ISLAM AND WAR

“Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill them, put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of other [Qur'an] psalms and Hadiths urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all this mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim”

—Ayatollah Khomeini

RELIGION OF PEACE STRIKES AGAIN

IT'S NOT REALLY A MYSTERY, but I suppose it's time to trot out once again the fundamentals in this old discussion in the wake of the nation's most tragic jihad attack on American soil since September 11, eight years ago. Hear the excuses lobbed in like small stones wrapped in bullying threats—I'm sure he just misunderstands his religion. He's just a lone extremist. And what about the Christian right types who kill abortionists, and uh, did I mention the bloody Crusades?

The murder and attempted murder of over forty US military personnel at Fort Hood, TX, yesterday is just the latest in several attempts by jihadists to attack military personnel stateside. This most recent example of what Professor Daniel Pipes coined as sudden jihad syndrome, we should once again without equivocation point out to our cultural relativist friends that as long as Qur'an-stoked fanatics rule Islam right now, it doesn’t matter a damn if this man had been, or any other Islamic-leaning dunderhead dares claim to be among that indeterminate group called moderate Muslims…

But this was no spontaneous event. There are numerous reports that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan gave away all of his possessions and passed out the ignoble Qur'an before tackling the task he had set for himself. Neighbors described Hasan as a quiet man who began wearing "Arabic clothing" in recent weeks. Edward Windsor, a neighbor, never suspected Hasan was in the Army. Hasan's rank surprised Windsor who would never have imagined an officer with a rank of major would have lived in an apartment that rents for $350 and houses soldiers ranked as private first class....

His history speaks for itself. This particular jihadist was suspicious above and below the call of duty, and as usual to someone who takes the ROP seriously, considered himself more a devoted Islamic believer more than an American military officer. Are ALL Muslims jihadists in waiting? No. But how do we sort them out from those who wish to simply get on with life?

The majority of mid-century Germans weren’t goose-stepping Nazis. The common peoples of Communist China & gulag-infested Russia never wanted to kill nearly a hundred million of their own people, but the ruling forces did indeed. Peace loving and moderate Germans didn’t stop Hitler and his minions. Peaceful, decent Russian and Chinese people didn’t stop their communist tyrants, either. But legion were the appeasers, the apathetic, the cowards.

Clearly then, the peace loving Muslims of today don’t matter in the frenetic scheme of things. These folks, whoever they are, are irrelevant, helpless, cowed, camouflage, et cetera, brainwashed since childhood to despise the enemies of Islam, an idea reinforced with their daily devotions, and thus will never engage to stop the jihadists, but in fact are much more likely to circle the wagons to defend and praise the jihadists. Nothing mysterious. Human nature, actually.

So, it’s up to those of us who have studied both the battlefield and the combatant. We’re the only ones who have ascertained the depth of our enemy's resolve, and it is we who must stop this invasion. Stop Islamic immigration now!

The state-controlled, mainstream, limp-wristed liberal media absolutely despise Christianity, for what they erroneously believe to be puritanical, antiquated and traditional values. Obviously, if Christians don't subscribe to the wanton slaughter of defenseless babies resting comfortably inside a woman's womb, then they must not be progressive enough.

But if that's the case, as it most certainly is, then why aren't the media screaming for the defeat of ALL Muslim terrorists, who are clearly still under the wicked spell of the 7th century warlord they liken to a prophet? Instead, the media treats Islam as a favored son, to be coddled, protected and even exalted by those who should know better and do know better, but have succumbed to their own Marxist worldview and immediate fears.

In other news, the Hollywood cartel who produced the new film, "2012", takes a rip at Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and basically every religious people on earth EXCEPT that of the favored son, the loudest, the proudest, the most violent religious group ravaging the earth today—Islam. They refuse to acknowledge fundamentalist Muslim terrorists because of one reason, and that reason is mere cowardice. They fear the obligatory fatwa from these barbarians at the gate, so they simply continue to ridicule the Christians, since clearly, THESE PEOPLE will not retaliate with a bombing du jour.

Evil will triumph when good men do nothing.

As my friend Kendra Adams puts it:

Your snark doesn't offend. The dhimmified nihilist post modern left offends. And, you're right. You know, when we all opened our eyes (those of us who actually did, I mean), I thought that we would just tell the people who didn't know and that would be that-- we'd all get outraged at this and defeat it. I had NO iDEA that that is NOT what this is about. I had NO IDEA the level of anti-Americanism that existed. None. I thought the left was a bit idealistic, maybe. I didn't know they really didn't mind undermining our values.

