5 Ridiculous Things You Probably Believe About Islam
A conservative commentator recently made headlines by claiming 10 percent of all of the world's Muslims are terrorists. An amazing claim, considering that equals 150 million terrorists and if each were to pull off an attack killing just 40 people, they could exterminate all non-Muslim life on earth.
Either they're not all that dedicated to terrorism, or the claim is utter insanity.
Well, if there's one thing everyone thinks of when they hear "Cracked.com" it's "friend of Islam." Which is why we feel compelled to clarify a few misconceptions for our readers. Also, there is no way this article will ever come back to haunt us in any way.
#5.
If You're a Muslim Woman, You Have to Wear the Veil
For millions of people in the West, when you say "Islam," the first mental image that pops into mind is this:
A two-person Scotch-garded version would sell like hotcakes.
A woman covered head to toe in a burqa. The truth is, if you could suddenly gather all of the Muslim women on the planet into one giant room and had to throw a football to someone wearing a burqa, it'd be next to impossible to complete that pass.
But the whole hide-them-under-a-veil thing must be pretty big among Muslim communities, otherwise Europe wouldn't be all in in a dither over the things, pushing for bans and whatnot. Right?
Look at them there, plotting new ways to drive super-slow in the HOV lane.
After all, we all know that Islam hates women -- the fact that Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that actually prohibits women from driving, or that only predominantly Muslim countries still use death by stoning as a punishment for adultery, proves it, right?
But Actually...
Thinking that all Muslim women have to dress like this...
...is like thinking that all Christian women have to dress like this:
That photo is from one of several small Christian sects that require women to dress like it's Little House on the Prairie.
So for instance, in France they have about 3 million Muslim women. French police decided to figure out how many of them wore burqas and/or niqabs and found the number to be ... 367.
Then again, these were French police.
Not 367,000, but 367, a number so small that from a statistical point of view, it's barely enough to register as a margin of error. As for the rest of Europe, the numbers are even more disastrous for the burqa business (for instance, Belgium has 500,000 Muslims, a couple dozen wear the burqa).
Yes, there are Middle Eastern countries where the veils are required by law (namely Iran and Saudi Arabia) and combined those countries have less than 5 percent of the world's Muslims. There are actually more Muslim countries that outright ban the wearing of the veils than there are that require them. They can do that because wearing a veil is not required in Islam but is more of a custom, depending on where you live and who's in charge.
Much like hot pants.
Hey, speaking of which, try this number on for size: Of the five most populous Muslim-majority nations, four of them have elected female heads of state.
So there's a fantastic chance that in 2012, Sarah Palin will be campaigning for an achievement that Muslim ladies have already accomplished.
We bet Megawati Sukarnoputri knows the United States doesn't have a Department of Law.
#4.
Our Founding Fathers Would Never Have Tolerated This Muslim Nonsense!
It's easy to stand on a soapbox and publicly bluster about what you think the Founding Fathers would think about the godless, multicultural United States today. After all, these were Christian, God-fearing men, damn it. They certainly wouldn't put up with all this tolerance for these terrorist religions.
Thomas Jefferson, moments before leaping into the air on a giant eagle and drop-kicking Saladin.
It's a good thing some Americans are standing up for good old-fashioned American values and passing laws to prohibit Islamic law from taking over the U.S., because that's totally around the corner! Somewhere, Thomas Jefferson is smiling in his grave!
But actually...
Even if they were staunch Christians (or deists, whatever), plenty of the Founding Fathers had a healthy admiration for the Muslim faith. Thomas Jefferson, for example, taught himself Arabic using his own copy of the Quran and hosted the first White House Iftar during Ramadan.
Jefferson believed in celebrating the deliciousness of all world religions.
John Adams hailed the Islamic prophet Muhammad as one of the great "inquirers after truth." Benjamin Rush, who was so Christian he wanted a Bible in every school, also said he would rather see the opinions of Confucius or Mohammad "inculcated upon our youth" than see them grow deprived "of a system of religious principles." Benjamin Franklin once declared: "Even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service." Even George fucking Washington personally welcomed Muslims to come work for him at Mount Vernon.
So, why all this Founding Father/Muslim love? Probably because Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah of Morocco was the first world figure to recognize the independence of the United States of America from Great Britain in 1777. Another reason was that the Founding Fathers were smart enough to distinguish between terrorists and everybody else on the whole damn planet, as demonstrated in the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797. It was in this agreement that the U.S. declared: "The government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Mussulmen [Moslems]."
Another possible translation.
#3.
