Pam, I agree that Christianity has a concept of separating civil and religious authority baked right into its foundation and Islam and Judaism do not. I think, however, this should be considered in its historical context - Judaism and Islam were introduced to peoples who weren't subject to pre-existing civil authority. They are very much religions of tribes who needed rules to govern themselves in the first place.
Personally, while I find sharia law to be almost uniformly repugnant (the exception that provides there will be no punishment for stealing food to feed yourself or your family in a time of famine does seem like a concession to mercy and compassion) it is an improvement on what existed prior to its introduction:
If, a man from another tribe kills someone from my tribe, we:
go to war with them.
If, a man from another tribe steals a camel, sheep, or horse from my tribe, we:
go to war with them.
If, a man from another tribe has sex with my daughter, we:
go to war with them.
In terms of your point regarding why we should be tolerant when many Muslims seem intolerant of other religions (or even other sects of Islam), the only good answer I can give is that North Americans have a long history of religious pluralism so we understand its value. In many Middle Eastern countries outside the Levant, the number of religious minorities is so small that people have little to no interaction with non-Muslims. They have a tradition of tolerating other religions, but not on having them on equal footing with Islam. I'm not saying this is an excuse for having a double standard for religious tolerance, but it does explain their cognitive dissonance.
When people ask me about religion in America, they often believe it is impossible or illegal for Muslims to proselytize in America. They also have the utterly contradictory view that a huge percentage of Americans are Muslim and that America will be a Muslim majority state very shortly. They're usually crestfallen when I tell them that Muslims can proselytize freely, but the growth in their faith comes generally from births and immigration, not conversion. I tell them that Muslims may make up 2% of the US population, roughly on par with Jews, and that I know plenty of people who have either converted away from Islam, or don't practice it in any meaningful sense, but only personally know one individual who converted to Islam. Plenty of Muslims I meet have no idea that there are twice as many Christians as Muslims in the world. Or that, given the populations of China, Japan, and India, that atheists and polytheists also dramatically outnumber Muslims. They often won't believe these things until I show them the U.N. Population Fund's statistics on them.
Of course, to them, Muslims being a tiny minority in America that is unlikely to ever even match the number of nonbelievers in the US, doesn't stop them from thinking their religion should be treated as at least equal to Christianity. Why? Because they're absolutely sure their faith is the correct one. When I ask them if they think Christians believe their own faith to be wrong, they generally don't have an answer.
They also often believe completely erroneous things like the notion that Mohammed's coming is foretold in the Bible. I assure people that I've read the Bible cover to cover in various versions, and I'm positive Mohammed's not in it. Their only answer is to claim that Christians must have written him out of the Bible. Following up on that point, many Muslims believe the Bible has so many translations because Christians are constantly editing and changing the word of God, and that's why Christianity is wrong. When I explain to them the Bible has been translated in order to take it out of dead languages (old Hebrew, ancient Greek, Aramaic) into languages that people actually speak, they seem to understand, but they're suspicious of why Christians don't just learn the dead languages so they can understand the true word of God.
In truth, many Muslims have no idea what the Quran says because they don't understand classical Arabic. Many have to rely on religious leaders to tell them what God's will is.
I am trying to dispel misunderstandings about western religions over here, really, I am. But trust me, it's hard when you're doing it in your second and third languages, and in countries where it is a serious offense to say anything that in any way, shape or form, 'disrespects' Islam. You really don't want to make even the smallest error in word choice.
I know that many Muslims I interact with personally find me baffling. My family is from a majority Muslim country, but is not Muslim. They just cannot wrap their minds around the fact that I've been exposed to Islam, I've read the Quran several times and I still choose not to be a Muslim. To most people this is just an oddity, and they're all very happy to help me convert, once I see the error in my ways. But trust me, Pam, the sorts of Muslims who hate you, hate me, too.
But when Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson claimed that liberals, feminists, and the ACLU (along with gays, lesbians, and pagans) helped cause 9/11 to happen, I realized there are some Christians out there who hate me, too.
Rac
