Why Other Cultures Are Welcome, But Islam Is Not

Tuesday

I am an American. My ancestors were almost entirely Northern European. Tonight I was at a graduation ceremony for an American university. The party was to celebrate the graduation of fifteen students who were all born in Thailand but are now Americans. Almost everyone in the room was a student at the university and also born in Thailand but raised in America by their Thai parents. They all spoke Thai.

As I looked around the room, I saw people who retained much of their former culture, but also embraced American culture. I have no problem with these people. I welcome them to this country. Almost every culture that has moved to America has done the same thing — Irish, Italians, Japanese, Koreans, Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Taoists, atheists, etc. — they bring their own culture, but also enjoy what's good about American culture. They are all welcome here.

But the political ideology of Islam is dangerously domineering. For that reason, it is not welcome. Among its core tenets is a mission to make Islam the dominant religious and political system wherever its believers live, using peaceful means if possible and violent means if necessary.

The Thai students may retain some of their former culture, but they do not try to impose it on anyone else. They don't protest or riot if anyone does something their culture disapproves of. They don't sue people or assassinate them if they criticize Thai culture.

I'm not a racist or a xenophobe. I enjoy people from all cultures and religions, except those who are committed to eliminating all other cultures, religions, political systems, and ways of life but their own — a principle that is not only part of Islamic doctrine, it is Islam's prime directive.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here. You can send an email to CW here

Read more...

Clarifying the Distinction Between Ideologies and People

I thought of a way we might clarify for our friends how we feel about Islam. It occurred to me that Oskar Schindler (the man portrayed in the movie, Schindler's List) was a member of the Nazi party. He worked as a spy in the Nazi intelligence service in 1936 and joined the Nazi party in 1939. But he clearly had a change of heart and gave his time and all his money (for bribing Nazi officers) to save the lives of 1,200 Jewish people. And he risked his life to do it.

We can say (and most of us would agree) that the Nazi ideology is abhorrent. Bad for the world. It caused suffering and death for millions of human beings. But most of us have no hatred toward Oscar Schindler, even though he was a member of the Nazi party. He wasn't a good Nazi — that is, he didn't adhere to the ideology — but he was a good human being.

In the same way, we can abhor the ideology of Islam (which has caused far more suffering and death than Nazism has), without hating someone just because he calls himself a Muslim. He may be Muslim in name only, not adhering to the ideology. We don't know. What we know for sure is that the ideology itself is dangerous for the world.

What do you think? Would that clarify it for those who don't yet understand?

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here. You can send an email to CW here

Read more...

Rapport Comes Before Influence

Friday

It's not just what you say, but the way you say it. You know that. But when you want to say it a different way, what should you change? In the following quote from the book, Persuasion Engineering, the authors give you a very different idea for how to gain rapport with those you're trying to influence:

People understand words at the same rate that they speak them.

Have you ever thought of that? So one of the things you can do when you're in a conversation with someone about Islam is pay attention to the speed at which they talk, and make sure you talk at the same speed. This is their speed, and you will have the greatest chance of reaching them if you speak at their speed.

To go to a little more sophisticated level of gaining rapport, check this out, paraphrased from the same book:

One of the most important "rapport skills" you can learn is to listen to their intonation patterns and listen to the predicates they use. Do they use a lot of picture words or a lot of feeling words or a lot of hearing words? The whole sentence counts.

For example, "Well, it looks like a good opportunity but I feel I'm not ready for it."

This sentence tells you something about the sequence of how information is processed by this person. First they look (visual) and then they check their feelings (kinesthetic). There is no right or wrong in this. There is no good or bad. People process information in many different ways. Listen to the intonation. Listen to the sequence of their predicates. They will indicate how you should talk to them to have the best chance of getting through. Read more about that here.

Sometimes people use nothing but visual words. They'll say "I'm looking for a new stereo. I could see how it would help us have great evenings together." With this kind of person, it almost doesn't matter what the stereo sounds like. If you want to sell him a stereo, you're going to have to show him.

If someone is visually oriented, you will more successfully reach them if you speak in a way that is visually oriented too. Or sound-oriented, or feeling-oriented. Whatever they are.

Speak at the rate they speak. Speak with the same kinds of intonations. And speak to their primary sensory system. Do these things and your ability to get your message to penetrate will greatly improve.

Learn more about speaking to their sensory system.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here. You can send an email to CW here.

Read more...

Meccan Versus Medinan Verses Are Not Really Contradictory

Sunday

A person named Tallulah left the following comment on the article, A Conversation About Islam:


It *is* helpful to read the Koran in its chronological order, because then you can see what came earlier in Mecca and what came later in Medina.

It's true that the Meccan verses don't advocate violence against the unbelievers and leave vengeance against them up to Allah, unlike in Medina where Mohammad begins the era of jihad. But the Meccan Koran is mostly aimed at how damned people are who don't believe Mohammad's claims and who refuse to follow him. As a reasonable person who has studied logical fallacies, it's so easy to see that the assertions that Mohammad puts forward as "clear proofs" are nothing of the kind. He uses circular reasoning, self referential assertions and threats of punishment in hell as his "clear proofs". But rational thinkers can easily see through these.

Many times while reading the Medina verses my husband and I (who read it together and would stop to discuss it) would laugh or raise an objection, and moments later, Allah would answer the kaffir who had done the same to Mohammad. So the damned of Mohammad's time saw the same flaws and laughed at the same things that we do today.

According to the Koran, Allah does not love the unbeliever. It's not bad people, rights violators, that he's talking about. It doesn't matter if you're a decent sort. What matters is that you don't believe what Mohammad, with all his inadequate "clear proofs" asserts to you, that you don't take him on faith while dropping the common sense you were born with. That's what gets you into hell.

And here's what gets me most about the Meccan verses: Allah says that those who make it to Paradise will be able to look down into hell where the unbelievers are being tortured in horrific ways and mock the poor sods as their skin is peeled off of them over and over and they're forced to drink scalding liquid.

That's entertainment.

I don't think I'd like to be in Paradise with people who would find that to be a desirable pastime. Those are mean-spirited brutes, and so is any god who would hate people and punish people for not being able to buy Mohammad's assertions of prophethood. It's a real stomach-turner for a reasonable and just soul to read that stuff.

You can only call the Meccan Koran "tolerant" in the sense that at that point in the Koran the Muslims are not supposed to punish people for Allah's sake. But it is nevertheless full of condemnation and hatred for those who do not believe Mohammad's claims.

It's easy to see how *that* attitude towards unbelievers could eventually turn into outright violence against those stubborn people who keep making fun of Mohammad's unsubstantiated claims.

As far as abrogation goes, I know of the doctrine but I don't think it's necessary because if you see the verses in the context of the Sira — of Mohammad's life story — it's clear that in Mecca Mohammad didn't have enough followers to enforce his religion by violence. He only had about 150 of them by the time he left there. But in Medina he gained many more followers and became *capable* of using the sword to gain more enforcement power. And that's the lesson there: when force doesn't have a good chance of winning, lie low, play nice, try dawa without physical threats. But when you have the means to succeed at war, you *must* then enforce Allah's laws on whomever you can, bring them under Islam's rule.

It doesn't seem contradictory at all when put into full context. It's only when it's all jumbled up, out of chronological order, and without Mohammad's life story to make sense of it, that it seems contradictory.

