Distinguishing between Islam and Islamism

danielpipes.org ^ | June 30, 1998 | Daniel Pipes

[Weirdad]

Distinguishing between Islam and Islamism
Center for Strategic and International Studies
June 30, 1998

This is a very auspicious date to discuss the subject of Islam and the West, for it was exactly 200 years ago today, by the usual reckoning, that Islam's pre-modern era came to an abrupt end. Tomorrow, on July 1, 1798, Napoleon landed in Egypt. That was the date when the Muslim world became far more aware of Europe, and after which Europe had a more dramatic and direct impact than ever before. If any single date can delineate the beginning of a new era, this one does.

We've been asked to address the question, "Is Islam incompatible with Western civilization?" I can easily say "no" in response. There is as such nothing incompatible about two religions or two religion-based civilizations. They are very broad, they have many strains, and we would have a fairly tame hour were we only to discuss at that level of generalization.

Instead, I would like to focus on the clash of ideas and ideologies. This confrontation was clearly shown in the aftermath of the fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeini against Salman Rushdie. Contrary to popular expectation, the lines in 1989 were drawn not between Muslim and Westerners, but between those who supported the ayatollah, or in some fashion sympathized with him, and those who were against him. One found many Muslims and Westerners on both sides. This illustrates how it is ideas that count, not religion.

The ideas that have most importance in this context are those of Islamism, otherwise known as fundamentalist Islam. So, I shall take the liberty slightly to adjust the question asked of me and make it "Is Islamism incompatible with Western civilization?" Now I can say "Yes." A very difficult and hostile relationship exists between the two. To elaborate on this point, I would like quickly to cover three topics: (1) Islam (2) Islamism and (3) the proper response to Islamism by Americans and the U.S. government.

Islam

Regarding Islam, one must begin with an understanding of the deep and abiding appeal of traditional Islam, a religion which today has close to a billion adherents. Their loyalty to Islam is quite amazing: Muslims almost never leave their faith in favor of another one. What one scholar, Patricia Crone calls "the world of men and their families," is intensely appealing. Similarly, Ayatollah Mohammed Imami Kashani of Iran has said that "Any Westerner who really understands Islam will envy the lives of Muslims." I, myself, took lessons in Cairo years ago with Sheikh Ahmad Hasan al-Baquri and through the course of those studies had some direct understanding of the accumulated wisdom, logic, and appeal of the religion.

But the problems that we must address began 200 years ago, minus one day. The religion of Islam is essentially a religion of success; it is a winners' religion. The prophet Muhammad fled the city of Mecca in A.D. 622. By 630, only eight years later, he was back in Mecca, now as ruler. The Muslims began as an obscure group in Arabia and within a century ruled a territory from Spain to India. In the year 1000, say, Islam was on top no matter what index of worldly success one looks at -- health, wealth, literacy, culture, power. This association became customary and assumed: to be a Muslim, was to a favorite of God, a winner.

The trauma of modern history that began 200 years ago involved failure. Failure began when Napoleon landed in Alexandria and has continued since then in almost every walk of life -- in health, wealth, literacy, culture, and power. Muslims are no longer on top. As the mufti of Jerusalem put it some months ago, "Before, we were masters of the world, and now we're not even master of our own mosques." Herein lies the great trauma, as Wilfred Cantwell Smith pointed out forty years ago in his ground-breaking book Islam and Modern History.

There have been three main responses to this trauma -- three main efforts to make things right again: secularism, which means openly learning from the West and reducing Islam to the private sphere; reformism, which means appropriating from the West, saying that the West really derives its strength by stealing from Muslims, therefore Muslims may take back from them, a middle ground; and Islamism, which stressed a return to Islamic ways but in fact takes hugely and covertly from the West -- without wanting to, perhaps, but still very much doing so.

Islamism

Islamism is an ideology that demands man's complete adherence to the sacred law of Islam and rejects as much as possible outside influence, with some exceptions (such as access to military and medical technology). It is imbued with a deep antagonism towards non-Muslims and has a particular hostility towards the West. It amounts to an effort to turn Islam, a religion and civilization, into an ideology.

