The topic of Daniel Pipes and “Moderate Muslims” came up in the comments on one of Thursday night’s posts. I’m reproducing my response here, because I think the issue is an important one — the creation and maintenance of the Myth of the Moderate Muslim is a major strategic victory for the Great Jihad, and may end up being fatal for the anti-Islamization movement.
I don’t know specifically about Daniel Pipes’ organization (which is MEF, if I remember correctly), but some of the other think tanks that believe in the “Moderate Muslim” receive their major funding from organizations whose funding in turn relies on Gulf petrodollars. It takes some work to trace the money flow upstream to the source, but it can be done —— the connections are there in the public record.
ACT! For America recently discovered the virtues of the Moderate Muslim, which was a reversal of course for Brigitte Gabriel. It made me wonder if ACT had acquired a major new donor with a whiff of petroleum about him…
The purpose of funding these Counterjihad believers in “Moderate Muslims” is subtle and strategic. Many well-educated, well-meaning people in the West are desperate to believe that a form of Islam exists with which the West can co-exist peacefully. Daniel Pipes and Maajid Nawaz et al. offer them a straw that they can grasp. The ghastly, bloody alternative — which I consider the only alternative — is simply more than they can bear to contemplate.
The existence of these “Moderate” groups sucks energy away from the hardcore Counterjihad (which is where I reside). Money, time, and energy are spent searching for the elusive unicorn of Moderate Islam, reducing the resources available for the real civilizational struggle that lies ahead. Chasing the “Moderate Muslim” may delay our resistance to Islam long enough so that the “demographic jihad” will be able to realize the World Ummah before all the misguided optimists shake off their golden dreams and realize their error.
If Gates of Vienna ever starts promoting the virtues of the “Moderate Muslim”, you’ll know that some of those petrodollars have dropped into our basket. At that point you may assume we have sold out, and from then on would be well-advised to discount anything we say.
Come again? Are you saying that Brigitte Gabriel has been got at?
I don’t know what happened. Maybe she just changed her mind. But multiple sources in ACT! For America (all of them ordinary members, none at the leadership level) have told me that she changed her stance and is now strangely enthusiastic about “Moderate Muslims”. That’s a reversal of course for her — she used to be a fire-breather against Islam, with no modifiers in front of the word.
Re: “Come again? Are you saying that Brigitte Gabriel has been got at?” (Michael)
“I don’t know what happened. Maybe she just changed her mind. But multiple sources in ACT! For America (all of them ordinary members, none at the leadership level) have told me that she changed her stance and is now strangely enthusiastic about “Moderate Muslims”. That’s a reversal of course for her — she used to be a fire-breather against Islam, with no modifiers in front of the word.” (Baron Bodissey)
I don’t know Ms. Gabriel and I am not speaking for her in any capacity whatsoever, but there are other explanations which account for the abrupt change in her stance. While it is true that she may have modified her position voluntarily, or done so after being bought-off with a large donation from the Arabs or the like, those are not the only possible explanations.
It is also possible that she or someone close to her have been threatened with violence. Perhaps she has been told discreetly that if she doesn’t change her stance that she will be audited or sued. It is possible she is being blackmailed in some manner. Granted, these forms of coercion were more-likely under Obama than Trump, but this is a strange and unpredictable world, and just because Obama has left the White House does not mean all of his allies in the deep state have departed the scene.
My larger point being that there are a variety of means of bringing dissidents “to heel,” so to speak, and the opponents of the counter-jihad movement know all of them.
Yes, that’s quite possible. And so is a combination of inducements — carrot plus stick, as it were.
Sad, innit? Once she was against Islam, no modifiers. Now she espouses belief in “moderate” Islam. And she knows better.
Well if anyone should know better… (Because they Hate)
But then she’s going against the mighty Caliph of the new Ottoman Empire, who states flatly that there ain’t no such animal as a ‘moderate’. Who to believe?
I think you are right, Baron, but how can we show this to the folks? How can we study so called moderate Muslims to show that they are invariably lending at least tacit support to jihadists? …and that even the most minimalist of Islamic belief is incongruent with Western civilization?
And, another problem, really logical Enlightenment thinkers might always say “we could be wrong and Brigitte and the other moderates-are-possible people could be correct.”
Personally, I believe it is like the question of slavery. You cannot be a member of our group if you believe slavery or even a little hidden slavery is OK.
That’s an apt comparison. For example, Saudi Arabia promised “no more slavery” in the 1960s but its methods of “hiring” workers is de facto slavery. Especially house domestics.
Steve Coughlin has the right approach. He demonstrates that there is no “moderate” Islam by using authoritive sources written by Muslims for other Muslims, about what Islam believes, and what Islamic law says. His is the most comprehensive research that has been done on that topic, as far as I know.
But then you have the problem of how to propagate this knowledge. People are used to sound bites, and this sort of information cannot be conveyed in sound bites. Collectively, we are suffering from ADD, and can’t pay attention to anything except the briefest (and most entertaining) explanations of things.
One eight-hour briefing from Steve Coughlin would be enough to convince most people. But how could anybody be persuaded to pay attention to something for that long? That’s the main problem.
Baron, you answered your own question: the Red Pill and other briefs of his need to be divided into 3- 5 minutes videos, each with it’s own subject. (something like that is being done with Jordan B. Peterson’s lectures, in which he praises Westren Civilization and shreds post modernism to pieces). Subjects like abrogation, Mohammad as the eternal role model, the amount of space consecrated in the Muslim scriptures to the infidels, the meaning of Muslim prayers, lack of the concept of theGolden Rule in Islam – could be the first sound bites. Could Vlad do that, or make new short interviews with those and other topics?
