‘Not Islamic’?

Screen Shot 2014-09-25 at 2.56.44 PMPresident Obama declared in his recent address to the nation that “ISIL is not Islamic.”

But how does he know? On what basis did the president of the United States declare the a group of Muslims that calls itself “Islamic State” “not Islamic”?

Has he studied Islam and Islamic history and concluded that ISIL, Boko Haram, al-Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban, Jamaat-e-Islami, Lashkar-e-Taiba (the group that slaughtered 166 people in Mumbai, most especially guests at the Taj Hotel,and which tortured to death a rabbi and his wife), the various Palestinian terrorist groups (all of which have been Muslim, even though there are many Christian Palestinians), and the Muslim terror groups in Somalia, Yemen, Libya and elsewhere are also all “not Islamic”?

Has he concluded that the Muslim Brotherhood, which won Egypt’s most open election ever, is “not Islamic?”

And what about Saudi Arabia? Is that country “not Islamic,” too?

Oh, and what about Iran? Also “not Islamic”?

Isn’t that a lot of Muslims, Muslim groups, and even nations — all of whom claim Islam as their religion — to dismiss as “not Islamic”?

To be fair, these baseless generalizations about what is and what is not Islamic started with his predecessor, President George W. Bush, who regularly announced that “Islam is a religion of peace.” And it is equally unlikely that his assertion came from a study of Islam and Islamic history.

The fact is that a study of Islamic history could not lead any fair-minded individual to conclude that all these Muslims and Islamic groups are “not Islamic.” Neither Islamic history, which, from its origins, offered vast numbers of people a choice between Islam and death, nor Islam as reflected in its greatest works, would lead one to draw that conclusion.

Killing “unbelievers” has been part of — of course not all of — Islam since its inception. Within 10 years of Muhammad’s death Muslims had conquered and violently converted whole peoples from Iran to Egypt and from Yemen to Syria. Muslims have offered conquered people death or conversion since that time.

The Hindu Kush, the vast, 500-mile long, 150-mile wide mountain range stretching from Afghanistan to Pakistan, was populated by Hindus until the Muslim invasions beginning around the year 1000. The Persian name Hindu Kush was proudly given by Muslims. It means “Hindu-killer.” At least 60 million Hindus were killed by Muslims during the thousand years of Muslim rule. Though virtually unknown, it may be the greatest mass murder in history next to Mao’s.

The groups named above are following some dictates of the Quran.

A few of many such examples:

“I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve.

Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them” (8:12).

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

“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth.” (9:29).

There is also a different admonition in the Quran: “In matters of faith there shall be no compulsion” (2:256).

So a Muslim can also cite the Quran if he wishes to allow non-Muslims to live in peace.

The problem is that Muslim theological tradition, affirmed by many scholars, holds that later revelation to Muhammad supersedes prior revelation (a doctrine known as “abrogation”). And the Quranic verses ordering Muslims to fight and slay non-believers came after those admonishing Muslims to live with non-believers in peace and without religious compulsion.

The problem is that Muslim history, in keeping with the doctrine of abrogation, has far more often practiced the violent admonitions.

The problem is that more than 600 years after Muhammad, Ibn Khaldun, the greatest Muslim writer who ever lived, explained why Islam is the superior religion in the most highly regarded Muslim work ever written, “Muqaddimah,” or “Introduction to History”:

“In the Muslim community, the holy war is religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.”

In other words, Ibn Khaldun boasts, whereas no other religion commands converting the world through force, Islam does. Was Ibn Khaldun also “not Islamic”? And so much for the president’s other claim that “no religion condones the killing of innocents.”

None of this justifies bigotry against Muslims. There are hundreds of millions of non-Islamist Muslims (an Islamist is a Muslim who seeks to impose Shariah on others), including many “cultural” or secular Muslims. And individual Muslims are risking their lives every day to provide the intelligence needed to forestall terror attacks in America and elsewhere.

It is only a call to clarity amidst the falsehoods coming from the president, the secretary of state, and especially the universities.

As the courageous Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born woman who leads a worldwide effort on behalf of Muslim women and for reforming Islam, asked in a speech at Yale University this month: If Islam is a religion of peace, why is there a sword on the Saudi flag?

