Why Learn About Islam?

It is a sane, rational, sensible goal to know more about Islam. But why bother learning about it when you have no intention of becoming a Muslim? Here are twelve good reasons:

1. Your education will be more well-rounded. Most of us have some knowledge about Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. We've heard quotes by their founders, we know some of what they teach, we know a little of their history, etc. But almost every Westerner is unfamiliar with the most basic teachings of Islam.

2. Learning about Islam is interesting. Do you know, for example, why Osama bin Laden chose September 11th as the day to attack America? Because the last high-water mark of Islam occurred in 1683 on September 11th.

Islam had expanded and conquered for centuries, and was finally stopped at the gates of Vienna when 40,000 soldiers arrived just in time to stop the Muslim siege of the city.

Islam's spread has been repressed by superior military force ever since then. Their dominance has been receding since that day, and almost all Muslims know this, and many resent it. But the new resurgence has set out to finish the goal (the application of Sharia law worldwide), so they chose September 11th to kick off the new era.

Before I started learning about Islam, I didn't know about the gates of Vienna. I didn't know why the Crusades happened. I didn't know why Middle Eastern countries have seemed so dead-set on destroying Israel. I didn't know what the hijacking of planes and the holding of hostages and the bombings and assassinations was all about when I was a kid. I have learned so much, and a lot of it has been very interesting.

3. Knowledge can prevent harm. Have you ever gotten what looks like an official email from Amazon or PayPal or Gmail, asking you for account information? For those who don't know this kind of thing can happen, they are vulnerable to giving away their personal account information to a criminal.

The email usually says something like, "There has been a problem with your account and we need you to update your account information." And they provide a link. When you follow the link, it looks every bit like the official web site. If you give your information, you just gave it to a scam artist.

If you've heard of the scam, you are not fooled by it. If you want to check it out just in case, you will not use their link. You will type in "amazon.com" or "paypal.com" into your browser and go check your account to see if anything is really wrong.

With that little bit of knowledge, you avoided harm. Knowledge makes the difference.

It is exactly the same with knowing about Islam. Once you have a pretty good grasp of what's going on, you are less afraid, less paranoid, and less vulnerable to what is called "religious deception" (taqiyya).

4. You'll be ahead of your time. In the future, everyone will know about Islam. It is a quickly-growing faith with more and more influence on world affairs. By learning about it now, you will be among the vanguard of a new era.

5. You can help your fellow non-Muslims understand. This is a nice benefit of learning about Islam. Your understanding can help you shed some light and help eliminate the confusion you see in the people you know. It is a valuable service you can provide your family and friends.

6. Confusing current events will become understandable. Once you learn what's really going on, the scary terrorist events that make you think, "Why are they doing this?!" are suddenly illuminated, and you'll know exactly why they're doing it.

Learning about Islam makes world events less upsetting. You will no longer feel as exasperated or wonder what is happening to this crazy world. You will finally understand.

Of all the benefits of learning about Islam, this had the most impact on me. Political events that have been happening since I can remember — the hostage situations and hijacked planes and bombings — all seemed so unnecessary and confusing. And you can watch the news all day long and get no clarity whatsoever about why these things are happening and what they all have to do with each other. It's a relief to finally comprehend the bigger picture.

7. Orthodox Muslims are immigrating to Western democracies. From within those democracies, including the one we are living in, some of these super-devout Muslims are setting up terrorist cells right now. Their spokesmen are delivering fiery tirades at mosques in our own country, calling the faithful Muslims to rise up against the infidels (you and me), telling the Muslims in their congregation (called an ummah) it is their holy duty to work toward the establishment of Sharia law as the law of the land. They are recruiting native-born Westerners into groups working toward these goals. And it is becoming more common.

Not all Muslims follow these Islamic teachings (find out what the basic teachings are by clicking here). But some do, and they are in free countries now, preaching hatred. And most Western democracies allow more in all the time. Why? Because most Westerners don't know much about Islam.

8. Some of the orthodox Muslims will try to change our laws, from within and from without. They have already done so throughout Europe and parts of the United States. Islam is partly a political ideology. If Westerners knew what was going on, we would surely find a peaceful way to prevent it. But our ignorance makes their job easy for now, and violence more likely to be necessary in the future.

9. They are having more children than most of us. There are many ways to wage jihad and establish Sharia law. One is through violence. Another is through sheer reproductive superiority.

Orthodox, extremely devout Muslims are immigrating into Western democracies, having as many children as they can, and teaching them to be devout Muslims.

If they are strictly following Islam, Muslims will try to turn any country they live in into an Islamic state, no matter how long it takes. They have to. It is their religious duty to do so, whether they want to or not. The main method many are using in the West is to gain small concessions to Sharia law by gentle means and others do it with violence.

10. The teenage children of heterodox Muslims are vulnerable to being persuaded by terrorist recruiters. Even though many (probably most) of the Muslims who immigrate into Western democracies are heterodox (ignore many Islamic teachings), their children will be vulnerable as the recruiters help these young, idealistic Muslims see through the hypocrisy of their parents' incomplete worship.

The children of Muslims have heard all their lives from everyone in authority that the Quran is a direct message from the Almighty Himself. As teens, if they hear a recruiter tell them what's actually in the Quran, they might be surprised. Being young and idealistic, they may become dedicated to the foundational principles of Islam. The Quran contains clear instructions to work toward the goal of creating a world that follows Sharia law. It is the primary goal of Islam. And it is the primary religious duty — the primary religious practice — of a devout Muslim to strive toward this goal with his money and his life.

The teens will look at their parents and feel disgusted. Their parents — the ones who have told them repeatedly that the Quran is the perfect word of Allah — ignore much of the book. A study in Britain found that the children of Muslim immigrants are more likely to be "radical" (follow Islamic teachings strictly) than their parents.

Plus, we cannot ignore the added benefit of dying while slaying infidels: You go straight to Paradise, and have 72 beautiful wives ready to do your bidding. Critics of Islam did not make that up. What 15 year-old boy wouldn't find a harem of beauties an attractive proposition?

If he reads the Quran, he will discover the recruiters are right: It says quite clearly he is supposed to fight non-Muslims. He will discover that mainstream Islamic scholars agree that if he dies while killing infidels he will go straight to Paradise without having to be judged, and because he's done such a fine thing, he will be empowered to bring many of his family members to Paradise too.

11. Your vote on this issue is important. If you vote, you are helping to elect representatives and leaders who make legal and political decisions (like what kind of immigration policies we should employ, or whether an imam who encourages his followers to overthrow the government should be charged with sedition). When you understand more about Islam, you will be able to know which leaders have a grasp on this subject and which do not, and vote accordingly.

12. Our survival as a free society is at stake. I know that sounds very dramatic and rabble-rousing, but it is quite literally true. All the different orthodox Islamic groups have a single goal in mind: The establishment of Sharia law in every country. They didn't make this up. They didn't "interpret" their holy book that way. They didn't have to guess. That is what it says, directly and clearly.

These people are not joking. This is not a casual hobby for them. They have dedicated their lives to it. And oil-rich Islamic governments are pouring money into the project.

This struggle has gone on for 1400 years, and as far as the devout ones are concerned, it will go on for another 1400 years, or as long as it takes to win. They are acquiring the advantages of new technologies. And they are well-funded.

I don't know how the West will ultimately deal with it, but I know this: Until enough of us face and understand what we're up against, we don't have a chance. Cheerful obliviousness will always be easily defeated by grim determination. Already one aspect of Sharia law has been effectively imposed worldwide by force and intimidation — limiting free speech about Islam.

Those are the twelve most important reasons you should want to know about Islam. Most Westerners make the assumption that all religions are basically alike. And we have a deep-seated respect for other cultures and the right of everyone to believe what they want. We have a profound distrust of any hint of arrogance or any feelings of superiority of our own culture. It is almost at the level of a taboo.

This distrust is almost entirely a good thing. It's one of the reasons we are able to have such a rich, diverse society with people of all kinds getting along with each other.

But Islam is unique. Its doctrines do not encourage its followers to reciprocate tolerance. We should learn more about it. A good place to start is to stop relying on second-hand sources, and read the Koran yourself.

What Makes Islam So Successful?

If you wanted to deliberately design a collection of ideas with the purpose of making one that might eventually out-compete every other religion or political system on earth, you would be hard-pressed to do better than Islam.

Let's look at some of the individual ideas within the collection, keeping in mind that many of the ideas enhance each other. In other words, adding one idea to the others can make the whole collection more effective because some ideas work synergistically.

Here are some of the key components of the package of ideas (or bundle of beliefs) known as Islam (you can see this same list as a linked outline here):

1. A standardized version of the idea-collection is written down. This is something basic to several religions and isn't an Islamic invention, but it is an important factor in the success of Islam.

Something only transmitted orally can change over time, but something written will be identical a thousand years from now, and with modern printing presses, can be reproduced in the millions, giving it an enormous advantage in spreading identical copies of the idea-collection.

2. The Quran includes instructions for its own spread. It tells believers they must spread Islam. It is their holy duty to bring Mohammad's warnings and Islamic law to every corner of the world. Read more about that.

3. The idea-collection includes instructions for its own preservation, protection, and duplication. The Quran, the most important of the Islamic holy books, directly tells its followers that they can never change or modify or "modernize" any of the teachings within the idea-collection. It is perfect as it is. It is a capital sin to try to change it. This idea ensures the preservation of the whole collection.

These first three ideas are pretty standard for several successful religions. But now it gets interesting...

4. Islam commands its followers to create a government that supports it. This may be one of the most ingenious ideas in the whole collection. Islam is the only religion that uses it. Other groups of religious people have had political aspirations, but no other major religious group orders its followers — as a religious duty — to create a government that follows its own system of law.

Islam has a system of law, called Sharia, and all Muslims are obligated to continually strive to make their government — wherever they are — follow it. Because of some of the other ideas added to Islam, you will see that this political addition to the idea-collection has significant consequences.

Many people are under the impression that the goal of Islam is to convert everyone to Islam. This is not so. The prime directive of Islam is to bring all people on earth under the rule of Islamic law. Read more about the political nature of the core doctrines of Islam.

5. Permission to spread the religion by war. This is another successful innovation (source). Although some other religions have spread themselves using force, they had very little justification from their own religious doctrines to do so.

Not so with Islam. Expanding by conquest is very much accepted and encouraged by the idea-collection. Islamic teachings present it this way: The non-Muslims need to be saved from the sin of following laws other than Allah's. If they won't voluntarily change their laws to Sharia, then it is a Muslim's duty to insist. The world cannot be at peace until every government on earth follows the laws of Allah.