The word "Islamism" is highly appropriate, for this is an "-ism" like other "-isms" such as fascism and nationalism. Islamism turns the bits and pieces within Islam that deal with politics, economics, and military affairs into a sustained and systematic program. As the leader of the Muslim Brethren put it some years ago, "the Muslims are not socialist nor capitalist; they are Muslims." I find it very telling that he compares Muslims to socialists and capitalists and not to Christians or Jews. He is saying, we are not this "-ism," we are that "-ism." Islamism offers a way of approaching and controlling state power. It openly relies on state power for coercive purposes.

Islamism is, in other words, yet another twentieth-century radical utopian scheme. Like Marxism-Leninism or fascism, it offers a way to control the state, run society, and remake the human being. It is an Islamic-flavored version of totalitarianism. The details, of course, are very different from the preceding versions, but the ultimate purpose is very similar.

Islamism is also a total transformation of traditional Islam; it serves as a vehicle of modernization. The ideology deals with the problems of urban living, of working women and others at the cutting edge, and not the traditional concerns of farmers. As Olivier Roy, the French scholar, puts it, "Rather than a reaction against the modernization of Muslim societies, Islamism is a product of it." Islamism is not a medieval program but one that responds to the stress and strains of the twentieth century.

In this, Islamism is a huge change from traditional Islam. One illustration: Whereas traditional Islam's sacred law is a personal law, a law a Muslim must follow wherever he is, Islamism tries to apply a Western-style geographic law that depends on where one lives. Take the case of Sudan, where traditionally a Christian was perfectly entitled to drink alcohol, for he is a Christian, and Islamic law applies only to Muslims. But the current regime has banned alcohol for every Sudanese. It assumes Islamic law is territorial because that is the way a Western society is run.

I also wish to note that Islamism has few connections to wealth or poverty; it is not a response to deprivation. There is no discernible connection between income and Islamism. Rather, this movement is led by capable people coping with the rough and tumble of modern life. The ideology appeals primarily to modern people; I am always fascinated to note how many Islamist leaders (for example in Turkey and Jordan) are engineers.

Islamism is by now a powerful force. It runs governments in Iran, Sudan, and Afghanistan. It is an important force of opposition in Algeria, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority. (By my understanding Saudi Arabia and Libya are not Islamist.) I estimate that some 10 percent of the Muslim population world wide is Islamist. But it is very active minority and it has a reach that is greater than its numbers. Islamists are also present here, in the United States, and, to an stunning extent, dominate the discourse of American Islam.

The Islamists' success in Iran, Sudan, and Afghanistan, show that were they to come to power elsewhere, they would create enormous problems for the people they rule, for the neighborhood, and for the United States. Their reaching power would lead to economic contraction, to the oppression of women, to terrible human rights abuses, to the proliferation of arms, to terrorism, and to the spread of a viciously anti-American ideology. These are, in short, rogue states, dangerous first tho their own people and then to the outside world.

Policy Implications

There is a great battle under way for the soul of the Muslim world. This battle is not between the West and the Muslim world; we in the West are bystanders. It is essentially a battle between Muslims, between the Khomeini and Atatürk dispositions. Which one is likely to prevail? It is strange to observe that the lively, new ideas in Kemalist Turkey are Islamist ones, whereas the lively, new ideas in Islamist Iran are secular ones. This points to the turmoil and the dynamic developments taking place in the Muslim world.

Despite the fact that the West is a bystander, we on the outside must protect our interests. To start, in devising strategy towards Islamism we must very specifically and very repeatedly distinguish between Islam and Islamism. I am talking about developing a policy toward Islamism, not Islam. States do not have policies towards religions, but they do respond to ideologies. The American government and the American people must be clear about this distinction.

This said, the U.S. government should take a number of steps:

• Support states that contain Islamists and encourage them to do so. Keeping Islamists out of power is in their interest and in ours.
• Pressure those states that are already Islamist to reduce their aggressiveness toward their own populations and toward the outside world.
• Celebrate and support those brave souls who stand up to the Islamists.
• Label the Islamist groups that engage in terrorism as such.
• Do not work cooperate with Islamists, thereby encouraging them. Dialogue with Islamists tends to enhance their stature.
• Be very careful about pushing for elections. The spread of democracy is of course a permanent American aspiration. But it includes much more than ballots. Elections are a capstone to a deep and usually long-term process of change that includes an effective rule of law, minority right, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and much more. To hold premature elections, as happened in Algeria, is in no one's interest. It requires 10, 20, 30 years of evolution before full-fledged democracy can come into existence. In a sense, this process recapitulates what took place in the first democratic country, in England, over centuries.

