If even the wings of a butterfly have weight and shared causality, then what of the teachings and example of a seventh century desert prophet?
By Ralph H. Sidway, an Orthodox Christian researcher and writer, and author of Facing Islam: What the Ancient Church has to say about the Religion of Muhammad. He operates the Facing Islam blog.
President Obama, during his recent address at the Coast Guard Commencement ceremonies, again offered his profound views on the myriad vectors shaping global unrest and chaos. Ranking high among the primal forces threatening us — high enough to be emphasized by the President of the most powerful nation on the planet — is that bane of mankind, “climate change.” Lest there be any doubt of the gravity of the situation, or of his authority in such matters, Mr. Obama predicates his mission with a great “I am” statement:
“I am here to say that climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security, and make no mistake, will impact how our military defends our country.”
The Obama Administration is consistent and adamant on this topic. This past February, Vice-President Biden told college students in Iowa that “global warming is the greatest threat of anything at all, across the board,” and Secretary of State Kerry has likewise been beating the same drum. (Never mind that the data shows we have been in a “global warming pause” for nearly two decades.)
Curiously, the Administration’s emphasis on the threat from “climate change” seems to roughly balance its insistence that the Islamic State Caliphate is “not Islamic” and is not much of a threat anyway. One might be tempted to think that the “war against climate change” is being used as a tool to deflect attention away from Islam’s war against us.
But let’s allow, for the sake of argument (and in deference to the great Ray Bradbury’s short story, “A Sound of Thunder”), that there is some validity to “The Butterfly Effect,” the chaos theory corollary which postulates that events of great consequence may be set in motion by much smaller events separated by vast scales of time and distance. “Change one thing — Change everything,” says the tag for the 2004 Ashton Kutcher film of the same name.
So, in the Obama narrative, chaotic weather shifts are contributing to drought, floods, poverty, inequity, and a host of other effects, all triggers generating global violent extremism, as disenfranchised groups duke it out for dwindling resources — or something like that.
But no matter how you dress it up with fancy words and phony analysis, the Obama narrative of “Blame it on the weather” is not only incorrect, it is downright deceitful.
Let’s rather explore “the Butterfly Effect” and take a quick ride in Ray Bradbury’s time machine back to the early 7th century. Let’s set the dials for shortly after Muhammad makes his hijra to Medina (Year 1, in the Islamic calendar). Let’s listen to the prophet and watch his actions. But take care not to step off the path.
…
The first thing we might hear would be recitations of early, Meccan-period, Quran verses such as these:
50:45. We know of best what they say; and you (O Muhammad) are not a tyrant over them (to force them to Belief). But warn by the Qur’an, him who fears My Threat.
109:1. Say: “O Al-Kafirun (disbelievers)!
109:2. “I worship not that which you worship,
109:3. “Nor will you worship that which I worship.
109:4. “And I shall not worship that which you are worshipping.
109:5. “Nor will you worship that which I worship.
109:6. “To you be your religion, and to me my religion (Islam).”
That sounds reasonable enough. Muhammad was not a tyrant – the Quran tells us so! Islam is a “live and let live” religion. Yes, this is what the experts and the president say Islam is.
We might even be around to hear Muhammad share this verse, from early in the Medinan period:
2:256. There is no compulsion in religion. Verily, the Right Path has become distinct from the wrong path. Whoever disbelieves in Taghut {idolatry} and believes in Allah, then he has grasped the most trustworthy handhold that will never break. And Allah is All-Hearer, All-Knower.
I remember those Islam experts telling us this, yes! Here is the religion of peace in its formative years… How wonderful!
But let’s stay on the path and keep watching and listening.
Wait… What’s this? This sounds totally at odds with what we heard after first arriving in the Way-Back machine:
9:5. Then when the Sacred Months have passed, then kill the Mushrikun {unbelievers} wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush…
8:39. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and polytheism: i.e. worshipping others besides Allah) and the religion (worship) will all be for Allah Alone…
8:12 I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them over the necks, and smite over all their fingers and toes.
9:29. Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (i.e. Islam) among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians), until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.
9:33. It is He {Allah} Who has sent His Messenger (Muhammad) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islam), to make it superior over all religions even though the Mushrikun (polytheists, pagans, idolaters, disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah) hate (it).
