"They think the implications of the possibility that the Koran teaches warfare against unbelievers are too terrible to even contemplate. Thus, many policymakers simply assume the Koran teaches peace without bothering to study the text."

(Analyst's note:  Want to know more about those who have declared war on this nation?  Then see this absolutely must read summary.)

by Robert Spencer

In FrontPage yesterday Jamie Glazov interviewed me about my new book, The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran. Here is an excerpt:

FP: Tell us how and why political correctness has made it almost impossible to discuss what is really in the Koran and in other Islamic texts.

Spencer: Political correctness would have us believe that the Koran is a book of peace, and that anyone who says otherwise is "bigoted," "hateful," and "Islamophobic." But is it, really? What the Koran really says can easily be verified. If the Koran really curses Jews and Christians (9:30) and calls for warfare against them in order to bring about their subjugation (9:29), it is not "Islamophobic" to forewarn Infidels by pointing this out. It is simply a fact. And it should go without saying that it is not a fact that should move any reader of my book to hate anyone. The fact that the Koran counsels warfare against unbelievers should move readers to act in defense of freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the legal equality of all people, before it is too late.

FP: How does the misinterpretation of what the Koran and other Muslim texts teach endanger our security?

Spencer: Most Western analysts dogmatically deny that the Koran teaches violence and supremacism. Yet Muslims who believe this comprise a global movement, active from Indonesia to Nigeria and extending into Europe and North America, that is dedicated to waging war against "unbelievers" - that is, non-Muslims - and subjugating them as inferiors under the rule of Islamic law. This movement sees in the Koran its divine mandate to wage that war.

In March 2009, five Muslims accused of helping plot the September 11 attacks, including the notorious Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, wrote an "Islamic Response to the Government's Nine Accusations." In it they quote the Koran to justify their jihad war against the American Infidels. "In God's book," asserts the letter, "he ordered us to fight you everywhere we find you, even if you were inside the holiest of all holy cities, The Mosque in Mecca, and the holy city of Mecca, and even during sacred months. In God's book, verse 9 [actually verse 5], Al-Tawbah [the Koran's 9th chapter]: Then fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them, and seize them, and besiege them and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush."
Osama bin Laden's communiqués have also quoted the Koran copiously. In his 1996 "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places," he quotes seven Koran verses: 3:145; 47:4-6; 2:154; 9:14; 47:19; 8:72; and the notorious "Verse of the Sword," 9:5.[i] Bin Laden began his October 6, 2002, letter to the American people with two Koran quotations, both of a martial bent: "Permission to fight (against disbelievers) is given to those (believers) who are fought against, because they have been wronged and surely, Allah is Able to give them (believers) victory" (22:39) and "Those who believe, fight in the Cause of Allah, and those who disbelieve, fight in the cause of Taghut (anything worshipped other than Allah e.g. Satan). So fight you against the friends of Satan; ever feeble is indeed the plot of Satan" (4:76)."

In a sermon broadcast in 2003, bin Laden rejoiced in a Koranic exhortation to violence as being a means to establish the truth: "Praise be to Allah who revealed the verse of the Sword to his servant and messenger [the Islamic Prophet Muhammad], in order to establish truth and abolish falsehood." The "Verse of the Sword" is Koran 9:5: "Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful."

The idea that the Koran commands them to do violence to unbelievers runs from the very top of the international jihadist movement - Osama bin Laden - down to the rank and file. Overall, it is extremely rare - if not impossible - to find a jihadist who does not cite the Koran to justify his actions. Britain-based jihadist preacher, Abu Yahya, asserts simply, "It says in the Koran that we must try as much as we can to terrorise the enemy." And Pakistani jihad leader Beitullah Mehsud claims that "Allah on 480 occasions in the Holy Koran extols Muslims to wage jihad. We only fulfill God's orders. Only jihad can bring peace to the world." He specified that his jihad - struggle in Arabic - was an offensive military operation: "We will continue our struggle until foreign troops are thrown out. Then we will attack them in the US and Britain until they either accept Islam or agree to pay jazia." The "jazia," or jizya, is a tax that the Koran (9:29) specifies must be levied on Jews, Christians, and some other non-Muslim faiths as a sign of their subjugation under the Islamic social order.

One pro-Osama website put it this way: "The truth is that a Muslim who reads the Koran with devotion is determined to reach the battlefield in order to attain the reality of Jihad. It is solely for this reason that the Kufaar [unbelievers] conspire to keep the Muslims far away from understanding the Koran, knowing that Muslims who understand the Koran will not distance themselves from Jihad."

Yet a huge number of policy decisions are predicated upon the assumption that the Koran teaches peace, and that those who brandish Korans and commit violence are misunderstanding their own religion and perverting the teachings of their own holy book. These include U.S. government postures toward Pakistan and Egypt; immigration matters; airport security procedures; military strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan; domestic anti-terror policies; and our acquiescence to Saudi Arabia's Islamic proselytizing campaign in America and many other countries.

But most government and media analysts dare not even question the assumption that the Koran is peaceful, for they believe that any insinuation to the contrary is racist, bigoted, and effectively brands all Muslims as terrorists. In other words, they think the implications of the possibility that the Koran teaches warfare against unbelievers are too terrible to even contemplate. Thus, many policymakers simply assume the Koran teaches peace without bothering to study the text. They do this to their own peril - and ours.

FP: What, in your view, is the Koran?

Spencer: It is the primary religious text of one of the world's most prominent and influential religions. For more than a billion Muslims, the Koran is the unadulterated, pure word of Allah, eternal and perfect, delivered though the angel Gabriel to the prophet Muhammad. For Infidels, it is a threat, a call for their destruction or subjugation. Consequently, every Infidel needs to know what is in it, and plan accordingly to defend himself.

There is much more. Read it all.