A Different and Most Remarkable Vision: the Collapse of Islam

Submitted by Ron Thompson (United States), Mar 1, 2011 at 14:11

A first observation: I can't agree that Daniel Pipes is a "gloom and doom" analyst of the Middle East. That designation is not possible for anyone who believes that a "moderate" Islam will somehow, someday define a benign Middle East, despite the clear language of Muhammad, the Koran, the Hadith, the Sira, and 1400 years of History.

Yesterday I went to Capitol Hill in the oldest office building of the House of Representatives to listen to a Palestinian ex-member of Hamas and ex-Muslim describe his vision of the collapse of Islam itself, which he predicted two years ago.

Specifically, he predicted that Islam "can't stand" the new information age - "the walls (which cut off Moslems from the rest of the world) are gone." In other words, "the social networks have more power than governments". No longer (as Fareed Zakaria pointed out a few days ago) can plotters of coups grab one or two TV or radio stations, and control or hermetically seal off the flow of information.

The speaker, Mosab Hassan Yousef, has remarkable credentials for his views, as the son of a founder of Hamas who before that was a longtime member of the Muslim Brotherhood. After concluding on his own that Hamas was a dark and dead-end path of endless violence, he allowed himself to be recruited as a double agent by Shin Bet of Israel. Making a deal that would protect his father from Israeli assassination, he saved many Israeli (and Palestinian) lives while living a life of, obviously, harrowing danger.

Deepening and broadening his views in the years since his defection from Hamas, and from Islam - from the "entire belief system" - it was stunning to listen to his overview of the Islamic world, especially in the core Moslem lands from North Africa to South Asia.

He states that the Governments in the Middle East, including those we call our 'allies' have "nothing in common" with Western values.

He believes that we have a worse enemy than el-Queda in the Moslem Brotherhood, because of its deliberate duplicity in claiming to be non-violent while slowing building up an infrastructure, and infiltrating the West, until it is strong enough to grab power and establish a world-wide Caliphate. He notes the clever lie of the Brotherhood's leaders in denouncing el-Queda's violence, which he attributes to their loyalty to Muhammad, who was "not violent for 15 yrs" until he was strong enough to be successfully violent. He gave quotes of these leaders citing Muhammad's behavior as the revered precedent and example for their strategy.

He said there may be about 100,000,000 members of the brotherhood - as opposed to 1.3 billion Moslems worldwide. He even thinks Israel has been duped by the "lie" of this difference between violent Hamas and the 'moderate' Brotherhood. He added, "if I hadn't grown up (in this culture) I'd be fooled too."

Perhaps most stunning in Hassan's talk were his views of the psychology which keep people otherwise peaceful chained to Islam. He feels the reason most otherwise peaceful Moslems do not completely or unconditionally denounce violence in the name of Islam is because they protect their identity by protecting Islam. He says the problem is not about their Idea of Man, but about their Idea of God, which of course comes from Muhammad, whom he calls "a killer, a rapist (the 9-yr old wife), and a terrorist."

Strong stuff, but all of which seems entirely factual from MOSLEM histories.

Hassan thinks most Moslems (aside from the 100,000,000 in the Brotherhood!) are in what we would call denial. That is, they believe in an Allah that is not consistent with, or even recognizable, from the Allah described by Muhammad. Of course if we want to know more about that denial, all we have to do is listen to the depressingly large numbers in the West who refuse to listen to any anaylsis or criticism of Islam itself, and loudly denounce all such as "Islamophobia".

Hassan's bottom line. He wants to see his people liberated from a God "who hates" and who preaches terrorism in "every mosque". He believes "Islam cannot be reformed" - Only God or Muhammad could reform it (with the clear implication that neither, for different reasons, can). He adds, "my people don't know what feedom or liberty is."

And yet all this came from a man of obvious conviction but without stridency or ranting, and without any detectable sign of hatred for any person. Aside from his global views, he personally feels "their God forced (his family) to disown him", and he wants them back.

In the Q&A period, when asked about the appearance of Islam as "growing exponentially". he cited, in distinction, Martin Luther starting the Reformation with his 95 theses tacked to the door of a cathedral. And now we have - click! - thousands upon thousands of messages flying about the several routes of the Social Network daily.

All in all, I'd call this the most interesting overview of the seismic events going on in the Middle East I've yet heard. Not least of course, because Mosab Hassan Yousef's views agree with my own that Islam itself is the deadly enemy of modern, freer, better lives for all the peoples trapped behind the Iron Curtain of its anti-human doctrines. Certainly it does not appear that any of the street demonstrations owe anything to Islam, which fact in itself may be a harbinger of its collapse, just as its brother totalitarianism of Communism collapsed so unexpectedly 20 years ago.

Indeed, how will we feel if, of the second time in less than a generation we are caught emotionally and intellectually flat-footed before the most epochal and world-changing event of our times?

And I agree with Dr Pipes view that the humble act of demonstrators spontaneously cleaning up the streets may be the most striking evidence of all of the emergence of a healthy (non-Islamic) civic society. Hopefully voices in the West will not do anything to blur or detract from such a welcome outcome for them, and for us.

Ron Thompson

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