By Bosch Fawstin
Islam vs Muslims
A is A. Islam is Islam.
There is no such thing as ‘Good’ Islam vs ‘Bad’ Islam.
Islam is a totalitarian religion, while Muslims are individual human beings who may or may not practice Islam faithfully. I’ve come to the conclusion that there are active Muslims and there are passive Muslims, the faithful and the unfaithful, the submitted and the un-submitted in Islam, but there is No obvious way to tell the difference between them, which has its benefits for those who are committed to spreading Islam by any means necessary. Mohammed said ‘War is deceit’ and practiced it, and Muslims have followed their leader in using deception against non-Muslims to this day. When Islam, the very antithesis of peace, is sold to us by Muslims and their useful idiots as being the very definition of peace, and actually gains traction, it would have made Hitler blush.
That Islam must be misrepresented by Muslims in order to appear at all appealing to non-Muslims speaks volumes, and its purpose is to make Islam appear harmless until it’s too late. And the enemy’s major weapon against us is us. From our multiculturalism which the unicultural enemy exploits, to our crippling political correctness which ‘protects’ us from the truth we need to know and act upon, to our irrational tolerance of the intolerant. Another weapon the enemy uses against us is that the majority of Muslims are Muslims in name only, and the false perception that they themselves represent Islam makes Islam look good. But they do not embody Islam, they are not its true, consistent practitioners. They are hacks when it comes to doing their Islamic duty as the Koran demands of them. And then there are those who are moderately Islamic, but who advertise themselves as ‘Moderate Muslims’, who have hijacked the normatively immoderate Islam, not by thoroughly repudiating the inherent violence within Islam, but by merely mouthing the words ‘Islam means peace’, and allowing our desire to believe it to do the rest.
The widespread usage of the term ‘Moderate Muslim’ is a tacit confession of Islam’s extremism.When’s the last time you heard the term ‘Moderate Christian’? Moderate Jew? Moderate Hindu? Moderate Buddhist?
But let me add this, after making it clear that Muslims are individuals who may or may not be following Islam: Most Muslims have shown us that when it comes down to it, the majority of them will side with Islam against the non-Muslim world, no matter what. They’ve made it clear, in their indifferent silence and inaction in the face of the daily horrors committed in their religion’s name, that in the end, they don’t give a damn about anything except Islam and its reputation. I’ve read one too many accounts of Muslims whose first response after a particularly horrific Muslim terrorist attack, was to run to the rescue of Islam, the ideological source of the attack itself. ‘Education by Murder’, as Daniel Pipes* writes of it. The price we're paying for not knowing the full truth about Islam is too high, but it looks like it will take more death and destruction for the civilized world to learn about Islam and the evil at the heart of it before we are ready to ruthlessly act on our behalf against it.
*About Pipes, I appreciate his efforts against Jihad and I know that counter-jihadists don’t necessarily have to agree with every conclusion we as individuals arrive at, so long as the big picture is in sight…… but his unwarranted preoccupation with ‘Moderate Islam’ is a Pipes Dream, it is his subjective wishes overstepping reality. There is no such thing as ‘Moderate Islam’, there is only Islam. And that there may be moderate Muslims doesn’t exonerate Islam, which was built to be even Muslim proof. When a Muslim concedes the Islamic point that the Koran is the verbatim word of allah, who is he to deem himself to be allah’s editor?
No, Muslims will only rethink Islam, will only consider transforming the religion, when their desire to destroy the non-Muslim world is trumped by their desire to survive.
© 2007 Bosch Fawstin
18 comments:
This is a superb piece! Bosch, you’ve done a great job. I haven’t had time to visit this venue in a while; this is the first time I’ve read your work. I’ll looking forward to more.
Jason,
Thank you so much, appreciate that. I've visited your site, good to hear from you. There's more where that came from at my site, pay a visit to it when you can.
I never thought about it in that way, i.e. "moderate" Muslim. But now that you mention it, it seems glaringly obvious.
Really good points, Bosch!
Thanks, Warren, glad you liked it.
Excellent expository writing. Your observations and conclusions are spot on. A lot of this clamors to be quoted and requoted.
stogie,
Thank you, appreciate the good words.
Pipes' moderate muslim would be the guys who support a reformation..
but I agree with you Bosch.. there already was a reformation and the Salafis won it. (Just check out the wishful thinking and apologia in NO GOD BUT GOD)
Thus a 'moderate' today must keep his head low or he will be singled out as apostate. Conscience is secondary in that battle. Besides, they support the ultimate goal as probably mandatory anyway if not the particular means on any given day
This pattern was established in the 30's by the muslim brotherhood, and then picked up by Haj Amin al Husseini who offed every single arab who wanted to cooperate with 'other' without compunction or hesitation.
