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How freedom is lost: a primer

February 15, 2009 - 10:49 am - by Roger Kimball
Whistle_Blower
2009-02-15 21:30:11

ISLAM 101
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Some preliminaries/corrections:

1. FITNA: (in English, Discord, Disagreement, et alia) – The term refers back to the First Islamic Civil War fought between two rivals for the Caliphate. This battle is often seen as the first clear manifestation of the rivalry between the Sunni and Shiite branches of islam.

COMMENT: an odd but catchy title for Wilder’s film whose subject matter is far removed from that of the historical Fitna.

2. From Wilder’s House of Lords speech:

“…..And second, there is al-insal al-kamil, the perfect man,……” . Must be a typo. He means INSAN (not insal) AL-KAMIL .

3. ISLAM. It is true that this word means “Submission” in English. But submission to what? To a head of state? To a government? To Islam itself?

No, it means submission to God and His will (conf. the Lord’s Prayer….”His will be done”).

Revelation 1—> a true believer of ANY religion will, ipso facto, ‘submit’ to the precepts of his particular religion. In this respect, therefore, there is little difference of what is expected of the believer in Judaism, Christianity or Islam.

Revelation 2—> criticizing Islam because of the etymological circumstances of its designation really is pointless and like so many other arguments propounded by Westerners, clouds the real issues vis a vis Islam.

These insipid “insights” deflect our focus away from the real dangers posed by Islam to Western civilization. (I personally have little patience with this type of attack).

Wilder’s House of Lords address is chock full of these “misunderstandings”:

“Today, I come before you to warn of another great threat. It is called Islam. It poses as a religion, but its goals are very worldly: world domination, holy war, sharia law, the end of the separation of church and state, the end of democracy. It is not a religion, it is a political ideology. It demands you respect, but has no respect for you.”

An extraordinarily vacuous and superficial rendition of the real threat of Islam.

Just to take one example: “holy war”, the so-called “Jihad”. In fact, it is not Jihad or Holy War that’s the danger, it’s Islam’s “Holy Peace” that is the most threatening. It’s not Islam’s “barbarity” that we have to watch out for, but its “civility”.

Take it from me, there’s more to the Islamic “problem” than you’ve been led to believe…much more.

Wish I had more time and space.