Tag Archives: Allah

Robert Spencer: In Iraq, pope views mosques and churches destroyed by the Islamic State, laments ‘our cruelty’ 4 (1)

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by Robert Spencer

The pope was making a theological point, that all human beings are sinful, and that this destruction is a manifestation of that sinfulness. But it is also noteworthy that he ascribed the destruction he saw to all of humanity, and decried nations that sell weapons, but never said a word about why the ruined buildings he saw were destroyed in the first place. The Islamic State destroyed mosques because the people who attended them did not accept their authority, and were thus apostates in rebellion against the caliphate. It destroyed churches because they were places of unbelief (see Qur’an 5:17, 9:30, etc.) and shirk, the association of partners with Allah in worship. But there was never any possibility that the pope might ask the assembled Muslim leaders to fight against jihad violence and teach their people to refrain from jihad violence. After all, the pope has committed himself and the Catholic Church to the proposition that Islam is peaceful and has nothing to do with terrorism, so as far as he was concerned, there was nothing for him to ask the Muslim leaders about. And that rendered the trip a useless and indeed counterproductive exercise.

“Pope Francis dismisses ‘heresy’ charges for his commitment to Christian-Muslim dialogue,” by Claire Giangravé, Religion News Service, March 8, 2021:

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Aboard the papal flight back from Iraq, the first papal trip since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Pope Francis addressed criticism of those who have accused him of being “one step away from heresy” in his commitment to promoting human fraternity among the world’s faiths.

“There are some critics who say the pope is not brave but reckless, that he’s taking steps against Catholic doctrine, that he’s one step from heresy,” the pope told journalists on Monday (March 8).

Francis said that his decision to speak with Muslim religious leaders and promote interreligious dialogue is “always made in prayer, in dialogue, asking for advice.” He said that his efforts to mend Christian-Muslim relations, far from being “capricious,” are in keeping with the doctrine laid out by the Second Vatican Council….

On Saturday (March 6), the pope met in Najaf, a holy city to Shia Muslims, with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most prominent Shiite leader. The historic meeting, which lasted roughly 45 minutes, was the first official meeting between a pope and a prominent Shiite representative.

The pope described al-Sistani as “a humble man” who has “wisdom and prudence,” adding that “it was good for my soul to encounter him.” Francis said the meeting was “a duty in his pilgrimage of faith” to promote human fraternity among religions….

It was the tragic decimation of the Yazidi ethnic community by the Islamic State group following the 2014 occupation of Northern Iraq that inspired the pope to make the trip, he said. The book “The Last Girl” by Nobel Peace Prize-winner Nadia Murad, which described the suffering of the Yazidi people, “provided the background for the decision,” he said.

On Sunday (March 7), Francis viewed the ruins of mosques and churches in Mosul, the capital of the Islamic State during the occupation. He said he “had no words” after seeing the scale of destruction. “Human cruelty, our cruelty, is impossible to believe,” he added.

The pope also criticized those nations selling weapons, though he didn’t single out any particular country….

Among the topics addressed by the pope during the trip was the question of the suffering of immigrants, which has been a main focus of this pontificate. Francis met with the father of a 3-year-old boy who died attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea. The picture of Alan Kurdi’s body became a symbol of the plight of immigrants and refugees in Europe and beyond….

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster. Follow him on Twitter here. 

Bill Lockwood: Stealth Jihad and the Islamization of America 4 (1)

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by Bill Lockwood

Islam divides the entire world into two sectors: “Dar-al-Islam” (House of Islam) and “Dar-al-Harb” (House of War). The only countries that are considered to be at peace with Islam are those which enforce Shari’a Law. This is because Islam does not recognize the right of any other religion to exist. America at large is thus a part of the “House of War.”

World Domination

Muslim leaders world-wide have been bold and blatant that their efforts are toward an Islamic-dominated world. Iranian leader Ahmadenejad declared it (2006); Leading Muslim cleric in the UK Anjem Choudary insisted that the Muslim flag will one day “fly over the White House;” the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) chair Omar Ahmad confessed in 1998 that the Islamic goal is “to become dominant worldwide;” and the Muslim Brotherhood has given us “The Project”—a 100 year-plan to establish “Islamic government on earth.”