Because it takes time for full enfranchisement, the U.S. government should encourage democratization, first on the level of civic society, and then, only after that has been established, on the level of political leaders.

[Weirdad]

When I used the word "Islamism" on anothr thread, another poster who I won't name just felt the need to "mention" that "Uh, Islamism isn't a real word."

Islamism is not only a word but an ideology, and this article by Daniel Pipes discusses in very well. (I searched for this article on FR and did not find it, but knowing Freepers I bet it has been posted in the past. However, it remains very cogent.)

[per loin]

Kinda like the distinction between being HIV positive, and having full blown AIDS.

[Utah Girl]

Daniel Pipes ping

[ffrancone]

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[JasonC]

I agree with every word of it. To others - note the date. This is one of the guys who has been awake on the bridge and knows what is happening and why.

[RLK]

it was exactly 200 years ago today, by the usual reckoning, that Islam's pre-modern era came to an abrupt end. Tomorrow, on July 1, 1798, Napoleon landed in Egypt. That was the date when the Muslim world became far more aware of Europe...

--------------------------

What idiot wrote this? Islamic armies laid seige to Vienna Austria in 1527 and again in 1683. To the best of my knowlege Vienna is in Europe. I believe they were aware of Europe at the time.

[secretagent]

Ah, you're no fun.

[secretagent]

They may not have thought of Europe as militarily superior before.

[Broward Lion]

Who cares? Kill them all. That is the only way to be certain that the 75% who are fanatics are eliminated. I am serious when I say that I woyuld see all Islam followers dead before I would let one of the a**holes harm my family. The place to start is the ruling family of Saudi Arabia.

It is time that the moderate muslims realize that the clock is running and they better gain control or they will be iin the cross hairs.

[A_perfect_lady]

Islamist: People who kill infidels.
Muslims: People who fund, encourage, and idolize Islamists. There.

[twntaipan]

Sure seems to be the case. Well said.

[FITZ]

They're no different than Nazis. Not every Nazi murdered or gassed people but every Nazi supported the ideology behind those acts.

[Tancred]

I think he meant that the Islamic world became aware that the Western world was now far more advanced than it. Even major defeats of Islamic forces by Western ones, such as at the battle of Lepanto and outside the gates of Vienna in earlier centuries did not cause the Islamic world to revise its over-blown estimation of itself. Starting in the early 1800s, you then had attempts by local rulers in parts of what is now Egypt and Turkey to modernize by copying Western technology, such as bringing in printing presses and setting up textile factories (they failed abysmally in trying to industrialize). They also violently disbanded the janissaries.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

I think this article may be of interest to you as it deals with a subject we were discussing.

I estimate that some 10 percent of the Muslim population world wide is Islamist. But it is very active minority and it has a reach that is greater than its numbers. Islamists are also present here, in the United States, and, to an stunning extent, dominate the discourse of American Islam.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Sorry, Weirdad. I meant post #14 for Hamilton Jay, just forgot to make the name change.

[IronJack]

Personally I think this is a distinction without a difference.

The religion of Islam is essentially a religion of success; it is a winners' religion.

HAHAHAHA! These people still cook their scorpion casserole over a camel-sh!t fire! Yeah, they're winners all right. In the Neanderthal-for-a-Day contest.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

What idiot wrote this? Islamic armies laid seige to Vienna Austria in 1527 and again in 1683. To the best of my knowlege Vienna is in Europe. I believe they were aware of Europe at the time.

Perhaps you didn't read past this. The idiot who wrote this is, as noted, Daniel Pipes, an expert on the subject. (Your credentials?) He fully covers your point here:

But the problems that we must address began 200 years ago, minus one day. The religion of Islam is essentially a religion of success; it is a winners' religion. The prophet Muhammad fled the city of Mecca in A.D. 622. By 630, only eight years later, he was back in Mecca, now as ruler. The Muslims began as an obscure group in Arabia and within a century ruled a territory from Spain to India. In the year 1000, say, Islam was on top no matter what index of worldly success one looks at -- health, wealth, literacy, culture, power.

