Author’s Note

The translation of the 'Koran' here is taken from that of a Mr. A. Yusuf Ali. I have picked this one because Mr. Ali is a devout Moslem, so no one can complain about a Western bias, and because his translation is one of the most explicit.

Other translations may vary slightly. In a few cases I have used that of a book that I was reading such as the The Social Laws of the Qur'an, and when this has been the case I have put a 'K' in front of the key to the book, so that for example the ‘SL’ key then becomes ‘KSL’.

The letter 'S' in front of a number indicates that this is a quote from the Koran.  The 'S' stands for 'Surah' (aka, 'Chapter’).

All the calendar dates used are Christian Era (C .E.).

The Arabic names are spelled differently in practically every book one reads. I have used the spelling used in the book I was citing in each case, to avoid the accusation of misquoting.

Key to sources or references appears at the end of this text.

 

There has been a resurgence of Islam recently. This has plunged the countries where this has happened into the dark ages.  They have been set back a thousand years.

In the    Sydney Morning Herald [SMH, 13-February-1979], it was reported that Pakistan is going to bring back stoning.  Moslems caught drinking alcohol will be given 80 lashes, and thieves will have either their foot or hand cut off.

In Iran men are sent to the firing squads on charges of "warring against God and his emissaries".  Courts have frozen pending divorces by women.  [SMH,  21-April-1979]

"Three girls' secondary schools were closed after being raided by Khomeini's  supporters, and unveiled women were being attacked in the streets.  Women who were protesting about Khomeini's speech telling women in the government to wear clothes covering hair, neck, arms and feet, were threatened with shouts of 'get dressed or get beaten.'"  [NR, 22-March-1979]

Also in Iran, Moslem demonstrators shouting "purification by fire", set alight to the red light district in Tehran.  Prostitutes were attacked, brothels, bars, and nightclubs looted.  [SMH, 31-January-1979]

An Abadan cinema was set alight [SMH, 22-August-1979] and 377 people were buried alive.  Those who set fire to it closed the exit doors from the outside, and systematically set it ablaze at its four corners.    It was reported that there had been 30 cinema fires in Iran in the previous month.  [Newsweek of 02-September-1978]

It was reported on 06-February-1978 that the 23-year-old Princes Misha was executed in Jiddah either for marrying a commoner or adultery.

In Malaysia, Moslem fanatics have been invading Hindu temples and mashing their images and gods.  This could start a religious war.  There are some Moslems who are demanding that the Islamic punishment of stoning and whipping be imposed.  [SMH,  09-July-1978]

On the Australian Broadcasting Commission radio news [ABC, 05-May-1979]  it was reported that in Iran, militant Moslems announced that they intended to convert the world to Islam, and that their first task was to "root out deviations”.

These events are not as Moslem apologists assert, aberrations, but an inevitable outcome of the basic teachings of Islam.  All can be justified either by the Koran or by the Hadiths - the traditions concerning the acts and sayings of Mohammed. both are considered a guide as to how life should be ordered in an Islamic society.

The Koran was written down 20 years after Mohammed's death, and the first Hadith 220 years after his death. [GM]   Many Hadiths were invented in the intervening years to support a particular course of action.  [GI]

According to both Hadith and Koran, Islam must be the world's most oppressive religion.  It is undemocratic; it is puritanical; it is barbarously punitive; it oppresses women;  its laws are cruel to animals;  it is intolerant towards other religions; it is anti-intellectual; it places restrictions upon art.

CRUEL PUNISHMENTS

100 lashes is given for adultery or fornication.  [S24.2]
80 lashes is given for bearing false witness.  Here this is only mentioned in reference to charges against chaste women.  [S24.4]

Flogging is also given for drinking alcohol. No punishment is prescribed in the Koran for this.  It merely states that it is a sin, [S2.219]  and an abomination. [S5.93]  In practice in many Moslem countries, 80 lashes is the penalty for merely drinking a glass of wine.

