In the ongoing debate (or debacle) concerning free speech/expression and Muslim grievance—most recently on exhibition at Garland, where two “jihadis” opened fire on a “Prophet Muhammad” art contest organized by Pamela Geller—one thing has become clear: the things non-Muslims can do to provoke Islamic violence is limitless and far exceeds cartoons.
Writes Victor Davis Hanson for example:
[Pamela] Geller, and not the jihadists who sought to kill those with whom they disagreed, was supposedly at fault. Her critics could not figure out that radical Muslims object not just to caricatures and cartoons, but to any iconographic representation of Mohammed. Had Geller offered invitations to artists to compete for the most majestic statue of the Prophet, jihadists might still have tried to use violence to stop it. Had she held a beauty pageant for gay Muslims or a public wedding for gay Muslim couples, jihadists would certainly have shown up. Had she offered a contest for the bravest Islamic apostates, jihadists would have galvanized to kill the non-believers. Had she organized a support rally for Israel, jihadists might well have tried to kill the innocent, as they did in Paris when they murderously attacked a kosher market.
But it’s even worse than that. The list of things that non-Muslims can do to provoke Islamic violence grows by the day and accords well with the list of things subjugated “infidels” must never do lest they provoke their Islamic overlords as laid out by Islamic law, or Sharia.
As such, the West needs finally to come to terms with the root source of these ubiquitous, easily sparked “Muslim grievances.”
Enter Muslim supremacism.
Islamic doctrine—which teaches that Muslims are superior to non-Muslims, who are further compared to dogs and cattle—imbues Muslims with this sense of supremacism over the rest of mankind. And a good portion of Islamic history—when Muslims were for centuries on the warpath, subjugating large swathes of the Old Word—further enforces it.
This sense of Islamic supremacism was dramatically humbled after European powers defeated and colonized much of the Muslim world. Bred on the notion that “might makes right,” Muslims, for a time, even began emulating the unapologetic and triumphant West. Turkey, for example, went from being the epitome of Islamic supremacy and jihad against Christian Europe for five centuries to emulating Europe in all ways, becoming perhaps the most Westernized/secularized “Muslim” nation by the mid-1900s.
Today, however, as Western peoples willingly capitulate to Islamic mores—in the name of tolerance, multiculturalism, political correctness, or just plain cowardice—Muslims are becoming more emboldened, making more demands and threats, as they realize they need not militarily defeat the West in order to resuscitate their supremacist birthright. (More appeasement from the bullied always brings about more demands from the bully.)
To understand all this, one need only look to Muslim behavior where it is dominant and not in need of pretense, that is, in the Muslim world. There, non-Muslim minorities are habitually treated as inferiors. But unlike the many Western appeasers who willingly accept a subservient role to Islam, these religious minorities have no choice in the matter.
Thus in Pakistan, as Christian children were singing carols inside their church, Muslim men from a nearby mosque barged in with an axe, destroyed the furniture and altar, and beat the children. Their justification for such violence? “You are disturbing our prayers…. How dare you use the mike and speakers?”
And when a Muslim slapped a Christian and the latter reciprocated, the Muslim exclaimed “How dare a Christian slap me?!” Anti-Christian violence immediately ensued.
Such is what I call the “How Dare You?!” phenomenon. Remember it next time “progressive” media, politicians, and other talking heads tell you that Muslim mayhem and outbursts are products of grievances. Missing from their rationale is the supremacist base of these grievances.
The Conditions of Omar, a foundational medieval Muslim text dealing with how subjugated “infidels” must behave, spells out their inferiority vis-à-vis Muslims. Among other stipulations, it commands conquered Christians not to raise their “voices during prayer or readings in churches anywhere near Muslims” (hence the axe-attack in Pakistan). It also commands them not to display any signs of Christianity—specifically Bibles and crosses—not to build churches, and not to criticize the prophet. (See Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians for my translation of “The Conditions of Omar.”)
If the supremacist nature of Islamic law is still not clear enough, the Conditions literally commands Christians to give up their seats to Muslims as a show of respect.
By way of analogy, consider when Rosa Parks, a black woman, refused to give up her bus seat to white passengers. Any white supremacist at the time had sincere grievances: how dare she think herself equal?
But were such grievances legitimate? Should they have been accommodated?
Likewise, are the endless “grievances” of Muslims legitimate and should they be accommodated? These are the questions missing from the debate about easily bruised Muslim sensitivities.
One can go on and on with examples from all around the Islamic world:
In Turkey, a Bible publishing house was once stormed and three of its Christian employees tortured, disemboweled, and finally murdered. One suspect later said: “We didn’t do this for ourselves, but for our religion [Islam]…. Our religion is being destroyed.”
In Egypt, after a 17-year-old Christian student refused to obey his Muslim teacher’s orders to cover up his cross, the teacher and some Muslim students attacked, beat, and ultimately murdered the youth.
These Turkish and Egyptian Muslims were truly aggrieved: As seen, Islam’s Conditions makes clear that Christians must not “produce a cross or Bible” around Muslims. How dare the Egyptian student and Turkish Bible publishers refuse to comply—thus grieving Muslims into murdering them?
In Indonesia, where it is becoming next to impossible for Christians to build churches, Christians often congregate outside to celebrate Christmas—only to be attacked by Muslims hurling cow dung and bags of urine at the Christians as they pray. These Muslims are also sincerely aggrieved: how dare these Christians think they can be a church when the Conditions forbid it?
In short, anytime non-Muslims dare to overstep their Sharia-designated “inferior” status—which far exceeds drawing cartoons—supremacist Muslims become violently aggrieved.
From here, one can begin to understand the ultimate Muslim grievance: Israel.