This association became customary and assumed: to be a Muslim, was to a favorite of God, a winner.

The trauma of modern history that began 200 years ago involved failure. Failure began when Napoleon landed in Alexandria and has continued since then in almost every walk of life -- in health, wealth, literacy, culture, and power. Muslims are no longer on top. As the mufti of Jerusalem put it some months ago, "Before, we were masters of the world, and now we're not even master of our own mosques."

[Mind-numbed Robot]

I don't see your usual great insight and intelligent analysis here. Perhaps you skimmed the article rather than reading it.

Pipes is pointing out how the actions of a small minority of Muslims has hijacked a religion and turned it into what you describe and he points to reasons why.

After all, the entire article is about the difference between a religion, Islam, and an idiology, Islamism, and how the first is, and was historically, personal, while the second, an idiology, is geographical and all-incompassing, basically a religion/government in one.

Islamism, a religion/government, brought about the current Dark Ages circumstance in a few Muslim countries.

[aruanan]

Poor guy has shown simply that he is quite adept at making distinctions in order to come to a predetermined conclusion. The funny thing is that he believes he's describing real entities. He's just reifying by creating categories. Everything he said could be used to describe the differences that exist within any adherents to a system of beliefs. He could have described the differences between Christianity and Christianism, between science and scientism, between socialism and socialismism.

[xJones]

Islamism is an ideology that demands man's complete adherence to the sacred law of Islam and rejects as much as possible outside influence, with some exceptions (such as access to military and medical technology). It is imbued with a deep antagonism towards non-Muslims and has a particular hostility towards the West. It amounts to an effort to turn Islam, a religion and civilization, into an ideology. [snip]

It runs governments in Iran, Sudan, and Afghanistan. It is an important force of opposition in Algeria, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority. (By my understanding Saudi Arabia and Libya are not Islamist.)

I don't see how he excludes Saudi Arabia from the category of Islamic states.

[IronJack]

I'm sorry, but where islam is concerned, I am afraid emotion triumphs analysis. I despise that religion and all it stands for. For most of my life, it has been synonymous with horror and atrocity, and I find little motive to dissect it or understand it. My energies are devoted to eradicating it and its practicioners from the face of the earth. I don't see that being accomplished by making fine distinctions between the religion and the ideology. One begets the other, and their offspring is a savagery unfit to call itself human.

[txzman]

"As the leader of the Muslim Brethren put it some years ago, "the Muslims are not socialist nor capitalist; they are Muslims." I find it very telling that he compares Muslims to socialists and capitalists and not to Christians or Jews. He is saying, we are not this "-ism," we are that "-ism." Islamism offers a way of approaching and controlling state power. It openly relies on state power for coercive purposes. And this is exactly what the politically correct media in this country are too afraid to print or put on television. Perhaps after a couple more thousands killed will get the message through....

[xJones]

"Islamic" should be "Islamist".

[aruanan]

After all, the entire article is about the difference between a religion, Islam, and an idiology [sic], Islamism, and how the first is, and was historically, personal, while the second, an idiology, is geographical and all-incompassing, basically a religion/government in one.

Islamism, a religion/government, brought about the current Dark Ages circumstance in a few Muslim countries.

Ha ha ha.You should try learning the history of Islam. If you did, you wouldn't, like Pipes, be given to making distinctions that are contrary to fact. What you and he are doing is to set up wholly artificial categories into which you sort various historical items. For instance:

> Islam--Muslims made some really cool-looking buildings like the Taj Mahal.
Islamism--Muslims since the early 7th century have overswept nations from the Atlantic to the Himalayas.

Islam--Lots of people all over the world who are nominal adherents to Islam don't kill anybody their entire life.
Islamism--Muhammad and his followers wiped out the centuries-old high civilization of the Arabian peninsula because it was Jewish and a rich source of booty.

Islam--Muhammad said he had a communication from Allah and that Muslims should pray facing Mecca.
Islamism--Muhammad said he had a communication from Allah and that Muslims should kill infidels and expropriate their property as the opportunities presented themselves.

Islam--Parts of the Koran talk about praying and what constitutes moral behavior.
Islamism--Parts of the Koran talk about killing infidels or making them slaves or forcing them to observe dhimmi laws.

