1,400 Years of Islamic Aggression: An Analysis. I was very disappointed to see that U.S. News would publish a clearly false article, adopting the world's clearly false, politically correct (PC) view of the place of the Crusades in history. What makes it even worse, the article hides its views under the additional headline falsehood, "The Truth About the Epic Clash Between Christianity and Islam."

Let me explain.

The opening heading states, "During the Crusades, East and West first met." This is just totally in error, as any person with the slightest knowledge of history well knows. East and West had been fighting for at least 1,500 years before the first Crusade.

To give just a few examples -- the Persians invaded Europe in an attempt to conquer the Greeks in the fifth century B.C. The Greek, Alexander the Great, attempted to conquer all of Asia, as far as India, in the fourth century B.C. Both the Persians of the east and the Greeks of the west set up colonial empires founded upon bloody military conquest. The Romans established by bloody military conquest colonies in Mesopotamia, northwestern Arabia, and Assyria in the second century A.D.

A different type of bloody conquest occurred through the movement of whole tribal groups between the east and the west. Again, just to name a few, the Huns, the Goths, and the Avars came from as far away as western Asia, central Asia, and China respectively in the fifth through the seventh centuries A.D. Indeed, the Avars from northern China and Mongolia were besieging Constantinople in 626 A.D., at the very moment Mohammed was a merchant in Arabia. Indeed, the Avars, by this siege, were one of the forces that weakened the Byzantines (there were many other, perhaps more important, forces) to the extent that most of the Byzantine mid-eastern empire fell relatively easily to the Muslims.

But let's give the writer the benefit of the doubt and say that the author meant that "During the Crusades, Islam and Christianity first met." This, of course, is also totally false.

Let us review the Muslim conquest. In 624, Mohammed led a raid for booty and plunder against a Meccan caravan, killing 70 Meccans for mere material gain. Between 630 A.D. and the death of Mohammed in 632 A.D., Muslims -- on at least one occasion led by Mohammed -- had conquered the bulk of western Arabia and southern Palestine through approximately a dozen separate invasions and bloody conquests. These conquests were in large part "Holy wars," putting the lie to another statement in the U.S. News article that proclaimed the Crusades "The First Holy War," as if the Christians had invented the concept of a holy war. After Mohammed's death in 632, the new Muslim caliph, Abu Bakr, launched Islam into almost 1,500 years of continual imperialist, colonialist, bloody conquest and subjugation of others through invasion and war, a role Islam continues to this very day.

You will note the string of adjectives and may have some objection to my using them. They are used because they are the absolute truth. Anyone denying them is a victim of PC thinking, ignorant of history, or lying to protect Islam. Let us take each word separately before we proceed further in our true history of the relationship between the Christian west and the Islamic east.

Imperialistic

The Muslim wars of imperialist conquest have been launched for almost 1,500 years against hundreds of nations, over millions of square miles (significantly larger than the British Empire at its peak). The lust for Muslim imperialist conquest stretched from southern France to the Philippines, from Austria to Nigeria, and from central Asia to New Guinea. This is the classic definition of imperialism -- "the policy and practice of seeking to dominate the economic and political affairs of weaker countries."

Colonialist

The Muslim goal was to have a central government, first at Damascus, and then at Baghdad -- later at Cairo, Istanbul, or other imperial centers. The local governors, judges, and other rulers were appointed by the central imperial authorities for far off colonies. Islamic law was introduced as the senior law, whether or not wanted by the local people. Arabic was introduced as the rulers' language, and the local language frequently disappeared. Two classes of residents were established. The native residents paid a tax that their colonialist rulers did not have to pay.

Although the law differed in different places, the following are examples of colonialist laws to which colonized Christians and Jews were made subject to over the years:


Christians and Jews could not bear arms -- Muslims could;
Christians and Jews could not ride horses -- Muslims could;
Christians and Jews had to get permission to build -- Muslims did not;
Christians and Jews had to pay certain taxes which Muslims did not;
Christians could not proselytize -- Muslims could;
Christians and Jews had to bow to their Muslim masters when they paid their taxes; and
Christians and Jews had to live under the law set forth in the Koran, not under either their own religious or secular law.
In each case, these laws allowed the local conquered people less freedom than was allowed the conquering colonialist rulers. Even non-Arab Muslim inhabitants of the conquered lands became second class citizens behind the ruling Arabs. This is the classic definition of colonialist -- "a group of people who settle in a distant territory from the state having jurisdiction or control over it and who remain under the political jurisdiction of their native land."

We will talk about "bloody" as we proceed. Because the U.S. News article related only to the Christian west against the Muslim east, except in this paragraph I will not describe the almost 1,500 years of Muslim imperialistic, colonialist, bloody conquest and subjugation of others through invasion and war to the east of Arabia in Iraq, Persia, and much further eastward, which continues to this day.

