We were reading a post from another Kiwi blogsite, when we came across this representation of a book on Islam:
In the book 'Islamic Imperialism - A History' (Efriam Karsh, Professor of Mediterranean Studies, King's College, London) it is explained thus .... "As a universal religion Islam envisages a global political order in which all humankind will live under Muslim rule as either believers or subject communities. In order to achieve this goal it is incumbent on all free, male, adult Muslims to carry out an uncompromising struggle in the path of Allah or jihad. This in turn makes those parts of the world that have not yet been conquered by the House of Islam an abode of permanent conflict (Dar al-Harb, the house of War) which will only end with Islam's eventual triumph".Actually, "there it is" should be applied to the intellectual sleight of hand that has just occurred in the above quotation, with the insertion of the word "radical" by the blogger to denote a sub-set of Islam--a denomination, if you will--whereas Karsh's piece deals with Islam's historical and traditional position. It is the most common mindset towards Islam found throughout the West. Efraim Karsh has written a piece on historical Islam's imperialist ideology arising out of its religious doctrines. He argues that the goal of world conquest by Islam is the doctrinal norm, not the exception, when Islam is considered in its historical manifestations.
There it is in black and white ... radical Islam's end game. [Italics, ours.]
But the West has different received wisdom.
The idea of a world-wide caliphate or empire, in which all humanity will be subjected to Allah, and those resisting will be put to death or enslaved, is both orthodoxy and orthopraxy only to minority, to radical Islam, or extremist Islam. Notice how our blogger parses or filter's Karsh's representation this way. It is not Karsh's position; it is the reflexive misinterpretation placed upon Islam by the willingly duped. Normal, mainstream Islam is not like that at all, or so the false narrative goes.
The justification for the West's more benign take on Islam arises out of the sociological reality that so many professing Muslims today present as peace loving, respectable, law-abiding people.
When it comes to Christianity--another universal, world-wide religion--the West is quite used to making a distinction between nominal Christians and genuine believers. Nominal Christians are Christians in name only. That is, they occasionally attend church--usually at funerals or baptisms or the like--and they don't express hostility or mockery towards genuine believers. They just want to be left alone to lead their secular lives by their own lights. They, however, don't object to ticking "Christian" when the census comes around. But they don't pray to Jesus Christ, they don't worship on Sundays, they blaspheme the name of God regularly, and yet despite all this they are not unhappy to be considered part of the Christian tradition. In general terms they are peace-loving, respectable, law-abiding people. Just like nominal Muslims.
But genuine Christian believers acknowledge Christ as their Lord and Saviour. They love Him, worship Him and devote their lives to serving Him. They seek to build their lives upon the commands and precepts revealed in the Bible, which they believe to be the very Word of God Himself--the highest authority to which all men will one day bow. But nominal Christians and those militantly opposed to Jesus Christ do not fear genuine Christians. Why? Because Jesus Christ eschewed violence for His disciples. He declared that those who live by the sword, die by the sword. As the Prince of Peace He commands us Christians to "do good to all men, especially those of the household of faith" (Galatians 6: 9,10) and "as far as it is possible, live at peace with all men" (Romans 12:18).
Therefore, in the West, when genuine Christians are being discussed, they generally don't get called "radical" or "extreme" Christians, and if they do, the reference is not to them being terrorists, or bloodthirsty killers. The descriptive adjectives are metaphors, not meant literally.
The Western Commentariat takes this grid and attributes it equally to Islam. There are hosts of non-serious, nominal Islamic people. Then there are devoted and committed Islamic people (just like there are devoted and serious Christians). But at this point the Commentariat deceives itself. The serious Islamic believer (just like the serious Christian believer) is one who goes back to the authoritative historical revelations and documents of the Islamic religion and seeks to live by them. And when that happens, the outcome is very different. The more serious the Islamic believer is about his or her faith, the more they adopt the authority of the Koran, the hadith, and sharia law. And these religious authorities require working and fighting to achieve world-wide domination of all human beings. This is decidedly not radical-fringe Islam--it is historical, mainstream, and consistent Islam--consistent with its own doctrines and teaching.
According to the standard Western interpretation, Islamic violence is an aberration, not an intrinsic aspect of the religion. Hence, when genuine and serious Islamic believers turn to violence, the West calls it "radical" or "extremist", implicitly non-Islamic. Why, then, do Islamic people get sucked into the atypical Islamic violence? Because they are marginalised, disenfranchised, and so forth. This is the standard Marxist interpretation of why Islamic people turn to violence. The cause lies in socio-economic marginalisation, not in the doctrines of the religion. So our blogger:
I'm not sure you can argue this is the end game of the Muslim community per se which, like Christianity, has many streams and, be very clear, I'm focusing on the terrorist stream. But what I accept and understand is that this line of reasoning will and does resonate with those Muslims who see themselves marginalized and angry (for whatever reason) and presenting a way for them to hit back at a society whose values are not their values. [Emphasis, ours.]The "Grand Equivalence" project which makes Islam and Christianity similar, if not the same, is typical of secularist bias and ignorance of both religions. Replacing both religions in the Western mind is a more fundamental Marxist, materialist, reductionist worldview which just happens to have been long since discredited. In this worldview, serious and committed Islamic believers (that is, believers the West calls radicals) hold to violent suppression and world-wide jihad only because they have been exploited by Western imperialism, thus making them "marginalized and angry". (A sub-text is that the West is ultimately responsible for all the evil deeds of so-called radical Islamics.)
As long as the West clings to this false dogma, it will continue to be surprised, outfoxed, and defeated by genuine Islamic disciples. In any war or struggle, a crucial pre-requisite for success is to follow the maxim, "Know your enemy". It is fourteen years since Islamic directed airliners hit the Twin Towers of the Great Satan, killing thousands. The West remains as ignorant of Islam today as it was then.
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