1. History
     Early Islam   Medieval world   Medieval Islamic world    Medieval Christianity    Enlightenment Europe    Modern era    Western authors    South Asian authors    Other authors  

2. Truthfulness of Islam and Islamic scriptures
     Reliability of the Quran   Pre-existing sources   Reliability of the Hadith    Lack of secondary evidence  

3. Morality
     Muhammad   Age of Muhammad's wife Aisha   Morality of the Quran    Slavery    Apostasy    Islamic law    Human rights conventions    Violence    Beheadings    Homosexuals   Short-term and limited marriages   Short-term marriage   Contractually limited marriage 

4. Women in Islam
     Domestic violence    Personal status laws and child marriage    Women's right to property and consent  

5. Criticism of Muslim immigrants and immigration

6. Comparison with communism and fascist ideologies

7. Responses to criticism

8. See also

9. Notes

10. References

11. Further reading

12. External links

Objects of criticism include the morality of the life of Muhammad, the founder of Islam, both in his public and personal life.^[4][8] Issues relating to the authenticity and morality of the constitutional scriptures of Islam, both the Quran and the hadiths, are also discussed by critics.^[9] Islam has also been viewed as a form of Arab imperialism and has received criticism by figures from Africa and India for what they perceive as the destruction of indigenous cultures.^[10] Islam's recognition of slavery as an institution,^[11][12] which led to Muslim traders exporting as many as 17 million slaves to the coast of the Indian Ocean, the Middle East, and North Africa,^[13] has also been criticized.^[14]

Another criticism focuses on the question of human rights in the Islamic world, both historically and in modern Islamic nations, including the treatment of women, LGBT people, and religious and ethnic minorities, as evinced in Islamic law and practice.^[15][16][16] In the wake of the recent multiculturalism trend, Islam's influence on the ability or willingness of Muslim immigrants to assimilate in the Western world,^[17] and in other countries such as India^[18][19][20] and Russia,^[21][22] has been criticized.

History

Early Islam

The earliest surviving written criticisms of Islam are to be found in the writings of Christians who came under the early dominion of the Islamic Caliphate. One such Christian was John of Damascus (c. 676–749 AD), who was familiar with Islam and Arabic. The second chapter of his book, The Fount of Wisdom, titled "Concerning Heresies", presents a series of discussions between Christians and Muslims. John claimed an Arian monk (whom he did not know was Bahira) influenced Muhammad and viewed the Islamic doctrines as nothing more than a hodgepodge culled from the Bible.^[23] Writing on Islam's claim of Abrahamic ancestry, John explained that the Arabs were called "Saracens" (Greek Σαρακενοί, Sarakenoi) because they were "empty" (κενός, kenos, in Greek) "of Sarah". They were called "Hagarenes" because they were "the descendants of the slave-girl Hagar".^[24]

Other notable early critics of Islam included:

• Abu Isa al-Warraq, a 9th-century scholar and critic of Islam.^[25]{{rp|224}}
• Ibn al-Rawandi, a 9th-century atheist, who repudiated Islam and criticised religion in general.^[25]
• al-Ma'arri, an 11th-century Arab poet and critic of Islam and all other religions. Also known for his veganism and Antinatalism.^[26][27]

Medieval world

Medieval Islamic world

In the early centuries of the Islamic Caliphate, Islamic law allowed citizens to freely express their views, including criticism of Islam and religious authorities, without fear of persecution.^[28][29][30] As such, there have been several notable critics and skeptics of Islam that arose from within the Islamic world itself. In tenth and eleventh-century Syria there lived a blind poet called Al-Ma'arri. He became well known for a poetry that was affected by a "pervasive pessimism." He labeled religions in general as "noxious weeds" and said that Islam does not have a monopoly on truth. He had particular contempt for the ulema, writing that:

In 1280, the Jewish philosopher, Ibn Kammuna, criticized Islam in his book Examination of the Three Faiths. He reasoned that the Sharia was incompatible with the principles of justice, and that this undercut the notion of Muhammad being the perfect man: "there is no proof that Muhammad attained perfection and the ability to perfect others as claimed."^[32][33] The philosopher thus claimed that people converted to Islam from ulterior motives:

According to Bernard Lewis, just as it is natural for a Muslim to assume that the converts to his religion are attracted by its truth, it is equally natural for the convert's former coreligionists to look for baser motives and Ibn Kammuna's list seems to cover most of such nonreligious motives.^[34]

Medieval Christianity

• In Dante's Inferno, Muhammad is portrayed as split in half, with his guts hanging out, representing his status as a schismatic (one who broke from the Church).
• Some medieval ecclesiastical writers portrayed Muhammad as possessed by Satan, a "precursor of the Antichrist" or the Antichrist himself.^[37]
• Denis the Carthusian wrote two treatises to refute Islam at the request of Nicholas of Cusa, Contra perfidiam Mahometi, et contra multa dicta Sarracenorum libri quattuor and Dialogus disputationis inter Christianum et Sarracenum de lege Christi et contra perfidiam Mahometi.^[38]
• The Tultusceptrum de libro domni Metobii, an Andalusian manuscript with unknown dating, shows how Muhammad (called Ozim, from Hashim) was tricked by Satan into adulterating an originally pure divine revelation. The story argues God was concerned about the spiritual fate of the Arabs and wanted to correct their deviation from the faith. He then sends an angel to the monk Osius who orders him to preach to the Arabs. Osius however is in ill-health and orders a young monk, Ozim, to carry out the angel's orders instead. Ozim sets out to follow his orders, but gets stopped by an evil angel on the way. The ignorant Ozim believes him to be the same angel that spoke to Osius before. The evil angel modifies and corrupts the original message given to Ozim by Osius, and renames Ozim Muhammad. From this followed the erroneous teachings of Islam, according to the Tultusceptrum.^[39]
• According to many Christians, the coming of Muhammad was foretold in the Holy Bible. According to the monk Bede this is in Genesis 16:12, which describes Ishmael as "a wild man" whose "hand will be against every man". Bede says about Muhammad: "Now how great is his hand against all and all hands against him; as they impose his authority upon the whole length of Africa and hold both the greater part of Asia and some of Europe, hating and opposing all."^[40]
• In 1391 a dialogue was believed to have occurred between Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos and a Persian scholar in which the Emperor stated:

Enlightenment Europe

The commonly held view in Europe during the Enlightenment was that Islam, then synonymous with the Ottoman Empire, was a bloody, ruthless and intolerant religion. In the European view, Islam lacked divine authority and regarded the sword as the route to heaven. Hume appears to represent this view in his reference to the "bloody principles" of Islam, though he also makes similar critical comments about the "bloody designs" characterizing the conflict between Catholics and Protestants during the Reformation. Many contemporary works about Islam were available to influence Hume's opinions by authors such as Isaac Barrow, Humphrey Prideaux, John Jackson, Charles Wolseley, Hugo Grotius, Paul Rycaut, Thomas Hyde, Pierre Bayle, and Blaise Pascal. The writers of this period were also influenced by George Sale who, in 1743, had translated the Quran into English.^[45]

Modern era

Numerous personalities criticized Muslims and Islam in the modern era.

Western authors

In the early 20th century, the prevailing view among Europeans was that Islam was the root cause of Arab and Berber "backwardness". They saw Islam as an obstacle to assimilation, a view that was expressed by a writer in colonial French Algeria named André Servier. In his book, titled Islam and the Psychology of the Musulman, Servier wrote that "The only thing Arabs ever invented was their religion. And this religion is, precisely, the main obstacle between them and us". Servier describes Islam as a "religious nationalism in which every Muslim brain is steeped". According to Servier, the only reason this nationalism has not "been able to pose a threat to humanity" was that the "rigid dogma" of Islam had rendered the Arabs "incapable of fighting against the material forces placed at the disposal of Western civilization by science and progress".^[46]

The Victorian orientalist scholar Sir William Muir criticised Islam for what he perceived to be an inflexible nature, which he held responsible for stifling progress and impeding social advancement in Muslims countries. The following sentences are taken from the Rede Lecture he delivered at Cambridge in 1881:

The church historian Philip Schaff described Islam as spread by violence and fanaticism, and producing a variety of social ills in the regions it conquered.^[48]

Schaff also described Islam as a derivative religion based on an amalgamation of "heathenism, Judaism and Christianity".^[49]

J. M. Neale criticized Islam in terms similar to those of Schaff, arguing that it was made up of a mixture of beliefs that provided something for everyone.^[50] {{quotation|...he [Muhammad] also infuses into his religion so much of each of those tenets to which the varying sects of his countrymen were addicted, as to enable each and all to please themselves by the belief that the new doctrine was only a reform of, and improvement on, that to which they had been accustomed. The Christians were conciliated by the acknowledgment of our LORD as the Greatest of Prophets; the Jews, by the respectful mention of Moses and their other Lawgivers; the idolaters, by the veneration which the Impostor professed for the Temple of Mecca, and the black stone which it contained; and the Chaldeans, by the pre-eminence which he gives to the ministrations of the Angel Gabriel, and his whole scheme of the Seven Heavens. To a people devoted to the gratification of their passions and addicted to Oriental luxury, he appealed, not unsuccessfully, by the promise of a Paradise whose sensual delights were unbounded, and the permission of a free exercise of pleasures in this world.^[50]}}

James Fitzjames Stephen, describing what he understood to be the Islamic conception of the ideal society, wrote the following:

The early 20th-century missionary James L. Barton argued that Islam's view of the sovereignty of God is so extreme and unbalanced as to produce a fatalism that stifles human initiative:^[52]

G. K. Chesterton criticized Islam as a derivative from Christianity. He described it as a heresy or parody of Christianity. In The Everlasting Man he says:

Winston Churchill criticized what he alleged to be the effects Islam had on its believers, which he described as fanatical frenzy combined with fatalistic apathy, enslavement of women, and militant proselytizing.^[54] In his 1899 book The River War he says:

According to historian Warren Dockter, Churchill wrote this during a time of a fundamentalist revolt in Sudan and this statement does not reflect his full view of Islam, which were "often paradoxical and complex." He could be critical but at times "romanticized" the Islamic world; he exhibited great "respect, understanding and magnanimity."^[55][67] Churchill had a fascination of Islam and Islamic civilization.^[56] Winston Churchill's future sister-in-law expressed concerns about his fascination by stating, "[p]lease don't become converted to Islam; I have noticed in your disposition a tendency to orientalism." According to historian Warren Dockter, however, he "never seriously considered converting".^[57][58][59] He primarily admired its martial aspects, the "Ottoman Empire’s history of territorial expansion and military acumen", to the extent that in 1897 he wished to fight for the Ottoman Empire. According to Dockter, this was largely for his "lust for glory".^[59] Based on Churchill's letters, he seemed to regard Islam and Christianity as equals.^[60][56]{{dead link|date=December 2017}}

During a lecture given at the University of Regensburg in 2006, Pope Benedict XVI quoted an unfavorable remark about Islam made at the end of the 14th century by Manuel II Palaiologos, the Byzantine emperor: {{quotation|Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.^[61][62]}} As the English translation of the Pope's lecture was disseminated across the world, many Muslim politicians and religious leaders protested against what they saw as an insulting mischaracterization of Islam.^[61][62] Mass street protests were mounted in many Islamic countries, the Majlis-e-Shoora (Pakistani parliament) unanimously called on the Pope to retract "this objectionable statement".^[63]

South Asian authors

The Hindu philosopher Vivekananda commented on Islam:

Dayanand Saraswati calls the concept of Islam to be highly offensive, and doubted that there is any connection of Islam with God:

Pandit Lekh Ram regarded that Islam was grown through the violence and desire for wealth. He further asserted that Muslims deny the entire Islamic prescribed violence and atrocities, and will continue doing so. He wrote:

Mahatma Gandhi, the moral leader of the 20th-century Indian independence movement, found the history of Muslims to be aggressive, while he pointed out that Hindus have passed that stage of societal evolution:

Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, in his book Discovery of India, describes Islam to have been a faith for military conquests. He wrote "Islam had become a more rigid faith suited more to military conquests rather than the conquests of the mind", and that Muslims brought nothing new to his country.