In any event, because it was the closest geographically, Palestine was the first Western non-Arab area invaded in the Muslim imperialist, colonialist, bloody conquest and subjugation of others. At the time, Palestine was under the rule of the so-called Eastern Roman Empire, ruled from Istanbul by Greek speaking people, and was Eastern Orthodox Catholic. The Eastern Orthodox rule was despotic and the Eastern Roman Empire was in serious decline. The Eastern Orthodox rulers were despots, and in Palestine had subjugated the large population of local Jews and Monophysite Christians. Because the Orthodox were imperialist, colonialist, and bloody, and majored in religious persecution to boot, the Muslim imperialist, colonialist, bloody conquest and subjugation of Palestine, and then Egypt, was made easier. Because of Orthodox weakness and the relative speed of the conquest of Palestine and Israel, I have often seen this Muslim, imperialist, colonialist bloody conquest described by Muslim and PC writers as "peaceful" or "bloodless." This statement is simply not true.

The Muslim imperialist, colonialist, bloody conquest and subjugation of Palestine began with a battle, the August 20, 636, battle of Yarmk (it is believed that 75,000 soldiers took part -- hardly bloodless). With the help of the local Jews who welcomed the Muslims as liberators, the Muslims had subjugated the remainder of Palestine but had not been able to capture Jerusalem. Beginning in July 637, the Muslims began a siege of Jerusalem which lasted for five (hardly bloodless) months before Jerusalem fell in February 638. Arabs did not sack the city, and the Arab soldiers were apparently kept in tight control by their leaders. No destruction was permitted. This was indeed a triumph of civilized control, if imperialism, colonization, and bloody conquest can ever be said to be "civilized." It was at this conquest that many significant hallmarks of Muslim colonialism began. The conquered Christian and Jewish people were made to pay a tribute to the colonialist Muslims. In addition, Baghdad used the imperialist, colonialist, bloody wars of conquest throughout the life of its empire to provide the Caliphate with a steady stream of slaves, many of whom were made eunuchs.

The Muslim conquest of (Christian) North Africa went relatively easily until the native peoples of North Africa (most importantly the Berbers) were encountered west of Egypt. The North African people fought so strongly against the Muslims that the Muslim imperialist, colonialist, bloody conquest in the west was brought to an almost complete stop between Tripoli and Carthage for more than a quarter century. The Muslims broke through in a series of bloody battles followed by bloody (revenge) massacres of the Muslim's (largely Christian) opponents. This Muslim imperialist, colonialist, bloody conquest continued through North Africa and through what is now Spain, Portugal, and southern France, until they were stopped at the battle of Poiters (hardly bloodless) in the middle of France.

I believe that if I had the time, I could show that the Muslims, in their western imperialist, colonialist, bloody conquests, killed two to three times as many Christians as the Christians killed Muslims in all of the Crusades combined.

But let us return to Jerusalem.

Jerusalem

The U.S. News article states that after Saladin conquered Jerusalem, "the victorious Saladin forbade acts of vengeance. There were no more deaths, no violence." True, as far as it goes. The article goes on to say, "…most Muslims [will] tell you about Saladin and his generosity in the face of Christian aggression and hatred." Thus, the PC people and the Muslims ignore 450 years of prior Muslim aggression and approach the Crusades as being Christian or Western aggression against Islam, beginning out of the blue, without any prior history. Let us go back to the Muslim colonialist occupation of Jerusalem.

When we left our truthful history of Jerusalem, the Muslims, headquartered in Arabia, had just captured Jerusalem. For approximately 100 years, chiefly under the Umayyads, Jerusalem prospered under Muslim rule. Under the succeeding Abbasids, Jerusalem began to decline -- beginning at approximately 725 A.D. The occasion, among other things, was the decline of the central Muslim government, the breaking away from Arabia of far-flung provinces, the growth of warlike revolutionary groups, the growth of extremist Muslim sects, and, perhaps most important, the decision (relatively new) that Muslims had an obligation to convert all Christians and Jews (and "other pagans") to Islam. Thereafter, the true colonial nature of Jerusalem became more apparent. The Abbasids drained wealth from Jerusalem to Baghdad for the benefit of the caliphs, and Jerusalem declined economically. The language of the government became Arabic, and forcible conversion to Islam became the Muslim policy.

