Secretary Rice continues to show her ignorance of Islam

There's an interesting piece in the German Newspaper "Die Welt". It's been written by a Turk who now lives in Berlin and is titled "Turkish Paranoia. The closer the country moves towards Europe the stronger its nationalism gets."

Sadly I don't have the time to translate the whole article but here is one of the main points:

Quote: "... An overwhelming majority of Turks believes - according to polls - that the USA is a threat to Turkey. The war in Iraq is clearly seen as negative. Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' is now a bestseller. A novel which focuses on a future war between the US and Turkey is also among the most read books. The mood is directed against the West in general, driven by an ideology of hatred, by historically deep lying fears that have long taken paronoid traits..."

Forgot the link: http://www.welt.de/data/2005/04/19/706455.html

And it's paranoid, of course.

"I think Islam, the Muslim world, is indeed going through an evolution, and as with any evolution there are both potential negative outcomes and potential positive outcomes."~ Rice

Right. Like the 300 years of wars Christianity went thru in the Reformation. The Positive outcomes are mostly in the future.

It is flawed thinking Islam can reform as it is flawed from its foundation.
Im reminded Of when Pipes was asked how to tell an islaimist from a run of the mill muslim He said it was very very difficult .
The fact islam If you believe Mohammed was a prophet of god you have lost your sane human being ticket
and are riding in the shortest bus .
Do they want us to trust ,they will never get religion?Hell No.

I do not believe that the government and all the officials are THAT dumb about islam. I just do not understand what the game plan is. I have heard about people who have written letters to senators, warning of the true aims of the jihadists in the US, only to get a scolding letter in return speaking of diversity and tolerance. I refuse to tolerate my executioners, thank you very much.

"...I have heard about people who have written letters to senators, warning of the true aims of the jihadists in the US, only to get a scolding letter in return speaking of diversity and tolerance..."

Where has tolerating the intolerant gotten the Netherlands? It's gotten their country overrun, their way of life in jeopardy, and their legacy to posterity extremely uncertain and dangerous.

To believe that islam is 'just another religion' is the same as believing the nazis were 'just another political party'.

Western leaders need to wake up and smell the jihad.

The only explanation (and it is not a very satisfying one) for the administration figures to keep drumming the phrase "Islam is a religon of peace", over and over is:

-they are trying hypnotic suggestion.

(Of the Muslims, one hopes, and not us.)

Nothing else makes sense.

It isn't a factually true statement. And if anyone at their apparent educational level still believes it is, then they are due for replacement as fatally naive.

Islam is the creed of a warlord.

Born of the sword.
Spread by the sword.
And maintained by the sword.

Atilla and Gheghis Khan had similar 'creeds':

-kill everything in your path that resists.

(And if they bow, steal from them, degrade them, and lord it over them.)

The only 'peace' is the peace of the graveyard.

And even there, as recently demonstrated in Iraq, even non-Muslim cemeteries aren't exempt from the Islamicists' contempt and desecration.

Telling the truth ("Islam is a creed of militant global expansion") may not seem diplomatic, but such 'tactical'(?) lying as calling it 'peaceful' is only sowing the bitter harvest of a weakened and misinformed citizenry.

We don't need leaders afraid to confront the problem.

We tried that in the 1930's.

Chamberlain was the name.

Is Rice becoming a Chamber-maid?

Belisarius says,

"Western leaders need to wake up..."

Western leaders are not asleep. They are fully aware of the nature and history of Islam.

The machinations of politics demands first and foremost the survival of the politicians.

This "survivability" is contingent only upon the education of the constituents. And that, therein, is where the fault has always lain.

Carolyn2

I do not believe that the government and all the officials are THAT dumb about islam. I just do not understand what the game plan is.

Yeah. Hard to believe, but true.

Carolyn2,

I agree. I do not think that Rice is that stupid or naive about the compatibility of Islam with democracy. As much as I hate Islam, I still believe that democracy offers one of the best (long-term) hopes for the moderation of Islam. We can cite example of democracy making Islamism worse (Turkey, Indonesia, Iraq..), but the severity of the Sharia in these countries and their hostility towards the U.S. doesn't come anywhere near that of the Islamist dictatorships like Sudan or Iran. Turkey's trend towards Islamism may or may not be part of a long-term trend, but as long as they have clean elections, people have the option of throwing those Islamist bums out of office.

