NPR Repeatedly calls President Bush “Mr. Bush”

I was listening to National Public Radio (also known as National Palestinian Radio) today and on their NPR News segment there were approximately five references to “Mr. Bush” when referring to President Bush.  I don’t recall them ever referring to Bill Clinton during his presidency as Mr. Clinton.  Oh well, more proof of the leftist MSM bias.

Allah is not God

I have often heard Muslims refer to Allah as God when addressing Westerners and in particular Christians. It has at times made me wonder if this practice muddles the understanding between Christians and Muslims since the God of the Bible and Allah are very different. By shedding light on some key differences between the descriptions of the two deities the answer is a definite yes.

Before I address the evidence for my position it is worth noting a few truths:

1. it is impossible to reasonably argue that the law of non-contradiction is false without assuming it to be true in the first place
2. Christianity and Islam make mutually exclusive truth claims so both worldviews cannot both be true without violating the law of non-contradiction

These truths imply the following: Christianity and Islam make mutually exclusive truth claims so both worldviews cannot both be true.

So back to the discussion about Allah and God. It is my contention that Allah and God have mutually exclusive characteristics and therefore Allah and God can not be the same entity.

According to Christian doctrine God’s nature defines, among other things, the concepts of love, perfection, truth, reason, and good. He can not lie or deceive because it goes against His nature. He can not be unreasonable because doing so would be against His nature. The same can not be said of Allah. Allah does not have a nature according to which he must act; he is Absolute will. As we shall see this leads to a series of metaphysical and moral problems.

Here are some descriptions of the Muslim god “Allah” from the book Answering Islam (pp 140-149) by Norman L. Geisler and Abdul Saleeb (I have replaced all references to “God” with “Allah”):

At the very basis of the classical Islamic view of Allah is a radical form of voluntarism and nominalism. For traditional Islam, properly speaking Allah does not have an essence, at least not a knowable one. Rather, he is Will. True enough, Allah is said to be just and loving, but he is not essentially just or loving. And he is merciful only because “He hath inscribed For Himself [the rule of] Mercy” (6:12). But it is important to remember that since Allah is Absolute Will, had he chosen to be otherwise he would not be merciful. There is no nature or essence in Allah according to which he must act.

There are two basic problems with this radical form of nominalism: a metaphysical one and a moral one.

Metaphysical problem:

The orthodox Islamic view of Allah claims, as we have seen, that Allah is an absolutely necessary being. He is self-existent, and he cannot not exist. But if Allah is by nature a necessary kind of being, then it is of his nature to exist. In short, he must have a nature or else he could not be by nature a necessary kind of being. In this same regard, orthodox Islam believes that there are other essential attributes of Allah, such as self-existence’ uncreatedness, and eternality. But if these are all essential characteristics of Allah, then Allah must have an essence, otherwise they would not be essential attributes. For this is precisely how essence is defined, namely, as the essential attributes or characteristics of a being.

Furthermore, there is a serious moral problem with Islamic voluntarism. For if Allah is Will, without any real essence, then he does not do things because they are right; rather, they are right because he does them.

Moral problem:

In short, Allah is arbitrary about what is right and wrong. He does not have to do good. For example, Allah does not have to be merciful; he could be mean if he wanted to be. He does not have to be loving to all; he could hate, if he chose to do so. Indeed, in the very next verse after it says “Allah will love you. . . . Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful” (3:31), we read that “Allah loveth not those Who reject Faith” (v. 32). Further, Allah said in 25:51, “Had it been Our Will, We could have sent A warner to every centre Of Population.” But he did not, which smacks of arbitrariness. In other words, love and mercy are not of the essence of Allah. Allah could choose not to be loving. This is why Muslim scholars have such difficulty with the question of Allah’s predestination

The problem of extreme determinism:

