Worldview: Islam
by A Concerned Citizen
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Retired on 31 December 2007
Table of Contents
Introduction
Key Documents
Disclaimers
Articles on Islam
News from the Muslim World
Islam in the West
Islam and Democracy
Apologists & Reformers
Islam as Viewed by the Left
Islam and Slavery
Arab Culture and Daily Life
Miscellaneous Items
Video Clips
Introduction
NOTE (23 May 07): See the disclaimers section for some important qualifications to the following Introduction, written in early 2006. My views of Muslims a year ago now seem too simplistic and prejudiced, though much that I said remains true. The problem, as usual with such matters, is over-generalization. Also, I have become much more aware of our own faults, and how we have been meddling in the Muslim world, in a way that would surely infuriate us if we were on the receiving end. My FrontPageMag sources of a year ago certainly don't care to dwell on this, which is grossly biased on their part. At the same time, there is a significant degree of fanaticism and medievalism in the Muslim world, which the Muslims must deal with, for their sake and ours.
February 2006: As you can see from many of my writings, I am quite concerned about the direction the Islamic world is taking and what it means for the rest of humanity, especially those of us who adhere to liberal democratic principles. Clearly, militant Islam is in the headlines, but the Western intelligentsia (if media types may be so called) is divided between the majority that thinks the militants are a 'fringe' of Islam and a minority that thinks intolerance and militancy are intrinsic to Islam. Having studied some scholarly and shamefully ignored literature, I must reluctantly side with the minority. At the same time, I insist that I have no problem with Muslims in the West who simply obey the law and avoid inciting illegal acts. An intelligent discussion cannot proceed if charges of bigotry and 'racism' are gratuitously raised against critics of Islam, as is often the case. Furthermore, I am aware of different traditions within Islam, some of which are more peaceful than others, but there are disturbing reasons to think that militancy and intolerance are at the core and cannot be eliminated without a drastic overhaul of the religion, which seems nearly impossible. I hope I am wrong, but I fear I am not.
My education about Islam was obtained from books by Ibn Warraq, Robert Spencer, Serge Trifkovic, Bat Y'eor, Andrew Bostom and others. Spencer's website Jihad Watch is particularly useful, and there you will find a selective bibliography listing these books among others, as well as a blog covering events in the Muslim world related to terrorism and intolerance. Another excellent website is Faith Freedom by the Muslim apostate Dr. Ali Sina, who is an intelligent and thoughtful writer in the rationalist secular mold, like Ibn Warraq. These authors may be unusually critical of militant Islam, which they do not consider to be a fringe, but their books are scholarly and deserve to be widely read. The fact that most Islamic scholars and media pundits do not yet refer to these authors is a symptom of the deplorable PC mindset which rules our elites and renders certain contentious topics taboo. However, the conservative media is starting to take notice of their message, and this is a beginning. Now liberals must also consider the facts.
I have written at greater length on Islam in some of the articles listed in the sidebar of my old blog, but let me recapitulate the key points without the encumbrance of references. The Koran indeed contains verses like Slay the infidels and cut their throats. Now many Muslims will protest that such verses should be 'taken in context', by which they presumably mean that the prophet Mohammed was fighting a defensive war against aggressors who just happened to be 'infidels'. (Perhaps that is what they actually called themselves. Haha!) Already we are presented with the problematic fact of a 'prophet' who was also a warrior (and a caravan raider before that). Many crimes have been committed in the name of Jesus, but at least Jesus did not take up arms or advise others to. On the contrary, he gave us the famous phrase, Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's. Those who worship a prophet tend to consider him the exemplar of the ideal man, to be imitated as far as possible. The Muslim militants today and throughout history have certainly thought they were doing that and have quoted scripture copiously.
But there is much more. The entire Koran is saturated with intolerance against any religion other than Islam. The few verses preaching tolerance were spoken when Mohammed was weak and are overwhelmed by the intolerant verses, both in their sheer number and in the opinion of the most prominent Muslim scholars over the centuries (e.g. Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, Ibn Majah and others). The authors cited above have documented this extensively (e.g. Bukhari: The Prophet said, 'If a Muslim discards his religion, kill him'). Furthermore, there are specific deeds in the life of Mohammed, which should shock any decent person, not only according to modern standards but according to standards of decency that humans have adhered to throughout the ages. For example, he decapitated a whole tribe of Jews in cold blood after defeating them in a war which he was instrumental in starting. He assassinated a poetess who simply wrote satirical verses about him. And so on. This is part of the Muslim tradition; these facts are not controversial. Prophets are supposed to be 'saints', but what kind of a saint is this? Finally, the entire history of Islam has been characterized by aggression in the name of Allah, called Jihad, as well as by oppression of conquered peoples who refused to convert, e.g. with frequent pogroms and the infamous jizya tax. (For examples of Jihad in action, consider the bloody histories of Islam in Palestine and India.) There may have been exceptions, but wherever Islam has dominated, other religions have tended to suffer grievously. Again, this has been well documented by the cited authors.
One often hears that Christians did the same throughout their history, both during the middle ages and during their colonial period. This is true, but at least they could not cite the example of Christ. More to the point, virtually all Christians have moved far beyond this, but most Muslims have not. My feeling is that the key role played by an aggressive and intolerant prophet may forever prevent this from happening. To become a modern liberal democrat requires abandoning so much of the tradition that one inevitably develops grave doubts about Islam as a whole, if one is thinking rationally (and rational thought is a prerequisite to being a modern liberal democrat). This is no doubt why Muslim fundamentalists threaten and kill those who leave Islam; such incidents are not aberrations but are part of the mainstream tradition. This shows the dangerous side of a 'prophetic' religious tradition, when directives allegedly from God are taken as sacrosanct and inviolable. True, there is always the question of interpretation, but Mohammed was such an active man with specific deeds to his name that those who argue in favor of a humanitarian and symbolic interpretation, e.g. that Jihad is merely an 'inner' struggle, tend to be fighting a losing battle. It was much easier for Christians to separate Church and State and to develop our modern notion of human rights, since Jesus was primarily concerned with internal spiritual matters, whereas Mohammed was acutely political in his thinking. One cannot be a serious Muslim without wishing for Islam and Sharia (Islamic law) to triumph on earth, since they are heaven sent and cover all aspects of life. (A recent poll in Britain revealed the 40% of Muslims want Sharia.) In other words, orthodox Islam, the only 'true' Islam, is a totalitarian ideology legitimized by a divine authority which a Stalin or a Mao could only pretend to have.
As if this were not enough, there are more disturbing facts which add to the pattern. Why does the Muslim world have 'bloody borders'? They seem to be fighting with everyone, even among themselves to an unusual degree. Why do Islamic societies tend to be so corrupt and repressive? Liberals like to blame it on the 'culture', but this culture seems inextricably bound with Islam. (True, some Arab despots have been 'secular', but the appeal of Islam to the masses and to many educated Arabs is undeniable. And speaking of culture, notice that India and Pakistan share the same culture, but one is a vigorous democracy and the other a moribund Islamic dictatorship.) These problems are compounded when the medieval and anti-rational mentality fostered by Islam obstructs the growth of a modern economy; capitalism is based on rational constructs such as secular constitutions, impartial judiciaries, honest bureaucracies, and private property. In turn, the economic stagnation fuels discontent, which drives Muslims to a suicidal escape in piety and fanaticism, and thus arises a pernicious 'feedback loop'. The Asians suffered poverty in recent centuries, due to colonialism, but they never rioted and indulged in violence to the extent that Muslims have. Instead, they built on the foundations of their ancient and wise civilization, worked hard, studied hard, and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. Now they are reaping their reward, while Muslims are falling ever behind.
Another indication of the Muslim mentality is the vicious anti-Semitism that pervades the Middle East, well-documented by MEMRI. As I discuss in an article on my old blog, the Jews have as much claim to a homeland in Palestine as do the so-called Palestinians. During the early days of Zionism, the Jews tried to settle in deserted areas or buy Arab land legitimately. In fact, Arabs only flooded in when Jews revitalized a region that was mostly wasteland. Also, the region had been ruled for centuries by a succession of empires. There was never a 'Palestinian nation'. Yet because Islam has managed to dominate the entire Middle East through its aggressive ideology, the Muslims could not stand even a sliver of land going to non-Muslims. The British, when they left, and later the U.N., tried to partition the land according to demographics, which gave most of 'Greater Palestine', including present-day Jordan and the West Bank, to the Arabs, but the Arabs could never settle for anything less than the extermination of Israel. This is the fundamental reason for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and not the supposed 'oppression' of an occupation that was only in reaction to Arab violence threatening the very existence of Israel. In other parts of the world, competing populations have been generally able to work something out. Thus, I cannot help but think that the intransigence of the Palestinians on this issue, and of Arabs in general, is closely connected with the totalitarian mentality of orthodox Islam, which aims to dominate the world, and certainly the Middle East. Notice that the Tibetan Buddhists have been treated far more unfairly by the Chinese, yet they never blow themselves or others up. How can one not suppose that religion plays a key role?
Perhaps I am exaggerating. Many Westerners know nice Muslims, and this provides a powerful impetus for believing that they are 'just like us'. No doubt, most of the educated Muslims who have emigrated to the West are moderate in their beliefs, but they are only a fraction of the 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. The recent fuss over the cartoons of Mohammed illustrates how passionate and hypersensitive to criticism many Muslims are (as well as how cowardly most of our politicians and newspapers are). This multitude of hotheads needs to understand that criticism is essential to democracy. Perhaps some of the cartoons were in poor taste, but this pales in significance compared to the widespread riots and deaths that followed. The weak-kneed can speak all they want of 'respecting others', but if we allow violence to intimidate us from expressing our rights, then we have effectively lost those rights. The number of prominent politicians and editors who have failed to acknowledge this is appalling, from Bill Clinton to Jack Straw to CNN and the New York Times. Placating those who throw infantile temper tantrums seems more important to them than preserving the foundations of our civilization. If our leaders are so craven, what hope is there? By the way, this is how Islam often spreads in a society, by intimidation rather than through overt violence. It is called 'dhimmitude', and the authors cited above discuss it in detail.
