Monday, April 9, 2007

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Book Review: ‘Religion of Peace? Islam’s War Against the World’, by G.M. Davis

Trees without roots cannot grow.

by Ferdinand III


G.M. Davis’ book is a supporting work for a documentary he produced called, ‘Islam: What the West Needs to Know’, which is a politically incorrect film highlighting the history and organization of Islamic fascism. Like the documentary Davis’ book is a very good high-level overview of what animates the 1400 year Islamic jihad. Davis provides many sources and insights which gives the reader an un-sanitized version of Islamic fascism which is a political construct that desires the unification of the world under Islamic law.

Davis is not an ivory tower academic. With a PhD in Political Science from Stanford, Davis is also a media entrepreneur, field researcher and has spent years compiling information on Islamic fascism and fundamentalism. Both his book and his film offer compelling evidence that the West has no idea what it is facing and needs to reorder its immigration; security, foreign affairs and military policies quickly.

Appropriately Davis begins his book with quotes from left-wing apologists for Islam. Bill Clinton is quoted from an August 20 1998 speech saying, ‘….no religion condones the murder of innocent men…..profane the great religion in whose name they claim to act.’ Hillary the dumpy but erstwhile contender for the American throne stated on January 21 1999 that, ‘We honor the universal values that are embodied in Islam…to live in peace…strengthen the United States as a nation.' And the ridiculously corrupt and incompetent Kofi Annan the former UN Secretary General who 3 days after September 11 2001 said, ‘…And I think the message is clear….Islam is a religion of peace.’ Thanks Bill, Hillary and Kofi.

Davis clearly states the problem with these left-liberal/populist viewpoints on page xv, ‘Engaging in violence against non-Muslims is not a fringe idea but a central tenet of Islam. Unlike religions more familiar to Westerners, Islam is less a personal faith than a political ideology.’ This message is almost never uttered in the Western media nor in the hallowed halls of ‘higher’ education.

The Clintons and Annan are of course well practiced political liars. Their assessment that all is great and good, and that the West, the Jews, or a small Islamic lunatic fringe is to blame for Islamic jihad is historically preposterous. Three hundred million dead fertilize historical soils thanks to Islamic war and violence. The jihad as Davis promises is not going to stop soon, ‘…the fact is we are in a global religious conflict with an adversary who intends to destroy or conquer us and who has been hard at work at both for fourteen centuries.’

Davis supports his theme – that Islam has been on a 1400 year war against any and all non-Muslims – by first addressing the ‘root cause’ of Islamic hate and terror which is the Koran and its attendant writings and laws. As Davis rightly notes the Islamic world defines reality as ‘them’ vs. ‘us’. ‘Them’ in Islamic terminology are the un-believers who live in the House of War [Dar al-harb]. Jihad is the struggle to dominate and overcome the House of War. For Muslims the Koran and Sharia law are the only means to organize society.

Conflict is thus assured, as Davis writes, ‘The dichotomy between the House of Islam and the House of War is suggestive of other, more modern ideologies such as Communism and National Socialism. Both Communism and National Socialism divide the world into two warring spheres based on political orientation.’

Differences between the 3 creeds exist, but it is the creation of a utopia based on Islam, race or class organization, which ensures that these political ideologies war against all other civilizations which do not submit. Islam after all means ‘submission’ and the word is chosen on purpose not by accident.

Davis criticizes the naïve and feeble minded attempts to defend Islam by for example invoking the oft-used ‘Islamic reign of tolerance’ or ‘Islam’s Golden Age’. As Davis points out, Islamic empires were supremacist with Muslims ruling and the rest submissive slaves and second class citizens. Taxation, forced conversions on pain of death, wide-spread violence against non-believers, and the use of massive amounts of slave labor to sustain economic development whilst the Muslims squatted on trade routes and more advanced societies is detailed by Davis. One of my favorite sentences is when he refers to Vlad the Romanian Impaler [the basis of Dracula], who impaled his Turkish tormenters on stakes – an act that the Muslims and Turks were very fond of committing themselves. ‘Vlad the Ironic’ is more appropriate.

Davis also makes the important point that as the Muslims destroyed the more advanced, urbane, intelligent and progressive dhimmi peoples [the Jews, the Christians, the Greeks, and the Pagan North Africans], Muslim society declined as well. As the Muslim slave machine grounded the dhimmis into death or exile, the inevitable weakening of the Muslim empire ensued. Once rich areas such as Egypt, Sicily, Spain or the Levant declined – eternal beacons for the power hungry and empire addicted and lands coveted for their wealth and advancement – Western domination was only a matter of time. Far from being the oft-cited polyglot, happy, care-free, ‘je ne sais quoi….’ empire of politically correct fantasy, the Muslim caliphate, dominate in the Mediterranean area at least in part, from 640 AD until 1918 AD, was a slave-holding, class-ridden, murderous, economically backwards totalitarian state.

Davis next identifies major sections of the Koran and the Hadiths [writings about Mohammed] as being fascist and totalitarian in content, intent and practice. As Davis rightly says, ‘The Koran has no parallel in Western civilization….the Koran is the words of Allah verbatim….the Koran was revealed through….Mohammed to humankind.’ So the Koran is not a human, but a ‘god’s’ [or in my view a moon-cult’s image thereof], construction. Why then is the Islamic Koran so violent, hateful, and willing to demand the destruction of Jews and Christians if a ‘god’ of peace wrote it?

Davis makes a mockery of the claim that the Koran is founded on peace. He outlines key Suras or sayings that demand war and jihad. He also makes the historically valid claim that as Mohammed became older and more powerful, so did his sayings and the Suras become more bloody and hateful, ‘However, as Mohammed’s position in Medina solidified and the Muslims developed a political and military presence, verses of an entirely different nature came to the Prophet.’ An example is the last Sura in the Koran [#9] which says, ‘..then kill the Mushrikun [unbelievers] wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush.’

The sura goes on to say that if they convert to Islam then let them live. The idea is clear – convert or die – hardly an ideology of tearful brotherly love, or ‘do unto others as you would have done unto you.’

Davis then explores the life of Mohammed who is ostensibly Islam’s ‘ideal man’. The Hadiths or stories about Mohammed are critically reviewed by Davis. These stories reveal a man who is about as saintly as Hitler, and about as moral as Stalin. It is obvious that, as Davis makes out, Mohammed was a political and military leader and a bloody violent one at that. Mohammed led 80-odd military missions; killed dozens of men with his own hands; took huge ransoms and pillage for himself and had his Muslim bands literally murder or kill thousands of innocents. Before he died he adjured his Muslim leaders to conquer the world and destroy as necessary first steps in such a goal, the Christian Byzantian empire and the Zoroastrian Persian empire. A Christ-like figure Mohammed was not.

Davis next compiles the horrific military conquests over 1400 years by Islamic-Arab armies. The history lesson is instructive for those who believe that Arabs were resident in Africa, the Near East, Turkey and beyond before say the Christians, Jews, Greeks or pagan-animists of these lands. Arab armies began the Islamicization of huge swathes of the globe in 632 A.D. and along with Turks and converted tribes, established by 1400 A.D. a loose Islamic empire stretching from the Atlantic to Indonesia. They conquered and slaughtered millions of Jews, Greeks, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and pagans across huge areas of the globe. Jewish civilization for instance, resident in Israel 2000 years before the Arab onslaught was eradicated in 10 short years. It was conquest not love which spread Islam.

So today in our modern world, supposedly so advanced and enlightened, what should we do?

Davis warns the reader that, ‘Unhappily there is a great deal of commonality among the aims of Islam and the Western political left, both of which target traditional Western society, Christianity, and the integrity of the nation state. In order to survive, the West will have to rediscover those ideas, traditions and principles…’ Hence the full circle is drawn and connected with the opening paragraphs in which he quotes leading political socialists and populists who profess admiration and love for Islam.

Davis’ admonition is certainly valid but I would hasten to point out that it is not the Marxist-appeasing elements of the Christian faith that we need to ‘rediscover’ for sadly these are quite vibrant, but the ideas of faith, mission, hope, charity, civilized ethos and civilized development which need rediscovering. Western civilization stretching from the ancient Greeks, through the Roman empire, to the colossi – legal, mental and spiritual - of the Enlightenment, and stretching forth into our modern world is what we need to rediscover.

Political correctness. Wretched Marxist socialist populism. Mindless culture. Appeasement. Faithlessness.

These are not the elements that animate a civilization which is sure of itself. Davis’ book is a trumpet blast and a call to arms.

G.M. Davis 'Religion of Peace?' World Ahead Publishing 2006