Ever since the beginning of Islam there has been opposition to it. This is true of all genuine religions, which as originally taught, are also Islam. This opposition takes several forms. The most subtle and usually unconscious factor consists of what might be called the worldly forces, namely, the economic, political and cultural trends produced by physical existence in contact with the physical environment that cause and reinforce desires for ease and pleasure and against pain and hardship, ambitions and rivalries. Pressure from these causes the gradual change in the teachings and practices until religion is adjusted to the secular system instead of the other way round. In so far as this cannot be done there is a tension between the religious and the secular forces, and the opposition is more deliberate. It comes from those who identify themselves with the economic, political or cultural forces and owe their wealth, power or prestige to them. And it comes also from those who are conditioned by past traditions, formulations and institutions of religion and cannot, therefore, see the truth behind the forms. Nor do they wish to, because their position and interests are bound up with these.

It has been observed by many that the campaign against Islam from many quarters has intensified in recent years. This is partly due to the fact that there has been an increasing general return to religion all over the world. People come to know their own religion better but only have partial knowledge of other religions. There are, therefore, mutual misunderstandings. As all religions refer to the spiritual nature of man they also find themselves in competition with each other. In so far as human beings are prone to mental fixations on superficial forms rather than underlying realities they inevitably find themselves in conflict with each other. But religion is One because it has a single source and refers to the same aspect of human nature.

In particular, some people wonder why Islamic sites on the Internet attract so many anti-Islamic writers. Not all, but most of them appear to be depraved, obscene, perverted and people with ulterior motives and often of low intelligence.

(1) The Internet sites allow people to express their depravities, prejudices, and obscenities anonymously and with impunity. They have to behave themselves in company and project a virtuous image or else they may invite consequences. They feel safe enough to show their true nature on the Internet. It offers a relief of tension.

(2) Many of them are empty barrels and inadequate human beings who wish to give themselves an illusion of significance and importance. It makes them feel they exist when they see themselves in print. What they say is of no importance, as long as it fulfils that purpose, and only in their own minds. They can get thing published and draw attention to themselves on the Internet which would be impossible anywhere else. They cannot, of course, see how ridiculous or contemptuous they seem to others - they can always filter out the reactions or rationalise these away.

(3) People see things according to their own nature. This is because they know themselves and recognise or interpret what others do according to what they know of themselves. The dishonest see dishonesty everywhere. It reassures them and even justifies their dishonesty. They search for and select that which will confirm their prejudices, ignoring other things. Their opinion about something does not, therefore, tell us about the thing, but tells us something about them.

(4) The moral teachings of Islam make immoral people uncomfortable and they feel guilty. They wish to continue in their depravities and to do this they must attack the source of their discomfort and guilt. If they can destroy Islam, at least in their own sight, then there will be nothing to accuse them and they will not feel guilty. They have to convince themselves that Islam is wrong and that they are doing right. This attack is mounted with a desperation that is proportional to the difficulty of getting rid of the truth. This is, of course, also why every Prophet has been attacked and persecuted. As the prize is greater, Satan is most active where there is greater truth.

(5) These attackers claim that they do not agree with Islam and yet they continue to come on Islamic sites. Some of them spend a great amount of time and effort researching and reading Islamic literature and writing about it and posting a great number of articles. It is evident that they are driven by an obsession. They are obsessed with Islam in a negative way. This obsessional prejudice renders them incapable of thinking objectively. It also provides them with a motive and agenda to spread their own hate, confusion and conflict.

(6) It is evident also that they have studied Islamic literature only to oppose it, not to understand it. They have a negative attitude. This causes them to select certain ideas and text, take them out of context, misinterpret them and put them into different contexts. But in order to study and understand anything one needs a positive attitude. One has to be receptive. And one needs to search, think, relate and assimilate. Hostility prevents all this. There are also many hypocrites who claim to ask sincere questions. But these are "loaded" questions containing false assumptions. They are really making assertions and do not want answers, and will not accept any.