If the day comes, that people like Steve Coughlin start preaching “moderate Islam” it’ll be time to pick up our bedsheets ( to be used as shrouds) and start walking towards the next cemetery. I don’t believe, however that it would ever happen, and I am not suggesting you do, Baron 🙂
Concerning the counter-jihadis evoking my “moderate little islam” I think there’s a pattern, where before doing that they start using word Islamism, or Radical Islam instead of Islam, period. When I hear that, I know what’s coming next. Seems like a pattern.
and it should be “its” and not “it’s” in the first sentence. Clicking that “Post” button too soon most of the time. Sigh.
There is a videotape of an 8-10 hour briefing that Steve gave back in 2009, which is what the first draft of his book was eventually based on. It’s not out of date at all — in fact, he was prescient about some of the jihad attacks that happened later — so it would be a good place to start.
Steve’s prepared videos are not as good as his briefings, when he stands up in front of a live audience with a powerpoint screen and a remote control for his slides. He is masterful in that environment — no one else even comes close to him.
But he has to have an indefinite amount of time ahead of him, so that he can be totally relaxed and just present the material he has at his fingertips.
I think you are right: he isa much better speaker when he is seeing the audience rather than reading prepared text or is talking to an interviewer. Now his briefings contain both: the doctrine and the facts. We need the doctrine first. Something similar to Robert Spencer’s and Bill Warner’s videos. Actually, it could be done this way: a video titled: Abrogation and 3-4 speakers talking about it. Those would be 11-12 minutes videos.
Why not have Steve start with the Sword Verse as one presentation, then onto the command to kill Jews and Christians (in that order) in the next presentation. Put both on You-Tube and get everybody accustomed to the concept of True Islam being the purview of murderous barbarians and moderate Muslims being haram apostates.
Ever notice that so called “moderates” are generally actually “non practicing”?
So correct! The so-called ‘radicals’, ‘extremists’, and ‘fundalmentalists’, are actually the Orthodox followers of the moondemon deathcult. Those who seek a moderate or reformed version of the mddc, will be perpetually disappointed.
Not orthodox, but TRUE. They are true follower.
Since this deal with our modern day fairy tale of, “Stalking the Elusive Magic Pony of Moderate Islam”, I’ll begin with; Once upon a time, Brigitte Gabriel Answered the Question , with an almost magical lucidity. (Her five minute video is mandatory viewing.)
Fortunately, not even Gabriel herself can “un-ring” the bell of her then-resonant words. The simple and unavoidable fact is that, as she personally noted in the video clip, “moderate Muslims are irrelevant“. And they will remain irrelevant so long as they idly sit by and watch the carnage of jihadist atrocities while maintaining their thundering silence.
Until this world’s “moderate Muslims” find the courage to demand that Koranic doctrine be purged of its violence and slavery, that jihad and forced conversion are permanently rejected, and that peaceful cultural assimilation becomes the norm, then Islam will have no place in civilized society and only merit permanent annihilation.
Saddest beyond belief is that, because of taqiyya and kitman, Islam’s willingness to award itself every sort of unfair advantage essentially prevents any and all opportunities to trust even the most earnest demonstrations of peaceful reformation. At present, there is no reliable way of determining whether a Muslim is telling the truth or simply camouflaging their continued pursuit of jihad.
For almost the entirety of its existence, Islam has “lived by the sword”. Muslims are about to discover the distinctly uncomfortable consequences of having based their whole culture upon such an utterly remorseless axiom.
We have to wake up to the dangers of islam before it can be dealt with decisively; I believe the prerequisite has to be dealing with the elites in government, banking, and education who are herding us into this neofeudalism and multiculti. And it is almost impossible to mobilize support when most of the population suffers from ADD or doesn’t want to hear of the danger to humanity posed by islam.
Islam’s demographic advantage could be defeated decisively in a single afternoon if there was the will and determination on the part of western citizens and govenments. However, this is irrelevent since the attitudes of westerners and their elites would never recgnize such a threat or determine it needs to be dealt with in such a manner, or is actively working to bring about multiculti and enserfment of western populations.
“Islam’s demographic advantage could be defeated decisively in a single afternoon if there was the will and determination on the part of western citizens and governments.”
I refer you to: A Desert Called Glass.
I’ve met people who were responsible for managing America’s nuclear inventory. More than one of them expressed cheerless astonishment that Saudi Arabia was not removed from the chess board immediately after the 9-11 Atrocity.
PS: I’ve always enjoyed your Heinlein-based screen name. TMIAHM was one of his best books. By comparison, “The Cat Who Walks Through Walls” had all the appeal of that “Psycho” remake.
I used to be one of those maintainers of the nuclear inventory. It always bothered me that they were ostensibly there to vaporize Russians or other white christian peoples, who should have been natural allies of the West.
Having spent the latter half of my military career in the garden spots of the islamic world, it would not bother my conscience in the slightest if those lovingly maintained weapons were used to return islam to a quaint and archaic system of tribal law followed only by scattered bands of savages on the fringes of the civilized world.
TMIAHM is my favorite Heinlein novel, although Starship Troopers is a close second in my opinion. The Cat Who Walks Through Walls is depressing to me, as it shows how all free societies eventually revert to the tyranny of oppressive and controlling governments and petty local bureaucracies.
Baron, what do you think of this?
http://newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm?blog_id=66390
Hugh Fitzgerald’s pellucid prose is as incisive as ever it was. His essay concerns the seeming volte-face of Quebec’s Premier Couillard; HF covers all the bases:
I can’t do it justice. Perhaps the B will consider a mirror of the whole thing, or if that’s not kosher, at least part of it. Particularly the part that includes Gladstone’s quote.