Still, one might argue that Muslims will moderate over time, as they become educated, just as Christians progressed from a medieval to a modern mentality with the growth of European society and the education that came with wealth. Well, I hope so, but it won't happen if we don't talk about it honestly. At the moment, most of the Muslim world is in pretty poor shape, psychologically as much as economically. The kind of Western PC 'tolerance' that whitewashes the faults of the 'oppressed' is counter-productive in the long run, as it pulls the rug out from under the few brave reformers who are trying to move forward. This nauseating PC, which has pervaded our elites, is really a kind of effete narcissism: People leading protected lives like to feel good about themselves by saying nice but untrue things about others. The hope is that this gratuitous caressing of erogenous zones will mollify the adversary, but this doesn't work with barbarians. On the contrary, it fills them with contempt, and they rightly perceive it as a decadent weakness to be exploited, which their more militant members are now happily doing.
What is particularly worrying about Islam is not the headline-grabbing terrorism but the slow and inexorable reality of demographics. With its low birthrate, Europe would be committing suicide even without Muslim immigration. Now add the large Muslim population with its high birth-rate, and due to the same math as compound interest, one must conclude that Europe as we know it is probably doomed. It seems unlikely that European Muslims will absorb Western democratic values. Even the moderate Muslims display a fierce attachment to their faith, inculcated since childhood and imprinted on the deepest recesses of their subconscious. (Yes, psychology can sometimes be valid!) For example, whenever a Muslim marries a non-Muslim, the latter usually converts to Islam, especially if she is a woman. (Bollywood movies never have a Muslim girl falling in love with a Hindu man. How come?) That Sharia law is incompatible with liberal democratic values is a truism that only the most ignorant deny. Throughout its history, Islam has been violently expansionist. Finally, we have seen that vote-minded democratic politicians display the unfortunate tendency of trying to placate as many people as possible, especially the militant. (Even Tony Blair utters mindless remarks about Islam.) This gives the Muslims a big advantage, especially if the non-Muslim majority remains anesthetized through PC. Europe seems as doomed as the Roman empire, though the faith that will now replace Christianity seems far less promising. One can argue that modern Western liberal democracy arose from a fusion of Greco-Roman rationalism and the Judeo-Christian conscience which emphasizes individual responsibility. (And look how long that took!) It is difficult to see how Islam, with its unquestioning belief in the Koran, its hostility to rational, critical thought, and its equation of morality with the interests of the Muslim community, can lead to any such fortunate development. Islamic ideology bears a much closer resemblance to Communism than to the Western tradition. Meanwhile, our own left-leaning intellectuals, who should be warning us of this, have instead chosen suicidal treason by blaming the West for everything and whitewashing the sins of the 'oppressed'.
If my views still seem extreme, then there is a way for moderate Muslims to ease the fears of people like me, and that is to speak up with a loud and consistent voice. So far, they have failed to do this and have preferred to dwell on their outrage and hurt feelings, e.g. over some silly cartoons. Indeed, I have been struck by how few literate and intelligent articles one finds on the web or elsewhere arguing in favor of a tolerant, liberal and democratic vision of Islam. It seems that Muslims only appreciate the principles of liberal democracy when these serve to advance their cause. It is a one-way street, something to be exploited and not embraced as a universal principle. This is not surprising for a religion which claims that all universal truth must come from a unique book and prophet, and the tradition that has arisen around it. The Monopolizing Prophet concept has really been one of the most pernicious developments in the history of human thought, and I will have more to say about that as I discuss Christianity.
As if to make my point, here is an example of a 'moderate Muslim' speaking up in the LA Times. He rightly points out that terrorists like Osama bin Laden have done nothing to relieve Muslim suffering and that corrupt Muslim leaders spend enough in a month of vacation (in Europe!) to feed and educate a thousand Palestinian children for a year. (Why do they get charity from the West in the first place, instead of from the oil sheiks?) He even bravely points out that such education could teach them to learn to settle differences through dialogue and debate. Yet he goes on to say, in so many words, that There is no such human persona as a 'moderate Muslim' and that You either believe in the oneness of God or you don't. You either believe in the teachings of his prophet or you don't. That sums up the problem with prophets, especially in the case of Islam. Doubt the prophet even a little, and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down, which can be quite distressing for the faithful. Hence, the riots throughout the Muslim world whenever their prophet is criticized. And if your chosen prophet used war to spread his faith, then you can be sure that many of his followers will want to follow that example, even if others have learned to live in relative peace with others. Even the more peaceful ones will be inclined to impress Islam on society as far as possible, once they become a majority (or a large and vociferous minority). Living as equals with others, mingling with them, and respectfully sharing ideas with an open mind is simply not part of the authentic Muslim ethos, because the Prophet is the sole source of ultimate truth.
No doubt there are well-meaning but not very authentic Muslim 'progressives' like Asra Nomani. These outliers are brave and probably lonely too. It is heart wrenching and even frightening to break with your family and community, which is one of the main reasons religion can be such a pernicious force in society. In Islam, this social pressure is magnified many times. Still, there are heros. A very brave lady called Wafa Sultan has provided a dramatic video in which she challenges the Muslim orthodoxy. And here is another very impressive lady of Lebanese origin called Brigitte Gabriel in a must-see video speaking of her life's experiences.
3 May 06: Bin Laden has issued a 'fatwa' urging the killing of all 'freethinkers'. These include any critics of Islam or the prophet, especially if they are Muslim intellectuals. This pretty much sums up the threat of Islam; it is a dagger pointed at the heart of our civilization. Notice that Bin Laden is very much in the mainstream of orthodox Muslim scholars. Indeed, he appeals to the Prophet himself, who ordered the assassination of Ka'b ibn Al-Ashraf, for writing satirical poems. Bin Laden calls such freethinking the 'worst of crimes', and urges any Muslim to kill such 'heretics', without even consulting a religious authority. Meanwhile, many of our leftist intellectuals, who cry 'fascism' at the tiniest infringement of our civil liberties, turn a blind eye to this monstrous ideology.
6 May 06: Here is a humorous book called The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization, from a 'major' scholar, and blessed by 'major' scholars like Juan Cole (or here). Published by Columbia University, whose Middle Eastern studies department has become notorious.
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Key Documents
Websites
Highly Critical
Less alarmist
From my previous blogs
Supplementary articles on Islam can be found here.
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Disclaimers
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There Are Many Decent Muslims (8 May 06): Criticism of orthodox Islam is a common theme on my website. This may suggest that I am hostile towards Muslims. As I have said, I do feel hostility towards the repressive ideology but not towards Muslims, who are its chief victims. And Islam is not a religion of peace, as President Bush likes to say, nor has it been hijacked by a militant minority, as politicans of all stripes repeat ad nauseum. Rather, the Muslims who truly understand and believe in liberal democracy are a threatened fringe within the greater Islamic world. I suspect that most of them are losing their faith as well.
So what do I propose doing about it? The experience in Iraq has confirmed my view that we should not meddle in the Middle East. Other societies and cultures cannot be socially engineered. Culture has its own considerable inertia, and nationalistic feeling will always resent outside intervention. It is the Muslim countries who must do some serious thinking, so that they can reform themselves. The purpose of all my discussion about Islam is only to reveal the truth, since our PC academics and media have been whitewashing this ideology (so as not to 'discriminate' against Muslims). Really, I am more angry at our own intellectuals than at the Muslims; many of our intellectuals, even on the right, have essentially betrayed the Western liberal tradition.
One area where I would want strong, even radical, action is on immigration. There should be no hesitation in screening Muslims for militant views. We should begin from the premise that devout Muslims believe in what I have called 'orthodox Islam'. The burden of proof should be on them to demonstrate otherwise. We must stop treating all 'religions' as something inherently good. This is not the case. We should expect only a small number of Muslim applicants to qualify as citizens. They must take an oath to renounce Sharia. Europe already seems doomed with its large and fertile Muslim population, while the native birthrate stagnates. I very much want to avoid that nightmare here in America. As far as immigrants are concerned, Islam should be treated the same way we treated Communism. But I don't want to get involved in unnecessary military adventurism in the Middle East. I don't think it will work.
Here is another very important lesson I have learned from my study of Islam. When seeking the truth, forget about partisan politics. I consider myself a political moderate. I suppose I have some leftist tendencies, if an interest in some form of universal health care qualifies me as such. I used to take it for granted that intellectual and informed people would naturally gravitate to the left of the spectrum, as they learn about social problems and wish to do something about it. If nothing else, they might display a virile kind of liberalism, a la Teddy Roosevelt. It was a disturbing revelation to discover how much propaganda comes from the left and how much factual truth from the right. The intellectual left today is in a state of decay. This does not mean that the traditional liberal concern for greater social equality is no longer valid, but intentions count for nothing if they are divorced from reality (a lesson neocons also need to learn). At any rate, my point is that one should set aside all political prejudices when studying a controversial subject. Part of the reason that the truth about Islam has been ignored is that much of the critical research comes from conservatives. Liberal academics simply brush it aside, and this is irresponsible. Someone whose politics diverge sharply from yours may still have a much clearer grasp of some subject, for a variety of reasons. Political prejudice is a powerful gut instinct, which can lead to arrogant or mindless dismissal of important voices.
