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Why Can't Islam be Reformed?
By Ali Sina
Dear
Mr. Sina,
I am a Muslim woman
living in the USA I read some of your articles and totally agree with you
on many points.
I am still a Muslim
but at the same time I hold rather peculiar positions on many points.
There are five
pillars of Islam and six pillars of faith that cannot be modified. That's
all. The rest can be negotiated and must be modernized. Islam is doomed
and the fate of the Church of England awaits it. But Anglicans didn’t
leave Christianity; they just brought it up‑to‑date. There
used to be no female priests but today there are. There used to be some
dogmas about wives’ submission to husbands but today there are many
feminists that believe in God and are Christians. Just the same is
prepared for Islam and I’m sure of it. Let me comment on some points.
1. Polygamy is indeed
permitted in Islam. But I have got a great example. Tunisia has a
constitution based on Shari’a law but polygamy is prohibited. I object
to implementing Shari’a in any countries. Shari’a is outdated and as a
matter of fact I am sure Allah understands it. Nobody is now burning
witches in Great Britain but nobody said Jesus Christ doesn’t exist or
anything. Islam has to be on the background and the secular laws have to
be on the foreground.
2. Hijab is not a
must for Muslim women. I don’t wear hijab and have never worn it. My
daughter is not wearing hijab either. Allah wanted women (as well as men)
to be modest. I don’t wear a bikini because it doesn’t agree with my
modesty but my daughter likes skirts, tight jeans and T‑shirts. But
wearing these clothes doesn’t affect her modesty and doesn’t make her
a prostitute. If you feel comfortable wearing hijab, it’s OK, wear it. I
have an opinion that hijab is outdated. If you can’t be modest without
hijab, wearing hijab won’t make you any better. Hijab doesn’t protect
women from rapists or other abusers. If a stranger, or most likely a
husband wants to rape a woman, hijab will not stop him from doing it. That
is my opinion.
3. Disbelievers will
not go to Heaven. Virgins in Heaven? I have nothing to say about it. Who
knows? As a modern person, I don’t believe Mohammed (pbuh) knew any of
these things. Human beings cannot comprehend such things and we have to
just leave it alone and move on with our life on Earth.
4. Killing of
disbelievers if they don’t embrace Islam. It is outdated. In the modern
world such things should not be tolerated. It was the case in the 7th
century but thanks to Allah we are living in the 21st century!
5. What is the
problem with Islam? The problem is that people perceive religion as
divine; therefore it must not be criticized. But we have to adopt the way
westerners treated their religions. The example of the Church of England
is a good one.
6. Killing of
apostates. Again it is outdated. It should not be practiced in the 21st
century.
7. Men are
breadwinners, women are housewives. Men are heads of the family. I earn
more than my husband. My Arab husband is a stay‑at‑home dad.
Women should be able to choose. Some want to have a career and some want
to be wives and mothers. I decided to juggle these roles. Christianity
also sees women as wives and mothers but I doubt that the head of the
Church of England Queen Elizabeth II is an ideal wife and mother. I regard
her as a strong woman. I don’t want to repeat myself but Islam has to be
modernized.
Dear Ali, I
appreciate your work. But I think we have to modernize Islam because I
have serious doubts that you and other wonderful people can eradicate
Islam completely. Modernization is something that is more likely to
happen. What is going on in the Middle Eastern countries is awful. The
West has to help with stopping this insanity and modernizing these
countries. I am fully aware of the fact that my beliefs would be
“attacked” in the Middle East and I would be stoned to death. That is
why we in the West have something to do with that. We ought to do it for
our sake. And I thank America for the opportunity to air my opinions
freely. God bless America. I believe in Allah and hope for the afterlife.
But I reject any authorities and communicate with God without imams or
mullahs, whom I consider to be a threat to humanity. I expressed my views
and hope you will reply to me.
Finally, at the time
of the prophet, the principles perhaps were suitable, but is it really so
now? Therefore, let's evaluate, reread. Let's pick the suitable ones.
Religion is made for the benefit of humans.
