₦airaland Forum

Days after the ISIS-inspired terrorist attack in San Bernardino, President Obama’s address to the nation concerning the threat of ISIS missed the mark. In fact, President Obama seemed at times to be more concerned with Americans ostracizing Muslim communities through “suspicion and hate,” than he was with protecting innocent American civilians from murder in the name of radical Islam.

It is high time for western political leaders to stop responding to terrorism by naming Islam as ‘the religion of peace’. It is time to have a hard conversation about Islam.



The West is in the throes of acute cognitive dissonance over Islam, whose brands are at war with each other. On the one hand we are told that Islam is the Religion of Peace. On the other hand we are confronted with an unending sequence of acts of terror committed in the name of the faith.

There is a depressing connection between the two brands: the louder one brand becomes, the more the volume is turned up on the other.

The slogan ‘Religion of Peace’ has been steadily promoted by western leaders in response to terrorism: George Bush Jr and Jacques Chirac after 9/11, Tony Blair after 7/7, David Cameron after drummer Lee Riby was beheaded and after British tourists were slaughtered in Tunisia, and François Hollande after the Charlie Hebdo killings. After the beheading of 21 Copts on a Libyan beach Barak Obama called upon the world to “continue to lift up the voices of Muslim clerics and scholars who teach the true peaceful nature of Islam.”

One may well ask how ‘the religion of peace’ became a brand of Islam, for the phrase cannot be found in the Qur’an, nor in the teachings of Muhammad.

Islam was first called ‘the religion of peace’ as late as 1930, in the title of a book published in India by Ishtiaq Husain Qureshi. The phrase was slow to take off, but by the 1970s it was appearing more and more frequently in the writings of Muslims for western audiences.

What does “religion of peace” actually mean?

Words for ‘peace’ in European languages imply the absence of war, and freedom from disturbance. It is no coincidence that the German words Friede ‘peace’ and frei ‘free’ sound similar, because they come from the same root.

While there is a link in Arabic between salam, a word often translated ‘peace’, and Islam, the real connection is found in the idea of safety.

The word Islam is based upon a military metaphor. Derived from aslama ‘surrender’ its primary meaning is to make oneself safe (salama) through surrender. In its original meaning, a muslim was someone who surrendered in warfare.

The start of the entry for s-l-m from Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon


Thus Islam did not stand for the absence of war, but for one of its intended outcomes: surrender leading to the ‘safety’ of captivity. It was Muhammad himself who said to his non-Muslim neighbors aslim taslam ‘surrender (i.e. convert to Islam) and you will be safe’.

The Religion of Peace slogan has not gone uncontested. It has been rejected by many, including Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Melanie Phillips writing for The Times, who called it ‘pure myth’.

Even among Muslims the phrase has not only been challenged by radical clerics such as Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, but also by mainstream Muslim leaders.

Sheikh Ramadan Al-Buti of Syria was one of the most widely respected traditionalist Sunni scholars before he was killed in 2013 by a suicide bomber. The year before he had been listed as number 27 in the ‘The Muslim 500’, an annual inventory of the most influential Muslims in the world. According to Al-Buti, the claim that Islam is a peaceful religion was a ‘falsehood’ imposed upon Muslims by westerners to render Islam weak. He argued in The Jurisprudence of the Prophetic Biography that when non-Muslims fear Islamic jihad, their initial inclination is to accuse the religion of being violent. However they then change tack, and craftily feed to Muslims the idea that Islam is peaceful, in order to make it so. He laments the gullibility of ‘simple-minded Muslims’, who:
“… readily accept this ‘defense’ as valid and begin bringing forth one piece of evidence after another to demonstrate that Islam is, indeed, a peaceable, conciliatory religion which has no reason to interfere in others’ affairs. … The aim … is to erase the notion of jihad from the minds of all Muslims.”
There does seem to be something to Al-Buti’s theory, for it has invariably been after acts of violence done in the name of Islam that western leaders have seen fit to make theological pronouncements about Islam’s peacefulness. Who are they trying to convince?

In the long run this cannot be a fruitful strategy. It invites mockery, such as Palestinian cleric Abu Qatada’s riposte to George Bush’s declaration that ‘Islam is peace’. Abu Qatada asked: ‘Is he some kind of Islamic scholar?’

We do need to have a difficult conversation about Islam. This is only just beginning, and it will take a long time. The process will not be helped by the knee-jerk tendency of western leaders to pop up after every tragedy trying to have the last word on Islam. This strategy has failed, and it is time to go deeper.

By their fruits we shall know them.

Nice article I endorse it 100%

If by their fruits we know them and killings and maiming are key fruits where Islam I available? How can we then say Islam is of peace?

How can we say Islam is of peace when they are authorised not to condone those that are not Islamic?

psucc:
If by their fruits we know them and killings and maiming are key fruits where Islam I available? How can we then say Islam is of peace?

How can we say Islam is of peace when they are authorised not to condone those that are not Islamic?

And here are the messages of of peace as propagated..

We do need to have a difficult conversation about Islam. This is only just beginning, and it will take a long time. The process will not be helped by the knee-jerk tendency of western leaders to pop up after every tragedy trying to have the last word on Islam. This strategy has failed, and it is time to go deeper.

Western leaders are guilty of covering up the evils of islam and until they stop this hypocrisy, the solution to the islamic problem will continue to elude them.

