Racist Or Lazy?

I just saw this; a short video (only a couple of minutes) made by an American chap who has been living in Britain for five years, and he asks the question: Many foreign immigrants have difficulty integrating into British society. Is this because Britain is racist or because they aren't trying hard enough?

I certainly have my own views on the matter. I DO NOT believe that British society as a whole is racist. Overall I think we are one of the most tolerant peoples in the world. And I feel that there IS a degree of laziness from foreigners involved. But if, as the guy suggests, we are going to help them integrate, we must first of all stand up for and promote British values. These people have to know what they are trying to integrate to. There should be an emphasis from our government for immigrants to integrate (particularly Muslims), and they should be helped to do this. If they are not committed to doing so, send them home. The ONLY way to stop racial division is integration. In our country, you play by our rules. End of story. If implemented right, this would mean equal treatment for all, but without the traditional liberal idea of making life worse for the most well-off just so the less well-off ones can have the same.

But I think the most important issue of all is the need for DEBATE. We need to stop hearing people telling us all the time that uncontrolled immigration isn't a problem and that Britain is a racist country, and let someone on the other side tell their story. We should hear both sides of this argument and, eventually, the people will be the judge.

Debate is healthy. Constant one-sided liberalism isn't.

Zimbabwean Racism

The Zimbabwean parliament has passed a bill to move majority control of foreign-owned companies operating in the country to black Zimbabweans. The goal is to ensure at least a 51% shareholding by indigenous black people in the majority of businesses.

I wonder whether the media will make a fuss about this racism?

"Itinerant Travelers"

As part of his election campaign to win a council seat, Carl Lewis started a petition to evict travellers from an illegal caravan park. He spent hours circulating leaflets that highlighted the problem of the 'itinerant travelers' and his concerns struck a chord with residents. Last night the CRE (Commission for Racial Equality) announced it was launching legal proceedings against Mr Lewis because it believes his campaign material is racially discriminating. His petition - which secured almost 1,000 signatures before he handed it over to Swansea Council - reads: "Petition against any proposed itinerant travellers' site within Llansamlet and the Swansea Vale area." The CRE, which receives £19million funding from the Government every year, claims the use of the term 'itinerant travellers' in his campaign material breaches section 31 of the Race Relations Act.

Of course this is not remotely racist. And I would like to know: if they are NOT "itinerant travelers", what exactly are they?

Rewrite British History To Include Muslims

So says Trevor Phillips, who maintains that the Turks "saved us" from the Spanish Armada.

This is complete tosh, obviously. To say they "saved us" by fighting the Spanish would imply that they were on our side. And, I wonder: will Mr. Phillips, for the sake of "historical accuracy", mention the slave raids committed against the British by North African Muslims, who were clients of the Turks? Will he, heck.

RAW Watch X2

With the Jena 6 trial as the current big racism story of the moment, it has of course provoked a barrage of articles in which authors amaze us with the wicked insight and revelation of the fact that Racism is Alive and Well in the world today. Here are two such pieces:

The Orion

The Reflector

I really don't know where we'd be without such fantastic journalism.

Baker's Dhimmi

The bakery Gregg's has included a Muslim-only toilet at their Scottish headquarters - even though no Muslims work there.

Yes, you heard right.

Round-up

1. Subtle racism interferes with black people's mental function even more than overt racism does, a psychological study shows.

What DOESN'T interfere with black people's mental function these days? I mean come on, they like rap music...

2. The operator of a Halloween costume store in America said a window display depicting a man hanging from a noose will be removed after a Scotch Plains woman complained, saying it was appalling and racist.

Delores Jackson, a fifth-grade teacher, said the display she saw in the window at the Halloween Scene store depicted a stuffed doll resembling a black man, wearing a labor suit and hanging from a noose.

Now take a look at the picture in the article. Does it look like a black man to you? It doesn't to me. To me, it looks exactly like what the shop owner described it as: a "decaying person". I've always believed the idiots who report this sort of thing are the true racists because they are the ones who, when they see a rotting corpse, think it looks like a black person. They are the ones who think that any black person in the world could possibly look like a golliwog. They're the ones who accused Peter Jackson of racism in King Kong because they thought the treatment of Kong was similar to that of slavery...and yet they are the ones comparing black people to a sixty-foot ape.