For if “infidel” Christian minorities are deemed inferior and attacked by aggrieved Muslims for exercising their basic human rights, like freedom of worship, how must Muslims feel about Jews—the descendants of pigs and apes, according to the Koran—exercising power and authority over fellow Muslims in what is perceived to be Muslim land?
How dare they?!
Of course, if grievances against Israel were really about justice and displaced Palestinians, Muslims—and their Western appeasers—would be aggrieved by the fact that millions of Christians are currently being displaced by Muslim invaders.
Needless to say, they are not.
So the next time you hear that Muslim rage and terrorism are products of grievances—from cartoons to territorial disputes and everything in between—remember that this is absolutely true. But these “grievances” are not predicated on any human standards of equality or justice, only a supremacist worldview.
Lia says
Horribly true! I’ve heard it said of the appeaser that s/he feeds the crocodile, hoping the reptile will eat her/him last …
Ludlow Porch says
So true. Thank you, that is perfect!
burst3 burst3 says
Agree 100%. Excellent contribution and very well put.
Waiting says
Due to Mr. Ibrahim’s writings on the subject, many of his readers know this. It’s the rest of society that needs to learn it. Some will, through the repeating of what we read, but others will not…until islam grabs them by the throat and insists on its *rights* to be supreme.
Texas Patriot says
Raymond, this is probably your best and most important work to date on the psychology of Islamic supremacism and Islamic jihad. Keep on connecting the dots. The truth of what we’re dealing with is becoming more and more clear!
PhilLC says
a copy of this article must be sent to every politician in the ‘free’ world; well, maybe even those in predominantly islamic countries should read it too so that they realise that we know what’s going on…
bill reitzes says
Oh, I think that our leaders know what’s going on.
For votes, and power, they kowtow to the “how dare you”
Believe me, they are afraid of the Islamic monster that grows in the West.
No one of any intelligence, can be that blind.
Yet they cave in daily to appease the cult.
And we in turn, are letting our Leaders away with selling us out.
Bob Lowe says
Yes, they avoid ‘upsetting’ the Muslims because, like Pilate they’re afraid of Muslim riots and bloodshed in the streets, and as a result any objections to Islamic excesses’re condemned as ‘Islamophobia’.
ekbano says
Our useless leaders are busy normalising rape and peadophilia so as to make islam feel at home.
AbuAnon says
That’s a very good description. There’s nothing I disagree with. But there is something I would add.
There are some Muslims and some non-Muslims who would like to portray the world as just that… Muslims against non-Muslims. However, it is much more complicated than that.
Muslims (who call for Shari’ah) consider Muslims who do not call for Shari’ah to be either kuffar (derogatory term for non-believers) or munfiqeen (hypocrites who practise Islam but don’t believe – even if they don’t realise it themselves). They are often called “coconut Muslims” – brown (Muslim) on the outside, white (kafir) on the inside.
Then you have all the various denominations of Islam including the two largest, Sunni, and Shia. This division (Sunni/ Shia) happened soon after the death of the Prophet Mohammad and continues to this day. Indeed, the Islamic State (Sunni) is fighting against the Syrian Government (Alawite – a subset of Shia). Just as before, Islamic State Sunnis do not consider Shia to be Muslim.
And there are divisions even amongst the most extreme Muslims. Many of the extremist terrorist groups we’ve heard of don’t consider the Islamic State to be a true Caliphate. And even Sunnis fighting against the Syrian Government also fight against Islamic State.
So, who is a Muslim? And who is a non-Muslim? It depends who you ask. It is far from simple and I’ve only scratched the surface to demonstrate the complexity.
Now, let’s consider Muslims in the west (in democratic countries). The few extremists who get in the News for attacks (or for exercising their right to freedom of speech by sharing their extremist views) are the very small minority. Again, they are likely to consider Muslims who don’t share their extremist views to be non-Muslims. And the peaceful majority of Muslims will often believe the extremists to be non-Islamic.
Now, let’s turn to the Koran. The extremists will point to verses which are clear in their ferocity to non-Muslims. They are there. The peaceful majority of Muslims will point to other verses which are clear in their peaceful, just and merciful nature. They are there.
Now, let’s turn to time. The extremists consider the Koran to be the word of God. And, in addition, the Sunnah or hadith to be revelations to the Prophets by God. They believe the Koran and the Sunnah should be followed precisely with adherence to Shari’ah Law (Divine Law). The peaceful majority of Muslims also believe Koran to be the word of God and the Sunnah to be revelations to the Prophets by God but that as time moves on, they should be interpreted by Scholars to be relevant to the age we live in.
Yes. The peaceful majority of Muslims (in the west) may be offended by drawings of the Prophet. But they will not be so offended that they are drawn to violence. It is the extremists who resort to violence.. and only a very few of them.
So when we talk about Islam and Muslims we should be careful to make the distinction between extremists and the peaceful majority of Muslims. Our blanket descriptions will only frustrate and infuriate the many Muslims who are never violent, always peaceful, charitable, philanthropic etc. and who often DO speak out against extremism but do not get the media coverage proportionate to their number of voices.
PhilLC says
you refer to ”The peaceful majority of Muslims (in the west)…”; the majority or people labelling themselves Muslim, of whatever denomination, are peaceful and no one has an issue with that. Islam and its core teachings are not peaceful in nature and can be used at any time to incite Muslims to violence. As you yourself state,”they should be interpreted by Scholars to be relevant to the age we live in.” – but there is absolutely no central body which has the authority of doing so and who are scholars to arguably re-interpret the inerrant words of its prophet? Christians are instructed to love all people equally, so we do not hate people who may be Moslem or of any other faith or atheists, but we have to reject false teaching, and Islam is an example of such.
C.R. says
Sharia Muslims–are insane Godless Satan worshipers!