Immanuel.at Forum for Discussion Discourse 36: Is Islam a peaceful religion?

My veil, my freedom. / Gloss Friederike Leibl / Austrian daily "Die Presse" 00, 2004-01-19

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitors to this site or from other authors.)

(Is Islam a peaceful religion? / Essay JS00, 2001-10-06)

We are being lied to when the attempt is made to insinuate to us – in national propaganda, and unfortunately in church propaganda as well – that Islam is a peaceful religion and that only a few evil fundamentalists who abuse the Koran are carrying on the dirty business of terror.

On one point there is absolutely no need for discussion. We can all live in harmony with the decent and peace-loving Moslems in Germany. But there is a simple reason for this: most Christians are no longer really Christians, and most Moslems living in Germany are no longer really Moslems. If the Moslems were to live strictly in accordance with their Koran….. alas, poor Germany. We would not be able to sleep easy at nights.

The Koran taught in German schools, Islamic prayer rooms in factories, schools and universities… Even in a Catholic chapel at Frankfurt Airport you will find a Moslem prayer mat – facing Mecca. Whenever I am in Frankfurt, I complain about it to the resident Catholic priest. His excuse: "Bishop Kamphaus gave instructions." Which makes the matter even worse. As a Protestant Christian, I am a supporter of the present Pope. But when I saw him praying in a mosque and kissing the Koran, I thought to myself: "Has he lost his marbles – or has he never read the Koran?"

In the interests of establishing his power, Mohammed, who is now presented to us as a "Prince of Peace", waged no fewer than 66 wars in the period between 610 and 632 AD. Do you not think, too, of the terrible images from New York, when you read the 2^nd Koran sura, 25, a passage unknown in the West, where it is written: "So fear the fire that shall devour men and stones, the fire that is prepared for the unbelievers…" - or think of the thousands of victims, no longer to be recovered, under the ruins of New York, and read the 2^nd Koran sura, 40, where the literal words are: "They who do not believe and who deny our Sign (the Koran) shall dwell in the fires of hell and shall remain there."

(Joachim Siegerist, Die Deutschen Konservativen e. V. [The German Conservatives], 22053 Hamburg).

The Koran and the Bible.

In the appendix to the essay quoted above, there is a listing of altogether 131 quotations from the suras of the Koran (translations and verse numbering by Ludwig Ullmann, Goldmann-Verlag [Goldmann Publishers]: The Koran), which in the view of J. Siegerist are directed against "non-Moslems".

Let us now compare some of these Koran quotations with texts from the Bible.

Any one who is not prepared to make this Moslem confession of faith rests under the curse of Allah and is condemned to an eternal hell.

"Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; For I am God, and there is no other." Isa 45,22;

Any one who is not prepared to accept this Christian confession of faith cannot be saved and is condemned to the eternal fire.

So fear the fire that shall devour men and stones, the fire that is prepared for the unbelievers.

Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;

Those who do not believe and who deny this Sign (the Koran) shall dwell in the fires of hell and shall remain there.

These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

But those who deny and die in denial, as unbelievers, on them shall Allah’s curse fall -

Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He (the envoy of the father), you will die in your sins.

O believers! Make no friendship with those who do not belong to your religion. They will not cease from trying to seduce you and seek only your ruin. They have already uttered their hate with their lips; but worse things still are concealed in their breast.

3,1 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 3,2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3,3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 3,4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 3,5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these!

O believers, do not take either Jews or Christians to be your friends, for they can only be the friends of each other (mutually). One of you who takes them to be his friend, he is one of them. An unjust people will not be led by Allah.

Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?

For they themselves report (…) how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God.

Hell fire shall be reserved for the unbelievers, in which they shall remain for ever.

But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

But he who does not obey Allah and the Prophet he has sent, for him hell fire is reserved, and he shall remain for ever therein.

He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.

And only angels have we set above the fire of hell – that the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) may be convinced of the truth of this book. So Allah leaves in error whom he will, and leads on the right path whom he will. The hosts of your Lord are known to him alone, and this doctrine (the doctrine of hell) is only a warning for men.

4,3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4,4 in whose case the god of this world (Satan) has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

As we can see, there are – at least so far – some quite startling agreements between the statements made by the Bible and by the Koran, and one would almost be inclined to doubt whether the author quoted earlier, as an evangelical Christian, has actually read his Bible.

The similarity of these texts cannot be denied, nor should it be. However, we must ask ourselves the reason for this parallelism. And here it becomes apparent, when we look at the matter more closely, that statements of this nature do not just show great similarity in Islam and Christianity: in all religions – whether monotheistic or polytheistic – there are like rules of behavior, that involve such things as the recompense of the just and the punishment of the unjust.

In the light of J. Siegerist’s remark that "only a few wicked fundamentalists, who abuse the Koran, are carrying on the dirty business of terror", one does feel compelled to put the question whether it might be possible to quote the Bible – among radical Christian groups, such as for instance the IRA in Northern Ireland – as a justification for the practice of terror.

And here it is extremely interesting to find that J. Siegerist affirms this – indirectly. For as a reason why, in his view, we do not in fact find ourselves faced with this kind of escalation, he tells us:

"Most Christians are no longer really Christians, and most Moslems living in Germany are no longer really Moslems. If the Moslems were to live strictly in accordance with their Koran ……. poor Germany. We would not be able to sleep easy at nights."

In the light of the diagnosis formulated in the first sentence here, one must, however, put the supplementary question: If Christians were to live strictly in accordance with their Bible… what would happen then? Leaving aside the fact that the assertion that "most Christians are no longer really Christians" is somewhat questionable, because the author does not define what he means by a "real Christian", this inference implies the conclusion that in his view a "real" Christianity would be just as much of a potential danger to society as Islam. Is this really the case?

If we answer this question, we might then perhaps also find an answer to the question put in the title of this Discourse: "Is Islam a peaceful religion?"

Whereas hitherto we have focused on statements of the two religions that show a tendency to agreement, let us now consider the differences.

In this connection the spiritual basis, the authority of the sources, demands to be mentioned first of all. Whereas Islam invokes Allah and his Prophet Mohammed, Christianity confesses its belief in the (originally Jewish) God Yahweh and His Son Jesus Christ.

Islam and Christianity.

The name "Allah" (in Arabic, "the God") was already known to the pre-Islamic Arabs – probably as the name of a moon god. Only in Islam did it come to be the proper name of the one and only God.

Mohammed (in Arabic, "the Praised One") was born in Mecca around 570 and died on the 8.6.632 in Medina. From a scholarly point of view, the religion he founded between 610 and 632 – Islam (in Arabic, "submission" – to the will of God, that is) – is a new foundation. It is seen by the adherents of Islam, however, as a renewal of the religion of Abraham, from which humanity has either completely fallen away or of which it retains only partial fragments of the original revelation (Jews and Christians).