Gay World Cup To Kick Off...

I see that the Gay World Cup is just about to start.

The annual event, in its 17th year, is about serious football and has a serious message, but players also seem keen to enjoy the city's nightlife.

Player and media accreditation was done in a restaurant - while the closing ceremony will take place in a nightclub.

Will they play YMCA?

Islam 101 - Part 4

ISLAMIC LAW

Muslim spokesmen and apologists today routinely state that mainstream Islam is "moderate" and peaceful, and that the jihadists are acting on their own unique twistings of Islamic teaching that have no basis in how the majority of Muslims view their religion.

Such spokemen have failed to take into account the rulings of Islamic jurists throughout the centuries. All the mainstream schools of Islamic jurisprudence teach today that Muslims must fight jihad warfare to establish Islamic hegemony over the whole world. Take, for example, these quotes from the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence - Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi and Shafi'i - to which the majority of the world's Muslims belong, but bear in mind that these things are taught among the Shi'ites also.

The Maliki jurist Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani said:

"Jihad is a precept of Divine institution. Its performance by certain individuals may dispense others from it. We Malikis maintain that it is preferable not to begin hostilities with the enemy before having invited the latter to embrace the religion of Allah except where the enemy attacks first. They have the alternative of either converting to Islam or paying the poll tax (jizya), short of which war will be declared against them."

The Hanbali jurist Ibn Taymiyya said:

"Since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is God's entirely and God's word is uppermost, therefore according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought. As for those who cannot offer resistance or cannot fight, such as women, children, monks, old people, the blind, handicapped and their likes, they shall not be killed unless they actually fight with words ( e.g. by propaganda) and acts (e.g. by spying or otherwise assisting in the warfare)."

The Hanafi school teaches:

"It is not lawful to make war upon any people who have never before been called to the faith, without previously requiring them to embrace it, because the Prophet so instructed his commanders, directing them to call the infidels to the faith, and also because the people will hence perceive that they are attacked for the sake of religion, and not for the sake of taking their property, or making slaves of their children, and on this consideration it is possible that they may be induced to agree to the call, in order to save themselves from the troubles of war...If the infidels, upon receiving the call, neither consent to it nor agree to pay capitation tax, it is then incumbent on the Muslims to call upon God for assistance, and to make war upon them, because God is the assistant of those who serve Him, and the destroyer of His enemies, the infidels, and it is necessary to implore His aid upon every occasion; the Prophet, moreover, commands us so to do."

And finally, the Shafi'i scholar Abu'l Hasan al-Marwardi said:

"The mushrikun [infidels] of Dar al-Harb (the House of War) are of two types: First, those whom the call of Islam has reached, but they have refused it and have taken up arms. The amir of the army has the option of fighting them...in accordance with what he judges to be in the best interest of the Muslims and most harmful to the mushrikun...Second, those whom the invitation to Islam has not reached, although such persons are few nowadays since Allah has made manifest the call of his Messenger...it is forbidden to...begin an attack before explaining the invitation to Islam to them, informing them of the miracles of the Prophet and making plain the proofs so as to encourage acceptance on their part; if they still refuse to accept after this, war is waged against them and they are treated as those whom the call has reached."

These rulings are centuries old, but they have never been revised by any Islamic authority and remain the same today. Jihadists cite them to make their case and make recruits among traditional Muslims. In 2003, the Sharia Council of the State Defense Council of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria published an article in its underground publication "Jihad Today" which quoted three of the four schools of jurisprudence to argue for jihad against the Russians in Chechnya. Although only two Islamic countries in the world today implement full Islamic law (Iran and Saudi Arabia), these rulings still remain on the books, ready to be picked up and re-used at any time by anyone with the will to carry them through. It is noteworthy that all the quotes above echo Muhammad's own command that non-Muslims first be invited to accept Islam or dhimmitude before being fought.