Islam--Parts of some exhortations in the Koran don't talk about armed conquest and oppression of infidels.
Islamism--Other parts of the same exhortations in the Koran DO talk about armed conquest and oppression of infidels.

This kind of labeling was seen earlier in attempts to "uncover the historical Jesus" by cutting out all descriptions of anything vaguely not natural and ascribing their origin to something other than the historical antecedents.

The historical Jesus--a first century preacher about righteousness who was crucified by the Romans.
Myth--the Son of God who rose from the dead.

It was seen in the higher criticism treatment of the Old Testament writings ostensibly in the attempt to distinguish between actual history and later supposed supernatural embellishments.

Actual history (though Muslims will deny this): there was an ancient, small nation called Israel that existed in the buffer lands between the military powers of Egypt and the Assyrians.
Supernatural embellishments: Israel was led out of centuries-long slavery in Egypt by Moses after a series of catastrophes

In all three instances, the proponent of such an approach has already decided that true X is ___________ and that anything that differs must, therefore, not be true X. Based on his ad hoc distinctions, he sifts through anything having to do with X, making one or more piles and then declares that these piles represent actual entities. In reality, they are simply categorical constructs that tell us more about his own belief system than they do about X.

[RLK]

I think he meant that the Islamic world became aware that the Western world was now far more advanced than it. Even major defeats of Islamic forces by Western ones, such as at the battle of Lepanto and outside the gates of Vienna in earlier centuries did not cause the Islamic world to revise its over-blown estimation of itself. Starting in the early 1800s, you then had attempts by local rulers in parts of what is now Egypt and Turkey to modernize by copying Western technology, such as bringing in printing presses and setting up textile factories (they failed abysmally in trying to industrialize). They also violently disbanded the janissaries.

-----------------------------------

If that's what he meant, you said it much better than he did and he ought to get you to do his writing for him.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Thank you for the excellent reply of a type that I expect when I see your name. I am usually much the better for our exchanges.

However, I do see validity in Pipes's distinction between a religion and an idiology, the first being personal and the latter being collective and geographical. I also suspect that his appraisal that only 10% of all Muslims are radical extremists, the idiologues, who use aggressive force and intimidation to control the rest. This is normally the case with totalitarian idiologies, i.e., Communism, Naziism, and Fascism.

It is also usually the case that totalitarians are ambitious to extend their domains and their powers until they consume all. With that goal in mind, there are no rules of engagement except the necessary deceptions to forestall and later ambush a stronger opponent. They suppress, through the threat of and inflictuation of pain and death, all domestic opposition and they set out to conquer all foreign opposition. Tis the nature of the beast.

To assume that all who fly under their banners are true believers is to ignore history and human nature. To assume that those people, once relieved of the weight of oppression, would themselves take up the radical cause is to commit the same error, IMHO.

[MHGinTN]

Will be back shortly. Thanks for posting this very concise exposition of a very complex differentiation between Islam and Islamism ... islamism is a totalitarian ideology.

[MHGinTN]

Was the following what you were looking for?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/534149/posts

[MHGinTN]

Wahhabism rules SA. That particular sect is far more restrictive than even Islamism. Neither is a benign religious sect/theocratic order. Oppression and restriction of basic human rights hallmark both.

[Weirdad]

That's a great post (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/534149/posts) you mention (and posted), and thanks for the link, although all I meant was that I had tried not to "duplicate post" the article I posted. (Search does not always work on older posts and this one was from 6/30/1998.)

[sheik yerbouty]

This jihadi bunch, are, for the lack of better terms, sand nazis.

[aruanan]

However, I do see validity in Pipes's distinction between a religion and an idiology, the first being personal and the latter being collective and geographical. I also suspect that his appraisal that only 10% of all Muslims are radical extremists, the idiologues, who use aggressive force and intimidation to control the rest. This is normally the case with totalitarian idiologies, i.e., Communism, Naziism, and Fascism.

Thanks. Both religions and ideologies have their collective and geographical aspects (the Church and Rome) (the New Soviet Man/The Aryan Race and Moscow/Berlin). Both religions and ideologies have their true believers, their nominal adherents of the go along to get along variety, and their takers-on by osmosis of whatever happens to be the dominant phenotype. But, like a religion, you can't have an ideology without adherents.