Since in Islam the relationship between Allah and human beings is basically that of Master and slave, Allah is the sovereign monarch and man must submit to him as an obedient slave. This overpowering picture of Allah in the Qur’an has created its own tension in Muslim theology regarding Allah’s absolute sovereignty and man’s free will. Despite protests to the contrary, orthodox Islam teaches the absolute predestination of both good and evil, that all our thoughts, words, and deeds, whether good or evil, were foreseen, foreordained, determined and decreed from all eternity, and that everything that happens takes place according to what has been written for it. This is because Allah “is the Irresistible” (6:18). Commenting on these kinds of Qur’ anic statements, Kenneth Cragg points out that “Allah” is the Qadar, or “determination,” of all things, and his taqdir, or his “subjection” of everything, covers all humankind and all history.

“Nature, whether animate or inanimate, is subject to His command and all that comes into existence-a summer flower or a murderer’s deed, a newborn child or a sinner’s disbelief-is from Him and of Him.” In fact, if “Allah so willed, there need have been no creation, there need have been no idolatry, there need have been no Hell, there need have been no escape from Hell. ” Even though Muslim scholar Fazlur Rahman admits to playing down extreme determinism, nonetheless he still admits that “there is no doubt that the Qur’an does make frequent statements to the effect that Allah leads aright whom He will and leads astray whom He will, or that Allah has ’sealed up’ some people’s hearts to truth, etc.” There are four basic problems with this extreme form of predetermination. They are logical, moral, theological, and metaphysical. One involves a contradiction; one eliminates human responsibility; one makes Allah the author of evil; and one gives rise to pantheism.

The logical problem with Islamic determinism:

Even Muslim commentators are forced to acknowledge that Allah performs contradictory actions. One of the greatest Islamicists, Goldziher, summarizes the situation in this way: “There is probably no other point of doctrine on which equally contradictory teachings can be derived from the Qur’an as on this one.” Another scholar notes that “the Quranic doctrine of Predestination is very explicit though not very logical.” For example, Allah is “the One Who leads astray,” as well as “the One Who guides.” He is “the One Who brings damage,” as also does Satan. He is described also by terms like “the Bringer-down,” “the Compeller” or “Tyrant,” “the Haughty”-all of which, when used of men, have an evil sense.

Many Muslim scholars attempt to reconcile this by pointing out that these contradictions are not in Allah’s nature (which they believe he does not really have), but in the realm of his will. They are not in his essence but in his actions. However, this is an inadequate explanation for two reasons. For one thing, as we have seen, Allah does have a knowable nature or essence. Hence, Muslim scholars cannot avoid the contradiction that Allah has logically opposed characteristics by placing them outside his essence within the mystery of his will. Further, actions flow from nature and represent it, so there must be something in the nature that corresponds to the action. Salt water does not flow from a fresh stream.

Others attempt to downplay the harsh extremes of Islamic determinism by creating a distinction, not found in the Qur’an, between what Allah does and what he allows his creatures to do by their free choice. This would solve the problem but, as we shall see, only at the expense of rejecting the clear statements of the Qur’an as well as Islamic tradition and creeds

The moral problem with Islamic determinism:

While many Muslim scholars wish to preserve human responsibility, they can only succeed in doing so by modifying what the Qur’ an actually says. Consider the very words of the Qur’an: “Say: ‘Nothing will happen to us Except what Allah has decreed For us’” (9:51); “Whom Allah doth guide,-He is on the right path: Whom He rejects from His guidance,Such are the persons who perish. Many are the Jinns and men We have made for Hell” (7:178-79); “The Word is proved true Against the greater part of them: For they do not believe. We have put yokes Round their necks Right up to their chins, So that their heads are Forced up (and they cannot see). And We have put A bar in front of them And a bar behind them, And further, We have Covered them up; so that They cannot see.

The same is it to them Whether thou admonish them Or thou do not admonish Them: they will not believe” (36:7-10).