Other authors

Iranian writer Sadegh Hedayat regarded Islam as the corrupter of Iran, he said:

Nobel prize-winning novelist V. S. Naipaul stated that Islam requires its adherents to destroy everything which is not related to it. He described it as having a:

Nobel prize-winning playwright Wole Soyinka stated that Islam had a role in denigrating African spiritual traditions. He criticized attempts to whitewash what he sees as the destructive and coercive history of Islam on the continent:

Soyinka also regarded Islam as "superstition", and said that it does not belong to Africa. He stated that it is mainly spread with violence and force.^[75]

Truthfulness of Islam and Islamic scriptures

Reliability of the Quran

Imperfections in the Quran. Critics reject the idea that the Quran is miraculously perfect and impossible to imitate as asserted in the Quran itself.^[80] The 1901-1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, for example, writes: "The language of the Koran is held by the Mohammedans to be a peerless model of perfection. Critics, however, argue that peculiarities can be found in the text. For example, critics note that a sentence in which something is said concerning Allah is sometimes followed immediately by another in which Allah is the speaker (examples of this are suras xvi. 81, xxvii. 61, xxxi. 9, and xliii. 10.) Many peculiarities in the positions of words are due to the necessities of rhyme (lxix. 31, lxxiv. 3), while the use of many rare words and new forms may be traced to the same cause (comp. especially xix. 8, 9, 11, 16)."^[81] More serious are factual inaccuracies. For instance, Sura 25.53 claims that fresh water and salt water do not mix. While there may be cases in which these two bodies of water mix only slowly, every (fresh water) river that reaches an ocean will mix with salt water. Such areas of mixing are called estuaries (e.g. at the mouth of the Río de la Plata).

Other criticism:

• the Quran contains verses which are difficult to understand or contradictory.^[89]
• Some accounts of the history of Islam say there were two verses of the Quran that were allegedly added by Muhammad when he was tricked by Satan (in an incident known as the "Story of the Cranes", later referred to as the "Satanic Verses"). These verses were then retracted at angel Gabriel's behest.^[90][91]
• The author of the Apology of al-Kindy Abd al-Masih ibn Ishaq al-Kindi (not to be confused with the famed philosopher al-Kindi) claimed that the narratives in the Quran were "all jumbled together and intermingled" and that this was "an evidence that many different hands have been at work therein, and caused discrepancies, adding or cutting out whatever they liked or disliked".^[92]
• The companions of Muhammad could not agree on which surahs were part of the Quran and which not. Two of the most famous companions being Ibn Masud and Ubay ibn Ka'b.^[93]

Pre-existing sources

Critics point to various pre-existing sources to argue against the traditional narrative of revelation from God. Some scholars have calculated that one-third of the Quran has pre-Islamic Christian origins.^[94] Aside from the Bible, Quran relies on several Apocryphal and legendary sources, like the Protoevangelium of James^[95], Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew^[96], and several infancy gospels.^[97] Several narratives rely on Jewish Midrash Tanhuma legends, like the narrative of Cain learning to bury the body of Abel in Surah 5:31.^[98][99] Critics, like Norman Geisler argue that the dependence of the Quran on preexisting sources is one evidence of a purely human origin.^[100] Richard Carrier regards this reliance on pre-Islamic Christian sources, as evidence that Islam derived from a heretical sect of Christianity.^[101]

Reliability of the Hadith

It has been suggested that there exists around the Hadith three major sources of corruption: political conflicts, sectarian prejudice, and the desire to translate the underlying meaning, rather than the original words verbatim.^[105]

Muslim critics of the hadith, Quranists, reject the authority of hadith on theological grounds, pointing to verses in the Quran itself: "Nothing have We omitted from the Book",^[106] declaring that all necessary instruction can be found within the Quran, without reference to the Hadith. They claim that following the Hadith has led to people straying from the original purpose of God's revelation to Muhammad, adherence to the Quran alone.^[107] Ghulam Ahmed Pervez (1903–1985) was a noted critic of the Hadith and believed that the Quran alone was all that was necessary to discern God's will and our obligations. A fatwa, ruling, signed by more than a thousand orthodox clerics, denounced him as a 'kafir', a non-believer.^[108] His seminal work, Maqam-e Hadith argued that the Hadith were composed of "the garbled words of previous centuries", but suggests that he is not against the idea of collected sayings of the Prophet, only that he would consider any hadith that goes against the teachings of Quran to have been falsely attributed to the Prophet.^[109] The 1986 Malaysian book "Hadith: A Re-evaluation" by Kassim Ahmad was met with controversy and some scholars declared him an apostate from Islam for suggesting that ""the hadith are sectarian, anti-science, anti-reason and anti-women."^[110][111]

Orthodox Muslims do not deny the existence of false hadith, but believe that through the scholars' work, these false hadith have been largely eliminated.^[114]