Mohammad's own experience showed the example — an example, says the Quran 91 times, that every Muslim should follow. At first, Mohammad tried to spread Islam by peaceful means. After thirteen years he'd gained 150 converts.

But then he changed tactics and started using caravan raids, warfare, executions, ransoming captives, and assassination, and within ten years he converted tens of thousands. After he died, his followers used the same tactics and converted millions. And by now it is one and a half billion.

The use of warfare combines synergistically and powerfully with the instruction to create an Islamic state. So Islam spread quickly as their armies got bigger. They conquered and set up Islamic states, most of which have lasted to this day, and the laws within an Islamic state make Islam very difficult to dislodge. The laws also make it very advantageous to convert to Islam.

This is one of the most effective methods ever invented for getting an idea-collection followed by huge numbers of people. It's a method of control and indoctrination similar to those used successfully in communist and totalitarian states. But as you'll discover below, Islam makes unique use of the power of the law to enforce complete conversion to the religion.

Islam started under unique conditions. All other major religions were started within an already-existing state. Islam is an historical exception to this rule.

Any organized government will, of course, put a stop to violent uprisings of a rebellious political group — especially one that wants to wage war and apply its own system of law. Christianity arose within the Roman Empire, for example. If Christianity had been a militant or political uprising, Rome would probably have killed or imprisoned the followers. Probably many military or political religions did start up then, but we've never heard of them. They couldn't get off the ground.

But Islam arose in Arabia when there was no central ruling power. The whole area was comprised of individual tribes. Under those circumstances, conversion by war and the use of force was possible.

6. Lands must be conquered. Lands that Islam has lost must be reconquered (Spain and Israel, for example). The Islamic empire must continually expand. Contraction is bad; expansion is good. So if a land was once Islamic and now it is not, that's contraction, and must be remedied.

According to Islamic teachings, the earth is Allah's. If there are parts of the earth not following Islamic law, it is the duty of the faithful to gain control of that land and establish Sharia. It is a sin to let it be.

7. The idea-collection provides new soldiers by allowing polygamy. According to Sharia law, a Muslim man can marry up to four wives, and he can have sex with as many slave girls as he wishes.

The Quran especially encourages men to marry widows. This is an important idea to add if you are going to be losing a lot of soldiers in war. You need some way of replenishing your army. Otherwise the idea-collection could die out from a lack of offspring. Read more about this principle.

8. It is a punishable offense to criticize Islam. You can see why this one is a good supporting idea for the collection. It helps suppress any ideas that would reduce the authority of Islamic ideas. This idea is in the Quran, and Mohammad set a fierce example of punishing people who criticized him or Islam. Read more about this principle.

9. You can't leave Islam once you're in. This is an interesting one. It is actually illegal in Islamic states to convert out of Islam. This is a critical part of Sharia law. Someone who has rejected Islam who was once a Muslim is an "apostate." This is a crime and a sin, and the punishment for it is death (and eternal damnation in hell thereafter).

Obviously, you can see why this idea has been included in the collection, but this one has actually caused Islam a problem because those who are following Islam to the letter consider more "moderate" Muslims (those who want to ignore or alter the more violent passages of the Quran) to be apostates. Since the punishment for apostates is death, fundamentalist Muslims are fighting modernizing Muslims all over the world, and keeping many rebellious, modernizing Muslims from speaking up for fear of death.

Every time a group of Muslims decides that maybe Islam should be updated for the 21st century and maybe women should have some rights and maybe the government should be more democratic, the devout Muslims call them apostates and discredit them or even try to kill them.

In this and in many other ways, Islam protects its own fidelity (in other words, the original idea-collection cannot be altered).

Another idea in Sharia law says it's against the law for anyone to try to convert a Muslim to another religion.

10. Islam must be your first allegiance. You are a Muslim first, before any allegiance you give to your family, your tribe, or your country.

This does two things: It causes a unity of people across borders which allows the group to grow bigger than any other entity. In other words, the "Nation of Islam" can grow bigger than any country, no matter how large (which gives the group a massive numerical advantage).

11. Dying while fighting for Islam is the ONLY way to guarantee a man's entrance into Paradise. This belief creates fearless, enthusiastic warriors, especially given the Quran's vivid descriptions of the sensuous delights of Paradise.

A Muslim man has a chance of getting to Paradise if he is a good Muslim, but it is not guaranteed. However, if he dies while fighting for Islam, he is guaranteed to get in, and that's the only thing he can do to guarantee it.

12. You must read the Quran in Arabic. This unites believers by language, and language has a very powerful unifying influence. For added incentive to learn Arabic, another basic Islamic principle says you can't go to Paradise unless you pray in Arabic.

So Muslims all over the world share a language. This makes it easier to coordinate far-reaching campaigns of protest, political pressure, and war. Read more about this principle.

13. You must pray five times a day. This is one of the five "pillars" — that is, one of the five central practices — of Islam. Within an Islamic state, this practice is enforced by law. Every Muslim must pray five times a day. The practice helps Islam dominate a Muslim's life, filling his daily rhythm with Islam.

It would be impossible to forget anything you deliberately do so often. Five times a day, every day, a Muslim must bow down and pray to Allah.

Research has shown that the more effort a person expends for a cause, the more he is likely to believe in it and value it. So this is a good way to eventually make believers out of people who became Muslims through coercion.

Islam completely takes over every aspect of Muslims' lives. Not only are they required to pray five times a day, they have to go through a washing ritual beforehand. Islam dictates the laws, and the laws cover many public and private behaviors. In an Islamic state, it is impossible to be a casual Muslim.

14. The prayers involve moving together in time. When Muslims pray, they all face the same direction, they bow down, get on their hands and knees, and put their face on the mat, all in unison, and then rise back up. Again and again.

When people move together in time, whether dancing or marching or praying, it creates a physical and emotional bond between them. That's why all military training involves close-order drill (marching in unison), even though it has been a long time since military groups have actually marched into combat. There is no longer a need for the skill, but military training retained the practice because it is so effective at creating a strong feeling of unity between soldiers (read more about that).

The same is true of any physical movements people make in unison. So the method of prayer in Islam helps Muslims feel unified with each other.

15. A woman is in a thoroughly subordinate position. This idea really helps support other ideas in the collection. If women had too much influence, they'd try to curb the warring. Women in general don't like to send their husbands and sons off to war. But if women have no say in the matter, then the rest of the ideas can express themselves without interference. By subordinating women, the idea-collection prevents their effective vote against war, violence, and conquest.

The rules and laws within Islam that keep women subordinate are numerous. For example, she is not allowed to leave her house unless she is accompanied by a male relative. Under Islamic law, a woman is forbidden to be a head of state or a judge. She can only inherit half of what a man can inherit. In court, her testimony is only worth half of a man's. She is not allowed to choose where she will live or who she will marry. She is not allowed to marry a non-Muslim or divorce her husband. He, however, can divorce her with a wave of his hand. And according to Sharia, he can (and should) beat her if she disobeys him.

All of these ideas keep her subordinate, which helps keep the war machine going unimpeded by domestic rebellion. Read more about Islam's subordination of women.

16. The only way a woman can guarantee her passage into Paradise is if her husband is happy with her when she dies. When I read about this one, I thought, "Mohammad, you are a crafty one."

This idea obviously helps with the subjugation of women. It gives her a strong incentive to subordinate her wishes to her husband's, because while she might have a chance to get into Paradise if she's a good Muslim, the only way she can guarantee she will go to Paradise (and avoid eternal suffering in hell) is to make sure her husband is happy with her when she dies.

17. Allah gives Himself permission to edit his own work. This is an interesting one. It says in the Quran that if a passage written later contradicts an earlier passage, then the later one is the better one (read more about that). The Quran was written in sections (each section is one of Mohammad's revelations, known as a sura or chapter) over a period of 23 years. The circumstances of Mohammad's life and his religion changed quite a bit over those 23 years.

One of the ideas in the Quran is "this is the word of Allah." People had already memorized his earlier revelations, and it would seem a little strange for the all-knowing, infinitely wise Allah to change something He had already said. But with this idea that later revelations abrogated or overwrote earlier revelations when they contradicted, the newer ideas could be accepted. Allah could edit His work.

As I pointed out earlier, in his first 13 years of peacefully preaching, Mohammad only managed to win 150 followers. But as a military leader and violent conqueror, he was able to subjugate all of Arabia to Islamic law in less than 10 years. The peaceful ways were slow. Conversion by conquering and establishing Sharia was faster and more efficient.

The bad news for non-Muslims is that the later, violent, intolerant verses abrogate the earlier peaceful, more tolerant passages. Read more about which passages were abrogated and what the last passages say.

18. The Quran uses the carrot and stick to reinforce behavior. Throughout the book are vivid descriptions of hell, where sinners and non-Muslims have to drink boiling, stinking water, are thrown face down into a raging fire, and have to be there for eternity, suffering endless torments in agony. Read more about this.

There are also vivid descriptions of Paradise. In Paradise, believers wear green silk robes and recline on plush couches. Trees shade them, fruit dangles nearby. Believers have tasty food and refreshing drinks served to them in silver goblets.

But to have a chance of reaching Paradise, they must be devout Muslims. To guarantee it, they must die in jihad (for men) or make sure their husbands are always happy with them (for women).

19. Islam provides a huge and inspiring goal. Leaders of countries, companies, and religions have all discovered that you can get the most motivation and enthusiasm from your followers if you provide them with an expansive vision — an enormous goal. In the Islamic idea-collection, the goal calls for a continuous effort to expand the domain of Islamic law until the entire world is subjugated to it.

Many religions have the goal of converting others to the faith, but Islam has a method available nobody else has: To expand by seizing and converting governments to Sharia, or using the method of gaining one small, incremental concession or accomodation after another until Sharia law is being followed.

Once the whole world is following Islamic law, peace will reign. That's why even terrorists can say with complete sincerity, "Islam is a religion of peace."

The Quran says it's better if non-believers accept Islam and become Muslims without force. But if they refuse, then you must do what you can to at least get them to live by the laws of Allah. Read more about this.

So Muslims have been given quite a mission: To create a one-world government. An Islamic world. World peace. It is an enormous and inspiring and motivating goal, and creates a strong unity of purpose.

20. Non-Muslims must pay a large tax. Once a country is following Sharia law, non-Muslims are given the choice between becoming Muslim or becoming a dhimmi. Dhimmis are allowed to practice their non-Muslim religion if they pay the jizya (a tax). If they convert to Islam, they no longer have to pay the jizya. This obviously creates a practical incentive to convert. Read more.

