Friday, July 08, 2005

But They Promised

According to Daniel Pipes, England’s Islamic community had promised, under a Covenant of Security, that as long as the UK provided safe haven for Muslims, Islamists would only plan jihadist strikes for other locations. Some British writers actually believed having Islamists in England made the British safer. Islamic clerics explained that the UK would not be considered the Realm of War (Dar al-Harb) as long as they could continue to preach their jihadist ideology. Apparently, someone didn’t get the memo.

One of the interesting features of Islam is how killing is discussed as a matter of technical detail. Standard Islamic apologetics exempt Christian and Jews from genocide by virtue of a common heritage which makes them “people of the book.” However, it is seldom mentioned that all others must be killed. Unrepentant atheists, polytheists, and others must be conquered and killed – no exceptions allowed. For example, Serge Trifkovic describes the slaughter of Hindus and the virtual elimination of Buddhism in the land of its founding, India. Zoroastrianism was also wiped out in the land of its origin: Persia.

What makes Islam so frightening is the instability of its criteria of death. Debates on who can or cannot be killed seem like judgment calls depending on arbitrary considerations. For example, in recent times some Saudi Wahhabists have said that Christians are polytheists because of the belief in the Trinity. Wahhabist have always held that Sufis and Shiites cannot be protected as Muslims in good standing. And America has been described as a secular nation no longer protected as a “people of the book.” In other cases, Muslim leaders who encourage the devout to kill the infidels abroad often face those very jihadists on return. Mohammad, himself, embodied this instability as he continually redefined the rules to rationalize his duplicity, slaughter, and conquests.

Nevertheless, people continue to refer to technical exemptions as if they were solid grounds to trust the Islamic religion. Imagine, for example, if someone casually told you that you won’t be killed because of your hair color or race. Would you feel safe with such a person? You’d certainly wonder if you’ll be next year’s target. If someone says they would only kill in certain locations, would you be relieved? One looks for a solid tradition based on solid reasoning embodied in universal principles. Islam has no such universal principles.

Islam is a supremacist ideology created to justify conquest and rule over others. It lacks a disposition of universality which can be developed and extended to create a solid foundation for a just civilization. Recently, Ali Sina, an ex-Muslim who runs the website Faith Freedom, argues that Islam is lacking in a very important manner; he notes that Islam is perhaps the only religion without a Golden Rule. Universality is the very essence of an ethical principle – indeed the essence of conceptual knowledge as such. Islam’s failure in this regard cannot be compensated by its Byzantine rules and counter rules. In Islam there is just no core principle whose soundness and compelling nature provides a solid ethical foundation.

5 Comments:

Blogger Jeffrey Perren said...

Jason,
Interesting comments. I'd now like to know more about this subject about which I know so little.

Can you provide some references?
Respectfully,
Jeff Perren

7/8/05, 12:06 PM  
Blogger Jeffrey Perren said...

By the way, have you read this interview on Front Page Mag with Dr. Radu?
I thought this quote most illuminating:
"FP: I think the Left sympathizes with Islamist terrorism because it represents nihilistic destruction, which is the Left’s greatest yearning. But we’ll save this discussion for another time."
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18697

7/8/05, 12:22 PM  
Blogger Always On Watch said...

Christians and Jews may be technically exempt from genocide, but they are not exempt from individual execution or dhimmitude. Furthermore, as you have pointed out, Jason, Islam is revised as events warrant; therefore, the Koran is self-contradictory. If I'm not mistaken (Please correct me if I'm wrong), the earlier peaceful verses were abrogated by the later militant verses.

Also, as I understand it, the Koran is not organized chronologically, but rather according to length of the sectional divisions; I attribute this to the odd way that Arabic views the historical timeline and to its lack of a past tense, as we understand it.

In Christianity, the New Testament, for the vast most part, brought a message of peace--not "an eye for an eye" but, instead, Jesus' culminary teaching of "love your brother." So, when people toss the Crusades argument in my direction, I try to point out the above information.

Finally, you wrote "Islam is a supremacist ideology created to justify conquest and rule over others." Therein lies the truth, the truth which so many wish to ignore. Almost from its inception, Islam has been militant and certainly has been very resistant to any reform. The "moderates" are, in a sense, apostates.

7/8/05, 2:31 PM  
Blogger Jason Pappas said...

Jeff

For some references on Islam, I maintain a webpage here.

AOW

You are certainly right. The order of the Koran is by length. However, the verses from the Medina Suras abrogate the earlier more tolerance verses from the Meccan Suras. Even if one didn’t hold a formal doctrine of abrogation, the latter example of Mohammad’s rule would supersede the early example of Mohammad’s pleas for tolerance and acceptance by the mere logical and chronological development.

I was reading a dialog between two academics on a group blog. One explained that he found reading the Koran upsetting because of all the warrior-like passages. He mentioned this to a Muslim friend who had a suggestion. Read the Koran backwards! This academic said he found this far better. So much for the dedication to the truth. No if he read it upside down ...

7/8/05, 4:08 PM  
Blogger Jason Pappas said...

After I wrote today's article describing how killing the infidel is talked about as a technicality in Islamic law, I come across today’s column by Amir Taheri in the New York Post. In it he writes:

“… the self-styled Islamic theologians coolly debating the issue of whom to kill and how. Any viewer of Al-Jazeera, the satellite channel owned by the emir of Qatar, has seen its chief Islamist guru Yussuf al-Qaradawi insist that Islam allows the murder of unborn Israeli babies because they may grow up and join the army. In a recent visit to Mecca, I witnessed another self-styled guru, Sheik Safar al-Hawali, informing visitors to his home that it was "licit" to kill innocent Muslim women and children in Iraq if that led to "the defeat of the Crusaders and their apostate Muslim allies." “


Chilling!

7/8/05, 6:31 PM  

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