Daniel Pipes discusses in FrontPageMagazine.com a phenomenon we have often noted here: that there is no reliable way to tell a sincerely peaceful Muslim from someone like Muhammad Reza Taheri-azar. (News links in the original.)
“Individual Islamists may appear law-abiding and reasonable, but they are part of a totalitarian movement, and as such, all must be considered potential killers.” I wrote those words days after 9/11 and have been criticized for them ever since. But an incident on March 3 at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill suggests I did not go far enough.That was when a just-graduated student named Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, 22, and an Iranian immigrant, drove a sport utility vehicle into a crowded pedestrian zone. He struck nine people but, fortunately, none were severely injured.
Until his would-be murderous rampage, Taheri-azar, a philosophy and psychology major, had an apparently normal existence and promising future. In high school, he had been student council president and a member of the National Honor Society. A number of UNC students told the Los Angeles Times that he “was a serious student, shy but friendly.” One fellow student, Brian Copeland, “was impressed with his knowledge of classical Western thought, adding “He was kind and gentle, rather than aggressive and violent.” The university chancellor, James Moeser, called him a good student, if “totally a loner, introverted and into himself.”
In fact, no one who knew him said a bad word about him, which is important, for it signals that he is not some low-life, not homicidal, not psychotic, but a conscientious student and amiable person. Which raises the obvious question: why would a regular person try to kill a random assortment of students? Taheri-azar’s post-arrest remarks offer some clues.He told the 911 dispatcher that he wanted to “punish the government of the United States for their actions around the world.”
He explained to a detective that “people all over the world are being killed in war and now it is the people in the United States[’] turn to be killed.”
He said he acted to “avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world.”
He portrayed his actions as “an eye for an eye.”
A police affidavit notes that “Taheri-azar repeatedly said that the United States Government had been killing his people across the sea and that he decided to attack.”
He told a judge, “I’m thankful you’re here to give me this trial and to learn more about the will of Allah.”
In brief, Taheri-azar represents the ultimate Islamist nightmare: a seemingly well-adjusted Muslim whose religion inspires him, out of the blue, to murder non-Muslims. Taheri-azar acknowledged planning his jihad for over two years, or during his university sojourn. It’s not hard to imagine how his ideas developed, given the coherence of Islamist ideology, its immense reach (including a Muslim Student Association at UNC), and its resonance among many Muslims.Were Taheri-azar unique in his surreptitious adoption of radical Islam, one could ignore his case, but he fits into a widespread pattern of Muslims who lead quiet lives before turning to terrorism. Their number includes the 9/11 hijackers, the London transport bombers, and Maher Hawash, the Intel engineer arrested before he could join the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Mohammed Ali Alayed, the Saudi living in Houston fits, the pattern because he stabbed and murdered Ariel Sellouk, a Jewish man who was his one-time friend. So do some converts to Islam; who suspected Muriel Degauque, a 38-year-old Belgian woman, would turn up in Iraq as a suicide bomber throwing herself against an American military base?
This is what I have dubbed the Sudden Jihad Syndrome, whereby normal-appearing Muslims abruptly become violent. It has the awful but legitimate consequence of casting suspicion on all Muslims. Who knows whence the next jihadi? How can one be confident a law-abiding Muslim will not suddenly erupt in a homicidal rage? Yes, of course, their numbers are very small, but they are disproportionately much higher than among non-Muslims.
This syndrome helps explain the fear of Islam and mistrust of Muslims that polls have shown on the rise since 9/11.
The Muslim response of denouncing these views as bias, as the “new anti-Semitism,” or “Islamophobia” is as baseless as accusing anti-Nazis of “Germanophobia” or anti-Communists of “Russophobia.” Instead of presenting themselves as victims, Muslims should address this fear by developing a moderate, modern, and good-neighborly version of Islam that rejects radical Islam, jihad, and the subordination of “infidels.”
What is the point of saying this unless you are prepared to accept the consequences of such a statement. If you cannot tell which mosquito bit you, then do you leave the room or do you spray the whole room with insecticide?.One is suicide and one is religicide.
Reminds me of the Vietnam war tshirt.....**** them all. Let God sort them out.
Not very ethical nor practical but like a snake, waiting to see if it bites you first can be and usually is, suicidal.
"Instead of presenting themselves as victims, Muslims should address this fear by developing a moderate, modern, and good-neighborly version of Islam that rejects radical Islam, jihad, and the subordination of “infidels.”"
But, isn't that exactly what Taheri-azar did, before he ran down the students?
As for reforming Islam-- All of the cult's texts are immutable. "Innovation" in religion is expressly prohibited in the Qur'an. Any reform would be an innovation, and Muslims would not be living according to the words handed down by their Prophet.
Of course, anything is possible, but I wouldn't expect such changes in Islam on a large scale.
To change or ignore one word in the Koran is apostasy and while there are brave and decent Muslims out there, none of them will live long enough to have an effect on the brainwqashed masses.
Islam will ONLY moderate when it is forced to do so and even this will probably be a veneer until the next war. The plague will never end unless the source is destroyed or the vector is eliminated.
My name is Ronin and I am islamophobic.
