The Islamic Two-Step

[The following essay first appeared at Eternity Road on November 28, 2008. Its relevance to the post immediately below it should require no explanation.]

Not many creeds that have afflicted this unhappy world approach the barefaced fraudulence and viciousness of Islam. The sole modern competitor that comes to mind is Nazism; after that, one must recur to the worship of Ba'al, Ormuzd, and the other savage gods of pre-Christian times. But Islam is here with us today, whereas those other cults have been laid in their graves. And so we must cope with it, and its millions of adherents, as best we can.

It's something of a problem. The great majority of Muslims have detoxified their faith for their own purposes; despite the explicit commands of the Qur'an that they make war on us "infidels," they're as non-violent and generally tolerant as any modern Christian. Yet they do not deny those commands, nor do they demand that they be struck from their scriptures. More, despite the incredible number of infamies Muslims have perpetrated in recent decades -- this site alone has recorded more than 12,000 lethal terror attacks by Muslims -- they cannot be moved to condemn their co-religionists for their slaughters. Rather, their prevailing response is a denial that Islam could possibly have anything to do with violence -- usually mated to a tu quoque assertion that "Christians and Jews have done violence, too."

Consider the following, quoted in this John F. Cullinan article at National Review Online:

...both our histories have been intermingled with periods of violence, and when religion has been strong in our societies various political forces have carried out violence in its name and in certain cases this violence has received legitimacy by religious authorities. Certainly we cannot claim that violence is the monopoly of only one religion....

You and we, we both believe in religious freedom, but we Muslims do not allow an aggressive proselytizing in our midst that would destroy our faith in the name of freedom any more than would Christians if they were in our situation.

Those words come from the closing address by Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr of George Washington University to a conference on inter-religious dialogue. It's as perfect an example of the Islamic two-step as any your Curmudgeon has encountered, with the groundless assertion that when not forbidden by law, Christian evangelists force themselves on defenseless Muslims, added as a (dis)grace note.

Is it not clear that "Professor" Nasr -- yes, those are "sneer quotes" -- has no use for freedom of religion? Except in those places and cases where Islam is not yet politically ascendant and can use such latitude to advance its own aims, of course.

Are there any Muslim "professors" with doctorates in anything but "Islamic Studies?" Leave that aside: what prominent Muslim will admit that the Qur'an, the Sunnah, and the various ahadith all counsel Muslims to deceive and defraud us "infidels" until they've grown powerful enough to subjugate us by force? What prominent Muslim will admit that the savageries prevalent in Islamic states arise from Islamic doctrine? What prominent Muslim will admit that Muhammad, Islam's "perfect man" whom all Muslims are exhorted to emulate, was a warlord, a murderer, an adulterer, a pedophile, and a shameless voluptuary? What prominent Muslim will admit to these things as flaws in Islam, and demand that they be corrected for the good of all men everywhere?

Perhaps it's too much to ask of a body of believers whose worldwide average IQ is 85. All the same, until high Islamic religious authorities -- men conceded doctrinal authority near to that of a Catholic pope -- are willing to make such admissions, and condemn their Muslim brethren for thinking, speaking, or acting otherwise, there can be no trusting Muslims to behave according to the norms of civilized society. Nor can we expect, when their jihad-minded brethren demand money, help, or concealment from them, that they will dare to refuse.

In his recent book Stealth Jihad, the great Robert Spencer exhorts us to close our borders to further immigration from Islamic states and Muslim-majority lands. Your Curmudgeon has been calling for that for a while now. It's Spencer, however, who gets all the death threats, while your Curmudgeon's "evil black rifle" sits idle in his closet. What a pity.