Posted on 04/05/2008 6:07:12 AM PDT by Zender500
Robert Spencer is used to being called an Islamophobe. And when the noted director of Jihad Watch travels to a speaking engagement, he has the bodyguards to prove that he takes his critics seriously. In 2006 lieutenants of Osama bin Laden named him in what amounted to a fatwa, calling on him, President Bush, and others to join Islam or die. Other death threats arrive by email, he told WORLD recently, and matter-of-factly.
But his most noted attacker of late is the now-dead former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. In her posthumous book Reconciliation, released last month, she spent a page venting against the popular blogger and author of seven books on Islam, who she said "uses the Internet to spread misinformation and hatred of Islam." This she said of an at-times soft-spoken Catholic whose grandparents were forced from Turkey for refusing to convert to Islam, in a book she completed just as her jihadist assassin was strapping on his bomb vest.
"You're kidding," Spencer said in an email when I asked him about her remarks. "I hadn't heard of this before." When Spencer looked up the passage, he discovered that where Bhutto had quoted him from one of his books, she quoted a passage that was actually written by Ibn Warraq (Spencer edited the book). Warraq, like Bhutto, is Pakistani and, like Spencer, is a noted (and also death-threatened) critic of Islamic teaching.
As charges and threats against him have mounted since his best-selling, post-9/11 Islam Unveiled, Spencer is a little defensive. "It is not hateful or bigoted to tell the truth," he contends. True, but for most of us, criticism of Islam has become white noise, and any discussion of moderate vs. radical Islam, jihadists vs. peaceful Muslims leaves us dazed and confused. Bring the boys home, make it go away, we say.
Spencer has a more workable idea: "We can't defeat an enemy when we don't even know why he is fighting, what he wants, or what will bring him to stop fighting." So about a year ago he took on a much-needed public service project. He decided to go through the Quran verse by verse, line by line, discussing it in context, he emphasizes, and showing what Muslim commentators say about the various passages. "No one will thus be able to say with any accuracy that I am ignoring peaceful sections or misstating how such passages are understood by Muslims," he says.
And so "Blogging the Quran" (with inspiration from Slate's "Blogging the Bible") was born. And every week Spencer faithfully posts successive commentary on about 40 verses from the Quran—making extensive use of Muslim commentaries and interpretations so that any student "will understand any given passage, and what its import might be for non-Muslims." Spencer stresses that you need a Quran for this study (and in his introduction, linked through jihadwatch.org, gives not only recommendations on the best English translation, but also hyperlinks to Quranic texts along the way).
For an average person like me, this is almost too easy. I can learn in Sura 3 not only the well-recited shame Allah casts on Christians and Jews who refuse to convert to Islam; I can learn the context preceding it, as Muhammad recasts the entire pedigree of Jesus. Who wouldn't want to be armed with such a study when faced everywhere in Christendom—and at the behest of leading scholars from Biola to Yale and in between—with the potent axiom that we Christians and Muslims worship the same God? In fact, this guided reading makes clear, our differences are past striking.
Our common workaday ignorance of Islam is shameful. Consider (a) "the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost," (b) our war in the heart of Islamic civilization has cost us half a trillion dollars, not to mention thousands of lives, and (c) Muslims the world over too are grappling with the violent nature of their religion.
Even Spencer, who has studied the Quran for 30 years, says he has learned something from the project: "That the jihadists are even more Quran-centric than I had previously thought, and that we continue to ignore what the Quran has to tell us about what they're doing and why only at our own peril."
Not long after 9/11, I bought a Quran (Koran, whatever), and went through it. I saw little in the book to make me think this was a “peaceful” religion. I’m with Spencer on this—Bush et al should have been working to educate America on what Islam is about—and their own holy book should be enough of a reference.
It ridiculous. The lib/commies chant why do they hate us? We should at least find out the real answers — not the lib/commie projection of why they hate America.
Good read, hopefully the administration knows more about Islam than it lets on for political purposes.
If the Saudis etc. thought we believed that crap however the price of oil, payback for Iraq, wouldn’t be so high.
We know why it is fighting. It slavishly follows a world-domination ideology cleverly disguised as a religion.
Frankly, it IS very hard to figure it out. I can’t imagine people being told to commit mass murder, rape and pedophilia all the time without questioning the values and morals of the people/cult telling them to do it.
Some here posted the following from a scene out of Independence Day:
President: Can we talk?
