Is Islam a religion of love and peace?

Whitewavemark2

Diabolical things have been done in the name of all the worlds religions.

There is nothing to choose between them in the peace stakes.

There are of course cults/off shoots that are more warlike/peaceful than others.

But they are all much the same if you look at how they have behaved/changed throughout history.

I agree with this.

But they are all much the same if you look at how they have behaved/changed throughout history.

And right now?

Diabolical things have been done in the name of all the worlds religions.

There is nothing to choose between them in the peace stakes.

There are of course cults/off shoots that are more warlike/peaceful than others.

But they are all much the same if you look at how they have behaved/changed throughout history.

Skye17

Thanks, Oreo, and I agree that people do seem reluctant to discuss radical Islam. I think there is a feeling that it would be racist. But it’s not racist to discuss a belief system.

I also agree that it makes no sense to say that Christianity is just as bad.

Radical Muslims oppress women, hate Jews, and aim to subjugate the world to Islam. Radical Christians are especially loving and forgiving.

Evils done in the name of Christianity are done in spite of the teachings of the Bible, not because of them. This is not true of Islam, the Qur’an and the hadith.

It isn’t racist to discuss belief systems but we are discussing extremism/radicalisation which have no place in ordinary day to day belief systems. One thing, am not sure what you mean when you say radical Christianity is more loving and forgiving. Could you elaborate on that ?
In my experience radical Christians like the evangelists in the US are far from more loving and forgiving with gay people forced to be ‘corrected’ and women having to stay at home and pressurised not to vote, and that is just the tip of the iceberg, they are presently heavily involved with the far right politics taking such a toll on ordinary people in the US.
Would appreciate you clearing this up.

Thanks, Oreo, and I agree that people do seem reluctant to discuss radical Islam. I think there is a feeling that it would be racist. But it’s not racist to discuss a belief system.

I also agree that it makes no sense to say that Christianity is just as bad.

Radical Muslims oppress women, hate Jews, and aim to subjugate the world to Islam. Radical Christians are especially loving and forgiving.

Evils done in the name of Christianity are done in spite of the teachings of the Bible, not because of them. This is not true of Islam, the Qur’an and the hadith.

Nannee49

Well said Galaxy and perhaps you would like to expand your POV sixandahalf? I'm struggling to understand why humility is in order when discussing a belief system that in it's purest interpretation states we are lesser because we are women.

I agree, Nannee49, and here are some of the consequences of Islamic ideology for women in Muslim countries.

This 2016 research paper on sciencedirect.com reports that:

‘discrimination against women is more pronounced in countries where Islam is the source of legislation’.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0939362516300796

It said:

// In 2013, the Pew Research Center conducted a global survey in 39 Muslim-majority countries …The results show that 85% of Muslims believe that wives should always be subservient to and obey their husbands.//

//In a survey from the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research … [i]n Iraq, Pakistan and Egypt, only 27%, 22%, and 14% of the respondents respectively agreed that women should be permitted to decide for themselves what to wear.//

//[In Muslim-majority countries] girls and women are discriminated against in the education system and the labor market, as well as in electoral participation//

According to Dr David Wood, an expert on Islam, the World Economic Forum 2020 Gender Gap Index, which ranks countries according to the size of the economic, education, health and political gaps between men and women, shows that 9 of the 10 worst countries for women in the world are Muslim-majority countries.
youtube.com/shorts/t0-hQ7xV4YA?si=A4f3b1B12GmEFeMH

Mohammed married a six-year-old. Sura 33.21 of the Qur’an says that Mohammed is the pattern of conduct for believers. Consequently child marriage is practised in some Islamic countries, such as Niger, South Sudan and Afghanistan.
www.statista.com/statistics/1226532/countries-with-the-highest-child-marriage-rate/

According to Wikipedia, honour killings are disproportionately prevalent in regions with high Muslim populations, and among emigrants from these areas in Europe.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing

As Mohammed’s wife Aisha said (speaking of domestic violence), ‘I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women.’ (Sahih al-Bukhari 5825)

All religions really are not the same, especially if you are a woman.

Galaxy

I don't have to show anything. Anyone is free to comment on any subject as long as they remain within the guidelines.

