Essay On Terrorism

I'VE BEEN IMMERSED in reading about Islamic terrorism since September 11th. Up until then I was happily promoting my book (which doesn't have anything to do with terrorism), and speaking to organizations about what happens when you make certain mistakes in the way you think — it can make you feel helpless in situations where you are not actually helpless. And that reduces your ability to succeed at whatever you're trying to do.

Shortly after September 11th, I saw a lot of people feeling helpless about terrorism. So I've been studying the subject and building this web site, and I have finally decided to take my understanding and put the gist of it into one essay on terrorism. Here it is.

Let's begin at the beginning. The man who started the Islamic religion was Mohammad. He received revelations from Allah. The revelations were eventually bound into a book called the Koran (or Qur'an). This is now considered by Muslims everywhere to be the single most important book in their religion.
but isn't Islam about peace?

I have been reading the Koran, and reading a lot of books, both pro and con about the Koran, and my conclusion is: we have been misled. Islam is not exactly a religion of peace like everyone keeps saying it is. But apparently it is twisted and reinterpreted into a religion of peace by most of its followers. Luckily, most human beings are basically good, regardless of what religion they grew up with. I guess I should tell you up front I am not a Jew, a Christian, or a Muslim — I'm not a member of any religion or group — and I don't have any vested interest in bashing any of these religions or making them look good. This is an essay on terrorism, and I'm only bringing up religion because the Koran is being used as a manual by the most dangerous terrorist organizations in the world.

But you might be wondering — how can so many people say Islam is a peaceful religion? That is a good question, and it has an interesting answer.

Mohammad received his revelations over a period of twenty-three years. His earliest writings preached compassion, tolerance, and forgiveness. As Mohammad grew in power, his revelations changed. They contained more hatred, intolerance, and violence. So the Koran contains conflicting commands. According to Mark Gabriel in his book, Islam And Terrorism, Muslim scholars have figured out a way to handle the contradictions in the Koran. They've decided if two passages contradict each other, the later one is the correct one. I have since confirmed this from other sources.

Muslim scholars explain the many contradictory passages in the Koran by saying that Allah corrected errors as He went along, so of course the later ones should be followed when they contradict earlier passages. Unfortunately, the later passages are the most violent and intolerant.

According to Serge Trifkovic, PhD, the Koran says a Muslim must fight for Islam until the whole world submits to Allah. That is their wording: Submit. Voluntarily or by force. One of the meanings of Islam is peace. Another meaning is submission. If you submit to the will of Allah, you will have peace in your heart; if you get the whole world to submit to the will of Allah, you have peace in the world, according to the Koran.

The only reason we don't all know this already is that there are two groups who are actively promoting a positive impression of Islam. One group is made of genuinely good people who follow the commands to be tolerant and forgiving and peaceful. They want others to know the good things about Islam. They try to ignore or explain away the perfectly clear commands to "kill unbelievers wherever you find them." (Read more about the Koran here.)

According to Mark Gabriel, who was an Islamic scholar at the most respected Muslim University in Egypt, the other group who promotes a peaceful image of Islam is doing it for an entirely different reason. They are actively following the plan laid down in the Koran.

Here's the plan: First, where Muslims are a minority, they should build their numbers within the country by converting people (by preaching peace and tolerance) and having lots of babies. Then, as their numbers increase, they should start to prepare for an eventual overthrow of the government. And when the time is right, it is their duty as Muslims to rise up and establish an Islamic state.

Also included in the Koran are instructions for deceiving the unbelievers. So you will hear people who say "Islam is a religion of peace" who themselves are actively working toward the eventual violent takeover of a country.

According to Gabriel, deceiving the enemy is recommended in the Koran. An enemy is defined as a non-Muslim.

This information is not very nice. I hesitate to even share it. But if this is all true, it is enormously important. One thing that seems to lend credence to all this is that as soon as I read this stuff, many things I saw going on in the world started to make some sense for the first time. For example, it becomes clear why some people in Iraq are rebelling against the democratic activities there. Most people in Iraq want a democracy, they want freedom of speech, they want the power to create their own laws, and they want women to have human rights. Of course. They are human beings and want rights and liberties. But this is all incompatible with Islamic Law. So the "true believers" are doing everything they can to prevent a democracy from forming. And they are being supported by other true believers in Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. Those countries are sending soldiers, weapons, and money. Something similar has happened in many countries that tried to create a democracy.

In other words, the majority of Muslims want democracy and are willing to modify or update their holy book, or at least take it all with a grain of salt. A very intense and dedicated minority want to follow the Koran to the letter and these fundamentalists consider the more moderate Muslims to be traitors. Being a traitors are even worse than nonbelievers.

So the Islamists (as the fundamentalists are now being called) are at war with non-Muslims and with moderate Muslims.

For more information about this, I have selected some books and DVDs I recommend. But I'd like to add another recommendation: Read the Koran. It is not really difficult reading. The version I recommend is An Abridged Koran. Very informative. You can also read the Koran online.
what to do with this information

So now you know: The Koran is very explicit in its instructions to the faithful. Most Muslims try to ignore or explain away the violent and intolerant parts. But a sizable minority wants to fulfill the mission the Koran has given them: Make everyone on earth submit to Sharia law.

What good does it do to know this? The first thing you'll notice is that from now on, you'll hear terrorism news differently. It won't be as confusing as it used to be. It won't be as upsetting. This information allows you to make sense of what you see. And when you understand what you're looking at, you can make better decisions. That's true of your friends and family, too (if they knew this information). So the first thing you can do with this information is share it with others. Explore the links and resources on this blog and share it with others.

