What About the Good Verses in the Quran?


THIS IS ANOTHER in our series, Answers to Objections. You've probably heard someone quote "good" verses from the Quran. Bill Warner wanted to know exactly how many verses in the Quran are positive for non-Muslims, so he counted them. The answer is 245. That's pretty good. That adds up to 4,018 words in the Quran, and comprises 2.6 percent of the total Quranic text.

But, says Warner, "in every case, the verse is followed by another verse that contradicts the 'good' verses." Furthermore, except for seven verses, every "good verse" is abrogated later in the same chapter (known as a "sura"). Those seven exceptions are abrogated in later chapters.


There's more. Warner says, "The media emphasizes Islam's positive verses about the People of the Book, the Jews and Christians. Even this turns out to be illusory. Christians and Jews receive the goodness of Islam only if they agree that their sacred texts are corrupt, the Koran is true, and that Mohammad is a prophet of the Christian and Jewish religion." If they do that, they will get the blessings of Islam. Of course, if they do that, they are no longer Christians or Jews; they're Muslims.


When non-Muslims read the Quran and don't like it, sometimes they're accused of "having an unfavorable view of Islam" or being an Islamophobe. Or they may be simply accused of "hatred."

But, really, what is there to
like about any of this if you're a non-Muslim?


Use Yahoo Answers to Stop Islamization


If you feel frustrated because you have learned a lot about Islam and either everyone in your life already knows what you know, or some of them don't want to hear it any more, but you're bursting to share what you've learned, Here's a possibility for you: Educate people on Yahoo Answers.

Yahoo Answers is a web site where people ask questions, then other people answer the questions, and then the person who asked the question chooses the best answer, and that answer goes at the top, right under the question. Each question-with-an-answer is its own searchable web page.

Since these questions tend to be the same questions people ask when they're searching on Google or Bing, often the Yahoo Answers show up close to the top of the search results. This means when you answer a question, if the question shows up high on search results, your answer could be read by thousands of people. At the very least, it will be read by several people. And each of those people have some interest in the issue or they wouldn't be reading it. So you will have a chance to reach these people with your answer.

What an opportunity to educate people about Islam. And it's fun!

If you're interested in trying it, first sign up for an anonymous Yahoo email address. You can keep it as anonymous as you like.

When you're signed up, go to Yahoo Answers. Then go browse topics. I usually choose "politics." Look for questions people have asked. You'll see a huge list of questions that were asked recently, some only moments before. When you find a good one — a question you want to answer — give it your best shot. Provide lots of links for further information. Just paste the URLs right into your message (once you post your answers, Yahoo automatically turns the URLs into clickable links).
You can also ask questions, wait for people to answer, and then vote for the best answer.

Each time you answer a question, you earn two points. Each time someone chooses your answer as the best one, you earn ten points. When you've earned 250 points, you can start giving thumbs up and thumbs down on other peoples' answers.

As you find good online sources of information, keep a collection of these somewhere and use them. Quote those sources to provide a good answer quickly if you like.

Do it for entertainment. Do it for fun. Put a quick link to Yahoo Answers in your bookmarks toolbar, and just check it once in a while, whenever you're looking to take a break and do something different. There are new questions showing up constantly. Some of them are stupid. But some of them you will want to answer.

Not only are you potentially influencing and educating curious people, but answering questions like this will help you hone the way you articulate yourself in face-to-face conversations. And one of the best ways to learn something really well is to teach it to others.

Try not to argue or be argumentative or make personal attacks in your answers. Conduct yourself with class. You are representing the "kind of people" with your point of view. Make a good impression. Represent us well. Give good information and good links.

Help educate people about the terrifying brilliance of Islam. It is the single most important thing you can do to stop Islam's relentless encroachment. And one good place to do it is at Yahoo Answers. Go forth and fight for freedom!


It Has Finally Happened


A PUBLIC discussion of mainstream Islam has finally begun in earnest in mainstream America. Some people thought it would take a nuclear bomb going off in downtown Manhattan. Nobody anticipated something as simple as a proposed mosque.

Before the mosque proposal, a "Washington Post poll released last year found that nearly half of Americans — 48 percent — have an unfavorable view of Islam. That's nine points higher than in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks." Source

What that says to me is that the events of 9/11 woke up nine percent of the population to the doctrines of Islam. The poll was taken before the Ground Zero mosque issue, and I would venture to guess the percentage has risen higher than 48 percent already.

We're waking up. Non-Muslims are gaining an unfavorable view of Islam. The more people learn about it, the more people have an unfavorable view, of course. If you are a non-Muslim and learn anything about Islamic doctrine, you will have an "unfavorable view" of Islam. What is there to like about the Muslim imperative to subjugate non-Muslims if you're a non-Muslim?

