BHARATA BHARATI

I have done extensive research on Islamic theology as well as on Islamic history: from Prophet Muhammad to modern times. It has been a harrowing tale of forced conversion, brutal imperialism and devastating slavery. It’s a saga of great human tragedy—all in the name of Islamic holy war or Jihad, the foundational creed of Islam. This tragic tale is the subject of [my] book Islamic Jihad: A Legacy of Forced Conversion, Imperialism and Slavery. – Dr. M.A. Khan

Author M. A. Khan writes: I was born and brought up in a conservative Muslim society. After graduating in India, I moved to the West for furthering my education. Despite my conservative Muslim background, I grew up with a liberal outlook. In my school and university days, my closest friends were Hindus and Sikhs: I felt more comfortable with them as they were more liberal, easy going and humble with fewer religious scruples. I had wholly given up religious rituals by the time I completed my university studies: they just didn’t attract me.

When the 9/11 attacks occurred in the U.S., I had lived in a liberal society for over a decade. I had become consciously convinced that religious rituals—prayers, fasting, pilgrimage—were all meaningless.

I should be rewarded, I felt, for working hard, and intelligently, not for aping some wasteful rituals, which brings good to nobody. Non Muslims were my best friends; shocking my Muslim peers, I ate haraam (prohibited) foods, drank alcohol (in moderation).

Despite the kind of a liberal person I had become, let me be honest that I was not excluded from those Muslims who felt that the 9/11 attacks were justified, although I felt that those perished in it died undeserving deaths. Muslim societies universally portray America as a mortal enemy of Islam, particularly for its stance on the Israel Palestine conflict. America’s mindless support for Israel has been causing terrible oppression and untold sufferings to Palestinian Muslims. There was, undoubtedly, an overriding sense of justification for the 9/11 attacks amongst Muslims; it gave the unjust superpower a bloody nose: I, so little a Muslim, thought that way too.

Weird as it may sound, I still believed in Islam. I thought that the terrorists, who are acting in the name of Islam, were misguided. After 9/11, I slowly started reading about Islam: the Quran, Sunnah and Prophet Muhammad’s biographies; I hadn’t read them in the thirty five years of my life. I was shocked.

I had been told all my life that Prophet Muhammad was the ideal human being: most merciful and just; that Islam is the most peaceful religion; and I believed it. But the Quran reads like a manifesto of open ended war against non Muslims for converting them to Islam, or for subjugating them into horribly degraded dhimmi subjects. In his prophetic career, especially during the critical last ten years, Prophet Muhammad was anything but what a peace loving, merciful and just person stands for.

My curiosity grew. Over the past years, I have done extensive research on Islamic theology as well as on Islamic history: from Prophet Muhammad to modern times. It has been a harrowing tale of forced conversion, brutal imperialism and devastating slavery. It’s a saga of great human tragedy—all in the name of Islamic holy war or Jihad, the foundational creed of Islam. This tragic tale is the subject of [my] book Islamic Jihad: A Legacy of Forced Conversion, Imperialism and Slavery.

› Dr. M.A. Khan is one of the founder-editors of the Islam Watch website (blocked in India but you can get it on your phone). His book Islamic Jihad is available at Amazon and Flipcart. It can be read on-line here.

Filed under: india, world | Tagged: islam, islamic iconoclasm, jihad, koran, muslim terrorism |