Is Islam A Peaceful Religion

"You Jews should be aware: You will never, but never have peace with Hamas. Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews. They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Mohammed fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death."
Masab, son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef

President Bush, in a speech to the armies 101st Airborne on 11/21/01 (Bush to al Qaeda: 'We will never tire' CNN.com 11/22/01) said:

We fight now because we will not permit the terrorists -- these vicious and evil men -- to hijack a peaceful religion and to impose their will on America and the world.

Is Bush right that Islam is a peaceful religion being hijacked by terrorists or is it a warlike religion that creates terrorists?

John Walker Lindh an American from California, told his parents when he decided to convert to Islam that he was doing so partly because it was a gentle, peace-loving religion. He was later found in the basement of Mazar el Sharif fighting for the Taliban. When interviewed he told a Newsweek reporter that he “supported” the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. If Islam is a peaceful religion than why do formerly peace loving people wind up supporting terror after they convert? Cat Stevens who wrote the song "Peace Train" became Yusuf Islam. On September 21 2004, the plane he was on, United Flight 919 was diverted from Washington to Maine because while he was in the air, it was discovered that he was on a terrorist watch list (New York Post 9/22/04). One reason for this was that he raised money for and donated to Islamic charities that turned out to be fronts for Hamas. He publicly supported the Ayatollah Khomeini’s death sentence for blasphemy against Salman Rushdie in 1989 (“The Qur’an makes it clear,” said the author of “Peace Train,” that “if someone defames the Prophet, then he must die”), although he has backtracked since then. I saw an interview with Cat Stevens with Larry King in which he said he was a pacifist and would never knowingly support terrorism. It may be that he wasn't aware that his charitable contributions would be used for terrorism. Still his statement about Salman Rushdie and the fact that his charitable contributions went to terrorist fronts are a direct result of his conversion to Islam.

Although Cat Stevens may have changed his mind about Rushdie, the Iranians haven't. According to frontpagemag.com (Iran's Rushdies 2/25/05)

Marking the 16th anniversary of the Fatwa calling for author Salman Rushdie's death issued by Ayatollah Khomeini, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards announced: "The day will finally come when the apostate Salman Rushdie will receive his due punishment for his disgraceful and slanderous move against the Qur'an and the Prophet [Muhammad]." Iran's Leader Ali Khamenei stressed that the death sentence following the publication of Rushdie's 'The Satanic Verses' "is irrevocable."

If Islam is a religion of peace than we would expect that going to a Mosque to pray would make Muslims more peaceful. An article about how Christians are being driven from Iraq (Christians Being Driven From Iraq 10/13/04 Ekklesia) quoted Father Nizar Semaan as saying:

"When I asked one local Muslim known to be a man of peace the reason for this violence he said that all the week he is calm but when he goes to the mosque on Fridays and hears the Imam preach violence he loses his reason and feelings of hatred and violence grow in his heart."

Ayaan Hirst Ali a former member of the Dutch Parliament criticized conservative Islamic cultures and their traditional mistreatment of women and children and received death threats including one on a note with a dagger through it that had been thrust into Theo van Gogh. She was asked in an interview with Frontpage Magazine:

Q: Is Islam inherently anti-western, anti-individual, or anti woman or has it has been perverted by its leaders?
A: The religion is the problem. The religion is anti-individual. And the notion of equality between men and women, or at least protecting their rights as equally valuable, is also another Western notion. Islam as a doctrine, as a religion, is opposed to all of that. There are leaders who want to change that and move forward, and they are the ones who are accused of being infidels. From really the time the religion was founded until now, they have either been exiled or killed or silenced in some way.

Q: Is there anywhere where Islam is practiced today that you would say is a model situation?
A: Not where sharia – the law of Islam -- is implemented. Anywhere where sharia is implemented, you see incredible inhumanity. People’s hands are cut off. Women are confined to their homes and are stoned. Peopled are hanged. Homosexuals are hanged or must hide. That is Iran, Saudi Arabia … Afghanistan under the Taliban. Parts of Somalia are now under sharia rule. Anywhere there is sharia rule, there is violation of human rights.

Note how it is Muslims who accuse those who want to moderate Islamic doctrine of being infidels. Who knows better than Muslims what their religion is? Ms. Ali explained:

Every call for for change meets with the accusation “You are an infidel.” After the 11th of September, Western leaders started to persuade Muslims all over the world to stand up and say, “This is not done in my religion.” I started to download what bin Laden had said. Pretty much the message of bin Laden is that every Muslim should stand up and fight the enemies of Islam. I started to download his speeches and he quotes abundantly from the Koran and the Hadith (written traditions of the Prophet Muhammad). Bin Laden’s message is consistent. What he says, is in the Koran. What he says that the prophet did, it is true the prophet did. My reaction to that was, let’s not turn away from that but let’s acknowledge that our religion has very violent principles and by acknowledging those deviances, we can correct it. And that’s when I was met with the accusation “You’ve become an infidel.” Then in Holland, I started to point out the position of Muslim women in Holland and in Muslim countries. I said it is inferior and that inferiority and the violence against women and the subjugation against them is justified in the name of Islam. I said “Let’s acknowledge that this deformity is within the religion and reform it.” And the answer to that was always, “Oh, but you are an infidel if you say that.” I said “Let’s correct what the prophet Muhammad said” – “No. The prophet was perfect, he was infallible. You don’t correct what he said. If you do that you are an infidel.”

According to the Sword of Islam web page 90-95% of the conflicts on this planet in (2001) involve Muslims fighting non-Muslims or each other.

It must be stressed, as many friends who grew up as orthodox Muslims across the Islamic patrimony have told me in agonizing personal confessions — friends that attended madrassah and then Islamic institutions of higher learning in countries ranging from Morocco to Egypt, Bosnia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh — that it is virtually impossible to be reared in classical Islam and not be educated to hate Jews — based on a literalist reading the Koran, where many of the verses concerning Jews (and Christians) are hateful incitements to murder.

The holy books of Islam are the Koran and the Hadiths. What do the Koran and Hadiths tell us about whether Islam is peaceful or not? There are those who quote from the Islamic scriptures to argue for either case. In the table below I have listed some of the quotes used in these arguments.

For a much more extensive list of non-peaceful quotes from the Koran and Hadiths see An "Apostate" speaks.

In one column Islam is not only commanding Moslems to fight the non-believer, but to torture him as well. In the other column Islam appears to command tolerance. How can we make sense of these two columns of seemingly contradictory quotes?

The Koran is full of contradictory quotes about many subjects and may have been written by different people. One explanation for the contradictory quotes regarding the peaceful nature of Islam is that at different times it behooved Muhammad or others who claimed to speak for him to argue that Islam is a peaceful religion. To understand this it is helpful to consider that it is to the advantage of Moslems living in the United States at the present time to argue that Islam is a peaceful religion. Also the statements above may have been made to different audiences. An analogous situation exists in modern times in which Arafat claims he wants peace to Western audiences in while he encourages his followers to engage in Jihad. Another explanation is that Muhammad turned against Christians and Jews after they rejected his beliefs and so his statements became more hostile. That this played a role is clear in the statements that preach hatred toward the non-believer. Dr. Labib Mikhail in a speech to the Christian Coalition (The Future of Islam 2/15/03) said that Islam started out with a gracious period. He quoted a verse from the Koran from this period.

Those who are Jews or Christians whoever believes in Allah and the last day and does righteous good deeds shall have their reward with their lord. (Koran 2:62)

Dr. Labib continued by saying that Muhammad abrogated benevolent verses such as these with hostile verses to the non-believer when he became strong and realized that the Jews and Christians would not accept his religion. Dr. Labib said that verses such as:

Oh you who believe the polytheists and disbelievers in Allah and the method of Muhammad are impure and so let them not come near Kaab (9:28)

This is the face of Islam we encounter today. The Koran commends Muslims to terrorize and strike the necks and smite fingers and toes of the infidel. The Koran says I will cast terror into the hearts of those who are infidel so strike them over the neck and smite over all their fingers and their toes. This is because they defied and disobeyed Allah and his messenger Muhammad. (Koran 8 verses 12-140)

Serge Trifkovic in his excellent book The Sword of the Prophet recounts in detail how Muhammad tried to convince people to believe in his faith by incorporating their religious practices. The Islamic ceremonies of circumambulation around the Kaaba, the kissing of the Black Stone, visits to Safa and Marawa, the throwing of stones against a stone pillar symbolizing the devil all pre-date Islam. In fact the reports in both the Kuran and the Hadiths concerning Paradise, the houris and the silk adorned youths, the Jinn and the angel of death have been directly taken from the ancient books of the Zoroastrians. Dr. Trifkovic also describes in detail how Muhammad tried to appeal to non-believers with a benevolent approach which turned into an extremely hostile approach when his claims to prophethood were rejected and when he had the power to get revenge.

Yet another way to understand these contradictions is to consider the concepts of Dar al Harb, Dar al Islam and Dhimmi.

Islam divides the world into two regions: Dar al Harb, or the world of the sword, containing all territories ruled by non-Muslims, and Dar al Islam, or the house of Islam. Moslems are commanded to fight those in the Dar al Harb and subjugate them. Ahmadinejad explained in August of 2006

The conquered infidel must live as a second class citizen, pay special taxes, the jizya, or poll tax, and kharaj, or land tax and obey Shar'ia or Islamic law in order to be "protected" by the rulers and in order to have the right to practice their religion. Andrew Bostom explained that (Democrats for Jihad, Frontpage Magazine, 1/4/06):

The nature of such “protection” is clarified in this definition of jizya by the seminal Arabic lexicographer, E.W. Lane, based on a careful analysis of the etymology of the term:

The tax that is taken from the free non-Muslim subjects of a Muslim government whereby they ratify the compact that assures them protection, as though it were compensation for not being slain.

If they do not pay the poll tax the conquered infidel is to be killed or enslaved. If they do they are not to be killed. That may be the source of contradictory statements about tolerating the religion of the non-believer.

