Islam is a Peaceful Religion
From a sociological standpoint, this is perhaps THE most widely propagated myth about Islam. For many years now, Islam has been putting forward to Westerners a peaceful, loving front. This false view of Islam has been spread all the more aggressively since the September 11 terrorist attacks. Muslim leaders in the United States and other Western nations had to push their efforts at hiding Islam's true nature into high gear, trying to counterbalance the impact made by the sight of Palestinians and other Muslims (some in this very nation) cheering and celebrating the destruction of the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Unfortunately, many liberal Christians in most of the mainline denominations have gone right along with these attempts at whitewashing Islam's image, either out of blind ignorance or ungodly sympathy for Mohammed's religion. False teachers even in many traditionally conservative Protestant churches have invited false teachers from Islam to present that religion to their congregants, and the image given is invariably that of a peaceful, loving, tender-hearted faith whose members are absolutely appalled at the violence committed by "a few fringe radicals".
I have even personally witnessed this sort of bald-faced lying being done in the name of Islam. On November 11, 2001, I attended a panel presentation on the campus of the University of North Carolina, in Chapel Hill, in which the several panel members each had the opportunity to take 15 minutes and give their thoughts on the events and responses to the September 11 attacks. One of the speakers was a Muslim imam from a local mosque in Durham. Naturally, he took twice as much time as was allotted for him, and did not even address the topic of discussion. Instead, he spent 30 minutes ranting and raving about how peaceful and loving Islam was, and how Islam respects people of other religions. This lying deceiver even went so far as to say that he would be morally obligated to stop a person whom he were to see defacing or vandalising a Christian church. In short, his entire diatribe was one giant lie, yet much of the (mostly liberal) crowd ate up every word of it like it was gospel truth. This response demonstrated the desperate need for education about Islam in this nation. Not education IN Islam, but education ABOUT Islam, so that the vast bulk of the population out there who knows little to nothing about the religion can learn the truth about it, instead of being fed sugar-coated lies from Islamic leaders and propagandists. People in this nation need to know that the image of Islam as a violent, intolerant, wicked religion is in fact true, and growing more so every day.
So, to ask the question bluntly: Is Islam peaceful or violent? To answer bluntly: It is violent. It is a religion born out of violence, propagated through violence, and still accustomed to violence even today. This can clearly be seen by examining the teachings and record of Islam. These are the two primary means by which to judge the charactre of a religion on some question. You look at the established, recognised, plainly understood teachings of that religion, and then you look at the manner and methodology by which those most faithful to that religion carry out their adherence to their belief system. So let us apply this test to the Muslim faith.
Though violence towards those of other faiths is certainly not unknown among other of the world's religions, Islam goes further than the other various false religious systems in the world is that its holy texts command and commend religiously-motivated violence against unbelievers. It‘s not just a matter of countenancing it, of turning a blind eye. Rather, the Qur‘an and the ahadith support and encourage the faithful to press violent jihad against non-Muslims.
Violence From the Qur'an
What does Islam teach as far as violence is concerned? Looking at the Qur'an, we see quite a lot taught about this subject. Muslim apologists will often point to Surah 2:190-193 as proof that Islam teaches only defensive warfare, but eschews offense.
"Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors. And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have Turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they first fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith. But if they cease, Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful. And fight them on until there is no more Tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah; but if they cease, Let there be no hostility except to those who practise oppression."
These verses, it is said, admonish Muslims only to fight against those who oppress or persecute Muslims, and only until the offenders have stopped oppressing Muslims. However, there is a catch to all this. The Qur'an also teaches for Muslims to enter into exile in lands where Islam is not the dominant force, and to stir up trouble, so that this persecution will come as the natives in those lands protect the integrity of their sovereignty.
"Those who believed, and adopted exile, and fought for the Faith, with their property and their persons, in the cause of Allah, as well as those who gave them asylum and aid,- these are all friends and protectors, one of another. As to those who believed but came not into exile, ye owe no duty of protection to them until they come into exile; but if they seek your aid in religion, it is your duty to help them, except against a people with whom ye have a treaty of mutual alliance. And remember Allah seeth all that ye do. The Unbelievers are protectors, one of another: Unless ye do this, protect each other, there would be tumult and oppression on earth, and great mischief." (Surah 8:72-73)
In this passage, “adopted exile” is translated from the root form hjr, which has as its primary meaning the ideas of containment or confinement, and can carry the connotation of being quarantined or compartmentalised. The idea garnered from this verse seems to be as follows: adopt exile in a foreign land, voluntarily confining yourself in a non-Muslim society. Eschew assimilating into the culture and way of life of the host country, and instead agitate for Islam. When opposition arises, join together and give aid and fight for Allah against the unbelievers, since voilà, persecution has arisen! Hence, what is touted as a defensive doctrine is in reality carried out in an offensive manner.
