One of the initial difficult hurdles I certainly faced personally, when first approaching the issue of Islam vs Radical Islam, was the tendency shared by many in the West who want to look at the issue of religions as a simple matter of moral relativity – that all faiths and religions are somehow “created equal”, and that it’s all simply an intellectual difference in cultural and historical perspectives.
That would be fine, if the cultures involved were committed to debating their differences in a more or less civil manner, resulting in at worst a headache – rather than having one’s head separated from one’s shoulders, as is the case when “debating” the more extreme and zealous elements of Islam.
On a personal level of course, there are any number of good, decent, peaceful people in this world who are culturally and spiritually Muslim.
I am even willing to stipulate that of the estimated 1.2 billion in the world today who identify themselves as Muslim, the vast, vast majority would still rather shake your hand and call you a friend, than stab you in the back, regardless of your own religious or spiritual leanings.
It seems, however, that the numbers of those in the Islamic world who hold a more sinister, and less benevolent view of the non-Muslim is once again growing.
The reasons for this are often debated, and range from blaming third-world poverty, to attributing the repercussions to 19th and 20th-century Western colonialism and imperialistic expansion.
What cannot be denied however, and which has yet to be satisfactorially addressed by the vast majority of “peaceful” Muslims, are the intrinsic problems with the fundamental foundations of Islam and the original promulgators of the faith.
These have as their basis a fundamental paradigm of jihad, conquest, and rightful domination of all those who do not accept the true word of God, as revealed through his last and most perfect holy Apostle, Messenger, and Prophet – Mohammed of Arabia.
That these issues should bear examination and review is made particularly difficult, since ecclesiastical examination and questioning within Islam itself – and especially within those extreme orthodox sects who are today promulgating the loudest calls for violent jihad – is strictly prohibited under Islamic doctrine.
While not historically limited to Islam, the execution and murder of heretics and critics is not generally practiced today in any of the major world religions OTHER than Islam.
And even those religions who practiced such extreme repression in the past, such as Christianity, were ultimately hard-pressed to find any justification for it from their founders – and in fact were in most cases admonished against it.
It is through these inherent fault-lines and theological cracks in Islam however that the jihadic evils of Islamo-fascism, totilitarianism, and genocidal hatred are being promulgated and driven.
These elements deserve neither sympathy nor support, and in fact require and demand a determined and unified response.
If Islam is to remain in this world as a viable and living community of faith, it’s adherents must energetically undertake to reform it, and to reform it in such a way that makes Islam a religion worthy of that stature, and not simply as a world-wide cult of death and oppression.
This will mean in many cases challenging and changing the very foundations, tenents, and traditions upon which Islam has been constructed since the very early days of Muhammad and his companions.
As Islam stands today, however, as represented and promulgated by its virulent and violent jihadist elements, and acting under the orthodox inspiration, example, and fundamentalist tradition of it’s founder(s) – traditions that most pious Muslims hold to be “perfect” and above question, challenge, or examination – Islam is presently on the road to demonstrating itself to be a socio-political-religious ideology worthy only of rejection; a horrible and twisted, ego-maniacle perversion of both Judeo-Christian traditions and ancient Arabic culture.
As such, Islam, as now represented by it’s militant, radical, jihadic adherents, may quickly prove to be an ideology and a religion inherently incompatible with a modern, civilized, advancing society.
What may have been a marginal although unifying improvement to a primitive, polytheistic desert society hampered by constant inter-tribal and inter-clan rivalries and warfare, Islam may in fact today be an anacronistic burden, a dead weight preventing those societies and peoples laboring under it from achieving the fullest glories of their God-given potential – which can hardly be what God, (or Allah) have in mind.
If this is true, then it is not unfair to say that Islam, as it is constructed, needs to be relegated to the trash-heap of history, in favor of a better, more positive, and more humane incarnation – just as quickly as possible, and by whatever means necessary.
And that, in the end, will take far more courage and faith from Muslims, than what it takes to strap on a bomb, hijack an airplane, or slaughter an infidel.
The rewards however, will be far greater – in both this world – and the next.
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