Why are so many Muslims violent?

[Mike5575]

This may seem like an unfair question but when it comes acts of violence, Muslims are the ones that will feel justified by their relgion. Christians and everyone else it seems, when they do evil deeds, it has more do do with flaws in humanity in general. The fundamental difference between the Bible and the Koran is that while the Bible is a compulation of several books written across 1500 years by several different authors, Islam is believed to be written all at once, one time, by Allah, handed down from Gabriel. This would make the bible more open to interpretation, yet christians don’t go around bombing schools and flying planes into buildings. Does this have to do with Christians following the New, but not Old Testament since the New Testament makes the old one obsolete?

Anyways I talked to a Muslim friend of mine and he told me you can’t take little parts of the Koran to understand it but you have to read it entirely. When I ask him about all the violence committed by Muslims, he tells me they aren’t true Muslims. They don’t understand its true beauty and wisdom. Something doesn’t add up.

Could someone please give me a no bs scholary answer?

 

[Reuben_J]

This may seem like an unfair question but when it comes acts of violence, Muslims are the ones that will feel justified by their relgion. Christians and everyone else it seems, when they do evil deeds, it has more do do with flaws in humanity in general. The fundamental difference between the Bible and the Koran is that while the Bible is a compulation of several books written across 1500 years by several different authors, Islam is believed to be written all at once, one time, by Allah, handed down from Gabriel. This would make the bible more open to interpretation, yet christians don’t go around bombing schools and flying planes into buildings. Does this have to do with Christians following the New, but not Old Testament since the New Testament makes the old one obsolete?

Anyways I talked to a Muslim friend of mine and he told me you can’t take little parts of the Koran to understand it but you have to read it entirely. When I ask him about all the violence committed by Muslims, he tells me they aren’t true Muslims. They don’t understand its true beauty and wisdom. Something doesn’t add up.

Could someone please give me a no bs scholary answer?

I cannot rate this answer scholarly but may we change the premise slightly and hopefully you will get a fruitful thread?

1. There are violent Christians as well.
2. The Quran was revealed during a period of 23 years until Mohammad’s death. Many years later it was standardized by a caliph called Uthman.

God bless you.

 

[Eucharisted]

The spirit of the founder passes on to his followers, and “spirit” is not simply a fancy word for attitude and behavior but is the very same teachings and life of the founder - and, in some cases, is the very same demon that plagued him.

 

[laynienicol]

I disagree with the statement that there are violent Christians as well.

The meaning of the word “Christian” means specifically “Christ-LIKE” Christ may have stirred up lots of controversy but violent he was NOT.

If a person dares to call his or her-self a Christian they better live up to their statement… in the end all face His judgement.

 

[dzheremi]

I cannot rate this answer scholarly but may we change the premise slightly and hopefully you will get a fruitful thread?

1. There are violent Christians as well.

This is a standard Islamic deflection technique: “Christians are violent, too!” Yeah, yeah. And how much of that violence is mandated by the New Testament? Reuben, please do yourself a favor and read this analysis of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim violence by Raymond Ibrahim.

 

[ZAKI]

I cannot rate this answer scholarly but may we change the premise slightly and hopefully you will get a fruitful thread?

1. There are violent Christians as well.

2. The Quran was revealed during a period of 23 years until Mohammad’s death. Many years later it was standardized by a caliph called Uthman.

God bless you.

No it wasn’t. It was changed into one unified arabic dialect by Uthman (r.a) however what you first said was true though reuben j
a question to the starter of this thread…how many violent muslims have you MET? and how many violent christians have you met??? appreciate an answer here. Personally I am yet to meet one violent muslim. however I have met quite a few violent christians in my life time. My own mother hit me when she was drunk and a gang of christians at my school beat me up last yr after they found out i had become a muslim.

wasalam

 

[Reuben_J]

This is a standard Islamic deflection technique: “Christians are violent, too!” Yeah, yeah. And how much of that violence is mandated by the New Testament? Reuben, please do yourself a favor and read this analysis of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim violence by Raymond Ibrahim.

gee, thanks for the response.

I thought threads about Muslims and Islam usually degenerate into gleeful mudslinging. I just don’t want to give them (Muslims) a chance by mispresenting their belief or putting up generalizing statement if there is a hint that we too can exhibit the same.

Question like why many Muslims can be violent is OK if we want to really look into the cause. But this type of question can be asked of us as well, don’t ya think? There is no need for me to remind us that this can happen to Christians. It is in the news regularly. Killing, shooting and abuse, at homes and in public places. Admittedly for the last half century, Muslims seem to have fairly large share of violence especially in the political sphere.

