Why Do So Many Muslims Embrace Religious and Ideological Warfare?

By Victor Sharpe

Mahatma Gandhi is quoted in his book, Gandhi: The Power of Pacifism, by Catherine Clement, as follows:

While Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Parsees and Jews, along with several million adherents of an animistic religion, all coexisted in relative harmony, one religion that would not accept compromise stood out from the rest: Islam.

Gandhi was referring to the experience during his lifetime in the Indian sub-continent, but the growth of Wahhabism and the current resurgence in Islamic triumphalism since Gandhi's death in January 1948 now poses an increasingly existential threat to the West, to Judeo-Christian civilization, as well as to Hindus, Buddhists, and members other faiths.

The question repeatedly posed by the talking heads on the TV networks and cable television is how and why so many Muslims, young and old, are living in the West and enjoying all the material and educational benefits bestowed upon them -- and also committing hideous acts of terror and perpetrating atrocities upon innocent civilians, even against their very own neighbors.

The Times Square bombing attempt on May 1, 2010 by Pakistan-born Faisal Shahzad and the 2009 Fort Hood massacre of unarmed members of the military by Major Nidal Hasan (still described by the problematic U.S. administration as "workplace violence") are well-known. So too is the attempt at terrorism by a Somali immigrant, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, who had come to America at the age of five with his family as a refugee from the hell that is Somalia, and who attempted to kill thousands during a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon. But until the Chechen Muslim brothers succeeded in their massacre at the Boston Marathon, most terror attacks had been thwarted since the 9/11 destruction of the Twin Towers and part of the Pentagon by the 19 Saudi Arabian hijackers, in which 3,000 people were murdered. This time, however, the Muslim miscreants succeeded.

It was the baleful President Carter who undercut the shah of Iran, an autocrat who jailed and restricted the jihadists and Islamic groups but who was nevertheless a supporter and ally of America. Just like President Obama, who equally undercut Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the subsequent void was quickly and gleefully filled by Islamic fundamentalists and the Muslim Brotherhood who imposed sharia law and raised the banner of Islamic supremacy.

With the shah's fall came the Ayatollah Khomeini from his exile in France, and almost immediately Carter's foolish act resulted in a seemingly endless and most definitely humiliating imprisonment of American Embassy staff in Tehran. Since then Iran has fed the flames of Islamic terror around the globe, arming, and funding terror organizations such as Hamas and Hezb'allah. Ayatollah Khomeini preached violence to ultimately conquer "the land of the infidel." By that he meant Israel, Christian European states and Britain, the United States, and the entire non-Muslim world. His followers throughout the Muslim and Arab world have all endorsed the legitimacy of jihad against what they call the "enemies of Islam." Islamic martyrdom operations -- specifically blowing up soft targets like the spectators at sporting events -- are guarantees to paradise even if the victims are children.

So the answer to those talking heads in the media who endlessly ask why so many Muslims commit such atrocities can be seen both in Koranic passages and in, for instance, the sickening hate indoctrination found in the government-controlled Palestinian TV and radio broadcasts.

Here are some of the grisly passages from the Koran:

"Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them." Koran 2:191

"Make war on the infidels living in your neighborhood." Koran 9:123

"When opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you catch them." Koran 9:5

"Any religion other than Islam is not acceptable." Koran 3:85

"The Jews and the Christians are perverts; fight them."... Koran 9:30

"Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticize Islam" Koran 5:33

"Punish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron rods, boiling water; melt their skin and bellies." Koran 22:19

"The unbelievers are stupid; urge the Muslims to fight them." Koran 8:65

"Muslims must not take the infidels as friends." Koran 3:28

"Terrorize and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur'an." Koran 8:12

"Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorize the infidels." Koran 8:60

And here are some examples of the Palestinian broadcasts that sow hate among children as young as three years of age, spawning yet another generation of terrorists and destroying hope of any true and lasting peace with the embattled State of Israel.

For example, the children's show, The Best Home, included a scene in which a young girl recited a poem filled with messages of hate and other libels demonizing Jews. The poem made the vile and fantastic assertion that Jews, "Allah's enemies, the sons of pigs," defiled the Quran and Jerusalem, "murdered children," "cut off their limbs," and "raped the women in the city squares."

This message of vitriol -- aimed at the future generation of Palestinians -- not only serves to foster hatred and violence, but undermines the very essence of coexistence and peace. It poisons the minds of innocent young children instead of promoting respect for one another, which is a cornerstone for true peace.

