According to Wikipedia, “Quora is a question-and-answer site where questions are asked, answered, edited and organized by its community of users.” It was founded in 2009. In early 2017, Quora was reported to have received Series D funding and given a valuation of $1.8 billion. This website “community” has about “100 million monthly unique visitors”; of whom about half are from the U.S. and 15% are from India.

A few of days ago I received this email from Quora:

That email above was in response to an answer I gave to this question:

This is my reply -- the reply which brought about the Quora warning:

Like the well-known and notorious situation on Facebook, my reply would have been reported to Quora by Muslims (or possibly by Leftists/Islamophiles). This is such an easy thing to do that any reader who suffers cognitive dissonance from an unwanted reply only needs to press a link and... hey presto! The readers of this piece can also easily report an answer (or even a question) which they don't like.

The thing about this particular warning (or statement on “moderation”) from Quora is that it doesn't actually accuse me of using obscenities or of being rude. It certainly doesn't accuse me of lies or dissimulation either. It accuses me, instead, of not being “nice” to Islam. (Or, alternatively, it accuses me of not being “respectful” to Islam.) Sure, it doesn't explicitly say that I wasn't nice (or respectful) to Islam itself; though it doesn't say that I wasn't nice (or respectful) to Muslims either. In any case, I was neither unnice nor disrespectful.

All this gives the game away, really. It's not the case that abuse or swearwords offend the majority of Muslims. It's the case that any criticism whatsoever of Islam offends the majority Muslims. Don't doubt it!

Despite that, Muslims and Islamophiles/Leftists make a point of telling Islam's critics how many Muslims there are in the world. (A figure that literally changes every time you hear it.) They also tell us how long Islam has lasted. From that information alone, we're supposed to conclude that Islam must be a great thing. Or, if not exactly a great thing, then we're meant to conclude that there must be at least something positive about Islam.

Firstly, numbers and longevity alone don't prove anything that's necessarily positive. At the peak of communism, for example, there were dozens of millions of communists/Marxists worldwide.

Secondly, and more relevantly, one important reason for Islam's longevity and the number of Muslims is the fact that Islamic culture disallows any criticism of Islam, Muhammed, and the Koran -- again, literally! (This is something that non-Islamic Quora is now contributing to.) It's hopeless to criticise Islam in a Muslim country. Or you can if you wish; though, if you do, you'll have to face the consequences of a stoning, imprisonment, ostracism or death.

Added to all that is the fact that Islam is passed on from generation to generation; though this itself is strongly tied to Islam's culture of conformity and non-criticism.

Now these are the primary reasons why there are so many Muslims and why Islam has survived so long.

The Reply that Received a Warning

In detail, let's see why my post brought about a warning.

It was said earlier that Quora didn't accuse me of lying or dissimulation. It didn't accuse me of being abusive either. However, as many people now know, the very act of criticising Islam is indeed deemed to be “abuse” or “mockery” by most Muslims.

You'll have to forgive me quoting myself here. I wrote:

“The Koran -- Islam’s holy book -- explicitly calls for the death of the 'infidel', 'unbeliever', etc. So do most of the hadith.”

That is correct. There are around 109 passages in the Koran which call for the death of the infidel, “unbeliever”, etc. Now, of course, these passages have been interpreted so as to show us their real “context”. They've even been interpreted to show us that such passages are, in actual fact, pacifist, liberal, or even “anti-racist” in nature.

Very many unbelievers -- and even some Muslims -- know that these 21st century interpretations are bogus and simple examples of Islamic taqiyya.

And on the subject of taqiyya. The following is also a part of a response to my own reply (in the above image):

“So to answer your question -- no, Islam doesn't request to kill non-Muslims, on the contrary it asks them to protect minorities…”

I wonder if the passage in the Koran which says that Islam “asks [Muslims] to protect minorities” also requires a “context.” Or are the positive -- rather than the negative - passages contextless?

Take this putative quotation from Muhammed. It was provided by a Muslim HuffPost journalist -- Kashif N. Chaudhry -- in a piece entitled 'Islam Requires Muslims to Protect Christians'. It reads:

“Whoever kills a non-Muslim citizen under a Muslim government shall not smell the fragrance of Paradise.”

Well, for a start, there was no notion of a “citizen” in the Arab world in the time of Muhammed or even long after. Only democracies and/or nations have a notion of a citizen. This concept of a citizen can be said to date back to the ancient Greeks; or, in its modern form, to date back only a couple of hundred years. In any case, the basic fact is that citizenship is completely alien to Islam.

It's obvious (to all but this HuffPost journalist) that the quote refers to a “non-Muslim citizen” who's “under a Muslim government.” That meant, and still means, that if one were a loyal and passive Dhimmi in a Muslim or Islamic state, then usually you weren't killed by Muslims rulers. However, there was still a very strong chance that you'd be killed by any number of Muslims. And if a Dhimmi were to be disloyal or religiously active, then Muslim rulers would have probably killed or imprisoned him or her.

The other thing is that no source or hyperlink is provided for the quotation in the HuffPost. That means that it was probably doctored by either the aforesaid journalist or by another Muslim. Now isn't it also strange that when you Google this quote in full, the only sources which appear refer to this very same article? It seems to appear nowhere else.

This isn't surprising considering that Kashif N. Chaudhry has made the prophet Muhammed seem like a fellow HuffPost journalist; rather than the 7th century Arab warlord that he was. The other possibility is that this journalist simply made the quote up.

It's worth noting here that the many replies -- bar two! -- to this question -- “Does Islam say to kill Muslims?” -- were all from Muslims or Islamophiles (often professional experts). I wonder if the other Quora users who gave negative answers have also been reprimanded by this website. This isn't a surprise because after Americans, Indians are the biggest users of Quora. (172 million Muslims live in India.)

So, again, Quora warns its users not to be critical of -- or disrespectful to -- Islam. Moreover, Quora also warns us -- if obliquely -- not to to tell the truth about Islam either. Now isn't strange that a non-Muslim company voluntarily carries out actions which are in conformity with sharia blasphemy law?

Paul Austin Murphy is a writer on politics and philosophy. He has had articles published in The Conservative Online, Intellectual Conservative, Human Events, Faith Freedom, Think-Israel, Brenner Brief (Broadside News), New English Review, etc. His philosophy blog can be found here. His blog on politics can be found here. Murphy is based in the county of Yorkshire, England.