Best regards,
Haifa
A Modernized Muslim
______________
This
is the position of many modern Muslims, including Irshad Manji the author
of “What Is Wrong with Islam, Today”. A great number of Muslims
realize there is something wrong with Islam, but they erroneously believe
the problem can be solved through the miracle of reinterpretation; and
that they can keep the Quran and believe in Muhammad but somehow do the
opposite of what he did and said and still call themselves Muslims. The
following was my response to Haifa.
Dear
Haifa,
Thank
you for your poignant comments. I am happy to say it is YOU who are not
Muslim. You sound very much like me, years ago. As a matter of fact most
of the Iranians prior to the revolution of 1979 were like you. My mother
never wore chador unless she wanted to go to the grocery store around the
corner and did not want to dress for the occasion. This was, of course,
before the Revolution. But things changed overnight. The moderate Muslims
became hardcore Islamists, rallied around Khomeini and foaming at the
mouth poured into the streets shouting “death to America, death to
Israel.”
You
say Christians modernized; why can’t Muslims? There is a simple answer
to that. The New Testament does not contain so much violence and terror as
does the Quran. I don’t say the Bible is factual. It sounds more like
myths and legends. Nonetheless, the Jesus of the Bible is a saintly
figure. He is the embodiment of goodness. So if you don’t mind believing
in fairytales, Christianity can make you a good person. Of course,
fanatics are everywhere but the message of Christ is not fanatical. Recall
when the Pharisees brought a prostitute to him, asking him what to do with
her? His response was “Let the one who has not sinned throw the first
stone.” If you really practice just this teaching alone, you will become
a good human being. Isn't this the purported goal of religions to make us
good people, forgiving and mindful of our own sins?
Islam
is different. The author of Islam was a vile man. He is not a mythological
figure. He really existed, and his acts are recorded. Many ludicrous
miracles are attributed to him, but once you put aside all those as
nonsense and study his life, the portrait of a psychopath emerges.
Muhammad was anything but saintly. There is not an act of goodness in his
life. Even his kindness and generosity were manipulative and politically
motivated. Take the example of his largesse to the Meccans. He raided the
big tribe of Hawazin, killed many of them, took away all their belongings
and captured their wives and children. Their elders came to him
supplicating for mercy. They brought along Shima, his milk‑sister,
the daughter of Halima, who had nursed him for five years when he was a
child to tell him about his childhood among them and to soften his heart.
She reminded him how she used to carry him on her back, and how tenderly
her people took care of him. He told them if they convert to Islam they
could choose between their loved ones and their property. Is that a
choice? They chose their loved ones. Then Muhammad gave all the booty
stolen from these nomads to the potentates of Mecca. Those higher in rank
received more. Other tribes who had taken part in the war, and had helped
him win, protested. They asked for their share, and were about to start a
mutiny. He made a
“moving” speech saying, "I want to soften the hearts of the
Meccans toward Islam” and told those who had received nothing “You
take the Prophet of God with you instead. Which do you prefer: the wealth
of this world or the messenger of Allah?”
This
cunning man was a master of deception and manipulation. He ruined the
lives of thousands of Hawazin, killed them and stole all their herds,
camels, and property and gave them to the wealthy Meccans to “soften
their hearts toward Islam.” There
is not a single episode in his life that was done out of the goodness of
his heart. Every act he performed was calculated and manipulative. He was
a psychopathic narcissist worse than Hitler.
The
difference between Christianity and Islam lies in the difference between
Jesus and Muhammad. This is the difference between day and night. Jesus
was the insignia of goodness and Muhammad was the incarnation of
everything that is abhorrent and evil.
You
ask: “Can Islam be reformed?” No, it can’t! To reform Islam you have
to first get rid of Muhammad and second get rid of the Quran. You have to
take out a great portion of that book which is violent. The rest is
nonsense and absurdity. But this you can’t do, because you have no
authority to do such a thing. Muhammad said that he has perfected his
religion (Q. 5:3). How can you improve something, which is perfect? You
can’t change the Quran. You can’t reform it. All you can do is to
reinterpret and, for example pretend, “slay the unbelievers wherever you
find them” means something else.
