Despite my defense of the term Islamofascism (which I stand by as a definition of the repressive and terrorized totalitarian condition of much of the Islamic world) I have been unable to settle on a terminology that adequately describes and isolates the strain in Islam that poses a grave danger to freedom and liberty in today's world. I like “Islamofascism” still but I’m afraid that the word fascism has lost a lot of its impact, not because it is not accurate but because its meaning has become blurred by the constant misuse it receives. I have also used “Islamism” but it strikes me that it is not informative enough- even something of a tautology. Political Islam has some value too. It is especially good in that it reminds us that the politicization of any religion leads to the same place. Thus it also suggests a commonality with the Presbyterian and Episcopalian Churches, in their movement to divest from Israel. In fact, all the mainstream liberal churches seem to be having an attendance problem because of their political nature LINK . However, in the sense that it does not specify the violence that goes along with the current variety, of political Islam, Political Islam too does not satisfy. Radical Islam has been somewhat useful too but the word, radical, is also over-used and as become fuzzy with constant misapplication.
I have come to believe that we still lack a title that focuses on the critical difference between the kind of Islam that gives rise to terror and intolerance and the rest of Islam that to some degree is amenable to living in the modern world with co-operation and tolerance.
The name I keep coming back to is “Caliphate Islam” (or Caliphatism). Here is my reasoning. As far as I am concerned, anyone is entitled to believe that their religion (whatever it may be) is the “one true faith”. What they are not entitled to is, in any way, to believe that non-members of that blessed faith should have any fewer rights or less human dignity than “the faithful”. It is the underlying assumption of those who believe in The Caliphate that the entire world should live under Muslim rule and Shari’a law and you can only be a good Muslim if you believe in bringing it about.
The Caliphate, by the way, is not the jolly, rollicking world of Walt Disney’s Aladdin. Nor is it even the hell on earth that was Afghanistan under the Taliban or the Insane purgatory of today’s Iran. The world-wide Caliphate is the entire earth gone mad. Women being beaten, hung and stoned to death for no other crime than having been raped by a gang of perverted Caliphists who have been raised to think of women not as human beings but as “meat” or weapons of the devil. The Caliphate will be a place where the ancient dhimmi status will be revived. Dhimmi-hood in the ancient Caliphate meant that Christians, Jews and anyone else who is not a Muslim will have protection under the law only in so far as the mercy of the local mullah allows.
It is Caliphate Islam that won’t accept a Jewish state in the Middle East because it is considered an affront to the will of Allah that Jews should not only not be subject to Islamic rule but might have Islamic citizens living in a Jewish country. It is Caliphate Islam that so stultifies the lives of its people that they have to emigrate to western countries only to reject the values that make those countries better places to live. Belief in the Caliphate justifies the mass murder of innocent office workers in Manhatten, school children in Beslan and tribal rivals in sub-Saharan Africa. The belief in and desire for the Caliphate is the difference between conservative Islam and the pernicious terrorists that endanger all of mankind for the sake of a utopian nightmare.
Is it fair to call it a Utopian nightmare? A cursory reading of Islamic history proves that the Caliphate idea deserves to be thrown into the same garbage dump of bad ideas and hideous failures that now holds Communism and Nazism. Would it be peaceful as they claim? Well, we know that the track record is not good. The Prophet Mohammad established a vast and secure Caliphate across a great expanse of territory, yet as soon as Mohammed died people began murdering each other to determine his successor. Right down to the present day, the issue of who the true leader should be (and should have been) is the primary divider in the Islamic world. Shias and Sunnis kill many more of each other than Americans do of either over it; and the Sunni,/Shia divide is entirely derived from the original disagreement about who should have been the first Caliph after Mohammed. Still, some Muslims continue to believe that as soon as they get Israel out of the way and they take over the western governments by demographic means there will be a world-wide peaceful caliphate. That way lies ruin and madness.
A word of caution, Caliphists are sometimes aware that this belief may be a red flag. Often their belief is so strong and insensitive to reality that they acknowledge and talk about it openly. The ones who are most dangerous know enough not to mention this belief in public. In these cases it is important to know how to recognize them by other behavior. At the risk of being accused of behavioral profiling, lets look at a few of the indicators that come to mind:
1. Dehumanizing language- calling non-Muslims names like kuffar (nonbeliever) or referring to them as pigs, monkeys dogs etc…
2. Inability to engage in reasonable discourse without flying into a rage- see my post Don’t Just Stand There, Dhimmi, Humiliate Me about Imam Al Husainy. (below)
3. Refusal to accept the existence of Israel.
4. Extreme Misogyny and gender inequality
5. Blaming all of the incompetence, inefficiency, misfortune, and rage in the Islamic world on: a. The Jews, b. America, c. The West, d. Women, e. Anybody else, f. All of the above
I know there are a lot more but you get the idea… Send me your suggestions!