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The War Against Terror (20 Dec 06): Notwithstanding my concerns regarding traditional Islam, I consider plausible the argument set forth by Reza Aslan here. He argues that, for the past few centuries, there has been a battle in Islam between tradition and modernity. Lately, the traditionalists had been losing, and 9/11 was a deliberate attempt to provoke the US into a massive retaliation that would ignite the Muslim world and play into the hands of those very traditionalists, bolstering their apparent power far beyond the reality. This reasonable thesis is consistent with statements by Al Qaeda and other terror groups.
However, I disagree with Aslan that there is no original, puritanical version of Islam, which has tended to dominate the interpretation of the various schools over the centuries. Unfortunately, there has been — an unfortunate but inevitable consequence of the prophet concept, especially one who spoke and acted so explicitly and violently. There is no way this can simply be swept under the rug, if one takes the religion at all seriously, as conservative Muslims do by definition. Let us not indulge in wishful thinking. Aslan, like many liberals, considers religion to be a mere expression of social psychology, which is thus fluid and malleable, as though the theology counts for nothing.
UPDATE (2 Jan 07): There is another sense in which Aslan is right. I have become disgusted with hawkish headlines proclaiming 'Terror this' and 'Terror that'. The word 'Terror', with a capital 'T', like the word 'Islamofascism', is being used to conjure up a more unified threat than actually exists. Now I have argued that Islamofascism does exist in some sense, namely, as an accurate description of the mentality of orthodox Muslims who follow the prophet's example regarding Jihad. Nevertheless, the recent debacle in Iraq has illustrated how dangerous it is to use vague and all-encompassing hot-button words to drum up support for war. The hawks played the same dirty trick during the Cold War, when 'Communism' became a monolithic entity, despite obvious friction between, say, the USSR and the PRC. One cannot overestimate the capacity of our leaders to use false and misleading rhetoric, either cynically, or out of sheer ignorance.
The problem is that a word like 'Islamofascism' can be used with sufficient accuracy to evoke the fanatical mentality that afflicts a great many Muslims, while at the same time the very generality of such a word leads to sloppy and reckless thinking, as we have seen in Iraq. The word 'Terror' is even more ridiculous, since terror is merely a tactic and not an entity or even an ideology. We must carefully analyze the politics of the Muslim world and appreciate the degrees and nuances, if we are to have a competent foreign policy. Moreover, even with cases of outright Jihad sentiment, one can never be too cynical about the underlying motives. I doubt all of the Prophet's warriors took him seriously. No doubt a few took the booty much more seriously, like their colleagues, the crusaders.
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Immigration Policy (21 Dec 06): There is some discussion lately of remarks made by Representative Virgil Goode (R-VA) advocating 'strict immigration policies' for Muslims. This view has generally been blasted as bigoted by the left-leaning portion of the blogosphere. I find myself in a curious situation. I am to the 'left' in that I consider the Iraq war a mistake (though that is now the opinion of most Americans). However, I can agree with those 'conservatives' who say that strict monitoring of Muslims espousing jihad ideology is our best line of defense against Islamic terrorism. These Muslims should definitely not be allowed into the country, much less awarded citizenship. I am dismayed that such a 'common sense' view is not more popular among so-called liberals. Orthodox Islamic ideology is everything that they supposedly hate! (Virgil Goode, however, goes too far, in that he believes that America must remain a fundamentally Christian country, which I emphatically reject. I want it to be a rational and secular country, at least in public life, according to the true European Enlightenment spirit of the Constitution.)
As for Muslims in general, I feel conflicted. I realize that many are decent people who would make fine Americans, but I also believe that the core Islamic ideology is like a latent virus in the mind that can erupt under stressful situations, such as if we go to war with a Muslim country. I feel that even 'moderate' Muslims are likely to remain more loyal to their religion than to America, if they truly believe their religion. I deny that such a view is bigoted on my part. (On the other hand, I am also concerned about the effect that conservative Christianity is having on American politics, but those guys are citizens already.) I truly want anyone who is decent and who believes in democracy to have a chance here, but I would abhor Sharia, even if it were democratically imposed. How could it be, without major surgery on the Bill of Rights? A Muslim majority, even if 'moderate', could make that surgery become a reality. Such demographics might arise sooner than we think, not only through immigration but also through a higher birth-rate, as now appears to be the fate of Europe. The law of compound interest is quite impressive! There is a problem here that will not go away with simple good intentions, on my part or on the part of anyone else. This needs to be discussed thoroughly and honestly, especially with the Muslims themselves. The moderate Muslims had better start speaking up in a big way, if they truly exist.
UPDATE (22 Dec 06): My Hindu correspondent SRK makes the following observation:
However, as I alluded to, the real danger is if Muslims become a majority and can vote for what they want, including alterations of the Constitution. That already appears likely to happen in France. Another possibility is that a militant minority simply intimidates the majority into appeasement mode. I believe we've seen that already in some parts of the world. :-) COMMENT (2 Jan 07): As I have said already, I reject the idea that the United States or its Constitution is founded on 'Judeo-Christian values'. It is founded on democracy, law, reason and human rights, which need no prophets for their promulgation. Indeed, the humanistic values of the Constitution only triumphed in Europe during the Enlightenment of the 18th century, in clear defiance of thousands of years of Church history. (And don't think the Protestants have been notably more humane than the Catholics! Their record has been mixed at best.) As for swearing in on Bible vs. Koran, I would do away with both, as well as with swearing itself. Since when did an oath stop a politician from being a crook? And I would ban the word 'God' from money or any other official document. As for the Ten Commandments, about half of them violate our civil liberties. They have no place in government. We arrive at good laws by being rational and decent. Pious faith is often an impediment. The Jesusification of the Republican party is one of the most worrisome developments in the recent cultural history of America. Let us do away with all religion in politics. Christian zealots like Goode are barking at Islam because they recognize a rival!
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The DNC's Imam (8 Feb 07): Recently, there has been renewed criticism of the Democratic Party on the right-oriented blogs, due to an Imam who was permitted to say a prayer at a DNC meeting. In particular, he prayed for an end to 'the war and violence, and oppression and occupation'. Naturally, conservatives seized on those last few words to paint Democrats as appeasers, traitors, or what have you. This brings together a variety of issues that have concerned me, which illustrate why the complete truth lies neither on the right nor on the left of the political spectrum.
Consider the words 'oppression and occupation'. What do these refer to? No doubt the conservatives are correct that these refer to Iraq and Israel. I am sufficiently level-headed and informed to realize that, and so should all liberals. Too many disingenuously claim otherwise. Yet I will run the risk of being called a Michael Moore traitor by asserting that there is some truth to this. Our intentions in Iraq may have been good, but the fact remains that the sectarian chaos was entirely predictable, and hence the war was folly. Moreover, I now believe that there was deliberate deception regarding the WMD evidence. Hence, many thousands died and suffered for no good reason, and I would have to call this some kind of 'oppression'. It is something that should make us feel disturbed and ashamed. On the other hand, I cannot criticize Israel for its occupation, since the Arabs and the Palestinians have, for the most part, made clear their intentions to annihilate Israel since the beginning.
At the same time, everything I have said about the dark side of Islam remains true, and this 'dark side' is none other than the orthodox Islam of Mohammed himself, which must be the 'true' Islam to those who believe in the prophetic model of religion. (A good reason to discard the prophetic model!) Further, I have read, though not confirmed, that this Imam has praised Hezbollah and other such terrorist organizations. So the Democrats were indeed wrong and foolish to allow this man to speak, even if he made a valid point regarding the US blunder in Iraq. And I strongly suspect that he is one of the many Imams who would like to see Sharia take over America and the world.
What I object to is the conservative blindness regarding the war, which allows them to mindlessly equate a foolish and immoral policy with a righteous war against the oppression that does in fact exist in conservative Islam. To this day, and despite the midterm elections, bullying TV pundits like Hannity continue to smear and pummel war critics, by falsely associating them with appeasers of Islam. Some of them may be, but most are not. For example, in a recent Bloggingheads TV discussion, confirmed leftist Eric Alterman (starting at 5:54) expressed concern for any attempt to 'democratize' the Middle East, precisely because it tends to bring Muslim radicals into power! Who says a liberal can't be informed and realistic? Of course, the typical thick-headed, pugnacious, right-wing bloggers are hardly capable of this degree of nuance; they are too busy barking at a hypothetical and monolithic entity called the 'Left', just as they fail to distinguish between moderate and radical Muslims. There may not be that many moderate Imams, which is a great shame and concern, but there are surely many moderate Muslims, especially in the West, as I can attest to from personal experience.
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Moderate Islam in History (24 Mar 07): I cannot hope to answer such a vast question: Whether Islam has often taken a relatively 'moderate' form throughout Middle Eastern history, which can serve as a precedent for Islamic reform and integration of Muslim nations into the modern world. Yet an article called Bernard Lewis Revisited by Michael Hirsh reminds me of the lacunae in my knowledge of Islamic history. Basically, Hirsh argues that Bernard Lewis' 'clash of civilizations' got it wrong and that Islam has traditionally served as a bulwark for Muslims against tyranny. The rise of modern secular dictators like Ataturk and Nasser confirmed the truth of this for many pious Muslims, which in turn inflamed hatred against the West and fueled extremism in the form of a Sayyid Qutb or an Osama bin Laden. There may be much truth to this, for all I know. It sounds plausible enough.
So is my previous rant against Islam wrong-headed and based on shoddy research? No, because I only claimed two things: (i) that the original Islam of Mohammed is intolerant and based on Jihad, as clearly enunciated in Koran and Hadiths; and (ii) this puritanical model has inspired many Muslims throughout the ages to slaughter and oppress in the name of Islam. I have provided ample documentation that this much is true.
