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Authors: Raymond Ibrahim
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BOOK: Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians
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To put it in slightly different terms, the era when Christians lived in relative safety in the Muslim world is so much closer to us in time than the “storybook” centuries of persecution that many in the West cannot help but filter current events through this Golden Age paradigm—though this paradigm fits the facts less and less with each passing day. After all, in the collective consciousness of recent generations, Christians under Islam had it pretty good. How can what we are hearing now—that they are being subjected to horrific and bloody persecution simply for being Christian—be real? Don’t such stories belong in the distant and unenlightened past? There must be some reason—maybe poverty, or resentment of the “occupation” of Palestine or of Iraq or against the hegemony of the West in general—that explains why previously peaceful Muslims are now violently persecuting Christians. Surely it is a matter of economics or politics, an aberration that is destined to rectify itself?
But the facts speak for themselves. In 1900, at the height of the Golden Age, 20 percent of the Middle East was still Christian, whereas today less than 2 percent is, and the Christian population is rapidly dwindling.
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Indeed, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, “The flight of Christians out of the [Middle Eastern] region is unprecedented and it’s increasing year by year.” In our lifetime “Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt. ”
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FROM EMULATION TO CONTEMPT20
Indeed, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, “The flight of Christians out of the [Middle Eastern] region is unprecedented and it’s increasing year by year.” In our lifetime “Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt. ”
21
What happened? If in the “Golden Age” leading up to the middle of the twentieth century Muslims were increasingly emulating the West, exactly when and why did this stop? What caused the trend to reverse and start speeding in the opposite direction?
That Muslims have turned away from the West and back toward Islam is no secret. Of course there were always Muslims who still clung to the Islamic way, the Sharia,
22
but in the early twentieth century it seemed obvious that they were on the wrong side of history. The future clearly seemed to belong to Westernization and secularization. And yet by the 1970s, there was no denying that Islam had returned in a very big way. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 symbolizes resurgent Islam in the American mind. Bearded and morose mullahs, chief among them the Ayatollah Khomeini, characterizing America as the “Great Satan,” became so popular among the Iranian people that they overthrew the secularist Reza Shah. Up until this event, the overwhelming majority of Western scholars had been convinced that the Westernization of the Muslim world was nearly complete, that Islam was an all but spent force, at best a cultural heritage for nominal Muslims. Instead, by the 1970s, “Islam is the solution” became the new clarion call of the Muslim world.
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but in the early twentieth century it seemed obvious that they were on the wrong side of history. The future clearly seemed to belong to Westernization and secularization. And yet by the 1970s, there was no denying that Islam had returned in a very big way. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 symbolizes resurgent Islam in the American mind. Bearded and morose mullahs, chief among them the Ayatollah Khomeini, characterizing America as the “Great Satan,” became so popular among the Iranian people that they overthrew the secularist Reza Shah. Up until this event, the overwhelming majority of Western scholars had been convinced that the Westernization of the Muslim world was nearly complete, that Islam was an all but spent force, at best a cultural heritage for nominal Muslims. Instead, by the 1970s, “Islam is the solution” became the new clarion call of the Muslim world.
Why
this change took place—why Muslims abandoned Western ways—is much less understood. Of course any such large historical movement has many causes. Ironically, however, one crucial factor (often missed) was the continued Western influence on Muslims—but now in a novel and negative direction:
just as Muslims had earlier learned respect for the West and sought to emulate it in varying degrees, so roughly around the middle of the twentieth century, Muslims began to have contempt for the West and turned away from it, back to their own heritage and Islamic identity.
Muslims reverted, and increasingly continue to revert, to the Islamic way in all things from the mundane to the momentous, from the details of Islamic dress to the patterns of Islamic intolerance of Christians that had marked the centuries of Islamic history before the anomalous “Golden Age” for Christians.
this change took place—why Muslims abandoned Western ways—is much less understood. Of course any such large historical movement has many causes. Ironically, however, one crucial factor (often missed) was the continued Western influence on Muslims—but now in a novel and negative direction:
just as Muslims had earlier learned respect for the West and sought to emulate it in varying degrees, so roughly around the middle of the twentieth century, Muslims began to have contempt for the West and turned away from it, back to their own heritage and Islamic identity.
Muslims reverted, and increasingly continue to revert, to the Islamic way in all things from the mundane to the momentous, from the details of Islamic dress to the patterns of Islamic intolerance of Christians that had marked the centuries of Islamic history before the anomalous “Golden Age” for Christians.
