Case 5: Jews
One of the biggest examples of ethical dualism in Islam is the Jews. The Meccan Koran is filled with stories about Moses, Noah, Adam, and other Jewish figures. The early Koran is very Jewish. The perception of the Jews completely changes in Medina. Every verse, story, and hadith is negative and anti-Jew. The Trilogy devotes a great deal of material to the Jews .
The Trilogy of Medina is even more negative about the Jews than Hitler’s Mein Kampf. What marks the biggest difference between Mein Kampf and the Trilogy is that Hitler did not write a first section in Mein Kampf detailing how much he admired the Jews. There is a contradiction about how the Koran treats Jews in Mecca and how they are treated in Medina. Due to dualistic reasoning, both attitudes about the Jews are true, at the same time.
Case 6: The Good in the Koran
In the face of these negative statistics, everyone knows of good verses in the Koran. Exactly how much material in the Koran is positive for Kafirs? There are 245 verses, 4,018 words, in the Koran that say something positive about Kafirs. This is about 2.6% of the total Koranic text . However, in every case, the verse is followed by another verse that contradicts the “good” verses. Also, except for 7 verses (58 words), the “good” verse is abrogated later in the same chapter. The other 7 verses are contradicted in later Suras.
The media emphasizes Islam’s positive verses about the People of the Book, the Jews and Christians. Even this turns out to be illusive. Christians and Jews receive the goodness of Islam only if they agree that their sacred texts are corrupt, the Koran is true, and that Mohammed is a prophet of the Christian and Jewish religion.
In the end there is no unmitigated good for Kafirs in the Koran. What good can be found in the 2.6% of the text is denied later.
To see the entire article in PDF, go to: https://politicalislam.com/downloads/Statistical-Islam.pdf
For the statistics go to: http://cspipublishing.com/statistical/index.html
Bill Warner, Director, Center for the Study of Political Islam
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Case 4: Abrogation and Dualism
Not only are there two Korans, Meccan and Medinan, that are different in tone and subject matter, but also the Koran has many verses that contradict each other.
Koran 2:219 says that Muslims should be tolerant and forgiving to People of the Book.
Koran 9:29 says to attack the People of the Book until they pay the jizyah, the dhimmi tax, submit to Sharia law and be humbled.
Which verse shows the true nature of Islam?
The Koran recognizes its contradictions and even gives a rule to resolve the contradictions. The later verse abrogates (supersedes) the earlier verse. This does not mean, however, that the earlier verse is wrong or in error. This would be impossible since the fundamental hypothesis is that Allah created the Koran and, hence, the earlier verse must be true or Allah would be wrong.
Abrogation has an impact on the arguments about the true nature of Islam. At endless interfaith dialogs, the early tolerant verse is quoted to show the nature of Islam as being peaceful. When both verses are quoted and then abrogation is applied, we see that the later verse trumps the earlier tolerant one. Jihad abrogates tolerance. In general, the Medinan Koran abrogates the Meccan Koran. In the two verses above, tolerance is abrogated by jihad against the Christians.
But, the earlier verse is true and still used. Abrogation does not negate the early verse. Indeed, the earlier “peaceful” verse that is abrogated is the one most apt to be used in public discourse.
This creates a logical problem, since if two things contradict each other, at least one of them must be false. This is a fundamental element of Western unitary logic. In Koranic logic, two statements can contradict each other and both are true. This is dualistic logic.
An alternative explanation is that the early verse is first stage in a process, like a seed, and the later verse is a second stage, like a plant. There is truth to this, but the process model does not take into account the fact that both truths are available at the same time. To go back to the analogy, you don’t have the seed and the plant at the same time. The verses contradict each other and are both true at the same time. This is dualistic logic.
The contradictions are usually explained by abrogation, the classical doctrine, but the principle of abrogation is limited to the Koran. Duality includes the special case of abrogation and it explains how the entire doctrine of Koran and Sunna work. It is not just the Koran that is contradictory, but all of the Sunna.
