Islam means "submission." Muslim means "one who submits."
They have NEVER been separated. Islam never took over Muslims, they have always been in unity. In the 7th century Mohammad coined the Arabic term "Islam" (submission) as the political military entity of his cult and "Muslim" (someone who submits) for his followers. Mohammad originally had less than 50 followers that led to 100 followers, that led to thousands. To grow the numbers of his followers he took jihadi measures by forced submission to Islam - under the sword. Conquering villages by death or submission to Islam, his Muslim followers adhered to his measures of brutality and genocide. In an early jihad military force, Mohammad killed over 600 Jews- beheading them himself, as an example to his followers - all in the name of Allah.
For those confused of the basics of Islam and to give you more wisdom and insight into this threat to our nation, I have condensed some key points from "ISLAM 101" by author Gregory M. Davis.
1. The Basics
a. The Five Pillars of Islam
The five pillars of Islam constitute the most basic tenets of the religion. They are:
1. Faith (iman) in the oneness of Allah and the finality of the prophethood of Muhammad (indicated by the declaration [the Shahadah] that, "There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah").
2. Keeping of the five scheduled daily prayers (salah).
3. Almsgiving (zakat).
4. Fasting (sawm).
5. Pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca for those who are able.
The five pillars in and of themselves do not tell us a lot about the faith or what a Muslim is supposed to believe or how he should act. To understand Islam and what it means to be a Muslim, we must come to understand Muhammad as well as the revelations given through him by Allah, which make up the Quran.
b. The Quran -- the Book of Allah
According to Islamic teaching, the Quran came down as a series of revelations from Allah through the Archangel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad, who then dictated it to his followers. Muhammad's companions memorized fragments of the Quran and wrote them down on whatever was at hand, which were later compiled into book form under the rule of the third Caliph, Uthman, some years after Muhammad's death. The Quran is about as long as the Christian New Testament. It comprises 114 suras (chapters), not to be confused with the Sira, which refers to the life of the Prophet. The Quran comes exclusively from one source: Muhammad. It is through the life of Muhammad that the Quran must be understood, as the Quran itself says. His wars and killings both reflect and inform the meaning of the Quran. Furthermore, the strict literalism of the Quran means that there is no room for interpretation when it comes to its violent injunctions. It is through the example of the warlord and despot Muhammad that Muslims understand the Quran.
c. The Sunnah -- the "Way" of the Prophet Muhammad
In Islam, Muhammad is considered al-insan al-kamil (the "ideal man"). Muhammad is the model par excellence for all Muslims in how they should conduct themselves. It is through Muhammad's personal teachings and actions -- which make up the "way of the Prophet," the Sunnah -- that Muslims discern what is a good and holy life. Details about the Prophet -- how he lived, what he did, his non-Quranic utterances, his personal habits -- are indispensable knowledge for any faithful Muslim. Knowledge of the Sunnah comes primarily from the hadiths ("reports") about Muhammad's life, which were passed down orally until codified in the eighth century AD, some hundred years after Muhammad's death. The hadiths comprise the most important body of Islamic texts after the Quran. Because Muhammad is himself the measuring stick of morality, his actions are not judged according to an independent moral standard but rather establish what the standard for Muslims properly is. The entire Islamic moral universe devolves solely from the life and teachings of Muhammad.
[Personal note: Since Mohammad married Aisha at age 6 - child brides and pedophilia are permitted; since he cut off the hands and feet of thieves - this is condoned; since he stoned adulterers or murdered them - this is allowed; since he beheaded infidels, those who refused submission to Islam, apostacised, dishonored him, or blasphemed - this is the chosen method of execution; since he had multiple wives and concubines - polygamy is accepted; since he abused and beat his wives - wife abuse is permitted; since women and children were captured as sex slaves, booty, stealing, and looting - rape and slavery of infidels is practiced; and since he performed raids of jihadi - this is mandatory that all faithful Muslims partake in jihad]
Volume 1, Book 2, Number 24; Narrated Ibn Umar: Allah's Apostle said: "I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people (infidels) until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle, and offer the prayers perfectly and give the obligatory charity, so if they perform that, then they save their lives and property from me except for Islamic laws and then their reckoning (accounts) will be done by Allah."
