ENGLAND. THE YEAR, 2007.
My name is Adil. I have been born and raised among dutiful and obedient Muslims, and I aim to misbehave.
Already I have fallen from grace. I am no longer one of them, a reason sufficient for their delicately-placed wrath to have me consigned, in this world and the next, to the most grievous of penalties; for what else should the reward be for those who behave like me, they would say if they knew, but disgrace in this life? So no matter where I go in the realms of Islam, I am a hidden traitor to my people, a renegade without honour to be executed. And for them to know of my apostasy is to know of their fear.
Still, now and again I silently walk among the Muslim flock, to observe their incessant bleating and guilty straying, and see how readily they run to the call of their watchful masters, appointees of God who oversee the enjoining of what is good and the forbidding of what is not. And they remind the herd that He is not unmindful of what they do.
Neither am I.
***
IT IS RAINING. Amid the leaf-green patches and high-rise suburbia, the Muslim flock is on the move. As the call to Friday prayers wafts through the doors of the central mosque, an unholy alliance of men walks up the steps and into its entrance. As they remove and shelve their footwear in the foyer, their bland shalwar kameezes, prayer caps, and fistfuls of scraggly hair growth mingle and compete with exaggerated "bomber" jackets, "condom" hats, and goatee beards. But women, all of whom are safely tucked into hijabs and niqabs, move to an unobtrusive side entrance of the mosque.
The car park nearby is, as is usually the case, a scene of confusion. The non-Muslim policeman on duty is feeling the pressure. Muslims in this community, it appears, do not know how to park their cars, or at least, not around each other. Out of necessity, the ground of the car park itself is not a flat, smooth tarmac: it consists entirely of small, but sizeable, jagged rocks that pre-emptively puncture the ambitions of opportunistic speeders, who would care to exhibit the marvels of their machines. For the more likely that young, fertile, non-Muslim women live and reside in a vicinity, the greater are the efforts invested into displaying male plummage.
But there are males who are aware that sabotaging this holy day in the service of reproductive pursuits is not usually the same as siding with God. As their souped-up, low-slung cars cruise into this arena that is a car park under heavy siege, some of them dutifully decide that it is now appropriate, perhaps, to stop pumping out hip-hop and bhangra. And when the inhabitants of these vehicles finally emerge, together they look like an odd lot. Most conform to the usual urban "rude-boy" stereotype, given how obvious their efforts are in trying to appear "accidentally" attractive; the rest look as if they have just returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca: moustaches are trimmed, beards are not, and the trousers of their long, white jilbabs are jacked above the ankles.
It has long been thus: welcome to this outpost of Islamic civilisation, a colony where the stridency of the faithful collides with vogues that were once confined to the underclass of non-Muslim British society. Muhammad is not just the newest, and the final, of God's prophets; Muhammad is the newest, and the final, of the bling-bling superstars. Since the Rushdie Affair, and more recently the Cartoon jihad, even the most irreligious of the street-savvy Muslim rude-boys have come to know of the new universal limits: nobody disses Mo, the Final Gangster of all time and a Mercy to all the worlds.
Such are the strong sensibilities of those Muslims who are deprived of all high culture, and have only a very nominal sense of their own religious background. If you drew Muhammad sporting gold jewellery, a tailor-made condom hat, a goatee, wraparound orange shades, and tell him to strike a pose, they will not be amused. They will not giggle at how "hard" the prophet is. And, to paraphrase from the movie Pulp Fiction, they will go jahiliyya on your ass. Mo's turf is the entire planet, and his homeboys, which range from imams to the most ridiculous of their underclass congregants, are busy trying to strut their stuff on it.
And many are succeeding.
***
AS I WALK into the prayer hall of the mosque, the signs of this being a place for worship are clear: the carpets are arranged in the direction of Mecca, stacks of Korans line the shelves, prayer beads swing from cupboard handles, and an imam is addressing his congregation with a typical sermon, a tedious khutbah admonishing them all and steadfastly calling them to the way of God. By now, the mosque is packed.
Having once belonged to the ranks of believers, I have always understood that heartfelt prayer is to a man's turbulent mind what water is to a flame. For some people, prayer encourages inner tranquillity and peace, and subdues their seething waves of anger, the fiery discontent that simmers away in their heart. And this is an end in itself for some faiths. Not so for Islam: congregational prayer has always been preferred over individual worship; prayer is just one step on the pathway to mobilising human action within a community. The mosque is more than just a Muslim church; it is like the equivalent of the old Roman forums.
