“Islam Is Not Monolithic” and Divisions Within the Camp of Islam

Jihad Watch 24 April 2009

Another week, another Donors' Conference. This time, it's Somalia. Somalia, described -- does anyone know what this phrase that has come into fashion really means? -- as a "failed state."

And these "failed states" -- which all happen to be Muslim states -- have to be propped up, and propped up, and propped up, it seems, by money from non-Muslim states, non-Muslim taxpayers. Because, you see, it is the absence of money that causes these states to be "failed states." And any Muslim state will become a "failed state," apparently, if it lacks the unmerited manna of oil-and-gas revenues (the Muslim members of OPEC have received more than twelve trillion dollars since 1973 alone), or if it is not given all kinds of special benefits and enormous injections of Infidel aid.

Regarding that aid, see Pakistan, see Egypt, see Jordan, and, of course, see the Favorite Charity of Everyone, apparently, the local Arab shock troops of the Lesser Jihad against Israel, the soi-disant "Palestinians" -- who, as a separate people, were founded round about late 1967, a few months after the Six-Day War ended, and it was time to take a different propagandistic tack.

So today has been the turn of Somalia. Only a hundred and sixty million for the Somalis. They are not, you see, Pakistanis or “Palestinians.” A few weeks ago, it was $15 billion for Pakistan. And before that, it was the “Palestinians” who were to receive more, on top of the billions they have already received. Per capita, they are the World’s Favorite People, and receive almost as much as all the others declared in need combined -- yet most of them, unlike the “Palestinians,” legitimate refugees, and not part of a deliberately-fabricated-people kept in place by Arab and Muslim states for political reasons. Who will pay? It will be, as always, the Americans, and the British, and the French, and the rest of the E.U.

It’s true, the Saudis will promise something, but how often have the Saudis and other Gulf Arabs promised to contribute something, and then they almost never do? But at least by the mere promise they escape temporary Infidel ire and earn a good headline. Or perhaps they will offer, and then honor, a tiny donation -- tiny given that for Saudi Arabia, which does not have to lift a finger to take in hundreds of billions of dollars a year, any amount is tiny, any amount ridiculous, and represents an hour or two of undeserved oil revenues.

And one doubts that Qatar, that Kuwait, that Abu Dhabi and Dubai and the other fabulously-rich members of the United Arab Emirates will even pretend, like the Saudis, to pony up. Nor will oil-rich Libya, nor Algeria, nor, of course, Iran. And don't even think about Iraq, because Iraq, you see, needs itself to keep demanding and keep receiving money. Once the Americans leave, can demands by the Iraqis for "Reparations" from the Americans be far behind?

If non-Muslims, or at least a sufficient number of them among those who rule over us, were to correctly understand the ideology of Islam and its effect on the minds of its adherents, even on many who do not seem to be possessed of a fanatical faith, then the world's Infidels would recognize that whatever differences there are in the Camp of Islam, the essential hostility, the ineradicable division that Islam inculcates, is that between Muslim and non-Muslim.

Of course there are differences among Muslims. There are the outward divisions of ethnic dress and background, and the most important difference is between the Arab Muslims, for whom Islam is a vehicle of Arab supremacism, and the non-Arab Muslims. There are sectarian divisions: Sunni Muslims constitute at least 85% of the worlds Muslims, Shi'a the rest (Ibadiya Islam is to be found only in Oman and in a few isolated villages in Algeria). There are economic differences and the resentments that naturally flow from such extreme differences: the oil-rich Muslims, especially those of the thinly-populated Gulf, and all the other Muslims who, save in a handful of places where Islam has been partly tamed (Turkey, Tunisia), must rely on the Jizyah-aid they manage to inveigle, unceasingly, from Infidels.

