Jihad and Western thought.

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.
Winston Churchill 1899

I am always taken aback when Americans will compare the minor flaws of our democracy with the far more oppressive central tenets of our competitors, as if it is beyond rude to point out the flaws of Communism or Islam, without simultaneously denigrating our own system.

It started with the quote from Winston Churchill on Islam, posted on my Facebook page. Actually, it was only part of the quote. In it the young soldier-journalist, and keen observer of the late 19th century world, soon to be the great statesman of the 20th century, identified the flaws in the Islamic system, as he encountered it particularly in the Sudan, where the British fought perhaps the first modern struggle against what would now be called “Radical Islam.”

Immediately, decent, good folks began to call me to task for impugning Islam. I was maligning a religion you see, and that is verboten in the new American era, particularly if the religion is Islam. I have noticed it is not so problematic to criticize Christianity, if the practitioners are middle class Americans, and Judaism can be spoken ill of, provided one calls it Zionism.

I don't totally agree with this quote. Not all muslims are militant, just as not all other faith's are saints. If we don't learn to tolerate and respect each other how we this ever end? We can disagree without being disrespectful.

This was the first objection I heard. It seemed to ignore the actual words of the original quote: Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities.
The objection shows how far the main stream media, academia, and the left have gotten in imposing their group think, political correctness on everyday Americans. I didn’t accuse any particular Muslims of being militant, nor did Churchill. He pointed out that the religion is militant and expansionist. This of course goes against the accepted narrative today, that Islam is a religion of peace, and that a handful of radicals in al-Qaeda and similar movements are hijacking true Islam. That trope, however, is dangerously self deceptive for us as a culture to hold on to. Islam's very words speak against us.

When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. If they repent and take to prayer and render the alms levy, allow them to go their way. God is forgiving and merciful. The Koran 9:5

I can hear the objection that the Old Testament preaches similar sentiment. While that is true, the difference between the modern followers of the two texts is substantial. First, both Christian and Jewish scholarship have continued to evolve. Today, Christians largely focus on the New Testaments message of peace. Judaism has developed a profoundly humanistic outlook through centuries of scholarship. In contrast, Islamic scholarship is largely held to have reached its core conclusions by the 9th century. That was during the height of Islam’s expansionist phase, when Allah’s warriors reached into Europe through Spain. Today every serious Koranic scholar within Islam accepts that by 900 CE, Islamic thought was complete.

Thus in Islam there was no Reformation, no Enlightenment. There has been no serious discussion among Islam’s clerics and scholars about how Islam can or should adapt to the changing world. There has been no internal struggle between various philosophies of Islam that led to a modern tolerance as exists among the Judeo-Christian culture of the west. Islamic doctrine still rests in the age of Jihad.

The only serious disagreement within Islam today is over how to carry on that jihad. Through direct use of the Sword as advocated by al-Qaeda and Hezbollah, or by a more political approach advocated by the Muslim Brotherhood. The latter approach requires immigration to western nations and slow and quiet imposition of Islamic values and even Islamic law in western societies. This can be seen in various European cities with no-go areas for native Europeans. It is aided by the acceptance by various of our western governments, allowing some Muslim enclaves to practice Sharia, at least in civil matters, supplanting Constitutional or Common law.

We also see the continued accuracy of Samuel Huntington’s admonition that Islam’s borders are contested borders. His observation, that the places where the Muslim world intersects with other of the world’s major cultures are among the world’s most violence prone, remains as true today as fifteen years ago. Muslims categorize the world into two parts: Dar al Islam or Dar al Salam (literally the world of submission, and the world of peace) on the one hand, and Dar al Harb (house of war) on the other.

I spent a year in Iraq, and a year in Afghanistan each, because Dar al Salam is actually a place of Harb. When I hear Americans remonstrate me for categorizing Islam itself as militant, as dangerous, or when they describe Islam as just another system that relativism can equate with a modern western democratic approach, I am almost speechless. Many of us have become so indoctrinated into politically correct thinking that we are afraid of insulting Muslims by speaking the truth about Islam.

Islam still allows for slavery. While Western Democracy once committed horrible acts in this regard, we have outlawed slavery, and continue to work against it. Islam is doctrinally expansionist, democracies may expand through force, but no democracy’s constitution requires it. Islam is a complete social system encompassing religion, politics and law, apostasy is a capital crime. Democracy is a political and legal system allowing for freedom of conscience and religion. Women, in Islam, are property of husbands and fathers, honor killings and clitorectomies are routine if not common. In the west women and children have robust rights including the protection of their own bodies.

In the West, through democracies we have freedom. We have the right to be so relativist in our outlook as to compare ourselves, negatively, to viewpoints which boldly and openly threatens to destroy us. We also have the right to reject such self deceptive and self destructive thinking and openly call the danger out where we see it.

The Bedouin could not look for God within him: he was too sure that he was within God.
T. E. Lawrence

Our real challenge is that, violent or not, Islamic doctrine constitutes a political vision. That is, Islam is not a mere religion as we understand the concept in the West — a set of spiritual guidelines that are denied governing authority in what is a separate, secular realm. Mainstream Islam calls for a comprehensive political, economic, legal, and social theocracy.
Andrew McCarthy 2010

Suggested further reading:

The River War Churchill 1899
The Grand Jihad McCarthy 2010
The Clash of Civilizations Huntington 1996
The West's Last Chance 2005