The Maldives: Regressing To A Wahhabi / Salafi "Stone Age"

If there is a recurring theme within political Islam it is the permanent jihad to wipe out any trace of non-Muslim civilization. Once you appreciate that you’ll begin to see the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Mosque built over the Jewish Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the persecution of Christians in Muslim lands and the spread of “no-go” neighborhoods in Europe in an entirely new light.

I will be beginning most posts on Islam with that quote, as it distills political Islam down to its fundamental tactic. It cuts through all of the deception, all of the lies, and all of the West's misguided projection of benign motivations on the Islamists, from Palestine to those in our own midst. It works to analyze Islam from day 1 of the Hijrah through today. And it has special importance for the advance of Wahhabism within the Islamic community itself.

I have been pointing out for years that, while there are many schools of Islam, it is the Wahhabi / Salafi sect - being spread throughout the world on Saudi petrodollars - that poses a supreme danger, not merely to the West, but to all other forms of Islam. A series of columns in the news from the Maldives drives home both Islam's "permanent jihad" and the dangerous spread of Wahhabism.

The Maldives are a series of Islands in the Indian Ocean. The nation has long been Islamic, though the indigenous form was Sufism. Since the 1980's, the influence of Wahhabism has been growing - with devastating effects. By the mid-1990's, the country adopted a Constitution that enshrined Islam as the state religion and made it illegal for anyone to practice any other faith in the Maldives. But that is just one aspect of the Wahhabist poison at work. The Volokh Conspiracy posted this the other day:

As reported by the Maldivian newspaper Haveeru, “President Mohamed Nasheed yesterday called on citizens to reject religious extremism and continue to support the ‘traditional form’ of Islam that has been practiced in the Maldives for the past 800 years,” and in particular said:

Should we ban music? Should we mutilate girls’ genitals? Should we allow nine year-olds to be married? Should we forbid art and drawing? Should we be allowed to take concubines? Is this nation building? ....

This is an old country, people have lived here for thousands of years and we have practised Islam for more than 800 years. In 2011, we are faced with a question, how should we build our nation: what we will teach our children, how should we live our lives and what we will leave for future generations? ...

Some people are saying that the government is going against religion because we won’t deviate from the traditional form of Islam ....

[I] asked you to come here in support of the middle, tolerant path. And I believe that most citizens want to continue our traditional form of Islam. . . .

To build our economy we need foreign investments and we need to create an environment in which foreigners can invest ....

We can’t achieve development by going backwards to the Stone Age or being ignorant.

And indeed, Wahhabi / Salafi Islam is a direct step not back to the stone ages, nor even to the time Mohammed, but rather to Ibn Taymiyyah's 12th century brutal and draconian vision of the time of Mohammed, as well as his articulation of the doctrine of takfir - that Islamists can label others as apostates for failing to follow the Taymiyyah / Wahhab / Salafi strand of Islam, and kill them for it. As doctor and former terrorist Tawfiq Hamid warned a few years ago: "The civilized world ought to recognize the immense danger that Salafi Islam poses; it must become informed, courageous and united if it is to protect both a generation of young Muslims and the rest of humanity from the disastrous consequences of this militant ideology."

The degree to which Wahhabi / Salafi Islam had grown in his country and its toxic effects were further explored by Maryam Omidi in the Guardian:

An Islamic scholar is facing flak for not wearing the right beard. We must not let Wahhabism suffocate this island nation's identity, writes Maryam Omidi, editor of Maldives-based website Minivan News.

On his recent visit to the Maldives, Salih Yucel, a Turkish Islamic scholar and lecturer at Monash University in Australia, was rejected by his fellow Muslims who deemed his beard too short and his trousers too long for him to be a bona fide Muslim. The response to the former imam came as no surprise, being symptomatic of the puritanical Wahhabism taking root in the Indian Ocean archipelago, a favourite haunt of honeymooners and A-list celebrities.

The country's legislative architecture entrenches this intolerance, in a constitution that recognises only Muslims as citizens and a Religious Unity Act that stringently demarcates the type of Islam to be practised. Nor are the country's non-Muslim expatriates, largely Buddhist Sri Lankans and Hindu Indians, permitted to practise their faiths in public as all places of worship apart from mosques are banned. The intolerance does not end here: for Wahhabis, even other Muslims, such as Shias and Sufis, are apostates.

The onset of Wahhabism in the country can be linked to a rise of the ultraconservative ideology in the region, above all in Pakistan, where many Maldivians travel for a free education at one of its madrasas. While the teachings at the vast majority of these institutions are benign, there are those, financed by Saudi Arabia, that serve as conduits for the Wahhabi ideology.

Wahhabism, a back to basics Islam, states adherents must follow the way of the Prophet Muhammad and his disciples to the letter. The result has been a doctrinaire outlook among devotees and a repudiation of the Maldives' historically moderate past.

As with other countries in the region such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, Islam in the Maldives was suffused with elements of Sufism; further, unique to the island nation are the influences absorbed from its Buddhist past. But today, a conflict between these traditions and calls for greater orthodoxy is palpable.

Many pin the upsurge in radicalism on former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, an Egyptian-educated scholar, who according to one journalist, brought Islam to the forefront of the nation's identity at the expense of other cultural attributes. The upshot has been the destruction of indigenous Islam in the Maldives and a cultural identity crisis.

The losers in this formerly matriarchal society have been women and girls. A groundswell of devotion over recent years has led to the number of headscarves worn soaring, though often through social pressure rather than piety.

More recently, families refusing to send their daughters to school or vaccinate their children, while uncommon, are beginning to worry the authorities. More alarming are reports about men keeping underage girls as concubines to have sex with when their wives are menstruating. Although yet to be verified, the reports have moved the Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed to call for an investigation. While the Ministry of Islamic Affairs denounced concubinage as un-Islamic, for many it was a nod to the practice of taking slave-girls as concubines during the prophet's time.

In July, I wrote an article about the gender disparity in issuing punishments for those convicted of premarital sex, for which the sentence under sharia law is 100 lashes. While pregnancy incriminates women, men deny their involvement in the act and get off scot-free. Latest statistics from 2006 revealed that out of 184 people sentenced to the punishment, 146 were women. The article and Amnesty International's consequent call for a moratorium on flogging led to protests demanding my deportation and the resignations of the foreign minister, an MP and the Maldivian high commissioner to the UK, all of whom I quoted in the article.

What the protests underscored was the absence of a public space for religious debate. While a predominantly moderate sentiment may still exist, the few bold enough to ask questions are labelled un-Islamic or worse still, intimidated into silence. A recent announcement by the minister of Islamic affairs that only scholars well-versed in the Qur'an should speak about religion affairs tightened the screws further.

The rise of Wahhabism is one of the many challenges the fledging democracy has to face. Although led by a young, liberal president, the coalition government's failure to encourage dialogue on religion has precluded the possibility of alternative narratives taking hold.

The government's ambitions to reappropriate its heritage through the restoration of its Buddhist sites and the introduction of Maldivian history in schools may be one antidote. Another lies in the country's largely young population. While outwardly at least devotion has rocketed, behind closed doors, many young people hunger for an Islamic reformation. The question is, who will dare to lead the way?