Yes yes yes! Well, I thought even those who sympathized with communism realized that our system was better. I mean, I thought they were being idealistic, as I mentioned. So, when I'd press them, and when they realized I was unsympathetic, they easily agreed that capitalism was better. but, I think now they just didn't want to get into it with me because they weren't ready for a real discussion. I didn't know that they TRULY LIKED COMMUNISM! I thought it actually IMPOSSIBLE that someone would prefer a totalitarian society. I thought that the general consensus in the entire non-Islamic world was that totalitarianism was evil. I was very naive.

This much is true about Muslims. Take note ye apologists and appeasers, dhimmis of all stripes. This man could have chosen many paths in solving his "moral" dilemma. Afraid of deployment? Check. Afraid to strive against fellow believers. Check. When confronted with the very real decision of where one's loyalty lies, a decision that most American Muslims can defray their entire lives, this Muslim posing as an army major chooses to slay infidels.

He did NOT choose to slink off to Canada. He did not not claim any sort of conscientious objection, although he did offer we are told to buy his way out. It's been eight years since his grievance began, right after September 11; why the delay? Eight years without an opportunity to bail out seems even in these times a long uninterrupted enlistment. But let's face it, he could have easily but did not claim mental health problems. No. Alone with Allah, his choice was pre-ordained. His decision was to kill infidels.

This man, like so many others, chose to be a Muslim first.

Islam is a religion of violence which promotes lying to infidels and the murder of all of those who stand in Islam's way. When the media reports on a person being a "pious Muslim" this MUST start sending up red flags in the minds of all of us. Unlike a pious believer in Jesus Christ, who most likely would attempt to emulate Jesus' pacifistic, non-violent and charitable lifestyle, the "pious Muslim" seeks to emulate the life of Muhammad, a pedophile who married and raped 9-year old girls, a man who tortured and murdered anyone who disagreed with him, a man who employed genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Jews and infidels of Arabia in the 7th Century, and a man who sought to dominate and destroy every non-Islamic society and individual on Earth.

If we were to look at religion as a computer operating system, then we need to be extremely concerned whenever the Islamic mental operating system gets fired up in someone's mind because the first lines of code that get executed during boot-up are the destruction of democracy, the subordination of women, and the eventual destruction of all non-Muslims through one-on-one violence or global Islamic jihad. Yes, Nidal Malik Hasan is a pious Muslim, and by all accounts rapidly getting more pious.

And the ultimate consequence of his increasing Islamic piety? A mass assassination of non-Islamic Americans whom he viewed—as a pious Muslim—as the enemies of Allah.

INTERVIEW WITH TIM FURNISH

By Rick Shenkman

Timothy R. Furnish, the author of Holiest Wars: Islamic Mahdis, their Jihads and Osama bin Laden (Praeger, 2005), teaches history at Georgia Perimeter College, Dunwoody, GA. He was interviewed by email by Rick Shenkman, the editor of HNN.

I was surprised to learn that before you were a historian you served in the military. What's your military background?

4 1/2 years enlisted in Army Intelligence (Arabic linguist/interrogator), following college (it paid off my student loans) in the mid-80s. In the late-90s I was commissioned as a chaplain candidate in the Army while I was doing my doctorate at Ohio State, since I had also obtained an M.A. from Concordia Seminary. But when it came to finishing my dissertation or doing chaplaincy full-time, I opted for the former and in fact I was just discharged as an O-3 (Captain) a few months ago.

Has your military experience shaped the way you do history?

Probably not all that much, other than determining my specialization.

How did you decide to choose Islamic history?

Well, partly out of interest and partly out of utilitarian motives. Having joined the Army in 1983 hoping to learn Russian, I knew little of Islam or the Middle East when I wound up in Arabic training at the Defense Language Institute. But it sparked my interest in that religion and region, and when my enlistment was up I decided to go into graduate school in Islamic history, since I already had the primary research language under my belt.

Has 9/11 affected your scholarly work? That is, has it caused you to change the focus of your studies?

Not all that much. I was already working on Mahdism and the nexus between it and Islamic fundamentalism, and in all honesty 9/11 was not a big surprise to me.

Do you find that Americans have serious misperceptions about Islamic history?

One big one in particular: that the Islamic world has always been a victim at the hands of the West. I find this particularly prominent among the intelligentsia in the country, whose knowledge of Islamic/Middle Eastern history goes back, at best, to the early 20th c. Very few, in my experience, know of the imperial reach and power of, say, the Abbasids, Fatimids, Mughals or even Ottomans.

Conservatives like David Horowitz claim that Middle East Studies programs in the United States are dominated by anti-Israel liberals. Do you agree?