Read more...

"America is More Islamic Than My Home Country..."

Wednesday

The following was written by Lt Col (ret) Roy White, USAF, Chapter Leader of ACT for America San Antonio.

“America is more Islamic than my home country of Morocco.” My Muslim friend said this with great joy and assurance, while I was trying not to appear stunned. How could someone who grew up in an Islamic country for the first 25 years of his life, move and live in America for the next 25 years, prosper with his business and family, come to the conclusion that America is more Islamic than a Muslim country?

Hayat sat in the shade and described his younger years of being raised in the Islamic culture. Like many Muslim youth, his family attended the local mosque because that was what good Muslims do. However, like many Muslims and many Christians, his faith was only a thin veneer of going through the motions.

As his fellow Muslims were flowing into the nearby mosque, he quietly answered the questions I posed without any sense of contempt toward me and was genuinely interested in trying to correct misperceptions I might have about Islam.

He shared his story of coming to America 25 years earlier, meeting his wife (Muslim) and starting his business that slowly grew into a successful trading business that took him back to his home country on a regular basis. A family man with several children, he talked about his “re-conversion” back to Islam as he prospered economically. In his mind, the only explanation for this was Allah choosing to bless him and therefore as his wealth grew, so did his faith in Islam and Allah.

“When I visit Morocco, all I see is corruption, poverty, violence and suffering among the people…that is not Islam. As we sit here in the shade, we sit in peace, we are comfortable, there is no poverty to speak of and Allah has blessed me with great economic gain…that is how Islam is to be, peaceful, prosperous and enjoyable.” And there you have it…Islam in a nutshell…”submit” and you will prosper.

As I felt my head exploding, I refrained from pointing out to him much of America’s culture would not be allowed in a truly Islamic country, i.e. equal rights for women and LGBT, freedom to choose something other than Allah, freedom to speak, or a thousand other things Sharia forbids. My follow up question brought an even more surprising answer, “So you think in 30-50 years the US will replace democracy with Sharia law?”

He quickly but politely discarded my suggestion with a wave of his hand and said, “no, no, too political” which was quickly followed up with this chilling statement, “…but, in 300 years, yes, Sharia will be law of the land in the US.” He said this with the certainty of someone who knows the sun will rise in the east tomorrow.

This unique glimpse into the mind of an American Muslim revealed two fundamental problems that Americans face when discussing Islam with Muslims and non-Muslims. Americans think in terms of hours, days or months but rarely attempt to imagine our culture or country with the yardstick of a century, much less 300 years. To a Muslim, Islam has been around for 1400 years. A country that has been around for 250 years will be just another country that is absorbed into the Islamic tsunami that began 1400 years ago and continues today. After all, just 100 years after Muhammad’s death, the map of Islamic conquered lands stretched from Afghanistan to Spain.

The second issue is: We assume refugees and/or immigrants from the Middle East living here will find our freedoms and democracy preferable to any other ideology. The fact that 51% of Muslims living in the U.S. responded positively in a recent poll to this statement, “Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Sharia” should dispel the myth that among Muslims a large majority prefer democracy over Sharia law. Add to this a Pew Research poll that showed 60% of Muslim-Americans under 30 are more loyal to Islam than America. Where do the majority of jihadists come from? This very demographic group.

Hayat’s neighbors point to him as the “peaceful Muslim” who is the poster child for “all” Muslims and shuts down any questioning of Islam as a violent ideology by invoking, “but my neighbor Hayat is no terrorist” into the conversation. In reality Hayat is more dangerous than a jihadist suicide bomber. Hayat knows the truth behind Islam and is comfortable with it. His non-Muslim friends are clueless.

There was little doubt in my mind that Hayat would not be strapping a suicide vest on his chest as we departed. As for his children or grandchildren becoming jihadists, I’m not so sure. Hayat and I departed on good terms, he returned to his car, and I assume he drove home and enjoyed an evening with his family telling them about the interesting infidel he met that afternoon.

Hayat sleeps well as a believer in the inevitability of Islam while his non-Muslim neighbors and friends walk around in ignorance and bliss. Time is on Islam’s side and there will be plenty of other jihadists willing to strike terror in the hearts of non-believers and force them into submission. Hayat knows the truth about Islam, but more Americans are learning the truth too. Will they have the courage to share it without fear of being labeled a “hater” or Islamophobic? Our children’s and grandchildren’s future will be determined by our courage to speak the truth about Islam.

Lt Col (ret) Roy White, USAF
Chapter Leader
ACT for America San Antonio

Read more...

How To Read The Koran (and understand Islam)

Thursday

Check out this great article by Peter Burrows (which is also available as a pamphlet):

How To Read The Koran (and understand Islam)

Here's an excerpt:

Winston Churchill, in the first volume of his History of World War II, “The Gathering Storm,” wrote that when Adolph Hitler came to power, Hitler’s treatise on politics and philosophy, Mein Kampf, was of such importance that “there was no book that deserved more careful study from the rulers, political and military, of the Allied Powers. All was there — the programme of German resurrection — the concept of the National-Socialist State, the rightful position of Germany at the summit of the world. Here was the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless but pregnant with its message.”

Churchill described Mien Kampf as the NEW Koran of faith and war.  If he were around today, Churchill would tell us that there is no book more deserving of our study than the OLD Koran:  “turgid, verbose and shapeless but pregnant with its message.”

Churchill recognized the threat of Islam at an early age.  As a young officer in the British military, he fought against Muslim armies in both Pakistan and the Sudan. The latter experience led him to write “The River War,” published in 1899, in which he made this remarkable observation, in somewhat overwrought prose:

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.  — No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”

That was in written in 1899.  The only thing not true today is that Europe is no longer “sheltered in the strong arms of science.”  Muslims in Pakistan have developed nuclear weapons and Muslims in Iran will soon follow suit.  Muslim oil money buys fighter jets and AK-47s by the boatload and sponsors terrorists by the thousands, many of whom are being welcomed into Europe as immigrants.

Churchill had it figured out over a hundred years ago, yet the three most recent Prime Ministers of Britain have defended Islam, calling it “a religion of peace.”  Ditto Presidents George W. Bush and Barrack Obama.

Even Pope Francis has joined the chorus. A Papal decree in 2013 said, “Faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for the true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalizations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.”

“Disconcerting acts of violent fundamentalism” is another way of saying, “I’m confused by acts of terror committed by Muslims in the name of their religion.” Saying that “a proper reading of the Koran” reveals Islam to be “opposed to every form of violence” is akin to saying “a proper reading of the Heavens shows the Sun revolves around the Earth,” something believed by previous Popes, much to Galileo’s distress.

Popes, along with Prime Ministers and Presidents, are NOT infallible.

Muslims commit acts of violence against non-Muslims every day, and yet many Western leaders refuse to connect these acts of violence to the religion of Islam, even though the perpetrators often do, sometimes shouting “Allahu Akbar” — Allah is Greater – while killing people.

Churchill identified Islam as a deadly threat to Western civilization because he studied his enemies. I have no doubt he was familiar with Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War,’ in which a maxim is to “know your enemy.” When fighting Hitler, Churchill read Mein Kampf. When fighting Muslims, he read the Koran.

