Mohammed built Islam on rape, by rape, and for rape. If you think that's implausible polemic, consider the following:

1) Mohammed banned extramarital sex *except* for the rape of captured infidel women (and he specifically said adultery rules didn't apply on either side).

https://twitter.com/AzzatAlsaalem/status/1724807780404732093

That was solid incentive for the men of his cult, particularly in a polygynous society where richer and more powerful men could pay bride-prices and claim four wives each. If the less affluent wanted their own harems of sex slaves, jihad offered that opportunity.

The problem is twofold:

1) In Islam, extreme fundamentalist beliefs are completely mainstream. They're "extreme" by the standards of more intellectually and morally advanced religions and philosophies, not by Islamic standards. 2) Most moderate Muslims lack the intellectual honesty or moral courage to accept the Quran's a man-made book and Mohammed said and did bad things. This provides immense support for fundamentalism. I was guilty of the same thing pre-apostasy, so I get it. But it's not acceptable.

Western progressives don't understand how Islam actually works.

An orthodox / fundamentalist Muslim believes this world is basically a gameshow, and the purpose of life is to win Allah Points and get into heaven. In orthodox Islam, fighting against LGBT stuff earns those points.

https://twitter.com/YasMohammedxx/status/1670426389894295552

Instead of comprehending that, progressives assume Muslims will prioritise earthly political alliances. It genuinely shocks them that orthodox Muslims believe Mohammed and the Quran trump political niceties, human rights, and everything else.

Let's take a closer look at Mohammed, since his claims of prophethood and people's belief in those claims continue to underpin all Islamic fundamentalism and supremacism in the world -- from the Islamic Republic oppressing Iranians to ISIS committing genocide against the Yazidis. The Quran gives us very little direct information about Mohammed's life. It doesn't describe his childhood, or all the things he did before he claimed prophethood. It doesn't name his wives. In fact, it narrates more of Moses' and Jesus' lives than it does Mohammed's.

If you want to get to grips with what Mohammed peddled to his audience, and fully comprehend original Islamic theology (prior to the Hadith retcons), you have to understand that Islam began as a Christian heresy. Once you realise this, it makes more sense.

Let's dip into that. The Islamic tradition claims Mohammed battled polytheistic pagan idol-worshippers. That's likely fiction. Historically, Mohammed vied with Jews and Christians, which is why the Quran talks about their beliefs so much, whereas it doesn't delve into supposed "Meccan" paganism.

This is a common problem among Muslim apologists -- they cling to the notion that Islam and Mohammed are perfect, as if the bad things Muslims do never have anything to do with the religious ideology they follow.

In this case, he's overlooking the racism in Islam's core texts.

https://twitter.com/KhaledBeydoun/status/1588828832353902593

Antisemitism is the most common form of racism found in the Quran and Hadith, by far. A handful of examples below. Mohammed accused Jews of betraying Allah, murdering prophets, and scheming against Jesus. The Hadith legends built on that with further accusations and insults.

When we cite Quran verses that show bad things (e.g. slavery, rape, wife-beating, homophobia, antisemitism), apologists say we don't understand them properly because we haven't studied them "in context". So, let's talk about context and why it matters -- because it actually does. The context of the Quran is that Mohammed, a cult leader, preached sermons to (A) establish the fiction of his prophethood and (B) get whatever particular thing he wanted at a given time. Akin to a politician's tweets. Except Mohammed pretended they were Allah's speech.

The Hadith collections aren't historically reliable. To begin with, there's all the stuff about splitting moons and making trees walk and so forth. But even beyond that sort of supernatural mythology, many historians are now sceptical about even their basic historical claims.

https://twitter.com/ClarityIslamic/status/1331759457706139649

For example, Mohammed's "Meccan" opponents probably weren't polytheistic pagan idol-worshippers. They were more likely fellow monotheists who disagreed with him about the role of angels and angel intercession. Which, side note, is pretty funny when you consider that many...

