We received a letter from a convert to Islam named Jean Hughes. He pestered us that we publish his thoughtful and balanced comment. We have posted it in full with our reaction to it. His comments are in blue.

 

I have been reading your website and you really dislike Islam. May I ask what is your religion? 

Dear Jean, Thank you for reading our website and leaving your comment. Yes, obviously our website is dedicated to critical evaluation of Islam. About your question of what is our religion, you should have known that this website is run by a dedicated group of ex-Muslims. Although, we emphasize publishing essays on Islam by former or moderate Muslims, we also give space to limited number of essays written by non-Muslim writers.

When you learn about any faith you go to the source not the people. You can find nuts in any faith. 

You claim that you have read our website; yet you naively or ignorantly claim that we do not go to the root sources of Islam but we judge it by its followers. If you have browsed through our website to some detail, you should have realized that a majority of our authors base their essays on the Koran, Sunnah and original biographies (Sirat) of the prophet. Do you want to tell us that Koran, Hadiths and Muhammad are not the source of Islam? 

Yet, there are other essays on our site that deal with the impact of Islam and Muslim peoples on the society. If you are little knowledgeable in Islam, you must know that Islam is the complete guide to life for the Muslims. Consequently, every aspect of Muslim life would theoretically be guided by the all-encompassing precepts of Islam. Hence, the behavior of the Muslims should ideally reflect the ideology of Islam. So your complaint about our judging Islam by the behavior of its followers is totally misplaced, which definitely comes from your ignorance about Islam.

Having said that, we believe many of our essays that deal with the pernicious behavior and actions of the Muslims have definite link to the teachings of Islam contained in the Koran, Sunnah and the sirat of the prophet. If you have any doubt or disagreement about the contents in any of our essays, please point them out one by one, we will look into it. If we cannot defend them, we will take them out of the site.

You can also find examples of violence in all of the books, not just the quran. I think injustice should be addressed no matter what the faith but to just say islam is evil or bad why? Why just look at bad things muslims do? People of all faiths do bad things.

As you agree that there are bad things, including violence in the Koran – we are only pointing to those violent contents of Islam. Violent contents in any book or ideology must be criticized and expressly condemned. When violence is taught as sanctioned by the creator of the universe, it becomes mush more potent and extremely dangerous to human society. We agree with you that other scriptures such as the Bible contains violent teachings. Humanity has suffered from the followers of the Bible as well as the Koran. No, we do not say that only the Koran or Islam is violent. But this website is dedicated to criticizing Islam, which is the most pressing issue of its kind of our time. There are other sites that are dedicated to criticizing Christianity or Hinduism without touching Islam. Furthermore, Christianity and Judaism have been criticized for centuries, while we are the initiators of criticizing Islam.

Islam doesn't condone bad deeds or harming others.

Strange logic you put here. You yourself assert that Koran contains examples of violence when you say, “You can also find examples of violence in all of the books, not just the quran.” In the next sentence, you contradict yourself by asserting that ‘Islam does not condone bad things..’ Then what do you think the examples of violence are there in the Koran for? Are they meant for doing good deeds? And for your information, Koran does not simply contain examples of violence; it also commands the followers to perpetrate violence. This is the dominant theme of the Koran. Koran is a manual for violence for the followers. The Hadiths and sirat of the prophet only affirm this point.

There is good and bad in all races, countries.....seems you are just fostering hate.

About you accusation that ‘we are fostering hate’ – we are only analyzing Islam to expose its unacceptable content. If criticizing the violent contents of the Hitler’s Mein Kampf or of communism means fostering hate against the Nazis or the communists – then so be it. We will have no regret. However, if we look back to history, we see the criticisms of Christianity in the past centuries have made the violent Christians much more tolerant and peaceful.

btw, yes I am muslim, and I don't hate "infidels" and I don't harm other people nor do I teach it to my children.

We appreciate that you do not hate infidels, despite being a Muslim. However, we remind you that you are defying Allah’s commands. Allah clearly command the Muslims to kill the pagans/idolaters wherever found, while they must fight to Christians and Jews until the kaffirs are subdued and submitted to Islam and paid Jiziyah (poll-tax) with humiliation. This essay in our site analyze as to how a Muslim to should treat the infidels: Unfettered Religious Freedom in Islam – A Fact or Fiction?

Islam has made me more aware of others rights and that I have to answer to God for my actions.

Why do you think ‘Islam has made you more aware of others’ rights? Which verses of the Koran or which Sunnah have made you so? How were you violating those rights of the others before becoming a Muslim? Which scriptures or teaching of which book had taught you to violate those rights of others, which you now respect?