Islam: What the West Needs to Know

Tony Blair:
[first lines - about initial ops in Afghanistan, 2001] I wish to say finally, as I've said many times before, that this is not a war with Islam. It angers me, as it angers the vast majority of Muslims, to hear Bin Laden and his associates described as Islamic terrorists. They are terrorists, pure and simple. Islam is a peaceful and tolerant religion, and the acts of these people are wholly contrary to the teachings of the Qur'an.

George W. Bush:
[President Bush's address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday night, September 20, 2001] I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It's practice freely by many millions of Americans, and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful. And those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah.

[enthusiastic applause]

Bill Clinton:
[about 1998 raid on Afghanistan and Sudan] I want you to understand, and I want the world to understand that our actions today were not aimed against Islam. The faith of hundreds of millions of good, peace-loving people all around the world, including the United States. No religion condones the murder of innocent men, women, and children. But our actions were aimed at fanatics and killers, who wrap murder in the cloak of righteousness, and in so doing profane the great religion in whose name they claim to act.

Robert Spencer:
The Islamic sources, the Islamic texts starting with the Qur'an, but not limited to the Qur'an, the Islamic texts including the Hadith, Islamic tradition, Islamic theology, Islamic law, the traditions of the interpretation of the Qur'an throughout history, and Islamic history itself, all bear witness to the fact that Islam has a developed doctrine, theology and law that mandates violence against unbelievers.

Robert Spencer:
Now we can see then that since the Prophet Mohammad himself participated in many battles and raids, and did indeed perpetrate these be-headings - he ordered the assassination of several of his political opponents, and he behaved in general like a typical 7th century warlord - the problem is that when this is transferred to 21st century behavior, 21st century contexts of behavior, then what you get are terrorists.

Serge Trifkovic:
It is indeed a very curious concept for a non-Muslim to accept the notion that God may change his mind about a topic, and may issue one injunction in AD 614...

title card:
The Noble Koran 2:256: There is no Compulsion, i.e. coercion, in religion.

Serge Trifkovic:
and then a very different one in AD 627...

title card:
The Noble Koran 9:5: Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them... But if they repent and accept Islam... then leave their way free.

Robert Spencer:
They are only at peace with their neighbors in so far as they are either ignorant of what Islam teaches about how Muslims should behave toward unbelievers, or they have explicitly rejected, consciously rejected those elements of Islam. There are in short peaceful and moderate Muslims, but no peaceful moderate Islam.

Walid Shoebat:
To a Muslim fundamentalist living in the Middle East, I had to be initiated. I had to basically either kill my first Jew, or destroy my first Zionist infrastructure. I had to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that I was worthy. And there are ample amounts of students, teenagers, men, who are willing to die as suicide martyrs or willing to put explosives. The martyr application is filled, there are many applicants. There aren't enough bombs to fulfill the applicants.

Bat Ye'or:
The Muslims see the extension of jihad as a war liberating the infidels from their infidelity and a privilege for them to enter the religion of Islam and to abandon their wrong belief.

Abdullah Al-Araby:
Lying, generally speaking, is not allowed in Islam. But unlike other religions, there are certain situations where a Muslim can lie and that would be acceptable, even encouraged. This concept called al-takria, al-takria means prevention. So a Muslim is allowed to lie to prevent harm that may come to him or to his lamb.

Robert Spencer:
The spokesmen for Islam in the western world know how to play the game. They know how to present their cause in a way that is not only regarded as acceptable by the societal mainstream, but also reasonable, and one might say just. They will appeal to democratic institutions and their human rights, in the full knowledge that given the power to do so they would abolish those institutions and deny those rights to others.

Serge Trifkovic:
It would be incorrect to describe Islam as primarily, let alone solely a religion. Since its early beginning in Mohammad's life time, it's also been a geopolitical project and a system of government. A political ideology if you will.

Walid Shoebat:
Islamic fundamentalism is a sleeper cell in America.

Robert Spencer:
We need to take Islam seriously. Islamic law does not allow for treaties. Islamic law does not allow for negotiated settlements between Muslim states and non-Muslim states. All it allows for is a temporary period of up to 10 years of hudna, or what is commonly translated as truce to allow the Islamic forces to gather their strength. But that's not the same a peace as we know it.

Serge Trifkovic:
Both Communism and Islam seek the end of history in this world. The end of history will come when either the whole of our planet becomes dark, for Islam, or else when the proletariat revolution brings the avant garde of the working class to power all over the world, which will be the end of state, the end of money, and the end of class oppression.

Walid Shoebat:
Like Nazism and like Communism, Islamism, the end justifies the means. There is no respect for national borders, and the whole ideology is to promote their way of thinking and promote their way of life throughout the entire world. That's what's being taught in the Middle East.

[last lines]

Serge Trifkovic:
Miracles do happen. I do not know if it is another, maybe deadlier, terrorist attack that will act as a catalyst, or whether it will be a geopolitical confrontation in the Middle East itself, with Israel perhaps at serious peril. But I do hope and trust that a jolt will bring back into the minds and hearts of westerners the awareness of the need to stand up and be counted.