Jesus Was A Servant Of God and Not God Himself

Rabbi Admits Islam Is The Oldest Religion

"A common root, a common faith, a fundamental religion in which all men are born into... This fundamental faith is called: Islam."

"Islam is an ancient religion. Islam is the religion of Noah. Islam is the religion of Adam himself."

I Am Not Charlie. I Am Ahmed!

#JeSuisAhmed Reveals The Hero Of The Paris Shooting Everyone Needs To Know

In the hours following the deadly attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, much of the public support has been directed toward the victims that worked for the magazine, like editor-in-chief Stéphane Charbonnier, 76-year-old cartoonist Jean Cabut and economist Bernard Maris.

... but it's equally important to remember that the lives of the victims extended beyond the confines of the magazine. 

Two of those killed, 42-year-old Ahmed Merabet and 49-year-old Franck Brinsolaro, were police officers — the very people tasked with protecting Charlie Hebdo's staff. Merabet's death was captured on film during a French television broadcast and shared quickly across social media. Two masked gunmen can be seen approaching him, ignoring his pleas to spare his life.

Who Was He? As information about the victims began to filter out, the world learned that Merabet worked at a police station in Paris' 11th Arrondissement, near the location of Charlie Hebdo's offices. Reports also emerged that Merabet was himself Muslim. 

He gave his life to protect Charlie Hebdo's right to ridicule his religion, a powerful fact that has now become a trending hashtag on Twitter

Merabet's Sacrifice Matters: Each of the 12 victims deserves equal remembrance and respect. But given the Islamophobic backlash that has already ripped through France — several mosques were vandalized overnight, and many fear that the Charlie Hebdo attack is to blame — the country is in a dangerous place when it comes to anti-Muslim sentiment.

Instead of assuming that everyone who practices Islam is tied to the extremists who carried out Wednesday's violence, we would do well to remember that that vast majority are, in fact, much closer to Ahmed Merabet.

MUSLIMS ARE RIGHT TO BE ANGRY

 

Catholic League President Bill Donohue comments on the killing of 12 people at the Paris office of the newspaper Charlie Hebdo:

Killing in response to insult, no matter how gross, must be unequivocally condemned. That is why what happened in Paris cannot be tolerated. But neither should we tolerate the kind of intolerance that provoked this violent reaction.

Those who work at this newspaper have a long and disgusting record of going way beyond the mere lampooning of public figures, and this is especially true of their depictions of religious figures.

For example, they have shown nuns masturbating and popes wearing condoms. They have also shown Muhammad in pornographic poses.

While some Muslims today object to any depiction of the Prophet, others do not. Moreover, visual representations of him are not proscribed by the Koran.

What unites Muslims in their anger againstCharlie Hebdo is the vulgar manner in which Muhammad has been portrayed. What they object to is being intentionally insulted over the course of many years. On this aspect, I am in total agreement with them.

Stephane Charbonnier, the paper’s publisher, was killed today in the slaughter. It is too bad that he didn’t understand the role he played in his tragic death.

In 2012, when asked why he insults Muslims, he said, “Muhammad isn’t sacred to me.” Had he not been so narcissistic, he may still be alive.

Muhammad isn’t sacred to me, either, but it would never occur to me to deliberately insult Muslims by trashing him.

Below is just one small example of the double standards that is at work: "freedom of speech" will always be cited when disrespecting Islam and Muslims, but the same "freedom of speech" is then discarded and placed in the trash receptacle when dealing with "Anti-Semitism."

Charlie Hebdo doesn't pull its punches. But some critics say it goes too far, specifically with Muslims. 

The newspaper, after all, fired a cartoonist who published an article deemed anti-Semitic in 2008. 

But when it comes to depicting Islam, writes the Financial Times' Tony Barber, the publication has no qualms specifically "mocking, baiting and needling French Muslims."

Covering Up With The Hijab Aids Women's Body Image

Some see the hijab as a way to identify with the Muslim community or to assert themselves as a human being instead of a sexual object. 

"The reasons why women wear the hijab are incredibly complex," says psychologist Viren Swami at the University of Westminster in London. "They can't be boiled down to one or two things."

Last year Swami and one of his graduate students wondered if the hijab might have a positive influence on how women view their bodies. "There had been three or four previous studies showing that more modest or conservative clothing is associated with a healthier body image," he says.

So the team surveyed nearly 600 Muslim women in Britain. About 200 said they never used the hijab. The others said they wore it at least sometimes. Swami and his colleagues also asked the women a whole slew of questions to measure how they felt about their bodies.

