Here is a terrific new piece at Pajamas Media by my friend and former Jihad Watch writer, Raymond Ibrahim:
In a blog entry for Islamist Watch, David J. Rusin shows how the word "jihad" continues to be euphemized in the West. Despite Islamic law's unequivocal portrayal of it as a military endeavor to empower Islam, jihad is still being peddled as "nothing more than a student laboring to pass algebra, a mom driving her kids to soccer practice, or, in the words of the Cambridge study, a civic-minded person engaged in 'lobbying, activism, and writing' -- a community organizer of sorts." Rusin concludes by observing: "Why Islamists peddle such specious definitions should be clear. More baffling and disturbing is why they gain traction among so many Westerners."Indeed, therein lies the irony: Islamist perfidy is only to be expected; Western naivety, on the other hand, which, if anything, should have begun to dissipate in our post-9/11 world, has burgeoned to the point of nearly making the former unnecessary. For while there is no doubt that Islamists (and their misguided Western cronies) distort the meaning of jihad, increasingly, even when the true meaning is in plain sight, America's leaders and media still fail to discern it. In other words, apathy -- or willful blindness -- regarding jihad has become so deep-seated in the West that Islamists need no longer actively dissemble.
Consider: When President Barack Hussein Obama addressed the Islamic world from Cairo on June 4, 2009, he said: "As the Holy Koran tells us, 'Be conscious of God and speak always the truth' [Sura 9:119]. That is what I will try to do -- to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us." Let us for the moment put aside the fact that Sura 9, from whence Obama quotes, contains the most violent and intolerant exhortations in all the Koran (which is saying something). The problem here is that the original Arabic text of Sura 9:119 says absolutely nothing about "speaking the truth." The word "speaking" is nowhere in the text, and "truth," as an abstract, is a wrong translation for sadiqin, which refers to people. The verse most literally translates as "fear Allah and be with the truthful." In other words, Muslims should stand firm with fellow Muslims ("truthful" serving as a Koranic epithet for "Muslims" the same way "believers" often does). It is, as ever, a call for divisiveness -- of Muslims (the "truthful") versus infidels (the "false").
Had Obama or his Mideast advisors and speechwriters simply bothered to read this verse in context -- verse 9:111, a jihadi all-time favorite, looms just above, promising believers paradise in exchange for their killing and being killed -- or if they had bothered consulting mainstream Muslim exegeses, they might have known that this verse is part of a Koranic segment that deals exclusively with fighting infidels: Muhammad and several Muslims were preparing to invade Byzantine territory. Some Muslims wanted to stay behind. It was then that Allah/Muhammad threatened them with this verse to "fear Allah and be with the truthful" (i.e., join ranks with your fellow Muslims on the warpath). Sentences later, this exhortation culminates in one of the most famous calls to violence in all the Koran, regularly evoked by modern-day jihadis: "O you who believe, fight those infidels who dwell around you, and let them find harshness in you!" [9:123]....
Why is Raymond a "former" Jihad Watch writer, Robert? I have really missed his translations of Father Zakarias' television show.
Connoisseurs will especially enjoy the last three paragraphs, one of those interfaith-dialogue-diversity-at-all-costs meetings where the innocents of the NYPD get together with Muslims to celebrate how well they get along, and the Imam chooses as his text, knowing full well the Infidels won't understand a thing, a passage that proclaims, or foresees, the triumph of Muslims over the Infidels, the very Infidels who are there, smiling, meeting and greeting, drinking fruit juice and water, and having an absolutely smashing time with their true-blue Muslim friends.
Raymond Ibrahim, besides being an eternal friend of the truth espoused here at JW, is a learned scholar of Islam, unencumbered by the mental shackles of Islam, supported my the vehicular manacles of PC.
He does, and always has, spoken the truth to power about Islam, not the amorphous term of "terrorism", that the "Lamestream" media would have us believe Islamic jihad is, but rather the underlying motive....Islam.
I for one, applaud Raymond in his venture outside of JW, and wish him well, hoping that his core message of Islam be realyed and eventually perceived and actualized upon by the West.
I personally, owe him my thanks as well. The truth is the truth, no matter who utters it.
Thank you, Raymond.
In Sura 4: ayah 95 talks about the levels of heaven and belief, that he prefers people that give money and fight in war instead of sitting and hiding. The same for Sura 9: Ayah 19-20. Sura 48: aya 17 the "Tree Deal". Mohamed was depressed because he was kicked out of Mecca and sat under a tree. The "true followers" came to him and said they would give their souls, body's, kids, everything for him. God saw this was good and they were not bullshitting, and promised Mohamed that he would conquer Mecca again.
If I were optimistic about Obama I might be inclined to credit him with sending a coded message by referencing Surah 9 of the Koran.
Such as 'I may seem clueless when I drone on about Islam, but don't think I'm unaware of the sword verses and what they mean.'
Is that just me whistling in the dark?
StephenA55, you have a fair question there. I believe a fair and too short answer is "yes."
It has been hypothesized that if a person lacks the vocabulary to express a concept that person lacks the ability to understand and think about that concept. The leftist ideology in this country "presumes" at a basic level that all human beings are basically good and if approached "fairly" are incapable of Jihadist behavior. When presented with direct evidence to the contrary they are unable to even think about it or see it happen. They are literally mentally blind to what happens around them. And when that man, who is not there, with a gun, that is not there, shoots them with bullets that cannot be in that gun, they are as mystified as if the universe had flipped upside down and they fell away from the Earth into the sky.
That is the only reason I can find that explains feminists not screaming to the heavens about Islam's subjugation of women. It is the only reason I can see for even President Bush believing the Saudi princes and their pronouncements of support for the US despite their financing of Al Qaeda and world terrorism. It is the only reason that can explain President Carter's utterly ridiculous claims about Hamas and Israel. In all cases the ideology leaves the people blind to reality even when it comes and bumps their own personal noses.
{^_^}