A contemporary Muslim is an anguished being preoccupied with mediaeval concerns. Never before in the history of Islam has it faced a danger such as this. For the first time, Muslims en masse are reclaiming their place in humanity and rejoining history. Islam has always relied on Muslims being unequivocally Muslim in clear contradistinction to the unbeliever, the kafir, treating the values and mores of the infidel with utter disgust and contempt. But history has played a trick on Islam, and increasing numbers of Muslims find the values and mores of the infidels growing within their own hearts, gradually forcing out the Qur’an so firmly lodged there during their early childhood. This drama plays out as Islam struggling against Muslims and Muslims struggling against themselves, leaving an ummah in meltdown. This short series explores aspects of that complex struggle. Previous parts are at these links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.
The Muslim’s Inner Struggles. Part 5: Supremacism
The Muslim is supreme over all other human beings. On the one hand, it matters not one jot how others perceive the Muslim. Yet on the other hand, it matters so much that Muslims kill over it. Islamic supremacism is nothing if not self-contradictory.
During the heyday of the 1970s and 1980s oil boom, non-Muslim Western professionals flocked to the nouveau-riche Arab states to cash in on the bonanza. Not since the moribund days of the Ottoman Empire did non-Muslim professionals on a large scale come face-to-face with the peculiar mix of supremacy and backwardness that is Muslims in power, a peculiar mix that manifests itself all the way down to the individual Muslim, for no matter what his material condition, the Muslim is a supremacist, and there is no backwardness or misery that will temper that supremacism.
Imran ibn Mansur, who calls himself “Da’wah Man” (1), in his video 5 Reason (sic) why Yasir Qadhi is WRONG, offers the ultimate, irrefutable evidence for the continued full applicability of Islam to contemporary challenges, quoting a hadith in which the narrator is asked: “Did your prophet teach you even how to use the toilet?” Narrates Imran ibn Mansur (with fitting emphasis and gusto):
“Not only did he teach us how to use the toilet, but he taught us which direction to face, he taught us which direction not to face, he told us how many stones we should use. Brothers and sisters, can you imagine a prophet that did not leave out teaching us the details, the intricacies of how to wash ourselves, how to use the toilet to the point he told us which direction we should face in the toilet? Do you think that that prophet (SAW) left out how we should be when we meet these [challenging] days?” (2)
Who can deny brother Imran’s logic: a prophet who even has your excrement covered obviously has everything covered.
There is a serious point to be made here, though. To a supremacist, everything pertaining to him is superior, good, desirable, enviable, elevating, aggrandising, and to be proclaimed as a positive differentiator from others, that others can but aspire to but never hope to attain. His supremacy is confirmed even in his prophet telling him, in exact detail, how he should use a rock to remove faeces still sticking to his anus after defecating — I apologise, dear reader, for being graphic about what, exactly, is sanctified in Islamic holy writ here. It takes a robust detachment from reality, confinement within a strict self-referential fantasy, and unassailable arrogance to perceive what would under any other circumstances be a mortal embarrassment as an affirmation of greatness.
Muslims exposed to civilised values and norms, as they are almost universally today, both in the Dar al-Harb and in the Dar al-Islam, may still be able to shrug off non-Muslim condemnation of Islamic injustice, cruelty and barbarism, ignore the countless contradictions, glaring errors and staggering impossibilities of the Qur’an, and ride out the clamouring ridicule of Muslim ignorance, superstition and irrationality, but the days are long gone when it could be relied upon that Muslims everywhere would share Imran ibn Mansur’s pride in their prophet’s perverse credentials.
Fast approaching, too, is the day when a Muslim willing to acknowledge, let alone defend, Muhammad’s having sex with a nine-year-old girl, will be harder to find. There was a day when this was universally proclaimed with pride as one of the many things that set Islam above other religions. But history has sneaked civilised values into the ummah, and everywhere such values are increasingly making their presence felt. Already there are attempts, still largely unsuccessful, at raising the marriageable age for girls. Such attempts still usually fail at the hands of an outraged ulema, who perceive in them, correctly, the thin edge of a wedge that will eventually prise Islam wide open. Only the truly dumb da’wa brothers and sisters still twist and turn to defend Muhammad’s raping a nine-year old girl as neither paedophilia nor rape. But increasingly these days, Muslims do their utmost to simply avoid the issue altogether, which of course only looms over them with greater menace, especially given the pandemic emulation of such behaviour amongst recent Muslim immigrants to the West. For 1400 years, the perfect man’s sexual predation has been no problem at all, with Muslims everywhere proud to take their guidance from his excellent example. Quite evidently, many Muslims today acknowledge Muhammad’s behaviour was scandalous, either by obfuscation or by denial. Yet if Muhammad were ever conceded to be anything less than the perfect human being, Islamic supremacy falls.
For fourteen centuries, opposition to Islam consisted in infidels resisting jihad warfare and slave raids. Like any supremacists, Muslims were enraged at such temerity, and like madmen, craved nothing more than to swiftly dispatch such upstarts. Islam stood proud and supreme, steadfast in its repeatedly-confirmed certainties. This has changed. Not only are Muslims, the bearers of Islam, challenged, Islam itself is challenged, and for the first time in history, it has no wherewithal with which to fend off those challenges, that now manifest both on the battlefield and in the hearts and minds of the ummah. Far from infidels submitting (2), Muslims are apostatising—astahafirullah!!!!
Muslim contact with the modern world on non-Muslim terms means that dhimmis are not in their place. There is no one to step into the street to make way for an approaching Muslim. There is no one to kick and swear at when collecting the jizya from them. There’s no one in whose mouth to spit and see them swallow and hear them say thank you. There is no one to beat to a pulp because they were seen or heard in the act of worship. Muslim supremacy is denied its daily reinforcement, and although Muslims do what they can to keep that supremacy alive, from mass-raping non-Muslim women and girls to refusing to greet a non-Muslim before that non-Muslim has greeted them, these make poor sustenance for what Muslims needs.
