The Myth of Islamic Democracy and the Middle East Crisis

By alfadi

Time and time again we hear that Islam is a religion that emphasizes the equality of people, the accountability of leaders to community, and the respect of diversity and other faiths. That it is a faith which is fully compatible with democracy. However, such statements are rich with false dreams and void affirmations.

In my previous two blogs I revealed the teachings of the Quran, Islam’s holiest book, regarding two very important issues; freedom of religion and equality. The two articles addressed the treatment of people of other faith under Islamic law, and the status of women in general. The outcome of these articles was very obvious; Islam despises women and does not offer others any type of religious freedom under which they can worship and have their rights be protected at the same time.

Today I like to continue on with the same theme, with the emphasis more on the overall concept of Islam Sharia Law. However, the angle I will be taking has to do with the myth of the so called Islamic Democracy and the hope for new era in the Middle East.

Not that many people realize that in order for Islam to accept the concept of democracy, a cultural reformation must take place at first. Such reformation will have to cause drastic face lifting of values and beliefs that must be compatible with Islamic teachings and its religious values. In other words, in order for the Middle East to have any hope for any democracy, under Islamic ideology, there need to be a major adaptation of Islam and its Sharia Law. However, the concept of and Islamic democracy is a wishful thinking.

For how can Islam offer any type of democracy when it teaches certain realities as the ones discussed below:

Democracy & Islam

Any system of man-made law is considered illicit under Islamic law, for whose adherents Allah already has provided the only law permitted sharia. Islam and democracy can never co-exist in harmony.

The Quran clearly teaches that “. . . if any fail to judge by the light of what Allah has revealed, they are no better than unbelievers.” (Q 5:47)

“The sharia cannot be amended to conform to changing human values and standards. Rather, it is the absolute norm to which all human values and conduct must conform.” (Muslim Brotherhood ‘spiritual leader’ Yousef al-Qaradawi)

Freedom of Religion and Apostasy

The established ruling of sharia is that apostates are to be killed wherever they may be found. This ruling is derived directly from the Quran “Anyone who, after accepting Faith in Allah, utters Unbelief, except under compulsion, his heart remaining firm in Faith—but such as open their heart to Unbelief—on them is Wrath from Allah, and theirs will be a dreadful Penalty.” (Q 16:106)

And from other classical Islamic sources such as:

“Leaving Islam is the ugliest form of unbelief (kufr) and the worst…..When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostasizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed…There is no indemnity for killing an apostate…” (‘Umdat al-Salik, Reliance of the Traveler, Chapter 08.0-08.4)

Islamic Supremacism

Islam explicitly teaches it is superior to every other culture, faith, government, and society and that it is a religion ordained by Allah to conquer and dominate them. This sense of superiority comes directly from the Quran, with instructions such as these below:

Islam is the only acceptable religion “And whoever desires a religion other than Islam, it shall not be accepted from him, and in the hereafter he shall be one of the losers.” (Q 3:85); Muslims are superior to all other faith groups “Ye are the best of Peoples, evolved for mankind.” (Q 3:110); Non-Muslims are “the most vile of created beings” (Q 98:6); Muslims should only extend mercy to other Muslims “merciful to one another, but ruthless to the unbelievers” (Q 48:29).

The founder of The Muslim Brotherhood once declared that “It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.” (Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood).

The Real Question

With teachings like the ones above, how can we have any hope of an established democracy in the Middle East, when Islamic ideology and Sharia Law are its biggest threat, and will serve as its own obstacle rather than its self-motivation.

The real question to ask is:

If Islam is a religion that promotes democracy and freedom, then how come we do not hear of such freedom under the current Islamic regimes in the area, whether it is Saudi Arabia; a pure Islamic state, or Egypt, a semi-democratic state.

And if someone would argue that the real reason for the current crisis in the region has to do with the lack of an Islamic state, and then we are left with a puzzling question; how can an Islamic state be the real answer to the problem when it promotes teachings as the ones listed above. At the end we are left with a myth called “Islamic Democracy.”



The Quran Dilemma

Islam's Apartheid

by Amil Imani

The dictionary defines apartheid as: An official policy of racial segregation promulgated in the Republic of South Africa with a view to promoting and maintaining white ascendancy.

In 1973, the General Assembly of the United Nations opened for signature and ratification the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (ICSPCA). It defined the crime of apartheid as:

"Inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial [religious] group of persons over any other racial [religious] group of persons and systematically oppressing them."[Italics are mine]

The declaration prohibits,

“Acts such as murder, infringement on freedom or dignity, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, imposition of inhumane living conditions, forced labor, or enacting measures calculated to prevent a racial [religious] group from ‘participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country’ such as denying them ‘basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to work, the right to form recognized trade unions, the right to education, the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.’"

