Is History Repeating Itself?: The Origins of War

“There was no corner of the known world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger…When it was utterly impossible to contrive such an interest—why, then it was the national honor that had been insulted….Rome was always being attacked by evil-minded neighbors.” 

Sound familiar?  Find out the shocking reason history keeps repeating itself…

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 8 of Lloyd DeMause’s ” The Origins of War in Child Abuse”

RELIGION, POLITICS AND WARS IN SACRIFICIAL EARLY STATES
The infanticides, tortures and worship of Killer Mothers in early states become repeated, as we have documented in Chapter 1, in the worship of warrior goddesses of antiquity. Mother goddesses all had son-lovers—from Inna and Tammuz to Isis and Osiris and Aphrodite and Adonis—who needed their sons simply for their phallus, castrating them to make herself fruitful.”¹²⁹ Worshippers of the Magna Mater cult used to castrate themselves for the goddess, “wishing to be like child, the better to serve her…running through the city with severed organs and throwing them into any house.”¹³⁰ Early civilizations worshipped what Jungians term “Dragon Mothers,” who were acknowledged by worshippers to be cruel and unjust: “her glance brings death, her will is supreme.”¹³¹ Even when male gods replaced goddesses in later antiquity, the goddesses were represented by the throne, from which the king derives his power: “the throne makes the king.”¹³² Early religions often betrayed the group-fantasy that the gods were less powerful than the goddesses,¹³³ and goddesses continued to appear in such literary representations as Amazons who “threaten manhood and need to be subjugated and killed to prevent them from dominating us…In Athens, over 800 portrayals have survived of Greek heroes stabbing and clubbing Amazons to death.”¹³⁴ The political structures of early states repeated the childhood maternal domination, with an authoritarian monarch ruling a bureaucracy of aristocratic courtiers, governors, priests and jailers and for the first time producing a “government full of rich and poor, oppressors and oppressed, tyrannical politics and a vast priestly organization.”¹³⁵ These early civilizations went beyond kinship to complex societies, whose loyalty to extremely violent monarchs is well documented by historians. But the degree to which these early societies are actually organized to achieve self-destructive aims is nowhere admitted. Goddesses need wars to “drink the blood of the victims who were formerly her children…Anat is filled with joy as she plunges her knees in the blood of heroes.”¹³⁶ Individuals in antiquity can be pictured as massively suicidal—Egyptians regularly talked about suicide to their “doubles,” their Ba, their self-destructive alters, making “suicide so common that the crocodiles in the Nile could no longer cope with the corpses”¹³⁷—but the principle that all early states were organized for suicidal aims has, I believe, nowhere been acknowledged. When Homer depicts Ajax as saying “the thumos in my chest is zealous to fight” and has warriors constantly talking to the voices of their thumos, historians do not conclude that he was actually talking to a violent alternate personality embedded during early child abuse.¹³⁸ When historians report that “when an Aztec captured an enemy, he called him ‘my beloved son’ and the captive answered, ‘my beloved father,’ then killed him,”¹³⁹ there is no suspicion that actual early family relationships are being repeated. Nor are historians reminded of real mothers when they report that goddesses are said to “drink the blood of the victims who were formerly her children” and to be “filled with joy as she plunges her knees in the blood of heroes” during wars.¹⁴⁰