Lack of secondary evidence

The traditional view of Islam has also been criticised for the lack of supporting evidence consistent with that view, such as the lack of archaeological evidence, and discrepancies with non-Muslim literary sources.^[115] In the 1970s, what has been described as a "wave of sceptical scholars" challenged a great deal of the received wisdom in Islamic studies.^[116]{{rp|23}} They argued that the Islamic historical tradition had been greatly corrupted in transmission. They tried to correct or reconstruct the early history of Islam from other, presumably more reliable, sources such as coins, inscriptions, and non-Islamic sources. The oldest of this group was John Wansbrough (1928–2002). Wansbrough's works were widely noted, but perhaps not widely read.^[116]{{rp|38}} In 1972 a cache of ancient Qur'ans in a mosque in Sana'a, Yemen was discovered – commonly known as the Sana'a manuscripts. The German scholar Gerd R. Puin has been investigating these Quran fragments for years. His research team made 35,000 microfilm photographs of the manuscripts, which he dated to early part of the 8th century. Puin has not published the entirety of his work, but noted unconventional verse orderings, minor textual variations, and rare styles of orthography. He also suggested that some of the parchments were palimpsests which had been reused. Puin believed that this implied an evolving text as opposed to a fixed one.^[89]

Morality

Muhammad

Muhammad called upon his followers to kill Ka'b. Muhammad ibn Maslama offered his services, collecting four others. By pretending to have turned against Muhammad, Muhammad ibn Maslama and the others enticed Ka'b out of his fortress on a moonlit night,^[117] and killed him in spite of his vigorous resistance.^[120] The Jews were terrified at his assassination, and as the historian Ibn Ishaq put it "...there was not a Jew who did not fear for his life".^[121]

Age of Muhammad's wife Aisha

According to scriptural Sunni's Hadith sources, Aisha was six or seven years old when she was married to Muhammad and nine when the marriage was consummated.^{[122][123][124][125][126][127]}

Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, born in Persia 200 years after Muhammmad's death, suggested that she was ten years old.^[125] Six hundred years after Muhammad, Ibn Khallikan recorded that she was nine years old at marriage, and twelve at consummation. Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi, born about 150 years after Muhammad's death, cited Hisham ibn Urwah as saying that she was nine years old at marriage, and twelve at consummation,^[128] but Hisham ibn Urwah's original source is otherwise unknown, and Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi's work does not have the high religious status of the Hadith.

In the twentieth century, Indian writer Muhammad Ali challenged the Hadith showing that Aisha was as young as the traditional sources claim; arguing that instead a new interpretation of the Hadith compiled by Mishkat al-Masabih, Wali-ud-Din Muhammad ibn Abdullah Al-Khatib, could indicate that Aisha would have been nineteen years old around the time of her marriage.^[129]

Colin Turner, a UK professor of Islamic studies,^[130] states that since such marriages between an older man and a young girl were customary among the Bedouins, Muhammad's marriage would not have been considered improper by his contemporaries.^[131] Karen Armstrong, the British author on comparative religion, has affirmed that "There was no impropriety in Muhammad's marriage to Aisha. Marriages conducted in absentia to seal an alliance were often contracted at this time between adults and minors who were even younger than Aisha."^[132]

Morality of the Quran

According to some critics, the morality of the Quran appears to be a moral regression when judged by the standards of the moral traditions of Judaism and Christianity it says that it builds upon. The Catholic Encyclopedia, for example, states that "the ethics of Islam are far inferior to those of Judaism and even more inferior to those of the New Testament" and "that in the ethics of Islam there is a great deal to admire and to approve, is beyond dispute; but of originality or superiority, there is none."^[133]

• Critics stated that the Quran{{Cite quran|4|34}} allows Muslim men to discipline their wives by striking them.^[134] (There is however confusion amongst translations of Quran with the original Arabic term "wadribuhunna" being translated as "to go away from them",^[135] "beat",^[136] "strike lightly" and "separate".^[137] The film Submission, which rose to fame after the murder of its director Theo van Gogh, critiqued this and similar verses of the Quran by displaying them painted on the bodies of abused Muslim women.^[138] Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the film's writer, said "it is written in the Koran a woman may be slapped if she is disobedient. This is one of the evils I wish to point out in the film".^[139]
• Some critics argue that the Quran is incompatible with other religious scriptures as it attacks and advocates hate against people of other religions.^{[9][140][141][142]} For instance, Sam Harris interprets certain verses of the Quran as sanctioning military action against unbelievers as a whole both during the lifetime of Muhammad and after. The Quran said "Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture - [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled."[Surah 9:29]^[143] In The End of Faith Harris argues that Muslim extremism is simply a consequence of taking the Qur'an literally, and is skeptical that moderate Islam is possible.^[144] Various calls to arms were identified in the Quran by US citizen Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, all of which were cited as "most relevant to my actions on March 3, 2006" (9:44, 9:19, 57:10-11, 8:72–73, 9:120, [https://web.archive.org/web/20160604194019/http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-texts/quran/verses/003-qmt.php#003.167 3:167–75], [https://web.archive.org/web/20150501064500/http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-texts/quran/verses/004-qmt.php#004.066 4:66], [https://web.archive.org/web/20150501064500/http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-texts/quran/verses/004-qmt.php#004.104 4:104], 9:81, 9:93–94, 9:100, 16:110, 61:11–12, 47:35).^[145]
• Max I. Dimont interprets that the Houris described in the Quran are specifically dedicated to "male pleasure".^[146] Henry Martyn claims that the concept of the Houris was chosen to satisfy Muhammad's followers.^[147]

Slavery

Bernard Lewis writes: "In one of the sad paradoxes of human history, it was the humanitarian reforms brought by Islam that resulted in a vast development of the slave trade inside, and still more outside, the Islamic empire." He notes that the Islamic injunctions against the enslavement of Muslims led to massive importation of slaves from the outside.^[148] According to Patrick Manning, Islam by recognizing and codifying the slavery seems to have done more to protect and expand slavery than the reverse.^[149]