Another dualistic aspect of Islam is its ethics. One of the chief features of Islam is the doctrine of the Kafir. It treats them dreadfully and horribly. No one would ever want to be treated as a Kafir is treated in the Trilogy. This leads us to the Golden Rule. There is no Golden Rule in Islam because of the division of humanity into believer and Kafir. The Golden Rule is to treat ALL people as you would be treated. Since no one wants be treated like a Kafir, and the Kafir is so central to Islamic doctrine, it proves that Islam has no Golden Rule. Islam has one set of rules for Muslims and another set of rules for Kafirs. This is dualistic ethics. An example of the dual ethics is the subject of friends. The Koran has 13 verses that say that a Muslim is not to be a friend of Kafirs.
For the full article in PDF, go to: https://politicalislam.com/downloads/Statistical-Islam.pdf
For the statistics go to: http://cspipublishing.com/statistical/index.html
Bill Warner, Director, Center for the Study of Political Islam
Permalink https://politicalislam.com/statistical-islam-part-4-of-9/
Copyright © 2010 CBSX, LLC, politicalislam.com
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Case 3: Political Islam
Religious Islam is defined as doctrine concerned with going to Paradise and avoiding Hell by following the Koran and the Sunna. The part of Islam that deals with the “outsider”, the Kafir, is defined as political Islam. Since so much of the Trilogy is about the Kafir, the statistical conclusion is that Islam is primarily a political system, not a religious system.
Mohammed’s success depended on politics, not religion. The Sira, Mohammed’s biography, gives a highly detailed accounting of his rise to power. He preached the religion of Islam for 13 years in Mecca and garnered 150 followers. He was forced to move to Medina and became a politician and warrior. During the last 9 years of his life, he was involved in an event of violence every 6 weeks. When he died every Arab was a Muslim. Mohammed succeeded through politics, not religion.
An estimate can be made that there were 100,000 Muslims when Mohammed died. Using this information allows a graph to be drawn:
There are two distinct growth processes-religion and politics. Teaching and religion grew at a rate of about 12 new Muslims per year. Politics and jihad grew at a rate of 10,000 new Muslims per year, an enormous increase. This is a process yield improvement of over 800%. Politics was almost a thousand times more effective than religion.
If Mohammed had continued with preaching religion we can extrapolate that there would have only been 265 Muslims when he died, instead of the 100,000 that resulted from his politics and jihad. This gives us an estimate of 265 conversions due to religion and 99,735 conversions to due the political jihad process. We can calculate the relative contributions of religion and politics in growth. Islam’s success was 0.3% religion and 99.7% politics at the time of Mohammed’s death, 632 AD.
This political importance is reflected in the text of the Sira. There are many more pages devoted to a year of jihad than there are devoted to preaching Islam. It is instructive to see the amount of the Sira text devoted to these stages of development .
The Sira devotes about 5 times as many words to politics than religion on a yearly basis. It gives politics 5 times the coverage because it is that much more important.
Islam’s political nature is also found in the Hadith that devotes 37% of its text to the Kafir.
There would be no Islam today, if it were only a religion. Statistics show that Islamic politics is what brought Islam success, not religion. To say that Islam is the religion of peace misses the point, since the religion is not the core of Islam’s power. It is politics that count, not religion.
The statistical conclusion: Islam is primarily a political ideology.
For the statistics go to: http://cspipublishing.com/statistical/index.html
Bill Warner, Director, Center for the Study of Political Islam
Permalink https://politicalislam.com/statistical-islam-part-4-of-9/
Copyright © 2010 CBSX, LLC, politicalislam.com
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Case 2: The Kafir
There is a second division that overwhelms the reader of the historical Koran. A majority of the text concerns the Kafir (unbeliever). It is not about being a Muslim, but about the Kafir. A note: most Koran translations use the word “unbeliever” instead of Kafir, but Kafir is the actual Arabic word.
This term is so important and so unknown that the meaning of Kafir must be defined. The original meaning of the word is one who covers or conceals the known truth. A Kafir knows that the Koran is true, but denies it. The Koran says that the Kafir may be deceived, plotted against, hated, enslaved, mocked, tortured and worse. The word is usually translated as “unbeliever” but this translation is wrong. The word “unbeliever” is logically and emotionally neutral, whereas, Kafir is the most abusive, prejudiced and hateful word in any language.
There are many religious names for Kafirs: polytheists, idolaters, People of the Book (Christians and Jews), atheists, agnostics, and pagans. Kafir covers them all, because no matter what the religious name is, they can all be treated the same. What Mohammed said and did to polytheists can be done to any other category of Kafir.
Islam devotes a great amount of energy to the Kafir. Not only is the majority (64%) of the Koran devoted to the Kafir, but also nearly all of the Sira (81%) deals with Mohammed’s struggle with them. The Hadith (Traditions) devotes 32% of the text to Kafirs.
For the statistics go to: http://cspipublishing.com/statistical/index.html
Bill Warner, Director, Center for the Study of Political Islam
Permalink https://politicalislam.com/statistical-islam-part-2-of-9/
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Case 1: The Koran of Mohammed
Mohammed can be clearly understood, but the Koran must be the most famous book that has been read so little and understood even less. Contrast this with Mohammed’s day. In the Sira (the biography of Mohammed), we find accounts of illiterate Muslims debating the meaning of the Koran. The Muslims of Mohammed’s day understood the Koran for a simple reason. The Koran of 632 AD (Mohammed’s death) is not the one of today. Every verse had the immediate context of Mohammed’s life. A new verse had the context of what he needed at that time. To all those near Mohammed, each new verse made sense; it had a context and therefore meaning. The voice of Allah resolved Mohammed’s problems. It is Mohammed’s life that gives the Koran its context and meaning.
The Koran of the bookstore is not the historical Koran of Mohammed, because Uthman, a caliph (supreme ruler) had it arranged starting with the longest chapter and ending at the shortest chapter. After he created the Koran we know today, he burned the originals. The time and story have been annihilated by the rearrangement. From a statistical point of view, the text was randomized and, hence, very difficult to understand.
It is an easy task to reconstruct the Koran of Mohammed’s day, the historical Koran. Take the Koran and rearrange the pages of the chapters in the proper chronological order in a line on a table, since the time order of the chapters is well known. Then take the pages of the Sira (Mohammed’s biography) and lay them out in a line beneath the Koran. It will be seen that the Sira and the Koran fit together like a key in a lock. The Koran is the warp and the Sira is the woof that forms a single fabric, the historical Koran. If these two are integrated into one text, the historical Koran is reconstructed.
When this reconstruction is done, the Koran becomes the epic story of the rise and triumph of Islam over all of the native Arab culture. The historical Koran is straightforward and not confusing at all. Just as in Mohammed’s day, anyone can understand it.
The historical Koran reveals the primary division of the text. The early Koran written in Mecca is very different from the later Koran written in Medina. The early Koran is more religious and poetic. The later Koran is more historical and political. There is a radical change in its tone, subject and language in the two texts. The difference is even clear to a first-time reader. There is a Meccan Koran and a Medinan Koran. The relative sizes of the two Korans are: Meccan Koran is about 64% of the total Koran; the Medinan Koran is 36% of the total .
For the statistics go to: http://cspipublishing.com/statistical/index.html
Bill Warner, Director, Center for the Study of Political Islam
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One of the great questions of the 21st century is: What is the true nature of Islam? There are two distinct answers to this question from the media and leaders. The popular message is that Islam is one of the great world religions, a peaceful religion, a foundation of world civilization, its Golden Age was the highpoint of history, and it preserved Western thought while we were in the Dark Ages. The alternative message is that Islam is a brutal, backward, woman abusing, violent, intellectually narrow ideology that is out to annihilate civilization.
