Muslim Nonie Darwish Speaks to a Hostile Berkeley About Islam

The following is a speech given by Nonie Darwish, the founder of Arabs for Israel, at an event at UC Berkeley for Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week which took place on college campuses around the U.S.

Darwish is an Arab Muslim from Egypt. Her father was a terrorist martyred in the cause. Her speech (below) is preceded by a short intro written by her regarding her impressions of the events surrounding the speech.

The atmosphere required extensive security — which made me feel that without it I would have been physically hurt at UC Berkeley. The first statement from the Al-Jazeera representative to me was: “You are the most hated woman in the Arab world.” The hatred was also felt from the far leftist American audience.

My response to the Al-Jazeera statement was: “Arab media spread a hate campaign against me after my book came out. Egyptian media, without reading the book, called me a traitor to my father because I support Israel.

I love my father and I believe that if he had lived he would have been part of the peace treaty that Sadat had signed with Israel.” I believe the Arab media is trying to misrepresent my views in order to silence me.

A man was sitting in the audience with a black sheer bag covering his head to protest ‘Abu Greib’ when the discussion had nothing to do with Iraq. There were screams from the audience: "Fascist," then "racist" then "Osama Bin Laden is a CIA agent."

The noise was getting louder and I could not speak any more. I felt that even in America I am being silenced.

My response was: “Who will speak for women who are stoned and for Muslims terrorized in radical Muslim countries? It is sad that I left oppressive Sharia Muslim culture, where I had no freedom of speech, only to find myself silenced in America, by groups who claim they are for free speech.”

The sad thing about this whole event was the feeling that radical Muslims and their far Left supporters would rather never criticize Islamic culture than stand up against the culture that flogs, stones, beheads and amputates limbs. Not offending a religion has become more important to the far Left (unless it is Christianity or Judaism) than human rights of Muslims and victims of terror. Honor killings and female genital mutilation can be tolerated — but noone better dare utter the word "Islamo-fascism."

American universities are becoming tyrannical when it comes to conservative values and to Arab Americans who dare to speak out against the culture of jihad. It does not matter how many people in my early life in Egypt suffered from honor killings, female genital mutilation and oppression of women, I must shut up on American campuses.


Now here is Nonie Darwish's speech:

As an American woman of Muslim Arab origin, I cherish the freedoms America has given me; a right all too scarce in the Middle East where speaking for human rights, women’s rights, democracy and even peace with Israel, is a taboo with serious consequences.

In America, I learned that no ideology or religion is beyond questioning. Ideologies that don’t answer the hard questions will face intellectual bankruptcy.

I would like to stress that this is not a discussion about the good and peace loving Muslims, but about an ideology of violence and hatred that has brought oppression, unrest, violence and terror to the Middle East and has now spread to the rest of the world.

Radicals have made the slightest criticism, critical thinking and free inquiry an insult to Islam. Arab feminists, reformers and intellectuals are intimidated, threatened or killed. Even the late Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, was stabbed in Cairo in 1994 by a radical Muslim who claimed he insulted Islam.

That is why we all must welcome an open discussion. The best weapon in the war on terror and Islamo-Fascism is the truth.

I’d like to start with my background. I was born and raised as a Muslim in Cairo, Egypt and the Gaza Strip; a time when President Nasser was committed to unifying the Arab world and destroying Israel.

In the 50’s, my father headed the Egyptian military intelligence in Gaza and started the Fedayeen, which means "armed resistance and self sacrifice." They made cross-border attacks into Israel and caused death, damage and destruction. There were assassination attempts on my father in response to the terror.

One night Israel sent commandos to our heavily guarded home, but my father was not home. All the Israeli soldiers found were us, women and children. The Israeli soldiers left us unharmed.

I attended Gaza elementary schools. It is there that we learned hatred, vengeance, and retaliation; peace was never an option; but a sign of defeat and weakness. Jews were portrayed as less than human.

I was told "don’t take candy or fruit from a stranger, it could be a Jew trying to poison you." They filled our ears with fear of Jews. That made hatred come easy and terrorism acceptable, even honorable.

After two years of intense Fedayeen operations, my father was killed in the first targeted assassination in Gaza in 1956. I was 8 years old. In Nasser's famous speech to nationalize the Suez Canal, he hailed my father as a national hero, a Shahid. President Nasser vowed that all of Egypt would take revenge and made no mention of the heavy toll of death and destruction brought upon Israel by the Fedayeen. My siblings and I were asked by top government officials "which one of you will avenge your father's blood by killing Jews?" I felt very uncomfortable with the question. We were speechless.

After my father’s death, my mother had to face life alone with five children in a culture that gave respect only to families headed by a man. In the 50’s few women drove cars and she was criticized and called names for buying a car to take us to school. Arab women are expected to sacrifice their family by giving up their husbands and sons to martyrdom, but are given little respect to live their life with freedom and dignity.

I lived for 30 years in oppressive dictatorships and police states. I witnessed honor killings of girls (our maid), oppression of women, and female genital mutilation.

We regularly heard non-Muslims cursed from the pulpits of mosques. As a young woman, I visited a Christian friend in Cairo during the Friday prayers, and we both heard the verbal attacks on Christians and Jews from the loudspeakers. We heard "May God destroy the infidels and the Jews, the enemies of God. We are not to befriend them or make treaties with them." We also heard the worshipers respond "Amen."

I heard "cursing prayers" all my life from the pulpits of mosques — and believe it or not, if you grow up with cursing prayers, it can feel and sound normal. My Christian friend looked scared, and I was ashamed. That was when I first realized that something was very wrong in the way my religion was taught and practiced.

I moved to the U.S. in 1978. On my first visit to a mosque in America, we were told not to assimilate in America and that Islam is here to become the dominant religion. I was told to cover up in Islamic clothes. But how could I do that when I never wore Islamic clothes in Egypt? Women in Egypt until the 1980’s did not wear Islamic clothes.

In August 2001, I visited my birthplace, Cairo, Egypt. I was stunned to see that radical Islam had taken over. The level of anger and hate speech was alarming. I saw extreme poverty, pollution, hazardous material and garbage along the Nile. There was high unemployment, inflation and widespread corruption.

But when I read Arab media, all I saw was Israel and America bashing. Citizens were unaware of Muslim-against-Muslim atrocities in Iraq, Algeria, Sudan, etc. As a matter of fact, the term “Islamo-fascism” was coined by Algerian Muslims and ex-Muslims to describe the Islamic fanatics who slaughtered 150,000 fellow Algerian Muslims in the 1990s.

Arab media have failed the human rights of the ordinary Arab citizens. They have no understanding of their role in defending the interest of the public; this mentality was created from an Islamo-Fascist environment that rejects change.

Western media was also under-reporting the threat.

I was happy to return to the U.S. on the evening of Sept. 10th. 2001. The next morning I saw the second airplane hit the twin towers, I knew "Jihad has come to America." Muhammad Attah was from Cairo, the same city I came from.

I called several friends in Cairo, they were all in denial and said, "How dare you say that Arabs did this? Don’t you know this is a Jewish conspiracy?"

