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December 27th, 2017 News You Can Use

When and why the West began to ‘demonize’ Muhammad (Hint: It started even before his death in 632 AD)

(PJ MEDIA) — by Raymond Ibrahim

To understand any phenomenon, its roots must first be understood. Unfortunately, not only do all discussions on the conflict between Islam and the West tend to be limited to the modern era, but when the past, the origins, are alluded to, the antithesis of reality is proffered: we hear that the West—itself an anachronism for Europe, or better yet, Christendom—began the conflict by intentionally demonizing otherwise peaceful and tolerant Muslims and their prophet in order to justify their “colonial” aspirations in the East, which supposedly began with the Crusades.

Bestselling author on Islam and Christianity Karen Armstrong summarizes the standard view: “Ever since the Crusades, people in the west have seen the prophet Muhammad as a sinister figure…. The scholar monks of Europe stigmatized Muhammad as a cruel warlord who established the false religion of Islam by the sword. They also, with ill-concealed envy, berated him as a lecher and sexual pervert at a time when the popes were attempting to impose celibacy on the reluctant clergy.”

That nothing could be further from the truth is an understatement. From the very first Christian references to Muslims in the seventh century, to Pope Urban’s call to the First Crusade more than four centuries later, the “Saracens” and their prophet were consistently abhorred.

Thus, writing around 650, John of Nikiu, Egypt, said that “Muslims”—the Copt is apparently the first non-Muslim to note that word—were not just “enemies of God” but adherents of “the detestable doctrine of the beast, that is, Mohammed.”[i] The oldest parchment that alludes to a warlike prophet was written in 634—a mere two years after Muhammad’s death. It has a man asking a learned Jewish scribe what he knows about “the prophet who has appeared among the Saracens.” The elderly man, “with much groaning,” responded: “He is deceiving. For do prophets come with swords and chariot? Verily, these events of today are works of confusion…. you will discover nothing true from the said prophet except human bloodshed.”[ii] Others confirmed that “there was no truth to be found in the so-called prophet, only the shedding of men’s blood. He says also that he has the keys of paradise, which is incredible.”[iii]

Muhammad is first mentioned by name in a Syriac fragment, also written around 634; although only scattered phrases are intelligible, they all revolve around bloodshed: “many villages [in Homs] were ravaged by the killing [of the followers] of Muhammad and many people were slain and [taken] prisoner from Galilee to Beth…” “[S]ome ten thousand” people were slaughtered in “the vicinity of Damascus…”[iv] Writing around 640, Thomas the Presbyter mentions Muhammad: “there was a battle [Adjnadyn?] between the Romans and the Arabs of Muhammad in Palestine twelve miles east of Gaza. The Romans fled… Some 4,000 poor villagers of Palestine were killed there … The Arabs ravaged the whole region”; they even “climbed the mountain of Mardin and killed many monks there in the monasteries of Qedar and Bnata.” A Coptic homily, also written around the 640s, is apparently the earliest account to associate the invaders with (an albeit hypocritical) piety. It counsels Christians to fast, but not “like the Saracens who are oppressors, who give themselves up to prostitution, massacre and lead into captivity the sons of men, saying, ‘we both fast and pray.’”[v]

Towards the end of the seventh and beginning of the eighth centuries, learned Christians began to scrutinize the theological claims of Islam. The image of Muslims went from bad to worse. The Koran—that “most pitiful and most inept little book of the Arab Muhammad”—was believed to be “full of blasphemies against the Most High, with all its ugly and vulgar filth,” particularly its claim that heaven amounted to a “sexual brothel,” to quote eighth century Nicetas Byzantinos, who had and closely studied a copy of it. Allah was denounced as an impostor deity, namely Satan: “I anathematize the God of Muhammad,” read one Byzantine canonical rite.[vi]

But it was Muhammad himself—the fount of Islam—who especially scandalized Christians: “The character and the history of the Prophet were such as genuinely shocked them; they were outraged that he should be accepted as a venerated figure.”[vii] Then and now, nothing so damned Muhammad in Christian eyes as much as his own biography, written and venerated by Muslims. For instance, after proclaiming that Allah had permitted Muslims four wives and unlimited concubines (Koran 4:3), he later declared that Allah had delivered a new revelation (Koran 33:50-52) offering him, the prophet alone, a dispensation to sleep with and marry as many women as he wanted. In response, none other than his favorite wife, Aisha, the “Mother of Believers,” quipped: “I feel that your Lord hastens in fulfilling your wishes and desires.”[viii]

Based, then, on Muslim sources, early Christian writers of Semitic origins— foremost among them St. John of Damascus (b. 676)— articulated a number of arguments against Muhammad that remain at the heart of all Christian polemics against Islam today.[ix] The only miracle Muhammad performed, they argued, was to invade, slaughter, and enslave those who refused to submit to him—a “miracle that even common robbers and highway bandits can perform.” The prophet clearly put whatever words best served him in God’s mouth, thus “simulating revelation in order to justify his own sexual indulgence”[x]; he made his religion appealing and justified his own behavior by easing the sexual and moral codes of the Arabs and fusing the notion of obedience to God with war to aggrandize oneself with booty and slaves.

Perhaps most importantly, Muhammad’s denial of and war on all things distinctly Christian—the Trinity, the resurrection, and “the cross, which they abominate”—proved for Christians that he was Satan’s agent. In short, “the false prophet,” “the hypocrite,” “the liar,” “the adulterer,” “the forerunner of Antichrist,” and “the Beast,” became mainstream epithets for Muhammad among Christians for over a thousand years, beginning in the late seventh century.[xi] Indeed, for politically correct or overly sensitive peoples who find any criticism of Islam “Islamophobic,” the sheer amount and vitriolic content of more than a millennium of Western writings on Muhammad may beggar belief.

Even charitable modern historians such as Oxford’s Norman Daniel—who rather gentlemanly leaves the most severe words against Muhammad in their original Latin in his survey of early Christian attitudes to Islam—makes this clear: “The two most important aspects of Muhammad’s life, Christians believed, were his sexual license and his use of force to establish his religion”; for Christians “fraud was the sum of Muhammad’s life…. Muhammad was the great blasphemer, because he made religion justify sin and weakness”; due to all this, “There can be no doubt of the extent of Christian hatred and suspicion of Muslims.”

Even the theological claims behind the jihad were examined and ridiculed. In his entry for the years 629/630, Theophanes the Confessor wrote: “He [Muhammad] taught his subjects that he who kills an enemy or is killed by an enemy goes to Paradise [Koran 9:111]; and he said that this paradise was one of carnal eating and drinking and intercourse with women, and had a river of wine, honey and milk, and that the women were not like the ones down here, but different ones, and that the intercourse was long-lasting and the pleasure continuous; and other things full of profligacy stupidity.”[xii]

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December 25th, 2017 News You Can Use

Islam’s rise and the West’s denial

(CATHOLIC WORLD REPORT) — William Kilpatrick on what the spread of militant Islam means for the future of the West.

November 20, 2012

William Kilpatrick is an author and lecturer who taught for many years at Boston College and whose articles on Islam have appeared in numerous publications, including Investor’s Business Daily, FrontPage Magazine, the National Catholic Register, and World magazine. He has written several books, including Psychological Seduction and Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right from Wrong, and his most recent book, Christianity, Islam and Atheism: The Struggle for the Soul of the West, will be released next week from Ignatius Press. Kilpatrick recently spoke with Catholic World Report about Islam and its growing significance for the West.

