The Price of Criticizing Islam: Why the West Must Stop Caving to Fear

When I was in school, a boy bullied me daily. He was bigger, stronger, and relentless. In a desperate attempt to stop the abuse, I tried to gain his favor. I joined in mocking those he hated, hoping my loyalty would make him spare me.

This, in essence, is the relationship between Islam and its followers.

Islam does not function as a religion built on love and personal transformation. It is a doctrine of control, wrapped in the language of submission and sustained by the ever-present threat of violence. Muslims do not follow Allah because they feel a deep, abiding peace. They follow because they fear him. They attack Islam’s critics because their belief system tells them that proving their loyalty is the only way to escape eternal torment.

The Quran is riddled with the language of dominance:

• “Indeed, those who disbelieve in Our verses—We will drive them into a Fire. Every time their skins are roasted through, we will replace them with other skins so they may taste the punishment.” (Quran 4:56)
• “And whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger—then indeed, for him is the Fire of Hell; they will abide therein forever.” (Quran 72:23)
• “O you who have believed, protect yourselves and your families from a Fire whose fuel is people and stones.” (Quran 66:6)

This is not the language of divine love. This is the language of coercion, the framework of an ideology that does not tolerate dissent but eradicates it. Islam’s intolerance is not a cultural misunderstanding or an extremist distortion; it is embedded in the very DNA of the faith itself.

A Religion That Kills Its Critics

For centuries, Islamic violence has had one defining characteristic: absolute intolerance for criticism. This is not a side effect. It is the logical extension of a belief system that demands unwavering submission. The recent attack on Salwan Momika, an Iraqi refugee in Sweden who burned a Quran, is just the latest in a long, bloody pattern of violence against those who dare to dissent.

The list of victims is long and tragic; each of them faced threats, attacks, or death simply for expressing an opinion about Islam. Their crime? Exercising the most fundamental human right: free thought.

• In 2020, French teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded for showing a Charlie Hebdo cartoon of Muhammad in a classroom discussion on free speech.
• In 2004, filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered in the street for making a film exposing Islam’s treatment of women.
• The Charlie Hebdo massacre left twelve people dead, simply for drawing a cartoon.

Last week, Momika became the latest target. His protest was not an act of blind hatred but an act of defiance against a belief system that demands silence. And, as expected, the world watched as Islamic mobs screamed for his blood while Western leaders cowered in fear, prioritizing the appeasement of an intolerant ideology over the defense of free expression.

Muhammad’s Legacy of Silencing Dissent

Islam’s hostility toward criticism is not a modern phenomenon; it originates with Muhammad himself. Historical records show that Muhammad personally ordered the executions of poets, intellectuals, and dissenters who dared to challenge him:

• Ka’b bin Al-Ashraf, a Jewish poet who mocked Muhammad, was assassinated at the prophet’s command.
• Asma bint Marwan, a poetess who criticized Muhammad, was murdered in her sleep—an act Muhammad reportedly praised.
• Um Qirfa, an elderly woman from a rival tribe, was brutally executed—reportedly torn apart by camels under Muhammad’s orders.
• Khaled Al-Huthali was executed simply for rejecting Islam’s expansion.

These acts set a precedent that remains deeply embedded in Islamic doctrine today. When a religion is founded on the violent elimination of dissent, it should come as no surprise that its followers continue to act accordingly.

A 2017 Pew Research study revealed that in many Muslim-majority countries, a majority of citizens support the death penalty for blasphemy and apostasy. In Pakistan, 75% of respondents agreed with executing those who leave Islam. In Egypt, the number was 88%.

The Global Terrorism Index consistently reports that Islamic jihadist groups commit the overwhelming majority of religiously motivated terrorist attacks. Meanwhile, the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database found that Islamic extremists were responsible for over 60% of terrorist incidents worldwide between 2001 and 2020.

The West’s Cowardly Capitulation

Despite Islam’s centuries-long track record of silencing critics through violence, the Western world refuses to confront this reality. Instead of defending free speech, governments criminalize “Islamophobia and prioritize the protection of Islamic sentiment over the safety of their own citizens.

Rather than safeguarding dissenters, social media giants ban those who expose Islamic extremism, while fundamentalists continue spreading their ideology unchecked. Universities de-platform speakers who challenge Islam, terrified of being labeled “bigots.”

This cowardice doesn’t prevent violence; it enables it. Every concession signals to the world that Islam is too dangerous to criticize and that intimidation works. And so, the attacks continue.

Rather than addressing their own intolerance, Islamic organizations worldwide push for laws against “Islamophobia.” These laws conflate criticism of Islam with racism against Muslims, a deliberate tactic designed to shield the religion from scrutiny.

By criminalizing dissent, they seek to impose the same culture of censorship that dominates many Muslim-majority nations. This is an assault on democracy itself. Free societies cannot survive if citizens are barred from challenging dangerous ideologies.

Islam Must Be Challenged, Not fear.

When a religion silences critics through violence, it becomes an obstacle to progress. The Catholic Church once ruled with an iron fist, executing heretics and persecuting scientists. It wasn’t until the Enlightenment forced a reckoning that Christianity moved into the modern world.

Islam, however, has resisted such a transformation. Unlike Christianity, which underwent reformations and intellectual revolutions, Islam remains largely bound to a medieval, punitive framework that prioritizes control over conscience.

Every time the world bows to fear, Islamic extremists grow bolder. The solution is not more appeasement; it is unrelenting scrutiny. Just as Christianity and other religions have been subjected to criticism and reform, Islam must not be immune.

The West must refuse to be cowed into silence. And Muslims must be challenged to accept that living in a free society means tolerating dissent, even when it makes them uncomfortable.

The violence used to silence critics of Islam is not just a distant threat; it has already reached American soil.

• The Curtis Culwell Center attack in Texas, where two jihadists opened fire at an event featuring Muhammad cartoons, was a direct attempt to enforce Islamic blasphemy laws through bloodshed.
• The near-fatal stabbing of Salman Rushdie in New York, decades after a fatwa was issued against him, is another grim reminder that no critic is ever truly safe.

From the massacre at Charlie Hebdo to the beheading of Samuel Paty in France to the assassination of Salwan Momika in Sweden, the message is clear: questioning Islam comes with a death sentence.

Americans must understand what is at stake. If they allow these speech restrictions to take hold, if they accept the premise that Islam must be treated as untouchable, they will be surrendering their most fundamental right: the freedom to think, to question, to speak without fear.

The choice is simple: defend free speech now, or watch as the violence that has terrorized critics of Islam across the world becomes a permanent reality in the United States.