In our politically correct world, members of the media and commentators often seek to distance Islam from so many acts of horrific violence, using terms of alleged distinction such as "radical Islam" or "moderate Islam" and so on. But let us reflect on the words of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the close friend of Iran's genocidal president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In reply to the term "moderate Islam," which was apparently quoted to him by a Western journalist, Erdogan said: "These descriptions are very ugly; it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam, and that's it."

Certainly, attempting to constantly give, as liberals do, a free pass to Islamic abuses; to play down its violent ambitions of world conquest; to ignore the evident threat to Judeo-Christian civilization from sharia law and imposed dhimmitude merely encourages the violent tendencies of the followers of what has been called "an ideology wrapped in a religion."

The two Chechen brothers thus almost certainly succumbed to the hatred towards non-Muslims which proliferate in Islamic texts, on Islamic websites, and in Islamic social media. And they are not alone.

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Cleaning Islam of its Murderers

By Quin Hillyer

It must be said: The time is now for all Muslim clerics of good will, especially within the United States, to band together for a massive public campaign aimed not at convincing non-Muslims of the clerics' own good intentions, but at telling all their fellow Muslims that violent jihad, terrorism, and forced "conversion" (or punishment) of non-Muslims is always and everywhere unacceptable and evil.

If they will not do this, then they are morally complicit in the continuing crimes against humanity represented by the Boston bombing, by 9/11, and by so many other acts of cowardly, sub-human viciousness done in recent years supposedly in the name of Allah.

Some readers might protest that one can't blame the many for the actions of the few. One can't paint all members of a group with the same brush. Just because a known liberal Tweets out obscene photos doesn't make all liberals obscene; just because a known conservative commits adultery doesn't make all conservatives adulterers; and just because some Muslims kill and maim innocent people doesn't make all Muslims murderers.

Fine. Of course. Fairness and logic clearly insist that those innocent of evil not be smeared with the assumption that they are guilty of it. But that's not the argument here.

There is no known conservative who openly advocates adultery as a good thing. There are no liberals who condone Tweeting out obscene pictures to unsuspecting women. There are no texts that conservatives or liberals revere that defend such things, much less which openly advocate violence and murder. But there are plenty, indeed millions, probably many multiples of millions, of Muslims who subscribe to the tenets of violent jihad. And they don't make it up from thin air; they can, and do, cite plenty of direct exhortations from the Koran that order Muslims to attack, maim, and torture those they consider "infidels" - with Jews and Christians both being specific targets.

As in: "Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them." (Koran 2:191.) And: "Make war on the infidels living in your neighborhood." (Koran 9:123.) And: "When opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you catch them." (Koran 9:5.) And: "Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticize Islam." (Koran 5:33.)

Those citations come from an e-mail chain I haven't had time to verify, but there are so many (including more from the same e-mail) similar examples that have been so often and accurately cited that it's clear that twisted devotees of Islam can read, or misread, their sacred text in order to justify their heinous activities.

There are no Christian governments that call for eradication of Muslims. There are powerful Muslim governments that openly advocate the destruction of Jews and Christians - and that deliberately carry out such destruction when they get the chance.

While this still does not make it right for all non-Muslims to "profile" all Muslims as terrorists, it does mean that within the Islamic culture there is enough fodder for those Muslims who are haters - fodder believed in so widespread a fashion, with plenty enough "official" support - that it will take a concerted effort, by any Muslim leaders who are of good will, to counteract the evil rot within large swaths of their religion.

(Of course, as I argued last week, no real religion or god could condone such evil - but if millions claim they adhere to a religion that does so, then it is incumbent on others who claim that religion to rescue it, and its victims, from such an evil bastardization of the faith they claim.)

Even for those who aren't directly culpable for errors, crimes, or evil, there comes a time when the prevalence of such evil within the ranks of those who claim a common allegiance becomes so serious that other leaders must act quite publicly to marginalize the extremists.

In this light, it is not enough for Muslim clerics to meekly protest that, well, Islam is supposedly a religion of peace and that they themselves aren't guilty. It is even worse for clerics and other Islamic leaders to spend more time protesting against the "mistreatment," via "profiling," of Muslims than they do to squash the evil in their own midst.

What's necessary now is an open, public, enthusiastic, organized, energetic, emphatic and long-lasting effort by Muslim leaders to eradicate the very idea that their faith, understood correctly, calls for violent jihad or murder. Without such an effort, it is at least arguable that, by their silence and inaction, they in effect become accessories to evil.

All of this evil done in the name of Allah must stop. It is hideous. And if other adherents of Islam won't take the lead in stopping it, they surely will answer to a higher power who demands nothing other than that we love each other and love His creation.