Here is the Foreword I contributed to Mateen Elass’ superb book, which you can order here. Longtime Jihad Watch readers will recall Mateen’s excellent and thought-provoking articles here at Jihad Watch. His book offers more much-needed insights.
Fantasy about Islam has won the day. Everyone knows that Islam is a religion of peace. Everyone knows also that those who might still dare to suggest otherwise are racist, bigoted “Islamophobes” who should not — indeed, must not — be heeded. The “war on terror” was a massive failure for the United States and its allies, as any war in which the defending force is afraid to name the enemy is foredoomed to be. However, another war that was waged at the same time, and continues, has been a resounding success: the propaganda war to compel Americans and other non-Muslims to accept, and not just to accept, but to take for granted as axiomatically true, that Islam is a religion of peace.
The current scene is full of paradoxes. Islamic jihadis are more frank and forthright than ever about their aspirations, motives and goals. There is still no shortage of unctuous Islamic apologists and self-professed “moderate Muslims” ready to assure the public that Islam really doesn’t teach warfare against unbelievers at all, or glorify terrorizing them as a sacred act, or teach the second-class status of women, permitting the believer to brutalize them as one might treat a recalcitrant pack animal. At the same time, however, over the last few years some Islamic apologists have become newly and unexpectedly forthright.
Nowadays it isn’t hard to find Muslim spokesmen who openly and cheerfully admit that Islam teaches warfare against unbelievers and the acceptability of revolting doctrines such as child marriage and even the sexual enslavement of infidel women. This would have been unheard-of even five years ago, when Islamic apologists in the West routinely and with virtual unanimity denied that Islam taught any of these things or the others to which some impertinent infidels have dared to object.
This odd new honesty is, once again paradoxically, a result of the general acceptance of the idea that Islam is peaceful and completely benign, and that any non-Muslim who thinks otherwise is the problem, not the Muslims who behave on a daily basis as if Islam were not, in fact, peaceful or tolerant or compatible with Western values at all. The idea of Islam being just another “Abrahamic religion” and “one of the world’s great religions” has become so ingrained in what’s left of the Western mind that even when Muslim spokesmen themselves contradict the prevailing view, they’re dismissed as “extremists,” who are assumed to be a “tiny minority,” or simply ignored. They don’t fit the paradigm, and so they simply do not exist.
The total victory of fantasy about Islam can be attributed at least in part to the exceptional cleverness of Islamic groups in the West. They studied American and European society coldly, carefully, and without cultural blinders or prejudice. Unlike the Americans in their misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, they did not allow themselves to be guided by wishful thinking and unexamined false assumptions about what constituted universal human aspirations. They thoroughly examined the U.S. obsession with race, and increasingly willing embrace of the idea that such a thing as “hate speech” existed and did not or should not enjoy First Amendment protection, and they capitalized upon these societal preoccupations with ruthless efficiency.
As a result, honest discussion of the motivating ideology behind jihad violence, and criticism of any aspect of Sharia, no matter how much aspects of Sharia would have been condemned had they been part of any other belief system, became “racism” and “bigotry,” as well as “hate speech.”
Leftist institutions dedicated to combating these phenomena here stepped in to do their part to enable the victory of fairy tales and fantasy about Islam. They dutifully fell into line and allowed themselves to be deployed on the front lines of efforts to defame, deplatform and silence those who still insisted on speaking the truth about Islam. Massive mega-corporations such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, YouTube, GoFundMe and many others, always eager to demonstrate their commitment to “social justice,” acted accordingly to restrict the access and reach of the wrongthinkers.
This had the desired effect: many who never bought into the fantasy propaganda about Islam being peaceful nonetheless went silent or even avowed variations of the party line in order to avoid being canceled altogether. Some courted, showcased and even financed “moderate Muslims,” no matter how cynical and deceptive those spokesmen were, in order to demonstrate that they weren’t really “racist” or “Islamophobic” at all. Others repeated endlessly the obvious and unchallenged truth that “not all Muslims were terrorists,” hoping in vain that this would give them some room to maneuver in discussing those who were, in fact, terrorists. Some who did useful work found its usefulness utterly compromised by their eagerness to make concessions in order to appease those who only wanted to defang their efforts and render them useless, and who thus succeeded in doing so.
Now there are only a handful of people left who are willing to bear the sacrifices involved in uttering critical words about this aggressive, expansionist, violent, and supremacist ideology. That’s why Mateen Elass’ book is so very important. He peels back the layers of fantasy and fairy tale that all too many people take for granted as true, and — despite the rising price that such truth-telling requires today — offers sober, accurate and readily verifiable facts about Islam.
Were the facts he sheds light upon this book to be widely known in North America and Europe, the criminal negligence and complicity of our elected officials and establishment media would be laid bare definitively before the world. It would be painful for many, but ultimately salutary, as any forsaking of fantasy for truth must inevitably be. Ultimately, although the proponents of fantasy Islam have won a comprehensive victory in the West, they cannot prevail. The more the jihadis who have been brought here and enabled to operate freely achieve success, the more the truths that have been denied for so long will be undeniable.
It will be a bitter victory, for it will be won at immense sacrifice, sacrifice that would have been one hundred percent preventable. Were the world to heed the words of Mateen Elass here, this sacrifice could be prevented still.
Wellington says
What particularly bothers me as an American are all the American military personnel since 9/11 who have been sent off to fight in foreign wars in Islamic regions, and who have been killed or grievously wounded, yet all the while what they were really fighting against could not be named.