CWR: You begin by noting that, yes, there is some common ground between Christianity and Islam, but the differences are far more important. What are the most important differences between the two religions?

William Kilpatrick: Beneath the surface similarities lie important and largely irreconcilable differences. Islam rejects the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection. In fact, associating partners with Allah—as Christians do—is considered the very worst sin. Chapter nine, verse 30 of the Koran says, “the Christians call Christ the son of Allah…Allah’s curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the truth.” Moreover, the God of the Koran bears little resemblance to the God worshiped by Christians and Jews. Although he occasionally expresses solicitude for Muslim widows and orphans, he shows little in the way of mercy, compassion, or justice, and he appears to hate non-Muslims with a vengeance. The Koran is full of lurid descriptions of the fate that awaits unbelievers in hell.

The two faiths also differ sharply in their vision of paradise. Heaven for Christians means union with God and the fellowship of the saints. For Muslims heaven means union with 72 “high-bosomed” and eternally youthful virgins. That’s for males, of course; the Koran is unclear about what sort of heaven women will enjoy. These differing views of paradise have very serious practical implications in the here and now. The Islamic version of paradise creates quite an incentive for young men to try to get there as quickly as possible. And, according to Islamic tradition, the only sure route is by “killing and being killed in the cause of Allah.” Take Mohamed Atta. Due to an airline mistake his luggage was left behind in Boston on the day of the 9/11 flight. When authorities later opened it they found a wedding suit, a bottle of cologne, and a letter expressing his anticipation of marriage to his 72 heavenly wives. As Richard Weaver wrote, “ideas have consequences.”

CWR: The Second Vatican Council and the Catechism of the Catholic Church mention Islam briefly and rather positively. Otherwise, there isn’t much in the way of official Church statements on Islam. Why is that? Is there a need for such?

Kilpatrick: Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions, includes two short paragraphs sketching out several commonalities between Christians and Muslims. It must be remembered, however, that finding commonalities was precisely the task set forth in the initial paragraph of the declaration: “She [the Church] considers above all in this declaration what men have in common….” In light of this and in view of its brevity, Nostra Aetate can hardly be considered to be the Church’s final word on Islam—although some Catholics have taken it to be just that. The statement about Muslims in the Catechism is even shorter—only 44 words—and merely echoes Nostra Aetate’s observation that both Christians and Muslims worship the One God.

How do you account for this minimalist treatment? The probable answer is that at the time of the Vatican Council, militant Islam was fairly quiescent, and the Church fathers were far more concerned with the threat from atheistic communism. Now that Islam is once again set on subjugating the rest of the world, Catholics need to be given a fuller picture of Islam, if for no other reason than that their survival may depend on it. Catholics and other Christians have been lulled into complacency by the simplistic notion that Christians and Muslims share much in common. For example, when a Catholic reads that Muslims worship the same God and revere the same Jesus he does, he might easily jump to the conclusion that Islam is really a religion of peace and that terrorists are “misunderstanders” of their Islamic faith. That is a very naïve view to hold in these very dangerous times.

CWR: “This book,” you write in the introduction, “is intended, in part, as a wake-up call.” What is the Western world missing? And, more specifically, what are Catholics missing when it comes to rightly gauging and studying Islam today?

Kilpatrick: One thing that the West doesn’t grasp is that Islam is a political religion with political ambitions. Omar Ahmad, the co-founder of the Council on American Islamic Relations, has said that “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith but to be dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.” Numerous Islamic authorities have expressed similar sentiments. The supposedly moderate Imam Feisal Rauf, the initiator of the Ground Zero mosque project, wrote an article for the Huffington Post containing the observation, “What Muslims want is a judiciary (in the US) that ensures that the laws are not in conflict with the Qur`an and the Hadith.” What he means is that US law must be brought in line with Islamic sharia law. Since very many provisions of sharia law are considered criminal under US law, that would mean the overthrow of much of our legal code.

Many Catholics also fail to realize the political nature of Islam and imagine that a mosque, like a church, is simply a place of worship. But a mosque is more than that. Political and community issues are dealt with in a mosque, and calls to jihad are frequently issued in mosques. For example, many of the “Arab Spring” demonstrations were set in motion from mosques following the Friday sermons. Moreover, there are many instances of mosques being used for mentoring terrorists or for storing arms and explosives. According to a popular Muslim poem:

The mosques are our barracks,

the domes our helmets

the minarets our bayonets

And the faithful our soldiers

Many Muslims think of Islam not only as a religion but also as an army—an army with a mission of subjugation. That’s why the penalty for apostasy is death. Just as a deserter from an army in time of war may be punished with the death penalty, so also a deserter from the army of Islam.

The political nature of Islam ought to give pause to Catholics who think they can dialogue with Muslims in the same way they dialogue with Baptists or Jews. A recently concluded series of Catholic-Muslim dialogues sponsored by the USCCB highlights the problem. It turns out that the bishops’ dialogue partners are all members of Muslim activist groups with links to the Muslim Brotherhood. One of the counterparts, Sayyid Syeed, is a prominent figure in the Islamic Society of North America—a group that was designated as an unindicted co-conspirator in a massive terrorist funding scheme. One wonders if the bishops fully understand who they are dealing with.

CWR: How has Islam, worldwide, changed since the mid-20th century?

Kilpatrick: It’s changed for the worse. The Muslim world was far more moderate in the mid-20th century than it is now. That’s in large part because secular strongmen in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and elsewhere acted as a restraining force on the more extreme manifestations of Islam. But as these rulers were swept aside, often with the help of the West, traditional Islam was able to assert itself, and traditional Islam is, in many senses, more oppressive and dictatorial than the dictators it replaced. Egypt, Iraq, and Iran, for example, were far more Westernized and secularized than they are now. Young women didn’t wear hijabs or ankle-length chadors, and as Ali Allawi—a former Iraqi cabinet minister—writes, “Muslims were more likely to identify themselves by their national, ethnic, or ideological affinities than by their religion.” Allawi observes of Iraq in the 1950s: “It appeared to be only a matter of time before Islam would lose whatever hold it still had on the Muslim world.” The recent revival of traditional, militant Islam is, in many respects, a reaction to that loss of faith. The new breed of Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood preachers are intent on recalling Muslims to the full practice of their faith—including the “forgotten obligation” of jihad.

CWR: Why is it that so many secularists attack and mock Christianity but treat Islam with a strangely milquetoast sort of respect? How much of this is rooted in a flawed multiculturalism?

Kilpatrick: The attacks on Christianity are not rooted in a flaw in multiculturalism, but rather in the nature of multiculturalism. The multicultural creed is based on the fiction that all cultures, religions, and traditions are roughly equal. But there is no equivalence between the achievements of Western Christian civilization and Islamic civilization. In order to equalize them it’s necessary to pull down Christianity and the West while applying affirmative action whitewash to Islam. This, of course, leads to any number of bizarre double standards. For example, Mayor Tom Menino of Boston stated that the Chick-fil-A restaurant chain was not welcome in Boston because its president does not approve of gay marriage, while the same Mayor Menino has been very welcoming to Islamic groups that, in addition to wanting to abolish gay marriage, also want to abolish gays. Mayor Menino gave a speech at the ribbon-cutting ceremony of a very large mosque built by the Islamic Society of Boston. Not only that, he donated a $1.8 million parcel of municipal land to the project. One of the seven trustees of the Islamic Society of Boston is the world-renowned Imam Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who believes that gays should either be burned to death or thrown from a high place. So, in Boston, what’s sauce for the goose is not necessarily sauce for the chicken fillet.