Democracy in the Muslim world will always be risky. It will always have its setbacks. But contrary to many of the readers here, I still think it will always be the best option.
Islam is not the only reason people choose Islamism. Adding to this is corruption, fatalism, frustration, ect... The first (and most risky) step in destroying dubious political movements is giving people a chance to control their own fate. Part of growing up is making mistakes you can only blame on yourself. God willing, democracy will teach Muslims to stop blaming Jews for their own stupidy. The best we can do is help make sure (short of military action) that they can vote again and again.

Forgot the link: http://www.welt.de/data/2005/04/19/706455.html

And it's paranoid, of course.

Posted by: disillusionised_german at April 18, 2005 05:44 PM

The overpowering majority of the Türken believes today according to surveys that the USA represents a threat for Turkey. The war in the Iraq unambiguously negatively is valued. Hitlers "my battle" is in the mean time a bestseller. A novel, in which a future war between the USA and Turkey thematisiert becomes, belongs also to the presently most read works. The disposition arranges itself against the west simply, without differentiations, directed of an ideology of the hate, of historically deep-seated anxieties, that supposed a long time paranoid trains

FROM YOUR STROY??\

THIS IS THEIR [MULSUM] TRICK PLAY THE VICTIM ALL THE WHILE BEING THE BULLY!!!

ONCE AGAIN THE MULSUMS ARE AT THE GATES OF VIENA WILL YOU LET THEM IN AND BE LIKE GREECE AND TROY??

THIS IS YOUR BACK YARD AND IF TURKEY IS SO WORRIED ABOUT THE USA WHY HAVE THEY NOT QUITE NATO AND STOP TAKEN AMERICAN MONEY !!!

Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
GOD BLESS THE USA AND HER FIGHTING FORCES AND ALL WHO FIGHT WITH HER GIVE THEM STRENGTH, WISDOM, SIGHT, AND COURAGE TO STAY THE COURSE TO DESTROY ALL ISLAMIC TERRORIST AND ALL WHO SUPPORT THEM AMEN

PS
More like they are worried about what the Iraqis will do after they gain their Strength and cut the OIL??? this is what Turkey is worried about because they helped and still are helpping saddam[YELLOW COWARD FOUND IN A HOLE DON'T SHOOT I'M A YELLOW COWARD] and Islamic Terrorist kill the Iraqi People??

Maybe Ms. Rice can explain to us (and the Unenlightened Muslims who misinterpret Jihad as holy war) why a military that threatens a not-so-secular government with a coup is needed in "progressive" Turkey? If Turkey is deemed to be such a success story of Islam and democracy co-existing peacefully, why then, does it not want "Islamists" in the government?

dON'T THINK THAT SO FAST SEAMS THE USA vETOED A BILL TODAY IN THE un=lon=ARAB LEAGE? THE BILL WOULD HAVE GIVEN MULSUMS A ONE UP ON THE cHRISTIANS AND THE REST OF THE WORLD SO YOU WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT MULSUMS ??

WELL SEAMS THAT HILLARY CLINTON HAS THE SAME BILL IN THE SENATE??

Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
God Bless the USA and her Fighting Forces and ALL who Fight with her give them Strength, Wisdom, Sight, and Courage to stay the course to Destroy ALL Islamic Terrorist and ALL who Support them Amen

PS
Of course we can thank the Democrats for the LON=UN=arab leage yes it was good old W.Wilson a Democrat after sighning the tready of Versi and we know how well that worked LOL LOL LOL

Dr. Rice - It's disappointing to observe how ignorant and stupid a person with a PhD can be.

"I think Islam, the Muslim world, is indeed going through an evolution, and as with any evolution there are both potential negative outcomes and potential positive outcomes. The negative outcome would be the continued rise of extremism and those who would hijack the great world religion to a cause that clearly has nothing to do with Islam. Islam is a peaceful religion..."

