Fitzgerald: Making Islam the problem

from Jihad Watch

"I'm a policy guy and excuse the directness but when folks in Jihadwatch's world make Islam the problem they are indirectly helping the violent extremists out there." -- from a Muslim apologist, doing his sly damnedest in the comments field here [1]

No, Jihadwatch does not "make Islam the problem." Islam itself -- what is in the Qur'an, the Hadith, the Sira -- is what makes Islam the problem. That, and the tenets that naturally arise from those texts, and that, over 1350 years, in many different lands, with many different sets of non-Muslims, have been acted on, by Muslim conquerors determined to kill, or convert, or permanently reduce to that subjugated status of "dhimmi" all those conquered non-Muslims.

If we ignore history, and ignore the texts of Islam, then we can all play the game of "Let's Pretend." But playing the game of "Let's Pretend" is what has gotten the countries of Western Europe in the fix they are in. Playing "Let's Pretend" simply allows non-Muslims to continue to ignore reality, continue to turn their heads away, as people in the last century, and more than once, turned their heads away until the reality could not be denied.

In the case of Islam there will not be an invasion of Poland or a Pearl Harbor attack or a seizing of Manchuria, but rather a slow and steady conquest. That is why it is important to alert, using nothing more amazing than the most banal and obvious of truths about Islam -- truths that no non-Muslim growing up under Muslim rule, and no apostate from Islam can fail to be aware of. See Wafa Sultan, see Ayaan Hirsi Ali, see Ibn Warraq, see hundreds of others, with their numbers swelling in the Western world all the time. See those great Western scholars of Islam -- Schacht, Jeffery, Snouck Hurgronje, Lammens and so many others -- who studied and wrote about Islam before the Great Inhibition set it. That is, they studied and wrote before Muslims, and their non-Muslim sympathizers, managed to insinuate themselves into academic positions where they have been quite good at keeping out any other viewpoints, and have steadily managed to hire and promote each other, aided of course by grants from Arab governments and institutions and individuals, until they have managed, all over the Western world, to control so much of what is taught about Islam and "Islamic studies" and "Middle Eastern studies."

But a few holdouts never were booted out, and nowadays, many in the West, alert to the danger, have simply chosen to go around, to do without, to ignore, the sly apologists of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA Nostra), and that has had a salutary effect.

The American government should simply set up institutes to teach Americans about Islam and the Middle East, going carefully around the universities -- or perhaps carefully vetting every department that would wish to get in on the money. It may not be possible to re-create an atmosphere in American universities, or in other universities of the Western world, in which disinterested study, rather than transparent apologetics, is offered to innocent students. Certainly the number of schools where such study is possible has diminished over the past 30 years. Georgetown’s lean, mean, jogging John Esposito is the rule, not the exception. But one should at least try. University administrators now have a duty to inform themselves fully, and not permit the fellow-travellers of MESA Nostra already ensconced in their institutions to manage to smuggle in one more of their number.

Eventually even to belong to MESA Nostra will be seen as somewhat comical and suspect. It must terrify the members of MESA Nostra that, out of nowhere, so many well-informed people -- because a doctorate nowadays in Middle Eastern studies guarantees absolutely nothing, nor does a tenured post -- are simply bypassing them and informing themselves about Islam on their own. But what can you do when all the canonical texts of Islam, all the Muslim commentators, and all the evidence from history as carefully accumulated by hundreds of careful scholars, are against you? How the hell is someone like Rashid Khalidi or Laurie Brand or Joel Beinin going to impugn Joseph Schacht, or David Margoliouth, or Snouck Hurgronje, or Vajda, or Abel, or Charles-Emmanuel Dufourcq, when they refuse to stay buried, but are being triumphantly revived, read, studied, and found not wanting, but thoroughly relevant to explaining the evidence of the Jihad and dhimmitude that are everywhere around us?
MESA Nostra and its European equivalents, and all the attempts to thuggishly silence truthful discussion about Islam, from Said's Orientalism to the latest lawsuit by CAIR or latest phony "Dialogue of Civilisations" or conference on "The Need for the 'Other' in Western Civilization: The Case of Islam" and so on and so obviously forth, are now coming to naught.

The evidence from 1350 years, and from today's newspaper, is just too great. And you cannot hide the Qur'an, the hadith, and the sira forever from the Infidels. Some of them actually know how to read.

Posted by Hugh at February 13, 2008 10:16 AM
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/019929.php

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1. Here is the post referred to above:

Saturnine, [adressing another Commenter--see his comment directly below]

Its not that simple, just telling them they're wrong. Unfortionatly we have to first unify most of our citizenry, then team up with mainstream reformist networks globally and only then will the nilistic networks small as they are be rolled back and extinguished with no territory or institutions to keep their movement alive. But such coalition building won't happen unless we build on shared vaules with a committment to a prosperous future for all groups.