The Koran (in Arabic, "recitation piece") is thought by Moslems to be the sum of the revelations granted by God to the Prophet Mohammed. The numerous parallels with stories and sayings of the Old and New Testaments are not derived, as Islam asserts, from the relics of an original revelation which Islam has preserved, while its further content, in the Islamic view, has been falsified in the Old and New Testaments, but rather from the fact that Mohammed adopted various elements from the Jewish and Christian scriptural traditions which to him were imperfectly known, and which in many cases he actually misunderstood. So, for example, he made the mistake of referring the "Trinity" of the Christians to God the Father, Christ and the catholic "Mary", consequently labeling Christians as polytheists and idol-worshipers.

If we now compare the statements of the Koran with those of the New Testament, the feature that most sticks out is the fact that in the Koran, Allah – through his Prophet Mohammed – constantly calls on the Moslems to fight the unbelievers. So for instance:

In the New Testament, on the other hand, not a single summons of this nature is addressed to Christians. On the contrary: not only is vengeance forbidden, because it lies in God’s hand alone – we are also commanded, in numerous passages, to love our enemies.

Rom 12,17 Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. 12,18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. 12,19 Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "vengeance is Mine, I will repay," says the Lord.

12,20 "but if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head." 12,21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Rom 12,17-21;

Rom 14,19 So then we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another. Rom 14,19;

Hbr 10,30For we know Him who said, "vengeance is Mine, I will repay." And again, "the Lord will judge His people." Hebr 10,30;

Hbr12,14 Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. Hebrr 12,14;

Lk 6,27 But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 6,28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 6,29 "Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either. 6,30 "Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. Lk 6,27-30;

What is more, the greatest commandment in Christian teaching (and actually in Jewish teaching as well) includes, alongside the injunction to love God, the injunction to love your neighbor.

Mt22,35 One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, 22,36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?"

22,37 And He said to him, "‘you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 22,38 "This is the great and foremost commandment.

22,39 "The second is like it, ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 22,40 "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." Mt 22,35-40;

When we set these Christian commandments that we should love our enemies against Islam’s way of dealing with its enemies, we find a certain similarity with the story of King Solomon and the two mothers. Both women claimed that the child was theirs. King Solomon’s way of proceeding, in order to judge which of them was really the mother, has made him famous:

1Kg 3,24 The king said, "Get me a sword." So they brought a sword before the king. 3,25 The king said, "Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other."

3,26 Then the woman whose child was the living one spoke to the king, for she was deeply stirred over her son and said, "Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and by no means kill him." But the other said, "He shall be neither mine nor yours; divide him!"

3,27 Then the king said, "Give the first woman the living child, and by no means kill him. She is his mother." 1Ki 3,24-27;

And just as King Solomon recognized the love of the true mother through the fact that the one woman would rather give up the child than have it killed, so here too, in a quite objective fashion, we can recognize the true God, whose love forbids that human beings should be killed – even if they do not believe in Him.

If we examine a few more important commandments of the Koran, we naturally come upon the obligation binding on all believing Moslems to pray five times a day. As a preliminary, ritual ablutions must first be carried out.

These ritual ablutions are similar to those practiced by the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ time with their cups and dishes, for which the Lord criticized them:

You clean the outside of the cup, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence.

Mt 23,24 "You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! 23,25 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. 23,26 "You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.

23,27 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. 23,28 "So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Mt 23,24-28;

What does it profit a man if he cleanses himself outwardly, while he has thoughts of hate, murder and assassination in his heart, which he then – straight after his Friday prayers, on leaving the mosque – puts into effect? If it is true that in the religions deriving from Abraham – that is to say, Judaism, Christianity and Islam – the same one and only Almighty God is worshiped, then all these prayers – in spite of ritual ablutions – have no kind of effect, so long as peace and mercy have not entered into the heart of the Moslem believer.

Nor is it any use to pray five times daily in the direction of Mecca. God is not in Mecca! But God is not in mosques, synagogues or churches either: rather He is to be found in the heart and mind (in the spirit) of the human being.

Nor do we need to carol out any formulas of prayer over loudspeakers from minarets or from the altar of the church. God can hear us even without loudspeakers! But only when we turn to Him, personally that is to say, with our own words and in all tranquility, in the Spirit. Our God is not a God of the masses, he is the God of each individual human being, in a quite personal sense.

This is what the Lord Jesus wants to convey to us, when he says that for each one of us the very hairs of our heads are all numbered.

Mt 10,29 "Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 10,30 "But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 10,31 "So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.

10,32 "Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. 10,33 "But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven. Mt 10,29-33;

And when we listen, in prayer, to the voice of God in our innermost spirit, then he will lead us to his Son, as his Son has indeed promised:

Jn 6,44 "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. 6,45 "It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me. Jn 6,44-45;

But here we have another significant difference between Islam and Christianity. He Whom Christians see as the Son of God – Jesus Christ – is for Moslems at best one of the prophets, as Mohammed likewise was. If we now compare Mohammed and Christ, it strikes us that Mohammed waged 66 bloody wars with thousands of dead to convert people to belief in his God, whereas Jesus Christ – with the same end in view – himself died on the cross.

We can see that these are two diametrically opposed attitudes, resulting from completely contrary conceptions of God. Whereas the God of Islam summons his believers to acts of war, murder and assassination, the God of Christianity commands his believers even to love their enemies, and, according to Christian belief, himself gave his life for them in the person of his Son.

The God of Islam.

We might now be inclined conclude that the God of Christianity can have nothing to do with Allah, and vice versa. But here we should be cautious. On the one hand, this very God – Yahweh – promised to Abraham that not just in his son Isaac – the son of his wife Sarah and forefather of the Israelites – but also in his first-born son Ishmael – the son of the handmaid Hagar and forefather of the Arabs – he would have many descendants and be a great nation.

And of the son of the maid I will make a nation also, because he is your descendant.

Gen 21,12 But God said to Abraham, "Do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named. 21,13 "And of the son of the maid I will make a nation also, because he is your descendant." Gen 21,12-13;

And just as we cannot contest the Israelites’ descent from Abraham and the promises that were made to them, so we cannot deny to the Ishmaelites either – the Arabs, that is to say – either their origin or this promise made to them by God. This above all because of the scattered indications in Scripture that in the Millennium – as well as a multitude of people from the nations – all the Semites too, both Israelites and also Arabs, will come to worship the one and only God, the Almighty.

Secondly, however, it is precisely we Christians who have every reason to seek for the lost sheep of our God. For it is only through the grace and sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, after all, that we ourselves have been enabled to repent and to serve our God. And in our history as well, in the history of Christianity, there have been times where the revelation was obscured, and Christians became murderers and assassins. Whether in the Crusades, the Inquisition or the Counter-Reformation – to name but a few examples. And all that in the name of God!