What is happening in the Maldives is happening throughout the Islamic world, from Turkey to Indonesia to Egypt. It has already involved us in two wars since the turn of the millennium. It will surely involve us in many more if we do not heed Dr. Hamid's advice and begin fully engaging in the war of ideas to counteract this poison.

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Interesting Links

While solar energy in the developed world is still not cost effective, solar energy is making a real difference in areas of the world far from a power grid.

The war on plant food continues apace as global warming facists seek to continue their scam. Record snow and cold are blanketing the world, sea ice is growing in Antarctica (home to over 90% of the world's sea ice), and all the computer models used by the UN IPCC to forecast massive global warming were proven worthless when they failed to forecast the cooling that took place over the past decade. Yet Jim Hansen at NASA is trying to tell us that the past decade really has been the hottest on record, and that 2010 really has been the hottest year on record. How he gets there is by playing fast and loose with the "raw data," the math and the "smoothing." Who are you going to believe, Jim Hansen or your lying frozen thermometer.

And after years of assuring us that, with global warming, winters would become ever more mild, the greenies have had a sudden epiphany. Judah Cohen tells us today that global warming causes global cooling. Fancy that. To quote from Dr. Richard North: "In the end, there are going to be two groups of people in this world: the greenies and the people who shoot greenies. It's kill or be killed, and the greenies will be the death of us all if this madness continues." Where did I put the keys to my gun rack . . . ?

States and localities that have suffered from decades of Democratic misrule will soon have to pay the piper for their Faustian bargains with public sector unions. As George Will points out, that payment should not come from the rest of America.

Via Larwyn's Linx, our nation suffers from historical illiteracy. A nation that does know its history cannot defend it, and thus it is prey to the machinations of those who want to radically change it.


Britain's Muslim problem is apparently getting worse. Leaked cables reveal that a third of Britain's Muslim population supports killing in the name of Allah. The British solution - now adopted by the Obama administration - of pretending that the problem is not within Islam itself is not working - and indeed, it is making matters harder for those Muslims who want to reform their religion. As the text of a symposium of M. Zhudi Jasser, Tawfiq Hamid, Robert Spencer and Timothy Furnish makes clear, the problem is daunting.

Wrapping Christmas gifts - it's an art form.

And lastly, from American Digest with some prodding from The Anchoress, there is this from Loreena McKinnett.



The lyrics are from a poem written by St. John of the Cross in the late 1500's.

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The Ground Zero Mosque & Our Government's Mishandling Of "Islamic Radicals"

The Ground Zero project to erect a monument to sharia overlooking the crater where the World Trade Center once stood, and where thousands were slaughtered, is not a test of America’s commitment to religious liberty. America already has thousands of mosques and Islamic centers, including scores in the New York area — though Islam does not allow non-Muslims even to enter its crown-jewel cities of Mecca and Medina, much less to build churches or synagogues.

The Ground Zero project is a test of America’s resolve to face down a civilizational jihad that aims, in the words of its leaders, to destroy us from within.

Andy McCarthy, NRO, Rauf’s Dawa from the World Trade Center Rubble, 24 July 2010

Islam presents America and the West with a unique challenge. One of the founding principles of our nation is freedom of religion. Yet at least a portion of the Muslim population seeks to use that freedom - along with the rest of our freedoms - to attack our nation both from within and without. Call them Islamic radicals, political Islamists, or what you will. The flip side of that coin is that the majority of the Muslim population is benign, they have no desire to be at war with America, nor do they desire to live under the heavy hand of Sharia law. Distinguishing between those two sets of Muslims is, for most Americans, impossible thanks to our government's refusal to educate America and identify our enemies.

As it stands today, Obama is pretending that nothing about Islam is implicated in the terrorist attacks against us. It is a risible canard that invites disaster. It is not fooling any American with a pulse. Unfortunately, while Americans can understand that some Muslims are in a religious war against us, most are in no position to distinguish anything beyond that. As Muslim reformer Dr. Zhudi Jasser recently stated, it is past time for our government "to take sides" and stop treating Muslims as a single entity.

With that in mind, we have today a series of mosques proposed for building throughout America, the only one of which should be controversial is Imam Feisal Abdul-Rauf's Cordoba Initiative to build an Islamic Center overlooking ground zero. Polls today show that a vast majority of New Yorkers - a majority that crosses all religious, ethnic and ideological lines - do not want that mosque built. And indeed, many Muslims are also speaking out against this proposal - see Zhudi Jasser, Stephen Schwartz and other Muslims, including those who lost family members in the 9-11 attacks. As Robert Avrech points out at Seraphic Secret, the Mayor, the left, and Islamic supremicsts who want to see the Islamic Center built are attacking their opponents by labeling them religious bigots. It is not but a variant on the race card used to delegitimize opposition. And like the race card, it is not working now. But it is raising the ire of all fair minded Americans who oppose the Islamic Center not on grounds of bigotry, but on grounds of decency and a refusal to be subservient.

Unfortunately, the proposal to build that mosque has raised public ire that is not just being directed at the Ground Zero project, but is also overflowing into opposition to the building of mosques throughout our nation. In what could be a very bad turn of events, some Americans are striking out against Islam generally, not discriminating between radical or political Islamists and those who are benign. If this is not addressed, it will be of far more importance than the Ground Zero Islamic Center. It is a problem our government needs to address with honesty.

Almost from my first post on this blog, I have repeatedly said that our government needs to identify our enemies within the Islamic world and differentiate them from the rest of the Islamic world. The reasons are fourfold.

One, we as a nation need to understand the nature of the threat so that we can recognize and defend against its danger. This is so obvious that it borders on the criminal that our government still refuses to do it. One cannot cannot treat a cancer if one refuses to diagnose cancer as step one.

Two, identifying the threat will allow us to harness the greatest force our republic can muster, public opinion. It will allow our nation to collectively shine a light upon - and bring pressure for reform to bear upon - those in the Islamic world who practice forms of Islam that give give rise to religiously inspired violence and terrorism. Indeed, if Americans fully understood some of the incredibly racist and violent dogma of Salafism, they would be horrified and moved to action. Or to restate it in the words of former Salafi terrorist Dr. Tawfiq Hamid:

The civilized world ought to recognize the immense danger that Salafi Islam poses; it must become informed, courageous and united if it is to protect both a generation of young Muslims and the rest of humanity from the disastrous consequences of this militant ideology.

Three, defining the threat would allow us to identify and support those in the Islamic world who seek to reform their religion. There are many, but they are voices in the wilderness today, lacking large scale support and up against all the petro-dollars of Saudi Arabia. Theirs is an existential battle for the heart and soul of Islam.

Fourth and lastly, if we fail to identify our enemies, then we lump into the same camp with our enemies those who would reform Islam and those who do not embrace "political Islam." This virtually insures that we will be misled by those who seek to forward the cause of political Islam, that we will make enemies of the majority of Muslims otherwise predisposed to supporting our nation, and that we will wholly undercut those who would reform Islam.