As such, there is little in the way of serenity to be found in mosques. Instead, other things occupy the minds of these congregants. After the prayers, and once the imam's appeal to God to aid the Muslim "resistance" in Palestine, Iraq, Chechnya, Afghanistan and so on, ad nauseum, is finally over, I walk over to near where a discussion in Urdu is taking place among some men, including the imam. They are talking about how the police apparently like causing their community trouble.
Not so long ago, the area nearby the central mosque was swamped with media reporters and photographers, after terror arrests had been made of some Muslim men living in the vicinity, men who were thought to have been plotting to kidnap a British Muslim soldier and behead him as punishment for aiding the "dirty kuffar". The embarrassment of the community and its leaders was palpable. The chairman of the mosque tried to take the mature line during the whole fray and declared that the raids were obviously part of a government conspiracy to make upstanding, well-respected, and peace-loving Muslims look bad. And the media, which was promptly dubbed by the community as an arm of an anti-Islamic war machine, searched in vain for reasonable concerns coming from within about radical Muslims.
The press did encounter some other interesting things however. One was a sign of the importance attached to good manners by Muslims in the community, as seen in one press photo: a few women, one of whom is pushing her child's buggy, are walking down the street. All are clad in dark niqabs. One of these upstanding, peace-loving Muslim women, who has spectacles jutting out in front of the slit that allows her eyes to peek through, proceeds to salute the flood of press and photographers by sticking two fingers up at them.
***
I WANT TO ask the imam of this mosque something. Incompetents like him sometimes amuse me. I get my chance when the discussion group finally disperses and he steps away towards the doors.
"Assalaamu Alaikum", I say. I smile and hold out my hand.
"Wa-alaikum salaam" he replies. He shakes my hand, but only by tentatively gripping my fingers, not the palm. Arrogant sod.
"I'm sorry to bother you, but I'd like your advice on a couple of things, if that's okay."
He is not looking at me. He seems rather distracted by the shape of the door he was just heading towards.
"Please be quick. I am in rush."
Okay. I begin with a random question.
"My professor says that natural selection is the only process that generates life on this earth. What does Islam have to say about this?"
He looks at me for a few seconds, puzzled. "Evolution? Evolution?" he asks. I nod.
"Yaar, it is not allowed. All mad dreams." He waves his hand dismissively.
Huh.
"Okay, I'll look into that. The other thing is that Hizb-ut-Tahrir has been tellling me to join their group to implement the caliphate. They say it's obligatory for me as a Muslim to join and help them to work towards this. What do I do? Are they right?
"Aray yaar, these kids. Small groups. No knowledge. Nothing."
"So what should I say to them?"
"Ignore. Ignore".
"But how are they wrong?"
He is tiring of this conversation.
"They are not knowing".
"They don't know what?"
"Uff, do not ask me such things".
"What?"
But he walks off, with nary a salaam in the wind.
***
THE BELIEVERS ARE now feeling suitably chastised and worked up in equal measure, and they file out of the mosque. But there are those for whom the opportunity to chastise has only just begun. As worshippers leave the mosque, they are handed leaflets by Hizb-ut-Tahrir, leaflets that usually rail against an ongoing war against, apparently, Islam, as well as this and that obstacle to the implementation of the mighty khilafah, a universal Islamic state that is said to be the necessary solution given the group's lengthy diagnosis of the ills availing the Muslim world. Usually young, in their 20s and 30s, the supporters of the group are a waste of a generation. They mark out their territory in front of the mosque with a stall selling books and magazines, and their junior supporters, typically smartly suited and booted, coolly patrol the vicinity in search of unsuspecting Muslims who have not yet realised the potentials of their faith. The flyers and leaflets they hand out freely are all paid out of their pockets.
I walk over to the stall, where a few people are already talking animatedly. Or rather, the designated person looking after the stall is gesticulating energetically. He is not pleased. Your Muslim brothers and sisters are being massacred around the world by the West, he says. But there is a hint of embarassment in the questioner's face at being subjected to such an unexpected display of emotion. No matter how privately posed a question on world affairs may be, it is a religious obligation for the Hizb-ut-Tahrir speaker to spread word of the injustices perpetrated against Muslims far and wide. Any conversation is explored for opportunities for howling oratory. But what is also clear from this spectacle is that senior members of the group are carefully observing the member's performance from the sidelines. And he knows it.
After a while, the man with the question purchases some literature and moves on. I pretend to be looking at a book entitled "The Economic System of Islam". The guy in charge of the stall now turns his attention to me. He seems quite aware that I was in earshot of his little rehearsed monologue.
"Assalaamu Alaikum, brother", he says.
"Wa-alaikum salaam", I reply.
He says nothing, but keeps looking at me expectantly.
"So", I say, smiling.
"Brother, have you been given one of these leaflets?" He holds out one for me to take. I already have one. His accent is a slurred English, although he is clearly more articulate than the imam. I have had many run-ins with suburban mujahideen such as these elsewhere, and I know their type well.
"Actually, no", I lie. "So, what's a khilafah? What does it look like?".
He is pleased at the question, but before answering he quickly glances around to gauge earshot potential. He already knows his seniors are listening.
"Brother, the Islamic khilafah is the Islamic State. It was destroyed in 1924, and ruling by Islam in the state and society ceased", he says emphasising the last word. "Ruling by Islam ceased when the khilafah was destroyed by corrupt rulers who were agents of the kuffar [infidels]".
Huh.
"Brother, the implementing of the khilafah is a great obligation upon each and every Muslim. It is haram [forbidden] to remain for more than three days without a pledge to a khaleefah being on your neck. It is haram to rule by anything other than Islam and to stay silent about the implementation of kufr laws over us".
His voice is carrying across the courtyard and he promptly shifts to third-person.
"Due to this, Muslims all over the world are sinful in the sight of Allah and they will all receive punishment except those who involve themselves in establishing the khilafah and restore the ruling by that which Allah has revealed. The sin will not be lifted from their necks until the khilafah is established, and whosoever dies without a bay'ah [oath of allegiance to a would-be khaleefah] on his neck will die the death of jahiliyyah [ignorance]."
As Americans are fond of saying: like, whoa.
"So, it is obligatory for every Muslim to help establish the khilafah?", I ask.
"Yes, brother". He looks at me pointedly. "The daleel [evidence] is laid out in the Koran and the Sunnah, and any Muslim who refuses to help establish the khilafah has committed a clear act of kufr and this takes them outside the fold of Islam".
His mention of apostasy is pregnant with implications of punishment by death. And by this time, more of his colleagues are gathering around to listen to this exchange.
"So, you're basically saying: it's obligatory for every Muslim to be subject to all the laws and customs of Islam but the only way for this to come about is by establishing the khilafah, right?"
"Brother, it's not me who is saying this". He holds up a Koran. "Rather, this is God's command to each of us as laid out in the Koran and Sunnah. To be ruled by Islam is an obligation upon our necks. Establishing the khilafah is the only method for establishing Islam over our heads. Only in the presence of the khilafah can the laws of Islam exist and in its absence they are suspended. Brother, there is a very important, well-known Shari'ah principle that says: that which is necessary to achieve an obligation is itself an obligation".
Much of this explains why many of the Hizb-ut-Tahrir members I have met think themselves superior to those Muslims who are considerably more religious than themselves. If you happen to believe that you are already working towards the greatest obligation, that of establishing the khilafah, then all the other religious stuff can just, well, get in line.
"Isn't that principle illogical, though?", I reply. "That's like saying: It's obligatory to free slaves, so it's therefore obligatory to keep slaves so we can free them".
The area goes quiet. The man behind the stall is unsure of how to respond.
"Who's talking about slaves here, brother?"
This is the best response he can come up with?
"What is your name?" comes a voice from behind him. A fat man with spectacles steps forward.
"How is that relevant?"
"Because you do not have knowledge. You clearly need to gain knowledge. If you are going to ask such questions, you should discuss these matters in greater detail with us - in private".
It seems I have touched upon a criticism that his colleagues were not trained to publicly respond to.
"Actually, you haven't answered my original question", I reply.
"God's logic is not the same as your logic. These things cannot be understood unless one has understand the proofs as laid out in the Koran and Sunnah, and this means learning the process of extracting them, by first having knowledge of how one may reason about the manaat [reality] of the text".
