• Why Jihad Watch?
  • About Robert Spencer and Staff Writers
  • FAQ
  • Books
  • Muhammad
  • Islam 101
  • Privacy

Jihad Watch

Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Spencer: Anti-Muslim? Not me

Oct 7, 2004 6:25 am By Robert Spencer

This week’s column by Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer expands upon CAIR’s new survey that found that 25% of Americans are “anti-Muslim” because they think Islam teaches violence. From FrontPage:

Twenty-five percent of Americans hold what AP calls “anti-Muslim views,” according to a story published Monday. AP added that “the poll found that people most likely to have negative attitudes were male, white, less educated, politically conservative and living in the South.” And, no doubt, wear overalls and drive pickups with gun racks and Confederate flag bumper stickers.

Working hard to dispel the prejudice of these benighted Bubbas is none other than the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which actually conducted the survey. They’re planning activities during the Muslim month of Ramadan to counter what AP characterized as one indication of “anti-Muslim views”: “a belief that the religion teaches violence and hatred.”

How’s that again? Americans are “anti-Muslim” because they think Islam teaches violence and hatred? With Muslims shouting “Allahu akbar” (Allah is greatest) while beheading civilians in Iraq and murdering children in Beslan, Russia, perhaps it’s a bit premature to convict this 25% of Americans of bigotry. With the leader of the Pakistani radical Muslim group Jaish-e-Mohammed, Maulana Masood Azhar, saying last year that “in Islam the only meaning of jihad was killing,” maybe that twenty-five percent is on to something.

But of course, CAIR maintains that all that is a hijacking of Islam. CAIR Board Chairman Omar Ahmad insisted that those who commit violence in Islam’s name “have nothing to do with Islam. People claim they are doing it for Islam, but it’s really in spite of Islam,” Ahmad said. And they have convinced Americans of this: “About two in three,” according to AP, “said they agreed that ‘the people who use Islam to justify violence are misinterpreting its teachings.'”

Maulana Masood Azhar himself was not so easily convinced. He declared that the misinterpreters were the Muslim moderates, saying that those who elaborated the ideas of the “greater jihad” and the “lesser jihad” were “against Islam.” The “greater jihad,” as American Muslim spokesmen never tire of reminding us, is spiritual struggle. The “lesser jihad,” they say, is warfare, but only for defense. In my book Onward Muslim Soldiers I detail how radical Muslims including Abdullah Azzam, Osama bin Laden’s mentor, and Hassan Al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood (the first modern radical Muslim group), rejected the concept of the “greater jihad” as being founded upon inauthentic traditions of the Prophet Muhammad. Azhar evidently shares this view.

What’s more, from the standpoint of Islamic theology and tradition, the radicals have the better of the argument. The courageous ex-Muslim Ibn Warraq writer explains: “For every text the liberal Muslims produce, the mullahs will use dozens of counter-examples [that are] exegetically, philosophically, historically far more legitimate.” He adds that “it is time for moderate Muslims to question honestly the principles of their faith. To admit the role of the Qur’an in the propagation of violence.”

To admit the role of the Qur’an in the propagation of violence is simply to open one’s eyes and read the statements of Osama bin Laden and other radical Muslim leaders. Is to do this “anti-Muslim”? Certainly CAIR, as shown by this AP article, thinks of all such efforts as “anti-Muslim,” and the media uncritically accepts the group’s contention that to discuss the roots of terror in the doctrine of jihad is to hate Muslims. But in fact, to criticize the elements of Islam that give rise to terror is not to be anti-Muslim at all; individual Muslims themselves may not accept or even know about the doctrines that Osama and others use to justify themselves.

Moreover, to ignore these elements out of fear of being anti-Muslim plays into the hands of the jihadists by foreclosing on any honest examination of why they’re really doing what they’re doing — which foreclosure, of course, destroys the chance that any positive and truly effective steps can be taken to stop them.

It is not hating Muslims to ask them to remove the hate from their religion, and to accept the principles of human rights that are accepted everywhere else in the world. But will Omar Ahmad and CAIR admit this? I doubt it. Ahmad, of course, was reported as saying in 1998 that “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.” He has since claimed that his remarks were misrepresented, but the reporter says she remembers his statement, if not his exact words, and declines to retract her story.

Is Omar Ahmad himself “anti-Muslim”?

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Follow me on Facebook

Filed Under: Robert Spencer


Learn more about RevenueStripe...

FacebookYoutubeTwitterLog in

Subscribe to the Jihad Watch Daily Digest

You will receive a daily mailing containing links to the stories posted at Jihad Watch in the last 24 hours.
Enter your email address to subscribe.

Please wait...

Thank you for signing up!
If you are forwarding to a friend, please remove the unsubscribe buttons first, as they my accidentally click it.

Subscribe to all Jihad Watch posts

You will receive immediate notification.
Enter your email address to subscribe.
Note: This may be up to 15 emails a day.

Donate to JihadWatch
FrontPage Mag

Search Site

Translate

The Team

Robert Spencer in FrontPageMag
Robert Spencer in PJ Media

Articles at Jihad Watch by
Robert Spencer
Hugh Fitzgerald
Christine Douglass-Williams
Andrew Harrod
Jamie Glazov
Daniel Greenfield

Contact Us

Terror Attacks Since 9/11

Archives

  • 2020
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2019
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2018
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2017
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2016
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2015
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2014
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2013
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2012
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2011
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2010
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2009
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2008
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2007
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2006
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2005
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2004
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2003
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • March

All Categories

You Might Like

Learn more about RevenueStripe...

Recent Comments

  • Michael Copeland on New study reveals that Muslim religiosity strongly linked to hatred towards the West
  • Michael Copeland on New study reveals that Muslim religiosity strongly linked to hatred towards the West
  • Westman on New study reveals that Muslim religiosity strongly linked to hatred towards the West
  • gravenimage on Erdogan: ‘Turks must defend the rights of Jerusalem, even with their lives’ for ‘the honor of the Islamic nation’
  • gravenimage on Erdogan: ‘Turks must defend the rights of Jerusalem, even with their lives’ for ‘the honor of the Islamic nation’

Popular Categories

dhimmitude Sharia Jihad in the U.S ISIS / Islamic State / ISIL Iran Free Speech

Robert Spencer FaceBook Page

Robert Spencer Twitter

Robert Spencer twitter

Robert Spencer YouTube Channel

Books by Robert Spencer

Jihad Watch® is a registered trademark of Robert Spencer in the United States and/or other countries - Site Developed and Managed by Free Speech Defense

Content copyright Jihad Watch, Jihad Watch claims no credit for any images posted on this site unless otherwise noted. Images on this blog are copyright to their respective owners. If there is an image appearing on this blog that belongs to you and you do not wish for it appear on this site, please E-mail with a link to said image and it will be promptly removed.

Our mailing address is: David Horowitz Freedom Center, P.O. Box 55089, Sherman Oaks, CA 91499-1964

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.