Liberals, yes; but anti-Israel ones, not necessarily. I do think that the field can be defined, largely, in terms of Saidians (devotees of Edward Said's "Orientalism" thesis, which sees the Arab world as victim of the West) and Lewisians (devotees of Bernard Lewis, who disagree). I fall into the latter camp. As mentioned earlier, I think the tendency (sometimes, insistence) to see the Arab, or even the entire Muslim, world as victimized by the West is rampant in the field, and insofar as Israel is seen as, if you will, the "tip of the spear," many academics dislike Israel.

Why did you write your book, Holiest Wars: Islamic Mahdis, Their Jihads, and Osama bin Laden? And please tell us what a Mahdi is.

"al-Mahdi" is "the rightly-guided one" who, according to Islamic hadiths (traditions), will come before the End of Time to make the entire world Muslim (with a little help from the returned prophet Jesus). I did my doctoral dissertation on Mahdist movements throughout history and that book is the expansion thereof. I was asked to write the book by Greenwood/Praeger after an article I'd published, not long after 9/11, speculating on whether Usama bin Ladin might attempt to claim the Mahdiyah for himself.

It's hard to write about Islamic history without getting caught up in current controversies, I would think. Have you found it difficult to maintain proper historical perspective in your work?

Sometimes. Any discussion of Islam and the violence done in its name today is fraught with danger (so far, only rhetorical). If I had any hair left, I'd pull it out with frustration over the extremists of both the Left and Right who see only the aspects of Islam which they wish to: the former just parrot, over and over, "Islam is a religion of peace" without, it seems, ever having bothered to read the Qur'an or study Islamic history; the latter, on the other hand, fall off the horse on the other side and emphasize nothing but the undeniably real violent strain in Islam, but never seem to notice (or admit) that moderate Islam (Sufism) and moderate Islamic states (the Ottoman Empire) can exist. However, at this juncture in history, I do think that the Left's denial of the undeniably violent, albeit minority, strain of Islam is the greater threat.

If you had five minutes with President Bush what would you tell him he needs to remember about Islamic history?

That the Muslim proponents of moderate Islam as a "religion of peace" will not gain the upper hand until the Islamic world undergoes its own "enlightenment" and, like the predominantly-Christian West, officially abandons its dream of a one world religious state. Admittedly, this took Western civilization centuries to do, and it had one major advantage the Islamic world does not: the tradition, going back to Jesus himself, of separation of church and state ("give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's," Matthew 22:21).

Islam has been, almost since its inception, as much a political as a religious movement. And a military one. Islam will have to be reconfigured such that it can co-exist in minority status without having to seize the reins of power. That will be difficult to do, and it will have to be done primarily by Muslims themselves, but quite frankly the global community cannot allow one belief system to demand obeisance from the others. We in the West can, and should, help moderate Islam to win out over the jihadists, but in the final analysis Muslims themselves must do the heavy lifting there.

PRACTICING WHAT THEY PREACH

WHERE IS MODERATE ISLAM? Does it exist? If so, then where? Is it rooted in true Islam or just wishful thinking?

"Islam is a Religion of Peace"
"Muhammad is a man of Peace"
"The Qur'an is a book of Peace"

How can we know if these statements are true?

We frequently hear from politicians in the public sphere and individual Muslims and Islamic organisations, that Islam is "a religion of peace", that it is "tolerant of other faiths and beliefs" and that it is "in favour of democracy, equal rights and freedom of speech."

The media reports the connection between certain Islamic groups and violence, terrorism, and inequality for women. But it also claims that the vast majority of Muslims are peace-loving, law-abiding and that there is nothing in Islam that is against the values of British society.

In public debate and media language, the distinction has emerged between "radical' and "moderate' Islam. Adherents of the former are called "fundamentalist' and "Islamist', while the latter, the moderates, are said to represent mainstream, true Islam. How can we begin to understand these distinctions and how do we know how many British Muslims are represented in each of them?

A 2001 survey revealed how Muslims in Britain viewed themselves:

15% said they were radical in that they followed a literal understanding of the Qur'an and the example of Muhammad. 70% described themselves as nominal—that is, they followed Islamic traditions and their cultural adaptations. 15% saw themselves as liberal—they were happy to follow the West and assimilate fully into British culture.

But seven years can be a long time in warfare notation, so what is the situation today?

The Sunday Telegraph on 19 February 2006 carried a "YouGov" survey report that revealed:

40% of British Muslims identified with Islamic radicalism.

