Freedom from Religion: A Muslimah's Testimony of Leaving Islam

A Muslimah's fine testimony of leaving Islam. She has also started an excellent blog, "Freedom to Choose". Islam is crumbling fast. Islam's end is within sight.

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I was born to Muslim parents. A mother who had been very religious all her life, and a father who had become zealously religious (coming from a relatively liberal background) after his marriage to that woman.

As with every child born to Muslim parents, the adhan was recited into my ears and thus it was decided. My religion, my deen, was to be Islam, Islam was what I was supposed to be holding true till the day I die. Allah was the one whom I was supposed to be worshiping till my last breath.

Growing up, I was learning to read the Quran in Arabic, Allah’s language, I was learning to pray, fast and do everything Allah’s Prophet Muhammad taught the Muslim ummah to do. I loved the look on my mother’s face every time I recited a new surah for her, every time she was praised for bringing up a good Muslim girl. At the age of 12, I told my parents I wanted to observe hijab. They were so proud of me, everyone was. I was told Allah was pleased with me and that made me very happy at that time. To please my creator so he would save me from hellfire, the scariest thing I’d ever heard of, that was my goal.

Like any other child I was curious and I had many doubts and questions. My mother used to read to me stories of prophets: Adam, Nuh, Ibrahim, Yusuf, Musa, Isa and all the others. It was these stories that created first doubts in me back then. Why, for example, did Allah create Satan if He knew what he was going to do? Why did Allah have to test Ibrahim? Didn’t Allah see the future? Didn’t Allah himself determine the future? And how about us? Has Allah also determined which of us go to Heaven and which of us go to Hell? How was this life a test, if the result is what Allah wants it to be and is in fact predestined from the very start?Every time I asked I got the same answer: Islam is blind faith, Islam demands blind faith Allah doesn’t want you to question (5:101). Besides, Allah knows best.

So the questions were left unanswered and I was forced to bury them, because Allah apparently didn’t want me to think about them. There was one question I didn’t ask, I somehow understood it was controversial and I kept it to myself. Though I couldn’t help wondering, what if we have the wrong God? What if Allah wasn’t God, what if it was Krishna or Jesus or some other God unheard of? What then?

Whenever I thought of this, I felt guilt, shame and disgust towards myself. I asked Allah to forgive me for having such thoughts and guide me, I tried doing every thing I could to please Allah, so that he’d be pleased and let me into Paradise. It became an obsession.At 15 I had read the Quran several times in Arabic, but I felt the need to read it in a language I understood. I felt it imperative to understand what Allah was commanding mankind to do in His final book. So I took to reading the Quran in English.

At first I was fascinated, thrilled even by Allah’s words, but that died out soon enough. As I read on, I was surprised to find absurd, illogical stories, barbaric laws and more misogyny than I had ever come across. All those questions I had as a child and many more began to race through my head and I repeated to myself the same sentence my mother told me as a child: Allah knows best.

No I didn’t think a man should be permitted to hit his wife or even have more than one wife, to control them and ‘use’ them whenever and however he wanted to.

No I didn’t think a woman’s testimony was worth half of a man’s, or that men were better than women or that her period was dirty, an illness.
But it didn’t matter what I thought, this was what the Creator of the Universe had decided and this is how it was suppose to be. So once again I buried my doubts and continued reading.

Around this time I heard of EDMD – Everybody Draw Muhammad Day - on Facebook. I had never been more outraged. These people were mocking Prophet Muhammad, the noblest man to ever walk the surface of the Earth, the man Allah Himself chose as His Messenger, the best among the best of mankind. And these people, these ignorant people wanted to mock and disgrace this great man?

EDMD was something of a reality check for me. Up until now I assumed everyone in the world either belonged to one the Abrahamic religions or was a Hindu, those were the only religions I had seen. And as a good Muslim would, I hated them. I hated the Jews and Christians because they were enemies of Allah, of the Prophet and of the Ummah, constantly conspiring to destroy us. I hated the Hindus because they associated partners with Allah.

But on EDMD I found that not only people had myriads of very different religious ideas, but also that there were people who didn’t worship any god, or even said god didn’t exist at all. Atheists. I thought they were crazy, absurd for saying that the Universe wasn’t created. Where did it come from then? At that time, they were another group of people for me to hate. Another group of people who denied the true religion, Islam and had strange ideas I’d never heard of.

I was there, defending Islam, conveying its meaning to these delusional people, whose ideas came from Allah knows where. Here I was forced to confront the doubts and questions I pushed at the back of my closet, that I didn’t want to think about and so much more.

I heard of things about the Muslim Ummah I was unaware of. How Theo Van Gogh was brutally killed in the middle of the street by a Muslim for making a movie critical of Islam. How people were killed in Islamic countries for converting to other religions. How homosexuals were executed in public and so much more that Muslims never spoke of. All we cried about is how the West was destroying our countries and killing our people or how the Jews were torturing the Palestinians or how the Hindus discriminated against us in India but we never, ever spoke about how so many Muslims were being killed by Muslims themselves, how Muslims were killing non Muslims in so many places. All of that just didn’t matter. It was only important when we were victimized by someone else. That’s all we cared about.

