Islam Is Stuck In The Dark Ages

At number 1 on my countdown of the ridiculous things people probably believe about Islam is that Islam is stuck in the dark ages.

There are really three big negative stereotypes about Islam — that it hates women, that it’s violent and that it hates any kind of scientific progress.

I’ve covered the first two already, but how can you argue against the third?

Their governments are based on ancient religious texts!

And what diseases has Iran cured?

Historically, Islam has a immense track record.

Science and math as we know it wouldn’t even exist without Islam.

The Islamic Golden Age caused a revolution in virtually every field of human thought, during which Al-Khwarizmi invented Algebra from the Arabic al-ğabr (in Arabic script ‘الجبر’) (“completion”) — and advanced everything from geography and exploration to the arts, architecture, philosophy, urban development, medicine and health.

The Muslims actually came pretty close to sharing all this brilliance with the truly ass-backward kingdoms of Christian Europe, who were still burning their “scientists” alive for heresy against the church.

Since the Islamic caliphates blanketed every country they conquered with schools, libraries, public works and the most comprehensive system of social welfare on the planet.

In fact, the case has been made that if the caliphates succeeded in conquering all of Europe an Italian Renaissance would have been unnecessary and one that was only possible by the discoveries made by the Muslim empire and it’s scholars.

The Akh is currently away and will be returning in the New Year.

Western Cultures Are Far More Humane & Superior Than The Bloodthirsty Muslims Ever Were

I’m at #2 on my countdown of the ridiculous things people probably believe about Islam. At #2 is the myth that Western cultures are far more humane than the bloodthirsty Muslim ones ever were.

It’s always been within the Western/Orientalist narrative that Islam is a violent religion.

Part of it has to do with how abruptly Islam was all up in everyone’s face.

For instance, while Hinduism took about 1,000 years to spread through India, and Christianity took about 400 years to go from persecuted cult to the state religion of the Roman Empire, Islam went from one guy’s epiphany to the dominant political and religious force in the Middle East and North Africa in about 100 years.

So a lot of people have reached the conclusion that the religion spread like holy wildfire for one reason: the sword.

The next logical leap from this viewpoint is that as a people, Muslims must be violent and barbaric conquerors. Even before 9/11, you saw this portrayal in popular culture all the time:

But actually…

The Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) laid out some pretty progressive rules of warfare, and medieval Muslims out-niced the Christians in battle by a landslide. Especially since Muhammad (PBUH) personally issued “a distinct code of conduct among Islamic warriors” that included:

* No killing of women, children or innocents — these might include hermits, monks or other religious leaders who were deemed non-combatants;
* No wanton killing of livestock or other animals;
* No burning or destruction of trees and orchards; and
* No destruction of wells.

In short, Muhammad (PBUH) wanted his armies to fight like hippies….during the freaking Dark Ages with dignity that had never been seen on the battlefield….and they did.

The biggest territorial gains were made after Muhammad’s (PBUH) death.

Maybe that was when Islam earned its bloodthirsty reputation?

Not exactly.

His successors codified the existing rules and made them the standard for the Muslim armies. Which probably explains why the Muslim army conquering Europe “exhibited a degree of toleration which puts many Christian nations to shame,” in the words of one expert.

So while Christian crusaders were beheading enemies and tossing their severed heads like oversized footballs, their Muslim counterparts had a whole honour code that led them to feed the armies of their defeated enemies.

Stay tuned as #1 will appear later today.

Ridiculous Things you Probably Believe About Islam – #3 All Muslims Are Arabs

I’m counting down the top myths people have about Islam & Muslims. At #3 on my countdown is the myth that all Muslims are Arabs.

Do you remember that crazy lady with the Einstein hair who asked John McCain if Barack Obama was an Arab?

No?

Well, let me refresh your memory:

We’re willing to bet there’s more than a 20 percent chance this woman meant to say “Muslim” but accidentally said “Arab” because same thing, right?

And even if you’re not in the tea party camp, where you’re convinced “Arab” and “Muslim” are interchangeable, you’ve probably operated under a similar assumption: that non-Jewish Middle Eastern people are Muslim and that most Muslims live in the Middle East.

But actually…

Only about 20 percent of the entire world’s Muslim population is Arab or North African.

For comparison, about 22 percent of the global Christian population is African, yet when somebody says “Christian,” you don’t immediately picture a man from Africa. Equating “Muslim” with “Arab” makes just as much sense.

While we in the West have been conditioned to associate Islam with the Middle East, a whopping 61.9 percent of all Muslims — AKA the supermajority — don’t live in the Middle East at all; most Muslims live in the Asia-Pacific region. Indonesia alone is home to more than 200 million Muslims, and the Indian subcontinent has roughly a half-billion Muslims.

It works the other way, too. For example, if you think being Arab guarantees you being Muslim these days, well, i’m sorry to disappoint. As much as 10 percent of the world’s Arab population is Christian (that’s more than 14 million people).

That means there are 1 million more Arab Christians than, oh, I don’t know … the world’s entire Jewish population.