Islamic member countries of the time, such as Egypt, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia are signatories to the above declaration condemning the barbaric practices of apartheid. Yet, these same countries, as well as other Islamic nations, are the most blatant violators of the declaration.

It is the discriminatory Islamic teachings that condone and even promote wanton practices in violation of the United Nations declaration. Islam is a primitive barbaric ideology for the benefit of the male believer.

Islam, by fiat, discriminates against women. Qur’an 4:11

“Allah directs you in regard of your Children’s (inheritance): to the male, a portion equal to that of two females…. These are settled portions ordained by Allah.”

There are many many more “directives” that for all intents and purposes make women chattel of men. Here are some of the shameful rules and practices of Islamic misogyny.

Tabari IX:113 “Allah permits you to shut them in separate rooms and to beat them, but not severely. If they abstain, they have the right to food and clothing. Treat women well for they are like domestic animals and they possess nothing themselves. Allah has made the enjoyment of their bodies lawful in his Qur’an.”

Tabari I:280 “Allah said, ‘It is My obligation to make Eve bleed once every month as she made this tree bleed. I must also make Eve stupid, although I created her intelligent.’ Because Allah afflicted Eve, all of the women of this world menstruate and are stupid.”

In this case Allah is half right. Women do menstruate. But He is also wrong. Extensive studies by impartial psychologists provide unequivocal documentation of the fact that women are equal in intelligence to men.

But don’t contradict Allah and his beloved unerring mouthpiece, Muhammad. Sadly enough, even many Muslim women prefer to be treated like “domestic animals” who “possess nothing themselves,” and are “stupid.”

Thus, life goes on for the Muslim women with all the trappings of the Islamic misogyny. Here are some rules that keep women in their Muhammad-stipulated place.

If a Muslim woman is murdered, her beneficiary is entitled to one-half dyyeh—blood money, or compensation—as that of a murdered Muslim male.

A woman’s testimony in the court of law is worth one-half that of a man.

A woman must provide four witnesses to substantiate her claim of being raped.

A man can divorce his wife by simply saying to her, “I divorce you,” three times.

A divorced woman is entitled to a miserly compensation and automatically forfeits her rights to her children.

Women are barred from the lucrative and powerful cast of clergy.

Husbands are entitled to punish their wives corporally.

Men are allowed to have four wives at any one time and as many concubines as they desire and can afford.

Saudi Arabia, the custodian of “true Islam” imposes a raft of restrictions on women such as: women are not allowed to drive; they are not permitted to leave the country without accompaniment or explicit permission of their male kin; they are barred from most government jobs and much much more.

Among other Muslims, such as the Taliban and the Pashtune of Afghanistan-Pakistan region, women are barred from education and not even allowed to leave the house unless accompanied by a male kin.

Since education, particularly professional education, is often denied to women in many Islamic societies, there is scarcity of women physicians and male doctors are often forbidden to treat women patients.

Such is the plight of women under Islam. There is hardly the need to provide an exhaustive list of Islamic misogyny to qualify it as a shameful, discriminatory and oppressive religious apartheid.

Will Muslim women ever break out of their bondage and claim their rightful place among emancipated non-Muslim women? It is the long sub-humanized Muslim women who must discard Islam and claim their equal human rights. Muslim men will resort to every means to maintain their privileged position and their cruel dominance over women, citing the Quran as justification. Any document that consigns one half of the human race to second class status is null and void.

Its constitutional sub-humanization of women aside, Islam has a raft of beliefs and practices that violate fundamental human rights of non-Muslims in general. A few cases should suffice to fully substantiate the contention that Islam is religious apartheid. And there is no need to draw cases from the repugnant “extremist” Islamic groups such as the Taliban to make the case. Even the most “mainstream” and “peaceful” Islam is guilty of systemic apartheid. Just a couple of examples should suffice for now.

On December 16, 2006, Egypt’s Highest Administrative Court decreed that in order to receive an Identity Card, only Islam, Judaism, or Christianity must be entered on the application. No one of any other religion or no religion at all is permitted to list his belief or even leave it blank. Without the identity card, just about all the rights of citizenship are denied to minorities such as Baha’is, Hindus, and Buddhists. People are forced to choose between falsely claiming an approved religion and depriving themselves of just about all rights of citizenship such as jobs, education and medical care.

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Islamic law denies dyyeh to any and all people who are not Muslims or members of the only other three recognized religions. Every one of the 500,000 members of the Baha’i Faith can be murdered without the family receiving justice or compensation. As a matter of fact, the Islamic government itself has executed Baha’is for the sole “crime” of being Baha’is and has demanded that the innocently murdered person’s family reimburse it for the bullets they used to execute him.

