The estimable Patrick Sookhdeo, who has done superlative work tracing the systematic denial of rights and persecution of Christians by Muslims in Pakistan, has written a superb piece underscoring what I have said many, many times: there are moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate: the teachings that the jihad terrorists use to justify their actions are embedded in the core of the religion. From The Spectator, with thanks to John Derbyshire:
The funeral of British suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer was held in absentia in his family”s ancestral village, near Lahore, Pakistan. Thousands of people attended, as they did again the following day when a qul ceremony was held for Tanweer. During qul, the Koran is recited to speed the deceased’s journey to paradise, though in Tanweer’s case this was hardly necessary. Being a shahid (martyr), he is deemed to have gone straight to paradise. The 22-year-old from Leeds, whose bomb at Aldgate station killed seven people, was hailed by the crowd as “˜a hero of Islam”.
Some in Britain cannot conceive that a suicide bomber could be a hero of Islam. Since 7/7 many have made statements to attempt to explain what seems to them a contradiction in terms. Since the violence cannot be denied, their only course is to argue that the connection with Islam is invalid. The deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Brian Paddick, said that “˜Islam and terrorists are two words that do not go together.” His boss, the Commissioner Sir Ian Blair, asserted that there is nothing wrong with being a fundamentalist Muslim.
But surely we should give enough respect to those who voluntarily lay down their lives to accept what they themselves say about their motives. If they say they do it in the name of Islam, we must believe them. Is it not the height of illiberalism and arrogance to deny them the right to define themselves?
On 8 July the London-based Muslim Weekly unblushingly published a lengthy opinion article by Abid Ullah Jan entitled “˜Islam, Faith and Power”. The gist of the article is that Muslims should strive to gain political and military power over non-Muslims, that warfare is obligatory for all Muslims, and that the Islamic state, Islam and Sharia (Islamic law) should be established throughout the world. All is supported with quotations from the Koran. It concludes with a veiled threat to Britain. The bombings the previous day were a perfect illustration of what Jan was advocating, and the editor evidently felt no need to withdraw the article or to apologise for it. His newspaper is widely read and distributed across the UK.
By far the majority of Muslims today live their lives without recourse to violence, for the Koran is like a pick-and-mix selection. If you want peace, you can find peaceable verses. If you want war, you can find bellicose verses. You can find verses which permit only defensive jihad, or you can find verses to justify offensive jihad.
You can even find texts which specifically command terrorism, the classic one being Q8:59-60, which urges Muslims to prepare themselves to fight non-Muslims, “˜Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies” (A. Yusuf Ali’s translation). Pakistani Brigadier S.K. Malik’s book The Quranic Concept of War is widely used by the military of various Muslim countries. Malik explains Koranic teaching on strategy: “˜In war our main objective is the opponent’s heart or soul, our main weapon of offence against this objective is the strength of our own souls, and to launch such an attack, we have to keep terror away from our own hearts…. Terror struck into the hearts of the enemies is not only a means, it is the end itself. Once a condition of terror into the opponent’s heart is obtained, hardly anything is left to be achieved. It is the point where the means and the end meet and merge. Terror is not a means of imposing decision on the enemy; it is the decision we wish to impose on him.”
If you permit yourself a little judicious cutting, the range of choice in Koranic teaching is even wider. A verse one often hears quoted as part of the “˜Islam is peace” litany allegedly runs along the lines: “˜If you kill one soul it is as if you have killed all mankind.” But the full and unexpurgated version of Q5:32 states: “˜If anyone slew a person “” unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land “” it would be as if he slew the whole people.” The very next verse lists a selection of savage punishments for those who fight the Muslims and create “˜mischief” (or in some English translations “˜corruption”) in the land, punishments which include execution, crucifixion or amputation. What kind of “˜mischief in the land” could merit such a reaction? Could it be interpreted as secularism, democracy and other non-Islamic values in a land? Could the “˜murder” be the killing of Muslims in Iraq? Just as importantly, do the Muslims who keep quoting this verse realise what a deception they are imposing on their listeners?…
Read it all. Read it all. Read it all.