You Can’t Reform Islam Without Reforming Muslims

quranEvery few years the debate over reforming Islam bubbles up from the depths of a culture that largely censors any suggestion that Islam needs reforming.

But Islam does not exist apart from Muslims. It is not an abstract entity that can be changed without changing its followers. And if Islam has not changed, that is because Muslims do not want it to.

Mohammed and key figures in Islam provided a template, but that template would not endure if it did not fit the worldview of its worshipers. Western religions underwent a process of secularization to align with what many saw as modernity leading to a split between traditionalists and secularists.

The proponents of modernizing Islam assume that it didn’t make the jump because of Saudi money, fundamentalist violence and regional backwardness. These allegations are true, but also incomplete.

If modernizing Islam really appealed to Muslims, it would have taken off, at least in the West, despite Saudi money and Muslim Brotherhood front groups. These elements might have slowed things down, but a political or religious idea that is genuinely compelling is like a rock rolling down a hill.

It’s enormously difficult to stop.

Muslim modernization in the West has been covertly undermined by the Saudis and the Muslim Brotherhood, but for the most part it has not been violently suppressed.

It suffers above all else from a lack of Muslim interest.

Muslims don’t spend much time fuming over a progressive mosque that allows gay members or lets women lead prayers. Such places occasionally exist and remain obscure. They don’t have to be forcibly shut down because they never actually take off. The occasional death threat and arson might take place and the average ISIS recruit would happily slaughter everyone inside, but even he has bigger fish to fry.

The best evidence that Muslim modernization has failed is that even the angriest Muslims don’t take it very seriously as a threat. The sorts of people who believe that Saddam Hussein was a CIA agent or that Israel is using eagles as spies have trouble believing modernizing Islam will ever be much of a problem.

They know instinctively that it will never work. Instead Muslims are far more threatened by a cartoon mocking their prophet for reasons that go to the heart of what is wrong with their religion.

Islam is not an idea. It is a tribe.

Talking about reforming the words of Islam is an abstraction. Islam did not begin with a book. It began with clan and sword. Even in the modern skyscraper cities of the West, it remains a religion of the clan and the sword.

The left has misread Islamic terrorism as a response to oppression when it is actually a power base. It is not the poor and downtrodden who are most attracted to the Jihad. Instead it is the upper classes. Bin Laden wasn’t a pauper and neither are the Saudis or Qataris. Islamic terrorism isn’t a game for the poor. It becomes the thing to do when you’re rich enough to envy the neighbors. It’s a tribal war.

To reform Islam, we can’t just look at what is wrong with the Koran or the Hadiths. We have to ask why these tribal calls for violence and genocide, for oppression and enslavement, appealed to Muslims then and why they continue to appeal to Muslims today.

The modernizers assume that Western Muslims would welcome a reformation of Islam. They are half right. The reformation that they are welcoming is that of the Wahhabis trying to return it to what it was. It’s hard to deny that ISIS touches something deep within Muslims. The gay-friendly mosques don’t.

Understanding Islam only in terms of the Koran makes it seem as if Muslims are unwillingly trapped by a tyranny of the text, when the text is actually their means of trapping others into affirming their identity.

There is no reforming Islam without reforming Muslims. The reformers assume that most Muslims are ignorant of their own beliefs, but even the most illiterate Muslim in a village without running water has a good grasp of the big overall ideas. He may hardly be able to quote a Koranic verse without stumbling over it, he may have added local customs into the mix, but he identifies with it on a visceral level.

Its honor is his honor. Its future is the future of his family. Its members are his kinfolk. Like him, it ought to have been on top; instead it’s on the bottom. Its grievances are his grievances.

The rest is just details.

The progressive diverse mosque is the opposite of this tribal mentality. It is the opposite of Islam. Its destruction of the tribe is also the destruction of the individual. The Western Muslim who already has only a shaky connection to the culture of his ancestral country is not about to trade Islamic tribalism for anonymous diversity. Islam tells him he is superior. The progressive mosque tells him nothing.

Whether he is a Bangladeshi peasant watching soccer matches on the village television or a Bangladeshi doctor in London, it is the violent, racist and misogynistic parts of Islam that provide him with a sense of worth in a big confusing world.

That is how Islam was born.

Islam began in uncertain times as empires were tottering and the old ways were being displaced by strange religions such as Judaism and Christianity, when its originators mashed bits of them together and then founded their own crazy wobbly murderous empire built around a badly plagiarized religion.

It was horrible and terrible for everyone who wasn’t a Muslim man, but it worked.

Islam is less of a faith and more of a set of honor and shame responses. It’s a cycle of oppression and victimhood. It’s the assertion of identity by people who see themselves as inferior and are determined to push back by making themselves superior. The responses are familiar. We saw it in Nazi Germany as the defeated nation became a master race by killing and enslaving everyone else.

But it’s not those at the bottom most driven by such dreams. It’s the desert billionaires who have money, but no culture. It’s the Western Muslim doctor who still feels inferior despite his wealth. It’s a merchant named Mohammed with a lot of grudges who claims an angel told him to kill all his enemies in Allah’s name.

It’s Islam. And it’s Muslims.

The things that we believe, bad or good, reflect the bad or good inside us. When Muslims support killing people, it’s simplistic to assume that they are robotically following a text and will follow any other text slipped in front of their faces, instead of their passions and values. Religions may make people kill, but it starts when people make religions kill.

The good devout Muslim may kill because the Koran tells him to, but he would not do so if the Koran’s justifications of violence did not speak to him on a deeper level. The Nazis were following orders, but they wouldn’t have followed them if Nazism didn’t connect with their fears, hopes and dreams.

The text is only half the problem. The other half is in the human heart.

Reforming Islam is not a matter of crossing out certain words and adding others. Religions carry a powerful set of values that appeal to people on a deep level. To change Islam, we would have to understand why its ugliness still speaks to Muslims. To change it, we have to change them.

When we talk about reforming Islam, what we are really talking about is reforming Muslims.

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  • AnneM040359

    You got that right! Islam as a religion cannot be “reformed.”

  • Guest

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  • http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/ Edward Cline

    Islam, if one is raised in its malodorous confines from day one, inculcates a tenacious inferiority complex and a desire to prove one’s superiority over all others. It is “other-oriented,” and discourages the development of a self and one’s own values. The Koran and its companion texts sanction such a regression. But even if, as Daniel points out, one hasn’t read the Koran from beginning to end, the miasma is still operative even in a poor, semi-literate Muslim. Every Muslim grows up with a “heart of darkness,” and only the most courageous and determined Muslim will want to purge the poison from his system, such as Ayan Hirsi Ali and others. Muslims want to “belong” to their families, to obey the diktats of a creed or ideology that demands no thought — in fact, forbids it. That’s another reason why Muslims can’t be “reformed” and neither can Islam.

    • Yehuda Levi

      Judaism has reformed, Christianity has reformed, therefore Islam can reform. Reformation is the only solution whether it is done by reforming Muslims or Islam or both.

      In the world of ideas, Islam is just another one. Tribalism is here to stay (unfortunately) but the values of the tribe may be altered.

      • MukeNecca

        “Judaism has reformed, Christianity has reformed, therefore Islam can reform.

        “Therefore”?

