The Islamic Enemy At Work.

14 November, 2006
PAKISTAN
Christians to come under Sharia law in North-West Frontier Province
The NWFP’s provincial assembly for a second time adopts the Hasba bill which would place everyone under the watchful eye of the Sharia. The central government has objections and Christians are against it. It will lead to anarchy and religious minorities and women will be its first victims.
Islamabad (AsiaNews) – The government of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), a Pakistani province that borders on Afghanistan, is trying once more to impose a Taliban-like law on its citizens, but is facing opposition from the central government and the country’s religious minorities.
Federal Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani said today he would examine the proposed Hasba (Hisba) bill and if it failed to meet constitutional standards it would be sent to the Supreme Court.
Pakistan’s Christians are warning for their part that such a law runs the risk of “talebanising” the province, something that is a threat to the local population.
The NWFP Assembly, led by a Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (a coalition of six Islamist parties), tried in July 2005 to adopt a first draft of the bill. Under the new legislation the office of
Muhtasib would be established; he would be the guardian of private morals and people’s adherence to Islamic principles and respect for Sharia law. But in September Pakistan’s Supreme Court ruled that the bill was “unconstitutional and discriminatory”.
Yesterday, the NWFP Assembly tabled an amended version of the bill whose changes, according to the local government, take into accounts the court’s objections.
Many however continue to fear that the risk for discrimination and abuses is still very high.
Minister Durrani noted that the ‘Hasba Act’ had nothing to do with religion but was “aimed at providing benefits to workers of the alliance before the [2008] general elections by spending Rs 8 billion on the structure needed to enforce it.”
For Shahbaz Bhatti, chairman of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, the Hasba bill is like “a sword hanging over religious minorities and women since they will be prime target of extremists.”
In a press release, Mr Bhatti added that the “"Hasba Bill is unconstitutional, a religious marshal law, and a parallel legal system that will spread anarchy and chaos in society and will deprive the general public of their rights and liberty. The provincial government will be able to use this bill to victimise its political opponents”.
In his view, “the Hasba bill is a conspiracy against the integrity of the country and the solidarity [of its people]. It hampers the efforts to promote interfaith harmony, a democratic culture and an enlightened and moderate image of the country.”

A Big Reason There Is No Peace.

Note: Muslims are not the only people who steal. However, the level of theft by muslims and their friends, in Palestine is so overwhelming that iy actually undermines any serious moves to peace. The current situation is so profitable to so amny people, why change it?

Read and think of the people who lose out in this crime...


Gaza Stripped
Whatever happened to Arafat's billions?
By Joseph Braude


HUSTLE & PLO Arafat makes a withdrawal from the West Bank November 11 marks two years since the death of PLO chief Yasir Arafat—but don't count on most Palestinians to mourn his memory.

On a good day in Gaza City, only 40 percent of the last night's sewage gets dumped into public beaches along the Mediterranean coast, where gaunt Palestinian kids build sand castles out of thick brown sludge. One and a half million Gazans, mostly children, live overwhelmingly in poverty amid a gutted infrastructure and a dysfunctional democracy. Meanwhile, the First Lady of Palestine, Yasir Arafat's widow Suha, has been living large in Paris, among other places, at the palatial Hotel Le Bristol. She and her baby daughter left Gaza for France in 2000, during the second intifada and Israel's reoccupation of Palestinian lands—and reportedly occupied an entire floor of the five-star hotel, at approximately $16,000 per night.

"Our economy has been deteriorating ever since Arafat came on the scene in '94," says Ramallah-based Bir Zeit University professor Mudar Kassis. "People had been waiting for something to happen that would improve the daily life of the Palestinians. Instead, the suffering has mounted, and the highest GNP per capita in our history still dates back to 1991."

Israeli and American intelligence officials say Suha Arafat's Paris hotel bill would be little more than chump change for the glitzy heiress, whose late husband might just have been the most flagrant embezzler of public funds since Louis XVI. During Arafat's rule, the United States, World Bank, European Union, and Arab governments poured $7 billion into the Palestinian Authority to try and help forge a viable Arab-Israeli peace. As much as half that sum is reported to have gone AWOL, with only a small fraction recovered to date. And Suha has proved to be only one of several big-time beneficiaries.


SUITE LIFE Hotel Le Bristol, where Suha stays when visiting Paris"There was never a complete public reckoning of corruption during the Arafat years," says Kassis, who teaches philosophy at Bir Zeit and heads the university's institute of law. "Now the Palestinians have lost so many assets ... that compared to the loss of life and land, it seems negligible." Kassis nonetheless calls for heeding the lessons of Palestine's first autonomous decade, lest history repeat itself. Which it already has: The flagrant corruption that marked the U.S.-led nation-building project in Iraq was underscored last year when a U.S.-appointed Iraqi defense minister and his procurement chief allegedly stole hundreds of millions in public funds.

Two years after Arafat's funeral, an international scavenger hunt continues for the revolutionary leader's far-flung riches. A motley assortment of investigators ranging from Israel's security establishment to the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which now rules in Ramallah, maintain an ongoing interest in every lost stash. "The only man who knows the whole story is dead," says a senior Israeli military intelligence official who agreed to answer questions on condition of anonymity. "But the deeper you go into it, the more it stinks."

Arafat's money trail leads far beyond the smelly sands of Gaza Beach, to a rainbow coalition of shady figures—Jewish, Christian, and Muslim—and as far west as New York's Greenwich Village, where the militant chieftain once secretly bought a stake in Bowlmor Lanes, a trendy bowling alley. You might say the closest the world ever came, in fact, to harmony and peace between all three monotheistic faiths was in the sleazy international campaign to siphon off Palestinian grant aid. It may be too early still to tell the full Where's Waldo–like tale of where the cash went. But several all-stars of Arafat's money laundering network have come to light—and the legacy of their greed still has grave repercussions across the Middle East.

Arafat's lifetime of grubbing for cash on behalf of the Palestinians dates back to his young adulthood in Cairo, where he was born shortly before the American stock market crash of 1929. Few had heard of the Palestinian cause back then, and there were no blue-and-white pushke boxes accepting pocket change for it. But longtime PLO stalwart Nabil Shaath remembers watching, as a 13-year-old, the young revolutionary hit up his father for a cash donation. Shaath told Atlantic Monthly correspondent David Samuels he immediately recognized the future president of Palestine. Arafat's sister Inam, moreover, recalls the cash-flush teen's leadership style during the same period: "He formed [the neighborhood kids] into groups and made them march and drill," she told Arafat's biographer. "He carried a stick to beat those who did not obey his commands. He also liked making camps in the garden of our house."

These two remembrances pretty much say it all about Arafat's lifelong financial strategy and management approach: He leveraged his relationship with authority figures to bankroll his movement, then took that leverage and beat Palestinians over the head with it.


YOUNG GUN Arafat in Lebanon, circa 1983He would not, however, go the way of other third-world dictators and settle into luxury living. "He controlled the money," recalls Eran Lerman, a retired Israeli military intelligence colonel who now heads the American Jewish Committee's Jerusalem office, "but he hardly ever used it for his own purposes. Most of it was a political tool—to ensure that no single faction of the Palestinians dominated." Follow the guerrilla leader's 50-year career through civil war in Jordan, civil war in Lebanon, R&R in Tunis, and total war in Palestine, and most eyewitness accounts of the PLO chief at bedtime indicate he went to sleep on a creaky cot.

The same may not be said of his close aides and confidantes, many of whom enjoyed opulent lifestyles as a reward for their loyalty to Arafat. "He was a connoisseur of power," writes David Samuels, "who used the money that he stole to buy influence, to provoke or defuse conspiracies, to pay gunmen, and to collect hangers-on the way other men collect stamps or butterflies."

Over a year after Arafat's death—when the Islamist terror group Hamas swept the Palestinian Authority elections on an anti-corruption platform—some of these "butterflies" tried to fly the coop, with wads of cash tucked under their clothes. According to the pro-Palestinian London daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Hamas intercepted a former PA finance ministry chief, Ali al-Ramlawi, attempting to smuggle millions of dollars in greenbacks into Jordan. More than 30 other PLO seniors were subsequently caught fleeing town and jailed, according to Hamas sources. Their confiscated moneybags, says the senior Israeli intelligence official, proved an early boon to the nascent Hamas-controlled treasury.

But these local cronies were just small potatoes. Incessant infighting among Palestinian elites, so common in patriarchal societies, meant that Arafat would often prefer to pick outsiders—even sworn enemies of the Palestinian people—to handle his most sensitive, high-stakes finance jobs. Consider Arafat's long-time Lebanese Christian aide and confidante, Pierre Rizk. Given the 1982 massacre of several thousand Palestinian refugees by Maronite Christians in south Lebanon, it might seem odd to picture Arafat relying for help on a Maronite militia leader. But in fact Rizk, the former intelligence chief for the Christian "Phalangist" paramilitary during the infamous Sabra and Chatila massacres, served Arafat for a decade and a half as a confidante and bag man—allegedly pocketing millions.


CHAIRMAN OF THE HOARD Yasir with his wife, Suha, less than two weeks before his deathAs Arafat lay dying at Percy Hospital in Paris, Rizk reportedly negotiated with the PLO on behalf of Arafat's widow Suha for a $20 million cash payment and an ongoing monthly allowance. He helped Suha shrewdly leverage her power of attorney and next-of-kin access to the ailing leader's hospital bedside. The rumor has also been widely reported that Rizk and Suha became lovers.

"It wouldn't surprise me," says fellow Maronite Ziad Abdel Nour, who heads the U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon. "Pierre Rizk has zero principles whatsoever. He will cheat, lie, kill—whatever needs to be done."

"Where does this guy live?" I ask.

"Are you kidding? A guy like that doesn't live anywhere."

Suha, for her part, has relocated to Tunis, where she enjoys the protection of head of state Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. "She stays out of politics," says Muhammad Abdullah Amireh, a family friend and confidante based in Nablus, reached by phone. "Her whole life is focused on her daughter Zahwa," Amireh said, "who now attends a top preparatory school in Tunis with the elites of the country." She had sparked controversy in 2002 for asserting that if she had a son, there would be "no greater honor" than his martyrdom for the Palestinian cause. But the outspoken first lady has not returned to the Palestinian territories since her departure in 2000.

Amireh added that the Arafat widow periodically returns to Paris to see family and friends and go shopping. European press reports assert that she manifests a preference for haute couture designer Louis Féraud and upscale shoemaker Christian Louboutin. Via Amireh, Mrs. Arafat declined an interview, citing her hectic schedule.

The Arafats' monied inner circle, which welcomed Lebanese Maronite Christian Pierre Rizk, also found room for some Israelis and Jews. Together with Arafat senior advisor Muhammad Rashid—by birth an Iraqi Kurd—the Palestinian leader tapped two ex-Israeli security officials to open doors for PLO money in elite Swiss banks, beginning around 1997. What has become known in the Hebrew press as the "Ginnosar Affair"—named after one of Arafat's Israeli business partners, ex-spook Yossi Ginnosar—sent shock waves through the Jewish state and Zionist diaspora. It wasn't just the enormity of the sums these erstwhile enemies were embezzling together while the peace process tanked—though $340 million is a lot of hummus—the alleged involvement of some senior members of the American Jewish peace camp in Arafat's corruption also cast a shadow on their efforts to help broker peace.

