Take the Pledge: Read the Quran

SINCE SEPTEMBER 11th, 2001, we have been earnestly seeking answers to the questions, "Why did this happen? Why would someone do such a thing? What were the hijackers trying to accomplish? And what can we do about it?"

We may not have figured it all out, but we can confidently say we've established at least this much: That we in free nations will not be able to preserve our freedoms against orthodox Islam's relentless push for Sharia until enough of us understand what we're dealing with.

Because some people speak confidently about Islam without any real knowledge of it, and because some who know a lot about Islam speak with some other agenda besides simply speaking honestly, and because of the principle of taqiyya, the only way to know for sure what's true about Islam is to read the Quran yourself.

We're wasting too much time debating each other. After everyone in the conversation has read the Quran, we can begin a productive discussion. Until a person has read the Quran, everything the person says and thinks about Islam is permeated with secondhand ideas and opinions that must be taken, to some degree, on faith. After a person reads the Quran, she or he will have the facts, not opinions.

Armed with actual facts, we have a good chance of being able to manage the problems we have ahead of us.

Until a majority of non-Muslims have read the Quran, orthodox Muslims can easily gain ground toward the gradual implementation of Sharia in Western democracies because confused non-Muslims tend to accommodate and concede. But taqiyya only works on the ignorant.

Once enough of us have read the Quran, representatives who understand Islam will be voted into office and appropriate policy decisions will be proposed and endorsed.

But first, as many of us as possible need to read the Quran, starting with you.

So we have created a pledge site, and we're keeping it as simple as possible. We're going to push this as an international campaign to get non-Muslims everywhere to "take the Pledge" and read the Quran.

Please help us promote this in every way you can. Write to your favorite bloggers and urge them to put the pledge on their site or promote it in their sidebar. When you read comments by people on YouTube, Facebook, web sites or blogs — people who obviously know nothing about Islam — urge them to take the Pledge and read the Quran. Post links to the Pledge everywhere you can.

If you own a web site and you want to promote this pledge, you can put a graphic like the one on the left (or one of these) and link it to the pledge, or you can actually put the pledge on your site. We can provide you with the code. Since the pledge is hosted on a separate site, the interactive form and all the signatures and comments will appear on your site, appearing as if the pledge is yours. You can create your own preamble. Write to us for more information.

Let's convince everyone we know to take the pledge, and then let's convince them to convince everyone they know to take the pledge. Let's make it common knowledge that "reading the Quran just once will inoculate you and yours against taqiyya for the rest of your lives."

You can start right here and take the Pledge yourself: Sign the Pledge. If you've already read the Quran, please sign the pledge and in the comments, say what you learned.

We recommend a particular version of the Quran. It has only 203 pages and it is written in modern English. It contains all the information in the Quran without any repetition. And it gives you enough background information to understand what each passage is about. Perhaps most importantly, it is written in chronological order (this is important because of the principle of abrogation). The book is An Abridged Koran, published by CSPI. When you are done with this book, you will know what the Quran says.

If you want to make sure you have read every single verse of the Quran — repetition and all — the other version we recommend is A Simple Koran, also by CSPI.

If you don't have any money, or if you're in a hurry, or if you enjoy reading online, several complete versions of the Quran are available. Here are a few.

We've created a page on Facebook where we'll be posting reasons to read the Quran — not to convince you, but to help you convince your friends. If you become a friend of the page, you can share these reasons easily with your Facebook friends.

We've created several versions of this pledge, each for a different audience. This one is for a general audience. It has a neutral point of view. This one is for patriots. And this one is for young people who think the media and the government are in a conspiracy to destroy the world.

Because of the Ground Zero mosque controversy, a window of opportunity has opened, and we must sieze it. More people are curious about Islam than ever before. We must help them satisfy their curiosity with real information and prevent them from being lulled back to sleep with Muslim apologists like Karen Armstrong or John L. Esposito. Convince them there is nothing like source material, and you can't get closer to the core of Islam than reading the Quran.

We've come a long way in nine years. But let's make this next year reach a whole new level. Let's create an international movement to get hundreds of millions of non-Muslims to read the Quran. Then, armed with the facts, we will put a stop to Islam's relentless encroachment. Let us gather the forces of freedom and push back to regain liberties we've given up to appease or accomodate.

Many of us were awakened to Islam on September 11th, jarred awake by the senseless deaths of our fellow citizens. In a sense, their horrific murder served to arouse us from our slumber, and since then we have been groping our way out of ignorance. But the work is not complete.

We should now dedicate ourselves to "the great task remaining before us," as Abraham Lincoln once said. And let us vow "that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave" their lives. Let us now "resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain."

Let us bring forth a new birth of freedom. Let us fight with all our might to make sure human rights, women's rights, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion shall not perish from the earth.