        With all respect, Y.L., this is a perfect non-sequitur

        • Yehuda Levi

          Let me put it more simply. If two major world religions can reform, then Islam, being a third world religion, can reform.

          It is not that complicated, nor is it a non-sequitur unless you cannot follow the logic.

          • MukeNecca

            Hmm, …what makes it simpler, than the original assertion? Just wondering…
            Anyway, a nonsense is a nonsense regardless how simply, or complexly presented. For example believing that since two, (or three, or…thousand) entities of a certain category change in a similar way when certain conditions obtain is a proof that some other entity will change the same way is a perfect nonsense.
            Or to make it simple: if John, Mary, David and Lou get headache from drinking gin, does it mean Peter must get it too if he drinks gin?
            Mind you, induction is never a perfect proof, but your induction is hilariously hopeless.

          • Yehuda Levi

            Frankly, you are wrong.

            Islam will reform over time (and already has) just as Judaism and Christianity have done. No ideology, including religions, remain perfectly static for all time – they evolve.

            But if you want to claim that Islam is the only exception, feel free to do so. Still, I don’t think it has anything to do with drinking “gin.” Bad example on your part.

          • MukeNecca

            Please, try to understand I have no problem with your believing and claiming Islam will change “just as Judaism and Christianity have done” (neither would I have have problem if you believed the moon is made of green cheese).

            ‘No, my problem is with your claiming you have proven it by logical deduction.

          • Yehuda Levi

            “Therefore” is a word, not a claim. Let’s try to be realistic next time.

          • MukeNecca

            ?what?

          • JB Ziggy Zoggy

            Religions reform or are destroyed. The vast majority of mankind’s religions are extinct.

            Unless you think islam is eternal.

      • Joe The Gentile

        Neither Christianity nor Judaism have their highest-authority textual passages calling for the killing of heretics. If they did, we would probably still be in the Dark Ages. A religion’s ability to reform is not independent of what is in its texts.

      • knowshistory

        let me help you, levi. Judaism has reformed. Christianity has reformed. therefore, islam does not need to reform. Judaism submits. Christianity turns the other cheek. islam takes, slaps the cheek, slaps the other cheek, then cuts the throat. why reform? it works great for islam. hows it working for those “reformed” religions?

    • Ellen_L

      Is it not possible that your analysis is true of some Muslims and Islamic cultures but not of others? People are tribal by nature; we are born into families who may or may not recognize the value of individuals. How each family, tribe or culture treats its people would determine their fundamental attitudes. I suspect that many Islamic states are as you describe but that still does not mean all people even there must fit that description. I suspect most don’t because if they did the culture would not long survive as they killed one another.

      • JB Ziggy Zoggy

        That doesn’t address the thesis that muslims have to be reformed to reform islam. All muslims.

        • Ellen_L

          It wasn’t intended to. It was only to say that like all other groups of people Islam is not homogeneous. There are many varied beliefs that go by the name Islam. They have some things in common but the current wave of violence while true of many is not true of all.
          Of course, religions as results of human thought can only change when the people holding those ideas change them.

          • JB Ziggy Zoggy

            True, but to my knowledge, not a single form of islam tolerates other religions. Nahdlatul Ulama in Indonesia defends pluralism and religious liberty but it is an islamic group, not a form of islam. It’s members claim to be Sunnis. It’s members help protect Churches from fundamentalists.

            Few Indonesians practice real islam and are real muslims. The Christmas bombers, Bali bombers and Sheraton bombers were real islamopithecines, but the vast majority of Indonesians hate fanatics.

            However, Christians are definitely persecuted by the Indonesian government which severely limits the number of Churches, and by its “transmigration program,” which ostensibly is used to ease overcrowding but is actually used to send muslims to overwhelm non muslim areas, and the Javanese to overwhelm other islands. Also, muslims regularly attack Churches, Christian villages and Christian neighborhoods. Nahdlatul Ulama opposes that in Indonesia, but its philosophy will never be practiced anywhere else. Good muslims are as rare as moon rocks, and they will never be the driving force of islam. islam needs to be eradicated.

  • keithbreedlove

    Read Dr. Zuhdi Jasser’s book (A Battle for the Soul of Islam) for a more hopeful view and at least the introduction his father’s translation of the Koran.

    • wildjew

      I’ve been looking at that book. Even if Dr. Jasser is sincere, he has an uphill battle in light of what is written in this piece, don’t you think? When people say Islam is the problem we need to remind them Muslims eagerly embrace Islam.

      • keithbreedlove

        I couldn’t agree with you more. I believe that the definitely has an uphill battle. Looking at the trials Christianity went through, how long did it take — nearly 100 years from the start of the Reformation to the end of the 30 Years War — to separate Church and State?

        • wildjew

          Yes, but Greenfield’s argument is that Muslims are not (constitutionally) disposed to accept reformation of Islam – millions of Muslims like its supremacist, murderous tendencies – unlike millions of Christians (several American Founders) who embraced Reformation, Enlightenment, Classical Liberal principles, etc.

          • keithbreedlove

            For a possible explanation for this “pathology” check out Robert Riley’s (?) “The Closing of the Muslim Mind,” This lack of reception for rationalist thought goes back a thousand years, and it explains why Moslem advancement in the sciences came to a screeching halt.

        • bigjulie

          In the case of Christianity, we had a religion that secular forces instituted as a political force to assist in the political management of territory. In the case of Islam, a political system is already inextricably bound to a religion. If the political system is unbound from the religious in Islam…well, it can’t happen because each depends on the other for reinforcement of the other’s ends! The only solution that will bring any peace at all to the non-Muslim world is vaporization of the Muslim world, by any means necessary!

    • Jack Diamond

      and he has a following of…count on one hand? Aside from the fact innovation in the religion is a CRIME according to Islamic law (apostasy=death) where is there a battle going on for the soul of Islam among Muslims? I’ve never encountered a Muslim who thinks there is a problem with Islam that needs reforming, blame is always laid elsewhere. There are thoughtful Muslims bothered by what they read and see and they (usually quietly) leave Islam. They aren’t foolish enough to try and reform it because they know their fellow Muslims. The best way to reform Islam is to render the Muslim world powerless again. Then its famous fatalism can kick in, it’s Allah’s will.

  • MukeNecca

    ”To change Islam, we would have to understand why its ugliness still speaks to Muslims. To change it, we have to change them.

    I don’t think we should be in the business of changing moslems. And not only
    because I doubt it’s possible, but because it’s unnecessary.

    Of course, it would be nice if we had the power to do so, but no civilization can change the nature and character of the members of another civilization, except by invading and defeating it followed by occupation and forcible imposition of new rules over the vanquished and humiliated members of the beaten civilization.
    None of the conditions necessary for “changing islam through changing moslems” mentioned above obtain. Yes, there is an invasion and occupation and imposition of new rules, but unfortunately, it is the West who is invaded, occupied and tricked to gradually accepting the moslem standards and rules.

    Instead of trying to find ways to change moslems we need to try to find the way to change ourselves back to what we once were only a very short time ago. A good, proud, honest, and courageous people who are capable of loving good and truth and hating evil and lie. When we are back to what we once were Islam will cease to be a problem of the kind and weight it is now. Islam’s power today is not a positive entity, rather it exists (here) because it feeds on our timidity, lack of resolve, moral rot, confusion and gratuitous guilt.

