Posted by
Cary Wesberry on Saturday, March 15, 2008 12:52:15 AM
From a symposium at Front Page Magazine with Wafa Sultan, Thomas Haidon, Khalim Massoud, Abul Kasem, and Robert Spencer. The excerpt below is from Mr. Spencer's response to annointing so-called "moderate" Muslims with a description that more accurately represents their lack of murdering infidels:
Spencer: Thomas Haidon is certainly correct that “currently, there is no cohesive formulation as to what a moderate Muslim is.” Both liberal and conservative media figures and even law enforcement officials have been content to anoint any Muslim as a “moderate” and a spokesman for the Muslim community in the U.S., even if he has no following or influence whatsoever, as long as he issues a bland disavowal of “terrorism.”
A disavowal of the Islamic supremacist agenda is on no one’s radar screen – with the result that, as the magnificent Wafa Sultan has pointed out regarding Zaki Badawi, Muslims who share the exact same goals as Osama bin Laden but are pursuing them through non-violent means are celebrated by gullible Westerners as “moderates.” The list of false moderates who have been embraced by media and government is embarrassingly long, and is headed by the formerly influential and currently imprisoned Abdurrahman Alamoudi and Sami Al-Arian.
A rejection of that supremacist agenda in both word and deed is an essential prerequisite for those Muslims who wish to live in peace with non-Muslims as equals on an indefinite basis, without trying ultimately to subjugate them as dhimmis under the rule of Islamic law.
As for Mr. Haidon’s other criteria, his first, that “the sources of Islam are organic, that is, capable of contextual interpretation and hermeneutics,” is already widely accepted by Muslims. They just don’t always come to contextual interpretations that respect the rights and dignity of non-Muslims as human beings created by God and worthy of respect.
In his eighth-century biography of Muhammad, Ibn Ishaq explains the contexts of various verses of the Qur'an by saying that Muhammad received revelations about warfare in three stages: first, tolerance; then, defensive warfare; and finally, offensive warfare in order to convert the unbelievers to Islam or make them pay the jizya (see Qur'an 9:29, Sahih Muslim 4294, etc.).
Mainstream Qur’an commentaries by Ibn Kathir, Ibn Juzayy, As-Suyuti and others also emphasize that the Qur’an’s ninth sura, which contains an exhortation to make war against and subjugate Jews and Christians under Islamic rule (9:29), abrogates every peace treaty in the Qur'an.
In the modern age, this idea of stages of development in the Qur'an's teaching on jihad, culminating in offensive warfare to establish the hegemony of Islamic law, has been affirmed by the jihad theorists Sayyid Qutb and Maulana Maududi, as well as by the Pakistani Brigadier S. K. Malik (author of The Qur’anic Concept of War), Saudi Chief Justice Sheikh Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Humaid (in his “Jihad in the Qur'an and Sunnah”), and others. It is, of course, an assertion of no little concern to non-Muslims, since it encapsulates a doctrine of warfare against non-Muslims and their ultimate subjugation under Sharia rules, with all that implies.
And it is based on “contextual interpretation and hermeneutics” of the Qur’an. So on that basis I would rephrase Mr. Haidon’s first criteria to say that a moderate, or anti-Fascist, or non-supremacist Muslim would affirm that the sources of Islam are capable of new contextual interpretation and hermeneutics, and that Muslims are not bound to adhere to interpretations and rulings that are orthodox, traditional and mainstream.
Mr. Haidon’s other criteria for genuine moderation are reasonable, as are most of his caveats about what non-supremacist Muslims should not be expected or required to accept. I don’t like many current policies of the Israeli and American governments either, although I expect that Mr. Haidon and I dislike different policies. I do take issue, however, with his statement that non-supremacist Muslims “don't have to like perceived insults to Islam either.” The question involved in issues such as the Danish cartoons of Muhammad is not whether or not someone likes insults to Muhammad or any other religious figure. The question is whether one is willing to put up with such insults and keep the peace with one’s neighbors who don’t share one’s religious convictions. Free speech is an essential prerequisite in a society in which people have differing views on fundamental issues. Free speech laws were formulated precisely to protect speech that offended others – in the U.S., the offended parties were the British authorities who objected to talk of American independence. If a group is placed off limits for criticism and even ridicule, that group becomes a protected class, with a privileged position in society, and the idea of equality of rights before the law is dead.
Meanwhile, Abul Kasem’s statement that “there cannot be a ‘moderate’ Muslim unless there is a moderate Koran, and consequently, moderate Islam” is true insofar as those who identify themselves as Muslims are aware of and care about the contents of the Qur’an and Islamic teaching, unless they are conscious reformers who reject the Qur’an’s violence and supremacism. But there are large numbers of people who are culturally Muslim but who have no interest in working to implement all aspects of Qur’anic teaching. This may not be solely because they are indifferent to religious matters. For a variety of reasons the jihad ideology was deemphasized, particularly in Central and Southeast Asia, West Africa, and Eastern Europe for several centuries. Muslims lived devout lives with no emphasis on it. Were they not practicing Islam? Of course they were practicing Islam, as it was conceptualized in that time and place, but these teachings were not part of that practice at that time. Unfortunately, however, they were never formally rejected, and are being reasserted today by jihad recruiters who quote Qur’an, Sunnah, and fiqh in order to support their positions.
That's why I call on peaceful Muslims to confront these aspects of Islam, and formulate new ways to understand these texts, so as to blunt the force of the jihadist recruitment.
Turning to Mr. Massoud’s criteria for moderation, they are generally fine – but considering the deep roots in the Qur’an and Sunnah that many of the Muslim beliefs and practices he rejects have, it becomes clear that if any non-supremacist version of Islam is ever to become lastingly viable, it must be based on an explicit and emphatic rejection of Qur’anic literalism – or else it will collapse under the weight of proof texts invoked by Islamic supremacists. Of course, Islamic supremacists will fiercely assail a non-literal Islam as inauthentic and untraditional, a snare of the Shaytan, and will threaten its adherents with death. Only if it attains sufficient support among Muslims in spite of all this will it have any chance of survival. While this is not theoretically impossible, non-Muslims should not get their hopes up too high: it never happened thus far in 1400 years of Islamic history.
Robert Spencer is brilliant as usual. I am constantly impressed with his breadth and depth of knowledge on the subject of Islam. It's humbling to say the least. One can learn so very much about what the civilized world faces today by reading the words of Robert Spencer.
The points made in the excerpt above are extremely important to understanding what must be done from inside Islam in order for its followers to co-exist with the rest of the world. Islam is heading fast forward on a collision course with everyone else; towards an inevitable confrontation with the civilized world that I am confident on every level they will lose if Islam is not severely reformed. People like myself, otherwise known as Those Who Support Not Murdering Infidels, won't tolerate this insanity forever. Though much death and destruction often preceed it, good always wins in the end. Call it my righteous faith in our Heavenly Father, call it confidence; regardless it is what I know to be true. Throughout history the end has always been the vanquishing of evil; and right now, today, Islam is evil.
I cannot stress enough how important it is for Islam to reform itself as described by Robert Spencer. It will not be the United States and the free people of the world who will be destroyed, but those who continue to follow a murderous and inhuman path at odds with everything and everyone around them. Islam is giving us no choice, and once our own liberals are out of the way, there will be no politically correct shield between the righteous and Islam preventing their loss of a war they've declared on the world. Pray for Islam to do the right thing or many good people will die where they need not have.