Why We Left Islam (25 page)

The West’s continuing self-deception that its liberal political ways may be squared with Islam is the basis for its ongoing policy mistakes, both foreign and domestic. In the belief that Iraq could be transformed into a Western-style “democracy,” America has expended significant blood and fantastic treasure on replacing a largely secular dictator (and former ally) with an Islamic theocracy. Similarly, the Western European powers are setting themselves up for a severe disappointment in trying to mold what is now tragi-comically referred to as the “Euro-Mediterraean Union,” i.e., Eurabia. Indeed, the growth of Islam in Europe is rapidly confronting the European populations with a choice of catastrophes: (a) continue to treat Islam as a “lifestyle choice” and quietly slip behind the iron veil of
Sharia
sometime in the latter half of the century; (b) summarily abandon the modern assumptions on which the welfare state and its suicidal concomitants, multiculturalism and revolutionary levels of immigration, are based; (c) manage the rising tide of European Islam and
jihadi
terrorism through the construction of a police state. In light of European history of the past few centuries, the importation of Islam into Europe precisely to serve as a pretext for constructing an Orwellian society cannot be ruled out. Indeed, such a hypothesis explains quite neatly why it is that the European elite would so willingly sign the death warrant of their own civilization. It may be that the mousey Eurocrats are quietly effecting what the Communist and fascist revolutionaries failed to accomplish on a permanent basis—a pan-European police state. The only other alternative, (d), increasingly likely, is what we have seen so many times before, in Lebanon, in Bosnia, in Kosovo: civil war. While it may be hard to imagine urban warfare in London and Paris, it was hard to imagine in Sarajevo and Beirut, too.

If a serious defense of Western civilization is to take place, it must first begin with a frank acknowledgement of the political nature of Islam. It is imperative to reclassify Islam as a political system with religious aspects rather than as a religion with political aspects. Islam is in fact an alternative form of government in competition with Western governments that seeks to weaken
and, ultimately, destroy and replace them. It is both false and perilous for Western societies to regard Islam as a “religion” and afford it the special protection associated with that term. Under the guise of “religious freedom,” Muslim activists will continue to subvert Western governments first politically and then by force. Such has become commonplace in Western Europe in which acts of violence are used to intimidate and cow populations in order to prepare the way for political demands.

Islam must not be afforded the protected status of a religion precisely because it does not recognize the separation of religion and politics on which Western-style government and religious freedom are based. Any recognition of legitimacy must be reciprocal: It is illogical—and suicidal—for Western governments to regard Islam as a legitimate “religion” when Islam is unwilling to recognize the legitimacy of those same governments.

The West must awaken to the fact that it is facing nothing less than the resurgence of the greatest war machine in world history: an ideology that holds the killing of others, the plundering of their wealth, the conquering of their lands, the enslavement of their people, and the destruction of their institutions to be among the highest virtues and the stepping stones to salvation. The only appropriate policy will be one of containing Islam: keeping it out of our own societies while being very realistic about our ability to influence affairs in its sphere of influence. First and foremost, we must abandon the fantasy that asymptotic globalization will somehow prove the cure to Islam’s fourteen-hundred-yearold antipathy to the rest of the world. Those reluctant to accept the bleak truth should ask themselves: Is their reluctance the result of careful study of the Islamic sources and history, or is it due to their unwillingness to accept a grim reality that will necessitate sacrifice and struggle? Almost invariably it seems, Islam’s non-Muslim apologists lack even a basic understanding of the subject they so imperiously pronounce on. For those who know better, we must not hesitate to take such people to task, to expose their ignorance, their dishonesty, and their intellectual laziness.

It is a paradox, but no society that has survival as its highest goal will survive: It must possess a higher, transcendent end to
motivate its people to defend the social order against potential attack. Belief in a higher reality that transcends this world reassures the warrior, whether his art is scholarly or martial, that fighting—and, if necessary, dying—is worth it. Facing a spiritually denuded West, this is Islam’s great strength. Today, everything that once made the West great and that distinguished it from other civilizations—overseas expansion, Christianity, superior cultural achievement—has been delegitimated by decades of relativist battering. Recovering the great cultural inheritance of Western civilization—so carelessly squandered by its supposed guardians—will be the great requisite to Western survival.

It is evident that Islam has its true believers—do we have ours?

Gregory M. Davis, Ph.D.
Author of
Religion of Peace? Islam’s War Against the World
Producer and director of
Islam: What the West Needs to Know

CONTRIBUTORS

Editor Susan Crimp
is the author of eight books, including a biography of Rose Kennedy which she co-authored with Cindy Adams. Crimp authored
Touched by a Saint
, a biography of Mother Teresa. She has also worked as a journalist and television producer in America as well as contributing to Britain’s
Hello
magazine. Susan recently co-produced
Blues By the Beach
, a documentary which investigated a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv and which won first place at the Hampton’s Film Festival in 2005; it also took the Pierre Salinger award at the Avilgon Film Festival in New York in 2006.

Contributors
Many of the essays and letters collected in this volume are written by individuals of no great renown. They speak from a rare position within Islam, and are considered apostates and heretics by their own families and friends. Yet they speak bravely of what they have experienced. Some will reveal their identities as the book is close to publication, while others will remain, for the sake of their own safety or that of their families remaining in Muslim countries or neighborhoods, necessarily anonymous. Their credentials are won not in previous publications or in fought-for fame, but in the honesty and integrity of their own stories, told from within a system of brokenness and violence.