You see I agree with Galaxy, I do not need to show anything least of all humility whatever that means in this context to man made constructs. I certainly didn't to the religion I was brought up in, Catholicism, when I became aware of the dark history not to mention more recently the concealment of crimes committed. Imo no religion or for that matter political ideology should be above criticism although I sometimes feel that some would enshrine Islam as one that must not be criticised, spuriously conflating it with racism. We must always call out the unacceptable. I think it is also very incumbent for those brought up in a certain faith, whatever it may be, to do that.

I've never studied theology, but the edicts quoted from the Quran in this thread are shockingly extreme and belong to a bygone age or should. Most civilised people are revolted by what was considered normal in Medieval times and we do know that in some strict Muslim cultures still suppress and murder for the most minor of transgressions and show little tolerance towards those of a different faith. One only had to read about the atrocities committed against those poor Yazidi girls and women to know what wickedness is still practised.

My late mother persuaded me when I was at my most critical about the Catholic church, that there are still many good people amongst their numbers, so that is what I believe about most religions and their followers and I'm sure that there is a majority in the Muslim faith who would shun the dark side of their religion as indeed most Christians do about previous horrors committed by a corrupt hierarchy.

I think there are terrible human rights abuses throughout the world, and definitely many that are committed in the name of religion. Most are committed where strict patriarchal constructs are in place so unsurprisingly human rights abuses against women figure large.
But most Muslims I live beside and have worked with as well as befriending are just ordinary law abiding people no different to you or I and would hate to imply that they are to be ‘othered’ simply because of a Islamic extremists whom they are as much against as we are.
Patriarchal constructs disguised as religion are everywhere, let us not forget the evangelists in the US where gay people are sent to correction facilities and women are kept at home and can be prevented from voting. It the Catholic laundries in Ireland with graveyards for young mothers and babies that died due to a lack of care were kept secret for decades. Nor should we forget the abuse of children by Catholic priests covered up for decades.
Yet ordinary Christians are nothing like that.
There is such a thing as getting things in perspective and using a bit of balance here.

Here’s one thing you don’t get in Christianity. I don’t know much about other religions apart from Islam, but I haven’t heard of this occurring under Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism or Sikhism,

//‘Indonesian couple caned 140 times for sex and alcohol offences’
The 21-year-old woman fainted after what authorities said was a record number of strokes to be meted out in a public caning session in the Aceh province.//
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c23ryxre907o

In Saudi Arabia, the world centre of Islam (home to the city of Mecca), 198 people were executed between January and September 2024.
www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/09/saudi-arabia-highest-execution-toll-in-decades-as-authorities-put-to-death-198-people/

Other punishments used there under Sharia law include amputation, stoning and lashing.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_system_of_Saudi_Arabia

Well said Galaxy and perhaps you would like to expand your POV sixandahalf? I'm struggling to understand why humility is in order when discussing a belief system that in it's purest interpretation states we are lesser because we are women.

I don't have to show anything. Anyone is free to comment on any subject as long as they remain within the guidelines.

I suppose its good to show a little humility when discussing Islam perhaps?
Perhaps those who are of this faith would be best placed to comment.

mae13

Religion, any religion take your pick, has forever been the major source of violent conflict and oppression throughout the world. We could well do without it.

According to the Encyclopaedia of Wars, less than 7% of all wars involved a religious cause, accounting for less than 2% of all people killed in warfare. Of these, about 4% of all wars involved Islam and about 3% involved Christianity.

Whereas around 6 million people died in the Crusades, nearly 35 million soldiers and civilians died in World War I alone.
www.huffpost.com/entry/is-religion-the-cause-of-_b_1400766

90 million people died under extremely oppressive atheist regimes in the twentieth century.
www.patheos.com/blogs/publiccatholic/2013/03/atheist-governments-of-the-20th-century-the-death-toll-of-godless-goodness/#e7fIbCaTX4M6KxDt.99

There is no worse country in the world to live than the atheist dictatorship of North Korea.

Basgetti

Skye17

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

Pretty sure you could find equally appalling passages in the Old Testament.

