A Letter To The Editor, And My Reply

The letter published in our local newspaper:

Editor:
Cal Thomas, in the Sauk Vally Sunday paper on Sept. 16^th quotes bin Laden thus : “Conversion to Islam, he says, would mean no taxes, just a low single-digit ‘alms’ requirement.”

This is only a small part of what life under Muslim rule would mean. Under Islamic Sharia law, non-Muslims must pay a (ransom) tax to avoid being killed (K9:29). Under Sharia law, there is no personal freedom, no freedom of speech, no freedom of the press, no freedom of religion, no individual rights, no right to property, no capitalism, no equality under the law.

Non-Muslims are second-class citizens (dhimmis) under Sharia law. Women are third-class citizens, slaves of their husbands and male relatives. Anyone who criticizes Islam or ‘offends’ Muslims is marked for death (K9:73-74). A Muslim who renounces Islam faces the death penalty (K4:89).

Philosophy is prohibited. Causality is denied.

Sharia law was developed a thousand years ago and ‘cannot’ be changed. I t is based on the supposed word of ‘Allah’ (K5:49) as revealed to the ‘prophet’ (war lord) Mohammed, interpreted by clergyman. As Cal Thomas put it, Islamic rule guarantees that we will live in “dirt and serfdom.” That is, if the don’t kill us as directed in the Koran (K2:193, 8:40).

If you don’t believe this, take a look in the authoritative Muslim-approved guide to Sharia law ‘Reliance of the Traveller’, by Al-Misri, who died in 1368 (Amazon .com, about $20). It is the classic manual of Islamic ‘sacred’ law.

According to ‘Reliance’, non-believers other than Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians are to be killed (ROTT 09.9, 11.2)

Christians and Jews who pay the ransom taxes must live by Islamic law 9ROTT 0 11.3a) and by special laws for dhimmis. For instance, no churches may be built (ROTT 0 11.5, 7) or repaired. Nothing ‘impermissible’ may be said about ‘Allah’, the ‘prophet’, Mohammed, or Islam. The penalty for breaking Islamic law is death or slavery, at the pleasure of the Caliph (ROTT 0 11.9).

Muslim rule would not be a no-tax paradise, as bin Laden claims. It would be a brutal tyranny, in which the theocratic ‘government’ claimed the ‘divine’ right to kill or enslave you at its whim.

If you value your life and freedom, you should recognize that Islam is the enemy.

Paul Stout

My reply:

Editor:
This is in response to the letter ‘Islamic rule is a threat to freedom’ by Paul Stout

The last sentence in Mr. Stout’s letter says, “If you value your life and freedom, you should recognize that Islam is the enemy.” He then offers up quotations out of the Koran as proof.

Lifting out specific verses from any holy scripture, whether it is Christian, Muslim, Judaic, is in a great sense taking the verse out of context. A Muslim could open the Bible or the Torah and do the same towards Christians and Jews. There is much in the Bible that is violent. There is much in the Koran, and the Torah that is violent. Does that make every person that is an adherent to the faith of each scripture violent? Or are these violent stories more an example of the spiritual history of a faith?

To be sure, there are people of the Islamic faith that mean to do people of other faiths harm. Why that is so is as much cultural and political as religious. Judaism and Christianity have these types of people in their religions also. So is it reasonable to believe that all the millions of Muslims in the world intend to do us harm? That they want to overrun us, force us to convert to Islam, take away our freedoms? Does the statement ‘Islam is the enemy’ make every local Muslim an enemy too?

In a world that has so many new ways to keep people connected, we seem to be growing farther apart. We are in danger of increasing the fear of things we do not know, or things we think we know but really don’t. Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, can result in much good, and exclusivity of truth in any of the three can cause much pain and death. It is in how we perceive each other. If we do not take the time to know one another instead of using words and scriptural quotations to justify our fears, the world will remain in the situation that it is.

I cannot agree with the statement ‘Islam is the enemy’. It is the doctrine of fear and hate, no matter where it comes from, that is the enemy.

Alan Beggerow