Over the last few days there has been carnage and bloodshed around the world, yet we’ve scarcely heard much more than a whisper about it. Suicide bomb attacks have occurred in Turkey, Iraq, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia.
The death toll of the ISIS orchestrated attack in Baghdad last weekend has risen to 213, yet this story barely rated in the news.
Four have been killed today in coordinated suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia, attacking Western and Islamic targets, namely US diplomats and the “Prophet’s Mosque” in the city of Medina.
In the Indonesian city of Solo, a suicide bomber killed himself and injured others in an attempt to blow-up a police station earlier today.
While the XYZ has previously focused on the war that Islamism is attempting to wage on the West, it is also important to report that Islam is also experiencing a deep internal crisis and is at war with itself.
Islamic scholars have previously referred to the Dar al-Islam (House of Islam) and the Dar al-harb (House of war). Yet, the evidence testifies that the House of Islam is in fact subsumed in the House of War. This is not a new development in Islam, as it goes back to its earliest years with the warring between the immediate successors (caliphs) of Mohammed.
As the Muslim commentator in the clip below states, no one is at war against Islam. Islam is waging war with itself, and everyone else.
So long as Muslims of good will stay silent and refuse to accept any critique of Islam and its history, the carnage will continue. And increasing score upon score of Muslims (and others) will die at the hands of Muslims.
This is our opinion and a matter of free speech. There are those who will seek to silence such a discussion – by calling it racist or Islamophobic in nature. We assert that this is in itself, a form of oppression, and is in fact, aligned with the oppression and freedom from speech which people of the Islamic faith endure – overwhelmingly to their detriment.
For those who would silence us, we ask you to stand by the strength of the ideas you represent and not the faceless, mindless, dogmatic ideologies we claim you hide behind.
Taking it a step further, we ask for increased transparency and scrutiny of the Islamic ideology and the pragmatic realities of practicing the faith, most urgently, the Jihadist call to arms which has lead to the deaths, slavery and oppression of millions.
Failing to do so in Western nations is an omission that risks the operation of parallel societies with potentially catastrophic outcomes – for both Muslims and non-Muslims.
Rather than operating shrouded from the light of reason and critique, if Islam is all that its defenders claim it to be, then all those who value liberty and freedom should not hesitate to apply our powers of analysis to the many questions posed by and about Islam. The lives of Muslims and non-Muslims depend upon it.
Photo by ssoosay 