At the same time, their supremacy is constantly exposed as fragile, both in the West and in the Muslim world, and shown to be unable to withstand the feeblest of challenges. No Muslim is untouched by this repeated display of Islam’s weakness and bankruptcy, from the big heads of the OIC to Yasir Qadhi’s “simple Muslims”. It is hard not to feel sorry for Saajid Lipham as he laments Yasir Qadhi’s descent from grace and the cause of it: Western education and favouring the intellect over belief. When Yasir Qadhi mocks Allah’s story of Ya’jooj and Ma’jooj, this man hurts right down into the innermost recesses of his soul.
Saajid Lipham is the kind of Muslim one can feel sorry for. There is nothing manipulative or sneaky or duplicitous about him. He genuinely understands reality to be as the Qur’an and the Sunnah tell it to be. There is no argument, and possibly no event either, that might cause him to see the world differently. If it were possible to conceive of a humble supremacist, Saajid Lipham would be it. His supremacism extends no further than the paramountcy of the Qur’an and the Sunnah, with which he is well familiar. It baffles him that a Muslim, Allah’s supreme and most favoured creation, could subject the Qur’an to intellectual scrutiny, when it is the intellect that should be subjected to Qur’anic scrutiny. The depth of hurt and offence that Yasir Qadhi causes Saajid Lipham is written all over his face and spelt out in his eyes. When Yasir Qadhi claims, “If Allah says something. We take it as fact; end of story,” and then later laughs that he does not believe Allah’s account of Ya’jooj and Ma’jooj (hinting heavily that they were zombies), apostates mock and ridicule him, but to Muslims this is no laughing matter.
Muslims are very reluctant to declare one of their own an apostate (a process known as takfir) unless that person has already so declared themselves. Yasir Qadhi’s mocking Allah’s story of Ya’jooj and Ma’jooj might prove to be the straw that finally breaks the camel’s back. Muslims are supreme because they have the perfect, unaltered word of Allah handed down to the perfect human being, their prophet. To attack anything in the Qur’an (or anything about their prophet) is to attack the totality of Islam. It is either supreme or it is nothing. Muslims expect such attacks from declared apostes, but not from undeclared ones. Already it has been said of Qadhi that he is “not a sheikh” and that was well before the Ya’jooj and Ma’jooj controversy. Now the big boys are on the case. Will Yasir Qadhi, too much of a coward to apostatise till now, finally jump before he is pushed? More on this in Part 7 (forthcoming).
As intimated in Part 4, there are two avenues of escape open to the Muslim: double down on the “Muslimness”, or apostatise. But what of those who can do neither? For the large chunk of “refuseniks” in the middle, the inner struggles rage forth without end. Some would reinforce the external trappings of their supremacy: the headwear, the beards, the shape-erasing shrouds, the wading trouser legs, and the incessant insha-allah, alhamdulillah, subhanallah, etc., in the face of mounting ridicule and growing unhappiness as the conflict between their humanity and their faith intensifies. At the same time, instead of taking da’wa to the infidels, they find themselves at the receiving end of secular, and even Christian, “da’wa”. It is not supposed to be this way. An infidel who dares to proselytise to a Muslim is supposed to be instantly killed.
Those who are not particularly educated, articulate or critical, “simple Muslims”, are punch-drunk and bewildered at what’s happening to their once unassailable certainties, and can only either repeat their mantras ad nauseam, lament at what is happening to their faith or withdraw into stoic silence.
The more intellectual of those stuck between the polar opposite responses of deeper faith and apostasy, have an advantage over their less intellectual brothers and sisters in that they are clever enough to be able to fool themselves. Unfortunately for them, they are not clever enough to fool anyone else, because ultimately, these inner struggles are not about cleverness at all. Their mission is to “reform” Islam into something that would make it unnecessary for them to apostatise. But in the meantime, they have no option but to pretend, or actually believe, that Islam already is something within which they can continue to exist as Muslims. Reformists must insist that Islam needs reform and at the same time already is the Islam that their reform would bring about, hence the recent sorry circus of Zuhdi Jasser, Asra Nomani and Shireen Qudosi, amongst other “reformers”, telling Somali immigrant Ilhan Omar that what she and others like her are advocating is not Islam. Well, Ilhan Omar might well say, if it is not Islam, then why are you trying to reform it?
Jasser’s motley crew, autonomous individuals all, who have only known Islam under conditions of religious freedom, will not even admit the existence of Islam as compulsion in its natural habitat of dependent subordination, such as Somalia, where freedom of any kind, let alone religion, is not even a concept. “They each view the Quran as sacred, but say the issue is interpretation and an effort to stifle questions about it.” By advocating tampering with Islam, the reformers find the devout throwing Qur’an verse 5:3 at them: “This day I have perfected for you your religion and completed my favour upon you and have approved for you Islam as religion.” As Imran ibn Mansur curtly points out to those deluded enough to want to reform Islam:
“Allah closed that door when he revealed that ayah [5:3]. You cannot add to, nor can you subtract from, nor can you change [anything that Allah has revealed]. If you even try to open that discussion, it’s like you’re trying to say that you can do a better job than Allah, [that] Allah missed something out.”
