But here’s the most interesting part of the story: The words Paul Weston spoke that day—and for which he was arrested—were not his own. They were originally written by a man to whom modern Britain owes nothing less than its very existence: Sir Winston Churchill.
Churchill had penned the lines decades earlier in a book titled The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of Sudan:
Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith.
In present-day Great Britain, Winston Churchill, savior of Europe, defender of the West, champion of democratic values, and close ally of Franklin Roosevelt, would likely be behind bars, branded as a notorious Islamophobe who dared to offer criticism about Islam and its teaching.
Islam apologists go to great lengths to prove that people are perfectly free to question Islam—so long as they stay within carefully prescribed limits. For example, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) claims, “We do not label all, or even the majority of those, who question Islam and Muslims as Islamophobes. Equally, we believe it is not Islamophobic to denounce crimes committed by individual Muslims or those claiming Islam as a motivation for their actions.”
Yet that is exactly what they do.
CAIR and its secular leftist allies, like the ironically named group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), delight in levying the charge of “Islamophobia” at people who do simply “question Islam and Muslims.”
In fact, FAIR has a Nixonian “hit list” of their supposed enemies, which they label as “some of the media’s leading teachers of anti-Muslim bigotry, serving various roles in the Islamophobic movement.” These nefarious ne’er-do-wells, the group goes on to claim in paranoid fashion, “form a network that teaches Americans to see Islam in fearful terms and their Muslim neighbors as suspects.” Among those targeted: Bill O’Reilly, the writer Mark Steyn, Daniel Pipes, and Sean Hannity.
And, of course, me.
The George Soros–funded group Media Matters has its own version of a hate list, which (curiously) includes only conservatives as anti-Islam bigots: Brian Kilmeade, Roger Ailes, Newt Gingrich, Rev. Franklin Graham, and Greg Gutfeld.
And, of course, me again.
The origins of the term Islamophobia have unsurprisingly been traced back to the United Kingdom. In a 1997 report from the Runnymede Trust, which bills itself as “the UK’s leading independent race equality think tank,” the group described “Islamophobia” as “unfounded hostility towards Islam, and therefore fear or dislike of all or most Muslims.”
That’s actually not a bad definition. “Unfounded” hostility toward Islam and dislike of all or most Muslims may very well be “Islamophobic”—but that definition certainly doesn’t apply to me, and I’ll bet that it doesn’t apply to any of the other people on the FAIR and Media Matters hit lists, either.
Besides, that is not how “Islamophobia” has been defined by groups like CAIR, which, it should be noted, has a checkered history of radical connections—including links to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood—and was an unindicted co-conspirator in the U.S. government’s case against the Holy Land Foundation, which gave money to Hamas. This is how CAIR defines the concept: “Islamophobia is closed-minded prejudice against or hatred of Islam and Muslims. An Islamophobe is an individual who holds a closed-minded view of Islam and promotes prejudice against or hatred of Muslims.”
The convenient part for them is that the definition of “closed-minded” and “prejudice” is whatever they want it to be. It’s pretty clear that CAIR’s definition of “Islamophobia” includes anyone who’s ever said anything even slightly negative about Islam or who’s challenged others to think critically about the connection between Islam and Islamic terrorism. As it happens, that’s a long list of people, including some of the most distinguished minds in the Western world, from Tocqueville to Patton to former American presidents.
In 1843, for example, the acclaimed author Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that he had studied the Quran “a great deal.” His conclusion was that “there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad.”
John Quincy Adams, the former president of the United States and a champion for the rights of freed slaves, also reportedly blasted Islam in remarks that would lead him to be condemned and jailed today.
“He [Muhammad] declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind,” Adams noted. “The precept of the Koran is perpetual war against all who deny that Mahomet is the prophet of God.”
General George Patton, one of the liberators of Europe, also had unflattering things to say about Islam. “To me,” Patton said, “it seems certain that the fatalistic teachings of Muhammad and the utter degradation of women is the outstanding cause for the arrested development of the Arab. He is exactly as he was around the year 700, while we have kept on developing.”
Liberal Bill Maher has noted that “there’s only one faith” that “kills you or wants to kill you if you draw a bad cartoon of the prophet” and that “there’s only one faith that kills you or wants to kill you if you renounce the faith.” He added this is not just a small group of zealots. “It’s more than just a fringe element.” He went on to say that comparison of Muslim violence to Christianity was “liberal bullshit.”
There are plenty of serious people who’ve made smart observations about Islam over the years—throwing around the charge of “Islamophobia” has become a knee-jerk reaction, a cudgel for clobbering anyone who dares to seek (or speak) the truth. Its purpose, and the agenda of groups that use the term, is the distinctly illiberal goal of stifling different points of view.
“Islam makes very large claims for itself,” the late Christopher Hitchens, an acclaimed writer who was the toast of leftist elites, once wrote. “In its art, there is a prejudice against representing the human form at all. The prohibition on picturing the prophet—who was only another male mammal—is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing. Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent.”
