She's No Fundamentalist

By Christopher Hitchens

W.H. Auden, whose centenary fell late last month, had an extraordinary capacity to summon despair—but in such a way as to simultaneously inspire resistance to fatalism. His most beloved poem is probably September 1, 1939, in which he sees Europe toppling into a chasm of darkness. Reflecting on how this catastrophe for civilization had come about, he wrote:

Exiled Thucydides knewAll that a speech can sayAbout Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talkTo an apathetic grave;
Analyzed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:We must suffer them all again.

"The enlightenment driven away … " This very strong and bitter line came back to me when I saw the hostile, sneaky reviews that have been dogging the success of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's best seller Infidel, which describes the escape of a young Somali woman from sexual chattelhood to a new life in Holland and then (after the slaying of her friend Theo van Gogh) to a fresh exile in the United States. Two of our leading intellectual commentators, Timothy Garton Ash (in the New York Review of Books) and Ian Buruma, described Hirsi Ali, or those who defend her, as "Enlightenment fundamentalist[s]." In Sunday's New York Times Book Review, Buruma made a further borrowing from the language of tyranny and intolerance and described her view as an "absolutist" one.

Now, I know both Garton Ash and Buruma, and I remember what fun they used to have, in the days of the Cold War, with people who proposed a spurious "moral equivalence" between the Soviet and American sides. Much of this critique involved attention to language. Buruma was very mordant about those German leftists who referred to the "consumer terrorism" of the federal republic. You can fill in your own preferred example here; the most egregious were (and, come to think of it, still are) those who would survey the U.S. prison system and compare it to the Gulag.

In her book, Ayaan Hirsi Ali says the following: "I left the world of faith, of genital cutting and forced marriage for the world of reason and sexual emancipation. After making this voyage I know that one of these two worlds is simply better than the other. Not for its gaudy gadgetry, but for its fundamental values." This is a fairly representative quotation. She has her criticisms of the West, but she prefers it to a society where women are subordinate, censorship is pervasive, and violence is officially preached against unbelievers. As an African victim of, and escapee from, this system, she feels she has acquired the right to say so. What is "fundamentalist" about that?

The Feb. 26 edition of Newsweek takes up where Garton Ash and Buruma leave off and says, in an article by Lorraine Ali, that, "It's ironic that this would-be 'infidel' often sounds as single-minded and reactionary as the zealots she's worked so hard to oppose." I would challenge the author to give her definition of irony and also to produce a single statement from Hirsi Ali that would come close to materializing that claim. Accompanying the article is a typically superficial Newsweek Q&A sidebar, which is almost unbelievably headed: "A Bombthrower's Life." The subject of this absurd headline is a woman who has been threatened with horrific violence, by Muslims varying from moderate to extreme, ever since she was a little girl. She has more recently had to see a Dutch friend butchered in the street, been told that she is next, and now has to live with bodyguards in Washington, D.C. She has never used or advocated violence. Yet to whom does Newsweek refer as the "Bombthrower"? It's always the same with these bogus equivalences: They start by pretending loftily to find no difference between aggressor and victim, and they end up by saying that it's the victim of violence who is "really" inciting it.
Garton Ash and Buruma would once have made short work of any apologist who accused the critics of the U.S.S.R. or the People's Republic of China of "heating up the Cold War" if they made any points about human rights. Why, then, do they grant an exception to Islam, which is simultaneously the ideology of insurgent violence and of certain inflexible dictatorships? Is it because Islam is a "faith"? Or is it because it is the faith—in Europe at least—of some ethnic minorities? In neither case would any special protection from criticism be justified. Faith makes huge claims, including huge claims to temporal authority over the citizen, which therefore cannot be exempt from scrutiny. And within these "minorities," there are other minorities who want to escape from the control of their ghetto leaders. (This was also the position of the Dutch Jews in the time of Spinoza.) This is a very complex question, which will require a lot of ingenuity in its handling. The pathetic oversimplification, which describes skepticism, agnosticism, and atheism as equally "fundamentalist," is of no help here. And notice what happens when Newsweek takes up the cry: The enemy of fundamentalism is defined as someone on the fringe while, before you have had time to notice the sleight of hand, the aggrieved, self-pitying Muslim has become the uncontested tenant of the middle ground.

Let me give another example of linguistic slippage. In ACLU circles, we often refer to ourselves as "First Amendment absolutists." By this we mean, ironically enough, that we prefer to interpret the words of the Founders, if you insist, literally. The literal meaning in this case seems (to us) to be that Congress cannot inhibit any speech or establish any state religion. This means that we defend all expressions of opinion including those that revolt us, and that we say that nobody can be forced to practice, or forced to foreswear, any faith. I suppose I would say that this is an inflexible principle, or even a dogma, with me. But who dares to say that's the same as the belief that criticism of religion should be censored or the belief that faith should be imposed? To flirt with this equivalence is to give in to the demagogues and to hear, underneath their yells of triumph, the dismal moan of the trahison des clercs and "the enlightenment driven away." Perhaps, though, if I said that my principles were a matter of unalterable divine revelation and that I was prepared to use random violence in order to get "respect" for them, I could hope for a more sympathetic audience from some of our intellectuals.

Publisher Pulls Book On Muslim Violence

The latest example of radical Muslim interference with free speech took place without even a hint of a fatwah.

Last week a book publisher told Nancy Kobrin, a psychoanalyst and lecturer on counter-terrorism, that they were withdrawing the publication of her book, "The Sheikh's New Clothes," because they were afraid of fundamentalist repercussions, according to Kobrin.

The book, subtitled "The Naked Truth about Islamic Suicide Terrorism," tackles the psychology of fundamentalist Islamic terrorists and tries to understand the roots of their radical behavior.

Kobrin had been working on the book for about a year, and signed a contract with Looseleaf Law Publications in September 2005. The book was scheduled for publication in about a month.

Asked why her book would raise such concerns, Kobrin said, "I think it's sort of the third rail to look at Muslim violence as coming from the family."

"People are very uncomfortable with it," she said. In the book, Kobrin asserts that both family dynamics and the degradation of women in Muslim society, among other causes, have influenced the radical behavior of Muslim extremists.

According to Kobrin, Mary Loughrey, a vice president with the book publisher, called to tell her that "because of security reasons they feared for the safety of the staff and themselves."

She said Loughrey mentioned Muslim reaction – including calls for assassination – following Pope Benedict XVI's recent speech as part of the reason they were concerned.

Looseleaf Law Publications specializes in law-enforcement and criminal justice titles for professional readers.

This would have been the first published book for Kobrin, whose clinical expertise focuses on post-stress disorder. Kobrin has written many articles, including several with author Phyllis Chesler, who wrote the introduction for the book.

"If the Western world continues to give into and appease violence of jihadists, if we're afraid of violence against us for speaking the truth, then we're lost," remarked Chesler, who said that Looseleaf is "not the bad guy" and that she understands why they made their decision.

Kobrin and Chesler said that the U.S. Army has used parts of an earlier manuscript of the book to help train their soldiers in its psychological operations unit. Kobrin has also lectured at Army and Air Force bases.

Chesler said that since Looseleaf's withdrawal has generated interest on a couple of blogs in the last few days, two other book publishers have approached her about reading the manuscript, and that both said they would not be afraid to publish the book.

Looseleaf Law Publications would not confirm the book's withdrawal.

The Philosopher and the Fatwa

By Robert Spencer

Redeker said that one of the threats he received stated: “You will never feel secure on this earth. One billion, three hundred thousand Muslims are ready to kill you.” As the death threats poured in, everyone abandoned Redeker. The teacher himself noted that France’s education ministry “has not even contacted me, has not deigned to get in touch to see if I need any help.” The senior editor of Le Figaro, Pierre Rousselin, declared on Al-Jazeera that he had been mistaken to publish Redeker’s article, and hastened to assure the Islamic world that the article did not reflect the opinion of the paper.

