Muslims are very sensitive about the lack of a Golden Rule in Islam. So, when you bring this up they always rush to assert that Muslims love everybody, in particular, Christians and Jews. And, of course, Islam has a Golden Rule.
In a past newsletter, I argued that Islam had no Golden Rule. Marcelle Sagan replied to my post on the website of the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center, a site sponsored by the royal house of Jordan. Given this source of funding, so you expect the highest quality of scholarship on Islam.
So let’s take a look at some of Mr. Sagan’s arguments, one at a time.
He makes the usual claims of Islam being the victim of ignorant Islamophobes and advances that anything a critic about Islam has to say never, ever, has any truth in it at all. This attitude comes directly from the Sunna of Mohammed. Mohammed was never wrong, Islam is perfect and anyone who does not believe this is a bigot. Mohammed was always the victim. When he attacked unarmed caravans in the sacred months, Islam was the true victim, not the murdered kafir (non-Muslim) Meccans.
Mr. Sagan argues that Islam is filled with statements about the Golden Rule. His first claim for the Golden Rule is this Koran verse:
83:1 Woe betide the unjust who, when others measure for them, exact in full, but when they measure or weigh for others, defraud them!
Giving Islam the benefit of the doubt, doing business in an honest manner could be construed as a very narrow, weak version of the Golden Rule. However, let’s examine this verse in its context and with a frame of reference. When Mohammed moved to Medina, he found that the Medinans routinely cheated when measuring out goods in a sale. When the Meccan Muslims complained that they gave good weight and were being cheated by their Medinan Muslim brothers, Allah gave Mohammed this verse. The actual case involves Muslims selling to Muslims.
Here is a quote from the Hadith with some ethical advice along the same lines:
Bukhari 9, 86, 109: […] the Prophet said, ‘In dealing with Muslims one should not sell them sick (animals) or bad things or stolen things.”
Does this sound like the Golden Rule? Where are the kafirs (unbelievers) in this morality?
Then Mr. Sagan quotes Mohammed:
None of you believe until you desire for your brother, what you desire for yourself.
But who is a Muslim’s brother? Humanity? Mohammed gives us his answer:
Bukhari 1, 2, 12: The Prophet said, “None of you will have faith till he wishes for his (Muslim) brother what he likes for himself.”
Bukhari 3, 43, 622: Allah’s Apostle said, “A Muslim is a brother of another Muslim, so he should not oppress him, nor should he hand him over to an oppressor. Whoever fulfilled the needs of his brother, Allah will fulfill his needs; whoever brought his (Muslim) brother out of a discomfort, Allah will bring him out of the discomforts of the Day of Resurrection, and whoever screened a Muslim, Allah will screen him on the Day of Resurrection. “
What we see here is that there is a Golden Rule but only in an Islamic way. Muslims are to practice the Golden Rule, but only with other Muslims. This is ethical dualism.
Perhaps, Mr. Sagan missed the universal brotherhood hidden somewhere in the 6,800 hadiths of Bukhari. Do the math. There are 209 hadiths that mention the word “brother”. Of those 209 hadiths, 96 concern blood kinsman ship and the other 113, each and every one, are about spiritual brotherhood where a Muslim is a brother to other Muslims.
Then Mr. Sagan uses an outright deception. He states that in Mohammed’s farewell sermon, he said: “That which you want for yourself, seek for mankind.” These words sound good until you read Mohammed’s farewell sermon and find he says no such thing. In this sermon, Mohammed did say to treat your slaves well, that Muslims are brothers to each other, that your wives are your prisoners and to beat them if they disobey you. Oh yes! That is universal brotherhood, compassion and Golden Rule. The only times Mohammed ever said anything about humanity or mankind, it was that mankind had to submit to Islam.