The reformers have no answer to this, and would dismiss such objections as “extreme”, “inflexible”, “fundamentalist”, “conservative”, etc., except that it is not only those who can quote chapter and verse who dismiss the reformers. Lay Muslims, who know their Islam by its rituals and trappings, and their devotion by their participation in those rituals and their display of those trappings, also dismiss the reformers, not least because the imam in his khutbah did so. Such lay Muslims may not be devout, but what little Islam they practise they set great store by and will not suffer this trampled on. Their sound and fury signify deep offence and anger. Intellectual prowess and cultural sophistication have never been necessary conditions for supremacy.
With apostates the reformers have bad luck of a different kind. Apostates, like the reformers themselves, tend to be more intellectual, more critical and more articulate than the average Muslim. The difference is that the apostates, unlike the reformers, tend to be intellectually honest. The reformer finds him- or herself unable to give up either Islam or being Muslim, and refuses to accept that by advocating reform, they have already given up Islam and being Muslim, they have already apostatised. Islamic reformers live a kind of Hell in that they desperately want to be Muslim, but in order to achieve that, they must distance themselves from the more unsavoury aspects of Islam, in other words, they must apostatise, something they do not have the moral courage to countenance.
While the reformers attempt to make Islam and Muslims into something more compatible with the modern world, i.e., something they can live with, apostates ridicule them mercilessly, lay Muslims vent their anger and offence at them, while the clergy and the devout condemn them (3). This is now the inner struggle of the ummah as a whole. Muslim supremacy, the evidence for which is nothing more than Muslims’ willingness to believe in it and their readiness to impose themselves and their ways on non-Muslims, especially by violence and deceit (4), is crumbling, leaving an ummah in meltdown.
Opposition to reform comes not only from a scripture that forbids it, it comes also from an ummah whose supremacy is tied to those very elements that “reformers” would get rid of, even if many lay Muslims themselves have no taste for those elements. To become rational is to become like infidels, to elevate this life over the Afterlife is to become like infidels, to make punishments humane is to become like infidels, to dispense with the 7th-century dress code is to become like infidels, to not stick your backside in the air during prayer is to become like infidels, to respect women and girls and to treat them as equals is to become like infidels, to cut down on the violence and bloodshed is to become like infidels, to not invoke in Arabic at all times is to become like infidels; each of these presents Muslims with an existential threat.
The reformers’ double-whammy comes in that, as Muslims, they were the only ones willing and able to integrate fully into the modern world and as such, they were the only ones willing to freely abdicate their divinely-ordained supremacy for equality with non-Muslims, thereby rendering themselves non-Muslim in the process. To be equal to infidels is to be like infidels is to be infidels. Such is the wrath of supremacy and the sorry fate of the “Islamic reformer”.
Muslim supremacy relies also on the doctrine that to leave Islam is to forfeit the right to live, which simply restates the axiom that only Muslims have the right to live — everyone else lives on Muslim sufferance. This ultimate affirmation of supremacy being confronted by apostasy, the voluntary abdication of supremacy in full knowledge of the forfeiture of life, is the ultimate negation of supremacy. This is why Muslims find apostates so disturbing and so hard to comprehend. To the Muslim, knowing of people who have apostatised is baffling and unnerving. Personally knowing an apostate is terrifying, because it plants within the mind of the Muslim the unthinkable thought of “what if it were me?” Such a thought is of course instantly quashed, but it will keep sneaking up on them, each time lingering longer before they shudder and again suppress it. This will be frightening and kept very much to themselves. The real terror takes hold when ‘what if it happens to me?’ pops up in the middle of prayer. Of course, such an experience is unlikely to lead the Muslim to apostasy, but he is, from that moment forth, a shaken, unsettled and humbled being.
Conscious that whereas hitherto, fear of doubt has been his greatest fear, this additional greatest fear is the realisation that he could doubt, that the thought, “what if it were me?” could lead to doubt, in fact, is already doubt. Whereas he might previously have publicly declared his fear of doubt as an affirmation of faith, now he must conceal the theoretical possibility that doubt could already be lurking in his own mind. The hypocrisy that regulates the interaction between Muslims, evolved over centuries (see Part 2), is not designed for this. This is not a matter of mutually-supporting pretence.
A Muslim on the threshold of doubt that he could resist apostasy might draw some resolve from the conviction that Shaitan had placed such thoughts into his mind and that his inner struggle is a test. The mosque, though, offers no confession box and he is as alone as the one who has embraced his doubt and is well on his way out of Islam, except that whereas the apostate will have found peace, the Muslim who personally knows an apostate and tries to remain the same sure Muslim as before will never find peace in himself. Such a Muslim’s supremacy has had the wind knocked out of it. He knows that he belongs to the best of peoples, but it no longer feels that way. Now, more than ever, he needs to be steadfast and patient. There is no telling the lengths he will go to and the distance he will travel to restore his iman. It makes for a highly-suggestible individual.
In Islam, “temporary” could mean a millennium, and Muslims are brought up to be patient, very patient, or to put it more to the point, to bide their time. The condition in which the Muslim finds himself subordinate to the infidel is a daily reality in the West and a daily humiliation. Islamic supremacy does not permit a non-Muslim to be in authority over a Muslim. In the modern world, however, pre-eminence does not attach to a religion, not even to one perfected by Allah himself. To the patient, long-suffering Muslim compelled to answer to infidels, it is only a matter of time (a month, a millennium, no matter) before this particular affront is put right.
Being supremacists, Muslims consider themselves discriminated against because they are they are unable to discriminate against others. Equality, to the Muslim, is injustice. By their very natures, “the best of peoples” cannot be equal to “the most vile of created beings,” (Qur’an 98:6). Knowledge of scripture is not required for such supremacism; it is inculcated in every child from Day One. Repeated, well-meaning non-Muslim attempts to “help Muslims integrate” stokes their already strong doctrinal hatred and resentment even more as help from filthy infidels, let alone integration with them, is the very last thing they want, and suffer only for as long as and to the extent absolutely necessary, to be abandoned as soon as conditions permit. While they are dependent on those infidels, they must per force interact with them respectfully, a circumstance they endure with stoic forbearance.
