There are a lot of Michael Moore's on the left these days

[johnb]

http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/105528/index.php

Amerikkkan Dog Fallujahed As the Occupiers Continue to Disrespect Iraqi Women

[johnb]

You can see the video, if you can stand it off a link on:

http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/

Everything you need to know about Islam is right there.

The murderers referred to Bush as a "Christian dog". It indicates what it is that truly offends them, non-Muslims in a position of power over Muslims. That is contrary to the "natural order" of things in the Koran, the Haddith's and the 1000 year old sacralized biographies of Mohammed that form the basis for the Muslim ideology. In a Muslim dominated nation the ritual decapitation, the repression, and the mayhem directed at non-Muslims is the norm as evidenced by the historical record going back to day one.

The bloodiest story in the known history of mankind is that of the Muslim assault/invasion of India. The Muslims slaughtered Hindu's in battle, in mass decapitations, and as an everyday norm. While India is still "unfinished business" for the jihadii's we too are in their crosshairs. Beware of Muslims fervently practicing their religion, someone usually dies in the process. So demands the Koran and the Haddith's.

[Anonymous]

Consider the following, written in the week following 9/11

Knowing a bit of background helps to explain what brought us to this situation. Bin Laden's men are not just Muslims but also Islamists. Islam (a religion) is not the problem, but Islamism (a totalitarian ideology) is. Islamism is not so much a distortion of Islam, but a radically new interpretation. It politicises the religion, turning it into a blueprint for establishing a coerced utopia. In many ways, its programme resembles those of fascism and Marxism/Leninism.

This week's events mark not the outbreak of a new problem but the heightening of a two-decade-long pattern of Islamist violence. That violence is a truly global phenomenon, affecting such varied countries as Algeria, Pakistan, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Philippines. Islamists constitute a small but significant minority of Muslims, perhaps 10 to 15 per cent of the population. Many of them are peaceable in appearance, but they all must be considered potential killers.

Here is some guidance, starting with steps to take to protect the rights of the Muslim minority:

* Maintain the utmost respect for individual Muslims, mosques and other institutions. A time of crisis does not change the assumption that each of us is innocent until proved guilty.

* Do not make any prejudicial statements against Muslims, a great majority of whom are innocent of Islamism or illegal behaviour.

* Provide extra protection against acts of vandalism or hooliganism against Muslim property and individuals.

* The press, politicians and other opinion leaders should speak out on these points.

I'd also like to point out the indymedia thread was not well received by the "leftists" who post there. The initial poster has inhumane and dangerous ideas not shared by the overwhelming majority of the community. In fact, he sounds a lot like some other extremists I know.

"...the Air Force/Navy better be drawing up plans to barbeque that pagan shrine of theirs in Mecca to let these animals know that if we have to, we can and will incinerate everyone of them..." - John Barbara 28 June 2004

[Mark]

Mine.

Thanks for fixing whatever it was that needed fixing Don - things appear to be functioning normally.

[johnb]

Mark,

People who take Michael Moore's movie seriously really have lost all credibility.

Let's review some basic facts you like to ignore.

1-While not all Muslims are terrorists, almost all terrorists and terrorist organizations today are Muslims.

2-At almost every single border where Islam comes in contact with non-Muslims those non-Muslims are subjected to terrorism, persecution, and even attempted genocide. (Nigeria, Sudan, Chechenya, India, Israel, Bosnia, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc...)

3-While the percentage of Muslims who are Islamists is small, estimated to be between 10-15% of Muslims, 10% of 1 billion is a lot of potential terrorists.

4-The number of Muslims who are not themselves willing to pick up a gun and murder a non-Muslim but tolerant of and agreeing with the arguments of the Islamofascists is significantly larger.

5-There is no theological counterbalance, the imaged "moderate Muslim". The Jihadiis have based the justification for their actions strictly on the source texts for the Islamic religion, they represent an authentic interpretation of Islam. I have yet to see you or anyone else articulate a strategy to humanize Islam. How would one "reform" Islam to the point where Muslim majority states recognize and protect the right of Muslims to renounce Islam in favor of another religion or no religion? According to the Shari'a it can't be done, that apostate must be put to death. That is the irreformable, uncorrupted word of their moon god, al-Illah. How would that work Mark?

