the biggest story on earth

The biggest story on earth at the moment is the cultural shockwave slowly engulfing Islam from critiques by an array of internet based commentators who are subjecting the Prophet Muhammed and his faith to what seems almost unprecedented historiographical scrutiny.

What is equally unprecedented is that many Muslims are talking to these new critics of Islam instead of murdering them.

In significant numbers, Muslims are reading their works, engaging with their ideas, clearly wishing to test honestly and intellectually whether their insights are true or not, rather than simply using violence to silence them.

I repeat.

This is unprecedented.

The most notable of the new commentators on Islam are American philosopher David Wood and British street debater Hatun Tash who both pronounce themselves Christians, along with ex Muslims some of who now also pronounce themselves Christians such as Al Fadi and Brother Rachid, and other ex Muslims some of whom pronounce themselves atheists such as Abdullah Sameer and Ridvan Aydemir.

David Wood is unusual in being a Westerner who actually knows the sources of Islam, the Quran, and the Hadith (sayings attributed to the Prophet) from which the written repositories of the Islamic faith are drawn.

The former Muslim commentators in this debate are unusual in their role in that they haven't yet been murdered (the sentence for apostasy from Islam is death) and in that they know Islam from the inside.

The contrivance of red lines, sensitive limitation points within speech, things you just can't say and for which a Muslim will kill you if you do say them, has been the key definitor of debate within Islam and between Muslims and non Muslims for thirteen centuries.

In the past few weeks David Wood and his fellow internet apologists have made 1300 years of red lines irrelevant.

For centuries, the power brokerages within Islam treated criticisms of the Prophet Muhammed as an excuse to commit murder.

Muslims used any critical assessment of the Quran likewise as an excuse to murder.

Muslims used any attempt by a Muslim to leave Islam as an excuse to murder.

As recently as the year 2006, Muslims around the world were rioting because Pope Benedict had referred to a remark from the 14th century Emperor Manuel Palaiologos of Constantinople who had said in a letter to a Muslim leader: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." Benedict merely quoted from the letter but did not point out that the Muslims of the era had repaid the emperor for the frankness of his remarks by stealing his country, the Byzantine empire, within a short period of his lifetime and in 1453 turning it into Turkey.

La plus se change, la plus se reste meme.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

As recently as 2015, Muslims were murdering people at a magazine office in France for printing cartoon images of the Prophet Muhammed.

The attacks on the magazine were folllowed up the same year with generalised Jihad attacks on Paris. Muslims killed 130 people in the later attacks.

We might also mention the bombing of children and adults at a pop concert in Manchester in 2017 where Muslims murdered 22 people.

Then there's the Muslim truck rammings, stabbings, beheadings and shootings across America and Europe which are proliferating but which media groups are sweeping under the carpet faster than you can say: "Police believe the killer was mentally ill."

Funny.

I'd have thought calling Muslims mentally ill when they kill for Islam would be a racist thing to do. 

Anyhoo.

David Wood prints a couple of cartoon pictures of Mohammed every week.

He has incepted an internet TV show called Mohammed's Boom Boom Room with guests interviewed by an actor portraying the Prophet and each show ending with the Prophet self detonating.

He has also created a broadcast series entitled Islamicise Me whose potential capacity to cause offense, was only partially mitigated by its precise enumerating of Muslim sources for every single controversial representation of Islam which it contained. The whole thing seemed a little shoddy to me, with generally poor acting, and weak production values. (The music was good though.)

David Wood's delicatesse in assessing the Prophet Muhammed is evinced by his frequent statements to wit:

"The Prophet Muhammed married a six year old girl."

"The Prophet Muhammed was a seventh century caravan raider."

"The Prophet Muhammed was the most obvious false prophet in history."

What is unique about David Wood's analysis is that it has gotten the attention of Muslims.

Muslim parents are purportedly complaining to their Imams that David Wood is drawing young Muslims away from Islam.

No less a power broker than the Islamic government of Pakistan ( I kid you not) repeatedly lodges complaints about David Wood to the Youtube internet service provider which hosts his videos.

What we might call chest thumping Muslims like the famously aggressive British campaigner Mohammed Hijab (who has been known to challenge debating opponents to fight him) have sought to orchestrate staged complaints to internet service providers in an attempt to get David Wood banned.

Yet sincere thinking Muslims more and more wish to affirm their faith by showing they can answer David Wood intellectually and by checking out for themselves his assertions via respected historical accounts.

If David Wood is wrong, they believe, it should be possible to answer all his arguments without recourse to murder in order to silence him.

The former reliance on murder as a key tool of Muslim apologetics no longer convinces young Muslims of the truth of their faith.

They require something more.

The red lines are gone.

Now that's a story.

Of couse this story is not being reported in the media.

It's only the biggest story on earth after all.

As for me and the Prophet Muhammed...

A supposed Muslim challenged David Wood to name some good things about the Prophet. David Wood challenged his own viewers to do the same.

Here goes.

The Prophet Muhammed enjoined his followers to charitable giving.

He taught them to pray constantly.

He preached the truth of the reality of God.

His Quran enunciates beautiful and true names for God.

Some Muslims are good people.

Perhaps they are a credit to him.

In that case he may not be a false prophet.

And Islam may not be a false religion.