These were not radicals, but ordinary Egyptians who otherwise are very nice people. I hung up the phone and felt alone and disconnected from my culture of origin. Once again, my people are accusing the Jewish people of something we know very well, we Arabs have done ourselves. In any religion this is considered a sin, but in the eyes of radial Islam, Jews do not deserve the truth, justice or mercy. The Jews that we describe in our mosques, Arab textbooks and media don't exist. We, Arabs are fighting an imaginary Jew of our own creation. Israel is not perfect; no society is; but the way the Jews and minorities are treated by my people is tragic and a disgrace.

The global war we are fighting against Islamo-fascism and jihad is not just about bombs and hijacked planes; It’s also about tyranny and oppression of women. Oppression of women and support of terror are two facets of the same fundamentalist mentality. Islamic law — Sharia — that terrorists are fighting to impose upon the world, would create a global state of gender apartheid.

Under criminal Sharia, punishment includes flogging, stoning, beheading, and amputation of limbs — cruel and unusual punishment by Western and humane standards. Leaving Islam is punishable by death. If the State fails to kill an apostate, his death is guaranteed at the hands of a street mob.

That makes Islam more than a religion; it is a one-party state; and also an elaborate legal system, called Sharia, that can put you to death if you leave Islam.

Sharia must guarantee there is no defection from the Berlin Wall of the Muslim State. Amazingly, the majority of Muslim countries don’t practice criminal Sharia because they cannot stomach it.

I have lived under Family Sharia for 30 years of my life. This is practiced in all Muslim countries; it allows only men the right to an easy divorce, having up to 4 wives, allows wife beating, half the inheritance of a man to a woman and her testimony in court is only half valid. She is respected only when she shields her body, face, and even her identity.

As many as seventy-five percent of women in Pakistani prison are behind bars for the crime of having been raped. Sharia codified into permanent Law a 7th century Arabian Peninsula tribal culture for every Muslim in any culture forever.

Under Sharia, the Muslim Khalifa or Amir (meaning leader) is exempt from being punished under Sharia. Islamic Sharia law is a dictator’s dream handed to him by Allah.

Polygamy has a devastating effect on family dynamics, husband/wife relationships, and women relationships. Many Muslim men only have one wife, but the damage to the wife/husband relationship has already been done in the Muslim marriage contract itself, where a man does not pledge loyalty to his wife and the wife cannot expect his loyalty.

The marriage contract has 3 more spaces to be filled out by other women if the man wishes. A good Muslim woman must accept her destiny under Sharia Law for one simple reason — challenging Allah’s Law is like challenging Allah himself.

In the latest Bin Laden tape, the terror guru was calling on Muslims in the West to increase their numbers through converting as many Americans to Islam and through immigration in order to accomplish, what he called, "jihad from within." That is why Islamists in the West are pushing the envelope to see how much the West will tolerate. Some [Muslims living in democracies] demand Sharia Law and even claim that Sharia is comparable with democracy.

In a Muslim parade in New York this September, right before the 6th anniversary of 9/11, Muslims carried signs saying “Muslims against Democracy and Western Values," “the Holocaust is a hoax,” and “Ban the Talmud." They were selling books on jihad with an AK-47s on the cover. This comes from people who are complaining of Islamophobia. Do they think this will bring them sympathy and understanding?

A Muslim woman in Florida insists on covering her face for a driver’s license, cab drivers in Minnesota refuse to take passengers carrying wine from the duty-free shop, the 6 flying Imams who scared everyone on the airplane are now suing. And lately demands for special faucets at the level of the feet in American schools for Muslim kids to Wada “wash” [Muslim washing ritual] before praying.

I have lived in the Middle East for 30 years and have never seen special faucets for Wada in schools or universities, except in mosques. This only exists in Saudi Arabia. The deception is phenomenal. Islamists are pushing Wahhabi Saudi values in America; values that I have never even seen in Egypt.

I have not come to America to become a Wahhabi Saudi.

On Arab TV, I once saw a Muslim preacher telling little children that lying is not allowed except under three conditions:

1. Lying to non-Muslims when it is in the best interest of Islam.

2. Lying to Muslims if it will end conflict between them.

3. Lying to one’s wife to improve the relationship.

Lying thus has become an obligation in international relationships, Muslim relationships and family relationships. Any wonder why Muslims were silent after 9/11? Those who expose the lying game are considered traitors.

By allowing lying, Muslims have created a culture unable to distinguish between lies from truth; truth has become a convoluted game of saving face for the best interest of Islam.

The Times of London reported that Muslim students in Britain are being taught to despise non-Muslims as "filth." The Arabic word for this is "nagas." That is why many Arabs believe that the existence of non-Muslims on Muslim land is a desecration or occupation.

U.S. soldiers, at the request of Saudi Arabia, sacrificed their lives to protect it from Saddam. Under normal conditions that could have been met with appreciation, but instead, the Arab street reaction was “how dare the infidels desecrate Muslim land.”

That is why America’s defense of the Muslims against the Serbs, the Afghani Muslims against the Soviet Union, feeding the Somali Muslims starved by their own leadership, all did not get the U.S. any credit in the Muslim world; just the opposite, the more America tries to help stabilize the region, the more it is despised.

Arab-Muslims do not want to be rescued by infidels. This is a proud culture that is easily shamed by feelings of dependency on the non-Muslims. This is the psychology of the Arab Street.

That is how the West is perceived. In the Judeo-Christian culture they say: “we are all sinners” — but in the Muslim culture, it is: “they are all sinners; but we are Muslims." Non-Muslim are “Cafir." Non-Muslims are not innocent; they are viewed as sinners who need Islam and Islamists have given themselves the role of Allah to force Islam on the world, against their will, through the principle of jihad.

Muslim clergy are constantly looking for the ideal Muslim State and cannot find it. They have failed miserably in stabilizing their society. Instead of being a source of comfort, stability and wisdom, they have become a source of hate, rage, and subversion. To them, the solution is always an intifada, uprising, a coup d’etat, an assassination, or violence on the streets. They have no respect for the legitimacy of any government and no government is Muslim enough for them; not even Saudi Arabia.

In this dynamic only tyrannical governments can survive. Leaders who want peace, modernity and reforms are assassinated, like Sadat.

Every Muslim country is suffering from underground radical Muslim groups who are trying to overturn the government and the constitution, in their pursuit for the perfect Muslim state. That is why the Muslim world is in a constant turmoil, stagnation and conflict. Islamo-fascism is the end result.

America is very concerned since all of this is spilling over to the rest of the world. In 1998 the same attitude was expressed by a Muslim leader who asked Muslims in America not to assimilate and said we are here to make the Koran the law of the land in America. What Arab leaders are suffering from is now moving to America, and if continues, our freedoms will erode. Islamo-fascist unrest, turmoil, destructive mentality, and hatred of order and the rule of law is now here.

Arab governments have access to build mosques in the West, but they give Americans no access to build churches or synagogues in Muslim countries. They finance Muslim and Middle East studies departments on American Universities — but there is not one University in any of the 52 Muslim countries that have a Christian or Judaism Studies Department. They freely preach Islam all around the world, but imprison and kill Christian missionaries. [Read more about this: The Terrifying Brilliance of the Islamic Memeplex.]

If this trend continues Bin Laden’s dreams of internal jihad within America will come true. If that happens America will never be the same again. We could see a large Muslim population congregate in London, Paris, or Detroit demanding Sharia or else. If their demands are denied then they will demand a separatist movement; Chechnya can happen in the West. Islamic separatist movements are alive and well in Chechnya, the Philippines, and other parts of the world. It caused India to split Pakistan away and give it to Muslims, but Islamic terrorism inside India has not stopped.

