Tue May 28,2002 -- "We should have no illusions about the matter: no part of the world will be excluded. Now that Islam has national, military, and economic power, it will attempt to extend its religion everywhere, including the British Commonwealth and the United States..." - So wrote French Protestant theologian Jacques Ellul in his 1985 book, "The Dhimmi", a methodical study of the treatment of non-Moslems by Islam, both throughout history as well as in our own times. Since then, Ellul's foresight has been fulfilled in a striking and dramatic manner that quite possibly even he did not envision. Saturated in billions of oil dollars, the world fundamentalist Moslem movement is headed and financed primarily by Saudi Arabia, with the support of other Arab countries.   The Saudi government, with its allies and offshoot organizations, so-called "charities" and businesses, has been bankrolling the worldwide terrorist coalition of terrorist organizations, religiously bound to expand Fundamentalist Islam everywhere. Special targets are the United States, Europe and almost every other developed country. All this is done blatantly, under the tender cover of democratic law and idealism. By now we all know about Osama Bin Laden, where he came from and from where his support and financing were mostly obtained.

What we tend to forget is that Bin Laden is not alone, that many other "Bin Ladens" are still out there, awaiting their "moment of glory". Not all of them are directly involved in bombings and murder. Most of them support the Islamic cause by lavish media presentations, interviews and "presentations" of Arab "dignitaries" and so-called religious figures. The pro-Islamic misinformation, to which we are now exposed, contains a great number of blatantly deceiving statements. They come along with a fascinating collection of barefaced falsifications and outright lies about the real meaning and purposes of Islam.  

WHAT IS THE REAL ISLAM?  

"Islam is not a new religion," - says the Moslem misinformation purveyors - "but the same truth that God revealed through all His prophets to every people". They omit to mention, however, the fact that Moslems believe their religion came to TOTALLY REPLACE the Bible, as well as both Judaism and Christianity, with everything associated with them or born of them. And that is simply and precisely what Islam teaches! According to the Koran (the Moslem holy book), not all men are born equal. Moslems consider themselves the master race of "the prophet" and look down at others as inferior. Indeed, their religious texts vilify Christians and Jews (jointly called "peoples of the Book") as "apes" and "pigs". Such passages, however, are found only in the original Arabic. They are seldom found in translations into other languages, especially not in Western tongues.   As noted in this booklet, the term "Islam" is Arabic stands not for "peace" but for for "submission". and includes a play-on-words to the similarly-sounding Hebrew "Shalom", which does mean "peace".

The Islamic view of "peace" ("salem") with an adversary or "infidel" (non-Moslem) does not signify coexistence or cooperation. The Islamic definition of "peace" is the conquest, or "submission" of the enemy.

ISLAM VERSUS THE WORLD

Moslems divide the world into two irreconcilable camps, the first is "dar al-Islam", or "house of Islam", which includes all countries where Islam currently prevails, and the second is "dar al-harb", or "house of war", which includes everywhere else. The object of Islam and its followers is to expand their faith (and power) until the whole world is within their realm. It is a global vision, similar to that used in the last century by Communism, but much more powerful, being a religion as well as a political ideology.

THE HOLY WAR

The vehicle for Islamic expansion is the concept of "jihad" or "holy war". In translation, they misrepresent "jihad" as "struggle" and sometimes "self defense". In reality, the Koran instructs that "jihad" is a "sacred duty", incumbent on "every Moslem". There is also a schedule of rewards for those who "dispose of" infidels (which include any non-Moslem, Christians, Jews, Hindus and others). The same rewards are bestowed also upon all those who die while participating in holy-war campaigns. As the Yussuf Ali English translation of the Koran states: "Allah hath conferred on those who fight [for him] with their wealth and their lives a rank above those who tarry."  