Stay tuned as I’ll be rounding up the countdown with a double post tomorrow.

Ridiculous Things you Probably Believe About Islam – #4 America Is A Judeo Christian Nation, To Hell With The Moslems

I’m counting down the top myths people have about Islam & Muslims. At #4 on my countdown is the myth that America is a Judeo Christian nation & Islam has no place in the US of A.

Taking aside from the fact that all three religions are monotheist, Abrahamic faiths, why is it that America has such a problem with Islam?

It’s easy to stand on a soapbox and publicly bluster about what you think the Founding Fathers would think about the godless, multicultural United States today. After all, these were Christian, God-fearing men, damn it.

They certainly wouldn’t put up with all this tolerance for these terrorist religions.

It’s a good thing some Americans are standing up for good old-fashioned American values and passing laws to prohibit Islamic law from taking over the U.S., because that’s totally around the corner!

Somewhere, Thomas Jefferson is smiling in his grave!

But actually…

Even if they were staunch Christians (or deists, whatever), plenty of the Founding Fathers had a healthy admiration for the Muslim faith. Thomas Jefferson, for example, taught himself Arabic using his own copy of the Quran and hosted the first White House Iftar during Ramadan.

Maybe Thomas Jefferson was the only one who felt this way?

Nope.

John Adams hailed the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as one of the great “inquirers after truth.”

Benjamin Rush, who was so Christian he wanted a Bible in every school, but he also said that he would rather see the opinions of Confucius or Mohammad “inculcated upon our youth” than see them grow deprived “of a system of religious principles.”

Benjamin Franklin once declared: “Even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service.”

Even George Washington personally welcomed Muslims to come work for him at Mount Vernon.

So, why all this Founding Father/Muslim love?

Probably because Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah of Morocco was the first world figure to recognise the independence of the United States of America from Great Britain in 1777.

Another reason was that the Founding Fathers were smart enough to distinguish between terrorists and everybody else on the whole damn planet, as demonstrated in the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797.

It was in this agreement that the U.S. declared:

“The government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Mussulmen [Muslims].”

Next time you hear racist views of american commentators, you’d be best served remembering some of these facts.

Number 3 on the list is up tomorrow.

Ridiculous Things you Probably Believe About Islam – #5 If You’re a Muslim Woman, You Have to Wear the Veil

I’m counting down the top myths people have about Islam & Muslims. At #5 on my countdown is the myth that if you’re a Muslim woman, you have to wear the veil, niqab or burqa.

For millions of people in the West, when you say “Islam,” the first mental image that pops into mind is this:

A woman covered head to toe in a burqa.

The truth is, if you could suddenly gather all of the Muslim women on the planet into one giant room and had to pass a football to someone wearing a burqa, it’d be next to impossible to complete that pass.

But the whole hide-them-under-a-veil thing must be pretty big among Muslim communities, otherwise Europe wouldn’t be all in a fuss over the things, pushing for bans and whatnot.

Right?

After all, we all know that Islam hates women — the fact that Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that actually prohibits women from driving, or that only predominantly Muslim countries still use death by stoning as a punishment for adultery, proves it, right?

But actually…

Thinking that all Muslim women have to dress like this…

…is like thinking that all white anglo saxon christian women have to dress like this:

That photo is from one of several small Christian sects that require women to dress like it’s Little House on the Prairie.

So for instance, in France they have about 3 million Muslim women.

The French police formed a taskforce, and it wasn’t long before Inspector Clouseau figured out how many of them actually wore burqas and/or niqabs and found the number to be … 367.

Not 367,000, but 367.

A number so small that from a statistical point of view, it’s barely enough to register as a margin of error.

As for the rest of Europe, the numbers are even more disastrous for the burqa business (for instance, Belgium has 500,000 Muslims, a couple dozen wear the burqa).

Yes, there are Middle Eastern countries where the veils are required by law (namely Iran and Saudi Arabia) and combined those countries have less than 5 percent of the world’s Muslims. There are actually more Muslim countries that outright ban the wearing of the veils than there are that require them.

They can do that because wearing a veil is not required in Islam but is more of a custom, depending on where you live and who’s in charge.

Speaking of which, try this number on for size: Of the five most populous Muslim-majority nations, four of them have elected female heads of state.

So there’s a fantastic chance that in 2012, Sarah Palin will be campaigning for an achievement that Muslim ladies have already accomplished.

Number 4 is up tomorrow.

English Defence League’s Guramit Singh Arrested On Grounds Of Religiously Aggravated Harassment, Alarm & Distress

Guramit Singh, one of the leaders of the English Defence League (EDL) has been arrested after police received complaints about his speech during their protest in Peterborough on 11th December.

Guramit Singh (28), from Nottingham, was arrested yesterday (22nd December) on suspicion of intentionally causing religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress.

This has nothing to do with freedom of speech but stopping those racists who have gone from “Paki bashing” to “Muslim bashing”.

