Center for the Study of Political Islam International

Political Islam in numbers

Political Islam has a growing impact on our everyday life and presents a significant challenge to the cornerstones of non-Islamic society. Every day, we are witness to violence, suppression and growing political demands in the name of Islam. Very often, we also hear that similar actions are but a misinterpretation of the Islamic ideology and that the true Islam is something completely different. What is the true nature of Islam? This can be revealed in a statistical analysis of the source texts of Islam conducted by American scientist Dr. Bill Warner.

Trilogy

People often try to grasp Islam on the basis of Koran but it only makes up 14% of the Islamic doctrine and is difficult to understand. It does not contain compact stories, there is no chronological order and it is full of repetitions.

Mohammed is the key to understanding Islam. We can read about Mohammed in his biography, the Sira, and his traditions, the Hadith. These three texts (the Trilogy) – the Koran, the Sira and the Hadith – define Islam and need to be taken as a whole.

Relative sizes of Trilogy texts

Dualism

One of the basic characteristics of the Islamic texts is that they are contradictory. We call this “dualism”. It is difficult for us to accept statements which contradict each other because knowledge in our culture is based on logic. Dualistic character of Islam is based on the life story of its founder, Mohammed. In the Meccan period, when he only attracted a few dozen followers, religious and poetic verses appeared in the Koran. As soon as Mohammed with his followers migrated to Medina and he became a politician and a warrior, the Koranic verses started to be political and encouraged attacks against the non-Muslim (jihad). The number of Muslims grows rapidly in Medina.

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Since the Koran is, by its own assertion, the exact words of Allah as the Angel Gabriel dictated them to Mohammed, all the verses, including the contradictory ones, are considered divine, and therefore universally valid. According to the Koran itself, the Medinan verses, which are chronologically later, are stronger and better.

Natural division of Koran

In public debates, Islamic speakers and apologists often talk about tolerant and positive verses in the Koran. There are 245 verses or 4,018 words in the Koran that say something positive about the non-Muslim (the Kafir). This is about 2.6% of the total Koranic text. However, in each case, the verses are followed by others that make them less important.

Kafir

More than half of the text of the Trilogy is devoted to the Kafir. It is not about being a Muslim, but about the unbeliever. The original meaning of the word Kafir is “one who covers or conceals the known truth”. A Kafir knows that the Koran is true but denies it. The Koran says that the Kafir may be deceived, hated, enslaved, mocked, tortured and killed. The Kafir is everyone who does not accept that Allah is the only god and Mohammed is his messenger. The word “Kafir” is not neutral though; it is a very negative expression. The Kafir is hated by Allah and Mohammed fought with them and tried to force them into submission to Islam. Kafir is actually the word that best defines what Political Islam is.

Text devoted to Kafir

Sharia

The Koran and the Sunna (the perfect example of Mohammed, i. e. the Sira and the Hadith) should be observed by all of humanity. The problem is that the Koran, the Sira and the Hadith are arranged in a way which makes them very difficult to understand. Sharia is the codification of knowledge from the Koran and the Sunna. It is often called “Sharia law”. However, Sharia is not just about law. It also deals with theology, prayer, charity, fasting and sex. There is no aspect of life which would not be covered in Sharia.

Foundation of Sharia

Jews

Jews play an important role in the Islamic doctrine. Mohammed claimed that he was the final prophet of the Abrahamic faith. The Meccan Koran is filled with stories about Jewish figures. Jews are venerated in this part of the Koran. Everything changes in Medina which was a half-Jewish city. The Jews of Medina did not accept Mohammed as the successor of their tradition. Mohammed changes the direction of the prayer from Jerusalem to Mecca and the Koran fills with Jew-hatred and negative verses. Four years later, there is no free Jew left in Medina. The fate of the last Jewish tribe was as follows: approximately 800 Jewish men were killed, women were sold into slavery and children were adopted into Islamic families.

Anti-Jew text

Jihad

Jihad literally means “struggle” or “effort”. It is often claimed that there are two kinds of jihad in the Islamic doctrine – the greater and lesser jihad. The greater jihad is argued to be about spiritual effort or inner struggle. According to CSPII statistical analysis, only 2% of the Bukhari Hadith and 25% of the Sira are devoted to this type of jihad. The remaining 98% of the Bukhari Hadith and 75% of the Sira concerning jihad refer to violence. Due to jihad, Political Islam became successful.

Text devoted to jihad

Women

The Islamic doctrine attributes to women higher, equal and lower status than men (percentages below refer to text related to women).

  • higher status of women (Koran 5% of the text, Hadith 0,6% of the text): Islamic doctrine praises women especially as mothers.
  • equal status of women (Koran 23% of the text, Hadith 10% of the text): Women and men will be judged equally on Judgment Day. Neutral references about women without explicit comments on their status are included in this category, too.
  • lower status of women (Koran 71 % of the text, Hadith 89% of the text): Most of the Islamic doctrine places the woman in an inferior status to men. This includes dividing inheritance, testimony in a court of law or intelligence and religion abilities of both sexes. References to special rules for women which – in comparison to men – limit their freedom are also included in this category.
Women status in Koran
Women status in Hadith

Putting the Islamic doctrine to statistical analysis is a reliable method that sheds light on the true nature of these texts and brings significant data into the discussion about Political Islam. For instance, we can easily describe how the Islamic doctrine approaches the Kafir or what status it attributes to women. We do not need to rely on opinions of political, academic or spiritual authorities any more. We can use facts now.

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