I used to refer to jihad terrorists and Muslims who held to the same perspectives as those terrorists as "radical Muslims." By this I meant Muslims who were willing to perform radical actions for their faith -- or who approved of those actions. This was as opposed to those Muslims who just wanted to live quiet, ordinary lives. However, many misunderstood the term: some thought it implied that they were radicalizing an originally peaceful Islamic doctrine.
But of course every Islamic legal school sanctions, with minor variations, jihad warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers. Anyone who has read any of my books knows that I have never held that Islamic doctrine has a peaceful core, although obviously there are peaceful Muslims in the world, so to avoid this misunderstanding I stopped using the term.
Now I call the purveyors of violence in the name of Islam what they call themselves: mujahedin, jihadists. And here is a most interesting article: "Muslim convert rejects radical label: Briton Abdur Raheem Green says genuinely radical Muslims call him a moderate," from the New Zealand Herald, with thanks to Liberal Muslim. Abdur Raheem Green maintains that although he was earlier quoted as saying that Muslims and Westerners "cannot live peaceably together" and that "Islam teaches its followers to seek death on the battle field, that dying whilst fighting jihad is one of the surest ways to paradise and Allah's good pleasure," within the Islamic community he is actually a moderate. And of course, he never really said those things:
A man described by some Australian media as one of Britain's most radical Muslim converts starts a speaking tour today for New Zealand Islamic Awareness Week.Abdur Raheem Green, who rejects the radical label, had been due to speak at the Auckland University of Technology on Monday but the public lecture was cancelled because he had to change his flight plans when he was refused entry to Brisbane for a one-hour stopover.
Mr Green said he was told when checking in at Sri Lanka about three days ago that he could not land in Brisbane but was given no reason by the Australian High Commission.
"They said sorry there was a problem ... it would probably take a while to sort out." He instead booked a direct flight to New Zealand.
Mr Green had not been told he was banned from Australia, where he was due next week, but understood his entry was under review.
He said he could understand concern after being called a radical Muslim by Australian media, a label which had shocked and upset him.
"It's the first time I've been called a radical ever. They [radicals] call me a moderate."...
Maybe this is because he condemns terrorism, although like CAIR's fatwa, his statement is ambiguous and non-specific:
Mr Green has appeared on the BBC condemning terrorists and composed an online mosque statement after the London bombings."Terrorism is wrong - that's it, plain and simple." He said, however, he had publicly commented on the reasons behind terrorism.
"But people don't want to hear ... We're not trying to justify terrorism but help people understand why this is happening."
Mr Green either denied quotes attributed to him in the Australian press or said they were taken out of context, twisted, or over-simplified.
He said his personal views had changed over the years since he converted in 1988 and the reports failed to acknowledge that he had often said the opposite of what was claimed.
He could not imagine ever saying Muslims and non-Muslims could not live together peacefully. "That's the one that upset me the most ... I absolutely do not believe that."
Mr Green was also reported to have said: "The truth is that Islam teaches its followers to seek death on the battlefield, that dying while fighting jihad is one of the surest ways to paradise and Allah's good pleasure."
He said that had been taken from a letter he wrote to his father more than 10 years ago.
Jihad was a loaded term which had been linked with terrorism. "It is not about fighting for money or revenge but much more complex."
It could include physically defending one's land, family and country, which Westerners also supported, he said. "That is totally different from terrorism."
OK, so does he think today's jihadists are defending their land, family and country? If not, why not?
Mr Green could not recall saying that conflict between Islam and the West was "not only sanctioned but ordered in the Koran", although he admitted he might have once said something like that.He pointed out the conflict of ideas between Western materialism and Islam and in that sense Muslims were always going to feel "a little uncomfortable" with non-Muslims.
Mr Green hoped New Zealanders would come to his lectures to better understand what Islam was about.
"I've certainly not come here to recruit people for terrorism."
Javed Khan, president of the Federation of Islamic Associations, which invited Mr Green to NZ, said the Australian allegations were false and things were taken out of context.
Ah. Out of context. Of course. Incidentally, has anyone ever quoted the Qur'an or a jihadist spokeman IN context?
