"My Friend is a Muslim and He's Really Nice"

Sunday

Sometimes when you're talking about Islam, someone will tell you something like this: "My cousin is married to a Muslim man and he's a really great guy." And they will say it like that's the end of the argument. They pronounce it as if their statement obviously cancels and disproves everything you've said about Islam. Here are some possible responses:

1. I can see that you are defending your friend, so let me be clear that I'm not attacking your friend or anyone who calls himself a Muslim. I'm talking about Islamic doctrine. I'm talking about what a devout Muslim is supposed to do, according to Muhammad, and what millions of Muslims in fact do.

2. Is he a practicing Muslim or a Muslim in name only? If he is a practicing Muslim, jihad is obligatory. But keep in mind, jihad means struggling toward the political goal of the dominance of Islamic law. Violence is only one of many ways to work toward that political goal. Also, if he is a practicing Muslim, he cannot be friends with you, according to the Koran. He can pretend to be your friend if it serves the goals of Islam, but if he actually feels affection for you and really considers you a friend, he is doomed to burn in hell according to the Koran.

3. That's good (that he's a really great guy)! But the Muslims following the doctrine still need to be stopped, and one very important thing that needs to happen in order to stop them is for non-Muslims to be educated about what is in the Koran and the Hadith. Our fellow non-Muslims need to be made aware of the game plan of the enemies dedicated to destroying our way of life. By trying to stop people like me from educating non-Muslims about Islam, you are actually helping Islamic supremacists with their political goals.

4. Maybe this Muslim's apparent goodness is only taqiyya. Another possibility is that he is simply ignorant of what his religion really requires of him. I will tell you what is in the Koran, but only if you promise not to tell him. We don't need any more Muslims to awaken to the requirements of their faith. Let him live in benign and peaceful ignorance.

5. He's a Muslim and he's really nice? Good! It's entirely possible he does not follow the whole teachings. However, does he pay his zakat (alms)? Then he is probably contributing to Islamic supremacists who are following the whole teachings (the zakat usually goes to the local mosque, and most mosques in the U.S. are owned and run by dedicated Wahabbis). Does he pray five times a day? Does he fast for a month during Ramadan? Has he read the Koran? If he had to choose between Shari'a law and the U.S. Constitution, which would he choose? Do you have any idea?! Or are you simply saying your cousin is married to a Muslim with very good people skills? (Read more about the basic obligations of a Muslim.)

6. The existence of a nice Muslim does not invalidate the statement that Islamic teachings advocate intolerance and violence toward non-Muslims. The fact that you know a Muslim who knows how to get along with non-Muslims does not mean he would not also advocate imposing Shari'a law on non-Muslims, and does not mean he is not actively striving toward that goal. The fact that he is really nice does not mean he repudiates the supremacist nature of Islamic teachings. The existence of a Muslim who happens to be charming does not discredit a single thing I've said.

7. Is your friend an apatheist? If so, I think that's great. But I wasn't talking about people who call themselves Muslims but do not follow the doctrine. I'm talking about the actual Islamic doctrine — what it says in their holy books and what nearly all the Islamic authorities have decreed for the last 1400 years — and what is being followed faithfully by Muslims all over the world. Those who are following the teachings of the Koran and who faithfully follow Muhammad's example are a danger to the free world and they must be stopped.

8. Muhammad Salah was a very nice man too. But he was also the leader of the worldwide military wing of Hamas, a brutal terrorist organization! (Read more about this here.)

9. Here's a nice short one: "Ted Bundy was nice too." You could add, "I'm not saying just because someone is a Muslim he must be a murderous psychopath. I'm saying that the quality of 'niceness' doesn't necessarily have anything to do with what a person is capable of."

Read more: What Does Niceness Tell You About Someone's Goals or Plans?

Give some of these responses a try, and come back here to let us know what happened. Also, please let us know what other questions or statements people make that leave you temporarily tongue-tied.

18 comments:

Citizen Warrior 10:51 PM  

That's a good alternative response, Grace. Very short and to the point: My friend is a Nazi and he's really nice.

Hitler was a non-smoking, non-drinking vegetarian who was loved by the people closest to him. But that did not make him a friend to freedom.

Gormflaith The Banshee 9:06 AM  

Seemingly proper public behavior can never be a predictor of a person's true character or private
actions. I was married to a man who acted "really nice" in public.
What all the women who told me how "nice" he was, didn't know was that
in private he threw hellish fits during which he threw things and stomped around like a gorilla in
combat mode. He could only hold this public persona for about 3 or four hours. He knew this so he would always leave public gatherings around the 3 hour limit.
Ask your friend where this nice guy stands on freedom of speech, religion, women's rights and Sharia.

