Shireen Qudosi’s essay Response to France Ends Questions
on Islamism[1]
in the Clarion Project is a near-faultless assessment of the cause of recent
events in Europe, but one phrase jarred – “Islamism is a distortion of the
Islamic faith”. I would question this on the basis of Islam’s doctrine of
naskh, abrogation. This raises a paradox of great significance to
the West, the consequences of which are far-reaching.
Abrogation has its origin in chapter 2 verse 106 of
the Koran - “Whatever a Verse do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We
bring a better one or similar to it.” The cause of this was a crisis
of faith in 622AD at the time of the hijra, Muhammad's move from Mecca
to Medina where he became a political and military leader. Explanations
for this verse being brought into being can be found on the Islamic Studies
website[2],
Raymond Ibrahim’s Islam’s Doctrines of Deception[3],
and Mark Durie’s The Qur’an’s Turn to Violence[4],
each of which gives a particular perspective of this most important
concept. As Dr Durie points out, the change of tactic, “it was not you,
but it was Allah Who killed them”[5],
was very successful, and its legacy persists with Islamists today.
Given Islam’s essentialism[6],
the doctrine of al-naskh wa al-mansukh (the abrogating and the
abrogated) would appear to favour Islamists as the true interpreters of Islam
and the Koran. Needless to say this has serious repercussions for the
West. Attempts to express either a ‘Meccan’ or a Western form of Islam as
the true faith can be shown to founder, as responses to Dr Zuhdi Jasser’s
attempts to foster a moderate form of Islam show[7].
To fundamentalists this is blasphemy and apostasy. Moderate Muslims are
abundant but they cannot drive changes to the agenda and call it Islam, which
has been successful for 1,400 years by resisting change. Islam’s forces
of hegemony such as CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood have no reason at all to
modify the process, merely to refine it in tune with the times. The
evident success of Islam’s doctrines of violence and deception, and the active
support of the Left, require Islam to remain precisely as it is.
There is a much deeper problem that lies within the
phrase “Islamism is a distortion of the Islamic faith”. It has become
popular to vilify those who use violence to achieve Islam’s aims, but in doing
so it opens the way for fundamentalist groups who eschew violence but have the
identical goal, that of bringing the entire world into submission to the will
of Allah. This is well-outlined by Elham Manea in The Perils of
Nonviolent Islamism[8]. It is a dangerous and digressive discourse
which furthers the aims of Islam, which by all civilisational standards fails
the citizens of its nations. France’s struggle with Islam is a harbinger
of the fate of all Western countries.
The problem is Islam.
[1] https://clarionproject.org/response-to-attacks-in-france-ends-questions-on-islamism/
[2] https://www.islamicstudies.info/tafheem.php?sura=2&verse=106&to=107
[3] https://www.islamicstudies.info/tafheem.php?sura=2&verse=106&to=107
[4] https://markdurie.com/the-qurans-turn-to-violence/
[5] https://www.islamicstudies.info/tafheem.php?sura=8&verse=11&to=19
[6] “This ummah [nation] of mine will split into seventy-three sects; one will be in paradise and seventy-two will be in hell.” When asked which sect was the true one, the prophet replied, “al-jama‘a,” that is, the group which most literally follows the example or “sunna” of Muhammad, a thing not so simple to do." Al-Bukhaari nos.71, 3641 no.1920
[7] https://thefederalist.com/2017/01/30/muslim-reformer-speaks-battle-islamism-pc/
[8] http://www.telospress.com/store/The-Perils-of-Nonviolent-Islamism-paperback-p254990694