Besides, an ideology is a religion with an immanantized eschaton--there is no pie in the sky by and by, it is here now; there is no just judge or impersonal outworking of karma, there is the functionary who is one with The Plan; there is no future judgement, there is the guillotine and the mass grave.

To one extreme we have Christianity and other religions in which the ultimate judgement on a person's life is either in the afterlife or in the next life. To the other extreme we have Communism in which the judgement is here and now depending on whether you submit to the plan. Somewhere in between, but much closer to Communism of the Lenin/Stalin/Mao/Pol Pot variety, is Islam. It posits a supreme being whose will controls all (like or unlike other religions), but it also (like Communism and Naziism), from the earliest days, has called on the faithful, if they be truly faithful, to take it to the infidels and convert them, kill them, or enslave them. Some have spiritualized the jihad into a personal war against the id, the struggle of everyman to bring his own personal world, rather than the world at large, into subjection to the will of Allah. But this is just another example of people not willing to accept something for what it is: they do the same thing in other religions--Jesus is a marvelous ethical teacher who has given us the example of dying to the bad things in our nature and being reborn, as it were, into newness of a new life purpose on a higher ethical plane.

[HamiltonJay]

Islamists dominate American Islam, and like it or not Islamists control much of Islam throughout the arab world and are growing in other regions. They also dominate Islam in nearly all western nations that have let these barbarians in.

Reality is this, I don't argue that the wassabists are a minority in number, I argue highly the precept that they are not controlling the religion. Islam is not cleaning its house, Wassabists are only about 200 years old, but now control most of Islam, or are attempting to control it. Those of "peaceful" Islam, have not or will not clean their house, they know these people exist and generally do little if anything to stop them. Finally, even the "moderate" muslims cannot escape the fact that their religion is born of violence and promotes it. Their branch may have come to a realization pragmatically somewhere in history that this behavior is counter productive, but they cannot escape the fact that their religion is founded on barbaric violent principals. I have never said there were not peaceful muslims, I have always said Islam is not a religion of peace.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Thanks for the reply. Once again, it is extremely informative and insightful. I hope this bump allows more to see it.

Besides, an ideology is a religion with an immanantized eschaton--there is no pie in the sky by and by, it is here now; there is no just judge or impersonal outworking of karma, there is the functionary who is one with The Plan; there is no future judgement, there is the guillotine and the mass grave.

Is there a Republicism, as in devotion to a constitutional republic, as we are or were? Or are we, as we were intended to be, as I understand it, ism free government wise?

[TLBSHOW]

Islam is the enemy!

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Thanks for your latest response. I take no issue with it at all. I appreciate your sticking with the discussion.

[navigator]

Right on...and I'm sure that the Muslim World was aware of Europe a bit earlier ..in 1492.. when Christian Spain booted the Moors off the continent after 700 years of occupation.

[iconoclast]

It runs governments in Iran, Sudan, and Afghanistan. It is an important force of opposition in Algeria, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority. (By my understanding Saudi Arabia and Libya are not Islamist.)

Hmmm? Anyone notice a ME country left out?

Hint ... ask GWB.

[AnalogReigns]

In a sense, this process recapitulates what took place in the first democratic country, in England, over centuries.

I think the first contemporary democratic country was really Switzerland...however, its democratic evolution was parallel to England's--and the USA's....but I'm not going to split hairs. Great article anyway!

[slimer]

This is some pretty heavy stuff, for such a short piece. I'm not sure how much more profound one can get. This quote is from an interview with Attorney General John Ashcroft by Cal Thomas.

"People are always asking me (Cal Thomas) if there are good leaders in Washington. There are. There are quite a few, but you don't often hear about them because many of them aren't engaging in scandalous or self-serving activities. One such good person is Attorney General John Ashcroft.

I had the pleasure of interviewing him again this week for a column I'm writing. During the interview, Ashcroft said something so profound, I wanted to share it with you. Listen ... this is good."

The attorney general of the United States said : "Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sent his Son to die for you."

GOD BLESS AMERICA,

[Weirdad]

Thanks for citing the very true quote spoken by John Ashcroft: The attorney general of the United States said: "Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sent his Son to die for you."