Their religion requires Muslims not only to hate and never trust non-Muslims, but to conceal their hatred and mistrust beneath a pretence of friendship. This goes as much for the kind teacher of your children as for the decent neighbour who always keeps an eye on your house while you’re away; hate them all, even as you smile at them. Eventually the call comes, and the long-simmering hatred finally finds an outlet. The catalogue of decades-long ever-so-nice, ever-so-helpful Muslim neighbours turning on stunned Christians, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, Baha’is, Zoroastrians, etc., is very long and very tragic. Supremacy restored.
Stealth jihad targeting powerful free peoples comes at a very high price for Islam, one that might yet cripple “the perfect religion”. While the jihad’s societal take-over drags on, all the weakness, stupidity and backwardness of Muslims are exposed to the full scrutiny and open ridicule of their betters, whom they dwelled amongst for decades, having failed to reduce them to dhimmitude and slavery immediately after first contact, as they had done for 1400 years. The very people on whose necks the Muslim boot is meant to bear down, are mocking the Muslims and ridiculing their perfect religion. The cocksure confidence with which Muslims seek to assert themselves is repeatedly exposed as hollow, brittle and sham. This is not without its effect.
How is “the best of peoples” with “the perfect religion” supposed to come to terms with extensive exposure to a reality that daily shows them up as the most pitiful of created beings with the worst of all possible faiths? One can only blame America and Israel and colonialism and the Crusades and the Jews and wayward women for so long before it becomes necessary to cut out tongues, chop off fingertips and burn books, to maintain the alchemy of innocent victimhood on the outside and supremacy on the inside. The cutting out of tongues, the chopping off of fingertips and the burning of books have been proceeding by other means: courts imposing reporting restrictions on trials of Muslim paedophile rape gangs, while de-platforming, fining and imprisoning critics of Islam; writers having their means of living denied them; and books removed from circulation, social media accounts shut down, websites and blogs hacked and subjects of study scrapped from curricula — all faithfully carried out by the lackeys, side-kicks and running dogs of Islam and Muslims, whether in academia, the schools, government, the media, the corporate world or civil society, the proto-dhimmis.
While Muslim supremacy can endure for decades, even centuries, in the midst of infidels and their despicable ways, this presupposes deference and fear on the part of those infidels towards such Muslims, or at least social and geographical isolation within which Muslim stereotypes of non-Muslims can be sustained, not a century of onslaught on their supremacy.
Jihad is an imperative upon Muslims, the “sixth pillar of Islam” that is so obvious that it isn’t even listed amongst the pillars (or perhaps the editors of the Qur’an were a bit rushed and forgot to put it in). Yet jihad is not pursued all the time, not by all Muslims and not to the same extent. Putting the world to right might not be the daily preoccupation of every Muslim, but living amongst infidels, his supremacy is his constant. Ultimately, by his supremacy does he recognise himself, surrounded by infidels. Supremacy is not something a Muslim does, it is an attribute of his being and as such, indistinguishable from either him or his faith. No less than Allah himself declared Muslims “the best of peoples,” (Qur’an 3:110). It is blasphemous to even think otherwise.
All observant Muslims are supremacist, although not all Muslims are obnoxiously, or even criminally, supremacist (5). Another manifestation of Islamic supremacy is that while every Muslim considers the life of a Muslim worth more than the life of a non-Muslim, not every contemporary Muslim holds that a Muslim murdering a non-Muslim is less punishable than a non-Muslim murdering a Muslim. Nonetheless, as pointed out above, Islam reserves the right to life exclusively for Muslims, all others remaining alive on Muslim sufferance. It should surprise no one that Muhammad boasted, “Killing unbelievers is a small matter to us,” (Tabari 9:69). The Islamic State (Daesh) was the closest contemporary adherents to the example of Muhammad, the Sunnah, and lamented the reluctance to kill that it observed in so many contemporary Muslims. The Islamic State, of course, expressed itself without the obfuscation (taqiyya) that drugs so many in the West, when in its operational mouthpiece, Rumiyah, it opined:
“Many people are often squeamish at the thought of plunging a sharp object into another person’s flesh. It is a discomfort caused by the untamed, inherent dislike for pain and death, especially after ‘modernisation’ distanced males from partaking in the slaughtering of livestock for food and striking the enemy in war,” (6).
Of course, the imam on the minbar who is as honest as this is liable to be dragged of as an “extremist” and have his mosque closed down. Instead, they call simply for following the example of Muhammad, which by this taqiyya, they are indeed doing themselves. It provides no solution, however, to the civilised Muslims who find themselves “squeamish” in the face of killing unbelievers being a small matter. Just because a Muslim is not ready to kill an infidel, does not mean that he views an infidel’s life as equal to his own. For a Muslim to view an unbeliever’s life as equal to that of a Muslim is to have stepped into unbelief (kufr) by going against Allah who has himself declared Muslims “the very best of people,” and commanded them to kill infidels. As with other Muslim inner struggles, this too manifests as a spectrum with indeterminate inner boundaries.
When non-Muslims charge that it is impossible to tell which Muslims are going to turn violent next, it will come as no comfort to them that in the modern world, most Muslims themselves cannot be sure of this. Crossing the boundary between Muslim and non-Muslim, or fudging it, as “Islamic reformers” attempt to do, may be more visible than the internal shifting across the possibilities attendant to the civilised Muslim struggling with himself. This fluidity also greatly aids the Muslim pretending to be something other than they actually are (7). It is those at the bottom-right of the chart for whom the Qur’an and the Sunnah constitute the only reality, the totality of the Muslim universe.
