List of critics of Islam

Criticism of Islam has existed since its formative stages. Early written disapproval came from Jews[1][2][3][4] and Christians,[5][6][7][8][9] before the ninth century, many of whom viewed Islam as a radical Christian heresy,[6][7][8][9] as well as by some former Muslim atheists and agnostics, such as Ibn al-Rawandi.[5] The September 11 attacks and other terrorist attacks in the early 21st century, reignited suspicion and criticism of all of Islam, with calls for moderates to condemn the terrorism of the fundamnatalists and help prevent radicilsation and islamophobia.[10]

Objects of criticism include the morality and authenticity of the Quran and the Hadiths,[11] along with the life of Muhammad, both in his public and personal life.[12][13] Other criticism concerns many aspects of human rights in the Islamic world (in both historical and present-day societies), including slavery,[14][15][16][17] treatment of women, LGBT groups, and religious and ethnic minorities in Islamic law and practice.[18][19] The issues when debating and questioning Islam are incredibly complex with each side having a different view on the morality, meaning, interpretation, and authenticity of each topic.

Middle Ages

Early Modern period

19th century

  • Alexis de Tocqueville, French political thinker and historian, said about Islam: "I studied the Kuran a great deal ... I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammed."[30]
  • John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States (1825–1829), wrote: "In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar [i.e., Muhammad], the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth.[30]
  • Hilaire Belloc, Anglo-French writer and historian.
  • G.K. Chesterton, English writer.
  • Dayanand Saraswati, in his book Satyarth Prakash, he criticized Islam.
  • Pandit Lekh Ram was an Arya Samaj Hindu leader and writer in India who was active in converting Muslims to Hinduism.
  • Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister through most of World War II, criticized what he alleged to be of the effects Islam had on its believers. In his 1899 book The River War he attributed to Muslims their fanatical frenzy combined with fatalistic apathy, enslavement of women, and militant prozelityzing.[31]

Contemporary critics

Muslims

Tarek Fatah is Muslim who advocates liberalism within the religion

Criticism is a tool employed by some Muslim reformers seeking to improve the religion.

  • Chekannur Maulavi-Founder of Quranist Movement in Kerala. Critic of Hadith.[32][33]
  • Ibrahim Al-Buleihi is a Saudi liberal writer, thinker and philosopher who is currently a member of the Saudi Shura Council.
  • Irshad Manji (born 1968), a Ugandan-Canadian of Egyptian and Gujarati descent, is a journalist, Quranist Muslim, and advocate of a "reformist" interpretation of Islam.[34]
  • Tarek Fatah (born 1949) is a Pakistani-Canadian writer and broadcaster, as well as a secular, progressive, and liberal activist.
  • Necla Kelek (born 1957) is a Turkish-German feminist and social scientist.
  • Raheel Raza (born 1949/1950) is a Pakistani-Canadian moderate Muslim critical of "Islamic extremism" and of what she has called "inequality toward Muslim women".[35]
  • Zuhdi Jasser, medical doctor and former Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy, president and founder of American Islamic Forum for Democracy.[36]
  • Stephen Suleyman Schwartz (born 1948) is an American Sufi convert, journalist, columnist, and author. His background is on the traditional political left. He is a critic of Islamic Fundamentalism, especially the Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam.
  • Khalid Duran (1939–2010), born in Spain to Hispano-Moroccan Muslim parents, worked in many countries, was a specialist in the history, sociology and politics of the Islamic world, and coined the term "Islamofascism" to describe the push by some Islamist clerics to "impose religious orthodoxy on the state and the citizenry".[37]
  • Mohammad Tawhidi Muslim influencer and reformist Imam.He has been embraced by a number of far-right and Islamophobic groups.
  • Tufail Ahmad British journalist and political commentator of Indian origin and MEMRI reporter [38][39][40][41][42]
  • Seyran Ateş opened a liberal mosque in Berlin to break with conservative traditions. The mosque caused international backlash from Muslims. Since then she has been living under police protection.

