Cruel and Unusual Punishment

In the wake of the terror attacks of 9/11, President George W. Bush, in a vain attempt to persuade the world’s Muslims to side with America against the murderous jihadists, famously declared, "Islam means peace."That’s as linguistically correct -- and just as genuine -- as saying, "Pravda means truth."In fact, a literal interpretation of the Qur'an would justify the idea that a more accurate statement would be "Islam means slavery."
A close reading of works by Darwish, the Egyptian-born author of Cruel and Unusual Punishment, and Ayan Hirsi Ali, the Somali refugee who became a Dutch legislator, shows that a literal interpretation of the Qur’an means that whatever "peace" results from Islam is that of the master and the non-rebellious slave.Americans, however, shy away from such offensive talk. We are brought up drinking the tolerance Kool-Aid that all religions basically have the same moral goals and are just different ways to get to the same place. Thus, we project the specifically Judeo-Christian perspective of the Fatherhood of God -- and, therefore, the brotherhood of man — onto such faiths as Islam, too. As a result, it's easy for us to fall for the line that militant Islamists have "hijacked a noble religion" or "are taking passages in the Qur’an out of context to justify violence."But those who try to argue Islamic theology with jihadists find there is a reason why no Muslim countries have developed Western-style democracies or human rights from within. The undeniable fact is that the so-called "extremists" have a better textual basis in the Qur’an for their methods and beliefs than do the "moderates." The Qur’an, after all, simply does not give reasonable Muslims a textual leg to stand on.In her autobiography, Now They Call Me Infidel, Darwish writes of the shock she felt when she realized Christian marriage was about two equals becoming one, with rights and responsibilities going both ways. When she learned that Christians taught that God is their Father, it was about as religiously alien to her as the practice of shrinking heads...more..http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=97BCC9CD-265F-4C23-83FD-190303B77A73