Anything outside of the universe of Muslims is either wrong or forbidden, on the one hand, or does not exist, on the other. If it exists, it is there to be conquered and subjugated, and put right, only to be engaged with in extremis and then only for as long as and to the extent absolutely necessary, the status quo ante to be restored as soon as such necessity expires. Of course the root cause of Muslims shunning anything non-Muslim is the Islamic scriptural texts themselves, but Muslims do not need to know these texts — in fact, most of them do not — for their essence is the common currency of Muslim ideology and folk wisdom, the blood that runs in the ummah’s veins. Being courteous to non-Muslim neighbours, but at the same time being careful never to eat their food, use their cooking utensils or crockery, or wear their clothes (or again wear your own clothes once worn by them) is another way of biding time.
That Muhammad travelled from Mecca to Jerusalem and then to Heaven and back in one night on a flying horse (buraq), is told in all earnestness to all children not as a fairy tale, but as history. Of course, at fairy-tale age everything is true. But by the time the Muslim reaches older childhood and fairy tales are no longer true, fear of doubt has been hardwired into the Muslim, and the buraq story is as historically true as infidels landing on the moon (soon science will find evidence that the moon had been split some time early in the seventh century, insha-Allah).
The problem arises when Muslims interact with free peoples and the absurdity of Muhammad’s night journey is put before them without the slightest overtures, and the Muslims’ reaffirming their belief in such things is reacted to in vocal incredulity, that their iman, their faith, comes under direct assault. That is when the full spectacle of grown men and women, even educated ones, clinging to the buraq’s tale for fear of plummeting into the abyss of kufr is on full display. Muslim apologist and propagandist Mehdi Hasan’s supremacism towards Prof. Richard Dawkins was there for all to see when the latter double-checked whether Hasan serious believed in a flying horse. Hasan’s signature hot-air deflection belied his knowing that he had just made a complete fool of himself. In private with Dawkins, Hasan might even have tried to do some unconvincing metaphorical jig, not to convince Dawkins of the truth of the so-called night journey, but to salvage what he could of his supremacy. This entire fantastic nonsense lies behind every “Palestinian” who has ever died for the fabricated myth of Al-Quds, where the name “Al-Buraq” even marks the spot where the creature was supposedly tethered while Muhammad, the visitor from Arabia, popped over to the Dome of the Rock. It is not known whether anyone spat at him.
Everything that distinguishes a Muslim from a non-Muslim is a manifestation of the Muslim’s supremacy. Whether it is their medieval conception of reality, the excessive rewards promised by Allah for those who make it through “the test”, i.e., life on earth, the extreme savagery of their punishments, their ridiculous dress sense, their undignified prayer ritual, their unrelenting misogyny, their predilection for violence and bloodshed, their propensity for Arabic invocations at the most inappropriate moments, all of these affirm the distinction between Muslim and non-Muslim and simultaneously the superiority of the former over the latter. Except that this only works if the Muslim remains free of, and immune to, civilised ethics and values. By the looks of it, Allah has not been all that willing of late.
- Is there some ayah or hadith we don’t know of that requires the most intellectually-challenged Muslims to adopt the name “Da’wa”?
- “It was narrated that Salman said: ‘The idolators said: “We see that your companion teaches you how to go to the toilet.” He said: “Yes, he forbade us from cleaning ourselves with our right hand, and from facing toward the Qiblah, and he said: ‘None of you should clean with less than three stones,'”’” (Sahih Sunan an-Nasa’i, Book of Purification, 49).
- Every loser and basket case that converts to Islam has to be trumpeted to the Heavens as a major confirmation of the supremacy of Islam, such is the state of Muslim confidence in their own supremacy. One is reminded of the Graucho Marx joke: I wouldn’t join a club that had me as a member.
- The only people prepared to take “Islamic reformers” seriously are other reformers and Western non-Muslims desperate for that feel-good factor.
- Whether they show it or not. The Religion of Peace website quite correctly cautions its reader, “Islam may be a hateful ideology, but that does not mean that the Muslim you know is a hateful person.” As an ex-Muslim, I would caution that you keep your powder dry.
- Quoted in Robin Wright, The Hand of ISIS at Ohio State, The New Yorker, November 29, 2016.
- It is generally not appreciated that “peaceful Muslims” Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are far more dangerous and will end up doing a great deal more harm than some people who did something on September 11, 2001. “I have been made victorious through terror,” (Sahih Bukhari 4:52.220); “War is deceit,” (Sahih Bukhari 4.52.268); “Allah is “the best of deceivers”, (Qur’an 3:54).
Steve says
I still contend that the so called moderates are the most dangerous element for western freedoms. They don’t tell the truth about Islam, and are ineffectual at moderating what cannot be moderated. They ultimately just end up being carriers of a virulent ideology.
Wellington says
Agreed. So-called moderate Muslims give cover to Islam and they also won’t put themselves on the line to stop what Islam is superb at, i.e., the destruction of freedom. They’re useless, gutless and clueless.
James Lincoln says
Very true, Steve.
Especially the clean-shaven Muslim with a $50 haircut – and a Brooks Brothers suit…
simpleton1 says
This guy is like how a professor should be, and strips bare what is happening in Sweden and with his own background and experience.
The path of the politics in turning into an islamic state, and how it is harnessing the socialist identity politics, feminist reasoning, the tightening up on ‘freedom of speech’, police issues, immigration, and the escalating emigration flight, increasing immigration, taxes, welfare state etc..
He brings up many points in the symptoms and signs, and how the politics of “double pincer movements” are pushing the speed of this.
The moderates, muslim in name only, compared to the ones that remain true to Mohammad.
