Why did a huge German study of 45,000 immigrant youths find that while increasing religiosity among Christian youths made them less violent, increasing religiosity among Muslim youths actually made them more violent? Egyptian scholar Dr. Ahmed Abdu‘ Maher thinks he knows, and he’s been condemned and even sentenced to five years’ prison time (and then pardoned) for voicing his theory. But as with the Howard Beale character in 1976’s Network, Maher may now be saying, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” In fact, the reformer has just released a video in which he rebukes his critics and states that he does nothing but quote the books of the Islamic canon they hold so dear.
As Maher says (translation courtesy of commentator Raymond Ibrahim):
All these people are complaining about my videos, saying they incite hate. But everything I say is directly contained in your books, the very books you believe in. I’m not calling for killing or bloodshed, or anything like that. I’m totally against such talk. So why are you complaining? Why are you ashamed of what is yours? I don’t say this one or that one is a kafir [infidel] or not a kafir. Nor do I call for this one or that one to be killed or whatever. I never use such language, ever! But that is what’s in your books! So when I confront you about it, you go and complain against me so that the video can be removed [off YouTube]. … Why are you so ashamed of your fiqh [Islamic jurisprudence], you who want to have me removed?… Am I the one who said those words of yours? Am I the one who said enslave women?… Am I the one who’s saying kill the murtad [apostate]? Did I ever say such things, or are these things in the books? Yes, they’re in the books, and you are keeping, protective of, and find such books important. Fine then, but be sincere with yourself, man, be honest, be clear…. Don’t be so two-faced!
Maher’s points are especially relevant at this moment, as they help put Hamas’s attack on Israel in perspective. And as the aforementioned Ibrahim writes, “Anyone aware of the current political climate should have a good idea what Maher is talking about: he quotes problematic texts—killing apostates, beating women, terrorizing infidels—directly from Islam’s scriptures, mostly hadith, sira, and tafsir; but, rather than dealing with it—such teachings are, indeed, in Islam’s books—certain Muslims go on to accuse him of spreading hate in an attempt to have him ‘canceled.’”
In other words, Maher is much like the Libs of TikTok, which is condemned even though all it does is expose leftist lunacy by presenting videos of left-wingers themselves espousing their beliefs. But is he accurate, or just cherry-picking passages? What would a quantitative analysis find?
Bill Warner, director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam, provided some hard statistics in 2009 on the amount of text devoted to jihad and political violence in the Islamic canon, and contrasted it with the Bible.
In the Koran, the well-known Muslim religious book, nine percent of the text is devoted to jihad. Yet the Koran is actually just 16 percent of the Islamic canon; the rest comprises the Sira and Hadith. Known together as the Sunna, these two books record what the Muslim prophet Mohammad did and said and, as Warner writes, form “the perfect pattern of all Islamic behavior.”
And what is that “perfect” pattern? In the Hadith, 21 percent of the text is devoted to jihad. And Sira?
A whopping 67 percent.
Of course, it has long been fashionable to say that the “Bible is violent, too”; we also often hear, depending on whom you talk to, that either “All religions teach the same things” or “All religion is destructive.” Yet what do the facts say?
Warner informs that 5.6 percent of the Old Testament and 0 percent of the New Testament are devoted to political violence. In terms of word count, this works out to 0 in the latter and 34,039 in the Hebrew Bible. And the Islamic Trilogy?
It comes in at 327,547 — 9.6 times greater than the Old Testament.
Yet this doesn’t tell the entire tale. Warner points out that while the “political violence of the Bible was for that particular historical time and place,” the Islamic canon’s call for political violence “is eternal and universal.” It applies today, tomorrow, and forever.
Even this, however, doesn’t completely elucidate the matter. Since actions speak louder than words, role models trump rules. Thus do Christians use “What would Jesus do?” as a behavior guide. Muslims have something similar, too: Many regard Mohammad as “The Perfect Man.” Yet there’s a difference:
While Jesus is rightly considered the “Prince of Peace,” Mohammad was a warlord who ordered 100 military campaigns and violent acts; a caravan raider, mass murderer, employer of torture, and slave owner and trader who married a six-year-old girl when in his 50s. Of course, in this, he was perhaps very much a man of his times. But is there not a problem with using him as a role model for all times?
Returning to Maher, he certainly has not embraced the modern “religious equivalence” fiction, the relativistic notion that all faiths are morally equal even though different ones espouse different values. While addressing criticism of President Trump’s restrictions on immigration from Muslim nations in 2017, he asked Islamic leaders how they’d react if Trump instead mirrored their behavior — that is, forced Muslims to become Christian or endure second-class status, discrimination, indignities, and often brutal treatment. “Would he be a terrorist or not?” Maher asked.
“Of course, I’m just hypothesizing,” he also stated — “and know that the Bible and its religion do not promote such things.” My, what a shocking revelation:
Different religions are different. What outrageous proposition is next — that boys and girls are, too?
