First thing I saw today: USA Today has published an OpEd by Anjem Choudary, Sharon wrote about it earlier.
The second thing I saw today was a feel-good, Huffington Post puff piece about Muslims condemning the attack in Paris. I couldn’t help myself: I immediately added the Anjem Choudary piece as a comment whereupon I was promptly ordered to delete my comment. “This article was written by a Muslim extremist” I was told.
Yes, yes it was. But as the guys weilding the AK-47s were “extremists” I think it’s instructive to get inside their minds and see how they look at the world. As nice as the HuffPo fluffers are, they’re not coming for me with guns.
Here are the headlines and opening from the notorious Anjem Choudary:
People know the consequences: Opposing view
Why did France allow the tabloid to provoke Muslims?
Contrary to popular misconception, Islam does not mean peace but rather means submission to the commands of Allah alone. Therefore, Muslims do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression, as their speech and actions are determined by divine revelation and not based on people’s desires.
Although Muslims may not agree about the idea of freedom of expression, even non-Muslims who espouse it say it comes with responsibilities. In an increasingly unstable and insecure world, the potential consequences of insulting the Messenger Muhammad are known to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Last week the Times of Israel published an oped by a senior Hamas guy. Even though it was mostly critical of Palestinian dealing with Israel it was full of distortions and it fundamentally failed to give enough context to his views. In contrast, however, Anjem Choudry’s short piece is a wonderfully honest explanation of why 3 men slaughtered a bunch of writers and cartoonists (and two Policeman tasked with protecting them).
I can’t paraphrase him, here’s why they did it:
Muslims consider the honor of the Prophet Muhammad to be dearer to them than that of their parents or even themselves. To defend it is considered to be an obligation upon them. The strict punishment if found guilty of this crime under sharia (Islamic law) is capital punishment implementable by an Islamic State. This is because the Messenger Muhammad said, “Whoever insults a Prophet kill him.”
However, because the honor of the Prophet is something which all Muslims want to defend, many will take the law into their own hands, as we often see.
If I’m going to use their language, this was an “honour killing”. It’s similar to the many, many honour killings we see across the west with the highest concentrations in areas that have imported large Muslim populations. Whether it is the honour of a sister or a daughter that is being protected, or that of their prophet, the remedy is the same: extreme violence and death.
And Choudry is very clear on what the west needs to do to stop this happening again and again:
Within liberal democracies, freedom of expression has curtailments, such as laws against incitement and hatred.
The truth is that Western governments are content to sacrifice liberties and freedoms when being complicit to torture and rendition — or when restricting the freedom of movement of Muslims, under the guise of protecting national security.
So why in this case did the French government allow the magazine Charlie Hebdo to continue to provoke Muslims, thereby placing the sanctity of its citizens at risk?
It is time that the sanctity of a Prophet revered by up to one-quarter of the world’s population was protected.
He couldn’t be more clear: the west needs to institute a law to stop free citizens criticising Islam and its prophet. Steps to do this are firmly underway in many spheres including the UN and other world bodies. Actions taken by the US government (think back to blaming the Benghazi embassy attack on a film) confirm this as do President Obama and Bush before him both going out of their way to affirm Islam as the “Religion of peace”. Back in 2011 Hilary Clinton was trying to appease the OIC at the UN with calls for blasphemy laws.
So what is the HuffPo puff piece I mentioned? The usual story: “Muslims Around The World Condemn Charlie Hebdo Attack”. It’s an article they could well have written in advance or copy pasted from, say, Australia a week or two ago, or Mumbai, or Pakistan or…. just about anywhere except the special case of Israel where the Jews/colonial imperialist/settlers have it coming to them of course.
Muslims in France and around the world banded together on Wednesday to strongly condemn the deadliest terror attack the country has seen in the past two decades.
Three masked gunmen stormed the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine that has become notorious for its caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. One of the men reportedly shouted “Allahu akbar” as they unleashed a barrage of bullets that left at least twelve dead.
Muslim leaders and activists immediately denounced the terrorists actions, reiterating the verse in the Quran that tells Muslims when one kills just one innocent person, it is as if he has killed all of humanity.
Ahh the old favourite Koran 5:32 that was ripped off from the Tractate Sanhedrin 4:5. It’s a commentary on the murder of Abel by his brother, Cain. Here’s the Jewish version in all it’s glory with a bold bit that I’ll explain:
Therefore man was created singly, to teach you that whoever destroys a single soul of Israel, Scripture accounts it as if he had destroyed a full world; and whoever saves one soul of Israel, Scripture accounts it as if he has saved a full world. And for the sake of peace among men, that one should not say to his fellow, “My father is greater than yours;” and that heretics should not say, “There are many powers in Heaven.”
It’s a gem because the Islamic rip off of that misses out the absolutely vital extra part about “my father is greater than yours”. For a clearly supremacist ideology like Islam, that phrase would have posed a problem, so it’s gone from the Koran.
There’s another important facet included in this: the concept of “Kavod Habra” which is respect for creation. Jews are supposed to respect everyone created by God, not just other Jews.
The rest of the HuffPuff piece carries on in similar vain with day-dreamy denials that this is “a disgrace to my religion” or outright lies like “Our Prophet used to pray for the person who mocked him, he NEVER killed anyone or ordered this.”. That’s particularly interesting in light of the well recounted stories of poets such as this:
When the Apostle returned to Medina after his raid on Ta’if, word spread that he had killed some of the men who had satirized and insulted him. The poets who were left spread in all directions. – Ishaq:597
So we’re left to either believe the lies and dreams of the fluffy HuffPuff Muslims who wish the extremists would just evaporate, or the clear, concise and logical (in his mind) explanation of Anjem Choudry as to why cartoonists had to die yesterday, and why more people will die unless we all bow down and submit to sharia law in the west. Why can’t we all just be dhimmis again and have “peace”?
I’m reminded of one of my absolute favourite Winston Churchill quotes, written about the night he went to sleep before becoming Prime Minister of Great Britain the next morning:
My warnings over the last six years had been so numerous, so detailed, and were now so terribly vindicated, that no one could gainsay me. I could not be reproached either for making the war or with want of preparation for it. I thought I knew a good deal about it all, and I was sure I should not fail. Therefore, although impatient for the morning, I slept soundly and had no need for cheering dreams. Facts are better than dreams.
I agree, facts are better than dreams.
h/t to my Facebook friend Sarah A for the interesting juxtaposition of images.