I feel better knowing the small minority of violent muslims could potentially grow to 1.2 billion. I am old enough to remember when most serial killers were white males, I guess this is supposed to be progress? I’m going to start being nicer to all my muslim friends, hopefully they will not snap and if they do, the target will be someone slower than myself. I just hope Naseem never snaps I look so forward to her posts about the benefits of Islam. Who knew they could potentially get the population rates under control? I can’t help but picture muslim’s at coffee shops watching each other out of the corner of their eyes for signs of stress. I hope they have some kind of secret signal to warn theirs when one is fixing to explode into a homicidal fit. We muzzle aggressive dogs to protect ourselves, maybe we should think about a muslim muzzle.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if his lecturers hardened any anti-Western sentiments that were simmering below the surface before his rampage. Then again, I could just be cynical of university lecturers…
Abscedere: maybe the mainstream Muslim leadership could get together and just generally ‘decide’ that the whole killing infidels thing is inappropriate? I won’t hold my breath…
As always, the man who insists that the cure for radicial Islam is moderate Islam ends his piece with some wishful thinking.
Ain't gonna happen, Mr. Pipes. Any other suggestions?
The Koran is one long tract of immoderation from beginning to end, exhorting the True Believer to kill. He was just doing what he was told to do.
I'm WideAwake and I'm an Islamaphobe,
You would be too if you knew what I know.....wait, you do and like most of the posters here, we are all aware of the consequences of inaction. Act or be acted upon, it's the natural law. Maybe after the next big death-cult fantasy masturbation plot they enact on our soil 'Dubya will tell us how Islam is a ROP again and we'll all go to sleep again, not me. I'm gonna look for a mob, join it, and if everyone else does the same maybe lslam will figure out that the blood, of Mullahs and Imams is as red as the blood of the Shahids they inspire to murder and the innocents they victimize. Maybe one more big attack is what we need(sorry) to wake the rest of us up, the we can start turning Islam into Waslam.
a good student, if “totally a loner, introverted... - from the article
Totally irrelevant, and dancing around the real issue. That quote could easily and accurately be said of me.
So are all of us shy, studious types who tend to keep to ourselves equally likely to commit uncharitable acts with a rented SUV?
No. Being told by one's scriptures to slay unbelievers wherever one finds them probably helps that along: You'd think a university chancellor could connect the dots there.
I just wonder if the bastard bought the insurance option when he rented the SUV. If not he could be in big trouble.
I can't understand why the people in charge, like maybe, Congress, President, governors, anybody with a brain and influence, can't read for themselves how dangerous the koran is.
Would they permit the book if instead of "smite the infidels", it said smite the blacks or smite the Japanese?
No, they wouldn't.
Heinrich Himmler was “totally a loner, introverted and into himself.” (BTW Himmler thought Islam was more compatible than Christianity-as did Hitler who called Christianity, "the Jewish Christ Creed with its pity ethics." Islam does seem to have a supremacist point of view.
I would like some Moslem to instruct me as to why Islam is so intolerant of the preaching and practice of other religions in Saudia Arabia? Why? Why is there genrerally such intolerance of other religions in almost all Moslem countries?
Why?
Above, I meant: (BTW Himmler thought Islam was more compatible with Nazism than Christianity-as did Hitler who called Christianity, "the Jewish Christ Creed with its pity ethics."
Both Hitler and Himmler hated Christianity and thought Islam was better suited to Nazism.
One fellow student, Brian Copeland, “was impressed with [Taheri-azar's] knowledge of classical Western thought...
The "classical Western thought" Taheri-azar likely learned at that American university would have included such gems as
1. Plato was a Fascist
2. Augustine was a sexually repressed intolerant Fundamentalist
3. Emperor Constantine was part of an elitist plot to fabricate a Christian mythocracy, the Catholic Church, to control the common man through superstitious, greedy priests
4. The Crusades showed how horrible European Christians were
5. The Inquisition showed how horrible European Christians were
6. The trial and house arrest of Galileo showed how intolerant Western Christianity was
7. The witch-burnings showed how intolerant Western Christianity was
8. The Renaissance showed how enlightened future Leftists would be
9. The Reformation managed to kill two birds with one stone -- it showed how evil and corrupt the Catholic Church was and how intolerant and fanatical Luther and early Protestants were
10. Meanwhile, Western scientists and future Leftists struggled to free themselves from the evil intolerant yoke of Western Church and State
If Taheri-azar's "classical" education advanced any further than this into the modern period, he would have learned how to "deconstruct" the last Western attempt at replacing the Judaeo-Christian synthesis, the Enlightenment, and see that there are no virtues or values (at least no Western ones) and that the modern West is simply a vast superstructure of lies intended to maintain an evil cabal of Jews and Anglo-Saxon CEOs ruling the "globalist" world. Ego Quoque.
Why is it so easy to turn the "inner" jihad, the peaceful, spiritual struggle with one's own demons, into the literal, militant terroristic jihad in the streets?
Where is the restraint that other faiths have learned?
And if Islam is not yet there, as a creed, why shouldn't the infidel world invite all true believers in Imperialistic Islam to take a Long Hadj?
Until Muslims sort out their true feelings.
About 'holy' terrorism.
We can wait.
We were already busy with better before being interrupted.
Frank,
This would undoubtedly be recycled Nietzsche - see especially The Genealogy of Morals.
I think Nietzsche can be an acute psychologist here and there.
What to my mind he totally misses here is the extent to which such behaviour might be not the "innocence of wild animals" but something deeply pathological.
