Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Islam in the modern world

Islam and the Modern World

May I be so bold as to tell my Islamic friends about their own faith and beliefs and their religion, and if do, as I intend to in this space, then please take is as an open minded observation of the facts and not as a criticism, or as me trying to tell you what to do.

A religion such as Islam or Christianity or Judaism is a construct, based on ideas of humanity of ancient times. For instance, Moses did not start Judaism or any other religion as a matter of fact. Moses was BORN a Jew, in to the beliefs of his fore fathers, The Torah existed before Moses came. Also Jesus Christ himself ( if there were ever one that existed) did not start a religion called Christianity or write a book nor was Jesus GIVEN a book that is called the Bible, this also is a known fact.

A study of Islam tells us how to conduct ourselves. A study of Islam also tells us that The Prophet Mohammed, as we know him was an honest man, not given to lying. We also learn that The Prophet Mohammed was basically illiterate. Does that mean that he was stupid, or had no desire to learn or was precluded from a desire to learn of the world around him? We must assume that the answer would be “NO”.

We know that the Koran does not cover all the possible questions in one’s daily life and there the Muslims refer to the biography of the Prophet, and to the Hadith to search for the answers. Thus one must assume that Prophet was not only given to receive the word from the “god” himself but that the Prophet was also a philosopher and an independent thinker. And we also must assume him to be a learner and an observer, as he lacked a formal education in the matters of the world.

We also see that the Prophet was against ignorance, as the first word of the prophecy directs him to “Read”, and the time before his prophecy is referred to as the time of darkness, thus ignorance is called “the darkness, without light”.

Then why the Muslims today are so hell bent on reverting to the time of “Jahalia”. Why is it that the educated and the uneducated alike, among the Muslims want to bring the world from the light of the knowledge to the throes of the darkness.

For one it works for the political elite to pay lip service to the basic rules of Islam, to say that they are fighting for “true Islam” while they rape and pillage their own countries and populations. Remember Idi Amin? Remember Saddam Hussain praying at Mecca after he murdered tens of thousands of his own country men and no one, not one Muslim leader religious or political stood up in the town square or at an Islamic or Arab league summit called him for what he was a tyrant, a murderer and you know why? Because it was ok long as he was killing the Sheia and the Kurds. Today’s civil war in Iraq has its roots in his bloody reign of terror.

It is not that the Prophet was lacking in smarts and common sense. That time and again he showed his reasoning ability and the knowledge acquired through observation of the peoples, circumstances and situations and had the ability to judge the consequences and reactions of both the positive and the negative actions. The Prophet was a peace maker and was able to compromise when there was a need for such. I find no record of him personally slashing or ordering the slashing of a persons throat, or ordering one be stoned to death. I am, however, positive that in his own kindness he would have found such an action abhorrent, and beneath the dignity of a “human”.

Though I agree that the so called “modern freedom” of the West, which has been translated into nothing more than crass and debasing sexuality and exploitation of the females can not continue for long without the self destruction of society, I also find the shoving back of little girls ( or even grown and naked females for that matter) into burning school building because they were not properly covered, un Islamic, in humane and stupid.

Another exhibition of the stupidity over taking the common sense is the example of the slaughter of millions of animals at the time of the Eid al Adha. Do you really believe that the God and his Prophet would have asked people to waste money on this “sacrifice” while millions of people are stuck in refugee camps after the tsunami in the far east and the earthquake in Kashmir. So where were these people the ones that give out fatwa’s at the drop of a hat? Assuredly they have no such communication with God as they would like you to believe when they issue fatwa’s for killing other human beings, surely hundreds of lives, nay thousands would have been saved by the proper use of the monies spent in the name of the same God.

Shamefully, many Muslims do not dare stand up for the right and for the justice and perform the true and honest “Jihad”. While the ignorant believe that the murder and the mayhem is the message of the religion of peace.

Tens of thousands protested the cartoons of the Holy Prophet published in a foreign land, but when the girls and women are raped by mob in Pakistan, in the name of justice no Muslim marches are called for anywhere. In Pakistan and India Muslim woman are burnt and beaten because there parents did not give them enough dowry. And I am still looking for a reference in Islam where parents must pay a man to come have sex with their daughter, oh this is not what a dowry is, you say. It is what it is, the Muslim girls parents in Pakistan and India want the best prostitute their money can buy to have sex with their daughters, and many men with degrees are only too willing to be that prostitute, you may even call him the bride groom, we call it a prostitute in English.

And speaking of prostitutes, what is this with the ladies in Islamabad taking over a brothel, if you have the time and have the energy to fight corruption then go and protest the landlords in Punjab and Sindh where they rape and abuse the women folk of the share croppers at will. And protest the suicide bombings that create more widows and orphans to be abused by the powerful. They should be protesting against the religious schools where the young boys are raped and abused by their Koran teachers and trained to kill innocent human beings.

Muslims are silent about Darfur, where Black Muslims are killed and raped and burned by the Brown Muslims while the same government is about ready to punish two women for adultery without punishing the men. Surely there must be some Muslims out there that will understand that all this does not show Islam in a favorable light.