Besides having enormous homicide and suicide rates, early states were mainly organized to dominate and kill their own people as well as neighbors, and the wars they engaged in were not in fact for more resources they could use to enrich their lives but for “tribute” like gold and other useless metals that would be kept in central cities by their elites “as signs of submission.” Azar Gat’s comprehensive book on War in Human Civilization makes clear that all early states transformed advanced tribes into genocidal warrior societies whose purpose was not to enrich themselves but to wipe out neighbors.¹⁴¹ These civilizations—“all with standing armies, all expansionist, all engaged in chronic interstate warfare”¹⁴²—began with religious human sacrifice, found in the remains of Egypt, Greece and Rome and in early states like the Aztec. Carrasco’s excellent book on the Aztec empire is entitled “City of Sacrifice,” and convincingly describes how the entire Aztec civilization is run in order to carry out continuous sacrifices of children and adults and of tributes given to the Killer Goddess in the ceremonial center of Mexico City—which he calls “a performance space,” dedicated solely to the meaningless destruction of people and goods.¹⁴³The conquest of vast areas of nearby states was, he says, accomplished solely to feed the “Queen of the Central City,” who must constantly drink the blood of victims or die, and he concludes all her temples were nothing but “simple religious images of total destruction.”¹⁴⁴ No slaves were taken in Aztec wars; all were sacrificed.¹⁴⁵ The huge skull racks of victims were called “the mainstay of the city,” and the sacrificial rituals began with acting out the reason for the goddess being so murderous—her children were said to be furious with her for being pregnant, so they decided that “we must kill our mother” by becoming warriors, first killing a young girl who represented the goddess, flaying her skin and then donning it to get her power so as to be able to kill others.¹⁴⁶ Every element of the masochistic sacrificial rituals repeated the violence inflicted upon Aztec children, beginning with the piercing their ears, tongues and genitals in cradles and continuing to their brutal torture as young children.¹⁴⁷ The tribute captured was not goods that could be used by the people but consisted of items like precious metals, stones and feathers which might adorn the maternal goddess. As Anderson sums up Aztec culture: “The trinity of war, sacrifice and cannibalism made up a combined religious service…the Aztec state existed solely to produce sacrificial victims.”¹⁴⁸

Although historians admit that slashing open the throats of infants and beheading young women had little economic value to the conquering nations, they nonetheless are reluctant to admit that the personal violence and all-consuming wars of early nations were clinically paranoid and were self-destructive in motivation. Few historians have concluded that the costs of conquering new territories exceeded the rewards they bothered to gain from them.¹⁴⁹ Warriors who kill and are killed in constant battles with neighbors only end up murdering and raping them, for glory, not for profit, with the ubiquitous raping during wars being a repetition of the routine rape they experienced as children. Similarly, when Herodotus tells how during wars soldiers “no sooner got possession of a town than they chose out all the best favored boys and made them eunuchs,” this simply repeated the regular castration and then anal raping of little boys in their own societies.¹⁵⁰ Spartans were not the only warriors who carried young boys into battles with them for sexual use. In addition, the widespread practice during antiquity of collecting thousands of penises as trophies during battles was derived from memories of childhood raping and castration.¹⁵¹

Most early wars were fought solely for the grandiosity of the state leader and for provoking further wars. As Maccoby puts it: “Men elect an all-powerful leader in their battle against the power of the women; the more they subordinate themselves to this leader, the more powerful they are in the battle.”¹⁵² When Rome fought the Punic Wars with Carthage they lost over a third of their population and gained nothing of value, utterly exterminating the Carthaginians.¹⁵³ Aztec armies would even fight “Flower Wars” where they would split into smaller groups and kill their own fellow soldiers in order to feed the goddess.¹⁵⁴ Mothers of the time regularly admitted they were looking forward to their sons being killed in battle. As Plutarch noted, Spartan mothers had a saying, “I accept gladly the death of my sons. [Admitting as she buried her son] I bore him that he may die for Sparta.”¹⁵⁵ Mothers in ancient states often accompanied their sons into battle, publicly deriding those who had not yet killed anyone.¹⁵⁶ Soldiers who panicked were often beaten to death by their comrades.¹⁵⁷ Even when there was no enemy to fight, leaders would send out raiding expeditions “to keep the men sharp.”¹⁵⁸ Sacrifice of life, not victory, ruled in battle—generals would even “offer their lives to the gods of the Underworld by charging the enemy and throwing himself onto their weapons,” a sacrificial ritual called devotio.¹⁵⁹ As Schumpeter summarized the paranoia of the Roman Empire: “There was no corner of the known world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger…When it was utterly impossible to contrive such an interest—why, then it was the national honor that had been insulted….Rome was always being attacked by evil-minded neighbors.”¹⁶⁰

