A Matter Of Degree

Resolved: the principle difference between World War III (the Cold War) and World War IV (the "Global War on Terror") was that in the former, our enemy was not the people of the former Soviet Union and "captive nations" of the Baltic and Eastern Europe, but just their communist rulers, whereas in the latter the enemy is both the jihadis (active belligerents in the terrorist organizations and sponsor regimes, i.e. Iran and Syria) and the bulk of the so-called "moderate" Muslims (passive belligerents who raise neither finger nor voice in condemnation of the "holy warriors" who wage mayhem in their name).

We begin with the very candid column by Daniel Pipes in the Australian, wherein he lays out, with the bark on, the true, unabashed objectives of bin Laden, Zarqawi, the mullahs and their ilk:

In nearly all cases, the jihadi terrorists have a patently self-evident ambition: to establish a world dominated by Muslims, Islam and the sharia. Or, again to cite the Daily Telegraph, their real project is the extension of Islamic territory across the globe and the establishment of a worldwide caliphate founded on sharia.

Terrorists openly declare this goal. The Islamists who assassinated Anwar Sadat in 1981 decorated their holding cages with banners proclaiming "The caliphate or death".

A biography of Abdullah Azzam, one of the most influential Islamist thinkers of recent times and an influence on Osama bin Laden, declares that his life "revolved around a single goal, namely the establishment of Allah's rule on earth" and restoring the caliphate.

Bin Laden spoke of ensuring that "the pious caliphate will start from Afghanistan". His chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, also dreamed of re-establishing the caliphate, for then, he wrote, "history would make a new turn, God willing, in the opposite direction against the empire of the US and the world's Jewish government". Another al-Qa'ida leader, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, publishes a magazine that declares: "Due to the blessings of jihad, America's countdown has begun. It will declare defeat soon", to be followed by the creation of a caliphate.

Or, as Mohammed Bouyeri wrote in the note he attached to the corpse of Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film-maker he assassinated last November, Islam will be victorious through the blood of martyrs who spread its light in every dark corner of this earth.

The standard politically-correct response to this self-evident truth is that these are just "extremists" who have "hijacked" their religion, which is described even by President Bush as one of "peace." This notion is usually taken to the extent of the jihadis not even being genuinely Muslim but rather "fascists" cloaked in Islamic piety, which is the root of the promiscuously used term "Islamofascist." I, myself, once coined the term "Islazi," which I thought was far less clumsy, but still sprang from the same reluctance to offend "peace-loving" Muslims.

But Mr. Pipes then throws in a kicker that opens the way to the fundamental denial at the heart of that mindset:

Although terrorists state their jihadi motives loudly and clearly, Westerners and uslims alike too often avert their eyes. Islamic organisations, Canadian author Irshad Manji observes, pretend that "Islam is an innocent bystander in today's terrorism". [emphasis added]

This New York Sun article explores this assertion in substantial depth. Speaking of the poor relatives of the Egyptians (i.e. Muslims) maimed or slain in last week's Sharm el-Sheik bombing, Fiamma Nirenstein writes:

You understand many things about terrorism when you speak to them; and you understand also, unfortunately, why we will never be able to count on what we call "the moderate Muslims" for the war against terrorism....These guys are the typical "moderate Muslim" that the holy rage of the jihadists destroys with fury, the one infected by the contact with the West and also the one that in our Western dreams and in many European and American experts' analyses should suddenly rise against the "extreme Islam," their enemy.

So, let's test this thesis and ask: "Do they hate terrorists?" The answer is "Yes, very much so," and they really do, - they close their fists and watch in rage and repeat to me that they deeply hope that Mr. Mubarak will catch them all, will put them in prison, will kill them. Are they ready to fight them? Yes, at every level, with their hands, if requested, and with demonstrations that actually, while I'm in Sharm, suddenly appear in the hot streets and just in front of the cameras of the international press: "Down with terrorism," "We are against terrorism"...

But then, if it's so, why can the great "moderate" Muslim world not really fight their own enemy?

They themselves give me the answers: "Bin Laden? The Muslim Brotherhood? Certainly the terrorist attacks are not their work, no! This is a lie. A Muslim could never do this. And if they say they do it in the name of Islam, they are not Islamic; or, most likely, this shows, like the television says, that someone uses the name of Islam just to hide the real perpetrators."

