Islam and Muslims

Matt asks in the comments:

I do have a question for you Isaac, as one who used to follow Islam. In the US you have (broadly) a division in Christianity between those who believe what the Bible says literally (Conservatives like the Southern Baptists) and those that interpret it in modern times (like Episcopalians with gay and female priests). I know there are more divisions, but those are two general/large ones.

Would you say there is a division within Islam between the "Fundamentalist Radicals" who whole to everything within the Koran and Hadith and more moderate Muslims that ignore certain strictures and live reasonably peaceably in the West? I'm not arguing that the latter group have a powerful voice. But is that a way to explain why all of the Muslims in the US & UK aren't engaged in Jihad? Or is there another explanation?

There is certainly a division in effect but not much in the religious sense.

I'll elaborate. All of the following listed items are considered forbidden (haram) in Islam.

• Alcohol.
• The meat of a pig.
• The owning of dogs as pets.
• The wearing of gold by males.
• Interest and therefore mortgages.
• Paintings or photographs of animated creatures.

You can look around in the West and see numerous Muslims who don't follow, let alone know, most of these rulings. In addition, it's tough to decipher the moral angle of these matters -- but that's Islam for ya.

So, in effect, we have many Muslims who don't follow Islam to the fullest (and thank God! for that). However, this does not mean that most of these mussulman are pushing for their view in the Muslim community. (As you've realized they do not have a powerful voice.) And on the rare occasions when they do speak up, the other Muslims simply beat them by saying, "Aha, the Quran and/or Muhammad say that so-and-so is haram! End of debate."

These points should be plain to see but instead the spectacularly wrong view has become the consensus: Islam is a harmless and peaceful religion that is being hijacked by a bunch of demented thugs. That's not true. The reality is that Islam is an evil faith that has, fortunately, not managed to obliterate the shreds of humanity in all of its adherents.

Comments

[Matt]

"So, in effect, we have many Muslims who don't follow Islam to the fullest..."

Okay, that is what I was thinking, you managed to articulate a clear answer. Thanks, that is helpful.

It always sticks in my craw when people try to say that Islam is so peaceful and that Allah is just like God/Yahweh. You don't have to be a Christian or a Jew to see that Allah isn't the same God you see in the Bible. You may not like either, but they're certainly different entities.

[MikeT]

You could say that a good Muslim is one who does not closely follow their religion, whereas a good Christian is one who does. A bad Muslim follows Islam to the letter, whereas a bad Christian is one who refuses to follow the mandates of Christ.

[Alex]

The main difference lies in the prophets. The basic mandate of Christianity came from Moses and the 10 Commandments, yet even though Moses is also a prophet in Islam, there's no mention of the 10 Commandments in the Qu'ran. That makes a big difference right off the bat. On top of that, the main prophet in Islam is Mohammed, who was basically a warlord, while the main prophet in Christianity is Jesus, who was a freakin' carpenter :p

On the other hand, while I can see the difference between the two, I'm not a big fan of religion in general. Christianity in it's time was every bit as brutal as Islam is today, and I think that even today, ANY religion is simply a yoke holding mankind back from realizing our true potential.