Unlike Western societies which in their opposition to slavery spawned anti-slavery movements whose numbers and enthusiasm often grew out of church groups, no such grass-roots organizations ever developed in Muslim societies. In Muslim politics the state unquestioningly accepted the teachings of Islam and applied them as law. Islam, by sanctioning slavery, also extended legitimacy to the traffic in slaves.^[150]

It was only in the early 20th century (post World War I) that slavery gradually became outlawed and suppressed in Muslim lands, largely due to pressure exerted by Western nations such as Britain and France.^[11] Gordon describes the lack of homegrown Islamic abolition movements as owing much to the fact that it was deeply anchored in Islamic law. By legitimizing slavery and – by extension – traffic in slaves, Islam elevated those practices to an unassailable moral plane. As a result, in no part of the Muslim world was an ideological challenge ever mounted against slavery. The political and social system in Muslim society would have taken a dim view of such a challenge.^[151]

The issue of slavery in the Islamic world in modern times is controversial. Critics argue there is hard evidence of its existence and destructive effects. Others maintain slavery in central Islamic lands has been virtually extinct since mid-twentieth century, and that reports from Sudan and Somalia showing practice of slavery is in border areas as a result of continuing war^[152] and not Islamic belief. In recent years, according to some scholars,^[153] there has been a "worrying trend" of "reopening" of the issue of slavery by some conservative Salafi Islamic scholars after its "closing" earlier in the 20th century when Muslim countries banned slavery and "most Muslim scholars" found the practice "inconsistent with Qur'anic morality."^[154][155]

Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri of Karbala expressed the view in 1993 that the enforcement of servitude can occur but is restricted to war captives and those born of slaves.^[156]

In a 2014 issue of their digital magazine Dabiq, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant explicitly claimed religious justification for enslaving Yazidi women.^{[157][158][159][160][161]}

Apostasy

According to Islamic law apostasy is identified by a list of actions such as conversion to another religion, denying the existence of God, rejecting the prophets, mocking God or the prophets, idol worship, rejecting the sharia, or permitting behavior that is forbidden by the sharia, such as adultery or the eating of forbidden foods or drinking of alcoholic beverages.^[162][163] The majority of Muslim scholars hold to the traditional view that apostasy is punishable by death or imprisonment until repentance, at least for adult men of sound mind.^{[164][165][166]}

Laws prohibiting religious conversion run contrary to Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "[e]veryone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."^[167]

The English historian C. E. Bosworth suggests the traditional view of apostasy hampered the development of Islamic learning, arguing that while the organizational form of the Christian university allowed them to develop and flourish into the modern university, "the Muslim ones remained constricted by the doctrine of waqf alone, with their physical plant often deteriorating hopelessly and their curricula narrowed by the exclusion of the non-traditional religious sciences like philosophy and natural science," out of fear that these could evolve into potential toe-holds for kufr, those people who reject God."^[168]

In 13 Muslim-majority countries atheism is punishable by death.^[169]

Islamic law

Bernard Lewis summarizes:

The four Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence, as well as Shi'a scholars, agree on the difference of punishment between male and female. A sane adult male apostate may be executed. A female apostate may be put to death, according to the majority view, or imprisoned until she repents, according to others.^[171]

The Quran threatens apostates with punishment in the next world only, the historian W. Heffening states, the traditions however contain the element of death penalty. Muslim scholar Shafi'i interprets verse {{Quran-usc|2|217|style=ns}} as adducing the main evidence for the death penalty in Quran.^[172] The historian Wael Hallaq states the later addition of death penalty "reflects a later reality and does not stand in accord with the deeds of the Prophet." He further states that "nothing in the law governing apostate and apostasy derives from the letter of the holy text."^[173]

Some contemporary Islamic jurists from both the Sunni and Shia denominations together with Quran only Muslims have argued or issued fatwas that state that either the changing of religion is not punishable or is only punishable under restricted circumstances.^[175] For example, Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri argues that no Quranic verse prescribes an earthly penalty for apostasy and adds that it is not improbable that the punishment was prescribed by Muhammad at early Islam due to political conspiracies against Islam and Muslims and not only because of changing the belief or expressing it. Montazeri defines different types of apostasy. He does not hold that a reversion of belief because of investigation and research is punishable by death but prescribes capital punishment for a desertion of Islam out of malice and enmity towards the Muslim.^[176]

According to Yohanan Friedmann, an Israeli Islamic Studies scholar, a Muslim may stress tolerant elements of Islam (by for instance adopting the broadest interpretation of Quran 2:256 ("No compulsion is there in religion...") or the humanist approach attributed to Ibrahim al-Nakha'i), without necessarily denying the existence of other ideas in the Medieval Islamic tradition but rather discussing them in their historical context (by for example arguing that "civilizations comparable with the Islamic one, such as the Sassanids and the Byzantines, also punished apostasy with death. Similarly neither Judaism nor Christianity treated apostasy and apostates with any particular kindness").^[177] Friedmann continues:

Human rights conventions

Some widely held interpretations of Islam are inconsistent with Human Rights conventions that recognize the right to change religion.^[179] In particular article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights^[180]

states:

To implement this, Article 18 (2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states:

The right for Muslims to change their religion is not afforded by the Iranian Shari'ah law, which specifically forbids it. In 1981, the Iranian representative to the United Nations, Said Rajaie-Khorassani, articulated the position of his country regarding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by saying that the UDHR was "a secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition", which could not be implemented by Muslims without trespassing the Islamic law.^[181] As a matter of law, on the basis of its obligations as a state party to the ICCPR, Iran is obliged to uphold the right of individuals to practice the religion of their choice and to change religions, including converting from Islam. The prosecution of converts from Islam on the basis of religious edicts that identify apostasy as an offense punishable by death is clearly at variance with this obligation.^[182][183] Muslim countries such as Sudan and Saudi Arabia, have the death penalty for apostasy from Islam.^[184] These countries have criticized the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for its perceived failure to take into account the cultural and religious context of non-Western countries.^[185] In 1990, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation published a separate Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam compliant with Shari'ah.^[186] Although granting many of the rights in the UN declaration, it does not grant Muslims the right to convert to other religions, and restricts freedom of speech to those expressions of it that are not in contravention of the Islamic law.

