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Islam Should Prove It's a Religion of Peace

[Wall Street Journal] Tawfik Hamid - Many Muslims seem to believe that it is acceptable to teach hatred and violence in the name of their religion - while at the same time expecting the world to respect Islam as a religion of peace, love and harmony. Scholars in the most prestigious Islamic institutes and universities continue to teach things like Jews are "pigs and monkeys," that women and men must be stoned to death for adultery, or that Muslims must fight the world to spread their religion. The stoning of women exists in both the Old Testament and in Islamic tradition. The difference, though, is that leading Jewish scholars agreed to discontinue these practices centuries ago, while Muslim scholars have yet to do so. Hence we do not see the stoning of women practiced or promoted in Israel, the "Jewish" state, but we see it practiced and promoted in Iran and Saudi Arabia, the "Islamic" states. So, Islamic scholars and clerics, it is up to you to produce a Sharia book that will be accepted in the Islamic world and that teaches that Jews are not pigs and monkeys, that declaring war to spread Islam is unacceptable, and that killing apostates is a crime. Such a book would prove that Islam is a religion of peace. The writer, a former member of an Egyptian Islamist terrorist group, is an Islamic reformer and senior fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.
2009-03-09 06:00:00
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