There are numerous other, more straight-forward quotes from the Qur'an which exhort the followers of Mohammed to war:
"But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war; but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and pay Zakat, then open the way for them: for Allah is Oft- forgiving, Most Merciful." (Surah 9:5)
This passage is found in a portion of the Qur'an dealing with the making and breaking of treaties with pagans (unbelievers). In context, it is condoned for Muslims to break treaties with pagans if it is to their advantage to do so, UNLESS those pagans have been completely faithful in the discharge of their treaty obligations. But, after the terms of the treaty are met (the forbidden months are past), Muslims are commanded to make war. The historical context is that in ancient times, both in Arabia and elsewhere, treaties were most often made for specific periods of time. During that time period, both parties were expected to be completely faithful in the discharge of their obligations under the terms of the treaty. After the treaty term had ended, all bets were off. Groups which had been allies for a period of time might then turn on each other in the most vicious manner after the treaty time ended, without any loss of honour for either side. Hence, the Qur'an tells Muslims that pagan or unbelieving groups with whom they do not currently have a treaty are open to the prosecution of offensive war.
Likewise, in Surah 9:73, Mohammed is commanded to press hard war against unbelievers,
"O Prophet! strive hard against the Unbelievers and the Hypocrites, and be firm against them. Their abode is Hell,- an evil refuge indeed."
Also,
"O ye who believe! fight the unbelievers who are near to you, and let them find harshness in you: and know that Allah is with those who fear Him." (Surah 9:123)
"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, from among the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya (religion tax) with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." (Surah 9:29)
Each of these verses, in context, is dealing with waging offensive war against unbelievers for the purpose of spreading Islam. As with the previous verses which we saw, Muslims will often try to claim that these verses promote defensive warfare only, and that offensive war to propagate Islam is not Quranical. They say this in the hopes that their audience, most likely non-Muslims, will not be conversant in the Qur'an, and hence will be unaware of the contextual environment in which these verses reside. A straight-forward reading of the appropriate surat and surrounding passages using a little common sense will contextually demonstrate the offensive nature of these verses to the unbiased reader.
However, many Muslim apologists still attempt to argue that these verses in the Qur’an are being taken out of context. Because of this claim, we should then investigate what orthodox Muslim expositors and scholars have to say on this, as their words were often much less inhibited by concerns for presenting Islam in a positive light to Western audiences. One of the earliest great Muslim legal scholars, Al-Tabari (839-923 AD), explained Surah 9:5 as commanding the death of infidels if they would not embrace Islam, lest they should enter Mecca.1 Al-Mahili (d. 1486 AD) also gives a clear indication of understanding Surah 9:5 offensively and aggressively,
"The chapter of Repentance was revealed to raise the level of security which the infidels enjoyed because Muhammad had earlier made a covenant with them not to kill them. After that, this verse was given (9:5) in order to free God and Muhammad from any covenant with the infidels. It gives them four months in which they will be protected, but by the end of the four months (the end of the grace period), the order comes: Kill the infidels wherever you find them. Capture them, besiege them in their castles and fortresses until they are forced to accept Islam or be killed."2
Another of the most historically influential of Muslim jurists and Quranic exegetes, al-Baydawi (d. 1276 AD), gives a fairly typical understanding of the doctrine, commenting on Surah 9:29,
“Fight Jews and Christians because they violated the origin of their faith and they do not believe in the religion of the truth (Islam), which abrogated all other religions. Fight them until they pay the poll-tax (Ziziya tax) with submission and humiliation.”3
The Islamic philosopher and historian, Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406 AD), stated,
“In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the (Muslim) mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. Therefore, caliphate and royal authority are united in (Islam), so that the person in charge can devote the available strength to both of them at the same.”4
Other noteworthy Islamic jurists and philosophers promoted the same offensive strategy for jihad. Ibn Kathir (d. 1372) reiterated the famous quote attributed to Mohammed that “no two religions are to exist on the Arab peninsula”, and asserted that Surah 9:5, seen above, abrogated any covenant which might have been made between Muslims and infidels.5 Ibn Hazm (994-1064) provides some interesting commentary concerning that verse, Surah 2:256 (“Let there be no compulsion in religion....”), where he demonstrates the true purpose of the ayah,
"The prophet Muhammad did not accept from the Arab heathens less than Islam or the sword. This is compulsion of faith. No compulsion in faith (or religion) applies only to Christians or Jews because they are not to be forced to embrace the religion. They have the option either to embrace Islam, the sword, or to pay the poll-tax. In this case they can keep their own faith. It was truly said on the authority of the apostle of God that there is no compulsion in the faith.”6
Thus, compulsion certainly was to be applied to any non-Muslims who were not Christians or Jews. These latter two groups were given the third, apparently non-compulsive, choice of submitting to pay the jizyah poll-tax and live out their lives as a permanent underclass.
