Ulrich von Schwerin accuses Sarrazin of claiming that the Qur’an is “obsessive” about sexuality. Look at the many Qur’anic passages in Part I that are about sex. Isn’t that list — which is not even exhaustive — enough to convince the fair-minded that Sarrazin’s observation is true?
Von Schwerin then implicitly attacks Sarrazin for claiming that the Qur’an is “full of hatred for unbelievers and calls for violence.” But isn’t it? Are there not 109 verses commanding Jihad against the unbelievers? Think only of 2:190-194, 3:89, 8:12, 8:60, 9:5, 9:29, 47:4. These are just a few of the verses that tell Muslims “to kill the Unbelievers wherever they find them” (the phrases vary, the meaning does not), and in some verses — as 8:12 and 8:60 — tell them specifically to “strike terror” in the hearts of the Unbelievers. Believers are told that Unbelievers are the “most vile of creatures” (98:6) and that they should not take Christians or Jews as friends, for they are friends only with each other. Ulrich von Schwerin knows perfectly well all of these verses, but cannot bring himself to admit that yes, Sarrazin is correct, the Qur’an is “full of hatred for unbelievers and calls for violence.”
“If you take it literally, it leaves little room for misunderstanding,” writes Sarrazin about the Quran. His reading does not see a separation of politics and religion in Islam as possible. “The more literally one takes the Quran, the clearer it appears that the world’s governance can only find its legitimacy through God,” he writes. Like many other Islam critics, Sarrazin picks up one of the Islamists’ core arguments; he presents their interpretation of the Quran not only as a conclusive view, but also as the exclusive one.
It is not Sarrazin, but Muslim scholars and clerics who insist and have insisted, for 1400 years, that Islam is both a religion and a politics. One does not exclude the other; the faith guides the ruler, whose legitimacy depends on the extent to which his rule expresses the will of Allah, as set down in the Qur’an. There is no separation in Islam between the faith and the political system. Islam offers a Complete Regulation of Life.
Sarrazin also ignores the fact that the political ideology of Islamism is a product of modernity and that its interpretation is rejected by a great majority of Muslims. He does not say a word about the moderate versions of mystical Islam prevailing in most Muslim countries.
It may appear contradictory that he should adopt the radical reading of the Islamists as the “true” version of Islam, but that is necessary to support Sarrazin’s concept, in which he condemns Islam in its entirety as an “ideology of violence in the guise of a religion.” His portrayal of Islam is a caricature that has more to do with his own prejudiced views than with the beliefs guiding the lives of the majority of Muslims.
Does Sarrazin “ignore” the mystical schools of Islam, the Sufis? Or is he all too aware of how apologists for Islam claim, incorrectly, that the Sufis do not preach or practice jihad? Plenty of Sufis, right up to the present, have been Jihad warriors. Robert Spencer notes that “contrary to popular belief, the Sufis do not reject violent jihad. Their towering figure, al-Ghazali, taught it, and Sufis have been at the vanguard of the Chechen jihad. Hasan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, which in turn gave birth to Hamas and Al-Qaeda, was strongly influenced by Sufism. In 2009, Iraqi Sufis meant with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and boasted of their jihad activity in Iraq. Izzat al-Douri, a Sufi leader, was instrumental in the formation of the Islamic State.”
It is Ulrich von Schwerin, not Thilo Sarrazin, who labors under the mistaken belief that the manner of worship — i.e., mystic or “Sufi” — has any effect on the doctrine of violent Jihad. The same Jihad verses are in the same Qur’an that both Sufis and mainstream Muslims read and follow. For that matter, it’s the same Qur’an that inspires members of Al-Qaeda and ISIS. There is no “radical reading” of the Qur’an but, rather, there are differences among Muslims in their willingness to act upon what the Qur’an commands. Mainstream Muslims are simply not willing to fully follow the Qur’anic commands; the so-called “extremists” — who might better be called fundamentalists — are willing. Sarrazin is presenting in his new book what the Islamic texts — Qur’an and Hadith — teach the faithful, whatever their level of fulfilling those commands.
Beyond his study of the Quran, he tries to provide an appearance of objectivity though quotes, numbers and statistics, but the book’s goal remains clear: to confirm his preconceived ideas. His description of the history of Islamic culture as an 800-year-long decline reveals his downright malicious urge to deny Muslims anything positive.
So Sarrazin’s “quotes, numbers, and statistics” are not rebutted by Von Schwerin, who simply derides them, most unpleasantly, as being included to “provide an appearance of objectivity.” This attribution of unacceptable motives is itself unacceptable. Are those “quotes, numbers and statistics” adduced by Sarrazin accurate and helpful? Are they relevant to his study? Those are the only questions that need to be answered. And what would Ulrich von Schwerin have written had Sarrazin not provided “quotes, numbers, and statistics”? No doubt something like this: “Sarrazin’s so-called study is noticeably lacking in quotes, numbers and statistics, which calls into question his objectivity.”