Not to my knowledge, and I do know the Old Testament.

There are some unpleasant directions to the Israelites to enter the Promised Land and get rid of the people in it, but that applied only to that nation at that time (and was part of the salvation plan of God for the world).

Can you give examples?

Nannee49

Does being a woman affect your view of Islam?

For me, it certainly does.

It was bad enough living under the strictures of the Catholic church when was I was too young to know any better, but following the harsh misogynistic tenets of Islam as laid out in the unequivocal teachings of the Q'uran - thanks again Skye17 for your post quoting these upthread - would be impossible for me to follow as a woman.

Yes I agree, not only how women are viewed but also gay people, apostates and people of other faiths.

In my opinion the teachings of Jesus Christ are very different from those of Mohammed from the extracts set out by Skye17. Jesus was all about tolerance and forgiveness and those messages were lost in a man made hierarchy set up for his followers created during the First Council of Nicaea in the 3rd Century . The essence of his preaching was skewed to fit a man made agenda that manifested over the centuries to be all about control, guilt and punishment, similar to the very worst of fundamental Islam. Jesus Christ has been so misrepresented by the religion that was set up in his name, his teachings weren't vengeful.

Before Christianity reached its Zenith of awfulness during the Spanish Inquisition, peaceful Jews and Muslims lived side by side in Spain enhancing communities with their knowledge of philosophy, mathematics, architecture then they were expelled by Christian bigotry. Cordoba in Spain was a wonderful example of their coexistence prior to the Inquisition took hold. The influence of Muslim architecture so evident in southern Spain is one of the most interesting facets of that country.

Now it seems Muslim fundamentalists want to go down the well trodden path of extreme intolerance as displayed by the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. Proselytising whether it be religion or a political movement is the absolute pits imo and should be consigned to a bin where it belongs.

Does being a woman affect your view of Islam?

For me, it certainly does.

It was bad enough living under the strictures of the Catholic church when was I was too young to know any better, but following the harsh misogynistic tenets of Islam as laid out in the unequivocal teachings of the Q'uran - thanks again Skye17 for your post quoting these upthread - would be impossible for me to follow as a woman.

Well said BlessedArt.

People are reluctant to discuss radical Islam, have never understood why.Because they somehow think ( wrongly) it would be racist?

Those extremists who take the Quran literally and kill and torture in its name should be spoken about, and loudly.
They have given Islam a bad name and do horrendous things all round the world including in Muslim countries.

Those who say that Christianity is the same or just as bad blah blah are very wrong and also glossing over the fact that radical Islam is the curse of the modern world.
Their awful deeds affect everyone of every religion and none.
Peace loving Muslims must hate them.

People don’t seem to be able to purely discuss Islam, not a couple of posters on here have managed to do that without dragging another religion in or wanting to talk about religion in general.

One poster quoted from the Koran without reference to any other religion. Several openings for discussion there were f orncipke and practice and opportunity to counter with other quotes that shed a different light.

That’s a discussion. A discussion about what was raised in the post.

Too difficult a question to be explored honestly and rationally obviously, hence the veering off to let’s talk about other religions.

People aren’t reluctant to discuss Islam. People are reluctant to participate in false moral superiority and hypocrisy. Honest conversation about violence linked to one religion can’t be had without the acknowledgement that religion in general is murderous. Violence and the major religions go hand in hand. Violence is the vector by which the major religions are spread. It’s perfectly fine to acknowledge that Islam is no exception, just like Christianity. Two peas in a murderous pod.

Simply shying away from the specific question.

But people are discussing it here.
And by bringing in other faiths, the question has expanded to consider, 'Is it religion itself that is at fault, if fault there is?'
Because as far as I can see, 'fault' is being emphasised.
Simply giving a more universal context.

Well yes you could. In another thread about Christianity.

Why is it that people are so reluctant to discuss Islam?

I could ask the same question in the OP about Christianity.

Millions of people enslaved and murdered all over the globe since before the Crusades and after. The American Christian right is as hateful as it gets. The truth is that organized religion in general has killed as many or more human beings than disease. Perhaps is simply a social disease.

Thanks Sky17 for the info about the Quran, those passages explain a lot!