This article from the American Thinker discusses a topic I've often wondered about. Why is it that Muslims and apologist non-Muslims alike, constantly tell us, we critics of Islam, that we should "learn more about Islam"? On the assumption, one presumes, that in learning more we will come to love it.
I first wondered about this after I educated myself about Islam, soon after 9-11.
George W Bush had been repeating that Islam was a "religion of peace". Yet nineteen Muslims, clearly Muslims, and clearly pious Muslims, had just flown planes into the WTC.
So I thought I'd better learn more so I read the Koran.
Boy! Was that ever an education!
It scared me. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I thought "if this is what these people are reading and following, we have a real problem". And of course we do have a real problem. And it's a problem precisely because Muslims follow the doctrines of their faith.
Then I read past the Koran. I read the Hadith, the sayings and doings of Muhammad, and the Sirah, the authorised life of Muhammad. They didn't help. They are all just as violent and sectarian, as the Koran. Just that they have some more detail. A while later I also read the Umdat Al-Salik, the Classic Manual of Islamic Jurisprudence, which has been certified, as recently as 1997, by the most authoritative university in Islam, the Al-Azhar university in Cairo.
So why, when they face criticism of Islam, do Muslims and their fellow travellers call on us to "learn more about Islam"? It's only going to make us ever more wary of Islam. For its doctrines are unremittingly anti free speech, violent, misogynist, anti-semitic, homophobic and apostasy-phobic.
In the ironically amusing case reported below, a judge in the US sentences a woman to learning about Islam in the curious, or simply ignorant, belief that this will "cure" her of Islamophobia.
Actually, reading the doctrines of Islam will make any sentient being Islamophobic. Or better word: islamocritical. For there's nothing in that doctrine which improves humankind. Nothing. Only if you are born into it can you follow it. Unless you are one of the idiotic converts (or "reverts" as Muslims call them, as they have reverted to the "original" religion!), which enter into a category I call "things I don't get".
Anyway read on for the bizarre musings of a US Judge. And an equally bizarre sentence.
I first wondered about this after I educated myself about Islam, soon after 9-11.
George W Bush had been repeating that Islam was a "religion of peace". Yet nineteen Muslims, clearly Muslims, and clearly pious Muslims, had just flown planes into the WTC.
So I thought I'd better learn more so I read the Koran.
Boy! Was that ever an education!
It scared me. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I thought "if this is what these people are reading and following, we have a real problem". And of course we do have a real problem. And it's a problem precisely because Muslims follow the doctrines of their faith.
Then I read past the Koran. I read the Hadith, the sayings and doings of Muhammad, and the Sirah, the authorised life of Muhammad. They didn't help. They are all just as violent and sectarian, as the Koran. Just that they have some more detail. A while later I also read the Umdat Al-Salik, the Classic Manual of Islamic Jurisprudence, which has been certified, as recently as 1997, by the most authoritative university in Islam, the Al-Azhar university in Cairo.
So why, when they face criticism of Islam, do Muslims and their fellow travellers call on us to "learn more about Islam"? It's only going to make us ever more wary of Islam. For its doctrines are unremittingly anti free speech, violent, misogynist, anti-semitic, homophobic and apostasy-phobic.
In the ironically amusing case reported below, a judge in the US sentences a woman to learning about Islam in the curious, or simply ignorant, belief that this will "cure" her of Islamophobia.
Actually, reading the doctrines of Islam will make any sentient being Islamophobic. Or better word: islamocritical. For there's nothing in that doctrine which improves humankind. Nothing. Only if you are born into it can you follow it. Unless you are one of the idiotic converts (or "reverts" as Muslims call them, as they have reverted to the "original" religion!), which enter into a category I call "things I don't get".
Anyway read on for the bizarre musings of a US Judge. And an equally bizarre sentence.
