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Allah Had a Good Week
Depending on where you get your news, you might have missed some of this. On Monday, one of Allah’s soldiers committed jihad in Manchester, England, killing 22, including several children, and maiming many more. ISIS has claimed responsibility.
On Tuesday, ISIS-backed Muslim jihadists began killing people in the Philippines and kidnapping Christians. More than 80 dead have been reported so far, and martial law has been declared as the jihad continues there.
And Thursday, yesterday, at least 35 were murdered in an attack on a bus full of Christians in Egypt. No one has yet claimed responsibility, but ISIS butchered 46 Egyptians in an attack a few weeks ago, and is probably behind this one as well.
It’s a polite fiction to pretend that these atrocities are inconsistent with the teachings of Islam. In fact, the Islamic holy books contain many examples of violent jihad, and many clear calls to violence. Muslims are told to wage war against the enemies of Islam – and it doesn’t take much to qualify as an enemy of Islam. Muhammad himself was a violent man, and he is – as Jesus is to Christians – the archetype, the example of the perfect man.
That doesn’t mean, of course, that these violent Islamic jihadists spent this week murdering little girls and aging Coptic Christians simply because their faith told them to. It’s possible they did it for other reasons, regardless of what they themselves claim. Indeed, apologists for Islam bend over backwards to explain that the violence really has nothing at all to do with what the faith teaches, but is instead rooted in an eclectic host of causes far removed from Muhammad’s bloody example.
If that were true – and I don’t think it is; in fact I think the claim borders on the ludicrous – then it would be bad news for Islam, because it would mean there are at least two different paths to carnage for the enthusiastic young Muslim male. Better for all if we can identify a single motivation – the obvious calls to violence in the Islamic holy books, for example – and address our attention to that.
In the meantime, the jihad continues.
Fight those who believe not in Allah. – Quran 9:29
Allah must be pleased.
Published in General
Indeed.
Meanwhile for most of America it’s back to usual.
Now let’s see. Ramadan has just started. No, there can’t possibly be a religious connection to these Muslims killing innocent Christians. Who would reach such an outlandish conclusion?
The Islamic apologists who are not Muslim are nothing more than useful idiots.
Just imagine what the death toll might have been if it wasn’t . . .you know . . . a religion of peace?
That’s a rather innocuous quote. Here’s a better one.
There are so many. I was going for pithiness.
Let me be clear.
I don’t want to gratuitously attack Islam or Muslims. There is much of value to Muslims in their faith; I believe that people need the security, community, and inspiration of transcendent beliefs, and Islam provides that for more than a billion people.
But I *do* want Muslims to acknowledge what is painfully, tragically evident: Islam has serious problems deeply embedded within its teaching and its history. Until these problems are acknowledged and addressed, cultures shaped by Islam will be crippled by the intolerance and supremacism that puts them in violent opposition with the rest of humanity.
I don’t know if Muslims *can* fix their faith. But I do know, am absolutely certain, that they can not if they don’t admit that they have a problem and at least *try* to address it.
Nope, credit for this offensive doesn’t go to ISIS-linked Filipino Muslim jihadists. It goes to the Philippine Army, which launched an operation to hunt down Abu Sayyaf leader Isnilon Hapilon, and self-styled leader of the ISIS caliphate there, who was seriously wounded by a previous encounter with government forces in January.
Suggesting that local intelligence sources tipped them off, the Army has explicitly denied they were caught unaware by Hapilon’s presence in Marawi. If I recall correctly, the Army, however, admitted they did not anticipate that Hapilon’s group would team up with a new-ish extremist group, led by the Maute brothers from a different city, but in the same province as Marawi.
What’s the source of the number above? Latest reports Friday in Manila indicate 44 dead–31 militants, 11 soldiers, and 2 policemen. Among the dead militants were 2 Malaysians, 2 Indonesians, and one Singaporean.
Martial law has been declared not in the entire country of the Philippines, but in one of its three main island regions Mindanao. It’s the Muslim south of the country, but in reality shared with Christian Filipinos.
For anyone thinking the jihadi presence in Marawi has added democracy to its list of victims in the country, what I’m seeing is the limited extent of martial law now has the nation engaged in a balancing act between the demands of security and freedom and individual rights. And the debate is happening, which is a good sign.
The fighting in Marawi isn’t over yet. Don’t declare premature victory for the jihadists there.
And freedom and democracy in the country ain’t dead yet either–even with a nutjob president, who is one more threat to human rights in the Philippines.
There is a transcendent question: Is Islam true? Is Allah the One True God? Because if so, we better all convert. And if it isn’t, we better be killing it or it will be killing us (with apologies to John Owen).
That question interests me not at all. I don’t want a theological skermish between different faiths. You all can go enjoy that if you want. I just want to encourage Muslims to defang their dangerous faith.