(7) The result is that there is a big difference between Muslims who have accepted Islam and the anti-Muslim who rejects it. The Islam seen by the anti-Muslim is not the Islam seen by the Muslim. The two are entirely different things. The view of the anti-Muslim is not Islam. Intelligent people recognize that Islam should be defined as that which Muslims see and that is what Muslims invite others to. Muslims do not invite other people to what the anti-Muslim calls Islam. But Muslims, as others, vary as to how much they understand their faith. It is up to each to develop his own understanding.

(8) There has been a failure to distinguish between Islam which is a teaching and Muslims who are human beings, have failings and practice Islam to various degrees. The purpose of religion is to improve man because they suffer from all kinds of defects. But this applies to all human beings in all faiths. People, driven by egotism and the need to assert their superiority and congratulate themselves tend to compare the best in their own faith with the worst in the adherents of other faiths. This can, of course, be done in reverse. Hence endless futile arguments.

(9) There is no doubt that there are among Muslims, or among those who are called Muslims or call themselves Muslim (these are not the same thing as they are not in any other faith), many who commit all kinds of malpractice, crimes, excesses and even atrocities. This is, and has been so, among all kinds of people. It usually has political, economic or cultural causes and may also be attributed to misinterpretation, misapplication, ignorance, neglect or even misuse and exploitation of religion. Some people have suffered as victims of these crimes. This can and does produce the anti-Islamic obsessions. But this is not rational or realistic and cannot be legitimately presented as such.

(10) Islam is spreading at the expense of other faiths including secularism, atheism, scientism etc. This is felt as a threat by those who form attachments to a system rather than love truth. This arouses the attack, defense and escape mechanism. When this is aroused then the means used have no significance. Only winning is important. In a war any weapon can be used, including distortion, lies, emotional propaganda, insults, accusations, smear campaigns, indiscriminate and irrational allegations, selective information, subversion, political intrigue, and brain washing by constant repetition of the same thing. These people do not realize that they are already lost whether or not they win.

Hostile attacks ignore all the good teachings in Islam and concentrate their minds on only those features that they can twist and interpret in order to attack Islam. Four themes are most popular:- Militarism, Paradise, Wife beating and Legalism.

Islam is presented as aggressive and blood thirsty by quoting verses which exhort Muslims to kill disbelievers. But anything whatever can be proved by taking sentences out of context. The Quran tells Muslim:-

Whereas it might well be true that Muslim rulers have indulged in aggressive wars and persecuted some religious communities, it is not part of the teachings of Islam. Only hypocrites would ignore that the same accusation can be leveled against Christians or any other section of humanity. There has been greater religious tolerance under Islam than under Christianity.

The aim of Islam, it is said, is to attain Paradise where physical and sexual appetites can be freely indulged in. In fact, Paradise, also called the Garden, is nearness to God, and its description is quite obviously symbolic:-

It is a common fallacy that women are regarded as inferior to men in Islam and to prove this the verse 4:34 is quoted which makes men in charge of women and allows them to chastise their wives. A false impression is produced by failing to interpret the verse in its context within the rest of Islam. In fact, women are regarded as different from men not unequal, and men are made responsible for their care. Women are to be treated with kindness and honour. The punishment is for miscreants who might destroy the marriage and family, institutions regarded as half of religion. Far from encouraging violence the verse limits it.

Literature by Christian and other writers contains a number of opinions about women. A perverse minded person could search this literature and gathered together all articles by Christians hostile to women and then present these to the public.

But what a futile waste of time and energy that would be. The reason for this is as follows:-

(1) It would be a biased selection.

(2) It would consist of the opinions of some individuals rather than people in general

(3) It would consist of opinions as opposed to facts.

(4) These opinions would be relevant to the times and place in which they were expressed and not to present times and another place.

(5) They would be the interpretations of the person gathering the opinions as to what others were saying rather than what they meant.

All these reasons make the effort irrelevant to contemporary life. So why would anyone undertake such a task, as attackers of Islam do?

