As Muhammad created Islam, will Muhammad destroy Islam?

A useful article by David Wood at FrontPage Magazine examines the truth about the character of Muhammad, which Muslims cannot conceal anymore, now that there is worldwide interest in their religion. Wood concludes with a startling and hopeful prediction, that the dissemination of information about Muhammad’s character dooms Islam itself:

The truth about Muhammad has been one of the world’s best-kept secrets. For centuries, it has been virtually impossible to raise objections about the character of Muhammad in Muslim countries, for anyone who raised such objections would (following the example set by Muhammad himself) immediately be killed. Outside the Muslim world, there has been little interest in Islam, and those who have been interested have typically relied on modern Muslim reports about Muhammad, such as the above passage from Mawdudi. But things have changed. Now many people are interested in Islam, and Muslims aren’t able to silence everyone…. The facts about the founder of Islam are spreading very rapidly, and Muslims are frantically scurrying to defend their faith. But the information superhighway is paving over the ignorance that has for centuries been the stronghold of Islamic dogma. In the end, Islam will fall, for the entire structure is built upon the belief that Muhammad was the greatest moral example in history, and this belief is demonstrably false.

An English reader writes:

The article about Muhammad confirms that the “prophet” was a deranged and dangerous man who could probably be equated with the founders of some of the more recent religious frauds (Waco siege etc). He sounds as if he was a paranoid schizophrenic with a severe personality disorder. Doubtless he was a paedophile and a criminal. The Islamic cult is a fraud and an extremely dangerous one. It is unsurprising that it has spread among the low IQ peoples of Arabia and Asia who like to follow cults blindly and need firm rules. What is astonishing is that it has been permitted to re-enter the Western world and establish itself there. What were the politicians thinking about when they granted these barbarians passports, voting rights and the rights to build mosques and Islamic centres? There should be an order for these mosques to be demolished and those Moslems who want to remain in the West to convert to Christianity or leave.

Islam should be officially banned.

My reply:

I think that simply turning Muhammad into a collection of all bad and evil qualities is not a persuasive way of debating this issue. Obviously he had good qualities—inspiration, dedication, willingness to endure rejection and contempt (in the early stage in Mecca), great capacity for friendship and winning people’s love and loyalty—or he would not have been able to accomplish what he accomplished. William Muir’s The Life of Mahomet is highly critical, yet also shows Muhammad’s attractive sides. To discredit Muhammad, it is not necessary to show him to be nothing but a pedophile, a criminal and a madman, but to show that he did do criminal things, he did have opponents (including individuals who had merely criticized him) murdered, he did forge the Koran (meaning that he claimed it was written by God when it was written by himself, a case Muir makes with great decisiveness), he did repeatedly invent “revelations” from Allah for his own political and personal convenience, he did establish murderous vindictiveness against the Jews as a pattern for all Muslims to follow for all time, and so on and so on.

At the same time, I agree with the reader that it was an act of suicidal carelessness by the West to admit large numbers of Muslims into our societies, and that the only way to right this wrong and save ourselves is to have them leave. However, I don’t think that this should be done on the basis that Islam is evil (though in solidarity with Nick Griffin and as a protest for free speech I’ve lately been using the phrase, “Islam is a wicked and evil faith,” for which Griffin is being prosecuted), as I don’t think it would be helpful to launch a religious war to the death against Islam. What we need to establish, both for ourselves and for the Muslims (so that they can clearly know why we are doing this), is that Islam is, as a matter of objective fact, dangerous to us, and that on that basis we are justified in removing it from our countries and containing it in its historic lands where it cannot threaten us. To argue that Islam as such is evil means arguing that a billion people are following an evil religion, which is too extreme a claim to be broadly believable and implies a religious war to the death. But to argue that Islam is dangerous to non-Muslims is to state an incontrovertible fact, which can serve as the solid basis for a policy of Western self-defense and the containment of Islam.

I have nothing against people using arguments aimed at discrediting Islam, such as arguing that Islam is false, that Muhammad had a bad character, and so on. The case against Islam as such ought to be made, in the hope that the strength and appeal of Islam will diminish, even among the Muslims. But I don’t think that that is a solid and sure basis of Western defense, as it is both too difficult, and not necessary. What is achievable, necessary, and sufficient for the purposes of our own defense is to establish that Islam is dangerous to us, not that Islam is evil in itself.

Another reader makes an excellent point that I missed:

I, too, read Mr. Wood’s article with great interest. However, his argument that Islam will fall apart when the Moslems see how immoral it is contains an innate contradiction.

Wood writes:

“Normally, when we say that someone is a moral person, we mean that he doesn’t commit acts such as robbery and murder. Yet Muhammad did all these things and much more. It appears, then, that Muslims are using the term ‘moral’ in a very unique way. In this uniquely Muslim sense of the term, the word “moral” is defined as ‘whatever Muhammad does.’”