Actually thats not entirely true. The 11th century Baghdad jurist, al-Mawardi, wrote in his epic Laws of Islamic Governance of the jizhya or compulsory poll tax levied on dhimmis,

The taxes on infidels were so exorbitant that many could not pay. Andrew Bostom wrote about the situation in Turkey in the 1940s (frontpagemag.com 8/3/2007).

According to an editorial in the New York Times dated September 17, 1943 (p.20), the taxes for Greek Orthodox were 156% of annual income, 179% for Jews, and 232% for Armenians—compared to 4.96% of annual income for Muslim Turks.

Moreover, the 4000 to 5000 non-Muslims deported to the camps at Aşkale for “defaulting” on this punitive taxation scheme, experienced harassment (especially during transport), cramped, filthy living conditions, poor nutrition, and limited access to medical care, as characterized by Alexandris: 153

…there is conclusive evidence to suggest that the varlik vergesi victims suffered considerable harassment particularly during their transportation to the internment camps. After visiting an internment camp in the middle of February 1943, the British Colonel Binns described the treatment which was meted out to defaulting taxpayers. “This morning I visted the barn at Demikarpi where some forty merchants, lawyers, and others have been imprisoned for the last ten days and are being dispatched this evening to Aşkale to join the 32 already there. The room in which they are imprisoned is some fifteen yards in length by eight yards in width…There was not a stick of furniture of any kind with the exception of one stove. The room was full of weeping men, women, and children who had come to say goodbye and to bring deportees odd parcels of food and clothing. A most depressing and wretched picture.”

Jizya tax can extend beyond money or farm produce. Bat Ye'or explained (Bat Ye’or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996, p. 108.) that:

When Amr conquered Tripoli (Libya) in 643, he forced the Jewish and Christian Berbers to give their wives and children as slaves to the Arab army as part of their jizya [tax on non-Muslims]. From 652 until its conquest in 1276,

Nubia was forced to send an annual contingent of slaves to Cairo. Treaties concluded with the towns of Transoxiana, Sijistan, Armenia, and Fezzan (Maghreb) under the Umayyads and Abbasids stipulated an annual dispatch of slaves from both sexes.

Robert Spencer in an article titled Muslim Persecution of Christians wrote how In a recent Friday sermon at a mosque in Mecca, Sheikh
Marzouq Salem Al-Ghamdi spelled out the Sharia’s injunctions for dhimmis:

In addition it is a religious obligation to humiliate the Dhimmi. K. S. Lal in (The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India [1992], p. 237) wrote:

Shaikh Abdul Quddus Gangoh,...belonged to the Chishtia Silsila considered to be the most tolerant of all Sufi groups. He wrote letters to the Sultan Sikandar Lodi, Babur, and Humayun to re-invigorate the Shariat [Sharia] and reduce the Hindus to payers of land tax and jizya. To Babur he wrote, "... No non-Muslim should be given any office or employment in the Diwan of Islam... Furthermore, in conformity with the principles of the Shariat they should be subjected to all types of indignities and humiliations. They should be made to pay the jizya...They should be disallowed from donning the dress of the Muslims and should be forced to keep their Kufr [infidelity] concealed and not to perform the ceremonies of their Kufr openly and freely… They should not be allowed to consider themselves the equal to the Muslims."

Apologists argue that Sufis are an example of tolerant Islam however the above is only one example of the intolerance that has been part of Sufism. An excellent online book with more information can be viewed by clicking here.

By considering these concepts we can better understand some of the seeming contradictions. For example Dhimmi shouldn't be killed. All the extra revenue from the jizya and kharaj taxes would be lost if they were. Moslems in many countries throughout the world are intolerant of non-believers who are not Dhimmi and on occasion have killed Dhimmi even though they are not to be killed according to Islamic law. Many Christians have fled the Palestinian controlled areas because of their Dhimmi status there.

Many of Yemen's Jews this weekend fled their homes for a hotel after receiving death threats from Islamic militants accusing the country's tiny Jewish community of serving as agents for "global Zionism."
The Jews said they feared for their lives. It was disclosed they had been forced to pay special taxes that Islam imposes on Jews and Christians in return for protection and security.

Voice of the Martyrs reported in August 2007 that Christian residents of several neighborhoods in northern Pakistan have been sent letters "inviting" them to abandon Christianity and join Islam – or be killed. "Through this open letter you are openly invited to convert to Islam and quit Christianity, the religion of infidels," the letter said. Readers could "ensure your place in heaven" by adopting Islam. The letter said:

"We will wipe out your slum on next Friday, August, 10th, 2007. And you, yourself would be responsible for the destruction of your men and material. Get ready! This is not a mere threat, our suicide bombers are ready to wipe out your name and signs from the face of earth. Consider it be the Knock of Death."

Why are Dhimmi Christians killed in spite of the classical Islamic teaching that Christians are a protected minority, allowed to live in the Islamic state and keep their Christian religion? The threats to the Christians in Pakistan followed by the suggestion from U.S. presidential candidate Tom Tancredo that the U.S. threaten to bomb Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina in retaliation if there would be a terrorist nuclear attack on the United States. The letter said:

"We would be pleased to send those to Hell who dared casting malicious eye on Khana Kaba (Mecca, Saudi Arabia) and Prophet's Mosque (Medina, Saudi Arabia). There is death here (in Pakistan) for the agents and followers of the religion of Americans (Christians)."

"We would wipe out the Churches from the face of the earth because our mosques, seminaries and children are being martyred on the directions of United States. We would write a new history with the blood of Infidels. Our suicide bombers, lovers of Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) are ready to strike churches, to protect the sanctity of Mecca and Medina, and pride of Islam.

"These suicide bombers would strike at any time or day. It is our first and foremost Jihad (Islamic Holy war) to assassinate and eradicate the infidels from the face of earth."

When the Christians are perceived as a threat it is allowed by Islam to kill them. Notice how Tancredo’s statement was made in response of the threat of nuclear attack by Muslims. Muslims pose a threat to the infidel, when an infidel threatens to retaliate that becomes a reason to kill other infidels even if the other infidels are Dhimmis. If a Christian criticizes Muslim behavior that can become a reason to kill him because he might be then accused of blasphemy as was Younis Masih who spoke out against the rape of Christian girls.

Christians were killed in Turkey partly because they sought equal rights which Dhimmis are not allowed to have. In the early 1900s historian Johannes Lepsius' eyewitness accounts from Turkey documented the attacks on the Christians.

"559 villages whose surviving inhabitants were converted to Islam with fire and sword; 568 churches thoroughly pillaged, destroyed and razed to the ground; of 282 Christian churches transformed into mosques; of 21 Protestant preachers and 170 Armenian priests who were, after enduring unspeakable tortures, murdered on their refusal to accept Islam." Lepsius concluded with this rhetorical question: "Is this a religious persecution or is it not?"

An article by the Barnabus fund explains that some of the Iraqi Muslims justify killing Christians by claiming that Christians are no longer protected people of the book but infidels for having rejected Islam for so long. Other Muslims claim that Christians have broken their Dhimmi pact by 'assisting' the Western Christian enemies of Islam as well as by claiming equality in a Muslim state.

My Dhimmi explanation regarding the contradictory quotes about treatment of the non-believer, is supported by the writings of Taqiuddin an-Nabhani (Islamic Concepts, produced by Al Khilafah, UK) who writes that it is an obligation for Moslems to fight Jihad for world domination and that when the Muslims get the upper hand the Koran will dictate the following course of events:

...if the enemies from the kafireen [infidels] are encircled then they will be invited to Islam....If they rejected Islam, then Jiziya [tribute] would be demanded from them...if the enemy rejected Islam and rejected paying the jiziya then it is Halal [permissible] to fight against them.

Bat Ye'or quoted a chronicle that was completed in 774 about how the taxes were collected in the 8th century in the Middle East in her book The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam. She wrote:

The caliph al-Mansur (754-75) ordered a census of the tributaries subject to the poll tax. He set up a governor in Mesopotamia:

In order to brand men as slaves and mark them above their necks... But here they bore it [the sign fo the Beast, Revelation 20:4] not only on their forehead, but on both their hands, their chest and even on their back... When he [the governor] entered the towns, all the men were seized by fear and took flight before him... He also set up another governor to bring back <every man who had fled> to his country, to his father's house... Thereafter, there was nowhere that was safe; but everywhere pillage, cruelty, iniquity, impiety, every evil deed, calumnies, injustice, man's vengeance against man.

Over-taxed and tortured by the tax collectors, the villagers fled into hiding or emigrated to the towns. There they hoped to melt into anonymity among the throng of prisoners deported from the conquered regions and the mass of slaves rounded up in the razzias. However, even in the towns, the dhimmis barely escaped from the tax collectors:

The men were scattered, they became wanderers everywhere; the fields were laid waste, the country side pillaged; the people went from one land to another.

Money was extorted by blows, torture, and death - particularly by crucifixion. Sometimes the whole population of a village - Christians, Jews and Arabs - were kept in a church for several days without food, and in promiscuity, till a ransom was paid...

In Egypt at the same period, the dhimmis, ruined by taxation, abandoned their lands and villages. Pursued by the tax collectors, they were brought back by force. Taking advantage of the right of conquest over non-Muslims, the state recouped its losses from the insolvent Coptic peasantry by enslaving their children...

The poll tax was extorted by torture. The tax inspectors demanded gifts for themselves; widows and orphans were pillaged and despoiled. "They mercilessly struck honoralbe men and old hoary elders." These evils afflicted the whole Abbasid empire. In Lower Egypt, the Copts crushed and ruined by taxation and subjected to torture, rebelled (832) The Arab governor ordered their villages, vines, gardens, churches, and the whole region to be burned down; those who escaped massacre were deported. The previous uprisings of the Copts in Lower Egypt in 725 and 739 had ended in a blood bath.