That is the most important thing you can do: Learn more and share it with your friends and family. The war against terrorism is a war of ideas and information as much as anything. The terrorists are very effectively manipulating the information we receive, so misleading information is already cluttering our minds.

How do terrorists manipulate the information we receive? In the book, The Two Faces of Islam: Saudi Fundamentalism and Its Role in Terrorism, Stephen Schwartz outlines what Saudi Arabia has done to control politics and the media in the United States. The Wahhabis (a sect of Islam that takes the Koran's teachings literally) is an amazingly wealthy group in Saudi Arabia, and they have opened hundreds of mosques in the United States.

They have also formed The Council On American-Islamic Relations, the American Muslim Council, the American Muslim Alliance, the Islamic Society of North America, and they have infiltrated and are exerting control over the Islamic Circle of North America, the Islamic Association for Palestine, and the Muslim Students Association. These are powerful lobbying and public relations organizations, providing speakers at rallies, providing "expert commentary" for the media, distributing literature, holding rallies, and influencing American politics.

These organizations influence what information makes it to the airwaves in the United States because they have established themselves with the media as "the voice of Islam in America." They are extremely well-funded by rich Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia. And they are well-organized, fully maximizing the freedom of speech and religion we enjoy in the free world. And they are taking advantage of the fact that most Westerners know almost nothing about Islam.

They are infiltrating and influencing everywhere they can. They have the money and manpower and they are effective as long as we don't know what's going on. Up until now, they've been making headway.

These propaganda groups, according to Schwartz, deliberately give us a false impression of Islam. Certain actions by Western governments are vigorously criticized, like deposing the Taliban in Afghanistan. The criticisms are coming from legitimate organizations as far as newspapers and television stations know — organizations that represent the Muslims in America, or so it seems. And their public relations campaign has helped to form a negative public opinion in Western countries of military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Obviously, it was not in the best interests of Islamic terrorism for the Taliban to be taken from power. It was a major setback for those who seek increasing Islamic domination. And the overthrow of Saddam is a prize opportunity to Islamic fundamentalists. Many Muslims with lots of money are focusing their attention on that country, trying to disrupt the forming of a democracy and they will continue to do so for as long as they can.

According to Trifkovic and Gabriel, any Muslim who tries to create a democratic country is a traitor to Islam and deserves to die. I am not exaggerating at all. According to the Koran, any man-made government (a democracy, for example) is not following the laws of Allah. Its laws are not divine — the laws are made by men, so it is sinful and must be destroyed, and any Muslim who tries to create a democracy must be punished by death (for betraying the goals of Allah). So the liberations of Afghanistan and Iraq have been hampered and criticized all along. Did you ever wonder why the Western media seemed so against the invasions when they were happening while public opinion polls showed so many voters were for it? Part of the problem is an already-existing media bias, but the other part is all the Muslim organizations in the U.S. and other democratic countries covertly trying to prevent democracies from forming in the Middle East.

The chapter on this (called Religious Colonialism) in Schwartz's book is well worth reading. Schwartz tells you exactly how the Wahhabis operate within the United States. .
can you really do anything?

What difference will it make to spread the word about the Koran? I think you'll be surprised. First notice what it does for you. You will feel more upset at first to discover such a large and horrible goal in the minds of a lot of fundamentalist Muslims — a goal that seeks to take away human rights and freedoms.

But then you'll start to feel less upset. And you'll be less confused by what seem to be conflicting messages. You will be able to listen with more understanding. When a large number of us are clear about what's going on, our collective decisions will be more appropriate — more fitting with the reality of our situation. When the difficult national decisions need to be made, we will make better decisions. We won't unwittingly support self-defeating policies.

A much broader benefit will result from this. Right now all the genuinely peace-loving Muslims have been promoting peace but also sticking to the idea — publicly — the the Koran is infallible, that it is the absolute word of Allah. That is the heart of the problem. Kids grow up in an atmosphere that gives the Koran absolute authority, and when some of those young men read the whole book, they think, "Hey, we're not following all the commands, and we should," and they go join Osama to fight the unbelievers (as it is commanded in no uncertain terms by Allah). Read more about the incredible power of authority here.

As this information becomes more widely known, more and more Muslims will have the courage to say, "The Koran is not perfect." That will weaken the holy war idea. The same thing happened with Christianity. During the dark ages, the Christian Bible was considered infallible. This made the Crusades and the Inquisition possible. You have to be certain about something before you're willing to torture and kill people. Then came the Reformation. When the general population started looking at the Bible as a collection of stories — some of it good and some of it out of date or whatever — the number of people willing to kill in its name diminished. Now it is a very small minority of Christians.

That needs to happen to Muslims too, and it is ripe to happen. Moderate Muslims are tired of living under the suppression of religious governments and dictators.

It will take courage for Muslims to publicly declare the Koran is not perfect. The Koran provided itself with its own protection, as any good memeplex does. The Koran commands its believers to kill anyone who criticizes the Koran.

As it is now, if the Koran is perfect and it says, "you must follow these teachings to the letter" and it says "make war on all unbelievers until they submit to Islam," can you see how that might be a problem?

Remember I told you that when I first started this web site I was mainly interested in reducing the helplessness people feel in the face of terrorism. That was one of my only areas of expertise. What about you? Do you feel helpless about terrorism? Do you feel you have any influence over world events? Over terrorism? Or do you think you are not important enough to make any difference? Do you think something you do could help reduce terrorism?

If you feel helpless to alter events, you need to have your head examined. By yourself. You need to examine your own head. It isn't very hard to do, and it will not only help you feel empowered to do something about terrorism, it will give you real power and greater effectiveness in the rest of your life too. Start here.

