Radical fundamentalists have been the boon of religions from the outset; one only needs to remember the Inquisition and the Crusades to understand that Islam is not the first religion that has allowed a few to go bad. However, of late I have been doing some research on the prophet Mohammed, if one wants to call him such, and I am becoming more confused as I go.

First though, lets look at the religion the Romans called the Cult of Jesus. Objectively, we can look back through history and for a hundred or so years after Jesus lived there is precious little that survives. If it werent for the letters of Paul and a few references to Jesus and His crucifixion in Roman history, we may not have known about Him because the Jewish religion would probably have absorbed the Jerusalem Christians by the time the Temple was destroyed. That He is remembered at all is a testament not to men but to the power of the man who was Jesus. We can not lay hands on the historical figure of Jesus but we can be certain that He was here and that His life changed the world.

Muhammad, like many successful leaders, broke with existing restraints in Islam by what Encyclopedia Britannica calls transformative conservatism. He expanded his authority; by giving existing practices a new history, he reoriented them; by assigning a new cause to existing problems, he resolved them. His character fit his historical situation perfectly. At least, in his Mecca years he was a consensus builder even if he was breaking down tribal beliefs in favor of a universal definition of the faith. However, when he moved to Medina, he began to provide for his community through caravan raiding. Thus, he invited hostility. He required all the Medinans to take sides.

Initially he failed but that was followed by successes, at Nakhlah and Badr, against a large Meccan force; and they continued to succeed. From that time on, conversion to Isl?m involved joining an established political group, the successes of which were tied to its proper spiritual orientation, regardless of whether the convert shared that orientation completely. During his years in Medina a major doctrine of Isl?m emerged: the connection between material success and divine favor. It was during his years at Medina that he attempted to draw the Jews and Christians into his universal Islamic religion. When they refused his efforts and ignored his orders military solutions were exercised.

Still, this is no different than any other political group, is it? However, during this period he began to proclaim that killing was an acceptable way to eliminate unbelievers. So he had a 100% conversion rate. You either converted or died. A practice that is still followed in many places in the world.

Skip forward now to June 8, 2006. Zarqawi has been killed. How many other mini-me Muhammads exist in the religion? Will his death help? Will killing radical fundamentalist Muslims win the war, the war most of them see as a continuation of the Crusades?

As in the days of the Inquisition, forced conversion does not work. What do you do with an enemy who thinks their death is holy and your death is justified? I am beginning to ask myself are we on the brink of a war with Islam? I am not prepared to accept ISlam as the way of life for my wife, daughter and son. We may not like the war we are in but it would do us well to remember it was not a war of our choosing.