This is certainly true, as it has been used again and again to justify Moslem aggression. But then he goes on to say:

“In the end, Islam will fall, for the entire structure is built upon the belief that Muhammad was the greatest moral example in history, and this belief is demonstrably false.”

The author assumes that, for the Moslem, there is a morality that exists above Moslem morality; he seems to think that Moslems only follow that morality in order to gain power, dominate, etc. but yet they are also aware of a universal Judeo-Christian morality. Is this not the original neoconservative/liberal argument for democratizing the Arab world? All we must do is show them the truth, show them the light of our wisdom, and they will fall in line, because we are really all the same. And doesn’t their utter rejection of Judeo-Christian morality in favor of Moslem morality (above which there is nothing) make them the alien that must be contained?

I expect that people will start to learn more about true Islam and start to question it with more force, as the author stated. But this will certainly not put an end to a blood cult that has managed to survive for 1400 years. A few might abandon the faith, but the vast majority will see the facts as infidel lies and push on.

My reply:

The reader underscores my point. We must not base Western defense on the hope of discrediting or destroying Islam as such, or of getting all Muslims to abandon their religion, as those outcomes are highly uncertain. Rather, we must base Western defense on the insight, on the incontrovertible fact, that Islam is mortally dangerous to us and our civilization.

Another reader writes:

Your arguments about the proper position of Moslems in the West—absent—is persuasive, and I believe that you are right in asserting that our disengagement from their world, and their departure from ours, is the best way to ensure our own safety. (On a side note, it is heartening to see Denmark and Holland becoming less hospitable to them; I hope we can follow suit.)

Still, it occurs to me that there may be problems if we were to openly identify Islam as our enemy, no matter how diplomatically that might be phrased. I was wondering if you had thought about the repercussions and how to handle them. For example, as you know, all OPEC members save Venezuela are Moslem states, and of the remainder, only Kuwait might be inclined to overlook an anti-Islamic position on our part. How do you think we could prevent, or at least ameliorate, an OPEC refusal to sell us oil?

Another issue is less significant economically but more important for intelligence. For example, one of the biggest language programs in the Defense Languages Institute, which is the major language training facility for the Department of Defense, is Arabic. Farsi is another good-sized program, not to mention smaller programs in other relevant languages of the region, such as Kurdish, Pashto, Turkish, and a handful of others. The vast majority of teachers at the DLI are native speakers. How would we recruit more Moslem teachers of these languages, the understanding of which is critical to our national defense, if they thought that we were openly hostile to their presence in our country? How could we retain current teachers in that situation?

I realize that you never claimed that exclusion of Moslems was a panacea, and that you never claimed to have all the answers. Still, I hope that you have thought about some of these issues, and I look forward to reading your thoughts on these subjects.

My reply:

Thank you for these good questions.

I am not suggesting that the president and the Congress openly and formally say, “Islam as our enemy, we condemn Islam, Islam is evil.” Writers and editorialists could say that. The government needn’t say it and shouldn’t say it. Such statements imply a war to the death, since the evil Other must be defeated and destroyed. Rather, what needs to be said and put into effect at the state and public level is the understanding that serious Islam, orthodox Islam, jihadist Islam, is dangerous to us, antithetical to us, spells our ruin, and therefore we cannot allow it to exist in large numbers among us. This is not the same as decliaring a war on Islam. Saudi Arabia does not allow Christianity in the Kingdom. Yet the world accepts that. The world does not say that Saudi Arabia is at war with Christianity. In practical terms, we would not be saying that all Muslims must instantly leave. The policy consists of a series of steps. End of Muslim immigration. Removal of illegals. Removal of non-citizen resident aliens. Removal of naturalized citizens with jihadist connections. Closing of radical mosques. Public statements that we are concerned about Islam. This would lead to a Muslim out-migration. We would not be systematically seeking to removal all Muslims.

Such a case can be made, and such policies pursued, without expressions of hostility toward Islam as such. The unacceptable danger that Islam poses to us is a logical statement of fact, that we can (and should) make to the Muslims as much as to ourselves, so that they will understand why we are doing this. And how will they be able to disagree, since among themselves, that is what they themselves know and believe and indeed are religiously obligated to pursue, namely the takeover of the infidel society by Islam and the imposition of the sharia? How will they be able to get angry at us, for simply naming explicitly what they already know to be the case?

Every time they protest what we are doing, we would reply,

“We have nothing against you being Muslim. Islam is a great religion. Our problem is with the effect of your religion on us Islam commands you to wage jihad against all non-Muslims. Islam commands you to impose the sharia as soon as you have the power to do so. The moderates among you are essentially powerless and will always be intimidated and dominated by the orthodox and jihadist core of your community. Your holy book is a war manual against the human race. It denies that non-Muslims have any right to exist, except under special arrangement as jizyah-paying dhimmis, whose lives are forfeit the moment they stop paying the jizyah. These are the facts about your religion. Again, we have nothing against you pursuing your religion among yourselves. What we cannot accept is Islam’s agenda toward us. Therefore we cannot have too many of you among us.”

