Tag Archives: Islam

Take a Day Off and Other Articles

stu sleeping

As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve been MIA for the last week or so. I gave up on trying to control myself and gave it over to the Lord to handle. He seems to be giving me a vacation of sorts…

So today, I thought I’d put up a list of some items of interest I’ve come across recently…er, well, mostly today, actually.

First up, appropriately enough is Writers Should Take a Year Off and Give Us All a Break – an essay in The Guardian on the observation that, to borrow from Ecclesiastes, “the writing of many books is endless…”  At the time of Solomon, however, it was nothing compared to today, when the rate of publication has exploded as never before. How ironic that this is occurring at the same time that more and more people lack the attention span or time, to read anything longer than a tweet.

Still, I like the idea of taking a year off from writing… oh, wait… I’ve already sort of been doing that …

Next, I draw your attention to a Muslim Brotherhood Fact Sheet from Stand With Us, an international, nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting Israel.  It includes quotes from the Brotherhood’s own charters, writings and guides. Members are not interested in dialog. Nor are they interested in peace (unless you count the peace that results from the entire world being converted to Islam). They are most definitely not interested in democracy, unless — again — it’s the Islamist kind… that is, Sharia Law.

Third is an essay on the misguided Western policy of appeasement during World War 1 that resulted in World War 2 and may well be on its way to setting up World War 3. This one’s written by my favorite blogger and former high level Foreign Service Officer The Diplomad 2.0: Obama and an Edouard Daladier Moment

And finally, the new  “funnel tunnel” in Houston, an unintended metaphor for where our tax dollars/charity donations are going…

A Web of Lies

It was a movie that caused the protests by the “folks” outside the US Consulate in Libya, and the protests that allowed miscellaneous evil doers who just happened to be walking by … at 9:30 in the evening — armed with mortars and RPGs, which are easily found throughout Libya — to take advantage of the moment, scale the consulate’s walls and kill the American Ambassador who was working there at the time. That this occurred on 9/11 was purely coincidental.

So says Susan Rice, US Ambassador to the UN. I’m not sure why the US Ambassador to the UN was selected to be the spokesperson in this matter. What does her job have to do with Libya, or the consulate or other matters of State? Shouldn’t it be some State Department person, someone in the chain of command relative to embassies and consulates that was chosen to make the  statement? 

No matter, that is what she’s said, as reported by Fox News today. 

In the same article, Fox also reported that an intelligence source on the ground claimed there was no protest outside the consulate at all that night, despite our own government’s insistence that there was.

“There was no protest and the attacks were not spontaneous,” the source said, adding the attack “was planned and had nothing to do with the movie.” According to this source, the attack came without warning, with firing originated in two separate locations.

This corroborates an earlier report from McClatchy of an unnamed Libyan security guard who alleged the same thing. “There wasn’t a single ant outside,” he said.

The Obama Administration rejects both sources, as well as the Libyan president’s claim that this was a planned out attack, a view the Obama administration says is not consistent with “the consensus view of the U.S. intelligence community,” which has been investigating the incident.

“He doesn’t have the information we have,” the U.S. official said of Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif. “”He doesn’t have the (data) collection potential that we have.”

Except… recently we were told that the situation in Benghazi had been turned over to the FBI to investigate, because it was now regarded as a crime scene. There could be no further talk on the matter beyond whatever the FBI was willing to reveal — not what happened, not who was involved,  not the condition of Ambassador Stevens’ body… nothing until the Justice Department’s investigation was completed.

Unfortunately, the FBI agents haven’t even gotten to Benghazi yet, because it was decided the area was too unstable for them to enter.

So… who is investigating? And how can the US say that the President of Libya, who is in Libya, doesn’t have the same “data collection potential that we have,” when our agents haven’t even gotten there yet?.

“A consensus view of our intelligence community”  just means the majority opinion, not eyewitness testimony or any kind of hard facts. And majority opinion isn’t always right. In fact, I’d say it’s rarely right.

And how is our “data collection potential”  relevant to all this?  “Potential” means we haven’t collected it yet, otherwise it would be real not potential.