It is time we do so, too.  I want to stress at the outset, reading the Koran is NOT difficult if you know HOW to read it, but that takes a little explaining.

Read the whole thing here: How To Read The Koran (and understand Islam).

Read more...

A Twinge That Could Stop a Catastrophe

Wednesday

In Gavin de Becker's book, The Gift of Fear, he points out that many times a victim of rape intuitively knows something isn't right — and sometimes knows it in time to do something about it — but the rapist often plays on her kindness, so she ignores her intuition, writes off her own twinge of fear as ridiculous because after all, he's such a nice man.

One of the examples de Becker uses is a woman who was carrying groceries up the stairs to her apartment when a friendly man offered to help her. She had an immediate twinge of fear (what de Becker calls a "survival signal") and she said, "No thank you." But he insisted and when she hesitated because she didn't want to hurt his feelings, he added a little "typecasting" to set the hook. Typecasting is one method manipulators use to influence people. It's a slight insult designed to cause the victim to prove that the insult doesn't apply to her, and in so doing, she makes herself more vulnerable. Read more about it here.

So she overrode her survival signal and accepted his help. She was raped in her apartment, and if it weren't for the fact that she listened to her second twinge of fear, she would have been murdered that night.

There are orthodox Muslims who are using the same manipulative techniques with non-Muslim countries: Appealing to their kindness and typecasting them by implying that if they prevent Muslim immigration, they're racist Islamophobes. Their goal is to get more Muslims into our non-Muslim countries. And as they gain a greater percentage of the population within our countries, they push for more and more concessions — getting the host culture to yield to Islamic standards one small increment at a time. This is what Raymond Ibrahim calls Islam's rule of numbers.

As their numbers grow, their political power grows. Then politicians can no longer ignore this voting block and the push for concessions grows more insistent and demanding. The country is gradually converted to Islamic law.

Almost every non-Muslim country is on this track, yet still in a position to save itself, and some people within each country — more all the time — are listening to our survival signals.

Our twinges of intuition are correct: Islam swallows up cultures. In the end, nothing is left but Islam. That's just what it does. Our twinge is a gift. A warning. Here's the message, clarified into English: "Don't let them in."

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here. You can send an email to CW here

Read more...

September 11th: A Day That Will Live In Infamy

Friday

The link below is a video shot on September 11th from an apartment window facing the Twin Towers. The couple who shot it lived on the 36th floor so they had an overview of the whole event. They didn't release the video to the public until 2005. It's long, but it's an intimate reliving of that day, with sounds of the couples' reaction to events, and the sound of the television news going in the background. The video is entitled simply: What We Saw

Watching the video brought the day back vividly. From my perspective today, 9/11 was a day of awakening for me. Until then, I had no interest in Islam. I didn't think it was important. I didn't understand what caused the terrorist attacks that had happened throughout my childhood (in the 1972 Olympics, the hostage crisis, the hijackings, etc.) and if you had asked me to guess at the time, I probably would have thought terrorists were simply fanatics creating random acts of violence for random reasons — to force a government to release prisoners, to get airtime for their cause, to scare people, or whatever.

But 9/11 was so much worse than previous acts of terrorism, and so much closer to home, it woke me up. The attack on the WTC was obviously a well-organized project by a fairly large group of people, using effective long-term planning, all for the purpose of inflicting a huge number of casualties. And my question was, for what?

It was so shocking, I was strongly motivated to understand where it came from, who these people were, and why they were doing this. What I've learned since then has often surprised me. I had no idea Islamists were such a large group, or so well-funded, or had such an all-compassing goal. But along with discovering the scope of the problem, I've also discovered that ordinary citizens like me could do something to help defeat it.

I feel I've personally repeated what Americans collectively went through in WWII. When the war in Europe and Japan started, most Americans didn't want to get involved. They wanted to go about their business and they hoped the problem would just go away. But when Pearl Harbor was bombed, everything changed. They realized how significant the problem was, and they fully understood their more trivial concerns would have to be put aside. The same change of mind has happened to many of us in the West in response to 9/11 and the change of mind has only deepened with subsequent events.

Since that day I have learned a great deal about Islam, and have been encouraging others to do so too. An understanding of the terrifying brilliance of Islam hasn't become as widespread as I had hoped, but more people are becoming aware of Islam's prime directive, and that is encouraging. I hope you watch the film, What We Saw, share it with your friends, and renew your commitment to finding a solution to the causes that led to 9/11 and the over thirty-nine thousand terrorist attacks since then.

Read more...

Day of the Siege

I was talking with two guys at work the other day as we were waiting around, and just to make conversation, I said, "Do you guys know who Charles the Hammer was?" Of course, neither of them did. So I said, "On this day back in 732, a significant historical event happened. For a hundred years after the death of Muhammad, Islamic warriors conquered most of North Africa, including what is now Libya, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, in a kind of non-stop jihad. Then they went north. They crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and began their eventual conquest of Spain. They plowed their way through Spain into what is now France, but were stopped by Charles Martel, also known as Charles the Hammer."

They thought that was interesting. Awhile later, we had another lull in the work and I said, "I've got another interesting factoid." I've noticed most people (most of the time) are interested in anything that relieves their boredom, as long as it's not too upsetting, so I had their willing attention.

"Nine hundred and fifty-one years after Charles the Hammer, Islamic forces had conquered Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, and Serbia and were massed at the gates of Vienna, Austria, with the intention of conquering Europe. The Austrians were vastly outnumbered, but the walls of the city were formidable. The bad news for the Austrians was that the army of the Ottoman empire knew how to besiege cities. They'd been doing it for centuries and they were good at it. So the Muslim warriors were well on their way to breaching the city walls when suddenly the king of Poland showed up at the head of an army, coming to the aid of their Christian brothers, and the Islamic forces were defeated. The Polish army saved the day! They saved Austria from becoming an Islamic country. They probably saved Europe."

My two workmates were listening intently and seemed to be enjoying themselves, so I kept on talking. "That was the high water mark of Islam's advance into the West. Get this: They were crushed at the gates of Vienna on September 11th, 1683. That's why Al Qaeda chose that date for the 9/11 attack."

Something happened and we had to get back to work, but I could tell these guys will think differently about ISIS and other recent events now that they heard that little history lesson. In fact, one of the reasons I think they were so intrigued is that recent events have awakened their curiosity about Islam. Most people know very little about it, which makes a lot of current events unnecessarily puzzling to them. People seem, more than ever, to want real information.

That was a few days ago. Tonight, I saw a movie about the attack on Vienna. It's called Day of the Siege. I recommend it (see the trailer here). It didn't have great visual effects, but the acting was good and it brought this important historical event to life. There was very little political correctness in the movie. It was honest and straightforward. Watch it with your friends, especially your Christian friends (because the story's main protagonist is a Christian monk and the movie felt like it was made by and for Christians). More people should know about basic Islamic history. It clarifies things and reduces confusion about events in the news. And it makes for a more informed voting public.

Read more...

You Are Ahead of Your Time

Tuesday

You try to tell your friends simple facts about Islam and they often reject it, argue with you, and judge you harshly. Is that because you are a bigot? A racist? A hater?

No. It's because you are ahead of your time.

Someday, because of what you do, those who come after you will understand what you now understand, and those who know you will realize you were one of the brave ones who helped expose Islam for what it is when it was an unpopular opinion.