And where did Muslims, especially beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, learn to despise the West? The same place they had originally learned to respect the West—that is, from the West itself. It is no coincidence that the return of “Islamic fundamentalism,” as it was called in the 1970s, followed close on the heels of the cultural revolution that took the West by storm beginning in the 1960s. Muslims learned contempt for the West from the new culture of sexual licentiousness, moral relativism, godlessness, and even Western self-hatred that flooded Western societies in the 1960s, though they had roots going back decades earlier. These things were all tolerated or even celebrated in the mainstream of Western society. Yet such licentiousness and moral relativism proved intolerable to Muslim societies that had admired and emulated the West when it was still characterized by moral restraint. Muslims definitively rejected the 1960s Sexual Revolution. But they picked up another aspect of the 1960s—the hyper-criticism of the West and its values by leftist Western intellectuals. Muslim opinion about the West soured and eventually turned hostile.
Consider the life and times of Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966)—the one Muslim who probably did the most to revive Islam in modern times. Qutb popularized the idea that Muslims had turned away from Islam and that they must resurrect jihad and hatred for non-Muslim “infidels.” Formerly an Egyptian teacher and writer who had exhibited few radical tendencies, Qutb traveled to the United States only to return to Egypt an avowed enemy of all things Western. Qutb was a little ahead of the curve—he was disgusted by the sexuality and materialism of mid-twentieth-century America. One can only surmise what he would have thought of American popular culture after 1968 (two years after he was executed by the Egyptian state for his incessant calls to jihad.) There are certainly millions of Muslims today who bring Qutb’s critical attitude to the Western culture of 2013. In Qutb’s 1964 book,
Milestones
—a revered classic among Islamic radicals—he argued that, while Muslims should emulate Western science and technology, they must reject Western culture and social norms. Instead, Islam and its way—the Sharia—must rule the Islamic world, and then the world. But first it must rule its own domain. According to Qutb, the overwhelming majority of Muslims in his time were not even Muslim—they were essentially apostates.
Milestones
—a revered classic among Islamic radicals—he argued that, while Muslims should emulate Western science and technology, they must reject Western culture and social norms. Instead, Islam and its way—the Sharia—must rule the Islamic world, and then the world. But first it must rule its own domain. According to Qutb, the overwhelming majority of Muslims in his time were not even Muslim—they were essentially apostates.
The West had earned Muslim respect in the era of Western might and confidence. But by the 1970s, Western intellectuals were pushing once-Westward-looking Muslims back to Islam. Consider the realm of historical studies alone: Christian Western civilization is now portrayed as the root cause of all the world’s woes. Islamic civilization is now portrayed as just another noble victim of Christian depredation. The objective history of the relationship between Islam and the West has been turned on its head: Christian Crusaders have become greedy imperialists invading peaceful Muslim lands—without any mention of the fact that those “Muslim lands” were Christian lands centuries before Islam seized them by the sword and slowly decimated their indigenous Christian populations. Western academics and intellectuals make it a point to praise Muslim achievements, even where there are none—like President Obama, who ordered NASA to make Muslims “feel good about their historic contribution to science. ”
23
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Far from appeasing angry Muslims, such self-loathing and sycophantic behavior has prompted even more revulsion to Western culture in the Islamic world. Long gone are the days when the West, confident and proud of its own ways, attracted Muslims to its civilizational achievements. Now, apologizing for its “sins” and demonizing its own Christian heritage while whitewashing the cultures and histories of others, the West only pushes Muslims back to reclaiming their Islamic heritage.
Consider what a difference this turn in Western culture has made in the Islamic world. In the nineteenth century, when the West was unapologetically hegemonic, Muslims not only respected the West, but they also tried to emulate it. The reason for this admiration is simple: Islam, the quintessential religion of might makes right, teaches respect for power. When the West did not equivocate over its principles, Muslims saw power and confidence in those principles and found them worthy of copying. Such emulation went on until roughly the mid-twentieth century; it explains why much of the Muslim world Westernized and secularized, leading to a Golden Age of tolerance for Christian minorities. When the West, or at least popular culture in the West, became spiritually bankrupt and began apologizing for itself, Muslims, disgusted, turned back to Islam and its way, the Sharia—all, of course, to Western approval and encouragement. And now the myopic West cannot comprehend that Muslims have gone back to treating Christians in the exact same ways Muslims treated Christians before Muslims began to emulate the West. That history is all but lost. In fact, the cognitive dissonance between what the multiculturalists in the West believe about the benign and even superior culture of Islam, and what is reported as actually taking place in the Muslim world, is so great that many Westerners simply cannot take in the facts.
