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This article follows
History and Origins: The Life of
Muhammad.
See
also The Qur'an:
Verses of Violence
The only thing more shocking
than the ridiculous level of violence coming out of the Islamic world is the
genuine indifference shown by most of those Muslims who are not directly
involved. Though the number of terrorists is relatively small, they are
sustained by the apathy of hundreds of millions, even in the heart of the
Western world. One of the biggest questions asked in the aftermath of 9/11
was, “Where’s the outrage?” as Americans had trouble understanding why Muslims
did not act as people of other religions would have in the wake of a horrific
mass murder committed in the name of their faith.
The simple fact is that Islam is
not like other religions. The roots of the faith, the history, and the
teachings from basic texts compel both the violence and the broad indifference
that sustains it. Despite the drive that Westerners have to believe that
other people are just like them, and that other religions are just like theirs,
it is anti-intellectual to ignore the stark evidence that demands otherwise.
Abu Ala Maududi, the
founder of Jamaat-e-Islami, puts it this way in his book, Jihad in Islam:
"Islam is not a normal
religion like the other religions in the world, and Muslim nations are not like
normal nations. Muslim nations are very special because they have a
command from Allah to rule the entire world and to be over every nation in the
world. Islam is a revolutionary faith that comes to destroy any government
made by man. Islam doesn't look for a nation to be in better condition
than another nation. Islam doesn't care about land or who owns the land.
The goal of Islam is to rule the entire world and submit all of mankind to the
faith of Islam. Any nation or power in this world that tries to get in the
way of that goal Islam will fight and destroy. In order for Islam to
fulfill that goal, Islam can use every power available every way it can be used
to bring worldwide revolution. This is jihad."
This
truth is so disturbing to some non-Muslims that they are willing to do anything
they can to deny it. They latch on to whatever reflects the faintest
glimmer of their own value system in Islam, usually by ignoring the teaching and
listening exclusively to those who have a vested interest in the advancement of
Islam, yet are sophisticated enough to disguise its true nature of the religion
with a palatable facade.
Clever “fifth
column” groups, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), have
learned that multiculturalists can be easily manipulated with tactical language
that includes broad, but ultimately meaningless, “condemnations
against terror”
and periodic declarations that “innocents” are not legitimate targets for
Jihadis.
Although fooling some into believing what they want to believe, astute observers
recognize that these groups almost never define their key terms, such as “terror
attacks” and “innocents,” and that a tiny minority of attacks are specifically
denounced. CAIR, for example, only acknowledged eighteen acts of terror in
the four years following 9/11 – less than 1/2 of 1% of the actual number of
documented attacks.
So what explains the violence
and the level of comfort that many Muslims have with those who kill in the name
of Allah?
Given that
Islam’s founder was a military leader who personally conducted terror attacks on
caravans, led offensive battles against communities in order to steal and
subjugate, who took slaves, broke truces, supervised the execution of captives,
advocated the murder of Jews, and even advised his warriors on raping women
captured in battle, the wonder is that there isn’t more violence than we see
today.
Immediately following Muhammad's death, the "Religion of Peace" turned against
itself in a bloody fratricide that continues to this day in the form of
sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni. Muhammad's own companions and
relatives fought each against other. Three of the first four caliphs were
murdered, and many other early Muslims lost their lives including the nearest
members of Muhammad's family.
The
first act by the first successor to the Prophet of Islam, Abu Bakr, was to wage
war against Arabian tribes who did not want to be "Muslim" anymore.
Obviously they had converted under duress and did not feel obliged to stay
following Muhammad's death. Thousands were slaughtered until they
submitted once again to the Religion of Peace.
Muhammad’s martial philosophy
against unbelievers has been faithfully practiced by his followers, who obeyed his commands to wage
Jihad (holy war), and succeeded in spreading Islam by the
sword throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, North Africa and well into
Europe.
Unlike the Crusades, for
example, which were founded on papal proclamation and not Christian scripture,
there are literally
dozens of verses
in the Qur’an that exhort violence against people who do not follow the ways of
Allah as dictated by Muhammad, and only a handful that could be construed as
suggesting tolerance. There are literally hundreds more that speak of
hate
toward unbelievers
Unfortunately, the more violent verses were spoken later in Muhammad's life,
which leads most Islamic scholars to believe that they abrogate the handful of
earlier, more tolerant ones (as is the tradition with other parts of the Qur'an
that are in contradiction). Muhammad and his followers did not have power
over the people around them at the time that the more peaceful verses were
spoken. As the balance of power shifted, so did the strategy of winning
detractors over, from the use of deception, murder, intimidation and outright military force.