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s President’s repeated threat to wipe out Israel from the map is ignored by some as an empty rhetoric of an unhinged fanatic. Yet, Ahmadinejad’s threats are far from the baseless saber-rattling of a zealot. Ahamadinejad’s government has recently ordered the comprehensive gathering of data regarding the Baha’is and all their activities. This order is deeply troubling, since it is almost a replica of what another fascist, Hitler, did before launching the genocide of six million Jews and some four million other “undesirables”. Ahamadinejad is an Islamofascist whose aim is to have a practice run on the Iranian Baha’is before embarking on destroying the Jews and other “undesirables,” following in the footsteps of the German fuehrer.

Islamic societies shamelessly practice all the sanctioned injustices listed in the U.N. charter on apartheid (see paragraphs 2 and 3, above). Islam is religious apartheid. And apartheid, by universal agreement, is an inhumane, unjust and condemned practice.

Islam cruelly practices its oppressive dogma on minorities in its lands; it is in clear violation of the provisions of Universal Human Rights. Ominously, Islam is encroaching in the traditionally non-Islamic parts of the world and doing all it can to impose its horrid doctrine on others.

It is for this present and imminent danger that the free people of the world must rise and do all they can to preserve their birthright of liberty. Muslims in the non-Islamic lands may seem harmless, and many of them indeed are harmless. Yet, Islam compels its leaders to uphold and promote its tenets at any and all costs to anyone. It is for this reason that on the one hand the Islamic governments sign the U.N. Charter that condemns apartheid, and on the other hand, these governments violate every provision of it when they are in pohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifwer.

Islamofascism, the enemy of liberty, is inside the gate. It is the duty of every free human to defend freedom by defeating the enemy.



FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Amil Imani is an Iranian-born American citizen and a pro-democracy activist residing in the United States of America. Imani is a columnist, literary translator, novelist and essayist who has been writing and speaking out for the struggling people of his native land, Iran. He maintains a website at www.amilimani.com. Amil Imani is the author of the smashing book Obama Meets Ahmadinejad.

A Middle Eastern Lesson

Arab brutality shows what would have happened to Mideast’s Jews without IDF protection

by: Guy Bechor

Here’s one of Aesop’s fables: One day, the wolves sent a delegation to the sheep and asked to make eternal peace with them. “The dogs are at fault for the conflict between us,” the wolves told the sheep. “They are the source of dispute. They bark at us, threaten us, and provoke us. Banish the dogs and there will be nothing to prevent eternal friendship and peace between us.” The foolish sheep believed this and banished the dogs. And so, without the protection the dogs used to offer, the sheep became easy prey for the wolves.

Now that the world is horrified by the brutality of the Syrian regime of terror, which mercilessly butchers its own citizens, we can see what would have happened to Jews in the Middle East without their own protective force, the IDF.

In this era, lies, hypocrisy and illusions reign supreme. Many people among us and in the world believe in eternal Mideastern peace, democracy and wonderful friendship among nations, and in the repeated propaganda whereby Israel is Goliath and the Arabs are David. Yet then came reality and proved them wrong.

As we recall, Tom Friedman already reprimanded Israel for failing to understand the new “era of freedom” in the Middle East; the same sentiments were uttered by other naïve Jews, a species that did not show great survival instincts over the history of European Jewry.

When one observes the fate of the Christians in the Middle East, one realizes what would have happened to the Jews had they been defeated, heaven forbid, or remained without protection. Christians are being butchered in states that experienced “democratic change” such as Iraq, Egypt and Tunisia; their churches are being burned, they’re prompted to escape, and their property is looted.

The Christians were misfortunate enough not to establish a state with a clear Christian identity, unlike the Jews. Naively, the Christians believed in partnership with other ethnicities, and now they’re paying the price – in Lebanon, where they’re becoming extinct, in the Palestinian Authority, and very soon in Syria as well.

Targeting the IDF

This is the oh-so-transparent reason why hostile elements wish to undermine Israel’s national Jewish identity. Their desire to establish “a state of all its citizens” – a bi-national or multi-national state – aims to expunge the state’s Jewish identity, thus slowly eliminating the Jewish presence around here.

Now, the great significance of Jewish nationalism, that is, Zionism, also becomes clear, after so many already slammed it or argued that its time has passed. It’s a pity that some Jews still believe these dangerous notions.

This is also the reason why outside elements – and to my regret domestic elements as well – try to weaken the IDF via needless commissions of inquiry, incitement and criticism, propaganda, and an effort to taint the army’s moral prestige. This is the reason while arrest warrants for IDF officers are issued worldwide. The main aim here is to weaken and destroy the only defensive force that protects Jews in the Middle East.

Yet when we see the real Middle East rising up and butchering its own people in Syria, it serves as a live history lesson for all of us. Truth does not shy away and it proves who the menace in this region is, and who is being threatened with extermination; who the murderer is, and who the victims are. Suddenly, the Arab propaganda that the world has been hearing for dozens of years is fading away. It has no power in the face of truth and history.