In order to make this statement, Condoleeza Rice either 1) would have to have studied Islam -- not for years, not even for months, but a solid week would do or 2) rely on staff members to supply her with accurate summaries of the belief-system of Islam, which would necessarily have to get beyond the "one of the world's great monotheisms," "one of the abrahamic faiths," "the Five PIllars of Islam are shahada, zakat, salat, Ramadan, and hajj."

It is very likely #2 and not #1. But if those staff members are not deeply versed in the geopolitics of Islam, have not spent a long time reading and re-reading and thinking about the history of Islamic conquest, the immutability of those texts, the way in which those texts are now distributed far and wide, the use of Islam as a Total Explanation of the Universe as a point of repair and solace that, alas, also provides a ready-made object of blame in the Infidel, and the ways in which, far beyond terrorism, and far more effectively than terrorism, Islam can be promoted and spread.

If Condoleeza Rice really believes that Islam "is a peaceful religion" then she has not read the history of Islamic conquest, has not studied the treatment of non-Muslims -- all non-Muslims, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Buddhists -- living in lands subjugated by Muslims, and has failed to fully grasp the nature of that supposedly benign "protected-people" status of Christians and Jews that, in the full panoply of what it demanded of those "People of the Book" (ahl al-kitab) was onerous, and relentlessly cruel in a way that rhetoric should not be allowed to conceal.

If the quoted remarks are meant, then she is a grave disappointment. And neither she, nor anyone else who thinks in the same vein, is likely to be able to comprehend how much vaster than bringing "democracy to Iraq" is the problem.

Let us stick only to Turkey as an example. Rice raises that as an example. Turkey is indeed an example. But an example of what? The hisorical record shows the following:

1) Kemal Ataturk was a war hero and strongman who took control of Turkey -- which was not a democracy at the time -- and in order to save his country from what he regarded as further disaster and possible dismemberment (it had already lost its possessions) -- in 1924.

He instituted a series of measures designed to limit the power of Islam in political and social matters. These included:

a) the Hat Act, abolishing the wearing of the brimless fez which made praying easier and insisting on Western caps to go with such Western, non-Islamic dress as coats and ties.

b) giving women the right to vote.

c) having the Qur'an translated into Turkish -- to break the cultural hold of Arabic -- and even supplying a special tafsir, or commentary in Turkish.

d) ending the use of Arabic script and adopting the Western alphabet

e) monitoring the mosques and creating a Ministry of Religions Affairs entrusted with composing the khutbas delivered at Friday Prayers -- carefuly vetted by government officials so that they would not contain any dangerous material.

f) forbidding conscripts in the army from rising in the ranks if they demonstrated any detectable signs of religous fervor, such as reading the Qur'an too much

g) forbidding the wearing of the hijab in any government office or at any official function

h) cracking down on any newspapers that offered articles deemed "pro-Islamic"

i) making the army the bastion and protector of Kemalism.

And much more.

Note that Ataturk did not try to change the text of Qur'an, did not try to revise Bukhari or Muslim and de-authenticate dangerous ahadith. Nor did he try to re-write the life of Muhammad. (In some ways the cult of Ataturk, now the national cult of Turkey, was a kind of replacement for Muhammad.) He realized this was impossible, but that in order to bring Turkey kicking and screaming into the modern world, he and those who supported him (Turkey was poor, Turkey was on the ropes, Turkey needed a Strong Man and as a war hero he fit the bill perfectly), forced through all these constraints on Islam.

Ataturk was the most successful example of the quasi-enlightened (a relative) despots who alone have been responsible for whatever constraints on Islam have been put in place. The Shah tried to emphasis the pre-Islamic origins of the Iranian state, just as his regime had tried to avoid mistreating non-Muslims in defiance of the laws of sharia and the particular fanaticism with which the Infidels were regarded as "unclean" or "najis" --even into the 1970s Mary Boyce found Zoroastrians treated as "unclean" and Laurence Loeb, who spent a year living in Iran, noted that Jews could still be beaten to death for going out in the rain (it was believed that rainwater, if it touched a Jew's skin, and then subseuqnently splashed onto a Muslim, could endanger that Muslim with this drop or two of horrific uncleanliness). There was Mohammed V of Morocco, protected from Islamic attack as a sherifian monarch (i.e., direct descendant of the Prophet). There was Bourguiba and his One-Party (Destour) Rule that still, through a police-state, has managed to limit the Islam-based mistreatment of women, and even allows some space to very guarded and gentle, but nonetheless noticeable, criticism of Islamic practices, if not untouchable and immutable doctrines.