In addition, "he who has not taken part, or at least considered taking part, in a campaign of jihad until [he reaches] the end of his life, meets his death holding a branch of hypocrisy." Millions of Moslems who believe these writings to be divine have died due to their participation in Islamic so-called holy wars. Many terrorist atrocities are committed by groups that utilize the word "jihad", whether in their names or in their goal. Contrary to affirmations which Moslem leaders continuously feed Western listener, killing innocent civilian "infidels" is far from disobeying Islamic precepts. Indeed such actions are equal to killing soldiers or other religions' leaders.   A "STRANGE" FAITH !?!   The Moslem apologists state that Islam seems strange to Westerners because the West is highly secularized. "Moslems have religion always uppermost in their minds," they say, implying that others do not.

The simple truth is that Islam seems strange because it is the pure reverse to any other faith - that is, completely contrary to the Western concept of what a religion should stand for - especially to those Westerners who are heirs of the Biblical, Christian tradition. It is a religion which considers war to be holy, has no concept of peace at all, which is considered pointless and hollow. Nor does it recognize the concept of co-existence or toleration.  

Islam is a religion which teaches that the way to heaven and salvation leads through murder. It also promotes slavery as a sacred practice and considers the bondage and humiliation of all women, including their own mothers, as a divine order. It is a faith which seeks the destruction of all other religions (especially those based on the Bible, which is regarded as a fake and a satanic book) and the subjugation of all nations as its sanctified goal - indeed, such a creed may well seem strange to the Western mind. This, however, is precisely what Islam is.   Today, in the modern Western societies, police power are never used for religious ends, and the government does not favor one religious group over another. This concept is entirely foreign to Islam. Islam makes no distinction between religion and state. It enforces the Islamic code as the sole law of the land, both religious and secular, thereby in fact putting anyone who is not a Moslem outside the protection of the law. In practical terms, Islam mandates a theocracy, which amounts to the dictatorial rule of the Moslem nobility and clergy. That is why democracies are unknown in the Islamic world and why Moslems show such hostility to free societies. To a fundamentalist Moslem, the very idea of democracy is heresy.  

ORIGINS  

The Moslems claim that Judaism (and, by extension, Christianity) share with Islam a common origin in the patriarch Abraham. They believe it was Abraham who "established the settlement which today is the city of Mekkah [or Mecca] and built the Ka'a'ba, towards which all Moslems turn when they pray." However, the Biblical records indicate that Abraham never visited the Arabian Peninsula. Muhammad maintained that the Christians and the Jews - as agents of Satan, of course - "forged" or "falsified" the Bible. He therefore altered the Biblical story and cast Ishmael (Abraham first son and traditional father of all Arabs) as the heir of God's promise, instead of Isaac - as the Bible explicitly stated many centuries before the writing of the Koran.  

ISLAM AND JESUS CHRIST

As for Jesus Christ, Islam portrays him as a minor prophet, certainly not as the Son of God, nor as the Messiah and definitely not as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Moslems still offer animal sacrifices and at recent ceremonies in Mecca slaughter a staggering 500,000 animals. Christianity centers on the ideas of the incarnation and of salvation by faith, both of which are rank heresy and blasphemy to a Moslem. In Islam, salvation is by works, not by faith. Further, Islamic "good deeds" are not necessarily charitable, humanitarian acts of kindness, but may also be the assassination of "non-believers". Especially targeted are "the People of the Bible", the Islamic euphemism for all Christians and Jews.  

THE FOUNDER  

The minute, basic chronology of Muhammad in the Moslem tradition and story is superficially accurate, but non-Moslem historians are far from approving that he was "of a deeply religious nature", known for "truthfulness, generosity, and sincerity", or "calm and meditative". In fact, very little is known about Muhammad, but it seems clear that he was the illiterate son of a nomadic "traveling merchant" Arab tribe sub-chieftain. This is the Arab way of referring to the traditional occupation of the Bedouin nomads of the Southern Arabia Peninsula.

