Chapter 8 – Misinterpreting the Qur’an
This is a serialization of the book titled ‘Crisis in Islam’. The full book and its Endnotes may be accessed at:
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I ended the previous chapter by reaching an important conclusion proven by history, which is that, since the first year of the departure of the Prophet, Muslims have accepted killing a Muslim if he/she withholds from the Caliph a camel’s tethers.
Would the observer today be surprised seeing the culture of takfir (accusations of apostasy) and murder, being revived in this horrific way, having had its foundations set since the first year after the death of the Prophet?
This is an extremely serious issue because deeming so easy the killing of a Muslim cannot but lead to the belief and conviction, apparent or hidden, that killing non-Muslims must be still easier. That is how the culture of killing in Islam began growing gradually as we will see.
As soon as the ‘wars of apostasy’ were over, Muslims began looking for new wars outside the borders of the Arabian Peninsula. Thus began the new page of ‘Islamic Invasions’ that colored the history of Islam from that day until the end of the Ottoman Empire in the early twentieth century.
I have already demonstrated how Muslim history glorifies ‘invasions’, to the extent that it calls the wars in which the Prophet fought in defense of the Muslims ‘invasions’ (Ghazwat). This invasion is nothing but a word of rebuke in the Qur’an, where the Almighty uses the word ‘invade’ (Ghazu) only for the unbelievers. The word was not even once used to describe the Muslim believers. How then did historians and scholars permit themselves to use this word in the biography of the Prophet?