Islamic Fantasy and Reality

Islam’s hollow balloon, its fantasies, and the completely different reality that stands in contrast to them

Those of you who question our studies and knowledge—why do you think we study less than you? When you confidently say we don’t read the Qur’an, Sahih Hadith, Sirah, Tafsir—do you yourselves have the study or knowledge to make that claim? Even in academic life we studied research methodology—how to reference, what is authentic, what is false, what is fabricated—we have at least the minimum common sense to understand these things, you can be sure of that. Don’t twist things pointlessly in order to defend Islam. As bearers of Islam, you should proudly accept as halal whatever Allah has made halal, and focus on defending why it is halal. For example, by Allah’s command, marriage and intercourse with a child is halal in Islam, full stop. We call it rape, a crime against humanity involving a child. But in Islam, there is no “if” or “but” about it. Now start this discussion: why was it necessary for Allah to make this halal? If needed, bring up the argument that if a 9‑year‑old girl has sex with a 53‑year‑old old man, her damaged organs will be magically restored in paradise—if you have such logic (since the Prophet of Islam married Aisha at 6 and consummated the marriage at 9). After that, her husband will mix with the chief of the houris and sit for miles in date orchards eating heavenly figs. Perhaps someone, tempted by the eternal fig or *tīn*, falls in love with Islam and, believing Allah to be all‑powerful, picks up a machete to cut someone’s throat—just as militants do.

You claim—“Islam means peace, Islam is a religion of peace.” According to Islam itself, this claim is false. Islam means submission. To surrender oneself, one’s family, one’s country, one’s life, wealth, and honor to Allah and the Prophet Muhammad without question or doubt—that is Islam. According to Islam, Muslims are like camels with ropes through their noses; the owner—Islam—will graze them, drive them, turn them however it wishes, and they must follow—that is Islam. That is why if anyone makes a mistake about even a small creed of Islam, expresses doubt, or shows an alternative, they are no longer in Islam—they become apostates. And the punishment for apostasy in Islam is death. And if anyone even slightly doubts any action or decision of the Prophet Muhammad, then they are a blasphemer of the Messenger; even if they repent, the punishment is death. Islam is a big prison, with 101 doors to enter but no way out.

You say you read the Qur’an and Hadith. Brother, it is after reading these that we come with questions. A waste of unnecessary time—yet we still read. Because we have to untangle your twisted arguments. Can so much inhumanity, so much superstition, so much nonsense, so much filth, so much brutality exist in the principles of a divine religion? This question—this is not new; we have been asking since class seven or eight. We still ask. And when we see there are no answers, we look at the explanations of big muftis and scholars. There too we see the same things that are in the Qur’an, Sahih Hadith, Tafsir, Sirah. You tell us not to take their words—are these great scholars fools? Didn’t they study in madrasas? Did they become maulana or mufti for nothing? The Grand Muftis’ Council of Saudi Arabia, the respected scholar Maulana Abul A’la Maududi whose funeral prayer was held in front of the Kaaba in Mecca, Ayatollah Khomeini, Darul Uloom Deoband, Mufti Abdur Razzaq bin Yusuf, Delwar Saidi, Mufti Zakaria, Mufti Ibrahim, the head of Pakistan’s Jamaat, Mufti Abbasi, Mufti Tareq Monowar, Mufti Gunbi—are their explanations invalid, and only the eternal, beautiful, imaginary Islam you moderate believers show us is the true Islam? Do you know when someone becomes a mufti? Whenever their statements fail to defend your imaginary Islam, you reject them; and whenever needed, you accept them.

For the sake of spreading Islam, taqiyya—lying, deceiving, trickery—is permissible, we know. The Prophet Muhammad and even Allah Himself did it. You do it too, we know. But you won’t accept Qur’anic Tafsir, you won’t accept Sahih Hadith—you will accept only the imaginary Islam in your mind. Then how can any discussion with you take place? Know this: Islam is not what you imagine it to be. Rather, you should read the Qur’an, Sahih Hadith, Sirah, Tafsir more and more with Bengali translation. When conscience exists within oneself, one begins to question. Eventually you will feel that your imagined Islam is an inflated balloon that bursts with a single pinprick.

Islamists claim that all scientific discoveries in the world were made by researching the Qur’an, that everything was already in the Qur’an. Yet the discoveries were made by non‑Muslims. These people think that NASA and other major research institutions study the Qur’an. And big preachers spread this nonsense. But the fact is, no scientific research institution studies the Qur’an; scientists there don’t even have the opportunity to think about such an unnecessary book, most have never even held it in their hands.

Even if, for the sake of argument, you assume the Qur’an and Hadith were somewhat relevant 1400 years ago, today they cannot be considered relevant by any standard of civilization. Reading the Qur’an and Hadith today is simply a waste of valuable time. In developed countries, ordinary school and college students don’t think about religious scriptures; many don’t even know the names of such books. We have to read the Qur’an and Hadith because we speak Bengali, because we were born in Bangladesh where a large portion of people believe these are the greatest repositories of knowledge in the world. When most people in a region live with such beliefs and ideologies, we have no choice but to examine them, because we expose their emptiness. Even to answer your irrelevant, illogical, fallacy‑filled questions, we have to read.

When questions are raised about the Qur’an and its author, extremist followers of Islam in Bangladesh become ready to behead people. What is in such a book that it can produce millions of fanatics around the world? To understand that, we have to read the Qur’an and Hadith. But this time is simply wasted. These are stagnant knowledge—or pseudo‑knowledge. Knowledge is something that must flow, from which new knowledge emerges. Newton’s laws may seem accurate for now, but if someone proves them wrong, no one will object to accepting the new conclusion. But you cannot correct the errors of the Qur’an even if you want to; Islam does not allow it. Their belief is that no error can exist there.

To prove Islam and the Qur’an to be nonsense, you don’t even need to read everything. Against the claim that the scripture is divine, its bearer the greatest human, the ideal for all time, and that he committed no injustice—showing just one mistake should be enough to burst the balloon of Islam’s superiority. Yet the Qur’an and Hadith contain hundreds of errors, unscientific claims, nonsense, inhumanity, harmful ideas, absurdities, superstitions, and brutality. How can this scripture, this religion, its proponent be divine? Without reading the Qur’an and Hadith, simple conscience and common sense are enough to understand whether modern science, modern law, welfare‑oriented economics, human rights, and human dignity are better—or the nonsensical jumble called Qur’an and Hadith. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to solve this simple equation. The problem is that people cannot easily escape the inflated balloon of Islam that is forcefully embedded in their minds from childhood.