Yet there is no mention whatever in the Koran about drugs, and, in countries like  Iran where alcohol is strictly forbidden, there are estimated to be 2 million drug addicts; heroin and hashish is openly sold in the streets, and "addicts huddle by an open drain with rags over their heads inhaling amid a stench of stale urine." [SMH - 23-June-1979]

S5.41 says: "As to the thief, male or female. Cut off his or her hands."  So not just one hand is to be cut off but both of them.  [KY]

Women to be immured  [S4.15] says: "If any of your women are guilty of lewdness.  Take the evidence of four reliable witnesses from amongst you against them; and if they testify, confine them to their houses until Death do claim them. Or Allah ordain for them some other way."  So for some vague sexual trifle women can be locked up for their entire life.

The Koran seems to regard sexual misdemeanors as being more reprehensible than murder.  For killing another human being, one has only to make a compensation to the relatives of the person killed. [S2.178]  These are the only references I could find in the Koran to punishment, so for most crimes we have to rely on the Hadith.

Though there is no mention in the Koran about stoning for adultery,  Mohammed did use the punishment according to a Hadith.  One account says that a man who had become a Moslem confessed to fornication.  Mohammed ordered him to be stoned at the Musalla (mosque outside Medina).  When the stones struck him he ran away, but he was caught and stoned until he was dead.  Then Mohammed spoke well of him and prayed ever him.  [IW]

Another Hadith relates that a Jew and Jewess were brought before Mohammed for fornication.  Omar relates: "They were stoned on the level ground and I saw the man leaning over the woman to shield her from the stones."  [IW]

I find this story rather far-fetched, as it relates that the Jew was brought a Bible, and was told to read from it. He is supposed to have tried to cover the words about stoning with his hand.  He would have had to have been extremely stupid to have tried to do this in full view of a group of Moslems,  as this would only draw attention to the words.

Women will be happy to know that it is considered laudable to spare their modesty should they be stoned.  A hole is dug, and she is buried up to her waist before she is killed by having rocks thrown at her.  [DI]

The Dictionary of Islam (1885) says that stoning "has become almost obsolete in modern times”.   So this religion is becoming more repressive,  not less.  The victims will be happy to know that they will get the full funeral rites.  [DI]

THE OPPRESSION OF WOMEN

Islam is very had on women, particularly in sexual matters. The Koran [S2.223] says: "Your wives are as tilth unto you. So approach your tilth when or how ye will."  The word 'tilth' comes from ‘till’ - 'to work by plowing, sowing, and raising crops from".
[Webster's Dictionary]

So a man can have sex with one of his wives at any time, and in any way that he wants. The woman does not have similar rights.  As punishment, the Koran says that if women are disloyal their husbands should refuse to sleep with them. Sexuality in women seems to be considered undesirable.   Slave girls should be "chaste, not lustful".  [S4.25]   In the Moslem heaven men will be given dark-eyed virgins who are perpetually young.  There is no mention of women being provided with virile young men,  so they had better take their knitting with them,  as there will be little else to do.  The only pleasures described in the Koran are sitting on thrones, walking through gardens, eating fruits, and drinking heavenly wine  (which does not even intoxicate).

As Ramon Lull said of it: "What will their paradise be but a tavern of unwearied gorging,  and a brothel of perpetual turpitude?"

ISLAM HYPOCRITICAL ON SEX

THE VEIL

CLITORECTOMY

The Islamic law says that of circumcision and clitorectomy, “It is an obligation for men and women to do it for themselves, and their children, and if they neglect to it, the Imam may force them to it for it is right and necessary."   [IW]

In an article [SMH 16-January-1979]  on clitorectomy (female circumcision) in Egypt, Nawal Alsa’adawi, the Egyptian gynecologist and psychiatrist, was reported to have said: "You can't separate sexual oppression from political and religious oppression."

In an article on the practice, it was claimed that nearly all of the young girls in Egyptian villages, where most of the people live, are circumcised.  The article went on: "This circumcision is, in effect, castration of women.  For the wcmen, the pleasure of sex is gone."