The Western world should recognize both that there are divisions within the Camp of Islam -- sectarian, ethnic, and economic -- and at the same time recognize that, for its own self-protection, these are not divisions that Infidels should work to overcome but, rather, to welcome and to do nothing to diminish. When Muslim apologists and propagandists insist that "Islam is not a monolith," what they are really attempting to do is to make sure that Infidels do not discuss "Islam" in the sense of an ideology that consists of immutable texts, and tenets, and attitudes and atmospherics that emerge within societies suffused with Islam. They want, that is, to prevent any discussion of Islam at all, by pretending that it is so very various a faith, that any attempt to discuss it will, by ignoring those differences, be irremediably false.

Those propagandists have it exactly wrong. It is not only possible, but highly desirable, that Infidels both grasp the nature of the ideology of Islam, of what it not only inculcates but the attitudes it fosters, and at the same time, to be able to recognize the divisions within the Camp of Islam. When an apologist for Islam -- say, John Esposito -- says that "Islam is not monolithic," one should reply by saying that indeed, Islam is based, above all, on a deep hostility to Infidels and to non-Muslim political and legal institutions, but at the same time, Muslims show sectarian, ethnic, and economic divisions that, within the Umma or Community of Believers, can be identified, and encouraged, so as to cause division and demoralization within the Camp of Jihad. A little time will be needed, and these divisions, and this demoralization will begin to have an effect.

That demoralization, by the way, accounts for the calls for "reform" of Islam. Such calls come only at times when, as in the early 20th century, Muslims were perceived as weak. At that time, some Muslims -- thinkers such as Abduh and Afghani, and even a powerful man of action, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk -- recognized that something had to be done, because there was something about Islam that caused the weakness of the Muslim camp.

And Infidels are coming to their senses -- it isn't happening overnight, but it is happening -- about Islam. This is happening not so much because of the brilliance of those who grasp the nature of Islam, but rather because of the effect of the perceived behavior and attitudes of Muslims, not least in the Western world.

But meanwhile, the OPEC trillions and the Muslim immigrant millions have given Muslims the feeling that they are powerful, that they are on the march, that they cannot be stopped. The Lesser Jihads -- that against Israel, or against Kashmir, on in the Balkans -- are now overshadowed by many other local Jihads, such as that conducted in Western Europe, through deployment of the Money Weapon, and campaigns of Da'wa, and demographic conquest.

And these Lesser Jihads, everywhere, together make up the worldwide Jihad, for they are all conducted by Muslims against non-Muslim states and peoples, and all with the same shared aim: to remove all obstacles to the spread, and then the certain dominance, of Islam. Military means, whether qitaal or terrorism, have received far too much attention -- though for certain countries, such as Israel and India, the military threat is the most important, as it is, in a way, in the southern Sudan, southern Philippines, and southern Thailand, to varying degrees.

But attention should also be given to the economic and diplomatic warfare that Muslim states wage. And within the countries of the West, attention should be given to the war waged by Muslim immigrants determined to confuse and distract Western governments from undertaking sensible measures of self-defense, whether as part of foreign or domestic policy. Attention should be paid to how some Muslim immigrants use the freedoms of the West for the purposes of furthering Islam, an ideology that does not accept, and would not tolerate Infidel laws for an instant, were Muslims to become dominant.

The weapons of this "struggle" or Jihad are, in the main, those of the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da'wa, and demographic conquest. These weapons also include the attempt to hide or camouflage or misrepresent the ideology of Islam, and even the attempts by Muslims to dominate, for example, the academic study of Islam. This is done so as to prevent Western Infidels from learning the truth and from even being aware of all the works by Western scholars who wrote in the period (roughly, before 1970) before the curtain descended and the Age of Inhibition began.

These works need to be held up to the light, so that an alarmed citizenry can recognize the systematic attempts to monopolize the study of Islam and of subjects related to it, such as the Arab and Muslim Jihad against Israel.

Despite the differences in Sunni and Shi'a doctrines, despite the four different schools of Sunni jurisprudence, despite geographic sweep in the lands of the Believers, with different levels of wealth, and different encounters with Infidels of differing power and attitudes, despite the outward differences -- of clothing, say, or cuisine -- when it comes to Islam, the texts and the tenets of Islam as they pertain to the role of Muslims, and the proper role of Infidels, Islam is so much of a piece that it may certainly be described as “monolithic.”