These militant verses, combined
with
Wahabbi teachings (a radical and violent strain of Islam), are being drummed
into the heads of children in religious schools called madrasses well
before they are able to develop an independent moral character. Radical
mosques throughout the globe do their best to reinforce rigid personalities that
are unable to see the world in anything other than dualistic terms, where there
is only Dar al-Salaam (the believers) and Dar al-Harb, which
literally means “the house of war” and refers to those outside the faith.
The goal of existence, according
to the Qur’an, is a struggle for Islamic domination by any means – including
deceit and terror, which were both practiced by Muhammad. The world must
submit to Allah. There is no other point to life, and this explains the
near absence of cultural and technological innovation on the part of Muslims in
history, who merely borrowed from the hapless souls they conquered.
Knowledge outside of religious teachings is not encouraged, except as it
contributes to Islamic goals.
This dual nature of Islam is
responsible not only for the astonishing apathy toward the victims of Islamic
violence on the part of those affected by the religion's attitude toward those
outside the faith, but it also explains the dismal condition of Muslim countries.
Political freedom and civil rights are distinctly lacking and there is little
economic opportunity. Although Islam comprises about a fifth of the world’s population,
for example, the Arab countries combined have an annualized non-oil GDP that is less
than the state of Louisiana.
Islam has proven itself incapable of building societies in which Muslims
themselves want to live, as evidenced by the modern day trend in immigration
between Islam and the West, which is decidedly one-way. Despite the stated
confidence that Islam is the supreme and perfect religion, Muslims have always
preferred life in countries built by those of other faiths.
The Middle East before the time
of Muhammad was mostly made up of Jewish and Christian communities – in addition
to some who practiced pagan and polytheistic religions. Within a century,
these people were brought under the heel of rulers who had no interest in them
beyond what could be squeezed from them in the form of the jizya (tax on
unbelievers).
Slowly, the subjugated began to
lose their cultural identity under the pressures of a brutal system that
discriminated against them even to the point of stealing their children to make
them into Fedayeen warriors in foreign campaigns. Entire populations were
consumed.
Most felt they had no choice but
to convert to Islam, sacrificing their religion, identity and culture to their
masters. Once a person professes Islam, they can only recant on
penalty of
death. The system is also skillfully set up to ensure demographic triumph
by allowing a Muslim man to marry women outside the faith, provided that the
children are to be raised Muslim.
By feeding on conquered
populations, Muhammad's heirs fulfilled his mandate for the military expansion
of Islamic rule with an unquenchable appetite, quickly threatening
the very center of the Christian world, Constantinople. The first
attempted siege of this
city in 670 exposes the biggest fib that that contemporary Muslims like to tell
about Islam's military advance, namely that it was only as a result of
self-defense.
In
fact, there were no Byzantine armies threatening Muslims when the fifth caliph,
Muawiya, struck at the capital of the eastern Christian world. The
citizens of Constantinople were surprised by the naval attack, even though they
were well-prepared to defend against it. (The same could not be said for
the hapless Persians and Buddhists of central Asia, who were quickly clobbered).
More
importantly, following the humiliating defeat of the Muslims at Constantinople, there were no
"Christian" armies marching into the vacuum to capture land, as might have been
expected had there truly been an aggressive threat to Islam. The siege of
the city, like the many other campaigns of Muslim aggression was about
Jihad and the spread of Islamic rule.
In the west, Islamic fighters
invaded Europe and conquered Spain. Attempting to overrun the rest of
Europe, they were finally stopped by Charles Martel at Tours, but not before
burning and plundering
abbeys, churches and homes - and subjecting their occupants to a horrible fate.
In the East,
the empire quickly expanded into the heart of the Indian subcontinent, taking an
awful toll on Hindu and Buddhist lives as well as the destruction of their
beautiful temples.
All this a mere century after
Muhammad’s death by those who knew him best. Such was the violent legacy left by the prophet of
Islam.
Through horrific massacres and
cultural cannibalism, Islam maintained a stranglehold on its occupied territory.