The difference between the two groups was small. But across all parameters, the women who wore the hijab, at least some of the time, had more positive views of their bodies on average. They had less desire to be thin. They appreciated their bodies more. And they weren't as influenced by media messages about beauty standards.

"The take-home message, I think, is maybe that individuals who challenge society's norms of beauty seem to have better body images," Swami tells NPR. "The hijab allows you to do that in a certain way [in Britain]. ... Feminism does the same thing."

The study, published in the August issue of the British Journal of Psychology, couldn't tell whether the hijab was the cause of the improved self-esteem. And previous studies had suggested that women who are more religious have better body images.

Swami thinks the hijab could protect women against dangerous pressures to be thin.

"The hijab seems to have a buffer on body image," he says. "If somebody is objectifying a woman, the hijab might offer a sort of protection. ... Any clothing like this would help to reduce sexualization of the body."

Tabassum Ruby, who studies gender and women's issues at Western Michigan University, says she's not surprised the hijab is linked to a better body image.

"Wearing the hijab eliminates many of the hassles women have to go through — such as dyeing their hair," she says. "For example, you're getting old, and gray hairs, when you wear the hijab, you might not think about dyeing your hair because nobody sees it anyway."

So wearing the hijab can be very liberating for some women, she says. It allows them — and others around them — to focus on their minds, not their bodies.

"There is a stereotype that women who wear the hijab are oppressed," Ruby says, "that we [Muslim women] have no agency or power."

But all societies and cultures have their own dress code, she says. They all have a way to construct femininity and masculinity. "Muslim societies aren't exceptional in that respect," she says. "But we don't see them in that way because of the tension between the West and the Middle East."

"We don't question why woman in the West wear miniskirts and plunging necklines," she says. "So why do we question the hijab?"

By MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF

Top 10 Misconceptions About Islam

In the words of Swiss journalist and author, Roger Du Pasquier “The West, whether Christian or de-Christianised, has never really known Islam. Ever since they watched it appear on the world stage, Christians never ceased to insult and slander it in order to find justification for waging war on it. It has been subjected to grotesque distortions the traces of which still endure in the European mind. Even today there are many Westerners for whom Islam can be reduced to three ideas: fanaticism, fatalism and polygamy. 

Of course, there does exist a more cultivated public whose ideas about Islam are less deformed; there are still precious few who know that the word Islam signifies nothing other than ‘submission to God’. 

One symptom of this ignorance is the fact that in the imagination of most Europeans, Allah refers to the divinity of the Muslims, not the God of the Christians and Jews; they are all surprised to hear, when one takes the trouble to explain things to them, that ‘Allah’ means ‘God’, and that even Arab Christians know him by no other name. “

10

Muslims Are Arabs

Misconception: All Muslims are Arabs

The common image of a Muslim is a turbaned dark Arab man with a long beard. However this image is part of the minority of Muslims. Arabs make only 15% of the world’s Muslim population. 

As a matter of fact the Middle East comes in third with East Asia coming in at first (69%) and Africa (27%) coming in at second. 

Another common misconception is that all Arabs are Muslims. While the vast majority of Arabs are Muslims (75%), there are many other religions that Arabs practice including Christianity and Judaism.

Muslims and Jesus

Misconception: Muslims Hate Jesus

There are many similarities between the historical references of Christianity and Islam. Many people are amazed to find out that according to Muslim belief, Jesus is one of the greatest messengers of God. 

One cannot be a Muslim without believing in the virgin birth and the many miracles of Jesus Christ. Jesus is also mentioned in many verses of the Quran and is often used as an example of good virtue and character. 

However, the main difference between Christianity and Islam is that Muslims do not believe that Jesus was God. 

Pictured above is Jesus in an Islamic portrayal of the last judgement.

8

Children’s Rights

Misconception: Children have no rights

Children, according to Islamic law, have various rights. One of these is the right to be properly brought up, raised, and educated. 

Islam encourages children to be brought up well because it is the responsibility of an adult to raise his child to become a moral and ethical adult. 

Children must also be treated equally. When giving financial gifts they should all be the same amount and there should be no preference among them. 

Children are even permitted to take moderately from their parent’s wealth to sustain themselves if the parent declines to give them proper funds for living. 

A child is also not allowed to get hit in the face or hit by anything larger than a pencil.

7

Religious Intolerance

Misconception: Islam is intolerable to other religions

‘Kill the infidel’ is the phrase many people believe is the ideology that Muslims have towards the non Muslims. This, though, is not a correct portrayal of Islamic law. Islam has always given respect and freedom of religion to all faiths. 