I was questioned about Prophet Muhammad’s lifestyle. The man I held to be the perfect example to follow didn’t seem so perfect anymore. His marriage to 9 year old Aisha when he was 53 (it doesn’t matter if it was a custom then, Muhammad was supposed to the ultimate example for all times), his massacre of the Banu Qurayza tribe, his multiple wives and concubines and they way he “acquired” them. The robberies, rape and murders his men carried on by his command disgusted me. I was ashamed of looking up to this man but I was also afraid of admitting it. So I found myself trying to justify all of it and the more I tried, the more I realized I didn’t think it was right.

I decided to read the Quran again and not shut my thought process this time. When I did, I felt like the whole religion was falling apart. I found the story of the cow in Surah Baqra absolutely ridiculous, the story of Solomon and his talking ants silly to the maximum, the story of the elephants in Surah Feel absurd. None of it made sense. I was afraid to admit it to myself, but it was becoming undeniable. So I prayed to Allah to help me out of it. I thought He was testing me and I asked for help. But none came. Slowly I did admit that I didn’t agree with what the Quran had to say, I didn’t agree with Allah’s law and His Prophet’s teachings. I began viewing the Quran critically and now became bold enough to point out errors, in grammar; Allah is very confused when it comes to using pronouns.

I started to question the very core premises of Islam: for example, Allah’s hell clearly didn’t seem to be a form of justice, but a threatened eternal, unlimited, brutal punishment for a limited “crimes” committed in a limited and short lifetime, the gravest of which was disbelief, the most heinous deed a person could do, in the eyes of Allah. Forget genocide, child rape, atrocious things like that – disbelief and/or shirk is what Allah cares about the most.

Allah’s dislike of, hatred even, for women, His own creation, and constant discrimination against them, was another thing that repulsed me. His constant calls for war against those who “deny” Him when He doesn’t bother to provide any meaningful proof of His existence … I could continue on and on and on.

I began studying the origins of Islam and it did seem very blatantly man made, created by Muhammad to control the Arabs and make them dance to his tunes.

Islam’s obsession with controlling every single thing, from how you position your feet while you pray, to how you clean yourself after defecating, to how men grow their beards, to how one should position himself while sleeping, to literally making regulations about passing gas, all this small-minded pettiness pointed towards an origin in a mind of an obsessive man, a petty control-freak, hardly a God who created the whole Universe. It seemed to me that such a majestic creator of something so vast would not be weirdly fixated on one tiny planet in one corner of a Galaxy and bothered to send “guidance” only to a single, geographically firmly constrained region of this tiny planet, the Middle Eastern deserts. An impotent God, because not only did He fail to protect the books He supposedly sent earlier but also the “final” book He swore to protect. It isn’t true that the Quran is in its original from, the way Muhammad apparently ‘revealed’ it, one needs to do very little research to realize that, but Muslims choose to ignore that and rant about how their perfect book is “unchanged” and “perfect”. As if it meant anything at all to begin with.

Islam isn’t divine, Allah isn’t a god and Muhammad was a liar, it took me a while to realize that but I did. It is not rocket science, all you need is a little rational thinking and honesty, it is difficult to let go of something you’ve been holding to be true for as long as you can remember but it doesn’t feel good to believe a lie and it can be a great relief to finally let go of ghastly and primitive desert superstitions.

The Left and Islam

The following is an updated edition of a paper I published eighteen months ago. The current edition includes new references to the unfolding events in Egypt.

In front of our eyes, a gigantic regional Arab uprising is taking place. It is evident that until the last few days Western Left had very little to say about it all. It seems as if the Left has reached a rock bottom state of detachment. It has lost contact with the people, social reality, and humanity in general.

Thinking Outside the Secular Box

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
– Karl Marx 1843

Before I launch into a disclosure of liberal and leftist delusional treatment of religions in general, and Islam in particular, I would like to share with you a bad racist joke. Beware; you may not want to share this short tale with your feminist friends.

An American female activist who visited Afghanistan in the late 1990′s was devastated to find out that women were marching 15 feet behind their men. She soon learned from her local translator that this was due to some religious guidelines that ruled [this is the way we show] respect for the ‘head of the family’. Once back in America the devastated activist launched campaign after campaign for women’s rights in Afghanistan. As it happened, the same devoted activist visited Kabul last month. This time she was amazed to find a totally different reality. Women were actually marching 30 feet ahead of their husbands. The activist was quick to report to her headquarters in America: “The Women’s rights revolution is a great success here in Afghanistan. While in the past it was the man who marched in the front, now it is the woman who takes the lead.” Her Afghani translator, who overheard her report, took the activist aside and advised her that her interpretation was totally wrong. “The women” he said, “are walking in front because of the landmines.”

As tragic as it may sound to some, we are not as free as we believe ourselves to be. We are not entirely the author of most of our thoughts and realizations. Our human conditions are imposed on us; we are a product of our culture, language, ideological indoctrination, and in many cases, victims of our intellectual laziness. Like the semi-fictional American female activist above, in most cases we are trapped within our preconceived ideas, and that stops us from seeing things for what they really are. Accordingly, we tend to interpret (and in most cases misinterpret) remote cultures by employing our own value systems and moral codes.

