"House of Islam and House of War"

The fact is that Islam is a religion that has mainly been advanced by violence and intimidation, from Prophet Mohammed's Hijra in A.D 622 and A.D 630, through Islamic expansion by the Ottoman Empire, to present day Wahabism, notably Al Qaeda and Taliban. It is important to remember that the very essence of Islam precludes it from coexisting with any other religion, particularly Christianity or perception of it. The fact that any Muslim who converts to Christianity in most Islamic countries would be killed or run out of town is a reminder. The notion of coexistence, let alone assimilation is antithetic to the Islamic empowerment; the notion that Allah gave Mohammed Islam to rule over all other religion.

Hence, every country on planet earth with a significant Muslim population is either an Islamic state (intolerant and undemocratic) or has Islamic groups fighting to make it (or portions thereof) an Islamic state. It is interesting that European states and recently Canada have facilitated the laying of the essential foundations for the same to become of their societies in the future. In the name of multiculturalism and political correctness they have put the future of their children and grand children in serious jeopardy, as they have essentially ensured that their children and grand children will inevitably have to deal with Islamic extremism in their societies.

To understand the motivation of Muslims in Western societies it is important to remember a little bit of history. Following Prophet Muhammad's example—his violent triumphant return to Mecca in A.D. 630 and the establishment of the Islamic empire in AD 634, Muslims have conquered and imposed Islam on lands stretching from the borders of China and India to Spain's Atlantic coast. All of these conquered lands were compelled by force to embrace Islam, and as a result many (if not all) have become Islamic states. In his book Islam and the West, historian Bernard Lewis notes, "For almost a thousand years . . . Europe was under constant threat. In the early centuries it was a double threat—not only of invasion and conquest, but also of conversion and assimilation. All but the easternmost provinces of the Islamic realm had been taken from Christian rulers, and the vast majority of the first Muslims west of Iran and Arabia were converts from Christianity. North Africa, Egypt, Syria, even Persian-ruled Iraq, had been Christian countries, in which Christianity was older and more deeply rooted than in most of Europe. Their loss was sorely felt and heightened the fear that a similar fate was in store for Europe." Well, that fate is now on the verge of certainty, as indigenous Europeans are gripped by apathy and complacency, while Arab immigrants and immigrants from Islamic countries are on the march to take over Europe for Islam.

In 1801, two months after the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson as president, Tripoli (now Libya) which was compelled by the Ottoman Empire to become an Islamic nation, nearly two and half centuries prior (1535), declared war on the United States because the Americans had refused to pay tribute to raiding Arab corsairs. The ambassador from Tripoli had explained to Jefferson in Paris in 1786 that Muslims considered such raids their duty according to both the Qur'an and the Hadith, and that they were therefore bound to wage attacks (jihad) on all who refused to acknowledge Muslim authority.

In December 2002, a leading Sunni sheik, Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, in a fatwa posted on the website http://www.islamonline.net (in response to a reader's question), wrote of the "signs of the victory of Islam," citing a well-known Hadith: ". . . The Prophet Muhammad was asked: ‘What city will be conquered first, Constantinople or Romiyya?' He answered: ‘The city of Heracles will be conquered first'—that is, Constantinople. . . . Romiyya is the city called today ‘Rome,' the capital of Italy. The city of Heracles [later to become Constantinople] was conquered by the young twenty-three-year-old Ottoman Muhammad bin Morad, known in history as Muhammad the Conqueror, in 1453. The other city, Romiyya, remains, and we hope and believe [that it too will be conquered]."

Sheik Al-Qaradhawi went on to say "This means that Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror and victor, after being expelled from it twice—once from the South, from Andalusia, and a second time from the East, when it knocked several times on the door of Athens." He qualified his statement thus: "I maintain that the conquest this time will not be by the sword but by preaching and ideology . . ." (Source: Vancouver Independent Media, http://vancouver.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/23883.php).

Following in Prophet Mohammed's footsteps, many Muslim zealots, such as Usuman dan Fodio, an Arab (Fulani) Nigerian, utilized the established Islamic practice of taqlid ("imitation") to ruthlessly establish the Sokoto Caliphate in northern Nigeria. Usuman, as Prophet Mohammed before him, established Islam in northern Nigeria, by putting the indigenous Hausa people to the sword, in much the same way the Abbasid rebel al-Bukayr had done in the eighth century. In Degel, before their migration, dan Fodio orchestrated an oath of allegiance to galvanize his followers and motivate them to wage jihad against their enemies. He invoked the memory of the prophet Muhammad's own migration in 622 (hijra) that had been preceded by an oath his allies had taken to wage jihad by his side, an oath remembered in Islamic history as Second Aqaba and still invoked today, by Islamic extremists all over the globe, under the inspiration of Osama bin Laden and Abu Mussab al-Zakawi.

