When you look at all these rulings individually, it's bad enough, but when you start looking at them in context of one another, you soon get how atrocious this whole IslamQA network of bullshit really is.
Like, there's rulings about how it's okay to take Kuffar as slaves only when you're at war with them, but then there's another ruling that mentions that Islam is at war with everyone that's not either muslim or submits to muslim rule and pays the kuffar-tax.
And even then, when the "end times" draw near, it's either being a muslim or getting your head chopped off.
It's insane.
Without really looking too much into Islam, undoubtedly there's passages that do have merit. Such as taking care of poor people - I know there's a part that rhetorically asks "How can your neighbor be starving when you yourself are well fed?" somewhere in the Quran. Or it tells muslims to always act morally good, such as not stealing from anyone, since muslims should be virtuous and a role model to others (even non-believers) so they might inspire people to become muslims or to adhere to its values...
And as per usual, the texts themselves are less important than what the believers make of them. Terrible, bigotted assholes will preach terrible, bigotted bullshit - open-minded, tolerant people will preach open-mindedness and understanding.
But there is a significant fraction of muslims that just seem to be completely out of their minds if they just adhere to even half the shit that IslamQA tells them to. And another significant fraction of so-called moderate muslims might not really share these views, but they still don't really oppose them either.
Keep in mind I'm Christian and have a built in bias because of that, but I shall try to keep this based on objective fact regardless.
Islam has a fundamental problem with the concept of peace as is understood in it's most general sense because, when you get down to it, Islam has spread more by the sword historically than by peace.
Judaism technically can claim the same in theory if you count the conquering of Canaan in the Bible, but that was more a "get off my land so we can have it" in practice.
Christianity, on the other hand, it deliberately spread further via nonviolence than through violence. They even have a saying for it:
"The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church."
Sure, there were various European powers who tried to impress religious worship of Christianity up until a few centuries ago, but it was never as effective as when they let people believe or not of their own free will, and it's built into Christianity that you DON'T need to use the law of Man to make people follow the law of God, and such practice has virtually ceased in every civilized nation today where Christianity took firm root.
Jesus even made an explicit point of this when the Pharisees tried to trick him with the "should we pay taxes to Caesar?" question, pointing out the face on the coins of the time were those of Caesar, so to give to Caesar's what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's. He also went on at length about how he had no intention of establishing an earthly kingdom but a spiritual one.
tl;dr; Christianity is rather tailor made to spread via willful conversion than by forcible oppression.
Islam is quite different. It's own history is built on the premise of its founder waging war to spread the word of Allah. It's historical fact that after Muhammad's death that practice continued for the longest time, and Islam immediately experienced a contraction in followers the minute the threat of the sword eased up, as can be exemplified in every country where Islam was enforced by Man and then that no longer applied.
I emphasize that not everyone follows Islam out of fear of Man's retribution. Like the other "People of the Book", many of it's adherents are willfully submissive to Allah and would rather face death then deny Allah, and there is nothing wrong with that, but as the subject of this thread is dedicated to, there are those who literally are forced by decrees of Men to follow their God, or in many cases they will be put to death either by the state or by fanatics whose faith in Allah is so weak they feel they have to make sure other Muslims follow him out of fear than out of willful reverence.
Which should explain all the crazy rulings this thread is dedicated to and the underlying logic behind their authority.