So really, all the administration has said in defense of  it’s theory is that they’ve voted on the best guesses of what really happened, and since the US’s ability to gather data is so much superior to Libya’s, eventually the data we’re going to collect will support the majority-opinion guess.

Which means, the US official really didn’t say anything.

So why did I write an entire blog post on this? Because the dissembling fascinates me, especially when I notice it. I grew up with the notion that those in authority don’t lie.  Perhaps bend the truth. Or leave certain things out. But not outright lie.

Even having blogged about the doctrine of taqiyya, I still find it hard to believe that people actually do it. But in a society like ours, where we don’t believe in such things, where a man’s word was once his bond, and honesty is still mostly considered a virtue, it’s harder still.

I know all politicians lie on some level or other. I know it. But I think I still don’t totally believe it. Otherwise why would this stuff surprise me?

Maybe because it’s so obvious and how can they think we all won’t see it? Do they think we won’t care. (Granted a far too many of our citizens don’t seem to.)  And yet the media just reports it all as if it’s truth, as if it’s not the least bit inconsistent, and certainly not that it’s reprehensible.

(The only thing they seem to think is reprehensible is that pathetic little movie trailer that’s supposedly started all this.)

It seems like it should be against the law for government officials to lie like this, so easily, so blatantly…  Because the result for me  right now is that I have no idea what is truth and what is lie. Are the Intelligence “Source” on the ground and the unnamed Libyan security guard lying?  Could be.

The President of Libya? Yeah, he could be lying, too.

The US administration official? The US ambassador to the UN? Obviously. Everyone’s clearly scrambling to cover their rears…  It would be funny were it to show up in some comedy movie.

But it’s not a movie.

How can we, as supposed-to-be-informed citizens ever know what’s actually going on, when everyone seems to be lying? All the time. When one lie doesn’t work, they just float another… Where is that all going to lead? 

I don’t have answers for these questions, but I do believe that this is one more thread in the unraveling of a culture once based on Biblical standards, now steadily heading down the road to destruction.

“In the last days,  difficult times shall come. For men shall be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” ~ 2 Ti 3:1-4

Remember Taqiyya?

I’ve been following the events in the middle east and in particular Libya with great interest this weekend. Not merely because of the fact that my WIP, The Other Side of the Sky, concerns ambassadors and embassies, but because of my fascination with Islam, the religion of “peace.”

But not the religion of honesty. I wrote about the muslim doctrine of Taqiyya back in May of 2009 after reading an article by Raymond Ibrahim at Victor Davis Hanson’s Private Papers entitled War and Peace — and Deceit — in Islam.

It bears on what is going on today, so I thought I’d reblog it here.

In 2001/2002 my former pastor, Robert McLaughlin, did a series on Islam, quoting liberally from the Koran so I was aware of the passages allowing Muslims to lie to Christians and Jews if need be (Sura 4:29) and breaking a treaty with Infidels if the situation warrants. Dr. Ibrahim’s article expounded on this subject, adding greater insight into just how much lying is interwoven into their worldview and their politics. Using not only the words of Allah (Koran) and the Prophet (the Hadith) he also consults Islam’s greatest theologians (the ulema) for their assessment.

All of this revolves around the doctrine of taqiyya. Ibrahim cites the “authoritative Arabic text, Al-Taqiyya fi Al-Islam:

“Taqiyya [deception] is of fundamental importance in Islam. Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practices it. We can go so far as to say that the practice of taqiyya is mainstream in Islam, and that those few sects not practicing it diverge from the mainstream. … Taqiyya is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era,”

The Koran forbids a Muslim making friends with Christians or Jews, unless he is in a position of weakness or minority, in which case it’s okay to pretend to be friends, just as long as he continues to harbor animosity in his heart. (Emphasis, mine.)

Muhammad, who is regarded by his followers as the most perfect human of all and worthy of emulation, lied when it served him. And, in fact, Ibrahim says,

“it bears mentioning that the entire sequence of Koranic revelations is a testimony to taqiyya; and since Allah is believed to be the revealer of these verses, he ultimately is seen as the perpetrator of deceit — which is not surprising since Allah himself is described in the Koran as the best “deceiver” or “schemer” (3:54, 8:30, 10:21).”

