Islam: Religion of Peace?: The Violation of Natural Rights and Western Cover-Up

By Mario Alexis Portella

Eight hundred years ago, St. Francis of Assisi embarked on a mission to the port city of Damietta, Egypt, to try and convert Sultan al-Kamil to Christianity. While this did not come to fruition, both the sultan and the saint were able to have a peaceful dialogue and establish a mutual respect that is absent from the present-day polemics of Islam.

While many today hold that those who seek to create a universal caliphate through acts of terror in the name of Islam falsely represent their religion, they ignore the original Islamic texts that inspire these perpetrators. The Islamization of our society, however, does not just come from avowed terrorists but from various Islamic scholars and activists seeking to impose sharia law. As a result of the West disavowing its Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian roots, government officials have catered to such injustices since they consider the petrodollar more valuable than the victims of violence. Consequently, they have capitulated our rights of free speech and religion to the point of classifying anyone who questions Islamists’ intentions as an Islamophobe. Islam: Religion of Peace? places Islam in its historical and sociopolitical contexts in order to better understand what has bred the Islamic threat facing today’s society, as well as how many of our political and church leaders have failed to address the problem, thereby creating more instability between both Muslims and non-Muslims. Author Mario Alexis Portella also proposes solutions whereby both peoples may enter into a meaningful discourse and establish harmony.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Sep 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973635543

Mario Alexis Portella

Mario Alexis Portella is a priest of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and chancellor of the Archdiocese of Florence, Italy. He has a doctorate in canon law and civil law from the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. He is the author of Ethiopian and Eritrean Monasticism—The Spiritual and Cultural Heritage of Two Nations, and he is a columnist for the monthly online journal Il Mantello della Giustizia.

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 Mario Alexis Portella.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Scriptures: Holy Bible. New York: Catholic Book Publishing Company, 1957.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-3555-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-3554-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018909144

WestBow Press rev. date: 09/25/2018

Contents

Author’s Note

Foreword

Introduction

Part 1: The Historical and Sociopolitical Beginnings of Islam

Chapter 1. The Birth of Islam and the Evolution of Its Sociopolitical Structure

Defining Islam

Historical Beginnings

The Capture of Mecca and Islamic Solidarity

The Early Islamic Body Politic and the New Chosen People

Islamic Sovereignty in Contrast to Judaism and Christianity

The Sunni-Shi’ite Division

The Shi’ites and the Imamate Governance

The Alawite Shi’ites

The Sunnis and the Caliphate

Religious-Political Differences

Sufism

Chapter 2. The Composition of the Juridical Sources

Primary Juridical Sources

The Quran: Its Compilation and Questioning Its Infallibility

The Sunni Hadith (The Sunna)

The Shi’ite Hadith

The Sira

Juridical Methods

The Igma

The Fiqh

The Qiyas

Chapter 3. Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence and the Forging of the Sharia

The Qaddi and the Development of the Sharia

Interpretation or Fabrication of Law: The Prohibition of Alcohol

The Contribution of Sunni Jurisprudence

The Caliph as Religious and Political Leader

The Contribution of Shi’ite Political Thought

Present-Day Islamic Jurisprudence

Sunni Jurisprudence (Saudi Arabia)

Shi’ite Jurisprudence (Iran)

Part 2: Sharia Doctrine and the Violation of Natural Rights

Chapter 4. Natural Law and the Sharia and Islam’s Inability to Foster Human Rights

The Natural Law: The Law of God and Natural Rights

The Difference between Natural Rights and Human Rights in the West

The Notion of Islamic Natural Law

The Islamic God in Contrast to the Judaic and Triune God: The Basis of Islamic Natural Law and the Sharia

The Sharia as Rule of Law, and Islam’s Inability to Foster Natural Rights

Chapter 5. The Sharia and the Institution of the Family: Islam’s Failure to Protect the Defenseless

