In Human Events today I review Andrew Bostom's superb new collection The Legacy of Jihad:
Scarcely a day goes by without someone telling me, “Well, sure, the Qur’an has violent passages, but so does the Bible” or “The history of the Christian West is much bloodier than that of the Islamic world.” Such statements, picked up from the zeitgeist and thoughtlessly repeated, are designed to divert attention from realities that all too many Americans are unwilling to face: that Islamic violence is rooted in core principles of Islam, and sincerely peaceful Muslims must confront those principles in order to initiate any genuine reform within Islam — but so far most Muslim and non-Muslim spokesmen seem content to ignore those principles, and pretend that all religious traditions are equally capable of inspiring violence.It has become harder then ever for such spokesmen to maintain this façade, however, with the appearance of The Legacy of Jihad (Prometheus Books), a new compendium of documents relating to the doctrine and history of jihad. Edited by Dr. Andrew Bostom, this massive volume contains a wealth of material from Islamic texts and Muslim jurists, much of which has never before appeared in English, as well as accounts of brutal jihad conquests from all over the globe. The case is now made, irrefutably: unlike all other religions, Islam contains, in its core elements and as part of its constant and unbroken tradition, mandates to make war against unbelievers in order to establish the hegemony of Islamic law. The conquerors from the great Islamic empires of the past were motivated by the same ideology that motivates jihad terrorists today. There is no way that the Islamic apologists and befuddled multiculturalists who populate the mainstream media (both liberal and conservative) can refute the mountain of evidence Bostom presents here. So they will most likely do what they always do with inconvenient material: Ignore it.
Yet so much of the historical material Bostom has assembled could have come from today’s headlines. As he chronicles jihad from Spain to India, several recurring themes emerge: the religious justifications that Islamic jihadists have used for their activities from the 7th Century onward (cf. the communiqués, laced as they are with quotations from the Qur’an and Sunnah, of bin Laden, Zawahiri, Zarqawi, and other jihadists); the murderous intolerance that has accompanied jihad violence around the world (cf. the destruction of churches today in Indonesia, Nigeria, and Kosovo); the mistreatment (and often, beheading) of captives as sanctioned by Islamic law (cf. the spate of beheadings in Iraq and, more recently, in Thailand); the idolization of brutal jihadist killers in Muslim lore (cf. the apotheosis of suicide bombers among Palestinian Arab Muslims); and much more.If Western analysts approached this book objectively, they would avoid numerous mistakes that they are making today when examining the historical record of Islam and the present-day goals of the global jihadist movement. For example, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has attributed Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza to the murders perpetrated by suicide terrorists (“martyrs”): “The sacrifices of the martyrs, the wounded and the detainees, made the occupiers leave Gaza and evacuate the settlements.” Yet when Abbas visited the White House last Thursday, President Bush praised him as “a man devoted to peace.” One may hope that there is more to this, albeit going on behind the scenes, but on the surface this seems to be born of an appalling naïveté and unwillingness to take Mahmoud Abbas’s own words at face value.
This is but one small example of the general denial with which both officials and the media have met the statements of jihad terrorists about the relationship of their deeds to Islam. The Legacy of Jihad betrays that willful blindness in a harsher light than ever before: Lives are at stake, as they have been throughout history. It is time for both Muslims and non-Muslims to take sober account of the evidence marshaled in this book, and to plan accordingly for an adequate defense of the principles of universal dignity and the equality of rights for all that are the hallmarks of the Western civilization that Islamic jihadists have for centuries been so determined to destroy.
I don't know what Democrats, or Republicans, hoping to run for Congress in 2006, or 2008, or 2010, are now doing. But whatever else they are doing, they should realize that there are certain things about Islam -- that is, practically everything about Islam -- that they do not know, and that they have a duty to inform themselves about.
