Yesterday we posted a video of Geert Wilders’ speech in Copenhagen on November 2. His remarks were followed by a question and answer session with the audience, and included the participation of other members of the podium panel. Part of the discussion was a lively exchange between Daniel Pipes and Mr. Wilders on the question of the “Moderate Muslim”, or “Moderate Islam”.
For those who would like to listen to the debate between Dr. Pipes and Mr. Wilders, the video of the event is here. The relevant portion begins at about 37:08 and ends at 43:10 (the quality of the audio is not very good, but a transcript is in the works).
Last night I posted my own two cents on the moderate-versus-radical trope. Our Arabic translator ritamalik weighed in with a comment on the subject, which deserves to be reproduced here in its entirety. It has been edited slightly for paragraphing, punctuation, and clarity:
The problem with this “Moderate Islam” stuff is that even if it happens it will be a lie, and all lies will one day be exposed and a backlash will be imminent.
Islam did become more “moderate” at the turn of the century and as a result of forced secularisation and the abject defeat of the Ottoman Empire, a.k.a. The Caliphate. A lot of its more militant aspects were swept under the rug for many decades.
But if that was the solution then why are we here now having to deal with Al Qaeda and IS? The reason is that “moderate Islam” is a lie! The only person who has the right to define Islam and say what it is and it is not is the founder of the religion i.e. Muhammad.
Islam is what he says it is and not what various Muslims at various times might want to practice. So even if some groups of Muslims at various times of history had decided to be hypocritical and make it up as they went and sweep those parts of the religion which they find hard or distasteful under the rug, there have also always been and will always be those who would be sincere and honest and actually want to follow their prophet, and they will always go back to his true example as recorded in Islamic scriptures.
One can bring new interpretation of matters that the founder of the religion didn’t make very clear and left ambiguous. But the matters that he made very clear by word and deed cannot be up for re-interpretation!
You cannot make Islam teach everything the opposite way of what Muhammad taught and still claim that it is the same religion and reveres the character of Muhammad as its founder and considers him the prophet of Allah.
And that is why Jihad and murder and honour-killing and beheadings and Jizyah, etc. shall always be with us till the end of times. The example and teachings, and worldview of the founder of a religionmatter! Who he was and what his was character like matter! And whatever solution we want to find to this “Islam problem” dishonesty and fakery and falsifying of history should not be a part of it!
“Moderate Islam” is nothing but falsified history!
Quite so. I’m reading Raymond Ibrahim’s book – Crucified Again – just now, and he goes over all this quite thoroughly. An excellent book – highly recommended.
Why have we heard nothing from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the other Anglican bishops in Britain and very little from the Roman Catholics?
Where is the Crusade that we need?
Yes, of course, really pious Muslims join IS and Al Qaeda and imitate the behavior of their prophet, others wait in line.”Moderate” is a very deceptive term, Westerners automatically apply the liberal democratic interpretation when Islamic propagandists use the word, in reality a ‘moderate’ Muslim is a faithless Muslim. During the Cold War, few people in the West would have been deceived by the expression ‘moderate communist’.
The religion was invented by a bandit leader and his followers. If the majority of Muslims are ‘moderate’, why are majority Muslim countries such as they are, violent, misogynist, oppressive and technologically backward.
The jihadis are the truly observant muslims. They emulate the islamist who founded islam.
The rest are just less committed for now. I have yet to encounter “a moderate muslim” who is actively working against those observant muslims. That shows they are committed to the same goals as the observant muslims, but they have not (yet) committed to risking their life in the pursuit of those goals. And we have no way of knowing at what point any of them might decide they are going to make this commitment. But until they do, they will still use every other opportunity to work for the imposition of islam on everyone else.
“The rest are just less committed for now. I have yet to encounter “a moderate muslim” who is actively working against those observant muslims. That shows they are committed to the same goals as the observant muslims, but they have not (yet) committed to risking their life in the pursuit of those goals. ”
Even this view, which is quite common in the Counter-Jihad in one permutation or another (I dare say even the owners of this blog believe it and Robert Spencer evidently does), assumes too much and errs by erring on the side of a benefit of the doubt granted to all Muslims who aren’t currently exploding, beheading, or advocating same. This view also assumes that the posture of being ostensibly “less observant” and “less committed” is to be taken at face value not only as sincerely reflecting reality (and not rather a taqiyya dissimulation) — but also as an Islamically inert or Islamically useless posture. But in fact there are other ways to advance the Jihad than by exploding, beheading, advocating same, or actively promoting taqiyya propaganda: the mere act of being a Muslim and immigrating into the West — settling into the lands of the Camp of the Enemy (the Dar al-Harb) and merely planting social roots and living life, is itself an act of Jihad that facilitates the increasing ability for the violent front-line soldiers of Islam to plot ever more horrific terror attacks on the West with an eye to eventually bringing it down — the dream, we must assume, of all Muslims.
Read about the previous historical Islamic dream of bringing down Byzantium — a dream that was kept alive for centuries in Muslim poetry, mosque sermons, culture, and ongoing razzias here and there (the historical equivalent of modern terror attacks); a dream that was finally realized in the staggering reversal of the Muslim conquest of the greatest city of the West up to that time, Constantinople, and its entire realm, Byzantium:
http://hesperado.blogspot.com/2007/11/conquest-of-constantinople-jihad.html
The global revival of Pan-Islam in our time has also revived this dream to conquer “Rome” in earnest — which has now, by the translatio imperii, become the West (with America at its vanguard).