However, Hirsh's point is well taken, namely, that our meddling in the Middle East prior to the invasion, specifically our support for secular dictators, and our inept and bloody invasion of Iraq, have only reinforced Muslim hostility for the West and faith in Islam as their refuge. Is it so hard to see why they would feel this way? I have been outspoken in my condemnation of the invasion, which is not at all incompatible with my condemnation of Mohammed's aggression in the name of ideology, however well intentioned. Indeed, I see much similarity between the two.
Yet it is not enough to think in terms of simplistic self-serving conceptual slogans, like the neocons. It is easy for us to criticize the failings of Islam, including its frequent mistreatment of infidels in their midst, but the fact remains that for many Muslims, Islam is indeed a refuge from tyranny, much as the medieval Church served as a check on the ambitions of kings and princes. If that is how they think, then we cannot change that by giving them pious lectures, much less by slamming a military sledgehammer into their lives. At the same time, we must contain Islamic intrusion on threatened countries. For example, India has every right to fight terrorism from Pakistan and its allies in Kashmir. It's really very simple: protect your own country but don't meddle with others. That is what those who have joined the UN supposedly believe in.
What do I propose for the Muslim countries, to give them hope and a better life? It seems clear to me that we should stop supporting repressive governments, such as those of Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Pakistan. This may seem very dangerous, both in terms of our access to oil and in terms of unleashing the genie of fundamentalism. But as I said, it is not our business how other nations govern themselves, as long as we are adequately prepared to defend ourselves against credible threats. The Muslim nations simply do not pose much of a credible military threat to the West. Only individual terrorists do, and that is for the police and intelligence services to handle; that extremist anger should subside over time as Muslims believe that we have learned to mind our own business. As for the oil, they will surely sell it to us. They need the money, having little else by way of industry.
Hopefully, over time, the Muslims nations will mellow and slowly join the modern world. It is true that the original Islam of Mohammed is a terrible example, but as in any religion, precedent can be whitewashed or reinterpreted when the mood allows. Most of what humans call 'religion' is bogus anyway: a few glimmers of spiritual truth are overlaid by massive amounts of raw tribal instinct, pedestrian ethics, or simple nonsense. (That is meant a general statement. For a minority of the faithful, there is genuine spirituality.) It is true that Jihadis throughout the centuries have been inspired by Mohammed. But the reality on the ground today is that Muslims are angry at the West based on legitimate grievances, having to do with colonialism and American attempts to police the world. Our arrogant refusal to respect other societies only feeds the dark side of Islam, which is very real but need not be dominant.
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A Crusade for Evangelicals (25 Mar 07): The following article by Dan Gilgoff reports on signs of an intensified crusading mentality against Islam within the conservative evangelical core of the Republican party. It looks like Jihad Watch is having its effect. It sowed the wind and is reaping the whirlwind. What it says about orthodox Islam is true enough, but it failed to consider the predictably unintelligent conservative Christian reaction, and it has payed only lip service to the many moderate Muslims who do in fact exist. Or perhaps Robert Spencer knew very well what he was doing all along.
Military aggression is absolutely the wrong way to deal with the very real dark side of Islam. Terrorism is a criminal but not a military threat. In this sense, the Manichaean self-righteousness of conservative American Christians is but the mirror reflection of the Jihadi-inspired Muslims. And I might remind you that the US has indeed been meddling in the Muslim world in a way that would drive us ballistic if they did it to us.
But such pedantic details no longer matter if you divide the world into good and evil. That is what a tribal religion is all about, and Judaism, Christianity and Islam have their origins in tribal religion. Rather than being an unalloyed force for good, as is commonly presupposed, such a religion can be a prescription for eternal conflict, especially since the combative mentality can easily be transplanted to modern political circumstances. Threats are exaggerated, and one's own faults are conveniently overlooked. The simplistic division of the world into good and evil is a perverse prescription for double standards. Unfortunately, the world's sole superpower is very much prone to this kind of thinking.
My fellow reporters groaned disbelievingly. What about battling the 'radical homosexual agenda'? Or building a pro-life majority on the Supreme Court?
Maybe Romney was being coy. Or maybe his powwow with Christian-right activists happened just like he said it did, signaling a major development within the GOP's evangelical base: that the war on terror — and, more broadly, the confrontation with Islamic radicalism — have become 'values' issues.
Such a change would turn the conventional wisdom about the 2008 GOP presidential primary on its head. No longer would front-runners Arizona Sen. John McCain and ex-New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani find their moderate (or inconsistent) records on abortion or gay rights a looming liability. Under a 'terror values' rubric, both could win over evangelicals with their tough-on-terrorism credentials.
[. . .]
Polls show that evangelicals support President Bush's 'kill the terrorists over there so they don't kill us here' vision in greater numbers than other Americans. A survey by the Pew Research Center in December found that 63% of white evangelicals supported Bush's handling of the terrorist threat, while fewer than half of all Americans expressed similar support.
What explains that gap? 'It's that evangelicals often look at the world in terms of good and evil because of their understanding of the Bible', said Joel Rosenberg, a Jew-turned-evangelical-Christian who writes novels dealing with terrorism. His books, including The Last Jihad, have sold millions to a largely evangelical readership. 'Because we understand that there's evil present in some foreign leaders', Rosenberg said, 'we understand they are capable of committing acts that most people think are impossible.'
Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, holds a similar opinion. 'This is a fundamental clash of world views', Perkins said after he and other Christian-right activists met with McCain at the NRB convention. 'More than any other segment of the American population, the evangelical movement understands that because they operate from a biblically-centered worldview.'
Many evangelicals take few pains to distinguish between Islam's mainstream and its fringes. Some view our war on terror as the latest in a series of battles that started in the 7th century (when Muslim caliphs conquered Christian North Africa) and includes the Crusades for the Holy Land. Even today, the mistreatment and, in some cases, outright persecution of Christian 'remnant' communities in predominantly Muslim countries such as Egypt, Syria and Sudan is a mainstay of Christian broadcasts and mega-church sermons.
Terrorism and Islamic extremism are likely to gain even broader resonance in the American evangelical universe as the 2008 primaries close in. This month, Focus on the Family founder James C. Dobson has devoted five episodes of his hugely popular daily radio program to the subject of Islamic radicalism. Through a spokesman, Dobson said that terrorism isn't yet on par with abortion and same-sex marriage as a values issue — but that it will be if there's another terrorist attack on the United States. As I said already, that aggressive and simple-minded attitude seems inherent in the conservative manifestations of all three major religions of Semitic (or perhaps I should say Middle Eastern) origin: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. That is because these religions have their origins as tribal religions, and that legacy endures beneath the surface until today. Islam may be the most primitive and retrograde of these religions, but conservative Christians and Jews are not all that far behind. The same mentality also made the Cold War worse than it needed to be. The USSR posed a genuine threat, but arrogant American behavior often added fuel to the fire. The conservatives on both sides of a conflict feed off of each other. And it's not just poorly educated evangelicals in the hinterland. Look at Fox News or the Wall Street Journal.
How ironic that these self-righteous religions often feed conflict as much as they prevent it. They are not wholly wise and good religions but chiaroscuro at best. Even their vaunted morality is primarily for the good of the tribe. In any event, pagans, humanists and atheists are perfectly capable of being moral. The devil's pact between right-wing Zionists and conservative Christians may indeed bring about an unnecessary Armageddon, and the mainstream politicians and media are failing abysmally to alert the public, as they are so afraid to criticize religion. We just saw how 'ultra-liberal antiwar' Nancy Pelosi scurried to strike language from the new Iraq bill that would have required President Bush to get approval from Congress before attacking Iran (which the Constitution requires). The influence of the devil's pact between Zionists and Evangelicals goes way beyond the Republican Party! (Note: As I have said many times, I support Israel but am dead-set against bombing or invading Iran, which AIPAC and the neocons clearly want.)
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But Liberals Can Be Myopic (25 Mar 07): The antiwar and anti-militancy views just expressed resemble those of the so-called liberals and progressives in American politics. (Intellectually, I agree with much of what the libertarians say, though I still lean towards some progressive ideas, such as Universal Health Care.) Yet life is not so simple; I cannot agree with a portion of this typically liberal article on Islam by Richard Wolin in The Nation. Briefly, here is my response to some of his points:
In brief, both the Right and the Left get it wrong when it comes to Islam. Navigating the treacherous waters of this critical issue will require sophisticated thinking on all sides, which is rarely encouraged by the usual political process.
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Jihadi Abandons Terrorism (7 May 07): Last night, 60 Minutes had a fascinating piece on former Indonesian terrorist mastermind, Nasir Abas, who has forsaken his violent ways and is now helping the authorities to put members of Jemaah Islamiyah in jail. It is not that he has abandoned Jihad altogether and become a pacifist; rather, he has decided that the killing of innocents is forbidden in the Koran, and Jihad should be strictly reserved for the battlefield. To tell the truth, such ethics would be at least as good as our own. Look at how easily we justify 'collateral damage' and the hundreds of thousands killed by our invasion of Iraq. If Muslims could be persuaded to adopt Nasir's view of Jihad, then the world would certainly be better off. Conservative Islam would still have a combative spirit, with world domination as the ultimate goal, but the horrible and disruptive effects of terrorism would be mitigated. At the same time, let me insist that there is a certain amount of hypocrisy in our use of the word 'terror', so long as we continue to tolerate what we so blithely dismiss as collateral damage, not to mention all the mines left all over the world, which blow off children's legs every day.
But then in 2000, well before his arrest, something happened which would make Abas question everything he believed in: a fatwa, a religious edict, was issued by Osama bin Laden.
'It should be understood that killing Americans and Jews anywhere found are the highest act of worship and the highest form of good deeds in the eyes of Allah', Simon quotes bin Laden.
Abas and his fellow commanders were ordered to read the fatwa to their men and make sure they carried it out. The others obeyed, but Abas refused. It was his moment of truth. He firmly believed that jihad was to be fought only on the battlefield in defense of Islam; he had always been taught that the killing of civilians had nothing to do with holy war and that it was forbidden.
