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The Myth of Secular Islam

Bill Martin

May 20 2016

5 mins

east westThe election of Sadiq Khan, a Muslim, as mayor of London is only the latest example of someone professing the Islamic faith rising to occupy a powerful, influential position in a secular country. So what,  some might ask? What does it matter how and where one worships? Public officials the world over belong to many faiths or none of them. So why the fuss over Islam? Isn’t Islam just another religion? After all, it is presented by all Muslims, and many non-Muslims agree, that Islam is one of the great Abrahamic religions, alongside Judaism and Christianity.

That assertion concerning Islam is categorically incorrect, and here is why: Christianity existed for centuries and Judaism for millennia before Muhammad began to proclaim Islam, based on messages he claimed came to him from Allah — the name he ascribed to the One God — that were delivered by the archangel Gabriel. The fact that some of those messages contained references to events and people of the Torah and the Bible is no authentication of the claimed Abrahamic nature of Islam. There certainly is no mention of Islam in either of those holy scriptures, even though Muhammad asserted that Islam, as the only true religion, existed from the beginning of time and all other religions were a distortion of the original true faith.

Far more important is the simple fact that Islam is not just another religion. Islam is drastically different from all other religions, Abrahamic or not. Indeed, Islam is not a religion so much as a political ideology in a similar vein to communism and Nazism, two doctrines with which it happens to have much in common. It regulates the lives of its adherents down to the most minute detail, instructing them how to behave, what to do and what to avoid in order to please Allah and thereby earn the reward of Paradise. These edicts extend even so far as a ban on wishing non-believers “Merry Christmas” and sending Festive Season greeting cards. One of the most important of the instruction is that Muslims must remain true and faithful to Islam at all times, although they are allowed, in fact encouraged, to fake other loyalties when such deception is to the benefit of Islam or to their personal advantage. There are also dire warnings of eternal hellfire for disobedience. The religious element in Islam is simply the means of enforcing the compliance in all matters of believers by constantly evoking the supreme authority of Allah. Reference to “political Islam” as an aspect of the doctrine is a misnomer. Islam is all political and only political.

The vast majority of Muslims, including most of their religious leaders, are not conscious of this — the true nature of Islam — although it was perfectly well understood and acted upon by many notable champions of the faith. It could be fairly said that most Muslims live in innocent ignorance. That, however, does not alter reality.

The next auxiliary question is: What are the dictates of Islam to the believers and should we, the non-Islamic world, be concerned about it? The answer to the second part of the question is a resounding ‘yes’. While much of the instruction are neutral in regard to non-believers, a great many are not.

The Koran is the principle scripture of Islam, the complete collection of the messages Muhammad claimed to have received from Allah. The Hadith, the record of the sayings and deeds of Muhammad, is considered by Muslims, as well as non-Muslims who studied Islam, as an essential aid to understanding and interpreting the Koran. Ominously, the Koran is replete with specific instructions and exhortations to the faithful to perpetrate a range of violent actions against the unbelievers, the infidels or the kuffar in Arabic. In fact, the faithful are to fight the infidels incessantly until all other religions and all disbelief are extinguished and Islam reigns over all mankind. It is prescribed in the Koran that those who refuse to accept Islam are to be either killed or relegated to a lowly status they call dhimmitude, tolerated and allowed to live in return for paying a special tax called jizya and constantly demonstrating humility to their superiors, the Muslims.

The Hadith most certainly is a very appropriate adjunct to the Koran. The latter is the manual for the faithful for the the practising of their faith while the former is illustration to the manual. The brutal, blood-curdling savagery of Muhammad and his cohorts against those opposing Islam or defying his wishes beggars belief. So do his avarice and self-serving duplicitousness. The Hadith is the biography of a tyrannical psychopath, motivated by greed, lust and all the banal pleasures of the flesh, who also happened to “marry” a child and “consummated” the marriage when she turned 9. Islam regards Muhammad as the perfect human being, one whose example all good Muslims must strive to follow.

In the light of all the aforesaid, it is obviously of grave relevance to the non-Islamic world that there are Muslims in sensitive, vitally important public offices in non-islamic countries. Remembering that Islam obliges its adherents to be true and loyal to Islam above and to the exclusions of all else, where does the loyalty of these public officials lie? Is  Islam committed to subduing the world or is that goal trumped by loyalty to the country adherents are supposed to be serving? Both cannot be true. Are they practising deception — taqiyya — for the advancement of Islam, as instructed by the Koran, or are they not, in fact, true Muslims? These questions are seldom raised in the West because that would be seen as discrimination on religious grounds. Astute Muslims are keenly aware of such politically correct attitudes in non-Islamic countries and take full advantage of them, enjoying and utilising the support not only of the politically correct and social justice warriors but of the authorities and political leaders wo keep a weather eye on changing demographics and voter blocs. Once, and not so long ago, the Australian labor Party was a supporter of Israel, an attitude exemplified by Prime Minister Hawke. Today, with Muslim voters key in various electorates, that support has dramatically waned.

Bear that in mind as Islamic populations grow in the West and a creed with ambitions to impose its dictatorial edicts on all mankind sees its representatives assume high and influential office.

 

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