And now J. Siegerist opines in his essay:

"Now of course there are always plenty of our contemporaries who will peddle the thesis: ‘In the Middle Ages Christians were no better.’ Who of us today will contest the fact that crimes were committed by Christians in those days? Even the Pope has admitted as much. But there is a fundamental difference. One who has committed crimes in the name of Christianity has violated the Bible and Christian teaching in the most elementary way. But one who commits the atrocities specified in the Koran is only adhering to what is written in the Koran and was taught by Mohammed."

That is of course correct, and cannot be contested. And yet it made no difference to the victims of these Christian murderers in those days – or to the victims of the Christian conquerors of North and South America, for instance, who slaughtered the Native Indians and Indios by the thousand – whether they were murdered with or without the support of the Bible. And since to the present day the ten commandments of God have not been elevated to the level of a constitution in a single one of the Christian countries of the world, the argument cited misses the heart of the matter entirely. It is completely irrelevant whether the American terror victims of the 11 September were killed by the Moslem perpetrators in accordance with the statements of the Koran, or whether the civil population of Afghanistan were killed by the Americans in elementary contradiction of the Bible and Christian teaching. In the end, they are all dead. And that is what matters!

If we, as Christians, are convinced that we have in the Bible the Word of God and so have found the truth and the right path, and if we then do not give a hang for what is written there – "You shall not kill" and "Love your enemies" – and proceed to kill our enemies, then the Moslems, who hold strictly to the (unfortunately false) teachings of the Koran when it tells them "Kill them", are certainly more consistent in their attitude. For they do what is wrong, because they do not know the right path. We, on the other hand, say that we know the right path, but do the opposite nonetheless.

And just as we cannot, as Christians, blame God for our own behavior here, so we cannot make God responsible for the behavior of the Moslems either. More than that, we cannot attribute this guilt – a guilt that exists beyond doubt – to the Moslems alone either. The origin of the Moslems’ wrongful behavior lies in the statements of the Koran. And this Koran was put together by a human being who was led astray. So Islam has just chosen the wrong prophet, not the wrong God.

We must then assume that the God of Abraham, the God of the Jews and of the Christians, is in fact also the God of Islam. And just as he has again had mercy on his Christian people, in spite of their unbelievable errors, he can also have mercy on his lost sheep of Islam and lead them back to his path of mercy and loving-kindness.

In conclusion we would just like to display a purely optical comparison between Islam and Christianity, in the light of a recently published picture:

Yasser Arafat at the Christian midnight mass at the Greek Orthodox church in Bethlehem

Let us suppose we had the possibility of showing this picture to the apostle Paul, let us say, in the first century of our era, and informing him that one of the two individuals represented would describe himself 2000 years later on as a follower of Jesus Christ, while the other would be the leader of a people whose religion would be persecuting Christians in many countries.

In looking at the picture Paul would perhaps have occasion to reflect on the Lord’s parable of the rich man magnificently dressed in purple and the poor man Lazarus, not to speak of many other remarks made by the Lord about the scribes and Pharisees; and in all probability he would identify the simply dressed man with the friendly smile as the Christian, and the person encased in gold and purple wearing a double crown studded with precious stones as the opponent of Christianity. This should give us Christians something to think about!

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitors to this site or from other authors.)

(Islam and the women. / Reply MP00, 2002-12-06)

By chance I came across your website and read your article about the Islam. To a great extent one gets here the impression you yourself were a Moslem. Only your statement in the end that the Islam no doubt has the right God but the wrong prophet puts this view again into the right place, since a Moslem would have to be prepared for the death penalty for such a statement, especially in a country with Islamic law (Sharia). (This happened only recently in Nigeria where the Moslems prevented a planned Miss-World-Election.)

With regard to the problems with Moslems in Western Europe, I, being an atheist, am surprised that Christianity does not show more color. The Islam suppresses and tyrannizes big parts of their people, namely women. They are hardly allowed to appear in public or unless only with veil and cape. They are deprived of the most fundamental laws like the right of education or the right of work and so forth, not to speak about the right of political voting. They are only allowed to keep the house for their Macho and give birth to his children, this though cannot agree with Christian belief – or can it? And with the entry of one in its majority Moslem country like Turkey we want them to join the EU.

Apparently all leading men in the EU toy with these circumstances to also enjoy being married with up to four women. Thus it seems explicable that up to now no man has retorted anything to your article. Are men here simply too cowardly – or too stupid? – to analyze this subject intellectually?

Myriam Prager Myriam.Prager@aon.at

At first I have to admit that I am somewhat surprised that the prevention of the Miss-World-Election by the Moslems is criticized by you. Especially at such events the feminine body is estimated without taking into consideration soul or spirit. And to tell the truth, I would have expected a certain understanding for the Islam in circles of suffragettes, at least on that level.

Regarding clothing directions for women in the Islamic world, being an atheist you might not know but also Christianity has a quite plausible background to which I will refer further below.

Now regarding politicians in the EC, it seems to me that they aren’t interested in polygamy as Islam is permitting it. They would have to keep the former wife in the family and take care of her until old age. Here in the West we don’t do it parallel but serial. A great part of the leading politicians of Germany and Austria are for example married with up to 4 women. Though according Western customs not at the same time but one after the other.

The stupidity of men here, as you call it, is, looked at it more closely, perhaps the reason why women in the West are granted much more rights (even though still not enough in certain areas) than in Islamic societies. Or do you think it would have been possible to reach an approximation of women rights with clever men like Bin Laden from Saudi Arabia or Khamenei from the Iran?

Fundamental women groups are intending such attributes mainly in lump sum to men in the West. Also the assessment that men are "sex-possessed monsters" comes from these circles. I admit that some exceptions do exist. But certainly it does not prove right to the overwhelming majority of men. It is always criticized when a man is gazing after a beautiful woman. And then it is presented as degenerated. But is it really like that?

Being a man I have to admit that with women rather seldom you find such a behavior – that they look after a handsome man. Whereby now it is hard to tell whether women have better self-control than men or indeed could not be impressed by masculine "attractiveness". Therefore an example easier to accomplish for women should be brought up.

At an elegant party with a number of beautiful women attracting men’s attention, one of these society ladies wears a fabulous diamond necklace at a value of some million Euros. And now I am pretty sure that the glances of all ladies attending this party – open or somewhat hidden – always again will return to this precious and attractive piece of jewellery. And when indeed one or the other is not impressed at all, I dare saying it must be a man in disguise.

Similar to the fascination of women regarding first class jewellery is also the one of men with regard to women. And also here I would guess that men who are not interested to look at a beautiful woman are either homosexual or eunuchs in general. In a relationship between men and women not only the outward appearance is important but above all also the inner self and intellectual as well as spiritual capacities. And here, of course, one can argue: as you distinguish a bad character with some knowledge of human nature by appearance and behavior, also a mentally and spiritually noble human being can be recognized by his habits. But who takes nowadays the trouble of acquiring some knowledge of the human nature?

