Behruz

My problem with Islam is not new or thought of after the Islamic revolution in Iran , but began many years before most people in the world knew anything about Islam.   

Islam became an international problem after the Iranian revolution and when Saudi Arabia began the struggle to gain leadership in Islamic world by spending billions of petro-dollars to aid revolutions, wars in places such as Afghanistan and Tajikestan, helping the destruction of peace in Palestine by promising money to Yasser Arafat if he would not sign the peace agreement without giving Jerusalem to Muslim world, helping the terrorist groups such as Islamic Jihad in Turkey, and other terrorist groups in Philippines, Indonesia, India, and many other places.  

There are documents that Bin laden, the notorious terrorist organizer and on United States most wanted list , is supported by Saudis and still has his wealth there, but because of oil problem, no one wants to go against the Saudis. Saudi Arabia is practically in war with Iran , although through other groups, for the domination in Islamic countries.  This is when Islam became an international problem and known to most people in the west. Even during the Lebanese civil war, till the killing of the U.S. Marines, most Americans didn't know where Lebanon is and what is happening there. Islam became an international problem, but I had philosophical and humanitarian problem with Islam.  It was because of my quest for peace and happiness in mind, soul and life. I was still a teenager and growing in a fundamental religious family when I realized what they are teaching me does not give me satisfaction and it was not what I was looking for.  

It all began with the teacher of Koran in school, when he refused to translate what we were reading in Arabic.  Why should we read something and believe in it when we don't understand it? It was easy to find out.  My father's library contained several copies of Koran with Persian translation.  I picked up one that was easiest to read.  

The teacher was right, if we read the Koran in Persian, not one will believe in Islam any more. There are many problems in this book.  

Then, in my quest for truth, I met an old friend of my father, a Catholic priest who secretly had become a Buddhist when he was in Tibet .  We talked.  He didn't admit the whole truth till he was sure I could understand it.  Facing the truth is some times more difficult than understanding it.  I found it among Muslims.  You talk to them; they understand what you are talking about, they even accept the facts, but when they face the truth, they run, they are afraid to accept the truth.  Koran has given them the fear they cannot easily go over it.  The hell and the heaven, the fire, the death, the Day of Judgment, give man a shiver, unless you try to understand the concept.  Then comes the most difficult part, you should move against all that you have been taught and the tradition and the way of life your family has followed.  The shiver comes then, but one has to learn how to fight the fear.  

We talked (the Catholic Buddhist and me).  We talked about enlightenment, truth, man and his quest for happiness, peace of mind and soul and at the end, about the teachings of Buddha.  

What made me interested in the beginning was the difference between the life of Prophet Mohammad and that of Buddha. While studying Buddha's life, I faced with the problem of a 25 year old man marrying forty years old widower for money.  Then came the time Khadijah died and Mohammad began marrying and having sex with teenagers and younger and just couldn't stop.  My question was, if he was a prophet, why was he so addicted to sex?   Did he have a sort of a complex after living years with an old woman and now suddenly couldn't get enough?  What sort of a man was he?  Forget about him being a prophet.  

Then, the wars, killings, murders, lootings, attacking the caravans, genocide, ethnic cleansing, slavery, hatred, revenge and every thing other prophets taught their followers not to do, he taught his to do.  Where does all of this come from?  

According to the Koran, 144.000 prophets existed before Mohammad, beginning with Adam, and ending with Mohammad.  All came to life in the desert of Arabia . Just one should think about this a moment.  Among all the civilized lands in the world, from China and Japan, to Iran, Greece, Rome and Egypt, why should all the prophets come from the most uncivilized, uneducated and uncultured land in the world?    

The, the second question; how can a people with almost no civilization or culture that live in a semi-wild life of Bedouins or Badavis, who roam the desert for food that hardly can be found, who need someone to show them a way of life, could teach the world the right way of living?  Isn't this a kind of joke?   

No, unfortunately it wasn't a joke and it caused the destruction of some of the most advanced civilizations and cultures of the world and it has not yet stopped after 1400 years. When you buy a new shirt and throw away the old one, you has to think first what was wrong with the old shirt. 

It is difficult to go chronologically through what went in my mind. After all, years have passed, but I try to bring in as many reasons as possible and what the salesmen say, throw in also a few personal experiences.  

Some years before the revolution, when I was traveling the world as a journalist and correspondent for the Iranian radio and television, I had a job for few days in the United Arab Emirates . I met a great man of knowledge and dignity, who later Khomeini ordered his execution, in a wedding.  This was not a normal wedding and such weddings unusually take place secretly. But this one was an exceptional one.  The sheikh was marrying a boy; a young boy aged eleven.  Some one felt we need an explanation. He told us that it is normal for important sheikhs to have a few boys in their Harem.  Of course the boys were castrated before. And to make the problem better understood, he recited two verses from Koran.  

“And there shall wait on them young boys of their own, as fair as virgin pearl. "52:24   And

“They shall be attended by boys graced with eternal youth who to the beholders eyes will seem like sprinkle pearls." 76:19     

Recently some event happened in Egypt .  The Islamic court is prosecuting thirty young homosexuals as homosexuality is prohibited in Islam.  One wonders, if it is prohibited, then why Allah promises the believers boys?  Reason is simple.  In Islam homosexuality is prohibited but pedophilia and pederasty are not. In another words, the sex between two consenting adults is a sin but between an adult and a child is okay. 

Then I would like to have a word with Louis Farakhan. Islam is anti-black, anti Jews, anti-Christian, and anti anything that can smell civilization or culture. In Sura A'lay Imran Allah says that all whose faces are white shall be saved and those with black faces shall be damned.  Verse 105-107.  

Then the worst atrocity, genocide and ethnic cleansing, that history knows. There is only one verse in the Koran about what Muslims did to the Jewish people of Medina .  In around the year 70 A.D. the Romans began exterminating the Jews or exiling them to the worse places possible.  Few tribes of the Jews settled in Medina and surrounding areas.  They built villages and towns and began trading and crafting. This was the first century A.D., meaning almost six hundred years before Islam and Mohammad. 

When Mohammad began preaching the religion, he was weak, no army, not too many followers, so he called upon the Jews and the Christians for help and he got a lot even though no one became Muslim.  He told them as they are followers of book and God, they are alright and "Lakum Dinakum Vali-ed-din ", you with your religion and we with ours.  But when he became powerful, won few wars and thousands followed him, he first asked the Jews to pay non-believer tax, which meant every thing they earn, they asked them to leave Medina .  After 2000 years of living there, they had nowhere to go.  So they were declared the enemy of Islam and attacks began. They were besieged and then when there gave up, all the men were executed, their head cut off by Ali and Zobeir, their woman were captured as slave and their property was confiscated. Two of the prettiest girls were taken to Mohammad's harem.  

Muslim historians write of up to 900 heads cut off in one day.  Koran, Sura 33, verse 26, mentions this events and why the heads had to be chopped.  The Jews were killed and the dead does not write. So we have to content ourselves with what the Muslims version.   

Muslims often say that 1400 years old events should not be judged by today's standard. But the fact is that morality does not change with time.  Those children and pregnant women who were killed and their heads cut because they were worthless to Muhammad, had no sins to pay for. They just died because of his selfishness and immorality.  

Christians did not fare better.  They had to pay every thing they gained, leave their villages that were located either in or around Mecca and Medina . Many were killed, their women and children sold as slaves. 

" Slay them wherever you find them.  Drive them from the places belonging to you."  Sura 2 Verses 190-193

" When the sacred months are over, slay unbelievers wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them and lie in ambush everywhere for them. "  Sura 9 verse 5.

" Prophet make war on the unbelievers and hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. " Sura 9, verse 73   

One can go on verse after verse to see that Islam is but a religion for the Bedouins of the desert for whom humanity and morality did not exist.  It is their goal to achieve power in any way they can or they know and that is through the sward and killing. What is also interesting is, in all of this "holly book" there is not a single verse telling you how to be a good and decent human. All it say is that one should accept Islam or face death.  