The attempt to build a mosque so near Ground Zero has been a great opportunity to educate our fellow non-Muslims about Islam. Because it's a news item, because it's being discussed in newspapers, on the radio, and on television, Islam is suddenly an acceptable topic of conversation. In fact, people are bringing up the issue. Several people (who have shown little interest in the past) have volunteered questions to me because they were already aware I know something about Islam, and now they have some curiosity.

In all the controversy and debate, the real issue in question is whether or not the Muslims who are planning this mosque share the same ideology and goals as the hijackers. In order to answer that question, people need (and now want) to know what Islam's ideology and goals are.

As Raymond Ibrahim said in his article, Why the Ground Zero Mosque is Counterproductive to the Islamist Cause, the mosque proposal is the most costly mistake orthodox Muslims have made since they flew planes into the World Trade Center. Ibrahim wrote:

Before the Islamist strikes of 9/11, mainstream America was incognizant of the threat posed by radical Islam. Islamic apologetics and anti-U.S. polemics were unquestioned orthodoxy, not only in their natural habitat — academia — but more generally.

After 9/11, however, the veil was partially lifted: a flood of books dealing with Islam, political Islam, jihad, sharia, "dhimmitude," and any number of related topics appeared; politically incorrect books on Islam became bestsellers.

And now mainstream attention has been focused once again on Islam. Let us do our best to successfully introduce as many people as possible to some solid, fundamental information about it. This is our chance. Let's not squander it. Let's not get sidetracked on partisan issues. Let's not turn people away from our information with anything unrelated. Let's get as much basic information about Islam into peoples' minds as we can, while the window is open.

Where should you start? Here's my suggestion: The Least You Need to Know About Islam.


Full Transcript for the Video "Three Things About Islam"


A GROUP calling themselves “White Roses” created a video to inform non-Muslims about Islam. The video is named “Three Things About Islam You Didn't Know,” and has just passed the one million mark on YouTube. It has been viewed over a million times in less than six weeks!

The rate at which people are watching the video is increasing. It is now growing by about fifty thousand a day. That means someone finishes watching the video somewhere in the world every two seconds!

White Roses is headquartered in Sweden. The name “White Roses” is based on a student resistance group “Die weiße Rose” in Nazi Germany. The group became known for an anonymous leaflet campaign, from June 1942 until February 1943, which called for active opposition to Adolf Hitler’s regime. Click here for more information about the original White Rose.

Click here to watch the video, Three Things About Islam. And here is the

FOR EVERY OPINION or belief someone may hold, there will be another party who just as strongly oppose that idea. Both sides usually claim to sit with the best arguments, the real facts and the correct worldview, and (ironically) both sides regard the other as being indoctrinated, blind to the obvious and outright stupid.

Most people only expose themselves to information that matches their own worldview. It is uncomfortable to do otherwise. Still, we would like to give you some surprising information about Islam. We also urge you to look further than only mainstream media and, if you can find the time for it, read the Qur’an yourself.

To get you started we’d like to present you with three things you probably did not know about Islam:

1. Islam has not been hijacked.

That Islam has been hijacked is what non-Muslims naturally assume, because they assume all religions are the same. The reason non-Muslims are so easily confused is that most of us don’t realize the difference between the Qur’an and every other religious book we are familiar with.

The Christian Bible is a collection of writings from various authors written sometimes hundreds of years apart, with parables, advice and dreams, all collected together into one book. Same with the Jewish Torah.

Even those of us in the West who are neither Christians nor Jews are still familiar enough with these religions to know this much, and therefore we assume the same is true for the Qur’an.

But the Qur’an is only one book, written by one man in his own lifetime. It is meant to be taken literally, and it is not full of symbolism or vague analogies. It is mostly direct commands. Of course the Qur’an contains contradictory statements, just like other religious books, but the Qur’an itself provides the reader with a way to know what to do with the contradictions.

It is explained in the Qur’an that if you have two passages that contradict each other, the one written later supersedes the one written earlier. Most Westerners are unaware that the peaceful, tolerant passages were written early in Mohammad’s prophetic career. According to the Qur’an those passages have been abrogated by later, more violent and less tolerant passages.

So when most Westerners hear Jihadists quoting violent passages from the Qur’an, and then peaceful Muslims quoting peaceful passages, they interpret that the way they would if someone was quoting the Bible or the Torah. They think to themselves, “Oh, there must be many different and contradictory passages, like there are in other religious books, so Muslims can pick and choose what they like, and justify whatever actions they want to take”. But the Qur’an is nothing like that. There is no picking and choosing. It says very explicitly and in no uncertain terms that a Muslim must not alter or ignore any part of its very clear and direct message, or they will burn in a fiery torment forever.