He seems touchy.
"What's the difference between your version of Islam and that of this mosque's?", I ask.
"There are no versions of Islam. There is only one Islam, that of God and His Prophet. Who are you to be asking such questions?", he says.
***
THERE IS ACTUALLY not much difference between the "moderates" and Hizb-ut-Tahrir. Islamic teachings stipulate that if a Muslim ever happens to find himself in a position of power, no matter where he is, then there is a clear religious obligation upon him to implement the laws of Islam. That is what Muslims usually described as moderate or traditional believe. The main difference is that moderates believe that the establishing of Islamic Shari'ah is conditional, since it depends upon having a Muslim in power in the first place. If there is no Muslim in power, then there is no religious obligation to reach that point. But of course, they have every other desire to implement Shari'ah, given that Islam's own vision of itself has become locked such that it cannot pretend in any way to exist as a minority culture. Hizb-ut-Tahrir, on the other hand, believes there are no strings attached in the pursuit of power. The reign of Islam is religiously obligatory, and whatever leads to it also becomes automatically obligatory. Both are deeply anti-semitic, anti-women, homophobic, anti-science, and anti-freedom. They are dangerous movements and need to be combatted strenuously. Moderates and militants differ in degree, not in kind. One is not the solution to the other.
In fact, militant Islamists spend more marketing effort in distancing themselves from the moderates than vice-versa. The more militant a group is, the more effort they spend in delegitimising those who are less so. Hizb-ut-Tahrir markets itself as being heavily divergent from moderates, and constantly brings attention to what it sees as huge errors in the moderate position. While there is little of actual substance between the two, given the main difference is over a question of whether a certain principle is to be expressed conditionally or not, most Muslims have come to accept Hizb-ut-Tahrir's line that the differences to, and errors in, the moderates are huge.
Moderate imams and their colleagues therefore face a dilemma. On the one hand, they refuse to take on the ideology of radical Islamists for fear of looking incompetent to Muslims at large; on the other hand, by refusing to police the radicals the imams look incompetent to non-Muslims at large. The truth is that they are incompetent on both counts; radical Islamists and the not-so radical imams are not so terribly far apart in their aspirations. One seeks to advance their cultural supremacism in a clear-cut way by installing a universal Islamic state, and the other seeks to spread it diffusely, with weakest areas being targeted first. Differences between the two are mostly down to questions over methodology.
The solution adopted in the face of the dilemma is thus: Most Muslim leaders and communities attempt to alleviate their public incompetence by shifting the burden of action onto non-Muslims, claiming that unless they start acting responsibly by stop acting so "belligerently" towards Muslims, then "small groups with little knowledge" will flourish and be attracted towards extreme ideas. Indeed, the chairman of the mosque described previously has updated this argument of late: these extreme groups, which range from Hizb-ut-Tahrir to al-Qaeda, are all government conspiracies.
***
NOW I FEEL rather more uncomfortable than I did when I entered the mosque's vicinity. There are plenty of people milling around me, but there is also this group of unimpressed-looking men asking me who I am and what I am up to. The fat Hizb-ut-Tahrir man with spectacles is trying his best to be intimidating, but he seems unsure as to whether I'm buying it. I'm not.
"Let me ask you, what if it turns out to be true that those who were arrested last month actually were planning to murder that British Muslim soldier?", I ask.
"Astaghfirullah. Let me ask you, you call that kafir a Muslim? Let me ask you, where is the evidence that these well-respected, peace-loving community members have done wrong? Show me! People are supposed to be innocent until proved guilty, yet the kuffar accuse Muslims of being guilty through trial by media. The kuffar accuse us advocating a police state, yet try to silence Muslims so they can justify their foreign policy! Why? So they can get on with the butchering of Islam and abuses of Muslims across the world!" He jabs his finger violently in my direction. "You need to smell the coffee! Tell me, where do you stand? Do you support the harm done against this Muslim community?"
"I think you're hysterical", I say.
"Hysterical? Hysterical? What about our Muslim sisters and children in Chechnya, Iraq, Afghanistan? Tell me, do they have no right to be hysterical about their situation? Do you expect us all to just sit back and enjoy seeing our Muslim sisters being ripped of their honour at the dirty hands of the kuffar? Especially when an apostate aids the kuffar in abusing their dignity and livelihoods? Do you expect us to stay silent and instead dance to Bush and Blair's tune? Tell me!"
