I suppose we should be thankful for some small-ish mercies. The Islamic festival of Ramadan is ending and it has a remarkably low death toll from religious violence when compared to last year.
Ramadan 2023 has seen a death toll up to Day 28 of the festival of only 658 from 128 attacks whilst last year’s Ramadan death toll was 1086 dead from 177 attacks. As with last year there have been no religiously inspired attacks from Christians or Jews despite both these religions having their major religious festivals, Easter and Passover at the same time as Ramadan fell this year. Also there were 0 deaths this year from those described as right wing extremists whereas 2022 saw 22 deaths from this particular political movement. The Ramadan death toll from the last two years certainly gives the lie to the claim that Islam is a religion of peace or that the far right and other similar groups of extremists are an equal danger with regards terrorism to jihadists.
Whilst jihadists have, as usual, been out during Ramadan murdering Christians in places like Nigeria, where 36 Christians including fourteen children were killed, it appears that the bulk of the religiously inspired Islamic deaths are of Muslims killed by other Muslims, such as the former soldiers on their way to their mosque in Afghanistan who were murdered by the Taliban. Not even being a follower of Islam can stop those enamoured of the violent side of Islam from killing you.
All religions have in their past periods when religious violence has been acceptable or even mandated and it’s correct that this history is recognised. But most mainstream religions have overcome the idea that religious violence is acceptable and tried to walk the paths of peace rather than those of war. Sadly Islam in most of its orthodox forms, whether Sunni or Shia, has still not taken the path of peace and is still imbued with violence and an acceptance of violence and is almost alone among major modern religions for doing so. Maybe one day, hopefully next year, we will see a Ramadan with zero deaths from zero attacks, but I will not hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
“Ramadan 2023 has seen a death toll up to Day 28 of the festival of only 658 from 128 attacks …”
Kind of says it all though, doesn’t it? ” … death toll [of] only 658″ deaths during the oh-so-holy month of Ramadan due to Islamic violence. (Actually its up to 704 murders in 141 attacks as of 23:00 UK time 21/04.)
We are so used to Muslims murdering people (both other Muslims and non-Muslims) that when they “only” murder 704 in 29 days, that’s a holy body-count rate of >ONE AN HOUR, we genuinely take it as good news.