Islam
by Paul Johnson 

NYPOST on Sunday (9/30). It's worth reading.
Distinguished historian Paul Johnson warns
against relying on 'moderate' Muslim regimes
America, safe refuge: A cleric at the Muslims for 
Peace Rally.

Editor's note: Historian and veteran journalist Paul Johnson 
is the author of, among many other books, "Modern Times," 
"Intellectuals" and "A History of the American People."
BOLD and uncompromising words were spoken by American 
(and British) leaders in the immediate response to the 
Manhattan Massacre. But they may be succeeded by creeping 
appeasement unless public opinion insists that these leaders 
stick to their initial resolve to destroy international 
terrorism completely. One central reason why appeasement is 
so tempting to Western governments is that attacking terrorism 
at its roots necessarily involves conflict with the 
second-largest religious community in the world.

It is widely said that Islamic terrorists are wholly unorthodox 
in their belief that their religion sanctions what they do, and 
promises the reward of heaven to what we call "suicide bombers" 
but they insist are martyrs to the faith. This is bolstered by 
the assertion that Islam is essentially a religion of peace and 
that the very word "Islam" means "peace."

AS, not so. Islam means "submission," a very different matter, 
and one of the functions of Islam, in its more militant aspect, 
is to obtain that submission from all, if necessary by force.
Islam is an imperialist religion, more so than Christianity has 
ever been, and in contrast to Judaism. The Koran, Sura 5, 
verse 85, describes the inevitable enmity between Moslems and 
non-Moslems: "Strongest among men in enmity to the Believers 
wilt thou find the Jews and Pagans."
Sura 9, verse 5, adds: "Then fight and slay the pagans wherever 
you find them. And seize them, beleaguer them and lie in wait 
for them, in every strategem [of war]."
Then nations, however mighty, the Koran insists, must be fought
"until they embrace Islam."

These canonical commands cannot be explained away or softened 
by modern theological exegesis, because there is no such science 
in Islam. Unlike Christianity, which,since the Reformation and
Counter Reformation, has continually updated itself and adapted to
changed conditions, and unlike Judaism, which has experienced what
is called the 18th-century Jewish enlightenment, Islam remains a
religion of the Dark Ages. The 7th-century Koran is still taught 
as the immutable word of God, any teaching of which is literally 
true. In other words, mainstream Islam is essentially akin to the
most extreme form of Biblical fundamentalism. It is true it 
contains many sects and tendencies, quite apart from the broad 
division between Sunni Moslems, the majority, who are comparatively 
moderate and include most of the ruling families of the Gulf, and 
Shia Moslems, far more extreme, who dominate Iran.

VIRTUALLY all these tendencies are more militant and uncompromising 
than the orthodox, which is moderate only by comparison, and by 
our own standards is extreme. It believes, for instance, in a 
theocratic state, ruled by religious law, inflicting (as in Saudi 
Arabia) grotesquely cruel punishments, which were becoming obsolete 
in Western Europe in the early Middle Ages. Moreover, Koranic 
teaching that the faith or "submission" can be, and in suitable 
circumstances must be, imposed by force, has never been ignored.

The history of Islam has essentially been a history of conquest 
and reconquest. The 7th-century "breakout" of Islam from Arabia 
was followed by the rapid conquest of North Africa, the invasion 
and virtual conquest of Spain, and a thrust into France that 
carried the crescent to the gates of Paris. It took half a 
millennium of reconquest to expel the Moslems from Western Europe.

THE Crusades, far from being an outrageous prototype of Western 
imperialism, as is taught in most schools, were a mere episode in 
a struggle that has lasted 1,400 years, and were one of the few 
occasions when Christians took the offensive to regain the 
"occupied territories" of the Holy Land.
The Crusades, as it happened, fatally weakened the Greek Orthodox 
Byzantine Empire, the main barrier to the spread of Islam into 
southeast and central Europe. As a result of the fall of 
Constantinople to the ultramilitant Ottoman Sultans, Islam took 
over the entire Balkans, and was threatening to capture Vienna 
and move into the heart of Europe as recently as the 1680s.

