Fitzgerald: A second course on Islam

I say we set up a fund to send Robert and Hugh to Washington D.C......or learn arabic!

Man killed in Gaza violence identified as Jordanian diplomat

A man killed Monday afternoon in exchanges of fire between gunmen in the Gaza Strip has been identified as a staffer at the Jordanian Embassy, Palestinian sources said. (Ali Waked)

http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3082,00.html

Regarding the need (or lack thereof) to "learn arabic", if the Qur'an or Islam cannot be understood outside of a knowledge of "Classical" Arabic, then they are irrelevant since so few Muslims actually do. I personally tire of "the so-and-so is not an ISLAMIC SCHOLAR" (i.e. implying that therefore his opinion is invalid).

Hint to Robert and Hugh: YES, YOU ARE! Not having studied at Al-Azhar doesn't invalidate your years of study, depth of knowledge and fluency on Islam, and especially does not answer your questions about or your challenges to the tenets of Islam.

Posted by: Concerned Citizen.....er...the arabic crack was a joke...maybe i am just not funny..sorry.

No thanks, I attended the crash course on 9/11/01.
As a result, I am fully educated.

Storemanager,

No problem, sorry it seemed I went off.

The flimsy picket fence protecting Islam seems to me to have only three "pickets"

1. You can't understand the text because you don't know Arabic (Classical Arabic, blah, blah)
2. You're not an Islamic Scholar(TM)so your opionion doesn't count.
3. Shut up or we'll kill you (i.e. our own fear and lack of heroes save a few like Robert, Hugh, Warraq, Yeor, Sina, Bostom, etc.).

I am sorry to say, your effort will fall on deaf ears. EEO is the "zero tolerence" of federal service. The ease at which greivances can be filed, and the entertainment, as serious offenses, of the most baseless claims, have elevated allegations of racism and sexism to sacred cow status. Many careers and promotions have been made on the back of the EEO system. Consequently, management jumps at the slightest hint of any problem.

Clearly, if you think that these managers will offer a program that will be greived by muslim employees, or would give the appearance of racism (as CAIR would trumpet), stands no chance. Add that to the fact that the federal workforce is far more liberal than the general population, and it really is a snowball's chance.

The course would be valuable to State Dept employees that would need to deal with the muslim dialectic. Generally, for law enforcement it wouldn't really matter, they do their job based on who broke the law as it is written. It doesnt matter what your background is, if you break the law you are under arrest. If you were to offer an evening course, that was unaffiliated to any work duty, you might be surprised at who might attend. However, most would be reluctant to identify their postion, for fear of that information being used against them at the job site.

Thank you Hugh for the next course in your series of "Everything about Islam that one needs to know to make an intelligent assessment Islam and its affect on civilization".

The authors cited should also include:

Primary Source Study of Early Islam
Joseph Schacht
Ignaz Goldziher

Qu'ran
Sahih Al-Bukhari
Sahih Muslim
Ibn Al-Taymiyah
Sayyid Qutb

Current Politics, Dhimmitude and Islam
Bat Ye'or
Oriana Fallaci
Andrew Bostom
Bruce Bawer
Efraim Karsh
Paul Fregosi
Claire Berlinski
Melanie Phillips
Bruce Bawer
Serge Trifkovic

Balkan History
Ivo Andric
Rebecca West

This is where I am at this point in my core courses to complete my MA in Islamic Studies. It is by no means complete and requires further additions and supplementary materials. I would also suggest learning to read and write Arabic which is another task I've undertaken.

Hugh's list is appreciated as it brings together a large list of question which one must answer to really understand the problem we face as the heirs and protectors of Western Civilization. None of these authors make assumptions which are wholly supported by evidence and primary source material.

Good luck and study hard. As Hugh says you will be graded later...

Here is a short course on islam, Hitchens says it best....CAIR says it is "incitement"
http://daily.stanford.edu/tempo?page=content&id=20434&repository=0001_article

Would this course be offered at Bostom College?

"Please list the answers for us who cannot make it to your very informative and necessary Class..."
-- from a posting above

Go to the library. Read. Buy Robert's guides. Google. Find articles at www.dhimmitude.org, www.faithfreedom.org, www.answering-islam.org. Print them out, read and re-read. Make it your summer project. Merely listing "the answers" would not do anyone much good. What, devoid of context, would those "answers" mean? The basse vulgarisation has gotten just about as low as it can get. Enough shortcuts, cram courses, Princeton and Kaplan and Bar-Bri Reviews, not ot mention "Anna Karenina" reduced to 7 pages and "King Lear" wrapped up in a snappy two. Basta.

And the next assignment is, for those who have gotten in the mood at the University of the Ether (absolutely of no use whatsoever in raising anyone's salary or career prospects anywhere), is to read and thoroughly assimilate, Jacques Barzun's "The House of Intellect." Especially chapter 3.