President Trump should be even more direct with the leaders of Muslim countries: address this problem or we will. We need a carrot and stick approach.
Carrot: cheap weapons and related training, help fighting ISIS, and maybe positive trade terms
Stick: Send in the cavalry
The news reports that ISIS-affiliated jihadists are killing people and kidnapping Christians. Is it the word “began” to which you object?
I don’t know; I looked but haven’t found it. I’ll be happy to revise the figure downward, or mark it with an asterisk — or wait a week and see where it stands.
Yes. Martial law has been declared.
That’s good. Nations should not yield to Islamic supremacism.
I haven’t, and won’t.
I doubt there’s anybody who hasn’t heard by now that Islam does not mean “peace”, but “submission”–on pain of beheading.
“Religion of peace”? “??????!!! More than any other religion, it is the religion of war. Between his revelation and his death ( less than ten years) Mohammed fought and/or led 15 military campaigns. He was a general who made Napoleon look like a piker. (Staring with killing Jews at Khybar Oasis, which is why they still have a missile called Khybar) .
Today,
the beginning of Ramadan,
ISIS is calling for the faithful, whatever country they are living in, to kill us in our homes, on our highways, everywhere.
Do you, reader, get that?
They are commaneded to kill you, your family, your friends. In your homes. In your own homeland.
I’ll say again: to celebrate their holiday, they are commanded to kill you.
….and this is in no way inconsistent with the Koran, which is one long paean to conquest.
Do you think a display of ” religious tolerance” will spare your neck, or keep your children’s dear fragile heads on their bodies?
Allah? I’d say its Moloch, the god of child sacrifice, calling the shots (and the knives, and the bombs) this Ramadan.
I would imagine that for a lot of Filipinos in that region the human right they are most concerned about is the right to stay alive. Being heavy-handed with a bunch of Muslim nutjobs ought to mitigate at least a little of Duterte’s nutjobbery.
Mr. Racette, forgive me, I had not intended to be either antagonistic or provocative.
But I do have a question: You said, “Better for all if we can identify a single motivation – the obvious calls to violence in the Islamic holy books, for example – and address our attention to that.” It seems clear to me that you are looking for a long term , or permanent, end to these acts of violence and terror. How do you propose to do that absent a theological discussion? I just don’t see how to change any minds without it. Bribery or intimidation may be effective in mitigating egregious acts for a time, but only for a time.
Not at all, Chuck. Your comment was perfectly fine — just not in my wheelhouse.
I’m not particularly hopeful that a long term (i.e., within my grandchildren’s lifetimes) solution exists: I think Islam is both terribly dangerous and inherently inoculated against change.
But, yes, that’s what I’d like: a change within Islam itself. I’d like the Islamic authorities (to the extent that they exist, given the distributed nature of Islam) to begin teaching a different interpretation of the faith, one that abrogates the problematic bits. I won’t pretend to know how, or even if, they can do that. But I can’t think of any other approach to actually fixing Islam.
What I expect, unfortunately, is protracted hot and cold war between Islam and the west.
Okay, so the issue I took with your post was on the matter of truth. I think there’s probably no metaphysical truth in Islam, but then I think that about all religions. I just don’t think it’s any more fruitful for us to challenge Islam on that basis than it would be, for example, for Muslims to challenge Methodists, or Mormons, or you name it. Convincing Muslims that Islam is the wrong religion doesn’t seem, to me, likely to be fruitful. On the other hand, convincing clerics to teach their flocks a different understanding of Islam does seem possible.
Having said that, I’ll add this: by all means, convert Muslims to Christianity whenever you can. I understand the conversion rate is high (surprise, right?), and I see no downside to it. (Islam is, in a sense, like East Berlin before the wall came down, or North Korea now: any place that has to point the guns inward to keep the people from leaving obviously has some problems. And Islam’s laws about apostasy are exactly that.)
You’re right. I meant to bring this up on the Daily Shot thread on the topic, which raised the alarm about how things could get messy for democracy there, but didn’t get around to.
Ordinary citizens in the region are less worried about Duterte’s declaration of martial law than about their immediate safety and the security of their persons and property. I’ve seen anecdata along those lines–citizen accounts in the news and social media comments.
Ironically, where I live in NJ, I seem to notice more converts (pardon me, reverts) to Islam than from Islam to Christianity. I imagine that is because Christians no longer seem to take their faith very seriously, whereas Muslims do.
Of course I don’t know your experiences, how much contact you have, etc. But, from what I’ve read, the conversion rate from Muslim to Christian is actually quite high — and much higher than the reverse.
I’d suggest that, because Muslims tend to stand out more in America, there may be a perception bias going on here: Muslims are exceptional, and so we tend to notice them. Christians (other than the small Amish / Mennonite / Quakers / Old Lutheran / etc. populations) rarely do.
Just a thought.