The Qurans Literal Medieval Text to Violence and Terror
The Qurans Literal Medieval Text to Violence and Terror
It’s 23rd March 2016, the day after yet another ISIS attack on the West, this time it was Brussels. So far 34 people have been counted dead in two bomb blasts, the first at the International Airport in Brussels and then on the Metro.
So why has this again happened and why has radicalisation to Extremist Islam and the draw to ISIS been so successful?
Recruits from the Western World, once peace loving Muslims and some even of non-faith or Christians have found the words of Jihad and the literal text within the Quran and flocked to the Middle East (Mainly Syria) to take up the Holy War of Jihad.
Talking to many people of different backgrounds and faiths in the UK, and across the Western World for that matter, I have to say I find an uneasy total misunderstanding of the Muslim faith, many believe all Muslims are terrorists, which I find hard to understand that educated people really think this way. I’ve had Muslim friends in my life for many years and since volunteering on the island of Lesvos helping refugees coming to Europe I’ve even become friends with several refugees. There is a real lack of understanding in the West why young people, not just Muslims are drawn to the radical teachings of Islam by ISIS recruiters.
I felt I had to look into the Quran myself and find out more about this Profit Mohammad. I like many before the Iraq & Afghan wars and 9/11 believed the Quran to be of peaceful teaching, much like the Christian Bible, but I was shocked to find that not only was this not the case of the Quran but there were many passages in the Christian Bible that were violent. I also saw many similarities between the Bible and the Quran and the crossover of several of the Profits such as Jesus who is also a Profit in the Quran. Then there are stories in the Old Testament such as Noah and the Arc that also appear in the Quran.
Look at history and the birth of these two religious books, you also find that they weren’t even written in the times of what they were writing about, not even close! These religious books were written hundreds of years later. There could have been many interpretations of both stories over the hundreds of years until someone finally took pen (quill) to paper.
It’s the words of the recruiters and the birth of social media and the mass of information now available on the internet in every language along with the constant medalling in the Middle East by particularly the US to control oil rights that I believe can shed the light on why ISIS have been so successful in recruiting.
ISIS is not really an organisation in the normal sense, but an ideology that Muhammad once said to every Muslim to stand up against the enemies of Islam and to travel to the Islamic State to live. These words are found in the Qurans Hadith which is a collection of the words of Mohammed.
Before these more recent times of the internet, if young Muslims wanted to learn about the traditions of Muhammad, they would ask their elders at the Mosque, but now anyone can download a copy of the Quran online for FREE or search websites teaching about Mohammad, there is a funny thing with the internet, many people feel because its online then it must be FACT! Not true, many websites have been set up with political and religious bias to draw the reader into their way of thinking. But what the internet has been able to do is open up the reality of the very violent beginnings of Islam.
It’s the final chapter of the Quran that is the most violent. Known as the 9th Chapter. It goes on to say that Muslims should disavow all treaties with Polytheists Religions and to subjugate Jews and Christians so that the Muslim faith will prevail. According to the final chapter of the Quran, Muslims must fight! And if they don’t then their own faith will be called into question and counted among the Hypocrites.
Taking up Jihad against Islam’s enemies, Muslims are promised Martyrdom. They have been told Paradise awaits those who fight for Jihad.
ISIS have recruited by taking the literal teachings of some parts of the Quran that show the early days of the faith and its violent path through 21st Century media platforms such as YouTube, glossy videos and through Extremist Clerics such as Anjem Choudary, to the young Muslims they are shown an identity, to show that Beheading, rape, slavery and lashing (all documented in the Quran) is the real Islam and the true teachings of the Quran.
So when Muslim Cleric Leaders try to teach a peaceful form of modern Islam, just see how difficult it is now for them to teach that the medieval text of violence is not Muslim, is not Islam.
So how are we to combat the ideological and radical extremist teachings of the Quran by ISIS?
Well, to use their methodology, why re-invent the wheel if it’s not broken? Don’t try to attack Islam and put their faith down, this will only go towards radicalising more young Muslims. So why not teach and share world views amongst us all – Show and admit to our own religious violent pasts and show how these have no place in our modern world. The medieval teachings were for a medieval era long gone.
We need to be there to help all young Muslims now faced with this very moral question hanging over their heads, do they follow the literal teachings of Mohammad or follow a new Modern Islam that fits with the world of today just like mainstream Christian teachings.
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