Violence

The September 11 attacks on the United States, and various other acts of Islamic terrorism over the 21st century, have resulted in many non-Muslims' indictment of Islam as a violent religion.^[194] In particular, the Qur'an's teachings on matters of war and peace have become topics of heated discussion in recent years. On the one hand, some critics claim that certain verses of the Qur'an sanction military action against unbelievers as a whole both during the lifetime of Muhammad and after. The Qur'an says, "Fight in the name of your religion with those who fight against you."^[143] On the other hand, most Muslim scholars, including Ahmadiyya, argue that such verses of the Qur'an are interpreted out of context,^[195][196] and argue that when the verses are read in context it clearly appears that the Qur'an prohibits aggression,^{[197][198][199]} and allows fighting only in self-defense.^[200][201]

The Qur'an: (8:12): "...cast terror in their hearts and strike upon their necks."^[212] The phrase that they have been "commanded to terrorize the disbelievers" has been cited in motivation of Jihadi terror.^[213] One Jihadi cleric has said:

Another aim and objective of jihad is to drive terror in the hearts of the [infidels]. To terrorize them. Did you know that we were commanded in the Qur'an with terrorism? ...Allah said, and prepare for them to the best of your ability with power, and with horses of war. To drive terror in the hearts of my enemies, Allah's enemies, and your enemies. And other enemies which you don't know, only Allah knows them... So we were commanded to drive terror into the hearts of the [infidels], to prepare for them with the best of our abilities with power. Then the Prophet said, nay, the power is your ability to shoot. The power which you are commanded with here, is your ability to shoot. Another aim and objective of jihad is to kill the [infidels], to lessen the population of the [infidels]... it is not right for a Prophet to have captives until he makes the Earth warm with blood... so, you should always seek to lessen the population of the [infidels].^[214]

David Cook, author of Understanding Jihad, said "In reading Muslim literature – both contemporary and classical – one can see that the evidence for the primacy of spiritual jihad is negligible. Today it is certain that no Muslim, writing in a non- Western language (such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu), would ever make claims that jihad is primarily nonviolent or has been superseded by the spiritual jihad. Such claims are made solely by Western scholars, primarily those who study Sufism and/or work in interfaith dialogue, and by Muslim apologists who are trying to present Islam in the most innocuous manner possible."^[215] Cook argued that "Presentations along these lines are ideological in tone and should be discounted for their bias and deliberate ignorance of the subject" and that "[i]t is no longer acceptable for Western scholars or Muslim apologists writing in non-Muslim languages to make flat, unsupported statements concerning the prevalence – either from a historical point of view or within contemporary Islam—of the spiritual jihad."^[215] Magdi Allam, an outspoken Egyptian-born Italian journalist, has described Islam as intrinsically violent and characterized by "hate and intolerance".^[216]

Beheadings

Beheading was a standard method of execution in pre-modern Islamic law. Though a formerly widespread execution method, its use had been abandoned in most countries by the end of the 20th century. Currently, it is used only in Saudi Arabia. It also remains a legal method of execution in Iran, Qatar and Yemen, where it is no longer in use.

Homosexuals

Critics such as lesbian activist Irshad Manji,^[219] former Muslims Ehsan Jami and the former Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, have criticized Islam's attitudes towards homosexuals. Most international human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, condemn Islamic laws that make homosexual relations between consenting adults a crime. Since 1994 the United Nations Human Rights Committee has also ruled that such laws violated the right to privacy guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

In May 2008, the sexual rights lobby group Lambda Istanbul (based in Istanbul, Turkey) was banned by court order for violating a constitutional provision on the protection of the family and an article banning bodies with objectives that violate law and morality.^[220] This decision was then taken to the Court of Cassation and the ban lifted.^[221]

In 10 Muslim-majority countries homosexual acts may be punishable by death, though in some the punishment has never been carried out.^[222]

The ex-Muslim Ibn Warraq has noted that the Quran's condemnation of homosexuality has frequently been ignored in practice, and that Islamic countries were much more tolerant of homosexuality than Christian ones until fairly recently.^[223]

Short-term and limited marriages

Short-term marriage

Contractually limited marriage

Nikah Misyar ({{lang-ar|المسيار}}) is a type of Nikah (marriage) in Sunni Islam only carried out through the normal contractual procedure, with the provision that the husband and wife give up several rights by their own free will, such as living together, equal division of nights between wives in cases of polygamy, the wife's rights to housing, and maintenance money ("nafaqa"), and the husband's right of homekeeping and access.^[233] Essentially the couple continue to live separately from each other, as before their contract, and see each other to fulfil their needs in a legally permissible (halaal) manner when they please.

Misyar has been suggested by some western authors to be a comparable marriage with Nikah mut'ah and that they find it for the sole purpose of "sexual gratification in a licit manner"^[234][235] According to Florian Pohl, assistant professor of religion at Oxford College, Misyar marriage is controversial issue in the Muslim world, as many see it as practice that encourages marriages for purely sexual purposes, or that it is used as a cover for a form of prostitutuion.^[236]

Professor Yusuf Al-Qaradawi observes that he does not promote this type of marriage, although he has to recognise that it is legal, since it fulfils all the requirements of the usual marriage contract.^[237] He states his preference that the clause of renunciation be not included within the marriage contract, but be the subject of a simple verbal agreement between the parties.^[238] Islamic scholars like Ibn Uthaimeen or Al-Albani claim, for their part, that misyar marriage may be legal, but not moral. They agree that the wife can at any time, reclaim the rights which she gave up at the time of contract.^[239] But, they are opposed to this type of marriage on the grounds that it contradicts the spirit of the Islamic law of marriage and that it has perverse effects on the woman, the family and the community in general.

