“Searching for answers to escape from this dilemma, Muslims have developed three major responses: secularism, reformism, and fundamentalism. Secularism holds that Muslims can only advance by emulating the West . . . Reformism, which offers a murky middle, is very popular. Whereas secularism forthrightly calls for learning from the West, reformism sneakily appropriates from it …
Profound Frustration
“Muslim society has a hard time explaining what caused the loss of power and prominence . . . Whatever index one looks at, Muslims can be found clustering toward the bottom, whether in terms of military prowess, political stability, economic development, corruption, lack of human rights, health, longevity, or literacy” (Daniel Pipes, Militant Islam Reaches …
Resenting the Disaster
“This inner sense of confidence helped imbue Muslims with an unparalleled loyalty to their religions. Added to this internal confidence was the fact that Muslims enjoyed outstanding success during their first six or so centuries. To be a Muslim meant to belong to a winning civilization. This pattern of success started right at the beginning: …
Not an Aberration
“Putting all this together, we might surmise that Islamic terrorism, though most immediately arising from the eighteenth-century Wahhabi movement and therefore a divergent stream of Islam, is in continuity with Islam as a whole” (Peter Leithart, Mirror of Christendom, p. 7).
A Fun House Mirror
“The Lord raised up Islam as a parody or mirror of Christianity, which is designed to expose our failings and to call us to faithfulness. Indeed, Mohammed’s life strikingly recapitulates the history of Israel. Called (so he claimed) by Allah, Mohammed led his people out of Mecca to Medina, established his rule in Medina, and …
A Second Battle of Tours V
Introduction: In this series we have referred from time to time to the concept of Sharia law. This is a distinctively Islamic concept, but it is important for us to see exactly where the distinction is. It is not because Muslims believe that their god should make the laws—everyone believes that. The issue is more …
Like a Coal Seam
“But the hatred of Jews and of Israel that neo-Nazis, skinheads and violent Muslims share makes the possibility of collusion between them a danger for which law enforcers should prepare. Anti-Semitism underlies Europe like a black coal seam: thin here, thick there; deep here, surfacing there” (Richardson, Secrets of the Koran, p. 197).
Jefferson’s Wall Is Not to Be Found in Some Places
“In a thousand different ways naïve Europeans who think they are showing noble tolerance to a mere religion are actually inviting a very potent political invader into their societies” (Richardson, Secrets of the Koran, p. 170).
Just One More Elective Surgery
[Speaking of a radical Islamic political advances in the West] “Designating female genital mutilation (FGM) as an operation that Western doctors may legally perform on Muslim women will probably be first. Some doctors will welcome the extra income for such an easy surgery, just as some of them bank extra income for performing unnecessary abortions …
Those Who Don’t Stand for Something Will Fall for Anything
“Recognizing that a critical mass among Canada’s fine citizenry holds ultraliberal views, I fear that Canada will perhaps be the first western nation to spring a supremacist Islamic trap on its own foot” (Richardson, Secrets of the Koran, p. 165).