6-Bin Laden himself noted the obvious, that people love the strong horse. Meaning, people love the winner, but also that in the Middle East only strength is respected. Within the framework of Islam tolerance for other religions cannot exist. Point blank. Furthermore, once dominant the Islamic source texts (Koran, Sunnah (haddiths) and the 1000 year old sacralized biographies of Mohammed) commands the believers to further repress their victims, kick 'em while they're down. You will note that in the rant the masked terrorists gave prior to murdering that American contractor they referred to Bush as a "Christian dog". Contemplate that. The end goal of their demands is the reduction of non-Muslims everywhere to the status of dhimmitude. Are you willing to pay the slave tax? If you're an atheist, are you willing to have your throat slit? Christians and Jews pay the tax, polytheists and atheists get slaughtered. That's Islam Mark and there are 14 centuries of history to demonstrate it's past application.

These Islamofascists will only respect a show of force so overwhelming that there is no mistaking the fact that they have just gotten whipped senseless. As a demonstration of American resolve to protect the world from Islamofascism I think the following steps should be taken.

1-Fallujah gets sealed off. The people are instructed to leave the city or be considered hostile. Allow any and all who want into Fallujah to enter. Announce a timeframe for the evacuation and compel those who wish to leave to approach the Marines and soldiers without weapons and on foot with their hands in the air and bringing nothing but the clothes they are wearing.

After the expiration, firebomb Fallujah the way we did Dresden in 1944. Light it up so as to vaporize all who remain and destroy everything therein. Broadcast it on al-Jazeerah.

2-Encircle Najaf. Same circumstances. Do not allow al-Sadr out.

Vaporize it.

3-Leave Iraq.

4-Remove all US consulates and personnel from the Arab nations, leaving only small embassies with minimal staff and no dependents allowed. Issue travel restrictions for Americans not allowing direct transport from here to there. If they go they need to understand they're on their own and they're entering a 7th century hell hole. We need to minimize the exposure of Americans to the barbarians.

5-Put them on notice that if they persist in attacking Americans or American interests the US Air Force will melt Mecca in a Daisy Cutter induced holocaust.

6-Bar entry to US by Muslims much like we once barred Nazis and Communists. We have no obligation to allow the purveyors of hostile ideologies hell bent on destroying the US Constitution into this nation. If they want in, let them renounce the ideology in public.

7-Set the FBI out to round up and evict from this nation all citizens of regimes hostile to US interests and as a default that should be all Muslim states. It should be incumbent upon the individual to prove they are not a threat to the people of America. There are Islamist radicals preaching openly in mosques all throughout the West. There are Islamist radicals who've lied about their alleigiance and affiliations to get into America. There are Islamist radicals here to recruit jihadiis and cash for their war on civilization. None of us would assume a member of the Klan is a decent human being who believes in the equality of all men. His group affiliation is a pretty solid indictment against that. Likewise, anyone who subscribes to an ideology *** religion that demands the enslavement of non-members should be treated no differently.

8-Terminate all US aid to the Arab states.

I don't give a **** whether they live in dictatorships or mullah led theocracies. I don't care whether they butcher each other in numbers large or small. Sunnis can exterminate Shi'ites can exterminate Allawites can exterminate Sufis can exterminate Druze. I don't care. Set up cameras and put it on pay per view for all I care.

However, they can NEVER again be allowed or tolerated to harm Americans. Since they have demonstrated the only language they understand is the one spoken to them when they have a boot on their throat and a gun pointed at their heads, fine.

Islam is incompatible with the rule of law, secular government, the equal rights of women, religious liberty, and peace as the West understands it. In Islam "peace" is the supermacy of Islam, the repression of non-Muslims, the enslavement of women under a hijab, and the institution of Shari'a.

I don't believe in utopian fantasies. Islam is not a thing of the same type and caliber as Presbyterianism. It is a political system, a religion, a legal system, and a government designed for a people of war. It was craft for conquest. The price of peace from Islam is eternal vigilance, just as it was against Communism and Fascism.

[johnb]

About Indymedia, Mark if you've spent any time at all on those boards you know the truth. The people who wrote the messages attacking the original poster were not leftists. The site was linked to by a conservative web page and it was conservatives who wrote the messages denouncing the original post.

The leftists were strangely silent.