For Al-Albani, misyar marriage may even be considered as illicit, because it runs counter to the objectives and the spirit of marriage in Islam, as described in the Quran: "And among His signs is this, that He created for you mates from among yourselves, that ye may dwell in tranquility with them, and He has put love and mercy between your (hearts)…"^[240] Al-Albani also underlines the social problems which result from the "misyar" marriage, particularly in the event that children are born from this union. The children raised by their mother in a home from which the father is always absent, without reason, may suffer difficulties.^[241] The situation becomes even worse if the wife is abandoned or repudiated by her husband "misyar", with no means of subsistence, as usually happens.

Ibn Uthaymeen recognized the legality of "misyar" marriage under Shariah, but came to oppose it due to what he considered to be its harmful effects.^[242]

Women in Islam

Domestic violence

Many scholars^[243][244] claim Shari'a law encourages domestic violence against women, when a husband suspects nushuz (disobedience, disloyalty, rebellion, ill conduct) in his wife.^[245]

One of the verses of the Quran relating to permissibility of domestic violence is Surah 4:34.^[246][247] In deference to Surah 4:34, many nations with Shari'a law have refused to consider or prosecute cases of domestic abuse.^{[248][249][250][251]} Shari'a has been criticized for ignoring women's rights in domestic abuse cases.^{[252][253][254][255]} Musawah, CEDAW, KAFA and other organizations have proposed ways to modify Shari'a-inspired laws to improve women's rights in Islamic nations, including women's rights in domestic abuse cases.^{[256][257][258][259]}

Personal status laws and child marriage

Shari'a is the basis for personal status laws in most Islamic majority nations. These personal status laws determine rights of women in matters of marriage, divorce and child custody. A 2011 UNICEF report concludes that Shari'a law provisions are discriminatory against women from a human rights perspective. In legal proceedings under Shari'a law, a woman's testimony is worth half of a man's before a court.^[260]

Except for Iran, Lebanon and Bahrain which allow child marriages, the civil code in Islamic majority countries do not allow child marriage of girls. However, with Shari'a personal status laws, Shari'a courts in all these nations have the power to override the civil code. The religious courts permit girls less than 18 years old to marry. As of 2011, child marriages are common in a few Middle Eastern countries, accounting for 1 in 6 all marriages in Egypt and 1 in 3 marriages in Yemen. However, the average age at marriage in most Middle Eastern countries is steadily rising and is generally in the low to mid 20's for women.^[261] Rape is considered a crime in all countries, but Shari'a courts in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Syria and Tunisia in some cases allow a rapist to escape punishment by marrying his victim, while in other cases the victim who complains is often prosecuted with the crime of Zina (adultery).^{[260][262][263]}

Women's right to property and consent

Sharia grants women the right to inherit property from other family members, and these rights are detailed in the Quran.^[264] A woman's inheritance is unequal and less than a man's, and dependent on many factors.{{Quran-usc|4|12}}^[299] For instance, a daughter's inheritance is usually half that of her brother's.{{Quran-usc|4|11}}^[265]

The status of women in classical Islamic law compared favorably to their status under laws of other contemporaneous cultures such those of pre-modern Europe, both in terms of financial independence and access to divorce, but the situation is different if it is evaluated against modern conceptions.^[266] Furthermore, slave women were not granted the same legal rights. Sharia recognizes the basic inequality between master and women slave, between free women and slave women, between believers and non-believers, as well as their unequal rights.^{[267][268][269][270]} Sharia authorized the institution of slavery, using the words abd (slave) and the phrase ma malakat aymanukum ("that which your right hand owns") to refer to women slaves, seized as captives of war.^[267][271] Under classical Islamic law, Muslim men could have sexual relations with female captives and slaves without her consent.^[272][273]

Slave women under sharia did not have a right to own property, right to free movement or right to consent.^[274][275] Sharia, in Islam's history, provided religious foundation for enslaving non-Muslim women (and men), as well as encouraged slave's manumission. However, manumission required that the non-Muslim slave first convert to Islam.^[312][276] Non-Muslim slave women who bore children to their Muslim masters became legally free upon her master's death, and her children were presumed to be Muslims as their father, in Africa,^[277] and elsewhere.^[278]

Starting with the 20th century, Western legal systems evolved to expand women's rights, but women's rights under Islamic law have remained tied to Quran, hadiths and their faithful interpretation as sharia by Islamic jurists.^[273][279]

Criticism of Muslim immigrants and immigration

The immigration of Muslims to Europe has increased in recent decades. Friction has developed between their new neighbours. Conservative Muslim social attitudes on modern issues have caused controversy in Europe and elsewhere. Scholars argue about how much these attitudes are a result of Islamic beliefs. Some critics consider Islam to be incompatible with secular Western society, and that, unlike other religions, Islam positively commands its adherents to impose its religious law on all peoples, believers and unbelievers alike, whenever possible and by any means necessary.^[280][281] Their criticism has been partly influenced by a stance against multiculturalism advocated by recent philosophers, closely linked to the heritage of New Philosophers. Statements by proponents like Pascal Bruckner^[282] describe multiculturalism as an invention of an "enlightened" elite who deny the benefits of democratic rights to non-Westerners by chaining them to their roots. They believe this allows Islam free rein to propagate what they state are abuses, such as the mistreatment of women and homosexuals, and in some countries slavery. They also state that multiculturalism allows a degree of religious freedom^[283] that exceeds what is needed for personal religious freedom^[284] and is conducive to the creation of organizations aimed at undermining European secular or Christian values.^[285]

Emigrants from nearly every predominantly Muslim country have immigrated to Canada.^[286] According to a 2001 poll, 54% of Canadians had an unfavourable view of Islam, which was higher than for any other religion.^[287]

In the United States, after the Boston Marathon bombings, the immigration processes in the country are assumed to be harder.^[288] Far-right commentator Bryan Fischer asked that no more visas be granted to Muslims, and no more mosques built,^[289] his opinion received support, most notably by the former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan.