Proof that this isn't all just ancient history comes from Egypt. The Al-Azhar University in Cairo is the highest spiritual authority in Sunni Islam - that is, for nearly a billion Muslims around the world. In 1991, the University certified a Shafi'i manual of Islamic law as conforming "to the practise and faith of the orthodox Sunni community". The manual, "Umdat al-Salik" ("Reliance of the Traveller") defines jihad as "warfare against non-Muslims" and goes on to spend eleven pages describing how this warfare must be fought, echoing the language seen in the quotations above. If the highest authority in Islam believes that this manual conforms to Islamic orthodoxy, what does that say about the "moderation" of mainstream Islam?

Muslims often attempt to debunk the whole "Violent Islam" critique by saying that the Qur'an forbids murder, in much the same way that the Bible says, "Thou shalt not kill". They point to this passage: "Whosoever killeth a human being, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind." (5:32) However, they don't mention that this verse isn't addressed to the Muslims at all, but to the Children of Israel, and is in the past tense. It comes as part of a warning to the Jews not to make war on the Muslims or they will face terrible punishment. The passage goes on to say: "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter." Suddenly it doesn't sound so peaceful, does it?

But in any case, Islamic law has a somewhat unbalanced and hypocritical approach towards murder. According to "Umdat al-Salik", anyone who deliberately murders another person should be fiercely punished. However, no such punishment is necessary for "a Muslim killing a non-Muslim". This has led to unfair punishments being meted out against Christians in Muslim countries where such laws are enforced. In general, Islam makes it a rule that Muslims should not kill each other, but does not extend these rules to non-Muslims living in their domains.

In my first article I contended the idea that Islam forbids the killing of the innocent by pointing to an incident in Muhammad's life. But what does Islamic law say on the matter? It is anything but clear-cut. The Hanbali jurist Ibn Taymiyya summed it up above when he said that the innocent should not be killed "unless they actually fight with words ( e.g. by propaganda) and acts (e.g. by spying or otherwise assisting in the warfare)." With innocent people defined in such elastic terms, jihadists can justify many of their terrorist actions by simply saying that the people they are killing aren't innocent on Islamic grounds. Osama bin Laden justified the 9/11 atrocities by saying that "the American people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that strike and destroy our homes in Palestine, the armies which occupy our lands in the Arabian Gulf, and the fleets which ensure the blockade of Iraq". He went on to say that these tax dollars also go towards aid to the hated Israelis, and that the American people choose these policies by voting for their elected candidates. By such definition, there is no such thing as an innocent American. Jihadists also commonly assert that there are no innocent civilians in Israel, since simply by virtue of being in Israel they are "trespassing" on Muslim land and so can legitimately be killed. When Western Islamic spokesmen publically condemn "terrorism" and attacks on "innocent civilians", they are doing nothing to prevent the jihadists from believing that they are acting justly, since the jihadists believe that their victims are neither innocent nor civilians, and can point to Islamic sources to justify this.

The final area of Islam I am going to cover, although not so much a legal issue, concerns religious deception. Muhammad himself said "War is deception" (Bukhari v.4, b.56, no.3030, and others) and a couple of passages in the Qur'an seem to suggest that Muslims are allowed to lie to non-Muslims during a time of war ( e.g. 3:28). This has been developed culturally by Muslims as part of the doctrines of taqiyya (lying about religious beliefs) and kitman (partial truth-telling with the intention to mislead). "Umdat al-Salik" offers a tidbit on this when it says, "Lying is permissible when there is a legitimate desired end. And the legitimate desired end may be a personal one."

What are the implications of this? There could be many. Those Muslims who profess publically to be moderate may actually be practising taqiyya and lying about their beliefs in order to fool Westerners into thinking they are moderate. There have been several cases of high-ranking imams in Britain and America who have publically denounced Muslim terrorist attacks and then have been caught out in private secretly supporting them. Does this mean that every moderate Muslim is lying? Absolutely not, but it's a possibility that some are, and it demonstrates that people would be right to be suspicious. Certainly no one will think to ask these people some difficult questions. People should not assume, however, that any particular Muslim is lying about their beliefs unless there is evidence to support this.

