THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 215, November 6, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE MEANING OF JIHAD & ISLAMIC HISTORY:
HOW DO I KNOW?
By Dr. Babu Suseelan
THE ISLAMIST STATE OF MIND & THE FAULTY ARGUMENTS OF ISLAMISTS: THE QUESTIONS & ARGUMENTS
EMPLOYED BY ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISTS TO SUPRESS & SILENCE RATIONAL DISCUSSION REGARDING MILITANT ISLAM,
JIHADI TERRORISM, & THE BRUTAL PAST OF MUSLIMS -- THE DOGMATISM, TUNNEL VISION, & COGNITIVE DISTORTION
THAT ARE CHARACTERISTIC OF THE THINKING & ATTITUDES OF MUSLIM FUNDAMENTALISTS
FULL STORY:
In public meetings, professional conferences and interfaith discussion groups, Muslim fundamentalist leaders frequently
ask the questions:
"Are you a Muslim? Do you have any Islamic religious experience?
If you don't have any experience with Islam, how can you tell me
about Islamic Jihad, Qur'anic dictates, and Islamic history?"
Everything is "Islamic religious experience," so many Muslim leaders would have us believe.
To accept the proposition, however, is to move toward the position that there is no "knowledge," only "opinion" and
"experience." An educated Islamic leader once remarked:
"It is all Islamic life experience. Until you have experience with
Islamic life, you are unable to discuss the meaning of Jihad
and Islamic history."
These statements and questions are intended to act like a silencer. It can bring rational discussion about the brutal past
of Muslims and Jihadi terrorism to a stop. It can inhibit discussion before it begins, discussion about Islamic
fundamentalism and Jihadi terrorism. The vague talk and faulty logic about "Islamic experience" has subversive power.
The question is posed to discredit non-believers.
This state of mind of fundamentalist Muslims can lead to a sort of whimsical talk. It means Muslim fundamentalist leaders
are afraid to look at what they are doing, practicing, and preaching. Muslim radical leaders use "Islamic life experience" as
a term of contempt for reason and knowledge. Even to ask the question -- "Are you a Muslim?" -- takes a lot of courage
and means a shortcut to denial.
There are powerful implications in such questions. One is that experience with Islamic life distorts facts. It is a false
assumption that only a practicing Muslim can understand Islamic Jihad and its history. Fundamentalist Muslim leaders,
in order to dismiss knowledge and reasoning, frequently use this argument about Islamic life experience.
Like all relativistic, dogmatic, and irrational arguments, this one is faulty. The argument about Islamic life experience is
not credible. It is to be discredited simply by identifying its origin. Running to "Islamic experience and faith" is running
away from the whole business of truth seeking. It is evading the issue of the brutal past of Islam and the atrocities
committed by Jihadi terrorists. Jihadi terrorists, Islamic suicide bombers, and Muslim fundamentalist preachers have
Islamic experience. Who in the world would deny that? Islamists might sensibly boast of it. They offer their "Islamic
experience" without rational analysis or in total ignorance of their past history.
I do not want to deny the religious experience of Muslim radicals, but only wish to suggest that the assumption that
"Islamic belief" is where we start, and never where we end, is an enormously unsafe assumption.
One can gain knowledge and insight about Islamic theocracy without believing in Qur'anic concepts or practicing
Islamic dictates. A view might be acquired with no experience, without belief at all. Most people acquire the view
that Jihadi terrorism and suicide bombing is wrong, doing do with no experience of terrorism or bombing. Yet, the
view proves to be a dependable analysis.
The assumption that belief and experience necessarily underlie knowledge, or the notion that all knowledge needs
to be based on practical experience, is a falacy. The Muslim's falatious argument is, nonetheless, potent. "How do
you know and how can you tell us about Jihad and Islam if you are not a believing and practicing Muslim are, in
reality, impertinent questions. One can certainly know that Jihadi terrorism is dangerous. We know that suicide
bombing is dangerous. One would continue to believe that fundamentalist, dogmatic Islam poses a threat to
pluralism, secularism, and religious freedom without any Islamic religious experience or faith in Qur'anic concepts.