"You're misguided, aren't you?"
"This is a Muslim area. Get out", says one of his comrades.
"Actually, sunshine, this is my country."
Now several guys are facing me. Some step closer. But there are many people still in the vicinity.
"You would contemplate attacking me? For what? What do you think you can get away with in broad daylight?", I ask.
"I do not suffer apostates", the fat man says.
"You want to take over this country? Over my dead body".
He stares at me directly. His look is almost apologetic.
"Yes, exactly. That is the material point".
And they chuckle.
This article has been adapted from a book that Adil is currently writing.
This is a powerful piece.
We are shooting a documentary on the nexus between Islam, Europe and the US. We'll be in London April 25 and 26th. We'd love to interview you.
I can provide references and more info. If you're interested please email me at reynoldsapplegate (at) mac (dot) com.
Yes of course. Though naturally such an escalation of conflict will include the wider non-Muslim world. Who will not tolerate such actions forever. The elites of Britain might, but the Soccer Hooligans the like will quite likely fight for their beer, bacon, and girls.
Amazing. So, this is how it works at a local level. My question would be, is there a spigot where it can be turned off, or is it diffuse, like crabgrass?
Adil,
Your first-person narrative provides a useful and thought-provoking set of counterpoints to Dean Esmay's view of Islam in the West. Thank you for posting this excerpt.
"...and I aim to misbehave."
Given the phrase, I trust you'll understand if I advise you that, should anyone try to kill you, you should try to kill them right back. If your education hasn't been sufficient in this regard, and if you should ever venture to the United States, let me know and I'll make some useful introductions. You seem like a man who ought to learn to defend himself.
Powerful and gripping. I eagerly anticipate your book.
Great piece. Consider moving to the United States, because being a Muslim apostate in Britain is like being a Polish Jew in 1939.
Great writing. Especially intersting to somebody who used to work not that very far from the location, but in some respects living in another world.
Thany you, Adil. Take care.
I saw Bernard Lewis on CSPAN on Sunday, and he was basically saying the same thing.
He pointed out that a major bone of contention for many Muslims living in Europe and other places is that in their society, people of other faiths (notably Jewish and Christian) were permitted (or perhaps encouraged or required) to have religious-cultural enclaves with separate legal systems and assessment of taxes. Key matters that came under these legal systems, a rabbinical court for Jews, Sharia law for Muslims, and so on, were marriage, divorce, and inheritance. If "we" permitted "them" to have that sort of thing in our society, why don't they permit us to have the same thing in theirs?
Interesting question, and is the informal administration of different sets of social rules that have deep moral and religious significance really so incompatible with Multiculturalism. Does Multiculturalism have any common, core values that if you cross that line, you are perceived as a threat to society? Not pointing any fingers at anybody, but such questions as polygamy, young-age arranged-marriage betrothals, dowery customs, automatic male custody of children in divorce, gosh, even prayer in public school, all have been concerns over the ages between majority society and many different minorities throughout the past.
As far as American society, I think we answered that question with the Latter Day Saints over a century ago. When you think of Nauvoo, Illinois, you think of what the young men in the posting are aspiring to in England. While some "gentiles" may feel that residing in Provo, Utah is like living under Sharia law, and apart from some ugly feelings expressed towards a certain presidential candidate, most of the rest of us have reached some kind of accomodation with others among us being Mormons, and the LDS Church famously has made some major accomodations - on marriage and more recently on respect for people of other races - to achieve compatibility with the majority culture.
Perhaps one difference is that the LDS Church has a spiritual leader who can make such changes and obtain cooperation of the faithful based on a doctrine of divine inspiration, although I suppose there are the holdouts ensconsed in the Utah back woods. If Islam restored its Caliph, would that establish the authority to do similar things?
#5 Grim:
I've been reading your stuff over the last year or so, and you've been one of my favorites to read on the 'net. You've now been promoted to the very top. Here's hopeing we always end up at Mal's kind of party.
I love your writing style, Adil!
I can't wait to read the rest and I found your blog - mindsafari dot org.
I will pass you url on to others.
Okay. So I looked harder and found cultureforall dot blugspot dot com.