A more ominous development is that there now exists a tacit alliance between radical secularists and radical Islam. The most obvious example of this is the alliance between Islamic Iran and leftist Venezuela, but there are many other examples. Leftist professors regularly work with members of the Muslim Student Association (a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot) toward furthering Islamic goals. The campaign against the supposed hate crime of Islamophobia has been largely engineered by the left. And the leftist Justice Department has done its best to undercut the ability of law enforcement to investigate terrorist activities. Muslims, for their part, quickly learned to employ the methods pioneered by secular militants. Muslim activists groups portrayed themselves as civil rights groups and labeled any resistance to their agenda as hateful, bigoted, racist, and Islamophobic. At the same time, these Muslim groups can rely on the secular media to portray them in the best possible light.

CWR: Many parts of Europe appear to be succumbing, in one way or another, to Islamization. What about the United States?

Kilpatrick: The US is on the same river as Europe, but not as close to the falls. It appears, however, that it’s trying hard to catch up. During the last three administrations, Muslim activists have worked hard to gain positions of influence in the government, and with great success. Muslim activist groups convinced the Department of Homeland Security to delete words like “jihad,” “Islamist,” and “terrorist” from their lexicon. In compliance with Muslim demands the Justice Department ordered the military to delete from its training manuals any suggestion that there is a connection between Islam and violence. And the State Department played a major role in enabling the Muslim Brotherhood to come to power in North Africa. Moreover, the State Department has been working with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation for more than a year toward the goal of establishing anti-blasphemy laws or something akin to them. If the effort succeeds, criticism of Islam will then be a crime—as it already in many European countries. Meanwhile, a steady flow of Saudi money helps to ensure that college students learn only an Islam-friendly version of history and current events.

At first glance it would appear that Islamization is unlikely here because the Muslim population is small and, unlike Europe, America is a churchgoing nation with a healthy birthrate. But there is still reason for alarm. Although Christianity is in much better shape in America than in Europe, there has been a significant decline in the number of those who self-identify as Christians and a significant increase in the number of atheists, agnostics, and those who identify with no religion. Moreover, if American Christians haven’t been able to resist the growth of anti-religious secularism, how likely is it that they will be able to resist the efforts of dedicated and well-funded cultural jihadists?

In addition, America’s healthy birthrate is not as healthy as it first appears, because 41 percent of those births now occur out of wedlock. Fifty-five percent of Hispanic children are born out of wedlock, as are 72 percent of black children. As they grow older, children born into unstable families are more likely to see the structured life of Islam as a solution rather than as a problem.

Islamization is not simply a numbers game. For an analogy, consider that homosexuals make up only 2 to 3 percent of the population, but have nevertheless exerted an outsize influence on public policy and school curriculums. Of course, they have been able to do this with the help of liberal elites in media, academia, the courts, and the entertainment industry. But remember that Islamic activists have the backing of the very same people.

Islamization won’t happen tomorrow in America, but there is a distinct possibility that our children will grow up in an America dominated by Islam. It’s not necessary to be a majority or anywhere near a majority in order to dominate. Throughout history Islamic warriors have managed to subdue populations much larger than their own. If America is eventually subjugated, however, it won’t be the result of armed jihad, but of cultural jihad—the steady incremental advance of sharia law through agitation, propaganda, lawfare, political activism, and infiltration of key governmental and educational institutions. Many Muslim leaders have made it plain that they plan to subjugate America under Islam. We should take them seriously.

CWR: What do you think of the current approach taken by our government toward Islam in the Middle East?

Kilpatrick: Our policies have enabled the creation of a Middle East that is far more radical than it once was. The media likes to refer to terrorists as “misunderstanders” of Islam, but it is our government that misunderstands Islam. In failing to understand Islam we have cooperated in the ascendancy of the most extreme types of Islamists. As a result, much of the Muslim Middle East is falling into the hands of our enemies. One of the immediate results has been intensified persecution of Christians. As bad as they were, the previous secular rulers at least provided some protection to Christians. Now, Christians are increasingly subject to intimidation, confiscation of property, forced conversions, rape, mob attacks, and murder.

Another result of our misguided policies is that Israel is now surrounded by people who seek its annihilation. Hatred of Jews is deeply rooted in the Koran and in Islamic tradition. In helping to bring to power those Muslims who adhere most closely to the Koran, we have put Israel in a precarious position. The new, Muslim Brotherhood-led government of Egypt has already signaled its intention to break its peace treaty with Israel. All of this was entirely predictable for anyone with a basic knowledge of the Muslim Brotherhood.

CWR: What must Christians do to address and cope with the problems presented by the spread of Islam?

The first thing Christians need to do is inform themselves about Islam. Christians, like secularists, tend to view Islam through a multicultural lens and assume that Islam is like other religions. But it is not. Islam is not a religion of peace, but a religion of conquest that aims to subjugate non-Muslims. This isn’t just a theory. Look at every nation where Muslims rule and you will find that non-Muslims are assigned an inferior status. In studying Islam, Christians will also find that the Jesus of the Koran is nothing at all like the Jesus of the Gospels. In fact, he seems to have been introduced into the Koran for the sole purpose of contradicting the Christian belief in Jesus as the son of God. The Church also has an obligation to more fully inform Catholics about Islam. The treatment of the subject in Nostra Aetate and the Catechism of the Catholic Church are brief and inadequate. Catholics need to know a great deal more about Islam and have to move beyond the simplistic assumption that because God and Jesus and Mary are in the Koran, everything must be okay.

As I said earlier, Christians must realize that Islam is a political religion, and they need to be aware that religious overtures on the part of Muslims are often nothing other than political maneuvering. For example, Christians should avoid being pulled into Islam’s anti-blasphemy/anti-defamation campaign, because the ultimate goal of this campaign is to criminalize criticism of Islam. And, by the way, simply to assert the divinity of Christ is a blasphemy of the highest order according to the Koran.

Likewise, Christians should be careful about aligning themselves with Islamic activist groups on religious freedom issues. When Muslim leaders talk about freedom of religion, they mean freedom to practice sharia—a legal, social, political, and theological system that is inimical both to Christianity and the First Amendment. Muslim spokesmen are quite willing to affirm their belief in religious freedom because according to Islamic tradition there is only one religion—Islam. Under Islamic law, all other religions are considered abrogated. In Muslim countries, religious freedom for non-Muslims is either non-existent or greatly restricted. Christians who are tempted to partner with Muslims in the cause of religious freedom need to recall Christ’s words about “sheep in the midst of wolves.”

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December 17th, 2017 News You Can Use

Islam vs. Non-Muslims: Doctrinal Sources

(MIDDLE EAST FORUM) — by Raymond Ibrahim

Originally published under the title “Islam’s Three Worst Doctrines.”

Conflict between Muslims and the West is rooted in three interrelated teachings of Islam.

Because Islam gets criticized for many things — from hostility to modernity and democracy to calls for theocratic rule, radical “patriarchy,” misogyny, and draconian punishments, to name a few — it is helpful to step back and distinguish between those (many) doctrines that affect Muslim society alone, and those that extend to and affect Western or non-Muslim peoples in general.