The Family Structured by the Sharia

Sharia Marriage: The Inequality of Women and Sexual Exploitation

The Depravity of Child-Marriages

Bacha Bazi and the Sexual Slavery of Boys

Slavery in Islam Today

Chapter 6. The Dilemma of Religious Liberty and the Doctrine of Jihad

Religious Freedom under Islamic Law

The Doctrine of Dawa

Jihadist Doctrine

Quranic Etymology

The Prohibition of Killing Innocent People: A Misconception

The Impetus of Holy War and Martyrdom

Jihad in Shi’ism

Dealing with Kafirs and the Institution of the Dhimmitude

Jihad and the Christian Crusades

Part 3: The Islamic Body Politic in Present-Day Society

Chapter 7. Present-Day Jihad and Western Involvement

Erdogan’s Western-Backed Jihad

The Armenian Genocide: Historical Denial and the New Turkish Jihad

Western Sparking of Jihad and Global Interests

The Iranian Revolution of 1979

The Soviet-Afghan War

The Second Gulf War, the Syrian Conflict, and ISIS

Nigeria and the Silent Jihad

Qatari Involvement in Sponsoring Jihad

The Saudi Arabian Influence of Wahhabism and Jihad

Trump’s War on Islamic Extremism: Failing to Address the Real Enemy

Trump’s Islamic Paradox

The Role of the Catholic Church in the Islamic World

Chapter 8. Islamic Infiltration and Its Propagation

The Instrument of Immigration and Multiplication of the Progeny

The Insurgence of CAIR and other Islamic Groups

The Asset of Political Diversion and Political Correctness

The Mosque and Its Role in Jihadist Indoctrination

Chapter 9. Islamism and the Islamization of Society

The Appeal for Political Islam

Political Islam in a Democratic System

The Muslim Brotherhood and the Rise of Islamism

The OIC: Islamization and Abdication of Democratic Principles

Promoting a Moderate Islam: A Religion of Peace?

The Prophet Muhammad and the Challenge in Promoting a Moderate Islam

Conclusion

Endnotes

To my beloved mother, who taught me, and still continues to teach me, to live in a Christian manner.

These are times that try men’s souls

— Thomas Paine

Author’s Note

I would like to first and foremost express my gratitude to the Reverend Father Samir Khalil Samir, S.J., former professor at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, for his profound and in-depth contribution to the study of Islam, as well as to the Reverend Martin Dulchev, who in like manner assisted me in structuring the philosophical aspects of the natural law and clarifying certain Islamic anthropological and doctrinal points.

I would equally like to thank some devoted friends whose contributions are irreplaceable, including the Very Reverend Father Antoine Abboud Dit Salouti, O.A.M., J.C.D., former classmate at the Pontifical Lateran University. He not only provided the exegetical Arabic translations from the original Islamic texts, in addition to present-day legal documents, but also helped put them into historical and cultural perspective. Brother Geoffrey Clement, O.S.F., Ph.D., adjunct professor at St. Francis College (New York), and Donald Francis offered their much-needed critique and editorial expertise, which made the final composition of my manuscript possible.

Whenever I cite the Quran, I refer to the original Arabic publication, 442245.png (Beirut: Dar el Maria, Rabi Al-Akhar 1434, [2013]). In like manner, I refer to https://muflihun.com for the hadiths translated in English, unless otherwise noted. Whenever I cite the Sira: Ibn Ishaq, 208, I refer to the page number as presented in Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ishāq’s Sīrat Rasūl Allāh (13th ed., trans. Alfred Guillaume, Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1982). To ensure the authenticity of Guillaume’s translation, I referred to the Arabic publication,

442247.png

(Sirat Rasul Allah, Beirut: El Fikr, 1978).

Ordinary transliterations from the Arabic language have for the most part been adopted in order to provide the English-speaking reader with the easiest possible phonetic reconstruction. Nevertheless, there are some inconsistencies in the transliterations of individual names, e.g., Aisha and ‘Aisha, which have been retained in quotations and notations. In like manner, I have adapted Old English terms, such as replacing thou with you. In regard to the Quran, I have modified the universally recognizable names of each sura (chapter); for example, Sura Al-’Anfāl is Sura 8. Islamic dating has been adapted to the Gregorian calendar: Year of the Hijra = AD 622.

I would like to thank WestBow Press for publishing this book. I would equally wish to express my gratitude to Phillip and Fiona Kingston, Richard and Francesca Pithouse, Thad Pryor, and Shein-lin Garrett whose generosity made the publication of my work a reality.

