As mentioned below (here and here), I attended a class entitled "Terrorism" on Thursday night taught by Jihad Watch's Robert Spencer. The class was one of a sort of seminar series in which attendees could choose the subject they wanted. I chose the Spencer session. If you ever have a chance to see him, do not miss this man.

[Update: I've moved this entry back up to the top of the blog.]

First, the intro: The Israeli Consul-General, Meyer Shlomo, gave the keynote. He seems like a nice fellow, but his English was heavily accented and the amplification was not good. I have a feeling most of the elderly folks in the audience couldn't hear it. He did give a nice speech covering the usual subject - Israel is anxious and has proven its willingness to give concessions for peace, but has no partner, etc...

The sad part? Attendance. I'm guessing there were only about 40 people in the audience, and at 37 years old, I was the second or third youngest person there. This is becoming a pattern with these presentations. Where is the interest in the younger generation? Anyway...

When the group broke up into smaller sessions, about 19 people chose the Spencer seminar, including, it seemed to me, most of the younger folks - younger being a relative term.

The rest of this report is me putting to prose some of my scrawled notes. Usual disclaimers - I didn't record the session, I may have missed something, I may have misunderstood or misheard something, any errors are mine and not Spencer's, etc...

First - Terror is a tactic, not an ideology. Terror is a tool of the ideologues. A War on Terror is akin to a "War on Bombs" - it doesn't make sense in and of itself.

Spencer asked how many had heard the word, "Khalifah." No one raised their hand.

He explained that this word is the motivator behind a world-wide movement. It's the reason for terrorism and that this is the war that dare not speak its name.

Spencer explained that he had started to read the Koran in 1980 and was both fascinated and bored by it by turns, but certainly, "fascination" was the overriding feeling to the point that to date he has written two books, both of which deal in large measure with this "Khalifah" - Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith and Onward Muslim Soldiers.

One must remember that Islam was a political religion from the very beginning, since Mohammed's conquest of Medina, Islam is meant to be spread across the world.

Here's another word to know: "Dhimma." The Koran 9:29 says it is the responsibility of believers to wage war against non-believers until they either convert or agree to pay the jiziyah - the poll-tax - that is, become "Dhimmi," or protected people. Restricted, second-class citizens. "Fight those who do not profess the true faith (Islam) till they pay the jiziya (poll tax) with the hand of humility."

This is not a commandment taken out of context. Islam is the only world religion that mandates universal warfare. Contrast this to the story of Joshua in the Torah. Yes, there are stories of murder and genocide in the Bible, but they were commandments by God for a specific time and place. They were not general commandments for action to go forward through time and space.

Here Spencer discussed some of the history behind the concept of Dhimmitude. Remember that those who refuse Islam are viewed to be knowingly refusing the Truth. To do so is clearly an evil, and the Dhimmi were often treated badly regardless of any superficial protected status. People being people, many tried to convert in order to escape their hardship - so many, in fact, that at points in history, conversions had to be forbidden in order to keep the tax base up.

Now Spencer tells us: "Khalifah" means "The Caliphate" - the Islamic Empire with the Caliph at its head which hasn't existed, and was anemic even then, since 1924.

September 11, 1683 was the day the siege of Vienna was broken. It was the high-water mark of Dar al-Islam (the House of Islam). Now we are resuming where we left off all those years ago. Historical memory is very, very long in the Islamic World.

It's not about Israel. It's not about Iraq. It's not about the Mossadeq coup in Iran and all the other litany of excuses we so often hear. It's about the fact that there are people out there being what they see as good Muslims and attempting to re-establish the Caliphate.

The Turkish secularizer Kamal Ataturk destroyed the remnants of the Caliphate in 1924. In 1928 the Muslim Brotherhood was founded and this is their agenda. This was the original modern terrorist group and an ancestor of groups like Hamas.

One of the current ideological fathers of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sayyid Qutb, has said that it is not the right of non-Muslims to rule any State. Islam and Jahilya (areas in a pre-Islamic state of being - note: not "non-Muslim," but pre-Muslim) cannot co-exist. The foremost duty of Islam is to depose Jahilya from the Rule of Man.

[I missed the name here - alDuti?] was discussing the quotation, "There is no compulsion in religion" and said that while that is true, nevertheless, non-believers may not seize the reigns of power anywhere..."