Take Stephen P. Cohen, a prominent Jewish freelance diplomat who spent much of the '90s jet setting between Israel and Arab capitals, often backed by Slimfast diet tycoon S. Daniel Abraham. A seasoned Israeli investigative journalist accused him in 2002 of having profited from business dealings with Ginnosar and Arafat. No evidence was offered to suggest that Cohen had behaved unlawfully—nor does he appear to have been as deeply involved with Arafat as Israel's Ginnosar, let alone PLO bagman Mohammed Rashid. Cohen's nuanced response to the accusation, however, seemed to raise more questions than it answered. "Cooperative business was not my primary focus," he explained, "but it was perfectly consistent with my attempts to bridge the societies." According to retired military intelligence colonel Lerman, the scandal only further detracted from Cohen's standing in Israeli political circles amid the demise of the peace process: "As the Oslo process collapsed," he observes, "many of the people who were Jewish go-betweens—Cohen, Abraham, and others—have lost their luster here."


BOWLING FOR PALESTINE The Arafat–Bowlmor connection. Meanwhile in New York City, the shiny black bowling balls of Bowlmor Lanes in Greenwich Village bare rumbling witness to the long, strong arm of Arafat. Flush with cash during the bloody Palestinian intifada of 2000–2004, Arafat's Kurdish finance chief, Mohammed Rashid, deputized Palestinian American Zeid Masri to pour $1.3 million of Palestinian Authority largesse into the bowling alley's parent company, Strike Holdings LLC. A McLean, Virginia–based private equity fund controlled by Masri, SilverHaze Partners LLC, fronted the transaction.

After a US–mandated Standard & Poor's audit of the PA's investment arm exposed the wacky dealings in 2004, Strike CEO Thomas Shannon took immediate steps to return the funds. "The information was never disclosed to us previously," he told a reporter. "[H]ad we known the source of these funds, which represent approximately two percent of our company's equity, we would never have accepted them." How many strikes at Bowlmor Lanes inadvertently fed into Arafat's coffers, the world may never know. Tragically, it's a safe bet that none of the proceeds reached Palestinian 13-year-olds on the sludgy shores of Gaza Beach.




Comment: What comment could possibly do justice to this terrible and true story?

Reactions To Jack Straw.

Note: The senior British politician Jack Straw called on Muslims to modernise their behaviour and presentation. there was great uproar from the pre modern muslim element in Britain. But the press supported him. They had some interesting comments.

Read and think O'Muslims...


The last Straw
America Alone, although written with Mark Steyn’s inimitable verbal energy and wit, makes for grim reading. We do not know which is more minatory, the explosion of radical Islam or the West’s supine response to its depredations. It is cheering to report, then, that Europe may finally be rousing itself from its multicultural torpor. Consider the situation in England. England has been as accommodating to Muslim sensitivities as any country, but there are signs that this may be changing. A few weeks ago, the former foreign secretary Jack Straw, Member of Parliament for Blackburn, said that he would prefer that women not come to his surgery wearing a veil. The veil was a “visible statement of separation and difference,” and he felt “uncomfortable” talking to someone whose face he could not see.

Well, there was the usual eruption of mutli-culti indignation in the “Muslim community.” But what was a refreshing change was the response in the media. “Mr. Straw is to be commended for brushing aside the politically correct nostrums that have inhibited such discussion among senior politicians,” wrote one editorialist, while Patience Wheatcroft, writing in The Daily Telegraph, weighed in with a rousing essay under the headline “Multiculturalism hasn’t worked: let’s rediscover Britishness”:

The tyranny of political correctness has for years suppressed the qualms that many Britons have had about what was happening to their country. Radical imams were allowed to preach hatred while being funded with state benefits, but few dared to question such madness, let alone act against it. The doctrine of multiculturalism dictated that all beliefs should be allowed to flourish, and to challenge that view was as politically incorrect as … suggesting that two married parents usually provide the best start in life for a child.
Gradually, however, people are gaining the courage to defy the diktats of political correctness and to question the assumptions of what should be acceptable in Britain today.

Jack Straw’s comments were a galvanizing event, but the concern seems to go far beyond that episode. The Financial Times, for example, reports that there are plans afoot to “rebalance” the official funding of Muslim groups, favoring “those that publicly oppose extremism and endorse ‘shared values.’” The burden of the FT’s piece was to say that any such effort “could trigger legal challenges,” but the heartening thing is that such initiatives are underway in the first place.

Even the Church of England, a notably invertebrate entity of late, has shown some signs of abandoning its accustomed recumbancy. “The Church of England has launched an astonishing attack on the Government’s drive to turn Britain into a multi-faith society,” we read in The Sunday Telegraph last month. “In a wide-ranging condemnation of policy, it says that the attempt to make minority ‘faith’ communities more integrated has backfired, leaving society ‘more separated than ever before.’”

The criticisms are made in a confidential Church document … that challenges the “widespread description” of Britain as a multi-faith society and even calls for the term “multi-faith” to be reconsidered… . It claims that divisions between communities have been deepened by the Government’s “schizophrenic” approach to tackling multiculturalism. While trying to encourage interfaith relations, it has actually given “privileged attention” to the Islamic faith and Muslim communities… . One bishop said it was the first time the Church had launched such a defence of the country’s Christian heritage.
It is too early to say whether such evidences of life are too late—whether, that is to say, the processes Mark Steyn anatomizes in America Alone have rendered any such objections moot. Still, it’s been a long time since a mainstream British institution stood up for Britishness, let alone the Church of England defending England’s “Christian heritage.”




Comment: Clearly reformed Islam will need the local muslims to cast off all the nonsense about clothes and hair and masks and 'respect' and 'modesty' and all the rubbish from the desert that they have brought with them. Modern society has plenty of respect and modesty. Islamic sex hysteria pretending to be 'respect' and 'modesty' is of no use in Australia.

Government programs in Australia must channel money to the reformers and actively work against the efforts of the muslim anti modernists. This struggle is not a University debate; it is a fight for the inclusion into Australia of those muslims who want to be Australians and a fight to exclude the enemies of Australia from this country.

All muslims need to remember that no country has to allow sedition in its land; nor does freedom in Australia mean freedom to attack Australia. The sooner the Jack Straw view of muslim development is picked up by the muslims,both in Britain and in Australia, the better off the muslims will be.

Real Religion At Work.

Note: Muslim readers should pay close attention to this article: it shows what real religion actually is. Readers will note the absence of any calls for revenge; the absence of 'honor' killings of girls; the absence of guns and the strong presence of modern educational facilities open to all. This is real religion at work...muslims will not see this sort of thing in muslim circles.

Read and ask yourself why muslims never have these kinds of organisations...




7 November, 2006
PHILIPPINES
Mindanao: Notre Dame Oblates mark 50 years “serving Christians and Muslims”
by Santosh Digal

The congregation was set up by two missionaries of Mary Immaculate with the aim of supporting education in the archipelago, torn apart by years of separatist struggle. With time, peace and interfaith dialogue became the foremost mission of these sisters.



Cotabato (AsiaNews) – Despite myriad troubles experienced over the years, the Oblates of Notre Dame “are happy to serve both Muslims and Christians in Mindanao”, where they are “joyfully celebrating” their Golden Jubilee. Mindanao is an archipelago in the southern Philippines that has been torn apart by clashes between the army and Islamic separatists for more than 50 years.

During festivities marking the anniversary, under way in Cotabato, Sr Rose Susan Montejo, Mother General of the congregation, said: “These 50 long years have been trying at times but very fruitful. We can say that during the tormented times of Mindanao, we managed to perform our work, serving the poor and promoting peace.”

One of the most significant works undertaken by the sisters involves the formation of basic ecclesial communities, which “seek to attend to the needs of farmers, fisher folk, ‘lumados’ (indigenous peoples) and other marginalized groups”.

The sisters are also in the forefront of peace-building projects reaching out to local Muslims and Christians, as well as youth education and local health services. “Although we are not many, our efforts go ahead,” said Fr Montejo.

The congregation was founded in the early fifties by two Oblates of Mary Immaculate. These priests were sent to the southern Philippines, where they started literacy projects for local youth, setting up a chain of schools called Notre Dame.

One of the priests, Fr George Dion, contacted two retired teachers working as spiritual counsellors in the area and suggested the establishment of an institute of lay consecrated people to help educate Mindanao’s youth: the two accepted to help him and the new institution was set up with the blessing of the then-bishop of Cotabato, Mgr Gerard Mongeau.

Dion, who would later become bishop of Jolo, is considered to be the founder, while Mgr Mongeau, later archbishop, is the canonical founder. On 10 November 1956, the first woman arrived: Sr Estrella Adre. This event marked the official birth of the institute.

At the time, the institute had mostly lay people who took temporary vows but shortly afterward, many consecrated themselves to religious life, taking perennial vows.

The early work of the Oblate sisters was focused on parish catechism, but they soon threw themselves into social services too, like education and local administration programmes, the formation of diocesan catechists and ministry among the indigenous peoples and women of Mindanao.

Sr Montejo said: “With the advent of liberation theology in the 1970s, we launched a foundation aimed at supporting initiatives of inter-religious dialogue and peace between Christians and Muslims. With time, this became our main mission.”

From the archipelago, the sisters branched out elsewhere in the Philippines and later to Papua New Guinea and the United States. Even throughout the long and bitter war, the sisters remained on the frontline, alongside the missionaries of Mary Immaculate, seeking to help the needy, both Christians and Muslims.

Today, the Congregation counts 168 sisters: gathered in Cotabato, the sisters are “recalling the past and planning for the future. We are happy that we have helped many young worthy women to become sisters to help those in need.”




Comment: The good work done by these religious sisters should be financially supported by the Australian government. Our foreign aid should try and get assistance to the most basic level possible. These sisters are working at that level.

No Coercion In Religion?

Muslim propagandists make a big show about the Koran saying that there shal be no coercion in religion. Observably, the real muslims in the mosques do not believe this. Imams and mullahs do not preach this. Muslims who leave Islam do so at the threat of their lives. The innate violence of Islam is very real and easily uncovered.

Read a current example here...




MALAYSIA
Church besieged after false rumours about Muslim baptisms
by Joseph Masilamany

A protest by hundreds of Muslims ended without any harm done. The Muslims were convinced that a group of Muslims was being baptized. The police and Religious Affairs Department have announced they will investigate the matter.



Kuala Lumpur (AsiaNews) – A Muslim protest outside the Catholic Church of Our Lady of Lourdes in Ipoh, 220km north of Kuala Lumpur, luckily ended without any harm done. The protest was prompted by false rumours about a baptism ceremony of a group of Muslims.

Yesterday, as a first Holy Communion service for 110 Catholic children was under way, 300 Muslims mounted a protest outside the church, instigated by SMS messages claiming that a group of Muslims was to be baptized there.

Despite the tense situation outside the church compound, the congregation of about 1,000 parishioners continued with the service, having been advised not to leave the church until the protesters had left.