The commodity in which they "traded" was mostly human slaves. This would account for both his grotesque distortions of the Biblical account - which he likely got from some tribesmen, which he met on the trail - and for his sanctification of slavery as a way of life. Since the stories told around the tribal campfire in the Arabian Desert related only the biblical heroes and their stories -- and lacked mention of any meaningful biblical teachings -- Muhammad had no concept of the morality and ethics of the Bible. The teachings and values of the Bible are therefore missing from Islam. The cruelty and rigidity of Muhammad's ancient Arabian paganism is the core of Islam's creed.  

ISLAM -- REVERSAL OF CHRISTIANITY

  When Muhammad and his followers returned to Mecca from Medina, he did not, as the Moslems state to westerners, "forgive his enemies". In Islamic tradition the very concept of "forgiveness" is unknown and unrecognized. Instead, the rule of "blood revenge" is mandatory. While in exile, Muhammad had gathered a band of marauding warriors and given them a religious sanction for their activities. They were called "The Mystic Fighters" and scored stunning victories, to the point that the superstitious, pagan populace believed them to be divinely inspired. Those who did not join were promptly executed.  

In theological terms, Muhammad was less of a religious figure than a war-chieftain, a soldier and a tyrant. In contradiction to Biblical prophets, and as a total contrast to Jesus Christ, his kingdom was purely of this earth and largely political-military in nature. In sum, Islam dogmatized the spiritual and secular realms in a rigid theocracy, which admits no deviation. It was for this reason that 19th-century scholar Ernest Renan called Islam "the heaviest chains which have ever shackled humanity".   ISLAMIC "EVANGELISM" -

THE "SWORD OF ISLAM"  

Perhaps the boldest falsehood in the representation of Islam and the Moslems is the contention that the spread of the new faith was "rapid and peaceful". It was indeed rapid, but far from peaceful. Its most prominent symbol is the "Seif-el-Islam" - The Sword of Islam". Indeed, the most important symbol of Islam is, appropriately enough, the sword (or the saber) and the sword was the primary instrument of Islamic expansionism. In most cases the conquered were given only two choices - an immediate conversion or speedy cut throat.  

Since in Islam the concepts of "peace" and "submission" are synonymous, "peace" can be achieved only by total submission to Islam. No other form of peace is conceivable to a Moslem. Therefore, when Muhammad's "mystic fighters" subdued a nation, they believed that "peace" had prevailed. Likewise today, "peace" to a Moslem means only one thing -- a total capitulation of all humanity to Islam. Violence and militarism did not end with Moslem conquests. Islamic factions, each claiming to represent the "one true faith", have been at each other's throats for centuries.

As the scholar David Pryce-Jones masterfully demonstrated in "The Closed Circle": An Interpretation of the Arabs, conspiracy, intrigue, and assassination have been the rule rather than the exception in the Islamic world."   ISLAMIC "TOLERATION"   "It is one function of Islamic law," says Moslem proponents "to protect the privileged status of minorities, and this is why non-Moslem places of worship have flourished all over the Islamic world."

Here we leave the realm of exaggeration and distortion and enter the realm of outright pristine lies. For the most part, churches and synagogues have been destroyed, vandalized, or completely outlawed. In Saudi Arabia, it is illegal to open or maintain a church. In "moderate" countries such as Egypt, Christians have not been able to get permission to repair their churches or build new ones for decades.   Saudi Arabia is not the only Moslem country which has obliterated every trace of Judaism and Christianity and outlawed all non-Moslem religious practices, even among foreigners who live there and bring that country their wealth. In particular, however, Saudi Arabia has done all this with little or no outcry from the West.

Moreover, there exists not a single case in the entire Islamic world in which non-Moslems have been given equal civil rights and/or freedom of worship. While the Moslems freely evangelize in America and enjoy the Western tradition of civil rights, such activities are forbidden under Islam, which considers apostasy a capital crime.   In Islam, Christians and Jews are Dhimmi - second-class citizens - are subject to discriminatory laws, double standards, repressive taxation, and humiliating public ceremonies of submission. Impressive and conclusive documentation for these realities exist aplenty and are available to all who cares to find them.

