By Tabitha Korol

Renew America

Canceling the simulcast of 'The Death of Klinghoffer" does not exculpate any of the personnel affiliated with the opera if the show will be presented on stage as scheduled. Because Peter Gelb acknowledged the "genuine concern in the international Jewish community," he is not oblivious to the impropriety, yet he continues unimpeded. He may well be an active partner to the insult, an accomplice to Alice Goodman's rejection of their mutual heritage, or he lacks the capacity to see that this production should also be of enormous concern to the greater American community. It would appear that this may well rank with the Bavarian Oberammergau that continues to inspire antisemitism – but not only antisemitism. This perverted story is an act of jihad.

For the still uninformed, Jihad is "holy war," or it would be a holy war if Islam were a bona fide religion. However, Islam is political ideology, a movement of conquest that is presented as a religion (a religion of peace, no less!), a duty for all Muslims to wage war against the non-Islamic world on behalf of their prophet, Mohammed. In the 7th century, after 13 years of futile attempts at converting Meccan and Medinan Jews, Christians and idol worshippers to his new religion, Mohammed began torturing, looting and destroying those who would not accept his "religion" or him as prophet. He beheaded (Jewish) men, enslaved women and children, and killed until both cities were inhabited by Muslims only. Thus he acquired land and converts to Islam. To this day, his followers must obey the same Qur'anic decrees. Eighty percent of the Qur'an is devoted to dealing with the unbeliever. Mohammed converted about 10,000 to Islam every year, committing violence until the end of his life. Islam is a detailed political system, a demonic doctrine of jihad and the implementation of Islamic laws, Sharia, everywhere.

9:29 Make war on those who have received the Scriptures (Jews and Christians) but do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day. They do not forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden. The Christians and Jews do not follow the religion of truth until they submit and pay the poll tax (jizya) and they are humiliated.

Over these 1400 years, Jihad has been responsible for the death of 270 million people worldwide. Known as "The Tears of Jihad," they include 60 million Christians, 80 million Hindus, 10 million Buddhists, 120 million Africans, the number increases with each attack throughout the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Russia, India and China. To assume that we Americans are not included in their vision is, at the least, foolish. To paint the jihadists as though they might be justified or in need of compassion is reckless. We cannot turn a blind eye and portray the terrorists with humanity, or we will not be able to defend ourselves as they change our culture and mindset in this slow, methodical onslaught. These cold-blooded killers who are meticulously trained since childhood to revel and celebrate death have been robbed of all humanity.

The opera's purpose is to prime us to be insensitive to the death of a wheelchair-bound American, a veteran of World War II, an inventor and appliance manufacturer, a husband and father, with the smokescreen that he is Jewish and, therefore, responsible for every misfortune known to the Muslim world. It is also preparing us to slowly lose our moral compass, take on their Qur'anic mission of hate and death, and tolerate their violence, evil, and bloodlust as "acceptable under the circumstances." It is enhanced with the accusation of "Islamophobia," to prevent us from naming and discussing the enemy.

Raymond Ibrahim, Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum and author, has exposed Islam's war on Christians. There are news reports daily of Muslim killings according to Muhammad's commands – oppressing their women, honor killings, hunting down apostates, kidnapping children into sexual slavery, and converting or killing Christians in Afghanistan, Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Iran, Krygyz, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Tanzania, and into Europe. You need only turn on the few TV channels that are still dedicated to reporting the truth.

The opera is an insult to the memory of Leon Klinghoffer and his family and an assault on us and our humanity. We must not be manipulated into this gradual acceptance of the Islamic viewpoint. We must understand that this is yet another jihad war strategy with the purpose of destroying us – nihilism – to establish an Islamic caliphate in the Western world. There is no greater threat to mankind today than Islam and this opera must not be staged.☼

PJ Media

In order to prevent a clash of civilizations, or worse, Islam must reform. This is the contention of many Western peoples. And, pointing to Christianity’s Protestant Reformation as proof that Islam can also reform, many are optimistic.

Overlooked by most, however, is that Islam has been reforming. What is today called “radical Islam” is the reformation of Islam. And it follows the same pattern of Christianity’s Protestant Reformation.

The problem is our understanding of the word “reform.” Despite its positive connotations, “reform” simply means to “make changes (in something, typically a social, political, or economic institution or practice) in order to improve it.”