This is ingenious. The tax takes money away from non-Muslims and their competing religions and gives that money to support Islam. The income from these taxes (usually a 25% income tax) helped fund the Islamic conquests during the first two major jihads. They conquered vast lands, most of them already filled with Christians and Jews, many of whom did not convert at first, and their jizya poured huge sums of money into the Islamic war machine.

Eventually, the numbers of Christians and Jews in those countries dwindled down as they converted or escaped (or in some cases, were massacred), until now, in most Islamic countries, Jews and Christians are very small minorities.

The tax-the-non-Muslims idea helps the Islamic idea-collection make more copies of itself by suppressing competing religions and financially supporting Islam.

Several ideas within Sharia law extend this effect. For example, non-Muslims are not allowed to build any new houses of worship. They're not even allowed to repair already-existing churches or synagogues. This puts the houses of worship of any competing religion in a state of permanent decline.

Also, non-Islamic prayers cannot be spoken within earshot of a Muslim — again, preventing Muslims from being infected by a competing religion. No public displays of any symbols of another faith may be shown either.

All of this prevents the spread of any competing ideas, and makes competing religions die out over time. That's why today there are so many "Muslim countries." Almost every other country in the world is made up of different religions, but because of these principles, Islam tends to displace all other beliefs and cultures wherever it becomes established.

21. A Muslim is forbidden to make friends with a non-Muslim. A Muslim is allowed to pretend to be a friend, but in his heart he must never actually be a friend to a non-Muslim. This is one of the best protections Islam has against Muslims leaving the faith because conversions a new religion are usually made because a friend introduced it. Being forbidden to make friends with non-Muslims helps prevent that from happening. (See Quran quotes about this.)

22. The Quran counsels the use of deceit when dealing with non-Muslims. Mohammad instructed one of his followers to lie if he had to (in order to assassinate one of Mohammad's enemies). This set a precedent, and the principle was clear: If it helps Islam, it's okay to deceive non-Muslims. Read more about this principle here: Lying (Taqiyya and Kitman). And here.

This instruction in the Quran has served Islamic goals very well through history. And it serves those goals today. On the DVD, Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West, you can watch real-life examples of Islamic leaders saying one thing in English for the Western press, and saying something entirely different to their own followers in Arabic a few days later.

Deceiving the enemy is always useful in war, and throughout history generals have used it. Islamic teachings consider Islam to be in a permanent state of war with the non-Islamic world until the whole world follows Sharia law (read more about that here). All non-Muslims living in non-Islamic states are "enemies." So deceiving Westerners is totally acceptable because deceiving an enemy in a state of war is totally acceptable. It is encouraged if it can forward the goals of the spread of Islam.

And so we have the strange phenomenon covered by Steven Emerson in Terrorists Among Us, where organizations in America were ostensibly raising money for orphans, but really giving the money to terrorists. They deceived good-hearted Western non-Muslims into giving money to organizations that were actively killing Western non-Muslims.

As it says in the Quran, "War is deceit." This idea gives Islam a tremendous advantage over idea-collections that encourage indiscriminate truthfulness.

23. Islam must always be defended. This idea is a primary linchpin that gives justification for war with almost anybody, as you'll see in the idea below. After the enemy is defeated, of course, Muslims must establish an Islamic state.

24. Islamic writings teach the use of pretext to initiate hostilities. The Quran devotes a lot of time complaining about people who did not support Mohammad when he first started his religion, with Allah often condemning them to torment in hell in the hereafter. The Quran is intensely intolerant of non-Muslims (source).

Mohammad was somewhat pushy and insistent with his religion, and when others felt intruded upon and protested, Mohammad took that to mean they were trying to stop Allah's holy prophet from bringing the revealed word of Allah to the world, so he was justified to fight them and destroy them as Allah's enemies. This is a demonstration of the principle of pretext.

Non-Muslims of the world need urgently to become aware of this principle. Of all the ideas in the Islamic collection, this is the most dangerous to the West because it removes our natural self-preserving defenses. The use of pretext tends to make the West defenseless against Islamic encroachments. And it tends to make the West confused about how to respond to violent Muslim reactions.

The use of pretext means you need only the barest excuse to begin hostilities. It means actually looking for an excuse, and even trying to provoke others into striking the first blow ("starting" the hostilities).

If the only way to get to Paradise is dying while fighting for Islam, you need hostilities. And if it is your holy duty to make all governments use Sharia law, you need to conquer non-Islamic governments. But you don't really want to look like the aggressor. Appearances count. All throughout the Quran, Mohammad tries to justify his aggression as defending Islam.

The Quran repeats 91 times that followers of Islam should use Mohammad as a model and imitate him. So Muslims the world over try to find or create grievances, so they can recruit new warriors, so they can get a holy war started, so they can fight and die in Allah's cause.

And because of the rise of multiculturalism (respect for all other cultures) in the West, the use of pretext is very effective against people who are unfamiliar with Islam. Many Westerners are concerned that al Qaeda is angry at the West for having troops in Saudi Arabia, for example. That's merely a pretext. They want all non-Muslims out of the Middle East. Then they say they will cease hostilities. It is a ridiculous and impossible goal, so they are justified in permanent war against the West to "defend" Islam.

It's surprising that so many Westerners accept this particular pretext because it flies in the face of a fundamental Western principle: Equality. What Osama bin Laden is saying is, "infidels are so undeserving, their very presence somewhere in Arabia defiles the entire country." Wow. What does that say about the non-Muslims?

Why doesn't this kind of racism or prejudice or infidelphobia (or whatever you want to call it) outrage more Westerners? Instead, many think we ought to pull out of the Middle East so we stop offending these poor Muslims.

The principle of pretext means you try to provoke a hostile reaction and then use the hostile reaction as a reason to escalate hostilities. It's the same method schoolyard bullies have used for thousands of years.

25. The explicit use of double standards. Islam has one standard for Muslims, and a different standard for non-Muslims, which always gives the advantage to Muslims and within a Muslim country, it provides incentives to convert.

For example, Islam must be spread by its believers, wherever they are. But when others try to spread their religions, Muslims are supposed to see it as an aggression against Islam — an act of aggression that must be "defended." Islam must always be defended.

As another example, when Islam is defamed in any way, Muslims should violently defend it. Even in a cartoon. But Muslims can and should defame Jews and Christians in Muslim newspapers and television, and they should defame any infidel or enemy, as they defame the U.S. today.

Here's another example: The Islamic supremacists of Saudi Arabia are pouring money into building mosques all over the free world. But according to Sharia law, which is the law in Saudi Arabia, no non-Muslim religious structures are allowed to be built.

Yet Muslims all over the world protest loudly and violently when anyone in Europe or America resists the building of more mosques in their countries.

Islamic supremacists don't see the irony in it. They don't feel strange having such an obvious double standard. They are, after all, Allah's followers and everyone else is deluded. Fairness and equality with such unworthy infidels would seem very out of place. A double standard seems completely appropriate from that perspective.

The double standard principle is a key part of the idea-collection, and it has been a great advantage in the spread of Islam (and the suppression of competing religions).

Sixty-one percent of the Quran is about non-Muslims and how to deal with them. Not one verse in the Quran about non-Muslims is positive (source).

26. It is forbidden to kill a Muslim (except for a just cause). It is not forbidden to kill a non-Muslim. This causes a bond between Muslims, fear in non-Muslims, and motivation to become Muslim. This is also another example of an explicit Islamic double standard.

27. If Muslims drift away from Mohammed's teachings, Allah will end the world. That makes converting others and promoting Islam a matter of survival. It also motivates Muslims to prevent each other from losing faith.

28. The message in a standard Quran is difficult to decipher. Whether it was done intentionally or not, the Quran's message has been scrambled and in a sense, coded. This discourages almost all non-Muslims and a significant percentage of Muslims from understanding it.

In what way is the message scrambled? First, the chapters are published out of order in every standard Quran. Rather than printing them using the chronological order in which they were revealed, the 114 chapters (suras) of the Quran are arranged using a baffling method: They're arranged in order from the longest chapter to the shortest. That's the traditional order.

When you read a standard Quran straight through like a normal book, the message is disjointed and the story jumps around and seems contradictory. One very important consequence of this curious disorder is that it hides the clear progression from Mohammad's semi-tolerance of non-Muslims to his violent hatred toward them.

The disorder also prevents anyone from figuring out which passages are abrogated unless they know the chronological order of the Quran.

The second way the Quran has been put into code is by putting the key somewhere else. Much of the Quran cannot be understood without being familiar with the life of Mohammad (by reading the Sira and the Hadith). These are primarily about Mohammad — what he said and did.

In other words, the Quran — the source book, the single most important holy book in Islam — can't be understood without the key, and the key can only be found somewhere else, which is similar to one of the ways a message can be written in code: Put the key to understanding the message somewhere else besides including it in the message. This is enough to keep most non-Muslims from understanding the Quran, and also keeps most Muslims on a need-to-know basis. So the only ones who really know what's going on are the imams and the scholars. They call the shots. Everyone else is in the dark.

If the Quran wasn't put in code deliberately, it has been a tremendously fortuitous accident which has served the goals of Islam very well throughout history. Fortunately, someone has unscrambled the Quran for us. Read more about that here.

...............................................................................

What should we do with this information about Islam? That's a good question. For some, the solution is to hate Muslims, but that doesn't make any sense. Most Muslims had no choice in their religion, and many of them don't know as much about their own religion as you now do.

I think the best thing any of us can do is to simply help other non-Muslims learn about Islam. Because Islam is so successful, its teachings are becoming more and more influential on the world stage, and some of its built-in aggressiveness should be curbed. But the only way it can be curbed is if enough people know about it. The way we understand Islam will determine what policies we collectively endorse or reject about it.

So first, learn more about it. And then share what you know with others. And let them know what they can do about it too. To learn more, I suggest you first read the Quran. This is the version I recommend.

Learn more about the details of Islamic doctrine here.

If you'd like to do something more, start here: What Can You Do About It?

Hundreds of Americans Were Captured and Enslaved

The following passages are excerpted from the excellent book, The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805, by Richard Zacks:

In 1801, just after the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson, Tripoli (modern-day Libya) had become the first country ever to declare war on the United States. The ruler, Yussef Karamanli, had ordered his Janissaries to chop down the flagpole at the U.S. consulate to signal his grave displeasure with the slow trickle of gifts from America. Jefferson, when he learned the news, had responded by sending a small fleet to confront Tripoli and try to overawe it into a peace treaty.