Read what an ex-Muslim wanted the West to know.

Read a review of a DVD called Islam: What The West Needs To Know.

Editor's Note: If you are a peace-loving Muslim and feel offended by the information above and want to enlighten us about the "true" (and entirely peaceful) nature of Islam, please read this: A Message to Peaceful Muslims.

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Terrorism Book

Below is a detailed review of a terrorism book entitled Islam And Terrorism by Mark A. Gabriel. If I could recommend only one terrorism book, this is the one I would choose. It has more authentic authority on this subject than any other book I've found.

Islam and Terrorism

Mark A. Gabriel, was born and raised in Egypt. He had memorized and could recite the entire Koran word-for-word by the time he was 12 years old. At the most respected university in the Islamic world, Al-Azhar, he earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees there studying Islamic history. If you want an author with enough knowledge to write an authoritative Islamic terrorism book, this is the man.

After his education, he was a teaching professor at Al-Azhar and he was also the imam of a mosque in Giza, Egypt. He knew the Koran very well, and the contradictions in it began to bother him. Some passages of the Koran preach peace and tolerance. Some passages preach violence and discrimination. That isn't necessarily a problem except for the fact that in a Muslim society like Egypt, everybody treats the Koran as if it is perfect in every way and the absolute word of Allah.

Gabriel was told to preach only the nice passages. But even when only the compassionate verses are voiced in public, some people will read the whole book and because the society gives the book so much authority, some young men will feel compelled to follow all of Allah's commands. That's where Islamic terrorism has its roots. As far as these young idealists are concerned, their holy book is a terrorism book. It is a manual to follow.

Islam and Terrorism is very clear and easy to read. It is full of excellent, authoritative information. For a terrorism book, the only drawback for someone with no religious affiliation (like me for example), is that the author is a born-again Christian. I think he still presents the Muslim world fairly, based on my reading of other works. But he is justifiably merciless with the Koran and the way the extremists use Islam for destruction. Gabriel himself was brutally tortured by his own government for suggesting to a student that the Koran may not be perfect.

I'm reading the Koran now and it is a book like no other religious book I've ever read. One of its 114 chapters is titled: The Spoils of War. It definitely has a strong element of war and killing. In the Islamic faith you have "no guarantee of Paradise even if you do good works all your life," wrote Gabriel, "It all depends on what Allah decides." There is only one way a Muslim man can guarantee he will enter Paradise: Die fighting for Islam. "If you die in jihad," wrote Gabriel, "you don't even have to go to the grave and wait for judgment; you go directly to Paradise...This is why you see Muslims leaving their own nations to fight jihad in other countries." Gabriel's terrorism book answered all the questions I had. For example:
What is Islam's ultimate goal?
Do all Muslims believe in jihad?
If the Koran has so much violence and hatred in it, why do you hear it described as a religion of peace? What about those great quotes from the Koran?
Is Islam compatible with democracy?
Why is there so much resistance and revolt in the Islamic world?
Does the Koran justify the killing of civilians?
Why are terrorists targeting Europe and the United States?

And a question I've formed since I've started reading terrorism books is: What do devout Muslims do with the Koran's contradictions? For example, in some passages, women don't have to cover themselves, and in some passages they must. How does a good Muslim know which command to follow? Islamic scholars have made their decision: When two passages contradict each other, the later revelation overrides the earlier one. The earlier passage says women don't have to cover themselves, but a later passage says they do, so they must cover themselves. Case closed.

This explains why a Muslim can say, "The Koran teaches peace," and yet a terrorist can justify his actions by quoting violent passages from the Koran. Both kinds of passages are in there.

Why? Why are there both kinds? Because Mohammed started out writing very tolerant, compassionate verses. At that time Islam was a minority. They had no power. Mohammed was trying to gain converts without arousing too much opposition from the rulers of the city. Later, when he became the undisputed leader of a large group, his writings became more militant and intolerant. Here's one of the later verses from the Koran:
Fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them, and seize them, surround them, and lie in wait for them.

Of course, if they convert to Islam, Mohammed recommends you cease fighting and stop slaying them. According to Gabriel, sixty percent of the verses in the Koran are about jihad, and they are almost all passages written later in Mohammed's life.

"The focus of jihad," wrote Gabriel, "is to overcome people who do not accept Islam." This includes people who try to leave Islam. (Read more about that here.) Check out this passage from the Koran:
Those who reject Islam must be killed. If they turn back from Islam, take hold of them and kill them wherever you find them.

Okay, so what? Lots of books recommend violence. Even religious books. What makes the Koran unique is its political aspirations. "Jihad is carried out," writes Gabriel, "in order to achieve the ultimate goal of Islam — to establish Islamic authority over the whole world. Islam is not just a religion; it is a government, too." That is what makes Islam seem incompatible with democracy. And that's also why such a large percentage of Middle Eastern countries are Muslim. At one time, those countries were conquered and the population was forced to convert to Islam. Islamic governments were created that enforced the practice of Islam. Everybody had to do it (pray five times a day, cover their women, etc.), except Christians and Jews. Sometimes they were allowed to practice their own religion if they paid a special tax.

Over time, rich Christians and Jews paid their taxes. The rest of them either converted to Islam or left the country. So now we have countries where the people are almost all Muslim and the government is run according to Islamic law. Unfortunately that includes legally sanctioned discrimination against women and non-Muslims, and a general lack of human rights and freedom of religion.