Perak State police chief, Datuk Abdul Aziz Bulat, who was at the scene, advised protesters not to believe rumours, especially those transmitted through SMS. “Contrary to what the SMS claimed, no such thing took place at the church and I have directed my men to investigate and trace the source of this malicious text message and its sender,” he told a media conference.

The protesters dispersed after about two hours, during which Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) troops arrived in four trucks and a water cannon truck and formed a barricade between the protesters and the church. Aziz said the crowd comprised members of a political party and some curious onlookers. The police chief also said officers from the Perak State Religious Affairs Department were at the scene to assist and explain to the crowd that the SMS was sent by provocateurs.

Policemen were anyhow stationed in the vicinity to ensure there would be no more such protests.

The National News Agency, Bernama, quoted the Perak Religious Affairs Department director, Datuk Jamry Sury, as saying that he would have the case investigated and take action against the culprits who spread the rumour.

Meanwhile, the Archbishop Emeritus of Kuala Lumpur, Anthony Soter Fernandez, told AsiaNews: “It is not the nature of the Catholic Church to indiscriminately baptize any person. Any adult seeking baptism has to first undergo a long period of examination and faith education.”

Mgr Fernandez, who now lectures at the General Seminary in Penang, said the onus was on any adult who wished to know more about the Catholic faith to sort out all impediments before seeking such instruction. He reiterated that the Catholic Church in Malaysia had never conducted clandestine baptisms of Muslims.




Comment: The innate violence of Islam is common knowledge to all Australians who look at Islam with open eyes. This doesn't mean that all muslims are violent; obviously they are not. You can have peaceful muslims, but not peaceful Islam.

The current hysteria that lurks just under the surface with muslims is apostacy. Muslims wanting to leave Islam take their lives in their hands by doing so. Thus any story which plays to this worry will bring immediate reactions from overwrought muslims who will resort to violence without any difficulty.

The mad crowd in Malaysia is just another example of a religious group whose world is starting to collapse. Islam is innately violent in a world where ordinary people are becoming ever more opposed to violence. Islam is dying and its fanatical adherents will get violent to slow the process. Their violence, of course, just hastens their decline. Islam, like Soviet Communism, will collapse because of its internal contradictions, not because of some external conquest.

Mullahs As Parasites.

Note: This posting is very critical of the mullahs who run Iran. Reading this article one can understand why Iran is so poor despite the vast oil and gas reserves of that nation.

Read and learn...



The present Shiite Iran is home to over 300,000 Mullahs. The most descriptive term for Mullah is parasite. A Mullah begins his career as a parasite, lives as a parasite and dies as a parasite, simply because he contributes absolutely nothing to the necessities of life, yet gobbles disproportionately more of whatever resources he can grab.

As a true parasite, a Mullah’s very survival depends on others. It is critical for a Mullah to procure and maintain docile obedient host. A flock of gullible ignorant fanatics make excellent host and the Mullahs’ main task is to keep the sheep in their pen by hook or crook. They scare the flock by horror stories of hell and entice them by the promise of unimaginable glorious paradise if and only if they behave and keep on supplying them with milk, wool and meat.

So, the infighting is all about survival. One bunch is having it all while another is sidelined. We must understand that there has never been one united house of the Mullahs. Mullahs are like packs of wolves. Each pack hunts and eats its prey. Packs of wolves fight one another for valued prey, particularly in the face of scarcity.

The coffer of the Islamic Republic of Iran is flush with the extortion-high oil revenues. A reasonable question is: why don’t the Mullahs simply share the wealth and attend to the business of fighting the external enemy? When it comes to money, enough is never enough. “There is enough to meet everyone’s need, but not enough to meet everyone’s greed,” observed Gandhi. And greed is in the very bones of the Mullahs, since it is the only way that parasite know how to live.

The present Mullahcracy is in the form of a pyramid. The Mullahs in the game at the top have skimmed and continue to skim inordinate amounts of the national income. Mullah Akbar Rafsanjani, a past president of the Islamic Republic, and his family, for instance, have reportedly stolen enough to give the Wal-Mart’s Waltons a run for their money. And there are hundreds of lesser Mullahs, like Rafsanjani, who are pocketing huge sums.

The ruling Mullahs—the in-boys—are master practitioners of the trickle down economics. Except that by the time they are through with pocketing some of the national income and paying off their supporters, there is little left for the out-boys—the sidelined Mullahs.

The in-boys Mullahs must pay for the loyalty of the military, the police, and the thugs to keep them in power. Furthermore, in contrast to their mastery of machination, treachery, and cruelty, they are inept at managing the affairs of the state

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a unique creature—it is best described as Theocratic Aristocracy. The “divinely-ordained” rulers maintain themselves in power by an elaborate system of patronage. Lucrative positions, contracts and valued privileges are distributed by patronage. The result is that the ruling Mullahs enjoy a significant number of supporters in all strata of society—the civil service, the military, the powerful Revolutionary Guards, and the hooligans and thugs who are ready to unleash their vicious attacks on anyone or group that dares to challenge the in-charge men of Allah.

Another seeming anomaly is that proportionately there are more Mullahs in prison in Iran than any other class of the society, including university students who have always been political “troublemakers.” The reason is that these are the out-boys Mullahs—the parasites that are deprived of the dole—their very means of livelihood. Their mosques are often shut down, their flocks are harassed by the system’s agents and their sources of income are dried. And as we said, it is the nature of the beast, for parasite can only live from the products of others.

The out-boys Mullahs hate the in-boys Mullahs not only for looting Iran’s oil money, but also for badly impoverishing the masses who had traditionally fed and pampered them. The per capita income in present Iran is about two-thirds of what it was before the catastrophic Islamic take over of 1979. The flock of ignorant fanatic fools, the Mullahs traditional source of sustenance, can barely feed itself and has very little to spare for the leeching Mullahs.

Another point that needs clarification is the myth widely circulated by the mainstream media and the ivory tower pundits: the claim that there is a major division among Shiites regarding the relationship of the mosque and the state. Let this myth be dispelled once and for all.

There is absolutely no such a division among the Shiites. The perceived difference is in fact a strategic one. One camp, led by the late ayatollah Khomeini, believes that it is admissible for the Mullahs to rule the state directly, as is the case in the present Iran. The other camp believes that the Mullahs should only supervise the civilian government. In other words, one group wants to be the king, while the other wants to be the king-maker. The difference is academic. As a matter of fact the latter camp led by the grand ayatollah Al-Sistani of Iraq can have its cake and eat it too, so to speak. It can have all the say and power it desires by proxy and, at the same time, absolve itself of any responsibility for governmental wrongdoing or failure.

In conclusion, there is nothing new in Islamdom. Feuding, infighting and killing are longstanding practices of the religion of peace. If and when the non-Islamic world solves its myriad problems ranging from dealing with a pompous lunatic playboy with nuclear weapons to that of endemic hunger, disease and environmental degradation, it can embrace Islam to avoid the boredom of peace. “Peace is boring, war is exciting,” is an old saying. And Islam has never been boring.




Comment: There are Shia muslims and mullahs in Australia. They appear to cause no trouble in our society even if many of the mullahs are terrible in Iran. Certainly all the troublemaking imams in Australia are of the Sunni Muslim faction.

Perhaps the Australian government should stop Sunni muslims coming to Australia but allow Shia to come. Would this help keep the peace in this country?

Muslim Boys, Sex and Jihad.

Note: Sex is a matter of great concern to boys.This is a universal truth and includes muslim boys.This posting gives the sensible reader an indication, from the inside, of the dynamics of this sex question and the motivation of some muslim boys involved with the violence of Jihad...the Jihad of murder, not the 'spiritual'Jihad of islamist propaganda.

read and learn...




Hot for martyrdom

Michael Coren
National Post


Friday, November 03, 2006


Dr. Tawfik Hamid doesn't tell people where he lives. Not the street, not the city, not even the country. It's safer that way. It's only the letters of testimony from some of the highest intelligence officers in the Western world that enable him to move freely. This medical doctor, author and activist once was a member of Egypt's Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (Arabic for "the Islamic Group"), a banned terrorist organization. He was trained under Ayman al-Zawahiri, the bearded jihadi who appears in Bin Laden's videos, telling the world that Islamic violence will stop only once we all become Muslims.

He's a disarmingly gentle and courteous man. But he's determined to tell a complacent North America what he knows about fundamentalist Muslim imperialism.

"Yes, 'imperialism,' " he tells me. "The deliberate and determined expansion of militant Islam and its attempt to triumph not only in the Islamic world but in Europe and North America. Pure ideology. Muslim terrorists kill and slaughter not because of what they experience but because of what they believe."

Hamid drank in the message of Jihadism while at medical school in Cairo, and devoted himself to the cause. His group began meeting in a small room. Then a larger one. Then a Mosque reserved for followers of al-Zawahiri. By the time Hamid left the movement, its members were intimidating other students who were unsympathetic.

He is now 45 years old, and has had many years to reflect on why he was willing to die and kill for his religion. "The first thing you have to understand is that it has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with poverty or lack of education," he says. "I was from a middle-class family and my parents were not religious. Hardly anyone in the movement at university came from a background that was different from mine.

"I've heard this poverty nonsense time and time again from Western apologists for Islam, most of them not Muslim by the way. There are millions of passive supporters of terror who may be poor and needy but most of those who do the killing are wealthy, privileged, educated and free. If it were about poverty, ask yourself why it is middle-class Muslims -- and never poor Christians -- who become suicide bombers in Palestine."

His analysis is fascinating. Muslim fundamentalists believe, he insists, that Saudi Arabia's petroleum-based wealth is a divine gift, and that Saudi influence is sanctioned by Allah. Thus the extreme brand of Sunni Islam that spread from the Kingdom to the rest of the Islamic world is regarded not merely as one interpretation of the religion but the only genuine interpretation. The expansion of violent and regressive Islam, he continues, began in the late 1970s, and can be traced precisely to the growing financial clout of Saudi Arabia.

"We're not talking about a fringe cult here," he tells me. "Salafist [fundamentalist] Islam is the dominant version of the religion and is taught in almost every Islamic university in the world. It is puritanical, extreme and does, yes, mean that women can be beaten, apostates killed and Jews called pigs and monkeys."

He leans back, takes a deep breath and moves to another area, one that he says is far too seldom discussed: "North Americans are too squeamish about discussing the obvious sexual dynamic behind suicide bombings. If they understood contemporary Islamic society, they would understand the sheer sexual tension of Sunni Muslim men. Look at the figures for suicide bombings and see how few are from the Shiite world. Terrorism and violence yes, but not suicide. The overwhelming majority are from Sunnis. Now within the Shiite world there are what is known as temporary marriages, lasting anywhere from an hour to 95 years. It enables men to release their sexual frustrations.

"Islam condemns extra-marital sex as well as masturbation, which is also taught in the Christian tradition. But Islam also tells of unlimited sexual ecstasy in paradise with beautiful virgins for the martyr who gives his life for the faith. Don't for a moment underestimate this blinding passion or its influence on those who accept fundamentalism."

A pause. "I know. I was one who accepted it."

This partial explanation is shocking more for its banality than its horror. Mass murder provoked partly by simple lust. But it cannot be denied that letters written by suicide bombers frequently dwell on waiting virgins and sexual gratification.

"The sexual aspect is, of course, just one part of this. But I can tell you what it is not about. Not about Israel, not about Iraq, not about Afghanistan. They are mere excuses. Algerian Muslim fundamentalists murdered 150,000 other Algerian Muslims, sometimes slitting the throats of children in front of their parents. Are you seriously telling me that this was because of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians or American foreign policy?"

He's exasperated now, visibly angry at what he sees as a willful Western foolishness. "Stop asking what you have done wrong. Stop it! They're slaughtering you like sheep and you still look within. You criticize your history, your institutions, your churches. Why can't you realize that it has nothing to do with what you have done but with what they want."

Then he leaves -- for where, he cannot say. A voice that is silenced in its homeland and too often ignored by those who prefer convenient revision to disturbing truth. The tragedy is that Tawfik Hamid is almost used to it.

- Michael Coren is an author and broadcaster. www.michaelcoren.com

© National Post 2006




Comment: Western nations have basically solved the sex question: it is your own business. Muslim countries have not yet solved this question and thus vast efforts are put into suppressing the problems associated with unresolved sexual tension.

The muslim Paradise is all about boys and men cavorting with virgins..72 apparently..thus they have the option of dying as muslim 'martyrs' and having an eternal erection to be satisfied eternally by virgins. This is not a spiritual paradise...it is a teenage boy's masturbation fantasy.

This fantasy is believed by every muslim boy. Promoting jihad is not that difficult when you have this to offer to sexually frustrated boys immersed in muslim 'theology'.

Australian public policy is better served by the public discounting of this silly and dangerous notion of Paradise, especially if it is best attained by muslim boys via the process of murdering others. Australian officials must stop thinking that the problem is just one of policing. It is also a battle of ideas...we have not even begun to counter these dangerous ideas.

Isn't it time we started?

The Problem Of Sayyid Qutb's Jihad.

Note: Sayyid Qutb is an important figure in current Islamic violence circles. He was executed by President Nasser of Egypt in 1966. Qutb provides the intellectual justification (based on the Koran)for the present day assault by Islamist terrorists on the West, Christianity, the Jews and liberal muslims. Readers will not have read his ideas in relation to the thought of Pope Benedict. It makes interesting reading.




Benedict XVI and the redemption of jihad
Posted on Oct 30, 2006.


By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Chicago

Can jihad be redeemed? That is, can the religious sense of purpose that fuels Islamic extremism be leavened with a commitment to reason and peace, without thereby losing its sense of self? That’s the $64,000 question facing Islam, and it is for the most part one that only Muslims themselves can answer.

One could make the case, however, that if anyone in the West can help, it’s Pope Benedict XVI, despite Regensburg and all the heartache that followed – because Benedict is the lone figure of global standing in the West who speaks from within the same thought world that Muslims sympathetic to the strong religious identity of the jihadists themselves inhabit.

A detour into the recent history of Islamic thought helps make the point.

Egyptian poet and essayist Sayyid Qutb, hanged by Nasser in 1966, is known as the father of modern Islamic radicalism. Ironically, Qutb’s vision of jihad as an unrelenting conflict with the enemies of Islam was forged in part in the improbable locales of Washington, D.C., Greeley, Colorado, and Palo Alto, California, where he studied from 1948 to 1950 as part of an exchange program sponsored by the Egyptian Ministry of Education.

Qutb attended Wilson Teachers’ College, the Colorado State College of Education (today the University of Northern Colorado), and Stanford. Based on that experience, Qutb penned his famous tract The America I Have Seen, which has gone through innumerable printings and today can be found in cheap paperback editions in virtually every corner of the Islamic world. It still exercises a profound impact in shaping Muslim perceptions of American culture.

The work amounted to a ferocious attack upon what Qutb called “the American man,” depicted as obsessed with technology but virtually a barbarian in the realm of spirituality and human values. American society, for Qutb, was “rotten and ill” to its very core.

He wrote:

This great America: What is it worth in the scale of human values? And what does it add to the moral account of humanity? And, by the journey’s end, what will its contribution be? I fear that a balance may not exist between America’s material greatness and the quality of its people. And I fear that the wheel of life will have turned and the book of life will have closed and America will have added nothing, or next to nothing, to the account of morals that distinguishes man from object, and indeed, mankind from animals.

Qutb was not blind to the superficial attractions of America, which draw immigrants from every corner of the globe:

Imagination and dreams glimmer in this world of illusion and wonder. The hearts of men fall upon it from every valley, men from every race and color, every walk of life, and every sect and creed … America is the land of inexhaustible material resources, strength, and manpower. It is the land of huge factories, unequalled in all of civilization. … American genius in management and organization evokes wonder and admiration. America’s bounty and prosperity evoke the dreams of the Promised Land.

Yet Qutb saw that promise as false, because America’s technical virtuosity is not matched by a similar greatness of spirit:

It is the case of a people who have reached the peak of growth and elevation in the world of science and productivity, while remaining abysmally primitive in the world of the senses, feeling and behavior. A people that has not exceeded the most primordial levels of existence, and indeed, remains far below them in certain areas of feeling and behavior.

The American man’s obsession with technical power, Qutb wrote, has “narrowed his horizons, shrank his soul, limited his feelings, and decreased his place at the global feast, which is so full of patterns and colors.”

A particular zone of disgust for Qutb was what he saw as the sexual licentiousness of American culture (and this, bear in mind, was the early 1950s). He wrote that a society in which “immoral teachings and poisonous intentions are rampant” and sex is considered “outside the sphere of morality” is one in which “the humanity of man can hardly find a place to develop.” Qutb said that “providing full opportunities for the development and perfection of human characteristics requires strong safeguards for the peace and stability of the family.”

As Lebanese journalist Fawaz Gerges has noted, Qutb is no De Tocqueville. He barely scratches the surface of American culture, completely missing its underlying religiosity and failing to understand how core spiritual values such as liberty and equality form part of the bedrock of American psychology.

Yet for anyone familiar with the cultural criticism penned over the years by Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, there is nevertheless something strikingly familiar in Qutb’s critique – albeit not so much of America, as the West in general. What both men share is a conviction that the West’s scientific and technological achievements are not always matched by its spiritual and moral wisdom.

As early as his 1965 work The Sacramental Foundation of Christian Existence, Ratzinger warned against:

“… the reduction of man to homo faber, who does not interact with things in themselves, but only regards them as functions of his labor. With this … man’s ability to have a view for the eternal is destroyed. He is incarcerated in his world of labor, and his only hope is that future generations will be able to have more convenient conditions of labor than him, if he has sufficiently struggled to have such conditions created. A truly paltry consolation for an existence that has become miserably tight!”

In his 1990 book In the Beginning, on the doctrine of creation, Ratzinger wrote of contemporary Western society:

“The good and the moral no longer count, it seems, but only what one can do. The measure of a human being is what he can do, and not what he is, not what is good or bad. What he can do, he may do. … He does not free himself, but places himself in opposition to the truth. And that means that he is destroying himself and the world. … [The question] “What can we do?” will be false and pernicious while we refrain from asking, ‘Who are we?’ The question of being and the question of our hopes are inseparable.”

Ratzinger has even linked this critique to the question of birth control, arguing that it amounts to a mechanical solution to an ethical and cultural problem. In the 1996 book Salt of the Earth, he said: “One of our great perils [is] that we want to master the human condition with technology, that we have forgotten that there are primordial human problems that are not susceptible of technological solutions, but that demand a certain life-style and certain life decisions.”

I adduce these quotes, of course, not to suggest that Benedict is a Christian version of Qutb. Benedict is infinitely more balanced and subtle; among other things, Benedict is far more favorable in his analysis of American culture. As Cardinal Avery Dulles recently pointed out, at times Benedict sounds almost like De Tocqueville in his positive assessment of church/state relations in this country.

Yet Benedict XVI would nevertheless find in Qutb a version –in extreme and distorted form – of the same critique of the West that the pope in many ways shares.

In the end, this is the most compelling reason why Benedict’s repeated insistence that he wants a “frank and sincere” dialogue with Islam is more than lip service. Fundamentally, the clash of cultures that Benedict sees in the world today is not between Islam and the West, but between belief and unbelief – between a culture that grounds itself in God and religious belief, and a culture that lives etsi Deus non daretur, “as if God does not exist.”

In that struggle, Benedict has long said, Muslims are natural allies.

Yet Benedict is also well aware that at present, Islamic radicalism is having almost the opposite effect – discrediting religious commitment in any form by associating it with violence and fanaticism. Hence when Benedict presses Muslims to reject terrorism and to embrace religious liberty, he does so not as a xenophobe or a crusader, not as a “theo-con,” but as someone who perceives himself as a friend of Islam, pressing it to realize the best version of itself.

That, no doubt, is part of the argument he will try to make during his upcoming trip to Turkey.

If they could set aside their prejudices, at least some of the spiritual sons and daughters of Sayyid Qutb might well recognize a potential ally in Joseph Ratzinger – and therein lays perhaps the last, best hope for Muslim/Catholic dialogue under Benedict XVI.




Comment: Readers will be aware that this site has constantly advocated that there should be a government financed intellectual struggle in Australia between the violent islamists and the path of non violence. This is not yet happening. The path of Jihad is actually the ideology of muslim imperialism and violent war. This is often proclaimed to be a purely 'spiritual' struggle. These claims are false and lies...part of a policy of taqqiyya.

The government in Australia is doing good work through ASIO in dealing with these jihadist muslims. However, the 'mind war' has not yet started. Money and personnel resources have to be brought to bear in Australia to form an alliance in our society to defeat the IDEAS of the Jihadists. It is not enough to simply arrest the malefactors. It is their IDEAS which cause the problems.

Action along these lines is long overdue.

The Poison Of Sharia.

Note: This posting concerns the creping paralysis of Sharia law in Indonesia. This will ensure the continued poverty of the local muslims.

Knowledgeable people are now aware that Islam = Poverty. The islamic agency which ensures this poverty is Sharia.

Read and learn...



2 November, 2006
INDONESIA
Jakarta worried about local Sharia-inspired laws

After months of silence, the Indonesian Justice and Human Rights Ministry announced a review of ordinances that are accused by many of going against principles enshrined in the Constitution. In June, the Home Affairs Minister had said it was up to local governors to deal with the matter.



Jakarta (AsiaNews) – After a long silence, the Indonesian Justice and Human Rights Ministry yesterday promised to review local government bylaws accused of discriminating against minority groups and going against principles enshrined in the Constitution.

Minister Hamid Awaluddin said he would coordinate with the Home Affairs Ministry, which had repeatedly promised to scrutinize the constitutionality of regional laws, but then in June put the onus to do so on individual local governors.

Since 2004, when regional autonomy came into force, 22 regencies and municipalities adopted Sharia-inspired laws: some criminalize conduct that is banned by Islamic law like adultery, prostitution, gambling, alcoholism and further, they restrict women’s freedom.

Minority groups, Muslim academics and the MPs of several political parties have long been calling on Jakarta to cancel such ordinances, warning against the “creeping” Islamization of Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world.

