MY TWO CENTS...
I don´t know where to start with this post but I know I have to write this to express my opinion that probably will offend some people here. I read an article yesterday that touched my nerve, because it talks about how immigrants ruin countries and especially muslim immigrants. It clearly showed their close minded point of view and the lack of understanding of other cultures. Thus, I want to tell a story that perhaps will open some minds.
As an Indonesian who lives in Germany, I consider myself as an immigrant and like most Indonesian I am a muslim too (In case you don´t realise that right away). I came to Germany to have better education and to better myself and my family. I am grateful that Germany has accepted me and given me many opportunities and I replied that with obeying the law and pay my taxes. But after a decade living here, it saddens me to read how immigrants especially muslims immigrants have "terrorist mentality" and "want to take our jobs and implement sharia law". It saddens me because I start to question myself, if thats the criteria then am I a terrorist too? Maybe you will say:"no you are not" or you will say :"Not all muslims are terrorist, but all terrorist are muslims". It sounds true but that is actually a logical fallacy and clearly showed how ignorant you are because there are many attacks that were done by non muslims but they were not labelled as terrorist, why is that? i.e. Attack in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik that killed 77 people; Attack in Las Vegas by Stephen Paddock that kills more than 50 people; Attack by Buddhist monks in Myanmar to Rohingya people that kills thousands of people; and many more. Simply said, terror has no religion and people tend to afraid of what they don´t understand
When I was still living in Indonesia, I was being taught by the society where I lived that Chinese immigrants are bad people, they stole our job, they are richer than us, they are trying to convert us, etc. I used to believe all of that until I met my friend who is Indonesian-chinese and realised they are as Indonesian as they can be and they have the same dream, passion, eat the same food and breathe the same air!
Being born from native tribe in Indonesia, and a muslim, made me ignorant and afraid of other minority when I lived in Indonesia. But that´s all changed when I lived in Germany and became a minority here. I started to feel empathy towards others including to immigrants that came to Europe.
The immigrants that come here to the West (especially from Middle Eastern countries) are people who fled due to war, and the wars were started by Western countries. It is no wonder they wanted to flee and better themselves and come to western countries:
If history can taught us anything, its that immigrants were not the problem. In the past when Spain expelled Jews out of Spain (Alhambra Decree, 13th-14th Century) because of they are not Catholics, the Ottoman Sultan accepted them and wrote to King Ferdinand :"You have lost everything while I have gain everything". It was because of the immigrant jews, the Ottoman Empire reached their Golden Age since the Jews that were expelled were merchants, specialists, engineers, artists, etc and what happened to Spain at that time? Their economy decline into poverty.
The second lesson is right after World War II, Germany was destroyed and there were not enough Germans available to rebuild the country. So the Govt invited millions of Turkish people to work in the area where no Germans didn´t want to (i.e. builders, servant, etc) and it contributed more or less to Germany economy miracle.
If you are one of the people that still think immigrants are filthy and all of them bad people and you typed it all using a MacBook, do you know that Steve Job´s father is a Syrian immigrant? if there was no Steve Job´s father then there will be no Steve Jobs and no MacBook. And if you are thinking to leave your country because of this "muslims immigrant" coming to your country and destroy it, i find it as irony because in your new country you will become an Immigrant! and there will be people there who think that you destroy their country and steal their job!
Also if you think that Islam is a terrorist religion because what happen now in Middle East and all those attacks in Europe, then I will say you don´t know Islam at all...why don´t you buy Quran (Islam holy book) read it until the end, visit a mosque and have discussions with people there. I am sure you will be confused because you will not find muslims like in the media you like to watch. Islam is perfect, muslims are not (we are human after all).
My general advise for all of you, travel the world meet with other people from different cultures and talk with them and you will expand your horizon
Last not least I will end it with a Quote from one of the companion of Prophet Muhammad pubh:
"There is no Wealth like Knowledge, No Poverty like Ignorance" (Ali bin Abi Thalib r.a)
Wellcome to the community!
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If terror has no religion then how do you explain the violent verses in the quran that call for violence against Christians, Jews etc., how do you explain the actions of muhammad who himself killed people and practiced slavery?
And he has the position of prophet and role model in islam which means his actions will surely be repeated even today. The violent teachings are especially dangerous as islam has never been reformed to rid it of this and there is very little if any critical thought about muhammad and specifically inhumane things he did. He was afterall human and not without faults. Another example he and his followers would fight wars and capture women and rape them, enslave them etc. historically not anything unusual but today this would be a clear war crime and crime against humanity yet no muslim ever talks about this critically. Im not asking you to condemn muhammad what I am saying is can you admit that what he and the muslims did to innocent women was wrong and should not be followed by any muslim in todays world or by any human that reads the quran, hadith etc. and feels inspired to go out and be like a arabian of the 6century?
If we cannot agree that raping women is a terrible thing then we cannot agree on anything.
So today we see isis, boko haram and others claiming to be true muslims following this example of jihad war and conquest and quoting the quran and hadith to support their position that this vile and barbaric behaviour is islamic.
It is clear as a sunny day with blue skies that islam has a problem and it comes directly from the quran and the hadiths and only muslims can fix this problem, nobody else can do it for you. The problem with religion is that it refuses to change.
Remember this "Violent teachings result in violent actions".
Something really bad will happen if muslims don't fix this problem, maybe a nuclear war, mass genocide against muslims etc.
There will be a reaction at some point.
Humanism must prevail.
Dear friend thank you for your reply. For your post, it seems clear to me that what you know about islam or Quran or hadith are parts of what media told you. I admit I am not a scholar of Islam and I am continue to learn and strive to be better muslim everyday.
