The Dawning of a New Dark Age: A Collection of Essays on Islam

PROLOGUE

I have chosen to write this book for one main reason: I believe that Islam is the greatest threat to freedom, the greatest threat to democracy, and the greatest threat to the continued existence of the West.

My experience with Islam goes back many years. I first started interacting with Muslims back in the 1970’s. But in 1982, when I decided to accept a teaching appointment in Saudi Arabia, my life became inextricably linked with this religio-political system, with this very different way of thinking and living. It has been a life-changing experience! In all honesty, I can say it has shaped who and what I am today-for better or for worse.

I sometimes believe that its effect on my way of thinking has been a blessing; yet at other times I think the opposite. The more I came to know Islam, the more it fascinated me. The more I came to understand it, the more it forced me to confront what I believed in, the more it forced me to confront the values upon which I based my life.

Over the years, I read much about the religion, and whilst living in the Middle East, I mixed a great deal with Muslims, often listening to their ideas and beliefs, and noting their dreams and aspirations. Wherever possible, I discussed with them their views on the West, and where I felt their views were unsound and based on prejudice, I tried to correct them. But one had to be careful all the while, for freedom of expression is an alien concept in Middle Eastern countries.

In almost all cases where I had contact with Muslims, I learned many things; but perhaps it is fair to say that one truth stood out among all the rest. Islam touches the very fibre of a Muslim’s being. It is his raison d’etre.

For this reason, and many, many more, I am convinced-and the older I get, the more convinced I become-that somewhere down the line, probably in the not-too-distant future, we in the West are going to have to bite the bullet and confront Islam.

Historically, there has never been a true accommodation between the two worlds; there has never been a truly peaceful co-existence. Recent events, especially those in the early years of the new millennium, show us signs aplenty of the increasing urgency of the situation.

The liberals and the politically correct amongst us may project an alternative view, and they may carp about a more traditional approach; but theirs is one based on hope and optimism rather than on a sound understanding of the reality facing us. Personally, I prefer to take a more realistic approach to the problem.

My questions are simple ones: Do we value our liberty? And if we do, what are we going to do to ensure its very survival? We cannot afford ourselves the luxury of the ostrich! He may bury his head in the sand; we cannot bury ours.

If things continue as they are, if great countries like the United States of America and the United Kingdom, to name but a couple of countries, have to go on being placed on a state of heightened alert, then our way of life is already being profoundly affected by this religion. Not just by terrorists, but by Islam itself! It must never be forgotten that these terrorists draw their inspiration from Islam; not from Christianity, not from Judaism, not from Hinduism, and not from any other religion. Islam is at the root of the problem.

As repugnant as the notion may sound, it is not unthinkable that we shall have to look back to the twentieth century for a solution to this problem. In the twentieth century, an iron curtain had to be put in place between the two worlds of capitalism and communism. Perhaps now, we shall have to think of dropping an iron veil in order to separate our two distinct ways of life. Maybe this will be the only way to safeguard the lives of innocent people; people like the poor victims of 9/11.

Politicians have much to answer for. They have experimented freely in matters of immigration, showing little understanding of the nature of Islam, and paying scant regard to the consequences of their actions. As a result, we are now faced with a major problem: one of trying to integrate people into our political system, with ideas and notions about life, to say nothing about political and religious ideas, that are diametrically opposed to everything we stand for.

The maxim, when in Rome, do as the Romans do, is an excellent one. Sadly, it is not one that most Muslim immigrants seem to aspire to live by. They prefer to bring with them to the West their religion and political system, believing that they owe it to the West to enlighten its people, to enable the infidel to find salvation! Such thinking is dangerous in the extreme, and will surely lead to eventual disaster.

I have written this book in the form of a collection of essays, for I firmly believe that today’s reader is busy, and often has little time or inclination to read large tomes. For the people who like reading such books, for the people who wish to read solid history, then there are plenty of wonderful, well-written books on the subject of Islam. My book is unashamedly based on opinion, on sound opinion I believe, and on solid experience backed by serious study accompanied by much soul-searching. In life, one can only speak as one finds, similarly one can only write as one finds, too. I have written as I have found.

