Until the advent of materialism and 19th c. dogma, Western Civilisation was superior to anything Islam had developed. Islam has not aided in the development of the modern world; in fact civilisation has only been created in spite of Islam. Proof of this resides in the 'modern' world and the unending political-economic and spiritual poverty of Muslim states and regions. Squatting on richer civilisations is not 'progress'. Islam is pagan, totalitarian, and irrational.
Many of those who advocate that Islam means peace, have never read the Koran, nor could they name one single key writer or interpreter of the Koran. They have never heard of Qutb, Maududi, and Al Ghazali who are the three most quoted and influential Koranic thinkers in the Islamic world. They are surpassed in importance only by the mentally unbalanced Mohammed. These same 'experts' have little inkling that these Muslim theologians advocate Islamic supremacy, world-wide Sharia law, slavery of non-believers, jihadic war, and the subjugation of all non-believers by male Muslims. Yet these same so-called experts will cry that Islam is peaceful, religious and more multi-cult than Christianity. This certainty that Islam is love and happiness premised on no facts whatsoever is staggering.
Qutb, Maududi, and Al Ghazali are the three rather 'un-wise' men of Islamic theocracy and none of them are Wahhabi's [the radical 18th century Saudi sect that still demands the complete fundamentalist interpretation of Islam]. The writings and speeches of these men have had more influence in Islam than anyone else save that of the mad prophet Mohammad. They have interpreted and laid out an uncompromising interpretation of Islam, based on the Koran, which has informed all of Islam today. Mohammed would certainly approve of their boundless enthusiasm for war, expansion and the enslaving of others. Jihad and the extermination of others, was central to all of their works.
Along with Wahhabism, the writings of these apocalyptic Islamic-horsemen provide a main-spring and a justification for Islamic terror, violence, apartheid and hate. Yet almost no-one in the mainstream media or in the educational systems in the West, will discuss these men. No one in the politically correct multi-cult universe wants to destroy the notion that Islam is a peaceful religion. How can we understand the Meccan moon cult without reading the Koran and comprehending its 'interpretation' by the doctrinaire jurists who developed the basis of Muslim society, ossification and ritualization?
Al Ghazali was an 11th century Sufi theologian who basically shut Islam off from rationality. In Christianity, God is known to have built and to govern the world using natural laws. Men and nature therefore are governed by natural laws. Logic and science will unlock these laws. Therefore scientific inquiry, along with faith, will reveal and allow human society to benefit from these natural laws.
In the West for instance, a natural law right, is that of freedom. Another is equality of opportunity and fairness. None of these exist either in the Koran or in Qu'ranic interpretations. Al Ghazali was instrumental in this, for he waged a theocratic war against Islamic philosophers such as Avicenna who studied and were influenced by ancient Greek ideas of inquiry and science.
Ghazali hated philosophers because he believed that philosophy and investigation of the natural world, deviated from the sacred message of the Koran. The Koran, Allah and the words of Mohammed were all that people needed. He even advocated the murdering of those who dare to philosophize and thus bring into question, the tenets of the Koran. Any deviation from the text should result in death. In this world-view all non-Muslims were of course to be enslaved, treated as second-class citizens [dhimmis]; and pay exorbitant taxation. All of these are to be found in Islam's long history of supremacist hatred.
Qutb [1906-1966] was a post World War II jihadist and former Marxist who help found the Muslim Brotherhood – an extremely radical terrorist sect still in operation today, which has helped spawn imitators in Hamas and Hizbollah. Qutb expounded a totalitarian, theocratic, Koran-based structure for society. In his view the West and Communism were both beneath contempt since they reveled in materialism, lasciviousness or godlessness.
For Qutb, only the Qu'ran and the complete eradication of free will could lead the Muslim world to enlightenment: '..Islam is a perfectly comprehensive theory of the universe, life and mankind.' Ergo Islam must rule. Qutb's writings are consistently anti-Christian and anti-freedom. He advocates [along with many other Muslims], that Islamic uniformity, certainty and slavish acceptance of the Koran are more important than freedom, conscience, free-will and responsibility. In this world-view a state or nation can only achieve legitimacy through Sharia law and Islamic 'law'. Nothing else is acceptable.
Qutb from here takes the logical leap to Jihadic war. Infidels or kaffirs [originally a name denoting a black slave in Islam], are not to be tolerated. As long as one kaffir remained on earth, the Islamic state was at risk. This internationalist vision gives rise of course to supremacism, hatred and war, '..a Muslim has no nationality except his belief, which makes him a member of the Muslim community in Dar-ul-Islam.' For Qutb and his fellow-thinkers, Islam must be spread at all costs, to all parts of the globe. Jihad is therefore a monumental necessity for Muslims.
