Anwers to Prager's Six Questions

I received a response to my post on Dennis Prager's six questions to Muslims from a Muslim, Sohaib Sandhu (Homepage) who attempted to answer all six. I appreciate his attempt to answer these tough questions. Let's take a look:

Why are you so quiet?

You'll find that a lot of Ulema (people of knowledge or senior Imams) have not only condemned the acts, but have even issued fatwas (Islamic legal opinions) against the riots. The French press has given this a lot of publicity

I don't think Islam has anything to do with the violence in France. Its obviously a social deprivation/discrimination/economic issue.

The bombings have been condemned. Please do some searches on google.

Bombings have been condemned, but those who continue to promote it are not seriously confronted by Islam. I have heard of not a single Imam being booted from his position for promoting terrorist jihad against innocents -- even if those victims are Muslims.

When Prager said "quiet," I think he meant more than empty fatwahs.

Why are none of the Palestinian terrorists Christian?

I'm no authority on the matter.
The vast majority of the population is Muslim.
If your family were blown apart, raped, you had no passport, day in day out a foreign occupying force was pillaging and destroying your townships would you not feel some sense of frustration and despair at the very least? Israel was created by the use of force and land occupied. I'm not justifying acts of violence, but we need to go to the root of the problem.
Remember, Christians and Muslims have lived as "brothers" in the region for over a thousand years.

If someone took over your house and ordered you to live just in the back room how would you feel?

Besides repeating pat anti-Israel soundbites, Sandhu misses Prager's point entirely. Palestinian Christians in Gaza suffer through the same economic conditions as Arab Palestinians, but they don't respond the same way. The question remains answered: Why is Islam the only religion today that propogates so much violence?

Why is only one of the 47 Muslim-majority countries a free country?

There is a view that a large majority of them are basically underdeveloped economically. As a result they rely extensively on the developed world. However, the Muslim world is rich in resources.

I'm not sure what you mean by a "free country". If you mean whether the locals have elected or participated in choosing their leaders then you are probably right. A large majority of the Muslim world wants to live under Islamic rule, but for the West, they would rather have a dictator to deal with rather than let the "locals peasants" decide. We can probably elaborate later.

I question if it's true that a large majority of the Muslim world wants to live under Islamic rule, especially if it's tied to continued economic failure, the lack of a free press, and the unavailability of fundamentally decent health care. If that's their choice, they're entitled to it -- but how will we know their choice if they're never given the opportunity to choose?

Why are so many atrocities committed and threatened by Muslims in the name of Islam?

Related to the above. If you are governed by dictators and the "free world" is not interested, the result is "terrorism". There is no funnel for political expression and often any alternative views are crushed quickly.

Most of those "dictators" are not Israelis, not even Palestinians. Most of the terrorists are coming from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen and other repressive states. These answers also fail to ask the fundamental question of what the Palestinian authority did wiht all the aid it received. Who really repressed the Palestinians -- the Israelis, or the Palestinian leaders who squandered the world's largesse?

Why do countries governed by religious Muslims persecute other religions.

If they are, then I can categorically state that this is not the teachings of Islam.

Why don't you know this is happening, Sandhu? It's reported regularly in the press. A school teach in Saudi Arabia was just sentence to jail and more than 700 lashes for mentioning the Gospels and defending the Jews.

What difference does it make if something is against the teachings of Islam if Muslims are unaware of what's being done in the name of Islam, adn are unwilling to risk doing anything about it?