I don’t know, before the discussion turns sour let’s be like Christians. No harm in admitting our weaknesses because our virtue will exonerates us. Remember we talk about people not the religions (though the religions can very well affect their behavior).

God bless.

 

[Reuben_J]

No it wasn’t. It was changed into one unified arabic dialect by Uthman (r.a) …
wasalam

With due respect, so far I am yet to be convinced that the Quran was not standardized by Uthman. Yes Muslims do give your type of argument, but neutral commentators surely see differently. Nevertheless the facts remain:

• That other copies of the Quran in different dialects were destroyed (by burning).
• That you can never be 100% sure that all revelations to Mohammad were included in Uthman version. There were stories that say otherwise.

God bless.

 

[Eucharisted]

Please take any burning book topics to the proper thread. Or make your own thread about it if you want.

 

[Elric]

I think that you will find that most of the violence is political, its just that many Islamic countries do not seperate church and state like some western countries do.

Where religion is involved, you will get extremists.

Where I live there is a large population of Muslims, I have never had any issues with them and some are quite friendly towards me (some of their children go to school with my son). There is even one little boy (around 4-5 years old) who pretends to shoot me when he sees me, I pretend to die and he giggles, its a great little game.

 

[IamCuddles]

Anyways I talked to a Muslim friend of mine and he told me you can’t take little parts of the Koran to understand it but you have to read it entirely. When I ask him about all the violence committed by Muslims, he tells me they aren’t true Muslims. They don’t understand its true beauty and wisdom. Something doesn’t add up.

Could someone please give me a no bs scholary answer?

So obviously you havent read the Quran…otherwise it would add up

 

[Iowa_Mike]

This may seem like an unfair question but when it comes acts of violence, Muslims are the ones that will feel justified by their relgion. Christians and everyone else it seems, when they do evil deeds, it has more do do with flaws in humanity in general. The fundamental difference between the Bible and the Koran is that while the Bible is a compulation of several books written across 1500 years by several different authors, Islam is believed to be written all at once, one time, by Allah, handed down from Gabriel. This would make the bible more open to interpretation, yet christians don’t go around bombing schools and flying planes into buildings. Does this have to do with Christians following the New, but not Old Testament since the New Testament makes the old one obsolete?

Anyways I talked to a Muslim friend of mine and he told me you can’t take little parts of the Koran to understand it but you have to read it entirely. When I ask him about all the violence committed by Muslims, he tells me they aren’t true Muslims. They don’t understand its true beauty and wisdom. Something doesn’t add up.

Could someone please give me a no bs scholary answer?

Because the Koran promotes violence…if you doubt it, read it for yourself.

God Bless,

Iowa Mikel

 

[planten]

There is question of violence. It is being suggested that it is innate in the teachings of Quran. That is not true. The acts of violence are being attributed to the prophet Muhammad. That is not good.

Every christian should think over the teachings and preachings of Jesus and those of Muhammad. How they started and how they were opposed. While there was a very quick showdown in th case of Jesus, such was not in the case of Muhammad. Muhammad and his followers suffered too much in the first 13 (long) years. They had to flee to a nearby chrstian country (habshah) for refuge from the violence of the polytheists of Makkah.

The polytheists of Makkah even went to that christian country to bring the muslim refugees back from there. But the christian king of Habshah refused to give up the poor Muslims.
Muslims were beaten and slaughtered in the streets of Makkah like sheeps. Muhammad saw all that and did not permit revenge. he only told his followers to be patient.

Then there was a boycott of all Muslims and they were locked up in a vast area (field) for three years. No food or water was allowed to enter there. The very young children wept and cried for food or water. The polytheists used to listen to the wailing and crying of the poor Muslims and they used to laugh at the Muslims condition. Please keep all these things in mind before deciding anything about violence.

Would you not count those bad deeds as violent?
Then the infidels planned to kill Muhammad by attacking him at night, all tribes striking together. He had to flee for his life with one companion (Abu Bakr) to Madinah. The people of Madinah welcomed him and made him the leader. Muhammad immediately struck a deal (a written agreement) with the people of Madinah including the Jews and the christians, that they would live and die together. If any one attacked Madinah, they would fight the attackers together to defend the city of Madinah.

Muhammad was expecting attack on the city. Muhammad had never killed any one in Makkah. He had never committed any crime there. Why the Makkans intended to attack Madinah? Were they not violent? I am sure, they were criminals.
The makkans attacked Madinah with a 1000 strong force of armed men within one year. The prophet had to come out of the city to face the enemy at the field of Badr. He had only 313 unarmed men with him. There was a very tough battle and the many Makkans were either killed or taken prisnors. This was the first combat.