To be specific, our "enemies" are the practitioners of the veleyat-e-faqi in the Shia world, and in the Sunni world, practitioners of Salafi / Wahhabi schools and other schools of Islam influenced by Wahhabi / Salafi dogma, including Deobandi Islam. And unfortunately, Wahhabi / Salafi Islam is coming to influence many of the other schools of Islam. I document these realities in detail here.

Having said all of that, it is surprising that Feisal Abdul-Rauf, the man driving the Cordoba Initiative, is nominally a Sufi Muslim. Sufism is a mystical sect of Islam and largely benign. But Rauf certainly shows attitudes unusual for a Sufi, including his embrace of Hamas, his belief that America was to blame for 9-11, and a long association with Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is all the more surprising since Sufis are hated by ideologically pure Salafists and, indeed, were recently the subject of brutal attacks at the hands of Salafists in Pakistan. Author Steven Schwartz, himself a Sufi Muslim, noted in a recent article in the NY Post that none of these traits displayed by Rauf are in keeping with Sufism.

As Andy McCarthy states, in the quote at the top of this post, the case against Rauf's Ground Zero Islamic Center has nothing to do with freedom of religion and everything to do with facing down an existential threat to our way of life. For Bloomberg and the left to jam this down the throats of New Yorkers in particular and Americans as a whole - including American Muslims - is a boundless display of left wing arrogance and criminally negligent ignorance about the threat we face.

With the rise of the Ground Zero mosque issue, there has also been a significant growth in opposition to the building of mosques throughout our country. Dr. Zhudi Jasser addresses that anomaly in a recent article. Before going to his article, let me tell you about Dr. Jasser.

Dr. Jasser is a patriot. The son of immigrants from the Middle East, he has served our country as an officer in the military. He is a devout Muslim who has embraced the freedoms of America. He is also an articulate and implacable opponent of Sharia law and political Islam. When I speak of Muslim reformers, his is the first name that comes to my mind. He regularly engages Salafists and other proponents of "political Islam" in debates in order to educate Americans. Indeed, if you have not seen one of his debates, by all means, go here. It is a debate all Americans should see in full. Dr. Jasser has also established an organization, the American-Islamic Forum For Democracy, to push for reform of his religion and to fight against "political Islam." He was quoted in a recent AP article on the rise in general anti-Islamic feeling directed at Islam as whole in respect to the building of mosques in various parts of the US:

Muslims trying to build houses of worship in the nation's heartland, far from the heated fight in New York over plans for a mosque near ground zero, are running into opponents even more hostile and aggressive.

Foes of proposed mosques have deployed dogs to intimidate Muslims holding prayer services and spray painted "Not Welcome" on a construction sign, then later ripped it apart.

The 13-story, $100 million Islamic center that could soon rise two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 attacks would dwarf the proposals elsewhere, yet the smaller projects in local communities are stoking a sharper kind of fear and anger than has showed up in New York.

In the Nashville suburb of Murfreesboro, opponents of a new Islamic center say they believe the mosque will be more than a place of prayer. They are afraid the 15-acre site that was once farmland will be turned into a terrorist training ground for Muslim militants bent on overthrowing the U.S. government.

"They are not a religion. They are a political, militaristic group," said Bob Shelton, a 76-year-old retiree who lives in the area. . . .

In Temecula, Calif., opponents brought dogs to protest a proposed 25,000-square-foot mosque that would sit on four acres next to a Baptist church. Opponents worry it will turn the town into haven for Islamic extremists, but mosque leaders say they are peaceful and just need more room to serve members. . . .

Mosque leader Essam Fathy, who helped plan the new building in Murfreesboro, has lived there for 30 years.

"I didn't think people would try that hard to oppose something that's in the Constitution," he said. "The Islamic center has been here since the early '80s, 12 years in this location. There's nothing different now except it's going to be a little bigger."

Bagby said that hasn't stopped foes from becoming more virulent.

"It was there before, but it didn't have as much traction. The larger public never embraced it," he said. "The level of anger, the level of hostility is much higher in the last few years." . . .

Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, a nonprofit that advocates for reform and modernization of Islam, said opposing mosques is no way to prevent terrorism.

Neighbors didn't want his family to build a mosque in 1979 in Neenah, Wis., because they didn't understand who Muslims were.

"If the Wisconsin mosque had not been allowed to be built, I, at 17, might have put up walls and become a different person," he said. "If we start preventing these from being built, the backlash will be increased radicalization." . . .

If that doesn't frighten you, it should. The war of ideas is the most important battlefield in the war against Islamic extremism. Unless we engage in and help reformers to win the war of ideas, our grandchildren's grandchildren will still be fighting this war - and likely doing so at great cost in blood and gold. And indeed, it is only the reformers who can ultimately win the war of ideas. We can only help them or hurt them.

Unfortunately, the craven tack of our government in its treatment of Islam is starting to show predictable results. Americans are not fools, and when they feel under attack, as they have been since 9-11 and now with the Ground Zero mosque, they will push back - hard. Unable to distinguish the good from the bad, it is no surprise that some are doing so indiscriminately. If we begin to lose the young Zuhdi Jassers of our nation, then we will have completely lost the war of ideas against radical Islam. That would be an existential disaster.

Update: DO WATCH THIS VIDEO. It is from a moderate Muslim who does not merely come out against the Ground Zero Islamic Center, but who notes how efforts at reform in Islam are being harmed by the left who throw their support to radical Islamic elements. She highlights most of the points I was attempting to make above.



(H/T Hot Air)

Update: And then there is Fox's Greg Gutfeld who feels that if Rauf can show magnanimous tolerance, so can he.

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A Dangerous Retreat From The War Of Ideas

Within the past week, Homeland Security released the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, and Defense Department released the Quadrennial Defense Review. These are major reports designed to drive policy for the next few years. Yet reading through the two of them, there seems to be something missing - like any mention of the threat from "Islamic" terrorists. Indeed, other than a mention of al Qaeda and generic "terrorists," the word "Islam" and its derivations do not appear in either report.

This is PC madness. It is wishing the problems away. We will never - repeat never - win the war against Islamic terrorism unless and until we engage in the war of ideas against the ideology driving that terrorism. I criticized Bush for only engaging in the war of ideas half heartedly. But that is a half more than Obama has done. Obama has completely retreated from the war of ideas. That is a dangerous retreat indeed, as to quote former terrorist Dr. Tawfiq Hamid, "the civilized world ought to recognize the immense danger that Salafi Islam poses; it must become informed, courageous and united if it is to protect both a generation of young Muslims and the rest of humanity from the disastrous consequences of this militant ideology."

Let's highlight that for a moment. Let's do a little exercise.

1. Do you know the person pictured at the top of this post?

2. He is a cleric in what denomination of Islam?

3. What is his background?

4. Why is he important?

5. Ideologically, what differentiates him from, say, Zhudi Jasser or David Suliman Schwartz, two prominent Muslims in America?

6. What is different about the pictured man's version of Sunni Islam from . . . let's pick the Shafi'i school of Sunni Islam prevalent in Indonesia during Obama's time there?