In the face of the massacre in the Syrian town of Deraa on Monday, a continuation of the glorious tradition of the Assad family, always keep in mind the fable about the sheep, which became an easy pretty because of their lethal naiveté. There is nothing new about the brutality and foolishness of nations; Aesop wrote about it in the Sixth Century already. It is us, Jews, who particularly need to remind ourselves of this



Ynet News

Israel's Never Looked So Good

Israel bashers could have taken Israel's democratic experiment to the Arab world.

by David Suissa

They warned us. The geniuses at Peace Now warned us. The brilliant diplomats warned us. The think tanks warned us. Even the Arab dictators warned us. For decades now, they have been warning us that if you want "peace in the Middle East," just fix the Palestinian problem. A recent variation on this theme has been: Just get the Jews to stop building apartments in East Jerusalem and Efrat. Yes, if all those Jews in the West Bank and East Jerusalem would only "freeze" their construction, then, finally, Palestinian leaders might come to the table and peace might break out.

And what would happen if peace would break out between Jews and Palestinians? Would all those furious Arabs now demonstrating on streets across the Middle East feel any better?

What bloody nonsense.

Has there ever been a greater abuse of the English language in international diplomacy than calling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the "Middle East peace process?" As if there were only two countries in the Middle East.

Even if you absolutely believe in the imperative of creating a Palestinian state, you can't tell me that the single-minded and global obsession with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the expense of the enormous ills in the rest of the Middle East hasn't been idiotic, if not criminally negligent.

While tens of millions of Arabs have been suffering for decades from brutal oppression, while writers jailed and women humiliated and dissidents killed, the world -- yes, the world -- has obsessed with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

As if Palestinians -- the same coddled victims on whom the world has spent billions and who have rejected one peace offer after another -- were the only victims in the Middle East.

Imagine if Israel bashers had spent a fraction of their energy fighting the lies of Arab dictators and defending the rights of millions of oppressed Arabs.

As if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has anything to do with the 1,000-year-old bloody conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, or the desire of brutal Arab dictators to stay in power, or the desire of Islamist radicals to bring back the Caliphate, or the economic despair of millions, or simply the absence of free speech or basic human rights throughout the Arab world.

While self-righteous Israel bashers have scrutinized every flaw in Israel's democracy -- some waxing hysterical that the Jewish democratic experiment in the world's nastiest neighborhood had turned into an embarrassment -- they kept their big mouths shut about the oppression of millions of Arabs throughout the Middle East.

They cried foul if Israeli Arabs -- who have infinitely more rights and freedoms than any Arabs in the Middle East -- had their rights compromised in any way. But if a poet were jailed in Jordan or a gay man were tortured in Egypt or a woman were stoned in Syria, all we heard was screaming silence.

Think of the ridiculous amount of media ink and diplomatic attention that has been poured onto the Israel-Palestinian conflict over the years, while much of the Arab world was suffering and smoldering, and tell me this is not criminal negligence. Do you ever recall seeing a UN resolution or an international conference in support of Middle Eastern Arabs not named Palestinians?

Of course, now that the Arab volcano has finally erupted, all those chronic Israel bashers have suddenly discovered a new cause: Freedom for the poor oppressed Arabs of the Middle East!

Imagine if, instead of putting Israel under their critical and hypocritical microscope, the world's Israel bashers had taken Israel's imperfect democratic experiment and said to the Arab world: Why don't you try to emulate the Jews?

Why don't you give equal rights to your minorities, just like Israel does?

I've never felt more proud of being a supporter of the Jewish state.

Why don't you give your people the same freedom of speech and freedom to vote that Israel does? And offer them the economic opportunities they would get in Israel? Why don't you treat your Jewish and Christian citizens the same way Israel treats its Arab and Christian citizens?

Why don't you study how Israel has struggled to balance religion with democracy -- a very difficult but not insurmountable task?

Why don't you teach your people that Jews are not the sons of dogs but a noble, ancient people with a 3,000-year connection to the land of Israel?

Yes, imagine if Israel bashers had spent a fraction of their energy fighting the lies of Arab dictators and defending the rights of millions of oppressed Arabs.

Maybe it's just easier to beat up on a free and open society like Israel.

Well, now that the cesspool of human oppression in the Arab world has been opened for all to see, how bad is Israel's democracy looking? Don't you wish the Arab world had a modicum of Israel's civil society? Would you still be worrying about "stability in the Middle East?"

You can preach to me all you want about the great Jewish tradition of self-criticism -- which I believe in -- but right now, when I see poor Arab souls being murdered for the simple act of protesting on the street, I've never felt more proud of being a supporter of the Jewish state.



This op-ed originally appeared on The Huffington Post.