Dare to Speak: Islam vs Free Democracy and Free Enterprise (I)
- But how did Iraqi’s feel about American deaths? On April 3, 2004, just a few days after an ambush on American civilians that left them dead, mutilated, and burned, Sheik Fawzi Nameq addressed 600 worshippers at a Mosque near the ambush site. He told his listeners: “Islam does not condone the mutilation of the bodies of the dead.”
[10]
- He was silent about the murders themselves.
In reading about the Shiites’ hateful reward to the United States for its sacrifice of blood, money, and international prestige, I finally recognized the true nature of their problem with us. The fact that it took me so long to perceive it is not the fault of the Iraqi Shiites. They had been shouting it at the tops of their lungs for a long time, as have the Sunnis. We in the United States have simply not understood their message, because their reason for outrage is incomprehensible to us.
There appears to be a three-part reason for Muslim outrage against the United States, and the West in general:
- 1. According to the Koran, any Insult to Islam is a blasphemy that is subject to severe punishment and even death.
- 2. According to Islam, the Koran is the inerrant, eternal, and ultimate word of Allah, issued by his final and greatest Prophet. This implies that Muslims, as followers of the Koran, are morally superior to the followers of any other religion. As such, Muslims alone are authorized by Allah to establish law. As the Koran says:
[11] [3.110] Ye are the best of peoples,
- evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong [through Islamic law], and believing in Allah. If only the People of the Book
[12]had faith, it were best for them:
- among them are some who have faith,
but most of them are perverted transgressors.
- 3. Thus the rescue of an Islamic country’s people by a group of Infidel nations, regardless of the bloodiness of that country’s Muslim ruler, can be seen as an unwelcome exposure of Islamic weakness. Additionally, the U.S. and Coalition roles in setting up a democratic and secular form of government is, to devout Muslims, an overt usurpation of Islam’s Allah-given moral authority over mankind. To these Muslims, the “perverted transgressors,” otherwise known as “the People of the Book (Christians and Jews),” are sitting in the seat of power rightfully held by Allah, dictating terms to Allah’s people. This is the
ultimate
- Insult to Islam, which claims to be the steward of divine laws given to Muslims by Allah himself.
More generally, Infidels insult and humiliate Muslims simply by being successful while Muslims and Islamic nations languish in poverty and chaos. Unwilling to question the usefulness of Allah’s perfect laws, the only acceptable explanation for the abject state of Muslims is that there is a vast conspiracy of Jews and Christians against them. This is the conspiracy to humiliate Muslims that Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad railed against in his speech.
Our Insult to Islam is that we Infidels have not learned our proper place, in lowly submission to Muslims. Infidels are to be tolerated, the Koran says, but only on terms that the Koran sets. These terms require subservience. Any relation with an Infidel nation that does not explicitly acknowledge Islam’s superiority is, by itself, a humiliation.
My conclusions about Islam were confirmed when I read In the Presence of My Enemies, which is the autobiographical account of Gracia Burnham’s year-long ordeal as a hostage of the Abu Sayyaf, an Islamic terrorist group in the Philippines.
Mrs. Burnham recorded the mindset of these militants, who were engaged in a long-standing insurrection against the Philippine government. This mindset is paranoid and aggressive, as the following quote reveals: [13]
- [Martin Burnham, Gracia’s husband] had an interesting conversation with a captor named Ustedes Hail. This man was one of the most embittered fighters, passionate about regaining the Muslim homeland. He said the Abu Sayyaf didn’t want to have to do things like the recent massacre at the jeepney, “but the Christian world has just pushed us too far, and we’re sick of it. When people are oppressed, you can’t hold them back. It’s just going to be this way until we are given what we want.”
- Martin kept his cool…and gently probed for specifics: “Let’s see – just what all is included in your homeland?”
- “Tawi-Tawi, Sulu, Jolo, Basilan, Southern Mindanao…,” he began naming off the islands in dispute.
- “So, if you got these…would that be the end of your struggle?”
- “Oh, no, no” came the quick reply. “That would be only the beginning. Then we would be obligated to take all of Mindanao; after all, it’s a wealthy island.
- “And then once we took Mindanao, we would take all of the Visayas [referring to islands in the midsection of the Philippines, such as Cebu, Samar, Leyte, Negros, and Panay].