This tendency can have some grave consequences. For some reason ‘we’ (the Westerners) tend to believe that ‘our’ technological superiority together with our beloved ‘enlightenment’ equips us with a ‘rational secularist anthropocentric absolutist ethical system’ of the very highest moral standard.

The Lib-Left

In the West we can detect two ideological components that compete for our hearts and minds; both claim to know what is ‘wrong’ and who is ‘right’. The Liberal would insist on praising individual liberty and civil equality; the Leftist would tend to believe that he or she possesses a ‘social scientific’ tool, helping to identify who is ‘progressive’ and who is ‘reactionary’.

As things stand, it is these two modernist-secularist precepts that have taken on the role of acting as our Western political-ethical guards. But in fact, they have achieved precisely the opposite. Each ideology in its own peculiar way has led us to a state of moral blindness, for it is these two so-called ‘humanist’ calls that have either consciously prepared the ground for criminal interventionist colonial wars (the Liberal), or, have failed to effectively halt or oppose them while employing confused, ineffectual ideologies and faulty arguments (the Left).

Both Liberal and Left in their apparently banal Western (English speaking) forms suggest that secularism is the answer for the world’s ailments, and without a doubt, Western secularism may indeed be a remedy for some aspects of a Western social malaise.

However, what many of the proponents of Western Liberal and Left ideologies typically fail to understand, is that that secularism is itself a natural outcome of Christian culture, i.e., a direct product of Christian tradition and openness towards an independent civic existence. In the West, the spiritual and the civil sphere are largely separated.¹ It is this very division that enabled the rise of secularity and the discourse of rationality. It is this very division that also led to the birth of a secular ethical value system in the spirit of enlightenment and modernism.

But this very division led also to the rise of some blunt forms of fundamental-secularism that matured into crude anti religious worldviews that are no different from bigotry. And it is actually that very misleading fundamental secularism that brought the West to a total dismissal of a billion human beings ‘out there,’ just because they wear the wrong scarf, or happen to believe in something we fail to grasp.

Progressive vs. Regressive

Islam and Judaism, unlike Christianity, are tribally orientated belief systems. Rather than ‘enlightened individualism,’ it is actually the survival of the extended family that is at the core interest of those two belief systems. The Taliban that is regarded by most Westerners as the ultimate worst possible, and darkest political setting, is simply not concerned at all with issues to do with personal liberties or personal rights. It is the safety of the tribe together with the maintenance of family values in the light of the Qur’an that stands at its core. And Rabbinical Judaism is no different at all: It is basically there to preserve the Jewish tribe by maintaining Judaism as a ‘way of life’.

In both Islam and Judaism, there is hardly a separation between the spiritual and the civil. Both religions stand as systems that provide thorough answers in terms of spiritual, civil, cultural and day to day matters. Jewish enlightenment (Haskalah) was largely a process of Jewish assimilation through secularization and emancipation, and spawned various modern forms of Jewish identities, Zionism included. Yet Enlightenment values of universalism have never been incorporated into the body of Jewish orthodoxy. As in the case of Rabbinical Judaism, which is totally foreign to the spirit of Enlightenment, Islam is largely estranged to those values of Euro centric Modernism and rationality. If anything, due to the interpretation of the Scriptures (hermeneutic), both Islam and Judaism are actually closer to the spirit of post modernity.

Neither the various Leftist ideologies nor Liberalism engage intellectually or politically with these two religions. And this fact is disastrous, for the biggest current threat to world peace is posed by the Israeli-Arab conflict; a conflict rapidly becoming a war between a Jewish expansionist state and Islamic resistance.

And yet, both the Liberal and the Left ideologies are lacking the necessary theoretical means to understand the complexities of Islam and Judaism – The Liberals would dismiss Islam as ‘sinister’ because of its approach to human rights and women in particular, whilst the Left would fall into the trap of denouncing religions in general as ‘reactionary’.

But maybe without realizing it, both Liberals and the Left are falling here, into a clearly supremacist argument, for both Islam and Judaism are more than just religions: they convey an entire ‘way of life,’ and stand as a thorough attempt to answer crucial questions regarding being in the world – in dismissing them therefore, the Western Lib-Left are in danger of a complete dismissal of a large chunk of humanity.

I recently accused a genuine Leftist and a good activist of being an Islamophobe for blaming Hamas for being ‘reactionary’. The activist, who is evidently a true supporter of Palestinian resistance was quick to defend himself claiming that it wasn’t only ‘Islamism’ that he didn’t like, he actually equally hated Christianity and Judaism.

For some reason, he was sure that hating every religion equally was a ‘proper humanist qualification’, but the fact that an Islamophobe also considers himself a Judeophobe and Christiano-phobe is not necessarily a sign of a humanist commitment. I kept challenging that good man; he then argued that it was actually Islamism (i.e., political Islam) which he didn’t approve of. I challenged him again, and bringing to his attention the fact that in Islam, there is no real separation between the spiritual and the political: The notion of political Islam (Islamism) may as well be a Western delusional reading of Islam. I pointed out that Political Islam, and even the rare implementation of ‘armed jihad’, are merely Islam in practice.