Which I think gives a great clue as to “Allah’s” true identity:

John 8:44 “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies”

It’s a longish article, substantial portions of which were part of Mr. Ibrahim’s written testimony to Congress this last February (2009). I found it easy to read and compelling, because it made me realize that the Muslim mind and the western mind — particularly the western Christian mind — are radically different. How can you ever enter into a treaty with a people whose god instructs them to lie to you if you’re an Infidel, and whose central goal is not simply to live their lives and worship as they choose, but to fight all non-Muslims until everyone in the world either converts or submits to Islam? (Sura 8:39, 9:5, 9:29)

At which point we’ll finally have peace.

But no freedom.

Coexist?

I’ve seen those COEXIST bumper stickers around for some time, and on occasion amused myself when stopped at traffic lights trying to figure out what all the symbols stood for. The only one I could never figure out was the E. But now I know, thanks to the poster below (via PowerLine):

Click to enlarge

Is Koran Burning UnChristian?

After last week’s post on the guy in Florida who was going to burn the Koran, I was asked by several people what I think about a Christian burning a Koran in order to deliberately provoke the Muslim world — isn’t that unChristian? I’ve thought about it all weekend and can’t come up with a definitive answer, though I’m probably closer to “how silly” than “ooh! That’s bad!” And at the same time very aware of the fact that God can use silly, sinful and even evil acts of man, including Christians, to fulfill His plan and bring glory to Himself.

There is no verse that says “Thou shalt not burn a Koran.” Nor is there one that says, “Thou shalt respect all other religions.” Yes, we are to be at peace with all men – so far as it depends on us. And yes, sometimes we are to operate in the law of love and sacrifice, giving up what we are free before God to do, but over which the person we are with will stumble. We’re not supposed to deliberately make people sin.

On the other hand, Jesus deliberately cracked corn in front of the Pharisees on the Sabbath (which you weren’t supposed to do), He healed people on the Temple steps on the Sabbath (no healing allowed either), told a guy He healed on a Sabbath to pick up his bed and go report to the Pharisees (aren’t supposed to pick and carry things like a bed) and in every case provoked the Pharisees to anger, judging and outrage. Of course they were already angry and judgmental and looking for ways to discredit Him, so I’m not sure He actually provoked them, so much as brought their inner true motivations to light.

In any case, I can’t say categorically that to burn a Koran to provoke a reaction (or prove that you are not going to be intimidated by the threats of fanatical and violent devotees of an evil religion?) is “unChristian.”

As for the idea that burning a Koran will not bring Muslims to the Gospel, but rather drive them away — How do we know that?  Yes, absolutely such an act is not going to bring a diehard believer in the Prophet to Christianity, but neither is anything else. But what about those with doubts? Might they actually be swayed — inspired even — by the sight of someone daring to “insult” the book that is supposedly the word of a god so thin-skinned and impotent he has to rely on people to defend him?  In some ways you can look at burning a Koran as a defiance of a false god — one that shows the tyranny of one religion and the freedom and mercy of another.

I also don’t think we are supposed to “respect” Islam as a religion. It’s a compendium of evil and lies, it’s tyrannical, it blasphemes God, insults the Lord Jesus Christ. I can respect someone’s right to believe it and will leave them to do so, but I don’t respect “Islam” at all.

At the same time, I’m not comfortable with the whole activism scene. I don’t think that’s really the way Christians bring change to a nation, so personally I would not be out burning Korans to make a statement. I can’t see any need to incite Muslims, since if you noticed my update to the Koran burning post last week about Michelle Malkin’s column The Eternal Flame of Muslim Outrage, it doesn’t take much to incite them: Underwear, sneakers, fast food packaging, teddy bears…

Still, I have to say in the end, there’s just something creepy about someone believing a book can be insulted, and that it’s their duty to make sure no one insults it anywhere in all the world, threatening to kill those who even suggest they might. It’s the bullying I don’t like. And the tiptoeing and hand-wringing from our leaders that I like even less.

Burning the Koran

I am fascinated by all the uproar over this pastor in Florida who announced plans to burn some Korans on Saturday, the anniversary of 9-11. Yes, apparently after pressure from the media, General Petraeus, our Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, ex-President Clinton, Franklyn Graham, the FBI and President Obama, he has agreed to abort his burning, allegedly because he was promised the proposed mosque in NY would be moved. But to me the man himself is nothing compared with what his threat has revealed not about Islam, but about Americans. Or at least those of our new Ruling Class.