It is from such warlike pronouncements as these that Islamic scholarship divides the world into dar al-Islam (the House of Islam, i.e., those nations who have submitted to Allah) and dar al-harb (the House of War, i.e., those who have not). It is this dispensation that the world lived under in Muhammad's time and that it lives under today. Then as now, Islam's message to the unbelieving world is the same: submit or be conquered.
d. Sharia Law
Unlike many religions, Islam includes a mandatory and highly specific legal and political plan for society called Sharia
(pronounced "sha-rïe-uh"), which translates approximately as "way" or "path." The precepts of Sharia are derived from the commandments of the Quran and the Sunnah (the teachings and precedents of Muhammad as found in the reliable hadiths and the Sira). Together, the Quran and the Sunnah establish the dictates of Sharia, which is the blueprint for the good Islamic society. Because Sharia originates with the Quran and the Sunnah, it is not optional. Sharia is the legal code ordained by Allah for all mankind. To violate Sharia or not to accept its authority is to commit rebellion against Allah, which Allah's faithful are required to combat. [Severe penalties, prison or death may result from one who rebels].
There is no separation between the religious and the political in Islam; rather Islam and Sharia constitute a comprehensive means of ordering society at every level. While it is in theory possible for an Islamic society to have different outward forms -- an elective system of government, a hereditary monarchy, etc. -- whatever the outward structure of the government, Sharia is the prescribed content. It is this fact that puts Sharia into conflict with forms of government based on anything other than the Quran and the Sunnah.
The precepts of Sharia may be divided into two parts:
1. Acts of worship (al-ibadat), which includes:
Ritual Purification (Wudu)
Prayers (Salah)
Fasts (Sawm and Ramadan)
Charity (Zakat)
Pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj)
2. Human interaction (al-muamalat), which includes:
Financial transactions
Endowments
Laws of inheritance
Marriage, divorce, and child care
Food and drink (including ritual slaughtering and hunting)
Penal punishments
War and peace
Judicial matters (including witnesses and forms of evidence)
As one may see, there are few aspects of life that Sharia does not specifically govern. Everything from washing one's hands to child-rearing to taxation to military policy fall under its dictates. Because Sharia is derivate of the Quran and the Sunnah, it affords some room for interpretation. But upon examination of the Islamic sources, it is apparent that any meaningful application of Sharia is going to look very different from anything resembling a free or open society in the Western sense. The stoning of adulterers, execution of apostates and blasphemers, repression of other religions, and a mandatory hostility toward non-Islamic nations punctuated by regular warfare will be the norm. It seems fair then to classify Islam and its Sharia code as a form of totalitarianism.
2. Jihad and Dhimmitude
a. What does "jihad" mean?
Jihad literally translates as "struggle." Strictly speaking, jihad does not mean "holy war" as Muslim apologists often point out. However, the question remains as to what sort of "struggle" is meant: an inner, spiritual struggle against the passions, or an outward, physical struggle. As in any case of trying to determine Islamic teaching on a particular matter, one must look to the Quran and the Sunnah. It is evident that a Muslim is required to struggle against a variety of things: laziness in prayer, neglecting to give zakat (alms), etc. But is it also plain that a Muslim is commanded to struggle in physical combat against the infidel as well. Muhammad's impressive military career attests to the central role that military action plays in Islam
b. Hasan Al-Banna on jihad
Below are excerpts from Hasan Al-Banna's treatise, Jihad. In 1928, Al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood, which today is the most powerful organization in Egypt after the government itself. In this treatise, Al-Banna cogently argues that Muslims must take up arms against unbelievers.
All Muslims Must Make Jihad; it is an obligation from Allah on every Muslim and cannot be ignored nor evaded.
Allah has ascribed great importance to jihad and has made the reward of the martyrs and the fighters in His way a splendid one. Only those who have acted similarly and who have modeled themselves upon the martyrs in their performance of jihad can join them in this reward. The weaknesses of abstention and evasion of jihad are regarded by Allah as one of the major sins, and one of the seven sins that guarantee failure.
