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Take the Acid Test for Islamophobia

July 28, 2010

A favorite comeback for someone who is critical of Islam is—you are Islamophobic. Never mind that the term phobic means an irrational fear. Really, the charge is that you are irrational AND a bigot. A bigot is immoral and a hater and has no possible reason for their views.

There is a cure for bigotry. If you are a bigot, learning about the subject of bigotry can cure it. Clint Eastwood’s character in Grand Torino started out as a bigot about the Hmong Vietnamese who moved in next door. As he got to know them, he changed and gave the ultimate sacrifice of his life to help them. The cure for his bigotry was getting to know more about his neighbors, the Hmong.

Notice this does not say that as you get to know them, you will always like them better. There are people and groups that the more you know them, the less you like them. As you see what they do and how they think, you may actually start to fear them. Not being a bigot doesn’t mean that you love everybody and what they do. In the sixties, the Black Panthers had a revolutionary, “stick it to the man”, image that was cool. However, the more you got to know them and see what they did, you learned that the Panthers were serious racist thugs and dangerous to society. So just because someone is “oppressed” does not mean that they are decent people.

Want to see if you are an Islamophobe? Let’s presume that you don’t like Islamic doctrine, Sharia law as an example, and would like to take the test to see if you are a bigot. Remember, if you are a bigot, then the more you get to know Islam, the better you will feel.

Here are some concepts from Islamic doctrine, so that you can understand it better. Islam says that non-Muslims are Kafirs. Allah hates Kafirs and He even plots against them. Kafirs can be tortured, deceived, enslaved, crucified, raped and robbed. How important are Kafirs to Islam? Islam has three sacred texts: Koran, Sira (life of Mohammed) and Hadith (his traditions). Look at how much of Islam is devoted to the Kafir:

If the Kafir is “bad”, then there is a lot of “bad”. How does your cultural sensitivity feel now? Feel any closer to Islam, any less afraid?

Maybe, you need a little more exposure to become warmer towards Islam. Jihad should cure your ills. Isn’t the jihad thing overblown? There are only a few verses about that, aren’t there? Look at the statistics:

Now that you are learning more about Islam, are your fears subsiding?

Still afraid? Every Muslim will tell you that Islam was the first ideology to give women their rights. If we take everything that is written about women in the Koran and rank it according to whether the woman is held in high status, equal status and lower status, we find:

How does the women’s issue strike you? Are you feeling more simpatico? Less Islamophobic?
So, you took the Islamophobia test. Now that you know Islam better, do you now understand and realize that your Islamophobia was bigoted hatred?
Surely, this test is biased. There must be some goodness in Islam for Kafirs. If you go through the Koran and pick out every single verse that offers good words, doesn’t that prove that Islam is good?

If every single verse that seems to promise good to Kafirs is counted up, then 2.6% of the verses offer good to Kafirs. But, wait! There is that contradiction and abrogation contradiction principle. The Koran is filled with verses that contradict each other and in every case of good verses, the 2.6%, are cancelled or abrogated, by later verses. The net result is 0%, nothing, is unmitigated good in the Koran for the Kafir.

You have finished the Islamophobe Test. Feel closer to Islam? Or more afraid? If you feel closer and warmer about Islam, then you were Islamophobic, but now you are cured. If not, then your fears are real, not a phobia. Islam is like the Black Panthers—the more you know, the less you like and the more you are afraid.

Bill Warner,
Director, Center for the Study of Political Islam
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