Synonyms of “reform” include “make better,” “ameliorate,” and “improve”—splendid words all, yet words all subjective and loaded with Western references.

Muslim notions of “improving” society may include purging it of “infidels” and their corrupt ways; or segregating men and women, keeping the latter under wraps or quarantined at home; or executing apostates, who are seen as traitorous agitators.

Banning many forms of freedoms taken for granted in the West—from alcohol consumption to religious and gender equality—can be deemed an “improvement” and a “betterment” of society.

In short, an Islamic reformation need not lead to what we think of as an “improvement” and “betterment” of society—simply because “we” are not Muslims and do not share their reference points and first premises. “Reform” only sounds good to most Western peoples because they, secular and religious alike, are to a great extent products of Christianity’s Protestant Reformation; and so, a priori, they naturally attribute positive connotations to the word.

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At its core, the Protestant Reformation was a revolt against tradition in the name of scripture—in this case, the Bible. With the coming of the printing press, increasing numbers of Christians became better acquainted with the Bible’s contents, parts of which they felt contradicted what the Church was teaching. So they broke away, protesting that the only Christian authority was “scripture alone,” sola scriptura.

Islam’s reformation follows the same logic of the Protestant Reformation—specifically by prioritizing scripture over centuries of tradition and legal debate—but with antithetical results that reflect the contradictory teachings of the core texts of Christianity and Islam.

As with Christianity, throughout most of its history, Islam’s scriptures, specifically its “twin pillars,” the Koran (literal words of Allah) and the Hadith (words and deeds of Allah’s prophet, Muhammad), were inaccessible to the overwhelming majority of Muslims. Only a few scholars, or ulema—literally, “they who know”—were literate in Arabic and/or had possession of Islam’s scriptures. The average Muslim knew only the basics of Islam, or its “Five Pillars.”

In this context, a “medieval synthesis” flourished throughout the Islamic world. Guided by an evolving general consensus (or ijma‘), Muslims sought to accommodate reality by, in medieval historian Daniel Pipes’ words,

translat[ing] Islam from a body of abstract, infeasible demands [as stipulated in the Koran and Hadith] into a workable system. In practical terms, it toned down Sharia and made the code of law operational. Sharia could now be sufficiently applied without Muslims being subjected to its more stringent demands… [However,] While the medieval synthesis worked over the centuries, it never overcame a fundamental weakness: It is not comprehensively rooted in or derived from the foundational, constitutional texts of Islam. Based on compromises and half measures, it always remained vulnerable to challenge by purists (emphasis added).

This vulnerability has now reached breaking point: millions of more Korans published in Arabic and other languages are in circulation today compared to just a century ago; millions of more Muslims are now literate enough to read and understand the Koran compared to their medieval forbears. The Hadith, which contains some of the most intolerant teachings and violent deeds attributed to Islam’s prophet, is now collated and accessible, in part thanks to the efforts of Western scholars, the Orientalists. Most recently, there is the Internet—where all these scriptures are now available in dozens of languages and to anyone with a laptop or iphone.

In this backdrop, what has been called at different times, places, and contexts “Islamic fundamentalism,” “radical Islam,” “Islamism,” and “Salafism” flourished. Many of today’s Muslim believers, much better acquainted with the often black and white words of their scriptures than their ancestors, are protesting against earlier traditions, are protesting against the “medieval synthesis,” in favor of scriptural literalism—just like their Christian Protestant counterparts once did.

Thus, if Martin Luther (d. 1546) rejected the extra-scriptural accretions of the Church and “reformed” Christianity by aligning it more closely with scripture, Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab (d. 1787), one of Islam’s first modern reformers, “called for a return to the pure, authentic Islam of the Prophet, and the rejection of the accretions that had corrupted it and distorted it,” in the words of Bernard Lewis (The Middle East, p. 333).

The unadulterated words of God—or Allah—are all that matter for the reformists.

Note: Because they are better acquainted with Islam’s scriptures, other Muslims, of course, are apostatizing—whether by converting to other religions, most notably Christianity, or whether by abandoning religion altogether, even if only in their hearts (for fear of the apostasy penalty). This is an important point to be revisited later. Muslims who do not become disaffected after better acquainting themselves with the literal teachings of Islam’s scriptures and who instead become more faithful to and observant of them are the topic of this essay.

Part 2 will appear later this week