Or is ISLAM itself perhaps Doomed?

Submitted by Ron Thompson (United States), Jul 22, 2013 at 18:29

With all due respect, if Dr Pipes gave this same analysis, but attributed the fracturing and fissiparous tendencies to Islam itself rather than to "Islamists", artificially cordoned off from mainstream Islam, perhaps he wouldn't be so surprised at the degree to which so many groups, all competing in the name of the 'true' and 'pure' Islam, have turned on each other, usually murderously.

After all, if this artificial filter of "Islamism" is removed, isn't it clear that Islam began showing its penchant for perpetual and murderous internecine warfare immediately upon the death of Mohammed? To slightly rephrase Churchill's line in a 1930's essay, "except for brief and precarious interludes, there has never been peace in Islam". That is, except for the 'peace ' of stagnation which came to seem normal for Islam after the decay and decadence of the Ottoman empire 300 years ago, and before hatred-fueled Islam was re-ignited in the 20th century by Oil money, the establishment of Israel, the failure of nationalism and socialism in Arab and Middle Eastern lands, and finally the rise of global supremacist Islam with the Muslim Brotherhood and el-Qaeda.

Therefore we should perhaps be asking whether "Islamism" is doomed, or whether Islam itself is on a trajectory of ultimate failure and doom as a force in human affairs.

Of course, it would hugely help if we could finally stop being hypnotized by the number of adherents to the religion, and by the mantra that Islam is (primarily or mainly) a religion, and realize that it is, as Dr Pipes says of his artificial creation, every bit as much a "civilizational threat" as were fascism and communism.

I would ask anyone who tries to draw a distinction between Islam and Islamism the following question: "how is it possible to be a Good Muslim, faithful to the Koran and loyal to the example and words of Mohammed, and NOT hate Jews, the United States, Israel, Democracy, Western civilization, and infidels everywhere, including fellow Muslims whom you disagree with?"

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