As long as the ignorant Bush administration remains fixated on "winning the hearts and minds" of the Islamic underworld, "action" by concerned citizens is impossible. I cannot count the letters, emails, phone calls, and personal conversations I have had with my representatives in Washington concerning Islam. What other "action" can I, or any of us, take? We live in a society that is governed by the rule of law. The laws that protect us also protect muslims, regardless of their contempt for America and its people, and regardless of their secret agenda to replace our Constitution with Shariah. Until they explode, one by one or collectively, in fits of Islamic rage like the UNC jihadist, what can we do? WE are literally at their mercy, targets for the next devout muslim who decides to emulate his prophet and practice what the Qur'an preaches.
I spent over a year disseminating vital information about Islam to the churches in my area and it wasn't an easy job. It cost thousands of dollars, money well spent, and left me physically exhausted. I feel like I accomplished something, but the people I reached are a drop in the bucket. My hope remains that they, in turn, spread the information they learned to many others. People are reluctant to believe the truth about Islam because it is incomprehensible, especially to Christians, that a religion claiming to worship the same God they worship could be intrinsically evil. How many people here once felt the same way? For tolerant people of faith, it is simply inconceivable. The left-wingers who hate America love those who wish to destroy it and ally themselves with our muslim enemies in a common cause.
Islam is like no other religion in countless ways, and muslims are masters of deceit. Mohammed in North Carolina is a splendid example of the millions of potential threats living in every state in America, yet we are not supposed to hold his actions against muslims. There is nothing I can do about the muslims who are already here, and I cannot stop the ignorant bureaucrats who control immigration from shipping in more from the most desolate backwaters of the Islamic world. I have tried to the point of utter exasperation, only to be ignored or chastized for my Islamophobia or bigotry. My REPUBLICAN representative replied to my two page letter with this: "Islamic extremists have given the religion a bad name by misinterpreting and manipulating the teachings of the Qur'an." Another clueless idiot in Washington!
Right now the only "action" we can take against muslims is to boycott their businesses and make it clear that we do not trust them or want them in our midst. That may not change anything, but at least they will know that they haven't fooled all of us.
Yojimbo-
Nietzsche believed that all morals were merely cultural "values" imposed from above by "value creators" (notice how we have come to use his word ("values")which implies our acceptance of the relativism of all concepts of good and evil).
Nietzsche hated Christianity and called for the transvaluation of all its "values." (The Nazis did that-and turned the 10 comandments on their heads.) When Nietzsche said "God is dead" he meant the Christian God. He proclaimed the coming of the "Uberman" who would be free from the Christian concience-who would kill as a beast of prey kills, without remorse, without pity, beyond good and evil.
BTW, Nietzsche predicted the coming of WW1 (I think he predicted that in 1880)and predicted that afterward Europe would unite as one culture, that the one culture would be based on science, that it would breed a super race. But this new civilization required the final removal of Christianity from Europe. In any event( as you know) he said that the Christian God was allready dead, but that that reality was not yet fully concious among the people of Europe.
Hitler admired Nietzsche (and Shopenhaurer-who had a great influence on Nietzsche). All three hated Christianity as a "slave religion" with a "slave morality." (I know that both Hitler and Himmler admired Islam as well suited to Nazi philosophy.) I sometimes wonder if the Nietzscheans of today (including the Eugenics crowd) see Islam as an alley against Christian "values." I wonder....
Considering the bent of social movement today, look at the principle choices we have. We can have either secular-socialistic-nanny-nihilistic society which permits everything but religion or Islamic totalitarianism that permits nothing but a repressive religion. It's the devils choice which will leave us damned in either case.
Pipes is just an aptly-named pipe-dreamer. It's hard to take him seriously.
"Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar" "Iranian immigrant"
Call me Islamophobic, but these are two major red flags to me. His first name is Mo - and he was born in Iran - I can see why folks were surprised.
If these idiots are not supposed to worship Mohammed; then how come so many of them are named Mohammed? How about a boy named Sue or anything but Mohammed. I guess the muslims just lack imagination.
Mohammedan Confraternities-
The countries where Mohammedanism prevails are full of religious associations, more or less wrapped in secrecy, which are also political. The oldest of them, the Kadriya, dates from the twelfth century. The name given to it was that of its founder, the Persian Sidi-abd-el-Kader-el-Djilani, who died at Bagdad in 1166.
His disciples speak of him as "The Sultan of the [Satan] Saints". One of the more recent associations, and a very aggressive one, is that of the Senoussiya, founded by an Algerian, Sheikh Senoussi (d. 1859). In contrast to the exclusive spirit of the other orders, this one has opened its doors to all of them, allowing them to keep their own names, doctrines, usages, and privileges. The rallying principle of this combination is hatred of Christians; it isolates them in anticipation of the uprising which, on the appointed day of Allah, will drive them out of "the Land of Islam" (dar el Islam, as opposed to dar el harb. "Land of the Infidels", or literally, "Land of the Holy War"). Its motto is: "Turks and Christians, I will break them all with one blow".
Those affiliated to the confraternities are called khouans (brethren) in North Africa; dervishes (poor men) in Turkey and central Asia; fakirs (beggars) in India; mourids (disciples) in Egypt, Arabia, and Syria. Since the conquest of Algeria by the French (1830) the reaction has resulted in an immense development of confraternities in all Mohammedan countries.
