Islamophobia is a Social Disease

Have you ever wondered why liberal professors spend class time characterizing conservative Christians as dangerous while describing Islam as a “religion of peace”? Ever wonder why these liberal professors compare conservative Christians to the Taliban while giving the real Taliban a pass? I think I finally figured it out a few weeks ago after I got a surprise visit from the campus police on the final day of the spring semester.

The reason for the visit, which was entirely professional and appropriate, related to my April 26th article “How to Offend Barbarians and Promote Diversity.” Just two days after the article was published the police chief came to visit me because another professor was concerned that those who wish me harm might come to our campus and injure others in their attempt to harm me. In other words, someone might shoot up the place and take an innocent life, which is a very bad thing according to liberals – unless, of course, we’re talking about abortion.

Let me pause and say that I have absolutely no doubt that the professor who called the police did so out of a genuine fear for her safety, rather than malice towards me. But that is where my sympathy for the un-named professor ends. Please allow me to explain.

I’ve written numerous articles referring to real threats I’ve received. I’ve even written articles talking about how I respond to such threats. Of course, when the threats have come from the left there has been no concern that a band of crazy liberals would come and shoot up the workplace. Liberals don’t have guns. They rely on Broadway Security, which is why all of those silly commercials have white burglars. Broadway knows its liberal audience would be offended by the suggestion that blacks commit burglary.

But the article I wrote on April 26th was different than most articles I write. I really got in the face of Revolution Muslim for threatening the producers of South Park with death. I even dared them to put me on their death list. The liberal professors on my campus, who are obsessed with my columns, certainly read my challenge to Revolution Muslim. And one of those liberal professors freaked out and called the police even though no specific threat had been issued against anyone.

The reason for the over-reaction was simple: Muslims were involved. Liberals do not hate Muslims like they hate conservative Christians. They fear Muslims and are so preoccupied with their fear of Muslims that they never get to the point of hating them.

This liberal fear of Muslims is to be found almost everywhere in academia. Take the case of Julio Pino, the radical Muslim Jihadist who teaches at Kent State University. Julio disseminates bomb-making instructions, encourages children to engage in suicide bombings, and generally displays his love of violence in a very public manner. But the liberals who work with Pino will not utter a word of criticism for the simple reason that they fear him.

Recently, I wrote an email to Pino’s Department Chairman at Kent State. In it, I challenged him to speak out against Pino for the misogynistic email he sent to me from his Kent State account. For those who don’t remember – or who have not read my past columns – Pino claimed he sodomized my mother in an obscene email, which used the “c-word,” the “f-word,” and the “a-word.”

But Pino’s Chairman was afraid to criticize his Jihadist subordinate. So I wrote the Kent State University Women’s Center with the following plea:

It should go without saying that the Women’s Center was also afraid to condemn Pino. To date, no one at his university is willing to do so publicly.

I would love to see just one liberal professor take a break from criticizing conservative Christians and go after radical Muslims who are, by far, our most intolerant citizens. Of course, that would entail growing a pair, which would immediately place the professor’s status as a liberal in jeopardy.

In the meantime, maybe we could develop sensitivity training sessions to combat rampant Islamophobia on our campuses. Maybe deep beneath their over-blown fear of Muslims there is a reservoir of liberal commitment to principle and indifference to identity politics

The best way to confront Islam is to understand it. This interview with Sam Solomon (Moslem converted to Christian) http://www.whitehorseinn.org/newsletter/october06.htm

Mike: Sam, in Islam, how does a person make it to heaven and avoid hell?

Sam: Well, first of all, Mike, heaven and hell are Christian concepts in Christian/Judeo-Christian understandings. That's just biblical vocabulary. It does not carry in Islam. Islamic understanding...To them, heaven is a very foreign concept. It is a paradise, not "heaven," where they will have pleasure. In paradise, according to the Koran, there are rivers of alcohol, rivers of wine, rivers of milk -

Mike: -- making up for not having it on earth?

