The issue is not the nature of Muslims, but the nature of Islam

A reader asked me if I was going to answer the criticism of me by an Istanbul man posted at Steve Sailer’s site. I looked for it and didn’t find it, until I realized, from an obscure reference buried deep in the post, that I was the person Sailer was referring to when he introduced the post this way:

My man in Istanbul writes that’s he’s unimpressed by another author’s arguments that Muslims are inherently prickly and violent.

I can’t imagine why Sailer didn’t provide the name of the person being criticized and perhaps the title or link of the article being discussed. Indeed, the letter from the Istanbul man is 650 words long, with numerous references to myself as “he,” but no references to my name. Also, the reader who initially told me about the post said that she had seen my name in it. So it’s clear that, for whatever reason, Sailer excised my name from the letter. A likely explanation is that Sailer is angry about my recent strong critiques of his biodiversity philosophy, even though he had linked those articles at his website along with a compliment to me, so go figure.

In any event, I sent the following e-mail to Sailer:

Your Istanbul correspondent is discussing an author, unnamed by you or by him, who is plainly me, but which I only realized several paragraphs into his e-mail because of a reference to my debate with Daniel Pipes about nominalism vs essentialism as they relate to understanding Islam.

The correspondent’s criticisms are completely off base. He’s talking about ethnic and national traits, and arguing that in my article, “The Search for Moderate Islam,” I mistakenly assume the existence of a single ethnic essence for all Muslim people. But I’m not talking about people’s ethnic or personal traits and their supposed essence; I’m talking about Islam and its essence and what it commands its followers to do. His discussion trivializes the issue.

You share his trivializing view when you introduce his letter this way:

“Does Islam make its adherents violent? My man in Istanbul writes that’s he’s unimpressed by another author’s arguments that Muslims are inherently prickly and violent.”

I’ve never said Muslims are inherently prickly and violent. I don’t discuss Muslims’ characteristics at all. I discuss Islam, which is inherently violent, warlike, aiming at global conquest and sharia. As long as Muslims remain Muslims, even if they are not personally devout and followers of Jihad, they remain always liable to return to a genuine version of the faith, and then they will be supporters of jihad violence.

Moreover, as long as one is a Muslim, one cannot renounce such things as the death sentence pronounced on apostates, or the command to kill infidels. These are the final and absolute command of Allah. Your correspondent says that he and his family are not personally violent. But the point is that they cannot separate themselves from the terrorists who are their fellow believers, because those terrorists are good Muslims. This solidarity is what makes Islam, in radio host Michael Graham’s immortal words, “a terrorist organization.”

Finally, I would note that the way you mischaracterized my views (“Muslims are inherently prickly”) is a good example of the limitations of the biodiversity approach to social and political problems. The issue, as I’ve said, is not people’s traits, it’s Islam, as stated in the Koran, the biographies of Muhammad, the Traditions, and the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence of the early Middle Ages which are the source of sharia and are still authoritative today. To understand the real nature of Islam and the threat it poses to the world, it’s necessary to put biodiversity aside for a while and look at the teachings of Islam.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 14, 2005 07:05 PM | Send