2. Striving to introduce worldwide Shari’a law is a religious duty.

Many people don’t realize how politically-oriented Islam is at its core. In fact, Islam is less of a “religion” than it is a “religious ideology.” It includes a mandatory and highly specific legal and political plan for the whole of society: Shari’a.

There is no separation between the religious and the political in Islam; rather Islam and Shari’a constitute a totalitarian means of ordering society at every level, including ritual worship, transactions and contracts, morals and manners, beliefs and punishments.

In the Qur’an Allah makes it clear that man-made governments (such as a democracy) and free speech (such as criticizing the Qur’an) are abominations and must be eliminated. The modern expression, “creeping Shari’a” is used to describe the slow, deliberate and methodical advance of Islamic law in non-Muslim countries.

Official Shari’a courts already operate in the UK, handling cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to domestic violence. Attempts to introduce Shari’a in the legal system in Germany, Sweden and other European countries are ongoing. While Shari’a already has a foot in our door in the matter of minor disputes like inheritance and domestic violence, it should concern you that Shari’a:

• Commands that drinkers and gamblers should be whipped;
• Allows husbands to hit their wives;
• Allows an injured plaintiff to exact legal revenge – literally an eye for an eye;
• Commands that a thief must have a hand cut off;
• Commands that homosexuals must be executed;
• Orders unmarried fornicators to be whipped and adulterers to be stoned to death;
• Orders death for both Muslim and non-Muslim critics of Mohammad, the Qur’an and even Shari’a itself;
• Orders apostates to be killed;
• Commands offensive, aggressive and unjust Jihad.

As written in the Qur’an, Shari’a is the law of Allah. Any other form of government is a sin. It is the duty of every Muslim to keep striving until all governments have been converted to Shari’a law.

3. Muslims are allowed to deceive non-Muslims if it helps Islam.

For non-Muslims this principle, called Taqiyya, is another surprising concept of Islam. While most other religions speak highly of truthfulness the Qur’an instructs Muslims to lie to non-Muslims about their beliefs and their political ambitions to protect and spread Islam.

There are many examples of today’s Islamic leaders saying one thing in English for the Western press, and then saying something entirely different to their own followers in Arabic a few days later.

Deceiving the enemy is always useful in war, and Islam is at war with the non-Islamic world until the whole world follows Shari’a law. All non-Muslims living in non-Islamic states are therefore enemies. So deceiving Westerners is totally acceptable — even encouraged — if it can forward the goals of the spread of Islam.

As a recent example, the Islamic American Relief Agency were seemingly raising money for orphans, but in fact giving the money to terrorists. They deceived good-hearted Western infidels into giving money to organizations that were actively killing Western infidels.

Do the research yourself; this is not an isolated case.

"Islam as a religion of peace."

Muslim organizations worldwide often declare that Islam is a religion of peace, but what does that really mean? It seems easy for a Muslim to quote a peaceful verse from the early parts of the Qur’an while, by following the principle of Taqiyya, neglecting to mention the fact that it has been officially abrogated by later, more violent verses.

According to the Qur’an the world will be at peace only when Islam and Shari’a reign in every country — and never until then. This is why every Muslim can truthfully say that Islam is a religion of peace.

If any of these points took you by surprise — then there is surely much more you still don’t know.

This subject WILL affect you in the near future, so take the chance to inform yourself now, before it does.


For a detailed list of links and references to support the statements in this video, read an article by Islam Exposed: 3 Things You Should Know About Islam.


The Flex Fuel Imperative


FACT NUMBER ONE: The economy runs on oil. Transportation requires oil. Fact number two: 78 percent of the oil comes from OPEC, a coalition of thirteen countries. Fact number three: When we use less oil, they pump less oil, keeping the price the same. When we drill more oil of our own, they pump less oil, keeping the price the same. In other words, as long as we are dependent on oil alone for transportation, we cannot impact the price of oil on the world market.

I think America should try to drill for its own oil. But even if the U.S. pumped all of its own oil, what would oil companies do when the price of oil on the American market was lower than the price those oil companies could get for their oil on the world market?

However you look at it, the quickest solution — a solution that could be added to any other solution is to introduce competition into the fuel market so oil is no longer the only fuel cars can burn. The simplest, most inexpensive solution is to pass a law making it mandatory that every car sold in the U.S. must be a "flex fuel" car. This is also called "an open fuel standard." All cars would be manufactured already capable of burning multiple fuels (including gasoline).