Sadly enough, this was more or less the end of the discussion –The Palestinian solidarity campaigner found it too difficult to cope with the Islamic unity of body and soul.

The Left in general is doomed to fail here, unless it grasps the organic Islamic bond between the ‘material’ and the so called ‘opium of the masses’. And for the Leftist to do so, it will be nothing less than a major intellectual shift.

Such a shift was suggested recently by Hisham Bustani, an independent Jordanian Marxist, stating:

The European left must make a serious critical assessment of this ‘we know better’ attitude and the ways it tends to deal with popular forces in the south as ideologically and politically inferior.

Palestine

Solidarity with Palestine is a very good opportunity to review the gravity of the situation. As it happens, in spite of the murderous Israeli treatment of the Palestinians, solidarity with Palestinians has yet to become a mass movement, and it may well never make it as such a movement. Given the West’s failure to uphold the rights of the oppressed, Palestinians seem to have learned their lesson, and they democratically elected an Islamic party that promised them resistance. But interestingly enough, very few leftists were there to support the Palestinian people and their democratic choice.

Within the current template of conditional political solidarity, we are losing campaigners on each turn of this bumpy road, and the reasons are as follows.

1. The Palestinian liberation movement is basically a national liberation movement. This acknowledgment is where we lose all the Left cosmopolitans, those who oppose nationalism.


2. Due to the political rise of Hamas, Palestinian resistance is now regarded as Islamic resistance. This is where we are losing the secularists and rabid atheists who oppose religion, catapulting them to being PEP (progressive except on Palestine).

And the PEP are divided largely into two groups:

PEP1. Those who oppose Hamas for being ‘reactionary’, yet approve Hamas for their operational success as a resistance movement. Those activists are basically waiting for the Palestinians to change their mind and revert to a secular society. But, they are willing to conditionally support the Palestinians as an oppressed people.

PEP2. Those who are against Hamas for being a ‘reactionary’ force, and dismiss its operational success. These are waiting for the world revolution. They prefer to let the Palestinians wait for the time being, as if Gaza were a seashore holiday resort

With these rapidly evaporating solidarity forces we are left with a miniature Palestinian solidarity movement with an embarrassingly limited (Western) intellectual power and even less positive performance on the grass roots level. This tragic situation was disclosed recently by Nadine Rosa-Rosso, a Brussels-based independent Marxist. She states: “The vast majority of the Left, including communists, agrees in supporting the people of Gaza against Israeli aggression, but refuses to support its political expressions such as Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon.” This leads Rossa-Rosso to wonder “why do the Left and far Left mobilize such small numbers? And indeed, to be clear, are the Left and far Left still able to mobilize on these issues?”

Egypt

When it comes to Egypt, Western Left’s take is even more embarrassing. As much as the so-called progressive thinkers support the Egyptian peoples’ uprising against their pro-American tyranny, they somehow find it hard to admit, that it is not exactly a Socialist revolution.

A few days ago the UK Socialist Worker journal published an enthusiastic review of the unfolding revolution in Egypt. Though the SWP are in total support of the Egyptian people, the word Islam didn’t appear even once in the article. The Muslim Brotherhood popped up once, and even then they were second to the ‘Socialists’

But it would be a mistake to think that there are no political organisations in Egypt. In immensely difficult circumstances, courageous political activists have organised over many years – socialists, the Muslim Brotherhood and others.

However, the journal is consistent with its working class politics. The word ‘class’ appeared no less than nineteen times in the relatively short article. I do not have any doubt that the SWP supports the Egyptian masses – but I wonder, why is it so reluctant to explore the clear social significance of Islam?

Like the Capitalist West, the Eurocentric Left is somehow afraid to admit that it is more than likely that the Muslim Brotherhood are destined to lead Egypt in the near future.

In spite of recent polls that suggest that up to 95% of the Egyptian Muslim population would prefer to live according to Shari’ah law, the Left, like the Western politicians, insists on minimising the political role of Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood. What we see here is, again, an extended lack of integrity within the ‘progressive’ realm. I would call it ‘PEM’ (‘progressive except for Muslims’).

Tragically enough, the PEM fails to admit that for most Egyptians – liberation and emancipation may mean Islam.

Can the PEM get over his or her Islamophobia? I am not so sure.

But here is the good news. According to some multiple reports from Cairo, in the recent days, tens of thousands of workers across Egypt have gone on strike and joined the anti-Mubarak protests.

Associated Press reported February 9 from Cairo:

Thousands of state workers and impoverished Egyptians went on strike Wednesday after weeks of anti-government protests cast a spotlight on corruption and the wealth amassed by those in power in a country where almost half the people live near the poverty line.

The protests calling for President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster have been spreading outside of Cairo’s Tahrir Square… . For the first time, protesters were forcefully urging labour strikes…

Seemingly in spite of Western Left general impotence, there is a clear awakening of Left grassroots forces in Cairo.

Where Next?

