Reflections on the Cartoon of an Exploding Jihadi posted by Tarek Fatah in Facebook

The more I reflect upon this ostensibly simple cartoon the more it affects me. On one level of course it is just a simple sight gag and for anyone with even a cursory understanding of the confused motivations of political Islam it is both immediately amusing but equally sublime. The cartoon works well because it clearly sums up a profound truism. At a deeper level however, upon reflection, this cartoon takes on for me the nature of a Japanese Zen Buddhist koan or riddle. Why is the exploding Jihadi the enemy of Islam? Well the more you think about it the more reasons you discover. For the sake of arguement we will operate on the assumption that Islam, despite its deeply problematic political component, is a genuine faith. 1. According to most religions and spiritual philosophies doing violence to other human beings to the point of death is murder and the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill (murder)'. It is integral to both divine and humanistic conscience. When one murders, even allegedly by divine commandment, one is acting against God. 2. At the level of the sacred however murder takes on an even deeper significance. When you murder you both destroy your relationship with God and you eliminate another person or persons relationship with God. Such an act has ramifications throughout eternity. 3. When a Jihadi murders in the name of Islam he most importantly takes away a persons freedom of choice and that really goes to the heart of the problem of political Islam. It is a central tenet of most faiths that God gave man the freedom of choice. One either chooses to have a relationship with God with the moral and eternal implications of that choice or one chooses to deny God and thus His morality and His offer of eternity. During the life of the prophet Muhammad and for several centuries after his death, Islam was spread by invading armies. Conquered peoples were given a choice of whether to accept Islam or to be put to the sword. Not much of a choice. Those who were permitted to live without submitting were subjected either to Dhimmitude (second-class citizenship status and obligated to pay a special tax) or they were enslaved. Again, not much of a choice. Compare the spread of Islam to the spread of early Christianity. For the first three centuries after the death of Christ, Christianity was spread by wandering disciples telling of the 'good news' of Christ's Crucifixion and Resurrection for the Salvation of Mankind. The early converts to Christianity were appealed to through their reason and their spiritual need for meaning. Many others rejected the message of Christianity and without consequence at the temporal level because that again was their choice. No armies were ever associated with Christianity until after Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Holy Roman Empire. Since the Reformation, Christianity which is a messianic faith, continues to proselytize but never under duress because that is contrary to the freedom of choice on matters of conscience that God has given man. Consider also Judaism, which is strictly speaking a messianic religion in that it holds to a (yet to come) Messiah but in the broader sense of the word it does not have the messianic impulse in that it does not proselytize its faith nor its Messiah. One can choose to become a Jew but it is purely a matter of choice and the process can be complicated. Or Hinduism which is a faith of many Gods and Goddesses and feels no need to proselytize because its generally tolerant pantheism acknowledges that there are perhaps infinite paths to the Godhead. A similar condition of tolerance and non-proselytizing exists for the spiritual philosophies of Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism. Indeed, of all the major faiths and spiritual philosophies, it is only Islamic adherents who believe and claim that according to the Quran they are obligated spread the word of Islam by force if necessary and to destroy those who ridicule or reject Islam; thus, removing their freedom of choice. This is particularly the case with the 'Jihadi' proponents of supremacist political Islam. If Allah, is truly God, then clearly something went wrong with the development of Islam even during the life of the prophet Muhammad. In the course of its development Islam went from claiming in Verse 256 of Al-Baqara in the Quran, "there is no compulsion in religion", which was a 'Revelation' that Muhammad received while still living in Mecca and was still non-violent to this passage based on a further 'Revelation' which Muhammed had in Medina after he started leading armies to attack his enemies, to wit: Quran (2:191-193) "And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution [of Muslims] is worse than slaughter [of non-believers]... but if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah." Furthermore, "The historical context of this passage is not defensive warfare, since Muhammad and his Muslims had just relocated to Medina and were not under attack by their Meccan adversaries. In fact, the verses urge offensive warfare, in that Muslims are to drive Meccans out of their own city (which they later did)." From that point onwards in Islam's development as a religion it ceased to adhere to the eternal commandment of God that man had the freedom to accept or reject God and that no man had the right to exact revenge against another man because of that choice. Islam has been on the wrong side of God and the wrong side of history ever since. Getting back to our little exploding 'Jihadi' in the cartoon above, well he set himself up. He asked God to go against His own commandment that there be no compulsion in religion or in other words that a man should always have freedom of choice, when he asked God 'to blow up all of Islam's enemies". Bad mistake as he set himself up in opposition to God. https://www.facebook.com/?sk=nf