While this book is a development from my doctoral dissertation The Dilemma of Global Order and the Islamization of the West: Within the Teachings of Benedict XVI (2016) at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome (also known as the Pope’s University), it is not sponsored by the institution.

Foreword

The Necessity of a Revolution in Islam

There are many prominent individuals today who hold that Islam is a religion of peace. This, of course, is sustained by the Muslims who seek to promote harmony. The paradox is that while there are many passages in the Quran that speak of goodness and clemency, there are also verses calling for violence, presenting Muhammad as a military figure as opposed to a prophet. Islamic scholars and imams can pick and choose whatever verse is convenient to them, at times directed to ad hoc situations; fundamental and literal interpretations often materialize in despotic teachings. This has regrettably made Islam into a global political and military project, as opposed to a simple religion.

On December 28, 2014, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi attempted to confront teachings that incite violence and the violation of human rights when he addressed the members of the al-Azhar University in Cairo. The institution is the oldest and most prestigious Sunni university for Islamic learning; its influential teaching forms over one thousand imams per year coming from 106 countries.

The Egyptian leader called for a religious revolution against current movements, for example, the Salafi and Wahhabi, who proliferate teachings promoting the subservience of women based on codified customs found in the Sunna: Sahih-Bukhari and Sahi Muslim, to name a couple. These, and other similar tenets, have created a division within Islam; imams are continually formed in these archaic traditions and then sent into the world to indoctrinate others. In his effort to fight the destruction of society as a result of the Islamic doctrines, el-Sisi called for a rethinking of Islam, which incorporates a re-interpretation of the Quran:

All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective. I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move … because this umma [the community] is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands."¹

While many Muslim intellectuals applauded the Egyptian leader’s proposition, al-Azhar’s grand imam and former president, Ahmed el-Tayeb, opposed it. He and his colleagues upheld a thousand-year position that since the Quran was sent down by Allah, there is no possibility of any historical interpretation of it, not even for those aspects that are incontestably related to the customs of a particular historical time and culture. Consequently, any effort by the Egyptian state to provide and promote human rights in Islam continues to be blocked. Instead, outdated practices persist, such as allowing a man to divorce his wife by saying, You are rebuked, three times in front of two male witnesses.

Necessity of Eliminating the Death Penalty

In February 2017, a similar situation occurred in the Kingdom of Morocco, when King Muhammad VI pushed his government to eliminate the death penalty for the crime of apostasy. While various online journals reported that capital punishment for those Muslims who convert to another religion had been abolished by the Higher Council of Ulema of Morocco, the sanction in force was retained.

Part of the tragedy in the Islamic world is that it is embedded in sharia law, the guide to Muslim daily living, which is founded on the sayings of Muhammad (hadiths); doctors of the law (fuqahā’) use these sayings to exercise a quasi-absolute authority over the Muslim faithful. Authorization for rigid punishment in Islamic countries, such as capital punishment for Muslims who cease to observe Islam or convert to another religion, is based on the hadith from Sahih al-Bukhari, in which the Prophet of Islam stated, Whoever changes his [Islamic] religion, then kill him.

The Ulema in Morocco knows that this norm goes against Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which includes the right to change … religion or belief. In order not to contradict this article, the Prophet’s statement is now understood to mean whoever abandons the umma should be put to death.

The term umma, the Ulema explained, is pertinent to the time of Muhammad and is to be understood within the context of two nations that are at war with each other; the problem of apostasy was, therefore, a political one. To abandon Muhammad’s company and pass onto the enemy camp was a betrayal. Therefore, it was justifiable that whoever left his community and sided with its adversary should face death. Today, the umma refers to a group of Muslims, and consequently, whoever abandons his confreres (the group) is to be punished.

Islam: Religion of Peace? discusses some of these violations of human rights based on Islamic texts and points out how Western nations cater to such injustices, since they consider the petrodollar more valuable than the victims of violence and other abuses. As can be perceived, the fruition of economic profit becomes a collective double-standard on the part of politicians, who condemn terrorists but continue to do business with those who shelter them. This is something the international community must address.

