Lauren Kirk-Cohen's Blog: Islam - The Beauty of the Beliefs

I saw a quote on Facebook the other day, saying that it is the duty of those of us with religious privilege to stand up to condemnation of other religions and say ‘not on our watch’. It went on to say that it is not enough to quietly not believe slander about others; we need to stand up to it. This really resonated with me, so I decided to take it one step further.

I particularly want to address all the negative stuff that is going around about Islam at the moment. I am not Muslim, and I don’t know much about the religion, so I have endeavoured to do thorough research on it, but please forgive me if I make mistakes; I am open to corrections from people who know more than me.

Firstly, I looked up the major beliefs of Islam. Here is what I found:

· They believe in one true God, called Allah

· Their Holy Book is the Quran

· They believe on prophets as the messengers of Allah, and in angels

· They believe in salvation and punishment after death

· They believe that Allah knows all and sees all, and that nothing happens against His will

Take a good look at these beliefs. I can’t find anything violent or offensive here. Can you? These are actually pretty standard beliefs – most religions have similar ones. So if you’re going to have a problem with these, keep in mind that you then should have a problem with about 90% of all religious people in the world – and good luck carrying around a grudge that big! I certainly don’t envy you.

Now, let’s look at the morals of Islam:

· Islam holds its believes to strict moral standards; they believe that all actions should be to the glory of Allah, hence they must follow His laws and morals exactly

· They believe that worshipping Allah is very important

· They believe strongly in charity. Zakat is a compulsory charity that all Muslims who are financially stable must pay according to the Quran

· They believe not only in acting morally themselves, but to have a positive impact on their community, helping others to act morally as well

· They warn against becoming attached to material things; that it is what is in your heart that really matters

· They believe in honesty and sincerity, even when honesty is not in the individual’s own interest

· This is important: they do not believe in compulsion of religion. Islam states that the truth of Allah is self-evident, and that people should come to it without being forced. Quran 2:256 – Sahih International: There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion. The right course has become clear from the wrong. So whoever disbelieves in Taghut and believes in Allah has grasped the most trustworthy handhold with no break in it. And Allah is Hearing and Knowing

Now I don’t know about you, but those seem like pretty good morals to me. Most of these morals are ones that are commonly held up as admirable ones today. Other people worship different Gods, or don’t worship at all, but the morals of honesty, charity and free will are universal. The point I am trying to make here is that Islam is not a bad religion. They have beautiful, peaceful beliefs. If everyone lived by the morals of Islam, the world would be a much better place.

Unfortunately, not all Muslims live by their own moral code, but that is not because there is a problem with the religion. Not all Christians live by their moral codes, either. Vlad the Impaler was a Christian; some of his more gruesome habits were roasting infants and feeding them to their mothers, and impaling his enemies on sticks in his dining hall and eating among the corpses. The Jews have been at war over Israel for thousands of years. Atheists and agnostics commit terrible crimes just as much as anyone else.

Do you see the pattern here? There are crazy and evil people all over the world. Some of them use religion as an excuse for their insanity, others don’t. I promise you, if religion didn’t exist, there would still be evil people in the world, they’d just find another excuse for it.

Now let’s talk about ISIS. ISIS has undoubtedly done very bad things, and I would not like to be friends with anyone who supports them. But here’s a secret you may not know: most Muslims are even angrier at ISIS than you are! They’re dragging the name of Islam through the mud, helping to slander a beautiful and peaceful religion.

I am a Christian. I am not ashamed to say it, even though Christians have done terrible things in the past. No one thinks I am evil because the Crusades happened; they realise that Christianity is at heart a good religion, there have just been some people who have misused it. So what do we not use that same logic for Islam? It is absolutely hypocritical to think that Islam is bad because of some very loud extremists. Whatever your beliefs are, I can guarantee you that somewhere in history, someone with your exact beliefs has done something unspeakably terrible.

The hysteria about ISIS is understandable; many people have been killed tragically. Should we be angry? Yes, of course we should! But we should be angry with ISIS, the actual culprits. Don’t misuse your anger and direct it at others because some crazy people are using their beliefs as an excuse for murder. You wouldn’t like it if people said you are a bad person because some terrorists are misusing your beliefs, so don’t do it to other people!

The morals and laws of Islam are directly against ISIS. If Islam as a religion were to disappear today, do you think the ISIS members would suddenly become good, peaceful people? I don’t – people who are committed to hate are committed to hate, not to a religion that preaches love and charity.

I looked up some statistics, and the highest number I’ve seen for the total number of people killed by ISIS is 200 000. Did you know that 1.5 million people are killed by HIV/AIDS every year? So get off your high horse – if you really want to help prevent deaths, it would be more effective for you to educate people about AIDS than go after ISIS. Not that ISIS shouldn’t be gone after, but please, stop blaming Islam for this. ISIS does not follow the principles of Islam; they shouldn’t even get to call themselves Muslim.

Many belief systems believe that everything happens for a reason. Maybe ISIS was meant to happen to teach us a crucial lesson: we are all human and all equal; which God we worship, or if we worship at all, doesn’t matter. What matters is that we share the same moral values, and that we unite against those whose values oppose ours, no matter which religion they choose.

You cannot fight hate with hate. You can only fight it with love. So let’s stop with the anger and focus on solving the problem, but not losing our own humanity along the way. I am a Christian. My family are atheists. One of my colleagues at work is Muslim. A few generations back my family was Jewish. It doesn’t matter. We’re all human, and if we can’t unite in love, there’s no hope for any of us.