Islam: the final revelation of totalitarianism

What is the totalitarian act? It is to deny the multi-layered, transcendent aspect of truth and compress all truth down into a single idea, or into a single class or group (the German people, the workers of the world, the Islamic ummah), or into a single, godlike leader (Hitler, Lenin , Mao, Muhammad).

From this it follows that in its creedal essence, Islam is the most totalitarian system of belief the world has ever seen. As Muhammad changed from a prophet without honor in his own country into a war leader and brigand, murderer of his critics, vindictive slaughterer of his foes, gatherer of booty, rapist of women whose husbands he has just killed, accumulater of wives, and husband of a nine year old girl, the justification for each of his whims and opportunistic acts instantly became part of the Koran, which he told his followers was the incarnate, eternal, and final Word of God, God himself in his very essence, with Muhammad as his prophet. And each of his acts became the model for others to follow, all through the ages, in a most brutal parody of the imitation of Christ.

This most primitive of the monotheistic faiths presented itself as the final and ultimate revelation, caricaturing and displacing the high religions that came before it, and denouncing any remaining belief in them as perverse stubbornness worthy of violent death and eternal punishment. No other major religion or political ideology has ever said, in its most authoritative document, that all people in the world who reject the religion or ideology shall be killed, until the entire human race submits to that religion or ideology. That distinction belongs to Islam alone. And Muhammad, this most primitive and vengeful of Prophets, became the mouthpiece of the eternal God, who cannot be questioned.

The lowness and the shocking brutality of its actual content, combined with the absoluteness of its claims to spiritual authority, make Islam the most totalitarian, murderous system of belief the world has seen. If the index of totalitarianism is the degree to which all truth and authority are compressed into one earthly source of power, then Islam is the most totalitarian system of belief the world has seen.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 03, 2005 02:45 AM | Send