Modern Muslim scholars, historians, and exegetes have taken similar stances on jihad. Al-Buti reveals for us the following,
“The verse (9:5) does not leave any room in the mind to conjecture about what is called defensive war. This verse asserts that Holy War which is demanded in islamic law, is not defensive war (as the Western students of islam would like to tell us) because it could legitimately be an offensive war. That is the apex and most honorable of all Holy wars.”7
He likewise states,
“You may wonder now: Where is the wisdom of forcing infidels and their associates to embrace islam? How could the mind set of the twentieth century understand such matters? The answer is: We wonder where the wisdom is when the state forces an individual to be subjugated to its system and philosophy despite the freedom he possesses? How can it be reasonable for the state to have the right to subjugate its citizens to the laws, principles, and ordinances it enacts, while the creator of all does not have the right to subjugate them to His authority and to convert them from every creed or faith to His religion?”8
And in further refutation of the “defensive war“ theory,
“This is the concept which professional experts of thought attempt to conceal from the eyes of muslims by claiming that anything that is related to a holy war in islamic law is only based on defensive warfare to repel an attack....It is no secret that the reason behind this deception is the great fear which dominates foreign countries (East and West alike) that the idea of Holy War for the cause of God would be revived in the hearts of muslims, then certainly, the collapse of European culture will be accomplished. The mind set of the European man has matured to embrace islam as soon as he hears an honest message presented. How much more will it be accepted if this message is followed by a Holy War?”9
In exegeting Surah 9:29, which commands the laying of the jizyah onto the infidels, Khan states,
"Allah revealed in Sura Bara'at (Repentance, IX) the order to discard (all) obligations (covenants, etc), and commanded the Muslims to fight against all the Pagans as well as against the people of the Scriptures (Jews and Christians) if they do not embrace Islam, till they pay the Jizia (a tax levied on the Jews and Christians) with willing submission and feel themselves subdued (as it is revealed in 9:29). So the Muslims were not permitted to abandon the fighting against them (Pagans, Jews and Christians) and to reconcile with them and to suspend hostilities against them for an unlimited period while they are strong and have the ability to fight against them. So at first the fighting was forbidden, then it was permitted, and after that it was made obligatory."10
Thus, the teaching is that Muslims are to fight when they have sufficient strength to win, and that this fight is obligatory. When Muslims are not strong enough to fight their enemies, they are likewise to lie low until such a time as they can fight, according to another prominent modern Muslim scholar. Quoting as-Suyuti, as-Saleh wrote,
"The command to fight the infidels was delayed until the Muslims become strong, but when they were weak they were commanded to endure and be patient."11
Saleh goes on to cite Zarkashi in a footnote saying,
"Allah the most high and wise revealed to Mohammad in his weak condition what suited the situation, because of his mercy to him and his followers. For if He gave them the command to fight while they were weak it would have been embarrassing and most difficult, but when the most high made Islam victorious He commanded him with what suited the situation, that is asking the people of the Book to become Muslims or to pay the levied tax, and the infidels to become Muslims or face death. These two options, to fight or to have peace return according to the strength or the weakness of the Muslims."12
Saudi scholar al-Amin likewise points to the Qur’an for the justification of offensive holy war,
"God had made it clear to us that (we should) call for acceptance of islam first, then wage war. It is not admissible to wage war before extending the invitation to embrace islam first, as the Qur’an says. ‘We verily sent our messenger with clear proofs and revealed to them the scripture and the balance, that mankind may observe right measure, and he revealed iron, wherein is mighty power and uses for mankind and that Allah (God) may know him who helps Him and his messengers—Allah is strong, Almighty"’ (Surah Iron 57:25).”13
This is especially informative for those who may remember that in the aftermath of the 11 September terrorist attacks, Saudi religious and political leaders, in the process of extending their condolences to President Bush, also extended an invitation to him to convert to Islam. Qutb, in a chapter entitled “Jihaad in the Cause of God”, says this about those who believe that jihad is to be a defensive war only,
“They are ignorant of the nature of Islam and of its function, and that it has a right to take the initiative for human freedom. Thus wherever an Islamic community exists which is a concrete example of the Divinely-ordained system of life, it has a God-given right to step forward and take control of the political authority so that it may establish the Divine system on earth, while it leaves the matter of belief to individual conscience.”14
Thus, while touting “freedom of individual conscience”, Qutb seems to be espousing the right of the “Islamic community” to take control of political authority, which would seem to hearken back to what was seen earlier with Surah 8:72-73. Qutb, it should be noted, was executed by Egypt’s Nasser government for attempting to overthrow the secular regime. Fattah adds,
“Islam has approved war so that the Word of God becomes supreme. This is war for the cause of God (Holy War). Muhammad, therefore, sent his ambassadors to eight kings and princes in the neighborhood of the Arab Peninsula to call them to embrace islam. They rejected his call. Thus, it became incumbent on the muslims to fight them.”15
Pakistani Islamic authorities stand with their brethren on this issue. Fazlur Rahman notes the abundant discussion of jihad in the Qur’an, and rejects the modern interpretation of jihad as defensive war only.16 Maududi, likewise, rejects attempts to make a distinction between offensive and defensive jihad and views jihad as the means by which to overthrown all non-Islamic systems and replace them with submission to Allah.17
The above are only a very small sampling of what could be presented with regard to both the historic and modern orthodox Muslim positions on holy war. As can be seen, the justification is often drawn directly from those verses which were quoted above, and which are often said to be “defensive only” or “taken out of context” by Muslim apologists. Thus, it should certainly be seen that offensive war for the specific purpose of spreading the Islamic religion is very much a Quranic practice.