An anti-prostitution bylaw enacted by Tangerang regency in 2005 sparked strong protests after a woman was accused of being a prostitute just because she was walking on the street alone at night. Regions such as South Sulawesi and Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam have adopted bylaws requiring state officials to be able to read Arabic.

Months ago, Widodo Adisucipto, Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs, said that more than 85% of local ordinances were full of contradictions and many were blocking overseas investments.

Hamid said the Justice Ministry would set a human rights standard that must be respected by regional ordinances. The review would be carried out by officials at provincial legal and human rights offices. But the last word on the repeal of “incriminated” bylaws would lie with the Home Affairs Ministry, which has not yet made any statements about the matter.




Comment: Sharia law, more than other aspects of the Koran, is the cause of the endless poverty that one finds in muslim countries. Despite great natural resources and often very many technologically well educated people, muslim countries run with Sharia law requirements are universally poor. It is sharia which negates the advantages of natural resources and the education of its middle class.

There is no escaping this burden of Sharia, both personally and nationally, unless the person or nation abandons Islam. Increasingly, in the future, this option will be taken up. There will be no other way to break the poverty cycle that grips the world's 900 million muslims.

Reform Islam Making Progress.

Note: Reform Islam is making serious progress. This posting from Germany is a sign of how 'the end is nigh' for the silly old fashioned and reactionary 'Islam of the Desert' in Western society. The lady member of Parliament is from the German Greens. If the Greens have abandoned the reactionary muslim position, it is sunk.

Read on and be encouraged...



Police Protection for German Parliamentarian

A German parliamentarian of Turkish origin has called for Muslim women to throw off their headscarves and embrace Western values. After receiving death threats for the remarks, she is under police protection. Politicians are defending her right to free speech.

A Turkish-German parliamentarian has received death threats for her critique of the head scarf.
With the increased focus on immigrants in Germany, it sometimes seems like integration success stories don't exist. They do. And Ekin Deligöz is one of the country's finest. A Turkish-born German citizen, she now serves in the seat of German democracy, the Bundestag. But, cultural emissaries like Deligöz don't only build bridges, they also sometimes expose the vast differences that make their existence so crucial.

That, in fact, is why Deligöz is now kept company by a police detail. The Green party member has received death threats for calling on Muslim women to take off their headscarves and to embrace German society and values two weeks ago. "You live here, so take your headscarf off," Deligöz was quoted by the Bild am Sonntag newspaper as saying.

In addition to the threats, she has also been the victim of a negative media campaign in Turkey with tabloid stories comparing her to the Nazis. In a letter of complaint written to the Turkish Ambassador by the head of the Green Party Renate Künast, she indicated that Deligöz had been "insulted in writing, by telephone, and also in person ... overwhelmingly by Turkish men."

Deligöz sees the headscarf as a symbol of female oppression and patriarchy. If it were just a fashion accessory, she says, "then I wouldn't now be under police protection."

A number of Muslim organizations in Germany have accepted an invitation from Künast and the Greens to discuss the threats and to talk about "behaving with respect toward each other."



Meanwhile, a number of German politicians are vociferously denouncing the threats and defending Deligöz's right to freedom of speech. "It is absolutely legitimate that a woman who is Muslim herself ... makes this appeal, said German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble. In an interview with the German radio station RBB, he continued, "What we lawmakers must decisively support is that someone can voice these opinions and that one doesn't need police protection to do so."

Norbert Lammert, president of the Bundestag and a close ally of Chancellor Merkel, called the threats "a severe attack on the core values of our constitution."

Deligöz is pleased at the support the German government has provided. "Most threats were supposed to intimidate me," she said, "but in a democratic society it should be possible to also express a critical opinion."



Comment: These views of the Green member of the German Parliament should be echoed here in Australia. The recent Hilali crisis will ensure that they are.

Has Islam Expired?

Note: This posting posits an interesting concept...the death of Islam.

Read and think...



Islam Has Expired
Friday, 13 October 2006
Islam has expired, according to Muhammad himself.

“How long your faith shall endure?” Muhammad was asked.

“En salahat ummati fa laha yom. Va en fasadat fa laha nesfe yom. Val yomo ende rabbeka alfe sanaton men ma taedoon”—if my Ummeh becomes righteous, it shall last one day, if corrupted, it shall last half a day. “And a day of your lord is equivalent of a thousand years of your accounting,” he replied.

This account is as recorded by a contemporary chronicler of Muhammad. So, even if his Ummeh had lived up to his standards of righteousness, one thousand years have come and gone. Yet a greatly fractured system of belief called Islam is still around as judged by over a billion who call themselves Muslims.

Muhammad’s allusion to “righteousness” and “corruption” deserves a close look. All things on earth are subject to a limited life span: be they bacteria, trees, mountains, humans or ideas—including religions. Renewal seems to be a core principle of the planet earth and its inhabitants. And in order for renewal to take place, the old by necessity, must give way.
The moment a new entity is formed, an array of forces work to end it. Death, in effect, is pre-birth. Without death, everything freezes in place. Death often provides the raw material for the new birth. The death and decay of a tree, for instance, supplies the needed nutrients for the seed to grow: the Newtonian physics’ obsolescence provided the foundation for Einstein’s relativity theory.

Death and renewal are also fundamental to religion. It is for this reason that many religions promised renewal in the person of another savior or the return of the same person. The Jews, for instance, expect the Messiah; the Christians long for the second coming; and some Muslims pray for the appearance of the Mahdi, while other Muslims supplicate God for “Rejateh Hossain,”—the return of Hossain.

What Expires Religions?

The death of a biological entity is caused by trauma, viruses or bacteria. Viruses and bacteria are major killers of humans and present great challenges to medicine. They can be deadly and have the uncanny ability to mutate. Yet, they are there for their mission of ending life.

Poorly understood and little appreciated are psychosocial viruses—PSVs. As is the case with their biological kin, psychosocial viruses also work to corrupt any idea, mental functions or belief and help supplant them with new ones. Various forms of mental disorders are the result of interaction between the PSVs and the person’s pre-disposition for the condition. Not all mutations caused by PSVs are pathological. Many serve to advance the human enterprise. Without the contributions of the beneficial PSVs humanity would still be stunted in its development at the level of day one.

In the case of Islam, a special group of PSVs set out to work the minute Muhammad launched his faith and mutation rapidly followed. First, there was the Islam of Mecca or the Islam of Meekness. For thirteen years, Muhammad’s teachings, as recorded in the early Suras of the Quran, were about many good things. Very few people became attracted to what he preached. In fact, the people scorned the man, harassed him and eventually made him flee his hometown of Mecca for Medina. Then a major mutation took place: the Islam of Medina or the Islam of Tyranny arrived on the scene. The Quran Suras of Medina are replete with exhortations of intolerance, exclusivity, and sanctioning of violence against non-Muslims. This mutation deeply appealed to the temperament of the Arab savages and they flocked to Muhammad’s faith.

The PSV of the time of Muhammad continued to mutate as it reached other peoples and other lands. Each peoples’ own ideas and beliefs—their cognitive immune system—responded differently to the invader. Some completely resisted the assault and defeated it. Others were overwhelmed and forced into submission. Yet some of the vanquished, over time, managed to repel the invader while others incorporated it to various extents into their own system of belief. In due course, the mutation among the vanquished people has become so divergent that some of the variants can hardly be recognized as the progeny of the original.

Islam of today is composed of a dozen major sects and hundreds of sub-sects and schools. Just two examples should demonstrate the fact that Muhammad’s Islam has expired and decomposed.

One branch of Sunni Islam, the Wahhabi for instance, has interbred with the Pashtun culture of Afghanistan and Pakistan and the result has been the Taliban version of Islam: a most reactionary, repressive and savage “religion.”

On the Shiite side, for example, there is a sect of the Ghulat Alavi that holds only to one of the five pillars of Islam: the Shehadah, an Islamic credo that says, “I testify that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.” This sect does not subscribe to the remaining four pillars of praying five times a day, fasting one month a year, pilgrimaging Mecca at least once in a lifetime, and paying the religious tax of zakat. The Alavi women are allowed participation in all religious events and are not required to don the hijab—a stark contrast to the Taliban who deny even rudimentary education to women and forbid them from leaving home without the accompaniment of a male relative.

The Ghulat Alavis deify the Imam Ali and the other Imams. They particularly revere the Imam Ali and worship him as a co-rank of God. They profess, “Ali khoda neest, valee as khoda joda neest”—Ali is not God, but he is not apart from God. This very same sect places Imam Ali above the Prophet Muhammad.

In conclusion, Muhammad’s dating of his faith notwithstanding, the facts conclusively show that Islam has expired. Over time, its component parts have undergone drastic mutations to the extent that the only thing that all Muslims have in common is the name of Islam and the Quran.




Comment: Clearly the contemporary situation of Islam has changed dramatically in the past ten years. Teh impact of islamic extremism on the West and the impact of Western modernity on muslims has resulted in Islam being a front page story almost weekly. This is not a bad thing.

Islamic reformers, who are very numerous, welcome this development because they see progress coming from the heat and light generated in these days. Islamic reactionaries are terified by modernity because they see their version of Islam failing dismally and being discarded. They are not intelligent enough to envisage any form of Islam except the one they currently have. No wonder they are panic stricken.

One thing is for certain...unless Islam reforms itself and develops a modus vivendi with Western modernity, it will certainly die.

Two Very Serious Catholic And Muslim Essays.

Note: This posting is very long and consists of two very serious essays on Theology and the relations between Christianity and Islam. It is recommended for readers who are able to handle ideas at this level.




The Church and Islam: A Sprig of Dialogue Has Sprouted in Regensburg
After the storm, the Muslim world is also producing signs of discussion “according to reason.” An erudite question-and-answer between the Catholic Martinetti and Muslim theologian Aref Ali Nayed. And cardinal Bertone writes...

by Sandro Magister





ROMA, October 30, 2006 – The Regensburg effect shows new developments every day. After the storm that followed the “lectio” by Benedict XVI on September 12, the Muslim world is producing more and more measured, reasoned replies to the pope’s arguments.

The “open letter” to the pope from 38 Muslim leaders and scholars – prominently featured by this website – is so far the most striking sign of this new attention on the part of the Muslim world.

But both before and after this letter, there have been other significant contributions.

The first in-depth analysis of Benedict VXI’s lecture in Regensburg on the part of a Muslim theologian was published on this website on October 4. The author, Aref Ali Nayed, born in Libya, is currently the managing director of a technology company headquartered in the United Arab Emirates. He studied hermeneutics and the philosophy of science in the United States and Canada, has taken courses at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, and has given lectures at the Pontifical Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies. He is a consultant for the Interfaith Program of the University of Cambridge. He is a devout Sunni Muslim, and describes himself as a “theologian of the Asharite school, Maliki in jurisprudential tendency, and Shadhili-Rifai in spiritual leanings.”

But the commentary by Aref Ali Nayed, which was later published in its complete form on an English Islamic website, didn’t end there.