If we look at the experience in Iraq, if large amounts of apostate and takfir killings occur visited UPON muslims, the salafis lose. But if the killing is directed at us, it's a lot different.
Great piece Bosch.
Don't hold your breath waiting for a Mohammedan version of "Vatican 2"...it ain't gonna' happen.
Maybe you could convert the Jihadis to Hari Krishna or some other annoying but less violent ideology?
epaminondas wrote:
'Conscience is secondary in that battle.'
Well put, as Islam itself takes the place of the individual Muslim's conscience.
And thank You.
Michael,
I get it, believe me, but I prefer converting the enemy to reality through force.
This is one of those quotable pieces I'll refer to often. The following quotes:
And the enemy’s major weapon against us is us. From our multiculturalism which the unicultural enemy exploits, to our crippling political correctness which ‘protects’ us from the truth we need to know and act upon, to our irrational tolerance of the intolerant.
and
The widespread usage of the term ‘Moderate Muslim’ is a tacit confession of Islam’s extremism.When’s the last time you heard the term ‘Moderate Christian’? Moderate Jew? Moderate Hindu? Moderate Buddhist?
and
‘Moderate Islam’ is a Pipes Dream (so true)
. . .stick out as favorites. Well done. Bookmarked.
I really appreciate that, heroyalwhyness, thank you.
You are correct in your analysis, but think wrong in your final conclusion:
"No, Muslims will only rethink Islam, will only consider transforming the religion, when their desire to destroy the non-Muslim world is trumped by their desire to survive."
Practically the desire for survival is very difficult to trigger. We are nice people and (most of us) do not wish to participate in eradicating non-reformist Muslim people. There other desires that might substitute and suggest greed could work almost as well.
Epaminondas correctly said...
"...there already was a reformation and the Salafis won it."
I think the Salafist reformation was carried through by the self-interest of the House of Saud in having a pliant populace, innately xenophobic placing a high degree of pride in its own superior peity. Salafism allows the Sauds immense wealth and lives of debauched luxury by focussing attention on the sins of us heathens.
unaha-closp,
It is irrelevant whether 'we are a nice people', it's in the nature of this enemy to push us to do things we'd rather not. Our desire to Not be at war is allowing this culture of death to make chumps out of us. They will force us to go Muslim on them, which will most definitely trigger a desire for survival on their part, as jihad will be the last thing on their minds.
Bosch fawstin - your essay falls in line with a recent interview on Shire News Network with Tom Payne and Evan Sayet. (unofficial transcript of interview follows):
http://podcast.shirenetworknews.net/:entry:tuatara-2008-04-01-0000
Tom Payne asked Evan Sayet what he thought of Dutch Politician, Geert Wilders 15 minute anti-jihadi film "Fitna".
Sayet: It's powerful. It's in so many ways, more than anything two things struck me. One is, all of these images that we should be seeing because we're grown-ups, and it should be on the news, and this is information that we should be provided. We don't need gate-keepers to the truth and unfortunately, that's what we have - when we have three network news guys here in America. Three monolithic New York City pretty boys who dictate to us what information - Fox, years ago had a slogan, "We report, you decide". Unfortunately, everyplace else, they've decided and therefore they won't report. Just to see these images that - I'm seeing many of them for the first time. Now, others I'm seeing for the first time since 9/11 when they stopped showing the people jumping out of the World Trade Centers. A number of these images, I'm seeing them for the very first time and thats just wrong.
Payne: Time was though, when gate-keepers could decide what you could and couldn't see. Even despite the seething and whining and legal threats and despite the fact the original host for the film has in fact taken it down. They've got employees that have received serious threats, I mean, you can account for that in a way. This thing has gone viral. It's on YouTube, it's being e-mailed everywhere. Theres no gate-keeping that can stop a film like this, simply because of modern technology.
Sayet: Well, thank God for that and I have argued that the internet is quite literally right up there with the Gutenburg press in it's importance. And for the same reason, the truth, which was the Bible, was in the hands of a handful of gate-keepers because books were expensive. They were impossible to reproduce. And so, there were only a handful of people who had the truth and they dictated that truth sometimes for personal gain, but more out of real concern about making society the way they think is best. When the press came along and the Bible became democratized, everybody could read it for themselves and they could now have these discussions. Only then did we progress. And the same is true with the internet. We used to have these gate-keepers, these three guys in New York City, you know, a handful more at the Washington Times and the New York Post. Now, information is much more democratic and thank God it came along when it did.
