ISLAM IS NOT A RELIGION OF PEACE

By Kehinde Nubi

We may find it difficult to admit it, but there is something inherently wrong! A religion of peace and yet some of its practitioners commit heinous acts in its name and its God!

Please, don’t tell me they are not Muslims, I won’t ever buy it, and I do not think anyone who heard Islamic chants just before witnessing these criminal acts will! Perhaps they are ultra-bad ones, but they ARE Muslims!
It is not enough to educate non-Muslims and Muslims alike about how peaceful the religion is, a practical demonstration will do the job better! It is time for moderate Muslims to stop pretending that all is right with the religion, and all is wrong with the criminal elements like the Boko Haram doing great damage to Islam with their horrible acts for which they claim authority from the same Quran which the “regular” Muslims read!

Codes written thousands of years ago by relatively primitive men cannot continue to be 100% relevant in modern society without engendering crises and conflicts! When Christians at their Ecumenical meetings review a few things about their religion, or when the Pope makes pronouncements that will definitely moderate Christians’ attitude to the practice of their religion, I have noticed that the greatest critics are not usually the Christians that these things affect, but Muslims, moderate and radical alike! – An example is the more liberal way of looking at homosexuality by the Pope.

Christians are generally comfortable with the many versions of their Bible – Revised Standard Version, Catholic Bible, New Living Translation, New International Version, King James Version etc. In fact, without qualms, they read from any version, if the one sanctioned by their Church is not at hand. Again, you find out that it is Moslems that keep on criticizing the many versions of the Bible. Yet if anyone should as much talk about the Qur’an in a negative light, all hell will break loose! This attitude tells me that change of any kind, as far as religion is concerned, would be an anathema to the average Muslim.

Christianity was as bad, if not worse than Islam, and virtually everything happening to Islam happened to Christianity! Blasphemy and heresy were once punishable by death, and, as a matter of fact, the Pope was usually seated in all his glory to sanction the real-life horror movies of burning heretics at the stake. There is nothing that Muslim extremists are doing today that Christian extremists did not do. I am sure if the AK47 had been available back then, they would have put it to good use! But then reformation of the church, in essence Christianity, came, and that changed a lot of things. Can Islam claim to have undergone any reformation? If you asked me, though I may be wrong, the answer is a capital “NO”! Worse still, what criminals like the Boko Haram are doing is in fact deformation!

It is difficult to blame them though, if the leaders of the religion, who should provide direction keep on interpreting everything in terms of the wisdom of the past. A prominent Saudi Arabian cleric recently issued a religious ruling, fatwa?, forbidding the building of snowmen, describing it as “anti-Islamic”. Snow had covered some upland parts in the north of this normally hot country for some three years back then, and this led to this fatwa! How the hell would frolicking in the snow have hurt the religion? I am sure one or two Muslims, deep in their mind cannot understand that too, but would not dare voice it out.

I recall when the Taliban government was brought down in Afghanistan, all the things that they forced them to do were rejected. People shaved off beards they were forced to keep, bought television sets, played football, and in fact did everything they told them were “anti-Islam”! How the hell will a beard make one to be nearer God for heaven’s sake? It is alright if a man wanted to keep a beard out of conviction, but to actually order it is sick. In the early days of Sharia in Zamfara State, such a sick order was given and it was practically impossible to enter the Government Secretariat if you hadn’t a beard! It was so, so, ridiculous!

I can go on and on but the long and short of my long treatise is that reformation is overdue! These reformations have to be spearheaded by moderates before it is too late! As it were, by my analysis, Islam is headed for a major crisis with the rest of the world, and quite frankly, it cannot win!
I read something somewhere, and frankly it is food for thought for the moderates, rather than bickering over its accuracy or lack of it:

Buddhists living with Hindus = No Problem

Hindus living with Christians = No Problem

Hindus living with Jews = No Problem

Christians living with Shintos = No Problem

Shintos living with Confucians = No Problem

Confusians living with Baha’is = No Problem

Baha’is living with Jews = No Problem

Jews living with Atheists = No Problem

Atheists living with Buddhists = No Problem

Buddhists living with Sikhs = No Problem

Sikhs living with Hindus = No Problem

Hindus living with Baha’is = No Problem

Baha’is living with Christians = No Problem

Christians living with Jews = No Problem

Jews living with Buddhists = No Problem

Buddhists living with Shintos = No Problem

Shintos living with Atheists = No Problem

Atheists living with Confucians = No Problem

Confusians living with Hindus = No Problem

Muslims living with Hindus = Problem

Muslims living with Buddhists = Problem

Muslims living with Christians = Problem

Muslims living with Jews = Problem

Muslims living with Sikhs = Problem

Muslims living with Baha’is = Problem

Muslims living with Shintos = Problem

Muslims living with Atheists = Problem

MUSLIMS LIVING WITH MUSLIMS = BIG PROBLEM

True or false; it is food for thought!.

(c) Kehinde Nubi 2020