In approximately 750, the Caliph destroyed the walls of Jerusalem, leaving it defenseless (they were later rebuilt, in time to defend against the Crusaders). The history of the following three hundred years is too complex and too tangled to describe in a single paragraph. Jerusalem and its Christian and Jewish majority suffered greatly during alternating periods of peace and war. Among the happenings were repeated Muslim destruction of the countryside of Israel (970-983, and 1024-1077) of Jerusalem; the wholesale destruction by the Muslims of Christian churches -- sometimes at the direct order of the Caliph, as in 1003, and sometimes by Muslim mobs; the total destruction of Jerusalem by the Caliph of Cairo in the early 1020s; building small mosques on the top of Christian churches; enforcing the Muslim laws limiting the height of Christian churches; attacking and robbing Christian pilgrims from Europe; attacking Christian processions in the streets of Jerusalem; etc.

Why the change after nearly 100 years of mostly peaceful Muslim rule? From what I read, there is a general view among the historians that the caliphs had begun to add a religious importance to their conquests, setting conversion to Islam as an important priority; their later caliphs had no first-hand remembrance of Mohammed; the vast distances of the empire led to independent rulers being established in Spain, North Africa, Cairo, Asia Minor, etc.; and the instability of the caliphates and resulting civil wars.

The point about conversion to Islam I find particularly interesting. Many historians believe that the first one hundred years of Muslim conquest were imperialist and colonialist only with little significant forced conversion content. With respect to Jerusalem, there was a particular problem in the fact that generally the Christians and their churches (and to a lesser degree, the Jews) were significantly wealthier than the Muslims. This was largely because beginning in the early 800s with Charlemaigne, Europe adopted a sort of prototype "foreign aid" program for the churches located at the holy places in Jerusalem, where, to the embarrassment of the Muslims, Christian churches and monasteries outshone their Muslim rivals. Many of these churches and monasteries were run by western religious orders reporting directly to Rome under western leaders appointed by Rome (more were subject to Constantinople). Literally thousands of European Christian pilgrims made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem from such places as Germany, France, and Hungary (particularly in the years 1000, 1033, 1064, and 1099). Finally, Muslim rulers and European rulers frequently sought to enter into treaties of support with each other. As a result, Christian churches became the target of Muslims when enemies of those with whom there were European ties were victorious in a civil war. From time to time, Christian churches were rebuilt with Muslim funds when pro-western rulers came to power.

So much for the PC, U.S. News, Muslim outright lie that begins with the statement, "During the Crusades, East and West first met," and that later in the article called the Crusades, "…the first major clash between Islam and Western Christendom." What about the long, prior conquest by Islam of Spain and Portugal? What about the battle of Portiers?

The following is just an aside, which I cannot prove, but I have noticed that PC and Muslim statements frequently cut off history when it is not in their favor. Thus, the article gives credence to the widespread belief in Islam that east-west history began with the Crusades. See also as an example of this tendency to begin history where it is convenient, today's Muslim description of the current Israeli occupation of the West Bank without mentioning the fact that the current occupation was caused by the widespread cold-blooded murder of Israeli civilians by Muslims.

But let us move on to the Crusades themselves.

The Crusades

First, a word about my personal view of the Crusades. I believe that the murderous and pillaging acts of the Crusaders when they entered Jerusalem were barbaric, unchristian, and evil. This is particularly so as those barbaric, unchristian, and evil acts were carried on in the name of a religion of peace, love, and forgiveness. I believe that the vast bulk of thinking Christians agree with me. I cite as evidence the large numbers of Christians who have recently taken long pilgrimages in the footsteps of the Crusaders, repenting for the Crusader's acts, seeking for forgiveness, and giving penance for the Crusader's barbaric, unchristian, and evil acts.

A question occurs to me here. How many Muslim groups have taken long pilgrimages in the footsteps of the Muslim conquest repenting, seeking for forgiveness, and giving penance for the Muslims imperialist, colonialist, and bloody conquest of Palestine, Egypt, Syria, North Africa, and Spain? This is particularly important as the U.S. News article claims, "For [Muslims] imperialism is a dirty word…" Where is Muslim repentance for its imperialism, geographically the largest in all of history, which permits Muslims to call Western imperialism a dirty word?

Let us rewrite the beginning of the U.S. News article as follows: "In 1095, after suffering from the murderous invasions of Muslim conquerors who killed tens of thousands of Christians through four-and-one-half centuries of Muslim imperialist, colonialist conquest, made slaves and eunuchs of Christians for the pleasure of the caliphs, burned down or sacked the holiest churches in Christendom, robbed and killed thousands of Christians on holy pilgrimage, brutally sacked and pillaged Jerusalem, and pillaged the countryside of Israel, western Europe, under the leadership of the Pope, decided to free the people of the Holy Land from their brutal masters and reclaim Christianity's holiest places for free Christian worship."

Now, I fully realize that the previous paragraph is one-sided, that the six centuries of Muslim colonial, imperialist occupation were more complex than are shown in the previous paragraphs, and that the Christians were not always blameless, little babes. However, the previous paragraph has the benefit of not being an outright lie, which is more than I can say for the U.S. News article.

To beat the dog one more time, you may have noted that I stated above that Muslim imperialism has continued until the present. Muslim imperialism has continued without any let-up from ten years before Mohammed's death until today.

Consider the Ottoman invasion of Christian Eastern Europe in which the Ottoman Empire invaded the west and conquered and colonized Greece, all of the Balkans, Romania, Bessarabia, and Hungary, and was stopped only at the outskirts of Vienna in 1529. Consider also the Muhgal conquest of Northern India in the early 1600s. But today? Of course! In the 20th century alone:

1. Muslim Turkey has expelled approximately 1,500,000 Greeks from its empire in the east and replaced them with Turks. They have massacred approximately 2 million Armenians and replaced them with Turks in the west.

2. Muslim Turkey has invaded and occupied northern Cyprus, displacing the Greeks living there.

3. Muslim northern Sudan has conquered much of southern Sudan, literally enslaving its Christian and pagan population.

4. Indonesian imperialism has occupied all of non-Islamic western New Guinea and incorporated into Indonesia.

5. Muslim Indonesia has invaded and conquered Christian East Timor with horrible loss of life.

6. This very day, Muslim Indonesia is attempting to destroy Christianity in what used to be called the Celebes.

7. A half-dozen Arab countries have fought two to four wars (depending how you count) in an attempt to destroy Israel and occupy its territory, and is currently continuing the attempt this very day with the publicly voted consent of 55 of the world's 57 Islamic nations.

8. For no good reason, Muslim Libya has blown up western aircraft, killing many civilians.

9. Muslim Iraq, in an imperialist war of aggression, invaded and occupied Muslim Kuwait.

10. Muslim Iraq, in an imperialist act of aggression, invaded Muslim Iran with a resulting (some estimates say) death of 2 million people.

11. Muslim Albania, this very minute, is attempting to enlarge its borders at Christian Macedonia's expense.

12. Muslim Northern Nigeria has been (and is currently) an aggressor against the Christian south.

13. Muslims expelled approximately 800,000 Jews from their homelands between 1947 and 1955.

14. During Jordan's occupation of the West Bank, the kingdom undertook an unsuccessful attempt to make Jerusalem a Muslim city by forcing out approximately 10,000 Christian inhabitants.

Yes, I know that the reverse has been true. For example, Christian Serbia entered and massacred Bosnian Muslims. The western response was instructive. The west sent troops to protect the Muslims. Serbia gave up its leader to be tried for the crime by an international panel. Will Indonesia do the same with respect to Timor? Or Sudan with respect to southern Sudan?

Question: What is the title of the shortest book in the world? Answer: "The list of Muslim nations who have risked the lives of their soldiers to protect (as with the U.S. protection of Muslims in Kuwait) Christian or Jewish citizens from Muslim imperialism."

Yes, I also know that in the 20th century the west fought two of the bloodiest wars in history. But in the past more than 55 years, the west has developed methods that have led to peace among the west, and all but totally ended western imperialism and colonialism. With former colonies having a large majority in the UN, and the example of the west before it, Islam has continued its imperialist, colonial, bloody wars unabated.

One final point. Muslims base their claim to the city of Jerusalem upon the belief that Jerusalem has been a Muslim city for centuries. It may be that Muslims were never a majority in Jerusalem. We cannot prove this for all time periods, but we know that Muslims were a minority in the first several centuries after the Muslim imperialist conquest and during the century of Christian occupation during the Crusades. And we know that in the Middle Ages, Jerusalem was not considered important to the Muslims, but it was to the Christians and Jews. The Muslims made cities other than Jerusalem the capital of their Palestinian colony. Many Caliphs never even visited Jerusalem. Therefore, there was a steady stream of Jewish and Christian (but not Muslim) immigrants into Jerusalem throughout the Middle Ages, including a major immigration of Karaite Jews in the late eighth and early ninth centuries, and a steady stream of Armenians for hundreds of years, until there were so many Armenians that an Armenian Quarter was established in Jerusalem. Finally, we know that for at least more than the last 160 years, Muslims were a clear minority in Jerusalem. The Muslim Ottomans, and then the British and Israelis, kept careful census record showing the following percentages of Muslim population in Jerusalem:

1844 -- 33%

1896 -- 19%

1910 -- 13%

1922 -- 22%

1931 -- 22%

1948 -- 24%

1967 -- 21%

1972 -- 23%

1992 -- 25%
The source....