That’s not bigotry or intolerance or irrational fear of someone different. That is just someone speaking the truth. Those who tend to hurl allegations of hate, intolerance, and bigotry at those of us who have the temerity to question and challenge some of the teachings and traditions of Islam are in fact projecting the reality of their own hate, intolerance, and bigotry on the rest of us.
We cannot let accusations from others distract us. You know what’s in your heart, and I know what’s in mine. Question with boldness, speak the truth, and the rest will take care of itself.
LIE #10
* * *
“ISLAM RESPECTS THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN.”
“While it needs to be acknowledged that atrocities have been committed against women overseas in the name of Islam, it also needs to be acknowledged that such practices have no basis in the religion itself. More than 1400 years ago Islam afforded women rights comparable to those in our contemporary international human rights documents.”
—Ghena Krayem and Haisam Farache, op-ed, Sydney Morning Herald
“Contrary to how popular culture portrays Muslim women’s rights and privileges, Islam gives women many rights, including the right to inherit, to work outside the home, and to be educated. As in all cultures and communities, these rights are often violated. This is the result of the intersection of Islam with existing cultural norms, which may reflect male-dominated societies. In Muslim
communities, women often have a strong influence in the family, the workplace, the religion and society in general.”
—“Beliefs and Daily Lives of Muslims,” PBS Frontline
Violent acts of terrorism in the name of Islam are all too common. Less visible, but no less shocking, are the individual acts of cruelty perpetrated against women in the name of radical Islam. While some would undoubtedly prefer to ignore this fact, those who commit these attacks can easily find justification for them under Islamic law.
Islam has apologists both inside and outside the faith who argue that there is nothing in the teachings of the religion that could lead to repression or violence against women. To them, it’s always something else, some sinister outside force that creates a situation for which Islam is unjustly blamed.
Two Australian Muslims, an imam and a scholar in Islamic family law, cowrote a disturbing op-ed defending sharia that was published in the Sydney Morning Herald in 2008. In it they claimed that Islam pioneered the field of women’s rights centuries ago and that “atrocities . . . committed against women overseas in the name of Islam”—which they at least acknowledge have occurred—“have no basis in the religion itself.” Instead, they blame “other factors, notably cultural practices alien to the religion itself.”
The television program Frontline, which airs on the U.S. government–subsidized Public Broadcasting Service, takes the blame game a level further. According to its “Teachers Guide” on the “Beliefs and Daily Lives of Muslims,” the violation of the rights of women in Muslim communities “is the result of the intersection of Islam with existing cultural norms, which may reflect male-dominated societies.” Islam itself, they seem to suggest, is a feminist paradise, upset only by a violent patriarchy that is separate and apart from the religion itself.
In fact, the Quran does seem to back up the idea that women—at least Muslim women—are on equal footing with men, at least when it comes to rewarding their faith:
So their Lord accepted of them (their supplication and answered them), “Never will I allow to be lost the work of any of you, be he male or female. You are (members) one of another. . . .” (Quran 3:195)
Whoever works righteousness, whether male or female, while he (or she) is a true believer (of Islamic Monotheism) verily, to him We will give a good life (in this world with respect, contentment and lawful provision), and We shall pay them certainly a reward in proportion to the best of what they used to do (i.e., Paradise in the Hereafter). (Quran 16:97)
These verses pertain to the rewards women will receive in the afterlife, which may well be equal to those of men. But on earth, the reality for women under Islamic rule is very different. A look at the Quran and other Islamic teachings shows that denigration of women, and even violence against them, are hardly “alien to the religion.” A number of Quranic verses establish a clear-cut difference in the rights of men and women in various aspects of daily life—and the men always seem to get the advantage:
A man can marry multiple women (as long as he feels he can manage it):
And if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphan-girls, then marry (other) women of your choice, two or three, or four but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one or (the captives and the slaves) that your right hands possess. That is nearer to prevent you from doing injustice. (Quran 4:3)
Women automatically receive less in inheritance:
Allah commands you as regards your children’s (inheritance); to the male, a portion equal to that of two females; if (there are) only daughters, two or more, their share is two thirds of the inheritance; if only one, her share is half. (Quran 4:11)
In a trial, one male witness is worth two females:
. . . [G]et two witnesses out of your own men. And if there are not two men (available), then a man and two women, such as you agree for witnesses, so that if one of them (two women) errs, the other can remind her . . . (Quran 2:282)
In divorce cases, men automatically have a higher degree of rights:
. . . divorced women shall wait (as regards their marriage) for three menstrual periods, and it is not lawful for them to conceal what Allah has created in their wombs, if they believe in Allah and the Last Day. And their husbands have the better right to take them back in that period, if they wish for reconciliation. And they (women) have rights (over their husbands as regards living expenses, etc.) similar (to those of their husbands) over them (as regards obedience and respect, etc.) to what is reasonable, but men have a degree (of responsibility) over them. (Quran 2:228)
Appearing on NBC’s Today show in 2007, Massoumeh Ebtekar, the first woman to serve as a cabinet secretary in Iran, claimed that things were looking up for women in her country. “It takes time to change the laws in favor of women,” she said, “but we have had lots of improvements.”
