UnMasking Islam: What You Need to Know

by Fred DeRuvo

The Basics of Islam

Since my last article dealing with Islam and our government’s approval of it, I’ve had some interesting comments on Twitter. Several of them were from Muslims and they make some interesting points. Their points are not true, but they are interesting because of the fact that they say what they say hoping that the person they are speaking with knows next to nothing about Islam. This is exactly the way propagandists like those at CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) work.

Obviously, many books and articles have been written on Islam. Books by Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Walid Shoebat, Dennis Cuddy, and many others exist and they are worth reading. No one book or article can cover everything about Islam simply because there is too much to cover. In this series, I want to provide the basics for people who may not know a good deal and might not be able to hold an intelligent discussion with a Muslim propagandist. All it takes is basic knowledge and basic understanding of what the Qur’an teaches and that knowledge becomes a weapon that can easily be used to slice up the arguments presented by those from within Islam.

There are some very important basics that everyone should know about Islam. Once we lay the basics down, we’ll move on from there into deeper waters.

Islam started with Muhammad
Before Muhammad (570-632 AD), there was no Islam, and there were no Muslims. Muhammad is their self-appointed prophet. The next individual believed to be arriving to this planet will be the Final Mahdi (we’ll get into him later).

Islam traces its heritage back to Abraham and Ishmael. However, they see Ishmael as the promised son, not Isaac.

Though Muhammad started off adult life as a pacifist, he ultimately became a warmonger, killing whomever he pleased to advance his beliefs and goals. He became anti-Semitic, warring, and a judge, jury, and executioner. He led twenty-seven military campaigns against innocent villages and caravans and he planned at least  thirty-eight more. This is why part of the Qur’an presents things in a peaceful way (when Muhammad believed in pacifism), while the other part of the Qur’an presents things in a violent-sounding way (after he became a warmonger).

Muhammad posed as a prophet or apostle of God and gathered a following because of it. Both Jesus and Paul warned that after they were gone many false prophets would come.  Muhammad is simply one of them who managed to create an entire ideology that has gathered several billion followers worldwide. He initially went to groups of Jews and offered himself as their Messiah. When they rejected him, he slaughtered them and their all in their villages.

In Islam, Jesus is simply another prophet and Muhammad supersedes Jesus. While the Qur’an refers to Christianity and Christ, in practice, Muslims see Muhammad as being far greater than Jesus and Islam being the fulfillment or extension of Christianity.

Muslims & Islam
There are numerous groups or sects of Muslims, but two main groups; radical Muslims and the so-called moderate (“peaceful”) Muslims.

Islam is the central ideology that ties all Muslims together and though we are told that Islam is a religion (and a religion of peace), the truth is that Islam is more of an ideology than a religion. It is also an ideology of war (not peace) since it tends to force its ideology on cultures and ultimately on the world through propaganda, subversion, and even physical force when it is deemed necessary, one area of the world at a time.

It should be understood that the main ideology of Islam is that it is essentially a theocracy. This means that its followers do not separate their religion from their politics and those two areas come together under the government they wish to establish. Muslims generally believe that there should be no government in the world other than the government guided by Islam via Allah. In other words, Muslims believe that government is to be Allah’s government; therefore no other government is legitimate. All governments – except Islam – should be overthrown. This is the reason for jihad (see below paragraph on jihad).

According to the beliefs of Islam, the world is divided into two groups of people. All people fall into one group or the other. Which one are you?

• Dar al-Islam—the “house of Islam” or “house of submission” to God – Muslims.
• Dar al-Harb, or “house of war”—those who are at war with God – non-Muslims.

If you are in the second group, you need to know that there are millions of Muslims who believe it is their mission to war against you. You will either give into their demands recognizing Islam’s “noble” rule, you will become a Muslim yourself, or you will die. Of course, the other possibility is that in their attempt to force you to become a servant in Allah’s government, the Muslim himself might die. It is still a win-win situation for him because in that case, he believes in death he will be rewarded with virgins aplenty. I cannot imagine what the shock is like of realizing that this is simply not true once they get into the afterlife!

Islam teaches that Allah will win in the end and everyone will be brought under the yoke of Islam, willingly or unwillingly. Everything will be ruled by the Muslim government and Sharia law will be the rule of law. We will talk more about Sharia law in an upcoming article.