Violence From the Ahadith
The Qur'an is not the only source for this jihad doctrine, however. The ahadith also contain much regarding this sort of behaviour. Jihad is touted as the second best deed which could be performed in Islam, second only to believing in Allah and his prophet, Mohammed.18 To those who participate in jihad comes either the spoils of war if he lives or paradise if he is killed.
"The Prophet said, "The person who participates in (Holy battles) in Allah's cause and nothing compels him to do so except belief in Allah and His Apostles, will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty (if he survives) or will be admitted to Paradise (if he is killed in the battle as a martyr)."19
Other portions of the ahadith also confirm the rights of jihadis to the spoils of those they kill in holy war20 and their automatic entry into paradise if they die as martyrs in the cause of Allah.21,22 Participation in holy war earns Muslims many benefits and blessings from Allah, or so the writings teach. For instance, Mohammed said,
"He who reared a horse for the sole intention of using it in a Jehad, then he will be rewarded one virtue for each grain he gave the horse as a feed."23
Right after this passage, it is then taught that a man who participates in jihad only for so long as it takes to milk a she-camel (I don't know much about camels, but this is probably not a very long time) still is entitled to paradise because of the blessedness of his endeavour.24 Then, in the next passage after that comes one which teaches that a man who dies in holy war has the right to intercede before Allah in paradise for the entry of seventy other men of his choosing, which Allah then is required to allow into paradise.25 It pays to have friends, apparently!
The importance of holy war in Islamic teaching takes precedence over other religious activities, as well. Mohammed taught that acting as a soldier of Allah for one night is better than 2,000 years of saying prayers back home.26 While Islamic teachers in the West will play up the Muslim duty of zakat, the giving of alms to the poor, the ahadith teach that giving of your wealth to support jihad earns you even greater rewards. Mohammed stated,
"Whatever one spends to facilitate Jehad, Allah shall give him a reward which will exceed his contribution 700 times."27
Perhaps the most decisive statement in all the ahadith which shows the driving force behind the expansion of Islam to be greed, and not any sort of "service" to a deity is this,
"He who murders another, property of the murdered becomes property of the murderer."28
Want something that a non-believer has? Just get out your sword (or AK-47) and take it! Nevermind those laws of God like, "..thou shalt not kill....thou shalt no steal....thou shalt not covet..." (Exodus 20:13,15,17)
Hence, it ought to be seen and understood that the propensity of Islamic scriptural teaching is toward violence and the propagation of the Islamic religion by war and the enticement of booty and eternal, carnal paradise. Let us turn to the examination of Islam's practice, both historically and in a contemporary setting.
Islamic Attacks on Scholarship
Islamic behaviour towards those kafirs (unbelievers) who would not submit to Islam nor pay the religion tax has generally been very unpleasant. Islam has at various times sought to destroy any knowledge or learning that did not conform to Islam's way of thinking. While the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria cannot be properly laid at the feet of Islam (actually, it was dealt the decisive blow, accidentally, by Julius Caesar’s invading army six centuries earlier), this does not exonerate Islam from culpability with regards to the destruction of “infidel” knowledge. Muslim historiographer Ibn Khaldun (1332-1395 AD), mentions the destruction of the Persian state library that occurred with the capture of the capital, Ctesiphon, in 637 AD,
“Umar wrote [to the local Muslim commander who had requested permission to distribute these books to his troops as booty] : ‘Throw them into the water. If what they contain is right guidance, God has given us better guidance. If it is error, God has protected us against it.’”29
Similar atrocities against scholarism were committed by Muslim invaders who destroyed the Sanskrit college of Vishaldev, Gujarat, India in 1196 AD, and by those who leveled the Buddhist university at Nalanda in 1200 AD, destroying much repository of learning at both sites.
Historical Muslim Violence Toward Unbelievers
As appalling as such activities may be, the toll in human life which Islam has wrought through history is infinitely greater. The aforementioned Caliph Umar I attained to the leadership of Islam in 634, two years after the death of Mohammed. In his short time as caliph, he led Islamic armies in the conquest of Syria (636 AD), Iraq (637 AD), Palestine and the Transjordan (638 AD), Egypt (642 AD), and Persia (642 AD). Umar was so brutal and despotic in his retaliation against the Persians (modern day Iranians) for opposing Islam's spread, that to this day Iranians will celebrate with great festivities the anniversary of his death.
