The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (38 page)

I was in New York City on 9/11. In the weeks that followed, newspapers reported that the Koran had become one of the biggest-selling books in American bookshops. Astonishingly, Americans seemed to think that reading the Koran might give them a clue to the motivation of those who carried out the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center. Recently, I have wondered whether the people of Falluja have taken to reading the Bible to understand the motivation for American bombings. I doubt it.
¹⁵

It was astonishing indeed—that Mandani and his publishers evidently thought this is a cogent argument. Was it really astonishing that Americans would read the Qur’an to discover the motivation of men who cited the Qur’an repeatedly in their communiqués to explain their actions? It was more astonishing that Mahmood Mamdani would think that Fallujans reading the Bible was an appropriate
reductio ad absurdum
to dispose of this idea, despite the demonstrable fact that for all the dark suspicions of the PC crowd about Bush’s Christianity, modern American foreign policy has never proceeded according to Biblical or Christian precepts, either explicitly or implicitly—except perhaps in the military’s zeal to avoid civilian casualties as much as possible (a principle that has been contravened more than once). The contrast with Osama bin Laden’s Qur’an-filled messages should be immediately obvious—except to all who don’t wish to see it, or who wish to obscure it.

Report honestly about jihadist activity in the U.S. and the West.

An informed citizenry doesn’t just read the Qur’an and other Islamic sources. It also demands responsible reporting from the media and honesty from law enforcement officials about jihadist attacks in the United States. We saw in chapter sixteen how common it is for such attacks to be explained away. This obfuscation no doubt stems from an official fear of stirring up vigilantes who will victimize Muslims in America. But this insults the intelligence and decency of the American public. Official unwillingness to draw obvious conclusions hinders our ability to make informed decisions about how to conduct the War on Terror. It has to stop.

Reclassify Muslim organizations.

Any Muslim group in America that does not explicitly renounce, in word and in deed, any intention now or in the future to replace the Constitution of the United States with Islamic sharia should be classified as a political rather than a religious organization, and should be subject to all the responsibilities and standards to which political organizations must adhere.

Take pride in Western culture.

It’s time for all the schools that dropped “Crusaders” as their team name to readopt it. The corrosive effects of multiculturalism have bred a suicidal hatred of the West among our own children. It’s time to roll this back through a concerted effort to extirpate the multiculturalist ethos from school textbooks and the culture at large. Western civilization has given the world notions of human rights that are universally accepted (except in the Islamic world), technological advancement beyond the wildest dreams of people of previous ages, and a great deal more. Yet our own leaders and teachers tell us we must stand before the world in a posture of shame.

It’s time to say “enough,” and teach our children to take pride in their own heritage. To know that they have a culture and a history of which they can and should be grateful; that they are not the children and grandchildren of oppressors and villains; and that their homes and families are worth defending against those who want to take them away, and are willing to kill to do so.

Call it a Crusade.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Hearty thanks first of all to the Jihad Watch staff: Hugh Fitzgerald, Rebecca Bynum, and all the others who were patient and kind enough to discuss much of the material here with me, review it at various stages, and contribute many helpful suggestions for its improvement. Hugh Fitzgerald’s brilliance and erudition are a godsend and a tremendous boon, not only to this book but also to the entire Jihad Watch effort—and the resistance to the global jihad in general. There are many others I would like to name, but am unable to do so for fear of putting them in various kinds of danger: these courageous ones, laboring on the front lines of the anti-jihad resistance, are the true heroes of this age.

As has been true many times in the past, I owe a great debt of gratitude to Jeff Rubin, whose conceptual skill and vision are unparalleled. I am particularly grateful as well to the Regnery editors Harry Crocker and Stephen Thompson, whose deft and insightful touch is responsible for sharpening much of what is successful in these pages. As ever, what is good here is theirs, and the errors are only mine.

NOTES

Introduction:

Islam and the Crusades

1. Bill Clinton, “Remarks as delivered by President William Jefferson Clinton, Georgetown University, November 7, 2001.” Georgetown University Office of Protocol and Events, www.georgetown.edu.

2. “World Islamic Front Statement,” Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, February 23, 1998. http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm.

3. Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), “Ramadan Sermon From Iraq,” MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 438, November 8, 2002. www.memri.org.

4. “Al Qaeda-linked group takes credit for Saudi attack,” CNN, December 7, 2004.