But wait a minute. Things aren't as bleak as they seem. People everywhere desire freedom. So the citizens of Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Palestine, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, etc., have tried to create non-religious governments. But a non-Islamic government is an outrage to those who think the Koran is a book of direct commands from Allah. So there is a lot of revolt and fighting and killing. Jihad. Any Muslim who tries to create a non-Islamic government is a traitor to Islam according to these believers (and according to the Koran itself), so fighting their own governments is fighting for Islam in their minds.

influencing the media

Shooting people is not the only way to wage a holy war. Lots of oil money from the Middle East finds its way into the U.S. and Europe — building mosques, printing literature, funding organizations, paying staff to do nothing but contact the media and talk to groups. They get on television when they can, talking about how Islam is a religion of peace. And lobbying for Muslim rights. And arousing negative public opinion against anyone who says something negative about Islam.

And they keep gaining converts. The Muslim population is increasing — even in the free world.

Deceit is not a sin in Islam if it is in the service of jihad. After September 11th, mosques and Islamic institutes in America posted signs saying "God Bless America" and "United We Stand." "In all fairness," says Gabriel, some Muslims "really did support America at this time. But other Muslims were doing what was simply expedient at the moment. They are a good example of Islamic politics in non-Islamic lands. These Muslims will lie and say things they do not believe at any moment as long as doing so would help Islam. Their loyalty is to Islam, not to the nation where they are living."

In the philosophy of Islam, countries and boundaries don't really matter. "In Islamic law there are only two types of nations — a nation that is of the house of Islam or a nation that is of the house of war," writes Gabriel, "Any good Muslim who is living according to Allah's law and the Quran will never choose loyalty to their citizenship over loyalty to Islam." A true follower of Islam thinks his job as a believer is to make the whole world Muslim. Islam is his nation.

I recently watched a documentary made in 1993 showing Islamic organizations in the United States raising money for humanitarian causes like children, refugees, and hospitals, but the money was really paying for guns and plastic explosives. These humanitarian organizations were a front to fund terrorism. Kind-hearted American citizens gave money, thinking they were helping poor children, but actually they were paying for weapons to be used against American citizens. This lends evidence to what Gabriel says in his book — if someone is following the instructions in the Koran, fooling unbelievers and using trickery is perfectly legitimate. This is war.

human rights

Gabriel writes, "Islam does not acknowledge or respect human rights, women's rights or democracy. All these are Western ideas from infidels; therefore Muslims do not acknowledge them." This is probably an overstatement, but what do I know? I live in the United States. Gabriel was born and raised in Egypt as a Muslim and has a degree in Islamic history from a Muslim university.

Freedom of speech isn't well tolerated by Islamic states. That's an understatement. Places like Iran and Saudi Arabia, where they really try to follow the Koran to the letter, are extremely, unbelievably intolerant of free speech. The leader of Iran is the one who threatened Salman Rushdie with death when Rushdie's book, The Satanic Verses, was published. And Rushdie didn't even live in Iran.

Gabriel quotes the founder of Pakistan's fundamentalist movement, Mawdudi, who wrote,
Islam is not a normal religion like the other religions in the world, and Muslim nations are not like normal nations. Muslim nations are very special because they have a command from Allah to rule the entire world and to be over every nation in the world.
Islam is a revolutionary faith that comes to destroy any government made by man.

The goal of Islam is to rule the entire world and submit all of mankind to rule by Islamic law. Any nation or power in this world that tries to get in the way of that goal, Islam will fight and destroy.

One of the most interesting chapters of Gabriel's book is called The Three Stages of Jihad. These stages are spelled out in the Koran. In the first stage, when Muslims are a small minority in the country, they work to increase their numbers. So they preach love and compassion, hand out literature, try to convert others, have lots of babies, help their Muslim relatives immigrate from other countries — whatever increases the number of Muslims in the new country.

The second stage comes when they are still a minority but gaining some influence. At this stage, they make preparations for eventual conflict. They build up their money, their political clout, their connections, and their equipment, while trying not to let the unbelievers know what they're up to.

The third stage is open conflict. "This stage," wrote Gabriel, "is when Muslims are a minority with strength, influence and power. At this stage every Muslim's duty is to actively fight the enemy, overturning the system of the non-Muslim country and establishing Islamic authority."

That is the formula for the gradual takeover of a country. The plan is already in operation in most countries of the world.

There are three ways for Muslims to seize control of a government. One is the gradual way above. The second way is for a powerful Islamic state to wage war on the non-Muslim country, defeat it and submit it to Islamic law. The third way is to do what Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran are now doing in Iraq — sending men, weapons, and money into an unstable country, and trying everything possible to make the new government an Islamic one.

Lying and deceit are acceptable in war, according to the Koran. This is something that perplexes Westerners and makes Islam difficult to understand because most people in the free world don't realize that in Islam, war is a religious activity. War is an act of worship. So lying to the enemy is not at all immoral. All is fair in war.

With their influence on the media, and their enthusiasm for deceiving, terrorists have successfully buffaloed and confused the majority of Europeans and Americans. That's why I urge you to help make this information widespread in the West. When a lot of people understand what the terrorists are doing, it reduces their effectiveness.

Gabriel writes, "Muslims are very good at presenting themselves as loving, caring and forgiving people. They compromise any conflict between the image they want to present and what they truly believe...They get along with Christians and Jews as if they were brothers. They present Islam to these countries as the answer to all humanity's problems. These Westernized Muslims present their religion as if it stands for mercy, freedom, fairness and reconciliation. They portray Islam as a religion that does not show prejudice to any race or culture."

