Category Archives: Jihad

Jihad In Your Front Yard

According to Lawrence Auster of the “View from the Right”:

“Patrick McGee, a 63 year old unmarried pensioner living in the diverse Crumpsall District of Manchester, England, was murdered and beheaded in his front garden at about 9 p.m. on December 15. The murder was reported in the Mail on the 17th, and, thanks to a reader who quickly sent me the item, I immediately posted something on it, at 12:43 a.m., December 17. It is now noon, December 18. I just googled ‘patrick mcgee beheaded,’ and the most-read page at the Google results page is my VFR entry. So it’s a repetition of the coverage of the Canadian beheading last summer, when VFR was the most visited site that used the word ‘Muslim’ in connection with the likelihood that the beheader was a Muslim. But here the lack of mainstream coverage is worse: VFR is the most visited site that simply states that Patrick McGee was beheaded. Second on the results page is the Mail story that I originally linked. There’s also a BNP item, ‘Pensioner’s Beheading Passes Unremarked.’ There’s a blog at the Telegraph, quoting (without attribution) the BNP item. …”

“So that’s it. Two and a half days after the murder and beheading of a retired Englishman in front of his house, there has been only one mainstream news article about it, the original Mail story. None of the English columnists who make a specialty of warning about Islamic extremism and the rampant violence in today’s Britain have mentioned it. Melanie Phillips has had nothing on it.”

“Furthermore, the Mail, the only paper that did cover the murder, did not exactly cover itself with glory. Here’s the headline and lead sentence”:

Neighbour held after pensioner decapitated and head dumped in wheelie bin ‘after row over noise’
A pensioner was decapitated and his head dumped in a wheelie bin apparently after a disagreement over noise.

“A man is beheaded, and it’s attributed to ‘a disagreement over noise’? What does that remind you of? Remember Ann Pressly who was raped and murdered in her home in Little Rock last month, her entire head bashed in, every bone in her face broken, her jawbone showing through her shattered face, which was the way her mother found her, and the authorities and papers for weeks reported it as ‘a random burglary’?”

“This is the evil system under which we in the West are now living, a system in which monstrous crimes are committed, and–especially when they are done by minorities against whites–they are ‘routinized,’ their real nature concealed or thinned out, so that there is no reaction to them, the danger is not noticed. We are living under a belief system and a government-media complex that passively or actively intend our destruction.”

[SNIP]

Read Auster’s ongoing commentary about what VDARE.Com calls “Immigrant Mass Murder Syndrome.”

My coverage of the “Bus Beheading” in Canada.

My comments about poor Ann Pressly written up in “The Hue of Hatred II.”

Geert Wilders: The Jihad Against Israel Is The Jihad Against The West

EU, Islam, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Jihad, The West

Before reading the heroic Geert Wilders’ talk, The Jihad against Israel is the Jihad against the West, delivered in Jerusalem, consider: The greatest danger to Israel comes from Israel itself, and, in particular, from the Israeli left which controls the country’s institutions and is committed to the Palestinian cause. The same holds for the Netherlands, Wilders’ homeland: There too, the threat comes from within.

December 14, 2008 (Via Andrew Bostom)
Thank you very much.

It’s a privilege for me to be here in this beautiful city Jerusalem, the capitol of the only democracy in the entire Middle East. When I was a teenager I lived some years here in this city and after that I visited Israel more times than I can count. Israel: the only country in the region with a functioning parliament, a rule of law and free elections. The only country in the region that shares the values of our Western societies, in fact is one of the foundations of our Judeo-Christian identity.

We are here to voice our concern over the growing Islamisation of the West. We do this in this city, the city of David. The city that, together with Rome and Athens, symbolizes our ancient heritage.

Perhaps a few of you may be new to Jerusalem, yet, Jerusalem is not new to any of you. We all carry Jerusalem in our blood, in our genes. We all live and breathe Jerusalem. We talk Jerusalem, we dream Jerusalem. Simply because, the values of ancient Israel have become the values of the West. We are all Israel, and Israel is in all of us.

This city is the capital of a democracy under threat. Israel is under siege, like the Jewish community in the Land of Israel is under siege for over a century now. Israel with all its glory and splendour is unique, and its history unparalleled. Yet, Israel’s security situation is not unique, and neither is its enemy.

Samuel Huntington writes it so aptly: “Islam has bloody borders”. Israel is located precisely on that border. This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, just like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines, Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan, Lebanon, and Aceh in Indonesia. Israel is simply in the way of the Islamic advance. Just like West-Berlin was during the Cold War.

Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel, Islamic imperialism would have found other places to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Therefore, the war against Israel is not a war against Israel. It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Thanks to Israeli parents who see their children go off to join the army and lie awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and have pleasant dreams, unaware of the dangers looming.

At present the front-line of jihad runs not just through the streets of Tel Aviv and Haifa, but through the streets of London, Madrid, and Amsterdam as well. Jihad is our common enemy, and we better start Facing Jihad before it is too late.

Therefore, if we voice our concern over the Islamisation of the West, we have to do it here, where our civilization borders on Islam. Where jihadists fire Qassams into civilian homes in Sderot and Ashkelon, and where a doctor like Aryeh Eldad is characteristic of our civilization by treating terrorists the same way as he treats the Israeli victims. I salute Professor Eldad for his work for humanity, and for his patriotism. And I thank him for hosting this conference in this great city. Aryeh I am proud to be your friend.

I will say a few things about the Islamisation of Europe and my film Fitna. I will use some examples from the Netherlands, because they are indicative for the situation on the continent.

The mass migration to the Netherlands continues full-speed ahead. Currently, a staggering number of new immigrants arrive every year, many of them Muslim, often uneducated, if not illiterate. Bringing along with them the local customs of the mountains and deserts of backward Islamic countries. Thousands and thousands of Muslims arrive in the Netherlands every year, while already one million Muslims are living in our tiny country.

There are many problems concerning this massive influx: immigrants are overly represented in social benefits and crime statistics and the overall costs are staggering. The financial costs of mass immigration in the Netherlands exceeds 100 billion euro’s.

But what we have to fear most is the creeping Islamisation, the stealth jihad. Because every Islamic neighbourhood, every Islamic shop, every mosque, every Islamic school, every burqa, every veil is regarded by many Muslims as building blocks towards a larger goal, towards domination.

This is in fact the essence of the problem. Not crime, not even the financial burden. The biggest problem is the demographic development, and the way it influences our society at large. Immigration from Muslim countries and the demographics will result in the Eurabia that the brave Bat Ye’or is warning about. It will become reality if we don’t act now.

A decade and a half ago, a then unknown American politician used the following slogan in his political campaign: “it’s the economy, stupid.” From now on the motto of my party will be: “it’s demographics, dumbo”.

More than forty years ago a British politician gave a famous speech. He stated that, looking into the future, he saw ‘rivers of blood’ as a result of the uncontrolled influx of immigrants. Enoch Powell’s speech was the starting point of a debate on mass immigration in Europe. As usual, the leftist establishment labeled him an extremist and his career went down. But the British people loved him, and supported Powell. London’s dock workers took him to their hearts, marching by the thousands in support of Mr. Powell.

Looking back, I share Enoch Powell’s alarmist views on mass immigration, but ‘rivers of blood’ is not something I see happening. We will not face civil war. Our political elite is trying to make us believe that the influx of Muslim immigrants is similar to the waves of immigration that took place centuries ago. Or they say that “Christianity developed towards modernity, and therefore Islam will do the same”.

How are we to remain a democracy if a large part of the growing Muslim population is in favour of introducing sharia law? How is Amsterdam to remain the gay capitol of Europe if gays are regularly beaten up by non western immigrants, often Muslims? How are the Jewish communities of Europe to survive with a growing presence of an ideology that is so blatantly anti-Semitic? How are we to remain a centre of cultural and scientific excellence if Islam opposes art, and academic exploration? How are we to remain an open and tolerant society if we are faced with part of the Muslim community favouring self-segregation and showing no desire for assimilation? How can we look to the future with confidence, when a large part of the population turns to a seventh century desert for answers?

These are the questions the multiculturalists don’t want to answer.

Instead of providing leadership our political elite fooled us by using our own principles against us. I will give you five examples.

First. Our tolerance is used as an argument to bring in more Islam, to bring in more Muslims, and a way to tell us that we should not criticize their Islamic culture, if you do you are labeled intolerant and racist.

Second. Democracy. A growing Muslim electorate is too hard for politicians to resist, so they give in to their grievances and demands to win their vote. Before long sharia law will be introduced, legally and democratically, by means of majority vote. The former Dutch Minister of Justice once said that sharia law could be part of the Dutch legal system if a two third majority of the population would be in favour of it.