Leaders often engaged in suicidal wars they admitted they knew they would lose, as when Pericles warned the victorious Athenians “not to make any new conquests” against Sparta, but they attacked anyway, provoking them into an alliance with Persia, defeating Athens.¹⁶¹ Caesar spent all the economic surplus of Rome on endless, useless wars with the millions of citizens of Germania and Gaul, moved solely by schizoid grandiosity. Caesar started the suicidal butchery of the Roman Civil Wars solely to save his “honor.” Warriors sometimes fought bare-chested¹⁶² or even fully naked,¹⁶³ as though they were little children again—a purely suicidal practice. Those who impulsively engaged in duels for personal glory without authorization were often ordered to be killed by their commanders.¹⁶⁴ When soldiers returned from battles with trophies (spolia), they displayed them on the walls of their home, adding to their grandiosity but otherwise quite useless to their families.¹⁶⁵ Even when enemies were captured and returned to the central city as slaves, they ended up producing far less goods than if the city had traded economically with them. Indeed, the entire slave system of antiquity was economically self-destructive—slave owners spent most of their time seeing to it that their slaves didn’t rape their daughters or steal their goods or run away¹⁶⁶—so productive innovations in farming and other professions were few, resulting in very low economic output in antiquity, where “improvement in land use were marginal and methods of tillage remained unchanged” for centuries because land owners didn’t care about reducing the work load of their slaves.¹⁶⁷ They couldn’t even invent the stirrup until the 4th century A.D., and improvements in ploughs had to wait until even later. That “growth panic” triumphed over progress and individuation in ancient societies is obvious to anyone admitting their dismal lack of economic innovation, their impoverishing of both enemies and friends, and their grandiose devotion to endless slaughter.¹⁶⁸

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We have indeed created man in the best of moulds,

Then we reduced him to the lowest of the low,

Except such as believe and do righteous deeds…

[alQur-aan, Suuratu-tTeen 4-6 (The Recitation, Chapter The Fig (95):  4-6)]

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To read more about childrearing and war, visit  The Institute for Psychohistory.

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¹²⁹ Lloyd deMause, The Emotional Life of Nations, p. 408.

¹³⁰ Ibid, p. 408.

¹³¹ Ibid., p. 405.

¹³² Erich Neumann, The Great Mother, p. 99; Anne Baring and Jules Cashford, The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London: Penguin Books, 1993, p. 251.

¹³³ Ibid., p. 411.

¹³⁴ Eva C. Keuls, The Reign of the Phallus, p. 4.

¹³⁵ Eli Sagan, At the Dawn of Tyranny, p. 14.

¹³⁶ Lloyd deMause, The Emotional Life of Nations, p. 409.

¹³⁷ Barbara Hannah, Encounters With the Soul. Santa Monica: Sigo Press, 1981, p. 85.

¹³⁸ A. W. H. Adkins, From the Many to the One, p. 21.

¹³⁹ Nigel Davies, Human Sacrifice, p. 43.

¹⁴⁰ Anne Baring and Jules Cashford, The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of An Image. London: Penguin Books, 1991, p. 169; Cynthia Eller, The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory. Boston: Beacon Press, 2000, p. 104.

¹⁴¹ Azar Gat, War in Human Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

¹⁴² Dyne Dawson, The Origins of Western Warfare: Militarism and Morality in the Ancient World. New York: Westview Press, 1996, p.38.

¹⁴³ David Carrasco, City of Sacrifice, p. 8.

¹⁴⁴ Ibid., p. 25.

¹⁴⁵ Burr Cartwright Brundage, The Fifth Sun: Aztec Gods, Aztec World. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979, p. 195.

¹⁴⁶ Ibid., p. 61.

¹⁴⁷ Ibid., p. 97, 185.

¹⁴⁸ Ibid., pp. 196, 205.

¹⁴⁹ Joseph A. Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

¹⁵⁰ Peter Tompkins, The Eunuch and the Virgin. New York: Bramhall House, 1962, p. 15.

¹⁵¹ Ibid., p. 14.

¹⁵² Hyam Maccoby, The Sacred Executionery, p. 85.

¹⁵³ Zar Gat, War in Human Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 131.

¹⁵⁴ Burr Cartwright Brundage, The Fifth Sun, p. 205.

¹⁵⁵ V. Spike Peterson, Gendered States: Feminist (Re)visions of International Relations Theory. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1992, pp. 7, 8.

¹⁵⁶ Burr Cartwright Brundage, The Fifth Sun, p. 201.

¹⁵⁷ Ross Cowan, For the Glory of Rome: A History of Warriors and Warfare. London: Greenhill Books, 2007, p. 134.

¹⁵⁸ Ibid., p. 38.

¹⁵⁹ Ibid., p. 61.

¹⁶⁰ Morris Berman, Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2006, p. 110.

¹⁶¹ Hans Delbruck, Warfare in Antiqity. History of the Art of War, Vol. I. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990, p. 137.

¹⁶² Ibid., p. 128.

¹⁶³ Colin Spencer, Homosexuality: A History. New York: Harcourt, 1996, p. 95.

¹⁶⁴ Ibid., pp. 16, 151-177.

¹⁶⁵ Ibid., p. 129.

¹⁶⁶ Lloyd deMause, The Emotional Life of Nations, p. 281.

¹⁶⁷ Ibid.

¹⁶⁸ Frank Chalk & Kur Jonassohn, The History and Sociology of Genocide: Analyses and Case Studies. New Haven: Yale University Press,1990, pp. 58-156.

Victim-blaming: Was she “asking for it”?

Who gets the blame when a woman is sexually harassed or assaulted?”

 

Qur-an 33.59:

“O Prophet, say to your wives and your daughters, and the women of the believers to draw part of their outer garments over themselves.  It is likelier that they will be recognized and not molested.”

 

 

“Hasn’t he been informed of what is in the scrolls of Moses

And of Abraham, the one who fulfilled (his covenant)?:

That no bearer of a burden shall bear the burden of another…”

Qur-an 53.36-38

 

No one can bear the blame for someone else’s actions.  That’s clear.  If someone does wrong, he or she alone is to blame.  It should be pointed out that Muslims believe this concept to also be in the lost books of Moses and Abraham, so we don’t believe that Allah has ever allowed a person to be blamed for another’s actions.

 

Qur-an 24.30

“Say to the believing men to lower their gazes and to guard their private parts…”

Islaam has a practical approach to sexual harassment and assault.

 

The same directive is addressed to the believing women, followed by instructions about modest dress.  In the explanation given by scholars, this refers to lowering their gaze from women, other people’s private parts (i.e. those which are supposed to be covered) and at obscene objects.  The term “lower the gaze” is explained in narrations reported from the Prophet as not following the first (unintentional) look with a second (intentional) look or stares.

So regardless of how a woman is dressed (and she is allowed to dress in a way considered “immodest” in Islamic values) a man is not supposed to look at her.  If he’s not supposed to be ‘ogling’ her, or ‘checking her out’, then of course he is not allowed to go further than that.

 

 

“And do not approach zinaa…”  Qur-an 17.32

 

The word zinaa means sexual intercourse with someone to whom you are not legally married.  So it includes fornication (sex outside of wedlock) and adultery (sex with someone married to someone else), among others.

Now, look carefully at the wording.  In the original Arabic, the wording is not “wa laa taznuu”, which would mean ‘and do not commit fornication, etc.’.  It is “wa laa taqrabu az-zinaa”, which means “and do not APPROACH fornication, etc.”  So, regarding your question, regardless of how a man feels about a woman (or about how she is “making” him feel) he is already not supposed to be looking at her, as discussed above.  Further, he is not to, in any way, do anything that brings him close to sex with her.  No catcalls.  No advances.  No smiles.  No come-ons.  No touching.  No introductions.  NOTHING.  If he does any of these things, never mind surpassing all of them to grope or sexually assault her, he is clearly in the wrong.

 

 

“The believers have surely succeeded…

those who turn away from laghw,…”

Qur-an 23.1,3

 

I think this relates more to the issue of sexual harassment than sexual assault.  Laghw is translated as, among other things “futile and/or indecent speech”, depending on the translator and context.  So the kinds of things that men harass women with are forbidden, regardless of the context.  In fact, there is no context in which futile, indecent speech is allowed.  Therefore, considering that such speech is wrong, and considering that, as above, no one can be blamed for what another person does, if a man harasses a woman, it is his fault, not hers.

That’s a brief review of what I think the Qur-an contains on the subject.  Now, turning to the secondary source of Islamic law and morals, the guided lifestyle of the Prophet, these are things that the Prophet either:

(1)   did,

(2)   said,

(3)   commanded, or

(4)   allowed (by staying silent about in its presence)

This, the sunna, is not in the Qur-an, but has been compiled in books of narrations or ahadeeth (singular:  hadeeth).  Every hadeeth goes through a scientific process of scrutiny where the reputation of every individual narrator is graded, and the entire chain of narration is also graded for authenticity.

 

Here is an example:

Narrated Wa’il ibn Hujr:

When a woman went out in the time of the Prophet for prayer, a man attacked her and overpowered [raped] her.

She shouted and he went off, and when a man came by, she said: “That [man] did such and such to me”. And when a company of the Emigrants came by, she said: “That man did such and such to me”. They went and seized the man whom they thought had had intercourse with her and brought him to her.

She said: “Yes, this is he”.

Then they brought him to the Apostle of Allah.

When he [the Prophet] was about to pass sentence, the man who [actually] had assaulted her stood up and said: “Apostle of Allah, I am the man who did it to her”.

He [the Prophet] said to her: “Go away, for Allah has forgiven you”.

But he told the man some good words [Abu Dawud said: “meaning the man who was seized”],

and of the man who had had intercourse with her, he said: “Stone him to death.”

Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 38, #4366

So it is clear that the victim was not to blame.

Now, do people always judge by the book of Allah and the example of His Prophet?  No.  Of course, the majority of the people in the world are not Muslim, so they are unaware.  As for the Muslims, not all of them are knowledgeable, and not all of them are sincere.  If a person is insincere, his or her knowledge does not benefit, and much less their ignorance.  If a person is ignorant, her or his sincerity does not benefit them, and much less so their insincerity.  Somewhere in the fray, among other things, women may not get their rights.  If that is so, it is not Islam, but those individual Muslims- or hypocrites posing as Muslims- who are to blame.

Now, in what way can a woman be to blame?  If she dresses immodestly, she is wrong for doing so, but the matter is between her and Allah.  To my knowledge there is no legal penalty for immodest dress, so it is not a matter between her and the authorities.  (A general goal of the sharee’ah is to stop the spread of indecency, so I imagine there are measures that can be taken in extreme cases, though.)  In any case, as we have shown, it does not in any way excuse sexual harassment or assault.  We must recognize, though, that while it cannot be said that she has encouraged harassment or assault, neither can it be said that she has discouraged it.  This is one of the benefits and purposes of modesty, to discourage the men who are not fearful of Allah.  It is a pre-cautionary measure mandated by Allah long ago, whose relevancy is still being proven today (see here).

(Everything I’ve written here is subject to the limits of my knowledge and understanding.  The truth of it is from Allah, and any inaccuracies are only from my self.)

Changing Her Fate

I read article called “Changing her Fate” by Margaret Coker in the 6 May 2007 edition of the Austin-American Statesman,  ‘Insight’ section.  I do not have access to the Statesman’s archives, but I found the article here.  Read it.  It’s about a girl forced into prostitution and forced later to suffer for it, all of which is blamed on Islam, rather than the misguidance of a minority of individuals.

This is the response I wrote:

Dear Statesman,

I am very moved by “Changing her Fate” (Insight 6 May).  Sadr was spot on for saying “It’s a monopoly of power.  They have a mentality that’s very traditional.”  She’s right.

Islam, like America, has a constitution that has been subject by manipulation by the power-hungry.  Traditionally, worldwide, the culprits are male.

Unlike America, Islam’s constitution is constantly judged by the worst, never the best, of its constituents, rather than being evaluated on its own merit.

No one, for example, assuages that drug use is American- rife though it may be- because our written law makes the opposite clear.

So what are the true fundamentals, the valid traditions, of Islam?  Consider, for example, the authenticated saying of Prophet Muhammad that heaven is found at the feet of the mother.  What about the prophetic injunctions encouraging men to provide for, entertain, and strive to sexually satisfy their wives?

Are we now prepared to accuse Islam of being a medieval matriarchy?

What of this, that Allah Himself Said “And do not force your girls into prostitution, if they desire chastity, seeking the benefits of worldy life.  And whosoever forces them, then Allah Will Be, after their compulsion, Pardoning and Merciful.”  (Qur-an 24.33)?  Is this not sufficient to free Islam of all the oppression that women like Layla have suffered?  As for why men claiming to be Muslims perpetuate and punish unwilling prostitutes, ask them;  Islam is free of them.

So why don’t we stop accusing Islam altogether, and stop propping up every misguided man and political machination as a bona fide example and proof?  These war-mongering charades are made more transparent by the millions of converts to Islam worldwide, including many, many women from all walks of life.

P.S.  I challenge you to a test of journalistic subjectivity by printing my response to this article.

——-

The challenge was not accepted…

Taking charge of her fate…

Is Muslim violence a proof against Islam?

This is a comment to an article about the role of Zionism in the Norway massacre.

 

Name any nation that is not at war…  you can’t.  Nearly every country in this world is in some sort of conflict.  No matter what religion the majority of their citizens claim.  Read the news:  Buddhist Thailand vs. Buddhist Cambodia, over a temple.  Civil wars and rebels all over the Christian nations of Africa.  The secular and Christian nations of the West occupying, attacking or aiding conflict all over the world.  Zionist Jews in Palestine.  Hindus committing atrocities in Kashmir and against Muslims and Christians in India.  It’s everywhere.  EVERY religion has members that are fighting, that kill innocent people, that commit murder and rape, that embezzle, scandal, scam, scheme and plot, rob, plunder and steal, commit adultery, abandon children, can’t read or write, molest children, bribe their way out of justice, etc., etc., etc….  And secularists, atheists, agnostics, and humanists get in on it too, so don’t blame religion

 

As you can see, a religion’s texts are a proof for or against its members.  They are not a proof for or against it.  You measure a religion by its book, and you measure its members by its book, too.  They either live up to it or fall short of it.

 

Let us look at an example.  It is true that many Christians were at the forefront of abolishing slavery worldwide (many were also the leaders of enslavement).  Should we judge Christianity by that?  According to some places in the Old Testament and Romans 13.1, opposing the laws that allowed slavery were AGAINST what they consider to be the word of God.  In other words, they had to step OUTSIDE Christianity to free slaves.

 

Islam’s Qur-an and Hadeeth (Prophetic narration) literature support abolition and forbid enslavement outside of the context of war-captives when there is no exchange for prisoners.  So while many Muslims were involved in the slave trade, they were stepping OUTSIDE of Islam to keep slaves.

 

Judge them by the book.

 

The United States Constitution and Declaration of Independence, celebrated symbols of freedom, enslave Africans, dispossess Native Americans, deny the rights of non-landowning white males, and deny the rights of all women.  So freedom, justice and equality can only be achieved by stepping OUTSIDE of America’s founding principles.

 

This is why we Muslims argue from our book.  That, not the action of the next Muslim you walk past, is Islam for us.  We only know the Qur-an as Islam.  We don’t know what every Muslim in the world is doing and why, but we will argue as strongly against a (seemingly) good deed as we will against a bad one if it is inconsistent with our law and doctrine.

Oh my God!! They're eating ice cream...

The truth is that Muslims also do a lot of good things, for the sake of Allah, in the name of Islam, to get a reward in heaven, etc.  Find them and what they do.  See, do they outnumber the wrongdoers?  I leave that as an open question to any sincere seeker of accurate information, I won’t answer it for you.

 

Personally- and this is admittedly subjective- I’ve been around the world and read and heard viewpoints from many walks of life.  I was in NYC on 11 September 2001 and accepted Islam there 3 years later.  Islam is my free choice because after research and experimentation, I found it to be the best and most complete way of life.  I won’t lecture you that I’m right, but I assure you that I’m aware and sincere.  See for yourself:  https://qahiri.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/11/

 

So please, do justice to yourself and stop ignoring all the wrongdoing and conflicts involving non-Muslims, and all the good done by Muslims, to prop up an argument that is an offense to intelligence, reason, history and logic.   Islam is singular in its establishment of justice and right.  Why do some Muslims act to the contrary?

 

Ask them.

 

For more on the accusations of rape, sexism/masochism and slavery in Islam:  https://qahiri.wordpress.com/category/stockholm-syndrome/

To see the deceptive and erroneous nature of Islamophobia and WikiIslam exposed:  https://qahiri.wordpress.com/2011/01/06/dealing-with-doubt/

To see whether Islam is incompatible with democracy:  https://qahiri.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/is-democracy-islamist/

To see if there is any difference between Arab culture and Islam:   https://qahiri.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/is-islam-arabian-part-i/

To read what Islam actually is:   https://qahiri.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/what-islam-is/