Ultimately, only actions from moderate Muslims, not hollow words, will prove their moderation or lack thereof. If they set up initiatives in schools and mosques to teach rejection of Qur'anic literalism and the kinds of Islamic legal issues I have outlined above, and assist local and national law enforcement in finding and catching jihadists, then we can believe their claim to be moderate. Until then, it is perhaps best to be cautious.

Next week: Islamic history vs. Christian history - which is the more bloodstained, and which is more of a threat today?

Manchester United 2; Chelsea 0

OK, I am a United fan, and I am finding myself cheesed off with the stupid analysis of today's game that I have heard coming from TV pundits regarding certain incidents. So I'm going to answer those silly assertions.

My source for summarising quotes will be this article about the match from the BBC.

First:

"Chelsea put in a resolute showing but had Mikel Jon Obi harshly sent off for a rash tackle on Patrice Evra." (emphasis mine)

The contradiction here is apparent. They (and the Sky commentators and pundits today) say the sending off was "harsh", but in the same breath admit it was a rash tackle. Later on, the BBC say: "Chelsea suffered a setback when Mikel was sent off when he led with his studs as he chased down the ball and their resistance finally buckled on the stroke of half-time." A two-footed, studs-forward tackle like this one deserves a red card by the laws of the game. One may argue that there wasn't in fact enough contact to really warrant a red card. This may be acceptable. But in any case the ref had good reasons, based on the game's rules, to send Mikel off for this challenge. I can see why Chelsea might want to appeal it, but they can't claim - as some do - that there was no justification whatsoever for this sending off.

"Giggs curled an outswinging cross to the near post with the outside of his left foot and Tevez got his head to the ball before Cech to head in his first goal for the club.

Chelsea will be unhappy referee Mike Dean did not blow for half-time before the goal as the allotted two minutes of added time had already elapsed."

Ludicrous. It is common practise for referees to allow play to continue beyond the alloted injury time if one team is still threatening with an attack. Which United were on this occasion. The referee was waiting until the attack was over to blow the whistle. This happens in matches around the world on a weekly basis. And this time United happened to score thirty seconds after the allotted time was up, completely fair and square. There is nothing questionable about it.

I am surprised that the BBC did not mention that the incident which led to a United penalty in the dying moments was a complete dive by Louis Saha. But Auntie does mention the fact that United should have had a penalty in the first half when Joe Cole brought down Evra. He got the ball - but only AFTER he got the man. Sky, of course, didn't bother remembering this - they were too busy spending the whole bloody game whinging about imaginary injustices against Chelsea.

More On That Jena 6 Case...

I've been reading these articles by Jason Whitlock, and they are beginning to make me rethink this case.

Take this passage from the first Whitlock column:

There was no “schoolyard fight” as a result of nooses being hung on a whites-only tree.

Justin Barker, the white victim, was cold-cocked from behind, knocked unconscious and stomped by six black athletes. Barker, luckily, sustained no life-threatening injuries and was released from the hospital three hours after the attack.

A black U.S. attorney, Don Washington, investigated the “Jena Six” case and concluded that the attack on Barker had absolutely nothing to do with the noose-hanging incident three months before.

Now if this is true, it seems to me that some serious charges can indeed be levied against the black youths. And if the attack was broken up by third parties who prevented the white guy from sustaining further injuries, as some have claimed, then I'd say that attempted murder could well be a reasonable charge.

Whitlock also says:

Much has been written about Bell’s trial, the six-person all-white jury that convicted him of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery and the clueless public defender who called no witnesses and offered no defense. It is rarely mentioned that no black people responded to the jury summonses and that Bell’s public defender was black.

It’s almost never mentioned that Bell’s absentee father returned from Dallas and re-entered his son’s life only after Bell faced attempted-murder charges. At a bond hearing in August, Bell’s father and a parade of local ministers promised a judge that they would supervise Bell if he was released from prison.

He concludes the second article:

Shame on the parents of the kids who hung the nooses for hiding behind a seemingly racist and insensitive school board when their kids were inexcusably wrong. Shame on the parents of the "Jena Six" for blaming white racism for the cowardice of a six-on-one attack.

