News

By William J. Federer

  What motivates fundamental Muslims to violence?

  Much effort has gone into answering this. Muslim apologists are quick to point out Christians have also committed violence. Secularists suggest anybody who believes in God is prone to violence, conveniently ignoring the atheistic killings of the French Revolution, Stalin’s purges and Mao Tse-tung’s Cultural Revolution.

  In an attempt to uncover motivations, founders of the world’s two largest religions can be compared. According to the www.CIA.gov World Factbook, the world’s 6.5 billion people are 33.32 percent Christian and 21.01 percent Muslim.

  If a computer acts up, the technician resets it to the default settings it had when it left the factory. If followers of a religion act up, one should examine the default settings the religion had when it left its founder.

  One can examine the life of Jesus from the four Gospels.

  One can examine the life of Muhammad from the Quran, Hadith and sources like the Sirat Rasul Allah.

  The Quran is a collection of private revelations Muhammad received between A.D. 610-632. Conflicting versions were passed down orally until Caliph Uthman standardized them around A.D. 650.

  The Hadith are stories about Muhammad passed down orally until Caliph Umar II began collecting them around A.D. 717-720.

  The Sirat Rasul Allah, or “The Life of the Prophet of Allah,” was written by Ibn Ishaq between A.D. 707-773 and preserved in copies by Ibn Hisham (d. 833) and al-Tabari (838-923). In 1861, Sir William Muir published an English translation, “The Life of Mahomet.” Edward Rehatsek’s translation, edited by Michael Edwardes, was presented to the Royal Asiatic Society of London in 1898. Oxford University published Alfred Guillaume’s translation in 1955.

  A review of these resources reveal:

* Jesus was a religious leader.
  * Muhammad was a religious leader and a military leader.
 
  * Jesus never killed anyone.
  * Muhammad killed an estimated 3,000 people, including beheading 700 Jews of the Banu Qurayza tribe in Medina, A.D. 627: 

** See the rest of this LifeSiteNews.com SPECIAL REPORT at:
  https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/mar/080305a.html