What is more, the Qur’an frankly admits that Allah could have saved all, but did not desire to do so! “If We had so willed, We could certainly have brought Every soul its true guidance: But the Word from Me Will come true, ‘I will Fill Hell with jinn And men all together’” (32: 13). It is extremely difficult to understand how, holding such a view, one can consistently maintain any kind of human responsibility.

The theological problem with Islamic determinism:

There is another problem with this severe view of Allah’s sovereign determination of all events: it makes Allah the author of evil. The hadith portrays Allah in a similar way. The following tradition is reported by Al-Bukhari:

Allah’s Apostle, the truthful and truly-inspired, said, “Each one of you collected in the womb of his mother for forty days. . . and then Allah sends an angel and orders him to write four things, i.e., his provision, his age, and whether he will be of the wretched or the blessed (in the Hereafter). Then the soul is breathed into him. And by Allah, a person among you (or a man) may do deeds of the people of the Fire till there is only a cubit or an armbreadth distance between him and the Fire, but then that writing (which Allah has ordered the angel to write) preceeds, and he does the deeds of the people of Paradise and enters it; and a man may do the deeds of the people of Paradise till there is only a cubit or two between him and Paradise, and then that writing preceeds and he does the deeds of the people of the Fire and enters it.”

In another hadith we read,

The Prophet said, “Adam and Moses argued with each other. Moses said to Adam, ‘O Adam! You are our father who disappointed us and turned us out of Paradise.’ Then Adam said to him, ‘O Moses! Allah favoured you with His talk (talked to you directly) and He wrote (the Torah) for you with His own Hand. Do you blame me for action which Allah had written in my fate forty years before my creation?’ So Adam confuted Moses, Adam confuted Moses,” the Prophet added, repeating the statement three times.
Indeed, one of the most respected Muslim theologians of all time, AlGhazali, frankly acknowledges that “He [Allah] willeth also the unbelief of the unbeliever and the irreligion of the wicked and, without that will, there would neither be unbelief nor irreligion. All we do we do by His will: what He willeth not does not come to pass.” And if one should ask why Allah does not will that men should believe, Al-Ghazali responds, ”’We have no right to enquire about what Allah wills or does. He is perfectly free to will and to do what He pleases.’ In creating unbelievers, in willing that they should remain in that state; . . . in willing, in short, all that is evil, Allah has wise ends in view which it is not necessary that we should know. “

The metaphysical problem with Islamic determinism:

This extreme form of determinism led some Muslim scholars to the logical conclusion that there is really only one agent in the universe – Allah. One Muslim theologian wrote, “Not only can He (Allah) do anything, He actually is the only One Who does anything. When a man writes, it is Allah who has created in his mind the will to write. Allah at the same time gives power to write, then brings about the motion of the hand and the pen and the appearance upon paper. All other things are passive, Allah alone is active. ” This kind of determinism is at the heart of much of medieval thought and is one of the major reasons the church called upon the great intellect of Thomas Aquinas to respond. Indeed, his famous Summa contra Gentiles was occasioned by the need of Christian’ missionaries dealing with Islam in Spain. History records that he stemmed the influence of this view in the form of Latin Averroism.

This radical predeterminism is expressed in Muslim creedal statements. One reads: “Allah Most High is the Creator of all actions of His creatures whether of unbelief or belief, of obedience or of rebellion: all of them are by the Will of Allah and His sentence and His conclusion and His decreeing.” Another confesses: “Allah’s one possible quality is His power to create good or evil at any time He wishes, i.e. His decree. . . .

Both good things and evil things are the result of Allah’s decree. It is the duty of every Muslim to believe this.” Further, “It is He who causes harm and good. Rather the good works of some and the evil of others are signs that Allah wishes to punish some and to reward others.” So, “if Allah wishes to draw someone close to Himself, then He will give him the grace which will make that person do good works. If He wishes to reject someone and put that person to shame, then He will create sin in him. Allah creates all things, good and evil. Allah creates people as well as their actions: He created you as well as what you do” (37:94). In effect the Muslim creed “There is no god but Allah” is recast to read “There is no one who acts but Allah.” Some Muslim mystics carried this so far that they claimed that “No creature [even] partakes in the confession of Allah’s oneness. Allah alone confesses the oneness of Allah.”