Former Muslims

There are also outspoken former Muslims who believe that Islam is the primary cause of what they see as the mistreatment of minority groups in Muslim countries and communities. Almost all of them now live in the West, many under assumed names as they have had death threats made against them by Islamic groups and individuals.

Converts to other religions

Magdi Allam has criticised Islam since his conversion to Catholicism
  • Nonie Darwish, an Egyptian-American convert to Protestant Christianity who founded the pro-Israel web site Arabs for Israel and stated that "Islam is more than a religion, it is a totalitarian state".[43] She is also the author of Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror.
  • Magdi Allam, an outspoken Egyptian-born Italian journalist who describes Islam as intrinsically violent and characterised by “hate and intolerance”.[44] He converted to Catholicism and was baptised by Pope Benedict XVI during an Easter Vigil service on March 23, 2008.
  • Zachariah Anani, a Baptist Christian and a former Sunni Muslim Lebanese militia fighter. Anani said that Islamic doctrine teaches nothing less than the "ambushing, seizing and slaying" of non-believers, especially Jews and Christians.[45]
  • Anwar Shaikh (1928–2006) was a Pakistani-British author who converted to Hinduism and wrote several books critical of Islam.[46]
  • Sabatina James (born 1982) is a Pakistani-Austrian author and convert to Roman Catholic Christianity who was meant to undergo an arranged marriage with her cousin but escaped and started a new life.
  • Walid Shoebat, a convert to Christianity and a former member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation who took part in terrorist attacks against Israeli targets.[47] He stated that "Secular dogma like Nazism is less dangerous than Islamofascism that we see today ... because Islamofascism has a religious twist to it; it says 'God the Almighty ordered you to do this.' It is trying to grow itself in fifty-five Muslim states. So potentially, you could have a success rate of several Nazi Germanys, if these people get their way."[48]
  • Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a Hamas founder, a former Israeli spy, and a convert to Christianity. He has written Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices.
  • Majed el-Shafie is an Egyptian-Canadian convert to Christianity who was tortured and condemned to death for apostasy in his fatherland. He is the president and founder of One Free World International (OFWI), a human rights organization.
  • Ali Sina, strong critic of Islam, which he left, and the founder of Faith Freedom International, which he describes as a grassroots movement of ex-Muslims.
  • Sarah Haider founded the organization Ex-Muslims of North America after she left Islam. Haider supports other ex-Muslims.
  • Rachid Hammami (born 1971, Morocco) is a Moroccan Christian convert from Islam who hosts a weekly call-in show where he criticizes Islam.
  • Nabeel Qureshi, Ahmadhia Muslim converted to Christianity. His book Seeking Allah and finding Jesus is famous among Christians and Muslims. He had debated with Muslim scholars.

Ex-Muslim irreligionists

  • Ali Dashti-Iranian Senator and critic of Prophet Muhammad in "Twenty Three Years" in Persian.[49]
Writer Salman Rushdie, a former Muslim, wrote The Satanic Verses
  • Ayaan Hirsi Ali (born 1969), Somali-born Dutch-American writer and politician. She has focused on the rights of Muslim women, saying that "they aspire to live by their faith as best they can, but their faith robs them of their rights."[50]
  • Salman Rushdie (born 1947), Indian-British novelist and essayist. His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), was the centre of a major controversy.
  • Taslima Nasrin, Bengali/Bangladeshi ex-physician turned feminist author. She is an atheist and a severe critic of Islam and of religion in general who describes herself as a secular humanist.[51][52]
  • Nyamko Sabuni, Burundian-Swedish atheist, served as the Minister of Integration and Gender Equality (Sweden, 2006–2013) and advocated to ban the veil, as well as establish compulsory gynecological examinations for schoolgirls to guard against female genital mutilation, stating, "I will never accept that women and girls are oppressed in the name of religion", and declaring it is not her intent to reform Islam but only to denounce "unacceptable" practices. She has received death threats, requiring 24-hour police protection, for her views.[53]
  • Irfan Khawaja, professor of philosophy,[54] former head of the Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society (acronymized as "ISIS" but not to be confused with the terrorist organization ISIS).[55]
  • Maryam Namazie, Iranian-born human rights activist, communist, atheist, the leader of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, and a Central Committee member of the Worker-communist Party of Iran, wishing the overthrow of the current Iranian regime.[56]
  • Ibn Warraq, secularist British author born in India and raised in Pakistan, intellectual, scholar and founder of the Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society and a senior research fellow at the Center for Inquiry[57][58][59] specializing in Qur'anic criticism.[60][61]
  • Wafa Sultan, Syrian-American psychiatrist who has pointed out that the Muhammad said: "I was ordered to fight the people until they believe in Allah and his Messenger." Sultan has called on Islamic teachers to review their writings and teachings and remove every call to fight people who do not believe as Muslims.[62] Dr. Sultan is now in hiding as she received threats after appearing on the al-Jazeera TV show.[63]
  • Turan Dursun (1934–4 September 1990), Turkish scholar and author. He worked as a Shi'a cleric before becoming an atheist during his study of the history of monotheistic religions. Dursun was assassinated outside his home in Istanbul.
  • Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–10 November 1938), Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and founder of the secular Republic of Turkey, serving as its first President from 1923 until his death in 1938. Sources point out that Atatürk was a religious skeptic and a freethinker. He was a non-doctrinaire deist[64][65] or an atheist,[66][67][68] who was antireligious and anti-Islamic in general.[69][70] According to Atatürk, the Turkish people do not know what Islam really is and do not read the Quran. People are influenced by Arabic sentences that they do not understand, and because of their customs they go to mosques. When the Turks read the Quran and think about it, they will leave Islam.[71] Atatürk described Islam as the religion of the Arabs in his own work titled Vatandaş için Medeni Bilgiler by his own critical and nationalist views.[72]
  • Yahya Hassan (born 1995), Danish poet of Palestinian background who has attracted attention and stirred debate about Islam's place in Denmark based on poetry he wrote which was critical of Islam.
  • Ehsan Jami (born 1985), Iranian-Dutch socialist politician.
  • Aryaie Rad, Mohammad Reza, Publisher of "Torah in the name of Islam" book, Arya Graphic Publishing center - Iran.

Christians of Mideastern background

Robert Spencer, Melkite Catholic author who has written on Islamic terrorism and jihad

This subsection does not include converts to Christianity from Islam, who are instead listed in the subsection "Former Muslims". There is a large diaspora of Middle Eastern Christians in the West, some of whom have fled persecution in their homelands. In fact, most Middle Easterners in the United States come from Christian families.[73] Most belong to specific ethnoreligious—rather than simply religious—groups, as religion and ethnicity are largely intertwined in the Middle East.

Christians of non-Mideastern background

Baptist minister Jerry Falwell criticised Muhammad

Zionists and observant Jews

Pamela Geller is a Jewish writer and critic of Islam
  • Pamela Geller (born 1958), American conservative author, blogger, commentator, and political activist.[86][87] She is Jewish and has described herself as "a proud, fierce Zionist".[88] Her blog is Atlas Shrugs, the title of which is eponymous with an Ayn Rand novel.[86][89] She is a co-founder of SIOA with Robert Spencer, along with whom she is one of the best-known critics of Islam in the United States today.
  • Daniel Pipes (born 1949), son of Jewish immigrants from Nazi-occupied Poland, is an American historian, writer, and political commentator. He is the president of the Middle East Forum.
  • Bat Ye'or (born 1933), Egyptian-British writer and political commentator. She is from a Sephardi family, whom she was displaced with by the Suez War of 1956. Bat Ye'or has authored a fair number of works on the subject and coined the political neologism "Eurabia".
  • David Horowitz, American writer and policy advocate, founder and current president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, founder of Students for Academic Freedom.[90][91]
  • Geert Wilders, Dutch politician and non-Jewish Zionist of agnostic views, wrote the short film Fitna and has campaigned to ban the Qu'ran in the Netherlands because it conflicts with the Dutch laws and calls for violence in general.[92]
  • Benny Morris, Israeli historian who views the Israel-Palestinian conflict as a facet of a global clash of civilizations between Islamic fundamentalism and the Western World, saying that "There is a deep problem in Islam. It's a world whose values are different. A world in which human life doesn't have the same value as it does in the West, in which freedom, democracy, openness and creativity are alien."[93]
  • Phyllis Chesler (born 1940), American writer, psychotherapist, and professor emerita of psychology and women's studies. In more recent years, Chesler has written several works on such subjects as antisemitism, Islam, and honour killings. Also, she has discussed the failure of organised Western feminism to address Islamic oppression of women due to the former's alliance with leftist currents.
  • David Yerushalmi, Orthodox Jew, is an American lawyer and a political activist who has been called the driving law behind the anti-sharia movement in his country.[94]
  • Debbie Schlussel (born 1969), Orthodox Jew of Polish pedigree, is an American-born attorney, film critic, conservative political commentator, and a blogger.
  • Henryk Broder (born 1946), Polish-German journalist, author, and TV personality.