Ninth century sources indicate that the situation was similar in Spain. This covetousness and these exactions provoked incessant uprisings by neo-Muslims (muwallad) and Christians (Mozarabs).

According to some jurists, the poll tax had to be paid by each person individually at a humiliating public ceremony; while paying it, the dhimmi was struck either on his head or on the nape of his neck. This blow to the neck, a symbol of the non-Muslim's humiliation, was repeated over the centuries and survived unchanged until the dawn of the twentieth century, being ritually performed in Arab-Muslim countries, such as Yemen and Morocco, where the Koranic tax continued to be extorted from the Jews.

In theory, women, paupers, the sick, and the infirm were exempt from the poll tax; nevertheless, Armenian, Syriac and Jewish sources provide abundant proof that the jizya was exacted from children, widows, orphans, and even the dead.

Maria Rose Menocal wrote a book, the Ornament of the World: How Muslims Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain. The truth is quite different. An excellent article about what life was like in Spain for non-Muslims was written by Bat Ye'or and Andrew Bostom and is called Andalusian Myth, Eurabian Reality.

Egyptian Copts have been living under extreme fear, oppression and terror in Egypt more than ever before for the last 30 years. Coptic girls have been disappearing and kidnapped by Muslim gangs and later placed into forced conversions and marriages to Muslim men. If they attempt to go back to Christianity they are murdered as apostates. Churches are being burned and Copts by the dozens are being killed. The last attack was in Alexandria recently when a nun was stabbed, Bibles were burnt, and the local Coptic Church was desecrated by a mob.

The famous Jewish philosopher and physician Maimonides, often cited as an example of the fruitful symbiosis of Jewish and Islamic culture, had this to say of Arabs: "The Arabs have persecuted us severely and passed harmful and discriminatory legisltation against us... Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase and hate us as much as they."

George Braswell, Jr. (B.D., Yale; Ph.D., U of NC) who lived in Iran for seven years, defines the word “peace” from a Muslim perspective: “The world…of Islam must conquer and rule over those of ignorance and disobedience…. The peace of the world cannot be secured until the peoples come under the rule and protection of Islam.” (What You Need To Know About Islam and Muslims, p. 87)

When Islam strives for peace, its objective is not that superficial peace which requires that only that part of the earth where the followers of Islam are residing remain secure. The peace which Islam desires is that the religion (i.e. the Law of the society) be purified for God, that the obedience of all people be for God alone, and that some people should not be lords over others. After the the period of the prophet - peace be on him - only the final stages of the movement of Jihad are to be followed; the initial or middle stages are not applicable.

Robert Spencer in his book Onward Muslim Soldiers explains that this means that:

there are now only two kinds of non-Muslims: those at war with Islam and those who have submitted to it.

the wars of mankind must not cease until ... equality of dignity and rights is denied to whole classes and races of people, who forever must be consigned to humiliating second-class status unless and until they are willing to deny their conscience and identity.

Dhimmis are considered ritually unclean or najas. Mohammad Baqer Majlesi (d. 1699), the highest institutionalized clerical officer under both Shah Sulayman (1666-1694) and Shah Husayn (1694-1722), wrote a treatise in which he wrote down rules to prevent Muslims from being contaminated by contact with Dhimmis. He wrote (The Ayatollah's Final Solution 7/5/04):

“And, that they should not enter the pool while a Muslim is bathing at the public baths…It is also incumbent upon Muslims that they should not accept from them victuals with which they had come into contact, such as distillates , which cannot be purified. In something can be purified, such as clothes, if they are dry, they can be accepted, they are clean. But if they [the dhimmis] had come into contact with those cloths in moisture they should be rinsed with water after being obtained. As for hide, or that which has been made of hide such as shoes and boots, and meat, whose religious cleanliness and lawfulness are conditional on the animal’s being slaughtered [according to the Shari’a], these may not be taken from them. Similarly, liquids that have been preserved in skins, such as oils, grape syrup, [fruit] juices, myrobalan, and the like, if they have been put in skin containers or water skins, these should [also] not be accepted from them…It would also be better if the ruler of the Muslims would establish that all infidels could not move out of their homes on days when it rains or snows because they would make Muslims impure.”

Ayatollah Khomeini stated explicitly, “Non-Muslims of any religion or creed are najas.” The Iranian Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri further elaborated that a non-Muslim (kafir’s) impurity was, “a political order from Islam and must be adhered to by the followers of Islam, and the goal [was] to promote general hatred toward those who are outside Muslim circles.” This "hatred" was to assure that Muslims would not succumb to corrupt, i.e., non-Islamic, thoughts.

In her book, The Smyrna Affair Marjorie Houspian, describes what Dhimmi life was like under the Turks.

"Beginning in the fifteenth century, Ottoman policy drove the most unmanageable elements, such as the Kurds, into the six Armenian provinces in the isolated northeast. Thereafter, the Armenians were not only subjected to the iniquitous tax-farming system (applicable to the Moslem peasants as well), the head tax, and the dubious privilege of the military exemption tax, but also to impositions that gave the semibarbarous tribes license to abuse them. The hospitality tax, which entitled government officials "and all who passed as such" to free lodging and food for three days a year in an Armenian home, as benigh compared to the dreaded kishlak, or winter-quartering tax, whereby - in return for a fee pocketed by the vali - a Kurd was given the right to quarter himself and his cattle in Armenian homes during the long winter months, which often extended to half the year. The fact that Armenian dwellings were none too spacious and the Kurdish way of life exceptionally crude proved the least of the burden. Knowing that the unarmed Armenians had neither physical nor legal redress, a Kurd, armed to the teeth, could not only make free with his host's possessions but if the fancy struck him could rape and kidnap his women and girls as well."

Bat Ye'or in her book The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam wrote how the Turks enslaved Armenian children to work in their factories. She quoted Avedis Perperean's book Patmut'iwn Hayok (History of the Armenians, 1771-1860) (Armenian) Constantinople, 1871),260-61.

By royal decree, many [thousands of] Armenian children [from eight to fifteen years of age] from Sebastia [Sivas] and from other towns in Anatolia were assembled in Erzerum and taken to Constantinople for forced labor at the iplikhane [spinning mill], the Sultan's shipyard, to manufacture sails for ships and at [the foundry] forging hot iron. They were given bread and clothing, but no salary. And this order is renewed year after year and they collect hundreds of Armenian children from every town, deprive them of their parents and their homeland, and during this thirty day march [journey] in bare feet and rags, [they] take them to Constantinople. Several die of cold and want on the way and later through the tyranny of their masters, while others convert to Islam, hoping thus to obtain their freedom. None of the Armenian leaders dare protest to the government against this diabolical evil.

It is impossible to assess the number of Christians and Jews who passed from dhimmitude to slavery over the centuries; the last significant group were the thousands of Ottoman Armenian women and children in 1915-17.

The barrier between the social category of dhimmis and that of slaves was hardly ever impervious, since abduction of dhimmi women and children, razzias on villages or dhimmi districts, tribal revolts, or the insolvency of the Jizya tax were sufficient to transfer individuals from one day to the next from the category of dhimmi to that of slave... Thus, Harun al-Rashid (d.809) received a considerable number of slaves in place of kharaj. Ma'mun reduced thousands of Coptic dhimmis of Lower Egypt to slavery and deported them to the lower Iraq area.

The state was not alone in drawing its supplies of slaves from the dhimmi populations. The nomads also replenished their stocks through razzias and ambushes. A moving poem by Joseph Ibn Abitur describes the pillage, massacres, sodomy, and slavery inflicted on Palestinian Jews in 1024 by Tayy Bedouins, led by Hasan b. Jarrah, who controlled the region.

Whatever limited protection Dhimmittude offered vanished when Turkey decided to eliminate its minorities. Marjorie Housepian wrote:

In joining his nation to the twentieth century, Kemal was to complete the task begun by his predecessors - the final effacing of its unassimilable elements from the land.

An online article which summarizes Turkey's treatment of the infidel through history has been written by Gamaliel Isaac.

One complaint Muslims often make when people quote from the Koran quotes about chopping off appendages of infidels is that the quotes are taken out of context. Crying, "I've been taken out of context" is the last refuge of the scoundrel. In this web page however, we will heed this complaint of Islamic scoundrels and look at the context of some of the "tolerant"quotes of Islam.

A widely quoted sentence in the Koran to show how tolerant Islam is, is (Koran 5:32):

whoever slays a soul, unless it be for manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as though he slew all men; and whoever keeps it alive, it is as though he kept alive all men...

The first part of that sentence is generally left out which is "For this reason did We prescribe to the children of Israel that:"

In order to convince Jews to become Muslims, Muhammad stated that Allah and the God of the Jews were one and the same. This created a problem when Islamic commands to murder the infidel conflicted with the Biblical command, "Thou shalt not murder".

whoever destroys one life is regarded by the Torah as if he has destroyed a whole world; and whoever saves one life, is regarded as if he has saved a whole world.

The Koran explained that Allah said this because of two brothers, one of whom killed the other and then regretted it. The Koran goes on to say that this rule doesn't apply to those who make mischief and acted extravagantly in the land, i.e. those who disobey Islam and that the Jews were guilty of this. The Koran explains:

For this reason did We prescribe to the children of Israel that whoever slays a soul, unless it be for manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as though he slew all men; and whoever keeps it alive, it is as though he kept alive all men; and certainly Our apostles came to them with clear arguments, but even after that many of them certainly act extravagantly in the land.
(Koran 5:32).

This sentence would make a Judo master proud. Notice how the phrase "whoever saves one life, is regarded as if he has saved a whole world" has become "whoever slays a soul it is as if he slew all men" and the Jews are accused of having acted in this way.

The next sentence in the Koran is deliberately omitted by apologists for Islam and is (Koran 5:33):

The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement.

So the sentence of tolerance that so many Moslems quote is in the Koran in order to justify imprisonment, torture and murder of the infidel. According to Ibn Warraq this statement was a threat specifically to Jews.

