Is Islam a religion of love and peace?

Fallingstar

What is a zombie thread??
Am just finding my way around this site and all the initials used, DD, GC, etc., and now I have come across this term.
Is quite confusing.

A zombie thread is one which has lain dormant for many years, this one for over 13 years. They are often revived by spam posters, or bots. The last post before the spammer one was September 2012!

I don’t know enough about Islam to comment on its belief system, but have lived and worked alongside Muslims for most of my life and they were just the same as everyone else, ordinary people just making a living, worried about their bills/mortgages, and their kids education. I think is probably the same story wherever you go in the UK.
There are extremists in most organised religions, the evangelists in the US, the Catholics and Proddys in Northern Ireland and parts of Scotland, and far right Jewish members of the Knesset.
This is why I don’t subscribe to any organised religion, my origins are Jewish but my faith I put in a God with no religion.

Oh so that is what a zombie thread is Rosie.
Feel a bit silly now posting a reply.

You aren't alone in doing so Fallingstar, lots of us have been caught out one time or another. I would just gently point out that Irish Protestants might not like the term "Proddys" as it is used as a derogatory slang term.

This is another ridiculously old thread- I get sick of seeing them.

Fallingstar

I don’t know enough about Islam to comment on its belief system, but have lived and worked alongside Muslims for most of my life and they were just the same as everyone else, ordinary people just making a living, worried about their bills/mortgages, and their kids education. I think is probably the same story wherever you go in the UK.
There are extremists in most organised religions, the evangelists in the US, the Catholics and Proddys in Northern Ireland and parts of Scotland, and far right Jewish members of the Knesset.
This is why I don’t subscribe to any organised religion, my origins are Jewish but my faith I put in a God with no religion.

👏👏🫶

Again, I didn’t look at date on OP, must do in the future.

I don’t understand how or why they pop up!

My goodness, the ignorance here is astounding.

What Christians have done historically , violently, persecuting, slaughtering en masse in the name of Christ, wiping out/slaughtering men, women and children populations in the Crusades and the Inquisition, terrible oppression of women at some points...

Smug comparisons in the now to prove How Superior We Undoubtedly Are Currently don't carry a lot of weight with me: its all to do with power relationships in the world, social conditions, the sorts of weaponry available, as to whether the more peaceful or the more warlike texts are drawn upon for justification at any given point.

We need someone with a fuller and more comprehensive understanding of what I have described, a proper comparative theologian as far too many posts here are just having yet another go at Islam. We all are aware I'm sure all religions have much of love, peace, harmony, in them, but frankly we aren't equipped.

Remembering Greatnan.

Agree with falling star and Wyllow.

Read the novel White Teeth by Zadie Smith, published long before the 9/11 attacks. It might provide some answers to the recent (last 40 years say) growth of fundamentalist/radical rhetoric -in the UK at least.
By the way the book is so much better than the tv dramatisation, more entertaining more enlightening.

When you see the name Greatnan you can be sure this is a very old thread. She's been dead for quite a while now, many of us remember her well from the early days.

Most religions have been weaponised or used to justify political ambitions at different times in history. The Assyrians and Babylonians believed their gods gave them Empires. The Jews attacked various tribes when they arrived in the Promised Land. The armies of Islam swept across countries bordering the Mediterranean. Loads of people were slaughtered in the name of Christianity. The Aztecs were pretty grim in the service of their gods. There are other examples of 'God being with us'.

Wyllow3

My goodness, the ignorance here is astounding.

What Christians have done historically , violently, persecuting, slaughtering en masse in the name of Christ, wiping out/slaughtering men, women and children populations in the Crusades and the Inquisition, terrible oppression of women at some points...

Smug comparisons in the now to prove How Superior We Undoubtedly Are Currently don't carry a lot of weight with me: its all to do with power relationships in the world, social conditions, the sorts of weaponry available, as to whether the more peaceful or the more warlike texts are drawn upon for justification at any given point.

We need someone with a fuller and more comprehensive understanding of what I have described, a proper comparative theologian as far too many posts here are just having yet another go at Islam. We all are aware I'm sure all religions have much of love, peace, harmony, in them, but frankly we aren't equipped.

Very well said, Wyllow3

My goodness, the ignorance here is astounding.

followed by

Smug comparisons in the now to prove How Superior We Undoubtedly Are Currently don't carry a lot of weight with me:

As you so clearly believe you know it all.

Cossy

Again, I didn’t look at date on OP, must do in the future.

I don’t understand how or why they pop up!

You started the new thread
The post above your new stated that it was a Zombie thread.
The one above that was reported as advertising.

TerriBull

When you see the name Greatnan you can be sure this is a very old thread. She's been dead for quite a while now, many of us remember her well from the early days.

We also remember the tragic circumstances of her death, don’t we? 😥

I’m frightened by Trump, Farage and Yaxley-Lennon.

There are no doubt dangerous extremists within Islam. They must be rooted out. As must all extremists of whatever belief system. The vast majority of Muslims in the UK are, I believe, peaceful people just wanting to live their lives in safety.

I know this is a zombie thread. But seeing as it came up, here's an answer to the OP.

Here are some of the teachings from the Islamic sources, which I think show that Islam is not a religion of love and peace.

