Tony At 10: SPREAD OF ISLAM; BLOG # 2019; FEB 12, 2016

BOB DYLAN

THE MESSAGE:

THE USA

ISLAM is the third largest faith in the United States after Christianity and Judaism. According to a 2010 study, it is followed by 0.9% of the population, compared to 70.6% who follow Christianity, 22.8% unaffiliated, 1.9% Judaism, 0.7% Buddhism, and 0.7% Hinduism. According to a new estimate in 2016 there are 3.3 million Muslims living in the United States and they comprise about 1% of the total U.S. population.

American Muslims come from various backgrounds and, according to a 2009 Gallup poll, are one of the most racially diverse religious groups in the United States. Native-born American Muslims are mainly African Americans who make up about a quarter of the total Muslim population. Many of these have converted to Islam during the last seventy years. Conversion to Islam in large urban areas of the country has also contributed to the growth of Islam over the years.

DONALD J. TRUMP

Has called for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until the country's representatives can figure out what is going on.

Trump, who has previously called for surveillance against mosques and said he was open to establishing a database for all Muslims living in the U.S., made his latest controversial call in a news release. His message comes in the wake of a deadly mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, by suspected ISIS sympathizers and the day after President Barack Obama asked the country not to "turn against one another" out of fear.

Many dismiss Trump as an extreme lunatic; however, the USA has officially refused to accept Syrian refugees. Marco Rubio has called for arming the Canadian and American border as a response to the Canadian government admitting thousands.

GERMANY

Almost half of all Germans want Angela Merkel to quit because of the way she dealt with more than one million refugees fleeing the Middle East and arriving in the country in the past year. The German justice minister, said the latest attacks represented a new level of “hate and violence” that must be addressed by local and federal authorities.

Muslin refugees are now being looked on, in this country, with a large degree of mistrust.

AFRICA

Today, Islam is the predominant religion of the northern half of Africa, mainly concentrated in North Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Sahel, as well as West Africa. There exists a minority but significant immigrant population in South Africa.

Analysts argue that Muslims in Africa are locked into an intense struggle regarding the future direction of Islam. At the core of the struggle lie questions about who should rule the Islamic Faith and how Muslims should practice that faith. Most scholars assert that the majority seems to prefer a moderate, tolerant course; however, a relatively small, but growing group would like to establish a stricter form of the religion, one that dictates and controls all aspects of society.

Unfortunately, religion, which should be a peaceful way of life, has become a violent tool for many individuals, and groups. Historically speaking, this situation was aggravated not only by the current spread of Islam in Africa but also by its revival from the beginning of the 19 century.

This truth is confirmed in the history of Sudan, Chad, Ivory Coast and Nigeria where religion has not only become a divisive force and a decisive source of political legitimacy but also a tool for mass appeal, mobilization and murder.

THE MIDDLE EAST

Muslims like to believe that ISLAM is a religion of peace, but more and more it appears that Islam has become a religion of conflict and bloodshed. Consider the civil wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen together with unrest in Lebanon and Bahrain, the developing rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The Middle East is plagued by intra-Muslim strife that seems to go back to the ancient Sunni-Shiite rivalry. Sunni is the largest branch of Islam and dominates the Middle East.

THE WORLD

The early Christians were divided into sects primarily through theological disputes surrounding the life and times of Jesus Christ. Early Muslims were divided into sects over political disputes about who should rule them after the death of the Prophet Muhammed.

Today the world is left with the Islamic split into Sunni and Shiite. For Muslim Extremists there is no separation between religion and state. Religion is the State.

WINSTON CHURCHILL

Churchill saw the expansion of Islam coming. in his early years. The rhetorical question is repeated by many. "Does anyone in the World, especially America, realize that Churchill’s words are exactly what is happening right now? Not only does America need to wake up, but so does the whole world. When will it be too late?"

CHURCHILL ON ISLAM

WHO KNEW???

Unbelievable, but the speech below was written and delivered by him in 1899. It probably sets out the current views of many. He was a brave young soldier, a brilliant journalist, an extraordinary politician and statesman, a great war leader and British Prime Minister, to whom the Western world must be forever in his debt. He was a prophet in his own time. He died on 24th January 1965, at the grand old age of 90 and, after a lifetime of service to his country, was accorded a State funeral.

THE QUOTE:

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.The effects are apparent in many countries,- improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity.

The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.

No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it hadvainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome."