When that old-time-religion comes back, and that religion, or rather Total Belief-System, is Islam, that can only mean disruption and danger for Infidels. This holds true whether they are in Muslim-dominated lands (Copts in Egypt, Assyrians and Chaldeans in Iraq) or in non-Muslim lands if Muslims with innate supremacism and a triumphalism gain power and influence. That triumphalism alternates with pessimistic and sullen passivity, when their inculcated impulse to make raids on and overcome non-Muslims must be held, for now, and only temporarily, in check.
When Islam was seen as obviously weak relative to the West-- as it was for about a century and a half (roughly, from 1820 to 1970) -- then Muslims were relatively quiet. In fact, they even made moves to placate the West in meaningless ways. For example, both Azzam Pasha, the first Secretary of the Arab League, in 1951 did remember to convey his good wishes to Christians at Christmas time. This was the same Azzam Pasha who promised that the war against the Jews in 1948 would result in a "massacre" the likes of which "had not been seen since the days of the Mongols," the man who is also the great-uncle of Ayman Al-Zawhiri (I am apparently the only one who finds this of note, for I keep mentioning it, and no one picks up on it). And for the same political calculations, when the Ayatollah Khomeini had not yet solidified his power, for one time, and one time only, he similarly wished Christians of the world his best wishes at Christmas time. We know, as the world's Christians did not know then, what Khomeini's real views, what Azzam Pasha's real views, are on what the rights of non-Muslims should be in a well-ordered society, and a well-ordered world. They are the same rights as dhimmis possess under the Shari'a, which means no rights other than those temporarily granted by benevolent Muslims, as long as the conditions of their dhimmi status are never broken, are faithfully and completely kept. And even then, Muslims have over time, whenever they felt like it, managed to find excuses for pogroms and mass forced conversions, or slaughter on the flimsiest of pretexts, whether of Copts in Egypt, or of Jews and Armenians in Tabriz under Shah Abbas II, or in the massacres of every Jew in Granada in 1066.
The Jihad is not "back." It never went away. Jihad, the "struggle" to remove all obstacles to the spread and then the dominance of Islam all over the world has always been, and always will be, central to Islam. What changed over the past fifty years is the perceived strength of Muslims, which is the result not only of the removal of the French from North Africa (and the British bases along the littoral of the Persian Gulf, in what were called the "Trucial States" -- where the Royal Navy kept the truce among states and tribes that would otherwise be in a state of natural, and constant, warfare), but in the main, the result of the happy accident of geology, by which Muslims have received, through no effort on their part, more than eleven trillion dollars since 1973 alone, with more trillions coming along all the time. That has given them power. That has given them reach. That has given them the ability to pay for campaigns of Da'wa, to build mosques and madrasas, and what's more, maintain them, all over the Western world. That is what has enabled the Saudis alone to spend nearly one hundred billion dollars to further the Cause of Islam; the entire budget for Soviet propaganda abroad, over 70 years, was about 7-8 billion. That has given them the ability to buy up, in ways small and big, all kinds of government officials, in office and out of office, including ambassadors to Arab states, journalists, teachers and other specialists in Middle Eastern affairs, businessmen with contracts dangled before them. Colin Powell saw nothing wrong with allowing himself to be befriended by Prince Bandar, making him his steady racquetball and tennis companion. And he saw nothing wrong with pocketing, just a few days after he had resigned, the gift of a Jaguar from Prince Bandar, the representative of one of the most hideous and, to the United States, dangerous and malevolent, regimes on earth. Yet Colin Powell managed, somehow, to retain a quite-unjustified reputation for probity -- so that Senator Stevens of Alaska is relying on the character reference that Colin Powell has supplied, singing the praises of Stevens as having as much probity as...well, impliedly, as Colin Powell himself. And few of us who know about Powell and his resistible, ridiculously inflated rise, and his Prince-Bandar connection, would disagree with that.