And since human beings have lost their power of judgment or more correct, not have acquired it at all, they fall hook, line and sinker for deceivers and liars in all areas of life. On account of such experiences and because of being afraid of suffering from even more dramatic spiritual injuries, they don’t seek anymore profound relationships in their love life but solely look for short sexual contact or avoid the other species at all. But herewith they also avoid those experiences which are spiritually positive and could develop and strengthen their power of judgment. And because that is so …. see above.

For drop outs from this vicious circle, the following recommendations could be useful: experiences made in social intercourse with human beings should not be forgotten. It does not help when today I was taken in by a deceiver and do not reflect but on the contrary suppress and forget the adversity and therefore tomorrow be fooled again by the same kind of person. Disappointments and happiness – both are important and necessary. And as time goes by and by trial and error some sort of "sixth sense" evolves by the judgment of new acquaintances. Just knowledge of the human nature.

Now as announced above, I would like to come to the Christian components in connection with dressing orders of Moslem women. In the bible we have – as the final one of the 10 commandments – the commandment:

2Mo 20,17 "You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor." Ex 20,17;

And although we today in Christian countries get exited, when recently 2 women of different Islamic countries were sentenced to death by stoning because of adultery, we after all should not forget the history of our religion. Also in the Old Testament we have the demand:

3Mo 20,10 ‘If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. Lev 20,10;

One might be of the opinion that this has importance for Jews but not for Christianity whose base is the New Testament. And for good reason they refer to the episode in which our Lord saved an adulteress from the stones of angry Jews.

Jn 8,3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, 8,4 they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. 8,5 "Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?" 8,6 They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. 8,7 But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." 8,8 Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. 8,9 When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court. 8,10 Straightening up, Jesus said to her, "Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?" 8,11 She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more." Jn 8, 3-11;

The report about this event certainly should not prove that adultery goes unpunished in Christianity. There are two statements which seem of importance in this part of the Scriptures:

1. Only a man being himself without sin would be allowed to sentence another Person to death. In the end the Jews in this episode finally also understood this and went away. The only one being able to condemn the woman, since he actually was without sin, was the Lord himself. But he said to her: "I do not condemn you, either."

2. Jesus Christ did not come to this world to destroy the laws of Moses (Mt 5, 17-20). The law that adulterers have to be killed is also valid for Christianity. Thus in this respect there is no difference between Mosaic faith, Islam or Christianity. But in contradistinction to both of the other monotheistic religions, Christianity, however, knows of the vicarious sacrifice of God’s Son for our sins. Thus we can get pardon for our sins - also adultery – when we repent and ask for it and believe in the random sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We can derive therefrom the following consequences:

Since only a man without sin is granted the right to condemn another human being to death, but no man without sin has ever existed nor ever will – with the exception of Jesus of Nazareth – every death penalty is against the will of God. That again and again we have to witness such convictions, e.g. in Turkey, certainly leads back to the religious Islamic background. But it is a shame for Christianity that the USA, allegedly being very much Christian, pronounce and execute death penalties as usual – which additionally are also supported by many "Christian" groups.

Although we have seen above that the punishment for adultery is the same in all three religions, Christianity here has a quite different point of solution. While Thora and Koran are demanding justice of the human being, the New Testament insists also on the fulfillment of God’s commandments but also offers mercy to him. Human beings can be sure that all their sins – except a quite specific one – can be forgiven when they repent and accept the death of God’s Son on the cross as a ransom sacrifice for their sins. In spite of this - or exactly because of it – in Christianity the question of guilt is much more profound. Not only adultery already carried out will be condemned here but also the "thought" of adultery or what is more, the mere look at a woman.

Everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart

Mt 5,27 "You have heard that it was said, ‘you shall not commit adultery; 5,28 but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 5,29 "If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 5,30 "If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell. 5,31 "It was said, ‘whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce; 5,32 but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Mt 5,27-32;

When now our Lord tells us: "If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell", we understand that on one side the desirous look at a woman already means adultery and that the punishment for not forgiven adultery in Christianity is eternal damnation.

And here again we have now the connection to the Islam. Also there the religious danger was understood which could affect a man only by merely looking at a woman. While now Jewish or Christian men have to train themselves that their heart does not take a wrong and sinful way when looking at a woman, Koran is resolving the problem rather simple. It simply forbids women to appear among men but if at all, only veiled from head to toe. A man herewith can’t fall into any such temptations.

This now is the useful background of clothing directions for Islamic women. It is therefore no blind despotism and repression but pure religious and social self-defense of men. And also, of course, of women, since also every woman spiritually has committed adultery who causes wrong ideas in men by the way of presentation/exposure of her body.

Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea.

Mk 9,42 "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea. 9,43 "If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than, having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire. Mk 9,42-43;

Also very astonishing it is therefore that many Western ladies are complaining about Islamic women, going dressed outdoors rather unsuitable with veil and coat, while nobody seems to have anything against girls taking a walk in the same street, dressed with mini skirts hardly covering the genitals and bras barely protecting the nipples. Still more surprising is indeed that Western women (nuns) going with cape and head-gear are treated with esteem and respect, while Moslem women with very similar clothing because of Moslem-religious reasons are set aside for being unsuitable.

In the majority of cases also the argument of Western suffragettes is wrong that Moslem women are forced and herewith suppressed to this kind of clothing. Many Moslem women have voiced their opinion to this subject and repeatedly confirmed that they don’t feel suppressed but simply see it as their personal right to practice their Islamic religion. Likewise one could reproach Catholic women for their right to practice their Catholicism by making the sign of the cross, go with a hat to church or attend the Catholic mass in general.

And since right now we are tackling the subject "Catholicism": from 54 countries with Islamic government worldwide only three use Sharia as a legislative instrument. Comparatively we in the West but also have a state which is practicing its own laws varying from democratic standards and imposing them on its members: that is the Vatican. The special teachings of the Catholic church, like celibacy for priesthood, prohibition of meat on Friday, exclusion of women from sacred ecclesiastical functions or the prohibition of giving the holy communion to people married a second time, are neither God’s commandments nor teachings of the bible. Not at last for these reasons these Catholic "laws" are rejected by a great part of the church folk. And exactly this should facilitate our understanding for the Islam, where also 51 countries decided against the Sharia and their fundamental interpretation of the Koran.

Nevertheless, objectively it has to be admitted that Islamic women in general - no question whether fundamental or moderate – are making obviously many sacrifices for the weakness of their men and to their rescue. And therefore it only can be expected that their men will reward them. If not, their God – who also is our God as indicated further above in this discourse – will for sure redeem their deeds as accurately as those who lead others into temptation will receive their punishment.

This unselfishness of Islamic women is also here in the West not quite unknown: every mother makes sacrifices for her son and also each loving wife for her husband. Only women neither having had one nor the other naturally have a problem of comprehension. With all our heart we men should therefore be grateful to the Lord for our mothers and wives.

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitors to this site or from other authors.)

