Islam as a belief-system contains both the rituals of individual worship and aspects that comprise a geopolitical program of conquest of non-Muslim lands and the subjugation of non-Muslims. The rituals of individual worship include the Five Pillars: the shahada (Profession of Faith), the zakat (required charity not to fellow men but only to fellow Muslims), the salat (the five daily canonical prayers), Ramadan (the month-long abstention from eating during the day), and the hajj. Save for the last, which does have some frightening aspects as an expression, by representatives from all over the umma al-islamiyya, of Muslim solidarity and hostility to non-Muslims, the Five Pillars are largely unthreatening. And that is why they form virtually the only aspect of Muslim belief and practice to which we are directed by the small army of apologists abroad in the land. Similarly effective are appeals to an utterly false solidarity among the three monotheistic faiths: "we are all monotheists"; "we are all People of the Book." If they are truly believing Muslims, they represent a permanent threat to the well-being, beliefs, and entire way of life of non-Muslims. That, too, is made clear by a reading of Onward Muslim Soldiers.

Both conversion of Infidel peoples and the much higher Muslim birthrate lead inexorably to gradual takeover of non-Muslim lands from within, where outright military conquest would be impossible.

Spencer is unfoolable and unflappable. He shows how Qur'an and hadith, embodied in the shari'a, or Law of Islam, have always promoted the Jihad against all non-Muslims. Jihad is not an invention of a "handful of extremists"; it does not date from the twentieth but from the seventh or eighth centuries. He shows how once conquered, subjugated non-Muslims become dhimmi (from ahl al-dhimma, or "people of the pact") -- a misleading word translated as "a member of the 'protected people.'" They are protected, of course, from the Muslims themselves, who otherwise would kill, or forcibly and immediately convert, these "protected peoples." Spencer shows that Jihad and dhimmitude work together, first to conquer, then to consolidate the hold of the Muslim conquerors over initially far larger populations of conquered non-Muslims. Islamic doctrine is used to explain and justify the oppression of the conquerors, even to make it palatable to those conquered by offering them an ideology (a religion) which contains bits and pieces of the pre-existing religions of those conquered -- both of Western religions, Christianity and Judaism, and those of Persia, Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism.

The status of dhimmi is linked to Jihad, for it follows immediately upon the initial successful conquest. It imposes a status of permanent humiliation, degradation, and insecurity (witness the massacres and forcible mass conversions of "protected peoples" throughout Muslim history, despite their supposed "protected" status). The host of financial, legal, economic, political, religious, and social disabilities inevitably led to the slow asphyxiation of non-Muslim communities, which became "islamized" as non-Muslims, and then, under intolerable pressure, gradually succumbed to Islam and, in most cases (Persia being the great exception), became "arabized" as well, in language, customs, and even in entirely fictitious Arab lineages created and adopted by non-Arabs (all those "Sayeeds" in Pakistan).

Spencer understands the importance of ideas. The tenets of Islam, few and simple in nature, are based on an updated version of Manichaeism: a division of the world not between Good and Evil, but between Muslim and non-Muslim. There must ultimately be the conquest, and then subjugation, of the latter by the former. This is natural, right, and in accordance with the will of Allah. No other outcome is possible, however long it takes. Such a result may be furthered by what we call terrorism. It may be furthered through traditional military combat, or qital. It may be furthered by the use of "wealth" -- that is, economic warfare, involving boycotts and bribery (chiefly of diplomats, journalists, and assorted fixers). It may involve propaganda (the virtual takeover of the UN and its subsidiary organizations by Islamic forces, expressed most obviously in the permanent kangaroo courtroom, with Israel perennially in the dock, of the General Assembly).

Finally, there is the latest, and most potent weapon of Jihad -- that of demography. It is discussed openly in the Muslim world as a weapon of Jihad. Only in dar al-Harb itself is the subject strictly forbidden from being raised: it might offend Muslims. The mass movement of Muslims to the dar al-Harb, where their presence, under Infidel rule, is ordinarily forbidden under Islam, is now justified by Muslim theologians, who see it as promoting Islam. Both conversion of Infidel peoples and the much higher Muslim birthrate lead inexorably to gradual takeover of non-Muslim lands from within, where outright military conquest would be impossible. It is a strategy that is succeeding, The failure of so many to defend their own civilization properly is an example of base ingratitude to the tens of thousands of thinkers who created that civilization, and who would not have been tolerated for one minute under Islam.

Many lives and many dollars might be saved if a sufficient number of people throughout the Infidel world were to read, understand and thoroughly assimilate On-

Outpost               - 4 -               January 2004