What makes Bush so knowledgeable about Islam?

In President Bush’s speech last week to the Islamic Center in Washington, says Daniel Pipes, Bush showed that he has learned nothing over these last six years and has even regressed from his occasional more informed statements about Islamic realities. One sentence by Pipes caught my attention, that Bush earlier in his presidency

even lectured Muslims on the true nature of their religion, a presumptuous ambition that prompted me in 2001 to dub him “Imam Bush.”

This raises an interesting question, which as far as I know has never been addressed. Bush, who is known to be insecure about those areas of knowledge of which he knows nothing, had to know that he knew nothing about Islam. What, then, gave him the confidence starting in 2001 to lecture Muslims on the true nature of their religion, i.e., that it is a religion of peace, that the extremists are not real Muslims, that the extremists have hijacked Islam, etc.? Answer: Bush did not need to know any particular truths about Islam in order to know that Islam is a religion of peace and that the extremists are not real Muslims. All he needed to know was the universal truth of liberalism, that all people are the same and that all religions are one religion, pointing to a single universal order in which all people get along as brothers. Yes, he was stone-cold ignorant about Islam, but he was steeped in the liberal faith, and that gave this incurious, ignorant man the confidence to lecture Muslims on the “true” nature of their faith.

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Dimitri K. writes:

Bush may have even insulted Muslims by teaching them that their religion is the religion of peace. I’m quite sure that Islamic fundamentalists don’t care much about the destruction of Iraq, or about a Palestinian state, another Bush idee fixe. Bush’s real abuse of Islam is his attempt to enforce his liberal-Christian view of the world on Muslims.

Andrew Bostom writes:

The best line comes from Abu Qatada, a jihadst cleric, as quoted by Diana West:

“I am astonished by President Bush when he claims there is nothing in the Qu’ran that justifies jihad violence in the name of Islam,” jailed jihadi cleric Abu Qatada said under similar circumstances almost six years ago. “Is he some kind of Islamic scholar? Has he ever actually read the Qu’ran?”

LA writes:

Denunciations both of of ignorant Westerners and of moderate Muslims who deny the jihad nature of Islam is a constant theme among jihadist writers, particularly Sayyid Qutb. The jihadists, who are nothing if not sincere believers, are very properly indignant against people who deny the central doctrines of their religion. In an article about Qutb I wrote:

Qutb blows apart the Islam apologists, or “orientalists” as he calls them, who want to make Islam seem peaceful and safe. He thus serves as an unintentional ally of the critics of Islam who believe that Islam is inherently dangerous. For example, responding to the apologist argument that Allah only commands Muslims to engage in defensive war to protect the borders of Islamic lands, Qutb shows that Muslims are commanded to initiate aggressive war against non-Muslims, the purpose being to free mankind from all human rulers so that they come under the sole rulership of Allah. Against Qutb’s argument, what would Daniel Pipes and the “moderate” Muslims he champions have to say? In a debate between Pipes, who pathetically and vainly declares that “Islam can be whatever Muslims want it to be,” and Qutb, whose jihadist case proceeds with logical rigor from the Koran, there would be no contest.

Carl Simpson writes:

You following remark sums it up nicely:

“Yes, he was stone-cold ignorant about Islam, but he was steeped in the liberal faith, and that gave this incurious, ignorant man the confidence to lecture Muslims on the “true” nature of their religion.”

That’s why we call him the Mahdi from West Texas.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 03, 2007 08:29 AM | Send