This was post 7/7, and, for whatever reason, shows that radicalism is on the increase in Britain. It may be that new immigrants are swelling the numbers of radical Islam, but it is certainly true that many British Muslims are being won over to a more Islamist position. It is reasonable to conclude that between 2001 and 2006 converts to the "radical cause' came from the group previously identified as nominal. Liberal Muslims are perhaps less inclined towards radicalism, as they have, for all intents and purposes, broken with all traditional forms of Islam. If this is the case, then it shows that today, as in the past, moderate Muslims find it hard to withstand pressure from those who are intent on a more literal approach to Islam.

To grapple with these issues it is necessary to understand the Qur'an's teaching and the practice of Muhammad in relation to a number of issues of concern to those who wish to uphold Western British society: jihad, democracy, freedom of religion and speech, the equality of women, and sharia.

The assertion that Islam is a "religion of peace' draws us, in particular, to the teaching of Islam on violent jihad. It is said by many Muslim apologists that the word "Islam' itself means "peace'. However, it is widely accepted that this is misreading of the Arabic word, and that "Islam' means "surrender'. If there is any connection with "peace' here, it is that "peace' which comes from total surrender and slave-like servitude to an absolute deity as expressed in the Qur'an and Islamic traditions. The peace of Islam, therefore, is the peace and protection afforded to those who convert to Islam or in the case of Jews and Christians, those who accept a humiliating, second-class status in an Islamic society known as Dhimmitude.

The Qur'an

According to former professor of Islamic History at Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Mark Gabriel, "There are at least 114 verses in the Qur'an that speak of love, peace and forgiveness, especially in the Surah titled "The Heifer'"(Surah 2:62, 109).' But Gabriel goes on to explain that in the light of the later verse found in Surah 9:5 (the "sword verse'), these former "tolerant' verses have been abrogated or annulled. This is according to the Islamic teaching of naskh in which the later revelations of the Qur'an cancelled out the former verses wherever there is a contradiction. (Islam and Terrorism by Mark Gabriel)

It is commonly understood that the earlier Meccan Surahs are more tolerant, corresponding to the earlier phase of Muhammad's life when his teaching focussed mainly on purely religious issues such as belief in one God and the rejection of pagan idolatry. He hoped to persuade Jews to accept him as the prophet of monotheism in line with the Hebrew prophets of the Old Testament, and for the Christians to accept him as the apostle of God, somewhat analogous to the apostles of the New Testament.

However, there was resistance from both groups who clearly saw that Muhammad's teaching was at odds in major respects with the Scriptures as they knew and understood them—not least, the final and absolute authority Muhammad claimed for himself. The Medinan Surahs become more and more strident, imposing social, political and military imperatives on the Muslim community, until finally, the Qur'an became replete with teaching of hate, destruction, death and servitude to all who resisted Islam, either on the battlefield or in their personal faith. A well-respected authority on Islam, himself a radical, Sheikh Muhammad Ezzat Darwazei, counts between 500 and 700 jihad verses in the Qur'an. It is important to remember that these "sword verses' abrogate earlier verses apparently advocating peace and tolerance. The nature of this violent teaching can be seen by the following sample:

The Medinan sword verse:

Surah 9:5 " But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay those who join other gods with Allah wherever you find them; besiege them, seize them, lay in wait for them with every kind of ambush..."

Sword verse against Christians and Jews:

Surah 9:29 "...Make war upon such of those to whom the scriptures have been given as believe not in Allah, or in the last day, and who forbid not what Allah and his apostle have forbidden ... until they pay tribute..."

Methodology of sword verses:

Surah 47:4 " When you encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads, until ye have made a great slaughter among them..."

Surah 8:38-39 " Unbelievers ... And fight them on until there is no more Tumult or oppression, and there prevail Justice and faith in Allah."

Recompense for those who die in Jihad:

Surah 4:74 "Let those who fight in the cause of Allah who sell the life of this world for the hereafter To him who fighteth in the cause of Allah, whether he is slain or gets victory, Soon shall we give him a reward of great value."

Surah 47:4-6 "...But those who are killed in the way of Allah, He will never let their deeds be lost... and admit them to Paradise."

Muhammad's example

The life of Muhammad is sacred to Muslims who are expected to follow his example in all things. An examination of Muhammad himself shows that not only did he believe in violence but personally practiced it. During his life Muhammad sanctioned 29 actual battles and planned 39 others. He also sanctioned deaths of Jews, Christians and those who criticised or opposed him.

When one reads such Quranic advocacy of violence and death to pagans, Christians and Jews, and the offer of spiritual reward to those who carry such things out, one understands the strength of the radicals who only need to appeal to such texts, as well as the example of Muhammad himself, to pursue and impose "true Islam'.

No compulsion in religion?

What are we to make of the violent teaching found in the Qur'an in the light of the oft-quoted Surah 2:256, "There is no compulsion in religion'?