This millennial struggle continues in a variety of ways. The 
conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo were a savage reaction by the
Orthodox Christians of Serbia to the spread of Islam in their
historic heartlands, chiefly by virtue of a higher birthrate.
Indeed, in the West, the battle is largely demographic, though 
it is likely to take a more militant turn at any moment.
Moslems from the Balkans and North Africa are surging over 
established frontiers on a huge scale, rather as the pressure 
of the eastern tribes brought about the collapse of the Roman 
Empire of the West in the 4th and 5th centuries a.d.

The number of Moslems settling in Europe is now beyond 
computation, for most of them are illegals. They are getting
into Spain and Italy in such numbers that, should present trends 
continue, both these traditionally Catholic countries will become 
majority Moslem during the 21st century.
The West is not alone in being under threat from Islamic expansion. 
While the Ottomans moved into South-East Europe, the Moghul 
invasion of India destroyed much of Hindu and Buddhist civilization 
there.

The recent destruction by Moslems in Afghanistan of colossal
Buddhist statues is a reminder of what happened to temples and 
shrines, on an enormous scale, when Islam took over. The writer 
V. S. Naipaul has recently pointed out that the destructiveness 
of the Moslem Conquest is at the root of India's appalling poverty 
today. Indeed, the historical record shows that Moslem rule has 
tended both to promote and to perpetuate poverty.

MEANWHILE, the religion of "submission" continues to advance, 
as a rule by force, in Africa in part of Nigeria and Sudan, 
and in Asia, notably in Indonesia, where non-Moslems are given 
the choice of conversion or death. And in all countries where 
Islamic law is applied, converts, whether compulsory or not, 
who revert to their earlier faith, are punished by death.

The survival and expansion of militant Islam in the 20th century 
came as a surprise. After the First World War, many believed that 
Turkey, where the Kemal Ataturk regime imposed secularization by 
force, would set the pattern for the future, and that Islam would 
at last be reformed and modernized.
Though secularism has - so far - survived in Turkey, in the rest 
of Islam fundamentalism, or orthodoxy, as it is more properly 
called, has increased its grip on both the rulers and the masses. 
There are at present 18 predominantly Islamic states, some of 
them under Koranic law and all ruled by groups that have good 
reason to fear extremists.

HENCE American policymakers, in planning to uproot Islamic 
terrorism once and for all, have to steer a narrow path.
They have the military power to do what they want, but they need 
a broad-based global coalition to back their action, preferably 
with military contributions as well as words, and ideally 
including such states as Pakistan, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.
To get this kind of support is not easy, for moderate Moslem rulers 
are far more frightened of the terrorists than of Americans, and
fear for their lives and families. The danger is that they will 
insist on qualification of American action that will amount, 
in effect, to appeasement, and that this in turn will divide and 
weaken both the administration and U.S. public opinion.

It is vitally important that America stick to the essentials of 
its military response and carry it through relentlessly and 
thoroughly. Although only Britain can be guaranteed to back the 
White House in every contingency, it is better in the long run 
for America to act without many allies, or even alone, than to 
engage in a messy compromise dictated by nervousness and cowardice.
That would be the worst of all solutions and would be certain to 
lead to more terrorism, in more places, and on an ever-increasing 
scale.

Now is the ideal moment for the United States to use all its 
physical capacity to eliminate large-scale international 
terrorism. The cause is overwhelmingly just, the nation is united, 
the hopes of decent, law-abiding men and women everywhere go with
American arms. Such a moment may never recur.

THE great William Gladstone, in resisting terrorism, once used 
the phrase, "The resources of civilization are not yet exhausted."
That is true today. Those resources are largely in American hands, 
and the nation - "the last, best hope of mankind" - has 
an overwhelming duty to use them with purposeful justification 
and to the full, in the defense of the lives, property, and 
freedom of all of us.
This is the central point to keep in mind when the weasel words 
of cowardice and surrender are pronounced. 

From the Oct. 15 issue of National Review.