Moderate Islam: A Myth or just Irrelevant

It’s hard to deny the extent of Islamic violence, even in Western nations. However, the secular narrative has drawn a sharp distinction between radical and moderate Islam, assuming that the latter group represents the majority and will eventually exercise a moderating influence. However, there are many indications that this assessment might be nothing more than wishful thinking. For example:

• In May, an opinion poll published by NCRV public television and radio found that nearly three-quarters (73%) of Dutch Muslims believe that Muslims who travel to participate in jihad in Syria are heroes. Most Muslims (75%) surveyed believe that those who want to leave for Syria should be free to do so and do not want them to be arrested and prosecuted. Upon their return, they should be accepted back into Dutch society and their Dutch passports should not be revoked.

With such high esteem for terror and Jihad within the Islamic community, there is little reason to expect that these tendencies will be checked. These findings receive support from other surveys. For example, the:

• “Berlin Center for Social Science Research” has conducted a survey whose results were just published in a paper by Ruud Koopmans, “Fundamentalism and out-group hostility Muslim immigrants and Christian natives in Western Europe” (free download at the link; WZB’s summary is here).

The respondents were Muslims of Turkish and Moroccan origin – certainly not the most radical Islamic nations. However, Koopmans was surprised by the findings and concluded:

• These findings clearly contradict the often-heard claim that Islamic religious fundamentalism is a marginal phenomenon in Western Europe or that it does not differ from the extent of fundamentalism among the Christian majority. Both claims are blatantly false, as almost half of European Muslims agree that Muslims should return to the roots of Islam, that there is only one interpretation of the Koran, and that the rules laid down in it are more important than secular laws. 

Even more startling, approximately 53% of the Muslim respondents admitted that “Muslims aim to destroy Western culture.” This raises the question of the survival of Western democracy in light of a growing subculture from which many will readily use violence to replace democracy and Western values with Islamic Law.

To a “Moderate” Islamic Apologist

If only these peaceful verses did govern Islam, I wouldn't be writing to you right now. There many religions with which I disagree with more than Islam, but I don't write against them - Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism.... This is because they are not murdering my people the way that Islam is throughout almost the entire Islamic world. Scholar and writer, Raymond Ibrahim, wrote about the extent of this slaughter:

• From one end of the Muslim world to another, Christians are suffering under the return of Sharia…Whenever Muslims are in power or getting more power, churches are outlawed, burned or bombed, while Bibles and crucifixes are confiscated and destroyed. Freedom of speech – to speak positively of Christianity or critically of Islam – is denied, often on pain of death…Christian women and children are routinely abducted, raped, and forced to convert to Islam. (Crucified Again, 8)

In addition to this, tens of thousands of Christians are routinely being slaughtered. Why is this so? Because justification for this is found in your holy books! And here’s what some of your own people say about the Koranic teachings:

• "If we follow the rules of interpretation developed from the classical “science of Koranic interpretation, it is not possible to condemn terrorism in religious terms. It remains completely true to the classical rules in its evolution of sanctity for its own justification. This is where the secret of its theological strength lies." -- Egyptian scholar Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd

• "Many thanks to God, for his kind gesture, and choosing us to perform the act of Jihad for his cause and to defend Islam and Muslims. Therefore, killing you and fighting you, destroying you and terrorizing you, responding back to your attacks, are all considered to be great legitimate duty in our religion." -- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his fellow 9/11 defendants

• "Allah on 480 occasions in the Holy Koran extols Muslims to wage jihad. We only fulfil God's orders. Only jihad can bring peace to the world." -- Taliban terrorist Baitullah Mehsud

• "Jihad, holy fighting in Allah's course, with full force of numbers and weaponry, is given the utmost importance in Islam....By jihad, Islam is established....By abandoning jihad, may Allah protect us from that, Islam is destroyed, and Muslims go into inferior position, their honor is lost, their lands are stolen, their rule and authority vanish. Jihad is an obligation and duty in Islam on every Muslim." -- Times Square car bomb terrorist Faisal Shahzad

I wish more Muslims would live according to the peaceable verses. However, there seems to be a general consensus among Islamic Scholars that the verses preaching Jihad and the subjugation of all other peoples now take precedence over the earlier peaceful verses, which have been abrogated. Here’s the commentary of Khan’s Noble Koran on the subject of abrogation:

• Then Allah revealed the order to discard the obligations and commanded Muslims to fight against all the Mushrikun [Polytheist and Trinitarians] as well as against the people of the Scriptures if they do not embrace Islam, till they pay the Jizya (tax) with willing submission and feel themselves subdued. At first the fighting was forbidden, then it was permitted and after that it was made obligatory against them that start the fighting against you and against all those who worship others along with Allah [Trinitarians]. (From the index on “Jihad.”)

I wish it were otherwise!

Am I Islamophobic: My Response to the Emergent Church

I just viewed the teaching video of Imam Yahya Hendi on the equality of women is Islam at the link you provided. 

He tries to distinguish the historical degradation of women in Islam from the true teachings of the Koran and the Hadiths, claiming that these teach the equality of women. Clearly, this is not the case. Here is the testimony of the Koran:

• [Surah 2.223] Your wives are a tilth [cultivated land] for you, so go into your tilth when you like, and do good beforehand for yourselves…

• [2.228] And the divorced women should keep themselves in waiting for three courses; and it is not lawful for them that they should conceal what Allah has created in their wombs, if they believe in Allah and the last day; and their husbands have a better right to take them back in the meanwhile if they wish for reconciliation; and they have rights similar to those against them in a just manner, and the men are a degree above them, and Allah is Mighty, Wise.

• [2.282] …call in to witness from among your men two witnesses; but if there are not two men, then one man and two women from among those whom you choose to be witnesses…

• [4:34] Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them…

How is it that this Imam glosses over these teaching as if they did not exist? Either:

1. He is practicing Taqiyya – the doctrine that authorizes Muslims to lie to the infidel in order to promote Islam, or
2. He is truly a misguided “moderate.”

The Koran degrades the infidel and authorizes deception:

• [3:27] “Let not the believers take the disbelievers for friends rather than believers. And whoever does this has no connection with Allah unless it is done to guard yourselves against them, guarding carefully.

• [5:54] O ye who believe, take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors. They are but friends and protectors to each other.

“Undoubtedly the Muslim is obliged to hate the enemies of Allaah and to disavow them, because this is the way of the Messengers and their followers. Allaah says: 

[60:4] “… ‘Verily, we are free from you and whatever you worship besides Allaah, we have rejected you, and there has started between us and you, hostility and hatred for ever until you believe in Allaah Alone’” (www.koranqa.com; fatwa 59879)

·              “Based on this, it is not permissible for a Muslim to feel any love in his heart towards the enemies of Allaah who are in fact his enemies too. Allaah says:

[60:1] “O you who believe! Take not My enemies and your enemies (i.e. disbelievers and polytheists) as friends, showing affection towards them, while they have disbelieved in what has come to you of the truth”

·              “But if a Muslim treats them with kindness and gentleness in the hope that they will become Muslim and will believe, there is nothing wrong with that, because it comes under the heading of opening their hearts to Islam. But if he despairs of them becoming Muslim, then he should treat them accordingly.”

Perhaps we should try to strengthen the hand of “moderate” Islam. However, an “Islam” disconnected from the teachings of the Koran and Hadiths will have little influence over Islam. The proof of this is that in every Islamic nation, the religious minorities live in fear and subjugation in accordance with Sharia. Evidently, the “moderates” are either irrelevant or are merely practicing Taqiyya.