I see that New Zealand is having an 'Islam Awareness Week' soon - we have those in Britain too.
It is of course just a front for Da'wah playing on the good nature of liberal tolerant societies who are eager to promote 'diversity' and 'understanding'.
As always, you are 'invited' to 'discover' Islam, about the 'beauty of Islam' and so on.
Well, in the past I have tended to ignore such evangelical gatherings.
But perhaps the time has come for the next Islam Awareness Week in Britain to be met with some critical intelligence - go to meeting fully armed with quotations and study the essays so you have the arguments down flat - go there and deal with them with knowledge - refute them, repudiate them, pull the mask away with the arguments you can make with them - especially in the period after the lecture, in the situation where you can 'ask questions' freely.
Take the arguments straight to them and test their theory that Islam is a religion of peace, or justice, or whatever it is.
Hmmm, with the popularity of the JW website and Robert's books, maybe 'Islam Awareness Week' will take on a whole new meaning in the near future.
'Mr Green was also reported to have said: "The truth is that Islam teaches its followers to seek death on the battlefield, that dying while fighting jihad is one of the surest ways to paradise and Allah's good pleasure."'
I've been wondering about how to defeat suicidal-homicidal death-cults; in WWII it required showing the Japanese people that the "divine" Emporer Hirohito was actually just another human. In the case of Islam there is no analogous action, unless showing the foibles (murder, theft, child-rape) of Mohammed would work.
But the above quote is similar to the credo of the Scandanavian Vikings. They also believed that the only way to enter Valhalla was to be holding a sword at the moment of death. Today we don't see alot of Viking jihadists. So, what happened there? How did they give up the blood lust, and move onto more productive pursuits like making safer cars and making high-quality-low-cost furniture?
Whatever happened, it did not occur because the rest of the world kept producing proclamations that the mauraders along the coast of Europe were just a few lone radical Vikings, separate and distinct from the majority of peace-loving Vikings.
I have provided a further discussion group for anti-Jihad discussion at:
http://www.ezforums.org/USAction/default.asp
"But people don't want to hear ... We're not trying to justify terrorism but help people understand why this is happening."
So why is it happening? Isn't every Mohammedan an apologist and a propagandist for the Jihad, one way or another?
He wants to tell us about the "oppressed Moslems who have their grievances" and that all stems from the "unjust policies of our governments and that the "root-cause" must be addressed'...
Sounds familiar?
Australia doesn't need him, Australia doesn't want him.
We have enough of that already. We need less Islam, not more...
Of course Moslems and non-Muslims can live together peacefully as long as the non-Muslims don't prevent the spread of Islam or get uppity when living under Islamic rule.
/sarcasm off
A response to special guest:
As old followers of this site know, an extreme form of fatalism plays a powerful role in the belief system of Islam; the world is already destined for Islamic domination. There is nothing anyone can do about the final outcome; it is simply a question of when and how, which are beyond human control. 'Allah willing', as jihadists always say, domination will come soon. In the context of these expectations and beliefs in providence, blows against the flourishing of Islam tend to cause psychological crises that spawn rash action and thought. As Spencer has documented, one reaction of Muslims in the face of tragedy, resistence, or defeat, is the assertion of a more 'pure Islam'; another reaction is a 'circling the wagons' in sanctuary response, reminiscent of Mohammad's flight to Medina. Victory of any kind gives rise to a fervent and potentially vicious triumphalism; a victory is evidence of help and approval from Allah, which, of course, causes greater and greater efforts toward the religious goal of establishing Sharia law and Islamic social and political domination.
But what if the defeat were simply too great? How would the Islamic mind rationalize complete despair, as if Allah had utterly abandoned Muslims in the fight against the non-believers? The Qur'an and hadith promise aid from Allah in jihad, and ultimate victory. But what if defeat is so obvious and so devastating that such appeals are rendered senseless.
'Return to Islam!' the imams might preach. But what if the defeat is so utterly clear that such calls to pure Islam fall on sceptical ears? What if defeat is so overwhelming that even the most irrational and paranoid of Islamic minds cannot deny that Allah has abandoned the faithful?