The fatwa justified killing non-Muslim civilians everywhere.
'So if that hadn't happened. If there hadn't been a fatwa from al Qaeda, you'd probably still be a member of Jemaah Islamiyah', Simon remarks. 'Training soldiers to go to kill the infidels somewhere in the world.'
'I think so, yeah', Abas acknowledges.
Abas stopped participating in the violent activities of Jemaah Islamiyah and started withdrawing from the organization that had been his life. Since he was released from jail, he has provided a wealth of information, helping the Indonesian authorities unravel the inner workings Jemaah Islamiyah. Back to Disclaimers
Muslims Angry at Foreign Meddling (3 Jul 07): If you follow my website as a whole, you will see that my opinion of Islam has changed in one significant respect. I still abhor orthodox Islam as the antithesis of my ideal of liberal democracy, but I have become much more aware of the Western (and particularly US) role in fostering Muslim anger. It is simply dishonest not to take this into account, whatever we may think of puritanical Islam. (Thus, almost all non-libertarian American conservatives, and many moderates, have indulged in this dishonesty.)
Briefly stated, the Muslims are angry at us for repeated interventions on their soil, which would certainly be a casus belli if they did it to us. From installing the Shah of Iran in a bloody coup against their democratically elected president Mosadeq, to supporting the corrupt Saudis, to supplying Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons against Iran, to our blind support for an Israel that is trying to strangle Palestinians out of the West Bank through an oppressive occupation, the Muslims have many reasons to be angry at our meddling. We cannot blame them unless we are willing to entertain double standards, which we often do in practice, despite our hypocritical humanitarian rhetoric.
This in no way excuses terrorism, nor the oppressive aspects of orthodox Islam. But even these must be put into perspective. We invaded Iraq on false pretexts, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, according to the respected British medical journal The Lancet. Why should this not be considered 'terrorism', indeed, 'state-sponsored terrorism' a la Noam Chomsky? (Hey, I ain't no Commie radical. I'm just trying to be honest and factual!)
As for civil rights, we surely do a lot better than the Muslim countries, but there are worrisome signs. We suffered an attack on 9/11 which was small, relatively speaking, compared to, say, the devastation we have wreaked in Iraq, or even the devastation of the sanctions before that. Yet in our knee-jerk reaction, we have suspended the hallowed habeas corpus and advocated a policy of torture, which is as ineffective as it is immoral. (Even 'liberal' Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz jumped on that bandwagon.) In other respects, our much vaunted Constitution has proven to be alarmingly fragile.
The following article by Ivan Eland of The Independent Institute elaborates on our long history of Cold War meddling in Muslim countries, which has continued despite the demise of the Soviet Union. Oh, and let us not forget centuries of colonialism befiore that!
From the time of the Crusades, the pattern has been consistent. The Soviet Union learned this difficult lesson following its invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in the late 1970s. The Russians learned it again when they occupied Chechnya in the 1990s. Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza after the 1967 Six Day War and its military interventions in Lebanon triggered similar reactions, as did the U.S. military presence in Lebanon in the early 1980s. Indeed, it's fair to say that Israel's very existence — a non-Islamic state in land claimed by the Muslims &mdahs; is part of the same pattern, as is the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan As for Israel, it would certainly be inhuman to drive it into the sea at this point, but at least we could demand an end to the occupation. It is no longer needed from a military point of view and exists only to placate Jewish fanatics who want to grab the West Bank. Again, our hypocrisy is breathtaking, which shows the power of money in corrupting our much vaunted democracy. It is amazing what a determined and well-funded minority can do to make a mockery of 'one man one vote'. (I refer not only to the hawkish portion of the Jewish lobby, epitomized by AIPAC, which must be carefully distinguished from the liberal Jewish majority, but also to the power of corporate America on the political process. Again, one is not a Commie or advocate of 'class warfare' for saying that. One is simply refraining from being an imbecile.)
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On Islam's 'Death Cult' (7 Jul 07): Here's an example of the kind of article that used to make me think that Muslims as a whole were far worse than we are, but that now seems tainted with more than a little hypocrisy:
To merely pose that question, of course, is to play with political dynamite. But it must be asked. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote that 'a death cult' ... 'has taken root' in Islam, 'feeding off it like a cancerous tumor'. The conservative commentator Cal Thomas also used a cancer metaphor in comments that provoked an outcry from the U.S. Muslim community in recent days. 'How much longer should we allow people from certain lands, with certain beliefs to come to Britain and America and build their mosques, teach hate, and plot to kill us?' Thomas asked. 'OK, let's have the required disclaimer: Not all Muslims from the Middle East and Southeast Asia want to kill us, but those who do blend in with those who don't. Would anyone tolerate a slow-spreading cancer because it wasn't fast-spreading? Probably not. You'd want it removed.' The whole issue is complicated by the fact that the Koran really does have a lot of bad stuff in it, just like the Old Testament. In both, we find a tribal God who condones genocide for his chosen people. And Christianity is hardly blameless, despite all that love rhetoric. How many millions of 'pagans' have been wiped out or converted over the centuries?
Ah, you say, but the Muslims have suicide terrorists, sometimes even children! That's a level of evil and barbarity that far transcends our wonderful 'Judeo-Christian' values. We're so much more civilized. We just drop thousands of tons of bombs from high up in the air against people who never attacked us. Some of them may fall in unfortunate places, but all that matters is that our intentions were good. We didn't explicitly target the innocents! That is all that matters, from the point of view of Judeo-Christian morality, at least in the Likud-GOP version (with plenty of spineless Democratic complicity). Talk about a 'cult of death'!
Yes, there are serious problems with orthodox Islam, which go back to Mohammed himself, who was just another conqueror, like Alexander, Caesar or Genghis Khan, with plenty of blood on his hands. To be sure, his religious fanaticism was unlike those other conquerors; it clearly drew its inspiration from the Old Testament. It's quite a conundrum, if one wishes to respect the feelings of millions of decent Muslims. There is no way to be a sincere and honest liberal democrat without speaking ill of Allah, or of Yahweh for that matter. Criminal behavior is criminal behavior, even when it comes from someone claiming to be God.
But I can see how the Jewish hawks, in collaboration with non-Jewish American hawks of both parties, are cynically exploiting the Muslim pathologies to build up the mood for an attack on Iran. Israel has 200+ nukes, we have thousands, and the Iranians may be working towards one, which they might not even be able to achieve. And please don't suggest that our illegal and bloody invasion of their neighbor might serve as motivation. All that matters is that they are spiritually diseased. They have a moral cancer, to use the felicitous words of flathead pseudo-liberal warmonger Tom Friedman, who is in the same class as Michael Hirsh, Christopher Hitchens, Andrew Sullivan and all those other courtiers of empire. (Do you really think they'd have their cushy jobs in the MSM if they wrote like the folks at antiwar.com? Heaven forbid that any serious anti-empire rhetoric should ever make it into the 'liberal' MSM. Certainly not if AIPAC objects.)
UPDATE (7 Jul 07): Oh yes! Hitchens sanctimoniously rails against all religion, and Sullivan against 'Christianism'. So they preen themselves on being something more enlightened than Neanderthal Republicans. After all, they're British, so they're supposed to have some intellectual sophistication. But they didn't rail against invading Iraq. On the contrary, they served as public megaphones for neocon deception. They are as responsible for hundreds of thousands of innocent and futile Iraqi deaths as the President and the Congress.
UPDATE (9 Jul 07): My Hindu correspondent SRK writes the following:
However, the role of death in the Abrahamic cults needs to be examined on its own merits, and some of my fellow Pagans, past and present, eastern and western, seem to have thought of both Christianity and Islam as true 'death cults'. If you consider this carefully, you will realize that one's 'salvation' is dependent on the club one had membership in at the moment of death. Death is 'well-deserved' punishment for most, but those who accept the haranguing prophet get a better deal in the end, rattling skeletons and all in heaven after 'Judgement Day'. A fear of death and afterlife animates these cults for, 'the day of Judgement is nigh' (most recently in 2000 AD). This focus is in stark contrast to the vegetative myths that are often claimed as inspirations for Jesus' resurrection. Those myths emphasize that all life is cyclically renewed, but Jesus' resurrection has no such implications for the ordinary mortal; rather, it only 'qualifies' Jesus all the more to intervene (c.f. intercede) at the moment of the death of his followers.
This, of course, is in contrast to the Hindu view of the body's affiliation being of little consequence, since the Self is, by definition, beyond caste or creed. As the subtle Elst put it, membership in Hinduism is crucial for Hindu society, but not for Hindu philosophy — which provision is abused by the Hindus who deny their Hinduness to preen themselves on interfaith jaunts among Abrahamics, and elicit well-deserved contempt.
As for Judaism, I cannot find much mention of the afterlife, though animal sacrifice is often resorted to as an atonement for sins. The seeds are probably there, and in the messianic view of the future, of which John and Jesus (revealingly The Lamb of 'God' who renders the Mosaic sacrifices unnecessary) are the results. Maybe Christianity is merely the flowering of the latent death cult-like tendencies in Judaism. And, if I remember right, Islam can probably teach Christianity a thing or two about death cults, as the Victorian excavators of the Mesopotamia found out. The crafty Muslim worker or Pasha, on hearing of the discovery of some bauble of value from a site would set up a cry of 'Muslim graves', precluding further excavation by unclean Kafir hands before the 'bodies' could be suitably pacified and relocated.