Does nobody in any position of authority or power in this country see anything wrong with the fact that because some little known guy in a small town in America is going to burn some Korans the entire Muslim world is now having a cow, demanding we forbid this desecration of their holy book … or else they are going to exact violent retribution? ? 

The media implies that because Muslims think their Koran is from God, then we all have to. But what if we don’t? In fact, I don’t. I think the Bible is the only book that’s actually the word of God. And if others want to burn it, I don’t have a problem with that. They are using their volition to reject truth and God can handle it. He’s not intimidated by any of it. His Word goes on, despite the antagonism of unbelievers. He will not only preserve it despite their attempts to destroy it, He will use their wrath to bring praise to Himself! 

“We can do nothing against the truth but only for the truth.” 2 Co 13:8

“For the wrath of man shall praise you…” Ps 76:10

And given that, just for a bit of contrast… in May 2009 Bibles translated into the local languages of Afghanistan were sent by an American church  to soldiers at Bagram AFB, Afghanistan, presumably to pass out to Afghani’s. They were confiscated because military regulations forbid any attempt at evangelizing the natives, which the church didn’t know and apparently some of the soldiers didn’t either. In any case, they were confiscated by military officials and… burned. Article here.

Muslims burn our flag, burn effigies of our presidents, kill people because they are Christians (in fact at one of the cow-having sessions, they chanted “Death to Christians.”) and I’m sure they’ve burned their share of Bibles.

People use the name of Jesus Christ as a pejorative all the time — as well as indulge in other demonstrations of complete disrespect and even hatred and disgust toward Him — and there are no riots, no chantings, no death threats. But make a cartoon of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban and you are anathema, excoriated on the world theater and threatened with death.  Threaten to burn a few hundred Korans and ditto.

The media gasp and wring their hands. “Do you know what that Pastor said?? He said Islam is of the devil, and Jesus Christ is the only way to eternal life. Oh! Horrible! How hateful!”  The ABC reporter I watched seemed absolutely aghast. So I’m wondering… where is all this vaunted tolerance the left is forever promoting? If the guy wants to burn some Korans in what amounts to his backyard, what’s the big deal? Why does anyone even have to know about it? If they are so tolerant, why do they react in shock and horror and severe disapproval for Christians who say they’re the only ones who have the truth, even as they bend over backwards to tolerate muslims who say the same thing (ie, only they have the truth) and, if possible, back it up by killing anyone who disagrees with them.

And then today, tying in with my last post on Echelon, it turns out the Gainesville church has a website that provides information and the preachings of its pastor which was just shut down by its Internet host. According to a report on AFP

“GAINESVILLE, Florida — The small Florida church that has sparked global outrage with its plan to hold a Koran-burning event had its website pulled from the Internet on Thursday by its host.

Dan Goodgame, a spokesman for the San Antonio, Texas-based web hosting firm Rackspace, told AFP the evangelical Dove World Outreach Center church had, “violated the Offensive Content section of its Acceptable Use policy.”

The policy forbids content or links to material that is “excessively violent, incites violence, threatens violence, or contains harassing content or hate speech; and creates a risk to a person’s safety or health, creates a risk to public safety or health, compromises national security, or interferes with an investigation by law enforcement.”

By the way they are applying this, my church at gbible.org could also be seen as violating the offensive content section of an acceptable use policy, especially when back in 2001 my pastor did a series on the Arab-Israeli conflict that included direct quotations from the Koran showing exactly what it preached.

Whether he intended this or not, I think Terry Jones is making a very good point. When he, small as he is, cannot burn a few Korans without out the whole world throwing a tizzy — “Oh, no! the muslims are going to react. They might riot, they might kill people. They will hurt our soldiers. This will make them really mad…”

 Helloo? They’re already mad, they’re already hurting our soldiers and killing people. They already think we’re the Great Satan, so… we’re going to quiver in fear because of their threats? Over something as petty as all of this?

