And yet, the Republican Party has nominated a man who thinks this:
“I didn’t refer to Islam at all, or to any other religion for that matter. I spoke about three major threats America faces on a long term basis. Jihadism is one of them, and that is not Islam. If you want my views on Islam, it’s quite straightforward. Islam is one of the world’s great religions and the great majority of people in Islam want peace for themselves and peace with their maker. They want to raise families and have a bright future. There is, however, a movement in the world known as jihadism. They call themselves jihadists and I use the same term. And this jihadist movement is intent on causing the collapse of moderate Muslim states and the assassination of moderate Muslim leaders. It is also intent on causing collapse of other nations in the world. It’s by no means a branch of Islam. It is instead an entirely different entity. In no way do I suggest it is a part of Islam.”
— Mitt Romney
And yet these fabled "moderate" muslims he believes in do themselves insist that jihadism IS part of islam.
> ... moderate Muslim states and the assassination of moderate Muslim leaders.
Exposing the Myth of Moderate Islam
By Dr. Ali Sina
Islamic Scholar and Historian
Exposing the True Nature and History of Islam
June 2, 2010
I have always maintained that “Moderate Muslim” is an oxymoron. We
have two kinds of Muslims: Terrorist Muslims and Ignorant Muslims.
The former are those who know Islam well and live by its dictums. The
latter have no clue about their religion and have an idealized image
of Islam that has no basis in fact.
Mr. Tarek Fatah’s editorial
published in the National Post on March 12, 2010 confirms my view.
Fatah attended a debate between Dr. Wafa Sultan,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wafa_Sultan
the courageous ex-Muslim woman that shook the Arab world when in an
Aljazeera televised debate she pointed out that the problem with the
Muslim world is Islam, and Dr. Daniel Pipes, a scholar of Islamic
history and the director of the Middle East Forum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_Forum
In this debate Pipes argued that Islam is not essentially an
intolerant religion and that there have been instances when Jews who
were persecuted in Christian countries had sought refuge in Muslim
lands. Sultan disagreed and reminded her audience that Muhammad had
raided several Jewish tribes who lived in Arabia, massacred their
unarmed men and allowed his marauding band to rape their women, while
always reserving the prettiest for himself.
Upon hearing these comments, Fatah was “traumatized”. “Even a
hardened secular Muslim such as myself was deeply hurt by what I
heard that evening,” wrote Fatah.
While acknowledging the validity of Sultan’s criticism of Islam,
Fatah repined that “instead of using her newfound fame to challenge
the established theocracies and corrupt kingdoms of the Middle East,
Sultan veered off the deep end and could not resist the temptation of
becoming the poster child of Islam haters, joining their ranks with
the fervour of a convert.”
Why should Sultan challenge the established theocracies and corrupt
kingdoms when these are the rotten fruits of the poisonous tree of
Islam? As a medical doctor she is trained to look at the cause of the
disease and not the symptoms.
Fatah accused Sultan of fear mongering and telling to a predominantly
Jewish audience, that Muhammad was a Jew killer. He wrote “Wafa
Sultan delivered an astonishing account of how the Prophet had
slaughtered Jews and then raped the wife of the defeated Jewish
tribe.”
Astonishing account? These accounts were reported by early Muslim
historians. If Fatah is astonished it is because he, like most
Muslims, has not read the history of Islam. Few Muslims care to
investigate their religion. The references to Muhammad’s raids, rapes
and lootings can also be found in the Quran.
Muslims chant the Quran for thawab (reward), but they don’t study it
and often don’t understand what they read.
The hatred of the Jews is in the Quran. The first sura of this book
is a prayer where Muslims supplicate to Allah, “Show us the straight
path. The path of those whom Thou hast favored; not the (path) of
those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray.”
Muslims agree that “those whom Allah has favored,” are Muslims,
“those who earn Allah’s anger,” and “those who go astray” are Jews,
and Christians, respectively.
Jews are stereotyped as greedy in all Muslim countries. This is due
to quranic verse that says Jews “cling to life more eagerly than any
other people. ...every one of them would love to live a thousand
years,” but they will burn I hell. (2:96)
Many verses of the Quran portray the Jews as evil doers, wicked,
transgressors, prophet killers, and despised by God. Because Muhammad
hated the Jews, Muslims will always hate the Jews. This hatred is
inseparable from Islam.