Some of the passages of Aref Ali Nayed’s exposition received a reply from an Italian Catholic scholar who is an expert in medieval philosophy and theology, Alessandro Martinetti, from Ghemme in the province of Novara. Martinetti insisted in particular upon the relationship between God and reason, and on the radical difference in this relationship as seen by Islam and by Catholic doctrine.

Martinetti’s note – which was previewed for Italian readers in the blog “Settimo Cielo [Seventh Heaven]” – is presented in its entirety further down on this page.

Aref Ali Nayed, in turn, replied to Martinetti’s theses. And this extensive reply is also presented in its entirety on this page, in its original English version. Aref Ali Nayed’s counter-thesis is that it is wrong to oppose a “God-as-pure will” in Islam against a “God-as-Logos” in Christianity. In his view, the theology of Thomas Aquinas himself on the relationship between God and reason “is very close to Ibn Hazm and Asha’rite Muslim theologians.”

But before the erudite dispute between Martinetti and Aref Ali Nayed, in their comments on Benedict XVI’s lecture in Regensburg, another text is presented on this page, one that is quasi-unpublished, written by the Vatican secretary of state, cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

It is quasi-unpublished because it was by cardinal Bertone for the next issue, not yet printed, of the Catholic magazine “30 Days,” directed by Giulio Andreotti, who was the head of the Italian government and its foreign minister a number of times, and is very close to Vatican diplomatic circles.

Bertone’s text written for “30 Days” will serve as the introduction to this same magazine’s reprinting of Benedict XVI’s lecture in Regensburg.

The complete text by Bertone is available now on the website of “30 Days.” What is included below is the last part of it.

There are passages in this that deserve attention.

The cardinal secretary of state announces a reinforcement of the activities of the apostolic nunciatures in Muslim countries, and a more systematic use of the Arabic language by the Vatican.

It expresses hope for increased “dialogue with the thinking [Muslim] élites, with the confidence of reaching the masses after this, of changing mentalities and educating consciences.”

As for the terrain of possible agreement between Christianity and Islam, Bertone identifies this in the “promotion of the dignity of every person” and in “education toward the understanding and protection of human rights.” But this does not mean that the Church would renounce “proposing and proclaiming the Gospel, and among Muslims as well, in the ways and forms most respectful toward the freedom of the act of faith.”

So here follow, in order:

– the text by cardinal Bertone,
– the reply from Alessandro Martinetti to Aref Ali Nayed’s commentary on the lecture by Benedict XVI in Regensburg,
– the counter-reply from Aref Ali Nayed to Martinetti’s observations.


1. Dialoguing with the thinking élites in order to reach the masses

by Tarcisio Bertone


[...] Christianity is certainly not limited to the West, nor is it identified with it, but it is only by reestablishing a dynamic and creative relationship with its own Christian history that democracy and Western civilization will be able to recover their impulse and momentum, or the moral energy necessary to confront a strongly competitive international scene.

There must be a rooting out of the anti-Islamic rancor that lurks in many hearts, in spite of the fact that this endangers the lives of many Christians.

Moreover, the strong condemnation of the forms of mockery toward religion – and here I refer, in part, to the episode of the irreverent satirical cartoons that inflamed Muslim crowds at the beginning of this year – is an indispensable precondition for condemning the exploitation of this mockery.

But the deep issue is not even that of respect for religious symbols. This issue is simple, and radical: the human dignity of the Muslim believer must be safeguarded. In a debate related to these topics, a young Muslim born in Italy simply asserted: “For us, the Prophet is not God, but we love him very much.” There must at least be respect for this profound sentiment!

In the face of Muslim believers, but also in the face of terrorists, the criterion that should dictate behavior is not usefulness or harm, but human dignity.

The crucial prelude for the relationship between the Church and Islam is, therefore, the promotion of the dignity of every person and education toward the understanding and protection of human rights.

In the second place, and in connection with this precondition, we must not cease to propose and proclaim the Gospel, and among Muslims as well, in the ways and forms most respectful toward the freedom of the act of faith.

To reach these objectives, the Holy See is considering how to get the maximum leverage out of its apostolic nunciatures in Muslim-majority countries, in order to increase the understanding – and also, if possible, the sharing – of the Holy See’s positions.

I am thinking also of an eventual strengthening of relations with the Arab League, which is headquartered in Egypt, while keeping in mind the competencies of this international body.

The Holy See is also considering the establishment of cultural relations between Catholic universities and universities in Arab countries, and among men and women of culture. Dialogue is possible among them, and I would even say it is productive. I recall a few international conferences on interdisciplinary topics that we held at the Pontifical Lateran University, for example on human rights, justice, and the economy.

We must continue along this road and intensify our dialogue with the thinking élites, with the confidence of reaching the masses after this, of changing mentalities and educating consciences.

And precisely in order to facilitate this dialogue, the Holy See has begun, and will continue, a more systematic use of the Arabic language in its system of communications.

All this will always take into account that the safeguarding of that icon – poor and constantly threatened, but supremely loved by God – that is the human person, who is loved for his own sake, as Vatican Council II says, is the greatest witness that the biblical religious traditions can offer to the world.

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2. Unbridled will or Logos? The God of Islam and the Christian God

by Alessandro Martinetti


The commentary by Aref Ali Nayed on Benedict XVI’s “lectio” in Regensburg is stimulating some reflection, in particular on the relationship between God and reason.

Nayed writes:

“Reason as a gift from God can never be above God. That is the whole point of Ibn Hazm; a point that was paraphrased in such a mutilated way by Benedict XVI’s learned sources. Ibn Hazm, like the Asharite theologians with whom he often contended, did insist upon God’s absolute freedom to act. However, Ibn Hazm did recognize, like most other Muslim theologians that God freely chooses, in His compassion towards His creatures, to self-consistently act reasonably so that we can use our reason to align ourselves with His guidance and directive.

“Ibn Hazm, like most other Muslim theologians, did hold that God is not externally-bound by anything, including reason. However, at no point does Ibn Hazm claim that God does not freely self-commit Himself and honors such commitments Such divine free-self-committing is Qur’anically propounded 'kataba rabukum ala nafsihi al-Rahma' (Your Lord has committed Himself to compassion). Reason need not be above God, and externally normative to Him. It can be a grace of God that is normative because of God’s own free commitment to acting consistently with it.

“A person who believes the last proposition need not be an irrational or un-reasonable human-being, with an irrational or whimsical God! The contrast between Christianity and Islam on this basis is not only unfair, but also quite questionable.

“Granted that the Pontiff is striving to convince a secular university that theology has a place in that reason-based setting. However, this should not go so far as to make God subject to an externally-binding reason. Most major Christian theologians, even the reason-loving [Thomas] Aquinas never put reason above God."

In Nayed’s view, then, saint Thomas “never put reason above God.” But not placing reason above God is not the same thing as asserting, as Nayed does, that “God is not externally bound by anything, including reason,” and that reason “can be a grace of God that is normative because of God’s own free commitment to acting consistently with it.”

Saint Thomas would never have subscribed to these assertions; on the contrary, he vigorously opposed them. And together with him, the Catholic magisterium does not agree with them, but disputes them. It thus rejects the depiction of a God who “freely chooses, in his compassion towards his creatures, to act reasonably in consistency with himself so that we can use our reason to align ourselves with His guidance and directives.”

If asserting that reason is not normative for God, and that God is consistent with himself only out of a supremely free decision and is not externally bound to reason; if this is the same as asserting – as it seems to me that Nayed does – that God could exist and act in disdain of reason if only he wished to do so by an act of supreme and limitless freedom, then it is opportune to clarify that Thomas, and with him the Catholic magisterium, rejects this conviction, glimpsing in this an irrational voluntarism incompatible with right reason and with the Catholic faith, as the pope himself remarks in his “lectio” in Regensburg:

“In all honesty, one must observe that in the late Middle Ages we find trends in theology which would sunder this synthesis between the Greek spirit and the Christian spirit. In contrast with the so-called intellectualism of Augustine and Thomas, there arose with Duns Scotus a voluntarism which ultimately led to the claim that we can only know God’s 'voluntas ordinata.' Beyond this is the realm of God’s freedom, in virtue of which he could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done. This gives rise to positions which clearly approach those of Ibn Hazn and might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness. God’s transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable and hidden behind his actual decisions.”

Here Ratzinger is not speaking as an engaged theologian – as many have maintained – in illustrating reckless and audacious theological positions that may be as authoritative as one pleases, but are nevertheless personal; it is, rather, pope Benedict XVI, who judiciously does nothing but restate the consolidated positions of Catholic doctrine, which are enunciated in terms identical to those of John Paul II in the encyclical “Fides et Ratio” in 1998. This text proclaims the universal value of certain rationally knowable and applicable principles, including the principle of non-contradiction: this is a principle that is universal – transcendental, as the philosophers would say – precisely because not even God can violate it:

“Although times change and knowledge increases, it is possible to discern a core of philosophical insight within the history of thought as a whole. Consider, for example, the principles of non-contradiction, finality and causality, as well as the concept of the person as a free and intelligent subject, with the capacity to know God, truth and goodness. Consider as well certain fundamental moral norms which are shared by all. These are among the indications that, beyond different schools of thought, there exists a body of knowledge which may be judged a kind of spiritual heritage of humanity. It is as if we had come upon an implicit philosophy, as a result of which all feel that they possess these principles, albeit in a general and unreflective way. Precisely because it is shared in some measure by all, this knowledge should serve as a kind of reference-point for the different philosophical schools. Once reason successfully intuits and formulates the first universal principles of being and correctly draws from them conclusions which are coherent both logically and ethically, then it may be called right reason or, as the ancients called it, orthós logos, recta ratio” (“Fides et Ratio”, 4).

No less clear and eloquent is this passage from the dogmatic constitution on the Catholic faith from Vatican Council I, “Dei Filius” (IV, DS 3017), cited with clear approval in “Fides et Ratio” in paragraph 53:

“Even if faith is superior to reason there can never be a true divergence between faith and reason, since the same God who reveals the mysteries and bestows the gift of faith has also placed in the human spirit the light of reason. This God could not deny himself, nor could the truth ever contradict the truth”.

The magisterium therefore teaches that God cannot exercise his own freedom in a contradictory way; that is, totally disconnected from the principles of reason: he does not submit himself to these by an arbitrary decree, but because he himself is the non-contradictory foundation of everything that exists. A God who could violate the principle of non-contradiction – such as being, when and if he wishes, indifferently both love and its lack, a merciful creator and a sadistic and brutal butcher, who issues a commandment and can then punish and damn at his discretion those obey his command – this God would be an incomprehensible sphinx, fickle and potentially an enemy of man. He would be a dangerous, omnipotent autocrat who, as the pope stressed in Regensburg, “is not bound even by his own word,” because “nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry.”

The God proclaimed by the Catholic Church is, on the other hand – and can be no other way – always and exclusively good, the giver of life and love; redeemer and savior, and never a persecutor; creator, and not a destroyer. He does not take pleasure from suffering or sin, but he can do nothing but place his creatures in the situation in which they can achieve their highest good. He is faithful and consistent – and cannot help but be so – in spite of the infidelity and inconsistency of human beings in the wearisome journey of individual existence and of history. He can not be like this, because “God cannot contravene himself, nor can truth contradict truth.” God cannot be infinite love and also, contradictorily, a limited love that is fickle, intermittent, and opportunistic.