Comparison with communism and fascist ideologies

In 2004, speaking to the Acton Institute on the problems of "secular democracy", convicted child sex offender^[290] Cardinal George Pell drew a parallel between Islam and communism: "Islam may provide in the 21st century, the attraction that communism provided in the 20th, both for those that are alienated and embittered on the one hand and for those who seek order or justice on the other."^[291] Pell also agrees in another speech that its capacity for far-reaching renovation is severely limited.^[292] An Australian Islamist spokesman, Keysar Trad, responded to the criticism: "Communism is a godless system, a system that in fact persecutes faith".^[293] Geert Wilders, a controversial Dutch member of parliament and leader of the Party for Freedom, has also compared Islam to fascism and communism.^[294]

Islamism

Writers such as Stephen Suleyman Schwartz^[295] and Christopher Hitchens,^[296] find some elements of Islamism fascistic. Malise Ruthven, a Scottish writer and historian who writes on religion and Islamic affairs, opposes redefining Islamism as "Islamofascism", but also finds the resemblances between the two ideologies "compelling".^[297]

French philosopher Alexandre del Valle compared Islamism with fascism and communism in his Red-green-brown alliance theory.^[298]

Responses to criticism

In contrast to the widespread Western belief that women in Muslim societies are oppressed and denied opportunities to realize their full potential, most Muslims experience their faith as liberating or fair to women, and some find it offensive that Westerners criticize it without fully understanding the historical and contemporary realities of Muslim women's lives. Conservative Muslims in particular (in common with some Christians and Jews) see women in the West as being economically exploited for their labor, sexually abused, and commodified through the media's fixation on the female body.^[307]

See also

• Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry
• Clarion Project
• Criticism of Muhammad
• Criticism of the Quran
• Criticism of Twelver Shia Islam
• Islamophobia
• Islamic schools and branches
• Faith Freedom International
• Fitna
• Freedom of speech
• Ibrahim Al-Buleihi
• Internet Infidels
• Islam and domestic violence
• Islam and violence
• Islamic feminism
• Islamo-Leftism
• Innocence of Muslims
• What the West Needs to Know
• Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
• List of critics of Islam
• The Satanic Verses controversy
• Shia–Sunni relations
• Submission
• Sudanese teddy bear blasphemy case
• Trial of Geert Wilders
• Why Islam?
• Muslims Condemn

Notes

References

• {{cite book|last1=Ali|first1=Muhammad|author1-link=Muhammad Ali (writer)|title=Muhammad the Prophet|url=https://books.google.com/?id=od6dAQKgK-YC&pg=PT150#v=onepage&q&f=false|year=1997|publisher=Ahamadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam|isbn=978-0913321072|ref=harv}}
• {{Cite book| last=Cohen | first=Mark R. | authorlink=Mark R. Cohen | title=Under Crescent and Cross | publisher=Princeton University Press; Reissue edition | year=1995 | isbn=978-0-691-01082-3}}
• {{Cite book| last=Lockman | first=Zachary | title=Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=2004 | isbn=978-0-521-62937-9}}
• {{Cite book| last=Rippin | first=Andrew | authorlink=Andrew Rippin | title=Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices | publisher=Routledge | edition=2nd | year=2001 | isbn=978-0-415-21781-1}}
• {{Cite journal| last=Westerlund | first=David | year=2003 | title=Ahmed Deedat's Theology of Religion: Apologetics through Polemics | journal=Journal of Religion in Africa | volume=33 | issue=3| doi=10.1163/157006603322663505| pages=263}}

Further reading

• Where Civilizations Collide by Bat Ye'or
• From Jihad to Dhimmitude by Bat Ye'or
• The Al Qaeda Connection: International Terrorism, Organized Crime, And the Coming Apocalypse by Paul L. Williams Prometheus Books, {{ISBN|1-59102-349-1}} (2005)
• The Amazing Quran by Gary Miller
• [https://books.google.com/books/about/An_Autumn_of_War.html?id=eAvpAAAAIAAJ An Autumn of War: What America Learned from September 11 and the War on Terrorism] by Victor Davis Hanson Anchor Books, 2002. {{ISBN|1-4000-3113-3}} A collection of essays, mostly from National Review, covering events occurring between 11 September 2001 and January 2002
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20081003105356/http://www.ahmed-deedat.co.za/Books/Books/aaicoc/aaicoc_A4_Unicode.pdf Arabs and Israel – Conflict or Conciliation?] by Sheikh Ahmed Hoosen Deedat
• Slavery in Islam, BBC, 7 September 2009
• The Trail of Political Islam by Gilles Kepel
• The War for Muslim Minds by Gilles Kepel
• J. Tolan, Saracens; Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (2002)
• {{Cite book

• {{Cite book

• {{Cite book

• {{Cite book

• Ibn Warraq, Why I Am Not a Muslim (1995)
• —, Apostates Speak Out
• The Institute for the Study of Civil Society report – The ‘West’, Islam and Islamism
• Zwemer Islam, a Challenge to Faith (New York, 1907)
• Shoja-e-din Shafa, Rebirth (1995) (Persian Title: تولدى ديگر)
• Shoja-e-din Shafa, After 1400 Years (2000) (Persian Title: پس از 1400 سال)

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