The money was necessary, but not sufficient. At the same time, and in each country for slightly different reasons, there has been massive, seemingly unstoppable, Muslim immigration. And then, once in, and on the dole of the Western welfare state, Muslims have steadily outbred their hosts, so that, for example, in The Netherlands, there were 1,500 Muslims in 1960, 15,000 in 1970, 400,000 in 1997, and today there are over a million, with Rotterdam and several other cities soon to have Muslim majorities.
This Muslim immigration was allowed to take place as a result of the same inattention to Islam, to what Islamic texts say, to what Islam teaches, to the likely and predictable effect of Islam on the minds of its adherents. After all, there are 1350 years of history of Muslim behavior, from Spain to the East Indies, that can be studied, examined, learned about, and that might just serve as a guide to Muslim behavior today. But just as the doctrine of Islam -- the texts, the tenets -- were so blithely ignored, so has the actual practice of Muslims over time and across space been ignored. Few have cared to examine and to learn about all that, although it just might have served as a guide to the present-day situation worldwide. Instead, history, like the canonical texts, has been ignored by the political and media elites all over the Western world. And it is the continued ignoring of both the doctrine and the practice of Islam that has caused, and is causing, and will cause, such unnecessary suffering on the part both of the indigenous Infidels, and those non-Muslim immigrants who have arrived in the West, all at the hands of Muslims, and all of it utterly predictable.
Islam is triumphalist. Arab Muslims who have oil declare that it is a gift from Allah to the "best of people" -- though they are careful not to share that gift with other Muslims, even to other Muslim Arabs. But the money, and the abasement of the Western world, reinforces the conviction that comes from Islam, that History Is On Their Side. Any victory, anywhere, for the forces of Islam, encourages Muslim triumphalism.
But then there is another reason for the return to Islam, or to the stricter outward conformity with Islam to be seen in such places as Egypt. The further away Egypt gets from the past, the past of Lord Cromer, the past in which non-Muslims, Copts and Jews, were not subject to daily humiliations and attacks -- because the government, prompted by the British, did not countenance it -- and the more it becomes "Arab" rather than "Egyptian" (the latter identity may be encouraged, the former discouraged, by those who want to weaken the hold of Islam), the more it becomes Islamic. Islam explains to the rich and powerful Arabs their wealth and their power. It justifies their extraordinary behavior, such as the domestic slaves they dare to take with them when they live in London or outside Washington, or when their children attend those Western schools, or they themselves enter those Western hospitals. For the rich Arabs simply could not do without Western education and medical care, just as they need the West for Rest And Recreation, for that funfair-cum-brothel atmosphere that they find here.
And since the world is their oyster, they can get away with all kinds of criminal behavior. See the Saudi bribery scandal in Britain, or the Saudi prince who tried to smuggle 66 suitcases of cocaine into France and claimed, when caught, "diplomatic immunity." See the sex-slave scandals, the strange unexplained disappearances of Western women from Australia, from Spain, from everywhere, many of whom are believed to end up in Middle Eastern harems, disposable as kleenex of course, as all Infidels are ultimately disposable, once they have been made use of by their Arab masters.
Islam is the answer for the rich Muslims. It is the answer, the consolation, for the poor Muslims. Only when Muslims are forced to confront the reality of Islam can things possibly improve. What is it they must confront? They must confront this reality: that the political, economic, social, moral, and intellectual failures of societies and states suffused with Islam are a direct result of Islam itself.