Sam: Yes, because on earth you need to be sober. You need to pray five times a day. But in the drink in paradise, may be not intoxicating...there will be rivers of alcohol, rivers of pure water, rivers of milk, rivers of honey, and they will be flowing. Every kind of meat a man can desire, freshly cooked, everything - fruit of every kind, and of course they will have virgins - absolutely beautiful virgins, and they will always remain virgins; they will always remain pure; and they are there to appease the faithful ones. And these are called hol, and they are specially created for the faithful ones. Added to that, the Koran says, perpetually fresh, young boys - not exceeding the age of 14 at maximum, are there for the enjoyment of the faithful ones. Allah apparently understands an alternative lifestyle. So that is as far as how to "make it," of course this is all Koranic. In fact, some people, even Muslims, would find it difficult to bear that. But a very famous author and famous preacher in Egypt - he was a graduate of Alazer, the very best and ancient Islamic seminary in the world - he wrote a book on the issue of homosexuality in particularly the boys in paradise. That book was banned by the Egyptian government. He went to the supreme Islamic court, and at the court all the scholars gathered together to examine this book, and they said everything described in that book, in terms of paradise, and how, and what way they will have their sexual relationships, it is all valid as far as they were concerned. This is the highest Islamic authority; it is indisputable, and that is the final word from them. So, there you go. As far as coming back to your question, how does one make it? Even if you repent - because it isn't covenant theology, because Allah doesn't make any covenant, he isn't going to change you. In fact, it is a Koranic verse, "Allah does not change, will not change the condition of a people until they change it themselves with their own souls." It is a self-effort. It has nothing to do with Allah; Allah doesn't change a man. He will not touch anybody. Allah hates those unbelievers; he's not the God of the Christian faith who will seek the lost.

10-10-05 7 Myths About Islam By Timothy R. Furnish

Mr. Furnish, Ph.D (Islamic History), is Assistant Professor, History, Georgia Perimeter College, Dunwoody, GA 30338. Mr. Furnish is the author of Holiest Wars: Islamic Mahdis, their Jihads and Osama bin Laden (Praeger, 2005). One of the few positive effects of 9/11 has been renewed American interest in Islam and the Middle East. Unfortunately, much of the information disseminated in the media about those topics is ignorant and misleading. This is unfortunate because any hope that the predominantly-Christian West and the Muslim world might transcend conflict requires that the former be accurately informed about the latter (and vice-versa, but that’s an issue for another column). There are in particular seven myths about Islam and Islamic history that have been repeated so often in the media that they’ve achieved conventional wisdom status.

First, it is untrue that Islam is the world’s fastest-growing religion. (Mormonism and Scientology also claim this, but few outside of Salt Lake City and Hollywood believe it.) As Philip Jenkins of Penn State University demonstrates in his work Christianity—in particular Pentecostalism—is the world’s most-rapidly growing faith. Currently there are 2 billion Christians and 1.3 billion Muslims (out of a world population of 6 billion), and in the 21st century Christianity will maintain its lead, thanks to explosive growth in sub-Saharan Africa and China.

Second, despite the claims of even President Bush in a number of public statements, Islam is not solely a “religion of peace.” Yes, there are verses of toleration in the Qur’an: Sura(chapter) al-Baqarah:256 says “there shall be no compulsion in religion;” Sura al-Furqan:65ff says that Allah will be merciful to those who repent and do good works; and Sura al-Nisa’:19ff enjoins Muslim men to provide financially for wives and ex-wives. But verses such as these are arguably outweighed by others: Sura Anfal:12ff and Sura Muhammad:3ff command the beheading of unbelievers; Sura al-Nisa’:34ff allows for beating of one’s wives and in verses 74ff and 94ff, promises great reward for those who die fighting for Allah; Sura al-Ma’idah:51 says “Believers, take neither Jews nor Christians for your friends.” Of course there are violent sections in the Bible—or at least in the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament (Joshua and David were military leaders as much as religious ones). But no one denies that, as many—both Muslim and non-Muslim—deny these violent and misogynistic passages in the Qur’an. Many arguments can be made against such verses (they must be contextualized, they are applicable only to that time, they are metaphorical, etc.) but one cannot say they do not exist. Someone who simply rehashs that “the Qur’an teaches peace” obviously hasn’t read it. No doubt most Muslims do not read the passages about decapitation as a blueprint for today. But just as some Christians take literally, for example, the command of to Christ handle poisonous snakes (Luke 10:19), some Muslims take literally the injunction to behead unbelievers. And the latter practice is a bit more injurious to other folks than the former.

