The mere fact that the Saudis are worried enough to be conducting this worldwide charm offensive by Muslims and especially Saudis --e.g., King Abdullah’s meeting with the Pope -- is a good thing. That is, it’s a good thing as long as Infidels maintain a healthy skepticism about that charm offensive, since it comes along with the usual smoke-and-mirrors, delivered by solemn, gravelly-voiced Abdullah or some other among the fungible Al-Saud. (God, what with the daggers and dishdashas, and the double-layer goatee, and the sinister mien, they are so hard to keep apart, aren't they?) In any case, it is not having the effect that the Muslim propagandists and their Saudi paymasters thought it would.
For another example of their failure, look at the intelligent, informed, and therefore highly critical analyses of the contents of that letter signed by those "138 Muslim clerics and scholars." Those clerics and scholars were no doubt hoping their letter would make a huge impression. But the world today is not the world of even a year ago, and too many people can read not only what is written between the lines, but make sense of what is written on those lines, and they weren't having any of it.
How the hell do the Al-Saud think they can indefinitely keep from 85% of the world's population, all of its Infidels that is, the truth about what is contained in Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira? How do they think they can indefinitely silence all those who have left, jettisoned, Islam and are here, and there, and now everywhere in the West? How will they deal with the growing list of articulate apostates, who now include Ibn Warraq and Wafa Sultan and Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Ali Sina, and tens of thousands of the most morally and intellectually advanced among those who, through no fault of their own, were born into societies suffused with Islam? These people, whose testimonies are now in print, came to recognize the nature of Islam. And having, in the West, grounds for comparison, they have analyzed its dangerous and retrograde effects on its own adherents. They decided to make the break, being held back neither by fear of retribution by fanatical Believers, nor by some residual filial piety (affection for one's quietly pious grandmother, for example), and with no desire to remain in a Muslim society and work from within for change: to do so they would not have dared to speak the truth about Islam. They have become the witnesses that even the Al-Saud cannot suppress, try as they might.
And the studies of the real scholars of Islam, the ones who wrote during the period before the Great Inhibition that began in the 1960s and has gathered strength ever since, but now, in the face of Muslim behavior, and Muslim activities, around the world, may at long last be itself crumbling. Just as Saudi paymasters are no longer recruiting quite so effectively for that army of Western hirelings they have employed in the capitals of the West, the reputation of the MESA-Nostrans has been damaged. They have been held up for ridicule, and the obviousness of their apologetics, the way in which they have prevented their students from learning about the texts and tenets of Islam and about the history of Islamic conquest and subjugation of all the various non-Muslim peoples conquered, is now clear to many commentators.
Those commentators are no longer in a mood to be impressed by academic titles. After all, many of us have been to college and graduate schools ourselves. We know how dismal some of those with titles turn out to be, and certainly know about academic politics and how rigged the game so obviously is, and must be, when it comes to hiring practices in the fields of Islam and the Middle East. "Question authority" is a bumpersticker and an attitude, often unjustified, but perfectly justified when it comes to professors of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies and related subjects. (For more, google "MESA Nostra").
Imagine that you are the Saudi king. How the hell are you going to prevent Infidels from finding out what is broadcast on Saudi television and radio? Now that that wonderful translating service, MEMRI, exists, you can't. And how are you going to prevent Infidels from getting copies of the textbooks used in Saudi schools? You can't. And how will you prevent Infidels from reading, and re-reading with proper understanding, the Qur'an and the Hadith, and analyzing the figure of Muhammad, as presented in the Sira, or the Muslim sacralized biographies of Muhammad, uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil, forever? You just can't.