As has been mentioned, we must ask whether this verse is considered mansukh (abrogated). But, even if that is denied by some Muslim apologists, the context of the verse shows that it does not promise freedom to non-Muslims, but only a measure of tolerance for a time. The following verse reads, "Allah is the Protector of those who have faith" and begs the question concerning how to treat those who reject Allah. Since they don't have Allah's protection, it is argued that these unbelievers do not deserve protection from Islam.

Does moderate Islam exist?

This question does not address the individual Muslim, as it is patently clear that many Muslims do not wish to acknowledge openly or to follow these "sword texts' and that many Muslims in Britain, and across the world, are peaceful and law-abiding. But the issue is: does a correct understanding of the Qur'an and the example of Muhammad as we know it ultimately require that all Muslims believe and support such teaching?

Responses to "sword' passages

When individual Muslims are questioned about the "violence' in the teaching of the Qur'an and in the example of Muhammad himself they usually respond in one of the following ways: Affirmation: As we have seen, we could expect 40% of British Muslims to affirm all or some Quranic teaching on violence. Denial: Some out of ignorance, wishful thinking, or deceit, deny that these verses are actually in the Qur'an.

Interpretation: Some teach that these verses were historical, situational and geographical, only applying to 7th century Arabia and proximate nations.

The key question is: What is the basis for a moderate interpretation of these verses advocating and commanding violence against non-Muslims?

Islamic tradition

Some deny that the "sword verses' ever had any place in historic, mainstream Islam, and that centuries of Islamic tradition and authoritative teaching proves that this is the case. They claim that Western ignorance and prejudice perpetuates misinterpretation of these texts. But, these same people do not seem to be able to provide any convincing evidence of this "vast body of Muslim opinion' within mainstream and historic Islamic tradition.

Islamic reformation

Some seek to reform Islam from within, trying to find a more acceptable and modern approach to it in keeping with Western ideals of freedom and tolerance. But the difficulty here is one of authority. Who has the authority to reject Quranic texts or reinterpret them? Surely to do so would be to deny the very basis of Islam and thus be a denial of Islam itself.

Moderate Islam and Sufism

Sufism is often cited as an example of moderate Islam. Sufism is characterised by "inner piety' and, as "a religion of the heart', is said not to advocate violence or political extremism. However, while it is true that Sufis draw their beliefs and inspiration from Mohammad himself, Sufi mysticism, with its quest for union with the divine, is regarded by its critics either as fundamentally un-Islamic or a sectarian departure from the purity of Islam. This is borne out by the fact that Sufis only officially comprise 3-4% of modern day Islam, although it is claimed that their influence is considerable both among Sunnis and Shi'ites.

Ruth Kelly recently gave support to the moderation of Sufism when she rejected the hitherto welcome role of the Muslim Council of Britain as the official voice of Islam in Britain. She was the main speaker at the launch of the Sufi Muslim Council in the House of Commons on 19th July 2006. But the problem is that Sufis do not and cannot speak for Islam in general. It is more influential as a religious tendency within Islam than it is as an official representative of Islam itself.

The Sufi Muslim Council claims that 80% of British Muslims are from a Sufi tradition (http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1824131,00.html ). That claim is hard to reconcile with the YouGov findings that 40% of British Muslims are sympathetic to Islamist ideals. The contradiction can be resolved in one of two ways. First, Sufism is not, in the final analysis, capable of asserting its "moderation' on the rest of Islam. Or, second, Sufism is not essentially moderate after all. The history of Sufi groups, such as of Naqshbandi, Qadiri and Sanusyia, reveals clear signs of a lack of moderation.

The future of "moderate Islam'

The problem with finding and promoting moderation within Islam is that the most "natural' reading of Islamic texts, as well as much influential historical interpretation of these, provides fuel for the radicals. Considerable fear is generated by the radicals who threaten many would-be moderates with the charge of apostasy and its harsh consequences which, very often, means death. Muslim solidarity, a strong force in its own right, is exploited by radicals who point to social injustice, the plight of the Palestinians, racism and the cultural estrangement of Muslims, in a bid to radicalise their fellow Muslims. This is how British Muslim youth are being successfully recruited to Islamism in colleges and universities, as a former radical, Ed Husain shows in his autobiography The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw Inside and Why I Left.

Perhaps the real issue in all this is not discussion about "moderate' or "radical' Muslims, but the nature of Islam itself. Until this is explored and addressed, it seems the situation is not set to improve. That there are many moderate Muslims, there can be no doubt, but as to the existence of historical, mainstream moderate Islam - where's the evidence?

• Sam Solomon "A Proposed Charter of Muslim Understanding"

• Sam Solomon - Progress for Western Liberal Democracies and their Muslim Communities?

