Toward a Revised Koran

The horror of U.S., Inc., when an enterprising soldier draped an American flag over the bronze head of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad is an early warning signal of the efforts being made to hoist only a non-imperialist flag in Iraq. The challenge ahead is formidable, but not for that reason unappealing. It would be fine if we secured the active cooperation of Saudi Arabia, because in Jedda is the political key to the problem.

In 1969 a summit conference was called, which met in Rabat, Morocco, to form the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), with a permanent secretariat in Jedda. The challenge is to wrest from Jedda de facto sanction for an Iraqi government that will be Muslim but that will observe a separation of church and state. The end is that secular concerns and the liberty of conscience should fuse to create an incipient democracy.

The OIC has 57 member states, not all of them exclusively Muslim, but all with a substantial Muslim population. There are democratic states among them, including Turkey, whose Islamic majority prevailed in the last election and, ironically, refused to facilitate the American expedition. The scholar Bernard Lewis identifies three schools of Islamic thought in the matter of dissenters, or infidels, to use theological language. There are those who believe that a sacred mission of Islam is to conquer the world by the use of the sword if necessary. A second accepts cohabitation of the planet but with stern monolithic concern for Islamic preeminence. The third accepts a division in religions abroad, and the realities and benefits of coexistence.

Tomorrow, the civil administration in Iraq will proceed under an American viceroy. The day after tomorrow will come in a year or two, when a credible Iraqi assembly evolves. The missionary work of the U.S. Department of State is to elicit a commitment to freedom of conscience from Muslim authorities. And there is no shortage of those who would step forward and declare that the Koran does not enjoin such activity as was engaged in by Saddam Hussein.

Professor Lewis tell us that medieval jurists and theologians discussed at some length the rules of warfare, including such questions as which weapons are permitted, which not. "There is even some discussion in medieval texts of the lawfulness of missile and chemical warfare, the one relating to mangonels and catapults, the other to poison-tipped arrows and the poisoning of enemy water supplies."

There is internal dissent. "Some justices permit, some restrict, some disapprove of the use of these weapons. The stated reason for concern is the indiscriminate casualties that they inflict." Mr. Lewis, in his new book The Crisis of Islam, concludes the paragraph with charming self-effacement. "At no point do the basic texts of Islam enjoin terrorism and murder. At no point — as far as I am aware — do they even consider the random slaughter of uninvolved bystanders." Well, doc, if you are unaware, after a lifetime's scholarship, of any sovereign Islamic mandate that permits random slaughter such as was practiced by Saddam Hussein, we should proceed on the assumption that no member of a civil government in Baghdad will come up with a Koranic injunction to resume the random slaughter and oppression sometimes used to enforce one-man rule.

The looming omnipresence will be Jedda, where the secretariat sits representing the worldwide Muslim community. We have working for us the indelible picture of an elated people greeting their liberators. Bearing the scars of life under one Muslim ruler, Iraqi dissidents and converts are powerful missionaries to Jedda, and indeed to Egypt and Iran and Syria. The need is great to move toward a constitution in which Islam is acknowledged as a state religion, but only in the sense that the Church of England is a state religion.

In the best of all possible worlds, the sheer dazzle of the coalition's liberation should serve to illuminate the privations of life without freedom. But it won't be enough. If the inherent allure of freedom were sufficient to convert those who suffer from life without it, autocratic rule would disappear. More will be needed, in effective statesmanship, including persuasion and some tough love for those sheiks of Araby who continue life as though nothing at all had happened in Iraq. A great deal happened, including, for however brief a moment, the Stars and Stripes over the face of the tyrant.

The scholar Bernard Lewis identifies three schools of Islamic thought in the matter of dissenters, or infidels, to use theological language. There are those who believe that a sacred mission of Islam is to conquer the world by the use of the sword if necessary. A second accepts cohabitation of the planet but with stern monolithic concern for Islamic preeminence. The third accepts a division in religions abroad, and the realities and benefits of coexistence.

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The reality is to to begin with declaration of school three until school two and one can be imposed in succession.

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They CANNOT change their belifs and actions as long as they hold onto the Koran. If they try, the true belivers of the ROT (Religion of Terror) will exterminate them as infidels. The peaceful muslims are useful to them only as a front for the early stages of the invasion.

This is a fight to the death, my friend. We didn't start it, but we had better finish it--or we're finished!