    If we can remove these constrains we will be able to deliver to islam a clear message of our endless contempt for their religion, prophet and civilization and follow it with strict anti-islam rules and measures designed to eradicate the foul
    consequence of their presence in our homelands. They will be given an option to make the change and adapt, or leave.
    If the moslems have enough reason to believe that if necessary the West may just nuke Mecca they will change.

    • http://libertyandculture.blogspot.com/ Jason P

      Generally agree! If we were the nation that defeated totalitarianism they’d fear us. They may not change their feelings and disposition but they’ll hesitate to act on that disposition. Indeed, we could make them petrified to strike us … if we regained our cultural strength.

  • Bamaguje

    The fecklessness of the West, which won’t stand up for the values that catapulted it from the Dark ages to world dominance, is partly responsible for the resurgence of militant Islam.

    The only language Muslims understand quite well is superior capacity for violence, and an unapologetic willingness to use it.

    That’s why secularism thrived somewhat, in parts of the Islamic world during European colonial rule and soon thereafter. That’s also why the West was able to end slavery in most of the Islamic world. The West stood by its values, regardless of Muslim wishes.

    But today, the West has capitulated to the Muslim narrative on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
    In the name of multiculturalism, she bends over backwards to appease Muslims and accommodate their unreasonable demands.
    Instead of unwaveringly standing up for free expression, each time Muslims riot in protest against some perceived slight against their religion, Western leaders fall over themselves to condemn those who exercise the free speech that has helped make the West the great civilization it is.

    Some Western nations even prosecute anti-Jihad activists like Geert Wilders and Elizabeth Sabadistch-Wolf. Or ban others (Robert Spencer, Pam Gellar) entry into their country (UK).

    All these serve to embolden Islamists. Why should they compromise and reform, when they can compell the West to do their bidding?

  • Sigi

    The idea of comparing a reformed Islam to the Protestant reformation comes up elsewhere and it is silly. The RC had gone away from Biblical principles and moorings. The Protestant reformation was a move back to the Bible and away from syncretism with other religions. What we want to see from Islam is the opposite- less rigorous adherence to the Koran and more tolerance of others. It is exactly the opposite mechanism.

  • sendtheclunkerbacktochicago

    The only way to “reform” Islam is to continue to blow them to smithereens. Threaten them before they attack again. If they attack our mainland ever again they will lose one of their “holy” sites and make Medina the first to be leveled. If the attacks continue, level Mecca and if they continue after that take down the Dome of the Mosque brick by brick and dump pigs blood all over the site and then cleanse it with blood from a red heifer and rebuilt the third temple.

  • thebigkohen

    There are 520 violent Qur’an verses, 150 sword verses on HOW to kill, 100 Jihad verses on justification for killing non-Muslims and how to treat infidels, as an inferior and as an enemy that must submit, be subjugated or killed.

    The Koran uses the term “Jihad” 41 times for killing Infidels and calls 14 times, for the enslavement of non-Muslims, and 3 times for killing the unbelievers wherever they are found.

    “KILLING un-believers (non-Muslims) is a small matter to us.” (Mohammed; Tabari 9:69); “War is DECEIT” (Mohammed; Bukhari V4852N268); and, “I have been made victorious with TERROR.” (Mohammed; Sahih Bukhari 4.52.220). Moslems are also specifically called to emulate Mohammed’s criminally depraved moral character (Quran, Surah 33:21).

    Never in the worlds’ history of any other “religion” except Islam, has any official position and its ‘mission’ of its teachings been to “Kill all of those who do not believe as we do”. Islam has 73 different sects, they hate and kill each other and they all make war upon one another because: “They do not believe as we do”. Islamic sects are not simply “denominations,” if that word is understood to mean various valid approaches to the same religion. Members of one Islamic group do not usually recognize members of other groups as fellow Muslims, and open conflict between sects is not uncommon. Islam has been at war with itself and the entire world since its founder Mohammad started it.

    Is this why it is called “The ‘religion’ of Peace”?

    Shi’ites make up the second largest sect in Islam after the Sunni – Islam has more than 70 different sects with each claiming they are the CORRECT one.

    They hate and kill and make war on EACH OTHER!

    Are we ready for this kind of thinking in the west? Because this is what Sharia law will bring to us!

    • wildjew

      “Never in the worlds’ history of any other “religion” except Islam, has any official position and its ‘mission’ of its teachings been to “Kill all of those who do not believe as we do…”

      Apologists for Islam argue similar teachings can be found in the law of Moses but if you read Moses carefully you will see the Israelites were commanded to drive these peoples out of the land not because of simple belief or unbelief but because of the vile things they did for their gods. It was their behavior.

      • DaveGinOly

        Two things to note about the Old Testament/Torah.

        First, the Lord commanded the Hebrews to destroy and kill certain people. But he did not command them to destroy and kill everyone, just those particular people, in order for the Jews to carve out their own land. The destroying and killing was not for world domination – if it happened, it happened 2500 years ago, then ceased.

        Second, it didn’t happen. There is no archaeological support for the narrative. Many of the city states Israel (the people, not the state) supposedly conquered 1.) didn’t exist at the time of the supposed conquering; 2.) were abandoned by or at the time of the supposed conquering; or 3.) were never conquered, or were conquered/destroyed at a later time. The one or two that did suffer destruction at about the right time have produced no evidence to conclusively link their destruction with the early Israelites. These are facts widely accepted/known by researchers in this field (including nearly all Israeli researchers). The archaeological record doesn’t support the traditional narrative, and in fact presents evidence that the narrative is a fabrication. (In other words, this is not a conclusion based on the absence of evidence. The conclusion is inevitable when the evidence is examined dispassionately.)

        So the retort to the condemnation of “jihad” that is always thrown back in the faces of Christians and Jews is fundamentally flawed, because it relies upon a mere story, and not upon historical fact.

        • liz

          Good point. The Koran is a story mainly plagiarized from other stories (which in turn are based on previous stories) – those of the Jews and Christians. Yet significantly, Muslims neglected to plagiarize the parts about “love one another”, etc. That didn’t fit the template.
          Instead they substituted their own commands to kill all who don’t submit to their dominance.
          Islam was designed to reinforce this totalitarian, supremacist mentality from the beginning.
          As Daniel very aptly notes, “religion may make people kill, but it starts when people make religion kill.”

          • arcturus

            If the korn is plagarized from other books, where are the verses featuring Flopsy the Rabbit?

        • Ellen_L

          Genesis is the story of people (brothers) learning to live together. Cain knows little and kills Abel. Abraham abandons his first son – Ishmael – to avoid jealousy between his women (in rabbinic stories he later finds and makes peace with Ishmael) and learns that human sacrifice of Isaac (or Ismael in the alternate Islamic text) is not desired or condoned (though it was widely practiced in the region). Jacob and Easu are enemies who later at least live in peace. Joseph’s brothers even sell him as a slave but he has learned enough to forgive them. Later Moses will find loving siblings and found a nation of diverse people including mostly Jacob’s people but also any of the people in Egypt who chose to go with them.
          It is a story of learning to live with our brothers whether they be parables about siblings or tribes. Contrast that with the Koran which is more a book of sayings and some stories and goes from peace to war as Mohammet is not accepted in the places he preaches. So he turns to violence instead of persuasion. That is history unlike the early stories we did not have historical records to confirm nor deny.
          Now it is possible for Muslims to decide that books of an older time may not be wisely taken literally nor may all the advice in them be appropriate now. That is how religions are reformed. Religions are only the accumulated belief or wisdom of the people who hold to it. It is a result of people even if there is immense feedback as the teaching influences new generations. People own religions and cultures; even if it appears they are owned by them.