And shame on the prosecutor, the media and Al Sharpton for not rising above the ignorance and distortions, and seeking a truth that will set everyone in Jena free, including the "Jena Six."

And before anyone says anything about further racism...Jason Whitlock, as you will see from the pictures beside the articles, is black himself.

Round-up

1. I suppose I better cover this civil rights case (very briefly) - the infamous Jena 6 trial, in which six black youths were sentenced to life in jail for attempted murder of a white kid, after what seemed little more than a schoolyard fight. I just want to clarify that I have no position in this case; I do not know what happened or didn't happen and am not taking sides. I am simply on the side of whatever is the right course.

2. This study about "racism" says that in an initial Australian poll, 45% of those surveyed thought Muslims were a threat to national security (of course, Islam isn't a race, but people keep ignoring this fact). After a series of small group meetings about religious differences, only 17 per cent of people who had Muslims in their groups thought this. For those groups without Muslim participants, it was 30 per cent.

No doubt part of the change in attitude comes from the Muslims or their sympathisers telling the "racist" Australians during the seminars that Islam is a Religion of Peace (TM) and using abrogated Meccan suras and out-of-context quotes like Qur'an 5:32 to make this point. But in any case it is interesting that only one sentence of the article is devoted to Muslim attitudes towards all this:

"After the discussions, the number of Muslims who thought being committed to the Australian way of life was important rose from 32 per cent to 44 per cent."

Good. But that's still less than half.

What?

Look at this letter to the Indy Star:

I read with interest Courtenay Edelhart's article on the testing of her DNA ("Tracing ancestry through DNA," Sept. 17). This letter is in no way intended as a criticism of her. With her multi-racial and multi-ethnic heritage, she is certainly no racist.

One statement that she made, however, shows how imbedded [sic] racism still is in our culture.

RAW Watch...

She refers to past members of her mother's family "passing for white." The concept of "passing for white" is the result of old-fashioned white racism which holds that, no matter how small a percentage of a light-skinned person's ancestors were black, that person is considered black. This is no more logical than saying that a dark-skinned person with a few white ancestors is white. If one removes the illogic of racism, therefore, a person who is able to "pass for white" has enough Caucasian ancestors to be white.

I believe the writer of the letter has just made this up.

On the other hand, if we go back a sufficient number of generations, our DNA will tell us that we are all Africans.

This probably IS true, though, from what I've heard. Of course, some might then go too far and make the "racist" claim that white people are more highly evolved, superior versions of our original black ancestors. They won't, of course, suggest that black people should be mocked or treated differently because of this, because they are only stating fact, not opinion...but you know, if you suggest that one race is better than another (and FYI, I'm not saying that's the case here), that is unacceptable in today's PC multi-cult age.

Islamic Racism

Remember this statement by Muhammad?

The fruits of such racism bear fruit on Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV. In the picture below, captured from the channel, the Arabic text which is ringed labels Condoleeza Rice as a "black snake".

But I bet there won't be an outcry about this.

Meeting The Man

I was lucky enough to attend a book signing by fantasy author Terry Brooks today. And I'm really glad I went. What a nice, approachable man. I was lucky enough to speak to him for 10-15 minutes, and I could easily have continued for hours. He's so easy to talk to, kind and helpful; it was great to be in his company. I'm really glad I went along and got the chance to meet him.

I would really recommend going to these kinds of book signings, for whoever it is that you are a fan of. If they're like the one I went to today (my first one) they really are worth your time.

Bring On The Cartoon Rage!

What with the Danish cartoon uproar, and this recent cartoon which was seen as "offensive" to Muslims, one could be forgiven for being rather cheesed off with all the bouts of murderous Muslim rage triggered by innocuous cartoons.

And here's something that's gonna make it all even worse! Bosch Fawstin is an ex-Muslim who is creating a new comic book superhero - Pigman. And who's Pigman's greatest enemy? That's right, it's SuperJihad!

I absolutely cannot wait to see the Muslim reaction to this one.