In the Quran it says “God does not forbid you, with regards to those who fight you not for religion nor drive you away out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them, for god loves those who are just.” 

There are many historical examples of Muslim tolerance towards other faith. 

One such example was when the caliph Umar was ruler of Jerusalem from 634 to 644 AD. He granted freedom to all religious communities and said that the inhabitants of his city were safe and that their places of worship would never be taken away from them. 

He also set up courts that were designated to the non Muslim minorities. 

Whenever he would visit holy areas he would ask for the Christian patriarch Sophronius (pictured above) to accompany him.

6

Islamic Jihad

Misconception: Jihad means to fight for the sake of god

The true Arabic meaning of the word jihad is struggle. However in Islam it is often used to describe the striving in the way of god. 

There are many forms of jihad but the most important ones are Jihad al-nafs (jihad against ones self), jihad bil-lisan (jihad by being vocal), jihad bil yad (jihad by using action), and Jihad bis saif (jihad by using the sword).

 Each jihad is ranked differently and it was reported that Muhammad returned from a battle and said “We have returned from the lesser jihad (going into battle) to the greater jihad (the struggle of the soul).” 

This means that a Muslim struggling against himself and his soul is more important than the jihad of going into war. 

Another misconception is that only when a person dies in war does that person becomes a martyr. This is, however, false and it is believed that anyone doing anything for the sake of god and is killed becomes a martyr. 

A person who dies while performing pilgrimage in Mecca, a woman who dies while giving birth, or even someone who dies in a car crash while he was on his way to the mosque are all considered martyrs.

5

Child Bride

Misconception: The Prophet Muhammad was a pedophile

While it is true that he married a girl that was at the age of nine that does not constitute pedophilia. Historically, the age at which a girl was considered ready to be married has been puberty. This was the case in Biblical times, and is still used today to determine the age of marriage in many parts of the world. This was part of the norm and is not something that Islam invented. 

The girl he got married to had reached puberty 3 years before marriage. It is upon reaching the age of puberty that a person, man or woman, becomes legally responsible for their actions under Islamic law. At this point, they are allowed to make their own decisions and are held accountable for their actions. 

It should also be mentioned that in Islam, it is unlawful to force someone to marry someone that they do not want to marry. 

There is no indication that the society at that time criticized this marriage due to the girl’s young age. On the contrary, the marriage was encouraged by the girl’s family and was welcomed by the community at large.

4

Muslim Savages

Misconception: Muslims are savages and barbaric during war

Quite the contrary, when it comes to the conduct of war there are ten rules that every Muslim army must obey:

1. Do not commit treachery
2. Do not deviate from the right path
3. Do not mutilate dead bodies
4. Do not kill children
5. Do not kill women
6. Do not kill aged men
7. Do not harm or burn trees
8. Do not destroy buildings
9. Do not destroy an enemy’s flock, unless you use it for your food
10. When you pass people who have devoted their lives to monastic services leave them alone

During the crusades when Saladin defeated the franks he honored the defeated Frankish army and supplied them with food and during the third crusade when Saladin’s enemy king Richard fell sick, Saladin sent him a gift of fruits and horses.

3

Women’s Rights

Misconception: Women have no rights

The image of a woman wearing a veil from head to toe, a woman who gets unfair justice or a woman who is not allowed to drive is an all too familiar notion when it comes to women treatment in Islam. And while there are Muslim countries in the world that do implement many harsh rulings against women, this should not be portrayed as Islamic law. Many of these countries have cultural differences that go against the teachings of Islam. 

It should be noted that during pre-Islam Arabia women were used for fornication only and had no independence. The birth of a daughter in a family was considered humiliating and the practice of female infanticide was uncontrolled. 

When Islam came to being, verses in the Quran condemned the practice of female infanticide. Islam gave back many human rights to the woman and Muhammad(s) was even reported saying that “women are the twin halves of men.” 

A Muslim woman is allowed to reject and accept any suitor for marriage and has the right to seek divorce. There is nothing in Islam that forbids a Muslim woman from exiting her house and is allowed to drive. Also in regards to education, a woman is obligated to seek knowledge and it is considered a sin if she refuses.

2

By The Sword

Misconception: Islam was spread by the sword

Historian De lacey O’Leary states:

“History makes it clear however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point of the sword upon conquered races is one of the most fantastically absurd myths that historians have ever repeated.” 

There is no record in history that shows people being forced by sword point to convert to Islam. 