And so it goes. Please note that there is no case of violence in Quran or on the part of Muhammad. It is only against the enemies of god and the prophets. It is a similar case as it happened against Jesus. He was caught too quickly and put up for death on the cross. that was violence. That was cruel act. The man of God suffered much.

We Muslims will not discuss anything seriously with christians because we disgaree at many points of the basic history. I will come back to explain the reason why the present day Muslims are violent. It is nothing to do with Islam or Quran. It is something to do with their ignorance of the true and peaceful religion i.e. Islam.

 

[tomarin]

This may seem like an unfair question but when it comes acts of violence, Muslims are the ones that will feel justified by their relgion. Christians and everyone else it seems, when they do evil deeds, it has more do do with flaws in humanity in general. The fundamental difference between the Bible and the Koran is that while the Bible is a compulation of several books written across 1500 years by several different authors, Islam is believed to be written all at once, one time, by Allah, handed down from Gabriel. This would make the bible more open to interpretation, yet christians don’t go around bombing schools and flying planes into buildings. Does this have to do with Christians following the New, but not Old Testament since the New Testament makes the old one obsolete?

Christians during the Middle Ages followed the New Testament then, but they were a lot more violent at that time. The Crusades for example were penitential religious wars in which the crusaders took up arms in order to atone for their sins. In Christian Europe pogroms against Jews were not unusual, although not always sanctioned by the Church. Heretical movements like that of the Cathars in southern France were ruthlessly crushed by orthodox Christian noblemen and their armies on behalf of the Church. They may have been right to do all these things, but you cannot say they shied away from violent means.

Everyday life in Europe was also much more violent during the Middle Ages, because there was no state-sanctioned rule of law. People settled scores by waging vendettas which could go back and forth between extended families for generations. Honor was the utmost principle for aristocratic families to uphold.

The reason Muslims appear more willing to engage in violence today for religious reasons is because secularism has weakened the power of religion in the West, not because Islam is “inherently” more violent. Religion is under attack in the East as well but secularism and modernism are easily idenitified there as an imported alien presence, because they are.

 

[planten]

The present day Muslims are misguided. They are like the Jews of the time of Jesus. They are longing for a religious government of their own. Whereas the Jews have improved very much upon their national behaviour, the Muslims have been misled by their religious leaders.

The problem is that the Muslims as a nation were sleeping for many hundred years. They lost touch with the reality and with science. The muslim religious leaders and their kings and princes wasted away their time for the last 4 centuries while much research was done in mathematics, physics and chemistry in the western world.

At that time, the muslims were fast asleep. The result was that they became poor in wealth and knowledge. Ignorant Mullas became their leaders. The Muslims lost everything they had. The reason was their spiritual backwardness. They lost even the useless worldly Caliphate of Turkey. That should have been a lesson to them to become peaceful. But they did not.

Then there was good reason for them to shun all evil and to shun all desire to all wars against the west. There was no reason to fight the west with a pistol. Specially after knowing what happened to Hitler and his totalatarian regime. Hitler had much might. But because he was wrong, he went down badly. It was a lesson for every one who wanted to be a national leader. Peace was the only way and no confrontation.

But Muslim religious leaders, even in the years 1930 and 1960 A.D. gave lessons of Jihad to the poor Muslims. That was all wrong. The affects of that are still continuing.

I may summarise as follows:
There is not to be any religious war now, in these days. Love is the lesson. All Muslims who live in western countries must live very peacefully as humble faithful servants of those lands where they live. They are not to cause any trouble or discomfort in the host countries. It would be a crime to rouse trouble of any kind in those countries.

The politics is spoiling the Muslims everywhere. The violence they are committing is only political. It is not at all religious.Religion does not teach any harm to any other people or any other religion. The Muslims should be the custodians of peace for every religion and places of worship. But what are they doing? They are blowing up schools and temples and churches. That is all ir-religious.

The violence being perpetrated by Muslims is being caused by the violent muslim religious leaders sitting in various muslim countries, Egypt, Iran, Sudan and Pakistan, plus many more. They are every where. Those leaders are inciting the poor muslims that it is the duty of poor muslims to kill the non-believers (Kafirs). But they do not know the meaning of a kaafir.

The leaders have been teaching the poor Muslims that any one who has not recited the kalimah is a kafir. Any one who has not believed in Muhammad is a kafir. that was utterly wrong lesson and there are a few other major mistakes that are being taught to the muslims which are (wrong) very harmful for every one.