Another thing that baffles Westerners is Muslims' use of mosques for storing weapons. But that's because we think a mosque is basically like a church or temple. It serves a different function in Islamic practice because jihad is one of the most important practices of Islam. Using a mosque to support jihad is perfectly acceptable to Muslim fundamentalists. It is not profane at all. In fact, it is a good and holy use of a mosque. It's an added bonus for the jihadists that Western soldiers are so reluctant to bomb a place of worship.

Islamic revolution

Islam is a revolutionary religion. The Koran commands its faithful to take over governments. In the Sudan, an Islamic extremist — Al Turabi — has succeeded in gaining power. The main resistance he got was from a Christian minority in south Sudan. "Al Turabi is getting rid of them," says Gabriel, "Al-Turabi is slaughtering the Christians, cutting off their hands and legs, injecting them with the HIV virus — just as Islam taught him. He is showing the world what Islam will to to Christians if it can."

No, it does not say in the Koran to inject infidels with HIV. Or at least I haven't gotten to that part yet. But it does say to cut off one arm and the opposite leg.

Algeria had an election in 1991 and by tricky maneuvering, the Islamic Salvation Front won the election. But everybody knew what would happen if they were allowed to take power. So the military shut down the election. The country erupted in violence and more than 150,000 people were killed to prevent Islamic fundamentalists from taking over the government. These are Muslims fighting to prevent the takeover. It is moderate Muslims who want to practice the peaceful parts of the Koran and ignore the violent and intolerant parts — it is those moderate Muslims fighting the extremist Muslims.

This is an insight into the true nature of the situation — not all Muslims want to follow the Koran to the letter. They were born and raised Muslim. They had no choice about that. Most Muslims want to live in peace, just like the rest of their fellow human beings. They want human rights, and they are willing to fight their fellow Muslims to earn it, so don't get too demoralized by these insights into Islam.

Gabriel said something has changed in Islamic movements. They used to think they should first take over their own government, then use it as a base to take over other governments. That is Iran's philosophy. But the extremists have encountered so much resistance in countries like Egypt that they have changed their strategy. They decided to go for a worldwide jihad. "They decided to go after the 'head' rather than the 'hands,'" writes Gabriel, "The head was identified by its political policies. America and Europe supported Egypt to destroy Islamic sects; America supported Iraq to fight the fundamentalists of the Iranian revolution; and America is still supporting Israel to fight Palestine."

America is the head, and that's who they're targeting now. And now you know why.

Read Islam and Terrorism and then loan it out to your friends. Send this article to them. Let's get the word out about what's going on. This is not a few nutcases we can simply arrest. This is a global movement, driven by the religious fervor of a well-established religion, supported by lots of oil money and many national governments (Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, etc.). The free world will not be able to deal effectively with it until a large percentage of our population knows what we're dealing with. One way you can help is to get the word out. Sooner is better than later.

If you feel you aren't an important enough person to make a difference, the first thing you need to do is correct your mistaken assumption. Start here.

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Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

Someone sent around photos the other day of a female tiger that was nursing a bunch of piglets that were dressed up as baby tigers. And at the end of the email, it said, "Why can't the rest of us get along?"

The email had been sent out to lots of people, and one woman replied, and I thought it was a great response. Here's what she said:

Well, since you asked, the rest of the world can't get along because there are people like the Islamists, who think God wants them to kill anyone who doesn't believe the way they do. As long as there are people (usually men) who are so damn sure they know the will of God that they are willing to create hell on earth to achieve heaven after death, well, there will never be any peace on Earth except when the good guys hold enough power to stop them.

In short, you can't get along with people who don't want to get along with you.

Happy Veterans Day... and I'm thankful for every damn one of them!

It is easy for almost everyone to get along with almost everyone. But all you need is a few who aren't interested in getting along, and you've got a situation to deal with. And it seems likely, given how many people are on the planet and how many kinds of people there are, that there will always be at least some people who will not get along. It's a bummer, but it would be hard to argue with the truth of it.

The best we can do is cooperate with the cooperators and limit the influence of the non-cooperators as much as we can.

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The Cause Of Terrorism

WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF TERRORISM? Read the short answer here. I've been trying to find an answer to that question since September 11th. I started CitizenWarrior.com shortly after the towers came down. I wanted to create a clearinghouse for information related to the cause of terrorism and have gotten a tremendous amount of help from people all over the world. I've studied everything relevant I could get my hands on. But an enormous clarity arrived when I read the book, The Sword of the Prophet: Islam; History, Theology, Impact on the World, If there is one book that can give you a clear understanding of the cause of terrorism — especially the cause of Islamic terrorism — it is this book.

The author is Serge Trifkovic, PhD, who was a broadcaster and producer with the BBC World Service and the Voice of America. He has seen a lot and gotten inside stories of world events. And then he turned his knowledge, experience, and intelligence to the question: What is the cause of terrorism?

What he discovered is really surprising, or at least it was to me. According to him, the holy book of the Muslims contains explicit directions for its faithful followers to wage unending war against nonbelievers. (This is also something several other writers have said, including an ex-Muslim, which you can read here.) I am not an expert on Islam, but if what these people are saying is true, it explains much of what seems confusing about world events, and would be important for people in the free world to know.

"Killing or, in the case of Jews and Christians, enslaving and robbing them, was not only divinely sanctioned but mandated," reports Trifkovic. But, he says, Muslims will tell you in public this is not true. So who should you believe?

You could read the Koran yourself. Then you wouldn't have to believe anybody. Just read the book and decide for yourself. You can read the Koran online. If Trifkovic is right, the cause of terrorism isn't a secret. The source book is published and available and terrorists have even told us where we can find it. They quote the Koran constantly. You can literally go down to your local bookstore and get one. At my local bookstore they have eleven English versions of the book for sale. These are not anti-Muslim copies. They are for the faithful followers of Allah. I bought one and I've been reading it. I have found no contradictions with Trifkovic. He seems to be telling the truth about the Koran.

