We've heard from the non-Zionist Jews - Now a word from the anti-Koran Arabs:
We've heard from the non-Zionist Jews - Now a word from the anti-Koran Arabs:
http://www.secularislam.org/wtc2.htm
STATEMENT BY IBN WARRAQ ON THE WORLD TRADE CENTER ATROCITY
Ibn Warraq is the author of Why I Am Not A Muslim
Given the stupefying enormity of the acts of barbarism of 11 September,
moral outrage is appropriate and justified, as are demands for punishment.
But a civilized society cannot permit blind attacks on all those perceived
as "Muslims" or Arabs. Not all Muslims or all Arabs are terrorists. Nor are
they implicated in the horrendous events of Tuesday. Police protection for
individual Muslims, mosques and other institutions must be increased.
However, to pretend that Islam has nothing to do with Terrorist Tuesday is
to wilfully ignore the obvious and to forever misinterpret events. Without
Islam the long-term strategy and individual acts of violence by Usama bin
Laden and his followers make little sense. The West needs to understand them
in order to be able to deal with them and avoid past mistakes. We are
confronted with Islamic terrorists and must take seriously the Islamic
component. Westerners in general, and Americans in particular, do not
understand the passionate, religious, and anti-western convictions of
Islamic terrorists. These God-intoxicated fanatics blindly throw away their
lives in return for the Paradise of Seventy Two Virgins offered Muslim
martyrs killed in the Holy War against all infidels.
Jihad is "a religious war with those who are unbelievers in the mission of
the Prophet Muhammad [the Prophet]. It is an incumbent religious duty,
established in the Qur'an and in the Traditions as a divine institution, and
enjoined specially for the purpose of advancing Islam and repelling evil
from Muslims"1[1].
The world is divided into two spheres, Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. The
latter, the Land of Warfare, is a country belonging to infidels which has
not been subdued by Islam. The Dar al-Harb becomes the Dar-al Islam, the
Land of Islam, upon the promulgation of the edicts of Islam. Thus the
totalitarian nature of Islam is nowhere more apparent than in the concept of
Jihad, the Holy War, whose ultimate aim is to conquer the entire world and
submit it to the one true faith, to the law of Allah. To Islam alone has
been granted the truth: there is no possibility of salvation outside it.
Muslims must fight and kill in the name of Allah.
We read (IX. 5-6):"Kill those who join other gods with God wherever you may
find them";
IV.76: "Those who believe fight in the cause of God";
VIII.39-42: "Say to the Infidels: if they desist from their unbelief, what
is now past shall be forgiven; but if they return to it, they have already
before them the doom of the ancients! Fight then against them till strife be
at an end, and the religion be all of it God's."
Those who die fighting for the only true religion, Islam, will be amply
rewarded in the life to come:
IV.74: "Let those who fight in the cause of God who barter the life of this
world for that which is to come; for whoever fights on God's path, whether
he is killed or triumphs, We will give him a handsome reward."
What should we make with these further unfortunate verses from the Qur'an:
*Torment to Non-believers->IV.56
*Only Islam Acceptable-> III.85
* No friends from outsiders->III.118
*No friends with Jews, christians->V. 51
* No friends with non believers->IV.144, III.28
* No friends with parents/siblings if not believers->IX.23
* Fight non-believers->IX.123 * Kill non-believers->IV.89
*Anti Jewish verses->V.82
* God a "plotter"->VIII.30
*Killing Idolators->IX.5
* Idolators are unclean just because they are idolator->IX.28
* Forcing non-believers to pay tax->IX.29
* The Torment of Hell->XLIV.43-58
* All except Muslims/Jews/Christians/Sabeans will go to hell->II.62, V.69
* Cast terror in the hearts, smite the neck and cut fingertips of
unbelievers->VIII.12
* Smite the neck of unbelievers->XLVII.4
* Severe Punishment for atheists->X.4 ; V.10 ; V.86
* Severe Punishment for non-believers->XXII.19-22 ; LXXII.23, XCVIII.6
*Punishing non-believers of Hereafter->XVII.10
* Punishing for rejecting faith->III.91
* Non believers go to hell->IV.140 ; VII.36 * Partial Believers go to hell
too->IV.150-1
* Sadistic punishments->LVI.42-43
* Punishment for apostates->XVI.106 ; III.86-88 ; III.90 ; IV.137.