I just finished watching the movie, Suffragette. It's about women in Britain, early in the 1900s, fighting for the right to vote. British women had been peacefully trying to get the vote for 50 years already. Everyone was against them and the goal seemed impossible. They got no coverage in the press. The idea that women should be able to vote was suppressed. The suffragette's voice and message was silenced, and no amount of effort seemed to make any headway.

And then some of them ran out of patience. They began to push harder for it. And their cause began to get some coverage in the newspapers, but as one woman said in the movie, "The press does nothing but scorn and mock us."

Does that sound familiar?

Women were fired for their participation in the movement — fired, blackballed, beaten, arrested, and even tortured (force fed by shoving a tube up their nose and down their throat to prevent their hunger strike from killing them).

But those few who were committed to the cause carried on, and more and more people joined them. Now it seems ridiculous that women weren't allowed to vote. It's hard to believe so many people — even including many women — were rigidly and adamantly against the idea.

If we stay strong and keep speaking up, the same will happen with us: More and more people will join us. And in the future it will seem ridiculous that anyone ever thought Islam was a religion of peace.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here. You can send an email to CW here.

Read more...

How To Disarm Good People

Thursday

In the book, The Sociopath Next Door, Martha Stout says something really interesting. Her book is about normal, everyday sociopaths (also known by the somewhat outdated term, "psychopath"). In other words, the book is not about serial killers, but about the neighbor who drives you crazy, the spouse who seems dedicated to making your life miserable, the cruel, unfeeling boss, etc.

A sociopath is someone who feels no empathy for other human beings. The consequences of this lack are enormous. These people are, in many ways, not recognizably human. And there is no cure for sociopathy. It is not caused by upbringing. Therapy only makes them worse.

About two percent of the population is sociopathic, and those who are in a relationship with a sociopath need to understand what makes sociopaths tick. The more you know, the less likely you are to be fooled, used, or destroyed by a sociopath.

But Martha Stout said something interesting for us here in our conversation about Islam. She wrote about the techniques sociopaths use to exploit people around them. Sociopaths use people. And there is one thing sociopaths use more than anything else because it works so well with normal people. Their ultra-effective weapon is to evoke pity. Stout wrote:

The most reliable sign, the most universal behavior of unscrupulous people is not directed, as one might imagine, at our fearfulness. It is, perversely, an appeal to our sympathy.

I first learned this when I was still a graduate student in psychology and had the opportunity to interview a court-referred patient the system had already identified as a "psychopath." He was not violent, preferring instead to swindle people out of their money with elaborate investment scams. Intrigued by this individual and what could possibly motivate him...I asked, "What is important to you in your life? What do you want more than anything else?" I thought he might say "getting money," or "staying out of jail," which were the activities to which he devoted most of his time. Instead, without a moment's hesitation, he replied, "Oh, that's easy. What I like better than anything else is when people feel sorry for me. The thing I really want more than anything else out of life is people's pity."

I was astonished, and more than a little put off. I think I would have liked him better if he had said "staying out of jail," or even "getting money." Also, I was mystified. Why would this man — why would anyone — wish to be pitied, let alone wish to be pitied above all other ambitions? I could not imagine. But now, after twenty-five years of listening to victims, I realize there is an excellent reason for the sociopathic fondness for pity. As obvious as the nose on one's face, and just as difficult to see without the help of a mirror, the explanation is that good people will let pathetic individuals get by with murder, so to speak, and therefore any sociopath wishing to continue with his game, whatever it happens to be, should play repeatedly for none other than pity.

More than admiration — more even than fear — pity from good people is carte blanche. When we pity, we are, at least for the moment, defenseless, and like so many of the other positive human characteristics that bind us together in groups...our emotional vulnerability when we pity is used against us...

The reason I thought that was interesting and relevant is that pity is one of the most common techniques orthodox Muslims use, and it is the main reason they've been able to get away with as much as they have so far. They exploit the egalitarian, multiculturalist, good-hearted nature of non-Muslims. They evoke pity and then use our own kindness and our desire to "get along with others" against us.

I was just reading the book, Tripoli: The United States' First War on Terror. The ruler of Tripoli had been seizing U.S. merchant ships, adding the ship to his own fleet, keeping the contents of the ship, and selling the captured sailors into slavery. It was a very lucrative pirating business. The U.S. wanted Tripoli to stop it, of course. The ruler of Tripoli said, "Sure, we'll stop attacking your ships if you pay us tribute every year."

So for awhile the U.S. paid the tribute because they were a new country and had no navy to speak of, and they wanted to continue with their overseas trade. But the ruler of Tripoli decided the tribute they had agreed to wasn't enough, so he demanded more and when he didn't get it, he started seizing U.S. ships again.

Meanwhile, the U.S. was frantically building a navy, and by this time had enough warships to put up a fight, so they did. Suddenly Tripoli's ruler wanted to talk peace. But in the negotiations, the man negotiating on behalf of the ruler asked for a gift of money. The U.S. said no, absolutely not. The U.S. said basically, "You have not been fair in any way and have only acted as our enemy, and no, we will not pay you to stop the fighting."

Then Tripoli's negotiator tried to appeal to pity: "But Tripoli is very poor," he pleaded. "she cannot subsist without the generosity of her friends; give something then on the score of charity." In this case, Tripoli had already established a poor reputation with the Americans, so the pity plea did not work. But even after the U.S. negotiator said no, Tripoli's negotiator tried to make the U.S. negotiator feel guilty for not feeling pity. He asked, basically, "You say you want peace but you won't give this gift of charity to obtain the peace?"

Islam uses the pity plea anywhere it can. Mohammad used it, Muslims in Tripoli were using it, and Muslims today are still at it. In their dealings with powerful non-Muslims, the basic stance of Islam is: "We are an oppressed, persecuted people. We're a minority. We're under siege. We are wrongly accused. We're the victims of bigotry, hatred, and Islamophobia." And if they can't find anything to point to that proves their oppression, they literally create something.

It's like a game they are playing, except this is a game with very serious consequences. A single sociopath using the appeal to pity can completely ruin the lives of many people. And this is, of course, nothing compared with what orthodox Muslims have done. They've killed over 270 million people since they started. They've ruined even more lives, and they are affecting the lives and livelihoods of billions of us today.

I would like to spend my time working on productive, positive, life-affirming activities. Instead, I am spending many hours of my short time here on earth trying to stop the insidious Islamic encroachment, reading and writing about things I wish didn't exist. It's an upsetting topic. It's disturbing. But the consequences of ignoring it are even worse, so I devote a portion of my life to it.

And, of course, I'm not alone. Each of us has been influenced in hundreds of ways we don't even know about by the third jihad (and the first two jihads).

It's important to understand how they do it. One of the most successful techniques they use is the appeal to pity. The good news is that as soon as you see the appeal for what it is, the game is over, the magic disappears, the trance is lifted.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here. You can send an email to CW here.  

Read more...

Twelve Tactics of Taqiyya

Friday

From the inimitable Trencherbone, here is a list of twelve taqiyya tactics used by orthodox Muslims with great success against their enemies in Western democracies. Below is an edited version of Trencherbone's article. Unfortunately, his original article and his blog have been taken down.

Allah is "the best of deceivers" (Quran 3.54), and since the prime directive is to spread Islam by any means whatsoever, it should not be surprising that deceiving unbelievers is acceptable behavior if carried out for the benefit of Islam.

This "sacred deception" is known as taqiyya. It can take many forms, including outright lies, feigned moderation, and condemnations of terrorist attacks to the non-Muslims while celebrating the attacks with fellow Muslims.

Here are some of the ploys, arguments, logical fallacies and diversionary tactics used by taqiyya tacticians:

1. Taqiyya about taqiyya. Muslims deny that taqiyya exists, or that it is used to deceive infidels. "There is no such thing as taqiyya." Or "Taqiyya is something I never heard of and I had to go and look it up."

2. Playing the race card and guilt by association. An accusation of racism is such a trump card that jihadists will play it whenever they can. Despite Islam not being a race, any criticism of Islam immediately gets the knee-jerk retaliation of "racism." For example, "You are expressing the same views about Islam as racists, therefore you are a racist." This is similar logic, "Communists believe two and two make four. You believe two and two make four. Therefore you are a Communist."

3. Godwin's Law. A special (and inevitable) version of guilt by association with racism used in online discussions, whereby the first person to invoke Hitler or the Nazis wins the argument. The "logic" is something like this:

CRITICISM OF ISLAM = RACISM = NAZISM
Therefore, if you criticize Islam you are a Nazi.

4. Circular reasoning. The Quran says it is the word of God. So whatever it says must be true. Therefore it is true that the Quran is the word of God because it says so.

5. The infidels' quotes from the Quran are always taken out of context. For example, "Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them" is taken out of context, and really means "Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them setting fire to your house" — or something similar.

6. Infidels can't understand the original Arabic of the Quran. So "Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them" is actually a Medieval Arabic expression meaning "Help old ladies across busy streets and remember to feed the birds in winter."

7. Tu Quoque (you also). "We blow people up and behead them but you do the same." Normally this is used in attempts to refute arguments that Islam is intrinsically violent. Often people refer back to the Crusades, the Inquisition, etc. Also "There are equally nasty parts in the Bible." Yes, there are violent episodes in the Bible, but the Bible is descriptive of battles and massacres long ago, whereas the Quran is prescriptive of battles and massacres yet to come.

8. "Abrahamic and monotheistic faith" false kin argument. This scam usually takes the form of "Islam is just a further development of Christianity, a brother Abrahamic or monotheist faith." Of course it isn't. Islam is a travesty and perversion of Christianity in many respects, and Jesus would probably have advised the pedophile Mohammed to tie a millstone round his neck and jump into the sea (Mark 9:42). In Islam, stoning of women is still a major spectator sport, whereas Jesus forbade it (John 8:7). Human sacrifice is an abomination in Judaism and Christianity, but is encouraged in Islam.

9. Quoting abrogated verses from the Quran in order to appear moderate. A favorite one is "Let there be no compulsion in religion." This verse and many like it are actually null and void and disregarded by all Muslims (though not by gullible infidels). They are peaceful Meccan verses which are completely cancelled by later and much more violent Medinan verses. Read more about abrogation here.

10. "You owe us a debt of gratitude because Islam is the basis of Western civilization." This sort of statement is usually backed up by revisionist arguments that Muslims invented everything and were responsible for the Renaissance. In some ways this is a rather pathetic quest for significance. Muslim culture has been moribund for the past 600 years, whereas the West has forged ahead. Muslims now want a stake in the success story by claiming they were somehow responsible for the West's development.

11. "A third of the world's population believe in Islam, so it deserves respect." But not so long ago a third of the world's population believed the earth was flat. Numbers don't mean anything, especially when the Islamic population is the most backward and illiterate on earth. Muslims are very keen on "respect," but someone should tell them that respect needs to be earned.

12. "We are victims of Islamophobia." Orthodox Muslims are always playing the victim, if not of racism then of the even more heinous thought-crime of Islamophobia. Of course there is no such thing as Islamophobia, since a phobia is an irrational fear, whereas fear of Islam as a clear and present danger is a totally rational reaction from any infidel.

Learn more about taqiyya and how it is used here.

See a video about taqiyya here.

Read more...

Lessons on Jihad From the Movie, "What About Bob?"

Monday

I was thinking of writing an article about the infuriating cleverness of orthodox Muslims, and I was wondering what I could use to illustrate what they're doing. And then it came to me in a flash: The movie, What About Bob?

In the movie, Bill Murray plays a psychiatric patient who drives his psychiatrist crazy (Dr. Leo Marvin, played by Richard Dreyfus).

I just watched it again and the parallels to orthodox Islam's dealings with the West are amazing. Bob uses the same techniques on Dr. Marvin that orthodox Muslims use against the United States and Europe, and with similar results: Bob successfully fools everyone except Dr. Marvin, and Dr. Marvin becomes infuriated and helpless, but unable to stop it.

Bob is able to cleverly insert himself into Dr. Marvin's life without his consent, and able to turn Dr. Marvin's friends and family against him.

As I watched, I kept stopping to write notes every time I saw a parallel. Here are my notes:

1. Bob's stand is: I am suffering. Islam's stand is: We are an oppressed people, we are under attack, we are the underdog, and we are suffering. Bob manages to make normal events in life cause him to suffer. Orthodox Muslims take anything their enemies do and turns it into "oppression." And if their enemies do nothing offensive, they create opportunities to be affronted.

Read any mainstream Muslim publication, like the Muslim Public Affairs Committee newsletter, and you will see a strong theme running through almost every article: Muslims are oppressed and persecuted (and therefore must "defend" themselves).

I subscribe to several pro-Muslim e-mail newsletters, and this is an extremely common theme. Every little "hate-crime" they can come up with proves that Muslims are an oppressed minority. I recently read this: In the year 2007, the number of hate-crimes in the U.S. committed against someone because of their religion was 1400. Here's how the hate-crimes break down by religion:

Anti-Jewish 969
Anti-Other Religion 130
Anti-Islamic 115
Anti-Multiple Religions 62
Anti-Catholic 61
Anti-Protestant 57
Anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc. 6

Over the course of a year, and with 300 million people in this country, that's a pretty low incidence of hate-crimes against Muslims. But their perpetual position is that they are an oppressed minority. Here's why.

2. Bob uses every technique he can find to keep pushing for what he wants. And he uses the one tool that gives him the most leverage with normal people: Pity. Evoke genuine pity, and you can pretty much gain any concession you want. Read more about this.

The stealth jihad uses this principle constantly. Jihadis try to portray themselves — just as their leader Mohammad did — as innocent victims of wrongdoing. Then, having aroused pity, they seek a concession of some kind.

They continue gaining concessions and giving none. Islam is a ratchet: It only goes one way.

3. Bob uses deceit masterfully. Bob hires a hooker to portray Dr. Marvin's sister to get through on the phone (when Dr. Marvin is on vacation and is not taking calls). Bob impersonates a detective and lies to the operator to get information about where Dr. Marvin is vacationing.

Islam has a principle called taqiyya, which means "religious deception." They can and do lie to non-Muslims and they have Allah's permission to do so as long as it serves the cause of Islam.

