|
|
Follow the Middle East Forum
|
|
|
Obama:
We're No Better than Islamic State
|
|
|
Share:  
|
  Be the first of
your friends to like this.
Originally published under the title, "Obama:
Christianity No Different Than the Islamic State."
|
President
Obama, speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5
|
As the world reacts with shock and horror at the increasingly savage
deeds of the Islamic State (IS)—most recently the immolation of a
captive—U.S. President Obama's response has been one of nonjudgmental
relativism.
Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, Obama
counseled Americans to get off their "high horse" and remember
that Christians have been equally guilty of such atrocities:
Unless we get on our high horse and
think this [beheadings, sex-slavery, crucifixion, roasting humans] is
unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the
Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.
There is so much to be said here. First, the obvious: the wide gulf
between violence and hate "justified in the name of Christ" and
violence and hate "justified in the name of Muhammad" is that
Christ never justified it, while Muhammad continuously did.
This is not just a theoretic point; it is the very reason that Muslims are still committing savage atrocities. Every
evil act IS commits—whether beheading, crucifying, raping, enslaving, or
immolating humans—has precedents in the deeds of Muhammad, that most
"perfect" and "moral" man, per Koran 33:21 and 68:4
(see "The Islamic State and Islam" for parallels).
The wide gulf between violence
"justified in the name of Christ" and violence
"justified in the name of Muhammad" is that Christ never
justified it, while Muhammad continuously did.
|
Does Obama know something about Christ—who eschewed violence and told
people to love and forgive their enemies—that we don't? Perhaps he's
clinging to that solitary verse that academics like Philip Jenkins
habitually highlight, that Christ—who "spoke to the multitudes
in parables and without a parable spoke not" once said, "I come
not to bring peace but a sword." (Matt. 10:34, 13:34).
Jesus was not commanding violence against non-Christians but
rather predicting that Christians will be persecuted, including by
family members (as, for example, when a Muslim family slaughters their
child for "apostatizing" to Christianity as happens
frequently).
Conversely, in its fatwa justifying the burning of the Jordanian
captive, the Islamic State cites Muhammad putting out the eyes of some
with "heated irons" (he also cut
their hands and feet off). The fatwa also cites Khalid bin
al-Walid—the heroic "Sword of Allah"—who burned apostates to
death, including one man whose head he set on fire to cook his dinner on.
Nor is the Islamic State alone in burning people. Recently a "mob
accused of burning
alive a Christian couple in an industrial kiln in Pakistan allegedly
wrapped a pregnant mother in cotton so she would catch fire more
easily."
As for the Islamic "authorities," Al Azhar—the Islamic
world's oldest and most prestigious university which cohosted Obama's
2009 "New Beginning" speech—still assigns books that justify every barbarity IS commits, including burning people alive.
Moreover, Al Azhar—a religious institution concerned with what is
and is not Islamic—has called for the cutting off of the hands and feet
of IS members, thereby legitimizing such acts according to Islamic law.
|
Pope
Urban II ordered the first crusade in response to the same kinds of
atrocities being committed by the Islamic State today.
|
On the other hand, does Obama know of some secret document in the
halls of the Vatican that calls for amputating, beheading or immolating
enemies of Christ to support his religious relativism?
As for the much maligned Crusades, Obama naturally follows the
mainstream academic narrative that anachronistically portrays the
crusaders as greedy, white, Christian imperialists who decided to conquer
peace-loving Muslims in the Middle East.
Again, familiarity with the true sources and causes behind the
Crusades shows that they were a response to the very same atrocities
being committed by the Islamic State today.
Consider the words of Pope Urban II, spoken almost a millennium ago,
and note how well the portions in italics perfectly mirror IS behavior:
From the confines of Jerusalem and the
city of Constantinople a horrible tale has gone forth and very frequently
has been brought to our ears, namely, that a race from the kingdom of the
Persians [i.e., Muslim Turks] … has invaded the lands of those
Christians and has depopulated them by the sword, pillage and fire; it
has led away a part of the captives into its own country [as slaves], and
a part it has destroyed by cruel tortures; it has either entirely
destroyed the churches of God or appropriated them for the rites of its
own religion …. What shall I say of the abominable rape of the women? To
speak of it is worse than to be silent…. On whom therefore is the
labor of avenging these wrongs and of recovering this territory incumbent,
if not upon you? You, upon whom above other nations God has conferred
remarkable glory in arms, great courage, bodily activity, and strength…
If the crusaders left their own lands and families to come to the aid
of persecuted Christians and to liberate Jerusalem, here is Obama
portraying them as no better than the Islamic State—which isn't
surprising considering that, far from helping persecuted Christians, Obama's policies have significantly worsened their plight.
The true lesson of the Crusades is that Islamic violence has been
remarkably consistent, down to its very patterns of persecution. And,
according to primary historical texts—not modern day fantasies peddled by the likes of Karen
Armstrong—Muslim persecution of Christians was indeed a primary
impetus for the Crusades.
As for the Inquisition, this too took place in the context of
Christendom's struggle with Islam. (Isn't it curious that the European
nation most associated with the Inquisition, Spain, was also the one
ruled longest by, and heavily populated with, Muslims?) After the
Christian reconquest of Spain, Muslims, seen as untrustworthy, were
ordered either to convert to Christianity or go back to Africa whence
they came. Countless Muslims feigned conversion by practicing taqiyya and living as moles, always trying to
subvert Spain back to Islam. Hence the extreme measures of the
Inquisition—which, either way, find no support in the teachings of
Christ.
Muhammad, the prophet of Islam,
called for the murder of his enemies, incited his followers to conquer
and plunder non-believers, and kept sex slaves.
|
Conversely, after one of his jihads, Muhammad had a man tortured to
death with fire in order to reveal his tribe's hidden treasure and
"married" the same man's wife hours later. Unsurprisingly, the
woman, Safiya, later confessed that "Of all men, I hated the prophet the most—for he
killed my husband, my brother, and my father," before
"marrying" her.
In short, Obama's claim that there will always be people willing to
"hijack religion for their own murderous ends" is patently
false when applied to the Islamic State and like organizations and
individuals.
Muhammad himself called for the murder of his enemies; he permitted
Muslims to feign friendship to his enemies in order to assassinate them;
he incited his followers to conquer and plunder non-believers, promising
them a sexual paradise if they were martyred; he kept sex slaves and
practiced pedophilia with his "child-bride," Aisha.
He, the prophet of Islam, did everything the Islamic State is doing.
If Muslims are supposed to follow the sunna, or example, of
Muhammad, and if Muhammad engaged in and justified every barbarity being
committed by the Islamic State and other Muslims—how, exactly, are they
"hijacking" Islam?
Such is the simple logic Obama fails to grasp. Or else he does grasp
it—but hopes most Americans don't.
Raymond
Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom
Center, a Judith Friedman Rosen Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum
and a CBN News contributor. He is the author of Crucified
Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians (2013) and The
Al Qaeda Reader (2007).
|
|
|
|
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment