IS PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE BETWEEN MUSLIM EXTREMISTS AND THE REST OF THE WORLD POSSIBLE?

IS PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE BETWEEN MUSLIM EXTREMISTS AND THE REST OF THE WORLD POSSIBLE? 


ISIS - Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham

Stes de Necker

A militarily dominant Islam, without doubt, precludes peaceful co-existence with the unbelievers if the Muslims have to abide strictly by the unalterable stipulations of the Qur’an. This is why we see very few “moderate” Muslims coming out and speaking against the violence.

The Qur’an certainly proclaims that when the time is appropriate, Muslims must use force to convert the unbelievers to Islam. For the non-Muslims, the alternative to this is to pay the humiliating protection money (Jizya tax) or be killed (by beheading, of course).

This is what the Koran says about the infidels:

1. Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them (2:191)
2. Make war on the infidels living in your neighbourhood (9:123)
3. When opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you catch them (9:5)
4. Kill the Jews and the Christians if they do not convert to Islam or refuse to pay Jizya tax (9:29)
5. Any religion other than Islam is not acceptable (3:85)
6. The Jews and the Christians are perverts; fight them (9:30)
7. Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticise Islam. (5:33)
8. The infidels are unclean; do not let them into a mosque (9:28)
9. Punish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron rods, boiling water; melt their skin and bellies (22:19)
10. Do not hanker for peace with the infidels; behead them when you catch them (47:4)
11. The unbelievers are stupid; urge the Muslims to fight them (8:65)
12. Muslims must not take the infidels as friends (3:28)
13. Terrorise and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur’an (8:12)
14. Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorize the infidels (8:60)

The Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), follows a distinctive variety of Islam whose beliefs about the path to the Day of Judgment matter to its strategy, and can help the West know its enemy and predict its behavior.

Its rise to power is less like the triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (a group whose leaders the Islamic State considers apostates) than like the realization of a dystopian alternate reality in which David Koresh or Jim Jones survived to wield absolute power over not just a few hundred people, but some 8 million.

The most-articulate spokesmen for that position are the Islamic State’s officials and supporters themselves. They refer derisively to “moderns.” In conversation, they insist that they will not—cannot—waver from governing precepts that were embedded in Islam by the Prophet Muhammad and his earliest followers.

They often speak in codes and allusions that sound odd or old-fashioned to non-Muslims, but refer to specific traditions and texts of early Islam.

To take one example: In September, Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the Islamic State’s chief spokesman, called on Muslims in Western countries such as France and Canada to find an infidel and “smash his head with a rock,” poison him, run him over with a car, or “destroy his crops.”

To Western ears, the biblical-sounding punishments—the stoning and crop destruction—juxtaposed strangely with his more modern-sounding call to vehicular homicide.

But Adnani was not merely talking trash. His speech was laced with theological and legal discussion, and his exhortation to attack crops directly echoed orders from Muhammad to leave well water and crops alone—unless the armies of Islam were in a defensive position, in which case Muslims in the lands of kuffar, or infidels, should be unmerciful, and poison away.

In September 2015, Louis Farrakhan, one of the Muslim leaders, calls for 10,000 Volunteers to kill ‘White People’.

Farrakhan called for the outright murder of people who have less melatonin in their skin than he does!

"Death is sweeter than watching us slaughter each other to the joy of a 400 year old enemy. Death is sweet. The Quran teaches persecution is worse than slaughter."

In appealing to the Koran, Farrakhan said, "Retaliation is a prescription from God to calm the breasts of those whose children have been slain. So if the federal government will not intercede in our affairs, then we must rise up and kill those who kill us. Stalk them and kill them and let them feel the pain of death that we are feeling."

The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic.

Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.

Virtually every major decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates, stationery, and coins, “the Prophetic methodology,” which means following the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail.

Centuries have passed since the wars of religion ceased in Europe, and since men stopped dying in large numbers because of arcane theological disputes. Hence, perhaps, the incredulity and denial with which Westerners have greeted news of the theology and practices of the Islamic State.

Many refuse to believe that this group is as devout as it claims to be, or as backward-looking or apocalyptic as its actions and statements suggest.

Their skepticism is comprehensible. In the past, Westerners who accused Muslims of blindly following ancient scriptures came to deserved grief from academics—notably the late Edward Said—who pointed out that calling Muslims “ancient” was usually just another way to denigrate them. Look instead, these scholars urged, to the conditions in which these ideologies arose—the bad governance, the shifting social mores, the humiliation of living in lands valued only for their oil.

Hastened by our earlier indifference, we are now meeting the Islamic State via Kurdish and Iraqi proxy on the battlefield, and with regular air assaults.

Those strategies haven’t dislodged the Islamic State from any of its major territorial possessions, although they’ve kept it from directly assaulting Baghdad and Erbil and slaughtering Shia and Kurds there.

Muslims can say that slavery is not legitimate now, and that crucifixion is wrong at this historical juncture. Many say precisely this. But they cannot condemn slavery or crucifixion outright without contradicting the Koran and the example of the Prophet.

“The only principled ground that the Islamic State’s opponents could take is to say that certain core texts and traditional teachings of Islam are no longer valid,”

That really would be an act of apostasy.

These Muslim extremists believe that they are personally involved in struggles beyond their own lives, and that merely to be swept up in the drama, on the side of righteousness, is a privilege and a pleasure—especially when it is also a burden.

The rest of the world and in particular the west, needs to get acquainted with the Islamic State’s intellectual genealogy if we are to react in a way that will not strengthen it, but instead help it self-immolate in its own excessive zeal.

Of the current 22 world conflicts around the world, 21 (95%) are Muslim related.

This may sound like propaganda because it sounds so farfetched.  It isn’t.  Check your own world map. (http:/www.religioustolerance.org/curr_war.htm)

Radical Islam has spread a scourge of violence around the globe that otherwise simply wouldn’t exist.  It is time for the West to put an end to this horror.  The first step is to destroy Iran as the world leader of Islamic violence.

As long as Iran threatens the world with nuclear Islamic fundamentalism there is simply no way to quash the continuing outbreak of Islamic violence worldwide.  The Western democracies should crush the atavistic and xenophobic leader of this retreat from civilization.

If Iran is convincingly neutralized, it’s possible that the rest of the radical Islamic movements will realize that the way to accomplish their aspirations is through peaceful coexistence.  Otherwise the monomaniacal dream of global Islamic domination will continue to destabilize the world until an apocalyptic result ensues.

The latest catastrophic, meaningless Islamic bloodletting is occurring in Kyrgyzstan.  The Russians want no part of it and won’t intervene. “You can’t mess with shit without gettin’ it on you.”  The Russians have learned that the hard way from both Afghanistan and Bosnia.

How long will we continue to allow these murderous bullies to set back the momentum of world progress?

Two of the world’s current “hot spots” which have as their base a significant component of religious intolerance are:

Afghanistan:   Extreme radical Fundamentalist Muslim terrorist groups & non-Muslim Osama bin Laden heads a terrorist group called Al Quada (The Source) whose headquarters were in Afghanistan.

Bosnia:  Serbian Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholic, Muslims 

So, is peaceful co-existence between Muslim extremists and the rest of the world possible?

In my opinion the answer is glaringly obvious ... NO.