Islam's Ideology Exploits Human Weaknesses

As I was reading F.W. Burleigh's book, It's All About Muhammad, it became crystal clear that the same human failings that are now allowing and even aiding the rise and expansion of Islamic forces in the world were also at work during Muhammad's time. Muhammad could have been easily stopped when he had only a few followers in Mecca, but the Meccans were afraid of Muhammad's uncle and didn't think Muhammad was much of a threat anyway.

Muhammad could have been stopped in Medina before he grew very powerful. Muslims were greatly outnumbered for a long time. But the residents of Medina had business to attend to and were content to let somebody else stick their neck out to deal with it, and besides, what was Muhammad and his weak little band going to do? Take over the whole town? As a matter of fact, they eventually did.

The more Muhammad asserted his willingness to murder, the more scared the Medinans were to speak up — which caused their poets (their equivalent of our modern day political cartoonists and Op-Ed writers) to silence themselves out of fear, which hindered the Medinans from expressing their mutual feelings of rising discomfort, which might have joined them together into a united resistance against their common enemy. So the Muslims were able to defeat and eliminate one tribe at a time until they ruled the town and imposed Islam on anyone left alive.

This is a deadly ideology, and it is "clever" in the same way that viruses are "clever." Deadly viruses are efficient and functional in a way that makes them hard to defeat.

We're going to have to be smart. We're going to have to muster our courage to act, and to prevent ourselves from giving up in despair. And we're going to have to unite as many of us in this cause as we can. The stakes can't get any higher.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence.

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You Are the Cure

On our Facebook page, someone wrote (I'm paraphrasing), "I'm not able to say how disgusted and angry orthodox Muslims make me feel. No words can convey it. I'm just hoping mankind can find a cure for this deadly social cancer."

That last sentence is a very common comment by people who have discovered the intolerance and hostility and calls to violence embedded in core Islamic doctrines. My answer to the commenter is a message I want to give to everyone:

YOU are the cure. When someone is running a scam on people, what's "the cure?" Can you track them all down and stop them? Not a chance. Can you eradicate scams once and for all? No, you can't. Can you "ban" scams? It wouldn't do any good. But you don't need to even try any of these things. You only need to blow the lid off the game.

Here's how we deal with scams: We share information when we find out about a scam, and then other people are wise to the scam and don't fall for it. That's all we need.

Orthodox Muslims are making inroads in the free world only because too many of us don't know the scam. Too many of us don't understand the true nature of Islamic doctrine. That's where YOU come in. We can't rely on the media. We sure as hell can't rely on politicians. That leaves personal relationships.

Reach people. If you are having trouble doing that, here is a handbook on the subject: Getting Through.

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What's the Difference Between a Habit and a Headscarf?

Why are some people vehemently against a Muslim headscarf but have no objection to a nun's habit? What's the difference?

The main difference is the ideology represented by the clothing. Islam's ideology is 51 percent political and only 49 percent religious. That is, 51 percent of the Koran is about what Muslims should do with non-Muslims.

A Muslim is obligated to strive to establish the law of Allah in all nations, imposing it against the will of non-Muslims if necessary. Islamic law is very detailed and specific, and includes the death penalty for apostates and gays, women are legally only worth a half a man, etc. The Muslim headscarf is one of the few visible signs of a commitment to the fundamental principles of Islam. That's why people are bothered by it.

But aren't Christians obliged to "establish the rule of Christ in all nations?" Isn't a nun's habit a visible sign of commitment to the fundamental principles of Christianity?

That's seems like a legitimate counter-argument, but are there "Christian countries?" That is, a country where the "laws of Christianity" are imposed on everyone in that country?

So far, there are 58 Muslim countries, and orthodox Muslims are dedicated to expanding that. These countries have joined together to form the largest global organization outside the UN, and they form the largest voting bloc in the UN. They have been pushing to legally impose Islamic blasphemy laws on the entire world, which means legally nobody would be able to have this conversation, even in "free nations." It would be illegal to criticize Islamic doctrine. It is already illegal in many countries.