And now Islamists have caught the West in a time of political correctness and multiculturalism. By tolerating hatred and violence, the West is not doing Muslims or Islam a favor. Tolerating intolerance is not a sign of compassion; it is gross negligence.

To conclude: Religion, any religion, must adapt to the universal concept of Human Rights, freedom of choice of one’s religion, equal rights of women and minorities. As Arab Americans what are we going to do about it? Are we going to remain silent and defensive? We owe America honest answers. We need to inspire true reform in our culture of origin. There are 7 women in Iran right now awaiting death by stoning — are we going to stand by them or are we going to fail them?

Muslim converts out of Islam are in hiding; are we going to allow them to get killed under the name of Islam? Are we going to see the Egyptian Christian population continue to suffer discrimination?

If Islam is a religion of peace then we must demand better from our religious leaders. We’ve had it with the self-anointed intolerant Ayatollahs, Mullahs and Sheikhs who act like Allah and silence free speech by issuing fatwas of death.

Western feminists must embrace a single standard for both the West and Muslim society. Feminists and everyone else concerned with human freedom must support Muslim dissidents, both male and female, who are risking their lives in a battle for women’s rights under Islam.

I ask the support of the American left. You should be our natural allies because we are the reformers and defenders of freedoms in the Middle East.

Thank You.


Nonie Darwish is an American of Arab/Moslem origin. A freelance writer and public speaker, she runs the website www.ArabsForIsrael.com. This article was originally published in FrontPage Magazine.

Read more about the ideas Darwish discusses here: The Terrifying Brilliance of the Islamic Memeplex

Read more...

These Aren't Mere "Terrorist Attacks" — This Is An All-Out Global War

Why doesn't it feel like world war to most of us? Because the attacks are happening at different times by people from many different countries against many different countries, using many different kinds of weapons, without using a flag, without uniforms, and often done by people born and raised in the country being attacked. What kind of a war is this?

It's an all-out war of Islamists against everyone else, not to seize territory or gain the spoils of war, but to make the whole world apply Shari'a law.

Why are they doing this? Because it is their duty. They believe (as it says in the Qur'an) that the world cannot be saved until every government on earth is an Islamic state. Peace cannot reign until the whole world is ruled by Islamic law. It is their sacred duty to overthrow, by whatever means, the non-Islamic governments of the world, because a government ruled without Allah's laws is a profanity.

[click on the image to see a larger picture]

Watch the clip below from the movie Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West, and you will see the war as if watching time-lapse photography. You'll be able to see what a war of this kind really looks like. You'll be able to recognize it as a war (rather than a somewhat random string of unrelated attacks), although of a different kind than we're familiar with.

Watch the 39-minute clip here: Obsession

Or here: Obsession

The bad news is, although this is a concerted effort by a large group of people, most of them are not in communication with each other. There is no central command we can defeat and be done with it. There is no physical location to seize by war. We cannot gain control of a group or a place to stop this war. The central command is in the Qur'an, the contents of which is in the brains of 1.5 billion Muslims, and they are teaching it to their children as we speak.

This war can't be ended by normal means.

These Muslim children grow up being told by every authority in their lives that the Qur'an is the revealed word of the Lord of the Universe, and by the time their hormones are popping in their teens, they are ripe for recruiting.

Terrorist may have different methods, different tactics, different leaders, and they might be acting relatively independent of each other, but they are all working together toward the same goal: The world domination of Islam.

How can we fight a war like that? Obviously, some military action will be necessary. But all the military action in the world cannot stop it. Something more needs to be done, and that's where you come in. Here are the top seven ways you can help win this war. Number one is sharing DVDs like Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West.

If you haven't seen Obsession, you really should. The whole movie is very good, especially the first part (in the clip above). It's the kind of DVD you'll want to lend to your friends and family.

Even sharing the clip above is a way to help. It will spark conversations that need to occur all over the world if we are to have a chance to defeat the global war now underway. It won't be easy, but it must be done.

Read more: The Terrifying Brilliance of the Islamic Memeplex

Read more...

What About The Great Achievements Of Islamic Civilization Through History?

The following is a chapter of Islam 101:

Islamic achievements in the fields of art, literature, science, medicine, etc. in no way refute the fact that Islam is intrinsically violent. Roman and Greek civilizations produced many great achievements in these fields as well, but also cultivated powerful traditions of violence.

While giving the world the brilliance of Virgil and Horace, Rome was also a home to gladiatorial combat, the slaughter of Christians, and, at times, rampant militarism.

Furthermore, the achievements of Islamic civilization are pretty modest given its 1300 year history when compared to Western, Hindu, or Confucian civilizations. Many Islamic achievements were in fact the result of non-Muslims living within the Islamic Empire or of recent converts to Islam.

One of the greatest Islamic thinkers, Averroes, ran afoul of Islamic orthodoxy through his study of non-Islamic (Greek) philosophy and his preference for Western modes of thought. Once the dhimmi populations of the Islamic Empire dwindled toward the middle of the second millennium AD, Islam began its social and cultural "decline."

[ return to the Table of Contents of Islam 101 ]

Islam 101 was written by Gregory M. Davis, author of Religion of Peace?: Islam's War Against the World, and the producer/director of Islam: What the West Needs to Know.

Read more...

How Can a Violent Political Ideology Be The Second-Largest And Fastest-Growing Religion On Earth?

The following is one chapter of Islam 101:

It should not be surprising that a violent political ideology is proving so attractive to much of the world. The attractive power of fascist ideas has been proven through history.

Islam combines the interior comfort provided by religious faith with the outward power of a world-transforming political ideology. Like the revolutionary violence of Communism, jihad offers an altruistic justification for waging death and destruction. Such an ideology will naturally draw to it violent-minded people while encouraging the non-violent to take up arms themselves or support violence indirectly.

Because something is popular hardly makes it benign.

Furthermore, the areas in which Islam is growing most rapidly, such as Western Europe, have been largely denuded of their religious and cultural heritage, which leaves Islam as the only vibrant ideology available to those in search of meaning.

[ return to the Table of Contents of Islam 101 ]

Islam 101 was written by Gregory M. Davis, author of Religion of Peace?: Islam's War Against the World, and the producer/director of Islam: What the West Needs to Know.

Read more...

Could An Islamic "Reformation" Pacify Islam?

The following is one chapter of Islam 101:

As should be plain to anyone who has examined the Islamic sources, to take the violence out of Islam would require it to jettison two things: the Quran as the word of Allah and Muhammad as Allah's prophet.

In other words, to pacify Islam would require its transformation into something that it is not.

The Western Christian Reformation, that is often used as an example, was an attempt (successful or not) to recover the essence of Christianity, namely, the example and teachings of Christ and the Apostles.

Trying to get back to the example of Muhammad would have very different consequences. Indeed, one may say that Islam is today going through its "Reformation" with the increasing jihadist activity around the globe.

Today, Muslims of the Salafi ("early generations") school are doing exactly that in focusing on the life of Muhammad and his early successors. These reformers are known to their detractors by the derogative term Wahhabi. Drawing their inspiration from Muhammad and the Quran, they are invariably disposed to violence.