Some of the girls bleed to death.  Others develop abcesses.  The article claimed that the religious establishment found her views too threatening.  Nawal defended Islam, and claimed that it was not responsible for these circumcisions,  and that Mohammed was progressive in regard to women.  I have shown in my section on this  that this was not the case.  She could hardly do otherwise in a country as religious as Egypt.  She has enough of a problem trying to prevent these mutilations from taking place, without challenging the very basis of the religion itself.

WOMEN BEFORE ISLAM

Women had a much higher status in Arabia before Islam.  There are accounts of women fighting in battles,  riding across the desert, visiting men alone,  and taking part in public debates.  [G]

Each of these stories ends with the words:  "This was before the Apostle received the revelation about veiling.  [GM]  The freedom women enjoyed before Islam is shown by the example of Khadija, Mohammed's first wife.  She was an heiress, and business woman,  and she proposed to him.

Women took a great part in the opposition to Mohammed.  One of his foremost opponents was Hind, the wife of Abu Sofian, the leader of the Meccans.

When Mohammed finally marched on Mecca and captured it, Abu Sofian made a speech to the people telling them that it was useless to oppose the Moslems.  Hind jumped up beside him and shouted: "Don't take any notice of this fat old fool.  A fine protector of his people he is!”  [GM]   

A poetess called Asma who lived in Medina wrote some satirical verses, making fun of her fellow citizens' adoption of Mohammed as their religious leader.  These were passed from mouth to mouth, holding him up to ridicule.  Mohammed arranged for her to he assassinated.  She was stabbed in her tent, surrounded by her five children. [GM  and MM]

THE MOSLEM HELL

In the Moslem hell one's skin is constantly being renewed after being roasted through so that the victim can "taste the penalty". [S4.56]   They will be wearing a garment of fire."  [S22.19]  They will eat foul fruits and be made to drink boiling water.  [S37.65-67] Over their heads will be poured boiling water.  [S22.19]  The water is not just boiling but foetid and "In gulps will he sip it, but never will he be near swallowing down his throat.  Death will come to him from every quarter,  yet will he not die: and in front of him will be a chastisement unrelenting."  [S14.17]   It will last forever [S43.74]   It will not be lightened and he will be in despair.  [S43.75]   They will beg for death but it will be denied. [S43.77]   As if that were not enough - "there will be maces of iron to punish them."   [S22.21]

INDIA

The intolerance of Islam towards polytheism (the worship of more than one god) has drowned the world in blood.  This was particularly the case in India.  In most parts of the world the pagans found it easier to give in and become Moslems.  But the Hindus were prepared to fight.

When the Moslems got to India they attacked the Hindus, killed them,  and destroyed their temples and images.  In Kananj alone, 10,000 temples were destroyed, and 50,000 Hindus were killed.   [NH]

The Hindus get on with each other quite well.  There has been very little conflict between the various sects of that religion.  As far as they are concerned a man can worship anything he wants, or nothing at all.  Hinduism is very tolerant in the matter of religion.

The religious strife between Moslems and Hindus is still continuing.  An eyewitness to the religious fighting during the British Raj states:

"The moment the crowd decided that one of the opposite religion had been killed, then everyone in one form of dress would turn on the others.... Thousands upon thousands an hour being killed, and of course it was a most terrifying sight.  They'd pick up any weapon they could, they shouted, they smashed, they always tried to whittle out the opposition so that they were heavily outnumbered.... Or you could go across Harrar Bridge, and you could see them being laid in their faces, with their heads poking out over the bridge, and being beheaded into the river, and their bodies being thrown in afterwards.  Of course, after the riot the river was practically choked with dead bodies...."

- from 'Plain Pales of the Raj' [ABC radio in 1978]

In the years since Islam was first established vast numbers of people must have died as a result of its teachings.  Glubb estimates that perhaps one or two people might have been killed in a normal Bedouin raid.  In the religious wars that took place when Mohammed proclaimed Jihad (holy war)  many millions have been killed.

When India was granted independence over 1,000,000 were killed in the strife which broke out between members of the two religions. [Encyclopedia Americana]

Even as I write these words, reports are coming in from all over the world - in India, Indonesia, Iran, the Philippines, North Africa - of Moslems fighting each other, and the members of other religions.  One does not read of Buddhists, Jains, or Parsees fighting members of other religions.  It's always the Moslems who are involved - apart from Protestants and Catholics fighting each other in Northern Ireland.