The muslims that ever one likes, that integrate, then explains what will happen to them, as if we do not already know,
This is in Swedish with sub titles but is worth watching. It is a dire warning:
“Sweden is colonized by Islam “Sweden’s tipping point has probably passed recently””
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZGDWgsaDlE&t=1431s
32 mins 43 secs —- Aug 23, 2019
“Sweden is facing a two-front war in Islam’s ambition to establish an Islamic state.
Hans Jensevik goes through all the facts that clearly show that Islam will take over Sweden”
Wellington says
The only sane and defensible conclusion one can come to about Islam is that it is horribly retrograde and is irreconcilable with both freedom and modernity (with graciousness too). Trying to save Islam is like trying to save Nazism or Marxism.
Islam is a totalitarian ideology, the only one among the major religions of the world, and there is no reforming a totalitarian ideology. Any good in Islam can be found elsewhere—indeed, I challenge anyone to cite one good thing about Islam that cannot be found in other belief systems—and yet there is much rot in Islam (e.g., death for apostasy) that is non-existent in other major faiths. So, what’s the damn point of keeping it around at all?
It needs to go the way of many other religions that are no more, for instance the ancient Egyptian religion and the religion of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Yes, I know there are no more ancient Egyptians or ancient Greeks and Romans but being Muslim is a kind of being no more in the sense of functioning as a terrible and risible anachronism.
Islam’s place is on the trash heap of history. Not there yet. For mankind’s sake, I hope that time comes when Islam is no longer around. Who of sense and knowledge and possessed of moral intelligence could possibly argue that it would be a shame if Islam disappeared from the earth? It would be a boon to humanity if it did.
James Lincoln says
Wellington,
Excellent post, my compliments – you are a far better writer than I am…
I have looked at Islam every possible way that you can, and it is all downside from what I can see. In fact, it literally guarantees that Islamic republics will never fully prosper. And the coefficient of drag regarding Islamic related security in Western countries comes at a great cost…
You would think that Western civilization would be constantly trying to improve. Unfortunately, some Western countries now have “leaders” who are leftist/Marxist/globalist/Islamophiles. In the countries that do not, like the United States, Poland, and Hungary, they are incessantly being attacked by the left.
Consider this: could the current citizens of the UK, if time warped back to the late 1930s early 1940s, hold off Hitler long enough for the United States to fully engage the Axis Powers? What would the results of World War II have been with the current progressive mentality so prevalent in the Western European welfare state?
elee says
Al Lah in heaven and Hitler on earth, to answer your last paragraph.
elee says
Applause for Wellington and for James Lincolns reply. One nit to pick: James Lincoln, you write pretty well yourself. Keep posting!
James Lincoln says
Thanks elee!
Wellington says
elee: Seconded respecting James Lincoln’s writing ability. He does, quite arguably, underestimate himself in this regard.
gravenimage says
Agree, elee!
Frank Scarn says
I kept a copy of a comment I made in early 2012 in response to something Robert had written. He said, “Here again: truth-telling, if it is something that reflects negatively on Islam or Muslims, is “blasphemy” as far as Islamic supremacists are concerned.”
To which I responded,
Truth-telling, if it is something that reflects negatively on Islam, Mohammed, or Muslims, is “blasphemy” as far as Islamic supremacists are concerned.
Ah, but this puts Muslims in an odd place.
Muslims, by using or defining negative as understood in the West, are actually acknowledging that the West has set the worldwide standards on discourse concerning moral behavior, and importantly that those standards are in fact the standards of Muslims as well. And further that those standards are better than Islamic standards.
Otherwise, why wouldn’t Muslims be proud of Mohammed’s character and past behavior if he is, in their view, the perfect man, Insaan-e-Kaamil. Shouldn’t they be rejoicing in all of his behaviors especially his lusts; his sexual lusts, his lust of the property of others, his lust for vengeance? In the Islamic view of reality, these things are worthy of imitation, a fact which Muslims regard highly by doing just that, imitating their last “prophet.”
And shouldn’t Muslims feel esteemed, certainly not offended, that we non-Muslims are recognizing Mohammed’s character if in fact his character and behavior are, as Muslims believe, admirable?
Consequently there’s no need for Muslims to be angry when anyone, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, recognize that Mohammed did these things. Muslims should justifiably take pride in their messenger.
But oddly they don’t. Muslims go wild when Mohammed’s historically-proven character and actual behavior are exposed because it shows Mo to be a reprehensible individual, but reprehensible only if Western standards are used. His character in Islamic eyes is perfect, and therefore couldn’t be reprehensible.
I suppose, when things really get down to the nub, that we should be flattered on two scores: even Muslims KNOW that Mohammed was despicable; and even Muslims recognize that Westerns morality standards are superior. Otherwise why would Muslims want to hide from sight so many of the KNOWN and PROVABLE anti-social traits of their prophet. They simply can’t admit it – though they know it – because doing so would cause the pretend fantasy world that Islam-is-perfect to come crashing down around their heads.
It’s not negative UNLESS the act is considered negative by a standard that is non-Islamic.
Frank Scarn says
When the life and acts of Mohammed were written and documented by Muslims, it was a source of pride for them; but in the 21st century it has become a source of shame, and now they cannot go back and remove what they already have written about the actions of Mohammed, so all they can do is riot burn and kill anyone who speaks about it. Their prophet has done a lot of unholy acts, but speaking about Islam and Mohammed’s actions in an analytical way has become a crime. United Nations Resolution 1618, “The Istanbul Process,” sponsored last December in a three-day, closed-door meeting in Washington D.C. by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, attempts to make it an international crime to discuss “religion” — code for Islam. This proposal to criminalize free speech was repeated in September at the UN by the Ambassador from Pakistan, its sponsor; and repeated again by Egypt’s new President, Mohamed Morsi.
from,
New Threats to Free Speech
by Nonie Darwish
October 15, 2012
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3396/islam-free-speech
gravenimage says
Frank, Muslims just hate it when Infidels say anything negative about Islam. If the Infidels considered the “Prophet” virile for raping a nine-year-old child, they’d be fine with it. But since they consider this sick pedophilia, it is not acceptable.
