A harsh reality not politically correct

[Texas Gentleman]

Radical Islam is a religious cult based on constant, never-ending warfare. I personally am aware of no other religious tracts that are as filled with page after page of conquest, strategy and military jargon. Islam rose to prominence under the sword, and the Prophet was, above all else, a military commander determined to spread his faith by conquest and enslavement. Islam has rules for when prisoners should be released, ransomed, sold into slavery or have their throats cut. As a matter of fact, Islam has rules for everything. What to eat, how to wash, where and when and in which direction to pray. Islam has rules for the treatment of animals and the treatment of women. There is no part of daily life that is not specifically addressed, sanctioned or outlawed by Islam.

 

And contrary to post 9/11 spin, the most accurate translation of Islam is not “peace.” Prior to 9/11, the universally accepted translation of the concept of Islam was “submission.”

 

Of course, submission sounds a little more prickly to American ears. Matter of fact, it’s hard to imagine a word that would so enrage the American psyche than the concept of submission. “Tyranny,” perhaps, but tyranny is only what we are expected to submit to. Americans have fought against submission and Tyranny since there have been Americans. That’s what we do. That is who we are. And ever since the Revolution against submitting to the tyranny of King George, American revulsion with the entire idea of submission has been watered each generation by fresh waves of immigrants who have fled here escaping submission.

 

And here are two final thoughts on this issue:

First, Islam philosophically divides the world into two camps – this is Islam’s definitions, not mine -- Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. Dar al-Islam is the House of Submission. Dar Al-Harb is not the House of Infidels. It is the House of War.

 

I, and others who see a terrible threat in the growth of Radical Islam, did not invent this term. It is considerably older than my humble self; besides, I do not speak Arabic. It is their term. And unlike people determined to hide until this problem goes away, I am determined to take Islam at its word.

 

Finally, consider this: Muslims are angrily at war with Buddhists in East Asia. Muslims are at enraged with Animists in Africa. Of course, none of this approaches the sheer hatred that Muslims bear towards Hindus in the South Asia peninsula. And this foaming hatred blanches compared to the white-hot fury Muslims feel to the Christian American Crusaders. And this fury is but a candle to the incandescent, boiling, supernova of murder they feel toward the Jews.

 

Does anyone beside me detect a pattern here? You know, my Dad told me once, “Bill, if more than three people in your life are utter, total assholes, then maybe it’s you.”

 

I am not a religious person. I do not have a horse in this race. But everywhere I turn in the world today, I see Radical Islam -- and not the United States -- at war with everybody. And I have no choice but to conclude that this is not a blip or a hiccup. It is a growing threat. And it needs to be met head-on. Right now.

 

Have I slandered 1.5 billion people? I don’t know. Have I? I speak of Radical Islam. I speak of people determined to kill and terrorize to impose their religion on the rest of the world. If you are a Muslim who is against these practices, you have my respect and admiration. And, as with all other religions in the United States, I will as passionately defend your right to practice your faith in harmony and goodwill as I attack those who may carry the Crescent far, far away from your peaceful and devout beliefs. But I will not pretend I do not see and hear what I see and hear every single day, just because you may not like to hear it. That is not something I or millions of my countrymen will submit to. Accept, or at the very least, understand that right now. I say this for both our sakes.

 

The philosophy of Radical Islam is at war, not only with America and the West, but with everything that is not Radical Islam. So, do they hate us? Yes they do.

 

Judging from their street demonstrations, and the rhetoric issuing from their madrassas, does anyone seriously doubt that if millions were given a button that would wipe us from the face of the earth, they would push it?

I don’t see how any rational person could deny this is so.

They are working on that button, by the way.

 

Those who would have you doubt America and the West want you to believe that there are many legitimate grievances that Islamists have against us. They argue that they are only acting against American and Western aggression, colonization and arrogance. So it’s all our fault and if we’d just come home and mind our own business everything would be dandy.

 

Unfortunately, when you actually listen to the Islamists talk about their “grievances” (hey, Reuters! These “quotes” really do perform as advertised!), they will start at the Crusades and work their way forward, in no particular order.

 

Sadly for those who want you to believe they hate us for what we do rather than who we are, Uncle Sam was not at that fight – a fact that might be apparent had their historical knowledge predated 1968. Americans were not only quite spectacularly underrepresented at the Crusades…we in fact do not make much of a dent on the Islamist bloody roll-call until the middle 1970’s. Before then it was the Franks and the Spanish and the English and just about everyone else.

 

Why are these people still seething about things that happened a thousand years ago?