The unhappy fact is that Islam today is what it has been for fourteen centuries: violent, intolerant, and expansionary. It is folly to think that we, in the course of a few years or decades, are going to be able to change the basic world outlook of a foreign civilization.

Islam's violent nature must be accepted as given; only then will we be able to come up with appropriate policy responses that can improve our chances of survival.

[ return to the Table of Contents of Islam 101 ]

Islam 101 was written by Gregory M. Davis, author of Religion of Peace?: Islam's War Against the World, and the producer/director of Islam: What the West Needs to Know.

Read more...

What About The Violent Passages In The Bible?

The following is a chapter of Islam 101:

First, violent Biblical passages are irrelevant to the question of whether Islam is violent.

Second, the violent passages in the Bible certainly do not amount to a standing order to commit violence against the rest of the world.

Unlike the Quran, the Bible is a huge collection of documents written by different people at different times in different contexts, which allows for much greater interpretative freedom.

The Quran, on the other hand, comes exclusively from one source: Muhammad. It is through the life of Muhammad that the Quran must be understood, as the Quran itself says. His wars and killings both reflect and inform the meaning of the Quran.

Furthermore, the strict literalism of the Quran means that there is no room for interpretation when it comes to its violent injunctions. As it is through the example of Christ, the "Prince of Peace," that Christianity interprets its scriptures, so it is through the example of the warlord and despot Muhammad that Muslims understand the Quran.

[ return to the Table of Contents of Islam 101 ]

Editor's note: The language of the Quran is open-ended and for all time,
whereas the violence in the Bible is specific to place and time.
Read more about that here.

Read more comparisons between Islam and Christianity.

Islam 101 was written by Gregory M. Davis, author of Religion of Peace?: Islam's War Against the World, and the producer/director of Islam: What the West Needs to Know.

Read more...

Glossary Of Terms (for Islam 101)

The following is one chapter of Islam 101:

Allah: "God"; Arabic Christians also worship "Allah," but an Allah of a very different sort.

Allahu Akhbar: "God is Great (-est)"; term of praise; war cry of Muslims.

AH: "after Hijra"; the Islamic calendar's system of dating; employs lunar rather than solar years; as of January 2007, we are in AH 1428.

Ansar: "aiders" or "helpers"; Arabian tribesmen allied with Muhammad and the early Muslims.

Badr: first significant battle fought by Muhammad and the Muslims against the Quraish tribe of Mecca.

Caliph: title of the ruler or leader of the Umma (global Muslim community); the head of the former Islamic Empire; the title was abolished by Kemal Attaturk in 1924 following the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and the founding of modern Turkey.

dar al-Islam: "House (Realm) of Islam"; Islamic territory ruled by Sharia law

dar al-harb: "House (Realm) of War": territory ruled by infidels

dar al-sulh: "House (Realm) of Truce": territory ruled by infidels but allied with Islam; territory ruled by Muslims but not under Sharia law

Dhimma: the pact of protection extended to non-slave "People of the Book", usually Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians, which permitted them to remain nominally free under Muslim rule.

dhimmi: "protected"; people under the protection of the dhimma.

dhimmitude: word coined by historian Bat Ye'or to describe the status of dhimmi peoples

hadith: "report"; any of thousands of episodes from the life of Muhammad transmitted orally until written down in the eighth century AD; sahih (reliable or sound) hadiths are second only to the Quran in authority.

Hijra: "emigration"; Muhammad's flight from Mecca to Medina (Yathrib) in AD 622.

Islam: "submission" or "surrender."

jizya: the poll or head tax prescribed by Sura 9:29 of the Quran to be paid by Christians and Jews in Muslim-held territory.

Kaba: "cube"; the Meccan temple in which numerous pagan idols were housed before Muhammad's conquest of Mecca in AD 632, which is still the most venerated object in Islam; the Kaba's cornerstone, which is believed to have fallen from heaven, is the stone on which Abraham was to sacrifice his son, Ishmael (not Isaac).

Mecca: holiest city of Islam; place of Muhammad's birth in AD 570; its Great Mosque contains the Kaba stone; early period in Muhammad's life where more peaceful verses of the Quran were revealed; site of Muhammad's victory over the Quraish in AD 630.

Medina: "city," short for "city of the Prophet"; second holiest city of Islam; destination of Muhammad's Hijra (emigration) in AD 622; later period in Muhammad's life where more violent verses of the Quran were revealed; site of third major battle fought by Muhammad against the Quraish tribe from Mecca; formerly called Yathrib.

Muhammad: "the praised one."

Muslim: one who submits.

Quran (Kuran, Quran, etc.): "recitation"; according to Islam, the compiled verbatim words of Allah as dictated by Muhammad.

razzia: "raid"; acts of piracy on land or sea by Muslims against infidels

Sira: "life"; abbreviation of Sirat Rasul Allah, or "Life of the Prophet of God"; the canonical biography of the Prophet Muhammad written in the eighth century by Ibn Ishaq and later edited by Ibn Hisham; modern translation by Alfred Guillaume.

Sunnah: the "Way" of the Prophet Muhammad; includes his teachings, traditions, and example.

Sura: a chapter of the Quran; Quranic passages are cited as "Sura number:verse" number, e.g., 9:5.

Uhud: second major battle fought by Muhammad against the Quraish tribe of Mecca.

Umar: second "rightly-guided" Caliph; ruled AD 634-644, succeeded Abu Bakr; conquered the Holy Land.

Umma (ummah): the global Muslim community; the body of Muslim faithful.

Uthman: third "rightly-guided" Caliph; ruled AD 644-656, succeeded Umar; compiled the Quran in book form.

Yathrib: city to which Muhammad made the Hijra (emigration) in AD 622/AH 1; renamed Medina.

[ return to the Table of Contents of Islam 101 ]

Islam 101 was written by Gregory M. Davis, author of Religion of Peace?: Islam's War Against the World, and the producer/director of Islam: What the West Needs to Know.

Read more...

Conclusion (for Islam 101)

The following is the conclusion of Islam 101:

THE CHIEF BARRIER today to a better understanding of Islam — apart, perhaps, from outright fear — is sloppy language. Let us take, to start with, the much-vaunted "war on terror." Upon scrutiny, the phrase "war on terror" makes as much sense as a war on "blitzkrieg," "bullets," or "strategic bombing."

The "war on terror" implies that it is perfectly fine if the enemy seeks to destroy us — and, indeed, succeeds in doing so — as long as he does not employ "terror" in the process.

"Terrorism," it should be obvious, is a tactic or stratagem used to advance a goal; it is the goal of Islamic terrorism that we must come to understand, and this logically requires an understanding of Islam.

As we have seen, contrary to the widespread insistence that true Islam is pacific even if a handful of its adherents are violent, the Islamic sources make clear that engaging in violence against non-Muslims is a central and indispensable principle to Islam.

Islam is less a personal faith than a political ideology that exists in a fundamental and permanent state of war with non-Islamic civilizations, cultures, and individuals.

The Islamic holy texts outline a social, governmental, and economic system for all mankind. Those cultures and individuals who do not submit to Islamic governance exist in an ipso facto state of rebellion with Allah and must be forcibly brought into submission. The misbegotten term "Islamo-fascism" is wholly redundant: Islam itself is a kind of fascism that achieves its full and proper form only when it assumes the powers of the state.

