The following, apart from the three concluding paragraphs, is extracted from my book A Jewish Philosophy of History (lightcatcherbooks.com [2006]).
Muslims have never had any doubts about the conflict between Islam and the West. They have always divided the world into the territory of Dar al-Islam, where Islam reigns, and the territory of Dar al-Harb, where infidels reign, but which the Sharia requires Muslims to conquer in the name of Allah.
Islam’s division of humanity suggests to Lee Harris [Civilization and Its Enemies] that Islam is the enemy of civilization [per se]. By civilization he means a standard that can be applied across cultures and across history. He sees civilization as having four prerequisites: a stable social order, the co-operation of individuals pursuing their own interests, the ability to tolerate or socialize with one’s neighbors, and a hatred of violence. Clearly, Islam lacks three of the four prerequisites of Harris’ view of a civilization. What is remarkable is that Dr. Wafa Sultan, a Syrian-born psychiatrist living in America, arrived at the same conclusion. She denied there was clash between the West and Islamic civilization because, in her words, Islam is not a civilization!
Although Efraim Karsh [an intrepid scholar] does not deny the obvious clash between Islam and the West, he contends that emphasis on the “clash” obscures the primordial nature of Islamic imperialism. He documents Islam’s relentless global ambition as follows:
- · “I was ordered to fight all men until they say ‘There is no god but Allah.’”
— Prophet Muhammad’s farewell address, March 632 - · “I shall cross this sea to their islands to pursue them until there remains no one on the face of the earth who does not acknowledge Allah.”
— Saladin, January 1189 - · “We shall export our revolution throughout the world … until the calls ’there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah’ are echoed all over the world.”
— Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, 1979 - · “I was ordered to fight people until they say there is no god but Allah, and his prophet Muhammad.”
— Osama bin Laden. November 2001
Karsh shows that in contrast to the gradual development of Christianity and its apolitical doctrine separating the church from the state, the birth of Islam was inextricably linked with the creation of a world power that precluded this dichotomy by rejecting the concept of the church as well as the concept of the state! There is only the Arab nation, the umma, and it has no borders.
A prominent Indian Muslim predicted in 1992 that the West’s “next confrontation is definitely going to come from the Muslim world. It is in the sweep of the Islamic nations … that the struggle for a new world order will begin.”
What Western leader has the courage to take seriously a report of the Center for the Study of Political Islam, according to which the followers of Muhammad, during the past 14 centuries, have slaughtered approximately 270 million people? Concerning this horrific data, Barack Obama and his Hollywood celebrities are utterly clueless. As for John McCain, allow me say only this: he is not a Churchill.
Does Islamic imperialism augur the end of America? Perhaps. But as I ponder the decline of Rome and how a spark from Israel saved it from utter decay, I wonder. Perhaps it may be possible to turn America around. If so, this will require nothing less than a revolution in Israel, a political-cum-spiritual revolution. But where is the force and the courage to inaugurate such a revolution?
