Why Islam is Not a Religion
Just because people profess a faith in an ideology doesn’t make it a religion. In our lifetime, people swore loyalty to Communism and Nazism with religious fervor, but those ideologies were never granted a “religious” status. Also in America, one so-called “religious” practice – polygamy – was so offensive that the Mormon church was forced to discontinue it to gain legal acceptance. There are definite limits to what can be deemed a religion, even in First Amendment America.
In addition to being a hybrid, Islam is wholly materialistic. The Quran takes on an almost fetish character, where the book itself is “sacred,” not the contents. The focus of prayer and the object of pilgrimage and veneration is a black rock. The rewards for dying in the cause of Allah are completely material — virgins, food, and sensual ambiance.
As the ex-Muslim Wafa Sultan says in her excellent book A God Who Hates, the raids Muhammad and his companions carried out, which amounted to at least twenty-seven if you believe Islamic sources, occupy a major part of his biography. They were intended to acquire booty and to inflict harm upon rival tribes in order to deprive them of their ability to resist Islam. A philosophy of raiding “has rooted itself firmly in the Muslim mind. Bedouins feared raiding on the one hand, and relied on it as a means of livelihood on the other. Then Islam came along and canonized it. Muslims in the twenty-first century still fear they may be raided by others and live every second of their lives preparing to raid someone else. The philosophy of raiding rules their lives, the way they behave, their relationships, and their decisions.From here.
Finally, Islam is the only religion where territorial sovereignty is more important than the inner spiritual sovereignty over men’s hearts. Mankind and territory are divided between the world of “submission” and the world of “warfare.” Whereas Judeo-Christian religions focus on the righteousness of individuals, the emphasis in Islam is the collective –the ummah.
As the ex-Muslim Wafa Sultan says in her excellent book A God Who Hates, the raids Muhammad and his companions carried out, which amounted to at least twenty-seven if you believe Islamic sources, occupy a major part of his biography. They were intended to acquire booty and to inflict harm upon rival tribes in order to deprive them of their ability to resist Islam. A philosophy of raiding “has rooted itself firmly in the Muslim mind. Bedouins feared raiding on the one hand, and relied on it as a means of livelihood on the other. Then Islam came along and canonized it. Muslims in the twenty-first century still fear they may be raided by others and live every second of their lives preparing to raid someone else. The philosophy of raiding rules their lives, the way they behave, their relationships, and their decisions.From here.
Finally, Islam is the only religion where territorial sovereignty is more important than the inner spiritual sovereignty over men’s hearts. Mankind and territory are divided between the world of “submission” and the world of “warfare.” Whereas Judeo-Christian religions focus on the righteousness of individuals, the emphasis in Islam is the collective –the ummah.
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