In what could probably be the most ironical ‘irony of silence’, the mighty Western world, in the face of the Quranic assault against its Christian faith in the mosques, madrasas and mohallahs that too on its own soil, had come to adopt the mute mode! Not only that, the redoubtable Pope of the day, in the Supreme seat of the Catholic power, whose predecessors ushered in the crusades against Mohammedans to recover their Holy Lands in Middle East, remains a mute spectator even as Islamist immigrants have been aggressively asserting their faith all over Europe these days.

Just for the uninitiated, here are a few samples of the Quranic assaults against the Christians, and Jews as well, from Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall’s The Meaning of the Glorious Quran.

“They indeed have disbelieved who say: Lo! Allah is the Messiah, son of Mary. Say: Who then can do aught against Allah, if He had willed to destroy the Messiah son of Mary, and his mother and everyone on earth? Allah’s is the Sovereignty of the heavens and the earth and all that is between them. He createth what He will. And Allah is Able to do all things.”

“They surely disbelieve who say: Lo! Allah is the third of three; when there is no God save the One God. If they desist not from so saying a painful doom will fall on those of them who disbelieve.”

“O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and Christians for friends. They are friends one to another. He among you who taketh them for friends is (one) of them. Lo! Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk.”

“They long that ye should disbelieve even as they disbelieve, that ye may be upon a level (with them). So choose not friends from them till they forsake their homes in the way of Allah; if they turn back (to enmity) then take them and kill them wherever ye find them, and choose no friend nor helper from among them.”

And ominously, “All they who disbelieve and deny our revelations, such are rightful owners of hell.”

“We shall cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve because they ascribe unto Allah partners, for which no warrant hath been revealed. Their habitation is the Fire, and hapless the abode of the wrong-doers.”

Besides, Jehovah, in His Islamic avatar as Allah, was no kinder either to the Jews, His Chosen People:

“The likeness of those who are entrusted with the Law of Moses, yet apply it not, is as the likeness of the ass carrying books. Wretched is the likeness of folk who deny the revelations of Allah. And Allah guideth not wrong doing folk.”

“Say (O Muhammad): O ye who are Jews! If ye claim that ye are favoured of Allah apart from (all) mankind, then long for death if ye are truthful.”

“But they will never long for it because of all that their own hands have sent before, and Allah is Aware of evil-doers.”

“Say (unto them, O Muhammad): Lo! the death from which ye shrink will surely meet you, and afterward ye will be returned unto the Knower of the invisible and the visible, and He will tell you what ye used to do.”

However, it is another matter that having all along castigated the Christians for having made Jesus and Mary partners to Allah, Muhammad, in Quran’s ninth sura that proclaims the immunity from obligation towards the idolaters, had himself partnered Allah by way of “Freedom from obligation (is proclaimed) from Allah and His messenger toward those of the idolaters with whom ye made a treaty”! Surely, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Be that as it may, the evangelists, who lay great store on the Christian path of salvation and prowl all over the planet earth to snare the so-called heathens into the fold of Jesus, fail on their very own Christian turf to silence the mullahs and maulvis, who ridicule their faith. Though this may appear strange, actually it is easy to comprehend for wittingly or unwittingly, Muhammad, with the following Quranic links, had ensured that any criticism of Islam by the Jews and the Christians would undermine their own faith thus:

“Lo! We did reveal The Torah, wherein is guidance and a light, by which the Prophets who surrendered (unto Allah) judged the Jews, and the rabbis and the priests (judged) by such of Allah’s Scripture as they were bidden to observe, and thereunto were they witnesses. So fear not mankind, but fear Me. And barter not My revelations for a little gain. Whoso judgeth not by that which Allah hath revealed: such are disbelievers.”

“And We caused Jesus, son of Mary, to follow in their footsteps, confirming that which was (revealed) before him, and We bestowed on him the Gospel wherein is guidance and a light, confirming that which was (revealed) before it in the Torah – a guidance and an admonition unto those who ward off (evil).”

“Say: O People of the Scripture! Ye have naught (of guidance) till ye observe the Torah and the Gospel and that which was revealed unto you from your Lord. That which is revealed unto thee (Muhammad) from thy Lord is certain to increase the contumacy and disbelief of many of them. But grieve not for the disbelieving folk.”

So, as disputing the Quran would tantamount to debunking the Torah and the Gospel, more so as the nature of their God is the same, as under, so to say, Muhammad’s one-upmanship had pushed his Semitic cousins and the Gentile converts into a catch-22 situation, much before Joseph Heller came up with it.

“And We prescribed for them therein: The life for the life, and the eye for the eye, and the nose for the nose, and the ear for the ear, and the tooth for the tooth, and for wounds retaliation. But whoso forgoeth it (in the way of charity) it shall be expiation for him. Whoso judgeth not by that which Allah hath revealed: such are wrong-doers.”

It’s thus a theological silence prevails in the evangelical world to its own detriment what with the Western Christians in numbers are embracing Islam that is regardless of its terror tag.

However, when it comes to Hindus, they suffer from the bliss of ignorance, for somehow (God knows how!) they have come to assume that the precepts of all religions could not be but noble, never mind the ignoble practices of some of their followers. But in effect, they, sans the Semitic exclusivist religious baggage, are the best placed to engage with Islam that has become a scourge of humanity by way of impressing upon the ummah that while the Mecca suras make Quran the noblest of scriptures, its egregious Medina suras, meant to serve Muhammad’s mundane mission, not Musalman’s spiritual needs, being period, should be treated as such.

More on Islamic ethos in Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal strife