FYI, it seems that the focus on death sufficiently confused Pliny to classify Christianity as a 'burial society' — whose members provided for funerary expenses. See here
We must remember that those early Christians (and importantly, Jesus) fully believed that the end was near. Hence Jesus' advice not to put away wealth but to be as 'lilies of the field...that toil not, and spin not'. Of course, that was all 2000 years ago and most people do save for retirement. Now SRK made another good point about 'vegetative' myths, that I didn't quite catch at first. He is referring to the ancient agricultural myths, which seem likely to have served as the basic for the Jesus myth, at least in my opinion. He points out that those myths were charitable enough to include the renewal of all life, regardless of creed or caste, in contrast to the exclusivism of Christianity. I couldn't agree more with that original charitable attitude! It goes without saying that the myths got distorted when appropriated by orthodox Christianity (though perhaps not by the unfortunate Gnostics who were soon eradicated).
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Other Articles
First, it shows how little nuance there is in our discourse about Iraq. These, after all, are Sunni militiamen — the bad guys; the bitter dead-enders; the Saddamists and the violent extremists who hate democracy. But while there are Sunni groups that fit that description, these guys seem to be (and obviously I can't tell for sure) a bunch of family men trying to protect their homes (the Adhamiya district has been a fat target for Shiite death squads).
So think about these Joes the next time someone's prattling on about 'Islamofascists' and 'terrorists' in Iraq. These conflicts, like the Clash of Civilizations in the larger sense, are driven by small groups of maniacs on both sides, and many, many ordinary people (like these guys appear to be) are caught in the cross-fire.
It also speaks to the increasingly popular — and wholly colonial — narrative being embraced by more and more of the war's apologists: that the Iraqis are a bunch of inherently blood-thirsty maniacs who can't get along without the guidance of the Great White Sahib, and that our only real fault in setting the country on fire is that we underestimated the thuggish nature of those bloody wogs. The next time you hear a derivation of that (already tired) argument, consider what these guys are saying: yes, there are U.S. troops and Iraqi National Guardsmen, but they can't stop the bloodletting. What's more, the Sunnis in Adhamiya equate the Iraqi security forces with Shiite militias, and rightly so. Back to Disclaimers
Articles on Islam
These are supplementary articles. Some key online documents are here.
General Articles I
Robert Pape
The Film 'Obsession'
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Jihad Watch & Allies
Of course, devout Muslims and influential 20th-century scholars of Islam like the Shi'ite leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (d. 1989) or the brilliant Sunni ideologue Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) always recognized the marginal Islamic foundations of this putative Sufi construction in their seminal writings and lectures and dismissed it outright. These orthodox modern Muslim authorities base their own traditional and bellicose understanding of jihad not on a disputed hadith as espoused by some Sufis, but a readily identifiable, canonical hadith, wherein jihad by force assumes highest priority, not lowest. Specifically, this tradition from Sahih Muslim-Book 001, Number 0079:
Indeed, Al-Ghazali (d. 1111), the famous theologian, philosopher, and paragon of mystical Sufism, who as noted by the eminent scholar W.M. Watt is, '...acclaimed in both the East and West as the greatest Muslim after Muhammad, and he is by no means unworthy of that dignity', wrote the following in the Wadjiz, (dated 1101, i.e., in the last decade of his life) about jihad war and the treatment of the vanquished non-Muslim dhimmi peoples....
COMMENT: I know from personal experience how 'fanatical' some non-Muslims can get about the myth of a 'spiritual' Jihad. 2. I do not wish to drive all Muslims into the sea.
3. I have never said that the only good Muslim is an ex-Muslim.
4. I have never said that Muslims want to kill all Jews and Christians.
5. I do not single out the jihadist interpretation of Islam and anoint it as the only legitimate interpretation. As I have pointed out many times, all the orthodox sects and schools of jurisprudence teach violent jihad. I would love to highlight mainstream peaceful Islamic sects that are regarded as orthodox by other Muslims. Unfortunately, such sects do not exist. Courageous sincere individual reformers are deeply appreciated and to be applauded, but they are just that — individuals.
6. It is false that by pointing out how jihadists use the Qur'an and Islamic teaching, I am encouraging and legitimizing those jihadists or pushing moderate Muslims to become jihadists. In fact, they do not listen to me. More importantly, it is incumbent upon moderates to refute the jihad ideology if they can. But if I can find holes in the moderates' presentations, jihadists will find ten more. And so those moderate constructions will prove useless to do what must be done: convincing Muslims to be peaceful.
7. Tabari says Aisha was nine when Muhammad consummated his marriage with her. That he says more about Aisha doesn't mean that somewhere he contradicts this assertion.
8. 'Apologist' is not a pejorative term. It means a defender of a faith. And when apologists say something, this doesn't mean that no one else says it.
9. Word has gone out that I support unrestricted immigration from Muslim countries, with adjustment only to screen for active jihadists. This is false.
10. Comments here are unmoderated. If you think I support the sentiments expressed in one, please establish that with quotations from my own writings.
11. I did not add the section of my FAQ about the need to "remain true to our principles of freedom and equality of rights and dignity for all" in response to critics who claimed that I wanted to subvert those principles. In fact, that has been part of the FAQ since the site began in October 2003. Critics of Jihad Watch
Martin Kramer
Daniel Pipes
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General Articles I
Al Qaeda chief in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed this June, had come there from Jordan to precipitate a naked Sunni-Shia sectarian war. He had a large following in Jordan, and his mayhem in Iraq was not widely condemned by Arab leaders. His political violence was not an anomaly to his culture. Neither is Osama bin Laden's ideology alien to Saudi Arabia's sort of Islam, exported throughout the Sunni Muslim world. We have witnessed uninhibited Muslim on Muslim violence in Taliban Afghanistan, Darfur's rolling genocide, the decade-long siege of Algeria, Saddam's massacre of Iraqi Kurds, the bloodletting among Palestinians, and the clan warfare in Somalia.
Muslim on Muslim violence, crippling the Arab-Muslim world, is documented in R.J. Rummel's Statistics of Democide. He provides the grisly example of Pakistan's 1971 genocide in East Pakistan, which 'succeeded in killing perhaps 1,500,000 people, created 10,000,000 refugees who had fled to India, provoked a war with India, [and] incited a countergenocide of 150,000 non-Bengalis'. As a young adult, I saw firsthand what Rummel describes. General Articles II
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Robert Pape
Bernard Lewis
Reza Aslan
Back to Articles on Islam
The Film 'Obsession'
Other Articles
Extended Excerpts
Islam is the quintessentially tradition-bound religion. First, the Koran is the eternal and infallible Word of God, and contains the whole of God's final revelation to man, and must be obeyed in all its details. ...
Clearly the Koran by itself (i.e. uninterpreted) did not furnish enough guiding principles to meet the changing requirements of the early Muslims. Thus, in all matters whether civil or religious, the will of the prophet had first to be ascertained and followed as a true guide to practical conduct. The Prophet's Companions were considered the best source for learning the Prophet's will... On the strength of such traditions, certain customs in ritual and
Note: I consider myself a political moderate, but I have noticed that conservative websites like FrontPageMag, Jihad Watch and National Review, while often partisan, nevertheless are intelligent and provide much important information not available in mainstream academic and media channels, which tend to lean to the left.
By the way, I am not Jewish, and I used to feel critical of the Israeli settlements and sorry for the Palestinians, but not any more — not since learning a little history.
Critics of Islam
Apologists for Islam
This division is not always rigorous.
Faith Freedom: Quran Teaches (quotations)
Faith Freedom: Quran's Teachings (quotations)
Carlos: Facing the Global Jihad
Andrew Bostom: Death for Apostasy
Robert Spencer: Academic Lies About Killing Apostates
Robert Spencer: Q&A on C-SPAN (video interview on Islam) [more]
Serge Trifkovic: The Sword of the Prophet
Serge Trifkovic: On Defeating Islam
Serge Trifkovic: On Spencer's 'Truth About Muhammad'
Andrew Bostom: The Legacy of Jihad
Andrew Bostom: The Legacy of Jihad in Palestine (Part I) [Part II]
Andrew Bostom: The Legacy of Jihad in India
Andrew Bostom: On Spencer's 'Truth About Muhammad'
Bat Ye'or: Jihad and Human Rights Today
Bat Ye'or: Europe and the Ambiguities of Multiculturalism
Brigitte Gabriel: Video of her experiences in the Middle East [website]
Brigitte Gabriel: Book: 'Because They Hate'
Brigitte Gabriel: Spencer's 'The Truth About Muhammad'
Martin Kramer's Reader: Selected Articles
K.S. Lal: The Muslim State in India
Ram Swarup: Understanding Islam through Hadis
Samuel P. Huntington: The Clash of Civilizations
Efraim Karsh: Islam's Imperial Dreams
Andrew Bostom: Global Jihad (review of Karsh's book)
Daniel Pipes: Islam is What Its Followers Make of It
FrontPageMag: Symposium on 'Islam - What the West Needs to Know'
Al Qaeda: Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders
David Frawley: Islamic Terrorism
Syed Shahabuddin: M.J. Akbar's Shade of Swords
See also here.
Orion News Blog: Mohammed and Jihad
Islam Today Archive: News articles from Aug-Nov 2005
Many Decent Muslims
The War Against Terror
Immigration Policy
The DNC's Imam
Moderate Islam in History
A Crusade for Evangelicals
But Liberals Can Be Myopic
Jihadi Abandons Terrorism
Muslims Angry at Foreign Meddling
On Islam's 'Death Cult'
Other Articles
Olivier Roy (NPQ): Deglobalize the Jihad
You left out the real joke, which is that the Muslim Congressman (?) is a full-blooded American who converted during adolescence (?) to Islam, and he cannot be stopped by even the most draconian immigration law possible. Is Virgil Goode then recommending deportation (or some dhimmi-like status) for Americans who convert to Islam? And, all the while obediently following the Great Leader Islam-is-Peace Bush, and without a peep of protest at this patently erroneous terminology.