On doing this, three interrelated doctrines come into sharp focus. They are: 1) total disavowal from, and enmity for, “the infidel,” that is, constant spiritual or metaphysical hostility against the non-Muslim (in Arabic known as al-wala’ w’al bara, or “loyalty and enmity”); this naturally manifests itself as 2) jihad, that is, physical hostility against and—whenever and wherever possible—attempts to subjugate the non-Muslim); finally, successful jihads lead to 3) dhimmitude, the degrading position of conquered non-Muslims who refuse to forfeit their religious freedom by converting to the victor’s creed.

Loyalty and Enmity

There is no doubt that mainstream Islam advocates the separation of Muslims from non-Muslims, believers from infidels, clean from unclean. Koran 5:51 warns Muslims against “taking the Jews and Christians as friends and allies … whoever among you takes them for friends and allies, he is surely one of them,” that is, he too becomes an infidel, or kafir, the worst human classification in Islam.

The doctrine of loyalty and enmity (الولاء والبراء‎) is central to discussions of Muslim faith.

Koran 3:28, 4:89, 4:144, 5:54, 6:40, 9:23 all have the same message; 58:22 simply states that true Muslims do not befriend non-Muslims—”even if they be their fathers, sons, brothers, or kin.” But Koran verses further call on Muslims to have enmity—hate—for non-Muslims: “We [Muslims] renounce you [non-Muslims]. Enmity and hate shall forever reign between us—till you believe in Allah alone” (Koran 60:4). As the Islamic State explained in an unambiguously titled article, “Why We Hate You & Why We Fight You,” “We hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers.”

The flipside of al-wala’ w’al bara is that Muslims are commanded to befriend and aid fellow Muslims—including jihadis, for example through funds (or zakat). As one Muslim authority summarizes, the believer “is obligated to befriend a believer—even if he is oppressive and violent toward you—while he must be hostile to the infidel—even if he is liberal and kind to you” (The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 64 ). This loyalty to fellow Muslims and enmity for non-Muslims is fundamentally responsible for the metaphysical or “spiritual” clash between Islam and the West. Add to enmity the fact that Muslims are permitted to lie to non-Muslims—including by feigning loyalty or friendship—and it becomes apparent how dangerous the doctrine of “loyalty and enmity” is: among other things, disloyalty to infidels (see here, here, and here for examples), and a “mafia mentality,” whereby all Muslims must overtly or covertly work together, suggests that hostility for non-Muslims, even when unseen, is ever present.

Jihad

Notwithstanding ubiquitous popular usage of the term, jihad (جهاد) has distinct theological meaning and implications.

Jihad—war on non-Muslims for no less a reason than that they are non-Muslims—is the physical manifestation or realization of enmity for “infidels.” Not only is it natural to attack and seek to subjugate those whom one is bred on hating, but the doctrine of jihad, including to spread and enforce Sharia around the world, is part and parcel of Islam; it is no less codified than Islam’s Five Pillars. As the Encyclopaedia of Islam’s entry for “jihad” puts it, the “spread of Islam by arms is a religious duty upon Muslims in general … Jihad must continue to be done until the whole world is under the rule of Islam … Islam must completely be made over before the doctrine of jihad can be eliminated.”

One can continue quoting any number of authorities, especially Muslims, saying that jihad to subjugate the world is an ironclad aspect of Islam. Even the late Osama bin Laden—who would have had the West believe that al-Qaeda’s terror is a byproduct of political grievances—when speaking in Arabic to Muslims made it perfectly clear that the doctrine of jihad is the root problem: “Our talks with the infidel West and our conflict with them ultimately revolve around one issue… Does Islam, or does it not, force people by the power of the sword to submit to its authority corporeally if not spiritually? Yes. There are only three choices in Islam… Either submit, or live under the suzerainty of Islam, or die.”

Dhimmitude

But as infidels are to be hated per se and not merely in the context of jihad—the ability of which to prosecute is often curtailed by circumstances—the hostility continues even after the cessation of successful jihads.

The term dhimmitude was coined by the late Lebanese President Bashir Gemayel to encapsulate the theologically-rooted demands and expectations pious Muslims have of Christian and Jewish subjects. Writer Bat Ye’or later popularized the term.

Unlike other conquerors and conquests that generally permit the conquered to go on unmolested so long as they do not challenge the new order—some even try to appease and win over their new subjects—whenever and wherever Islam conquers, that old metaphysical hostility which fueled the jihad remains to gloat in triumph over the subject infidels. Thus, not only must the latter pay a special tax (jizya), embrace a subordinate positon, and follow a number of debilitations—they must also be reminded and made to feel inferior and despised, including as a way to “inspire” them to convert to the “true” faith.

As the Islamic State explained in the aforementioned article, regardless of any and all appeasement offered by the non-Muslim, “we would continue to hate you because our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam. Even if you were to pay jizyah and live under the authority of Islam in humiliation, we would continue to hate you.”

These three interrelated teachings of Islam are the roots of conflict between Islam and the West.

Either way, Islam wins: If the non-Muslim continues in his faith, the Muslims continue to prey off him; if, on the other hand, the non-Muslim eventually “surrenders” to Islam, the umma gains a new recruit (with death as the penalty should he later entertain second thoughts and apostatize).

These three interrelated teachings of Islam—loyalty and enmity, jihad, and dhimmitude—are unequivocally grounded in Islamic law, or Sharia. They are not matters open to interpretation or debate. By eliminating or lessening the focus from all those other “problematic” teachings that affect Muslims only—but which tend to be conflated with those (three) teachings that directly affect the non-Muslim—one can better appreciate, and thus place the spotlight on, the true roots of conflict between Islam and the West.[READ MORE ]

November 28th, 2017 News You Can Use

Jihadis all want one thing – Sharia law imposed on the world

(UNDERSTANDING THE THREAT) — By John Guandolo

Unanimously, all of the violent jihadi groups (Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, Boko Haram, Abu Sayef, Al Shabaab, Hamas, Hizbollah…), the suit-wearing jihadis of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the 57 Islamic members of the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) – the heads of state of all 56 Islamic nations plus the Palestinian territories – clearly state they seek to impose sharia (Islamic Law) on the earth.

Jihadis – “terrorists” if you prefer – arrested or killed in Europe and North America all state they do what they do for the sake of Islam’s god “Allah.”

Jihadis (sharia adherent muslims) state they are muslims waging jihad in the cause of Allah to establish an Islamic State (caliphate) under sharia (Islamic Law).

All Islamic sources – from the gold standard of Islamic jurisprudence in the world (Al Azhar in Cairo, Egypt) to Islamic elementary and junior high schools – define Islam as a “complete way of life governed by sharia.”

According to the most widely used text book in Islamic junior high schools in the United States (What Islam is All About): “Islam is not a religion, however, but a complete way of life” (p2); “The Shari’ah is the ideal path for us to follow” (p354); “The basis of the legal and political system is the Shari’ah of Allah” (p381); “If anyone dies in a Jihad they automatically will go to Paradise” (p164); “The duty of Muslim citizens is to be loyal to the Islamic State” (p382).

There are two sources of sharia: the Koran and the Sunnah (the example of Islam’s prophet Mohammad).

A “muslim” is one who submits to Islam. To submit to Islam is to submit to Allah’s law – sharia.

The Koran

According to Islam, the Koran is the “un-created word of Allah.”