The entire history of Islam shows that while the doctrines cannot be changed, a strong man, by dint of relentless pressure, can work to constrain Islam.

2) Turkey offers another lesson, one that Rice and others who will be around after Rice is gone should think about. Kemalism requires constant vigilance for it to be maintained. Even though a secular class has been created in Turkey, that class has been insufficiently aware of how tenuous its position is, of how it is constantly in danger of being chipped away at, and undermined, by the determined "Islamic" element in Turkey. Erdogan is not an example of someone admirable, but of someone exceedingly cunning, able to use the E.U.'s requirements to hobble the army, the sole guarantor of Kemalism.

The undermining of Kemalism in Turkey offers a salutary lesson: the lesson is that Islam is a powerful force, and cannot be changed, only constrained, as Kemal Ataturk did. And to the degree that any country becomes more Muslim, to that same degree that country will, no matter how long or close its seemingly heartfelt alliance with the United States has been, will pull away from that alliance, forget all that was done for it, and become hostile to the United States as it would be to any Infidel power practicing muscular self-defense. The same is true of Pakistan, which has received every possible aid over decades, just as Turkey as. And neither country can be trusted to be on America's side, no matter how plausible some Turkish generals in Ankara may seem (or may be) to their American counterparts, or how many ramrod-straight Sandhurst graduates in Karachi manage to impress, or at least try to make us overlook, how Pakistani generals were in up their neck in supporting the Taliban, and the extracurricular activities of that remarkable man, A. Q. Khan.

3) The example of Turkey shows not only that Islam can only be constrained, and then most ably by a strong man rather than "democracy" -- for a "democratic" state where the people aree almost entirley Muslim will inevitably redefine everything in terms of Islam. Whatever is bad -- i.e., corruption -- will simply be defined as "Infidel" and therefore to be opposed. Whatever is desirable will simply be labelled in the spirit of Islam -- and this will happen everywhere that head-counting is the accepted definition of democracy, and not head-counting plus the rights enshrined in the First and Fourteenth Amendments, or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The government needs desperately a cadre of people who are willing to study what the defectors from Islam can tell us -- such people as Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina, Azam Kamguian, and hundreds or thousands of othres. It needs a cadre of people who can see right through Esposito and his ilk, and will learn about Islam by going to the dozens of Western scholars whose work has been deliberately ignored. They should begin with the pioneering scholarship (and synthesis of others's scholarship) by Bat Ye'or, and such books as Ibn Warraq's "Why I Am Not a Muslim," and then go back to study Joseph Schacht, Arthur Jeffery, C. Snouck Hurgronje, Antoine Fattal, Edmond Fagnan, Vryonis and Vakalopoulos and Dadrian and Ivo Andric and a dozen others on non-Muslims under Ottoman rule, and K. S. Lal and Sarkar on HIndus under Muslim rule, and Mary Boyce on Zoroastrians in Muslim Persia, and many others, now in the process of being published within the next six months.

She has been mislead. That is not her fault. Many people have been mislead about Islam. But at some point they must begin to realize that the evidence of their senses suggests that they have fed an incorrect analysis, a "theory" or "model" of Islam that does not explain all the data we have collected over 1350 years, nor seem to have much explanatory value for what is happening now, not only in Iraq and with Israel, but in the Sudan, in Nigeria, in Pakistan, in the Philippines, in Indonesia, in Bangladesh -- where Christians, Jews, Hindus, Confucians, Buddhists all suffer from Muslim persecution or Jihad.