The Height of Irony

From Cox and Forkum:

Stop Child Abuse by Jihadists

Here is a video about the hope for a peace made by Kalisto.

(hat tip: Crusader18)

Atheists and Secularists Consistently Fail to Identify the Enemy

Bryan at Hotair makes a very astute observation about atheists and secularists and their pattern to inaccurately identify the enemy we’re fighting in this global war: 

The basis of the title of this post is that it’s consistently atheists and adamant secularists who understand the Islamist enemy the least, yet they’re also the quickest to slam or argue against anyone who does quote the Koran on its own terms to argue that it is animating violence. They are also the quickest to equate Christianity with the villain du jour, because Christianity is to them just one among many faiths that they may think they understand, but ultimately don’t. 

I only have a nitpick for the bolded portion of the following passage: 

Leviticus forms part of what’s known as the Law (along with Genesis, Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy), and in the Christian way of thinking the civil and ceremonial components of the Law hold no command on our behavior today because the purpose of the Law was fulfilled in Christ. Christians are not bound by the legal commands of the Law, and we do eat pork and do lots of other things that the Law forbids, and likewise we don’t do many things the civil and ceremonial Law commands us to do. I don’t want to get too esoteric here for the non-believers to be able to follow me, but essentially, those parts of the Law are no longer authoritative over the behavior of the Christian believer. They have been abrogated by later acts and writings. 

The use of the term “abrogated” connotes that the later acts and writings contradict the earlier ones.  According to the Christian worldview Jesus did not destroy the Old Testament Law (i.e., the old covenant), but fulfilled it and we are therefore bound by the new covenant, not the old one.

UPDATE: 9/24/06 7:00am Here is the relevant Biblical passage from Matthew 5:17-18

Do not think that I have come to ABOLISH the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to ABOLISH them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

American People are Increasingly Viewing Muslims in a Negative Light

According to a USA/Gallup poll American people are increasingly viewing Muslims in a negative light.  From Moderate Muslims: Speak Up or Get Lumped In with Islamo-Fascists:  

Among Americans, there is a growing and hardening suspicion that moderate Muslims are really nothing but “moderate” Muslims who talk about peace while they tacitly support terrorism. There’s a simple way for Muslims to change that perception. All they need to do is regularly condemn terrorism, condemn Sharia, condemn Hamas, condemn Hezbollah, and condemn Al-Qaeda. Maybe it’s unfair that Muslims should be asked to do that and unfair that what extremists are doing should reflect badly upon Muslims who don’t share their beliefs. However, fair or unfair, more moderate Muslims need to speak out, loudly, about their disagreements with the Islamo-Fascists or regrettably, the number of people in the United States and across the world that are hostile to Islam is only going to continue to increase.

I share Robert Spencer’s position on the matter; mainly that reform from moderate Muslims is unlikely to succeed for at least two reasons:

1. Because the texts which advocate violent jihad do exist and jihadists can and do use them to paint any Muslim reformer as a heretic or apostate; thus putting his life in danger.
2. Because of the widespread denial from moderates that there is a severe problem within Islam due to the sheer number of abominable acts justified in its name.  If moderate Muslims won’t even admit there is a problem they will never, ever, be able to fix it.

Islam: What a Peaceful Religion

As LittleGreenFootballs points out here, the Pope’s remarks have been taken outrageously out of context and what do the “peaceful” Muslims do in response?  Issue death threats, burn crosses, and publicly spew hatred.  The violent response epitomizes the height of irony for a religion referred to by some as the “Religion of Peace”.

Photo from Getty Images.

Photo from BBC News.