The Muslim conquest of India was similarly brutal in its destruction of the indigenous civilisation and subjugation of the native Indians.
"From the time Muslims started arriving, around 632 AD, the history of India becomes a long, monotonous series of murders, massacres, spoliations, and destructions. It is, as usual, in the name of 'a holy war' of their faith, of their sole God, that the barbarians have destroyed civilizations, wiped out entire races.....Mahmoud Ghazni was an early example of Muslim ruthlessness, burning in 1018 the temples of Mathura, razing Kanauj to the ground and destroying the famous temple of Somnath, sacred to all Hindus. His successors were as ruthless as Ghazni: 103 temples in the holy city of Benaras were razed to the ground, its marvelous temples destroyed, its magnificent palaces wrecked."30
India was repeatedly subjected to wave after wave after wave of Muslim invaders who would make a practice of killing or raping anyone in sight, and burning down anything they couldn't make off with in their packs. The Muslims of India and Pakistan (which is traditionally an Indian cultural area) are descendants of those Indians who converted to avoid the massacres and the religion tax imposed by their Muslim overlords.
Deserving of special mention is one sect of Islam which lives on today, in name if not in fact, which has given to the English language its word for cold-blooded, amoral murderers: The Assassins. The Assassins were a group of Muslims derived from to the Ismailite sect of Islam. Founded in 1090, this group kept much of the Middle East in fear with their daring, cold-blooded assassinations of all kinds of personages, even up to the caliphs themselves. This group believed that killing was a religious duty, and would often assassinate leaders they felt to be too weak or too compromising to continue the spread of Islam. Much of their effort was also made against Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians in the Middle East, both Frankish and Byzantine. The name for this group derives from hashish, which they would often smoke so as to induce ecstatic states in preparation for their killings. This group was ultimately destroyed by the Mongol invader Hulagu Khan who razed their mountaintop fortress of Alamut in 1296.31
In the later middle ages, the expansion of Islam by jihad was carried forward by the Ottoman Turkish empire. The Turks, over the course of three centuries, pushed their way out of Asia Minor, conquering Constantinople in 1453, and moving further up into the Balkans and Central Europe until finally being turned back at the gates of Vienna in 1683. During their time of domination over the Balkan peoples, the Turks laid very heavy oppression upon these conquered subjects. One particularly distressing practice was that of taking “infidel” children from their parents as slaves. Once every five years, the Turks would take every Orthodox and Catholic child they could get their hands on from among the unconverted Balkan peoples, and bring them as slaves to the Sultan. The girls usually were destined to serve as concubines in the harems of Turkish leaders. The boys were forcibly converted to Islam, and then thoroughly indoctrinated in Muslim fanaticism and Turkish nationalism. After their "education" was finished, these were then highly trained in the arts of war and made into warrior-slaves, known as janissaries. The Janissaries served as the Sultan's police force throughout the Empire, many of them enforcing his decrees back in the very homelands from which they had been stolen.32
Muslim nastiness towards the conquered peoples of the Balkans still plays a role in the politics of that region today. The Albanians and Bosnians are both Muslim groups whose ancestors originally converted to avoid the child-conscription and religion tax. The Serbs and Croats hate the Bosnians and Albanians with a passion because of historical remembrance of the atrocities which the Turkish overlords perpetrated against their Slavic underlings. The emnity today between the Greeks and Turks derives from the brutality of Muslim rule in Greece, and the barbarity of the Turkish attempts to put down the Greek war for independence (1821-1827).
The Violence of Islam in the Modern Era
Muslim atrocities against non-Muslim conquered populations continue into the modern era. In 1894, Sultan Abdul Hamid II instituted a pogrom against Orthodox Armenians who refused to abide by a 100% increase in the rents which the Turkish government charged them. Between 1894-1896, over 150,000 Armenians were killed by either the sword or starvation, another 100,000 driven into exile, and 40,000 escaped by conversion to Islam.33 Again, between 1915 and 1918, the Turks carried out genocide against the Armenians. Families were torn apart, the men being taken out and shot, and the women and children forced to march until they died of exhaustion or starvation.34 In this time, a quarter of a million Armenians were able to escape to Russia, while another 200,000 saved themselves by converting to Islam. However, the best estimates say that more than one and a half million Armenians were killed by this Muslim atrocity. Turkish Armenia ceased to exist.