So you send out the fog machines. One of them keeps sending the message that "Islam is not a monolith." This is Tariq Ramadan's old-new tack, meaning "don't you Infidels dare try to say anything about Islam because all generalizations will be untrue" -- a clear confusion between the superficial variousness of dress and Iftar foods, and the clear unity of Islam embodied in the canonical, immutable, straight-from-God-or-His-Messenger texts, that do not change, in time or in space. So when Tariq Ramadan refers to something he likes to call "European Islam," he is making something up. There is no "European" or "American" Islam; there is only one Islam, or rather, because there are Sunni and Shi'a and Ibadi Muslims, and because some 2% of Muslims are called "Sufis" because their approach to God is supposedly whirling-dervishly mystical, there is only one Islam when it comes to the thing that really matters: the attitude of Muslims toward Infidels. And there, there is no disagreement, no variousness, only that "monolithic" attitude that Tariq Ramadan pretends to be unable to find.
The other is the old Tu-Quoque. Just look at what is contained in that bad old Leviticus, apologists for Islam say, what with the ancient Israelites doing this and that. But for several thousand years Jews in their synagogues have not been listening to sermons telling them that they should be smashing the heads of the Canaanites, and the Jewish attachment to the tiny Land of Israel is not exactly equivalent to the Muslim claim to the whole wide world, a world which must ultimately come under Islam and rule by Muslims. And when the Crusades are brought up, it is then pointed out that the Crusades were a response to many centuries of Muslim attacks and conquest of Christian lands, and above all to the attacks beginning with the Caliph al-Hakim's attempted razing of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1009 A.D. Then followed a century of attacks, some by Seljuk Turks, on Christian pilgrims and sites in the Holy Land. This response, the Crusades, was limited in time and space to recovering only the Holy Land. It was therefore a campaign quite different from that of Islamic Jihad, which is prompted by the inculcated belief that a permanent state of war that Islam insists must exist between Muslims and all others, and that a central duty of Muslims is to engage in the "struggle" or Jihad to push back the boundaries of Dar al-Islam and reduce those of Dar al-Harb, until Islam dominates everywhere, and everywhere, Muslims rule.
How do the Saudis or other Arabs and Muslims think they will prevent the world's Infidels from finding out about this? How will they prevent them from reading, with understanding, the Qur'an, the Hadith, the Sira? They can't. They won't.
The Saudis, full of their own omnipotence decreed that Bibles and non Muslim religious paraphernalia would be prohibited from coming into its Kingdom of Pure Islam™ I wonder how many microchips with Bibles on them will soon find themselves in Saudi Arabia.
On another note, even Bill Maher, not someone I usually watch, has taken to poking fun at Saudi female fashions....dayamn brave of him.
The rapidity with which Islam is being unmasked is really stunning. We need now a brave leader who will take Islamic Chistianophobia and Judeophobia to task. The Saudi fear of the Bible is a great linchpin issue. There is a reason for this. If you read the Quran and the Bible, and then have to choose which to take seriously, there is really no comparison. Only relentless brainwashing combined with the Bible prohibition could save the Quran from the dustbin of history.
Does anyone have information about the availability, or lack thereof, of the Bible in other Islamic nations? Is it possible for a curious Muslim to get a copy, in say Algeria, or Iran, or Malaysia? Are there Saudi-style laws on the books, or are such prohibitions enforced, de facto?
If ONLY we had a leader (besides the Pope) who understoods the theological nature of the conflict. Shame, as Ali Sina has pointed out, is very effective. Mocking, through exposure, the Islamic fear of theological competition will be very effective. It is clear the west is beginning to wake up, though that process is not complete. What about liberating the benighted Muslims from the cult?
Well... aren't we optimistic today?
Even if the West is waking up, the real violence will come. Maybe it will be less than would occur if the process of realization were longer, but it will be here sooner. And even Guiliani, the leading Republican, is in favor of continuing a great deal of legal immigration.
The times are especially dangerous first, because we're still dependent on Islamic oil, and second, because we are sort of thinking about getting serious, kind of, about removing that dependency. That seriousness will come soon; and the Islamic world must know that without our dependence, even the most prosperous Muslim nations will have great difficulty merging their religion and culture with modern life.
And what do you do with millions of unemployed young men who are taught to hate and who are without purpose? I like the folks who want to convert them to Christianity; but success there is unlikely.
So... our optimism has to be for the long term, beyond our time on earth.
