Islam

**Islam** (/ˈɪslɑːm/) is a major world socio-political system which contains a universalizing belief system (that is, one whose followers believe its laws are binding for everyone), geo-political aspirations like the conquest and administration of territory, and a judicial system. It was founded by Muḥammad, a seventh century Arab merchant, cross-dresser and paedophile. Its scriptural basis is mainly the Qurʾān, whose authorship Muslims attribute to Muḥammad's companions, although the carbon dating of its oldest surviving copy, known as the Birmingham Qurʾān, opens the possibility that it pre-dated the historical Muḥammad.

## Overview

The word "Islām" means "submission" or "surrender". It has been and continues to be criticized due to its demanding of strict submissiveness of women, its suppression of human rights, and its predisposition to being violent toward kuffār ("infidels"), which led to 23,000 terrorist attacks since the Islamic terrorist attacks of September, 11. Many Muslims and non-Muslims theorize that mainstream Islam has become corrupted over the years and that there needs to be an Islamic Reformation, similar to the Protestant schism in Western Christianity of sixteenth-century Europe.

There are small groups of largely Westernized Muslims who publicly reject Islamism. Such moderate Muslim conservatives in the US are members of the Republican Party. They are known as Muslim Republicans.

Multiculturalists ignore or minimize the inherent violence of Islam and exaggerate medieval Christian acts of fanatism to advance a fake moral equivalence. They often cite the Crusades, a series of reactionary campaigns promoted with the objective of stopping Christian genocide by Islam. They also often brand free thinkers and criticizers of Islam as racists (although Islam is not a race) and "Islamophobes" (a smear term invented with the purpose of censoring and silencing the legitimate criticism of Islam) for exposing today's threats by jihadists.

Because of its history of terrorism, mass murder, suicide attacks and the overall lack of value it places on human life, Islam, and those who adhere to it, are generally shown and viewed as having no regard whatsoever toward human life.

## Origins

Like Christianity and Judaism, Islam originated in the Middle East. It claims its trace back to Ibrahim through his son ʾIsmāʿīl. Muslims do not believe that Muḥammad was the founder of Islam, rather they claim that he restored the original faith of Ibrahim and the prophets that followed as recorded in the lost books of the Torah and the Gospel.

Its origins are mainly pagan with some aspects appropriated from Judaeo-Christianity. The central monument of Islam and Ḥaǧǧ pilgrimage is the Kaʿbah, which was originally a place of pagan worship. Other Muslim practices such as walking around seven times during the Ḥaǧǧ result from the pagan division of the moon's movements into seven parts. The symbol of the moon still adorns Islamic buildings, artefacts and flags, and the calendar is lunar, based on the Hilāl (the appearance of the crescent moon).

Muḥammad's concept of God was already known and worshipped by the various tribes as Allih, one of the many pagan and polytheistic gods in the region.

### **Mecca**

All Muslims know that the Kaʿbah was originally a place of pagan worship. The form it takes matches those of pagan gods too; the deity Al-Lat (also spelled Allatu, Alilat, Allāt and al-Lāt) was a Meccan pagan chief goddess along with siblings Manāt and al-‘Uzzá. She also used to be represented by a cubic stones, as were other deities.

> “Mecca was a pagan cult centre to which surrounding tribes made pilgrimage during stipulated months of the year in which a truce was observed, guaranteed by the ruling oligarchy, the tribe of Quraysh. The object of pilgrimage was the Kaʿbah, a square edifice built of black stone with an inner chamber containing images of pre-Islamic deities.”
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> —"Islam: Faith, Culture, History" by Paul Lunde (2003)
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The Qurʾān says the Kaʿbah was built by Ibrahim and his son, but the historical evidence strongly contradicts its claim.

> “And when We made the House at Mecca a resort for mankind and sanctuary, saying: 'Take as your place of worship the place where Ibrahim stood to pray. And We imposed a duty upon Ibrahim and ʾIsmāʿīl, saying: 'Purify My House for those who go around and those who meditate therein and those who bow down and prostrate themselves in worship.'”
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> —Qurʾān 2:125
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According to the Ḥadīths it was Muḥammad himself who got the story wrong:

> “Narrated Abū Dharr: 'O Allah's messenger! Which mosque was built first?' He replied: 'al-Masjid al-Ḥarām.' I asked: 'Which was built next?' He replied: 'al-Masjid al-‘Aqṣā (Jerusalem).' I asked: 'What was the period in between them?' He replied: 'Forty years.' He then added: 'Wherever the time for the prayer comes upon you, perform the prayer, for all the Earth is a place of worshipping for you”
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> —Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 4:55:636
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Muḥammad said there were forty years of difference between the construction of both mosquees. However, according to history and Islamic calculations, there were over 2,834 years between them.

### **Allah**

> “Scholars suggest that for some time before Muḥammad the Meccans, as noted above, had associated the term *al-lih* with the supreme divinity behind the tribal gods of Arabia, gods such as Wadd, Suwāʿ, Yaghūth, Yaʿūq, and Nasr in southern Arabia, several of whom, according to the Qu'ran (71:23), were worshipped in the days of Nūḥ. Some Meccans had perhaps even worshipped Allah as their high god. [...] When Muḥammad began his preaching, the Quraysh already believed in Allah.”
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> —"Jealous Gods and Chosen People: The Mythology of the Middle East" by David Leeming (2004)
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## References

1. ↑ Monaghan, J. (2000) Social and Cultural Anthropology. New York, USA: Oxford University Press. p. 124.
2. ↑ Why Islam is Not a Religion by Rebecca Bynum (Nov. 2011) Speech delivered October 18 to ACT! for America, Chapter in Memphis, Tennessee
3. ↑ Watt (1974), p. 8.
4. ↑ Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3:47:755
5. ↑ Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5:58:236
6. ↑ Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 7:62:64
7. ↑ Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 7:62:65
8. ↑ Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 7:62:88
9. ↑ Qurʾān 18:110
10. ↑ http://creation.com/oldest-quran
11. ↑ Arabic الإسلام‎‎, specifically referring to submission to Allah's religion
12. ↑ http://www.thereligionofpeace.com
13. ↑ Michaelle Browers, Charles Kurzman. An Islamic Reformation? Lexington Books, 2004.
14. ↑ http://www.muslimrepublicans.net/
15. ↑ Crusades vs. Jihad: Which is Worse? Jay Rubenstein (2011), Huffington Post
16. ↑ http://www.bcbsr.com/topics/charity.html
17. ↑ The Permanent Rage of Islam at Conservative News and Views
18. ↑ Watt, William Montgomery (2003). Islam and the Integration of Society. Psychology Press. p. 5. ISBN 9780415175876.
19. ↑ Akpinar, Snjezana (2007). "I. Hospitality in Islam". *Religion East & West*. **7**: 23–27.
20. ↑ "Philosophy of Religion". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010.
21. ↑ Anwar al-Jundi, Mizan al-Islam. p. 170
22. ↑ Lunde (2003), p. 17.
23. ↑ Fara (2009), p. 7.
24. ↑ Lunde (2003), p. 20.
25. ↑ Lunde (2003), p. 20.
26. ↑ Book of Idols (*Kitāb al-Așnām)*
27. ↑ Talgam, R., (2004), *The Stylistic Origins of Umayyad Sculpture and Architectural Decoration**, Harrassowitz Verlag.*
28. ↑ Masjid al-Haram, Mosques Islam
29. ↑ Qurʾān 71:23