Middle East and Islam Specialist
Last week on the Glazov Gang, I debated Isa Hodge, an American convert to Islam (an apparent representative of “moderate Muslims”) and Imam Anjem Choudary of the UK (an apparent representative “radical Muslims”). The topic under discussion was, “Is the Islamic State Islamic”? The video follows (and here’s a related article I wrote last year titled “The Islamic State and Islam“):
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Thank you Raymond for all you do and in my opinion this segment would have been much better without that Isa character who seems to try to weave Christianity [un successfully BTW] into his limited understanding of Islam. God bless.
So, in order to defend islam, they just point to the sins of someone else??
There is no such thing as moderate or extreme Islam. Hodge does not understand the dynamics of organizational sociology. His unrelenting ad hominem tu quoque means he is unskilled in debate. Choudary seems to understand the unity of their faith and makes no apologies for the exportation of the sharia. He is quite skilled at argument. Both seem to be ignorant of what ISIS tries to explain to the world audience almost daily. Hodge calls it un-Islamic… and Choudary calls it a lie propagated by the west. This is terrifying. If I were to take their word for it I would be guided by either the uninformed idealist or the uninformed victim. I find it fascinating that thanks to Hodge, Choudary, and ISIS there are now three kinds of editorials I’m going to have to deal with from now on. I almost have no choice but to rely on the sage advice of the middle easterner who said, “Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?… Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”
Today educated Muslims want to leave Islam but are afraid that they will be killed by their fellow religionists. By adapting the Sanatana way of life they can overcome their dilemma as by adapting the Sanatana way of life they need not change their
name, diet, customs or undergo purification ceremonies; or say prayer in an alien language or visit places of worship; all these which attract the attention of their neighbours. See http://sanatanaparishad.blogspot.in
Raymond, I thought you did a really good job in the debate with Anjem Choudary and Isa Hodge, and I really enjoyed it. Isa was really in over his head, but you and Anjem were really hitting the ball out of the park. The great thing about Anjem is that he’s a British trained lawyer and he really knows his Islamic history and islamic texts, and he doesn’t mind telling the truth about them. The only objection of substance he made to anything you said was regarding the idea that ISIS is taking “sex slaves”. He can’t really deny Islamic history or Islamic teachings, and I don’t think he did, but I think he was saying that the various women and children who have taken and used by ISIS as slaves were enslaved for “humanitarian reasons”, i.e. for their own good. He wouldn’t, I don’t think, deny that they are slaves or that they are required to do whatever their new masters require of them, but he would probably take issue with the fact that the only thing they are used for is sex, and he may be right about that.
Slavery as we all know is an age-old institution, and slaves can be used for any number of things besides sex. Household duties such as cooking and cleaning and innumerable other tasks that must be done to maintain a well-rounded household are probably carried out by ISIS captives as well. The real issue is not so much whether ISIS is enslaving women and children for sex, but rather, is it enslaving them at all. If Anjem is willing to admit that captured women and children are in fact now slaves of ISIS, and from the Islamic point of view there is nothing wrong with that, that’s all I think you can hope for in any debate. But it’s enough to illustrate what’s really at stake in the global phenomenon of Islamic Jihad, and I don’t think most people are really aware of that.
Bottom line? I think Anjem was impressed with how much you know about Islam, and I think it surprised him. From my point of view, there are no two English-speaking public speakers in the world today who know more about Islamic history and Islamic teachings than you and Anjem Choudary, and I hope you get to meet and debate him again soon on another nationally syndicated news show. Sean Hannity are you listening?