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Reader comment on item: The California Suicide Bomber[: Ra'ed Mansour al-Banna]

Submitted by Allen (Canada), Apr 10, 2005 at 11:21

I am saddened, yet I regret I have to agree with Mr. Pipes, though it goes against my inclusive nature.

Besides the Koran, Muslims give credence to Haddiths, which are direct pronouncements of the Prophet. Muhammad advocated Jihad and thus became the central duty for every Muslim. No Muslim of any ilk, be they Shiite or Sunni, contradicts this credo. When the noted journalist, Oriana Fallaci said: "The only difference between ‘moderate Islam' and ‘radical Islam' is the length of their beards," she was not far off the mark.

Westerners define Jihad rather simplistically. Jihad has ramifications that are more serious than imaginable.

Once Jihad succeeds, the vanquished have only one of three choices. First is conversion. If that's unacceptable, the vanquished must submit to second class status and are not given a choice to live as equals. Death is the third option.

From the time of Islam's first military incursions outside of Arabia these tenets were inexorably followed and remain in effect. Where ever Muslims rule or are the majority, non-Muslims are regulated to a second class position and may be persecuted depending on the whim of the Imams.

Western policy makers are operating under an illusion that democratic principles can somehow be implemented in Muslim society. Democracy requires a civil society, a culture of tolerance, belief in individually and legitimacy of dissent. Iraq, most certainly, does not come close to fulfilling any of these criteria. Democratic jurisprudence will never replace Sharia [Muslim law]. Liberal, secular mores of the West are incompatible and totally alien with Islamic values.
One just has to take look at Canada who has incorporated Sharia law on the behest of Islamic lobbiests.

Oriana Fallaci best articulated what is in store for the West: "The hate for the West swells like a fire fed by the wind. The clash between them and us is not a military one. It is a cultural one, a religious one, and the worst is still to come."

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