The spectacular acts of Islamic terrorism in the late 20th and early 21st centuries are but the most recent manifestation of a global war of conquest that Islam has been waging since the days of the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th Century AD and that continues apace today. This is the simple, glaring truth that is staring the world today in the face — and which has stared it in the face numerous times in the past — but which it seems few today are willing to contemplate.

It is important to realize that we have been talking about Islam — not Islamic "fundamentalism," "extremism," "fanaticism," "Islamo-fascism," or "Islamism," but Islam proper, Islam in its orthodox form as it has been understood and practiced by right-believing Muslims from the time of Muhammad to the present.

The mounting episodes of Islamic terrorism in the late 20th and early 21st centuries are due largely to the geostrategic changes following the end of the Cold War and the growing technical options available to terrorists.

With the collapse of Soviet hegemony over much of the Muslim world, coupled with the burgeoning wealth of the Muslim oil-producing countries, the Muslim world increasingly possesses the freedom and means to support jihad around the globe.

In short, the reason that Muslims are once again waging war against the non-Muslim world is because they can.

It is paramount to note, however, that, even if no major terrorist attack ever occurs on Western soil again, Islam still poses a mortal danger to the West. A halt to terrorism would simply mean a change in Islam’s tactics — perhaps indicating a longer-term approach that would allow Muslim immigration and higher birth rates to bring Islam closer to victory before the next round of violence.

It cannot be overemphasized that Muslim terrorism is a symptom of Islam that may increase or decrease in intensity while Islam proper remains permanently hostile.

Muhammad Taqi Partovi Samzevari, in his “Future of the Islamic Movement” (1986), sums up the Islamic worldview.

Our own Prophet … was a general, a statesman, an administrator, an economist, a jurist and a first-class manager all in one. … In the Qur’an’s historic vision Allah’s support and the revolutionary struggle of the people must come together, so that Satanic rulers are brought down and put to death.

A people that is not prepared to kill and to die in order to create a just society cannot expect any support from Allah. The Almighty has promised us that the day will come when the whole of mankind will live united under the banner of Islam, when the sign of the Crescent, the symbol of Muhammad, will be supreme everywhere. …

But that day must be hastened through our Jihad, through our readiness to offer our lives and to shed the unclean blood of those who do not see the light brought from the Heavens by Muhammad in his mi’raj {“nocturnal voyages to the ‘court’ of Allah”} …

It is Allah who puts the gun in our hand. But we cannot expect Him to pull the trigger as well simply because we are faint-hearted.

It must be emphasized that all of the analysis provided here derives from the Islamic sources themselves and is not the product of critical Western scholarship. (Indeed, most modern Western scholarship of Islam is hardly “critical” in any meaningful sense.) It is Islam’s self-interpretation that necessitates and glorifies violence, not any foreign interpretation of it.

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Islam 101 was written by Gregory M. Davis, author of Religion of Peace?: Islam's War Against the World, and the producer/director of Islam: What the West Needs to Know.

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If Islam Is Violent, Why Are So Many Muslims Peaceful?

The following is a chapter of Islam 101:

This question is a bit like asking, "If Christianity teaches humility, tolerance, and forgiveness, why are so many Christians arrogant, intolerant, and vindictive?" The answer in both cases is obvious: in any religion or ideology there will be many who profess, but do not practice, its tenets.

Just as it is often easier for a Christian to hit back, play holier-than-thou, or disdain others, so it is often easier for a Muslim to stay at home rather than embark on jihad. Hypocrites are everywhere.

Furthermore, there are also people who do not really understand their own faith and so act outside of its prescribed boundaries.

In Islam, there are likely many Muslims who do not really understand their religion thanks to the importance of reciting the Quran in Arabic but not having to understand it. It is the words and sounds of the Quran that attract Allah's merciful attention rather than Quranic knowledge on the part of the supplicant.

Especially in the West, Muslims here are more likely to be attracted by Western ways (which explains why they are here) and less likely to act violently against the society to which they may have fled from an Islamic tyranny abroad.

However, in any given social context, as Islam takes greater root — increasing numbers of followers, the construction of more mosques and "cultural centers," etc. — the greater the likelihood that some number of its adherents will take its violent precepts seriously. This is the problem that the West faces today.

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Islam 101 was written by Gregory M. Davis, author of Religion of Peace?: Islam's War Against the World, and the producer/director of Islam: What the West Needs to Know.

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What About The Crusades?

The following is a chapter of Islam 101:

The obvious response to this question is, "Well, what about them?" Violence committed in the name of other religions is logically unconnected to the question of whether Islam is violent. But, by mentioning the Crusades, the hope of the Islamic apologist is to draw attention away from Islamic violence and paint religions in general as morally equivalent.

In both the Western academia and media as well as in the Islamic world, the Crusades are viewed as wars of aggression fought by bloody-minded Christians against peaceful Muslims.

While the Crusades were certainly bloody, they are more accurately understood as a belated Western response to centuries of jihad than as an unprovoked, unilateral attack.

Muslim rule in the Holy Land began in the second half of the 7th century during the Arab wave of jihad with the conquests of Damascus and Jerusalem by the second "rightly-guided Caliph," Umar. After the initial bloody jihad, Christian and Jewish life there was tolerated within the strictures of the dhimma and the Muslim Arabs generally permitted Christians abroad to continue to make pilgrimage to their holy sites, a practice which proved lucrative for the Muslim state.

In the 11th century, the relatively benign Arab administration of the Holy Land was replaced with that of Seljuk Turks, due to civil war in the Islamic Empire. Throughout the latter half of the 11th century, the Turks waged war against the Christian Byzantine Empire and pushed it back from its strongholds in Antioch and Anatolia (now Turkey). In 1071, Byzantine forces suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Manzikert in what is now Eastern Turkey.

The Turks resumed the jihad in the Holy Land, abusing, robbing, enslaving, and killing Christians there and throughout Asia Minor. They threatened to cut off Christendom from its holiest site, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, rebuilt under Byzantine stewardship after it was destroyed by Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah in 1009.

It was in this context of a renewed jihad in the Middle East that the Roman Pope, Urban II, issued a call in 1095 for Western Christians to come to the aid of their Eastern cousins (and seems to have harbored the hope of claiming Jerusalem for the Papacy after the Great Schism with Eastern Christianity in 1054).

This "armed pilgrimage," in which numerous civilians as well as soldiers took part, would eventually become known years later as the First Crusade.

The idea of a "crusade" as we now understand that term, i.e., a Christian "holy war," developed years later with the rise of such organizations as the Knights Templar that made "crusading" a way of life.

It worth noting that the most ardent Crusaders, the Franks, were exactly those who had faced jihad and razzias (raids) for centuries along the Franco-Spanish border and knew better than most the horrors to which Muslims subjected Christians.

At the time of the First Crusade, the populations of Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine, though ruled by Muslims, were still overwhelmingly Christian. The "Crusading" campaigns of the Western Christian armies were justified at the time as a war liberating the Eastern Christians, whose population, lands, and culture had been devastated by centuries of jihad and dhimmitude. Conquering territory for God in the mode of jihad was an alien idea to Christianity and it should not be surprising that it (Christian holy war) eventually died out in the West and never gained ascendancy in the East.

Following the very bloody capture of Jerusalem in 1099 by the Latin armies and the establishment of the Crusader States in Edessa, Antioch, and Jerusalem, the Muslim and Christian forces fought a see-saw series of wars, in which both parties were guilty of the usual gamut of wartime immorality.

