Majid Khadduri Quotes

He was one of the world’s greatest polymaths who among his other accomplishments was the “Father of Sociology” and was the leading Islamic intellectual of his era. This is a very important quotation because ibn Khalidun was such a monumental and respected Islamic intellect. He confirms the history that Islam was spread both by persuasion and by force. He also makes the distinction between Islam and other religions regarding war, Finally, the last sentence characterizes Islam as an aggressive, expansionist force that is a potential danger to all non-Muslim states.

Religious obligation of Islam requires all Muslims to try and convert all others. However that is not different from some of the Christian, fundamentalist religions where attempted conversion of non-believers is a duty. However, where many in the Islamic world see that obligation as a peaceful, nonviolent, effort to persuade others to accept Islam, there are many others who believe that Jihad should impose Islamic law—Sharia—upon the world and the use of force and violence is not only acceptable but is necessary and desirable to achieve their objection.

While this type of hate message is common with Hamas, it is notable this specific hate and violence propaganda was transmitted via a children’s TV show called “Tomorrow's Pioneers” using a Mickey Mouse-like character. Children call in to the show, many singing Hamas anthems about fighting Israel.

See {586041} for a Koranic quotation that urges world domination by Islam. In this quotation, The Prophet was talking to his followers at a time when Islam was not even a dominant religion in Arabia. And war was the way in which tribes, groups, and religions and sects, established themselves and grew. Although there are other Koranic passages which tell the faithful that people can only legitimately come to Islam through individual commitment and willingly, this passage not only seems to contradict that but also reflects a desire to punish and disgrace “non-believing” groups. This vengeance motif is also contradictory to much else of the Koran which generally preaches love, forgiveness, and understanding. However, there are contradictions and intellectual inconsistencies within the Koran just as there are within the Old and New Testaments.

See {586039} for a quotation that goes further and seeks to punish and humiliate the non believers. This sura is often used by those wishing to illustrate the intolerance of Islam—especially of other religions. They fail to put this into the context of the Old Testament which proscribed death for heretics or the history of Christianity regarding the murder of nonbelievers. The difference is however, that a very small proportion of Jews or Christians today believe in following Biblical instructions in this respect while the proportion of Muslims who believe in the literal interpretation of scripture on these points is much larger. However there are Islamic modernists and moderates throughout the world who reject this notion of warring on all other religions and there is a struggle going on within Islam itself.

These passages of the Koran place the burden of fighting with their lives and their money when there is a jihad. In most cultures people who will not fight in their wars may be cowardly, immoral, and even criminal. But in Islam, the person is but into an even worse category—that of a non-believer. This is the worst accusation that can be made in the Islamic culture and often is accompanied by the death penalty.

Televised throughout the Arab Speaking world by Al-Jazeera TV. He and many other Muslims believe that with the greater Muslim birth rate, and with enough intimidation to maintain the large Muslim immigration rate, it is only a matter of time when the Mosems will take over Europe without a war.

This particular quotation is very important. Khomeini was probably the most influential Muslim in the 20th Century. The fact that he wrote this in 1942—before there was an Israel as an enemy—shows how deep seated the requirement for world conquest is. To the Nazi’s world conquest was a justifiable goal. To Khomeini and his many followers, it is a religious obligation and duty and thus is every more dangerous. Extreme anti Muslims justify the attempted expulsion of Muslim immigrants on the grounds that they are a fifth column whose loyalty is and will be to the religion which will attempt to conquer their country. It gives Islamaphobia a veneer of respectability.

In the early stages of Islam, Muhammad had hoped to convert the Jews and others on the Arabian Peninsula. When they refused to be converted, he warred against them usually killing the men, and taking the women and children as slaves. The result was that non-believing tribes were “cleansed” from the Arabian Peninsula. The Muslims at the time preferred children as slaves. For then they could convert the children against their will. Adults in Islam must accept Islam in order to convert. Children are regarded as having no such maturity of decision making and therefore opposition to conversion may be ignored and they may be forced. Critics of Islam and those who argue that Islam is at odds with all other religions point to this quotation. They claim that it is the only religion whose founder and fundamental scriptures demand war against others for no other reason than that they believe in a different religion. The Catholic Church during the Crusades and the Inquisition had a similar philosophy as did Christian missionaries colonizing Africa later. One difference is that most Christians today repudiate the doctrine as against the true spirit and teachings of Christ and view it as historical error, while very few modern Muslims repudiate this quotation of the Prophet.

Ottoman Turkish Sultan Mehmed II Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini. 6 years earlier, the Ottoman Turks, had captured Byzantium (Constantinople, later Istanbul), the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Pope had called together the rulers and leaders of Christendom to organize a common defense in this war of civilizations. This was the period where Christian Islamophobia began. The Muslims had a religious duty to convert the rest of the world to Islam and adopt Islamic law (Sharia). However, so did the Christians. Sultan Mehmed II, when he conquered Byzantium, did not require the conversion of the Christians in the great city. He took the greatest churches, but by and large left the Christians to worship in their own Churches. The Muslims at the time were far more tolerant of Christians (and Jews) than the Christians were of Muslims (and Jews). Like in the 21st century, there was much Islamic doctrine and reality to be worried about, but not all the Muslims were as rabid and extreme as Eastern paranoia suggested in the 15th century or the 21st.

The party to which he was referring was the Ennahda Party of which he was a founder. Note that party's acknowledgement that Islamic extremists had hijacked the terms "Islamic" and "Islamism", thus requiring them to change vocabulary to distinguish themselves and their more democratic values.

While the vast majority of Muslims had little or no thought of Islam ruling or even dominating the non-Muslim part of the world. But of the minority of the Islamic Religious Extremists, most saw a struggle with the Christians, Jews, and other religions of the world until Islam ruled the world—an outcome which most saw as inevitable.

This is the philosophical root of Islamic Fundamentalist terrorism. If this principle is accepted, then it is very easy to rationalize anything to change a situation where Islam and Islamic law does not control anywhere

This quotation is often used to illustrate the "Muslim propensity to violence". However, the context of the quotation was a historical circumstance whereby Muhammad's followers were endangered by others and the fighting was of a defensive nature. However, Islam is also a religion requiring believers to spread the religion. So, if there were people or countries or tribes that resisted conversion, the religion was interpreted by many Muslims as being under attack. Therefore violence was justified. In modern times, some religious leaders saw modernism and The West as a danger to Islam and it's tradition, therefore this and other passages of the Koran are often used to justify the terrorism that became so prevalent.

If some Islamic cleric declares a war or dispute to be an attack on Islam, the penalty is indeed severe for those Muslims who do not join the fight. In some Islamic lands, unbelievers are put to death. Note that the children become the Islamic society’s hostages for the behavior of the father.

This sura is interpreted in two ways. For many modern Muslims it means that in discussions and debates on religion with non-Muslims, do not back off, and if you do it is a religious transgression. Defend the faith. For the fundamentalists and extremists, they interpret the same sura in physical warlike terms. So if there is a fight or battle with disbelievers, retreating from the battlefield is not only cowardice and perhaps a crime under military regulations as it is in the West, but it is in Christian terms a mortal sin for which there one will go to hell. So the most religious of Muslims will fight to the death using this sura as their guidance. On the other hand, Muhammad himself as the military and civil leader of Islam made strategic retreats. In the history of almost all warfare between the West and Muslims—especially the Arabs—courage on the battlefield has been lacking and the Israelis, British, French, Americans, and Hindus of India all observe this military weakness and accounting for this is built into their military doctrine.