 

Well, because it’s been that long since Islam was a dominant force in the world. It’s like watching a Red Sox fan pining for the days of the Babe and the lost glory of that 1918 season.

 

The truly remarkable, astonishing and galling issue here is that while the multi-culturalists are the ones shrieking the loudest about understanding different people and different values, they are the ones absolutely least willing to take themselves at their own words and so they consistently apply western thought models to people who think nothing like we do.

 

We are a co-operative society. Compromise, agreements and webs of trust run through our culture in mind-blowing levels of complexity. The most virulent Islamist Arabs, on the other hand, live by completely different rules and values, and time and again we who should know better by now refuse to try to see things through Arab eyes because the view is frankly so jaundiced and horrible we really can’t believe what we are seeing.

 

Honor and shame trump everything in that world. A pithy sentence, eh? So instead, think about what it would take for you to kill your own daughter with a knife, with your bare hands, because she was seen in the company of a man not her husband or a relative? Think about that. Think long and hard. What kind of hatred and shame could drive a human being to do such a thing? What kind of pressures does that society bring to bear on an individual to make him capable of that? How different is their view of women, of family, of honor and shame? What would it take for you to murder your daughter with a knife, or a knotted cord – with your own two hands and against her pleading, her protestations, and her begging for her life? If your response wasn’t “there is nothing that could make me do that,” then stop reading right here and get the badWord off my property.

 

Multi-culturalists will respond that Honor Killings are not the norm and not representative of Islam and life under Shariah. We can debate the exact numbers of these horrors for days, but the fact remains that no matter how many individual cases there are, there is de facto legal protection for committing these crimes.

 

When Islamic schoolgirls attempting to escape a burning building with their faces uncovered were sent back inside to die by the religious police rather than dishonor Islam …well, that is a brush that will carry a lot of tar.

 

There is a simple enough reason why these Islamists so hate and despise the West, and America especially. It has little to do with our foreign policy. We have taken the side of oppressed Muslims in Kosovo, Chechnya, Kuwait and many other places. We spend billions of dollars a year in aid to Egypt. We’re still waiting for the love to pour in.

 

No, this is not about reason, as we understand the term. This is about shame, it is about denial, and it is about transcendent revenge. Shouts of Allahu Akbar! were not overdubbed by western propaganda agencies as they sawed through Nick Berg’s throat and twisted off his head. Those are authentic. As they got down to their filthy work they were screaming, over and over in a fit of religious ecstasy: God is Great! Nick Berg was nothing more than an animal sacrifice to them. That is Radical Islam.

 

The only thing that will appease them is your blood. All of it. Remember that.

 

They are the willing architects of their own brutal oppression. They are dirt poor – not because of what was done to or stolen from them, but because of what they have done to themselves. This harsh, vicious, bitter patriarchy of control and domination has systematically and methodically wrung out of life the smallest joy or happiness. The Ayatollah Khomeini, the Santa Claus for your eternity in badWord, famously remarked that:

 

"Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious."

 

And yet, in a very different desert on the far side of the world, sits... Vegas.

 

There was no issuance of demands prior to 9/11. 9/11 was not a response to acts taken by the United States government. 9/11 was never about what we have done. 9/11 was an attack on Who. We. Are.

 

In the world today there exists a 21st Century society with unimagined freedoms, opportunities and protections for the individual. Opposing it is a 12th Century religious cult bound in concepts of tribalism, shame, revenge and envy.

 

The presence of Las Vegas makes a mockery of these people’s lives. They have been taught that they are God’s own chosen people – but they are humans, as human as we are. And so, shackled to an ideology determined to wring every precious drop of enjoyment out of life, they look across the world to see a group of people enthusiastically breaking every commandment they were ever given, and not only do these heathens (they see) prosper beyond the wildest tales from the Arabian Nights, but they are enjoying themselves beyond any measure as they do so. These tortured souls can vaguely guess, lying in bed late at night, that even the lowest and most common working man or woman in America can, once a year, travel to Las Vegas and live a few days in luxury unknown to the grandest Caliph in the very flower of their history. You’ve got to admit, if that were you – that would suck.

 

The success, the strength – indeed, the very presence of the United States tells them that their religion has been lying to them. They, who follow every stricture, who submit to every admonition, who put away every single shred of enjoyment have been told they are the chosen people of God, and that the World shall become their domain and its citizens their slaves and concubines.

 

Not happening.

 

This fact is not lost on them. They are told it is because they are not devout enough. They are pointed toward 19 Warriors of the Faith, pure in heart, and what they can accomplish against the Great Satan. What other explanation can they accept? That their entire religion, their entire culture, their entire history of failure, torture, hardship and ruin is their own fault? That it will not, it cannot change, and must be discarded? That there is nothing for them but more of the same endless misery, while everyone else in the world grows richer, freer, and happier?

 

No. That is not going to happen. We are their test. God has promised them the world, and, if you will forgive the trendy internet reference: all our base are belong to them.

 

To them, we and our pursuit of happiness are intolerable. More intolerable is the incredible appeal our culture has for people – especially young people – all around the world.

 

Our 21st Century society can easily survive the cultural appeals of their 12th century one. The reverse is certainly not true. Radical Islam, without Jihad, without the promise of elevation and achievement through death, cannot survive in the world we have created.

 

One way or another, it is going to be Them or Us. Everybody knows this, and no one will say it.

 

The primary reason for us to be in Iraq is not to liberate her people so that they can be free. It is, quite bluntly, to liberate her people so that we can be free.

 

Freedom, prosperity and progress are antithetical to the Death Cult rising in that region and spreading its hatred and violence throughout the world.

 

Iraq presents an opportunity, a chance, for a different way. A free and stable and prospering Iraq demonstrates to everyone on this Earth that Arab society can be free of both secular and theological totalitarianism alike.

 

A functioning, modern Iraq, where people can live their lives free of fear and oppression, where they can worship as they themselves see fit without imposing their beliefs on a neighbor or having them imposed on oneself, where they can perform the simple miracles of going to work each day, earning a living and coming home to a night of television with the family without knowing terror every second of every day: that is what will set them free.

 

Syria, Iran, Al Qaeda and all the rest fear this very greatly. If we succeed in Iraq – we and the Iraqis, together – they know that their own downtrodden and oppressed people will start asking pointed questions about their own corrupt and joyless societies. And when it is possible to be a Muslim, and have a sense of quiet pride that does not come from death and revenge but from hard work and a safe and prospering family…well, I believe – we, many of us believe – that they will follow Frankie’s advice.

 

They will Choose Life.

 

They are human, like we are. They will choose life over death. I believe this with all my heart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the above are some excerpts from;

http://www.ejectejecteject.com/

[Guest Abbas]

You are right about the radicals.

 

You are wrong in the following parts:

 

1. "First, Islam philosophically divides the world into two camps – this is Islam’s definitions, not mine -- Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. Dar al-Islam is the House of Submission. Dar Al-Harb is not the House of Infidels. It is the House of War."

 

- False. There is a third, dar al-Sulh (the abode of treaty). It is forbidden to break a treaty in Islam. If you did not know this, you should have done your homework. If you knew and decided to skip it, that is worse.

 

2. "Honor and shame trump everything in that world."

 

-- this is their culture and you have to respect it. You don't go to their countries and impose on them that they let you fool around with their sisters. You are free to let your sister do what she pleases. I think that you will live with that, since you don't like imposing one's values on others.

 

3. "Islam rose to prominence under the sword, and the Prophet was, above all else, a military commander determined to spread his faith by conquest and enslavement."

 

-- Any mediocre historian would tell you that this is a false statement. It is taken literally from discredited Orientalist writings.

 

4. "Matter of fact, it’s hard to imagine a word that would so enrage the American psyche than the concept of 'submission.' "

 

-- wrong again. Millions of Americans go to churches and mosques every week to hear words about "submission" to God, which is what Islam means. Submission to humans is, rightfully, not to be tolerated by Americans or others.

 

Again, I agree that radicalism and extremism are diseases. But so is counter-extremism that speaks in gross generalizations and gross ignorance. Before we appoint ourselves as wise-guys, we have to learn the basics, don't you think?

[Guest Guest]

Abbas,

Please find my comments bellow ,Let me tell you that I had been rasied in a moslim family

 

 

1. "First, Islam philosophically divides the world into two camps – this is Islam’s definitions, not mine -- Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. Dar al-Islam is the House of Submission. Dar Al-Harb is not the House of Infidels. It is the House of War."

 

- False. There is a third, dar al-Sulh (the abode of treaty). It is forbidden to break a treaty in Islam. If you did not know this, you should have done your homework. If you knew and decided to skip it, that is worse.

 

Can you explain this third one Dar Alsulh. Why do you think our religious Shiaks used to talk only about the two as if there is no third. Is it politics or because some don't believe in the third one?

 

 

3. "Islam rose to prominence under the sword, and the Prophet was, above all else, a military commander determined to spread his faith by conquest and enslavement."