One can only conclude that there is something about this religion that causes this to happen.  This is the holy book of Islam, the Koran, that incites its followers to attack and kill those who belong to other faiths.

THE SUPPRESSION OF KNOWLEDGE

One myth that is widely believed is that Islam promoted knowledge, but this is not the case.  In later centuries a high civilization did develop in Moslem countries, but this was despite Islam, not because of it.

Gibb says: "The struggle to subordinate all intellectual life to the authority of religion went on for many centuries in successive regions of the Muslim world."  [G]

In the first and second centuries of Islam "a Moslem's duty was to practice Islam and not medicine."  [NA]   The Koran and the mosque remained the basis of Arab education until the Abbasids initiated a great age of learning in the 9th century.  [NA]

Arab civilization was built on that of Greece, Persia, and Rome. [GM]  Islam initially set these back.  It is said that the Moslems preserved the knowledge of the Greeks, but it was already being kept by the Byzantines, and the Moslems merely continued this process.  All the evidence indicates that Islam was a danger to Greek thought, and that it was just a lucky accident that it survived at all under this religion.

In 744 the rationalist Caliph Yazid III decreed that the doctrine of predestination should give way to that of free will.  [NA]  Then in 762 the capital of Islam was moved to Baghdad, in Persia, and civilization began again to flourish in the middle east. This owed more to the ancient civilization of Persia, which had already been 1,000 years old when Mohammed was born, than it did to Islam.

"... Persian songs, as well as Persian ideas and thoughts, won the day... and paved the way for a new era distinguished by the cultivation of science and scholarly pursuits." [NA]

The lslamic world has sunk back into ignorance again, and even in such great universities as Al-Azhar at Cairo - the largest Moslem university in the world - the Koran is the basis of education.  In many schools the children learn nothing else.  [MP] The Koran remains the basis of the law, and the foundation of the Moslem legal, judicial, and political system, and the guide to every aspect of life.  [MP]

ISLAM UNDEMOCRATIC

Another myth about Islam is that it promoted equality. In reality Islam permitted the ultimate inequality - slavery.  As Muir    says of Mohammed: "He riveted the fetter."  [S]  "There is no obligation whatever on a Moslem to release his slaves."  [SL]   Mohammed himself had slaves - 17 men and 11 women.  [MP]

One of the early Caliphs, Omar, "insisted on a medieval Apartheid with the Arabs as master race."  [NA]

In subsequent years the Arabs had one of the worst records as slavers, and this has continued right up till the latter years of the 20th century, and may still be going on. Some of the worst feudal regimes in history were based on Islam as is the present regime in Saudi Arabia.

Mohammed himself set a precedence for this by ruling Arabia as absolute dictator. Nutting says: "Mohammed concentrated all power temporal, and spiritual in his own hands, and had combined in himself the offices of lawgiver, chief, judge, commander, head of state, and head of church."  [NA]

He never bothered (or Allah never revealed to him) to convey the method by which he was to be succeeded.  After his death this led to the bloody wars between the Shi'ite and Sunni Moslems.

DON’T PRAY FOR RELATIVES

On returning from a raid against a tribe called the Banu Lahyan, Mohammed stopped at the grave of his mother.  The following 'revelation' prevented him from praying for her soul.  [DI]  "It is not fitting for the Prophet and those who believe, that they should pray for forgiveness for pagans, even though they be next of kin..."  [S9.113]  [DI]

CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

According to Moslem halal rites, when any animal is slaughtered, the man who kills it must face toward Mecca,  and say a prayer when he cuts its throat.  It is essential for the animal to bleed to death,  and it must be fully conscious, and cannot be tranquilized, or stunned.  [SMH of 6-March-1975 and ABC television program Nationwide of 6-March-1975]

ISLAM GROVELING

The very essence cf Islam is a supine acceptance of a groveling acceptance of one’s lot. The word ‘Islam’ itself means submission.  That is the will of Allah. They believe that nothing happens without his permission, so there is no point in trying to do anything about improving this life.

