Everything I NEED to know about Islam I learned on 11 September 2001. Everything. I have friends who believe that there is such a thing a “moderate Islam.” I won’t go so far as to say that they are stupid — after all, stupid people are not allowed the privilege of being my friends — but they are naive for believing in a fairly tale like “moderate Islam.” Claiming that there is such a thing is like claiming that there was once such a thing as “moderate National Socialism” — and it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the Nazis and the Moslems were best of friends back in the day….

Islam is NOT a religion, folks, regardless of what its adherents and sympathizers will tell you. It is a totalitarian social and political ideology wrapped in religious trappings.

A religion, by definition, must allow for freedom of conscience: to truly follow a religion a person must arrive at the decision to do so through internal conviction, not external coercion. Inherent in any genuine religious system is the right to refuse to believe it in — or any other religion for that matter.

An ideology, on the other hand, does not tolerate dissent or non-conformity: everyone within its reach must adhere to its doctrines and dogmas, regardless of whether or not they personally accept the validity of those doctrines and dogmas. Everyone outside of the ideology’s reach must be brought into it, as their existence outside of the ideology’s control represents a threat to not only the ideology’s control over those it dominates, but also to the very existence of the ideology itself. Those of you who have studied Islam will immediately recognize that this is identical to the “Realm of Peace (the Moslem world)/Realm of War (the rest of the world)” dichotomy in Islamic doctrine.  Going hand-in-hand with this a fundamental doctrines in Islam that the existence of anyone outside of the “Realm of Peace” will not be tolerated — either they must be brought into the “Realm of Peace” i.e. convert to Islam, or they must be eliminated. No alternatives are allowed in either the Koran or the hadiths.

Which leads to the next point in understanding why Islam is NOT a religion: no genuine religion will espouse the idea of conversion by force. The existence of a God or gods is not something that can be “proven,” in the scientific use of the word, so belief in a God or gods is, again by definition, a matter of faith. The exercise of such faith is a conscious, deliberate, voluntary act, one that in essence states, however openly or privately one might do so, that “I have come to this point, no one has brought me here or made me come here: I now believe what I believe because it is what I have chosen — it the conclusion of my spiritual seach, and that of no one else.” Islam, however, has at its heart the doctrine of “conversion through coercion” — the use of force, including physical violence and threats of execution, to compel non-Moslems to renounce their own beliefs and embrace Islam. This is not some modern aberration or perversion of Islam, the doctrine began with Mohammed himself in 622 AD. Again, this is the methodology of totalitarianism: conform or die. History has provided us with more than sufficient examples of this, whether they be the Third Reich, the Soviet Union, Maoist China, or any one of a dozen tinpot dictatorships that sprang up around the world in the 20th Century.

In a nutshell, then, the difference is this:  a genuine religion will always allow the individual the right to free will, to follow his or her conscience, to believe or not believe as they feel is right.  An ideology, even one masquerading as a religion, will never allow the individual right to conscience or to not believe, but demands adherence, without exception.  That is the litmus test, it’s a simple pass/fail that takes only a few seconds to determine, but tells you everything you need to know when some ideologue is playing the religion card.

In the end, it comes down to this: the violence that we are seeing today — and was done on 11 September 2001 — is not simply a part of the fabric of Islam, it IS the fabric of Islam. Burying our heads in the sand, hoping it will go away, will not solve the problem. The world was shown the solution by men like Martel, Graf Salm, von Roggendorf, and Sobieski. The choice we have now is whether or not we will choose to profit from their example. The solution does not lie in continuing to pretend that Islam is something far different than what it actually is.

And that’s the way it is…

…because I’m Daniel Allen Butler, and you’re not.