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Timothy R. Furnish: On whitewashing radical Islam

[Mr. Furnish, Ph.D (Islamic History), is Assistant Professor, History, Georgia Perimeter College, Dunwoody, GA 30338. Mr. Furnish is the author of Holiest Wars: Islamic Mahdis, Their Jihads and Osama bin Laden (Praeger, 2005). He is the proprietor of www.mahdiwatch.org.]

As of this writing I am watching C-SPAN2's "Book TV." Lawrence Wright is interviewing Raymond Ibrahim, who works in the Middle East section at the Library of Congress and just published The al-Qaeda Reader, containing translations of Usama bin Ladin's and Ayman al-Zawahiri's writings. Wright is trying, at every turn, to refute Ibrahim's analysis. For example, Ibrahim was just discussing the fact that UBL and his ilk justify their violence from the Qur'an and the Hadiths. Wright interjected "but of course every religion has violent tendencies: in Christianity you're supposed to stone homosexuals." Amazing. I've read the New Testament numerous times, and I've yet to find that passage.

Wright is a noted and best-selling author and alleged "expert" on the war on terror and the Middle East--and a guest host on C-SPAN--yet he is incredibly ignorant (or simply misrepresentative) of the basic teachings of Christianity. (For those of you that don't know: homosexuality is condemned as sinful in Romans 1:18-26, I Corinthians 6:9ff and I Timothy 1:8ff, but NOWHERE in the Christian faith is stoning mandated for gays or lesbians.) Of course, this attempt to brand Christianity as equal to Islam in spawning violence is a familiar trope of mainstream media types.

Ibrahim is now pointing out, over Wright's protestations, that Buddhists don't commit suicide bombings--whereas Muslims do, and furthermore that they ground such activity in their religion. Wright is trying to counter with the example of the Japanese kamikazes, who were willing to die for the Emperor.

Wright now is claiming that "every religion has contradictions in it" and is adducing Judaism as an example. He's following this with vague, blanket statements about "fundamentalist Christians who want to bring about the end of days." Ibrahim is countering that "there is no text in the New Testament telling them to do that"--whereas the Qur'an and Hadith, according to Islamic exegetes and commentators, DO contain violent commandments. So Christians who act violently are contradicting their faith--whereas Muslims who do so are not necessarily contradicting theirs.
(I've made this point in a number of articles, and of course Robert Spencer does so, quite articulately, for a living.)

Wright has moved into claiming that this problem in Islam is because "Islam has no center of authority." Well, that may be part of it. But as Ibrahim is now responding, ijma' ("consensus" of Islamic authorities) has long said that violence is totally justified in expanding the Dar al-Islam (World of Islam) at the expense of the Dar al-Harb (World of War, literally--that is, the rest of us who are not Muslims). "Fighting is prescribed for you" is a Qur'anic dictate, as Ibrahim is pointing out.

Wright just asked an incredibly moronic question: "why is violence just now becoming paramount in Islam?" Ibrahim just told him--the "expert" on Islam--that "it's not modern, Islamic violence has always been justified and acted on to expand Islam, from the earliest days through the time of the Ottoman Empire." And to Wright's rhapsodic musings about the tolerance of medieval Islam in al-Andalus (Spain), Ibrahim just reminded him "well, the Muslims got Spain in the first place through violent conquest." He also reminded Wright that "the Crusades didn't happen until AFTER Muslims had invaded the Byzantine Christian Empire and conquered territory."

Watch yourself, if C-SPAN2 shows this again. And I highly recommend getting a copy of The al-Qaeda Reader. I'm going to stop listening to Wright's dhimmi drivel and go order the book.

Read entire article at MahdiWatch.org (blog)