The quote that there is no compulsion in religion is used often by apologists for Islam. At first glance this quote is in blatant contradiction to quotes in the same chapter such as [Koran 9.29]

Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.

How can we understand this apparent contradiction? These quotes make sense if the statement that there is no compulsion in religion refers to people who are already in a state of subjection. They are not to be compelled to convert. If they were forced to convert then they wouldn't be paying the special jizya taxes that infidels had to pay that enriched Islamic coffers. There is actually historical evidence that such an incentive to not convert the infidel existed. Bernard Lewis in his book The Arabs in History p70 wrote:

The disposal of by the Arab ruling caste of vast sums of money helped the growth of a new class -- the _Mawâlî_ (singular _Mawlâ_). A Mawlâ was any Muslim who was not a full member by descent of any Arab tribe. ... The Mawâlî ... as Muslims were theoretically the equals of the Arabs, and claimed social and economic equality with them. This equality was never fully conceded by the Arab aristocracy during the Umayyad period. While some Mawâlî landowners did succeed in obtaining a Muslim rate of tax assesment by their services to the new regime, the majority failed, and by the time of `Abd al-Malik the Muslim government actually resorted to discouraging conversion and driving the Mawâlî from the towns back to their fields in order to restore the failing revenues of the state."

(A "Muslim rate of tax assesment" was of course a lower rate.)

A Jizya paying infidel was considered a very valuable commodity. After the conquest of Alexandria, Caliph Omar received word from his general describing the wealth they had just attained (From Time Immemorial):

I have captured a city from the description of which I shall refrain. Suffice it to say that I have seized therein 4,000 villas with 4,000 baths, 40,000 poll-tax paying Jews and four hundred places of entertainment for the royalty."

Bat Ye'or in her book, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam, wrote how infidels fled to avoid paying the taxes and how

Like the Arab conquerors of earlier times, the Turkish sultans Osman and Orkhan also adopted measures for their new European possessions which immobilized the Christian peasants on their fiefs and forbade them to flee or to emigrate. Anxious to preserve productivity from the land and the volume of taxation, the Ottomans protected the peasants. Some Christian regions, the island of Chios, for example, even benefited form a semi-autochthonous administration which guaranteed a better economic yield and a higher tax. In remote and inaccessible regions of Serbia, the Turkish administration left a large degree of autonomy to the villages, where mayors, elected by the population, allocated taxes and served as intermediaries to the Turks.

Robert Spencer in an article titled A Vatican Apology For the Crusades? wrote how the desire for profit was the reason Muslims didn't kill Christians. He wrote:

On May 29, 1453, Constantinople, the jewel of Christendom, finally fell to an overwhelming Muslim force after weeks of resistance by a small band of valiant Greeks. According to the great historian of the Crusades Steven Runciman, the Muslim soldiers “slew everyone that they met in the streets, men, women, and children without discrimination. The blood ran in rivers down the steep streets from the heights of Petra toward the Golden Horn. But soon the lust for slaughter was assuaged. The soldiers realized that captives and precious objects would bring them greater profit.”

Sometimes it took a while for the realization that oppressing Jews was a bad financial move. Joan Peter's in her book From Time Immemorial wrote:

One overlord decided to rid the Arabian peninsula of Jews by offering them a choice of religious conversion or banishment; the overwhelming number chose to leave the capitals and head for the Red Sea Coast Those who had not died of starvation, thirst, or illness during the torturous journey - for many, on foot - were allowed to settle in a town called Mauza', where more casualties were caused by the cruelties of the climate. The Jews' exile at Mauza' was terminated by decree in 1781, according to one report, because the exiled Jews ahd been the only craftsmen int eh country and their work was keenly missed.

Despite the command that there is no compulsion in religion Muslims have compelled infidels to convert and kept them as slaves even after they converted. Robert Spencer wrote in Frontpage Magazine that:

Slaves faced pressure to convert to Islam. In an analysis of Islamic political theories, Patricia Crone notes that after a jihad battle was concluded, “male captives might be killed or enslaved…Dispersed in Muslim households, slaves almost always converted, encouraged or pressurized [sic] by their masters, driven by a need to bond with others, or slowly, becoming accustomed to seeing things through Muslim eyes even if they tried to resist.”[4] Thomas Pellow, an Englishman who was enslaved in Morocco for twenty-three years after being captured as a cabin boy on a small English vessel in 1716, was tortured until he accepted Islam. For weeks he was beaten and starved, and finally gave in after his torturer resorted to “burning my flesh off my bones by fire, which the tyrant did, by frequent repetitions, after a most cruel manner.”[5]

Taxes levied on infidels was a form of compulsion to convert. Firoz Shah Tughlaq explained how Jizya was sued to help conversions in India. (Schimmel, Annemarie (1980) Islam in the Indian Subcontinent, Brill, 22 ISBN 9004061177

The quote about there being no compulsion in religion is likely to have raised questions among Muslim followers. One question might have been, if there is no compulsion in religion does that mean non-believers can be good people? Does it mean that not believing is not such a bad thing? Is it OK to question Islam? How do we Muslims know for sure that we are right? Obviously Muhammad would not want his followers to think along these lines. Islam makes sure that such erroneous notions are dispelled immediately. Here is the compulsion quote in its immediate context:

[2.256] There is no compulsion in religion; truly the right way has become clearly distinct from error; therefore, whoever disbelieves in the Satan and believes in Allah he indeed has laid hold on the firmest handle, which shall not break off, and Allah is Hearing, Knowing. [2.257] Allah is the guardian of those who believe. He brings them out of the darkness into the light; and (as to) those who disbelieve, their guardians are Satans who take them out of the light into the darkness; they are the inmates of the fire, in it they shall abide.

There is another occurrence in the Koran of the statement that the non-believer should not be compelled to convert.

If it had been thy Lord's Will, they would all have believed, all who are on earth! Wilt thou then compel mankind, against their will, to believe? (Koran 10:99)

Here again if we look at the context we find the statement about no compulsion in religion combined with an an argument that the non-believers have ample evidence regarding the truth of the Koran and that they are therefore evil for not believing.

[10.97] Though every sign should come to them, until they witness the painful chastisement....
[10.99] And if your Lord had pleased, surely all those who are in the earth would have believed, all of them; will you then force men till they become believers?
[10.100] And it is not for a soul to believe except by Allah's permission; and He casts uncleanness on those who will not understand.

One argument made by Muslims for justifying persecution of the infidel inspite of the no compulsion command is that since Islam does not compel people to be Islamic they have no excuse not to be Islamic. (Muslim Persecution of Christians by Robert Spencer)

Daniel Pipes wrote an article (New York Sun 9/28/04) discussing different interpretations within Islam about the meaning of the statement that there is no compulsion in religion. His conclusion was that Islam is what it's followers make of it, unfortunately if one doesn't "make something of it" and instead takes it literally one finds oneself cutting off infidel heads. One can read

I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, Smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger tips of them. (Koran 8:12)

and try and and come up with a clever self deception as to why it doesn't mean what it says, or one can face the reality that that it does mean what it says and as an obedient Muslim do what it says. There are a lot of reality facing, obedient Muslims out there.

Fox journalists Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig were kidnapped and coerced into converting to Islam. A video them was released by their kidnappers. Ironically, the video highlights the Qur'an verse, "there is no compulsion in religion" (2:256). The movie can be viewed by clicking here. According to Debkafile they were released in exchange for conversion, and ransom.

The Hindu Forum of Britain claims hundreds of mostly Sikh and Hindu girls have been intimidated by Muslim men who take them out on dates before terrorising them until they convert. (Daily Mail 2/25/07)

Although the Dhimmi, or subjected infidel, is not to be compelled to convert, Moslems are commanded to kill those who leave the faith

This Islamic dictate is carried out in modern times. Iran sends special funding to Hamas for the purpose of killing Muslims who leave the faith. In one recent execution of this dictate, on July 2003, after slaughtering a Palestinian Muslim-turned-Christian, Islamic extremists returned the man's body to his Palestinian family in four pieces probably as a warning to other Muslims considering leaving the faith.(Islamists Butcher New Christian, WorldNetDaily 7/30/03)

While it is not technically illegal for Muslims to convert to Christianity in Egypt, converts are often sought out and arrested on other charges in an attempt to force them to return to Islam, according to Paul Cook, advocacy manager of the Barnabas Fund, which helps Christians in countries where they are a minority, and particularly, where they are persecuted. Julie Stahl wrote in an article called Christians Arrested in Egyptian Crackdown on Converts (CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief, October 29, 2003) that:

According to the British-based charity, a new wave of arrests began on October 21 with the arrests of two converts: Yusuf Samuel Makari Suliman and his wife, Mariam Girgis Makar, two former Muslims.

"The Christians have been taken from Alexandria to police stations in Cairo and are being beaten, interrogated and tortured," the Barnabas Fund said in a statement.

The group has also received information that Mariam and other women may have been raped in an attempt to persuade them to renounce their Christian faith and return to Islam, said Cook in a telephone interview.

Doctors in a Cairo mental hospital are holding an Egyptian Christian against his will, telling the man he'll be a permanent resident there until he recants his faith and returns to Islam, reports a leading monitor of Christian persecution.

Reminiscent of the tactics of Communists in the USSR who put dissidents in mental hospitals, the forced stay, according to Voice of the Martyrs, has been in effect since January. At that time, the adoptive parents of Gaser Mohammed Mahmoud, 30, committed him to the El-Khanka Hospital after learning he had converted from Islam to Christianity two years earlier.

Certainly then there is compulsion in Islam to keep believing once you are a believer. One could argue that if there is no compulsion for the subjected infidel to become a Muslim there certainly is a strong incentive to do so in order to avoid paying the Jizya taxes and to not be consigned inferior status. There is an other reason as well. If one is a non-Muslim one's community is subject to terrible punishment if Muslims make false accusations against any of its members. An example of this occurred in Pakistan (worldnetdaily 11/13/05).