Third. Our religious freedom is utilized by an ideology that has no plans whatsoever to play by our rules, yet demands the same rights our traditional religions have had for centuries;

Fourth. Our welfare state that once was the envy of the world, now functions as a magnet for a lot of non-Western immigrants, dreaming of a cushy life in wealthy Europe.

Fifth. Our open borders came to symbolize our open mindset, an example of our cosmopolitan hospitality. But now we have lost control of our borders and we can’t even keep track of who is entering our countries, let alone prevent them from entering.

Our Western principles are hollow if they are not accompanied by a desire to sustain our culture and our civilization, based upon knowing who we are and where we come from. We are not from Saudi-Arabia. We are not from Iran. We come from Rome, Athens and Jerusalem. That makes our civilization special, and certainly worth preserving.

In spite of all that, the political elite are still madly in love with their pet project, the multicultural society, as they call it romantically. Apparently they don’t live in the neighbourhoods that are turning Islamic. They will tell you “they are nice people. I don’t see the problem?” The Muslim immigrant’s demands sound reasonably to them, like: “let us have an extra-large mosque”.

It is very difficult to remain optimistic in the face of the growing Islamisation of Europe. The tide is turning against us. We are losing on every front. Regarding the demographics, Islam is gaining momentum. The ruling elite is even proud of the Muslim immigration. After all, this way they can show everyone that they are not racists. Academia, the arts, the media, trade unions, the churches, the business world, the entire political establishment have all converted to the suicidal theory of multiculturalism and cultural relativism.

Cultural relativism is the biggest disease modern day Europe suffers from. Not all cultures are equal. Our Western culture is better than the Islamic culture. In the words of the brave Dr. Wafa Sultan: “It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality”. Indeed also here in Israel you are not fighting a territorial war, it’s not about territory it’s about ideology. The Islamic ideology does not seek cooperation or assimilation but aims for submission and dominance over non-Muslims. There is no moderate Islam, there will never be a moderate Islam. There might be moderate people who call themselves Muslim, but there is no moderate Islam.

Leftist journalists and leftist politicians hasten themselves to label anyone critical of the Islamisation a ‘right-wing extremist’. The entire establishment has sided with Islam. Leftists, liberals, and Christian-Democrats are now enslaved to Islam. They are Dhimmi’s. Lenin once labelled ignorant people that unknowingly aided his cause ‘useful idiots’. Well, the West is now full of these ‘useful idiots’, and they are even proud of it.

Now some words about my film Fitna.

I felt I had the moral duty to educate people about Islam and the Islamisation of Europe. The duty to make clear to everyone that the Koran stands at the heart of what some people call terrorism but is in reality jihad. I wanted to show that the problems of Islam are at the core of Islam, and do not belong to its fringes.

I have warned against the dangers of the Koran and Islam in numerous interviews, opinion articles, speeches and of course parliamentary debates, but pictures often say more than words. That is why I made Fitna.

Fitna is a documentary that shows what is being done in the name of Islam. Without placing all Muslims into the same category, I think I have succeeded in showing that the Koran is not some dusty old book, but that it is still used today as a source of inspiration for, and justification of hatred, violence and terrorism across the world.

A few weeks ago the world has once again seen what Islam is capable of. In Mumbai, jihadists separated Muslims from non-Muslims, according to a witness in a Belgian newspaper. The non-Muslims, the Kaffirs, were subsequently shot. The terrorists also went straight for the tiny Jewish centre in Mumbai, where, according to reports made to an Indian news website, they horribly tortured Jewish people before brutally murdering them.

Most of the Western media stick to naming the culprits as being members of ‘separatist movements’. In doing so, they are missing the main point and are unjustly ignoring the Islamic nature of the terror attacks. After all, if it is a conflict about borders, why are they killing Jews in Mumbai? Why, in a city of tens of millions, find the jihadists the shortest way to the only rabbi in town – in order to kill him and his wife? Why are Israel’s enemies always shouting “Allah hoe-Akbar” and “kill the Jews” if all they want is peaceful coexistence and mutual understanding? Maybe, I’m just guessing, is it because they have an ideology that tells them to kill Jews, to kill unbelievers, and to advance Islam until there is world domination. Islam, after all divides the world in a dar-al-Harb, and dar-al-Islam. Islam is a totalitarian ideology full of hate, violence and submission.

From the day the plan for my short film was made public it caused quite a stir, in the Netherlands, in Europe and across the world. First there was a political uproar, with government leaders across the continent in sheer panic. The Dutch Minister for Foreign Affairs called on me to abandon my film project. The Minister of Justice let it be known that post hoc criminal proceedings could be initiated if the movie was shown. The Dutch government investigated the possibility of having Fitna banned in advance. The Dutch branch of the Islamic organization Hizb ut-Tahrir declared that the Netherlands was due for an attack. Internationally there was a series of incidents. The Taliban threatened to organize additional attacks against Dutch troops in Afghanistan and a website linked to Al Qaeda published the message that I ought to be killed, while the Grand Mufti of Syria stated that I would be responsible for all the bloodshed after the screening of the film.

In Afghanistan and Pakistan the Dutch flag was burned on several occasions. Dolls representing me were burned as well. The Indonesian President announced that I will never be admitted into Indonesia again, while the UN Secretary General and the European Union issued statements in the same cowardly vein as those by the Dutch government. I could go on and on. It was an absolute disgrace, a sell out. It was treason to our Western principles, it was treason to freedom of speech, it was treason to liberty itself. My own government was not defending me, but became my worst enemy in the process.

Because of Fitna the State of Jordan is currently litigating against me. Jordan wants to prosecute me for blasphemy, demeaning Islam and slandering the Prophet Muhammad; violations of the Jordanian Penal Code, even though the alleged violations did not even occur in Jordan. As you all know, Jordan is a non-democratic country, without an independent or impartial judicial system and without a strongly developed civil society. According to a recent study by Human Rights Watch, torture is a routine and widespread practice in Jordan.

Jordan’s attempt to prosecute me is an infringement on the sovereignty of my country, the Netherlands. It is an infringement on freedom of speech. Jordan’s attempt is in fact a hostile act towards freedom itself.

If Jordan succeeds in prosecuting a democratically elected member of a Western parliament, what kind of precedent would that set? But its not about me. The principle is not Geert Wilders. If you look at the press and the rest of the political elite in the Netherlands, nobody cared. Nobody gived a damn. This was the worst thing. A nondemocratic country like Jordan cannot use the international or domestic legal system to silence anyone. If this starts, if we allow this, we can get rid of all parliaments, and we should close down every newspaper, and we should shut up and all pray to Mecca five times a day.

But there is some hope. For instance there is some hope with the middle class workers. Underneath the empty bravado of the elite, the middle class worker, the average Joe, is starting to realise that there is something terribly wrong with Islam. In the Netherlands, sixty percent of the population considers mass immigration to be the worst mistake since the second world war. And an equal sixty percent sees Islam as the number one threat to our national identity. But the Freedom Party is the only political party in the Dutch parliament that shares their view.

And there is hope that political parties critical about the Islamisation of the West are gaining momentum all over Europe, are getting stronger. And we will work together with common legislation, with common initiatives, perhaps even with a common group in the European parliament as defenders of the West, defenders of our culture, defenders of our identity, defenders of our freedom.

We need a new way of thinking, a new paradigm, to defend our liberties. Just reiterating our devotion to tolerance and democracy is not good enough, as we are Facing Jihad. We need a new set of goals and ideas. We need new leaders. And we should always remember where we come from. We all come from Jerusalem.

Let me wind up. The essence of my short speech today is that Europe is in the process of Islamisation, and that we need to fight it. Because if we don’t fight the Islamization we will lose everything; our cultural identity, our democracy, our rule of law, our liberties, our freedom. We have the duty to defend the ideas of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem. The ancient heritage of our forefathers is under attack; we have to stand up and defend it.

A century and a half ago, on the other side of the world, a young President said exactly what I mean. This is what Abraham Lincoln said in 1862, and I leave you with that:

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

(Abraham Lincoln, Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862)

It is five to twelve. Freedom must win, we have to win and we will win.

Lebanon & The Partisan Punditocracy

Islam, Israel, Jihad, Just War, Lebanon, Terrorism, War

Once again, American pundits have fallen into camps on the matter of Israel’s leveling of Lebanon. With few exceptions (mostly in the silenced libertarian camp), the issues remain unexamined; everyone is a hack, rooting for a party to the conflict, and ignoring the principles being sacrificed in the process.

The “argument” I most detest—a holdover from that theater of triumphs, Iraq—is the false dichotomy set-up: “What would you have done in Israel’s position?” the custodians of intellectual debate ask plaintively (and deceptively).

How about not destroy an entire (rather modern and open) society, for starters?

Facetiousness aside, whereas in the US it has taken a couple of years for media malpractitioners to catch up with libertarian prescients vis-Ã -vis Iraq, Israelis are already saying exactly what I said in “Call Off the Israeli Air Force!“: precise, limited and delimited, ongoing strikes.

