Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:12:49 here. Dear Jesus poster, please take it to another thread. Muslima is already proselytizing here (viz the rosy view she's painting), we don't need another proselytizer.

The thread is tell me about Islam. And boy am I. If you don't like religious discussion, go atheize somewhere else.

Anonymous wrote:12:49 here. Dear Jesus poster, please take it to another thread. Muslima is already proselytizing here (viz the rosy view she's painting), we don't need another proselytizer.

Anonymous wrote:Think on this - the Bible is the Old Testament from the Jewish people, and the New Testament is all about how the messiah (Jesus) came to die for us so that we may go to heaven.

The Jewish text says the messiah would be crucified. And the whole point of all the New Testament about Jesus is to be good to one another and that he died for us.

So Mohammed says that he believes some of the Jewish text, and almost none of the New Testament? He picks ok, I believe Moses, but not the book of Isaiah. He believes Jesus came, but almost everything else is a lie. So the Jewish bible and Christian bible is full of lies. Doesn't that sound a bit strange? Then why even believe any of the Bible? I mean, Christians and Jesus never said the Torah lied, or any large portion of the Torah is a lie. And Jesus said false prophets would come, and the ONLY unforgivable sin is to turn people away from Jesus.

Muslima wrote:

But as it aimed at putting an end to such issue, Islam laid down rules which would eventually lead to eradicating the practice. So it allowed Muslims to have intercourse with slave women taken as captives of just and legitimate wars. In so doing, the woman would automatically become free if she got pregnant. What's more, her child would also become free. Not only that, Islam also ordered a Muslim to treat the slave woman in every respect as if she were his wife. She should be well fed, clothed and given due protection. In the family environment, she had the opportunity to learn about Islam and was free to accept it or reject it. She also had the opportunity to earn her freedom for she could be ransomed.

Anonymous wrote:
I'm the person you're responding to, but I'm not 23:35. I'm sorry, but a lot of this glosses over what's in the Quran and also doesn't reflect historical reality. Who do you think was selling black slaves to the European slave traders? It was Muslims selling African polytheists to the European Christians. You haven't even attempted to deny that the Quran condones taking non-Muslim (kaafir) prisoners as slaves, instead you've offered some fairly unconvincing arguments about how slave-taking is limited (ask West African polytheists how this worked out for them a few centuries ago). As for your point about how Islam didn't invent slavery, the pity of it all is that a document that purports to be God's direct word to humanity actually condones slavery.

Muslima wrote:

The issue is, who defines what is "evil" and "unjust"? There is a great deal of latitude for interpretation here, obviously.

A crucial point for the current ISIS crisis is that Muslims are required to live under Muslim law, i.e. with a Muslim government and courts to enforce sharia law, with an Islamic banking system, et cetera. In a Muslim state, sharia rules apply to everybody, including dhimmi (non-Muslims). Therefore, teachers can define "evil" to include any secular (read: religiously tolerant) government. ISIS wants a "caliphate" to impose sharia law on everybody within the Islamic state's borders, because secular governmental structures are "evil."

False!One of the fundamental teachings of Islam is that non-Muslims are guaranteed freedom to practise their religions and customs without any restriction as long as non-Muslims reciprocate by not being insensitive to the Muslim community. The Constitution, too, categorically restricts Most Islamic laws to Muslims. And one more time, Muslims are not required to live under sharia law, they are required to follow the law of the land they live in. In Islam obedience to the law of the land is a religious duty. The Qur'an commands Muslims to remain faithful to not only Allah and the Prophet Muhammad (saw), but also the authority they live under.

Also, the Quran is quite clear that you can't kill your prisoners of war, but you can certainly make slaves out of your non-Muslim prisoners. This is applies equally tor capturing non-Muslim women and children. If your slaves convert to Islam, you must free them. It strikes me that Muslima is gilding the lily when she calls this "asylum" in her post above.

PP again. I should add, I believe it's permissible for Muslims to sleep with female captives/prisoners of war, in addition to with their wives. Mohammed did this.

When Islam was reveled to Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), slavery was a worldwide common social phenomenon; it was much older than Islam. Slavery was deeply rooted in every society to the extent that it was impossible to imagine a civilized society without slaves. In spite of this social fact, Islam was the first religion to recognize slavery as a social illness that needed to be addressed. Since slavery was deeply rooted in the society, Islam did not abolish it at once. Rather, Islam treated slavery in the same manner it treated other social illnesses. Islam followed the same methodology of gradual elimination in dealing with this social disease as it did with other social illnesses, for example: the prohibition of alcohol in three steps.

