I'd like to pose some questions for those who'd like to insist on the
pretence that Islam as practiced in most of the world is in anyway as
"peaceful", "tolerant" or blame-free a religion as they'd like to make
it out to be. If this really is so, why then is it the case, I wonder,
that religious proselytizing by non-Muslims is such a dangerous
activity even in the few predominantly Muslim countries in which it
isn't outright illegal? Why is it that being accused of besmirching a
copy of the Koran or the Prophet Mohammed is such a surefire way to at
once get lynched and to instigate a riot? Why is it that questioning
the infallibility of the Koran in most Muslim countries is about as
about as health-giving as resting one's neck on a live chainsaw? Why is
apostasy from Islam so widely punishable by imprisonment or death?
Europeans had to go through centuries of religiously-motivated warfare
before all the zeal for piety managed to work its way out of their
systems; my hope is that it doesn't take the same kind of bloodletting
for the inhabitants of the Islamic world to work it out of theirs. A
God that is as powerful and all-seeing as the one the adherents of the
chief monotheistic religions claim to believe in shouldn't need human
champions killing others on His behalf.
Comments