heed the call of their intellectuals to free themselves from the enslaving shackle of Islam, which was once forced upon their forefathers through inhuman torture and oppression. They should throw away the edifice of Islam, and return to their own ancestral culture and faith of great sage, Zoroaster. It's unfortunate that the heirs of the glorious Persian civilization have been forced to follow the legacy of a pedophile, rapist, plunderer, mass murderer imposter-prophet of Arabia for so long. They should go back to the tradition of the great humanitarian king, Cyrus the Great, who propagated the basic principles human rights nearly in 600 BC, which were strictly followed by the Achaemenids, who introduced and adopted policies based on human rights, equality. It is high time that the people of Iran today take steps to salvage their glorious and rich ancient culture. The Iranians should make efforts to emerge out of the abyss of Islam, and stand on the world stage as a respectable people in fitting with their brilliant ancient heritage.

Karen Armstrong's Shameless Glorification of Islam

One is left to wonder: why so many intellectuals, despite knowing the barbarism inherent in the Islamic creed, glorify Islam and Muhammad?

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British author Karen Armstrong (67) is a former Roman Catholic nun and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL). She is a reputed author of numerous works on comparative religion. She rose to prominence in 1993 with her highly successful work A History of God. She believes that "All the great traditions are saying the same thing in much the same way, despite their superficial differences." She has been awarded the $100,000 TED (Technology Entertainment Design) Prize in February 2008. In 1996, she published Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. The central thrust of her work is: Islam has come to spread compassion among the nations of the world.

Karen Armstrong

Sponsored by the School of Foreign Services in Qatar, Professor Armstrong delivered a lecture, entitled The Core of Our Religious Traditions, at the Centre for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) of the Georgetown University on 13th March 2011 as part of its cultural events.

To begin the lecture, she said, “Religion has a main role in that it can provide a major contribution to build a global community where people can live in peace and harmony.” She spurned those, who believe that religion has been the cause of violence and wars throughout history, by saying that war and violence are motivated by greed and power. “Each religion has its own particular and exclusive insights, but all religions have a thing in common, and that is the belief in the Supreme Being who is God. Words stop and fail when we begin to define God”, she added. After summing up her message, she cried out: “Allahu Akbar”.

To narrate her presentation, Jihad Watch writes,

“She pointed out that religion teaches us mainly to worship Allah and to do good, and the Qur’an calls for good actions. She quoted the Arabic word: (al-salihat) which includes doing whatever good to help people, be it kindness to orphans, and giving alms to the poor. In other words, The Qur’an calls for compassion, and compassion is the core of the Golden Rule which says: “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” This is the bond of suffering.”

Then Professor Armstrong quoted the hadith (prophetic saying) of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), where he said: “None of you will be a true believer until he desires for others what he desires for himself.”

Expressing her sympathy for Muslims, she said, “After the September 11th event, the Muslim communities in the West have been exposed to a lot of suffering inflicted upon them. Such a treatment is too far from the Golden Rule of compassion.” But she forgot to express her sympathy for nearly 3000 victims, who perished in the 9/11 terrorist work. It is well known that after the 9/11 attack, Muslims across the world rejoiced and celebrated as an Islamic victory.

But Dr Armstrong said, “As a reaction to this injustice toward Muslims, cities in different parts of the world have developed campaigns to promote community compassion among its residents, where Muslim youths are significantly participating in these campaigns, especially in Amsterdam, Holland. The city of Seattle in north-western United States, leads the list of compassionate cities.” On the other hand, Professor Armstrong cited Afghanistan and Iraq as examples of places where compassion is non-existent.

“Just like a mother has compassion for her child, Allah has compassion for man. There was a time when Allah’s revelation to the Prophet (PBUH) stopped and the Prophet (PBUH) felt desolate, abandoned, and depressed”, she added. Later, revelation returned and the Prophet (PBUH), feeling that the grace of the Lord was proclaimed, he went public in his message. The first Sura (chapter) that was revealed to him from Allah was “Al Duha”, whose opening Ayas (verses), Professor Armstrong quoted from memory: “By the morning hours, and the night when it falls. Your Lord has neither forgotten nor forsaken you. And the hereafter is better for you than present life. And verily, your Lord will give you so that you will be pleased.”