"Muslim" Equals "Arab"
Remember that crazy lady with the Einstein hair who asked John McCain if Barack Obama was an Arab? No? Well, let us refresh your memory:
The instant John McCain realized that he would never, ever be president.
We're willing to bet there's more than a 20 percent chance this woman meant to say "Muslim" but accidentally said "Arab" because same thing, right? And even if you're not in the tea party camp, where you're convinced "Arab" and "Muslim" are interchangeable, you've probably operated under a similar assumption: that non-Jewish Middle Eastern people are Muslim and that most Muslims live in the Middle East.
But actually...
Only about 20 percent of the entire world's Muslim population is Arab or North African. For comparison, about 22 percent of the global Christian population is African, yet when somebody says "Christian," you don't immediately picture a dude from Africa. Equating "Muslim" with "Arab" makes just as much sense.
That'd be like associating "Kansas" with "hate-filled douchebags".
While we in the West have been conditioned to associate Islam with the Middle East, a whopping 61.9 percent of all Muslims -- aka a supermajority -- don't live in the Middle East at all; most Muslims live in the Asia-Pacific region. Indonesia alone is home to more than 200 million Muslims, and the Indian subcontinent has roughly a half-billion Muslims.
It works the other way, too. For example, if you think being Arab guarantees you being Muslim these days, well, we are sorry to disappoint. As much as 10 percent of the world's Arab population is Christian (that's more than 14 million people). That means there are 1 million more Arab Christians than, oh, we don't know ... the world's entire Jewish population..
You're right, Islam isn't viole-
Reply>Behead those who insult Islam.jpg
Nevermind. Go f**k yourself you delusional history-twisting moron. Islam DID spread through the point of a sword. Now, that's not any different than Christianity post-Rome, but it IS the truth. All religions have that s**t in common; not even Buddhism has been a peaceful groundswell. The difference is these days we have LAWS in place here to keep the christmonkeys from flinging their poisoned s**t at everyone. The middle east has no such laws; 'honor killings' are still a thing there, for one.
And equating 'American Muslims' (which barely anyone gives a s**t about, even the f*****g birthers) with MUSLIM Muslims, and yes I know that's not PC but f**k off, is so laughable it loops all the way back into infuriating. Wasn't long ago lots of black American civil rights figures turned to Islam, for instance, because they lacked a real history and had a stupid goddamn idea that woman-battering, infidel slaying laughable shitheap of a religion might provide them with an identity. It did, I suppose. Just not a very good one.
Accusing all muslims of being TERR'ISTS is bridge too far, but accusing MOST middle eastern muslims of being backwards, honor-killing, woman-stoning scimitar-monkeys is most certainly NOT.
4 things.
1. Many religons didn't. Wicca and some other Neo-Pagan ones didn't.
2.read the last sentance.
3. American muslims follow the exact same thing as everyone else who is muslim.
4.Most middle eastern muslims aren't what you say they are. That's not a muslim thing.
#ThingsUNeed2KnowAboutIslam its about peace and love. nowhere does it encourage killing or terrorism. remember that
ReplyI see enough irrational true-believers in church pews, thank you very much. Extremist Christians and extremist Jews are no better than extremists Muslims. The common thread here is that it is the extremists, not the rank and file faithful, who are the problem.
Reply#USATerroristState
No better, true... But western societies mostly have their extremist religious nuts under control, so they rarely do any harm.
But then again, every now and then a Bush comes along...
Which "they" want me dead? Does this include my colleague at work? Her husband? Friends and colleague from years past? My fellow graduate students with whom I spent many an hour in pleasant conversation?
ReplyJews also have a military advantage. Don't talk about terrorism when one side is armed to the teeth and the other side has ancient rockets and rocks.
Get your head out of your arse... Both sides blow up eachother (and innocent bystanders) because some a*****e convinced them it's "holy".
I have seen more hatred in Christians about Muslims due to their faith than vice versa. Go to any Christian website, all that they talk about is bad words about Muhammed (PBUH), they call him impostor, evil and all that goes with it while there is ZERO Muslim website that talks ill of Jesus (PBUH).
ReplyInspite of all the talk about Muslims hating Jews, On a daily living basis Islam allows Jewish Kosher food at the same level as its own Halal, if such an accommodation is made for Jews in Islam to consider that their blessed food has the same status - how can one imagine that Muslims hate Jews because of their religion?
Extremist Muslims hate Jews and Christians not because of their faith nor because they think these religions are evil but because of their secular grievances, while extremist Christians and Jews utilise state institutions to attack them just because they believe Muhammad (PBUH) and Islam to be evil.
Does Islam have a common leader? For example, christianity has the pope (he rules the majority), buddhism has the dalai lama, and Judaism has... I guess the prime minister of Israel (lol). I think if they could find a way to elect a new caliph, he might be able to clear up a lot of the discrimination against normal Muslims.
Reply Hide All See All 4 Repliesif he's insane then things would be worse though.
No, Christianity does NOT have the Pope, Catholicism has the Pope.
Buddhism does not have the Dalai Lama, the Gelug Buddhists have the Dalai Lama.
It's a little more complicated then just that.
There are leaders of certain groups of Islam, for example, the Ayatollah is a religious leader in the country of Iran (I guess you could say he is Pope-like, but not very), but no one broad religion has a single figurehead leader.
Pedant-man, away!
Well said, Ophanium. In fact, I think that having a central leader might clear up a lot of discrimination, but it wouldn't take much for such a leader to cause it, either, especially given the typical misinterpretation of Islam.
There's no one leader for the whole religion, but there are respected scholars and schools of thought. Some sects have individual leaders, but those are few compared to those that don't.
*reads comment section*
ReplyBismallah...
I'm scared
Im an athiest, and ill admit this now, used to be one of those really agressive "illegalise religion" athiests that are pretty rare but, like religious extremists, are the ones everybody focusses on. however, i grew up and realised i was being an arse. since then i've read a few religious texts (torah, qur'an, bible) and, while im still an athiest, can find their symbolism moving. I've studied most religions, while not nessicerily in huge detail, at least a little, and found most of them fastinating. Hell, i even started meditating a little after studying Buddhism. Id recommend this Little tour of world religion for anyone who is sensible enough to realise their beliefs are making them an arse to people of other faiths.
Reply Hide All See All 3 Replieswell islam prohibits being a religious missionary arse , going to ppls doors and saying have u found god like a dick.
I'm wiccan and i'm trying to learn about aas many religons as i can.
Does Islam really prohibit that? Do you have any kind of source other than your word?
How about we all shut the f**k up about religion and go have a beer? Oh wait... Well, I'll have a beer and the Muslims in the house can have something Halal.
ReplyDick move. Not wrong, but dick move. Like cooking bacon when a jewish freind's over.
What people don't realize is that the god in Judaism, Christianity, and the Quran are all the same god, and there's weird rules (like how you can be put to death for lighting a fire on the Sabbath in Judaism) hateful thing (stoning gays and unbelievers in all three) and a few good things (treat people like you want to be treated). Personally, I'm an atheist and if you want to have religious beliefs you should just keep them to yourself and your family, and let everyone else do their thing.
Reply Hide All See All 5 Repliesu r wrong on many levels about islam, i should tell u that in islam it is expressly forbidden to cause anyone because of their beliefs,status or any other thing.
They're not the same God.
Is like one of those 'all squares are rectangles' thing. The Islamic God is the same as the Christian and Jewish God(s), but the Christian God (while being the same as the Jewish God) is NOT the same as the Islamic God.
And to the Jews, their God has nothing to do with either the Christians or the Muslims.
It doesn't help that each faith thinks that theirs is the only one any man could ever need, but that's a different story.
huh, i thought all squares were rectangles because the diffintion of a rectangle is a quadrilateral paralelogram with 90 degree angles and squares are all those. .... Nevermind, i don't think i'm getting it
If I really believed that my neighbors were going to hell if I didn't help them come to jesus and share my beliefs, should I really "just keep them to myself"?
Of course not. Likewise, if I heard on the news that there was a tornado watch for the weekend, I would call them up.
It's the beliefs themselves that are foolish, not just the desire to share them.
We will we spread our message to anyone willin gto listen. The differance is we don't go about childish name calling and ridiculous comparisons like most athiest do. Oh a flying spagetti monster is certaintly as likely as a greater being that made us in his image!
Reading this and the comments has inspired me to buy my own copy of the Qur'an. I don't have any intention of converting to Islam (though that may change when I've read it, we'l see) but it is important to millions and the world and definitely needs to be read. I hope this doesn't offend anyone, I've tried to word this right.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesThat's a very healthy point of view to have. It's pretty sad to bash something when you actually haven't read/seen/experienced what you are bashing. Not to say that you'd bash the Qur'an, I just mean if people actually read up on various cultural texts and philosophies maybe there wouldn't be so much animosity towards one another :/
That is great. It is a very interesting read and gives good insight. Some advice from when I read it, find a good commentary on it and read it side by side. Without intimate knowledge of the Islamic World and its history it doesn't make much sense at times. Congrats on fighting ignorance!
that's good
I will do likewise, but remember, it is perfectly alright to bash something before you have read it, given the proper circumstances.