Jihad
Jihad is an often misunderstood term because it is almost always downplayed by Muslims to hide its true meaning. In essence, it is a religious obligation and mandatory, but there is disagreement over its definition. If you ask someone from CAIR, you will receive one answer. If you ask a known radical Muslim, you will receive another (provided you live through the ordeal of talking with a radical Muslim).

As defined by so-called moderates, Jihad is often defined as the “inner struggle” that the Muslim goes through to become perfected in righteousness. For the radical Muslim, jihad is defined as the physical combat that Muslims undertake on Allah’s behalf against infidels (unbelievers; non-Muslims). Jihad can be physical warfare or even verbal or written propaganda. In a civilized country such as the United States, the latter is preferred, though I have no doubt that we will begin seeing more and more physical jihad taking place throughout America as well.

So-called moderate Muslims deny that jihad is physical conflict, but unfortunately the radicals never received that memo. Because they understand jihad as physical war against unbelievers for the advancement of God’s Islamic kingdom, they believe that what they are doing is the correct thing Allah wants them to do against unbelievers. Moderates like to say that these individuals are few and far between. The facts do not support that. If only moderates would spend as much time trying to convince radical Muslims that jihad is merely an inner struggle, as they do trying to convince us, I wonder how many fewer terrorist events the world would experience. Instead, the moderate Muslims prefer to try to get us to believe something that even radicals do not believe.

To the radical Muslim, moderates are “sinners.” Radicals will kill moderates just as easily as they kill unbelievers because they see moderates as working against Allah.

One Government (Caliphate)
Islam teaches that all Muslims must seek to come under the auspices of one central theocratic government. This is referred to as a “caliphate” and though this has never been worldwide at any point in history, Muslims believe that there will be a one-world, global caliphate at some point in the future.

The closest that Islam has come to this is with the Caliphate of Córdoba (929 to 1031). This caliphate was centered in Spain (as seen on the illustration) and eventually broke apart due to civil war (called “fitna”) between descendants of the last legitimate Caliph Hisham II and the successors of his prime minister (hayib) Al-Mansur.

Ultimately, though outwardly denied by many Muslims (and Islamic apologists of today), Islam is moving toward what they believe to be a final world government or caliphate. They believe it will be ruled by the Final Madhi who will bring peace to the world. Everyone will either be Muslim or what is known as a “dhimmi” in an Islamic state. That’s their belief and they’re sticking to it, folks.

A dhimmi is a non-Muslim who is allowed to live in the Islamic state by paying certain taxes (dhimmitude) to the Islamic government. I guess you could say you pay and you’re allowed to live. As one person notes, “Dhimmitude is the direct outcome of jihad, which is the military conquest of non-Islamic territory mandated by Allah as a spiritual obligation for every individual Moslem and Moslem nation.”

In other words, as Muslims use jihad to engage their perceived enemy and as they become victorious over those enemies, the results for the remaining “captives” of Islamic forces is either death or dhimmitude. These are the two options. Of course, a person can always become a Muslim as well.

“In the early years of the Islamic conquests, the ‘tribute’ or jizya was paid as a yearly poll tax, which symbolized the subordination of the dhimmi. Later, the inferior status of Jews and Christians was reinforced through a series of regulations that governed the behavior of the dhimmi. Jews and Christians were awarded a different status than other faiths. They were considered to be under protection as ‘people of the book.’ People of non-monotheistic faiths, pagans, or atheists were simply to be exterminated.”

Christians (and Jews) are referred to as “people of the book” and this is not considered a compliment. It is denigration and even though Muslims will say that they “believe” in Jesus and respect Him and the Bible, in fact, neither is really true. When push comes to shove, the Qur’an is believed over the Bible and Muhammad is seen as being far greater than Jesus. If you go inside the Dome of the Rock mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, there are some rather unflattering things stated about the people of the book. You can read them by going to the link here.

This has been a basic introduction. We will get into more depth with some of these topics beginning with our next article. I want to take the time to open up the Qur’an to expose exactly what is being taught that Muslims do not want us to know.

It will also be important to also understand why governments throughout the world appear to be turning a blind eye to Islam. It’s not simply America that allows Islam privileges that are denied to Christians here in America. Please join me then.