How can they be made to confront this? They can be made to confront this if many Infidels, having studied the matter, will arrive -- some regretfully and surprised, some with a grim air of "I knew it but did not dare say it" -- at that understanding, and able to explain, uninhibitedly, why they think it so. A demonstration project will soon reveal itself in Iraq, if the Americans leave and Islam reverts to its own level. This could also happen in Afghanistan, which is no more the "central front" in the "war on terror" (itself a misnomer) than is Iraq. Both McCain and Obama have things wrong, and both at this point seem incapable of learning enough about Islam to fashion intelligent, and far less costly -- in expenditures of men, materiel, money -- policies. Islam may no longer be viewed through any prism of sentimental messianism (Bush's bringing of "freedom" to "ordinary moms and dads" in the Middle East who will then, presto-chango, become our friends, for our being Infidels doesn't matter in the Bush Administration's mental universe), but there is still a refusal to see what Islam inculcates, and why this cannot change, and why the Infidels of this world are all, in different ways, and at different rates, threatened by Islam. Yet because the texts of Islam are immutable, it is silly to ignore this, and to pretend that Islam will, after 1350 years, somehow "reform" itself or, still more misleading, that the very nice, smiling, plausible Muslims one may meet somehow "represent" Islam, even if one were to believe and trust them (and given the emphasis on deception in Islam, and even the religiously-sanctioned doctrines of Taqiyya and Kitman, it would be foolhardy to do so). It would be foolish to think that policies can be based on the existence of these people who are either sinister, or if not, if they really mean it, ill-informed about Islam, or out of embarrassment deliberately pretending to be so, because if you are a Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only Muslim, you still are afraid to become a defector, in the Ibn Warraq or Wafa Sultan or Ayaan Hirsi Ali manner, are still perhaps feeling a residual filial piety that forces you to defend, or to pretend there is no need to defend (because you feign surprise when aspects of Islamic doctrine are presented to you for your response), Islam.
We in the West must understand that the reasons for the hideous state of the Muslim world all go back to Islamic tenets -- its penchant for despotism, its reliance on Infidel aid or on the manna of oil, both of which reflect inshallah-fatalism, its mistreatment of non-Muslims and of all women, its inhibiting of art and of science and even of music, its stifling of free inquiry, and its suffocating intellectual atmosphere that deems everything outside of Islam essentially unimportant. All of this explains why Pakistan has turned out to be...Pakistan, and not (for all of its difficulties) India, why Malaysia is not Singapore, why the Arab OPEC states, despite being the recipients of the largest transfer of wealth -- and unearned to boot -- in human history, are still completely dependent on foreign wage-slaves, many of them are treated atrociously by these desert Simon-Legrees, all daggers and dishdashas, with their sneers of cold command.
Infidels must learn this first. Infidels who understand this must replace, in the policy-making positions, those who will not or cannot grasp the nature of Islam, its texts, tenets, attitudes, atmospherics. And once Infidels, and their governments, have understood this, it will be hard for many of the world's Muslims to ignore this realization. At the very least, this will demoralize many Muslims, put paid to their triumphalism. At most, it may lead to many non-Arab Muslims, having been made aware of the fact that Islam is a vehicle for Arab supremacism, turning away from Islam. They may even discover their pre-Islamic roots (sometimes those roots are very close to the surface, in a not-too-distant past). When Muslims in India, or in Pakistan, or in Bangladesh, for example, begin to wonder about their Hindu ancestors, and what made them convert to Islam and start imitating little Arabs and claiming an Arab genealogy, then we will be getting somewhere. When black African Muslims begin to find out more about the Arab slave trade, and Arab slavery today, and the theft, by Muslims, of oil wealth that lie under the lands of Christians in the southern Sudan and southern Nigeria, and when they further learn that Islam causes economic stasis because inshallah-fatalism does not promote economic activity, then we will be getting even more to that fabled somewhere.
And so on.
All it takes is a few brains to be well-placed in Washington.
Is that too much to ask?
Uh-oh.....
Jordan: New mosque dedicated to Christ
Amman, 4 Sept. (Aki) - A newly built mosque in the town of Madaba has been dedicated to Jesus Christ in a bid to boost dialogue with Christians, pan-Arab daily Al-Quds al-Arabi reports.
