Islam's Encounters With America

WSJ ^ | September 20, 2010 | Fouad Ajami

[yoe]

From his recent travels to the Persian Gulf—sponsored and paid for by the State Department—Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf returned with a none-too-subtle threat. His project, the Ground Zero Mosque, would have to go on. Its cancellation would risk putting "our soldiers, our troops, our embassies and citizens under attack in the Muslim world."

Leave aside the attempt to make this project a matter of national security. The self-appointed bridge between America and the Arab-Islamic world is a false witness to the sentiments in Islamic lands.

The truth is that the trajectory of Islam in America (and Europe for that matter) is at variance with the play of things in Islam's main habitat. A survey by Elaph, the most respected electronic daily in the Arab world, gave a decided edge to those who objected to the building of this mosque—58% saw it as a project of folly.

[snip] To this kind of sobriety, Muslim activists and preachers in the diaspora—in Patterson, N.J., and Minneapolis, in Copenhagen and Amsterdam—appear to be largely indifferent. They are forever on the look-out for the smallest slight.

A terrible deed took place on that ground nine years ago. Nineteen young Arabs brought death and ruin onto American soil, and discretion has a place of pride in the way the aftermath is handled. "Islam" didn't commit these crimes, but young Arabs and Muslims did.

There is no use for the incantation that Islam is a religion of peace. The incantation is false; Islam, like other religions, is theologically a religion of war and a religion of peace. In our time, it is a religion in distress, fought over, hijacked at times, by a militant breed at war with the modern world.

[yoe]

"Self-styled imams continue to issue fatwas that have made it all but impossible for Arabs and Muslims to partake of the modern world. But from this ruinous history, there has settled upon countless Muslims and Arabs the recognition that the wells are poisoned in their midst, that the faith has to be reined in or that the faith will kill, and that the economic and cultural prospects of modern Islam hang in the balance.

Keep an eye on Rauf, he isn't finished with us by a long shot!

[Gaffer]

I think we should stake his ass to the ground in the middle of the most embattled US camp/outpost in Afghanistan and then see how he crows.

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

“Its cancellation would risk putting our soldiers, our troops, our embassies and citizens under attack in the Muslim world.”

I hate it when important assumptions are left out. There is something seriously missing in that statement, because a “cancellation” is NOT doing something. Let’s add the missing elements that are essential for understanding.

“If local members of the ROP don’t build their indoctrination center in the USA, other members of the ROP elsewhere in the world will attack USA troops, embassies and citizens”

That’s better. Now it says what everyone knows but is afraid to say.

I would add this for Martians reading it:
ROP members are inflamed with hate for the USA and will attack and murder citizens of the USA who have the misfortune to be present in parts of the world dominated by the ROP (Religion of Peace)

How come, when I cancel a reservation on British Airways flight attendants on BA flights don’t start killing American passengers?

[Waco]

Bury a pig on the proposed site, hog prices could really go up if this catchs on

[Wading Across]

Ajami of course leaves out that those 19 Arabs were practicing a literal interpretation of Islam, right down to the long held accepted practice/belief in abrogation, as laid out in the Quran itself... in Surah 2. Islam isn’t a religion of peace because it’s been effectively abrogated out by the aggresive passages. It’s moderates and liberal Muslims who’ve cherry-picked the Quran and ignored or allegorized the passage on abrogation and hadiths concerning it, so as to promote Islam as “peaceful”.

Muslims being peaceful has more to do with their integration into societies and each culture’s own influences, and less with the actual Quran and Hadith.

As for Rauf, I saw a blurb today that said he’s been staying clear of NYC for “security” concerns. Hmm... for his own saftey... wonder what he heard on his overseas trip?

[SunkenCiv]

Ground Zero Mosque ping. Thanks yoe.

A survey by Elaph, the most respected electronic daily in the Arab world, gave a decided edge to those who objected to the building of this mosque -- 58% saw it as a project of folly.