The Indymedia boards across America are loaded with leftists spouting Jew hating, Michael Moore inspired conspriacy rants than any outlet I've seen on the web. There hasn't been a terrorist act committed that would cause the leftists to flinch in their anti-Bush, anti-American attitudes. Most are so convinced of the inherent evil of America, the west, capitalism, and Christianity that one has to wonder how they manage to tolerate life in the US.

[johnb]

Here is some guidance, starting with steps to take to protect the rights of the Ku Klux Klan minority:

* Maintain the utmost respect for individual Klansmen, cross burnings, and other institutions. A time of crisis does not change the assumption that each of us is innocent until proved guilty.

* Do not make any prejudicial statements against Klansmen, a great majority of whom are innocent of lynchings or illegal behaviour.

* Provide extra protection against acts of vandalism or hooliganism against Klan property and individuals.

* The press, politicians and other opinion leaders should speak out on these points.

Anyway, that is meaningless. What individual Muslims may or may not believe about Islam has no value. It is the ideology itself that is the threat. We did not imprison people for believing in Marx's bloodthirsty ideology. We treated the ideology as a threat. Those who embraced an ideology that called for the overthrow of the US Constitution indicted themselves. It isn't my responsibility or yours to suspend logic and assume that every individual who joins the Klan is free of racist beliefs until they say or do something beyond joining the Klan to prove it. Declaring membership in the organization itself does that. It is up to the individual Klansman to prove he isn't a racist. Likewise, since Islam calls for the death of apostates, death for non-Muslims who convert a Muslim to another religion, and death to non-Muslims who "slander" Islam (denouncing their prophet Mohammed for being a murderer or child molestor for instance, which he was) it is up to Muslims to prove they aren't intolerant religious bigots.

Mark, if I founded a religion which demanded the overthrow of the US Constitution and the imposition of my own personal theology as law of the land in the US to include repression of non-members, compelling non-members to pay a special tax, to prohibit non-members from speaking in public about their religion, to grant members special legal status above and beyond that of non-members, the right to ritually kill non-members who opposed my religion, and other such "rights", would you suppose those who knew this and still joined were no threat to you and should be free of suspicion regarding their intentions?

Why not?

[Mark]

Frankly John, I'm not going to read most of your rubbish anymore. You're scared of Islam, it threatens you, it might even want to get your kids. Go pick up a gun, use your training, and raise some hell. Anything but sit around in your pajamas crying wolf. I will not for long take seriously someone who chooses to do nothing about what he considers the most serious issue and serious threat to humanity.

Anyway, the quote in my initial post was from Daniel Pipes. Gasp. Your hero. A man who is at least intelligent enough to see that Islam is a religion, all it's members are not deserving of death, and only in some interpretations does it take on an unsavory political dimension.

"But it doesn't matter," you'd say, "it's all right there in the book." Yeah, yeah, heard it all before. There exists in the books of the West much that is detestable too - thankfully people have chosen to ignore it. It's true, there are people who name themselves as Christians, Muslims, or what have you, that more or less agree with the basic pretexts of their faith, think the focal person generally has the right idea about leading a good life but reject much of the details of their faith's teachings.

It's the people, not the heads, of any faith that do make the difference. It's activist, justice seeking, bishops in Latin America that make Catholicism worth anything to me, its official doctrines leave, shall we say, much to be desired. It's reasonable everyday folks that I used to work with at Habitat that cancel out the fundamentalist baptists that are trying to change the U.S. constitution as much as any foreign terrorist group. The mere existence of a billion Muslims in the world provides counterbalance to the extremism within itself. In particular the millions living peacefully in relatively stable and prosperous states - of which the U.S. is but one of the smaller examples.

Now, your point is well taken that there may be a potentially large pool of Muslims that subscribe to its more fundamentalist interpretations, and who might be considered threatening. The reason we're not going to round them up, the reason that doesn't work, is two fold. 1 - You're not getting all of them. 2 - It is an overtly racist, or at least ultranationalist, policy that declares that your life is more important than innocent life of another group. And, frankly, it's not. It is worth, at most, the same as anyone else's.

Similarly when you write, "would you suppose those who knew this and still joined were no threat to you and should be free of suspicion regarding their intentions?" I'd have to agree. You'd be right to be suspicious, but you'd be wrong to round them up, detain them, ship them off, or kill them. You're still failing to demonstrate why it's Muslims alone that should be subject to such treatment. Most incidents of terrorism in the U.S. in the past have nothing to do with Islam. Nearly all of it was perpetrated by white men. Somehow though, no one is detaining me for looking suspicious around here. Japanese Americans were hardly the threat people made them out to be, same too with the outlawing of communist groups, not much threat, no real effect. Why is it not up to Christians to prove that they don't think homosexuality is evil and that gays are better off burning in hell? There is strict scriptual support for such a position. Thinking that your God will punish someone for you and wanting to do it yourself are different, but closer than most people would admit.

Anyway, I posted my first reply to challenge your tone, if not your words, that are, as always, an indictment of all Islam. Mr. Pipes doesn't think that's appropriate, and I know you value his opinion more than you do mine. I don't really think all republicans are gay-hating, environment destroying, greedy people though, curiously, no one here really challenged that assertion last time I made it. And why don't I think that? Because individuals can look at the official policies of the party, here the plank is analogous to the book, and find it odious, or simply ignore it. I'm not so authoritarian to think that the rules must always be upheld, or that people lack free will.

Finally, if you respond to nothing else in this post, I'm curious about this. Why the insistence on the use of "moon god?" Is it just pejorative? You full well know when Allah came into use, why it did so, what it means, and that it is the name of God, singular, unified, and complete, in the religion. Is it simply because you hate Islam, the religion? It's ok if you do, just let me know so I can stop wasting my time with this.

[johnb]

Finally, if you respond to nothing else in this post, I'm curious about this. Why the insistence on the use of "moon god?"

To demonstrate your complete lack of knowledge of Islam.

Mecca was a religious center long before Mohammed. The Kaaba was a shrine attracting pilgrims for centuries prior to the flight to Medina. The pre-Islamic folk religion of Arabia was centered on a diety they referred to as the al-illah. Al-Illah had two consorts, if you know ANYTHING about Islam Mark you would connect that to the Satanic Verses (Salman Rushdie). I doubt you do since you have yet to demonstrate any level of understanding for the religion beyond what can be read off bumper stickers. Al-Illah was the construct upon which Mohammed build his religion, rather than overthrow the Meccan pilgrimage trade he co-opted it. The god of Islam is not the God of Judaism and Christianity. Al-Illah was a diety associated with the moon and the Kaaba is literally an asteroid.

Before you pontificate anymore about how peaceful Islam is it would behoove you to actually learn something about it. Pipes' position concerns dealings with individuals on the part of non-Muslims. That I have no disagreement with. Neither you nor I have cause to harm them. The FBI has cause place them in the same class as it would white supremacists, anarchists, and the NOI however. For non-American citizens that subscribe to violent ideologies that should mean immediate deportation to their homeland. We did it to members of the Nazi Party after WWII. Your
argument about the Japanese is pointless. Being of Japanese desent is an immutable characteristic and tells us nothing about the individuals beliefs. Voluntarily joining a particular religion is NOT an immutable characteristic, no one is "born" any such thing. People choose or refuse to embrace a theology. That actually tells us quite a bit about the person. Do you not understand the difference?

Because individuals can look at the official policies of the party, here the plank is analogous to the book, and find it odious, or simply ignore it.

You are correct. When one joins an organization dedicated to violent principles the individual may in fact reject those specific principles. You fail to understand though that the burden is on the individual not the rest of society to make the case that the individual is non-violent. If you joined the Klan tomorrow none of us would be obliged to think you were not a racist. It would be incumbent upon YOU to demonstrate that you were not a racist.

[Mark]

You say co-opted, I say superceeded. I deliberately wrote "You full well know when Allah came into use, why it did so, what it means, and that it is the name of God, singular, unified, and complete" in an attempt to indicate that I, too, know the history of Al-Illah and the pagan precursor to modern Islam.

Mohammed is the Jesus of Islam. Each religion thinks their prophet (uniquely) is the last, most complete, most accurate, and direct word of God. That is why biblical Christians want to focus on the new testament. What came before, the old, and before that, is important - but it's not something people generally fault the religion for. What were the people who were to become Christians worshiping prior to Jesus, or prior to Judaism? That question doesn't particularly concern us, so why should it with Islam?

