Obama's
"not Islamic" Islamic State Claim Ridiculed
by IPT News • Sep 11, 2014 at
11:11 am
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President Obama's assertion Wednesday night that the Islamic State
terrorist group "is not 'Islamic'" is drawing derision from a
number of quarters.
The claim, also made by Obama's predecessors, is
"preposterous," Daniel Pipes wrote for the National Review Online. "To state
the obvious:
As non-Muslims and politicians, rather than Muslims and scholars, they are
in no position to declare what is Islamic and what is not."
Author Sam Harris, an atheist who challenges all religions, went
further, dismissing Obama's argument as a "scrim of pretense and
delusion."
"Which will come first, flying cars and vacations to Mars, or a
simple acknowledgment that beliefs guide behavior and that certain
religious ideas—jihad, martyrdom, blasphemy, apostasy—reliably lead to
oppression and murder?" Harris wondered in an essay. "It may be true that no
faith teaches people to massacre innocents exactly—but innocence, as the
President surely knows, is in the eye of the beholder. Are apostates
'innocent'? Blasphemers? Polytheists? Islam has the answer, and the answer
is 'no.'"
But Obama's argument echoes statements made by Muslim American leaders
during a news conference Wednesday morning. "All of this is against
the foundation and teaching of Islam," former Islamic Society of North
America (ISNA) President Mohamed Magid told reporters. He also is a member
of the president's Homeland Security Advisory Council.
The Quran includes numerous passages encouraging violent jihad and
inspiring hatred of non-believers, Harris notes. Robert Spencer offers
specific examples here, and asks why the Islamic State has become such a
magnet for wannabe jihadists if it was not seen as inherently Islamic.
But instead of acknowledging those verses and debating their modern
application, the president used a nationally televised speech to act as if
they do not exist. Harris blames "a large industry of obfuscation
designed to protect Muslims from having to grapple with these truths."
We saw that in action during Wednesday's news conference at the National
Press Club.
It's a difficult sell, Pipes concludes, because of the clear theological
statements and justifications Islamic State terrorists invoke for their
brutality.
"Anyone with eyes and ears realizes that the Islamic State, like
the Taliban and al-Qaeda before it, is 100 percent Islamic. And most
Westerners, as indicated by detailed polling
in Europe, do have eyes and ears. Over time, they are increasingly
relying on common sense to conclude that the group is indeed profoundly
Islamic."
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