THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 111, June 25, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
ISLAM'S LETHAL CERTITUDE
By Alan Caruba
ISLAM, ISLAMISM, THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION, & JIHADISM: MILITANT ISLAM AS A REVOLT AGAINST THE
MODERN WORLD -- A COMBINATION OF RELIGIOUS DOGMA & POLITICAL IDEOLOGY DEDICATED TO ANNIHILATION OF ALL
CHRISTIANS, JEWS, & OTHER NON-MUSLIMS & TO TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF ISRAEL, THE U.S.A., & WESTERN CIVILIZATION
-- SAYYID QUTB AS A MAJOR ARTICULATOR OF THE ISLAMIC EXTREMIST WORLDVIEW, THE WORLDVIEW THAT GAVE US
WAHHABISM, ISLAMISM, THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD, AL-QA'IDA, THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION, & THE JIHAD AGAINST THE
WEST -- RADICAL ISLAM AS THE TOTALITARIAN WORLDVIEW & VIOLENT WORLDWIDE MOVEMENT THAT WE MUST
RESIST, DEFEAT, & DESTROY FOR THE SAKE OF ALL MANKIND
FULL STORY:
Americans and others in the West cannot comprehend why anyone would blow themselves up to kill, as often as not,
other Muslims. Even if you were convinced that 72 virgins awaited you in paradise, committing suicide for the purpose of
murder is so foreign to the Western mind that it remains, for most, outside the realm of any discussion.
Clearly, though, the West has witnessed and has been victimized by a religion and culture for which suicide bombings and
mass murder of civilians constitute a perfectly acceptable way to wage war -- and Islam is all about war, the conquering and reduction
of an enemy to submission. The very word, "Islam," translates as submission.
“Some Crusaders and Zionists, for example, doggedly accuse Islam of being the religion of the sword, claiming that it was
spread by the edge of the sword,” wrote Sayyid Qutb in Basic Principles of the Islamic Worldview before he was
executed by the Egyptian government in 1966 as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
“These people forget that Islam, being the last divine path for
humanity, has an essential right to establish its own system on
earth so that all humanity can enjoy its blessings…. Establishing
the ‘Islamic system’ to have beneficial sway over all humanity,
those who embrace Islam and those who do not, does indeed
require Jihad, as does the liberty of men to follow their own beliefs.”
Qutb is careful to nod in the direction of the Islamic admonition that “there is no compulsion in religion,” but Islam is all
about compulsion.
Qutb (1906-1966) was an Egyptian Islamist who wrote extensively about modern civilization and, with absolute certainty, the
superiority of an Islamic theocracy to all other faiths and modes of governing on earth. As such, he is widely regarded as the
intellectual father of the Islamic revolution that has been in play since the late 1970s, as well as father of al-Qa'ida. His brother,
Muhammad Qutb, moved to Saudi Arabia, where he became a professor of Islamic Studies and one of his students, an ardent
follower of Sayyid Qutb, was Ayman Zawahiri, the mentor of Osama bin Ladin.
Thus, we can begin to connect the dots of a religion that fosters a certitude and arrogance that the Western mind cannot
comprehend. It is necessary to understand, however, that Islam arrived more than 2,500 years after the existence of Judaism,
and 700 years after the spread of Christianity. It was the invention of Muhammad, based on his own spotty knowledge of
these earlier religions and, like Muhammad, Qutb’s regard for both is one of utter contempt.
“Judaism,” wrote Qutb, “the religion of the Children of Israel, was polluted with pagan concepts, as well as racial arrogance.”
Well, so much for the first and oldest monotheistic religion. Modern-day Muslims are extremely befuddled by, not only the
continued existence of Judaism, but the fact that Jews have reestablished the nation of Israel; Muslims are so befuddled that
they have waged a relentless effort to exterminate Israel’s Jews.
“Christianity was no better than Judaism,” wrote Qutb. “It was even worse.” Hinduism is dismissed in a paragraph or two and
Buddhism isn’t even mentioned. Well, so much for tolerance! Despite the superficial effort to reflect some regard for the
prophets who preceded Muhammad, Qutb’s view is that “Islam has served as a correction to all the chaos and confusion, to
all the deviations and faults into which all the distorted religions and clashing philosophies have blindly fallen, whether before
or after the emergence of Islam.”
By Qutb’s standard, anything anyone believes that is not Islamic is just confusion and deviation. The extraordinary thing
about Qutb’s belief system and his articulation of that system is that he clearly possessed a keen intellect. Well-schooled in
Islam as a youth, he moved to Cairo, where he received a Western education between 1929 and 1933, before starting a career
as a teacher. The turning point, ironically, was a trip Qutb took to the United States of America from 1948 to 1950 on a
scholarship. He received a Master’s degree from the Colorado State College of Education.
His contact with the West radicalized Qutb, because, as far as anyone can tell, he was not merely an ascetic, but a celibate who
found normal human desires and behavior deeply offensive. He never married. Just about everything in those years of
American rejuvenation after World War II was an abomination to Qutb, who took time to write his first theoretical work of
religious exegesis, which was published in 1949. Writing about America, he pronounced life there as “primitive” and endlessly
shocking.
Clearly, he retreated into Islam as a defense against the real world and, in particular, the dynamic world of the West. By then,
the Middle East had been in decline for hundreds of years, after its socalled golden years of conquest and expansion. Driven
from Europe by 878 C.E., suffering the Crusades from 1095 to 1291 and fading under the Ottoman Empire, the Muslims of that
region were locked in ignorance, poverty, and oppression.
Anything modern, anything secular, including the rise of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, the leading proponent of pan-Arab
nationalism, was an anathema to Qutb. He was not ignorant of the West, but he was utterly contemptuous of it. Despite his
having read widely of Western philosophers and, apparently, of science and other topics reflecting the long road to
modernity made since the Enlightenment, the only truth to be found anywhere, so far as Qutb was concerned, was in the
Koran.
“First and foremost,” wrote Qutb, “the verses of the Koran were revealed in order to establish the correct criteria on which
God wishes the concepts of humans, as well as their life, to be based.” Everything that preceded the Koran was
“accumulated debris; [erroneous} beliefs, concepts, philosophies, myths, thoughts, doubts, superstitions, customs, and
traditions.”
Prior to Islam, humans were “unable to find certitude.”
The one thing Islam does provide to those born into it and to those who convert to Islam is certitude. And with certitude
comes the human affliction of an arrogant belief that no other culture, religion, ideology or form of government, other than
that imposed by Islamic law, has any right to exist. The punishment for leaving Islam is death. The enemies of Islam are to
be beheaded.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you al-Qa'ida, Wahhabism, and the Islamic revolution that is your obligation to resist for the
sake of all mankind.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
© Alan Caruba 2006
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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