2.225 "God does not hold you responsible for the mere utterance of oaths.He holds you responsible for your innermost intention"
Here Muhammad is talking about oath taken in marriage and what your intentions are with your wife. Read the verse along with those before and after and you will see it has nothing to do with accepting other religions which is what we are talking about.
2.257 you have qouted,but not all the verse.
"God is the whaali(protector or guardian)of those who belive.He brings them out from darkness to light.But as for those who disbelive,their Auliya(supporters,helpers) are Taghut(false deities,or false leaders),they bring them out from light into darkness.Those are the dwellers of the Fire,and they will abide therein forever"
I can not see that this verse,say every person that is not a muslim,will go to hell.He warns all of us,to go from light to darkness,and to follow bad leaders.Again our innermost intention.
Let us look at the entire verse. It says nothing about following bad leaders. It has nothing to do with our innermost intentions. It is plain and simply telling those who do not believe in Allah that they are in darkness and will be going to hell.
257 Allah is the Protecting Guardian of those who believe. He bringeth them out of darkness into light. As for those who disbelieve, their patrons are false deities. They bring them out of light into darkness. Such are rightful owners of the Fire. They will abide therein.
Let's break it up:
Allah is the Protecting Guardian of those who believe.Allah protects those who believe. It does not say believe in what as yet so let's continue.
He bringeth them out of darkness into light.Allah brings people out of darkness into light. He does not say that Jesus or Rama, or Zeus brings them out from darkness. Only him.
As for those who disbelieve, their patrons are false deities.If you disbelieve.... Disbelieve in what? What was Muhammad preaching? Believe in Allah or believe in any God you want? Muhammad preached belief only in Allah.
When Muhammad conquered Mecca did he leave the Gods that resided there and told the people to worship any god you want but just include Allah? Or did he destroy all the gods that were there and said "Truth has come and falsehood has departed"? Any believe other than in Islam is falsehood. And Muhammad?s example is to destroy those false gods. And that is exactly what Arab armies did when they conquered many nations.
... their patrons (gods) are false deities. So if you disbelieve in Allah your gods are false. If all gods other than Allah are false then how can you claim it?s OK to worship other (false) gods?
They bring them out of light into darkness.They, the false gods, take people from light into darkness. What a claim to make. People who worship a god other than Allah goes into darkness. Therefore it is basically saying only Islam is true. All other religions are false and lead to darkness.
Such are rightful owners of the Fire. They will abide therein.Such are, (those who do not believe), will abide, live, in hell fire. Its quite simple.
Looking at the entire verse it simply says, if you do not believe in what Muhammad taught, you will be in darkness with your false gods and will go to hell.
If you still do not see how this verse says disbelievers will be going to hell, maybe other verses will help:
2:39 But they who disbelieve, and deny Our revelations, such are rightful Peoples of the Fire. They will abide therein.
3:10 (On that Day) neither the riches nor the progeny of those who disbelieve will aught avail them with Allah. They will be fuel for Fire.
3:12 Say unto those who disbelieve: Ye shall be overcome and gathered unto Hell, an evil resting-place.
3:116 The riches and the progeny of those who disbelieve will not avail them aught against Allah; and such are rightful owners of the Fire. They will abide therein.
These are just a small fraction of verses that tells of the unbelievers fate, hell-fire.
And of course the verse I quoted before (3:85) stating that no religion other than Islam will be acceptable and those that choose another will be a loser in the hereafter. I wonder where losers in the hereafter go? Oh must be hell. Well heaven is for winners, isn?t it?
You ask me some hard question,A.Ghazali.I wish I could answer everything with selfsurance,but I dont know if I can.
They are not intended to be hard. They are intended to stimulate a rational understanding of Islam.
And of course I know how Islam came to Africa.I have studied the slave trade,started by arab muslim,many hundred years before the white men,started their slavetrade.
The arab slave trade,I call it that,was a little different than the white trade.The arab took two females for every one male.The white was opposite,they took two males for every one female.
Why do you think that Arabs before Muhammad never invaded Africa or any other other part of the world for that matter? Because they did not have an ideology that encouraged the spreading of a message at any cost. They did not have an example like Muhammad, who raided, invaded, enslaved en masse, forced religion onto others or formalised dhimmitude.
The fact that you maintain the tenents of Islam show that you approve of the Arab's invasions and conquests with the deaths of hundreds of millions of people all under the banner of 'Allahu Akbar'
As an african,if I should hate anybody laying us in chains,there would be no one left to love.
Not every nation enslaved people. The Chinese, Japanese, Burmese, Indian, Aborigines, Native Americans, etc, etc, etc never enslaved your people. So there are still many to love. And even those who did you cannot blame or not love the generations today who had nothing to do with it.
Anyway it is not about not loving the people who did it, it's about not submitting to the ideology that enabled it to be perpetrated onto so many.