What is the real face of Islam?

One day after ISIS released a video of the beheading of American Journalist Steven Sotloff, Secretary of State John Kerry gave a speech in which he said Islam is a “peaceful religion based on the dignity of all human beings,” and continued to assert that ISIS is not “the real face of Islam.” A few days later President Obama echoed that sentiment, "ISIL is not Islamic. No Religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL's victims have been Muslims." -Barack Obama (Sep 10, 2014)

Islamic apologists often like to distance Islam from Islamic terrorism the way atheists like to distance themselves from Communism. But just as Communism couldn't exist without atheism, Islamic terrorism couldn't exist without the Qur'an. The willful blindness about Islamic terrorism ignores the violent history of Islam and the Qur'an which encourages it. So what is the real face of Islam? To answer this question we must take a brief look at the history of Islam.

Muhammad first tried to spread Islam, which means "submission", peacefully. When that failed he turned to the sword and never looked back. In his last ten years alone he ordered 65 military campaigns. His last words to his followers is said to have been “I was ordered to fight all men until they say ‘There is no god but Allah.’”. Likewise the Qur'an says, “Slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them [captive], and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush.” (Sura 9:5).

His followers took his last words to heart. In 570, when Muhammad was born, Christendom stretched from the Middle East along North Africa, and embraced much of Europe. But only eighty years after Muhammad’s death in 632, a new Muslim empire had displaced Christians from most of the Middle East, Egypt and all of North Africa. Islam had spread as far East as China and the Indian Ocean, and as far West as Morocco. It then spread into Europe though the Iberian Peninsula and onto Spain and southern Italy, as well as many major Mediterranean islands including Sicily, Corsica, Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, Malta, and Sardinia.

The Muslims were eventually driven out of Europe but by 1095 Islam was on the move again, conquering lands that had previously been held by Christians and threatening the Byzantium empire. The Seljuk Turks, recent converts to Islam who had invaded the Middle East, captured Jerusalem, and driven to within one hundred miles of Constantinople. It was at this point that emperor Alexius Comnenus of Byzantium, wrote a letter to Pope Urban I asking for help. In his letter the emperor detailed gruesome tortures of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land and vile desecrations of churches, altars, and baptismal fonts. The Pope answered the call which led to the Crusades. Constantinople would eventually fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Historian Viscount John Julius Norwich notes, “Had they captured Constantinople in the seventh century rather than the fifteenth, al Europe—and America—might be Muslim today.”

With Constantinople as its capital, the Turks established a middle-eastern caliphate that lasted for six centuries. It was during this period that Christopher Columbus inadvertently discovered America as he was trying to find an alternate route to India because the Muslims had effectively created a blockaded of the trade routes, including the infamous Silk Road. It was also during this period that the United States fought it's first foreign war (and war on terror) against the Muslim Barber Pirates in 1778, which was immortalized in the Marines' hymn "Battle of Derne".

During World War 1, the Ottoman Empire Allied themselves with the Central Powers and found themselves on the losing side. Out of the fall of the Ottoman Empire the Muslim Brotherhood was formed in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna with the eventual goal of re-establishing an Islamic Caliphate. Hassan al-Banna allied himself with Hitler against the Jews during World War 2, as did many prominent Arab leaders including the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj-Amin-al-Husseini. Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" continues to remain a best seller in the middle-east.

One of the earmarks of Islam has always been infighting, but with the birth of Israel in 1948 Islam found a new rallying point to unite Islam. When the Muslim world was unable to defeat Israel militarily they turned to terrorism and Islamic terrorism was born. With the fresh infusion of Nazi fascism, Islam had fully awakened from it's slumber. 

The Muslim Brotherhood formed the theological foundation for Islamic terrorism and has since spawned many terrorist organizations including Hamas and Al-Qaeda. One of the outgrowths of Al-Queda is ISIS, which was started by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 1999 with monetary help from Osama Bin Laden. After the death of al-Zarqawi, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi came to power. Abu Bakr has a PhD in Islamic law and theology from Baghdad Islamic University, so he knows his Islam.

This brings us to the present. Currently Islamic terrorism has spread to every corner of the globe Including North America, Europe, Africa, Asia,and more recently Australia. Muslims have immigrated in mass to the Western world, often imposing their cultural and religious beliefs instead of assimilating and adopting the customs of their host country. This has been due to conflicting goals between Western civilization and Islam, which is to recreate a caliphate, destroy Israel, and dominate the world.

With this background in mind we can finally see the real face of Islam. When Obama or anyone else talks about radical Islam, they are talking about the root of Islam. The word "radical" comes from the Latin word "rādīcālis" meaning "having roots". In order to go to the roots of Islam we have to look at Muhammad, whose life was replete with conquests, slavery, and murder. According to Islamic theologians a true Muslims is one who reads the Qur'an, and follows Muhammad.  Muhammad is the model for Islam. ISIS and every radical Muslim is just following Muhammad's lead just as every Christian tries to follow and emulate the life of Jesus Christ. They believe only though Jihad is a Muslim guaranteed a place in Heaven. Thank goodness for moderate Muslims, but they don't represent the true face of Islam. It's true not all Muslims are Jihadists but the fact is all Jihadists are Muslim, and Islam is anything but moderate.

The new rules of war

As the Israel-Gaza conflict rages on, so do the accusations of civilian deaths and disproportionate use of force by Israel. These charges are nothing new, we've heard these same arguments during the first Gaza conflict in 2008. I began to wonder where did these new rules of war come from? It certainly hasn't always been the standard. During World War 2, while military and industrial installations were targeted, civilian targets were also fair game. Such as the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the semi-indiscriminate bombing of Berlin.

Somewhere along the lines the rules of war changed. The first real shift occurred during the the Vietnam war. The news media and anti-war protestors were quick to pick up on communist propaganda and harp on civilian causalities. The American troops returning home were spit upon and called baby killers. These accusations were an obvious attempt to slander and shame the United States military, and it worked. Militarily we won the war, but politically we lost it. Liberals today have adopted these contrived rules of war and have applied them to every conflict since, with America and Israel bearing the brunt of the scrutiny.

In Israel's case, it does everything it can to minimize civilian casualties by dropping leaflets, sending out text messages, and even calling people's home. More than what anyone has done prior. Not only does this come at a strategic expense to Israel, but it's also exploited by her enemies. If Hamas knows Israel is reluctant to fire on civilian buildings for fear of killing civilians, they will use those buildings from which to launch their attacks, and those civilians as human shields. And if Israel does attack and kills civilians they can use it to demonize her. It's a catch 22 for Israel, their damned if they do and damned if they don't. In reality Israel isn't responsible for protecting another nation's civilians, they are only responsible for protecting their own civilians. And that's just what their doing. Wars are never fought fair, there fought to be won. One has to wonder if we could have won World War 2 under the same constraints as Israel is placed under today. I don't need a magic eight ball to tell me "very doubtful".