Category: Islamism

Of Dhimmitude and Derriere

Sloggi_euro_girls_350x251

Western licentiousness meets the panty jihad. Quotable:

This is a traditional tactic of the Islamic march to domination.  One fight at a time, one street at a time, one billboard at a time, one school at a time, one book at a time, one TV news report at a time. Islam must always be acknowledged to be above Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and other ancient religions.

 

The eventual state whereby Christians and Jews acknowledge Islam’s authority and superiority is called the dhimmitude.  Dhimmis will be invited to convert to Islam, but if they do not, they will be allowed to continue to practice their own religions, although with restrictions, and they must profess submission to Islamic laws.

 

Shamefully, Sloggi is marching down that road.

Hodges Weighs in on ‘Suicide Bomber’

Dear Bill,

Interesting discussion on 'suicide' bombers. I prefer the expression "suicide bomber" to "homicide bomber." I think that the term "bomber" implies that the individual is aiming not solely at suicide but at other killing or destruction, too. I also like the fact that Islamists object to the term "suicide" since suicide is forbidden in Islam, so the insult is useful.

Yours,

Jeffery

See Dr. Hodges' Islamism: Radicalism at the Core of Islam?  Follow the links and use the search function to locate other of Hodges' Islam(ism) posts.  And now I note that he just posted on Christopher Hitchens' take on the Ground Zero mosque.  By the way, those who complain about this moniker, objecting that the provocation in question will not be located precisely at Ground Zero, need to be reminded that (i) there is no way that it could be located precisely there, and that (ii) debris from one of the trade towers hit the building whose demolition is to make way for the GZM.

Chutzpah

A delightful word of Yiddish, 'chutzpah' is in the semantic vicinity of 'insolence,' 'effrontery,' 'impudence,' 'gall.'  An excellent contemporary example of chutzpah: building a mosque and huge Islamic center a couple of blocks from where nearly three thousand Americans were slaughtered in the name of Islam.   As we say in the Southwest, that takes cojones!

What Explains Islamist-Leftist Collaboration?

An analysis by Daniel Pipes.  Excerpt:

Why, then, the formation of what David Horowitz calls the Left-Islamist "unholy alliance"? For four main reasons.

First, as British politician George Galloway explains, "the progressive movement around the world and the Muslims have the same enemies," namely Western civilization in general and the United States, Great Britain, and Israel in particular, plus Jews, believing Christians, and international capitalists. In Iran, according to Tehran political analyst Saeed Leylaz, "the government practically permitted the left to operate since five years ago so that they would confront religious liberals."

Listen to their interchangeable words: Harold Pinter describes America as "a country run by a bunch of criminal lunatics" and Osama bin Laden calls the country "unjust, criminal and tyrannical." Noam Chomsky terms America a "leading terrorist state" and Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, a Pakistani political leader, deems it "the biggest terrorist state." These commonalities suffice to convince the two sides to set aside their many differences in favor of cooperation.

Second, the two sides share some political goals. A mammoth 2003 joint demonstration in London to oppose war against Saddam Hussein symbolically forged their alliance. Both sides want coalition forces to lose in Iraq, the War on Terror to be closed down, anti-Americanism to spread, and the elimination of Israel. They agree on mass immigration to and multiculturalism in the West. They cooperate on these goals at meetings such as the annual Cairo Anti-War Conference, which brings leftists and Islamists together to forge "an international alliance against imperialism and Zionism."

Third, Islamism has historic and philosophic ties to Marxism-Leninism. Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian Islamist thinker, accepted the Marxist notion of stages of history, only adding an Islamic postscript to them; he predicted that an eternal Islamic era would come after the collapse of capitalism and Communism. Ali Shariati, the key intellectual behind the Iranian revolution of 1978–79, translated Franz Fanon, Che Guevara, and Jean-Paul Sartre into Persian. More broadly, the Iranian analyst Azar Nafisi observes that Islamism "takes its language, goals, and aspirations as much from the crassest forms of Marxism as it does from religion. Its leaders are as influenced by Lenin, Sartre, Stalin, and Fanon as they are by the Prophet."

