- Moderator
- #61
Islam is one of about 25,000 other discrete religious systems. If Islam is 'about anything' it's submission to Allah (God.) It's based for the most part directly off Judaism even copying our idea of a holy book from God, then another from man (Tanach/Talmud, Qur'an/a-Hadiths.) Doesn't even pretend to be original which is kinda nice referring in sura 2 something to the effect of "...and we took from the people of the book [Jews] a covenant..." Meaning the covenant between man and God between the Jews Muslims feel wasn't 'followed through' enough with so they came along and picked up where Jews left off.
After 9/11 I studied Islam. Whole know your enemy thing. It's objectively no different than Judaism or Christianity repeating the same things, forbidding the same things, etc. Biggest difference is just that unlike Judaism, and more than Christianity it goes into great detail about the afterlife. But because it's based off the two pre-extant 'super faiths' Christianity and Judaism, there's very little in it than isn't in the others. Calls to kill infidels is actually from Torah, not original to Qur'an. I think they invented the 'sex slaves' in heaven notion though because try as I might, liking that idea, I can't find it in TOrah
They are all the same books. It's essentially the same religion.
In the OT you have instances where God tells the Hebrews to wipe out some cannanite cities. However, in Islam you have an open command to kill the infidel. The Cannanites are long gone as where there is a never ending supply of infidels.
There really is no "open command" as you put it.
For example, the phrases commonly cited are are done so oftten inaccurately and usually missing most of the quote:
"Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them."
Sounds pretty aweful, so why do they leave out the rest of the quote and the context with which this applied - a time of war.
Surah 2:191
And kill them wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you, and fitnah is worse than killing. And do not fight them at al-Masjid al- Haram until they fight you there. But if they fight you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers.
This is clarified in the previous Surah:
Surah 2:190
Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you but do not transgress. Indeed. Allah does not like transgressors.
Allah is ordering to fight when they are attacked - this is quite different from killing innocent civilians.