Assumptions About Islam are Rampant

The following is an excerpt from the excellent book, The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, by Robert Spencer:

When reading the Koran, it is vitally important to keep in mind that Westerners, whether religious or not, and Muslims often have vastly differing frames of reference, even when considering the same individuals or concepts. Several years ago, former President George W. Bush and Karen Hughes, his former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, issued greetings to the world's Muslims on the occasion of the Islamic Feast of Eid al-Adha, which commemorates the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca, the Hajj, and Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son.

In December 2006, Bush issued a statement that read in part, "For Muslims in America and around the world, Eid al-Adha is an important occasion to give thanks for their blessings and to remember Abraham's trust in a loving God. During the four days of this special observance, Muslims honor Abraham's example of sacrifice and devotion to God by celebrating with friends and family, exchanging gifts and greetings, and engaging in worship through sacrifice and charity."

And the previous January, Hughes had declared:

Eid is a celebration of commitment and obedience to God and also of God's mercy and provision for all of us. It is a time of family and community, a time of charity....I want to read to you a message from President Bush: "I send greetings to Muslims around the world as you celebrate Eid al-Adha. When God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, Abraham placed his faith in God above all else. During Eid al-Adha, Muslims celebrate Abraham's devotion and give thanks for God's mercy and many blessings."

In speaking of Abraham, even when doing so in the context of Eid al-Adha, Bush and Hughes were probably thinking of Genesis 22:15-18, in which Abraham is rewarded for his faith and told he will become a blessing to the nations: "By your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, because you have obeyed my voice."

But the Muslim audiences that Bush and Hughes were addressing probably did not read Genesis. They read the Koran, in which Allah says that Abraham is an "excellent example" for the believers when he tells his family and other pagans that "there has arisen, between us and you, enmity and hatred forever, unless ye believe in Allah and Him alone" (60:4). The same verse relates that Abraham is not an excellent example when he tells his father, "I will pray for forgiveness for you."

Thus the Koran, in the passages cited by Bush and Hughes, holds up hatred as exemplary, while belittling the virtue of forgiveness. Bush and Hughes were therefore inadvertently reinforcing a worldview that takes for granted the legitimacy of everlasting enmity between Muslims and non-Muslims — and doing so, naively, while attempting to build bridges between Muslims and non-Muslims. This demonstrates once again how crucial it is for American policymakers to have a detailed understanding of Islam's theological and cultural frame of reference, and of the actual teachings of the Koran. For lack of this understanding, careless statements continue to be made, and policy errors keep multiplying.

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Take the Pledge: Read the Quran

SINCE SEPTEMBER 11th, 2001, we have been earnestly seeking answers to the questions, "Why did this happen? Why would someone do such a thing? What were the hijackers trying to accomplish? And what can we do about it?"

We may not have figured it all out, but we can confidently say we've established at least this much: That we in free nations will not be able to preserve our freedoms against orthodox Islam's relentless push for Sharia until enough of us understand what we're dealing with.

Because some people speak confidently about Islam without any real knowledge of it, and because some who know a lot about Islam speak with some other agenda besides simply speaking honestly, and because of the principle of taqiyya, the only way to know for sure what's true about Islam is to read the Quran yourself.

We're wasting too much time debating each other. After everyone in the conversation has read the Quran, we can begin a productive discussion. Until a person has read the Quran, everything the person says and thinks about Islam is permeated with secondhand ideas and opinions that must be taken, to some degree, on faith. After a person reads the Quran, she or he will have the facts, not opinions.

Armed with actual facts, we have a good chance of being able to manage the problems we have ahead of us.

Until a majority of non-Muslims have read the Quran, orthodox Muslims can easily gain ground toward the gradual implementation of Sharia in Western democracies because confused non-Muslims tend to accommodate and concede. But taqiyya only works on the ignorant.

Once enough of us have read the Quran, representatives who understand Islam will be voted into office and appropriate policy decisions will be proposed and endorsed.