Anyhow, Islam is out of the question, And then, we ask again, who is behind the attacks? Well, you know the answer, they smile with a smart expression....the television said that only the Israelis and the Americans have a real interest in seeing Egypt on its knees; General Fuad Allam said that the perpetrators of the Taba attack of October 2004 were apparently linked to the Israeli security forces, and so, supposedly, it is today. Also Al-Jazeera and even Al-Arabia interviewed "experts" to confirm this point of view. A big, beautiful guy with a red T-shirt just puts it down bluntly: "We know only what the television tells us."

It's suddenly clear to me that here television is a metaphor for "knowledge" and for "power": printed paper, school texts, Friday sermons in the mosques, everything is "television" for this guy and his hundreds of millions of "moderate Muslim" friends. And everything points to the Israeli as an object of hate....

So, we cannot count on "moderate" Arabs...The dream palace of the Arab, after the terrorist attack in Sharm, just like the thousands of attacks in Iraq and in Israel, is still there; the summer camps of Hamas still teach that it's good to kill the Jews; several madrassas work full time as centers of recruitment; the television broadcasts an "analysis" that charges the Mossad and the CIA with mass murders. The dictators of the Arab countries, in this case Mr. Mubarak, don't let Khaled know who the guys that cut their legs are. So, Khaled can be as "moderate" as we want, but so long as that fascist culture of hate is there, we can count only on ourselves. [emphases added]

Sounds like the O.J. Simpson jury writ into an entire culture, doesn't it? And, if one is honest, one must ask what the actual difference is between Mohammed Atta on one hand and Mahmoud or Khaled on the other beyond one of degree. If the former are committing mass, indiscriminate murder of Muslim and "infidel" alike in the name of the latter's religion and the latter reflexively and cynically spout wittingly dishonest denials and excuses, can't the latter be said to be in tacit approval of it? And they sure don't seem to be a minority of "moderate" Muslims.

Ah, you might be thinking, that's a criticism of Arab culture more than it is Islamic religion. But the fact of the matter is that there is very little difference between the two. Quite unlike Christianity, which is not theocratic in the least, Islam, via sharia law, is oriented toward dominating every aspect of its adherents' every day life, including civil government. Everything is to be subservient to it, without exception. And this, in turn, is why the Middle East is the mess that it is. Even the secular autocratic Arab states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Pakistan derive their autocracy from this central cultural notion of the state being over all and Islam being over the state. Here too, the difference seems to be merely one of degree.

A couple of years ago Frontpage magazine held a three-part symposium on this topic. Speaking for the view that Islam is not a "religion of peace" was Robert Spencer, an adjunct fellow with the Free Congress Foundation and author of Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith.

You can follow the links and read the whole thing. Here I will quote several key points of Mr. Spencer's that his opponents were unable to substantively refute:

*[T]o justify such chilling views extremists make copious use of the Qur’an and Islamic history and tradition. Militant Muslims point to traditions of Muhammad such as this well-attested hadith: “I have been commanded to fight against people, till they testify to the fact that there is no god but Allah, and believe in me (that) I am the messenger (from the Lord) and in all that I have brought. And when they do it, their blood and riches are guaranteed protection . . .”

*The fundamental difference between Islam and Christianity is that only Islam has a tradition and doctrine that sanctions war against unbelievers. Only Islam has an entire institution of war and violence elaborated and endorsed by the greatest Muslim theologians and jurists from classical Islam to the present day. The Maliki jurist Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani said: “Jihad is a precept of Divine institution. . . . [Non-Muslims] have the alternative of either converting to Islam or paying the poll tax (jizya), short of which war will be declared against them.” As’ad, show me where this doctrine has been renounced by any major Islamic sect, as Christians of all sects have renounced the "theology" of the Crusades. You cannot do so, because this is still part of Islam.

*When a man as eminent as Iran’s former UN Ambassador Sa’id Raja’i-Khorassani can say that the idea of human rights is a “Judeo-Christian invention” foreign to Islam, it does no good to dismiss this as a minority view. Why are these “extreme” views in power not just in Iran, but all over the Islamic world? Muslim moderates need to show plainly why this “extreme” Islam is illegitimate - not to convince Westerners, but their fellow Muslims who are falling prey to this “extremism” in large numbers.

*The idea that fanaticism in all religions is equivalent is absurd. You see how you have to stretch to associate Falwell with killing; it’s unfortunately much easier to associate Muslim “extremists” with killing because these radicals work from the traditional teachings of Islam that preach war and violence.