Necessity for Reinterpretation of the Quran

If the Muslim world follows up on el-Sisi’s call for a reinterpretation of the Quran, then perhaps there can be a halt to the literal and fundamental teaching of the law by Islamic clerics. This is something that Christianity can offer. Jesus in the Gospels did not apply the literal interpretation of the Mosaic law when the Jews criticized Him for healing people on the Sabbath. And He said to them, ‘Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good, or to do evil? To save a life, or to destroy it?’ But they kept silent (Matthew 3:4). It is not that Jesus was opposed to the Sabbath, but He makes us rethink its purpose.

Similarly, it is not a question of how many steps we can take (or not take) during the Lord’s day. Rather, it is to permit us to repose on that day, with the ultimate purpose of rendering homage to God. Another example of how Jesus reinterpreted the law can be seen when the Pharisees brought an adulteress to Him and requested that she be stoned, as taught by the law of Moses. To this, He responded, Let him, who is without sin among you, be the first to cast a stone at her (John 8, 7). It presupposes a spiritual reading of the law, and this is what is lacking today in the Islamic world.

Islam as a Global Project

As Mario Alexis Portella points out, Islam is a global project; there are rules on what to eat, how women should dress, how many wives a man can have, and so on. For Muslims, their religion, as dictated by the sharia, regulates every aspect of their lives according to norms established fourteen hundred years ago. This is impossible. How can a man, for example be allowed to marry up to four women? And if he wishes a fifth one, he simply repudiates one of the four he likes the least and marries the new one. We see this in Muhammad’s multiple marriages, including ‘Aisha, who was nine years of age when her marriage was consummated.

Such practices can no longer be a model to observe. But because, according to the texts, such acts were practiced by Muhammad and are defined as good, then we have a problem. There must be a new ethic for today, but the imams are not united in this. In fact, they continue to sustain archaic traditions that are, in essence, a codification of Bedouin tribal conduct.

While there has not been any apparent progress in reforming Islam, the very fact that capital punishment for apostasy in Morocco was discussed is a positive sign. In light of el-Sisi’s call to restudy the Islamic books, perhaps something positive can flourish from such efforts. It is my hope that this book can be of service in explaining not just the physiognomy of Islam but where the West, in particular, has failed; I also hope it can inspire the reader to help find a concrete and lasting solution to the violation of natural rights in the Islamic world.

Fr. Samir Khalil Samir, S.J.

Introduction

In the summer of 2008, I volunteered to do some pastoral work at the Church of the Sacred Heart, in Manama, the Kingdom of Bahrain: the only Catholic parish in the small 295-square-mile island. One day while visiting some of the parishioners in hospital, I was stopped by a Muslim (I was dressed in my cassock), who asked if I would not mind paying a visit to his sick child and praying for him. He told me, I know that you are a Christian priest, but as a religious man, you can ask God to help my child. I complied, and afterward, the father emotionally thanked me. Not having a great knowledge about Islam at that time, I was unable to connect the dots to the stereotype perception of Muslims as presented in the West, especially after the 9/11 tragedies until I extended my hand to shake his, as well as his wife’s and realized only he shook my hand while she sat in silence.

Many today mistakenly see Islam as an abstract religion that is followed by 1.8 billion devotees (approximately 24 percent of the global population).² That may be the case with Buddhists or Hindus, who do not have an organized and unifying structure to govern them, let alone an objective doctrinal point of unity. To the curious eye, Islam, which means submission, may seem as a mere assent of the individual Muslim to God expressed at times in a most simple cult, while others tend to see it as a set of norms presented by Muhammad Ibn Abdullah Ibn Abdul Mutallib, historically known as the Prophet Muhammad, fourteen hundred years ago, that have been misplaced or misrepresented by so-called extremists. Many also think that in order to understand the nature of Islam, one only has to read the Quran or go on Wikipedia. Islam, however, is much more extensive and complex than meets the eye.