There is no doubt that Karen Armstrong belongs to that stock of Western intellectuals, who call themselves pious followers of multiculturalism and are trying their best to help the spread Islam in the West. Dr Ali Sina, the Iranian scholar and the founder of Faith Freedom International has divided these kinds of people into two categories: 1) the useful idiots, and 2) the well-paid traitors. The readers may decide to which category Dr Armstrong belongs.

The lies of Karen Armstrong

As mentioned above, Dr Armstrong claims that the Quran calls for compassion, while both the Quran and Prophet Muhammad preach the principle of Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” She also said: Allah is compassionate toward mankind.

In reality, Allah is kind and compassionate to Muslims only; toward non-Muslim kafirs, Allah is a ferocious demon, inciter of cruelty, violence and genocide. In the Koran, Allah incites Muslims to persecute the kafirs -- to kill them, to set their houses on fire, to plunder their wealth and riches, to rape their women, to kill their children, or in short, to mount any kind brutal oppression on them. As an author of comparative religions, Dr Armstrong must be aware of these aspects of Islam. But she has told all these blatant lies to please Muslims (including her Qatari sponsors) and misguide the disbelievers.

While Dr Armstrong is definitely aware of what the Quran truly says, let me reiterate it for her edification, if she is willing. Allah says:

1. “We have created, for hell, many genii (races) of men, ….and they are like brute beasts” (7.179);
2. “Verily, those who disbelieve our signs, we will surely cast them to be broiled in the hell-fire, so often as their skins shall be well burnt, We will give them new skins in exchange, so that they may taste the sharper torment” (4.56);
3. “Whosoever followeth any religion other than Islam, it shall not be accepted of him in this life, and in the next life he shall be of those who perish” (3.85);
4. “I will cast a dread into the hearts of the unbelievers” (8.12);
5. “Therefore cut off their heads, and strike off all the ends of the fingers. This shall they suffer because they have opposed Allah and His Prophet, and whosoever shall oppose Allah and His Prophet, verily Allah will be severe in punishing them” (8.13);
6. “moreover, as for the non-believers, I will punish them with grievous punishments in this world, and in the world is to come” (3.56);
7. “Allah loves not the unbelievers” (3.57);
8. “they shall suffer a grievous punishment” (3.77),

And opposed to Dr Armstrong's projection of Islam as a humanitarian creed, Islamic humanitarianism is confined to Muslims alone; disbelievers are out of its bounds, which she must be well aware. While commenting on Islamic humanitarianism, Swami Vivekananda said: “Mohammedans talks of universal brotherhood, but what comes out of that in reality? Why anybody who is not a Mohammedan will not be admitted into this brotherhood; he will more likely to have his throat cut.”

Dr. Armstrong's glorification of Muhammad

Dr. Armstrong tried to portray Muhammad as egalitarian, kind and compassionate to entire humanity. One must be left to wonder how a highly educated woman like her can indulge in such shameless lies. Anybody, acquainted with about ABCs of Islam and its founder, knows well how cruel and merciless a monster Muhammad was in dealing with the non-Muslims of Arabia. In fact, he committed barbaric cruelty upon the innocent and peaceful Jewish people of Medina, Mustaliq and Khaybar. Of the 3 major Jewish clans at Medina, he attacked and exiled the tribe of Beni Kanuika and Beni Nadir, and capture their houses and lands, while slaughtered all the adult men Beni Koreiza, captured all of their wealth and enslaved their women and children, some of whom were sold. (The Life of Mahomet, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1992).

He treated the Beni Nadir Jews, who had resettled Khaybar after their earlier eviction from Medina, as well as the Jews of Banu Mustaliq in the same manner he had dealt with Beni Koreiza. Moreover, the diabolical Prophet was in the habit of acquiring the young and prettiest of the captured women as his sex-slave: Reihana of Beni Koreiza, Safiyah of Koreiza, and Juwairiya of Beni Mustaliq.

One is left to wonder: why so many intellectuals, despite knowing the barbarism inherent in the Islamic creed, glorify Islam and Muhammad? Why some western scientists also discover modern scientific discoveries, like the speed of light and human embryology, in the most unscientific book, the Koran?