The contents of the Koran were revealed to Islam’s prophet Mohammad between the years 610 A.D. and 632 A.D. in the Arabian peninsula (modern day Saudi Arabia) through an angel. The Koran has 114 chapters or suras.

The Koran states (2:106, 16:101) that whatever was revealed to Mohammad chronologically last legally overrules anything that came before it. This is the Koranic concept of “abrogation.” Islamic scholars have published lists of the 114 Koranic chapters in chronological order.

Allah revealed his message to Mohammad progressively over time. In Mohammad’s first 13 years in Mecca, he converted less than 200 people, and there is no mention of jihad. Then Mohammad made the hijra (migration/flight) to Medina. It should be noted this is when the Islamic calendar begins. It is also when Mohammad arrives in Medina the first revelations of jihad come.

In Medina, Mohammad became a political and military leader and raised an army of converts to Islam. Sharia comes from the Koranic verses revealed to Mohammad in Medina.

Chapter 9 is the last chapter in the Koran (chronologically) to discuss jihad and, therefore, legally controls all others.

For pagans the Koran 9:5 states: “Fight and slay the unbeliever wherever you find them, capture and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush (strategem of war).”

According to sharia, Pagans must convert to Islam or be killed.

Koran 9:29 states: “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”

“People of the Book” (Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians) must be invited to Islam, and if they refuse they must be asked to submit to sharia, pay the non-muslim poll tax (jizya) or be killed.

Tafsir

Every verse in the Koran has been legally defined in a book called the Tafsir. The most authoritative Tafsir scholar in Islam is a man named Ibn Kathir.

Tafsir ibn Kathir defines Koran verse 9:5 as follows: “This is the Ayah (verse) of the sword…’and capture them’ (legally means) executing some and keeping some as prisoners…’and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush’ (legally means) do not wait until you find them. Rather, seek and besiege them in their areas and forts, gather intelligence about them in the various roads and fairways so that what is made wide looks ever smaller to them. This way, they will have no choice, but to die or embrace Islam.” (Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Vol 4, pages 375-376)

Many Islamic Centers/mosques across the United States host weekly Tafsir classes.

The Sunnah

The Koran states Mohammad is an “exhaulted standard of character” (68:4) and a “beautiful pattern of conduct” (33:21) for muslims to follow for all times. If Mohammad did it or said it, it is an example for all Muslims to follow for all time.

His words and deeds are recorded in the authoritative biographies (Sira) and the collection of the Hadith (reports) or stories about him. In Islam, the most authoritative hadith are by a man named Bukhari.

The Prophet said, “The hour of judgment will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. It will not come until the Jew hides behind rocks and trees. It will not come until the rocks or the trees say, ‘O Muslim! O servant of God! There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him.” Bukhari 2926: Book 56, Hadith 139

“Allah’s Messenger said: ‘I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah’s Messenger, and offer the prayers perfectly and give the obligatory charity, so if they perform that, then they save their lives and property from me except for Islamic laws and then their reckoning (accounts) will be done by Allah.’” Bukhari 25: Book 2, Hadith 18

Mohammad participated in beheading 600-900 Jews after the Battle of the Trench, tortured, approved the killing of people who mocked him, married a six year old girl and consummated the marriage when she was 9, and waged war against all who would not submit to Allah’s law.

100% of sharia mandates jihad until the world is under Islamic rule and 100% of sharia only defines “Jihad” as “warfare against non-muslims.”

The stated purpose of Islam is not to convert or kill everyone, but to submit the earth to Allah’s law – sharia.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB) published by-laws and all of their doctrine make clear the MB was created to “establish Allah’s law in the land.”

The largest terrorism financing trial ever successfully prosecuted in American history – US v Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), Dallas 2008 – identifies the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) as being a part of the MB’s Islamic Movement in North America whose stated objective is to wage “Civilization Jihad” to establish and Islamic State under sharia.

In other words, the Muslim Brotherhood – ie the most prominent Islamic organizations in the United States – has the same objective as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Interestingly, ISNA, ICNA, and CAIR, are also the organizations leading/driving all “Interfaith Outreach” in the United States.

Sharia kills. Stop the Muslim Mafia.

AUTHOR JOHN GUANDOLO is a US Naval Academy graduate, served as an Infantry/Reconnaissance officer in the United States Marines and is a combat veteran, served as a Special Agent in the FBI from 1996-2008, and was recruited out of the FBI by the Department of Defense to conduct strategic analysis of the Islamic threat. He is the President and Founder of Understanding the Threat (UTT).

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November 26th, 2017 News You Can Use

Islam: A giant step backwards for humanity

(CREEPING SHARIA) — by William Kilpatrick

One of the big mysteries of our day is how so many supposedly enlightened Catholics have managed to get it so wrong about Islam for so long. It’s understandable that in the 1960s, when the Islamic world was relatively quiescent, Catholics might entertain the high hopes for Islamic-Catholic relations expressed in Nostra Aetate. But this is 2017 and in the intervening half century a lot of water has passed under the bridge.

Given all that has transpired in the interim—9/11, daily terror attacks, the accelerating Islamization of Europe, and the development of nuclear weapons by Pakistan and Iran—it seems that Catholics deserve to know more about Islam than the brief treatment presented in Nostra Aetate or the even briefer treatment in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Catechism’s forty-four words on the subject end with the reassurance that “together with us they [Muslims] adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day” (842). Unfortunately, that has been interpreted by a good many clergy and laymen to mean “go back to sleep and don’t worry about a thing.”

To get an idea of how nonchalant the Church leadership has been about providing guidance on Islam, consider that the Catechism devotes about five times as much space to a discussion of man’s relationship with animals than it does to the Church’s relationship with Muslims.

It’s not just that many clergy and lay Catholic leaders fail to appreciate the deep differences in theology between Islam and Christianity, they fail to grasp the deep cultural and human differences that flow from the theological differences. To put the matter bluntly, Christianity is a humanizing religion and Islam is not. That statement needs some qualifying, of course; but there is enough difference between the Christian vision of the human person and the Islamic vision, that Catholic leaders should be extremely careful before declaring common cause with Islam. The many declarations of commonality and solidarity with Islam that now routinely issue from the lips of Church leaders only serve to confuse and mislead Catholics.

Theologically, the most significant fact about Islam is that it is an anti-Christian movement. That’s one of the main themes in Nonie Darwish’s book, Wholly Different. Darwish who grew up in an Islamic society and subsequently converted to Christianity, contends that Islam is a counter-revolutionary faith: a rejection of core Bible beliefs. As she puts it:

[Muhammad] didn’t just quietly reject the Bible. Instead, he launched a ferocious rebellion against it… Islam is a negative religion, consumed with subversion. It is a rebellion and counter-revolution against the Biblical revolution.

The Biblical revolution was not only a revolution in our thinking about God, but also a revolution in our thinking about man. The most revolutionary moment occurred when God took on our humanity and became one of us. As Pope St. John Paul II observed, the Incarnation not only reveals God to man, it reveals man to himself.

In rejecting the Incarnation, Muhammad also rejected the heightened status of humanity that flows from it. This is not to say that this was his intention from the start. Islam didn’t begin as an anti-Christian theology, but it was almost inevitable that it would develop that way. Muhammad considered himself to be a prophet, and he wanted very much to be recognized as such. The trouble is that a prophet has to have a prophetic message. And, after Jesus revealed himself as the Son of God and the fulfillment of all prophecy, there wasn’t much left to say in that line.

