Recently, discussion about the more recent "terrorist attacks" have been focusing around the meme that those committing these attacks are not "real Muslims". My take on this is that the left is attempting to protect the Muslim community from further animosity by those either directly, or indirectly, impacted by those attacks on Muslims who may be encountered in their daily business and actions. After all, it appears the left has much in common with Islamic values and principles.
The following article provides the world, steeped in denial of the truth and obsessed with not offending the feelings of anyone, with a point of view which reveals how drastically out of phase the greater percentage of out nation's population is on this topic. (Yes, I tend to agree with this view based on years of study and research on this topic/issue.)
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Islamic
extremists who carry out acts of terror are simply applying what
their faith requires of them, according to Jesuit Father Henri
Boulad, an Islamic scholar of the Egyptian Greek Melkite rite.
In
an interview
with the National Catholic Register, Father Boulad said that “Islam
is an open-ended declaration of war against non-Muslims” and those
who carry out violent jihad are true Muslims who are applying exactly
what their creed demands.
Those
who fail to recognize the real threat posed by Islam are naïve and
ignorant of history, he said, and unfortunately many in the Church
fall into this category.
Citing
a letter he wrote last August to Pope Francis, Father Boulad said
that “on the pretext of openness, tolerance and Christian charity —
the Catholic Church has fallen into the trap of the liberal left
ideology which is destroying the West.”
“Anything
that does not espouse this ideology is immediately stigmatized in the
name of ‘political correctness,’” he said.
The
priest went so far as to chastise Pope Francis himself—a fellow
Jesuit—suggesting that he has fallen into this trap as well.
“Many
think that a certain number of your positions are aligned with this
ideology and that, from complacency, you go from concessions to
concessions and compromises in compromises at the expense of the
truth,” the priest wrote to Francis.
Christians
in the West and in the East, he wrote the Pope, “are expecting
something from you other than vague and harmless declarations that
may obscure reality.”
“It
is high time to emerge from a shameful and embarrassed silence in the
face of this Islamism that attacks the West and the rest of the
world. A systematically conciliatory attitude is interpreted by the
majority of Muslims as a sign of fear and weakness,” he said.
“If
Jesus said to us: Blessed are the peacemakers, he did not say to us:
Blessed are the pacifists. Peace is peace at any cost, at any price.
Such an attitude is a pure and simple betrayal of truth,” he said.
The
priest also stated his belief that the West is in an ethical and
moral debacle, and its defense of Islam is a denial of truth.
“By
defending at all costs Islam and seeking to exonerate it from the
horrors committed every day in its name, one ends up betraying the
truth,” he wrote.
To
back up his argument, Father Boulad enumerated a number of texts from
the Koran that call on Muslims to employ violence in their conquest
of the world for Allah.
The
many passages he cited included: “Kill the unbelievers wherever you
find them” (Koran 2:191), “Make war on the infidels living in
your neighborhood” (Koran 9:123), “When opportunity arises, kill
the infidels wherever you catch them” (Koran 9:5), “Maim and
crucify the infidels if they criticize Islam” (Koran 5:33), “Punish
the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron rods, boiling
water; melt their skin and bellies” (Koran 22:19), and “Terrorize
and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur’an”
Koran 8:12.
Father
Boulad is not the first Jesuit scholar to criticize the West for its
naiveté in dealing with Islam. Last year, Georgetown scholar Father
James V. Schall contended that decades of students have been given a
“sanitized education” that systematically excludes an honest
portrayal of the history and theology of Islam, which limits their
ability to assess what is going on in the world.
In
his essay
titled “Realism and Islam,” Father Schall argued that Islam “is
actually and potentially violent throughout its entire history” and
the basic reason for this method is religious in nature: “obedience
to the Law of Allah.”
Therefore,
he wrote, the Western tendency to simply call Muslim violence
“terrorism” is insulting to believing Muslims who “see
themselves carrying out the will of Allah, even sometimes to their
own death in doing so.” Rather than terrorism, he insists, Muslims
see their violence as “a religious endeavor to conquer the world,”
which they understand to be “an act of piety.”
Because
of this gaping educational void, “most citizens are simply not
equipped to face the forces now reappearing in the world,” he
wrote.
“And
while it may be politically incorrect to state these things, they
need to be stated and are in fact the truth—things that both
Muslims and non-Muslims need to hear and consider,” he said.
