The real threat from Islam

National Review had a disturbing article in its April 20, 2009 issue – “Beyond Terrorism.” The author’s point is that we in the West still do not understand much about radical Islam and the threat it holds for us.

We focus on jihad with its horrific violence, but we fail to understand the goal of such violence. Those who blow themselves up and kill so many innocents do not practice this behavior simply for the joy of seeing the bloody results. Instead, jihad is done “to pave the way for the imposition of sharia, the Muslim legal code and necessary precondition for building an Islamic state and society.”

The author, Andrew C. McCarthy, says the U.S. is timid and too focused on multiculturalism. We don’t want to deal with the fact that such a Muslim society contradicts everything we hold dear. Sharia would establish a state religion, reject the freedoms we have come to love, negate economic freedom, take away the idea of equality under the law, subjugate non-Muslims, and come down hard on many segments of society – homosexuals, apostates, and women. But we don’t hear much about that. Heaven forbid that we say something negative about some other culture.

He says we must understand three things. First, Islam is much more than a religion; it is a complete cultural, economic, and political system which no one is allowed to question. We in the West do not want to criticize a religion, believing it to be between a person and his/her God, but we need to realize Islam is much more than that. Secondly, we should know that Islam is not a single belief system. We want to divide Islam into either true or false; however, there are numerous interpretations that can be identified as belonging to Islam. Our leaders tell us the fundamentalists within Islam, the ones doing the killing, are “anti-Islamic“ and nothing but a fringe group. But this is not true; they represent a large number of Muslims going back to the time of Mohammed. Finally, we need to understand that Islam is not about the individual; instead, it is about the Muslim nation. That is why she jihadists blow themselves up—to advance the cause of Islam.

McCarthy points out that such violence does not have to be carried out if Islam can be advanced without it. He says this stealth strategy is working in the West. Thanks to left-leaning universities, the media, and even government, Islam is making headway in America. As an example, he points out that the Bush administration “helped write new constitutions [in Iraq and Afghanistan] that not only established Islam as the state religion but installed sharia as a primary source of law.” These same diplomats were later startled when an Afghan court attempted to sentence to death a Christian who had converted from Islam. What did they expect—freedom of religion from sharia law? Not going to happen.

The author notes other incidents right here in America where sharia has been introduced. In Minnesota, for example, Muslim cab drivers refused to carry passengers believed to have alcohol with them. Instead of firing them, state authorities convinced them that sharia was not actually violated if alcohol was only transported, not consumed. In the same state, a graduate education student was taken off a project at a high school where he was doing field work. Why? He required the assistance of a specially trained dog because of medical problems, and Muslims at the school objected because sharia declared dogs to be unclean. The university gave in and pulled the student out of the school. Here’s another example from Minnesota – the state has started setting up “Muslim mortgages.” Sharia does not allow interest as part of financial transactions, so the state “now buys homes from willing sellers and then resells them to Muslim buyers in transactions that disguise interest by higher costs and fees. That is, American taxpayer dollars are employed to promote conformance with Islamic law.”

So, we’re facing more than terrorism. Radical Islam uses liberal Western laws to establish its legal code in the United States as well as in other Western nations. We can fight this. We do guarantee freedom of conscience to all, but we do not guarantee that those beliefs must be adopted or imposed on all of society.