Islam is having a huge and growing influence on world affairs. Everyone should learn more about this ideology. It isn't like other religions. The closest religion to it is Scientology, and it's not even close.

The assumptions people make about Islam are mostly wrong. But those assumptions are guiding our legal policies, and that is dangerous.

But wait a minute. Doesn't all this only apply to the most extreme and fundamentalist followers of Islam? Wouldn't the views of extreme and fundamentalist Christians be just as disturbing? It isn't fair to paint all Muslims with this same brush, is it? We could say all Scientologists are bad people, but that isn't the case either.

First of all, we're not talking about Muslims. We're talking about Islam, which is a set of written documents. It is a written ideology. When we say "orthodox Muslim," we mean someone who follows the principles written in Islamic doctrine. Yes, of course, there are many Muslims who do not follow the doctrine, just as there are Christians who don't follow the written doctrine in the Bible.

But what this argument obscures is that the orthodox Muslims are not misguided. They are doing what it says they must do in their written holy book. It says in the Koran 91 times that a Muslim should follow the example of Muhammad in every aspect. And Muhammad (according to biographies of Muhammad written by Muslims for Muslims) raided caravans, led battles, tortured people, ordered assassinations, and personally oversaw the beheading of 800 Jews. He captured and held slaves. He raped women. He started having sex with his favorite wife when she was nine years old. This is not slanderous rumor aimed to discredit Muhammad. This is taught with a straight face in Islamic universities, without any hint of embarrassment. This was the messenger of Allah and he could do no wrong.

A fundamentalist is one who follows the teachings closely. So the actual teachings make a big difference. And all we're saying is that the teachings of Islam are dangerous to non-Muslims. In Islamic doctrine, Muslims are the best of people and non-Muslims are the worst of creatures. This is not a conspiracy theory. This stuff is very easy to find out. You don't have to trust anyone's opinion. Just read the Koran. The Muslims who are true believers (orthodox) are counting on people not wanting to know.

In a conversation about this the other day, someone brought up a good example: the Amish. They have special dress and customs but they don't seek to impose it on anyone else. That's the difference. And it's a big difference.

Look up the Holy Land Foundation trial. The FBI raided the house of a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in America and found a document laying out their plan for our country. So far they have 73 legal organizations in America bent on replacing our laws with Islamic law. One organization has been altering the way Islam is portrayed in school textbooks. One organization puts pressure on Hollywood to make sure Islam is portrayed positively in movies. One organization sues people who try to educate others about what Islam is, or gets them fired from their jobs.

Scientologists aren't bad people, by the way. Most people who read the statements above would think I was slandering Scientologists. But I was talking about Scientology, the ideology. Specifically, I was referring to the "fair game" policy of Scientology. Again, it is a written document, and followed by the true believers. It says that if someone leaves Scientology (becomes an apostate), they are fair game. They can be tricked, lied to, sued, harassed.

But that's not as bad as Islamic doctrine. Islam says the penalty for apostasy is death.

Think about something for a minute. If someone says they're a member of a group that has a written ideology, would you assume they believe in at least some of the tenets of that ideology? Of course. Otherwise, why claim your membership? It's not always the case, of course. Oskar Schindler was a member of the Nazi party, after all.

But if you could choose who would be your next door neighbor or who would date your daughter, would you voluntarily choose someone who claims membership in a dangerous ideology? They might not be "true believers." But on the other hand, many Muslims who were perfectly nice people and not true believers were reached by the more orthodox who educated them on their obligations as a Muslim. They said, "You say you're a Muslim, but have you read the Koran? Do you know what you should be doing?" And they are "radicalized" which is a politically correct way of saying they began following the written doctrine and the example of the founder of Islam.

By the way, I'm not a Christian. I'm not any religion. And I'm not out to slander any particular religion. All I did was read Islamic doctrine and biographies of Muhammad. I wasn't trying to find out that Islam is evil. I just wanted to know what was really true because we've got some people saying it's a religion of peace and some people saying it's a religion of violence. I wanted to know for myself rather than listen to the opinions of others.

