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Op-Ed: Arab Scholar Ibn Warraq Tells "Why the West is Best"
Arutz Sheva ^ | 26/12/11 | Giulio Meotti

Posted on 12/27/2011 3:48:39 PM PST by Eleutheria5

A scathing critique of Islam from within. Interview with Ibn Warraq, the man the NY Sun called "the Bertrand Russel of Islam: "The Ayatollah Khomeini once said that there are no jokes in Islam". You'd better believe it.

Prior to 2007, Ibn Warraq refused to show his face in public due to fears for his personal safety.

With “Why I Am Not A Muslim”, his 1995 most famous book, he became Islam’s most outspoken critic and the mentor of personalities such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Christopher Hitchens.

The New York Sun called him “the Bertrand Russell of Islam”, while others compared him to Voltaire and Spinoza. His new book, “Why the West is Best”, which has just been published by Encounter, is the most generous homage to the Western values ever written by a Muslim-born intellectual.

“Millions of people risk their lives trying to get to the West—not to Saudi Arabia or Iran or Pakistan, they flee from theocratic or other totalitarian regimes to find tolerance and freedom in the West, where life is an open book”, explains to us the English-educated Ibn Warraq. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: this triptych succinctly defines the attractiveness and superiority of Western civilization”.

Under Islam, life is a closed book. “Everything has been decided for you: the dictates of sharia and the whims of Allah set strict limits on the possible agenda of your life. A culture that engendered the spiritual creations of Mozart and Beethoven, of Raphael and Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt does not need lessons in spirituality from societies whose vision of heaven resembles a cosmic brothel stocked with virgins for men’s pleasure.

(Excerpt) Read more at israelnationalnews.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: best; ibnwaraq; islam; west
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Wonder if he shows his face now. Joan Peters and her husband in this clip keep their faces noticeably in shadow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4hwzoRxSAY

Doesn't pay to write books about Islam. The fourth estate, however, will usually "kiss the hand that slaps them," as Ayn Rand put it.

1 posted on 12/27/2011 3:48:50 PM PST by Eleutheria5
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To: Eleutheria5
A culture that engendered the spiritual creations of Mozart and Beethoven, of Raphael and Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt does not need lessons in spirituality from societies whose vision of heaven resembles a cosmic brothel...

So true!

2 posted on 12/27/2011 3:53:43 PM PST by DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis (Chag Chanukkah Sameach!)
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To: Eleutheria5

I have to respect this man, it takes a brave Muslim to speak out like this.


3 posted on 12/27/2011 4:02:14 PM PST by dog breath
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To: DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis

I need some lessons in spirituality from them.

Like, what do you do when you boff Virgin No. 72? You’re all out of virgins, and they start getting fat and complaining that you don’t treat them as anything special, and having their mothers over, and having ‘headaches’.

Also, why is it such a turn-on to boff virgins? They just lie there and tremble and gasp with pain when you enter them. 72 times, and it gets real tedious. Why not spend eternity with some really experienced hookers who can fake having pleasure and know all the tricks?

Also, what did the virgins do to deserve you? Is this their hell, to get penetrated for the very first time over and over again (assuming that hymens grow back and they forget everything by the next time their turn comes around) by the same greasy suicide bomber?

Finally, is it the Islamic contention that people move on to the next world fully equipped with bodies possessing male limbs and libidos? What do female bombers get? The ‘pleasure’ of being boffed by 72 computer nerds forever? What happens to married suicide bombers’ wives when they die? Do they join in the fun? Do they hit their husbands on the head with cosmic rolling pins?

It’s clear, Islamists have not thought this out thoroughly. If they have, I’d like some details about this cosmic brothel.


4 posted on 12/27/2011 4:06:09 PM PST by Eleutheria5 (Diplomacy is war by other means.)
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To: DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis

Unfortunately we’re no longer the culture that would create a Michaelangelo, Mozart, Beethoven or Raphael.

That’s part of the problem.


5 posted on 12/27/2011 4:06:28 PM PST by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults.)
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To: Eleutheria5
It’s clear, Islamists have not thought this out thoroughly.

Clear Indeed....

6 posted on 12/27/2011 4:11:45 PM PST by DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis (Chag Chanukkah Sameach!)
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To: Jonty30

Our current geniuses do science and technology, not fine art.


7 posted on 12/27/2011 4:19:32 PM PST by I Shall Endure
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To: Eleutheria5
I recall from Amity Shlaes' book, The Forgotten Man, the question facing radical university students returning to America from Europe in the 1930s was whether or not they preferred fascism or communism.

Contrast with latter 18th Century America. The radicals of that day reconciled Natural Law, their own colonial experience, Locke, Montesquieu and other lessons from republican history.

What happened?

8 posted on 12/27/2011 4:23:49 PM PST by Jacquerie (No court will save us from ourselves.)
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To: I Shall Endure

Art is now all about making a statement, not medium, spacial experimentation and lighting.


9 posted on 12/27/2011 4:24:27 PM PST by Eleutheria5 (Diplomacy is war by other means.)
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To: I Shall Endure

For most artists, art doesn’t pay the light and heat. Darn straight that the intelligent among us are slinging code.


10 posted on 12/27/2011 4:26:20 PM PST by NVDave
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To: Eleutheria5

“.....in his 1995 most famous book, he became Islam’s most outspoken critic and the mentor of personalities such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Christopher Hitchens.”

WADR.....Get real! To equate that moongod cult, cobbled together by an insane camel jockey child-rapist serial murderer, and place it on an imaginary equal standing with The Gospel of The Lord Jesus Christ, Second Person of The Holy Trinity reveals either prejudice, stupidity or profane sarcasm...take your pick!

Ibn Warraq merely had the fortitude to SPEAK what Middle Easterners in droves have increasingly come to realize, but have kept silent, while secretly, clandestinely seeking to learn more about, and embrace by faith, Jesus Christ as their Savior.

OTOH, the Chris Hitchenses of this world have chosen to blaspheme the Word, the Honor and the Name of the Living God. The only similarity is that if you really stretch your credulity, they are both religions.

But IMHO, to attempt to give them equal standing and importance is very much like comparing bull$hit with filet mignon! They both have bovine “origins,” but that’s the only similarity!


11 posted on 12/27/2011 4:31:56 PM PST by Tucker39
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To: NVDave

But Leonardo da Vinci also was into science and technology, and in his day most artists also starved. The problem is with the understanding of art. It’s all about message instead of medium. So long as your message fits into an orthodoxy acceptable to other artists, and says things in a really obnoxious offensive way, you can get big grants. If all you know how to do is draw real good, but you don’t convey the accepted message, you starve in the company of young Pablo Picasso.


12 posted on 12/27/2011 4:32:37 PM PST by Eleutheria5 (Diplomacy is war by other means.)
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To: Eleutheria5

In his day, artists had patrons and the artists were accountable to their benefactors. Today, too many artists want to make political statements, and public art grants and funding allows too many artists to think they’re unaccountable.


13 posted on 12/27/2011 4:39:52 PM PST by NVDave
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To: NVDave

That’s changing rapidly. There is a HUGE movement now to reintroduce beauty into the creation of art. There are more and more formal art schools springing up to teach art students how to use the theory and techniques of the masters from previous centuries, as well as online organizations to bring together artists, architects, and those who love beauty. And collectors are indeed paying for beautiful art now. The fraud is being exposed.


14 posted on 12/27/2011 4:59:34 PM PST by ottbmare (off-the-track Thoroughbred mare)
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To: NVDave

But there are artists with private patrons. The Pixar Corp. has funded some great animations, in fact redefined the whole genre. These are brilliant artists, even if their work is a collective effort.

The problem is with government patronage. The NEA is not the Medici, feudal lords with unbridled discretion to dispose of their humble vassals’ tributes and rents. The tax money they use to give grants are merely entrusted to them for public use in promoting arts. As such, it is subject to constitutional and other scrutiny. Since the Constitution is now utterly FUBAR, that means they can’t fund a religious statement, but must fund an anti-religious statement, and will fund a far left political statement or gay porn display, but won’t fund a right-wing political statement.


15 posted on 12/27/2011 5:15:29 PM PST by Eleutheria5 (Diplomacy is war by other means.)
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To: DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis
A culture that engendered the spiritual creations of Mozart and Beethoven, of Raphael and Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt does not need lessons in spirituality from societies whose vision of heaven resembles a cosmic brothel...

The guy 'gets' Islam...

16 posted on 12/27/2011 5:59:16 PM PST by GOPJ (Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, Than a fatted calf with hatred - Proverbs 15)
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To: Eleutheria5

Okay “Ibn’’ Now that you know what we in the West have always known, that is Islam sucks, instead of encouraging millions more of your fellow Arabs to come here why don’t you go back and try and get them to dump Islam and covert to something else? We’ve got enough camel-jockeys and sand-goblins here already, we don’t need anymore.


17 posted on 12/27/2011 6:11:12 PM PST by jmacusa
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To: Eleutheria5
The fourth estate, however, will usually "kiss the hand that slaps them . . ."

. . . and lick the boots which kick them.

18 posted on 12/27/2011 8:54:19 PM PST by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: jmacusa

I am unaware that Ibn Wariq has ever encouraged mass.migration of Arabs to the west. Where did you get that idea.

As to your second point, he has spent a decade debunking Islam through ds his writings. Another of his books, even more powerful than “Why I am not a Muslim” is called “Leaving Islam”.and has about forty individual stories of people who left Islam. Many but not all became Christians

Ibn has done a lot to bring truth and light to the Islamic world. He deserves the respect of all of us, not smarmy comments.


19 posted on 12/28/2011 7:02:53 AM PST by Jack Black ( Whatever is left of American patriotism is now identical with counter-revolution.)
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To: jmacusa

I am unaware that Ibn Wariq has ever encouraged mass.migration of Arabs to the west. Where did you get that idea.

As to your second point, he has spent a decade debunking Islam through ds his writings. Another of his books, even more powerful than “Why I am not a Muslim” is called “Leaving Islam”.and has about forty individual stories of people who left Islam. Many but not all became Christians

Ibn has done a lot to bring truth and light to the Islamic world. He deserves the respect of all of us, not smarmy comments.


20 posted on 12/28/2011 7:03:08 AM PST by Jack Black ( Whatever is left of American patriotism is now identical with counter-revolution.)
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