Which side is right? How do we resolve this issue? Can it even be resolved? If we turn to the “experts” of any of the opinions, they will tell you that their view is correct. What then is the ultimate authority that will give us a firm foundation for reasoning and judgment about Islam? Is it possible to use critical thought or must we just accept the authority of experts?
There is a way to achieve consensus about ideas that goes beyond expert opinion. The use of facts along with logic is the basis of critical thought. The ultimate form of critical thought uses measurements and numbers to resolve questions. This paper will use the foundational texts of Islam and measure the importance of ideas by how many words are given to concepts. The assumption is that the more content that is devoted to a subject, the greater the importance of the subject. As an example: the Koran devotes 64% of its text to the subject of the unbeliever. This is assumed to imply that the unbeliever is important in Islamic doctrine.
The use of critical thought may seem counter-intuitive since many people view Islam as a religion that does not have a rational basis. Actually, Islam is not only rational; it is hyper-rational, but it uses another form of logic than the one we take for granted.
If we are to use critical thought, we must have a firm foundation. All Muslims agree that:
“There is no god, but Allah and Mohammed is His messenger.”
When this is repeated as a public testimony, you become a Muslim. However, this statement is not only the beginning of Islam, it is also the foundation and totality of Islam. It is not enough to worship Allah; you must worship as Mohammed worshipped.
Who is Allah and where do we learn about Him? This question points directly to the Koran.
Then the Koran, in turn, points directly to Mohammed. It says 91 times that Mohammed is the perfect Muslim. He is the divine human prototype, the only pattern acceptable to Allah. The actions and words of Mohammed are so important that they have a special name—Sunna. We find the Sunna in two texts. The Sira is the biography of Mohammed and the Hadith is the collection of hadiths (small stories, traditions) about Mohammed.
Islam is based on Koran and Sunna. Since the Sunna is found in the Sira and the Hadith, this means that three books contain all the doctrine of Islam—the Trilogy. If it is in the Trilogy (Koran, Sira, Hadith), then it is Islam. If something is not in the Trilogy, then it is not Islam. All of the Islamic doctrine is found in the Trilogy. Now, we have the complete information with no missing pieces.
We have established our first criteria of knowledge. All authoritative statements about Islam must include a reference to the Trilogy to be authenticated. It does not matter what a scholar, imam, media guru, or anyone else says, if what they say cannot be supported by the doctrine in the Trilogy, then it is not Islam. If it is supported by the Trilogy, then it is Islam.
We have been taught that the Koran is the source of Islamic doctrine. However, the Koran is only 14% of the total sacred texts . Actually, the Sira and the Hadith are 86% of the total textual doctrine . Islam is 14% Allah and 86% Mohammed. This is very good news. The Koran is obscure, but anyone can understand the life and sayings of Mohammed. These statistics point to the easy way to know Islam—know Mohammed. Anyone, absolutely anyone, can understand Mohammed and hence, Islam.
Islam is a text-based doctrine, so the nature of these texts must be made clear. A Muslim believes that the Koran is perfect, complete, universal and eternal. It does not contain the slightest error and it is the exact words of the only god of the universe. Mohammed is the perfect example of how to live the sacred life. This idea of complete, final, universal, and perfect textual truth is very hard for non-Muslims to comprehend. Most people read the Koran with the attitude of: “Oh, they don’t really believe this.” When Muslims read the Koran, their attitude is: “These are the perfect words of Allah.” Muslims call themselves the “believers” and by that they mean that they believe the Koran is perfect and Mohammed is the perfect pattern of life.
Remember, we started with the question: Can we evaluate what the media commentators, politicians, imams and other “experts” say about the true nature of Islam? Yes, we can know the true nature of Islam—it is found in the Trilogy. If what the expert has to say can be supported by the doctrine found in the Trilogy, then it is valid, since the Trilogy is the final arbiter of all opinions and statements about Islam.
Critical thought provides a powerful first step. Now, let us measure the doctrine of Islam. The following cases show how the technique of counting the number of words that are devoted to a topic can be used to discover the dominant themes of Islamic texts and, hence, Islamic doctrine.