UPDATE: 9/16/2006 11:55pm

Captain’s Quarters has this to say on the matter:

People use words to criticize Islam; Muslims use stones, fire, and eventually bombs to protest back. When was the last time Christians threw firebombs at a mosque to protest Muslim imams characterizing Christianity as polytheistic? When have we seen Jews firebomb mosques for Muslim leaders calling them the descendants of pigs and monkeys, a common insult from both religious and secular Muslims in the Middle East? Muslims have proven Benedict prophetic, and don’t think for a moment that this wave of violence has peaked.

UPDATE: 9/17/2006 10:57am

Crusader18 has put together a video which shines the light of Truth on the putridness emanating from the Islamic world.  Videos like these make it less likely that the MSM will continue ignore this information.

Katie Couric’s Cluelessness

On the eve of the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 Muslim terrorist attacks Katie Couric on 60 Minutes decides not to cover any one of these very important topics:

• Why have Muslims not issued a fatwa (i.e., religious edict) against Osama bin Laden (OBL) for the 9/11 terrorist attacks
• Why are moderate Muslims not more successful at combating the Muslim terrorists on Islamic grounds
• How Muslim terrorists like OBL are an existential threat to the West

Instead she cover this comparatively inane story.  This is akin to discussing the environmental impact caused by the burning fuel on the 5th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Video: Muslim Chaplains Caught Deceiving in Public

Below you’ll find footage of a Muslim proselytization event at a public library.  The footage shows how two Muslim chaplains practice the Islamically sanctioned deception techniques of takiyya and kitman on the audience: 

Taqiyya (mental reservation): the religiously-sanctioned doctrine, with its origins in Shi’a Islam but now practiced by non-Shi’a as well, of deliberate dissimulation about religious matters that may be undertaken to protect Islam, and the Believers.” An example of “Taqiyya” would be the insistence of a Muslim apologist that “of course” there is freedom of conscience in Islam, and then quoting that Qur’anic verse — “There shall be no compulsion in religion.” But the impression given will be false, for there has been no mention of the Muslim doctrine of abrogation, or naskh, whereby such an early verse as that about “no compulsion in religion” has been cancelled out by later, far more intolerant and malevolent verses.   

Kitman (concealment): “Kitman” is close to “taqiyya,” but rather than outright dissimulation, it consists in telling only a part of the truth, with “mental reservation” justifying the omission of the rest. One example may suffice. When a Muslim maintains that “jihad” really means “a spiritual struggle,” and fails to add that this definition is a recent one in Islam (little more than a century old), he misleads by holding back, and is practicing “kitman.” When he adduces, in support of this doubtful proposition, the hadith in which Muhammad, returning home from one of his many battles, is reported to have said (as known from a chain of transmitters, or isnad), that he had returned from “the Lesser Jihad to the Greater Jihad” and does not add what he also knows to be true, that this is a “weak” hadith, regarded by the most-respected muhaddithin as of doubtful authenticity, he is further practicing “kitman.”  

Here is additional context for the video.  The event had been advertised as a presentation about Islam followed by a Q&A session for non-Muslims.  This was a good opportunity to put into practice some of Fitzgerald’s tips about arming yourself with knowledge and asking pointed questions meant to shed clarity on the Islamic worldview. 

In light of this opportunity I decided to go to the event and ask the first three of the following questions (I had printed all 5 and pasted them to my video camera so I would not forget them in the heat of the moment):

• We hear from the MSM and Muslim apologists that Islam is “the RoP” yet around the world Muslims commit abominable acts such as sawing people’s heads of and murdering women and children in the name of Islam, why are moderate Muslims not more successful at refuting these terrorists on Islamic grounds?
• Why do Muslims revere Mohamed in light of his immoral acts described in the Koran and Hadiths, such as consummating his marriage with Aisha his 9 year old wife and ruling by the sword?  Why he is called in the Koran “uswa hasana” and in Islamic tradition “al-insan al-kamil“?
• How do we know you are not using the Islamically sanctioned deception techniques of takiyya (concealment) and kitman (mental reservation) on the audience?
• Why are so many people who leave Islam sentenced to death?
• Why do Muslims consider Christians and Jews second class citizens as defined by the term “dhimmi”?
• Why have Muslim leaders not issued a fatwa against bin Laden for the 9/11 terrorist attacks or his declaration of war on us? Can you [Muslim presenters] give me your word that you will ask them to issue one against Osama bin Laden?