It was unclear what exactly those who are threatening Redeker are upset about. Were they contending that he had lied about Muhammad? If so, they must contend with the fact that many Muslims around the world seem to agree, unapologetically, that Muhammad was “a merciless war chief, plunderer, slaughterer of Jews and a polygamist.” As I explain in my forthcoming book The Truth About Muhammad, mujahedin throughout the world see the Prophet of Islam as the personification of the qualities they are trying to embody. They have provided abundant evidence of this in recent years:


· Merciless war chief: On September 5, 2003, Sheikh Ibrahim Mudeiris invoked one of Muhammad’s battles, an expedition against the Byzantine empire known as the Battle of Tabouk, when speaking of the Iraq war in a sermon broadcast by the Palestinian Authority: “If we go back in the time tunnel 1400 years, we will find that history repeats itself…. Byzantium represents America in the west…. America will collapse, as Byzantium collapsed in the west….The Prophet [Muhammad] could, by means of unbroken ranks, conquer Byzantium, the greatest power compared to today’s America -- and this without a single martyr falling from among the Muslims….The Prophet could, by means of the unity of the Muslim ranks and its awakening, defeat the America of that time….America is our No. 1 enemy, and we see it as our No. 1 enemy as long as we learn from the lessons of the Battle of Tabouk [which took place in October 630 AD]: ‘Make ready for them whatever you can of armed strength and of mounted pickets’ [Koran 8:60]. We are prepared and ready, but victory is from Allah….”[i]

On November 21, 2003, Muslims poured out of the Maiduguri Road Central Mosque after Friday prayers in the Nigerian city of Kaduna, demanding the implementation of Sharia law and distributing flyers stating: “The only solution is Jihad, the type of jihad put into practise by Prophet Muhammed and exemplified by Shehu Usman Dan Fodio and the late Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran. We Muslims should unite and embrace this concept of jihad that will undoubtedly empower us to destroy oppression and oppressors, and in its place establish Islam.”[ii]

In October 2004, Sheikh Aamer Bin Abdallah Al-Aamer wrote this in the Al-Qaeda online journal Sawt al-Jihad: “Perform the Jihad against your enemies with your [own two] hands, sacrifice your souls and your property in fighting your enemy, as an imitation of [the acts of] your Prophet [Muhammad] in the month of Ramadan [and in order to] enrage your enemies.”[iii]

Fawwaz bin Muhammad Al-Nashami, the commander of the jihad group that killed twenty-two people in a jihad attack in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, on May 29, 2004, said that he acted in accord with Muhammad’s wishes for Arabia: “We are Mujahideen, and we want the Americans. We have not come to aim a weapon at the Muslims, but to purge the Arabian Peninsula, according to the will of our Prophet Muhammad, of the infidels and the polytheists who are killing our brothers in Afghanistan and Iraq….We began to comb the site looking for infidels. We found Filipino Christians. We cut their throats and dedicated them to our brothers the Mujahideen in the Philippines. [Likewise], we found Hindu engineers and we cut their throats too, Allah be praised. That same day, we purged Muhammad’s land of many Christians and polytheists.”[iv]

In the run-up to the 2004 American presidential election, a Muslim preacher invoked Muhammad to denounce democracy: “Our Prophet did not run for office in any election….He did not win any political debate. [Instead] he won the war against the infidel.”[v]

In a January 2005 article in Arab News, columnist Adil Salahi reminded his readers that Muhammad never made war on a people without first inviting them to convert to Islam: “During the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) lifetime the Muslim community had to fight many battles, because there were several sources of danger and many opponents who were keen to suppress the rising voice of the Islamic message. The Prophet made sure that in none of these battles the Muslims would exceed the limits of what is lawful in Islam….[H]e would not launch an attack without alerting the enemy and calling on them to accept Islam and live in peace with the Muslim state.”[vi]

London Muslim leader Hani Al-Sibaai in February 2005 justified the slaughters being perpetrated by Al-Zarqawi’s mujahedin in Iraq: “Do these people base themselves on Islamic law or not? They claim that they do, and to support it, they say that slaughtering appeared in a hadith by the Prophet, which was pronounces authentic by Sheik Ahmad Shaker. The Prophet told the Quraysh tribe: ‘I have brought slaughter upon you,’ making this gesture. But these are religious issues that may be disputed….[T]he Prophet drove nails into and gouged out the eyes of people from the ‘Urayna Tribe. They were merely a group of thieves who stole from sheep herders, and the Prophet drove nails into them and threw them into the Al-Hrara area, and left them there to die. He blinded them and cut off their opposite legs and arms. This is what the Prophet did on a trifling matter – let alone in war.”[vii]


· Plunderer: On March 28, 2003, the Palestinian Sheikh Muhammad Abu Al-Hunud warned in another sermon broadcast over Palestinian Authority television against those who would attempt to “mess with Allah’s book, to Americanize the region, Americanize the religion, Americanize the Koran, Americanize Muhammad’s message….” Any doubt that he meant by this that the Qur’an and Muhammad’s message would be stripped of their violent components were dispelled when he prayed about the Americans in Iraq: “Allah, make their possessions a booty for the Muslims, Allah, annihilate them and their weapons, Allah, make their children orphans and their women widows….”[viii]

As late as November 2003, the website of the Islamic Affairs Department (IAD) of the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington, D.C. contained exhortations to Muslims to wage violent jihad in emulation of Muhammad, and quoted Muhammad’s words about plunder: “Whoever of My slaves comes out to fight in My way seeking My pleasure, I guarantee him that I will compensate his suffering with reward and booty (during his lifetime) and if he dies, I would forgive him, have mercy on him and let him enter Paradise.”[ix]


· Slaughterer of Jews: A jihadist explaining that the Israeli/Palestinian struggle was more than just a nationalist conflict over land declared: “But all of these people don’t realize that our struggle with the Jews goes way back, ever since the first Islamic state was established in Madeenah with Muhammad (SAWS) the Messenger sent to all of mankind, as its leader. Allaah has related to us in the Qur’ân, the reality of the Jews’ malice and hatred for the ummah of Islaam and Tawheed, as he says: ‘You will surely find that the people with the most enmity towards the believers are the Jews and the polytheists.’ (Surah Al-Maa’idah: 82) [Qur’an 5:82].[x]

In July 2006 a writer on a British Muslim Internet forum declared: “I’m so fed up with these dirty, filthy Israeli dogs. May Allah curse them and destroy them all, and may they face the same fate as Banu Qurayzah!”[xi] This was an Arabian Jewish tribe that was massacred on Muhammad’s orders, and with his participation, after he came to believe that they had betrayed him. Muhammad’s first biographer, Ibn Ishaq, puts the number of those killed at “600 or 700 in all, though some put the figure as high as 800 or 900.”[xii]


· Polygamist. It is not disputed by anyone that Muhammad had many wives. Muslim apologetic websites do not deny the fact, but celebrate it: Islam Online says of Muhammad’s wives that “they gave advice to their husband when he needed it, went with him to battle to nurse the wounded, accompanied him on his travels. They preserved the memory of intimate details of their married life in order to educate succeeding generations in the rules of purification and relations between spouses.”

These are not the slanders of “Islamophobes.” These are the statements of people who consider themselves to be pious and knowledgeable Muslims, who wouldn’t dream of insulting Muhammad. It is noteworthy also that at least those who spoke in televised sermons seemed to assume that their Muslim audience would also know and accept that Muhammad behaved the way they say he did. Nor were there any protests raised against these or similar statements by other Muslims anywhere in the Islamic world. So why is Robert Redeker in fear for his life after threats for saying, in effect, what many Muslims around the world themselves say?

It would appear that his chief crime was in saying these things as a non-Muslim, and in a disapproving way. Those Muslims who have issued threats to Redeker seem to be attempting to extend the traditional Islamic legal tenet forbidding non-Muslims in the Islamic state to insult Allah or Muhammad, or to hold any critical discussion of Muhammad by non-Muslims. It seems to be acceptable for non-Muslims to speak about Muhammad only if they speak as if they were believers, or with the sensibilities of believers paramount in their considerations. Even the noted moderate Muslim spokesman Akbar Ahmed of American University recommends something like this when speaking of the rage against Pope Benedict XVI. Ahmed hedges his support for free speech with an appeal to be sensitive to the consequences of speaking out: “Although I totally support free speech and freedom of expression, and have been saying so publicly, all of us need to be sensitive to the culture and traditions of other faiths. I am not talking of a purely academic or idealistic discussion but the possibility of people losing their lives as a result of some perceived attack on faith made across the world. I believe that the lives lost and the properties destroyed—including mosques and churches—after the Danish cartoons controversy erupted could have been avoided had there been people of greater wisdom and compassion at the start of the crisis.” (Ahmed’s “mosques and churches” statement is curious, since those who were angered by the Pope’s statement destroyed churches in Gaza, the West Bank, and Nigeria. They destroyed no mosques.)

Ahmed seems to be saying in effect that non-Muslims should tread lightly about Islamic topics simply because violence might ensue. But if someone reacts violently to another’s words, particularly if those words would be inoffensive coming from someone else, the fault lies with the one who is reacting, not with the speaker. The threats to Redeker, following so closely on the global outrage at the Pope, are yet another example of the jihadist attempt to frighten and intimidate the West into chastened silence.

That makes it all the more crucial, in these perilous times, for free people to speak out.

Muslim Nazis

This cartoon was posted on a popular Islamic website. It illustrates the feeble intellect that cripples much of the Muslim youth. Last week, whilst on a train, we were subjected to the anti-Semitism that Islam breeds in the minds of its followers. Pakistani young men shouted racial/anti-Semitic remarks, whilst hurling stones at our train. This was because they suspected an elderly couple sitting next to me of being Jewish. For nearly ten minutes they chanted support for Hitler …Nazis with brown faces, what an irony!