The Koran has two phases of war, one, underground with treatys when the other side is too big, and the second a bloody nothing is too horrible to do in the name of Allah phase.

We do not need to destroy Islam, we just need to beat it so clearly that they go back to their "the time is not right" phase.

As Islam cannot ever produce any real scientific gains with everything under the rules of the cleric elite, the will never overcome free people. Slaves make poor workers. We just need to keep our moral state strong, and our people free. Our recent slide into State Controled "Political Correctness" and State sponsored Sexual "favored classes" made the Islamic Clerics believe that we were weak. The war with Islam is Clinton's Legacy. Now we have to decide, Do we want to be a free people? Or free from Morals people. You can not have it both ways.

"They CANNOT change their belifs and actions as long as they hold onto the Koran. If they try, the true belivers of the ROT (Religion of Terror) will exterminate them as infidels. The peaceful muslims are useful to them only as a front for the early stages of the invasion.

This is a fight to the death, my friend. We didn't start it, but we had better finish it--or we're finished!"

Here's my current take:
Both the Bible and the Koran have passages, which if taken literally, are out of step with current notions of "civilized" behavior.

Christians have adapted the words of the Bible, to current norms of moral behavior.

For now, I'm willing to accept that some (unknown percentage) muslims make a similar adaptation of Koranic language, towards peaceful coexistence with other faiths.

This epoch confrontation is in the early stages. The outcome can be resolved, without massive loss of muslim lives.

That choice rests largely with islam, which has a decentralized structure. It requires both the religion and the nations to outlaw and punish those fanatics.

If the religion and muslim nations fail to restrict the behavior of the fanatics (terrorists), it falls to us civilized folks, to unleash massive military, pre-emptive self-defense.

In certain respects, the muslims continue to reveal their utter backwardness, utter stupidity.

Combining the economic, military and manpower of (most of) Europe, US, Japan, Australia and India, Islam is vastly out-gunned.

And if they opt for the violent outcome, they will be humiliated far beyond even their possible imaginations.

We are effectively doing our necessary work, one nation at a time.

I have a dream! That some day on the streets of Baghdad, a muslim woman and a Jewish man can walk hand in hand! (ok, maybe it's just a pipe dream.)

Maybe it's not such a silly notion:

Muslims Rescue Baghdad’s Jewish Community Center

And my favorite line from the article:

"Hossam, bring the Kalashnikovs"

Christians have adapted the words of the Bible, to current norms of moral behavior.

Nothing in the bible has been adapted or updated since the NT canon. All the exhortations to war and estermination were old testament and were directed to particular situations and times. There is no generalized call for destruction of nonbelieving people(s) except the stricture against allowing a witch to live. As for witches, modern society simply does not believe that there are such people in the sense that they were believed in 2000 years ago or 1000 ears ago. People who claim to be witches are seen as simply self deluded relativists who cannot harm anyone.

Not a bad post over all, but any attempt at moral relativism between Christianity and iSLAM is worse than comparing apples and oranges. It's apples and feces! The OT had some specific instances where God called the Israelites to destroy certain offensive people in certain specific instances. That's a whole lot different from calling for the wholesale slaughter or oppression of all who will not convert to iSLAM. The NT has no calls to violence of any kind in any instance at all.

Worse than apples and oranges. Much worse.

"Not a bad post over all, but any attempt at moral relativism between Christianity and iSLAM is worse than comparing apples and oranges. It's apples and feces! The OT had some specific instances where God called the Israelites to destroy certain offensive people in certain specific instances. That's a whole lot different from calling for the wholesale slaughter or oppression of all who will not convert to iSLAM. The NT has no calls to violence of any kind in any instance at all."

I fully agree that as written, the Koran is inferior, as a guide to moral living, and coexistence with others.

My point is that THEY ALONE must decide in favor of necessary reform interpretation (as Christianity HAS done) or islam will be choosing conflict.

A conflict they aren't strong enough to win. But a conflict that recent evidence indicates a fraction of them insist on waging.

I'm reading a book, about "denazification" after WWII. It had been proposed by Stalin to "pastoralize" all of Germany. That meant destroying any kind of modern industry, capable of re-armament.

It turned out differently, with the Soviets opting for permanent occupation, whereas the other three sectors formed West Germany.

West Germany was PROHIBITED from rearming, and that limit may still be in effect. Same for Japan.

The individual muslim countries MUST prohibit export of violence, or measures will do it for them.

One country at a time, as they are now witnessing.

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