I.e., the problem of Islam is perforce the problem of all Muslims. Any taxonomy we would do on the wondrously diverse demographic of all Muslims should be only in the interest of military strategy & tactics on our part, with its #1 priority ever in foremost view: the defense of our societies from Islam.
I.e., the problem of Islam is perforce the problem of all Muslims.
Whoa, Jack. We need to sort out who owns the problem. Do Muslims have a problem with Islam?? Not hardly. It is the kuffar who have a “problem”…
Oh wait – I guess a Shi’ite Muslim wouldn’t feel safe among the Sunnis – not to mention all those Islam sects who are busy persecuting those who are “doing it wrong”. Isn’t that what ISIS did first – go after the Muslims who weren’t virtuous enough?
In 1981 V.S. Naipaul wrote a thoughtful book about the various sects and intersects of Islam:
Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey
Since then he’s updated his ideas with various texts re Islam. No one compares in style or content.
However, once you go back over the ground of whose “problem” Islamic terrorism really is, you come up with what is needful..We may variously disagree on strategies and tactics, but in the end you’ve named the solution:
#1 priority ever in foremost view: the defense of our societies from Islam.
If I ever get over to Twitter, I’ll credit you with that. It has the breadth to include whatever is being done to push back against the problem. It’s our problem, though, not Islam’s. They see no need to change.
I don’t care about Muslims, except to protect my society from them. The problem of Muslims is the problem they present to the free world, of course.
As I said, in any conflict, one has to decide who owns the problem. Muslims don’t have a problem with their behavior. WE have a problem with how they treat the “free” world. AFAIK, that world is seen as ripe for takeover and that’s something we want to prevent. QED, our problem.
Going from now 5 hr old memory I liked one riposte of GW’s to DP in particular: “I’m concerned about my society now [and the impact of Islam upon it] … [ I don’t care] whether it’s possible for Islam to reform itself in 5,000 years …”.
Yes. While I have a lot of respect for much of Dr. Pipes work, I take issue with his hope that Islam can be reformed. It is founded on some pretty flimsy evidence and a lot of wishful thinking. Any religion that “reforms” is no longer the same religion. So Wilders is 100% correct, that we must deal with Islam as it is now, not as it might be when it no longer is.
All the moderates have to do–to prove their point–is to publish their founding documents, the Koran and the hadiths, with all Medina calls to violence removed.
The problem with that is that there is some seemingly moderate and socially acceptable material in the koran, and apologists quote it as “proof” that Islam has any good in it, despite the fact that it has been “abrogated” by much more violent and unacceptable material that takes precedence.
If they do as you request, it will be to deceive, not enlighten.
I see Pipes is still smoking his Pipes Dream.
One of the more laughable excerpts from this exchange between Daniel Pipes and the great (and far less asymptotic Geert Wilders):
“If it [Islam] can get worse, it can get better.”
(I think a rousing “LOL” (if not a ROFMLMAO) is in order here.)
I’ve written a few times about Pipes on my blog:
Pot shots at the Pipes Dream
http://hesperado.blogspot.com/2008/07/pot-shots-at-pipes-dream.html
The Pipes Dream through a Glassman darkly
http://hesperado.blogspot.com/2008/07/pipes-dream-through-glassman-darkly.html
The Pipes Dream, revisited
http://hesperado.blogspot.com/2011/08/pipes-dream-revisited.html
I thought one of the questioners said it best when he told Pipes that we can’t wait for Islam to reform itself. By the time that ever happens, they may have destroyed Western civilization.
Why should Islam reform itself? It is the perfect killing machine in pursuit of world domination through a caliphate. It has a never ending source of insane jihadists whose mothers are enslaved womb factories incapable and forbidden to protect their own children from their predator fathers who routinely traffic their infant sons as sex slaves (remember the dancing boys of Afghanistan) to the local Imams or anyone willing to pay for their enslavement. Young boys are forced to join jihadists in beheadings and are included in the blood soaked celebrations of Ashura where even infant boys, are carved up like meat in a butcher shop to bleed with the rest of the self flagellating savages. All of the aforementioned is blessed by the koran, codified under sharia and explained by the hadith. Sexual deviance, degrading, oppressing and enslaving women and children, slaughtering non muslims, blood letting, ignorance, stupidity, hate mongering, impoverishment of the many for the benefit of the few, continual war mandated for a caliphate is that which defines Islam. Its blood thirsty savagery threatens the lives and well being of the rest of humanity. It must be obliterated as was fascism, imperialism and communism. Islam is an indefensible atavistic murderous criminal enterprise dedicated to world domination through a caliphate. We become co-conspirators if we do nothing. Co-existence and peace with a war criminalized killing machine exists only in the minds of frightened civilized societies to the delight of Islam. They will have their caliphate and our heads.
We must rid ourselves of this doublethink and self-deception. Yes, reality and facts matter. We cannot afford to live in a cloud of cannabis induced delusion as the Left would like. No one can survive that way.
We need to look at the world and Islam through clear lenses. Islam is a blight on humanity, a vile and malevolent religion that encourages the worst elements in Mankind. It gives sanction to perversions, murder and treachery. Some religion!
You only have to read the demonic Koran to discover the horrifying truth that is Islam. Is it any wonder that Islam brings death and destruction wherever it goes? Like a black cloud it moves in and chokes the inhabitants who live there. A death-cult that appeals to socio and psychopaths who revel in rape and decapitations.
Show me another “religion” like this one?
The Koran must be outlawed in the West for the hateful screed it is. Stop Islamic immigration aka invasion now.