Jaw-dropping quote of the day: "At what point has Jihad equated to incitement to violence?" I am not sure if the person who wrote that, in response to my previous article Stop the preachers of hate, was being facetious, but if he wasn't, I am wondering what inter-galactic experience I have suddenly found myself in. Have I been accepted by Cape Canaveral and sent into orbit to another planet, unconsciously, or has he?
To him and other contributors, all I would say is read The Quilliam Foundation's report A Brief History of Islamism. It's only 16 pages, and I have just read it in half an hour. I would think that everyone who blogged responses to my previous post, even those whose remarks would win Nobel prizes for stupidity, could cope with 16 pages? But for those who would find such a task too onorous, here are a few extracts from the report.
A Brief History of Islamism provides an idiot's guide to the ideology of Islamism and a valuable refresher course and reminder for those who have already read around the subject. It describes the key players, recounting the background of Hassan al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood, the origins of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, the story of Maulana Mawdudi and Jamaat-i-Islami, the influence of Sayyid Qutb, all the way through to Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mullah Omar and bin Laden.
In 1927, Mawdudi said:
Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth, which are opposed to the ideology and programme of Islam regardless of the country or the nation which rules it.
Some years later, Sayyid (Syed) Qutb said:
There is only one place on earth which can be called the home of Islam (Dar al-Islam), and it is that place where the Islamic state is established and the Shari'ah is the authority and God's limits are observed .... the rest of the word is the home of hostility (Dar al-Harb).
The author of A Brief History of Islamism, Ghaffar Hussain, himself a Muslim, concludes with these words:
Islamists remain frozen in an age of warring empires and cosmic wars. They desperately cling to their binary view of the world despite it not being supported by the reality around them. Dreams of an imperial future in which divinely-inspired warriors conquer and rule the world bring contentment to the hearts of some, but instil terror in the minds of others.
Please note, this report was written by a Muslim and published by an Islamic counter-extremism think-tank. Please also note, in almost everything I have ever written on the subject, I have gone to great lengths to distinguish between the political, radical ideology of Islamism and the religion of Islam. The religion of Islam is multi-faceted, like all religions, and there are a great many followers of Islam who choose an interpretation that is peaceful, spiritual, generous, hospitable, law-abiding and gracious. I have been working with Rohingya Muslims from Burma and Ahmadiya Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia. They have taught me much about kindness, hospitality, generosity and spirituality. They have also faced severe persecution, at the hands of a brutal military regime in the case of the Rohingya, and at the hands of extremist Islamists in the case of the Ahmadiyas. The caveats should not be needed, but they are, because the sad reality is that whenever one criticises the extreme, hate-filled radicals, in our uber-politically correct world there are people who think one is labelling all Muslims with the same brush. It isn't the case, and the sooner we woke up to the reality of Islamism the ideology - as distinct from other strands of Islam - the better. And we would do well to listen to those Muslims who themselves are fighting Islamism.