"This is the Arab Maghreb as of now:"
This Unification is about 40 years old and of itself is not ominous, no more than the "United States" is ominous; but taken together with Imperialistic Totalitarianism which lies outside of worldly censure...that is another story.
The essence of Islam was created to tie a cultural/ideological group together and to justify their acquisition of power. In this regard it was not unlike most religions. But Islam had a peculiar brilliance (or luck) in that it allowed Christians and Jews to "practice" their religion if they agreed to be conquered and to live as serfs. Free thinkers, however, were to be exterminated.
The evil of polytheism is so great that it merits death even in the most "even-handed" aproach.
"It is inconceivable that those billion Muslims will be converted to anything else in any reasonable period of time."
There are many groups attempting to soften or talk out the nasties in the Koran. However, if you believe that the main basis for unswerving adherence to a religion of extreme prejudice relates to the culture or self interest of the originators of the religion, then you recognize that cultural and economic imperialism will find no benefit in ignoring hundreds of verses for a few which give them nothing whatsoever.
The thousands who have escaped Islam will tell you that the tolerance approach of "it is only the "Fundamentalists" simply misses what the fundamental essence of Islam is. Fundamentalism is the core, and it is always based on actual scripture.
Other older religions have been tamed and have been separated from political and judicial power. Islam is younger and structured in a different manner. It defines itself as a Society of Believers...not merely a Faith. It seeks to expand and to control...not merely by attraction...but as we used to do before a Constitution civilized us.
So what do we do? IMO, we should extoll the value of human rights and demonstrate by example. We should continue to honor freedom of religion but where another uses religious justification to threaten a friend or ally we should act to prevent harm.
Unfortunately you cannot reason with the Israelis or the Arabs when it come to "Holy ground" because each believes, or pretends to believe, that there is a big guy who loves them only, and not the other guy...and who gets a kick out of watching them fight it out.
One thing America ought to do is never stop research and development for military applications. Never be complacent. On the other hand, never stop adhering to your Constitution. In that case, the whole world loses.
Those people burning the flags and the effigies and bringing up their children to struggle against you for ultimate glory of Allah are not just pretending to hate you. They might be pretending to tolerate you sometimes...but they are never pretending to hate you.
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"So now we realize the two views of the Islamic researchers to be quite close. One group argues that tawhid pertains to the universal rights of humanity and as it is undeniably legitimate to defend the rights of humanity, so it is legitimate to defend tawhid and fight against others for its sake. The other group claims that there is absolutely no legitimate way that tawhid can be defended, and, if a nation is polytheistic, we are not permitted to fight it on that account. Now, the proximity of both views lies in the fact that, even if we consider tawhid to be a human right, still we cannot fight another nation to impose the belief in tawhid upon them, for as we have seen, by the very nature of its essence, tawhid is not something that can be imposed. There is another point also, namely, that if we reckon tawhid as a right of humanity, and if we see that it is in the best interests of humanity and if tawhid demands, then it is possible for us to fight a nation of polytheists, but not to impose tawhid and faith upon it for we know that tawhid and faith cannot be imposed.
We can however fight the polytheists in order to uproot evil from that society. Ridding a society of evil, polytheistic beliefs is one thing, while imposing the belief of tawhid is another.
According to the view of those who consider tawhid to be pertaining to the rights of the individual or at most to the rights of a nation, this is not permissible. The predominant line of thought in the West, which has also penetrated the ranks of us Muslims, is exactly this.
Such issues as tawhid are regarded by the Europeans as personal issues and not at all important to life; more or less as custom from which each nation has the right to choose. On this basis, it is held that even for the sake of uprooting evil, no one has the right to combat polytheism, because polytheism is not iniquity, and tawhid is a purely personal issue.
If, on the other hand, we consider tawhid to be a universal issue, one pertaining to the rights of humanity and one of the conditions for humanity's general welfare and prosperity, then we see it as permissible to commence war with the mushrikin for the sake of the demands and defense of tawhid and in order to uproot corruption, even though war for the sake of imposing the tawhidic(5) belief is not permissible. |