 

-- Any mediocre historian would tell you that this is a false statement. It is taken literally from discredited Orientalist writings.

 

 

But most Islamic Sira tradition would emphasis that Alrasool Mohamed was spending his life in fighting and doing Ghazawa's . Go to Sira Ibn Hisham and tell how much out of it,is talking about his fights? I do remember back home , when we study the early islamic history of Islam, it was just Higra, bader fight, Uhud fight Khandak fight, Khaiber fight then Mecca surrender fight and the other Ghazwa.. What that would tell me is that his most life is to fight. So can you explain why do you think that the above is false.

[Guest Abbas]

-- "Can you explain this third one Dar Alsulh. Why do you think our religious Shiaks used to talk only about the two as if there is no third. Is it politics or because some don't believe in the third one?"

 

I do not know which Shayks you read (you say that you do not know Arabic, so in which language did you read them?)

 

The "dar al-Sulh" is the place where the government is not Islamic and it is not at war with Islam. The Muslim state makes treaties with such states and it is not allowed to Muslims to break these treaties. All Islamic jurists that I have read made this point. For more, you can see:

Bassam Tibi, "War and Peace in Islam."

 

-- The wars you mentioned and said the Prophet (pbuh) fought were all in self-defense. They were not to force people to convert to Islam. And the blood-shed was minimal:

 

Badr: Muslims killed only 70 men (the current literature use the word "war" for fighting that causes 1000 dead or more). The POWs from that battle were set free after each one taught 10 Muslims how to read and write.

 

Uhud was fought in self-defense and less than 70 men were killed.

 

Khandaq was fought in defense of Madina and only one man was killed (Do you call this a war?)

 

The surrender of Mecca (not even one man got killed). All the people of Mecca were forgiven for their past transgressions against Muslims (torture, confiscation of property, and the like).

 

These facts do not support your statement that ""Islam rose to prominence under the sword, and the Prophet was, above all else, a military commander determined to spread his faith by conquest and enslavement."

 

It is OK to be hostile, so long as you are objective and factual.

[newMoslim]

Abbas,

I am the one with the last comment. I just registered to this interesting site!

 

Thank you for your reply and seems that there is some confusion.

I do not know which Shayks you read (you say that you do not know Arabic, so in which language did you read them?)

I never said that I don't know arabic.. As for Shiekhs, I am not saying they never talked. I personnaly never heard them ,They might thought. Going to mosques and listening to TV interviews , I never run into this third one. Thanks educating me about it.

 

 

-- The wars you mentioned and said the Prophet (pbuh) fought were all in self-defense. They were not to force people to convert to Islam. And the blood-shed was minimal:

 

My point was not regarding the legitimacy or size of these wars.. I was commenting on your statement. The way I knew him through reading Sira books and through my back home history and religious topics at school was all about fights"wars" .. It might be realistic what the writer of this post article was mentioning about prophet personality and history.

[Guest Abbas]

I thought that you wrote the comment and the main article. I based my comment about Arabic on this paragraph:

 

"I, and others who see a terrible threat in the growth of Radical Islam, did not invent this term. It is considerably older than my humble self; besides, I do not speak Arabic. It is their term. And unlike people determined to hide until this problem goes away, I am determined to take Islam at its word."

 

All my comments were replies to the main article. Please note!

[newMoslim]

Abbas,

What is surprising to me, is that most of fellow sholar moslims are refusing the idea that the prophet history was mainly fighting and killing infidals. At a time that is what our common Islamic teachings and history told.

Last year there was a documentary by an American PBS station called " The empire of faith" , most moslim scholars that had contributed to the documentary were emphasising the idea of what you had mentioned above . I mean the legitimacy and kind way that the prophet was fighting his enemies.

I thought that they were doing a mistake, as I assume you are doing, by getting into such defensive style. Let me explain my point.

 

Rather than defeding this alleged history, let us ask if that history as a whole had been put in the right context. The prophet lived for more than 60 years, more than 20 of them as prophet.. How much time is needed for these fights? we know that the longets of them with all preparations might not take more than weeks.. We might come with about couple of months out of his 60 years for the whole fights .. So the question is , what he was doing over the the rest 90% of his life?

 

Based on the Quran , the Suras that talk about fights might not cover more than 5% of the whole book.. The question is how this would comply with our known Islamic religios knowlege and teachings both at schools and among our moslim sholars..

 

Indeed the writer was right as far as our islamic "formal" books tell, the issue is not with his understanding, the issue is with the way we understand and write our history.

 

Please let me know if you agree with me..