What is Islam?

Despite Islam, in one form or another, dominating the news for over forty years, most non-Muslims would still struggle to provide an accurate quote from the Quran or to summarise the life of Mohammed. Serious evaluation of the influence of Islamic doctrine upon current affairs is almost completely absent from the discussion of them by politicians, journalists and academics in the mainstream media, and is increasingly being censored from social media. To express any criticism of Islam publicly is to routinely incur accusations of being ‘far right’ or ‘Islamophobic’ and indulging in ‘hate speech’. Even to do so privately amongst friends, is to risk breaching a deep social taboo (and often to attract warnings to take care for one’s safety).

The following tract has been written as an introduction to Islam and ten ethical teachings contained in the Quran that are in conflict with the values of secular liberal democracy (each of which is analysed in greater detail in a separate paper below).

Islam: Uncontested Facts and Irrefutable Reason

Fact files for factphiles

The Quran as it was Practised and Preached by Mohammed

Below are a series of ten papers each of which analyses in detail an instructions contained in the Quran that is inconsistent with secular liberal democracy. To counter any suggestion of ‘cherry picking’ verses out of their proper textual or historical context, each verse is presented with:

key words and phrases in up to 16 leading English translations of the Quran;
traditional accounts of the circumstances in which the relevant verses came to be announced;
related Quranic verses;
the historical context provided by the recorded life of Mohammed;
its interpretation in each of the four main schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and
explanations of the verse given in classical Quranic commentaries.