I suppose it’s not hard to improve when you’re starting from such a barbaric place. Here are just a few things a woman in Iran was still banned from doing under Islamic law back when Ebtekar appeared in 2007:
• Expose her head
• Apply for a passport without her husband’s permission
• Sing any way she chooses
• Divorce her husband without cause (husbands can divorce for any reason)
• Commit adultery—and live
• Inherit an equal share as her brother
• Watch men play sports (with a few exceptions)
• Marry a non-Islamic man
• Be in a relationship with another woman
• Publicly socialize with men
• Sit in the front of a bus
• Run for president
• Travel, work, or go to school without her husband’s permission
• Attend her father’s funeral without her husband’s permission
• Express opposition to the government (countless numbers have been tortured for doing so)
• Have unsanctioned interviews with foreign media
• Maintain custody of her children—should her husband decide to have another wife
• Object to having acid thrown in her face
• Choose not to have children (law pending)
• Have sex outside of marriage
• Get a degree in engineering, physics, computer science, English literature, or business
But at least she can drive, unlike women in other Islamic countries, like, say, Saudi Arabia.
Yet none of this has stopped the empty-headed fools at Vogue magazine from dubbing Tehran—yes, Tehran—the “next Aspen.” They apparently didn’t realize that, under Iran’s Islamic law, women are not even allowed to ski unaccompanied on slopes.
Perhaps the one verse in the Quran that gives men the greatest blanket dominion over women also serves as a detailed guide on how to inflict punishment:
Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has made one of them to excel the other, and because they spend (to support them) from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient (to Allah and to their husbands), and guard in the husband’s absence what Allah orders them to guard (e.g., their chastity, their husband’s property, etc.). As to those women on whose part you see ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly, if it is useful), but if they return to obedience, seek not against them means (of annoyance). Surely, Allah is Ever Most High, Most Great. (Quran 4:34)
Muslim women who may be perceived by their husbands as behaving with “ill-conduct” should be admonished, then denied marital relations, and then beaten. Thankfully, they can be forgiven—as long as they obey, of course.
Another verse from the Quran gives Allah’s permission to keep women as captive slaves for sexual relationships outside marriage:
Also (forbidden are) women already married, except those (captives and slaves) whom your right hands possess. Thus has Allah ordained for you . . . (Quran 4:24)
In the Islamic tra
dition, those “whom your right hands possess” is a euphemism for slaves, who were allowed to be kept as spoils of war.
While the Quranic justification for treating women in unfair and violent ways is clear, one would hope those views would have evolved in the intervening centuries. In 1997, Yousef al-Qaradawi, an influential cleric, told his television audience:
Beating is permitted [to the man] in the most limited of cases, and only in a case when the wife rebels against her husband. . . . The beating, of course, will not be with a whip, a stick, or a board.
This is especially disturbing considering the widespread view in the Muslim world that wives must be subservient to their husbands. This was confirmed by a 2013 Pew Research Center survey, which asked Muslims (both men and women): “Must a wife always obey her husband?” In 20 of 23 countries surveyed, at least half responded “yes.”
Islam’s retrograde views toward women aren’t just confined to the realm of the theoretical. In Pakistan, a woman can prove rape only if four adult males of “impeccable” character witness the actual penetration. An Islamic “marriage guide” called A Gift for Muslim Couples advises husbands on the best ways to beat their wives. (It turns out that it’s most effectively done with a “hand or stick or pull her by the ears.”) And female genital mutilation, one of the most barbaric practices conceived by the human mind, is practiced in some parts of the Islamic world as a way of supposedly controlling the sexual urges of women.
We see in the Islamic State how radical Islamists use the Quran to justify unspeakable horrors that, in a sane world, would earn blanket condemnation from self-proclaimed feminists like Lena Dunham, Susan Sarandon, Jane Fonda, Sandra Fluke, and the pretentious pant-suited phonies of the National Organization of Women (NOW).
As the Islamic State’s Caliphate expands across Iraq and Syria, stories of women living under sharia law are becoming even more harrowing. One ISIS savage by the name of Abu Anas al-Libi has reportedly killed more than 150 women and girls for refusing to become “jihad brides,” temporary sex slaves for ISIS fighters. They include girls 14, 15, and younger. Women captured by the Islamic State are so traumatized by the rape and torture that they are strangling each other to commit assisted suicide. ISIS has ordered all girls and women in Mosul, Iraq, between the ages of 11 and 46 to undergo female genital mutilation.