I’ve spoken about these idiots before in a previous post titled “Young, British & Angry – The EDL’s Racist Nature Exposed”

It looks like Guramit Singh has a problem, and that is do with his sister reverting to being a Muslim.

The EDL not racist?

Yeah keep saying it over and over, you may just convince yourself.

Shhhh Don’t Tell The Kids….Santa Claus & Osama Bin Laden Are The Same Person!

I never thought about Santa Claus having so much in common with Osama Bin Laden. After all, there was news of the FBI trained Christmas tree bomber. But it only took me a few minutes to come up with a list of things those two figures have in common.

So in the Spirit of Christmas and increased terrorist activities, I present this list of commonalities.

1. They both appeal to the young ones and promise to reward them with things if they cooperate, or punish them if they do not.

2. The both appear at a special time of the year and make their presence known.

3. Some people go to great lengths to take their pictures.

4. Some people debate their existence.

5. The scope of their work and its effectiveness is debated.

6. Some people take them to be religious figures.

7. They both indulge in guilty pleasures: cookies for Santa and Whitney Houston for Osama.

8. They are both operate in the dark when you are asleep.

9. They live faraway in a place we never even knew existed.

10. They both star in publications, including movies, music posters, and books.

11. They have a loyal army of workers who are as committed and dedicated as they are, blindly supported and rarely questioned.

12. Both tracked by NORAD.

13. Some countries ban their image.

14. They both sport beards.

15. They both ship packages.

16. They both have blacklists.

17. Both figures are used by superior powers to achieve a higher agenda.

18. They both wear head gear.

19. Both are associated with flying objects and flying into buildings.

20. Controversial endorsement, some think neither should appear on merchandise.

21. They both have established global franchises and both outsource.

22. They both have mysterious sources of funding and operation. No one ever audits their books.

And

23. The only way to get to where they live is on the back of animals.

Thanks to the chaps over at Kabobfest

Arab Sheikhs Love A Good Christmas Tree!

Who says Arab states don’t allow Christians to celebrate their festivals?

The world’s most expensive Christmas tree is up… in the United Arab Emirates. And there are (at least) 181 reasons why it cost so much.

So let’s just break that down in numbers shall we?

43
Height of the artificial evergreen tree, in feet

$10,000
Cost of the tree alone

181
Number of diamonds, pearls, emeralds, sapphires, and other precious stones used to decorate the tree

$11.5 million
Estimated cost of the jewels

$1 million (3.5 million dirhams)
Value of the tree’s most expensive ornament, a diamond set

4
Number of security guards monitoring the tree

$10.8 million
Value of rival most-expensive Christmas tree contender, in Japan

394
Rooms and suites in the seven-star Emirates Palace

$3 billion
Cost of building the hotel

$2,000
Price of a glass of Hardy Perfection cognac at the hotel, a Guinness record

11 lbs.
Amount of edible pure gold the hotel uses each year for desserts and decor

8 percent
Abu Dhabi’s share of the world’s crude oil supply

Money well spent, don’t you agree?

Now if there was only room on that tree to hang a few of these idiots who run the Middle East.

Have A Merry Christmas From The Christians In Occupied Palestine

When will the true Christians stand up?

Your most holy sites are under Israeli occupation and you are being denied your rights of worship and now the Israeli’s have declared war on Christmas trees.

Latest reports indicate that Israeli F16s shot down a fat bearded terrorist in a red suit attempting to infiltrate Israeli airspace. All Israeli aircraft are safe, but some reindeers who attacked the F-16’s were met with a strong defence – they later died.

The whereabouts of Father Christmas….the fat bearded terrorist are still unknown.

As millions around the world prepare to celebrate Christmas, a small Christian community in East Jerusalem is trying to survive against the odds.

The community is shrinking amid Israel’s occupation, which it says makes even the most basic tasks difficult.

The mayor of Nazareth sparked outrage on Wednesday after refusing to allow Christmas trees to be placed in town squares, calling them provocative.

Predominantly Jewish Nazareth Illit, or Upper Nazareth, is adjacent to Nazareth, where Christians believe Jesus spent much of his life. It has a sizable Arab Christian minority, as does mostly Muslim Nazareth itself.

“The request of the Arabs to put Christmas trees in the squares in the Arab quarter of Nazareth Illit is provocative, Nazareth Illit is a Jewish city and it will not happen – not this year and not next year, so long as I am a mayor”

Mayor Shimon Gapso told AFP.

Hear the message of a true Christian, Gaza’s courageous Father Manuel Musallam delivers a blistering attack on Israel’s occupation and its rape of the holy sites, and a damning indictment of the silence of the cowards in the West.

Frankie Boyle – Nigga’s, Paki’s & The Illegal Wars In Afghanistan & Iraq

Frankie Boyle seems to have hit a nerve amongst the Daily Mail readers with his latest comedic outburst.

Check the clip above, are you offended?

Using terms like “Nigga” & “Paki” seem to be distressing to some, but what about the wholesale slaughter of a million plus people in Iraq & Afghanistan, all thanks to the Ministry of War.

Moral midgetry at it’s finest.