Sacred ignorance, sacred stupidity, sacred zombies
The scholars do not do Shari'a's dirty work themselves. For that they have lay Muslims, who do not like to read, who prefer to listen to scholars and who hear and obey. Such people have already lost their minds and are prepared to lose their lives too, so long as Allah does not lose his panache.
The following exchange took place recently between a Christian and a Muslim:
Muslim: I don’t read.
Christian: What do you mean you don’t read? You don’t like to read?
No, I don’t. I get my information elsewhere.
Where do you get your information from?
There’s no point reading an English Qur’an, because when you translate the word of God, it loses all its panache.
But do you know Arabic?
No, I don’t. There’s no point. If I knew Arabic, I would read the Qur’an.
You just said something very important: there’s no point to read the translation, but you do not know Arabic. How will you know your religion then?
That’s why I just listen to scholars.
And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with Muslims. So what? you might say. I listen to my priest. I listen to my rabbi. With all due respect, I think you might need to know a little more. A Muslim scholar, or an imam, is not a priest; he is not a rabbi. He is not even the same kind of thing as a priest and a rabbi. He is something entirely different. He is a controller of murderers.
Dutch academic, the late Professor Johannes Jansen, one of the Cassandra voices trying to warn about Shari'a, recounts a kafir’s exchange with an imam in the Netherlands:
In 2006/2007, a Dutch comedian got into trouble with an Islamic activist about the Theo van Gogh assassination. The comedian, on his own initiative, then consulted a local Amsterdam Imam and the board of his mosque, asking them directly whether they wanted to kill him. The Imam only looked stern, and did not say anything, acting as if he did not understand Dutch — which perhaps he did not. However, a smiling board member assured the comedian that they had no plans to kill him, because ‘for such things we have the radicals’. This perfectly illustrates the situation. The majority is silent, the Imam limits himself to looking dignified, his direct supporters bring the bad news, and the elite soldiers, true commandos, true mujahideen, do the dirty work.[1]
Theodoor van Gogh was the Dutch cinematographer who directed Submission: Part 1, a film written by Somali-born Dutch-American and former Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Her film exposes the treatment of women in Islam. Not only that, it does so without mincing words or blurring images. On 2 November 2004, Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim, whose feelings were hurt by the film, poor thing, murdered Van Gogh in broad daylight on an Amsterdam street. This ever-so-delicate Muslim shot Van Gogh several times and slit his throat. Van Gogh’s famous last words are reported to have been, “Surely, we can talk about this.” Using his knife, the sensitive Muslim pinned to his victim's body a death threat to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The murderer addressed us all when he later said, “I shot to kill and be killed. You cannot understand.”[2] Unfortunately, he is right. We cannot understand so long as we refuse to talk about who committed this murder. If we did talk about it, we might understand that:
Allah hath bought from the believers their lives and their wealth because the Garden will be theirs: they shall fight in the way of Allah and shall slay and be slain. It is a promise which is binding on Him in the Torah and the Gospel and the Qur'an. Who fulfilleth His covenant better than Allah? Rejoice then in your bargain that ye have made, for that is the supreme triumph." (Qur'an 9:111)
The Qur'an is the central holy scripture of Muslims, yet we insist that the murderer, who quoted the Qur'an directly, is an "Islamist", not a Muslim. That is the problem with us.
The scholars do not do Shari'a's dirty work themselves. For that they have lay Muslims, people who do not like to read, people who prefer to listen to scholars. People who hear and obey. Such people have already lost their minds and are quite prepared to lose their lives too, so long as Allah does not lose his panache.
Every single Muslim is responsible.
Notes:
- Professor Dr. Johannes Jansen, "What is Sharia, where does it come from, and why does it matter so much?" Professor Dr Johannes Jansen Speaks At Inaugural Brussels Process Conference, by ICLA Admin, July 12, 2012 https://libertiesalliance.org/2012/07/12/professor-dr-johannes-jansen-speaks-at-inaugural-brussels-process-conference/
- For a discussion of these issues, see Simon Cottee, "We Need to Talk About Mohammad", British Journal of Criminology, (2014) 54, 981–1001 Advance Access publication 10 June 2014 https://watermark.silverchair.com/azu037.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAA0cwggNDBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggM0MIIDMAIBADCCAykGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMHzuY2HI5YCBblE-gAgEQgIIC-hVCyWy6cfXylgwiHQ5LBpwH1f2cgUrL20PXUBADMvroceuKNQsiF6BqXreshcoOv-UIEUMnJvE3T0cWYlIAeholJxOtKGp4GE1zKfAA0cZZOZP63ulZBkwm_vm3wCmdGp31qEcyWxw4sI_LfJvrf77ms9dDmPqmQ7zKdzEK_OTHjokQLfi-TxwcuyH7e_DlCGoZmmGcqdq0-aZaoLrEqwe76xavQU_DZzRFaPInIpnH9jkp0hK6c3gche6FrGn9nHb0cEAnpx27fS1WuRfM-mnNyxPFT8mm98jlyaHV5Je2U6KbvDiIG-LP676OJkacaEh8fkaqoIOqn47kwBfTwVfiKy6MN4xNdU6uiigxrj2LyunCHlQaOhVBBHc8LW0cSwFgRmdsVQZdO5Uj_jlJsW6Ek9_W6soGkVTCkUcJgzQpW8vLqcElYsvu421rl__GnBntec5ZbpCd5KsMCuIfr34IO-OrRpoX4zIo9AdoUZw2jVg8MyxO8mVra0ZbWzhS8lg1qfTAKO6ARJut8v9yILmcer-BSSFbYbLPGld0x5WVLHnIXsXAoPA38nX386IVTjcPxnY5K4wsj96RTlUMxTBwTmyffxED2cXY7QNgXzDnXyhAM8Ed55q6xHrRtu1gYetikLq3Rob2wmAf-H0t2TPeMHHJaJbfUswadE9jiDScd7g1jtnFLXx2nWOF4SeA7jvo5Wj_DvUSoME97gvf0UT9mAgvq-GIe38-zU8rEeEXZ0AmrFMQocONDQNf9rcxP3ThZRckUMnXshFVGGl1GgwOI2ApBpBmTLNlu0FypI6vO_PaojywEyGxPnyKvDPX1f6lpn-zp3IFjrNYWoRXhMNhbyb5lXpaWJ-aTCyuYggd4USF8EvCZqp1QYG7j4eUxjY-fhymk4t2B0qMt8no-OOM6tPlcLLgV5G0wlSuISeN8kc5-jEJwDOlJKjo27xQxTK1AQANL86nnUd6y-AWfNtSGm3iBFqX2xoBwJPDAcsCPnhcpbM6qOLWlg
Picture credits:
Thomas Kist - Column Film, Amsterdam, on request by Túrelio, GFDL 1.2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2963107
Pieter Hoekstra - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30134952
Edvard Munch - National Gallery of Norway 8 January 2019 (upload date) by Coldcreation, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69541493
Screenshot from Submission Pt 1, AmazingKuffar, YouTube, 19 March 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH5_xYEFQo0