To make a car a flex fuel car adds about 100 U.S. dollars to the cost of a new car, which is chump change in the big scheme of things. Some U.S. car manufacturers already make flex fuel cars — and most of them are shipped to Brazil!

If most cars on the road were flex fuel cars, it would create enough financial incentive for businesses to justify new fuel pumps at "gas stations," to produce new, competing fuels, and to invest in the development of competing fuels. Right now so few cars are flex fuel cars, the market is not big enough for a business to expend resources to get in the business of providing the fuel or developing fuels.

Brazil went from zero to 70 percent of their cars being flex fuel cars in three years. Last year, 90 percent of new cars sold in Brazil were flex fuel cars. When oil prices went up recently on the world market, alternative fuels sold better in Brazil. They used more ethanol than gasoline last year. Because they had a choice.

In an upcoming Citizen Warrior article, we will have something specific you can do to help make this law a reality. But first, please learn more about this important issue. Oil money is reaching its hand into every aspect of life, strongly influencing the Islamization of Western democracies, including the building of mosques (and mega-mosques). We must cut off their money supply. The first step is to learn more about the flex fuel imperative. Start here:

Watch an 85 minute talk by Anne Korin and Gal Luft: Turning Oil Into Salt: Energy Independence Through Fuel Choice.

Read a Wall Street Journal article, How to End America's Addiction to Oil (PDF)

Read an article from The American Interest: Fueled Again? (PDF)

Read the book: Turning Oil Into Salt.

Watch a movie entitled Turning Oil Into Salt on YouTube.
Read an article on Citizen Warrior: Support An Open Fuel Standard
Check out an organization working for flex fuel legislation: Set America Free


A Muslim Must Spread Islam

"O Messenger! Make known (balagh) all that has been sent down to thee by thy Lord and Sustainer." (5:67)

"Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good instruction, and argue with them in a way that is best." (Quran 16:125)

"He it is who has sent to the unlettered people a Messenger from among themselves to convey unto them His messages, and to lead them to purity and spiritual growth (tazkiyah) and to teach them the Book and the Wisdom (ta'lim)..." (62:2)

Balagh, da'wah and ta'lim are also mentioned in the Qur'an and Hadith as duties of Muslims generally:

"Convey from me (balagh) even if it be only a single ayah (that you know)." (Bukhari)

"Let there among you be a group that invites to all that is good (da'wah)." (3:104)

"Say! This is my way. I call to God (da'wah) — on the basis of sure knowledge — I and those who (truly) follow me. Glory to God and I am not among those who commit shirk." (12:108)

"Acquire knowledge and teach it to mankind (ta'lim), learn your religious duties and teach them to mankind, learn the Qur'an and teach it to mankind, for I am a man who will be taken away..." (Darimi)

An Islamic source: The Work of Propagation of Islam.


One Good Reason to Read the Quran


A FRIEND OF MINE wrote me with a question: "Do you know of Sami Zaatari from YouTube? I wish I had my Quran because I was watching a video and he was talking about how anti-Islamists use a verse from the Quran to prove that Muslims are told to kill non-believers. It was chapter 2 verse 191. He then quoted verse 190 which says Muslims should only kill in self-defense and if the non-believers stop then they should stop. I would like to know if these verses were actually written in sequence or is it a result of the Quran being out of order."

I love answering questions like this. My answer was: "No, I don't know who Sami Zaatari is. But he is correct about the verses in the Quran. They were written in sequence." Here are the verses:



I told my friend: The verses Sami Zaatari quoted are correct, but he is trying to pull one over on you. He is implying that the verse means Muslims are only allowed violence in self-defense. As I'm sure he is aware, the more fair-minded, egalitarian passages have been abrogated by the less fair and more violent passages. But even if this particular passage was not abrogated, his statement would still be misleading because simply being a member of a free society is enough of an offense to justify "defensive" hostilities to an orthodox Muslim. Read more about that here:

Supporting Israel is offense enough to justify defensive hostilities. Being an American and thus "supporting" the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is offense enough to justify killing us all.

According to Mohammad, merely trying to
inhibit Islam's spread is an "attack on Islam" which justifies violent defense.

The cartoons published in a Danish newspaper, for example, were considered an attack on Islam and justified the riots that led to the deaths of 180 people — killed because of cartoons! It doesn't take much. Like I heard someone say the other day, what would be a smaller political statement than a cartoon? You can't really make a smaller protest against this aggressive ideology.

So even if "only" defensive warfare was justified by the Quran, it would not be a comforting thought. It would still not make this a peaceful or tolerant religion by any non-Muslim standards.