If you can answer those questions, that puts you ahead of probably 99.99% of all other Americans. Yet these are questions about which most Americans should have at least some idea.
The Answers:

1. The man pictured at the top of the post is Anwar al Alaki.

2. Alaki is a Wahhabi / Salafi cleric.

3. He was born in America and raised here until he was 11, then went to Yemen for ten years before returning to receive his college education in America. It is not clear whether he was radicalized here or in Yemen, though that would be very helpful to know. Salafism is the prevalent form of Islam practiced in Yemen, but most mosques in the U.S. are owned by Salafists (compliments of Saudi petrodollars) and there is a strong radical element funded through Saudi Arabia on most campuses.

4. Alaki is a member of al Qaeda. He played a central role in both the Ft. Hood Massacre and the attempted slaughter by Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day Undiebomber.

5. Alaki, in full accord with the doctrines of Wahhabi / Salafi Islam, believes Western society is incompatible with Islam and wants to impose sharia law throughout the world. Also in accord with the teachings of Wahhabi / Salafi Islam, he views use of force and terror as legitimate means to that end. Zhudi Jasser and David Suliman Schwartz are Muslim reformers. Both seek modifications of Salafi Islam and both practice forms of Islam that they believe are compatible with Western freedoms. Both are highly critical of Salafism and neither wants to see Sharia law imposed in any state.

6. Salafism is militant, triumphalist, and deeply discriminatory. The Shafi'i school, practiced in Indonesia during Obama's stay there, was far less militant and very open to coexisting with other religions. It is changing now as Salafists are being sent to Indonesia in force by Saudi Arabia. They are radicalizing influence on Islam in Indonesia. That said, historically, terrorists have not arisen from practitioners of the Shafi'i school; they have virtually all arisen from the Salafi / Wahhabi school and schools heavily influenced by Salafism.

If most Americans knew the answers to those questions, it would tell us and the world that we are not at war with Islam, but that we are at war with the ideology of Salafists. It would give standing and recognition to those Muslims who are fighting the overtaking of their religion by Salafits. Given the warning signs put out by Major Nidal Hassan prior to the Ft. Hood massacre, and given that he was a Salafist, it would likely have meant that the warning signs would have been heeded and the massacre aborted months before it occurred. It would place Salafism where it needs to be - in the full and direct light of the public, subject to the strongest force a democratic world can muster, public opinion. It is only that which will force a moderation of Salafi Islam. But if we can't answer those questions, than we can do nothing to "to protect both a generation of young Muslims and the rest of humanity from the disastrous consequences of this militant [Salafi] ideology."

In this, it seems, Obama has thrown not merely us, but all of the non-Salafi Islamic world under the bus. Add that to a national counterterrorism effort in tatters and you have a recipe for disaster - not to mention never-ending war with the law of averages being that one day, these terrorists will succeed in a nuclear attack on America.

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Obama and The War Of Ideas Against The Jihadists

Our war against radical Islam has always been a two front war. We have succeeded to this point in the physical war against radical Islam. We are losing completely in the equally if not more important of the two wars - the war of ideas. We are doing nothing to beat back jihadism on the ideological plane. What was unforgivable cowardice under George Bush has been made worse under the anti-American fantasy of Obama.

Yesterday, Tom Friedman and Fouad Ajami wrote about different aspects of the war of ideas. Friedman writes that the jihadi narrative - that the U.S. is at war with all of Islam and responsible for the many ills of the Arab world - has now saturated the Muslim world. Ajami writes that Obama's prostration before the Arab world, apologizing for the sins of America and whitewashing the Arab world of responsibility for its plight, have fallen flat, not merely engendering no upturn in support for America, but causing disillusionment.

Friedman, writing at the NYT, gives us his opinion of the Maj. Nadal Hassan mass murder at Fort Hood. As he sees it, Hassan was fully infected by the jihadist narrative, and that narrative has now become ascendant in the Muslim world:

The Narrative is the cocktail of half-truths, propaganda and outright lies about America that have taken hold in the Arab-Muslim world since 9/11. Propagated by jihadist Web sites, mosque preachers, Arab intellectuals, satellite news stations and books — and tacitly endorsed by some Arab regimes — this narrative posits that America has declared war on Islam, as part of a grand “American-Crusader-Zionist conspiracy” to keep Muslims down.

Yes, after two decades in which U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny — in Bosnia, Darfur, Kuwait, Somalia, Lebanon, Kurdistan, post-earthquake Pakistan, post-tsunami Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan — a narrative that says America is dedicated to keeping Muslims down is thriving.

Although most of the Muslims being killed today are being killed by jihadist suicide bombers in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Indonesia, you’d never know it from listening to their world. The dominant narrative there is that 9/11 was a kind of fraud: America’s unprovoked onslaught on Islam is the real story, and the Muslims are the real victims — of U.S. perfidy.

Have no doubt: we punched a fist into the Arab/Muslim world after 9/11, partly to send a message of deterrence, but primarily to destroy two tyrannical regimes — the Taliban and the Baathists — and to work with Afghans and Iraqis to build a different kind of politics. In the process, we did some stupid and bad things. But for every Abu Ghraib, our soldiers and diplomats perpetrated a million acts of kindness aimed at giving Arabs and Muslims a better chance to succeed with modernity and to elect their own leaders.

The Narrative was concocted by jihadists to obscure that.

It’s working. As a Jordanian-born counterterrorism expert, who asked to remain anonymous, said to me: “This narrative is now omnipresent in Arab and Muslim communities in the region and in migrant communities around the world. . . .

Ajami, writing in the WSJ, tells us:

[Obama] has not made the world anew, history did not bend to his will, the Indians and Pakistanis have been told that the matter of Kashmir is theirs to resolve, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the same intractable clash of two irreconcilable nationalisms, and the theocrats in Iran have not "unclenched their fist," nor have they abandoned their nuclear quest.

There is little Mr. Obama can do about this disenchantment. He can't journey to Turkey to tell its Islamist leaders and political class that a decade of anti-American scapegoating is all forgiven and was the product of American policies—he has already done that. He can't journey to Cairo to tell the fabled "Arab street" that the Iraq war was a wasted war of choice, and that America earned the malice that came its way from Arab lands—he has already done that as well. He can't tell Muslims that America is not at war with Islam—he, like his predecessor, has said that time and again.

It was the norm for American liberalism during the Bush years to brandish the Pew Global Attitudes survey that told of America's decline in the eyes of foreign nations. Foreigners were saying what the liberals wanted said.

Now those surveys of 2009 bring findings from the world of Islam that confirm that the animus toward America has not been radically changed by the ascendancy of Mr. Obama. In the Palestinian territories, 15% have a favorable view of the U.S. while 82% have an unfavorable view. The Obama speech in Ankara didn't seem to help in Turkey, where the favorables are 14% and those unreconciled, 69%. In Egypt, a country that's reaped nearly 40 years of American aid, things stayed roughly the same: 27% have a favorable view of the U.S. while 70% do not. In Pakistan, a place of great consequence for American power, our standing has deteriorated: The unfavorables rose from 63% in 2008 to 68% this year.