Islam, like Christianity, should be judged based on the idea of its principle figure. Mohammed did as much co-opting as did the Judeo-Christian tradition, if you'd like to look at that way. Or, to be more flattering, all involved basically said, "No, you're looking at it the wrong way, it's more like this." Which, is precisely what Mohammed was alleged to have done. Allah is expressed as tawhid, a unity of all god forms, without gender, and without association. It is, by definition, the only God and same God of the Judeo-Christian tradition. That some precursor to Islam named their god something different, or had a plurality of gods, does not diminish the fact that since Mohammed, the true starting point of Islam and the only period about which one can make legitimate criticism, God has been a universal one, a unified one, called Allah. To say anything else is probably being deliberately disingenuous.

[johnb]

Since you now have a new found affinity for Daniel Pipes Mark, perhaps you'd care to look at his newest article:

The Islamic States of America?
by Daniel Pipes
FrontPageMagazine.com
September 23, 2004
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/2100

The hardest thing for Westerners to understand is not that a war with militant Islam is underway but that the nature of the enemy's ultimate goal. That goal is to apply the Islamic law (the Shari'a) globally. In U.S. terms, it intends to replace the Constitution with the Qur'an.

This aspiration is so remote and far-fetched to many non-Muslims, it elicits more guffaws than apprehension. Of course, that used to be the same reaction in Europe, and now it's become widely accepted that, in Bernard Lewis' words, "Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century."

Because of the American skepticism about Islamist goals, I postponed publishing an article on this subject until immediately after 9/11, when I expected receptivity to the subject would be greater (it was published in November 2001as "The Danger Within: Militant Islam in America"). I argued there that

The Muslim population in this country is not like any other group, for it includes within it a substantial body of people-many times more numerous than the agents of Osama bin Ladin-who share with the suicide hijackers a hatred of the United States and the desire, ultimately, to transform it into a nation living under the strictures of militant Islam.

The receptivity indeed was greater, but still the idea of an Islamist takeover remains unrecognized in establishment circles - the U.S. government, the old media, the universities, the mainline churches.

Therefore, reading "A rare look at secretive Brotherhood in America," in the Chicago Tribune on Sept. 19 caused me to startle. It's a long analysis that draws on an exclusive interview with Ahmed Elkadi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader in the United States during 1984-94, plus other interviews and documentation. In it, the authors (Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, Sam Roe, and Laurie Cohen) warily but emphatically acknowledge the Islamists' goal of turning the United States into an Islamic state.

Over the last 40 years, small groups of devout Muslim men have gathered in homes in U.S. cities to pray, memorize the Koran and discuss events of the day. But they also addressed their ultimate goal, one so controversial that it is a key reason they have operated in secrecy: to create Muslim states overseas and, they hope, someday in America as well. ...

Brotherhood members emphasize that they follow the laws of the nations in which they operate. They stress that they do not believe in overthrowing the U.S. government, but rather that they want as many people as possible to convert to Islam so that one day-perhaps generations from now-a majority of Americans will support a society governed by Islamic law.

This Brotherhood approach is in keeping with my observation that the greater Islamist threat to the West is not violence - flattening buildings, bombing railroad stations and nightclubs, seizing theaters and schools - but the peaceful, legal growth of power through education, the law, the media, and the political system.

The Tribune article explains how, when recruiting new members, the organization does not reveal its identity but invites candidates to small prayer meetings where the prayer leaders focus on the primary goal of the Brotherhood, namely "setting up the rule of God upon the Earth" (i.e., achieving Islamic hegemony). Elkadi describes the organization's strategic, long-term approach: "First you change the person, then the family, then the community, then the nation."

His wife Iman is no less explicit; all who are associated with the Brotherhood, she says, have the same goal, which is "to educate everyone about Islam and to follow the teachings of Islam with the hope of establishing an Islamic state."

In addition to Elkadi, the article features information from Mustafa Saied (about whose Muslim Brotherhood experiences the Wall Street Journal devoted a feature story in December 2003, without mentioning the organization's Islamist goals). Saied, the Tribune informs us, says

he found out that the U.S. Brotherhood had a plan for achieving Islamic rule in America: It would convert Americans to Islam and elect like-minded Muslims to political office. "They're very smart. Everyone else is gullible," Saied says. "If the Brotherhood puts up somebody for an election, Muslims would vote for him not knowing he was with the Brotherhood."