At this point anyone who speaks of Islam as a "religion of peace," when a good many Americans (and others in the Western world) have figured out they must learn about Islam on their own, since those whose solemn duty it is to instruct them instead offer only pieties and bromides, invides ridicule. And that ridicule will come as well from the soldiers who have been to Iraq, have seen Islam from up close, and despite the propaganda they are forced to parrot from time to time, have a better sense of the rumors and lies and nonsense that are the daily stuff of life in Arab Islam, and furthermore have been fully aware of the widespread hostlitiy, rooted in Islamic doctrine, even to Infidels bearing gifts, costing tens of billions of dollars.

Perhaps the entire political class in this country is guilty -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- of failing to learn about Islam, and failing to offer the kind of imaginative and intelligent means, that do not require vast invasion forces on the ground, that do not reqiure the spending of hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq (and tens of billions more, apparently, in Afghanistan, not to mention the continuation of American aid, for no good reason, to Egypt, to Jordan, to Pakistan, and of course to the shock-troops of the relentless and essentially endless Arab Jihad against Israel, the local Arabs renamed the "Palestinian people."

We can deplore the 5th graders, and the 8th graders, and the 12th graders, who do not know history. Editorialists rightly wring thirr hands at those in colleges who haven't a clue as to why 1803 was important in American history, or 1649 in English history, or 1453 in the history of Western Christendom. But when it comes to those who create policies that will determine the safety and wellbeing of the entire Western, world, but have failed to study the history of Jihad-conquest, or the dhimmitude that was the most gentle fate for those non-Muslims who were subjugated, this kind of ignorance has real consequences, real costs, real dangers.

Rooted in a real knowledge, unfoolable and unflappable, not only of Quran, Hadith, and Sira, but how those canonical texts are used, and how they have served to fashion the Sharia, and how, in the 1350 years of Islamic history, there has been an observable and remarkable consistency in how Muslims from Spain to the East Indies, have behaved, prompted by the same texts, toward non-Muslims.

One would love to know what Condoleeza Rice knows, or has been told (and by whom) about Islam. Does the Treaty of al-Hudaibyiia mean anything to her? Does the description of Muhammad in the Qur'an as "uswa hasana"? Does she know what Khomeini, that learned Shi'a theologian, wrote, or why he reduced the marrriageable age of girls to nine years? Does she think that the problem with Islam is a "handful of extremists" and if so, why does she believe that? Or does she believe the problem are those "Wahhabi" Muslims, and if so, what does she make of the behavior of Muslims toward non-Muslims in the thousand years before Wahhabism appeared? What does she know about the 60-70 million Hindus who were massacred under MUghal rule? What does she know about the Bumiputra system in present-day Malaysia, and why it has been called a disguised jizyah? What does she know about the treatment of Christians under Ottoman rule in the Balkans and elsewhere in eastern Europe? What does she know about the real treatment of Christians and Jews in Andalucia, and does she know why so many have taken to mocking the "myth of Andalucia" created by such writers as Chateaubriand and Irving? What does she know about demogrpaphic trends in Europe? About Geert Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali? What does she know about those religiously-sanctioned doctrines, in Islam, of dissimulation about the faith of Islam, and about the Believer's own beliefs, variously known as "taqiyya" and "kitman"?

These are some of the questions, the answers to which might enlighten us, and make us feel less insecure and alarmed -- or more so.

Never before have we needed leaders willing to take the time to study, to return to their books, to be willing to jettison prefabricated phrases about "tolerance" and "peace" and to be willing to understand some very unpleasant truths, and to calmly prepare, little by little, both other policymakers, and the still in-the-dark public, for what must be understood.

It is not asking too much of our leaders to ask them not to dismiss the dangers of Islam, and to request that they study not the apologists but the real scholars (a book or article on Islam written in 1920 or 1930 does not lose value, and because it was written at a time of much less inhibition, in a less guarded and fearful language, it is likely to be of far greater value than what is written today, even if what is written today is someone who is not an apologist, as so many non-Muslim scholars are if they want to succeed in academic life, and need to be wary of offending Muslim colleagues, or potential or actual Arab or other Muslim donors).

Fais un petit effort. Intelligence and imagination will allow you to come up, very easily, with a dozen ideas that will help to weaken Islam, to exploit its natural fissures, to visibly limit its present and future economic power, and to support, within Europe, those who are now thoroughly alarmed and intent on stopping the spread of a belief-system that is totalitarian in its Total Regulation and Total Explanation of the Universe.

