I used to wonder if the Dalai Lama was deliberately trying to pretend that the real Islam was all those nice things — peaceful, tolerant — he claimed, in the hope that if enough Muslims heard this repeated by enough Infidels, it would change their behavior; Muslims pleased to hear themselves described as such would then begin to behave so as to fit the description. Well, it didn’t happen, and Muslim violence, including terrorism, against non-Muslims has only increased pari passu with the descriptions of Islam in the West as peaceful and tolerant. There is nothing that the Dalai Lama, or Pope Francis, can say that will change Muslim beliefs and behavior. But their pronouncements do real damage to those in the West who are confused about Islam, have a need to know about it (their lives may depend on it), trust them as spiritual leaders, and accept on faith their wildly misleading characterizations of Islam.
The Dalai Lama has not given any evidence of having read the Qur’an and Hadith, for he has failed to grasp the essence of Islam as a text-centered faith. If he has not read those texts, that bespeaks one kind of unintelligence. If he has read those texts, but still failed to comprehend their meaning, and instead has taken at face value the assurances of taqiyya-masters as to what Islam teaches, then he demonstrates another kind of unintelligence. If he thinks it makes sense to ignore 1,400 years of Islamic history, that is still a third kind of unintelligence.
To sum up: the Dalai Lama continues to assert that Islam is a peaceful and tolerant faith, and that therefore, there is no such thing as a “Muslim terrorist,” because anyone who engages in terrorism cannot be a true Muslim.
In order to arrive at this bizarre view, the Dalai Lama has had to ignore a great deal, including:
1. 1,400 years of Islamic history, and of the Jihads waged in many different lands and against many different peoples, that took Islam from being the faith of a few dozen people in dusty 7th-century Mecca to becoming the faith of 1.6 billion people across the globe. In India alone, 70-80 million Hindus were killed in Jihads.
2. The more than 109 verses in the Qur’an that command Believers to wage violent Jihad against the Infidels. Among them are these: “And kill them [the Infidels] wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah is worse than killing” (2:191); “They wish that you reject Faith, as they have rejected (Faith), and thus that you all become equal. So take not Auliya’ (protectors or friends) from them, till they emigrate in the Way of Allah. But if they turn back (from Islam), take (hold) of them and kill them wherever you find them, and take neither Auliya’ (protectors or friends) nor helpers from them” (4:89); “Then when the Sacred Months have passed, then kill the Mushrikun wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush.” (9:5). There are more than 100 other verses similar in their violence. How did the Dalai Lama manage to miss them all?
3. Verses in the Qur’an that call specifically for “striking terror” in the hearts of the enemy, such as “Your Lord inspired the angels: I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them over the necks, and smite over all their fingers and toes…” (3:151) or that call for extreme violence, as “So, when you meet those who disbelieve, smite at their necks till when you have killed and wounded many of them, then bind a bond firmly.” (47:4)
4. Many passages in the Hadith, in which we learn that Muhammad took part in 27 military campaigns, helped in decapitating 600-900 prisoners of the Banu Qurayza, ordered the torture and killing of Kinana of Khaybar, and learned with satisfaction of the killing of several people who mocked him.
5. Muhammad declaring in the Hadith that “war is deceit.”
6. Muhammad declaring in one of his most famous Hadith that “I have been made victorious through terror.”
These are only a few of the passages that the Dalai Lama seemingly is unfamiliar with. Did he know of them before? What does he make of them now? And if he did know of them, why did he think it was right for him to ignore them? If he leaves out so much of significance that is found in the Islamic texts, why should anyone trust his version — sanitized beyond belief — of Islam? And how can he remain so ignorant of the history even of his own faith, Buddhism, and how it fared when the Muslims arrived and conquered India?
jihadwatch.org |