Muslims argue that theirs is the only religion worthy of existing, unlike Judaism, which is an earthly religion, and Christianity, which is heavenly and abstract but at the same time beyond the capacity for any human to observe. Yet at its outset, Islam incorporated elements from both, thereby forming what Muslims hold to be a religion of moderation and reason. In truth, many Islamic tenets are not rational at all, such as the claim that the Quran descended from heaven or that Muhammad is God’s (final) prophet; they require an ascent of faith. It was by dint of repeating them over the centuries that they were accepted by its adherents. Consequently, people who do not share this conviction are categorized as nonbelievers. And although they are not entitled to citizenship in the Arabic umma, they are still subject to Allah’s jurisdiction.³

Islamic terrorists and their supporters who try to enforce the Islamic mandate of a global caliphate claim that they are simply complying with what the Prophet taught. This is sustained by "Islamic jurisprudence which teaches that when a non-Muslim force enters a Muslim land, defensive jihad becomes the individual obligation of every Muslim (fard ayn), rather than a collective obligation of the entire umma, and need not be declared by anyone."⁴ And since the land to which Muslims have migrated becomes their own, to say nothing of their defensive position before the globalized West in their native homeland, terrorism is rationalized under fard ayn in order to keep society pure.

This is a conflict that the United States has been engaged in just after its birth as a nation. In an effort to ransom the enslaved Americans captured by the Islamist Barbary pirates in Libya and establish peaceful relations, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams—then ambassadors to France and Britain respectively—met with Tripoli’s ambassador to England, Abdul Rahman Adja. Following this diplomatic exchange, they explained the source of the Barbary States’ hitherto inexplicable animosity in a letter to Congress:⁵

We took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the grounds of their [Barbary’s] pretentions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury and observed that we considered all mankind as our friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation. The amabassador answered us that it was founded on the laws of their Prophet, that it was in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Musselman [sic] who should die in battle was sure to go to Paradise.⁶

Avowed Islamist-backed jihadists invoke their tenets in order to justify their indiscriminate acts of violence, which leads one to believe that they are sanctioned by the Quran. Unlike the violence recorded in the Old Testament, which is limited to historical events, the Quran is more ambiguous than might be expected of a book from a god who claims to love his creation and forgive the sinner. Many contemporary Muslims exercise a personal choice to construe their sacred book’s appeal to the taking of arms and financing terrorism according to their own ideas. Islamic apologists have catered to these preferences with tenuous positions that camouflage historical fact, generally lacking any sort of profound scrutiny. This problem is not necessarily one of bad people but of bad ideology.⁷ In other words, the point of concern is not whether people are Persian, Egyptian, or Palestinian, but rather their indoctrination of the sharia, which justifies the use of violence and other human rights violations. As the General Secretary of the Nahdlatul Ulama Supreme Council, the world’s largest Muslim organization, Imam Yahya Cholil Staquf, stated: The problem lies within Islam itself.⁸

The Islamic faith, at the same time, parallels Judaism and Christianity in its external outlook on moral family issues, such as prohibiting abortion, limiting marriage to between men and women, and the procreation and proper formation of children. Equally as Jews and Christians, Muslims hold the institution of the family to be the foundation of human civilization. Unlike the secularized West, which retains that human rights, as declared by the United Nations in 1948, stem from the consensus of the people, [h]uman rights in Islam are firmly rooted in the belief that God, and God alone, is the Law Giver and the Source of all human rights.⁹ These are principles any devout Jew or Christian, or any nonaffiliated religious person, would recognize, since a society that excludes the reality that human rights come from our Creator becomes capricious; this, in fact, is what the American Founding Fathers professed with the Declaration of Independence. Ironically, this criterion has been at the substratum of the dichotomy between Islamic society and the West.

Samuel P. Huntington, in his The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996), expressed that a major cause of the conflict between Islam and the West lies in the fundamental question of power and culture, specifically in the former colonies in the Middle East and Africa.¹⁰ A fundamental reason for this disparity is that Western civilization, at least in theory, has a humanist outlook in which Christianity integrated Jewish wisdom, Greek philosophy, and Roman law, thereby providing Western culture its distinctive character: freedom of speech and of the press, separation of religion and state, freedom of religion and from religion, equal justice under law, the primacy of the individual, and property rights, among other values.¹¹ This is because society, specifically in the United States of America, has recognized and implemented the principle of equity—an element opposed by sharia law—into its body politic since, according to the natural law, all are endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable rights.¹²

A more propelling factor, however, of the division between both societies has been the West’s self-created moral vacuum where, as Russian President Vladimir Putin said in 2016, the moral basis and any traditional identity are being denied.¹³ The globalized politics of the West have berated the Christian roots that Western society was built upon. Consequential to this is the firm foothold Islam has gained in those countries since Muslims collectively react to such national, religious, cultural and even gender identities [that] are being denied or relativized.¹⁴ As a community, they refute Western politics [which] treats a family with many children as [juridically] equal to homosexual partnership [and where] faith in God [in their view] is equal to faith in Satan.¹⁵

