We ARE Winning the War in Iraq

From newspapers in the United Kingdom we learn:

"Al-Qaeda and the Taleban are in retreat, the surge has worked in Iraq and Islamism is discredited. Not a bad haul" (read story)

Why ya' reckon CNN and the rest of the traitor media doan tell us this ???

[Hat tip to Stogie at Saberpoint]

American and Iraqi forces are driving Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror.

After being forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the past two years, Al-Qaeda’s dwindling band of fighters has made a defiant “last stand” in the northern city of Mosul.

Read the rest HERE

Folks, whatever our views on the war may be, we ought to revolt against news media who flatly fail to do their job--report then news, editorialize else' whar'. All ya'll liberals, doan ya' care that censorship is thrown over ya like a hood?

Here are some thangs to keep in mind:

1. The "war on Islamists" is OLD. It predates our nationhood. President Tom Jefferson battled the infidel in Africa ...AND engaged in "regime change" by unseating one pirate thug brother and installin' another more favorable to our vision of freedom. GWB did not start this thang.

2. Jimmy Carter was such a wimpy-butted slacker that his wishy-washy policies INVITED the Islamic bullies to take a swipe at us--an' they did. (That was in the 70's ya'll)

3. Clinton admits he did not handle Al-Queda and OBL correctly--in other words, he failed us as commander in chief--failed to protect us, an' THAT is why we had 9-11.

4. FOR TEN YEARS (since Gulf War I) the UNITED NATIONS insisted that Saddam had WMD in Iraq--thas' right folks...GWB did not invent or make up the idea of Saddam's WMD. The info was already held by the UN. (Full disclosure: Aunty's work is often in bowel of the East River Beast (UN). )

5. I'se cool wif' folks who thaink that the war was ill advised--mebbe that case can be made. I can roll wif' that. But mah gut says the trouble is NOT an ill advised war, but a war too tentatively engaged. Try not to go to war, but iffin' ya goes--git the job DONE ASAP. No kitty-footin' around.

6. This is a war that ain't goin' away. We cannot make "peace" wif Islam. We would like to-but they ain't havin' it.

They see their salvation as conversion of all ya'll--by force iffin' they have to. They started this war LONG before the ground was poked and oil came out.

The war is NOT ABOUT OIL. (yes, there is a war for oil--and economic and geopolitical diplomatic war over oil...but sports fans, even if that were resolved, the Islamists is STILL COMIN' fer ya'! ) For Islam, oil is a tool to use, not the goal. The goal is to submit every human to Allah and Sharia law.


Sooner or later, the West will have to deal wif this reality. People who pretend tha' CNN can make the war go away or Obama can make it go away is guilty of criminal negligence against they families and they chillen's.

I'se good wif the truth that we can disagree about the HOW --but people, please, fer mercy sake, we gotta git it together: This is a battle we must engage and win.

Human Rights--Whata Horror

In Canada there has a been the most grievous violation of human rights. Naw, nobody was poison gassed, and nobody was beheaded, nobody raped, nobody was stoned ter death nor no daddy slaughtered his baby girls fer dishonorin' daddy....naw, naw, them's minor cirmes ya know...I'se talkin' about a B I G HORROR! The horror of --you guessed it--free speech.

A fella wrote an article in which he said Islam was set to win the mind bendin' war on the West. Can ya'll imagine such a horrific thang to say? What was Mark Steyn thinkin' to write what ever'body worries about: “The Future Belongs to Islam.”

Fer Pete's sake, how dense can a fella be? Din't he know the media will bludgeon ya speakin' this truth:

Let's start with demography, because everything does:

If your school has 200 guys and you're playing a school with 2,000 pupils, it doesn't mean your baseball team is definitely going to lose but it certainly gives the other fellows a big starting advantage. Likewise, if you want to launch a revolution, it's not very likely if you've only got seven revolutionaries. And they're all over 80. But, if you've got two million and seven revolutionaries and they're all under 30 you're in business.

For example, I wonder how many pontificators on the "Middle East peace process" ever run this number:

The median age in the Gaza Strip is 15.8 years.

Once you know that, all the rest is details. If you were a "moderate Palestinian" leader, would you want to try to persuade a nation -- or pseudo-nation -- of unemployed poorly educated teenage boys raised in a UN-supervised European-funded death cult to see sense? Any analysis of the "Palestinian problem" that doesn't take into account the most important determinant on the ground is a waste of time.

But doan worry none--why the Canadians is nuthin' if not efficient when it comes to squelching free speech-- see, they's now conductin' a "human rights" trial--no no, not in defense of Mark Steyn's free speech, but in defense of the Islamic whiners who pretend to be offended by the fact that somebody wrote how much ground they's gained.

Canada has a sneaky grenade in its law--article 13 of the human rights law says nobody can say or write thangs wif' the "potential" of causin' hatred toward another group.

SO-- ya'll is thinkin' that when the mullahs say to kill Americans that the Canadians hit them wif' Article 13? Whas' wrong wif ya'? That would be logical.

Nope the article 13 Human Rights moneky trial is against the Canadian who only said the obvious. Now the court wants to determine the "potential" of the harm of what he wrote. (I likned it above--read it an' see if ya think that article is worth a Human Rights trial!!)

Who can measure social potential? Ain't no dang way fer no judge to make a decision on "potential". When law is applied on supposition not actual happenings we's all in deep donkey dung. Even so, some Canadian lawmakers are EMBARRASSED about the idiocy of this "human rights" court that has run amok.

Anyhoo...ya' can read all about it --how the nation of Canada is a self-hating self-conscious appeaser nation on the skids. (wif' sincere apologies and sympathy to the three REAL Canadians left)

"Let the Kafirs go to hell" (that's you, folks)

RULE the World

On January 5, 2005, Ahmadinejad said, "We must believe in the fact that Islam is not confined to geographical borders, ethnic groups and nations. It's a universal ideology that leads the world to justice. We don't shy away from declaring that Islam is ready to rule the world. We must prepare ourselves to rule the world."


Iran, a nation that feverishly works toward nuclear capability, has plans for you. Warms ya' heart doan it?





Concurrent wif' the recent NATO and G-7 meetin's, I'se read a heap of ink that say the USA dominance is over, decline is inevitable an' good riddance. Some even swoon to learn about China's semi-secret submarine base (Well, NOT India of course).

Okay, world. Let's see how ya' likes the other guys.

Ya''ll knows they ain't never been a time when power din't seek to rule. The only real question we need to answer is whose rule and what kind of rule can we live wif'?

Is Islam Evil? Essay II

Essay II

Islam and the West: A Brief History

“In this final phase, the world of the infidels was divided between two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United Sates. We have now dealt successfully with the more deadly, the more dangerous of the two infidel powers. Dealing with the soft, pampered, and degenerate Americans will be easy.”