"Calling Madaba's new mosque after the son of the Virgin Mary is an important initiative to improve dialogue in our town, whose Christian and Muslim population coexists," said local moderate Osama Abu al-Walid, quoted by the paper.
Verses from the Muslim holy book, the Koran dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ have been inscribed on the facade of the mosque, which located a short distance from a church.
"In this way, we want to emphasise that Jesus is also our prophet and is loved by all Muslims," said local imam Jamal Safarati.
The historic town of Madaba is lies 30 km southwest of the Jordanian capital Amman and is famous for its Byzantine mosaics.
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Religion/?id=1.0.2460244122
Uh-oh.....
Jordan: New mosque dedicated to Christ
Amman, 4 Sept. (Aki) - A newly built mosque in the town of Madaba has been dedicated to Jesus Christ in a bid to boost dialogue with Christians, pan-Arab daily Al-Quds al-Arabi reports.
"Calling Madaba's new mosque after the son of the Virgin Mary is an important initiative to improve dialogue in our town, whose Christian and Muslim population coexists," said local moderate Osama Abu al-Walid, quoted by the paper.
Verses from the Muslim holy book, the Koran dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ have been inscribed on the facade of the mosque, which located a short distance from a church.
"In this way, we want to emphasise that Jesus is also our prophet and is loved by all Muslims," said local imam Jamal Safarati.
The historic town of Madaba is lies 30 km southwest of the Jordanian capital Amman and is famous for its Byzantine mosaics.
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Religion/?id=1.0.2460244122
Sorry for the double post above.
I dunno if this one is an uh-oh:
CINEMA: FIRST EGYPTIAN FILM ON JESUS BY YEAR-END
(ANSAmed) - CAIRO, AUGUST 4 - Screenwriter and director Fayez Ghali will stat by the end of the year the filming of the first Egyptian film on Jesus Christ and the first six years of his life. ''We have already defined the financing and the staff for the production of the film,'' Ghali told Al Masry al Youm daily. ''We'll work with the private company Video Cairo,'' the director said, specifying that the set will be mainly in Egypt, but with some concession in Syria and Jordan ''because some places there remind of the Palestine''. ''I'll follow with absolute accuracy the dictates of Orthodox Christianity in order to avoid criticism from other churches, such as the Catholic one, which worships more actively Virgin Mary, or the Anglican church, which does not believe in the images of Jesus and the Cross,'' Ghali said. To that end the director said he would submit the script to the Orthodox Church and to the government censorship. ''I am ready to review any aspect of the screenplay, which wants to celebrate the glory of Jesus Christ, according to the Bible.'' Referring to possible criticism which could come from the Islamic university-mosque Al Azhar ''the highest Sunni theological authority,'' Ghali said that ''Al Azhar has nothing to do with this. I have written a film on the prophet of Christianity''. The main actor of the film has not been chosen yet: ''a child who has to interpret the childhood of Christ must have unique and specific characteristics''. (ANSAmed).
http://www.ansamed.info/en/top/ME13.YAM11335.html
The idea that our political leaders understand, or will ever understand the true nature of Islam is far-fetched, indeed. That said, as Europe degenerates into Muslim-Infidel civil strife over the coming decades, and as "native" Europeans flee, Americans will eventually come to understand the problem. Americans have friends and family in Europe, and they will eventually be told by these people about the problems there. However, this is all going to take time, perhaps 50 years.
By mid-century, when many European countries will have a Muslim or near-Muslim majority, America may have a Muslim population of 30 million, out of 450 million, so we will never experience the demographic threat seen in Europe, unless or political and cultural elite help the Saudis accelerate Da'wa efforts here. Canada, OTOH, may have a different experience entirely.
@skevin
"Jordan: New mosque dedicated to Christ"
Now, that is blasphemy! My feelings are hurt. The very notion is an affront to Yeshua and to Christianity. Who can say what kind of damage this will cause?
I'm going to start a riot, right after I finish my coffee...