According to a report by Daniel Golden, the Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, Saudi Arabia has allocated US$ 25 million a year to employ mercenary scientists to concoct and fabricate evidences of modern scientific discoveries in the Quran. There is a good probability that a part of this fund goes to Western intellectuals, who glorify Islam and Prophet Muhammad.

Islam: The Enemy of Freedom

A great irony of the age is that the seemingly most diehard proponents of freedom—the useful idiots of our time—are the most dangerous unwitting accomplices of liberty’s enemy: Islam. Keep in mind that the very name "Islam" is a derivation of "taslim", the Arabic word for "surrender", surrender to the will and dictates of Allah as revealed by Muhammad and recorded in the Quran.

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This non-negotiable surrender to Islam requires the individual as well as the society to disenfranchise themselves of many of the fundamental and deeply cherished human rights.

Below is a brief presentation of what this surrender to Islam entails and why it is imperative that all freedom-loving people arise and defeat the menace of Islamofascism.

Amendment I of the Bill of Rights enshrines some of the most cherished ideals of freedom-loving people:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Islam considers itself the three branches of government. It enacts laws as it sees fit, adjudicates laws, and executes as it deems. Islam is anathema to the provisions of the First Amendment and much more.

• Islam proclaims itself as the only legitimate religion for the entire world, grudgingly granting minor recognition to Judaism and Christianity from whom it has liberally plagiarized many of its dogma. Jews and Christians are allowed to live under the rule of Islam as dhimmis and must pay a special religious tax of jazyyeh. Buddhists, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Baha’is, members of other religions, agnostics, or atheists are not even allowed to live practicing their belief or disbelief.

• Islam actively suppresses and even prohibits the practice of other religions, including those of the “people of the book,” Jews and Christians. There is not a single church or synagogue in the cradle of Islam, Saudi Arabia, while thousands of mosques dot the tolerating and welcoming non-Moslem lands. Islamic countries that allow for Jewish and Christian places of worship subject these “people of the book” to numberless subtle and not-so-subtle forms of persecution. Moslems in non-Moslem lands proselytize relentlessly and convert others while any Moslem who leaves Islam is judged as apostate and automatically condemned to death.

• Freedom of speech is just about non-existent in Islam. The word is Allah’s, his chosen divines such as Ayatollahs and Imams are the only ones who are to make pronouncements squarely-based on Allah’s word, the Quran. Any expression in the least at deviance from the Quran, the Hadith and the edicts of Islamic high divines is heresy and severely punishable. Hence, stifling of free expression is the major mechanism by which the Islamic clergy retain power and prevent constructive change in Islamic societies.

• Freedom of the press is completely alien to Islam, since a free press tends to express matters as it sees it, rather than as it is stated in the Quran. To Islam, the Quran is the press and the only press. There is no need for critical reporting, no need to present ideas that may conflict with the Quran, and no place for criticism of anything Islamic. The stranglehold of Islam on the individual and society is complete.

• Peaceful assembly of the people is not allowed. The backward oppressive Islamic societies inflict great hardship on the citizenry and any assembly of the victims presents a threat to the suffocating rule. Islamic governments routinely prevent peaceful assemblies from taking place. Failing to do so, they unleash their hired thugs, the police and even the military against any assemblage no matter how peaceful and how legitimate is its grievance. The Islamic Republic of Iran which is vying with Saudi Arabia as the leader of true Islamic rule, routinely attacks any and all gatherings of its people, arrests them, imprisons them without due process, tortures them, and even executes them in secret dungeons. Journalists, academics, unionists, students, teachers, women rights groups who dare to petition the government for redress are labeled subversive and are severely punished.

• Maltreatment of religious minorities and the non-religious is criminal indeed. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, for instance, the government has launched a systematic program of genocide against its largest religious minority—the Baha’is. The government is gathering a comprehensive list of Baha’is, their occupations, locations, properties and the like—action reminiscent of the Nazis. The government is banning Baha’i students from post high-school education unless they recant their religion, deprives them of engaging in numerous forms of occupations and trades, denies them from holding worship gatherings, razes their holy places and much more. The Islamic Republic of Iran is not satisfied with its cruel treatment of the living Baha’is and has launched a war on their dead by bulldozing Baha’i cemeteries in several cities. Thus is the rule of fundamental Islamism that is awaiting the complacent and snoozing world.

