Imagine a seventh-century illiterate (probably) schizophrenic pedophile born in Mecca in the Arabian Peninsula who hallucinates an angel that tells him that God wants him to dictate a message to someone who could put it to parchment that, among other things, the Judeo-Christian tradition, with which the pedophile is familiar, is corrupt and that he has been chosen by God to correct the Abrahamic faith and align it with the doctrine of “Islam,” which in Arabic translates to “submission” or “surrender.”
Why do I ask you to imagine a pedophile? Because the man I have in mind married a six-year-old, then raped her when she was nine years old. Her name was Aisha bint Abi Bakr.
Further, imagine the man migrates from Mecca to Medina, establishes a home base there, assembles an army, then annihilates various tribes, many of them Jewish, beheading the men, raping the women, and enslaving the survivors.
This is not an exercise in imagination. This is Muhammad’s biography. I already gave it away by identifying one of his victims by name. I asked the reader to imagine it to gain some distance from the assumption that, because something is a matter of faith, it is to be taken on faith.
One would imagine such a situation to be troubling, yet I am recounting, in a thumbnail sketch, the origins of Islam, which projected Islamic doctrine far beyond the Peninsula. Today, that doctrine is the world’s bane.One would imagine such a situation to be troubling, yet I am recounting, in a thumbnail sketch, the origins of Islam, which projected Islamic doctrine far beyond the Peninsula. Today, that doctrine is the world’s bane.
Muhammad’s dictated text is the Qur’an, the primary political and religious text of Islam and arguably the worst book ever written. Today, adherents to the faith comprise more than two million of the Earth’s human population (8.3 billion). Fifty-three of the 195 UN-recognized countries and territories are Muslim-majority.
But Islam extends well beyond these countries and territories. The doctrine is in the West and is corrupting its institutions and its people. (See The Lessons of Medina and the Rational Men of the West.)
It is important to appreciate the importance of irreligious criticism. No ideological system is immune from scrutiny, even opposition. Just because an ideology contains unfalsifiable claims—such as the existence of angels, devils, or a supreme being—is no reason for making it off-limits to critique or condemnation. If the religious system is intolerable, then it must not be tolerated.
Indeed, tolerating Islam is like tolerating Nazism. Both are intolerable ideologies. There are differences, to be sure. For example, Germans did not have hindsight when they voted members of the Nazi Party into positions of authority who prepared Germany for dictatorship under the command of Adolf Hitler. The story is different with Islam. Hindsight is plentiful.
Almost 1400 years have passed since Muhammad’s conquests in the Arabian Peninsula. The world has centuries of history from which to judge the scourge of Islamofascism.
Rational judgment should result in a condemnation of Islam, a totalitarian ideology that allows no separation between church and state. Islam is not a personal relationship with God. Islam is a political system that demands hegemony over nations.
Yet people in Western societies are voting Muslims into office. The leaders of Western countries have welcomed into the West the ideology of a warlord that freezes in place the primitive, tribal culture that produced him. The doctrine carries forward his genocidal project.
There are other differences between Nazism and Islamofascism. As bad as the Nazis were, one has to acknowledge that they liked dogs and music and celebrated women. Islam comes with all the Nazi horrors and moreover dislikes dogs, declares music as haram, and loathes women. Even publishing cartoons of the prophet puts artists’ lives at risk. Islam is a paradigm of totalitarian desire. Islam is an inherently joyless ideology.
Yet we are told that describing Islam, documenting its entailments, and warning others of its peril is a special kind of “bigotry” called “Islamophobia.” Religious liberty, we are told, is sacrosanct, and therefore Islam is to be treated no differently than any other religion.
Hiding Islamofascism behind the language of civil rights is an intentional distortion of principle, designed to grant immunity from criticism and opposition to an ideology that is as bad as, if not worse than, National Socialism. In this regard, our worst enemies dwell among us. Among them are federal politicians, such as Bernie Sanders. Sanders and his ilk are useful idiots for transnational corporate power. This is what lies behind Islamization: corporate power. In that sense, Islam is the second-coming of National Socialism.
It is not that, when facing an existential threat, we must sacrifice civil liberties. This gets the problem the wrong way around. Just as criticism of National Socialism is necessary for survival, so we must criticize Islam, and for this, the right to speak freely must be protected.
But we have to do more than criticize. Legitimate constraints on liberty are already in place. The law already forbids harassment, intimidation, and threats as valid exercises of free speech. These restrictions are necessary tools for confronting those who intend to destroy our way of life. The harassment, intimidation, and threats Islam brings with it must not be legitimized with the rhetoric of free speech and religious liberty.
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“But many Muslims are peaceful,” is the popular retort. “They are good neighbors who love their children. What about the peaceful Muslims?” What about them? What about them? This was also true of Nazis.
Qur’an Verse (5:60) “Say: Shall I inform you of (him who is) worse than this in retribution from Allah? (Worse is he) whom Allah has cursed and brought His wrath upon, and of whom He made apes and swine, and he who served the Shaitan; these are worse in place and more erring from the straight path.”
This passage is referring to the Jews. Shaitan is a demonic entity in Islamic theology and culture, comparable to Satan in Christianity. This verse (among others) is used to justify violence against Jews. Muslims are obsessed with Jews. The faith is intrinsically antisemitic.
We cannot exaggerate the significance of scripture. Muslims view Muhammad as God’s final prophet and believe the Qur’an is the most perfect book in the world. It is an instruction manual. Muslims have always viewed the Jews as bestial and devilish. The Qur’an told them so. They cannot doubt the scripture because it is the inerrant word of God.
There is no solution to the Middle East situation unless Islam is negated. The more devout the Muslim, the more antisemitic the man. One must therefore always regard Islam with suspicion. Reformation might be helpful—that is, if Muslims can develop attitudes towards their religion similar to those of Jews and Christians, then they might here and there be less extreme. But given how historically recent Islam is and how mesmerized Muslims are by it, that will still leave a substantial proportion of the population adhering to an extremist ideology.
To be sure, one can find Muslims who are not extremists. Dr. Mehmet Oz, for example, born in the US to Turkish parents, is often described as a secular Muslim. His father had traditional Islamic views, while his mother and his own adult practice leaned more secular. Moreover, Oz married a Christian wife, and they have raised their children as Christians.
For this, many Muslims have criticized Oz for his alignment with the Republican Party. Thus, Oz’s secularism highlights the problem with Islam—and the Democratic Party. The threat is real. And it must be confronted.
freedom and reason 