As it is, there are
109 verses in the Quran that advocate violence against non-Muslims.

And beyond that, Mohammad's example alone would be enough to justify unending warfare against unbelievers until every last non-Muslim has been subjugated under Sharia law. Mohammad's example must be followed.

I think Sami Zaatari's answer is a great example of taqiyya. He didn't really lie, but he was definitely practicing deception, and in a very crafty way. Here's another good example of taqiyya.

Statements like this are made frequently by people who know a lot about Islam. It is profoundly confusing to people. I believe the confusion is often caused deliberately. The answer is to take the Pledge. Reading the Quran is really the straight road to being permanently inoculated against the unending disinformation non-Muslims are being fed by Islamic apologists.


An Aversion to Cruelty


RICHARD RORTY said liberals feel an "aversion to cruelty" and that is one of the primary reasons they are a liberal. Somehow this struck me as worth remembering. I don't like to divide this issue into a "conservative versus liberal" issue because it should be important to all of us. But it struck a chord that the thing we're up against — the resistance you run into when you begin talking to a non-Muslim about Islam — is an "aversion to cruelty."

I think we will find an improved ability to reach people who have such an aversion if we understand this fundamental truth about them.

For example, you can make it perfectly clear right up front that you abhor cruelty, that you are against racism and treating anyone badly, that you're not a "Muslim-basher" or a "hatemonger." Make it clear you are not a mean person. These are the most likely ways they will interpret your criticism of Islam. These are the most likely ways they'll try to make sense of your motivations for saying what you're saying.

I'm assuming anyone who reads Citizen Warrior is against cruelty, racism, and hate. So we should make sure we vehemently express our dislike and distrust of these things. In other words, show a little more aversion to cruelty than they do, and talk about Islam in a way that shows them that the reason you want to educate the world about Islam is to prevent cruelty and inequality and bigotry.

Go out of your way to point out that you are against hating Muslims themselves, and that what you want to speak about is an ideology of intolerance and supremacism, and that thank goodness most Muslims are good enough to ignore these core Islamic teachings.

You can then go on to say that unfortunately, just because many Muslims ignore these teachings, that's not the end of the issue because their children are vulnerable to recruiting. And enough Muslims do definitely believe in Islam, so an uneducated population of non-Muslims is vulnerable to infiltration, deceit, the removal of freedoms, and ultimately of subjugation. You might not want to go that far (subjugation) because most people at this beginning level of innocence about Islam don't think it's possible.

We should only tell as much truth as can be believed. Give people a chance to come to grips with the horrible implications of what you're saying. Don't overwhelm them or make them recoil from the information.

If you can "come from" the aversion you have to cruelty, you may gain their ear. You will at least help prevent them from putting you in a box of "racist," and perhaps they'll become confused enough about you to listen. I'm not recommending you deliberately confuse people, but help them realize they can't characterize you the way they thought, and if they don't have a way to characterize you, they may simply listen to you out of curiosity.

When you can see you've aroused their curiosity, help them see that concessions to Sharia ultimately lead to cruelty, even though at first it may seem tolerant and kind and fair-minded to give them the special accomodations they demand.

If you can do this, your listener will walk away from the conversation with a whole new perspective. It will make them more open to information about the disturbing nature of Islam. And hopefully it will lead them to investigate the issue for themselves.

If they ask you more about it later, do your best to encourage them to take the pledge and read the Quran. That should be the first step for all of us.

Learn more about influencing your friends:


Join the Caravan to Ground Zero



Learn more about the rally here.




Here's a little more information about the rally from Atlas Shrugs:






Do You Think the Ground Zero Mosque Should Be Allowed?





I said, "I think they were wrong."



should be allowed to build it.




But if Islam is

Here is a list of the central beliefs of mainstream Islam.

And second, if this is true (that Islam is


I published a version of this article on


What Are the Important Elements of Islam's Ideology?


1. There is only one God, and Mohammad is His prophet.

2. Islam is a better religion than any other religion.

3. Islam has a better government and system of law than any other.

4. Anybody who is not a Muslim is worth less than a Muslim, deserves less respect, and under Islamic law, should be treated as a second-class citizen with fewer rights and a heavy tax burden.

5. Every Muslim should strive to make the whole world and everyone in it follow Islamic law. This is the prime directive.

6. Striving for this prime directive is the most important thing a Muslim can do. It is his (or her) most important religious duty. It is the most important expression of his religious faith.

7. He should strive to accomplish the prime directive with his time, his money, his speech and writing, and with weapons if necessary.

8. If he is in a place where Muslims don't have dominant political power, he can and should deceive non-Muslims if it helps Muslims accomplish the prime directive.

9. Any efforts by non-Muslims to inhibit the spread of Islam should be considered an attack on Islam.

10. Whenever Islam is attacked, it is a Muslim's holy duty to defend Islam by any means necessary.

11. A Muslim should never stop striving for the domination of Islam until it has been achieved.

If you don't already know this about Islam, and if you'd like to know for sure if it's all true or not, start with the Quran (and make sure the Quran you use has been unscrambled). Start here: Take the pledge and read the Quran.


Robert Spencer Proposed a Realistic Solution

ONCE YOU come to grips with the fact that Islam has not been hijacked, and that it teaches the necessity to strive to establish Sharia law everywhere in the world by any means necessary, one question fixates your mind: "Good grief! What are we going to do about this?"

I've heard everything from "
Nuke em all" to "get used to the idea of an Islamic world because it is inevitable." This is an extremely difficult challenge. What kind of solution can we possibly come up with? We have a lot of Muslims in the world. Not all of them are orthodox, but there are enough of them to pose a serious problem for free societies.

Should the religion be banned altogether? That doesn't fit with our fundamental values. And it probably wouldn't work anyway.

This question is important. One of the reasons people don't want to even consider the possibility that mainstream Islam might be fundamentally supremacist, political, and aggressive, is that having a big problem without any solution in sight is hard to take in. The mind naturally wants to reject the premise. It can't be. It must be untrue. Rejection of the idea is reflexive, automatic, and robust.

But what if you had a possible solution? What if you had an idea that wouldn't involve any of the horrible possibilities people are afraid of? It would make your listener more willing to consider the possibility that your original premise (that Islam is supremacist, political, and aggressive) might really be true.

In an excellent talk available on YouTube entitled, Islam or Islamism?: Robert Spencer at the Vienna Forum, May 8, 2010, I thought Spencer's closing remarks offered one of the most sensible solutions I've ever heard, so I transcribed his closing remarks below.

The only thing that could prevent the application of Robert Spencer's proposed solution is if we fail at getting the word out. If enough people understood Islam the way you and I do, this solution
could be put into practice, and it would manage the problem. As Spencer has said, not all problems can be solved, but every problem can be managed. Here are Robert Spencer's closing remarks:

The implications of what I'm saying are very bad. There's no way to sugarcoat them. But there are precedents. And there are useful ways forward — if we have the courage to face this problem as it truly is.

This is a problem within Islamic teaching, within
core Islamic teaching, founded on the Quran. As such, wherever there are Islamic communities, there will be terrorism and efforts to impose elements of Islamic law through peaceful means, to assert the precedence of Islamic law over the laws of the state in which the Muslims happen to be residing. That will always happen.

Now, in 1945, the McArthur government — the occupational government in Japan — issued an edict saying that Shinto (the religion of the Japanese that had fueled Japanese imperial militarism in World War II) would have no interference from the United States' occupying forces as an expression of individual piety, as the religion of any Japanese citizen. No interference whatsoever from the government. However, Shinto would have no role in the government or in the schools.

The distinction was made — it was imposed from without — that Shinto would have no way to express the political militarism that had led to World War II in the first place.

Now, the United States, Great Britain, Europe, are all facing a very similar problem, with growing Muslim communities asserting political and societal notions that are at variance with our ideas of the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, the equality of rights of women with men, the equality of rights of all people before the law.

If our governments had the courage to stand up and say that any assertion of these political aspects of Islam that are at variance with our existing laws will be considered to be seditious under existing sedition laws, there would be a tremendous amount of progress made on this problem.

But of course we're nowhere
near that, because we can't even admit that there are such initiatives going on from the Islamic communities as such.

And so as long as this unrealism persists, then the cognitive dissonance will continue to grow. And as long as the cognitive dissonance continues to grow, so also will the assertiveness and beligerence of the Islamic communities in the West, because they will see that we are not able and not willing to take the decisive steps necessary to do anything serious to stop them.


Something to Share With Others About the Ground Zero Mosque Controversy

YESTERDAY'S ARTICLE on the Ground Zero Mosque has been republished on a new, very shareable web site. Here's the article on the new site: The Ground Zero Mosque Controversy.

Check it out, and I think you'll see what I mean about this new site being easy to share. It has a more neutral presentation and a simpler menu, which I think would be even less offensive to certain people than Citizen Warrior. Anyway, check it out and if you think it would work better for some people, share that one rather than the original post on Citizen Warrior.


The Ground Zero Mosque


THERE ARE GOOD reasons to stop the proposed Ground Zero mosque. But what's the message people have gotten from the mainstream media? "Muslims killed people on 9/11, so Muslims should not be allowed to build a mosque so near to Ground Zero."