---Osama bin Laden

What does bin Laden mean by “this final phase”? He refers to history, the final phase of history before Islam rules the globe on behalf of Allah. He uses “we” to address not only his immediate followers but the entirety of the Islamic world. Further, he assumes they have an appreciation for Islamic history since Muslim raiders first erupted from the Arabian Peninsula to declare jihad on the rest of humanity. By 750 A.D. Islam ravaged much of the known world. Bin Laden’s followers know their history, its victories, its recent defeats and its desire for a final victory. They know their history.

Do you?

Contents

1. Palestine 70 A.D.
2. Rome Falls, Christian Europe is Born
3. Palestine and the Coming of Islam
4. Jihad and Sexual Tension


Note to new readers:

Comments have been made that this blog is "bigoted" because it observed that Islam is intrinsically evil--that is, that Islam teaches evil in the Qur'an and the Hadiths (See glossary) .

To make such a statement is not bigoted if it can be shown from Islam's own teachings--political and religious-- that its premises give rise to evil.

An important distinction: I have not said that Muslims are all evil. That is quite false. What is asserted here is that Islamic teaching is gravely flawed and is a breeding ground for all manner of evil. In some quarters there are Islamic teachers of moderation. But these are "modern" and according to some Islamic leaders such moderation is opposed to Mohamed's teaching.

These essays demonstrate that Islam is first a political and military system, and as such dominates its origin as a religion.

Please find resources including glossary, Qur'an , bibliography and maps Down in the Hollow (see also link at right) To better understand this second essay, please see Essay I on Islam

Palestine 70 A.D.

The water was gone. Vespasian’ engineers diverted the wells and inside the Temple Mount every throat was seared from thirst. Roman soldiers swarmed through breeches in the walls. The few who had escaped to the Temple during the siege of Jerusalem now faced a brutal slaughter.

Some years earlier violence erupted in Caesarea, Nero looking on from Rome, when Greeks invaded the seaside city. By 66 A.D faithful Jews managed to seize the traitor Herod’s fortress, Massada, overwhelming the Roman garrison. The Jewish band inspired other “rebels” to move on Jerusalem, to the Temple; there they forced the heretical priests to cease their blasphemous sacrifices to Emperor Nero. Rome answered their rebellion.

Now the horrors recounted in Josephus’ history, Jewish Wars, gripped the emaciated Jewish survivors of the three-year Roman siege as they huddled within the walls of the Temple. So few Jews were left in Jerusalem that cats outnumbered people.

A generation earlier, in 33 A.D., after Christ was crucified, resurrected and ascended to heaven, His followers were instructed to “Go ye into all the world….” The first Christians –mostly Jews—no longer considered the Temple in Jerusalem to be the center of their faith or identity, though it was revered. Their faith included Jewish history, the prophets and the books of the Old Testament, but was newly centered in God made Man in the Person of Jesus. Jesus, now understood as God, the Second Person of the Trinity, promised to be with them bodily, though supernaturally, in the Mass. Hence, worship did not depend on a location or a building.

Palestine—literally land of the Philistines, a Greek people who settled in Canaan about 12^th cent, B.C.—was the Holy Land, but He who made it holy was with Christians wherever the Mass was celebrated.

These disciples established Christian communities all over the Hellenized world (Greek and Latin speaking cultures of the Mediterranean and the Middle East) as well as North Africa and parts of India. In Antioch, they were first called “Christians.” Some Christians remained in Jerusalem where Herod the Great persecuted them-- beheading the apostle James, first bishop of Jerusalem. Yet, the early Christian efforts at evangelization had moved far beyond the borders of hereditary Israel. Those who remained in Israel after the Christian expansion were Jews who lived in an uneasy division—those faithful to Jewish law, and those who, like Herod and the apostate priests of the Temple, maintained their power via collusion with detested Rome.

Now Jerusalem was on fire. Battering rams hurled boulders against the temple walls…when the city was finally subdued, the temple lay utterly destroyed.

The few survivors were taken slaves and Jews were forbidden to reenter the city. Jewish faith, deprived of its Temple, was forced to abandon its daily sacrifices as commanded in the Old Testament; the Jewish priesthood was obliterated along with the Temple and all that remained was the rabbinic authority.

The “Diaspora” or dispersed Jews formed communities in Rome, Carthage, and Iberia (Spain). Many traveled to what is today Eastern Europe and Russia. Some joined the ancient Jewish settlements in the Arabian Peninsula(See Essay I).

Jerusalem was then colonized by those Rome permitted to scavenge among the ruins of the once magnificent city. Pagan practices flourished. Sporadic rebellions by small Jewish armies flare up against the Romans until 135 A.D. However, the Romans resettle “Syria- Palestine” with Gentiles. Small Jewish settlements remain on the borders of Palestine.

Islam lay 500 years in the future.

Rome Falls, Christian Europe Is Born

Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 312. His predecessors, particularly Diocletian, persecuted Christians, burning their homes, churches and books. Christians were imprisoned and enslaved and even children were beheaded.

After his conversion, the Emperor issued the Edict of Milan, which made Christian worship lawful. Under Constantine a renewed interest in the Holy Land spurred rebuilding in the historic cities of Palestine. Under his patronage and that of his mother, Helena, hundreds of Catholic Churches were built—most notably the Church of the Nativity and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Thousands of Christians moved to Palestine (Israel) to be in the land where their Savior lived. More came on pilgrimage. At this time the Jewish population was a small minority. (picture?)

The Emperor also built an imperial city in Byzantium (Turkey), the famed Constantinople, modern day Istanbul. Byzantium is the Eastern Roman Empire—the Greek speaking half of the Empire. Greek culture predominated. Historians often date the birth of “Christendom” from the conversion of Constantine and the Edict of Milan. When the legal structure of the empire favored Christianity, it permitted Christians to assume office, seek education, build cities and establish a Christian culture. (Pagans however were not persecuted, nor prevented from continuing their “outmoded practices” in the emperor’s words.)

Meanwhile, in the heart of Persia (Modern day Iraq and Iran), Christians were tolerated. The Chaldean Church (Iraq) is one of the oldest in Christian history. After Constantine converted, some Persian rulers persecuted Christians because they were now allies of the detested Roman Emperor.

The key point to consider is that Christianity was well established both geographically as well as culturally throughout Roman Empire by 350A.D. including Palestine and much of the Middle East, and even as far as India and the British Isles. (The apostle Thomas established a Catholic community in India by 70 A.D., Bartholomew in Arabia, St. James to Spain.) Christians assimilated both Greek learning and the Roman Rule of Law. Missionaries were sent to Britain, France and beyond. Both England and France had a strong Christian culture by 400 A.D. In a few short centuries the peaceful spread of Christianity covered large areas of three continents. Christians needed no swords, no pillage, and no promises of eternal orgies in exchange for the massacre of unbelievers.

In contrast, three hundred years later, as Islamic jihad gouged out a new map of the Middle East, the method of "evangelization" was by the sword. While both Christianity and Islam would make claims for their faith as the final revelation from God, the method of spreading their respective messages stand in stark contradiction.

When Julian the Pagan became emperor (361-63) Christians again fled persecution, reminiscent of the early persecutions. Drawings and inscriptions on the walls of Roman catacombs detail the plight of the persecuted. (picture). Julian also turned his hatred on the Persians, fomenting a simmering war that continued for 200 years, depleting and weakening the entire region of east of Palestine.