Cicero says
Yet another detailed well argued article on the Muslim mind its challenges and deficiencies. The language is deft skilled and well crafted to convey the subtlest of nuances.in her argument.
Anjuli is truly a gem acquired by Jihad Watch.
I truly appreciate the benefit of the critical insider’s view.
However non Muslims must not relax their preparedness and vigilance. Muslims may be uneasy. They may doubt. They may wish to apostasize. However we do not see them doing so nor are they doing so in statistically significant numbers.
In he meantime the Islamic population is multipying exponentially and making the lives of non Muslims a living hell.wherever Muslims exceed in numbers.
ozclare says
Cicero, I am in agreement with your comment. I have been studying Islam for many years and have hoped that by immigrating out of Dar-al-Islam to the West, and thus being exposed to Westerners’ views of their religion, the Muslims’ faith would be shattered. So far it does not appear to be happening but for the sake of my children and grandchildren I live in hope. In studying Islam, I have concentrated on trying to understand why Muslims think and act as they do, so I am very interested in Ms Pandavar’s articles and look forward to reading more of them. I am hopeful that they will soon be published in book form as I would like to have them on my bookshelf as a permanent reference.
gravenimage says
I don’t want Muslims in the West in the desperate hope that some of them might decide to leave Islam.
simpleton1 says
Sad but true, but the West has to become real, and not run on “feelz” or identity politics and so called relativism, where the truth is hidden and manipulated by an elite that are feeding in a trough.
In Norway just another summit, I think about over 5 years ago.
and notice how ok the ummah are in answering those questions. as normal everyday muslims, living in the western world and shown at this Muslim annual summit in Norway.
“? 🙁 …. ….. …… :-(. …… ? – Norwegian Muslim Leader”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r68Ehowk78
3 mins 43 secs.
Would the answers be any different in a mosque near you, in your country?
Thanks to ANJULI PANDAVAR, as sadly I do not see change happening in islam and even worse is the slow capitulation of the West.
FYI says
The Left hand is defiled in islam:only shaitan uses the left hand.
Of course that is WHY al lah has to have TWO RIGHT HANDS as he cannot possibly have a left hand.{sahih muslim 1827,koran 49:1}
And in islamic toilet etiquette you have to enter with your Left foot:so perhaps it is just as well that allah never needs to use the bathroom.
BTW since allah has only ONE leg{k68;42}..that means there is something allah cannot do.
The Hokey Cokey
“You put your Left foot in,you put your Left foot out,your Left foot in,and shake it all about….oh …wait a minute!…I have only ONE foot….is it right or left?…how can i do this?”
FYI says
“Is there some ayah or hadith we don’t know about that require some intellectually-challenged muslims to adopt the name da’wa?”
Isn’t there an ali dawa on You Tube..and a muhammed HIJAB>
I mean seriously:how hard is it to pick an intelligent-sounding name for these islamic apologists?
Like..oh I dunno..
Fatima Fatwa,Tammy Taqqiya,Brian O ‘Burqa{convert to islam..}Munny Muruna…
Angemon says
Indeed…
Brad says
Islam is nothing but a evil ideology through ways of deception and manipulation through the adoption of some cultures previous bad habits. More alarmingly is the Muslim scholars making up fatwas to boost there image and to try to toughen up the image of Islam when they feel intimidated by others who use to commit these barbaric acts. Moreover, in today’s modern world one can say the Muslim is nothing but a loser but the delusional Muslim still delusional thinks that because I believe in Islam I am superior, I don’t think so in reality especially in todays modern world. You can pretty much say that the Muslim deep inside knows he is inferior but will use the fairy tale religion Islam with false ideologies over non-Muslims while in reality the Muslim is the inferior one despite trying to superficially giving an idea that he or she is superior over non-Muslims.
topassistant says
America, we need to read our history with Shariah/Islamic law and their desire to form a global Caliphate, an Ummah ruled by Shariah law.
Our USELESS politicians have been kicking the Shariah/Islamic law can down the road for quite a while now and it is up to the voters to force them to hold hearings on this issue before, we are destroyed! However, I seriously doubt if we have enough voters with the guts to demand hearings on Shariah/Islamic law! Of course, our USELESS mainstream media (MSM) will not report on it including FOX NEWS! I wonder if the new Fox Nation will do it?
Who said this, to whom, when, why and what have we ever done about it? Would you consider this statement to be contrary to our Constitution, our way of life, a danger to our National/Homeland Security and the preservation of our Constitution? Would you think these are words of an enemy? Surely, both the House and the Senate studied this but where are the reports?
“The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every musselman [muslim] who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.” http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-09-02-0315
This statement was a part of a March 28, 1786, letter from John Adams and Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, the United States Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Continental Congress, concerning their conversation with Tripoli’s to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman as to why his pirates/terrorists hijacked our merchant ships, stole the ships and cargo while holding the sailors for ransom.
If you are afraid to go directly to the weblink just Google March 28, 1786, letter from John Adams and Thomas Jefferson to John Jay.
Why are we failing to mention the obvious issues in the 1786 letter that still exists today? Here are the main points in 1786; are they the same today with the Muslim Brotherhood in America and their plan they wrote to destroy us?
In their letter to John Jay who, at the time served as Secretary of Foreign Affairs, directing United States foreign policy under the Articles of Confederation government.