Now, since I’m there, I’ll wander the halls of The New English Review…there’s an essay on Tavistock Square…I am compelled to dip in…
Thank you for linking Mr. Fitzgerald.
Thank you for your response.
I’m wondering, could this “contextualizing” be a way of peeling away some Muslims and making them truly “moderate” with respect to violence, murder and mayhem. There would still, however, remain the horrors of Shariah with respect to inequality before the law, the treatment of women and children, the prohibitions against free thinking, etc, etc. So it would not just be the 100 or so verses in the Quran and the many violent prescriptions in the Sunnah to be considered, this “recontextualizing” would have to involve much of the religion. Because even without the violence Muslims would still be a drag upon society.
And the new “contextualizing” would have to be supported by the authorities of Al Azhar and Shia clerics such as Al Sissi in order for it to gain any real traction that was not just more taqiyya.
You’re correct re AlAzhar – which is a different animal from the Shi’ites.
If you want to see the absolutely definitive rule book for Islam with an imprimatur from Cairo, check out this invaluable guidebook (handsomely bound so I suspect Saudi underwriting):
Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law
http://amzn.to/2t0ojQR
When we bought it some years ago, it was 29.00; it’s risen to 39.00 or so and is temporarily out of print. There doesn’t seem to be a backlog of used copies so I guess those might be had at ABE.
It would take a very long time to make your way through this thoroughly, minutely detailed rule book of Islamic observance but you’d come away with the realization that this isn’t a religion in the sense of Western understanding. Islam is a juridical system; there is no morality, compassion, or any of the striving after human virtue that comprise Christianity, Buddhism, etc. It’s not even a real philosophy, just endless rules that would make an obsessive-compulsive wreck out of the strongest of minds.
I looked on ABE books (didn’t realize it’s been under Amazon since 2008 – sigh) and the used copies are over a hundred dollars. What a rip-off.
Dymphna – An online version is easier to use but the copyright owners have been pulling them down one by one, presumably because they have realised how useful it is to the counterjihad side. Below is the last remaining one that I know of. Presumably archive .org obtained permission to host it, being a public law abiding organisation, so hopefully it will be harder to pull down. It would still be a good idea for readers to take their own copy of it in case. The definition will be poor but at least legible:
https://archive.org/stream/RelianceOfTheTraveller1/Reliance%20of%20the%20traveller1#page/n0/mode/1up
Tired of rummaging through it for damning quotes when engaged in internet debates, I collected some of the most shocking rulings here (and did something similar for Guillaume’s Life of Muhammed):
https://ecawblog.wordpress.com/2017/06/20/the-reliance-of-the-traveller/
I hope it may be of use to newcomers to the Reliance, at least showing where to start looking.
Thank you. Providing even some access to a core juridical work like “Reliance” is of inestimable value. I recommend that people bookmark that page and do some studying. Islam would cease to be considered a ‘religion’…
From your page:
Book F The Prayer (Salat) (p 120)
f1.3 Someone raised among Muslims who denies the obligatoriness of the prayer, zakat, fasting Ramadan, the pilgrimage, or the unlawfulness of wine and adultery, or denies something else upon which there is scholarly consensus thereby becomes an unbeliever (kafir) and is executed for his unbelief.
————————————————————–
Precise and to the point.
The context of the Koran has been helpfully explained by Imam Ahmed Saad of North London Central Mosque:
“The teachings of the Quran are not restricted by time and space. They are universal and trans-time.
They can be applied today as they were applied 1400 years ago, and can still be applied till the end of time.”
For denying any verse the penalty is death.
http://www.libertygb.org.uk/news/vatican-blind-fundamental-barbarism-islam
Well, Dymphna got to it first — and she said it much better than I could!
Or one could study the works of Dr. Bill Warner who studies islam FROM a position that mohammed is the final arbiter of what is ‘islamic’ and therefore defines a moslem.
I find his analysis along with Coughlin’s spot on.
There is NO ‘moderate’ or ‘radical’ islam, there’s only islam..and it’s totally evil!!
Yours in Daily Armed Liberty!
Northgunner III
There’s another excellent essay there, taken from The Chronicle:
http://newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm?blog_id=66381&UKs-worst-jihadis-and-extremists-move-into-prison-within-a-prison-at-HMP-Frankland
Hooray!
As was stated in the article, the same ideas that drive people to believe in Moderate Muslims is the same fantasy that makes some people want to believe that 9/11 was an inside job. That the concept of people willing to kill thousands and themselves is too hard to contemplate, and that in some way we caused it and we can keep it from happening again.
“…the same ideas that drive people to believe in Moderate Muslims is the same fantasy that makes some people want to believe that 9/11 was an inside job.”
Too bloody right, mate!!!
Both involve Liberal self-loathing on a sufficiently large scale to where embracing countless millions of silent and tacitly committed individuals may as well amount to agreeing with those who insist that America or Israel could have perpetrated such an atrocity.
well somebody on the inside helped out those planes. buildings simply do not implode as the two towers did. That was a false flag with pre-arranged narrative from the media. The buildings should have fallen in the direction that they were hit.
“The buildings should have fallen in the direction that they were hit.”
Totally WRONG!. If anything, the buildings did fall in the “direction that they were hit”.
They were hit at the top and fell DOWN. They did not “IMPLODE”.
Rest assured that the hijackers dearly wanted to strike the twin towers at a much lower level in order to induce a “domino effect” (which might have killed a million people) but their crude piloting skills did not permit any such thing.
Instead, floors near the top of each building were flooded with nearly 30 TONS of burning jet fuel (in each tower) which released sufficient heat to soften (NOT MELT) the steel girders just enough so that catastrophic structural failure ensued.
The buildings then did exactly what they were designed to and “pancaked” in a relatively controlled fashion. Would you rather that they had toppled like dominoes? Face the question squarely.