/sarc
sonomaca other Western countries will most likely get it earlier, but the US is not far behind as you already have Dearbornstan, problems in Co with meat packing plants, honour killings etc. My point is that we are all in the same boat and it going to get worse before it gets better. we need throw the yoke of islam overboard along with their followers and apologists, aka B.O.bama.
sonomaca other Western countries will most likely get it earlier, but the US is not far behind as you already have Dearbornstan, problems in Co with meat packing plants, honour killings etc. My point is that we are all in the same boat and it going to get worse before it gets better. we need throw the yoke of islam overboard along with their followers and apologists, aka B.O.bama.
The idea that our political leaders understand, or will ever understand the true nature of Islam is far-fetched, indeed. --sonomaca
What the heck is so tough about Islam? Figuring out Kant and Sartre is a MILLION times tougher.
Islam is easy:
1. We are the Supreme peoples. Everybody else sucks.
2. Islam is the Supreme religion. Every other religion sucks.
3. Allah commands that we either subdue or kill all "Infidels," until Islam achieves world hegemony, and Allah is the only God worshipped. This is called "Jihad."
4. Concerning females, their "Paradise is under the heel of a man's foot," proclaimed our Prophet, and so we must crush them accordingly.
5. The End. That's Islam. Gee, really tough to understand, isn't it. Now, take on some Kant for a few hours. Good Luck!
Excellent piece as usual Hugh. I am wondering when, or if, the civilized people will figure out what the real truth of Islam is. I hold out little hope for countries like Pakistan, or Afghanistan, where tribalism rules supreme and there is little or no real education. Real education (not the Islamic kind) will get you killed in countries like Afghanistan or Pakistan. I personally think the situation is bleak.
It seems that the West is going through a period of de-education. Students are being taught revisionist history on many historical happenings, all of which is dangerous. I think ignoring the historical truth of Islam will prove to be deadly to many more people and civilization as we know it. I have read many articles on JW regarding text books that promote historical lies in regard to Islam (examples of which can be found by performing a simple search of JW or by clicking this link (links to a JW search).
It seems to me that much of the willingness, by those we elect to lead, to ignore the basic tenets of Islam comes from the fact that the west relies on Middle Eastern oil. A fear of the spigot being shut off forces those in positions of leadership to ignore what is blatantly obvious. I do not see any chance of defeating this enemy until oil from the middle east is not worth pumping from the ground. As long as the West allows itself to be dependent on Arab Islamists for its energy needs, Arab Islamists will have a stranglehold on the West. With the power the environmentalist have as a voting block I do not see this stranglehold being released anytime soon.Personally I find Islam to be a larger threat than global warming.
Another problem I see is the West needs to assuage itself of guilt for past misdeeds. People are so afraid of being labeled as a hatemonger, Islamaphobe, racist, or close minded. Guilt is a tough feeling to over come. People will go out of their way to demonstrate they are open-minded, fair, and tolerant. How many articles have been printed by the mainstream media that are written in a manner that is purposely designed to invoke guilt in the readers mind? How many times do we hear leaders (particularly those on the left, yes I am speaking of you Senator Obama) talk about how horrible and unfair We are (Americans in particular). As long as Islamist can use the guilt of the past, and the fear of future transgressions, against us they will. Guilt and fear are powerful weapons against a people who wish to act in accord with 21st century principles of civilized behaviors. Of course guilt has no affect on those who believe that their wanton murder is ordained by God himself and that such wanton murder and abuse will assure the Islamist place in paradise.