(at left: Christ as Good Shepherd on wall of the Catacombs in Rome)

St. Augustine (4^th cent.) thought that Providence had ordered history so that Christianity would take root very quickly throughout the known world. That famous Pax Romana --the general lawfulness and order and the efficient Roman governance, provisions (roads), insured that missionary travels could be readily achieved—to carry out the Savior’s command to “go ye into all the world”. Most citizens spoke Latin and Greek—a common language also makes evangelization easier.

The wealth and education of the Empire meant populated cities—in short, within a 150 years the Christian gospel had reached the outer bands of the Roman Empire, which ruled 60 million inhabitants.

The Roman Empire to the West fell in 475 to the barbarian hordes. The Huns, expelled a half-century earlier from China, gradually made heir way westward. They, drove out Goths, Franks, Vandals, Sueves, Lombards, Saxons—all of these found a bloated soft “empire” whose borders were ill governed, ill protected. (hmmm? Sound familiar?)

All of the area we call the “West” was suddenly comprised of new nations: Lombards in Italy, a Goths and Visigoths migrated to Spain, the Frankish kingdom in Gaul, and the Angles and Saxons in the British Isles. The Dark Ages began—essentially a brutish chaos, fighting between the barbarians and the citizens of the former Roman Empire. Much of the learning and culture of the Roman era were lost to the average citizen.

The lightening spread of Christendom had followed the implosion of an empire under a series of debauched and lazy emperors. Christians suffered persecution and tortuous deaths. This suffering witness needed no armies to “convert” others. It is reasonable to assume that at this hinge moment—wit the empire crumbling around them—people were open to hearing the Christian message.

When barbarians confronted the early Popes, they met a message, not an army. Attila the Hun turned back from Rome when the elderly Pope Leo met him at the outskirts of the city, asking Attila as “conqueror of peoples” to conquer his own wrath and in mercy to turn back his raiders for the city of Rome was unable to defend itself. (Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 35).

Christians set about preserving the wealth of Greek, Jewish and Roman learning –great monasteries with scriptoriums salvaged enormously important human achievements in the arts, agriculture, history, math and science as well as languages and of course, the scriptures. And they evangelized the invading tribes, most of them converted. Missionaries were sent throughout Europe and into Russia. (St. Patrick converted Ireland around the year 432, St. Columba evangelized Northern Scotland 590s.) These were the forebears –in genetics and in faith of most of the European population today.

Though the Roman Empire fell, Christianity grew. Christian principles taught that every person has an equal and inherent dignity before God, the Father of all. One’s eternal worth did not depend on one’s financial or social worth. [Cato saw the slave is chattel, an economic instrument with no right to human dignity. In contrast, St. Paul sends the runaway slave Onesimus back to his master to be “received not now as a slave, but instead of a slave, a most dear brother, especially to me. But how much more to thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord”] One may be the squire, the other a groomsman, but both were brothers in Christ. Each has an obligation to the other as Christians first, as squire and groom second. This creed is the foundation of European law, a Europe that is the birthplace of “human rights’ ”law. Christianity saved Western Europe from both pagan barbarism and Eastern nihilism, in the form of esoteric and Gnostic—essentially anti-humanistic—values.

Most of what we value in our civilization — hospitals, museums, universities, and the idea of human rights — is by origin Christian. These civilizing institutions and ideals did not arrive with the Vikings or Germanic tribes, or from the Eastern Gnostics.

Despite intra familial fighting, Europe was forged as a people with the same worldview. That worldview was fused to the Greek and Roman traditions and learning that the monks preserved during the darkest reign of barbarians or despots. It is said that the Christian faith created Europe and Europe created the Modern World.

Palestine and the Coming of Islam

Meanwhile, back at the oasis— The Persians (Sassanid dynasty) continued their advances against the Byzantines (eastern Empire) They took Damascus and Jerusalem, yanked the True Cross from the Church in Jerusalem and off loaded it in Ctesiphon, a massive city on the banks of the Tigris River in what is now Iraq. It was the ultimate insult.

Naturally, Emperor Heraclius takes a posse-- bearing the Mandylion (Later known as the Shroud of Turin) as their banner-- to retrieve the hunk of the True Cross (629 A.D.)

But this two hundred year seesaw war exhausts both the Byzantine and the Persian empires—providing a crucial opportunity for the Arab Muslims who have the urge to flex their new powers against something beyond the Arabia Peninsula. (Besides, there was great enmity between the Persians and the Arabs).

The Persians—thus depleted and lying around panting—had nothing left to fight off the Desert Terror—that is, the Muslin warriors took Ctesiphon in 637, when Umar was Caliph.

Over on the Mediterranean, in Palestine, Egypt, Turkey, Christians had their own internal wars—a lot of energy spent on disputes over heresies. (Palestine harbored partisans of the Monophysite heresy.) This made them ripe for a takeover by the Persians with the aid of the Jews who hoped the Persians would restore what the Romans took from them –Damascus fell in 613, Palestine in 614. Byzantines recovered the Holy Land for the Christians by 630. Soon thereafter Mohamed orders invasion of Palestine …a skirmish only since the he is dying.

By 632 --the year of Mohamed's death, the Muslims rule the Arabian peninsula. Next Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, and Persia --all belonging to the Persians or the Byzantines--succumb to jihad. After mourning, the Muslims renew their assault on the Holy Land and 634 Gaza goes Muslim and Christians flee ahead of the scimitars.

By 638, Jerusalem was controlled by Muslims. For 1300 years the Jews and Christians of Palestine have lived in dhimmitude.

[Mohammed once insisted that his followers must face Jerusalem when praying—thought to be a ploy to gain the support of the Jews of Mecca and Medina. The Koran does not mention Jerusalem. Yet it is supposed to be the site from which the prophet “ascended to Heaven” on his famous a night journey dream. Later caliphs decided this event took place in Jerusalem. They built the Dome of the Rock had been built in 687, and today the Al-Aqsa Mosque stands on the same site.]

After the Muslims conquered Syria (north of Palestine) they marched straight for Constantinople –first raid is in 675 or so…but it was repulsed. Not easily put off, the Muslims swarm over the island nations of Cyprus, Rhodes and Crete. Here brutality went unchecked—as though some demonic rage fueled its energy. With vast plunder to enrich its war coffers, Islamic warriors invaded, with no provocation, the first European “nation” —Cyprus, a Byzantine protectorate. The majority population was Greek. Two Muslim armies converged, 1700 warships strong (649). Those who escaped massacre were invited to pay vast sums in tribute to the governor of Muslim Syria.

The battles for Crete and Rhodes followed the first jihad raid on Cyprus. At Rhodes the famous Colossus of Rhodes (built in 290 BC) —one of the seven wonders of the ancient world—was disassembled and shipped back to Syria in 73 boats—there the Saracens (Muslims) sold it for scrap metal. Next jihad turned on Sicily and Sardinia, “sacking cities, carrying off booty and beautiful maidens.” (688 A.D.)

