The Foundations of Islam and Jihad Muhammad is the Golden Rule Part 2 of a series

Mike Scruggs

Islam is defined by the words of Allah in the Koran and the words and actions of Muhammad in the Hadiths and the Sira. The Hadiths are collections of brief sayings, actions, and traditions of Muhammad. They are usually only about a paragraph long. The Sira is the historical narrative of Muhammad’s life. The trilogy of the Koran, Hadiths, and the Sira defines Islam and is the basis of Sharia Law. Bill Warner with the Center for the Study of Political Islam (CSPI) gives a statistical comparison of the three texts by the number of words in each: the Koran, 14 percent; the Hadiths, 60 percent; and the Sira, 26 percent.

The most important thing to realize about Islam and its foundational texts—and unless you get this, you can never understand the real Islam—is that it is all centered on and about Muhammad. It is Muhammad who reveals the nature and will of Allah in the Koran, and the Hadiths and Sira are, of course, all about Muhammad and his struggle against unbelievers (Kafirs). In the 19th and 20th centuries, it was common to speak of Islam as Mohammadism. Ninety-one verses through-out the Koran say that Muhammad is the perfect Muslim. The Hadiths and the Sira call Muhammad the most perfect Muslim in all his words and acts. Being a good Muslim is to imitate Muhammad in every word and deed.

A substantial theme of the Koran and the words and acts of Muhammad given in the Hadiths and Sira is Muhammad’s struggle to overcome unbelief and resistance by Kafirs. Kafir is the Arabic word for unbelievers, infidels, polytheists, and those who try to cover up the truth of Islam or reject or oppose Islam or Muhammad in any way. The importance of the Kafir theme can be seen by the fact that 60 percent of the contents of the Muslim textual trilogy, including 64 percent of the Koran, is devoted to the treatment of Kafirs. During the first 13 years of Islam in Mecca, the Kafirs were regarded as sinners who should be persuaded to convert to Islam. When Muhammad and his 150 followers were forced by conflicts with the Meccans to depart and go to Medina to the north, Muhammad and the attitude of Allah in the Koran changed violently against them. This included the Jews and Christians who had been referred to favorably as “the People of the Book.” In Medina, where about half the population was Jewish, Kafirs were described as the lowest of human beings, even lower than animals. It was in Medina that Muhammad became a political leader and found that bribery, threats, robbery, murder, caravan raiding, and war were much more successful in building Muslim political power and wealth and in gaining converts than peaceful persuasion.

The 13-year Meccan period of the Koran is sometime referred to as an era of peaceful Islam.  The Meccan chapters of the Koran are more poetic, and there are some compatible but distorted Judeo-Christian influences, but it would be an exaggeration to say it was truly peaceful. Muhammad and his followers were in constant conflict with the Meccans over their polytheistic practices and Muhammad’s self-appointed status as the Prophet of a new religion. Besides that, Muhammad was constantly critical of the Meccans, and page after page of the Meccan chapters of the Koran are devoted to condemnations of Kafirs and proclaiming their ultimate place of excruciating torture in the flames of hell. According to Don Richardson, one out of every 7.9 verses in the Koran is a threat of hell. Hell is also an important doctrine in Jewish and Christian Scripture, and any church that preaches that there no hell is preaching serious apostasy, but talk of hell fire and perdition occur in only one in 774 versus in the Old Testament. It is more common in the New Testament with one in every 120 verses devoted to the subject, mostly taught by Jesus. But Muhammad hurls 783 threats of hellfire, wrath, and eternal judgment against Kafirs.

When Muhammad fled to Medina, where he quickly became an important political leader and warlord, he continued his attempt to link his new religion with Judaism, Christianity, Noah, Moses, Abraham and Jesus. The large Jewish population in Medina scorned these attempts. The Medina chapters of the Koran showed a marked change in Muhammad’s strategy that would bring him 100,000 more converts in the next ten years and either annihilate, enslave, or drive out every Jew. The center of this strategy was Jihad, Holy War against all Kafirs (unbelievers). Sharia Law has a definition of Jihad based on the Koran: “Jihad means war against Kafirs to establish Sharia Law.

Here is one of the Hadiths that justify the Islamic Doctrine of Supremacy and its global objective for the Islamization of every nation:

Sahih Muslim Hadith (001,0031) Muhammad: “I have been ordered to wage war against mankind until they accept that there is no god but Allah and that they believe I am His prophet and accept all revelations through me.”

Richardson finds 109 verses, all in the Medinan chapters of the Koran, that exhort to Jihad. Warner has compiled the textual statistics that show the extreme importance of Jihad to Islam’s master strategy. Thirty-one percent of doctrinal texts of the trilogy are devoted to Jihad. This is highest in the Sira narrative of Muhammad’s life at 67 percent. The Medinan Koran chapters devote 24 percent of their texts to it and the Hadiths 21 percent. Warner also shows that there is little evidence of Jihad being a spiritual inner-struggle rather than Holy War against all unbelievers. Only two percent of the textual material indicates some Jihad by non-armed means, such as giving gifts to support it. We must conclude that the claims for peaceful Jihad are completely disingenuous propaganda.  Warner also shows that the Medinan chapters of the Koran are specifically anti-Jewish in 17 percent of the text, compared to only seven percent for Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

The most dramatic illustration of Jihad and anti-Jewish sentiment on Muhammad’s part was the beheading of 800 Jewish prisoners in Medina. In part one of this series, we also mentioned the importance of the Doctrine of Abrogation, which has given Jihadic Medina verses priority over every peaceful Meccan verse, except when Islam is numerically, politically, and militarily weak. Using the Doctrine of Abrogation to deceive non-Muslims about the aggressive nature of Islamic Migration and Jihad is common Muslim propaganda.

The real Islam is based on its doctrinal texts: the Koran, the Hadiths, and the Sira. These are also the foundations of Sharia Law. There are no matters of interpretation is Islam. The words and acts of Muhammad in these foundational texts are the final authority in Islam. Muslims must follow the words and example of Muhammad in every aspect of life. The doctrines of Islamic Supremacy and Jihad are all-important obligations for every Muslim. We can expect the conduct of Hijra (Migration) and Jihad to follow closely on Muhammad’s example. The only Golden Rule in Islam is to follow Muhammad. Dedicated Muslims truly befriend only Muslims. Kafirs (all non-Muslims) can be treated with contempt, deception, brutality, rape, murder, and robbery without compunction in accordance with the words and acts of Muhammad. Sharia Law is meant to dominate every aspect of the lives of all humanity with a double standard: submission for Muslims and tyranny for non-Muslims. 

Yet the overwhelming response of Western leaders to Islam’s enormous growing threat to Western Civilization has been approval and tolerance for an “official” version of Islam that completely contradicts the real nature of Islam and the reality of ongoing Jihad.