Re: Forced Conversions to Islam (in Kerala)
Muslims should not be apologists to their faith. As far as Islam is concerned, there is no ambuiguity at all. Why are Muslims trying to avoid the inevitable 'clash of civilizations' by appealing to the 'moderate and educated Muslims' ?
The 'moderate and educated Muslims' are Muslims only by birth, and not by 'believing' faith. They are ignorant about the faith but wish to accomodate the western ideas by ascribing alien interpretations to Islam because they want to remain in the 'Burger Class' and not be kicked out of it just for being Muslims. They are understandably confused.
The Muslims by faith are 'correctly' those Jihadis who want to bring down the entire western civilization. Nothing odd about that. This is the path all major powers have taken throughout known history towards opposing powers. That was indeed the aim of Mongols when they ransacked the Abbasid Baghdad and brought an end to the original Islamic civilization which was more 'enightened' than any other civilization existing at the time. Why do we forget? The original Islam took into account all these realities.
The fundamental mistake people make in defining Islam is terming it as a religion, while it is actually a 'political' movement 'guided' by a certain faith.
Who said Islam is a religion of peace? It is a completely false notion. Islam is no more about peace than was the Roman empire. It is an expansionist philosophy just as the Romans and the Greeks aimed at global domination, in which it at-least partly suceeded and persevered for 1300 years from 7th century right uptill early 20th century with the fall of the Ottomans. That is more than any other politico-military force in known history.
The decision about whether Islam was a peaceful spiritual movement, or a militant-political one was made long ago on the actual day of Muhammad (S) death. The question was whether the successor should be a spiritual one to maintain the 'message' or a politically expedient temporal one with the suitable skills and social status. It was decided that the eternal spiritual message had been completed and now it was time to consolidate and expand with a temporal successor. So Abu Bakr was nominated. Ali may have been the spritual choice being 'Ahl-e-Bait' but none of the Ahl-e-Bait were invited to be on the selecting committee. So the choice was made. Even the Ansaar of Medina, the die-hard loyalists of Muhammad (S) were sidelined in the process and continued to be sidelined but remained faithful anyway right till the end to whomever was the Caliph. None of them betrayed any of the Khulfa-e-Rashideen when many of the prophet's own companions of Quraish from post-Fatah Mecca period did so.
There are many conflicting traditions as to which future path Muhammad (S) himself might have taken, or whether he was prevented or sabotaged from naming a successor on his death bed. So we can only carry on from the beginning of the Caliphates.
Abu Bakr consolidated Arabia and put down apostacies, Umar expanded into ALL neighbouring regions of Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Persia, Palestine etc and brought an end to the Sassanids and the Byzantines hold. Usman got hold of regions across the seas like Cyprus and Rhodes before falling to internal conflicts. Ali fell prey to the repercussions of Usman's assasination and largely had a failure of a caliphate full of betrayals by the most trusted and saw his empire shrinking till his violent end. Hassan abdicated in favour of Muwai'ya and Hussain was beheaded by Muwi'yas son Yazeed. That was the end of any spiritual message to be conveyed further. All the Ahl-e-Bait had been summarily dealt with.
What Muhammad (S) himself did at Khaibar was meticulously followed later by the temporal caliphs, albeit at a much larger scale. The political principles followed were simple. Only three choices:
(1) Become Muslim; or
(2) Pay Jizziya (Protection money); or
(3) Pick up the sword and get ready to die.
These are still the three choices.
Islam recognised long ago that 'might is right'. So be it. Muslims should not be apologists to their faith. They must come up and 'say' that yes, Islam is militant, and looking for global domination, and yes it will bomb and kill and behead towards that goal. So what? Is that too different from what everyone else did throughout the centuries towards the same end?