I will try to reply your questions as best as I could and If it doesn't´t satisfy you then it is my fault for not able to explain it properly so it is better for you to find a scholar afterwards
Here we go:
Islam is not a pacifist religion where it remained silenced when being oppressed. Quran allowed us to defend ourself against oppressors but that permission came only after years muslims were being discriminated, killed, oppressed but forbid them to transgress (QS:2-190). And reading a Quran by cherry picking some verses without understanding the context or without reading the verse before and after, can make someone misunderstood and thinks Islam condone violence. You have to know that Quran was not given to prophet Muhammad pbuh in form of a ready book, it was revealed piece by piece through Revelation and according to event that happened at that time. So all chapters and verses have stories and explanations behind it and the language used in Quran (which is Arabic) has a deeper meaning even for Arabs, that makes it difficult to really transfer its meaning. It is known as one of the miracles of Quran, which is it´s linguistic richness that are unparalleled from that time until now.
That is way there are scholars in Islam that committed themselves to interpret what the Quran says (it is called Tafsir). And I felt humbled if non-muslims thought that all muslims are perfect and understand islam completely inside out. We are not (sadly) but we strive to be better everyday.
First of all, Islam is the continuation of what Jews and Christians has taught. Many of of the prophets in Islam are the same with what Judaism and Christians have. We value prophet Abraham and Jesus as one of the greatest prophet. What islam teach is what other prophets in Judaism and Christianity has taught which is there is only One God and we have to follow Him and don´t worship Idols.
Quran never teach violence toward Jews and Christians but Quran criticised what the Scholars of Judaism and Christianity (rabbi and priests) that changed the contents of Taurat and Injil (the holy book of Jews and Christians) with their hand because they want to have power and money. At that time, many of the followers of Judaism and Christianity can´t read nor write so they rely completely on their rabbi and priests for the interpretation of their Holy Book. One example to prove that the scholars were changing their text was about Jesus being a God. It was in Nicea trough the council of Nicea (300 years after Jesus came), Christian priests gathered and discussed whether Jesus is God or not and they decided Jesus is God and all other text that mentioned it otherwise must be destroyed. How could men decide another man is God?
That was baseless claim that has been thrown out as a myth. To really understand the context read here: http://www.muhammadfactcheck.org/?muhammad=prophet-muhammad-sa-murdered-700-innocent-jews
4.Muhammad and his followers fight wars and enslaved them
That is another false claim. Prophet Muhammad pbuh and his followers went to wars to defend themselves because they were being oppressed for not able to practice Islam. And after the Prophet Muhammad passed away, the wars happened on other lands because at that time the Muslim armies were renown for their justice, bravery, humility, and truthfulness so that made them heroes among the people who were oppressed by their leaders and those people invited the army to free them from the oppression and dictatorship. And for slavery, at that time until now slavery exists. And in Islam we are being taught that no one is better than the others in the eye of God, we are all the same even if we have different skin color, wealth, and progeny. what made us different in Islam is who has the most faith and fear of God.
And for that tenet, Islam teaches us to free the slave whenever we could. If you read the Sirah of Muhammad (the biography of Muhammad), Muhammad freed all of his slaves but his slaves chose to continue to served him because they loved him. And there is one former slave that are famous in Islamic history named Bilal. He was a black slave that being bought and freed by one of the followers of Muhammad and Bilal became one of the most beloved companion and he was the first person who make the call for prayer (adhan) when Prophet Muhammad still alive.
That sentence really surprised me. Islam doesn't condone rape it is even against it! Islam is the religion that taught the followers to respect women, an entire chapter in Quran (Chapter Maryam or Mary mother of Jesus) spoke about women rights and what men must do to protect them. When islam came, baby girls were buried alive and women had no rights in inheritance, even women was seen as an object where they can be passed down as inheritance. And Islam stop all that.
What you said about rape perhaps its a verse in Quran reads: “Why did not those, who gave currency to this charge [of impropriety], bring four witnesses to prove it? Since they have not brought the required witnesses, they are indeed liars in the sight of Allah.”
That is a clear as day. This verse, like the preceding verse calling for four witnesses, protects women. If, for example, someone accuses a woman of adultery then he or she must produce four witnesses to corroborate the accusation. Failing that, the woman is innocent, and the accuser is a liar
5.Isis, boko haram, and others are true muslims
No they are not true muslims! many muslims and muslims scholars have screamed out loud to denounce them but that was not interesting enough for the mainstream media to broadcast it. Moreover, how do you judge someone is a true muslims or not? by their clothes?by their arabic language? no, you judge them by their manners. If they are indeed a true muslim, they will not do such horrible thing. And if you say thats because Islam teaches them to be violent, well there are more than 1 billion muslims on this earth who don´t behave like them..why is that? if you compared 1 billion muslims with those people who did violence in the name of islam, they are just 0.00001% of the whole muslim population.
And if you like to "paint all muslims with the same brush" , I can do the same to all religions and atheism too! Look at my example of Anders Breivik, he is a devout Christian, look at Stalin who was an atheist, look at Buddist monks in Myanmar right now that doing genocide to the Rohingya muslims, etc.
They are all doing violence under the name of religion or atheism, is that mean all of the people who practices those religions and atheism are bad (including you???) would you like to be labelled as a terrorist because one of your church members blew up a train station? I am surely not!
I hope that will explain a bit and if not then I am sorry I will not reply any longer if you are seeking for endless debate and it is better you find a muslim scholars who can explain it to you better.
thank you and peace be upon you