your-god-is-too-small May. 2016 | Page 127

Perhaps this violence ingrained into Islam comes from its main man, Muhammad. Muhammad was a warlord involved in over twenty battles, and is highly criticised for his mass murder of the men of Banu Qurayza, a Jewish tribe of Medina. He killed all the men and took the women and children as slaves. This does not sound like a man dedicated to peace, and if you base your entire lifestyle on his way of thinking then I guess that is going to bring out your darker side too. I think we all know about the other traits Muhammad had that were considered somewhat taboo. How can Muslims hold a man in such high regard knowing that if he were alive today he’d be hated across the globe? Does it say something about Islam? One of the truly greatest men who ever walked the planet, a free thinker unrestrained by the chains of religion even in a day when such rebellion could earn you a gruesome death, François-Marie Arouet (probably better known to you as Voltaire) wrote a play about the prophet of Islam called Mahomet. The play is a study of religious fanaticism and self-serving manipulation based on an episode in the traditional biography of Muhammad in which he orders the murder of his critics. When Voltaire was asked why he wrote the play, he replied with a show of majestic elegance and linguistic mastery: "It was written in opposition to the founder of a false and barbarous sect to whom could I with more propriety inscribe a satire on the cruelty and errors of a false prophet." Voltaire was warning us about fanaticism in 1741! If only we listened…. Islam is not to Blame … Apparently A worrying number of Muslims (fanatical in nature, I hope), have said world peace will only be achieved once everyone on Earth submits to Islamic law. World domination is an open goal of every religion, but while most religions inspire pamphlet-brandishing followers to knock on your door at 7am, it seems to me that Islam has a unique ability to make people pick up guns P a g e | 127