The historical “mainstream” view of jihad is articulated by the great Hanbali jurist Ibn Taymiyya. He agrees with the other schools of Sunni jurisprudence: “Since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is God’s entirely and God’s word is uppermost, therefore according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought. As for those who cannot offer resistance or cannot fight,. . . they shall not be killed unless they actually fight with words (e.g. by propaganda) and acts (e.g. by spying or otherwise assisting in the warfare).”

This is an elaboration of Muhammad’s words in a strong Hadith from Muslim, Bukhari, and Abu Dawud: “I have been commanded to fight against people, till they testify to the fact that there is no god but Allah, and believe in me (that) I am the messenger (from the Lord) . . . And when they do it, their blood and riches are guaranteed protection on my behalf . . .” There is no doctrine remotely like this in Christianity or any other religion besides Islam.

*[T]he Qur'an...is full of ingredients that can lead to militant and murderous fanaticism.

Until that fact is faced and the Qur'an and Sunna are re-evaluated on a massive scale, murderous fanaticism will be a part of Islam, and not a small, insignificant part either. If you can eradicate it, I will applaud. But I don't think you will be able to do so.

Thus, the difference between the Qur'an's "slay the unbelievers wherever you find them" (Sura 9:5) and the Bible verses he quotes is that in Islam, violence is not justified by twisting a few scattered verses; instead, it's enshrined in tradition and theology.

Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan, translator of the Hadith collection Sahih Bukhari, explains that the Qur'an's violent verses actually take precedence over its peaceful ones: "At first 'the fighting' was forbidden, then it was permitted and after that it was made obligatory." S. K. Malik in The Qur'anic Concept of War explains that Allah gave Muslims "a divine command making war a religious obligation for the faithful." All four schools of Sunni Muslim jurisprudence - Shafi'i, Maliki, Hanafi, and Hanbali - teach an elaborate doctrine of jihad that sanctions killing in the name of Islam. Said the great Muslim jurist, philosopher, and historian Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406): "In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the [Muslim] mission and [the obligation to] convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense... Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations."

Are all these Muslims "Islamophobes"? Islam has an established tradition of Qur'an interpretation that allows modern Muslims to think themselves justified in committing acts of violence in the name of the religion. Christianity has no comparable tradition.

*Muslim authorities throughout history have maintained that violent jihad is part of the Muslim community’s responsibility. They explain it this way:

Sura 9:29 says: “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 [Christians and Jews] until they pay the Jizya [the special tax on non-Muslims] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued”.

This is the triple choice: conversion, death, or submission. This verse comes from Sura At-Tawba, the last sura revealed. If any verse contradicts it, Sura 9:29 must be given precedence because the sura from which it comes is the Qur’an’s last word on the subject. Even if the tolerance verses aren’t cancelled according to the Muslim principle of abrogation (naskh), the tolerant verses such as those you quote must be understood in light of Sura 9.

I didn’t make up this interpretation. It comes from respected Islamic authorities: Ibn Kathir, Ibn Juzayy, Tafsir al-Jalalayn, and innumerable other classic and respected Qur’an commentaries. And they were working from the Muhammad’s amplification of the triple alternative for unbelievers - conversion, death, or submission - in a strong Hadith in Sahih Muslim (4294).

You say, “If Islam’s goal is to kill or convert non-Muslims . . .” leaving out the third choice: submission. Yet that answers your question. When dealing with huge populations such as the Hindus, Muslims historically have taken this route. The Muslim record in India is one of continuing repression and humiliation of Hindus; hence the ongoing tensions between the communities today. And as for Jews and Christians living in peace in the Muslim world, they also tasted the meaning of the third alternative, submission.

Mr. Ayloush, you know full well that the Sharia teaches (in accordance with Muhammad’s triple alternative) that Jews and Christians cannot and should not be treated equal to Muslims anywhere in the Muslim world. Mr. Ayloush, tell us about the racist concept in Islamic law that labels Jews and Christians dhimmis and subjects them to humiliating regulations and the constant threat of persecution if they get out of line. Jews and Christians never were and never can be equal to Muslims under Islamic law.

If Islam’s goal is “to free people from oppression,” why didn’t you mention the thriving ancient Christian communities of Asia Minor or North Africa? Ooops - they were wiped out. Why are Christians today fleeing their ancestral homelands in the Middle East as fast as they can? I’m glad that, as you say, most Muslims have rejected all this, but I’d like to see some Muslim authorities on record doing so, and on record renouncing and apologizing for jihad and dhimmitude.