Surely that is something that can be understood by some in the army and in the civilian administration -- and can percolate not downwards, but upwards -- from those who still have the time to do their own studying, and do not have to rely on 2-5 page summaries prepared by aids.

Long live the colonels who educate the generals. Long live the staff aides who educate the Senators and Congressmen And long live all those who take the time to read, study, and think.

It is they who will rescue us.

Catherine, of course you can run the article through an automated translation service but I don't trust those. Usually it comes out as a load of balls. Cheers anyway.

Hugh, you should email your thoughts to Dr. Rice. I've emailed Mossad in order to tell them about a few German lefties I consider as dangerous(ly anti-semitic) but haven't heard back from them. But, you never know, someone might read your input after all.

From Hugh's post:

and Laurence Loeb, who spent a year living in Iran, noted that Jews could still be beaten to death for going out in the rain (it was believed that rainwater, if it touched a Jew's skin, and then subseuqnently splashed onto a Muslim, could endanger that Muslim with this drop or two of horrific uncleanliness)

I am just astonished. I think I've heard the worst of islam, then I read this.

Disillusionierte Deutscher:

Government agencies of any country receive scades of communications daily, some of which seem to be important, others of which appear to be cranky--and they're read, screened, and assigned a level of importance by folks who put on their pants one leg at a time, just like the rest of us.

My own feeling after six year in State was that the web of misinformation, misperception, sound learning, and experience that make up that agency's views of religion and politics means that Uncle Sam will probably lurch between ignoring real threats and over-reacting to non-threats for a long time to come.

Hugh-

Try emailing journalists to yell a question to Dr. Rice: (e.g.)

"Secretary Rice! Will you be meeting with the woman Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali? As a show of solidarity, especially since she is now living under death threats from radical Islamicists?"

Hirsi Ali could then clue Condoleeza in on the meaning of Islam in Turkey as it tries to gain EU membership and give Europe a gigantic infusion of freely roaming -and voting- Muslim immigrants.

Personal contact with a Muslim apostate would likely work wonders on the 'long grain' mentality of Ms. Rice.

Kepha:

As someone who keeps watching Fox News during the night I noticed that a lot of the good people in the US are fed up with their administration. There's a lot of unrest about border security over there and rightly so. The European Union sidesteps this issues by removing any borders. I wonder what's worse... maybe we should have a contest - "Who's got the worst president / prime-minister / president / chancellor etc"

As one of the Arizona congressmen said on Hannity and Colmes a few minutes ago - it's not a partisan issue (the border problem, that is). We're the ones in the know and we have to spread the word before it's too late. It doesn't take a minute to send out an email and, even though I'm still pessimistic in regards to its effect, it's worth a try. Otherwise we might just as well give up.

"The negative outcome would be the continued rise of extremism and those who would hijack the great world religion to a cause that clearly has nothing to do with Islam. Islam is a peaceful religion..."

If Rice is correct then limb lopping for theft, stoning for adultery, execution for those who wish for the right to choose non-islamac religions is good? BIG ALLAH would be very pleased to here this.

What Rice is saying (I am presuming unintentionally out of ignorance as Hugh argues) is bad is good.

Orwell’s 1984 in Washington. Very very bad. Like in the novel that leaves only the citizens to fight and speak out against these dangerous absurdities.

disillusioned_german

"Who's got the worst president / prime-minister / president / chancellor etc"

Does anyone seriously expect our leading politicians to be anything other than Saudi glove puppets? The threat of rising oil prices and the prospect of Beirut-style religious wars in Western cities is more than enough to focus their minds on the pacific nature of Islam.

Does anyone seriously expect our leading politicians to be anything other than Saudi glove puppets?

If President Bush came forward and called the Saudis out for the jihadis they are, while proposing a multi-pronged approach to energy, he'd have the support of the vast majority of Americans.

Nobody, except those on the gravy train, supports the Saudis. Fifteen hijackers being Saudis is something which will never change. It's etched into our national consciousness.

So your reply is... It appears there are too many people on the gravy train, putting their personal financial interests over the national interest, even over the political gain possible by opposing the Saudis.