#9
Problem is, the comparison is apples to oranges. Once the LDS were forced into the Union, and it was made clear to them they had to follow the rules, they settled down and adapted quite nicely. Now, while they are undoubtedly amongst the reddest states in the Union, they are not culturally alot different than many of the other red states.
As a non-Mormon living in Utah for about 20 years now, it ain't even close. I can tell you some whacky stories, but most of those were due to an implicit assumption that everyone in Utah was a Mormon, and that essentially completely died out in the early 90's when Utah had a wave of California immigrants come in. Definitely some cultural clashes there (and personally, if you want to assign stereotypes, the result of that would be Mormons as the good guys and Californians as arrogant pricks...)
Two big differences between the LDS and Islam. First, the LDS never intended or desired to conquer anything, they just wanted a country of their own and to be left to their own devices. After forming the state of Utah, they pretty quickly figured out that as long as they obeyed certain ground rules (polygamy out, follow federal statutes, etc) that they'd be left alone. And they've been basically happy as a clam since.
Second, you are correct in that they have an established hierarchy with a clear doctrine allowing for superceding of old rules (even ones given by their prophet figure, Joseph Smith) with new ones as needed. Very different from Islam where, even if there were a caliphate, the caliphate has no authority to override the teachings of Mohammed.
For comparison, the LDS 'fundies' are a group of a couple hundred or so that live (mostly on welfare) in hole in the wall towns on the Utah-Arizona border so they can hop back and forth to try and avoid the attention of law enforcement, are hated (and have all been excommunicated, publicly) by the main church authorities.
The idea that Mormons = Muslims is ridiculous and delusional.
Mormons had a choice: give up their polygamy and various other stuff or get massacred. Guess what, they gave up their polygamy (and are still distrusted).
Brussels Journal has a story on riots near Utrecht.
It's native born Dutchmen against Muslims.
Short story, working class white city is being harassed by Muslims for years, police and government ignore it because it's contrary to PC. Working class white people have nowhere else to go. Tensions boil.
A fifty year old white native Dutchman stops a knife attack on a pregnant white Dutchwoman by local Muslim thus as described in the original parent post, and a Muslim policewoman shoots him dead.
That's enough. White Dutchmen stage riots over three days, burning "Community Centers" aka Muslim-only government centers, looting Muslim shops (and burning them down), and burning government vehicles etc. which belong to "Muslims."
Over 60 arrests, mostly "soccer Hooligans" aka working class white people. Socialist Mayor threatening the white residents with further reprisals and that they have to "tolerate" Muslim intimidation.
And so it begins ...
The only question about the Mosque detailed above by Ali's article is when it will be burned down, and how many Muslims will be in it when it goes up. There is no way around it.
Socialist PC multi-culti governments that are a coalition of hard-left elitists living the comfortable life of the nomenklatura, and the welfare receiving Muslim minority, are not going to take reasonable measures to force Muslims in Europe to assimilate and fuel extremists who already as Ali amply demonstrates have their own community dynamics (the hardest of the hard boys is the one who is head thug boss).
Meanwhile working class white people in these areas have nowhere to go. Socialists/Liberals/Labor surely would like them all to die, but now it's a measure of fight for what you have or die a pauper.
It's already begun.
Were the people of Serbia monsters? Devoid of all humanity? No. They were engaged (as they had been since before Suleiman's time) in a war of the peoples and we're going to see that in Western Europe as well.
Ali has described all that's required for a war of the peoples. You can't have folks like that co-existing inside Western Societies.
That the Dutch allowed Ayaan Hirsi Ali to be driven from her adopted home by PC and multiculturalism is unforgiveable. They reap what they have sown. Too bad. Move along, nothing to see here.
If I remember the Queen made a deal with the devil of Nazism in WWII to save the nations Catholics (and there are a lot of them) in that most Catholic of all EU countries that sacrificed the Dutch Jews. Seems they truly do reap now.
Jim, I think you're being waaay casual in describing the conflict between the LDS and the US.
They had to findamentally change their religion.
And the issue of how the deeply religious manage within a secular state is a complex one. Orthodox Jews, Mormons, and others face these dilemmas, and we have to figure out how best to deal with them. My own view is simple; if (for example) a husband and wife wish to voluntarily negotiate the terms of their marriage under Orthodox Jewish terms, and to deal with divorce and other issues in the context of their religion, fine. But this implies that they both choose to do this, and that they may elect to choose not to and to be governed instead by the civil laws that we are all subject to - with the only consequence the possibility that they may be excluded from their religious community.