How, looking at the history of Islamic peoples, especially during the 800 years that followed the destruction of the Abbasid Caliphate by the Mongols under Hulegu Khan in 1258, would Von Schwerin describe Islamic culture? Does he think Sarrazin’s description of an 800-year-long decline unfair? If so, what great Muslim figures can he point to after that date? What great achievements in high culture (art, architecture, literature, music, philosophy, etc.) or in statecraft can he claim for Islam? It is not a “downright malicious urge” of Sarrazin to “deny Muslims anything positive,” but his stronger urge to be faithful to the historical record, however dismal that may be. If Von Schwerin thinks that Sarrazin has left out some marvelous aspects of high Islamic civilization since 1258, he ought to have mentioned them. His failure to do so suggests there is nothing impressive to report.
eduardo odraude says
Some people, for some reason, have antennae that are sensitive and alert to totalitarian systems. Others take freedom for granted, don’t really realize they can lose it (even if they give lip service to it) and have no such antennae. Sarrazin obviously has those antennae, whereas Ulrich von Swerin has wishful thinking, desires of various kinds about how he wants the world to be, desires that cause him to warp reality and to miss the obvious. Ulrich von Swerin is the kind who only wakes up to totalitarianism through the most direct experience. He is too stupid, or too filled with his own cleverness, to let reality in through his imagination, through intellectual alertness to totalitarian patterns. He and some parts of the left will only wake up when they themselves lose their freedom and feel the pain of that in their own flesh. Such a pity.
eduardo odraude says
Three basic facts all dovetail to show that Islam is indeed a violent, expansionist, totalitarian system.
1) Human rights conditions in Muslim-majority nations are one the whole the worse of any region in the world.
2) Polls of Muslims show that majorities support totalitarian elements of Islamic law.
3) The core texts of Islam are filled with totalitarian commands from Allah and Muhammad. For some choice quotations see http://www.quotingislam.blogspot.com
This does not mean that every Muslim has totalitarian views or that every Muslim knows the core texts of Islam and and the leadership of Islam promote totalitarian views. Many Muslims know very little about Islam, many leave or become secret apostates when they find out.
People like Ulrich von Swerin, who whitewash Islam, give aid and comfort to the totalitarians and make it harder for Muslims who want to escape Islam.
eduardo odraude says
oops
“on the whole the worst” not “one the whole the worse”
J D S says
There is NO love in Islam …therefore the sex spoken of in the book of hate is rough sex not love sex and women aren’t supposed to enjoy sex st all this all the circumcision in women.
gravenimage says
Exactly, J D S. Islam is all about rape.
The European says
The idea that sufism is a peaceful and quietist branch of Islam is non-sensical. The sufi order of the Bektashis had close ties with the janissairies and most of those jihadis belonged to the order of the Bektashis. Another sufi order called the Senussi played a pivotal role in Libya from 1843 to 1969 ( the year when Idris, a Senussi,dubbed as the sufi king, had been ousted by Gadhafi). The Senussi were fearsome jihadis. With regard to this impalatable Ulrich von Schwerin, one must say that his is just another enabler of Islam. He once wrote a book about Ayatollah Montazeri ( “The Dissident Mullah”). Montazeri who co-drafted the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran is portrayed as a liberal, and his ideas about “Islamic Democracy” are lauded as evidence that Islam can be as democratic as any Western Nation. One should be wary of that deceiver.
eduardo odraude says
We know that the Sufis have at times been involved in jihad. Nevertheless, perhaps it is not wrong to consider them as having somewhat more liberal tendencies than mainstream Islam. Anyway, they are, I believe, a tiny proportion of Muslims (like 2% or less?)
eduardo odraude says
The reason they have some liberal tendencies (though I don’t know whether such tendencies are dominant among today’s Sufis) is that Sufism puts a certain emphasis on inwardness and personal experience.
jewdog says
This is no quibble, but an important question. Is the main problem with Muslim culture really just a civil rights issue, where Muslims have suffered from Western discrimination and are reacting rationally, or is the real source of the problem to be found in the ideology of Islam itself, for example, in the doctrine of Jihad? In the court of public opinion we so often see the figurative appearance of the ACLU in Islam’s defenders, with guys like von Schwerin, but then the prosecution, from hard-nosed DAs like Sarrazin and Hugh, come out with the blood evidence, and it’s Guilty As Charged!
Garfield says
No.one needs islam. It contributes nothing good to the world but instead spreads violence and insanity wherever it goes.
Islam is a supremacist death cult run like a mafia.