Citing documents and interviews, the Tribune team notes that the secretive Brotherhood, in an effort to acquire more influence, went above ground in Illinois in 1993, incorporating itself as the Muslim American Society. The MAS, headquartered in Alexandria, Va. and claiming 53 chapters across the United States engages in a number of activities. These include summer camps, a large annual conference, websites, and the Islamic American University, a mainly correspondence school in suburban Detroit that trains teachers and imams.

Of course, the MAS denies any intent to take over the country. One of its top officials, Shaker Elsayed, insists that

MAS does not believe in creating an Islamic state in America but supports the establishment of Islamic governments in Muslim lands. The group's goal in the United States, he says, "is to serve and develop the Muslim community and help Muslims to be the best citizens they can be of this country." That includes preserving the Muslim identity, particularly among youths.

Notwithstanding this denial, the Tribune finds MAS goals to be clear enough:

Part of the Chicago chapter's Web site is devoted to teens. It includes reading materials that say Muslims have a duty to help form Islamic governments worldwide and should be prepared to take up arms to do so. One passage states that "until the nations of the world have functionally Islamic governments, every individual who is careless or lazy in working for Islam is sinful." Another one says that Western secularism and materialism are evil and that Muslims should "pursue this evil force to its own lands" and "invade its Western heartland." [links added by me, DP]

In suburban Rosemont, Ill., several thousand people attended MAS' annual conference in 2002 at the village's convention center. One speaker said, "We may all feel emotionally attached to the goal of an Islamic state" in America, but it would have to wait because of the modest Muslim population. "We mustn't cross hurdles we can't jump yet."

These revelations are particularly striking, coming as they do just days after a Washington Post article titled "In Search Of Friends Among The Foes," which reports how some U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials believe the Muslim Brotherhood's influence "offers an opportunity for political engagement that could help isolate violent jihadists." Graham Fuller is quoted saying that "It is the preeminent movement in the Muslim world. It's something we can work with." Demonizing the Brotherhood, he warns, "would be foolhardy in the extreme." Other analysts, such as Reuel Gerecht, Edward Djerejian, and Leslie Campbell, are quoted as being in agreement with this outlook.

But it is a deeply wrong and dangerous approach. Even if the Muslim Brotherhood is not specifically associated with violence in the United States (as it has been in other countries, including Egypt and Syria), it is deeply hostile to the United States and must be treated as one vital component of the enemy's assault force.

To comment on this article, please go to http://www.danielpipes.org/article/2100#comment
To see the Daniel Pipes archive, go to http://www.DanielPipes.org

[johnb]

You say co-opted, I say superceeded. I deliberately wrote "You full well know when Allah came into use, why it did so, what it means, and that it is the name of God, singular, unified, and complete" in an attempt to indicate that I, too, know the history of Al-Illah and the pagan precursor to modern Islam.

Mohammed did not create his religion from nothing Mark. He borrowed pieces from the pre-Islamic religions he encountered. He did this with Chritianity and Judaism as well. The Jesus of the Koran is not the same entity one finds in the Gospel. The name is the same but the words coming from that entity are strikingly different in intent and theology from the earlier, Christian Jesus. The same is true for the Abraham of the Old Testament and the Abraham of the Koran, Mohammed took names and stories his target audience was familiar with and modified them. His strategy doesn't change the fact that Abraham and Jesus have earlier lineages that strongly contradict what he put down on paper. This syncretic religion is at it's base an amalgamation with roots in contradictory bases. I use the term al-Illah to inform/remind people that Islam does not share the same theological roots as Judaism and Christianity. Mohammed cherry picked names and stories he could edit into his religion, nothing more. It is clear from his stories that he had only a vague understanding and minimal familiarity with the chronology of events, the important themes, and theological principles in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures.

Mohammed is the Jesus of Islam.

You truly have no idea what you are talking about. What you have just done, in Islamic theology, is commit the sin of shirk. Christians claim Jesus is God. Muslims make no such claim about Mohammed. Mohammed is not the "Muslim Jesus". Islam denies the deity of Jesus Christ and rejects the claim that any mortal is a deity. Mohammed and Jesus are not theological equivalents. In states with the Shari'a your statement would get you arrested and possibly killed.

That question doesn't particularly concern us, so why should it with Islam?

Actually, yes it does. Jewish and Christian theology is improved by challenging the source, textual criticism, by examining the linguistic, historic, and cultural records as they become available. It helps to better understand the text as our understanding of the period becomes clearer. In Islam such a thing is haram, forbidden. Islam claims the Koran is perfect and cannot tolerate innovation.

Islam, like Christianity, should be judged based on the idea of its principle figure.

Really? Is this another throw away line you use that you will ignore when I post incidents revealing Mohammed's stated principles and actions in line with those principles? Such as his initiation of the Islamic practice of ritually beheading non-Muslim captives?

That some precursor to Islam named their god something different, or had a plurality of gods, does not diminish the fact that since Mohammed, the true starting point of Islam and the only period about which one can make legitimate criticism, God has been a universal one, a unified one, called Allah. To say anything else is probably being deliberately disingenuous.

Again, you display a very superficial level of comprehension. Have you had a chance to google the "Satanic Verses"? Early on Mohammed was quite willing to compromise the concept of monotheism if and when it suited his political aims. His later rejection of the Satanic verses came from his earliest followers dismay over his movement towards a polytheistic direction. Mohammed attempted to sway the Meccans into adopting Islam by adding their additional deities to al-Illah. Salman Rushdie was the victim of a fatwa for using the topic as a theme in his book, the Satanic Verses. In it's earliest form Islam was quite elastic as Mohammed created, edited, or superceded revelations to gain political advantage. The point here is simple, the record here is clear that Mohammed was elastic in his theology except in the principle that he should rule and be obeyed. What best served that purpose is what he used.

Back to the source of your consternation, while Islam does include certain names and modified stories from Christian and Jewish sources, it is, at it's root, an Arab religion. It arose from the conditions and peoples of Arabia, principally around Mecca and Medina. It is true to those roots today. I would contend people are more apt to accept evolutionary change as opposed to revolutionary change. Mohammed tapped into that which is why so much of Mohammed's religion was unchanged from the pre-Islamic folk religion. The problem for us is that the Meccans were primarily bandits. The earliest records known of them comes from Jewish sources where the Arabs are referred to as raiders coming in from the east. They pillaged trade routes moving through the penninsula and pillaged Israel, Egypt, and Syria. Religious pilgrimages to Mecca was also a lucrative source of income for them. Mohammed merely unified them and directed their aggressive energy outward.

It is my contention that Islam was a religion crafted explicitly for aggressive war and conquest. That is the danger we face.

By the way Mark, do you not recognize a distinction between 1-the followers of a religion who behave in barbaric ways that are explicitly condemned by the source text for that religion and 2-the followers of a religion who behave in barbaric ways that are commanded by the source text for that religion?

[johnb]

Recently a convert to Islam was barred entry to the US. This of course angered a lot of people. Primarily because it was Cat Stevens. However, Mr Stevens is a financial conributor to Hamas which is why the Israelis barred his entry into Israel a few years ago. He proclaims himself non-violent. While it is doubtful he is among that 10-15% of Muslims ready to take up arms in jihad, he is certainly among that larger group that is sympathethic to those who do as demonstrated by his financial support and association with more blatant Islamists/Islamofascists.

www.theweeklystandard.com

Is Cat Stevens a Terrorist?
Why Yusuf Islam was turned away from the United States.
by Stephen Schwartz
09/22/2004 5:43:00 PM

ON TUESDAY, U.S. authorities diverted a United Airlines London-Washington flight to Bangor, Maine, where the ex-pop singer formerly known as Cat Stevens, now as Yusuf Islam, was questioned by federal security agents, and then ordered deported back to Britain. Yusuf Islam, it turns out, is on the official "no-fly list."

This action will doubtless provoke loud and prolonged guffaws from those
who consider American security policies to be excessive. But a look at
the career and associations of Yusuf Islam since he became a Muslim in
1977 shows that the decision was correct.

Yusuf Islam is already well known for his public endorsement of the death sentence issued by Ayatollah Khomeini against Salman Rushdie in February 1989. "Salman Rushdie, indeed any writer who abuses the prophet or indeed any prophet under Islamic law, the sentence for that is actually death," he said at the time. In addition, he has been barred from entering Israel because of alleged financial aid given to terrorist groups.

Is the singer a terrorist himself? Probably not. Is he an active sympathizer
of terrorist groups? Perhaps not as much as he was in the past.

But Yusuf Islam is most certainly a fundamentalist Muslim, whose views are radical enough to set him at odds with the great majority of the world's Islamic adherents, and they are no better expressed than in his comments on his own field of expression: music.