Except among the wealthy and sceptical in the great cities, very few Mussulmans escape the infection of this movement; the total membership is estimated at 170,000,000.[this was written decades ago] Leaving aside the excellent administrative and financial organization of the confraternities, we will here discuss only their religious side.
As is well known, at the call of the muezzins every Mohammedan is bound to recite daily certain prayers at stated hours. The khouans are also bound to follow these prayers with others, peculiar to their association. Among the chief of these is a kind of litany called the dikr (repeated utterance), for which a chaplet is used.
Fundamentally, it is the same for all the orders, but with slight variations, by which the initiated are enabled to recognize each other easily. In general it contains the Mohammedan symbol or Credo: "There is no ilah but Allah" (La ilaha ill' Allah, literally, "No god except Allah"), which is repeated, say a hundred times. Other terse phrases or invocations are added, such as: "Allah sees me", "Allah pardon", part of a verse of the Koran, or names of the Divine attributes, as "O Living One" a hundred times, or simply the syllable Houa (Him).
When the recitation in chorus becomes accelerated, the syllables of La ilaha ill' Allah are gradually reduced to la hou, la ha, la hi, or even hou, ha, hi, or hou-hou. The phrase La ilaha, etc. must be repeated by the Kadriya one hundred sixty-five times after each of the five daily prayers; by the Kerzazya, five hundred times; for the Aissaoua, the daily total of repetitions is thirteen thousand and six hundred.
Many of the confraternities have mystical tendencies, and make it their object to attain, on certain days and during certain moments, a profound union with God. This union (ittisâl), which is described by the Persian and Hindu sufi of the ninth century, resembles the Nirvana of the Buddhists. It is the annihilation of the personality by the identification (djam or ittihâd) of the subject with Allah. Sidi-abd-el-Kader-el-Djilani proclaimed that "happiness is in unconsciousness of existence". Sheikh Senoussi defined ecstasy as "the annihilation of a man's individuality in the divine essence" and Abd-el-Karim summed it up in two words, "unconsciousness and insensibility".
Such teaching cannot shock Mussulmans, for they venerate madmen as saints, and believe that Allah dwells in empty brains, which explains why they allow demented persons a liberty which, to us, seems excessive. Sometimes the initiated person endeavours to obtain union with the founder of his order, whom he regards as a superior emanation of the god-head and His all-powerful intermediary. In this way Refaya are made.
As to the method of arriving at this pseudo-ecstatic union: Sufism, which preceded the confraternities, and from which many of them are derived, was content to teach the moral method of renunciation-detachment carried as far as possible. This was the essence of primitive Sufism, which was simply a way (tariqâ), a method of sanctification, not a dogmatic system or an organization. The confraternities added special exercises.
The Mussulman thinks there is a physical process which consists in the manner of reciting the dikr in common, and which takes effect especially on Friday, the weekly holy day of Islam. There are various prescriptions as to how the breath should be held and its respiration prolonged. A more important detail is the exhausting bodily exercise which is enjoined to induce a kind of vertigo or hysterical intoxication, followed either by convulsions or by extreme weakness. Thus, among the Kadriya, the kouans give themselves up to a rhythmical and gradually accelerating swaying of the upper part of the body which superinduces congestion of the cerebro-spinal system. Under the double influence of this purely physical cause and the concentration of all the intellectual faculties upon the same idea, that of the majesty of God, the phenomena of religious hysteria are produced in many of the adepts.
The founder had prescribed that the faithful should confine their recitation to ha, turning the head to the right, hou, turning the head to the left, hi, bowing it, and prolonging each sound as much as the breath permits. It is easy to imagine the effect that may be produced on the most soundly constituted temperament by the repetition of these syllables accompanied with violent movements of the head.
At the present time the Zaheriya go through the same movements with the formula, La ilaha ill' Allah, spoken in one breath, and sometimes as often as twenty-one times without a respiration. The Sarehourdiya, founded in the thirteenth century, repeat an indefinite number of times without interruption the phase La ilaha, etc., while raising the head from the navel to the right shoulder, and thus they fall into a dumb state of unconsciousness.
The Zaheriya add the left shoulder. The Nakechabendiya sometimes help the process with opium and similar drugs. Among the Beioumiya the body is bent, at each invocation, down to the waist, while the arms are crossed; they are uncrossed while the body is raised again, and then the hands are clapped together at the level of the face.
Some confraternities deserve special mention for the intense nervous paroxysms attained by their members. First, among the Kheluoatiya, founded in the fourteen century, the members from time to time retire into deep solitude (whence their name, from kheluoa, retreat); thus separated from the world the disciple can communicate with others only by signs or in writing; he fasts from sunrise to sunset and takes only such nourishment as is strictly necessary. By the use of coffee, he reduces his sleep to two or three hours. He recites certain sacred words, such as Houa (Him), Qayyoum (Immutable), Haqq (truth), which have to be repeated from 10,000 to 30,000 times a day, according to the directions of the initiator. The upper eyelid is briskly pressed down on the lower, to produce a titillation of the organ of sight which acts on the optic nerve, and, through it, on the cerebral system. The word Qayyoum is recited, say, 20,000 times, while the disciple sways and bows the head, with closed eyes. The rapidity of repetition cannot exceed once in every second, and the duration of such a prayer is from five to six hours.
