Introduction
“A system that environments and their organisms form through their interaction” is how ecosystems are characterised.
They are fragile phenomena which must be painstakingly and meticulously protected and preserved. When the brown tree snake was inadvertently introduced to the island of Guam through military cargo shipments and equipment transported there after World War II, where it had no natural predators, its population exploded and countless of the native mammals, reptiles and birds, such as the Mariana crow, saw their population either go completely extinct or radically decline.
The snakes regularly cause power outages by climbing power lines, resulting in electrical failures, which have cost millions of dollars in repairs and lost productivity. And, of course, there are the medical tragedies resulting from its bite.
A culture is no different. Introducing an alien entity into a sphere where it has no natural enemies, it will flourish at the detriment of the indigenous culture.
And that’s where we are at with Islam, our brown snake, in the West.
In this essay, I will make my case for why Islam is not only incompatible with liberal values, but how our countries - the best societies on earth by every objective measure - are being annihilated by its intrusion.
I will go through the ten most primary principles of a democratic society, and explain how, through both theological and practical examples, Islam repudiates each one.
By the end of this essay, I hope that the reader will acknowledge what is painfully clear:
We are at war with Islam.
What will it take to acknowledge this?
What will it take for anyone denying this simple fact to acknowledge this?
When tens of thousand of young girls - some as young as 9 - have been brutally and systematically raped in practically every county in England, this was swept under the carpet by local authorities for the fear of offending “The Muslim Community”, that supposedly monolithic, homogenous demographic.
When 23 people, most of whom were children, were mercilessly blown to smithereens by Salman Abedi, aided by his equally deranged brother Hashem, the answer was apparently singing “Don’t Look Back In Anger” and talking about how “Diversity is our strength”.
When Lee Rigby was decapitated in the middle of the streets, in broad daylight, by Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, the talk was about tackling online radicalisation.
When Sir David Amess was stabbed to death outside of a Methodist church in Essex by Ali Harbi Ali, the focus was on “male violence”.
In Wakefield’s Kettlethorpe High School, an autistic 14 year old was spoken to by the police and had to meet with self-proclaimed “Community Leaders” from the “Islamic Community” for slightly damaging the Quran… In Britain. In the 21st Century.
I could go on and on. There’s the 7/7 bombings, the 2020 Reading stabbings, the Liverpool Women's Hospital bombing in 2021, the Westminster car attacks of 2017 and of 2018…
A malignant tumour
Islam is a tumour which keeps metastasising, systematically killing the host’s every cell. Wherever you look, this is an empirical fact. There is no society on earth where Islam has reached critical mass, without that society being worse off. Without the culture and civil norms haven’t been compromised to accommodate the demands Islam makes.
What are these pillars of Western culture and how are they being not just eroded, but actively obliterated through this invasion?
If condensed down to ten points, it could look something like this:
Freedom of Speech and Expression
Rule of Law
Individual Rights
Equal protection under the law
Democracy
Separation of Powers
Limited Government
Freedom of the Press
Civil Society
Free Market
Islam is antithetical to every single one of these principles, and has for decades been a leading force in tearing them down.
Freedom of Speech and Expression
I doubt anyone can honestly deny this point. Just starting from Salman Rushdie’s fatwa in 1989, to calls to introduce blasphemy laws under the libellous myth “Islamophobia”, the examples are too many to recount.
Countless people have been killed for speaking up against Islam, for criticising Mohammed, the self-proclaimed prophet of Islam, for drawing cartoons… Here are just some examples:
On 7 January 2015, in Paris, the employees of the French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo were targeted in a shooting attack by two French-born Algerian Muslim brothers, Saïd Kouachi and Chérif Kouachi. Armed with automatic weapons, the duo murdered 12 people and injured 11 others. The victims’ crimes? Publishing cartoons.
For fear of retribution, no major news outlet in the Western world showed the cartoons - de facto blasphemy laws.
In 2004, Theodoor “Theo” van Gogh was murdered in broad daylight in Amsterdam by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim for directing the film “Submission”. His last words were “Can we talk about this?”
