Breaking the manacles
of Islam
A specter is haunting the Mullahs.
The specter of Islamic truth.
Pardon me for paraphrasing those two famous lines of Karl Marx
from his ‘The Manifesto of the Communist Party.’
I could find no better sentences than those two lines about the
frantic efforts by the Mullahs to cover up the true colors of Islam in
the world of Internet. Many
recent essays in NFB (News From Bangladesh), secularIslam, Rational
Thinking, etc., have exposed the other side of many religions including
the Islam. The writers of
these essays have taken great risks in terms of their personal safety to
expose the intolerance, cruelty, injustices and irrationalities of many
facets of Islam, the religion of “Peace.”
Their forceful arguments, painstaking researched and
extraordinary dedication are really going to shake the very foundation
of the religion. I think
the Mullahs could never believe that there is so much of disgust and
disdain for the irrationalities and the backwardness in Islam in the
present-day context. They
thought that the fear of death sentence and the declaration of Jihad
(Holy War) would silence the voices of rationality, logic and progress.
No wonder, the Mullahs are desperate to counter attack with
theirs every possible means. Amongst them are the illogical blind quotations of fear, the
mindless hate, personal attacks, intimidation, charges of apostasy and
blasphemy and what not. If
only they could identify and catch those Kafirs and the infidels, I am
sure they cannot wait to hang them in public.
Unfortunately, the cyber world is too huge for them to start the
killing spree. Therefore,
they have little choice but to resort to intellectual assassinations.
After reading through a number of those venomous essays by these
Islamists, I could categorize them into two broad groups; namely:
1
.
The hard-core bigots. These Mullahs preach nothing but hatred
towards anyone suspected of uttering a single word against Islam.
They are completely devoid of any logical or rational thinking.
Their languages are filthy (mostly four letter words), full of
personal threats, distasteful and incomprehensible writings, etc.
They usually judge a Muslim through his/her name.
They challenge the writers to declare their apostasy in public so
that they can take care of them (that is, kill them). They usually send
their threats through the personal e-mails of the authors. So, many readers may not be aware of these threats.
They do not realize that a person's name has very little to do
with his/her religion although it (the name) may be useful in many
cases. I know many Lebanese
whose names sound like Muslims but I see them wearing crosses on their
necks that tells me what is his/her real religious affiliation is
(that is they are actually Christians).
Bertrand Russell seems to be a Christians name, but he wrote the
book ‘Why I am not a Christian.’
The name given to a person during his birth is beyond his/her
control. Similarly, the
birth religion of a person has nothing to do with his/her personal
belief when he grows up and starts to think and act on his/her own.
This is a fundamental human right.
Thus, a person being born in a Muslim family and given a Muslim
(or rather Arabic) name does not necessarily must follow Islam when he
grows up. But these fanatic
bigots will not accept this basic right of a human being.
When the bigot finds that a person has a Muslim name and he
argues certain points in Islam, he is immediately declared as an
apostate and, therefore, that person
automatically becomes a target for annihilation.
I just do not understand this mindless thinking. Never have I
seen a secularist/humanist declare any person who does not agree with
him or who talks and writes against the secularists/humanists/atheists
should be killed. These people will not accept the truth that a person has
every right to examine critically his/her birth religion. What kind of religion these bigots are preaching to the
civilized world?
Readers,
have you seen that these hard-core bigots are greatly alarmed even
though they know that it is not that simple to kill people in the cyber
world? Their frustration is
then manifested in the personal attacks to the writers.
There are many examples that can be found in many criticisms of
the essays written by the secularists/humanists authors.
A recent example is the criticism of Kamran Mirza's two essays;
one was on the ancient Arabian practices of worship of the Moon God
Allah and the other was the serious questions about fasting in Islam.
The Islamic critics resorted to severe personal innuendoes,
abusive languages and false accusations.
I cannot quote all those remarks.
Please refer to NFB back issues if you want details.
Another example is the personal and shameless attack on Taslima
Nasrin in an article titled
‘True color of Taslima Nasrin.’
The bigoted writer of this article has tried to depict Taslima as
a sex maniac and has delved into her private married life with her
deceased husband. They wanted to finish her off physically by slaughtering her
but that did not happen. They
grossly underestimated her courage and conviction.
So, now they are trying to kill her through character
assassination. Nothing
could be more unjust than this type of intrusion in some ones personal
and private life. But then,
again, we cannot expect anything more decent from these hard-core
bigots.
These
types of bigots have very little understanding even the religion that
they love so much and not to talk of their knowledge of other religions
or other philosophical/belief matters.
Their main language is violence, Jihad,
and terrorizing people to the extent that the author is compelled to
stop disseminating his/her views. This
tactic is nothing new in religion.
Terror and violence had always been used in Islam (and some other
religion too) to silence it's critics.
You will find many references to these types of activities if you
read the relevant passages in Koran and the Hadiths.
2
. .The
intellectual bigots: These
bigots have very good knowledge of Islam, Koran Hadiths......etc. They
are fully aware that what is being written by the Kafirs and the
infidels are very difficult if not impossible to refute.
These intellectual bigots are frustrated by the logic,
rationality, coherence and the realistic arguments extended by the
authors. They too wished
that these writers were eliminated but then they also feel a little
guilty about the open call for their annihilation.
So, they resort to psychological killing.
This involves the quotations from Koran and Hadiths about the
dreadful punishments that will be meted out to those who dare to
criticize Islam. They
openly declare that whoever questions Islam is no more a Muslim.
Of course, the infidel writers are very little concerned whether
they are considered Muslims or not.
But then, the declaration by this group of bigots has some
significance. What are
those? The significance is
that the author becomes an enemy of Islam and therefore, subject to all
the punishments that are applicable to non-believers and the apostates.
These bigots are very shrewd and intelligent.
They will extend subtle threats to the authors, like becoming an
outcast in society, to rot in hell, not to have the advantages of the
petrodollars, not to be favored by the Arabs, etc. etc.
This type of threat is designed to instill the fear and greed in
the minds of the authors. A
preferred fear is the fear of death.
The greed is the greed of going to heaven/petro-dollars, etc.
They will quote from their scriptures about the terrible death
that awaits those who question and doubt the religion (Islam).
Most of the time these bigots will avoid going into logical or
rational reasoning because they know rather well that that won’t be
fruitful. Their main armor
is the quotations and the regurgitation of only what they know about
their religion. For
example, when the question of haram/halal food is raised, they will give
no reason as to why the halal food should be eaten except that religious
scriptures have decreed so. And,
therefore, it should not be questioned.
The nutritional values of haram/halal foods are irrelevant in
this case. All that matters
is that the religion has approved certain foods and to the contrary has
banned certain foods. Many
haram foods are as nutritional as many halal foods are if not better.
If halal foods are good, then the Muslims must be the healthiest
people in the world. How
come then that those who eat haram foods have better physique?
This is a commonsense question.
However, the religious bigots will never answer this question in
an honest and straightforward fashion.
They will simply hide behind the cloak of their scriptures and
confuse people more. Similar
examples can be cited on many other archaic practices in Islam.
Like fasting, performing haj, praying five times every day, etc.
These bigots will never give any good reasons as to their
practices except to say that they are the pillars of Islam.
Is there anything wrong in knowing the reasons behind them?
Many of these rituals were actually practiced by the pagan Arabs
long before the advent of Islam. However,
if this question is put to the bigots, all you get is personal
vilification and branding you as an enemy of Islam.
This reminds me my childhood.
As a child, I was asked to memorize the verses of Koran.
I used to ask the Hujur
(Mullah) what meanings were conveyed by those verses? The reply I used to get from the Hujur was a few strokes of the cane and rebukes.
He used to say that one should never ask any question on the
matter of Islam especially on Koran.
The penalty for asking questions is whipping.
So, I stopped questioning and memorized the verses without
understanding anything. The Hujur was a
symbol of terror to me. I
had no choice but to follow whatever he asked of me.
That was how fear was and still is being introduced in the minds
of the people and these bigots are repeating the same things over and
over again. This is what is
called a mass hypnotization induced through intimidation and fear.
The fact is that if the real truths about the religion leak out
these Hujurs will be out of work. Pure
and simple.
Another
ploy employed by these people is to blame the translators of the Koran,
Hadiths and Sunnah. Even the eminent translator like A. Yusuf Ali is not
considered as authentic translator.
These bigots will never say which one is the authentic English
version of the Koran, Hadiths, Sunnah, etc.
They will simply say that one must be very good in Arabic to
interpret Koran. This is
akin to saying that one must be very good in Aramaic and Hebrew
languages to understand the Bible and the Talmud.
Or that you must be very good in Greek, Latin and Dutch languages
to understand Aristotle, Roman laws, Copernicus' 'laws of heavenly
bodies,' etc. These are
absolutely illogical ideas. Strangely
though, you will notice that these bigots will use the English
translation of the Koran when it suits their purposes. But when the
inconsistencies, irrationalities and illogical things are pointed out,
these bigots will simply say that the English translation is perverted.
What kind of hypocrisy is that?
In many cases, they warn people that the interpretations will
vary depending on who is interpreting as well as the context of
interpretation. This means
that only those interpretations offered by them are valid and the rest
are simply invalid. At the
same time, these Mullahs also insist by quoting from Koran that the
mishandling (wrong interpretations) is a great sin and the interpreter/s
will have to face severe penalty No wonder, it is next to impossible to
gauge any logic from these talks of the Mullahs.
Has
it occurred to the readers of NFB that these bigots give them the
impression that the Koran is an extremely difficult piece to understand
and to interpret. Why
should Allah make his words so difficult that ordinary people have great
difficulties in understanding them?
It simply doesn’t make any sense, whatsoever.
One does not need a Ph.D in the ancient Arabic language and
culture to understand the Koran. Then,
why do these Mullahs insist so much on the mastery of the Arabic
language? They know that
most followers of Islam do not know Arabic and even if they know their
skill in the language is not enough to interpret the ancient language of
Koran. Furthermore, it
takes many years to master a language.
Most people have no time, patience and the motivation for that.
So, they simply take the advantage of people’s ignorance and
pretend that they are the sole agents of the Koran and it's
interpretations. Many
people are not conversant in the English language as well.
So, they do not know the exact meanings in many verses of the
Koran. How about the Bangla
and other translations of Koran? The
Mullahs simply ignore them while accepting only those that suit them.
Ironically, think about what will happen to the Mullahs if every
Muslim masters the Arabic language!
People will start interpreting the Koran in the way they
understand and not be dependent upon the Mullahs.
This may open the eyes of the masses and dehypnotize them.
These Mullah's will then simply be defeated in their own game,
will they not?
This
is what the Mullhas fear most. The
Mullahs desperately need the uneducated, ignorant
and fearful mass to perpetuate their stranglehold on the
salesmanship of Islam.
However,
the development in new technology and the introduction of the Internet
has really alarmed the Mullahs. Many
people are now able to exchange ideas almost instantly on any matter
including religions. Many Mullahs could never believe that there are so many born
Muslims who dare to question Islam and challenge its archaic practices.
This was unthinkable even a few years ago.
The reason is very simple. Many
of these thinkers always had doubts about what they were supposed to
believe but thought that they were alone and hence they were fearful
about speaking their minds in public or to their peers.
They kept that question to themselves.
The Internet and the modern electronic mass media had opened an
opportunity for them to be united if not physically at least
electronically. This is a
very bad news for the Mullahs. They simply cannot digest the truth that one day Islam will
not go unchallenged. This
is now happening as it had already happened with Christianity and with
other religions as well many years ago.
The innate nature of humanity to seek the truth, to explore the
unexplored, to question and to innovate can never be suppressed.
One day Islam will surely realize that.
By
the way, it is interesting to note that innovation in Islam is haram.
The dictionary definition of innovation is to introduce changes
or to introduce new things. This is the foundation of civilization. Imagine what would
have happened if mankind was not innovative.
The people of other religion prospered only when they freed
themselves from their religious irrationalities and started innovating.
That is why Islam is so paranoid about innovative ideas and
free-thinking. These two things hit at the heart of Islam.
Curiously, you will notice that many of the innovative ideas and
inventions are used by the Mullahs to propagate their doctrines.
You can see many examples of these.
Like TV, Radio, modern appliances and the latest is Internet.
They have realized the immense power of modern science and
technology. When you ask them why should the Islamic people accept these
innovative things that are mainly due to the innovative ideas of the
Kafirs and the infidels, the Islamists have ready answers.
The answer is that these inventions are the gifts of Allah.
Some will even say that science and technology are Allah's
blessings to mankind. I
have no problem in accepting the compliment.
How about the Islamic bomb? This maut
be the greatest gift of Allah to His followers.
How about the Hindu bomb? Since
Allah is the only god could it be that Allah is also responsible for
this great gift to the Hindus as well?
And how about the Christian and the Buddhist bombs?
If these questions are asked to the Islamists I do not know what
will be the answer? The
other question is that why
is it that the followers of Islam have next to nothing contribution to
the modern science and technology?
Isn’t that because Islam had kept its followers blind for
centuries? Now, many of
these blind people are getting their sights back.
What were impossible to think for centuries for many innocent
followers of Islam, are now having a second look at their ancestor given
faith. It is simply a
matter of time before the arrogance and the irrationality of Islam
becomes a distant history. And
with that, is the demise of the Mullahs like, Ayatollahs, Talibans,
Golam Azam, Maulana Nizami, etc.
Finally,
I must pay homage to the few braves who took the risk to demystify
Islam. You are the
pioneers. You have taught
me how to think the unthinkable. You
have taught me how to be courageous.
You have taught me how to rekindle the human spirit.
You have taught me how to fight for the justice.
You have taught me how to accept merciless criticisms with grace.
You have taught me how to conquer the unconquerable.
A hundred years from now humanity will remember you as the
greatest innovators in finding a cure for the religious blinds.
That is because you dared to think differently. Truly, you are
the alarm bells of the Mullahs. History
won’t forget you for being the Agradoot
(harbinger) who are bent on breaking the manacles of Islam.
------------------------
By
Abul Kasem.
[email protected]