Over time, even with reinforcing Crusades waged from Europe, the Crusader States, strung out on precarious lines of communication, slowly succumbed to superior Muslim power.

In 1271, the last Christian citadel, Antioch, fell to the Muslims.

No longer having to divert forces to subdue the Christian beachhead on the Eastern Mediterranean, the Muslims regrouped for a 400-year-long jihad against Southern and Eastern Europe, which twice reached as far as Vienna before it was halted.

In geostrategic terms, the Crusades can be viewed as an attempt by the West to forestall its own destruction at the hands of Islamic jihad by carrying the fight to the enemy. It worked for a while.

Significantly, while the West has for some time now lamented the Crusades as mistaken, there has never been any mention from any serious Islamic authority of regret for the centuries and centuries of jihad and dhimmitude perpetrated against other societies. But this is hardly surprising: while religious violence contradicts the fundamentals of Christianity, religious violence is written into Islam's DNA.

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Islam 101 was written by Gregory M. Davis, author of Religion of Peace?: Islam's War Against the World, and the producer/director of Islam: What the West Needs to Know.

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Frequently Asked Questions (from Islam 101)

The following is from Islam 101:

There are a handful of questions that invariably arise when the point is made that Islam is violent. These questions for the most part are misleading or irrelevant and do not contest the actual evidence or arguments that violence is inherent to Islam. Nonetheless, they have proven rhetorically effective in deflecting serious scrutiny from Islam, and so I deal with some of them here.

a) What about the Crusades?

b) If Islam is violent, why are so many Muslims peaceful?

c) What about the violent passages in the Bible?

d) Could an Islamic "Reformation" pacify Islam?

e) What about the history of Western colonialism in the Islamic world?

f) How can a violent political ideology be the second-largest and fastest-growing religion on earth?

g) Is it fair to paint all Islamic schools of thought as violent?

h) What about the great achievements of Islamic civilization?

[ return to the Table of Contents of Islam 101 ]

See a Glossary Of Islamic Terms for definitions.

Islam 101 was written by Gregory M. Davis, author of Religion of Peace?: Islam's War Against the World, and the producer/director of Islam: What the West Needs to Know.

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Jihad in the Modern Era

The following is one chapter of Islam 101: FOLLOWING ITS DEFEAT at the walls of Vienna in 1683, Islam entered a period of strategic decline in which it was increasingly dominated by the rising European colonial powers. Due to its material weakness vis-à-vis the West, dar al-Islam was unable to prosecute large-scale military campaigns into infidel territory. The Islamic Empire, then ruled by the Ottoman Turks, was reduced to fending of the increasingly predatory European powers. In 1856, Western pressure compelled the Ottoman government to suspend the dhimma under which the Empire's non-Muslim subjects labored. This provided hitherto unknown opportunities for social and personal improvement by the former dhimmis, but it also fomented resentment by orthodox Muslims who saw this as a violation of the Sharia and their Allah-given superiority over unbelievers. By the late 19th century, tensions among the European subjects of the Empire broke out into the open when the Ottoman government massacred 30,000 Bulgarians in 1876 for allegedly rebelling against Ottoman rule. Following Western intervention that resulted in Bulgarian independence, the Ottoman government and its Muslim subjects were increasingly nervous about other non-Muslim groups seeking independence. It was in this atmosphere that the first stage of the Armenian genocide took place in 1896 with the slaughter of some 250,000 Armenians. Both civilians and military personnel took place in the massacres. Peter Balakian, in his book, The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response, documents the whole horrific story. But the massacres of the 1890s were only the prelude to the much larger holocaust of 1915, which claimed some 1.5 million lives. While various factors contributed to the slaughter, there is no mistaking that the massacres were nothing other than a jihad waged against the Armenians, no longer protected as they were by the dhimma. In 1914, as the Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the central powers, an official anti-Christian jihad was proclaimed. To promote the idea of jihad, the sheikh-ul-Islam’s {the most senior religious leader in the Ottoman Empire} published proclamation summoned the Muslim world to arise and massacre its Christian oppressors. “Oh Moslems,” the document read, “Ye who are smitten with happiness and are on the verge of sacrificing your life and your good for the cause of right, and of braving perils, gather now around the Imperial throne.” In the Ikdam, the Turkish newspaper that had just passed into German ownership, the idea of jihad was underscored: “The deeds of our enemies have brought down the wrath of God. A gleam of hope has appeared. All Mohammedans, young and old, men, women, and children must fulfill their duty. … If we do it, the deliverance of the subjected Mohammedan kingdoms is assured.” … “He who kills even one unbeliever,” one pamphlet read, “of those who rule over us, whether he does it secretly or openly, shall be rewarded by God.” (quoted in Balakian, The Burning Tigris, 169-70.) The anti-Christian jihad culminated in 1922 at Smyrna, on the Mediterranean coast, where 150,000 Greek Christians were massacred by the Turkish army under the indifferent eye of Allied warships. All in, from 1896-1923, some 2.5 million Christians were killed, the first modern genocide, which to this day is denied by the Turkish government. Since the breakup of the Islamic Empire following World War I, various jihads have been fought around the globe by the independent Muslim nations and sub-state jihadist groups. The most sustained effort has been directed against Israel, which has committed the unpardonable sin of rebuilding dar al-harb on land formerly a part of dar al-Islam. Other prominent jihads include that fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan, the Muslim Bosnians against the Serbs in the former Yugoslavia, the Muslim Albanians against the Serbs in Kosovo, and the Chechens against the Russians in the Caucasus. Jihads have also been waged throughout northern Africa, the Philippines, Thailand, Kashmir, and a host of other places throughout the world. In addition, the overwhelming majority of terrorist attacks around the world have been committed by Muslims, including, of course, the spectacular attacks of 9/11/01 (USA), 3/11/04 (Spain), and 7/7/05 (UK). (For a more comprehensive list of Muslim attacks, visit www.thereligionofpeace.com.) The fact is, the percentage of conflicts in the world today that do not include Islam is pretty small. Islam is making a comeback.

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Islam 101 was written by Gregory M. Davis, author of Religion of Peace?: Islam's War Against the World, and the producer/director of Islam: What the West Needs to Know.

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The Dhimma

The following is a chapter of Islam 101:

Islam's persecution of non-Muslims is in no way limited to jihad, even though that is the basic relationship between the Muslim and non-Muslim world. After the jihad concludes in a given area with the conquest of infidel territory, the dhimma, or treaty of protection, may be granted to the conquered "People of the Book" — historically, Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians.

The dhimma provides that the life and property of the infidel are exempted from jihad for as long as the Muslim rulers permit, which has generally meant for as long as the subject non-Muslims — the dhimmi — prove economically useful to the Islamic state.

The Quran spells out the payment of the jizya (poll- or head-tax; Sura 9:29), which is the most conspicuous means by which the Muslim overlords exploit the dhimmi. But the jizya is not merely economic in its function; it exists also to humiliate the dhimmi and impress on him the superiority of Islam. Al-Maghili, a fifteenth century Muslim theologian, explains:

On the day of payment {of the jizya} they {the dhimmi} shall be assembled in a public place like the suq {place of commerce}. They should be standing there waiting in the lowest and dirtiest place. The acting officials representing the Law shall be placed above them and shall adopt a threatening attitude so that it seems to them, as well as to others, that our object is to degrade them by pretending to take their possessions. They will realize that we are doing them a favor in accepting from them the jizya and letting them go free. (Al-Maghili, quoted in Bat Ye'or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam, 361.)