Naturally, I hope that you, the reader, will enjoy this book as much as I have enjoyed writing it for you. However, if it will do nothing else, I sincerely hope that it will provoke you into much thinking about the problems that lie ahead of us apropos of Islam.

In my opinion, if current trends go unchecked, they will mark the beginning of a new phase in the history of the world: we shall be witnessing the dawning of a new dark age, an age in which myth will rule over reality, superstition will rule over fact. We will begin to be guided by erroneous beliefs. Our beloved liberty will fade away.

We need to ensure that this will never happen. Too many soldiers and civilians alike have lost their lives to safeguard our freedoms. We only have to cast our minds back to the needless loss of life and destruction caused by the First and Second World Wars. They were fought to ensure the survival of liberty, and to ensure the demise of tyranny. Let us ensure that these brave men and women didn’t die in vain.

I should not pretend that bringing this book to you has been easy. It has not. In doing so, I have had to rely on many people. I thank them all for their assistance. One person, in particular, however, deserves special mention: Dr. Douglas Kennedy. His positive thinking, his extraordinary powers of motivation, and his academic excellence, to say nothing of his generosity in all its forms, have enabled me to bring this book to you today. He is a gentleman of true understanding. I thank him most profoundly. I shall be forever indebted to him.

I should also like to thank 1st Books for working with me to bring this book to you. They treat the author well.

London

June 2003

INTRODUCTORY MATTERS

Wake Up, West!

September 11, 2002, a day that will go down in history as a ‘day of infamy’, marks a watershed in our dealings with the Muslim world. Until this date, it had become accepted and assumed wisdom that we live in a multicultural world-in a world that would become ever more multicultural, in the so-called ‘global village’. To question this has been, and still is, to commit a cardinal sin. In some people’s minds, it lays oneself open to being considered backward thinking and even, perhaps, ‘racist’. But is this the case and, if it is, should it be so?

Political correctness sits well with the Zeitgeist. Political correctness has attempted to bully the electorate into submission. And to a great extent it has succeeded. People have generally become palpably uncomfortable in the presence of anyone who dares to question the wisdom of this multicultural, global village. To question whether such a state is, in fact, at all achievable is to commit a double sin.

President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Blair were in agreement on the need to squeeze Saddam Hussein into a very tight corner: to force him into acquiescence militarily if he was unwilling to comply with their wishes that Iraq be prepared to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction. Iraq was seen as the bete noire of the Western world, not only because Saddam Hussein was a known tyrant willing and prepared to tyrannize his own people, but also because he would certainly have been prepared to tyrannize the Western world if he could have. Naturally, the US and Britain, wished not only to forestall such a scenario, but also to ensure that such a scenario would never become a reality. Saddam Hussein, it was believed, would have had no compunction at all in using biological, chemical, or atomic weapons.

In addition to the challenge that Saddam Hussein posed to the West, we had, and still have, another struggle: the struggle to vanquish Al-Qaeda, the worldwide terrorist network of radical Muslims hell-bent on undermining the West and Western values-the organization known to be behind the 9/11 bombings in the US.

Threats such as these were and are threats to our liberal way of life: the way of life that we, in the West, have come to know, love and expect. In actual fact, however, if we look beyond some of these more immediate threats to our free and liberal existence, there is a third threat, and possibly, in the long-term, a more important and more dangerous one-one that will threaten the very existence of the West! It is the threat of creeping Islamicisation! The power and influence of Islam is growing apace. No longer can we afford to ignore the peril that it poses.

In recent decades, we have allowed an influx of immigrants from the Muslim world into the West. In and of itself, this should not be a problem; but it is, and will become an even greater one. Immigrants to countries such as the US have traditionally entered the country in the hope of achieving a higher standard of living, and in the expectation of having to assimilate into Western culture. Germans, Italians, Spaniards, Mexicans, French, British, in fact people of all cultures and religious backgrounds, have gone to the US with essentially two goals in mind: that of improving their quality of life, and in search of more freedom of expression.

So, you might well ask how things differ when we think of Muslims entering the West. Well, there’s a big difference! Muslims have a different view of the world-a different Weltanschauung. This way of viewing the world makes it very difficult for them to assimilate, as we would like them to do. By and large, they come to the West, the US, Britain, Europe, and Australia, hoping to spread their values and influence in those countries and continents.

