Islam is Not a Violent Religion

Islam is not a violent Religion
 
By Hameed Abdul Karim
 
Some years ago there was a controversy among Muslims in London and quite a few of them were upset and annoyed over it. So a TV crew came over to interview Muslims about their stand on this controversy one day after Jummah but, to my surprise, not a single Muslim fell for the overtures of the anchorman, scampering from one Muslim to another to get his 'story' for the evening news. He couldn't get a single Muslim and I was happy in the thought that the Muslims were wise to the media game.

But imagine my surprise when I heard the evening news actually carried a Muslim raving and ranting about the controversy like as if he had gone mad. In his brainless reaction he provided the image of the stereotype Muslim that the media has created. It's Muslims like this nitwit that Madam Hasina (Sunday Times 5 May, 2002) is exposed to in Geneva and the rest of the West, not those who nonchalantly dismissed the trap laid by the perplexed anchorman. So since she is shown only pictures like these she is naturally convinced that Islam has become a violent religion. As for Daniel Pearl, well, there are a lot of stories whizzing around on the 'underground media' namely the Internet. One report said that he was an Israeli Jew - a Zionist at that - working for a Zionist newspaper, The Wall Street Journal. That part of the information has been 'independently confirmed' by the western electronic and print media. What is not confirmed is that he was a spy, operating as a 'journalist' trying to connect Richard Reid, the 'Shoe Bomber' to the Al-Qaeeda. 

There is, however, a flaw in this story. The FBI confirmed that he belonged to the Al-Qaeeda network, as did the CIA. If that is true what was the need for further information? 

Then again maybe Daniel Pearl was genuine. But that raises another question. The FBI, CIA and the media were lying when they told the world that Richard Reid was an Al-Qaeeda recruit. If Madame Hasina wants to know the various covers that spies take all she has to do is read the book 'By Way of Deception' by Victor Ostrovosky, in which he tells that Mossad agents even become pimps to serve their country. In an eulogy of sorts the sad looking CNN girl said that Daniel Pearl lived for three things - his wife, their unborn child and for a free media. I have no quarrel with the first two goals but I simply cannot accept the third one. Imagine a Zionist Jew working for a Zionist newspaper wanting a free media! That's simply unbelievable.

I share Madam Hasina's sorrow over Daniel Pearl's death but to highlight one horrible death - murder - execution - call it what you like, and ignore the thousands slaughtered by both his countries (Israel and America) is like missing the wood for the trees. We have to remember just one incident among many where about forty Muslims were blown to bits by American bombs weighing 2500 pounds each dropped by 'heroic' American pilots while worshipping their Lord in a mosque in Afghanistan. This was no less ghastly than Pearls death. Didn't these harmless Afghans have anything to live for like Daniel Pearl? Didn't they have wives like Daniel Pearl? Didn't a single one of them have unborn children like Daniel Pearl? Why is it that we don't hear of this massacre in a media that Daniel Pearl believed was free? Why didn't Pearl's 'free' media interview the wives the men the Americans slaughtered like they interviewed his weeping wife? Don't Muslim women weep for their husbands like Mrs. Pearl? Oh, I get it. The Muslims, both men and women, have been so dehumanised and demonised that it is impossible to imagine that they might have human emotions like Mrs. Pearl. 

No, Muslims are not supposed to have the human faculty tocry like Mrs. Pearl. Animals do but Muslims don't. How easy it is, and hypocritical too, for the predator to legitimise his violence, disguising it as an act of altruism, and then claim his victims ar e violent because they react violently to free themselves from that oppressive aggressor? Wasn't Nelson Mandela's fight for freedom from his oppressors a violent one? Violent not because he wanted it to be so but violent it became because his aggressors reacted to his peaceful demands with all the violence at their command. 

Should we, then, classify the lovable Nelson Mandela as a violent man? Is freedom violent? If a nation is involved in a violent struggle for democracy, should we, then, classify democracy as a violent ideology? The Catholics of East Timor fought for their independence from Indonesia and naturally violence ensued and engulfed the tiny nation. What, then, is Catholicism violent? If the answer to these questions is no why should Islam be classified as violent when Muslims under occupation in Kashmir, Chechnya, Palestine and Muslims under proxy governments fight for their freedom and independence from their oppressors?

Islam is not a violent religion as Madame Hasina has been brainwashed to believe in the sense Muslims don't wake up every morning and go out to kill non-Muslims just to kill time while their wives prepare their breakfasts. If that were the case there wouldn't be a single Hindu in India or a Catholic in Spain. So I apologise to Ms. Hasina for not agreeing with her when she says there is an Islam that is violent and I am sorry if, as a Muslim, I have fallen short of her glory. 

(Appeared in the Sunday Times and the Daily Mirror).
CIS. COLOMBO. SRI LANKA.
Friday, May 31, 2002 at 22:10:21 (CDT)