22 questions - that is good. 20 would be a suspiciously round number. 25 is, as Python would have it, "right out".

is there another religion that formally sanctions lying in order to protect that religion or its Believers?

This is a "num" question, eliciting the answer "no".

Could they ever possibly fight on the side of Infidel fellow-citizens against Muslims from another country?

Likewise. Your really need a "nonne" question, eliciting the answer "yes". Suggestion:

"Is Islam the worst thing that has ever happened to humanity?"

Or, more confusingly, to keep them on their toes: "Is Islam crap, or what?"

Only kidding, by the way. Great stuff. And not rocket science - or "rocket salad" as I have heard it malapropped.

Hugh-

I sure hope nobody emails this article (or the previous one) to the FBI, CIA, NSA, State Department, DOD, or White House.

You wouldn't want to bother any of the folks at:

president@whitehouse.gov

https://tips.fbi.gov/

http:/www.nsa.gov/careers/students_4.cfm

https://comm.cia.gov/cgi/comment_form.cgi

media@defenselink.mil

or:

http://contact-us.state.gov/

The NSA address above needs one more stroke:

http://www.nsa.gov/careers/students_4.cfm

way to go, Hugh!
numbers, clear statements....your logic is improving! cheers.

"your logic is improving"
-- from a posting above

Examples of how my logic ever needed improvement would be welcome.

Post right here.

Robert el al . . .

Maybe I missed it but could you please make more obvious the date, location, and accomodations of the second conference. We really need to know.
Thanks Carl

"Examples of how my logic ever needed improvement would be welcome.

Post right here."

Your apparent claim that Muslims can take over a Western country or even the entire West, apart from using physical violence, could benefit from a logical argument.

Together with the first course, this would last only two weeks. This isn't a long time for something that is so crucial to the survival of our civilisation. Especially when you think about all the courses people attend, both in the public and private sector, on positive thinking, making your people power work for you, seven habits of effective managers and other twaddle, generally involving standing on a breeze block and hugging each other.

(I'm not making the last one up, by the way, although our company doesn't go in for this kind of thing. Apparently everyone ended up trying to avoid hugging one colleague who was very unpopular, and managed to do this, even though there is very little scope for avoiding people if you're all standing on a breeze block.)

Islam is the enemy.

"Your apparent claim that Muslims can take over a Western country or even the entire West, apart from using physical violence, could benefit from a logical argument."
-- from a posting above

Where I have made that claim? Where have I said that "Muslims can take over a Western country or even the entire West" without ever using the implied or actual threat of force, and at times the use of force?

You have repeatedly misunderstood me. I have repeatedly said that the main weapons of Jihad, to spread Islam, so that it will dominate, and Muslims will rule, are not those of military combat (qital), and that "terrorism" is not the main or most effective instrument of Jihad.

I have repeatedly said that the main or most effective instruments of Jihad are:

1) demographic conquest;

This can take several forms. One is merely outbreeding the Infidels both in

a( Dar al-Islam (where excess population then finds its inexorable way, or has over the past forty years, into the Lands of the Infidels).

b) Within the Lands of the Infidels, simply outbreeding them, for in Western societies, advanced education, the need or desire or inculcated desire to work, as well as sexual freedom, have all contributed to a decline in the birth-rate of the indigenous Infidels. Meanwhile, the structure of generous state support (free education, free health care, subidized housing, family allowances) is exploited to the full by Muslims, with in some cases polygamous relationships hidden from, or silently ignored, by Western governments, and in any case with women whose function is to breed and who are able to do so by that very exploitation of Infidel taxpayers (just as Muslim states were supported by the Jizyah taxes on Infidels).

c) Within lands where Muslims dominate, the Dar al-Islam, over time, and even in the last century, the relative and in some cases absolute numbers of non-Muslims, has much diminished. Mass murder will do it: the Christian Armenians massacred by Turks and Kurds (with others picked off by Arabs in the Syrian Desert). The Christian Greeks killed at Smyrna or in similar attacks, and whose numbers steadily went down until there are only a few thousand Greek Orthodox left. The Jews, who fled everywhere in the Muslim world, except under the Iran of the Shah, but not that of Khomeini. The Hindus who have steadily declined, from 15% (in 1947)to 1.5% of the population of Pakistan, and Hindus and other non-Muslims who have fled from Bangladesh, where non-Muslims now make up not 35% (in 1947) but 8% of the populaton. The non-Muslims -- Chinese and Hindus -- of Malaysia, who have seen their relative numbers steadily go down, as the fierce pressure to convert to Islam (not least on the indigenous tribes) has only increased as the new Muslim majority feels the need to exercise its power. Both the law, to the extent that it enforces certain aspects of the Shari'a, and the extra-official pressures on non-Muslims always present in a Muslim-dominated society. And a society can be dominated by Msulims even when they constitute a slim majority, or perhaps not even a majority, depending on their determination and ferocity)