The reactive Crusades that followed, as well as the Mongol invasions, were mere
setbacks in the religion’s insatiable quest for imperial expansion.
Constantinople eventually fell
in 1453, well after the Crusades. Three days of looting, raping and
killing followed, as soldier and citizen alike were butchered. Entire
families waited in their homes for death or slavery. Churches were
ransacked and burned, and a significant part of Christian and Greek heritage in
the form of relics and ancient text were completely destroyed.
Jihad and genocide threatened
Europe for the next two centuries until the Muslims were finally stopped at the
gates of Vienna in 1683 by a determined Christian army of Poles, Austrians,
Lithuanians, Germans and others. If not for their victory, and that of
France's Charles Martel on the slopes of the Pyrenees nearly a thousand years
earlier, the lights of civilization would have been dimmed and the continent
overrun before the great contributions to science and medicine could be made.
None of the technology that
improves the quality of life for billions in the world would have been possible
had the vision of Jihad succeeded. The medicine that we take for granted
(that we ship to Islamic countries when they face natural disasters, for
example) would not have been discovered, and the miracles of modern science
would never have seen the light of day had the Prophet’s followers been able to
take the rest of Christian Europe.
Since the religion discourages
art, it can be assumed that there would have been no great Renaissance, as there
has never been such in the Muslim world, and generations of scholars would have
been limited to studies of the Qur’an and Sunnah.
Islam’s mandate to consume and
dominate religion and culture means that there is little if any emphasis placed
on advancing knowledge or improving life for future generations.
Submission to Allah is the only mandate and Jihad is the highest duty.
Academic
contributions
that are often attributed to
Muslims, such as the mathematical concept of zero, were actually borrowed and
preserved from the civilizations and people they destroyed, much as a looter
might keep the ill-gotten gain that he finds useful. Beyond religion and
death, the Islamic world has
never made a single significant contribution to the planet.
In
contrast to other religion, the most devoted Muslims on earth are usually the
most dangerous. Other Muslims often use words to distinguish these purists
from themselves, such as Salafi or radical, but at the end of the day, it is
these fundamentalists who better know the history, Qur'an and other sacred texts
of their faith. Moderates who condemn violence do not win theological
debates against their more devout counterparts.
In
part, it is this ignorance of Islam that explains why most Muslims, particularly
in the West, do not believe that theirs is a violent religion. They are
removed from the true teachings of Islam and rely on others, such as family
members or friends, to convey what their religion is supposed to be. Often
the result is a moral framework that mimics the Judeo-Christian tradition, but
is based on a tenuous foundation of wishful thinking and minor episodes from the
life of Muhammad that are relatively insignificant or found in later historical
accounts that are considered to be unreliable by true scholars.
Muslims are a broad and
diverse group. As such, the Muslim individual should never
be stereotyped under any circumstances on the basis of religion. If any
judging is necessary, then (as with all persons) it should be based only on an
individual's words and deeds - not their group identity.
This does not mean that
Islam is an acceptable ideology. The violent history and
bigoted teachings
of the faith, particularly the dual nature whereby non-Muslims are less than
equal, is very much a threat regardless of the best intentions of the best
Muslims.
There is a reason why there are no apologies. Islam
is not a religion that invites
introspection within itself or true dialogue with other faiths. Despite
the millions of victims of Jihad over the centuries, there are no memorials to
lost lives and lost cultures to be found anywhere in the Muslim world.
This even includes the Armenian genocide of the 20th century, which claimed over
a million innocents.
Whereas Western religion often inspires humility, Islam breeds personal
superiority. Though rare exceptions certainly exist, the Islamic community
is generally characterized by arrogance and indifference to the lives and welfare of
unbelievers. Unless it occurs directly to them, there is nothing that
approaches true rage over terror in the name of Allah or honest sympathy for its
victims.
Muhammad's legacy was a political ideology that commands its followers to fight those
outside the faith until they either convert to Islam or accept complete
subjugation to Islamic rule. There simply is no such thing as an
innocent infidel
exempt from the threat of death - except those who demean themselves to
subordinate status and pay the jizya to Muslim masters. Armed with
religious teachings, today's terrorists are merely continuing what was begun
by
their prophet.
Go back to
the List of Islamic Terrorist Attacks
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