Islamic armies in the Mediterranean were led by an enormous personality, Muawiya, son of Abu Sufyan, who had once tried to kill Mohamed in battle. Abu was a businessman first, when Mohammed conquered Mecca, Abu converted. His son went on to become one of history’s greatest warriors.

Jihad and Sexual Tension

After the jihad on the islands of the Mediterranean, Islam swarmed over North Africa decimating Christian towns, burning and looting from churches and homes--then over the straights of Gibraltar into Spain (711) where they begin an eight-hundred year reign of wars, rape, slavery, pillage, and every manner of domination. Conquered populations were offered three “peaceful” choices: Convert to Islam, the sword, or pay yearly tributes and live as second-class citizens. Plunder and slaughter always preceded the persuasive offer.

How shall we assess the unparalleled military victories of the Muslims? In a scant hundred years after Mohamed’s death vast stretches of the former Byzantine and Roman Empires had fallen to the Saracen sword. Military scholars remain amazed at the ferocity of the Muslim warriors—an intensity never reached and sustained by other armies.

Two primary answers:

1. Muslim warriors were taught that it was their religious duty to kill infidels—and by such duty save their own souls from damnation—either kill or suffer hell. As an added incentive the warrior who fell in battle against infidels received his multiple “houris” (maidens of pleasure) and orgasms that lasted “years”. Thus stimulated before battle, Muslim jihadists devoutly sought this eternity of sexual pleasure, not unlike the kamikaze pilots of WWII. This sexualized eternity stood in sharp contrast to the spiritual beneficence that Christianity promised. For the man who survived in battle the rewards were only slightly less appealing: plunder and spoils to fill his camel bags and the sex-slaves made of conquered women.

From the Hadiths of AL-Tirmidhi (892): “A houri is the most beautiful young woman, transparent in body. Her marrow is visible like the interior lines of pearls and rubies. She is as red wine in a white glass. Her body is of white color, and she is free from the physical weaknesses of an ordinary woman such as menstruation, menopause, urinal and offal discharge, and bodily pollution, she does not bear a child. A houri is a young girl showing large round breasts, firm and that do not dangle. Houris dwell in splendid palaces.”

Note that the Qur’an itself does not promise the number of houris a martyr enjoys…that number is found in the hadiths. It is in the Islamic Traditions that we find the 72 virgins in heaven specified: Al-Tirmidhi in the Book of Sunan (volume IV).

As detailed Al-Suyuti (died 1505), an Our’anic scholar: "Each time we sleep with a houri we find her virgin. Besides, the penis of the Elected never softens. The erection is eternal; the sensation that you feel each time you make love is utterly delicious and out of this world and were you to experience it in this world you would faint. Each chosen one [i.e. Muslim] will marry seventy [sic] houris, besides the women he married on earth, and all will have appetizing vaginas.”

Where on earth, literally, could a common man find such pleasures? A poor desert warrior is beguiled with promises that he is to become like Mohamed, a pitiless slayer of infidels, who surely took his fill of pleasure and yet was “holy”

At the risk of titillating readers of this blog, no more examples need be given –but imagine for a moment hordes of confined men at some forsaken desert garrison with too few earthly houris to go around…. how easily the man becomes a willing and ferocious martyr to his urgent imaginings of eternal sexual bliss—a type of bliss not found by any man on earth. Imagine too, death by scimitar from behind should you fail to fight the infidel in front of you.

2. The second critical factor to the astonishing success of Islamic jihad in the early years of Islam is that their targets were weakened by years of war and lacked cohesive leadership. Worse, perhaps, was the religious disunity due to the rise in of heretical sects.

Part II

The Crusades: Liberation of Christians in the Holy Land

…. Coming next…

Terror from the Heart of Islam : One Turkish Man's View

Of interest to our discussion is this December 2007 report by Turkish National, Zafer Senocak, 46, who has lived in Berlin since the 1970s. The article (in German) appeared in a popular German paper.

[ note: text in RED is Aunty Belle's own emphasis]

Terror Comes from the Heart of Islam

You will not find the true face of Islam at the German Conference on Islam. You find it in countries like Pakistan. This Islam turns against all who don't live by the rules of the Koran - against democrats, against atheists and above all, against women. And the world watches in paralysis.

Koran and violence: Do they belong together?

Even if most Muslims do not admit it, terror belongs to the core dogma of Islam, it comes directly from the Koran. It turns against all who do not live and act according to the rules of the Koran, that is democrats, western inspired thinkers and scientists, against agnostics and atheists. And above all, it is directed directly against women. Islam is a tool in the hands of male traditionalists who strive with all might to prevent women from attaining equal rights and to free themselves from the yoke of the centuries.

[The true Islam, like you find it in countries like Pakistan], has started a world war. But the world behaves as if it knows nothing about it. Modern people are aware some conflict exists far away in the "back yards of Turkey". Unfortunately, in our modern networked world there is no "far away backyards" any more. There is only our "front door", and that's the place where things happen. The totalitarian intent of the Taliban and the terror cells is probably worse than that of fascism, it is not the result of a civilizing process. It exists in an environment where even the memory of civilized progress has ceased to exist.

This should be the call of those Muslims who see more in their religion than a blueprint for barbarism: To oppose the ghouls in their own rank and file, determined and with the necessary harshness. But alas, when they do it, if ever, it is only half spirited. Islam has nothing to do with terror, maintains the Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Other politicians scramble over each other to compose the most convincing condolence messages after each act of terror. Outright grotesque is the situation in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom trembles before the terrorists who it itself has created.

Muslims all over the world find themselves on the test bench. They pay for the neglect of previous generations. The spiritual decline and the inability to communicate with the modern world has led to the deplorable present situation. The times call for a coordinated effort from all people of reason. Islamic terror has spread to the whole world. The opposition is only half hearted, slow, and reluctant to a concentrated effort. To reach results, the common sense of the common people would have to go against the blind hatred of the fanatics. The opposite happens, the hatred is more and more being adopted by the masses. Still worse, many illegitimate despots ally themselves with the hatred to secure their throne. To make the situation worse, Muslims engage more and more in theological rhetorics. The vital question, how their religion can be made to sustain the development of a modern civilization, is largely avoided.

The free world is paralyzed

This behavior of the Muslims has certainly psychological reasons. People feel inferior compared to the west, humiliated and betrayed. But the political consequences of this psychosis are terrible. It plays into the hands of those who fan the flames of terrorism in order to create chaos in the Muslim world. It plays into the hand of those who see an interest in terrorism, and it prevents the establishment of democratic systems and judicial processes. Poverty and corruption find optimal conditions to grow in the Islamic world, an evil circle. This evil circle must be broken with the help of the free world and with military power, because nothing else has any effect! Those who fight in Afghanistan cannot pretend that nothing is wrong in Pakistan. The murder of Benazir Bhutto was preprogrammed. The fall of the Gaza strip to the Hamas terrorists was also foreseeable.