According to many writers, not only is Trifkovic correct, but Muslims will tell you otherwise because that is also commanded in the Koran. Deceiving unbelievers about your intentions is fair in war, and Islam is apparently always at war with unbelievers.

One thing I've noticed is that the Koran is not vague. The writings are not couched in metaphors or stories, like many other religious books. It was written by a single author and is very straightforward. And all the English translations are almost identical.

If all this is true, this should be frightening to the free world. Apparently, the reason none of us non-Muslims know this stuff is that a group of dedicated Muslims have carefully manipulated the way Islam is presented by the media in the free world. (Read more about that in the book, The Two Faces of Islam: Saudi Fundamentalism and Its Role in Terrorism, by Stephen Schwartz.) This is apparently one of their tactics of war: Fooling the enemy and misrepresenting Islam's intentions until it is too late.

Islamic terrorists know their enemy very well. They have used the free world's respect for all religions and our belief in freedom of religion against us. They have used our commitment to free speech and human rights against us. They know us very well, but most of us don't know anything about them. In a very real sense, our ignorance is the cause of terrorism. Islamic terrorists have been able to wage their holy war on our soil because of our ignorance of what they're doing. And the most important thing you can do to remove the cause of terrorism is to remove the ignorance — in other words, share what you know with people (and this article).

Obviously, the answer is not to wage war against all Muslims. The majority of Muslims are peace-loving people who ignore and explain away the Koran's commands to make war on unbelievers. According to one Muslim author, Irshad Manji in her book, The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith, what needs to happen is for the majority of these moderate Muslims to publicly admit the Koran isn't perfect. Once that becomes an established fact, the cause of terrorism will be substantially weakened. She says the absolute authority of the Koran is what sustains the terrorists' fervor. That is exactly what sustained the Christians in their Crusades and Inquisitions. As long as nobody says the emperor wears no clothes — as long as people can't admit their holy book is not perfect (not the absolute word of God) — people can kill with holy zeal. It looks like that is the cause of terrorism ultimately.

This doesn't get the West off the hook about other things. We need to stop supporting non-democratic governments, for example. And we need to continue supporting the spread of women's rights and human rights and democratic freedoms around the world. But that is not the cause of terrorism. If the free world remained ignorant of the source of the terrorists' holy zeal (unaware that their religious book is political in nature and recommends doing away with unbelievers), we would still be blind, and all our efforts to satisfy terrorists' "demands" would only strengthen their cause, not weaken it.source of the confusion

You hear the terrorists quoting the Koran so you think the Koran must be about killing unbelievers. Then you hear moderate Muslims quote the Koran and it sounds like the book is about compassion and forgiveness. Why does the Koran offer conflicting quotations? Most Americans, I think, write it off by saying, "Well the Bible contains conflicting quotes too." And that is definitely true. Perhaps it is true of any large collection of writings. But the Koran is different than the Bible in a way I think non-Muslims should be aware of. The Bible was written by many different people at many different times. The Koran, however, was written entirely by a single author.

So the question is, why would a single author put conflicting passages in his book?

Here's how it happened. First understand that the Koran is a collection of the revelations Mohammad received from the angel Gabriel who was giving Mohammad Allah's message. When Mohammad first received his revelations, they were full of compassion and love and peace and goodwill. At that time Mohammad lived in Mecca, a large city. The population of Mecca didn't immediately convert to Islam in large numbers. A few did, but the rulers of Mecca didn't really like any threats to their authority, so they gave Mohammad a lot of trouble. Mohammad eventually moved with a few of his followers to another city. There Mohammad was able to gain a larger following. He eventually ruled that city and then made war on Mecca and eventually ruled Mecca too.

Meanwhile, the revelations kept coming. Until Mohammad died, he would get a revelation every once in awhile. After his death they were all bound into a book. That's the Koran. As Mohammad gained power, the revelations changed in nature. They were more about conquering and ruling and less about tolerance and compassion. That's why in a single book written by one man you find conflicting passages. Ideally, the way believers would handle the conflict is to simply take what is best and leave the rest. That is what most Muslims do, although they probably feel guilty about it since the Koran is supposed to be the undisputed, perfect word of Allah, and it is a sin to think otherwise (that is apparently also written in the Koran, although I haven't gotten to that part yet).

The head religious men of Islam have an official policy for handling the many conflicting passages in the Koran, according to Mark Gabriel (who was a university professor of Islamic history in Egypt). The Islamic religious leaders don't deny that there are conflicting passages in the Koran. They say, "Where two passages conflict, the later one overwrites the earlier one." That is the consensus of the Islamic scholars, according to Mark Gabriel. If this is true, it is bad news because it means that the authorities have said essentially, the intolerant, jihad-oriented passages overwrite the verses you hear quoted by the moderate Muslims in the media. Yes, the Koran says those things. They are quoting accurately, but those quotes are not valid when they are overruled by a later quote that nullifies them.

In the earlier passages, which Mohammad wrote while still in Mecca, you'll find words of tolerance and respect for Jews and Christians (but for nobody else except fellow Muslims). Later passages are, according to these authors, filled with hatred and vengeance on Jews and Christians. Now the Muslims themselves who are waging jihad against the West use those earlier, peaceful, tolerant passages to hide their intentions, to throw our population off their scent, to introduce confusion while secretly committing hate crimes, just as Mohammad did, against Jews especially and Christians secondarily. Or actually first against people who are none of those three religions.