Citizen Warrior 12:01 AM  

I was going through articles I have started but never finished and found this one:

To some people, this seems like an air-tight case: "Yes, all that stuff about Islamic supremacism seem legitimate, but I know this Muslim guy and he's really nice." End of story. Case closed.

But this is a ridiculous argument, which, with a little coaching, they would be easily able to see.

A woman who worked with Ted Bundy would have defended him if he'd been a Muslim and someone had criticized Islam, and she would have defended him based on the same argument: He was a really nice person to her.

But his niceness was unrelated to the fact that he liked killing people.

Hitler's niceness, too, was unrelated to his Aryan supremacy. He was a non-drinking, non-smoking vegetarian. The fact that he was the architect of a design to exterminate an entire race and religion did not prevent him from being really nice to many people.

Which, of course, is not to say that the Muslim friend someone has is a psychopathic killer. It is only to point out that you cannot discern someones real goals, intentions, or political beliefs because they treat YOU well.

Someone who you think of as a good person may in fact be a lousy Muslim.

A friend of mine is a Muslim from Bosnia. He doesn't fast during Ramadan, he doesn't pray five times a day (he hardly ever prays at all), and he has never read the Qur'an. But he considers himself a Muslim. Why? Because his parents were Muslims, and their parents were Muslims, and once you're a Muslim, you're always a Muslim, every Muslim knows that.

This guy is a really nice person. Most people would call him a good Muslim. But he's actually a lousy Muslim. He follows almost none of the teachings of Islam. If he tried to pull this kind of apatheism in an Islamic state, he might very well be publicly flogged or worse.

Anonymous 11:59 AM  

Indeed, if you study chronologically and in context the Islamic 'Trilogy' aka the Noble Qur'an, the Sunna and the Hadith; you will see the irony in what 'we' percieve as being good Muslims, being in reality 'bad' or non-practising Muslims, even if they do pray to Allah and visit the mosque.

Citizen Warrior 12:44 PM  

I received the following comment from a reader, and even though it was not written as a comment on this article, I asked him if I could post it here, and he agreed:

We must always separate the individual from the ideology. Many of us know Moslems who are decent, friendly, hard-working individuals. Probably some of us know patriots who are real jerks. So what. Examine each ideology as an abstract concept, divorced from any individual.

Islam, examined as an ideology, is different from Islam professed or practiced by individuals. Islam, and all ideologies, must stand or fall on their own merits. Judge Islam as an ideology, not by the nice Moslem store owner down the block, or the terrorist Osama bin Laden. Their character is irrelevant to deciding if Islam is a moral or evil ideology.

Judged on it's professions, Islam is irredeemably evil. like all evil ideologies, it has a few nice parts. So what. Islam is the only major religion that is "from God's mouth to your ear". Eternally existing in Allah's seventh heaven, the Koran is eternal, Allah spoken, and unchangeable. We must accept and obey every sura, with no interpretation, or allowance for "different times". In fact, interpreting or modernizing the Koran and Haddith is punishable by an Allah mandated, particularly gruesome penalty.

Examine the ideology, not the individual.

1389 6:11 PM  

I'm glad you posted this. It's time people started realizing that Islam is NOT a religion in the sense that most Americans understand it, but rather an expansionist totalitarian ideology that seeks to rid the world of everything but itself.

Citizen Warrior 1:46 AM  

Bill Warner has a good article about this "objection." Warner says, in part:

"When you read the comments section of an article about Islam, you will see the argument: I have some Muslim friends and they are good people. The conclusion: good Muslims mean that Islam is good. If the talk is face-to-face, the person may ask: Do you have any Muslim friends? There is a hidden implication that if you do not, then you don’t really know anything about Islam and you could be a bigot.

"What is actually going on? The Kafir (non-Muslim) with Muslim friends does not know any real facts about Islam and wants to move the argument to feelings, not facts. If the Muslim friend is nice, Islam is nice. There is no need to know any facts about Islam. And, if Islam is nice, then speaking against it is bigotry.

"It is amazing how much people can talk about Islam and never mention a single fact. It is easy to tell if someone is speaking about Islam factually. A fact-based discussion will include the Koran and the Sunna, which means that the words Mohammed and Allah will be heard. If there is no Mohammed or Allah, then the discussion is not about the facts of Islam; it is about opinions that come from the media, authorities and the web."

And then the article has some good questions to ask people with Muslim friends. Read the whole article.

Anonymous 10:03 PM  

A Christian cousin of mine falls in love with a Muslim young girl. He said that this girl was so different to other radical muslim women generally. She was nice with a mature behavior, loved talking, gentle, polite and hard working. she might not reject to the possibility of getting married in Christianity way although she comes from muslim family. but whether she would stay as a muslim or not after the wedding, still unknown. What do you think of this ? please advise. thanks.