Even as recently as 1991, Al-Ansar University in Cairo - the pre-eminent scholarly nexus in Sunni Islam - endorsed a book that said it was the duty of Muslims to wage war on Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians until they convert of pay the jiziyah.

Mullah Omar of the Taliban had united with Bin Laden and had so overestimated his position that he removed the cloak of Mohamed from a shrine in Afghanistan and placed it on himself, seeking to re-establish the Caliphate with Bin Laden's help.


Jihad is the was Islam is established, defended and spread.

The first step is to invite the non-believer to accept Islam - this is "Dawa," or preaching, proselytizing - the building of Mosques, the sending of missionaries, etc...

If that fails, the second step is to invite the Kuffir (non-believer) to pay the jiziyah.

The third step is to fight.

Bin Laden's first step was a message to the American people in the 90's to convert to Islam.

Spencer asks rhetorically if he may be accused of lumping all Muslims together by describing the roots of Islam in this way. 77% of Arabic speaking people (Arabs) in the United States are non-Muslims. A majority of Muslims world-wide are non-Arabs. There is diversity of culture out there. But the Koran is deeply Arabic. If you don't pray in Arabic, God doesn't hear you. What that means is that even most Muslims out there don't really know their religion. He tells an anecdote of a man, a friend, who's a proud Muslim. He knows most of the Koran by heart...but he doesn't speak Arabic. The trouble is when people start finding out more. They are susceptible to being lead by people turning them on to true religion.

Bin Laden hasn't hijacked the religion, he's educating people in it. CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) was founded by the Islamic Association of Palestine - a Hamas front group. There are people of good will out there, but they don't know about what's happening around them.

That was the end of the lecture portion. Next came the question period. These are, as before, paraphrases:

The first question was for Spencer's thoughts on the new Boston Mosque.

"It's insane what they're doing here." People just assume that Islam fits into the secular American framework without pushing - but instead you have to pretend that it does or you don't fit into the PC framework. Mosques don't brand themselves "moderate" or "extreme"...it's a conceptual difference. Not everyone is going to blow themselves up, but no one is doing anything to make sure that no one does. He then spoke about the Lakawanna Six situation from out of New York that he spoke of the last time. I quote here from my previous, report:

There's no reason that couldn't happen here in Boston. What is being done to prevent it?

Next question: Why is this all happening now?

Answer: It's been brewing since the '20's with the establishment of the Muslim Brotherhood. By the '40's the Brotherhood had chapters throughout Europe.

There is the same rhetoric being applied to Spain that is applied to Israel - "This land belongs to Islam." Spencer met a young Catalan woman who's parents are resigned to the inevitability that Spain will be Muslim again.

Saudi oil money has been a great enabler. The success of the Islamic Revolution in Iran has served as a great moral empowerer - it showed that they could succeed.

So why now? Because now they can. 100 years ago they simply couldn't. No Islamic sect has ever outright rejected the doctrine of violent Jihad. Spencer here brings up the origins of Jihad as an inner struggle. I quote again from my previous entry:

What is to blame for the West's lack of backbone and myopia? Not understanding what we're facing.

Question: "So what do we do? Expel the Muslims?"

"I do not think the expulsion of Muslims is the step to be taken now." Who knows what the future will bring? In the mean time, we must force Muslims to seriously repudiate the radicals and hold them to it.

Question: Is the French head-scarf ban just a token?

Not necessarily. It is a first sign that there may be hope that Europe may be starting to make a stand, although it is silly to extend the ban to skull-caps and crosses and not acknowledge that Islam is different. This is in contrast to scholar Bat Ye'or (see my report here) who feels Europe is lost.

There was a question on Islam and the after life. His answer was similar to the explanation he gave previously:

I'm not sure what this was in response to, but he discussed Pan-Arabism as an attempt in many ways of Christians (such as with the Ba'ath's Michel Aflaq) to ally with Islam for protection, but pan-Arabism is cracking. There are places where nationalism is still holding and keeping Islamism at bay but it won't last. Religion has a far more lasting power.

Thus ended the evening. The next session will be in two weeks and I will be sure to attend. Congrats to you if you've read this far.

[As previously, here are the scans of my scrawled notes. Scan 1. Scan 2.