Please read up on structural engineering before returning to pollute this erudite board with [ad-hominem redacted].
I expected much better from you.
I will refresh my memory regarding the structural engineering of tall buildings. I am aware of the jet fuel. What you didn’t take into account was the inertia of the craft and the fuel. I will agree that had the aircraft hit in the middle of the building instead of near the top the entire area would have been leveled much like a battlefield. Also, there was a significant amount of evidence found at the site of explosive charges that had been planted at structural points in the buildings. An analysis of the placement of these charges showed them to have been placed so as to produce a controlled implosion as you described the building was designed for.
BTW, I have 30 years in the trades with architectural training. I am not an expert as you might be but a well-educated person who never stops learning.
Oh,please. Who started this 9/11 truther thread? CUT IT OUT.
They were hit at the top and fell DOWN. They did not “IMPLODE”.
Wrong. The planes did NOT approach from directly above the buildings and fly directly downwards into the roofs.
[redacted for comment rules’ violation]
So did Building 7 do what it was designed to do?
I found this on Vladtepsblog site. It is about the role of said “Moderates”
in the overall plan of inserting Sharia into foreign societies.
Very well done I think.
https://vladtepesblog.com/wp-content/uploads//2016/02/Strategic-Overview-Coughlin-010216.pdf
The easiest way to understand moderate Muslims is to compare them to nominal Roman Catholics. A nominal Catholic attends mass a few times a year and lives a worldly life. He will, however, think and speak glowingly of priests, monks and nuns, but lament that he is unable to make such great sacrifices. A moderate Muslim feels the same way about Jihadis!
Quite true. By permitting immigration of non practicing muslims the West, to which they are trying to escape, what’s left back home in the sandbox is a more radical population. The non believers should be made to stay home and clean up the mess. In essence force an Islamic Reformation.
Unfortunately, this is the kind of claim – that there are no genuinely moderate Muslims – which makes it easy for critics to dismiss GoV as “Islamophobic.” Just like the claim that there is only one possible interpretation of Islam itself: one that must be strict, literalist, puritanical, and therefore warlike and intolerant. (Imagine how much someone would be lampooned if they claimed that there was only one possible interpretation of any other religion, be it Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.) It’s one thing to recognize that Islamism in currently on the rise and that genuine Muslim moderates, as opposed to Islamists falsely posting as moderates, are relatively few in number as well as lacking in organizational and financial strength and a mass base of popular support, which is sadly true. It’s another thing altogether to deny that there are genuine Muslim moderates who are trying to reform and modernize Islam, which is not only a demonstrably false claim but one that is extraordinarily counterproductive. What is needed at the present time is for opponents of Islamism (including jihadist terrorism) to form a common front with everyone, both in the West and in the Muslim world, who is opposed to these dangerous totalitarian threats. Much like the West successfully formed a broad and diverse coalition consisting of everyone who opposed communist totalitarianism during the height of the Cold War (from social democrats to elements of the right). This should obvious to anyone who wants to avoid a conflict with 1.4 billion Muslims, including those who risk their lives resisting Islamism. And to further suggest that anyone who acknowledges that moderate Muslims exist and who thinks it is wise to support them must be secretly receiving funds from Gulf States is the height of irresponsibility, since it will only lead to internecine conflicts between opponents of Islamism, who are already outnumbered by delusional Islam apologists. I realize that nothing I say here will matter to many people who read this blog, and that I will soon be characterized herein as someone who is naive about Islam (despite the fact that I have studied Islamic history and Islamic religious doctrines for many years, and have also written a good deal about Islamism and jihadist terrorism). But someone has to challenge these kinds of spurious claims, which can only have harmful effects.
I could never trust a Muslim.They have to be moved from the west to their territories where they can practice their rear-ends-to-the-sky in peace. And the west to keep clean of them forever.
Diversity is not a strength.They should live in their separate and isolated culture, and we in ours.
We cannot mix.
The best for the world is if the Muslims never were.
Definitely, the Muslim parasitism that happens in the west right now and the attitude of conquest that they display make me think that […] the end may be coming. One nation or another would start it sometime.
Deport, deport, take citizenships away, no right to vote… etc etc
[Redacted for not following commenting rules. No name-calling, among others].
Dr. Jeff,
When I started out in this line of work, my position was much like yours. Whenever commenters said, “There are no ‘moderate’ Muslims,” I replied, “The jury’s still out — we don’t know that yet.”
That was at least twelve years ago. For the next few years I studied Islam intensively. And above all, I studied the statistical evidence — as Christ said, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” The statistical evidence says that “moderate” Muslims are few indeed. Repeated surveys demonstrate that a large minority of Muslims — and in some cases a majority — tell pollsters that they support what you call “Islamism”. That is, they believe violence and terrorism against the kuffar are justified.
I would never assert that there are no “moderate” Muslims. Zuhdi Jasser, for example, seems totally sincere, a decent fellow who wants his religion to be as peaceful and fulfilling as Christianity or Buddhism. But he is a very isolated case. The number of his followers — his co-religionists, that is; not the earnest non-Muslims who fervently hope that he represents the future of Islam — could sit comfortably in a Lincoln Town Car with plenty of room left over for luggage.
There is no evidence of any significant population of “moderate” Muslims anywhere in the world. Take, for example, the recent “Dozen-Muslim March Against Terror” in Germany, where only a couple of hundred people showed up — and the vast majority of those were native German Gutmenschen, and not Muslims.