I went on a decade-long program of reading, including lots of pro-Islam books and the Koran, which I read twice from beginning to end. It's a fascinating subject to study. Especially the life story of Muhammad. It is completely mind blowing that someone like that founded a religion. And that the religion (the doctrine, not the people) reflects his personality. I would never have believed it, and over time, it has become obvious to me that many people don't believe it and don't want to believe it. But if they want to be well-rounded, if they want to be an educated member of the modern world, it seems to me that one of the things they should really know about is Islam as it is, and not how they wish it was or how others want them to think about it. They should find out for themselves.

Back to the headscarf. The reason people don't like it is that the headscarf says, "I believe in the tenets of Islam" and any non-Muslim who knows what those tenets are will not like them. Also, researchers have discovered that when the women in an area with a high Muslim population begin wearing headscarves, it is a signal that the Muslims in the area are becoming more devout (more "extreme," more fundamentalist). It is a visible sign of increasing devotion to the fundamental principles of Islamic doctrine, which includes an intolerance for non-Muslims and non-Islamic laws, and usually foreshadows violence to non-Muslims and those Muslims who are "insufficiently Islamic." That's why people make such a big deal about Islamic head and face coverings. That's why France and other countries have banned them and many are considering it. 

I personally think it's foolish. If you have a visible sign of growing fundamentalism, why would you ban it? To blind yourself? On the other hand, maybe it would help weaken the fundamentalism. And it would certainly help women be free of the obligation to do it in those countries.

What about the nun's habit? The answer is that being a nun is voluntary. But if a woman is born a Muslim, she is considered a Muslim and the penalty for her leaving Islam is death.

Catholic men are not likely to beat nuns if they don't wear their habits, but orthodox Muslims have been known to beat Muslim and non-Muslim women who don't cover up, and I have yet to read a report of a Catholic man throwing acid into the face of a woman because she was not wearing her habit. Orthodox Muslim men have been doing that to Muslim women in many places in the world.

People who are relatively ignorant of Islam are puzzled by the push toward banning headscarves, and would like to write it off as just ignorant bigotry. But if they looked a little deeper, they might find sensible reasons for it.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence.

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Bill Warner Interviewed by an Ex-Muslim

This is a 20 minute interview. It was interesting to hear how Bill Warner came to his current career (he educates non-Muslims about Islam and translates Islamic texts into plain English). Watch the interview on Warner's site here: Introduction to Political Islam with Al Fadi, a former Muslim.

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Why Not Learn About Islam?

If a cornerstone of someone's worldview is that white people or America or Western Civilization or wealthy oligarchs are the cause of the world's problems, he or she will try to avoid learning about Islam.

Why? Because it would be too disruptive to his or her understanding of the world to discover that Islam — a "brown people's religion" in that worldview — is a dangerous ideology and the cause of much of the misery in the world today (and throughout history).

So don't be surprised at the intensity of the resistance you get when you're talking about simple facts about Islam, Muhammad, Islamic history, etc. The resistance is so intense because this is not a simple process of updating facts about something relatively unimportant, like honeydew melon. "Oh, they're high in carotene? I thought cantaloupe was the only melon that was high in carotene."

People update their information easily and with very little resistance — unless it challenges something important they believe. And if it challenges a cornerstone of their worldview, the resistance you get is surprisingly forceful. It has the feeling of desperate ferocity. They will argue with you about Islam, sometimes quite passionately, even if they know little about it. They might not know why, but they do NOT want what you're saying to be true. So they'll come up with every argument they can think of, and if that doesn't work, they'll try to write you off as a ________ (fill in the blank: bigot, racist, hater, Islamophobe, etc., something that allows them to disregard your information).

But it doesn't work. Say it anyway. It DOES sink in eventually. It just takes awhile sometimes because it alters something very fundamental about their worldview, and that takes some internal adjustment. Don't worry about it. Inform them — gently if you can, and make it as interesting as possible — but don't stop trying to get through to people. It's the first thing we need to accomplish. Here's why.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence.

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