But the reality—whether we are ready to recognize it or not—is that as the Muslim world reclaims its Islamic identity, distinctly Islamic practices from centuries past are returning, including Muslim persecution of Christians. Tawfik Hamid, a former member of Egypt’s terrorist organization the Islamic Group, correctly observes that “the proliferation of the hijab is strongly correlated with increased terrorism.... Terrorism became much more frequent in such societies as Indonesia, Egypt, Algeria, and the U.K.
after
the hijab became prevalent among Muslim women living in those communities.”
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The reason for this correlation is simple: Islam’s Sharia, its way, teaches intolerance and violence against non-Muslims, no less than it teaches that Muslim women should wear the hijab. Where one returns the other will naturally follow.
after
the hijab became prevalent among Muslim women living in those communities.”
24
The reason for this correlation is simple: Islam’s Sharia, its way, teaches intolerance and violence against non-Muslims, no less than it teaches that Muslim women should wear the hijab. Where one returns the other will naturally follow.
The persecution of Christian minorities in Muslim nations is among the most visible aspects of resurgent Islam. Nowhere does Islam behave like Islam as it does at home—where it is in power and not in need of pretense. Today, as the Islamic world reclaims its identity, Christians are further demonized as the “main transmitters of Western and modern attitudes.”
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And the work of eradicating them, which was begun some 1,400 years ago, is now on its way to fulfillment.
KORAN AND CALIPH25
And the work of eradicating them, which was begun some 1,400 years ago, is now on its way to fulfillment.
So Muslims are turning back to Islam, and Christians are being persecuted. But is Islam itself really to blame? What about ethnic, cultural, social, and economic considerations? Where is the proof that Islam and its Sharia are intrinsically hostile to Christians? This is not the place for a comprehensive examination of the hostility to Christians found in the Koran, in the “hadith” (other words and deeds attributed to Muhammad), in the rulings of the “ulema” (Islamic legal authorities), and in the historical texts that document centuries of jihad on Christendom. But a quick review of the most important Islamic sources will demonstrate why Christians are so vulnerable in the Islamic world.
The KoranThe Koran itself contains a number of anti-Christian verses. These include Koran 5:73, “Infidels are they who say Allah is one of three,” a reference to the Christian Trinity; and Koran 5:17, “Infidels are they who say Allah is the Christ, [Jesus] son of Mary” (see also Koran 4:171). To be referred to as an infidel (that is, a “kafir”) is to be categorized as an enemy of Islam, who must be either eliminated or subjugated (see Koran 9:5 and 9:29).
Apologists often cite other Koranic verses that ostensibly speak well of Christians. The most popular of these verses states, “You will discover that the most implacable men in their enmity to the believers [Muslims] are the Jews and pagans; and you will discover that the closest in affection to the believers are they who say ‘We are Christians”’ (Koran 5:82). Apologists who cite this verse habitually fail to cite the following verses, which clarify the context: Christians are “closest in affection . . . because there are priests and monks among them, and they are not arrogant. And if they listen to that which was revealed to the Messenger [Muhammad], you will see their eyes swell with tears as they recognize its truth. They say, ‘Our Lord, count us among the witnesses’” (Koran 5: 82–93). In other words, and as mainstream Islamic exegesis holds, the Christians referred to in this text are those who can be expected to convert to Islam—which is precisely why the Koran portrays them in a positive light.
In any case, statements in the Koran have to be read according to the doctrine of “abrogation,” which was developed early in Islamic jurisprudence to deal with the Koran’s many contradictory statements. Muslims believe that wherever verses contradict each other, the verse from later in Muhammad’s career cancels out the verse from earlier. Allah himself justifies abrogation in the Koran: “Whenever we abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten, we replace it by a better or similar one. Know you not that Allah has power over all things?” (Koran 2:106; see also 16:101, 13:39, and 17:86). As it happens, the few verses that speak tolerantly of Christians are from early in Muhammad’s career, when he had no political power, whereas the hostile verses that name Christians “infidel” enemies occur towards the end, near the height of his career. Thus the later hostile verses cancel out any tolerance for Christians expressed in the earlier verses.
The Koran’s final word on the fate of Christians and Jews is found in Koran 9:29. There Allah commands believers, “Fight those among the People of the Book who do not believe in Allah nor the Last Day, nor forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, nor embrace the religion of truth, until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.” In Islamic parlance, “People of the Book” is a reference to those pre-Islamic peoples who had their own scriptures—chief among them, Christians and Jews. This verse gives divine sanction to the perpetual subjugation of Christians under Islam. Koran 9:29 and its equally bellicose counterpart Koran 9:5, known as “the Sword Verses,” appeared as Muhammad’s armies were preparing to invade the Christian territories of the Byzantine empire.
BOOK: Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians
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