This is one of your best articles!
Replythank you cracked, for helping me write my english paper. thank god i dont have to turn it in online
ReplyHow did this help you write your English paper?
Religion can eat a dick.
ReplyOh come on now, even people like you should make the distinction between religions like Islam and the worst offenders.
All right, for the sake of brevity instead, look up what they are doing in Europe and how drastically it has changed because of their presence. Then try to tell me with a straight face that they mean no harm.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesWhoops, I mean "Eurabia." Europe doesn't exist anymore.
Whoops, you're an idiot.
Because the culture of Europe is SOOOO important to people. How could we let a bunch of bigoted white people go extinct! that would be awful!
Europe is under a lot of pressure from an increasingly self-ghettoed Islamic immigrant demographic which brings with them many of the abuses from which they seek asylum.
You'll have to forgive Sweden if their Islamic immigrants just don't "get" nude beach volleyball.
They immigrate, and, because of their staunch religious background, make no effort to assimilate.
Europeans truly think they're the borg don't they with all this assimilation bullshit?
They pay taxes and speak you're language usually. They are citizens and if you guys keep being Nazi assholes to them you will be sorry.
f**k Europe, I'm out.
People believe these things because they have manifested themselves in reality thousands of times over. There is plenty of evidence of islam being a violent and intolerant religion all over the world and throughout history. There is NO evidence of it being peaceful. It has never done anything good for the world, ever.
Reply Hide All See All 6 RepliesThere is no moderation, there is no extremism, there is only one islam, and that is the one that has killed millions of people. That's what it is at its core. This peace business is an unsustainable lie. Any "peaceful" muslims out there are not true muslims, just people who have fooled themselves.
Maybe once the progressives stop having a knee-jerk reaction to anything that looks like discrimination, we can all employ common sense and set the world straight. This has nothing to do with race, it's about dispelling a deep-seated set of lies and sociopath behaviors disguised as a religion.
You do know that you can say the same thing about the Christian religion, right?
Dude are you serious?! Do you honestly think that that many people can harbour such hateful beliefs? Here's the real question do you actually know any Muslims? An honest and pious religion thoughtful dedicated with a deep respect for Christianity. Extremism is just that ideological usurping and twisting of traditionally peaceful views... Way to drink the koolaid retard
There actually is evidence of Islam being peaceful, this article stated a good bit of it.
Also, violence wasn't used to spread Islam. Instead economic and social incentives were used- which most religions did then.
well ive got a good bit of clearing up to do, faith guy told u about ur stupid beliefs and also islam revolutionized the world and set the gears of development moving, the freaking dong filled renaissance happened because of islam and faith guy, islam didnt use social and economic incentives, all it did was send missionaries and proceed to any threat to islam with 3 things, war, payment of poll tax or conversion to islam.
That's what some people say about wicca. i'm wiccan and i have seriously felt sorry for WOODTICKS. point, don't hate uselessly or wrongly. i can really say this because i know someone i told this to and they hated me until i convinced them to look it up.
Sp3nc is technically correct. The statement, if I may paraphrase his rant, "There is no toleration of other religions at Islam's core," is repeated ample times in the Quran. Muslims are not to take non-Muslims as friends, Allah will punish all non-believers with eternal hell-fire in the afterlife, kill the unbelievers, etc. etc.
Mohammed, after whom so many Muslims are named, slaughtered the last remaining tribe of Jews in Medina nigh the founding of Islam, by literally forcing the men to dig a trench and lean over it while their heads were cut off, that blood might fill the trench, after which their women were systematically raped.
Even in the Talmud there are not so many general exhortations to violence against members of competing religions.
Quran 2:216 "Warfare is ordained for you, though it is hateful unto you; but it may happen that ye hate a thing which is good for you, and it may happen that ye love a thing which is bad for you. Allah knoweth, ye know not."
The religion of Islam, and its god, do not bear tolerance of other religions:
Quran 3:32 Say: Obey Allah and the messenger. But if they turn away, lo! Allah loveth not the disbelievers (in His guidance).
Quran 3:118 O ye who believe! Take not for intimates others than your own folk, who would spare no pains to ruin you; they love to hamper you. Hatred is revealed by (the utterance of) their mouths, but that which their breasts hide is greater. We have made plain for you the revelations if ye will understand.
Religions don't kill people, people kill people. And then make up dumb-ass excuses.
ReplyBut their excuses are almost certainly about religion.