(My veil, my freedom. / Gloss Friederike Leibl, Austrian daily "Die Presse" 00, 2004-01-19)

The demonstrations against the planned prohibition of the wearing of the Islamic headscarf in French schools were well organized – but poorly attended. Admittedly the staging of protests worldwide was an impressive testimony to the international networking of radical Moslem groups. But the low level of participation, especially at the main event in Paris, made it plain that the great majority of the some five or six million Moslems living in France at present are better able to live with the intended law than the organizers of the protest would have us believe.

But it means too that the basic idea of the Paris government – to take due account of the French tradition of secularism – has not been entirely submerged in the beating of drums by activists. The separation of state and religion does presuppose that religious symbols have no place in the institutions of state. This applies to the symbols of all religions, not just those of Islam.

The rage at the headscarf ban has been most extreme in areas where Moslem women are not affected by the issue at all – in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Lebanon. At women’s protest demonstrations, which are organized and largely attended by men, we hear talk of an attack on the Moslem world. In Amman, veiled women waved banners bearing the words "My veil is my freedom".

A silent majority of French Moslems has opted for a different kind of freedom, through declining to be yoked to the chariot of radical movements. The splitting of the Moslem minority in France cannot be prevented. But the message to the fundamentalists was a first victory for moderate opinion.

Gloss Friederike Leibl in Austrian daily press "Die Presse" f.leibl@diepresse.com / https://www.diepresse.com/

In this article in the Austrian daily press "Die Presse" we are told that "The separation of state and religion does presuppose that religious symbols have no place in the institutions of state. This applies to the symbols of all religions, not just those of Islam", and the author refers here to the ban on Moslem women’s wearing headscarfs, because this headscarf is a religious symbol.

It would be nice if this were really to be the case; but then, for a start, all Catholic nuns, to whom the wimples and robes that they wear are just as much a religious symbol, would have to change their clothing. And if anyone supposes that these women are not to be found in state institutions, they should just pay a visit to a hospital that is owned, financed or supported by the state.

The above photos of representatives of the three monotheistic religions show a Catholic nun, an Orthodox Jew and a Moslem woman. You see people like this on a daily basis in all the capital cities of Central Europe, and in the second municipal district of Vienna, the capital of Austria, with a bit of luck you might meet all three at the same time: the nun when she leaves the big Viennese hospital of the Merciful Brothers, where Catholic nuns work as well; the Orthodox Jew on his way home from the synagogue; and the Moslem woman doing her shopping at the nearby Karmelitermarkt or Carmelite Market. Now though many of the people of Vienna will greet the Catholic nun in a friendly way and look with favorable eyes on the Orthodox Jew, people are indignant that the Moslem woman should wear her costume for religious reasons, and even demand that she should be forbidden from wearing the headscarf. The fact that the other two persons are likewise expressing their religious allegiance through their clothing is evidently something which the such critics are intellectually unable to grasp.

So from this point of view a visit by Pope Benedikt XVI or the XIVth Dalai Lama involving a meeting with the Federal President in the rooms of state would only be possible if the two holy personages were to leave their cowl at home, or if the meeting were to take place in Vienna’s Municipal Park (though I don’t actually know whether that is not also a property owned by the state).

But anyone then who carries a religious symbol on his or her person would have to put it aside or conceal it in public. According to this rule, a woman who wears a cross on a chain around her neck would be obliged to hide it in public. If, likewise in public, she wears a string bikini which allows 70% of her breasts and 95% of her butt to hang out, she is applauded and photographed. Not that I as a man would have anything against this, but all the same it is astonishing.

Do we not have, in the western world, a constitutionally guaranteed right to practice our religion – or am I making a mistake? The argument is repeatedly heard that religion must not be involved with politics. But here we overlook the fact that there is another side to the coin: it follows, of course, that the state should not be involved with religion either! But plainly, with prohibitions like this, it is doing just that.

Likewise the Moslem women’s banner slogan, "My veil is my freedom", quoted rather disparagingly by our author, reminds us strongly of the protest march of women in our own country, where the chant "My womb belongs to me" was designed to demonstrate the right of women to abortions. In Austria it is now the case that the killing of unborn children in the first three months of pregnancy is something women are allowed to do – should they not then be allowed to wear a headscarf?

Finally the argument that these Moslem women are oppressed because they are forced by their menfolk to wear the headscarf is – apart from the odd exception in either case – as senseless as it is to assert that women and girls in western culture are forced by their men to walk the streets half naked. On the contrary, it is the wholly personal preference and statutory guaranteed right of these women to free choice of an individual outfit that is in question here, and in the one case as in the other this demands to be accepted and respected.

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitors to this site or from other authors.)

(Is Allah identical with the God of the Jews and the Christians? / Reply ChB JS00, 2004-03-27)

In contrast with Discourse 36, I must take the view that there are such significant differences between what Moslems understand by Allah and God as we meet him in the Bible, that at any rate in linguistic terms God and Allah cannot be regarded as equivalents. I know that this is controversial, but I personally believe that the teaching of Mohammed was of Satanic origin (1 Joh. 2, 22ff.). Consequently I am not sure whether it is possible to pray to God by way of Satan, or whether it may not be the case that the prayers of Moslems are being delivered to a completely different address. I must be careful here to avoid committing a blasphemy, and for this reason I have not gone further into this point. But at any rate what Moslems understand by Allah has very little in common with the God of the Bible: Allah, so far as I am aware, is impersonal, and he is not a God of mercy (contrast Gen. 17, 20; 21, 17ff.) – he grants his grace arbitrarily, or else declines to do so; the idea of a Son of God is blasphemy in Mohammedan eyes; Allah commands things that are diametrically opposed to what we are told in the Bible and further allows Mohammed by implication to call Jesus a liar. Is this really still the God of Ishmael, or may it not be possible that Mohammed, 2000 years later, placed something quite different in his place? Then too there is the apparent fact - if I am correct in my recollection of Discourse 36 – that a moon God was worshipped under the name of Allah, at any rate at times in the past. The Mohammedan sickle moon would tend to support this assertion. This then most certainly cannot be identical with our God (Deut. 4, 19; 17, 3), and it also makes it all the more difficult to identify Allah, just in terms of the name, with ’El Elohim’ (seeing that the latter is a proper name, while in Arabic Allah is supposed – is this credible today? – to be just a ‘generic’ term). On the other hand we ought not to overlook Gen. 17,8 either, though again that does not present a disproof that the descendants of Ishmael might nonetheless worship another, even if ‘similar’ God. In any case Mohammed was a false prophet.

Christian Bollmeyer, Hamburg / bollmeyer@debitel.net

First of all my best thanks for this comment, which at first glance – to speak honestly – caused me some surprise. In fact I was of the opinion that I had put forward exactly this point of view in my dissertations. But when I read the Discourse again, I realized that there actually is a section of my argument that can give a wrong impression on this score. In making a last point in "The God of Islam", I wrote as follows:

"We might now be inclined conclude that the God of Christianity can have nothing to do with Allah, and vice versa. But here we should be cautious. On the one hand, this very God – Yahweh – promised to Abraham that not just in his son Isaac – the son of his wife Sarah and forefather of the Israelites – but also in his first-born son Ishmael – the son of the handmaid Hagar and forefather of the Arabs – he would have many descendants and be a great nation."