If the president feels he has to obfuscate for the sake of gaining Muslim allies, so be it. But the rest of us don’t have to make believe what he said is true.

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  • http://JudeoChristianAmerica.org Alexander Gofen

    A good educating article – except that Mr. Prager too could not escape double talk.

    1) The meaningless progressive cliche “bigotry” in the phrase “bigotry against Muslims” supposedly means “a sweeping conclusion against an entire “religion”” – something unthinkable in a progressive mind. Yet there is nothing wrong in being against a manifestly evil entire religion or evil party, such as communist.

    2) Every consistent moslem has no choice but to adhere to exactly the latest commandments, therefore it is his duty to impose Shariah on others.

    Islamist = Adherent of islam = (consistent) Moslem.

    Non-Islamist Muslims = Oxymoron.

    Secular Muslim = Oxymoron.

    “Cultural only” moslem = Inconsistent or bad moslem, possibly apostate.

    • mollysdad

      Agreed. Even the innocent practice and profession of Islam, by a person who imposes a forced interpretation of the Qur’an in favour of non-violence, is inherently dangerous to public peace and human life in places where Muslims live in strength.

      A few centuries ago, the public manifestation of the Islamic religious would have been repressed under civil blasphemy laws.

  • Bamaguje

    We get it… Islam is not Islamic!!

    • Ravindra Agrawal

      Islam is Inhuman.

    • Softly Bob

      I’m sure that the Sicilian Mafia are seething with envy.
      If only they could claim that the protocols, intentions and activities of the Mafia are not really ‘Mafiamic’ then they would. I’m sure that if possibly the World’s largest crime syndicate can claim that they are not really a crime syndicate then they would.
      I’m also sure that if they could claim that the Dons, the heavies, the thugs and the hitmen that are part of the Mafia are just a few extremists who have misinterpreted Mafia rules, then they would.
      But Liberals are not concerned about the Mafia, and even Mafiosis themselves are a tiny bit more honest than Muslims.
      That’s why the Western World is in the mess that it is because Liberals are experts at denial and Muslims are experts at deceit, and both of them when it boils down to it are unscrupulous, ruthless liars!

  • ObamaYoMoma

    Not Islamic. Look at ISIS today and the old Ottoman Turk Empire circa 1915, when the Ottoman Turks were in the process of massacring approximately 1.5 million Christian Armenian infidels, while at the same time oppressing in harsh and degrading dhimmitude millions more Christian infidels in North Africa, The Levant, and the Balkans.

    ISIS and the new Caliphate is the reincarnation of the old Ottoman Turk Empire, as it is reliving the old glory days of 1915 in that Islamic Empire today. Indeed, ISIS is the true unvarnished face of Islam with all the masks removed, and if it isn’t Islamic, then the old Ottoman Turk Empire wasn’t Islamic either.

    When will our politicians on both sides of the political aisles stop lying to their constituents about the reality of Islam? The problem is not the manifestation of ISIS. The problem instead is Islam and until Islam is targeted and eradicated, jihad will be a permanent fixture of this earth.

    • Dallasyaherd

      When discussing any record of the ills of the Ottomans you can’t leave out slavery especially white or sexual slavery for the Harems of Arabia, and Turkey, and labour slavery, these were inventions of the Arabs and Turks. Any real authoritative history of slavery must include the 1 million white Christians taken slaves between 1750 and 1810 in the Ottoman Barbary, Thomas Jefferson himself made note of that number. The world has been lying for the Muslims in every way imaginable for a very very long time, the winners of the colonization game lie for each other. Hence everything is always on the Arab’s side in the history books, and even with that, we know as much as we know.

  • ObamaYoMoma

    including many “cultural” or secular Muslims. And individual Muslims are risking their lives every day to provide the intelligence needed to forestall terror attacks in America and elsewhere.

    “Cultural” or “Secular” Muslims, in Islam are blasphemous apostates that according to the dictates of Islam must be executed because they are in essence non-Muslims, i.e., infidels, and according to the dictates of Islam, all infidels that reject the truth of Islam must be executed. In other words, in effect they are silenced, and exactly like the Germans in WWII that weren’t adherents of Hitler and the Russians that weren’t actual Communists, they are irrelevant because of their forced silence.

    Indeed, far more than anything else, Islam is a very draconian form of totalitarianism that seeks to make itself and its adherents supreme above all others, as opposed to being just a so-called religion. Thus, just like in the old Communist Soviet Union where all non-conformers were sent to the Soviet Gulags, all non-conformers in Islamic totalitarian society are summarily executed according to the dictates of Islam.

    Thus, all Muslims currently residing and living in America are also jihadists per the dictates of Islam just as much as ISIS are violent jihadists. In their particular case, however, they are waging jihad non-violently, as waging jihad violently over here would not be feasible as they would quickly be defeated and sent packing back to the Islamic totalitarian hellholes from which they came from.

    Now, of course, there are plenty of people in that group who infidels naively or otherwise believe to be so-called “moderate, cultural, or secular” Muslims, but the reality is those people are no more Muslim than we are, as they are in effect Muslim apostates, i.e., infidels.

  • objectivefactsmatter

    He ate a dog with other Indonesian Muslims. Maybe even more than once. He can speak for Islam.

    • kikorikid

      He DOES speak for Islam. Everything out of his mouth is Sharia compliant.

  • Ravindra Agrawal

    Islam is non-secular and inhuman.

  • Pete

    Many liberals never hesitate to point out that in their esteemed opinion the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) was Christian. The liberal argument goes like this.

    1 The LRA is Christian.
    2 It does evil acts.
    3. Therefore Christians are extremists or at the very least Christianity has a violent fringe.

    This was very prevalent during the viral video of Kony going around 2 or 3 years ago. You have not heard much about Kony because the cause-heads have “Moved on” to their next cause.

    I see now that they are calling the LRA and nut jobs like Eastern Lightning quasi-Christian.

    So for now they have back off calling them Christian. But the most radical Leftists publications and the most vile forum trolls will unless we fight back.

    Someone can take a few passages out of the New Testament and bastardize it all to heck, call themselves Christian and the Left immediately points to it with glee. Meanwhile the Islamic State quotes the Qu’ran in toto and the LEFT denies it is Islamic. They do not even call it quasi-Islamic.

    WHY?

    • http://geoffreybritain.wordpress.com/ Geoffrey_Britain

      Why? Because the Left and Islam are in a marriage of convenience. They each believe that the western right is a far greater obstacle to the triumph of their ideology than is the other.

  • kasandra

    Obama’s just lying. It’s what he does best, most consistently, and without dithering.

  • Lassiefaire

    Current estimates and Pew research indicate the muslim world population is 1.5 billion. The website muslimpopulation.com claims the total for 2014 is 2.8 billion.
    If 1% of 1.5 billion muslims are radical islamists, that would be 15 million.
    If 1% of 2.8 billion muslims are radical islamists, that would be 28 million.
    According to Brigitte Gabriel, 25% of muslims are radical islamists… do the math!

  • kikorikid

    “No Religion teaches the killing of Innocents.”
    This is Taqiyya spew!
    Obama deftly omitted that in Islam the only
    “Innocents” are “Believers” and that all others
    are open to slaughter. Obama is simply maintaining
    his perception of “Sharia Compliance”.

  • Rick

    From Obama’s September 10 speech:
    Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not “Islamic.” No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim. And ISIL is certainly not a state. It was formerly al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq, and has taken advantage of sectarian strife and Syria’s civil war to gain territory on both sides of the Iraq-Syrian border. It is recognized by no government, nor the people it subjugates. ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.
    Transcript from npr.org.
    The above includes the entire paragraph to avoid any “taken out of context” question. My questions focus on the first statement.

    Why were only Muslims included and the other victims not mentioned? Was this just an oversight?

    • kikorikid

      Not an “Oversight” at all. Rather, Sharia Compliance issues.
      Muslim killing Muslim creates a type of No-Fault description
      wherein Islam seems Suicidal and needs help.
      Including ALL of the Victims makes Islam seem murderous
      and needs killing.

  • Rob

    Here’s my music video called, ‘Nothing to do with islam’:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydBD-6izYfE

  • tagalog

    The non-Muslim world has a right to demand that all those alleged millions upon millions of “moderate” Muslims, through their spokesmen, declare for the record that the jihadists and Islamic “extremists” are doctrinal outliers in the Islamic faith, and that they don’t represent a legitimate or even mainstream Muslim set of beliefs.