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You three are living in a world of delusion. As soon as your wonderful peaceful Islam burst on to the world scene, its first action was to cleanse the Arabian peninsula of "infidels" (read Christians) by slaughtering them because for us to live their was to somehow dishonor Allah (Usama bin Ladin and his cohorts are motivated still by this very thought). It then moved on to the conquest of as much neighboring territory as quickly as possible, killing as many Christians (and Hindus and Jews) as possible. This is its real face. When we look today to see where Islam is attempting to establish new beachheads, what do we find? The mass murder of the Christian inhabitants of these unfortunate lands (Chechnya, Bosnia, Albania, Cyprus, Sudan, Nigeria, Indonesia). Peaceful conversion seems entirely foreign to them.

You cannot escape history. Why should we look upon this religion as a benign force for good when it so blatantly acts as a perverted force for evil? Islam views non-Muslims as idolators who insult Allah by their very existence. It is a standing declaration of war against non-Muslims. For Mohammed, a sufficient cause to attack the Byzantine Empire was to send letters demanding its immediate conversion to his new religion. When refused, this "insult to Allah" was dealth with as Muslims have always delth with it - by a sneak attack upon the unsuspecting Byzantines and the forcible conversion or enslavement of the populace. How does this differ at all from their present behavior towards our brothers in southern Sudan? And all Muslims cheer on this war and so many support this war with their money, so indistinguishable from our own present suffering in its targeting of women and children.

Why not read this before it disapears forever (this is the cache from google):

Jihad

Arabic: jihâd

Islamic term, Arabic for 'battle; struggle; holy war for the religion'.

Jihad has two possible definitions: the greater, which is the spiritual struggle of each man, against vice, passion and ignorance. This understanding of jihad has been presented by apologetics of modern times, but is an understanding of the term rarely used by Muslims themselves.

The lesser jihad is simplified to cover holy war against infidels and infidel countries. This kind of jihad is described in both the Holy Koran and in the hadiths. Muslim law has divided the world into two entities, dâru l-'islâm, the abode of Islam, and dâru l-harb, the abode of war. Battling against the Abode of war was a duty for a Muslim, as this is the only way for the peace of Islam to take the place of the warlike conditions of the infidels' society. Jihad can be both defence, as well as attacking an enemy.

The enemies of Islam are divided into two groups, the Peoples of the book, âhlu l-kitâb and the pagans, the kâfirûn. The first group, defined as Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Mandeans need only to submit to an Islamic ruler, and live in peace with other Muslims to end the situation where jihad is imperative.

For the pagans there is a principle fairly similar, but they get less rights under the Muslim ruler than the Peoples of the book. While this group generally can live safely inside a Muslim society, some Muslims have propagated that these should either convert to Islam or face death penalty. In situations where the Muslim rulers mean that war has to be waged against the infidels, they should be allowed sufficient of time to convert before the Muslim army attacks.

Jihad is a duty for every Muslim community, but not necessarily for every individual: it's sufficient that a certain number of the the able men perform jihad. The one who dies in the battle against the infidels, becomes a martyr, a shahid, and is guaranteed a place in Paradise as well as certain privileges there.

While offensive jihad, i.e. attacking, is fully permissible in Sunni Islam, it is prohibited for some of the larger groups of Shi'i Islam, which consider only the Imam, now in occultation, as carrying the right to decide to go to war or not.

The Kharijis regard jihad as the sixth pillar of Islam, a position that other groups of Islam have adhered to earlier.