Does anyone think that, had the leaders of Western Europe fully informed themselves about the tenets of Islam, about the contents of Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira, they would have ever allowed so many Turks into Germany, so many Pakistanis into England, so many Moroccans into Spain, so many Algerians into France, so many Egyptians and Libyans and Somalies into Italy, not to mention smaller numbers, into every country in Europe, of Muslims from all the places mentioned and all the other Muslim countries.
Whether you hate Bush or not, whether you think the war in Iraq was completely unjustified, partly unjustified, perfectly justified, or justified in the early stages and a senseless squandering and misallocation of resources in its Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations Phase (roughly, from the mid-fall of 2003 on), you have a duty to study Islam. And not from the nonsense of Armstrong, or the coffee-table books, all blue mosques and Iznik tiles, with nothing sensible or truthful about the nature and centrality of Jihad, and nothing at all, really, on the subjugation and mistreatment of non-Muslims under Islam, of Esposito. And while, much can be gleaned from the writings of Bernard Lewis, though he is extraordinarily inattentive to the condition of the dhimmi, has done nothing to promote Bat Ye'or (and something to discourage her reception), and because of his extensive personal and professional ties to Turkish scholars, to a well-connected Arab claque in Amman that likes to be thought cultured by a cultured Western scholar, and he in turn would not like to offend them, he sees -- for example, the islamization of Europe, but dares not see far enough, for that would require actually suggesting some of the things suggested here. And that Bernard Lewis cannot do -- though now he should be thinking only of the future of Western civilization, and not what fellow Ottomanists in Istanbul, or Prince Hassan of Jordan, may think of him.
And if you are going to study Islam, start with Robert's texts. Forget all those received opinioins, and forget that epithet "right-wing." Forget that Regnery is his publisher. Pay attention to what he has actually written. Does what he writes hold up? Does it make sense? Does he offer copious quotation from the Qur'an and the Hadith? Does he have the air or tone of a fanatic, of someone who twists the evidence, or does ne not?
And when you have begun to figure out what the Hadith and the Sira are, then you might go on to the three essential books on the Dhimmi by Bat Ye'or --"The Dhimmi," "Islam and Dhimmitude," and "The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam." Then you might add "Eurabia" so that what has been going on in Europe can be better understood.
Then you might also add a book or two by Ibn Warraq, that articulate apostate. There is his own testimony, "Why I Am Not a Muslim." And there are the testimonies of other apostates that he collected and published in "Leaving Islam."
And now there is "The Legacy of Jihad." There are those whom Mr. Bostom has offended or who find him infuriating. I certainly do. But he happens, in this book, to have performed a fantastic service, collecting, and commissioning translations into English (for the first time in some case) many important texts and excerpts of texts, both by the most significant Muslim jurisconsults writers of commentaries on Islam, and important figures in Islamic intellectual history (e.g. the historian Ibn Khaldun), but even more important, the Buried or Lost Scholarship of Western and even non-Western scholars of Islam, English, American, French, German, Italian, Rumanian, Bulgarian, Greek, Indian -- whose work has been carefully ignored by the Army of Apologists for Islam who now so ruthlessly control the academic study of Islam (which they control mostly by ignoring the need even to study Islam, and divert attention to anything else they can), and fill the ranks, and dominate the leadership, of MESA Nostra.
Someone should distribute copies of "The Legacy of Jihad" to Bush, Cheney, Rice, Hadley, and all the others. And even to Paul Wolfowitz, who might begin to understand that his own experience, as a well-publicizied Jewish American ambassador to Jakarta, where everyone was quick to tell him what they thought he wanted to hear, did not exactly give him a realistic view of Islam. In an interview 2-3 years ago, Richard Pipes, who had served with Wolfowitz on Team B, pointedly noted that while Wolfowitz, while he may have been a brilliant weapons systems-analyst, understood little or nothing about the effect of culture (and ideology) on the minds of men and their behavior, and was not terribly interested, and had no training in, that indispensable thing we call "history."
Even he, Wolfowitz, still has time to learn a lot about Islam, and perhaps that will chasten, just a bit, all his grand schemes for remaking the world through the World Bank's largesse -- the same kind of grand schemes he had in mind for Iraq.