The answer seems to be that they would have an obsession and a hatred for Christianity. They would wish to show that all Christians beat their wives or mistreat women in general. They would wish to discourage people from converting to Christianity and encourage Christians to abandon their religion. They would wish to bring disharmony into Christian families. They would want Christians to mistreat women so as to discourage others from becoming Christians. Therefore, they would oppose any interpretation that appears to diminish the mistreatment of women. They would wish to create hate against Christianity and Christians and incite persecution, ethnic cleansing, war and extermination.

But people personally know many Muslim or Christian families where women are not mistreated. They know several atheist or agnostic families (ones where no kind of religion is practiced or recognized), Asian and Western, where there has been divorce with traumatic consequences for the children and the connected families, and also some where wives have mistreated husbands and husbands have mistreated wives, and both have mistreated the children or other members of the family. They know about mistreatment of women in Asia, Africa, the Far East and the Middle East and in Europe and in North and South America.

They know that economic problems and stresses, lower education and organization are responsible for much of this mistreatment in the less developed countries. But there is no such excuse in the West. Here, changing relationships between the sexes due to technological and economic development have probably created conditions that are incompatible with their inherent biological nature or there has been a psychological failure to adapt to these changes. It is these things which need tackling. To do this it is necessary that people value the truth and seek it. Prejudiced opinions not only have no value, but are mischievous and harmful and are propagated by persons of rather low intelligence.

Another accusation against Islam is that it is legalistic, ritualistic and dogmatic and sometimes obsessional and superstitious. Whereas this is often true about the way it is practiced it is not so in its teaching. And it does not differ in this respect from other religions. There are many levels of intelligence, understanding and practice in every religion. Prayer, in Islam, may seem repetitious, ritualistic and obsessional to outside observers, but it is the inner state that is important. It is a form of meditation and a concentration of mind, motives as well as action that reinforce each other.

Christians, in particular claim to have a religion that is above the law. Jesus did not legislate because he was concerned with teaching the spiritual doctrine. But Islam is concerned also with the establishment of a State based on the spiritual doctrines. Yet Jesus, whom Christians claim to follow, had not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17) and did look forward to the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth (Matthew 6:10). The Law exists to remind people of what values the society is to cherish, to maintain standards, to prevent slipping back beyond a certain threshold. All nations have laws and these define their nature. No Christian could possibly swear sincerely that if laws were abolished then the nation would not rapidly sink into barbarism and chaos.

The critics need to understand that there is fundamental difference between Muslims and non-Muslims. The life, thoughts, motives and actions of a genuine Muslim are based on the following beliefs:-

(1) That there is only one omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent God who is the creator and Lord of the Universe;

(2) That the Universe has a purpose;

(3) That man has a purpose in the Universe with respect to God and has been given divine powers to carry this out;

(4) That the Quran is the Word of God containing objective truth, meaning and values by which man must be guided;

(5) That man has limitations and partial knowledge and his opinions, speculations, desires, whims, fantasies, prejudices etc. cannot replace the Word of God;

(6) That the Quran forms a self-consistent whole in which each item has meaning and significance with respect to the whole and cannot be properly understood in isolation;

(7) That though Islam (or the Quran) are certainly interpreted and applied by man, there is a distinction between Islam (or the Quran) and human interpretation and application of it, which is done according to the nature of the people who do it, their degrees of development, capacity for perception, motives and efforts, and their behaviour reflects this.

In so far as a non-Muslim is one whose life and attitudes are not based on the above then there can be no communication between Muslims and non-Muslims. Their perceptions, thoughts, motive and actions will be different. Conflicts between them will exist unless the two remain separate or treaties are made by which both abide. There is no fourth way.

The Quran explains and predicts this opposition. It should, therefore, be regarded as inevitable. It is a test of understanding and faith. Satan was allowed freedom to act just for this purpose and he has many agents.

It is a central Islamic belief that Allah controls all things and that nothing can be done without the power and permission of Allah. This must also apply to beliefs and faith.

The Quran, therefore, recommends that Muslims should deal with unbelievers, hypocrites and hostile critics as follows:-

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