There has never been an instance when thousands of Muslims took to the streets to protest against “Islamism”. Not a single one. The only time thousands of Muslims take to the streets is to protest some perceived slight committed by the kuffar. Or to denounce Israel’s treatment of the “Palestinians”. Or when someone draws a cartoon of Mohammed — then hundreds of thousands of Muslims take to the streets. Not only carrying banners and chanting slogans, but also burning cars and buildings, looting businesses, and assaulting people, sometimes with fatal consequences. And what do the “moderates” say about such events? Not a peep, at least not from more than a handful.
There may be a fair number of Muslims who hold “moderate” opinions, who think that Islam should not be spread by the sword, contrary to its core scriptures. Who object to the killing of apostates — also required by its core scriptures. Who think that a woman’s legal testimony should carry more than half the weight of a man’s — despite the fact that all major schools of Islamic law, Sunni and Shi’ite, state that requirement plainly.
There may be Muslims who think like that, but they wisely keep quiet, because they know they can be killed if they ever state their views publicly. That’s how Islam prevents a “moderate” version of itself from every coming into existence — it kills anyone who pops up and proclaims it.
One final point: There is no such thing as “Islamism”. It doesn’t exist among Muslims. It is entirely a creation of Western analysts who hope that an “extremist” version of Islam can be identified, isolated, and eliminated. But that’s wishful thinking — Muslims themselves don’t recognize such distinctions. As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said: “There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.” He’s a devout Muslim himself, so he should know.
So those who seek to elevate the “moderates” and isolate the “Islamists” are pursuing a chimera. They have constructed an imaginary ideology out of fluff and gossamer. The thing simply doesn’t exist.
This is an awful, horrible conclusion to have reached. When the truth of it first sank in about ten years ago, for weeks I was filled with dread and depression at the thought of what must lie ahead: Yes, we are at war with a billion and a half people who want to kill us, enslave us, and abolish our culture. The 21st century may well outdo the 20th in fire and blood and slaughter.
But this is the sad truth of our times. There’s no point in entertaining pretty lies.
* * * * * *
One more point: in your academic work, you presumably receive funding from endowed non-profit organizations, or universities, or something similar. If you ever came to the same conclusions that I have reached, you would lose your funding, because there are almost no academic institutions that will permit a point of view like mine.
I’m fortunate not to live under such constraints. We have no funding here except for the numerous small donations made by readers. I don’t have to gain the approval of a board of regents, or satisfy the directors of a think tank.
So when I write things like this, it is simply the conclusion that I have reached after years of diligent study and research.
You, on the other hand, could not write such things, even if you happened to stumble across the ideas and accept the logic behind them. Not if you wanted to retain your position. Not if you wanted to avoid instant penury.
It’s unfortunate that you are thus restricted in your exploration of ideas. I count myself fortunate to have total academic and literary freedom.
Don’t get that confused Jeff confused with this unconfused Jeff E.
We should also remember that the high numbers of Muslims who tell infidel pollsters the truth, that they believe jihadi murder of non-believers is justified, that they want to live under sharia law in western countries, that the punishment for apostasy should be death etc. should be adjusted higher still to compensate for takiya.
Many Muslims are triumphalist, already so sure of their ultimate victory over the West that they happily tell pollsters what their true intentions are. Others practice takiya, lying to gain strategic advantage for Allah. They will pretend moderation to keep us reassured and the inflow of Muslims continuing until they have their critical mass. Usually at 6-10% of the population they feel comfortable enough to launch frequent vandalism such as car burnings, blockade thoroughfares with mass praying, create obvious “no go” areas where local police are not welcome, rape non-Muslim women and even plead their religion as a defense in a court of law etc.
Jeff-
If you are still here, my question to you is – How many years have you spent living on the ground, by yourself in an Islamic society?
“Islamophobic” is a neologism coined by Iran back in the 80s. Any intellectually honest person would do well to eschew its use. Not to say it isn’t quite useful for Islamophiles…this could have been written by the Saudi-paid Esposito at Georgetown.
See the OSCE conference in which Steve Coughlin’s sideline group hit that word out of the park, thereby blocking the Islamophiles in OSCE from bringing their reams of bumpf to the UN.
The situation in Australia re Israel and Palestine is an example of demographic shif. Although Muslims are only 2% of the population there concentration means that they have the ability top determine the outcome of seats in Parliament. Recognizing this the opposition Labor party is about to shift from its unequivocal support for Israel. This will also eventually affect other areas as well – those who think that there needs to be more than 50% to effect change do not understand politics.
“… have also written a good deal about Islamism and jihadist terrorism)” I don’t believe this Jeff character to have “studied Islamic history and Islamic religious doctrines for many years”. If so, where are his bona fides??? Why doesn’t he give a link to his articles? [Redacted rudeness]
Jeff,
One must take you at your word that “…despite the fact that I have studied Islamic history and Islamic religious doctrines for many years …”. If you believe that any pious, Koran-observant, hadith-regarding, Muslim can be moderate, then one must, with all due respect, question the academic rigor of such study and what “many years” means.
As an aside, I recall a colleague in 1993, who had, as an intellectual diversion, obtained a masters degree in theology (with a specific focus on comparative religions) sagaciously informing me how similar the three monotheistic religions were. I said nothing in reply, but concluded that he (a Buddhist) had been very poorly and superficially taught.
Only if one categorizes all (or some) Islamic belief to the “left” (for lack of a better analogy) of Wahabism as “moderate” is there a moderate Islam. And, as Wahabism is a Sunni phenomenon, where does one find an extreme Shia-moderate Shia spectrum?
It is your reference to “… this should be obvious to anyone who wants to avoid conflict with 1.4 billion Muslims” that lies at the heart of your position. The desire to avoid such conflict is perfectly understandable. Is the avoidance of such conflict, however, a realistic option available to the non-Muslim world? Not if one understands the Meccan/Medinan verse dichotomy in the Koran and the doctrine of abrogation. Not if one listens to what Islam and contemporary Muslim spokespersons (apart from the Quilliam Foundation) say.