Hugh,
Let's hope you're right. The fact that the Pope accepted the sword as a gift, or that he allowed the Guardian of the Ka'aba to set foot on Infidel soil in the first place, is not very promising.
I understand that the Saudi King presented the Pope with a SWORD? Wouldn't that be similar to presenting Mother Teresa with a shiny new gun?
Does anyone else see the huge insult to Catholics (myself included) with this inappropriate yet telling gift?
What happens if you have a tattoo of a Cross or the Virgin Mary (Guadalupe) and enter Saudi Arabia, where all Christian symbols are prohibited?
Swords are not unknown to the Papacy. There are swords in the Vatican collections. Some Popes have wielded swords, or rather, have caused others to wield them. Most may think of the Papacy and military force only in relation to the Crusades. But within Europe the Papacy helped Christian powers to raise military forces among allies. Many remember the victory of Christians over Muslims at Lepanto, where Cervantes -- "el Manco de Lepanto" -- lost his left arm. But that was only pne naval battle in a war in which Venice relied on assistance, men, money, materiel, not only from Spain but also from the Papacy. Despite that victory at Lepanto, by the way, it was a war that the Christian forces ultimately lost.
Bibles are available in muslim or muslim-dominated countries such as Albania, Pakistan, Turkey, Malaysia, Kyrgyzstan, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, etc. check the list at
http://www.watchtower.org/e/statistics/worldwide_report.htm
AmericanTiger, see here for details.
Hugh asked
They think it, because it has worked for them for over a century. It has been a successful strategy for them for several generations.
It worked as long as what was required of the infidel to learn about the unexpurgated teachings of Islam was to rummage around in the musty archives to find a relevant book by Snouck Hurgronje, Joseph Schacht, or St. Clair Tisdall. It worked as long as the major jihadist attacks were distant geographically or chronologically.
What has changed, as pointed out by the estimable Mr. Fitzgerald on many occasions, is that due to an accident of geology, the Arabs have been given (note the passive form) the financial means to increase the lethality and frequency of their jihadist campaign, which has never truly ended since Islam was founded 1350+ years ago. What has changed is that the infidels in the Great Satan (the U.S.) have seen the implementation of Islamic theology, live and in color, on their television screens, on their own soil. It was easy to ignore when a few thousand, or hundred thousand, were killed in the Balkins, India, or Indonesia. It's harder to ignore when it is happening in New York City. (It's harder, but we're making a go of it).
The other thing that has changed is the change in news coverage. We infidels no longer look to a patriarchal news anchor to filter out what is going on in the world. With the creation of the internet, original news stories are available at the click of a mouse-button. The filter has been removed, we can get it more directly. What has changed is the writings of Robert Spencer, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warriq, and others. What has changed is the availability of websites such as "Palestinian" Media Watch, TheReligionOfPeace.com, and of course JihadWatch/DhimmiWatch. What has changed is the few people who have stepped forward to simply state the (now) obvious. What has changed is you.
My favorite cleric is the (very late) Bishop Odo of Bayeux, who in support of his half-brother, William Duke of Normandy wielded a mace so as not to shed Christian blood.
Mr. Fitzgerald...thanks for the enlightenment and continuing education. AT
Another splendid article. Ayaan Hirsi Ali recently made a remark to Dennis Prager (I think it was) that he didn't really pick up on, unfortunately. She said that when she came to the west she was staggered by how ideas are subject to intense scrutiny and intellectual challenge.
Clearly, even with the degraded state of intellectual discourse in western academia, it is still far ahead of anything elsewhere. In the fight against Islam we can do very well to strengthen and build up these great features of our civilisation.
Ah, the Saudis. Want to know where the gouging of about $1 per gallon you spent on gasoline went?
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071112/flying_palace_071112/20071112/
That flying palace is a great idea. May the Saudi tyrants continue waste their trillions, until their oil fields go dry and the west has moved on to other sources of energy. Then we'll see who comes begging to whom, and whose ideologies have staying power.
To Qujjybo and j-not-a:
Dissemination of the Bible - of the Hebrew scriptures, the Christian scriptures (all the authors of whom, except the Greek proselyte Luke, were reared and educated as Jews), handily translated into the various vernaculars, such as colloquial Algerian or Egyptian Arabic, or Farsi, or Dari, or Urdu, or Turkish, or the two languages spoken by the Kurds, or the languages of the Berbers - proceeds apace across the Empire of Islam, not merely or even primarily in conventional print/book form, but by any and every alternative means that modern audio recording and communications technology makes possible. Despite all attempts to impede it, and despite the vast disparity between the money spent on Muslim da'wa, and what the Christians are able to spend on translation or publication, the Word is getting in everywhere, like water. And despite much that is said on this site, by many, about the general imperviousness of the Muslim mind, there is good evidence that exposure to the Bible can, and does, effectively deprogram quite a few Muslims.
Well, of course it will fail. The Saudi charm offensive is so over the top, so obviously costly, and so - well, obvious. It's not really an offensive act as it is defensive, due, in part to the diligence and talent of JW/DW.
There is no need for such charm offensives from Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus etc. yet Muslims continue to arrive on our shores.
Muhammedan duplicity is unveiled with every attempt to cover it up.
Dumbledorearmy,
Thank you. I've been reading a donation from the Gideons myself of late. I find it amazing that I even considered myself well-read or educated without this under my belt. Previous to this I knew far more of the Islamic canon than the Bible.
The experience has affected me, in many ways. The Bible is an incredibly revolutionary document. I could not but help think how Islam would be shaken to pieces by its dissemination.
THE FACT OF OUR DAY
O, Say Can You See...?
In the wake of 9/11, this American slowly awoke to the realization that we, the people of the United States, were engaged in a broad, wide-ranging ideological struggle, on fronts both close at hand and far-flung, confronted with a tenacious and committed foe. I further realized that this conflict was unlike any other this nation has faced, as it was essentially driven by a religious imperative, emanating from a faith whose values and worldview were profoundly alien to my own and--yes--those of our nation.
On The Shore, Dimly Seen
Having seen the fall of the Berlin Wall, the global repudiation of communism, and the end of the Cold War, I envisioned a world transformed by scientific discovery and technological advances; a new age of exploration, human endeavor and achievement; a world empowered by human freedom and individual dignity, thus capable of dealing with the most pressing and intractable problems we face.
Half Conceals, Half Discloses?
Events that, to my mind, heralded renewed hope of human progress, ironically signaled--to those who knew a history and traditions of their own--a return to the past, to a time of mythic glory and fulfillment, arrested but now resurgent--signaled the Third Wave of global Islamic expansion.
And Where Is That Band Who So Vauntingly Swore...
Much as I wanted to believe in the benign nature and common aspirations of this freshly assertive faith--in its reassuring posturing, typified by purposely edited citation of Quranic Sura 5, verse 32, and similar distortions--I nevertheless became convinced of the violent nature underpinning much of Islam, its sacred texts, history, and traditions.
A Home and A Country Should Leave Us No More?
What dismayed me most was discerning the intractably, implacably dualistic worldview of Islam; its stark division of Humanity into two warring camps, Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb, the goal and destiny of the One, the Islamic Umma, being the subjugation and ultimate effacement of the Other. So then, human history culminates in a final solution--the eradication of the Kuffar, incremental and total.
Then Conquer We Must, When Our Cause It Is Just
This is the fact of our day I am forced to accept, that there is a religious war being waged against us, an institutionalized cosmic struggle called JIHAD; however repugnant and inhuman the idea of religious, so-called "holy" war is in this 21st Christian Century.
"We need now a brave leader who will take Islamic Chistianophobia and Judeophobia to task."
You know what happens to 1 single leader don't you (MLK?).
We have learned our lesson. We DON"T want any leaders anymore. We are all our own leaders.
The comment posted above, "The Fact of Our Day," was penned by A.R.S. Wannabe (a psuedonym).