To the Moslems claim that "many examples of Moslem tolerance toward other faiths" there is only one example given: Omar's conquest of Jerusalem in 634, not an event that is fresh in the minds of many. The claim is that Omar declared freedom of worship to all, a statement which must be accepted on faith alone, since there is no proof of it in writing and anyway it was at no time been followed in practice by Omar or any of his successors.  

WOMEN IN ISLAM

The Islamic spokesmen claim that a Moslem woman is "an individual in her own right", hardly a great concession. In any case, the Moslem's claim is certainly not confirmed in the writings of the Koran, Islamic law (the Sha'ri'ia) or the treatment of women in Moslem countries. Moslems generally avoids discussing the topic of women with "infidels", with good reason. In Islamic societies, women are regarded and treated as beasts of burden, or merely childbearing machines, with no rights whatsoever. Saudi Arabia and the late unlamented Taliban's Afghanistan, both good examples for Moslem regimes, forbid women to drive and restrict them to certain menial occupations. Further, women must be veiled in public.

The claim that "no Moslem girl can be forced to marry against her will" is simply false. In patriarchal Islamic society, the father - not the bride - chooses the husband; no one ever considers that the bride's opinion has any merit. As noted in the British documentary, Death of a Princess, the Moslems have executed women who marry against the will of their fathers.  

The Moslems concedes the obvious, that Islam permits men to have more than one wife. Moslem women, however, are not permitted to have more than one husband, and any sexual deviation on their part is severely punished, often by public flogging or death, in a ceremony held every Friday in every public square. Many Islamic countries also feature mut'a, or "the law of desire". This system of "temporary marriage" is akin to legalized prostitution. Under this law, a Moslem man may hire a "temporary wife" for a fixed amount of money. All the benefits in this system belong to the man, who may hire as many temporary wives as he please. All children from a "temporary wife" belong to the man. Of course, a Moslem woman cannot hire a temporary husband. Islamic clergy support the practice of "temporary wives" and hail its "Koranic roots".

This symbolizes the larger truth that, in Islam, the entire system of the suppression and brutalization of women is seen as of divine origin and bearing divine approval.  

HUMAN RIGHTS  

The Moslems maintain that Islam "guarantee human rights?" The real question is whether Islam allows, or even recognize the concept of any human right whatsoever. The evidence confirms that Islam is decidedly hostile to the very concept of human rights. A Moslem Arab delegate to the United Nations once asserted on record: "the concept of human rights is a degenerate Western imperialist notion".

An Amnesty International report specifies massive and systematic violations of human rights in virtually all-Islamic countries. They include: torture, arrest and detention without charge, cruel and unusual punishment, amputation of body parts, capital punishment for political and religious dissent, sexual abuse and mass violence against minorities Nowhere in the Islamic world is there freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and association, or even true freedom of enterprise. Without these precious freedoms, any concept of human rights is meaningless.  

SLAVERY AND RACISM

The defenders of Islam avoid the fact that the Koran, and the Moslem religious law called the "Sha'ri'ia," not only permits but in fact perpetuates and sanctifies slavery. In fact, they command that children of slave women remain slaves from birth to death. No Islamic country can accept Islam as the state religion and the Koran and the "Sha'ri'ia" as the law-of-the-land, as does Saudi Arabia, and abolish slavery at the same time. The institution of slavery is too ingrained in Islamic law. This is why slavery is common in almost all Moslem countries, although officially the fact is vehemently denied. Saudi Arabia announced its intention to abolish slavery in the mid-1960s, a full century after the rest of the world.

There is overwhelming evidence, however, that this announcement was only a public relations gesture, and Saudi slavery continues unabated.   As professor Murray Gordon convincingly shows in his book "Slavery in the Islamic World", the Arabs were the chief slave masters and traders for centuries, concentrating their efforts in black Africa. They still are. In fact, in spoken Arabic, the words "black" and "slave" are the same. Women were also prime targets and enslaved for use as sexual objects, and not only in the harems of wealthy Arabs and Islamic royalty. In all cases, non-Moslems were prime candidates for slavery because Islam considers them inferior.