Or
you can say these parts of the Quran are no longer applicable. The problem
is: who gets to decide which parts of the Quran are applicable and which
parts are obsolete? Who has such authority to make this decision? If you
rely on your own conscience and say the verses that call for murder are
outdated, someone else, like Khomeini could protest and say:
Why do you Mullahs only go after the
ordinances of prayer and fasting? Why do you only read the Quranic verses
of mercy and do not read the verses of killing? Quran says; kill,
imprison! Why are you only
clinging to the parts that talk about mercy?
Mercy is against God. [Khomeini’s
speech 1981 Commemoration of the Birth of Muhammad]
Who
can say you are right and he is not? Finally if it is left to you to winnow the good teachings
from the bad ones, why do you need to follow this or any other religion at
all? If you can discern this much to know the difference between right and
wrong, you don’t need any guidance; you are mature enough to find your
own way using your own inner compass. In that case, can’t you look into
other religions and philosophies and pick the good things from them too?
If so, you are a freethinker. You don’t need a religion. You are a guide
and a prophet unto yourself.
A
book of guidance that sometimes guides and sometimes misleads is not a
book of guidance. If you are lost and ask for directions from a passerby
and he points in all directions, can that person be trusted? Is his
guidance of any value? Of course one of those directions he is pointing at
is the right one. But if you have to rely on your own resources to find
that out, what good is it asking such an untrustworthy person for
directions? What about those
who did not have your sagacity and went the wrong way after being misled
by this charlatan? That is exactly what the Quran does. It tells you
something good, but it also teaches you a myriad of bad things. Why do we
need these religions at all? They do not guide anyone. They only give you
a vacuous promise of an afterlife, which is good only for suckers. How can
we trust that promise when everything else they said is proven to be
false?
You
say that the Christians have managed to sieve through the Bible and choose
only the good teachings. This is true for most of them but not for all of
them. There are also many fanatics among the Christians and some of them
are very hateful people. Fortunately
their number is relatively low, but nonetheless it shows that being a
Christian is not a ticket to the Land of Enlightenment.
However,
Islam can’t be reformed. You need to have an authority with a rank
similar or superior to the one claimed by Muhammad to be able to reform
Islam. But that can’t be done, because Muhammad said he was the last
prophet.
Fortuitously,
today I received an email from a reader, (Father Lev) who suggested we
should “Support Ahmadiyya Islam to check the expansion of Islamo‑Fascism!”
He argued:
There are two key points in Ahmadiyya that
make it into a practical solution to the problem of Islamism. Moslems
claim that nothing can be added to the Quran
while the Ahmadiyya Moslems do not! And the Ahmadiyya Moslems have
officially condemned militant jihad. (Jihad against the kuffar
(unbelievers) has been declared haram (sin) by Mirza Ghulam Ahmed! The
FIRST is especially important, because, since it holds that nothing can be
added to the Quran , mainstream Islam can't be reformed, and is bound to
stay forever a barbarous ideology. Ahmadiyya Islam CAN be reformed. The
difference is subtle, but absolutely crucial. If civilized nations invest
in Ahmadiyya Islam, it may save the world! This is because Moslems will
not convert to a religion that is too different from what they are used to
practicing. The most effective way to stop Islamism in its tracks is to
help strengthen the posture of Ahmadiyya Islam in the Moslem world.
The
problem with Ahmadiyya and all other offshoots of Islam is that they are offshoots
of Islam. Although the followers of these religions have distanced
themselves from the violence in the Quran, they are rooted in Islam, and
they acknowledge Muhammad as a prophet of God.
You
can’t build too high without a solid foundation. The foundation of these
religions is Islam, and Islam is a lie. Muhammad was not a prophet of any
god. I don’t know whether these words are from Christ or they are
attributed to him, but whoever said them must have had a good
understanding of the Principle underlying the creation. These words are:
“Only truth will set us free.” I
believe this is the ultimate wisdom. ONLY TRUTH WILL SET US FREE.