1. Non-Muslims
Violently subjugate unbelievers to Islam.
- Qur’an Sura 9.29, Sura 4.89

Sahih Bukhari 1.2.24
//Allah's apostle [Mohammed] said: I have been ordered to fight against people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's apostle …//

(There are some more peaceful teachings in the Qur’an, but these are abrogated, or superseded, by later non-peaceful teachings.)

//Verily, Allah does not love the unbelievers [those who do not believe in Islam].//
- Surah Ali Imran 3:32

2. Jews and Christians are to be treated as second-class citizens (dhimmis)
//Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book [Jews and Christians], until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.//
- Sura 9.29

3. Jihad
Those who die in jihad [‘a struggle or fight against the enemies of Islam’] are assured of salvation. (Many interpret this to include dying in terrorist acts.)
- Sura 61.10-12, Sura 4.74

As far as I know no one else is assured of salvation in Islam. Mohammed said that he was not certain of it. So if a young man feels he has led a sinful life and is unlikely to be able to do enough good deeds to outweigh his sins, the only way he can certainly avoid hell according to Islam is by taking part in jihad.

4. Apostates
Kill anyone who leaves Islam.
- Sahih Al-Bukharivolume 9, book 84, no. 57

5. Women
Women are spiritually inferior and intellectually deficient.
- Sahih Muslim number 142, Sahih Al-Bukhari number 2658

It is permissible to rape women you have captured in war.
- Sura 23.1-6, 70.22-30

6. Marriage
Beat wives from whom you fear disobedience into submission.
- Sura 4.34

Child marriage
Sahih Muslim 3480 (also 3482):
//It was narrated that Aisha said: 'The Prophet married me when I was six years old and consummated the marriage with me when I was nine years old.'//
We know from other sources that Aisha had not reached puberty at the time that Mohammed consummated the marriage. (Also that Aisha was his favourite wife.) Mohammed was 50 at the time of the marriage.

7. Gay sex
Throw people who have gay sex off the top of tall buildings, or burn them to death.
- Abd-Allah ibn ‘Abbas
islamqa.info/en/answers/38622/the-punishment-for-homosexuality

8. Punishments under sharia law
//For a handful of specific crimes, the punishment is fixed (ḥadd):

⁃death for apostasy
⁃amputation of the hand for theft
⁃and of the hand and foot for highway robbery
⁃death by stoning for extramarital sexual relations (zinā) when the offender is married and 100 lashes when the offender is unmarried
⁃80 lashes for an unproved accusation of unchastity (qadhf)
⁃and for the drinking of any intoxicant.//
www.britannica.com/topic/sharia/Penal-law

9. Antisemitism
For example:

//The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jews will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, “O Muslim, O Abdullah [slave of Allah], there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”//
- Sahih Muslim, 41:6985

I also know peaceful Muslims. But I think a religion needs to be evaluated by its sources, not by individuals who identify as belonging to that religion.

Some UK Muslims do not even know what the Quran teaches, or if they do they don’t want to obey it. But there are those who do.

It is a surprising fact that according to a poll carried out last year, almost a third of UK Muslims would like to see sharia law implemented in the UK.

The marching orders for Christians according to their holy source (the Bible) are to love their neighbours and pray for those who persecute them. The marching orders for Muslims according to their holy sources are to subjugate the world to Islam (see above).

I know this is a zombie thread. But seeing as it came up, here's an answer to the OP.

Sadly, I don't think GreatNan will see your answer. Perhaps read the later posts:

When you see the name Greatnan you can be sure this is a very old thread. She's been dead for quite a while now, many of us remember her well from the early days.

We also remember the tragic circumstances of her death, don’t we? 😥

Thanks Terribull and petra.

I meant the original post, not the original poster. I did read the later posts.

eazybee

^My goodness, the ignorance here is astounding.^

followed by

Smug comparisons in the now to prove How Superior We Undoubtedly Are Currently don't carry a lot of weight with me:

As you so clearly believe you know it all.

You completely misread me - I was saying, if you reread it, we need people who really do know comparative religions well to answer the sort of question in the O/P.

And in the meantime, I remarked, don't let's get smug about Christianity, in the face of surely what we all do know historically.

But Wyllow3, don’t you think there is a difference between the Islamic teachings I quoted above and the teachings of the Bible?

People who called themselves Christians have done dreadful things. But they were acting against the teachings of Christianity.

In Christian-heritage cultures there has been no foot-binding, no suttee, no polygamy.

As the agnostic historian Tom Holland points out in his book Dominion, values that we take for granted in the West, such as equality and compassion, did not exist, for example, in Ancient Rome. They are Christian values.

//we are like fish swimming in the water of Christian thinking – so used to it that we do not notice it is there.//
historyforatheists.com/2020/01/tom-holland-dominion/

I would certainly rather live in a Christian-heritage society than in an Islamic one.

Thank you for the very informative post (14.55) Skye17

It's hard to square the notion of Islam being wholly a religion of love and peace in the face of such teachings.

All organised religions, IMHO, are guilty of atrocities.

Maybe any smugness about Christianity is that the atrocities perpetrated in Christ's name seem so distant and long ago, quite removed from "now" while the edicts of Islam seem very much practised in the present as in the terrible events in Iran.