• Oppression of women in general is tragic indeed. Men are allowed to have as many as four wives simultaneously and as many concubines as they wish or can afford. Men can easily divorce their wives and automatically have the custody of the children, if they so decide. Women have subservient status to men in all areas of the law. Equality under the law has no meaning in Islam. Just one example of the dreadful way of treating women in Islam is a case of a Saudi woman who was gang-raped. The Islamic court convicted the woman to prison term and lashes for having committed the “sin” of riding in a car with a male who was not her relative. This is a standard form of Islamic Shariah justice—a savage heritage of barbarism that ruled the Arabian Peninsula some centuries ago.

• Islam has a solution for every “problem.” It deals with homosexuals, for instance, by hanging them en mass and gloating about it, even though homosexuality is just as prevalent in Islamic lands as anywhere else. Recently an Ayatollah made a ruling on homosexuals. He said that they should be tortured before they are hanged. In Islam the rulings of high-ranking clergy constitute the law and are binding.

• Not only Islam does not allow freedom of assembly and the press, it is intrusively restrictive in every aspects of a person’s life. The way women should dress, the haircut of men, the music people are allowed, movies to watch, television programs to view, and even parties in the privacy of their home are subject to the ridiculous monitoring of moral police. Islam is hell-bent on outward morality and puritanical conduct while it is rotten to the core just below the pretentious surface.

• Islam segregates by gender many public places and events such as beaches, sporting venues, public transportations, and even building elevators. Families are often prevented from attending a sporting event together or swimming together at a beach.

• Egypt, the crown of the Arab-Islam world, demands that citizens declare Islam or only one of the two other religions, Jewish and Christianity, as their religion in order to receive the government-issued identity cards. ID cards are required for jobs, healthcare, education, a marriage license and a host of other things. If you are an agnostic, an atheist, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Baha’i, you are forced to perjure yourself to receive the indispensable ID card. In a real sense, Islam the pretender of high moral ground compels people to lie in order to receive what is their birthright as citizens.

I have been sounding the alarm about Islam’s imminent deadly threat for a number of years. The Islamic treasury flush with oil extortion money together with the help of useful idiots is having the upper hand in this battle of survival for freedom. The slaveholder Islam has been transformed into a more virulent form of Islamofascism; it is an inveterate unrelenting enemy of freedom. We need to act now and stem the tide of this deadly threat. Tomorrow may be too late. Freedom is too precious to abandon through complacency, acts of political correctness, or outright cowardice.

Amil Imani is the author of Obama Meets Ahmadinejad.

Religious Imprinting and Jihadism

Religious belief is emotional at its core. And emotions are not governed by logic or reason. Becoming religious is similar to imprinting, most dramatically seen in ducklings. During a critical period of time after hatching the ducklings become imprinted on any moving object—be it the mother duck, a mechanical duck, or a moving human. It doesn’t matter. The ducklings simply follow the initially moving object.

Konrad Lorenz, animal ethologist (1903–89), showed how easily birds could become "imprinted".

Religion, for most part, is infused into the mind of children from the moment of birth. Early childhood is the time that children are most imprintable. The strength and permanence of this imprinting process depend on a variety of influences. Over time, some people retain the initial imprint and strengthen it, some adopt a middle course, and some might even discard it altogether. A significant number in any religious faith becomes extremely committed to the extent that they are willing to kill others and themselves in the service of their religion.

The human mind is a battleground of contending forces where the two most powerful are reason and emotion: where reason assesses life and produces measures that are adaptive, to the best of its ability; while emotion, by-and-large, operates on feelings. Ordinarily, an uneasy truce prevails between the two generally incompatible powers.

In many situations, the clash between dictates of reason and promptings of emotion result in intra-psychic conflicts. In any given case, the conflict may settle by one party getting its way, reaching a compromise, or a deadlock producing paralysis of inaction.

Beliefs, as is the case with all living and non-living complex systems, are targeted by forces that aim to break them down. In the case of beliefs, any threatening event, particularly when severe, produces great anxiety in the believer.