Shortly after I arrived at the venue the moderator explained that each of the Muslim chaplains would give a 30-45 minute presentation after which there would be a Q&A period, but the questions for the Q&A period had to be submitted in advance in writing.   

Given the “politically incorrect” tone of my questions I was fairly certain (and later proven correct) that my questions would not be selected so I decided to verbally ask them after the second Muslim chaplain finished his presentation.  This is in fact what I did and shortly after I began asking my first question another person in the audience, who I refer to as the Samaritan, started to describe how he had personally suffered under Islam.  Unfortunately, the presenters would have none of it.   

Without giving the rest of the video away you should keep in mind the following before watching it:

• one of the presenters tries to intimidate the Samaritan and me into leaving the premises
• one of the presenters claimed, in a non-sequitur fashion, that the MSM is to blame for moderate Muslims not being able to refute Muslim terrorists on Islamic grounds.
• one of the presenters implies that it is hypocritical to draw attention to the role Islam plays in Muslim terrorist acts when we don’t attribute the Oklahoma City Federal building bombing to Christianity.  The presenter fails to see the lack of a parallel since the Oklahoma City Federal building bombing: 1) was not part of a world wide systematic strategy, 2) has no worldwide support system, 3) was not tacitly accepted by the West through lack of condemnation, 4) was roundly condemned by the Christian community
• I submitted 5 questions and even though the presenters gave me their word that they would answer them only 2 were selected
• my questions were not read in their entirety; references to specific Muslim terrorist abominable acts were omitted as well as having the phrase “consummating his marriage with Aisha his 9 year old wife” deceptively changed to “consummating his marriage with Aisha who was 9 years” thus falsely leaving an impression that Mohamed had been with Aisha for 9 years.
• one presenter not only establishes a moral equivalence between terrorists and the United States, but subtly implies that people including politicians in the
  United States are morally worse than the terrorists.
• one presenter implies that women get better treatment in Islamic countries than they do in the
  United States

I encourage others to do inform themselves.  The more light people shine on the Islamic world view the less effective the techniques of taqiyya and kitman will be. 

FYI: The handout I passed out consisted of an article on Jihadism and the Koran, a chart comparing Christian and Islamic doctrine, and a chart comparing Jesus and Mohamed.

Why Have American Muslim Leaders not Issued a Fatwa against Osama bin Laden for the 9/11 Attacks?

I drew attention to the astonishing fact here that after almost five years Muslims have not yet issued a fatwa against Osama bin Laden (OBL) for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. 

The United American Committee has continued to exert pressure on American Muslim leaders to issue a fatwa condemning OBL and other terrorists by name:

Placing pressure on the leading figures of the American Islamic community, last month the United American Committee issued a challenge to all patriotic American Muslim leaders to issue an Islamic verdict, known as a fatwa, condemning Osama bin Laden and other terrorists by name. With over forty days since the issuance of the challenge, the fatwa has not been declared. The UAC has brought the challenge to several Islamic organizations such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (C.A.I.R.), as well as to many Islamic mosques nationwide.

Their latest tactic will consist of the following:

Among numerous events across the nation to commemorate 9-11, one event in the Los Angeles area will feature a mock hanging of Osama bin Laden, and will give attendees an opportunity to throw old shoes at the effigy. The hitting or throwing of shoes at a person or object is one of the greatest insults within the Islamic world. One aspect of this event which is also unique is the location; The event, organized by the United American Committee, will take place in front of the King Fahd Mosque at 10980 Washington Blvd. in Culver City, California.