What is not “monolithic” are Muslims themselves. And it is precisely those divisions among them that may be used by Infidels in order to weaken what may truly be called the Camp of Islam. But one must have an understanding of Islam and the threat it poses to Infidel legal and political institutions, and to the physical security of all non-Muslim peoples and polities, to be put into a frame of mind where one can recognize the need to identify, and then to exploit, those divisions within the Camp of Islam.

If you refuse to study Islam, if you willfully remain ignorant of what it inculcates, if you will not examine the texts, will not grasp the tenets, will not read the great Western scholars, will not even read the Muslim scholars who write, unapologetically, not for Infidels but for fellow Muslims -- and thus tell the truth -- if you will not study the history, over 1350 years, of Muslim conquest and the subjugation of many different kinds of non-Muslims, if you will not endow with proper significance the behavior and statements of Muslims today, you will never understand this. They have shown themselves to so perturb the Infidel societies within which some have been allowed to settle, and they move heaven and earth to prevent study by non-Muslims of the texts and tenets, insisting that “only Muslims” can explain what those texts mean.

And then there are these apologists for Islam, the knowledgeable Muslims who are well versed in the sly and sinister arts of misrepresentation (see, for example, Tariq Ramadan). With non-Muslims so often ignorant, they offer these unwary non-Muslim auditors a standard litany, consisting of highly selective quotation from the Qur’an and the Hadith.

For example, they never fail to offer 2.256 (“there is no compulsion in religion”) but the unwary auditor doesn’t think to ask: if that is so, then why are those who wish to leave Islam threatened with death? And if that is so, why are those non-Muslims who are not killed nor immediately subject to forcible conversion, subject instead to the onerous, and for some intolerable, burdens -- the humiliation, the degradation, the physical insecurity -- that come with the dhimma?

Yet these smooth spokesmen then proceed to offer the standard highly selective and completely misleading quoting out of context -- 2.256 and 5.32 without 5.33, for example. Any intelligent and wary Infidel auditor, if well-prepared, can provide the standard contents of the Muslim Apologist’s brief florilegium of Qur’anic quotes and handful of “inauthentic” ahadith.

It is natural to want to take, as representative, the most soothing and plausible representatives of Islam. If they possess personal charm, are soft-spoken, if the women are good-looking, if it is all on the level of let’s ignore Islam, let’s ignore those who are possessed of a fanatical faith, soyons raissonable, after all we are all adults in this Washington policy-making room, we are not primitives…it is so very easy.

And besides, one wishes to believe this kind of thing -- because if one did not, how much more difficult and trying and dangerous would the monumental task at hand appear to be. So those with the responsibility to protect us take as “representative” the most charming, most plausible, most outwardly winning of people.

Just imagine, for example, Queen Rania or Queen Noor in their carefully-worded appearances, and how little either of them helps us to understand the primitive masses of Muslims, or what Islam inculcates. Their smiles, their sly and careful way of putting things, simply serve to obscure, as they themselves merely confuse and distract.

Unless one has the mental ballast that knowledge of Islam and the history of Islamic conquest provides, one may well be swayed by a soft-spoken colleague from Karachi who expresses such a warm interest in one’s family. But just try to get him on the subject of little Aisha, or the Danish cartoons, or India, or Israel, or “Islamophobia,” and see the subdued or open hysteria that suddenly is revealed.

One may, on the other hand, be swayed by a charmer and smiler with, as Chaucer says, “the knyf under the clok.” Because it is not merely the obvious fanatically-faithed members of the Taliban who are the threat, but all those who confuse and distract, all those who push, in ways different from the obvious terrorism that is easy to identify and therefore to rouse oneself against, the “struggle” or Jihad to remove all obstacles to the spread and dominance of Islam.

The business of “Islam is not a monolith” is a part of the blague. It is designed to confuse, designed to silence Infidel examination (and criticism) of Islam, and thus to weaken resistance to the Islamic Jihad.

http://europenews.dk/en/node/22559