The Ambassador answered us,
a. that it was founded on the law of their great Profet:
b. that it was written in the Koran,
c. that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their Authority were sinners:
d. that it was their right & duty to make war upon them whenever they could be found, &
e. to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners; &
f. that every Mussalman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise
g. That it was a Law, that the first who boarded an Enemy’s Vessell should have one slave, more than his share with the rest, which operated as an Incentive to the Most desperate Valour & Enterprize.
h. That it was the practice of their Corsairs to bear down upon a ship; for each sailor to take a Dagger in each hand & another in his Mouth & leap on board, which so terrified their Enemies, that very few ever stood against them,
i. That he verily believed the Devil assisted his Country-men, for they were almost allway’s successfull—
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-09-02-0315
gravenimage says
Good post.
roberta says
They are far too happy rolling in their sh-t to ever give it up. Just not buying the feel good stories quite yet.
Anjuli Pandavar says
roberta: “Just not buying the feel good stories quite yet.”
—
There is no feel-good story here. The series as a whole should make that clear, even if the individual parts fail to do so.
Anjuli Pandavar says
I’m not trying to dupe anyone here. I’m helping us understand our enemy in all his complexity, while at the same time holding up a mirror to that enemy that even if the were to avert their eyes from it, they will not be able to unsee what they’ve seen in it.
I might add that the squeamishness we have about criticising Muslims is refreshing absent from the Muslim world, where apostate critics of Islam are treated far rougher than having mere slurs of anti-Muslim bigotry hurled at them. If you really want a feel-good story, read and listen to especially what Egyptian, Moroccan, Tunisian and Saudi ex-Muslim atheists have to say, and see how, on the one hand, the government and media, and on the other, the populace at large, react to them.
AleX says
That islam is compromised at an exponential speed (with the advent of internet and information mass-spreading) is what the gentle author of this article is revealing with gradual clarity.
I thank her for the insight into the intoxicated Mohammedan mind (through centuries of moral arrest, moral ineptitude and moral corruption) and thus I look for more instructive reading of new materials on the subject.
gravenimage says
The Muslim’s Inner Struggles (Part 5)
……………….
I hope so. The problem is, too often this struggle is not an inner one, but an outward one against innocent people. Some Muslims who get confused may indeed take another look at their creed–but many will bury their anxiety by waging Jihad against the Infidels, instead.
Anjuli Pandavar says
GI: “The problem is, too often this struggle is not an inner one, but an outward one against innocent people.”
—
I’ll get back to the “outward” struggle in Part 8. The purpose of this series is to focus specifically on what goes on in the psyche of the Muslim under conditions where he or she is not sealed into a self-referential Islamic world view, conditions unique to today.
At the same time, I’m also breaking the taboo on criticising Muslims *as people*, a phenomenon that hamstrings too many otherwise excellent critics. I hope I’m showing that there needs be no anti-Muslim bigotry in criticising Muslims, even when subjecting them to really tough criticism and when mocking them. Believe me, my friend, combining mocking Muslims with reasoned argument against them and their faith does more for prising them away from Islam than either reasoned argument or mocking on their own.
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says
Julie-Ann Panda-bear (that’s my nickname for you), Thank you for this very long but interesting post. I gave up halfway through it, but I’ll revisit it later (and maybe your previous posts too). It looks like you are putting together a book-length essay.
This particular chapter is about the dilemmas facing would-be reformers of Islam, including the desire to believe the unbelievable. Your mention of Ya’jooj and Ma’jooj was completely new to me, and sent me on an online search leading to
https://www.islamcan.com/islamic-articles/who-are-the-yajooj-and-majooj.shtml
(Is this related to a bible story about Gog and Magog (which I’ve also never read)?)
The account is of a Trump-like caliph who is called upon to build a wall to prevent the influx of Ya’joojian and Ma’joojian immigrants. “What is known is that the height of this wall reaches that of the summit of both mountains. It is made with blocks or sheets of iron, which is further strengthened by molten lead. In this manner Ya’jooj and Majooj are unable to scale the wall, or cross it, except when it is the will of Allah.” I see what you mean about implausible Quran stories. How can you strengthen a wall with molten lead, which is a liquid?
Rob says
They are winning in Britain. What Hitler failed to do Muslims will.
simpleton1 says
As Churchill said;- But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period — I am addressing myself to the School — surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.
In other words, know what you are about,
Know yourself, Know your enemy.
Battle says
God bless Anjuli Pandavar. God bless Anjuli Pandavar. God bless Anjuli Pandavar.
simpleton1 says
It is the undulated truth that will set us free, that will eventually also set muslims free.
We and many more must be the ones to hold to truth, not multi cultural, diversity, relativism where truth is kept hidden by academia, media, politicians.
Truth can seem to be hurtful, but truth can be the balm, that acts as an antidote.
Truth served with love, not stepping back, but also backing ourselves.
So hold firm, to truth, not feelings.
Anjuli Pandavar says
S1: “hold firm, to truth, not feelings.”
—
I believe it was the ancient Egyptians who had the saying: Think with your heart, feel with your head. I take that as very wise counsel. Feelings are as true as anything that’s true. We diminish ourselves when we belittle our feelings. Most certainly, hold firm to truth, but do not diminish truth by excluding feelings from it.
Anjuli Pandavar says
ERRATUM – In the paragraph immediately following the chart, the sentence:
“It is those at the bottom-right of the chart for whom the Qur’an and the Sunnah constitute the only reality, the totality of the Muslim universe,”
should read,
“It is those at the bottom-left of the chart for whom the Qur’an and the Sunnah constitute the only reality, the totality of the Muslim universe.”
SAFI says
Powerful! I’m looking forward to Part 6.
Anjuli Pandavar says
i’m on it!