So this can be done on the basis of complete truth and frankness, without attacking Islam as such. It’s analogous to one person saying to another, look, we just don’t get along, we should avoid each other.

This needn’t necessarily damage relations with the Muslim oil-producing states, since, once again, they themsleves practice exclusion toward non-Muslims.

Of course conflict and ill-will may develop. The return (whether coerced, semi-voluntary, or voluntary) of Muslims from the West to their home countries may be resented and resisted. The refusal of the West to allow free immigration and perhaps free travel of Muslims in the West will be resented. Also, America’s continued friendship with Israel could be a problem, as well as all the Western holdings connected with the petroleum industry, the patrolling of the shipping lanes in the Gulf and so on.

Clearly a possible or likely outcome of my policy is at least a short term deterioration of relations with Islam. Therefore, to be independent of Muslim coercion, the world must find alternative sources of fuel.

As for intelligence capabilities and language teachers, my first response is this: We did all right for a long time without such capabilities. How many Arabic and Farsi teachers did the Defense Department have in, say, 1960? They are needed now because we are so heavily involved in the Muslim world. If we became radically less involved in the Muslim world, perhaps we would need far fewer such assets and capabalities. The problem with this argument, of course, is that even with the contain and isolate strategy, we would need to keep eternal vigilence over the Muslim world, and for this tranlators would be needed. Fortunately, there are millions of non-Muslim speakers of Arabic, namely Christians and Jews from the Middle East. Why couldn’t they be used? And there are additional, albeit smaller, numbers of Christian Armenians, Iranian Jews, and even Zoroastrians who know Farsi. Why not hire them instead of Farsi speaking Muslims?

Also, the fact that we would not be declaring Islam our enemy, and not seeking to remove all Muslims, might mean that many of the Muslim language specialists and teachers might be willing to continue in their jobs.

This is obviously not a complete answer to your questions, but I think it shows that the “remove, contain, and isolate” policy would not necessarily be fatal to any vital interest of ours.

Another reader writes:

Your reader wrote:

“And doesn’t their utter rejection of Judeo-Christian morality in favor of Moslem morality (above which there is nothing) make them the alien that must be contained?”

No, it makes them the enemy that must be destroyed.

Granted, I agree that Muslims should be deported out of Western lands and contained in traditionally Muslim lands. Yet, this presents problems. First, what is “traditional” Muslim land? All Muslim land technically belongs to non-Muslims, including Christians and Jews. One could easily argue that Muslims, being conquerors and interlopers, have no land at all. Second, even if we were to ignore the first point, “containment” is not a simple “good fences make good neighbors” policy. To keep Islam from ever being a threat implies a containment that covers many points: 1) The removal of Muslims from Western lands; 2) The prevention of Muslim population growth in numbers that could overrun the West; 3) The prevention of technological development or technological transfer that could harm the West; 4) The removal of the oil weapon; and 5) The perpetual garrisoning of a “Hadrian’s Wall” in the hinterlands between Islam and the West. All of this is do-able but what is do-able is not made explicit.

Basically, “containment” means that the Muslim world is kept in a state of siege, threat, ignorance and grinding poverty. It means that the West is engineering the “slow death” of Islam, literally, since conditions like these guarantee many people will die.

Now, those of us who are not “compassionate conservatives” and who have no problems with, say, protracted genocidal land wars, will see no problem with this. Threats are threats and one should choose his own skin over another’s in a zero-sum game. The question is, how will this play to the gallery of American citizens who would, no doubt, be bombarded by images of starving Muslim children, maybe even asked to forgo that cup of coffee to contribute to their health and education? How long before the discipline to maintain this containment breaks down as memory of the Islamic threat fades?

It seems that containment is simply a reasonable stop-gap solution. In the end, once Republicans successfully engineer the destruction of liberal pieties, slaughtering the entire Muslim world is the only real solution.

My reply:

As extreme as the containment and isolation strategy seems by today’s standards, it is actually the moderate position, as there are those who, like the above reader, say the only way we can be safe from Islam is by literally killing all Muslims. I am horrified by and completely reject this idea. But I’ve reprinted it as an example of a view that is not uncommon today and that needs to be refuted. Ironically, the reader assumes as a matter of course that the people of the West will have the will to contain the entire Muslim world (one of the most radical, ambitious, and difficult enterprises ever undertaken), but then he thinks that they will become soft again once the Muslims are successfully contained. Since the reader himself thinks containment is desirable if it could work, shouldn’t we try it first before jumping to the ultimate nightmare scenario? Also, I would say that if the Muslim world were, as a result of being permanently contained, reduced to the kind of hopeless misery he predicts, such hopelessness might finally push the Muslims either to give up Islam, or, as Hugh Fitzgerald suggests, to Kemalize their societies. I do not predicate containment on either of those eventualities. But I do see them as possibilities.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 21, 2006 02:00 AM | Send