In fact, the FBI is concerned because already there have been reactions from home grown terrorists vowing retribution. But then again, they are concerned on a daily basis about terrorist attacks, not because of cartoons, or some guy burning Korans but because they already hate us because we aren’t them. We are wicked and degenerate and evil in their sight. We need to be converted or killed…that’s their agenda.

So it really doesn’t matter what the spark is, the fire is already smouldering and has been for a while. And furthermore, every time we do something they don’t like or don’t do what they want us to do (as with the Cordoba House Mosque project) they threaten us with “oh no, the terrorists will be upset. We don’t know how they’re going to retaliate…”

Isn’t that extortion? And appeasement and wimpiness in the extreme on our part?

Whether Terry Jones ever actually burns any Korans, he has made it clear just what sort of religion we are up against. One that freely admits its purpose is to make everyone on earth submissive to it, that kills and persecutes people of other faiths in all the countries where it has power and wants to someday do the same in the countries where it doesn’t. Jones agrees what he’s doing is provocative, but I believe it’s not so much the muslims he wishes to provoke, but us. Because, says he,  “If we don’t [burn these Korans], when do we stop backing down?”

Addendum: Rush has a lot to say on this and the mosque issue, along with what I think was a hilarious conversation with a completely clueless caller about the Koran burning thing HERE.

Rush was masterful in the way he handled it.  Afterward he noted that there was never a country called Palestine, that after WWII the British owned (by way of victory in combat) what was at the time called Transjordan. They gave the land to the Jews. However, if there never was a country with the name of Palestine, there was a Roman province of that name — the former province of Judea, renamed after the Bar Kokhba rebellion of 136 AD when the emperor got ticked off with the Jews who just wouldn’t stop trying to take back Jerusalem (even after it had been razed in 70 AD) and banned them from entering the city at all. He also renamed the province “Palestine” after their old enemies the Philistines. All of this several hundred years before Mohammed had his Visitation.

Which I think is a rather cool irony in present times.

UPDATE:  Michelle Malkin’s column on The Eternal Flame of Muslim Outrage provides a list and retrospective of all the things that have sparked outbursts of Muslim Outrage: underwear, sneakers, teddy bears, dresses, fast food snack packaging, cartoons, religious frescos and even beauty pageants.

ALSO: Flashback to 2007 when Muslims destroyed crosses and Bibles and an entire church.  Christians in Gaza Fear for Their Lives…

Inventing Moderate Islam

I seem to be on a run of posting about Islam this week. It was not intentional, I  just keep stumbling across new and interesting tidbits. I think I’ve alluded to the fact in my first post about The Last Patriot, that I don’t think there can ever really be a “reformed” or moderate Islam. I guess the primary reason for that is that it’s not based on grace the way Christianity and even true Judaism (two sides of the same coin; or maybe two stages in the same continuum) are. Both Christianity and Judaism are based on the fact that man is depraved and can never do anything to achieve a relationship with God on his own. The Law was not given to man so he could follow it and be saved, but to demonstrate the fact that he couldn’t follow it and needed a savior.

There is no savior who died for all in Islam, only a bunch of rules for men to follow to please Allah – a lifting and corrupting of elements of both Christianity and Judaism (probably more of the latter than the former). In a sense it’s more an extension of what the Pharisees thought the Law was about than what the Bible says it was.

There is no  “by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of works lest any man should boast.” It’s all about following the rules. Being obedient. Punishing those who don’t comply. Everyone should get what they deserve, and if there is any mercy, it is thin, indeed.

Islam is a perfect, clear example of religion. And religion  is a system of bondage whereby men can be controlled, ostensibly by other men, but in reality by the unseen “rulers” and “powers” and “world forces of darkness.”  (True Christianity is not a religion, as I’ve said before, but a relationship). Religion is a system whereby men seek to impress or please God by their own good deeds and personal “righteousness”. It is a system that promotes creature credit rather than God-credit. 

Kill the Infidel, go to heaven. Question Islam, be executed and go to eternal damnation…

In addition to this, as with those elements of the Mosaic Law given to the Jews as a nation to guide them in how a nation should be run, the tenets of Islam are intertwined with matters of state. So on the one hand Islam is a system of worship and on the other hand a system of law/legislation.

There is no “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s” in the Koran. Mohammed’s kingdom was very much of this earth, as were the kingdoms of the sultans who followed him, and followers were required by their faith to render unto them. Nor are there commands like “Do not speak evil of your rulers,” the latter written at the time when the evil, heathenish  Nero ruled over Rome. Rather there is Sharia, which would like to kill the evil, Satanic Infidel George Bush. Sharia is supposed to be Allah’s guidance and injunctions regarding matters of state and public affairs, and if it’s straight from Allah, how can it be ignored or “reformed?”

 I’m sure there are muslims who choose from the religion what they like and discard the parts they don’t, just as there are Christians who do the same with the Bible. And there are no doubt many who would like to do away with some of the more restrictive and draconian elements of the muslim faith. But for true and fundamental reform among those who take their faith seriously… I just don’t see it as realistic. As I said in a previous post, why would Allah change his mind after having set down the only true, proper and pure way to do things?

I’m not alone in my questioning whether there can truly be a “moderate” Islam. Recently National Review Online  published an article by Andrew McCarthy called Inventing Moderate Islam (It can’t be done without confronting mainstream Islam and its sharia agenda)”  The piece starts thus:

“Secularism can never enjoy a general acceptance in an Islamic society.” The writer was not one of those sulfurous Islamophobes decried by CAIR and the professional Left. Quite the opposite: It was Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual guide and a favorite of the Saudi royal family. He made this assertion in his book, How the Imported Solutions Disastrously Affected Our Ummah, an excerpt of which was published by the Saudi Gazette just a couple of months ago.

[snip]

It is also worth understanding why Qaradawi says Islam and secularism cannot co-exist. The excerpt from his book continues:

“As Islam is a comprehensive system of worship (Ibadah) and legislation (Shari’ah), the acceptance of secularism means abandonment of Shari’ah, a denial of the divine guidance and a rejection of Allah’s injunctions. It is indeed a false claim that Shari’ah is not proper to the requirements of the present age. The acceptance of a legislation formulated by humans means a preference of the humans’ limited knowledge and experiences to the divine guidance: “Say! Do you know better than Allah?” (Qur’an, 2:140) For this reason, the call for secularism among Muslims is atheism and a rejection of Islam. Its acceptance as a basis for rule in place of Shari’ah is downright apostasy.

And apostasy, says Mr. McCarthy, is a dire accusation since the punishment for apostates is death. As long as there remain a substantial number of people in power who believe in the rightness of Sharia and are ready and willing to exterminate any apostates who seek to modify it, whatever moderate muslims there may be out there will remain hesitant to express that apostasy.  Thus, as McCarthy concludes,

When you capitulate to the authority and influence of Qaradawi and [Ground Zero mosque project imam Feisal] Rauf, you kill meaningful Islamic reform.

There is no moderate Islam in the mainstream of Muslim life, not in the doctrinal sense. There are millions of moderate Muslims who crave reform. Yet the fact that they seek real reform, rather than what Georgetown [University] is content to call reform, means they are trying to invent something that does not currently exist.

You can read the entire article HERE.

The Barbary Pirates

Today as I was researching embassies on Wikipedia, I came across mention of the Barbary Wars I’d just encountered mention of in The Last Patriot. Curious, I clicked on the links and read about them, or at least the first one. Seems there were some muslim North African states (called the Barbary States) — Morocco, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli — who’d been preying on the shipping traffic in the Mediterranean, capturing ships and crew and holding them for ransom, then afterward demanding tribute from whatever nation the ships were from for safe passage. At first American ships were protected by the British Navy since we were a British colony; during the revolution the French took over that job. But once we won our Independence protection of our ships was rightly deemed to be our responsibility.

Not having much of a Navy this was problematic, so Congress voted for funds to be allocated to pay the tribute to the pirates. In 1783 our Ambassadors to Britain and France (John Adams and Thomas Jefferson) were sent over with the money and the charge of seeking to negotiate peace treaties with the Barbary States. Unfortunately the price for a treaty was more than the tribute money Congress had approved.