2) Da'wa, carefuly targetted at the

a) the economically marginal (including prisoners and recent immigrant groups), who are fed a line about "Islam and social justice," (just look at the rulers and ruling classes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Algeria, Morocco, Iran, Sudan, Pakistan, and then look at the ruled masses) and who are led to believe that Islam is the perfect vehicle for the expression of alienation from capitalism or Amerikka, and furthermore, who are also told, or led to beleive, that their criminality, when the targets are Infidels, have religious justification and sanction. Robbing Infidels is simply helping oneself to Jizyah. Raping Infidel women is simply treating them as they deserve, in their lewd abandon, to be treated.

b) the psychically marginal. Modern societies, with all that soul-lessness and anomie (fill in here, with whatever pseudo-Durkheimian observations you wish) throws off all kinds of John Walker Lindhs who are engaged in some goddam Spiritual Search, the Truth, the Wayu, call it what you will. Some of them are lonely; some of them seek a Total Explanation of the Universe. Some of them cannot stand individualism and yearn for the Collective. All of this was part of the appeal of National Socialism. And these people can be picked off, or picked up, by Islamic missionaries, and be usefully exploited.

The appeal of Bolshevism was largely that described in 2(a) and the appeal of National Socialism that described in 2(b). "Social Justice" and the Total Regulation of Life, a man as of no moment except when he subsumes himself under the Collective -- that's the appeal of Islam to marginal Infidels. And there are plenty of them.

3) the "wealth" weapon. Until 1973, when the triplling of oil prices began the largest transfer of wealth in human history, it would have been hard for Muslims bent on Jihad to pay for all those mosques and madrasas and endless propaganda in the Western world. Muslim societies are, and always will be to the extent that they remain committed to Islam, economic failures, doomed through the kind of inshallah-fatalism that we see everywhere. There are, however, three ways for such societies to enjoy some outwardly impressive economic success:

a) exploitation by local Muslims of the talents of a large non-Muslim population. That is the case in Malaysia, where Muslims constitute just a bit more than 50% of the population, but through the Bumiputra system, manage to exploit the far more entrepreneurial and industrious Chinese and Hindus.

b) the Jizyah of foreign aid from Infidels, which has helped Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, and the essentially unviable local Arabs who carefully redefined themselves as the "Palestinian people"

c) the manna from Heaven, or rather sous-sol manna, of oil and gas revenues. Without such revenues, based on an accident of geology (that oil was discovered, produced, and a use found for it by Infidels, not by the local Muslims), the Jihad would still exist as a central element in Islam, but the wherewithal to conduct that Jihad would not exist.

These are now the main weapons of the Jihad. Outright military conquest, which was not necessary to islamize a great deal of the East Indies (or the Malayan peninsula, which even fifty years ago did not contain a Muslim-majority population) is not the problem it was, say, in 700 or 800 or even 1500 A.D. There may be Muslims at the gates of Vienna again, but they are not besieging it with swords and mangonels. No, they are already inside the gates of Vienna, as into Madrid, Rome, Paris, London, Marseille, Berlin, Rotterdam, Malmo, Brussels, and hundreds of other cities. And very few of them show signs of abandoning Islam -- how could they? -- or of somehow reinterpreting those immutable texts of Qur'an and settled "authentic" Hadith -- how could they?

This doesn't mean that the occasional assassination (of Pim Fortuyn or Theo van Gogh), the demonstration (against Danish cartoons), or terorrist plots, will not have their effect. But there is no possibility of outright military conquest.

Where we differ is that you seem to think that this needs not only to be constantly noted, but that at the same time, we should all breathe a sigh of relief, and not worry unduly, because as you never fail to emphasize, incorrectly but stolidly, "nowhere has Islam conquered by means other than military."

That is not true. It is not true that the largest Muslim country in the world, Indonesia, became Muslim as a result of military conquest by some Muslim army. This is not the same thing as saying that violence is never used, that there has not, over the past thousand years, been the use of force in the East Indies by local Muslims (Islam being introduced by Hadrami traders, like all good Muslims eager missionaries as well, into Java). But that has not always and everywhere explained how every bit of Dar al-Islam became Muslim.

It is a soothing idea. It is a pollyannish idea. If only it were so -- if only there were no threat from the other instruments of Jihad described above. After all, they can only acquire major weaponry if we allow them to do so, and of course we have allowed them to do so. Your argument is one that could be favored by two kinds of people. Infidels looking for reasons not to worry, and Muslims looking for reasons to convince Infidels not to worry.