I do not like the direction this line of thought is going as far as strategy goes; but the questions should be raised, so here they are.
special guest, it's probably worth noting that after Hirohito renounced his divinity, he got permission from the occupiers to pray to ancestor, then prayed to some Japanese god. Which means he pretty much took back his renunciation of divinity.
From the above story:
He pointed out the conflict of ideas between Western materialism and Islam and in that sense Muslims were always going to feel "a little uncomfortable" with non-Muslims.
How hard for them. Strangely, non-Muslims (kuffar) feel a little uncomfortable with Muslims because of the conflict of ideas between Western regard for human life and Islamic fatalism-fanaticsm.
But, again, the story suggests that it's really all our fault for making Muslims feel uncomfortable with our obstinate, continual breathing and all. Sorry about that.
Imam Geoff
But what if the defeat were simply too great? How would the Islamic mind rationalize complete despair, as if Allah had utterly abandoned Muslims in the fight against the non-believers? The Qur'an and hadith promise aid from Allah in jihad, and ultimate victory. But what if defeat is so obvious and so devastating that such appeals are rendered senseless.
JTF, I've also thought about this possibility. My guess is that even under such conditions Islamic believers would find means to rationalize their defeat as merely a test of their faith. If anything, it might actually increase their fervor, since they probably would believe that Allah was angry with them for not having been true enough to their faith in the past. I base this on the reaction of the victims of the tsunami devastation in Indonesia where, apparently, muslims are now going to mosques in far greater numbers than before.
Special Guest: believe it or not, there has been a long academic fad in history departments to say about the Vikings exactly what you find so funny - that they were neither as many nor as bad as people thought, and that they were mostly farmers and traders. If you want to read a particularly telling instance of this poisonous nonsense, read Gwyn Jones' well-received textbook on "The Vikings", full of sneers against the "monkish" sources and of reinterpretations of received facts whose audacity is all but breathtaking. Of course, this is all part of the PC horrors of modern academia.
What we need to remember is that Muslims are eloquent liars, and the worst form of cowards, history painstakingly points out the zeal with which Islamic zealots and jihadi's target the weak the wounded the hungry, and the innocent that fall into their hands, and how they exalt themselves over those they govern. Yet it is the cowardice that sticks out most, the bomber, drunk in the illusion, of his actions being commended by God, when in the cold light of day. God, cannot look on him as human, when he has destroyed men, women and children more innocent than himself.
What drives 'men' to murder in so called 'Martyrdom missions' is the hopelessness of Islamic theology, which places the 'bomber' in the hell of Islamic politics, he is constantly challenged to recognise the circumstances of his environment until his mind is filled with the darkness of despair, living in that man made hell he is presented with a persuasive, but subtle solution, this solution is an attractive one, which he has been assured is noble, releasing him from the shame he has always felt for being a Muslim in a land that was unable to accept non muslim rule, and he has the opportunity now to make a statement which he previously could not put into words, but God is not with him, because he has determined that he stands now in Gods place, altering the history and the future of those he will blast, furthermore he and those he intends to kill are the property of God himself, and he has come as thief and a murderer.
Niger is 90% Muslim so is Sudan, the noble Muslim would be aware of the spiritual and domstic needs of those who suffer in these countries, getting involved in Iraq which is a just war, will only lengthen that war and totally ruin it.
I like the term "Islamo-fascist." It makes no judgment about whether the fascism (favored-group totalitarianism) is a product of the religion itself, or is just being practiced by members of the religion, leaving that as a separate issue.
"Jihadist mujahedin" also works. Both have the virtue you describe of not implying that these people are necessarily misinterpretting Islam.
Where specific religious affiliations are in play it makes sense to use those too, refering to "those dirty Islamo-fascist Wahabbi and Salafist jihadist mujahedin." The problem is that, even though all Islamo-fascists are Wahabbists and Salafists in spirit, they are often not Wahabbist or Salafist in letter, which keeps these terms from being of much use as a general reference.