Wahhabism, the state religion in Saudi Arabia, and the inspirer of al Qaeda, is especially known for its hatred of music. In Wahhabi theology, all music except for drum accompaniment to religious chanting is haram, or forbidden. For anybody who has had contact with Muslim civilization, this is a fairly shocking bit of information, since music is one of the great glories of Islamic culture.

Yusuf Islam has demonstrated his sympathy for this posture on several
occasions. Above all, he is careful to point out his caution about bucking
the Wahhabis in this realm. In 1997, he released an album titled I Have
No Cannons That Roar, dedicated, he said, to the cause of the Bosnian Muslims. In an interview with Stephen Kinzer, appearing in the New York Times on December 8, 1997, he commented on the project, "I've . . . used a very conservative approach. You only hear my own voice, a slight choral accompaniment and drums. Let's say that's the safest option according to certain Islamic schools of thought. I've made minimal use of musical instruments, and in some schools of thought in Islam musical instruments are disapproved of."

This attitude was particularly dissonant given that Bosnian Muslim music
is anything but conservative, and Bosnian songs about the recent war used violins, accordions, and numerous other instruments considered haram by radical Islamists. One popular Bosnian soldiers' ballad included a verse declaring devotion to their "old songs," which would be anathema to Wahhabis. But for Yusuf Islam, honoring the Bosnians, who had shed their blood defending their religious identity, was less important than honoring fundamentalism.

The album itself has been advertised in a misleading way by the Islamic
Society of North America (ISNA), part of the "Wahhabi lobby" that imposes Saudi theology on the majority of American Sunni Muslims. The ISNA website falsely describes Yusuf Islam as "the primary composer and lyricist" of the album. Actually, he wrote only two of the songs. Most of the rest were composed by a Bosnian poet, Dzemaludin Latic, who is notably moderate in his views and--full disclosure here--a close friend of mine. When I saw him in Sarajevo a month ago, Dzemo Latic was writing a memorial article for Czeslaw Milosz, something Yusuf Islam would probably never think of doing. And the Bosnian songs on that album employ haram instruments.

Yusuf Islam's own website further reveals his fundamentalist and radical
bent. It celebrates his collaboration with a notorious American Islamist,
Shaikh Hamza Yusuf [Hanson]. Hamza Yusuf was known before September 11 for his radical preaching. In 1991, Hamza Yusuf "gave a provoking speech about why 'Jihad is the Only Way,'" at an International Islamic Conference held at the University of Southern California by the local unit of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), a front for the al Qaeda-allied Jama'at-i-Islami movement in Pakistan. The same Los Angeles event was addressed by Imam Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator named in 1995 in a plot to blow up New York City monuments.

At the 21st ICNA Annual Convention, held at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania,
in 1996, Imam Hamza Yusuf declared, "I am a citizen of this country not
by choice but by birth. I reside in this country not by choice but by
conviction in attempting to spread the message of Islam in this country.
I became Muslim in part because I did not believe in the false gods of
this society whether we call them Jesus or democracy or the Bill of Rights
or any other element of this society that is held sacrosanct by the
ill-informed peoples that make up this charade of a society. . . . [T]here
should be no voting or debate . . . [W]e have no room for ayes or nays."

After September 11, Hamza Yusuf adopted moderate camouflage and boasted of meeting with and "advising" President

George W. Bush. However, at this year's convention of the Islamic Society
of North America, on September 3, 2004, Hamza Yusuf declaimed, "the
Republican party is basing an entire political platform, in the most
powerful military nation on the earth . . . on the idea that Islamic
fanatics are a threat to the security of this country, and this must be
condemned. . . . I have never believed in my lifetime that a presidential
election had any significance. . . . We must reject what is happening in
the current administration in our name. . . . Those neoconservatives . . .
that claim that this country was designed by people that wanted Christianity to be the law of the land . . . are telling a grave lie to the people of the United States." Hamza Yusuf followed up these rantings with fantasies of Islamic conquest of the United States and an endorsement of none other than Patrick J. Buchanan as a defender of "indestructible" Islam.

Those who scoff at the idea that the singer formerly known as Cat Stevens could end up on the U.S. government's "no-fly list" only show how unfamiliar they are with his beliefs and most prominent associations and activities over the last two decades.

Stephen Schwartz is the author of The Two Faces of Islam.