Fatah continued, “I left the synagogue deeply disturbed. In the fight
against Islamofascism, Wafa Sultan’s hatred of Islam was cultivating
the very forces she claims to be exposing. When a questioner asked
her ‘What is the solution?’ she just shrugged her shoulders. Perhaps
the answer she had in mind was too outrageous even by her own
standards: Force Muslims to convert or die.”
Sultan has all the reasons to hate Islam. Former Muslims hate Islam
because we hate discrimination against women, violence against non-
Muslims, dictatorship and imposition of faith that characterizes the
true Islam, and because we know the damage that his overgrown cult
has done to our people, our culture and our countries. We don’t shrug
our shoulders when asked for the solution. Obviously this “hardened
secular Muslim” was so traumatized that he could no longer hear what
Wafa Sultan was saying.
Former Muslims propose telling the truth as the solution. We believe
that truth can set us free. Former Muslims do not advocate violence
and hate against our own kin, brothers, sisters, parents, and loved
ones. We strive for their freedom and their right to know the truth.
We oppose censorship and political correctness that have enslaved the
truth. Truth can hurt our feelings, but lies will kill us.
I do not dispute with Dr. Pipes’ historic account that sometimes Jews
who were persecuted by Christians sought refuge among Muslims.
However, I respectfully disagree with him when he presents this as
evidence of the tolerance of Islam.
Islam is not tolerant because Muhammad was not tolerant. This does
not mean all Muslims are intolerant. There have been many Islamic
rulers who were tolerant, but they went against the canons of Islam,
as many do today. That is why the jihadists who follow the true
Islam are attacking these Muslim rulers.
Unlike the crusaders who wanted to convert everyone to Christianity,
the jihadists don’t want to convert everyone to Islam. They want to
establish the Caliphate and dominate the world. In an Islamic state,
ruled under the Sharia, non-Muslims, particularly the people of the
Book, (Jews and Christians) are protected, as long as “they pay the
Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” (Q:
9:29). This is no different from Nazism. Hitler did not want
everyone to become Arians, nor did he want to exterminate all
mankind. He wanted to dominate the world.
By drawing a distinction between Islamic terrorists and “moderate”
Muslims Dr. Pipes is treading a dangerous path. One is either a
Muslim, therefore emulates Muhammad and is a terrorist, or he is not
a Muslim. Moderate Muslim makes as much sense as moderate Nazi. A
Muslim who does not practice Islam or believes Islam means peace is
not a moderate Muslim, but a wishy-washy Muslim or an ignorant
Muslim.
Lies always come back to haunt us. It is this myth that allows Glenn
Beck to malign Geert Wilders and call him a “fascist,” or Jacqui
Smith and other British officials to bar him from entering the U.K.
There are countless good people who are harassed, prosecuted and
called racists because of this myth.
I respectfully urge Dr. Pipes to stop promoting the myth of moderate
Islam. I also cordially invite him to a written debate on this topic.
Getting to the bottom of this matter goes beyond academic interest.
This myth is endangering the lives of the critics of Islam and is
violating their right to free speech. Good people are called
islamophobe, bigot, racist and fascist because the world prefers
politically correct untruths to the inconvenient truth. It is thanks
to this myth that telling the truth has become the new hate speech.
Mr. Tarek Fatah proves my point that there is no such thing as
moderate Muslim. He calls himself hardened secular, but fractures
when he hears a historic truth about his prophet. So much for his
hardness! When he says, “Wafa Sultan’s hatred of Islam was
cultivating the very forces she claims to be exposing,” he is talking
about himself. Many honest Muslims prefer not to hide their heads in
the sand; they face the truth and deal with it in a rational way.
I would like to remind the readers that virtually all Muslim
terrorists come from a secular background. At one point they were
just as “liberal” as Mr. Fatah is today until something happened in
their lives and they turned to their faith.
Every “moderate” Muslim is a potential terrorist. The belief in Islam
is like a tank of gasoline. It looks innocuous, until it meets the
fire. For a “moderate” Muslim to become a murderous jihadist, all it
takes is a spark of faith.
It is time to put an end to the charade of “moderate Islam.” There is
no such thing as a moderate Muslim. Muslims are either jihadists or
dormant jihadists — moderate, they are not.
Islam Index
http://iranpoliticsclub.net/islam/index.htm
Library Index
http://iranpoliticsclub.net/library/index.htm
Ali Sina Index
http://iranpoliticsclub.net/authors/ali-sina/index.htm
http://iranpoliticsclub.net/islam/moderate-islam/index.htm