For more than two centuries, the Barbary countries of Morocco, Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli had been harassing Christian ships, seizing cargo and capturing citizens. Algiers once boasted more than 30,000 Christian slaves, including one Miguel Cervantes, before he wrote Don Quixote. European powers in the 1500s and 1600s fought ferocious battles against Muslim pirates like Barbarosa. However, over time, a cynical system of appeasement had developed. The nations of Europe paid tribute — in money, jewels, and naval supplies — to remain at peace. England and France — in endless wars — found it cheaper to bribe the Barbary pirates than to devote a squadron to perpetually trawling the sea off Africa. At its core, expediency outweighed national honor.

When the thirteen American colonies split off from mother England, they lost British protection. The United States found itself lumped in the pile of potential Barbary victims, alongside the likes of Sardinia and Sicily. (From 1785 to 1815, more than six hundred American citizens would be captured and enslaved. This nuisance would prove to be no mere foreign trade issue but rather a near-constant hostage crisis.)...

In colonial days, preacher Cotton Mather had described Barbary slaves as living for years in dug-out pits with a crosshatch of bars above... Galley slaves also lived to tell of being chained naked to an oar, forced to row ten hours at a stretch. Slaves, facing forward, pushed the forty-foot-long oars by rocking back to near horizontal, as though in a grotesque limbo contest, and then lurching with full strength, again and again. During hard chases, they were sustained by a wine-soaked rag shoved in their mouths...

Rituals varied, but in one account (of a North African slave auction) an American stated that after being purchased: "I was forced to lie down in the street and take the foot of my new master and place it upon my neck." Another described being forced to lick the dust along a thirty-foot path to the throne of the Dey (king) of Algiers.

John Foss survived captivity in Algiers, and his popular account ran in several American newspapers in the late 1790s, fleshing out the nightmare. He wrote of prisoners (Americans who had been captured on American ships and enslaved) routinely shackled with forty-pound chains, forced to perform sunrise-to-sunset labor ranging from digging out sewers to hauling enormous rocks for the harbor jetty. He matter-of-factly described the most common Barbary punishment for light infractions: bastinado of 150 strokes: "The person is laid upon his face, with his hands in irons behind him and his legs lashed together with a rope. One taskmaster holds down his head and another his legs, while two others inflict the punishment upon his breech (his buttocks) with sticks, somewhat larger than an ox goad. After he has received one half in this manner, they lash his ankles to a pole, and two Turks (Muslims) lift the pole up, and hold it in such a manner, as he brings the soles of his feet upward, and the remainder of his punishment, he receives upon the soles of his feet."

The Philadelphia was captured in 1803 by Tripoli. The Americans onboard the beautiful 1,200-ton American frigate were captured too, most of them enslaved.

The loss of the Philadelphia and its 307 crewmen and officers on Kaliusa Reef in Tripoli harbor marked a national disaster for the young United States. The Bashaw (king of Tripoli), a wily and worthy adversary, would set his first ransom demand for the American slaves at $1,690,000, more than the entire military budget of the United States.

Navy officers like the fierce Captain John Rodgers would beg for the chance to attack Tripoli to avenge and free his comrades; diplomats such as Tobias Lear, a Harvard graduate, yearned for the glory of negotiating their release. But the man who would one day speed their freedom more than all others was a stubby disgraced former army officer on his way to the nation's new capital, Washington City.

Here's a quote by William Eaton (the stubby former army officer mentioned above): "If the Congress do not consent that the government shall send a force into the Mediterranean to check the insolence of these scoundrels and to render the United States respectable, I hope they will resolve at their next session to wrest the quiver of arrows from the left talon of the American Eagle...and substitute a fiddle bow or a cigar in lieu."

Eaton also said, "Let my fellow-citizens be persuaded that there is no borne limit to the avarice of the Barbary princes; like the insatiable grave, they can never have enough. Consign them the revenues of the United States as the price of peace, they would still tax our labors for more veritable expressions of friendship. But it is a humiliating consideration to the industrious citizen, the sweat of whose brow supports him with bread, that a tithe from his hard earnings must go to the purchase of oil of roses to perfume the pirate's beard!

"It is true that Denmark and Sweden (and even the United States, following their example) gratuitously furnish almost all their materials for ship-building and munitions of war; besides the valuable jewels and large sums of money we are continually paying into their hands for their forbearance, and for the occasional ransom of captives...Without these resources they would soon sink under their own ignorance and want of means to become mischievous. Why this humiliation? Why furnish them the means to cut our own throats?"

After the crew of the Philadelphia was enslaved, the captives were hoping the U.S. government would pay their ransom and bring them home.

Everyone knew that ransom might take months or years, but they also knew that there existed a simple way for the men to become free immediately, and that was to convert to Islam. Less than three weeks into captivity, John Wilson, a quartermaster born in Sweden, decided to "turn Turk" (convert), as did Thomas Prince, a seventeen-year-old from Rhode Island. Three more Americans would follow them.

The officials of Tripoli, who encouraged and allowed the religious conversion, took the matter seriously. Since the Koran forbids Muslims from enslaving Muslims, a conversion meant freedom from slavery. As Ray put it, "Thomas Prince was metamorphosed from a Christian to a Turk." His choice word metamorphosed was quite apt. Not only did the ritual involve words of faith and promises to perform new rituals, but also a change of clothes and that inevitable loss of foreskin. While circumcision is not mentioned in the Koran (as it is in the Old Testament, Genesis 17:11), the rite became sanctified by Muslim theologians as far back as the seventh and eighth centuries.

William Eaton and seven U.S. Marines organized and led a group of thousands of enemies of the ruler of Tripoli and captured the second biggest city in the country, making the ruler willing to negotiate a treaty and return the captured Americans. A few years later, the American navy became powerful enough to put a permanent end to the Muslim capture of American ships in the Mediterranean.

The above (except what's in italics) was excerpted from the book, The Pirate Coast, by Richard Zack.

Religious Freedom? Or Oppression in the Name of Tolerance?

A reporter working for a newspaper in Sweden posed as a Muslim mother of a preschool-aged girl and called forty schools asking if the teachers would help make sure her daughter wore her headscarf at school. Two thirds of them said yes, and some even offered to take videos of the girl for proof of compliance.

A writer for a Swedish newspaper was rightfully outraged by this and made a very good argument against such compliance. The national curriculum for Sweden says that all preschools must be guided by the principles of "individual freedom, integrity, and gender equality." The author wondered if making a girl wear a headscarf violates those principles since it is not merely a garment, but a "symbol of women's submission to men."

The writer insisted that Sweden needs to have a national conversation about "where the limits of religious freedom lie."

And this, I thought, was the Swedish writer's pithiest statement: We can't allow "oppression in the name of tolerance."

Absolutely. This is now a top issue in every free country, being forced to the top by the immigration of so many Muslims. Dealing with this issue, or even bringing it up, has been labeled "xenophobia." But it isn't foreigners in general, but followers of Islamic doctrine that are forcing us to resolve an important ethical conflict. The sooner we resolve it, the better.

You can read the article in The Week Magazine here: Stop Forcing Young Girls to Wear Veils.

An Ethical Conflict Islam is Forcing Us to Resolve

I saw a video (which you can see here) where a man and a woman were walking together in a public park, and he slaps her face. Bystanders immediately stopped him.

Then she dresses in a hijab and they do the same thing: They walk along talking, this time in Arabic, and then he stops and slaps her. You could see that other people in the park were disturbed by it, but only one man eventually intervened. Everyone else looked on, didn't like it, but didn't do anything or even say anything.

The creators of the video implied that this meant the non-Muslims didn't care as much about Muslim women as they do about non-Muslim women. But I think that conclusion is off-base.

The video illustrates a deep conflict in our culture. And our increasing contact with Muslims is bringing this conflict more and more to the forefront. We will have to resolve it. We have rarely had to confront this conflict in the past, but Islam is exceedingly good at putting non-Muslims in double binds.

This ability to put us in double binds is, I believe, one of their most effective strategic ploys, and they are exploiting it wherever they can.

In case you didn't know exactly what a double bind was, I looked up a good definition to add the link above, but I also found this telling statement in the explanation: "Double binds are often utilized as a form of control without open coercion — the use of confusion makes them both difficult to respond to as well as to resist."

Islam is not strong enough and Muslims in most non-Muslim countries are not numerous enough to control non-Muslims through open coercion as they would in a Muslim country. So they use double binds to exert control.

What is the conflict illustrated in the video? One the one hand we want to be open, tolerant people. We don't want to be bigoted or narrow-minded. We don't want to be arrogant and insulting toward another's culture just because it's different. This is basic etiquette and manners, and for most of us, it is an important part of who we are.

On the other hand, what if the other culture is actually morally wrong? What if the other culture harms people? What if it interferes with others' freedoms?

Most cultural differences are very easy for us to accept. If someone wants to put a mark on their forehead or wear a cross or dress in a traditional dress from the old country or eat salted mackerel or pray in some way you are unfamiliar with, most of us don't think, "Look at those freaky foreigners. They are strange and therefore wrong and bad." We think, "That's their culture, and they have every right to live the way they want to."

The co-creator of the movie, Borat, (Dan Mazer) said he found most Americans "incredibly polite," even when the Borat character pushed them far beyond the limits of tolerance. We are the great melting pot. And one of the main reasons that people of all ethnic and religious backgrounds interact and work together with very little friction is that for the most part, we accept each other's differences. Some even embrace and celebrate those differences.

But the cultural-difference-acceptance ethic described above is being challenged more than Borat ever dreamed of. Islam puts our desire to accept cultural differences in direct conflict with our own humanity. In the video I mentioned above, the woman was slapped by a man. But when she dressed and talked like a Muslim, this created a conflict for onlookers. She was clearly a Muslim and a husband hitting a wife is a fairly common practice in Muslim culture (because the practice is encouraged in these Islamic doctrines).

For the onlookers, which ethical principle overrides which? It's wrong for a man to hit a woman. And it's wrong to condemn the practices of a different culture. We don't normally have to choose between them. But Islam is forcing us to choose, and doing their best to convince us to choose cultural acceptance.

What about FGM? Some girls have had this done to them in America. Should we accept this cultural difference, or impose our own morals on people with different cultural beliefs? What about segregation of men and women? What about nurses washing their hands? What about wearing a burka for a drivers licence photo? What about polygamy?

Orthodox Muslims keep putting us to the test. And they aren't doing it passively or accidentally. One of the core principles of Islamic doctrine is that Islam is a better political system and a better religion than any other, and that Muslims are better people than any other, and that ultimately the Islamic system of rules and law should override and supersede all others on earth. It is a pushy, domineering, assertive religion. It keeps pushing us into our double binds and most people don't know what to do about it. And to make matters worse, orthodox Muslims keep trying to prevent non-Muslims from even talking about Islam, so we're having a difficult time working it out and resolving it among ourselves. The issue is getting more and more tense and uncomfortable.