• Sam Solomon - The Mosque Exposed

Pilcrow Press is specialized in literature that will educate and inform you of the issues we are facing in this day and age regarding Islamic threats to our nations.

Sam Solomon, a former Muslim and professor of Sharia Law, in particular the study related to the confrontation between Islamic and Western cultures, and the theological convictions at the root of this conflict. Sam Solomon is Director of Fellowship of Faith for Muslims and author of the Charter of Muslim Understanding and The Mosque Exposed.

Solomon is a unique man. He was raised as a Muslim, trained in Sharia law for 15 years, and after reading the New Testament became a Christian. He was imprisoned, questioned, and was to be put to death when the decision instead came to exile him on pain of death. One of the leading experts on Islam and Sharia law in the western world now, Mr Solomon has testified before congress and is a consultant to the British parliament for matters regarding Islam.

MORE TAQIYYA, OR A TURNING TIDE?

The following article is by Yousef Ibrahim writing today for the New York Sun:

The latest batch of attacks by Islamic terrorists raised fresh concerns among Muslims over what they fear may be "heinous attempts" to link terror with Islam. British Muslims, who number 1.6 million, are reportedly funding advertising campaigns across Britain that proclaim Islam is "the religion of peace"—in the process also implicitly warning fellow Britons against criticizing their faith.

Yet a year ago, a weighty Muslim writer and pundit, Abdel Rahman Al Rashed, manager of the pan-Arab TV network Al-Arabiya Television, famously launched a stormy debate when he opined, "While all Muslims are not terrorists, all terrorists are now Muslims."

Ever since, the question among Muslim scholars and activists is precisely how much of the terror inspired by Islam is due to the faith itself—and how much is due to the way it is being preached. Clearly, the issue is enormously delicate, fraught with the pitfalls of prejudice and all sorts of other sensitivities. But as hundreds of thousands of people from New York to Baghdad are butchered under Islam's banners, failing to tackle it head-on is unacceptable.

Reasonable Muslims now agree that when a religion veers so far off course, it loses immunity to inquisition. "We ought to go through very serious questioning and soul-searching," a founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Dr. Maher Hathout, wrote on "The American Muslim" Web site Thursday. "How did we, as a group, fail to nip this ugly phenomenon in the bud?" he asks. "How did we indulge in the luxury of theoretical debates, and craft all kinds of euphemisms to let this go on, spill out, and grow?"

The bare facts are there for all to see: Over the past 40 years or so, Islam's millions of fanatical preachers and political operatives have represented the religion as one of an "oppressed" people, victimized for centuries by the multiple ogres of Christianity, Judaism, and secularism. Listen to many preachers, read several interpretations of the Muslim holy book, or go to a variety of madrassas from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia, and you will quickly learn that Islam's central value, bar none, is jihad.

Far from a religion of peace, these clerics have "weaponized" Islam's text and the Koran into a war manifesto against even fellow Muslims—as between Shiites and Sunnis.

Raising the bar further, most Muslim scholarship of today maintains the refrain that Islam is not meant to be another religion, but the most definitive of God's revelations to man. As Muslim children are told daily, the Prophet Muhammad is not only the last of God's prophets, but the most authoritative. Thus, it follows that Muslims merit greater privilege. A Muslim, for example, may take any number of non-Muslim wives, but the reverse is illegal. Abandoning Islam is punishable by jail or death. No other religion is acceptable.

The next step in such a logical progression is clearly the necessity to force others to submit. Islam has become imbued with a kind of droit du seigneur—the extrajudicial, absolute rights of a lord of the manor—which cannot be argued with.
Saudis, for example—and this includes their most moderate and modernized leaders—feel it is perfectly natural to fund the building of hundreds of mosques in Europe, from London to Cologne, but cannot find a shred of logic in allowing the construction of a single church or Buddhist temple in Saudi Arabia, even though millions of Christian and Asian expatriates work there.

The scholarly journeys down such roads have served to legitimize the excessive aggression in hundreds of the religious edicts issued weekly by both legitimate and rogue Muslim scholars—including the charlatans of Al Qaeda, who decree that killing infidels is a Muslim duty.

A Saudi expert on Islamic movements, Mshari Al Zaydi, who is the opinion page editor of the Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat, went to the heart of the matter in a remarkable essay a few days ago, in which he pointedly noted that Saudi religious leaders have never issued an outright renunciation of the religious thinking of Osama bin Laden.

