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| Islam's Angel of Peace |
Bertrand Russell said that thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of a well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.
The power of education in forming character and opinion is very great and generally recognized. The genuine beliefs, though not usually the professed precepts, of parents and teachers are almost unconsciously acquired by most children; and even if they depart from these beliefs in later life, something of them remains deeply implanted, ready to emerge in a time of stress or crisis. Education is, as a rule, the strongest force on the side of what exists, and against fundamental change.
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| Islam does not promote free thought. Malleable students study one man only - Muhammad - and after 1400 years, they still sit on the floor. |
If Muslim children themselves were considered, Islamic education would aim at making them able to think, not making them think what their teacher, imam, or seventh century immoral caravan raider thinks. Education, as an Islamic political institution, endeavors to form habits and to circumscribe knowledge in such a way as to make one set of opinions - Islamic - inevitable.
The outward helplessness of a child and the appeal of dependence make the teacher conscious of the responsibility of trust. He sees what the child may become, for good or for evil, how his impulses may be developed or thwarted, how his hopes might be dimmed and the life in him less living, how his trust might be bruised and his quick desires replaced by a brooding will.
Islam infringes the principle of liberty since, in its history and religion, living thought and free inquiry are checked, stifled. In Islamic education there is no fundamental open mindedness, nor any inward readiness to give weight to the other side. Islam has perfect assurance of its own rightness and believes that adherence to every detail of Muhammad's life are more to be desired than intellect, or artistic creation or vital energy or any other sources of progress in the world.
That perfect assurance, by itself, is enough to destroy all mental progress in Muslim students who have it, thereby becoming a source of destruction of the mind. Hence, Islam is itself dead and incapable of growth, perhaps the reason Muslims still dress in seventh century clothing, behead people of other religions, honor kill and stone their own women to death, perform female genital mutilation on young Muslim girls and other primitive Bedouin customs.
The prevention of free inquiry in Islamic education of Muslim children is unavoidable so long as the purpose of Islamic education is to produce belief rather than thought, to compel the young to hold positive opinions on doubtful matters rather than to let them see the doubtfulness and be encouraged to independence of mind, since, if there were independence of mind, Islam would cease to exist.
Education ought to foster the wish for truth, not the conviction that Islam is the truth. In past eras, it was intensity of belief in the Islamic creed that produced efficiency in fighting: victory comes to those who who feel the strongest certainty about matters on which doubt is the only rational attitude. To produce this intensity of belief and this efficiency in fighting the jihad, the child's nature is warped. In those whose minds are not very active the result is the omnipotence of prejudice against all non-Muslims, especially Christians and Jews. The conception of education as a form of drill, a means of achieving unanimity through slavishness, is defended chiefly on the ground that it leads to victory for Islam on a universal scale. Education in credulity leads by quick stages to mental decay; it is only by keeping alive a child's spirit of free inquiry that the indispensable minimum of progress can be achieved. Ruthlessness, contempt for opposing groups, an unquestioning credulity, and a passive acceptance of the imam's "wisdom" are ALL HABITS AGAINST LIFE.
Contentment with the status quo and subordination of the pupil to Islamic aims, owing to the indifference to the things of the mind, are the immediate causes of jihad evils; but beneath these causes there is one more fundamental, the fact that Islamic education is treated as a means of acquiring power over the individual student, not as a means of nourishing the individual's own growth or his soul.
It is fear that holds Islam back - fear lest their cherished beliefs prove to be delusions, such as Muhammad's Night Journey and his fictitious seven heavens, fear lest the Islamic institutions by which they live should prove harmful, fear lest they themselves should prove less worthy of respect and supremacy than they have supposed themselves to be.
No institution inspired by fear can further life. The wish to preserve the past life of a SEVENTH CENTURY IMMORAL PEDOPHILE who married a six year-old child and had sex with her when she was nine, rather than the hope of creating the future dominates the minds of imams who control the teaching of young Islamic children. Islamic education should not aim at a passive awareness of dead facts, but rather should be an activity directed towards the world that their efforts are to create for everyone, not just Islam and Muslims. It should be inspired, keeping alive the mind of children, the subordination of impulse to will - not by hankering after an immoral illiterate Bedouin, but by freedom of thought.
Since, as Bertrand Russel said, "Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man", from where then does Islamic thought come? Islamic thought isn't "great and swift and free", therefore what is its origin? It isn't the light of the world because Muhammad had no light. If Islamic thought is not the chief glory of man, whose is it?
The outward helplessness of a child and the appeal of dependence make the teacher conscious of the responsibility of trust. He sees what the child may become, for good or for evil, how his impulses may be developed or thwarted, how his hopes might be dimmed and the life in him less living, how his trust might be bruised and his quick desires replaced by a brooding will.
Islam infringes the principle of liberty since, in its history and religion, living thought and free inquiry are checked, stifled. In Islamic education there is no fundamental open mindedness, nor any inward readiness to give weight to the other side. Islam has perfect assurance of its own rightness and believes that adherence to every detail of Muhammad's life are more to be desired than intellect, or artistic creation or vital energy or any other sources of progress in the world.
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| Islamic girls sit on the floor 12 hours a day learning the "finer points of their religion". |
The prevention of free inquiry in Islamic education of Muslim children is unavoidable so long as the purpose of Islamic education is to produce belief rather than thought, to compel the young to hold positive opinions on doubtful matters rather than to let them see the doubtfulness and be encouraged to independence of mind, since, if there were independence of mind, Islam would cease to exist.
Education ought to foster the wish for truth, not the conviction that Islam is the truth. In past eras, it was intensity of belief in the Islamic creed that produced efficiency in fighting: victory comes to those who who feel the strongest certainty about matters on which doubt is the only rational attitude. To produce this intensity of belief and this efficiency in fighting the jihad, the child's nature is warped. In those whose minds are not very active the result is the omnipotence of prejudice against all non-Muslims, especially Christians and Jews. The conception of education as a form of drill, a means of achieving unanimity through slavishness, is defended chiefly on the ground that it leads to victory for Islam on a universal scale. Education in credulity leads by quick stages to mental decay; it is only by keeping alive a child's spirit of free inquiry that the indispensable minimum of progress can be achieved. Ruthlessness, contempt for opposing groups, an unquestioning credulity, and a passive acceptance of the imam's "wisdom" are ALL HABITS AGAINST LIFE.
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| This educated Muslim did not know that the Muslim Ummah is not "another country". |
It is fear that holds Islam back - fear lest their cherished beliefs prove to be delusions, such as Muhammad's Night Journey and his fictitious seven heavens, fear lest the Islamic institutions by which they live should prove harmful, fear lest they themselves should prove less worthy of respect and supremacy than they have supposed themselves to be.
No institution inspired by fear can further life. The wish to preserve the past life of a SEVENTH CENTURY IMMORAL PEDOPHILE who married a six year-old child and had sex with her when she was nine, rather than the hope of creating the future dominates the minds of imams who control the teaching of young Islamic children. Islamic education should not aim at a passive awareness of dead facts, but rather should be an activity directed towards the world that their efforts are to create for everyone, not just Islam and Muslims. It should be inspired, keeping alive the mind of children, the subordination of impulse to will - not by hankering after an immoral illiterate Bedouin, but by freedom of thought.
Since, as Bertrand Russel said, "Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man", from where then does Islamic thought come? Islamic thought isn't "great and swift and free", therefore what is its origin? It isn't the light of the world because Muhammad had no light. If Islamic thought is not the chief glory of man, whose is it?
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