The Greeks also have suffered holocaust at the hands of Muslims in this century. In an effort to complete the Islamisation of Turkish dominions, efforts to destroy or drive out the mostly Orthodox Greek populations were begun in 1913. That year, 16,000 Greeks were murdered in Eastern Thrace (on the European side of the Dardanelles). In 1914, Greeks were ordered to vacate the city of Pergamum, and were massacred in Erythrea and Phocaia. That same year, 400,000 Greeks died from malnourishment and mistreatment in forced-labour battalions, and 120,000 Greeks were driven from their homes in Eastern Thrace, fleeing as refugees to the Kingdom of Greece. In 1917, 23,000 Greeks were deported from Cydoniae, and in 1918, another 8,000 Greek families were expelled from southwestern Asia Minor. In 1922, 300,000 more Greeks were forced out of Eastern Thrace, and at Smyrna, 150,000 Greeks and Armenians were massacred by Turkish forces.35 It is important to keep in mind that all of these areas mentioned: Eastern Thrace, the Ionian isles, and southwestern Asia Minor, were all traditionally Greek cultural areas, dating back to the Mycenaean period over 1000 years before Christ. The Islamisation of these areas by the removal of the Greeks is therefore very clearly seen as an act of jihad, the conquest of territory for Islam. Muslim apologists even today try to claim that these actions were not Muslim, but secular, since it is often touted that Enver Pasha and other Turkish leaders who ordered these atrocities were secular. However, their "secularity" is demonstrated by the fact that the Young Turk regime "resumed the teaching of Islamic religion in the public schools, opened state schools for the training of religious functionaries and taken such measures for the promotion of religion as putting Qur'anic programs on the state radio".36
Jihad is still alive and well today, and is not just the province of a few militant radicals. The forcible advancement of Islam, coupled with a contrived hatred for the Western world, appeals to the hearts and minds of millions of disaffected Muslims worldwide, many of them young and eager to give their lives in the cause of Allah. Many well-educated Muslims, in the Middle East and in the West, have taken hold of the intellectual cause of Islamism and support this jihad wholeheartedly. Witness the exultation of Muslims worldwide at the destruction of the World Trade Centre towers...not only in Palestinian, Pakistani, and Egyptian villages and slums, but also in more well-to-do North African neighbourhoods in France and on many college campuses in North America.
The fields of battle which radical Islam is pushing range all across the globe. In 1974, Turkey invaded Cyprus and waged war on the Greeks yet again, who were ostensibly Turkey's NATO ally. Pakistani mujahedeen and terror bombers seek to force the Indians out of Kashmir and unite that province with Pakistan. Muslims in East Timor murdered and displaced hundreds of thousands of Roman Catholics before the UN intervened with Australian troops. In Mindanao, Muslims are murdering Roman Catholics and Christians, and throughout the Middle East, Christians and others of all kinds of religions are persecuted and killed. In 1981, Muslim fanatics rioted in Cairo against the Coptic Christian population, murdering over 100 individuals. In 1947, after the splitting of the Indian subcontinent between Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India, Muslims instituted a reign of terror against Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist minorities in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). People were killed, property was confiscated, refugees left penniless, and Hindu women were taken and given to Muslim men for the purposes of polygamy. The wickedness of the Muslim actions earned for Islam the turning of its name into an acronym standing for "Intolerance, Slaughter, Loot, Arson and Molestation".37 In 1950, half a million more Hindus were butchered, and in 1971, during Bangladesh's war for independence from Pakistan, Pakistani soldiers murdered another 3 million Hindus and other religious minorities. In 1981, after gaining complete control of Iran, the Islamist revolutionaries under the Ayatollah Khomeini engaged in a systematic oppression of Iran's Bahai minority, murdering them and taking their property. Presently, Sudanese Muslims are waging a war of jihad against Christians and animists in the southern part of that country, killing many, and taking others as slaves. In Mauritania, thousands of black Africans have been murdered or expelled by Islamist radicals who have instituted sharia law in that nation. In that country, over 90,000 people are still reported to be living in slavery.38 Muslims in northern Nigeria continue their effort to establish sharia Islamic law over non-Muslims.
Of course, there is also the continual intifada which the Palestinians under Yasser Arafat and other radical Islamist leaders carry out. Thousands of Israelis have been killed or maimed through cowardly Palestinian terror bombings. Many of these bombs have been specifically targeted at children, as have rifle and mortar attacks on schools and homes in Israel. Perhaps the most notorious Arab crime against Israel was the murder of eleven Israeli athletes which Fatah (Arafat's terror organisation) terrorists had taken hostage at the 1972 Olympics in Münich, Germany. Of course, Muslim jihad has also launched five wars against Israel, which have all failed to drive the Jews from the Holy Land.
This voluminous amount of information about Islamic practice, even in the present, only constitutes a small portion of what could be said about Islamic violence against non-Muslims. It seems evident that every place in which Muslims make up a significant portion of the population, efforts are made to subjugate or drive out non-Muslims. The conclusion pretty much has to be made that Islam is most certainly NOT the peaceful, tolerant, loving religion which it is claimed to be. More on the "tolerance" of Islam will be seen in the next chapter.