          • liz

            Yes, Muslims need to grow up, join the 21st century, and take responsibility for themselves.
            The Saudis have had enough money to finance the entire Enlightenment, but instead they’ve spent it spreading the worst kind of barbaric excrement produced in history.

          • Edward E

            “Multiculturalism” is a program that is FORCED upon EVERY & ONLY White countries.

            “Multiculturalism” is a program to turn EVERY White country into a non-White country.

            This IS geNOcide. WHITE geNOcide.

            If you are White, and you object to your own geNOcide, you are called a RACIST!

            Well guess what, my people, White people, are catching on very quickly to the following two things:

            1 – Multiculturalism is a code for White geNOcide.

            2 – Anti-racist is a code for anti-White.

        • Michael

          Hey look more rationalizations and apologetics for a remarkably immoral book. Once again, Jews and Christians have been heavily influenced by secular morality and modernity. Islam hasn’t. If Jews and Christians had not been affected by those influences they would absolutely be no better than the Muslims we see today. All of the holy books from the Abrahamic religions are remarkably immoral from the condoning of slavery, the order of genocide, the rules regarding rape, to death for apostacy. You rationalize your religion but to people who have broken free of the spell of religion you are no better than the Muslim who rationalizes his religion. You have sacrificed your reason for faith, which is the belief in claims without good reason. Your willingness to defend your holy book, which is so apparently immoral to someone outside of your religion, and attack the Muslims holy book is a result of tribalism and not a result of reasoned thought. All of them are remarkably immoral and have no place in a modern society. Cognitive dissonance is a hard force to overcome but you should really try. I did it after I struggled with it while going through seminary but I finally defeated it and have never felt so free intellectually or had such a good outlook about life as well as the in depth study of ethics and morality that it sparked.

      • JVictor

        If you read the Torah carefully, you will see that Jehovah was committed to preserving the purity of the Hebrew bloodline so that Messiah could be born without any question of His lineage.

        • wildjew

          What happened to Moses? Didn’t he marry an Ethiopian woman? And David. Didn’t he marry a few foreign women?

          • Daniel_Greenfield

            … which led to tragic consequences.

        • Yehuda Levi

          There is no such thing as the “purity of the Hebrew bloodline.” As mentioned, Moses was intermarried, Esther intermarried, Ruth was a convert (Midianite) and from her came David (there are many other examples). Talk of a Hebrew bloodline reminds me of a discussion of Aryan purity – it doesn’t exist.

          Jews for thousands of years have intermarried and welcomed converts. Racial purity and bloodlines are for those who believe some humans are better than others.

          The truth is, no one a better human being than another.

          • Daniel_Greenfield

            There is a purity though how one views it is debatable.

            It’s not a racial purity in the modern scientific sense, but Avraham and Rivkah emphasized the importance of having their sons marry members of their family, rather than intermarrying.

            The Torah clearly designates some groups who either cannot marry in or whose marrying in should be deferred.

            Judaism is not a universal religion. It specifies that the Jews are meant to exist as a distinct people.

          • Yehuda Levi

            I prefer an open Judaism rather than a closed one. It is debatable whether or not Judaism is “universal” or particular. Since G-d is for all, not only Jews, there are universal standards (Noahide laws) that everyone should meet. Universal standards imply a universal religion.

            Persecution and intolerance has led to rabbinic instruction to be wary of anyone who is not of the ‘tribe’, but there are many examples in the Torah of a blending of peoples into the tribe. We are not a race (never have been) but a religion and civilization.

            We are still open to those who are sincere and wish to join us – as we should be. We have much to offer.

          • Daniel_Greenfield

            We have always been a family, not merely an idea. You can marry into a family, but the family is the defining structure.

          • Bamaguje

            “Judaism is not a universal religion. It specifies that the Jews are meant to exist as a distinct people” – DG.

            But the Jewish messiah is supposed to bring world peace.

            “Avraham and Rivkah emphasized the importance of having their sons marry members of their family..” – DG.

            Isn’t that incest?

          • Daniel_Greenfield

            Ultimately. That doesn’t mean that we all have to be one big society with no distinct cultural identity.

            In the extended sense.

          • Bamaguje

            “Cultural identity?”
            I thought you meant racial identity (purity), hence your insistence that marriage be restricted among Jews.

          • JVictor

            Whether they were from the original 12 tribes or assimilated into the Hebrew nation, a la the hundreds of thousands who followed Moshe out of Egypt, they all worshiped Jehovah. Very careful genealogical records were kept in the temple under the watchful care of the scribes (from the tribe of Levi) for centuries in order to document the authenticity of Messianic claims. If one could not trace their family bloodline all the way back to the tribe of Judah or Benjamin, including all of the welcomed foreigners who converted, then any Messianic claim was debunked. Therefore, Jehovah was committed to ensuring the purity of the Hebrew bloodline so that Messiah could be born without any question about His lineage.

          • Yehuda Levi

            I don’t think you are going to have to “document” any Messiah’s claim or bloodline.

          • JVictor

            Documentation is impossible today because all of those records were destroyed when Herod’s temple was destroyed in 70. Therefore, Messiah came before the destruction of the temple when all the records were intact and traceable.

          • Bamaguje

            “The truth is, no one is a better human being than another” – Yehuda Levi.

            I disagree… Muslims are subhumans.

          • JB Ziggy Zoggy

            Yeah, I think the New York City police might mention a certain homicidal islamopithecine with a hatchet. The family of a murdered Canadian Honor Guardsman can tell us about another islamopithecine. Jews could tell us about the animal who ran over a baby with dual American/Israeli citizenship. People have these horror stories wherever islamopithecines are found.

          • JB Ziggy Zoggy

            “The truth is, no one is a better human being than another.”

            Sit in a room with Charles Manson and the Pope and tell me that. Compare muslims to Christians and tell me that. Jews to Arabs. Americans to South Africans. I could go on but what’s the point? Your conclusion is ridiculous. Individuals are superior to other individuals, and groups are superior to other groups, no matter how closely or loosely affiliated they are. Superiority and inferiority exist. You’re fooling yourself but you don’t fool me.

          • Yehuda Levi

            No human being is “superior” to another. There are no super humans or sub humans. Every human being deserves the same respect for being a human being.

            You are right that there are morally better people than other people, but there are not morally superior groups to other groups.

            Every person is an individual and needs to be judged by who they are as an individual, not which group they belong to.

          • JB Ziggy Zoggy

            The existence of superior and inferior people has nothing to do with fantasies about superhumans and subhumans. Respect is earned and everybody should be treated according to their character and actions.

            The claim that all groups are morally equal is demonstrably false and ridiculous.

            The fact that people should be treated as individuals doesn’t change the fact that groups have general characteristics.

            I think you’re trying to be fair minded about a subject that requires prejudice and judgement. Not God’s judgement, just honest assessments. I don’t think you really believe half of what you’ve written.