The most the Saudi religious establishment has done, Mr. Zaydi wrote, is to "mildly state that Mr. bin Laden was simply an ‘erroneous mujtahid,'"—a term referring to those qualified to issue juridical opinions and edicts such as fatwas—"as though this man was not responsible for setting the Muslim world ablaze, taking it back centuries and much farther than its original backwardness." In Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco, the Muslim Brotherhood contests for power based on a single slogan: "Islam is the solution."

Could it be that their version of Islam is also the problem?

___________

And precisely what version is that? A version modified to simply update the list of "given names" the infidel now goes by so as to include the United Staes, throwing in for good measure, that the US is the Great Satan (an idea shared by the hard Left in the West, if only they dared to use the "religious" language which they detest in their own backyard but rush to protect in their adopted allies in the Middle East as they move westward and upward towards demographic impulse to bring Sharia law into town). Ibrahim writes as if Islamic terror has just become manifest in the last 40 years.

As another commenter has put it, "He is like Daniel Pipes in that he (seems) to think that there is some benign, even good, Islam that exists. It is just the preaching that is the problem! Islam has veered off course! These preachers have 'weaponized' the text! Al Qaeda are charlatans!"

But the cat is out of the bag now. The voices are plain and clear that this is just not the case. Robert Spencer, Ali Sina, Ibn Warraq, Andrew Bostom, Bat Ye'or, Serge Trifkovic, Brigitte Gabriel, and Hugh Fitzgerald among others, have outlined the stress and strain of falsehood betraying that interpretation, pointing out in excrutiating detail that Islam has ALWAYS been murderous, following the example of Muhammad himself.

The religion of peace under Islam, if there was ever any truth to it, rests only in the historical account of Muhammed taming the competing tribes of the Wild Deserts of his own time and geography. Things drastically changed. Now Islam has a long history of attack, pillage, subjugation, and tyranny. Peace by the sword always proceeds in the fashion.

Just ask the tens of millions of Hindus slaughtered by Muslims following the example of Muhammad starting in the 11th century.

PONDER THIS YE PEACENIKS OF YORE

Adapted from Hugh Fitzgerald's compelling comments found here at Jihad Watch.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates—The self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq has given Iran a two-month ultimatum to stop meddling in Iraqi affairs or face all-out war, according to an audiotape posted on the Internet Monday. "We give—the leaders of Iran a period of two months to stop all forms of support to the rejectionists of Iraq, and stop direct and indirect interference in the affairs of the Islamic state," said a voice attributed to the group's leader Abu Omar Al Baghdadi.

The term rejectionists is used by Sunni militant groups to refer to Shiites, who dominate the government in Iraq and are in a majority in both Iraq and neighboring Iran.

"Otherwise, expect a fierce war that will annihilate you, which we have been preparing for over the past four years and just waiting to issue the orders to wage the campaign," the voice said.

And at the very same time that the US Administration, at the end of its intellectual and rhetorical tether, tells us that Al Qaeda, with a few thousand men, can "take over Iraq" if the Americans leave, it at the same time tells us that that same uber-Sunni organizqation is now having trouble with other Sunnis, particularly the Anbar tribes.

So, in US policy language, which once upon a tiem shined its spotlight upon the mighty organization of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which has now declared war on the Shiites in Iraq, calling them "Rafidite dogs".

Shiites, of course, who in the Sunni playbook, are even more treacherous than the run-of-the-mill American and other Western Infidels (the Crusaders/Zionists we all know). Shiites, the declared enemies of the Kurds, who have no rights in Mosul or Kirkuk or for that matter anywhere else because Al Qaeda, while "universalist" ini the same way as Islam claims to be "universalist," is all about the Arabs, and about Arab supremacist claims. Because Al Qaeda will never support the claims of a non-Arab Muslim people if those claims were made against Arab interests, as with the Kurds, or the Berbers in North Africa, or black African Muslims in Darfur.

Yep, the religion of peace is just a fountainhead of blissful co-existence.

And what makes the absurdity still more absurd is the entire confused and topsy-turveydom that public discussion of the iraq War has become. We should note that from whatever perch or sideline one finds oneself—by those who continue to support the war, by those who have stopped supporting the war, by those who never supported the war, by those who are now eager to see the Americans leave—so many different positions, and so many of them proclaimed without any grasp of the overall picture, or how and why what can and should be achieved—not despite—but BECAUSE of an American withdrawal— we hear and observe daily this doublespeak by the same Bush Administration telling us that "Al Qaeda" will take over while also muttering darkly about how the Iranian agents are everywhere and that Iran, or forces loyal to Iran, will "take over."

The Sunnis of Saudi Arabia, of course, think the Shiites today are the same Shiites of Iraq that they managed to dominate and suppress duriing the entire history of modern Iraq. But they are wrong. And they are also wrong about other things. As Muslims, they have been discouraged at every turn from the habit of free and skeptical inquiry and encouraged, instead, in the habit of mental submission. This has consequences in their grasp of reality. They keep saying, and many of them keep believing, that they constitute, at a minimum, some 42% of the population.