We will have to decide. When the principle of cultural inclusion and acceptance comes into conflict with the principles of women's rights, human rights, safety, freedom of speech, etc., which do we choose?

The Sacredness of Mohammad's Example

The Koran demands 91 times that Muslims imitate Mohammed in every way. These commands take two types — historical examples and direct commands. The Meccan Koran is filled with examples of the previous "prophet/messengers" who had to be obeyed or Allah punished them. Moses is an historical example. There are only 5 direct commands to follow Mohammed in Mecca.

Then in Medina there are 86 verses with a direct command to obey and follow Mohammed. Why the increase? In Medina, Mohammed was a political leader and needed total command in this world, not the next.

Below are the passages, divided up into different categories. First we'll start with verses from the Meccan period:

Historical Messages that Warn People to Obey their Prophet:

69:9 Pharaoh, too, and those who thrived before him, and the overthrown cities, all committed sin, and disobeyed the messenger sent by their Lord. That is why He punished them with an accumulated punishment.

26:141 The people of Thamud rejected the messengers. Their brother Salih said to them, “Will you not fear Allah? I am a faithful messenger worthy of all trust. Fear Allah and obey me. I ask for no reward. My reward comes only from the Lord of the worlds. Will you be left safely to enjoy all you have among gardens and fountains and grain-fields and palm-trees, heavy with fruit, and — insolent as you are — your homes carved from the mountain stone? Fear Allah and obey me. Do not obey the bidding of the extravagant who make mischief in the land, and do not reform.”

26:123 The people of Ad rejected the messengers. Their brother Hud said to them, “Will you not fear Allah? I am a faithful messenger worthy of all trust. Fear Allah and obey me. I ask for no reward. My reward comes only from the Lord of the worlds. What? Do you build monuments on every high place to amuse yourselves? Do you acquire fine buildings in the hope that you will live there forever? When you exert your power, do you do so like a tyrant? Fear Allah and obey me. Fear Him who has generously given you everything you know. Fear Him who has generously given you cattle, and children, and gardens, and fountains. Truly, I fear that you will have the punishment of a terrible day.”

26:176 The people who lived in the forest of Madian rejected the messengers. Their brother Shuaid said to them, “Will you not fear Allah? I am a faithful messenger worthy of all trust. Fear Allah and obey me. I ask for no reward. My reward comes only from the Lord of the worlds. Give just measure, and do not be one of those who give less than is due. Weigh with an exact balance. Do not cheat men of their goods, and do not do evil on the earth by making mischief. Fear Him who created you and your ancestors.”

71:1 We sent Noah to his people and said to him, “Warn your people before a terrible punishment befalls them.” He said, “My people, I come to you as a plain-speaking warner. Serve and fear Allah and obey me. He will forgive you your sins and give you respite until the appointed time, because when Allah’s appointed time has come, it can not be delayed. If only you knew this!”

26:105 The people of Noah rejected the messengers when their brother Noah said to them, “Will you not fear Allah? I am a faithful messenger worthy of all trust. Fear Allah and obey me. I ask no reward from you for this because my reward comes only from the Lord of the worlds. Fear Allah and obey me.”

26:160 The people of Lot rejected the messengers. Their brother Lot said to them, “Will you not fear Allah? I am a faithful messenger worthy of all trust. Fear Allah and obey me. I ask for no reward. My reward comes only from the Lord of the worlds. What? Of all the creatures of the world, will you have sexual relations with men? Will you ignore your wives whom Allah has created for you? You people exceed all limits!”

20:90 Aaron had already told them, “People, You are being tested. Surely your Lord is the god of Mercy: Follow and obey me.”

43:64 When Jesus came with clear proof of Allah’s sovereignty, he said, “I come to you with wisdom and to clear up some things which you dispute. Therefore fear Allah and obey me. Allah is my Lord and yours. Worship Him. This is the right path.”

36:20 A man [Habib, the carpenter] came running from the outskirts of the city and said, “My people, listen to the messengers! Obey those who do not ask any reward and who follow the right path. It would be unreasonable of me not to serve Him who created me, and to Whom we will all return. Should I worship other gods besides Him? If Allah wished to afflict me their intercession could not help me at all, nor could they save me. If I did worship other gods, I would be in clear error. I believe in your Lord, so listen to me.” It was said to him, “Enter the Garden of Paradise.” The man replied, “Oh, if only my people knew how gracious Allah has been to me and that He has made me one of the honored ones!”

Historical Messages that Warn People to Listen to Allah's Messenger:

15:80 The people who lived in the rocky place [the people of Thamud] also rejected Allah’s messengers. We sent Our signs to them, but they turned away from them. They cut their homes into the rock, feeling secure, but the cry overtook them in the morning, and all their efforts did nothing to help them.

23:42 After them, We created other generations. No people may either hasten or delay their appointed time. Then We sent Our messengers one after another. Every time a messenger went forth to a nation, its people accused him of lying, so We caused them to follow one another into disaster, and We made them examples. So, away with the unbelievers.

25:35 Long ago, We gave Moses the Book, and appointed his brother Aaron as his aide. We commanded them, “Both of you go to the people who have rejected Our signs.” We absolutely destroyed those people. And the people of Noah, when they rejected the messengers, We drowned them and made them a sign for all men. We have prepared a terrible penalty for all the wicked.

25:35 Long ago, We gave Moses the Book, and appointed his brother Aaron as his aide. We commanded them, “Both of you go to the people who have rejected Our signs.” We absolutely destroyed those people. And the people of Noah, when they rejected the messengers, We drowned them and made them a sign for all men. We have prepared a terrible penalty for all the wicked.

7:157 Those who follow the Messenger — the Prophet who neither reads nor writes, whom they shall find described in the Torah and the Gospel, who commands good and forbids evil; allows the pure and healthful and prohibits the impure; releases them from the burdens and shackles that were upon them — those who believe in him, honor and help him and follow the light [the Koran] that was sent down with him, they are the successful.

34:43 For when Our clear signs are recited to them, they say, “This is merely a man who would turn you away from your father’s religion.” They say, “This (Koran) is only a lie.” And when they hear the truth, the unbelievers say, “This is nothing but clear sorcery.” Yet We did not give them any books to study deeply, nor have We sent them a messenger with warnings. Those before them rejected the truth, but they have not given Us a tenth of what We have given to them. When they rejected My messengers, My vengeance was terrible.

10:13 We have destroyed generations before you when they acted wickedly. Messengers came to them with clear signs from Allah, but they would not believe. This is how We reward the wicked.

40:21 Have they not traveled this land to see what has been the end of those who disbelieved before them? They were even mightier than these in strength and in their traces left in the land; yet Allah destroyed them for their sins, and they had no protector against Allah. That was because messengers came to them with clear proofs, but they rejected them, so Allah took them in hand for He is mighty and vehement in punishing.

28:56 You [Mohammed] truly cannot guide everyone whom you desire, but Allah guides whom He will. He knows best who follows His guidance. But they say, “If we follow your guidance, we will be driven from our land.” Have We not settled them in a sacred, secure territory where fruits of every kind are gathered together — Our gift for their support? But most of them do not understand. And how many communities have We destroyed that were thankless for the livelihoods We provided? These dwellings have not been inhabited since their time save by a few, and We are their inheritors. Your Lord did not destroy the cities until He had sent a messenger to their city to recite Our signs to its people. We never destroy cities unless its people are unjust.

13:32 Many messengers who came before you were mocked. For a long time We allowed the unbelievers to go unpunished, but finally We punished them. Then how terrible was Our punishment!

52:7 Truly, a punishment from your Lord is coming, and no one can stop it. That day heaven will heave from side to side, and the mountains will shake to pieces. Woe on that day to those who called the messengers liars, who wasted their time in vain disputes.

18:103 Say: Shall We tell you whose actions will make them the biggest losers? Those whose efforts are lost in this world’s life even while they thought that they were doing good deeds. These are the people who disbelieve in their Lord’s revelations and who do not believe they will meet Him in the afterlife. Their deeds will have been done in vain, and on the Judgment Day, We will not give them any weight. Their reward is Hell, because they disbelieved and mocked Our revelations and Our messengers. As for those who believe and do good deeds, they have the Gardens of Paradise for their entertainment where they will dwell forever, never wishing to leave.

38:12 Before them the people of Noah and Ad and Pharaoh, the impaler, rejected their prophets. The people of Thamud [the people of a ruined Nabatean city near Medina] and Lot and the people who lived in the forest also rejected their prophets. They all called My messengers liars; therefore, their punishment was justified.

36:28 After the man [Habib] from the outskirts died, We sent no army down from heaven against his people. We did not need to do so. It was nothing more than a single cry, and they were extinct. Oh! The misery that falls upon My servants! Every messenger sent to them has been mocked. Do they not see how many earlier generations We have destroyed? Everyone of them will be brought before Us for judgment.

43:21 Are they clinging to a scripture that We had given them earlier? No! They say, “Our fathers followed a certain religion, and we are guided by their footsteps.” And so, whenever We sent a messenger before you to an erring people, their wealthy said, “Our fathers followed a certain religion, and we are guided by their footsteps.” The messenger said, “What! Even if I bring you better guidance than your fathers had?” They replied, “We do not believe what you say.” So We punished them. Now see what comes to those who reject truth!

16:112 Allah gives a parable about a city [Mecca] that is safe and secure, abundantly supplied with everything it needs, and yet, it is ungrateful for the favors of Allah. Allah gives it a taste of hunger and fear because of the evil it has done. A messenger from themselves came to them, but they rejected him and a punishment overtook them while they were unjust.

11:59 The men of Ad [an ancient people of southern Arabia] rejected signs of their Lord, rebelled against His messengers, and followed the bidding of every proud, defiant person. They were cursed in this world, and on Resurrection Day it will be said to them, “Did Ad not reject their Lord?” The people of Ad were cast far away.

40:5 The people of Noah, and the factions after them, denied their messengers before these, and every nation schemed against their messenger to destroy him. They argued falsely to refute the truth. Then I seized them, and how great was my punishment. So the word of the Lord proved true against the unbelievers. They truly are companions to the Fire.

6:42 We have already sent messengers to many nations before you [the Meccans], and We seized them with terror and suffering that they might humble themselves. If only they had been humbled when Our disaster came on them. On the contrary, their hearts were hardened, and Satan made their sinful acts seem good to them. And when they had forgotten the warning they had received, We opened the gates of all good things to them until, as they were rejoicing in Our gifts, We seized them, and they were plunged into despair. So the unbelievers were annihilated. All praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds!