Citizen Warrior 11:03 PM  

Maybe she is a Muslim in name only, in which case, what does it matter? Maybe she isn't much of a believer. He should ask her how she wants to raise the children.

Citizen Warrior 1:49 AM  

Good try, but I've read the Koran. Twice.

Anonymous 7:44 PM  

Anecdotal cursory observation is not thoughtful informed opinion.
It is important not just because of
the issue of Islam in the free west
but because of the many psychopaths
who often thrive in our society
that people understand that someone
seeming nice can be meaningless and
psychopaths (I think the culture and psychology of Islam breeds
psychopaths) are adept at conning and charming people most of them
seem very nice at times. They are
dangerous yet the response to those
who have been their victims is often I never had a problem with so and so (that means there isn't one because you haven't personally
experienced it? that's self centered and arrogent I've had people dismiss things I've said about my own mother and brother
because based on the superficial
social interactions they'd had they
presumed to know more about these people than I do that's shallow and
mindless and serves to undermine
and possibly revictimize to some extent rather than support a victim.) Let's not forget women in
Islamic theocracies are all victims
of oppression(but I'm sure you went
to college with some westernized
girl from a Muslim family and she
wasn't oppressed at all case closed
stupid.) You can't know what someone believes, thinks and feels
based on small talk and standard
social amenities. People are motivated to seek out these examples to cite (I'm sure the vast
majority don't have loads of close
Muslim friends they know very well)
because they think it makes them
liberal, openminded, tolerant, non bigots and ergo a progressive and
moral person. Someone who really believes in progressive values and human rights must be opposed to Islamic doctrine the two are mutually exclusive. The biggest lie
in our cultural narrative about Islam (which is created by a government and media for whom being informed is a responsibility
of their jobs)is that it's a lunatic fringe a few extreme bad apples who have misinterpreted this
"religion of peace." There is huge
support for terrorism in the Islamic world and amongst Muslims in the west. These bullies who cry
discrimination have never denounced
the countless acts of violence by
Muslims nor are they concerned with the fair treatment of non Muslims. Not exactly a noble social
movement for justice. You can't compare the angry or cheering (for
the deaths of Israelis and Westerners)mobs in the streets of the Arab world with someone who bombs an abortion clinic here. The
Christian clergy would very publically condem that act as well
as supporting the prosocution of those responsible. Look at video
of someone (usually a female) being
stoned to death and see the huge
crowd of men who show up to participate. Islam is psychopathic
in the same way Nazism is. It's evil and has a much higher death toll than the Nazis who by the way
seemed very nice at social functions. You can't and should'nt judge a book by its cover.

Robert Werdine 5:01 PM  

"If he is a practicing Muslim, he cannot be friends with you, according to the Qur'an. He can pretend to be your friend if it serves the goals of Islam, but if he actually feels affection for you and really considers you a friend, he is doomed to burn in hell according to the Qur'an."

Are you kidding with this?

Citizen Warrior 10:30 PM  

No, Robert, this is not a joke. Read the Koran's last word on non-Muslims:

http://www.citizenwarrior.com/2010/09/qurans-last-word-on-non-muslims.html

Anonymous 3:23 PM  

So should I just drop my friend who happens to be Islam, wears the hijab and who is genuinely a great person because of this? (I'm being sarcastic )She believes In "Allah" but does not condone terrorism or immoral acts . Same with the family members I've met

Anonymous 7:38 AM  

"A Christian cousin of mine falls in love with a Muslim girl."
I did the same thing and it was fine - right up to the moment she started taking Islam seriously; then it was "revert to ISLAM or I'll divorce you!"
Along with "All the Jews deserve to die", "America deserves whatever it gets", "the Taliban are treu Muslims" etc.
We had kids.
I would not "revert" (i.e. convert), why would I want to follow her god, a god of violence, hatred and anger?
Thus divorced, lost home, kids and through the stress of knowing my kids would be brought up by an Islamist fanatic my career for good measure.
My parents took me in thus I avoided ending up on the streets.

Anyone care to guess where she's living now? It ISn't that hard ...

Anonymous 5:17 AM  

""A Christian cousin of mine falls in love with a Muslim girl.""

Fact: Muslim women are forbidden in Islam to marry non-Muslims. Only Muslim men can marry non-Muslims because their children are automatically Muslims in the eyes of Islam.

This is also why Muslim men are allowed to rape non-Muslims; rape is considered yet another form of jihad.

Anonymous 8:57 AM  

"Yes, I'm glad to hear your Muslim friend is a nice guy, but he won't be one of the ones in charge.."

Citizen Warrior 12:53 AM  

I'm not so sure. Even the top brass can exercise people skills for the cause of Allah:

http://www.citizenwarrior.com/2008/11/terrorist-hunter.html

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