According to Mervyn Hiskett, "By appealing to ‘tradition,' Usuman made it clear here that he intended to appeal to taqlid (‘imitation') alone, and, that he disdained all use of ijtihad, or, ‘free play' of the intellect. That is to say, innovative thought or independent thinking were forbidden. But, he went further in also ruling out any place for qiyyas (‘analogical reasoning'). In so doing, Usuman paved the way for appeals to jihad based on revelation and on religious authority."

Much of the Qur'an (the hadith) is based on tradition—imitation of Prophet Mohammed's views, actions and conducts. We know today that the invocation made by dan Fodio and many others of that era, are being repeated today by Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaida. The notion that because extremist Muslims are in the minority, therefore majority of Muslims do not share their overall goal is a perilous premise. We must not forget that in their days, Mohammed and dan Fodio were supported by a few but highly motivated and dedicated people, as is Osama bin Laden and Abu Mussab al-Zakawi in present time.

The great commission for Christians is to make disciples of every nation through love; the great commission for Muslims is to conquer the world for Islam through Jihad. As many Christians are merely standing on the sidelines and not in the forefront of that commission, but would rejoice over a world where people of every nation are made Disciples of Christ, so would Muslims who are not necessarily in the forefront of the great Islamic commission, as it is carried on today, should the world become “conquered for Islam” by Islamists, through their Jihad.

Some Europeans like to engage in the perilous feel good notion of meaningless self-assurance, by arguing that the Islamic expansion ended in the 17th century or buying into the glib claptrap mantra that Islam is a religion of peace. Look around you, all over world, wherever there is a significant Muslim population, tell me what you see? Do you see peace and tranquility, do you see freedom, or do you see Islamic totalitarianism or the drive to establish it? For these Europeans, history has no relevance. They forget that the drive for Islamic expansion was not voluntarily ended by Muslims, who had sought to conquer the world for Islam, nor because Islam had undergone a progressive change, which inspired it to become more amenable. Indeed, Islam has remained virtually unchanged since then and so are the sentiments of that era, as we see even today in the deep desire to re-establish the Caliphates and in events around the world. The fact is that age of Islamic expansion was ended by the Western response to it. But, Muslim leaders through the ages have not given up on that drive. They have been waiting for the right time and the right opportunity. Don’t forget that every Muslim believes that Islam is superior to any other religion or any other ideology, for that matter, including democracy.

Many of them believe that the time has come, considering the unprecedented decline of Christianity in Europe and the Aristippulian consciousness that has gripped Europe. To them, Christianity, the old enemy that stood in the way of worldwide Islamic domination, has been weakened, and is virtually no more in Europe. Some even believe the “war” for Europe is already won .You see it in the attitude of Muslims in European societies. To them America is the final frontier for Islamic expansion.

Muqtedar Khan, an Islamic scholar, whom I have quoted elsewhere, wrote in his article, published in the New York Times on September 7, 2003, “Muslims in America. American Muslims. The difference between these two labels may seem a matter of semantics, but making the transition from the first to the second represents a profound, if somewhat silent, revolution that many of us in the Muslim community have been undergoing in the two years since Sept. 11.” He wrote further, “On its face, this shift would seem to threaten the very core of Muslim identity and empowerment. After all, in the decade before the events of Sept. 11, Islam was one of the fastest?growing religions in North America. Mosques and Islamic schools were going up in every major city. Groups like the Council on American?Islamic Relations and the American Muslim Alliance established chapters in nearly every area with a Muslim population.” He lamented the decline in the growth of Islam in America since the events of September 11, because “both sources of Islam’s growth—immigration and conversion—are now in jeopardy” as a result of the passage of the USA Patriot Act and anti-terrorism measures.

Khan also wrote, “Because we took our American citizenship for granted, we did not acknowledge its value and virtues. But now it is imperiled, the overwhelming desire of many Muslims is that America remain true to its democratic and secular values.” The question is, will Muslims in Western societies truly embrace democracy and those “secular values” and work to make inroads into their homelands for the same to take root. Or will their attitude to the West remain as smoke and mirror, cloak and dagger