In the book, The Sword of the Prophet, Trifkovic writes about a battle in the city of Medina at the time of Mohammad. The Muslims were victorious and Mohammad offered the men conversion to Islam as an alternative to death; upon their refusal, up to 900 were decapitated at the ditch, in front of their women and children." The revelations in the Koran were changing at this time, and they justified the destruction of the Jews.

I'm not a Jew or a Christian. I have no vested interest in saying one religion is better than another. But I'm an American, and the content of the Koran, at least in the hands of fanatical believers, seems to be dangerous to our freedom and well-being. As long as we remain ignorant of this possibility, we are vulnerable because we won't protect ourselves as they infiltrate our country and pour their oil money into "Muslim public relations." Meanwhile their numbers within our borders grow, and the situation becomes increasingly worrisome.

In the Koran, a later passage says, "When we decide to destroy a population, we send a definite order to them who have the good things in life and yet transgress; so that Allah's word is proved true against them: then we destroy them utterly."

The Koran is considered by many people in the Middle East as the perfect, absolute word of the Creator. What does a true believer do with a clear command like this?

You saw what they will do on September 11th. "Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them." So says the Koran. "So let it be so," say many (but thankfully not all) of its followers.

In his book, Trifkovic gives you the quotes from the Koran and he tells you where you can find the quotes. Each passage of the Koran is numbered, like the Christian Bible, so you can easily verify the quotations. The Koran is available to read online. Here are some quotes from the Koran from some of the chapters I've read online. These sites are not anti-Muslim propaganda. They are simply Muslim sites for regular Muslims. The material is easy enough to read to confirm for yourself. And when you do, please share it with your friends and family. Get the word out.

If your friends are good people, and I have no reason to believe they aren't, they will say something like, "Yes, but Christians have committed atrocities in the name of God too, using the Bible to justify their actions." Defending any religion is a natural, knee-jerk response from the good people of a tolerant society when they hear a religion being criticized. Test this out. Tell some of your friends about the violent passages of the Koran and you'll hear them defend it.

You can respond something like this: "That's true. And now the great majority of people in free countries don't consider the Bible to be the literal Word of God. So the Bible can't be used the same way any more. It takes a high degree of certainty before people are willing to slaughter others. What needs to happen now is for everyone, including Muslims worldwide, to go on a campaign to get everyone to accept the Koran is not perfect either. Then when a child is raised Muslim, he won't give the book as much authority in his life, which will allow him to choose the healthier quotes from that book and ignore the violent ones."

I have found one Muslim who has been willing to do that. It is a start. She needs to be supported so others will find the courage to do so. Here is her web site. By the way, the reason it takes courage, even for someone in a free country is that the Koran apparently orders its believers to kill anyone who criticizes the Koran. Mark Gabriel said that in a predominately Muslim society such as Egypt, it is very dangerous to say anything slightly indicating the Koran may not be perfect.

So a Muslim willing to say publicly the Koran is not perfect is a brave soul who deserves our support and admiration and protection. Help this admission spread around the world until the certainty and finality of the Koran is reduced. The primary cause of Islamic terrorism is that certainty.

If you feel you have no power to alter world events, that is a mistake in your thinking that needs to be corrected. Start here.
muslim propaganda

In researching any topic, I try to read books from all angles, so I've read lots of pro-Muslim books and articles — and probably most of them are by good people. For the most part they completely ignore the violence lurking in the Koran, pretending it isn't there. I don't think that is helpful. That ends up helping terrorists, even if that isn't the author's intention. For example, they say Islam means "peace." But the combination of the letters "slm" means submission, protection, safety, security, peace, and surrender. In most of the Muslim writings I have come across, they most often define Islam as "submission to the will of Allah," and, according to many of the authors I've been talking about, it also means "getting all others in the world to submit to the law of Allah (Sharia)."

It is part of Muslim propaganda in the West to say things like, "Islam is totally against violence. The word Islam itself means 'peace.' Islam is a religion of tolerance and compassion." Haven't you heard this? Yes, the Saudi-funded Muslims within our borders have flooded the airwaves with this stuff. It's part of a huge public relations campaign (read more about that below).

The situation is similar to the publication of Hitler's book, Mein Kampf. The Koran is nothing like Hitler's book and the two cannot be compared, but the free world's response to it is identical. Hitler outlined his plans while he was in jail. He published it as a book, telling the whole world what he intended to do. Hardly anyone in America or England or Poland or France or Russia read it. After he had built his war machine and was invading other countries, then people read it and found out Hitler was doing what he said he would do. The free world has the same situation now with the Koran.

The Koran is available for anyone to read. Have you read it? Do you know anyone who has? Neither do I. And yet people who say they are following its plan have declared war on Western democracies. That's why I think the cause of terrorism is mostly our own ignorance.

"Does our tolerant and democratic way of life contain within itself the seeds of its own destruction?" asks Ambassador James Bissett. "Should organized intolerance be tolerated?" This is from the introduction to The Sword of the Prophet. "This book," writes Bissett, "chastises the 'opinion-forming elite' for its role in pretending that Islam does not present a serious problem." (You can see examples of world leaders doing just that in the DVD, Islam: What the West Needs to Know).

The book makes it perfectly clear that Islam does present a serious problem. Most of us, I think, have had the feeling it did. But we've been encouraged to deny our intuition by the Muslim propaganda machine, and by genuinely peaceful Muslims trying to defend their faith. (Read here a list of the ongoing acts of war committed against the free world in the name of Islam.)

