Letter: No matter who says otherwise, Islam isn't a religion of peace

Editor,

I commend Dean of Students Tomas Aguirre for bravely stating that the ISIS panel denounced ISIS. Apparently his authority position gives credibility to this claim.

But we do not need to settle for this. In fact, we should look higher — to our commander-in-chief/comrade-in-chief/secret Muslim (take your pick) in the White House. After all, isn’t this the ultimate authority figure in our nation who has claimed that Islam is a religion of peace? The problem is that these claims have no Islamic basis for justification. Simply claiming this or that without substantiation means nothing. However, we should keep in mind that these people are human beings too, and that they have made an error about “the religion of peace.”

Muslims cannot explicitly deny jihad without discrediting authentic Islamic sources. Simply stating opposition to ISIS could actually mean frustration that a Muslim group has gone too fast and too far ahead of the rest of the umma — in this case, the likes of ISIS and al-Qaeda. Obviously, a more subtle approach such as civilization jihad is necessary, as advocated by the Muslim Brotherhood and recently by an ISIS manual on deception for Muslims.

If Muslims want to deny jihad, let them come forth with Islamic proof. As demonstrated time after time, this is an impossibility that further insults Muslims (self-inflicted) as they rip Quran verses out of context to prove that Islam teaches peace and tolerance. This is the true Islamophobia, and it needs to stop. Perhaps Muslims don’t realize how ridiculous it looks to non-Muslims when they are in denial about their own religion.

The typical pattern of denial involves denying the Hadiths and Sharia codes when violence is corroborated in conjunction with the Quran. However, when Quran verses of violence are shown in isolation, there is a reversal back to the secondary sources, as the excuse of “lack of context” is given. In essence, it’s a circular and nonsensical way of going nowhere.

Once Muslims realize that they cannot win intellectually, they will turn to physical violence or play the victim card. The latest laugh may be seen with the “Humans of the MSA.” I think it’s absolutely hypocritical for non-Muslims to view Islam as humane, when Islam itself dehumanizes non-Muslims. The “human” argument, seen objectively, must also include the fact that Adolf Hitler was also a human being.

“The religion of peace” also has some serious reckoning to do about some of its other claims, aside from the issues with violence and subjugation. For example, the Quran states that men produce sperm in their abdomen. This is news to me — isn’t sperm produced in the testicles? In the Hadiths, it says that women also produce sperm, and that the sex of a child is determined by whether the man or woman ejaculates first. When these claims are attributed to Mohammed, one must question how a prophet could err so much. In turn, one must also question the fallibility of Islam. Oh, but I forgot, Mohammed and the Quran don’t matter to moderate Muslims. The only thing that matters is “interpretation.”

Sincerely,

Samuel Ryu

UNM student