Islam isn't there yet, but it's certainly not impossible.
A.L.
Long life and good health to you, Adil Zeshan.
#16 from Armed Liberal, re: the LDS and the US: "They had to findamentally change their religion."
Leaving aside the question of how fundamental the change was, they really did have to change, because they had no tradition of successful conquest, deception and subversion, and they were wholly comprehended within a single state that was overwhelming in military, demographic and all other terms, and had a belligerent and demanding sense of its single-cultured self, no multi-cultural cringe in sight.
It's not impossible that Islam might make the same adaptations in the same conditions.
The question is of course: how does one bring about the same conditions?
If one agrees that this is the right goal, but it's hard to achieve, my answer is yes, but the only rewards for not trying are subjugation and slow or quick destruction.
If one thinks it would be necessary to meet the other conditions of change, but not to take away the history of bloody conquest, my answer is, fine, let's meet all the other conditions, and see if that solves the problem. Just - show me the problem is solved, don't keep talking about fundamental pro-kuffer Islamic reform and checks in the mail.
But, if one objects to aiming at measures to diminish and box in Islam continually till it reaches the point of changing its DNA or ceasing to exist in a near future within what is left of its circumscribed space, yet one hopes for this extraordinarily domineering, triumphalist, aggressive religion to make the sorts of changes it could only make if it was thoroughly defeated and had no tradition of victorious good times to fall back on, I don't think that's terribly serious.
I think the most sensible and moral thing somebody who already is within Islam can do is not to adhere to it and uphold it and wait for it to reform, but to leave it.
My prayers are for the life, health, dignity, happiness, progeny, property and general good future of anybody who does so.
I also think such prayers should be backed by armed force, ultimately wherever we can reach and reasonably hope to win.
I think it ought to be a great priority, perhaps our greatest priority, to encourage, protect, laud and in every way prosper those who do leave Islam. We should do that proudly and boldly and with a warm spirit. I've said this over and over for years now.
Adil Zeshan seems to be a great example of the kind of person that we could applaud, support and be willing to fight for.
-
"This is a Muslim area. Get out", says one of his comrades.
"Actually, sunshine, this is my country."
-
That is the best thing he could have said.
-
"You want to take over this country? Over my dead body".
He stares at me directly. His look is almost apologetic.
"Yes, exactly. That is the material point".
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No, the material point is whether it's him alone, in which case we all deserve to be slaves, or whether the one who says that speaks for us all, and we will all fight to defend him, in which case we deserve to win. And who knows? We just might.
I am getting personally fatigued with the West "over-intellectualizing" Islam. If you study that faith, ideologically, than you already know what I have surmised - it's a demographically supercharged intellectual asteroid heading right towards us. And the West has its head in the sands of Global Warming, American Idol and Bush Derangement Syndrome. The question we need to be asking is - what PURPOSE does our media-driven Islamic apologetics serve? History tells us that that after Islam has slaughtered the Jews, then the media, homosexuals and western intellectuals (let's throw Hollywood in there too) are the next to face the sword. I mean that literally. Why is no one even asking that question? Why are practically ALL western news sources faulting Bush, who at least had the temerity to jump in there and "mix it up", why is he the Great Satan? The world's truly gone mad...
Doesn't enjoin mean forbid?
Adil,
Really funny article. Of course it is relatively easy to poke fun at religeon. Been doing it all my life. Christians, muslims, etc, all a little touched in the intelectual department. Still, keep it up.
"Hysterical? Hysterical? What about our Muslim sisters and children in Chechnya, Iraq, Afghanistan? Tell me, do they have no right to be hysterical about their situation? Do you expect us all to just sit back and enjoy seeing our Muslim sisters being ripped of their honour at the dirty hands of the kuffar? Especially when an apostate aids the kuffar in abusing their dignity and livelihoods? Do you expect us to stay silent and instead dance to Bush and Blair's tune? Tell me!"
"You're misguided, aren't you?"...........................this question is totally irrational....... i dont see any connection with this question and the reply above..........
adil is cheap minded biased...........shame on you..........