Realizing this, Muhammad set about to retell the story of Jesus, recasting him not as the Son of God but as another—and lesser—prophet. This demotion of Jesus thus cleared the way for Muhammad’s claim to prophethood. (Faced with a similar problem, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church, came up with a similar solution. In his telling, Jesus failed in his assigned task of marrying and creating a perfect family, thus leaving it up to Moon to carry out the unfinished mission.)

Jesus is in the Koran, but he has, in effect, been neutralized. He is not divine, he was not crucified nor resurrected, and he plays no role in the redemption of the human race. In fact, there is no suggestion in the Koran that mankind needs to be redeemed. One has to believe in Allah and his messenger (Muhammad) and obey Allah and his Messenger, and Allah will probably (there is no certainty) admit him to paradise. But one does not have to be born again.

We talk about “radical” Islam, but, in a sense, there is nothing radical about Islam. It does not require a radical transformation of the self as does Christianity. In Islam, man is not made in the image of God. Consequently, there is no call to holiness, no requirement that “you … must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5:48). The radical transformation in Christ which prepares one for communion with God is not necessary since man’s destiny is not union with God, but union with maidens in paradise. There is no need of spiritual transformation because heaven is simply a better version of earth.

That’s one way of looking at human destiny. But the Christian view is altogether different. Saint Paul wrote “we … are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18), and “though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed everyday … preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:16-17).

Whatever one may think of the truth of the Christian message, the message is that humans have a very high calling. The difference between this vision of man and the rather low estimate of human potential contained in the Koran is profound. It’s a wonder that so many Catholics are willing to dilute that vision for the sake of creating an illusory moral parity with Islam.

Islam’s lack of interest in human transformation begins with the lack of human interest in the Koran. Although it was composed some 600 years after the Gospels, it contains none of the drama of the Gospels—no divine drama and no human drama. Instead, it is a collection of disconnected statements, warnings, and curses, interspersed with Muhammad’s own versions of stories borrowed from the Bible.

Even when he retells these stories, Muhammad seems largely incapable of infusing the prophets and heroes of the Bible with personality. Indeed, the only character in the Koran that Muhammad seems truly interested in is himself.

In order to emphasize his humility, Islamic apologists like to say that Muhammad is only mentioned four times in the Koran. I haven’t counted but that seems about right. Nevertheless, Muhammad manages to mention himself on nearly every page—sometimes as the “Messenger,” sometimes as the “Apostle,” sometimes as the “Prophet,” and nearly always as the indispensable intermediary between Allah and men. This repeated emphasis on his role as a prophet is also found in the hadith collections. For example, “I have been sent to all mankind and the line of the prophets is closed with me” (Sahih Muslim, book 004, number 1062).

Other than Allah, Muhammad is the main person of interest in the Koran. Which brings us back to the place of Jesus in the Koran. The truth is, he plays only a minor role. He is mentioned as one of the prophets on several occasions, and on a few other occasions he is given some lines to speak. On one of these occasions he assures Allah that he did not ever claim to be God: “I could never have claimed what I have no right to” (5:116).

Jesus has a place in the Koran, but only because he knows his place. His role is to remove the main obstacle to Muhammad’s claim of prophethood. Who better than Jesus to renounce Jesus’ claim to Sonship and thereby clear the way for Muhammad to be the seal of the prophets?

But, in stripping Jesus of his divinity, Muhammad also managed to strip him of his humanity. The Jesus of the Koran is simply not an interesting person. Indeed he hardly qualifies as a person. He seems more like a disembodied voice.

When Christians hear that Jesus is in the Koran, they assume that he must be someone like the Jesus of the Gospels. Thus they can reassure themselves that although Muslims don’t accept Christ’s divinity, they will at least become familiar with his life. Anyone who bothers to read the Koran, however, will be quickly disabused of that notion. There is no life of Jesus in the Koran. There is no slightly altered version of the gospel story. Indeed, there is no story at all—just a few brief appearances in order to make the point that Jesus is only a man, not the Son of God.

This abbreviated treatment of Jesus in the Koran is matched by a diminished view of the human person. In Islam, man is little more than a slave of Allah. He can achieve paradise, but paradise is essentially a heavenly harem. According to the Christian vision, man’s destiny is union with God. According to the Islamic vision, man’s destiny is to copulate.

In rejecting the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation, Muhammad also rejected the Christian vision of a redeemed humanity. The fact of the Incarnation raised the status of man immeasurably—“no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir” (Gal. 4:7). That’s why Christmas carols are so full of joy. As one hymn reminds us, the night of our Savior’s birth becomes the moment at which “the soul felt its worth.” Thanks to Muhammad’s dismal vision, however, all this is missing in Islam—no “joy to the world,” no “hark the herald angels sing,” no “ding-dong merrily on high.”

In light of the comparative bleakness of the Islamic vision, it is difficult to understand why so many Catholic prelates and theologians insist on identifying Islam as a fellow faith with which we have much in common. Likewise, it’s not easy to comprehend why so many of them want to declare their solidarity with Islam.

Theologically and humanly, Islam represents a giant step backwards. It would take us back to a time when the idea of human dignity was considered laughable—to a time when slavery was unremarkable and women were valued less than men and sometimes less than animals.

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November 2nd, 2017 News You Can Use

What the great thinkers and leaders of the West had to say about Islam

(UNDERSTANDING THE THREAT) — Read here what Theodore Roosevelt, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Winston Churchill, John Quincy Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams had to say about Islam.

Theodore Roosevelt On Islam’s Incompatibility with the West
(“Social Values and National Existence”, Papers and Proceedings of the American Sociological Society, vols 9-10, 1916)

It is utterly impossible to appreciate social values at all or to discriminate between what is socially good and socially bad unless we appreciate the utterly different social values of different wars. The Greeks who triumphed at Marathon and Salamis did a work without which the world would have been deprived of the social value of Plato and Aristotle, of Aeschylus, Herodotus, and Thucydides. The civilization of Europe, America, and Australia exists today at all only because of the victories of civilized man over the enemies of civilization, because of victories stretching through the centuries from the days of Miltiades and Themistocles to those of Charles Martel in the eighth century and those of John Sobieski in the seventeenth century. During the thousand years that included the careers of the Frankish soldier and the Polish king the Christians of Asia and Africa proved unable to wage successful war with the Moslem conquerors; and in consequence Christianity practically vanished from the two continents; and today nobody can find in them any ” social values” whatever, in the sense in which we use the words, so far as the sphere of Mohammedan influence and the decaying native Christian churches are concerned. There are such “social values” today in Europe, America, and Australia only because during those thousand years the Christians of Europe possessed the warlike power to do what the Christians of Asia and Africa had failed to do, that is, to beat back the Moslem invader. It is of course worth while for sociologists to discuss the effect of this European militarism on “social values,” but only if they first clearly realize and formulate the fact that if the European militarism had not been able to defend itself against and to overcome the militarism of Asia and Africa, there would have been no “social values” of any kind in our world today, and no sociologists to discuss them.

Saint Thomas Aquinas on Islam
(Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 1, Chapter 6)

The case is clear in the case of Mohammed. He seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of flesh goads us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and gave free reign to carnal pleasures. In all this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proof of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a modest wisdom.

Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity. He did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to divine inspiration; for a visible action that can only be divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of truth.