For the statistics go to: http://cspipublishing.com/statistical/index.html
Bill Warner, Director, Center for the Study of Political Islam
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The most unique aspect of Islamic doctrine is dualism. The Koran, Sira (Mohammed’s biography) and Hadith (his traditions) hold contradictory positions on many points of doctrine that confuse kafirs. Much ink is wasted on questioning which side of the contradiction is right and which is wrong. However, Islamic dualism allows both sides of a contradiction to be true at the same time. The only way to determine truth in any multi-state system is to use statistics. Here in a Frontpage Magazine interview, a colleague of mine, Moorthy Muthuswamy, shows how simple statistical reasoning allows us to see the total truth of Islam.
The Statistical Analysis of Islamic Doctrines
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | 4/22/2009
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Moorthy Muthuswamy, an expert on terrorism in India. He grew up in India, where he had firsthand experience with political Islam and jihad. He moved to America in 1984 to pursue graduate studies. In 1992, he received a doctorate in nuclear physics from Stony Brook University, New York. Since 1999 he has extensively published ideas on neutralizing political Islam’s terror war as it is imposed on unbelievers. His new book is Defeating Political Islam: The New Cold War.
FP: Moorthy Muthuswamy, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Muthuswamy: Thank you for the opportunity, Jamie.
FP: We’re here today to talk about statistical Islam.
First, introduce for us the context of statistics in a scientific analysis.
Muthuswamy: Statistics is a tool of science. In doing a scientific analysis of a large pool of data, statistical analysis is by and far the most effective way of interpreting or extracting useful information. Especially in the social context, data may often represent views or outlook in varying or even in opposing directions. The statistical synthesis consists of representation of data in certain percentages that clearly bring out the overall thrust of what should otherwise be a confusing set of information.
Statistics is especially powerful in exposing the intent of an entity that may cleverly camouflage itself. For instance, a mafia don’s ten percent of the activities may be geared toward charity, but an overwhelming seventy percent may involve illegal or criminal activities geared toward enriching himself and his cronies. The percentages reveal the don as a thug who invokes charity in order to camouflage his violent lawbreaking track record.
FP: Ok, so why statistical Islam?
Muthuswamy: Islam is a social phenomenon – and a complex one at that.
Let us start with Islamic scriptures. Portions of Islamic scriptures speak ill of unbelievers or their violent conquest, but also show benevolence toward humanity. There are Muslims who are violent terrorists and there are those who are genuine moderates. It must be clear that we have to invoke statistical tools to understand the nature and thrust of Islam and Muslims. Some very exciting new research has been conducted within the past few years on topics ranging from the Islamic doctrines to Muslim outlook.
I would like to address the often-overlooked but the central question in the war on terror: is the Muslim outlook vis-à-vis terror sponsorship driven by Islamic doctrines?
FP: Summarize for us statistical analysis of Islamic doctrines.
Muthuswamy: More than most religions or ancient ideologies, Islam’s foundational texts may be well-placed for a statistical analysis. These texts form Islam’s trilogy – the Koran, the Hadiths and the Sira. The Koran plays a unique and commanding role in the trilogy as it is seen to represent “revelations” from God, given through its messenger prophet Muhammed. The Hadiths represent sayings of Muhammed and the Sira is a biography of him. By most accounts, Muslims attach great deal of importance to the trilogy in guiding their life. Importantly, these texts, in particular the Koran, appear to have remained in just one form over a thousand years. Hence, these texts can be seen as a reliable and critical “data” upon which a useful statistical analysis can be carried out.
Bill Warner of the Center for the Study of Political Islam has pioneered the statistical analysis of Islamic doctrines and has come up with some of the most incisive and groundbreaking results. Extensive discussion of his work is given in my book. But let me refer to a synthesis that stands out, and conclusively defines what we are up against: 61 percent of the Koran talks ills of unbelievers or calls for their violent conquest and subjugation, but only 2.6 percent of it talks about the overall good of humanity.