Members of Indian religions

Indian religions, also known as the Dharmic religions, include Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. This subsection does not include converts from Islam, who are instead listed in the subsection "Former Muslims". See also the List of converts to Hinduism from Islam.

Western irreligionists

Atheist comedian Pat Condell criticises Islam in his YouTube videos

For irreligious former Muslims, see the above subsection "Former Muslims".

Practitioners of traditional African religions

The Traditional African religions are the traditional beliefs and practices of the African people. Some of these traditional beliefs includes the various ethnic religions of Africa.

  • Tamsier Joof (born 1973), British born dancer/choreographer, entrepreneur and radio personality of Senegalese and Gambian heritage expresses the view that: "neither Islam, nor Christianity are peaceful or Godly religions, but wicked and dangerous ideologies which have done nothing but destroyed Africa and her people since they landed on African shores." Tamsier, a devout follower of Serer religion (a ƭat Roog), regard Islam and Christianity as "foreign cults which have caused more damage to Africa and divided her people." He is a strong critic of the powerful Muslim brotherhoods of Senegal, whom he regard as greedy and selfish; and African Muslims and Christians who like to demonise the traditional religions of their forefathers, whom he regard as hypocrites and cowards.[106][107]

Other

  • Alvin Tan (born 1988), Malaysian Chinese blogger, secularist and free-speech activist who has posted online content critical of Islam[108]
  • Howard Bloom (born 1943), American author, atheist, sociologist, and public relations professional in the music industry.
  • Bill Warner (writer)
  • Alice Schwarzer, a German feminist, has been criticizing Political Islam for decades, particularly with regard to women's rights. Schwarzer also goes against contemporary feminists that, according to her, promote said Islam.

References

  1. The Jews [...] could not let pass unchallenged the way in which the Koran appropriated Biblical accounts and personages; for instance, its making Abraham an Arab and the founder of the Ka'bah at Mecca. The prophet, who looked upon every evident correction of his gospel as an attack upon his own reputation, brooked no contradiction, and unhesitatingly threw down the gauntlet to the Jews. Numerous passages in the Koran show how he gradually went from slight thrusts to malicious vituperations and brutal attacks on the customs and beliefs of the Jews. When they justified themselves by referring to the Bible, Mohammed, who had taken nothing therefrom at first hand, accused them of intentionally concealing its true meaning or of entirely misunderstanding it, and taunted them with being "asses who carry books" (sura lxii. 5). The increasing bitterness of this vituperation, which was similarly directed against the less numerous Christians of Medina, indicated that in time Mohammed would not hesitate to proceed to actual hostilities. The outbreak of the latter was deferred by the fact that the hatred of the prophet was turned more forcibly in another direction, namely, against the people of Mecca, whose earlier refusal of Islam and whose attitude toward the community appeared to him at Medina as a personal insult which constituted a sufficient cause for war.
    Richard Gottheil, Mary W. Montgomery, Hubert Grimme, "Mohammed" (1906), Jewish Encyclopedia, Kopelman Foundation.
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