The Muslim Brotherhood, created in Egypt in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna, claims to have more than 70 affiliated terrorist organizations throughout the world. It states that “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”

Note that they define “jihad” for us. It involves “dying in the way of Allah.”

“Jihad” is the sacred obligation to impose Islam upon the entire world. This is not the creation of a few extremists or the hijacking of a peaceful religion by a handful of radicals. Jihad is mandated in the writings of the Quran, was practiced in bloody earnest by the false prophet Muhammad, and is overwhelmingly defined by classical theologians, jurists and traditionalists as a military concept of “waging war.”

According to the eminent scholar of Islamic history and culture at Princeton University, Bernard Lewis, the late Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton,
[the] term ‘jihad’ has usually been understood as meaning ‘to wage war.’ The great collection of hadith all contain a section devoted to jihad in which the military meaning predominates. …According to Muslim teaching, jihad is one of the basic commandments of the faith, an obligation imposed upon all Muslims by God, through revelation … It must continue until the whole world has either accepted the Islamic faith or submitted to the power of the Islamic state.

Students in public schools today learn the “5 Pillars of Islam” inclusive of prayer, alms, pilgrimage, and so forth. However, the instructional materials in our public schools normally do not include the 6th Pillar. Jihad is the 6th Pillar. So important was “Jihad” (Religious fighting for Allah) that Muhammad declared it the second most important deed in Islam. (Hadith by Bukhari, Vol. 1, no. 25).

Some Muslim clerics inform us that “jihad” can mean “inner struggle” as in a person who “struggles” for inner mastery over sin. This definition is “taqiyya”—or lying. Jihad, in the authoritative materials of Islam, uniformly means fighting for political mastery.

Muhammad himself stated that “The person who participates in Jihad (Holy Battles) for Allah’s cause and nothing compels him to do so except belief in Allah and His apostle, will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward or booty (if he survives) or will be admitted to paradise (if he is killed.)” (Vol. 1:35).

Some Muslims may ignore jihad or disregard it—and we are glad they do– but it is certainly not defined in the authoritative Islamic texts as “inner struggle.” Further, this is not a matter of “interpretation”—but of either acceptance or rejection by Muslims.

It is very difficult for Christians to understand, but Islam is a militant movement which has as its primary aim not spiritual, but political goals. The ultimate purpose of Islam is the establishment by force of a worldwide Islamic state where Shari’a law is enforced.

Muslim Brotherhood

This brings us back to the Muslim Brotherhood. Their outlined strategies for western world takeover include the “appearance of moderation,” the “use of deception to mask good,” the “extensive usage of social networks,” and to “cultivate Islamist intellectual community;” “using Western institutions until they convert them into the service of Islam.”

Changing the laws of the United States is the primary target. Stealth Jihad. As Muslim Brotherhood leader Qaradowi stated, “jihad can be fought with the pen, then the sword.”

The great world-class scholar and former president John Quincy Adams warned America regarding Islam. His comment was that Muhammad had

poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. The essence of his doctrine was violence and lust: to exalt the brutal over the spiritual part of human nature. … Between these two religions [Islam and Christianity], a war of twelve hundred years has already waged. The war is yet flagrant … while the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motive to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men.

Bill Lockwood: Islam, Christianity, and Roman Catholicism 0 (0)

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by Bill Lockwood

Julia Ioffe, writing in Foreignpolicy.com, makes a classic mistake in an article entitled “If Islam is a Religion of Violence, So Is Christianity” (6-14-2016). Apparently miffed that the general populace draws such conclusions as that “Islam is bad and Christianity is good” in the wake of mass shootings in America, Ioffe says it is a “hateful hypocrisy” to “single out Islam.”

She overtly blares out “I am tired of hearing, from Bill Maher and from Donald Trump, that Islam is inherently violent. “I am even more tired of hearing that Christianity is inherently peaceful.”

And how does she demonstrate that Christianity can be a “religion of violence”, and that Islam can be peaceful? She slogs through history, recent and ancient, to show atrocities committed by those who claimed to follow Christ, such as the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. On the other hand, she gives illustrations of peace-loving Muslims. “Islam, as it was practiced in medieval Span, was beautiful and peaceful, too.”