 Two years later, Adams and Jefferson tried again, this time in Britain where they sought to negotiate with Tripoli’s envoy to London.  When they asked him on what grounds his nation took it upon itself to attack other nations who’d done it no harm, his reply, according to Jefferson’s report to the US Secretary of Foreign Affairs, was that…

“It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every muslim who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy’s ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once.   [From “American Peace Commissioners to John Jay,” March 28, 1786, “Thomas Jefferson Papers,” Series 1. General Correspondence. 1651-1827, Library of Congress. LoC: March 28, 1786 ]

And I just found that fascinating. Rush says sometimes that for most people history begins the day they are born, and everything before just doesn’t exist. I can see a lot of justification for the statement. I did know that Islam began in the seventh century, that the Ottoman empire had dominated the Middle East for six centuries (1299 to 1923), a sort of Islamic version of the old Roman Empire… but that was “over there”. And we were over here. So it really surprised me to find out the United States had already had interaction with fundamentalist Islam, more or less at its birth. And now it’s back again. Which I believe is something Jefferson warned about, at least according to The Last Patriot: “Jefferson was convinced that one day Islam would return and pose an even greater threat  to America…”

And so it has.

The  painting above is of the burning frigate Philadelphia in the harbor of Tripoli in 1804, painted by Edward Moran in 1897.

The Last Patriot and Abrogation

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been reading The Last Patriot by Brad Thor over the weekend and finished it today. I enjoyed it. Kind of like reading about Jack Bauer.  Plus I learned some interesting things.

Part of the plot hinged on Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary Wars against muslim pirates in the early 1800’s and Jefferson’s search for Mohammed’s supposed last word/revelation from God which, according to the principle of abrogation would supersede all preceding text.

This was the first I’d heard of abrogation (at least under that term and that I can recall!) which is a concept in Islamic scholarship dictating that since the Koran was written by one man over the period of his own lifetime, documenting a series of visitations and revelations from the angel Gabriel, when any contradictory verses come up, the later verses abrogate the earlier. Thus a last word urging muslims to abandon violence and embrace peace, would nullify all those verses about violent jihad in Sura 9 and supposedly do away from Islamic fundamentalism as we know it today.

As far as I know there was no last word — the author admitted devising that part as a plot device — and really, I would expect there not to be. In fact, I had a bit of trouble suspending my disbelief on that one count, though it didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the story. Rather it provided food for thought, and I always especially enjoy books that do that.

Abrogation seems like a weird idea to be applied to something that is supposedly the pure word of Allah, and a “perfect” book. Allah must not be eternal, immutable and omniscient like Jehovah if he kept changing his mind, or didn’t know how his commands were going to turn out and needed to refine them. This quibble is especially true  in the context of The Last Patriot, where we were supposed to believe that once it came out that Mohammed’s last words were about living in peace, everyone would just throw out the stuff in Sura 9 and the jihadists would be without a route to martyrdom. But … what kind of god is that? Either the infidel is evil and must be killed or he is not. How can Allah not know?

Well, that part was made up by the author, so I can’t fault Islam. But my opinion is that Mohammed was not met by Gabriel but more likely Beelzebub or someone of his ilk, and that Islam, like all religions (true Christianity is a relationship, not a religion), is yet another device of Satan to deceive and to counterfeit what God has done.

In doing some reading on Roman religion recently, I was struck with the fact that prior to the coming of Christ the dominant religions all involved idol worship. The Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Greeks and Romans all worshipped many gods. Only the Jews were monotheistic (which quite ticked off the Romans since they thought everyone should be nice to everyone else’s god… sound familiar?) Then came Christianity, also monotheistic and eventually coming to power and superseding the old idol worship of the Romans. Some six hundred plus years after the birth of Christianity, Mohammed had his visitation and Islam was born. And to me the whole thing looks like a rip off and distortion of Christianity and Judaism combined into a new religion to distract people from the others. 