Please note that the above should not be construed to say that every Muslim is a violent individual. Many Muslims are indeed peaceful people who get along well in non-Muslim societies. I have known several Muslims with whom I have worked, who did not take the Islamic faith very seriously and were decent, kind individuals. Still, the record of Islam on violence and forcible conversion is practically unrivaled in sheer magnitude, even by Roman Catholicism with all of its inquisitions, conquistadors, and counter-reformations. One is forced to wonder when Islam will begin to practice that verse in the Qur'an which their apologists love to quote, "Let there be no compulsion in religion..." (Surah 2:256)
The Contrast of Bible Christianity
Foes of true Christianity and apologists for Islam will often rebut attacks against Islam's violent nature by trying to pin the violence label on Christians as well. They will point to various passages in the Old Testament which advocate violence, particularly those involved with the establishment of Israel in the land of Canaan. What these people do not understand is that these particular passages, while instructive to today's Christians in the desire of God for His children to keep themselves holy and free from wrong influences, are not directly applicable to Christians today as we do not live in the same dispensation as that of ancient Israel. A dispensation is simply a particular time frame in which God deals with man in a particular way. In the Old Testament, several dispensations are seen, as God progressively reveals Himself to man. Eventually, God begins to deal with man through the nation of Israel, whom He called out from among all nations. It was to Israel that the violent passages in the Old Testament were directed. God dealt with man differently in the New Testament. Instead of just dealing with Israel as a nation, God deals with people from all nations, and is calling His church out from among every nation on earth.
"Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us..." (Ephesians 2:11-14)
My purpose for this brief lesson in dispensationalism is to demonstrate that a right understanding of the Bible will include the understanding that many passages in the Old Testament dealing with the ceremonial laws, priestly rites, and political judgments in ancient Israel are instructive for teaching general principles of holiness to Christians today, but are not meant to be applied directly or literally in the lives of Christians. This is the generally understood position of what are rightly termed "Fundamentalist Christians" such as myself. Now, there are other groups, such as Covenant theologians and Reconstructionists who believe otherwise. I would disagree with them, and point out that there is no scriptural warrant in the New Testament to apply the kingdom of Israel directly to the church in this dispensation, and thus that their beliefs on this point are in conflict with the Biblical testimony.
Seeing that Christians today are not called by the Bible to drive out the unbelievers and put them to the sword, what then IS the attitude which Christians ought to take?
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." (Ephesians 6:12)
"For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.)" (II Corinthians 10:3-4)
These passages both illustrate that a Christian's struggle is with the spiritual forces of evil. Our warfare is fought on the spiritual plane, against the machinations of Satan and his demons. It is fought with prayer and supplication. It is fought by witnessing and preaching the truth to lost sinners in this dying world. It is fought by living rightly and presenting a pure testimony of graceful, God-honouring living to the world at large, serving as a reproof to those who live in sin. A Bible Christian may be involved in politics, may have to fight in a war if called upon by his nation, may have to even serve on a jury and choose to recommend the death penalty for a vicious criminal who has broken a law worthy of death. But, the Bible Christian will not use force or coercion to spread the Gospel and win souls.
What is the behaviour then of a Bible Christian living by the Bible? They will witness. They may hand out tracts. They may even make an unsaved person feel uncomfortable by talking about God or standing up and doing right or refusing to do wrong. They may vote against a candidate who supports abortion, and campaign for that person's opponent. But they won't use force to spread the Gospel. History bears this out as truth.
"Ah," the scoffer might say, "What about the crusades, or the inquisitions, or the conquistadors and the subjugations of natives all over the world, or what about the abortion clinic violence?!" The simple answer is that not a single one of these has been perpetrated by Bible-believing Christians, often called Fundamentalist or Evangelical Christians. The crusades, the inquisitions, the conquistadors, these were all the products of the Roman Catholic church. Even the abortion clinic bombers and gunmen like John Salvi and Eric Rudolph were practicing or former Roman Catholics. Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma city bomber, went to Catholic school before drifting away from that faith. Adolph Hitler was raised a Roman Catholic, and never was excommunicated. The Portuguese Jesuits who forced their way into India in the 16th century, gaining converts by fire and sword, were Roman Catholics. The Roman church which perpetrated all these acts did so in spite of what the Bible says. That institution was acting contrary to the Word of God, thus by definition those who acted on Rome's behalf were not acting the part of "Bible believing Christians". The point to this is not to condemn Roman Catholics as being worse than anyone else, or to lay blame for all the world's ills at the feet of the Roman church. It is instead to show that Christians being true to the Bible had nothing to do with the many atrocities committed in the name of "Christianity" throughout the centuries. None of this can be laid at the feet of Fundamentalist and Evangelical Christians.
