Musings on Death and Islam

Life and Death among the “Religion of Peace”

Barry Sommer

Death.  The end of life.  Cease to exist.  Dust to dust.  We yearn for life but recognize death as integral.  We strive to live each second as we prepare for the afterlife. 

I am not afraid of death, not any more.  Younger days did not allow for thoughts of mortality, nor of ways in which this end might come.  Even powering my motorcycle through impossible turns and traffic, the thought of meeting my maker was so far off the radar screen that even when sliding on my backside at 90mph did not trigger the need to see a potential threat to my existence.

Now, approaching 60 the mortality absent from my early days is here, tempered with the belief that when it is time to go home it will be OK.  That softens all the nasties associated with shuffling off the mortal coil, and makes passage to the other side that much more pleasant.  Going in my sleep, that would be the preferred method, but however it is meant to be, well there you go.

When the journey began to study Islam, I did not think about the possible consequences, I merely wanted to learn as much as I could.  I believed, as I still do today, that knowledge is the most important tool one can have and to know is to understand.  As I became immersed in reading and studying Islam it became apparent that the subject, historically and factually interesting at it was, held a dark secret; no one was supposed to talk about what they really knew Islam to be.  Those that did received the most terrible punishments, never to be heard from again.

Islam demands death for anyone who insults or disparages the religion, Muhammad, Allah or the Qur’an.  Death for those who renounce Islam, practice another religion or try to convert Muslims away from Islam is the norm.  Women who are raped, or have illicit affairs are murdered with rocks, homosexuals are thrown from buildings for demeaning Islam and any slight perceived to be against anything Islamic means almost certain death. 

My words demand my death.  What I write, and say on my TV show calls for a Muslim to take my head.  What I express is an insult to Islam and Muslims, I am not allowed to speak about what is claimed I do not understand, nor am I allowed to ask questions or challenge what a Muslim says or what is written in the Qur’an.  I am a kuffir, an infidel, part of the Crusaders waging war against Islam and Muslims.  For that I must convert, become a dhimmi or die.  I will not convert, or pay the jizya as a dhimmi, so that leaves only one option: my death at the hands of the “religion of peace”.

Do I fear leaving this world for the next at the hands of those devoted to sending me to that other place?  Not at all.  I have been threatened directly, and have had veiled threats made against me, as well as being called all those names we are familiar with but I am not afraid.  The culture of death wants me as a member, but as Groucho Marx said, and I agree with, is that you don’t join a club that wants you as a member. 

When my time is up, I go willingly and without a fuss.  My time here is finite and what control I have is based in not much more than a belief that each day will be better than the previous.  Islam does not scare me as much as it worries me, the slow but steady creep across the globe, and the non-efforts to curb it’s crawl disturb me.  But worry about Islam taking me out, no.  There are many behind me, ready to take up the torch and continue.  I fear no man or ideology, I embrace the life worth dying for.