And now - who is right??
Reader comment on article: What is Jihad?

Submitted by Dr med Michael G Koch (Sweden), Sep 21, 2007 at 06:16

(My comment:) And now, who is right?? (20.9.2007)

It is now proven by all these comments on Daniel Pipes ‘What is Jihad?', from USA, Finland, Pakistan and Bahrein: There is definitely no real accord, no ‘harmonic agreement' about the meaning of ‘jihad'. How come? Read the comments – brains function different, some very good, some fairly, some mediocre, some poorly – and some not at all. So how find out where the truth is? Is there a truth or shall we give up?

Look for a pragmatic realist, who is methodically skilled and experienced. He can show the way to find out even in cases of strong dissent. Recently there was a brilliant interview av Jamie Glazov (FrontPageMagazine.com – 5.2. 2007) with Bill Warner, the director of the CSPI, the Center for the Study of Political Islam. CSPI's goal is to teach the doctrine of political Islam through its own holy and half-holy books (Koran, Sira, Hadith), that means, based exclusively on what Islam's own basic text sources say.

Now what do you find, if you assess the whole accessible scripture? Here are some answers to the great quest:

If the arguments go back and forth, the answer must be statistically confirmed or at least strongly supported. The first crucial fact is that the Koran, due to a terribly confusing mixture by Uthman, actually consists of two books, intertwined with each other: the Koran of Mecca (early) and the Koran of Medina (later). This insight into the logic of the Koran explains the large numbers of contradictions and iterations in it. But in the skew logic of Islam (like in the dialectical materialism of Marx) both sides of the contradiction can be assumed to be true at the same time. The particular circumstances govern which alternative is preferred and chosen for the time being.

For example: (Koran of Mecca) 73:10: "Listen to what they [unbelievers] say with patience, and leave them with dignity."

From this tolerance we move to the ultimate intolerance – not even the Lord of the Universe can stand these ter­rible unbelievers ‘with dignity': (Koran of Medina) 8:12: "Then your Lord spoke to His angels and said: ‘I will be with you. Give strength to the believers. I will send terror into the unbelievers' hearts, cut off their heads and even the tips of their fingers!' "

Bil Warner points out: "All of Western logic is based upon the law of contradiction – if two things contradict, then at least one of them is false. But Islamic logic is dualistic; two things can contradict each other and both are true. No dualistic system may be measured by one answer. This is the reason that the arguments about what con­stitutes the ‘real' Islam go on and on and are never resolved."

Now what is the method? The CSPI counts. "Dualistic systems can only be measured by statistics. It is futile to argue one side of the dualism is true. As an analogy, quantum mechanics always gives a statistical answer to all questions.

For an example of using statistics, look at the question: What is the real jihad, the jihad of inner, spiritual strug­gle or the jihad of expansive war? Let's turn to Bukhari (the Hadith) for the answer, as he repeatedly speaks of jihad. In Bukhari 97 % of the jihad references are about war and only 3 % are about the inner struggle. So the statistical answer is that jihad is 97 % war and 3 % inner struggle. (Is jihad war? Yes – 97 %. Is jihad inner struggle? Yes – 3 %.) In a summary the Trilogy Koran-Sira-Hadith is quite clear about the doctrine: At least 75 % of the Sira (life of Mohammed) is about jihad. About 67 % of the Koran written in Mecca is about the unbelievers, or politics. Of the Koran of Medina, 51 % is devoted to the unbelievers. About 20 % of Bukhari's Hadith is about jihad and politics. Religion is the smallest part of Islamic foundational texts.

The largest part of the Trilogy relates to treatment of the unbelievers, the kafirs. Even Hell is political. There are 146 references to Hell in the Koran. Only 6 % of those in Hell are there for moral failings – murder, theft, etc. The other 94 % of the reasons for being in Hell are for the intellectual sin of disagreeing with Mohammed, a pol­itical crime. Hence, Islamic Hell is a political prison for those who speak against Islam." Already at that time...

So do not try any more to convince us of sheer rubbish. We have a clear and reliable answer: Daniel Pipes is right. Those who oppose him are wrong. I would forward to them an advice of the great Piet Hein: They may err, and err, and err; – but at least less, and less, and less…

Whatever beautiful words Muslims find for their wrongdoings, certain facts survive every embellishment. The first Muslim conquerors of India led the defeated people into slavery, gave away the king's daughters to gener­als, governors and the Caliph and destroyed the Buddhists' and Hindus' temples and cities. Then they overtook their ingenious architecture and mathematics turning them into mosque-buildings and the ‘Arab ciphers'. After Hindu craftsmen built the Taj Mahal, the Muslim ruler had their right hands cut off so that they could not build anything as beautiful for anyone else. – Please, try to explain this as a feature of ‘inner struggle to become a better person'! This obvious failure means a terrible contradiction for the simple-minded westerner, at least evasion problems which can hardly be denied. Or take the practice of suttee, the widow throwing herself on the husband's funeral pyre, coming about as a response to the rape and brutality of the Islamic jihad as it swept over ancient Samarqand and Hindustan: Try to give this a more pleasant connotation – it will not be easy.

The holocaust on 6 million Jews is undeniable – it is too enormous. But they still try. The victims of the violent spread of Islam add up to approximately 270 million non-believers who died over the last 1400 years for the glory of political Islam. This historical carnage should be impossible to bury under Islamic pathos, which tries to cloud all important issues. "These are the Tears of Jihad which are not taught in any [even Western] school" is the correct summing-up of Bill Warner. So if you are confused by reading too many disagreeing comments on some of Daniel Pipes' uncomfortable truths, look for answers at the CSPI…

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