People are familiar with Islam's classification of the world into the Dar-ul-Solh, the house of peace, meaning the house of Islam-and the Dar-ul-Harb-the house of war, meaning the house of non-Islam. Ironically, the self-proclaimed house of peace, from its early years, has waged war against the house of war.
Also there is a little-known third "house" according to Islam-Dar-ul-Aman, the non-Islam house of safety where Muslims find refuge. We already know which of the three houses America is to Al Qaeda, the Iranian mullahs, the Taliban, the Muslims Brotherhood and their ilk. We are posing this question to the rank and file Muslims, particularly to the arrivals of recent years who are finding refuge in the non-Islamic world, including the United States of America:
Which house America is to you?
America and other welcoming and generous non-Islam Dar-ul-Aman have given you refuge with opportunities for a decent life denied to you in your own Dar-ul-Solh by the ruthless and deceptive holy men of Allah who rule it.
Dear Muslim, reciprocity is a high human virtue. The kind people of Dar-ul-Aman deserve your in-kind response. You physically left the Dar-ul-Solh because it was and is an abject failure in delivering its promises about a good life in this world. What guarantee is there that Islam's the "pie-in-the-skies" promises about the next world - a world of virgins for the faithful male with rivers of milk and honey to energize him - are any more reliable?
What about the Muslim women? Are they going to be compensated for their enslavement by the men of Allah? Or, women, even in Allah's paradise, remain in perpetuity "objects" of entertainment for men?
Now that you have seen for yourself the misery of Islamic system and you have sought a better life in the Dar-ul-Aman of the "infidels," you need to take other steps: bid farewell to the Islamic mindset, abandon Ummehism, and enlist yourself in the rank of the democratic and tolerant people. Once freed from the oppressive and discriminating yoke of fundamentalist Islam, you can lend a hand to the protection and nurturance of democracy - a system of peoples' rule with a proven record of being the best instrument for the realization of humanity's aspirations.
The democratic rule of Dar-ul-Aman is not a void system invented by the infidels, as your devious self-serving theocrats leaders claim. Democracy is the best product of humanity's caring and decent people: the rule of the people, by the people, for the people.
Democracy, by its accommodating and benign nature is susceptible to corruption and even destruction by forces from within and from without. With this realization in mind, the founding fathers of the United States enshrined the Constitution to safeguard and protect the rule of the people.
Dear Muslim, being born human comes with a precious gift: the gift to think and decide for yourself. Islam has robbed you of this gift from birth. Parents, aided by relatives and brainwashed by slaveholder imams and mullahs, colluded and did the thinking for you when you were still in no position to exercise your right. They branded you as Muslim, simply because you were born in a Muslim family. Cattle are branded, not humans. Cattle are owned by others. Humans are not. Having branded you "Muslim," those who robbed you of your gift of self-determination dared you to leave their bondage under the threat of death as apostate.
Dear Muslim, you have been intelligent enough to forsake failed Islamic lands for a better life elsewhere. Dar-ul-Aman has given refuge. Now that you are in a free society, you want to reclaim your stolen gift of liberty and freedom of choice. You want to shatter the shackles of Islam that has enchained you from birth. You want to take your place in the ranks of the supporters and promoters of liberty that democracy provides and Islam destroys.
Dear Muslim, you know full well that it is Islam's dysfunctional doctrine with its stone-age rule of the Shariah that is responsible for the abominable conditions of the Islamic countries.
Contrary to the preachers of hate - the Islamic clergy of vested interests - the "infidels" are not your enemies: they demonstrate their goodwill by giving you refuge; your deadly enemy is the interpretation of the doctrine of Islam that keeps you captive even in freedom.
Religion is a powerful force. And as is the case with any force, it can do work of the good or that of the evil. And when there is multiplicity of religions at loggerheads with one another the forces clash and any benefit that religion offers is offset by potentially huge costs.
Given that the formerly vast and largely segregated planet earth has shrunk into a "global village," the disparate peoples isolated from one another for millennia are now a village community. The-thrown-together diverse people are in urgent need of adopting a social compact that would allow individuals as well as groups maximum latitude of faith, coupled with responsibility, and free of any practices that infringe on the rights of others or demonize them.
Regrettably, Islam as too often practiced is incompatible with such a harmonious compact. As an article of faith, Islam considers all non-Muslims, even the so-called people of the book, as infidels - people who are to be subjugated or cleansed from Allah's earth.
Dear Muslim, you have taken a great step by coming to the Dar-ul-Aman in search of self-betterment. Now, you need to take the next step of purging your mind of the Psychosocial Virus of fundamentalist Islam you contracted unwillingly: you want to do all you can to give your children their gift of humanity by not doing to them what your parents did to you, so that they can, unencumbered by the dogma of hate, become emancipated human beings.
America is not perfect. No human enterprise ever is. Yet, America is the closest country to a true Dar-ul Aman in the broadest sense. And it is Americans, overwhelmingly "infidels", who make America what it is. While America opens its doors to the poor, the hungry and the oppressed of the world, Americans open their hearts to the less fortunate people of various lands by their unsurpassed generosity. No nation gives more aid to international charities, as percentage of its gross domestic products, than the American people.
This "Refuge," a nation of all nations called America, is indeed the harbinger of the not too far away world of the future. A future world where liberty rules supreme and fascisms of all forms, including Islamofascism, will be remembered as horrific impediments to humanity's ever-forward-march toward the goal of making this presently darksome village earth a reflection of heaven.
Amil Imani is an Iranian-born American citizen and pro-democracy activist residing in the United States of America. He maintains a website, AmilImani.com