Islamic law codifies various other restrictions on the dhimmi, all of which derive from the Quran and the Sunnah. Several hundred years of Islamic thought on the right treatment of dhimmi peoples is summed up by Al-Damanhuri, a seventeenth century head of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the most prestigious center for learning in the Muslim world:

… just as the dhimmis are prohibited from building churches, other things also are prohibited to them. They must not assist an unbeliever against a Muslim … raise the cross in an Islamic assemblage … display banners on their own holidays; bear arms … or keep them in their homes. Should they do anything of the sort, they must be punished, and the arms seized …

The Companions [of the Prophet] agreed upon these points in order to demonstrate the abasement of the infidel and to protect the weak believer's faith. For if he sees them humbled, he will not be inclined toward their belief, which is not true if he sees them in power, pride, or luxury garb, as all this urges him to esteem them and incline toward them, in view of his own distress and poverty. Yet esteem for the unbeliever is unbelief. (Al-Damanhuri, quoted in Bat Ye'or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam, 382.)

The Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian peoples of the Middle East, North Africa, and much of Europe suffered under the oppressive strictures of the dhimma for centuries. The status of these dhimmi peoples is comparable in many ways to that of former slaves in the post-bellum American South. Forbidden to construct houses of worship or repair extant ones, economically crippled by the jizya, socially humiliated, legally discriminated against, and generally kept in a permanent state of weakness and vulnerability by the Muslim overlords, it should not be surprising that their numbers dwindled, in many places to the point of extinction.

The generally misunderstood decline of Islamic civilization over the past several centuries is easily explained by the demographic decline of the dhimmi populations, which had provided the principle engines of technical and administrative competence.

Should the dhimmi violate the conditions of the dhimma — perhaps through practicing his own religion indiscreetly or failing to show adequate deference to a Muslim — then the jihad resumes.

At various times in Islamic history, dhimmi peoples rose above their subjected status, and this was often the occasion for violent reprisals by Muslim populations who believed them to have violated the terms of the dhimma.

Medieval Andalusia (Moorish Spain) is often pointed out by Muslim apologists as a kind of multicultural wonderland, in which Jews and Christians were permitted by the Islamic government to rise through the ranks of learning and government administration. What we are not told, however, is that this relaxation of the disabilities resulted in widespread rioting on the part of the Muslim populace that killed hundreds of dhimmis, mainly Jews. By refusing to convert to Islam and straying from the traditional constraints of the dhimma (even at the behest of the Islamic government, which was in need of capable manpower), the dhimmi had implicitly chosen the only other option permitted by the Quran: death.

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Islam 101 was written by Gregory M. Davis, author of Religion of Peace?: Islam's War Against the World, and the producer/director of Islam: What the West Needs to Know.

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A Message To Peaceful Muslims

On CitizenWarrior.com and other sites, I've seen many comments by Muslims trying to tell non-Muslims that Islam is really a peaceful religion and that the terrorists have it all wrong. A friend of mine I've known for years is an ex-Muslim, who grew up in a Muslim country, and even he has told me Islamic terrorists don't understand the "true" teachings of Islam.

This article is my response. This is a message to Muslims who want to convince non-Muslims that Islam is a religion of peace.

My main message is: Please stop. We are trying to defeat the Jihadis here, and when you tell non-Muslims that message, you aren't helping the cause. You're actually hindering it. I'll explain how in a minute.

If you peaceful Muslims are trying to defend your religious beliefs, I think most people would understand and sympathize with your motives. But by doing it here, what have you accomplished? Have you helped our cause (thwarting Islam's relentless encroachment)? No. All you've done is try to convince us Islam is great.

You need to understand the effect of your defense on the non-Muslim mind. If you want to end Islamic terrorism, and if you understood what effect you had, you would stop defending your faith to infidels.

Because even if we all believed you, so what? Even if you successfully convinced us Islam is really a religion of peace, what difference would it make? Does it help us defeat Jihadis? No, not at all. We have terrorists quoting the Koran (urging Muslims to kill infidels) and we have other Muslims saying the Koran is only about peace. Where does that leave us? You've replaced clarity with confusion. You've replaced resolve with hesitation. And to that degree, you've given Jihadis the upper hand.

This is a deadly serious business, and this seemingly insignificant issue is the crucial pivoting point. Knowing how and why your enemy wants to destroy you is an enormous advantage in a global war in which many hundreds of thousands have already lost their lives.

Peaceful Muslims, I ask you to hear this: You make non-Muslims less able to defend themselves by going on these websites and justifying your religion to them.

Part of what makes the issue confusing for westerners is that we don't know if you're sincere or if you're trying to deceive us. Many terrorists exclaim vehemently that Islam is a religion of peace. But when they say it, they are trying to trick non-Muslims and confuse us while they continue their jihad against us (or what they mean is: as soon as Islam conquers all countries, the world will be at peace, so therefore, Islam is a religion of peace).

But my feeling is that most of the Muslims who have written to me are actually sincere, peace-loving, non-terrorist Muslims who have no interest in blowing up infidels. My friend is one of those. He is perfectly sincere.

If you are one of those sincerely peaceful Muslims, I know you have explained away the violent parts of the Koran terrorists often quote. And good for you. I'm glad you have. You had a teacher who convinced you jihad is really an inner struggle. And that's great. The teacher provided you with the complex mental maneuvers you need to see the Koran as a peaceful document. Thank you for ignoring the violent parts of Islamic teachings, and I hope you always will.

But you are doing harm and causing confusion by telling infidels you know the "true teachings" of Islam. The Jihadis aren't listening to unorthodox teachers. Jihadis are fundamentalists. They are strongly against any moderation or editing or modernizing of Islamic texts.

It doesn't really matter that you have somehow explained away Allah's commands to kill all the infidels — the Jihadis have not explained it away! They make the more direct assumption that if Allah said it, He must have meant it.

You think the Jihadis who quote the Koran are wrong. And you believe the fundamentalists running Iran, Syria, Pakistan, the Sudan, and Saudi Arabia don't really know what Islam is all about. Okay, fine. Does that help us defeat terrorism now that we know that? Not one little bit.

But when infidels get a good idea of what is actually in the Koran, and when they learn about the Islamic principles of deceit and pretext, and when we find out the goal and purpose of the Islamic faith, and when we learn about the methods Jihadis use to infiltrate and destroy, then we infidels are better able to protect ourselves. It's like finding out the plans of an enemy during war. It helps tremendously to anticipate what they're going to do and to understand their motives. This knowledge improves our ability to defend ourselves against it.

But when a seemingly sincere Muslim comes along and says no, that's not the "true" Islam and you've got it all wrong, many infidels will be confused and not know what to believe, so they will take no action. A confused mind is hesitant to act. They will not know the best way to proceed, and they'll be like a deer in headlights, frozen and paralyzed with uncertainty.

The reason non-Muslims are so easily confused is that most of us don't realize the difference between the Koran and every other religious book we are familiar with. The Christian Bible is a collection of writings from various authors, written sometimes hundreds of years apart, with parables, laws, advice, history, and dreams, all collected together into one book. Those of us in the West who are not Christians are still familiar enough with these religions to know this much, and to assume the same is true of the Koran.