Historical Examples Warning People Not to Reject a Prophet's Message:

23:68 Do they not consider the Word of Allah, or has nothing new come to them since the time of their ancestors? Is it that they do not recognize their messenger and so reject him? Or do they say, “He is possessed.”? No, he has brought the truth to them, but most of them hate the truth. If the truth did not contradict their desires, then the heavens and the earth and everything contained in them would have been corrupted and ruined. No! We have brought them their warning, but they turn away.

50:12 Other men before these rejected their prophets: the people of Noah and the men of Ar-Rass [unknown city] and the tribe of Thamud [the people of a ruined Nabatean city near Medina] and Ad [an ancient people of southern Arabia] and Pharaoh and the brethren of Lot and the people of the forest and the people of Tubba [the people of Himyar in Arabia]. All rejected their prophets; therefore, they were justly punished.

The Five Direct Meccan Commands:

44:9 They [the Meccans] fool around in doubt, but watch them the day the sky emits a visible smoke that will cover mankind. This will be a terrible punishment. They will cry, “Lord, take away our punishment. We are believers.” But how did warning them help when Our messenger went to them, and they rejected him and said, “He learned it from others, he is insane!”? If We were to give you any respite, you would surely revert to wickedness. On the day when We seize you with a terrible onslaught, We will certainly inflict punishment!

7:158 Say: Oh, people, I am sent to you as the messenger of Allah, whose kingdom is the heavens and the earth. There is no god but He. He gives both life and death. So believe in Allah and His messenger, the unlettered Prophet, who believes in Allah and His word. Follow Him so that you may be led aright.

40:70 Those who reject the Book and the revelations with which We have sent our messengers will soon know the truth. When the yokes and the chains are on their necks, they will be dragged into the boiling waters then they will be thrust into the Fire and burned.

72:22 Say: Surely, no one but Allah can protect me. Nor can I find any refuge except Him. My only task is to convey Allah’s truth and His message. Those who rebel against Allah and His apostle have the fire of Hell, and they will remain there forever! They will doubt until they see with their own eyes what they are promised. Then they will know who is weaker in allies and fewer in number.

35:3 Oh, men, call to mind Allah’s grace toward you. Is there a creator other than Allah who provides for you from heaven and earth? There is no god but Allah. How are you turned away from Him? If they reject you [Mohammed], then messengers have been rejected before you, but to Allah all things will return.

— now we come to the Medinan passages —

Warning People to Obey the Messenger:

3:30 Say: If you love Allah, then follow me. Allah will love you and forgive you of your sins. Allah is forgiving and merciful. Say: Obey Allah and His messenger, but if they reject it, then truly, Allah does not love those who reject the faith.

3:131 Obey Allah and His messenger so that you may receive mercy. Urge each other on to earn forgiveness from your Lord, and the Paradise as wide as heaven and earth is prepared for the righteous. Those who give freely, whether they are prosperous or poor; who control their anger; who are forgiving (for Allah loves those who do good); who, when they have sinned or wronged themselves, go to Allah and implore His forgiveness for their sins (for who except Allah can forgive you of your sins?) and do not knowingly continue in their sinning; these will be rewarded with their Lord’s forgiveness and with the Garden watered by flowing rivers where they will live forever. The reward is great for those who serve Him!

33:63 When the people ask you about the Hour of Doom, say: Knowledge of it is Allah’s alone. And who can tell whether the Hour is not nearly upon us? Truly, Allah has cursed the unbelievers and has prepared the Fire for them, where they will live forever with no friend or helper to be found! On the day their faces are rolling in the Fire they will cry out, “If only we had obeyed Allah and His Messenger!” And they will say, “Our Lord! Truly we obeyed our chiefs and great men, but they led us astray from Your path. Our Lord! Give them a double punishment, and curse them with a heavy curse.”

33:69 Believers! Do not be like those who disrespected Moses. Allah cleared him of the insults they spoke of him [There were complaints about Mohammed’s distribution of the spoils of war], and he was highly exalted in Allah’s sight. Believers! Fear Allah and speak only the truth so that He may guide your works and forgive your sins. And whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger will be greatly blessed.

47:32 The unbelievers who turn others away from Allah’s path and do not obey the messenger after they have clearly received his guidance will in no manner bring injury to Allah. He will bring all their actions to nothing.

3:30 Say: If you love Allah, then follow me. Allah will love you and forgive you of your sins. Allah is forgiving and merciful. Say: Obey Allah and His messenger, but if they reject it, then truly, Allah does not love those who reject the faith.

4:41 How will it be for them when We produce a witness from every nation and bring you [Mohammed] forth to testify against them? On that day, the unbelievers and those who disobeyed the Messenger will wish they could sink into the earth for they cannot hide a single thing from Allah.

9:71 The faithful of both sexes are mutual friends. They command what is just and forbid what is evil. They observe regular prayer, contribute regularly to charity, and they obey Allah and His Messenger. Allah will show His mercy to these. Allah is mighty and wise. Allah promised the faithful, both men and women, Gardens beneath which the rivers flow in which they shall abide, and blessed mansions in the Gardens. The best, though, will be Allah’s good pleasure in them. This is the supreme triumph.

64:11 Nothing misfortunate occurs unless Allah wills it. Whoever believes in Allah, He will guide his heart. Allah knows all things. So obey Allah and His messenger. But if you turn your backs to them, Our messenger is not to blame, for his duty is only to deliver Our warning clearly. Allah! There is no god but Him! Let the faithful put their trust in Allah.

24:47 There are those who say, “We believe in Allah and His Messenger and we obey.” But just as soon as this is said, they turn their backs. These are not the believers. And when they are summoned before Allah and His Messenger so that He may judge them, some of them refuse to come. But if truth had been on their side, they would have come to Him obediently. Are their hearts diseased or do they have doubt? Are they afraid that Allah and His Messenger will judge them unjustly? No, they are the unjust.

24:51 But when Allah and His Messenger call the true believers to judge between them, their response is, “We have heard, and we obey.” These are the ones who will be successful. Those who obey Allah and His Messenger and who dread and fear Allah will be the winners. And they have sworn by Allah, a most solemn oath, that if they are given the order, they would certainly march forth. Say to them, “Do not swear. It is worth more to show your obedience. Truly, Allah is well aware of all you do.”

24:54 Say: Obey Allah and the Messenger. But if you turn away, He is still responsible for fulfilling His duty as you are bound to fulfilling yours. If you are obedient, then you will guided on the right path. The sole duty of the Messenger is to warn you clearly.

24:55 Allah has promised those who believe and do good works that they will be leaders in the land as He did with those who came before them, and He will establish their religion which He has chosen for them and will exchange their feelings of fear for security. They will worship Him and no others besides Him. Those who do not believe in Him after this are truly wicked. Observe your prayers, pay the poor tax, and obey the Messenger so that you may receive mercy. Never think that the unbelievers can thwart Allah’s plan on earth. Their destination will be the Fire, a wretched home.

8:1 When they ask you about the spoils of war say: The spoils belong to Allah and His messenger. [This sura was written after the Battle of Badr.] Therefore, fear Allah and settle your arguments. Obey Allah and His messenger if you are truly believers.

8:20 Believers! Be obedient to Allah and His messenger, and do not turn your backs now that you know the truth. Do not be like the ones who say, “We hear,” but do not obey.

8:45 Believers! When you confront their army stand fast and pray to Allah without ceasing so that you will be victorious. Obey Allah and His messenger, and do not argue with one another for fear that you will lose courage and strength. Be patient for Allah is with the patient. Do not be like the Meccans who left home bragging and full of vainglory. They prevent others from following Allah’s path, but Allah knows all that they do.

47:33 Believers! Obey Allah and the messenger, and do not let your effort be in vain. Those who do not believe and who prevent others from following Allah’s path and then die as unbelievers will not receive Allah’s forgiveness. Therefore, do not be weak and offer the unbelievers peace when you have the upper hand, for Allah is with you and will not begrudge you the reward of your deeds.

3:131 Obey Allah and His messenger so that you may receive mercy. Urge each other on to earn forgiveness from your Lord, and the Paradise as wide as heaven and earth is prepared for the righteous. Those who give freely, whether they are prosperous or poor; who control their anger; who are forgiving (for Allah loves those who do good); who, when they have sinned or wronged themselves, go to Allah and implore His forgiveness for their sins (for who except Allah can forgive you of your sins?) and do not knowingly continue in their sinning; these will be rewarded with their Lord’s forgiveness and with the Garden watered by flowing rivers where they will live forever. The reward is great for those who serve Him!

59:3 And if Allah had not decreed their exile, surely He would have punished them in this world. And in the world to come they will receive the punishment of the Fire because they had disobeyed Allah and His Messenger. Whoever disobeys Allah, knows that Allah is truly severe in His punishment.

24:62 Only those who believe in Allah and His Messenger are the true believers, and when they are gathered together, do not leave until they have sought his permission. Those who ask your permission are the ones who truly believe in Allah and His Messenger. And when they ask your permission to leave for personal reasons, give permission to whom you please, and ask Allah for His indulgence on their behalf, for Allah is indulgent, merciful.

24:63 Do not address the Messenger in the same way you address one another. Allah knows which of you leave quietly from the assemblies, hiding behind others. And let those who disobey his commands beware, for fear that some terrible punishment will come upon them.

4:64 We have sent messengers only so that people will obey them by Allah’s permission. If the people hurt themselves by their own error, and they came to you to ask Allah’s forgiveness, and you asked Allah’s forgiveness on their behalf, they would certainly have found Allah forgiving and merciful. But no, I swear by your Lord, they will not believe until they make you judge in all their disputes. Then they will have no doubt in the fairness of your judgment and will entirely submit to you.

4:69 Those who obey Allah and His Messenger will live with the messengers and the faithful and the martyrs and the righteous. What wonderful company! This is the bounty of Allah, and Allah’s infinite knowledge is sufficient. Believers! Be cautious, and either march forward in groups or advance all together. There are some among you who are sure to hang back, and if a disaster came upon you, would say, “Allah has dealt with us graciously because we were not in the battle.” If, however, you were met with victory, they, as if there were no friendship between you, would say, “If only I had been with them! Surely I would have been greatly successful!”

4:79 Whatever good comes to you is from Allah, but whatever evil happens to you is from yourself. We have sent you to mankind as a Messenger, and Allah is sufficient as your witness. Those who obey the Messenger obey Allah. As for those who turn away from you, We have not sent you to watch over them.

49:14 The Arabs of the desert say, “We believe.” [A tribe of desert Arabs came to Medina during a famine. They converted to Islam and received charity.] Say: You do not believe, but you only say, ‘We profess Islam,’ for the faith has not yet found its way into your hearts. If you obey Allah and His Messenger, He will not withhold any of the rewards of your actions. Allah is indulgent and merciful. The true believers are only those who believe in Allah and His Messenger without doubts and who strive with their lives and their wealth on Allah’s cause [jihad]. These are the sincere.