Scary-Mike kills people... and he's excuse is he's Scary-Mike.
"wearing a veil is not required in Islam but is more of a custom, depending on where you live and who's in charge."
Reply Hide All See All 6 RepliesI cannot stress enough on how this whole sentence is wrong. Where the veil in Islam might not mean the "burqa" or how they wear it in saudi but it is REQUIRED in Islam for a muslim girl to cover herself as soon as she becomes "balgha" - usually means when she gets her period.
It is NOT a custom as many believe and it can not be argued it is mentioned both in Quran and Sunnah.
What a lot of both christians and muslims dont get is that the God that is mentioned in the Bible is infact Allah that is mentioned in the Quran. We are praying to the same god. The only difference is that the Quran came down as the final book and religion which has not been modified - as the bible has - to suit our life styles. If we had an original copy of the Bible it would have a lot of similarities with the Quran whether it was about the prophets or the laws.
There are so many people who question Islam but if people (all faiths including muslims themselves) read about it with pure hearts and minds, without being biased or thinking about the news and all the stereotypes in the world there would be no doubt in their minds that it is in fact the only religion to follow.
I'm with you on the second point (God being the same God in all three faiths) as we both know some people can't seem to grasp the obvious. :)
But I take issue with the notion that veiling is ABSOLUTELY required. (Granted, being a man, I should probably shut up about it right away, but ...) In the immense amount of reading I've done (including the Quran cover-to-cover) leading up to and following my own embrace of Islam, I've yet to be convinced that veiling is obligatory - although you can make a strong case for it being preferred. The only women specifically ordered to veil in the Quran were the wives of the Prophet (pbuh). No less an authority than Sheik Ali Gomaa, Grand Mufti of Egypt, has said that a women shouldn't feel obligated to veil if she feels it will bring hostility toward her, in non-Muslim countries for instance. (See G. Willow Wilson's book *The Butterfly Mosque*.) I've also read a wide range of arguments pro- and con- by Muslim women writers.
Having traveled in several Muslim countries (and lived for a while in Turkey), I've noticed that women veil in different fashions or degrees as they wish, and many choose not to bother at all. They mostly seemed perfectly okay with each others' choices. The one thing all Muslim women seem to have in common is a resentment of being lectured on the subject, whether by ultra-conservative mullahs, or Western feminists out to "liberate" them.
Since I'd rather have my sisters watching my back than getting up in my face (and lets face it - it takes three Catholic girls to take one Muslimah in a fight) I'll just leave the veiling issue to them. As-salaam alaikum. ;)
I feel I should add one other thought ... One thing that finally made me feel comfortable with embracing Islam was discovering how flexible it really is in practice. You don't find many religions with such an excellent balance between the spiritual and the practical.
(Which is why, the more I learn about it, the more I'm disgusted by the Wahabis and other fundamentalist jagoffs... let's see, take the most extreme, cruel and backward attitude about religion around, hook it up with a filthy-rich autocratic government, and spend lots of money convincing everyone that theirs is the REAL Islam and the only Islam there ever was... and people actually fall for it? No thanks. All praise is due to Allah, and the Wahabis can f**k off.
thanks for pointing out the truth
Yes it is true that religion builds on top of previous beliefs, thus evolving like everything else in the world and possibly universe.
well i go with that that deezerd on veil thing about the hostility, but there is one thing id like to clear, is that the burqa was already a custom and it is expressly written in the quran that the burqa was now compulsory and a face veil to ALL women must wear the veil, if u have aany objection i can provide u with the bibliography (i am also a student of comparative religion so i know this hit)
im insulted by the last sentance
This wasn't a bad article but it didn't teach me anything new. To be honest I would expect most thinking, normal people to know all this stuff.
ReplyMost people aren't thinking, nor are they normal.
well same for me it didnt give me anything new
"In the same way that not all Christians are Young Earth Creationists, plenty of modern Muslims see room for interpretation in the Quran."
ReplyThat's the thing that kills me about this whole debate. When a story comes out about a Christian doing something horrible or stupid, people immediately jump in going, "Not ALL Christians are like that! Don't lump them all together!" Which is a very fair and true point.
But when a Muslim does something? "Well, that's just what Muslims do." Why is one stereotype not okay but another is? Why can't both stereotypes be wrong?
That stereotype really irks me. Saying all Muslims are terrorists. It's like some people have yet to know that some Muslims countries despise terrorists.
Or when a Christian fanatic shoots someone, he's just a fanatic, but when a Muslim fanatic shoots someone, he's an America-hating terrorist.