"Hi! Sorry to bother you; I know you probably get asked this a lot, but do you ever struggle with your faith because of your sexuality? - Anon."
Malik Ishtar is a Muslim journalism student who works for a freelance newspaper, and he lives in San Fra...
Hey guys! Here's chapter six. I wanted to post today cause of my birthday and I honestly just really like posting things. Anyway here you go. This is a heavier chapter so take care.
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Malik ran a hand through his hair as he sent the article to his beta reader. The Sword Verse. He had held off on posting it because of Isis, but now there was no reason to do so.
"Hey." Mehi leaned over the couch. "Another article?"
Malik nodded slowly, flicking over it again, even though it was already sent. "Yeah. I had a good few that Isis wouldn't want me to post so..." He shrugged.
"What's this one about?"
"How as a religion, Islam needs to remove all references to killing the infidels and actually criticise extremist groups if we want to be seen as a modern religion." Malik hesitated at Mehi's silence. "Did I go a bit too far?"
Mehi hummed and sat beside him on the couch. "Here, let me have a look." He passed the laptop over to her and she clicked into the article.
Islam is portrayed by Western media to be a religion of terror, oppression, and violence, which is a fair assumption, given our track record. We have more world-recognised acts of religious violence than any of the five major world religions, which is bad enough, but we as a religion fail to condemn these acts - though it is important to note that many terrorist acts from other monotheistic religions are disregarded. However, this is also due to the removal of all references to the murder of infidels, and the condemning of these acts by the religious authorities of these religions.
A large part of this is due to passages such as the Sword Verse. Islam is the only major monotheistic religion that has still failed to remove parts in our religious text referencing killing the infidels. Now to assume that this is a literal meaning is to assume that all parts of the Qur'an are literal when it is known that Muhammad often spoke through metaphors. However, it is hard to consider this to be anything but a call to physical action against any non-Muslims.
We must remove these passages and publicly condemn extremist groups to be seen as anything other than a hateful, violence-ridden religion.
Mehi pursed her lips as she read the rest of the article. "I can see why you waited to post it," she said slowly. Malik nodded. "And I don't disagree with your points, but I think you're going about it the wrong way."
"What do you mean?" Malik raised an eyebrow.
Mehi set the computer on the coffee table, crossing her legs. "I think you've taken a very outsider-ish view on the topic. You need to look at it both from within Islam and outside. Not just one or the other." She looked at the screen and grimaced. "And calling Islam a violent and oppressive religion is really not the right way to go unless you want to get a bunch of right wing followers." Malik chewed his lip. "You could also bring in parts of the Qur'an that condemn such violence from groups like Da'esh and say that by not condemning them, religious authorities aren't acting in accordance with what the prophet wanted."
