When I contend that Islam is inherently racist and murderous, I often hear the counter that if I am right, why are there so many nice Muslims? I certainly confirm that the Muslims I know and work with are gentle, beautiful and sometimes pious people. So what could explain these seemingly contradictory evidences?
There are simple answers to why there are nice Muslims despite the violent and hateful teachings and life of Mohammed:
1. Mohammed copied many positive morals from Judaism and Christianity, so to some extent, any good found in Islam may not have arisen with Mohammed. In fact, since it claims that Abraham, Moses, and Jesus were prophets, this is to be expected.
2. Mohammed began with positive teachings, but digressed into hateful, murderous teaching as he was persecuted and as his power as a warlord grew. This mix of teaching allows Muslims to choose to ignore or hide his more hateful acts and teachings and convince themselves (and some others) that Islam is peaceful.
3. Here’s the main reason, people are born with a conscience, and their own humanity teaches them that certain acts and perspectives are evil. Most Muslims, like most humans, want to live in peace and in harmony with their neighbors, and anyone with a little maturity realizes that our perspectives change over time, and we want to give others the freedom to choose that we ourselves would want.
So most Muslims are nice, not because Islam lacks violent and hateful tenets, but because their humanity causes them to want to avoid and ignore these things. The reason they are nice may actually lie, not only in their humanity, but in fear:
A lot of times in the West abused women are nice people – because people are nice doesn’t mean that this whole reality isn’t going on. Then we have to dig deeper and ask – why should nice people object to freedoms and individual rights – maybe they are nice but also brainwashed people.
Muslims cannot question Islam – in the West we know that that is the hallmark of a religious cult.1
The only way one can adopt the total perspective of Mohammed is to (a) give themselves over to hate and murder against their better judgment, or (b) convince themselves, as many Germans did under Nazism, that what they are doing, like killing Jews or non-Muslims, is good for society and mankind, or good because Allah commands it.