Peter Smith Quadrant Online December 29, 2024
I intended to respond to two readers’ comments on my last QoL piece but had troubling connecting. “Use difficulties” Michael Caine once said, re taking advantage of things going wrong on stage. So here goes. Apropos taqiyya, one reader wrote: “…when it comes to the meaning of “taqiyya,” I understand it to be that which St Peter practiced when he disowned Christ.” Apropos relativism, another reader pointed out that violence had been committed on scale throughout history. Why pick on Islam, so to speak.
I think it is safe to say that both readers are missing the point. Denying Christ was a sin for which Peter suffered great shame. It was a sin forgiven by Jesus but not countenanced. On the other hand, in Islam, taqiyya (lying and deceiving for the protection or advancement of Islam) is countenanced; no forgiveness required. Quite a difference. In fact, they are a million miles apart. “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep…his lips from speaking deceit.” (1 Peter 3:10, ESV)
As to violence, history is full of it. Conquistadors, whether of the 16th century Spanish variety or of other varieties, have wreaked rape, pillage, and murder on the conquered down the ages. More generally, bad men (the odd woman) have always been around ready to commit heinous crimes. Early Christians were persecuted by Jews. And sadly, as we know, since then, Jews have been serially persecuted in the name of Christianity and under communism and, of course, under Nazism. So again, what is the difference between this kind of violence and that perpetrated in the name of Islam. You know, like the 46,485 deadly Islamic terrorist attacks since 9/11 – as reliably reported here.
The difference is the source of the violence. Is it from the playbook of evil men sometimes combined with a transitory twisted creed of their own making? Hitler and Nazism is the poster child. Or, to the point, does it emerge directly and persistently from an immutable source; i.e., from a creed built on the verbatim words of Allah. VE-Day saw the end of Hitler and Nazism. Metaphorically speaking, a religious creed with 1.9 billion followers cannot be similarly bombed into oblivion.
Barbary pirates operating from Muslim North Africa were creating mayhem – pillaging, killing, and enslaving – on the high seas. John Quincy Adams, US president in the late 1820s, cut to the chase: “While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men.” Churchill, in The Gathering Storm (1948), drew an instructive parallel: “Here [in Mein Kampf] was the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message.” And from The River War (1899): “Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.”
Perceptive men were Adams and Churchill. However, their perceptiveness is mostly lost on the current generation of politicians and journalists. Or, more accurately, deliberately ignored out of misplaced cultural sensitivity. A sensitivity which will bury us if it continues unabated.
There is no scriptural support for killing, enslaving, or subjugating in Christianity. It can only come from men’s hearts not from scripture. The difference is that those who kill, enslave, and subjugate infidels in the name of Islam have a plethora of scriptural support in the Koran and in the hadiths. And, there are plenty of imams continually and loudly informing them of the fact. In case of doubt, have another look at Sheikh Ibrahim Dadoun disgustingly celebrating the October 7 slaughter of Israelis. Here are just few Koranic passage extracts to inspire Imams out for blood:
So, choose not friends from among them…if they turn back (to enmity) then take them and kill them…and choose no friend or helper from among them. (4:89 Pickthall translation) / …slay the idolaters wherever ye find them… (9:5) / Mohammed is the messenger of Allah. And those with him are hard against disbelievers and merciful among themselves… (48:29) / I will throw fear into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Then smite their necks and smite of them each finger. (8:12) / Fight against those who have been given the scripture as believe not…until they pay the tribute [jizya] readily, being brought low [read dhimmitude]. (9:29)
Tuned into GB News the other day. The two breakfast hosts were interviewing a Middle-Eastern looking chap who revealed he had a “Muslim background.” Who would have guessed. The gist of his view: it was frightening if the deadly attack in Magdeburg heralded a new face of terror. To wit, Muslims disaffected with Islam mowing down people in the street. Really? None of it makes sense. But the media, apparently even GB News, is eager to lap up any fanciful tale which diverts attention from the elephant in the West. Namely, growing populations owing allegiance to the hateful elements of a creed rather than to the countries providing them a home. Multiculturalism writ clashingly.
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