The word DIN that is used in the Koran so many times is not actually Arabic. The Arabs did not have this word. It is Persian and has the root also in Chinese, Japanese and Sanskrit.  The word Dhyana in Sanskrit, Chan, pronounced Jan, in Chinese and Zen in

Buddhism and Japanese means road or meditation, it does not mean religion.  Din means the same thing in Persian and the language that Avesta was written is called Din Dabire, meaning language or writing of Din.  In Islam, din is no more a road but a goal.  In another words, din does not teach you how to be a good human, but you have to accept the goal which is Islam and if you don't, you are an infidel, and doomed for execution and hellfire.  You can read this in more than 250 verses in the Koran that forces the believers to fight and kill the infidels.  

Then, there is another problem with Islam.  Islam is the religion of the rich.  If you are rich, you can almost do anything you would like, if you can afford to pay for it.  

The word "Ghasas or Gasas" means paying for a crime.  If you kill someone and you have money, you can pay the blood money and you are saved.  If, you have money, you can pay your way to heaven.  What do the poor do? Nothing!  There are verses in

The Koran blaming the poor for most of the sins. One look at the Saudi Arabia today and you understand what was going on during the period of Mohammad.  In Saudi Arabia, you can get your head cut off for adultery, but there is not one sheikh or rich who does not have a few blond whores in their houses and when they travel to Las Vegas, they gamble, drink, sleep with prostitutes and all first degree crime in Arabia and you can even get executed, meaning practically losing your head.  One of the late kings died of alcoholism.  But for the poor, they can do almost nothing, they have to live like slaves in a country that the sheikhs live like kings. 

Women are also enslaved.  "Men have authority over women because God has made one superior to the other. Good women are obedient." 4:34   

I sometimes wonder: Why women volunteer to be slaves? Why do they accept a religion that does not even consider them full human?   

One of the months in Arabic is Moharram-ol-harram, meaning that in this month Muslims were prohibited to attack the caravans and loot and kill.  The rest of the eleven months were open season for all those who were not Muslims.  When Ali complained about the month,  Moharram was also free and looting and killings went on all year round.  There is not a single book in the world, that has do so much with killing, destruction, murder, looting, rape, slavery, genocide, ethnic cleansing, mass murders etc.  

Only the bloody history of the Mayas in South America has a resemblance to Islam. What is surprising is that a billion people still believe in it. Of course, mostly don't know what their religion is all about.  

Muslims say that a billion people can’t be wrong.  My answer is that a billion people till a few hundred years ago believed earth is flat and the sun goes around the earth. Some still do.  

Muslims do not engage in arguments. If they disagree with you, they issue fatvas that your blood is halal, like the one they issued for Salmen Rushdie.  

The Mullhas want to hand to their power, just as Muhammad did.  Religion is an excuse as was nationalism for Hitler. 

I invite any Ayatollah and Islamic scholar like Hosein Nasr to show me one line from the Koran that teaches how to be good human. Tell us what good Islam has done for humanity.  

This Hosein Nasr, many years ago, when he was the chief of staff to Queen Farah of Iran , collected every thing that was in Iranian museums, made by Iranians and a part of Iranian culture, and took them to London for an exhibition and called it "Exhibition of

Islamic Culture and sciences."  No one asked him, hey you, traitor, he who sold Iran to Fundamentalists, if there was any Islamic culture and sciences, Saudi Arabia should have been the cultural center of the world.  

And why is it when there are thousands of Iranian poets, philosophers, artists, architects and thinkers, Saudi Arabia has none? Why do you call Iranian thinkers, “Muslim” thinkers?  Do the Christians call Beethoven, Schiller, Shakespeare, Schopenhauer, Michelangelo, or Leonardo De Vinci “Christian” musicians, philosophers, artists or poets, why did you call Shahabeddin Sohrevardi a Muslim scholar?  That is treason to Iran and what is Iranian.  

Behrouz