In the movie, Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West, there are several good examples, captured on film, of a Muslim leader speaking to Western media, saying one thing, and then it shows the same leader speaking to their fellow Muslims saying just the opposite. You see them speaking peace and tolerance to Westerners and two days later vigorously preaching jihad against the West to their fellow Muslims. This is taqiyya.

Probably the single most important reason orthodox Muslims have gotten away with so much is because they use deceit masterfully.

4. Bob pushes for concessions because he is special, unique, weird. And Bob captures everyone's attention and doesn't let them go about their normal lives.

Muslims do the same thing. In Norway, for example, Muslims were agitating for a law that would make it illegal to serve alcohol in discos on certain nights (because they are uncomfortable around alcohol). Hege Storhaug, the co-founder of Human Rights Service, rejects such a proposal. "All the time they have special rules," says Storhaug, "and we reject special requirements. We get a split-up society and Islam gets more presence in the public sphere. People force religious opinions on others. In the most extreme consequence it leads to the Islamization of society...All the time it's Muslims who come with special requirements. We never hear a peep from Catholics, Jews, Hindus, etc."

One way to try to gain a concession is to simply ask. Another way (and far more effective) is to ask while providing a good reason why an exception should be made for you that would not be made for others. Bob had "special needs" because he was agoraphobic or afraid of sailing or deathly afraid of germs, and people went out of their way to accommodate him, conceding things to him they would never concede to a normal person.

Islam does the same thing. And they often succeed (read more about what kinds of concessions they have gained). They press for concessions because they are oppressed or because they are unique (they have particular needs because of their unique religion), or because they've been wronged or persecuted or whatever.

5. Bob seems really nice to everyone but his enemy. People usually recognize Bob is unusual, but they think he is innocent. But Dr. Marvin sees what he's doing and how deliberately and insidiously he's doing it.

By the skillful use of taqiyya, Muslims — even Muslims we know to be bloodthirsty killers — are considered "really nice people" by those who don't know better. (Read a good example of that here.)

Islamic countries are often very friendly to Western countries while at the same time whipping up national hatred against those same Western countries on Islamic television stations, and funding global jihad against those same countries.

6. Bob uses public embarrassment to force concessions. When he arrives in the small town where the well-respected Dr. Marvin spends his summer vacation, Bob starts yelling at the top of his lungs in the middle of the street, "Dr. Marvin! Doctor Leo Marvin!" He keeps yelling until he has everyone's attention and Dr. Marvin can't simply ignore him and get away, which is what he was planning on doing.

Orthodox Muslims try to embarrass organizations into doing what they want. They will go to court even though they know they will lose, they will get the press involved. They'll do whatever it takes to embarrass people or companies or governments into conceding. Radio stations have fired good people because the station didn't want to deal with the public embarrassment of a lawsuit. Politicians restrain themselves and go out of their way not to say anything honest that might be offensive to the super-sensitive Muslim-advocacy organizations, because those organizations will do what they can to embarrass the politicians. Even comedians avoid talking about Islam.

Orthodox Muslims have wormed their way into training programs for police and intelligence agencies and intimidated them into not saying anything that might lead to public embarrassment, demonstrating again and again that the Muslim organizations will use public embarrassment to silence critics of Islam.

7. Bob uses Dr. Marvin's enemies against him. There is a husband and wife in town who are angry because the rich city doctor came and bought their dream home out from under them. Bob gets these people to help him, and they do it to help ruin Dr. Marvin's life.

Orthodox Muslims are actively converting and recruiting disgruntled convicts in prison — people who are already enemies of the society. Iran sent soldiers into Iraq in order to kill U.S. soldiers, but Iran also supplied Russia and China with oil, so if the U.S. wants to do something about Iran, they'd have our two biggest enemies to contend with. In essence, Iran used America's enemies against them.

Closer to home, those of us who are in the process of alerting our fellow citizens to the danger of Islam's prime directive have enemies among our own fellow non-Muslim citizens. The blind multiculturalists in the media actively fight against us, trying to discredit anyone who criticizes Islam, and the orthodox Muslims use those enemies against us.

I get a newsletter from CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) that brags in almost every issue about how they are bringing this suit against this person or sending press releases out about this or that grievance, and you can see from their wording that they are hitting every hot-button they can think of to gain sympathy from our fellow non-Muslim "enemies."

8. Bob exploits all of Dr. Marvin's weaknesses — his egotism, his desire to win his family's love and approval, his failures and embarrassments, his family's kindness and innocence, his family's resentment against Dr. Marvin's pomposity — Bob exploits it all to get what he wants.

Orthodox Muslims exploit Westerners' weaknesses, too. One of our "weaknesses" is our reverence for life. Jihadis will hide behind their own civilians during a battle, knowing Western soldiers will not open fire.

Here's another example of this principle, from DhimmiWatch:

"Palestinian jihad fighters have even used Christian sites and people as shields against the Israelis. In Spring 2002 they appropriated Bethlehem’s Manger Square as a base of operations, knowing that Israeli forces would not attack them there and would face international opprobrium if they did. This activity precipitated the siege of the Church of the Nativity in April and May of that year. After launching attacks against the Israelis from Manger Square, a group of jihadists fled into the church, where they remained for 39 days — secure in the knowledge that Israel would not attack a Christian holy site. Meanwhile, they desecrated the church."

Orthodox Muslims are masters of exploiting their enemy's weaknesses. They immigrate into free countries and then use the democratic process and rights of free speech to agitate against those freedoms and seek to subvert the democracy.

They also exploit the multicultural beliefs of the resident population in order to wage jihad by gaining concessions.

9. Bob is absolutely relentless. He doesn't let up ever. Neither do orthodox Muslims. They keep infiltrating, they keep immigrating, they keep agitating, they keep killing, they keep intimidating, and they will never stop on their own. They've been doing it for 1400 years, and they are determined to keep it up until the whole world acknowledges there is no god but Allah and Mohammad is His Messenger. They will never give up until the whole world falls under the rule of Islamic law. This is Islam's Prime Directive.

10. Bob makes sure every response Dr. Marvin makes will backfire. He ensures that no matter what Dr. Marvin does to return to his normal life or solve his problem, it will not work. In the documentary, Target America, you can see each successive American president through the seventies, eighties, and nineties try many different ways of dealing with orthodox Muslims, and every attempt backfired.

The orthodox Muslims made sure they set up a situation where no matter what the U.S. did, it would go badly.

The same infuriating frustration Dr. Marvin feels is what I saw on the faces of all the presidents in Target America as they tried and failed to deal successfully with hijackings and captured hostages and bombings.

11. No matter what he does, Bob makes Dr. Marvin look like the mean one and Bob look like the innocent, underdog victim of Dr. Marvin's apparently bad-tempered selfishness. Osama bin Laden's plan was to run planes into the Twin Towers in the hopes that the U.S. would overreact, counting on the fact that the violent overreaction would cause Muslims around the world to unite against the West.

Many people think that's exactly what happened. Muslims flew planes into the Twin Towers, killing thousands of office workers, and in the end, the U.S. looks like the mean one to a lot of people, and Muslims look like the underdog victims who only need potable water and a little compassion from big, bad America.

12. Bob causes Dr. Marvin's wife and kids to sympathize with Bob and to resent and reject Dr. Marvin. They all try to look out for poor Bob. They push for Bob to get what he wants. This is analogous to orthodox Muslims causing multiculturalist Westerners to sympathize with Muslims and turn against their fellow countrymen who are trying to protect us all from further harm.