Supposing that the candidate is given three names to repeat in this way, it must take him eighteen hours a day. The teachers of the order compare the Kheluoa initiation to a deadly poison when taken in too large doses at first, and which can be assimilated by progressive use.
All the members who make frequent retreats, even if the duration is not prolonged, are seriously affected in mind. Emaciated, haggard-eyed, they return to ordinary life still retaining the traces of their harsh trials.[those "dead eyed" muslims who blow up things look just like that!] An extreme exaltation, then, is the characteristic of this order, and it, more than any other, may be regarded as the focus of an intense fanaticism.
Another very remarkable confraternity is that of the Aïssaoua, founded in the fifteenth century by Sidi-Mohammed-ben-Aïssa. The dikr takes the shape of raucous cries, to the cadence of a muffled music in rapid time. Inclinations of the body down to the hips, increasing in rapidity, accompany each of these cries, or circular movements of the head, which are also calculated to shake the nervous system. The nervous crises thus superinduced are soon expressed in cerebral intoxication and anæsthesia variously localized in different subjects. As these phenomena are progressively recognized by the practiced eye of the presiding sheikh, the khouans, at a given signal, pierce their hands, arms, and cheeks with darts. Others slash their throats, heads, backs or bellies with sabres. Some crush pieces of glass between their teeth, eat venomous creatures, or chew cactus leaves bristling with thorns. All, one after another, fall exhausted, into a torpor which a touch from the moqaddem (presiding initiator) transforms, in certain cases, into hypnosis. [now, go blow yourself up Ackmed]
In another confraternity, that of the Refaya, founded in the twelfth century by Refai, a nephew of Sidi-abd-el-Kader, most of the devotees faint when the hysterical intoxication intervenes; others eat serpents or live coals, or roll themselves about in burning braziers. They accustom themselves, moreover, to casting themselves down on the points of darts, to piercing their arms and cheeks, and to being trodden under foot by their sheikh.
The howling and the whirling dervishes, who give public exhibitions at Constantinople and Cairo, belong to the Refaya. Their ceremony begins with shouting accompanied by oscillations and leaps keeping time to the beating of drums. Forming a chain, they produce, from deep down in their chests, a hoarse and prolonged howling: Allah hou! which seems to have nothing of the human voice in it. The whole band, acting under a single impulse, springs forward, simultaneously, uttering a hoarse, muffled sound, like the growling of an angry menagerie, when the lions, tigers, panthers and hyenas think that their feeding-time is being delayed. Then, by degrees, the inspiration comes, their eyes shine like those of wild beasts in the depths of a cave; an epileptic froth comes at the corners of their mouths; their faces become distorted and livid, shining through the sweat; the whole line lies down and rises up under an invisible breath, like blades of wheat under a storm, and still, with every movement, that terrible Allah-hou is repeated with increasing energy.
The whirling dervishes, founded in the thirteenth century , are Mauolaniya, also called Mevlevis. They waltz with arms extended, head inclined on the shoulder, eyes half-closed, mouth half-opened, like confident swimmers who are letting themselves be borne away on the stream of ecstasy. . . . Sometimes the head is thrown back, showing the whites of their eyes, and lips flecked with alight foam. At last they fall on their knees, exhausted, face to the earth, until the chief touches them, sometimes having to rub their arms and legs. No beholder, without previous information, would suspect the religious significance of their physical exercises of the howling and whirling dervishes, or that they constitute a process for arriving at union with Allah.
In the orders which affect ecstasy, the khouan, on the contrary, is satisfied with the preposterous notion of using violent means to produce physiological effects which bring on intoxication to the point of unconsciousness.
And you wonder why Muslims seem so brainwashed? Because they ARE!
Obviously a bunch of wanna-be prophets.
Dr Pepper - alias Ego Quoque
Hey man - didn't Robert ask you to stop belching your caustic anti-American garbage on HIS Jihad Watch?
You clearly don't respect Robert; this platform; or this country; so why don't you do us all a favor and MOVE somewhere else.
Good article on the UNC Chapel Hill attack
http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/417984.html
1) Ronin said
You make me laugh out loud hard until the milk it comes out my nose. Thanks a lot.
2) freewoman, Very good point.
3) A quote from Daniel Pipes' article:
It sounded familiar. From the Surah:
Sudden Jihad Syndrome has been around for 1400 years.
Frank,
I think that is a too programmatic account. I merely meant to indicate the nasty little thought that you quote and attribute to Himmler did certainly not originate with him.
Nietzsche was a man of contradictions not a systematic thinker and could also write: "... it would perhaps be a good idea to eject the anti-Semitic ranters from the country" (Beyond Good and Evil.)
He also writes in an almost envious manner of some of the Christian saints in one of the earlier books.
And insofar as he approves of the Herren Moral (rather than positing it as part of a natural history of morals) - well it's not simply thuggery: it does involve not lying, having generosity of spirit and much else that we might regard as positive but would seem to look for in vain in Islam.
I think it is important to recognize that one of the reasons that he is ferocious in his attack on Christianity is that he thinks it is no longer possible honestly to believe in God. He does not believe in anything outside the here-and-now and thinks that a contemporary man cannot honestly and therefore should not. So I think it hard to imagine his doing any other than looking askance at the notion that contemporary Europe ought to fall to Islam. If you recall, he also had an intense interest in aesthetics, and I hardly need underline the obvious conclusion here.