Concerning having slave women, this was a practice necessitated by the condition in which early Muslims found themselves vis-a-vis non-Muslims, as both parties engaged in wars. Slave women or milk al-yameen are referred to in the Qur'an as “Those whom your right hand possess” or “ma malakat aymanukum”; they are those taken as captives during conquests and subsequently became slaves, or those who were descendants of slaves. Thus, it was a war custom in the past to take men and women as captives and then turn them into slaves. Islam did not initiate it, rather, it was something in practice long ago before the advent of Islam. And when Islam came, it tried to eradicate this practice, bit by bit. So it first restricted it to the reciprocal practice of war, in the sense that Muslims took war captives just as the enemies did with Muslims.

But as it aimed at putting an end to such issue, Islam laid down rules which would eventually lead to eradicating the practice. So it allowed Muslims to have intercourse with slave women taken as captives of just and legitimate wars. In so doing, the woman would automatically become free if she got pregnant. What's more, her child would also become free. Not only that, Islam also ordered a Muslim to treat the slave woman in every respect as if she were his wife. She should be well fed, clothed and given due protection. In the family environment, she had the opportunity to learn about Islam and was free to accept it or reject it. She also had the opportunity to earn her freedom for she could be ransomed.


Islam restored dignity to slaves and enhanced their social status. It made no distinction between a slave or a free man, and all were treated with equality which was unheard of in that society 1400 years ago. It was this fact that always attracted slaves to Islam. It is painful to see that those who never cease to be vociferous in their unjust criticism of Islam should take no notice of this principle of equality, when even in this enlightened age there are countries where laws are made discriminating against the vast majority of population, to keep them in practical servitude. This dignity restored to slaves was documented even by Non-Muslims throughout history:

P. L Riviere writes:

"A master was enjoined to make his slave share the bounties he received from God. It must be recognised that, in this respect, the Islamic teaching acknowledged such a respect for human personality and showed a sense of equality which is searched for in vain in ancient civilization"

Source: Riviere P.L., Revue Bleaue (June 1939).
And not only in ancient civilisations; even in the modern Christian civilisation the ingrained belief of racial supremacy is still manifesting itself every day. A. J. Toynbee says in Civilization on Trial:

"The extinction of race consciousness as between Muslims is one of the outstanding achievements of Islam, and in the contemporary world there is, as it happens, a crying need for the propagation of this Islamic virtue..." Then he comments that "in this perilous matter of race feeling it can hardly be denied that (the triumph of English-speaking peoples) has been a misfortune."

Source: Toynbee, A.J., Civilization on Trial (New York, 1948), p. 205.
Napoleon Bonaparte is recorded as saying about the condition of slaves in Muslim countries:

"The slave inherits his master's property and marries his daughter. The majority of the Pashas had been slaves. Many of the grand viziers, all the Mamelukes, Ali Ben Mourad Beg, had been slaves. They began their lives by performing the most menial services in the houses of their masters and were subsequently raised in status for their merit or by favour. In the West, on the contrary, the slave has always been below the position of the domestic servants; he occupies the lowest rug. The Romans emancipated their slaves, but the emancipated were never considered as equal to the free-born. The ideas of the East and West are so different that it took a long time to make the Egyptians understand that all the army was not composed of slaves belonging to the Sultan al-Kabir."

Source: Cherfils, Bonaparte et l'Islam (Paris, 1914)
Annemarie Schimmel writes:

"The entire history of Islam proves that slaves could occupy any office, and many former military slaves, usually recruited from among the Central Asian Turks, became military leaders and often even rulers as in eastern Iran, India (the Slave Dynasty of Delhi), and medieval Egypt (the Mamluks). “

Source: "Islam: An Introduction", p. 67

Islam recognises no distinction of race or colour, black or white, citizens or soldiers, rulers or subjects; they are perfectly equal, not in theory only, but in practice. The first mu'azzin (herald of the prayer call) of Islam, a devoted adherent of the Prophet and an esteemed disciple, was a slave. The Qur'an lays down the measure of superiority in verse 13 of chapter 49. It is addressed to mankind, and preaches the natural brotherhood of man without distinction of tribe, clan, gender, race or colour. It says:

“O you men! We have created you of a male and a female, and then We made you (into different) races and tribes so that you may know (and “recognise) each other. Surely the most honourable of you with Allah is the one who is most pious among you; surely Allah is All-Knowing and “Aware.” The Qur'an 49:13

it was a war custom in the past to take men and women as captives and then turn them into slaves. Islam did not initiate it, but it first restricted it to the reciprocal practice of war, in the sense that Muslims took war captives just as the enemies did with them. The texts of Islam took a strong stance against this. It says in a hadeeth qudsi: “Allaah, may He be exalted, said: ‘There are three whose opponent I will be on the Day of Resurrection, and whomever I oppose, I will defeat … A man who sold a free man and consumed his price.’” Narrated by al-Bukhaari (2227). It is worth pointing out that you do not find any text in the Qur’aan or Sunnah which enjoins taking others as slaves, whereas there are dozens of texts in the Qur’aan and the ahaadeeth of the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) which call for manumitting slaves and freeing them. Islam limited the sources of slaves that existed before the beginning of the Prophet’s mission to one way only: enslavement through war which was imposed on kaafir prisoners-of-war.

Anonymous wrote:Mohammed was a pedophile and murderer. He was violent and barbaric.

Islam is a cult of pedophiles and murderers that follow Mohammed's example.

Jesus was peaceful and never led an army of murderers.

The difference is night and day and we are experiencing this horror of Islam over and over and over.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not muslim, but I have a friend in Mecca (Jeddah) and his family visits america, they frequent american chain restuarants in jeddah, and in almost every pic everybody makes the peace sign (must be the hot thing over there right now). So I definitely don't think every muslim person is thinking we are in a jihad (holy war). Just the psychos. The problem is, there's no islamic country going into Syria and Egypt and Iraq etc. and stopping the psychos from committing genocide of the christians. Well, actually, I guess Saddam Hussein, Pres. Mubarak, and Pres. Assad stopped the psycho jihadists, but we got rid of Saddam and Mubarak and tried to get rid of Assad. Way to go USA.

Military is back in charge in Egypt and things are more stable and safer for Christians. Not perfect by any means, but better. And the new constitution is not as hard core based on Islam as the one approved by Morsi (Brotherhood).

The issue is, who defines what is "evil" and "unjust"? There is a great deal of latitude for interpretation here, obviously.

A crucial point for the current ISIS crisis is that Muslims are required to live under Muslim law, i.e. with a Muslim government and courts to enforce sharia law, with an Islamic banking system, et cetera. In a Muslim state, sharia rules apply to everybody, including dhimmi (non-Muslims). Therefore, teachers can define "evil" to include any secular (read: religiously tolerant) government. ISIS wants a "caliphate" to impose sharia law on everybody within the Islamic state's borders, because secular governmental structures are "evil."

Also, the Quran is quite clear that you can't kill your prisoners of war, but you can certainly make slaves out of your non-Muslim prisoners. This is applies equally tor capturing non-Muslim women and children. If your slaves convert to Islam, you must free them. It strikes me that Muslima is gilding the lily when she calls this "asylum" in her post above.

PP again. I should add, I believe it's permissible for Muslims to sleep with female captives/prisoners of war, in addition to with their wives. Mohammed did this.

P. L Riviere writes:

"A master was enjoined to make his slave share the bounties he received from God. It must be recognised that, in this respect, the Islamic teaching acknowledged such a respect for human personality and showed a sense of equality which is searched for in vain in ancient civilization"

Source: Riviere P.L., Revue Bleaue (June 1939).
And not only in ancient civilisations; even in the modern Christian civilisation the ingrained belief of racial supremacy is still manifesting itself every day. A. J. Toynbee says in Civilization on Trial:

"The extinction of race consciousness as between Muslims is one of the outstanding achievements of Islam, and in the contemporary world there is, as it happens, a crying need for the propagation of this Islamic virtue..." Then he comments that "in this perilous matter of race feeling it can hardly be denied that (the triumph of English-speaking peoples) has been a misfortune."

Source: Toynbee, A.J., Civilization on Trial (New York, 1948), p. 205.
Napoleon Bonaparte is recorded as saying about the condition of slaves in Muslim countries:

"The slave inherits his master's property and marries his daughter. The majority of the Pashas had been slaves. Many of the grand viziers, all the Mamelukes, Ali Ben Mourad Beg, had been slaves. They began their lives by performing the most menial services in the houses of their masters and were subsequently raised in status for their merit or by favour. In the West, on the contrary, the slave has always been below the position of the domestic servants; he occupies the lowest rug. The Romans emancipated their slaves, but the emancipated were never considered as equal to the free-born. The ideas of the East and West are so different that it took a long time to make the Egyptians understand that all the army was not composed of slaves belonging to the Sultan al-Kabir."

Source: Cherfils, Bonaparte et l'Islam (Paris, 1914)
Annemarie Schimmel writes:

"The entire history of Islam proves that slaves could occupy any office, and many former military slaves, usually recruited from among the Central Asian Turks, became military leaders and often even rulers as in eastern Iran, India (the Slave Dynasty of Delhi), and medieval Egypt (the Mamluks). “

Source: "Islam: An Introduction", p. 67