And all of this brings me to this point, that the exploitation of the peoples be it in in the name of Islam, or in the guise of freedom, as practiced in the West today, is wrong and immoral. Since, however, I am writing here for a mostly Arab and mostly Muslim audience I will focus on the problems in Islamic society.

Hypocrisy is the ultimate form of self delusion. One must assume that everyone else is too stupid to recognize the difference between what one says and what he is doing. Having said that let me also say that the today’s Muslims from all walks of life, from all the various countries, races, colors and sects, from a poor Bangela-deshi to Mr. Indina- Benzin either do not understand Islam, the message and the meaning or just want it applied to others only.

First of all some Muslims believe that God Himself can be bribed, since many of today’s Muslim society function with bribes, or the alternate form that is conveniently referred to as commission, Muslims no longer see any problem with dealing in bribery, even with the prohibition against it in the Hadith. So it is that the people with money think that they can buy God’s goodwill and forgiveness by just giving monies to charity. So we have Muslims who drink, and fornicate and visit child prostitutes in foreign countries with impunity, all the while “knowing” that God will forgive them is they spend a few dollars on charity.


In Islam a bad deed (sin) can be off set by a good deed (i.e. charity) , thus most of the Muslims think it is ok to commit sins ( to include taking bribes, being unfair and cruel to the poor, abusing the power and authority) if you have enough money to give some of the money of it the charity or perform Al-Hajj). Now here is the problem, when the sinful Muslims give to charity, they usually end up giving money to the religious schools and the mosques that do not actually educate the poor, but teach them only the radical types of Islam, these schools are usually the places where children and sexually and physically abused and molested and beaten, and once this “education” is finished these poor are ready to do the most horrible crimes in the name of Islam. The pleas of Islam and the prophet not withstanding. TE MUSLIMS WITH MONEY ARE MAKING DAILY DOWN PAYMENTS TO GET THEIR OWN THROATS CUT.

Up until very recently history Islamic nations have generally been poor, Islamic countries did not become industrialized, and followed a agrarian, feudal system with most of the land being owned by a few. Now with the finding of oil in a few Arab lands, and foreign travel Muslims have money in a long while. Before the discovery of oil most of the oil rich countries never had any money, the Saudi’s were dependent on the charity of the visiting Muslim Hajj, and the people of the gulf countries including Kuwait survived on the subsistence fishing and diving for pearls. Today the oil rich countries do not consider the poor Islamic countries worthy, and from the Indonesian house maids to the Pakistani and Palestinian doctors and engineers are looked down upon as low brow and lower human forms.

The investment in the poorer Islamic countries by the oil rich Islamic countries has suffered also because even the best and the most educated in these countries are not too shy to cheat their own brother or to scam and steal from the same. Truth and Honesty is not the most common forte of the Muslim. Shocked?

The second problem of this newly minted rich people, be it the people with the oil money, or the people that live like slaves in the slums of oil rich countries to earn money so they can go back to their homes in India and Bangladesh and Egypt and Syria and lord over the poor, buying up land and big houses and showing off their new riches and there by making the local poor even more miserable.

The holier than thou attitude of the Muslims is so prevalent at all levels that it is close to bordering insanity, the suicide bombings being one indication, there are no questions, no doubts, with all the evident screw ups there are no Muslims to stand up and say what is wrong, and of course if a Muslim were ever to dare speak up the same Muslims, commoners and the leaders, will shut him down if not, a worse misfortune may befall him. If a culture, a regime or a people can not be criticized, then that regime and culture and the people is doomed.

An example of the middle class being quiet about the unfairness and injustice in the Islamic countries is that of Pakistan where the poor defendants are regularly beaten till they confess. Defendants are kept in filthy conditions and regularly raped ( men, women and children included), and sodomised and tortured without any recourse and without anyone complaining. More recently there are protests going on in Pakistan about the removal of the chief justice there by the president. Lawyers by the thousands are protesting against this action, but there have never been any mass protestations about the sorry state of the whole justice system. By the way the justice is similarly doled out in many Islamic countries.

One could go on and on about what has happened to the message of the Prophet, Islam today is a religion in name only, adhered to a bunch of self serving morons who are to sorry to face the truth of their own reality. There are no Islamic leaders, no Islamic preachers and there is no Islamic doctrine. Islam as a religion is used by some as means to control the poorer populations, and to oppress the women and minorities, and to abuse little kids. Islam in the twenty first century has become a message of death and destruction, used by a bunch of self serving loons who will either take it all or destroy it all. The message of oneness and cooperation and brotherhood, of honesty and equality and fairness, and sharing, of the laws and of justice is useless among a people of whom the message of God to his prophet stated, “ sumun, bukmun , umyun, fahum la yakellon”. There are no wise councils to speak, there are no ears open for righteous advice, and there ar no longer eyes that seek or see the truth. In the modern world Islam has died. Islam no longer exists.

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