Is Saudi Arabia Holy Soil ? Last week -- that is, just over three years after the atrocities of September 11 -- the U.S. government, for the first time, listed Saudi Arabia as a "country of particular concern" on issues of religious freedom. The State Department described the kingdom as a place where no religious liberty exists, except for the state-supported Wahhabi sect of Islam. Indeed, in a real shocker, State actually used the word "Wahhabi," rather than avoiding any specific identification of those to blame, or utilizing such favored euphemisms as "extreme Sunni Muslims" or "adherents of an austere, rigid Islam." As State noted, millions of non-Wahhabi Sunnis as well as Shia Muslims living in the kingdom lack elementary religious rights. Shias, in particular, while making up as much as a quarter of the population and the majority in the Eastern Province, which possesses the bulk of oil resources, suffer "officially sanctioned political and economic discrimination," according to State.Click here to read the rest.....

"It says it right here. Do not take the infidels as your friends," citing Sura 5:51. "I'm making statements straight from the Quran. Said Boylan, an Irish Catholic, who grew up in Pakistan. "There is going to be a war on terrorism that is never going to stop, and Islam is behind it." Boylan's lecture made more than a few students in the classroom shift in their seats as he said the Islamic religion advocates killing Christians and Jews.
"I have a little bit of a different opinion," Sheriff Bill Young said during a class break. "Historically, Muslims, particularly in our country, are good citizens." Boylan's views do not represent those of UNLV. Boylan knows his views are controversial. He resided in Pakistan for the first 26 years of his life, where he said he saw firsthand discrimination and violence against non-Muslims. "Non-Muslims have been discriminated against all over the world," he said. "We are in a battle of religion right now." In Pakistan and other countries of Islamic rule, Christians are treated as second-class citizens and cannot obtain high-level positions in government, he told students. "There are no non-Muslims that hold significant positions of power," he said. In full....

"Our Prophet did not run for office in any election ... he won the war against the infidel". ALTHOUGH attempts at linking President George W. Bush to the Arabs have generated a veritable industry in the past two years, there is evidence that most Arabs favor his Democratic Party challenger Sen. John F. Kerry. A Zogby poll taken this month shows that in the November presidential election Kerry is likely to collect more than two-thirds of the Arab-American vote. A similar pattern is emerging in the Arab world itself. "If it were up to us, it would be 60 percent Kerry, 40 percent Bush," says Iyad Abu-Chaqra, an Arab columnist who has followed American politics for years. "Most Arabs have one dream this year: to see George W. Bush booted out."Dislike for Bush has created the most curious Arab coalition in a long time. The pan-Arab nationalists are angry at Bush because, toppling Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime in Baghdad, he destroyed the illusion of a "strongman" leading Arabs to unity and socialism. "It may take a generation before anyone talks of Arab unity without being laughed out of the room," says columnist Ahmad Rabii. "Those who dreamed of an Arab superpower will never forgive Bush." The pan-Islamists also dislike Bush, but for different reasons. They see his talk of democracy as an attempt at preventing them from establishing their "ideal Islamic" system based on the Shariah rather than elections. Bush's "Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative" is seen by Islamists as "a plot to impose a Western model." "The Muslim world is not a blank sheet on which Mr. Bush could draw what he likes," says writer Walid Abi-Merchid, who would vote for Kerry if he could. Opposition to Bush's plans for democratization in the Middle East is put even more dramatically by Muhammad Shariatmadari, a mullah of Arab origin now acting as an advisor to Iran's "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenehi. "Bush is trying to develop an American Islam," Shariatmadari says. "He thinks that Americans will not be safe in their homes until the Muslim world is dominated by pro-U.S. governments." That view is echoed in sermons preached at mosques throughout the Middle East, Europe and the United States in recent weeks with an eye on the forthcoming American election. One theme of these sermons is that Bush's call for free elections and reform in the Muslim world amounts to "an act of cultural aggression." More.....

Malaysia's Muslims have 'no way out'. JOHOR BAHRU, Malaysia — In multiethnic Malaysia, where Islam is the official religion but freedom of religion is guaranteed under the constitution, the majority Malays are born Muslim and apostasy is all but impossible for them. Cases of aspiring apostates are handled by Shariah courts, rather than civil courts. According to the Koran, apostasy is grounds for death, and no Muslim should assist another out of the religion. So the appeals usually sit, and sit. Many would-be apostates don't live to see their conversion officially recognized.

Some have been jailed. As one religious scholar put it, "In Malaysia, there's a way into Islam, but no way out."Although proselytizing of Muslims by non-Muslims is forbidden, the reverse is permissible. Proselytizers have been sent to jail under the Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows for indefinite detention without trial. Hands off our Muslims, who make up 60 percent of the population, the Malay-led government appears to be saying. The government is especially worried about Christian proselytizing, said Shad Salem Faruq, professor of law at the University of Technology MARA. Malaysia is home to substantial Hindu and Buddhist minorities, 6 and 20 percent respectively.