But first, as many of us as possible need to read the Quran, starting with you.

So we have created a pledge site, and we're keeping it as simple as possible. We're going to push this as an international campaign to get non-Muslims everywhere to "take the Pledge" and read the Quran.

Please help us promote this in every way you can. Write to your favorite bloggers and urge them to put the pledge on their site or promote it in their sidebar. When you read comments by people on YouTube, Facebook, web sites or blogs — people who obviously know nothing about Islam — urge them to take the Pledge and read the Quran. Post links to the Pledge everywhere you can.

If you own a web site and you want to promote this pledge, you can put a graphic like the one on the left (or one of these) and link it to the pledge, or you can actually put the pledge on your site. We can provide you with the code. Since the pledge is hosted on a separate site, the interactive form and all the signatures and comments will appear on your site, appearing as if the pledge is yours. You can create your own preamble. Write to us for more information.

Let's convince everyone we know to take the pledge, and then let's convince them to convince everyone they know to take the pledge. Let's make it common knowledge that "reading the Quran just once will inoculate you and yours against taqiyya for the rest of your lives."

You can start right here and take the Pledge yourself: Sign the Pledge. If you've already read the Quran, please sign the pledge and in the comments, say what you learned.

We recommend a particular version of the Quran. It has only 203 pages and it is written in modern English. It contains all the information in the Quran without any repetition. And it gives you enough background information to understand what each passage is about. Perhaps most importantly, it is written in chronological order (this is important because of the principle of abrogation). The book is An Abridged Koran, published by CSPI. When you are done with this book, you will know what the Quran says.

If you want to make sure you have read every single verse of the Quran — repetition and all — the other version we recommend is A Simple Koran, also by CSPI.

If you don't have any money, or if you're in a hurry, or if you enjoy reading online, several complete versions of the Quran are available. Here are a few.

We've created a page on Facebook where we'll be posting reasons to read the Quran — not to convince you, but to help you convince your friends. If you become a friend of the page, you can share these reasons easily with your Facebook friends.

We've created several versions of this pledge, each for a different audience. This one is for a general audience. It has a neutral point of view. This one is for patriots. And this one is for young people who think the media and the government are in a conspiracy to destroy the world.

Because of the Ground Zero mosque controversy, a window of opportunity has opened, and we must sieze it. More people are curious about Islam than ever before. We must help them satisfy their curiosity with real information and prevent them from being lulled back to sleep with Muslim apologists like Karen Armstrong or John L. Esposito. Convince them there is nothing like source material, and you can't get closer to the core of Islam than reading the Quran.

We've come a long way in nine years. But let's make this next year reach a whole new level. Let's create an international movement to get hundreds of millions of non-Muslims to read the Quran. Then, armed with the facts, we will put a stop to Islam's relentless encroachment. Let us gather the forces of freedom and push back to regain liberties we've given up to appease or accomodate.

Many of us were awakened to Islam on September 11th, jarred awake by the senseless deaths of our fellow citizens. In a sense, their horrific murder served to arouse us from our slumber, and since then we have been groping our way out of ignorance. But the work is not complete.

We should now dedicate ourselves to "the great task remaining before us," as Abraham Lincoln once said. And let us vow "that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave" their lives. Let us now "resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain."

Let us bring forth a new birth of freedom. Let us fight with all our might to make sure human rights, women's rights, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion shall not perish from the earth.

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Graphics for Promoting the Pledge

PLEASE FIND a way to promote the international campaign to persuade non-Muslims to read the Quran. Learn more about the campaign here. Link one of the images below with one of the three pledge forms. We've created several versions of this pledge, each for a different audience. This one is for a general audience. It has a neutral point of view. This one is for patriots. And this one is for young people who think the media and the government are in a conspiracy to destroy the world.

If you click on any of the images below, Blogger will take you to a larger version of the image.

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