33:30 Wives of the Messenger! If any of you are proven guilty of public indecency, then you will be doubly punished; that is easy for Allah. But those of you who obey Allah and His Messenger and do good works will be doubly rewarded. We have prepared honorable provisions for you.

33:32 Wives of the Messenger! You are not like any other women. If you fear Allah, then do not be too lax in your speech for fear that lecherous-hearted men will lust after you. Stay in your homes and do not go out in public dressed in your fine clothes as they did in the time of ignorance [all non-Islamic history, civilization and customs are of the time of ignorance], but pray regularly, pay the poor tax and obey Allah and His Messenger. It is Allah’s desire to remove all that is unclean from you, People of His House, and to make you pure. And remember what is said to you in your homes of Allah’s revelations and wisdom, for surely Allah knows all mysteries and is aware of all.

33:36 And it is not the place of a believer, either man or woman, to have a choice in his or her affairs when Allah and His Messenger have decided on a matter. Those who disobey Allah and His Messenger are clearly on the wrong path. And remember when you said to your adopted son [Zaid], the one who had received Allah’s favor [converted to Islam], “Keep your wife to yourself and fear Allah,” and you hid in your heart what Allah was to reveal, and you feared men [what people would say if he married his daughter-in-law], when it would have been right that you should fear Allah. And when Zaid divorced his wife, We gave her to you as your wife, so it would not be a sin for believers to marry the wives of their adopted sons, after they have divorced them. And Allah’s will must be carried out.

48:17 It will be no crime on the part of the blind, the lame, or the sick if they do not go to the fight [participate in jihad], but whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger, He will bring him into the Gardens beneath which the rivers flow, but whoever turns back, He will punish him with a sore punishment.

60:12 Oh, Messenger, when believing women come to you and pledge an oath of allegiance to you and ascribe no other gods as partners to Allah and that they will not steal, they will not commit adultery, they will not kill their children, they will not slander or lie, and that they will not disobey you in any just matter, then receive their allegiance and ask pardon for them from Allah. Allah is indulgent and merciful.

58:12 Believers, when you speak privately with the Messenger, give to charity before you meet. This will be better for you and will purify you. But if you do not have the means to do so, Allah is forgiving and merciful. Do you hesitate to give to charity before you meet with him? If you do not do it (and Allah will forgive you), then at least observe your prayers and pay the poor tax, and obey Allah and His Messenger, for Allah is aware of all that you do.

9:95 They will swear to you by Allah when you come back to them that you may leave them alone. So leave them alone for they are unclean. Their dwelling will be Hell in payment for their deeds. They will swear to you [Mohammed] that you will be pleased with them. But if you are pleased with them, Allah will not be pleased with those who disobey.

4:13 These are the limits set up by Allah. Those who obey Allah and His Messenger will be led into the Gardens watered by flowing rivers to live forever.

4:14 This is the ultimate reward! But those who disobey Allah and His Messenger and go beyond His limits, will be led into the Fire to live forever, and it will be a humiliating torment!

5:90 Oh, believers, surely wine and games of chance, and idols, and the divining arrows [an Arabian method of foretelling the future] are an abomination of Satan. Avoid them so that you may prosper. Only Satan would sow hatred and strife among you using wine and games of chance and turning you away from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer. Will you not, then, abstain from them? Obey Allah, and obey the Messenger, and be on your guard. If you do turn back, know that our Messenger is only bound to deliver a plain announcement.

Warnings Not to Oppose Allah's Messenger:

9:63 Do they not know that whoever opposes Allah and His Messenger will abide in the Fire of Hell, where they will remain forever? This is the great shame.

4:115 Anyone who opposes the Messenger after having received Our guidance and follows a path other than that of the true believer will be left to their own devices. We will lead them into Hell, an evil home.

58:18 On the day Allah will raise them all to life, they will swear to Him as they swear to you now, thinking that their words will help them. Are they not the liars? Satan has possessed them and caused them to forget their praise of Allah. They are of Satan’s company. Truly, will it not be Satan’s company who will be the losers? Those who oppose Allah and His Messenger will be laid low. Allah has declared, “Surely I will be victorious, along with My messengers.” Truly Allah is strong and mighty.

58:22 You will find no one who is a believer in Allah and the Last Day loving those who oppose Allah and His Messenger, even if it is their fathers, sons, brothers, or closest relations. Allah has engraved the faith on their hearts and with His own spirit He has strengthened them. He will lead them into the Gardens beneath which rivers flow, to live forever. Allah is very pleased with them, as they are with Him. This is Allah’s company. And truly, will it not be Allah’s company who will be victorious?

58:5 Those who oppose Allah and His Messenger will be laid low, just as those who came before them. And now that We have sent down clear signs, the unbelievers will receive a humiliating punishment. On the day Allah raises all of them to life, He will tell them of what they did. Allah has recorded it even though they do not remember it, and Allah witnesses all things.

8:12 Then your Lord spoke to His angels and said, “I will be with you. Give strength to the believers. I will send terror into the unbelievers’ hearts, cut off their heads and even the tips of their fingers!” This was because they opposed Allah and His messenger. Ones who oppose Allah and His messenger will be severely punished by Allah. We said, “This is for you! Taste it and know that the unbelievers will receive the torment of the Fire.”

Warnings to Those Who Reject Allah's Messenger:

9:79 They who slander such of the faithful as give charity freely, and those who find nothing to give but the fruits of their labor, and scoff at them, Allah will scoff at them, and there is a grievous torment in store for them. Whether you ask forgiveness for them, Mohammed, or do not ask for it, it will be the same. If you ask forgiveness for them seventy times, Allah will by no means forgive them. This is because they have rejected Allah and His Messenger. Allah does not guide ungodly people.

3:59 This is the truth from your Lord, so do not doubt it. If anyone one argues with you about him after they have received the knowledge say, “Come, let us call together our sons and your sons, our wives and your wives, and ourselves and yourselves. Then we will humbly pray and ask for Allah’s curse to come down upon all the liars.” [A method of resolving religious disputes was for each party to call down the curses of their god upon the other party.] This is an entirely true account. There is no god except Allah, and truly Allah is mighty and wise. But if they reject you, surely Allah knows those who cause corruption.

22:42 And if they reject you, remember that so did the people of Noah, and of Ad and Thamud [ancient Arabic cities], and the people of Abraham and Lot, and those who lived in Midian [a city on the Red Sea] have also denied their messengers. Moses, too, was rejected. I endured the unbelievers for a long while; then I seized them, and how terrible was My rejection of them.

9:53 Say: Pay your offerings willingly or unwillingly. It cannot be accepted from you because you are a wicked people. The only reasons their contributions are not accepted are because they reject Allah and His Messenger. They do not keep prayer but with sluggishness, and they do not make offerings willingly.

9:90 Some Arabs of the desert came with excuses to avoid fighting. They who had rejected Allah and His Messenger sat at home. A painful doom will fall on those who do not believe. It will be no crime in the weak, in the sick, or in those who find no resources to contribute to Allah’s cause [jihad] to stay at home provided they are sincere with Allah and His Messenger. There is no cause of blame against those who act virtuously. Allah is gracious and merciful. Nor is their blame against those who, when they came to you asking to be provided with mounts, were told, “I do not find mounts for you.” They turned their backs, their eyes shedding tears of grief, because they found no means to contribute.

Warnings to Those Who Resist or Deny Allah's Messenger:

4:150 Those who deny Allah and His Messenger and those who seek to separate Allah from His messengers saying, “We believe in some, but reject others,” therefore seeking a middle ground, these are truly unbelievers. And for the unbelievers We have prepared a disgraceful punishment. But those who believe in Allah and His messengers and make no distinction between them, they will be rewarded by Him. Allah is forgiving and merciful!

4:136 Believers! Believe in Allah and His Messenger and in the Scriptures which were sent down to His Messenger and in the Scriptures He sent down before him. Those who deny Allah, His angels, His Scriptures, His messengers, and the Last Day have gone far astray. Those who are believers, then deny the faith, then believe again and deny again and go on in increasing disbelief, Allah will not forgive them or guide them on the right path.

47:1 Those who deny Allah and prevent others from following Allah’s path, He will make their plans fail. Those who believe and do good works, however, and believe in what Mohammed has revealed, as it is the truth sent down from their Lord, He will cleanse them of their sins and improve their circumstances.

Warnings to Believe in Allah's Messenger:

4:171 People of the Book [Christians]! Do not overstep the boundaries of your religion and speak only what is true about Allah. The Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, is only Allah’s messenger and his Word which he sent into Mary was a spirit from Him. Therefore, believe in Allah and His messengers and do not say, “Trinity.” Hold back and it will be better for you. Allah is only one god. Far be it from Allah to have a son! All in the heavens and earth are His. Allah is the sufficient as a protector. The Messiah does not condescend to be Allah’s servant, nor do His favored angels. Those who disdain service to Him, and are filled with arrogance, Allah will gather them all together before Him.

4:53 Should those who would fail to give even a penny to their fellow man have a share in the kingdom? Do they envy the people for what they have received from Allah’s bounty? We gave the Scriptures and wisdom to the children of Abraham, and a grand kingdom. Some of them believe in His Messenger while others turn away from him. The flames of Hell are sufficient punishment for them! Those who reject Our revelations We will cast into the Fire. As soon as their skins are burnt away, We will give them new skins so that they will truly experience the torment. Truly Allah is mighty and wise!

64:7 The unbelievers think that they will not be raised to life on the Day of Judgment. Say: Yes, you will be raised by my Lord, and you will be informed of everything you have ever done! That is easy for Allah. Therefore, believe in Allah and His messenger and in the light which we have sent down to you. Allah knows all your actions.

2:285 The messenger believes in what has been shown to him by his Lord, and the believers do too. They all believe in Allah, His angels, His Scriptures, and His messengers. We treat His messengers equally, and they say, “We hear and obey our Lord. We ask for Your forgiveness Lord. We will return to You.”

57:19 Those who believe in Allah and His messenger are truthful ones who will testify [against the unbelievers] before the presence of their Lord. They will receive their reward and their light, but those who deny Allah will be the prisoners of Hell.

57:21 Therefore, urge one another on in seeking forgiveness from your Lord and in earning admittance into a Paradise as vast as the heavens and earth prepared for those who believe in Allah and His messengers. That is the grace of Allah, and He gives it to whom He pleases. Allah’s grace is boundless.

