Of all the myths about the Islamic faith, two in particular have resulted in horrific violence, the latest example being the murderous rampage in Paris by two radical Islamists, Cherif and Said Kouachi, who actually believed something that isn’t true. They believed that the Koran prescribes death for anyone who blasphemes the prophet Mohammad, and therefore, in murdering the cartoonists who made fun of Mohammad in the French journal Charlie Hebdo, the Kouachi brothers were, as they put it, “avenging the prophet Mohammad.”
Except that nowhere in the Koran does it say that blasphemy against Mohammad must result in violence — not even a whipping, let alone death. In fact, the Koran is replete with instances of Mohammad’s contemporaries treating him in ways that today would be considered blasphemous, yet there is no call for any punishment against these so-called blasphemers. And by the way, nowhere in the Koran is it forbidden to re-create images of Mohammad.
Rather, the death-deserving sin of blaspheming the Prophet Mohammad is entirely the creation of radical Imams and other Islamic clerics whose political agenda includes death to all infidels and the establishment of a global caliphate in which everyone must convert to Islam and follow Sharia law.
The second myth, which, in their purposeful martyrdom, the Kouachi brothers also believed, is that the Koran contains language encouraging suicide in the name of Islam, and therefore all who purposely give up their lives in the cause of Jihad — the Islamic “Holy War” against infidels — will be rewarded with a trip to Paradise and the service of 72 virgins.
Actually, the Koran specifically forbids the followers of Islam from killing themselves for any reason whatsoever. What is more, in the Hadith — the teachings and observations of the Prophet Mohammad — Mohammad repeatedly condemns suicide, stating that the punishment for this act is to burn forever in Hell.
Once again, this myth was promulgated by radical Islamists, particularly members of al-Qaeda, who realized that suicide missions — self-detonating bombs and flying planes into buildings, for example — was the only way to successfully attack the West, and so the Koran’s language and Mohammad’s teachings were twisted into outright lies.
Ironically, there is one Holy Book that does call for death to anyone who blasphemes God. In the Old Testament, Leviticus 24:16, it reads, “Anyone who blasphemes the Lord is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner or native born, when they blaspheme the Name, they are to be put to death.”
Meaning the Judeo-Christian practice today is to ignore a radical tenet clearly written in its Holy Scripture, while radical Muslims today are willingly, but mistakenly, following a radical tenet that is nowhere to be found in theirs.