* Threat of punishement for not going to war->IX.38-39, XLVIII.16
*God making someone more sinful so he can be punished more->III178
*Intentionally preventing unbelievers from knowing the truth->VI.25 ; VI.110
* Intentionally preventing unbelievers from Understanding Quran->XVII.45-46
* It is God who causes people to err and He punishes them for that->XVII.97
* God could guide, if he chose to, but did not->VI.35
* Intentionally misguiding those whom he pleases to->XIV.4
* Willfully misguiding some->XVI.93
* God causes human to err->IV.143 ; VII.178
* God deceiving humans->IV.142
It is surely time for us who live in the West and enjoy freedom of
expression to examine unflinchingly and unapologetically the tenets of these
fanatics, including the Qur'an which divinely sanctions violence. We should
unapologetically examine the life of the Prophet, who was not above
political assassinations, and who was responsible for the massacre of the
Jews.
"Ah, but you are confusing Islam with Islamic fundamentalism. The Real Islam
has nothing to do with violence," apologists of Islam argue.
There may be moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate. There is
no difference between Islam and Islamic fundamentalism: at most there is a
difference of degree but not of kind. All the tenets of Islamic
fundamentalism are derived from the Qur'an, the Sunna, and the Hadith -
Islamic fundamentalism is a totalitarian construct derived by Muslim jurists
from the fundamental and defining texts of Islam. The fundamentalists, with
greater logic and coherence than so-called moderate or liberal Muslims, have
made Islam the basis of a radical utopian ideology that aims to replace
capitalism and democracy as the reigning world system. Islamism accounts for
the anti-American hatred to be found in places far from the Arab-Israeli
conflict, like Nigeria and Afghanistan, demonstrating that the Middle East
conflict cannot legitimately be used to explain this phenomenon called
Islamism. A Palestinian involved in the WTC bombings would be seen as a
martyr to the Palestinian cause, but even more as a martyr to Islam.
"Ah, but Islamic fundamentalism is like any other kind of fundamentalism,
one must not demonise it. It is the result of political, social grievances.
It must be explained in terms of economics and not religion," continue the
apologists of Islam.
There are enormous differences between Islamic fundamentalism and any other
kind of modern fundamentalism. It is true that Hindu, Jewish, and Christian
fundamentalists have been responsible for acts of violence, but these have
been confined to particular countries and regions. Islamic fundamentalism
has global aspirations: the submission of the entire world to the
all-embracing Shari'a, Islamic Law, a fascist system of dictates designed to
control every single act of all individuals. Nor do Hindus or Jews seek to
convert the world to their religion. Christians do indulge in proselytism
but no longer use acts of violence or international terrorism to achieve
their aims.
Only Islam treats non-believers as inferior beings who are expendable in
the drive to world hegemony. Islam justifies any means to achieve the end of
establishing an Islamic world.
Islamic fundamentalists recruit among Muslim populations, they appeal to
Islamic religious symbols, and they motivate their recruits with Islamic
doctrine derived from the Qur'an. Economic poverty alone cannot explain the
phenomenon of Islamism. Poverty in Brazil or Mexico has not resulted in
Christian fundamentalist acts of international terror. Islamists are against
what they see as western materialism itself. Their choice is clear: Islam or
jahiliyya. The latter term is redefined to mean modern-style jahiliyya of
modern, democratic, industrialised societies of Europe and America, where
man is under the dominion of man rather than Allah. They totally reject the
values of the West, which they feel are poisoning Islamic culture. So, it is
not just a question of economics, but of an entirely different worldview,
which they wish to impose on the whole world. Sayyid Qutb, the very
influential Egyptian Muslim thinker, said that "dominion should be reverted
to Allah alone, namely to Islam, that holistic system He conferred upon men.
An all-out offensive, a jihad, should be waged against modernity so that
this moral rearmament could take place. The ultimate objective is to
re-establish the Kingdom of Allah upon earth..."2[2]
It is surely time for moderate Muslims to stand up and be counted. I should
like to see them do three things:
1. All moderate Muslims should unequivocally denounce this barbarism, should
condemn it for what it is: the butchery of innocent people,
2. All moderate Muslim citizens of the United States should proclaim
their Americanness, their patriotism, and their solidarity with the families
of the victims. They should show their pride in their country by giving
blood and other aid to victims and their families.
