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CAIR's Lies about a Fear of Islam

9 tropes about Muslims that are a product of Islamophobia By Mirna Alsharif, CNN, September 11, 2021

2. All Muslim women are oppressed

Patriarchy and the oppression of women are issues that exist in all communities, not just Muslim ones. "This is a common one we get, and it speaks to the ignorance and lack of context about Islam," said Zainab Chaudry, spokeswoman for the national headquarters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). "Islam granted women rights to an education, property ownership, inheritance, and divorce... Islam actually encourages women to keep their autonomy and agency."

For why you should take CNN to task for propagating CAIR's misleading information about women and the Sharia I invite you to read Women and the Koran.

Women and the Koran - Second Edition

Paperback, 123 pages

AMAZON:  USA  UK  Canada  Australia

Contains additional sayings of the Prophet that are detrimental to women. For example, Revelation 4:34 grants husbands the right to beat their wives: “And those of them that you fear might rebel, admonish them and abandon them in their beds and beat them.” But, it is a saying of Muhammad, an unassailable legal precedent under Islamic law if it doesn't contradict the Koran, which guarantees the wife-beater immunity from prosecution: "The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: 'A man will not be asked as to why he beat his wife.'" Abu Dawud 11.2142

Excerpts: A Divine Bias | Who Gets What | Marriage | Divorce

3. All Muslim women wear or must wear the hijab to be practicing The hijab is a veil covering the hair that some Muslim women wear in order to practice modesty. Islam itself forbids compulsion of any sort.

Islam is all about compulsion, not being allowed to leave Islam without risking death being the most notorious example.

4:89 They wish that you disbelieve, as they have disbelieved, so that you will all be alike. Do not, then, take any companions from them, until they emigrate in the Way of Allah. Then should they turn back, seize them and kill them wherever you find them; and do not take from them any companions or supporter;

The Prophet: If a Muslim discards his religion, kill him. Bukhari 4.52.260

I have to assume that the CAIR contributor is referring to revelation 2:256.

2:256 There is no compulsion in religion; true guidance has become distinct from error. Thus he who disbelieves in the Devil and believes in Allah grasps the firmest handle that will never break. Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing.

There is no compulsion is Islam except when there is. Those who chose not to become believers after Allah has shown them the error of their ways "true guidance has become distinct from error" are in league with the devils. They are in effect evildoers and it is the duty of every believer to rid the world of evildoers.

2:193 Fight them until there is no sedition and the religion becomes that of Allah. But if they desist, there will be no aggression except against the evildoers.

She has to know that the only revelation in the Koran containing a statement that could be construed as as no-strings attached statement of tolerance—if you don't care to consider the verse in its totality—has been abrogated by the Verse of the Sword, the most far-reaching revelation of the Koran.

Recommended: Let Me Rephrase That!

The aptly named verse is undoubtedly familiar to every jihadist and is the overriding revelation for these holy warriors. According to the imminent Egyptian theologian Abu al-Fadl ‘Abd ar-Rahman Jalal ad-Din as-Suyuti (d. 1505), "Everything in the Qur'an about forgiveness and peace is abrogated by Verse 9:5."

9:5 Then, when the Sacred Months (these are the four months during which war was prohibited in pre-Islamic times) are over, kill the idolaters wherever you find them, take them [as captives], besiege them, and lie in wait for them at every point of observation. If they repent afterwards, perform the prayer and pay the alms then release them. Allah is truly All-Forgiving, Merciful.

4. The Quran encourages Muslims to commit acts of violence against non-Muslims

Claims that Islam encourages violence against non-Muslims are usually the result of people isolating verses from the religious texts that grant Muslims the right to defend themselves.

5. Muslims want to wage holy war by way of Jihad

IIn the West, the term "jihad" is often used interchangeably with "holy war." But that's not what it means. Jihad is an Arabic term meaning "to strive" or "to struggle." In the context of Islam, it means to work toward becoming a better Muslim... Dalia Mogahed (director of research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding) points out that the term "holy war" originated from The Crusades, a series of wars initiated by the Christian church, and does not originate in Arabic or the Muslim tradition at all.

The concept and conduct of holy war originated with Islam in spite of the falsehood, repeated here by CNN, that "holy wars" are a Christian invention. The first definition of a holy war can be found in the Koran.

9:111 Allah has bought from the believers their lives and their wealth in return for Paradise; they fight in the Way of Allah, kill and get killed. That is a true promise from Him in the Torah, the Gospel and the Qur’an; and who fulfills his promise better than Allah? Rejoice then at the bargain you have made with Him; for that is the great triumph.

The first book written on the redemptive value of killing and dying in a holy war, the Kitab al-Jihad (Book of Holy War) by Abdallah b. al-Mubarak [726-797] was written 300 years before the first crusade. The first holy war on record was against the pagans of the Arabian Peninsula, 400 years before the first crusade.

61:9 It is He Who sent His Messenger forth with the guidance and the religion of truth, to make it triumph over every religion, even though the idolaters may be averse.

The victory over the pagans was followed by a formal declaration of a global holy war, that continues to this day, against all followers of other than the 'religion of truth'. As to why the other claim made by a CNN contributor is equally egregious, if not more, I invite you to read Jihad in the Koran.

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* "The Jews used to "confer the title of 'son of God' to a person whose piety has placed him in a very near relationship to God." Encyclopedia of Judaism Ezra is such a figure having brought the Torah back to Jerusalem from Babylon. It does not in any way imply that the person is a direct descendent of the Almighty. Either Allah confused the meaning of sons of God in Genesis, or heard the Jews referring to one of their own as a son of God and assumed the worse in Revelation 9:30.

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7. Muslims don't believe in Jesus or respect his teachings

Jesus is a prophet in Islam, just as Muhammad is. The notion that Muslims do not believe in Jesus is one rooted in the "othering" of the religious group... As a matter of fact, there's an entire chapter dedicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus, in the Quran, Chaudry said. "Jesus has a really prominent role in Islam, and he is beloved to Muslims just as Muhammad is," she said.

Where to start? How about something I wrote way back when about misleading comparisons: Mary in the Koran 

Bernard Payeur