To better understand Islam, one must appreciate the thoroughly
legalistic nature of the religion. (..)

"Common sense" or "universal opinion" has little to do with Islam's
notions of right and wrong.
Only what Allah (through the Quran) and his prophet Muhammad
(through the Hadith) have to say about any given issue matters;
and how Islam's greatest theologians and jurists – collectively
known as the ulema, literally, "they who know" –
have articulated it.

According to sharia, in certain situations, deception –
also known as 'taqiyya', based on Quranic terminology, –
is not only permitted
but sometimes obligatory.
For instance, contrary to early Christian history, Muslims who must
choose between either recanting Islam or being put to death
are not only permitted to lie by pretending to have apostatised,
but many jurists have decreed that, according to Quran 4:29,
Muslims are obligated to lie in such instances.

ORIGINS OF TAQIYYA
As a doctrine, taqiyya was first codified by Shia Muslims,
primarily as a result of their historical experience.
Long insisting that the caliphate rightly belonged to the prophet
Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, Ali
(and subsequently his descendents), the Shia were
a vocal and powerful branch of Islam that emerged following
Muhammad's death.
After the internal Islamic Fitna wars from the years 656 AD to
661 AD, however, the Shia became a minority branch,
persecuted by mainstream Muslims or Sunnis – so-called because
they follow the example or 'sunna' of Muhammad and his companions.
Taqiyya became pivotal to Shia survival. (..)

Several of Saudi Arabia's highest clerics have even issued fatwas
sanctioning the killing of Shias.
As a result, figures on the Arabian kingdom's Shia population vary
wildly from as low as 1 per cent to nearly 20 per cent.
Many Shias living there obviously choose to conceal their religious
identity. As a result of some 1,400 years of Shia taqiyya,
the Sunnis often accuse the Shias of being habitual liars,
insisting that taqiyya is ingrained in Shia culture.

Conversely, the Sunnis have historically had little reason to
dissemble or conceal any aspect of their faith,
which would have been deemed dishonorable, especially when dealing
with their historic competitors and enemies, the Christians.
From the start, Islam burst out of Arabia subjugating much of
the known world,
and, throughout the Middle Ages, threatened to engulf all of
Christendom.
In a world where might made right, the Sunnis had nothing to
apologise for, much less to hide from the 'infidel'.

Paradoxically, however, today many Sunnis are finding themselves
in the Shias' place: living as minorities in Western countries
surrounded and governed by their traditional foes.
The primary difference is that, extremist Sunnis and Shia tend to
reject each other outright,
as evidenced by the ongoing Sunni-Shia struggle in Iraq,
whereas, in the West, where freedom of religion is guaranteed,
Sunnis need only dissemble over a few aspects of their faith.

/ / /

Following the terrorist attacks on the United States of 11 September
2001, a group of prominent Muslims wrote a letter to Americans
saying that Islam is a tolerant religion that seeks to coexist
with others.

Bin Laden castigated them, saying:

"As to the relationship between Muslims and infidels, this is
summarised by the Most High's Word:
'We renounce you. Enmity and hate shall forever reign between us –
till you believe in Allah alone'

[Quran 60:4].

So there is an enmity, evidenced by fierce hostility from the heart.
And this fierce hostility – that is battle – ceases only if
the infidel submits to the authority of Islam,

or if his blood is forbidden from being shed [a dhimmi –
a non-Muslim subject living as a "second-class" citizen in an
Islamic state in accordance to Quran 9:29],
or if Muslims are at that point in time weak and incapable
[a circumstance under which taqiyya applies].

But if the hate at any time extinguishes from the heart, this is
great apostasy!
Such, then, is the basis and foundation of the relationship between
the infidel and the Muslim.
Battle, animosity and hatred, directed from the Muslim to the infidel,
is the foundation of our religion.
And we consider this a justice and kindness to them."

This hostile world view is traceable to Islam's schools of
jurisprudence.
When addressing Western audiences, however, Bin Laden's tone
significantly changes.