If the left’s support for human rights in Palestine is conditional and dependent on the Palestinians denouncing their religion and ideological beliefs, cultural heritage, and social traditions and adopting a new set of beliefs, alien values and social behaviours that matches what its culture deems acceptable; that means the world is denying them a most basic human right, the right to think, and to live within a chosen ethical code.

– Nahida Izzat.

The current Left discourse of solidarity is futile. It estranges itself from its subject; it achieves very little, and it seems to go nowhere. If we want to help the Palestinians, the Iraqis and the other millions of victims of Western imperialism we really must stop for a second, take a big breath and start again from scratch.

We must learn to listen. Rather than imposing our belief on others – we had better learn to listen to what others believe in.

Can we follow Bustani’s and Rossa-Rosso’s suggestions, and revise our entire notion of Islam, revise our understanding of its spiritual roots, its structure, its unified balance between the civil and the spirit, its vision of itself as a ‘way of living’?

Whether we can do so or not is a good question.

Another option is to reassess our blindness, and to encounter humanist issues from a humanist perspective (as opposed to a political one). Rather than loving ourselves through the suffering of others (which is the ultimate form of self-loving) we had better, for the first time, exercise the notion of real empathy. We put ourselves in the place of the other, whilst accepting that we may never fully understand that very other.

Rather than loving ourselves through the Palestinians and Egyptian masses and at their expense, we need to accept Palestinians and Egyptians for what they are and support them for who they are regardless of our own views on the world.

This is the only real form of solidarity, for it aims at ethical rather than ideological conformity, and it puts humanity at its very centre. It reflects on Marx’s deep understanding of religion as the “sigh of the oppressed”. If we claim to be compassionate about people, then we should begin to learn to love them for what they are, rather than for what we expect them to be.

1. Something to do with a low Roman heritage and the early development of Christianity as an expansionist concept aiming to spread itself to remote cultures and civilizations.
   
2. It can be argued that the primary agenda behind postmodern attempts is to destabilize the foundations of modern knowledge and [ethics by challenging the possibility of modern universal applicability. As eloquently put by Muqtedar Khan, the postmodernist seeks to privilege the ‘here and now’ over the global. Both postmodern philosophy and Religious theology, says Khan “reject the modernist claim in the infallibility of reason”. Like the postmodernist, Islam and Judaism are skeptical towards the sovereignty of reason and discourses of rationality.
   
3. The rather common bizarre Marxist suggestion that ‘quite a few out there’ are in fact ‘reactionary’ for being religious entails the necessary assumption that the Marxist himself is settled comfortably in an absolute moral high ground. Such an assumption is rather faulty for two obvious reasons:
   
   
   
   1. Claiming to know more than others on base of ideological or political affiliation is nothing less than supremacy in practice;
   
   
   2. The claim for possession of the highest moral ground X cannot be verified scientifically unless validated by another superior and higher moral ground X’. For the Marxist to sustain his ‘highest moral ground’ position, he would have to move on and claim to be holding the highest position X’. In order to verify X’ he will need to move on to a superior X’ and so on. We are facing here an infinite search for the validation of ethical meaning. Such a model of thought may help us grasp why Western Marxism has managed to detach itself from ethical reality and ethical thinking and hardly engage with issues to do with true equality.
      
      The obvious problem with the Marxist implementation of the ‘progressive vs reactionary’ dichotomy is that the Marxists suitably claim to be among progressives and conveniently claim that the ‘adversary’ is found among the reactionaries. This is obviously slightly suspicious or even dubious to say the least.

   Phil Weiss in his invaluable MondoWeiss blog recently coined the useful political term PEP: progressive except on Palestine term.
   

Gilad Atzmon was born in Israel and served in the Israeli military. He lives in London and is the author of two novels: A Guide to the Perplexed and the recently released My One and Only Love. Atzmon is also one of the most accomplished jazz saxophonists in Europe. He can be reached at: atz@onetel.net.uk. Read other articles by Gilad.

Islam: The Religion of Rape

Islam 101: The Religion of Rape

By Christopher Logan

In this latest addition to my Islam 101 series, I will explain how Mohammad, and Islam OK rape.

From the Islamic scriptures I will start with:

Koran verse 004.024
YUSUFALI: Also (prohibited are) women already married, except those whom your right hands possess: Thus hath Allah ordained (Prohibitions) against you: Except for these, all others are lawful, provided ye seek (them in marriage) with gifts from your property,- desiring chastity, not lust, seeing that ye derive benefit from them, give them their dowers (at least) as prescribed; but if, after a dower is prescribed, agree Mutually (to vary it), there is no blame on you, and Allah is All-knowing, All-wise.

The meaning of what “right hands possess” is explained in Islamic Law, the Koran, and the ahadith.

“The Reliance of the Traveller, A Classic Manual of Islamic Scared Law”
This book has the stamp of approval of Al Azhar, the highest learning Islamic school in the world.

Justice Chapter: Jihad
THE RULES OF WARFARE

o9.13 When a child or a woman is taken captive, they become slaves by the fact of capture, and the woman’s previous marriage is immediately annulled.