Why did Mr. Sagan manufacture this quote? Because, Mohammed repeatedly advised Muslims to deceive the kafir if it would advance Islam:
Bukhari 5, 59, 369: Allah’s Apostle said, “Who is willing to kill Al-Ashraf who has hurt Allah and His Apostle?” Thereupon Muhammad bin Maslama got up saying, “O Allah’s Apostle! Would you like that I kill him?” The Prophet said, “Yes.” Muhammad bin Maslama said, “Then allow me to say a (false) thing (i.e. to deceive Kab). The Prophet said, “You may say it.” […]
And finally, let us examine the Golden rule in Mohammed’s life. Since he is the perfect moral example, his actions define morality. If we look in the Sira, Mohammed’s biography, we do find incidences where he treated the kafirs well, but the treatment was always part of seduction and persuasion to get them to submit to Islam. If that did not work, then he attacked them. In the end, Mohammed violently attacked each and every neighbor he had. He was the ultimate bad neighbor. The Golden Rule makes you a good neighbor. Islam’s dualistic ethics make Muslims the same kind of neighbor as Mohammed was.
The reason Muslims use deception about the Golden Rule is that they know not having it makes Islam look bad. Why do politicians, preachers, rabbis, educators and media commentators repeat the propaganda about how wonderful Islam is? Their duplicity or silence stems from fear and ignorance.
So, Muslims, preachers, politicians, rabbis, educators and media pundits are deceivers, but for different reasons. Muslims are following the example of Mohammed and our leaders are ignorant cowards. When seen in this light, even though they have been given no Golden Rule to follow, perhaps the argument can be made that Muslims are more admirable than these others.
Bill Warner, Center for the Study of Political Islam
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9 Responses
anti-jihad
To aisha,
What was that book you quoted from? It is written in Arabic or one that was translated in to English?
Ibn Hisham never wrote any authentic book he just added and deleted certain parts. That’s why Guillaume gave the credit to Ibn Ishaq though he translated from the book authored by Ibn Hisham.
To Billy Sir,
It is a great article like many great articles here. I learned a lot from this website about inhuman Islam and I quote many things from these articles in my posts and debates. But most of the times I give credit to your website.
Especially reporting the statistics in Koran is excellent. I am from stupid India.
Great work.
stalwart
To cap it all the writer to the article more greese to your lame brain. on reading the comments above i found out that a lot of americans are in the words of mc couglings ignorant and concieted fooooools the writer claimed that mohammad on getting to medina told the muslims in medina that where cheating the muslims in mecca what muslims in mecca where they where mosly pagans it is a pity .Islam says categoically that do not cheat do not lie show kindness where was your arrogant christen heart to stop the sufferings of the american negros where was it when blacks where been killed in Atrica because the bible said they are inferior heartless man.
Democracyistheanswer
Islam is not a race, dear Univers. It is a political system, or better yet a political ‘movement’ similar in structure to Nazism.
In Islam, an all powerful ‘leader’ makes all decisions from above and those who are unsuitable to be members are treated violently. The ultimate aim is to replicate the Arabian culture in every country by invasion, colonization and if necessary by genocide.
Political Islam is totalitarian. Moderate Muslims are merely Muslims who are not in a hurry to achieve the political goal of Arabization of the planet.
I might add that ‘moderate’ Muslims often appeal to various verses in Islamic texts that are ‘pseudo-golden-rules’. That is…these verses upon examination turn out to refer to treating brother Muslims respectfully to enhance group cohesion or they are references to ‘verbal jihad’, a method of speaking in a conciliatory manner in order to conceal from kafirs Islam’s hostile intent towards them. However, the political submission of the earth under Islamic overlordship remains the ulitimate goal of all Muslims. No actual universal Golden Rule is present in any Islamic text.
Universalgeni
“Ethical dualism”? This expression sounds to nice. It’s pure racism in the new use of the word.
Standards are good but double standards are double so good?
I’m against islam all together. Moderate or not moderate. It’s a disease that must be stopped. We need a cure for islam.
Aisha
Bill,
I would like to remind you and your readers that Muhammad said in his final sermon:
“Today your religion is completed, and the grace of God is fulfilled in your life. And I bear witness that Islam is your religion. O Muslim people, you are prohibited to shed blood among yourselves or to steal from each other or take advantage of each other or to steal the women or wives of other Muslims.” (Ibn Hisham, The Life of Muhammad, 3rd ed., pt. 6, vol. 3 (Beirut, Lebanon: Dar-al-Jil, 1998), p. 8, author’s translation)
Notice that all these instruction were about how Muslims treat other Muslims.