/ /

( fra -- forelesninger -- av Raymond Ibrahim )

In March 2012, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah,
declared that it is “necessary to destroy all the churches”
in the Arabian Peninsula,
basing his decree on the Muslim prophet’s deathbed wish
that the Peninsula tolerate no other religion than Islam.

Long gone are the days when the West, confident in its own
ways, attracted Muslims to its civilizational achievements.

Now, apologizing for its 'sins' and demonizing its own
Christian heritage while whitewashing (..) others,
the West only pushes Muslims back to reclaiming their
Islamic heritage. ..

In the 19th century, when the West was unapologetically
hegemonic, Muslims not only respected the West but also
tried to emulate it. The reason for this admiration is
simple:
Islam, quintessential religion of 'Might makes Right'
focuses respect for power .. such emulation .. explains why
much of the muslim world Westernized and secularized,
leading to a Golden age of tolerance for Christian minorities.

When the West, at least popular culture in the West, became
spiritually bankrupt and began apologizing for itself,
Muslims disgusted turned back to Islam and its 'way' the Sharia -

all, of course, to Western approval and encouragement.

And now the myopic West cannot comprehend that muslims have
gone back to treating Christians in the exact same ways
Muslims treated Christians before muslims began to emulate
the West. This history is allbut lost.

..the cognitive dissonance between what the multiculturalists
in the West believe about the benign and even superior culture
of Islam,
and what is reported as actually taking place in the Muslim
world, is so great
that much of the Western world simply cannot take in the facts.

But the reality is (..) that as the Muslim world reclaims its
Islamic identity, distinctly Islamic practices from centuries past
are returning, including Muslim persecution of Christians. ...

.."the proliferation of the hijab is strongly correlated with
increased terrorism" ...

Often translated as "Islamic law", Sharia simply means the
"Islamic way" of doing things.

Christians are suffering under the return of Sharia,
from one end of the Muslim world to the other.

According to the "Islamic Way", wherever and whenever Muslims
are in power or getting more power, churches are outlawed,
burned and bombed,
while Bibles are confiscated and destroyed.

Freedom of speech - to speak positively of Christianity or
critically of Islam - is denied, often on pain of death.

Born Muslims who wish to convert to Christianity out of sincere
religious conviction are denied this basic freedom,
also on pain of death.

Christians are deemed to be less than second-class citizens by
many Muslim governments and Muslim populations. They cannot
get justice against their Muslim oppressors. Christian women
are routinely abducted, raped, and forced to convert to islam.

Increasingly, Christians are able to justify their very existence
only by paying large amounts of ransom -- money extorted in the
name of Jihad, Islam's "holy war" to subjugate or eliminate
non-Muslims.

Although Muslim persecution of Christians is one of the most
dramatic stories of our times, it is also one of the least known
in the West.
Such ignorance was not always the case. Ironically, much of the
material in this book that may be new to Western readers would
have been old news to their European ancestors of centuries past.
The exact patterns we see today in the Muslim persecution of
Christians were quite familiar to Christians who lived in contact
with the Muslim world in past centuries ...

In just the first few decades of its existence, Islam had already
conquered half of the Christian world's lands --
including regions that were the backbone of early Christianity,
such as Syria and Egypt --
while Europe was continually besieged ...

"the classic tradition was shattered," writes historian Henri
Pirenne, "because Islam had destroyed the ancient unity of the
Mediterranian."

For centuries European Christians lived perpetually under threat
of the Islamic conquest that had already forever changed the
Mediterranian.
Middle East historian Bernard Lewis writes,

For more than a thousand years, Europe - that is to say
'Christendom' - was under constant threat of Islamic attack and
conquest. If the Muslims were repelled in one region, they
appeared in greater strength in another. As far away as
Iceland, Christians still prayed in their churches for God to
save them from the "terror of the Turk".
These fears were not unfounded, as in 1627 Muslim corsairs
from North Africa raided their coasts and carried off
four hundred captives, for sale in the slave market of Algiers.