They came in buses to the small village of Sangla Hill in the Nankana district of Punjab in Pakistan.

Some 2,000 organized Muslims first vandalized three churches, a nuns' convent, two Catholic schools, the houses of a Protestant pastor and a Catholic priest, a girls' hostel and some Christian homes... Then they burned them to the ground, while about 450 Christian families fled yesterday. They have not returned...On Friday, a Christian, Yousaf Masih, allegedly burned some copies of the Quran and disappeared. One of his brothers, Salim Masih was arrested the day before. The Commission of Justice and Peace in Lahore ruled that the blasphemy accusations were false and stemmed from the accusers having a financial dispute with the families they accused.

O people! We have formed you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another" (49:13)

not to conquer, convert, subjugate, revile or slaughter but to reach out toward others with intelligence and understanding.

Yet who does people refer to? if we look at the context of this statement it is preceded by a statement a few sentences earlier that says

[49.10] The believers are but brethren, therefore make peace between your brethren and be careful of (your duty to) Allah that mercy may be had on you.

The word "people" refers to believers. Sentence 49.10 makes clear that the Koran is commanding Muslims to be good to fellow believers. That's great, the main problem with Islam though is how it says to treat non-believers as well as people from different Islamic sects or women from any Islamic sect.

[29.46] And do not dispute with the followers of the Book except by what is best, except those of them who act unjustly, and say: We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you, and our God and your God is One, and to Him do we submit.

Apologists for Islam argue that this shows that the Koran commands tolerance of the Jews because it says do not dispute the followers of the Book. What is not made clear is what book is being referred to. The Bible? The Koran? The next sentence says

[29.47] And thus have We revealed the Book to you. So those whom We have given the Book believe in it, and of these there are those who believe in it, and none deny Our communications except the unbelievers.

This sentence says that anyone who denies "our communications" is an unbeliever. What communications are these? Don't they include the Koran? There are plenty of very clear instructions in the Koran about what to do to the non-believer and they aren't tolerant ones.

The statements that Muslims should only fight against oppressors has one exception which is the infidel. For example the quote: "And fight with them until there is no persecution, and religion should be only for Allah, but if they desist, then there should be no hostility except against the oppressors." (Koran 2:193) makes clear that one has to fight the opponent until their religion is for Allah, not just until there is no persecution.

The Muslim definition of "Oppressors" is different than the Western one. Serge Trifkovic in his book The Sword of the Prophet writes that in Islam, Muslim minorities are oppressed as long as they are not governed by Shari'a, which is the only "full liberty" possible.

Mr. Trifkovic writes how a Muslim leader Muhammad Qasim, who wanted to be merciful to those he conquered in India was told that he must not be merciful because the Koran commands mercilessness to the infidel. His superior replied to a letter from him as follows:

It appears from your letter that all the rules made by you for the comfort and convenience of your men are strictly in accordance with religious law. But the way of granting pardon prescribed by the law is different from the one adopted by you, for you go on giving pardon to everybody, high or low, without any discretion between a friend and a foe. The great God says in the Kuran [47:4]: "O True believers, when you encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads." The above command of the great God is a great command and must be respected and followed. You should not be so fond of showing mercy, as to nullify the virtue of the act. Henceforth, grant pardon to no one of the enemy and spare none of them...(Quoted by Ibn Warraq 1995 pp 220-221)

Qasim obeyed and on his arrival at the town of Brahminabad, massacred between 6,000 and 16,000 men.

The statement "do not kill the soul which Allah has forbidden except for the requirements of justice" (Koran 6:151) is a command not to kill the innocent, but one problem with that is that fundamentalist Moslems are not likely to see non-Muslims as innocent. After four Muslims committed suicide bombings in the London tube a Muslim member of the Saviour sect by the name of Zachariah, justified them by saying that the victims were not “innocent” people because they did not abide by strict Islamic laws (Inside the Sect that Loves Terror, The Sunday Times, Britain, 8/7/05). An Irish convert to Islam, Khalid Kelley, argued that supporters of Tony Blair are not innocent and therefore legitimate targets when he said: "Anyone who supports Tony Blair, is not a civilian." (British Muslim Incitement Continues, frontpagemag.com 8/23/2006) Moderate Muslims are also not likely to see non-Muslims as innocent because because Islam encourages Moslems to fight the non-believer and when the non-believer fights back they actions are taken as proof of guilt. This concept is diagrammed on the Creation of Oppressors web page. The real oppressors are the Muslims. Stephen Brown and Jamie Glazov in an article in Frontpage Magazine titled Islam's Peace Offensive (10/16/07) wrote about how 138 leading Muslim scholars have composed a letter to Christianity's leaders in which they wrote

Osama bin Laden explained that fighting the non-believer who fights the Moslem is permitted by the Koran and quoted the following passage:

Permission to fight (against disbelievers) is given to those (believers) who are fought against (Koran 22:39)

Osama bin Laden explained his reasons for not considering Americans innocent in a letter to the American people which was printed by the Guardian Unlimited Observer on 11/24/02.

You may then dispute that all the above does not justify aggression against civilians, for crimes they did not commit and offenses in which they did not partake:

(a) This argument contradicts your continuous repetition that America is the land of freedom, and its leaders in this world. Therefore, the American people are the ones who choose their government by way of their own free will; a choice which stems from their agreement to its policies. Thus the American people have chosen, consented to, and affirmed their support for the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, the occupation and usurpation of their land, and its continuous killing, torture, punishment and expulsion of the Palestinians. The American people have the ability and choice to refuse the policies of their Government and even to change it if they want.

(b) The American people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that strike and destroy our homes in Palestine, the armies which occupy our lands in the Arabian Gulf, and the fleets which ensure the blockade of Iraq. These tax dollars are given to Israel for it to continue to attack us and penetrate our lands. So the American people are the ones who fund the attacks against us, and they are the ones who oversee the expenditure of these monies in the way they wish, through their elected candidates.

(c) Also the American army is part of the American people. It is this very same people who are shamelessly helping the Jews fight against us.

(d) The American people are the ones who employ both their men and their women in the American Forces which attack us.

(e) This is why the American people cannot be not innocent of all the crimes committed by the Americans and Jews against us.

The Jews are fighting in self defense against attacks inspired by Islam. This is seen as Jewish oppression of Muslims and anyone who helps the Jews is viewed as an oppressor as well.

Abu Jihad a leader of the Al Aqsa brigade when asked after a suicide bombing why the killing of innocents is holy to him responded with a similar argument. He asked,

"Why is it that nobody in Israel or in the world says anything when the Palestinian innocents get killed? I did not see these so-called innocent Israelis you speak of going out on the streets and protesting against their government's policy and against its aggression toward the Palestinian people. Not doing so means that they support their government, and this gives us the full right to react as we did. " (Klein, A., Terror Leader Revels in Killing Israeli Civilians, wnd.com 1/20/2006)

Like Osama, Abu Jihad forgets that Israel risks the lives of its own soldiers in order to avoid killing Palestinian Arab civilians when attacking terrorists. Abu Jihad forgets that it is the terrorists who base themselves among civilians and then shoot Israelis, who are responsible for Palestinian civilian deaths.

Unlike Israel, the Arabs attack Israelis and Westerners irregardless of whether Muslims die. The fact that there might be Muslims in the World Trade Center did not cause Osama to call off the attacks of September 11. The fact that Muslims might die as a result of Hezbollah rocket attacks from Lebanon or Palestinian Arab Kassam attacks from Gaza has not prevented those attacks. After Hezbollah rockets killed to Arab children in Nazareth, Hizbullah Chief Hassan Nasrallah sent his condolences to the family of the two children killed on Wednesday by a Katyusha rocket in Nazareth. He told Al-Jazeera,

We learn from this statement of Nasrallah's that it's OK to kill innocent children if it leads to deaths of Israelis because then they are shahids (martyrs). When Al Qaeda hijacked planes to crash into American targets on September 11, 2001 some of those hijackers had no idea that they were on a suicide mission. After the attacks Osama laughed saying that some of them didn't know they were going to become martyrs. Osama was not worried about killing the Muslim hijackers because he believed that as martyrs they were destined for a life of eternal joy and sex.

He also forgets that Islam is the oppressor and has been since its inception. Serge Trifkovic in his superb book the The Sword of the Prophet writes about the slaughter of the infidel during the original Islamic conquests:

during the Muslim invasion of Syria, in 634, thousands of Christians were massacred; in Mesopotamia between 645 and 642, monasteries were ransacked and the monks and villagers slain; in Egypt the towns of Behnesa, Fayum, Nikiu and Aboit were put to the sword. The inhabitants of Cilicia were taken into captivity. In Armenia, the entire population of Euchaita was wiped out. The Muslim invaders sacked and pillaged Cyprus and then established their rule by a "great massacre." In North Africa, Tripoli was pillaged in 643 by Amr, who forced the Jews and Christians to hand over their women and children as slaves to the Arab army...Carthage was razed to the ground and most of its inhabitants killed.

From Osama bin Laden's perspective the people working in the World Trade Center were not innocent because in addition to not being Dhimmi, they were paying taxes to the great infidel and oppressor, the United States that supports the little infidel and oppressor, Israel.

In mid November 2001 Bin Laden was videotaped talking about the attack on the United States of September 11, 01 with a supporter. The supporter told him how Sheik Al-Bahrani said in a sermon that:

This was Jihad and those people were not innocent people (World Trade Center and Pentagon victims).