Moving from theory to reality, Marxists see in Islamists a strange fulfillment of their prophesies. Marx forecast that business profits would collapse in industrial countries, prompting the bosses to squeeze workers; the proletariat would become impoverished, rebel, and establish a socialist order. But, instead, the proletariat of industrial countries became ever more affluent, and its revolutionary potential withered. For a century and a half, author Lee Harris notes, Marxists waited in vain for the crisis in capitalism. Then came the Islamists, starting with the Iranian Revolution and following with 9/11 and other assaults on the West. Finally, the Third World had begun its revolt against the West, fulfilling Marxist predictions—even if under the wrong banner and with faulty goals. Olivier Besancenot, a French leftist, sees Islamists as "the new slaves" of capitalism and asks if it is not natural that "they should unite with the working class to destroy the capitalist system." At a time when the Communist movement is in "decay," note analyst Lorenzo Vidino and journalist Andrea Morigi, Italy's "New Red Brigades" actually acknowledge the "leading role of the reactionary clerics."

Fourth, power: Islamists and leftists can achieve more together than they can separately. In Great Britain, they jointly formed the Stop the War Coalition, whose steering committee includes representation from such organizations as the Communist party of Britain and the Muslim Association of Britain. Britain's Respect Party amalgamates radical international socialism with Islamist ideology. The two sides joined forces for the March 2008 European Parliament elections to offer common lists of candidates in France and Britain, disguised under party names that revealed little.

Which Islam Will Prevail in America?

Required reading.  Excerpts:

Most of the mosques and Islamic centers in our country are controlled, to a greater or lesser degree, by the Muslim Brotherhood and its satellites. The North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) was established in the early Seventies to buy up property for the establishment of American mosques and “Islamic centers,” the latter being what the Brotherhood calls “the axis” of the Islamist movement in America. [. . .]

The Kingdom and the Brotherhood have combined for a half-century to put American Muslim communities in a stranglehold. They proselytize a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam — an amalgam of Saudi Wahhabism and Brotherhood Salafism — that is virulently anti-Western. Its instruction to Muslims in the United States, Canada, and Europe is voluntary apartheid: Immigrate but don’t integrate, infiltrate but don’t assimilate. [. . .]

It is the Brotherhood’s objective to thread sharia through American law and culture. This mission drives imam Feisal Rauf’s [the guy behind the Ground Zero mosque provocation] work, as documented by the Center for Security Policy’s Christine Brim in an eye-popping report at Andrew Breitbart’s Big Peace website.

How Far Does Religious Toleration Extend?

Suppose that there were a religion whose aim was to dominate the world and suppress every other religion.  Would we who value toleration be under any obligation to tolerate such a religion?  Of course not.  Toleration does not extend to the toleration of the intolerant.  Is there such a religion?  According to Farhad Khosrokhavar, Inside Jihadism: Understanding Jihadi Movements Worldwide (Paradigm 2009, p. 22):

In the twentieth century, one of the first to insist that Islam entails its imposition on humanity was Seyed Qutb, one of the modern forefathers of Jihadism . . . . He stated that Islam summons to worship no one else but Allah . . . . This implies the relentless fight against all idols until Allah's reign is set up on earth [ . . .]

The war on idolatry (taqut) is, in his interpretation, the most important part of Islam, taking precedence over the other principles. From this view, all of modernity is based on the worship of idols and, therefore, illegitimate, necessitating that Jihad wipe out its idolatrous tendencies. 

Jihad is not one of the five pillars of Islam.  But recent jihadists interpret the first pillar in a manner to require jihad.  "For them [recent jihadist intellectuals] the first Islamic pillar, the Unity of Allah (Tawhid) makes it compulsory for Muslims to wage the Jihad against infidels." (p. 21) 

I will be told that not all who identify as Muslims take this radical view.  True, but they are not the problem.  The Jihadists are the problem.  And we have reason to think that they represent the essence of Islam with the so-called 'moderates' being simply those who do not take the core message with full seriousness.  To the extent that Islam takes on Jihadist contours, to the extent that Islam entails its imposition on humanity, it cannot and ought not be tolerated by the West.  Indeed, no religion that attempts to suppress other religions can or ought to be  tolerated, including Christianity.  We in the West do, or at least should, believe that competition among religions in a free marketplace of ideas is a good thing. 

My own view is that no extant religion can legitimately claim to be the true religion; the true religion  has yet to be worked out.  In pursuit of that goal we need to make use of all available materials from all the best traditions.  Perhaps even Islam, as crude as it is, has something to teach us.

 

Pope Benedict’s Regensburg Speech and Muslim Oversensitivity

This is a slightly redacted version of a piece first posted on 18 September 2006 at the old PowerBlogs site.  I repost it not only to save it for my files, but also because it it important to remember not only the successful and unsuccessful acts of Islamist terrorism worldwide, but also the many incidents which betray the illiberal and anti-Enlightenment values of our Islamist opponents (e.g., the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the Danish cartoon 'caper,' etc. etc. The analog to the fatwa would be the Pope putting a price on the head of Andres Serrano, the 'artist' famous notorious for his 'Piss Christ.') 

……………

People need to face the fact that Western civilization is under serious threat from militant Islamic fanaticism. (And it may be coming to a theater near you.) Yet another recent indication of the threat is the unreasoning umbrage taken by many in the Islamic world over a mere  QUOTATION Pope Benedict XVI employs in his address at the University of Regensburg entitled, "The Best of Greek Thought is an Integral Part of Christian Faith."

Benedict's talk is only tangentially about Islam; it is primarily about the role of reason in the posing and answering of the God question, and about whether Christianity should be dehellenized. The Pope begins by mentioning a dialogue "by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both." Then comes the 'offending' passage (bolding added):

Continue reading “Pope Benedict’s Regensburg Speech and Muslim Oversensitivity”

The Ground Zero Mosque: The Controversy Continues

And it seems to be heating up as the anniversary of 9/11 approaches.  I suspect dialogue with liberals on this topic is impossible due to what I call the 'two planets problem':  conservatives and liberals live on different planets.  You could cash out the metaphor by saying  that we differ radically in temperament, sense of life, values, and assumptions. But I am getting e-mail from decent and well-intentioned left-leaners who disagree with me about the GZM, so here goes one more time. 

Let's be clear about what the issue is.  To put it as crisply as possible, it is about propriety, not legality.  No one denies that Imam Rauf et al. have the legal right to build their structure on the land they have purchased.  The point is rather that the construction in that place is improper, unwise, provocative, insensitive, not conducive to comity.  To put it aphoristically, what one has a right to do is not always right to do.  But that is to put it too mildly:  the construction of a mosque on that hallowed ground is an outrage to the memories of those who died horrendous deaths on 9/11 because of the acts of Muslim terrorists, terrorists who didn't just happen to be Muslims, but whose terrorist deeds were a direct consequence of their Islamist beliefs. 

Now at this point you either get it or you don't.  A majority of the American people get it, but Obama doesn't.   Lacking the spine to address the real issue — the issue of propriety, not legality — he gave us a lecture on freedom of religion and the First Amendment.  Besides being b-o-r-i-n-g, his pathetic homily amounted to the logical fallacy of ignoratio elenchi.  This fallacy is committed when, mistaking the thesis your interlocutor is advancing, you respond to a distinct thesis that he is not advancing.  We who oppose the GZ mosque do not maintain that its construction is illegal; and because we do not maintain this, Obama and his leftist cohort commit ignoratio elenchi when they insist that it is legal.

Here again we note the 'two planets' problem.'  Leftists just cannot grasp what the issue is as conservatives see it.  Since they do not feel the impropriety of a mosque's being built near Ground Zero, they cannot believe that conservatives feel it either; and so they must interpret the conservative response in some sinister way: as an expression of xenophobia or 'Islamophobia' or nativism or a desire to strip Muslim citizens of their First Amendment rights. 

Supposedly, a major motive behind the construction is to advance interfaith dialogue, to build a bridge between the Muslim and non-Muslim communities.  But this reason is so patently bogus, so obviously insincere, that no intelligent person can credit it.  For it is a well-known fact that a majority of the American people vehemently oppose the GZM.  Given this fact, the construction cannot possibly achieve its stated end of advancing mutual understanding.  So if Rauf and Co. were sincere, they would move to another site.

Here is a little analogy.  Suppose you and I have a falling out, and then I make an attempt at conciliation. I extend my hand to you.  But you have no desire for reconciliation and you refuse to shake hands with me.  So I grab your hand and force you to shake hands with me.  Have I thereby patched things up with you?  Obviously not: I have made them worse.  Same with the GZM.  Once it became clear that the the American people opposed the GZM, Rauf and Co. either should have nixed the project or else had the cojones to say:  we have a legal right to build here and we will do so no matter what you say or how offended you are.

As it is, we have reason to suspect Rauf et al. of deception.

 

Islam’s Role in the Etiology of Terrorism

WARNING:  Free speech and political incorrectness  up ahead!