      • Michael

        Oh don’t for a second think that the Bible is superior to the Koran or Jews and Christians superior to Muslims. All three of the Abrahamic religions devotees have sacrificed their reason for a belief in supernatural claims that have no evidence. The Bible explicitly condones slavery and provides rules for its enactment. Of course you can rationalize this all you want but there is no reasonable argument around it. Slavery is condoned in the Bible. It also condones death for apostacy and many other completely immoral commandments. The Koran itself was heavily influenced by parts of the Bible. The only difference between Christians and Jews, and Muslims is the fact that Christians and Jews have done a much better job of adapting their beliefs to secular morality. You don’t see Christians and Jews stoning people anymore for apostacy and violating the sabaath because they have had a renaissance and modernity has changed the way they act. This isn’t the case for much of Islam. You may want to read your Bible a little closer because it is one of the most vile books ever written in regards to morality. Genocide and the slaughter of pregnant woman and children, excluding the virgins for personal use, inscest, child sacrifice (and no not Abraham and Isaac), rape, slavery, and the list can go on and on. I was a literalist Christian for most of my life and then I attended seminary where I actually studied the Bible. It didn’t take long before I realized the absolute immorality contained within the book and that way of thinking. Yes Islam is the mother load of bad ideas but Christianity and Judaism aren’t far behind.

        • wildjew

          Actually you are wrong. It is apostasy, not ‘apostasy’. Leaving the faith is not a capital offense in the law of Moses, unlike Islam where leaving the faith is a capital offense.

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

      Nice synopsis, the only things you left out was the Islamic doctrine of “Abrogation” in which the later violent verses, cancel out the earlier more peaceful verses. Since the earlier Meccan verses are peaceful and the later Median verses extremely violent, they directly contradict each other. Since Allah can’t contradict himself and remain divine, they invented the doctrine of abrogation. The other area you left out was the Shia doctrine of Taqiyya (religiously approved lying) and the Sunni doctrine of Muruna (religiously approved lying AND deceitful behavior). All of this is of course of a piece, in holding together an evil totalitarian ideology wrapped within a facade of religious piety.

  • Libslayer

    I have often wondered what so-called “moderate Muslims” see in Islam, particularly Muslim women living in the west. What does Islam have to offer to the non jihadist? How can an allegedly “peaceful religion” tolerate the ancient edicts of a sadistic madman named Mohammad, let alone describe him as the “perfect man”? That jihadis would use Islam as an excuse for murder and mayhem is completely understandable; That is what Muhammad used it for.
    What’s in it for non-jihadists? I truly have no idea.

  • http://libertyandculture.blogspot.com/ Jason P

    Another excellent article that breaks new ground. The standard meme, “it’s Islam, not Muslims,” correctly highlights the role of this ideology. But a culture is maintained by a people. As we’ve seen by recent elections, they have little problem voting for what we call Islamists. The wistful desires of reformers have little cultural potency. Perhaps in several generations …

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

      Perhaps in several generations? What an optimist you are ;-), it having been 1400 years of prior generations…

      • http://libertyandculture.blogspot.com/ Jason P

        LOL. I’m giving a “least upper bound” to basically say it ain’t something that we’ll ever see so we can forget about that possibility.

      • Joe The Gentile

        Nuclear Jihad, if it happens, could speed things up very quickly…

        • rebaaron

          Obama is determined to give us nuclear Jihad. There will be a high price to pay, but it will be the end of the Muslems.

  • mtnhikerdude

    Reform Muslims , not a chance , we entitle them. We build foot baths in colleges for them. We allow them to preach hate in their schools and places of worship.
    We allowed them to perpetrate 9-11 , 7-7 , the Boston marathon bombing , We allow them to protest with signs saying “Behead those who insult Islam ” . States are considering the implementation of Sharia Law. They are winning because America has been infected with a disease more deadly than Ebola ..”Political Correctness” . We gave an Islam sympathizer a second term .

  • cree

    It may not be hard to imagine that a descendant of Abraham’s and Hagar’s Ishmael, Mohammed, got really pissed off over many years that Ishmael lost the 1st born birthright when Sarah and Abraham exiled them. Mohammed was a grievance radical and laid claim to that birthright, slipped into or actually thought he was a prophet, managed to brainwash some dirt poor nomads, eventually formed an army, succeeded in conquest, became assured allah was with them and Mohammed got away with creating a false religion.

    The descendant of Isaac, Jesus, was the man to envy and defame, the Jews to hate. Mohammed required submission, hence Islam and it further insisted only its followers were with God and He with them (God really screwed up allowing all us infidels our existence or He left Mohammed with a very daunting challenge to get domination of the rest of mankind). Brainwashing your kids for hundreds of years and 1.5 Billion kids later works.

    Holding Islam in check or defeating it will require subduing its power with greater power; only that will convince them allah has allowed another set-back. But, they will never give up the goal of world-wide conquest. Ask Israelis.

  • Phil D

    “You Can’t Reform Islam Without Reforming Muslims”
    But you can’t reform muslims without reforming islam, therefore …

  • DowntotheBone

    If islam ever “reformed”, it would cease to exist.
    End of discussion.

  • Peter McDougald

    No person who participated in Hitler’s executions was following orders they were willing participants. There was no punishment for not being able to perform mass murder. Doctors, farmers, police, high school drop outs and phd’s willingly committed mass murder. Muslims choose to kill in the name of jihad they do it to fulfill their sacred duty to Allah and in following the example of Mohammed the perfect man.

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

    “if Islam has not changed, that is because Muslims do not want it to.”

    That is a demonstrably false statement. That is because reforming Islam requires revising the Qur’an and to revise the Qur’an it is necessary to reject Muhammad’s most fundamental claim. Which was and is that he is NOT the Qur’an’s author.

    Muhammad claimed that the archangel Gabriel repeatedly visited him and dictated the Qur’an to Muhammad and Gabriel claimed (archangels by definition can’t lie) that he was merely transmitting Allah’s direct words for transcription by Muhammad. And that Gabriel was there to make sure that Muhammad got every word correctly, down to the last comma and period.

    Thus to revise the Qur’an, even in the slightest is for man to ‘correct’ Allah. And that no man may do. It’s exactly the same as Moses’ claim that he didn’t write the Ten Commandments, that the finger of God had written them in stone. You can’t ‘revise’ the Ten Commandments without implicitly declaring that Moses was either a liar or deluded. So too with Muhammad.

    The consequence of declaring Muhammad to either be a liar or deluded however is to collapse Islam’s theological foundations. Thus Islam can’t be ‘reformed’ and retain its theological foundation.

    Which means that Muslims either leave Islam (apostasy) or support it, for Muhammad has left them no middle ground.

    • Daniel_Greenfield

      People adjust and change their religions all the time no matter how much scripture there is weighing the other way.

      The fact that Muslims have not only failed to do so, but that they persist in repeating Mohammed’s behavior shows that they find it correct, not merely because of the text, but because the text continues to accord with their values.

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

        No argument as to Muslims being comfortable with the text’s values. However, what people of other religions do is irrelevant as to Islam’s ability to reform itself. It’s not a case of Islam’s scripture ‘weighing’ a certain way, for to ‘weigh’ it in any other direction is to implicitly reject Muhammad’s claim that the Qur’an’s authorship is divine.

