Here at Israellycool we are big friends of Barry Rubin and follow everything he writes. I suppose we should link to more of his work but take it as read that you should be reading his stuff too. So I wanted to post a link to this piece because I actually had a point to make on the side. But then our friend over in the frozen north (it’s a balmy +4? in Finland today), Tundra Tabloids, posted the following and I figured I can’t state it any better:
As I see it, while there are many peaceful Muslims who are more often than not, caught in crossfire of terrorism by their coreligionists, it is in fact Islam to blame, not any so called “extremists”, it’s just Islam 101, the fundamental kind that will be the norm if in fact Islam is ever reformed as many have called for.
People are just kicking the can down the road in promoting the mirage called ‘moderate Islam’, which is in fact a Western construct, there’s only Islam. It’s something that I’ve been told, face to face, by the leader of the world’s largest Islamic body, the OIC’s Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu himself.
Are there moderate Muslims? Of course there are, but there isn’t anything called moderate Islam, there is only Islam. All four schools of Islamic orthodox jurisprudence (the only schools any Muslim who wants to be anything in Islam adheres to) offer the most anti-modern world view imaginable.
Just look at the Muslim Brotherhood and their brother Salafists in how badly they want to instill the sharia throughout Egypt. Remember, it’s in Egypt that al-Azhar university stands, the most respected (and fundamentalist/anti-modern/rejectionist) Islamic institution within Islam. Dr.Andrew Bostom accurately labels it: “the Vatican of Sunni Islam“.
Any moderation that exists within Islam has been through Western influence, and that’s a good thing, but don’t make the mistake that many have by concluding it means thatbasic Islam promotes moderation, on the contrary, any moderation that exists, exists only to the extent of the lack of fundamentalist influence (Islam 101). Once the long beards set up shop, the trek back to the 7th century begins.
Here is the start of Barry’s piece:
Hussein Solomon is a South African professor who is the leading expert on revolutionary Islamist terrorism in his own country and Africa generally. He has just finished a book, Global Jihad: The South African Front. Equally interesting, though, is the background to his work.
In the book he explains why he is so intent on this subject. Solomon describes how he was affected by an August 1998 terrorist attack on Planet Hollywood in Cape Town in which two people were killed and others injured or even crippled.
He writes
“The people who perpetrated such an act of barbarity called themselves Muslim and attempted to justify the act as a blow against the Great Satan–the United States of America. But, the political mandarins of Washington were not hurt by this outrage. It was ordinary men, women and children enjoying dinner and pleasant conversation who were now held in death’s unyielding grasp or maimed….
“I was both angry and sad. Angry that fellow Muslims would perpetrate such an atrocity and saddened that other Muslims would countenance such behavior.”
The particular professor in the story lives in Cape Town, South Africa. This is the same South Africa that is busy erasing it’s Afrikaner history. Do you know what the highway into Durban from the airport is called? Take a guess. Answer is buried here.
Note about the title: I’m told there is a Finnish expression about Russians always being Russians no matter whether they’re fried in butter. Islam is always Islam, no matter how tasty you try to make it!
