Another point made by some is that Islam as a religion advocates violence against non-believers whom it calls “infidels.” That’s also true. The Quran does urge violence against infidels. But so does the Old Testament, which urges violence by Hebrews against non-Hebrews.
The Old Testament is descriptive. The violence of the ancient Hebrews against non-Hebrews is not a guide for Jews today. It’s understood as history. Jews are not meeting secretly in synagogues and plotting against others, or listening to sermons about killing non-Jews; Jews are not engaging in thousands of terrorist attacks because of some passages in the Old Testament. The Qur’an is valid for all time, and is prescriptive, not descriptive. An uncreated and immutable document, the Qur’an tells Muslims today how to behave — this is what you must do — just as it did 1,400 years ago.
Implicitly acknowledging that there’s been violence in Judaism and Christianity, some of those commenters observed that they have largely put their violence behind them while Islam seems not to have.
Well, yes and no. The fact that well over 99.9% of Muslims are peaceful people suggests that Islam, too, has largely put its violence behind it.
Where does Seaton arrive at the “fact” that “well over 99.9% of Muslims are peaceful people”? It’s not a “fact,” but a figure he plucked from the air. He simply calls this figure of 99.9% a “fact” and expects you to take it as a “fact,” too. He offers not a shred of supporting evidence. How is his “fact” more justified than my “fact” — which I merely suspect to be true — that “well over two-thirds of Muslims support the idea of violent Jihad”? Is it a “fact” or an “opinion” that “it is reasonable to assume all those Muslims who take the Qur’an seriously support the idea of making war against the Unbelievers?” Isn’t the burden of proof on those who want us to believe that Muslims reject those many violent verses in the Qur’an, given that they’ve been carrying out what those verses command for 1,400 years? Beaton seems not to consider the possibility that some Muslims are “peaceful” only because they believe the time is not yet right to engage in open warfare with the Infidels, or think they can accomplish their Jihadist aims through other means than qitaal (combat), or are intent on increasing their numbers, and solidifying their positions, in the Western world, before taking on the Unbelievers? Aren’t these all plausible?
Furthermore, violence and even terrorism are not exactly extinct in Christianity — witness the violent terrorism against civilians in Northern Ireland within my lifetime between two sects of Christianity.
Here Beaton engages, as an advocate for Islam, in tu quoque: Christians too engage in violent terrorism. But he offers the only example, unique in every respect, of Christians engaged amongst themselves in “violence and even terrorism.” He ignores the huge differences between this Christian violence and that of Muslims. First, the Troubles in Northern Ireland were limited in time, to the 30 years between 1968 and 1998, when a settlement was reached, and in space, to Northern Ireland and Great Britain. The Jihad against Unbelievers is unlimited in both time — it’s been going on for 1,400 years and will continue as long as Islam itself perdures — and in space, for the Jihad is not limited to any one place, but must go on until the whole world is dominated by Islam, and Muslims rule, everywhere. Furthermore, those Protestants and Catholics engaged in violence in Northern Ireland did not find any justification for their violence in the Bible. By contrast, those engaged in Jihad find their violence not merely justified, but commanded, by the Qur’an.
And in India, it’s Muslims who are typically the victims of religious violence, perpetrated mainly by the majority Hindus.
If Beaton knew something about the history of India, he might first have conceded that there is a grim background to what religious violence there now is against Muslims by Hindus (which, in any case, is not more frequent or deadly than are Muslim attacks on Hindus). First, there is historical memory: the Hindus are well aware that tens of millions of Hindus were murdered by Muslims during several hundred years of Mughal rule. They also know that tens of thousands of Hindu temples and temple complexes were destroyed by Muslims all over India. Second, ever since Partition in 1947, Hindus have been mistreated in both Pakistan (formerly West Pakistan) and Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan); their percentages of the population decreased in both states, while the Muslim share of the population in India has steadily increased. Third, in recent years, Muslims, both Indian citizens and from Pakistan, have engaged in a series of terrorist attacks against Hindus, in Mumbai, in Hyderabad, in Delhi, in New Delhi, in Varanasi (several times), in Kolkata (Calcutta). Fourth, there were the massacres in 1971 of three million people in the newly-declared Bangladesh, by the army of Pakistan; the majority of those killed were Hindus, that is, at least 1.5 million. Fifth, there have been mass killings of the Kashmiri pandits by local Muslims, which caused 300,000 Hindu pandits (Brahmins) to flee Kashmir for India.
Large-scale Hindu attacks on Muslims in India occur every few years; there have been six major incidents of Hindu violence against Muslims since 1964; the last significant one was in 2002, in Gujarat; after Muslims set fire to a train carrying Hindu pilgrims, Hindus went on a rampage of murderous retaliation. But the total loss of life in these episodes of communal violence in India do not exceed 20,000, from 1954 until today. Keep in mind the more than 1.5 million Hindus killed in Bangladesh — and the millions of Hindus who, to stay alive, fled to West Bengal. Those numbers offer some perspective on Beaton’s claim that “Muslims…are typically the victims of religious violence.” The violence is on both sides, and many more Hindus than Muslims have been victims. Muslim terrorists from Pakistan have repeatedly struck inside India; no Hindu terrorists from India have ever struck in either Pakistan or Bangladesh.