Not Peace but a Sword: The Great Chasm Between Christianity and Islam (29 page)

Questioner No. 6: I was wondering, what difference [is] there between our concept, the Christian concept, of the ultimate beatitude, heaven, and the Muslim concept of that, and what effect that may have on motivations like you mentioned earlier, “to lose your life” or “take a life for Allah”?

Mr. Spencer: Charles de Foucauld, who is a blessed now, lived in North Africa and was killed by jihadis there. Earlier in his life, before he dedicated himself to that kind of life in North Africa, he essentially was a libertine. And when he looked at the Islamic idea of Paradise, when he first encountered Muslims and the Qur’anic teaching about Paradise and the afterlife, he said he had tasted those pleasures and he knew they were not the ultimate good and not the ultimate joy and not the ultimate happiness, and so he knew that Islam was not the true faith, because he knew that the soul needed something else. But the Islamic vision of Paradise is, just as you may already have heard, it’s essentially what you might expect a 14-year-old boy to dream up as being the highest good.

(Laughter)

Mr. Spencer: Lots of girls, lots of cool breezes, lots to drink, it’s a pleasure palace!

Professor Kreeft: It sounds like Boston College!

(Laughter)

Professor Zmirak: I wonder why they don’t go to Vegas?

Mr. Spencer: You could start a successful nightclub and call it ‘Muslim Paradise.’ It’d be very pious.

(Laughter)

Professor Kreeft: I think when the pious Muslim gets to Paradise he will indeed find forty virgins, but they will be nuns.

(Laughter)

Questioner No. 7: I’m curious to hear from both of the panelists what our public policy should look like with respect to Muslim practice in the United States.

Professor Kreeft: No question: even-handed equal protection, equal rights, no privileges, nothing special. Here is American law: it is not Muslim or anti-Muslim; it is not Christian or anti-Christian. It’s based on universal human rights. If they don’t like it, too bad!

Mr. Spencer: I’m all for that.

Questioner No. 7: Well, there were jokes about enforcing sedition laws and—

Professor Kreeft: I will support the right of Muslims to build a mosque or Muslim center by 9/11; I would also support the right of an anti-Muslim or Jewish organization to put something right next to it.

Audience member: In Saudi Arabia?

Professor Kreeft: Yes.

Mr. Spencer: I believe absolutely in human rights and in the United States Constitution and that Muslims should be accorded all those rights. That doesn’t mean, however, that the supremacists’ initiatives, including the triumphal mosque at Ground Zero, should be allowed; that’s not really a religious freedom issue at all. It’s a question of whether a mosque like the Dome of the Rock (built on the site of the Jewish Temple) or like the Hagia Sophia (converted from the grandest church in Christendom) should be allowed to mark the victory of Muslims on 9/11—which is how it will be understood in the Islamic world.

But that’s a side issue: What should we do in terms of public policy? Dr. Kreeft is right: Enforce our laws and not accord any special rights, which Muslims are pressing for today in all kinds of ways, to Muslims or anyone else. And if we did that, then a lot of this problem would be solved. There’s also an example, I think, for us in how the MacArthur occupation government in Japan after World War II treated state Shinto. Shintoism was the militaristic fuel that fueled the Japanese war machine; the militaristic ideology. And after World War II, when MacArthur was in charge in Japan, he said, “Shintoism as an individual religious faith should not be interfered with at all, but Shintoism will have no place in the government or in making public policy with preference over any other group.

Questioner No. 7: Well, wasn’t a major crux of your argument that orthodox Muslim practice encourages this bad behavior?

Mr. Spencer: Yeah. And so what you have here is a situation where we have to understand that there are elements of orthodox Muslim practice that Muslims are going to have to give up in the United States because they are not in accord with American law. And that is not something that is without precedent, and it is not something that’s against the First Amendment. Look at Mormon polygamy, which has come up already. The United States government did not hesitate to outlaw polygamy, even though it was a religious tenet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And this was considered to be something within the national interest. I don’t think it’s the least incompatible with the First Amendment to understand that there are certain elements of Islam which Muslims must not practice in the United States because they are against the national interest and in contradiction to the freedoms guaranteed to us by the U.S. Constitution.

(Applause)

Questioner No. 8: I was wondering if you could answer this. I’m sure you’re probably at least familiar with the supremacy clause in the Qur’an that says that in order to honor Allah you must kill all the infidels, first the Saturdays and then the Sundays. So how is it that you would justify that statement that it is easier to work with the Enlightenmentists [sic] when their view, the Muslim’s view, is inherently contradictory to Judeo-Christian values, where the Enlightenment’s view is not?

Professor Zmirak: OK, first, you had a clarification?