I am so sick of this mantra of moderate Muslims. I think there are two categories of “moderate” Muslims exists: the first is the one who are very clear on the violent nature of Islam and clear on its final goal: world domination, but either lack the courage to follow its violent jihadist members or smart enough to follow the civilization jihad (Muslim Brotherhood tactics – migration “hijra” and breeding out of control).. These are the people who dancing on the streets of their no-go zones after each terrorist attacks. The second group is the ignorant ones. (lot of Leftist migrant supporter, western media and politicians are in this category also).
Best to explain this is like a guy who says he loves the Nazis because they built those awesome highways (autobahn) and created the Volkswagen Beetle. What else the Nazis did? He does not really know…
I once saw a guy on video ( i searched for it on YouTube but could not find it before my ADD kicked in but believe me..it is out there) who said: All i wanted to know about islam i saw on september 11 2001. I think the guy is right.
I have a huge problem with Christianity. I think religion is [noxious material] (thank you mr Carlin for that line). Modern day Christians consider homosexuality part of the scripture. Believe me..That’s not the case. Just read your own bible. It is clear about homo’s. Read leviticus the anti man-man passage and you know what the bible says about homosexuality.
We’ ve got way to many people stating they are x or y but when we look at what the book x/y says we all can see the people who think they are true x or y’s are everything but x or y..
Either you are a muslim or you are not. You are a Nazi or you are not.. We solved the Nazi problem after 60 million of casualties. How long are we going to wait for a solution for the Islam problem? A problem that is well defined by the one that sort of solved the Nazisme problem aka SIR Winston Churchill?
Islam is the problem at hand..All those who say they are Mohamed’s followers are guilty until proven innocent.
Sigh. Bring up Islam and eventually the religion-bashers come out to play. Your statements re Christianity are generalized, over-blown, and misguided. I’ve been a Christian my whole life and you failed utterly to catch its essence. Anyone who uses George Carlin as his back-up is already in trouble.
Would you go to Pope Francis for economic advice? Same principle.
BTW, the Netherlands’ version of Christianity did much to bring it to its knees, because everything must bow to the god of Tolerance. Hint: you failed the Tolerance Test. You and the late George Carlin, God bless your hearts.
So millions died in the name of that Christian God and I fail the tolerance test?
Not nearly the same number of people that Communism destroyed in one century. Yep, you fail the tolerance test. A truly tolerant person wouldn’t keep on gnawing away at another’s belief the way you do.
We’re not in Christian times anymore. Time to move along to the problems of the 21st century.
The Japanese had suicide bombers during the war, you know. Since there are suicide bombers today, why aren’t you getting all bent out of shape about Japan? Today, right now, in July 2017?
Well, Pope Francis actually seems to spend more of his time doling out economic advice than religious except to love thy Muslim neighbor. His economic advice is always along the marxist lines of “from each according to ability to each according to need” with all the wealthy spoken of as though they’ve come by their riches dishonestly and all the poor as though they’re noble and were somehow cheated.
This Pope appears no shepherd to Christians, barely murmuring some platitude when a Muslim cut the throat of an elderly priest in front of his altar and a horrified audience of nuns.
Both the manner of his substitution for Pope Benedict and his strange priorities bring suspicion on Pope Francis who casts doubt on the old bromide: “IS the Pope Catholic?”
“IS the Pope Catholic?” Nope.
I was born a Catholic and never told them to unregister me. I just don’t believe in God.
Religion brought Europe nothing but trouble. It slowed down science and people got killed by the masses.
The killing stopped- which is a good thing- and the Christians of today tend to point out the good aspects of their religion. Nial Fergusson got it right explaining the benefit society had from parts of religion and the bible.
The simple fact that the killing stopped is not a certificate of proven innocence of that religion. The scripture did lead to mass murder. Sorry that i can’t get my head around that.. And never will. We are all so lucky that the inquisition is no longer around. Thank you for that!!
One might guess what i think about believing in a invisible entity somewhere far far away.. I tolerate it. That’s what tolerance is all about. Tolerance and logic. Concepts so familiar to religion…
Your stereotypical black-and-white anti-religious views are your own. They are no more “tolerant” or original than the fundamentalist Christians who show up to tell us the opposite of what you claim.
As for “tolerance”, it sure is typically Dutch. From Arthur Legger’s explanation of his fellow countrymen, written in 2008, but still accurate:
http://www.trykkefrihed.dk/why-spinoza-was-not-murdered.htm
WHY SPINOZA WAS NOT MURDERED
.
The whole essay, written in 2008, tells us why the Dutch are committing suicide (and gently encouraged euthanasia) in such high numbers.
“Tolerance” got you a whole lot of immigrants who want to kill the Dutch and replace them.
Dutch tolerance is absolutely not what got us 4 million immigrants/ non native Dutch at the moment. It al started with laziness and a former colony or two.
Tolerance does not mean the lack of criticism. What needs to be said needs to be said. Do i respect Christians? Off course. You know damn well i was befriended with well know Christians.
Maybe i did not make my point all that clear when i said something to begin with in this thread. My two cents are:
Way to many people get away with being labeled
” moderate”. From all believes.
Norseradish gave us a link about how to consider the so called moderates. They are irrelevant. History learned us that much.
It will help us all if we use the word ” moderate” in any shape or form a bit more careful when we speak about religion or ideology’s.
You Dymphna. You might be a bit more tolerant for this somewhat radical atheist. I know you are a Christian and i sure as hell know you are not an extremist. I did not intend to hurt your believes or feelings..
