from NY to Israel Sultan Reveals
The Stories Behind the News

Posted: 25 Oct 2009 07:40 PM PDT

By George Bush I don't mean the 41st or 43rd Presidents of the
United States, but the 19th century clergyman and historian George Bush,
who was also the author of the first American biography of Mohammed. Bush
was also the great-grand uncle of the 41st President, and the great-great
grand uncle of the 43rd President. But his views on Islam were
significantly different than those of his more Saudi friendly modern day
relations.

George Bush was one of the more famous ministers of his day, a
biblical scholar, a liberal and controversial thinker. And while his
biography of Mohammed was not particularly controversial in its day, you
would have trouble finding a single bookstore willing to carry it today.
Bush questioned everything about Mohammed's life and history, and phrases
such as, "But in the Koran, a complete fabric of imposture, the last
thing we are to expect is an honest adherence to the truth", would
summon riots today.

Indeed riots nearly occurred when some of the
clerics at Egypt's Al Azhar University got their hands on a translation of
Bush's book, "The life of Mohammed: founder of the religion of Islam". A
nervous state department in 2004 quickly put out a notice stating that the
book had not been written by the current President, but by "a distant
relative of the current president, five generations removed, but not his
direct ancestor", was the product of "more parochial times" and its views
"have nothing to do with the attitudes of current President Bush, who is
respectful of Islam as one of the world's great religions"

Yet
despite the long passage of time and the greater availability of sources
today, George Bush's 19th century text on Mohammed is overall a good deal
more accurate than the apologetic pablum that Karen Armstrong and her ilk
ship out to college campuses. In fact George Bush seemed to understand
Islam a good deal better than his grand-nephews several times removed.

George Bush draws a picture of Mohammed as a canny plotter, the
orphaned son of a powerful dynasty looking to reclaim what his family had
lost. A clever merchant who kept his ear close to the ground and plotted
to take advantage of the power vacuum created by tribal infighting and the
decline of the Persian and Roman empires. A man who with greedy genius
built an empire by transforming his personal ambitions into a vast
religion.

Boasting chapters with summaries such as "Mohammed forms
the design of palming a new religion upon the world, the Prophet pretends
to have a night journey through the seven heavens" and "the Jews the
special objects of Mohammed's enmity", pull rather few punches and at
times read as if they had been written by Geert Wilders, not a fairly
progressive liberal clergyman and New York University
professor.

Take Bush's critique of Mohammed's progressive
revelation of the Koran;

He declared himself appointed to promulge a new
revelation in successive portions, the aggregate of which was to
constitute the Bible of his followers. The original or archetype of the
Koran, he taught, was laid up from everlasting in the archives of
Heaven, being written on what he termed the preserved table, near the
throne of Allah, from which the series of chapters communicated by
Gabriel were a transcript. This pretended gradual mode of revelation was
certainly a master stroke of policy in the impostor.

...Had the
whole volume been published at once, so that a rigid examination could
have been instituted into its contents as a whole, and the different
parts brought into comparison with each other, glaring inconsistencies
would have been easily detected and objections urged which he probably
would have found impossible to answer. But by pretending to receive his
oracles in separate portions, at different times... he had a ready way
of silencing all cavils, and extricating himself with credit from every
difficulty, as nothing forbade the message or mandate of to-day being
modified or abrogated by that of to-morrow.

Or George Bush's commentary on Mohammed's cynical campaign
to win over converts;

The marks of imposture are much more discernible upon
the pages subsequently revealed, in which the prophet had private ends
of a sinister nature to accomplish... He applied himself in the most
insinuating manner to all classes of people; he was complaisant and
liberal to the poor, cultivating their acquittance and relieving their
wants; the rich and noble he soothed by flattery; and bore affronts
without seeking to avenge them. The effect of this politic management
was greatly enhanced by the peculiar character of those inspired
promises and threatenings which he brought to enforce his
message.

His promises were chiefly those of a blissful paradise
in another life; and these he studiously aimed to set forth in colours
best calculated to work upon the fancies of a sensitive and sensual
race, whose minds in consequence of their natural habits were little
susceptible of the images of abstract enjoyments. The notions of a
purely intellectual or spiritual happiness pertains to a more cultivated
people.

... Mohammed was well aware that a plenitude of these
visible and palpable attractions, to say nothing of grosser sources of
pleasure, was an indispensable requirement in a heaven suited to the
temperament of his countrymen... such is the Mohammedan paradise,
rendered alluring by its gross, carnal and luxurious character.