Like
you, the followers of religions that are offshoots of Islam say Muhammad
belonged to another time. This is moral relativism. At what time was
raiding innocent populations, slaying unarmed people and raping and
enslaving their wives and children okay? Yes, of course there were just
and good rulers at the time of Muhammad and before him. One such ruler was
Cyrus the Great, king of Persia who eleven hundred years before Muhammad
wrote the first known declaration of Human Rights.
The
Declaration of Human Rights by Cyrus the Great:
“I am Kourosh (Cyrus), great king,….
Now that I put the crown of the kingdom of Iran, Babylon, and the nations
of the four directions on the head with the help of Ahura, I announce that
I will respect the traditions, customs and religions of the nations of my
empire and never let any of my governors and subordinates look down on or
insult them while I am alive. …I will impose my monarchy on no nation.
Each is free to accept it, and if any one of them rejects it, I never
resolve on war to reign. While I am the king… I will never let anyone
oppress others…. I will never let anyone take possession of movable and
landed properties of the others by force or without compensation. While I
am alive, I will prevent unpaid, forced labor. Today, I announce that
everyone is free to choose a religion.…
No one could be penalized for his or her relatives' faults….”
Our
species has not changed that much in such a short time. Good and bad
people existed at all times. Even in our own time, we have had most brutal
monsters, many of whom are still in power. Are the mullahs of Iran any
better than the bloodthirsty tyrants of the past?
The
atrocities perpetrated by Muhammad exceeded anything that anyone had
experienced before. Amazingly, his followers, taken aback by his utter
lack of conscience and his monstrous inhumanity, thought he must be
supported by some invisible force for they could not understand how a
human being could be so ruthless and kill so many people with such
conviction while praising God at the same time and inviting people to be
pious. Criminals do not talk about God. They often have a trace of
conscience left in them and are often overtaken by remorse. But not the
psychopaths! Psychopaths do not have a conscience. They feel entitled to
kill, and they believe they are doing God’s work. This is what Hitler
said:
Hence today I believe that I am acting in
accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself
against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord. [Adolf
Hitler, Mein Kampf, Ralph Mannheim, ed., New York : Mariner Books, 1999,
p. 65]
Muhammad
offset his follower's balance of right and wrong. He overloaded it with so
much evil that it broke.
We
humans have an inner balance with which we weigh good and evil. This
balance, in Muslims stopped working. The indicator is stuck on zero.
Muhammad's companions could no longer register right and wrong. Because
it's hard to envision how a human being could be this ruthless, they
persuaded themselves that he must be from God. As for why this god is so
demonic, they fooled themselves with the lies that he told them. He told
them that it is not up to man to question God. This absurd explanation
satisfied his benighted followers. They resorted to fideism and argued
that reason is
irrelevant to religious belief. The great Imam Ghazali (1058 – 1111)
said: “Where the claims of reason come into conflict with revelation,
reason must yield to revelation.” A similar thesis in defense of
foolishness is presented by Paul in 1 Cor. 1:20-25 where he argues “the
foolishness of God is wiser than (the wisdom of) men”. The statement “Credo
quia absurdum” (I believe because it is absurd), often attributed to
Tertullian, is based on this passage of Paul. In DCC 5 he said: “The Son
of God died; it is by all means to be believed, because it is absurd.”
Upon this belief in absurdity fideism is founded and it is the position
that has been adopted by Muslims. This fideistic attitude allowed the
early believers to abandon reason and accept whatever Muhammad did, even
his blatant crimes, without questioning him.
However,
mostly they WANTED to believe because they had no other choice. Muhammad
had become their only source of sustenance and survival.