"But Hinduism and Buddhism historically have had less of a tradition of proselytizing than Christianity," he said. It is illegal to print the Bible and other Christian materials in the national language, Bahasa Malay. Some states restrict the use of certain religious terms by Christians in the Malay language, lest Muslims be confused. Yet, despite the obstacles, some Christian proselytizers are busy. The Rev. Kumar — not his real name — recalls the religious police rattling his front gate in the middle of the night. The warning was clear. "But I am not afraid," Mr. Kumar said. "My work is God's will and I have a worthy cause to fight for. [Malays] have a right to find Jesus."

His evangelical church has 12 branches throughout Malaysia and 30 affiliates, and Mr. Kumar estimates that 100 Muslims are converting to Christianity every month in the country. He said there has been a marked increase in interest in the past three years, since the September 11 attacks in the United States. A royal family and the daughter of a former prime minister are among his list of converts.Christian groups estimate that there are 30,000 Malay converts in the country. Some Muslim groups say the figure is much lower.

However, nondenominational observers say most converts live in secrecy for fear of harassment from the government, family and fellow Malays. One Malay convert and former ustaza, a Muslim religious teacher, reports that she and her family are harassed regularly by the authorities. Because she is Malay, her son was born a Muslim and forced to adopt a Muslim name. In school, despite his protests of being a Christian, he has to sit through Islamic studies, a requirement for all Muslims. Last year, the religious police demanded that she stop her "activities," which included helping drug addicts and battered women. She conceded, though, that part of the assistance involved introducing Malays to Christian doctrine.

She recalled parking herself at a McDonald's wearing a Muslim head scarf to more effectively introduce Muslim schoolgirls to the Bible.In Kuala Lumpur, boys who are a part of Mr. Kumar's proselytizing movement frequent mosques. Christians reputedly also have resorted to sponsoring picnics for Malay children and offering them gifts. In the cramped lobby of Mr. Kumar's headquarters, a magazine headline reads: "Storming the Enemy's Stronghold." The first paragraph explains, "Within the 10/40 window," referring to the area stretching roughly from the Middle East through India, China and into Southeast Asia, "lie 62 of the least evangelized nations on this planet." The area is viewed by some zealots as the last stronghold preventing Christian global dominance. One is left to wonder, is the government rightfully fearful or just plain paranoid? What is seen by some as an issue of freedom of religion is viewed by others as an abuse of freedom.

"You can talk about your religion freely, just don't try to convert," said Azizuddin Ahmad, secretary-general of the Muslim Youth Group of Malaysia (ABIM). He said many apostates were led astray from Islam not by the virtue of the faith they were converting to but the concept of freedom. In Malaysia, Muslims are bound by certain laws, such as on alcohol consumption, sexual relations and marriage, that non-Muslims are not. Certain states are known to enforce these laws more than others.Muslims also get preferential treatment. The U.S. government's International Religious Freedom Report for 2003 said, "It is official policy to 'infuse Islamic values' into the administration of the country."

Indeed, the new Islamic-themed administrative capital houses a prominent mosque but no other place of worship. And non-Muslims report difficulties in obtaining licensing and state funding for their places of worship. Malaysia has become increasingly Islamized since the early 80s — inspired first by the Iranian Revolution and by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's charismatic deputy Anwar Ibrahim, who founded ABIM and joined the country's most powerful political party, the United Malays National Organization, in the 1980s.

Malaysia was further Islamized by government attempts to out-Islamize the hard-line Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS). PAS made substantial progress in 1999 parliamentary elections but suffered in its rematch with the National Front in March. The tide of these developments may pose challenges for non-Muslims and apostates, "but they are not paralyzing," said lawyer Lee Min Choon, adding that the government's religion policy generally is conducted with the best of intentions. "The government doesn't have a program to create difficulties for other religions. They want peace for all religions," he said. This is not an easy task. Non-Muslims grumble of "Malay/Muslim bias." But the government can't afford to be seen as anti-Muslim.

The government has appeased the various communities enough to prevent large-scale race- and religion-fueled violence — though at the expense of respect, interest and meaningful interaction among the communities. Race and religion are taboo subjects, and there's a lot of pent-up rage. At the same time, the government's policy — including banning a procession in at least one instance because it conflicted with Muslim prayer time — is prompting anger. "These gestures are causing some hard feelings," said an assistant to Mr. Kumar. Proselytizers of any stripe tend to feel justified in their actions, rationalizing them as a form of salvation, leading the astray from darkness. But Mr. Kumar will be hard-pressed to convince most Muslims here of the superiority of his faith, just as most Muslims here find little success in converting Christians. Yet, it's an undertaking that the zealous don't tire of, even though it rarely leads anywhere, other than to trigger fear and resentment.