Mr. Obama's election has not drained the swamps of anti-Americanism. That anti-Americanism is endemic to this region, an alibi and a scapegoat for nations, and their rulers, unwilling to break out of the grip of political autocracy and economic failure. It predated the presidency of George W. Bush and rages on during the Obama presidency.

We had once taken to the foreign world that quintessential American difference—the belief in liberty, a needed innocence to play off against the settled and complacent ways of older nations. The Obama approach is different.

Steeped in an overarching idea of American guilt, Mr. Obama and his lieutenants offered nothing less than a doctrine, and a policy, of American penance. No one told Mr. Obama that the Islamic world, where American power is engaged and so dangerously exposed, it is considered bad form, nay a great moral lapse, to speak ill of one's own tribe when in the midst, and in the lands, of others. . . .

Both of the above articles highlight a theme sounded repeatedly on this blog - it is incumbent on our leaders to be honest with our nation and with Muslims. It is incumbent that they identify the source of radicalism in the Muslim world and honestly name it. It is incumbent that they explain the threat and shine a blinding light on this cancer.

As I wrote almost two years ago:

Without identifying the source of "radical Islam" and shining a light on all of the relevant aspects of the source, we are incapable of developing a coherent national and international strategy to that will meet and defeat this cancer. Identifying the source of radical Islam and explaining about it to America is a fundamental duty of our government. And on this, our government has failed.

This failure has other significant ramifications. It leaves our populace without the knowledge to distinguish between a particularly dangerous ideology and a benign one - both of them being interspersed among us and throughout the world. This will lead to a tendency to lump all Muslims under one banner [note - this is precisely what Obama did in his Cairo speach]. Most critically, it will marginalize and cut off from support those Muslims who would fight against the Salifization of their religion. And indeed, as this is in large measure an ideological struggle, it it the fight they will wage that will determine the future of Islam. We need to insure they win over Salafi Islam.

And there is yet another critical aspect to the the governments use of euphanisms to describe "radical Islam." It falsely implies that radical Islam is merely an anamoly. By doing that, our government provides cover for Wahhabi / Salafi Islamists to continue to spread their ideology free of criticism and publicity. This only allows the problems created by that Salafi Islam to fester and metastasize. It will only compounds the costs that we will eventually have to pay if and when things get to a point where some action must be taken against these purveyors of hatred, death and triumphalism.

If anyone has any doubts that the Salafi/Wahhabi sect is the font of jihadism, please see this short autobiography from former terrorist, Tawfiq Hamid.

Bush failed in his duty, likely because naming Salafism / Wahhabism was considered too impolitic. Obama, on the other hand, seems dangerously clueless. His Muslim "advisors" are, according to Zuhdi Jasser, stacked with "political Islamists" and, indeed, one not long ago spoke out in favor of shariah law. His Cairo speech treating Salafi terrorists and apolitical Muslim as the same - equal members in a single Muslim ummah - was a disaster. He did nothing more in that speech then reiterate the "Narrative" and then excuse Arab regimes for the failings with ridiculous claims of moral equivalence. We now see its resonance.

The bottom line of all of this is that we could stay in Iraq and Afghanistan for the next half century and still not defeat the threat of "radical Islam." We can't because it is an idea, and until we engage in the war of ideas, we can expect the threat from radical salafists to continue to metastasize. Indeed, under Obama, it seems to be growing apace.

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Geert Wilders, The Euro-Left & Salafi Islam

It is getting scary," she said. "He is becoming more extreme. He has made it respectable to speak out against Muslims."

Marjina Bernard, 52 y.o. Dutch Citizen, speaking about Geert Wilders, quoted in "Dutch Divided Over Geert Wilders as Radical MP Eyes Premiership," The Telegraph, 14 June 2009

Three years ago, Dutch politician Geert Wilders broke with the major Duthch Party, the Peoples Party, over their support for ascesion of Turkey to the EU. Wilders believes that the Salafi Islamicization of Europe needs to be resisted and immigration brought under control. A fierce proponent of freedom of speech, he is the anti-Obama. Instead of ignoring the many ills of Islam and engaging in moral relativism, Wilder speaks forcefully on the unvarnished truth of what he sees. Much of his criticism is summed up in his movie short, FITNA. It is not racist, nor is it anything more than you will find on this blog, such as the post "Dear Pakistan" and "What You Don't Know About Salafism Could Kill You." And do see the autobiographical post of former terrorist Tawfiq Hamid here.

Understand also that, through immigration, Islam is rapidly taking over large swaths of Europe. The problem is particularly accute in Wilder's Netherlands and surrounding countries.

"In the Netherlands, Muslims will soon make up the majority in all major cities. “Today, we have 1 million Muslims out of 16 million Dutch,” according to Frits Bolkestein, Dutch politician and former EU Commissioner. “Within 10 years, they will have an absolute majority in both Amsterdam and Rotterdam. We are staring into the face of a shortly to be divided community.

And this from Mark Steyn:

Brussels has a Socialist mayor, which isn’t that surprising, but he presides over a caucus a majority of whose members are Muslim, which might yet surprise those who think we’re dealing with some slow, gradual, way-off-in-the-future process here. But so goes Christendom at the dawn of the third millennium: the ruling party of the capital city of the European Union is mostly Muslim.

And the attitude towards this takeover among the European left is simply mindnumbing. To give you an idea of what Wilders is up against, please see this post on the recent travails of left wing Dutch journalist and nominee for Dhimmi Of The Millenium Joanie de Rijke.

After breaking with his party, Wilders established a new political party, Party for Freedom. Many ignored Wilders or attempted to silence him. Britain's morally bankrupt Home Office banned Wilder from entering the country and he has been sued several times under the EU's hate speech laws. Yet in three years, his party is now the second largest party in Dutch politics. It is garnering ever more interest from the realists - and causing ever more consternation on the left. This from the Telegraph today:

. . . To many abroad Mr Wilders, a Dutch MP, appears an old-fashioned racist whose views put him on a par with other far-Right politicians elsewhere in Europe.

Yet in its first ever test of national electoral support among the normally tolerant Dutch, his anti-immigration Party for Freedom which he founded in 2006 won 17 per cent of the votes – making it the second biggest party. That has shaken the country to its core – opening up the real possibility that, through the Dutch coalition system, Mr Wilders could win power at the next general election.

Now, like many others in the Netherlands, the Bernards are desperately worried. "This has the feeling of what happened to Germany in the 1930s," said Alfred Bernard, 52, a lawyer. "Wilders blames foreigners for everything. People are disoriented because of the economic crisis. Everywhere there is dissatisfaction with mainstream politicians.

"After this I really believe that Wilders could become prime minister in the 2011 parliamentary elections, or at least set the political agenda."

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Wilders, 45, was frank about that ambition. Asked about the prospect of taking power in two years' time, he said: "That is our biggest job. We had an enormous success last week and our biggest task is to keep up momentum. I am very confident that we will have an excellent result.

"If my party becomes the biggest party, I would be honoured to be prime minister."

Sitting in his office in the Dutch parliament building in The Hague, protected from the threat of assassination by 10 armed secret service bodyguards, he summed up his antipathy to the religion of many immigrants to the Netherlands.