Maududi [1903-1979] was a Pakistani jihadist writer, who like Qutb has achieved an enormous following in the Islamic world through his books and speeches. Like Qutb, he preached an uncompromising vision of Islamic world domination. He co-founded the Muslim Party, which is still active in many Islamic countries and forms one of the most powerful political parties in Pakistan. Like Qutb's Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim Party is a terrorist organisation dedicated to imposing Sharia law on Muslim states.
Maududi is sometimes called the greatest Islamic revivalist in the 20th century. His key argument was that Islam is in the main a political, not just a spiritual movement. According to Maududi, Muslims must wage war on the world to impose Islamic law across the globe; '..the truth is that Islam is not the name of a 'religion', nor is 'Muslim' the title of a 'Nation'. In reality Islam is a revolutionary ideology and programme which seeks to alter the social order of the whole world...' Islam is thus akin to Nazism and Communism. It is a universal creed of control and subjugation.
For Maududi, like Hitler or Stalin, maintained that the entire globe had to be under the control of the one destined and all-powerful political ideology; 'Islam requires the earth – not just a portion, but the whole planet....[Islam] is a programme of well-being for all humanity.' Like the universal concepts embedded in Nazism or Communism, the supremacism of Islam made it clear, at least to people like Maududi, that global rule was the goal, and global control the objective.
Peaceful co-existence, multi-cultural piety, or doing unto others as you would have done unto you, were not apparently too vital for Maududi and his fellow travellers. In Maududi's vision Islamic law and Koranic code were to be the state. No independence at any level outside of the Koran was to be tolerated. In Maududi's vision, the state was to be a totalitarian theocracy – replete with slavery, censorship, a gross limitation on freedoms, and with religious dogma replacing any form of rational inquiry.
But the liberal-Marxist multi-cult and sundry Muslim apologists will wail and cry that three writers do not a fascism make. Fair enough. But if the founding documents of a cult and movement clearly denote jihad, violence, slavery, subjugation and intolerance, then the messengers as well as the documents should be blamed. All Qutb, Ghazali and Maududi are doing is telling the truth about the Koran and about Islam. They are open and honest at least. For them the message of Mohammed and Islam is clear – world-wide domination and the establishment of a pre-modern Qu'ranic based state. Period. That is Allah's will, and that was the message of the 'prophet'. The rest be damned.
Nothing like this exists in the West. The Bible is the exact opposite of the Koran. It teaches a separation of church and state, rationality, logic, private property, hard work and tolerance of others. Every principle constitution or set of founding documents in Western history, has argued for freedom, opportunity, legal and natural law rights, equality and charity. Islam has no idea of such concepts, nor do such documents or constitutions exist anywhere in Islamic history.
It would be as if the US founding fathers, including the magnificent James Madison [who basically wrote the Constitution] and Alexander Hamilton decided that a division of powers, legal processes, weighted political representation, state-rights, individual-rights, and the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were not important. Instead of founding a republic it would be as if they simply said, 'the bible is supreme and we will abide by all its rules. Not only that, we must wage war to bring the same to every other part of the globe. That is our only duty – war and to please God.' This is more or less the message of Islamic theologians and the Koran. The world must submit to Islam. War and violence are the tools of choice.
Surely there are 'moderate' Muslims who reject the Ghazali-Qutb-Maududi world vision. But they are weak and voiceless. Immoderate Islam has been in power and resolute long before September 11 2001. It has been the de-facto organising principle of Islam forever. The Koran, its leading interpreters, the actions of Muslims, the spread of Islam, Arab imperialism, the deaths of 300 million non-Muslims through war – all this and more makes the Islamic vision of Ghazali, Qutb, and Maududi, all too real. These thinkers are simply reflecting what the founding fathers, and documents of the Islamic movement demand – total submission to Koranic law.
Muslim apologists are then a tiresome lot. They have never bothered to study the history of Islam, its spread by war and violence, nor do they much care about its racist and supremacist character. For the bleeding heart liberals and multi-cults, Islam must be important and peaceful since it opposes Judeo-Christian and Western civilisation. That for them is enough.
When someone drones on that Islam is peaceful etc. etc. ask them to name one key Islamic thinker in the past 100 years. Ask them to recount what this key thinker wrote and demanded. Chances are they have no idea about any of the important personalities which shaped Islam. How then would they know that Islam means peace? Because the mainstream media or some hack high school teacher said so?
Islam is a supremacist, racist ideology. It is not a religion. Islam's key philosophers and writers are quite open about the nature of the ideology. Maybe more people should read them and understand their frightening message. Bin Laden is hardly alone.