It is my opinion that more doom and gloom is on the horizon. Islam is a like a cancer in many ways. Islam spreads, consuming all civilization and culture that it comes in contact in essence killing that culture off forever. Pakistan may have a Hindu history but the cancer Islam has consumed it and without a transplant it is lost forever. Another example of Islam is like a cancer is people ignore it. How many cancer victims ignored the signs until it was to late? How many people buried their head in the sand and ignored that lump in their neck? Islam is the same way. People see the cancerous lump that is Islam and they ignore it, Islam will go away, Islam only affects those poor countries in the Middle East and Africa. How many believe we are immune from the cancerous affects of Islams, that we are isolated from said affects, that the West will never succumb to this cancer? Many a hero has died from cancer and we all know heroes never die. Unfortunately it may take a hero dieing, in the form of a European ally succumbing to the cancer that is Islam, before other countries decide to head to the cultural oncologist and treat their cancer that is Islam.
Darcy - don't wish Kant on us! I will tell you that reading the Qur'an is no picnic, however, even just a little of it will demonstrate to the reader that
1) the Qur'an is derived from other religious sources (ie, the Bible, the Torah, paganism, etc.)
2) the Qur'an is anti-Semitic
3) according to the Qur'an, women are the sexual property of men
4) Arabs are superior to all other people.
5) Muslims can do what ever they want to with unbelievers
6) Robbery, killing, raping and slavery are all permitted (halal)
7) Islam is better than any other religion and must be established everywhere by any means necessary
8) Unbelievers must convert, except dhimmitude or die.
As long as Muslims are allowed to believe in this fashion, the Jihad against the world will not stop.
"Darcy - don't wish Kant on us!" --tanstaafl
LOL How 'bout Hegel? Enjoy!
Also, I believe your list pretty much echoes mine.
No, Jihad will never stop unless the open-ended, for-all-time, eternal commands of allah to "Kill the Infidels" are refuted and abolished.
End of that story.
"All it takes is a few brains to be well-placed in Washington.
Is that too much to ask?"
Hugh,
To this point, it would seem that you are asking too much of our political process to produce someone with a brain to be selected to the forefront.
It's very difficult, though not impossible, to make any headway in educating the American people when the dominant press and television corps of "reporters" (Ha!) has been and remains both complicit and in conspiracy with the forces of Islam and Marx - whatever it takes, whichever side can destroy America first.
Stalin, Lenin, Hitler and now Obama all knew that if one can first control and filter what information the public gets to digest and thereupon render its decisions at the polls, then one can control the outcome of the election and the process.
Suffice it to say that we no longer have a press corps in the United States, but rather a transcription service for the left wing and a covering shield for Islam's truths and intentions.
We do have you and a few others like you, who have given us fair warning and have educated us. For that I humbly thank you, sir. And I continue to heed the lessons you at JihadWatch have rendered.
Continue the fight. Some of us out here are paying attention.
darcy said:
No, Jihad will never stop unless the open-ended, for-all-time, eternal commands of allah to "Kill the Infidels" are refuted and abolished.
End of that story.
Figuring out Islam is easy, putting an end to it is much more difficult. I do not think that the refutement or abolishment of Jihad will begin to happen until people give up the idea of idea of moral equivalence of culture ends.
I see socialism/communism and Islam as symptoms of a single problem. One can look around and see that communism/socialism has not once worked. Venezuela for example has had its oil ouput drop significantly from previous values because of its socialist leaders policies. Yet people like Sean Penn will embrace Hugo Chavez as some type of political hero.
The same can be said of Islam. I challenge any one to name one Islamified country that is not a hell hole, yet people still willingly convert to Islam. The effects are plain to see for all yet people are blind or willingly choose to ignore what is happening.
Defining and recognizing the problem may be easy for some, correcting the situation is the challenge.
HUGH: "When Islam was seen as obviously weak relative to the West-- as it was for about a century and a half (roughly, from 1820 to 1970) -- then Muslims were relatively quiet. In fact, they even made moves to placate the West in meaningless ways."
Goes back a bit further; Let's remember that at the close of the 18th century, Napolean conquered Egypt with a small armada transporting a small army.
One other point...I've always found it interesting that the apex of religious and personal freedom in the Muslim world was during the "bad old days" of colonialism.