Mr. Spencer: Yeah, I did, I wanted to point out that the Qur’an does
not
say to kill all the infidels, it says actually to kill the
mushrikeen
, which are the polytheists, those who commit
shirk
, which is the association of partners with Allah. Usually, but not universally, Jews and Christians are not considered to be
mushrikun
, they are considered to be “People of the Book.” And the People of the Book have a third option; they don’t have to be killed or converted. They can be subjugated as
dhimmis
. Ultimately, however, there is a
hadith
that is very pernicious where Muhammad says, “The end times will not come until Muslims kill Jews. And the Jews hide behind trees and the trees cry out and say, ‘O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.’” Now that is an authenticated
hadith
, that is, one that is considered to be part of Islamic doctrine. And so it is considered to be a laudable practice for a Muslim to kill a Jew, because it is something that hastens the coming of the end times, in which all things will be consummated. But anyway, it’s not specifically in the Qur’an like that, that’s all.

Professor Zmirak: Did you want to respond?

Professor Kreeft: Well, most Muslims in the West do not believe or practice that. And I suppose Bob must be right in saying that if everything in the Qur’an must be accepted literally and practiced, then these are bad Muslims. So in that sense I agree with him that the best Muslim is a bad Muslim.

Appendix

Some Fundamental Differences Between Islam and Christianity

I. The Nature of God

Islam:
One single person, an absolute unity.

Christianity:
Three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Islam:
Creator and master of all, but not a father. Human beings are his slaves.

Christianity:
Father of all creation.

Islam:
No free will. Allah chooses to send people to hell rather than guide them to the truth.

Christianity:
Free will. God desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

Islam:
Allah places inclinations to both good and evil within the soul.

Christianity:
God is good and created man good; evil is the rejection of God.

Islam:
No limits can be placed upon the sovereignty of Allah, the absolute monarch, including even consistency.

Christianity:
God is good and consistent in his actions.

II. Jesus

Islam:
Jesus is a Muslim prophet, and a human being like any other.

Christianity:
Jesus is the Son of God, both divine and human.

Islam:
Jesus was not crucified, but it seemed to the Jews as if he was. He did not die on the cross and so did not rise from the dead and is not anyone’s Savior.

Christianity:
Jesus was crucified for our sins and rose from the dead to save us from our sins.

Islam:
Jesus is a human prophet, the nephew of Moses.

Christianity:
Jesus is the divine Son, and foster-son of St. Joseph.

Islam:
Jesus announces that Muhammad will come after him and guide mankind to all truth.

Christianity:
Jesus announces that the Holy Spirit will come after him and guide mankind to all truth.

Islam:
Jesus will return at the end of the world, destroy Christianity, and Islamize the world.

Christianity:
Jesus will return at the end of the world to initiate the divine judgment.

III. Divine Revelation

Islam:
The biblical prophets were all Muslims who taught Islam. Their messages were twisted and hijacked to create what we know as Judaism and Christianity.

Christianity:
The biblical prophets were all Jews who were preparing the way for the coming of Christ.

IV. The Moral Law

Islam:
There are no moral absolutes beyond what is good for the advance and defense of Islam.

Christianity: There are moral absolutes; e.g., those delineated in the Ten Commandments and the precepts derived therefrom.

Islam:
Deception of unbelievers is allowed when believers are at war or under other kinds of pressure.

Christianity:
Mental reservation allowed in extreme cases, but never outright deception.

Islam:
The goods of the unbelievers may be taken as the spoils of war, and unbelievers subjugated under Islamic rule must pay a special tax from which Muslims are exempt.

Christianity:
Theft, like any intrinsically immoral act, is never justified.

Islam:
Muslims’ lives are more valuable than those of non-Muslims.

Christianity:
All human beings are equal in dignity before God.

Islam:
Virtue is enforced in society by the threat of draconian punishments.

Christianity:
Virtue involves the free choice of the good.

Islam:
Many Islamic scholars find no Islamic prohibition for artificial contraception.

Christianity:
Artificial contraception is a sin against the purposes of marriage.

Islam:
Abortion is permitted through the first trimester and, according to some scholars, beyond that point.

Christianity:
Abortion is murder.

Islam:
A man may marry up to four wives.

Christianity:
A man cleaves to his wife and they become one flesh.

Islam:
A man may divorce his wife by saying, “You are divorced.”

Christianity:
“What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.”

Islam:
A man may buy sex slaves and keep them in addition to his wives.

Christianity:
Slavery of any kind is contrary to the dignity of the human person.

Islam:
In Shi’ite Islam, a man may enter into a temporary marriage, a marriage with a specified ending point.

Christianity: Marriage is indissoluble.

About the author

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch (
www.jihadwatch.org
), a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the author of twelve books, including two
New York Times
best sellers,
The Truth about Muhammad
and 
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).
Spencer, a Melkite Greek Catholic, has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the U.S. intelligence community.