That's pretty lame. Part of the reason for this weak argument against the Ground Zero mosque is that the really good reasons for opposing it require some background knowledge about Islam — information too extensive to be packed into a sound bite. When the full argument gets squeezed into a sound bite, it is reduced to something embarrassingly pathetic.

For the sound bite to make any sense at all, you have to know quite a bit about Islam. But for someone who thinks Islam is simply another religion, similar to Christianity or Buddhism or Judaism, and that a small fringe of crazy extremists have hijacked the religion and committed atrocities in its name — atrocities that go
against the foundational teachings of Islam, sullying the peaceful reputation of Islam — for someone with that understanding of Islam, the arguments against the Ground Zero mosque sound not just lame, but seem like an obviously weak excuse to be a hater, a bigoted Islamophobe, a redneck, an ignorant Bible-thumper, or just an intolerant jerk.

I don't believe people who think that way should be ignored. I think they should be debriefed. And I don't mean removing their underwear. I mean they should be brought up to speed about Islam. They know almost nothing about Islam, and what they
think they know is getting in the way of them learning any more about it.

If we started from scratch to fill in the details represented by the sound bite, the full argument would go something like this:

Muslims killed people on 9/11 because mainstream Islam (represented by hundreds of millions of Muslims in the Middle East, Indonesia, and elsewhere)
is intent on Islamizing the non-Muslim world, and has been since the year 622. That's quite an indictment. Some would call it an "allegation." But it is nothing more than an historical and doctrinal fact. Well-educated orthodox Muslims would not take any offense at this fact. They would not consider it an allegation. In fact, they would take offense at the implication that this ought to be considered an allegation. It's just basic Islamic doctrine, believed in by hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world, confirmed and supported by all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, confirmed by Islamic history, and given complete authority by the example of the Prophet Mohammad.

The fact is validated by the information in the
Quran, the Sira, and the Hadith, which comprises the core Islamic doctrine. It is not disputed by any mainstream or accepted sect or school of Islam, and has never been disputed by any mainstream or widely popular leaders of Islam throughout its history.

It is simply a basic Islamic principle: Islam exists in a state of war with the non-Muslim world until the whole world follows the holy law of Allah. Read more about this principle here.

Yes, it is true that many Muslims do not subscribe to these teachings. Most of them do not subscribe because they don't know much about their own religion (see more about that here), which is our good fortune.

But those who have read the core Islamic doctrine and consider themselves Muslims (and this would include almost all Islamic leaders,
imams, and Islamic scholars) understand perfectly well it is their religious duty to bring the whole world under Islamic law. This is the prime directive.

Mohammad did not believe in contemplating one's navel as a form of worship. He believed — and made it mandatory for all Muslims — that one proved one's devotion to Allah with
action. And the most important action, according to Mohammad, is jihad. Jihad is not limited to warfare. Jihad means striving to bring the law of Allah to all people on earth, by using your wealth, your speech, your pen, your time, and your life — ideally by peaceful means, but by war if necessary.

According to mainstream (not fringe or extreme) Islamic doctrine,
man made governments (like democracies) and man made laws are an abomination and a sin and should not be allowed to continue existing in the world. Political action is a religious duty to all Muslims — political action aimed at changing laws and governments to follow Sharia, the holy law of Allah.

All this information is easy to discover. It is not esoteric. It is not hidden. Every bookstore carries at least the
Quran (and usually the Hadith and Sira) translated into English.

Okay, so what does this have to do with the Ground Zero mosque?

When non-Muslims think about building a house of worship, we think about a peaceful place where devout, believing people can commune with their creator. But in order to understand what a mosque is to Muslims, you have to understand the fundamentally political nature of Islam.
Most of Islam is political. It is not a fringe part of Islam. It is the main part.

Mohammad's biography is one of the core doctrines of Islam. It is called the
Sira. The amount of the Sira's text devoted to jihad is 67%. It says in the Quran — Islam's most holy book — that a Muslim should follow Mohammad's perfect example, and it hammers on this point, saying it 91 times in the Quran.

The practice of Islam is fundamentally political. Non-Muslims may think this is strange, but it is a normal, unremarkable fact to a Muslim. How can you believe in a creator who has given you the perfect formula for living (Sharia), and told you it is your duty to live that way and to bring the light of the holy law to all people, and still have some arbitrary division between "political" action and "religious" practice?

So a Muslim's conception of a mosque is entirely different from a Westerner's conception of a "house of worship," because their conception of "religion" is entirely different than a non-Muslim's. We should think of mosques the way
Muslims think of mosques, rather than lay our own values over theirs, as if we understand their religion better than they do.

