I first noticed something unusual about Islam during the 1980s when I was doing research for my book, Ethics in Context. I devoted one section of the book to the “Golden Rule.” The Golden Rule, in its negative or positive formulations, is incorporated not only in Christianity (Matt. 7:12), where Jesus declares it is a summary of “the law and the prophets,” but also in other major religions. For example, in Judaism, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor”; in Hinduism, “Let no man do to another that which would be repugnant to himself”’; in Buddhism, “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful”; in Confucianism, “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do unto others.”

I took this as evidence of the relative universality of rational ethical principles in the world. But in Islam, I could find nothing of the sort, rather just the opposite – a reverse Golden Rule, so to speak: “Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. Be merciful to one another, but ruthless to the unbelievers” (Qur’an 48:29); “Never take unbelievers for friends” (3:28). Furthermore, the commands in the Qur’an to slay the unbelievers wherever they find them (2:191), not befriend them (3:28), fight them and show them harshness (9:123), and smite their heads (47:4) – accentuate distance from the Golden Rule.

So I decided at that time just to omit any reference to Islam in that chapter. As I have discovered in further researches, however, the ethical/religious problems within Islam are even more serious. Just as Islam teaches the reverse of the Golden Rule, it teaches the reverse of the last seven of the Ten Commandments, which have to do with morality:

• 4 ^th Commandment, Honoring Father and Mother: Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam states that retaliation is generally required for murder, but not subject to retaliation is “a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring.” Honor killings can go in the other direction, too. Boys captured by ISIS report that they were ordered to kill their parents, according to injunctions in the Qur’an – Suras 9:23, 58:22, 60:4, which mandate complete hatred of, and disassociation from unbelievers, even if they are kindred or parents.

• 5^th Commandment, no killing: Muhammad is considered by Muslims to be the“perfect man”, and offered numerous examples of murder for devout Muslims to follow – beginning with the murder of poets who ridiculed him in Medina and Mecca, and ending with beheading of hundreds of “unbelievers” in his various raids and battles. Osama bin Laden, in his 1996 “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places,” justified his Fatwa to kill Americans by quoting Quranic verses 3:145, 47:4-6, 2:154, 9:14, 8:72, and 9:5 (the “verse of the sword”). Terrorism is specifically supported in verses 8:12, and 3:151, and a hadith of Bukhari 52:256. And conversion from Islam to another religion is punishable by execution, according to Bukhari 9.84.57, “[Muhammad ordered] ‘Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him’.”