Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph by Dennis Prager

Author:Dennis Prager
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2012-04-23T21:00:00+00:00

Why Islam Is Included

IF ISLAM WERE NOT as powerful a force as it is and if it did not seek to make the world Muslim, it might not be necessary to include Islam or Islamism in a book on the alternatives available for humanity at the present time. But from its inception, its primary aim has been to bring humanity to Islam. There is no normative version of Islam that does not have as its ideal the conversion of mankind to Islam. Muslims may differ at times as to how to attain this goal, but there is no mainstream Muslim movement that does not hold that the world must accept Allah as the one God, Muhammad as his final and most authoritative Messenger, and the Koran as that perfect message. The creedal sentence of Islam, known as the Shahada, states: “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Messenger”; the other part of the Islamic creed is that the Koran is the one perfect and final revelation from God.

Yes, Christianity, too, seeks to have the world accept Christ. But there are at least four significant differences between these two religions that seek to convert the world.

First, and most obvious, Christians do not pose a threat to non-Christians. Non-Christians who live among Christians are not only not threatened—they are lucky. On the other hand, virtually all non-Muslim communities living among Muslim majorities live in fear for their safety. There is, therefore, all the difference in the world between a religion that wishes to be universally adopted, none of whose adherents threaten outsiders, and a religion that wishes to be universally adopted, many of whose adherents threaten others.

Second, Christianity not only accepts a separation of religious and secular authority; it essentially founded the idea with the New Testament statement, “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). The concept of separation of church and state is alien to Islam, where the ideal has always been a Sharia-based government.

Third, Christianity does not seek to impose life-controlling religious laws on all Christians, let alone on non-Christians living in their midst. Christianity does not have an analogous body of religious laws in any way comparable to the Sharia (Islamic law). The Sharia is, as believing Muslims proudly explain, an all-encompassing code of conduct. It instructs the Muslim how often to pray, when to arise each day, when and what he may eat, what he may not drink, how to dress, and among stricter Muslims, what music may be listened to, prohibits almost any contact between unrelated men and women, directs women regarding where and how they may be seen in public, what subjects, if any, they may study, and much more. In addition, what we call Islamism seeks to create Islamic states that impose Sharia on all Muslims, and some of those laws on non-Muslims who live in Muslim-majority states.

Fourth, having written a book on anti-Semitism and taught Jewish history at the college

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