Given Saudi support for jihad, the political situation is sure to change. The Saudis can't buy everyone forever.

Even if they're not on the Saudi gravy train itself, they're on the more general gravy train of careerism, where saying the right thing is an essential part of ensuring their future prospects for employment. Reducing our dependency on oil is the key, as you said, but progress in that area appears to be minimal. The oil won't last forever, but what will our cities (and our politicians) look like by the time it runs out?

Hugh,

You say, and I quite agree that “It needs a cadre of people who can see right through Esposito and his ilk, and will learn about Islam by going to the dozens of Western scholars whose work has been deliberately ignored. They should begin with the pioneering scholarship (and synthesis of others's scholarship) by Bat Ye'or, and such books as Ibn Warraq's "Why I Am Not a Muslim," and then go back to study Joseph Schacht, Arthur Jeffery, C. Snouck Hurgronje, Antoine Fattal, Edmond Fagnan, Vryonis and Vakalopoulos and Dadrian and Ivo Andric and a dozen others on non-Muslims under Ottoman rule, and K. S. Lal and Sarkar on HIndus under Muslim rule, and Mary Boyce on Zoroastrians in Muslim Persia, and many others, now in the process of being published within the next six months.”

I doubt I will ever be such a cadre member but I do try to keep informed. I have read "Why I Am Not a Muslim" and plan to purchase “Eurabia”. (I am English; aware of the significance of 1453 and 1649, though not 1803!). But I don’t have the time to work through the whole of your list.

Also, though not speaking Arabic, I would be more interested in reading primary materials and I wonder if you could make some recommendations here. I read Sale’s Koran which, I am told, is pretty good, and has useful commentary material. What do you think of this, or other available translations?

I also went looking for books of hadith and shariah. I came across the following books and I am giving titles and Amazon search parameters. Would you care to comment on/add to/improve this list.

The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah
by Abd Al-Malik Ibn Hisham, Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, Alfred Guillaume, A. Guillaume

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0196360331/ref=pd_sim_b_3/102-7537020-8586558?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

The Translation of the Meanings of Summarized Sahih Al-Bukhari: Arabic-English
by Muhammad M. Khan

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1567445195/ref=pd_sim_b_5/102-7537020-8586558?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law Umdat Al-Salik
by Ahmad Ibn Lulu Ibn Al-Naqib, Noah Ha Mim Keller

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0915957728/ref=pd_sim_b_4/102-7537020-8586558?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

Kindest Regards
Philip

Hugh,

You say, and I quite agree that “It needs a cadre of people who can see right through Esposito and his ilk, and will learn about Islam by going to the dozens of Western scholars whose work has been deliberately ignored. They should begin with the pioneering scholarship (and synthesis of others's scholarship) by Bat Ye'or, and such books as Ibn Warraq's "Why I Am Not a Muslim," and then go back to study Joseph Schacht, Arthur Jeffery, C. Snouck Hurgronje, Antoine Fattal, Edmond Fagnan, Vryonis and Vakalopoulos and Dadrian and Ivo Andric and a dozen others on non-Muslims under Ottoman rule, and K. S. Lal and Sarkar on HIndus under Muslim rule, and Mary Boyce on Zoroastrians in Muslim Persia, and many others, now in the process of being published within the next six months.”

I doubt I will ever be such a cadre member but I do try to keep informed. I have read "Why I Am Not a Muslim" and plan to purchase “Eurabia”. (I am English; aware of the significance of 1453 and 1649, though not 1803!). But I don’t have the time to work through the whole of your list.

Also, though not speaking Arabic, I would be more interested in reading primary materials and I wonder if you could make some recommendations here. I read Sale’s Koran which, I am told, is pretty good, and has useful commentary material. What do you think of this, or other available translations?

I also went looking for books of hadith and shariah. I came across the following books and I am giving titles and Amazon search parameters. Would you care to comment on/add to/improve this list.