57:7 Believe in Allah and His messenger, and give charitably of the inheritance which He has given you for those of you who believe and give generously will be greatly rewarded. What reason do you have that you should not believe in Allah when His messenger has called you to believe in your Lord, and He has already made a covenant with you if you are true believers? It is He who sends clear signs down to His messenger so he may lead you out of the darkness and into the light, for Allah is kind and merciful to you.

61:10 Believers! Should I show you a profitable exchange that will keep you from severe torment? Believe in Allah and His messenger and fight valiantly for Allah’s cause [jihad] with both your wealth and your lives. It would be better for you, if you only knew it!

3:178 It is not Allah’s will that the believers should remain in their present condition but only until He divides the bad from the good [reveals the hypocrites]. Neither is it Allah’s will to reveal the secrets of the unknown, but Allah chooses those of His messengers whom pleases to know them. Therefore, believe in Allah and His messengers, and if you have faith and fear Allah, then you will receive a great reward.

5:12 Allah did, of old, make a covenant with the children of Israel, and We appointed twelve leaders among them, and Allah said, “I will be with you if you observe regular prayer, practice regular charity, believe in My messengers and help them, and offer Allah goodly gifts. I will surely wipe away your sins, and I will bring you into Gardens beneath which the rivers flow. Whoever of you does not believe this has gone astray from the even path.”

48:11 The desert Arabs [Bedouins] who did not accompany you into war will say, “Our flocks and our families kept us busy, so we ask you to pardon us.” They speak with their tongues what is not in their hearts. Say: Who can have any power over Allah in your behalf, whether he intends that you have some loss or he intends that you have an advantage? Yes, Allah is acquainted with your doings. You [the desert Arabs] thought that the Messenger and the faithful could never come back to their families, and this seemed pleasing to your hearts, and you thought an evil thought, for you are a people lost in wickedness. We have prepared a blazing Fire for these unbelievers who do not believe in Allah and His Messenger. Allah’s is the kingdom of the heavens and of the earth. He will forgive whom He will, and He will punish whom He will. Allah is gracious and merciful.

9:85 Do not let their riches or their children astonish you. Through these Allah is inclined to punish them in this world and to let their souls depart while they are still unbelievers. When a sura [chapter] was sent down saying, “Believe in Allah and strive and go to war with His Messenger,” those of them who are possessed of riches demanded exemption saying, “Leave us behind that we may be with those who sit at home.” They are well contented to be with those who stay behind for their hearts are sealed. They do not understand.
9:84 Never pray over nor stand over the grave of anyone of them who dies because they did not believe in Allah and His Messenger and died in their wickedness.

9:61 There are some of them who injure the Messenger and say, “He is only a hearer.” Say: He is a hearer of good for you. He believes in Allah and believes in the faithful. He is a mercy to those of you who believe, but those who injure the Messenger of Allah will suffer a painful doom. They swear to you by Allah to please you, but Allah and His Messenger are worthier, so they should please Him if they are believers.

5:78 Those among the Children of Israel who disbelieved were cursed by the tongue of David and of Jesus, Son of Mary, because they were rebellious and persisted in excesses. They did not restrain one another from the iniquity they committed. Their actions were detestable. You will see many of them make friends with the unbelievers. They have sent their evil works on before them. Allah is angry with them, and they will abide in torment forever. If they had believed in Allah, the Messenger, and the Koran that was revealed to him, they would not choose them for their friends, but most of them are rebellious wrongdoers.

2:177 Righteousness is not determined by whether you face the east or the west. The one who is righteous believes in Allah, the Last Day, the angels, the Scripture, and the messengers; he gives his wealth for love of Allah to his family, to orphans, to the needy, to the wayfaring traveler, to the beggar, and for the ransom of slaves. The righteous one observes his prayers and pays the poor tax. The righteous one keeps his promises and stands firm in the face of suffering and hardship and war. These are the true believers, the Allah-fearing.

57:28 Believers! Fear Allah and trust in His messenger. He will give you a double portion of His mercy and will give you a light in which to walk. He will forgive you, for Allah is forgiving and merciful

65:8 How many cities have turned away from the command of their Lord and His messengers! Therefore, We judged them severely and punished them with a harsh punishment. They tasted the evil consequences of their own behavior, and the consequences of their behavior were ruinous.

33:57 Truly, those who speak evil of Allah and His Messenger will have Allah’s curse upon them in this world and the world to come. He has prepared a torturous punishment for them. And those who speak evil of believing men and women, when they have done nothing to deserve it, will carry the guilt and a clear sin.

8:27 Believers! Do not betray the trust of Allah and His messenger or knowingly betray His secrets. And know that your children and your wealth are merely temptations and that Allah’s reward is immense. Believers! If you fear Allah, He will give you wisdom to discern right from wrong, He will cleanse you of evil and forgive your sins. Allah is the Lord of boundless grace.

57:25 We have sent Our messengers with clear signs, and We have caused the Scriptures and the balance of justice to come down through them. We have sent down iron with its strength for war as well as its many other uses for mankind so that Allah would know those who would help Him and His messengers, although unseen. Allah is powerful and mighty.

4:60 Have you not noticed those who act like they believe in that which has been revealed to you and that which was revealed before you? They wish to seek the judgment of Satan, although they have been commanded to deny him, and Satan wishes to lead them astray into grievous sin. And when it is said to them, “Come and be judged by what Allah has revealed and by His Messenger,” you see them turn their heads in disgust. But how would they act if some disaster came upon them because of what they have done with their own hands? They would come to you, swearing by Allah, “We wish nothing but goodwill and reconciliation.” But Allah knows the secrets of their hearts. Therefore, turn away from them and warn them, speaking words that will pierce their souls.

Warnings to Avoid Opposing, Rejecting, or Denying Allah's Messenger:

4:115 Anyone who opposes the Messenger after having received Our guidance and follows a path other than that of the true believer will be left to their own devices. We will lead them into Hell, an evil home.

8:12 Then your Lord spoke to His angels and said, “I will be with you. Give strength to the believers. I will send terror into the unbelievers’ hearts, cut off their heads and even the tips of their fingers!” This was because they opposed Allah and His messenger. Ones who oppose Allah and His messenger will be severely punished by Allah. We said, “This is for you! Taste it and know that the unbelievers will receive the torment of the Fire.”

8:45 Believers! When you confront their army stand fast and pray to Allah without ceasing so that you will be victorious. Obey Allah and His messenger, and do not argue with one another for fear that you will lose courage and strength. Be patient for Allah is with the patient. Do not be like the Meccans who left home bragging and full of vainglory. They prevent others from following Allah’s path, but Allah knows all that they do.

24:51 But when Allah and His Messenger call the true believers to judge between them, their response is, “We have heard, and we obey.” These are the ones who will be successful. Those who obey Allah and His Messenger and who dread and fear Allah will be the winners. And they have sworn by Allah, a most solemn oath, that if they are given the order, they would certainly march forth. Say to them, “Do not swear. It is worth more to show your obedience. Truly, Allah is well aware of all you do.”

33:21 You have an excellent example in Allah’s Messenger for those of you who put your hope in Allah and the Last Day and who praise Allah continually. And when the believers saw the confederates they said, “This is what Allah and His Messenger promised us, and Allah and His Messenger spoke the truth,” and this served to increase their faith and devotion.

47:33 Believers! Obey Allah and the messenger, and do not let your effort be in vain. Those who do not believe and who prevent others from following Allah’s path and then die as unbelievers will not receive Allah’s forgiveness. Therefore, do not be weak and offer the unbelievers peace when you have the upper hand, for Allah is with you and will not begrudge you the reward of your deeds.

48:11 The desert Arabs [Bedouins] who did not accompany you into war will say, “Our flocks and our families kept us busy, so we ask you to pardon us.” They speak with their tongues what is not in their hearts. Say: Who can have any power over Allah in your behalf, whether he intends that you have some loss or he intends that you have an advantage? Yes, Allah is acquainted with your doings. You [the desert Arabs] thought that the Messenger and the faithful could never come back to their families, and this seemed pleasing to your hearts, and you thought an evil thought, for you are a people lost in wickedness. We have prepared a blazing Fire for these unbelievers who do not believe in Allah and His Messenger. Allah’s is the kingdom of the heavens and of the earth. He will forgive whom He will, and He will punish whom He will. Allah is gracious and merciful.

58:18 On the day Allah will raise them all to life, they will swear to Him as they swear to you now, thinking that their words will help them. Are they not the liars? Satan has possessed them and caused them to forget their praise of Allah. They are of Satan’s company. Truly, will it not be Satan’s company who will be the losers? Those who oppose Allah and His Messenger will be laid low. Allah has declared, “Surely I will be victorious, along with My messengers.” Truly Allah is strong and mighty.

61:10 Believers! Should I show you a profitable exchange that will keep you from severe torment? Believe in Allah and His messenger and fight valiantly for Allah’s cause [jihad] with both your wealth and your lives. It would be better for you, if you only knew it!

64:11 Nothing misfortunate occurs unless Allah wills it. Whoever believes in Allah, He will guide his heart. Allah knows all things. So obey Allah and His messenger. But if you turn your backs to them, Our messenger is not to blame, for his duty is only to deliver Our warning clearly. Allah! There is no god but Him! Let the faithful put their trust in Allah.

4:171 People of the Book [Christians]! Do not overstep the boundaries of your religion and speak only what is true about Allah. The Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, is only Allah’s messenger and his Word which he sent into Mary was a spirit from Him. Therefore, believe in Allah and His messengers and do not say, “Trinity.” Hold back and it will be better for you. Allah is only one god. Far be it from Allah to have a son! All in the heavens and earth are His. Allah is the sufficient as a protector. The Messiah does not condescend to be Allah’s servant, nor do His favored angels. Those who disdain service to Him, and are filled with arrogance, Allah will gather them all together before Him.

24:51 But when Allah and His Messenger call the true believers to judge between them, their response is, “We have heard, and we obey.” These are the ones who will be successful. Those who obey Allah and His Messenger and who dread and fear Allah will be the winners. And they have sworn by Allah, a most solemn oath, that if they are given the order, they would certainly march forth. Say to them, “Do not swear. It is worth more to show your obedience. Truly, Allah is well aware of all you do.”

4:136 Believers! Believe in Allah and His Messenger and in the Scriptures which were sent down to His Messenger and in the Scriptures He sent down before him. Those who deny Allah, His angels, His Scriptures, His messengers, and the Last Day have gone far astray. Those who are believers, then deny the faith, then believe again and deny again and go on in increasing disbelief, Allah will not forgive them or guide them on the right path.

Bill Warner, Director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam
Copyright (c) CBSX, LLC
Use and distribute as you wish; do not edit and give us (politicalislam.com) credit.