BLOG 50 - Islam: What The West Needs To Know # 18

[Dr. Shabbir]

REBUTTAL - 18
May 13th, 2008 by Dr. Shabbir

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-871902797772997781

From the British Historian, Hilaire Belloc’s
The Great Heresies-1938.

“…. it has always seemed to me possible, and even probable, that there would be a resurrection of Islam, and that our sons or our grandsons would see the renewal of that tremendous struggle between the Christian culture and what has been for more than a thousand years its greatest opponent.”

“…the suggestion that Islam may re-arise sounds fantastic but this is only because men are always powerfully affected by the immediate past: one might say that they are blinded by it…”

“but not so very long ago, less than a hundred years before the Declaration of Independence… Vienna was almost taken and only saved by the Christian army under the command of the king of Poland on a date that ought to be among the most famous in history – September 11, 1683.

Answer: Hilaire Belloc was probably an Islamophobic and this attitude must have sprung from the misinformation that he carried on him like many people do even today. We wonder whether Hilaire Belloc knew that numerous non-Muslim Western intellectuals and historians before and after him would have said much more than this but in a positive manner. For the sake of brevity, let’s cite only two examples.

President Richard Nixon - Nixon’s Ten Commandments - “Roger Bacon owed his illumination to the Muslim Moors of Spain. The great figures of European Renaissance could see further because they stood on the shoulders of the giants of the Muslim world. — Those achievements represent what the Muslim world has been in the past. They also point to what it could become in the future.”
Sir George Bernard Shaw - The Genuine Islam, Vol. 1, No. 8, 1936:

“If any religion had the chance of ruling over England, nay Europe within the next hundred years, it could be Islam.
…. I have always held the religion of Muhammad in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion which appears to me to possess that assimilating capacity to the changing phase of existence which can make itself appeal to every age. … I have studied him - the wonderful man and in my opinion far from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the Savior of Humanity.

…. I believe that if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness: I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today.”

Dear Sirs & Madams, let us not be frightened by the irrational and barbaric, clergy invented “Islamic Shari’ah”. Sir GBS obviously knew better, and hence, he emphasizes “The Genuine Islam”. The vast majority of Muslims hate the “Imamist” Shari’ah and they would be the first ones to throw it out of the window.

It is the benevolent Qur’an that the world would love to adopt as stated in the Qur’an, verses 9:31-33, 13:31, 14:48, 18:48, 41:53, 48:28, 51:20-21, 61:8-9, and foreseen by numerous intellectuals from the East and the West.

Let us also remind ourselves that the primary theme of Islam is protection of human rights. The Book narrates the history of many nations as a lesson to us. Without exception, whenever they suffered decline, it was for one single reason: Violation of human rights.

Verse 13:17 clearly lays down the Principle that the real existence on earth is of the one that benefits humanity.

Mr. Robert Spencer: On September 11, 1683 the siege of Vienna was broken. That was the high point of Islamic Jihad expansion into Europe. After that, Islam went into a decline and the Islamic world was colonized, and in a drastically weakened state. It seems very likely, almost certain as far as I’m concerned, that Osama bin Ladin chose September 11th in 2001 to signal that the decline of the Islamic world was over and that the Jihadists were back and were going to pick up where they left off in Vienna in 1683.

Answer: Dear Sir, is it possible that much of the current friction between the West and the rest of the world is the result of the massive colonization by the West, not only of the Islamic states but other nations as well? Britain, France, Germany, Holland, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Italy, Belgium and Sweden, the Western Soviet Union etc colonized the whole world. Didn’t Spain colonize the entire South America which had not a single Muslim country on its map? How about the colonization of the predominantly Hindu India by Great Britain? And didn’t the Western Christian nations fight against each other for attaining colonies – all in the name of God? Dear Sir, you have honored OBL beyond his worth. I doubt if the ignorant Mullah would know anything about the 1683 Vienna.

