The Lie That Keeps On Giving
My commentary today revolves around an incredibly pervasive lie. I will refer to it, accordingly, as the “lie that keeps on giving.” The lie I am referring to is one that is told again and again. It is a lie that is pervasive. It is heard on national news. It is heard on international news. It is spoken by news casters. It is spoken by commentators. It is spoken by police chiefs, both nationally and internationally. It is affirmed by politicians. It is affirmed by senators and congressmen. It is declared by PRESIDENTS. It has been announced by the POPE! It has been said by the BISHOP of Canterbury. It has been quoted by the METROPOLITAN of the Orthodox Church. However, it has NOT been spoken by the Ayatollas of Iran, nor by high level Islamic religious leaders including Abu Bakar Al-Baghdadi, the founder of ISIS and the man who some believe is the Twelfth Imam, or Mahdi. These last individuals, to their credit, are less willing, apparently, to fib. The lie I am referring to is that violence has “nothing to do with Islam.” We hear it repeated over and over again. Since September 11, it must have been used a HUNDRED times. Maybe a THOUSAND times. It is a statement that is reassuring. It’s a statement that is calming. It’s a statement that we all would LIKE to believe. But….it ISN’T true.
The question is, of course, whether Islam is a “peaceful” religion. The answer is, unfortunately, unequivocally NO. We can answer this question a priori, or we can answer it a posteriori. Let’s start a priori.
Violence is bound up in the very fabric of Islam by the alarmingly frequent violent references in the Koran, the Hadith and the Reliance of the Traveller (the codification of Sharia law). In the Koran, for example, Allah tells us that, when we encounter nonbelievers, we are instructed to “smite them in the neck.” (Sura of Mohammed, Verse 47:4) or “Slay them where ever you find them” (Sura of the cow: verse 2, line 191) or “Strike off their heads. Strike off the very tips of their fingers.” (Sura of the Spoils: Verse 8, Line 12). I could list MANY more examples, but you get the IDEA. The frequency and intensity of violent references is SO shocking, it’s almost hard to believe that we are looking at what is supposed to be a Holy Book. There is NOTHING like it in the entire New Testament, nor, in terms of the intensity of violence, in the Old Testament, for that matter, either. And it gets worse in the Hadith and the Reliance. And don’t be misled by lyrical and compassionate passages that are often quoted by apologists; these compassionate passages apply to believers ONLY. Not to kaffirs (unbelievers or infidels) who are excluded from mercy.
Now, we can also answer the question a posteriori. We can let the history of Islam speak for itself. The advance of Islam has been the bloodiest of any extant religion, even those with violent episodes in the past. A detailed compilation of deadly Islamic violence through the roughly 1400 years of its’ existence has been put together by Mike Konrad in the journal American Thinker (2014, Volume 5). He estimates a very approximate figure of 250 MILLION have been slaughtered in the name of Islam! (See the article for details). The essay is titled: The Greatest Murder Machine in History.
If the reader is hesitant to believe such a high number, let’s, for the purposes of argument, cut it in HALF. There: 125 MILLION people slaughtered. Is that better? No? Okay, let’s reduce the estimate by 90%. There: 25 MILLION murdered. Feel better now? No? Me neither.
And, if you are still unable to wrap your head around all of this, let’s, for a moment, FORGET the past. Look at the world RIGHT NOW! Look at the tremendous violence, oppression and brutality seething in the Middle East! Not much succor to be found there either.
All of this is to simply make the point that violence is very much a PART of Islam. And it shows no signs of declining.
Now, the reader will notice that I have chosen the word “lie” as opposed to “misspoke” or “mistake” or “wrong conclusion.” The reason I chose this word is that I believe, in many instances, the subterfuge is DELIBERATE, not accidental. Those who repeat the lie either MUST know better, or, at the very least, SHOULD know better. And, in reference to the latter, if they are speaking from ignorance while claiming to have knowledge that they do not, in fact, have (which, of course is ALSO a lie), they must SAY so! The books I have listed above are READILY available through MANY sources. Before speaking about Islam, it is imperative for the speaker to read those books, or, if they do not read them, the speaker should preface their remarks with a disclaimer: “I have not read the core literature of Islam and have very limited knowledge of it, so do not trust anything I say!” or something of that nature. That would NOT be a lie. That would be honesty. But that caveat is NEVER given.
Lastly, regarding the perpetrators of those lies, I think the a more interesting question is motive. WHY lie? Why go through the TROUBLE of mouthing a falsehood? Why go through the EFFORT of deception? I think there are two basic answers to this question, one altruistic and the other a bit more diabolical.
The altruistic first: I think many people lie about the lack of violence in Islam do so because they genuinely WISH it were so! They HOPE it so! They PRAY it is so! I suspect that Pope Francis falls into this category.
The more diabolical category, however, revolves around the Islamic doctrine of SACRED DECEIT, or “taqiyya”. This doctrine can be paraphrased as follows: “If the awareness or understanding of some aspect or feature of Islam’s tenets or teachings is counterproductive to the spread of Islam in a particular location or circumstance: LIE about it!” “It’s okay, really!” So long as it helps to spread the religion. It’s that simple.
I have long wondered which category Mr. Obama would best fit into.