It should be stressed that this is not only a matter of history but of ongoing practice today. Recent reports show how the Islamic dictatorship of Sudan - as part of its brutal campaigns against the Christians Sudanese in the south - were enslaving the children of the Dinka tribe and other Christian communities. Unfortunately, the world press has showed little interest in the story.  

ISLAMIC LAW  

According to the Moslems public relation campaign, Islam "believes that the Divine Law, the "Sha'ri'ia", should be taken very seriously". This is true and constitutes a primary reason why Islam clashes so strongly with Western society. When they are dealing with a Western audience, the Moslems purposely neglect to mention what this supposedly divine law mandates. The "Sha'ri'ia" is a belch from the Dark Ages, a rigid, barbaric code that calls for beheadings, dismemberments, and public flogging for a number of crimes, some rather petty.

The "Sha'ri'ia" contains no presumption of innocence, allows no right for counsel or appeal and permits no trial by a jury of one's peers. In practical terms, the accused is at the mercy of Islamic clerics. In this system, Moslem and non-Moslem alike can expect no justice. Hence, it should come as no surprise that under Islam public executions constitute a kind of spectator sport, especially in Saudi Arabia. Sometimes the executioner cuts the prisoner to draw blood before performing the sentence, an act of needless cruelty. An assistant then pokes the victim in the ribs with a stick so that he jerks his head upward to meet the falling sword or ax. The blood flows and the crowds of spectators cheer.

The Moslems claim that in Islamic societies minorities have the right to their own courts. This is an outright lie. The "Sha'ri'ia" is imposed on non-Moslem minorities in places such as the Sudan and Egypt.

PRIMORDIAL EVIL RELIGION?  

In modern times Moslems became attuned to the kind of thing Westerners want to hear. For example, they write that Islam considers itself the "primordial religion," which "seeks to return man to his original, true nature, in which he is in harmony with creation, inspired to do good, and confirming the Oneness of God". They even includes a tale in which a man's sins were forgiven because he gave water to a dog. This sort of spiritual pabulum is much more palatable to trendy Westerners than the stark reality of the legalized bloodshed of the "Sha'ri'ia" or the religious hatred of the jihad.

In practice, Islam's respect for God's creation is very much in doubt. They say that Islam's rules of warfare supposedly include "prohibitions against harming civilians and against destroying crops, trees, and livestock". This is another barefaced lie. No such prohibition has ever existed in Islam.  

The fact is that Islamic terrorism against America, Israel and other nations has integrated all of these in abundance. Moslem terrorists have murdered thousands of helpless, unarmed civilians, with the Twin Towers in New York not the only - although it is (as of now) the largest and most spectacular case. Islamic Iraq has killed thousands of defenseless Kurds with poison gas, which did not spare women, children and even the victims' livestock.

It is also hard to understand how the sacrificial slaughter of a half million animals in Saudi Arabia squares with respect for life. Islam never had any respect for life, any form of life, including the life of its own believers.  

SUMMARY  

In the final analysis, our vision of Islam - armed with slick, effective propaganda - is very nearly the reverse of the truth. Contrary to the claims of Moslem propagandists, Islam is a relatively new religion, adapted largely from longstanding custom and neo-pagan practices on the Arabian Peninsula. It is not inclusive but exclusive and sectarian. It is not peaceful but glorifies war and conquest. It is not tolerant but considers all other religions inferior and ultimately aims to eliminate them. It is not liberating but enslaving, in both the spiritual and the physical senses.

Islam does not respect human rights but is hostile to the very concept. Islam is inherently repressive and theocratic and cannot accommodate democratic thought or action.  

Islamic imperialism is on the rise. Hence, there is indeed a great need for Christians and Jews to understand Islam and the Moslems. For that one must avoid the devious advertising of billionaire sheikhs. Instead, Christians must avidly seek the truth about today's most dangerous threat to Western, Judeo-Christian civilization.