Our man on the ground in Afghanistan, Spencer Case, writes:

Here at Forward Operating Base Thunder, the captain has recently returned from leave, bringing with him his propensity for political debate. One hot subject in the office, the Ground Zero mosque, has led to a genuine philosophical question which I’d like to see you take up. The question is this: at what point is it appropriate to credit/blame an “-ism” for the deeds/misdeeds of professed adherents?

To me it seems perfectly correct to say that Islam causes terrorism, that 9/11 was an Islamic attack, and that Islam as an overarching worldview is responsible for certain evils. The captain thinks 9/11 was simply a crazy or evil attack. The fact that the attackers happened to be Muslim, rather than Christian, Buddhist, Communist or what-have-you is purely accidental (Allahu Akbar! notwithstanding).

First of all, the 9/11 hijackers were not 'crazy' or insane or irrational.  They displayed a high degree of instrumental rationality in planning and carrying out their mission.  It is a big mistake to think that evil actions are eo ipso crazy actions.  People who say or suggest this (typically liberals) simply do not take evil seriously or the free will that makes it possible.  They think that people who commit mass murder must be out of their minds.  No! Mass murder can be an entirely rational means for the furtherance of one's (evil) goals.  The 9/11 terrorists knew exactly what they were doing, did it deliberately and freely and consciously and rationally (in terms of instrumental rationality), and they dealt us a severe blow from which we are still reeling.  It is also a mistake to call Muhammad Atta and the boys 'cowards' as Bill O'Reilly and others have done.  On the contrary!  They displayed great courage in carrying out their evil deeds.  The fact that courage is a virtue is consistent with an exercise of courage having an evil upshot.

And your captain is certainly wrong if he thinks that it is an accidental fact about the 9/11 hijackers that they are Muslims.  Intentional actions derive from and reflect beliefs.  People do not act  in a doxastic vacuum.  And what they believe cannot help but influence their actions. A convinced pacifist is highly unlikely to be a suicide bomber.  Compare the number of Buddhist terrorists to the number of Muslim terrorists.  There are many more of the latter than of the former, to put it in the form of an understatement.   Obviously, the content of Buddhist/Muslim beliefs plays an important role in the etiology of pacifist/terrorist acts.

Continue reading “Islam’s Role in the Etiology of Terrorism”

Yet More on the Mosque and Matters Muslim

Malcolm Pollack e-mails from Gotham:

That was an excellent post  about that damned mosque. [. . .]

I have meanwhile been arguing, back at my place, with Bob Koepp over burqa-banning  –  an excellent discussion of which was written at NRO yesterday by Claire Berlinsky. I think you would find it interesting; it's here.

Very interesting indeed, and I agree with you that Berlinsky 'nails it' when she writes:

Because this is our culture, and in our culture, we do not veil. We do not veil because we do not believe that God demands this of women or even desires it; nor do we believe that unveiled women are whores, nor do we believe they deserve social censure, harassment, or rape. Our culture’s position on these questions is morally superior. We have every right, indeed an obligation, to ensure that our more enlightened conception of women and their proper role in society prevails in any cultural conflict, particularly one on Western soil.

I also noted in particular this paragraph of yours:

In the six years I have been running this weblog, I have distinguished between moderate and militant Muslims.  Some of my more conservative friends have criticized me for this distinction, and I am currently re-evaluating it.  This is an open question for me.  Perhaps 'moderate Muslim' is as oxymoronic as 'moderate Communist.'  Communists used our institutions and freedoms to undermine us, and that's a fact.  It is at least an open question whether Muslims are doing the same, with so-called 'moderate Muslims' being like 'fellow travelers' who are not actively engaged in subversion but provide support from the sidelines.

I've done some re-evaluating too; my own views have evolved considerably since 9/11. Prior to that awful day, I had only a general familiarity with Islam, and made a very clear distinction between "radical" or "fundamentalist" Islam and what I imagined to be "mainstream" or "modernized" Islam. After all, like you, I had Muslim friends and acquaintances, and my exploration of the teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff (whom my father actually knew, by the way) had led me some distance into esoteric teachings that derived in part from Sufism.

After 9/11, however, I made it my business to learn more, and I read a great deal about Islamic history and theology  –  with the effect that I came to understand, as Recep Erdogan has put it, that there is no such thing as "moderate" Islam; there is just Islam, and "moderates"  –  meaning, in particular, those who see Islam as fully compatible with life under a secular, pluralistic government  –  are, on any coherent interpretation, heretics and apostates.