But the free world watches paralyzed. There was a lot of scorn in Europe over the American policy in Iraq. When it comes to criticism, nobody can beat the Europeans. Own ideas and political concepts are however scarce. The European policies towards the Muslim terror lacks power and resolve. Some countries want to negotiate, with Hamas, with the Taliban. Nuclear reactors for Gaddafi, roll out the red carpet for the Saudi king! In the end, the petrodollar rules. The west does not understand how deeply it hurts itself and betrays its own values. The Islamic terrorists go from one victory to the next. Benazir Bhutto will not be the last victim of the failed appeasement policy towards radical Islam.

Translated and edited by Wiking

Muslims Threaten WGA Writers on Strike

Find writers on strike in the picket
lines and behead them????




Well, is we'uns surprised?

After all, the Jihadi movement has long fingered Hollywood as the epicenter of all that is debauched in America. Some of us even agree that much of Hollywood is in need of massive reform.



Point is that, once again, Islam resorts to violence as the first method of engagement.
* * *

(shamelessly lifted from another site) :

The following was posted (but has now been removed) in the "Rants and Raves" section of Craigslist / Los Angeles:

MAY THE WRITERS STRIKE LAST FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Allah be praised for quieting their evil tongues!

Let the plagues of Allah rain down upon Hollywood Blvd!

Let their brain fluids run down the gutters of Sunset Strip!

They have corrupted the minds of all youth with their blasphemous speech!

Let them die of starvation so that Allah may judge them with the torment of vipers!

Let their bodies rot in the mojave desert as rabbits feast upon their decomposing flesh!

Let the field mice dine upon their eyeballs as they sleep in alcoholic stupor!

We shall not weep for these demons but we shall rejoice as their intestines are thinly sliced for fish net bait.

They place the words inside the mouths of the unwary actor. They are the sexual thoughts of the deviant of darkness.

May the Chinese stir fry their lungs for the Director's guild meeting.

Let all Muslims rise up and seek them out on their picket lines. The Prophet has already said to behead these infidels. As it was said, so shall it be done.

* * * There ya' have it folks****

(Even iffin' it cracks yore teeth, pray fer Muslim folks all over the world.)

Honor Killings in USA, Plus Soldiers Speak out

More from the Religion of Peace? Father murders teen daughters.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,319525,00.html

Area police continue to search for a man who they believe killed his two teenage daughters and left their bodies in a taxi at an Irving hotel.

Police sealed off a street and surrounded the man’s home in Lewisville for more than five hours Wednesday but found that Yaser Abdel Said, 50, a cabdriver, was not inside.

He is being sought in connection with the deaths of Amina Yaser Said, 18, and Sarah Yaser Said, 17.

Both victims died of multiple gunshot wounds, the Dallas County medical examiner’s office ruled Wednesday…


But will the West ever recognize the true threat? From LTC Joseph C. Myers, Army Advisor to the Air Command and Staff College:

"More importantly we have not studied Islamic Law and few have seen or heard of even the English translation of it that has been in print for years, none had at JSOU or had read a work titled Understanding Jihad, War and Peace in the Law of Islam or even The Quranic Concept of War...I can go on but let me be frank.

This failure of intellectual preparation is a leadership failure, and it is as the 9-11 Commission warned, a failure of vision.

We have spent much intellectual capitol revamping and analyzing our own doctrine as it relates to counterinsurgency...it's time we do our homework on the threat...We began on September 12, 2001 with "Islam is a religion of peace," which soothed ideological sentiments of many but has failed us strategically, short-stopped the objective, sytstemic evaluation of the threat doctrine..."Islam is a religion of peace" is fine for public policy statements, but is not and cannot be the point of departure for competent military or intelligence analysis...it is in fact a logical flaw under any professional research methodology...you have stated the conclusion before you have done the analysis."

Is lslam Inherently Evil?

This is the first of three planned essays:

I. Islam: A Political-Military System

II. Islam and the West: A Brief History

III. Judaism, Christianity and
Islam: A Brief Theological Comparison

[Note: Please, if you are new to our discussions, check the Rules of Engagement posted 10/13/07. Also, look to the right margin --there is a link to the PorkRindHollow where you will find resources to support the essays, including a glossary. Blue highlighted words in the text are linked directly to the glossary. Finally, Aunty Belle is NOT saying that all Muslims are violent, many are decent and kind people. This essay is not a criticism of Muslims as individuals.]

Essay I

Islam As a Political and Military System

Many object that the characterization of Islam as a violent and dangerous ideology is bigoted. Their point is that “Islam the religion” is not synonymous with terrorism. They insist that recent events of terror and mayhem are the work of a few “radical Islamists” or “terrorists.” But are they?

Why then does the religion of Islam breed so many violent adherents? Islam has waged an invasive war against non- believers and their homelands for 1300 years. To state that Islam is violent and dangerous in its religious precepts is not bigoted… if it is true.

Contemporary commentary is often crafted to achieve a public relations goal. Thus, accuracy is can be sacrificed to achieve the public relations objective. The public face of modern Islam is deliberately presented to the West as a “religion of peace,” following September 11, 2001. This public relations exercise serves a carefully defined purpose:

1 . avoid the possible provocation of a billion Muslims

2. deflect a global war

3. create “space” for moderate Muslims to inhabit.

For the Islamic world this PR initiative is intended to forestall actual acts of violence endemic to modern Islamic practice and teaching—violence against its own believers and against non-believers on every continent. Yet, because of the massive public relations efforts on both sides of the Islamic divide, the average Western citizen is unacquainted with the truth about Islamic teaching and history.

Critical information on Islam is not withheld from the average citizen—books and websites are easily found-- but commentators routinely redirect facts and situations to lull citizens into a dangerous apathy. Westerners, thus, are disarmed.

The purpose of this essay is to explore Islam from its internal texts and history in order to understand how some arrive at the conclusion that Islam is systemically (from the roots to the flower) flawed, even evil. (In this instance evil is defined as religious oppression and death of innocents those whose “crime” is failure to worship Allah and honor his prophet Mohamed). Can that assertion be factually supported?

Let’s take a look.

What is Islam?

Simplest answers:

Islam is the world’s second largest religion-- nearly a billion believers who are called Muslims.

Islam is a monotheistic religion that was founded in the Arabian Peninsula in 610 AD when a caravan merchant named Mohamed heard an angel recite teachings that were purported to be from Allah (Islamic term for God). Those teachings were collected over the years after his death and today are revered by Muslims as their holy text, called the Qur’an. The Qur’an is divided into Suras or chapters. These are not arranged chronologically or thematically.

Islam is a religion named for the term “Islam” which means “submission.” In the religious sense, Islam means submission or surrender to the will/ pleasure of Allah. Once a believer submits he/she finds the second meaning of the term Islam: “peace.” Peace is found through submission. Islam teaches that until all men have submitted to Islam, Muslims must wage jihad against nations and peoples who reject the invitation to Islam.

Who founded Islam?