Payne: Officialdom from the EU on down have been condemning this and saying that the right of free speech doesn't mean you have the right to insult people. What did you think about the content of the film? Was it quite as insulting as we were led to believe it was going to be?
Sayet: I don't quite understand that concept that truth is insulting. I mean, is our goal - not to insult? Or is our goal - to tell the truth? You know, we see this in more ludicrous ways. There is a woman here who sued her doctor because the doctor suggested she lose twenty pounds, and that hurt her feelings. The question isn't - is this offensive to some muslim ? The question is - is this the truth? The truth should be a defense against any of these attacks. In fact, you would hope that your government leaders and others that are in the position to control, or at least to make things difficult or easier to get information out would be on the side of 'the truth'. One of the biggest complaints leftists always have is that people who follow religion will push the truth away if it gets in the way of their dogma and their faith. Yet, that happens less and less these days. What happens is the liberal pushes away the truth when it gets in the way of their dogma.
Payne: Lets have a look at the content of the film. What do you think was actually offensive in Geert Wilders film?
Sayet: Frankly, I didn't find anything offensive. If there was anything that struck me, is how often they pulled back from the more gruesome images that they could have shown if the idea was incitement. And I would have felt that that was fair and accurate to do - to show these things. And yet, they would fade to black just as they get to the more gruesome and the more inciting of materials. You know, the leftist say often "but not e-v-e-r-y Muslim is like this." But it's really just an excuse because there is nothing is 100% anything in this world. So since nothing is 100% anything, if that is your standard of truth - 100% - then there is no truth.
And that goes right back to my original thesis (transcript) of INDISCRIMINATENESS (video). You know, you and I would look at a jar of Paprika and put a label on it. We say it's Paprika. The other guy would look at that jar and say, 'Is that 100% Paprika? Isn't there anything else in that jar, isn't there like some flecks, like of sage, say from when the last time the guy cooked?' Why do you have to label everything?'
Payne: Officialdom is really cracking down on FITNA. It's not respect, is it. It's fear, let's be honest.
Sayet: I don't know how much of it is fear and how much of it is a liberal ideology that is so afraid of fighting, who believe that the central purpose of everything, truth/morality/decency - is to avoid WWIII. Because if we don't have wars, we won't have poverty. If we won't have poverty - we won't have crime. If we don't have crime - we won't have injustice. We could just all get along - as Rodney King famously said.
We can all just get along and this will keep us from getting along.
heroyalwhyness,
I just heard this interview the other day, Sayet is always interesting, like most, I first heard of him through his Great talk at the Heritage Foundation. I myself was interviewed by 'Tom Paine' on Shire Network News. The interview was recorded on the morning of September 11th, 2007, at about the time that attacks took place, around 9am. Check it out when you can.
This piece is a total fallacy. There is no such thing as Islam. Even if you believe that the Koran is God's verbatim, you still have to concede that all you have of the Koran (and even the most authentic Ahadith) is fallible human understanding. A Muslim cannot believe themselves to be infallible, therefore a Muslim has to be skeptical about all interpretations of Islamic sources. This is why moderate Islam is possible and why your piece is an illogical mess.
DuckDuck,
You are assuming that the masses of Muslims can make the distinction of which you speak. Problem is, their Imams interpret the scriptures in a rather monolithic way. Their universities, their Imams, their media, and their governments all interpret Jihad as violent struggle against the Infdiel for the purpose of expanding Dar al-Islam.
Yes, there are some Muslims who believe in Itjihad. But, the one's who attempt a true pursuit of Itjihad, and an accounting of their pursuit, are inevitably deemed "apostates" and fatwas as issued calling for their deaths.
Here's an article which discusses one such Muslim and the concept of Itjihad:
http://www.countercurrents.org/gneder-hari080504.htm
DuckDuck,
Besides your put downs, revealing bad faith on your part, when you open with:
'There is no such thing as Islam...'
and end with:
'This is why moderate Islam is possible....'
Terms such as:
'total fallacy' & 'illogical mess' spring to mind.
It's an article of faith that Muslims accept the Koran as the verbatim word of Allah, no matter it's truth in reality. If a Muslim won't concede that point, then ALL in Islam is open to question and nothing in it is sacred anymore. If they're skeptical of Mohammed's claims, then they're good for nothing Muslims, Islamically speaking.
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