But as you are fully aware, the Koran is one book, written by one man in his own lifetime. It can be (and often is) taken quite literally, and is obviously meant to be taken literally (I've read the Koran myself cover-to-cover). It isn't full of symbolism or vague analogies. It is mostly direct commands.

The Koran contains contradictory statements like other religious books, but the Koran itself provides the reader with a way to know what to do with contradictions. In the Koran, it says if you have two passages that contradict each other, the one written later supersedes the one written earlier. A passage written later abrogates (makes null and void) passages written earlier that contradict it. It says so right there in the Koran.

Most westerners don't know this. And they are unaware that the peaceful, tolerant passages were written early in Mohammad's prophetic career. According to the Koran, those passages have been overwritten by later, more violent, less tolerant passages.

So when most westerners hear Jihadis quoting violent passages from the Koran, and then peaceful Muslims quoting peaceful passages, they interpret that the way they would if someone was quoting the Christian Bible. They think to themselves, "Oh, there must be many different and contradictory passages, like there are in other religious books, so Muslims can pick and choose what they like, and justify whatever actions they want to take."

Of course, you Muslims know the Koran is nothing like that. There is no picking and choosing. The Koran itself says very explicitly and in no uncertain terms that a Muslim must not alter or ignore any part of its very clear and direct message or they will burn in a fiery torment forever.

If you don't like me saying all this, I am truly sorry, but we non-Muslims need to know what's really happening. This is too serious to be overly concerned with tiptoeing around anyone's feelings.

I'm trying to tell my fellow westerners what Islamic terrorists are up to. They are following the Koran to the letter, as it says in the Koran a faithful Muslim must do. And their overarching goal is to make an Islamic state out of every country in the world. And the Koran tells them in no uncertain terms that they are justified in using violence, deceit, and pretext to accomplish their holy duty. My fellow westerners need to know this or they are fish in a barrel — vulnerable and defenseless.

In the Koran, Allah makes it clear that man-made governments (such as a democracy) and free speech (such as criticizing the Koran) are abominations and must be eliminated.

Right now, Muslims are immigrating into our western democracies holding and cherishing these values and goals, and most of my fellow westerners are completely naive about it. One of the reasons they are so naive is that peaceful Muslims keep trying to defend their interpretation of the Koran as the "real" interpretation.

Think about this. Who is better able to defend themselves from a determined and deadly enemy?

1. A person who believes the enemy is peaceful? or...

2. A person who knows the plans, intentions, and motivations of the enemy, and knows his tactics?

Obviously, number two will be more capable of protecting themselves. And all the plans, motivations, intentions (and many of the tactics) of today's Jihadis can be found in the Koran.

Our situation puts both infidels and peaceful Muslims in a difficult position. It's not your fault, and it's not our fault. We've been put in this position by those who wage violent jihad against the West.

Partly because of your messages, and partly because my fellow westerners aren't taking the time to read the Koran for themselves, they are confused by all these seemingly contradictory messages. Is Islam a religion of peace or isn't it? What's the real story? Is this all propaganda? Is it prejudice and hatred? Is this bigotry? Islamophobia? And westerners will default to assuming Islam must be a religion of peace, because they believe all religions are really peaceful.

What should you peaceful Muslims do when you want to argue against a non-Muslim? What can you do when you want to defend your peaceful version of Islam?

The first thing you can do is make it clear to us infidels that you are a believer in a new, modified form of Islam. You can tell us yes, there are many passages in the Koran that encourage violence against infidels but you think these passages should be ignored by modern Muslims. That would really help clarify things for non-Muslims. Be out front about it.

You can also openly criticize Jihadis for not moderating or modernizing the teachings of Mohammad. This would help all the non-Muslims understand what is happening and who we should consider enemies and friends. It would help non-Muslims understand the "civil war" going on within Islam itself.

You should quote the violent passages and say you think all Muslims should ignore those passages.

I know it takes courage to openly criticize either the Jihadis or the Koran. You're putting your own life at risk, no matter where you live (because the penalty for criticizing the religion of peace is death). It is much easier to defend your beliefs by justifying your religion to infidels. But that doesn't solve the problem. It makes things worse.

If you are committed to defeating Islamic terrorism while at the same time justifying your version of Islam, you can expend your energy convincing young Muslim men to follow your way rather than the Jihadis' way. Right now, Jihadis are successfully persuading young men to follow the strict Islamic (violent) path. What can you do to recruit young men to your path? That has a chance of actually solving the problem.

I said earlier it doesn't really matter that you have explained away the violent passages of the Koran (because terrorists haven't) but that's not entirely true. In a way, it does matter, and it is wonderful that you have modified the Koran's teachings to be more peaceful.

But to end the cycle, you'll have to go one step further and declare outright that the Koran is not the word of Allah. If you've modified or ignored any part of the Koran, you're acting as if it is not the perfect word of Allah. So admit it openly.

If you secretly admit the Koran is not perfect, but keep saying it is perfect, you open the way for the next generation of Muslims to rebel against your "modified" teachings by becoming fundamentalists. They will see you as a hypocrite who says "the Koran is perfect," but who ignores half of the teachings.

Please think about this. You must try to understand that as a westerner, when we look at the problem of Islamic terrorism, it looks like a large number of militant factions, all with different names and goals and grievances, and there is no clear idea of what is going on or what to do about it, or even how to approach the problem.

But each of the different Islamic factions are all using the same book. They are basing their goals on what is in that book. They are using the methods described in the book. What they are willing to do and how they will do it is all based on what is in that book.

Infidels can look in the book and discover what they're up to, what their motives are, and what specific tactics they'll use. Those of us trying to defeat or at least reduce terrorist incidents are trying to alert our fellow non-Muslims about the situation. And if everyone knew about it — if all the non-Muslims simply read the Koran cover-to-cover — they would suddenly understand the situation in a whole new way, and Islamic terrorism would be in serious danger of extinction from that point on.

But your message to non-Muslims basically tells us: The answer is not in the Koran. Look anywhere else for answers. Just don't look in the Koran.

And what has happened? Non-Muslims don't know what to do or where to look for answers. And to that degree, you, the peaceful Muslims, have helped the Jihadis do their job, even if you didn't mean to. You've helped perpetuate violence in the world. Jihadis will keep immigrating into western democracies with their murderous plans while the non-Muslims are unaware of what's happening — blinded and confused by their own multiculturalism combined with your constant assurances that Islam really is a religion of peace.

The Jihadis will keep expressing their different grievances (as pretexts for war) and the hand-wringing, kind-hearted westerners will keep trying to make concessions, never suspecting they are being duped with a vengeance. And the violence and political invasion will go on and on.

We've got to stop it, and you peaceful Muslims are one of the keys to our success. That's the end of my message to peaceful Muslims.

I have a message for you non-Muslims, as well. You should do your best to read the Koran yourself. This would really help you clarify the situation.

And finally, I have a message to those deceitful Jihadis who try to convince us Islam is a religion of peace. When enough people know about your plans and methods, your deceit will no longer work. Scams and cons lose their effectiveness once they are well-known. Your days are numbered. We will reveal your plans. We will choke off your sources of money. We will help give Koran-modifying Muslims a voice. And you will have to stop blowing things up and get a real job.

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