Islamic society sees the globalized West as materialistic, corrupt, decadent, and immoral; its many seductions must be fought and eradicated.¹⁶ This is because Muslims profess that Islam gave to mankind an ideal code of human rights fourteen centuries ago,¹⁷ in which there is no qualm for any sort of reform or compromise. Islamists, in their expansionist agenda, have exploited this societal disorder as leverage so as to establish a civility governed under the sharia, simultaneously inciting the average Muslim into following their lead. They are the new propagators of Islamic fundamentalism, which is often characterized by moral conservatism, literalism, and the attempt to implement Islamic values in all spheres of life.¹⁸ Their crusade fosters a sociopolitical movement that has associated itself with community organizations and charities, thereby assuming bureaucratic positions in government and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) such as the United Nations.¹⁹

It should therefore be of no surprise that in June 1993, at the UN Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna, Islamic states, including those of the Middle East and Asia, criticized UN and Western policy for its double standards, its violation of sovereignty, its neglect of economic rights, its imposition of ‘Western’ values.²⁰ This denunciation, despite the fact that all Muslim states but Saudi Arabia had consented to the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR),²¹ is sustained by those who seek an Islamic world order. Since all humanity is confused because of different and conflicting beliefs and ideologies,²² it accordingly needs to be properly guided by Islamic jurisprudence to its proper end, which is submission to Allah’s will. This has generated a reformed Islamic social order, a restructuring of Islamic nationalism or an Islamism, which undermines our Western way of life.

Islamic world order, as explained by Imam Abul Ala Mawdudi Mawlana Sayid (1903–1979), founder of the largest Islamic organization in Asia, the Jamaat-e-Islami, is inherent to Islam:

Islam is not a normal religion like the other religions in the world, and Muslim nations are not like normal nations. Muslim nations are very special because they have a command from Allah to rule the entire world and to be over every nation in the world.… Islam is a revolutionary faith that comes to destroy any government made by man.… The goal of Islam is to rule the entire world and submit all of mankind to the faith of Islam.²³

This theocratic concept needs to be propelled, even if at times it requires a holy war (jihad). As the twenty-first-century British social and radical political activist Imam Anjem Choudary said,

You can’t say that Islam is a religion of peace because Islam does not mean peace. Islam … is submission. So the Muslim is the one who submits. There’s a place for violence in Islam. There is a place for jihad in Islam … jihad is the most talked about duty in the Quran after the tawhid [unity of God] – belief. Nothing else is mentioned more than the topic of fighting … this particular belief is more than just a religion. It’s not just a spiritual belief.²⁴

Both Mawdudi’s and Choudary’s words can be refuted on the basis that, notwithstanding their status among Muslims, they were mere expressions of their own opinions or subjective Quranic interpretations, which do not classify Islam at all. Yet one may have difficulties disavowing their positions when reading Sira Rasul Allah (the first written biography of Muhammad) by Ibn Ishaq, which says:

Allah said, It is not for any prophet to take prisoners until he has made slaughter on earth, i.e., slaughtered his enemies until he drives them from the land. You [Muhammad], desire the lure of this world, its goods and the ransom captives. But Allah desires the next world [a unified earthly one], i.e., killing them to manifest the religion which He wishes to manifest and by which the next world may be attained.—Ibn Ishaq, 326–327

In 1924, the abolition of the thirteen-hundred-year caliphate during the Kemalist Revolution in Turkey essentially left the political lineage of the Prophet of Islam unclaimed and consequently ended a centralized and universal Islamic body politic. Yet, the Islamic profession of faith (the shahada, to testify, to witness), There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his Messenger, continues to be propagated by Islamists and integrate itself within Western governmental structures and NGOs. This is primarily due to the Saudi Arabian-funded global caliphate, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC),²⁵ which has systemized and structured Islam into an effective proselytizing global entity.

The OIC, as a permanent observer to the United Nations, "is the [self-proclaimed] collective voice of the Muslim world, [which] endeavors to safeguard and protect the