Topic: Is Islam a religion of Peace? - page 11. (Read 10319 times)

I believe Islam is a religion of peace. I am a Christian and have many Muslim friends. The only problem is that some of them are hardliners who base on some verses in the Qur'an to mislead people.

Yes, there are numerous other possible interpretations. There are 5 basic pillars of Islam taught to children and practiced by muslims.

1. Declaration that there is no god worthy of worship but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God.
2. Prayer 5 times a day
3. Alms giving
4. Fasting during Ramadan
5. Pilgrimage to Mecca if able

There are over a billion muslims in the world who should practice all five pillars (although not everyone practices). Notice that if Islam taught, as a foundational pillar, that they must establish an Islamic theocracy there would chaos in the western world. I live in an American city with 120 mosques...what would be the consequences if all those muslims shared the beliefs of that murderous fringe that purports to speak on behalf of Islam.

The vast majority of muslims choose not to, not because they are weak or don't follow their religion fully. They choose not to because they know it is not from their religion. They are stuck in between non-muslims and extremists, who both claim that they don't properly understand their own religion.

Actually a pretty good answer to the question "Is Islam a religion of Peace" is that,

"None of this makes sense."

So it would appear.  But that does NOT ALLOW the conclusion "Islam is peace."

Most religion are for peace if it want always war its not ISLAM.

But if the religion Islam itself proposes and requires as a goal Islamic theocracy, then you can neither shrug off "political Islam" as an empty shell, nor consider it as separate from Islam itself.

Like it or not, it is what it is.

I conclude that political manifestations related to Islam are Islam itself.  Is any other interpretation possible?  You can't just pick and choose what goes in the "Islam" box and the "Not Islam" box to reach any desired conclusions.

That is what you think but unfortunately that is not a reality.  I thought we already went through that argument in other threads.  No point to rehash the quotes and the contemporary examples of Christian inspired violence here. 

I'm curious as to why Muslims are more inclined to commit violence.  I'm sure Quran has nice "turn the other cheek", "help your brothers and sisters" quotes as well.  Maybe some Muslim members here can provide examples of nice quotes from Quran.  I have no desire to go through this vile book again....

yes , i agree with you.. not all the religions are peacefull, some of then even let people make war... this is so illogical..

Well the good thing is that thanks to few Muslims and a lot of propaganda, people still have something useless to talk about...

What a wonderful woooooooooooooooorld ^^

Bryant, you are correct...arab nationalism and socialism were very popular form of protest in the middle east in the post colonial world. This was so because most of the third world turned to socialism to protest what they viewed as western hegemony. A book I would recommend is by Roy Oliviar, The Failure of Political Islam. In that book he shows how "Political Islam' grew out of the failure of Arab/Muslim states to create a better society through Arab nationalism and socialism.

If you look at the regimes during that period it is striking to see

Syria: Ba'athist party, Socialist, Secular
Egypt: Ba'athist, Socialist, Secular,
Jordan: Secular, Socialist
Iraq: Ba'athist, Socialist, Secular
Algeria: Socilaist
Libya: Socialist, Nationalist
Sudan: Socialist
Yemen: Socialist, Communist
PLO: Socialist
Afghanistan: Communist

"Political Islam" is an empty shell that uses religious terminology as political slogans. What you see is very similar to the reformation Christianity under went in Europe...every man thinks they have the right to interpret the religion how they see fit and is willing to kill anyone who opposes them, be they muslim or not.

My earlier post about the history of relations between muslims and non muslims was meant to show that historically muslims were very adept at living peacefully with others. This was so because the teachings of Islam, when interpreted by trained scholars, makes it compulsory to respect and more importantly protect people who aren't muslims.

What was Osama bin Laden by trade? A civil engineer.
And Ayman al Zawahiri? a doctor.

This is a free for all, where might makes right and religious terminology is used to appeal to their mass audience. Traditional scholars and universities of religious learning show that they do speak for the religion...but they (the extremist) are the ones with the guns and bombs.

Here's my problem with this.  Any culture, nation, city, state, religion has it's "Enforcers."  They are a low percentage of the total in the group.  They may be not very nice people, or they may be nice people in a nasty job.  Does not matter.  The enforcers actually dictate the rules of the group, don't they?  (think cops, soldiers, Allah Ackbarists)

The actual rules are the rules that are enforced. By use of negative incentives such as prison, courts, violence, death, maiming.

I'm thinking the quotes in Quran are part of the problem.  We have to ask ourselves why Muslims use them to commit violence.  Christians and Jews have similarly violent quotes in their holy books, but somehow we see less religion inspired violence from those cults.

Maybe it is the Jihadist, sharia law ideology in this holy book that gives Muslims an excuse to commit more violent acts. 

for every religion?


When they don't condemn the violence, do they still have the right to claim "Islam is peace?"

If and when they claim Islam is Peace regardless, should they just be laughed at?

Or what???

Islam or any other beliefs are not way to reach peace at all.
They will always reach one point so save its believers but kill its non believers.
It is truth for every religion. Sorry.

I don't see that Islam is doing anything to distinguish themselves from those extremists..
They must clearly every day direct call for peace and understanding..
They must call people to protest against terrorism or they know something that we dont?

The problem is that the "peaceful and open minded" types, who claim that they constitute the majority of the Muslims, don't condemn the actions by their "extremist and close-minded" coreligionists. In the end, it is the silence by the majority which makes it impossible to prevent the terrorist activities by the fringe elements.

I think some are peaceful and open minded and others are extreme and closed minded.

"attempted conversion"? So what happens if the conversion fails or doesn't work? Those who attempted are fair game and can be killed?

Simply because Christians do what is against the directives that God has laid down in the New Testament, does not mean that new directives are formed.

As I said in another post, Muslims are required to be peaceful to faithful Muslims, and to peaceful non-Muslims during a time of attempted conversion.

I tried once to read the Quran. If I'm not mistaken, on the first page, I think, there was something like "all non-muslims are bad people and must die", or something like that. So that was it. Threw it away.
Kudos to you for reading it all. I couldn't.

The difference is this. The Islamic directives to violence are live directives.

There were essentially two areas for ancient Israel violence against other nations. They were in self-defense, and for a time while Israel made itself into a strong nation.

Since ancient Israel fell away from God, God took their nation away from them for almost 1,900 years. They barely have it back again, since 1948-1949, and here they are, doing the violence in ways that God has not directed them this time.

Christianity has no directives to do violence in their religious writings. In fact, it is just the opposite - turn the other cheek.