The
city of Yathreb (Medina) was devastated by the Muslims. Its original
inhabitants - those who ran the businesses and provided employment, who
were artisans, tradesmen and farmers - the Jews, were either banished or
killed. The Arabs had been working for the Jews. Now, with the Jews gone
or massacred, they were out of work and depended on Muhammad and his raids
for their sustenance. It was not convenient to think critically about what
they were doing. They let themselves go with the flow and kept themselves
fooled. They got their confirmation by watching the zealotry of their
coreligionists. Each follower encouraged others, and among them they
created a mass hysteria that has lasted up to this day. “How can all
these people be wrong?” was their rationale. This is the same rationale
Muslims use today to keep their faith alive. This is what happens in cult
compounds. The members lose their identity and surrender their rational
faculty to the guru. They become an extension of the group and a
reflection of the cult leader. The cultish nature of Islam has not changed
a bit. Fourteen hundred years later, if you join Islam, you are received
with cheers and hugs, but if you decide to leave, you’ll be chased down
and killed.
You
say that violence was the norm in those days. Even if this were true,
which it is not, did Muhammad come to follow the bad practices of his
people or set new standards?
Now,
the most important question is WHY: Why keep Islam and honor Muhammad? Can
we do the same thing with Nazism? Can we reform Nazism - pretend that
Hitler was an innocent product of his time, and pick and choose, only the
good parts of his Mein Kampf? How much must we fool ourselves, and WHY?
What
we have to understand is that Muhammad, like Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Attila
the Hun, Genghis Khan, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, Jim Jones, David Koresh,
Charles Manson, and millions of other less known monsters, was a
pathological narcissist. These celebrated men were not normal. They were
sick in the mind.
Dr.
Sam Vaknin wrote:
Narcissism is contagious. The narcissist
creates a "bubble universe,” similar to a cult. In this bubble,
special rules apply. These
rules do not always correspond to outer reality. Using complex defence
mechanisms, such as projective identification, the narcissist forces his
victims ‑ spouse, mate, friend, colleague ‑ to “play a
role” assigned to him by “God” ‑ the narcissist.
The narcissist rewards compliance with his
script and punishes any deviation from it with severe abuse. In other
words, the narcissist CONDITIONS people around him, using intimidation,
positive and negative reinforcements and feedback, ambient abuse (“gaslighting”),
covert, or controlling abuse, and overt, classical abuse. Thus
conditioned, the narcissist's victims gradually come to assimilate the
narcissist's way of thinking (follies a‑deux) and his modus operandi
‑ his methods. You can abandon the narcissist ‑ but the
narcissist never abandons you. He is there, deep inside your traumatic
memories, lurking, waiting to act out. You have been modified, very much
like an alien snatching bodies.
Dear
Haifa, the Umma is not only misguided, but it is also sick. The pathology
of Muhammad is reflected in every one of his followers. We are dealing
with a community of psychopaths. A billion narcissists! A billion insane
people! All the Muslims are
hiding in this psychotic “bubble universe” created by Muhammad. We are
all playing the role that this mentally sick man has assigned to us. We
all follow his script. These rituals of prayers and the pillars of faith
that you mentioned are only scripts of a psychotic man to keep us hooked.
We are conditioned by the fear of a boogie-man deity, the punishment of an
insane hellfire and the greed of a sensual and even orgiastic paradise
that this madman has instilled in us.
Fear
and greed are the tools of the narcissist through which he manipulates his
victims. We have all come to assimilate Muhammad’s narcissistic way of
thinking and his modus operandi. I have received thousands of emails from
Muslims, and the common theme in all of them is fear. FEAR is the only
motivator of these poor souls. They can’t think, they can’t reason,
they have lost their rational faculty. Their brain is paralyzed by this
fear that Muhammad so masterfully implanted in them.
When they fail to refute any of my arguments with reason, they
resort to fear and remind me of hellfire. This is their ultimate weapon.
This fear has shackled their brains and they cannot think anymore. They
dismiss all doubts because of this paralyzing fear.
So
there are two answers to your question. The first is that Islam can’t be
reformed, and the second is why: Why bother reforming a cult created by a
psychopath and keep his memory alive?