Since Ioffe’s investigative method is flawed, she erroneously concludes, “No religion is inherently peaceful or violent, nor is it inherently other than what its followers make it out to be.”

What About These Things?

While it is true that observers of religious people judge and asses the religion itself by the examples that people live before them, this does not explain the religion itself, nor the formative teachings of that religion. This methodology is about as thin as seeking to determine the official Democratic Party platform by asking Democrats on the street what are their feelings about the issues of the day.

This is clumsiness, to say the least. Many atheists have used this same flawed principle in defending atheism. Many atheists live admirable lives, they tell us. No argument here—but their morality does not derive from their atheism. It is bootlegged straight out of Christianity.

Severed branches of trees have enough sap left to keep the leaves green for a while. So also, atheists have enough “moral sap” leftover to keep them moral–but neither humanism nor atheism provide in and of themselves any moral substance.

This illustration now sets us up to examine Ioffe’s assertions.

Christianity

How should one assess a religious standard? How should one examine what that religion teaches? How can one determine what a religion “inherently is?” Ioffe condemns that Christianity can be violent. How so? She uses the illustration of Dylan Roof, who killed nine people in the middle of a Bible study in Charleston, S.C. but who declared allegiance to “the white supremacist cause” and “pointing to the Council of Conservative Citizens” which claims to “adhere to ‘Christian beliefs and values.’”

Christianity cannot be accurately assessed by examining people who did not live up to the standard set by Christ in the New Testament, regardless of the institutions to which they belong. The Lord Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, taught completely the opposite of what Roof practiced, including love your neighbor as yourself.

The same is true regarding the endless pointing to the Middle Age Roman Catholic Church and its atrocities, which Ioffe does in her article. She does this to point to bloodletting committed by Catholics in the “name of Christ.” She is not alone here—men such as Bill Maher do the same thing.

The American people need desperately to learn that the Roman Catholic Church is not a representative of Christ upon the earth, nor is it the church about which one reads on the pages of the New Testament, regardless of what the papacy asserts, and regardless of what name is invoked while perpetrating crime.

The Roman Catholic Church is the direct result of a brazen apostasy from the New Testament over the ages. Read the New Testament yourself and see that there is no pope, no papal infallibility, no Vatican State, no infant baptism, no baptism of desire, no baptism of blood, no rule of celibacy, no monasticism, no inherited sin, no immaculate conception, no bodily assumption of Mary, no praying to the saints, no rosary, no purgatory, no indulgences, no canonized saints, no veneration of saints, no sacraments, no lent, etc.

Official Roman Catechism’s and Encyclopedia’s admit that these doctrines “developed over the centuries.” The Roman Church through the ages simply adopted myriads of foreign doctrines, then wedded itself to a state apparatus and became a mixture of “church and state” which even sent armies into the field to shed blood on behalf of the Vatican!

Yet, this is what Ioffe uses to say that “Christianity” can be violent. It is interesting that journalists are supposed to go original sources. But not in this case. She wants us all to assess the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ by means of Rome. We are not so easily misled.

Islam

Here we come to something entirely different. Muslims as a group, behave in different ways, depending upon how many of them occupy a territory or nation. As percentages to population rises, so does violence. Why is this? Once again—go back to the original source, Ioffe. What do you find?

The one perfect Muslim was Mohammed. What did he do? How did he behave? Multiple verses in the Koran command the use of the sword (Surah 9:5; 9:73; 47:4, etc.). Islam, in its inception, waged war on all who did not accept Allah and Mohammed as his prophet. Mohammed was a war-lord of the Middle Ages style who led his followers in numerous battles. Violence is not an “apostasy” from a peace-loving Mohammed, but an imitation of him and his “inspired” commands from Allah.

When Mohammed died, not one person on the entire peninsula of Arabia disagreed with the man. This is not explained on the basis of freedom. His dying words were to carry on to “fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of truth (even if they are) the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued” (Surah 9:29).

Note the choices the founder of Islam gives to conquered peoples. One, Accept Islam. Two, pay the jizya (poll-tax on non-Muslims). This is the cornerstone of the entire system of humiliating regulations that institutionalize inferior status for non-Muslims in Islamic law. Three, prepare to war with Muslims.

Peaceful co-existence in a pluralistic society, of which Ioffe writes, is not one of the choices.

