Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Spot the True "Moron"

I found the following words on the Tablet magazine site. They come from a piece that criticizes the New York Times for failing to see that the real threat in France today is "the danger of Jews being murdered by radical Islamists":
Most intelligent, educated people have long realized that while the murderous ideology of ISIS and al Qaeda does not represent the entirety of the world’s Muslim population or the true core of the Muslim religion—only zealots and morons would make such a thwarted argument—it does represent a group of people possessing sufficient motivation, training, and ammunition to inflict considerable damage in their war against our civilization and all that we hold dear. Most intelligent, educated people, then, have no problem identifying the events unfolding in Paris as the doing of crazed Islamists bent on holy war while still harboring no grudge for the religion at large or the many hundreds of millions of Muslims who are shocked and offended by the murders as anyone else the world over. It’s not that complicated, and it shouldn’t be above the moral and intellectual capacity of a fearless and secure newspaper. Would that there were one around.
Here's "zealot/moron" Robert Spencer, a scholar of Islam, on the subject of what one finds at Islam's true core:
The Qur’an teaches that Muslims must fight and kill unbelievers “wherever you overtake them” until “religion is Allah’s,” i.e. Islamic law rules all societies (2:190-193). They must fight unbelievers “until there is no fitnah and [until] the religion, all of it, is for Allah” (8:39). Muslims are to fight unbelievers and “prepare against them whatever you are able of power and of steeds of war by which you may terrify the enemy of Allah and your enemy and others besides them whom you do not know [but] whom Allah knows” (8:60). 
Allah tells Muhammad to “fight against the disbelievers and the hypocrites and be harsh upon them. And their refuge is Hell, and wretched is the destination” (9:73). The followers of Muhammad should imitate him in this: “O you who have believed, fight those adjacent to you of the disbelievers and let them find in you harshness” (9:123). For “Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah; and those with him are forceful against the disbelievers, merciful among themselves” (48:29). 
Muslims should not befriend non-Muslims, unless, as we have seen, it is to deceive them to save oneself from danger: “Let not believers take disbelievers as allies rather than believers. And whoever [of you] does that has nothing with Allah, except when taking precaution against them in prudence” (3:28). 
Allah says he will “cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve” (3:151). He tells his prophet: “[Remember] when your Lord inspired to the angels, “I am with you, so strengthen those who have believed. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieved, so strike [them] upon the necks and strike from them every fingertip. 
Among “those who have disbelieved” are the Christians, who have made themselves into disbelievers by worshipping Christ as God: “They have certainly disbelieved who say, ‘Allah is the Messiah, the son of Mary’” (5:17; 5:72). In worshipping Christ, they have associated a partner with Allah, thereby becoming polytheists, and “the polytheists are unclean” (9:28). Both Jews and Christians have ascribed a son to Allah, for which Allah should destroy them: “The Jews say, ‘Ezra is the son of Allah’; and the Christians say, ‘The Messiah is the son of Allah.’ That is their statement from their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved [before them]. May Allah destroy them; how are they deluded?” (9:30). 
Chief among those are the Jews. The Muslim holy book also contends that Allah transformed disobedient Jews into “apes, despised” (2:65; 7:166), and “apes and pigs” (5:60). It says that they’re accursed for rejecting the Qur’an, which they should have recognized as confirming their own Scriptures: “And when there came to them a Book from Allah confirming that which was with them – although before they used to pray for victory against those who disbelieved – but [then] when there came to them that which they recognized, they disbelieved in it; so the curse of Allah will be upon the disbelievers” (2:89). 
The Qur’an says that while Muslims are “the best nation produced [as an example] for mankind,” the People of the Book (primarily Jews and Christians) are mostly “defiantly disobedient” (3:110). The Jews “have been put under humiliation [by Allah] wherever they are overtaken, except for a covenant from Allah and a rope from the Muslims” – that is, except those who have accepted Islam or submitted to Muslim rule. “And they have drawn upon themselves anger from Allah and have been put under destitution. That is because they disbelieved in the verses of Allah and killed the prophets without right. That is because they disobeyed and [habitually] transgressed” (3:112). They killed the prophets because they disliked their messages: “Whenever there came to them a messenger with what their souls did not desire, a party [of messengers] they denied, and another party they killed” (5:70). 
Not only have they disbelieved in revelations from Allah and killed the prophets, but they even dare to mock Allah himself: “And the Jews say, ‘The hand of Allah is chained.’ Chained are their hands, and cursed are they for what they say.” They “strive throughout the land [causing] corruption, and Allah does not like corrupters” (5:64).
Allah gave food laws to the Jews because of their “wrongdoing,” and “for their averting from the way of Allah many [people]” (4:160), and by doing so, “repaid them for their injustice” (6:146). Some Jews are “avid listeners to falsehood” who “distort words beyond their [proper] usages.” These are “the ones for whom Allah does not intend to purify their hearts,” and they will be punished not just in hellfire but in this life as well: “For them in this world is disgrace, and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment” (5:41). 
Jews dare to deny divine revelation, claiming that “Allah did not reveal to a human being anything,” to which Muhammad is told to respond, “Who revealed the Scripture that Moses brought as light and guidance to the people? You [Jews] make it into pages, disclosing [some of] it and concealing much” (6:91). 
In light of all this, it is understandable that Muslims should not get close to such people: “O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you – then indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people” (5:51). What’s more, the Jews are “the most intense of the people in animosity toward the believers” (5:82). 
While Muslims are the “best of people” (3:110), “they who disbelieved among the People of the Scripture and the polytheists will be in the fire of Hell, abiding eternally therein. Those are the worst of creatures” (98:6). They are “like livestock” (7:179). “Indeed, the worst of living creatures in the sight of Allah are those who have disbelieved, and they will not [ever] believe” (8:55). 
I think you have all the info you need to do the spotting I mentioned in the headline.

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