Like you, I used to be ready to believe that maybe Muslims could change. In the books I read, there seemed to be plenty of noble and honorable Muslims.
But as you also point out, one difference between Jesus and Mohammed is that Mohammed was a warrior. In fact, more than that, Mohammed was just plain evil.
So, what do you do about a religion whose most basic claim is that “There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet?” Mohammed is the chosen prophet of Allah. The greatest and the last prophet. He is the model upon whom all Muslims are expected to base their lives, just as Christians are expected to follow Jesus.
So, how do you deal with the basic and irresolvable problem that Mohammed was a murderer, a slave taker, a rapist, a pederast, an oath breaker, a liar, and abundantly evil? How do Muslims deal with this? Apparently by imitating Mohammed.
Although few will admit it, slavery in our modern world was basically a Muslim project. It died out in Christendom during the middle ages. But Muslims continued to practice it. They took every chance they could get to enslave white Europeans, and they reintroduced slavery into the modern world when European explorers went out and encountered the slave trade in Africa, which was already a going business.
There is slavery all over the world today—in Muslim countries—although few will admit it. And you still have such brutal customs as stoning and beheading women for the “crime” of being forcibly raped. The rapists are not punished, the women are.
None of this is a distortion or perversion of Islam. This is what Islam teaches. This is what Mohammed did. And there is no way to change that.
- You are absolutely right, but just like many Westerners of today have their own interpretation of the Bible (for instance, there are plenty of Christians who have reached the conclusion that the Bible, in fact, is not against homosexuality after all and so on), Muslims are endowed with a free will just like you and I and therefore their interpretation of Islam is up to them.
It will take time for Islam to change (alternatively wither away), but like said, Islam is against human nature and therefore it will not triumph.