It is true that Napoleon entered Egypt in 1798, as I have mentioned many times and could hardly have forgotten, but it is not true that the entire Muslim world was aware, in 1798, that this meant the West possessed overwhelming military superiority. The Mamelukes had been in control of Egypt since 1517, and Egypt itself was, though officially part of the Ottoman Empire, controlled by those who were not always dutifully obedient to the Ottoman Sultan (see, a few years later, the behavior of Mehmet Ali). Napoleon may have been able to conquer Egypt, but he also left Egypt, and at least one of his famous generals converted to Islam -- possibly Kleber, but I remeber that on this point I have misremembered before.
What of the Mughal Empire? Clive won his battle at Plessy only in 1757; Muslims still controlled large parts of the subcontinent. What of the Persian Empire? It was still inact, and the later incursions by the British, who loom so large in the pantheon of evil even of present-day seemingly rational Iranians in exile, had not yet begun. The British began, only very tentatively, to start sending ships near the Persian Gulf (see J. B. Kelly, "Britain and the Persian Gulf, 1795-1880).
And what about the main Muslim power, the Ottoman Empire itself? Did the Sultan, the Padishah sitting in Constantinople, realize with a pang, because the French had entered Egypt, that the Muslms were weak, weak, weak? No, of course not. In fact, the Muslims who attacked Christian shipping with impunity continued to do so, until the Americans stopped them through forceful action (google "William Eaton"). But they resumed their attacks when the Americans weren't around, and finally the French felt compelled to take Algeria -- but they did so only in 1830.
I chose the date 1820 -- I might have chosen 1830, or 1810, which is why I carefully wrote "roughly" -- because I wanted the beginning date and the end date, to encompass, "roughly," one hundred and fifty years, a sesquicentury in which the West's power was obviously superior. The end date, 1970, is also a little arbitrary. I might have put it at 1973, when OPEC quadrupled the price of oil and showed it had some market power (that power to raise, or lower, prices out of calculated self-interest has largely been lost, though the revenues from the sale of oil keep pouring in and, with or with out OPEC, supply the Arabs and other Muslims with their Money Weapon).
So 1820 could have been moved a decade back or a decade forward, and 1970 could have been a decade back or a decade forward too. And that's what the adverb "roughly" does -- it signals an extension of the temporal possibilities, when it is not fixed but a matter of judgment, before -- and also after.
HUGH: "And what about the main Muslim power, the Ottoman Empire itself? Did the Sultan, the Padishah sitting in Constantinople, realize with a pang, because the French had entered Egypt, that the Muslms were weak, weak, weak? No, of course not."
RESPONSE: In fact, he must have been well aware Muslims were weak because over the preceding 2 centuries, vast realms of his empire had been lost to the encroaching infidels. Croatia, Hungary and Transylvania were all transferred to the Hapsburgs via war and aftermath, as well as territories north of the Black Sea, siezed by Russia...and this all occurred in the 17th and early 18th centuries.
I guess my point is, Islam was in noticeable decline vis-a-vis the West LONG before 1820.
OPEC, 1973, marks the beginning of the Islamic Renaissance, marked by vulgarity, violence, intolerance and reaction, a sort of anti-Renaissance, where Michelangelo gives way to Ahmedinejad. Instead of awe, we have fear.
I just wonder how much of the censorship called political correctness is also an offshoot of the cultural spillover from Islam, where blasphemy is a capital offense and free speech is dangerous. All that money in academia, advertising and business has to have an effect.
Just think, Western civilization brought low by a commodity. It kind of makes you pine for the colonial days.
Skevin: do you mean that Islam is trying to appropriate Jesus to use for their own ends? Do they think they can "swallow" Christianity by devoting mosques to Jesus?
the_AntiMo: I think people will continue to convert to Islam as long as the West allows itself to be plundered. When the West was firm against Islam, very few converted. But so many people are blind to the parasitic nature of Islam.
