Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Radical Islamism: Islam Gone Bad

This was a quote from former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. Today, it applies not just to Israel and the Arabs, but to the world and the Radical Islamists as a whole.

I have to get this out of the way from the outset. I am not using the phrase ‘radical Islam.’ I am using ‘radical Islamism.’ I do not refer here to Islam, the religion. I refer to Islamism that is not essentially the same as Islam. If some people equate the two, it shall no longer be within the purview of what I intend to say.

Radical Islamism is the twisted bastard son of Islam.

First things first. There is a difference, even, between Muslim fundamentalism and radical Islamism.

Muslim fundamentalists believe that sacred scripture is considered the authentic and authoritative word of their religion’s god and no person has the right to change it or disagree with it. They restrict themselves to literal interpretations of their sacred texts, the Qur’an (central religious text of Islam) and Hadith (oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad). All Muslims (Sunni or Shia) use the same Qur’an.

For the Muslim fundamentalists, the problems of the world stem from secular influences. A Muslim fundamentalist can issue a fatwah such as “every Muslim who pleads for the suspension of the sharia is an apostate and can be killed.”

The killing of those apostates cannot be prosecuted under Islamic law just because this killing is “justified.” The command to slay is an invention of Islamic fundamentalists.

There’s only one thing Muslim fundamentalists hate more than infidels: traitors to the cause.

Muslim fundamentalism comes in conflict with some provisions of the internationally supported Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Among these are: freedom from religious police, the equality between men and women, and the separation of religion and state. As to freedom of religion, Muslim fundamentalists believe that Muslims who leave Islam or criticize itshould be executed,” while the right of non-Muslims to convert to Islam should be celebrated.

Radical Islamism may be an entirely different banana.

A Muslim Fundamentalist is “a political individual” in search of a “more original Islam,” while the Islamist is pursuing a political agenda. Radical Islamism is Islam + Political Agenda.

Radical Islamism is a totalitarian movement that wants to establish a worldwide radical Islamist state. This envisioned state will support religious wars against non-Islamist Muslims and non-Muslim infidels worldwide. Jihad, or Holy War, is a religiously sanctioned call for individual and collective violence made by radical Islamists against “infidels” worldwide. Fatah, or military conquest, is the employment of Jihad for imperial expansion and colonization of non-Islamic lands. Radical Islamists believe that fatah is as legitimate today as when the concept gave rise to a series of invasions of countries outside Islam’s original birthplace in the Arabian Peninsula.

Radical Islamists want to establish the supremacy of their version of Islam over all other Faiths. This is what they call the “Global Jihad” (waged by Islamic radicals against the Western world). They believe that they will rule the world because of their conviction in the superiority of their religion.

The political ideology of Islamism calls for the replacement of state secular laws with Islamic Law. Islamists believe that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Others define it as “an Islamic militant, anti-democratic movement, bearing a holistic vision of Islam whose final aim is the restoration of the caliphate.”

Radical Islamists would like to impose Sharia law with a central government to rule the world. That’s their definition of survival of the Qur’an and of their group. On the other hand, the Western civilizations’ definition of survival of their group is democracy and general separation of church and state.

Here lies the difference in the survival moral of what should be the surviving moral.

The message of the Qur’an and the Hadith are clear. They are the text and oral tradition of the origins of the thought. They mean well as far as intentions go. They are the ideal. However, they are, too, subject to misinterpretation by those who practice them.


The misinterpretation of Islam is not done by the non-Muslim world. Twisting the religion is committed by Muslims themselves.


Radical Islamism is the bad egg in the egg basket. And we all know what bad eggs can do.

To say that radical Islamists are stubborn and arrogant is an understatement. They are murderers and looters, killers and common thieves. They are one religion’s bad reputation.

It is true that barbarism exists somewhere else. It is true that death in the hand of a common street mugger gone jittery is no less forgivable than the killing of a life in a womb. What makes radical Islamists different from the kidnap-for-ransom guy who kills his hostage and the abortionist who snuffs out life for a fee is that: radical Islamists shout “Allahu Akbar!” after they kill.

The phrase ‘Allahu Akbar’ is the opening declaration of every Islamic prayer. It is a slogan prescribed by the Prophet Muhamad to the mujahids of Islam. ‘Allahu Akbar’ is recited on many occasions such as in the beginning of prayer of Hazrat Bibi Fatimah, by the mujahids of Islam, and when animals are slaughtered.

What is more sickening than for killers of men to shout “God is the greatest!” before and after they kill?

I wonder how Allah would want to deal with his despicable creatures.


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