His screenwriter, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, has had to live under armed protection ever since.
In 2010, a Pakistani Christian woman, Aasiya Noreen, was convicted of blasphemy by a Pakistani court and was sentenced to death by hanging.
Shabaz Bhatti was a Pakistani politician and the first Christian Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs, was assassinated in 2011 for suggesting a reform of blasphemy laws.
Hitoshi Igarashi was a Japanese scholar of Arabic and Persian literature and history and the Japanese translator of Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses. For his part in this crime, he was stabbed repeatedly in the face and arms, and died as a result in 1991.
In 2021, a grammar school teacher in Batley had to go into hiding, after multiple credible threats to his life, for showing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of Mohammed, where he remains to this day.
In late January and February 2006, riots against the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten for publishing cartoons portraying Mohammed, resulted in over 200 deaths and saw Danish embassies in Jakarta and Beirut. Again, for cartoons.
In 2012, Pakistani politician Ghulam Ahmad Bilour offered a $100,000 award to anyone for assassinating the makers of the short film “Innocence of Muslims”.
The justification for these acts are all found in the Quran, Hadiths and life of Mohammed.
The clearest example is his repeated mandates to kill Kaáb ibn al-Ashraf, a contemporary critic and sceptic of his;
"Who is willing to deal with Ka’b bin Al-Ashraf who has irritated Allah and His Messenger?"
Sahih al-Bukhari, 4:52:270
In Surah 33:57-61, we find:
Surely (as for) those who speak evil things of Allah and His Messenger, Allah has cursed them in this world and the hereafter, and He has prepared for them a chastisement bringing disgrace. And those who speak evil things of the believing men and the believing women without their having earned it, they are guilty indeed of a false accusation and a manifest sin.
O Prophet! say to your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers that they let down upon them their over-garments; this will be more proper, that they may be known, and thus they will not be given trouble; and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
If the hypocrites and those in whose hearts is a disease and the agitators in the city do not desist, We shall most certainly set you over them, then they shall not be your neighbours in it but for a little while;
Cursed: wherever they are found they shall be seized and murdered, a (horrible) murdering.
Furthermore, 5:33 states:
The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter.
How about Islamic scholars?
From Sheikh Abdalqadir as-Sufi:
In Islamic Fiqh [jurisprudence] there are absolutely no opinions, no variants, no exceptions...Muhammad ibn Sahnun said that even if a man claims that it is part of his religion to insult the Messenger, and so in his religion it is lawful, that makes no difference to us. If he openly insults our Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, then our religion makes it lawful to kill him. This surely is the inescapable centre of the current affair. The arrogant kuffar have to learn that the world contains a two-billion community who have a different set of Laws from theirs, and who can never be detached from that Law
Perhaps his generation’s most renowned Islamic scholar, Dr. Zakir Naik, explained in 2006:
In Islam, a person who has committed blasphemy can either be killed or crucified, or his opposite hands and feet can be cut off, or he can be exiled from that land. On the other hand, in other religions there is no other option except capital punishment. Islam at least has four options of punishment for an act of blasphemy.
Rule of Law
Likewise, Islam is inherently in opposition to the Rule of Law. From IslamQA, the biggest forum for Islamic questions online:
First, it is undoubtedly prohibited and an enormous sin to rule with man-made laws, and there are Shari`ah texts contrary to implementing these laws. In the Quran we read, “And judge between them by what Allah has sent down. Nor are you to follow their whims.” [5:49] “Is it, then, the judgement of ignorance that they seek? Yet, who renders a fairer judgement than Allah to a people who have certainty?” [5:50]
(https://islamqa.org/maliki/binbayyah/29887/ruling-on-applying-man-made-laws/)
In 2003, the European Court of Human Rights had been challenged to include Shariah as an option available for Muslims. It ruled:
A sharia-based regime was incompatible with the Convention, in particular, as regards the rules of criminal law and procedure, the place given to women in the legal order and its interference in all spheres of private and public life in accordance with religious precepts. It considered that "sharia, which faithfully reflects the dogmas and divine rules laid down by religion, is stable and invariable.
Surah 4:11:
Allah charges you concerning your children, for a male like the share of two females. If they are women, above two, they shall have two thirds of what he left, but if she is one, then to her a half. While for his parents, to each one of the two a sixth of what he left, if he has a child. But if he has no child and his heirs are his parents, his mother shall have a third. If he has siblings, to his mother a sixth after any bequest he had bequeathed, or any debt. Your fathers and your children, you do not know which of them is nearer in benefit to you. This is an obligation from Allah. Surely, Allah is the Knower, the Wise.
Perhaps more importantly than the individual injunctions is the mentality this sows within a society, and we see this in every single Islamic majority country.
When believers haven’t been vitiated with liberal values, and Islam has been allowed to fester without challenge, we get ISIS. We get Al Qaeda. We get the Taliban and Hamas and Hezbollah.
Women are reduced to not so much as second-class citizens as cattle.
Individual Rights and Equal Protection under the law
How about Individual Rights and Equal Protection under the law?
Yet again, we find Islam wanting. The verses denying women’s equality and/or autonomy in the Quran are manyfold (Surah 2:228, 2:223, 4:11, 2:282, 2:230 etc.).
The life of Mohammed, the supposed prophet of Islam, is all we need to appreciate the dissonance between modern Western values and Islamic fundamentals. Most renowned is his relationship with Aishah, his favourite wide who was betrothed to Mohammed at the age of 6 and raped by him when she was 9. It is estimated that Mohammed was in his late 50’s at the time.
If Mohammed is the example for all muslims to emulate, is it therefore a surprise that the most fanatic followers try to imitate this as much as possible?
This is the justification given for 40 million child-brides in the Middle East annually being forcibly married to men often three to four times their age.
(https://www.unicef.org/mena/media/2641/file/MENA-ChildMarriageReport.pdf.pdf)
What behaviours does this cultivate?
On New Year’s Eve 2015 in Cologne, Germany, approximately 1,200 women were reported to have been sexually assaulted by “refugees” from Syria and other Islamic countries.
Sweden, once arguably the most idyllic society on earth, has seen rape and sexual crimes drastically increase since the mass influx of Islamic migrants from 2015, particularly “Sexual molestation of children”, which was hitherto an extreme rarity (table 2).
(More here: https://unherd.com/2021/04/swedens-migrant-rape-crisis/)
The greatest crime in post-war Britain is undoubtedly the systematic gang rapes of thousands of teen- and pre-teen girls across countless boroughs across the country. Absurdly dubbed “grooming gangs” (the correct term is rape gangs), this phenomenon has now been documented from Sunderland to Southampton.
Consistent across the hundreds of victims’ statements is how their brutalizers kept gloating about how their religion grants them the right to subjugate non-Muslims, and take them as sex slaves, just like their beloved prophet did.
This isn’t restricted to Britain. Those who followed the fate of Yazidi women as the Islamic State ravaged the Levant, will know how the religious fanatics justified their barbarism with Quranic scriptures.
The phrase Ma malakat aymanukum (“those whom your right hand possesses”) appears 15 times in the Quran, outlining the conditions of how to treat slaves, and in particular, female sex-slaves (surriyya). We find the provisions for how a Muslim man is allowed to treat sex-slaves, such as 4:24:
Also ˹forbidden are˺ married women—except ˹female˺ captives in your possession. This is Allah’s commandment to you. Lawful to you are all beyond these—as long as you seek them with your wealth in a legal marriage, not in fornication. Give those you have consummated marriage with their due dowries. It is permissible to be mutually gracious regarding the set dowry. Surely Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise.
This is only one of dozens of injunctions on how the Muslim man should treat his female sex-slaves (33:50-53, 23:5-6, Bukhari 62:137 etc.)
Surah 2:28 explains how the testimony of a woman is worth half that of a man.
Believers, when you contract a debt for a fixed period, put it in writing. Let a scribe write it down between you with fairness; no scribe shall refuse to write as Allah has taught him. Therefore, let him write; and let the debtor dictate, fearing Allah his Lord, and do not decrease anything of it. If the debtor is a fool, or weak, or unable to dictate himself, let his guardian dictate for him in fairness. Call to witness two witnesses of your men, if the two are not men, then a man and two women from the witnesses whom you approve; so that if one of the two errs, one of them will remind the other.
Sahih Bukhari, the most authoritative Hadith compiler, elaborates on this in 3:48:826:
The Prophet said, "Isn't the witness of a woman equal to half of that of a man?" The women said, "Yes." He said, "This is because of the deficiency of a woman's mind."
That’s the difference between men and women in Islam. How about followers of Mohammed and non-believers or non-Muslims?
From Surah 98:6:
Indeed, those who disbelieve from the People of the Book and the polytheists will be in the Fire of Hell, to stay there forever. They are the worst of ˹all˺ beings.
Surah 4:89
They wish you would disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so you may all be alike. So do not take them as allies unless they emigrate in the cause of Allah. But if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and do not take any of them as allies or helpers
Bukhari 52:260
"The Prophet said, 'If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him”.
There are almost 200 mentions of the concept of Kafir / Kufr / Kafirun in the Quran, mandating the Muslim to do everything from mock the non-believers (83:34) to slay (4:91) and crucify (5:33) them.
Islam is a doctrine of supremacy and inequality, antithetical to every notion of equality under the law.
Democracy and Separation of Powers
As we can see around the Islamic world, a government elected by the people in fair, public elections under regular cycles is a rarefied concept. In fact, out of 57 Islamic states, only 8 - or 14.04% - have some degree of democracy, and none where the elections are fully transparent, fair or reliable. For reference, one of those countries is Turkey…
When it comes to Separation of Powers and Limited Government, again we are faced with the incompatibility problem.
Where Jesus says in John 18:36 “My kingdom of this world” and in Mark 12:17 “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”, and the laws in the Old Testament are temporal, Islam is absolute, to be applied for all time.
The issue here is that Islam is considered just another religion. But “religion” is a word like “sport” - it doesn’t say anything about the composition of the noun. Islam has as much in common with other major religions as badminton has with Mixed Martial Arts.
Islam is, by definition, a totalitarian cult. At no point in modern history has this been more apparent than during the reign of ISIS, but what is often forgotten is that this was a renaissance project to revive the lost Islamic Caliphate. It is the eternal goal of the believing Muslim.
But it’s not the only example. Iran is the world’s only theocracy, where the Quran and Hadiths are not just spiritual guides, but the land’s constitution. Shariah informs guidance on taxes, marriage, dress code, food, sex and, of course, punitive measures.
As such, the will of the people, or separation of church and state are contradictory to the teachings of Islam. Advocating for democracy is to campaign against the teaching of Mohammed. This is perhaps most evident in Surah 12:40:
Whatever ˹idols˺ you worship instead of Him are mere names which you and your forefathers have made up—a practice Allah has never authorised. It is only Allah who decides. He has commanded that you worship none but Him. That is the upright faith, but most people do not know.
In Surah 12:40, we read:
The command (or the judgement) is for none but Allah. He has commanded that you worship none but Him (i.e. His Monotheism), that is the (true) straight religion, but most men know not.
And finally, in 40:12:
So the judgement is only with Allah, the Most High, the Most Great
Again, from IslamQ&A:
Democracy is a system that is contrary to Islam, because it gives the power of legislation to the people or to those who represent them (such as members of Parliament). Based on that, in democracy legislative authority is given to someone other than Allah, may He be exalted; rather it is given to the people and their deputies, and what matters is not their consensus but the majority. Thus what the majority agree upon becomes laws that are binding on the nation, even if it is contrary to common sense, religious teaching or reason. In these systems legislation has been promulgated allowing abortion, same-sex marriage and usurious interest (riba); the rulings of sharee‘ah have been abolished; and fornication/adultery and the drinking of alcohol are permitted. In fact this system is at war with Islam and its followers.
(https://islamqa.info/en/answers/98134/concept-of-democracy-in-islam)
(PART 2 to follow)