TheReligionofPeace.com: Answering the Critics

TheReligionofPeace

TROP is a non-political, fact-based site which examines the ideological threat that Islam poses to human dignity and freedom

Jihad Report Nov 16, 2024 - Nov 22, 2024
Attacks	25
Killed	184
Injured	117
Suicide Blasts	1
Countries	11

Jihad Report October, 2024
Attacks	140
Killed	784
Injured	622
Suicide Blasts	5
Countries	22
List of Attacks

It's much easier to act as if critics of Islam have a problem with Muslims as people than it is to accept the uncomfortable truth that Islam is different

List of Attacks
Last 30 Days 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 (Post 9/11)

What can we learn about
Islam from this woman?

TheReligionofPeace.com

Answering the Critics

Sometimes people on the Internet will ask honest questions about TheReligionofPeace.com: Is TROP objective? Is it truthful? Is it a hate site?

These questions are asked and "answered" in forums that purport to be objective but censor out relevant facts offered by our defenders. Effort and time has been wasted on responses that are never allowed to see the light of day.

Rather than try and play by their rules, TROP thought it more efficient to address critics and questions here.

This is an evolving page that will be added to over time.

Questions and Answers about TheReligionofPeace.com

Is TROP an objective site?

TROP strives to be truthful. Like nearly everyone who is knowledgeable about Islam, the editor has an agenda - in this case, to make others aware of the threat posed. However, this agenda would be undermined by deliberately manipulating readers with false information or failing to acknowledge and correct mistakes.

Is TROP an "anti-Muslim" Hate site?

Absolutely not. The editor objects to the supremacist ideology of Islam and uses the site to present evidence of its negative effects. TROP is outspoken in separating this hateful ideology from the individual, and denouncing any attempt to harm, harass or pre-judge Muslim persons. Genuine hate crimes against Muslims usually receive attention in the News items bar.

See About Muslims for more on what TheReligionofPeace.com really says about Muslims, and Is the Quran Hate Speech? for what Islam says about non-believers.

Challenging incorrect ideology is not hate - provided that it is done politely and in appropriate circumstances. TROP does not see how anyone is served by falsehood, including believing Muslims.

The trend toward defining criticism of Islam as "hate speech" is the censorship of ideas. When the freedom to criticize bad ideas is effectively denied, other freedoms will follow.

Isn't it better to learn about Islam from a Muslim than a non-Muslim?

Not if you want an objective understanding.

The idea that only a Muslim can know Islam simply isn't true. It's like saying that only a fish can be an ichthyologist. Like any subject, Islam can be learned cognitively without having to declare an allegiance. There are no secrets. How much a person knows about Islam has nothing to do with whether or not they are a Muslim.

The average Muslim generally knows only what he or she has been told about Islam.

See also: Games Muslims Play - You Can Only Learn Islam from a Muslim

Why does "Media Bias/Fact Check" not like TROP?

A negative review of TROP by MediaBiasFactCheck.com is rife with sensationalist terms like "hate group" and "fake news," but it isn't clear if TROP is actually being accused of these things.

Our analysis and response can be found here.

Objections to the List of Attacks

There is no source provided for many of the incidents. Does this mean the list is made up?

It is curious that TROP is held to a higher standard. When a news agency or Islamic propaganda group (ie. CAIR) makes a claim about rising 'Islamophobic' hate crimes, it is never accompanied by a complete list of incidents, much less one with sources. Yet, TROP is somehow expected to provide more than just a date, location and description for each attack.

Although there have been a handful of times when an attack on our list was posted in error (such as the much-hyped July, 2012 bus massacre in Pakistan), there has never been a single incident on our list of over 30,000 proven to have been manufactured - because none are.

When TROP posted sources in the past, a critic took unfair advantage of the fact that most of the links go dead after a time and others do not provide all of the characteristics that can be found in multiple sources. His work was repeated by others, who did not make any effort to research the veracity of his claim.

Since the editor cannot keep up with tens of thousands of links, TROP offers to verify single incidents on request, which should quell any sincere doubt. Other organizations, such as Wikipedia and GTD, find roughly the same attacks that TROP does (or more) - and they have the resources to maintain sources.

Terror attacks increased dramatically after the US "War on Terror" began... right?

Not true. Terrorism in certain places went up, but it also decreased in others.

Fundamentalists in Algeria killed over 100,000 civilians in the ten years prior to 9/11. In roughly the same period, over 50,000 civilians were killed by Islamic terrorists in Kashmir. These are just two countries, yet, together they account for significantly more deaths in ten years than the 95,000 on TROP's global list in the first ten years after 9/11.

In the decades prior to the US "War on Terror," millions lost their lives to Islamism in places such as Bangladesh, the Sudan and East Timor. Not of this had anything to do with 'US military intervention.'

Aren't you really just listing any murder that occurs in the Muslim world?

An act of terror is not recorded on the list unless it could reasonably be assumed that the motivation is religious to some extent.

For example, TROP does not include acts of terror perpetrated by the Marxist PFLP or the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party). They may be Muslim, but members do not claim religion as a motivating factor.

Another example is the horrific massacre of 57 people in the Philippines in November of 2009. Technically, a Muslim clan was responsible, but the carnage resulted from a feud that had nothing to do with religion.

Aren't some of the incidents on the list unrelated to Islamic terror?

Not to the editor's knowledge. TROP does list honor killings (Islamic moral code), Sharia executions, and Shahid suicide bombings against security forces, since they are Islamic, but these are not included in the counter.

Every attack on the list is one in which it can be reasonably inferred that Islam or Islamic identity is a contributing factor. They are not there because the perpetrator happens to be Muslim. They are there because the violence would not have occurred if they had not been Muslim.

Critics sometimes pose that a particular attack must not be 'Islamic terror' because it also involves other factors, such as separatism (eg. Thailand, Abu Sayyaf) or nationalism (eg. Hamas), but TROP does not see this as a reason to ignore the role of Islam.

As an analogy, consider that about 3,500 African-Americans were lynched by white mobs in the American South between 1882 and 1935. With a few exceptions, these were not black men targeted at random, but rather men who were thought to have been guilty of a crime or other misdeed. However, it would be absurd to deny the racial motive behind these unlawful killings, simply because there was a different pretense.

No one can seriously say, for example, that Israel would be hated if it were Muslim instead of Jewish, or that Muslim identity has nothing to do with the Muslim insurgency in predominately Buddhist Thailand or predominately Christian Philippines.

Why list attacks in War Zones?

TROP does not ignore Islamic terror attacks on civilians, regardless of where they occur. If an act would be called Islamic terror in the United States then it is called such if it occurs in Baghdad or Kandahar. Citizens of Aleppo are no more deserving of being being blown apart by an ISIS rocket than are residents of Chicago.

TROP also includes some attacks on troops in their own country, but not in true combat situations. The editor does not see why an attack on Afghan troops manning a security checkpoint should be less an act of terror than the killing of a guard at Westminster or troops at Fort Hood.

Responding to Critical Articles

Responding to Loonwatch (2012): This debunks an article on TROP written by Loonwatch. The person who wrote it later posted it in a Quora forum in 2016. TROP was not allowed to post a link in response.