And here – again! – I must admit that you are right. As a result of that insertion of "Allah" in the first sentence, a completely incorrect meaning enters into the picture. It would have been better to say "with the God of the Arabs". And here we are again touching on the crucial issue: of course the "Allah" of the Koran is in no way identical with Yahweh, the God of the Jews and Christians. As I argued in my essay – hopefully with greater clarity – the Koran did not "come down directly from heaven", as Moslems invariably like to think – on the contrary, Mohammed took from the scriptures of the Jews and the Christians the parts that he thought usable for his purposes, and so put together a new "Bible" – the Koran.

It was Mohammed, then – a false prophet – who changed the function of "Allah", the former moon god of his tribe, reinventing him as the God of all the Arabs, and then put into his mouth all those utterances which he – Mohammed – thought would be useful in political (and power political), social and economic terms. And so I can completely sympathize with your doubts, which seem to me to be entirely well founded. Only in connection with one point would I like to direct your attention to a certain aspect which actually comes out in that same, misleadingly formulated section that I quoted above.

The promise of God to Abraham and Ishmael, the ancestor of the Arabs, cannot be retracted. It holds good into our own time, and for all eternity (Gen 17,13). If these people are now led astray by a false prophet, and in obedience to the Koran now worship a non-existent God, this is of course a major error, and one that must have repeatedly hindered the intellectual and social development of these peoples for the last 1400 years or so.

All the same, we representatives of the other two monotheistic religions – Jews and Christians, that is to say – are not in a position to throw stones. In Christian history too there have been times when Christians (Catholic Christians) prayed to a non-existent God: at the time of the Crusades, of the Inquisition, or in the extortionate levies and depredations with which the Catholic Popes buttressed their power – here and in like cases those persons in power prayed to God asking him to bless their crimes, their weapons and their plunder. The God they prayed to has never existed either.

And if we look at the past history of Israel, as it is portrayed in the Bible, we find that the Israelites too repeatedly prayed to idols and false gods, and for this they were punished by their God.

5Mo 32,18 "You neglected the Rock who begot you, And forgot the God who gave you birth. . 32,19 "The LORD saw this, and spurned them Because of the provocation of His sons and daughters. 32,20 "Then He said, ‘I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end shall be; For they are a perverse generation, Sons in whom is no faithfulness. 32,21 They have made Me jealous with what is not God; They have provoked Me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. Deut 32,18-21;

If then we Christians and Jews – like Joachim Siegerist in his comments quoted at the beginning of this discourse – take the view that our sins of this kind lie so far back in the past that they are no longer relevant, so to speak, then we should ask ourselves whether the God in whom George W. Bush believes really exists – or whether that God exists to whom those Israelis pray who have driven the Palestinian people out of their own homeland, resettled them in their own country in refugee camps (!) and who continue to shoot and murder Palestinians, including innocent women and children.

And just as today there are also Christians and Israelis who want no part in these questionable dealings of their co-religionists, there must certainly also be Moslems who when they pray to "Allah" ("God" – see footnote [1]) below) do not pray to the God of the Koran, but rather to the God of Abraham, as the Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth. These are the true descendants of Ishmael and, along with Christians and Jews, the children of Abraham.

Finally, to demonstrate the problems involved in an over-hasty condemnation of the Moslems (the people, not their religion!!), I would like to transpose the arguments you advanced comparing Christianity with Islam in the suggested direction, and apply them to Christianity as seen from the point of view of Orthodox Judaism. This might then give rise to statements like these:

- There are such significant differences between what Christians understand by God and Yahweh, as we meet him in the Torah, that at any rate in linguistic terms it is impossible to regard them as equivalents.

- At any rate what Christians understand by God has very little in common with the Yahweh of the Torah.

- The Yahweh of the Torah commands "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth" (Ex 21,24). The Christian God says "Love your enemies" (Lk 6,35).

- Yahweh allows a man to send his wife away by writing her a certificate of divorce (Deut 24,1).
The God of the Christians says "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her" (Mk 10,11).

- The prophets tell us: "But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that a wicked man does… he will die" (Eze 18,24).
Christianity on the other hand tells us that "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1Jn 1,9).

- The Israelites believe that "Abraham is our father" (Jn 8,39), that they are his descendants and children in the flesh.
Christians on the other hand claim that "It is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham" (Gal 3,7) and "It is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants" (Rom 9,8).

- Yahweh says in the Torah: "To you it was shown that you might know that the LORD, He is God; there is no other besides Him" (Deut 4,35).
But Jesus, in whom Christians believe, describes himself as the Son of God (Mt 26,63-64). This is blasphemy.

- Is this really still the God of Abraham, or is it not possible that Jesus, 1800 years later, put something quite different in his place?

As it is plain to see, we have been through all this already, 2000 years ago. Christians are convinced that the Jews of the time were wrong, and continue to be wrong to this day, in that they failed to recognize their Messiah and rejected him. And Moslems likewise, who in their turn see both Christians and Jews as "falsifiers of the scriptures" and regard themselves as being the only possessors of the original revelation, are also in error from a Christian point of view. Seeing that Mohammed lifted large parts of the Jewish Torah, Islam is in a position to make almost identical reproaches against Christianity with those from a Jewish standpoint given above.

But when now the founder of Christianity, the Son of the triune God and our Lord Jesus Christ, makes the claim "I am the way and the truth and the life", from a Christian angle there is only one possibility of salvation, from the time of the death of Jesus until his Second Coming – namely, to believe in the Son of God. After the Second Coming of the Lord, faith, as such, will no longer exist - there will only be the vision of God and the wrath of God. But this means that these are the only alternatives for all human beings, including Jews and Moslems: either to believe in Jesus Christ, or to be lost for all eternity. We have a confirmation of this in the same verse:

Jn 14,6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." Jn 14, 6;

This claim, though, is not a decision on the part of the Son, but follows from the will of the Father – the will, that is to say, of the God who made a covenant with Christians in his Son just as, in terms of the law of Moses, he made a covenant with Abraham and his sons Isaac and Ishmael and so with Jews and Moslems to the present day.

Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations!

1Mo 17 9 God said further to Abraham, "Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. 17,10 "This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised. 17,11 "And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you. 17,12 "And every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations, a servant who is born in the house or who is bought with money from any foreigner, who is not of your descendants. 17,13 "A servant who is born in your house or who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised; thus shall My covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. Gen 17, 9-13;

And through Jesus Christ the God of Abraham also holds out to Jews and Moslems the possibility of being saved by believing in his Son.

For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son.