Yorubasgreat:
We do need to have a difficult conversation about Islam. This is only just beginning, and it will take a long time. The process will not be helped by the knee-jerk tendency of western leaders to pop up after every tragedy trying to have the last word on Islam. This strategy has failed, and it is time to go deeper.

This difficult conversation should start by looking at all the acts of violence in Yorubaland
We should ask which one the Muslims have been responsible for

In World History, more lives have been taken in the name of Christianity than in the name of any other religion
Christians still call for Crusade, a throwback to Christian militancy
Why is that acceptable and talk of Jihad is not

People who call themselves Christians invade muslim countries at will
And when some disgruntled muslim elements resort to criminality, they blame all Muslims

ISIS is active today in Libya because Christians countries removed Gaddafi
Why should I be blamed for that. Obama did not ask me when they wanted a regime change in Libya
ISIS does not consult people when they want to operate
Infact when the leader of ISIS first appeared in public, it was in a mosque and he killed all the imams of the mosque before taking it over
Meaning those guys did not support and really only insane muslims will

But a week before taking over that mosque it is conceivable that were the imams (subsequently killed by ISIS) talking about Islam, they would have been called ISIS supporters

psucc:
If by their fruits we know them and killings and maiming are key fruits where Islam I available? How can we then say Islam is of peace?

How can we say Islam is of peace when they are authorised not to condone those that are not Islamic?

Let us have the reference/authority for your assertion

Christians routinely bring up discussions about Islam
Whereas mainstream Christians are implicated in more violent acts than Muslims
The trouble makers in Islam are in the minority

During WWII after Germany overran France, some french guys like de Gaulle went underground and tried to sabotage the Germans
US and other allied nations supported them and called them "Resistance"

When US overran Iraq in 2003, some iraqis went underground and tried to sabotage the Americans
Americans called them insurgents

Note that there was Zero suicide bombing in Iraq before US topped Saddam

Huum !!!

Islam is a religion of peace, if you say no, I will kill you.

Demmzy15:
It's quite ironic that the op who's a Yoruba nationalist would hate Islam when it's a known that more than half of Yorubas are Muslims. This is a fact you must live with, moreover, can't you use the spread of Islam in South West as an example? If Muslims in South West used the method of evangelism that Christians used, I tell you, Islam would have been an overwhelming majority in that part of Nigeria.

I enjoyed the valuable points raised by bro betathings raised, I'm not a fan of Saddam Hussein, but Iraaq was better under him. Every problem in the Muslim world has its roots directly or indirectly from the selfishness of the West. I could remember a News, about how Berom Christians ate the dead bodies of Muslims, no media house paid attention to this. But as soon as the Muslims retaliated, it was all over. This is hypocrisy I must say!

When the Jews fought and resisted the oppressors in Warsaw, the were considered freedom fighters, but when Palestinians tried resisted the oppressive Zionists they were called "terrorists". Let's be rational and look at things from all angles!

Islam growth in the South Western Nigeria is biological and not evengelical. Muslims have no messages to preach like the Christians. Tell me what message Muhammad preached in his time.

Demmzy15:
You have a very big problem, Christianity grew in South West due to deception. That aside, you were here on Nairaland when the Muslims challenged all you Christians to debate one man who has converted multitudes of Yoruba Christians to Islam, you all dodged.

A Muslim hausa genius, Hussein Mabbira, converted over 114 ijaw christians, this people who in return would also spread the truth of Islam. Just continue to see how things would unfold!

Christians are not in competition with the Muslims. Islam is from the Devil and so there is no truth in it. Does the Devil have any truth ? Allah owned up to being a deceiver and you said the truth of islam. What truth does a deceiver have ?

Muhammad himself said he was a guile man. Your god is a deceiver and your prophet a guile man. Where is the truth of islam ?

Demmzy15:
Rants as usual, known for spewing venomous thrashy garbage!

Muhammad a guile man:

I am the best of plotters. I deceived them with My guile so that I delivered you from them (Ishaq:323).

That is the truth of islam for you.

truthmans2012:
Huum !!!

Islam is a religion of peace, if you say no, I will kill you.

I say to you
How was islam spread in SW of Nigeria
I am focussing on SW because of the OP

Now as a Christian, I DARE you to
explain how Christianity came to Nigeria?
South America?
USA?

What happened to the first person to translate the Bible into English?

Tell me how Christian countries are more peaceful than Muslim countries today?

truthmans2012:
Muhammad a guile man:

I am the best of plotters. I deceived them with My guile so that I delivered you from them (Ishaq:323).

That is the truth of islam for you.

You claim the truth but you don't live it
You dwell in propaganda

If a man who has never heard of Christianity and Islam before came to this thread
He would be appalled at your manners
But then, you are a Christian - you can do whatever you like

truthmans2012:
Islam growth in the South Western Nigeria is biological and not evengelical. Muslims have no messages to preach like the Christians. Tell me what message Muhammad preached in his time.

Tell me the messages of Christianity

That a man (Adam) sinned against God and
God had to kill his own son (Jesus) in order for atonement to be complete

Two things are wrong here
Why can God not just forgive. He is Omnipotent, under His own absolute control
An ordinary human being can show mercy to a stubborn child by educating him on how wrong he is without caning him,

If James offends and we cane Janet, what is the lesson

The message of Christianity does not make sense to human beings, yet you say it is for them

Look at these messages from the Bible

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword

Mathew 10:34

Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to divide people against each other!
From now on families will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against—or two in favor and three against.
Father will be divided against son and son against father;
mother against daughter and daughter against mother;
and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.

Mathew 10: 51 - 53