And of course the Democrats, those feckless Democrats, had better get cracking. It is not enough to hate Bush. It is not enough to see that the Iraq venture is at this point a collossal waste. It is not enough to thereby inherit the earth. The Jihad is real; it is not a fiction. The menace of the islamization of Western Europe is not a fiction. It will not do to rub one's hands in glee and wait for the inevitable election victory.
Now, not then, is the time to study up on Islam. And spare us please going to all the Democratic idiots -- people like whatshisname, Dennis Ross (who should be banned from any position of power). For that matter, the man who proved that Peter Jennings must have been really awful, for Kati Marton to find him preferable -- Richard Holbrooke -- shows no signs of understanding Islam.
Fresh blood please. Fresh blood pumping into minds that are willing to study Islam. Not the same old. Please. It is too important.
(Hugh, you GasBag.) Now, having said that ...
Sure, someday islam may reform. In the meantime, the West owes islam nothing - not respect, not the time of day, nothing.
For our own safety, and that of our children, we need to deport any muslim resident in the West, outlaw the practice of islam in the West, and destroy the mosques extant in the West. This is what the West owes islam/muslims; nothing more.
Maybe, 1000 years from now, if islam has cleaned up its act ... we can talk.
Incidentally, if islam continues to cause trouble for the West after the mass deportations, the way to throttle islam is to seize the oil fields. (And yes, we can hold them.)
By seizing the oil fields, we will have effectively demolished the muslim world's economic engine. This is how we brought Nazi Germany to heel - we can make all of islam beggars, if that's what it takes to win.
Aftwr reading the title of this piece I decided not to wait any more, jumped in my car and drove to the bookstore. Spent some minutes trying the different sections, finally went up to the counter and asked the guy to look it up on the computer for me. I was informed that the Barnes and Noble branches in Rockland County, NY, just across the river and up a bit from NYC, areas of which provided direct line-of-site views of the burning WTC, would not be stocking the book, although they would gladly order it for me, 2-3 business days. In all fairness, they did carry P.I.G. at the smaller of the two. I don't know if it was PC efforts or a decision not to use shelfspace on a "niche" title, Lord knows they carry enough other crap better suited to filling in a swamp than taking up valuable shelfspace better reserved for intelligent works on legitimate topics.
Oh well, stock what sells.
We're doomed.
I am 100% convinced that the way to remove Islam from America and other western democracies is to apply the law to texts in the Qur'an that elicit violent responses from Muslims. Yes, remove Islam from America LEGALLY. There's a way if Americans have the spine to tackle it.
Of course we all now by now the infamous passage in the Qur'an that reads "and when the sacred months have passed, slaughter the infidels everywhere they are found; besiege them, capture them, set every stratagen of warfare upon them..."
"SLAY THE INFIDELS". Does anyone out there want to make sense of this passage from a legal standpoint. I do.
This Aur'anic passage contitutes CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT MURDER technically and in virtually every way possible.
How many of you Jihad Watch-ers are permitted to commit conspiracy to commit murder under the law? How many countries are going to let you inside if they knew YOU WERE PLANNING TO COMMIT CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT MURDER against their people? Zero, I'm sure.
So how the Hell did the western democracies wind up with millions of such murderously-intented folks in their territories? More importantly, why is this tolerated? And finally why isn't the law on our side here/
PYTHAGORAS (continued)
Americans have legal weapons to deploy against Islamic ideology. As well they should
First, permitting Islam into the US was unconstitutional. Islam's use of slaughtering human beings to advance its ideology violates the part of the Constitution stating "each individual has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This can be addressed in the court system. The courts are supposed to uphold our constitutional rights. We can pressure them into doing so in this case--if we apply ourselves.
Secondly, permitting Islam into the US much less allowing it to remain here is DISCRIMINATORY. No one under the law is entitled to commit CAPITAL OFFENSES which conspiracy to commit murder clearly IS). Either everyone gets to commit conspiracy to commit murder-- or no one does. Legal grounds for forcing Islam out of the US, if the answer is found to be "no one."