And their understanding is based firmly on the example of the Prophet. Mohammad used the mosque as a home-base where jihad was declared, where fatwas were made, where indoctrination took place, where raids and attacks were planned, where the planning and building of the Islamic State took place, where military orders were given, and where Mohammad gave his death sentences to the enemies of Islam. This is not "anti-Islam propaganda." This is history as understood and believed by Muslims. This is basic Islamic history.
Read more about what mosques mean to Muslims.

This is not just interesting ancient history. Mosques are still put to these uses today.

In Islam, the mosque is the center of their religion, and in Islam religion is totally encompassing in a way non-Muslims can hardly imagine.

If the mosque at Ground Zero is built, it will be considered to be a triumphant symbol of the third jihad by most orthodox Muslims in the world. We may not like it, we may wish this wasn't the case, we may believe that our Muslim friend wouldn't see it that way (and we may be right about that), but
most orthodox Muslims will see it this way. When you know a lot about Islam, this will be obvious.

But to understand the idea of "the third jihad," we need to go further back. There have been two major jihads in Islamic history, and mosques always played a central role.

The second major jihad started in 1071 AD.

The Middle East was eventually carved up, divided, and colonized by (mostly) European powers, and the danger of Islam's quest for world domination seemed to be over.

Then the combustion engine was invented and oil was discovered in the Middle East. Obscene amounts of money started flowing into the hands of devout Muslims. And for the last 80 years or so, Islam has been resurging. Orthodox (and heterodox) Muslims are immigrating into Europe and the Americas, and doing what they're supposed to do according to their sacred texts: Working to bring the holy law of Allah into the ignorant and decadent Western nations, by any means necessary. Violence is one possibility, but most orthodox Muslims now believe 9/11 was a tactical mistake. Arousing the anger of powerful Western nations is not the way to achieve victory.

Much more subtle ways must be found to convert the West to Sharia. And many ways are being found and successfully implemented. The Muslim Brotherhood, the largest Islamic organization in the world, stated in an internal document written in 1991 (seized in an FBI raid) that their mission in America was:



But what does this have to do with

Historically, starting with Mohammad, the process of conquering and subjugating non-Muslims included building a mosque on top of the previous culture's representative house of worship. It is a strong symbol of the dominance of Islam. It tells everyone present — Muslims and non-Muslims alike — that a change has occurred, a new sheriff is in town, a new political order is in charge.

In the world today, you could make a very good case that the United States is the most powerful nation on earth, both militarily and economically. And since at least the 1980's, the United States has done more to prevent the
Islamization of the world than any other nation. The U.S. is a barrier to the political goal of Islam.

The Twin Towers and the Pentagon were attacked because they were perceived by Muslims as being representatives of American power — America's money and America's military. They were symbols of core American values, according to Al-
Qaeda. They were our shrines. They were our places of worship, or at least this is how Al-Qaeda perceived it.

So building a mosque as close as possible to the site of the complete collapse of America's house of worship
is a symbolic act, an expression of dominance, a triumphal planting of the flag on foreign soil, and for non-Muslims who are educated about Islamic history and its core values, it is correctly seen as symbolically spitting on the enemy's grave.

In addition, according to the Muslim, Muhammad
Hisham Kabbani, who testified before the U.S. State Department, 80 percent of mosques in America preach "extremist ideology." Coming from an entirely different source, the Mapping Sharia Project sent trained people into mosques in the U.S. to find out how many of them are calling for jihad against America. They discovered that the majority of the mosques they've investigated so far do, in fact, promote jihad against America, in the Friday "sermons" (known as "khutbah") and in the literature available at the mosques.

Saudi Arabia's oil wealth enables it to control around 90% of the world's Islamic institutions (source), and the Saudis promote hardcore, fundamentalist Islam. They pay for these mosques because it gives them control over what is taught and promoted at the mosques. Read more about this.

If you understand all this, you can see it is not only symbolically offensive to allow a triumphalist mosque to be built almost on the site of 9/11, it is strategically foolish. It means allowing another mosque to be planted on American soil which will function as a kind of forward base of operations in enemy land, and which will, in all probability (given the high percentages just outlined) allow orthodox Muslims to reach more people and do more of their "good works" of bringing Islamic law to America.



With this new understanding of Islamic history, Islamic doctrine, Islamic current events, and the role and function of mosques in Islam, the original sound bite makes a lot more sense: We don't want the Ground Zero mosque to be built because "Muslims killed people on 9/11 and Muslims should not be allowed to build a mosque so near to Ground Zero."




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