Religion brought Europe nothing but trouble. It slowed down science and people got killed by the masses.
Niall Fergusson got it right explaining the benefit society had from parts of religion and the bible.
a) Your thinking is not consistent, my friend.
b) The Japanese had suicide bombers aplenty during the war. So when suicide bombers strike today, at say, the MEN Areana, why don’t you rant about Japan? Today, right now, in July 2017?
May I also point out that as Ernle Bradford acknowledges in his study of the great siege of 1565, the Christian faith of the Maltese, and of the Knights of St. John, played a significant role in their being able to defend Malta, and therefore mainland Europe, from the Islamic forces of Suleyman the not-so-Magnificent.
So preventing an Islamic invasion – a real, honest-to-goodness military invasion – of mainland Europe –
stopping that invasion dead in its tracks – somehow equates in your thinking to “bringing nothing but trouble to Europe”???
I am afraid your position is not tenable, my friend.
Correct, bible based Christianity does not support homosexuality. Both the new and old Testaments condemn the practice. Only more liberal (not bible oriented, but interpreted) schools of Christian thought support gay marriage. It becomes harder to say that they are practicing Christianity anymore if they are not bible oriented.
At what point would someone continue calling themselves a Christian as they get further and further away from the source of scripture, and want religion to just reflect their own political views? What’s the point of even studying the bible? I would describe this as neo liberalism posing as Christianity. They rapidly reduce Christianity to tolerance, love your enemy, and turn the other cheek as the only things Jesus said that are significant. This is a misinterpretation of Christianity, and a severe false over weighting of some particular verses of the Bible. The political left does not want a church that takes a stand against any moral shortcoming or failure (sorry, homosexuality is biological failure).
The same disease that infected the rest of society also infects the Church. Sorry you find the basis of western society and law to be vile, but there is no end to all the sexual and social failure that the left will endorse (I see Salon now has an article embracing pedophilia). You seem to embrace their ideas of social fascist thinking and demand all must concur with your opinions. If you don’t, then you resort to ad hominem (and other) attacks. What’s next and where do you draw the line? Liberals are the political cesspool of failed ideas and false victimhood. All bad ideas they have rapidly swirl and flow down to the lowest common denominator of human degradation.
If you want to live a homosexual lifestyle, then that is your choice. Far be it for me to want to force you into being or pretending that you are something else. You have no right to demand I agree with everything you want or say, no right to demand that all social institutions embrace your lifestyle, nor do you have the right to engage in calling people names if they do not. You may politely disagree, and please feel free to state your reasons and rational arguments for doing so.
As austerity bites harder so the divide will get wider. Civilisation will keep on trying to assimilate the unassimilatable but until the truth is told then there will be conflict.
Muslamisms seem to have a real affinity in perpetuating poverty, encourage barbarism and offering enslavement to their adherents. These tenets somehow get lost in the translation that Islam is a religion of peace. With all the bad bits brushed away it might become peaceful, but the sheer lack of humanity within the present message certainly doesn’t look very peaceful.
This dilemma should help in the demise of such inhumane behaviour but only if there is enough leverage both within and without to make this happen. It has been said before many times, ‘How do you change Islam? Until some one answers that question then we will always be left with the warlike version we have now.
‘Moderate Muslims are (for the moment) passive Muslims. Read what happened in Yugoslavia where Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox had supposedly been living together as neighbors. When the war began, so did the former ‘tolerance’ disappear and there were no longer any ‘moderate Muslims’, nor moderate anybody!
The hope for moderation is the hope for reformation, which came at great cost to life and limb in Europe – ie the Reformation, Counter-reformation and the religious wars (although most of those wars were between Protestant sects rather than Catholic V Protestant.)
In my study of Nazi Germany. I have come to the conclusion that the only people who protested Hitler in any meaningful way were Judeo-Christians who had strongly internalized the Mosaic moral code and the Sermon on the Mount. An outstanding example would be Bohnhoeffer. All the other Christians averted their gaze.
Unfortunately, with Islam, we have no comparable moral code for people to fall back on. Islamic Sharia Law is the very CAUSE of our problem with them. Islamic Law is appalling, to say the least- only to be compared with Nazism and Communism – and they never reformed! I suppose in modern Ideological Correctness, we have a watered down Communism. Perhaps that is a kind of reform – although judging from the likes of the antifas, it is becoming more virulent by the day!
Islam must be defeated like Nazism and Communism or the West is finished.
I am waiting for the events that are described in Chapters 38 and 39 of the Book of Ezekiel. There on the mountains of Judea where they have massed for an attack upon Israel, fixe-sixths of the assembled horde that will seemingly number in the millions will be wiped out but each other and by fire that falls from the sky (Divine Intervention). With the remainder sent home with their tail between their legs the Sufi brand of Islam will finally have its day and a rapprochement between Islam and the Catholic Church will occur (Frankie the Pope is preparing the church for this). Israel will think that the Millennium has arrived and will build the Third Temple. Stay tuned, its better after that.
There is of course an alternative to all this soul-searching and that is to repudiate Oil altogether. Its quite obvious Oil is the underpinning of the efforts of the Ummah to fight and islamize the world. Ergo, do not use oil, do not buy it burn it or sell it. Drive electric. order your Tesla or Bolt or Gen II Leaf, and forsake oil entirely. Should the West do that we gain both clean air, and the utter diminution of the power of the Ummah to buy influence. Then turn back all Muslim ships, then price vaccinations and food at market-prices, et voila, problem solved. But before all that have some children, for God’s sake. No children no future but an Islamic one. Baron, how many children have you sired and raised?
I have four children. One of them died in 2003. Is that enough information? I also raised one that wasn’t my own. I would have had more if possible. There is nothing so wonderful as a child.