As for Schopenhauer, he may be Nietzsche's "educator" but his thought is also deeply antithetical to Nietzsche.
I don't know that there are any contemporary "Nietzscheans" in any substantive sense. However, strangely enough there are plenty of leftists who don't seem to mind raiding this very inegalitarian thinker for a few knockdown arguments.
we had a killing spree back on my old campus. physics grad student went amok a shot up the department. he got screwed out of a scholarship. people just snap soetimes look at the post office.
the difference is that he didn't have an ideology, a billion cheeleaders, and the promise of heaven.
http://www.attackcartoons.com
Assalma Laikuam al,
You can say a lot about me (and you usually do) but one thing about me is that I am completely law abidiing.
There have been many murders by "nuts who just snap" that aren't associated with Islam, but should be.
The Shootings in Montreal years ago- Mark Lepine I believe was the name- AKA Mohammed something or other. He was a religious Iranian nut who saw these women responsible for his NOT suceeding.
His motives were entirely inspired by Islam.
To this day stupid women have candlight vigils, and blame guns and men, and the next week join a pro-Palestinian protest.
Naseem says "but one thing about me is that I am completely law abidiing.
Who's laws, Naseem? If you are following your pedophile prophets laws, (and they are HIS, they weren't "sent down" by any imaginary god) then chances are you have or are breaking the laws of the land.
mullahmasher,
i vaguely remember that case. some guy slaughtered a womens study class; after letting the male students leave. is that the same one?
never heard the word islam mentioned at the time. it was all the guns fault.
attackcartoons- yes it is. I will dig up the details later. I thought I had them saved on here somewhere, but apparently not. :o(
The question of "trigger" becomes the issue, as all these folks are essentially ticking bombs. At UNC it can hardly be the posting of a Mohammed cartoon in the Daily Tarheel, since Iranians are not iconoclasts like the Sunni.
The News media bears an uncountable guilt for expoiting images of death and destruction, and for encouraging rage and violence.
Hollywood also bears much guilt for focusing on such themes in the middle of this war. Traitors all.
Not to mention the films that glorify terrorism, like "V for Vendetta" that has caused an oddly conservative response from both Time and Newsweek.
Details with links at http://thomistic.blogspot.com
There are no conceivable grounds for thinking that it could be done. The texts remain a source of danger for infidels for as long as they remain in print and are believed to be holy. In other words, they are a permanent danger.
This statement is the important one:
I'm inclined to think that Pipes may have wished to state that clearly but have shied away from its implications and printed that very "conventional" thought in the last paragraph because it's impossible in the current climate to say anything else. He may have thought that people still need to be influenced and so it is impossible to suggest policies that they do not want to hear. The sensible policy in face of that fact is for infidel countries to halt all immigration from Islamic countries now - and perhaps even in some cases to deport or exchange populations. Not what anyone wants to do, but read those two sentences again and reflect on them.
I'd like to denounce the ignorant and venal politicians who have left us with this problem, but if I start cursing them I might not stop.
Yojimbo-
1) I agree that Nietzsche would look "askance at the notion that contemporary Europe ought to fall to Islam." (I don't think it ever crossed his mind that that could happen. I doubt he thought much about Islam at all.) 2) And his home today certainly does appear to be with the left who seem to see matters of good and evil as radically subjective-as "values." 3) And you are right that he dispised the antisemites of his time (especially his brother-in-law Forster)because he sensed that they were using hate as a tool to get power.
But N. did hate Christianity-said it was a religion with a "slave morality," that it was revenge against the masters, and that hence Christianity called for "equality" and defended weaklings, that it should be overcome by the "Overman."
My hunch is that N. was crazy for a long time and that that merely became obvious in 1889. Maybe that aspect of his mind (crazy)is why he became such a star with the Nazis-who also rejected rationality-who "asserted" their "values" in a "movement"-a 'triumph of the will."
That's what we need-we need more non-rational people in the world and then we'll be even more fucked-up then we are now....so I proclaim the coming of the Overnut who will bring us to Loonytoon values...who will finally bring us all to see that it's not rational thought that matters-but correct beliefs!-Heil Loonytoons!
Here is a link to a coroners report and description of how Gamil Gharbi {Lepines, a Algerian immigrant, real name) day went. Sadly, there is no mention at all of his religious practices, training and back ground.
http://diarmani.com/Montreal_Coroners_Report.htm
It's only later that details of his life emerge, long after the anti-gun frenzy. Some can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_Polytechnique_massacre
Snips:
Marc Lépine had a very troubled childhood including an abusive father and had left a note explaining that he blamed feminism for the failures in his life, including not being accepted into engineering school. However, his failure to gain admission to the Ecole Polytechnique was because he had not completed the necessary prerequisite courses.
During his parents' divorce, his mother told the court at their divorce hearing that her husband, an Algerian immigrant, After the divorce, he changed his name from Gamil Gharbi to Marc Lépine.
More can be found if you take the time to google it, time which I don't have at the moment.
Christianity-said it was a religion with a "slave morality," that it was revenge against the masters
Absolutely, and pretty hysterically at times (though I could dredge up some somewhat more favourable comments here and there if I really tried).
And, again, all the more odd that he should now be a patron saint for some on the left. For while I don't think the Christian ethic can be boiled down to ressentiment, some leftists are certainly dripping with it.
