.... This is why, last week, we launched #makingastand. The campaign encourages women to take the lead in exerting influence in their communities and to root out extremists who are preying on their children. But it is also designed to provide an alternative narrative for young British Muslims: to pledge their allegiance to their country, to respect human rights and to be a peaceful, thoughtful member of British society.
It is in stark contrast to what extremists preach. Our campaign is a “jihad against violence”, an attempt to reclaim the word jihad from those who have wrongly attributed it to mean holy war. Jihad means no such thing. Instead, it is a struggle for goodness, for truth, for justice, for compassion and for peaceful coexistence.
[TOP RATED COMMENT 612 votes] "If Muhammad – a man who was sent as a “mercy to the world” – were alive today..."
...he'd be on trial at the Hague for crimes against humanity.
[SECOND 595v] "... and even violates the basic tenets of mercy, peaceful co-existence and love spoken of in the Qur’an?"
Yes, I'm sure that are such words in the Qur’an. Unfortunately, there are lots of other words that mean the opposite and those are the ones ISIS believe.
You will just have to get it into your head, one day, that the Qur’an is a mish mash of human thought (and legend) from late antiquity much of it put together by a clever individual struggling for power and influence.
[THIRD 485v] In reality this is a civil war between different strains of Islam with tragic consequences. I don't know which side is in the majority. What I do know, and I have demonstrated, is that the jihadi / ISIS strain of Islam did not come out of nowhere. It was nurtured by Saudi and other Gulf money and was espoused by the leaders of the British Muslim community for decades.
"If the prophet Muhammad – a man who was sent as a “mercy to the world” – were alive today, what would he make of these followers?"
I'll leave it to people to read the koran and the ahadith and form their own opinion on that question. However, in truth, we all know the answer. Any seventh century warlord would have welcomed such a dedicated band of followers.
If you take your moral compass from a seventh century load of codswallop of dubious provenance you need to face up to realities like that. If Muhammad existed he would have welcomed them. [Guardian Cif] Read more
