UI – Part 323 – Defining Islam

What is Islam?

There are words bandied about that makes one believe there are many different forms of Islam.  There is Islam, Islamism, Islamist, Moderate Islamist, Fundamental Islam, Wahhabist, Shia, Sunni, Militant Islamist, Radical Islamist, Devout Muslim, Political Islam, Totalitarian Islam, Intolerant Islam, Bin Ladenism, Moderate Muslim, Islamic Terrorist, Islamist Extremist, Islamic Extremism, Violent Islam, Jihadist, Alawite, Kurd, and more.  What is the true Islamist or named faction as noted.  The answer is simple.

Taking from the stance of Turkey’s President Erdogan, There is no such thing as moderate Islam; Islam is Islam.

As everyone of those mentioned looks to the same source for their guidance they are very much the same.  It is the Quran, the Hadith’s and Sunnah, the sayings of Muhammad, and the example of Muhammad which is the foundation for this ideology.  Allah is the guide. The law of Islam grew from these texts as well as the dictates of early Caliphs of the religion, the imperialists for the mantra of Muhammad.  The primary schools of Islam, several of the Sunni persuasion and I believe just two of the Shiite persuasion, utilize the same source material, only differing in interpretation.  The basic elements however are the same.  Just as Christ is the savior for Christ followers, be they Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, and its many denominations, it is the life, punishment for our sins, death and resurrection of the Lord that is the same.  For Islam Muhammad and Allah are the same, and the Quran is not to be questioned.

So a Muslim is a Muslim is a Muslim is a Muslim and their ideology is Islam.  There can be no deviation or difference.  The terrorist reading and using the cry Allahu Akbar believes the same as what the most moderate Muslim is taught to believe.  That is Islam.

What they believe, some basics.

• Muhammad is the founding Prophet.  He is self-proclaimed.
• Allah is God, divine, the best deceiver and creator.
• The Quran was spoken by Allah, via Gabriel to Muhammad and then to Companions of Muhammad, most or many of which had the verses they memorized put to paper before they died.  This Scripture of Islam is therefore incomplete.
• They claim the Quran is the corrected version of the Bible, but then how would God (who breathed, inspired the Bible) make such a mistake?
• The world as a whole is Allah’s; their goal to have it claimed in its entirety for Allah.
• Islamic invasions or wars against non-believers is called for in the Quran.
• The aggressors are those who resist Islam’s march as they are denying the right to territorial ownership of Allah’s land.
• The guilty are those who cause mischief to Muslims, to include the cartoonist, the islamophobe, the defender of one’s faith in a religion other than Islam and the pagan.
• Anything that makes a Muslim uncomfortable should have laws prohibiting, referred to as hate laws, laws defaming the name of the Prophet, Allah, doubting the Quran or questioning the history of barbaric imperialism of this 1400 year old conquest of others using Muhammad’s militant example.
• Hatred towards Infidels is called for in the Quran, thus tolerance towards non-Muslims is incompatible with Islamic teaching. (Sura 60.4)
• Fighting, waring, in the name of Islam is a requirement of all Muslims.  They are to know every day they are on this earth to be victorious for Allah by defeating the enemy.  The enemy are those who love freedom, infidels or heretics (less devout Muslims).
• Israel is a thorn in the side of Islam; a fact since the days of Muhammad in Medina when a fatwa was laid down calling for the extermination of this tribe, or all tribes, of monotheistic God fearing people. (Muhammad was part of a process of beheading over 600 Jews.)
• It is a Theocracy.  All aspects of life are governed by the ideology.
• Islam is the only belief-system that mandates violence against those who commit crimes of drawing cartoons of Muhammad and those who commit the crime of being Jews.

All Muslims are cut by the same cloth, regardless of what any one thinks or says.  If they stray from the basics they are apostates.  They might as well leave the ideology for another religion.  Theirs is the only religion that is a total life-style without compromise.  The Religion, the ideology, the governance, the Law is by the Book, the Quran, Hadith’s, the Pillars, sayings of Muhammad and the example set by Muhammad.  He beheaded, he hated, he killed and he punished with extreme chastisement indiscriminately in the name of Allah to advance his cause.  He carried a sword and used it.  In contrast Christ never carried or used a sword. Islam is a theocracy and only operates as such.  Thus the police of those governing Muslims are the Islamic police, judging for society and Allah at the same time.  It is an oppressive and vindictive ideology with punishment carried out in the  manner of ancient times using ancient implements. Human rights are limited, at best, education restricted to those selected, not women if possible, and learning the methods of war and terrorist tactics include in most curriculums.  If not part of the preaching in the mosques and madrases where Muslims are in a minority, it will be as their numbers and concentrations increase.

There are Muslims that are likable.  They can be friends, although they are not to be friends of infidels.  As neighbors they are to be kind and a proper representative citizen.  Loving their neighbor is not called for.  If not part of the big picture today, then in the future they will either be or called heretic or apostate for altering their views.  Modernity is not in the picture for the future of Islam.  How can it be when the tools they use for the palette of the days ahead are always the same. They paint with one brush and one tube of oil paint.  The artist using a new hue or brush stroke is subject to their hand or arm being separated permanently from their body. Until they can wholly agree on a new ‘true’ Islam it is what it now is.  Even the IS terrorists claim reference to Islam as the ‘Religion of Peace’ is a falsehood.

Therefore defining Islam in whatever fashion you prefer results in but one Islam.  All definitions fall into a funnel to produce the same liquor.  It is not a blend.  It is the same drink with the same methods of manufacture and the same taste.  Drink up or die!  Or find a new path.  Independently choose, volunteer for the religion to follow (or not).

Islam is Islam. 

Grace and Peace.