So we have one group of people in the U.S. who want to make sure we're no longer vulnerable to attack by orthodox Muslims. And we have another segment of the U.S. who wants "stop the hate," wants to "give peace a chance," and wants to stop "racial profiling."

In other words, orthodox Muslims have successfully turned some of our own people against each other. They have manipulated the situation so some non-Muslims are pushing for the orthodox Muslims to get what they want.

This is not just happening in America, it is happening in free countries all over the world.

13. Bob keeps provoking a hostile overreaction from Dr. Marvin and then appears to be the innocent victim of Dr. Marvin's cruel insensitivity, and then he leverages that to gain concessions. If Dr. Marvin doesn't respond, Bob escalates or persists in his provocation until Dr. Marvin can't take it any more and bursts out in anger.

One memorable example from the movie is the dinner scene. Bob moaned with pleasure while he was eating. He kept moaning and saying, "This is so delicious!" And he kept it up until Dr. Marvin suddenly yells at him to shut up. All of Dr. Marvin's family looks at him with anger and embarrassment. Bob looks like the innocent victim of Dr. Marvin's irrational rage.

Here's a good example from William Bennett's Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism:

"From the beginning, the Palestinian strategy was, and still is, to provoke outrages to which Israel has had no choice but to respond with stringent countermeasures, thereby supplying endless footage of Palestinian casualties and eliciting fresh pressure by the West to accommodate ever-escalating Palestinian demands. Israel's commitment to peace stimulated in the Palestinians not a spirit of reciprocal amicableness but an appetite for more..."

14. Bob knows full well what he's doing, but successfully appears innocent to everyone but Dr. Marvin, who sees right through him but can't get anyone else to see it. Those of us who have been trying to alert our fellow Westerners to Islam's relentless encroachment are having a very difficult time.

Islam appears innocent to many people, and to them, we are suspect. We must be racists or bigots or Islamophobes. This assessment effectively shuts their ears to accurate information about something real enough to cause over seventeen thousand deadly attacks since 9/11.

15. Dr. Marvin clearly expects the problem (Bob) to go away, but he will never go. He keeps insinuating himself more and more thoroughly into Dr. Marvin's life. Almost every non-Muslim I talk to about Islam's relentless encroachment expects someone to take care of it and expects the problem to go away. But it isn't going away. It's getting worse. Orthodox Islam is insinuating itself more and more thoroughly into Western societies.

16. Bob is skillful, but conceals it. Dr. Marvin comes up with a brilliant scheme to admit Bob into a mental institution, but the institution can only legally hold Bob for 24 hours before they let him go. They can keep him there only if the staff agrees Bob needs to be institutionalized. Dr. Marvin is sure everyone will see Bob is crazy, but they don't. Within a few hours, they release Bob. Bob completely charmed the staff, telling jokes and cracking everyone up.

Like Bob, Islam is skillful, but conceals it. The more I learn about the clever infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood into mainstream American life, the more impressed I am at the long-range planning and the skillful, sophisticated understanding of the American mind.

One branch of the Muslim Brotherhood is CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. They have successfully fooled most people in America that they represent moderate, peace-loving Muslim Americans. Read about what they are really up to.

17. Bob is in it for the long haul. Eventually, Dr. Marvin loses his mind, goes off the deep end, and he becomes violent and irrational, mainly because nobody else sees what Bob is really doing except Dr. Marvin.

Orthodox Muslims find every crack in the wall they can find and work their way in. And they twist every event and utterance to their purpose. They will not stop, they will not tire, and they have nothing else to live for. This is it. This is the meaning of their existence: Islam must win. Islam must dominate all other cultures, all other religions, all other governments. Allah wills it.

They have infiltrated our schools by giving donations to colleges and then using their seat on the board to exert influence (creating a campus culture of Islam-loving, America-hating students). Orthodox Muslims offered the British government and banks on Wall Street money to help them through the 2008-2009 financial crisis, but with strings attached — the money is "Shari'a compliant" which means, among other things, that there is a built-in written agreement that a certain portion of the money goes to particular charities — charities that support jihad against the West.

Orthodox Muslims have created "legitimate," mainstream organizations that lobby Washington and "represent the Muslim community" to governments and to the media, and yet have a secret agenda, revealed at the Holy Land Foundation Trial, of conquering America from within.

The list goes on and on. They are in it for the long haul, and they absolutely will not stop, ever. They won't grow tired or give up. If they are going to be stopped, we must stop them. And we had better do it with more success than Dr. Marvin had with Bob.

To get rid of Bob, out of mad frustration, Dr. Marvin tries to blow him up, but Bob ends up "accidentally" blowing Dr. Marvin's vacation home to smithereens, and then marries Dr. Marvin's sister!

Bob won. Dr. Marvin lost. We've got to do better.

Would you like to entertain yourself while watching a demonstration of orthodox Muslim techniques? Watch What About Bob?

And while you're watching, see if you can come up with ideas we can use. What would you do if you were Dr. Marvin?

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here. You can send an email to CW here

Read more...

Taqiyya — Religious Deception

Saturday

The following is a chapter of Islam 101:

Due to the state of war between dar al-Islam and dar al-harb, ruses of war, i.e., systematic lying to the infidel, must be considered part and parcel of Islamic tactics. The parroting by Muslim organizations throughout dar al-harb that "Islam is a religion of peace," or that the origins of Muslim violence lie in the unbalanced psyches of particular individual "fanatics," must be considered as disinformation intended to induce the infidel world to let down its guard.

Of course, individual Muslims may genuinely regard their religion as "peaceful" — but only insofar as they are ignorant of its true teachings, or in the sense of the Egyptian theorist Sayyid Qutb, who posited in his Islam and Universal Peace that true peace would prevail in the world just as soon as Islam had conquered it.

A telling point is that, while Muslims who present their religion as peaceful abound throughout dar al-harb, they are nearly non-existent in dar al-Islam. A Muslim apostate once suggested to me a litmus test for Westerners who believe that Islam is a religion of "peace" and "tolerance": try making that point on a street corner in Ramallah, or Riyadh, or Islamabad, or anywhere in the Muslim world. He assured me you wouldn't live five minutes.

{A} problem concerning law and order {with respect to Muslims in dar al-harb} arises from an ancient Islamic legal principle — that of taqiyya, a word the root meaning of which is "to remain faithful" but which in effect means "dissimulation." It has full Quranic authority (3:28 and 16:106) and allows the Muslim to conform outwardly to the requirements of unislamic or non-Islamic government, while inwardly "remaining faithful" to whatever he conceives to be proper Islam, while waiting for the tide to turn. (Hiskett, Some to Mecca Turn to Pray, 101.)

Volume 4, Book 52, Number 269; Narrated Jabir bin 'Abdullah: The Prophet said, "War is deceit."


Historically, examples of taqiyya include permission to renounce Islam itself in order to save one's neck or ingratiate oneself with an enemy.

It is not hard to see that the implications of taqiyya are insidious in the extreme: they essentially render negotiated settlement — and, indeed, all veracious communication between dar al-Islam and dar al-harb — impossible. It should not, however, be surprising that a party to a war should seek to mislead the other about its means and intentions.

