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April 17, 2003 |
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ISLAM UNVEILED Disturbing Questions about the World’s Fastest-Growing Faith Robert Spencer Encounter Books, 2002, 214 pp. |
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Spencer is a board member of the Christian-Islamic Forum. A 20-year student of Islam, he has written for National Review Online and other magazines. “In this captivating, carefully researched book, Robert
Spencer asks the hard questions about Islam and gives the hard answers,
providing a profoundly needed antidote to the wishful thinking and willful
distortions that have swamped the media since September 11.” (from the cover) The heavily footnoted book examines Islam in relation to
peace, moral values, human rights, respect for women, democracy, secularism
and pluralism, science and culture, and tolerance. “The problem is that for all its schism, sects and
multiplicity of voices, Islam’s violent elements are rooted in its central
texts. It is unlikely that the voices
of moderation will ultimately silence the militants, because the militants
will always be able to make the case that they are standing for the true
expression of the faith.” And the
majority of Muslims around the world accept the interpretation of fundamentalists. (37) “The Muslim world today is full of bigotry, fanaticism,
hypocrisy and plain ignorance—all of which create a breeding ground for
criminals like bin Laden.” quoting
Amir Taheri, Wall Street Journal, 24 Oct., 2001 “Violent Islam has the enemy (us) and the scriptural
justification (in the Qur’an) to keep pushing until they win—that is, until
the West is Islamicized. And moderate
Islam is essentially powerless to stop it.”
(37) Slaveholding today is practiced only in Muslim lands. “Chief responsibility for this must be
placed upon the Qur’an. Slavery,
especially of war prisoners, is taken for granted throughout the Muslim holy
book.” (63) Muslims almost universally believe the Qur’an is valid for all
time; therefore those who try to develop arguments against slavery are
vulnerable to charges they are disobedient to Allah. (64) “In Sudan and Mauritania, the Muslim record on slavery is
not a matter of history but of current events.” “The primary reason someone will be enslaved in Sudan is
because he or she is a Christian.
…the Arab Muslims in the north are in the process of stamping out
black Christianity in the south by imposing the Sharia over the entire
country.” (65) “Muslims never shared the experience of early Christians,
of being a persecuted minority within a hostile regime.” “State power and religious power were
fused in Islam from its inception, centering on the caliph as the leader
chosen by Allah for his people.”
“…the Islamic world has always been marked by the centralization of
theocracy.” (95) “The Qur’an presents the clear and absolute law of Allah
(which the mullahs uphold). Why
should Muslims be governed instead by fallible human judgment? A state ruled by Islamic law must
therefore leave little room for representative government; God’s Will is not
to be established by voting or public opinion.” (96) According to scholar Bernard Lewis, predominantly Muslim
societies (Turkey being the exception), are ruled by a variety of
“authoritarian, autocratic, despotic, tyrannical, and totalitarian
regimes.” (97)
Secular Muslims risk death from hardliners who consider
them to have fallen away from the faith.
A considerable party of Muslims would fight to the death the prospect
of a secular Islamic state. (105-6) “Islam is a religion with revolutionary implications. Rulers are considered legitimate only if
they enforce the…holy law of Islam based on the teachings of the Koran.”
Quoting Philip Mansel (107) “In the Muslim world, Islam is the only key to the hearts
and minds of the people.” Khomeini’s
message in Iran was to “restore the purity of Islam.” (109)
“Every government that goes too far in implementing Western principles
encounters religious resistance.”
(110) “Desire to restore the purity, and thus the glory, of the umma
is also the impetus behind the rise of Osama bin Laden and other Muslim
terrorists today. Setbacks in the
Islamic world commonly result in the diagnosis that the defeat resulted from
insufficient religious fidelity.” “In
other words, the key to success is more Islam. This has always been the reaction in times of crisis.” (111) “The Koran promises that if Muslims are faithful to Allah,
they will enjoy prosperity in this life and paradise in the next life.” “When the House of Islam is not prospering,
it is solely because ‘Muslims are not following the true teaching of
Allah!” quoting Dinesh D’Souza. “A new severity invariably follows.” (111) “Muslims built their great medieval civilization with an
attitude of openness to what they could learn from non-Muslims.” “Islam in its glory days never hesitated
to borrow from other cultures.”
(118) But an orthodox thinker,
Al-Ghazali, advanced the premise that everything human beings can possibly
know is already contained in the Qur’an.
“Islamic philosophy became suspect to a large party of those who
considered themselves guardians of religious orthodoxy.” An anti-intellectualism developed from the
core theological proposition that since the Qur’an is the perfect book, no
other books are needed. (122-23) “Jews and Christians believe that God created the universe
to operate according to reliable, observable laws. While he can suspend those laws, ordinarily he does not do so;
he is not bound, but freely chooses to uphold the laws that he created. This way of thinking provided a foundation
for the edifice of modern science….”
(127) “But to the Muslim who found all knowledge in the Qur’an
and suspected philosophers of infidelity, that was tantamount to saying,
‘God’s hand is chained.’ Allah, they
argued, could not be thus restricted.
He was free to act as whimsically as he pleased. If one could not rely on the universe to
obey observable laws, and if reliable knowledge was found only in the
revelation, science could not flourish.”