That's the key thing. When Muslim fundamentalists howl for blasphemy bans, they want to peddle their harmful rubbish unopposed. They can preach falsehoods about Mohammed and the Quran, the same falsehoods that persuade people to join ISIS, but we can't tell the truth about them.

https://twitter.com/apostateali/status/1331584487055126528

For example, consider what Asia Bibi was accused of and sentenced to death for. It was a false accusation. Her real "crime" was drinking from a cup Muslims use. But the lie's still instructive. They accused her of saying Jesus brought good to humanity, and Mohammed didn't.

Well, mocking the rest is also free speech -- that's what a lot of (e.g.) stand-up comedy is based on. But setting that aside, these things are fundamentally different. Black people, gay people, and women are human beings. Islam's a set of ideas and claims.

https://twitter.com/Thani75/status/1320021856573939712

It's the difference between trashing young-Earth creationism for its falsity and opposition to all serious science vs. harassing and abusing a creationist in the street. The former's fine. The latter isn't. People have rights, whereas your beliefs and claims don't.

It's why I usually refer to "fundamentalists" or "fanatics" rather than, say, "extremists" or "radicals". Rejecting the Quran's origin myth would, in a context of Islam, be "extreme". But I fully support it. Whereas I don't support the fundamentals that underpin orthodox Islam.

https://twitter.com/SohSAhmed/status/1318494716745244672

Let's delve into this a bit.

You sometimes see non-Muslims (apostates or otherwise) refer to "true Islam" or "proper Islam", just as orthodox Muslims do. But I don't find that particularly useful. Besides, what's "proper Islam"? The supernatural claims Mohammed made weren't...

I realise the world probably doesn't need another hot take about tearing down statues and whatnot. But if I shied away from tweeting superfluous things, I'd never tweet anything at all. So... Communities should get to decide what statues stand in their public spaces. If they want to get rid of one, ideally it should be taken down and put in a museum (etc.). Broadly speaking, I'm not a fan of smashing such things up. Certainly not if they have actual historical value.

Some of the replies on this thread are disgraceful, tantamount to gaslighting -- telling Ella, a survivor of grooming gangs, that the crimes done to her had nothing to do with religion, when she heard otherwise from her abusers' own mouths.

https://twitter.com/EllaHillUK/status/1216395200228208640

People are trying to shame her for saying so, to bully her and depict her as ignorant -- demanding an abuse survivor cite the Quran to prove that what *her own abusers said* is genuinely Islamic. No survivor should be expected to do that, to become an Islamic scholar...

The issue of Mohammed and Aisha came up recently, with the usual apologetics flying fast. So, let's have a quick overview of the subject... To begin with, it's helpful to think of there being two Mohammeds -- the Mohammed of history and the Mohammed of Islamic myth and legend. The former, the historical Mohammed, is much harder to pin down due to the lack of reliable source material.

An apologist claims I'm lying when I say the Quran permits sex with captive / slave women. So, here are some screenshots of verses. As you can see, Mohammed (claiming to relay the speech of "Allah") repeatedly told his men they could have sex with wives and with female slaves. You'll sometimes hear Muslims argue that the verses only permit consensual sex with those slaves. But the Quran never says that, and it hardly seems like genuine consent if the woman's literally owned as property -- completely in her master's power.

I know I'm preaching to the choir, since people who follow me already have a healthy scepticism towards Islamic apologetics. But:

Devout women will excuse and embrace anything they believe comes from their god / prophet. They're far from an objective source.

https://twitter.com/bbcthesocial/status/1058328116517453824

If you want to know what Mohammed really thought of women, read the Quran. We can't be 100% sure, but those surahs may well represent his actual writings / sermons / rants. By contrast, all the sanitising stuff from later sources was written by other people, generations after.

Apologists hassle @MaajidNawaz because he suggests a religious / cultural influence in the crimes of Muslim "grooming" gangs. Do those detractors think it's a magic coincidence that these crimes fit so perfectly with Muslim fundamentalists' broader misogyny and rape culture? ISIS and Boko Haram seize girls / women and keep them as sex slaves. That's the exact same mentality -- just manifested through militant violence rather than as shadowy crime.