Below is a report in French about Ramadan in Morocco. At one time Morocco was tolerant of people who declined to fast during the holy month, but all that has changed. Increasing fundamentalist pressure on Muslims to comply with strict Islamic rules includes the threat of jail for those who fail to observe the fast.

Many thanks to Gaia for the translation and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Whenever someone tells you that “Islam needs a Reformation”, point out the object lesson of Morocco…
– – – – – – – – –
Morocco used to be one of the most tolerant of Islamic countries, with a significant population of secularized Muslims and a partiality towards its neighbors across the Mediterranean in Spain and France. But the wave of Islamic revival which has passed over the Muslim world during the last thirty years has affected Morocco, too.

Islam is reforming. In places like Somalia, Islam has reformed.

Calling for reform implies that Islam should return to its true spiritual values, and that is exactly what is happening now in Morocco, Tunisia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and all those other parts of the Muslim world which used to be considered “relaxed” in their observance of Islamic practices.

An “Islamic Reformation” is already underway. Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Yusef al-Qaradawi, Mullah Omar, and Anjem Choudary are just a few of its zealous champions. In another decade or two the process of reform will be nearing completion.

Don’t wish for Islamic reform. You just might get what you wish for.

The CIA has issued a warning about the increased danger posed by a local chapter of Al Qaeda in Yemen. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, is calling for the Lebanese government to build nuclear power plants. A Saudi preacher is decrying the practice of hiring women as cashiers, and wants shoppers to boycott stores that employ them. And, if that’s not enough, the UAE is gearing up to export camel’s milk to the European Union, as soon as the EU can process the relevant paperwork.

In other news, the Mounties raided a house in Ottawa early this morning and arrested two men who are suspected of planning terrorist attacks for Al Qaeda.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to Barry Rubin, C. Cantoni, Erick Stakelbeck, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Lurker from Tulsa, Onzieme, Steen, TV, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

[This post is a stub — nothing further here!]

Writing in Forbes, Claudia Rossett takes a look at the good fortune Feisal Abdul Rauf, the man behind the Ground Zero mosque, has enjoyed since he came to America. In an article entitled “Cashing In On Ground Zero”, Ms. Rossett outlines the salaries, remunerations, stipends, honoraria, emoluments, perquisites, and gratuities — some of them due to the largesse of the federal government — conferred upon Imam Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan since he arrived on these shores:

For the State Department to spend thousands of taxpayer dollars sending someone with those views on a “public diplomacy” trip to the Middle East is a curious exercise. Rauf’s trip is costing $16,000. Khan’s will cost $12,000. If Khan will be collecting the same $496 per diem that Rauf will be getting in Abu Dhabi, this will include a joint $982 per day for creature comforts, as Khan spreads her opinions about Muslim life in America—and builds people-to-people ties in an Islamic state loaded with billions in oil wealth.

[…]

America has delivered to both Rauf and Khan a life in which they have freely practiced their religion and been free to convert others—including a sister-in-law of their real-estate partner, Sharif El-Gamal. Both arrived in this country as immigrants, and had conferred upon them the full panoply of American rights and freedoms.

[…]

Rauf sits on the board of trustees of the Islamic Center of New York, a large facility established on Manhattan’s Upper East Side by his father, who also ran a big Islamic center in Washington. Rauf serves as an advisor to the Interfaith Center of New York, and, like Khan, has been welcomed to spread his messages by a long list of foundations and institutions, including Jewish centers, churches and schools. Under both the Bush and Obama administrations, Rauf has been tapped for three previous taxpayer-funded “outreach” jaunts to the Middle East, two in 2007 and a third earlier this year.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, far from being shunned as Muslims, Rauf and Khan have enjoyed a boom business in “outreach.” Their lifestyle includes at least two homes in the U.S. and one in Malaysia, fancy cars and pricey clothes. Last October, in an article headlined “High Five With Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf,” Forbes chronicled the imam’s pleasure in driving a Lexus GS400. Rauf also detailed how he enjoys Armani and Brioni suits, his wife likes her cashmere scarves, and he mentioned his fondness for handcrafted Persian rugs, especially those woven of silk. He added that he owns about 15 carpets dispersed between his homes in New Jersey and New York, and another 15 carpets “at my home in Malaysia.”

Well, well, well… America has been good to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, hasn’t it? Surely he is filled with gratitude towards his adopted country, which has lavished so much bounty on him — right?

Not at all! Imam Rauf considers his plight in the United States to be analogous to that of the early Christians in Rome who were fed to the lions. The imam voiced that opinion as part of a little-noticed interview with PBS back in 2002, in which he answered a number of questions about Islam and its place in American society. Here’s what he said:

Another aspect about living in the United States is that one experiences a lot of negative media attention to one’s Islamicity. And that has resulted, and can result in a reaction one way or the other by many people. Many Muslims feel in this country like the Christians did in Rome when they were fed to the lions. And here the lions are the media. We hope that perhaps things will change in the United States, as they did in Rome, as well.

Ah, yes — I’ve noticed how hard the American media are on Muslims. Haven’t you?

Muslims on TV are constantly being assaulted with antagonistic questions from Islamophobic reporters and commentators. Feature articles about Islam are almost always negative, cherry-picking the bad news and never looking at the positive aspects of Islam.

Uh-huh. Right. Sure.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has battened off the fat of our land for decades, yet he sees himself as being thrown to the lions by the American media. He leaves me — as Muslim public figures often do — groping for the Arabic equivalent of “chutzpah”.

He says he hopes that “perhaps things will change in the United States, as they did in Rome”. What sort of analogous change is he anticipating?

Mass conversion to Christianity? Surely not!

An invasion of barbarians? And who would get to play the role of the barbarians?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The bulk of the interview with Imam Rauf is a masterpiece of classical Islamic deception. Mr. Rauf is far more dangerous than a clown like Anjem Choudary or a snake like Yusuf al-Qaradawi. His glibness and smooth talk make Tariq Ramadan look like a tongue-tied amateur by comparison.

Fisking the entire interview is beyond the scope of a single blog post — it would require an extended detour through the canons of sharia law to explain all the nuances of what Mr. Rauf had to say.

The important thing to remember is that every public utterance of Feisal Abdul Rauf is packed with coded words and phrases — “terms of art” from the sharia lexicon that allow him to mislead non-Muslims and obscure the full implications of various parts of Islamic law.

To point out the existence of “code” within sharia is not simply the ravings of a paranoid Islamophobe, but highlights an acknowledged feature of Islamic law. Consider, for example the introduction to Al-Hidayah, the classical 12th-century legal treatise from the Hanafi school of Islamic law, written by Qazi Halb Burhan-ud-din al-Marghinani. The modern translator of this work, Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee — who has a law degree from the University of Michigan — explains the coding of Islamic legal texts (pp. xix-xxiv):
– – – – – – – – –

When we use the word code with reference to Islamic legal texts, we obviously do not mean a statute enforced with the authority of the state. Codification with reference to Islamic schools means the attempt to bring uniformity into the law out of a mass of available rulings.

[…]

This book contains a huge amount of “coded” information. We use the term coded here to mean what people in the computer world would mean. Within this information are “macros” — short statements that pack within them pages of information. The macro needs to be preprocessed before the code can reveal its entire meaning.

A Muslim who explains Islam to the infidel often uses these “coded” phrases in his descriptions, but without providing any decoding instructions. This allows him to tell the truth while deceiving the kuffar, which earns him the high approval of Allah. At the same time, any educated Muslim who hears his words knows how to decode them, and understands exactly what he means.

Many words and phrases used in Islamic legal parlance have obvious everyday meanings to a Western audience, yet mean something quite different in sharia. It can take years to acquire a basic working knowledge of sharia codes — I’m just a raw beginner — but we can still parse the Imam Rauf’s words with an eye to decoding the terms of art.

The interview begins with this (all bolding is mine):

Q: What are the fundamentals of Islam? What does it teach to be a Muslim?

The fundamental idea which defines a human being as a Muslim is the declaration of faith: that there is a creator, whom we call God — or Allah, in Arabic — and that the creator is one and single. And we declare this faith by the declaration of faith, where we … bear witness that there is no God but God. And that we are accountable to God for our actions.

The declaration of faith, or shahada, is “La illaha ila Allah, wa Muhammadun rasul Allah”, which means “There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is the messenger of Allah.” Reciting the shahada is all it takes to convert to Islam, and once having recited the shahada, the new believer is a Muslim forever. He cannot revert to being an unbeliever — unbelief or kufr is the most serious crime under Islamic law, and is punishable by death.

Q: And that’s the bottom line?

That is the universal Quranic definition of a person who is a Muslim. Because God says in the Quran that there is only one true religion, God’s religion. It’s the same theme that God revealed to all of the prophets, even before Muhammad. They all came to express the truth about ultimate reality…

The Koran not only says that Islam is the one true religion, but also that it has abrogated or superseded the other two “Abrahamic faiths”. Any of the People of the Book — Jews and Christians — who do not forsake their outdated and abrogated beliefs and take up the true faith are guilty of a grave sin. If they live under Islamic rule, they may be subject to severe punishments, including death. The best they can hope for is to pay the poll tax and live as dhimmis — second-class citizens.

All previous prophets — including Moses and Jesus — were Islamic prophets to whom Allah revealed the truth. Their prophecy was superseded and fulfilled by Mohammed, the final prophet of Islam. The failure to recognize this truth is what causes obstinate Jews and Christians to fall into such grievous sin.

Q: It doesn’t sound so different from Christianity or Judaism.

The Quran does not speak about Christianity or Judaism. You will not find that word once mentioned in the Quran. But you’ll find many, many instances of Christians and Jews, because the definitions the Quran uses are human-based definitions. Not conceptual definitions; very much it speaks about the realities…

Mr. Rauf may be correct that the Koran fails to use the words “Christianity” or “Judaism”. But it certainly refers to them, as it does to other varieties of unbelief.

Sharia is explicitly based in the Koran (the uncreated word of Allah, as dictated to Mohammed) and the hadith (the authenticated sayings of the prophet). All codified Islamic law refers back to these sources to validate its rules.

Christians and Jews are very much in evidence in the body of Islamic law. For example, in Book M, “Marriage”, of Reliance of the Traveller (the most authoritative legal treatise from the Shafi’ite School of Islamic law), al-Misri tells us (m6.7, p. 529):

It is unlawful for a Muslim man to marry:

(1)		a Zoroastrian woman;
(2)		an idol worshipper;
(3)		an apostate from Islam (murtadd, def: o8);
(4)		or a woman with one parent who is Jewish or Christian, while the other is Zoroastrian.
(5)		(N: It is not lawful or valid for a Muslim man to be married to any woman who is not either a Muslim, Christian, or Jew; nor is it lawful or valid for a Muslim woman to be married to anyone besides a Muslim.)

For its core ruling on Christians and Jews, Reliance of the Traveller refers explicitly to the Koran. From Book O, “Justice” (o9.8, p. 602):

The caliph (o25) makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians (N: provided he has first invited them to enter Islam in faith and practice, and if they will not, then invited them to enter the social order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya, def: o11.4) — which is the significance of their paying it, not the money itself — while remaining in their ancestral religions) (O: and the war continues) until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax (O: in accordance with the word of Allah Most High,

“Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day and who forbid not what Allah and His messenger have forbidden — who do not practice the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book — until they pay the poll tax out of hand and are humbled” (Koran 9.29),

the time and place for which is before the final descent of Jesus (upon whom be peace).

Koran 9.29 — the “Verse of the Sword” — is the final word on Christians and Jews, since it abrogates all the earlier verses on the topic. Islamic law most assuredly understands 9:29 to be about Christians and Jews, and it understands Islam’s responsibility towards them — namely, to make war against them in perpetuity, until they convert, are killed, or submit to the authority of Islam and become dhimmis.

Imam Rauf has not spoken a single syllable of untruth. But he has failed to tell the whole truth concerning Islam’s understanding of its relationship with Christians and Jews.

He continues with a long stretch of ecumenical boilerplate which the reader is invited to discover for himself. Then the interviewer poses this complicated question for the imam to answer:

Q: We’re finding that it’s very hard to define who Muslims are. Every time we figure, oh, that’s what it is, or that’s who they are, there’s an exception to the rule. There’s a very traditional housewife-looking lady in Malaysia who’s also an OB/Gyn who ministers to unwed mothers. We have girls in Turkey who are saying, “Look, we want to express ourselves as Muslims. We want to cover our hair.” And we have a secular government that’s discriminating against them — women who want to cover, women who don’t. Men who want to keep women in the house; men who agree that women have absolute opportunity to do what they need to do in society. How does this all fit?

The definition of the faith of Islam that I gave you before is the Quranic universal definition of the human being vis-a-vis the creator. There is a narrower definition of Islam which is used, which is those who follow the teachings of the prophet Muhammad. Now, according to that definition, their Islam is defined by what was commonly called the five pillars of faith. This is what theologians call the orthopraxy, or the orthopraxis. It means the practices which define you as a Muslim.

[…]

The orthopraxy of Islam is a declaration of faith: the statement that there is no God but God; that Muhammad is the messenger of God; the five-time daily prayer; the giving of alms, typically 2.5 percent of one’s income or assets; the fasting of the month of Ramadan; and the going to pilgrimage, or hajj, once in one’s lifetime, if one can afford it, financially and physically. Anybody who does these things is within the box of Islam.

“There is a narrower definition of Islam which is used, which is those who follow the teachings of the prophet Muhammad.” This is one of the finer examples of kitman, or obfuscation for the sake of Islam. There is no “narrower definition of Islam” than the knowledge that was revealed by Allah to Mohammed and explained by Mohammed to his followers. However, Mr. Rauf is plainly referring here to the hadith, the sayings (“teachings”) of Mohammed, which are secondary scripture when compared with the Koran, the uncreated word of Allah.

The hadith are “narrower” when considered separately from the Koran. But for the purposes of Islamic law and worship, the two are never separated. Hence the distinction is meaningless.

The word zakat is commonly translated as “the giving of alms”, but it means much more (and less) than that. All schools of Islamic law agree that no zakat payments may be given to non-Muslims. And all schools of Islamic law also mandate that one-eighth of zakat must be paid to “those fighting in the cause of Allah”, that is, those who are waging jihad.

So every time a Muslim refers to “giving alms”, he means that one-eighth of such gifts must go to fund jihad. This is mandatory. It is required of all Muslims. There is no disagreement about this. The consensus of the scholars tells us it is required. All faithful, practicing Muslims who refer to “alms” are actually talking about zakat.

They just don’t give you the decoded version.

Q: [Who decides the rules of Islamic jurisprudence?]

The thing about the Islamic situation is we don’t have a church. We don’t have an ordained priesthood, which makes it a little complicated. But we do have a tradition of scholarship, and rules of scholarship. It’s very much like any field of knowledge.

[…]

Analogously, there is, in Islam, a tradition of theological interpretation, of [juridical] understanding and knowledge. And as long as you abide by these, the consensus of understanding on how you arrive at a decision, certain differences of opinion are considered equally valid.

Once again, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has been entirely truthful. He has, however, left out a few refinements or nuances of Islamic practice.

Theological interpretation or exegesis of Islamic scripture is known as ijtihad. According all schools of Islamic jurisprudence, the “door to ijtihad” closed more than a thousand years ago; that is, no further interpretations or refinement of legal meaning may be derived from the body of scripture.

So Mr. Rauf conveniently left out the fact that the “tradition” of interpretation is more than a millennium old, and may not be updated.

“The consensus of understanding” is a term of art. It is a gloss on the “consensus of the scholars” or “that on which all scholars agree”, and refers to matters of Islamic law which have been completely settled, and about which all established legal authorities are in agreement. These issues became settled law with the end of ijtihad, so, once again, the “consensus of understanding” is a thousand years old, and cannot be altered.

As a result, the only “differences of opinion” which are allowed are those which in no way violate scholarly consensus.

An example of such differences could be seen in the recent documentary about cousin marriage in Britain. In it you can hear a London imam held forth on the necessity for couples to undergo genetic testing before marriage. This imam is plainly a conscientious and devoted Muslim. He consulted sharia, looked through all the jurisprudence related to marriage, and discerned that Islamic law neither requires nor forbids genetic testing prior to marriage. Hence he instructs his congregants to practice it, but other imams could lawfully disagree with him on the matter, since sharia offers no opinion on it.

Unfortunately for observant Muslims, there are very few matters on which there may be “differences of opinion”. The range of human behavior which is neither required nor prohibited by sharia is very narrow in its scope.

Q: What about interpretations regarding women, in particular? We find, in many parts of the world that tend to be populated by Muslims, it seems that women are getting the short end of the stick.

Well … the prophet, for his times, was a feminist. And there are certainly voices within the Muslim world who believe and argue very strongly for the rights of women. But gender relationships really deal with the cultural norms of a particular group and the times in which they live. If one were to say, for instance, that American women are behind Muslim women — and I pick the fact that there have been five Muslim women heads of state, and that the United States is behind the Muslim world in this regard — that would not be considered to be an accurate assessment of how women are regarded in a particular society. One has to look at the sum total … of the norms and the relationships and the understandings that exist in a given society in a given time. …

This is an artful dodge. By throwing in “gender relationships” and “cultural norms of a particular group”, Imam Rauf has adopted the lexicon of postmodernism. This makes it seem that Islam shares the same premises as postmodernism — that there are no truths, that everything is relative, that all differences are due to the unequal distribution of political power, etc. — and allows him to elide an entire corpus of sharia law as it pertains to “gender”. Then he slides into some of the standard examples “proving” that Islam treats women better than the West, and he’s home free.

He thus manages to avoid discussing a number of inconvenient provisions of sharia law, including:

• A woman’s testimony in court is worth half that of a man;
• Husbands can and should beat their wives under appropriate conditions; and
• Female genital mutilation is, at a minimum, recommended by all four Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and is considered obligatory under two of them.

There is no argument within Islam concerning these issues. The scholarly consensus holds that these rulings are the law.

Some of what we see may be considered to be inequities…

[…]

Whereas in some societies, which tended to be nomadic, it was very much more male-oriented, and the patriarchal and very strong male orientation became predominant. So as you go across much of the Muslim world, you will see this diversity, which really entered into Muslim life through custom, and not through the Quran and the hadith itself.

In this the imam is once again correct: these matters did enter Islamic practice through custom, and not through scripture. However, they have since been incorporated in Islamic law, which is fixed and unquestionable — forever.

And here comes what may be the most artful kitman of all:

Q: Can you explain Sharia?

The word “Sharia” is the term given to define the collectivity of laws that Muslims govern themselves by. And there is a presumption that these laws recognize all of the specific laws mentioned in the Quran and in the practice of the prophet, and do not conflict with that. So any law, anything studied in the Quran or the hadith, is definitely [Sharia]. The idea is that it is divinely legislated, that the creator also has legislated certain things for us.

But in the community of Muslims, it was recognized very early on that the Quran and the hadith do not speak to all issues. And there are many issues which are not necessarily addressed in the Quran and the hadith, that the Quran is silent on. … There is a recognition in the [science] of Islamic jurisprudence that there are issues which have to be obtained by analogy, by consensus, and other [subsidiary] sources of jurisprudence. But as long as they don’t conflict with the Quran and hadith of the prophet, it’s considered to be, quote, unquote, “Sharia.”

This is entirely correct. However, Mr. Rauf is relying on the likelihood that neither the interviewer nor the PBS audience have ever studied sharia to any significant extent. If they had, they would know that sharia’s scope is so massive that very little is left unregulated by it, and most of the leeway allowed by it today refers to technological matters that could not possibly be included in the Koran or the Hadith. That permits imams and individual Muslims to debate and differ about the legality of women driving cars, or whether a polio vaccine is haram or halal, but it gives them no wiggle room on basic matters of law, including what we commonly refer to as “human rights”.

You and I know this, but the vast majority of Westerners who hear Feisal Abdul Rauf speak or read what he writes have no information whatsoever about these facts. That’s what makes them putty in his well-manicured hands.

Q: My understanding of [the Sharia] rules about punishment for matrimonial infidelity [is that] you have to have four eyewitnesses, or several eyewitnesses to the [act] in order to demand the death penalty. It’s almost inconceivable to me that you could ever produce that kind of eyewitness or evidence. But we hear that these kinds of punishments are meted out fairly regularly. Is the law being followed the way it’s set [out]?

You cannot judge a whole body of law by one instance of criminal law. When people think about Sharia law, they often think about the penalties for certain crimes. They don’t think about the sum total of Islamic law and its jurisprudence, which means the underlying structure and philosophy and understanding of how you arrive at what we call the Islamically correct decision. You do not define Sharia law by just a couple of penalties. …

Islamic law has a few penalties for certain crimes. But the rules of evidence, as you mentioned in the case of adultery, require either the free confession by the individual and/or the existence of four witnesses who are of sound mind and who fit the description of qualified witnesses, which is very rare to obtain.

Message: “I don’t want you to look at certain penalties that are mandatory under all versions of sharia law.”

Would that include stoning for adultery? The amputation of limbs for theft? Death for apostasy? Death for homosexual behavior? Death for insulting the prophet? Death for numerous other infractions that would earn very light penalties, if any, in a civilized country?

Mr. Rauf waves the magic wand of the “sum total of Islamic law and its jurisprudence” while deftly slipping the major truth of sharia through the curtain behind him and safely backstage. “Nothing in my hands, ladies and gentlemen, and nothing up my sleeve. No barbarity to be found here!”

If we are wise to the sleight and point it out — why, that’s only our inherent Islamophobia showing.

There is also a collective subliminal ambition that Muslims have, that at a collective level, they also embody the ideals of the community that the prophet developed in Medina. So when Muslims today speak of the attempt to establish an Islamic state, what they are really saying is that they would like to have a community that lives in accordance with the ideals, the relationships, the social contract, which the prophet had developed in Medina with his companions and how they had this amongst each other. …

In other words, what they are saying is that they would like to live as a uniform body governed by sharia law. That is, they desire to be part of a unitary Ummah ruled by the Caliphate.

To anyone who has learned the code, the sharia message is clear and uncomplicated. To everyone else, he seems to be uttering the same bromides as any other Western political and cultural leader.

He knows our vocabulary, but we don’t know his.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

There is much, much more to this interview. I recommend reading the entire text at the PBS site. It’s an object lesson in the time-honored Islamic practices of dawah, taqiyyah, and kitman. Layer upon layer of deftly-woven evasions, half-truths, obscurantism, subject-changing, misdirection, and here and there an outright lie.

The imam made one little slip, however. He accidentally said something that a shrewder taqiyyist would have left unspoken:

So the urge therefore to develop an Islamic nation-state — a concept which some people may regard as being an oxymoron, because the nation-state is not something which developed out of the Islamic tradition … that the Islamic philosophical tradition was based upon identification of grouping of peoples, who had governed themselves according to living in certain ways and structured in a slightly different way. …

Feisal Abdul Rauf has accidentally told us the truth: A society that is governed by pure Islamic principles and abides by Islamic law has neither knowledge of nor need for the nation-state.

The nation-state is an atavism, and may be discarded. It is un-Islamic, and will be abolished when the Caliphate is instituted and the world is governed by the perfect crystalline rules of sharia.

This is where the Left and Islam are in complete agreement. It’s why they work so well together: they share the same immediate goal. Both want to take a chainsaw to the forest of Western culture and then scrape away all the stumps and topsoil.

They have differing ideas about what will come next, about the nature of the edifice that will be built atop that big muddy hole. But there will be plenty of time later to sort all that out, after Western Civilization has been safely bulldozed into the landfill of history.

Many thanks to our Flemish correspondent VH for unearthing the gold mine of material used in this post.

Below is the fifth part of seventeen videos of the classic 1961 movie El Cid, starring Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren (and subtitled in Portuguese). There will be another piece here every weekday as part of the El Cid Project, which is offered as a response to all the uproar concerning the proposed Ground Zero mosque:

I don’t have time to write anything more about this one. Check out the El Cid Project for more information, and see Part 1 for a fuller explanation of what this is about. Here are Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

[Post ends here]

John Guardiano “confront[s]…the Right’s anti-Islam ‘extremists’” in this recent essay on the Frum Forum. If you check his bio, there is no indication Mr. Guardiano has any particular expertise about Islam. Having served as a Marine in Iraq might give one some perspective, but it hardly makes him an Islamic scholar.

Unfortunately this lack is obvious in the arguments Mr. Guardiano assembles against the purported extremists who attack Islam’s foundational supremacist doctrines. His essay never moves past the superficial talking points doled out by the Muslim Brotherhood to the useful idiots in America. That reason alone would mark this piece as a giant FAIL in the same way that similar screeds are rejected.

What Mr. Guardiano does not address, cannot address, is the central argument which most of the Counterjihad uses against this fifth column marching through our culture:
– – – – – – – – –
1. The foundation of Islam is built on an Islamically defined “justice”.

2. This Islamic version of justice is enacted via the tenets of Sharia Law.

3. Sharia Law is Allah’s will for the world’s submission to Islam. Inviolable and unchangeable, it is not and never will be a “living document”, nor will it vary much, at least not among the four Sunni schools of jurisprudence.

4. The foundational Shariah Laws on which Islam rests are in direct opposition to most of the Articles in the American Constitution.

5. No “melding” of the two versions of jurisprudence is possible, nor would such a fusion ever be considered desirable by Islamic theologians.

6. The ultimate goal of Sharia Law is the world-wide Caliphate.

Comprehension of those points, including the actual contents of Sharia Law (and its special definitions of common words), the meaning of the Ummah and the Caliphate, the five pillars, the three duties, etc., is essential to any cogent discussion of the opposition of the Counterjihad to Islam in the U.S.

The American Constitution is central to our vision of what is meant by the United States of America. That does not hold true for Islam, even American Islam, though there are many folks like Mr. Guardiano who haven’t drilled down past the pleasant façade to the reality of Islamically-ordered relationships.

Perhaps many of the people Mr. Guardiano criticizes in his essay can be faulted for their lack of precise language in addressing our deep concerns about the challenge Islam represents to us and to Western culture in general. However, the learning curve on this issue is a steep one, as Mr. Guardiano’s essay itself demonstrates only too well. Thus, if we speak less than precisely, this doesn’t take away from the truth of the matter: sharia is inimical to the American Constitution and to the Western culture from which it arose.

The semantic confusion so apparent in the quotes Mr. Guardiano uses is intentionally caused by the Muslim Brotherhood. Their rulebook dictates provocation, smoke and mirrors, and deflection — that whole bag of tricks known as taqiyya and kitman. Duplicity acts as a spanner in the spokes of honest dialogue; the longer the Muslim Brotherhood can poke at semantics the more chaos they can wreak among the ranks of their opponents. This chaos in turn generates further opportunities to create divisions among those whose natural inclination otherwise would be to work together against a common enemy. This is a clever, efficient strategy; it will be addressed in more detail later.

Let us grant that some of the criticisms Mr. Guardiano levels are valid. However — and this is a large “but” — let us stipulate that the words he objects to are simply awkward formulations by people who face a steep learning curve. We are dealing with foreign invaders who have more than a thousand years of deceptive practices behind them.

In no case prior to this one has Islam ever invaded and conquered by peaceful means. It would not be possible to do so now were not the West so fragmented and riven with fierce conflict over its own raison d’être. As Benjamin Franklin so wearily warned: if we cannot hang together, we shall surely hang separately. Now, as then, that is not a figurative turn of phrase. One has only to look at a few pictures of the millions of dead who perished at the hands of Islam to know quite well what fate has in store for us…or is it to be for our grandchildren? Our great-grandchildren?

No matter: The Muslim Brotherhood is patient and it works for long-term victory. Their goal is simply the Caliphate, that utopian vision of a whole world subjugated in dhimmified peace and living under Sharia Law. Given the fact Muslims kill one another off in greater numbers than they kill infidels, this is an unrealistic vision indeed.

Mr. Guardiano marshals his instances of the ways in which the “Islamophobes” offend:

…unfortunately, when it comes to Islam, many conservatives are at risk of conforming to the left-wing stereotype. Consider, for example, the Washington Examiner’s recent headline, “Muslims, not Americans, are religious bigots.” Substitute any other minority group for Muslims and consider the sensibility that the headline then conveys.

“Blacks, not Americans, are religious bigots.” Or: “Jews, not Americans, are religious bigots.” How about: “Hispanics, not Americans, are religious bigots”?

Just to make certain there is an agreement on the definition of “bigot”, here’s what the Free Online Dictionary says:

a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own, esp on religion, politics, or race…

[from Old French: name applied contemptuously to the Normans by the French, of obscure origin]

Provided we’re in agreement on terminology, let’s move on to a common categorical error made by Mr. Guardiano: comparing so-called religious minorities with other smaller groupings of people. This only serves to confuse the issue. Blacks and Hispanics are not religious minorities, they are ethnic groups (of a sort). Only some Jews would consider themselves a religion. Like Muslims and Mexicans, they come in many varieties.

Because we extremists are extremely concerned with laws rather than religious beliefs, our annoyance at some of these groups Mr. Guardiano chose as examples is based on our ‘faith’ in the concept of the rule of law. We believe in the primacy of the obligations which liberty imposes, not the entitlements or rights which it may bestow. In that respect, we share a common feature with Islam — i.e., a belief in one basic Law which underlies the rest of them. Our Constitutional laws are founded on liberty. Sharia Law is based on submission. Can there possibly be a more fundamental difference than the existential chasm lying between liberty and submission?

But back to Mr. Guardiano’s minority groups. Leave aside his categorical error of confusing religions and ethnicities (or, as some members of those groups would prefer, “races”), let’s unpack his propositions and deal with each one of them as they deserve to be: separately and at length.

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First we have this imaginary proposal:

1. “Blacks, not Americans, are religious bigots.”

Let’s proceed inductively. Ask most of the edgier blacks if anyone besides Whitey can be a bigot. The honest ones will tell you straight up: blacks cannot be bigots, not ever. If they can only ever be Victims, who, then, is the default Villain in their mythology?

I walked out of the last racism “workshop” I ever attended because its whole program was based on this malicious proposition. Sorry, dude, but someone else will have to volunteer for your villain role. I’m not ever (willingly) going to be a prop in someone else’s drama. The awful truth is that this idea may be the single most condescending lie to emerge from the fever swamps of racial hatred in many generations. A true racist couldn’t have picked a better dictum to impose on any group to insure its self-fulfilling failure.

Such pernicious claptrap functions with machine-like inexorability: it generates an eternal sense of grievance, establishes a need for “Victimology” studies in academic ghettoes, and institutes racially based set-asides. Worst of all, it puts competent blacks forever one-down in their own eyes. By design or by default this spiteful propaganda is killing our black underclass; it poisons even middle and upper class blacks. One has only to look at the bitter attitudes of our President and his wife to see the damage. And you can bet they are passing on this sad propaganda to their children.

Or how about the demand for reparations which arose in the wake of the Equal Rights Amendment? Again, even our purported post racial president succumbs to this delusional thinking. There are audio tapes of his reflections on the flaws in the Constitution and of the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment to pay those who fought to attain it, not to mention payment owed to all the descendants of those who suffered under slavery. That is one tar baby not even Solomon could apportion fairly. The whole notion of reparations is just another self-generating grievance machine designed to generate failure and a sense of scarcity.

If Obama’s statements above are too far in the past (2001), then let us observe his knee-jerk reverse racism last summer in the case of the Cambridge policeman versus Obama’s “good friend”, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates. The latter is a prime example of a member of the educated elite who has raised his deep, instinctive grievances from the pathology of characterological flaws (which is where they belong) to a professional level of academic expertise. These faux-justice “issues” have morphed into aspects of his identity, not to mention fattening his bank account and assuring his tenure.

President Obama’s message to the American people regarding the arrest of Dr. Gates was needlessly inflammatory; it was also factually and ethically wrong. As a purported legal scholar, his lecture to us was precipitate and unprofessional. Notwithstanding his own rise to the pinnacle of success (at least in American heroic terms), Obama demonstrated the sad fact that his feet remain mired in those muddy, miserable resentments he ought to have outgrown. As our president his reactive anger fouled the atmosphere in the public square. Obama still owes America an apology for that mess, one he created all by himself. An honest broker would have made sure to be seen cleaning it up, but we gave up on ever witnessing such integrity as we watched that fatuous, limp-wristed beer summit. At least some of us were embarrassed for him, especially when the camera caught Mr. Obama walking away from Dr. Gates while the Cambridge policeman was left to assist Obama’s “good friend” down the stairs.

But that’s so 2009. Instead, we could wander through this year’s summer camp for racists being held by the New Black Panthers and the NAACP, both of them exposed while wearing their racist pants. But the whole exercise was wash-rinse-repeat, so why bother? These incidents are drearily predictable by now.

Just as we must endure white bigots, we also have to put up with the disgruntled black bigots who see the whole of their life experience through the prism of race. Both groups are as pitiable as they are banal. The rest of us will continue to refuse to be defined by their hatreds, but we won’t pretend the hatreds aren’t there or that they don’t drive important decisions among black-only groups like the (liberals only) Congressional Black Caucus.

What a shame that the potential for good is turned into searching for Whitey under the bed, ever vigilant against the imagined power of evil whites to determine (read “limit”) the existence of blacks.

Arguing with the New Black Panthers or the NAACP is an exercise in futility. People cannot be reasoned out of beliefs which Reason had little part in forming. Professional race mongers make money at their calling. The rest of us — black and white and all the colors in-between — can get on with living while the pros gnash their teeth in the outer darkness where dwell those other outmoded True Believers, say, the Flat Earth Society and The Feminists.

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Let’s return to Mr. Guardiano’s reductio ad absurdum argument about the minorities he thinks we wouldn’t speak against. After blacks, he moves on to this:

“Jews, not Americans, are religious bigots.”

Remember, our author thinks that conservatives (or right wing folks, however they define themselves) would never say something like that.

Well, sir, you may think this is a third rail, but you’re wrong. Even we, ardent Israelophiles that we are, recognize Israel as a democratic theocracy, or, if you prefer, a theocratic democracy. They are proof that such a system can work if the overarching world view for everyone who adheres to the system remains in synch.

In Israel, Jews have rights which non-Jews are stipulated ahead of time not to possess. Even Jews living outside the boundaries of Israel have those rights. Yes, Israel is meticulous in exempting non-Jews from the burdens Jewish citizens bear, but non-Jews in Israel can feel the difference. Some are wise and simply shrug it off as “that’s how things are; I choose to live here anyway”. Others are more sullen about the fact of their diminished status. But you won’t find them leaving. No, I don’t understand why this second group would stay.

If Islam could only learn how a functional democratic theocracy operates, the world would be a more peaceful place. But many adherents of the various factions of Islam have banded together to attempt to annihilate the only democracy in the Middle East. Israel is successful, functional and creative. It has a Western culture that thrives in that otherwise misery-ridden desert. Sure, some of the Arabs are petro-wealthy but how does that translate for the average Arab in the Middle East?

Fifteen percent of Israel’s residents are Muslims. How many Jews reside in neighboring Islamic countries? And how much of the terrorism and death in Israel comes from Islam? How much of it comes from other religions or regions?

That said, many Americans do indeed think Jews are bigoted because…well, because they claim an exceptionalism for Jewish people. Funny, we Americans like our own exceptionalism — except for those who don’t like it and think we ought to spend the rest of our existence apologizing for our audacity. Obama, Clinton and Carter are all about apologizing to the rest of the world for our grievous sins. Not their own personal offenses, mind you. No, their narrative is devoted to expounding upon the shameful history of the shameful people who elected them.

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Finally, Mr. Guardiano suggests another group which is supposed to be untouchable.

How about: “Hispanics, not Americans, are religious bigots”?

Yes, how about some of them, indeed.

Let’s start with The Council of La Raza. Any group self-labeled as “The Race” is what, if not essentially ‘racist’? Any group, Hispanic or otherwise, which adopts such a supremacist attitude is bigoted. Which is okay, as long as those definitions aren’t required reading for the rest of us, or as long as the Mexican flag doesn’t replace the American flag on U.S. soil. La Raza, which received a nice hefty sum from Bill Gates, is bigoted. So are the folks behind the utopian fantasy, Aztlan.

Or perhaps this group of young idealists?

Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan (MEChA), one of the most anti-American groups in the country, which has permeated U.S. campuses since the 1960s, and continues its push to carve a racist nation out of the American West.

“Chicano is our identity; it defines who we are as people. It rejects the notion that we…should assimilate into the Anglo-American melting pot…Aztlan was the legendary homeland of the Aztecas … It became synonymous with the vast territories of the Southwest, brutally stolen from a Mexican people marginalized and betrayed by the hostile custodians of the Manifest Destiny.” (Statement on University of Oregon MEChA Website, Jan. 3, 2006)

[…]

We are a bronze people with a bronze culture. Before the world, before all of North America, before all our brothers in the bronze continent, we are a nation, we are a union of free pueblos, we are Aztlan. For La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada.”

Nada yourself, children.

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There is much more to examine in Mr. Guardiano’s essay, particularly his misunderstanding of Sharia Law and his facile comparisons between Islam and Judaism or Islam and Christianity, not to mention his gloss on Islamic democracy. Unfortunately, fatigue prevents any further examination of his claims. I’m plumb tuckered out. However, note some of the things he says:

Yet, it’s curious: Few of the anti-Islamic militants ever articulate a program for dealing with this omnipresent and insidious terrorist threat.

Oh, but we do “articulate a program”, sir. You just haven’t been paying attention.

Next time around, we’ll look at his misrepresentations of Islam and his lack of understanding about some conservatives’ “articulated program” against the tenets of Islam. The adumbrations of such a program are already present in this post. In Part II we’ll spell them out (if fatigue doesn’t interfere).

Meanwhile, has anyone asked Mr. Guardiano about the American laws which were enacted against the Mormon practice of polygamy?

Does he think we ought to rescind those laws?

Do the laws violate Mormons’ religious freedoms?

Were we bigoted when we enacted those laws?

Are we bigoted when we continue to enforce them?

Is bigotry in the eye of the beholder?

Hat Tip: Diana West

NOTA BENE: The subjects covered here often bring folks to the comment section who are not familiar with our policies. Please remember the ground rules regarding commenting (or re-read them). If anyone flouts these guidelines they’ll be deleted. If enough people do so, the comments for this post will be closed. Deleting commentary is energy better spent elsewhere.

Below is a video of a documentary that was aired recently on British television. It concerns the practice of cousin marriage, which is overwhelmingly confined to Muslims, especially Pakistanis, within the UK. As a result of the prevalence of this practice, the Pakistani community in Britain has an incidence of congenital disorders which is far higher than would be expected from its proportion in the population.

The running time of this documentary is about an hour (the video platform used here doesn’t display a time clock):

You need to install or upgrade Flash Player to view this content, install or upgrade by clicking here.

Hat tip: Vlad Tepes.

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Given the imminence of Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, Turkey’s recent rapprochement with Iran is causing concern among some Western analysts. Turkey has announced that it has taken Iran off the list of threats to its national security, and it is developing a working relationship with the mullahs on strategic issues.

In possibly unrelated news from Turkey, a known polygamist has been appointed as an advisor to the Turkish government.

In other news, DNA tests using genetic material from Adolf Hitler’s living relatives have determined that the late Führer of the Third Reich had either Berber blood from North Africa, or Ashkenazi Jewish blood, or possibly both.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, CSP, DS, Fjordman, JD, JP, KGS, Lurker from Tulsa, Penseur, Russkiy, Steen, Takuan Seiyo, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

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Municipal elections are coming up in Vienna in a few weeks, and debate is growing heated on the sensitive topics of immigration, Islam, and integration. Our Austrian correspondent Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff has prepared a report on the predictable results of official sanctimony and orchestrated media outrage — what I like to call “The Screaming Nazi Heeber-Jeebers.”

Seismic Shifts in Vienna
by Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff

Quaint, quiet, The Sound of Music… many tourists associate these terms with Austria. In terms of the international Counterjihad “quaint, quiet, and safe” may once have been the case, but no longer. The clash of civilizations is currently fought in the battlefields at the gates of Vienna with no King Jan Sobieski in sight.

Regular readers here at Gates of Vienna may be aware that the city of Vienna is preparing for its local council elections due to be held on October 10, 2010. The political parties have been preparing for this face-off at the polls for more than a year, some more successfully than others. With the Greens busy dining at each other’s flanks and the Conservative parties busy with… well, themselves and finding some direction or course of action, the race is set for the hugely popular Socialist mayor, Michael Häupl, and the leader of the controversial Freedom Party (FPÖ), Heinz-Christian Strache, to face off in the upcoming ballot call. For months it was clear to the interested resident that the main topic of contention would be immigration, integration or the lack thereof, as well as Islam. With the election only weeks away, the heat has been rising steadily.

FPÖ’s first round of billboards has caused the expected uproar among the so-called politicians, pundits, and some members of the populace. The billboards themselves are of the usual FPÖ quality; the content is debatable, but it most certainly achieved its intended goal: the entire nation discussing the pros and cons of immigration and integration, but also the expected “Nazi-jargon, fascistic content, and racism.”

What is the content? Why the uproar? The makers of the slogan used a very well-known concept, namely “Wiener Blut” (Vienna Blood), which is incidentally also the title of an equally well-known and loved operetta by Johann Strauss Jr. The term “Wiener Blut” depicts the mix of Viennese blood dating back into the late 19th century, where Vienna became the melting pot of cultures after the immigration of countless people from the “member countries” of the Habsburg Empire. Keep in mind, though, that these immigrants hailed from the same cultural background, i.e. they brought with them the Judeo-Christian traditions, and thus had little or no problems with integration.

Picking up on this very positive theme, Strache then rhymed this on the poster:

“Mehr Mut für unser Wiener Blut — zuviel Fremdes tut niemandem gut!”

Rough translation:
– – – – – – – – –
“More courage for our Viennese blood [meaning heritage] — [there is] too much of that which is foreign!”

As this is a slogan — I repeat, a slogan — of course the message is shortened. The drawback to this is that it leaves the door wide open for “misinterpretations”. Thus the result was the expected Green scream: “NAZI JARGON!!!” In addition, newspaper commentators are asking themselves whether all that which is foreign can be considered bad: “Viennese blood that must remain pure?”

When asked by reporters to clarify, Herbert Kickl, FPÖ campaign manager, explained that the slogan is neither racist nor xenophobic, but describes the Viennese traditions. He will not accept any contortion of the intended message. The daily tabloid ÖSTERREICH informed its readers about the upcoming brutality of the Vienna elections (no link available) on August 21, 2010: “The Duel of hate against immigrants is starting. Experts warn of brutal and harsh campaigns. Mayor Häupl calls Strache a loser and a shady character; experts believe the reason for these words is that Häupl does not want to get into discussions about immigrants, but rather put down Strache and denounce him as a Nazi.” Strache, in turn, accuses the SPÖ of being an “Islamist party”, referring to the 36 Muslims on SPÖ’s list of candidates for the Vienna parliament.

It bears mentioning that the well-known Iranian-born cabaret artist Michael Niavarani saw the necessity to immediately launch a Facebook campaign against FPÖ. He writes, “My Viennese blood for all those who find the FPÖ posters unbearable: Join us on Wednesday, August 25 to donate blood. Our Motto: My blood for foreigners.” Today, SPÖ did just that: two of its Muslim members of the city council, the infamous Omar Al-Rawi and Nurten Yilmaz, publicly donated blood to protest against the hate campaign by FPÖ. Tomorrow, the Facebook group will follow…

Christian Zeitz, member of the board at the Wiener Akademikerbund has the following to say about the controversy (with thanks to JLH for the translation):

Foreigners and Wiener Blut — What Is Good for You

The real danger is the mainstream politicians

Here we go again. The Strache posters “Mehr Mut für unser Wiener Blut (More Courage for our Viennese Blood [Heritage]) have released the expected wave of “outrage.” The ritual drawing on of Hitler mustaches and other democratic decorating of the FPÖ posters are back in style. The Facebook group “Down with the Posters” is evidence of the “openness and tolerance” demanded by the parallel group. And the politicians of the MSP (mainstream parties) are outdoing one another in their excited gargling of the whole Nazi-Bludgeon repertory.

“Too much alien does no one any good.” Who would deny such a self-evident banality among normal people? There is hardly any place where it does not apply. In the USA, France, or Turkey, the speaker of such a pale dictum would be seen as lacking in patriotism. But Austria is different. The Green, Ellison, diagnoses “the worst kind of Nazi jargon.” SP secretary Deutsch offers the original nuance of “scandalous Blood-and-Soil Language” and discovers “contempt for human beings” as well as “racist incitement.” VP politician of the random, Christine Marek — a little late but unwilling to be left behind, sputters something about “dangerous” and “irresponsible.”

With the (feigned?) outrage and regular handing down of Nazi nonsense, the MSP are preventing even the most modest approach to the subject of “Immigration — Foreigners — Integration.” The responsible parties in the administration have not even managed an objective work-up of the base data. Even worse, none of the parties has given a qualified answer to a single one of the relevant questions: Who is to be allowed to come to Austria, and who not? What problems are solved by immigration and which ones are caused by it? What is the net economic effect of immigration? Who enjoys the benefits and who bears the costs? How is it established that Austrians are prepared to share their prosperity, while certain problems are allegedly solved by doing that and others arise?

The following are established facts: The unemployment percentage among foreigners and persons with an “immigration background” has for 25 years been higher than that of natives. There is an alarming level of criminality among foreigners that is not merely “felt.” The application to Islam of the religious laws and other compulsory norms has been rejected by politics, while the parallel societies continue to grow in Vienna’s wards. People in the areas of school, health care and in the work force are suffering from a lack of integration and this misery is not relieved by the substitute religion of “political correctness.”

To be sure: “Once more,” (for the sake of brevity) completely separate subjects are being mixed together here and therefore possibly “prejudices being awakened” which are likely to encourage “lumped-together resentments.” But the political parties have had years and control of ministerial budgets in the millions as well as other resources — in their own good time and distant from any campaign uproar — to produce studies, to clearly designate truths, methods of action and their consequences, and finally to produce comprehensive concepts and lay them before the public. No “right extremist” or “populist” was stopping them. The fact is, there is not one single idea of the kind. And therefore, no MSP politician can be trusted an inch when he maunders about the “necessity of immigration” and “integration policy” or soothingly implores “adherence to the house rules.”

While the uncontrolled growth in immigration continues every day and the resulting problems are accepted as quasi-natural phenomena, the mainstream politicians are systematically and unremittingly obstructing any objective debate through thought control and exclusion via Nazi trash talk. Ellensohn, Deutsch, Marek and their parties are the true danger. Propelled by cowardice, incompetence and the hidden directives of their clients’ egoistical special interests, they have brought our social and security systems to the limits of their capacity and contributed to the erosion of everyday cultural life. In the final analysis, they are the ones who are responsible for the multivalent “hostility to foreigners.”

So long as democracy and the needs of people — whether natives, foreigners or any people who need our help — are being kicked around like this, so-called “populists” have every right to polemics and provocations. The politicians long ago completely estranged themselves from the populace and its real life. In this sense too, too much alien does no good.

— Christian Zeitz

Now, all of this may appear very depressing. However, the situation changed dramatically with an interview given by Anas Schakfeh, the president of the Islamic Faith Community in Austria. This will be the topic of Part 2 of this essay.

For several years there has been a quiet but intense debate among American conservatives about the nature of the Islamic menace that we all face. The majority of right-wingers, no matter how dedicated they are to fighting “Islamism” in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Iran, are reluctant to consider the possibility that we may be at war with all of Islam, and not just “radical” or “political” Islam.

And I can’t really blame them for their reluctance. Who wants to face the prospect of a decades-long twilight struggle against 1.5 billion people? Especially when that number increases every second as they rapidly whelp out more of the same.

Our British correspondent JP sends a blog post and a couple of its accompanying comments to illustrate the dilemma facing well-intentioned conservatives on his side of the Atlantic. He says:

The Coffeehouse blog post below has been bugging me since it first appeared last Thursday — in particular the quote “If the war on terror becomes a war on Islam, it is a war that we lose”.

I woke up about 3 am last night with the thought that Islam itself is responsible for fostering this illusion among Western opinion-makers — that it is invincible and that any war against it is unthinkable. Perhaps it is because I am re-reading Tolkien at the moment — but Islam is too dangerous and evil to be toyed with in the manner Forsyth recommends.

From the Cofeehouse blog in the Spectator:

The worrying opposition to the ‘Ground Zero mosque’

by James Forsyth

I’m a neo-conservative, a hawk in the war against Islamist extremism, which is why I’m so worried by the opposition to the building of a mosque near Ground Zero. A new poll shows that 61 percent of Americans oppose its construction and Howard Dean, the tribune of the Democratic wing of the Democratic party, and Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate Majority Leader, have joined many leading Republicans in arguing that the mosque should not be built there, several blocks from Ground Zero.

If the war on terror becomes a war on Islam, it is a war that we lose: George W. Bush may have had his faults but this is something that he understood. The way that this debate over the mosque is going is playing into the whole clash of civilizations narrative and strengthening the hand of those who seek to promote it.

The struggle to foster democratic, open societies in countries that have never known such freedom will last generations. It is a conflict that is more about ideas and moral suasion than military force, though force will obviously have a role. Our aim should be to boost the reformist elements in Islam, to offer what help we can to those who believe that Islam and liberal democracy can be compatible. If the West appears to be anti-Islam rather than just anti-Islamism, then we will not be able to do that.

In the comments, Dixon says:

Who are these “mainstream Muslims”? What exactly do they want? Opinion polls consistently show that in this country two thirds of them at least want to see an end to Western ethical values and the introduction of Sharia. OK, so they don’t want to do it violently. So what? They are on exactly the same side in this conflict as those that do. They only differ in their preferred tactics. So far, they are winning all hands down without any acts of violence being necessary.

The only hope that Western ethical values have of surviving is if Islam waned due to its rejection by the young as a result of clear assertion of Western values in education. It’ll never happen. Instead, British schools now downplay evolution theory as a placation towards Muslim “sensibilities”. Britain, as the rest of Western Europe, is inevitably going to have a population that is overwhelmingly of Muslim descent, well inside fifty years. On current trends, they will be more reactionary and zealous than their parents or grand-parents.

Personally, I think its hilarious. To watch people trying to deny the tide lapping at their ankles. It goes beyond King Canute into realms of sublime absurdity and wishful thinking. I won’t be around to suffer the second class status that non-Muslims will in a few decades endure. Many of the willfully blind who stifled secular resistance to this Islamification of a continent will be as will their children. Their daughters half the value of their sons and all taught that they are inferior as “kuffar”, a word as vile and loaded when spat out by a Muslim as the “N” word when uttered by a cracker-barrel red-neck. Of course, most of the descendents of anyone reading this or commenting here will be Muslim.

And a comment from Stuart Seacole Smith:
– – – – – – – – –

[For non-Coffeehouse readers, ‘Seacole’ in the above name refers to Mary Seacole, an icon or saint of British multiculturalism. At one point during 2009, Rod Liddle, a Coffeehouse blogger, declared that he had changed his online name to rod seacole liddle in honour of this worthy person, and a number of his readers followed suit.]

Dixon: thanks for the Wafa Sultan clip. Powerful stuff, that well and truly gives the lie to the nonsense we are subjected to by the likes of Massie, Forsyth, and so many others.

I don’t know what the most effective strategy for countering the threats posed by Islam are, but I do know that the mixture of lies and deception we get from much of the media and many politicians, together with blatant denials that any threat exists, is not the right place to start.

Another thought: when all our liberal amateur Islam sleuths talk of “moderate Islam”, I can’t help thinking that perhaps what they inadvertently have in mind is lapsed Muslims. The ones who’re happy to go for a beer, marry a foreigner, and basically just get on with their lives in whatever country they’ve emigrated to.

And I for one would always be pleased to raise a glass with them.

I’ve spent six years looking for the “moderate Muslim”, and every time I think I’ve found one, it turns out to be a “lapsed Muslim” as described above. An apostate in all but name, in other words.

Muslims who want to live that way, who would to prefer to act like normal Westerners, have to be very careful. To the truly faithful Muslim — which means any Muslim who consciously follows the tenets of sharia law — a fellow Muslim who fails to adhere to any aspect of Islamic law is guilty of kufr, or unbelief. Kufr is equivalent to apostasy, and the penalty is death.

No wonder “lapsed Muslims” keep a low profile.

Whenever a schismatic sect develops within Islam — such as the Baha’is, the Qaranis, the Ahmadis, etc. — its adherents are persecuted ruthlessly, and exterminated if possible. Islam is a near-perfect closed system, and does not allow for any theological variation or doctrinal evolution.

This doesn’t mean that there aren’t hundreds of millions of Muslims who would like to escape, if only they could find a way. That’s why I consider making the world safe for apostasy one of our most urgent tasks.

Nor does it mean that every Muslim is the enemy. It is conceivable, however, that every committed, practicing, fully faithful Muslim is the enemy. We have to prepare ourselves for this possibility — anyone involved in the current information war would be negligent if he refused to examine it seriously.

I’ll have more to say about this and related matters at a later date.

Below is the fourth installment of a seventeen-part video of the classic 1961 movie El Cid, starring Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren (and subtitled in Portuguese). Another installment will appear here every weekday as part of the El Cid Project, which is offered as a response to all the furor surrounding the proposed Ground Zero mosque:

They don’t make movie actresses quite like Sophia Loren anymore. There are plenty of pretty girls — and plenty of slutty trollops — but classic beauties don’t seem to make it into Hollywood movies these days.

See the El Cid Project for more information. Part 1, along with a fuller explanation of the El Cid Project, is available here, and here are Part 2 and Part 3.

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An Egyptian television series that focuses on the early days of the Muslim Brotherhood — the late 1920s — has caused outrage and complaints among members of the outlawed party and its sympathizers. The program paints Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, in an unflattering light. Since elections are coming up in October, critics consider the series to be a propaganda effort by the government intended to hurt the chances of Muslim Brotherhood candidates who run as independents.

In other news, the Green Party of Canada is considering pushing for the legalization of polygamy.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to Barry Rubin, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, KGS, McR, TV, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

[This post is a stub — nothing further here!]

Yesterday I posted Sergei Bourachaga’s essay about the Pope’s visit to Turkey in 2006. Today the author wrote me with some additional thoughts inspired by the response to his piece:

I noticed that most of the comments made on the article address the issue of the indifference adopted by the Vatican and the Christian world about Islamic militancy. Apropos of this phenomenon, I would like everyone to consider an insulting painting of the Christ on the back of a pig.

Nothing was said or done by Christians on the European continent about this provocative tasteless piece of art. If the artist had instead painted the prophet Mohammed on the back of a pig, at a minimum riots would have erupted all over Europe.

[Since many Christians may find this work of “art” offensive, I have placed the image below the jump. — BB]

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What you see above is the work of the Belgian artist Wim Delvoye that has been displayed in several art studios in Europe since 2005. Had the artist dared to select Mohammed for his subject, we would have seen riots and bloodshed in the major capitals of the world.

We Christians strongly believe in tolerance, and this is what British novelist Dorothy Sayers pointed out about “Tolerance”:

In this world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called indifference, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.

Every year on November 2 a select group of Dutch Muslims holds a party to celebrate the anniversary of Theo Van Gogh’s murder. Last year’s celebration was attended by a Dutch anthropologist who purports to “study” Islamic radicals. The existence of these parties — and his admission of his own participation — was inadvertently revealed on Twitter, and has caused a bit of controversy in the Netherlands.

Our Flemish correspondent VH has compiled a report on these events, based on translations from several Dutch media sources. To introduce the topic, here’s an article from Dagelijkse Standaard:

Salafism researcher conceals annual celebration of Van Gogh’s death

Things are not going too well for anthropologist Martijn de Koning. He is a long-time researcher into Salafism in the Netherlands, but does not know enough to keep at a distance from his study subjects. Frontaal Naakt this Week wrote about the good man [see Article 2 below].

His conciliatory language towards the supporters of Fortuyn and those of Wilders has also drastically changed. Martijn de Koning now grumbles about “agitators and liars”, as if a policeman from a totalitarian dictatorship is speaking out. He does not even bother hiding his true nature, “was only a threat to @ jihadinho” he wrote to journalist Patrick Pouw (Twitter name: paddypouw) who of course was also impressed. “For her own good,” he said. Martijn de Koning is apparently so deeply embedded in the radical Muslim movement, that he is not even aware that such casual threats are abnormal.

That indeed does not quite appear to be a researcher who stands above the object of his study. But it gets worse. Today Kustaw Bessems in the newspaper De Pers writes that Martijn de Koning does nothing in his power to ring the bell on the annual “Theo-is-killed-jollification” (dixit Bessems). [see Article 1 below]

The existence of these parties came to light because a woman who calls herself “Jihadinho” wrote last year at the website of Martijn de Koning: “Hey Martijn, nice party today isn’t it, we’ll repeat that for November 2.” This weekend Martijn de Koning was questioned about this on twitter by the journalist Patrick Pouw.

Martijn de Koning said he had not celebrated a party himself, but was present for the purpose of a field study. “Background information, gaining contacts, observing people in a certain environment. It is not my job to judge them, but to understand.” He added: “Participation is a big word, but of course I was talking and drinking.”

With this, the “researcher” Martijn de Koning finally throws off his mask of innocence. From an anthropological perspective there is no need at all to join amiably with the jihadist crowd, but even less so to do reveal the existence of the parties. Or did he think he would only pay attention to this in his next published piece?

You can tell the Ministry of Education what to do with these kinds of researchers.

Article 1, from De Pers:

Netherlands: Every year a Theo-is-killed-jollification

by Kustaw Bessems

In recent years a handful of radical Muslims have held a party on the anniversary of the day Theo van Gogh was murdered. To celebrate that event.

“Not a second of regret”

On November 2, 2009, Anthropologist Martijn de Koning, of the Radboud University Nijmegen, was present at one of those Theo-is-killed-parties. Martijn de Koning, specialized in research on ultra-orthodox Muslims, revealed it this weekend via twitter. He claims that at least one such meeting had taken place before.

Director, interviewer and columnist Theo van Gogh was murdered in Amsterdam in 2004 by the Islamic terrorist Muslim Mohammed Bouyeri. Bouyeri, who was the central figure in a network of radical Muslims, argued that Van Gogh had offended the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

The existence of these parties came to light because a woman who calls herself “Jihadinho” wrote last year at the website of Martijn de Koning: “Hey Martijn, nice party today isn’t it, we’ll repeat that for November 2.” This weekend Martijn de Koning was questioned about this on twitter by the journalist Patrick Pouw.

Martijn de Koning said he had not celebrated a party himself, but was present for the purpose of a field study. “Background information, gaining contacts, observing people in a certain environment. It is not my job to judge them, but to understand”. He added: “Participating is a big word, but of course I have been talking and drinking.”

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The partygoers, according to him, are people who “for years have traveled beyond the usual circuits,” outside the circles of Salafis, the ultra-orthodox Muslims Martijn de Koning publishes so much about. According to him the party was a “peaceful event” that he himself found “at that moment an overwhelming experience”. He refuses to talk more about it. “I’ve said enough.”

Martijn de Koning has never previously spoken publicly about these parties, since it might damage his contacts, because he wants to protect his sources, “but mostly because I have not been able to ask permission of all who were present and spoke extensively.”

He finds it “better to wait, there is more distance then”.

[The two paragraphs below have been deleted from the article since the time they were translated.]

No regrets

From a letter by Mohammed Bouyeri in July, the murderer of filmmaker and columnist Theo van Gogh speaks out to say that he does not regret his act. The 32-year-old Bouyeri, who has been imprisoned for six years now, has had during all those years not one second of regret for the choices he made. The letter was addressed to a Muslim group. The Dutch security service AIVD is familiar with the letter.

Weak moments

What Mohammed Bouyeri says is in line with what he stated during his trial for the murder of the filmmaker, which he committed out of radical Islamic motives. He further writes that he has sometimes had weak moments, but never had doubts about the path he chose. Bouyeri is responding with his letter to a letter he received from Sanabil on June 10, the day before he dated his own letter.

Article 2, from Frontaal Naakt (Warning: Nude photos are included in the linked article):

Dr. Scimitar

by Peter Breedveld

As an anthropologist, Martijn de Koning is concerned with the beliefs of young Muslims in the Netherlands. He wrote a very interesting and revealing book about it, “Searching for a ‘pure’ Islam”, which should be required reading for anyone who engages in the debate about Muslims.

[…]

I’ve always backed up Martijn de Koning. The accusations of collaborating with the Salafists do not hold up, and seem to be completely based on the fact that Martijn de Koning speaks at Islam conferences and the like, which are also attended by Salafists.

But I’ve always been annoyed by the fact that Martijn de Koning immediately grabs the pen to attack people who criticize intolerant Muslims, and never aimed his arrows at those intolerant Muslims. There is a documentary by the British Channel 4, in which the American Muslim preacher Khalid Yassin — who is praised by the Dutch press — lasciviously praises Saudi society, “where you see people with severed hands, where heads roll in the street and where people are flogged and stoned.” In Saudi Arabia, people are at least punished for their misdeeds, Yassin asserts with satisfaction.

Not, therefore, what you’d call a bridge-builder, this Yassin, unless you are a member of Green Left. Martijn de Koning however, believes that the documentary makers have not been upright, and taken the delirious roar of Yassin out of context. I have repeatedly asked him in what context Yassin’s fascist blood-thirst becomes acceptable, but receive only evasive answers.

Khalid Yassin in recent years been a regular guest in the Amsterdam “Polder Mosque”, where — as leftist politicians assure us — a liberal, tolerant Islam is being preached. Yassin preached there at the invitation of Muhammad Cheppih^[1], another one of those free-thinking, tolerant Muslims. Yassin would like to come over to live in Almere, comfortably near Hilversum [the Dutch broadcasters have headquarters there], because he “likes so much to work with media people”. Media people like Mohamed Cheppih, who was busy pushing his Muslim broadcaster down the throats of the world (with the tactical chosen name “Ouma”).

Yesterday Martijn de Koning suddenly let it slip on Twitter that Yassin will no longer come to the Netherlands, and that is news. Why Yassin no longer wants to come to the Netherlands, Martijn de Koning will not say. But suddenly a twittering radical Muslim woman came crawling out of the woodwork, Jihadinho (check her Twitter backdrop, check also the Twitter Decor of her friend UmmOsama, “Mother of Osama”), who asked Martijn de Koning why he did not explain what keeps Yassin out of the Netherlands. And this is what Martijn de Koning replied (he has since removed the tweet):

“Because I keep that information to myself, and you’d better do the same!”

Whoa! It seems Martijn de Koning has become an authority in the Dutch jihadi community. Someone who barks orders that are obeyed meekly by the radikalinskis. His conciliatory language towards the supporters of Fortuyn and those of Wilders has also has also drastically changed. Martijn de Koning now grumbles about “agitators and liars”, as if he were a policeman from a totalitarian dictatorship speaking out. He does not even bother hiding his true nature, “was only a threat to @ jihadinho” he wrote to journalist Patrick Pouw (Twitter name: paddypouw) who of course was also impressed. “For her own good,” he said.

“Only” a threat! Martijn de Koning is apparently so deeply embedded in the radical Muslim movement, that he is not even aware that such casual threats are abnormal. He is also aware of inside information about the preachers of hate and violence that Muhammad Cheppih invites to the Netherlands and promises government-subsidized jobs, and he threatens his jihadi girlfriends that they must shut up if they know what’s good for them.

This much is clear: Martijn de Koning lost his scientific objectivity sometime between the spring and summer of 2008. He obviously enjoys the unbounded trust of his research objects, but yesterday mine *POOF* went up in smoke.

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VH adds:

Back in March Gates of Vienna posted this video by Vlad Tepes featuring Martijn de Koning:

Concerning the video, Pritt (GeenStijl) commented on twitter about the: “F***ng rude shirt that @martijn5155 [Social and Cultural Anthropologist Martijn de Koning] wears in this little video. Where do you buy that?” And re-posted Lars Vilks’ drawing: “Weekly Elsevier and De Pers (‘insulters’) are in trouble with the sheik Fawaz Whatever, the cancer-wishing humorless hate beard on Islam.tv. Because of the above cartoon, which newspaper AD earlier this week censored away after complaints from nagging Muslims. GeenStijl had posted the cartoon in August 2007, and nothing was the matter with it then, but now seemingly there is. Excellent. Come on [if you dare], come on!”

Note:

[1]

Mohammed Cheppih was former frontman of the Dutch branch of the AEL (Arab European League of Abou Jahja) and initiated the founding of a mosque in Amsterdam-Slotervaart, the “Polder-moskee”, which was opened by Ahmed Marcouch [PvdA, Labour Party, Socialists] and Tariq Ramadan.

Our expatriate Russian correspondent Russkiy has translated some more reader input from the website of the BBC’s Arabic-language service. He says:

The BBC has questioned Arab readers on their views with regard to the Cordoba Initiative and the noise it has created. Some comments are worth translating.

And the translated excerpts from the BBC (sorry, no URL was included):

There are people who are saying that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the USA. In my view it’s the biggest, most widespread lie I ever heard.

— Abu Sufian, NY

What is the source of the problem? All problems in American politics concern Arabs and Muslims. How many resolutions from the security counsel, condemning Israel has America blocked? Those who attacked the towers caused animosity and a desire for revenge in Americans. Of course, those attacks were against humanistic and religious morals. However, why didn’t Americans respect the feelings of Arabs and Muslims? With regard to the project bringing religions and people together, I don’t think that this project would do that.

— Seyf al Islam, Libya

I am a Muslim, but despite that, I believe that the mosque should be built further away from the proposed place. There’s no doubt that this mosque will remind the families of the victims of those Muslims who perpetrated those heinous deeds. There’s no doubt that the images of the celebrating Muslims during and after those events shamed us as Muslims and proved clearly the contradiction between what we show and what we hide, and justifies the opposition of the people of New York.

— Amer, Hims

I am against building this mosque as I’m against any justifications for spilling blood of the innocents in all parts of the world. I am against those who justified the terrorist attacks of 9/11 ignoring the suffering and tears of the victims’ families and relatives while at the same time glorifying the wicked terrorist.

— Mostafa, the Netherlands

I think that building this mosque is an important gesture for the Muslims who simply need a place to pray. I don’t think there is an ulterior motive in building this mosque. The position of Obama in this is admirable. With regard to the opposition, I think they are wasting their time and that of others in this useless opposition. There’s no sense to it in my view.

— Abdal Aziz Ali

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Why is all this uproar around building a mosque in New York????? WHY DO MUSLIMS DEMAND THE RIGHT OF WORSHIP WHILST DENYING THAT RIGHT TO CHRISTIANS IN THE COUNTRIES WHERE THEY ARE THE MAJORITY LIKE EGYPT FOR EXAMPLE??? At least no one tries to burn them in their mosques whilst they are praying like they do to Christians in Egypt.

— Amin Daniel, Cairo

“Muslims were the first ones who started the policy of peaceful coexistence with people of other faiths — Islam Yosef” Brother Islam, we have been suffering for a very long time until now from this “peaceful” coexistence which you are talking about. You can target the Indians or the Chinese or even Americans with your claim that Muslims adhere to principles of coexistence, but don’t lie to yourself. I don’t think you need me to recount to you the events in history and the contents of your texts?

— Copt, Egypt

A question to those who want to build this mosque: After all this noise and scandal, why the insistence on building it? Its not only Christians who don’t want the mosque to be built but Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and even atheists. And the reason for this opposition from these various groups is because Islam attacks them all without exception. The likes of bin Laden and others use Quranic texts (that are clear for all to understand) to call for Muslims to kill non Muslims. The moderate Muslims can’t argue against Al Qaeda’s agenda because of the religious component in their claims. This is the reason why many people don’t want anything to do with anything Islamic.

— Engineer, Baghdad