Another nice trick of fate was that Nietzsche's last act before his breakdown was an act of pity - to throw his arms around the neck of a horse that was being savagely beaten to protect it.
Mullahmasher and attackcartoons,
Here is a link that talks about Lepine, who was born Gamil Gharbi to an Algerian father. He changed his name to protest the physical abuse that his father did to the rest of the family (I know I know, it's hard to believe that spousal abuse exists in the Religion of Peace).
I wish the author spent a chapter on Lepine/Gharbi's religious beliefs.
To see what the peace of Islam means to bring to America look at the following.
http://palestinename.com/frheartbreak.htm
and scroll through the article and open up the next links.
My soul cries out for the tens of thousands harmed and killed by Islam and its murderous filth followers the Muslims.
Only Muslims with back souls could ever blow up children, schools, buses, chruches and innocent people and only Muslims with black souls can protect or assit this filth.
The war is coming with Islam in America. I will not live the way that Israeles have lived with Islamic terror for decades.
Prepare, be armed and be ready.
The Texican.
Freedom, the only choice at any cost.
oops, somehow the statement of his father, that he thought "all women were meant to be domestic slaves of men" didn't print.
It clear where Lepine got his opinion of Women, and that it was well supported by the cult of Islam he was brought up with.
What's so difficult about grasping that? Why has this realization eluded politicians all over the Western world?
I saw a muslim today wildly looking side to side, sweating and with bulging eyes. I’m thinking it’s happening, it’s happening, time to go ninja on ol ackmed but it was just a sneeze. Ackmed had me worried. This is an especially dangerous time for muslim’s here in Florida, allergies could be a trigger. I’m going to pull out all the flowering plants from my yard, you can not be too careful.
Last Sunday at the catholic church I attend the priest offered a radical yet direct solution to stop the violence of Islamofacisim.
The priest stated that Islam cannot be reformed, moderated, or changed.
The priest stated that when muslims accept Jesus as God, Lord, and Saviour, then there will be peace.
I wish the author spent a chapter on Lepine/Gharbi's religious beliefs.
Posted by: special_guest
That's what I was looking for. It's out there somewhere. I can't remember if he went on his Visit to mecca or not, but like many others who have, they come back and kill someone shortly after. Their crimes are never reported as islam related, but should be. PC ness hides the truth from the general population.
Just like the recent Toronto "gang" shootings, the Islamic element is left out. Religion of peace my ---!!
Ronin-
LoL! Be careful Ronin. The FBI may show up at YOUR door and take away your guns if you admit to having an itchy trigger finger! By all means, remove those flowers!
Their crimes are never reported as islam related, but should be.
Wikipedia has a link to a page with the suicide note. Lepine/Gharbi rants about women but doesn't specifically mention Islam. If it had been important to him, surely it would have figured in the note.
Of course, as Mullahmasher said earlier: "It clear where Lepine got his opinion of Women". And, of course, it's not merely that he picked up some kind of idea. That opinion of women also entered most graphically through his senses. The doctrine that women are inferior to men can also result, as it did in this case, in their husbands beating them brutally, which not surprisingly can screw the children up quite badly. The mother is all-powerful to the child, if he must, nevertheless, directly experience her in that brutal way as being worth nothing what does it do to his head?
Maybe Lepine/Gharbi was not directly motivated by Islam, but you can sure chalk this one up to the RoP.
Lol, Mullahmasher. I am not worried they are all legal and I rarely feel the need to carry. Besides that, I am not likely to go crazy until I convert to Islam and that will be long after Armageddon. I plan on being the last Infidel standing
jronda, Francis of Assisi came to the same conclusion in 1219 when he went before he Sultan to try to convert the Muslims. In Francis's words "I am sent by the Most High God, to show you and your people the way of salvation by announcing to you the truths of the gospel.. If you and your people will accept the word of God, I will with joy stay with you. If you yet waiver.. build a fire for me and your priests to enter into..." The Sultan replied that he did not think that any of his Imams would dare enter the fire and Francis was escorted back to camp, the Sultan was afraid his men might desert to Christianity.
I think it is the threat of reprisals (terror) that largely stops muslims from leaving Islam.
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=52&story_id=28419&name=Armenian+genocide+demo+banned+in+Berlin
Organizers of one of the protests warned Europe's cities would "go up in flames like Paris" unless Europeans stopped blaming Turkey for the Armenian genocide.
You have got to love the logic. We did not kill them and if you say we did will will kill you.
Assalamalaikum to all of you (Peace be upon you)! Now let me tell you all something about our form of addressal. Look at it carefully! It asks for peace be upon you. Islam, Christianity and Judaism have a common origin and all three religions emphasize belief in ONE GOD and peace. So a few silly comments cannot make any dent on the solidarity of these religions and also the links of peace between them. I pray to the ALMIGHTY to show everyone in this world the straight path of peace. Ameen.
meems
"it is incomprehensible, especially to Christians, that a religion claiming to worship the same God they worship could be intrinsically evil"
CS Lewis saw through that when the worshippers of Tash, the death monster, claim that he is the same as Aslan, and re-name 'them' Tashlan.
So why can't some christian churches see it these days?
"Instead of presenting themselves as victims, Muslims should address this fear by developing a moderate, modern, and good-neighborly version of Islam that rejects radical Islam, jihad, and the subordination of “infidels.”"