They fail to realize, or come to grips with, the fact that the Shi'a have not only outbred them, but over time, some of the formerly Sunni tribes have become more and more Shii'a (see an article by Nakash on this), and that at present, the Sunni Arabs constitute less than 20% of the population. And that population is concentrated in two places: Anbar Province, and Baghdad. In Baghdad, fabled Baghdad, the Baghdad of Sunni Arab dreams af past (a past which, psychologically, must forever be as real, or even more so, than the present) Islamic glory, the Sunni Arabs have over the past few years been driven out, and now cannot be more than 15% of the population.

Several questions arise. How, exactly, will those remaining Sunnis stay on, if there is a Sunni revolt, or an "Al Qaeda" revolt, against the Shiites? And do the Sunnis realize that the Iran-Iraq border, the one set in 1847 by the Treaty of Erzerum between the Ottoman and the Persian Empires (a treaty which the Czar of Russia helped to bring about) is porous, and do they realize that the Iranian agents are not only in Iraq now, but cannot, not by the Americans, and not by Al Qaeda, be removed?

Or is it that, with a certain panic, they do indeed realize this, and are doing what Muslim Arabs have done before—did in May and the very beginnng of June 1967, did in October 1973, and do whenever they go to war—which is to engage in a great deal of huffing, and puffing, and I'll-blow-your-house-downing, and what's more, believe their own rhetoric.

Look at Al Qaeda threatening Iran. Now begin to consider if you really think that the Bush Administration's claim that we must remain in Iraq to avoid "catastrophe" is the right idea, or if you are beginning to see the sense and wisdom of the notion that the war in Iraq is "won" if it leads to a weakening of the Camp of Islam. Is this not a more perfect parsing of events, not this "ordinary moms and dads" in Iraq tasting of "freedom" which George Bush maintains is a universal passion, contradicting many who are skeptical that believers in Islam share, or could possiblly share, if they remain believers, the Western notions about political legitimacy that gave rise to the modern, advanced democracies of the West.

And it naturally follows that the weakening of the Camp of Islam, in Iraq, can be obtained only by, and indeed very well by, doing nothing to prevent it. But the Americans have been moving heaven and earth to prevent it. The ethnic Arab Kurds and sectarian (Sunni/Shiite) fissures, fissures which were pre-existing, the Americans did not and could not have caused.

But American foreign policy, always willing to carry someone else's bucket if it returns a trade deal in the end, has given us Paul Wolfowitz: "Iraq has no history of ethnic conflict" and Condaleeza Rice; "They will just have to get over it [the Sunni-Shiite conflict]) to increase the confusion in the public mind about what's going on over there in the Middle East. Fourteen hundred years of sectarian strife will not be cleared away by simple wishful thinking by infidel leadership. Not even close.

In the case of this particularly bloody sectarian conflict, co-religionists on both sides, as a matter of pride and politics, will send in "volunteers" and money and war material, and what's more, there will be consequences for Sunni-Shiite relations in Bahrain, in Eastern Saudi Arabia, in Yemen, in Kuwait, in Lebanon, in Pakistan, places where the Shiite have rightly felt discriminated against, and have in the past demonstrated, or rioted, or tried to fight back against the Sunnis who either suppressed them (as in Saudi Arabia), or denied them political power (as in Bahrain, with a Sunni ruler and a population that is 70-75% Shiite), or tried to force them to submit to Sunni rule (the Shiite Zaidis of northern Yemen), or kept them, as they see it, impoverished and out of the corridors of power (as in Lebanon), or subjected them to campaigns of terror (as in Pakistan, with the Sunni group Sipaha-e-Sahaba).

In other words, muddled thinking is the only American policy on the ground. While the Camp of Islam rages on, burning itself everything within its sight, the American leadership campaign smoulders, coughs, and sputters. America should leave Iraq indeed, but leave knowing that a greater war in the Middle East and most likely within our own wide-open borders, is coming, and we should be preparing ourselves for the both fight and the fallout. We shall all be infected by this contagion. There is no escape, but victory is the reward for those who stand firm against this unspeakable menace.

Here's a hint. Islam is NOT the religion of peace. Islam is fighting tooth and nail, every man, woman, and child, for world domination. Saudi Arabian style, who have an upper hand due, in historical terms, to its sudden oil wealth. Of course, the Saudis and their Sunni Wahabbi version of peaceful religion seem poised to dispense with the bloodthirsty Shiite renegades first.