The Civility of Islam, Religion of Peace

It is a religion based on a collection of writing. Held to be sacred. As the direct word of God, given to a human interlocutor.

Perhaps some of the utterances and proclamations of that virtuous and perfect spirit were misinterpreted when they were transcribed. Perhaps it was the inclination of a man steeped in the Bedouin way of life where tribal animosities and constant warfare and assassinations being the order of the culture and the heritage of the desert, to tinge the words of ineffable wisdom with the stirring battle cries of a warring people.

The out
cry to defend Islam from humiliation and insult and the spurning of its primacy as the pinnacle of religious righteousness and paramount positioning in a world where other communities of peoples have their own spiritual head-of-mission reigning in the wide blue heavens, remains of primary and paramount importance. Jihad is urged on the faithful, and martyrdom to the cause represents the highest order of human endeavour in the honouring of Islam.

It is a militant creed within a religion based on utter and total surrender of the inner and outer self. The sacred writings betray an unequivocal belligerence toward those who would oppose the first-place status of Islam. As for those who would be foolish enough to question the rights, priorities and values held within Islam, and the pedigree and purpose of its founder, the Prophet, woe betide them for they are destined to perish.

The final words they will hear in their fearful ears informing them they are doomed to death is Allahu Akbar! This frequent and deadly attention is purveyed not only toward infidels but also toward Muslims considered to be insufficiently dedicated to their religion's fundamentalist principles. It can be said of a certainty that the countries of the Middle East where Islam surfaced in the wake of Judaism and Christianity, remain broadly dysfunctional.

As the religion is one of a tyrannical spiritual ruler, so too are the theocratic and titular and totalitarian heads of state and governance of Muslim countries. As long as these remained somewhat closed societies with scant interaction with other, non-Muslim countries of the world on a population-to-population basis, the Muslim ummah seemed content to eke out their lives as their rulers saw fit for them.

With the advent of instant technological communication things appear to have gone awry; the people have become alert to the fact that other countries, particularly those of the West, given to democratic governance, do not subjugate their people. There is law and order and there is respect for peoples' rights and there are values that are fundamental to decent human behaviour and there are opportunities to be had elsewhere.

Why not where they live? So young, unemployed and educated Egyptians protested. As did Tunisians. Bahrainians. Yemenites. Syrians, Libyans, Iranians. In Egypt there is a transition government toward civil rule, and Egyptian Muslims mount attacks against Egyptian Copts. In Iran, the people no longer dare protest and remain simmeringly quiescent. In Yemen military forces fire at protesters.

In Libya, the dictator sends out his military forces to bomb and strafe residents of cities that have been taken by rebels, some of whom are Islamists, looking to profit through their fanatical al-Qaeda connections. In Pakistan, as in Afghanistan, Islamist fundamentalists calling themselves the scholars, are Talib who make a common pact with other Islamists and slaughter those Muslims who are insufficiently pious.

Afghan police and the Afghan national military practise sexual abuse and exploitation of young boys, because this is an age-old accepted practise, little spoken of but endemic in society, somewhat like the overwhelming incidence of base corruption and rapacious tribal war-lordism.
While in Syria its president is intent on putting down a popular insurrection much as his father before him did.

The uprising having begun with fifteen young Syrian boys writing graffiti on their school walls demanding the end of police rule - causing their arrest and incarceration, the first in a long line of some eight thousand arrested protesters some of whom have undergone torture and rape. And in Syria as well the military has been charged to fire with live ammunition upon the people.

Who is prepared to stand forward and make sense of this conundrum of a professed religion of peace inspiring so much 'misunderstanding' of what peace represents?