When Islam spread through countries they would set up private churches and synagogues for the non Muslims they were governing and because of the good treatment they had received they themselves would convert. 

If one considers the small number of Muslims who initially spread Islam to the west all the way from Spain and Morocco and into east from India and China one would realize that such a small group of people could not force others to be members of a religion against their will. 

It is also interesting to note that when the Mongols invaded and conquered large portions of the Islamic empire, instead of destroying the religion they adopted it!

1

Islamic Terrorism

Misconception: Muslims are terrorists

This is by far the biggest misconception of Islam, given unfairly by stereotyping and the public image that the media gives. 

Has anyone else noticed how when a specific group of people attack another group of people it is labeled as a ‘hate crime’, but when a Muslim opens fire on anybody it is quickly regarded as ‘terrorism’. 

Many political dictators and officials or extremist groups use the name of Islam as a strategy to garner followers and attention when many of their practices go against the true basis of Islam. 

The media has also portrayed Islam as a cult or a club where if you join you become a terrorist and that is now part of your agenda. 

However all over the world people practice Islam in the true form and use it as a way of life. 

There are many verses in the Quran that go against the idea of terrorism. Some of these verses include: 

“fight in the way of Allah those that fight you but do not transgress limits for god does not love transgressors.” 

This basically means do not fight except in self defense and even in doing so do not go beyond defense. 

Another verse states: 

“if they seek peace, then you seek peace,” 

which means do not attack people for no reason or kill innocent people.
There is nowhere in Islam, whether it be in the Quran or the teachings of Muhammad, that promotes the killing of innocent people. 

Pictured above is a conference of Muslims against Terrorism.

Source: ListVerse

The Hundred-Word Eulogy: Praising Prophet Muhammad & Islam

The Hundred-Word Eulogy (百字讃 bǎizìzàn) is a 100-character praise of Islam and the Islamic prophet Muhammad written by the Hongwu Emperor of China (r. 1368-1398). Copies of it are on display in several mosques in Nanjing, China.

English: 

Since the creation of the universe
God had already appointed his great faith-preaching man,
From the West he was born,
And received the holy scripture
And book made of 30 parts (Juz)
To guide all creations,
Master of all rulers,
Leader of the holy ones,
With support from the Heavens,
To protect his nation,
With five daily prayers,
Silently hoping for peace,
His heart directed towards Allah,
Giving power to the poor,
Saving them from calamity,
Seeing through the Unseen,
Pulling the souls and the spirits away from all wrongdoings,
Mercy to the world,
Transversing to the ancient,
Majestic path vanquished away all evil,
His religion Pure and True,
Muhammad,
The Noble High One.

Chinese:

至聖百字讃

乾坤初始

天籍注名

傳教大聖

降生西域

授受天經

三十部册

普化衆生

億兆君師

萬聖領袖

協助天運

保庇國民

五時祈祐

默祝太平

存心真主

加志窮民

拯救患難

洞徶幽冥

超拔靈魂

脱離罪業

仁覆天下

道冠古今

降邪歸一

教名清真

穆罕默德

至聖貴人

穆罕默德

清真北寺

Chinese (with punctuation in paragraph form)

《百字讚》寫道：“乾坤初始，天籍注名。傳教大聖，降生西域。授受天經，三十部冊，普化眾生。億兆君師，萬聖領袖。協助天運，保庇國民。五時祈祐，默祝太平。存心真主，加志窮民。拯救患難，洞徹幽冥。超拔靈魂，脱離罪業。仁覆天下，道冠古今。降邪歸一，教名清真。穆罕默德，至貴聖人。”(《百字讚》

Arabic: 

منذ أن خُلق الكون،
قد قرر الرب أن يعيّن،
هذا الرجل العظيم الداعي للإيمان،
من الغرب قد ولد،
ليتلقى الكتاب المقدس (القرآن(
كتابًا يحتوي على ثلاثون جزءا
ليهدي جميع الخلائق،
ملك كل الملوك،
زعيم كل القديسين،
بدعم إلهي،
ليحمي أمته،
بخمسة صلوات يومية،
بصمت يأمل حصول السلام،
قلبه متجه نحو الله،
يقوي الضعفاء،
ينقذهم من الكارثة،
يرى من خلال الظلمة،
يسحب النفوس والأرواح،
بعيدًا عن جميع الذنوب/الاخطاء،
رحمة للعالمين،
سائرًا على طريق العظماء القديم،
طاردًا لكل الشرور،
دينه نقي وصادق،
محمد،
الشريف والعظيم.