The Nutty Professor

A professor (who, rather aptly, bears a vague resemblance to Eddie Murphy's Nutty Professor) is giving lectures moaning and complaining about the "inequality" of blacks to whites, etc. Of course, he doesn't actually give any examples of this inequality. He then goes on to outline four rationalisations, or "frames", that whites apparently use to explain away racism: abstract liberalism, naturalisation, cultural racism and minimisation of racism. I will leave you to read the explanations of these four frames for yourself - they are shockingly inane.

The professor also discussed "people’s hesitance to openly discuss racism in public". As if that is remotely true. He gave an example of an interview with a white person who said minorities use racism as an excuse “if things didn’t go their way,” and that whites suffer from reverse discrimination. I agree with this mysterious white person.

Other examples taken from his interviews with many white people showed similar responses, which indicates many whites’ firm belief that blacks are playing “race cards” to gain preferential treatment. And where could they possibly have got that idea from?

The article concludes: "Bonilla-Silva concluded the lecture by suggesting 'five things we [minorities] ought to do,' including developing counter-arguments for the four frames..." Yes, I suggest you do that, professor. Because you haven't actually come up with ANY kind of counter-argument so far.

Outrageous Dhimmitude

You may have heard the story of Hussein Zorkot, a young Muslim arrested in Dearborn with a loaded AK-47 in his possession. His personal website showed him to be a Hizballah supporter and he had a picture declaring: "The start of my personal jihad", dated on the 8th September - the same day he was found with the AK-47.

It has now been revealed that Dearborn officials deliberately withheld this kind of information because they didn't want to "stir anti-Muslim sentiments". And this at a time when people are meant to be on high alert for terrorism threats.

Make you want to puke, doesn't it?

Islam 101 - Part 3

Here's part three of my Islam 101 series - the subject this week is the difference between the Qur'an's violence and the Bible's violence. Bear in mind that although I here defend Christianity, I in no way condone its violent passages and do not agree with everything espoused in the Bible. I am an atheist, but I believe that Christianity more often than not is fundamentally good, and has brought much good to the world - far more than Islam.

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THE QUR'AN VS. THE BIBLE

Islamic apologists, after steadfastly asserting that Islam is peaceful in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary, may eventually admit that the Qur'an sanctions warfare against unbelievers. But then they will invariably say, "But there is loads of violence in the Bible, too. Christianity is just as bad." But is this true?

They will often quote several passages from the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, to prove their case. However, there are big differences between such Biblical verses and Qur'anic violence. I am going to look at just a few of those passages, but most other passages one could find will be subject to the same principles.

Let us look at three passages from the Old Testament which we are told are "just as bad" as anything in the Qur'an:

"When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you. And when the LORD your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them." (Deuteronomy 7:1-2)

The context of this passage is easily discernible from the text. War was to be waged only against the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. As jarring to our sensibilities as it is that any merciful God would command such atrocities against anyone, this is different to Qur'anic violence because war was to be waged only against these tribes, which are extinct today. There is no way modern Christians can take these verses as commanding them to commit violence against the rest of the world in a modern context. This is in contrast to the Qur'an, which contains open-ended commands to fight non-believers, with nothing to specify certain peoples or a certain time period, e.g. “Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and those who are with him are ruthless to the unbelievers, but merciful to each other.” (48:29); "Slay the idolaters wherever you find them." (9:5) etc.

“When you approach a city to fight against it, you shall offer it terms of peace. If it agrees to make peace with you and opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall become your forced labor and shall serve you. However, if it does not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. When the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall strike all the men in it with the edge of the sword. Only the women and the children and the animals and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourself; and you shall use the spoil of your enemies which the LORD your God has given you. Only in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes” (Deuteronomy 20:10-17)

This sounds pretty open-ended like the Qur'an, right? Wrong. The very next sentence reads: "Completely destroy them — the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites — as the LORD your God has commanded you.” Again, we can see here that violence was commanded against particular people at that time and only until the Israelites had taken back the land given to them by God. There is nothing in the text which encourages Christians to imitate this behaviour today.

"Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.” (Numbers 31:17-18)

This sounds quite a bit like Muhammad's example, and is admittedly pretty vile. But its saving grace is the fact that surrounding verses clearly identify this passage as referring to war against the Midianites only. Also, as with many other such passages in the Bible, it is written in the past tense, and so it is a historical account, not a command for all Christians to follow for all time.