This is backed up by other Koran verses.

033.050
YUSUFALI: O Prophet! We have made lawful to thee thy wives to whom thou hast paid their dowers; and those whom thy right hand possesses out of the prisoners of war whom Allah has assigned to thee; and daughters of thy paternal uncles and aunts, and daughters of thy maternal uncles and aunts, who migrated (from Makka) with thee; and any believing woman who dedicates her soul to the Prophet if the Prophet wishes to wed her;- this only for thee, and not for the Believers (at large); We know what We have appointed for them as to their wives and the captives whom their right hands possess;- in order that there should be no difficulty for thee. And Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

008.069
YUSUFALI: But (now) enjoy what ye took in war, lawful and good: but fear Allah: for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.

While Islam does not consider this rape, it sure sounds like kidnapping, slavery, and rape to me.

The ahadith even go into more detail on how Mohammad approved of him, and his merry men raping women.

Volume 5, Book 59, Number 459:
Narrated Ibn Muhairiz:

I entered the Mosque and saw Abu Said Al-Khudri and sat beside him and asked him about Al-Azl (i.e. coitus interruptus). Abu Said said, “We went out with Allah’s Apostle for the Ghazwa of Banu Al-Mustaliq and
we received captives from among the Arab captives and we desired women and celibacy became hard on us and we loved to do coitus interruptus. So when we intended to do coitus interrupt us, we said, ‘How can we do coitus interruptus before asking Allah’s Apostle who is present among us?” We asked (him) about it and he said, ‘It is better for you not to do so, for if any soul (till the Day of Resurrection) is predestined to exist, it will exist.”

By Mohammad’s words we can see that he did not care that his men raped the women, nor did he care if the women were impregnated by their rapist. What a guy.

After raiding a town and defeating the “enemy”, Mohammad picked a female captive of his own.

Volume 3, Book 34, Number 437:
Narrated Anas bin Malik:

The Prophet came to Khaibar and when Allah made him victorious and he conquered the town by breaking the enemy’s defense, the beauty of Safiya bint Huyai bin Akhtab was mentioned to him and her husband had been killed while she was a bride. Allah’s Apostle selected her for himself and he set out in her company till he reached Sadd-ar-Rawha’ where her menses were over and he married her. Then Hais (a kind of meal) was prepared and served on a small leather sheet (used for serving meals). Allah’s Apostle then said to me, “Inform those who are around you (about the wedding banquet).” So that was the marriage banquet given by Allah’s Apostle for (his marriage with) Safiya. After that we proceeded to Medina and I saw that Allah’s Apostle was covering her with a cloak while she was behind him. Then he would sit beside his camel and let Safiya put her feet on his knees to ride (the camel).

Are we really supposed to believe that Safiya willingly married Mohammad, after him and his army killed her husband? Only a blind following Muslim would believe that.

Volume 5, Book 59, Number 513:
Narrated ‘Abdul ‘Aziz bin Suhaib:

Anas bin Malik said, “The Prophet took Safiya as a captive. He manumitted her and married her.” Thabit asked Anas, “What did he give her as Mahr (i.e. marriage gift)?” Anas replied. “Her Mahr was herself, for he manumitted her.”

Here we read of the official rape, of what was obviously a petrified girl. (She was a Jewish girl that was 17 at the time.)

Volume 5, Book 59, Number 523:
Narrated Anas bin Malik:

The Prophet stayed with Safiya bint Huyai for three days on the way of Khaibar where he consummated his marriage with her. Safiya was amongst those who were ordered to use a veil.

As I have been saying, Islam is a religion of war, that encourages lying, and allows rape. It is the anti-thesis of America, and it should of never been allowed to be practiced here in the first place.