Writes Yoel Marcus in Ha’aretz, “Israel was right to launch Operation Change of Direction. The big mistake was in not limiting it to a reprisal raid with a time frame and specific dimensions.” A far cry from the crazed recommendations the “sofa samurais” in the US have been issuing.

As I’ve said, develop a different kind of warfare. Big, bloated armies of conscripts are no match for lean mean voluntary militia. Also fascinating about the robustness of debate in Israel is this: I wishfully wrote that the Israeli Air Force ought to have refused when it “was told to carry out air raids on Lebanese roads and residential real estate.” And sure enough, some magnificent men have shown such independent-minded judgment. Read about it in this Observer article, “Israeli Pilots Deliberately Miss Targets.”

Commentators often evince an astute ideological understanding of the conflict—one I may even share. But the notion, for instance, that Hezbollah is a Jihadist organization that would like to see Israel destroyed does nothing to address whether there is utility or justification in destroying Lebanon. (And by that I imply the need to use western precepts such as Just-War ethics and reason. We are fighting for the West, aren’t we? Or is that just a hollow slogan!?)

From believing Hezbollah is spearheading jihad, it does not follow that one ought to pummel Lebanon and kill many more innocents than guilty. Hezbollah, moreover, represents a small segment of the Lebanese population and government, contrary to the Palestinian Authority, where the jihad agenda is widely shared on the street and by the state apparatus.

The gains from the Israeli assault have been minute and probably temporary, as is evident from the steady stream of Hezbollah-powered rockets (140 just today) launched into Northern Israel. To claim Israel is effectively dealing with the guilty in Lebanon is pie-in-the-sky.

Again, it’s interesting that quite a few military men in Israel as opposed the armchair ideologues abroad, agree with the above propositions. In Israel’s defense, and in deference to that country’s people, the debate over this war there is already in full swing.

Here in the US, it’s still safer to shut up about the “miracle” in Mesopotamia and the Leader who led us there, Peace Be Upon Him.

The Religion of Peace? By Andrew G. Bostom

BAB's A List, Islam, Jihad

My guest today is Jihad scholar Andrew G. Bostom, MD, MS. Dr. Bostom is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Brown University Medical School, an occasional contributor to FrontPage Magazine and to Barely a Blog too.–ILANA

The Religion of Peace?
By Andrew G. Bostom

During the discussion period after a recent talk by the courageous secular Muslim “apostate Wafa Sultan, Judea Pearl, father of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl (who was barbarously murdered by pious Muslim terrorists), alluded to the Koran’s “verses of peace,” which certain votaries of Islam uphold as the religion’s exclusive legacy. According to an observer at the event, Judea Pearl derided Ms. Sultan’s critical view of Islam by further contending that the Koran’s bellicose and brutal verses were mere cultural baggage, akin to similar pronouncements in the Old Testament. The comparison was naive, if not absurd.

Naive because the Koran’s verses of peace, frequently cited by both Muslim and non-Muslim apologists, most notably verse 2:256, â€œ There is no compulsion in religion, were all abrogated by the so-called verses of the sword. These abrogating verses of the sword recommend beheading or otherwise murdering and mutilating non-Muslims, and Muslim apostates. According to classical Muslim Koranic commentators verse 9:5 (perhaps the most infamous verse of the sword), â€œ Slay the idolators wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush â€¦ , for example, cancels 124 verses that promote patience and toleration.

The sacralized Islamic sources indicate that as the Muslim prophet Muhammad accrued political and military power, he evolved from a proselytizer and persuader, to a warrior (i.e., a prototype jihadist; see: The Prophet Muhammad as a Jihad Model), and dictatorial legislator. Thus the sword and other similar Koranic verses â€” as per the linkage between Muhammad’s biography and the Koranic narrative â€” capture the Muslim prophet at his most dogmatic, belligerent, and intolerant. Muslims are enjoined to fight and murder nonbelievers â€” woe unto those who shirk these campaigns â€” but those who are killed fighting for the one true religion, i.e., Islam, will be rewarded amply in the afterlife. A sampling of such verses, which established these eternal injunctions, are included below:

47:4: â€œ Now when ye meet in battle those who disbelieve, then it is smiting of the necks until, when ye have routed them, then making fast of bonds

9:29: â€œ Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.