The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah
by Abd Al-Malik Ibn Hisham, Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, Alfred Guillaume, A. Guillaume

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0196360331/ref=pd_sim_b_3/102-7537020-8586558?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

The Translation of the Meanings of Summarized Sahih Al-Bukhari: Arabic-English
by Muhammad M. Khan

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1567445195/ref=pd_sim_b_5/102-7537020-8586558?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law Umdat Al-Salik
by Ahmad Ibn Lulu Ibn Al-Naqib, Noah Ha Mim Keller

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0915957728/ref=pd_sim_b_4/102-7537020-8586558?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

Kindest Regards
Philip

Looks like some hacker got onto the site! Troll alarm!

Troll attack appears to be cleaned up now.

Beagle:
Girac may be the most corrupt and preposterous frog Europe has seen for a long time, but most of them are like that, so it is really hard to see who 'the worst' really is.
I think Shredder of Germany is probably the next best parvenu you can find, along with the Dutch Dhimmi and Zapatero in Spain, but then again: Look at America: Who is 'THE WORST"?

I am always puzzled how these types appear, whether Bush, Clinton or Kerry or Carter (my favorite asshole) The strange and weird world of politics doesn't seem to produce much in terms of real leadership and I'am afraid to realize what we need and are looking for could only be achieved with a dictatorship:
I really mean expulsion and deportation of all Muzzie culture from our countries including the razing of mosques and the physical elimination of hate preachers.

We don't even know how to hate anymore! They suck the hatred with their mothers milk. How do you get our people to understand that?

I think that for the US, the key is sharia courts. Lay out what a sharia court is, a decentralized, private system of administering both moral and physical justice and ask them whether they are as under control as the Catholic system of courts, which is controlled by a specific treaty, called a concordat, negotiated by the President and ratified by Congress.

There is no such treaty. Due to the decentralized muslim system, there cannot be any such treaty. The fact that we did it with the Catholic Church and are not doing it with Islamic courts is religiously discriminatory. The safeguards necessary to treat Catholic and Islamic religious courts equally would impose a series of controls on sharia courts that would be sufficient to awaken everybody.

All sharia courts claim global jurisdiction. They also claim the ability to pass sentence to the point of issuing death sentences. Let them (the politicians) figure that out on their own if they don't already know. Restrict your protest to religious discrimination, unequal treatment of Catholic and Islamic religious courts and you're on a winning path. With a quarter of US voters being Catholic, it's going to be deadly to the electoral chances of a working majority of Congress to be identified as anti-Catholic.

When Mr Bush says; "Islam is a religion of peace" and Rice says; "Islam does not contradict democracy", Muslims are not deceived by this political speach. The consiquence of this kind of speach is confusing Westerners who do not really know the true Islam.
I know that Mr Bush is Christian. Accordingly,I believe that the Lord will discipline him.
Abbas

philiph,

1803 saw the beginning of the Tripolitan War, or First Barbary War.

The Barbary States of North Africa (technically Ottoman provinces, but the Turkish court had little sway there) were demanding tribute of infidel nations, including the United States. They had none of the familiar excuses. Palestine was securely in Turkish hands, Hollywood and MTV did not exist, and we knew nothing of petroleum.

President Thomas Jefferson decided he'd rather fight, and refused Tripoli's demand for more tribute. The bey of Tripoli cut down the flagpole at the American consulate, thus all but declaring war. Jefferson answered with the Navy and the Marines, though Congress never formally declared war. Our demand was simple, reasonable and just: Leave us alone.

In the end we paid $60,000 to ransom the crew of the Philadelphia, captured during the war. The treaty said we'd pay no more tribute. Before long, though, these perfidious jihaddis were at it again.

Once we'd settled with Britain, ending the War of 1812, we again turned our attention to the Barbary States. The Second Barbary War, or Algerine War, ended decisively in favor of the United States in 1815. We paid no more jizyah, and this time made it stick.

Shame about the Brit's treatment of poor Theodore II of Abyssinia though.

http://www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armycampaigns/africancampaigns/campabyssinia.htm

Shame about the Brit's treatment of poor Theodore II of Abyssinia though.

http://www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armycampaigns/africancampaigns/campabyssinia.htm

Shame about the Brit's treatment of poor Theodore II of Abyssinia though.

http://www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armycampaigns/africancampaigns/campabyssinia.htm

Don't know how it came up three times!