- “Then when we were done with the Visayas, we would go next to Luzon.
- “When all of the Philippines belonged to us, we’d move on to Thailand and other countries where there is such oppression. You see, Islam is for the whole world.”
I do not mean to imply that all Muslims subscribe to the views of a militant member of the Abu Sayyaf. However, with militant Islamic activity taking place in the Philippines, India, Thailand, Russia, Spain, the Netherlands, England, and the United States, to name a few, and with Osama bin Laden being one of the most respected “leaders” in the Islamic world, it is clear that this terrorist’s opinion was not uncommon. Moreover, his opinion agreed exactly with the teachings I saw in the Koran.
At this point, I arrived at what I believe to be a good basic understanding of the nature of Islam. Islam is not a religion as we in the United States usually define it, because Islam does not consider religion to be a private matter. Instead, Islam claims the power of law – a very public matter. Furthermore, its laws grant legal and economic rights according to each person’s religion, and it gives Muslims political power over non-Muslims. It also gives Muslims a moral imperative to conquer all of the world’s non-Muslims and establish Islamic governance over them. Thus Islam can be better understood as a political ideology than as a religion.
Islam feels respected only when all other powers, be they religious or political, submit to it. Islam also declares that its adherents can justly exert lethal force when they believe Islam has been insulted by a lack of proper respect for its superiority.
Nowadays, when I hear someone say that Islam is a religion of peace, it reminds me of a line from Tim Burton’s disturbing comedy, Mars Attacks: “We have come in peace, please surrender the planet immediately!”
Paradoxically, the Muslims I have met in this country have, for the most part, been educated and courteous. They treasure their families and are capable of having a winning sense of humor. So how can these good and kind people believe in a faith with such violent tendencies?
The only explanations I can come up with are these:
Muslims living in the United States do not present the true face of Islam.
In the United States, most Muslims are either secular, very liberal, or are constrained from fully practicing their faith because they feel so outnumbered by Infidels that they must suppress their religious imperatives. This does not mean that these Muslims are happy about not being in power. True believers cannot help but feel humiliated by living in a place where people shamelessly disregard Islamic law.
The liberal and secular Muslims who have immigrated to the United States have done so through a process of self-selection. Most truly devout Muslims would not choose to move to the United States, or anywhere else in the West, unless they were preparing to mount a Jihad. However, Europe may be acting as a bellwether for the U.S. in this regard. Its experiences are revealing that, once Muslims become well established in Western lands, they begin to establish their own insular communities and assert themselves politically.
The thought that many Muslims in the U.S. are either liberal or secular should not give Americans comfort. Firstly, their current liberality or secularism does not guarantee that they will not become radicals later, nor does it guarantee their children will not radicalize. Secondly, the average Muslim family has two to four times as many children as the average Western family. [14] Given this trend, it is inevitable that Islamic populations will grow faster than other populations, and this growth will ultimately give Islam the political power to legislate Shari’ah. Thus, over time, with the aid of democracy’s principle of majority rule, the freedoms that Westerners cherish as the hallmarks of Free Democracy could be legislated away.
There are many Muslims whom Westerners would call good people, but this does not mean that they are good Muslims.
This explanation has a darker corollary: there are many people who are good Muslims, but this does not mean that they are what Westerners would call good people. Osama bin Laden and Ayatollah Khomeini are prime examples of people whom many in the Islamic world call “good Muslims.”
My most recent experience with a good person who is not a good Muslim is a friend who attends college. When we first got to know each other, she was actually nervous about being alone with me for an extended period of time, because doing so violates Islamic Law. As her confidence in me grew, she began to tell me about the many challenges she faced as a young person growing up in two worlds: the Muslim world of her family, and the secular world that surrounds every other aspect of her life.
One way her struggle revealed itself was in her two cell phones. One was a gift from her father; the other was a secret phone she bought for herself. Why the secret phone? Because the one her father gave her was actually used as a means of control. He “generously” insisted on paying the bill because it allowed him to scrutinize her calls and interrogate her on them. He also had complete control over her finances, even though she worked and went to college. He audited every paycheck and bank statement. He accounted for every penny, and only allowed her to withdraw small amounts each week to pay for essentials. With this she managed to scrape together enough money to open a secret bank account, which she used to pay for the secret cell phone.
