Open Letter to Osama Bin Laden-Reply to Convert

To: aljazeerapublishing
[Disclaimer Note to Al Jazeera:
I am sending this along on behalf of a friend who asked me to so she can remain anonymous. I am just the messenger. Please don't shoot the messenger, though that's pretty common amongst you, isn't it?]

I Invite you to convert to Christianity; A reply to Osama Bin Laden and to all Muslims.

You have just invited Americans to become Muslims. If Americans were unfamiliar with, or complacent about Islam before 9-11, that certainly was a wake-up call that compelled Americans to look at Muslims and Islam with the utmost scrutiny. For this wake-up call the world should be grateful to you.

You invite us to join Islam? I suspect by this time we know Islam intimately and its history better than even you do. You see, you have only had the interest to study the book known as the Qur’an from its insides, words written within that you follow and love so dearly.

But there is more. What about the foundations and history of this book? You have compelled us to study these, to look at what history has to say outside the Quran about Mohammed and this religion he preached. Let me share with you some of the undisputed facts about Islam.

Before Mohammed ‘cleansed’ the Kabba of many idols, it was in fact a pagan temple dedicated by Hindus (although they weren’t called Hindus yet). The tribe of Mohammed followed a primary idol known as Durga, the moon god Al-llat who was represented by the crescent moon to the Arabs and the Hindus.

Even before Mohammed claimed prophetic visions he wanted to be a Hebrew (obviously people he admired for their intelligence and beauty) and so he began emulating the Hebrews and their monotheism, but the Jews could not accept Mohammed (for a lot of legitimate reasons, primarily because Biblical law is very strict about how prophets are to be chosen by God and Mohammed did not fill the Bible's own instructions, thus he could not have been a prophet of the same Bible. That would be a contradiction).

And so Mohammed became angry with the Jews and Chrisitians and turned against them and began having his visions of his own god in his own way. God ceased to be called by the name Ar-Rahman and Mohammed began using the word Al-Llah to describe his god.

This was never the Christian or Hebrew Yahweh ( Elohei Avraham, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob), but the pagan Arab-Hindu Al-Lat of the Qurashi tribe. (Al simple meant ‘the’ and ilah meant ‘goddess’, not God).

Thus we also went from descriptions of Paradise full of light and angels and the face of God, to promises of Paradise for men and their 72 virgins and unlimited young boys, food, and pleasures.

Well, this was a novel new approach if nothing else! Mohammed even reinvented Heaven!

How did the association of Islam with violence and the sword begin? Why even before Mohammed thought to call his religion Islam (submission) and to call his god Allah (Durga) cowardly night killings of all dissenters was sanctioned by Mohammed himself.

Consider the horrific deaths of these elderly men and poetesses; al Harith b. Suwayed b. Samit, Abu Afak, Asma b. Marwan, those killed by Amr Umayya. And then began those times when Mohammed broke with all the established rules of warfare and made raids during religious holy days and against caravans and peoples he only ‘suspected’ might be against him.

No one had to make a move toward Mohammed. He always attacked first. Well, let's not forget that he often sent letters just like yours warning people to become Muslims before he used violence against them. Altogether he raised 65 military campaigns and was still ordering warfare on his deathbed.

All this raised the question: “What makes a man of God if not his own deeds and good conduct?"

If Mohammed lied, ordered illegal attacks and warfare even against poetesses, called people decendents of monkies and pigs, cursed them to hell, what manner of man would do such things? A godly man? Not compared with men like Buddha and Jesus!

And now we come to the 21st century. The entire world speaks excitedly of men and women exploring the stars together, colonizing other planets, and all being democratic and equal. But not Islam. Not Muslims. You instead invite all Americans to go backward in time, to live as 15th century Arabs when women must remain second class citizens, covered head to toe, and unequal to the intelligence of man.

Honestly Osama, I don’t know of one American woman (or man for that matter) who wants to go backward instead of forward financially, intellectually, in education, in science.

You are but a victim yourself from a country and a belief system that is trapped, locked in a faraway time and place that you think was great and wonderful but in fact was cruel and brutal. You want us to cut off hands, behead innocent captives, and stone people to death in some backward leap in time and yet you dare tell us this is ‘better?’ Better than what?

Jesus was a prophet of gentleness who never had to threaten or kill anyone. Even while facing his death he did not utter curses or words of damnation against anyone. He forgave them. He would probably forgive you too Osama, although I personally consider that a stretch. You have a lot of innocent blood on your hands, something you seem proud of, but something Jesus may find sad and shocking.

You invite us to join Islam, but we have done our study of your religion and find it seriously wanting in kindness, intelligence, equality, opportunity, devoid of spirituality (although not devoid of mindless prayers five times a day) cruel and backward. Since you gave the entire world that ‘wake-up call’ on 9-11, and so much more, like bombing the Bamiyan Buddha, India Parliament, Bali, Madrid, and the endless verbal and terrorist attacks against Jews, Christians, and Buddhists around the world, we have considered Islam and we reject it.

That leaves all Muslims only one alternative. I invite all Muslims to leave Islam and become Christians, or Jews, or Buddhists, or even Hindus, Sikhs, or Zoroastrians. Islam now has the fastest and largest rate of conversions of all religions in the world. In the first year after the 9-11 attacks over 2 million Muslims left Islam for other religions, primarily Christianity.

Each year the number leaving Islam grows larger. I urge you to join them now Osama, and I urge all Muslims around the world to leave that insanity as fast as possible and join the side of rational, intelligent, spiritual human beings who will love you and wlecome you out of 15th century Arabia and into the 21st century Space Age.

Welcome to Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, or Zoroastrianism: good sides of mankind.

Aisha Shameem