Oh, and by the way, the caliph Ibrahim, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has a PhD in Islamic Studies. But the West’s mythologizing about Islam roars ahead regardless. My latest at PJ Media:
They call themselves the Islamic State. They claim to be the restorers of the caliphate, the ones who have finally fulfilled the most cherished aspiration of jihadists and Islamic supremacists the world over. They declare their intention to govern their domains solely and wholly by Islamic law, acting swiftly and ruthlessly to end any practice that does not conform to that law. They repeatedly proclaim their piety, ascribing all their victories to Allah and submitting themselves in all things to his will.
Yet despite all this, Western leaders, the mainstream media, and much of the public are certain of one thing: the Islamic State has nothing, nothing whatsoever, to do with Islam. So many people tell us so:
5. Shirley Sotloff
Shirley Sotloff is the mother of Steven J. Sotloff, an American who is being held hostage by the Islamic State. On Wednesday, she released a video appeal to the Islamic State’s “caliph Ibrahim,” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Her message to him was extremely respectful. Sotloff began: “I am sending this message to you, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi al-Quraishi al-Hussaini, the caliph of the Islamic State. I am Shirley Sotloff. My son Steven is in your hands.”
Sotloff went on to tell the caliph that Steven had “no control over the actions of the U.S. government. He is an innocent journalist.” In fact, she said he had gone to the Middle East to chronicle the sufferings of Muslims. This was tantamount to signaling to him that Steven Sotloff could be more useful to him alive than dead. She assumes throughout that the U.S. has indeed done wrong to the Islamic State, but argues that her son should not be punished for it.
“Since Steven’s capture,” she added, “I have learned a lot about Islam. I’ve learned that Islam teaches that no individual should be held responsible for the sins of others. As a mother, I ask your justice to be merciful and not punish my son for matters he has no control over.”
It’s odd that Shirley Sotloff, after addressing the caliph so respectfully, would presume to lecture him about Islam, and it’s frankly embarrassing that she does so based on her whitewashed Karen Armstrong/John Esposito understanding of the religion. Only from such peddlers of the Islam-is-a-Religion-of-Peace myth could she have gotten the idea that the caliph’s heart would be melted by an appeal to Islam from a Western non-Muslim woman with head uncovered.
But is she right? Has the caliph somehow overlooked (or intentionally ignored) this Islamic tenet? Or have Armstrong, Esposito, Aslan and the rest of the whitewash crew neglected to tell Mrs. Sotloff that Islamic law allows for the taking of captives (cf. Qur’an 47:4), including non-combatants such as women who are then pressed into sex slavery (cf. Qur’an 4:3, 4:24, 23:1-6, 33:50), and thus the kidnapping of a male journalist is certainly within the parameters of Islamic law?
Mrs. Sotloff continues: “As a mother, I ask your justice to be merciful and not punish my son for matters he has no control over. I ask you to use your authority to spare his life, and to follow the example set by the Prophet Mohammad, who protected People of the Book.”
Mrs. Sotloff may here be referring to the spurious but increasingly popular Achtiname, Muhammad’s pact with the monks of St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai, in which Muhammad grants all sorts of rights and privileges to Christians that do not accord with the provisions of Islamic law, which mandates that Christians and other non-Muslims be subjugated, in accord with the Qur’an: “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” — Qur’an 9:29. This subjugation is not a guarantee that one’s life will be spared, however; if one is considered to be a kaffir harbi, one’s life is forfeit.
The people who have misled Mrs. Sotloff about Islam have done her a grave disservice, and given her false hope.
4. Yvette Cooper
Yvette Cooper is a member of the British Parliament for the Labour Party, and serves as the shadow home secretary. She has said that Islamic State “extremists are beheading people and parading their heads on spikes, subjugating women and girls, killing Muslims, Christians and anyone who gets in their way. This is no liberation movement — only a perverted, oppressive ideology that bears no relation to Islam.”
Unfortunately, for every Islamic State atrocity she enumerated, there is Qur’anic sanction:
Beheading people: “When you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks….” (Qur’an 47:4)
Subjugating women and girls: “Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because Allah has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them.” (Qur’an 4:34)
Killing Muslims: “They wish that you reject Faith, as they have rejected (Faith), and thus that you all become equal (like one another). So take not Auliya’ (protectors or friends) from them, till they emigrate in the Way of Allah (to Muhammad SAW). But if they turn back (from Islam), take (hold) of them and kill them wherever you find them, and take neither Auliya’ (protectors or friends) nor helpers from them.” (Qur’an 4:89)
Killing Christians: “Fight those who believe not in God nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by God and His Apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” (Qur’an 9:29)
Even if the Islamic State is misinterpreting or misunderstanding these verses, it is doing so in a way that accords with their obvious literal meaning. That should, at the very least, lead to a public discussion about the possibility of Islamic reform, what is being taught in mosques in the West, and related issues. But such a discussion is not forthcoming; it would be “Islamophobic.”
3. Philip Hammond
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond declared: “Isil’s so-called caliphate has no moral legitimacy; it is a regime of torture, arbitrary punishment and murder that goes against the most basic beliefs of Islam.” Which ones? Hammond didn’t say. Everyone knows already, don’t they? Everyone knows that what the Islamic State is doing has nothing whatsoever to do with the true, peaceful teachings of Islam. No one can quite manage to explain how, but what do we care about details!