Mr. Serge Trifkovic: If we look at the tectonic plates between Islamic world and non-Islamic world today, we notice something very interesting that even very diverse Muslim societies, which cannot be easily branded under one civilization label, have something in common, and it is the tendency to be in conflict with their neighbors. If we look at the extreme southeastern outreach of Islam, we see East Timor where Indonesian Muslims slaughtered a third of the population of its former Portuguese colony who were, by the way, Roman Catholics. In southern Philippines we see an extremely violent Islamic rebellion, which has been simmering and becoming more or less violent for years. In Indonesia itself, we have religious conflict in the Spice Islands, where the beleaguered Christian minorities are in danger of extinction. We have very active Islamic movements both in Thailand, and in China in Xingiang. In the Indian subcontinent the history is tragic indeed. That’s where the Holocaust, the Hindu Holocaust took place in medieval times, a little-known episode in the history of Islam in the western world, but the one that left a deep traumatic mark on the people in the region, and where the conflict is still latently present in the province of Kashmir. In Africa there is the constant war in Sudan, which finally gained some prominence in the western decision making circles but which has been going on for 20 years and it’s impossible to estimate the number of lives it has claimed, but it certainly goes into many hundreds of thousands. There is the constant instability in Nigeria between resurgent central and northern states which are increasingly pressurizing the government in Lagos into accepting Sharia law as the law of the land in those provinces and, of course, there is Mauritania where Muslims constantly battle non-Muslim southerners. Then there is, of course, the Caucasuses, Chechnya. And in Europe itself we have the conflict in the former Yugoslavia between the Bosnian Muslims and Serbs and Croats respectively, and the conflict between the Albanians and the Serbs, the Albanians and Macedonian, and quite possibly before too long, Albanians and the Greeks. So if we eliminate these conflicts, if we eliminate from the equation, Chechnya, the Balkans, Sudan, the world is a pretty peaceful place. If we eliminate from the terrorist equation terrorist acts carried out by the Muslims over the last five years, we will come to realize that the War on Terror is unnecessary because Terror is not a very big problem.

Answer: Dear Sir, please look at my response to Mr. Robert Spencer above. The Western colonization has deliberately caused and left these burning issues in the world. And how could you so easily forget the devastating, protracted fight of the Irish Liberation Army against England, both Christian? Using your logic, what were the Portuguese doing in Indonesia in the first place – and France in Morocco, Algiers and Egypt? Why did China annex Xinjiang?

[Wikipedia]

Why did India annex the Muslim state of Kashmir? Why do Philippines and Thailand refuse to grant religious freedom to Muslims? You should know how many big Muslim territories the Soviet Union annexed from Persia, and the Muslim state of Chechnya. At the dissolution of the Soviet Union, why was the Muslim Chechnya not granted freedom like other states? Sir, why have you disregarded the Ethiopia interference in Sudan, and concealed the battles between the Christian Serbia and the Christian Croatia, and the recent genocide of Muslims by the Serbs in Bosnia and Kosovo?

The only Holocaust ever wrought in India was by the British in 1858 when they evicted millions of Hindus and Muslims out of their homes and, the children, women, the elderly included, the entire populations of big cities like Delhi were forced to live (and die) under the open skies for 18 months!

The West should pay heed to your advice that, “the War on Terror is unnecessary because Terror is not a very big problem.” Is it then, just an excuse for invading other countries?

Part 4 of 6
“War is Deceit”

Senator Gary of Nevada addressing (the Senate?)
Madam President, Gary from Nevada: I have been on the floor before speaking about Islam and what a great religion it is! I’ve said before and I repeat, my wife’s primary physicians are two members of the Islamic Faith, her internist and the person that has performed surgery on her. I know them well, been in their homes, socialized with them, talked about very serious things with them. We have helped each other with family problems. I have been with them to the new mosque in Las Vegas. They are wonderful people with great families. And I’ve come to realize that Islam is a good religion. It is a good way of life. People have a good health code as their religion dictates and they have great spiritual values as the religion dictates, and it is too bad that there are some people, misdirected people, around the world that are trying to take away from this very fine religion. I believe that they cannot give this religion a bad name. I think the power of this religion and the power of the people in this religion will overcome these evil people who are using the name of this fine religion to do bad things to innocent people.

Comment: Any unbiased mind will strongly agree with the observant, humble and open-minded Senator from Nevada.

The exalted Prophet is reported to have said "AL-HARB-IL-KHAD'AH" (War is surprise). Who can deny the importance of the element of surprise in any war?

With respects from a life-long student, Shabbir.