Does any of this sound anything like what was taught by the Savior of the world? No, Julia Ioffe. The religions of the world are inherently what their founders actually taught, not what later followers may or may not do. It is interesting that Ms. Ioffe did not once reference Christ Himself or His teaching when cross-examining Him. Nor did she look to see what Mohammed actually taught. Both are easily referenced.

It is something for which we ought to be thankful that not all Muslims faithfully carry out Mohammed’s “inspired” orders. But this is only because they do not live down to the standard set by their founder. On the other hand, it is sad that many professed Christians do not live up to the standards set by the Lord Jesus Christ found on the pages of the New Testament.

‘Crusader Knights’ Logo Comes Down 0 (0)

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‘Crusader Knights’ Logo Comes Down

by Bill Lockwood

“The legs of the lame are not equal” (Prov. 26:7). A cripple may try to walk or run but his legs do not operate as a coordinated pair. Solomon compares this to “parables” in the mouth of fools—they should not try to be teachers. This is what our government has become. Fools effecting to give instruction.

The United States Army recently removed a sign outside the 8th Special Troops Battalion Warrior Training Center in Fort Shafter Flats, Hawaii, after it drew criticism for its religious imagery. It featured a medieval knight with crosses on his breastplate and shield. The cleansing of the sign occurred within hours after “the head of a religious-freedom advocacy group called for the image’s removal.” The government could not get the image down quickly enough.

Spokeswoman Sgt. 1st Class Mary Ferguson told Army Times that the image representing the “Fighting Knights” is not “an approved logo.” Putting as much distance as possible between the Army and any notion of “religion” Ferguson added, “Ultimately, this was human error and not representative of the unit or the Army.”
Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, had earlier demanded the removal of the sign in an email to Maj. Gen. Edward Dorman. “Who’s asleep at the switch when it comes to these issues?” he queried.

According to Weinstein, a number of MRFF clients, including some Muslim soldiers, were offended and had asked the MRFF to intervene, which Weinstein was delighted to do. “We commend the Army for doing the right thing, but why did it happen in the first place?” Weinstein pressed. Weinstein’s email to Dorman additionally requests an investigation into the matter and the punishment of responsible parties. Such imagery “enrages our Islamic allies” and “emboldens our Islamic enemies,” he intones. Ocean View School District

At the same time, across the sea in sunny California, in the Ocean View School District, Spring View Middle School social studies class, the teacher incorporated lyrics to the melody of “Fight Song” by pop artist Rachel Platten into a history lesson. The altered words included Islamic teaching that “Allah is the one God.”
The modified lyrics read: “Like a sandstorm; On the desert, Sending camels, Into motion. Like how a single faith, Can make a heart open; They might only have one God, But they can make an explosion.” The chorus of the song goes like this: “Islam … Allah’s on the way; They will preach them loud tonight; Can you hear their voice this time?; This is their fight song; Spread Islam now song; Prove that they’re right song.”

One of the parents, Nichole Negron, objected, and posted pictures on Facebook showing drawings that her son brought home which included the song lyrics as well as a stick-figure man saying, “Believe in Allah! There is no other god!” In the stir that this created school Superintendent Carol Hansen, said, “It was unfortunate the lesson on Islam ended just prior to the tragic world events last week … I apologize on behalf of the district if the song used in the World History lesson may have offended anyone. It was not the intention of the teacher to incite, anger or offend.”

It is all just a matter of WORLD HISTORY! How can people object to World History lessons? The Superintendent seems irritated in this “apology” that we cannot, when it comes to Islam, teach history! It is not meant to “offend.” And she leaves the feeling that the “offense” came solely on the heels of the heightened nervousness due to the Paris attacks. What do we have? When it comes to remotely suggesting Christianity with a picture of a cross on a shield the government military is all about erasing it and punishing the offenders! How could this possibly occur in Mikey Weinstein’s world?!

But when it comes to teaching children in government schools about Islam, even going to the trouble of having them memorize “Believe in Allah! There is no other god!”—and teaching them songs of the jihadists–that is only history. How dare parents object to history! Maybe Mikey Weinstein ought to go back to Junior High where he can learn that the Crusaders with cross emblems were only a part of history.  Certain it is that Superintendent Carol Hansen could teach him that World History should not “offend anyone.”

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