HOW MUSLIMS DEFEND IDIOCY AND STUPIDITY OF ISLAM ?

Presently the debate on Islam is in full swing on various social networking as well as in many ex-Muslim and anti-Islam websites. Yet, the truth is not embraced easily. Old beliefs die hard. Though many sympathizers of Islam, e.g., Karen Armstrong, Edward Said and John Esposito, try to portray a deceptive rosy picture of Islam, the true Muslims show the real face of Islam with their constant readiness to harass, intimidate and assassinate anyone who may slight their religion. For this reason, Theo Van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death in the Netherlands and his associate Ayaan Hirsi Ali had to live with bodyguards and armored cars (Ali, 2007, p. xii), Taslima Nasrin has been living in exile since 1994, Faraj Foda was shot dead in front of his office in Cairo, Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd fled out of Egypt to escape the death penalty, and Sayyid Mahmoud al-Qimni was forced to recant all his writings (Ahmed, 2006, p. ix). Unfortunately, before the outside world would get a chance to read their works, these writers were silenced through murder, terror, and death-threats, and their writings were banned in the Muslim world. But who can stop the truth from spreading?

Today who can deny the fact that Islam is different from all other religions, because of the threat of violence to its critics? All other religions can be criticized and even ridiculed without fear of violence. Only with Islam is there a credible threat of violence to its critics. Muslims can criticize Christianity and Hinduism without any fear of violence, but Christians and Hindus cannot criticize Islam without an ever-present fear of Islamic violence. It needs far more bravery to be on that side. A simple, calm, rational debate between all religions is not possible, because the fear of Islamic violence is always in the background. If Islam is, as Muslims claim, a mature, modern, tolerant religion, then why there is a need to the threat of violence? Muslims don’t understand the self-contradiction.

Since Muslims cannot argue their religion with reason (Islam cannot survive if argued with reason), they resort to sudden abnormal rage. If it does not help, they opt for habitual lying and flawed arguments. We often hear two such arguments from them – the “language” argument and the “out of context” argument (Warraq, 2003, pp. 400-4). In this article, we will have a closer look at these two arguments.

The language argument

When the Qur’anic contradictions, or absurdities, or the violent verses are pointed out, Muslims will ask aggressively, “Do you know Arabic?” Then they tell triumphantly, “You have to read it in original Arabic to understand it fully”, or “These are not there in original Arabic Qur’an”, or, “The beauty of the Qur’an is lost in the translation”, or “There are many fake translations of the Qur’an to malign Islam” etc. With this, Western critics generally become silent. Now the question is: How many Muslims have read the Qur’an in original Arabic? Since the majority of Muslims are not Arabs, they have to rely on translations. In fact, most Muslims who raise the language arguments are non-Arabs and don’t understand Arabic.