On Moderate and Not So Moderate Islam in England

I found this article at Melanie Phillip's Diary. I don't anything about her, but she does link and comment on some thought-provoking stuff.

First, she quotes from the Bruce Thorton Article cited above.

'The jihadist enemy, on the other hand, is operating on principles and values squarely in the tradition of Islam, and thus unlike fascism and communism is expressing a spiritual need and an orthodox religious mandate: to fulfill by force the will of Allah that all the world be subject to Islam and an Islamic state, the caliphate, ruled by sharia, Islamic religious law.'

Ms. Phillips in reply, is thinking along the same lines as me, which sometimes veers between guarded optimism and wishful-thinking.

Well, yes, this is true as far as it goes. But the democracy argument is based on the belief that the desire for human freedom is universal, transcending all creeds. On this basis, the desire of the average Muslim for freedom is no less because their religion happens to preach submission. Clearly, the tension between the innate desire for freedom on the one hand and the powerful attachment to the religion of submission on the other sets up enormous conflicts, which we are beginning to see being played out within the Muslim world. And we don't know whether an accommodation can ever be reached. But we must surely give those struggling to reconcile these particular spiritual needs with the desire for freedom every encouragement and support, because it is upon such an accommodation that the fate of the world may depend.

This next post, links to another article in the Spectator, that has some scary conclusions.

So the mantra “Islam is peace” is almost 1,400 years out of date. It was only for about 13 years that Islam was peace and nothing but peace. From 622 onwards it became increasingly aggressive, albeit with periods of peaceful co-existence, particularly in the colonial period, when the theology of war was not dominant. For today’s radical Muslims — just as for the mediaeval jurists who developed classical Islam — it would be truer to say “Islam is war”...

Read the Whole Article here, registration required.

Take a look at the roots of Islam, the Prophet Mohammed was a tribal leader of a very traditional nomadic desert people. He fought rival tribes while trying to establish and spread his faith in the Arabian Peninsula. The Koran is a collection of Mohammed's oral teachings from throughout his life, and it invariably reflects his real-life experiences as a religious and secular leader. Islam provides more than a faith, it is also a code of conduct - much of it relevant to the 7th Century desert life - in the same way Judaism was a guide to Jews living in ancient Israel. And like Judaism and Christianity, Islam's main religion text is open to countless interpretations - like Christianity a lot of blood has been shed over these arguments. And Islam struggles with some of the more 'militant' language in its text.

Now Remember that one Brit 'intern', Dilpazier Aslam??
Well he got in trouble, because of his previous association with a fairly radical publication - which called for killing Jews, as The Daily Ablution points out.