She also complained about other methods used by her father to control her life, which centered on the tactic of giving a gift and then almost immediately making some kind of request or demand. She had reached a point where the gifts meant nothing to her — she actually loathed them. To her, these gifts were not acts of love or kindness, but bribery and manipulation.
It did not surprise me that her father was doing these things, because they aligned with the teachings of Islam. What did surprise me was that she, as a Muslim, complained about his controlling ways. So I asked her: “Haven’t you ever read the Koran?”
”No,” this near-20 year old college student replied.
I believe that this situation is very common. Many of the “Muslims” we meet are actually Muslims by inheritance, or the cajoling of peers. Their claimed religion has little to do with how they actually live their lives, other than superficial rituals and customs. In fact, this friend’s only apparent working knowledge of her faith was the celebrations she participated in, her eating and bathing habits, and her adamant refusal of a Christmas gift because she was NOT a Christian.
Islam actually does teach Muslims to be good in many ways, but only to other Muslims. [15]
Islam teaches Muslims how to be generous with other Muslims and treat them with honor and respect. These virtues, however, do not extend to people of other faiths beyond a superficial courtesy, particularly after those people have been given an opportunity to convert to Islam but have rejected it. Such people are no longer considered “innocent.” Therefore, they are no longer protected by the Koran’s words of moderation. Thus the virtues we often hear about in the Muslim community should not give us “Infidels” comfort.
Hitler also had a beautiful utopian vision for his Aryan race, filled with good, virtuous people and happy children. His only dilemma was that it could only come about after those who did not fit his vision were eliminated. He did not want to kill non-Aryans; it was just an unfortunate necessity. He went on to propel his country through a massive effort to dehumanize those who did not fit his utopia, particularly Jews and Gypsies, so that their slaughter would be less traumatizing to the good Aryans who carried out his Final Solution.
I have treasured my friendships with many Muslims. I believe that the hearts of these people are far kinder than what Islam calls for. Unfortunately, it also appears necessary to confront them about the nature of Islam, because Islam represents a direct threat to the freedoms of all Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, Atheists, etc. living in the West. Just as important, it is a direct threat to the freedoms these Muslim friends came to the United States to enjoy.
Citizens of Free Democracies have largely been misinformed about Islam’s true nature, in a way that leaves them vulnerable to attack. Leaders of both Muslim and Western nations have falsely led them to believe that nations can be both Freely Democratic and Islamic, and that the freedoms we enjoy, particularly religious freedoms, can prosper in the Islamic world.
This book will give you an opportunity to examine the foundational texts of Islam, as well as their modern interpretations, so you can draw your own conclusions. I hope that you will be left with a deeper understanding of Islam’s true nature, how it affects each of us, and what we can do to preserve our freedoms.
[10] Muslim clerics condemn mutilation – but not slaying, by Hamza Hendawi, Associated Press, April 3, 2004.
[11] The Holy Qur’an: Translation and Commentary, by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Lahore, 1934, 1937.
[12] Christians, Jews, and Zoroatrians.
[13] In the Presence of My Enemies by Gracia Burnham, 2003, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., page 170.
[14] Examples of the average number of children per woman (fertility rate) in Islamic nations: 1990 (Source: Population Reference Bureau): Afghanistan – 7.1, Algeria – 6.1, Egypt – 4.7, Iran – 6.3, Iraq – 7.3, Jordan – 5.9, Kuwait – 3.7, Lebanon – 3.7, Libya – 5.5, Morocco – 4.8, Oman – 7.2, Saudi Arabia – 7.2, Sudan – 6.4, Syria – 6.8, Tunisia – 4.1, Turkey – 3.6, Yemen – 7.4.
Meanwhile, the average fertility rate for European countries is 1.4. In Japan, it’s also 1.4. In South Korea and Taiwan, the rate is at or below 1.6 (Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette-7/12/99). According to the 2000 census, the fertility rate in the United States is 1.96 (Source: U.S. Census Bureau).
[15] This statement is a bit of an over-generalization. Actually, Muslims are frequently taught to view members of competing Muslim sects with nearly the same contempt as Infidels.
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