Jn 5,22 For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, 5,23 so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Fatherwho sent Him. 5,24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Jn 5,22-24;

Jn 3,35 "The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand. 3,36 "He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. Jn 3,35-36;

Mt 11,25 At that time Jesus said, "I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. 11,26 "Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight. 11,27 All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Mt 11,25-27;

Mt 28,17 When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful. 28,18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.Mt 28,17-18;

Jn 6,44 "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. 6,45 "It is written in the prophets, ‘and they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone, who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me. Jn 6,44-45;

But we Christians, now, can infer from this that we have a responsibility of going out towards those Moslems who in their hearts worship the Almighty, the God of Abraham and Ishmael, who may be prepared to tread this one and unique path that our God – in grace, not justice – has opened to us, may be willing to turn to the Son of God and to their salvation. They are the ones to whom we should be preaching the gospel.

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitors to this site or from other authors.)

(Raping Christian women is "the duty of all Muslims" / Article by Christine Rütlisberger, KOPP-exklusiv 39/13)

Something like 60,000 Christians have been expelled from their homes by Syrian rebels to date. Not, be it noted, by the troops of the head of state Assad, but by the rebels who are supported by the West. Apparently we find this to be a normal state of affairs. After all, we don’t stop supporting the rebels – instead we take in the Christians who have been expelled from their homes. This point of view is politically correct. And what the forces supported by the West are currently getting up to in all parts of the Islam world is evidently a tabu subject.

Women as "sex slaves"

Take, for example, the well known Jordanian Islamic scholar Salafi Sheikh Yasir al-Ajlawni. A few months ago this man issued a fatwa – an Islamic law pronouncement – according to which it is all right for Muslims to rape Christian women in Islamic states. There is authority for this in the Koran, in the opinion of this Jordanian sheikh who is accepted as a spiritual leader by the Syrian rebels. You might think this is an unrepresentative isolated case. Unfortunately we find calls for the rape of Christian women emanating from all quarters of the Islamic world today.

In Saudi Arabia, television preacher Muhammad al-Arifi proclaimed a fatwa encouraging all Syrian rebels to take non-Muslim Syrian women prisoner and rape them en masse. In this way each fighter would "get his rights", said the Islamic scholar. At the same time the Egyptian Islamic teacher Sheikh Ishaq Huwaini even urges that a practice from the heyday of Islam be resumed, and that non-Muslim women should be sold quite openly in oriental markets as "sex slaves". This view even finds open support from Salwa al Mutairi, a Kuwaiti female politician who works for Islamic women’s rights.

Muslim scholars in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca have not just publicly confirmed this view – not long since they even stated emphatically that it is the duty of all Muslims to rape non-Islamic women and treat them as sex slaves. In Syria, the leader of the Jabhat ai-Nusra rebel battalion, which is supported by the West, recently abducted a 15 year old Christian girl by the name of Miriam and spent a whole day raping her. On the following 14 days the girl was passed on to another rebel each day – until, as a result of the repeated raping, she lost her reason. This case has been well documented. And the rebels are proud of it, because after all they are only observing the religious fatwas referred to above. Astonishingly enough, the western media have nothing whatever to say about it.

We had better keep quiet about it

Above all in Egypt, where every day young Coptic girls are abducted and raped by Muslims. Anne Patterson, the American Ambassadress in the Egyptian capital Cairo, did not – as might have been expected – offer the victims any support. On the contrary, she urged the leaders of the Coptic Christian community to stop protesting against the Muslim organizers of the serial rapes, because this would damage American interests in the region. Even more grotesque is the fact that Ambassadress Patterson told the Copts who asked for her support that as Islam is a "peaceful religion", the rapes cannot in fact have taken place. At any rate it would be better not to talk about them. One thing is clear – Christians in the Islamic world are lacking a lobby.

o Take Iraq – where since the American invasion 73 Christian churches have been burned down, and as much as half of the Christian population driven from their homes. The USA does nothing about it. On the contrary, they are selling the Iraqis more weapons than ever before

o Take Nigeria – in the north of the country, four churches on average are being burned down by Muslims every week. At the same time the Christian inhabitants are being murdered or driven from their homes. You can look in vain for any protest emanating from the western world.

o Take Indonesia – the biggest Islamic country in Asia. Here a fatwa has just been issued saying that all Christian schools must be closed. Any protests about this in the western world? Not a whisper.

o Take Uzbekistan, a country with a majority Muslim population. Here regular searches of Christian homes are being conducted, and any religious writings, such as the Bible, are confiscated. This is the government’s way of putting pressure on Christians to leave the country.

Christians lacking a lobby

We could continue the list of such cases indefinitely. One thing that clearly emerges is that we are supporting the enemies of the Christians all over the world. Why this is the case is something that we will one day have to explain to our children. The consequences of all this are increasingly being felt in Europe, on our very doorstep. It is not in Great Britain alone that we find whole groups of Muslims arraigned in court, who fail to comprehend why they should be punished in Europe for the fact that they have kept young Christian girls as sex slaves and raped them repeatedly. In Great Britain, cases like this have attracted a great deal of attention. In Germany we are more politically correct, and turn a blind eye to it

KOPP-exklusiv / www.kopp-exklusiv.de

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitors to this site or from other authors.)

(Bought journalists: what the media don’t tell us about the berserk driver in Graz / Udo Ulfkotte KOPP 26/15)

It is a known fact that on 20 June a 26-year-old man drove a jeep through Graz city centre, causing a massacre. The way politicians and the media have reacted is revealing.

The 26-year-old mass murderer is described in most German language media as an "Austrian" or "Styrian". Some media go on to mention that he is a Bosnian refugee, who has been living in Austria for something like two decades. Apart from this, all we hear from politicians, police and the media is that apparently he had "marital problems". The truth is that the marital rift happened a good while ago – at the time of the outrage, the man had not seen his wife for weeks. What were the politicians and the media trying to cover up?

A violent Islamist
The berserk driver is called Alen Rizvanovic, and he comes from the Bosnian town of Bihac, a town with a Muslim majority population. He was known to the Austrian police as being potentially "violent". A strict Muslim who had been radicalized, he demanded that his wife wear a headscarf. And because she refused to wear a headscarf, he beat her on several occasions so badly that she needed hospital treatment.

The one newspaper that comes anywhere close to mentioning these facts, the Krone, writes: "He repeatedly beat on his wife, and is thought to have finally forced her by this treatment to wear a headscarf." Why should this be kept from us? When the Graz municipal authorities, a few hours after the massacre, put out a condolences book at the town hall, as well as setting up an online facility for comments, eye witnesses of the incident came forward. Romana Küster, for instance, wrote in the condolences book, on 21 June at 10.25 am, as follows:

"I too was obliged to witness this terrible deed. When he got out of the car briefly on account of the cyclist, I was in a position to observe – along with two other shocked members of the public – that he shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’. And now politically correct persons are trying to tell us that it didn’t have anything to do with religion." «

This entry in the book of condolences, which was accompanied by the woman’s contact details and so can easily be verified, was immediately deleted – along with all other eyewitness reports to the same effect which referred to a radical Muslim as being the perpetrator. Why on earth were these entries expunged? A berserk driver who shouts "Allahu Akbar", who forces his wife to wear a headscarf and is a strict and radical Muslim, but according to the police, politicians and the media he "doesn’t have any kind of political, religious or extremist background" – what is really behind all this?