What? This isn’t the Islam I was told about by Obama and the experts at all! Fighting, killing and domination, supposedly the literal commands of God!? Why, that would mean the words are eternal, unchanging…
But stay on the path… Let’s keep watching, it’s not just about the words. Surely they were taken out of context…
Wait… What’s this? Raids on caravans? A battle at Badr? More raids on different tribes? Battle after battle… And new revelations endorsing this, killing the vanquished, deceit and treachery, taking sex slaves and booty!
We saw other tribes exiled by Muhammad, but now, after his victory at Medina, we can hardly believe our eyes! Muhammad ordering the beheading of hundreds of men from the Bani Quraiza! The Muslims cheering and beheading them in huge groups. Muhammad himself setting the chief example! All the blood and carnage… Unbelievable! It’s like ISIS times twenty!
…
Returning to our own time, we look around at the Islamic State, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, the Taliban. We see the beheadings, the taking of captives, the slavery, the booty. We see thousands of Muslims from Europe and North America, Australia and Central Asia, flocking to join the Islamic State. We see the persecution of non-Muslims in Indonesia (which President Obama told us is modern and moderate!), Malaysia (another moderate Islamic country!), Egypt, Turkey…
And we hear and read of them justifying what they’re doing using the Quran itself…
Why, this is exactly what we saw and heard being commanded in our time travel back to Muhammad’s day. This is exactly what Muhammad did and preached! The Islamic State IS Islamic!
…
No matter how often we check our boots, there is no dead butterfly crushed in the treads, no alternate blame to be laid on some shift in the timeline, nor on the forces of nature or even “human-caused global warming.”
The causes of “violent extremism” — Alas! — are now clear to us after seeing it with our own eyes. It is Muhammad himself who set all this in motion, fourteen centuries ago. It is Muhammad’s own example and the words he claimed were from God which devout Muslims today are following.
Of course, there is no time travel in the literal sense of the word. But our hypothetical journey to the seventh century in search of the Butterfly Effect was based entirely upon the Quran and the life of Muhammad as collected by his followers and as set down by his earliest biographer, Ibn Ishaq. Islam’s own revered texts provide the Way-Back machine, the lens into the past, which reveals to us the prophet and what he was like.
Sorry, Mr. Obama, you almost had us fooled, but no more. Sure, maybe the weather can impact human societies, but now we have seen with our own eyes the real cause of Islam’s war against the world.
And now we know it is Muhammad and the Quran.
And the sound we hear all around us… a sound of thunder.
Another great article, Raymond. Perhaps the most intriguing thing about ISIS is that they are so perfectly true and authentic to the teachings and life example of Muhammad, that people much prefer (and are much more likely to believe) the idea that they are not Islamic than to accept accept the logical and probable consequences of the alternative hypothesis, which may seem unacceptable or overwhelming.
Think of it this way. If ISIS is not Islamic, then we can continue to think of terrorism committed in the name of Islam as an aberration, a distortion, and a hijacking of a peaceful religion for political purposes by radical political extremists. But if ISIS is Islamic, then we must necessarily come to grips with the idea that the world is a very different place than we thought it was, which would mean that many, if not most, of our perceptions, preconceived notions, policies, and practices with respect to our dealings with the world around us may in fact be inappropriate if not extremely dangerous. One would suppose that the teachings and life example of Muhammad themselves, together with the subsequent history of Islam and Islamic armies through the centuries, would be more than enough to put the issue to rest, but so far that has not been the case.
An interesting and provocative article of why people sometimes (very often? almost always?) prefer lies to the truth is the one written several years ago by Al Kennedy for the BBC.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24077633
So we exist, it would appear, in a world where truth is punished and liars may lie at will – about levels of surveillance, expense claims, about statistics and financial transactions, about abuses, failures in care, about the crushing to death of human beings at Hillsborough – and only slowly, slowly will truths emerge and then be denied, before the even slower push for acknowledgement, then justice, then perhaps reconciliation, progress.
My guess is that the most probable underlying cause of this phenomenon is that the most attractive and successful lies usually promise an early end to suffering, when in fact there is usually little or no end to the various kinds of suffering we must all endure in this life, and the worse the suffering is, the higher the price we usually have to pay in order to do something about it. Keep up the great work. Little by little the truth is coming into focus and becoming more and more clear.