It really is worth exploring why Islam and the West make strange bedfellows. Ever since the birth of Islam, the Christian West and Islam have been at loggerheads. It seems, because of Islam’s inflexibility, this state of affairs can only continue in the long-run. Yes, we in the West have adopted a far more liberal approach to Muslims, their values, and their culture. This seems likely to continue for the foreseeable future. But it is also likely to come to an abrupt end, because it is a one way process. When people come to understand the true nature of Islam—its aims and objectives—they will take fright. At present, Westerners are largely ignorant of Islam. Up until only twenty or thirty years ago, one would have been hard-pressed to find many articles to read on Islam and Muslims in any Western newspaper. This is no longer the case. A cursory glance at a newspaper today will reveal that it is barely possible to go a single day without reading news of Islam and Muslims. This, of course, is a manifestation of their growing influence in our society. A telling remark in a BBC news programme recently suggested that Prime Minister Blair was worried about Islamic opinion in the UK vis-a-vis his policy on Iraq. This goes to show just how far Muslims have come in their influence. Wait just a few generations and we will see just how much influence on daily life they will have! There are two reasons for this: firstly, they generally have larger families than Westerners, so the Muslim population will increase more quickly; and secondly, they are highly politicized. The second point, of course, is a function of their religion. Islam knows and understands no separation of politics and religion. Secular societies are anathema to a real Muslim.

When Muslims were first allowed into the UK, it had been generally believed that they would assimilate just like citizens from other countries. We now know different: with some exceptions, of course, they are more interested in bringing their Islamic culture with them. So, we are now left with a challenge, a challenge of great magnitude; though the full extent of this challenge has yet to be revealed! It is for this reason that we must familiarize ourselves with this exotic and unfamiliar religion.

A New Age is Dawning

Freedom is like money and civilization. It is hard-earned, but easily lost! Recent world events, in particular the attacks on New York and Washington, have shown the vulnerabilities not only of the United States of America, but also of the rest of the open and free world.

Until recent events proved otherwise, we went on with our daily lives, feeling that nothing or nobody could prove to be a real, long-term danger to our safety. We now know that we were living in a world of make-believe!

The coming down of the Berlin Wall, the break-up of the monolithic Soviet Union and the demise of communism were all thought, except by the very few, to be the signal that we would henceforth be living in a freer, more open world. Most of us were oblivious to the dangers that lie ahead.

Communism was just that-an ‘ism’. ‘Isms’ come and ‘isms’ go. History is replete with them. Did the world ever think it would see the end of Thatcherism? Communism, too, came and went. In its heyday, it was mighty and powerful, challenging indeed for the free world. But, in the final analysis, and looking back, it was destined to failure because it was based on a flawed, a seriously flawed, assumption: that man was willing and capable of putting the welfare of the community above the welfare of himself and his family. Man’s inherent selfishness, his ego, would ensure that this state of affairs could not be sustained indefinitely. Being, also, a system that could not provide sustained growth in the standard of living of its people-the gross domestic product was ever stunted because the motivation of people to contribute to the community was never there-meant that after some considerable time, though in the history of the world it was a very short period indeed, we saw this bloc crumble from within!

It has not taken very long for us to come to the realization that its demise has brought forward a new danger for the free world. A bigger danger! For the new danger is not an ‘ism’, but a religion itself. Religion is forever. This religion is a very fast-growing religion. It is called Islam!

Already, Islam is more than fourteen hundred years old. The West has never been able to live with it. History proves this point. But, from now on, because of the increasing internationalization of the world, will we ever be able to live without it? It seems not.

As we all know, much of the strength of the Islamic world is found in the Middle East, in the oil-rich nations of the Gulf. Until the seventies, very little was heard of this religion in the West at all. The oil embargo of 1973 by the Organization of

Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) changed all that! Most members were from the Arab world. The embargo had a devastating effect on Western economies. For example, the price of petrol in the US almost doubled from 35 cents to sixty-five cents a gallon. Queues built up at the pumps. This increase in the price of petrol caused a spiral in the prices of other goods and services. The result: the US and the rest of the Western economies were pushed into a deep recession. The worst since the Second World War. Inevitably, high unemployment ensued. This one major event catapulted the Arab world to the forefront of world economic importance. Black