WHY ISLAM IS DIFFERENT

"This is America. That means that if a religious organization legally sets up shop it must be accepted. Why the hate against Islam alone?"

Such is often the earnest query put to those who work in the American Resistance to stop the Islamization of our republic. The following is another excellent retort posted orginally at Jihad Watch by the eminently learned Hugh Fitzgerald:

OH, I CAN ANSWER THAT, as an atheist—just like Pat Condell, Oriana Fallaci, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and many others— just like you. Only, not like you, Pat Condell, and Oriana Fallaci, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, understand perfectly well that Islam is not only, and not even mainly, about providing an explanation for the creation of the universe and for describing a Creator and setting out some rituals for worship of that Creator.

No, Islam is a Total Belief-System. Islam provides a Total Regulation of Life, and a Complete Explanation of the Universe. Islam discourages free inquiry and encourages adherents—requires them rather—to be slaves of Allah. Islam sets out rules of conduct that are not based on morality, but are simply rules according to what Muhammad, a seventh-century Arab, is said to have transmitted from Allah, and those rules are not subject to questioning, moral or otherwise, or re-interpretation, but are simply divided as to What Is Commanded and What Is Prohibited. And among the many things Prohibited are most forms of artistic expression, including all paintings of people, statues, and music, so that if one finds Muslims practicing this, it is only because they choose to ignore Islam at the edges, and have no defense if other Muslims come along and insist that they halt that music or that painting. Prohibited too is the kind of skeptical inquiry that so threatens the brittle structure and hold of Islam over the minds of its adherents, and in discouraging that, Islam discourages mental freedom of all kinds.

And above all, what is so worrisome about Islam is that it lays claim to the whole world. There is not only a Dar al-Islam and a Dar al-Harb, but between the two, there must be a state of permanent warfare. It is the duty of all Muslims—a duty not tangential but central—to win ever-greater amounts of territory for Islam, for Dar al-Islam. And that must be done by removing all obstacles to the spread, and then the dominance, of Islam. This can be accomplished in a number of ways, but the struggle, or Jihad, to remove those obstacles must go on forever. It is not a case of recovering this or that sliver of territory once possessed by Muslims, though theoretically—and emotionally—priority in the To-Do List of Islam is given to such places that were once under Islam. These include not only Israel, whihch gets such exaggerated attention, but Spain and Portugal, Sicily, Greece, the Balkans (Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia), Rumania, Bulgaria, much of Hungary, most of Russia, almost all of India, and more besides. But if the Sudan, or Nigeria, or southern Thailand, or part of the Philippines, or countries or parts of countries in Western Europe, fall to Islam before some of the lands on the To-Do List, that is fine with Muslims.

The main point is that Islam uncompromisiingly divides the world between Believer and Unbeliever, Musliim and Infidel. And Muslims owe their entire allegiance to Islam, and to fellow members of the Umma (that loyalty is one that becomes real mainly when Infidels are involved, for as the behavior of the Arabs toward non-Arab Muslims makes clear, Islam is also a vehicle for Arab supremacism), and as the behavior of rich Muslim states toward poor Muslim states also makes clear, there is no real sharing or help among Muslims; the only help is that provided against Infidels.

I could go on, but why should I? Your question has been answered sufficiently.

There is no comparison between the Total Belief-System of Islam—called, faute de mieux, in modern times, a "religion," (earlier Western men called it not a "religion" but a "faith" or "a fanatical faith"—this "great religions of the world" business started mainly in the early 20th century, with American Protestant schoolbooks of the "Different Peoples of the World" type, with a unit on "The World's Great Religions."

Islam is a threat to me and to you. Christianity is not. Judaism is not. Hinduism is not. Buddhism is not. But Islam....Islam is quite different. And more and more people, despite the best efforts of those in authority to try to make us believe otherwise, are examining the evidence of their senses (including the daily Jihad news from around the world, but also books on Islam, and the Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira themselves) and discovering this, disturbing and unpleasant as it is, to be true.

And they will continue to do so, and the race is on: will enough people have grasped the meaning, and the menace, of Islam in time to take the measures necessary to adequately protect themelves, or will the crazed squandering of resources, including the transfer of vast sums from the Infidel peoples to Muslims—even beyond the fantastic sums, the trillions, that have gone to Muslim oil-rich states, battening on an accident of geology—stop, and reasonable, effective, and much less burdensome measures, be taken in time?

One hopes. One keeps on hoping.

—Hugh Fitzgerald