The longer American Muslim leaders fail to issue a fatwa condemning prominent Muslim terrorists like Osama bin Laden the more they align themselves with the enemy in the War on Muslim Terrorists and their supporters. 

Response to Tariqnelson II

I’ve been engaged in a debate with Tariqnelson in the comments section of this posting.  Given the length of my latest response I’ve decided to post it in the main section of the blog.

Josephnadir: the notorious “Verse of the Sword” in sura 9:5 (“slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush”) is used logically for jihadi recruitment

Tariqnelson: I agree that it is used for terror recruitment, but I disagree that it is used logically and in context by terrorists.

Mainstream Islamic commentators disagree with you as they regard Sura 9 as precisely the Koran’s last word on jihad since it was the last sura revealed.

From http://jihadwatch.org/billboard.php:

Sahih Bukhari, which Muslims regard as the most trustworthy of all the many collections of traditions of Muhammad, records this statement of the Prophet: “Allah assigns for a person who participates in (holy battles) in Allah’s Cause and nothing causes him to do so except belief in Allah and in His Messengers, that he will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty (if he survives) or will be admitted to Paradise (if he is killed in the battle as a martyr).”

Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), a pioneering historian and philosopher, was also a legal theorist. In his renowned Muqaddimah, the first work of historical theory, he notes that “in the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.” In Islam, the person in charge of religious affairs is concerned with “power politics,” because Islam is “under obligation to gain power over other nations.”

Violent jihad is a constant of Islamic history. The passages quoted above and many others like them form a major element of the motivation of jihad warriors worldwide today. No major Muslim group has ever repudiated the doctrines of armed jihad. The theology of jihad, with all its assumptions about unbelievers‚ lack of human rights and dignity, is available today as a justification for anyone with the will and the means to bring it to life.

tariqnelson: Looked at literally, one would think that it is permissible to kill anyone anytime.

Not “anyone” only the non-Muslim and verses like these are what jihadists use around the world to justify their abominable acts (e.g., sawing people’s heads off, purposefully murdering innocent women and children, etc.)

Here is more:

Re targeting of civilians:

“It is not permissible to kill women or children unless they are fighting against the Muslims.” (‘Umdat al-Salik, o9.10).

“It is not permitted to kill women and children in battle, nor elsewhere, as long as they are not fighting…” (Mawardi, Al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyyah, 4.2).

The idea of civilians (“women and children”) fighting making it permissible to kill them has led modern jihad terrorists to justify 9/11 etc. by saying that everyone who was killed there was aiding the American war effort against Islam — and that therefore killing them was ok.

“The term ‘civilians’ does not exist in Islamic religious law….I’m familiar with religious law. There is no such term as ‘civilians’ in the modern Western sense. People are either of Dar Al-Harb [House of War] or not…” Dr. Hani Al-Siba’i, director of the Al-Maqreze Centre for Historical Studies, London, July 8, 2005.

Re offensive jihad:

Under ordinary circumstances, what he is saying is true: only the Commander of the Faithful can declare offensive jihad. That’s why jihadists are so keen to reestablish the caliphate. Osama even had Mullah Omar of the Taliban proclaimed “Emir al-Momineen” (Commander of the Faithful) in 1996.

Also, the concept of defensive jihad requires no caliph. Jihad is ordinarily fard kifayah: an obligation on the community as a whole, which if some discharge, others are freed from. However, when a Muslim land is attacked, it becomes fard ayn: obligatory upon everyone individually. Abdullah Azzam, a founder of Al-Qaeda, and others have argued that jihad is now fard ayn because of the West’s attack on Islam (Azzam was murdered, probably by Osama, in 1989, so he wasn’t talking about Iraq).

This places every Islamic jihadist action in the context of the defense of Muslim lands, and so justifies today’s jihad according to classical, traditional, orthodox Islamic jurisprudence.

