Under the new On Islam section in the left sidebar of this blog, I have posted a link to a page we created from a collection of Lawrence Auster's writings on Islam. In one of the VFR entries listed on this page, Sayyid Qutb on the meaning and purpose of Jihad (under the heading VFR Articles on the page), Auster shares with us the thoughts of Sayyid Qutb, who Andrew Bostom believes may be "the most important Sunni Islamic scholar of the twentieth century."
Auster writes:
It’s also interesting how much stress Qutb lays on the idea that war is not waged to force people to become Muslims, but rather to bring them under Islamic rule and thereby to free them to choose Islam freely. He seems to be saying that people are only truly free to choose Islam if they are under an Islamic ruler.
In the below excerpt Qutb shows how the Koranic command not to initiate hostilities with non-Muslims only applied during an earlier stage in the development of Islam. Step by step he shows how the command to wage jihad keeps expanding until it becomes a mandate to wage war against all non-Muslims in the world.
"He seems to be saying that people are only truly free to choose Islam if they are under an Islamic ruler."
So, under a non-Islamic ruler, or rule, according to Qutb, Terry Morris is not truly free to freely choose Islam over Christianity. Only under an Islamic ruler or rule, can Terry Morris be set free to freely choose Islam. Islamic war against me and against my religion (a religion I could not have chosen freely) then is actually war in my behalf and for my freedom; for my freedom from the oppressive influence of Christianity, to choose freely the religion of Mohammed. Under Islamic rule I would naturally choose Islam over Christianity, the latter being such an oppressive and delusional influence on my mind that I simply cannot know the truth of Islam. Only under Islamic rule can my mind be freed and my heart released to understand this truth. And that means war.
So to be "free" to choose Islam, I must be "freed" from all influences not Islamic. Which as I said means war, the goal of which is Islamic conquest, the result of which is all things Islam. To Islamists this is "freedom."
The full VFR entry may be read here.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Islamic Scholars on Islam
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1 comments:
Mr. Morris,
Your comments reminded me of watching interviews with Iraqi shopkeepers just before the U.S. attacked Iraq. They all said they had their guns ready to defend their land and that they would rather die than let the U.S. take over their country. They appeared to be staunch supporters of Saddam and fiercely unwilling to say a word against him. Where were those shopkeepers after the invasion? One imagines that they were somewhere in the hordes of Iraqi citizens celebrating their newfound freedom from Saddam's repressive and brutal regime.
Under his government, knowing as we now do what kind of retaliation would have been their reward for seeming even the least bit dissatisfied with the government they had, can you imagine they believe we have real freedom to choose? Can you name one country governed under Sharia law that allows such freedom? How then would anyone raised under such a system even comprehend the freedom we have here. Surely, in their understanding, Christianity must be as overwhelmingly enforced as their own system, which they also claim to choose freely. Therefore it is not a very big leap, logically, to assume that we are also unable to openly choose our preferred religion.
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