Well, I worry. Not about military conquest, but about all the other instruments of Jihad which , I continue to repeat, has already helped create the large-scale and so far unopposed and unchallenged Muslim presence that helps to spread the power of Muslims, that in every country in Western Europe has created a sitatuion that is much more unpleasant, expensive, and physically dangerous for the indigenous Infidels, than it would otherwise be.

As long as the armies of Islam are not descending on us, and the rockets' red glare from Iran or Pakistan, or perhaps in the future from Egypt or Saudi Arabia (bought-and-paid-for), are not headed toward Dar al-Harb, you seem to think we can all remain sanguine.

I don't.

"As long as the armies of Islam are not descending on us, and the rockets' red glare from Iran or Pakistan, or perhaps in the future from Egypt or Saudi Arabia (bought-and-paid-for), are not headed toward Dar al-Harb, you seem to think we can all remain sanguine."

I never said we can or should remain sanguine; for the simple reason that I have profound forebodings about all the non-violent tactics of Jihad you outlined above (and many times before) in addition to the Islamically necessary adjunct of violence (which at some point, after a long period of using other types of violence, will have to include military conquest -- for the simple reason that Muslims want to take over + the West would never let them short of an ultimate confrontation). Both the non-violent and the violent forms of Jihad are of concern, but they work in tandem and neither one can be considered apart from the other.

"Outright military conquest, which was not necessary to islamize a great deal of the East Indies (or the Malayan peninsula, which even fifty years ago did not contain a Muslim-majority population)... [quoting me:] "nowhere has Islam conquered by means other than military."

"That is not true. It is not true that the largest Muslim country in the world, Indonesia..."

Indonesia (and the Malayan peninsula, etc.) in the Middle Ages [by Western Standard Time] was a society infinitely more primitive than the modern West: in short, a pushover: that's about the only kind of society that Islam could take over short of a full-blown military conquest. I seriously doubt, however, that Muslims who took over Indonesia did so peacefully and did not combine their "missionary" work with patterns of small-scale violence calculated to do what Muslims have always done -- chip away at the confidence and cohesion of a society they want to take over.

"[The problem of Islam now] is not the problem it was, say, in 700 or 800 or even 1500 A.D. There may be Muslims at the gates of Vienna again, but they are not besieging it with swords and mangonels. No, they are already inside the gates of Vienna, as into Madrid, Rome, Paris, London, Marseille, Berlin, Rotterdam, Malmo, Brussels, and hundreds of other cities."

The combination of a non-violent Jihad of unprecedented sophistication and internal access (as you have well described), and of violent Jihad, will be necessary for Muslims to stand a chance of taking over the most advanced and sophisticated and powerful civilization that has ever existed in history. Muslims will not stand a chance if they rely only on one prong (non-violent Jihad) or the other prong (violent Jihad in all its myriad forms from gang-raping riffraff to assassins to rioters to suicide bombers to terrorist commandos wielding WMDs to, at a later stage, invading armies): they must employ both prongs.

And finally, even short of the alarming prospect of an attempted takeover, the prevalent dis-ease (in all its forms) that Muslims engaging in non-violent Jihad cause Western societies exerts its offenses precisely because of the ever-present potential for violence (in all its forms) with which Muslims bristle like static electricity, based on actual and numerous and geographically wide-ranging incidents of violence for decades (escalating alarmingly since the second Intifada and 911). I.e., the unpleasantness of Islamic presence in the West also requires its violent prong without which it would be ineffective and relatively benign.

Where then, is the disagreement?

I argue that the main problem is not military conquest, but other instruments of Jihad, supplemented as the need arises by the odd threat or act of terrorism. You appear to agree.

Do you?

check hugh out with the statistics and the quotes!
next thing we know he'll be breakin out with the actual references, in footnotes.

you have learnt well, little grasshopper.

"supplemented as the need arises by the odd threat or act of terrorism" is not quite the closely coordinated double-pronged enterprise where the two prongs necessarily function in tandem I have in mind; so I'm not sure we agree. You seem to be implying that the "need" for violence is like a spice the Muslims add for a little zest here and there, but could well enough leave alone without debilitating the danger & effectiveness of their Jihad enterprise.

(In case you alight upon my phrase "in tandem" I of course don't mean "in tandem at every moment of the day, every day, all year long": the tissue of threats and amorphous potential for violence that hangs in the air months after a tube bombing, in the absence of violence for long periods of time, or in any given place (no bombings in Berlin, for example, yet Berliners can rationally feel fear of a London or Madrid happening to them), etc., becomes part of the "tandem" coordination, and Muslims wouldn't have to lift a suicide-bombing finger for years (though they would continue with their smaller-scale violence).)

Is the tandem a cycle of violence?

A bicycle-for-two, for those bedfellow lovebirds, Muslims and Dhimmis.