Posted on 07/08/2015 7:01:27 PM PDT by SoFloFreeper
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is correct that darker passages of Islamic Scripture endorse violence and prescribe harsh punishments for moral or theological infractions. And she is right that in many Muslim countries, too many citizens still think it is a good idea to kill people for apostasy, stone them for adultery, and beat women for disobedience just because Scripture says so. But Hirsi Ali is profoundly wrong when she argues that Islamic Scripture causes Muslim terrorism and thus that the U.S. government should fund Muslim dissidents to reform Islam.
Islamic Scripture is a constant. Over 1,000 years old, it is composed of the Koran and hadith, words and deeds attributed to the Prophet Muhammad by his followers. Muslims who want to justify violence can find plenty of passages to cite—collections of hadith run into the hundreds of volumes. Nevertheless, Muslim political behavior has varied greatly throughout history. Some Muslims have cited Scripture to justify violence, and some have cited it to justify peace. If Scripture is a constant but the behavior of its followers is not, then one should look elsewhere to explain why some Muslims engage in terrorism. And if Islamic Scripture doesn’t automatically lead to terrorism, then one should not expect the reform of Islam to end terrorism. Indeed, even the ultratextualist followers of the self-proclaimed Islamic State ignore Scripture that is inconvenient for their brutal brand of insurgency.
Consider the Gospels, Scriptures that advocate far less violence than the Koran or the Hebrew Bible. Jesus taught his followers to turn the other cheek. Yet the crusaders murdered thousands in their rampage across the Middle East, and U.S. President George W. Bush, a devout Christian, invaded Iraq without military provocation. Readers may object to these examples, arguing that other factors were at play—but that is exactly the point: Christian Scripture doesn’t always determine the behavior of its followers, and the same goes for Islamic Scripture.
Profound stupidity.
By the way, the later writings of Mohammed are considered more authoritative. Unfortunately for humanity Mohammad was suffering syphilitic insanity at the time.
Sad that something this stupid would come out of Brookings.
Balderdash!
Mental masturbation like this is why we will never come to terms with Islam. We cannot even be honest with ourselves about the true nature of Islam.
Too late, your head is already sawed off while trying to run through your Nursery school happy playtime thoughts.
There are 1400+ years of history showing that the violent passages of the Koran and Hadiths are the ones that are followed by Islamics. And the Crusades were a reaction to Islamic wars of conquest, and were nothing compared to them, as this short fact-filled video shows:
This is from Dr. Bill Warner at PoliticalIslam.com, a worthwhile site.
http://www.politicalislam.com/
Brookings has always been a leftist, and Godless, 'Think Tank'.
So, no matter how brilliant their members, I'd expect foolish conclusions to come out of that group.
MUSLIMS are allowed to LIE and deceive NON MUSLIMS, if it benefits or protects ISLAM.I saw an analysis that compared Christian initiated battles with Muslim initiated battles during the Crusades and the Muslim attacks are something like a hundred time more frequent.
“Take Five Minutes And Watch The Spread Of Islam Via Jihad Before The Crusades”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIeG_0WfaJw
Here is the video I was thinking about. 548 battles in a dynamic map shows that the Muslims almost took over Europe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_To-cV94Bo
This shows that the author is profoundly ignorant of Islamic history.
For example, the Persian philosopher Al-Ghazali, in the 12th Century, has been referred to by some historians as the single most influential Muslim after Muhammad. His writings essentially ended Islamic scientific and cultural advance, and they have not recovered since.
He was the first Islamic “fundamentalist”, who taught that Muslims should ignore knowledge except that found inside the Koran and Hadith. Everything else should be rejected, as leading followers astray.
This was the formalization of the Salafist movement, dedicated to the prevention of non-Islamic intellectualism and advance, and hearkens back to a time of false nostalgia.
Then, in the 18th Century, Salafism got a shot in the arm with Wahhabism, which asserted that the barbarism they practiced could not tolerate modernism *anywhere*, either in Islamic or non-Islamic lands.
And this set the stage for numerous, anti-civilization, barbaric revolts, first against the British empire, and today against the western world. They truly believe that Islam is the “ultimate civilization”, despite all evidence to the contrary, and that modern civilization is “the great Satan” that must be destroyed.
But this doubly damns Islam, because not only must they destroy us or in turn be destroyed; but they must force all Muslims to stay primitive out of fear, lest they abandon their cult and seek to join the modern world.
well said ... good post. Thanks
Non sequitur! GWB did not cite Christian Scripture as the justification for his action.
Islamists, at the very least, shout "Allahu akbar!", whenever they commit their most atrocious acts. And their Mullahs frequently cite the Koran in support of Islamist militarism.
The Brookings Institute should immediately and publicly apologize for this absurd piece.
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(Note: restored my usual tagline...)
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