And my reply was as follows:
Good point. I'd have to say that all citizens must be treated the same, or the legal framework comes apart. However, citizens who participate in jihad, or who even advocate it, could still be dealt with. Simply define jihad as a crime! That is, make it a crime to suggest replacing democracy by theocracy, including the Islamic theocracy of jihad and sharia. Indeed, I believe that such laws are already implicit, if not explicit, in our books. But first, we have to recognize the political nature of orthodox Islam, and there our leadership has failed miserably.
Virgil Goode (USA Today): Save Judeo-Christian values
Think Progress: Goode: Iraq Critics Are Helping Jihadists
A NEW CRUSADE FOR GOP EVANGELICALS
Dan Gilgoff, LA Times, 25 Mar 07
WHEN Mitt Romney emerged from a closed-door meeting at the recent National Religious Broadcasters convention, a handful of reporters, myself included, descended on him. What, we asked, was the toughest question put to him by evangelical leaders?
'How does America win against the jihad?' was at the top of the list, and the nuclear proliferation represented by Iran, the Republican presidential candidate said.
Yes, it looks like my fears are being confirmed. The dark side of Islam is being exploited by those Christians who have a similar mentality. It is like two dogs growling at each other. Terror is a threat but not one that calls for a counter-Jihad. The Muslim nations simply do not pose a military threat to us, not even Iran. This is being blown way out of proportion by right-wing Zionists, who are skillfully exploiting the militant stupidity of conservative American Christians. (You may argue that the word 'stupidity' is too harsh. That is what I used to think, before hearing some of the Republican rhetoric on Iraq prior to the midterms.)
The Mohammed cartoons were an issue of free-speech pure and simple. Liberals who cannot understand this are betraying a fundamental principle of any kind of 'liberalism' that I would ever wish for.
Robert Redeker is again an issue of free speech. Calling his article 'inflammatory' is submitting to those who would deny free-speech. And he was right about Mohammed's intolerance, though Jesus gets off too easily. (Jesus was intolerant in principle but did not advocate using the sword to spread his message. Many later Christians did.)
I do agree that Theo van Gogh went too far in calling Muslims 'goat fuckers', if indeed he did. It is one thing to criticize an ideology for intolerance and violence and another to be crudely insulting. Even so, his right to free speech allowed him to say such things, though perhaps not in public, nor to my or your face, and he should not have been murdered.
The Pope was right that Mohammed was a violent fanatic, who spread his faith by the sword. Not all Muslims are like this, but enough are that it is reasonable to worry about Turkey's influence on the European Union, should it be accepted as a member. It seems to me that it would be best to defer this question for another decade or two. Is Turkey really 'European' anyway? (Oh, and regarding the Pope, it goes without saying that the Church also has a bloody history of intolerance, against pagans during Roman times and against Jews, Muslims and heretics during the Middle Ages and early modern era. Colonialism and Christianity also often collaborated. So this was a case of the pot calling the kettle black.)
Europe should screen immigrants according to ideology, but not according to race or religion. In practice, this line is blurred between religion and ideology. It is simply a fact that some Muslims believe in a version of Islam (the true, orthodox, Shariah-based version) that is incompatible with liberal, secular democracy. Period.
Multiculturalism is fine as far as harmless aspects of culture are concerned, such as dress, food and (non-lethal) rituals. However, ideology must be examined. Many ideologies are quite compatible with secular democracy, namely, those that are secular and democratic. Aspects of a foreign culture that are incompatible with these fundamental principles cannot be tolerated, at least if put into practice. There must be some common sense.
There is a legitimate concern regarding the birth rate. The Muslim rate seems to be much higher than the native European rate. This could have profound consequences on demography in a generation or two. Muslims could become a majority or large minority in Europe. If radical thinking prevails in the Muslim community at that time, then civil war could result, or the non-Muslim remnant could find themselves helpless and severely oppressed, as has often happened to Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians and others in the Middle East. I would not blame the Europeans if they were to put fresh immigration on hold, nor if they were to vigorously deport militant clerics or other troublemakers. It is their right.
The headscarf issue does seem a bit silly to me, but I don't know that much about it. School uniforms don't seem like such a bad idea. Nor do certain minimal restrictions on dress at work.
It's not much of an argument to say that fundamentalist Islam provides 'existential meaning' to unemployed Muslim youths. Organized crime might also be said to provide 'existential meaning' to gangsters. At the same time, it is true that discontent fosters radicalism, but what to do about it? Give the disenchanted youths permanent massive welfare? Give tax incentives to businesses to relocate in 'bad' neighborhoods? In any society, there may be intractable cultural problems, which won't go away with good intentions. It is a fact that orthodox Islam can aggravate the situation. The original Muslims were nomads living off of plunder, and the tradition continued in a long succession of Jihads (entirely equivalent to colonialism of course). Government assistance must be combined with firm education regarding the duties of a citizen in a liberal, secular democracy. A line must be drawn.
Wolin is correct that critics of Islam often fail to appreciate the varieties of Islam, from moderate to fanatical. However, it is misleading to attribute the fanatical tendencies solely to alienation of poor Muslim youths in the Western societies where they find themselves stranded. There is ample precedent in the history of Islam for radicalism, though there were also more moderate tendencies. Islam is fundamentally flawed in its pure, original version, but fortunately many Muslims have been able to progress beyond this, even if they have to play games with their own minds about the meaning of their religion. (Jews and Christians have also learned to ignore or 'reinterpret' the barbaric parts of their scriptures. Well, some of them have.)
SWITCHING SIDES IN INDONESIA
60 Minutes, 6 May 07
Nasir Abas had become a very serious player in the movement. He established a military camp for Jemaah Islamiyah, where he trained hundreds of young believers to become fighters. He was promoted to be one of the four regional commanders.
I guess that there is something to be said for the legalism that I deplore in book-based religions!
US ROLE IN ISLAMIST TERRORISM
Ivan Eland, 3 Jul 07
When U.S. government officials and foreign policy pundits discuss terrorism, they usually focus on the characteristics, personnel, history, tactics, targets, objectives and effects of terrorist organizations. They rarely talk about motives.
To fully understand Islamic terrorism, one needs to understand what triggers this extraordinary rage. And throughout history one factor stands out above all else: the occupation of Muslim land by non-Muslim forces.
Many a 'moderate' American argues that Afghanistan is the 'good' war, just as Iraq is the 'bad war, against 'Muslim terrorism'. Yet Eland has a point that even our presence in Afghanistan is fueling a resurgence of the Taliban. This is not so hard to understand. People everywhere simply hate foreigners on their soil, as would we. It is amazing how we simply brush this basic fact about human nature aside, and cover it up with a hypocritical smokescreen of 'democratization' rhetoric. Muslims aren't going to be democratized by invading them. That must come from within, as a change of heart and consciousness. Attacking them certainly won't predispose them to this softening of attitudes. We may have such wonderful principles on paper, but our own hypocrisy is breathtaking.
EXPLORING ISLAM'S 'DEATH CULT'
Michael Hirsh, Newsweek, 6 Jul 07
July 7, 2007 - It is the question at the back of many people's minds as they absorb the frightening details of the terror plot in Britain. Yes, we understand that many Muslims are angry — about the Iraq War, about Israeli policy toward the Palestinians and the usual list of grievances. But there are many people, in many different societies and cultures, who are angry about many things. Would any other culture or religion produce a group of doctors and professionals who apparently deemed it morally correct to kill innocent people in large numbers? Has something gone wrong with Islam itself, or at least the culture it has produced?
First, note the condescension in the words, 'Yes, we understand that many Muslims are angry — about the Iraq War, about Israeli policy toward the Palestinians and the usual list of grievances'. The usual list of grievances? Ho hum! No mention of the awful fact that hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis have perished, because a dishonest and trigger-happy American president decided to invade on flimsy evidence. Or that Israeli settlers have continued to encroach on the West Bank for decades, so that any reasonable Arab must conclude that Israel simply intends to take it all eventually. Would Michael Hirsh not be outraged to have his home stolen? But he just intones, 'Tut! Tut! We all have our problems. Some handle it better than others.' And how did we handle 9/11, which cost us far less than our homeland? By an insane invasion based on self-delusion that killed hundreds of thousands of innocents. Talk about a 'cult of death'! Muslims aren't the only crazy fanatics.
You have written some quite unexceptionable things about labelling Islam as a death cult, and the underlying neocon hypocrisy etc. That, as you say, may well be the media ploy (of Stalinist vintage) of 'sticking the convict's badge' on the latest hate figure; as a Hindu at the receiving end of the 'communal, fascist' epithets (often from fellow Hindus more religiously observant than I, no less!) I sympathise.
As usual, good points from SRK, which I pretty much agree with. I absolutely reject participation in any 'club' — either Christian or Muslim or other — as a precondition for 'salvation'. I even reject the idea that any belief matters to salvation. I do believe in karma, if life is to have any meaning, but this has more to do with our attitudes towards others: decency, kindness, compassion, honesty and so forth. An agnostic or atheist with these qualities will do fine, I am sure. Besides, what the Hindus call 'God' and the Buddhists call 'Buddha' is an enlightened state of mind, a purification of consciousness. Then the divinity that underlies our nature, but is hidden by ignorance, will become manifest, even to the agnostic or atheist! Is this not so much more enlightened than the primitive and tiresome Abrahamic approach?
SUNNI MILITIA MEMBERS SPEAK OUT
Alternet video, 22 Feb 07
This clip from LiveLeak doesn't have any action, but it speaks to several issues.