Dzulkifli Achmad, director of the research center of PAS, is concerned about the net effect. "I used to seek to convert, but I no longer have the drive," Mr. Achmad said. "When you think of the unique fabric of this society, it is in our interest to enhance mutual respect ... proselytizing is a form of disrespect. It is the beginning of the conflict." Some Muslim and non-Muslim leaders say the government could be doing more to improve dialogue and understanding among the faiths. It has, for instance, denied permits for several interfaith dialogues. And when Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ" arrives here soon, only Christians will be able to view it. Non-Christians will be weeded out in the ticket line on the basis of their national ID cards, which states one's religion. Nora Murah, a legal officer with Sisters in Islam, says the decision contradicts the prophet Muhammad's teachings. "The prophet embraced diversity and inclusiveness," she said. The source. Tip from, Rajan Rishyakaran

The Children of Beslan. The unique depravity of modern Islamic terror. It's hard to fathom now--with the images of Russian children in body bags scorched into our memories--but when the history of the war on terror is written, last week may go down as a turning point. The official death toll at School No. 1 in Beslan stood yesterday at 335, more than one-tenth the number who died in the terrorist attacks on America three years ago this week. One hundred fifty-six were children--boys and girls taken hostage when they arrived for their first day of the new school year. Before their slaughter, by rigged explosives or sniper fire, their captors denied them so much as a sip of water.The depravity of this is hard to believe, but believe it we must.

For it is the new reality of this current age in which innocents are specifically targeted by Muslim terrorists in the name of some Islamic cause. In Russia, the murderers were Chechens, aided by Arabs believed to be allied with al Qaeda. And so the children of Beslan join the ranks of other victims of Islamic terror--in a Moscow theater, a Bali nightclub, a Karachi church, and the Twin Towers of New York. In the face of such horror, who can offer up any shred of justification? Yet that is precisely what has happened in the wake of every terrorist event the world has seen in recent years. By such lights, terrorism is viewed as a political act, intended to draw sympathetic attention to a cause--in this case the brutal Russian occupation of Chechnya.

Post-9/11, there were those who "explained" the attacks by blaming U.S. policy in the Mideast as behind the "desperation" of the hijackers. After the Madrid bombings, half the Spanish electorate effectively blamed their nation's participation in the war in Iraq by voting out the government that supported the U.S. In the wake of every suicide bombing in Israel, that country's policy on Palestinians is deemed responsible in many quarters, especially in Europe. Post-Beslan, who is prepared to blame the children?

On the eve of last week's Republican convention, President Bush told a television interviewer that the war on terror is not winnable. Pundits were quick to pounce on what seemed like a political slip, but Mr. Bush's meaning ought to have been clear. What he meant was that the war on terror was not winnable in a conventional sense. It would not conclude with Osama bin Laden ordering all Islamists to stand down the way the Emperor of Japan asked his countrymen to do at the end of World War II. As should be obvious by now, the war on terror cannot be won only by disrupting terrorist networks and shoring up homeland defenses. It is also a war of ideas, and as such can be won only if the widespread ideological support for terrorism found in the Muslim world and some quarters of the West can be transformed into widespread condemnation.

There are historical models for this kind of transformational thinking. In the century that just ended, fascism and National Socialism, ideologies fashionable among some Western intellectuals during the 1930s, were stamped out by the Second World War. Communism lost ground during 50 years of the Cold War that ended with the collapse of the Soviet Empire. All of these ideologies have been proven bankrupt, even in the parts of the world where totalitarianism still reigns.In making the case that the world needs to think differently about terrorism, Mr. Bush and other members of his Administration sometimes cite the example of the British in the 19th Century as changing the way the world thought about the slave trade.

By the end of the century, slavery may still have existed in parts of the globe, but no one was making the moral case for it. Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, explained the Administration's effort to de-legitimize terrorism in a speech last spring at the University of Chicago. "The world should view terrorism as it views the slave trade, piracy on the high seas and genocide," he said, "as activities that no respectable person condones, much less supports." That ideological struggle over the uses of terror is slowly being won in most of the world, but it remains at the center of the civil war within Islam itself--between extremists and conventional believers who are sometimes called moderates. That struggle cannot be won unless the vast majority of Muslims who condemn terrorism speak out publicly against such clerics as London-based Omar Bakri Mohammed, who told London's Sunday Telegraph that he would support hostage-taking at a British school if carried out by terrorists with a just cause.

Whatever Russian President Vladimir Putin's mistakes in Chechnya (see David Satter's article in The Wall Street Journal today), they don't justify the deliberate targeting of innocents. Nearly all nationalist movements--from the American revolutionaries to the Irish Republican Army--have had enough restraint to avoid the systematic murder of children. But there is something dysfunctional within the soul of modern Islam and its supporters that deems such depravity acceptable. Perhaps after Beslan more of the world, and especially much more of the Islamic world, will begin acknowledging this as the deadly poison it is. The source...

