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Fitzgerald: On the commanded and prohibited in Islam

Jan 24, 2005 10:08 am By Hugh Fitzgerald

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald considers the implications of the possibility that the charges are true that the Armanious family murders were religiously motivated:

To understand better what is not only past in Islam, but also passing and, most importantly, to come, members of the security services in the Western world should learn what Islam teaches its adherents, whether they ignore most of those teachings and in fact dissent (and do not do so merely for the sake of infidel good will), from them (the so-called “moderates”) or whether they choose to follow those teachings in a more observant fashion (what we may call the “rigorist” or “immoderate” Muslims, of whom there are a great many).

Islam is based on divisions, or perhaps one should say polarities. And these polarities explain the widespread bipolar disorder of Muslim peoples, swinging from gloom (as in June, 1967) to elation (as on the afternoon of September 11, 2001). For Infidels, the main polarity to be aware of in Islam is the absolute divide between the Believer and the Unbeliever. Fellow Believers must be supported, must never have war made upon them in the service of Unbelievers (or Infidels). Unbelievers, on the other hand, must not be taken as friends (“Christians and Jews are friends with each other”), not be treated as equals but subject to all sorts of disabilities, and while they may be exploited in every possible way, that exploitation should not lead to any felt gratitude toward the Infidels. The Iraqi who told an NPR interviewer (Deborah Amos) on Jan. 22 that the Americans “must leave” but only after they “stop terrorism” and “fix everything,” was perfectly willing to have American soldiers fight and die to end terrorism by some Muslims, for the sake of other Muslims who apparently disagree with the President’s notion that “freedom isn’t free” (they are quite content, at least, to pay for that “freedom” not out of their own pockets, but to pick the pockets of the obliging, trusting, ever-generous and hopeful Americans). If the Shi”a are now “supporting the elections, it is only because they know they will win those elections, and not because they have, all of a sudden, become staunch democrats and great readers of The Federalist and John Stuart Mill. They will bide their time, take power, and continue to regard all Infidels as “najis” or unclean. Despite the opinions expressed by some, including the convert to Sufi Islam Stephen Schwartz, or Reuel Gerecht, who assured a CNN audience that the Islamic Republic of Iran had “run its course” more than a decade ago, and therefore presumably, we can stop worrying about it — unfortunately someone forgot to tell the Teheran regime that it had “run its course” and its time was up, and that it really should stop constructing those nuclear weapons. Shi”a as compared to Sunni may in Iraq, as in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, be slightly more sinned against than sinning, but this does not make them the friends of Infidels. Americans should expect no gratitude for having rescued them from the monstrous regime of Saddam Hussein, which had lasted for 35 years, and was prepared to last for another 35.

The division between Believer and Infidel in the world is mirrored in how the world itself is divided, between Dar al-Islam, the lands were Islam rules and Muslims dominate (though they need not be a majority of the population), and dar al-harb, the House of War, where Infidels, for now, have not yet been conquered, by whatever means, and subjugated to Islam.

The divisions of the great world are mirrored in the divisions that rule all of life. Everything one does is either halal (permited, licit) or haram (prohibited, illicit). It is all laid down, or if not laid down in some book, then a fatwa or opinion may serve as the final guide of how a Muslim should act. Muslims living in the Lands of the Infidels face new questions. May they, for example, obey Infidel laws? (Answer: Only to the extent that those laws do not contravene Islam.) Now a good guide to what is halal and what is haram is Al-Halal wal Haram fil Islam by the well-known Qaradawi, who now lives in Qatar (also the home of Al-Jazeera). Hairdos in the shape of a camel’s hump? Haram. Statues that have not been vandalized or defaced? Haram. A nice glass of fruit juice? Halal. A leg of lamb, from a lamb that has been killed in the Halal manner (oops, this is a trick question). Halal.

A few years ago Michael Cook wrote his Commanding Right and Prohibiting Wrong in Islam. In Christianity, one is expected to promote what is “right”, and to discourage people from doing “wrong.” The Christian version of Cook’s book would be Commending Right and Discouraging Wrong. What a difference a vowel makes. Islam is all about power; Islam commands, Islam forbids, Islam demands of Believers absolute slavish submissiveness to the Rules of Islam. And Unbelievers, too, must obey the rules of the game, for if they are allowed to live, they owe their very lives to Muslims who have generously permitted that — in return for behaving as dhimmis, and for not putting up resistance to the spread of Islam.

The Armanious family had overstepped those rules. The father, who defended the Copts and attacked the treatment they had historically received from Muslims, expressed these views on Muslim websites. Sylvia the 15-year-old daughter, was proud to defend, even to promote among others, her own faith. Either the father, or Sylvia, or perhaps both of them, had violated what is demanded of dhimmis.

By all the laws of civilization and of the United States of America, the butchery that followed was strictly wrong, forbidden, prohibited, haram. According, however, to the fanatical views of the “immoderate” Muslims (as opposed the other kind about which he hear so much, but from whom we hear so little), this family of Copts, the descendants of the original inhabitants of Egypt and ever since the arrival of Islam, a group persecuted in their own country, had come from Egypt, and knew the Muslim rules. Yet here in America, members of this family made the mistake of thinking they were free to act as free Americans, and had dared to violate those rules. According, however, to the fanatical views of the “immoderate” Muslims (as opposed the other kind, about which we hear so much, and from whom we hear so little), the whole Armanious family deserved what they got (as part of “an intense Islamic revolution all across America that holds the right and bring down [sic] the falsehood that they”ve created” as someone says at an Islamic website), for in the eyes of their killers and those killers” open or secret supporters, they should have behaved in America just as Copts are made to behave in Egypt. To many Muslims, the Christians of the Middle East are supposed to carry their dhimmitude with them, and these Copts violated their pact. They owed everything, the celebrated kindness of Islam, which allowed them to live as long as they strictly adhered to the rules of dhimmitude. This they failed to do. They may have been butchered, but it was strictly according to the rules. They violated their agreement, and lost the right to live. Whoever killed them acted, it would seem, in defense of Islam and against these Copts who had forgotten their place. Que voulez-vous, monsieur? Don’t worry. It was all strictly halal.

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