Has Islam Been Hijacked?

We have all heard it..."Islam is a religion of peace!  A few lunatics have hijacked this wonderful religion and made a mess...but don't you dare question Islam!"

Really?  Is it just a few?  Is it really a religion of peace?

Today in the Wall Street Journal, a Muslim author from Egypt questions WHY we can't ask difficult questions about Islam?  Are they somehow not intellectually capable of handling questions?  Every other religion answers questions....so why can't Islam be asked?

In my opinion, this article should be printed, cut out and hung up on every bulletin board from sea to shining sea.  After all, this is flippin' America!!...we should be able to talk about ANYTHING and in no way, shape or form, should Islam be off the table.

This week a Canadian Muslim gunman went on a rampage in Ottawa, killing a soldier and storming into the Parliament building before he was shot dead. Authorities have since said he had applied for a passport to travel to Syria. Three Muslim schoolgirls from Colorado were intercepted in Germany apparently on their way to Syria, the base for attacks there and in Iraq by the terror group Islamic State, or ISIS. An Aug. 20 article in Newsweek estimated that perhaps twice as many British Muslims are fighting for ISIS as are serving in the British army.

What could possibly inspire young Muslims in the West to abandon their suburban middle-class existence and join a holy war? How could teenagers in Denver or anywhere be lured by a jihadist ideology—or are grisly videos of ISIS beheadings and crucifixions not enough of a deterrent?

What is so compelling about radical Islamism may lie within its founding texts. It is time we acknowledged the powerful influence these texts have had even on ordinary Muslims. The political ideology based on them has already dragged the Middle East back toward the Stone Age.

As a teenager growing up in Egypt in the 1980s, I liked to stroll through Cairo’s outdoor book market, fishing out little gems like an Arabic translation of “War and Peace.” One day I stumbled upon a book that shook everything I believed in.

The book was “In the Shadows of the Quran,” Sayyed Qutb’s magnum opus. The Egyptian writer, who died in 1966, remains arguably the most influential thinker in contemporary Muslim societies. He was the principal theorist of the Muslim Brotherhood and the intellectual impetus behind the Islamist parties it spawned. Qutb’s ardent disciples included Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri of al Qaeda. It is not an exaggeration to say that Qutb is to Islamism what Karl Marx is to communism.

Today, Qutb’s outlook—Islamism—is the dominant political ideology in most Muslim-majority countries, often taking root in vacuums where secular politics have never had space to develop. Polls by the Pew Research Center, such as 2013’s “The World’s Muslims” indicate that in many Muslim countries, the population is overwhelmingly in favor of veiling for women, the death penalty for leaving Islam and stoning as punishment for adultery; rabid anti-Semitism is rampant.

Compare the collective response after each harrowing high-school shooting in America. Intellectuals and public figures look for the root cause of the violence and ask: Why? Yet when I ask why after every terrorist attack, the disapproval I get from my non-Muslim peers is visceral: The majority of Muslims are not violent, they insist, the jihadists are a minority who don’t represent Islam, and I am fear-mongering by even wondering aloud.

This is delusional thinking. Even as the world witnesses the barbarity of beheadings, habitual stoning and severe subjugation of women and minorities in the Muslim world, politicians and academics lecture that Islam is a “religion of peace.” Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia routinely beheads women for sorcery and witchcraft.

In the U.S., we Muslims are handled like exotic flowers that will crumble if our faith is criticized—even if we do it ourselves. Meanwhile, Republicans and Democrats alike would apparently prefer to drop bombs in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond, because killing Muslims is somehow less offensive than criticizing their religion? Unfortunately, you can’t kill an idea with a bomb, and so Islamism will continue to propagate. Muslims must tolerate civilized public debate of the texts and scripture that inform Islamism. To demand any less of us is to engage in the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Here;  http://online.wsj.com/articles/aly-salem-lets-talk-about-how-islam-has-been-hijacked-1414365802

Of course this is a secular article but gives you some talking points when you get in a discussion with your liberal family, friends and co-workers.

Followers of Christ know exactly what is going on within Islam.  It's a false religion that is being empowered by Satan.  Jesus himself told us, "You are either for me or against me."...and since Islam does NOTHING to spread and confirm the Gospel of Jesus Christ but instead only perverts the Word of God...we know that it is AGAINST Jesus Christ...so MUST have it's roots and power in Satan himself.