I do not know if I have described the situation correctly. In the end, I say that the prophet Muhammad had foretold all these things in his life time that the Muslims will be highly misled in the latter times. Forgive any mistake please…

 

[rtconstant]

OK the above two posts are pretty intelligent.

 

[Iowa_Mike]

I cannot rate this answer scholarly but may we change the premise slightly and hopefully you will get a fruitful thread?

1. There are violent Christians as well.
2. The Quran was revealed during a period of 23 years until Mohammad’s death. Many years later it was standardized by a caliph called Uthman.

God bless you.

The above two quotes are not supported by today’s reality. Unless you live in a cave, Christians are being persecuted in almost all Muslim countries. Their churches are being burned and they are being killed or driven out. In Denmark and other countries Muslims rioted and people were killed simply because they printed cartoons lampooning Mohammed!

Please provide facts that show Christian violence around the world as compared to Muslim violence; you can’t because it doesn’t exist! When beheadings are posted to the internet, car bombs go off killing women and children, children are wired with bombs and killed when remotely detonated, explain why there is no Muslim outcry and condemnation of these acts. To say Christians are violent is rediculous. In order to pre-empt the ‘well, the USA kills civilians when bombing arugument’, in war civilians suffer and die but the difference is the USA does not deliberately target civilians…Muslims do while screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’, God is great.

Who cares when Uthman standardized the Quran (Koran); in Sura 9 is states

Make war upon such of those to whom the Scriptures have been given as believe not in God, or in the last day, and who forbid not that which God and His Apostle [Mohammed] have forbidden, and who profess not the profession of the truth, until they pay tribute out of hand, and they be humbled.

If you read the passage notes they say,

The Jews are commanded, in case of war with the Gentiles, to offer peace on two conditions: - that they become tributsaries, and renounce idolatry.

. Does this sound familiar?

The Koran is repleat with calls to kill non-believers or subjugate them, subjugate women and on and on; can anyone say Sharia Law?

I’m amazed at the Muslim defenders on this site…sadly misinformed Muslim defenders.

God Bless,

Mike Malone

 

[pickguard1]

Who cares when Uthman standardized the Quran (Koran); in Sura 9 is states If you read the passage notes they say, . Does this sound familiar?

The Koran is repleat with calls to kill non-believers or subjugate them, subjugate women and on and on; can anyone say Sharia Law?

I’m amazed at the Muslim defenders on this site…sadly misinformed Muslim defenders.

God Bless,

Mike Malone

I wish that all muslims believed as our friend Planten a few posts back, but as you put it Iowa Mike, there are passages in the Quran that really open up the way for unmitigated violence against unbelievers - another passage from Sura 9 states (and I apologize to any muslims that the Arabic isn’t with this - but I don’t know Arabic and can’t put it in with my keyboard anyway - so this is the translation I have on my ipod which does have the Arabic alongside)

verse 5

“So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.”

This is a far cry from “turn the other cheek” and it’s very easy to see why, as Planten says, many muslims are led by their religious leaders to violence, when such passages exist to support such calls.

 

[staffsgt7]

Reading their history, especially of the perfect man in their eyes which is MOhammed will tell anyone what they want to know about the violence that comes out of Islam.

over 95% of the Jihad that is taught in their texts is violence against the unbeliever. It is their 6th pillar which they don’t like to admit to: Every muslim must wage Jihad.

Now what we will hear is the denial of this fact but that is just them putting us off, or tricking us as to its truth. mohammed told them time and again that they must all wage jihad and that there are many things they can do. Some will wage it by going into the political arena and striving to get sharia laws into the laws of the land they migrate to, others infiltrate the school systems to start demanding that the rest of the students abide by Islamic rules and allow muslims to pray, to teach muslim revisionist history, etc. Others will go on these types of websites and tell us myths and fables about islam.

And it is real easy for them to do this since the duality in islam.

here is a good article that was declassified that tells us all that we should be learning Islam and it goes into many aspects that we find confusing with muslims.

quote from page 5.
"Jihad is regarded by all jurists in the four major sunni schools, with almost no exception, as a collective obligation of the entire community. As fard al-kifaya, johad is binding on the whole community, not just on individuals. If the duty is fulfilled by a part of the community (present day jihdists, for instance), then it ceases to be obligatory on the remainder. The whole community (ummah) falls into error, however, if theobligation is not performed at all. "

And lastly, this article: Ignorance of Islam and Sharia (Islamic law) is a Moral, Ethical and Existential Failure I found quite interesting.

 

[staffsgt7]

That post does not sound like planten. I have read several of his posts and he usually does not write like that.