Alien: No
President: What do you want us to do?
Alien: Die
This, of course, was the point that Geert Wilders tried to make in Fitna, where he quotes only verses from the Koran or the sayings of Muslims based on them. That’s one of the things that makes it such a powerful challenge to Muslims.
I believe he also thought this would keep European and American (non-Muslim) authorities from censoring the video, since everything in it is actually in the words of Muslims themselves. But, as we all know, he’s had great difficulties getting it distributed. In other words, the coherent, logicla message given by both Wilders and Spencer is one that the West does not want to hear.
my memory may be faulty. wasn’t that “mars attacks?”
If you Google "free quran" there are several websites which will send you a free copy, or you can download the PDF or read it online.
Or, you can send $7.56 for postage to CAIR and they will ship you a deluxe hardbound version (worth $55, according to CAIR), which costs them money.
There is a war going on for domination of the world and it is among the Heavenly Host: “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether [they be] thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” (Col 1:16-17 AV)
This Scripture suggests that there is both a visible and established government on earth consisting of thrones, dominions, principalities and powers, and that there is an invisible but just as established government in Heaven, consisting of the same types of administration. A struggle of good and evil, if you will.
That said...... the death of Jesus and His resurrection resulted in defeat of Satan's side (evil). Satan was given to remain in the world until the time of Jesus' return, at which time Satan knows he is destined to be cast forever into "the pit" (eternal death). Thus Satan wants to hold off that day for as long as he can... and in doing so he blinds men's eyes so that they think they see "good" in Godlessness, so that they they think they see God in religions such as Islam. It is no wonder that we remain frustrated that most people cannot see the evil and violence in Islam, this is Satan's work. Even millions of truly peace-loving Muslims cannot see the evil in their own religion. And that confuses us even more, for we say, "how could Islam be evil when my good friend Adnan who is one of the kindest men I know, is Muslim?" That is Satan's work as well, he is not called the "great deceiver" for no reason.
It would be wrong for us to hate the Muslims of the world, yet it is indeed right that we must see the truth about Islam and what the fate of the world is if we allow it to dominate.
Our true enemy is Satan and our only defense against him is "belief in Jesus Christ". That is why it is more important than ever before that we keep God in our government, in our schools, in our lives and if we do not, then this great nation of ours will fall to Islam.
Those of you who are not believers will, I am sure, pass me and other Christian conservatives who are trying to explain this to you, off as mere nut cases. Go ahead and do so.... we are impervious to it (that's another defensive gift from our Heavenly Father, who gives us assurance that believing His Word, the Bible, and speaking these truths will be rewarded). As for me, it will be reward enough if I do not have to see my granddaughter wearing a burka one day.
And all this is the main reason why it is of such great importance to many of us that we have a believing-Christian president. A president who understands who we are fighting!
Mass murder, rape and pedophilia, along with polygamy, lying, & slavery are integral parts of their culture. Their leader, mohammed (piss be upon him) did all these things regularly, & encouraged his followers to do the same. These things are as natural to a muslim as eating human flesh is to a cannibal.
The koran is to satan, the same as the Bible is to God.
This is a quite common form of neurosis.
If Datum X logically implies the need for Action Y, and Action Y cannot be confronted, then the only way out for the neurotic is to deny any possibility that Datum X can be true, or that Datum X implies the need for Action Y. Forcing such a person to see the truth can produce a breakdown
You're missing the point. The purpose of Islam is to remove all restraints on people who want to rape, rob, and murder, as long as the urge to rape, rob, and murder is channeled against "infidels".
It's a criminal's religion, founded by a man who made his living as a desert bandit, which is why it's so popular in prisons
Put another way, it is possible for somebody to be brought up in Islam, and be a good person. But he would be good in spite of Islam, not because of it. Islam is inherently evil
Laws are made so the "rape" of a child bride is legal ( a 50 year old man with an eight year old "bride" is rape) - with laws covering extreme damage to these female children.
Some women in these countries are so destroyed in childhood by repeated rapes by their "husbands" than they are unable to stop peeing. Muslim law requires the husband to support a woman who was ruined in this fashion. And she is condemned to pee on herself the rest of her life.
Fast forward - these men and their four wives have one big problem. What to do with the extra men. The Muslim solution is endless war and "honor" suicides. In short, war works to keep the cult benefits flowing.
I also likes your statement about "common form of neurosis".
They are fighting because they have nothing to live for.
read later
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