Third on the misinformation parade is the allegation that jihad does not mean holy war. This falsehood crops up often in text books and in the media, where the politically-correct tirelessly repeat that jihad actually means only “striving to be a good Muslim.” This is half-right. But early on in Islamic history, jihad came to mean fighting against unbelievers in order to expand the territory under Muslim rule. al-Bukhari lived in the 9th century CE and was the most authoritative compiler of sayings attributed to the prophet Muhammad; he mentions jihad many times as meaning “holy war.” Jihad as “Muslim piety” is mainly the province of the Sufis, the mystics of Islam, and has become a minority view today. Furthermore, Islamic history is chock-full of leaders declaring jihads against their enemies—even the moderately Muslim Ottoman Empire declared a holy war against the French, British and Russians in World War I!

Fourth is the whopper that Islam spread peacefully from Arabia, as if the followers of Muhammad went door-to-door ringing doorbells and handing out brochures. From the mid-7th century CE Muslims militarily overran regions and then pressured the conquered to convert. (Yes, Christian kingdoms did the same—but, again, no one denies that!) Muslim Arab armies destroyed the entire Persian Empire (modern Iran), replacing its official Zoroastrian religion; about the same time they invaded the surviving Christian Roman (Byzantine) Empire and within a few decades had taken half its territory. In 732 CE a Muslim army from Morocco was in France! By 750 CE Muslims ruled from the Iberian Peninula to India. And Muslim armies would stay on the offensive for the next millennium, with only two exceptions: the “Reconquista” in Iberia and the Crusades.

The fifth tiresome myth is that the European Catholic Crusaders started the war with Islam and that for eight centuries Muslims have been brooding over the horrible injustices thereof. Actually, the Crusades, 1095-1291, were simply the first time that European Christians managed to take the fight to their enemy’s territory. And besides: why are the Crusades being constantly used as a club with which to beat the West—remember the scathing attacks on President Bush when, not long after 9/11, he referred to a “crusade” against terrorism?—when the Muslims won? Usama bin Ladin’s constant references to Americans as “Crusaders” is thus a perfect marriage of historical illiteracy with keen psychological insight into his enemy’s self-hate.

Another fairy tale about Islam is that poverty produces terrorists. This hoary myth tells us more about the worldview of its American adherents than it does about the ranks of the Islamists. Most of the 9/11 and London bombers were university-educated and at least middle-class. The same is true for Palestinian suicide bombers and most likely those in Iraq. Naive Americans take their domestic paradigm about poverty and crime—that the former causes the latter—and apply it to a context where it doesn’t fit Regarding the recent London bombings, a British terrorism expert said that “socioeconomic background does not appear to [have] play[ed] a role.” Poverty may be necessary, but it is hardly sufficient, to explain Islamic terrorism.

And finally, we have politically-correct mendacity number seven, which even British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently repeated: that Islam has been “hijacked” by terrorists. In this view Bin Ladin, the ayatollahs in Iran, the former Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the Saudis with their Wahhabism (a particularly puritanical brand of Sunni Islam)—all are twisting a “moderate” religion to suit their purpose. The “Islam = peace” brigade essentializes Islam as peaceful. UBL essentializes it as jihad. Although there are Qur’an verses, and sayings of Muhammad, on both sides, many do support Bin Ladin and his ilk. Also, Islamic history is replete with Muslim scholars whom the modern Islamic fundamentalists draw upon. The most famous is Ibn Taymiyah who, 700 years before George Bush said “you’re either for us or against us,” divided the world into the domain of Islam and that of war. The only good ruler is a Muslim ruler, asserted Ibn Taymiyah. And by that he meant one that enforces shari`ah, or Islamic law. Most Muslims do not agree, but some do. (And only 10 percent of 1.3 billion is 130 million.) But it is no use pretending that the UBLs of the world have falsely “hijacked” Islam. Indeed, their view of the faith—however intolerant and violent it may seem—has a basis in Islamic theology and history. Islam is where Christianity was before the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) and then the Enlightenment led the West to divorce religion and state, thereby removing (mostly) the threat of religious-based warfare. As a fellow monotheist with Muslims, I pray that the moderate strands within Islam win out over the more fundamentalist ones, allowing that civilization to follow suit. And for we in the West to help with that, we need to open our eyes to the reality of the harsher aspects of Islam and Islamic history. Anything else is simple—and dangerous—self-deception.

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