“Philosophy and science came to be widely seen as essentially
worthless endeavors that only confuse man and distract him from the
Qur’an.” (127-28) “In the face of increasing Western prosperity, the Muslim
ambivalence toward intellectual endeavor and the non-Muslim world threatens
to become explosive.” (128) “If the West’s technological superiority
can’t be matched, it can at least be assaulted.” (129) “Virtually all Westerners have learned to apologize for
the Crusades. Less noted is the fact
that these campaigns have an Islamic counterpart for which no one is
apologizing….” “Islam originated in
Arabia in the seventh century. At
that time Egypt, Libya and all of North Africa were Christian and had been so
for hundreds of years. So were
Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Asia Minor.”
Also Turkey and Greece. “But
then Muhammad and his Muslim armies arose out of the desert, and these lands
became Muslim.” “…Muslims won these
lands by conquest and, in obedience to the words of the Qur’an and the
Prophet, put to the sword the infidels therein who refused to submit to the
new Islamic regime.” The Muslim drive
went to the heart of France where it was turned back in 732. (132-34, 36) “Centuries later, when Muslim armies resumed their
expansion in Europe after a period of relative decline…they maintained the
same pattern of behavior. On May 29,
1453, the city of Constantinople, the jewel of Christendom, finally fell to
an overwhelming Muslim force after weeks of resistance….” (137) “…the Crusaders who pillaged Jerusalem were transgressing
the bounds of their religion in all sorts of ways. As for the Muslim armies who murdered, raped, pillaged and
enslaved—what Islamic principles were they violating? After all, they were following the example
of their Prophet….” (137) “In fact, the portions of ancient Christendom that are now
universally considered to be part of the House of Islam only became so in the
same way as the Arabian Jewish tribes became Muslim: by being bathed in
blood.” (138) “The Crusade was a delayed response to the jihad, the holy
war for Islam, and its purpose was to recover by war what had been lost by
war—to free the holy places of Christendom and open them once again, without
impediment, to Christian pilgrimage.” (quoting Bernard Lewis). “The lands in dispute during each Crusade
were the ancient lands of Christendom….”
(139) “The Jihad is more than four hundred years older than the
Crusades. It is the Europeans who
harbor the shame and the guilt. It
should be the other way around.”
(quoting historian Paul Fregosi) (140) “Today, in Christianity generally—Catholic, Orthodox and
Protestant—the idea of the universal dignity of all people, unbelievers as
well as believers, has taken firm root.
Indeed, that idea has been one of the Church’s great gifts to secular
society, and one of the singular discoveries of the West. In Islam, by
contrast, the theory about infidels has not changed, and it can always cause
more pain for human beings when given the opportunity.” (155)
“In Islamic states, non-Muslims are still despised, hemmed
in by discriminatory laws, and in peril of their lives.” (156)
“Perhaps worst off are converts from Islam to Christianity, for
virtually all Muslim legal authorities agree that anyone who renounces Islam
deserves to die.” (157) “In fact, the worse off the House of Islam is, the more
threatened are its Christian minorities.
When things are going wrong, Muslims tend to blame the infidels among
them for calling down the wrath of Allah.
So they purify the land and court Allah’s favor by killing them.” “That is also why Christians and Jews will
always be in danger of persecution in Islamic lands.” (164) “There are not two, but three certainties in human
affairs: death, taxes, and jihad.”
(165) Greater jihad is first
inward-seeking, to struggle to improve himself. “Lesser jihad cannot be separated from the waging of war.” “According to classic Islamic theology,
Muslims can legitimately wage war against those who resist the proclamation
of Islam.” “But of course, that is precisely
what Osama bin Laden says that the September 11 attacks were doing.” His interpretation is firmly rooted in
Islamic law. “The theory of jihad
allows for the unchecked growth of militant groups in Islam—growth which
outmanned and outgunned Islamic moderates are powerless to stop, because to
do so would be to turn against Islam itself.” (166-68) “Enough Muslims believe that they have ample cause
nowadays to ‘combat belligerency’ that Americans should prepare themselves
for a long hard war.” (169) In France, Islam is the second-largest religion in the
country. (171) “As these numbers [of Muslims] continue to expand among
Europe’s aging, secularized populations, Europe will be, in the words of the
CIA, ‘less willing to face up to global hotspots’—and presumably even less
willing when to do so will entail making war against the homelands of large
segments of its population.” (172) “The idea of multiculturalism…dictates that they not
assimilate, but rather cling proudly to their Islamic beliefs and
traditions.” (172) “It would be imprudent to ignore the fact that deeply
imbedded in the central documents of the religion is an all encompassing
vision of a theocratic state that is fundamentally different from and opposed
to the post-Enlightenment Christian values of the West.” (173) “The culture of tolerance threatens to render the West
incapable of drawing reasonable distinctions. The general reluctance to criticize any non-Christian religion
and the almost universal public ignorance about Islam make for a lethal
mix.” (174-5) “Militant Islam will not go away with the death of bin
Laden, or Arafat, or Saddam Hussein, or anyone else. It will clash increasingly with the weary
secular powers that it blames for all the ills of the umma.” (176) |
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