Like many people, I was shocked by the events of September 11th, 2001.

As a Christian, I was told that Muslims worship the same God I do.  The terrorist attacks caused me to question this assumption.  Christianity is based on ‘hate the sin, but love the sinner’ principles.

The greatest commandment in Christianity is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and the second is “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:36-40).  The scriptures also tell me that “your neighbor” is not just the people living next door, it means everyone.  This principle is illustrated by Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).  Many, if not most, of us fall short of this ideal, I know I do!  It’s still a goal to strive for.

My questioning nature led me to ask “What kind of a religion causes people to commit suicide and murder by flying planes into buildings?”  So I started looking into the Quran to see what inspired the deadly attacks.  I found some disturbing passages.  There are some disturbing passages in the Bible as well, where God instructs the Israelites to go into villages and kill every living thing, including the animals.  Read in context, it is a historical account, not a current exhortation.  I did not find similar context in the Quran’s exhortation to “slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush” (Sura 9:5) and other, similar exhortations, such as:

“And fight with them until there is no more persecution and religion should be only for Allah; but if they desist, then surely Allah sees what they do.” (Sura 8:39)

“Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.” (Sura 9:29)

“O you who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are close to you, and let them find harshness in you, and know that Allah is with those who are the pious.” (Sura 9:123)

“Do not hanker for peace with the infidels; behead them when you catch them.” (Sura 47:4)

“Terrorize and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur’an.” (Sura 8:12)

“Any religion other than Islam is not acceptable.” (Sura 3:85)

“The Jews and the Christians are perverts; fight them.” (Sura 9:30)

“Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticize Islam.” (Sura 5:33)

“The infidels are unclean; do not let them into a mosque.” (Sura 9:28)

“Punish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron rods, boiling water; melt their skin and bellies.” (Sura 22:19)

Look for yourself and see if there’s a context that I’m missing. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/k/koran/

The only way this makes sense is if Allah is NOT the God of Jews and Christians, but that the other names Allah goes by are God of this World, Angel of Light, Lucifer, and Satan.  Then it makes sense, think about it.

Update: I noted that when I was adding the links to the Koranic quotations above that some of them had changed from when I originally wrote this piece.  Is this taqiyya (lying to protect Islam) or correcting a bad translation?  I don’t know, but it’s something to consider.