Dear Editor,

"Newton mayors take county to task over mosque reaction", AJC, Aug. 27, 2016

These mayors would have the reader believe we who live here are intolerant or downright ignorant for objecting to the construction of a mosque in our county. They are "embarrassed" by us. Really?

It is impossible to understand Islam without reading the Koran. It helps to read other Muslim books, such as the history of Islam, life of the prophet, the hadith and others. But it is the Koran which Muslims revere as the complete, perfect and immutable word of God. When I realized how little I actually knew about the religion, I began a study spanning several years now.

Islam, as described in their own 'perfect' document, is the antithesis of everything Jews and Christians believe. Muslims are explicitly forbidden by the prophet himself to even make friends of Christians or Jews.

Here are just a few statements regarding us "unbelievers" in the Koran:

We are to be tolerated only if we yield and are made to understand that we have insulted God by not believing. Toleration is as far as it goes and there is a price for our unbelief: We are to be made to feel oppressed by dhimmitude, a Muslim social arrangement by which unbelievers are subject to second class citizenship in all things. No Christian or Jew may testify in court against a Muslim, and jisya, or annual fine, must be paid for the privilege of living among them.

The prophet was convinced that women were spiritually an intellectually inferior to men and women comprised the majority of hell's occupants. This extended into Sharia, the Islamic law which requires the testimony of two women to equal that of one man. Beating of one's wife is permitted under limited conditions and there are no age requirements under Islamic law regarding who may be married. The prophet married a six year-old girl and consummated the marriage when she was nine.
Violence is a pillar of the faith and dismemberment and stoning to death are legal punishments for certain crimes. Jihad, or holy war, is expected of every Muslim worthy of the name. Muslims are instructed by the prophet to "Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them," and one hadith attributes this statement to the prophet: "If a man changes his religion, then kill him." He was known to have ordered the murder of several individuals who dared to defy him. An estimated 700 to 1,000 Jewish captives were murdered while Mohammed and his 12-year-old wife looked on.

Suffice it to say that Islam is diametrically opposed to virtually everything we hold dear and that includes freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of association, equal treatment under the law, sexual equality, religious toleration, even democratic government. In other words, there is probably not another people on the earth who are so uniquely unqualified to live among us

Ignorance of Islam, it seems, is not confined to Newton County.

Ron Slade Sr.