Darfur exposes trait of Arab and Islamic Racism. After Rwanda, the World learned once more the peril of genocide in rogue states. Yet the world, or the United Nations as its representative body, is seemingly a reluctant learner with flawed memory. Darfur is a remote part of Sudan -- itself remote from cosmopolitan centres of Europe and North America. There, in the arid deserts of the eastern Sahara, where living is a bitter daily struggle against sand and sun, a genocide is unfolding, with nary a whimper from the folks at the UN and sophisticates in cosmopolitan centres who remain outraged over American "imperialism" dismantling brutal rogue regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Over the past 18 months, nearly 50,000 Darfurians have been killed and more than a million made refugees by Arab Janjaweed militias, allegedly supplied with military support by the Sudanese government of strongman Gen. Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum. For more than two decades, Sudan, with an estimated population of 35 million, has been torn apart in a bitter civil war between a predominantly Arab-Muslim north, and a Christian-black south. This conflict has resulted in an estimated two million dead and another four million made homeless in their own country. Darfur, however, exposes another dimension of the internal conflict in Sudan. Here, the victims are Muslim, black and non-Arab. Those perpetrating the brutalities are Muslims of Arab origin.

Under the prodding of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan -- both of whom recently visited Darfur -- the UN Security Council produced a resolution demanding the Sudanese government, within a month, disarm the militias and restore security in Darfur, or be faced with sanctions. The tragedy unfolding in Darfur has been well-documented by reputable international human rights agencies such as Human Rights Watch. There is no disputing in this instance the facts of a state-supported ethnic cleansing being repeated in the heart of Africa. More on Arab and Islamic racism..............

Ex-Muslim's site trashes Muhammad. To any Muslims who may be reading this: this is an indispensable element of a free society. There are numerous sites trashing other religious figures as well. In a free society, Ali Sina is free to do this. You are free to disagree and to argue with him. It is not consistent with the parameters of a free society to try to close down his site or kill him. From WND, with thanks to Anthony: Claiming Muhammad's teachings are the root of terrorism, a website founded by an ex-Muslim attempts to dispel the oft-quoted statement "Islam is a religion of peace."

Headed by Ali Sina, FaithFreedom.org presents articles and commentaries that debunk much of the Quran and charge that Islam's founder, Muhammad, was a rapist, pedophile, mass murderer and an "evil man." On the site, which features, the description "Islam and Quran denounced by ex-Muslims as the root of terrorism," Sina promises that if anyone can prove him wrong in his assertions about Muhammad and Islam, he will take the site off the Internet.After presenting a list of charges against Muhammad, Sina writes, "Muslims are triumphalists and claim victory even when they are clearly defeated. A Muslim can never accept defeat.

A Muslim's typical response to this site is: 'My faith in Islam grew after I read your site.' How can one's faith grow after reading the proof that the man whom he thought to be a prophet was guilty of all the above charges? Has anyone disproved any of those charges?" Continues Sina: "I have debated with Muslims who claimed victory because according to them I have not proven that Muhammad's sexual relationship at the age of 53 with the 8 years 9 months old Aisha constitute pedophilia. I consider this a self-evident fact that needs no proof. I do not think there is any need to prove that day is bright and night is dark to a seeing person. And to [the] blind proofs are of no avail."

Besides Sina's writings, the site features other writers who delve into many different areas of Islam. One section, for example, is called "Wives of the Prophet" and includes this introduction: "The tales of Muhammad's wives and sex slaves are the most fascinating and also the most embarrassing part of the life of the Prophet. These are stories of lust, intrigues, mind games, jealousy and betrayal."Another section attempts to disprove the alleged miracles of Islam. Sina reads Arabic and, he says, uses only "the hadith, the Ibn Hisham's Sira and the Quran" when arguing against Islam. Faith Freedom International.

Islamic Intolerance Proven and Verified.
Question:
I have been hearing some people say that the Jews and Christians are People of the Book. And since they are people of the book, we are not to call them kuffar, mushrikun (pagans) or any other derogatory terms, because Allah called them the People of the Book. May we call the Jews and Christians kuffar or pagans?

Answer:Only the most ignorant and animal minded individuals would insist that prophet killers (Jews) and Jesus worshippers (Christians) deserve the same right as us. If you want to know the rights of Jews and Christians, read Surat ut-Tawba, ayah 29.

This verse is the foundation of the entire Islamic legal superstructure of oppression of dhimmi Jews and Christians. The next time you hear an American Muslim spokesman talking about tolerant Islam, ask him what he is doing to disabuse his radical coreligionists of the notion that Sura 9:29 should be applied today to compel Muslims to war against and subjugate Jews and Christians. Supporters Of Shareeah Q n A ....more..