The compilers, deeply involved in interfaith dialogue for many years, collected these testimonies from individuals met through various social and religious networks which provide safe places of conversation and growth for ex-Muslims. More than one hundred testimonies were collected, and the twenty included here represent the widest variety of voice and experience of those.

Other contributors have received much attention for their writings and statements on radical Islam including:

NOTES

1. Matt Cherry and Warren Allen Smith, “One Brave Woman vs. Religious Fundamentalism: An Interview with Taslima Nasrin,”
Free Inquiry
, Volume 19: Number 1, winter 1998-1999,
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=nasrin_19_1
.

2. Islamic Republic News Agency, “President: Rule of Islam only way for salvation of mankind,” August 14, 2007,
http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-234/0708142013173859.htm
.

3. Raymond Ibrahim, “200 Million Minority: Islam’s apologists completely miss the point,”
National Review Online
, May 8, 2007,
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MWRlNjJmNzU4NzZkZDk 0NDgxNDMzMWEwMmNhMzJmYzE=
.

4. Khaled Waleed, “The Real Face of Islam,” in
Why We Left Islam: Former Muslims Speak Out
, ed. Susan Crimp, 11-14 (Los Angeles, CA: WND Books, 2008).

Introduction

1
. BBC News, “‘Mohammad’ teddy bear teacher arrested,” November 26, 2007,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7112929.stm
.

2
. BBC News, “Mohammad cartoon row intensifies,” February 1, 2006,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4670370.stm
.

3
. BBC News, “Italian nun shot dead in Somalia,” September 18, 2006,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5353850.stm
.

4
. BBC News, “Letter fails to improve US-Iran ties,” May 9, 2006,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4754161.stm
.

5
. BBC News, Benazir Bhutto killed in attack,” December 27, 2007,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7161590.stm
.

6
.
Sahih Bukhari
, Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57.

7
. George, Bruce,
Harbottle’s Dictionary of Battles
(Granada, London: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1979).

8
. Martin Mawyer, “Sheikh Mubarak Gilani Forms Terrorist Compounds Inside United States,” Christian Action Network,
http://www.christianaction.org/Special_Projects/Sheikh_Gilani_ Ln.htm
.

9
. Ibid.

10
. Ibid.

11
. Ibid.

12
. Ibid.

13
. Ibid.

14
. Paul L. Williams, Ph.D., “Radical Muslim paramilitary compound flourishes in upper New York state,” Canada Free Press, May 11, 2007,
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/paul-williams051107.htm
.

15
. Ibid.

16
. Ibid.

17
. Ibid.

18
. Bernard Lewis, “Islam and Liberal Democracy,”
Atlantic Monthly
, February, 1993.

Chapter One: My Sister

1
. Parvin Darabi and Romin P. Thomson,
Rage Against the Veil
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1999), 17.

2
.
Sahih Bukhari
, Volume 4, Book 54, Number 464. Found in the University of Southern California-Muslim Student Association Compendium of Islamic Texts.

3
.
Qur’an
, trans. M. H. Shakir, 10th ed. (Elmhurst, NY: Tahrike Tarsile, 1999), back cover.

4
. Sheikh Abdur Rahman Abdul Kaliq, “The Wisdom Behind the Islamic Laws Regarding Women,” prepared for the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, China, January 15, 1995 (Ann Arbor, MI: Islamic Assembly of North America), page 17.

5
. Ayatollah Khomeini,
The Little Green Book: Sayings of Ayatollah Khomeini
, trans. Harold Salemson (New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1979), I:6.

6
. Ibid., II:19.

7
. This law is based on Qur’an 2:28; see also al-Tabari, 4:27; al-Razi, 9:203.

8
. Cited in Parvin Darabi, “Establishment of the Islamic Republic in Iran & The Present Situation for Women,” Dr. Homa Darabi Foundation Web site,
http://www.homa.org/Details.asp?ContentID=2137352848&TOCID=2

Chapter Three: Redemption

1
. Council on Foreign Relations, “A Nonpartisan Resource for Information and Analysis Entry: Jamaat al-Islamiyya, Egyptian Islamic Jihad,” updated October 2005,
http://www.cfr.org/publication/9156/
.

Chapter Seven: I Am an Ex-Muslim and Proud of It!

1
. Anthony Browne, “Muslim apostates cast out and at risk from faith and family,”
London Times
, February 5, 2005.

Chapter Twenty-Three: Living Witnesses Versus Political Correctness.

1
. Hilaire Belloc,
The Great Heresies
(Rockford, NY: Tan Books and Publishers, 1991), 70-71.

2
. Quoted in Michael Rubin, “Eradication first before diplomacy,”
National Review Online
, July 17, 2006,
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MDZmY2E1YjY3YTRlOGYwN2IzNGEzODU2ZDNiMmJiM2I=
.

Explore these Other Titles from WND Books!

Schmoozing with Terrorists
By Aaron Klein, $25.95
Hardcover, ISBN: 9780979045127

Aaron Klein, a journalist and Orthodox Jew, daily risks his life to speak with some of the world’s most ruthless terrorists face-to-face. Here terrorists reveal, in their own words, the vile ideologies that drive them—as narrated from the perspective of a Jew meeting over tea with those sworn to kill him.