Fitzgerald: Would she say it in Riyadh?

The picture here of the niqab'd girl, with the caption underneath ("Just like anyone else") should make us think, of course, of the much more dangerous picture: that not of the obvious slave of Allah, but rather of the Muslimah who is perfectly at home with the language and customs of the West -- perhaps an Ingrid Mattson type. A Western-dressed Muslimah, who may wear only the hijab, and that hijab could be an understated elegant chic Hermes scarf, is much more convincingly, to all outward appearances, "one of us."

What counts, however, is what Muslims possess in their mental makeup, whatever their outward aspect, whether burqa'ed or hijabbed or somewhere in-between, if women, or whether bearded or moustached or clean-shaven if men. The immigrants do not declare what they bring in their mental baggage. The converts to Islam do not declare what it is, by now becoming Muslims, they now willingly adhere to, and what the texts, and the tenets, and the attitudes, of Islam naturally, inevitably, mean for Infidels, even if they cannot pick up from outward and visible signs what lies within.

The niqab'ed lady tells us something. But what of the "smyler with the knyf under the cloke" -- especially if it is an ideological knife, to be used only when the time is right? And what if there is no actual cloak at all to look under or be wary about?

Says the Muslimah: "Being a Muslim is just like being a Christian or a Jewish person. We are all called to treat each other with respect."

Is that what Muhammad, through his words and deeds, through his example, taught? Is that what the Qur'an teaches -- to "treat each other with respect" and that "being a Muslim is just like being a Christian or a Jewish person"? Is that what 1350 years of Muslim conquest, and subjugation of tens of millions of non-Muslims, including those "Christian" and "Jewish" persons, demonstrates? Is the institution of the dhimmi -- with its condition for Jews and Christians of humiliation, degradation, and physical insecurity – a manifestation of that respect? That humiliation, degradation, and physical insecurity was here and there relieved not by a change in doctrine, but by a ruler who chose to be kind rather than brutal. But that was an individual matter, just as Akbar, syncretistic Akbar, removed the Jizyah requirement for Hindus, one promptly re-instated by the next ruler, Aurengzeb.

Islam is based on an uncompromising division of the world between Believer and Unbeliever, or Infidel. There must be a state of war between the two -- though not always a state of open warfare. For Muslims have a duty to spread Islam, and to constantly expand the boundaries of Dar al-Islam, the place where Islam dominates, and Muslims rule. This is a duty, not a suggestion.

The Muslimah who uttered that pleasing nonsense above should be made aware that such statements make her more, not less, suspect. Only a forthright admission of what Islam teaches, what its texts contain and its tenets demand, and what the attitudes of those who are suffused with Islam must necessarily be, at this point is acceptable. What one does about those texts, tenets, attitudes is another matter. But at the very least, Muslims have got to stop denying what is easy to find out. Islamic teaching is not exactly a secret, given all the testimony not only of the defectors from Islam, the apostates (who constitute the morally and intellectually advanced subset of people born, through no fault of their own, into Islam. Islamic teaching can be learned not only from the great Western scholars of Islam, who flourished in the period 1860-1960, but it is also no longer a secret because Muslims themselves, the Believers, have put all over the Internet their own Muslim websites where we can eavesdrop, and read the texts, and see what Muslims naturally make of those texts. We can discover -- a click away -- exactly what Islam is all about.

Would the Muslimah quoted stand in front of a Muslim crowd in a land where Muslims dominate, and make, with a slight rewording, the same statement? Would she stoutly maintain -- in Iran, in Sudan, in Saudi Arabia, in Pakistan, in Egypt -- before Muslim audiences that:

"Being a Christian or a Jewish person is just like being a Muslim. We are all called to treat each other with respect"?

Doubtful in the extreme.

Posted by Hugh at July 7, 2008 9:07 AM
Print this entry | Email this entry | Digg this | del.icio.us