"Islam wants to dominate our society," he said in fluent and only slightly accented English. "It's in opposition to freedom.

"If people are offended, that's not my aim. I don't talk about Muslims but about Islam. Everything I say is against the fascist Islamic ideology."

To the charge that to many his views appeared to be racist, he responded: "If that was true, we would never have been the second biggest party in the European elections."

Why, then, did Moroccans and Turks living in the Netherlands so fear him? "As long as they don't commit crimes, it's a baseless fear," he said. "If you adhere to our laws, if you act according to our values, you are free to stay. We will help you to integrate.

"But if you cross the red line, if you start committing crimes, if you want to do jihad or impose sharia, we want you to be sent out of the Netherlands and we will get rid of your permits to stay."

An admirer of Churchill and Lady Thatcher, he is charismatic as well as combative. Holland's conventional politicians – mostly dull men in suits – have no idea how to counter his politically incorrect taunts, which outrage the parliamentary chamber but delight his supporters.

He has come a long way since the days when he could be lightly dismissed as an eccentric fringe politician with an extraordinary blond quiff, known mainly for baiting Muslims.

"Half of Holland loves me and half of Holland hates me. There is no in-between," Mr Wilders said. "This is a new politics, and I think it would have a great chance of success in other European countries. We are democrats. On economic and social issues we are centrist. We want tougher laws on crime and we want to stop Holland paying so much money to the European Union.

"We would stop immigration from Muslim countries and close Islamic schools. We want to be more proud of our identity."

He admitted that he is frustrated at his image abroad, especially in Britain, a country which he admires. He claimed to believe in freedom above all else and pointed out that he is despised by Holland's Neo-Nazis, who dubbed him the "blond Zionist" because of his links to Israel – a country which he has often visited and where he counts politicians among his friends.

He is still angered at being banned from entering Britain, where he had been invited to show his controversial 17-minute film linking the Koran with the September 11 terror attacks. Muslim groups were among those who campaigned against his admission, and he dismissed the Home Office ruling as an attempt at "appeasement" of Islam.

Dutch liberals groaned when the British Government refused entry, because they knew Mr Wilders would milk the decision to generate massive publicity at home. He is also being prosecuted in Holland for promoting hate crimes, a case which is thought unlikely to succeed but which has allowed him to pose as a martyr.

. . . Then a dreamy look of a man convinced of his own destiny came into his eyes as he launched into a fresh tirade about the threat to Western civilisation from Islam. "Samuel Huntingdon was being too positive when he talked about a clash of civilisations," Mr Wilders said. "It is civilisation against barbarity."

. . . Dutch tolerance has shaped the Party of Freedom to be quite unlike most European Right-wing movements: its election campaigning championed the victims of gay-bashing gangs of Moroccan youths, and Mr Wilders talks often about the threat from Islam to women's rights.

His success is a sign of how the political landscape has changed. Even Dutch left-wingers now have to admit that there is a problem with Moroccan street gangs are a problem, and liberals wring their hands about the failure of immigrants to integrate since the first were admitted during the 1960s and 70s – many from Morocco and Turkey. . . .

Read the entire article. It may be that Wilders is appearing on the scene too late to stop what could well turn into a bloody conflict in Europe. That said, people like Wilders who are honest and realistic may serve to head off such an eventuality. I think Obama approach articulated in his Cairo speech - to mouth half truths and ridiculous moral equivalencies - will only make such a conflict more likely.

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Obama's Cairo Address: Hiding From The Existential Problems Of The Muslim World

The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of coexistence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.

Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims. . . .

President Barack Obama, Cairo Address, 4 June 2009

What we needed from the leader of the free world was honesty with both the Muslim world and with us. What we were treated to instead were apologetics and dissimulation about the existential problems facing the Muslim world. One, Obama needed to honestly identify the source of violence arising out of Islam. He did not. Two, there is a war raging for the heart and soul of Islam. It is a war between those who would see their religion evolve and those who wish to see it stay static in the tribal dogma of 7th century Arabia and the 12th century philosophy of ibn Tamiyah. Obama needed to acknowledge this war of ideas and he needed to show support for the reformers. He did neither.

Obama claimed that "violent extremists" from a "small minority" of Muslims are at the heart of violence arising out of the Islamic world. That is a gross distortion of the truth and an incredibly dangerous one - if one cannot identify the source of violence, then one cannot act to stop it.

The engines of Muslim violence are the dogma of Wahhabi/Salafi Islam and its variants, including Khomeinist Shia'ism:

Wahhabi / Salafi Islam, [has been] exported from Saudi Arabia to all four corners of the world with billions in petrodollars to become the dominant form of Islam in the West, [and is vying to replace all other forms of Sunni Islam in the Muslim world]. According to Dr. Tawfiq Hamid, a former Salafi terrorist and member of Ayman al Zawahiri’s Jamaah Islamiyah, their faith in the medieval dogma of Wahhabi / Salafi / Deobandi Islam is what drives their violence:

The goal of Salafi Islam is "complete Islamic dominance." Salafi dogma holds that the duty of every Muslim is to wage "jihad against non-Muslims and subdue them to Shari'a - the duty of every true Muslim . . . [It is] to engage in war against the infidels, the enemies of Allah.

And as Zuhdi Jasser explains, terrorism is far more than a mere anomaly as . . . [some are] suggesting:

[Citizens] need to understand that this is not a conflict against a tactic but rather a common ideology which utilizes a radical interpretation of Islam and is a natural off-shoot from political Islam.

NRO Interview of M. Zhudi Jasser

And then there is this warning from Tawfiq Hamdid, explaining why it is so important to identify the source of this evil, not just for the protection of the West, but equally for the protecton of Muslims:

The civilized world ought to recognize the immense danger that Salafi Islam poses; it must become informed, courageous and united if it is to protect both a generation of young Muslims and the rest of humanity from the disastrous consequences of this militant ideology.

Tawfiq Hamid. See also my posts here, here and here. Obama's refusal to face this issue head on and speak the truth to the Muslim world has a three fold effect. One, it gives cover to Wahhabism to continue its growing march free from criticism of its vile tenets, among which include that is morally permissible, if not required, to slaughter non-Muslims and to appropriate their property. Two, it demonstrates a complete lack of support for those who fight against this scourge in the Muslim world. And three, it allows Muslims to deny responsiblity for their plight and their failure to reform their religion.

As to the war of ideas raging in Islam today, it is a war being waged by the extremely powerful and well funded Salafi/Wahhabi sects and the Khomeinist variant of Shia'ism against the other sects of Islam and against individuals committed to reform of their religion. Among their number are Zuhdi Jasser, Tawfiq Hamid, Ibn Warraq, Dr. Taj Hargey and the Center for Islamic Pluralism. They war for the heart and soul of Islam. It is a war whose outcome will be every bit as important for the future of the world as was the outcome of World War II. And to remain neutral in this war would be no different than if the U.S. had remained neutral in the European theatre of World War II, allowing Hitler to conquer all of Europe. Yet Obama, with his refusal to even acknowledge this issue in his Cairo address, has chosen precisely that path.