        Islam cannot be changed unless Muslims are willing to accept that the Qur’an is NOT Allah’s direct testimony. Doing that however implicitly declares Muhammad to be either a liar or deluded. In either case Islam’s theological infrastructure collapses.

        There’s no escaping the logical consequences of Muhammad’s premise. You have to reject his premise and therefore Muhammad to change the result. Unlike Judaism with Moses and the Ten Commandments, Islam starts and ends with Muhammad because he’s “the last prophet” who has brought us God’s direct words.

        Muhammad claimed that the Qur’an was essentially the Ten Commandments expanded into a complete instructional manual for every aspect of life, written by God. Case closed. Nothing can be added or subtracted or changed or you set yourself above God. And fallible man cannot be above a perfect God.

        • Daniel_Greenfield

          The Koran has no power except what Muslims willingly grant to it. No one is bound by words. They’re bound by people living today.

          There are countless examples of people disregarding the literal meaning of a binding text when they choose to. Literal logic has nothing to do with it. People reshape ideologies and religions according to what they want.

          Islam is what Muslims want.

          That it what has to be addressed.

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

            Of course people may disregard the literal meaning of a binding text. People are bound by their own internal sense of right and wrong and by the strictures of the outer reality within which they exist.

            Can Jews formally ‘revise’ the Ten Commandments without rejecting Moses’ claim? Of course not, so in general, to remain Jewish, some basic degree of formal allegiance to them must be lived.

            So too with Islam but with a qualitative difference, the Qur’an is an instruction manual for every aspect of life. It’s a theological straightjacket, which cannot be changed, thus while individual Muslim’s can disregard those tenets they are uncomfortable with, they have no theological basis for reform.

            Muslims can live their lives ‘moderately’ but they cannot change their religion without engaging in blasphemy because ‘correcting’ Allah is by any definition, blasphemy… and Allah has proclaimed a mandatory penalty for blasphemy.

          • truebearing

            You are both right.

            In its incipient stage, Islam was presumably an unfinished Koran and a cut and paste religion that appealed to those who belonged to a moon worshipping cult but then became Muslims. The teachings weren’t rejected, but in fact attracted those inclined to rape, rob, and murder. So Daniel is correct.

            Once Islam became established, with abrogation and its other theological/psychological traps, Muslims became captives of Islam’s evil conscience, so you are correct, too.

            Islam makes no attempt at enlightenment. It is all about endarkenment — inculcating hatred, intolerance, and homicidal behavior. It encourages ignorance — in the truest sense of the root “to ignore.” Muslims were drawn to it because it empowered them. Now they are captive to it. Those who do escape do so because they have a developed conscience, are compassionate and honest. How can that occur in the black hole of Islam? Perhaps it is Grace.

          • Daniel_Greenfield

            The majority of Jews have revised the Ten Commandments and the Bible. Only Orthodox Jews view them as literal commandments.

            The “theological basis” of those who discarded, say keeping the Sabbath, was that they didn’t want to live that way. The rest was window dressing.

            Christianity experienced similar phenomena with, for example, gay rights.

            That’s my point about Islam.

          • MukeNecca

            “There are countless examples of people disregarding the literal meaning of a binding text when they choose to. … People reshape ideologies andreligions according to what they want.

            If that was true people wouldn’t need religion at all.
            Indeed what would be the role of religion and the supreme being that religion implies if people didn’t believe that the ultimate moral values were not objective, true, eternal and grounded in supernatural, but in “what people want” at given time.

            The other thing is that “people” have little to do with consciously “reshaping” religion. Certainly not its fundamental principles and truths. Both Judaism and Christianity went through series of changes, but these were relatively superficial responses to historical realities, rather than what people wanted. The deepest spiritual foundations on which these religions rest have never been challenged – except maybe by heresies.
            The Ten Commandments were never amended in any way. They are as valid for Judaism and Christianity as they were thousand years ago and there hasn’t been any official authoritative pronouncement by the Church or Jewish religious assemble annulling or even questioning the truth and absolute binding power of the Big Ten.

            You also bring an example of Christianity accepting “gay” rights. I don’t know what does it prove, or what rights are you talking about. Christianity or at least the Catholic Church has never changed the view that practicing homosexuality is a sin. And that is what matters.

          • Daniel_Greenfield

            Whether or not people need religion is a philosophical question. As a religion person I obviously believe that they do.

            The issue is how people actually behave when it comes to religion. People do reshape their religions. I don’t want to get into an extended theological discussion on the subject as it would be counterproductive, but we don’t even agree on the numbering of the Ten Commandments or what some of them, e.g. Sabbath, mean.

            “Christianity or at least the Catholic Church has never changed the view that practicing homosexuality is a sin. And that is what matters.

            Some Christians have. So have some Jews.

            Keeping the traditional faith is ultimately a choice. There are plenty who have chosen otherwise.

            That’s my point.

          • MukeNecca

            “Some Christians have. So have some Jews.

            “Keeping the traditional faith is ultimately a choice. There are plenty who have chosen otherwise.

            Then you must consider quite a real possibility that the plenty that “have chosen otherwise” may again chose
            to revert on their choice joining the other plenty that has not chosen otherwise. Does it mean that right and wrong, truth and lie, sin and virtue, are simply a matter of consensus based on newest empirical evidence? If so, that means that Jews and Christians have succeeded in voting God out of religion without noticing it. We believe we can be good and flourish without God. I would think (I could be wrong) this is what is meant by the “death of God”.

            Unfortunately, that is not how Allah may die.

            While our Bible is about God, the Koran is from”God”. Herein lies the immense strengths and, alas, appeal of Islam. There is no way it can be amended, or reformed without at the same time amending and reforming the moslem “God”, who on every page of Koran and through the mouth of his horrid “prophet” confirms that Allah is Hate and Evil. Indeed, the very idea of a process of incremental, however microscopic, alterations that will somehow transform the absolute evil into Goodness is endlessly absurd.

            Your contention is that the only way to reform Islam is through reforming moslems. But I think a reformed moslem is a moslem who have grasped the fundamental evil of Islam and, unless he is mad, he would never attempt to reform Islam. A reformed moslem is an ex-moslem while reformed Islam is dead Islam. I think we should concentrate on how to destroy it rather than how to reform it.

          • Daniel_Greenfield

            Objective divine truths are not a matter of consensus, but human behavior is.

            Obviously divergence from scriptural truth is divergence from G-d, but that is neither here nor there as we are discussing how people behave, not how they should behave.

            My contention isn’t that Islam can be reformed through reforming Muslims, it’s that when we talk about reforming Islam we are really talking about reforming Muslims.

            There’s a significant different there.

          • MukeNecca

            I think that we are talking “past each other” now.
            It’s better therefore that we should agree on what we can – namely that, as you said in one of the previous replies to me, getting “into an extended theological discussion would be counterproductive.”
            I agree. Regards.

          • Daniel_Greenfield

            Agreed.

          • Ellen_L

            You are mistaken. First, the sacred 10 are only part of the larger law commanded. Second, the books were written down later by men, not by the hand of God. Third, Jewish law in the days of Temple was decided by a group of men. They debated using the cannon as a beginning but the final decisions were and are made by consensus.
            We need to remember that religions are made by men and even if one is inspired it is only to and through men that one can communicate any idea.

          • Daniel_Greenfield

            Again there is plenty of disagreement on that score.

            You are stating your beliefs. They are not those of traditional Orthodox Jews.

            It’s important to point that out.

          • JB Ziggy Zoggy

            I think he’s right. islam is what muslims want. Blasphemy is just a word to people who choose to disregard it.

      • James Foard

        Or their nature. We are talking nature vs. nurture, like the
        traducianism controversy; was the soul produced by the parents or created by God? If by God at conception, then it is inherently good, but then how can it have inherited Adam’s sin? If by the parents at conception, then are the parents the creators of life? But only God can create and give life to a person.
        Still, scripture said of the sons of Ishmael,
        “And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.” Genesis 16:12
        However, we are not merely talking about Arabs when we refer to muslims. The largest Islamic nation on earth is made up predominately of southeast Asians.
        This is a fascinating discussion.

    • PAthena

      The proof that the Koran was dictated to Mohammed by a revelation from the angel Gabriel is that Mohammed said so.(according to tradition). ( I follow Robert Spencer, Did Mohammed Exist?). Well, I also had a revelation, which you can believe on my say so – namely, that the Moon is made of green cheese!

      • Debbie G

        Thanks for pointing that out PAthena. As a Christian, I have CHOSEN to believe that the Bible is the Word of God just as a Muslim would have to CHOOSE to accept the Koran is the word of Allah.

    • Ellen_L

      It is true that to change one must admit that the books we hold sacred are not actually dictated by God literally whatever that could mean. Even if one believed in angels and that one was inspired by them, the books are still written down by men and communicated through men. They are not in themselves eternal and unchangeable. And Jews have debated since the story began about just what was said and done at Sinai or whether the Exodus happened in the way described or not. All we know is that a group of people ended up in the area and claimed to have a rather interesting history and a sense of morality based or explained by those stories.
      I agree that Islam will not change as long as the various groups think they have the word of Allah and everyone else is wrong. But it is each sect that has this idea and they don’t even agree with one another.

  • James Foard

    Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Proverbs 4:23
    King David was a man after God’s own heart. Solomon built a house. Solomon was wisest of men. We are all building the house of our life, and in a larger sense the various cultures in humanity are building their houses; but the foundation of the house is our inner intent, our heart, thus David preceded Solomon, since the heart precedes wisdom in the creation of our lives. We can have all of the wisdom in the world, but if our heart is corrupt, then our house will be built on faulty ground. There is a parallel in Buddhism, where the Buddha, before he acquired ultimate wisdom, had to go through a training process as a Bodhisattva in the mythical Jataka tales, where in his previous lives he had to undergo various forms of penance and perform altruistic deeds in order to purify his heart, to subdue the selfish flesh and carnal nature, prior to achieving wisdom.
    Muhammad and Islam started out from a corrupt motive, the fruit is what we can see every day in the news, and what we see over the centuries.
    ““What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” Mark 7:21
    In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Man also is created first with his heart (heaven, the inner man) and them with his actions and deeds (the earth, the outer man). Seek purity of heart and you will have wisdom, ”
    “I have more insight than all my teachers, For Your testimonies are my meditation.” Psalm 119:99

  • fmobler

    “Islam is less of a faith and more of a set of honor and shame responses. ”

    Thanks Mr. Greenfield. This is a valuable insight.

  • sydchaden

    Islam may be what Muslims want it to be, but, it apparently is also what so-called progressives what it to be, as well. You never hear a word of criticism of Islamic barbarism from them, only declarations that “Islam is the religion of love”. But, what can you expect from “infidels”?

  • http://www.GodAuthoredBible.com geneww1938

    Back to basics.

    Can’t reform Islam, Muslim or the most devout, evil and satanic Muslim Obama until Satan is reformed. And that is not happening in our life-time.

    That is because Satan authored the Koran!!! Easy to prove !!!

    • PAthena

      Do not insult Satan! That is the name of a God competing with other gods, like those of Judaism and Christianity.

      • http://www.GodAuthoredBible.com geneww1938

        Just a one page evidence and proof that you should read http://www.GodAuthoredBible.com
        Like to see your comments…

  • kate5778b

    The problem with Islam is its unthinking and total adherence to a totally unknowable god that nobody can have a relationship with who demands its followers don’t question anything.

    “Islam is less of a faith and more of a set of honor and shame responses. It’s a cycle of oppression and victimhood.” I agree, it’s like Catholicism on crystal meth, another religion which can deny you be yourself until it’s too late.

    You can grow old with Torah; keep asking questions, turning and turning the texts, looking at the lives of the greats e.g Abraham, Jacob, Jonathan and King David and think…..yep, I’m in with a chance here, I’m still loved by my creator – you can NEVER get that from Islam, ever.

    • Captlee

      As a truly devoted Catholic and lover of Jesus Christ, I get really tired of the BS comparisons of Islam and Catholicism. They don’t belong in the same discussion together except to demonstrate how far apart they are. Hate Catholics someplace else.

      • kate5778b

        I don’t hate Catholics, re-read my post, I dislike Catholicism, why don’t be a little more self-critical and ask why you want King David’s tomb? what’s it to do with you, and why the outreach to Islam rather than Judaism?

        Go and hate people because you can’t read, somewhere else.

        • Captlee

          ?????????????

          • kate5778b

            I don’t hate catholics, just catholicism, the propaganda of the faith which doesn’t follow Jesus but a mere, elected by a minority, man, to tell someone to go somewhere else is tantamount to some or all the synonyms for hate, everyone is entitled to their opinion. Anyway, back to work.

  • MukeNecca

    I think that to consider the possibility of Islam’s “reformation” is to misunderstand both the reformation and Islam – a misconception that stems from an automatic assumption that all religions start as a primitive crude and oppressive systems of relating to reality that people gradually improve, correct and modernize – very much like we do with medicine, science or technology. The reformation and enlightenment are widely (and falsely) viewed as things that allowed people to start “using” religion rather than being oppressed by it.

    Naturally, we are puzzled and often annoyed seeing that no similar process takes place within islam and conclude that Islam’s inability to “reform” must be due to some deficiency that needs to be corrected – therefore our best
    minds are busy trying to isolate the sickness that afflicts Islam’s ability to
    change.
    But the simple truth is that Islam is not sick at all. Islam IS sickness.

    As long as we don’t truly understand and absorb that fact we will continue treating Islam as a patient in need of therapy instead as a disease that must be, if not completely eradicated then at least removed from the West lands.

  • Louis

    Any meaningful reform of Islam or of Muslims, if this is even possible, would take decades to centuries and with a very uncertain result. Although we should do what we can to encourage and support such a reform, we cannot rely on a reform to save Western civilization from the advancing worldwide jihad.

    If the West could unite behind a clear strategy and action plan to defeat the Islamist threat, the worldwide jihad would be made to retreat in short order. But we cannot effectively develop and implement a plan to defeat the global jihad until we have a clear and united understanding of the threat against us. The West will never be united in such a project until we first defeat the liberal world view on the Islamist threat which divides us and cripples the defense of the West.

    Therefore the most important challenge we face is not to reform Islam, but to bring liberalism to understand and accept the truth about Islam and the advancing global jihad. The fantasies so widely held by Ben Affleck liberals must first be thoroughly debunked before we can truly defeat the Islamists.

    Few liberals will pay any serious attention to what they consider “right wing” blogs, books, articles and TV programs. Our best hope for changing liberal views on the Islamist threat comes from those liberals with the courage to speak the truth such as Bill Maher, Sam Harris and others. All of us who care about defeating the Islamists should encourage and support those liberals willing to speak out and draw attention to liberals everywhere of the truths being said by “their people”.

    • kate5778b

      Why do liberals refuse to accept the truths of Islam, especially when they are lifting their Qur’ans and quoting them whilst beheading people? Why call ISIS ‘self-styled’, yes the MP in the FO used these words when writing back to me, the style is exactly prescribed in their holy writ and follows the exact example of their one prophet. Somebody tell me, please.

      • Louis

        The vast majority of liberals simply do not understand the truth of the Islamist threat. They naively believe that the jihad is being conducted and supported by only a tiny number of Muslims who have become radicalized. They truly think that the real underlying motivation comes from grievances against the West, oppression, and poverty, and is only superficially from a twisted interpretation of Islam, in spite of the clear Qur’anic instructions provided as justifications by the jihadists themselves. They sincerely believe that those who tell the truth about the Islamist threat are racist. Of course they are wrong about all of this.

        We must appreciate that the vast majority of people who believe in these fantasies are not bad people who wish the destruction of our civilization. They simply are misinformed and do not understand the truth. They have been completely taken in by these bad and wrong ideas about the true nature of the Islamist threat which are propagated in the pop culture, in the media, by their favorite celebrities, and by their political leaders. Many of these people can be moved to the truth of Islam in the right situation and with the right arguments, provided the truth teller is a person they are open to. The best person for that job is another respected liberal who speaks the truth.

        A few have put forth convincing arguments that some leftist extremists see themselves partly aligned with the Islamists in seeking the destruction of the West. Their goal is to replace capitalism with their utopian society. How they expect to establish their socialist utopia when the world is ruled by an Islamist Totalitarian Theocracy is not clear and seems destined to fail. As crazy as this seems to most of us, I worry that such treasonous people occupy positions of influence in our societies and actively work to spread the disinformation about the Islamist threat. They are deliberately trying to undermine our defense and to speed our destruction. Any leftists engaged in this are as much our enemies as are the Islamists.

        • kate5778b

          Thank you for your reply, yes, it is very worrying. In Britain, there must be a % Muslim in the school/government workforce, so despite being 2-3% of the population, they seem to have the lion’s share of the jobs market, all with influence; if they’re devout, then that is worrying.

      • Vaud

        Because, contrary to what they say about multiculturalism, liberals only believe in superficial differences between people and cultures: skin color, clothes, hairdos, food. They cannot imagine, that religions can truly be different, because they believe in UNIVERSAL human values. Universe, the entire world, is really the same in their mind. They cannot believe that people may strive for something else they themselves do. They make fun of Christianity, yet are unable to accept that other religions have no ten commandments, no golden rule, no respect for differences.

  • NonPCconservative

    Islam is simply an excuse for Arabs to act like Arabs. Why expect civilized behavior from somebody who thinks more of his camel than his wife?

  • Patriotliz

    So the problem with Islam are the Muslims who believe that it is a holy religion (or culture) of superiority—no matter how evil you are toward non-Muslims….Not exactly the “Golden Rule” that even atheists might adhere to.

  • http://historyscoper.com/ T.L. Winslow

    Yes, you can’t reform Islam without reforming Muslims, and considering the death penalty for apostasy the only way is a Great Muslim Apostasy where hundreds of millions tweet that they’re chucking Islam, Allah, Muhammad and his Jihad and dance in the streets, disintegrating the Muslim World forever along with its Sharia and death penalties, helped by a huge immigration of non-Muslims, including Indians and Chinese. Only after that happens can anybody dare to reform Islam by censoring the violent and hate verses from the lit., that is, if anybody still cares. Read my Winslow Plan for Defeating Islam, available free online.

  • Hellosnackbar

    Greenfield’s statement of the truth should be featured on national TV.

  • Daniel_Greenfield

    I don’t think reform, of the liberal kind, is a realistic prospect.

  • Yehuda Levi

    The “heart and soul” of most totalitarian ideologies is world domination, but they never get there. Islam will be defeated militarily, as it was in the past, and will reform to a more peaceful world religion.

    The alternative is to kill almost a billion adherents of Islam – and this is not a rational alternative.

    • rebaaron

      To defeat them militarily will take a whole lot of killing, but it appears that’s the way they want it.

    • JB Ziggy Zoggy

      You assume a fundamentally irreformable supremacist cult of genocidal imperialists can be reformed. You assume rationality and eternal tolerance from the rest of the world. You assume too much.

  • nimbii

    It’s good to see Islam without hopeful illusion. Thanks for sparing us the unicorns that so many want to sprinkle.

  • barney59

    Islamic reform will have to start with the Saudi’s and their radical Wahabi teachings…

  • billobillo54

    This is a great article with great insight. However, how can you reform Islam, even recognizing that the human tribalism, envy and hate is at its hear and in the heart of the people when the texts demonstrate that ISIS is a great, accurate and reliable example of the life of the “perfect man,” Muhammad. All of the talk comparing Islam to Judaism due to Moses and the history of Israel is a bunch of bull. That’s because Jews, especially the Jews who believe that the Old Testament and Apocryphal stories of Moses, David, Gideon, The Maccabees, and even the most nationalistic, JUDGMENTAL and brutal stories, these Jews are among the greatest examples of tolerance, generosity, the rule of law, self deprecation, limited government, women’s and children’s rights, democracy, human rights, etc. Christians who love Israel and believed and currently believe in the historic accuracy of all of the OT stories are the AUTHOR’S AND DEFENDERS OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS.

  • arcturus

    Which other system, other than, perhaps in the higher ranks of Communism, can one with no marketable skills, pig-dung for brains, so ugly that his mother has to cover her face so she can express her repugnance in secrecy, be given permission by the highest authority to indulge every whim and desire no matter how perverse, violent, repugnant or inhumane. And, that is not all. After having raped, pillaged, crucified and raised havoc from one end to the other, pleased his god so much that he is taken to heaven and given 72 beautiful, black-eyed virgins for his everlasting delight. Have you guessed it yet? Yes, that is right, it is islam. That is why they will never change their beliefs.

  • Michael

    “The sorts of people who believe that Saddam Hussein was a CIA agent or that Israel is using eagles as spies”

    or the sort of people who believe…

    “Muslim modernization in the West has been covertly undermined by the Saudis and the Muslim Brotherhood”

    Both are conspiracy theorists who aren’t really operating within the realm of reality and evidence beyond the anecdotal.

    I agree with most of your article but if Islam has failed at modernity in the west it is because of muslims in the west. Not because of a secret cabal of Saudi money and covertly operating Muslim Brotherhood agents. That is absurd with a great big helping of ridiculous.

    Western Muslims are at fault for their failure to adapt to secular morality and speak out vehemently against Islamic literalists. Not a rich countries money or an Egyptian organization. Personal responsibility is a wonderful thing as it helps to understand where the actual fault in a problem lies. Instead of diverting the guilt and creating bogeymen.