Indeed, I have been offerred the "opportunity" to convert, by people who ran away from their Islamic hellholes as refugees from the effects of Islam!
What will it take before the world realizes that Islam is the problem? A few things. The radicalization of the Muslim world and of Muslims in the Free World can only help it along. This makes Islam more obvious and less deniable. The more Salafists there are, the more niqabs, the more exposes on madrassas, the more Islamic the Muslim world becomes, the less infidels can hide from the doctrine of Islam. For instance, Jamaat e Islami, the reigning party in Pakistan, actually posits as a huge part of its platform the reinstitution of slavery. Infidels can't hide from that. The more polygamous marriages in Europe and the more underage girls who are pimped into incestuous sharia sex slavery, the less people can deny the evil that is Islam. The downside is that Muslims only become emboldened to show their true Islamic colors when they have a high even population in which to isolate themselves, although this could easily be averted through the education of infidels, which is unlikely to happen.
Not only do our schools not teach about Islam and actively rewrite Islamic history and whitewash the Muslim world, but universities in America are quickly becoming Muslim. By this I mean that they are essentially institutions in which nobody can earn a legitimate education. People can only be indoctrinated and, in the few cases of people like myself - who actually know the truth and occasionally pick up a reputable history book or some useful nonfiction like that written by Brigitte Gabriel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ali Sina, etc. - be endlessly subjected to what is tantamount to intellectual if not psychological torture. Universities are essentially small, parasitic, regressive, repressive, totalitarian regimes propped up by evil 5th-column connections. It has, over the last 14 months at IU, become perfectly evident to me that academia is like the mafia. People don't get promoted based on scholarship or qualifications, but rather based on 5th-column connections and evil politics. Everyone protects their own and 'the institution,' and, as in the Muslim world, nothing can get better.
We also need to isolate the Muslim world. It may be too late for Europe and if not then it will require a nasty, protracted civil war to defeat it there. If we don't deal with the Muslim world, we benefit, they don't, and they sink in their own hubris, backwardness, and decadence. Imagine if the Muslim world had to buy Muslim-made cars and computers. Imagine Muslim-made cars and computers. Naturally, the Islamic response to a lack of trade and diplomacy with, and aid from, the Free World would be to say that Western influence is evil and that they're better off without it, and they would of course all naturally rocket themselves back a few centuries behind where they are now, which is a couple of centuries behind where we are now, into essentially the Dark Ages without Western Enlightenment.
Then, if it even matters, in order for the Muslim world to reform, which would of course require generations of backwardness with zero Western intervention, they would need another Ataturk. Then they would progress, call the progress 'jahiliyia,' and regress again until they're finally done with Islam. But the Muslim world is too despotic for another Ataturk.
So, isolation (which would stop our universities from whoring themselves out to Saudis, with all the horrible consquences), no aid to, or diplomacy or trade with the Muslim world, and probably a civil war in Europe. Maybe some infidels would pick up a book after all that.
I love how the Egyptians I know dissimulate themselves from Islam and try to reinvent themselves in the eyes of infidels as semi-Western. They identify themselves as 'African,' which is ironic, since Egypt's favorite Friday afternoon activity is killing Copts, the only Africans left in Egypt, but they do this in order to not be associated with the Saudis, the Saudis who fund the very mosques they attend here and who are largely the reason why our universities even deign to accept people like themselves who lack the equivalent of a Guatemalan 1st-grade education and believe that the Earth is flat and that sun revolves around the Earth and sets in a muddle puddle, who couldn't have performed so well on the GRE if they believe what they were taught in Egyptian schools, that 1/3 + 2/3 + 1/8 = 1. But they're as Arab as can be, having been brought here through nothing more than politics and corruption, living in student housing for pedophiles with their incestuous sharia sex slaves, attending their HAMAS-front MSU meetings, and always acting for infidels but never associating with them, isolating themselves in their inbred, uneducated, terrorist enclaves.