Dare to Speak: Islam vs Free Democracy and Free Enterprise (I)
Also interesting is the contrast in justifications for war used by Prime Minister Mohamad and Osama bin Laden. While both state the same end goal, i.e., a world ruled by Islam, their grievances are quite different. While bin Laden condemns the presence of Infidels on sacred Muslim land, Mohamad condemns alleged global domination by Jews. To Western ears, both arguments sound bizarre. How could the mere presence of non-Muslims on an arid swath of land be justification for war? How could anyone claim that a few million Jews actually control the world? Moreover, President Mohamad’s reasoning places Jews in a no-win position: If they live among others, they are accused of taking control of society; if they disconnect by forming their own country, they are denounced for taking land formerly occupied by non-Jews.
Jews tend to do something very natural for groups that feel threatened: they work very hard, and seek positions of leadership, so that they are not at the mercy of others. They may have annoying quirks in the eyes of some non-Jews, but no more so than the members of other groups that separate themselves from the surrounding culture. A lot of people find Jehovah’s Witnesses quirky, and the Amish have become outright tourist attractions. Antagonism toward another group of people that seems different may be one of the most instinctive of human motivations, but it is also one of the least admirable.
As for those who are concerned about the relative prosperity and political power of Jews, they might find themselves better served by emulating some Jewish educational and economic practices instead of than lashing out. As for global domination, those concerned should note that Bill Gates, Sam Walton, Howard Hughes, and Ray Kroc were all Gentiles, and there has never been a single Jewish president in all of U.S. history.
The real purpose of these allegations of Jewish or Infidel global domination is to serve the common goal of Osama bin Laden, Prime Minister Mohamad, and other Islamic leaders: to rally Muslims to the cause of Islamic global domination. These leaders simply found different pretexts to justify the cause. This explains why it seems impossible to resolve problems that crop up between Islamic communities and their neighbors. As soon as a conflict appears to be resolved, something else happens to re-open the wound, or new injuries flair up. This is because Islam is driven by an agenda of conquest and its believers constantly seek ways to justify it.
Why? Because any good Muslim sees the world through the eyes of the Koran and the Hadith.
Dar al-Islam: This term means “the House of Islam.” It can be translated further into “the House of Submission [to Allah]” or “the House of Peace.” It represents all lands governed by the tenets of Islam.
Dar al-Harb: This term means “the House of War [against Allah]” [39] It represents all lands outside of the “House of Peace.” Any nation that does not submit to Allah (through Islam) is considered to be in rebellion against him. Therefore, regardless of whether these nations have made any hostile moves against the “House of Peace,” they defy Allah and offend Muslims by their mere existence.
It is impossible for a good Muslim leader to want lasting peace with the House of War. There may be strategic retreats and suspensions of hostilities, but the only lasting peace acceptable to Islam is the one expected on the utopian day when the entire world submits to Islam. This is why any opposition from the House of War on some issue may be labeled an insolent rebellion against Allah, and a call for jihad, if Muslims can give it a religious context.
According to the tenets of Islam, it is not possible to diffuse this call to war by simply secularizing nations that were once considered Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, or Jewish. As The Koran for Dummies explains, the only acceptable form of government is one that complies with Islamic Law: [40]
Secularism…violates the sacred teaching that says, “There is no authority or law, except God’s [Allah’s].” Also, for Islamic law to work, government has to have some role in implementing laws and forming policies out of the principles of Islamic law (4:59). To form human laws that clearly contradict divine law is considered a sin in the Islamic tradition (3.185). It proves difficult to marry secularism to the ideals of the Koran.
Confronted with this kind of reasoning, one begins to understand that Islam is, and has always been, hostile to all non-Islamic nations. Historically, Islam has acted aggressively toward its non-Muslim neighbors for about 1,400 years – ever since the days of Muhammad. These hostilities have included propaganda, intimidation, demographic warfare, and terrorism, in addition to military warfare.
Over the centuries, Islam’s decline lessened its ability to act on this hostility. The hostility itself, however, never faded. Despite this latent menace, Westerners grew to dismiss the danger of Islam over time. Today, many refuse to even acknowledge that the danger exists, despite a revival of Islam’s war against Dar al-Harb, fed by vast transfers of oil wealth to Islamic nations, instant global communications, and Muslim immigrations to the West.
Unfortunately, even the Westerners who perceive a danger rarely grasp its full scope. Religious war simply does not fit with their understanding of the world. While they may be able to grasp the notion of Islamic terrorism or “Islamofascism,” it is inconceivable that Islam itself could be hostile. They assume, without questioning, that all religions are basically the same, and that all religions teach about peace and love. I know this because I was one of them, and I now stand corrected.
Westerners are accustomed to recognizing wars when countries declare them. This allows Islam’s war to fly under the West’s radar, because it is declared by a borderless nation disguised as a religion. Islam’s leaders are not the kings, presidents, or premiers that fit into the West’s paradigm. Instead, they are religious scholars who disregard geographic boundaries as legitimate limits to their jurisdiction.
Islam is a faith that aspires to global conquest, by peace if possible, and by force if necessary, and it demands loyalty beyond any tyrant’s dreams. It conducts its war on non-Muslim nations through the proxy nations it controls, the terrorist cells it imbeds in target states, and the growth of Islamic populations in those states.
In the West’s excitement over “the end of history” and “the peace dividend,” Westerners were at one time determined to ignore this war, but its reality was seared into their hearts on September 11, 2001. Unfortunately, even that shock was not enough to shake them out of their dreams. The U.S. response, known as The War on Terror, has remained intentionally blind to the true scope of the war. Its blindness is becoming harder to maintain, however, as the banner of war moves from an extremist in the mountains of Afghanistan to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a leader elected by the 69 million people of Iran, who is actively developing technology that can be used for nuclear weapons, in defiance of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the UN.
At a rally in Tehran on October 26, 2005, entitled “A World without Zionism,” President Ahmadinejad stood before a huge image of a broken United States and crashing Israel (see illustrations) and told his people: [41]
We are in…an historical war between the World of Arrogance (i.e. the West) and the Islamic world, and this war has been going on for hundreds of years. …
Unfortunately, in the past 300 years, the Islamic world has been in retreat vis-à-vis the World of Arrogance… During the…last 100 years, the (walls of the) world of Islam were destroyed and the World of Arrogance turned the regime occupying Jerusalem into a bridge for its dominance over the Islamic world…
This occupying country (i.e. Israel) is in fact a front of the World of Arrogance in the heart of the Islamic world. They have in fact built a bastion from which they can expand their rule to the entire Islamic world…
President Ahmadinejad also wrote a letter to President Bush, on May 8, 2006, which verified that this war was not simply between Islam and Israel or between Islam and the United States, but between Islam and Free Democracy. [42] This letter states:
Liberalism and Western style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the Liberal democratic systems.
We increasingly see that people around the world are flocking towards a main focal point — …Almighty God [Allah]. Undoubtedly through faith in God [Allah] and the teachings of the prophets, the people will conquer their problems. My question for you [Mr. Bush] is: “Do you not want to join them?”
Mr. President,
Whether we like it or not, the world is gravitating towards faith in the Almighty and justice and the will of God [Allah] will prevail over all things.
Like warped reincarnations of Marx and Lenin, a new generation of revolutionaries has arisen to proclaim the end of Democracy and Capitalism, otherwise known as Free Enterprise.
A major difference between the Communist revolution and the Islamic revolution is that, while Communism was a relatively new ideology, Islam is very old. What is new about Islam’s revived revolution is the form it has taken – that of a Cold War. By looking beyond the religious overtones of Islam and grasping its political ideology, we have an opportunity to respond to it appropriately, as we did during the Cold War against Communism, and avoid an outright Hot War. Alternatively, if we fail to diagnose the challenge of Islam correctly, our misdirected policies may actually bring on the devastation we hoped to avoid.
World War II was the result of European policies of appeasement and capitulation, which were designed to placate Hitler but actually encouraged him to become more aggressive. A rarely acknowledged fact is that the European Allies actually lost the first half of WWII. Poland, Denmark, Norway, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, most of France, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Greece were all overrun by the Nazis and Fascists before the U.S. entered the war. England’s defenses were on life support via the American Lend-Lease program, and the Russians had been pushed back to Moscow. It was only after the United States entered the war that Hitler was defeated.
In the new Cold War, terrorism is Islam’s weapon of choice, and the United States is on the front line. This time, if the U.S. misdiagnoses the situation, who will be left to save it?
REFERENCES for Chapter 1:
[38] A hadith is an account of statements or actions of Muhammad, attested to by eye-witnesses. The proper Arabic plural for hadith is aHadith. A compilation of ahadith is called Hadith, and the discipline of its study is also called Hadith. An alternative spelling is Hadeeth.
[39] The Multiple Identities of the Middle East, by Bernard Lewis, Schocken Books, New York, 1998, pages121-122.
[40] The Koran for Dummies, by Sohaib Sultan, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2004, Chapter 20, section entitled Morality and Secularism, page 302.
[41] The transcript of President Ahmadinejad’s entire speech can be found on the Islamic Students News Agency website, at Link. A translation of this transcript to English can be found on the website of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), as Special Dispatch Series 1013, entitled Iranian President at Tehran Conference: ‘Very Soon, This Stain of Disgrace [i.e. Israel] Will Be Purged From the Center of the Islamic World – and This is Attainable’, located at link. A translation can also be found at link.
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