Or his commentary on how Mohammed got around the difficulty
of producing actual miracles;

At a later period, when he was at Medina at the head of
an army, he had a more summary way of solving difficulties arising from
this source, for his doctrine then was, that god had formerly sent Moses
and Jesus with the power of working miracles, and yet men would not
believe, and therefore he had now sent him, a prophet of another order,
commissioned to enforce belief by the power of the sword. The sword
accordingly was to be the true seal of his
apostleship.

Or Bush writing of Mohammed's night journey to
Jerusalem;

The attentive observer of the distinguishing traits of
Islamism will not fail to discover innumerable points of resemblance
between that system and the divinely revealed religion of the Jews; and
it appears to have been an object studiously aimed at by the impostor
(Mohammed) to assimilate himself as much as possible to Moses, and to
incorporate as many peculiarities of the Jewish economy into his own
fabrication as he could without destroying the simplicity of his creed.
This fact is in keeping with what may be asserted in general terms, that
the descendants of Ishmael, under a consciousness that the covenanted
blessings of God have flowed down in the line of Isaac and Jacob, have
ever shown a disposition to imitate what they could not
attain.

George Bush also notes the transition from Mohammed as the
man of peace who does not compel anyone in religion, to the brutal
warlord. A transition defined by how much power Mohammed had at his
disposal.

In numerous passages of the Koran, published at Mecca,
he expressly declared that his business only to preach and admonish,
that he had no authority to compel anyone to embrace his religion...
Indeed so far was he from allowing his followers to resort to violence,
that he exhorted them to bear with meekness the injuries offered them on
account of their faith...

But his
exemplary moderation continued for the space of twelve years, seems to
have been owing altogether to his want of power, and the ascendancy of
his enemies; for no sooner was he enabled by the assistance of the men
of Medina, to withstand his adversaries, than he suddenly "altered his
voice" declaring that Allah had allowed him and his followers to defend
themselves by human weapons against the infidels, and as his forces
increased, he pretended to have the divine permission to act upon the
offensive also, to attack his foes, to root out idolatry, and the urge
the true faith at the point of the sword.

... This force,
intolerant and sanguinary spirit will be found to distinguish most of
the chapters revealed at Medina, so that it can be frequently determined
from the tone and temper pervading it, without consulting the date,
whether the portion was revealed before or after the flight. The
prophet's followers have faithfully acted up the spirit of these
precepts, and the terrific announcement attending the Moslem arms has
been, "The Koran, death or tribute."

Finally Bush sums up the moral code of Mohammed
thusly;

"Even at the present day among the prophet's disciples
all over the East, no trait is more common or more revolting than
'recklessness of life', which is doubtless to be ascribed as much to
national habits as to native cruelty or ferocity of disposition. We must
indeed think but little of the morality of such a people, and must
behold with indignation a pretended prophet, while professing to purify
the moral code of his countrymen, continuing still in the practice of
some of the worst of its tenents. Here, in fact our heaviest
condemnation falls upon Mohammed. He did not observe the rules of
morality which he himself laid down, and which he enforced upon others
by such terrible sanctions. No excuse can be offered for the impostor on
this score. He abused his claims as a prophet to screen the guilty
excesses of his private life, and under the pretence of a special
revelation, dispensing himself from the laws imposed by his own
religion, had the female sex abandoned without reserve to his
desires.

... This is but too fair a specimen of the general
character of the Koran. By far the greater part of its contents were
fabricated to answer particular purposes which he could effect in no
other way; and this was an expedient which never failed. If any new
enterprise was to be undertaken, any new objections answer, any
difficulty to be solved, any disturbance among his followers to be
hushed, or any offence to be removed, immediate recourse was had to
Gabriel, and a new revelation, precisely adapted to meet the necessities
of the case, was granted.

....teaching, that the grand
principles of morality are not eternal and immutable, growing out of the
very nature of the relations substituting between the Creator and his
creatures, but are mere arbitrary rules, subject to be relaxed,
modified, or dispensed with, as circumstances may
dictate."

In short George Bush reduces the story of Mohammed and the
narrative of Islam to its bare bones as a sham and charade, carried out by
one man and his greedy and deluded disciples. Bush is by no means as harsh
as he could be no Mohammed. At times he defends him against the attacks of
early Christian writers. He takes tales of Mohammed's supposed heroism in
battle at face value, though those tales all come from his own followers.
Nevertheless the book succeeds at dissecting Islamism far better than any
college text could.

And if all this had not sufficiently succeeded
in offending and enraging Muslims, George Bush had also called for the
creation of a Jewish State in Israel.

It is ironic that a 19th
century George Bush understood the character and menace of Islam, far
better than his 20th century kindred. Had George W. Bush listened more to
his namesake and less to CAIR, America might be far safer for it.