Now
to answer Father Lev who suggested we should “Support Ahmadiyya Islam to
check the expansion of Islamofascism.” I would like to say this is far
more difficult than weaning Muslims from Islam altogether. What Father Lev
is suggesting is fighting one lie with another lie. But I give my word to
you that truth is more powerful than all lies combined. The Ahmadiyya sect
has been around for over a century and half. Its teachings are far better
than Muhammad’s Islam. But it has not garnered more than a few million
followers. On the other hand, the “movement” of ex‑Muslims is
growing by leaps and bounds. We are millions already. We are spreading all
across the world. We have no leaders and no organization. You don’t have
to believe in anything. All you need to do is to see that Islam is false.
This is really a grassroots movement. In the span of few short years, we
have grown much bigger than Ahmadiyyah or any offshoot of Islam. If you
want to know which is the fastest growing “religion” it’s apostasy!
(Assuming you can call apostasy a religion). Why are we so successful? It
is because we stick to the truth.
Islam
cannot be reformed. But it can be eradicated. Reforming Islam means adding
more lies to lies. For how long this huge edifice of lies can support
itself?
There
are old buildings that are jewels in the rough. All they need is some
tender loving care to be restored back to their original luster and glory.
The money spent in these treasures is well spent. They are well designed
and are supported by solid foundations. But not every building can be
restored. Some must be bulldozed. Their structures are rotten, their
construction is shoddy, their designs are flawed, and their foundations
are faulty. Such buildings are dangerous and must be condemned. No matter
how strong your emotional attachment to them, and how many good memories
you have living in them, they are doomed. Not only is there nothing you
can do to salvage them, they are not worth the effort. It is much easier
to get rid of them and build a new building starting from scratch, on a
strong foundation with good design, good materials and good workmanship,
than to try to restore them. The only thing that keeps Islam alive is the
emotional attachment of Muslims to it.
They are addicted. This is Stockholm syndrome. Muslims must be
weaned from Islam, and Islam must be razed to the ground.
Like
the good old buildings, some religions can be reformed. There might be
something of value in them for those who “inhabit” them, and with a
little bit of reinforcement and remodelling they can become good
religions. I believe Christianity is one such religion, which along with
Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism can be reformed, updated
and modernized. Their followers can be morally uplifted and inspired by
them. This is not the case with Islam. Islam is falling apart and it is
not only endangering its inhabitants, it is a peril to everyone else. You
can’t reform Islam and you can’t build another structure on top of it.
Islam must be bulldozed. It must be eradicated. We have to alert its
inhabitants and get them out as soon as possible. Get them out as many as
we can - and demolish it before it takes more lives.
At
no time in history has Mankind faced such horrendous prospects of doom and
gloom. We are at the most crucial juncture in the existance of our
species. Why? Because over a billion people are possessed by the ghost of
a psychopath! They are reduced to zombies! Their souls are snatched away
from them. They have lost their thinking power. They follow this dead
man’s scripts, and they will not relent until they destroy the world.
Don’t
let that happen Haifa! Leave this psychopath and help others too.
_______________
In
a follow-up letter Haifa wrote:
Maybe I am already an apostate but I am not
courageous enough to admit it. Probably I am just trying to blindly stick
to my religion. Can we resuscitate Islam? That's the question for me
today.
I
responded:
Dear
Haifa,
Why
do you want to resuscitate this monster? Our problem today is that there
are some Muslims who try to resuscitate Islam. That is why we are
experiencing so much terror and murder. You and I must not attempt
resuscitating Islam. On the contrary, we must hammer a stake into its
heart and make sure it never raises its head again. This beast was a
bloodsucking monster from the start. What is there to resuscitate? What
you probably meant is reform, but we already talked about that too.
Finally
good news from Haifa:
Dear Ali.
After fierce discussions my husband and I
decided to leave Islam and stop helping this monster. It's useless and a
total waste of time. My daughter said she already left Islam and just
waited for her parents to do the same.
Thanks a lot for your time and attention.
Keep up your work
Best regards,
Haifa.
There
are millions of Haifas among Muslims. Islam can’t be reformed. But it
can be eradicated. Once the truth is said, this massive edifice of lies
called Islam will crumble like a house of cards. Islam is based on lies.
The best way to demolish lies is to tell the truth.
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