See here for what Erdogan said and analysis by Daniel Pipes.

This realization has made it increasingly clear to me that Islam is not, as fuzzy-minded liberals (and even most conservatives) would have it, just another religion, and a peaceful one at that, that has been "hijacked" by "extremists", but an expansionist, totalizing ideology, a highly infectious mind-virus  –  and one that is not only utterly incompatible, in anything resembling its pure form, with Western norms and Western culture, but is also its sworn and implacable enemy.

I don't know whether you are right about this, Malcolm, but it is clear to me that this question must be honestly addressed, and political correctness be damned.

This is, of course, far beyond the pale as far as polite society is concerned, but the threat is, I think, so serious and so clamant that it must be said, and people here need to get used to hearing it. Very few people are saying it yet; Lawrence Auster is perhaps foremost among them, but his audience is small.

The lesson of 1,400 years is very clear: Islam always expands, unless it is made to contract or withdraw by force of arms. It is doing so in Europe, and in Britain, and it will do so here, if we let it. Terrorism is the least of it.

Anyway, sorry to ramble on so. Living here in the bulls-eye, this stuff is on my mind a lot lately.

Good luck with your battle against the D.O.J.!

Still More on the Ground Zero Mosque

Dorothy Rabinowitz, Liberal Piety and the Memory of 9/11:

In the plan for an Islamic center and mosque some 15 stories high to be built near Ground Zero, the full force of politically correct piety is on display along with the usual unyielding assault on all dissenters. The project has aroused intense opposition from New Yorkers and Americans across the country. It has also elicited remarkable streams of oratory from New York's political leaders, including Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

"What are we all about if not religious freedom?" a fiery Mr. Cuomo asked early in this drama. Mr. Cuomo, running for governor, has since had less to say.

Messrs. Cuomo and Bloomberg need to be reminded that one cannot derive a 'freedom of unlimited construction' from freedom of religion.  Yes, we Americans are for freedom of religion.  It is enshrined in our Constitution in the very first clause of the very first Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."  Those Muslims who are U. S. citizens enjoy the right to the free exercise of their religion.  But that is not to say that they can do anything anywhere or build anything anywhere.  Or do they have special rights and privileges not granted to Jews and Christians and Buddhists?  Is one of these rights the right to offend with impunity the majority of the citizens of a country that is the most tolerant that has ever existed?  Correct me if I am wrong, but would the Islamic Republic of Iran tolerate the building of a huge synagogue in Teheran? Is there perhaps a double-standard here?

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser—devout Muslim, physician, former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy—says there is every reason to investigate the center's funding under the circumstances. Of the mosque so near the site of the 9/11 attacks, he notes "It will certainly be seen as a victory for political Islam."

Exactly right.  You are very naive if you assume that being conciliatory toward a person or group of persons will in every case cause that person or group to be conciliatory in return.  Not so!  There are people who take conciliation and tolerance and respect for diversity as signs of weakness.  These people are only emboldened in their aggressiveness by your broadmindedness.  It is therefore folly to be too conciliatory.  Jasser is right: a mosque near Ground Zero will be taken as a victory for political Islam.  It will embolden Islamists worldwide.  It may even contribute to there being more Islamo-terrorist attacks in the U.S. and in the West generally.

One of the problems with liberals is their diversity fetish.  It is on clear display in Thomas Friedman's recent NYT commentary on the GZM debate.  He thinks that blocking construction amounts to resistance to diversity!  A slap in the face of openness and inclusion!  What liberals like him can't understand is that diversity, though admittedly a value, is not an absolute value: there are competing values.

It looks as if the mosque will be built.  Well, if it helps defeat the Left in Novermber, then it will have served a worthwhile purpose.

More on the Ground Zero Mosque

This from a long-time reader:

As a follower of your blog—in all its iterations throughout the years—I have a tremendous amount of respect for your opinions, philosophical and otherwise.  Yet in your recent post on the Cordoba House building plan—apparently now called park51–I found myself disagreeing with you on several points of your discussion.  When I have had this discussion with others—namely my parents and grandparents, all of whom share your opposition to the plan—I found little more than shrill arguing going on. I recognize that intelligent and thoughtful people exist on both sides of this, and I want to understand the rational arguments available to both, not just the blustering rhetoric being bantered [bandied] about.  Hopefully in discussion with you I can find a more rationally driven discussion than I found elsewhere. 

I'll give it my best shot.


Continue reading “More on the Ground Zero Mosque”