‘I Have Been Sent with Obfuscation’

by Andrew C. McCarthy
National Review Online

The quote is from Mohammed, Islam’s founding prophet, in a canonical hadith. My friend Raymond Ibrahim alludes to it, and so much more, in “Tawriya: Islamic Doctrine of ‘Creative Lying’,” an essay published at both FrontPage Magazine and theStonegate Institute (and at Ray’s website). It’s interesting stuff, and slightly different from the more familiar concept of taqiyya, which is lying made permissible by the circumstances. Tawriya is, instead, statements that are literally true but intended to mislead. It goes to one of my bugaboos: Islamists who feign condemnations of “terrorism” — hint: If their subjective definition of terrorism (the unjust killing of Muslims) is different from your common definition, it is unsurprising that you can get them to condemn “terrorism” with all apparent earnestness but find them squirming when you specify names like “Hamas” and “bin Laden.”

As with everything Ray writes, it’s worth reading.