I am not overlooking the fact that much theology, including some found in Catholic circles, is afraid of a God who could not ignore the principle of non-contradiction, positing that a God who could not get around this principle would not be omnipotent, and could not exercise his own love in a supremely free manner. But it is clear what the risks are if the magisterium would adopt the image of a God supremely free to act against reason. It is time to overcome the dead and sterile opposition between a God-Logos who by adhering to the principle of non-contradiction closes himself up in an unassailable rationalistic detachment impermeable to love, and a God-Love, who can at will violate rational principles simply to reinforce his own nature of free love in an absolute and omnipotent manner.

As Benedict XVI teaches in Regensburg, “Not to act with 'logos' is contrary to God’s nature. [...] God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as 'logos' and, as 'logos,' has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. Certainly, love 'transcends' knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (cf. Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is 'logos.' Consequently, Christian worship is 'spiritual' worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).” In short: God is love – Deus caritas est! – precisely in that he is Logos, and he is Logos precisely in that he is love.

Such is the God of the Catholic Church. So it does not seem to me that the Church can agree with Nayed when he asserts that “the contrast between Christianity and Islam on this basis is not only unfair, but also quite questionable.”

If the image of God in Islam as conveyed by Nayed is correct – and I do not intend to address this question, nor to hazard myself in dangerous exercises of Qur’anic exegesis – if, that is “God freely chooses, in his compassion towards his creatures, to act reasonably in consistency with himself,” and if “reason need not be above God, and externally normative to Him. It can be a grace of God that is normative because of God’s own free commitment to acting consistently with it,” then it must be distinctly emphasized that this image of God clashes with the one proclaimed as genuine by the Catholic Church, as the pope theologian clearly explained in Regensburg.

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3. Our God and Your God is One

by Aref Ali Nayed


In response to my commentary on the Lecture of Benedict XVI, Alessandro Martinetti wrote a series of comments under the title: “Will or Logos? The God of Islam and the God of Christianity [Arbitrio o Logos? Il Dio dell’islam e quello cristiano]”. The following notes and extensive quotations constitute a response to some of the important points made by Martinetti.

In developing my notes, and in the hope of achieving mutual understanding, I shall invoke only such sources and arguments that would be deemed authoritative or normative by the Catholic Martinetti. I will strive to show that Martinetti’s own Catholic tradition supports, rather than opposes, a position similar to that of Ibn Hazm and other Muslim theologians as briefly outlined in my commentary.

Starting from the Qur’anic injunction to discuss matters with the people of the Book in the best possible way, and with the Prophetic injunction to speak to people in modes suitable for their ways of reasoning, I shall not appeal, in these notes, to the Qur’an, the Sunnah, or the Islamic tradition, but to Martinetti’s own Christian and philosophic tradition. In my notes I shall strive towards the Qur’anically sought after “common discourse” (kalimatun sawa): common recognition of the One True God.

My guide in these notes is the following Qur’anic aya (29:46):

“Do not argue with the People of the Book but in the best of ways, except with those who have been unjust, and say: ‘we believe in what has been revealed to us, and what has been revealed to you, our God and your God is One, and we are devoted to Him’.”

Of course, my own Asha’rite position is rooted in God’s revelation in the Qur’an and the Sunnah as understood and expounded by the Sunni scholars of the Asha’rite school.

Martinetti’s main strategy is that of undermining my claim that it is unfair and questionable to contrast a purported rational God of Christianity with a purported irrational and whimsical God of Islam.

Martinetti, as is suggested by the title of his comments, counter-claims that the “God of Christianity” contrasts with the “God of Islam”. The God of Christianity is supposedly a “God of logos”, and the God of Islam is supposedly a “God of will”. The aim of my notes is to collapse this false distinction, using Martinetti’s own traditional sources, and to show that his contrast between two different Gods, a rational and a whimsical one, reaffirms yet another polarity in the dubious ‘contrast tables’ discredited in my commentary.

Martinetti basically uses passages in which I tried to briefly make sense of Ibn Hazm’s position, in order to prove that I am putting forth an irrational whimsical God, which he then contrasts with his rational God.

Martinetti is also keen to undermine my claim that the Catholic tradition itself, and especially Thomas Aquinas, does not support the elevation of Reason above God.

He counter-claims that God can not but respect and act according to the rules of Reason, including the “principle of non-contradiction”. Martinetti believes that Aquinas, the Catholic tradition (he especially cites “Fides et Ratio”), and Benedict XVI, all share that counter-claim.

My strategy in these notes consists in two moves:

– strive to show Martinetti that Catholic normative doctrines and documents clearly state that the God of the Muslims and that of the Christians is the very same God, and that his false contrast between “our God” and “your God” is not only unfair, but constitutes a rejection of authoritative (for him) Catholic teachings in this regard;

– strive to show Martinetti that Thomas Aquinas, based on Biblical grounds, does not elevate Reason above God, and that he, to the contrary, holds views that are very close to Ibn Hazm and Asha’rite Muslim theologians. “Fides et Ratio” can also be shown to be in a continuous line with a more accurate reading of Aquinas and close to Asha’rite teachings on Faith and Reason.

It is hoped that my notes will make clear to Martinetti that there is no need to appeal to a normative transcendental Reason, above God, for Muslims to be rational, or for our God to be considered rational. It is hoped that Martinetti will ultimately see that our God is One!


Move I: Catholic normative teachings regarding the worship of the One God in Islam and Christianity


Martinetti, by taking “Fides et Ratio” as authoritative, signals that he is a devout Catholic who should equally uphold, as Pope John Paul II always did, and as Pope Benedict XVI still does, the teachings of the Second Vatican Council (underlining added for emphasis):

“Nostra Aetate”:

“The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting”. (1)

The reaffirmations and clarifications of “Nostra Aetate” by Pope John Paul II:

“Christians and Muslims, we have many things in common, as believers and as human beings. We live in the same world, marked by many signs of hope, but also by multiple signs of anguish. For us, Abraham is a very model of faith in God, of submission to his will and of confidence in his goodness. We believe in the same God, the one God, the living God, the God who created the world and brings his creatures to their perfection”. (2)

“As I have often said in other meetings with Muslims, your God and ours is one and the same, and we are brothers and sisters in the faith of Abraham. Thus it is natural that we have much to discuss concerning true holiness in obedience and worship to God.” (3)

“On other occasions I have spoken of the religious patrimony of Islam and of its spiritual values. The Catholic Church realizes that the element of worship given to the one, living, subsistent, merciful and almighty Creator of heaven and earth is common to Islam and herself, and that it is a great link uniting all Christians and Muslims. With great satisfaction she also notes, among other elements of Islam which are held in common, the honour attributed to Jesus Christ and his Virgin Mother”. (4)

The recent reaffirmations of “Nostra Aetate” by Pope Benedict XVI:

“The position of the Pope concerning Islam is unequivocally that expressed by the conciliar document ‘Nostra Aetate’”. (5)

Martinetti’s contrast between the God of Christianity and the God of Islam is in direct violation of the teachings of the last and most authoritative Vatican Council. Given his obvious devotion to Catholic doctrine, Martinetti must reconsider his position.

The Qur’an teaches Muslims to invite the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) to come to a common discourse and to affirm the worship of the One True God. Vatican II teaches Catholics to come to such a common discourse. It is sad to see a Catholic wanting to lapse to pre-Vatican II positions that were not conducive to mutual respect or co-living.


Move II: Thomas Aquinas is not on the side of Martinetti!


Martinetti, without any documentation, claims that Aquinas would never concur with a position similar to the one I attributed to Ibn Hazm. While, I am no Thomist, I dare bring the attention of Martinetti to the following facts.


1. Aquinas affirms, just as most Muslim theologians do, that it is Revelation that is the ultimate and real teacher about God and His ways. Reason must strive to understand, but it is Revelation that saves:


“It was necessary for man's salvation that there should be a knowledge revealed by God besides philosophical science built up by human reason. Firstly, indeed, because man is directed to God, as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason: ‘The eye hath not seen, O God, besides Thee, what things Thou hast prepared for them that wait for Thee’ (Isaiah 66:4). But the end must first be known by men who are to direct their thoughts and actions to the end. Hence it was necessary for the salvation of man that certain truths which exceed human reason should be made known to him by divine revelation. Even as regards those truths about God which human reason could have discovered, it was necessary that man should be taught by a divine revelation; because the truth about God such as reason could discover, would only be known by a few, and that after a long time, and with the admixture of many errors. Whereas man's whole salvation, which is in God, depends upon the knowledge of this truth. Therefore, in order that the salvation of men might be brought about more fitly and more surely, it was necessary that they should be taught divine truths by divine revelation. It was therefore necessary that besides philosophical science built up by reason, there should be a sacred science learned through revelation”. (6)


2. Aquinas affirms, just as most Muslim theologians do, that God is omnipotent and that His Power and Will are utterly efficacious:


“God is bound to nobody but Himself. Hence, when it is said that God can only do what He ought, nothing else is meant by this than that God can do nothing but what is befitting to Himself, and just”.

“Although this order of things be restricted to what now exists, the divine power and wisdom are not thus restricted. Whence, although no other order would be suitable and good to the things which now are, yet God can do other things and impose upon them another order”.


3. Aquinas points out the common mistake of subjecting divine acts to natural necessity:


“In this matter certain persons erred in two ways. Some laid it down that God acts from natural necessity in such way that as from the action of nature nothing else can happen beyond what actually takes place – as, for instance, from the seed of man, a man must come, and from that of an olive, an olive; so from the divine operation there could not result other things, nor another order of things, than that which now is. But we showed above that God does not act from natural necessity, but that His will is the cause of all things; nor is that will naturally and from any necessity determined to those things. Whence in no way at all is the present course of events produced by God from any necessity, so that other things could not happen. Others, however, said that the divine power is restricted to this present course of events through the order of the divine wisdom and justice without which God does nothing. But since the power of God, which is His essence, is nothing else but His wisdom, it can indeed be fittingly said that there is nothing in the divine power which is not in the order of the divine wisdom; for the divine wisdom includes the whole potency of the divine power. Yet the order placed in creation by divine wisdom, in which order the notion of His justice consists, as said above, is not so adequate to the divine wisdom that the divine wisdom should be restricted to this present order of things. Now it is clear that the whole idea of order which a wise man puts into things made by him is taken from their end. So, when the end is proportionate to the things made for that end, the wisdom of the maker is restricted to some definite order. But the divine goodness is an end exceeding beyond all proportion things created. Whence the divine wisdom is not so restricted to any particular order that no other course of events could happen. Wherefore we must simply say that God can do other things than those He has done”.


4. Aquinas explains why this mistake is often made:


“In ourselves, in whom power and essence are distinct from will and intellect, and again intellect from wisdom, and will from justice, there can be something in the power which is not in the just will nor in the wise intellect. But in God, power and essence, will and intellect, wisdom and justice, are one and the same. Whence, there can be nothing in the divine power which cannot also be in His just will or in His wise intellect”.


5. Aquinas does teach that objects that are impossible by their very definition can not be done, but that we should still not say that God can not do them:


“Whence, whatsoever has or can have the nature of being is numbered among the absolutely possible things, in respect of which God is called omnipotent. Now nothing is opposed to the idea of being except non-being. Therefore, that which implies being and non-being at the same time is repugnant to the idea of an absolutely possible thing, within the scope of the divine omnipotence. For such cannot come under the divine omnipotence, not because of any defect in the power of God, but because it has not the nature of a feasible or possible thing. Therefore, everything that does not imply a contradiction in terms, is numbered amongst those possible things, in respect of which God is called omnipotent: whereas whatever implies contradiction does not come within the scope of divine omnipotence, because it cannot have the aspect of possibility. Hence it is better to say that such things cannot be done, than that God cannot do them. Nor is this contrary to the word of the angel, saying: ‘No word shall be impossible with God’. For whatever implies a contradiction cannot be a word, because no intellect can possibly conceive such a thing”. (7)

It is noteworthy that Muslim Asha’rite theologians, including Asha’ri himself, upheld a very similar doctrine to that outlined by Aquinas in this regard. The way to avoid what is often called the “paradox of omnipotence” is to hold that things like “unmovable stones”, “squared circles” and “Euclidean triangles with angles adding up to more that 180 degrees” simply can not be. Thus, the question of whether or not an omnipotent God can make them should not even arise. God does not make such things not because of an externally imposed normative “law of non-contradiction” to which he must abide, but simply because such things, by definition, can not be. They do not have what it takes to be not because of a logical contradiction, but because of an ontological failure to be.

Many classical Muslim theologians who argued against the sensibility of the Christian doctrine of trinity used logic very similar to that of Aquinas, but added that the notion of the trinity itself “implies being and non-being at the same time [and] is repugnant to the idea of an absolutely possible thing, within the scope of the divine omnipotence”. “For whatever implies a contradiction cannot be a word, because no intellect can possibly conceive such a thing”. For many classical Muslim theologians, the idea of a “Man-God” was taken to be of the same category as the idea of a “squared circle”. Such ideas, as the phenomenologist Meinong rightly points out, can “subsist” and be referred to, talked about, and even believed in, but can not possibly “exist”.

Of course, despite the authority of Aquinas on things reasonable and logical, Aquinas himself, and the Catholic Church, throughout its history had to preserve a space for ultra-logics that do not fit neatly into the categories of human logics. That is the only way to preserve the authoritative (for them) teachings of Paul and other Christian sages on a “Wisdom of God” that transcends the “Wisdom of the World”. The appeal to such “extra-rationality” is very clear in the authoritative teachings of the Catholic Church. “Fides et Ratio” itself has many passages defending precisely such a position not on the basis of “Reason” but on the basis of “Revelation”.


6. “Fides et Ratio”, just as most Muslim theologians do, reaffirms the normativity of Revelation over Reason:


“Restating almost to the letter the teaching of the First Vatican Council's constitution ‘Dei Filius’, and taking into account the principles set out by the Council of Trent, the Second Vatican Council's constitution ‘Dei Verbum’ pursued the age-old journey of understanding faith, reflecting on Revelation in the light of the teaching of Scripture and of the entire Patristic tradition. At the First Vatican Council, the Fathers had stressed the supernatural character of God's Revelation. On the basis of mistaken and very widespread assertions, the rationalist critique of the time attacked faith and denied the possibility of any knowledge which was not the fruit of reason's natural capacities. This obliged the Council to reaffirm emphatically that there exists a knowledge which is peculiar to faith, surpassing the knowledge proper to human reason, which nevertheless by its nature can discover the Creator. This knowledge expresses a truth based upon the very fact of God who reveals himself, a truth which is most certain, since God neither deceives nor wishes to deceive”. (8)


7. “Fides et Ratio” reaffirms that divine Will can overcome human “habitual patterns of thought”, and that it is not bound by human logic and systems:


“This is why the Christian's relationship to philosophy requires thorough-going discernment. In the New Testament, especially in the Letters of Saint Paul, one thing emerges with great clarity: the opposition between ‘the wisdom of this world’ and the wisdom of God revealed in Jesus Christ. The depth of revealed wisdom disrupts the cycle of our habitual patterns of thought, which are in no way able to express that wisdom in its fullness.

“The beginning of the First Letter to the Corinthians poses the dilemma in a radical way. The crucified Son of God is the historic event upon which every attempt of the mind to construct an adequate explanation of the meaning of existence upon merely human argumentation comes to grief. The true key-point, which challenges every philosophy, is Jesus Christ's death on the Cross. It is here that every attempt to reduce the Father's saving plan to purely human logic is doomed to failure. ‘Where is the one who is wise? Where is the learned? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?’ (1 Corinthians 1:20), the Apostle asks emphatically. The wisdom of the wise is no longer enough for what God wants to accomplish; what is required is a decisive step towards welcoming something radically new: ‘God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise...; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not to reduce to nothing things that are’ (1 Corinthians 1:27-28). Human wisdom refuses to see in its own weakness the possibility of its strength; yet Saint Paul is quick to affirm: ‘When I am weak, then I am strong’ (2 Corinthians 12:10). Man cannot grasp how death could be the source of life and love; yet to reveal the mystery of his saving plan God has chosen precisely that which reason considers ‘foolishness’ and a ‘scandal’.

“The wisdom of the Cross, therefore, breaks free of all cultural limitations which seek to contain it and insists upon an openness to the universality of the truth which it bears. What a challenge this is to our reason, and how great the gain for reason if it yields to this wisdom! Of itself, philosophy is able to recognize the human being's ceaselessly self-transcendent orientation towards the truth; and, with the assistance of faith, it is capable of accepting the ‘foolishness’ of the Cross as the authentic critique of those who delude themselves that they possess the truth, when in fact they run it aground on the shoals of a system of their own devising”. (9)

Of course, based on what we take to be God’s own and final Qur’anic revelation of the truth regarding Jesus (peace be upon him), we Muslims accept God’s judgment that it is not “befitting” to God to have a son or become human. Thus most Muslim theologians deny the doctrines of the incarnation and crucifixion not only on the basis of the philosophical logic concerning impossible objects (as briefly outlined above), but on the basis of divine revelation (or revealed divine logic) that Muslims solemnly hold authentic and true.

Despite the fact that a Muslim, based on the ultimate revelatory authority he or she accepts, must reject the contents of the particular example claimed by “Fides et Ratio” to be a willful rupture of the rules of human reason, the example itself does establish that Catholicism, like Islam, does elevate the freedom and will of God over any limits on them by any external human or transcendental “Reason”. Does that make Catholic teaching irrational, or the Catholic God an irrational God?

One person’s extra-rationality is often another person’s irrationality! It all depends on one’s ultimate criterion. For us Muslims that ultimate criterion (al-furqan) on the doctrine of God, is the Qur’an and the Sunnah. It is pointless, however, for Christians and Muslims to exchange accusations of irrationality based on their contrasting communal experiences of what they take to be extra-rational ruptures of the divine into history. Such a mutually-destructive polemical exchange will only satisfy atheistic secularists who think that religiosity as such is fundamentally irrational. Muslim and Christians must cooperate in staking a place for the extra-rational in a world increasingly dominated by a godless secularist outlook. As pointed out in the beginning of my commentary, Benedict XVI’s just call for an expansion of the notion of Reason so as to accommodate revelatory insights is something that both Christians and Muslims can positively respond to.

Furthermore, having different authoritative revelatory criteria for the doctrine of God does not necessarily mean that we have different Gods. Here it is useful to invoke the important distinction, made by the logician Frege, between “sense” and “reference”. In talking of God, He is our common “reference”, and we are all referring to the very same God. However, in talking of God, we, of course, have different “senses” or ways of understanding and referring to Him (senses and ways that are deeply rooted in our different revelatory traditions and communal experiences).

Perhaps this distinction can help Martinetti see that its is possible for a Muslim and a Christian to worship and talk about the same God, while at the same time solemnly upholding different, and even opposing, senses of Him.

In some areas, as in the upholding of the sovereign Will of God, it is possible for Muslim and Christian theological senses to come very close to each other, in addition to sharing the same reference. In other areas, as in Trinitarian versus Unitarian doctrines, Christian and Muslim theological senses are in clear opposition. Despite such opposition, we must not fall into the temptation of scoffing at, or dismissing, each other. We must, together, keep our hearts and minds focused on Him who is our common reference, and continue to engage each other in a pray-full, reasoned, and peaceful dialectical discussion.

Part of the task of inter-religious dialogue is to invoke the unity of reference in order to make room for the exploration of the diversity of senses. Such exploration can enhance our understandings of the different, and even oppositional senses, we have of the divine. Our own different senses of the divine become clearer as we engage each other in sincere and devout discussion regarding the One God. This is why I am so grateful for Martinetti’s comments. I sincerely hope our discussion will continue.


8. The biblical basis for the affirmation of the sovereignty of the will of God


The above teachings of the Catholic Church regarding the will of God are not at all surprising. The Bible, in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, is full of repeated affirmations of the total sovereignty of the will of God. The following passage of Paul (Romans 9:14-26) suffices as an illustration:

“What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? May it never be! For he said to Moses: ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion’. So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I caused you to be raised up, that I might show in you my power, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth’. So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires. You will say then to me, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?’ But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it: ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Or hasn't the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor? What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath made for destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory, us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles? As he says also in Hosea: ‘I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, who was not beloved. It will be that in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' there they will be called children of the living God’.”

It is a simple fact that the God of the Bible, just as the God of the Qur’an, cannot be made to fit within the bounds and designs of the human logics of the philosophers (not even within the great logic of Aristotle so revered in both of our traditions by Aquinas and al-Ghazali). It is important to remember the famous words of Pascal in his “Pensées”:

“The God of Christians is not a God who is simply the author of mathematical truths, or of the order of the elements; that is the view of heathens and Epicureans... But the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Christians, is a God of love and of comfort, a God who fills the soul and heart of those whom He possesses, a God who makes them conscious of their inward wretchedness, and His infinite mercy, who unites Himself to their inmost soul, who fills it with humility and joy, with confidence and love, who renders them incapable of any other end than Himself”. (10)

In one’s apologetic efforts to make room for theology and religion amidst their contemporary secular “cultured despisers”, one must remember the important stark difference so rightly pointed out by Pascal: “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. Not of the philosophers and intellectuals. Certitude, certitude, feeling, joy, peace!”

If being rational and having a rational God means adopting the God of the philosophers, be it called “Reason” or “Logos”, most Muslim theologians would simply opt to pass! That is why Asha’rite theologians, while always upholding the importance of devout reasoning that is guided by revelation, never accepted the Hellenistic philosophical worship of “Logos” or the “Active Intellect”.

Islam’s devout insistence on the sovereignty of the living God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Ishmael, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them all) must not be cheaply turned against it, with unfair accusations of whimsical irrationality! If properly appreciated such devout Muslim insistence can be a real aid to Christian affirmations of the divine in the face of the atheistically secular.

Let us help each other by overcoming our false “contrast tables”, and by praying for peace and guidance from the One beloved God of all.

God truly knows best!