Strictly speaking, Islam teaches that Allah is the founder of Islam. The belief is that God sent various prophets throughout human history; their teachings were either ignored or misunderstood. This line of prophets included Noah, Abraham and Moses, as well as Jesus. The last prophet that Allah sent or would ever send —according to Islamic teaching—was Mohamed. Supposedly Mohamed understood Allah rightly, thus, most of the teachings of Christians and Jews were faulty. The first of the five “pillars” of Islamic faith is “There is no god but Allah and Mohamed is his prophet.”

Mohamed, son of Abdullah.

Contemporaneous non-Muslim sources on the life of Mohamed are sparse. The primary early sources for his biography are: Life History of Muhammad, by Ibn-Ishaq , A.D. 768, re-edited by Ibn-Hisham in 833; The Expeditions of Muhammad, by Al-Waqidi A.D. 822.

The essential outline is that he was born in Mecca around the year 570 AD; his father, a member of the Hashim, a poorer branch of the influential Quraish tribe, died before his birth. His mother was dead before he was 10; his uncle raised him to adulthood. Mecca in that century was home to Jewish and Christian settlers as well as the indigenous Arab Bedouin tribes.

Many Arabs were nominal Christians, and most of the Christians in the Arabian Peninsula were heretical sects, Nestorians or Monophysites, chiefly. These Christians and Jews were monotheistic in contrast to those Arabs who practiced the pan-paganism typical to most cultures of the time-- where many lesser and local gods were worshiped. Mohamed’s tribe served as overseers of the Kabba, a shrine where many deities were worshiped. At that time, the deity called Allah was understood as the God of gods.

Mohamed worked for his uncle along the caravan trade routes to Syria. When he was 20 years old he met Khadijah, a wealthy widow 15 years his senior. She married the poor but resourceful young man from a respectable tribe five years later. He managed her caravan business.

During a trading journey to Syria, Mohamed met a Nestorian monk, Bahira, from whom he learned certain Christian teachings. Mohamed’s wife, Khadijah, owned a Christian slave, Zayid ibn Harith, whom Muhammad adopted as his own son years before his first prophetic work began. Khadijah was known to be a Christian, probably Nestorian. Some accounts describe her brother or cousin as one who translated the Scriptures into proto-Arabic and who is known to have died as a Christian. (More on Mohamed’s religious background and influences in Essay III.)

What is clear is that Mohamed was familiar with the singular premise of both Jewish and Christian teaching: There is but one God who is all-powerful, (omnipotent) and all-knowing (omniscient). Furthermore, among the commercial trade routes those who believed in one God seemed to disdain pagans who believed in a plethora of gods.

The Coming of the Qur’an

At age 40-41 Mohamed, after 15 years of marriage, told Khadijah that had been visited by the angel Gabriel while meditating. The experience terrified him and he sought her comfort. “Cover me! Cover me” he cried when he returned to her from the cave where it was his custom of meditate. She “sat him on her lap” and assured him he was not possessed.(B/T)

However, the people of Mecca were not too sure. Mohamed, however much he questioned his own sanity, soon had assurances from Allah himself:

Sura 7.184 Do they not reflect? Their companion (Mohamed) is not seized with madness: he is but a perspicuous warner.

Sura 52.029 Therefore proclaim thou the praises (of thy Lord): for by the Grace of thy Lord, thou art no (vulgar) soothsayer, nor art thou one possessed.

Sura 68.002 Thou art not, by the Grace of thy Lord, mad or possessed.

The angel had dictated “recitations” that Mohamed is said to have memorized. Henceforth he called himself “God’s last Prophet,” as no new prophet would come after him. His recitations continued for 22 years; they are collected into the Islamic holy text called the Qur’an. The teachings formed the basis of what was to be the world’s third monotheistic religion. Additional teachings are found in the sayings and behavior of Mohamed, called hadiths. Hadiths were collected after Mohamed’s death; they have binding force on Muslim behavior and practice.

(However, there is no definitive Muslim authority on what the Qur’an means or what the Hadiths mean, particularly in relation to more modern eras. Thus, wherever he can draw a following, individual muftis, mullahs or imams can impute to the suras whatever meaning they prefer. There is of course, much consensus on the meanings, but no one authority can overrule an interpretation given by a particular religious leader.)

Mohamed’s wife and a few cousins were the first converts to the new faith; some scholars show that it is reasonable to suppose these early converts thought of his meditations and locutions as an addition to Jewish and Christian teaching, and only later as a new faith increasingly opposed to Judaism and Christianity. Ten years into the new teachings, Khadijah died leaving a 50 year old Mohamed to continue on his path.

The Basis for Islamic Teaching

For the purposes of this first essay, it is crucial to note that the spiritual aspects at the inception of Islam were drawn from the surrounding Jewish and Christian groups who populated both Mecca and Medina. (More in essay II, III) There is no reason to hold that Mohamed had any motivation --at first-- other than a sincere search for truth that could be adapted to the Bedouin/ Arab tribal culture. Clearly he admired the cohesive elements of the monotheistic religions of those who held those beliefs. Such believers worked together as “brothers in faith” and were prosperous, spending less time on vendettas and tribal revenge.

After his initial experience in the cave where he received the locutions from Allah via the angel Gabriel, Mohamed preached the earliest recitations to his own city of Mecca. At this point his preaching --as he believed he had received from Allah-- was peaceful, and the recitations even command Mohamed to endure rejection with charity. His new religion was tolerated at first, in the manner that all gods had a place in the Meccan pantheon.

But when the commercial leaders realized Mohamed meant to destroy their minor gods, ("There is no God but Allah") then people rejected the new teachings. Leaders feared that if all other gods were prohibited, the lucrative tourist trade from those on pilgrimage to the pantheon of gods enshrined in Mecca would decline.

When his status as prophet met resistance from the commercial interests, when he met derision,and the Meccans laughed and rejected him and his message, Mohamed felt threatened and humiliated. Or, worse yet, Mohamed felt a need to prove he was not possessed—a theme found throughout the Qur’an wherein the voice of the angel repeatedly reassure him that he was not the victim of a demon. (See Sura 7:184; 52:29; 68:2...also see above)

Islam as a Political and Military System

During this time of rejection and humiliation at the hands of the Meccans, Khadijah died (620AD). Afterwards, the jihad model of Islam was born. Within months Mohamed took a new wife, then others. Thereafter the entire character of the received messages changed to reflect a political and military ideology filled with revengeful verses, (see suras 8, 9) and from a traditional biography of Mohamed we have this:

The apostle of Allah returned to Medina and remained there for several months, sending out various raiding parties and expedi­tions. Then the month of pilgrimage came round and it was one year since the expedition of al‑Hudaybiya when he had turned back from Mecca. Then took place what is called the Pilgrimage of Retaliation, when the apostle retaliated against the Quraysh who had pre­vented him from entering Mecca…” (B/T) Revenge is thus made legitimate by the new messages from Allah.

