08 Mar ISLAMIC JIHADISTS ARE FOLLOWING THE QURAN, NOT PERVERTING ISLAM
In President Obama’s December 6th, 2015 Oval Office address, he told America that the San Bernardino Islamic killers “had gone down the dark path of radicalization, embracing a perverted interpretation of Islam that calls for war against America and the West.”
This is false. While many Muslims are not violent, Islamic jihadists are following the Quran, not perverting Islam. Reform of violent Islam may be possible, but failing to deal with truth makes it harder to fight the problem at home and abroad, and harder to set the tone and terms of victory.
- Islamic doctrine in the Quran and other writings, affirmatively requires obedient Muslims to engage in jihad and violence. (For a discussion of what jihad, the caliphate and sharia are, see our LCWT statement on that subject.)
- There are over 100 verses of the Quran that call for violence against infidels (non-Muslims).
- To quote the Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna: “The verses of the Qur’an and the Sunnah summon people in general (with the most eloquent expression and the clearest exposition) to jihad, to warfare, to the armed forces, and all means of land and sea fighting.” All Muslims Must Make Jihad.
- The statements and teachings of many imams, Islamic scholars, judges and government officials in Islamic majority countries around the world today confirm and embellish upon this obligation of obedient Muslims to commit jihad—to kill or convert the infidels. There are many examples in the linked article, including Ali Gomaa, the grand mufti of Egypt, the highest Muslim religious authority in the world, who said in 2008 “Muslims must kill non-believers wherever they are unless they convert to Islam.”
- While American officials including President Obama tell America that there are “few extremists” within the ranks of Islam, the truth based on a large scale international study is that Islamic-majority nations are profoundly anti-Semitic, (92% of Iraqis and 69% Turks), their citizens strongly support the extremist view that people should be given the death penalty for leaving Islam or for blaspheming the prophet (86% of Egyptians and 82% of Jordanians), and roughly 50 million express support for ISIS, the Islamic group that beheads children and Christians. There are hundreds of thousands of active jihadists around the world.
- Of the 59 organizations designated by the U.S. State Department as “FTO,” Foreign Terrorist Organizations, nearly all, 53, almost 90%, are Islamic.
- The fact that there are moderate Muslims around the world who do not commit violent acts, does not change the fact that Islam’s foundational documents teach, and many Islamic authorities around the world today confirm, that jihad is the mandate of a loyal Muslim. And some of the potential refugees and immigrants to America have grown up around this teaching.
- There is a desire and hope among some Muslims for modernizing and moderating Islam. In the United States, a Muslim Reform Movement has started under the direction of a Muslim-American doctor, Zuhdi Jasser. More on his efforts in a separate posting.
Islam itself teaches violence.
The truth about what Islam actually teaches matters to Americans, for at least two reasons.
First, we must all understand that the task ahead to transform Islam, to modernize and reform it, is a gargantuan undertaking, but one which must occur if it is to thrive in the modern world, and most especially if it is to be part of the American fabric. Peaceful reform can hopefully occur at the same time forceful military action against ISIS and other violent jihadists happens around the world.
Second, we have no way to know, and no way to “vet” the tens of thousands of Islamic refugees seeking to come to America to find out which kind of Islam they follow, the Quran’s jihad-justifying Islam or the peaceful reform movement Islam. We don’t even ask potential Islamic immigrants about their beliefs in our (not) rigorous “vetting’ process.
We do not have to engage in national suicide, in a ‘go ahead and take a risk’ style refugee program.
So the President’s scolding Oval Office mini-speech should not deter those who are demanding that he perform his #1 job to keep Americans safe, and do all in his power to prevent another San Bernardino. We do not have to import terrorism to appease the scolders.
As we say on LCWT, facts matter. America has a right to survive. And we have the right to demand our President deal with the people truthfully in this time of great peril.