Thirdly, by propagating murder (killing of humans for reasons OTHER than self-defense), Islam and its doctrine of murder and warfare is a clear and present danger to US national security. It could be the president set up for murder as an 'infidel'. It could be an entire city planned to be wiped off the map or have its drinking water poisoned. It could be the entire eastern seaboard set to be nuked. We never can be sure with followers of Islamic doctrine. Except that warfare and murder against American citizens will be on the Islamic agenda at some point. And we can never be sure WHICH Muslims will be involved...foretelling the future is best left to scam-artist gypsies and their crystal balls.
And because Muslims believe GOD set forth these so-called principles in the Qur'an, reforms will not succeed for long. You can't mess with dog spelled backwards. Forcing them to leave America will likely prove easier.
As long as Muslims stay Islamic and/or on western soil, there will plenty to worry about. It's high time we forced our governments to remove Islam from our land.
Before it is too late.
hey guys,
Sometimes I become very depressed -- because I feel that we are loosing the PR war, and the larger war. TO me, it seems that what we say on this site is so important, but nobody in positions of power will stand up for the truth. I honestly think we could loose the battle to Islam. All our righteous indignation wil not change the demographic realities in Europe, or the fact that Bush seems unwilling to confront the Iranians and their nuclear ambitions. or that the rich Saudis finance Jihad on a worldwide scale. SO much of the world blames the Jews- yes the jews, the greatest victims of Islamic terror, for terrorism. Europe hates America and Israel more than they mistrust Iran, Islamic jihad and Osama bin laden. It is truly a crazy world. Honestly, it makes me sad.
Another priceless essay Hugh, and I quite agree.
How right you are to lambast both left and Right (Robert) and Democrats and Republicans (Hugh).
In this old man's learned opinion, the divisiveness of ideologies is what is destroying this wonderful country and will be our ruin.
The last time I voted was for Goldwater in '64, never the less I did donate all my spare change to Reagan, only to wind up the same kind of headache a young girl must have when she realizes that she dropped her drawers for the false promises of some smooth talking salesmen.
I was really into the CFR/Trilateral conspiracy theory back then, only to wake up and watch Reagan appoint CFR members and Trilaterialists to all positions.
Ideological politics is what is weakening and destroying our nation, we vent spleens and vote against our own best interests over truly unimportant stuff like the crap of the so called Cultural War, while our economy is being wasted and Muslims are invading and getting special treatment.
I've got one issue and one agenda, "unite our country against the Islamic threat" and redefine our civil liberties such that "We will accord to you, what you will accord to us", We will give you the rights, that you give the least of us", "If you(r culture, identity) are antisemitic, homophobic, misogynistic, prohibit in any form freedom of speech or conscience then such will be prohibited to you, and your rights are likewise inhibited, constrained and your activities prohibited as well.
Can't build a Church or Synagogue in any Muslim country, then you can't build a mosque in America. Your faith and culture prohibits and punishes any speech, then your speech is prohibited and punished here.
No Church bells can peale in a Muslim country, then no minarets and Muezzins in America, and the list goes on.
templar;
Gently I remind you that posts on this board are copied to jihadist sites worldwide, and your pessimism thus expressed "gladdens the heart" of the enemy. Don't give them a psychological advantage.
NEVER DOUBT the eventual triumph of Enlightened Western Civilization over primitive barbarity.
WE SHALL PREVAIL.
I think Hitchens, writing in the Mirror shortly after 7/7, exposes the jihadists for what they are, and they aren't merely seeking to redress injustice:
WE CANNOT SURRENDER: States which shelter these killers will know no peace
By Christopher Hitchens
SOMEWHERE around London at about a quarter to nine yesterday morning, there must have been people turning on their TV and radio sets with a look of wolfish expectation.
I hope and believe that they were disappointed in what they got. There just wasn't quite enough giggle-value for the psychopath.