The answer to these questions may be found in an archive research going back to January 2015. At that time the Viennese Muslim leader Mohammed M., now fighting in Syria for IS, published a "Call to the slaughter of unbelievers" in Austria. Here he urged: "Just run over the kuffar in a crowded shopping street or slaughter them by creeping around." Kuffar is the Arabic term for "unbelievers". Without exception, all Austrian media reported conspicuously about this appeal at the time. The portal oezn.at, for example, had a headline: "Terror threats against Austria – Austrian terrorist calls for attacks on unbelievers in shopping streets."

The Austrian Minister of the Interior Johanna Mikl-Leitner then gave notice, still in January 2015, that with immediate effect 400 to 500 additional police would be deployed at "neuralgic points" to protect shopping citizens from berserk Muslim drivers. The special units too, we were told, had been "topped up". After that more than 80 young Muslims were kept under surveillance by the intelligence services. And the security authorities also had pointers to Alen Rizvanovic. Just five months later, the Muslim struck.

Fear of civil war
So evidently the massacre did not come as a surprise to the security authorities. But 36 hours before the incident, on 18 June, the Islamic Ramadan fast had just begun. And politicians and the media were going overboard to testify to their belief that Islam is "a religion of peace". The terrorist act would have been liable to provoke reactions in response – attacks by Austrians on praying Muslims, for instance. And so an immediate communiqué was issued to the effect that the Islamic terrorist attack should be presented as the act of a person with "mental problems".

They trusted to people’s short memories. They hoped that the Austrian population would no longer recollect that attacks in pedestrian zones had actually been anticipated. They kept quiet about it. The leading media did what they were told and sucked it up, again acting as cogs in the great disinformation machine. What do you know, maybe the Graz terrorist attack of a Muslim could even feature in forthcoming criminal statistics as the "act of a right-wing extremist". Then the deception of the population would be complete.

KOPP-exklusiv / www.kopp-exklusiv.de

[1] In Islam Allah (الله) is the Arabic name of God, but the same is true of Christianity. In the view of European scholars, the word is a combination of the definite article "al" with the Arab word for a divinity, "ilah". The literal meaning is therefore "the God", which is one of several concepts if admittedly somewhat emphatic. It is an important fact that Islamic scholars point, quite correctly, to the fact that it is by no means an automatic procedure that the prefixed article "al", placed in front of "ilah", should result in a contraction to "Allah" – what is more, this would be the only example of such a linguistic development in the Arabic language. In actual fact we find both "al-ilah" and "Allah" as parallel terms in all dictionaries to this day. Whereas "al-ilah" also has feminine and plural forms ("al-ilaha" for "the goddess", "al-ilahat" for "the goddesses" and "al-aliha" for "the gods"), as well as various other derivations, for the word ALLAH there is no strictly masculine form, any more than there is a feminine or a plural.

All this proves that we do not just have to do with this frequently asserted, mysterious contraction of article with noun, but that "Allah" is clearly a proper name and not just a concept on the lines of "the god". The confession of faith in Allah as the only God, the shahada, is one of the five pillars of Islam. When Moslems speak of Allah, they usually follow the name with the formula of praise Subhanahu wa Ta’ala ("He is praised and exalted"). The Moslem confession of faith, so frequently pronounced in the call to prayer, "La Ilaha illa Allah wa Muhammadun rasulullah" (لا اله الا الله و محمد رسول) thus means "There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his Prophet".

This however does not mean that there may not be quite different views taken of the nature of God. From the Christian angle it has been repeatedly stressed that Islam puts a major emphasis on God’s almighty power, while the New Testament sees God above all as a God of mercy and lovingkindness. A Moslem would say that Allah is the Almighty – and also the Compassionate and the Merciful ("ar-Rahman ar-Rahim"). Every action of a Moslem, from his getting up in the morning till he goes to bed at night, is preceded by the words "Bismillahi ’r-Rahmani ’r-Rahim", that is to say, "In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful". These two "names" of God (perhaps better called attributes) are among the most frequently used in the daily life of Islam.

Allah is the only name of God in Islam that is not descriptive. The ninety-nine names of Allah that have become proverbial are attributes, and all have their origin in the Koran. In the Koran itself, together with a series of other attributes, they make up a list of the "most beautiful names" of God ("asma’ul husna"). And the Moslem may only use these names of Allah that are mentioned in the Koran. These same attributes give rise to many Arab first names in common use, starting from Abdullah (servant of Allah) and including Abdul Hayy (servant of the Living One), Abdul Madschid (servant of the Glorious One), Abdul Rahman (Servant of the Merciful One), Abdul Halim (servant of the Clement, the Forbearing) and so on.

Linguistically speaking Allah is closely related to the Hebrrew El or Eloha, which most figures in the plural form Elohim (known as the pluralis maiestatis, or honorific plural), but is used as a synonym for Yahweh. Aramaic belongs to the same family of languages. In Aramaic we also find "Alah" or "Alaha", or depending on the dialect there is also the pronunciation "Aloho" with an open "O" sound. Jesus spoke a Palestinian dialect of Aramaic, the lingua franca of his homeland at the time. Thus he must likewise have been entirely familiar with the name of Allah – in Aramaic. Only when we cross the frontier from the Near East towards Europe do we find Christians using terms like "theos", "deus", "dio", "dieu", "bog", "God", "goth" or "Gott" in preference to Allah, Alah, Eloha, Elohim and their cognates.

(Net-Lexikom https://www.net-lexikon.de/)

Discourse 36 – Is Islam a peaceful religion?

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitors to this site or from other authors.)

(Is Islam a peaceful religion? / Essay JS00, 2001-10-06)

The Koran and the Bible.

Islam and Christianity.

The God of Islam.

Yasser Arafat at the Christian midnight mass at the Greek Orthodox church in Bethlehem

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitors to this site or from other authors.)

(Islam and the women. / Reply MP00, 2002-12-06)

The true house of God.

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitors to this site or from other authors.)

(My veil, my freedom. / Gloss Friederike Leibl, Austrian daily "Die Presse" 00, 2004-01-19)

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitors to this site or from other authors.)

(Is Allah identical with the God of the Jews and the Christians? / Reply ChB JS00, 2004-03-27)

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitors to this site or from other authors.)

(Raping Christian women is "the duty of all Muslims" / Article by Christine Rütlisberger, KOPP-exklusiv 39/13)

Islam now belongs to Germany?

(Texts in a black frame are quotations from visitors to this site or from other authors.)

(Bought journalists: what the media don’t tell us about the berserk driver in Graz / Udo Ulfkotte KOPP 26/15)