On the contrary, Mohammed said that he was sent in the power of his arms–which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants. What is more, no wise men, men trained in things divine and human, believed in him from the beginning.

Those who believe in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of divine teaching through whose numbers Mohammed forced others to become his followers by the violence of his arms. Nor do divine pronouncements on the part of preceding prophets offer him any witness.

On the contrary, he perverts almost all the testimonies of the Old and New Testaments by making them into fabrications of his own, as can be seen by anyone who examines his law. It was, therefore, a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to read the Old and New Testaments, lest these books convict him of falsity. It is thus clear that those who place any faith in his words believe foolishly.”

Winston Churchill on Islam
(Winston Churchill, The River War (Volume II, 1st edtion), pgs 248-250)

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men…Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it.

No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.

Winston Churchill in the House of Commons, 14 June 1921

“A large number of Bin Saud’s followers belong to the Wahabi sect, a form of Mohammedanism which bears, roughly speaking, the same relation to Orthodox Islam as the most militant form of Calvanism would have bourne to Rome in the fiercest times of the religious wars. The Wahabis profess a life of exceeding austerity, and what they practice themselves, they rigorously enforce on others. They hold it as an article of duty, as well as of faith, to kill all who do not share their opinions and to make slaves of their wives and children. Women have been put to death in Wahabi villages for simply appearing in the streets. It is a penal offense to wear a silk garment. Men have been killed for smoking a cigarette, and as for the crime of alcohol, the most energetic supporter of the temperance cause in this country falls far behind them. Austere, intolerant, well-armed, and bloodthirsty, in their own regions the Wahabis are a distinct factor which must be taken into account, and they have been, and still are, very dangerous to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and to the whole institution of the pilgrimage, in which our Indian fellow-subjects are so deeply concerned.”

John Quincy Adams on Islam

“In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar [i.e., Muhammad], the Egyptian, […..] Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind.

THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST. TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE….Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. The war is yet flagrant … While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men.

Thomas Jefferson & John Adams on Islam

In 1786, Thomas Jefferson, then the ambassador to France, and John Adams, then the ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the ambassador to Britain from Tripoli. The Americans asked Adja why his government was hostile to American ships, even though there had been no provocation. The ambassador’s response was reported to the Continental Congress, where the original letter remains today. “That it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Qur’an, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman [Muslim] who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.”

September 16th, 2017 News You Can Use

What is the purpose of Islamic centers/mosques in America?

(UNDERSTANDING THE THREAT) — Many Americans believe a mosque or Islamic Center is simply a “Muslim church.” This could not be further from the truth.

In Islam, Mohammad is considered the al Insan al Kamil – the perfect example of a man. Anything he did is considered the example for all Muslims to follow for all time. Muslim men can marry girls as young as six years old because Mohammad did. Mohammad beheaded Jews at the Battle of the Trench, so this is an “excellent example” for Muslims to follow. And Mohammad built mosques.

Islam defines itself as a “complete way of life (social, cultural, political, military, religious)” governed by sharia (Islamic Law). There is no separation of politics, religion, or military operations. Mohammad was a political, religious, and military leader. The mosque was and is a place where politics, religion, community, and military affairs are all combined.

Mohammad used mosques as a place for the community to gather and learn about Islam. It was a place to store food, water, weapons, and ammunition. It was a place where jihadis lived and trained. It was also the place where battles were planned and the place from which battles were launched. So, that’s what a mosque is.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB) strategic plan for North America entitled “An Explanatory Memorandum” was discovered during an FBI raid in Annandale, Virginia in 2004 at the home of a senior Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood leader. This document was entered into evidence in the largest terrorism financing and Hamas trial ever successfully prosecuted in American history – US v Holy Land Foundation (HLF), Dallas, 2008.

Regarding mosques/Islamic Centers, An Explanatory Memorandum states:

“Understanding the role and the nature of work of “The Islamic Center” in every city with what achieves the goal of the process of settlement (Civilization Jihad): The center we seek is the one which constitutes the “axis” of our Movement, the “perimeter” of the circle of our work, our “balance center”, the “base” for our rise and our “Dar al-Arqam” to educate us, prepare us and supply our battalions in addition to being the “niche” of our prayers.

“This is in order for the Islamic center to turn – in action not in words – into a seed ‘for a small
Islamic society’…Thus, the Islamic center would turn into a place for study, family, battalion, course, seminar, visit, sport, school, social club, women gathering, kindergarten for male and female youngsters, the office of the domestic political resolution, and the center for distributing our newspapers, magazines, books and our audio and visual tapes…Meaning that the “center’s” role should be the same as the “mosque’s” role during the time of God’s prophet…when he marched to “settle” the Dawa’ in its first generation in Madina…From the mosque, he drew the Islamic life and provided to the world the most magnificent and fabulous civilization humanity knew. This mandates that, eventually, the region, the branch and the Usra turn into “operations rooms” for planning, direction, monitoring and leadership for the Islamic center in order to be a role model to be followed.”

In 2002, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan quoted a famous muslim refrain: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers…” further highlighting the understanding among Muslims of what a mosque it. (“Turkey’s Charismatic Pro-Islamic Leader.” BBC News. 4 November 2002)

One of the leading Islamic jurists in the world who also led the first prayers in Egypt after the successful MB revolution there in 2011 – Yusuf al Qaradawi – published a fatwa (legal ruling) on the question “Is it permissible to use a mosque for political purposes?” In it he stated, in part:

“It must be the role of the mosque to guide the public policy of a nation, raise awareness of critical issues, and reveal its enemies. From ancient times the mosque has had a role in urging jihad for the sake of Allah, resisting the enemies of the religion who are invading occupiers. That blessed Intifada in the land of the prophets, Palestine, started from none other than the mosques. Its first call came from the minarets and it was first known as the mosque revolution. The mosque’s role in the Afghan jihad, and in every Islamic jihad cannot be denied.”

There is a reason American soldiers and Marines find weapons, ammunition, and jihadis in mosques overseas, and why the French are finding weapons in mosques in France – this is what mosques are.

It is worth noting when the FBI killed Imam Luqman Abdullah in a shootout in Detroit in 2009, the complaint in the case quoted an FBI source stating he/she, “…saw and participated in extensive firearms and martial arts training inside the Masjid al Haqq (mosque).”

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September 11th, 2017 News You Can Use

Predicting the shape of Iraq’s next Sunni insurgencies

(COMBATING TERRORISM CENTER) — By Michael Knights

Abstract: All politics and security is local in Iraq. Therefore, the analytical framework for predicting the shape and intensity of Iraq’s next Sunni insurgencies should also be based on the unique characteristics of each part of Iraq. The Islamic State and other insurgents are bouncing back strongest and quickest in the areas where the security forces are either not strong enough or not politically flexible enough to activate the population as a source of resistance against insurgents.

