Quotations on Islam - 2

About Islam

1. Who told me that the act of Jihad, the act of killing non-Muslims was good? Well, if you read the Koran, you will find that in a certain sura God says that he has bought the lives of the Muslims in return for the rewards of Paradise. They kill non-Muslims and get killed in this war-effort, & the reward for these Muslims is paradise & paradise is a huge garden inhabited by the most beautiful virgins, who live in palaces, & there are countless pretty pearl-like boys to serve them as well. [Anwar Shaikh]
2. The deeper study of the Koran, Hadith, and Arab history led me to believe that Islam had been cleverly devised on the principle of divide and rule. And its purpose is to enable the Arabs to dominate the rest of the world. I have no doubt the Prophet wanted to raise himself to the same status as Allah. Muhammad loved Arabia & its culture, and his one desire was to create a strong, conquering Arab nation that believed in him and propagated his name. This could only be achieved by imperial dominance. [Anwar Shaikh]
3. When I began to study the Koran, the holy book of Islam, I found many unreasonable ideas. The women in the Koran were treated as slaves. They are nothing but sexual objects. Naturally I set aside the Koran and looked around me. I found religion equally oppressive in real life. And I realized that religious oppression and injustices are only increasing, especially in Muslim countries. The religious terrorists are everywhere. But if I criticized Muslim fundamentalists and mullahs in particular, it is because I saw them from close quarters. They took advantage of people's ignorance and oppressed them. They considered women as chattel slaves and treated them no better than the slaves of the ancient world. [Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin, in exile]
4. Fundamentalism is an ideology that diverts people from the path of natural development of consciousness and individuality, and undermines their personal rights. I find it impossible to accept fundamentalism as an alternative to secular ideas. My first reason is the insistence of the fundamentalists on divine justification for human laws.
   Second, the insistence of fundamentalists upon the superior authority of faith, as opposed to reason.
   Third, the insistence of fundamentalists that the individual does not count, that the individual is immaterial. Group loyalty over individual rights and personal achievements is a peculiar feature of fundamentalism. Fundamentalists believe in a particular way of life; they want to put everybody in their particular straightjacket and dictate what an individual should eat, what an individual should wear, how an individual should live everyday life -- everything would be determined by the fundamentalist authority.
   Finally, though they proclaim themselves a moral force, their language is hatred and violence. Is it possible for a rationalist and humanist to accept this sort of terrible repression? [Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin, in exile]
   
5. I write against the religion because if women want to live like human beings, they will have to live outside the religion and Islamic law. [Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin, in exile]
6. To put it as simply as possible: I am not a Muslim.[...] I do not accept the charge of apostacy, because I have never in my adult life affirmed any belief, and what one has not affirmed one can not be said to have apostasized from. The Islam I know states clearly that 'there can be no coercion in matters of religion'. The many Muslims I respect would be horrified by the idea that they belong to their faith purely by virtue of birth, and that a person who freely chose not to be a Muslim could therefore be put to death. [Salman Rushdie, "In Good Faith", 1990]

From Muslims

1. O ye who believe! Murder those of the disbelievers .... and let them find harshness in you. [Koran, Repentance: 123]
2. Humiliate the non-Muslims to such an extent that they surrender and pay tribute. [Koran, Repentance: 29]
3. O believers, do not treat your fathers and brothers as your friends, if they prefer unbelief to belief, whosoever of you takes them for friends, they are evil-doers. [Koran, Repentance: 20]
4. Let not the believers take the unbelievers for friends.... whoso does that belongs not to God. [Koran, The House of Imram: 60]
5. The earth is flat, and anyone who disputes this claim is an atheist who deserves to be punished. [Muslim religious edict, 1993 Sheik Abdel-Aziz Ibn Baaz Supreme religious authority, Saudi Arabia]
6. If someone becomes a Muslim then apostatizes, he would be asked to repent; if he does not repent, he should be killed. [Imam al-Shafi'i, The Ordinances of the Qur'an (part 1, p. 289)]
7. Somebody may say: ‘Do you want to deny freedom to people?' We say to him: ‘If what is meant by freedom is to disbelieve in God's religion, or the freedom of infidelity and apostasy, then that freedom is abolished and we do not recognize it; we even call for its eradication, and we strive to oppress it. We declare that publicly and in daylight"' [Dr. Taha Jabir's, "The Islamic Society" April 17,1984, p. 26]