The doctrine of predestination is taught in S9.51 and in other passages.

ISLAM AND ART

Islam had a bad effect on art, as Mohammed disliked painting, music and poetry. Luckily,  the liking of the Arabs for the last two of these was too great for his influence to have much effect. It was on painting and sculpture that Islam had the worst influence, as all representations of either human or animal forms were forbidden, so their art was restricted to mindless patterns.

Mohammed said that those who decorate their tombs and churches with paintings "were the worst part of all creation."  [DI]

The example of the life of Mohammed is taken, with the Koran, as a guide to how life should be lived.  It is therefore very important to consider his character and acts.  When I began writing this pamphlet, I did not think that I would like Mohammed.  But the more I read about him the less attractive did I find him.

He was guilty of the worst crimes any man can commit - murder.  On one occasion he had the entire male population of a Jewish tribe, the Beni Quraizah, massacred, and then had the women and children sold into slavery. Every book on Mohammed mentions this incident, and the Koran [S33.26] refers to it.   [DI]

Mohammed had people killed for the most trivial reasons.  A man called Kinana ibn ali al Huquiq, who was the leader of a Jewish tribe whose fort was captured by the Moslems, tried to conceal the fact that he had gold.  When an informer told Mohammed of this he had Kinana tortured by having hot coals put on his chest till he was nearly dead,  and then he was killed.  [GM and MM]

A man called Al Nadhr, who was a teller of tales, used to say of Mohammed to his audiences: "Are not my stories as good as his?"  For this Mohammed ordered that his head be struck off.  [GM]  After the battle of Bedr a man called Uqba was taken prisoner.  When he was being taken away to be executed, he said to Mohammed "What will become of my little children?"  Mohammed replied: "Hellfire."  [GM and DI]

It might be thought that I am quoting from books which are hostile to Mohammed. This is not so.  Only Muir' s book is slightly hostile to him.  All the others go out of their way to portray him in a favorable light.  We have enough evidence in the Koran of Mohammed's cruel nature, in the punishments he ordered, his descriptions of hell, and his incitements to his followers to kill people.

Though he ordered the horrible mutilation of the cutting off of hands for theft,  he was himself one of the biggest thieves in history.  A 'revelation' from Allah permitted Mohammed to keep one-fifth of the spoils captured from the towns his followers invaded, and the caravans they raided.  [S8.41]

He was incredibly prudish.  At Medina it was the practice to fertilize the female date palm tree by hand.  Mohammed was so disgusted by this that he forbade his followers to practice it.  The result was that hardly any of their trees bore fruit, so he had to rescind his order.  [GM]

At the same time he was extremely lecherous, as can be seen by the large number of wives he had.  Karl Brockelmann, in his book History of the Islamic Peoples, says that Mohammed's death was brought on by "an excess of pleasure-taking in the harem."  [BI]

The only thing that can be said in his favor was that he did on occasion refrain from killing people.   I can't myself see  that this is a particularly great virtue.

It might be wondered how a man with this sort of character could become so admired, and could attain the position he did.  What is not realized is that many people of the time detested him.

After ten years of preaching in Mecca he only had acquired 70 followers.  When he secured a base at Medina, he used the same methods as Hitler or the American gangster Al Capone to establish his religion.  All the accounts that tell us of him are biased in his favor,  as death or exile awaited anyone who criticized Mohammed or the Koran when Islam became the state religion of Arabia.  [NA]

It might be said that Mohammed was a man of his time.  But we must judge him according to the standards of today, not those of 1200 years ago.  We should try to improve on the ethics of the past.  Moslems claim that Islam is a religion for our time, and it is by the ideals of this century that we should measure it, not by those of the  7th century.

According to these standards Mohammed was a cruel barbarian, merciless and fanatical.  He introduced religious hatred into large parts of the world that before were tolerant on such matters. He curtailed the freedom of women.  He endorsed slavery.  He broke up families.  He ordered cruel punishments.  The world would have been a better place if he had never been born.