Every national security policy expert worth his salt has been saying for years that America can't win solo but has to partner with moderate (not dhemmi muslims) forces amongst Muslims. Even folks behind the learning curve like Daniel Pipes and Frank Gaffney have recently made public comments about how when we make the enemy Islam, its simple America loses.

I'm not a political activist, I'm a policy guy and excuse the directness but when folks in Jihadwatch's world make Islam the problem they are indirectly helping the violent extremists out there. I didn't call them terrorists because I don't want a reporter to write that I said Robert is a terrorist enabler.

I can't read folk's heart, so I'm giving Robert and others here some benefit of the doubt. I fully understand the strategy folks here are following and I don't see it working long term and in the short term it just grants the violent extremists more ammunition in the propoganda war.
Some here think that by planting doubt amongst the average judeo-christo american that a multitude will rise to confront and roll back Islam's progress on our shores and oversees. To that

I say wake up and smell the roses, Islam isn't going anywhere and will continue its expansion just like Christianity is in certain quarters.

We as Americans should be debating the strategy of how best to win as Jews, Christians and Muslims in an ever more interdependant and inter-connected world. Instead we have millions of our fellow citizens chasing their tails living in a make believe world fighting a demographic war lost ions ago.

Salaam,

Posted by: enlightener at February 7, 2008 11:29 PM


>the Islam you describe no sane person would recognize

You say it's not Islam. Other Muslims say it is. Who are we to believe?

You are not out there, telling them that they have it all wrong. Instead you are here, on this web site, telling us that our eyes and ears deceive us.

In fact, that tells us all we need to know.

Posted by: saturnine at February 7, 2008 10:34 PM

from COMMENTS at http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/019850.php

It's worthwhile reading more COMMENTS to this post:

Now Roberto, you now better then to promote a covert political movement as a theological source or any authority. You're making militants the spokespeople of Islam again, and presenting Islam (ex. Quran) as the problem when you know very well that if we are to get anywhere it'll be because Islam is the solution.

Plus you know that verse 16:106 doesn't refer to anything Israel or Abbass are doing, ever did or will ever do to meet the requirement to say something against Islam in a life or death situation as the verses states.

Please treat Islam fairly and accurately, otherwise a real conversation can't begin. An Ad-Hominem/Polemic attack on Islam simply returns one against you as an Islamophobe. Tennis is good exercise, but our nation deserves better on this subject.

Salaam,

Posted by: enlightener at February 7, 2008 4:34 PM


Dear enlightener:

Now Roberto, you now better then to promote a covert political movement as a theological source or any authority. You're making militants the spokespeople of Islam again, and presenting Islam (ex. Quran) as the problem when you know very well that if we are to get anywhere it'll be because Islam is the solution.

If Islam is to be the solution, it will only be when Muslims begin to confront interpretations like this -- which come from other Muslims, instead of blaming me for reporting about them.
The people in Hamas who say this are Muslims. Whether or not they are spokesmen for anything, you are doing nothing to refute their Qur'anic intepretation by acting as if it's something I made up.

Plus you know that verse 16:106 doesn't refer to anything Israel or Abbass are doing, ever did or will ever do to meet the requirement to say something against Islam in a life or death situation as the verses states.

I'm sure many Palestinians would differ with you on this.

Please treat Islam fairly and accurately, otherwise a real conversation can't begin. An Ad-Hominem/Polemic attack on Islam simply returns one against you as an Islamophobe. Tennis is good exercise, but our nation deserves better on this subject.

Can you provide any actual evidence that I've said anything inaccurate here? So far, you haven't.

Can a real conversation begin when you make unsubstantiated accusations and blame the messenger instead of acknowledging that there is a problem and working to resolve it?

Cordially

Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at February 7, 2008 5:30 PM


Hugh and Robert or anyone who would like to answer:

I know Robert says that Islam is the only religion with a developed doctrine, theology and schools of jurisprudence that mandate violence against unbelievers.

My question is this:

If you have to make a single statement that people are unaware of about Islam, that most descriptively encapsulates it, what would it be? Cheers,

P

Posted by: Palamas at February 7, 2008 5:39 PM
[emphasis mine, lw]


"make a single statement.."-- from a posting above

Normally I resist complying with requests, just on principle (born rebel, never take orders), but here's a go: "Islam is a collectivist faith and Total Belief-System that inculcates in its followers that the world is divided between Infidels and Unbelievers, and that a state of permanent war, if not open warfare, must exist between the two, until all barriers to the spread, and dominance, of Islam are removed."

That's one sentence. It's true that I made it longer than one -- than you -- may have expected or desired. But of course you knew I'd push things.

Posted by: Hugh at February 7, 2008 8:20 PM



Roberto, this is my responce:Bear Abuse with Patience "Bear patiently with what they say (against you) and leave their company in a polite manner." The Holy Quran, 73:10

Hugh, the Islam you describe no sane person would recognize. But then what do I know, just another Muslim who obviously must be a lier.

Salamaat pashas,

Posted by: enlightener at February 7, 2008 10:24 PM