Anxiety produces aversive reaction. The mind deals with anxiety by a mix of chemical and psychological measures. On the psychological side there are defense mechanisms such as rationalization and denial. Both these measures reduce the debilitating impact of anxiety by the person literally misleading himself. Rationalization supplies faulty reasoning by telling the person that the bad thing, or the threat, is not all that bad; while denial completely refuses to admit it exists. Alcoholism, for instance, is known as the disease of denial since the alcoholic denies that he is an alcoholic even in the face of irrefutable objective evidence.

Religious beliefs’ emotional underpinning spawns fanaticism in some of the adherents, since fanaticism is seen as a reflection of one’s true loyalty and strong faith.

Beliefs, be they religious or otherwise, are tied to a central figure such as a prophet, a philosopher, or a social reformer. Particularly in religion, the central figure and his high disciples occupy a rarefied, nearly superhuman, sphere.

It is a human tendency to find a source or a person to whom he can attribute powers and qualities that he himself yearns for, yet he lacks—a father surrogate. People age, but the insecure child within remains at the core of many. It is the child within that attaches himself to an omnipotent father figure.

The founder of a religion presents to the child within the lost father he no longer has or he never had. It is for this reason that the founder of a religion is held at the highest esteem and his edicts are obeyed wholeheartedly by his followers. The believers’ degree of devotion is in direct proportion to the hierarchy of the religious authorities.

In the case of the 12-Imamate Shi’a Islam, for instance, the Imams filled the void that was created by Muhammad’s death. Hence, the Imams are revered with a degree of devotion only one notch below Muhammad himself. In time, the Imams also died. Yet the need for a tangible father-figure remained. The Shiites filled that void by transferring their attachments to a cadre of religious authorities ranging from the highest-ranking Grand Ayatollahs, followed by Ayatollahs, the Hujat-ul-Islams (Islamic adjudicators), and all the way down to the village mullah.

Attributing special powers and capabilities to the father surrogate not only compels the person to ward off anything that threatens to undermine his belief, but to do what he can to further solidify it. This process of protecting one’s belief and shoring it up frequently results in strong emotional attachment to the leader. In a real sense, people see the person as an omnipotent father figure—their savior—who would guide them and minister to their needs not only in this world, but also in the afterlife.

As is the case in all attachments, a price must be paid. The price is often commensurate with the degree of attachment. A religious fanatic is a rigidly-attached believer who is captive of his own emotional excesses. This emotional excess, given the right context, will overrule the dictates of reason and compels the fanatic to carry out any abhorrent act demanded of him rather than sever his emotional fixation on the righteousness of his belief and the authority of his belief leaders.

Islam is an intensely emotional authoritarian system of belief. Hence, Islam induces powerful emotional imprinting in a large percentage of its adherents. It is from this segment of the Muslims that the fanatic jihadists arise and pose existential threat to the “other.” The jihadists are rigidly-imprinted foot-soldier Islamic automatons that have little choice but to carry out the fatwa and dictates of their high-ranking religious leaders such as the Ayatollahs in the case of the Shi’a and Muftis for the Sunni.

For as long as Muslim high priests retain their stranglehold on the masses of Muslims, generation after generation of father-figure seeking jihadists will turn to them, revere them, and carry out their violent decrees obediently.

Amil Imani is an Iranian-born ex-Muslim and the author of Obama Meets Ahmadinejad.

Yoni: A Sacred Symbol in Islam

In traditional Islamic dream interpretation, a Muslim woman's vagina is understood to be the doorway, through which Allah has commanded all Muslims to pass, as verse 2:189 of the Qur’an says: "So come to the houses by their doors".

The vulva (farj) means "relief (faraj) for whoever is in distress." And the vulva is the mihrab (prayer niche in a mosque) and the qiblah (the direction of Mecca toward which one faces in prayer).

In the wall of a mosque facing toward's Mecca, the mihrab is like a vagina recessed into the wall to show the direction of prayers for Muslims. Thus in traditional Islam, the yoni is associated with the most sacred rite of Islam, the daily prayers.

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Reference: See the Islamic dream interpretation book, "Ta‘tîr al-anâm fî ta‘bîr al-manâm", by 17th-century Sufi scholar 'Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi, 5th ed. (Beirut: Dar al-Khayr, 1991), p. 358-359, for this symbolism.