New insurgent attacks by the Islamic State were springing up in Mosul before the ashes were even cold from the climax of the liberation battle in June 2017. With the Islamic State holding just one square mile of western Mosul, the group marked the start of the Eid religious festival by launching a wave of suicide-vest and car-bomb attacks in liberated east Mosul on June 23-24.[1] As their last inner city defensive pocket was crumbling, Islamic State forces at the edges of the city launched a 40-man raid into the Tanak and Yarmuk districts on the outer western edge of Mosul city on June 26, panicking citizens into leaving the ostensibly liberated area.[2]

These incidents, and others like them, underline the manner in which Islamic State fighters have transitioned fairly smoothly and quickly from open occupation of territory back to the terrorism and insurgency tactics that they utilized prior to 2014. All eyes are now on how the Islamic State and other Sunni militants in Iraq will adapt to the loss of terrain, but there is no need to guess. A great deal of evidence is already available in the areas that have been liberated since 2014, a theme that this author and Alexander Mello developed in an October 2016 article in this publication on threat trends in Diyala province.[3] This piece proposes an analytical framework for assessing the future strength and shape of Iraq’s Sunni insurgencies and will draw some lessons from the pre-2014 era.

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August 7th, 2017 News You Can Use

Erdogan wants the keys to Mecca and Jerusalem and will stop at nothing to expand his Muslim caliphate agenda

(SHOEBAT) — By Walid Shoebat

The one obstacle for an Ottoman Caliphate is that Saudi Arabia holds the keys to Mecca and Medina while Jordan holds the keys to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. For a Caliphate to succeed it needs to hold both keys: the keys to the Temple Mount (Al-Aqsa) and the keys to Mecca.

Erdogan wants these keys and will do everything in his power to restore what once belonged to the Ottoman Caliph, which was lost when Arabia betrayed the Ottomans by allying with the British during Ottoman fall. For that, Turkey is executing plans to redraw the Middle East region back to Ottoman times. All caliphates held such keys; the Ayyubids, the Mamluk Sultans of Egypt, the Ottoman Sultans, and then to have the modern Saudi kings hold it is unacceptable for Erdogan.

The plan to regain these keys starts by using Erdogan’s ally, Qatar, under the care of Erdogan’s neo-Ottomans. Now Qatar demands that Mecca become an international city for all Muslims while Saudi Arabia threatens “war”. In reality, this is all about control of these keys. Erdogan then moves in on Jerusalem (he must obtain these keys) demanding all Muslims to begin to visit it. What westerners do not understand is that this is expanding the Hajj to also be observed in Jerusalem as an extension of Mecca via the Umrah:

Turkey’s Directorate General for Religious Affairs (Diyanet) has included the al-Aqsa Mosque [Temple Mount] into the religious Umrah program that will be effective as of April 15. One of the Muslim pilgrimages, the Umrah, which is not compulsory but is highly recommended for Muslims who can afford it, will also include the visiting of the al-Aqsa Mosque [Temple Mount] in Jerusalem, Israel.

By next year (2018), the world will begin to see the change. In Istanbul on Thursday was hosted the signing ceremony of the “Protocol of the Declaration of Jerusalem” as the Muslim youth capital in 2018. The Turkish Daily Sabah had this to say:

“The main objective of the declaration of Jerusalem being the capital of the Muslim youth in 2018 is to attract young people to Jerusalem from all over the world and defend the Islamic sanctuaries in it.”

The whole region is realizing that they need to redraw their political and governmental structure. They either be magnetized towards Turkey and its Islamism or towards secularism.

Even Israel see this. When the Temple Mount in Jerusalem had the fiasco with metal-detectors, Turkey took the lead in fomenting the violence. Israel had to make a diplomatic choice; does it cow-tow to Turkey or seek Jordan to deal with Israel’s capitulation to remove the metal detectors. And since Jordan holds the key to the Temple Mount, Israel finally reconsidered the equation of forces, responded to Jordan’s request instead of Turkey’s. This was the only way to thwart the Islamists’ plan to pour regional chaos on Israel. Arab states fearing the end of their rule, noted the Islamists’ attempt to create chaos claiming al-Aqsa (Temple Mount) was in danger. In an interview with Al-Jazeera, Sheikh Raed Salah recently demanded a coup against these Arab regimes in the name of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Israelis saw Netanyahu’s capitulation as weakness where Israelis using social media began circulating a mock-photo of the Israeli army’s entry into Old Jerusalem in the Six-Day War of 1967. The picture was created and the faces of Islamic figures were placed in place of Israeli military figures. In the photoshopped picture, the faces of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Sheikh Raed Salah (the head of the Islamic Movement inside the Green Line) and Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories Sheikh Muhammad Hussein were installed on the bodies of the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces during the 1967 war Yitzhak Rabin and the then Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, and the commander of the central region of the army, Uzi Narkis; a picture that Jews consider historic, coming four hours after the fall of Jerusalem.

In other words, Israelis are beginning to see Erdogan’s march towards Jerusalem and Israel’s capitulation fearing Erdogan. The Islamist Turkey wants the key to the Temple Mount (al-Aqsa) and will not mind using any excuse, even the controversy over some metal detectors installed.

And to add more prophetic chips on the table, Egypt, Somalia (part of biblical Cush) and the entire Arabian Peninsula is in the cross-hairs of Turkey’s expansion. While Qatar is in Turkey’s pocket, the rift with the UAE (United Arab Emirates) is growing.

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July 24th, 2017 News You Can Use

Dawah: The call to Islam is deceptive, dangerous and deadly

(UNDERSTANDING THE THREAT) — The Koran speaks of Dawah – the Call to Islam. “We do not punish until We send a messenger.” (Koran 17:15). Tafsir Ibn Kathir, which legally defines every verse in the Koran, states this verse means Muslims cannot punish non-Muslims until they “give a warning” to them by inviting them to Islam. This is Dawah.

The Um Dat al Salik (Reliance of the Traveler), authoritative Islamic Sacred Law approved by the highest authority in Islamic jurisprudence (Al Azhar in Egypt), reveals “Dawah…as a condition for waging jihad against non-Muslims” can be found in Book O, Justice, o9.8, which reads: “The caliph makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians provided he has first invited them to enter Islam in faith and practice, and if they will not, then invited them to enter the social order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya)…and the war continues until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax in accordance with the word of Allah Most High.”

The “most perfect example of a man” in Islam is Mohammad. “When the Muslims commence battle, and they have surrounded a city or a fort, they are to invite the inhabitants to accept Islam, due to what is related by Ibn ‘Abbas ‘that the Prophet did not commence combat with a people without first inviting them to Islam.’” [Al-Hidayah, A Classical Manual of Hanafi Law, “The Rules of Warfare”]

First comes Dawah, then comes Jihad. Dawah is a legal requirement in Islam before Muslims can wage war on non-Muslims.

In May of 2006, Iranian President Ahmadinejad sent a letter to President Bush and the American people inviting us all to embrace Islam and asked, “Will you not accept this invitation?”

This was a declaration of war. Do you think leaders at the Pentagon or National Security staffs were or are aware of the Islamic Law controlling this portion of the Law of Jihad for Muslims?

In March 2010, a Muslim wrote emails to the legislatures of five (5) states including Kansas, Texas, and Missouri. The emails read, in part: (March 2nd) “We Muslims believe that Islam is the only true religion devised by God Almighty Allah and that God Almighty Allah is the master of the ‘Day of Judgment’ on which every individual is accountable…I humbly invite you to ‘ACCEPT ISLAM FOR YOUR SALVATION.’” (March 20) “All Non-Muslims are obstinately stubborn, arrogant in NOT accepting Islam…” (March 21) “This is perhaps my last email to Senators, House of Representatives/Delegates/Assembly and Staff Members…I would like you to bear witness that I have delivered you the Message of Islam to the best of my ability…I urge you again and invite you to ‘ACCEPT ISLAM FOR YOUR SALVATION’!”

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