I find it interesting that at first Mohammed approached both Jews and Christians in friendship, wanting to join together with them, wanting them to help confirm his claims of being visited by God. When they rejected him, I don’t suppose it’s surprising he’d eventually receive word that they were now the enemy and worthy of destruction. Which so echoes Satan’s view on the matter, it’s clear to me Mohammed was only a pawn. (If Satan can destroy the Jews, then God will not be able to fulfill His promises to them, and will be made a liar, impotent and not-God. Which gives Satan a chance; and of course he just hates Christians outright since each of them is a member of Christ. He likes nothing better than to trip them up, make them look like fools, make them “curse God and die”, and get them sidetracked from the true plan of God for their lives. But if he could, I have no doubt he’d just wipe us all out…

Anyway, that wasn’t much about The Last Patriot  I guess, but it was an example of one of the thought trips its premise took me on. It was a fun and engaging read and, as you can perhaps tell from my trip, very informative and relevant to today. In fact, having first learned of ‘abrogation’ only last week, today I received an email on the three important things about Islam that most people don’t know. The first was abrogation!  (the second was sharia law and the fact that while the word “islam” does mean “peace,” it also means submission and thus is the perfect word for the religion — because when all others have been forced by its devotees to submit to it, by conversion or death, and it is finally is the only religion in the world, there will be peace.  But no freedom.

And the third important thing about Islam most people don’t know? That for muslims, deception is okay. In other words, taqiyya.

(I felt rather well-informed today!)

Muslim Brotherhood

The other day I came across an article  on Victor Davis Hanson’s Private Paper’s blog by Raymond Ibrahim, whom I’ve  cited here before. This time he was writing about Cordoba House, the infamous 13 story mosque a group of probably Saudi-funded muslims want to build on a site two blocks from Ground Zero.

Given the muslims’ propensity for building holy structures over the top of other religions’ destroyed but sacred sites (eg, the Dome of the Rock built over the old Jewish Temple in Jerusalem), I cannot think their selection of location for this newest project to be mere expedience or coincidence. No, I have to believe it’s deliberate — a “trophy mosque” as one pundit put it — particularly in light of  taqiyya which I also learned about from Ibrahim (and blogged about here.) Taqiyya is the muslim “doctrine” that it’s okay (even a duty)  to lie to infidels if they are in a position of power and you, as a muslim, are not. According to the Koran and the consensus of Koranic scholars, faithful muslims are even obliged to be friendly with the infidels, to enter into peace treaties and so on, but only until they gain the upper hand. Then they are to demand the Infidel convert or smash him “with their clenched fists,” to borrow from a quote by Dmitrii Z. Manuilskii, of the Lenin School of Political Warfare, Moscow, made in 1931 .

I don’t doubt that many muslims really are peaceful and friendly and “moderate”, but only because, as with many Christians, they aren’t all that committed to their faith, or to knowing what it teaches, or think they can be committed without knowing. But given what I know of the Koran and this element of taqiyya — knowing their “bible” commands them to be deceptive in this regard; and to make Islam the religion of the world, by force if necessary — does make it more difficult to trust…

Now comes (to me anyway) a new bit of information. In his recent article about the Cordoba House project, Raymond Ibrahim suggests it might actually be counterproductive to Islamists in the same way that 911 was — because it will get people thinking and talking about Islam and Jihad and that newly sparked interest will move them to investigate. And in investigating they will uncover information  (like the doctrine/practice of taqiyya) that will not be conducive to Islamist goals…

In fact, his article did just that for me, because he brought up the Muslim Brotherhood, which I’d not heard of before, an organization that includes Al Qaeda and Hamas and many, many others. He references an article in the Dallas News  in Sept 2007 by Rod Dreher describing a 1991 document the Justice Department introduced into evidence at the Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas. The FBI captured it in a raid on a Muslim suspect’s home in Virginia.

This “explanatory memorandum,” as it’s titled, outlines the “strategic goal” for the North American operation of the extremist Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan). Here’s the key paragraph:

The process of settlement [of Islam in the United States] is a “Civilization-Jihadist” process with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that all their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” their miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim’s destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who choose to slack.

I’ve just in the last few months noted a couple of new books about this slow, under-the-radar takeover, but haven’t read them yet. Thus I was surprised to pick up a relatively new novel by Brad Thor (The Last Patriot) (first time I’ve read this author) and about a third of the way through, here is the Muslim Brotherhood deeply involved in the plot.  It’s just like Communism back in the Cold War.

Actually, it’s a perfect picture of how Satan and the kingdom of darkness work… deception, the slow wearing away, exploiting weaknesses…

You can read the entire article HERE.