Omar Bakri Mohammed the British Muslim preacher who set up al-Mouhajiroun in Britain and who referred to the 19 hijackers as "the magnificent 19" said "We don't make a distinction between civilians and non-civilians, innocents and non-innocents. Only between Muslims and unbelievers. And the life of an unbeliever has no value. It has no sanctity." (Britain's Mad Mullah, Tech Central Station, 9/7/2005)

In the mind of extremist Muslims, of whom there are many, any individual member of a country that is engaged in or has supported a battle against any Muslims is not considered innocent. If you are a student at a University, lets say the University of North Carolina, and you've never fought a Muslim in your life, you are still guilty. That's why a North Carolina Muslim drove an SUV into students at the University of North Carolina. He wrote a letter to a local TV station saying Allah approves of such attacks. Mohammed Taheri-azar wrote (Muslim, I attacked out of Love For Allah, wnd.com 3/15/2006):

"Allah gives permission in the Quran for the followers of Allah to attack those who have raged war against them, with the expectation of eternal paradise in case of martyrdom and/or living one's life in obedience of all of Allah's commandments found throughout the Quran's 114 chapters."

A spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations told the Associated Press Taheri-azar's claims of religious support for his actions are an old and repudiated claim.

"Islamic scholars have clearly and repeatedly stated that attacks on innocent civilians of any kind are prohibited by Islam and should be repudiated,"

spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said. The problem is what is the Muslim definition of innocence.

Being a Muslim does not guarantee that you will be considered innocent. Al Qaeda attacks Saudi and Egyptian Muslims and the Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq blow up each other and each others mosques. They don’t see each other as true Muslims. After the Bangladeshis voted for the Awami League which wanted autonomy from Pakistan the Pakistani army murdered 3 million Bangladeshis, the majority of whom were Muslim. Abul Kasem, who witnessed the genocide discussed it with Pakistani students he met in Thailand. In an article titled Islamic Terrorism and the Genocide in Bangladesh . (Leaving Islam), he wrote that :

Now the interesting point was that whenever the atrocities of the Pakistani Islamic army were mentioned to them, they were all adamant that we (the Bengalis) were to be blamed for that. Why? Simply, because we were not good Muslims. How? If we were good Muslims, we would not have voted for the Awami League. They told us that the right parties to vote were Islamic parties like the Pakistan Muslim League or Jamat-I-Islamic. It was no secret to guess that most Pakistanis considered us (Bengalis) non-Muslims, as almost all of us voted for the Awami League. Therefore, they opined that the genocide was not really a genocide! It was getting rid of the non-Muslims. After all, the non-Muslims are not really human beings…

So, in simple language, the Pakistani Islamic army did not kill any human beings in Bangladesh. They only cleared the field of pests, just like a farmer spreads insecticide to free his crops from devastation. So in the case of the Pakistani Islamic army. They simply eliminated the non-Muslims and the not-so-good Muslims to protect the good Muslims, those who would follow them. The question of remorse or guilt does not arise at all. You see, the Pakistani Islamic army did not rape any women. They simply enjoyed the flesh of non-Muslims, as permitted by the Islamic religion...

To the Pakistani military, the Bengalis were not true followers of Islam, but hypocrites. So they wanted to get rid of these nonbelievers as per the provision in the Koran and Hadith… The truth is that the genocide in Bangladesh was conducted by the Islamic army of Pakistan to save Islam and to completely annihilate the unbelievers… The people who perpetrated these crimes were Muslims who prided themselves in belonging to a superior religion, even a superior civilization, and yet they butchered fellow Muslims in a most savage way. Where was Allah’s mercy? Why did Allah allow it to happen? These supposedly superior beings acted worse than even non-believing barbarians.

I looked at Islam, the Koran, and the historical behavior of Muhammad, the Prophet, and found that the source of violence was the Koran, which positively pushes Muslims to kill in the name of Islam, and in the acts of cruelty and murder carried out by the Prophet.

Abu Kasem mentioned that the Bengalis were supposed to vote for Jamat-I-Islamic. Maulana Nawabzadaa Nabiullah Khan, a confidant of and adviser to the Amir of leading Pakistani Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami explained in an interview that all the Muslims who migrate to other non Muslim countries and the U.S. are non-Muslims.

Arch terrorist Yasser Arafat told reporters after talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair that "Islam as a religion forbids anyone to harm any civilians, any innocent people, around the world."..."We are against all forms of terrorism, including state-sponsored terrorism". Yet Arafat's tanzim (militia) shoot Israeli civilians and Arafat has ordered the killing of Americans. If we believe Arafat about what he believes Islam says and if we believe he is a religious man and that he is being honest, which I admit we have no reason to do, then the only explanation for his terrorist actions against American and Israeli civilians is that he doesn't consider American and Israeli civilians to be innocent people.

Abu Carmel a senior leader of the Al Aqsa Matyrs Brigades reportedly involved in a suicide bombing of civilians in Hadera said the blast just north of Tel Aviv was "legitimate" because all Israelis are "military targets, they are not civilians." (Klein, A., Terrorist: All Israeli cities 'are military targets' worldnetdaily.com 10/28/05)

Mariam Farhat the proud mother of terrorists who killed Israeli civilians explained how Islam that forbids the killing of innocent people condones what her sons did: (Mother From Hell 2/8/06)

“is a war necessity. They are all occupiers to begin with. Whoever comes from abroad and lives on the land of Palestine is considered an occupier, even if they are women or old people. They are all occupiers….Therefore, all Israelis are considered occupiers of our land. There is no difference between men and women...This is Islamic religious law. I don’t invent anything. I follow Islamic religious law in this. A Muslim is very careful not to kill an innocent person, because he knows he would be destined to eternal Hell….We rely on Islamic religious law when we say there is no prohibition on killing these people.”

Warith Deen Umar, a black Muslim, was quoted by the Wall Street Journal as saying that the Koran does not condemn terrorism against oppressors of Muslims, even if innocent people die and that the United States was risking further attacks because of its oppression of Muslims around the world. He said the 9/11 hijackers were martyrs and that "even Muslims who say they are against terrorism secretly admired and applaud" the World Trade Center destruction. Warith, once known as Wallace Gene Marks was a native of Illinois who spent his 15th and 16th birthdays in jails there on purse-snatching and drug crimes. He later converted to Islam and begain practicing Wahabi Islam, fueled by at least four trips to Saudi Arabia at Saudi expense. The Saudi Arabian Government regularly brings prison chaplains to Saudi Arabia for weeks of "study" and training. Umar became the top Muslim cleric in the huge New York State prison system from 1975 until retiring from the $67,919 a year post on Aug 31, 2000. He said that prison "is the perfect recrutiment and training ground for radicalism and the Islamic religion." Muslim chaplains hired and trained by Umar begain preaching to inmates, post 9/11, that Osama bin Laden "is a soldier of Allah a hero of Allah," (New York Post 2/6/03 describing the Wall Street Journal Article)

On March 9, 2006, The New York Post reported about radical statements made by Abdul-Jalil, a Bronx resident who said he converted to Islam while at Attica prison in 1970,(Top Jail Imam in Hate Tirade) He became the executive director of ministerial services for the city Department of Correction and made statements at conferences such as:

"They [some Muslim inmates] are not charged with anything, they are not entitled to any rights, they are interrogated. Some of them are literally tortured and we found this in the Metropolitan Correctional Facility in Manhattan. But they literally are torturing people,"

and

"We have terrorists defining who a terrorist is, but because they have the weight of legitimacy, they get away with it . . . We know that the greatest terrorists in the world occupy the White House, without a doubt,"

The New York Post also reported that Abdul-Jalil urged American Muslims to stop allowing "the Zionists of the media to dictate what Islam is to us" and said Muslims must be "compassionate with each other" and "hard against the kufr [unbeliever]." The Post reported:

Abdul-Jalil is the latest Muslim chaplain working for city and state agencies to come under fire.

Last year, the city Fire Department forced Imam Intikab Habib to resign as chaplain for publicly doubting that al Qaeda hijackers brought down the World Trade Center towers and suggesting there was a broader "conspiracy."

Three years ago, Pataki fired Imam Warith Deen Umar, the former chief Muslim chaplain for the state prison system, after it was reported he was expressing support for the 9/11 terrorists.

One piece of propaganda found among Islamic inmates in Texas was a video titled “A Message to the Oppressed”. The tape features the anti-Semitic exhortations by the California-based Imam Muhammad Abdullah who claims that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were actually carried out by the Israeli and U.S. governments and praises Hamas, al-Jihad and Hizballah. All three groups are listed as terror organizations by the State Department. Public records indicate that Abdullah has been an Imam in the California Youth Authority. (Texas Jailhouse Jihad CBS 11 TV Dallas/Ft. Worth | December 11, 2003)

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., at the June 26 hearing of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Terrorism, stated that Wahabi "organizations have succeeded in ensuring that militant Wahhabism is the only form of Islam that is preached to the 12,000 Muslims in federal prison." The point of the correctional system, Schumer said, should be to rehabilitate prisoners, not radicalize them into potential terrorists. (Wahabi Lobby Polarizing FBI Worldnetdaily 7/13/03)

According to the Daily Pennsylvanian (4/16/04) Imam Shamsud-din Ali is an example of a prisoner who became a respected member of the Philadelphia Muslim community, in fact he became an important cleric.

In a probe of a drug ring, federal agents overheard drug dealers discussing payments to Ali. According to one dealer's lawyer, his client said these payments were made so Ali would grant permission for dealing to continue.

The Nation of Islam called on the Bloods and Crips street gangs to stop fighting each other and to unite in Jihad against the Los Angeles Police Department (Jihad Declared Against LAPD, worldnetdaily 9/5/05).

Worldnetdaily reported (10/11/2006) that Chuck Colson, head of the Prison Fellowship ministry, warned that Many "radicalized" Islamists capable of committing terrorist attacks in the future are acquiring their jihad beliefs and training right now, within America's state and federal prison systems, at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.

He said in a recent commentary over his years of serving the needs of inmates that he's seen, like others in the prison system, many instances of "the spread of an especially virulent form of Islam within American prisons."

He cited a study called "Out of the Shadows" by researchers at George Washington University and the University of Virginia that concluded "radicalized prisoners" in U.S. prisons "are a potential pool of recruits by terrorist groups."