Good people who are not Muslims have accidentally helped the cause of terrorism by giving us the impression terrorists are a few crazy extremists who have distorted or reinterpreted the Koran to suit their bloody ends. According to Trifkovic, Christian and Jewish believers feel that Muslims are also believers and that there is something inherently good about being a believer. Trifkovic writes,Exactly the same sentiment drives President Bush's advisor on Islam, a professor at Cleveland-Marshal College of Law, David Forte. He speaks no Arabic and readily admits that he merely "dabbles" in Islamic jurisprudence. Nevertheless, his conviction that Islamic terrorists and Muslim aggressors are, by definition, heretics and not the "real" Muslims has been fully internalized by the president, whose speeches seem to pluck whole phrases from Forte's writings.
...[Forte's] view, however erroneous, boils down to the conviction that believers, no matter their denomination, are better people than nonbelievers, and that a religious outlook — any religious outlook — is preferable to the nihilistic wastelands of postmodern secularism.

If it is true that Islam is inherently a political danger to democracies, Dave Forte's and President Bush's points of view are dangerous. Consider this: Mohammed said the three most important actions a man could take are:

1. Faith

2. War in the path of Allah

3. A blameless pilgrimage to Mecca

Some of the Muslim propaganda says that jihad is an inner struggle against one's own sins. Trifkovic says this interpretation came about much later in the evolution of Islam, after they were almost finished conquering the known world. There is so much in the Koran about waging war, it is obviously an important act of worship, and the devout — searching for a way to wage jihad but without any enemies to fight at the time — came up with the "inner struggle" interpretation. But you have to really stretch your imagination to make the following passages from the Koran mean anything except killing real people:Kill those who join other gods with Allah wherever you may find them.
I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, strike off their heads then, and strike off from them every fingertip.
Let those fight in the cause of Allah who barter the life of this world for that which is to come; for whoever fights on Allah's path, whether he is killed or triumphs, we will give him a handsome reward.
Believers! Make war on the unbelievers who dwell around you. Let them find harshness in you.
O Prophet! Exhort the believers to fight. If there are twenty steadfast men among you, they shall vanquish two hundred; and if there are a hundred, they shall rout a thousand unbelievers, for they are devoid of understanding.
When you meet unbelievers in the battlefield, strike off their heads and when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly.
If you should die or be killed in the cause of Allah, His mercy and forgiveness would surely be better than all the riches that amass. If you should die or be killed, before Him you shall all be gathered.

These are not interpretations from anti-Muslim sources. These are the passages any reader anywhere in the world reads when they read the words of their Prophet. And yet, whenever I hear from a Muslim, they always tell me "Islam is a religion of peace."

The overall message is to make war on unbelievers until the whole world has submitted to Islam. Then there will be peace, I guess. The explicit command is to overthrow man-made governments (read "democracies") and establish Islamic states, and then turn on neighboring countries and make war on them until you turn those countries into Islamic states. Keep going until the world is conquered. That is apparently one's duty as a follower of Muhammad if you read the Koran and take it to heart.

"Between Muhammad's death and the second siege of Vienna," writes Trifkovic, "just over a thousand years later, Islam expanded — at first very rapidly, then intermittently — at the expense of everything and everyone in the way of its warriors. Unleashed as a militant faith of a nomadic war band, Islam turned its boundary with the outside world into a perpetual war zone."

One of the primary barriers to the Islamic takeover of the world has been the Western powers, most specifically, the United States. America supported Egypt in its attempt to keep the terrorists from seizing control of their democratic (man-made) government. America supported Iraq in its fight against the invasion of the Islamic state, Iran. So the "Islamists" (the Muslims who want to carry out the plan in the Koran) have turned their attention to the United States and all its allies, violently attacking U.S. citizens and now the citizens of Iraq who are trying to create a democracy. And perhaps more devastating in the long run, the fanatic Islamists are launching a propaganda campaign to disarm us — emotionally and politically — so we cannot defend ourselves against the relentless push for Islamic domination.

I wish none of this was true. Maybe all these authors are merely fanatics themselves, but since I have started understanding what they are saying, many world events that never made sense before now make complete sense. I have a strong suspicion Trifkovic may be right. Let's explore this together. Talk to your family and friends. Read. Learn. Share web sites and, and write to us here via email, and leave your comments below. The contents of the Koran may be a threat to our survival only as long as we don't know it is.

Editor's Note: If you are a peace-loving Muslim and feel offended by the information above and want to enlighten us about the "true" (and entirely peaceful) nature of Islam, please read this: A Message to Peaceful Muslims.

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What About The History Of Western Colonialism In The Islamic World?

The following is one chapter of Islam 101:

Following the defeat of the Ottoman army outside Vienna on September 11, 1683 by Polish forces, Islam went into a period of strategic decline in which it was overwhelmingly dominated by the European powers. Much of dar al-Islam was colonized by the European powers who employed their superior technology and exploited the rivalries within the Muslim world to establish colonial rule.

While many of the practices of the Western imperial powers in the governance of their colonies were clearly unjust, it is utterly unwarranted to regard Western imperialism — as it often is — as an endemic criminal enterprise that is the basis of modern resentment against the West. It was only due to the assertive role of the Western powers that modern nation-states such as India, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa, Zimbabwe, etc. came to exist in the first place. Without Western organization, these areas would have likely remained chaotic and tribal as they had existed for centuries.

When one looks at the post-colonial world, it is apparent that the most successful post-colonial nations have a common attribute: they are not Muslim. The United States, Australia, Hong Kong, Israel, India, and the South American nations clearly outshine their Muslim-majority post-colonial counterparts — Iraq, Algeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, etc. — by just about any standard.

[ return to the Table of Contents of Islam 101 ]

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.

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