On this blessed occasion of the Fitr Eid that marks the passage of the month of Ramadan I would like to wish all my brothers and sisters in humanity (especially my Christian brothers and sisters) a happy and prosperous life filled with peace and justice.
I honestly believe that the lessons we should learn from Ramadan transcend the need to merely deprive ourselves of sustenance but rather that we need to each look inside ourselves and be true enough to realize that we all have faults and need to admit that they exist then seek to address them.
As a Muslim, I need to come to terms with the reality that even though Islamic literature and traditions may seem "beautiful" and "peaceful" there are, nonetheless, innumerable pieces of evidence in our own scriptures that do preach hatred and downright intolerance. This may come as an uncomfortable issue to some; truly, the notion that we may have to review and revise our historical literary works to eliminate the faux-Islam teachings may seem inconceivable to some yet it is incumbent upon us to do so in order to deprive anyone of the ability to sow discord among us or between us and people of other faiths!
Think about it this way: every day we see videos of "Islamic" hardliners, namely Wahhabis and Salafis, chopping heads, killing, destroying, etc. and we have become programmed to denounce this with the standard phrase "this does not represent Islam"...so? Since when has this been enough? By the way, I am fully aware of the existence of False Flag attacks taking place over the world with US, Israeli, European, Arab intelligence agencies where Muslims may be portrayed as terrorists but the fact remains, Islamic hardliners exist and scores of them are in Syria right now carrying out unspeakable acts.
The shocking truth is that these US led fanatics believe that they are carrying out their "Islamic" teachings to the letter and when you look into it, they really are carrying out the actions of some of their predecessors (khawarjites, for example) whose teachings have seeped and crept through our literature over the centuries so much so that they have become fixtures for some Muslims.
The point is this, I hold nothing but respect for my Christian brethren and despite the differences in our teachings we manage to engage in constructive, educational and respectful dialogue whenever the chance arises. So when I am asked to explain the contradiction between the claim that Islam is a religion of peace and the fact that there are Islamic teachings that preach violence and hatred then I need to be honest with myself...our Islamic heritage is riddled with countless traditions of false-Islam that we need to have the balls and review then remove completely.
I started out on a mission recently to do just that: identifying the false traditions, researching them and attributing them to the true historical culprits who falsely inserted their hate-filled teachings and attributed them to our Prophet. Yet the hardest part remains...to get others to rise above the notion that "we cannot discuss these matters" or that "we cannot criticize the actions of the companions of the Prophet" even though history shows that they were awful human beings who happen to be the equivalent of modern day ISIS or worse...Zionists.
Let's start the cleanup process and weed out the dirt from our heritage...only then can we truly understand what our religion is and what it is not.
Peace to all.