Funny Mo Pics!

We stand with you Redeker

Succumbing to Islamist pressure Pierre Rousselin, the editor in chief of Le Figaro, apologized on Al-jazeera for the publication of the article. Once more an assault has been committed on freedom of speech. All liberty and freedom loving individuals must stand with Redeker and make it clear to the Islamofacists that we will not be intimidated or silenced.

Describing his ordeal, Redeker wrote the following to a friend:

“I am now in a catastrophic personal situation. Several death threats have been sent to me, and I have been sentenced to death by organizations of the al-Qaeda movement. [...] On the websites condemning me to death there is a map showing how to get to my house to kill me, they have my photo, the places where I work, the telephone numbers, and the death fatwa. [...] There is no safe place for me, I have to beg, two evenings here, two evenings there. [...] I am under the constant protection of the police. I must cancel all scheduled conferences. And the authorities urge me to keep moving. [...] All costs are at my own expense, including those of rents a month or two ahead, the costs of moving twice, legal expenses, etc.

It's quite sad. I exercised my constitutional rights, and I am punished for it, even in the territory of the Republic. This affair is also an attack against national sovereignty – foreign rules, decided by criminally minded fanatics, punish me for having exercised a constitutional right, and I am subjected, even in France, to great injury.”

In reading this moving letter, I was reminded of the poem ‘First they came for the Jews’…

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

What should the free world do while facing Islamist intimidation?

By: Robert Redeker (English translation)

The reactions caused by Benedict XVI’s analysis of Islam and violence highlight the underhanded maneuver carried out by Islam to stifle what the West values more than anything, and which does not exist in any Moslem country: freedom of thought and expression.

Islam tries to impose its rules on Europe : opening of public swimming pools at certain hours reserved exclusively for women, ban on caricaturing this religion, demands for special diets for Muslim children in school cafeterias, struggle to impose the veil at school, accusations of Islamophobia against free spirits.

How can one explain the ban on the wearing thongs on Paris-Beaches* this summer? The reasoning put forth was bizarre: women wering thongs would risk “disturbing the peace”. Did this mean that bands of frustrated youths would become violent while being offended by displays of beauty? Or were the authorities scared of Islamist demonstrations by virtue squads near Paris-Beaches?

However, the authorization of the veil on the street is more disturbing to public peace than wearing a thong, because it invites complaints against the upholding the oppression of women .This ban represents an Islamization of sensibilities in France, a more or less conscious submission to the diktats of Islam. At the very least it is the result of the insidious Muslim pressure on the minds: even those who protested the introduction of a “Jean Paul II Square” in Paris would not be opposed to the construction of mosques. Islam is trying to force Europe to yield to its vision of humanity.

As in the past with Communism, the West finds itself under ideological watch. Islam presents itself, like defunct Communism, as an alternative to the Western world. In the way of Communism before it, Islam, to conquer spirits, plays on a sensitive string. It prides itself on a legitimacy which troubles Western conscience, which is attentive to others: it claims to be the voice of the oppressed of the planet. Yesterday, the voice of the poor supposedly came from Moscow, today it originates in Mecca! Again, today, western intellectuals incarnate the eye of the Koran, as they have incarnated the eye of Moscow. They now excommunicate people because of Islamophobia, as they did before because of anti-communism.

This opening to others, specific to the West, is a secularization of Christianity that can be summarized thus:the other person must come before myself. The Westerner, heir to Christianity, is the that exposes his soul bare. He runs the risk of being seen as weak. With the same ardor as Communism, Islam treats generosity, broadmindedness, tolerance, gentleness, freedom of women and of manners, democratic values, as marks of decadence. They are weaknesses that it seeks to exploit, by means of useful idiots, self-rigtheous consciences drowning in nice feelings, in order to impose the Koranic order on the Western world itself.

The Koran is a book of unparalleled violence. Maxime Rodinson states, in Encyclopedia Universalis, some truths that in France are as significant as they are taboo. On one hand: “Mohammed revealed in Medina unsuspected qualities as political leader and military chief (…) He resorted to private war, by then a prevalent custom in Arabia (….) Mohammed soon sent small groups of partisans to attack the Meccan caravans, thus punishing his unbelieving compatriots and simultaneously acquiring the booty of a wealthy man.”

There is more: “Mohammed profited from this success by eradicating the Jewish tribe which resided in Medina, the Quarayza, whom he accused of suspect behaviour.” And: “After the death of Khadija, he married a widow, a good housewife, called Sawda, and in addition to the little Aisha, barely ten years old. His erotic predilections, held in check for a long time, led him to ten simultaneous marriages .”

A merciless war chief, plunderer, slaughterer of Jews and a polygamist, such is the man revealed through the Koran.

Of , the Catholic church is not above reproach. Its history is strewn with dark pages, for which it has officially repentaed. The Inquisition, the hounding of witches, the execution of the philosophers Giordano Bruno and Vanini, those wrong-thinking Epicureans, in the 18th century the execution of the knight of La Barre for impiety, do not plead in the church’s favor. But what differentiates Christianity from Islam is obvious: it is always possible to go back to true evangelical values, the peaceful character of Jesus as opposed to the deviations of the Church.

None of the faults of the Church have their roots in the Gospel. Jesus is non-violent. Going back to Jesus is akin to forswear the excesses of the Church. Going back to Mahomet, to the conbtrary, reinforces hate and violence. Jesus is a master of love, Mahomet is a master of hatred.

The stoning of Satan, each year in Mecca, is not only an obsolete superstition. It not only sets the stage for a hysterical crowd flirting with barbarity. Its importis anthropological. Here is a rite, which each Muslim is invited to submit to, that emphasizes violence as a sacred duty in the very heart of the believer.

This stoning, accompanied each year by the acciedental trampling to death of some of the believers, sometimes up to several hundreds, is a rite that feeds archaic violence.

Instead of getting rid of this archaic violence, and thus imitating Judaism and Christianity (Judaism starts when it abandons human sacrifice, and enters civilization; Christianity transforms sacrifice through the Eucharist), Islam builds a nest for this violence, where it will incubate. Whereas Judaism and Christianity are religions whose rites spurn violence, by delegitimizing it, Islam is a religion that exalts violence and hatred in its everyday rites and sacred book.

Hatred and violence dwell in the book with which every Muslim is brought up, the Koran. As in the Cold War, where violence and intimidation were the methods used by an ideology hell bent on hegemony, so today Islam tries to put its leaden mantel all over the world. Benedict XVI’s cruel experience is testimony to this. Nowadays, the West has to be called the “free world” in comparison to the Muslim world; likewise, the enemies of the “free world”, the zealous bureaucrats of the Koran’s vision, swarm in the very center of the frre World.

Muhammad has flaws admits Muslim scholar

A LEADING adviser on Islam, Ameer Ali, has attacked Muslims who "blindly" follow their faith and fail to question the veracity of the Koran, saying that even Mohammed had "flaws".

Dr Ali said the majority of Muslim clerics had for centuries imposed a "literalist" teaching of Islam, telling their followers that deviating from the written message would ultimately lead to their admission into hell.

"The times are changing and with the change of times, you also have to reinterpret the Koran," he told The Australian.

"Because if you believe that it's a book for all the times and all the nations, then that book must be yielding new meanings.

"There are verses about slavery, and the Koran says you must be kind to the slaves. So are the Muslims saying we must have slavery to be kind?

"The jihadists are interpreting the Koran literally and that's the problem ... Popular Muslims, because of their lack of knowledge about religion, are vulnerable to these sort of teachings." The Koran must not be read literally but reinterpreted for today.

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Why is the left afraid to face up to the threat of radical Islam?

BY BRET STEPHENS
The Wall Street Journal Sunday, September 17, 2006

Here's a puzzle: Why is it so frequently the case that the people who have the most at stake in the battle against Islamic extremism and the most to lose when Islamism gains--namely, liberals--are typically the most reluctant to fight it?

It is often said, particularly in the "progressive" precincts of the democratic left, that by aiming at the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and perhaps the Capitol, Mohamed Atta and his cohorts were registering a broader Muslim objection to what those buildings supposedly represented: capitalism and globalization, U.S. military power, support for Israel, oppression of the Palestinians and so on.

But maybe Ms. Newman intuited that Atta's real targets weren't the symbols of American mightiness, but of what that mightiness protected: people like her, bohemian, sexually unorthodox, a minority within a minority. Maybe she understood that those F-16s overhead--likely manned by pilots who went to church on Sunday and voted the straight GOP ticket--were being flown above all for her defense, at the outer cultural perimeter of everything that America's political order permits.