The above statistical analysis forms the basis not just for contesting but even for comprehensively discrediting the often quoted description of Islam as a “religion of peace.” In fact, an appropriate and statistically acceptable characterization is that Islamic doctrines overwhelmingly preach dislike, hatred and conquest of unbelievers and that this material constitutes the majority of the content in the Koran. Using this statistical basis, one may also interpret that the token “goodness” toward unbelievers is present in the Koran in order to camouflage the true intent of subjugating and conquering them. When this anti-unbeliever-rich Islamic doctrine is preached through mainstream mosques, one could justifiably claim that neither the mosques nor the people who deliver the sermons there nor those who listen to them are likely to develop a moderate outlook toward unbelievers.
FP: So expand on your observations on the Muslim outlook as derived from statistics.
Muthuswamy: It is one thing to have a theology with certain attributes, but the question is how well it is influencing its adherents and in what way.
During the past sixty years from every Muslim majority region of South Asia – without exception – upon gaining power Muslims have set about marginalizing and worse – expelled most non-Muslims to the neighboring non-Muslim majority areas. This occurred despite the people sharing everything – including ethnicity, culture, language, but excluding religion. Most of these expulsions occurred before 1975, when money from Saudi Arabia was starting to flow into the region to immerse the population with even more Islam. This region of Asia is home to about to a third of the worldwide population of 1.3 billion Muslims. This is significant.
Any non-Muslim majority region of the world with a higher local Muslim population growth rate has to worry about its very existence in the coming years.
There is also a strong correlation between the increased funding for the propagation of Islam and the worsening of Muslims’ uneasy relations with unbelievers – in the form of insurgencies, terrorism and riots that extend across the world. This is seen in India, the Philippines, Thailand, America, Russia, Europe, to name a few.
There is one and only common denominator in all of this: Islam. The statistics of hatred and conquest present in the Islamic doctrines must be the source of the conflicts.
We now reach important conclusion: increased exposure to Islamic doctrine is seen to propel Muslim populations to embrace jihad and sharia (a medieval repressive Islamic “law”) fervently.
FP: How do we let data drive policy in the ongoing war on terror?
Muthuswamy: The above scientific analysis points to a definite connection between Islamic doctrine and Muslim propensity for violence directed at unbelievers. Statistical Islam helps us, probably for the first time, comprehensively contest misinformed notions upon which flawed Western policies vis-à-vis Islam/Muslims have been based. Without statistics we didn’t have a case, only opinions. Policymakers and the pundits could ignore opinions, but would be hard-pressed to discount scientific assertions based upon statistics.
Before proceeding further, let me take care to note that misinformed notions of Islam are prevalent among both Republicans and Democrats and were also true of former President George W. Bush.
I am now going to single out President Obama as he is the one providing overall leadership to waging the war on terror:
Data analysis strongly discounts President Obama’s assertion given in the first interview of his presidency to the Saudi Arabian TV network, Al-Hurra: “[w]e cannot paint with a broad brush a faith [Islam] as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith’s name.”
The analysis – subject to data and statistics – suggests that Muslim populations strongly driven by Islamic doctrines find “mutual interest and mutual respect” vis-à-vis Western civilization rather elusive. In this context, President Barak Obama’s declaration in his inauguration is really a ticket to nowhere – “[t]o the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”
But we ought to read back to Mr. Obama the assertion he has made that data should drive policy – and take him and his administration to task.
FP: Moorthy Muthuswamy, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.
Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine’s editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Russian, U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He is the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union and is the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. His new book is United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror. To see his previous symposiums, interviews and articles Click Here. Email him at [email protected].
Bill Warner
Copyright © 2009 CBSX, LLC
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Statistics and the Meaning of Islam
What is the “real” Islam? Is it the Islam of the nice Muslim at work? Or is it the Islam of Osama bin Laden?
To get a logical answer, we must have a logical basis. What sources are available to answer the question? We can toss out the media and all of its answers since they generally quote apologist “experts”. But is there an expert we can trust? Yes, there is. Mohammed.
The most fundamental statement that can be made about Islam is: there is no god but Allah and Mohammed is His prophet. This is the bedrock of Islam and points us directly to the only sure source of Islam-Allah and Mohammed. But where are Allah and Mohammed found? The Trilogy of Koran, Sira and Hadith. Allah is found in the Koran and Mohammed is found in the Sira (his biography) and the Hadith (his traditions of small stories and sayings). There is a special name for the sum of the Sira and the Hadith, the Sunna.
The Koran and Sunna are the only sure and certain basis of Islam. All of Islam is based upon the Trilogy.
The foundational texts of Islam –the Trilogy–suffer from being deliberately difficult. It is clear to anyone who reads these texts that every effort has been made to make the material obscure and difficult. There are two reasons for this obscurity. First, difficult texts make for a secure job for the priestly caste, the imams and scholars. If the text is clear in meaning, then no help is needed to understand it. The second reason is that the texts contain horrible and contradictory messages for the world buried under the obscurity.
The usual response to this difficulty is to skip the editing and offer up some verses from the Koran. But “verse” is a biased word in that it invokes a religious overtone. In almost every case, a verse is nothing more than a sentence. There is no other field of study in which individual sentences are given so much weight.
“Verse picking”, to use a statistical term, is a very poor sampling method. What we want is the meaning, and it is impossible to learn the complete meaning from a sentence. What we need to concern ourselves with are ideas and concepts, not simply a sentence.
Let us be clear here that the very best way to obtain the complete meaning is to edit (edit does not mean change the meaning, but to order, rearrange and collect) the texts and then proceed from the edited text. The Koran is famously difficult. However, if the necessary editing is done, the Koran is a very straightforward document. The first editing steps are to put the Koran in order with respect to time. In this way when you turn the page, you advance in time, just as you would in a history book. This time line order has been known since the first days of Islam. The next step is to collect all of the variations of the same story. As an example, the story of Moses and the Pharaoh is told 39 times. If they are all collected under one category, then the Koran is easier to read and less boring.
The next step is to take the Sira and weave it into the Koran to give the Koran a context. For example, there is a verse that says that it was proper to burn the palm trees. For someone who reads this verse, a question arises: what palm trees are being talked about? The Koran gives no context. But in the day of its creation, everyone who heard the verse knew that the previous week, Mohammed had attacked some Jews who were date farmers and had destroyed their date palm trees in violation of Arabic war customs. When the story of Mohammed (from the Sira) is woven into the Koran, then the context of the attack on the Jews is clear.
A Koran that is in the proper time order, categorized, and includes Mohammed’s life is a straightforward book that is easily understood. CSPI has published two Korans that have been edited this way- A Simple Koran and an Abridged Koran.
But we still have a problem. We need to be able to discuss the Koran with those who do not have access to edited Korans or who would not read them anyway. We need to be able make meaningful summary statements. Picking your favorite verse is not the way to make a summary statement.
We need a method of macro-analysis, not micro-analysis. We need to be able to talk about the big picture, the complete meaning of Islam. But there is a problem in trying to summarize Islam as it is filled with contradictory statements. So how do we deal with the contradictions while looking at the big picture?
The answer to these questions is to use a statistical measure of the texts. Don’t let the word statistics scare you. The only statistics needed is counting how many items are in a category.
Take for example the idea of the importance of the Koran. The most commonly belief about Islam is that it is based upon the Koran and is a religion. Neither of these ideas is true.
How important is the Koran? It contains about 153,000 words. The Sira (by Ibn Ishaq) contains about 292,000 words, and the Hadith has 646,000 words (using the Bukhari text). So Allah is about 14% of the total of the Trilogy and the Sunna (Mohammed’s words and deeds) is 86% of the total. These are only a quantitative measure, but still, it points out how important Mohammed is compared to Allah, based upon the amount of text.