Right on!
islamforpeace here is my reply. Mamnuu addukhuul, cuz we don't buy it, not now not ever.
The last sentence holds out, dangerously, a doubtful hope for insufficiently informed and unwary Infidels.
Here is what should or could might usefully be added on:
"There are many who, having studied the contents of the Qur'an, Hadith, and the Sira (the life of Muhammad, for Muslims presented as the Perfect Man) who believe that to do away with the duty of Jihad, which has been regarded as the Sixth Pillar of Islam, and to further remove from Islam that distinction between Believer and Infidel that is to be found everywhere, have concluded that this cannot be done.
It is up to Muslims to show us that it can be done, and to explain, not in vague terms about some putative "reformation," and not by invoking the idea that some have suggested, that "moderate Muslims are the solution" (without carefully defining the nature of that moderation so as to include an end to Jihad, and an end to inculcated hostility toward Infidels), which has proven so unfruitful and so dangerous withal, but by suggestions as to how the Sira might be re-interpreted, how the most dangerous Hadith might be de-authenticated, and even how the Qur'an, in being subject to historical study and analysis, might have the many Jihad verses reinterpreted so as to remove their sting."
It is hard, however, to see how this could be done if that business of "moderate Muslims are the solution" continues to be alluded to or repeated. It may be useful for obtaining government or foundation support. It is not useful if one is trying to properly inform Infidels, and not putting one's hope in the idea that if "we pretend Islam is reformable, then somehow it will be." So let's pretend.
This is the strategy of Tinkerbell. Just say:
"I can fly." "I can fly." "I can fly."
And Peter Pan repeats the words, and then Peter Pan flies.
But that was a fairy-tale, for children, by J. M. Barrie.
This is real. There really is a danger of the islamization of Europe. There really is, already, a situation all over the Lands of the Infidels that, through the large-scale presence of Muslims, has made the lives of Infidels much more unpleasant, much more expensive, and much more physically dangerous than they would otherwise be.
Repeat ad libitum "there are 'moderate Muslims' who are part of the solution, and it is they who will reject radical Islam [what's that, exactly -- how does it differ from plain old Islam?], the doctrine of Jihad, and the subordination of Infidels."
It's the same thing as saying, outside of the pages or stage-set of "Peter Pan" the phrase
"I can fly."
Thud.
I love it when the cyber jihadists try to show us love and understanding. I feel better already, I'm going to be happy from now on (sarcasm off)
I've known many moderate muslims. They wouldn't think of practicing Jihad, they were proud of their ethnic heritage and yet they loved living in the West. They truly appreciated our freedom. Not only did they not believe in Jihad they didn't pray five times a day - not even once a week. Come to think of it... they weren't Moslems anymore. Oops. Nevermind!
Yojimbo
It's not odd at all. The post-'68 relativists owe Nietzsche their fundamental dogma: "Facts is precisely what there is not, only interpretations." It used to be called perspectivism.
Unwittingly, Nietzsche spawned Derrida and Foucault and multiculti feminists and anthropologists and a huge array of neomarxists and post-colonialists who latched on to that statement in pursuit of their own agendas.
Never mind that this tormented soul had no "agenda" in modern terms, and that what he said one time contradicted what he said another time, that he revelled in "epater les bourgeois", that he reacted to his own Lutheran family his entire life.
I'm not trying to rehabilitate Nietzsche here. At a minimum, the guy who favored Bizet's Carmen over Wagner's operas so passionately should get a break.
A memo to Frank:
You have asked, why is Islam so intolerant of other religions?
Now, if you had read the Kuran you would know why. So, to your question: Why is Islam so intolerant? The answer (in a proverbial nutshell) is: Because ALLAH says SO!!! AND THAT IS Islam's self-professed reason for EVERYTHING IT DOES.
I suggest YOU read the Kuran. Because only then can you really begin to understand the nature of our enemy.
I plan on being the last Infidel standing
Posted by: Ronin at March 14, 2006 04:47 PM
___
I will be right next to you as will be several millions and millions more.
The Texican.
Freedom, the only choice at any cost.
P.S. Regarding Nietzsche
I forgot to urge everyone to read his correspondence. It's hard reading because it's so urgent and sicere.
Lues or no lues, he's at the heart of modern Western thought.
Pipes gives us yet another valid reason for outlawing Islam in the USA! (As if we needed any more to choose from).
No outlawing needed. Just knowledge. Nosce teipsum, and while you're at it, nosce Islam too.
The Oath of an Islamophobe:
My name is . I have incurable islamophobia. I have accepted my fate. Being an islamophobe is who I am. Being islamophobic is what I am. I draw my strength from it. I am comforted by it. I am at peace with it. I swear that I will resist conversion to islam until I draw my very last breath. For I too plan on being the last.. Infidel.. standing.
A moderate muslim lives in a country with less than 10% muslim population. When the nation's muslim population reaches 10% (critical mass) the moderate muslim becomes an Islamist.
Can we again find the will to do what it takes to defend our civilization from the fascists?
this guy was a student of phoolosophy. Quite fitting.
czekmark
I disagree. The reason muslims do not move away from that lunacy is not fear of reprisal. It is because their minds are closed by islam and then WELDED shut. Also included in the dynamic is Arab culture but that is another story.