One of the staples of the Islamic whitewashing industry is the claim that jizya — the extortion money subjugated Jews and Christians were required to pay (a la Koran 9:29) — actually “entitled them to Muslim protection from outside aggression and exempted them from military service,” to quote Georgetown University’s John Esposito. By this widely held logic, […]
Did Medieval Christians distort the Koran to prevent Islam from spreading to Europe?
While discussing the history of the Koran in Europe during a televised interview on the Arabic-language program, “Allah Knows,” Dr. Ali Gom‘a, one of Egypt’s foremost clerics, said that early European translations of the Koran were rooted in Christian desires to learn more about Islam and its language, Arabic. But then he made the following assertion: The […]
Raymond Ibrahim: Islam’s ‘Slow Motion Genocide’ of Christians
Iraqi Archbishop Bashar Warda made the following observation during a recent speech: “Having faced for 1,400 years the slow-motion genocide that began long before the ongoing ISIS genocide today, the time for excusing this inhuman behavior and its causes is long since passed.” That Muslims have cleansed non-Muslim peoples by the sword since the seventh century to the present is […]
Raymond Ibrahim: Americans “Mistreat” Muslims More than Muslims Mistreat Christians?
A February Rasmussen report sheds light on just how divorced from reality millions of American liberal voters are. After pointing out that “Democrats are more likely to think Muslims are mistreated in America than to think Christians are persecuted in the Islamic world,” the report elaborates: Fifty-six percent (56%) of Democrats, however, believe most Muslims in this […]
Raymond Ibrahim: Eliminate Israel, Eliminate Islamic Terrorism?
The plague of Islamic terrorism is based on “grievances” against Israel — so says Al Azhar, the world’s most prestigious madrasa (or Muslim “university”) that co-hosted Barack Obama’s 2009 “A New Beginning” speech. During a recently televised Egyptian interview, Ahmed Al Tayeb — Al Azhar’s grand imam, once named the “most influential Muslim in the […]
Forget the “Terrorists,” What about Your Own Government, Mr. Sisi?
It is one thing for Egyptian President Sisi not to be able to prevent surprise Islamic terror attacks against Egypt’s Christians, the Copts. But what does one make of the fact that his own government also discriminates against and persecutes the Copts? Most recently, a court sentenced 19 Muslim defendants to a one-year suspended sentence for attacking […]
Raymond Ibrahim: The “Baby Muhammad” Jihad (or Europe’s Future Nightmare)
If Muhammad cannot beat the infidels on the battlefield, he’ll outbreed them — literally: “Mohammed most popular name for newborn boys in the Netherlands for second year in a row” is the title of a recent report. Muhammad is apparently also the most popular name in England. In fact, Muhammad is one of the most popular names throughout Northwest Europe. […]
Raymond Ibrahim: The Hate Behind Muslim Tears and Outrage
A sense of supremacism permeates everything in the Muslim supremacist’s life — even those things that Western media portray as laudable, humanitarian, or understandable. Consider the rape and strangulation of Zainab Ansari, an eight-year-old Muslim girl whose mangled body was found in a dump last January in Pakistan. The tragic incident sparked mass outrage in […]
Raymond Ibrahim: YouTube: Keeping Americans in the Dark on Islam
In certain respects, the real struggle between Islam and the West has less to do with an inherently weak Islam and more to do with subversive Western elements that cover up for and empower Muhammad’s creed. Out-and-out censorship is one of these tactics. In a January 10 email titled, “We’re Suing Google – Here’s Why,” […]
Raymond Ibrahim: Why Professing Christ Is Becoming a ‘Hate Crime’ in the West
What is the source of dhimmitude — which in many ways paralyzes responses to Islam — in the West? First a definition: “dhimmitude,” which was coined by the late Christian president of Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel, and popularized by writer Bat Ye’or, is a neologism based on the Arabic word, dhimmi — that is, a non-Muslim (generally a […]
Ancient Egyptian monastery closed and Christmas canceled
Local authorities decided to close down the Saint Catherine Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, on January 5 and January 6, when Christmas church services are held according to the Coptic Orthodox calendar. The general directorate of tourist police further ordered all tourist companies not to lead tours to the historic monastery. Although […]
Raymond Ibrahim: Islamic Terrorists or Tragic Heroes?
The so-called mainstream media’s approach to and apologias for Islamic terrorism have become as predictable as they are farcical. In a recent piece entitled, “A Mysterious Act of Mercy by the Subway Bombing Suspect,” the New York Times’ Jeffrey Gettleman portrays would-be suicide bomber Akayed Ullah — whose foiled attempt at Times Square subway last month could […]
Raymond Ibrahim: Iranians are Ultimately Protesting Sharia
What began on December 28 as local protests against high food prices in the northern city of Mashhad, Iran, has spiraled into mass protests consisting of some hundreds of thousands of Iranians in some two dozen cities, including if not especially Tehran, the seat of government. So far over 20 protesters have been killed and many […]
Raymond Ibrahim: Trump Scraps Cherished “Israel Grievance” Myth
President Trump’s new National Security strategy is not only notable for what it brings back to the paradigm — words such as “jihadi” and “sharia” — but in what it gets rid of, namely, the long held, much entrenched notion that Israel is the root source of all the turmoil plaguing the Middle East. According […]
Raymond Ibrahim: When and Why the West Began to ‘Demonize’ Muhammad
To understand any phenomenon, its roots must first be understood. Unfortunately, not only do all discussions on the conflict between Islam and the West tend to be limited to the modern era, but when the past, the origins, are alluded to, the antithesis of reality is proffered: we hear that the West — itself a […]
Raymond Ibrahim: Will the Return of “Jihad” to Intelligence Trump Decades of Indoctrination?
President Trump’s new national security strategy is set to return words relevant to understanding Islamic terrorism — such as “jihad” — that had been expunged from the Intelligence and Defense communities’ lexicon, most notably under the Obama administration. According to the new strategy document, “The primary transnational threats Americans face are from jihadist terrorists and […]
Raymond Ibrahim: Islam’s Three Worst Doctrines
Because Islam gets criticized for many things — from hostility to modernity and democracy to calls for theocratic rule, radical “patriarchy,” misogyny, and draconian punishments, to name a few — it is helpful to step back and distinguish between those (many) doctrines that affect Muslim society alone, and those that extend to and affect Western […]
Raymond Ibrahim: Luther, Islam, and the Lies that Cripple
In “Islam’s Expansion Across Europe: Not Martin Luther’s Fault,” one Paul Gottfried pretends to respond to my article, “The Pro-Islamic West: Born 500 years Ago.” While many of his own readers saw through and exposed his misrepresentations in the comments section more thoroughly than I ever would have, Gottfried’s piece is still worth examining if only for […]
Raymond Ibrahim: The 500th Birthday of the Pro-Islamic West
Five hundred years ago Tuesday, on October 31, 1517, a Catholic monk named Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of a German church, thereby launching what would come to be known as the Protestant Reformation. Whatever else can be said of him, Luther unwittingly initiated something else that is often overlooked. As […]
James Zogby demonizes as “Islamophobic” group helping persecuted Christians
With “friends” like James Zogby — co-founder of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee — the Mideast’s persecuted Christians apparently don’t need any more enemies. “James Zogby: Proud of His Shame,” by Coptic Solidarity, FrontPage Magazine, July 14, 2017: Editor’s Note: James Zogby—a notorious Anti-Semite and staunch defender of Islamic terror groups (including Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and the Muslim Brotherhood) who refers […]