3. All moderate Muslims should take this opportunity to examine the
tenets of their faith; should look at the Qur'an, recognize its role in the
instigation of religious violence, and see it for what it is, a
problematical human document reflecting 7th or perhaps 8th Century values
which the West has largely outgrown.
While it should not be too difficult for moderate Muslims to accept the
need to denounce the violence of Terrorist Tuesday, I am not at all
optimistic about their courage or willingness to proclaim their love for
their chosen country, the USA, or examine the Qur'an critically.
Too many Muslims are taught from an early age that their first allegiance
is to Islam. They are exhorted in sermons in mosques, and in books by such
Muslim intellectuals as Dr Siddiqui of the Muslim Institute in London, that
if the laws of the land conflict with any of the tenets of Islam, then they
must break the laws of the infidels, and only follow the Law of God, the
Shari'a, Islamic Law.
It is a remarkable fact that at the time of the Gulf War, a high
proportion of Muslims living in the West supported Saddam Hussein. In the
aftermath of the WTC terror, it is now clear from reports in the media that
many Muslims, even those living in the West, see these acts of barbarism as
acts of heroism; they give their unequivocal support to their hero, Usama
bin Laden.
Few Muslims have shown themselves capable of scrutinising their sacred text
rationally. Indeed any criticism of their religious tenets is taken as an
insult to their faith, for which so many Muslims seem ready to kill (as in
the Rushdie affair or the Taslima Nasreen affair). Muslims seem to be
unaware that the research of western scholars concerning the existence of
figures such as Abraham, Isaac and Joseph or the authorship of the
Pentateuch applies directly to their belief system. Furthermore, it is
surely totally irrational to continue to believe that the Qur'an is the word
of God when the slightest amount of rational thought will reveal that the
Qur'an contains words and passages addressed to God (e.g. VI.104; VI.114;
XVII.1; XXVII.91; LXXXI.15-29; LXXXIV.16-19; etc.); or that it is full of
historical errors and inconsistencies.
Respect for other cultures, for other values than our own, is a hallmark of
a civilised society. But Multiculturalism is based on some fundamental
misconceptions. First, there is the erroneous and sentimental belief that
all cultures, deep down, have the same values; or, at least, if different,
are equally worthy of respect. But the truth is that not all cultures have
the same values, and not all values are worthy of respect. There is nothing
sacrosanct about customs or cultural traditions: they can change under
criticism. After all, the secularist values of the West are not much more
than two hundred years old.
If these other values are destructive of our own cherished values, are we
not justified in fighting them both by intellectual means, that is by reason
and argument, and criticism, and by legal means, by making sure the laws and
constitution of the country are respected by all? It becomes a duty to
defend those values that we would live by. But here western intellectuals
have sadly failed in defending western values, such as rationalism, social
pluralism, human rights, the rule of law, representative government,
individualism (in the sense that every individual counts, and no individual
should be sacrificed for some utopian future collective end), freedom of
expression, freedom of and from religion, the rights of minorities, and so
on..
Instead, the so-called experts on Islam in western universities, in the
media, in the churches and even in government bureaus have become apologists
for Islam. They bear some responsibility for creating an atmosphere little
short of intellectual terrorism where any criticism of Islam is denounced as
fascism, racism, or "orientalism." They bear some responsibility for
lulling the public into thinking that "The Islamic Threat " is a myth. It is
our duty to fight this intellectual terrorism. It is our duty to defend the
values of liberal democracy.
One hopes that the U.S. government will not now act in such a way that more
innocent lives are lost, albeit on the other side of the globe. One hopes
that even now there is a legal way out in international courts of law. The
situation is far more delicate and complex than a simple battle between good
and evil, the solution is not to beat hell out of all Arabs and Muslims but
neither is it to pretend that Islam had nothing to do with it, for that
would be to bury one's head in the Sands of Araby.
Original: STATEMENT BY IBN WARRAQ ON THE WORLD TRADE CENTER ATROCITY