Jihad Watch's Hugh Fitzgerald sums up taqiyya and kitman, a related form of deception.

"Taqiyya" is the religiously-sanctioned doctrine, with its origins in Shi'a Islam but now practiced by non-Shi'a as well, of deliberate dissimulation about religious matters that may be undertaken to protect Islam, and the Believers. A related term, of broader application, is "kitman," which is defined as "mental reservation." An example of "Taqiyya" would be the insistence of a Muslim apologist that "of course" there is freedom of conscience in Islam, and then quoting that Qur'anic verse — "There shall be no compulsion in religion." {2:256} But the impression given will be false, for there has been no mention of the Muslim doctrine of abrogation, or naskh, whereby such an early verse as that about "no compulsion in religion" has been canceled out by later, far more intolerant and malevolent verses. In any case, history shows that within Islam there is, and always has been, "compulsion in religion" for Muslims, and for non-Muslims.

"Kitman" is close to "taqiyya," but rather than outright dissimulation, it consists in telling only a part of the truth, with "mental reservation" justifying the omission of the rest. One example may suffice. When a Muslim maintains that "jihad" really means "a spiritual struggle," and fails to add that this definition is a recent one in Islam (little more than a century old), he misleads by holding back, and is practicing "kitman."

When he adduces, in support of this doubtful proposition, the hadith in which Muhammad, returning home from one of his many battles, is reported to have said (as known from a chain of transmitters, or isnad), that he had returned from "the Lesser Jihad to the Greater Jihad" and does not add what he also knows to be true, that this is a "weak" hadith, regarded by the most-respected muhaddithin as of doubtful authenticity, he is further practicing "kitman."


In times when the greater strength of dar al-harb necessitates that the jihad take an indirect approach, the natural attitude of a Muslim to the infidel world must be one of deception and omission.

Revealing frankly the ultimate goal of dar al-Islam to conquer and plunder dar al-harb when the latter holds the military trump cards would be strategic idiocy.

Fortunately for the jihadists, most infidels do not understand how one is to read the Quran, nor do they trouble themselves to find out what Muhammad actually did and taught, which makes it easy to give the impression through selective quotations and omissions that "Islam is a religion of peace."

Any infidel who wants to believe such fiction will happily persist in his mistake having been cited a handful of Meccan verses and told that Muhammad was a man of great piety and charity. Digging only slightly deeper is sufficient to dispel the falsehood.

Read about the Islamic doctrine that supports taqiyya.

Read a good example of taqiyya.

Read Bill Warner's, The Doctrine of Deceit.

Watch a good video on taqiyya.

Read an extensive article by Islam Watch entitled, Understanding Taqiyya ― Islamic Principle of Lying for the Sake of Allah.

Return to the Table of Contents of Islam 101


See a Glossary Of Islamic Terms for definitions. Islam 101 was written by Gregory M. Davis, author of Religion of Peace?: Islam's War Against the World, and the producer/director of Islam: What the West Needs to Know.

Read more...

An Example of Taqiyya

Tuesday

In the book, Terrorist Hunter, Rita Katz wrote about being at an IAP conference in Chicago. IAP is the Islamic Association for Palestine. There were lots of booths at the conference for "charitable" organizations, and at one of these booths, Katz met a man she already knew about: Muhammad Salah.

She pretended she didn't know who he was, and he introduced himself as a "Muslim human rights activist." Katz, a non-Muslim woman dressed as a Muslim, wrote, "He was small, thin, nearly bald. Totally harmless looking."

He told her these conferences were so important because "we can teach you about the oppression and sufferings of Muslims in America and all over the world." Then he told Katz his story. He had been a Palestinian with an American citizenship, a used-car salesman, working in Chicago when he went to Israel to "visit family and friends." But in Israel he was arrested by the Israeli authorities and thrown into prison for five years!

Katz looked appropriately appalled and asked why in heaven's name would they put him in prison? "Because the Israelis oppress innocent Palestinians," he said. "And do you know what is the most shocking part? When I returned to the U.S., after I was tortured and I thought I was going to die in that prison, the Americans placed me under investigation and froze my assets! Me, an innocent citizen, a car dealer, a family man, father of five!"

To any other non-Muslim this probably would have been a convincing story. The poor, oppressed Muslim! It's just wrong to treat people that way. Those Israelis must be very cruel. Those Americans are so oppressive to Muslims! But Katz was not an ordinary non-Muslim. She researched people like Salah for a living. She knew all about him. This frail, innocent-looking man was the leader of the worldwide military wing of Hamas, a brutal terrorist organization! When he was arrested in Israel he had a hundred thousand dollars in cash on him. In his testimony, he admitted the money was supposed to go to "members of Hamas's military wing." He displayed detailed inside knowledge of Hamas's structure and funding, and his testimony was later used as evidence in the New York trial of Musa Abu Marzook, the leader of the political bureau of Hamas (and the man who had appointed Salah to his position as leader of the military wing).

Katz writes: "Salah disclosed (in his testimony) that he'd been authorized by Marzook to recruit individuals for training in the uses of explosives to fight in the 'holy war.' In the United States, Salah began training ten such recruits, three of whom were chosen to carry out attacks.

In addition to supervising the building of bombs, explosives, and remote detonation devices, Salah was instructed by Marzook to develop biological and chemical weapons for Hamas."When Nasser Hidmi was caught trying to detonate a bomb in Israel, he said he had been chosen by none other than the poor, innocent, abused, oppressed Muslim, Muhammad Salah.

This is an example of taqiyya, the principle of religious deception. According to mainstream Islamic doctrine, Islam is in a permanent state of war with any non-Muslim who opposes the rule of Shari'a law. And in war, deceit is a legitimate tactic. In other words, as long as it helps the Islamic goal of making the whole world submit to Shari'a law, it is perfectly all right to lie and deceive.

When I was trying to figure out what I would choose as the three most important things to tell a non-Muslim about Islam, taqiyya was one of the three. The use of taqiyya is the main reason most non-Muslims are so confused about the real nature of Islam — they are constantly being intentionally deceived by orthodox Muslims posing as reasonable, "moderate" Muslims, who are thoroughly fooling everyone from political leaders to the media that "Islam is a religion of peace" and that "Islam has been hijacked by extremists." What they don't want non-Muslims to know is that Islamic teachings are highly political and it is a Muslim's religious duty to strive to accomplish Islam's primary political goal — the establishment of worldwide Shari'a law — in any way he can for his whole life.

Why wouldn't orthodox Muslims want non-Muslims to know this? Because they can make a lot more progress toward their goal if most of us are in the dark. But now you know. If you don't, read the Qur'an and find out for yourself. And then spread the word.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here. You can send an email to CW here.

Read more...

Article Spotlight

One of the most unusual articles on CitizenWarrior.com is Pleasantville and Islamic Supremacism.

It illustrates the Islamic Supremacist vision by showing the similarity between what happened in the movie, Pleasantville, and what devout fundamentalist Muslims are trying to create in Islamic states like Syria, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia (and ultimately everywhere in the world).

Click here to read the article.


Copyright

All writing on CitizenWarrior.com is copyright © CitizenWarrior.com 2001-2099, all rights reserved.

  © Free Blogger Templates Columnus by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP