I started thinking about Islam as a dangerous, self-replicating "meme" a few years back.
The catalyst was a Muslim colleague who tried to convince me Islam was tolerant. His evidence was a source claiming that the Koran demanded that Muslim men could marry Christian/Jewish women and were obliged by the Koran NOT to interfere with their wive's religion (thus allegedly proving how tolerant Koran is).
But... the same source also declared that:
1 - Children should follow the father's religion.
2 - And while Muslim men were allowed to marry infidels, Muslim women were not.
And then I thought how those rules interacted with each other.
And then I realized that, under a thin disguise of supposed "tolerance", these rules gave an evolutionary/competitive advantage to the Muslims over the long term (ie: birthrate/religon of children).
In reality, these rules didn't facilitate "tolerance". They simply facilitated a steady, slow-motion conquest by stealth.
Now I don't know the providence of these claimed traditions, but when even the evidence shown to me directly by a "Moderate Muslim" clearly shows a Supremacist mindset, this is not encouraging!
And so my suspicion began...
Thank you for laying this all out so clearly and easy-to-understand in a single article.
Citizen Warrior,
ReplyDeleteYou're right this is hardly an example of tolerance.
Not a 'meme' a PRION.
ReplyDelete(Proteinaceous Infectious particle also responsible for Creutzfeldt–Jakob and Mad Cow)
Yes, the rule allowing Muslim men to marry Christian and Jewish women, but prohibiting Muslim women from marrying any non-Muslim men (unless the man converts to Islam), is based on a combination of the Quran and the Hadith. In Islamic law, marriage between a non-Muslim man and Muslim woman is a capital (death penalty) offense. Even among Muslims in the U.K. today, if my memory serves me, about half of them believe that a Muslim woman should not be allowed to marry a non-Muslim man.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Muslim husband tolerating the non-Muslim wife remaining non-Muslim, there are incentives mentioned in the Hadith for converting her, e.g., the man is promised "a double reward" from Allah if he can convert her. In addition, a grave penalty is threatened if she does not convert to Islam, as implied by Quran 66:6, which urges Muslims to save themselves and their families from the fire of hell, and 3:85 which declares unequivocally that Islam is the only acceptable religion.
(Not that all Muslims believe this, but many do).
When I was 19 I dated a man from the Muslim world who seemed completely Americanized in every way. One day he became worried that he had gotten me pregnant. I asked him "What would you do if I was?" Without hesitation he said he would send the baby to Iran to be raised by his family. That was quite the "Aha" moment for me.
ReplyDelete