The study notes that the circumstances for many inmates can produce bitterness and resentment already. Into that atmosphere comes material distributed by extreme Islamic groups that advocate murder and mayhem on nonbelievers.

Colson's work with InnerChange Freedom Initiative prison rehabilitation programs has proven to be very successful at teaching inmates the skills and attitudes to participate in society.

The program, which now has chapters in 88 different nations, produced a 50 percent drop in recidivism in a study at one Texas location where it was operating.

However, because the voluntary program involves Christian principles, courts have ordered it out, mostly recently in a case in Iowa.

The creation of radical Muslims from criminals is not a problem restricted to the United States. According to aei.org (Holy War in Europe 4/13/04)

On August 26, 1995, a militant Islamic group led by a twenty-four-year-old French Muslim named Khaled Kelkal attempted to blow one of France's high-speed trains off its rails. Luckily, the bomb's detonator, which used an ordinary twelve-volt battery, failed. .. Kelkal moved to France from Algeria when he was one month old; not known for being religious in his troubled youth, he became an Islamic militant in a French jail, as have hundreds of highly westernized French Muslims.

slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them captive and besiege them, and prepare for them every ambush"

Muslim apologists claim that this statement is taken out of context. What is the context? The next sentence in the Koran is:

But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

In otherwords if they become Dhimmi don't kill them. Apologists also say that this statement was meant for an evil oppressor enemy of the Muslims that existed at the time it was stated in the Koran. Yet Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, a member of the Palestinain Autority's Fatwa Council, in a sermon broadcast on official Palestinian Authority television in 2000 quoted this in his argument that it was a Muslim obligation to kill Jews and Americans. He said:

Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them -- and those who stand by them -- they are all in one trench, against the Arabs and the Muslims -- because they established Israel here, in the beating heart of the Arab world, in Palestine. They created it to be the outpost of their civilization and the vanguard of their army, and to be the sword of the West and the crusaders, hanging over the neck of the monotheists, the Muslims in these lands.

In a way he's right, Israel is the vanguard of the Western world, if Israel goes the Western world will lose a very valuable base in the sea of Islam that is the Middle East.

Turkey was a caliphate where the concept of dhimmitude was put into practice. The following is an excerpt from Dr. Serge Trifkovic's book The Sword of the Prophet: A Politically-Incorrect Guide to Islam:

The attitude of the Moslems toward the Christians and
the Jews is that of a master towards slaves," reported
the British Vice Consul in Mosul (an Ottoman city in
what is now Northern Iraq) a little later in 1909,
"whom he treats with a certain lordly tolerance so
long as they keep their place. Any sign of pretension
to equality is promptly repressed." This, of course,
is the old story of dhimmitude or the second-class
citizenship of non-Moslems under Moslem rule.

Earlier in this text I wrote that according to Islamic Law the Dhimmis are not to be killed. In practice this rule to protect the Dhimmi was often ignored. Serge Trifkovic, in his book, The Sword and the Prophet writes that:

Mass murders of Jewish "protected people" started in Morocco as early as the eighth century, where Idris I wiped out whole communities. A century later, Baghdad's Caliph al-Mutawakkil designated a yellow badge for Jews, setting a precedent that would be followed centuries later in Nazi Germany, and synagogues were destroyed throughout Mesopotamia in 854-859. ... In the twelfth century, Egyptian Jews were the object of anti dhimmi riots so successful that one observer noted the Jewish population had "greatly declined" in their wake. On the other side of the Muslim empire, on December 30, 1066, Joseph HaNagid, the Jewish vizier of Granada, was crucified by an Arab mob that proceeded to raze the Jewish quarter of the city and slaughter its 5,000 inhabitants. Muslim preachers, who had angrily objected to what they saw as inordinate Jewish political power, incited the riot. And those were the most civilized Muslims in history, in Baghdad, at the peak of one Islamic "golden age" and in Spain at the peak of another...Elsewhere, the story was even grimmer, in 1465, Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, after a Jewish deputy vizier allegedly treated a Muslim woman in "an offensive manner." The killings touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco...Despite the Kuran's prohibition, Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face death in Yemen (1165 and 1678), Morocco (1275,1465, and 1790-1792) and Baghdad (1333 and 1344).

In the Sudan Dhimmis have been compelled to give up the faith under threat of death. One example of this occurred in 1986, (Sudan Jihad forces Islam on Christians, Worldnetdaily, Posted 3/4/02) when commander Taib Musba of the Sudanese military, entered the Uduk tribal capital of Chali and declared to its Christians: "You are all going to convert from Christianity to Islam today, because here is what's going to happen to you if you don't."

Musba then killed five church leaders in front of the gathered villagers. At this point the remaining villagers might have survived if they had converted but they refused. When they refused to convert, he began killing unarmed men, women and children. Some were herded at gunpoint into a hut then run over by a 50-ton, Soviet-made tank.

He also herded groups of about a dozen people into a hut, where he asked the first person "Do you renounce Jesus Christ?" Anyone who refused was killed by a three-inch nail driven into the top of the head.

Joseph, Sudan slave was crucified by his master because some of the camels he had been watching escaped while he went to a church service. No criminal charges were brought against Joseph's master, because he acted within his 'rights' under 'sharia law' since Joseph was a Dhimmi (wnd.com 4/7/04).

As of July 5, 2004, Arab militamen in the Sudan called Janjaweed, have killed about 30,000 people and left some 2 million in danger of a humanitarian disaster. Ariel Pasko in an article titled "There They Go Again, Those Arab Racists" (Freeman center broadcast 7/5/04) wrote:

Describing the pogrom-like atmosphere, one woman told how the Janjaweed entered the village. She said, "The Janjaweed shouted, 'We will not allow blacks here. We will not let Zaghawa here. This land is only for
Arabs.'"

Another woman described how the Janjaweed took her and her two sisters away on horses and gang-raped them. The raiders shot one sister, and cut the throat of the other, they then discussed how to mutilate her. "One Janjaweed said, 'You belong to me. You are a slave to the Arabs, and this is the sign of a slave,'" she recalled. He slashed her leg with a sword before letting her hobble away, stark naked.

"First the planes were flying over us and bombing us. Then the Janjaweed came," a third woman described. "They started to shoot and burn. They took all our belongings. They took men and slit their throats with swords. The women they took as concubines."

the tragedy of Darfur is actually the second Sudanese genocide of our age. The first killed over two million African Christians and animists in southern Sudan...

Over 100,000 people have been killed in Darfur. By autumn the number of those who have been displaced or impoverished, or whose lives have been destroyed by the war in other ways, will most likely exceed three million.

Muslims are supposed to give their conquered victims the option of keeping their faith as long as they are second class citizens. In modern times that does not always happen.

John Mark Ministeries describe how in December 2000 Moslems attacked Christian villages on the island of Kesui and Teor in Indonesia. After the initial attacks upon their villages the surviving Christians were gathered into several mosques where they were forced under the threat of death to perform conversion rituals. Initially the victims were forced to take a ritual bath of cleansing and to repeat three times a Muslim declaration (prayer). They were asked if they were doing this willing and with fear in their hearts they all answered their attackers, "yes". Some had witnessed the death of an elementary school teacher who refused to convert.

On December 3 and 4 both men and women were forced to be circumcised to prove that they were really converting to Islam. Without painkillers or antiseptic all the men were circumcised with one razor blade. Several of the men have developed infections from the circumcision.

One of the Christians, Christina Sagat told how she was led into a small room and seated on a piece of white cloth while her genitals were washed and then the clitoris cut off with a knife by a Muslim woman. The white cloth smeared with blood was proof that she had been circumcised. As with the men the women were not provided with painkillers or antiseptic. The women did bathe in the ocean to cleanse their wounds.

With her home destroyed and her church burned to the ground, 14-year-old Marina Rumakur knew there was only one way to survive: Convert to Islam and submit to a painful rite of mutilation.

Trapped by Muslim extremists on the tiny Indonesian island of Kesui, she and more than 900 fellow Christians surrendered. Hundreds of Roman Catholics and Protestants were forced to undergo female genital excision or male circumcision with kitchen knives and razor blades as the island was "purified" of all its Christians. The victims ranged from a 6-year-old girl to a 74-year-old woman.

"They said if we didn't convert to their religion, they would cut our throats," the teenager recounted.

The Los Angeles Times also reported the story of Benhard Leinussa whose troubles began Jan. 3, 2000, when Muslims attacked the village of Liliama on the southern side of Ceram.

Among the attackers, he said, were members of the white-robed Laskar Jihad, the feared Muslim warriors who have come from other parts of Indonesia and other countries to take part in their declared holy war against Christians.

Eventually, Muslim men offered them a deal. "They told us, 'If you come down to the village and change your religion, you can stay with us,' " he recounted.

They went to Polin, where they found about 60 others from their village who had already surrendered.

They were assigned housing and told to sign a statement saying they had willingly converted to Islam. Leinussa said he signed under threat of death.

He and the others took an oath converting to Islam, chanted a Muslim prayer and took a ceremonial bath. Several days later, he was forced to undergo circumcision with a razor blade.

Leinussa says he was not a good Muslim. He didn't like to pray or go to the mosque. He began to worry when Indonesian soldiers stationed nearby beat five converts who were not devout enough. Then a Muslim neighbor warned some former Christians that their lives were in danger.

In the early morning of Aug. 23, Leinussa and 18 others escaped into the jungle. They crossed the rugged mountains and two days later reached safety on the northern side of the island.

Leinussa has since returned to Christianity and has moved to the town of Masohi on Ceram so that he can attend high school. But he worries about the 60 captives he left behind, including an uncle.

The Taipai Times (12/23/2000) quoted Muslim clerics as admitting that some Maluku Christians had recently changed religions. But they denied that the threat of death or violence had been used.

"The claim that they were forced to become Muslims is baseless. They voluntarily converted to Islam," said Malik Selang, an official at Ambon's main Al Fatah Mosque.

