Excerpts of his comments on a new book about Islam presented as an endorsement of the author's statements are cited below. The errors noted are quite distressing.
Another round at EO:
Gordon,
I find myself splitting a few differences, though. While for instance Amill is dead right that the Quran says what it says, the fact is that a lot of people are better than that.If by this you are implying that I do not think "a lot of people are better than that," that would be a misrepresentation of what I've written. I have been making the point that if a god commands something, you should not be surprised when its people actually do that.
The Koran invites Muslims to give their lives in exchange for assurances of paradise. The Hadith (accounts of Muhammad's actions and personal statements) elaborate on the Koran . . . Muslim jurisprudents then wove these precepts into a body of law.Actually, Qur'an commands Muslims to fight against, subdue and humiliate, and kill the Infidel. The assurances of paradise (with its virgins and boys like pearls) are given to them.
Islamist new thinking began in Egypt and India in the 1920s but jihad acquired its contemporary quality of radical offensive warfare only with the Egyptian thinker Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966). Qutb developed Ibn Taymiya's distinction between true and false Muslims to deem non-Islamists to be non-Muslims and then declare jihad on them.In light of Pipes' statements regarding the history of Jihad, Islam's "new" thinking is not new, but a revival of original, Qur'anic Islam. Neither was the "contemporary quality of radical offensive warfare" new. It was a return to Mohammed's Islam:
...the prophet engaged in an average of nine military campaigns a year......jihad help[ed] define Islam from its very dawn.Conquering and humiliating non-Muslims was a main feature of the prophet's jihad.During the first several centuries of Islam, "the interpretation of jihad was unabashedly aggressive and expansive."If Allah commands offensive warfare against the Infidel to make the world Islam, and if Mohammed is considered the "ideal man" and carried out vigorously such commands, what can you reasonably expect from those who follow him? Who is more a "true Muslim" than Mohammed?
The group that assassinated Anwar El-Sadat in 1981 then added the idea of jihad as the path to world domination.Actually, that was Allah's idea.
...for the first time, jihadis assembled from around the world to fight on behalf of Islam....global jihad...[was given] an unheard-of central role, judging each Muslim exclusively by his contribution to jihad, and making jihad the salvation of Muslims and Islam.And so was that. And it wasn't the first time Muslims "assembled [for a] global jihad."
And neither was this the first time a man was judged by his contribution to Jihad, since Allah had stated centuries earlier:
"O ye who believe! what is the matter with you, that, when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling heavily to the earth? Do ye prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the Hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For Allah hath power over all things" (Qur'an 9:38, 39).By accurately describing the centrality of violent Jihad in the life of Mohammed and the birth and growth of Islam, Pipes/Cook contradict their claim that the current Global Jihad is something new.
The current understanding of jihad is more extreme than at any prior time in Islamic history.How can this be in light of Islam's early history cited above?
This extremism suggests that the Muslim world is going through a phase, one that must be endured and overcome, comparable to analogously horrid periods in Germany, Russia, and China.Again, from the early history cited above, it doesn't sound like a "phase" as much as it does a resurgence.
Jihad having evolved steadily until now, doubtless will continue to do so in the future.As long as one person believes Qur'an to be the perfect word of Allah, it seems reasonable to conclude Jihad will continue, not its evolution.
The excessive form of jihad currently practiced by Al-Qaeda and others could, Mr. Cook semi-predicts, lead to its "decisive rejection" by a majority of Muslims. Jihad then could turn into a non-violent concept."Excessive"? What is moderate about Islam's "holy" texts and early history cited above? The only thing "excessive" about the current Jihad is that instead of swords, the faithful now have IED, RPG, and WMD in their arsenal.
This "semi-prediction" sounds like a fearful Infidel's wishful thinking, since in 1400 years, violent Jihad has not become non-violent. It has only rested, retooled, reloaded, and returned (to our knowledge; Jihad, Shari'a, and Dhimma have never left the daily lives of non-Muslims in Africa, Asia, and eastern Europe).
The great challenge for moderate Muslims (and their non-Muslim allies) is to make that rejection come about, and with due haste.In light of Allah's clear commands and Mohammed's example, how can this possibly occur?
In short, there may indeed be resources for an inner reformation of Islam towards a more tolerant attitude.How can one contradict Allah and his apostle and still be considered Muslim? The only chance for a change will be the mass rejection of Allah as a false god.