Another error in thinking which non-Christians often make and which needs to be addressed is this: There is not, nor has there ever been, such a thing as a “Christian nation”. No nation has ever been governed solely (or even principally) by the dictates of the Bible, nor has any nation ever been made up solely or even with a large majority of truly Bible-believing born-again Christians. Given the implications of what the Bible has to say as far as commanding Christians to be submissive to the laws of their respective earthly nations insomuch as they can do so without violating Scripture and conscience (see Romans 13:1-7, I Peter 2:11-17), and that Christians are to be “in the world, but not of the world” (see John 17:15-16), it must be understood that Christians cannot partake of forcing their authority, either political or religious, upon the unbelieving world beyond those realms (such as voting, in democratic nations) in which they are lawfully allowed a voice along with everyone else.
As such, since there is no such thing as a “Christian nation”, it is not a valid argument to try to blame Christianity for the behaviour of Western nations such as the United States, Great Britain or other countries which many in the Third World usually refer to as “Christian”. Even a cursory glance at the laws and practices of Western nations, past and present, shows that these were not “Christian” in the sense of abiding by the strict dictates of the Bible, even if these nations did have large or influential Christian elements in their societies. Muslims err greatly in trying to apply their understanding of the ummah to the Western situation. In Muslim lands, Islam is supposed to form the complete sum total of all the community and society. Everything is to revolve around Islam, and Islam is to establish the sole deen, the way of living, in a nation ruled by the religion of Mohammed. Muslims apply this to the West, and therefore come to the erroneous conclusion that because the United States extirpated and quarantined the Native Americans, or because Britain sold smallpox-laden blankets to the Mohawks, or because the Dutch treated the natives in their Asian holding cruelly, that all of these crimes can be laid at the feet of CHRISTIANITY, rather than just individual nations or people. This is an invalid argument because Christianity, as taught in the Bible, is a private and personal relationship between man and his Maker. There is no, can be no, Christian ummah to which a nation’s actions can be attributed. While that concept may be attributable even to Roman Catholicism (which teaches its own version of ummah through its belief that all people in a region are submitted to the Pope and belong to the Catholic Church), it cannot be attributed to people who are being faithful to the Bible, which is the very definition of a “Bible-believing Christian”.
End Notes
(1) - Al-Tabari, Commentary on the Holy Qur’an, pp. 206-207
(2) - Al-Mahili, Al-Jalalan, p.153
(3) - Al-Baydawi, The Lights of Revelation, p. 252
(4) - Ibn Khaldun, Al-Muqaddimah, Vol. I, p.473
(5) - Ibn Kathir, Tafsir Ibn Kathir, p.336
(6) - Ibn Hazm, Al-Fisal, Vol. VIII, part 11, p. 196
(7) - M. Sa’id Ramadan Al-Buti, The Jurisprudence of the Biography, pp. 323-324
(8) - M. Sa’id Ramadan Al-Buti, Jurisprudence of the Biography, pp. 266-267
(9) - M. Sai’d Ramadan Al-Buti, Jurisprudence of the Biography, pp. 266
(10) - Introduction to Sahih Bukhari, trans. M. Khan, p. xxiv
(11) - S. as-Saleh, Mabaheth Fi 'Ulum al-Qur'an, p. 269
(12) - S. as-Saleh, Mabaheth Fi 'Ulum al-Qur'an, note on p. 270
(13) - M. al-Amin, The Methodology of Islamic Law, p. 17
(14) - S. Qutb, Milestones, Ch. 4
(15) - A. Abdul-Fattah, The Spirit of Islamic Religion, p. 382
(16) - F. Rahman, Islam, p.37
(17) - see S. Abul Ala Maududi, Jihad in Islam, pp. 9,19,24, etc.
(18) - Sahih al-Bukhari vol. 1, no. 25
(19) - Sahih al-Bukhari vol. 1, no. 35
(20) - Sahih al-Bukhari vol. 4, no. 370
(21) - Sahih al-Bukhari vol. 4, no. 386
(22) - Sahih al-Bukhari vol. 9, no. 555
(23) - Ibn-e-Majah, Vol. 2, p. 172
(24) - Ibn-e-Majah, Vol. 2, p. 173
(25) - Ibn-e-Majah, vol. 2, p. 174
(26) - Ibn-e-Majah, vol. 2, p. 166
(27) - Sahih Tirmzi, vol. 1, p. 697
(28) - Ibn-e-Majah, Vol. 2, p. 183
(29) - Ibn Khaldun, Al-Muqaddimah,Vol. I, p. 373
(30) - A. Danielou, History of India, p. 222
(31) - S.N. Fisher The Middle East, A History, p. 108
(32) - R.E. Burns, Wrath of Allah, Chap. 4
(33) - R.E. Burns, Wrath of Allah, Chap. 4
(34) - C.J. Walker, Armenia: Survival of a Nation, p. 203
(35) - R.E. Burns, Wrath of Allah, Chap. 4
(36) - P.N. Siegel, The Meek and the Militant, p. 186
(37) - S.K. Bhattacharyya, Genocide in East Pakistan/Bangladesh
(38) - World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2001 edition, p. 821