This is born out further by noticing that the Koran does not contain enough information to practice even one of the Five Pillars of Islam. Only the Sunna (primarily the Hadith for religious practice) tells the Muslim how to worship. So the statistical measure shows that Islam is also Mohammedism.
Once the Koran is rearranged in the right time order, categorized and Mohammed’s life is woven back into it, another fact leaps from the page. Very little of the Koran is devoted to how to be a Muslim, the religion of Islam. Instead, the majority of the Koran is about kafirs, non-Muslims. Kafirs are the worst of the creation. Allah hates kafirs and plots against them. Kafirs can be tortured, murdered, robbed, raped and enslaved. The Koran is fixated on kafirs, as was Mohammed.
To measure the Koranic fixation on kafirs, let us measure the fixation by counting the amount of text devoted to them. In Mecca an astounding 68% of the text is devoted to the kafir. In Medina 57% was about kafirs. The amount of text in the entire Koran devoted to kafirs is 51%.
As an aside, Islam excludes kafirs in every way from its religious practice. Since the kafir is outside of Islam, the term political Islam is used to describe the doctrine of Islam as it is applied to the “others”, the kafirs. So 51% of the Koran is about political Islam, not religious Islam. (KS Lal gives the figure of 63% in Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India, Aditya Prakashan, 1999, N. Delhi, pg. 4).
The Sira shows the importance of Islam’s political nature. Mohammed preached the religion of Islam for 13 years in Mecca and only gained 150 followers. He moved to Medina where he became a politician and warrior. After 10 years of violence he became ruler of all Arabia without a single enemy left standing. He was involved in an event of violence every 6 weeks for the last 9 years of his life. Statistical conclusion-Islam’s success came from war and politics, not religion.
Another statistical conclusion: Islam is primarily a political doctrine, not a religion.
Simple statistics also reveal the true nature of the political/religious idea of jihad. When the word jihad is used, Muslims say that there are two kinds of jihad. There is the religious jihad, the greater jihad–the inner struggle against personal problems. The war jihad is the lesser jihad.
The Hadith of Bukhari gives all of the tactical details of jihad. A simple counting method shows that 3% of the hadiths are about the inner struggle, whereas, 97% of the hadiths are about jihad as war. So is jihad the inner struggle? Yes, 3%. Is jihad the war against kafirs? Yes, 97%.
This leads to a very important concept. Islam is based upon contradictory statements. How do we sort them out to get the complete meaning? We measure the amount of text devoted to each side of the dichotomy. That is what we did with the question of which jihad is the real jihad. It gives a complete statistical answer.
There is nothing new here. Only single value state ideas can be measured by one number. Multi-state ideas must be evaluated by statistics that measure every state of the variable. If an idea has different manifestations, then instead of arguing which is the right manifestation, just measure all of the manifestations.
There is an exact analogy to the measurement of the state of the electron in an atom. Quantum physics does not give a single answer about the energy and position, but gives us the statistical probabilities of each possible state. The same is true about Islam. We need to know its total state, not something about one category.
In conclusion, statistics is a superior way to gain complete knowledge of the texts of Islam. Statistics allows us to explore Islam in its totality. Remember the old story of the blind men feeling the elephant? One said the elephant was like a rope, another a tree, a wall and so forth. Was each man right? Were any of them wrong? No. But none of them were completely right. Statistical analysis cannot tell us the qualitative story but it allows us to remove the blinders of only looking at one category and forces us to look at the total picture.
Notice that this approach also effectively tells us how to evaluate the “experts” that get trotted out to buttress a favorite position. This is the iron rule of Islam-only Mohammed defines the truth of Islam. If what an expert says agrees with Mohammed, then the he is right, but he is redundant. If what the expert says contradicts Mohammed, then the expert is wrong. So experts are either redundant or wrong. Only Mohammed tells us the truth about Islam and he is never wrong or redundant. Skip the experts and move straight to Mohammed. The statistical approach does just that.
Bill Warner
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