Well, I will name it and it is Islam, all of it. Islam fills me with disgust but so do all those in the West that send people off to fight without telling them who and what we are really fighting against. These deadly games continue and Islam remains the beneficiary of this massive ignorance/deception.
OLD GUY says
Totally agree, and you can’t win a war fighting urban war fare unless you are willing to get down and dirty and are willing to inflect civilian causalities. Way too many American casualties come from fighting an enemy with no restrictions, while our troops have one hand tied behind their backs by political leaders thousands of miles away.
gravenimage says
All grimly true, Wellngton.
Walter Sieruk says
As this article so rightly put it, “Fantasy about Islam has won the day. Everyone knows that Islam is a religion of peace.” Likewise, part of that false idea that. “Islam is a religion of peace” is the bogus claim that the word “Islam means peace.”
Therefore, it’s a good idea not to take at face value the claim that the word Islam means “peace.” For example, the ENCARTA WORLD ENGLISH DICTIONARY copyright 1999 defines Islam as “submission” based on the word “aslama” meaning “he surrendered.” Given the definition it’s an odd phenomenon that after about fourteen hundred years starting on September 12, 2001 the meaning changed from “submission” to “peace.” It’s very well known that if the police are questioning someone and he changes his story something is wrong. Nevertheless, when it comes to Islam no one gets suspicious of the change. The jihadists brag that they will win the war against the West by using the Western ignorance and naive gullible mindset on the subject of Islam against us. It seems that they do have some basis in that claim since so many Westerners are beguiled by the Muslim disinformation campaign.
For the terrible reality is that Islam is a religion of brutal blood vicious violence,
As the Quran instructs devout Muslims in Surah 2:191. 9 :5. 123,
gravenimage says
By the way, Walter, that “Islam is a religion of peace” seems to date to an article in an Indian magazine from 1930. Of course this was intended as whitewash.
Walter Sieruk says
A balderdash claim made by the many lying apologists for Islam is that “Islam is a non-violent peaceful religion. “ It’s a completely false statement.
For the many jihad terror affront attacks which occurred 9/11 and 10/7, as well and England , France and let’s not forget the Boston city marathon jihad bombings of 4?15/23 are all based on Qu’ran based Islam.
Nevertheless, people just assume that “Radical Islamic Terrorism” to be a “warped” or “hijacked” form of Islam. Yet the terrible harsh reality is that the actual religion of Islam is the entire foundation of Islamic terrorism or otherwise accurately, but seldom called what is really is, which is “Muslim terrorism.”
For Islam’s “holy book” the Qur ‘an [the Koran] instructs on the use of violence and killing for the advancement of Islam.
As found in ,for example 2:191. 4:89. 5:33. 9:5,111,123. 47:4. Furthermore, it may be illustrated that if Islam is represented as a tree then the fruits then the fruits of that tree are the many brutal, violent and deadly jihad terror entities. As Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic jihad.
With this statement, the Wisdom of the teachings of Jesus may, very much, apply to this subject. For Jesus taught, “You do know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bears forth good fruit; but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.” After saying, this Jesus told them what He told them when He said “By their fruit you will know them.” Matthew 7:16, 17, 18,.20. [N.K.J.V.]
In conclusion, Islam is a corrupt tree and also a false religion, Proverbs 14:12. John 14:6. First John 2:22,23. 4:14,15. 5:12,13,20.
tim gallagher says
Fortunately, there are plenty of people, not nearly enough of course, but some idiots simply cannot be woken up and can’t face the truth about Islam, who have woken up to islam’s evil, barbaric nature. I keep hoping that most people will wake the hell up reasonably soon. How long can the sleepwalking fools remain asleep on islam? Robert Spencer had a lot to do with enlightening me about islam’s evil nature and his work has been extremely important. This sounds like an interesting book and it is a good title. So many people do continue to live in a fantasy land when it comes to islam.
Burnaby Lad says
they’re also very f*cking inbred – to the point it’s normal
jule says
When I first started studying it and the history I Thought: This is a Warlords set up called a Religion for conquest and complete control of its members to do all the dirty work with insane promises of paradise Or Else. Because of course the Boss is Allah.
I remember the part of Qur’an that says something like…..you may not like all we ask you to do BUT who knows better,You or Allah (as interpreted by warlords so never question)
terry says
Islam means peace by sword, over the head implied. And all of Islam is but one of the three ruling world wide, ruling Berlin Wall like, Crime Syndicates encircling the nations of the world- with vicious, violent loving zombie-like hordes! And the other two Crime Syndicates, the Globalist Elites of the West and the Marxist, work among their fiefdoms like masters, lords, and wanna-be gods! They profit too much off one another to let the fattened victims off their enclaves, or totally destroy each other!Crooked criminals of crimes run together!
Ralph says
I ran to the medicine cabinet for the Maalox when hapless George W Bush proclaimed that “Islam is a religion of peace”. Bush was a kind man, but clueless about the border or Islam. The Mooslimes must have been laughing up their sleeves when he said that. No Muslim immigration should be permitted into our country and any presently here should by monitored closely, within the limits of the Constitution. None should be allowed to hold political office in America. They are a cancer on society.
Ben says
Has anyone seen the website
jtf.org Jewish Task Force
JTF by Chaim Ben Pesach
gravenimage says
I’ll check it out, Ben.
gravenimage says
The Victory of Fantasy
…………………………….
Alas, it should already be clear that visions of Islam as a begnignant force are indeed fantasy. By the time most of these fools wake up–if ever–it will be too late.
And here is Mateen Elass’ book:
https://www.amazon.com/Fairy-tale-Islam-Deceptions-Masking-Reality/dp/B0D5BPKCGM
I need to check it out.