5. Karen Armstrong,
Islam: A Short History
(New York: Modern Library, 2000), 179–180.

Chapter 1:

Muhammad: Prophet of War

1. A. Guillaume,
The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah
, Oxford University Press, 1955, 287–288.

2. Cf.
‘Umdat al-Salik
o9.10; al-Mawardi,
al-Akham as-Sultaniyyah
, 4.2.

3. Ibn Ishaq, 289.

4. Ibid., 300.

5. Muhammed Ibn Ismaiel Al-Bukhari,
Sahih al-Bukhari: The Translation of the Meanings
, translated by Muhammad M. Khan, Darussalam, 1997, vol. 4, book 58, no. 3185.

6. Ibn Ishaq, 308.

7. Ibid., 304.

8. Bukhari, vol. 4, book 58, no. 3185.

9. Ibn Ishaq, 306.

10. Ibid., 308.

11. Ibid., 363.

12. Ibid., 367.

13.
Sahih Muslim
, translated by Abdul Hamid Siddiqi, Kitab Bhavan, revised edition 2000, vol. 3, book 17, no. 4436.

14. Bukhari, vol. 4, book 56, no. 3032.

15. Bukhari, vol. 5, book 64, no. 4037.

16. Ibn Ishaq, 369.

17. Ibid., 382.

18. Ibid., 386.

19. Ibid., 387.

20. Sayyid Qutb,
Social Justice in Islam
, translated by John B. Hardie and Hamid Algar, revised edition, Islamic Publications International, 2000, 19.

21. Deroy Murdock, “‘The Great Satan’ on Devastated Muslim Streets,” National Review Online, January 6, 2005.

22. Ibn Ishaq, 509.

Chapter 2:

The Qur’an: Book of War

1. “I have a question about offensive Jihad,” Islam Q & A Online with Mufti Ebrahim Desai, Question 12128 from Canada, http://www.islam.tc/ask-imam/view.php?q=12128.

2. Sidik Aucbur, “The true meaning of Jihad,” www.khilafah.com, May 11, 2003.

3. Ibn Arabi, in Suyuti,
Itqan
iii, 69. Cf. John Wansbrough,
Quranic Studies
, Prometheus, 2003, 184.

4. “Surat at-Tawba: Repentance,”
Tafsir al-Jalalayn
, anonymous translation, reprinted at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ABewley/tawba1.html.

5. Ibn Kathir, vol. 4, 377.

6. “Surat at-Tawba: Repentance,”
Tafsir Ibn Juzayy
, anonymous translation, reprinted at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ABewley/tawba1.html.

7. Ibn Kathir, vol. 8, 668.

8. “Question #34770: There is no compulsion to accept Islam,”
Learn Hajj Jurisprudence
, Islam Q & A, http://63.175.194.25/index.php?ln=eng&ds=qa&lv=browse&QR=34770&dgn=4.

9. Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), “PA TV Broadcasts call for Killing Jews and Americans,” MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 138, October 13, 2000. www.memri.org.

10. Osama bin Laden, “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places,” 1996. http://www.mideastweb.org/osamabinladen1.htm.

11. Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), “Bin Laden’s Sermon for the Feast of the Sacrifice,” MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 476, March 5, 2003.

Chapter 3:

Islam: Religion of War

1. Bukhari, vol. 1, book 2, no. 26; cf. vol. 2, book 25, no. 1519 and many others.

2. Bukhari, vol. 4, book 56, no. 2892.

3.
Muslim
, book 20, no. 4642.

4. Abu-Dawud Sulaiman bin Al-Aash’ath Al-Azdi as-Sijistani,
Sunan abu-Dawud
, Ahmad Hasan, translator, Kitab Bhavan, 1990, book 14, no. 2497.

5.
Muslim
, book 20, no. 4645.

6. Bukhari, vol. 4, book 56, no. 2785.

7.
Muslim
, book 19, no. 4294.

8. “Full text: bin Laden’s ‘letter to America,’”
Observer
, November 24, 2002.

9. Bukhari, vol. 1, book 2, no. 25. The transliterated Arabic of the Muslim confession of faith has been omitted from this translation for ease of reading. The same statement is repeated in Bukhari, vol. 1, book 8, no. 392; vol. 4, book 56, no. 2946; vol. 9, book 88, no. 6924; and vol. 9, book 96, nos. 7284–7285, as well as in other hadith collections.

10. Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani,
La Risala
(
Epitre sur les elements du dogme et de la loi de l’Islam selon le rite malikite
.) Translated from Arabic by Leon Bercher. 5th ed. Algiers, 1960, 165. Cited in Andrew G. Bostom, “Khaled Abou El Fadl: Reformer or Revisionist?,” http://www.secularislam.org/articles/bostom.htm.

11. Ibn Taymiyya, “Jihad,” in Rudolph Peters,
Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam
, Markus Wiener Publishers, 1996, 49. Cited in Andrew G. Bostom, “Khaled Abou El Fadl: Reformer or Revisionist?,” http://www.secularislam.org/articles/bostom.htm.

12. From the
Hidayah
, vol. I, 140, quoted in Thomas P. Hughes,
A Dictionary of Islam
(W.H. Allen, 1895), “Jihad,” 243–248. Cited in Andrew G. Bostom, “Khaled Abou El Fadl: Reformer or Revisionist?,” http://www.secularislam.org/articles/bostom.htm.

13. Abu’l Hasan al-Mawardi,
al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyyah (The Laws of Islamic Governance),
Ta-Ha Publishers, 1996, 60.

14. Ahmed ibn Naqib al-Misri,
Reliance of the Traveller (‘Umdat al-Salik): A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law
, translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller. Amana Publications, 1999, xx.

15. Ibid., o9.0.

16. Ibid., o9.8.

17. Ibid., o9.6.

18. Quoted in Jonathan Riley-Smith,
The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades
(Oxford University Press, 1995), 250–251.

19. Qutb,
Milestones
, 63.

20. Shariah Council of State Defense Council (Majlis al-Shura) of CRI, “Jihad and Its Solution Today,”
Jihad Today
, Kavkaz Center, November 26, 2003. http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2003/11/26/2028.shtml.

21. See, for example, “Fears as young Muslims ‘opt out,’”
BBCNews
, March 7, 2004.

22. “Interview Sahim Alwan,”
Frontline
, October 16, 2003. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sleeper/interviews/alwan.html.

23. Peter Ford, “Listening for Islam’s silent majority,”
Christian Science Monitor
, November 5, 2001.

24. Debbie Schlussel, “Bush’s scary CAIR friends,” WorldNetDaily.com, October 16, 2001.

25. Jagan Kaul, “Kashmir: Kashmiri Pundit View-point,”
Kashmir Telegraph
, May 2002.

26. Daniel Pipes, “The Danger Within: Militant Islam in America,”
Commentary,
November 2001.

Chapter 4:

Islam: Religion of Intolerance

1. Emrah Ulker, “UN Uses Ottoman Tolerance Concept as Model,”
Zaman Daily Newspaper
, December 9, 2004.

2. Abu’l Hasan al-Mawardi,
al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyyah (The Laws of Islamic Governance)
Ta-Ha Publishers, 1996, 28.

3. Ibn Kathir, vol. 4, 406.

4. Ibid., 407.

5. Ibid.

6.
‘Umdat al-Salik
, o11.3, 5.

7. “The Charter of Allah: The Platform of the Islamic Resistance movement (Hamas),” translated and annotated by Raphael Israeli, The International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, April 5, 1998. http://www.ict.org.il/documents/documentdet.cfm?docid=14.

8. Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), “Islamist Leader in London: No Universal Jihad As Long As There is No Caliphate,” MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 435, October 30, 2002.

9. Jonathan Adelman and Agota Kuperman, “Christian Exodus from the Middle East,” Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, December 19,2001. Reprinted at: http://www.defenddemocracy.org/publications/publications_show.htm?doc_id=155713.

10. Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), “Friday Sermons in Saudi Mosques: Review and Analysis,” MEMRI Special Report No. 10, September 26, 2002. www.memri.org. This sermon is undated, but it recently appeared on the Saudi website www.alminbar.net.

11. Abdullah Azzam,
Defence of the Muslim Lands
, Mohammed Taqi-ud-Oin AI-Hilali and Mohammed Muhsin Khan, translators. Maktaba Dar-us-Salam, 1993. Reprinted at http://www.religioscope.com/info/doc/jihad/azzam_defence_1_table.htm.