One of the most recent salvos in that war of ideas came from inside the United Nations. Wahhabists and Khomeinists have been agitating for years to impose blasphemey laws on the West. The result of such laws would be to make it inevitable that Salafi and Khomeinist Islam would triumph in the war of ideas. It would mean that these deeply dangerous ideologies would be able to spread through the West hidden from criticism by West's own criminal laws. In August, 2008, the "Human Rights Council at the United Nations . . . banned any criticism regarding Sharia Law and human rights in the Islamic World." And now, the OIC is pushing U.N. Resolution 62/154, on "Combating defamation of religions," through the U.N. that would, if effectuated, have the West in fact adopt such blasphemy laws.

This challenge to freedom of speech world wide could not be any more insidious nor dangerous, both to us and the entire Muslim world. Yet Obama did not so much as mention it in his speech.

Obama, instead of addressing any of these issues head on in his Cairo address, did nothing more than restate the Wahhabi and Khomeinist propaganda - that Western modernity is at odds with Islam and that a good portion of Islam's problems arise out of the "colonialism" of "the West."

What Obama did was a a trick out of Psychology 101. It is a technique that he uses often. He articulates the complaints of his audience without judgment. This is effective because it leaves the audience with the belief that Obama understands their complaint and empathizes with it. But the downside of that technique is that, if it is not followed by some clearly articulated honesty, it simply reinforces in the audience that their complaints are valid. It is a superb technique for psychologists, mediators, and politicians campaigning for office. It is a dangerous tool indeed for a person charged with the responsibilities of leadership.

And instead of following his restatement with honesty, Obama followed with a recounting of Islamic achievements. They were many, and they were invaluable. They also occurred a millenium ago. What Obama needed to drive home was the honest and brutal truth - something akin to the following:

There was a time when Europeans, seeking enlightenment and learning, studied at the feet of Islamic scholars. It is a time long past but not forgotten, at least by those who seek to restore their lost Empire at any and all costs. Since its Golden Age during the Moorish Empire a millennium ago, Islamic history has been in an steady tailspin that has led to a culture of victimhood and death fueled by religious hatred, sectarian violence, centuries of isolation from Western enlightenment, and an overwhelming almost mystical desire to restore past glories. Today, the Arab world is constituted by a series of twenty-two failed states bereft, for the most part, of progressive leaders and unable to produce one single manufactured product that can compete on world markets. Far from being an enlightened civilization, it has become a cultural backwater replete with massive poverty, repressive governments, vast illiteracy, medieval laws, rising Islamist anger and a Gross Domestic Product less than that of . . . Spain. [It should not be that way. It need not be that way.]

Read the entire article.

The problem could not be any clearer. Nor could the solution. I wrote precisely on this topic on March 31, 2007 in response to the OIC's initial attack on Western freedom of speech. I repost that essay here:
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The reason we face the problem of radical Islam today is that, in its entire history, Islam has seen no Renaissance, no Reformation, no Period of Enlightenment. These titanic events in Western history led to the development of secular values that came out of, but were separate from, the Judeo-Christian religion that birthed them. And these events gradually took religion from the sphere of a government imposition and moved it into the realm of the individual and local community.

The Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment were each developed through the process of critical thought - the questioning and challenging of religious ideals and dogma. It was this critical thought that allowed the West to seperate the wheat -- the belief in God and universal concepts of moral behavior -- from the chaff of religion – dogma that restricted development in all aspects of society: political, artistic, scientific, philosophical. Thus, today do our universities turn out the finest scientists, the finest writers, the finest mathematicians and astronomers, while the universities in Saudi Arabia primarily turn out Wahhabi clerics. And it is why the West leads the world in science and the arts while the morals police in Saudi Arabia hunt down sorcerers and the Saudi courts apply Wahhabi Sharia law to order the flogging of victims of gang rape.

There are seeds from which a Muslim Enlightenment could yet occur. They would require criticism and debate to take root. Yet these seeds are under mortal threat today from the growth of Wahhabi / Salafi Islam.

The seeds which would allow for an Enlightenment lie in Islam's earliest history. Year 1 to Muslims begins with Hijra, Mohammed’s emigration to Medina in 622 A.D. When Mohammed died, Islam was still largely confined to Arabia. It is important to note that, before Mohammed died, he left his followers with a concept most clearly stated in a hadith - an authenticated saying of Mohammed. That hadith provides that the ummah – the community of Muslims – can “never agree on an error.” Complimenting this in the Koran, it says “People, you order what is right, forbid what is wrong, and you believe in God.” (3:110)

These concepts, taken together, allow for the evolution of Islam. And in another critical development following Mohammed’s death, as Islam progressed, there came the concept of ijtihad (see here and here). Ijtihad is the practice of reasoning from the texts, the hadiths, the sunna and the works of scholars to determine what Islam should mean, what it should approve and disapprove. If there will ever be a moderation of Islam, it will come from those concepts of the hadith and the Koran mentioned above, and from the practice of ijtihad.

The remainder of Islam's history tells us why these seeds of an Enlightenment never took root. Following Mohammed’s death, Islam spread at a pace never before or since duplicated. Its rapid expansion – by the sword – continued almost unchecked for the next several hundred years. Actually, in this regard, for any Muslim to criticize the West as imperialistic is irony of the highest order. The West are pikers compared to the Islamic caliphates. Within 130 years following the Hijra, Arabic Muslims had conquered the Middle East, Turkey, all of North Africa, and the better part of Spain, and they were fighting battles inside France.

Through about 1100 A.D., Islamic society, led by the Arabs, far outshone the West in learning and technology. It was a far more enlightened society than what was to be found in Europe at the time. Indeed, at the turn of the first millenium, the premier city in the world was not London, Paris or Rome, but Baghdad. But, along with this vast expansion powered by the belief in Islamic destiny came the desire to control the precise nature of Islam by the Caliphs. At the end of the tenth century, the “gates of ijtihad” were ordered closed by the Caliphs and the Muslim philosophers cooperated. The concept of free reasoning fell from grace in Islam. This closing of the gates of ijtihad is credited by many scholars as the cause of the stagnation of Islam in succeeding centuries.

But there was much worse on the horizon. In the late 12th century came invasion by the Turks, followed closely by Ghengis Khan and the Mongol horde in the thirteenth century. For the Arabs, this was a catastrophe of titanic proportions. They were overrun, and it was the Turks, practitioners of Sufi Islam, not the Arabs, who emerged as the leadership of Islam. And into this time of turmoil was born Ibn Taymiya, the man whose philosophy and writings would be the foundation for Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi Islam.

Taymiya started from the proposition that Islam was from God, and it was God’s intent that Islam should spread to the four corners of the earth. In this light, Taymiya saw the success of the Turk and Mongol conquers as a punishment from God because Arab Muslims had allowed Islam to be corrupted. His answer was to return to what he believed animated Islam at the time of Mohammed. He was puritanical and a literalist. The Islam he envisioned was one of absolute tenets – dogmatic and beyond questioning.