Any argument to discredit this proposition would be discredited before it is heard.
Muslim radicals' assumption about "Islamic faith and experience" needs to be replaced with the idea of "coherence
theory." Coherence theory proposes that knowledge and common views are seen to be true when they cohere
with other common views and historical facts one already holds and accepts. Coherence theory accepts that, in
speaking of morality, we know what to value and what to condemn.
I shall expand the coherence theory with further illustrations. Many of us have not witnessed the Islamic conquest
of Constantinople or the destruction of Persian civilization by Muslim invaders, but are convinced, with certainty,
that these are historical facts. This certainty is not irrational, and our knowledge would not be reinforced by
converting to Islam. Many of us have not witnessed suicide bombings, but are utterly convinced that suicide
bombing is inhuman and that suicide bombers are mostly Muslims.
We know that Jihadi terrorism, suicide bombing, kidnapping, hijacking, and coercive religious conversion are
wrong. Our beliefs about these criminal acts need not be grounded on any single argument, set of arguments, or
faith and experience.
To the Muslim fundamentalist's challenging question of how do you know about Islam, or are you a believer, one
need only answer that no answer to that question is necessary. We know because the numerous considerations
that bear on the danger of Jihadi terrorism cohere and fit in with our worldview on that matter.
A recent incident reminded me vividly of the marked validity of coherence theory. On publishing a pamphlet titled
Dangers of Coercive Religious Conversion," I received comments from a number of Muslims arguing that
"freedom" means freedom to forcibly convert non-believers, freedom to impose Islamic morality and Muslim
jurisprudence. Perhaps, there is no single argument by which one could refute that whimsical statement, but, if I
had to choose between being subject to Islamic morality and jurisprudence on the one hand and, on the other,
enjoying freedom to believe in secularism, I would choose the latter without hesitation.
The Muslim radicals may reply that my belief about freedom, secularism, and religion fail to reflect the ontological
concepts of Islam. This mirror image is potent, potent in the sense that it is widely accepted by Islamic
fundamentalists. It is also known as "correspondence theory." It is often assumed that one must believe in Islamic
faith and experience Islamic life in order to tell the truth about Islam. This also means that one must have blind faith
in Islamic concepts in order to correctly interpret Jihadi terrorism. Though plausible, the argument is inadequate
and ultimately false.
The life of a Jihadi terrorist can be real, and, then, that life, in itself, may not be the life one ought to live. Muslim
fundamentalists and Jihadis must transcend the narrow Islamic tunnel vision and see the real worrld as a whole.
They must realize that partial, dualistic, and particular Islamic worldviews are narrow, rigid, inadequate, and
false.
Impatience, hostility, tunnel vision, and cognitive distortion are characteristic of the thinking and attitudes of
Muslim fundamentalists. Islamists are in a hurry to discredit non-believers. How do you know about Islam is less
a question than a challenge.
The task of convincing an Islamic radical of the market superiority of reason and knowledge over a rigid, dualistic,
and false system could take more time than a Muslim would be willing to give. A Muslim would not stay for an
answer, nor would he be willing to be free. Muslims are to be forced into freedom.
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
Dr. Babu Suseelan is a professor of clinical psychology and the director of a drug and alcohol treatment program in
Pennsylvania. He writes on the subject of Islamic terrorism and its effect on Hindu society. Dr. Suseelan can be contacted
at the following email address: babususeelan@hotmail.com
The foregoing article by Dr. Suseelan was originally published on the Internet website maintained by
Faith Freedom International, a grassroots movement of ex-Muslims,
the goals of which are to (1) unmask Islam and show that it is an imperialistic ideology akin to Nazism, but disguised as a
religion, and (2) help Muslims to leave this pseudo-religion, end the Islamic culture of hate caused by an "us" versus
"them" ethos, and embrace the human race in amity. Members of Faith Freedom International strive for the unity of
Mankind through the elimination of Islam, the most insidious doctrine of hate.
To read the original version of Dr. Suseelan's article,
Click Here.
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