The rules of jihad according to the Hanafi School, said: 'Jihad linguistically means to exert one's utmost effort in word and action; in the Sharee'ah {Sharia -- Islamic law} it is the fighting of the unbelievers, and involves all possible efforts that are necessary to dismantle the power of the enemies of Islam. It becomes the duty of each and every Muslim to make jihad. He should prepare himself mentally and physically such that when comes the decision of Allah, he will be ready.
c. Dar al-Islam and dar al-harb: the House of Islam and the House of War
The violent injunctions of the Quran and the violent precedents set by Muhammad set the tone for the Islamic view of politics and of world history
Islamic scholarship divides the world into two spheres of influence, the House of Islam (dar al-Islam) and the House of War (dar al-harb). Islam means submission, and so the House of Islam includes those nations that have submitted to Islamic rule, which is to say those nations ruled by Sharia law. The rest of the world, which has not accepted Sharia law and so is not in a state of submission, exists in a state of rebellion or war with the will of Allah. It is incumbent on dar al-Islam to make war upon dar al-harb until such time that all nations submit to the will of Allah and accept Sharia law. Islam's message to the non-Muslim world is the same now as it was in the time of Muhammad and throughout history: submit or be conquered.
i. Taqiyya -- Religious Deception
Due to the state of war between dar al-Islam and dar al-harb, reuses de guerre, i.e., systematic lying to the infidel, must be considered part and parcel of Islamic tactics. The parroting by Muslim organizations throughout dar al-harb that "Islam is a religion of peace," or that the origins of Muslim violence lie in the unbalanced psyches of particular individual "fanatics," must be considered as disinformation intended to induce the infidel world to let down its guard. A telling point is that, while Muslims who present their religion as *peaceful* abound throughout dar al-harb (among un-believers), they are nearly non-existent in dar al-Islam (Muslim countries). A Muslim apostate once suggested to me a litmus test for Westerners who believe that Islam is a religion of "peace" and "tolerance": try making that point on a street corner in Ramallah, or Riyadh, or Islamabad, or anywhere in the Muslim world. He assured me you wouldn't live five minutes.
[Personal note: The word "Taqiyya" literally means: "Concealing, precaution, guarding." It is employed in disguising one's beliefs, intentions, convictions, ideas, feelings, opinions or strategies. In practical terms it is manifested as dissimulation, lying, deceiving, vexing and confounding with the intention of deflecting attention, foiling or pre-emptive blocking. It is currently employed in fending off and neutralising any criticism of Islam or Muslims. Falsehoods told to prevent the denigration of Islam, to protect oneself, or to promote the cause of Islam are sanctioned in the Qur'an and Sunna, including lying under oath in testimony before a court, deceiving by making distorted statements to the media such as the claim that Islam is a "religion of peace". A Muslim is even permitted to deny or denounce his faith if, in so doing, he protects or furthers the interests of Islam, so long as he remains faithful to Islam in his heart. Taqiyya has been used by Muslims since the 7th century to confuse, confound and divide 'the enemy.']
A problem concerning law and order {with respect to Muslims in dar al-harb} arises from an ancient Islamic legal principle -- that of taqiyya, a word the root meaning of which is "to remain faithful" but which in effect means "dissimulation." It has full Quranic authority (3:28 and 16:106) and allows the Muslim to conform outwardly to the requirements of unislamic or non-Islamic government, while inwardly "remaining faithful" to whatever he conceives to be proper Islam, while waiting for the tide to turn. (Hiskett, Some to Mecca Turn to Pray, 101.) Volume 4, Book 52, Number 269; Narrated Jabir bin 'Abdullah: The Prophet said, "War is deceit."
Historically, examples of taqiyya include permission to renounce Islam itself in order to save one's neck or ingratiate oneself with an enemy (infiltration and immigration). It is not hard to see that the implications of taqiyya are insidious in the extreme: they essentially render negotiated settlement -- and, indeed, all veracious communication between dar al-Islam and dar al-harb -- impossible.
d. Jihad Through History
There has never been a separation of the political-military and the religious in Islam, this development was entirely natural by Islamic principles.