However, when you come to Muslim treatment of non-Muslims, there is another set of standards.
In the same sermon, Muhammad went on to warn those who were not Muslim:
After today there will no longer be two religions existing in Arabia. I descended by Allah with the sword in my hand, and my wealth will come from the shadow of my sword. And the one who will disagree with me will be humiliated and persecuted. (Ibn Hisham, The Life of Muhammad, 3rd ed., pt. 6, vol. 3 (Beirut, Lebanon: Dar-al-Jil, 1998), p. 8, author’s translation)
So Muhammad’s last message to the Muslims was to be good to each other and to drive all other religions out of Arabia.
Anonymous
While there is no clear expression of the universal Golden Rule of reciprocity in all of Islam, no Islamic teaching is based on a single verse of the Koran or one hadith.
Traditional Islamic teachings were clearly established by the year 1111 A.D. when the doors of further legal development (ijtihad) were closed. The Golden Rule was entirely left out of traditional Islam.
Islamic ethics begin by dividing humanity into two groups. The purpose of Islamic ethics is politically to overcome kafirs and place them permanently under Islamic political suzerainty as captive peoples. This process is called ‘jihad’ and is the central concern of political Islam.
‘Jihad’ (60% of the Koran) requires treating the kafirs unfairly so they may be tricked, coerced or forced to submit to Muslims.
Thus, it is impossible to apply the universal Golden Rule to kafirs while simultaneously prosecuting imperialist jihad against them. Jihad is a total contradiction of the Golden Rule, since its purpose is to deny human rights, pluralism and democracy. At most. Muslims treat their captive peoples as a farmer treats his cattle in the hope of receiving a return on investment (ROI). But kafirs are untermenschen who may also be ill-treated to keep them in their place of forced submission.
To get around this dilemma, modernist Muslims simply ignore 60% of the Koran and most of 1300 years of Islamic legal rulings.
It is an egregious exaggeration to say that Islam contains an expression of the Golden Rule. One can only guess why Muslims still try to claim the Golden Rule, when it is so easy to prove that it is not contained in Islam.
billy ar-razi
Taqiyya (sacred lying) is valid until the day of Resurrection.
It is no surprise to find Muslims manufacturing evidence.
One big point of dualism leaps out of the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center: What is a military institute doing studying religion if Islam is merely religion and not a world conquest political doctrine?
CSPI is correct…Islam is a politico-military doctrine that preaches violence and supremacism with alleged divine authority.
Ed
Bill,
You didn’t mention the deception of using the “lesser jihad and greater jihad” hadith. At a recent post, I commented on it as follows:
Muslims in the West love to quote the Hadith where Muhammad, returning from a raid with his warriors, commented that they were returning from the lesser Jihad of war to the greater Jihad of spiritual improvement. But all Muslim scholars acknowledge that this is a weak Hadith and not considered authoritative (comment: Quranic commentator Ibn Taymiyyah says in his book Al-Furqan, “This hadith has no sources and nobody whomsoever in the field of Islamic knowledge has narrated it. Jihad against the disbelivers is the most noble of actions and moreover it is the most important action for the mankind.”).
The link to the above posting is : http://staringattheview.blogspot.com/2010/03/why-jihadists-always-win.html
By the way, I look forward to attending the conference in Nashville in June.
cassandra
Bill, I love your articles and they help explain why Muslims act as they do in Western countries. I was initially taken in by the interfaith charm offensive, and it took a time for me to realise what was going on.
However, the realisation did finally sink in. The reason it took so long was that I had previously known nothing about the Muslim religion.
But that excuse is not available to our leaders, both religious and political. Religious leaders make it their business to read religious texts, so they must know what Islam teaches. Political leaders have access to advisers and other experts, so they should make it their business to know what Islam teaches. As for the media, they are supposed to inform us, not deceive us.
These people are, as you say, cowards, even more so as they have the means to be informed at their disposal.
Incidentally, are you sure Marcelle is a man? It’s usually a woman’s name.