Mehdi Hasan | Islam Is A Peaceful Religion | Oxford Union

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thank you very much Mr President ladies

and gentlemen good evening assalam

alaykum lovely to see you all here

tonight we are having a very

entertaining night are we not with some

very interesting things being said uh

from the other side of the house tonight

um let me Begin by saying as a Muslim as

a representative of Islam I would

consider myself an ambassador for Islam

a believer in Islam a follower of Islam

and its Prophet so in that capacity let

me Begin by apologizing to anarie for

the barle bombings I apologize for the

role of my religion and me and my people

uh for the killing of Theo van go for

seven seven yes that was all of us that

was Islam that was Muslims that was the

Quran I mean

astonishing astonishing claims uh to

make in the very first speech tonight on

a day like today where the conservative

prime minister of the United Kingdom is

having to come out and point out that

these kind of views are anathema and I

believe you're trying to stand for the

labor party to become an MP in Brighton

if you do and you make these comments

I'm guessing you'll have the whip

withdrawn from you but then again UK

Kips On The Rise they'll take you the

BNP they might have something to say

about your views this is what n Hasan

always say by the way by the way by the

way by the way by the way just on a

factual Point since we heard a lot about

the second speaker about how backward we

Muslims all are on a factual point you

said that Islam was born in Saudi Arabia

Islam was born in 610 ad Saudi Arabia

was born in 1932 ad so you only

1,322 years off not bad not bad start

there uh talking of maths by the way a

man named alisi was one of the greatest

mathematicians of all time a Muslim

worked in the Golden Age of Islam he the

guy who came up with not just algebra

but algorithms without algorithms you

wouldn't have laptops without laptops

Daniel Johnson tonight wouldn't have

been able to print out his speech in

which he came to break us Muslims for

holding back the advance and

intellectual achievements of the West

which all happened without any

contribution from anyone else other than

the judeo-christian people of Europe in

fact Daniel David Levering the author of

The poit prizewinning historian and

author of The Golden Crucible point out

that there would be no Renaissance there

would be no Reformation in Europe

without the role played by I Sina and

rush and some of the great Muslim

theologians philosophers scientists in

bringing Greek texts to

Europe as for this being our University

I will leave that to the imagination as

to who is our and who is there I studied

here too um an astonishing astonishing

set of uh speeches so far making this

case tonight uh a mixture of just

cherry-picked quotes facts and figures s

self- serving selective a farago of

distortions

misrepresentations misinterpretations

misquotations uh Daniel talked about my

article in the new Statesman which got

me a lot of flak where I talked about

the anti-Semitism that is prevalent in

some parts of the Muslim Community which

indeed it is uh of course I didn't say

in that piece that it was caused by the

religion of Islam in fact modern

anti-Semitism in the Middle East was

imported from finish the sentence

Christian judeo-christian Europe where I

believe

some certainly bad things happened to

the Jewish people in fact Tom fredman

Jewish American columnist of New York

Times told me in this very chamber last

week that he believed had Muslims been

running Europe in the 1940s 6 million

extra Jews would still be alive today so

I'm not going to take lessons in

anti-Semitism from someone who's here to

defend the judeo-christian values of a

continent that murdered 6 million Jews

uh moving swiftly

on moving swiftly

on you doing exactly absolutely well I'm

about to make that point no no no I'm

about to make that point you're right I

agree with you I agree with you I agree

with you 110% that is my point I don't

think Europe is evil or bad I'm a very

proud European I don't want to judge

Europe on the basis but if we're going

to play this gutter game where we pull

out the barle bombing and we pull out

examples of anti-Semitism in Islamic

then of course I'm going to come back

and say well hold on I mean look let's

be very clear Daniel here was a last

minute replacement for Douglas Murray

who had to pull out and Douglas and I

have a well documented differences but

to be fair to Douglas as to be fair to

anmarie and to Peter atheists atheists

see all religions as evil violent

threatening what the problem I have with

Daniel's speech is that Daniel comes

here to rount this robust defense of

Christianity forgetting that his fellow

Christians people who said they were

acting in the name of Jesus gave us the

Crusades the Spanish Inquisition the

anti-jewish programs European

colonialism in Africa and Asia the

Lord's resistance Army in Uganda not to

mention countless Arsen and bomb attacks

on abortion clinics in the United States

of America to this very day I would like

a little bit of humility from Daniel

first before he begins lecturing other

communities and other faiths on violence

Terror and

intolerance but no thank

you some water some water but I would

say this to address the gentleman's very

valid point here I'm not going to play

that game I don't actually believe that

Christianity is a religion of violence

and hate because of what the L does in

Uganda or what what Crusaders did uh to

Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem when they

took back the city in the 12th or 13th

whatever Century it was I believe that

Christianity like Islam like pretty much

every mainstream religion is based on

love and compassion and faith I do

follow a religion in which 113 out of

the 114 chapters of the Quran Begins by

introducing the god of Islam as a god of

mercy and compassion I would not have it

any other way I don't follow a religion

which introduces my God to me as a God

of War as some kind of Greek god of

wrath as a god of hate and Injustice not

at all as Adam pointed out you go

through the Quran and you see the mercy

and the love and the justice and yes you

have verses that refer to Warfare and

violence of course it does this is not

aemotion about pacifism I'm not here to

argue that Islam is a pacifistic faith

it is not Islam allows military action

violence in certain limited contexts and

yes a minority of Muslims do take it out

of that context but is it religious we

talked about willich Daniel and anarie

have suggested that it's definitely

religion that's behind all of this well

actually

what I find so amusing tonight is we're

having a debate about Islam and the

opposition tonight have come forward we

have a graduate in law a graduate in

modern history a graduate in chemistry

and you know I admire all of their

intellects and their abilities but we

don't have anyone who's actually an

expert on Islam a scholar of Islam a

historian of Islam a speaker of Arabic

even a terrorism expert or a security

expert or a holster let alone to talk

about what Muslims believe or think

instead we have people coming here

putting forward the views putting

forward these sweeping opinions Listen

to Professor Robert Pape of the

University of Chicago one of America's

leading terrorism experts who unlike our

esteemed opposition tonight studied

every single case of suicide terrorism

between 1980 and 2005 315 cases in total

and he concluded and I quote there is