Tariqnelson: How do you explain that 1.3 billion Muslims are not slaughtering non-Muslims upon sight, but instead have non-Muslim friends and treat them well. That is total non-sense.

From The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam:

There are several principal reasons for this.  One is that because the Qu’ran is in difficult, classical Arab, and must be read and recited during those who identify themselves as Muslims have scant acquaintance with what it actually says.  Although the media establishment continues to interchange the words “Muslim” and “Arab”, most Muslims worldwide today are not Arabs.  Even modern Arabic, much less classical Qur’anic Arabic, is foreign to them.  They often memorize the Qur’an by rote without any clear idea of what it actually says.  A Pakistani Muslim once proudly told me that he had memorized large sections of the Qur’an, and planned to buy a translation one day so he could find out exactly what it was saying.  Such instances are common to a degree that may surprise most non-Muslims. 

Tariqnelson: Here is the ebook that I provided a link to that refutes the arguments of the Khawarij (Bin Laden’s sect). Remember that this is written for Muslims and uses terminology that you may not be familiar with

So let’s assume what you are saying is true, then in fact you have not provided an example of a fatwa against OBL for his 9/11 terrorist attacks.    

Naming the Enemy Accurately

President Bush is getting closer to naming the enemy we’re facing.  Last month he called the suspects in the British terrorist plot “Islamic fascists”.  In recent speeches he’s started referring to the global war on terror as a “war against Islamic fascism“:

President Bush in recent days has recast the global war on terror into a “war against Islamic fascism.” …

Bush used the term earlier this month in talking about the arrest of suspected terrorists in Britain, and spoke of “Islamic fascists” in a later speech in
Green Bay, Wis. Spokesman Tony Snow has used variations on the phrase at White House press briefings.

Mohamed Cartoons Used as a Pretext for Muslim Terrorism

Seven months after the Mohamed cartoons were courageously published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, members of the “Religion of Peace” continue to use it as a pretext to commit more Muslim terrorism: 

You may wonder, after seven months, why the Mohammed Cartoons graphic remains in the top-right corner of this blog. It’s because while most of the dhimmi press may have “moved on,” the jihadists have not. And some of the few outspoken defenders of free speech and free thought who stood up to the thugs still face threats today.   

On a side note, it is shameful that most of the American MSM cowardly censored the cartoons in the name of sensitivity.  At the height of the Muslim riots I wrote the following letter to the editor of the local newspaper, but they never published it: 

The Cowardly American Media? The publication of the cartoons of Islam's founder has triggered widespread violent protests from members of the "religion of peace".   A number of European news outlets have published the cartoons in a show of solidarity with those who believe in the right to free speech.  The same can not be said of the mainstream American media.

I find it shocking that in the country which codified the right to free speech in its constitution the mainstream American media has censored itself in the name of sensitivity.  Where was their sensitivity when CNN's Jeanne Moos was ridiculing images of Jesus Christ or Jonathan Mann was reporting on the Virgin Mary covered in dung*?  At best their self-censorship is hypocritical; at worst it is evidence that they have allowed radical Muslims to dictate that their feelings about Islam trump our constitutionally guaranteed rights.

I hope [your newspaper] publishes these newsworthy cartoons which are tame compared to the biting ones that are commonly printed in newspapers around the nation.  Not only would publishing them inform their readers, but it would demonstrate that this media outlet has the backbone to stand up to Islamofascists. 

Footnotes: http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004440.htm 

Another Leftist Tenet of Faith: the planet is overpopulated

The moral relativist I argued with a couple of weeks ago has apparently fallen for the overpopulation myth as noted in this posting: 

These aren’t theories: overpopulation is a huge problem 

Surely he is not saying that there are too many people in the world, so what exactly is he saying?  I asked him this question in the comments section of his blog.  I hope he realizes that the Population Bomb’s predictions have been debunked.  In fact, the “rate at which the world’s population has been increasing every year has been gradually declining since the early 1970s”