4:76: â€œ Those who believe fight in the way of Allah, and those who disbelieve fight in the way of the Shaitan. Fight therefore against the friends of the Shaitan; surely the strategy of the Shaitan is weak.

8:12: â€œ When your Lord revealed to the angels: I am with you, therefore make firm those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.

8:38-39: â€œ Say to the Unbelievers, if (now) they desist (from Unbelief), their past would be forgiven them; but if they persist, the punishment of those before them is already (a matter of warning for them). And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah altogether and everywhere; but if they cease, verily Allah doth see all that they do.

9:39: â€œ If you do not go forth, He will chastise you with a painful chastisement and bring in your place a people other than you, and you will do Him no harm; and Allah has power over all things.

4:74: â€œ Therefore let those fight in the way of Allah, who sell this world’s life for the hereafter; and whoever fights in the way of Allah, then be he slain or be he victorious, We shall grant him a mighty reward.

9:111: â€œ Surely Allah has bought of the believers their persons and their property for this, that they shall have the garden; they fight in Allah’s way, so they slay and are slain; a promise which is binding on Him in the Taurat and the Injeel and the Quran; and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah? Rejoice therefore in the pledge which you have made; and that is the mighty achievement.

As Ibn Warraq notes, aptly (p.69):

â€¦ â€œ tolerance has been abrogated by â€œ intolerance

And this doctrine of abrogation, necessitated by the many contradictions which abound in the Koran, originates as putatively taught by Muhammad, himself, at verse 2:106: â€œ Whatever communications We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring one better than it or like it. Do you not know that Allah has power over all things?. This verse, in combination with verses* 16:101, 22:52, and 87:6, was elaborated into a formal system of abrogation (naskh in Arabic) by the greatest classical Muslim Koranic scholars and jurists, which entailed (p.72),

â€¦ the suppression of a ruling without the suppression of the wording. That is to say, the earlier ruling is still to be found in the Koran, and is still to this day recited in worship, but it no longer has any legal force [emphasis added]

But it is only when viewed in the larger context of the uniquely Islamic institution of jihad warâ€” which derives substantively from the abrogating Koranic sword verses â€” that Judea Pearl’s naÃ¯ve equation to â€œs imilar verses from the Old Testament, becomes entirely fatuous. From the bellicose verses in the Koran, expounded upon in the hadith (the words and deeds of Muhammad as recorded by pious Muslim transmitters), Muslim jurists and theologians formulated the Islamic institution of permanent jihad war against non-Muslims to bring the world under Islamic rule (Shari’a law).

Since its earliest inception, through the present, jihad has been central to the thought and writings of prominent Muslim theologians and jurists. The precepts and regulations elucidated in the 7th through 9th centuries are immutable in the Muslim theological-juridical system, and they have remained essentially unchallenged by the majority of contemporary Muslims. The jihad is intrinsic to the sacred Muslim texts, including the divine Koranic revelation â€” â€œ the uncreated word of Allah.

The Old Testament [I prefer “Hebrew Testament.”–ILANA] sanctions the Israelites conquest of Canaan â€” a limited domain â€” it does not sanction a permanent war to submit all the nations of humanity to a uniform code of religious law. Similarly, the tactics of warfare are described in the Old Testament, unlike the Koran, in very circumscribed and specific contexts. Moreover, while the Old Testament clearly condemns certain inhumane practices of paganism, it never invoked an eternal war against all of the world’s pagan peoples.

Uninformed ecumenical zeal, in search of a fantasy Islam yet to be created, does not excuse making intellectual–let alone moral–equivalences, between the severely limited and contextualized war proclamations of the Old Testament, and the permanent proto-jihad war injunctions of the Koran. Staking out the presumptive â€œ higher moral ground by a thinly veiled (and ahistorical!) attack on a courageous secularist seeking profound, not cosmetic (and meaningless) changes in Islamdom, is unsavory and destructive, regardless of the misguided motivations.

* 16: 101: â€œ And when We change (one) communication for (another) communication, and Allah knows best what He reveals, they say: You are only a forger. Nay, most of them do not know.; 22:52: â€œ And We did not send before you any messenger or prophet, but when he desired, the Shaitan made a suggestion respecting his desire; but Allah annuls that which the Shaitan casts, then does Allah establish His communications, and Allah is Knowing, Wise; 87:6: â€œ By degrees shall We teach thee to declare (the Message), so thou shalt not forget

The discussion of abrogation/naskh draws heavily upon the insightful analysis, here pp. 67-75, of my courageous mentor and colleague Ibn Warraq.