Tony Judt: Bush's Useful Idiots
Jihad Watch & Allies
Martin Kramer
Daniel Pipes
General Articles II
Bernard Lewis
Reza Aslan
Other Articles
Extended Excerpts
THE SO-CALLED 'SPIRITUAL' JIHAD
Andrew Bostom, FrontPageMag, 17 Apr 06
The EU apparatchiks are thus insisting that only a marginal Sufi notion of the so-called 'greater' spiritual jihad be accepted in defining jihad. Unfortunately this much ballyhooed, but anesthetizing definition has a very flimsy theological foundation. Even the Islamophilic scholar Reuven Firestone (pp. 139-40, n. 19) has acknowledged the dubious nature of the oral tradition (i.e., hadith) upon which this potential interpretation of jihad rests: 'Its source is not usually given, and it is in fact nowhere to be found in the canonical collections [of hadith].'
I heard the Messenger of Allah as saying: He who amongst you sees something abominable should modify it with the help of his hand (i.e., by force); and if he has not strength enough to do it, then he should do it with his tongue (i.e., by preaching or propaganda), and if he has not strength enough to do it, (even) then he should (abhor it) from his heart (i.e., soul), and that is the least of faith.
[O]ne must go on jihad (i.e., warlike razzias or raids) at least once a year ... one may use a catapult against them [non-Muslims] when they are in a fortress, even if among them are women and children. One may set fire to them and/or drown them ... If a person of the Ahl al-Kitab [People of The Book — primarily Jews and Christians] is enslaved, his marriage is [automatically] revoked ... One may cut down their trees ... One must destroy their useless books. Jihadists may take as booty whatever they decide ... they may steal as much food as they need....
Andrew Bostom: Sufi Jihad?
Hugh Fitzgerald: A One-Week Course for the Feds
Jihad Watch: Cathy Young's jihad against 'Islamophobes'
Cathy Young: The Jihad Against Muslims
ROBERT SPENCER SUMMARIZES
HIS STANCE ON MUSLIMS
Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch, 22 Nov 06
1. Islam is not a race. One does not become a racist by opposing the jihad ideology.
Arab News: Muhammad ordered murder of slave girls who mocked him
BBC: 'Allah extols Jihad 480 times in Koran'
FrontPageMag: A Schwartz-Spencer Exchange (2004)
Ralph Peters (NY Post): Islam Haters - An enemy within [more] [more]
Robert Spencer: Discussion with an apologist [more] [more]
Dan Glaister (Guardian): Rightwing bloggers are playing with fire
Spencer responds to 'Islam is peace' Muslim woman
Martin Kramer: Kramerize Your Syllabi (2005)
Martin Kramer: Jihad 101 (2002)
Martin Kramer: Islam vs. Democracy
Martin Kramer: Fundamentalist Islam: The Drive for Power
Martin Kramer: No Greater Hate: What Inspires the Muslim Kamikazes?
Joel Beinin: Policing Thought about the Middle East
Daniel Pipes: How Muslims Think (Pew Survey) (2006)
Daniel Pipes: Moshe Sharon Explains Middle Eastern Realities
Daniel Pipes: Cairo and the Age of the Hedonists
Daniel Pipes: Muslims 'Lagging Behind'
Sadanand Dhume: Is Daniel Pipes mellowing?
Daniel Pipes: My Debate with London Mayor Ken Livingstone
YouTube: Debate between Daniel Pipes and Ken Livingstone
YouTube: Pipes-Livingstone Debate: Partial transcript
Paul Craig Roberts: Who Are The Fanatics?
Sam Harris: The Reality of Islam
FDD: How Islamist Totalitarianism Views the West
FDD: Militant Islamists: 'The Entire World Is an Open Battlefield for Us'
Theodore Dalrymple: Quest for moderate Islam may be futile
Writers Reps: Islamic Imperialism by Efraim Karsh
Michael Gove (The Times): The Roots of Islamism
Andrew J. Bacevich (AmCon): The Islamic Way of War
Patricia Crone: What do we really know about Mohammed?
Marc Erikson: Islamism, fascism and terrorism
Lawrence Wright: Al Qaeda is just the beginning
Jonathan Last: The West vs. Islam, a clash that has never abated
Die Zeit: Abdelwahab Meddeb: Islam's heritage of violence
Christine Fair (Foreign Policy): Think Again: Islamist Terrorism
Suzanne Fields: Is Islam the Real Problem?
John Hawkins: Finding Out the 'Truth About Muhammad'
THE MARK OF CAIN
Salim Mansur, 18 Dec 06
Muslim on Muslim violence is intrinsic to Arab-Muslim history. The tribal lust for power and cruelty in warfare are not unique to Middle East culture. But such tribalism warped Islam as a faith tradition in the early seventh century, right at the outset of the post-prophetic years. Among its first victims were Prophet Mohammed's family members: his cousin and son-in-law Ali, and his grandsons Hasan and Husayn.
FACING THE ISLAMIST MENACE
Christopher Hitchens, City Journal, Winter 2007
I still think — or should I say hope? — that the sheer operatic insanity of September 11 set back the Islamist project of a 'soft; conquest of host countries, Muslim countries included. Up until 9/11, the Talibanization of Pakistan — including the placement of al-Qaida sympathizers within its nuclear program — proceeded fairly smoothly. Official Pakistani support for Muslim gangsters operating in Afghanistan, Kashmir, and India went relatively unpunished. Saudi funds discreetly advanced the Wahhabist program, through madrassa-building and a network of Islamic banking, across the globe. In the West, Muslim demands for greater recognition and special treatment had become an accepted part of the politically correct agenda. Some denounced me as cynical for saying at the time that Osama bin Laden had done us a favor by disclosing the nature and urgency of the Islamist threat, but I still think I was right. Both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have had to trim their sails a bit. The Taliban will at least never be able to retake power by stealth or as a result of our inattention. Millions have become aware of the danger — including millions of Shi'a Muslims who now see the ideology of bin Laden and Zarqawi as a menace to their survival. Groups and cells that might have gotten away with murder have wound up unmasked and shut down, from Berlin to Casablanca.
COMMENT: I'm not sure where Hitchens got the idea that the Shi'a have rejected Jihad ideology. Sunni Jihad ideology, perhaps, but not the fundamental Islamic idea of Jihad. But then, Hitchens still wants to see something positive in the war he supported.
Rolf Potts (The Believer): Al Qaeda's Godfather
Tawfik Hamid: The Trouble With Islam
Matthew Parris: Rotting empire vs. inept enemy
Tony Blankley: Journey into Islam
Michael Hirsh: Exploring Islam's 'Death Cult'
FrontPageMag: Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week
David Horowitz: Matthew Yglesias' Islamo-Fascism Petition
Robert Spencer: Islamo-Fascism Denial
Khody Akhavi: Welcome to 'Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week'
Juan Cole: Combating Muslim Extremism
Koenraad Elst: A lasting solution for Kabul and Srinagar
Alan Caruba (New Media Journal): Islam's Lethal Certitude
Salim Mansur: Dissecting the Danish Cartoon Controversy
Laurent Murawiec: Deterring Those Who Are Already Dead?
Rondi Adamson (in CSM): Moderate Western Muslims, speak up!
NCR Online: Europe's Muslims worry bishops
Algis Valiunas (Commentary): Tales of Islam
Max Boot (LA Times): Muslims' Complicity With Violence
Bashir Goth: Community Censorship Plagues the House of Islam
W. Montgomery Watt: Apologetic biography of Mohammed [more]
C-SPAN Q&A: Video interview with apologist Akbar Ahmed
Almas Sayeed (CAP): Who is winning in the 'Clash of Civilizations'?
Muqtedar Khan, Ph.D.: Who are 'moderate Muslims'?
Michael Gordon (The Age): West-Islam civilisations clash rejected
Andrew Bolt (Herald Sun): Spot the common problem
Martin Kramer on Robert Pape's Thesis
Orion News Blog: Robert Pape on Islam and Terrorism
Sydney Herald: Robert Pape: The terrorism theory Bush refuses to hear
Hugh Fitzgerald: Bernard Lewis and his Influence
Hugh Fitzgerald: A Critique of Bernard Lewis
Fouad Ajami: A personal tribute to Bernard Lewis
Michael Hirsh: Bernard Lewis Revisited
Daniel Pipes: On Lewis' 'We Free Them or They Destroy Us'
Joseph Puder: Bernard Lewis Credits Bush on Iraq
Bernard Lewis: Was Osama Right?
Robert Dreyfuss: Bernard Lewis: Senile at 90?
Video: Debate between Sam Harris and Reza Aslan
Video: Reza Aslan in conversation with Jack Miles
Reza Aslan: Why I'm offended by the Mohammed cartoons
Lakshmi Chaudhry: Reza Aslan on the Future of Islam
Jihad Watch: Reza Aslan is falsifying history as a debating tool
Ilana Mercer: Reza Aslan's Pogrom Amnesia
Molly McCarroll (FSM): The Film Obsession and America's Future
Ilana Mercer (WND): Obsession By Muhammad
Robert Spencer (Jihad Watch): On the film Obsession
FPM: Interview with Wayne Kopping, director of the film Obsession
David Warren: Clash of (Collapsing) Civilizations?
Steven Pressfield (Times): Tribalism is the real enemy in Iraq
Pat Buchanan: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?
Wole Soyinka (NPQ): Psychopaths of Faith vs. The Muse of Irreverence
Sadik J. Al-Azm (Boston review): 9/11 was the last gasp of Islamism
David Selbourne (London Times): Why we can't defeat Islam
Lindsay Wise (Oxford): Thesis on the 'modernizing' preacher Amr Khaled
ISLAM, MIDDLE EAST AND FASCISM
Ibn Warraq, New English Review, 2006
In a speech that he gave at Columbia University, Umberto Eco spelled out fourteen features that he considered were typical of Eternal Fascism (which he also calls Ur-Fascism ); adding however this explanatory detail: 'These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.'
Umberto Eco: [1] The Cult of Tradition: 'Truth has already been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.'