But, of course, we'll never see this, because jihad and dhimmitude are to Islam what the Great Commission and the Golden Rule are to Christianity. To repudiate either for a committed Muslim would be like cutting off (their own) arm or leg. They simply can't do it. And if they try, they can count on a fellow acolyte doing the dismembering for them.

An interesting postscript to this discussion begins with this story:

Top U.S. Muslim scholars issued a "fatwa," or religious edict, against terrorism on Thursday and called on Muslims to help authorities fight the scourge of militant violence.

American Muslims this month launched a nationwide advertising campaign in which they declared that those who committed terrorism in the name of Islam were betraying the teachings of the Koran.

Well, that's it then, right? I've been resoundingly refuted and my whole argument has collapsed.

Um, not quite:

The only thing that concerns me about the language of the fatwa is that it comes from a CAIR spokesman....

That would be the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an Islamic front organization - oops, civil rights group - that recently filed a defamation lawsuit against Andrew Whitehead of the rival Anti-CAIR on the basis of six statements about CAIR published on his organization's website.

Intriguingly, though, CAIR subsequently dropped the following libel claims:

*[CAIR is an] organization founded by Hamas supporters….

*CAIR was started by Hamas members….

*CAIR … was founded by Islamic terrorists.

*[CAIR] is partially funded by terrorists…

*CAIR receives direct funding from Islamic terrorist supporting countries

*CAIR has proven links to… Islamic terrorists

*CAIR is a fundamentalist organization dedicated to the overthrow of the United States Constitution and the installation of an Islamic theocracy in America.

*CAIR wishes nothing more than the implementation of a SHARIA law in American.

*[CAIR seeks to replace the government of the United States] with an Islamist theocracy using our own Constitution as protection....

*CAIR is here to make radical Islam the dominant religion in the United States and to convert our country into an Islamic theocracy along the lines of Iran.

Why did CAIR drop these libel claims? Because every one of them is true, and Mr. Whitehead, via an extensive and well informed set of discovery requests and documents, was fully prepared to prove it.

And remember, CAIR holds itself out as being a "moderate" Muslim organization.

UPDATE: The Counter-Terrorism Blog concurs (via Powerline):

In fact, the fatwa is bogus. Nowhere does it condemn the Islamic extremism ideology [i.e. the Koran itself] that has spawned Islamic terrorism. It does not renounce nor even acknowledge the existence of an Islamic jihadist culture that has permeated mosques and young Muslims around the world. It does not renounce Jihad let alone admit that it has been used to justify Islamic terrorist acts. It does not condemn by name any Islamic group or leader. In short, it is a fake fatwa designed merely to deceive the American public into believing that these groups are moderate. In fact, officials of both organizations have been directly linked to and associated with Islamic terrorist groups and Islamic extremist organizations. One of them is an unindicted co-conspirator in a current terrorist case; another previous member was a financier to Al-Qaeda.

The first law of war (paraphrased) teaches that if you know yourself and your enemy, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles; if you know yourself but don't know your enemy, you will lose a battle for each one you win; but if you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you're already beaten.

Four years into the GWOT a narrow majority of us know ourselves, but virtually nobody wants to acknowlege the truth about the enemy we're fighting. Because of that we are hamstringingly limiting the scope of our efforts (i.e. leaving the regimes in Damascus and Tehran intact and free to continually undermine our democracy-building efforts in Iraq and build nuclear weapons; relying passively, and futiley, upon our past accomplishments there and in Afghanistan to undermine the terror masters by example) far below what is necessary to bring this conflict to a swift and decisive conclusion.

And so the war appears to drag on with no end in sight, we're bewildered at how there can be fresh terrorist attacks here and there and maybe again here, and we steadily tire, our razor-sharp post-9/11 vigilence and determination inexorably eroding.

We don't want to acknowledge that we're at war with Islam, and that our enemies, far from being its "hijackers," are in fact the embodiment of its teachings. But denying it won't change it, any more than acknowledging it will turn the whole Muslim world against us, since, well, the whole Muslim world is pretty much already against us. The only way to change that, to bring about an Islamic Reformation (or, more accurately, Apostasization) is to discredit the Koran's jihadist ideology by utterly and remorselessly crushing it, both in terms of propaganda and on the battlefield.

It was bin Laden himself that coined the "strong horse/weak horse" analogy. To hopelessly conflate OBL with Mao Zedong, "Power comes out of the end of the strong horse. That horse must never gallop out from under the buttocks of the United States of America."

Otherwise, it just becomes a matter of degree - and time.

UPDATE: Hidely-ho, HyScience readers!