Later a petitioner asked Mohamed for assistance with a grievance against non-Muslims, “The man entered the mosque of Medina, where the apostle was sitting in the midst of the people, and asked for aid and retaliation, and the apostle replied, ‘It shall be done.’ ” (B/T)

There are Qur’anic justifications for pillaging to support his growing harem--a “divine” warrant for his lusts. (Sura 33:50) --and band of followers: “That which Allah giveth as spoil unto His messenger from the people of the townships, it is for Allah and His messenger…” (Sura 59:7). See also all of Sura 8, called the “Spoils of War” Sura. (ex.: Sura 8:41; 8:67-69; ) and the hadith 2706 (Sunan Abu Dawud) “Abd Allah b. Amr said: When the Apostle of Allahs (May peace be upon him) gained a booty he ordered Billal to make a public announcement. He made a public announcement, and when the people brought their booty, he would take a fifth and divide it…..” This “booty” included slaves and notable persons who were then ransomed for great profit.

From a traditional Muslim biography of Mohamed we read how Allah gave Mohamed permission to fight unbelievers. The point is made again that originally, while still in Mecca, Mohamed reported that Allah had sent him as a peaceful prophet and instructed Mohamed to endure rebuffs with patience and charity.

But when his failures in Mecca mounted, and after the death of his first wife, Khadijah, Mohamed began to receive a different sort of message from Allah, messages that clearly ended the peaceful approach to conversion and instead instituted a jihad model of conversion.

Conditions in Mecca were so strained by 622 that
Mohamed and his band of early followers departed
for Yathrib (Medina), a thriving oasis settlement
north of Mecca. The people there –
including three prosperous Jewish tribes—welcomed
him in peace,even accepted his proposal
of political leadership.

This event, known as the Hejira, marks the beginningof the Islamic calendar.

The first two years after the move to Yathrib (later re-named Medina: madinat al-nabi, or City of the Prophet) were filled with a series of raids of neighboring encampments, traversing caravans and even attacks on “enemies” within Medina. In short, the money and goods necessary to support his followers came from theft, pillage, “booty” and robbery, rather than peaceful endeavors such as trade, weaving, toolmaking etc.

Wherever a people did not accept Mohamed’s “peaceful” overture, they were fair game for a new raid. Each successful raid increased his wealth as well as his status (based on fear and envy) among the people of Medina, many of who converted.

In essence this passage sums up the jihadist political model that Islam has followed since Mohamed left Mecca for Medina:

When Allah gave His apostle permission to wage war, the promise to fight immediately became a condition of allegiance to Islam. This had not been so at the first meeting on the hillside, when homage was paid 'in the manner of women'; Allah had not then given His apostle permission to fight. He had given permission neither to wage war nor to shed blood, but only to call men to Allah, to endure insults patiently, and to pardon the ignorant. Some of the followers of the apostle had therefore been forced to flee from persecution into the countryside, some to Abyssinia, others to Medina and elsewhere. When the Quraysh

[Arab tribe in Mecca] rejected the mercy of Allah and spurned His prophet, they tormented or drove away men who proclaimed the One‑ness of Allah, believed in His prophet, and adhered to His religion.

Allah therefore permitted Muhammad to fight…Then a further verse was recorded: ‘Fight against them until there be no more temptation’ ‑ until Believers shall no more be tempted to abandon their religion ‑ ‘and until the religion be Allah’s’, that is, until Allah alone shall be worshipped and none else besides Him.

Since permission to fight had now been granted, the apostle of Allah accepted allegiance at the second meeting on the hill only from people who swore to fight for him and his Lord against all men. He promised paradise as a reward. (Muhammad, by Ibn Ishaq)

Mohamed did not hesitate to kill those who opposed him. He was particularly sensitive to being mocked. When a poet wrote unflattering verses about Mohamed's claim to be a prophet, he ordered his men to assassinate her; the assailant stabbed the poetess even though an infant was asleep on her breast.

Jihad as religious wars of conquest

Scholars divide Mohamed’s career into the Meccan and the Medina eras; the former is peaceful, “purer” in motivation, the latter purely self-serving, political and conquering. That is the prevailing characteristic of Islamic teaching today—in short, the violence against Muslim women and the jihad against non-Muslims, the acts of planned terrorism, the conflating of the political state and the religion of Islam—all these have their basis in the actual teachings in the Qur’an and in the acts of Mohamed himself.

Though there are "peaceful" verses in the Qur'an, most of those are from the Meccan era or earliest months in Medina. These include the often quoted Sura 2:256. "There is no compulsion in religion."

But these peaceful verses are abrogated by the later recitations, roughly those from the Medina era when Mohamed had instituted jihad/ military model of spreading the faith. The Qur'an itself proves the primacy of these later (warring) verses, in effect, dispalcing the earliest verses:

Sura 2:106. Whatever a Verse do We (Allah) abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring a better one or similar to it. Know you not that Allah is able to do all things?

(recall that the verses and chapters are not chronological as given in the Qur'an.) From Sura 2:106 it is plain that Allah is not bound, nor is his prophet bound, by Allah's former directive to be peaceful or patient.

This is why it is licit to point out that the violence of jihad is inherent in the teachings of Islam; these teachings and acts of war were there from Islam's inception. Thus, military and political jihad and violence are not outside Islamic teaching, but from Islamic teaching. Indeed, from its beginnings through current history, Islamic leaders understand Allah as their King, President, Ruler; ultimately it is the Our'an that determines a Muslim’s politics and the political policy of ever Islamic state. The Qur'an is not a book of peace, but a manual for war and pillage, for forced unity, for an oppressive governing rule...all in the name of religion.

Let us leave the spiritual aspect of Mohamed’s life and times to the third essay. Here we examine the melding of religious teaching and the political and military necessities of a new religion that sought to call all men on earth to Islam, the Arabic word for “submission.” From its earliest days Islam spread by terror and pillage as well as conversion. Those who refused the “invitation” to convert were subject to slavery and death. (Sura 8:12) No wonder “conversions” took place routinely as Muslims swept over each successive territory.

Islam has NO era of history that is marked by truly peaceful missionary teaching. Rather, the political and military conquests were a religious duty for faithful Muslims.

Karen Armstrong, known for her favorable biography of Mohamed, wrote:

“A Muslim had to redeem history, and that meant that state affairs were not a distraction from spirituality but the stuff of religion itself. The political well-being of the Muslim community was a matter of supreme importance...politics…was the arena in which Muslims experienced God and which enabled the divine to function effectively in the world…political assassinations, civil war, the rise and fall of ruling dynasties –were not divorced from the interior religious quest but were the essence of the Islamic vision.” (Islam p. xi, xii)

Furthermore, Mohamed is described as "al-insan al-kamil" (perfect man). Thus his acts, behaviors and personal habits are considered the preeminent model for all Muslim men--a dangerous model when history, the hadiths and the Qur'an show him as the agent to "redeem history" with jihad.

Does “Islam” Mean “Peace”?

The word Islam is derived from salima, meaning to be “unharmed” (because one submits). It is simple to see the name for the new religion as one drawn from both a tribal culture of submitting to the chieftain to remain at peace, unharmed, and the spiritual connotation of submitting to Allah—“as Allah wills it.”