The Old Testament also contains several rules which appear to command the execution of pagans, as well as the stoning of adulterers and homosexuals. However, most Christians today believe that these rulings have been superceded by later covenants, as well as by the teachings of Jesus (e.g. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"), which is why even the most fundamentalist Christians today, such as Fred Phelps, who despise homosexuals, aren't calling for them to be killed (unlike in the Islamic world). Or else they have developed non-literalist ways to interpret such passages.

Perhaps grasping at straws, some apologists even attempt to quote passages that "prove" that the New Testament also encourages violence. Passages such as:

"I tell you that to everyone who has, more shall be given, but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away. But these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence." (Luke 19:26-27)

However, these are not the words of Jesus but of a king in one of his parables.

"Do not think that I have come to send peace on earth. I did not come to send peace, but a sword. I am sent to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law" (Matthew 10:34-35)

Even if this passage were calling for any literal violence, it would seem to be primarily a jihad against mothers-in-law, and so can't be remotely compared to Muhammad's exhortations to fight all non-believers. As it happens, though, the passage is not literal. The sword is clearly metaphorical; Jesus is referring to the fact that for one to convert to Christianity will often cause division within one's own family. It isn't a command to fight or kill anyone.

And in this we see one of the most important differences between Islam and Christianity: that is, the difference between Jesus and Muhammad. One was clearly a man of peace, who taught that Christians should "love your enemies" and "turn the other cheek", that "blessed are the peacemakers" and that "those who live by the sword shall die by the sword", and who practised what he preached. The other was a warlord who, it is estimated, participated in 27 battles during his career, commanded his followers to commit violent acts in his name, and had his enemies assassinated. No one can credibly argue that Jesus preached jihad or anything like jihad. Those who try to create moral equivalence between the two religions will be found wanting.

And even if Christianity was just as violent as Islam, it is a simple matter of fact that there are no armed Christian or Jewish groups today who are committing violence against non-believers and quoting scripture to justify their actions. By contrast, jihadists quote the Qur'an all the time. Osama bin Laden, to use the most obvious example, has in his communiques quoted Qur'an 3:145, 47:4-6, 2:154, 9:14, 47:19, 8:72 and 9:5. Meanwhile, violent passages from the Bible have never been used to justify violence. Even the Crusaders at their most grasping and venal did not invoke passages from the Bible to justify warfare against non-Christians. Christians may have done violent and even evil things, but never presented on a platform of scriptural backing. That is because violence in the Bible has always been understood by Christians as being descriptive, not prescriptive.

This is also largely because of the influence of centuries of interpretive traditions which have moved away from literalism regarding these passages. For example, Christians have attempted to spiritualise violent Biblical acts such as Joshua's sacking of Jericho by seeing them as symbolic of inner rather than physical destruction. Biblical violence is also seen by many Christians as purely historical. For example, the Catholic edition of the Revised Standard edition of the Bible says that the physical destruction of an enemy in obedience to the deity "must be seen in light of the imperfect stage of moral development reached at that time". Such violence is also often directly rejected, as by Reverend David Holwick of First Baptist Church in New Jersey, who in a sermon about the morally problematic passages of the Bible said: "Too many atrocities have been done in God's name. God doesn't need human armies or politicians to win."

By contrast, there have been no comparable traditions in Islam. While individual Muslims may have similar ideas, no major Muslim sect or leader has ever renounced or apologised for the idea of jihad violence, and throughout the centuries such teachings have been interpreted literally by Muslims, to the point that they are still enshrined in Islamic law today. I will be exploring this further next week.

Next week: Islamic law's attitude towards jihad warfare and why this is not simply a matter of forgotten history.

Not Doing Enough

Muslim communities are not doing enough to help security authorities fight Islamic terrorism, according to the German authorities.

This is a point I will be bringing up later in my weekly articles about Islam: that is, that despite all the pious platitudes we hear from Muslim front groups such as CAIR, the so-called "moderate" Muslim community really doesn't seem very willing or motivated to actually prevent their fellow Muslims from becoming jihadists and giving their religion a bad name. Now why is that?