Read the rest here.
Bassam says
It is sickening to continually read such propaganda about Islam that has absolutely no basis in the Quran, in the Hadith, in the biography of the inventor of this gangster ideology, or in the long history of conquest, raids, piracy, massacres, rapes of Muslim savages out of Arabia into Arabizing all of the Middle East, and Islamizing by killings and rapes peoples from India to Morocco. In fact, most Muslims today are the product of rapes by Savage Arabs of their grand grand mothers who were taken captives after killing all males according to the rules of the Quran itself, and according to the Quran these captive women are called “Possessions of the right hand” and have no right to refuse sex with the Muslim Masters, their sons and daughters are automatically Muslims and they will repeat this Evil doing once more….till the end of days.
S. Bordne says
You are so funny and I assume you also believe in the tooth fairy and peter pan. So I take it you like most Muslims have not read the Koran. Read it and weep.
Brian says
Did you actually read the comment you’re responding to?
nacazo says
Shhh Robert, we with our heads in our ostrich holes are waiting for the reality to adjust to our fantasies and your words are not helping to keep the illusion.
signed,
The Association of ostriches in the West (including the Nobel Peace Prize winners)
Ayatrollah says
With my understanding of Islam, Allah’s final religion, Shirley Sotloff’s plea to the pious the caliph Ibrahim, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, should have gone like this: “we are prepared to pay what we can for his release”.
That is Islamic law, one option brother the caliph Ibrahim, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi can do.
Ayatrollah says
Test
d says
At the end of your article you say that Cameron and Obama should “call on Muslims in the U.S., the UK and elsewhere to teach against these understandings of Islam that they ostensibly reject. But they never do that, and apparently have no interest in doing it.”
Cameron has just come out saying during his news conference on the terror alert, and during his speach to parliment (past couple of days) that he is working to impliment those very things. I watched him say so on CNN International’s televising of those moments live.
There is a large gap opening up between Obama and Cameron on this issue. Cameron is still a deluded fool on the nature of Islam, but his feet are being held to the fire and that british accent from the ISIS monster is ringing in his ears.
Don McKellar says
here is a link to the youtube video of the full press conference.
you will notice Cameron again displaying his politically correct ignorance of Islam at first, but then you will hear him talk about implimenting EXACTLY what Robert Spencer suggests at the end of his piece. ie: “call on Muslims in the U.S., the UK and elsewhere to teach against these understandings of Islam that they ostensibly reject. ”
http://youtu.be/G4HDt9PUkeI
el-cid says
How long will the leadership be content mouthing these stupidities about Islam.
Let us hope that the contradictions are so obvious that the real debate that Robert has been advocating will finally become a concern for our leadership.
Namely, that the Muslim community must either promote a reformation, of be prepared to be at war with the West on political and ideological grounds. What they advocate now is akin to treason.
Liza Jones says
Islam must be taught in the public school system with a curriculum drawn up by secular educators—not left to imams in mosques and shielded from scrutiny because it is supposedly a religion. It is an –ISM, just as much as Communism, or Socialism, or the others that we teach as worldview political ideologies. I am hoping that if any good can come from the ISIS plague it will be a recognition by Wester governments and citizens of the insidious threat the ideology poses. I’m not holding my breath, though.
Ragai Mitry says
The oddly named Achtiname is probably a forgery. The monks probably made it up to protect themselves from Islamic rulers. There is no mention of it in Sahih Hadiths, and especially fishy is the drawing with a mosque and minaret in the botton right of the document. Minarets were NOT used at the time of Muhammad; they came in fashion many years after he died.
Alisia S says
Amazing how moderate Islam is.
Elise says
The same type of lost ideological dreamers would have thought Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Castro were peaceful people in the 20th Century. I don’t know why they are afraid to hear or admit the truth about inherently evil people. Perhaps, they are really cowards and evil as well.
Kepha says
Robert, you are a fool.
You know about Islam only because you’ve read a large pile of Islamic and non-Islamic source material in English, Arabic, and perhaps a couple of other languages and could probably compile a thirty-page bibliography at the drop of a hat. But, haven’t you lived in the USA long enough to know that a Leftist politico or journalist, simply by virtue of being a Leftist politico or journalist, is a bona fide expert on everything tahat ha-shemesh by the time he is a college Sophomore? Don’t you know that if a whole congregation of ex-Middle Eastern Christians compiles an encyclopedia of grandparents’ tales of the Seyfo, Anatolian horrors, Armenian massacres, and the ordinary petty humiliations of life as dhimmi, it is all refutable by a single paragraph from a 7th grade social studies textbook that Islam is a tolerant religion?
You mean, you are not bowled over by the erudition and learning of American Leftists; not even impressed by their boundless compassion for the oppressed and wretched of the earth; not overwhelmed by their constancy and principled even-handedness?
Will Cotton says
All religion is sanity gone bad……this is 2014, anyone who doesn’t realize that man created god and it was our biggest mistake, is in need of therapy. They are all ludicrous cults…like pissing contests in a schoolyard. My god is better then your god. They are all fictional and those who believe are mentally incompetent.