The significance of the word and the act of submitting religiously, is its transferal to the concept of jihad. Jihad can be understood as the internal struggle to serve Allah, but is taught in the Qur’an as the justified war against the unbelievers who live in the “house of war,” the Dar-al-Harb. All in the Dar-al-Islam (Muslims/ believers) are safe, and at peace because they have made their submission.

The jihadist war on those who do not submit to Mohamed and Allah is defended with these sample verses from the Qur’an:

Sura 2.190 Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors.

Sura 2.191 And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have Turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.

Sura 8.012 Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): "I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them."

Sura 8.013 This because they contended against Allah and His Apostle: If any contend against Allah and His Apostle, Allah is strict in punishment.

Sura 8.014 Thus (will it be said): "Taste ye then of the (punishment): for those who resist Allah, is the penalty of the Fire."

Sura 9.005 But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, an seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practise regular charity, then open the way for them: for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.

Sura 9.29 Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book (Christians & Jews) , until they pay the Jizya (punitive tax or “protection money”) with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

Sura 47.4 Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks; At length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly (on them): thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: Until the war lays down its burdens. Thus (are ye commanded): but if it had been Allah’s Will, He could certainly have exacted retribution from them (Himself); but (He lets you fight) in order to test you, some with others. But those who are slain in the Way of Allah,- He will never let their deeds be lost.

On the matter of the jizya, this is a punitive “protection” /extortion tax levied against those who refused to convert but are permitted to live under Islamic oppression—the “dhimmi.” The jizya was a clever two fold weapon against the oppressed people: It generated revenue, but in addition, it was used to humiliate. Islamic jurists ruled that such “taxes” be paid in person, barefoot, and in a crouching (submission) position.

According to Ibn ‘Abbas, the one who pays is to be humiliated , that is, the dhimmi, is then to be struck on his bent neck as he pays the jizya. It needs no psychologist to note that the humiliating experience that Mohamed suffered in Mecca is translated into this retribution against all who refuse his teaching. And, naturally the extortion loaded the coffers of the Islamic overlords.

To stress the point from the above: Mohamed’s people engaged in piracy against the caravan trade to support themselves (not unusual at the time among pagans, but surely inchoate in a religion that professes "peace."). Mohamed required that he be paid one fifth of the booty. This history is justified, say Islamic teachers, by these verses from the Qur’an:

Sura 8 “SPOILS OF WAR, BOOTY”

8.1 They ask thee concerning (things taken as) spoils of war. Say: "(such) spoils are at the disposal of Allah and the Apostle.

From Hadiths: “ The booty has been made Halal (lawful) for me (Mohamed) yet it was not lawful for anyone else before me.”

For a jihad model of expansion, the care and feeding of willing soldiers/raiders is key. Thus we have this account from Ibn Ishaq:

“I hid at one end and ordered my companions to hide at the other end….There we were waiting to take the enemy by surprise…and when he came in range I shot him in the heart with an arrow…I leapt upon him and cut off his head and ran in the direction of the camp shouting ‘Allah Akber’ and my two companions did likewise…they all fled….We drove off a large number of camels and sheep and brought them to the apostle and I took Rifaa’s head to the apostle, who gave me thirteen of the camels to help me with the woman’s dowry, and I consummated my marriage.”

Clearly, Mohamed was willing to permit outright robbery to support his troops. Muslim apologists gloss over these passages with the supposition that such raids were "deserved" by the unbelievers--some of whom may have "violated" a treaty. But even so, such raids have as their goal a political -military objective--it underscores the point --Mohamed understood Islam as a military and political system that operated under an umbrella of religiosity.

At first Mohamed sought the favor of his new hosts in Medina, even to instructing his own followers to bow toward Jerusalem when they prayed --in order to please his new Jewish neighbors. (Later he would adopt this custom for Muslims, but transposed to himself and his own birthplace of Mecca.) For their part, the Jews of Medina had been waiting for their Messiah, and wondered if this man who claimed that the Angel Gabriel had sent him could possibly be their awaited one?

They soon realized otherwise, and within a year tension between Mohamed’s followers and the natives of Medina gave rise to violent disputes. Mohamed expelled all non-submissive Arabian clans and the three Jewish tribes; the Nadir, the Qoreiga and Qaynuga, and confiscated their properties.

From Medina he launched murderous raids on his native Mecca, eventually subduing the city. Such battles are justified by the locutions Mohamed received from Allah:

Sura 8.12 Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): "I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them."

Sura 8.13 This because they contended against Allah and His Apostle: If any contend against Allah and His Apostle, Allah is strict in punishment.

Sura 8.14 Thus (will it be said): "Taste ye then of the (punishment): for those who resist Allah, is the penalty of the Fire."

Sura 8.38 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).

Sura 8.39 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.

Tribal strife was brutish and Mohamed’s followers were no different. In Mecca there was a ghastly slaughter. Many tribes were subdued and submitted to Mohamed's new religion. After his move to Medina, Mohamed himself conducted over 30 raids and three wars. These jihads against all non-believers is commanded in the Qur’an:

“Prophet, make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home: an evil fate.” (Sura 9:73)

To show that jihad is required of “true believers” this verse is given:

Sura 9:81 “Those who stayed home were happy to be left behind by God’s apostle (Mohamed), for they had no desire to fight for the cause of God with their wealth or their persons. They said to themselves, ‘So not go to war, the heat is fierce’, Say to them “More fierce is the heat of Allah’s hell-fire!”

By the end of Mohamed’s life, the jihad model of religiously justified military and political conquest was well oiled. Mohamed was bold in his desire to spread Islam. He sent letters to the surrounding governors of Byzantium and Persia "inviting" them to convert "and you will be safe."(Bukhari , vol 4 #2941).

That not-so-veiled threat was repeated over the years. Within decades the Arabian Peninsula was brought under Islamic domination and all other faiths were outlawed.

The political structure used to unify the Peninsula was Islam,and the religion used to unify the citizens was Islam.

The two are inseparable. This is a concept that Westerners find difficult to understand, yet, to Muslims it is the only “true” framework for political life.

The idea of either religious or political pluralism is utterly rejected by Muslims and prohibited by Allah. For this reason Muslims cannot live in peace with their neighbors: Jihad is against all unbelievers, and thus is a “holy” and justified war according to Allah and his prophet Mohamed.

Essays to come:

II Islam & the West (A Brief History)

III Judiaism, Christianity and
Islam (distinctive beliefs
thereof)

About the citations: Suras from the Qur'an are given. The hadiths that are quoted are not always accompanied by the corresponding volume or numbers though the compiler or interpreter's name is listed. The goal was not to write somebody's term paper....but if any of ya'll feel called to challenge anything documented here, please find your own documentation to challenge it, then I will provide the precise citations.

UPDATE: Discussion continues. Essay II, Islam and The West: A Brief History, will be posted weekend of Dec. 9th.

Please don't forget to check out the glossary at Pork Rind Hollow as a quick reference.

Many kind thanks to everyone for your insights and comments.