Fast forward to eighteenth century Arabia, where Ibn Wahhab was born. Wahhab embraced embraced the teachings of Taymiya and built upon them, arguing that any deviation therefrom was heretical and that the offender should be put to death. Wahhab promoted a triumphalist and imperialistic religion that saw anyone not in its membership as an enemy to be converted, conquered or killed. There has been little if any deviation from Wahhab's original dogma through to the modern day. Indeed, for example, one aspect of Wahhabi doctrine, taught in Saudi schools at least as recently as 2003, is that it is permissible to enslave “polytheists.” That comes from a Saudi textbook. If you are a Christian, by the way, you are a polytheist. Wahhabism is the soul of radical Islam. To go against any tenet of Wahhabi Islam is to conduct impermissible innovation and thus, to be labeled takfir, an unbeliever, – and subject to losing your head.

To continue with the chronology, Wahhab found his way to Najd, a backwater of Arabia controlled by tribe of the Sauds. Wahhab partnered with the Sauds and what followed, over the next two centuries, was an incredibly savage conquest of the Arabian peninsula by the House of Saud. And in each place they conquered, they imposed Wahhabi Islam.

Fast forward now to the 20th century. Two events of note occur. Turkey, home of Sufi Islam and the caliphate presiding over the majority of the Islamic world, came into World War I on the side of Germany and was ultimately defeated. Its Middle Eastern empire was divided up among the European counties. Attaturk took power in Turkey and divested Islam from politics, secularizing the country. This was, in essence, the first step towards a revolution in the Islamic world – the divorcing of religion from the nation state and limiting it to the private lives of Turkish citizens. Unfortunately, as time has gone on, Wahhabism has infected Turkey, and today we see the creep of Islamism into the state apparatus. Turkey has withdrawn from the precipice of a revolution to moderate and modernize Islam that its combination of secular government and classical Sufi Islam may have led.

The second event of note was the triumph of Wahhabi Islam with the conquest of Arabia by the House of Saud. Indeed, even before the final conquest, Wahhabi Islam had already influenced – or infected, if you like – many of the other schools of Islam. Two prime examples are the Pakistani Deobandi school that today is the basis for the Taliban, as well Islam in Egypt, from whence arose the first truly modern radical Islamist organization, the Muslim Brotherhood.

But Wahhabi Islam only truly became an engine of conquest with the growth of the oil industry and the influx of billions of petrodollars into Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is spending these billions to spread its brand of Islam to the four corners of the world and to supplant the other schools of Islam. Other than oil, Saudi Arabia’s main exports are Wahhabi clerics, Wahhabi mosques, and Wahhabi schools to every corner of the world. Further, the petrodollars are used to fund the Middle East studies program at most major colleges in the Western World – whose teaching invariably cover, cover for, and cover up Wahhabi Islam – and to fund Wahhabi organizations such as CAIR that perform much the same function in Western society at large.

I do not know that Wahhabi Islam also influenced and radicalized Ayatollah Khoemeni. But, given that he took Iranian Shia Islam out of its historically nonpolitical role in Iran and thrust Shiaism, for the first time in history, into the political realm with the creation of Iran’s theocracy, I would suspect that it did. I would be absolutely amazed if some scholar did not eventually catalogue such an influence. (Update: See this from Francis Fukuyama in the WSJ making this connection)

To sum up, the whole of the Islamic world is endangered by the growth of Wahhabi Islam. And Wahhabi Islam holds it dogma to be beyond question – upon pain of censure or even death. If there is to be a moderation and modernization of Islam – a Reformation and Period of Enlightenment if you will – it will not will arise out of Wahhabi Islam without tremendous bloodshed.

Ultimately, in the world of ideas, it is only through questioning and critical reasoning that advancements occur. To put an Islamic face on that, it is only through the embrace of ijtihad and the concepts of Islam discussed earlier that there is any chance that Islam will finally see a great historical change to moderate and modernize from Wahhab’s vision of 7th century Islam into a form of Islam that can coexist with the rest of the world in the 21st century. And Western society has an obligation not to be coerced into silence, but to openly criticize what we find dangerous and wrong in Islam. If our voice is cowed, how can we expect the voice of would be moderates in the world of Islam to stand up - and withstand the inevitable Wahhabi onslaught to their existence. The cost to humanity and the world if Islam does not have its Reformation and Enlightenment will almost assuredly be apocalyptic.

Which brings us to today, and the United Nations Human Rights Organization. I have already posted that I believe the UN exists in an alternate Islamic universe. It finds fault with illegal acts or human rights violations only in Israel. See here and here. But we have now reached the final Islamic straw.

Friday, March 30, 2007, Islamic countries pushed through a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council demanding a global prohibition on the public defamation of religion. Lest there be any doubt about which religion they are concerned with, the only religion mentioned in the resolution is Islam. As stated in the minutes from the UN Human Rights Council meeting:

The Council expresses deep concern at attempts to identify Islam with terrorism, violence and human rights violations; notes with deep concern the intensification of the campaign of defamation of religions, and the ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities, in the aftermath of the tragic events of 11 September 2001; urges States to take resolute action to prohibit the dissemination including through political institutions and organizations of racist and xenophobic ideas and material aimed at any religion or its followers that constitute incitement to racial and religious hatred, hostility or violence; also urges States to provide adequate protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation of religions, to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and their value systems and to complement legal systems with intellectual and moral strategies to combat religious hatred and intolerance; . . .

The UN is only doing the work of radical Wahhabi Islamists at this point. If there is ever to be a peaceful coexistence with Muslims, the West cannot gag itself as CAIR and the Islamists at UN would have us do. We can coexist with Muslims as long as they are not trying to kill us and impose their religion by coercion or by working fundamental changes to our Western secular values with ridiculous charges of Islamaphobia. Unfortunately, that is not the reality. Thus, it is their religion that needs to change. It needs to go through its Reformation, and there needs to be a period of Enlightenment. The clearest way to stop this transformation from ever occurring is to outlaw criticism of Islam. This would be putting a nail into the coffin of Western civilization, in addition to insuring the ultimate domination of the Wahhabi philosophy in Islam.

If this is what we can expect from UN as reformed, it needs to be defunded by the U.S. In the Senate hearings for his confirmation as the new U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad has argued against defunding the UN but has also stated that the UN faces a “mortal threat" if it fails to reform. There are no reforms on the horizon. It is time to allow the UN to subsist on Rials until it does.
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A truly brave man would have spoken honestly and would tried to use the bully pulpit to support reforms in Islam. Obama is not that person, and we are less safe for it.

Summary - Obama's Cairo Address: What We Needed, What We Got
Part 1 - Obama's Cairo Address: Hiding From The Existential Problems Of The Muslim World
Part 2 - Obama's Cairo Address: A Walk Back From Democracy & Iraq
Part 3 - Obama's Cairo Address: Obama Calls For Women's Rights While Glossing Over Discrimination & Violence
Part 4 - Obama's Cairo Address: Nukes, Iran & Weakness Writ Large
Part 5 - Obama's Cairo Address: Israel & Palestine – A Little Good, A Lot Of Outrageousness
Part 6 - Obama's Cairo Address: Islam's Tradition Of Religious Tolerance?
Part 7 - Obama's Cairo Address: The Dangerous Whitewashing Of History

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