The Fallacy & Danger of Equating Islam with Other Religions

Many well-meaning Westerners and infidels tell us that Islam is just an ancient religion with outdated ethical concepts like many others, or that Islamic scriptures contain violence passages as does other scriptures. Why such judgement is fallacious and what it entails to the future of our civilization???
Did you ever hear this argument?
Ancient religious texts like the Koran contain outdated ethical concepts. The Old Testament has brutal laws and violent passages. As a result Christians and Jews don't follow them. Muslims are the same as Christians and Jews; they pick what works and reject what doesn't work. Why should Islam be considered any worse than other religion or cult?
The short answer is that Islam is not similar to anything else, including religions such as Christianity. As far as the Koran having any outdated ethical concepts, that is impossible. According to Islamic doctrine, the Koran is perfect, eternal and universal. It does not contain the slightest error since contains the exact words of Allah. Hence, it can never be outdated.
Also, the Koran is a derivative book. Every idea in the Koran, with two exceptions, can be traced to earlier works. The two novel ideas in the Koran are that Mohammed is the last prophet of god and that violent force, jihad, can be used to harm those who don't agree with Mohammed. Violence against kafirs (unbelievers) is systemic in all of Islam's texts and forms a central theme.Yes, the Old Testament has violence, but there is no real parallel to the Koran and Islam. Look at the numbers. The violence in the Old Testament is limited to a few verses. The violence in the Koran against the kafir (unbeliever) takes up 61% of the text. Every mention of the kafir is brutal, condemning, pejorative, hateful and threatening. The Hadith, the Traditions of Mohammed, has 20% of its text devoted to jihad. The Sira, Mohammed's life, has 70% of the text about Mohammed as prophet devoted to jihad.
These numbers show that the analogy between the violence in the texts of the Jews and Christians is vastly overdrawn. The next suggested parallel between Islam and Christians is that both pick and choose from their texts. Every Muslim believes that the Koran is perfect down to the last letter. It does not have a single error. This makes it very difficult to ignore.But a Muslim does have a way to make choices that a Christian, Jew, Buddhist or Hindu cannot. Islam has dualistic ethics. Muslims are all brothers and to be treated as such. But there is no Golden Rule and a Muslim may choose to treat the kafir badly or well, depending upon the situation and needs. That is the nature of dualistic ethics.Dualism also allows the choice of the Meccan Koran or the Medinan Koran. When Mohammed was in Mecca, he was weak and attempted to get along with the Meccans. This gives us the verses of tolerance. Later, in Medina Mohammed had power and the Koran became cruel and vicious towards any person who denied Mohammed. So every Muslim has the choice of tolerance and coexistence from the Meccan verses, or any of the physical violence or hatred found in the Medinan Koran.There is another choice that a person who claims to be a Muslim can make. They may choose to be a kafir by ignoring an Islamic doctrinal point. It is very odd, but people assume that every action by one who calls them a Muslim is pure Islam. But the Koran condemns Muslims who make choices to imitate kafirs. This condemnation extends to those who choose to apply the Golden Rule to kafirs. So there are three kinds of Muslim, depending on their choices: Meccan Muslim, Medinan Muslim and kafir Muslim.There is a great danger in trying to understand Islam through Christianity or any other Western idea or concept. The underlying assumption is that Islam is similar or has parallels to kafir culture. This means that Islam does not need to be studied, because it is "like" some kafir concept or institution such as freedom and Christianity. This idea is false and has no supporting facts to prove it. Islam is sui generis, unique, and without parallel.Islam stands entirely on its own with a separate logic, reasoning and ethical system. Islam must be studied on its own. In the end this means understanding the themes of the Koran and the life of Mohammed found in the Sira and the Hadith.Why is Islam worse than any other religion or cult? Simple, it is not a religion, but a complete civilization that has a political doctrine of annihilating and subjugating all kafir civilizations. This doctrine had been put into action for the last 1400 years and has caused the deaths of 270 million kafirs.Islam has annihilated entire civilizations. Take Afghanistan as an example. Before, Islam invaded the civilization of Gandharva, it had been peaceful for four centuries and was wealthy. Buddhism flourished and great art was produced. Then came Islamic jihad and Ghandarva was destroyed down to the last work of art and the last Buddhist. Today we have the armpit of the world-Afghanistan, an Islamic nation based upon Sharia law and Islamic politics. Buddhism and Gandharvan culture have been totally destroyed.The political theory of Islam and its results correlate 100%. Of course, there are some harmful and creepy cults, but, measured by results, they are not in the same league as political Islam. Islam is the ultimate civilizational predator and should receive most of the attention.Today we have two choices in viewing Islam. We can see it as based upon its doctrine and history or we can choose to see it on the basis of multiculturalism-all cultures are equally valid. But Islam denies that all cultures are equally valid. Islam insists that it is superior all other cultures. All cultures are not equally valid and all other cultures must submit. It is the will of Allah, and it is Sunna (the way of Mohammed). What is odd is that tolerant multiculturalists defend the Islamic monoculture so much.This means that we also have two other choices. Will kafirs ignore the threat of total destruction or go on pretending that Islam is similar to other cultures? Will we foolishly apply the Golden Rule to a civilization based on dualism and hope to create an Islam that respects kafirs and treats them well? But Allah hates kafirs and it is Sunna to immigrate, deceive and make the kafirs submit little by little.Choices: will we choose life or death for kafir civilization?

Islam is a Complete Civilizational Religion

Unless it is correctly recognized that Islam is not simply a religion, but also a complete civilization, we risk losing our own to Muslims....
The negative spiritual and intellectual consequence of believing two mutually exclusive concepts is "cognitive dissonance." Our interaction as a society with Islam is a direct cause of "cognitive dissonance" for us as individuals and as a culture.
Resolution of the contradiction requires the rejection of one of the concepts as false. If we continue to ignore our cognitive dissonance about Islam the consequences are dire: we will lose our civilization.
Islam is much more than a religion; it is a complete civilization that includes politics (caliphate), jurisprudence (Sharia law), war (jihad), and a deliberately misleading "religion of peace." The doctrine of Islam is found in three books: Koran (the literal word of Allah as "revealed" to Mohammed), Sira (Mohammad's biography), and Hadith (stories about and sayings of Mohammed by contemporaries). The definitive text of Sharia law is "Reliance of the Traveller." Allah and Mohammed are to be obeyed, not questioned. "Islam" means "submission;" a Muslim is "one who submits." "Islam" does not mean "peace."
Say: Obey Allah and the Apostle; but if they turn back, then surely Allah does not love the unbelievers. (Koran,3:32)
O you who believe! Obey Allah and His Apostle and do not turn back from Him while you hear. (Koran, 8:20)
O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness; and know that Allah is with those who guard (against evil). (Koran, 9:123)
The purpose of the Islamic doctrine is the destruction of all cultures that are not Islamic and expansion of Islam until the entire world is under Islamic rule and Sharia law.
O Prophet! strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites, and be hard against them; and their abode is hell; and evil is the resort. (Koran, 66:9)
Saed had been right about taking prisoners after the battle: take no prisoners until Islam has made all submit. They were to forget the ransom and the money, Mohammed said, because submission of the non-believers was all that mattered. (Sira:Ishaq:484 - Mohammed and the Unbelievers: A Political Life, Center for the Study of Political Islam, 2006, p.71)
And fight with them until there is no persecution, and religion should be only for Allah, but if they desist, then there should be no hostility except against the oppressors. (Koran, 2:193)
It is difficult for many to accept that such an ideology can be real and that people kill and die for it; we see the truth of Islam in word and deed but pretend that it is not so. According to Sharia law (Islamic law) Islam abrogates, that is "cancels," all other religions.
Previously revealed religions were valid in their own eras, as is attested to by many verses of the Holy Koran, but were abrogated by the universal message of Islam as is equally attested to by many verses of the Koran.
...It is unbelief (kufr) to hold that the remnant cults now bearing the names of formerly valid religions, such as "Christianity" or "Judaism," are acceptable to Allah Most High after He has sent the final Messenger (Allah bless him and give him peace) to the entire world. (Reliance of the Traveller, w4.0(2))
Our national cognitive dissonance began immediately after 9/11 when President George Bush visited the Islamic Center of Washington on September 17, 2001, and said, "Islam is peace." President Obama has reiterated this misperception of Islam specifically in his recent speech of apology in Cairo to the "Muslim World."The contradiction of Islam upon which our cognitive dissonance is based is this: Islam is benevolent and peaceful, and Islam is violent and hostile. Both positions cannot be true.
Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. (Koran:9:29)
You will find others who desire that they should be safe from you and secure from their own people; as often as they are sent back to the mischief they get thrown into it headlong; therefore if they do not withdraw from you, and (do not) offer you peace and restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them; and against these We have given you a clear authority. (Koran, 4:91)
Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah 's Apostle said, "I have been ordered to fight with the people till they say, 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah,' and whoever says, 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah,' his life and property will be saved by me except for Islamic law, and his accounts will be with Allah, (either to punish him or to forgive him.)" (Bukhari, Hadith, Volume 4, Book 52, Number 196)
The majority of the doctrine of Islam is about how Muslims are to interact with non-Muslims; it is essentially about - us. Statistical analysis of the doctrine of Islam by Dr. Bill Warner of the Center for the Study of Political Islam is enlightening:
62% of Koran is devoted to how Islam interacts with the kafir (the unbeliever).
98% of the Sira is devoted to the struggle against kafirs. (70% is jihad; 28% is argument and insults.)
20% of Bukhari Hadith is devoted to jihad.
The evidence to resolve our societal cognitive dissonance about Islam is readily available and painfully obvious.
Lo! those who disbelieve, among the People of the Scripture and the idolaters, will abide in fire of hell. They are the worst of created beings. (Koran, 98:6)
Islamist mass murderers and terrorists/jihadists are not "hijackers of Islam," they are not "misunderstanders" of Islam; they are the devout followers of a political ideology that is hostile to our existence because we are not Muslims.
We will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve, because they set up with Allah that for which He has sent down no authority, and their abode is the fire, and evil is the abode of the unjust. (Koran, 3:151)
Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due (jizya tax), then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. (Koran, 9:5)
The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) which is under a cloud of suspicion (see "Muslim Mafia" by P. David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry) has been the leading espouser of Islamic "understanding" in America. CAIR's mission statement that it is "to be a leading advocate for justice and mutual understanding" is not, according to their founder, their true purpose.
Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said, "Khosrau will be ruined, and there will be no Khosrau after him, and Caesar will surely be ruined and there will be no Caesar after him, and you will spend their treasures in Allah's Cause." He called, ‘War is deceit'. (Bukhari, Hadith, Volume 4, Book 52, Number 267)
CAIR's founder, Omar Ahmad, said in 1998 that "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran . . . should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth." (San Ramon, CA., Valley Herald, 7/04/1998.)
So obey not the disbelievers, but strive against them herewith with a great endeavour. (Koran, 25:52)
If our culture and society are to survive we must accept the truth of the world and of Islam though it is not what we would prefer.
Warfare is ordained for you, though it is hateful unto you; but it may happen that ye hate a thing which is good for you, and it may happen that ye love a thing which is bad for you. Allah knoweth, ye know not. (Koran, 2:216)
Our cognitive dissonance will be resolved only with honesty and knowledge. Islam is not a "religion of peace." If we are unsuccessful in resolving the cognitive dissonance which results from our confused view of Islam we will lose our civilization.