Although the Koran states that there is no compulsion in religion the above shows that inspite of Malik Selang's statements and the statements of many Moslems, that there is compulsion in Islam.

According to a report by Voice of the Martyrs, in the Phillipines, at least five terrorists believed to be linked to al-Qaida murdered six or more Christians by gunfire after asking them if they believed in Christ on the front doorsteps of their homes. (wnd.com 2/21/06)

The compulsion toward non-Muslims to convert is at the time of this writing being experienced by Brian Savio O'Connor (worldnetdaily 6/15/04) who is imprisoned in Saudi Arabia and has been tortured and threatened with death if he does not renounce his faith and convert to Islam.

O'Conner, a cargo agent for Saudia Airlines, was accosted by a religious police agent near his home in Riyadh, who harshly asked him, "Why did you not attend 'Salah' [evening prayers]?"

O'Conner showed the man his ID card, indicating he is a Christian, when another three men came up and tried to grab it. The men chased him into a shop where he was beaten, the news service said.

The Indian Christian told friends who visited him in prison he then was dragged to a religious police office where his legs were chained and he was hung upside down.

For the next seven hours, his captors alternately kicked and beat him in the chest and ribs, O'Conner claimed.

According to International Christian Concern, a U.S.-based advocacy group that first reported O'Connor's arrest, he was "whipped on his back and soles of his feet by electrical wires," causing intense pain.

O'Connor said at one point he was gasping for breath and moaning from the blows when a religious police officer placed a call to one of O'Conner's Saudi bosses. Laughing loudly, according to Compass Direct, the captor held the phone to O'Connor's mouth so the man on the line could hear the Christian's groans.

Even in the case where Moslems did not force Dhimmis to convert they levied such great taxes against them that there was a strong incentive to do so. Serge Trifkovic writes:

In Arabia those families unable to pay the crushing jizya were obliged to hand over their children to be sold into slavery, and to deduct their value from their assessment...

Turkish "devshirme," introduced by Sultan Orkhan (1326-1359) , consisted of the periodic taking of a fifth of all Christian boys in the conquered territories...

For about three centuries starting in 1350, military expeditions made forays into Christian villages to kidnap boys for training as janissaries...

The kidnapping of Christian children to make them into Jihadis still happens today. Worldnetdaily reported (Christian teen forced to become Muslim, 12/17/03) that:

A 15-year-old Pakistani Christian boy (Zeeshan Gill) was kidnapped and taken to a strict Islamic religious school where he was beaten to submission... Gill ended up in a madrasa where his captors forced him to say the Islamic creed and declared he is a Muslim. They warned if he tried to flee or return to Christianity, they would kill him.

The teen was made to fast daily, and his captors trained him in the use of guns and grenades... The teen was informed he was about to be sent on a Jihad in Kashmir, where he would have to "spread Islam at 120 kilometers per hour."

A religion that abducts children and forces them to become soldiers sound like a peaceful religion to me.

Islam is a Peaceful Religion	Islam is Not a Peaceful Religion
Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error (Koran 2:256)	Those who resist Allah and his messenger will be humbled to dust. (Koran 58:5)
If it had been thy Lord's Will, they would all have believed, all who are on earth! Wilt thou then compel mankind, against their will, to believe? (Koran 10:99)	Slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush. (Koran 9:5)
And if they incline to peace, then incline to it (Koran 8:61)	I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, Smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger tips of them. (Koran 8:12)
And fight with them until there is no persecution, and religion should be only for Allah, but if they desist, then there should be no hostility except against the oppressors. (Koran 2:193)	The unbelievers among the People of the Book and the pagans shall burn for ever in the fire of Hell. They are the vilest of all creatures. Koran (98:1-8)
For this reason did We prescribe to the children of Israel that whoever slays a soul, unless it be for manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as though he slew all men; and whoever keeps it alive, it is as though he kept alive all men; and certainly Our apostles came to them with clear arguments, but even after that many of them certainly act extravagantly in the land. (Koran 5:32)	The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement, (Koran 5:33) Note: In modern times if you go around villages in Nigeria, you will see people missing one hand or one foot because of this command.
do not kill the soul which Allah has forbidden except for the requirements of justice (Koran 6:151)	A Muslim may not be killed if he kills a non-Muslim (Al Bukhari Vol 9:50)
Fight for the sake of God those that fight against you, but do not attack them first. God does not love aggressors (Koran 2:191)	Fight against those who believe not in Allah, and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth [Islam], until they are subdued. (Surat At-Taubah 9:29)
You shall not kill any person - for God has made life sacred- except in the course of justice. (Koran 17:33)	Whoever changes his Islamic religion, kill him. Sahih Al-Bukhari (9:57)
And fight in the way of Allah those who fight you. But do not transgress the limits. Truly Allah loves not the transgressors. (Surah Al-Baqarah 2:190)	(It will be said) Take him and fetter him and expose him to hell fire. And then insert him in a chain whereof the length is seventy cubits. Lo! he used not to believe in God the tremendous, and urged not on the feeding of the wretched. Therefore hath he no lover hear this day nor any food save filth which none but sinners eat. (Koran 69:30-37)
The blame is only against those who oppress men with wrongdoing and insolently transgress beyond bounds through the land, defying right and justice. For such there will be a chastisement grievous" (Koran 42:42).	Idolatry is more grievous than bloodshed... fight against them until idolatry is no more and God's religion reigns supreme" (Sura 2:91-93).
O ye who believe! Remain steadfast for Allah, bearing witness to justice. Do not allow your hatred for others make you swerve to wrongdoing and turn you away from justice. Deal justly; that is closer to true piety. (Surah al-Maidah 5:8)	The Prophet said: "fighting is (art of deceit)." (Ibn-E-Majah, Vol. 2, p. 182)
It may be that Allah will bring about friendship between you and those whom you hold to be your enemies among them; and Allah is Powerful; and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. Allah does not forbid you respecting those who have not made war against you on account of (your) religion, and have not driven you forth from your homes, that you show them kindness and deal with them justly; surely Allah loves the doers of justice. Allah only forbids you respecting those who made war upon you on account of (your) religion, and drove you forth from your homes and backed up (others) in your expulsion, that you make friends with them, and whoever makes friends with them, these are the unjust. (Koran 60.7-9)	O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for friends. They are friends one to another. He among you who taketh them for friends is (one) of them. Lo! Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk." [Koran, al-Ma'idah 5:51]
They are not all alike; of the followers of the Book there is an upright party; they recite Allah's communications in the nighttime and they adore (Him). They believe in Allah and the last day, and they enjoin what is right and forbid the wrong and they strive with one another in hastening to good deeds, and those are among the good. And whatever good they do, they shall not be denied it, and Allah knows those who guard (against evil). (Koran 3.113-115)	(As for) those who disbelieve, surely neither their wealth nor their children shall avail them in the least against Allah; and these are the inmates of the fire; therein they shall abide. 3.116
And among the followers of the Book there are some such that if you entrust one (of them) with a heap of wealth, he shall pay it back to you; and among them there are some such that if you entrust one (of them) with a dinar he shall not pay it back to you except so long as you remain firm in demanding it; this is because they say: There is not upon us in the matter of the unlearned people any way (to reproach); and they tell a lie against Allah while they know. Yea, whoever fulfills his promise and guards (against evil)-- then surely Allah loves those who guard (against evil). (Koran 3.75-76)	Fight against those who believe not in Allah, and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth [Islam], until they are subdued. Surat At-Taubah 9:29
O people! We have formed you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another" (49:13)	[9.29] Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.
[29.46] And do not dispute with the followers of the Book except by what is best, except those of them who act unjustly, and say: We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you, and our God and your God is One, and to Him do we submit.	Allah is an enemy to unbelievers. (Koran 2: 98)
[43:88-89] And he [Muhammad] saith: O my Lord! Lo! these are a folk who believe not. Then bear with them [O Muhammad] and say: Peace. But they will come to know.	Allah plots against unbelievers. (The Morning Star: 15)
	"Acting as Allah's soldier for one night in a battlefield is superior to saying prayers at home for 2,000 years." (Ibn-E-Majah, Vol. 2, p. 166)
	The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution or crucifixion, or the cutting off of the hands and feet from opposite sides or exile from the land . . .” Surah 5:33
	Allah has cursed them (the Jews) on account of their unbelief; so little it is that they believe. (Koran 2:88)
	There is disgraceful punishment for the unbelievers. (Koran 2:90)
	Mohammed said, “The last hour will not come before the Muslims fight the Jews, and the Muslims kill them.” (Mishkat Al Masabih Sh.M. Ashraf pp.147, 721, 810-11, 1130)
	[4.76] Those who believe fight in the way of Allah, and those who disbelieve fight in the way of the Shaitan (Satan). Fight therefore against the friends of the Shaitan; surely the strategy of the Shaitan is weak.
	[4:101] ...surely the unbelievers are your open enemy. [4:102] ...surely Allah has prepared a disgraceful chastisement for the unbelievers.
	[9.123] O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness; and know that Allah is with those who guard (against evil).
	[48:29] Muhammad is the Apostle of Allah, and those with him are firm of heart against the unbelievers, compassionate among themselves
	[4.92] Anyone who kills a believer intentionally will have his reward in hell, to remain there. God will be angry with him and curse him, and prepare awful torment for him. (Only applies to believers)
	[9.73] O Prophet! strive hard [make war] against the unbelievers and the hypocrites and be unyielding to them; and their abode is hell, and evil is the destination.
	Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, is reported as saying in the Hadith: "I have been ordered to fight the people until they profess that there is no god but God and that Mohammad is the messenger of God"
	Quran [Chapter 9, Verse 14]: "Fight them: Allah will punish them at your hands, and will humiliate them, and will help you to overcome them, and will relieve the minds of the believers." (This quote was posted on an internet site by an Al Qaeda linked group along with a warning to Muslims to leave, New York, Washington D.C. and LA, Intel Terrorists planning U.S. Attacks, WND.com posted 11/3/03)