The Real Incitement to Violence

Daniel Greenfield

Pro-mosque media advocates have of course gleefully jumped on the stabbing of a Muslim cabbie to accuse anyone critical of a massive Islamic structure being built near Ground Zero of inciting violence. Bloomberg has already invited the cabbie to City Hall to honor him. Apparently getting stabbed in New York City is now an honor, at least if the stabbee is politically convenient talking point. Just this March, Mahmoud Seck, a New York City Muslim cabbie was robbed at gunpoint, and repeatedly bitten by his assailant. But the story wasn't interesting, despite the vampirism angle, because the attacker was Latino, and Bloomberg and the media weren't feeling the heat over their support of a mosque, whose Imam is blatantly hostile to America, and willing to make excuses for terrorism.

The trick isn't to be a Muslim cabbie who gets attacked in the course of his job, but to be attacked at a moment when a politician and his press lackeys need you to make a point.

But if we're going to talk about Muslim cabbies, why draw the line there. We could discuss Pir Khan, one of the men arrested in the probe of the attempted Al Queda Times Square bombing. Then there's New York cabbie, Zarein Ahemdzay, who was part of an Al Queda subway bombing plot, with the goal of causing "the maximum number of casualties". His accomplice in the plot, Najibullah Zazi, was not a cab driver. He drove an airport livery shuttle.

While the media is feverishly speculating what might have caused a Muslim cabbie to be stabbed, perhaps we should also take a look at what causes Muslim cabbies to try and kill others. If anti-mosque protesters can be accused of inciting violence because of their negative statements toward Islam, it is only fair to look at what negative statements Islam has to make about Christians, Jews and other non-Muslims.

Let's begin by looking at the opening chapter of the Koran which contain the verses.

"Guide us the straight way, not (the way) of those who earned Your Anger (such as the Jews), nor of those who went astray (such as the Christians). (Koran 1:5-6)


Those same words appear in the daily prayers of Muslims. The reference to Allah's anger against the Jews has been commonly used to justify Muslim violence toward Jews.

Let's flip to the next chapter of the Koran, and there you find the following

Jihad has been enjoined upon you even if it is hateful to you. But perhaps you hate a thing and it is good for you; and perhaps you love a thing and it is bad for you. And Allah Knows, while you know not. (Koran 2:216)


Even if a Muslim doesn't want to kill anyone, the Koran tells him that Allah knows best. Western apologists for Islam might jump in with the usual claim that Jihad means religious striving, but the next verse makes it quite clear that it means fighting men. And if there is still any doubt, Tafsir al-Jalalayn, one of the two most popular exegeses on the Koran, clears it up.

Perhaps, then, even if you are averse to it, you will find much good in fighting, as a result of victory, booty, martyrdom or reward; while, if you were to reject fighting, even if you would like to do so, you will find much evil, because then you may be subjugated, impoverished and denied the reward


So even if you're not in the mood to kill, you get in the mood. And you might be able to make off with someone else's property or wife. And even if you die, you get 72 virgins in paradise.

Let's move on to the third chapter of the Koran. Here's what it has to say about Jews and Christians.

They shall be humiliated wherever they are overtaken, without a covenant from Allah and a rope from the Muslims. And they have drawn upon themselves anger from Allah, and, consequently, they are destined to disgrace.(Koran 3:112)


If there's any doubt about how this teaches Muslims to treat Christians and Jews, here's the Tafsir al-Jalalayn to clear it up.

Abasement shall be cast upon them, wherever they are found, so that they have no strength and no protection, save, if they be [clinging to], a rope of God, and a rope of the, believing, people, this being the latter’s covenant of security for them on the condition that they pay the jizya, in other words, they have no protection other than this


What this means is that they are damned to be Dhimmis, dependent on Muslim rule. They may not have their own armies or means of defending themselves. Jews and Christians must be dependent on Muslims.

Here is the root of the Muslim war on Israel in general, and Al Queda's war on America specifically. An independent non-Muslim nation cannot be allowed to exist in territory conquered by Muslims, because it rejects the Koran's commandment that Jews must be kept humiliated and dependent as Dhimmis. That is why Muslims immediately launch into fairy tales about how everything was peaceful under their rule.

Meanwhile the dependency of Muslim countries on America for protection, weapons and money is even more infuriating, because the Koran states that Christians are supposed to be dependent on Muslims, disgraced and humiliated. Instead it's the other way around. US troops defending Saudi Arabia, caretakers of Mecca, drove quite a few Muslims around the bend, including Bin Laden.

Christians and Jews who fail to accept second-class Dhimmi status, are offensive to Muslims, and trigger a Koranic imperative to force them to submit.

A few verses down, Muslims are taught not to have Christian and Jewish friends, because non-Muslims hate them and will betray them.

"O you who believe! Take not into your intimacy those outside your religion (pagans, Jews, and Christians). They will not fail to corrupt you. They only desire your ruin. Rank hatred has already appeared from their mouths. What their hearts conceal is far worse. When they are alone, they bite off the very tips of their fingers at you in their rage. Say unto them: 'Perish in your rage.'" (Koran 3:118-119)


Again if there's any ambiguity as to the meaning, the Tafsir al-Jalalayn clears it up.

O you who believe, do not take as intimates, as sincere friends, revealing to them your secret thoughts, anyone apart from yourselves, from among the Jews, Christians and the hypocrites; such men spare nothing to ruin you...


What exactly should Muslims who take the Koran as literal truth make of that? How does this color their view of America and Americans?

Let's skip on to Chapter 9.

Fight against those who (1) believe not in Allah, (2) nor in the Last Day, (3) nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger (4) and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (i.e. Islam) among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians), until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

(Koran 9:29)


And again the Tasfir

Fight those who do not believe in God, nor in the Last Day, for, otherwise, they would have believed in the Prophet, and who do not forbid what God and His Messenger have forbidden, such as wine, nor do they practice the religion of truth, the one that abrogated other religions, the religion of Islam — from among of those who have been given the Scripture, namely, the Jews and the Christians, until they pay the jizya tribute, the annual tax imposed them, readily being subdued, submissive and compliant to the authority of Islam.


Muslims are commanded to fight against all non-Muslims, including Jews and Christians, until they accept their inferior place as Dhimmis, pay tribute and submit to Muslims.

Islamic terrorism is not some sort of fringe extremism, it is literally in the Koran. It is possible to write a book, and entire books have been written about verses in the Koran inciting violence. But there is unambiguously much worse here than anything that critics of Islam can be accused of.

But while the media will gleefully run hostile pieces on critics of Islam, they refuse to investigate the blatant incitement to violence in the Koran. Anyone who wants to understand why so many people are concerned by the violence that emanates from Islam, need only look at verses like these.

A religion that tells its followers that non-Muslims are evil and secretly plotting against them... that commands them to kill and subjugate non-Muslims... that commands Jihad even for those Muslims who do not want to kill... is certainly guilty of incitement to violence.

Bloomberg may proclaim "We are all Muslims", but that is a laughable statement to any Muslim unless he actually accepts Islam. The roots of Islamic violence are not in US foreign policy, but in the words of the Koran. Foreign policy only helps trigger the abiding and embedded hatred of an arrogant ideology which commands that all who do not follow it, must be its slaves. And if they do not consent to be slaves, they must be terrorized until they agree.

If we are to talk of incitement of violence, let us begin with the Koran.