This may be reading too much into Ms. Newman's essay. Yet after 9/11 at least a few old-time voices on the left--Christopher Hitchens, Bruce Bawer, Paul Berman and Ron Rosenbaum, among others--understood that what Islamism most threatened wasn't just America generally, but precisely the values that modern liberalism had done so much to promote and protect for the past 40 years: civil rights, gay rights, feminism, privacy rights, reproductive choice, sexual freedom, the right to worship as one chooses, the right not to worship at all. And so they bid an unsentimental goodbye to their one-time comrades and institutions: the peace movement, the pages of The Nation and the New York Review of Books, "the deluded and pathetic sophistry of postmodernists of the left, who believe their unreadable, jargon-clotted theory somehow helps liberate the wretched of the earth," as Mr. Rosenbaum wrote in the New York Observer in 2002.

Five years on, however, Messrs. Hitchens, Bawer, et al., seem less like trendsetters and more like oddball dissenters from a left-liberal orthodoxy that finds less and less to like about the very idea of a war on Islamic extremism, never mind the war in Iraq. In the September issue of The Atlantic Monthly, James Fallows, formerly Jimmy Carter's speechwriter, argues that the smart thing for the U.S. to do is declare victory and give the conflict a rest: "A state of war with no clear end point," he writes, "makes it more likely for a country to overreact in ways that hurt itself." Further to the left, a panoply of "peace" groups is all but in league with Islamists. Consider, for instance, QUIT!--Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism--a group that, in its hatred for Israel, curiously fails to notice that Tel Aviv is the only city in the Middle East that annually hosts a gay-pride parade.


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An instinct for pacifism surely goes some way toward explaining the left's curious unwillingness to sign up for a war to defend its core values. A suspicion of black-and-white moral distinctions of the kind President Bush is fond of making about terrorism--a suspicion that easily slides into moral relativism--is another.

But there are deeper factors at work. One is appeasement: "Many Europeans feel that a confrontation with Islamism will give the Islamists more opportunities to recruit--that confronting evil is counterproductive," says Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born, former Dutch parliamentarian whose outspoken opposition to Islamism (and to Islam itself) forced her repeatedly into hiding and now into exile in the United States. "They think that by appeasing them--allowing them their own ghettoes, their own Muslim schools--they will win their friendship."

A second factor, she says, is the superficial confluence between the bugaboos of the Chomskyite left and modern-day Islamism. "Many social democrats have this stereotype that the corporate world, the U.S. and Israel are the real evil. And [since] Islamists are also against Israel and America, [social democrats] sense an alliance with them."

But the really "lethal mistake," she says, "is the confusion of Islam, which is a body of ideas, with ethnicity." Liberals especially are reluctant to criticize the content of Islam because they fear that it is tantamount to criticizing Muslims as a group, and is therefore almost a species of racism. Yet Muslims, she says, "are responsible for their ideas. If it is written in the Koran that you must kill apostates, kill the unbelievers, kill gays, then it is legitimate and urgent to say, 'If that is what your God tells you, you have to modify it.' "

A similar rethink may be in order among liberals and progressives. For whatever else distinguishes Islamism from liberalism, both are remarkably self-absorbed affairs, obsessed with maintaining the purity of their own values no matter what the cost. In the former case, the result too often is terror. In the latter, the ultimate risk is suicide, as the endless indulgence of "the other" obstructs the deeper need to preserve itself. Liberal beliefs--and the Rachel Newmans of the world--deserve to be protected and fought for. A liberalism that abandons its own defense to others does not, something liberals everywhere might usefully dwell on during this season of sad remembrance.

Mr. Stephens is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. His column appears in the Journal Tuesdays.


"When I was 19, I moved to New York City. . . . If you had asked me to describe myself then, I would have told you I was a musician, an artist and, on a somewhat political level, a woman, a lesbian and a Jew. Being an American wouldn't have made my list. On Sept. 11, all that changed. I realized that I had been taking the freedoms I have here for granted. Now I have an American flag on my backpack, I cheer at the fighter jets as they pass overhead and I am calling myself a patriot."


-- Rachel Newman, "My Turn"
in Newsweek, Oct. 21, 2001

SUBMISSION PART 1

O Allah, as I lie here wounded, my spirit broken
I hear in my head the judge’s voice as he pronounces me guilty
The sentence I’ve to serve is in your words:
“The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication
flog each of them with a hundred stripes;
let no compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by God,
if ye believe In God and the Last Day; and let a party of the believers witness their punishment”

Two years ago, on a sunny day, while on the souk my eyes were caught by those of Rahman, the most handsome man I have ever met.
After that day, I couldn’t help but notice his presence whenever I went to the marketplace.
I was thrilled when I learned that his appearance on the bazaar was not a coincidence.
One day he suggested we meet in secret, and I said, ‘Yes’.

For months Rahman and I met, shared drinks and delicacies.
We danced and dreamed… yeah, we built beautiful castles in the air.
And we made love, on every secret meeting.
As the months went by our relationship deepened.
What is more, out of our love a new life started to grow.
Our happiness did not go unnoticed and before long, envious eyes gave way to malicious tongues;
‘Let’s ignore these people and trust in Allah’s mercy, Rahman and I said to each other.
Naive, young and in love perhaps, but we thought that your holiness was on our side.
Rahman and I shared affection, trust and a deep respect for each other, how can God disapprove? Why would he?

And so we ignored the mean tongues, and together we continued to live our dream, albeit in more secrecy.
O, Allah, until we were summoned to court and charged with fornication!
Rahman called me a day before we were to appear before the judge.
He said that his father had smuggled him out of the country. What a pity that my father happens to be a pious man, I thought.
Rahman told me that he loved me and that he would pray for me. He also encouraged me to be strong and have faith in you.
O Allah, how can I have faith in you? You who reduced my love to fornication?
I lie here flogged – abused and shamed – in your name.
The verdict that killed my faith in love is in your holy book.
Faith in you…, submission to you... feels like… is self betrayal.
~~~~~~~~

When I was sixteen my father broke the news to me in the kitchen.
“You are going to marry Azziz; he is from a virtuous family and he will take good care of you”.
When I saw pictures of Azziz instead of feeling excitement I thought of him as unattractive, and even though I did my best to see the perfect whole
I could’t help but notice de faulty details:
a scar on the lip, a bent nose, so much hair on the eyebrows.

My wedding day was more of a celebration of my families than of mine
Once in my marital home my husband approached me
Ever since then I recoil from his touch
I am repulsed by his smell, even if he has just had a bath
Yet, O Allah I obey his command
Sanctioned by your words
I let him take me
Each time I push him away he quotes you
“They ask thee
concerning women’s courses
Say: they are a hurt and a pollution
So keep away from women
In their courses, and do not
Approach them until
They are clean
But when they have
Purified themselves,
Ye may approach them in any manner, time or place
Ordained for you by God
For God loves those
Who turn to him constantly
And he loves those who keep themselves pure and clean”
So I stretch the days of my period
But of course there comes a time, when I must
Undress, he orders me and I submit
Not to him, but to you
Lately, enduring my husband is getting harder and harder
O, Allah, I pray, give me the strength to endure him or I fear
My faith shall weaken.
~~~~

O Allah, most high
You say that ‘men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because, you have given the one more (strength) than the other’.
I feel, at least once a week the strength of my husband’s fist on my face
O Allah most high
Life with my husband is hard to bear
But I submit my will to you
My husband supports me from his means,
Therefore I am devoutly obedient, and I guard in my husband’s absence what you would have me guard; But my husband, maintainer and protector, fears disloyalty and ill conduct on my part; he accuses me of being ungrateful to him;
Like an army general on the battlefield he screams his every whim at me;
Threatens never to share my bed again
And goes away for nights on end
I suspect to another woman
I dare not ask him about her
Even though family and friends whisper about him and the other woman
When he comes back
He always finds a reason to doubt my loyalty to him
And after a series of warnings and threats he starts to beat me
First lightly on my arms and legs, just as you, most high describe – ahhhuh O shall I say prescribe – in your holy book;
But mostly on the face.
And why?
For not responding fast enough to his orders;
For ironing the wrong shirt
For not putting enough salt in the food
For chatting too long with my sister on the phone