By the time of his death in 632 AD, Muhammad had extended his control in a series of raids and battles over most of southern Arabia
"Our Prophet, the Messenger of our Lord, has ordered us to fight you till you worship Allah Alone or give Jizya (i.e. tribute); and our Prophet has informed us that our Lord says: "Whoever amongst us is killed (i.e. martyred), shall go to Paradise to lead such a luxurious life as he has never seen, and whoever amongst us remain alive, shall become your master."
Islam rapidly spread into the territories of Byzantium, Persia, and Western Europe in the decades after Muhammad's death. The Arab Muslim armies charged into the Holy Land, conquered what is now Iraq and Iran, then swept west across North Africa, into Spain, and finally into France. In the history of jihad, the slaughter of civilians, the desecration of churches, and the plundering of the countryside are commonplace.
The Muslim armies traversed the land in every direction, raping women, killing warriors, destroying fortresses, burning and pillaging everything. Most raids they massacred every man and carried off the women and children as captives (slaves).
ii. The Second Major Wave of Jihad: the Turks, 1071-1683 AD
Some twenty-five years before the first Crusading army set out from central Europe for the Holy Land, the Muslim Turkish (Ottoman) armies began an assault on the Christian Byzantine Empire. Constantinople, the jewel of Eastern Christendom, finally fell in 1453 to the armies of Sultan Mahomet II. Lest one ascribe the atrocities of the first wave of jihad to the "Arabness" of its perpetrators, the Muslim Turks showed they were fully capable of living up to the principles of the Quran and the Sunnah.
Paul Fregosi in his book Jihad describes the scene following the final assault on Constantinople:
Several thousand of the survivors had taken refuge in the cathedral: nobles, servants, ordinary citizens, their wives and children, priests and nuns. They locked the huge doors, prayed, and waited. {Caliph} Mahomet {II} had given the troops free quarter. They raped, of course, the nuns being the first victims, and slaughtered. At least four thousand were killed before Mahomet stopped the massacre at noon. He ordered a muezzin {one who issues the call to prayer} to climb into the pulpit of St. Sophia and dedicate the building to Allah. It has remained a mosque ever since. Fifty thousand of the inhabitants, more than half the population, were rounded up and taken away as slaves. Mohomet {II} ordered all the leading nobles, officials, and citizens all arrested and decapitated. He sadistically bought from their owners {i.e., Muslim commanders} high-ranking prisoners who had been enslaved, for the pleasure of having them beheaded in front of him. (Fregosi, Jihad, 256-7.)
e. Dhimmitude
Islam's persecution of non-Muslims is in no way limited to jihad, even though that is the basic relationship between the Muslim and non-Muslim world.
After the jihad concludes in a given area with the conquest of infidel territory, the dhimma, or treaty of protection, may be granted to the conquered "People of the Book" -- historically, Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians. The dhimma provides that the life and property of the infidel are exempted from jihad for as long as the Muslim rulers permit, which has generally meant for as long as the subject non-Muslims -- the dhimmi -- prove economically useful to the Islamic state. The Quran spells out the payment of the jizya (poll- or head-tax; Sura 9:29), which is the most conspicuous means by which the Muslim overlords exploit the dhimmi. But the jizya is not merely economic in its function; it exists also to humiliate the dhimmi and impress on him the superiority of Islam.
... just as the dhimmis are prohibited from building churches, other things also are prohibited to them. They must not assist an unbeliever against a Muslim ... raise the cross in an Islamic assemblage ... display banners on their own holidays; bear arms ... or keep them in their homes. Should they do anything of the sort, they must be punished. Forbidden to construct houses of worship or repair extant ones, economically crippled by the jizya, socially humiliated, legally discriminated against, and generally kept in a permanent state of weakness and vulnerability by the Muslim overlords, it should not be surprising that their numbers dwindled, in many places to the point of extinction. By refusing to convert to Islam and straying from the traditional constraints of the dhimma, the dhimmi (infidel) had implicitly chosen the only other option permitted by the Quran: death.
f. Jihad in the Modern Era
In 1876, Muslims massacred 30,000 Bulgarians for allegedly rebelling against dhimmitude; in 1896, 250,000 Armenians were slaughtered; in 1915, a jihad massacre was again waged against the Armenians, no longer protected as they were by the dhimma. The anti-Christian jihad culminated in 1922 at Smyrna, on the Mediterranean coast, where 150,000 Greek Christians were massacred by the (Muslim) Turkish army. All in, from 1896-1923, some 2.5 million Christians were killed, the first modern genocide. Following World War I, various jihads have been fought around the globe by the independent Muslim nations and sub-state jihadist groups. The most sustained effort has been directed against Israel. The fact is, the percentage of conflicts in the world today that do not include Islam is pretty small.
As we have seen, contrary to the widespread insistence that true Islam is pacific even if a handful of its adherents are violent, the Islamic sources make clear that engaging in violence against non-Muslims is a central and indispensable principle to Islam. Islam is less a personal faith than a political ideology that exists in a fundamental and permanent state of war with non-Islamic civilizations, cultures, and individuals. The Islamic holy texts outline a social, governmental, and economic system for all mankind. Those cultures and individuals who do not submit to Islamic governance exist in an ipso facto state of rebellion with Allah and must be forcibly brought into submission. The misbegotten term "Islamo-fascism" is wholly redundant: Islam itself is a kind of fascism that achieves its full and proper form only when it assumes the powers of the state.
The spectacular acts of Islamic terrorism in the late 20th and early 21st centuries are but the most recent manifestation of a global war of conquest that Islam has been waging since the days of the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th Century AD and that continues apace today.
This is the simple, glaring truth that is staring the world today in the face -- and which has stared it in the face numerous times in the past -- but which it seems few today are willing to contemplate.
It is important to realize that we have been talking about Islam -- not Islamic "fundamentalism," "extremism," "fanaticism," "Islamo-fascism," or "Islamism," but Islam proper, Islam in its orthodox form as it has been understood and practiced by believing Muslims from the time of Muhammad to the present.
The mounting episodes of Islamic terrorism in the late 20th and early 21st centuries are due largely to the geostrategic changes following the end of the Cold War and the growing technical options available to terrorists.
With the collapse of Soviet hegemony over much of the Muslim world, coupled with the burgeoning wealth of the Muslim oil-producing countries, the Muslim world increasingly possesses the freedom and means to support jihad around the globe. In short, the reason that Muslims are once again waging war against the non-Muslim world is because they can.
It is paramount to note, however, that, even if no major terrorist attack ever occurs on Western soil again, Islam still poses a mortal danger to the West. A halt to terrorism would simply mean a change in Islam's tactics -- perhaps indicating a longer-term approach that would allow Muslim immigration and higher birth rates to bring Islam closer to victory before the next round of violence. It cannot be overemphasized that Muslim terrorism is a symptom of Islam that may increase or decrease in intensity while Islam proper remains permanently hostile.
3. Conclusion
The chief barrier today to a better understanding of Islam -- apart, perhaps, from outright fear -- is sloppy language. Let us take, to start with, the much-vaunted "war on terror." Upon scrutiny, the phrase "war on terror" makes as much sense as a war on "blitzkrieg," "bullets," or "strategic bombing." The "war on terror" implies that it is perfectly fine if the enemy seeks to destroy us -- and, indeed, succeeds in doing so -- as long as he does not employ "terror" in the process. "Terrorism," it should be obvious, is a tactic or stratagem used to advance a goal; it is the goal of Islamic terrorism that we must come to understand, and this logically.
As should be plain to anyone who has examined the Islamic sources, to take the violence out of Islam would require it to jettison two things: the Quran as the word of Allah and Muhammad as Allah's prophet. In other words, to pacify Islam would require its transformation into something that it is not. [There is no such thing as moderate Islam].
Drawing their inspiration from Muhammad and the Quran, they are invariably disposed to violence. The unhappy (yet, truthful) fact is that Islam today is what it has been fourteen centuries: violent, intolerant, and expansionary. It is folly to think that we, in the course of a few years or decades, are going to be able to change the basic world outlook of a foreign civilization. Islam's violent nature must be accepted as given; only then will we be able to come up with appropriate policy responses that can improve our chances of survival.
Gregory Davis author,
To learn more: Religion of Peace? Islam's War Against the World
producer/director, Islam: What the West Needs to Know -- An Examination of Islam, Violence, and the Fate of the Non-Muslim World