It must have been infernal underneath King's Cross, but above ground no panic, no screaming, no wailing and beating the air, no yells for vengeance.
I'm writing this in the early aftermath, but I would be willing to bet there will have been little or no bloody foolishness, either: no random attacks on mosques or shops or individuals. After all, devices on our buses and tubes are an open proclamation that the perpetrators don't care if they kill Muslims. Which, of course, is part of the point. When we use the weak and vague word "terrorism" we imply indiscriminate cruelty directed at civilians.
"Sadism" or "fascism" or "nihilism" would do just as nicely: all the venom that lurks just on the sub-human level of the human species.
In a tightly interwoven society, all that this poison has to do is ally itself with a certain low cunning.
People are afraid of plane crashes and of heights: in that sense 9/11 was the perfect strike on the collective unconscious. People are likewise afraid of fire and of crowded or subterranean conditions: the mind of the fascist is naturally attuned to exploit such dreads. I am guessing the planners of this coordinated atrocity hoped for more mayhem than they got, but the casualty figures are in a sense beside the point.
WE all knew this was coming, and that one day a homely and familiar name like Tavistock Square would become a synonym for barbarism. The good old red London bus, a worldwide symbol of our capital, ripped to shards in an instant.
Random and "senseless" though such violence may appear, we also all know it expresses a deadly ideology; indeed that in some ways it is that ideology.
The preachers of this faith have taken care to warn us that they love death more than we love life. Their wager is that this makes them unstoppable. Well, we shall have to see. They certainly cannot prove their point unless we assist them in doing so.
My American friends have been impressed by the composure of the Londoners they have seen on the screen: I bet London Transport runs again rather sooner than US airlines resumed flying after 9/11.
I remember living in London through the Provisional IRA bombing in the 70s. I saw the very first car-bomb explode against the Old Bailey in 1972. There was no warning that time, but after a while a certain etiquette developed.
And, even as I detested the people who might have just as soon have blown me up as anyone else, I was aware there were ancient disputes involved, and that there was a potential political solution.
Nothing of the sort applies in this case. We know very well what the "grievances" of the jihadists are.
The grievance of seeing unveiled women. The grievance of the existence, not of the State of Israel, but of the Jewish people. The grievance of the heresy of democracy, which impedes the imposition of sharia law. The grievance of a work of fiction written by an Indian living in London. The grievance of the existence of black African Muslim farmers, who won't abandon lands in Darfur. The grievance of the existence of homosexuals. The grievance of music, and of most representational art. The grievance of the existence of Hinduism. The grievance of East Timor's liberation from Indonesian rule. All of these have been proclaimed as a licence to kill infidels or apostates, or anyone who just gets in the way.
FOR a few moments yesterday, Londoners received a taste of what life is like for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, whose Muslim faith does not protect them from slaughter at the hands of those who think they are not Muslim enough, or are the wrong Muslim.
It is a big mistake to believe this is an assault on "our" values or "our" way of life. It is, rather, an assault on all civilisation. I know perfectly well there are people thinking, and even saying, that Tony Blair brought this upon us by his alliance with George Bush.
A word of advice to them: try and keep it down, will you? Or wait at least until the funerals are over. And beware of the non-sequitur: you can be as opposed to the Iraq operation as much as you like, but you can't get from that "grievance" to the detonating of explosives at rush hour on London buses and tubes.
Don't even try to connect the two. By George Galloway's logic, British squaddies in Iraq are the root cause of dead bodies at home. How can anyone bear to be so wicked and stupid? How can anyone bear to act as a megaphone for psychotic killers?
The grievances I listed above are unappeasable, one of many reasons why the jihadists will lose.
They demand the impossible - the cessation of all life in favour of prostration before a totalitarian vision. Plainly, we cannot surrender. There is no one with whom to negotiate, let alone capitulate.
We shall track down those responsible. States that shelter them will know no peace. Communities that shelter them do not take forever to discover their mistake. And their sordid love of death is as nothing compared to our love of London, which we will defend as always, and which will survive this with ease.