O, God, most elevated, submission to your will assures me of a better life in the hereafter
But I feel that the price I pay for my husband’s protection and maintenance of is too high
I wonder how much longer I will submit
~~~~~~~

O Allah, most gracious, most merciful.
Just as you demand of the believing woman I lower my gaze, and guard my modesty.
I never display my beauty and ornaments; not even my face or hands.
I never strike with my feet in order to draw attention to my hidden ornaments, not even at parties.
I never go out of the house unless it is absolutely necessary; and then only with my father’s permission. When I do go out I draw my veil over my bosom as you wish.

Once in a while I sin. I fantasize about feeling the wind through my hair or the sun on my skin, perhaps on the beach. I day-dream about an extended journey through the world, imagining all the places and people’s out there. Of course I shall never see these places or meet many people because it is so important to guard my modesty in order to please you, O Allah. So I cheerfully do as you say and cover my body from head to toe except while I am in the house and with family members only. In general I am happy with my life.

However, since my father’s brother, Hakim is staying with us
Things have changed!
Hakim waits till I am alone at home and comes to my room.
Then he orders me to do things to him, touch him in places most intimate.
Since he is with us I took to the habit of wearing the veil inside the house in order to deter him. That doesn’t stop him though.
Twice now he unveiled me, ripped my inner garments and raped me.
When I told my mother she said she would take it up with my father.
My father ordered her - and me - not to question his brother’s honour.

I experience pain each time my uncle comes to see me.
I feel caged, like an animal waiting for slaughter.
I am Filled with guilt and shame;
and I feel abandoned, yet I am surrounded by family and friends.
O Allah, Hakim is gone, now that he knows I am pregnant.
For the moment I can hide my abdomen behind my veil, but sooner or later someone will notice. I shall be openly shamed and killed by my father, for not being a virgin.

When I consider this, I think of taking my life but know that in the hereafter the one who commits suicide shall never count on your mercy.
O Allah, giver and taker of life.
You admonish all who believe to turn towards you in order to attain bliss.”
I have done nothing my whole life but turn to you.
And now that I pray for salvation, under my veil, you remain silent as the grave I long for.
I wonder how much longer I am able to submit!

Submission: Part 2

At last! The news we long waited to hear: next year, Hirsi Ali will start filming Submission Part 2 – with the support of the American Enterprise Institute.

"I gave them a proposal, in which I mentioned how I was going to represent the Prophet Muhammad in New York and have him talk to a number of Western thinkers, and they said, 'No problem.'"

She acknowledges the irony of being a feminist activist employed by an organization affiliated with the Republican Party.

"It is ironic, but I talked to different think tanks and it was only the American Enterprise Institute that said, 'We welcome controversy.' I would have total intellectual freedom."

The identities of her collaborators on Submission: Part 2 will remain anonymous.

"After Van Gogh's death, I've learned a lesson, and that is, you have to make a film without putting the identity of the people out there. You have to be smarter than the killers."

I am certain Muhammad hopefuls are swamping her. I wonder if any of Hollywood’s actors would have the gall to play the part…

Another Victory To The Islamofascists...

Surprise, surprise! The UIC continues to expand…

Eyewitnesses in Hobyo (a port on Somalia's central coastline)
said they saw heavily armed UIC militiamen move in at dawn, without any fighting. The UIC, predictably, has denied these reports.

"We did not capture it but we reached the people of Hobyo to bring them our message of peace," an Islamic officer who wanted to remain anonymous told AFP news agency.

"First, the Islamist army technicals surrounded the town, then they sent an envoy to negotiate, before their entry was accepted," local leader Hussein Jimale told Reuters news agency.

Failed states seal their demise when extra-national militias fill the vacuum in providing order and security, as in this case, and with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Lebanese government should take note.

Earlier Wednesday, Islamist officials said around 100 government troops, along with seven battlewagons, crossed into their territory overnight from near the temporary government seat of Baidoa.

"The militiamen communicated with Al-bayan Islamic court in Mogadishu and said they wanted to join our holy effort to bring peace to the Somali people," said court chairman Mohamed Ali Bilal.

"They are ideologically uncomfortable with the government and also claim to have been mistreated,"

"I pray Allah will give his courage to the remaining soldiers in Baidoa to see the true realities of Somalia, I hope they will all join us," Bilal said.
[...]

Minister Assasinated

Hundreds of people rioted Friday near the headquarters of Somalia's weak government after a Cabinet minister was fatally shot outside a mosque. People began streaming into the streets and setting fires just hours after the killing of Abdallah Isaaq Deerow, Somalia's minister for constitutional and federal affairs.

Eyewitnesses said Deerow was shot several times in the chest as he left a mosque in the government seat of Baidoa, about 150 miles from Mogadishu. Mohamed Abdi Hayir, Information Minister, said: "It looks like an organised assassination.

"So far we do not know who did it. They shot him as he was leaving the mosque then ran off."

Deerow was seen as one of the Government’s political heavyweights and had been speaker in a previous parliament. He was close to both the President and the beleaguered Prime Minister and was known to be a keen supporter of inviting Ethiopian troops into Somalia. It is thought that the people responsible are people within the transitional structures who believe that Ethiopian troops are a barrier to peace.

The Union of Islamic Courts, whose militia controls the capital, Mogadishu, denied any involvement in the shooting.

The Union of Islamic Courts- Somalia’s Taliban

Instead of warlords Somalis have what many are calling an African version of the Taliban, bent not only on imposing a harsh, Wahhabi-style Islam on the country, but allegedly also providing a safe haven for international terrorists. Movies, music and mixed wedding ceremonies have been banned; open-air video parlors showing World Cup matches were shut down.

The union's public face is its chairman Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a moderate who sought to assure Somalis and the international community this week that the Islamic Courts were no threat and only wanted order.

Mr Ahmed, 32, is a law graduate from Libya and former secondary school geography teacher.

But the union does contain radical elements.

Two of the 11 courts are seen as militant; one is led by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, on an American list of terrorism suspects because he used to head al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, which was linked to al-Qaeda.

Mr Aweys says al-Itihaad no longer exists and also denies accusations from some western diplomats and observers that there are training grounds for Islamic fighters in Somalia.

He is, however, strongly critical of the United States and its "war on terror".

There is concern that UIC may turn Somalia into a haven for al-Qaeda. Several of its leaders have urged Somalis to launch a jihad against Ethiopian troops deployed in support of the government, as the country slips ever closer to all-out civil war.

Western diplomats are also concerned by Afghanistan-trained militia commander Adan Hashi Ayro, whose militiamen have been implicated in numerous killings of Somali nationals, as well as five foreign aid workers and a BBC producer, Kate Peyton.

Aweys describes Ayro as "a good man" who's never been convicted of a crime. Yet some of his acknowledged exploits have been dubious enough. Last year Ayro and his followers disinterred all the bodies from the colonial-era Italian cemetery in Mogadishu and dumped them in the trash. In their place they set up an Islamic militia training camp. An ICU-made propaganda video titled "Punishment of the Converts," obtained by NEWSWEEK from an Islamic militiaman in Mogadishu, shows the Somali Islamists training in the cemetery, interspersed with speeches from several of the ICU's leading military figures, including a partially masked man who appears to be Ayro, according to Somalis who know him. The dialogue is Pan-Islamic and pro-terrorist; the voice-over features Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. "Every Muslim who is victimized in the world, we are calling him to come here," says one masked Somali fighter. "It will be a safe haven for him." The Islamic militias' internal newspaper, Al Jihad, puts it more bluntly: terrorism extremism and fundamentalism are part of Islam and good.

The UIC have chased out members of the cabinet into the areas outside Mogadishu, accusing them of being Warlords. All members of the Government were warlords at some point; including the leaders of the UIC. One of the so-called warlords defeated by the Jihadist group was the minister in charge of disbanding the militias!

ISLAM AND THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK

By Anwar Shaikh

There is a general misconception that Islam seeks friendly relations with the People of the Book, that is, the Jews and the Christians. In fact, Islam is hostile to the members of these religious groups as it is to idolators such as the Hindus. However, this is another matter that the Jews and the Hindus suffered terribly at the hands of Islam, but the Christians, though initially bore its brunt, eventually succeeded in steming its tide in their lands.

No matter what the adherents of Islam claim about the brotherly outlook that this religion is supposed to have toward the non-Muslims, its basic doctrine, which seeks survival through intense communal strife, cannot be hidden. The Muslim scholars know this truth very well but they deliberately resort to misinterpretation. They do so, though falsely, to demonstrate that Islam is an eternal religion, which adapts itself to all ages and circumstances. Without this stance, Islam, the advocate of ferocious social principles and practices, cannot survive; it must have a humanitarian pretence in our age, dedicated to free speech and human rights. One must remember that it is only the Islamic countries, which amputate human limbs for trivial offenses, and hang people for the most innocent criticism of the Prophet.

I may come straight to the point and demonstrate that Islam gives no real preference to the People of the Book: the said tolerance is just a euphemism without any substance at all. It is because Islam declares itself to be the only true religion, which has the duty to dominate all other faiths, and eventually abolish them. See the truth for yourself:

"And when Allah took Compact with the Prophets: That I have given you of Book and Wisdom: then there shall come to you a Messenger confirming what is with you - you shall believe in him and you shall help him; do you agree? They said, 'We do agree'. Allah said, 'bear witness so, and I shall be with you among the witnesses'. Then whosoever turns his back after that - they are ungodly." (III - The House of Imran: 75)

It is not easy to understand these verses. In a nutshell, they mean that even before people were created, Allah convened the assembly of the Prophets' (soul) and asked them to promise that they would tell the communities of their followers about the coming of Muhammad and instruct them to embrace his religion.

Obviously, Judaism and Christianity ceased to exist in principle, the moment Muhammad declared Islam. The Hadith No. 284, The Muslim, volume one, says that any Jew or Christian, who heard of Muhammad but did not convert to Islam, and died in disbelief, would rot in hell! Thus Islam withdraws from all Jews and Christians the right to believe in their faiths, and practice them as such.

The Koran goes even as far as to declare about Abraham:

"No: Abraham in truth was not a Jew, neither a Christian; but he was a Muslim and one pure of faith; certainly he was never of the idolators." (III - The House of Imran: 60)

Abraham was the Jewish patriarch; by quoting him as a Muslim i.e. the follower of Islam, Muhammad claims that he observed the Compact that he made with Allah in the Assembly that He had convened before the creation of mankind. However, there is an ambiguity in the Koranic approach, which gives the impression that Islam is tolerant of the Jews and Christians:

"Dispute not with the People of the Book save in the fairer manner, except for those of them that do wrong; and say, 'We believe in what has been sent down to us, and what has been sent down to you: Our God and your God is One, and to Him we have surrendered'." (XXIX: The Spider: 45)

These verses apparently indicate tolerance with the People of the Book i.e. the Jews and Christians. It is because at that time the Prophet was not militarily strong enough to impose his will on them. In fact, he tried a policy of carrot and stick. When persuasion failed, he told them what he thought of them:

"The unbelievers of the People of the Book and the idolators shall be in the Fire of Hell therein dwelling for ever; those are the worst of creatures. But those who believe, and do righteous deeds, those are the best of creatures..." (XCVIII: The Clear Sign: 5)

Here those Jews and Christians, who spurn Islam, have been lumped together with the idolators such as the Hindus, and classified as 'the worst of creatures'. Therefore the Koran commands:

"O believers, take not as your friends those of them, who were given the Book before you, and the unbelievers, who take your religion in mockery and as a sport..." (V: The Table: 60)

In the same sura, the Koran states the same fact more emphatically:

"O believers, take not Jews and Christians as friends; they are friends of each other. Whoso of you makes them his friends is one of them..." (V: The Tables: 55)

It means that if a Muslim makes friends with a Jew or a Christian, i.e. becomes one of them i.e. a Kafir, that is an unbeliever. The People of the Book, unless they renounce their faith, are liable to become the victims of Jehad i.e. destruction by force of arms:

"...And he brought down those of the People of the Book who supported them from their fortresses and cast terror in their hearts; some you slew, some you made captive. And He bequeathed upon you their lands, their habitations, and their possessions, and a land you never trod. Allah is powerful over everything." (XXXIII - The Confederates: 25)

The above is the description of what happened to the Jews of Khyber, who were attacked without an ultimatum of war, and this practice was also repeated against the Christian tribes of Arabia.

Of course, the Koran treats Jesus as a Prophet of God and confirms that he had been given the power to perform miracles but it defies the Christian fundamentals. For example, it refutes the doctrine of Crucifixion, which holds that God made His Son the Sacrificial Lamb to carry away the people's burdens of sin:

"...for their saying, We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the Messenger of God. Yet they did not slay him, neither crucified him, only a likeness of that was shown them... God raised him up to Him..." (IV - Women: 155)

It means that God did not allow Jesus to suffer crucifixion, which is the kernel of the Christian faith. He raised him from the cross, and replaced him with someone, who looked like Jesus. Thus Islam destroys the very foundation of Christianity. Not only that, Islam subordinates Jesus to Muhammad. The hadith No. 287 of Sahih Muslim, volume one, states:

"...the son of Mary will soon descend among you as a just judge. He will break crosses, kill swine and abolish Jeziya..."

One must try to understand the sophistication of this hadith: it means that Jesus will come to destroy crosses, that is, he will abolish Christianity; kill all swine, whose flesh Islam forbids, and eliminate Jeziya, the poll tax which the Koran imposes on non-Muslims. It demonstrates that the purpose of Christ's coming is to expunge all faiths including Christianity and Judaism, and enforce Islam for removing the need to impose Jeziya. Thus, Jesus has been allotted a subordinate role, and this in full accord with the Compact that all Prophets had made with Allah in the (imaginary) Assembly, before creation.

To prove the friendly attitude of Islam toward the Jews and Christians, it is claimed that it allows intermarriages between the Muslims and the People of the Book. It is a misrepresentation of the Islamic doctrine of marriage:

a. "Anyone of you, who has not the affluence to be able to marry believing free women in wedlock, let him take believing handmaids that your right hands own...so marry them with their people's leave, and give them their wages honorably as women in wedlock, not as license or taking lovers." (IV - Women: 25)

Here one can see whether a woman is free or a handmaid, a Muslim (man) cannot marry her unless she is a believer, that is a Muslim woman.

b. Also look at the following:

"O, Prophet, We (Allah) have made lawful for thee thy wives whom thou hast given their wages and what the right hand owns, spoil of war that Allah has given thee." (XXXIII - The Confederates: 45)

When women of the defeated foe fall into the hands of the Muslim warriors, they count as the 'Spoils of War' and become property of the conqueror. Thus, morality and respect for the fair sex go out of the window. Such unfortunate women rank as concubines. While the Roman Law during the times of Muhammad prescribed death for the master if he indulged in carnal relationship with his slave-girl, Islam permitted sexual intercourse with her at will, but did not allow marriage with her unless she embraced Islam. Being Jewish or Christian counted for nothing. The Muslim jurists who claim that Islam allows marriage between the adherents of Islam and Jewish-Christian people, have no validity in Sunnah, the practice of the Prophet. There are some precedents rooted in Muslim Spain which show that some Muslim men did marry Christian women occasionally, but it can be stated with complete certainty that a Muslim man never gave his daughter to a Christian man. This marital concession was a show of Muslim superiority, and nothing else; necessity could be another factor: Spain was a Christian country and could not be ruled by sheer brute force; some political inducement was necessary.

However, it is against the Sunnah for a Muslim man to enter into a spousal contract with any non-Muslim woman whether she be Jewish or Christian, because these people have been declared by the Koran as "the worst of creatures".

The exact number of the Prophet's concubines is not known, but he had at least two, in addition to his wives; one of them was Marya (Mary), a very pretty Coptic Christian. She bore him a son, Ibrahim, who died in infancy. In fact, they were two sisters: the other being Shirin. They were sent to Muhammad as gifts by the Egyptian governor. The Prophet gave Shirin to his grandson, Hassan, who was a boy of about thirteen at that time. At the death of Ibrahim, the Prophet remarked that, had Ibrahim lived, the Prophethood would have continued after him (Muhammad) and he would have freed his (Ibrahim's) mother and uncles!

Rihana, a Jewish girl of great beauty was another concubine of the Prophet. She belonged to the tribe of Banu Quraizah. Her husband was among those 800 unlucky Jewish men, who were beheaded with Muhammad's consent under his supervision. The Prophet offered to marry her but she would not give up her Jewish faith. So she had no choice but to become his concubine. On the contrary, Juwairya, who belonged to Banu Mustaliq, a Jewish tribe, when fell into the lot of Muhammad as his share of the war booty, he married her because she accepted Islam.

It is difficult to describe effectively in such a short article the Islamic attitude toward the People of the Book and the Kafirs such as Hindus and Sikhs. The writer intends to write a series of essays to explain the true situation.

Fatwa On The Fate Of Apostates

Below is a fatwa published on Islamonline.net on apostasy:

Q. If a Muslim leaves Islam, what do Muslims call him? And what is the Islamic prescribed sentence for the one who leaves Islam.

A. In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.


Dear questioner! Thank you very much for this question that reflects deep insight and true search for knowledge. May Allah grant you success in this life and the Hereafter.


It goes without saying that, leaving Islam is the ugliest and the worst form of disbelief (kufr) in Almighty Allah. It is technically called ridda (apostasy from Islam), and someone who leaves Islam is called a murtadd (apostate).


The Qur'an makes it clear that the one who leaves Islam, hinders people from the path of Allah and then dies as such will be a loser on the Day of Judgment. His eternal abode will be Hell, where he/she will suffer severe torture and endless chastisement. Allah will not forgive him/her, nor will any of his/her good deeds be accepted from him/her. Allah Almighty says: (Lo! Those who disbelieve and turn from the way of Allah and then die disbelievers, Allah surely will not pardon them.) (Muhammad47 :34 )


Also, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is reported to have said: "The blood of a Muslim who testifies that there is no god but Allah and that I am the Messenger of Allah is not lawful to shed unless he be one of three: a married adulterer, someone killed in retaliation for killing another, or someone who abandons his religion and the Muslim community.''

The prescribed punishment for a murtadd:


If a sane person who has reached puberty voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be punished. In such a case, it is obligatory for the caliph (or his representative) to ask him to repent and return to Islam. If he does, it is accepted from him, but if he refuses, he is immediately killed.


No one besides the caliph or his representative may kill the apostate. If someone else kills him, the killer is disciplined (for arrogating the caliph's prerogative and encroaching upon his rights, as this is one of his duties).


There is no blood money for killing an apostate (or any expiation). If he apostatizes from Islam and returns several times, his return to Islam, which occurs when he states the two Testifications of Faith, is accepted from him, although he is disciplined.


If a spouse in a consummated marriage apostatizes from Islam, the couple are separated for a waiting period (`iddah) consisting of three intervals between menstrual cycles. If the spouse returns to Islam before the waiting period ends, the marriage is not annulled but is considered to have continued the whole time.


(Based on 'The Reliance of the Traveler, by Ahmad Ibn Naqib Al-Misri, with some amendments.)


In addressing the issue of apostasy it is important to keep in mind the time, circumstances and the conditions that existed at the time of a particular ruling or judgment. Most modern governments do not apply Shari`ah law. However, this does not justify individuals taking it upon themselves to kill people if they apostatize from Islam. If this were to happen, such reckless action would only lead to a vicious circle of murder and homicide in which case a great deal of innocent people would be injured. As it stands presently, the means for dealing with apostasy are appropriate. Muslims should know that Almighty Allah has promised the apostate a severe punishment in this life, and an even greater punishment in the next life.

Allah Almighty knows best.

There Is No Compulsion In Religion…Or Is There?

Freedom, by definition, includes the freedom to renounce your faith and adopt another (or none at all). An absolutely infuriating story in The Times notes that while Christians who convert to Islam are tolerated and even celebrated, Muslims who convert to Christianity - in Britain, not the Middle East - are putting their lives at risk:

While those who convert to Islam, such as Cat Stevens, Jemima Khan, and the sons of the Frank Dobson, the former Health Secretary, and Lord Birt, the former BBC Director-General, can publicly celebrate their new religion, those whose faith goes in the other direction face persecution. Mr Hussein, a 39-year-old hospital nurse in Bradford, is one of a growing number of former Muslims in Britain who face not just being shunned by family and community, but attacked, kidnapped, and in some cases killed. There is even a secret underground network to support and protect those who leave Islam. One estimate suggests that as many as 15 per cent of Muslims in Western societies have lost their faith, which would mean that in Britain there are about 200,000 apostates.

For police, religious authorities and politicians, it is an issue so sensitive that they are accused by victims of refusing to respond to appeals for help. It is a problem that, with the crisis of identity in Islam since September 11, seems to be getting worse as Muslims feel more threatened.

Muslims who lose their faith face execution or imprisonment, in line with traditional Muslim teaching, in many Islamic countries, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and Yemen. In the Netherlands, the former Muslim MP Ayan Hirsi Ali had to go into hiding after renouncing her faith on television.

The Prince of Wales recently held a meeting with religious leaders to consider ways to stop former Muslims being persecuted in other countries, but Britain itself is also affected.

Mr Hussein told The Times: “It’s been absolutely appalling. This is England — where I was born and raised. You would never imagine Christians would suffer in such a way.”

The police have not charged anyone, but told him to leave the area. “We feel completely isolated, utterly helpless. I have been utterly failed by the authorities. If it was white racists attacking an Asian guy, there would be an absolute outcry,” he said. “They are trying to ethnically cleanse me out of my home. I feel I have to make a stand as an Asian Christian.”

Yasmin, who was raised in the North of England, has been forced out of her town once, and is now trying to resist being chased out again. Brought up in a Muslim family, she converted after having a vision of Jesus when she gave birth to her youngest son, and was baptised in her thirties.. “My family completely disowned me. They thought I had committed the biggest sin — I was born a Muslim, and so I must die a Muslim. When my husband found out, he totally disowned my sons. One friend tried to strangle me when I told him I was converting,” she said.

“We had bricks though our windows, I was spat at in the street because they thought I was dishonouring Islam. We had to call the police so many times. I had to go to court to get an injunction against my husband because he was inciting others to attack me.”

She fled to another part of Britain, but the attacks soon started again as locals found out about her. “I wasn’t going to leave again,” she said, adding that it was the double standards of her attackers that made her most angry. “They are such hypocrites — they want us to be tolerant of everything they want, but they are intolerant of everything about us.”

Why I Left Islam

I am often asked, Why I left Islam?. As absurd as it may be, some Muslims cannot even allow themselves to think that leaving Islam is an option, or even possible. They rather think that those who leave Islam are paid Jewish agents than accept the fact that people have freedom to think and some may even think that Islam is not for them. The following are my reasons.

Not until few years ago I used to think that my faith in Islam was not based on blind imitation but rather was the result of years of investigation and research. The fact that I had read a lot of books on Islam, written by people whose thoughts I approved of and delving into philosophies that were within my comfort zone, emphasized my conviction that I had found the truth. All my bias research confirmed my faith. Just like other Muslims I used to believe that to learn about anything one has to go to the source. Of course the source of Islam is Quran and the books written by Muslim scholars. Therefore, I felt no need to look elsewhere in order to find the truth, as I was convinced that I have already found it. As Muslims say “Talabe ilm ba’d az wossule ma’loom mazmoom”. The search of knowledge after gaining it is foolish

Of course, this is a foolish idea. What if we want to learn the truth about one of these dangerous cults? Is it enough to depend only on what the cult leader and his deluded followers say? Wouldn’t it be prudent to widen our research and find out what other people have to say about them? Going to the source makes sense only in scientific matters, because scientists are not “believers”. They do not say something because they have blind faith. Scientists make a critical analysis of the evidence. It is very much different from religious approach that is based entirely on faith and belief.

I suppose it was my acquaintance with the western humanistic values that made me more sensitive and whet my appetite for democracy, freethinking, human rights, equality, etc. It was then that when I read again Quran I came across injunctions that were not al par with my newfound humanistic values, I was distressed and felt very uncomfortable to read teachings like these.

Q.3: 5
”But those who reject Faith after they accepted it, and then go on adding to their defiance of Faith,- never will their repentance be accepted; for they are those who have gone astray”.

Q.16: 106
”Any one who, after accepting faith in Allah, utters Unbelief,- except under compulsion, his heart remaining firm in Faith - but such as open their breast to Unbelief, on them is Wrath from Allah, and theirs will be a dreadful Penalty.”

One may think that the dreadful penalty mentioned here pertains to the next word. But Muhammad made sure that these people received their penalty in this world as well. See the following:

Sahih Bukhari Volume 6, Book 61, Number 577:

I heard the Prophet saying, "In the last days (of the world) there will appear young people with foolish thoughts and ideas. They will give good talks, but they will go out of Islam as an arrow goes out of its game, their faith will not exceed their throats. So, wherever you find them, kill them, for there will be a reward for their killers on the Day of Resurrection."

Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 63, Number 260:

Ali burnt some people and this news reached Ibn 'Abbas, who said, "Had I been in his place I would not have burnt them, as the Prophet said, 'Don't punish (anybody) with Allah's Punishment.' No doubt, I would have killed them, for the Prophet said, 'If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him.' "

Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 63, Number 261:

Eight men of the tribe of 'Ukil came to the Prophet and then they found the climate of Medina unsuitable for them. So, they said, "O Allah's Apostle! Provide us with some milk." Allah's Apostle said, "I recommend that you sh ould join the herd of camels." So they went and drank the urine and the milk of the camels (as a medicine) till they became healthy and fat. Then they killed the shepherd and drove away the camels, and they became unbelievers after they were Muslims. When the Prophet was informed by a shouter for help, he sent some men in their pursuit, and before the sun rose high, they were brought, and he had their hands and feet cut off. Then he ordered for nails, which were heated and passed over their eyes, and they were left in the Harra (i.e. rocky land in Medina). They asked for water, and nobody provided them with water till they died.

And from Partial Translation of Sunan Abu-Dawud Book 38, Number 4339

Narrated Aisha, Ummul Mu'minin:
The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) Said: The blood of a Muslim man who testifies that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle should not lawfully be shed except only for one of three reasons: a man who committed fornication after marriage, in which case he should be stoned; one who goes forth to fight with Allah and His Apostle, in which case he should be killed or crucified or exiled from the land; or one who commits murder for which he is killed.

The following is very disturbing. I dare to say any man who read it and is not taken aback with disgust has a long way to go to become a human.

Sunan Abu-Dawud Book 38, Number 4348

”Narrated Abdullah Ibn Abbas:
A blind man had a slave-mother who used to abuse the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) and disparage him. He forbade her but she did not stop. He rebuked her but she did not give up her habit. One night she began to slander the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) and abuse him. So he took a dagger, placed it on her belly, pressed it, and killed her. A child who came between her legs was smeared with the blood that was there. When the morning came, the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) was informed about it.
He assembled the people and said: I adjure by Allah the man who has done this action and I adjure him by my right to him that he should stand up. Jumping over the necks of the people and trembling the man stood up.
He sat before the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) and said: Apostle of Allah! I am her master; she used to abuse you and disparage you. I forbade her, but she did not stop, and I rebuked her, but she did not abandon her habit. I have two sons like pearls from her, and she was my companion. Last night she began to abuse and disparage you. So I took a dagger, put it on her belly and pressed it till I killed her.
Thereupon the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: Oh be witness, no retaliation is payable for her blood".

I felt the above story was a manifest injustice. Muhammad condoned a man killing a pregnant mother and his own unborn child just because he said that she insulted him!?

(Arabs used to sleep with their maid slaves. Quran perpetuates this tradition Q.33: 52 “It is not lawful for thee (to marry more) women after this, nor to change them for (other) wives, even though their beauty attract thee, except any thy right hand should possess (as handmaidens): and Allah doth watch over all things.” Muhammad himself slept with Mariyah the maid slave of Hafsa his wife without marrying her.)

Forgiving someone for killing another human being just because he said she insulted Muhammad is unacceptable. What if that man was lying to escape punishment? What dose this story say about Muhammad’s sense of Justice? Imagine how many innocent women, were killed by their husbands during these 1400 years who escaped punishment accusing their murdered wives of blaspheming the prophet of God and this Hadith has made them get away with it.

Here is another one.

Sunan Abu-Dawud Book 38, Number 4349

Narrated Ali ibn AbuTalib:
A Jewess used to abuse the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) and disparage him. A man strangled her till she died. The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) declared that no recompense was payable for her blood.

It was not easy to read these stories and not be moved. There is no reason to believe that all these stories were fabricated. Why should believers, who have tried to depict their prophet as a compassionate man fabricate so many stories that would make him look like ruthless tyrant?

I could no more accept the brutal treatment of those who chose not to accept Islam. Faith is a personal matter. I could no more accept that the punishment of someone who criticizes any religion must be death.

See how Muhammad dealt with the unbelievers.

Sunan Abu-Dawud Book 38, Number 4359

Narrated Abdullah ibn Abbas:
The verse "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Apostle, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite side or exile from the land...most merciful" was revealed about polytheists. If any of them repents before they are arrested, it does not prevent from inflicting on him the prescribed punishment, which he deserves.”

How could a messenger of God maim and crucify people on the account that they resist accepting him? Could such person be really a messenger of God? Wasn’t there a better man with more moral an ethical fortitude to bear this mighty responsibility?

I could not accept the fact that Muhammad slaughtered 900 Jews in one day, after he captured them in a raid that he started. I read the following story and I shivered.

Sunan Abu-Dawud Book 38, Number 4390

Narrated Atiyyah al-Qurazi:
I was among the captives of Banu Qurayzah. They (the Companions) examined us, and those who had begun to grow hair (pubes) were killed, and those who had not were not killed. I was among those who had not grown hair

Also I found following story shocking.

Sunan Abu-Dawud Book 38, Number 4396

Narrated Jabir ibn Abdullah:
A thief was brought to the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him). He said: Kill him. The people said: He has committed theft, Apostle of Allah! Then he said: Cut off his hand. So his (right) hand was cut off. He was brought a second time and he said: Kill him. The people said: He has committed theft, Apostle of Allah! Then he said: Cut off his foot.
So his (left) foot was cut off.
He was brought a third time and he said: Kill him.
The people said: He has committed theft, Apostle of Allah!
So he said: Cut off his hand. (So his (left) hand was cut off.)
He was brought a fourth time and he said: Kill him.
The people said: He has committed theft, Apostle of Allah!
So he said: Cut off his foot. So his (right) foot was cut off.
He was brought a fifth time and he said: Kill him.
So we took him away and killed him. We then dragged him and cast him into a well and threw stones over him.

Seems that Muhammad passed judgment before hearing the case. Also by cutting a thief’s hand he is left with no other means to earn his bread except begging, which would be difficult since he is defamed as a thief and so hated by people. Therefore re-offending becomes his only means of livelihood.

After living many years in the West and being received kindly by people of other religions or of no religion, who loved me and accepted me as their friend; who let me into their lives and their heart. I could no more accept the following mandates of Quran as the words of God.

Q.58: 22
“You will not find any people who believe in Allaah and the Last Day, making friendship with those who oppose Allaah and His Messenger…”

Q.3: 118-120
“O you who believe! Take not as (your) bitaanah (advisors, consultants, protectors, helpers, friends, etc.) those outside your religion (pagans, Jews, Christians, and hypocrites) since they will not fail to do their best to corrupt you. They desire to harm you severely. Hatred has already appeared from their mouths, but what their breasts conceal is far worse. Indeed We have made clear to you the aayaat (proofs, evidence, verses), if you understand. Lo! You are the ones who love them but they love you not, and you believe in all the Scriptures [i.e., you believe in the Tawraat and the Injeel, while they disbelieve in your Book (the Qur’aan)]. And when they meet you, they say, ‘We believe.’ But when they are alone, they bite the tips of their fingers at you in rage. Say: ‘Perish in your rage. Certainly Allaah knows what is in the breasts (all the secrets).’ If a good befalls you, it grieves them, but some evil overtakes you, they rejoice at it…”

And

Q.5: 51
“O you who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians as awliya’ (friends, protectors, helpers, etc.), they are but awliya’ to one another…”

I also found the above statement false. The evidence is in the Bosnia and Kosovo crisis; where Christian countries, waged war against another Christian country, to liberate Muslims. Many Jewish doctors volunteered to help the Kosovar refugees, despite the fact that during the WWII, the same Albanian Muslims took side with Hitler and helped him in his holocaust against the Jews.

It became obvious to me that Muslims are accepted by all the people of the world yet our prophet wants us to hate them, to disassociate ourselves from them, to force them into our way of life or kill them, subdue them and make them pay Jizya. How silly! How pathetic! How inhumane! No wonder there is so much inexplicable hate of the West and of the Jews among Muslims. It was Muhammad who inseminated the hate and the distrust of the non-believers among his followers. How Muslims can ever integrate with other nations while holding these hateful massages of Quran as the words of God?

There are many Muslims who immigrate to non-Muslim countries and are received with open arms. Many of them get into politics and become part of the ruling elite. We suffer no discrimination in the non-Islamic countries. But see how our holy prophet tells us to deal with non-Muslims were we are the majority.

Q.9: 29
”Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”

I also find the following verses completely against my conscience. I love all humanity and wish everyone to be happy in this world and forgiven in the next. But my holy prophet bade me not to seek forgiveness for the unbelievers even if they are my parents and beloved ones.

(Interpretation of the meaning by Muhsin Khan):

Q.9: 113
“It is not (proper) for the Prophet and those who believe to ask Allaah’s forgiveness for the mushrikeen, even though they be of kin, after it has become clear to them that they are the dwellers of the Fire (because they died in state of disbelief).”

Quarn and Ahadith are full of outrageous verses like these that to me are clear proof that Muhammad was not a prophet, but a cult leader. To force people to denounce their own family is what cults do. He was an impostor who lied so loudly and so forcefully that the ignorant people of his time believed in him. Then the following generations echoed this lies passing it to the next. Philosophers and writers were born in this atmosphere of lies and elaborated on it, embellished it, and made it credible. But when you go to the core of it, when you read Quran and study the Ahadith you see it is nothing but lie.

I know my words can be upsetting. But I urge you, to take control of your anger, read my other articles and muse on them.

As you see my rejection of Islam is not based on the bad deeds of Muslims but on the bad deeds of its author. All the cruelties and heinous acts of violence, perpetrated by Muslims throughout the centuries were inspired by Quran and Sunnah (the example of the prophet) That is why I condemn Islam for the bad things that Muslims do. I know any effort to humanize the Islamic community is a waste of time. The enemy is Islam and that is the target of my attacks. I do that despite having become the magnet of the hatred of all fanatical Muslims. There is no gain in this for me. The only reason I am so adamant against Islam is to liberate the world from the claws of this satanic cult and restore peace and prosperity, love and amity amongst the children of man.

By. Ali Sina

Leaving Islam

Thousands have left Islam behind along with other childish beliefs from FatherChristmas to the Tooth Fairy. A few courageous souls have not only resistedthe "irresistible" but braving family and friends, social ostracism, mobviolence, and state assassinations and executions, have also come out ofthe closet, and have made their unbelief a matter of public record: SalmanRushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali,Taslima Nasrin, Anwar Shaikh, Ali Sina, Mahmoud,Syed Mirza Ali, Mohsen, to name some of them.

I wish to encourageex-Muslims to declare themselves, to liberate themselves, to make them takeconscience of the fact that there are many who think like them, and who havetaken the same lonely road to rationalism, and humanism.