As for electric cars, what fuel is going to generate your electricity to run that car, sir?
We can’t afford the cars you mention. Besides, Israel is happily exploring for oil…and glad to have it.
Dear “moderate” muslims–take islam back home to the desert to reform, improve, declaw/defang and enhance its understanding of peace. The West will gladly give you the space and time for your magic to work. If you’d rather not accept this challenge/mission/duty to mankind, then perhaps you are aiding and abetting that which you claim to want to change, lying to yourself and others, or terrified of what it is and you, by name, are–one who submits to islam. You could be ignorant, but why would you be so steadfastly ignorant? For me and mine, we won’t hold our breath, nor be at anything but condition yellow until you achieve moderation or islam implodes. ~CD
Just bought a copy of Reliance at Amazon for $42 plus ship. More at higher prices. This one ships from UK. We’ll see when/if it arrives.
-West out
It’s late. I had to read all the comments before making my own, because it’s just ignorant to expect people to read your opinion when you haven’t read theirs.
In all the discussion about whether Muslims can be moderate, there was but a little discussion about what defined a moderate Muslim. In point of fact, it seems to be a Muslim who rejects extra-legal violence in all situations. That is, they are not simply waiting for the opportune moment, but can be relied on to not commit violence, even if they saw violence as facilitating the spread of Islam.
This brings two questions: are there such Muslims as Muslims; and if they do in fact exist, should we still have a concern about them in Western society? By this definition, the prevaricators at, say CAIR, would not count as moderates, even the ones not caught red-handed shifting funds to Hamas. CAIR clearly runs interference for Muslim terrorists, working politically to suppress the resources, including knowledge of Islam, that security agencies need to lower the Muslim terror threat.
But the question remains of whether there are genuine Muslims who can be relied on to not engage in, or encourage, extra-legal violence, and whether, if they exist, we still have a reason to exclude them.
Probably the exemplar of a moderate Muslim is Irshad Manji, who by the way, describes herself as a Muslim reformer and specifically not a moderate. She says the moderates are too passive towards the real problems with Islam itself.
Irshad Manji debates Islamic reform with the host of Head to Head, Mehdi Hasan
Two of the commenters gave a pretty clear description of what remains in Islam even if you take away the gratuitous and pervasive violence:
We should also consider the fact that the political process is particularly susceptible to a cohesive identity group willing to constantly push its own point of view. There’s no question if Hillary had gotten elected President, her Supreme Court choices would have carved out an area in the law where criticism of Islam would be criminalized as inciting violence. The political infiltration of Muslim Brotherhood operatives would insure US law would become more compliant with Sharia law. And it would use completely legal techniques.
Recall, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany through completely legal and constitutional measures.
To the extent a Muslim gets away from advocating sharia law, or even opposing violence, that Muslim is leaving the discipline of sharia law and Muslim requirements. In effect, that Muslim is leaving the Muslim faith. There are individuals who take those reform positions, but the question is, what are they producing? Do they have any claim to be Muslims, or are they pulling their own new religion out of their hat?
That seems to be Manji’s approach. She discards what she doesn’t like in Islam, and adds what she likes. She claims to be using the ancient Islamic tradition of Ijtihad, but GoV’s own Fjordman pretty thoroughly demolished her claim to be leading a traditional expression of Muslim liberalism.
https://gatesofvienna.net/2006/12/the-trouble-with-irshad-manji
The problem with the genuine Muslim reformer is he is striking out on his own, and may not speak for anyone except himself. Muslim tradition and law are on the side of the violent extremist.
In fact, groups of genuinely moderate Muslims seem to be associated with charismatic leaders who themselves are revered as prophets. The presence of such a prophet gives the offshoot Muslim group some staying power as a moderate group, and some claim to continuity. The Ahymadiyha Muslims are an example of a Muslim group which could genuinely be considered moderate. Their prophet provided a non-violent interpretation of Koranic passages which interpretation could be enforced in the Ahmadiyyah community.
But the Ahmadiyyah are persecuted and reviled by mainstrem Muslims for just that reason: Islam forbids dilution of its expansionist drive and unflinching, harsh laws. Islam forbids the existence of an alternative prophet to Muhammad, mainly because they do not want its expansionist, intolerant message to be diluted.
So, the Ahmadiyya and other sects like the Ismaili Muslims have an institutional foundation for non-violent interpretations of the Muslim theology, even if the interpretation goes against the plain text (assuming any Koranic passage can be found which is plain text).
Are the Ahmaddiyas simply stalking horses for real Islam, serving the role of hiding Islam until the heat passes? Will the Ahmadiyyas put political pressure for tolerating and protecting Islam from criticism? And even if the Ahmadiyya turn out to be benign, do we want the diversity of an ideological and politically unified community of interest-seekers further dividing a polity which contains radical differences?
Perhaps, this discussion requires NON PRACTICING MUSLIMS as another category in addition to MODERATE MUSLIMS.
Without knowing the breakdown of these two categories let’s say just for the sake of argument that the non-practicers outweigh the so called moderates (probably true in Indonesia). Then two questions pose themselves: Why would non practicers self identify as Muslims and would they be able to renounce that identity.
Group identity is a powerful attractor. Without it we feel alone in confronting all the tuff obstacles in life. A group identity gives us some reassurance.
Yes, group identities have often been discarded when another group presents itself as more powerful. Take imperialist Japan after the war. From a thorough fanatical indoctrinated populace to the peaceful nation it is today.
So, if non practicers are a goodly or majority percentage of muslim identifiers the question of how to stand up to Islam becomes moot. We in the West need to exercise maximum military force plus concerted educational propoganda about Islam and the non practicers will follow along without us worrying about antagonizing the so called moderates into resistance.